Wednesday Mashup (2/3/10)

For some inexplicable reason, the Bucks County Courier Times has decided to include a “Vent” feature on its Op-Ed page, whereby someone can write in and crank off in 25 words or less (as opposed to the usual abundant sounding off, usually by the wingnuts…a feature like this is actually pretty common for tabloids, and if that’s what the Courier Times aspires to be, then it should just perform the necessary makeover and be done with it).

And here is one of the inaugural submissions…

The height of hypocrisy or deceit is to tar the opposition as obstructionist while possessing a filibuster proof absolute majority to pass any legislation desired!

Andy Warren
Middletown, PA

Hmmm, Andy Warren…the name sounds familiar.

Oh yes, I remember now. He was the “Democrat” who ran against Patrick Murphy in the 2006 Democratic primary for the right to face Mike Fitzpatrick in the general election for PA-08 U.S. House rep and did absolutely nothing to help Patrick in the general election that year (as noted here). And now he’s claiming that it’s the fault of the U.S. senators from the party he allegedly supports that “the world’s greatest deliberative body” somehow can’t manage to do a damn thing (and in fact, two of the supposed 60-senator majority are registered independents, Holy Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders).

Far be it for me to defend the likes of Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and the other conservadems, but it’s particularly hilarious for Warren to dole out blame only to one side while ignoring the record number of filibusters executed by the other.

And as long as I’m noting the Courier Times here, does anyone have any idea as to why the paper has stopped allowing comments to its online Guest Opinions?

I know I put up the following videos already last night, but David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun said here that it’s “rich” for Arianna Huffington to criticize Roger Ailes of Fix Noise over his coddling of that lunatic Glenn Beck, and the two Brave New Films clips are appropriate responses (and in the Zurawik clip, I love the way Baba Wawa helps propagate the lie that Fix Noise was “banned” from covering the White House, when in fact all the Obama people said was that they would be treated as an organization with a particular point of view as opposed to a news organization, or words to that effect).





And I think it’s “rich” for Zurawik to criticize anybody when he said here that MSNBC is following a path to “fascism” and unjustly compared Keith Olbermann to Sen. Joseph McCarthy here (third item...and based on the third item also in this post, I don’t think Zurawik has a clue as to what constitutes “real reporting”).

And I guess this is a fitting segue to the latest from Andrew Taylor of the AP, who tells us the following here (on President Obama’s recently released budget)…

Obama's deficit salve mixed nearly $1 trillion in tax increases on higher-income people with $250 billion in savings over a decade from a partial freeze on domestic programs. But popular benefit programs like Medicare would remain untouched.

It sure would have been nice for Taylor to note the following (from here)…

The President is committed to undertaking (health care) reform that is completely paid for and deficit neutral over the next decade. That is why he put forward in his FY 2010 Budget an historic $635 billion down payment on reform. Roughly half of this amount comes from revenue proposals, including limiting the value of itemized deductions for families making over a quarter-million dollars a year to the rates they were during the Reagan years, and about half comes from savings from Medicare and Medicaid.

You want Medicare and Medicaid savings? Fine. Stop screwing around and pass health care reform, then.

In his Philadelphia Daily News column yesterday, Smerky took on the whole “Alito head shake” thing over Obama’s calling out of The Supremes in the matter of the dreadful Citizens United decision by the High Court. Smerky of course thought Obama was wrong, and to give an example of how Smerky thought presidents were supposed to voice their disapproval with Supreme Court decisions, he cited The Sainted Ronnie R and his veiled digs at the Court over Roe v. Wade.

In case anybody ever thought this was all Reagan ever did in his fight against choice, it should be noted that Number 40 also brought us the so-called “Mexico City Policy”; Wikipedia tells us the following about it here…

Critics of the Mexico City Policy refer to it as the "global gag rule", arguing that, in addition to reducing the overall funding provided to particular NGOs, it closes off their access to USAID-supplied condoms and other forms of contraception.[15] This, they argue, negatively impacts the ability of these NGOs to distribute birth control, leading to a downturn in contraceptive use and from there to an increase in the rates of unintended pregnancies and abortion.[15] Critics also argue that the ban promotes restrictions on free speech as well as restrictions on accurate medical information.[16][17][18][19] The European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development presented a petition to the United States Congress signed by 233 members condemning the policy. The forum has stated that the policy "undermines internationally agreed consensus and goals".[20]

And as Wikipedia also tells us, President Clinton rescinded the policy, Dubya reinstituted it, and Obama rescinded it again (so let’s all act like adults and let this thing die a natural death, then, OK?).

Finally, former Buscho Attorney General Michael Mukasey inflicted the following yesterday (here)…

(Mukasey) slammed his successor on Tuesday morning, declaring it "amateur hour" at the Justice Department and labeling current Attorney General Eric Holder weak for his handling of terrorist trials.

Appearing on "Fox and Friends", Mukasey dispensed with any of the formalities that guide how previous administrations discuss the current one. Asked about DOJ's apparent indecision over whether to try 9/11-plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York City criminal court, he unloaded.

"It makes it look like amateur night down there," he said. "Yes, it makes us look weak. It is weakness. And I can't understand the reason for the vacillation. I can't understand the choice to bring it to New York in the first place other than showboating."

The story also tells us that Mukasey said the sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui was a “circus,” and he said show-bomber Richard Reid was only tried in civilian courts because the kangaroo courts military tribunals weren’t set up yet.

However, it’s not as if terrorists had never existed in this country prior to the ruinous Bushco reign. This tells us that Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City bombing), Lee Boyd Malvo, John Allen Muhammed (D.C. snipers) and Ramzi Yousef ('93 WTC bombing) were all tried in civilian courts (McVeigh and Muhammed were executed). And as the prior post notes, civilian courts would not allow such “bogus standards of admissibility” as the military commissions.

Yes, I’ll admit that Attorney General Holder has a bit of “egg on his face” from NYC and Michael Bloomberg’s apparent flip-flop on trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan. But let’s see how many convictions the Obama Justice Department is able to obtain when they’re done versus their predecessors before we pass judgment too quickly, OK?