Wednesday Mashup (2/2/11) (updates)

(I have a feeling that posting is going to get flaky again over the next few days – I’ll keep you up to date.)

I give you the following from former Bushco flunky Dana Perino (here)...

Does anyone else see the irony of the president last night calling on a country in the middle of a political crisis to allow for open access to information and a free media … and then today holding a stills-only event in the Oval Office for a bill signing? A bill signing?! And for a treaty that they called a major signature foreign-policy achievement? C’mon!

Yeah, it sure is a drag when presidents sign off on legislation behind closed doors – isn't it?

Next, I give you the following from the truly odious Ron Johnson, Repug U.S. Senator from Wisconsin who the eternally stupid voters of that state elected to replace Russ Feingold (here)…

“I hope the president and his allies in Congress accept a simple truth: big government is blocking job creation, not helping it (Johnson said). The sooner Washington ends its dependence on more spending, the sooner our economy will see real growth.”

Johnson...said that he bring the perspective of “someone who’s been creating jobs, meeting a payroll, balancing a budget and living under the rules, regulations and taxes that politicians … impose on the rest of us.”

If anything, this human being has grown more deceitful and detestable since the day he was elected, which was entirely predictable.

In response, this tells us the following…

In 1979 a company called Wisconsin Industrial Shipping Supplies, owned by Johnson's brother-in-law, received a $75,000 development grant from the city of Oshkosh to build a rail spur to a plant it was building. One of the conditions of the grant required WISS to hire 11 people in exchange for the funds. Just a few months later, WISS became Pacur -- the company Johnson owns today -- and the factory was opened. The factory itself was also built with the help of a $1 million government-issued development bond.

Years later, as president of the board of the Grand Opera House in Oshkosh, Johnson would investigate the possibility of obtaining stimulus money to help pay for theater renovations.

In addition…

The Oshkosh plastics factory owned by (then) Republican senate candidate Ron Johnson was built, in part, with the assistance of a $1 million government-issued industrial development revenue bond.....

…

Gary Green, a UW professor and economic development expert, says bonds like the ones issued by the city of Oshkosh are widely used.

"The issue seems to be does government create jobs?" he said. "Most economic development professionals across the state see industrial development revenue bonds as the primary tool in which local government can actively try to create jobs in their communities."

And in the matter of “living under the rules” when “creating jobs, meeting a payroll” and blah blah blah, this tells us that he used prison labor instead of hiring out-of-work Wisconsinites, for whom he’d have to pay benefits.

Johnson is utter lying scum, and I don’t know what else there is to say beyond that (and if this isn’t further proof, I don’t know what is).

Also, perhaps, like me, you’ve been wondering exactly what “No Corporate Tax Pat” Toomey has been up to since he started taking up space in the U.S. Senate, supposedly representing PA.

Well, wonder no more; as noted here…

Last week, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., introduced the "Full Faith and Credit Act." At one level, it was an attempt to shift the debate over the coming debt ceiling vote. That's how Toomey explained it at the Tea Party Caucus's meeting on Thursday -- the argument that failure to raise the debt ceiling would lead the U.S. to default would be taken out behind the barn and dealt with. That's how Republicans interpret it.

And Toomey’s bill is also supported by Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul (what an unseemly bunch – figures, though).

It should be noted, though, that, while a certain Former President Highest Disapproval Rating in Gallup Poll History inhabited An Oval Office, congressional Repugs voted seven times to raise the debt ceiling, as noted here (with Toomey playing right along when he served in the House, as noted here).

Cutting to the proverbial chase, I think dday tells us what’s really going on (here)…

…if the Republicans take the debt limit hostage, the banks would get paid first. What that means, of course, is that everything else the government does – health care, Social Security, federal employee salaries, etc., etc. – would have to get in line behind debt service. Some states, including California, work this way. But it’s really a naked attempt to protect banks from the consequences of irresponsible Republican actions.

This is a “best of both worlds” scenario for the Republicans – they get to take hostages over spending cuts while also exempting the banks from any hardship. If this becomes the “compromise” option, we’re all in for it.

Still, it must be killing a “values” wingnut like Toomey that he can’t vote on an anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-human cloning or some other type of bill which has not one thing to do with actual job creation, even though what he’s trying to get away with here is scary enough.

Continuing, it looks like Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Pence isn’t going to let a crisis go to waste, as somebody once said, based on this…

The recent release of an undercover video exposing duplicity and potential criminality by an employee of Planned Parenthood is an outrage.

Pence is referring to the dustup over what the manager of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Perth Amboy, NJ apparently said in response to yet another right-wing sting operation perpetrated by a fellow traveler with James O’Keefe named Lila Rose (noted here).

And “potential criminality,” Congressman? Really?

Well, Pence may be right, but not in the way he thinks…

(Phyllis Kinsler, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey) condemned Live Action's sting, questioning how dramatically the video was edited.

Indeed, and more on that shortly – continuing…

By day’s end, Kinsler said, three Planned Parenthood clinics under her supervision — Perth Amboy, Hazlet and Shrewsbury — had received about 10 "harassing" phone calls, including one saying, "They should just bomb your place." She reported the calls to the FBI and local police and asked for their help tightening security.

I swear, sometimes I feel as if Tucson never happened.

The Media Matters post shows the former manager of the Perth Amboy Planned Parenthood office, Amy Woodruff, making some snide remarks about the nurse practitioner at the office (again, heavily edited, but some remarks showed poor judgment).

However, it should also be noted (and pointed out by Media Matters) that, according to even the doctored Rose tape and transcript, Planned Parenthood is too scrupulous for anyone else in the office to be let in on the "cover-up," and when it comes to abortion, the "pimp" and "prostitute" are advised to go to another facility entirely to avoid the diligence of Planned Parenthood.

Lather, rinse, repeat (sigh).

Update 2/3/11: What Atrios sez here...

Update 2/4/11: Real! Shocking! Expose! Planned! Parenthood! Does! Nothing! Wrong! (here)…

And in a related story, as they say, here is the latest development in the ongoing war against the dreaded “lady parts” waged by House Republicans (and if you guessed that Pancake Joe Pitts is right in the middle, then you win two tickets to the next production of “The Vagina Monologues”…probably learn a thing or two).

Anybody realize that this is pretty much what would happen when the Repugs were given any kind of governmental power again? Tax cuts, fiscal “austerity” and “values voter” bullshit?

Morons.

Finally, I know that ridiculous vote on repealing the health care law is taking place in the Senate today, and in response, I give you the following from Dem U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (though we already know the answer to the question she asks at the very end here…and I thought this was a really good related post).



And of course, the repeal amendment failed.

But they’ll be back.

Update: This should be mandatory reading for all of us, including Mikey The Beloved (not that it would matter to him, I realize). And that goes for the stuff at the end about Obama too (and, sadly, the possible loss of the Senate in 2012, something we must work tirelessly to prevent, including supporting this guy).