Monday Mashup (1/3/11)

(All four of these items are based on content recently published in the New York Times, for what it’s worth.)

I realize that it’s probably not a good practice for me to call out “civilians” here (non-pundit types who write Letters to the Editor and are merely expressing their opinion), but an individual named Oren M. Spiegler of Upper St. Clair, PA is often published in the “Letters” section of the Times, so if there was anyone who stood as an exception, it would be him.

And he wrote the following recently (here, on the matter of the federal government helping the states with their budgetary shortfalls)…

Giving states additional tens of billions of dollars in federal money would serve to reward those which have acted with the greatest profligacy, irresponsibility and contempt for their citizens, and it would send the wrong message.

My liberal, big-government state of Pennsylvania is among the greatest offenders, having lived high on the hog when it was possible to do so.

The enactment and expansion of social spending programs have brought us to annual multibillion-dollar deficits, and the provision of spectacular pensions for public employees, public school teachers and state legislators has brought about woefully underfunded public pension funds.

Oh yes, PA is such a “liberal, big-government” state that Election Day last November was an almost-total Republican wipeout.

And in the matter of “spectacular pensions for public employees,” I give you this, explaining how the present crisis in PA and many other states is owed not to the employees themselves who paid their share, but to employers who have been paying into the plans at an ever-lower rate since the 1960s. And as of August 2009 when the Pennlive post was written, the plan for PSERS (the PA Public School Employee Retirement System) was 86 percent fully funded for all future obligations, which is very good as pension plans go.

I realize that Mr. Spiegler has the right to express his opinion, and I don’t begrudge him that. But that doesn’t give him an excuse to be fast and loose with the facts either.

Next, I give you the following from an interview Deborah Solomon recently conducted with incoming Repug U.S. House Rep Allen West of Florida for the Sunday magazine (somehow, I’m sure the Times could have found a better subject)…

Q: When the 112th U.S. Congress is officially sworn in on Jan. 5, two black Republicans will be among the new majority in the House of Representatives. Do you think the G.O.P. has made progress in attracting African-Americans to the party?

A: One thing that you guys aren’t talking about is the fact that there were 42 African-Americans that ran on the Republican ticket in this election cycle; 14 made it to the general election, and 2 of us were elected to the House.

Isn’t that so damn typical? Even with a question as innocuous as this one, all West does is pretty much restate what Solomon just asked and throw in plenty of attitude for good measure (the other Repug African American elected to the House was Tim Scott of South Carolina - West decided to join the Congressional Black Caucus, though Scott declined; the predictable result is here).

Well, I would suggest that, using what is in all likelihood an RNC “Astroturf” outfit (the "Black Democratic Trust" of Texas, which doesn’t in fact exist) to depress voter turnout isn’t the best way to win over African American voters, as noted here (when the Dems are caught doing stuff like this, let me know, OK?)

In addition, Wikipedia tells us here that the “Party of No” attracted a whopping 9 percent of African American voters in the 2010 midterm election, so I would say that they have some ground to make up in that department.

Oh, and ever the font of holier-than-thou indignation, West tells us how our president should conduct himself with our military here (I’m sure Number 44 will “take that under advisement”…and as a commenter noted, I’m also sure the Secret Service would have a thing or two to say on the subject of Obama’s safety).

Also, speaking of the president, N. Gregory Mankiw dispensed some more accountability-free punditry here yesterday, saying that, in order to understand the Republican “approach to economic policy” (they have one?), Obama has to “stop trying to spread the wealth,” citing only Obama’s conversation with “Joe The Plumber” on the 2008 campaign trail for that claim.

Actually, I’m surprised at such intellectual laziness on Mankiw’s part. In a “through-the-looking-glass” kind of way, I can comprehend his desire not to ply his craft because of what he anticipated to be higher tax rates (which he opined about here), but with the recent tax “compromise” with President Obama and Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao, Mankiw should be motivated to “shovel the dookey” deeper than ever.

Finally, Kate Zerinke of the Times tells us the following here (more “teabagger love,” minus context of course)…

In their final days controlling the House, Democrats succeeded in passing legislation that Tea Party leaders opposed, including a bill to cover the cost of medical care for rescue workers at the site of the World Trade Center attacks, an arms-control treaty with Russia, a food safety bill and a repeal of the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military.

“Do I think that they’ve recognized what happened on Election Day? I would say decisively no,” said Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, which sent its members an alert last month urging them to call their representatives to urge them to “stop now and go home!!”

“We sent them a message that we expect them to go home and come back newly constituted and do something different,” Mr. Meckler said. “For them to legislate when they’ve collectively lost their mandate just shows the arrogance of the ruling elite. I can’t imagine being repudiated in the way they were and then coming back and saying ‘Now that we’ve been repudiated, let’s go pass some legislation.’ ”

“I’m surprised by how blatant it was,” he added.

As noted here, Meckler is an expert on “blatant” and “arrogant” behavior, to say nothing of being “repudiated”…

"I felt like the Republican Party didn't represent my values," Mark Meckler, one of two national spokesmen for the Tea Party Patriots, told Southern Nevada's TheUnion.com (last March). "The political parties represent entrenched interests . . . and they never do what they say."

Meckler knows mucho about never doing what he says. A new report shows he was recently paid to help a campaign launched by one of the GOP's largest lobbying groups, the Lincoln Club of Orange County.

Talking Points Memo's Muckraker reported Tuesday that the NorCal lawyer also helped run a political consulting firm with ties to Republicans in Washington, D.C.

That was curious, because Meckler told Muckraker in January, "The major parties in this nation haven't represented the American people."

Meckler's involvement with the Lincoln Club campaign was first reported last month by Red County. He was paid $7,500 for "petition circulation management" by the "Citizen Power Campaign Supported by the Lincoln Club of Orange County," state disclosure records show.

The exclusive, Rancho Santa Margarita Newport Beach-based Lincoln Club of Orange County, whose website takes credit for helping pass Prop. 13 and recalling Governor Gray Davis, is composed of some of the region's most powerful businesspeople. That would seem to put its interests at odds with "the Tea Party's more populist, anti-corporate ethos," Muckraker notes.

Any teabagger out there who doesn’t realize that they’re getting utterly “played” by the likes of Meckler and other Repugs who, in fact, represent the true “pay no price, bear no burden” base of their party as opposed this mythical grass roots “revolution” within the party must also believe that Sharia law will be prescribed for midtown Manhattan any day now, and polar bears will adapt to global warming by learning to surf (and more evidence of the corporate capitulation by those zany teabaggers is here).