Mississippi…Turning? To Dems? (Updates)

You know, you really have to hand it to Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Mississippi Repug running against Mike Espy for the U.S. Senate (the runoff election is this Tuesday, just to let you know – more here). The seat was opened by the retirement of Repug U.S. Senator Thad Cochran.

As you can see, she’s definitely a trend setter when it comes to wearing insurgent apparel (here). Which of course is not the least bit surprising when you discover that both she and her daughter have attended segregationist high schools in their state (here). Oh, and as we know by now also, she’s definitely a fan of voter suppression (here).

It is likely that Hyde-Smith could have cruised to winning a U.S. Senate seat, running a relatively under-the-radar campaign against Espy. And of course, she may yet win anyway, though we should do all we can to oppose that of course. The problems for her began with that incautious little remark about attending a public hanging (here).

This dovetails a bit into the fact that she takes campaign contributions from white supremacists, as noted here – and I never liked the San Francisco Giants anyway, and here is more of a reason for that as far as I’m concerned, though as noted here, some corporations are withdrawing their support for her, but not Google apparently, as noted here.

And leave it to her fellow Repugs to leap to her defense, including Governor Phil Bryant, who basically said in response (here), “Oh yeah, Dems? Well, ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION and ABORTION. So there!” And of course, Cindy is just oh so chummy with the rest of her same-party brethren (well, at least one other), as noted here (and she supported “Schlitz” Kavanaugh also of course, as noted here).

All of this, to me, is kind of a hoot when you consider, as the New York Times reported here, that Smith wasn’t even a Republican until 2010 (here) and was considered more of a middle-of-the-road alternative to Teahadist wingnut Chris McDaniel.

And as for Repug Governor Phil Bryant (he of the black abortion genocide nonsense), let’s not forget that he crippled health care insurance in his state by rejecting federal dollars for Medicaid expansion in 2013, as noted here (I believe the name of the program was “One Mississippi,” which I thought was kind of clever).

Also, I’d like Hyde-Smith to explain to me how her position here benefits law enforcement in any way. And this tells us about her performance in the most recent debate with Espy, including giving the wrong date for the runoff election. No wonder she didn’t want press to attend (here).

This, to me, is what happens when you allow Republicans to run your state like their own personal playground year after year, decade after decade. And I haven’t even said anything yet about the other Republican Senator Roger Wicker (here), Governor Phil Bryant (here), or former Senator Thad Cochran (and I’m sorry, but this represents one of the stupidest moves I’ve ever seen by Democrats…I mean, they could have actually supported someone from their own party that year named Travis Childers, but Cochran was supposed to be more moderate than McDaniel). And if I wanted to really give former Bushco insider and MI governor Haley Barbour the treatment he deserved, I’d need a whole other post (here).

With all of this in mind, I’d like to note that Mississippi is rated Number 48 for child well-being (moving up from last – yaaay! And yes, I’m being sarcastic.) but the state still the highest poverty rate among all others, as noted here. Also, Mississippi has the lowest income rate, as noted here. It also lags behind in developmental screenings for kids, as noted here. And it has the nation’s highest cardiovascular death rate in 2017 and the second-highest rate of cancer deaths (here). Also, syphilis is apparently making a comeback too (here). And as if all of that isn’t enough, it is 4th per capita in gun deaths – you REALLY think that all of this will change with ANOTHER Republican (here)?

You want to do something about all of this? Good!

• To help with phone banking for Mike Espy, click here.
• To send text messages for Mike Espy, click here.
• To donate, click here?

And in conclusion, I think we should keep this in mind from The Rev. Dr. William Barber above all else.

Update 11/26/18: Charming…

Update 1 11/27/18: Uh, yep.

Update 2 11/27/18: Dear God…

Update 1 11/28/18: It looks like the Giants owner is getting pushback – good! (here)

Update 2 11/28/18: Oh well, all we can do is try (here).

Update 3 11/28/18: I don’t know if this is true or not, but I thought it was hilarious.

Update 11/29/18: And I believe this too – but this is important as well.

Update 8/16/20: And she’a also against Medicaid expansion and health coverage for pre-existing conditions and hasn’t done diddly squat to help with COVID-19 relief (here).

Update 10/9/20: Hey, look on the bright side – at least she didn’t make another attempted joke about lynching (here).

Update 10/21/20: And for those of you who thought the old Civil War just wasn’t violent enough, it looks like C H-S is promoting a new one (here).

Update 10/28/20: She gets asked about race relations and she responds by talking about our military – huh? (here).

Update 3/24/21: So there’s apparently no problem with moseying on down to the Piggly Wiggly to fetch some pralines for Emmy Lou or bustin’ up a chifforobe, but letting the “darkies” vote on The Lord’s Day? Aw, HELL NO! (here).

Tuesday Mashup (6/24/14)

John Lott is back, opining on his favorite topic (here)…

(President) Obama also claimed: “The idea, for example, that we couldn’t even get a background check bill in to make sure that if you are going to buy a weapon you have to go through a fairly rigorous process so that we know who you are so that you can’t just walk up to a store and buy a semi-automatic weapon makes no sense.”

Obama ought to try purchasing a gun himself. He will realize it is not as easy as he thinks to buy a gun. No store in the entire United States can legally sell a semi-automatic gun without conducting a background check. Indeed, That (sic) has been the federal law for two decades now, since 1994.

Interesting (though not surprising) that Lott has nothing to say about background checks at gun shows – probably because there basically is no such thing for most of the states in this country (take a look at all of the red on the map shown here).

Also, as noted from here…

…when you compare the United States to nations like Britain and Japan, it becomes clear that firearm ownership contributes to America’s murder problem. The American firearm homicide rate is about 20 times the average among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries (excluding Mexico).

Harvard researchers Daniel Hemenway and Matthew Miller examined 26 developed countries, and checked whether gun ownership correlated with murder rates. They found that “a highly significant positive correlation between total homicide rates and both proxies for gun availability.” They also didn’t find much evidence that a higher rate of gun murders led to lower rates of other kinds of murder (i.e., stabbings).

Interestingly, these results tended to hold true even when you exclude the United States and its super-high homicide and gun-ownership rates. “More guns are associated with more homicides across industrialized countries,” Hemenway and Miller conclude.

Data from inside the United States suggests the same thing. A recent, highly sophisticated study found that, once you control for general crime rates and other confounding factors, “each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership” translated to a 0.9 percent increase in homicides. A meta-analysis — study of studies — found a strong consensus among researchers that access to guns correlated with higher homicide rates in the United States.

In another screed at Fix Noise (here), Lott complains about that danged “li-bu-ruul media” once again for not reporting that, according to Lott, the trend in this country is that school shootings are going down.

In response, here is a list from 2012 of school shootings in 36 other countries versus the U.S. – can’t imagine how even a life form as delusional as Lott could think that we have anything to brag about on that front.

Most recently, Lott launched a cowardly attack against the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America here.

Next, I posted a little while ago about the dustup between former Philly Pops artistic director Peter Nero (synonymous with Philly Pops for 33 years, as noted here) and Philly Pops president and chief executive Frank Giordano (who dumped Nero because he supposedly cost too much, even though Giordano ended up with a salary bump to $91K in the bargain as noted here – second bullet).

Well, it turns out that Nero let a little verbal faux pas slip out recently here, saying that “crooks dressed in $3,000 suits came in who didn’t know a thing about the music business” led to Nero’s departure.

Please note that Nero did not make personal reference to Giordano above, even though Nero later apologized for his remarks.

However, Giordano is suing Nero anyway for hurt fee fees, to the tune of $75,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.

Really?

Giordano is yet another CEO type who managed to finagle his way to a position of influence over an artistic and cultural institution and pick whatever bones remained before it finally dies or very nearly succumbs (see Bill Marrazzo and WHYY, whichever millionaire owns it now and the Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News, etc.). And in this case, yelling “lawsuit” is the act of a desperate, despicable person who, while he seems to know the price of everything, truly knows the value of nothing, as the saying goes.

Further, I give you Larry Kudlow, who I admit has been busy lately (here)…

“Reinvigorating the leadership” is how one senior House staffer described the ascendency of Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who won a first-ballot victory for the position of GOP whip. The staffer went on to portray Scalise as not a member of the Washington establishment. Indeed, Scalise is a former chair of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), the conservative caucus in the U.S. House. He has had a meteoric rise, and he is someone to be reckoned with.

..

…make no mistake about it, Steve Scalise is a genuine conservative. He was one of only 15 Republican House members to get a 100 percent voting designation by the American Conservative Union.

National Review contributor Quin Hillyer put it this way: “Scalise will be the most conservative GOP leadership member since Dick Armey.”

I’m sure Kudlow is right in those latter two sentences, by the way, which definitely isn’t positive as far as I’m concerned (I should note that the former whip was Kevin McCarthy, who will become majority leader upon Eric Cantor’s primary election loss).

In response, it should be noted that Scalise is buds with Darth Cheney (here), wants to fully “repeal and replace” “Obamacare” (here…no surprise either I realize), and thinks climate change is a hoax (of course – here). Also (and which is also predictable, I’m sure), Scalise has a bit of a “Koch” problem (here).

Yep, Not Your Father’s Republican Party continues to march Forward Into The Past (will the last GOP “moderate” to leave please turn out the lights?).

Continuing with unhinged U.S. House Republicans, I give you the following from Ed Whitfield (here)…

In 2009, President Obama traveled to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and announced at the Climate Change Conference that the United States would reduce our CO2 emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

The president did not consult with the Congress or any other job creating groups, but committed the citizens of America to his arbitrary goals. Acting unilaterally, by regulation and executive orders, has become commonplace with this administration.

Well, didn’t Dubya act “unilaterally” too here (and correctly, shocking as that sounds), when he “order(ed) EPA to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs) from mobile sources, working in coordination with several other federal agencies” after The Supremes ruled that GHGs were indeed a pollutant and subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act (and yes, I’m sure I’ve pointed this out before)?

And as noted from here, on the positive economic impact of pursuing a common-sense energy agenda de-emphasizing fossil fuels…

• Climate mitigation investments will have huge economic returns on that investment ranging from energy efficiency reducing total energy bills to new economic activity surrounding the new technologies and businesses seeking to reduce our climate impact.
• Climate mitigation investments will have huge corollary benefits — such as improved human health (from reduced allergy risks to reduced emergency room visits with asthma attacks to reduced deaths due to fossil fuel pollution), improved visibility at national parks
• Climate mitigation will reduce the huge risks associated with climate change and will provide an insurance against the potential that climate change implications could be far worse than standard projections suggest (e.g., the risk that the modeling is erring on the too optimistic side).
• Climate mitigation is an investment that will provide huge returns — across a spectrum of economic, social, and environmental fronts.

It should also be noted that Whitfield and U.S. Senate Dem (and clean energy traitor) Joe Manchin came up with something called H.R. 3826/S. 1905, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act (here). It would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, authority the agency was accorded under the Clean Air Act, authority affirmed by two decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Of course, as noted here, Whitfield has received about $900,000 in donations from the oil and gas industry, so I would say that this is a handsome return on investment by those cretins, if nothing else.

One more thing – on the issue of climate, this tells us that we just experienced the hottest May on record…just sayin’.

Also, leave it to Matt Bai to find a high-profile Dem who opposes teachers unions (here)…

So you’re a liberal member of the 1 percent, and you’ve decided to wrest control of the Democratic agenda from change-averse insiders. You want to free the capital from the grip of powerful interest groups. You want to inspire a new set of policies to help America meet the challenges of a fast-transforming economy. Where do you turn for leadership and innovation?

To the teachers union, of course!

At least that’s how it seems to have played out at the Democracy Alliance, the group of superrich Democrats who have funneled more than half a billion dollars into liberal groups over the past decade. Earlier this month, the alliance announced that John Stocks, executive director of the National Education Association, would become the chairman of its board.

The move went largely unnoticed by the Washington media and even most Democrats, who could think of nothing at that moment other than the Memoir That Ate Everything in Its Path. But it tells you something — more than Hillary Clinton’s book does, certainly — about the direction of Democratic politics right now.

(For the record, let it be known that I don’t give a damn about Hillary Clinton’s memoir. And by the way, CNN, staying with HRC, when it comes to politicians and wealth, how come this is news in 2014, but this wasn’t news in 2000?)

Bai then uses the recent travesty of Judge Rolf Treu’s ruling on teacher tenure in California (a decision based on a totally made-up claim, as noted here) to attack teachers unions in general.

Having created this straw man, he then inflicts the following…

Heed the words of Nick Hanauer, a Seattle-based venture capitalist and school reform advocate, who wrote in a 2012 email that subsequently became public: “It is impossible to escape the painful reality that we Democrats are now on the wrong side of every education reform issue. … There can be no doubt in any reasonable person’s mind that the leadership of our party and most of its elected members are stooges for the teachers union, the ring leaders in all this nonsense.”

I don’t want to get too “lost in the woods” here, so I’ll try to sum up by saying that Bai opposes the direction taken by the group Democracy Alliance now that John Stocks, executive director of the National Education Association (and someone opposed by Hanauer) will become chairman of the board. Even though, as Bai puts it, “the problem here has nothing to do with Stocks personally, whom I’ve never met, and who has been described to me as a thoughtful and open-minded guy. It also has nothing to do with teachers generally, many of whom are nothing short of heroic, and who are struggling to adapt to the turmoil in their industry, same as the rest of us.”

Gee, wouldn’t it have been worth Bai’s time to try and reach out to Stocks and get a quote or two for this column?

Oh sorry, silly me – I forgot that it’s more important for Bai to push the “Dems caught in the grip of a supposedly hopelessly compromised teachers union” narrative in a column full of supposedly high-minded corporate media Beltway puffery than it is to write about real people and real issues.

And speaking of real people and real issues, I thought this letter was a good response to Hanauer, including the following…

…you say that it’s not the hard-working, dedicated teachers who are ruining education but rather their nasty, child-hating union. I grew up as an upper middle class white boy in the American South, where all of the white grownups had their favorite Black people—the cook, the person who looked after the kids, the guy who took care of the cattle for a share of the corn crop. But God forbid that one of those favorites be seen gathering on a street corner with Black people from out of town, or at an NAACP meeting, or having coffee with a union representative. At the first hint of any organized activity, our grownups would turn on their favorite Black people faster than a summer squall could dump an inch of rain on the pasture. Suddenly the individuals who had been so tender, wise, and trustworthy were scary, too stupid to know better, and not to be let into the house. Everybody loved the solitary black person, nobody liked it when they started to bunch up and talk crazy.

That’s kind of the way it is with teachers. Everybody loves a teacher, nobody likes the big, bad teachers’ union. As long as they’re staying after school to give the extra help to the kids who need it or reaching into their own pockets to pay for the supplies that the state doesn’t anymore, teachers are saints. But when they collectively advocate for decent wages, adequate health care, and working conditions that don’t erode by the minute they’re a threat to the moral fabric of the state.

And as long as I’m on the subject of education, I thought this was a good post about the battle in the Philadelphia school district between public and charter schools (yes, I’m sure there are excesses in public schools, but after just having paid for the education of a parochial school student who recently graduated, I can tell you that that’s hardly a panacea either).

Finally, this tells us that we recently observed the 50th anniversary of the disappearance of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights workers were trying to register African Americans to vote in Mississippi; their bodies were found 44 days later (the incident helped to propel the Civil Rights Act to passage – Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of the crime in 2005).

And though this event wasn’t as awful as the murders, it was still a defining moment that tried to legitimize, if not actually whitewash, that tragedy (and as noted here, past is definitely prologue from the party of The Sainted Ronnie R when it comes to race).

Friday Mashup (6/6/14)

Time to clean out my “in” bin a bit here – this item from The Daily Tucker tells us the following…

Adam Carolla says the political left is forcing him to define himself as a conservative.

The actor and comedian recently spoke to The Daily Caller in an extensive interview about politics, Hollywood and his new book, “President Me: The America That’s in My Head.” TheDC (sic) will be featuring segments from the interview over the next couple weeks.

“I never define myself as a conservative, but I’m becoming defined as a conservative,” he told TheDC. “I’m now conservative because I wouldn’t want to be what the alternative is, which is scary to me.”

“I always thought of myself as just a liberal guy,” Carolla said. But after working with and observing Dr. Drew Pinsky, Carolla says he started spreading what he thought was a simple, apolitical message.

“I just started saying, ‘focus on your family, take care of your kids,’” Carolla explained. “And then all of a sudden, I become Ted Nugent like overnight.”

(Oh, and after he made this proclamation, Carolla also apparently said here that rich people are “better than poor people. They just are…” That’s BRILLIANT! Now why on earth didn’t I think of that?)

If there’s one thing that never ceases to bubble up the detritus from the seemingly bottomless well of my disgust, it’s a claim from a self-described conservative that he or she had no choice but to change their political allegiance and/or worldview in general because of the alleged excesses of “the professional left,” or whatever the wingnutosphere is calling filthy, unkempt liberal blogger types such as yours truly this week.

And that is particularly true in the case of Carolla, who is responsible for the following:

Here, he said that the Occupy protestors were “self-entitled and coddled by their mothers” (I’d like to see Carolla say that to Scott Olsen, noted here).

Said that California was “Eden” run into the ground by “Democrat snakes” here (lovely).

Said our government is bought and paid for by “trial lawyers” all because he’s in a fight with a patent troll, as noted here (if he were interested in being fair, which he isn’t, he really would single out both sides).

It looks like somebody called out Carolla here (good for this person…I think the basic disagreement is that Carolla said that blacks and Latinos don’t have strong father figures, or something – you can “paint with a broad brush” that way concerning whites too…I think the person making the criticism was too strident, but when people like Carolla spread around inflammatory stuff, yeah, those on the receiving end will get pissed).

Oh, but when he’s hawking a book, Carolla acts like, well, I’m a Democrat some ways but a Republican other ways…bullshit – you just want all the $$ you can get regardless of who it’s from; try being honest enough to admit that (here).

In another lifetime, I can recall having a good laugh or two from “The Man Show,” with Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel. And that was because I knew it was tongue in cheek, though I guess that, based on the lack of intelligence Carolla displays here (including some comments about women comediennes), perhaps he thought it was a documentary.

Next, I should point out that we recently observed the 30th anniversary of the formation of former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese’s pornography commission, noted by Marvin Olasky here, who also tells us the following (here)…

Witherspoon Institute conference research (proceedings published as “The Social Costs of Pornography”) showed that two-thirds of 18-to-34-year-old men visit porn sites regularly. (My hunch is that many of them go to church less often in part because they marry less often, and they marry less often in part because they access pornography more often.) Many men find it harder to relate to real women. Most divorces involve one partner compulsively using pornography.

I should tell you that Olasky really isn’t interested in a fair critique of the Meese Commission here, but really just wants to trot out tired right-wing straw man arguments such as those in the prior paragraph, along with criticizing those admittedly ribald, anything-goes-at-times 1960s, of course (and for some real, honest-to-goodness science on this subject, the author of this column tells us that, no, there isn’t any actual, causal evidence linking pornography and divorce rates…surprise, surprise I know).

As for the Meese Commission itself, though, I think it’s instructive to review the following (noted here from 1986)…

WASHINGTON — A federal commission on pornography formally released its long-awaited report yesterday, urging Congress to enact tough anti-pornography laws and calling on citizens to picket stores that sell sexually explicit films and magazines.

The report, based on a year-long study by 11 commission members hand- picked by Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d, calls for a sweeping federal, state and local crackdown on the $8 billion-a-year pornography industry.

It specifically asserts that pornography can provoke violent sex offenses – a finding that has been challenged by civil libertarians and one that the commission itself concedes it cannot prove.

…

…the report was denounced…by ACLU attorney Barry Lynn, who has consistently been the panel’s sharpest critic. The ACLU has long opposed the commission, saying President Reagan created it to appease conservative supporters, that it was stacked with anti-pornography members and that its proposals smacked of censorship.

“All that this government study proves is that if you give a biased pro- censorship commission a half-million tax dollars and a year, they will write a lopsided, pro-censorship report,” Lynn said yesterday.

He characterized the report as “little more than prudishness and moralizing masquerading behind social science jargon” and predicted it would spawn numerous court battles because conservative religious groups will use it to “drive the country back to the sexual dark ages.”

Meese defended the $500,000 cost of the commission study as money well spent.

So what did the Meese Commission concoct with their half-a-million-dollar budget? I give you the following from here…

The Commission’s proposals for dealing with porn are hair-raising. They want stepped-up enforcement of existing obscenity laws; increased cooperation between local, state, and federal law enforcement personnel and the IRS; and a computerized national database. They want forfeiture statutes, so that any proceeds from production of pornography can be confiscated. They want Congress to enact a statute that the distribution of obscene material “affects” interstate commerce. This would eliminate the necessity to prove transportation in interstate commerce in obscenity cases. According to the Commission, hiring individuals to participate in commercial sexual performances should be made an unfair labor practice. Transmission of obscene matter over cable TV and telephone lines should be proscribed. Obscenity should be made a predicate act for a group to be investigated under the frighteningly powerful Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and states should enact their own versions of RICO. All state legislatures should adopt the lower standard of proof of obscenity found in Miller v. California. [11] Pandering laws should be used against porn producers. Conditions within adult bookstores should be investigated and health violations prosecuted. Peep show booths should not be allowed to have doors or holes in the walls between the booths. Use of performers under the age of twenty-one should be forbidden by act of Congress, and producers, retailers, and distributors of sexually explicit material should be required to maintain records containing consent forms and proof of performers’ ages. [12]

It was only by a very narrow margin that the Commission did not vote to recommend legislation that would have made vibrators and dildos obscene.

And there are people out there who claim that the Democrats are the party of “big gumint”…

Olasky tries to be clever in his clownhall.com piece by re-imagining the Ogden Nash poem “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker” to try and prove his point (don’t ask). He fails miserably, but I have to confess that I can do no better, mainly because, for the life of me, I can’t think of a word that rhymes with Olasky.

Further, it looks like it’s time for more right-wing outrage aimed at Number 44 (here)…

President Barack Obama’s new report on fatherless kids doesn’t include a single mention of the words “marriage” or “married.”

The report admits that fatherlessness almost doubles the failure rate among African-American and Latino kids, yet it calls for government to arrange substitute fathers for huge numbers of fatherless boys and girls instead of binding fathers to their kids via marriage.

“The President is calling on Americans interested in getting involved in My Brother’s Keeper to sign up as long-term mentors to young people,” according to the White House press statement that accompanies the report, which is titled “Opportunity for All: My Brother’s Keeper.”

“This effort will engage Americans from all walks of life to sign up to develop sustained and direct mentoring relationships that will play vital roles in the lives of young people,” it declares.

The White House’s focus on substitute fathers will likely widen economic gaps, which have widened to record levels under his administration. Wealthier Americans — including many outspoken liberals such as Obama and his wife — tend to follow the traditional “life script” of education first, then marriage, then childrearing, even as they promote family “diversity” for others.

And yeah, the dookey gets pretty thick from that point on, in an article that Tucker Carlson’s Crayon Scribble Page ostensibly passes off as “news.”

By the way, did you know that My Brother’s Keeper is funded “through an extensive partnership with local and national leaders in philanthropy, business, government, faith communities, and media,” as noted here? However, Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History “can waste money on a pro marriage initiative intended to boost the economic levels of poor people, who are disproportionally Black and Latino” with nary a complaint from Munro and his ideological fellow travelers, apparently.

Also, I think the notion that the Obamas apparently don’t know or care about anything in the realm of living a responsible family life, particularly when you factor in raising kids (two daughters, of course), is too hilarious for words. As proof, I give you the following excerpts from here…

Too Tired For Date Night

“Our life before moving to Washington was filled with simple joys…Saturdays at soccer games, Sundays at grandma’s house…and a date night for Barack and me was either dinner or a movie, because as an exhausted mom, I couldn’t stay awake for both.”

Tell it like it is, Michelle. A working mother sometimes doesn’t have it in her for an Olive Garden date and a romantic comedy.

Money Can’t Buy You Love

“You see, Barack and I were both raised by families who didn’t have much in the way of money or material possessions but who had given us something far more valuable – their unconditional love, their unflinching sacrifice, and the chance to go places they had never imagined for themselves.”

It takes a lot more than fancy presents to convey love to your kiddies!

What It Means To Be A Man/Father

“You see, for my dad, that’s what it meant to be a man.

Like so many of us, that was the measure of his success in life – being able to earn a decent living that allowed him to support his family.”

Translation: men who stick around and take care of their families? Thumbs up.

Oh yeah, that definitely reflects the “Democrat Party’s post-1960s collective hostility to independent families,” doesn’t it?

But of course, Neil Munro is a card-carrying anti-Obama propagandist from way back, as noted here.

Continuing, it looks like, based on last Tuesday’s primary elections, the Teahadists have a new hero, and that would be Mike Turner, running for the U.S. House from Oklahoma (natch – here)…

I was first elected to the statehouse in 2012. A political outsider and underdog, I swore off lobbyist and PAC dollars from day one and instead did things the old fashioned way – handshakes and shoe leather. I’m proud to say that I visited over 13,000 homes in my district, listening and learning , en route to becoming the only challenger to defeat an Oklahoma legislative incumbent that cycle.

That was despite my moderate opponent who’d been in office for eight years starting the campaign with a six-figure war chest. We won because the citizens of our district wanted principled leadership.
Since that time , I’ve kept on fighting as a bold, next-generation conservative.

I said ‘No’ to the state House budget in 2013 because we just couldn’t afford it. We need to be stopping big government in its tracks, cutting taxes, and unleashing the economic engine instead of expanding all the things that have slowed us down in the first place.

Check, please…

Sure, it’s easy to “(swear) off lobbyist and PAC dollars” when you’re basically loaded, as noted here (either trucking or something called “Supercuts,” which I believe is a hair salon – and I’ll overlook the “eye booger” stuff…like, ewwwwww).

And did you know that, in his efforts to punish Teh Gay, Turner tried to ban ALL marriages in his state (here)? Also, he protested a planned visit by Attorney General Eric Holder to the point where Holder decided to cancel (here), which I would say is a fairly petulant act for a public official.

Yeah, Turner looks like a dyed-in-the-wool wingnut, apparently even criticizing Repug governor Mary Fallin for not being conservative enough, or something (apparently Turner helped shoot down, so to speak, a rare Fallin veto), despite this.

My guess is that Oklahoma deserves him.

Finally, our wet noodle PA-08 U.S. House Rep recently weighed in on the pages of his PR machine (otherwise known as the Bucks County Courier Times) stating, in light of the recent revelations concerning the VA and veterans who died while awaiting care, that “funding isn’t the issue at the VA – mismanagement is” (here).

Actually, the real issue is noted as follows by Joe Conason here…

Anyone paying attention knows by now that those secret waiting lists at VA facilities — which may have led to the premature deaths of scores of injured veterans — are a direct consequence of policy decisions made in the White House years before President Barack Obama got there. The misguided invasion of Iraq — carried out with insufficient numbers of troops shielded by insufficient armor — led directly to thousands of new cases of traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other physical and mental disabilities requiring speedy treatment.

A substantial portion of the estimated $3 trillion price of that war is represented by the cost of decent care for veterans. But even as the war raged on, the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress repeatedly refused to appropriate sufficient funding for veterans’ health care. This financial stinginess toward vets was consistent with Bush’s refusal to take any steps to pay for his expensive war (and decision to protect his skewed tax cuts instead).

As Alec MacGillis pointed out this week in the New Republic, legislators who voted for war while opposing expansion of the VA are hypocrites, particularly when they claim to care about veterans. So are the Republican governors who refuse to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which keeps hundreds of thousands of impoverished vets from getting health care.

Breaking down the voting record, year after year, the pattern along party lines is clear: Republicans regularly propose cuts in VA funding and oppose increases sponsored by Democrats — a pattern that extends back to the first years of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts and continues to this day. As recently as February, Senate Republicans filibustered a Democratic bill that would have added $20 billion in VA funding over the next decade and would have built at least 26 new VA health care facilities. The Republicans killed that bill because Democratic leaders refused to add an amendment on Iran sanctions — designed to scuttle the ongoing nuclear negotiations — and because they just don’t want to spend more money on vets.

In his Courier Times column (now behind the paper’s ridiculous pay wall), Mikey tells us that duplicate payments are an issue the VA has to deal with, particularly in its Philadelphia office, which is true; I have no contrary information on that anyway (he also pointed that out in this New York Times story from two years ago, which kind of makes me wonder why this wasn’t addressed earlier; not necessarily blaming the House and its Repug Party “leadership” on that one alone – just an observation).

Fitzpatrick also tells us that he supports something called HR 4031, which would lead to a quicker firing of VA employees. I’m not in a rush to get rid of anyone working at the VA, particularly in this still-wretched economy (about which Mikey and his pals really have done nothing), and also because of the following (noted in the Wikipedia article)…

One alleged unintended consequence might be “any change that would single out VA employees for punishment or discharge could have a chilling effect on VA’s ability to recruit and retain high-quality employees.”[7] Their statement also indicated that they feared anyone fired could sue, leading to “lengthy litigation.”

And how exactly would that lead to faster processing of veterans’ claims so that they could receive treatment earlier?

Another piece of legislation Mikey supports is HR 2590, sponsored by Chris Gibson, which “amend(s) the Wounded Warrior Act to establish a specific timeline for the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to achieve integrated electronic health records…”

That’s nice, but wasn’t a bill like this introduced last year before it died in a House committee (noted here, and by a Republican no less)? Oh, but there wasn’t a scandal all over the place back then to make the Obama Administration look bad back then, was there?

And when it comes to gathering some perspective on this issue, I give you the following from here…

Carl Blake of the Paralyzed Veterans of America suggested the Senate panel go undercover. “If the (Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, including the thoroughly odious Richard Burr) wants to get the truth about the quality of VA health care, spend a day walking around in a major VA medical facility,” he said. “We can guarantee that you will likely hear complaints about how long it took to be seen, but rare is the complaint about the actual quality of care … It is no secret that wait times for appointments for specialty care in the private sector tend to be extremely long.” The public, he says, has gotten a distorted view of the quality of VA care at various field hearings where a handful of those with poor experiences have taken center stage.

As far as I’m concerned, you can safely file this in the fairly huge Fitzpatrick file of virtually meaningless legislative gestures that are subsequently forgotten after the news cycle moves onto something else. However, if you want real leadership on this and other issues, I strongly urge you to support an honest-to-goodness veteran running for the PA-08 congressional seat, Dem Kevin Strouse by name, by clicking here.

Thursday Mashup (5/1/14)

Wonder if Voter ID is starting to “crash and burn,” people? We can only hope (here)…

In a clear-cut victory for Wisconsin voters, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman came down on the side of foes of the state’s strict photo voter ID law Tuesday.

In the 90-page decision, Adelman takes note of difficulties low-income citizens have in getting an ID, the cost of obtaining background documents to get an ID—such as a birth certificate—the cost of transportation to the DMV and work time lost…

Of course, Gov. Hosni Mubarak Walker will probably appeal the ruling (and Repug Attorney General candidate Brad Schimel is trying to fundraise off the ruling as noted here).

Not that we have anything to brag about on this subject in our beloved commonwealth of PA, of course, where Governor Tom “Space Cadet” Corbett has spent in excess of $2 million in state funds to defend voter ID (here) even though the PA Commonwealth Court recently affirmed its decision overturning it (here).

But wait, there’s more…

A federal court ruled the same way about Texas’s voter ID law, one of the most restrictive in the nation (here), but the ruling was invalidated when The Supremes gutted the Voting Rights Act (yep, some nice “ROI” from The High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR to “the party of Lincoln” on that one).

As noted here, Judge Tim Fox of the Pulaski County Circuit Court recently struck down Arkansas’s voter ID law, quite rightly saying that it “illegally adds a requirement” voters must fulfill before going to the polls.

And in case anyone still had any doubt about this, conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly pointed out here that North Carolina’s law in particular was aimed at minorities (yeah I know, duuuh, though, as noted here – in a surprising development – that state’s voter ID law could actually help with voter registration in that state).

Here and here are links to the voter ID issue and how it is playing out across all 50 states. And as noted here, the Voting Rights Act Amendment (VRAA), introduced in the Senate by Dem Pat Leahy and in the House by Repug James Sensenbrenner, could address the voter ID issue in a bit of a favorable manner also (but good luck seeing that passed in the U.S. House as it is currently constituted; another reason to vote early and often this fall).

And lest we forget, Chuck and Dave are all too happy to see voter ID enshrined all over this country (here).

Next, this tells us the following…

RICHMOND — Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has landed a job as a part-time visiting professor of government at Liberty University’s Helms School of Government, the school announced Monday.

McDonnell (R) will serve as a guest lecturer in other professors’ government classes at the Helms School, named for former senator Jesse Helms, a Republican from North Carolina.

Any idea on McDonnell’s “course load”? These come to mind immediately for yours truly…

Influence Peddling 101 – How to Receive Money, Golf Fees, Other Equipment and Luxury Plane Flights to Resorts While Alleging That No Conflict of Interest Exists

Returning Obstetrics to the Middle Ages – Classroom Theory and Practical Working Exercises in Administering Fetal Ultrasounds, Plunging Virginia To The Same Depths As 23 Other States Advocating The Same Barbaric Procedure

Male-Only Human Sexuality – The Evils of (Pro) Contraception Legalization

And just as a reminder, the story also tells us the following…

McDonnell left office in January and soon after was indicted with his wife, Maureen, on federal corruption charges related to about $165,000 in luxury gifts and loans that a businessman lavished on Virginia’s first family.

The McDonnells, who have pleaded not guilty, were in financial distress when they accepted the largess of dietary supplement maker Jonnie R. Williams Sr., and their money woes have grown as they mount a legal defense in the case, scheduled to go to trial in July. Supporters have launched a fund to pay legal bills.

The part-time position at the Lynchburg University is not likely to bring McDonnell the big bucks he could have counted on absent the scandal. Moore declined to disclose what Liberty will pay McDonnell, once regarded as a credible contender for president in 2016.

Also, how apropos for “vaginal ultrasound” Bob to end up at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, where approval was revoked for a Democratic Party organization on campus here (wonder if I’ll get an Email blast about a Bias Alert! from Drudge and his pals – not holding my breath on that one), and where Glenn Beck, of all people, once gave a commencement address (here).

And the cherry on the icing on the proverbial cake is the fact that McDonnell will now reside at the Helms School of Government, named after a noted racist, anti-immigrant homophobe and chauvinist (who, along with the rest of his party, ignored the al Qaeda threat in the ’90s, as noted here – Clinton stumbled a bit on that score also, but at least he did something).

How much do you want to bet that (assuming a Dem wins in 2016) McDonnell ends up taking a shot at the 2020 Repug presidential nomination (and no, I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence either)?

Continuing, I give you the latest in Repug Party hijinks over the environment (which has presented us with particularly extreme weather lately)…

Republican lawmakers pushed back at Environmental Protection Agency Chief Gina McCarthy after she assailed critics for charging the agency with using “secret science” to support its regulations.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said McCarthy is “ignoring the big picture” in her defense of the agency.

Vitter and a majority of Republicans have continued to berate the EPA for its proposed carbon emissions limits on power plants, which they say are backed up by faulty science.

“It is inexcusable for EPA to justify billions of dollar of economically significant regulations on science that is kept hidden from independent reanalysis and congressional oversight,” Vitter said in a statement on Monday.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) echoed Vitter’s sentiment.

“It’s disappointing that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy continues to try to justify her agency’s use of secret science,” Smith said in a statement. “Relying on undisclosed data is not good science and not good policy.”

OK, so “secret science” is the latest wingnut catchphrase (poll tested and approved by Frank Luntz, no doubt). Which is particularly amusing to me because, as noted here, the “science” to support EPA regulation doesn’t look very “secret” to yours truly.

And of course Smith would protest, he who, though he routinely ignores sound climate science, once held a hearing on aliens (and no, I’m not talking about immigrants) here. And what can you say about “Diaper Dave,” who cheered the last government shutdown because it temporarily put the brakes on EPA’s ability to enforce regulations to protect our water and monitor coal and gas-fired power plants (here)?

Further, it looks like Joke Line is back to heap more ridicule (here)…

Time magazine columnist Joe Klein called CNN “an embarrassment to our profession,” surprising a New York City audience on Sunday by declaring Fox News “the only option” for straight news at 6 p.m.

…

“I come home, and I turn on CNN at 6 o’clock at night — because that’s something I kind of do in preparation for the 6:30 network news, to see what Wolf [Blitzer] is being really hyperbolic about — and he’s talking about the plane!” Klein lamented.

“It is such an embarrassment to our profession that CNN has gone in the toilet the way it has,” he continued. “You know, I miss being able to turn on a straight newscast. And it turns out, the only place you can go to get one, at 6 o’clock at night, is Fox.”

…

“The other option is to go to MSBNC and see the Reverend Al Sharpton, who I still consider to be a major criminal,” Klein quipped, prompting audience applause. “I mean, the guy can have a job on network TV, on an NBC cable network, and he still hasn’t apologized for Tawana Brawley? Gimme a break.”

I cannot fathom why Klein would defend a network that was once responsible for this.

That being said, he actually has a point about CNN and its endless coverage on Flight 370, which, horribly, I’m sure is at the ocean floor somewhere. At this point, I cannot imagine where else it could be; if it had been hijacked somehow, we surely would have heard at this point.

And not for a second am I going to defend Al Sharpton over the Tawana Brawley stuff; I don’t know if Sharpton ever apologized for it either. However, making the leap from shameless self-promoter at the expense of a young girl who apparently didn’t know better to a “major criminal” staggers the imagination. And there’s a reason why I include his videos at the site I link to from here, and that is because I find his commentary to be fundamentally sound and factually correct. When Klein or anyone else has a factual criticism to offer (and I’ll admit that MSNBC overall flubbed some of the Trayvon Martin stuff), then I’ll definitely give it a fair hearing.

Also, when it comes to whether or not our supposedly elite journalists are doing their jobs, how does Klein account for this (and who knew besides me that Megyn Kelly of Fix Noise, for example, was a corporate attorney as opposed to a journalist, and she’s on the network Joe loves in bleeping prime time).

Klein’s call for an “apology” is funny, though, when you consider that, to my knowledge, he never apologized for this.

Finally, Mikey the Beloved is back with another opinion column for the benefit of his PR factory (here)…

Increasing and securing our investment in infrastructure is an investment in our country’s future. I am pleased to have worked across the aisle with Congressman John Delaney in supporting the Partnership to Build America Act (HR 2084). The bill will restore solvency to the Highway Trust Fund by revenues from repatriated earnings as a funding mechanism while the debate continues around ensuring long term solvency of the Fund. These efforts have merit, particularly if combined with other fiscally prudent ways of increasing infrastructure investment.

The first question I have is why it took so damn long for Mikey or anyone else in his party (and the same goes for Delaney, to be fair) to say anything about HR 2084, seeing as how it was introduced about a year ago (here…and yes, I know the answer is that this is an election year).

However, the more you look into this particular piece of legislation, the more problems you discover as far as I’m concerned. The bill establishes a government corporation headed by a board of trustees, appointed by the president (yeah, as if that will be OK with this Congress – the Teahadists are probably writing hate-filled blog posts and working on their misspelled signs even as I write this, and the bill hasn’t even come up for a vote yet).

Also…

The bill also “establish(es) the American Infrastructure Fund, to provide bond guarantees and make loans to States, local governments, and non-profit infrastructure providers for investments in certain infrastructure projects, and to provide equity investments in such projects, and for other purposes.”

So it looks like the states will be responsible for funding infrastructure projects with minimal (at best) federal oversight (and yes, I realize that, since we’re talking about a Republican congress, they don’t want the federal government to be a “player” in this stuff at all, damn the consequences).

Here is my concern: suppose the infrastructure projects blow up and the financial obligations cannot be satisfied. Is this yet another “bubble to bust” boondoggle where taxpayers will be called upon again to bail out the Fund if the infrastructure projects are cancelled because of, say, cost overruns (and another well-done Matt Taibbi comment on this whole potential mess will be written someday)?

And did I mention that, according to Govtrack, the bill has about a 3 percent chance of being enacted anyway? More on the bill is here.

Meanwhile (from here)…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration sent a four-year, $302 billion transportation plan to Congress Tuesday, hoping to jump-start a national debate on how to repair and replace the nation’s aging infrastructure while accommodating the needs of a growing population.

Action is urgently needed because the federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to run dry by late August, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. Unless Congress acts to shore up the fund, transportation aid to states will be held up and workers laid off at construction sites across the country.

President Barack Obama has emphasized infrastructure spending throughout his presidency as a means to spur job growth and increase economic competitiveness, but the bill is the first detailed, long-term transportation bill his administration has sent to Congress.

There isn’t much time for Congress to act before the trust fund can no longer meet its obligations, especially in the hyper-partisan atmosphere of an election year. Many transportation insiders predict Congress will wind up doing what it has done repeatedly over the past five years — dip into the general treasury for enough money for to keep programs going a few weeks or a few months, at which point the exercise will have to be repeated all over again.

But keeping highway and transit aid constantly teetering on the edge of insolvency discourages state and local officials from moving ahead with bigger and more important projects that take many years to build. In 2012, Congress finally pieced together a series of one-time tax changes and spending cuts to programs unrelated to transportation in order to keep the trust fund solvent for about two years. Now, the money is nearly gone.

So instead of passing the Obama bill, it looks like Mikey and his pals (including Delaney, who apparently isn’t much of a progressive, though he’s definitely an improvement over the odious Repug Roscoe Bartlett, who formerly held the seat) are cooking up this new scam that could come back and bite us one day. All just so they can say that they didn’t raise taxes or fees, or something (if doing this right means paying a few cents more a gallon for gas, for example, to me, that makes a hell of a lot more sense than this idiotic funding mechanism).

All of this and much more is a reason to support Kevin Strouse for Congress (to help, click here).

Thursday Mashup (4/3/14)

I know I’m a little behind on this, but better late than never – I give you Billo the Clown and his latest rant against Dem U.S. House Rep Barbara Lee (here…and of course, I’m going to overlook for now his cowardly language about Lee being a “race hustler,” whatever that is)…

O’REILLY: Sure, so the right wing, all conservative Americans, we all use, all of us, not any exceptions, we all use, phrases that denigrate African Americans. Do I have that right Congressman? Do I have that right?

Alright, let’s take a look at Miss Lee’s history. In 2011 she accused the entire Republican party of trying to deny black Americans the right to vote… the entire party. Also in 2011, she released a book that said the Bush administration Hurricane Katrina relief, because mainly blacks were involved. That is, they didn’t want to rescue the blacks, they wanted them to drown, according to this Congresswoman.

When it comes to denying African Americans the right to vote, Billo is actually correct here – Lee did say that (here). And as noted here, she’s absolutely right (and when it comes to Republicans and race, there’s no apology from Billo or any of his pals for this).

And when it comes to Katrina, I give you the following quote from Rep. Lee (here)…

“If ever anyone doubted that there were two Americas, this disaster has made this division clear,” said Representative Barbara Lee, co-chair of the Progressive Caucus. “The victims have largely been poor and black. The devastation from Hurricane Katrina only underscores the disastrous consequences of the Administration’s failure to take even the most basic steps to alleviate poverty in the United States.”

I can’t find anything factual to dispute that (though the notion that Dubya and co. wanted blacks to drown, or something, was put out there by Spike Lee, among others, with Lee making that great documentary to show exactly what happened).

Continuing with Billo…

In 2013, she branded Congressman Steve King a racist. She did the same thing to Bill Bennett, President Reagan’s former Secretary of Education. And Miss Lee claims she’s not a race hustler? How about pinhead Congresswoman? You like that better?

Again, I couldn’t find proof of that claim, but instead, I give you this concerning King and Lee…

In 2005, King successfully marshaled opposition to naming an Oakland post office after former Oakland city councilwoman and activist Maudelle Shirek because he believed that Shirek was “un-American.” After Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee accused him of McCarthyism, he said, “If Barbara Lee would read the history of Joe McCarthy she would realize that he was a hero for America.”

On the House floor, King blasted the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus as “separatist groups,” and suggested that a “very, very urban senator, Barack Obama” provided “slavery reparations” through the USDA Pigford II settlement with black farmers.

During the presidential election, King maintained if Obama won that Al-Qaeda “would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror.”

Actually, though, Billo is right again about Bennett (shocking, I know), but that is because he said that, if you abort every black baby, the crime rate would go down (here – I hope the repugnance of that remark speaks for itself).

I guess “racist” is in the eye of the beholder, huh?

Continuing with Billo…

Now this is a woman who is in the United States Congress, alright, who is flat out calling people with whom she disagrees, racists, whether they’re her colleagues, or me, or the entire Bush administration, or the entire Republican Party.

And this woman has the gall, the nerve, to get up there, alright, and then throw out terms like welfare queen. When has the Republican Party ever used that term? When have I ever used that term. The answer is, never, alright?

So not only is she a pinhead, a race hustler, she’s a liar. That’s who we have representing a California district… Barbara Lee.

As a literal quote from a Republican politician, be it The Sainted Ronnie R or anyone else, it’s true that the term “welfare queen” cannot be sourced (I was unable to do it anyway). However, I would argue that the context behind the term is far more important than the actual term itself (more is here and here).

I’ll tell you what – here is a link to about 378 posts from Media Matters that were the result of a search I conducted on the site for the terms “Bill O’Reilly” and “race.” And I’m sure more than a few of them will illustrate better than I can that he has no right to pontificate on that subject in particular.

Next, I thought it was a bit surprising to hear that Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Rogers is retiring for a job in right-wing radio, though it appears to be a pretty seamless fit of course (here).

And with that in mind, I think we should recall the following about the now-departing MI-08 rep:

Here is some interesting stuff about Rogers, his wife, and the so-called Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, otherwise known as CIPSA (about how Kristi Rogers would stand to benefit – more here)…and when it comes to CIPSA, here is what you need to know (fortunately, after passing the House of course, it appears to be stuck in the Senate)…

“It’s basically a privacy nightmare,” says Trevor Timm, a lawyer and activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “CISPA would allow companies to hand over private data to the government without a warrant, without anonymity, with no judicial review.”

Rogers said that those who oppose CIPSA are “teens in their basements,” or something, here (cute).

He said here that bombing Iran nuke sites wasn’t an act of war (oh, really?).

As noted here, Rogers didn’t share an intelligence notice from the White House in 2011 with fellow U.S. House members, leading to a vote to renew the Patriot Act in which at least 65 House members had “no way of knowing they were reauthorizing the ongoing creation of a database of the phone-based relationships of every American.”

He accused Edward Snowden of being a Russian spy here, with no proof whatsoever of course.

Rogers said here that the Obama Administration was “Mirandizing” terrorists on the battlefield, or something (yeah, remember that one?), which they weren’t of course, and so what if they were?

In conclusion, this tells us that Rogers infamously said, in essence, that you can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know about it (ugh).

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Mike.

Further, in the Repugs’ latest effort to find another ideological hero, it looks like U.S. Senate primary candidate Ben Sasse (the “e” is silent, apparently) of Nebraska has emerged as the Teahadist favorite over more mainstream (I guess) Republican candidate Shane Osborn (here).

(I should back up and note that both Sasse and Osborn are running to win the nomination as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in the contest to replace Mike Johanns, who is stepping down, with the campaign for November basically serving as a formality – I don’t want to imagine how pathetic it is to live in a place where the election is basically a choice between Republicans, and that is what we have here…love to be wrong.)

So let’s find out more about Sasse, then, shall we?…

As noted here, he basically was for Medicare Part D under Dubya (where Sasse was assistant to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, who was no prize either) before he was against it.

Here, Sasse wanted to move the nation’s capital to Nebraska (huh?).

And OF COURSE he was supported by fellow Teahadist Mike Lee (here).

As noted here, Sasse said the reason why so many were uninsured wasn’t because of poverty, but “job loss” (he also supports health care reform that makes coverage “portable”…which basically means that, despite what he says, he actually supports the ACA).

And as noted from here…

But (Sasse) also repeatedly criticized the president for pushing forward a bill (the ACA) without regard to cost, and without having a serious discussion with the public about what a new entitlement would mean for the nation’s budget deficit.

It still amazes me (though I guess it shouldn’t by now) how much Republicans absolutely refuse to accept the reality of the cost benefit towards reducing the deficit of the ACA (for starters, take a look at this).

Besides, as long as Sasse is going out about how bad the ACA supposedly is for his state…well, maybe he ought to look at this too (from here).

Update 5/1/14: Didn’t Dr. Dean say that Sasse was supposed to be reasonable or something (here)?

Continuing, I give you this from Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds, complaining about how the dreaded “MSM” supposedly hates Republicans (appropriate for April Fools’ Day)…

California State senator (and, until last week, candidate for secretary of state) Leland Yee was well-known as an anti-gun activist. Then, last week, he was indicted for, yes, conspiring to smuggle guns and rocket launchers between mobsters and terrorists in exchange for massive bribes. Some highlights, as excerpted by San Francisco Magazine.

Yee told an FBI agent that, in exchange for $2 million in cash, he’d fill a shopping list of weapons, which he took personal responsibility for delivering, according to the indictment. He also allegedly “masterminded” a complex scheme bring illegal weapons into the country, agreeing to “facilitate” a meeting with an illegal arms dealer to arrange for the weapons to be imported via Newark, N.J. In arranging all of this, the indictment said, Yee relied on connections with Filipino terrorist groups who could supply “heavy” weapons, including the Muslim terrorists of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Yee allegedly noted that the Muslim terrorists had no reservations about kidnapping, extortion and murder.

This all sounds like news. You’ve got charges of huge bribes, rampant hypocrisy, illegal weapons and even a connection with foreign terrorists — and from a leading politician in an important state.

But — and here’s the part Hollywood would miss — outside of local media like San Francisco magazine, the coverage was surprisingly muted. The New York Times buried the story as a one-paragraph Associated Press report on page A21, with the bland dog-bites-man headline, “California: State Senator Accused of Corruption.” This even though Yee was suspended, along with two others, from the California state senate in light of the indictment.

Yeah, don’t you hate it when a story about Dem corruption is totally ignored like that?

Just to compare and contrast, I did a Google search on “Leland Yee” and “guns” and generated about 11 million hits, which hardly qualifies as ignoring a story as far as I’m concerned (here).

Then, I did a search for Chris Christie and the 9/11 artifacts he tried to give to NJ mayors to win endorsements in last year’s election (which is far worse in my opinion) and came back with about 1 million hits (here).

But of course, Reynolds would have us believe that the media hates Republicans.

Reynolds goes on some more in his screed for “America’s Fish Wrap” about how the Kermit Gosnell stuff supposedly wasn’t covered (Gosnell is the Philadelphia “doctor” who ran an abortion clinic and was convicted on 3 counts of first-degree murder and one count of manslaughter and sentenced to life in prison).

Oh, please (as noted here, the NY Post, Rupert’s vanity rag, and the Murdoch Street Journal were late to the proverbial party on this, which means that conservatives forfeit the right to complain on this as far as I’m concerned).

Of course, Reynolds has been a paid propagandist for the right his whole career, such as it is, including this hilarious moment when he predicted doom and gloom for Number 44 in 2010.

Finally, I don’t want to devote a lot of time to the latest from “Pastor” Gerson of the WaPo here, in which he reviews the films “Noah” and “God Is Not Dead,” thus giving himself the opportunity to flaunt some imagined moral bona fides once again (I thought this was a good response).

As long as I’m on the subject, though, I want to take a minute or two and note that your humble narrator recently visited the nearby Regal Cinema in these parts with the teenaged one to watch “Noah” (Sunday, homework done, bored and couldn’t wait for some of the upcoming summer blockbusters, etc.).

(And by the way, two adult tickets for a Sunday show were $24, and a medium popcorn and two “medium” drinks, with each “medium” cup holding about a half a gallon of soda, were $19. And that was less expensive than playing the concession games afterwards, including pinball, Alien Hunter, etc. Thankfully, he appears to have left that phase behind. Also, I’m going to get into the plot, which I think everybody knows at this point now anyway.)

So the movie starts at about 8:30 after all the promotions and coming attractions, even though the advertised start time was 8:10 (I must admit, though, that the previews for “Spider-Man 2” and an upcoming movie on James Brown looked pretty cool). And of course, since we’re talking about a pic with Russell Crowe, there has to be a villain in the story. And it turns out to be someone named Tubal Cain, who kills Noah’s (Crowe’s) father when Noah is a boy.

Well then, Noah grows up, and the next thing you know, he’s married to Jennifer Connelly and they have three boys (I am honestly concerned about her – every time I see her in a role, whether it’s “Dark City” or “The Day The Earth Stood Still,” she looks more and more gaunt; I hope she stocked up on some carbs after she finished making the picture). And they come across a little girl who they take in after a battle, and Connelly looks at her belly wound, and says “She’ll never have children,” which is kind of a miraculous diagnosis in a way I guess.

Soon enough, they’re trying to escape the bad guys, and they end up journeying to this land where (as it turns out) giant rock people live, and they put Noah and his family into a pit. It turns out that these rock creatures are the “watchers” who were turned to stone by “the creator” when he flipped out after Adam and Eve took a bite of the apple (though the “watchers” were apparently punished for something else). Even though the watchers/rock things threaten mankind with destruction, Noah persuades them to help and they wreak havoc to protect him (I didn’t know somebody stuck “The Book of Michael Bay” into the middle of Genesis).

And when Noah needs help to build the Ark after seeing visions of a huge flood in dreams, the creatures take care of that too (leave it to “Optimus Shale and the Autorocks” to fulfill Biblical prophecy…and no, I didn’t come up with that one).

Also, about the little girl with the stab wound…she grows up to be Emma Watson, and Anthony Hopkins (Noah’s father) puts his hand on her wound and she miraculously becomes fertile again (didn’t even need Ron or Harry to wave their wands – tee hee). She also spends just about the entire movie crying also – maybe her agent didn’t get a good deal on the residuals.

Because it’s a Biblical epic, you can count on a mega-battle scene as Tubal Cain and his minions try to storm the Ark (using spears forged in a fire pit – um, didn’t all of that technology come a few thousand years after this?). Also, I swear I saw one of the minions running around with a helmet and visor, kind of like the one that kept falling in front of Terry Jones’s face in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” And Noah ends up flipping out when he finds out that Ila, Noah’s stepdaughter (Watson) is pregnant, since Noah believes that God tells him that man must not repopulate the earth, and Noah thinks he has to kill Ila’s two infant daughters (Noah eventually relents and lets the babies live, getting so depressed because he thinks that he failed God that he ends up on a massive bender, drinking wine from seashells in a cave – “The Hangover, Part 4” maybe?).

To sum up, I think that “Noah” is pretty good Hollywood-style entertainment (including some truly ground-breaking CGI stuff going on, though I wonder how that all will translate to the small screen on DVD). But as anything close to a literal interpretation of the Bible (and why would you be looking for that here anyway?), the movie, in my opinion, is all wet (sorry…couldn’t resist).

Friday Mashup (3/28/14)

(Image from satiricalpolitical.com…)

So, according to Repug Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, it looks like President Obama is granting “de facto amnesty,” or something, to illegal (undocumented – whatever) immigrants here.

I wonder if that’s why Number 44 is nearing his 2 millionth deportation (here)? And I think this has a typically “inside-out” corporate media headline on the subject that basically tells us that, yes, U.S. House Repugs in particular are being intransigent a-holes on the issue (as with so many other matters of consequence).

Also, I really don’t want to waste a lot of time on this, but for some reason, the otherwise highly sensible Chris Hayes decided to grant a forum to Americans for Prosperity’s (and Koch-ette) Jennifer Stefano here, with predictable results (more of Stefano’s nonsense can be accessed at the fifth bullet from here).

Next, I realize that I should utterly ignore conservative quota hire Jennifer Rubin of the WaPo, but alas, I cannot totally – I give you the following from here…

I’ve got no problem with third-party money or with billionaires giving money directly to campaigns; neither do most Republicans. But it is Democrats who brought up the Koch complaint and who have been impugning the Koch brothers. In 2010 Democrats attacked the nefarious and non-existent “foreign money” from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; now it’s two businessmen.

See how Rubin is trying to morph the dreaded “conventional wisdom” from “Oh, aren’t the Dems a bunch of crybabies for complaining about waay too much untraceable money in our political campaigns” to “Well, guess what? That money never existed anyway.”?

Oh, and by the way, she’s wrong in either case. As Think Progress notes here (from October 2010)…

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has created a large presence in the small, oil-rich country of Bahrain. In 2006, the Chamber created an internal fundraising department called the “U.S.-Bahrain Business Council” (USBBC), an organization to help businesses in Bahrain take advantage of the Chamber’s “network of government and business relationships in the US and worldwide.

…

With each of these foreign board members to the USBBC contributing at least $10,000 annually, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce raises well over $100,000 a year in money from foreign businesses through its operation in Bahrain.

…

Like the USBBC, the (U.S. India Business Council) generates well over $200,000 a year in dues for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from foreign businesses.

…

Another foreign chamber, like the Abu Dhabi AmCham, which includes American firms and Esnaad, a subsidiary of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, claims that it is a “dues paying member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and part of the global network of American Chambers of Commerce.”

And in an update to the Think Progress post, we learn the following…

The US Chamber of Commerce has responded to this post in a statement to the Politico’s Ben Smith. The Chamber’s Tita Freeman did not dispute that the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) organization running attack ads receives foreign funds, and simply claimed, “We have a system in place” to prevent foreign funding for the Chamber’s “political activities.”

Uh huh…

As far as I’m concerned, the reality of the foreign funds used by the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce for election purposes (unaccounted-for foreign funds, inasmuch as it’s impossible to find out just how much was spent for particular races on behalf of particular candidates) utterly puts the lie as far as I’m concerned to claims such as the one made by Mike Fitzpatrick that the Dems outspent him in the 2010 campaign in which he unseated incumbent U.S. House Rep Patrick Murphy. Can someone honestly tell me how much Fitzpatrick received in funding from the “U.S.” Chamber (a figure verified by an independent accounting firm)?

I’ll have something else to say about Mikey the Beloved later, by the way.

Further, did you know that Greg Gutfeld of Fix Noise apparently wrote a book (here)? Why, color me shocked (something called “Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War On You”…as always, Gutfeld and his kind have to invent a conflict with a real or imagined enemy – here)…

Someone named Kyle Smith at Rupert Murdoch’s Vanity Rag tells us the following…

Gutfeld finds that cool warps everything. In 2012, for instance, Zuckerberg’s Facebook not only didn’t pay any net federal income tax but was actually due a refund of about $430 million. Why? Because the company (lawfully) deducted the stock options it issues to Facebook employees, many of them now deliriously wealthy because of those options. If Exxon or Koch Industries had managed that, someone might have noticed.

But because it was Facebook — a company that oozes cool out its pores — it was a one-day story that people forgot about. “If this company were something that actually made something in a factory or a field,” writes Gutfeld, “it would be roundly condemned by every single media hack on the planet.”

Never mind that companies like Exxon and Koch supply the energy without which Facebook wouldn’t work: They’re not cool.

Um…unless Exxon and the Kochs have suddenly made a splash in renewables, then that really isn’t true, is it (here)?

Smith also blames “the left” for a ban of plastic supermarket bags in San Francisco that supposedly caused a 46 percent increase in deaths from foodborne illness – here is a response.

But wait, there’s more…

Now a few groovy artisanal types are sounding the alarm about vaccines, with predictably depressing results.

A year ago, a Florida county saw its first death from whooping cough in decades. The victim, a baby, had parents who decided not to vaccinate.

Vaccines, DDT, genetically modified foods — all these things are unnatural or impure, hence suspect.

“Purity is a big thing with the coolerati,” notes Gutfeld. “But, like cool, it exists separate from the notions of good and evil. Pure sugar is delicious. How about pure cocaine? How about pure horses–t?” That depends: Is it locally sourced?

Isn’t that simply precious?

Yes, unfortunately, there is definitely a bit of anti-vaccine hysteria out there. But blaming us lefties for it is to assign fault in the wrong place.

And that is because it is very unlikely that you will see Jenny McCarthy, a leading anti-vaccine proponent, appearing on MSNBC any time soon (as noted here, just consider “the usual suspects” once again, the people who hate science generally anyway).

It looks like Gutfeld is trying to make a name for himself as the Foxies’ latest attack dog in its increasingly futile efforts to gin up phony outrage over whatever real or alleged controversy happens to spring into the depraved mind of Roger Ailes or other culprits. However, I would argue that it’s really hard to sustain a career even in the wingnutosphere by trying to subsist on table scraps from Glenn Beck and Alex Jones (and probably Rusty and Drudge too).

Also, I came across this item in which Repug U.S. House Rep Lamar Smith, a particularly notorious climate change denier (at least when it comes to whether or not human activity is to blame), decried $700,000 that the National Science Foundation allegedly spent on a global warming musical (and did I mention that Smith is in charge of the House Science Committee?).

Maybe this really happened and maybe it didn’t, but here is what I know…I checked the web site for the National Science Foundation (here), and I’ve spent a few minutes trying to locate this award on their site, and I can’t find it.

And it’s not as if Smith doesn’t already have a history of making incendiary charges, as noted here.

Continuing, I give you the following via Rich Lowry, on the whole Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Wood thing about companies not wanting to provide health care coverage for “conscience” reasons…

Hobby Lobby is trying to fend off the federal government via the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law that Democrats used to support before they realized how inconvenient it would prove to the Obama-era project of running roughshod over moral traditionalists. The act says that government can’t substantially burden someone’s exercise of religion unless there’s a compelling governmental interest at stake and it’s pursued by the least restrictive means.

I don’t have anything particularly brilliant to add here, but I only wanted to point out that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was originally passed and signed into law in 1996, with the following intended purpose…

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to all religions, but is most pertinent to Native American religions that are burdened by increasing expansion of government projects onto sacred land. In Native American religion the land they worship on is very important. Often the particular ceremonies can only take place in certain locations because these locations have special significance.[5] This, along with peyote use are the main parts of Native American religions that are often left unprotected.

So, as a pretext for allowing business to pick and choose health care coverage for their employees based on their moral sensibilities, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood are seeking protection by citing a law that was originally passed to allow Native Americans to use peyote and mescaline during religious ceremonies.

So then, I guess drugs are OK, but for conservatives, protection against the dreaded (in their minds, anyway) “lady parts” isn’t.

Hmmm…

I think this is going to be another ruling that The Supremes slide under the proverbial door as they’re getting ready to leave Washington, D.C. in a couple of months. However, if they end up ruling on the side of faith instead of existing statute (a 50-50 bet as far as I’m concerned), then employers will be able to offer (or not offer) any health insurance that they want. Which will end up hastening the extinction of the whole “employer-based health insurance” model, which was bound to happen anyway.

And, by default, that means that anyone seeking coverage will have no choice but to go to an exchange. Which will probably provide better and more affordable coverage, truth be told.

And 10 years or so from now, the next generation is going to wonder what the fuss was all about. And given that, how many of them will actually vote for Republicans, who are overwhelmingly responsible for the fuss in the first place?

(And by the way, I thought this was some interesting “food for thought” on this subject.)

Finally, I checked into Mikey the Beloved’s U.S. House web page to find out what he’s doing when it comes to Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!, and I found these items…

The bottom link tells us that Mikey apparently appeared at a job fair, which is positive; no word, though, on any discussion he may have had with any of the attendees. And in the job fair story, we learn that Mikey has supported 25 “jobs” bills.

Really?

Since there’s no further information on these “jobs” bills from his web page, I navigated to the Republican Party web site to try and learn more. And this takes us to the party’s “jobs” page.

Which contains no actual links to actual jobs bills, of course.

On the other hand, this tells us of legislative accomplishments by congressional Democrats (and the typical Republican Party obstruction is duly noted).

The only way this nonsense is going to stop is by voting in a Democratic congressional majority once more. And to help get that done, click here.

Monday Mashup (10/21/13)

From the “road to hell paved with good intentions” department (still in the wake of the shut down misery), I give you this from Brent Budowsky…

The president and Congress should agree to enact a one-time, limited-duration tax holiday to permit American companies to repatriate foreign-held capital at a tax rate of 12 percent, and use the revenue to finance a large infrastructure rebuild of American roads, bridges, ports and schools.

This package would include a clean continuing resolution to reopen and fund the government and a clean extension of the debt ceiling, which would both expire Dec. 31, 2014. Larger talks could begin immediately without the blackmail and extortion of repeated threats to shut down the U.S. government or trigger a U.S. default and global financial crash — tactics that are repugnant to the American way and intensely disapproved of by a large majority of the nation.

I think Budowsky is a pretty bright guy, but if he’s serious about this, then I think he should also come out in support of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, sponsored by Democrats Carl Levin of Michigan in the Senate and Lloyd Doggett of Texas in the House (here). Because, as the Daily Kos post tells us, the Institute for Policy Studies has determined just how bad an idea a “tax holiday” would be, listing the “Top 10 Layoff Leaders” of U.S. firms between 2004 and 2011, all of who benefitted from repatriated millions from 2004-2005.

As far as I’m concerned, if these malefactors really had any interest in helping our economy grow, they never would have offshored the earnings in the first place.

Next (and continuing with the corporate media post-mortem on the events of this week), I give you Howard Kurtz of Fix Noise here…

But the Ted Cruz wing is also getting beat up from the conservative side, as in this New York Times column by Ross Douthat (by the way, the “Kurtz Republicans” headline refers not to me, of course, but to Colonel Kurtz of “Apocalypse Now” fame).

“There is still something well-nigh-unprecedented about how Republicans have conducted themselves of late,” Douthat writes. “It’s not the scale of their mistake, or the kind of damage that it’s caused, but the fact that their strategy was such self-evident folly, so transparently devoid of any method whatsoever.

I guess this is a bit of “concern trolling” by Kurtz and Douthat; as noted here, there very definitely was a “method” behind the near-catastrophic antics of “Caribbean Cruz” and his playmates this week.

And this tells us how the fight was set up by, among others, former Reaganite Ed Meese, who, for a time, was in charge of something called the Conservative Action Project (now run by former Repug congressman David McIntosh)…

The defunding idea, Mr. Meese said, was “a logical strategy.” The idea drew broad support. Fiscal conservatives like Chris Chocola, the president of the Club for Growth, signed on to the blueprint. So did social and religious conservatives, like the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition.

The document set a target date: March 27, when a continuing resolution allowing the government to function was to expire. Its message was direct: “Conservatives should not approve a C.R. unless it defunds Obamacare.”

But the March date came and went without a defunding struggle. In the Senate, Mr. Cruz and Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, talked up the defunding idea, but it went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled chamber. In the House, Mr. Boehner wanted to concentrate instead on locking in the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, and Tea Party lawmakers followed his lead. Outside advocates were unhappy but held their fire.

“We didn’t cause any trouble,” Mr. Chocola said.

Yet by summer, with an August recess looming and another temporary spending bill expiring at the end of September, the groups were done waiting.

“I remember talking to reporters at the end of July, and they said, ‘This didn’t go anywhere,’ ” Mr. Needham recalled. “What all of us felt at the time was, this was never going to be a strategy that was going to win inside the Beltway. It was going to be a strategy where, during August, people would go home and hear from their constituents, saying: ‘You pledged to do everything you could to stop Obamacare. Will you defund it?’ ”

Heritage Action, which has trained 6,000 people it calls sentinels around the country, sent them to open meetings and other events to confront their elected representatives. Its “Defund Obamacare Town Hall Tour,” which began in Fayetteville, Ark., on Aug. 19 and ended 10 days later in Wilmington, Del., drew hundreds at every stop.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, led by Mr. DeMint when he was in the Senate, put up a Web site in July called dontfundobamacare.com and ran television ads featuring Mr. Cruz and Mr. Lee urging people to tell their representatives not to fund the law.

When Senator Richard M. Burr, a North Carolina Republican, told a reporter that defunding the law was “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” the fund bought a radio ad to attack him. Two other Republican senators up for re-election in 2014, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were also targeted. Both face Tea Party challengers.

In Washington, Tea Party Patriots, which created the defunding tool kit, set up a Web site, exemptamerica.com, to promote a rally last month showcasing many of the Republicans in Congress whom Democrats — and a number of fellow Republicans — say are most responsible for the shutdown.

While conservatives believe that the public will back them on defunding, a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a majority — 57 percent — disapproves of cutting off funding as a way to stop the law.

Last week, with the health care exchanges open for business and a number of prominent Republicans complaining that the “Defund Obamacare” strategy was politically damaging and pointless, Mr. Needham of Heritage Action said he felt good about what the groups had accomplished.

“It really was a groundswell,” he said, “that changed Washington from the outside in.”

There has been a very definite, coordinated, deep-funded apparatus at work on the right to kill the Affordable Care Law, which most certainly constitutes a “method.” And we saw it come to life in truly hideous fruition over the last few weeks.

And if anyone thinks that these fools and frauds have been chastened in any way (more here)…

So now that we’ve returned to something approximating a “status quo” in Washington, D.C. (and I STILL can’t believe how the Dems stuck to their guns and routed Boehner and his pals – kudos), I guess that means that it’s time for the Foxies to return to one of their biggest spectator sports, and that is to blame Number 44 for the supposedly out-of-control federal deficit, that is robbing our kids and our grandkids and our grand-grandkids, or whatever (here – of course, not a peep about the environmental state of this planet, rampant income inequality, waste of alternative energy resources, etc.).

Which means, I suppose, that it’s time for a reminder on how we got into this fiscal mess in the first place (here). And as noted here, we’re paying down the debt faster than anyone anticipated anyway.

Oh, and also in the matter of the economy, this tells us what the party of Boehner, Cantor, Ryan, McConnell, etc. has wrought, basically killing any hope of a turnaround just to stick it to that Kenyan Muslim Socialist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So what remains as the hot new “boom town” in this country? Tyler Cowen gives us a commercial for Texas here (cheap energy, a potential glut of “high-tech skill” jobs, low taxes, micro-houses – ?).

Well, that may be all well and good, but what does it matter if the whole damn state is running out of water (here)?

This is of course to be expected from Cowen, who once claimed here that income inequality made the “99 percent” more industrious, or something (second bullet).

Continuing, someone named Todd Starnes decries the quite-appropriate designation of the American Family Association as a “hate group” here.

Want to know why? Check out some of the quotes from here…

“Homosexuality is a poor and dangerous choice, and has been proven to lead to a litany of health hazards to not only the individuals but also society as a whole.”
–AFA Action Alert, July 20, 2012

“[Islam] is, in fact, a religion of war, violence, intolerance, and physical persecution of non-Muslims.”
–Tim Wildmon, March 6, 2012

“The homosexual movement is a progressive outgrowth of the sexual revolution of the past 40 years and will lead to the normalization of even more deviant behavior.”
– Don Wildmon, AFA website, 1999 (still posted as of 2011).

“Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.”
– Bryan Fischer, AFA director of issue analysis for government and public policy, 2010

Basically, the AFA Is so nuts that they even accused the Foxies of having “gone gay” here.

I report, you decide (way too damn funny).

Further, “Chuckles” Krauthammer of the WaPo basically says that the pro football team for Washington, D.C. should change its nickname because it’s hurtful to a minority group, or something (here).

I’m not saying that such an argument doesn’t have merit, but I think it’s typically ridiculous for it to come from someone like Krauthammer, who has never been shy about using demeaning language against those with whom he disagrees, to say nothing of propagating outright falsehoods:

He called Obama a “narcissist” here (an “evergreen,” I realize).

He baselessly (of course) accused the Obama Administration of “lawlessness” in its policy to encourage prosecutors not to seek mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders (here).

He also pushed the false claim here that the Obama Administration encouraged government agencies to draft talking points without references to terrorism in the BENGHAZI!!! attacks in order to protect the ongoing investigation (in reality, agencies such as the FBI and CIA made that decision, not the White House).

Also, Krauthammer said that the ruinous effect of the sequester were “the most ridiculously hyped Armageddon since the Mayan Calendar” here (spoken like a truly “kept” member of the Beltway political-media-industrial complex).

(And this is just for this year – imagine how many links I’d have if I bothered to research, oh, say the last decade of quotes from Krauthammer?)

By the way, I really don’t have a dog in the fight, as it were, on the question of the Washington Redskins being renamed – the owner of the Washington Bullets basketball team changed the name to Wizards after the murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (he and Rabin were friends), so there is a precedent.

I just think it’s a little funny that there’s such a brouhaha over the Washington pro football team, but I don’t hear a word spoken about the logo of the Cleveland, Ohio professional baseball team.

Finally (and sticking with sports, and minority rights) this tells us that last Friday was the 45th anniversary of the removal of Tommie Smith and John Carlos from the 1968 Olympic Games after their “black power” salute.

And as noted here…

(Today), that frozen, dramatic moment of 1968 resistance is far more likely to be celebrated than criticized. Smith and Carlos are now routinely lauded for their bravery and daring. As ESPN proclaimed bluntly upon giving Smith and Carlos their Arthur Ashe Courage Award in 2008, “They were right.”

No one was saying that in 1968. Amidst the angry denunciations, there was one column, published in the Chicago American newspaper, that was particularly ugly. The journalist responsible has never deigned to comment or explain, let alone apologize, for why he decided upon the words he chose. The writer became an iconic broadcaster who now sits comfortably as the elder statesman of the sports world. He appears in family friendly movies like The Waterboy and Cars 2. His name is Brent Musburger.

In 1968 Musburger was a restless, ambitious young sports writer looking to make his name. He found his opportunity when Smith and Carlos made their stand. Musburger didn’t see a demonstration. He saw a target.

“One gets a little tired of having the United States run down by athletes who are enjoying themselves at the expense of their country,” he wrote. Musburger then infamously called Smith and Carlos “a pair of black-skinned stormtroopers.”

…

To this day, mention Musburger’s name to John Carlos and he grits his teeth. This is particularly illustrative because Carlos is fond of saying that he has no hate in his heart toward anyone even after all the isolation and criticism he endured. As he is fond of saying, “Bitterness leads to cancer which leads to death and I have too much work to do to have time for any of that.” Name a nemesis of his from 1968, like Jesse Owens or another member of the media and he responds with a smile and recounts how in private, they buried the hatchet. But not Musburger.

“We are talking about someone who compared us to Nazis. Think about that. Here we are standing up to apartheid and to a man in Avery Brundage who delivered the Olympics to Hitler’s Germany. And here’s Musburger calling us Nazis. That got around. It followed us. It hurt us. It hurt my wife, my kids. I’ve never been able to confront him about why he did this. Every time I’ve been at a function or an event with Brent Musburger and I walk towards him, he heads the other way.”

The actions of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Olympic Games long ago showed courage and fortitude. They knew full well the consequences of their actions, and they engaged in them anyway. It’s what real men (and women) do.

And apparently, Brent Musburger, by his failure to owe up to his callow, hurtful words and deeds (for which he should have apologized long ago), doesn’t know a thing about the behavior of real men.

Friday Mashup (8/30/13)

I came across this item from clownhall.com and columnist Walter Williams, and I thought it best to offer it pretty much with just my opinion on it and no links to other stuff (he’s upset because his employer, George Mason University – first sign of trouble – apparently has told him that he has to attend some kind of sexual harassment prevention training; sounds like it was mandated across the board for all university employees)…

I’m guilty of gross violation of equality of opportunity, racism and possibly sexism. Back in 1960, when interviewing people to establish a marital contract, every woman wasn’t given an equal opportunity. I discriminated against not only white, Indian, Asian, Mexican and handicapped women but men of any race. My choices were confined to good-looking black women. You say, “Williams, that kind of discrimination doesn’t harm anyone!” Nonsense! When I married Mrs. Williams, other women were harmed by having a reduced opportunity set.

I’ve read this paragraph about four times, and I still can’t totally get my head around (as they say) the unbelievable egotism of that remark, to say nothing of sexism.

I will give Williams points for consistency, though. As noted here from about three years ago, he was cited by Ed Schultz for saying pretty much the same thing, equating mistreatment from a private business as the same thing as what one does when picking a spouse (at the time, he also complimented a caller for the caller’s wife being “under control” or something). The line about other women “having a reduced opportunity set” when Williams decided to marry is an obnoxious new wrinkle, though.

This, to me, is part of what lies in the coal-black heart of movement conservatism, my fellow prisoners, and that is a loathing bordering on outright animosity towards anyone or anything that isn’t in their little club (women, minorities, LGBT individuals, the poor, the elderly, children, anyone who has paid into a government entitlement of any kind who, quite rightly, now expects a payout for any one of a number of reasons, etc.).

One more thing – if my employer told me “Doomsy, we just implemented a company-wide policy dictating that everyone has to take a sexual harassment awareness course within a year,” guess what? I would do it and be grateful for the opportunity to still collect a paycheck (though I’m sure Williams, who occasionally sits in for the OxyContin addict on his radio show, has at least one other “revenue stream” to draw on if his employer fires his sorry ass to enforce a principle…how lucky can a guy get?).

Next, I have to admit a bit of perverse curiosity to see how the wingnutosphere covered the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech; I saw some truly ponderous piffle that I decided to ignore…but then I happened to come across this from Jennifer Rubin of Jeff Bezos Daily…

President Obama has consistently and deliberately tried to identify with Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln and FDR. It’s not enough to let pundits and the public make these analogies, the president goes out of his way to announce his connection with these historical giants, no matter how strained the analogy. Who can blame him? He’s a president whose approval is under water, whose domestic agenda is stalled and whose foreign policy is in utter disarray. A failing president naturally wants to walk in others’ shoes.

As far as Obama’s approval rating being “under water,” this from Fix Noise (yeah, I know) has him at 42 percent – not great I know, but a number Obama’s wretched predecessor would have grabbed with both hands, as it were, if he had the chance.

And speaking of Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History and a “connection with…historical giants, no matter how strained the analogy,” I give you this from the 2000 Rethuglican National Convention in the City of Brotherly Love (and as noted here, Rubin is a Dubya cheerleader from waay back)…

Mr. Chairman, delegates, and my fellow citizens … I accept your nomination. Thank you for this honor. Together, we will renew America’s purpose.

Our founders first defined that purpose here in Philadelphia … Ben Franklin was here. Thomas Jefferson. And, of course, George Washington — or, as his friends called him, “George W.”

And that was before he was even “elected” (sorry to make you revisit that).

And another thing – the only way Obama “associated” with Dr. King was to make a speech to commemorate the anniversary. How does that qualify as “associating”? Others, including veep Joe Biden, gave speeches – does that mean Biden is “associating” with Dr. King too? If not, why not?

Actually, given all of this, I think the former ombudsman for the WaPo is definitely onto something here.

Continuing, I came across a bit of a curious item here…

MSNBC’s Karen Finney on Monday hung up on conservative talker Hugh Hewitt after he repeatedly asked her during an interview on his radio show to say whether Alger Hiss was a communist.

Hewitt had Finney on his program to discuss her statement on her weekend show that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s rhetoric on health care is reminiscent of the “fear stoking” of Joe McCarthy, who she said “also wanted to take his country back, then it was from the communists who had supposedly infiltrated it.” While Cruz’s mission might be different than McCarthy’s, Finney told viewers of her show “Disrupt,” “the rhetoric sounds eerily the same.”

Well, apparently, after Finney called into Hewitt’s show, the host started badgering her with questions asking her if she knew of any communists that had infiltrated the U.S. government during the McCarthy era. And things predictably went downhill from there to the point where Hewitt started badgering Finney also with the Alger Hiss stuff.

When I heard about this, the following question occurred to me: why would Finney call into the Hewitt show in the first place? Did she honestly think Hewitt would be interested in having a serious discussion of whether or not “Calgary” Cruz was really using tactics a la Joe McCarthy? How would she not know that, typical for right-wing media, she would be attacked immediately for some minor or even imaginary point, with the fairly substantive issue she raised being totally ignored?

As far as I’m concerned, a phrase used to describe our politics any more with a variation of the name “McCarthy” in it is a bit trite by now. I’m not saying we should ignore real or potential demagogues, only that, if we’re going to engage in accusations, we should be as precise as we can be.

That being said, I don’t know if Cruz is really the Joe McCarthy of our era or not (no many culprits to choose from, unfortunately…Steve King, Louie Gohmert, Steve Stockman…almost a new one every week). What I do know is that, when the comparison to McCarthy was mentioned to Cruz, he embraced it, as noted here (to me, the correct answer should have been “I don’t appreciate that comparison, I wish you wouldn’t make it, and I defy you to show me how it is appropriate,” which of course would lead to a substantive discussion – exactly the sort of thing Cruz doesn’t want, apparently).

And in the matter of Alger Hiss, I don’t know whether he was a communist or not. I do know that he was convicted of perjury, not espionage, and he spent the rest of his life trying to clear his name (and in a bit of a historical quirk, he managed to outlive his chief accuser, then-Republican U.S. House Representative Richard Nixon of Whittier, CA, by two years).

Further (and I don’t know if anyone else will care about this except me, but here I go anyway), I came across the following item from The Weakly Standard…

President Obama and Attorney General Holder met with a group of 18 mayors at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting was billed as a discussion “with mayors from cities around the country to discuss reducing youth violence.” And although Republicans hold about a quarter of mayoral positions in the fifty largest cities in the U.S., only one Republican mayor was in attendance at the meeting: Greg Ballard of Indianapolis. The remaining mayors included sixteen Democrats and one independent.

According to recent data, there are twelve Republicans among the mayors of the fifty largest U.S. cities. Twelve of the eighteen cities represented at the White House meeting are among those fifty.

OK, so the inference is pretty clear here that President Obama wanted to meet pretty much with Democratic mayors and nobody else. Got it.

So, with that in mind, I put together the following table from the information linked to Wikipedia nested in the Standard post on the 50 largest U.S. cities as well as other information in the Standard post, and I came up with the following table (R stands for Republican, D for Democrat, and I for Independent, in case you had any doubt about that).

Name	City	R	D	I	Attended
Bach, Steve	Colorado Springs	X
Ballard, Greg	Indianapolis	X			Y
Barrett, Tom	Milwaukee		X		Y
Bartlett, Jr., Dewey	Tulsa	X
Berry, Richard	Albuquerque	X
Bing, Dave	Detroit		X
Bloomberg, Michael	NYC			X
Booker, Cory	Newark, NJ		X		Y
Brewer, Carl	Wichita		X
Brown, Alvin	Jacksonville		X
Castro, Julian	San Antonio		X
Cluck, Robert	Arlington, TX	X
Coleman, Michael	Columbus, OH		X
Cook, John	El Paso		X
Cornett, Mick	Oklahoma City	X
Dean, Karl	Nashville		X
Emanuel, Rahm	Chicago		X
Filner, Bob (for now)	San Diego		X
Fischer, Greg	Louisville		X
Foster, Bob	Long Beach		X
Garcetti, Eric	LA		X
Goodman, Carolyn	Las Vegas			X
Gray, Vincent	Washington, D.C.		X		Y
Hales, Charlie	Portland, OR		X
Hancock, Mike	Denver		X
Jackson, Frank	Cleveland		X
James, Sly	Kansas City, MO			X	Y
Johnson, Kevin	Sacramento		X		Y
Kinsey, Patsy	Charlotte		X
Landrieu, Mitch	New Orleans		X		Y
Lee, Ed	San Francisco		X
Leffingwell, Lee	Austin		X
Mallory, Mark	Cincinnati		X		Y
McFarlane, Nancy	Raleigh			X
McGinn, Mike	Seattle		X
Menino, Thomas	Boston		X
Nutter, Michael	Philadelphia		X		Y
Parker, Annise	Houston		X		Y
Price, Betsy	Fort Worth	X
Quan, Jean	Oakland		X		Y
Rawlings, Mike	Dallas		X
Rawlings-Blake, Stephanie	Baltimore		X		Y
Reed, Chuck	San Jose		X		Y
Reed, Kasim	Atlanta		X
Regalado, Tomas	Miami	X
Rothschild, Jon	Colorado Springs		X
Rybak, R.T.	Minneapolis		X		Y
Sessoms, Will	Virginia Beach	X
Slay, Francis	St. Louis		X		Y
Smith, Scott	Mesa	X
Stanton, Greg	Phoenix		X
Stothert, Jean	Omaha	X
Swearengin, Ashley	Fresno	X
Walling, Dayne	Flint		X		Y
Ward, Molly	Hampton		X		Y
Wharton, A.C.	Memphis		X		Y

What we learn is that, as the Standard tells us, 11 Republican mayors were indeed absent.

Do you know, however, how many Democratic mayors were absent also? 23, that’s how many.

And they are as follows:

Bing, Dave
Brewer, Carl
Brown, Alvin
Castro, Julian
Cook, John
Dean, Karl
Emmanuel, Rahm
Filner, Bob (for now)
Fischer, Greg
Foster, Bob
Garcetti, Eric
Hales, Charlie
Hancock, Mike
Jackson, Frank
Kinsey, Patsy
Leffingwell, Lee
Hales, Charlie
Hancock, Mike
Jackson, Frank
Rawlings, Mike
Reed, Kasim
Rothschild, Jon
Stanton, Greg

I should add that I do not have any information from the White House on who was actually invited (and I‘m assuming the Standard is correct in who actually attended), so the table above reflects a bit of guesswork on my part from the available information.

I realize that the wingnutosphere really doesn’t have a reason to exist unless it’s trying to gin up one type of “scandal” or another, but as these things go, this one is pretty “weak tea.”

Finally, it seems that conservatives overall are all lovey-dovey with actor Ashton Kutcher over a speech he recently gave at the Teen Choice Awards, in which he stated the following (recounted here by Cal Thomas of Fix Noise, self-appointed spokesman for supposedly all things moral)…

Following screams from young female fans in the audience, Kutcher silenced them with a motivational message that bordered on inspiration. He told them: “I believe that opportunity looks a lot like hard work. … I’ve never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job. And every job I had was a steppingstone to my next job, and I never quit my job until I had my next job.”

Kutcher wasn’t through: “The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart and being thoughtful and being generous. Everything else is c–p … that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less. So don’t buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful and be generous.”

…

If only Washington politicians would think and talk this way.

Actually, one of them did recently, stating the following from here (and yes, he’s African American – probably just gave it away)…

We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices. Growing up, I made a few myself. And I have to confess, sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. But one of the things you’ve learned over the last four years is that there’s no longer any room for excuses. I understand that there’s a common fraternity creed here at Morehouse: ‘excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness.’ We’ve got no time for excuses – not because the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they haven’t. Not because racism and discrimination no longer exist; that’s still out there. It’s just that in today’s hyperconnected, hypercompetitive world, with a billion young people from China and India and Brazil entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything you haven’t earned. And whatever hardships you may experience because of your race, they pale in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured – and overcame.

…

“Be a good role model and set a good example for that young brother coming up. If you know someone who isn’t on point, go back and bring that brother along. The brothers who have been left behind – who haven’t had the same opportunities we have – they need to hear from us. We’ve got to be in the barbershops with them, at church with them, spending time and energy and presence helping pull them up, exposing them to new opportunities, and supporting their dreams.

And yes, it was this guy (and by the way, Mr. President, on an unrelated but much more urgent matter, please read this).

But of course, talking down to others and implying (or even saying outright) that they are somehow immoral or inferior, as Thomas does here about Hollywood and Washington politicians overall, is definitely taking a page, as it were, out of the movement conservative playbook.

Which, more than anyone else, was written by this guy.

Update: And this generates a sigh of relief on Syria, by the way – how much do you want to bet that, had Number 43 still been in charge, bombs would be dropping all over the place with scores dead and unaccounted for (and legitimate this time) WMDs all over the Middle East, threats of terrorism would be erupting from all over the region, and the demented child-king in An Oval Office would have sneered at the world, saying, “Are you with us or are you against us?” (with families of military members anxious over which God-forsaken location on earth their loved ones would be sent this time).

Wednesday Mashup (8/14/13)

Looks like it’s time to rally around the supposedly oh-so-put-upon American Legislative Exchange Council, as the Murdoch Street Journal tells us here…

The campaign to suppress political speech has found its next tactic, using outrage over Trayvon Martin’s killing in Florida as a hammer. (Last) Wednesday, Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin sent a letter to corporate and nonprofit supporters of the American Legislative Exchange Council, asking them to disclose their positions on stand-your-ground legislation that ALEC supported in Florida in 2005.

ALEC is a group of state legislators from around the country that promotes center-right reform ideas, mostly on economic issues. It has had success spreading those ideas, which has made it a target of liberal activists trying to cut off its funding.

Like the Repugs did successfully to ACORN, a left-wing advocacy organization which no longer exists, let’s not forget.

Enter Mr. Durbin. “Although ALEC does not maintain a public list of corporate members or donors, other public documents indicate that your company funded ALEC at some point during the period between ALEC’s adoption of model ‘stand your ground’ legislation in 2005 and the present day,” Mr. Durbin writes in the letter to groups and companies that have donated to ALEC.

Since support for ALEC doesn’t “necessarily mean” that it endorses every position taken by the organization, Mr. Durbin continues, he is “seeking clarification” on whether companies that have “funded ALEC’s operations in the past currently support ALEC and the model ‘stand your ground’ legislation.” Oh, and by the way, the letter concludes, he intends to make the responses public at a Congressional hearing in September.

Translation: If your company engages in political debate or supports conservative groups, he will tie your name to controversies or force you to publicly disclaim positions taken by groups you support. Mr. Durbin knows that if he can drive a wedge between ALEC and its corporate donors, it will help cripple the group’s influence on issues like tax policy and education and remove a significant voice for conservative reform in the states, including Illinois.

“Conservative reform” being code for gutting clean air and water laws, trying to abolish public school education, disenfranchising poor and minority voters, et cetera…

The plan also sends up a flare for Mr. Durbin’s allies at agitprop outfits like MoveOn.org, which will then target for public abuse and perhaps boycott the companies whose names Mr. Durbin exposes.

By the way, isn’t it interesting how the Journal refers to ALEC as a group that “promotes center-right reform ideas” and MoveOn.org is an “agitprop outfit.”

The strategy was used against Target retail stores in 2010, when MoveOn pushed a boycott because Target donated to a group that in turn donated to a GOP candidate for Minnesota Governor.

MoveOn “targeted” Target, if you will, because the company did indeed donate $150,000 to a Minnesota politician who opposes gay marriage, but decided not to give a matching amount to pro-gay candidates for balance (here).

Did Target have a right to do that? Yes. Did MoveOn.org have a right to push its boycott in response? Again, yes.

To me, it just sounds like democracy in action (which is messy at times, for a reason). Of course, leave it to the Journal to view it as a lefty conspiracy, or something.

ALEC was targeted last year when former White House aide Van Jones accused the group and its donors of racism during the election-year fight over voter ID laws. Through letters and media smear campaigns…

Proof?

…the group succeeded in getting such non-profiles in courage as Coca-Cola, Mars and Kraft to stop donating to ALEC. One result is that ALEC closed its task forces that dealt with non-economic issues.

That was an effort to minimize the political fallout for members and donors around issues that weren’t ALEC’s core mission, but now Democrats are back for more.

Oh, so the Journal knows what ALEC’s “core mission” is? Oh, right – “center/right reform ideas”…uh huh. And apparently, that includes widespread lobbying while claiming tax-exempt status, as noted here.

Mr. Durbin knows that companies making hamburgers or allergy drugs don’t care about stand-your-ground laws. His goal is to scare them with reputational damage by mentioning them in the same breath as Trayvon Martin. This is how the modern left—via the IRS, the Federal Election Commission and now in Congress—tries to stifle political debate.

Ha and ha (and I would say that writing an editorial like this without noting that the Journal is itself a member of ALEC is an attempt to “stifle political debate” also, as noted here – and of course, lefties were targeted by the IRS too, a fact the Journal choose to ignore).

Oh, and assuming a bill is ever signed into law containing language directly from an “agitprop outfit” like MoveOn.org (this Michigan “right to work” bill received that treatment, including language that came directly from ALEC), I’m sure the Journal will let me know – yeah, right.

Update 8/15/13: More here…

Next, I have a feeling that the other Bush brother is getting a little antsy about all the big media love doled out to fellow Repugs (and potential 2016 presidential candidates) Rand “Fake Ophthalmologist” Paul and Ted “Calgary” Cruz (to say nothing of Governor Bully, of course), and I guess the former FAL guv thought he had to make a splash somehow (here)…

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on Wednesday criticized actor Matt Damon, a vocal public-school advocate, for sending his children to private school.

Matt Damon Refuses to Enroll Kids in Los Angeles Public Schools. Choice ok for Damon, why not everyone else? http://t.co/yHrTbakeIW

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) August 6, 2013

“I’ll take ‘Desperately Trying To Remain Relevant Somehow’ for 100, Alex!”

There are a few directions you can go with this, but for now, I’d like to point out the following (here, in which the Daily Kos diarist notes that the “research” in support of school choice is largely bankrolled by the Walton Family, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the usual coterie of right-wing propagandists)…

School choice may, in fact, hold some promises for reforming education since “choice” is central to human agency and empowerment. But the school choice movement and its advocates are the least likely avenues for us ever realizing what school choice has to offer because the advocates are primarily driven by ideology and funding coming from sources that have intentions that have little to do with universal public education for free and empowered people.

And the growing evidence that corporate charter schools as the latest choice mechanism are causing harm–in terms of segregation and stratification of student populations–is cause for alarm for all people along the spectrum of school reform and school choice. [5]

If a school choice advocate sticks to the talking-points script and will not acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that out-of-school factors determine student outcomes, that evidence is mounting that choice stratifies schools, and that evidence on how school is delivered (public, private, charter) is mixed and similar among all types of schooling, then that advocate isn’t worth our time and isn’t contributing to a vibrant and open debate that could help move us toward school reform that benefits each student and our larger society.

And on top of that, this tells us the following…

Charter school trends vary substantially across different regions of the country. Latinos are under-enrolled in charter schools in some Western states where they comprise the largest share of students. At the same time, a dozen states (including those with high concentrations of Latino students like Arizona and Texas) report that a majority of Latino charter students attend intensely segregated minority schools. Patterns in the West and in a few areas in the South, the two most racially diverse regions of the country, also suggest that charters serve as havens for white flight from public schools. Finally, in the industrial Midwest, more students enroll in charter schools compared to other regions, and midwestern charter programs display high concentrations of black students.

…

Since Brown v. Board of Education, public schools have been compelled to address this disparity. That public schools have been inconsistent in this mission is a conclusion that is not in dispute.

Charter schools on the other hand, — especially those operated by national Charter Management Organizations like KIPP and National Heritage Academies — tend to reinforce geographic racial patterns in their marketing appeals. On their websites and in their printed materials, these charter chains invariably promote their abilities to educate “underserved” communities and “close achievement gaps,” even though there is no evidence that charters in general are any better at this than traditional public schools. In fact, many of them are worse.

But beyond all of that, this tells us, among other things, that Jeb Bush is criticizing actor Matt Damon for doing something Bush did himself (oh, and last I checked, Matt Damon isn’t a potential candidate for any government office whatsoever).

However, I’ll let a professed Jeb Bush supporter get the last word here…

Actually, no, he isn’t.

Continuing, it looks like John Lott is all up in arms (pun intended) over keeping the identity of gun owners a secret (here). Funny, but I didn’t see NRA members being so shy when it came to showing off their hardware at a Starbucks in Newtown, CT recently, as noted here (the place where the Sandy Hook school carnage took place last year, for the benefit of anyone who has somehow forgotten that – to the credit of the Starbucks store, it closed early on Friday, but it should not have had to do that).

(I suddenly realized that, in accordance with the ALEC editorial earlier, the Murdoch Street Journal would probably try to accuse me now of suppressing the legitimate free speech of the NRA…I have a two-word response, and it isn’t “happy birthday,” or “lock n’ load.”)

I wonder if Lott is trying to hide the identity of gun owners also because, as determined in a 1994 study noted here, male gun owners were 2 ½ times more likely than non-gun owners to be arrested for non-traffic offenses? And by the way, as noted from the same HuffPo link, a 2012 survey found that most guns used in mass shootings were legally purchased – just an FYI.

Honestly, though, I think Lott and his pals have nothing to worry about (just whipping up phony outrage as usual). From what I’ve read, Gawker and the New York Journal News took so much flak for publishing the names of New York gun owners that I think the chilling effect of that alone would be enough to prevent anyone else from doing it.

Further, I give you Mark Hemingway of The Weakly Standard (here)…

On August 15, 2012, at 10:46 a.m.—one year ago this week—Floyd Lee Corkins entered the lobby of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. He was carrying a backpack that contained 15 Chick-fil-A -sandwiches, a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, and 100 rounds of ammunition. Corkins has since pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing for the crimes he proceeded to commit. He’s set to spend decades in a prison cell and fade into obscurity.

But Leo Johnson deserves to be remembered for his heroism that day. The building manager for the Family Research Council was manning the front desk that morning and let Corkins enter the building under the pretense he was a new intern. The video of what happened after that is remarkable.

After Corkins takes a suspiciously long time rummaging through his bag to produce identification, Johnson cannily stands up and walks around the desk to get a closer look at what Corkins is doing. Corkins bolts upright, gun in hand. Without the slightest hesitation, Johnson rushes Corkins, who fires twice. A bullet shatters Johnson’s left forearm. “And I just couldn’t hear anything, my arm just kind of blew back. So at that point I was thinking: ‘I have to get this gun,’ ” Johnson told The Weekly Standard. “That was my sole focus—I have to get this gun—this guy’s gonna kill me and kill everybody here.”

From there, Johnson somehow manages to push Corkins across the lobby and pin him against the wall with his bad arm. “I just started punching him as hard as I could, until I could feel his grip loosen,” recalled Johnson. Eventually he takes the gun from Corkins with his wounded arm. Before long, Corkins is subdued on the ground. Corkins now admits that it was his intention to shoot everyone in the building. There’s no question Johnson saved a lot of lives.

Leo Johnson’s actions were heroic, absolutely, and Hemingway’s piece tells us about all of Johnson’s difficulty with rehabilitation and medical bills, as well as caring for his elderly mother and very elderly grandmother (and yes, Corkins is just another cowardly idiot with a gun).

But if you think all of this is just a setup to take a shot at us lefties, then you win a commemorative Mexican terrorist doll with the face of Repug U.S. House Rep Louie Gohmert (the commemorative model with the face of Steve King has “calves the size of cantaloupes”).

Continuing…

There’s a lot that should be said about Johnson’s heroism, starting with the fact that it hasn’t been widely recognized. Over the last few years, thanks to events such as the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the George Zimmerman trial, the media have been subjecting us all to a constant and unavoidable national debate about the nexus of politics and violence. This has been unusually perplexing because the media persist in having this debate even when no connection between politics and violence exists.

Really?

The Family Research Council shooting is one of the few inarguable examples of politically motivated violence in recent years, yet looking back a year later, the incident has garnered comparatively little attention. Corkins openly admits he selected the Family Research Council because the Christian organization is one of the leading opponents of gay marriage in the country. He had Chick-fil-A sandwiches in his backpack because the CEO of the fast-food chain was under fire for publicly supporting a biblical definition of marriage. Corkins said he planned to “smother Chick-fil-A sandwiches in [the] faces” of his victims as a political statement. And in case that didn’t make his motivations transparent, right before Corkins shot Leo Johnson, he told him, “I don’t like your politics.”

Later in the column, Hemingway blames the Southern Poverty Law Center (as if they had anything to do with Corkins and his criminal behavior) for designating the Family Research Council as a “hate group” (with Leo Johnson basically wondering why anyone would do such a thing – making that designation against the FRC, I mean).

I’ll tell you why – as noted here…

The SPLC gave the Family Research Council the designation due to anti-gay speech from its leaders, which the SPLC says includes calls for gay men and lesbians to be imprisoned.

Labeling the Family Research Council a hate group puts one of Washington’s most powerful social issues advocates into the company of groups like the Nation of Islam and the now mostly defunct Aryan Nations in the eyes of the SPLC, which tracks 932 active hate groups in the U.S.

Groups are labeled hate groups by the SPLC — which made a name for itself by using civil lawsuits to severely weaken the KKK and other white supremacist groups — when they “have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” according to the group’s website.

…

The main offender in the eyes of the SPLC is Peter Sprigg, the FRC’s senior researcher and vocal opponent of the gay rights movement. In May, Sprigg told me that an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would lead to more American servicemen receiving unwelcome same-sex fellatio in their sleep, part of a long line of reasoning from Sprigg suggesting that gay men are more likely to be sex offenders than anyone else.

…

SPLC Research Director Heidi Beirich told me the FRC is part of a growing list of what the SPLC calls anti-gay groups masking themselves under the guise of conservatism or Christianity.

“What this really is is a wholesale defamation attack on gays and lesbians,” Beirich said. “Some of the stuff is just as crude if you compare it to, say, the Klan’s racism. But a lot of it’s a little more sophisticated and they try to make it more scientific even though what they’re pushing are falsehoods.”

I wish Leo Johnson all the best in his recovery, and he is of course entitled to his opinion no matter how much I may disagree. But to use the horrible attack he endured as an excuse to whitewash the FRC’s bigotry is a whole other level of repulsive that I didn’t think I could ever imagine from the wingnutosphere until now.

Finally, it looks like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina (do I need to mention the party?) is shocked, shocked I tell you! to hear Dem Senator and Majority Leader Harry Reid tell us that Republicans don’t like Obama because he’s an African American (here)…

Yeah, don’t you hate it when somebody makes up stuff like that?

“Instead of engaging in serious debate about the failed policies of this administration – from the ever-increasing burdens created by the national health care reform plan to the tax and spend approach to economic recovery, along with countless others – Democrats are once again trying to hide behind a smokescreen,” the Republican said.

Added Scott: “Our country deserves more from those in Washington. I hope Senator Reid will realize the offensive nature of his remarks and apologize to those who disagree with the President’s policies because of one thing – they are hurting hardworking American families.”

(Just as a reminder, this tells us once again that the “jobs” plan from congressional Republicans won’t create actual, y’know, jobs.)

And when it comes to “hurting hardworking American families,” Scott has a pretty good (which is to say, bad) track record, as noted here…

Scott attempted to prevent the families of striking workers from receiving food stamps (including kids).

He also tried to hurt the NLRB’s ability to go after law-breaking employers.

In addition, he also authored a bill that would have stripped the National Labor Relations Board of its ability to penalize companies that illegally move jobs in retaliation for workers exercising their legal rights.

Scott also supported a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act that determined that immigrant, Native American and LGBT women should be afforded no protections at all, as noted here.

Oh, and Scott also helped slash South Carolina’s HIV/AIDS budget and defended billions in subsidies to Big Oil. He also floated the idea of impeaching Obama over the 2011 debt ceiling nonsense (which led to the sequester, let’s not forget, in which “Man Tan” Boehner said he got “98 percent” of everything he wanted). And while he sat on the Charleston (SC) County Council, he wanted to spend an unlimited amount of money to display the Ten Commandments outside of a government building (all of this awfulness is noted here).

In conclusion, I’d like to point out that I think Harry Reid is wrong. Scott and his pals don’t oppose Obama because he’s black.

It’s merely because he’s a Democrat.

A Repug “40” Fraud On Health Care Reform

(Image from Public Citizen/Flickr)

As noted here from last Friday…

WASHINGTON — House Republicans plan a 40th attempt at repealing Obamacare (this) week, with legislation that would block the Internal Revenue Service from enforcing or implementing any portion of the health care reform law.

House Republicans have scheduled a vote next Friday on Rep. Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013.

“Public distrust continues of agency that has dozens of powers under Obamacare, and whose actions President Obama has called outrageous,” said Doug Heye, spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). “As an ever increasing number of Americans — including labor unions and moderate Democrats — worry that Obamacare has become a nightmare, it is critical to prevent the IRS from implementing any portion of the law.”

Both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) issued statements Friday afternoon blasting Republicans for the anticipated vote.

“It is only fitting that Republicans would waste the last week at work this summer voting for the 40th time to repeal the Affordable Care Act and continue their record of no jobs bills, no budget agreement, and no solutions for the middle class,” said Pelosi.

“Every day wasted on yet another repeal bill that will never be taken up by the Senate, much less survive a presidential veto, is another day that could have been spent advancing legislation to create jobs for the middle class, negotiating a balanced and bipartisan approach to deficits that can end the painful budget sequester, or debating a path forward on immigration reform,” added Hoyer.

Yep, that about says it as far as I’m concerned.

I should point out that, when I first became aware of the full extent of the stupidity in the U.S. House on this issue (scheduling repeal votes when, as noted in the Ezra Klein clip from here, health care reform is a “done deal”), they had only scheduled 31 repeal votes. And in response, I put together a series of posts from here focusing on 31 Republican U.S. House members who opposed health care reform (including our own Mikey the Beloved at #2 – I also mentioned then-Dem-reps Mike Ross and Dan Boren).

Well, since we’re now up to a 40th scheduled vote, I would say that it’s time to feature 9 more Republicans in the U.S. House, and in no particular order, here they are…

#32 – Blake Farenthold (TX – 27)

• Here, he compared the unemployed to drug addicts (nice).
• Here, he opposed funding food stamps (as part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) even though he received millions in farm subsidies (and he definitely had company on this one).
• And of course, as noted here, he wouldn’t be a good little Repug unless he was a member of the anti-science climate denier caucus.
• He was also a little too slow, to say the least, about realizing that budget cuts hurt the economy here.
• As noted here, his sister harbored a murder suspect (usually I leave civilians out of this stuff, but this is beyond the pale).

Update 8/12/13: This is yet another reason to vote Farenthold and his pals out of office as far as I’m concerned.

#33 – Diane Black (TN – 06)

• Here, she introduced legislation that basically bars federal government funding on Planned Parenthood (oh brother – yeah, like that would stand up to a court challenge).
• Here, she introduced legislation barring gays from adopting children (“Let’s see now, ‘Christian compassion,’ ‘Christian compassion’…I know they talk about it in the Bible somewhere, but I can’t find it!”).
• Here, she said that she “children with pre-existing conditions and chronic illnesses should not have to be covered under their parent’s plan by insurance companies. Her reasoning is that insurance companies would lose too much money” (wonder if she owns any stock?).
• Oh, and remember the supposedly humorous Email sent from Black’s aide Sherri Goforth (as in “Go forth and be stupid,” I guess) depicting President Obama as two eyes appearing against a black background (here)? And Goforth was merely “reprimanded” by Black in response, apparently.

#34 – Raul Labrador (ID – 01)

I give you Labrador on immigration (here)…

“The people that came here illegally knowingly — I don’t think they should have a path to citizenship,” he said on NPR, according to Talking Points Memo. “If you knowingly violated our law, you violated our sovereignty, I think we should normalize your status but we should not give you a pathway to citizenship.”

“Normalize your status”? What does that even mean? And as the story tells us, only about 10 percent of this country actually sides with Labrador.

Of course, Labrador is quick to blame Obama on immigration, as noted here – “A speech is not a bill?” Bills are supposed to come from Congress, not the White House, you moron.

And as noted from here, Labrador says that the Dems want to cover undocumented workers in health care reform, which is patently untrue…

This month, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) blamed a standoff over health-care benefits for his decision to drop out of bipartisan talks with seven colleagues who were negotiating a House alternative to the Senate immigration proposal. That has forced House leaders to proceed with a series of smaller-scale proposals next week in lieu of a sweeping agreement.“

When I joined the group, I was told that the aliens would have to pay for their own health care,” Labrador told Fox News. “Now that has changed. And I can’t agree to all of the exceptions.”

Frustrated Democrats argue that Republicans are picking a fight where one does not exist. In both chambers, Democrats say, they have agreed that illegal immigrants would not be eligible for public benefits – including health-care subsidies and Medicaid – as they embark on a path to permanent legal status, which would take at least 10 years under the Senate plan.“

We have said since day one that undocumented people will not have access to subsidies in the Affordable Care Act,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last month. “Any thought that we want to do something different than that is simply not true. It is a bottom line. No need to even discuss it.”

But of course, according to Labrador, the failure to pass immigration reform is the fault of the Dems – uh huh.

Update 8/26/13: Yeah, how dare those pesky civil rights workers get all “negative” (here)! Gosh, why can’t they sing and dance while facing voter ID obstruction and disenfranchisement?

#35 – Tom Cotton (AR – 04)

• Here, he said that he didn’t think women were qualified to serve in the military (nice – it should be pointed out, though, that Cotton actually did serve, unlike most other Repugs).
• Here, he said that Iraq was involved in 9/11 (ah, a golden oldie…oh, and when it comes to evaluating Number 43 and “Deadeye Dick,” Cotton believes 9/11 shouldn’t be included, as noted here).

The Arkansas Times link also tells us that he, like many others in his party, voted against relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and he’s a darling of the Club for Growth, no matter how that affects his congressional district…figures.

Cotton is a bit of a rising GOP star, though – he’s being prompted to challenge conservadem Mark Pryor for Pryor’s U.S. Senate seat (and apparently, based on this, he’s in…yep, no problem with ambition here, having not even finished his first term in the House after winning the seat vacated by Mike Ross).

And like a whole bunch of House Repugs (including Mikey the Beloved), Cotton voted to separate SNAP funding from the farm bill (here). Oh, and Cotton wants to punish not only those who violate economic sanctions against Iran (OK), but their family members too, as noted here (um, and why?).

Update 8/1/13: And I’m sure the Pryor campaign will have fun with this also.

Update 8/9/13: Why do I have a feeling that the fun is just beginning with this guy (here)?

#36 – Tim Huelskamp (KS – 01)

What a prize this guy is, if I do say so…

As far as Huelskamp is concerned, you’re not allowed to discuss gun control (particularly in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook carnage) because you would be advocating a “political agenda” (here).

He also said here that he would file a constitutional amendment to try and restore DOMA, despite the fact that it was overruled by John Roberts and The Supremes (but just remember, it’s “jobs, jobs, jobs” as far as Huelskamp, Cantor and Boehner are concerned). And in keeping with that, he spread more BS here about how kids supposedly do better in dysfunctional hetero families than functional same-sex ones (to the point where even Fluffyhead called him on it).

Basically, Huelskamp is such a Teahadist not job unwilling to compromise that he’s been removed by fellow Republicans from committee assignments (voted against the Violence Against Women Act, also voted against Sandy relief – of course…here).

But how do his constituents feel, I wonder…

“We hear criticisms that [Huelskamp] won’t get along, but that’s not what we elected him for. We elected him to vote for principle,” said Paula Carr, a 64-year-old who sells and repairs lawn and garden equipment. “Compromise is why we’re in the condition we’re in now — too much compromise over the last 30 years.’’

With all due respect to Ms. Carr, the main reason for the “too much comprise” over the last 30 years is because you’ve had the proverbial rug pulled out from under you by Republican politicians selling you “values voter” snake oil while income inequality has gotten worse and worse and worse. And at the risk of sounding like a snotty liberal, I should point out that it was up to you to overcome what I’m sure is your longstanding dislike of people with my political opinion and study the issues that truly matter with an open mind. And apparently, you failed to do so, to the point where you have sent a numbskull like Huelskamp to Washington, where he can do damage not just to your district but the whole country (and that quote means that you’re just as oblivious to that now as before).

Oh, and don’t count on Huelskamp to help with immigration reform either, since he thinks that appealing to Hispanics is “very discouraging” (here).

Take a bow, you voters in KS – 01…heckuva job!

Update 10/09/13: What a pathetic little slug (here).

Update 1/29/14: Yep, Huelskamp is just another “one trick pony” – when all else fails, just attack that gol-danged “li-bu-ruul media” (here – and as far as BENGHAZI! is concerned, as I’ve said at least half a dozen times, I don’t recall any outcry at all when our ambassador David Foy was murdered in Pakistan in 2006).

#37 – Jim Bridenstine (OK – 01)

• Bridenstine said here that the Supreme Court doesn’t get to decide which laws are constitutional, or something, in response to a question about the Affordable Care Act (Marbury v. Madison, jackass).
• He called President Obama “an incompetent, vengeful liar with no moral compass” on the floor of the U.S. House (here – yeah, just keep blaming us libs for how uncivil we were to Dubya; as usual, conservatives look in the mirror and see everyone’s reflection but their own).
• He demanded that Obama apologize to Oklahoma here for allocating funding for climate change research here (um, aren’t you just the slightest bit curious about what caused the Moore tornado, congressman?).
• And of course, being a typical Teahadist, Bridenstine is afraid “Man Tan” Boehner will “cave on taxes” because of the sequester, as noted here (maybe, instead of “taxes,” Bridenstine should worry about this instead; fat chance, I know).

(From the Chattanooga Times Free Press)

#38 – Scott DesJarlais (TN – 04)

I wish it could be said that all nine Repugs in this post are truly facing electoral problems for next year, but except for DesJarlais, I don’t think that’s apparent at the moment (love to be wrong). I guess the “line in the sand” for the Teahadists is when you betray them on “values” issues, as opposed to issues that actually impact their lives such as the sequester, jobs, health care, the environment, etc. (what a joke).

With that in mind, I give you this…

• He was fined $500 for having affairs with patients here (he’s an OB-GYN, I believe).
• Here, he apparently pressured one patient who was his mistress into getting an abortion (nice guy).
• Here, he supported his ex-wife’s decision to have two abortions prior to their marriage (as far as I’m concerned, that should be kept in the family, but don’t parade yourself as a “family values” Republican if you have these skeletons in your proverbial closet, OK?).
• Also according to Politico (above link), DesJarlais “lavished gifts” on one patient he had an affair with, including an expensive watch and plane tickets.

When even the chairman of the state’s Republican Party says that he doesn’t expect DesJarlais to be re-elected next year…well, I guess the “fat lady,” as they say, is getting ready.

Update 1/31/14: Gee, aren’t those pesky unintended consequences a real bitch, as noted here? Ha and ha…

#39 – Ted Poe (TX – 02)

Going further down the rabbit hole as they say, people…

• Here, Poe quoted the KKK Grand Wizard on the U.S. House floor (lovely).
• Here, he held a health care “town hall” in a funeral home (interesting messaging…oh, riiight – “death panels”; I get it now).
• Poe said here that the U.S. gave aid to Cuba and Venezuela (uh, no).
• Here, he tried to rally the nation against the supposedly grave danger faced by incandescent light bulbs (pretty sad when you’re a “sock puppet” for Erick “Son of Eric” Erickson).

And speaking of Poe, the video from here with him along with Steve King and Louie Gohmert is kind of silly, but fun (and it speaks truth to stoo-pid).

And last but perhaps least…

#40 – Stephen Fincher (TN – 08)

• Here, Fincher basically says that if you don’t work, you shouldn’t eat (Welcome to Gulag USA, despite the fact that Fincher gets huge farm subsidies, as noted here).
• This tells us that, like many others in his party, he voted against relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.
• Here, he introduced a bill requiring drug testing of 20 percent of welfare recipients and applicants (of course, if Fincher were interested in doing anything besides trying to score cheap political points, he might look a little further south to see if it actually does any good, as noted here).
• Also, based on this, it looks like he doesn’t know how to file a campaign disclosure statement properly (i.e., he “claimed to have almost no assets at the start of his campaign, and has since filed multiple inconsistent financial disclosure forms, revealing significantly greater assets.”).
• He probably should also get a new press secretary too while he’s at it (here – some truly obnoxious “tweets” from someone named Elizabeth Lauten…nothing wrong with her having an opinion even though I most certainly don’t agree, but…and call me old fashioned, I know…aren’t government employees supposed to be non-political?).

I think that brings us up to date, and I sincerely hope that I don’t have to revisit this topic (though, knowing this bunch, I have a feeling I will – sigh).

Update 8/29/13: I didn’t know what to do with this item exactly, so I decided to tack it onto the end here; even though the racism on display is positively enraging, I think it demonstrates pretty well the complete and total failure of just about all of our corporate media to educate this country on the urgent issue of how the Affordable Care Act addresses our health care needs.