Thursday Mashup (10/22/09)

(And I also posted here.)

I cannot imagine why “The Most Trusted Name In News” would take “Deadeye Dick” Cheney seriously at this point, but they still do (from here)…

In the hard-hitting and wide-ranging speech at Center for Security policy, Cheney targeted the new administration's decision-making process on how to proceed in Afghanistan, saying Obama has failed to give troops on the ground a clear mission or defined goals, and appeared "afraid to make a decision."

So Dick Cheney said Obama was “afraid” to make a decision about war.

…

This Wikipedia article reminds us that Cheney “applied for and received five deferments” from serving in Vietnam, claiming that he had “other priorities” than to serve his country.

And he’s calling Obama “afraid” on matters of war.

Well, I think this is a good response.

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I just wanted to point that out that Bushco's crazy uncle, if you will, is attacking Obama. Again.

On CNN.

We'll have to leave it there...wink.

I’ve ignored Former Senator Man-On-Dog and Philadelphia Inquirer columnist “Little Ricky” Santorum for a little while now because his twice-monthly rants, aside from being as biased as you can imagine from such a dyed-in-the-wool Repug ideologue, have proven to be typically inconsequential as the grownups now try to clean up the myriad messes created by PA’s former senator from Northern Virginia and his pals.

However, I feel it’s important to answer a particular charge he made today (from here)…

Who says campaigns are mere exercises in the politics of personal destruction?

Take my last ad against Bob Casey in our 2006 Senate race. An Iraq war veteran spoke into the camera, demanding that the then-state treasurer stop investing state funds in corporations doing business with our enemies - enemies like Iran.

Last week on this page, Sens. Casey and Republican Sam Brownback wrote in support of a federal law to encourage state treasurers to do just that with respect to Iran.

I support Casey's legislation and President Obama's recent call for tougher Iran sanctions. Both, however, appear to be too little too late to halt Iran's weapons program.

That was not the case in the spring of 2006, when I tried to amend that year's defense bill with legislation I first introduced in July 2004. The "Iran Freedom and Support Act" imposed tough economic sanctions and, more important, authorized money to support Iran's pro-democracy movement.

Since this bill had 60 cosponsors, including 23 Democrats, it had a good chance of success. However, that spring the Bush administration was engaged with our European allies in negotiations to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program - sound familiar?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thought the timing of my amendment would send the wrong signal. I countered that its passage would help the "negotiations" by showing that Congress was even more serious about stopping Iran's nuclear program than President George W. Bush.

The White House pledged to remain neutral on my amendment, but Sen. Joe Biden didn't - he blocked a vote on it for a week. Then, late one evening, we learned he was prepared to vote the next morning.

Biden began the debate by holding up a letter delivered that day from Rice opposing my amendment. Some neutrality! With Biden and then-Sen. Obama both voting no, the amendment failed, 46-to-53.

Negotiations with Iran collapsed that summer. By October, Biden and the administration's opposition did, too, and most of the provisions were enacted into law a few weeks before the election.

Sooo…if “most of the provisions were enacted into law” anyway (despite the one-time opposition from Our Gal Condi Rice), why is Santorum ranting?

Oh, to score cheap political points, of course…how silly of me not to immediately realize that.

This makes me recall a vote on another piece of legislation related to companies doing business with Iran that was introduced the year before, and that was Senate Amendment 1351 authored by Dem Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. As Bob Geiger tells us here…

…(the amendment) had a very clear premise for people who claim to be as terrorist-hungry as the GOP consistently does: Stop U.S. corporations from financing terrorism.

"This will cut off a major source of revenue for terrorists. What we need to do is to starve these terrorists at the source. By using this loophole, some of our companies are feeding terrorism by doing business with Iran, which funds Hamas, Hezbollah, as well as the Islamic Jihad," said Lautenberg on the Senate floor.

"I want to remind my colleagues that it was Iran that funded the 1983 terrorist act in Beirut that killed 241 United States Marines--241 Marines killed by Iranian terror--and yet we are currently allowing United States corporations to provide revenues to the Iranian Government. It has to stop," he continued. "It is inexcusable for American companies to engage in any business practice that provides revenues to terrorists, and we have to stop it. Here we have a clear view of what happens. We have a chance to stop it with this amendment."

Apparently forgetting that they're either "with us or with the terrorists," all but two Republicans voted against Lautenberg's bill and it went down in flames 51-47.

And do you want to know how Little Ricky voted? Click here to find out.

And Santorum concludes as follows…

Thanks to Obama's policy decisions, the Russians and Iranians are emboldened and feeling safer. How about you?

Actually, I feel much better that you’re gone, Ricky. Even with Dem-lite Snarlin’ Arlen, it’s nice to have Senators who actually aren’t holier-than-thou moralistic national embarrassments.

Finally, I need to point out something truly shocking; I hope you’re all sitting down.

I navigated to J.D. Mullane’s blog at phillyburbs.com earlier today to find out what the officially designated pundit big mouth of the Bucks County Courier Times had to say as he makes another “hit or miss” attempt at “keeping it local.”

And he commented on the District Attorney’s race in Bucks between Republican David Heckler and Democrat Chris Asplen (here)…

The Bucks County DA race is the marquee fight this season. Republican Judge Dave Heckler (former state rep and senator) against Dem Chris Asplen (ex-county asst. DA). But things are turning weird. Judge Heckler, who appears to be in the fight of his long political life, proposes what seems to be special status for military veterans who commit crimes in the county. At least, they will get tender handling in the courts, and cops on the street (many who are also vets) will be "trained" how to handle veterans who face special "problems."

Judge, everyone has "problems." Vets who commit crimes should not be treated any differently than the rest of population when it comes to justice.

Smells like he's appealing for votes from a powerful constituency.

File this under the category of “visually impaired woodland creature discovers the location of sustenance,” if you will (ie. blind squirrel finding the nut), but J.D. is absolutely spot-on here.

Yes, you read that correctly.

And this made me consider the DA’s race a bit further, and as I did, I came across this story, which tells us that Anthony Cappuccio, described as a one-time “rising star in the D.A.’s office” in these parts, was "sentenced (to) three to 23 months of house arrest for giving booze to and sharing marijuana with three teenage boys, and having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old boy" (this ties back to Asplen and Heckler, and I’ll get to that in a minute).

The story tells us that the relationship with the 17-year-old was consensual; Cappuccio was busted by a “police officer patrolling a Richland shopping center (who) found Cappuccio and his 17-year-old lover in a parked car, partially clothed.”

Now I generally avoid posting about crime stories since I don’t work in criminal justice, and I’m sure Cappuccio’s sentence was within the guidelines. However, the story also tells us the following…

(Sentencing Judge C. Theodore) Fritsch (Jr.) was a high-ranking deputy in the DA’s office when Cappuccio did his summer internship there in 2002 and had overseen at least one of Cappuccio’s trials.

He put those facts on the record at the start of Cappuccio’s sentencing hearing Tuesday and asked lawyers on both sides of the case whether they were comfortable with him deciding the sentence. Neither asked for him to step aside.

Fritsch declined to comment for this story.

I think the prosecuting attorney blew it by not realizing that the judge felt a little compromised by asking if he and the defense attorneys were “comfortable” with him as the sentencing judge; rightly or wrongly, that’s where I come down here. If I’m prosecuting, knowing the past history of Fritsch and Cappuccio, I’m making a motion for a new sentencing judge.

Now, here is what Asplen and Heckler had to say, as the story tells us…

Asplen called the punishment “obscenely lenient” and called for the state Attorney General’s Office - which handled the case after Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry stepped aside to avoid a conflict of interest - to petition Fritsch to reconsider the sentence and send Cappuccio to prison. Former Judge David Heckler, who is now running for DA on the Republican ticket, was less eager to jump into the fray. “As a DA candidate I do not choose to make political hay one way or another out of this tragic case,” Heckler said. “I have great respect for Judge Fritsch. The fact that the defendant pleaded guilty and did not force the victims to testify is a factor that I always recognized as a sitting judge. On the other hand, this was a terrible breach of trust that deserves to be punished.”

Uh, yeah, I’ll say Cappuccio “deserves to be punished” also. And I don’t think saying that qualifies as “mak(ing) political hay.”

And the fact that Heckler doesn’t recognize that, but instead seeks to preserve his “great respect” for Judge Fritsch at the expense of Cappuccio’s victims, tells me volumes about whom I should support in this contest.

And if you feel the same way I do about this, click here to lend Chris Asplen a hand.