More Wingnut Mania Over Tucson

Before I say anything else, I should note that, up until now, I had not found an instance of Democrats and/or liberals in general using violent rhetoric against their opponents. Well, I recently came across the following from here…

Former Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-Penn.) on Monday joined a chorus of voices calling for more civilized political discussion in the aftermath of the weekend's devastating shootings in Arizona. Unlike many of those appeals, however, Kanjorski's appears somewhat tainted by a past that shows him to be part of the problem that he is now seeking to rectify.

In an op-ed in The New York Times, Kanjorski uses his own experience of working through the infamous attack on the House by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1954 to argue that "all Americans" need to take it upon themselves to defuse tensions…

All well and good, until you discover the following…

"That [Republican candidate Rick Scott] down there that's running for governor of Florida," Mr. Kanjorski said. "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him. He stole billions of dollars from the United States government and he's running for governor of Florida. He's a millionaire and a billionaire. He's no hero. He's a damn crook. It's just we don't prosecute big crooks."

As noted here, Rick Scott is most definitely one of our lower life forms. However, that does not justify Kanjorski’s violent language, and if he has done apologized as of yet, he should do so at the earliest possible moment.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s bring ourselves up to date on the latest developments in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting.

As noted here, a certain U.S. House Speaker thought it was more important to attend an RNC fundraiser than to participate in anything approximating a show of support for the victims. However, as Matt Taibbi noted in his profile of John Boehner here, The Orange One attends a minimum of one fundraiser per day, so it looks as if he was merely trying to keep up with his quota (removing my tongue from my cheek).

Also, when stories like the Arizona massacre take place (which, fortunately, isn’t a frequent occasion, though such stories are still too common), I’m always curious about the international perspective on such matters. With that in mind, I recently found this Op-Ed from The Globe and Mail (up north)…

Tonight, with eloquence and poetry, Barack Obama summoned Americans to unity, and to respect for public service. But he missed an opportunity to tackle the cancer of handgun worship and violence in America – a contagion that afflicts the American body politic and a public health emergency that strikes down tens of thousands of innocent and troubled Americans every year.

After the ritual denunciations, brazen mass shootings in the U.S. typically prompt two responses in the political mainstream. Many demand more, not less, access to guns. Others suggest minor changes to America's gun laws, and no change to America's gun culture. Mr. Obama could have joined that third, small group of advocates, currently lacking political power, calling for real change.

Instead, for the moment, he has stuck his head in the sand.

Handguns and assault rifles are a blight that make the U.S. one of the world's most murderous societies, on a par with South Africa and Colombia. Consider that:

– Gun violence is the leading cause of death for young African-American men.
– According to the Brady Campaign, in 2009 there were at least 260 incidents in which at least three people were shot.
– In 2007, suicide by gun claimed 17,352 people – more than those murdered by guns – and states with high rates of gun ownership have been found to have twice the gun suicide rate compared to states with low gun ownership.

This is a North America-wide affliction. A large proportion of illegal handguns in Canada come from the U.S., as do the weapons fuelling Mexico's brutal drug trade-related violence.

A skewed veneration of Second Amendment rights mean reasonable attempts at gun control go nowhere. Federally-mandated background checks are still not applied at gun shows. Many assault rifles, banned in 1994, are now back on the market, legally.

The Tucson shootings show deficiencies in areas such as mental health and political discourse. And given that the event was a memorial service, Mr. Obama's main role was as mourner and unifier-in-chief.

But because the target in the killing spree was a U.S. Congresswoman, tonight's event was also political. Otherwise, a mass shooting that kills six is – and this itself ought to be an outrage – below the usual threshold to summon an American president.

The celebrated master of context and nuance had a simple political task. Mr. Obama could have, at least, uttered two simple lines: “Our worship of weapons designed only to kill humans must end. In the coming weeks, I will offer a detailed response to this epidemic.” A call to rein in America's gun obsession was, sadly, left unsaid.

Also, to show you how absolutely desperate the wingnutosphere is to escape any hint of blame whatsoever for even remotely giving a provocation to alleged shooter Jared Loughner, someone named Matt Towery of clownhall.com actually tried to blame liberals here for the violence because, well, one of their “patron saints” is guilty of violent rhetoric also (utterly beyond belief – or, as a certain deceased rock star might put it “strange days indeed”)…

Last month, the media focused on another anniversary of the night John Lennon was shot in 1980 by a deranged and psychotic "fan," Mark David Chapman. He was obsessed with many things, including the book "Catcher in the Rye" -- and John Lennon.

The brilliant political analyst Charles Krauthammer, who at one time was a young practicing psychiatrist, has made it clear that from all of the confused emails and YouTube postings, plus the observations by acquaintances of the Tucson gunman, Jared Loughner, this was, as with Chapman, the act of a severely mentally ill person. It appears that Loughner had a "nonpartisan" obsession with Rep. Giffords, much as Mark David Chapman was obsessed with Lennon.

Now, many of the same columnists, commentators and politicians who have moved quickly to conclude that the "heated rhetoric" of politics is likely a partial or root cause of tragedies like the one in Arizona would never have even considered that the yesteryear rhetoric of John Lennon and Yoko Ono might have triggered leftist violence or social unrest.

…

There would never have been a case of "the liberal media vs. John Lennon" over his hot criticism of a war and the violent protests it helped spawn. It seems "heightened rhetoric" has no correlation to random violence when the shoe fits the left. But when it can be pinned on the right, there is a direct causal link.

OWWWW!!! THE STOO-PID!!! IT BURNS US!!!!!!! And assuming Charles Krauthammer is “brilliant” at anything is enough to make me gag.

(Oh, and by the way, Towery even recalls the Kent State shootings in May 1970 in which, according to these accounts, no warning was ever issued by the Ohio National Guardsmen before they opened fire, killing four students.)

Oh yes, Towery, please tell me the song written by John Lennon in which he called for political assassination – “I Don’t Want To Be A Ruthless Oppressing Politician”? “(Bury The Pigs In) Steel And Glass”? “#9th Victim”? “Imagine (Nixon Dead)”? And I guess, as far as Towery is concerned, “Give Peace A Chance” and “Happy Xmas/War Is Over” don’t count.

And allow me to emphasize once and for all that I am not trying to associate Loughner with any ideology; indeed, aside from the fact that he was targeting Congresswoman Giffords for reasons that we may never completely know, a review of his reading material indicates that he was all over the ideological map (as much as you can go by that).

With all that said, I now have to offer a bit of an apology for what comes next; I honestly had planned not to try and link the Tucson horror to any particular person or political development, but Rand Paul “went there” here, and so I believe I must respond (you would think an elected government official would know better - you would think so anyway).

I believe that the person in this photo, as a result of all this, has now been harmed almost to the point where her reputation, such as it is, cannot be repaired (with this latest fumbling attempt at motivating her followers standing as perhaps her most transparently hollow act).

For every time now that Sarah Palin invokes imagery of violence in anything she ever says, that language will automatically be associated with the “bullseye” map she concocted during the prior election targeting 20 Democratic U.S. House members, including Congresswoman Giffords (she, along with Nick Rahall, were the only ones re-elected, which she joyously noted in a “tweet” in which she referred to the map markings as “bullseyes” and not “surveyor’s symbols”...background, as if we need it, is here).

The Republican Party really didn’t have a clue as to how to put a dent into her popularity and derail her presidential bid. But now, Jared Loughner has done that for them.

So if the horrific shootings in Tucson end up giving anyone a political advantage, it really would be the Republicans, wouldn’t it?

A CREW "Cut" On Sessions And Saint Mikey

I have a bit of catching up to do concerning our PA-08 U.S. House rep, particularly since he’s one of the individuals cited in a complaint today by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), as the Bucks County Courier Times tells us here…

"Republicans have made strict adherence to the Constitution a hallmark of the new Congress," CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said. "Now we will find out if that was just window dressing designed to appease the tea party movement or if they were sincere. Two Republican House members (Fitzpatrick and Pete Sessions) have blatantly violated not only House rules, but federal law and the Constitution. Will they be held accountable, or given a pass?"

That's a good question (and I got into some of this before here, by the way).

Also, Mikey The Beloved recently held another town hall on the health care law (another sop to those zany teabaggers, as noted here…and please, J.D. Mullane, remind us once more how important it is that Fitzpatrick is an Eagle Scout – hard to reconcile that with the flood of lies that engulfed last year’s congressional campaign against Patrick Murphy in those ridiculous full-page Courier Times ads, which quite probably were paid for at least in part by the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce)…

Fitzpatrick left no doubt where he stood. He wants to repeal the law to end what he called "job killing mandates" and replace it with a free market approach that gives small business the same advantages as large corporations, includes malpractice reform, and allows consumers to shop across state lines.

He also supports keeping the popular portions of the current law, such as keeping young adults on their parents' plans and allowing individuals with pre-existing conditions to maintain their insurance.

"There's nothing in the bill that dealt with cost containment," Fitzpatrick said. "There's nothing in the bill that dealt with keeping us healthy. + I want more free market principles that make our health care the best in the world."

Several in the crowd pushed Fitzpatrick on why he's so set on repeal without any replacement legislation.

One man said Republicans did nothing to fix the system when they had "massive power."

"Now something is done and you're saying we've got to repeal it."

(Doylestown Council President Det) Ansinn, who said his company saw its rates go down this year after a decade of increases, asked, "What's this urgency to repeal without developing an alternative?"

Fitzpatrick said the mandates that force everyone to purchase insurance, increased regulation on businesses and $500 billion in new taxes, make repeal necessary now.

Concerning that dreaded individual mandate (no word from Mikey of what he thinks of the individual mandate of “Romney-care” in MA, by the way), Ezra Klein tells us the following here…

But what's the alternative? No one wants an individual mandate. But the folks who spend all their time trying to solve the first problem (of older, poorer and sicker individuals unable to access care, except through emergency rooms) have concluded that you can't do it without an individual mandate. After all, why do people get priced out of insurance? The answer, aside from "they're poor," is that they're bad risks. They're older, or they're sicker, or they've been sicker at some point in the past, or they work at a dangerous job or a job associated with chronic injuries.

If reform simply forces insurance companies to sell to these people, then prices skyrocket for everyone, as the sicker or the older rush into the market, while the young and the healthy hang back. In that scenario, you've not solved the problem of pricing people out. You've arguably worsened it. If you want to solve the problem of pricing out but you don't want an individual mandate, you need to think of an alternative to it.

Moreover, it's simply not true…that the people paying the $750 individual mandate penalty get nothing in return. Far from it, in fact. For one thing, they get access to emergency care, as happens now. For another, they get the chance to come back into the system when they actually need insurance. Someone who puts off purchasing coverage and then tries to buy Aetna's plan the first time they collapse unexpectedly will not be sold a plan. Having chosen not to buy insurance when they didn't need care, they can't buy it now that they do need care. They become the priced out or, in some cases, locked out.

Under reform, these people get the chance to come back into the system when they need coverage. They can't be discriminated against. Indeed, you can argue that these folks, the ones willing to game the system, are the most advantaged of all the groups. It's why the individual mandate should be stronger, not weaker, than it is now.

And as far as health care reform supposedly being a “job killer,” I give you the following from here…

Since President Obama signed health care reform into law on March 23, 2010, the economy created 117,000 jobs per month, leading to a total of 935,000 new jobs in the private sector and economists estimate that the savings from health care reform could add even more. That’s because employers respond to rising costs by reducing benefits and lowering wages. But, since firms can’t significantly lower wages for employees at or near minimum wage or workers who are in fixed contracts, rising health care costs also lead to job losses. One study found that every 10% increase in health costs that are above GDP growth leads to 120,000 fewer jobs. Economists predict that reform will lower health care spending (CBO says that reform will reduce average premiums for employers with more than 50 employees by between 0 and 3%) and estimate that it has the potential of creating somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 jobs — positions which will never be available if the measure is repealed.

Also, this tells us about the tax credit available to small businesses that will allow these firms to cover their employees for the first time. In addition, this tells us about how health care reform will lower the deficit (and repealing it would expand it), and this tells us that Fitzpatrick’s claim about “$500 billion in new taxes” could be tied to middle and lower-income people registering for the exchanges mandated by the law (can’t find any other sourcing for that remark).

I expect that Mikey is going to keep me busy for a little while with antics like this. What a shame that he can’t govern like an actual adult instead. But it is his right to do so, I admit.

Now that he’s officially sworn in. For real this time.

Update 1 1/14/11: And by the way, on the subject of health care reform, Mikey would do well to pay attention to this exchange.

Update 2 1/14/11: Also, leave it to Mikey’s PR machine to leap to his defense today (last two paragraphs here).

Wednesday Stuff

Oh yeah, Happy Birthday to the OxyContin addict (and the earthquake in Haiti took place a year ago today - this clips ties the two together, infamously when it comes to Flush Limbore)...



...and this song has some sunny, scenic imagery (of Las Vegas, I believe) to help us forget about the white stuff for a little while (and a somewhat appropriate title).

The Speech I Would Give About Tucson

President Obama is scheduled to speak to the nation about this weekend’s attack in Arizona, as noted here – if were your benevolent dictator, as Atrios puts it (and assuming I could step into Obama's shoes), I would say the following (this is why I'd never be elected, I know)…

My fellow Americans, I come to you tonight in the wake of another murderous attack in our nation in which a deranged individual is accused of carrying out wholesale slaughter against men, women and children. Police believe that a member of the United States Congress was targeted by this person for reasons that are, only now, becoming clear. It could be legally prejudicial for me to speak further on his possible motives, so I’ll reserve comment for now.

As your president, part of my duty is to speak to the mood of the country, and the visibility and import granted to be by this office allows me to do this in a way which could potentially influence future events. For this reason, many in politics and the media have requested that I speak in such a fashion as to provide comfort and assurance to the nation. There is a time and place for such language, and indeed, if I were a member of the clergy, I would be speaking in such a vein at this moment, and I have done so in prior occasions.

However, I do not believe that this is such a time. Yes, the families and the friends of the victims of the slaughter in Tucson deserve no less. But I believe that comfort leads to inaction, and in the face of a grave threat to our safety, it is time to act. And I believe that is the best way to provide support at the moment.

To begin, I call for the passage of the bill sponsored by U.S. House Representative Carolyn McCarthy of New York to outlaw high-capacity bullet magazines such as the type used in the Tucson shooting. These types of magazines are not commonly used by law enforcement in this county. Jared Loughner allegedly used a 31-round clip in the Tucson shooting. Reinstating the 1994 assault weapons ban and the requirement of a clip with a 10-round maximum, while not totally removing the threat of gun violence by deranged individuals, would at least limit the destruction of such an attack.

Also, I call for national legislation that does not allow an individual under the age of 21 to conceal a handgun or semi-automatic weapon on their person. In addition, all states are to update the federal background check database within 90 days with the names of any individuals who authorities believe should be prohibited from owning a gun, such as those convicted of criminal offenses and subject to restraining orders. In the event that this is impossible, a designated state representative must officially communicate the reason why to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with a plan to bring their state into compliance.

Finally, Representative Peter King of New York will introduce legislation that would make it illegal to knowingly carry a gun within 1,000 feet of high-profile federal officials. I call for the immediate passage of this legislation.

I realize that none of these measures will be easy. However, one of my predecessors in this office once said we would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” How can we “assure the survival and the success of liberty” if those we charge to represent us in our democratically-elected republic continually face the threat of violence by individuals seeking the most extreme means to impose their will?

I know we also face the pervasive and engrained mythology of guns and violence in our discourse and our popular culture, and that is an obstacle to action also. Our media glorifies the notion of individual self-reliance practiced by a moral individual possessing a firearm. But this can, and has, become twisted in our political discourse, as we saw in our most recent elections. Also, the highest-selling home video product of the moment features extreme depictions of violence carried out to achieve success in a military mission. Our country remains the leader in exporting weaponry throughout the world. Our courts have, to a large degree, enshrined the rights of an individual to own a gun to a greater point now than at any prior time in our history, and this administration has supported the right of a gun owner to transport a firearm on a passenger train and carry one into a national park.

None of this, however, is an excuse not to act with courage and determination in support of legislation and governmental policy to control the threat of gun violence posed by criminals and other individuals with diminished capacity. We can act to both ensure the freedom of law-abiding sportsmen and protect our citizens from those acting irresponsibly with a firearm. And after the latest attack of gun violence, in which only the brave actions of bystanders prevented an even greater slaughter than that which we experienced, the time to do this is now.

I’m not expecting to hear anything close to this. But it would be nice if we did, wouldn’t it?

Tuesday Stuff

(Hopefully back to something like normal posting tomorrow...)

Rachel Maddow reviews the Tucson shootings (and some of the others in our infamous history) with former ATF agent Edgar Domenech, who was the agent who investigated the Virginia Tech massacre (as I've said many times, the voices that should matter above all others on the gun issue are that of law enforcement and our emergency medical personnel, and her comment on this tonight was good also - haven't found it yet...by the way, I'd like to see Maddow and some other commentators note just how much money this country makes selling weapons to the rest of the world; dare I call this "the chickens coming home to roost" a bit? And the lunacy of letting the assault weapons ban expire in 2004 is clearly evident and doesn't need much amplification from me)...



...and by the way, if anybody wants to write an "anti-gun" song out of this (or, at the very least, an "anti-acting-stupid-with-a-gun" song), here's a pretty good one to try and imitate (the big finish gets cut off a bit, but you get the idea).

Monday Stuff

In other news, as they say, bye bye Bug Man (here)…



…and yep, it didn’t take long for the ruling House Repug leadership to “walk back” all those claims about saving money from the budget, did it…



…and on this day six years ago, CBS released that ridiculous “independent” review of a news story involving a certain Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History; I thought former CBS News producer Mary Mapes (who produced the segment) had a good response here.

And given all of that, this clip from 1988 of you-know-who talking to Connie Chung (defending Dan Quayle, who did the same thing Dubya did, only I’m sure Quayle actually showed up for service) is all the more galling, particularly his typically chicken dig at those serving in Vietnam at the end…



…and I thought for a time that this song was only metaphorical, but after last weekend’s tragic shooting, I’m not so sure.

"Mainstreaming" The Crazy (updates)

In Matt Taibbi's fine profile of John Boehner in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, we have the following (here, pg. 4)...

Another Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus, clashed repeatedly with Boehner before losing his seat in the midterm elections. After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, Driehaus "may be a dead man" and "can't go home to the west side of Cincinnati" because "the Catholics will run him out of town," Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house. Driehaus says he approached Boehner on the floor and confronted him.

"I didn't think it was funny at all," Driehaus says. "I've got three little kids and a wife. I said to him, 'John, this is bullshit, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.'"

Driehaus is quick to point out that he doesn't think Boehner meant to urge anyone to violence. "But it's not about what he intended — it's about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work."

Driehaus says Boehner was "taken aback" when confronted on the floor, but never actually said he was sorry: "He said something along the lines of, 'You know that's not what I meant.' But he didn't apologize."

Of course not. Rules and common standards of decent behavior are for the "little people." And Democrats, of course.

To quote Boehner, it's "chicken crap" to allege that this stuff happens anywhere on "the left." If it does, prove it to me.

And by the way, here is more on this (and I'd forgotten about Michele Bachmann's role in this, and yes, she has one).

Update: Not surprising that corporate media pundit David Gergen says that this is "no time for finger-pointing" here.

Wrong. Armed with concrete facts and evidence, this is exactly the time for finger-pointing.

Update 1 1/10/11: More from the "accessories after the fact" here...

Update 2 1/10/11: To get an idea as to the utter depravity of our corporate media (assuming we didn’t know that already), I give you the following from Ross Douthat of the New York Times here…

…the attempted murder of a Democratic congresswoman is a potential gift to liberalism.

I cannot imagine how he sleeps at night.

Also in his column, Douthat says that “(It took conservative bloggers about five minutes to come up with Democratic campaign materials that employed targets and crosshairs against Republican politicians).”

If you click on the “targets” link in Douthat’s paragraph, it takes you to a map of what I suppose is the congressional district of House Repug Thaddeus McCotter that indeed shows targets (which, to me, are a far cry from the gun sights of Palin’s map…oh, excuse me, I mean “surveyor’s symbols”…riiiiight – if you’re going to victimize someone for the symbol on McCotter’s map, then you might as well impugn an entire chain of retail department stores). And I can’t comment on the link from “cross hairs” because it takes you to a You Tube video that I cannot watch at the moment (Update: I watched it later - it shows what could easily pass as a photographer's camera lens photographing J.D. Hayworth of Arizona for a campaign commercial by a Democrat named Harry Mitchell, for all of eight seconds...please).

Here is more faux equivalency – I did a simple Google search and ended up at the site of someone called Ace of Spades with another video link that I’ll have to watch later (Update 1/11/11: It also showed the Mitchell ad - it is to laugh), and I also ended up reading a blog post from someone called Aaron Goldstein decrying the statement from veep Joe Biden that he wanted to “strangle” the next congressional Republican who wanted to balance the budget – he also chastised Obama for describing the “hand-to-hand combat” of dealing with Republicans. Goldstein also criticized the idiotic stunt of Dem Joe Manchin shooting at something that was supposed to be “cap and trade” legislation…no argument from me that what Manchin did was moronic, but he wasn’t shooting a person, was he?

There is no equivalency between any of this stuff and the shooting of a Democratic member of Congress who was clearing targeted by a completely-unhinged right-wing nut.

Update 2 1/10/11: And yes, I’m going to “go there” on the assault weapons ban here (and yes, I will admit that, even with the ban, it’s possible Loughner would have gotten the gun illegally anyway). Also, here is more from kos.

And by the way, I also give you this from kos…

More "Old Gray Lady" Wankery Over The Shooting (update)

Naive, filthy, unkempt liberal blogger that I am, I had seriously hoped that the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords and everyone else in Arizona yesterday would bring to a halt, among other things, the "false equivalency" game in our media.

Yep, silly me all right (here)...

Democrats have also pointed out cases where Republican candidates seemed to raise the prospect of armed revolt if Washington did not change its ways.

But many Republicans have noted that they too are subject to threats and abuse, and during the health care fight some suggested Democrats were trying to cut off responsible opposition and paint themselves as victims.

Proof? Specifics? Names? Dates? Places? Anywhere in sight? Hello?????

And it gets worse...

DeAnn Hatch, a co-founder of the Tucson Tea Party, said her group had never staged any rallies against the congresswoman elsewhere, and she did not believe there were any Tea Party protesters at the event Saturday.

“I want to strongly, strongly say we absolutely do not advocate violence,” she said. “This is just a tragedy to no end.”

But others said it would be hard to separate this shooting from the ideological clash.

“At a time like this, it is terrible that we do have to think about politics, but no matter what the shooter’s motivations were, the left is going to blame this on the Tea Party movement,” (Judson) Phillips, from Tea Party Nation, said on his Web site.

“While we need to take a moment to extend our sympathies to the families of those who died, we cannot allow the hard left to do what it tried to do in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing,” he wrote.

For the record, this member of "the left" does not blame the teabaggers for the shooting; we are still waaay too early into this story to know if the coward responsible for this atrocity (assuming Loughner was the only one involved) was affiliated with any particular group. And I don't have a clue as to what Phillips is taking about concerning the Oklahoma City bombing.

And I think Phillips doth protest too much on this anyway, seeing as how, as noted here, he called for the defeat of Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison merely because he is a Muslim (yes, I have no evidence that Phillips has supported violence against anyone, but he has certainly polluted what should be meaningful political discourse in this country).

This isn't a time for Phillips or anyone else to try and score cheap political points (and more fool Times reporters Carl Hulse and Kate Zerinke for letting Phillips get away with it).

(And as far as Lamar Alexander is concerned here, nothing to see, move along - sigh.)

Update: And by the way, here is a voice of sanity on this subject…

“There is a need for some reflection here - what is too far now?”…“What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other.”

Who uttered these sage words? Well, we don’t know – as Politico tells us, they came from “A senior Republican senator, speaking anonymously in order to freely discuss the tragedy…”

Oh yes, Heaven forbid that a Republican go on the record and say something even remotely confrontational to some of the more extreme elements of his own party, lest he or she be pilloried verbally and victimized by outrageous rhetoric and even more outrageous and theatrical demonstrations against them, to say nothing of threats of “second-amendment remedies.”

But of course this person can’t tell us who they are. Otherwise, how else could they “freely discuss the tragedy”?

And just remember, the left is as guilty as the right here. Sure.

I know this is “apples and oranges,” but I wish the Democratic “leadership” and Number 44 himself showed anywhere near this degree of circumspection when they decide to lambaste the “professional left” who contribute funds, walk precincts and run phone banks for them to help them get elected (here).

Violence against anyone regardless of political opinion is wrong, but it’s easy to attack the DFHs. But don’t you dare cross the right, who will cry “victimization” faster than you can say “lock and load.”

Saturday Mashup (1/8/11)

Obviously, the horrific event in Arizona today trumps everything, but there is still some unfinished business in our congressional district.

I said earlier that I would cut PA-08 rep Mikey Fitzpatrick some slack on the matter of his swearing-in screwup with fellow Repug Pete Sessions. What I meant was that I would give him the benefit of the doubt that there was a schedule conflict that prevented him from attending the ceremony in person.

I did not mean to absolve him of the idiocy of thinking that he could put his hand up at his fundraiser/party/whatever it was and swear himself in remotely over the TV (again, he’s a lawyer and not a “newbie,” having served a term already). I also did not mean to absolve him of the stupidity of reading the 25th Amendment at that dopey little show Boehner and company made of reading the Constitution and mispronouncing "president pro tempore," which I noted previously (and yes, I say “dopey” because they didn’t read the whole thing, with all members attending).

So that brings us to this story in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer…

In an interview late Friday, Fitzpatrick defended the Wednesday-afternoon reception that distracted him from his swearing-in duty, saying it was in no way, shape, or form a campaign fund-raiser, as Democrats have alleged.

House ethics officials "gave us very specific instructions that campaign funds could be used for that purpose," Fitzpatrick said. "The reception was open to anybody. . . . There was no charge. It was not a fund-raiser, and it is quite a stretch to suggest otherwise."

Well, as I already noted about Fitzpatrick’s attempt at a remote swearing-in, he definitely knows about behavior that is “quite a stretch.”

Meanwhile, Crooks and Liars tells us the following (here)…

Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.) was attending a celebration in the Capitol Visitor Center with supporters that his campaign bused in from Pennsylvania. A spokesman for Fitzpatrick said the event, titled “Fitzpatrick’s Swearing-in Celebration,” was not a fundraiser and that no contributions were collected.

“There was a bus available for people that wanted to ride it down,” spokesman Darren Smith said.

Fitzpatrick’s campaign website listed a $30 fee for transportation costs for the swearing-in festivities. In addition, more than 200 people who did not ride the buses attended the event for free, according to Smith.

CVC space may not be used for “political activities, including political campaign, political party, or political action committees activities,” according to a copy of rules for using CVC rooms.

__

Oh, okay! Big misunderstanding, right? Even though a screenshot of his webpage (which has since been taken down) offers check boxes for larger amounts and included the line: "Please note that your donation will appear on your credit card statement as "Campaign Financial Svcs."

And far be it from me to point out that we have no way of knowing if people were actually buying "bus seats" -- or just making a donation under cover of a bus ride they had no plans to take. (Which is an old political trick used to pad the take.)

My philosophy? When in doubt, reverse the parties and treat them the same way they'd treat us. If this was a Democrat, Fitzpatrick would be pilloried 24/7 on Fox.

Indeed (Remember the supposed scandal of Patrick Murphy's book deal? You know, the one for which Murphy did absolutely nothing wrong?)

Now, back to the shooting in Arizona, I give you the following from Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik (and kudos to him for his courage – the right-wing umbrage will begin momentarily)…



…and there are a few songs I had in my head as this all played out, and this is one of them…



…and Keith Olbermann had, I thought, some good words on all of this tonight.



Now, I don’t mean to absolve myself here either. As I’ve said, I only advocate violence against one person at this site, and that is bin Laden (maybe that’s wrong, but that’s where I’m coming from). I don’t personally advocate violence against anyone else, nor should I, and I don’t read people who do (unless I'm critiquing them, in which case I don't take them seriously). And sorry, I don’t know how else to say this, but I just don’t see this anti-government, veiled-threats-of-violence crap from anyone on the left (though, as Eugene Robinson noted tonight on the special edition of “Countdown,” there was definitely a time in this country when the left was very scary, with the legitimate Black Panther Party, the Weather Underground, etc.).

But that doesn’t mean I can’t do more to “lift all boats” either.

I know I indulge in name-calling at this site, typically using the terms “wingnut,” “numbskull,” “nematode,” and other stuff that is pretty bland compared to what people of my political persuasion are routinely called at right-wing sites and comment threads, even at supposedly “respectable” publications like the Bucks County Courier Times. But I’ll try to do better, I promise (I just changed a link at this site which, despite popup text to the contrary, could imply violence against a person or organization).

I’ll keep trying to reach out, in the spirit of the example set by Congresswoman Giffords. I’ll try to be more tolerant, though I must tell you that that’s very tough. But it’s the least we can do to honor her at this time if for no other reason.

Finally, sorry again if this is self-righteous, but I’ve asked at this site what it’s going to take before someone puts a stop to the hateful language that, in some yet-to-be-completely-determined measure (at least concerning today), could potentially lead to violence.

It should never have come to this, but let’s hope and pray that we now have our answer.

Update 1/9/11: As the Philadelphia Daily News blog "High Cheese" by David Murphy (about baseball) tells us here, the 9-year-old shooting victim not only was born on 9/11, but she was the granddaughter of former Phillies manager Dallas Green (our prayers and sympathies go out to all of the victims, and probably for ourselves a bit also).

(2011 has gotten off to an absolutely horrific start - I wish we had a "do-over.")

A Word Or Two About Gabby Giffords

We now know that police have some life form named Jared Loughner in custody for the shooting of Dem U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of Federal Judge John Roll, a nine-year-old child and four others at this point (more here). Based on the MSNBC story, it looks like Loughner is another one of these anti-government nuts who paid too much attention to the whacked voices in his head instead of seeking counseling, but this is still very early in the process of trying to analyze and digest this horrific story.

Giffords herself notes, at about 2:30 in the clip below, that Sarah Palin marked Giffords' district as one to be "targeted" in 2010 with a gun sight on a map (Think Progress shows it here), though Palin took that down from her Facebook page apparently before she offered condolences to Giffords' family; try toning down your nutty rhetoric first, you lunatic - you should have done that long ago anyway (and by the way, the hairdo appearing here with Chuck Todd asks a truly outrageous question about the Democrats milking the Republican-leaning extremism, with no basis in actual fact of course).

Again, this is early in the story, and there is much to learn about this Loughner character and if there was a particular political motivation at work here. But for now, let us offer our sympathies, not only to the family and friends of Congresswoman Giffords, but to Judge Roll and the other victims.

Update: The very latest on this is here, with an appropriate cautionary note from Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, and here is a touching remembrance from Alan Grayson (and "Countdown" is airing a special episode tonight that I will tune in to shortly).

Friday Stuff

Good for Alan Grayson; he should keep speaking up even though he’s out of public life – his voice needs to be heard (here)…



…and it’s time for a theology lesson from “father” Bill Orally here (his stupidity goes in, it goes out – plenty of miscommunication)…

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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…”Worst Persons” from Wednesday (An Illinois woman calls the police because she was afraid something happened to her husband when she heard scary noises over his cell phone, but in reality, he was safe and sound and the scary noises was just the sound of rap tunes coming from his car radio…wonder if she’ll have to pay for the time spent by the cops chasing the proverbial wild goose here?; President Traian Basescu of Romania inflicts a tax on gypsies and fortune tellers in that country - good luck trying to collect; but David Williams, president of the state senate in Kentucky, wants to be guv, so he decided to do his would-be counterpart in Arizona, Jan “Lady Skeletor” Brewer, one better on her “illegal to be brown” law…but of course, Williams is “a horse of a different color,” as they say, and I’ll let you, dear reader, assume the anatomical reference)…



…and finally, I have to tell you that I’ve felt like I’d rather vote for Tom Coburn than post this week, and if that isn’t a damning indictment, then I don’t know what is.

I’m surprised a bit that the story of the death of Bucks County, PA (and Lower Makefield) resident Matt Crozier made the Huffington Post here, but I suppose it was because it is such a horrific tragedy.

While giving away as few details as possible, I should point out that we’re friends somewhat of the family – not close, but we’ve interacted at school and church functions a bit. You would have to go a long way to find more selfless individuals. And we are part of a community in utter shock (I suppose my own personal sense of rage will come later, not that that’s worth much in the scheme of things I realize).

At times like this, you feel that no matter what you’re doing to help the family, it isn’t enough. And as someone who helped to bury a parent in his 70s, my personal experience was that there were times when I felt like I needed the support like nobody’s business, but there were also plenty of times when I just wanted people to get the hell out of my face, no matter how good their intentions. I can only imagine how much those feelings are magnified for someone cut down quite literally in the prime of his life.

(Also, politics isn’t worth spit in the face of situations like this, but this has made me reflect once more on the stupidity of our wars, particularly in Afghanistan. Knowing that situations like this have played out literally thousands of times in the last ten years in particular across this country for our casualties has made me want to take to the streets banging pots and pans calling for people to get motivated and call their politicians, telling them to end the war in as direct a manner as possible, as The Eternal Molly Ivins once said we should. But of course, lacking her spine, I won’t.)

I’ve gone back and forth on an appropriate song, and I hope this will suffice (you hear Howard Stern and Robin Quivers at the end complimenting Dave Grohl).

"When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."

Thursday Stuff (update)

So let's review, shall we?

First, Speaker Boehner decides to allow this little show of reading the Constitution as the soon-to-be-dreaded 112th Congress commences (and as noted earlier here, it wasn't even the whole document).

Next, he allows our own Mikey Fitzpatrick of PA-08 his turn to read the 25th Amendment, but oops! - it turns out he hasn't even been sworn into his job yet (sworn to be "bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution," that is).

So what does Mikey do when he reads it? As you can see, he refers to the "President pro tempore" of the Senate as the "President pro temporary."

Now I consulted with Mrs. Doomsy on this because this issue involves a "romance" language, Latin in particular (she being smarter than I on this and most other matters), and she advised me that the pronunciation is "pro tem-PRAY."

You would think Mikey would have known this since he's already served (and he's a lawyer also, of course). Short of that, you would think the geniuses who dreamed up this whole stunt (or one of them at least) would have told Fitzpatrick the correct pronunciation.

God, if they couldn't even get THIS right, imagine what kind of legislation we can expect from these bozos.

I'm afraid it's going to be a loooong two years (more here)...



Update 1/7/11: More on Mikey's rip-roaring start here (and good for Anthony Weiner to rub the Repugs' faces in it, as it were).

...and I was tempted to put up the original by Johnny Ray ("Cry," I mean - thinking of Boehner but probably us too), but perhaps this parody from Stan Freberg is more appropriate (this whole bunch running the House is a parody anyway as far as I'm concerned, of elected leaders, professionals, adults, etc.).

Thursday Mashup (1/6/11)

I’ve really tried to avoid the blog of former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm for a little while now, but I suppose some things can’t be put off forever, particularly with us beginning a new year and all.

And if you guessed that his latest nonsense here has to do with misinterpreting polling data, then you win a free, commemorative John Boehner crying towel…

Finally, some good news to please President Obama in a new Gallup Poll.

The survey finds that more Americans still identify themselves as Democrats (31%) than call themselves Republicans.

Now, the bad news:

That 31% ties the lowest annual average of Democrats since 1988, when fellow Harvard Law alum Michael Dukakis got thumped by the first Bush to become president.

Oh yes, I know this news is absolutely terrifying and has all kinds of evil portents for the election of President Obama to a second term. OMIGOD!!

Thirty one percent??!! Time to clean house!! Fire everybody and bring back the Clintonites!!!

But before anybody does anything, I would ask that you look at this Gallup poll from June of 2008, a few months before Obama was elected. Guess what the percentage was of voters who identified themselves as Democrats?

Thirty seven percent.

So basically, Malcolm is trying to whip up opposition to Number 44 as usual, even though, despite the litany of “issues” Malcolm cites against Obama (“Broken promises”? For real, Malcolm??!!) and the pettiness of noting the times Obama flew on Air Force One and the Marine One helicopter (please), the number of voters identifying themselves as Democrats has decreased by a mere six points (and we have quite a way to go still until the 2012 elections, fortunately).

Also, from the reality-based community, Eric Boehlert tells us here why he is “embarrassed” for Malcolm and his attempts at propagandizing poll data.

Meanwhile, I would ask that you keep the following poll numbers here in mind on the issue of choice and other family matters when the ruling U.S. House Repugs, flush now with their own sense of self importance, inevitably go too far in pursuit of a “values” issue (see trying to defund public television, turning the Terri Schiavo tragedy into a circus, Clinton impeachment, etc.).

Next, David Bossie of Citizens United propagandizes here about the now-departed 111th Congress (here)…

The 112th Congress…will have the monumental task of cleaning up the mess made by the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress. First and foremost, it should be the goal of this Congress not to increase the exploding national debt. The 111th Congress added a seemingly impossible $3.22 trillion to the national debt in just two years, for a grand total of nearly $13.9 trillion and counting. Every American man, woman and child now owes $44,886.57 each toward the national debt. America cannot sustain itself on this massive borrowing and trillion-dollar deficit spending.

“Democrat”-controlled…too funny (once again, “Democrat” is a noun, not an adjective). And in the matter of Pelosi supposedly “exploding” the national debt, I give you Media Matters once more here.

So who exactly does Bossie support among congressional Repugs? Well, as noted here…

Citizens United, the conservative, Supreme Court-case-winning no-profit that produced Newt Gingrich's "America at Risk" documentary (released two films last September). The first…"Fire from the Heartland," (is) a documentary that features Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wy.), and Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) as examples of what CU's David Bossie calls "an awakening among women in America."

And for the record, that would be the same Moon Unit Bachmann who, as noted here, supports increasing the deficit.

Lather, rinse, repeat…

Finally, Orrin Hatch takes issue with those who take issue with the Repug-run 112th Congress reading the Constitution on the House floor (here)…

…who would have thought that simply reading the Constitution out loud on the House floor — by the very House members who the day before took an oath to support and defend it — would be met with such cynicism. Many belittled it as “symbolism,” as if that were a bad thing. One Democratic congressman dismissed reading the Constitution as nothing but “propaganda.” He is — seriously — the previous chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on, yes, the Constitution.

The person Hatch is referring to is Dem congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York (and of course, the wingnutosphere leapt into full-on umbrage mode here, saying that Nadler “slandered” the Constitution, which of course is demonstrably false).

I think all of this is a tempest in the proverbial tea pot anyway also because, as noted here, even the now-ruling party in the House didn’t think much of the ritual they themselves ballyhooed to con play like fools once more steal votes from win over those zany teabaggers.

Besides, Hatch doesn’t have any room to lecture anybody on the Constitution, particularly because, as noted here, he totally misrepresented the document on the matter of passing health care reform through reconciliation last year…

To impose the will of some Democrats and to circumvent bipartisan opposition, President Obama seems to be encouraging Congress to use the “reconciliation” process, an arcane budget procedure, to ram through the Senate a multitrillion-dollar health-care bill that raises taxes, increases costs and cuts Medicare to fund a new entitlement we can’t afford. This is attractive to proponents because it sharply limits debate and amendments to a mere 20 hours and would allow passage with only 51 votes (as opposed to the 60 needed to overcome a procedural hurdle). But the Constitution intends the opposite process, especially for a bill that would affect one-sixth of the American economy.

What we’ve got here, people, is your basic “bull-dookey” (and as Greg Sargent notes here, Hatch followed that dreaded “offens(ive) to democracy” reconciliation process to vote four times when his party ran the Senate).

Oh, and speaking of Hatch and legislation, here is an example of a bogus bill he introduced to score partisan political points last year that was an utter embarrassment (though, as far as our corporate media is concerned – all together now – IOKIYAR…and that might as well be changed to “always OK” for good measure).

Wednesday Stuff

Meet the "new" GOP, same as the old GOP (here - but just keep telling yourself that people out there actually elect these fools)...



...and this is probably a little "Dawson's Creek" of me, but I'm putting up this video anyway; kind of in need of a bit of a pick-me-up...lots of stuff going on impacting blogging a bit that I may get into at some point, or I may not.

Wednesday Mashup (1/5/11) - updates

What luck for the PA-08 U.S. Congressional district – it looks like Mikey Fitzpatrick is back on the job based on this item yesterday in the Bucks County Courier Times (ugh)…

Fitzpatrick, who defeated two-term Democrat Patrick Murphy in November, avenging his loss to Murphy four years earlier, told the crowd his office in the Longworth House Office Building belongs to them.

Of course, his voting record will probably belong to House Speaker John Boehner (you cannot imagine how galling it is for yours truly to type those words, but that’s the reality, my fellow prisoners)…

"I want to deliver a message from the people of the 8th District," he said. "It will be your message."

Fitzpatrick's town hall didn't have any rules. Questions didn't have to be submitted by audience members and read by a staffer. Rather it was a community conversation.

More pointless partisan editorializing from Courier Times reporter Mikey's stenographer Gary Weckselblatt, no doubt trying to get in some last digs at former rep Patrick Murphy (this breaking story for Weckselblatt – Pottery Barn is hiring!).

Also concerning PA-08 and Murphy, I was glad to see that he was hired as a partner with the law firm of Fox Rothschild, as noted here – not that I had any doubt that he would be rewarded for his hard work on behalf of our district (and all the best, of course).

And this excerpt from the story was a bit heartwarming…

While the former Army paratrooper has landed on his feet with a plum job following a tough campaign, he's not ruling out another run for political office.

"My commitment to public service isn't over," he said, "but I'm excited to join Fox Rothschild and spend time with my family."

Given what happened, I’m glad Murphy will be out of the spotlight for a little while and, I’m sure, earning more than he would in the public sector (to say nothing of having a better quality of life).

But whenever you believe the time is right to rejoin the fight, Patrick, just give us the word. We’ll be there.

Update 1 1/6/11: A bit of an inauspicious start here, but I'll cut Mikey some slack for now...

Update 2 1/6/11: OK, no more slack for Mikey; I didn't know our government featured a "President pro temporary" (here). Color me shocked!

Update 1/8/11: By the way, when I said I would cut Fitzpatrick some slack, I meant that in the matter of a scheduling conflict between a fundraiser and his swearing-in ceremony. I did not mean that when it comes to his craven stupidity, along with Pete Sessions, in thinking that watching the swearing-in remotely and just putting up your hand while watching the screen passed for taking the oath of office - just wanted to be clear on that.

Also, it looks like Repug U.S. House Rep (and incoming chair of the House Homeland Security Committee) Peter King is having a pout over a New York Times editorial here (a little behind the news cycle on this one, I realize)…

(King) ripped into The New York Times Tuesday for telling him in a weekend editorial to tone down his rhetoric.

From King’s response, there is no indication he will do anything of the sort.

“I’m absolutely delighted that The New York Times would attack me,” he said in an interview with The Hill. “I have nothing but contempt for them. They should be indicted under the Espionage Act. … The New York Times is just basically being a mouthpiece for political correctness.”

King took aim at a Sunday editorial that criticized King's comments about the radicalization of Muslins. The editorial suggested such comments were beneath someone who will be chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

The Times editorial also made the interesting point that “(this) is all the more perplexing because Mr. King was one of the few Republicans to back the Clinton administration’s interventions in the Balkans to protect Muslims.”

All so “pre-9/11” of the Times, I realize (removing my tongue from my cheek...and speaking of which and the whole matter of Muslim extremism, this tells us that, with typically idiotic bluster, King voted for implementing the 9/11 commission recommendations after criticizing Democrats for the bill, along with his partner in demagoguery, fellow Repug Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida).

Also, if King decides to hold these hearings, I wonder if he’ll actually cite members of the Muslim community in this country who helped to foil terrorist plots, as Adam Serwer notes here?

Finally, I wanted to return to incoming House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa briefly once more based on this story yesterday (briefly is all I can tolerate him, to be honest – and again, I know the news cycle has pretty well churned through the fact that he has approached various business-related entities asking what they want him to propagandize about wax hysterical over waste taxpayer funds pursuing investigate)…

One person knowledgeable about the matter tells POLITICO that Issa on Dec. 29 appears to have re-sent more than 75 letters to administration officials.

(Issa spokesman Kurt) Bardella acknowledged that Issa re-sent a host of unanswered missives recently. "This is something we've been working on since the election," he said. "Before we start something new, we want to get answers to the questions that have been ignored."

This includes past letters to Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and White House Counsel Robert Bauer regarding reports by POLITICO and others about the use of official travel for political purposes. In his letter to Bauer, Issa notes he wrote last June to the heads of 21 federal departments and agencies "requesting documents and information about the extent to which White House political personnel have been involved with planning, directing, or coordinating the travel of department and agency officials to participate in official or political public events."

Issa said that former Oversight and Investigations Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) did a similar probe of Bush administration officials in the prior Congress.

(And speaking of Issa and Waxman, let’s not forget this charming moment either, OK?)

Well, yes, Waxman did pursue the Bushies when he chaired the committee, including Deadeye Dick Cheney – as noted here…

Henry Waxman (D-CA), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, (wrote) to Vice President Cheney demanding an explanation for his decision not to comply with executive orders (see 2003). Cheney’s office, like other executive branch entities, is required to annually report on the amount of documents it is classifying, and how those documents are being kept secure. The annual requests are made in pursuance of an executive order, last updated by President Bush in 2003. The order states that it applies to any “entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.” Cheney…justified the decision by saying that because the Vice President is also the president of the Senate, the vice president’s office is not strictly a part of the executive branch, and therefore is not subject to the president’s executive orders; he cites as evidence his Constitutional role as a tie breaker in the Senate. Waxman writes, “Your decision to exempt your office from the President’s order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk. It is also hard to understand given the history of security breaches involving officials in your office.” Waxman’s point is that, if Cheney’s office is not part of the executive branch, then it is not authorized to view many of the classified documents it routinely receives; therefore the viewing of these documents by Cheney and his officials constitutes a breach of security. Waxman writes, “I question both the legality and the wisdom of your actions. In May 2006, an official in your office [Leandro Aragoncillo] pled guilty to passing classified information to individuals in the Philippines [as part of a plot to overthrow President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo… Aragoncillo reportedly disclosed numerous secret and top secret documents to Philippine officials over several years while working in your office.… In March 2007, your former chief of staff, Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements for denying his role in disclosing the identity of a covert CIA agent (see November 20, 2007). In July 2003, you reportedly instructed Mr. Libby to disclose information from a National lntelligence Estimate to Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter. This record does not inspire confidence in how your office handles the nation’s most sensitive security information. Indeed, it would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials.… Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information.” Waxman notes that Cheney’s office is notorious for declassifying information for purely political reasons, as in the Libby case. Waxman concludes, “Given this record, serious questions can be raised about both the legality and the advisability of exempting your office from the rules that apply to all other executive branch officials.” [CONGRESS COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 6/21/2007; NEW YORK TIMES, 6/22/2007] The next day, when asked what he believes about Cheney’s position, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will quip, “I always thought that he was president of this administration.” [COX NEWS SERVICE, 6/22/2007] Five days later, Waxman will say, “I know the vice president wants to operate with unprecedented secrecy, but this is absurd. This order is designed to keep classified information safe. His argument is really that he’s not part of the executive branch, so he doesn’t have to comply.… He doesn’t have classified information because of his legislative function. It’s because of his executive function.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 6/22/2007]

Somehow, though, I seriously doubt that Issa, even if the evidence of similar illegality existed in the Obama Administration, would be up to the task of attempting to ferret it out (though I’m sure that will not prevent him from trying to do so).

And speaking of the former veep, this New York Times story tells us of the latest medical technology that is keeping him alive (we learn that, due to the way his heart pump works, Cheney has no literal pulse that can be measured as yours or mine would be, but it ensures a continuous flow throughout his body instead; the story provides more details – and I’ll leave the snark up to you on that, dear reader...despite the fact that he’s an utterly despicable character, I don’t wish the misfortune for him that, as a consequence of his psychotic notions of governance, he inflicted on others).

What a shame that his daughter would deprive others less well off of the advantage of state-of-the-art medical care enjoyed by her father, as noted here.

Tuesday Stuff

I may have more to say about Darrell Issa tomorrow; in his case, a lot needs to be said (hopefully back to posting tomorrow, and congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton makes a great point in the last minute here about the Democrats and investigations - more on Issa here)...



Update 1/5/11: More here.

...and RIP Gerry Rafferty - I think it's safe to say that this song helped to define an entire genre of music, despite the fact that I think "classic rock" is an oxymoron.

Monday Stuff

The first "Worst Persons (Not Really)" segment of 2011 (Michael Steele, running again for RNC head, and Ann Wagner, also trying for that gig, take the "bronze" for not remembering what books they supposedly read recently, with Steele somehow mixing up quotes between Dickens and Tolstoy - "My kitchen table" for Wagner??? Bizarre, yet somehow apropos; maybe-somehow-actually-honest-to-goodness-retired-for-real-once-and-for-all Brett Favre from the Minnesota Vikings follows up his "sexting" peccadillo with a New York Jets employee with a lawsuit by two massage therapists - you would think a guy with his kind of NFL "clout" would know how to hush up stuff like this, but I guess not - not that I condone it anyway, I want to emphasize; but Governor Bully and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg share top "honors" for their abysmal performances during the recent snowstorm...plenty of right-wing umbrage for Obama going to Hawaii, though it isn't 44's job to make sure the snow plows show up...elections have consequences, as our beloved commonwealth is about to learn also)...



...and I give you the following as a tribute to Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, who died 25 years ago tomorrow (I'm sure the title of this song is what Favre is telling anyone who will listen).

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).

Saturday Stuff

We know Richard Holbrooke passed away a few weeks ago, but I recently came across this item, and I thought it was an interesting remembrance, particularly about the Kosovo war...



...and whaddaya know? Look who received an OBE (here - and congrats to Trevor Horn and Annie Lennox also).