Friday Mashup (2/18/11)

Crazy Tom Coburn of Oklahoma imparts the following to us today at the WaPo (here, on the economy of course)…

“…in the coming budget debate, everything has to be on the table. There can be no sacred cows and pet priorities.”

Sweet Jeebus, that’s way too damn funny (though in a “gallows humor” kind of way, I’ll admit). As noted here…

This bastard voted YES for tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. He voted YES to exempt them from the estate tax. He voted YES to give these same rich people additional benefits in the form of capital gains tax cuts. Yet, somehow he had the balls to vote NO on taking care of the 9-11 responders who risked everything to respond to the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil on the grounds that it's too expensive. How can he possibly rationalize this?

Oh, and as the post notes, the 9/11 First Responders fund will be available for only five years. Nice.

And it’s interesting to me that the 1st Republic 14th Star poster mentioned Alan Grayson, referencing his “die quickly” quote about the Republicans and those without health care, particularly because of this.

Next, I give you last week’s Area Votes in Congress here, and I’d like to highlight two in particular (and I already gave Mikey The Beloved credit for voting against the Patriot Act renewal…the first was by the House)…

Food, water, toys. Voting 178-242, the House defeated a Democratic bid to ensure that committee reviews conducted under HJ Res 72 uphold regulations that keep children's toys safe and protect the nation's drinking-water and food supply. There was no debate on the motion.

A yes vote backed the Democratic motion.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Fattah, Holden, and Schwartz.

Voting no: Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

So the Repugs are against upholding regulations to keep our food and water safe along with children’s toys (and I’m sure the Bucks County Courier Times will write a clarification to this shortly saying “oh, this was another ‘gotcha’ move by the Dems to make the Repugs look bad” or something, kind of like the way they leapt to Saint Mikey’s defense this week over his vote that basically supported offshoring our jobs, with the paper saying “oh, it was just a procedural vote to table the measure” or something…I cannot for the life of me recall such clarifications over votes by Patrick Murphy).

Now for the second (turning to the Senate)…

Airport body scans. The Senate voted, 96-1, to make it a federal crime to publicly distribute body-scan images from security checkpoints at airports, federal courthouses, and certain other public buildings. The amendment was attached to a Federal Aviation Administration bill (S 223) that remained in debate. It follows the recent posting of thousands of full-body images on the Internet. Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) cast the negative vote.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Chris Coons (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), and Pat Toomey (R., Pa.).

Not voting: Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

I don’t call Coburn crazy for nothing, people.

In addition, this from Fix Noise tells us how the House Repugs have “lobotomized” the EPA (cute). In response, allow me to point out the following from here…

Rapid irreversible melting of one third to two thirds of earth's permafrost, will add huge amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, accelerating warming, reports the National Ice and Snow Data Center (NSIDC). Permafrost melt lakes portend the destabilization of the Arctic's landscapes and ecosystems and emissions of greenhouse gases CO2 and CH4.

I will, however, that Fix Noise as a group are subject matters on this topic (the effects of lobotomies, I mean).

Also, speaking of the Bucks County Courier Times, the paper gave a Thumbs Down citation to County Commissioner Charley “I Have A Semi-Open Mind” Martin for the following (here)…

To county Commissioner Chairman Charley Martin for promoting his unproven and inexperienced Republican colleague, Robert Loughery, to vice chairman on Loughery's first day on the job.

Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia had sought the post. But the lone Democrat was rejected when Martin broke a tie vote and awarded the job to Loughery, who was appointed to the board and not elected. Ellis-Marseglia not only is much more experienced, she is the board's top vote-getter.

Oh well, just another in a long line of partisan decisions that have long emanated from Doylestown.

Kind of makes you wonder why the paper just went along with the decisions of some judges behind closed doors to give the commissioner job to one of Martin’s pals instead of calling for a special election, but what’s done is done.

Finally, I haven’t checked up on The Doughy Pantload for a little while, but as noted here, not much has changed (I suppose he’s commenting on the recent uprisings in Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Iran also)…

Liberals, who were once naively optimistic about democracy promotion, turned dour when President Bush became naively optimistic about it.

In response I’d like to share the following; kind of a tie-in to President’s Day which we’ll observe on Monday.

I give you FDR on democracy (here - an ever-timely reminder)…

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group...

(By the way, he said this at a time when actual fascism was in power in Italy, as opposed to the phony kind Goldberg alleged in his book.)

I also give you Harry Truman on the same topic (here)…

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice.

Next, I give you JFK (and how true these words are particularly now)…

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

Also, here is Lyndon Johnson on democracy (again, how true)…

We preach the virtues of democracy abroad. We must practice its duties here at home. Voting is the first duty of democracy.

Here is what Jimmy Carter once said on this subject...

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself- always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

And finally, Bill Clinton on democracy (here)…

"Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right in America."

If you think there’s anything like naïve optimism at work here, let me know, OK?

Thursday Stuff

Rachel Maddow connects the dots beautifully here on the Repugs and their (and I hesitate to say this, but it fits pretty well here) "war" on public employees (she should get an Emmy or a Cable ACE award or something for this, but she won't - I came across some pundit over the last few days wondering what it would take to stage pro-democracy uprisings in this country; I think we have our answer...a shame that most of Wisconsin apparently slept last November on Election Day, but they're making up for it now - here is an update)...



...and in another context, I think this tune works (sorry, no video - posting questionable again for tomorrow).

Thursday Mashup (2/17/11)

I know we just can’t get enough of more bogus polling analysis from former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm, and he delivers again here…

President Obama's done a lot of talking recently about Winning the Future. Trouble is, he's not. Politically.

At this moment -- 57% of the way through a first term with only 628 days left until the 2012 presidential election -- the Democrat can only tie any conceivable Republican candidate (according to a new Gallup poll).

Oh, and did you know that Obama’s support among 18-to-34-year-old voters has “evaporated” from 63 to 51 percent?

In response, Media Matters tells us the following here…

The question didn't assess Obama's standing vis-a-vis "any conceivable Republican candidate" -- it assessed his standing versus a generic Republican candidate about whom respondents know nothing. That's pretty much the opposite of "any conceivable Republican candidate."

Though I will acknowledge that whoever emerges from the Repug field with the presidential nomination will have their party’s support locked up I’m sure based on this.

Next, as noted here, Dem U.S. House Rep Betty McCollum of Minnesota wants to cut the Army’s budget for NASCAR sponsorship (awwww).

Well, considering that all of our services achieved 100 percent of their recruiting goals last year (with the Marine Corps Reserve hitting 125 percent), except for the Army National Guard (which achieved 95 percent) as noted here, as a taxpayer, I have no problem with saving some greenbacks on this (let some corporate sponsors pick up the tab – if they’re advertising at NASCAR events, somehow I’m sure they can afford to pony up some extra bucks).

Update 2/18/11: Like flatulence after indigestion - nice (h/t Daily Kos)

In addition, “Z on TV” is back to dump on MSNBC again, telling us here, among other things, that “all of MSNBC prime time is sinking in the ratings.”

I have no reliable data on the recent ratings of “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell, but if he’s having a tough time, I’m not surprised. To be fair, he has to fill the shoes of the network’s marquee performer who has since departed, and he also has to build up his own audience brand loyalty at the same time (that’s why I thought Ed Schultz would have been a better fit for the 8-9 slot, since he has a longer history of attracting and keeping a media audience and he seems to take to the role of a pit bull for the left, if you will, more naturally, though O’Donnell is no slouch when it comes to generating controversy either).

But are Rachel Maddow’s ratings “sinking”? Not according to these recent data, (and yes, that is grammatically correct) which shows her winning the 9-10 slot over Piers Morgan of CNN (and for Zurawik to compare Maddow or anyone else to Fix Noise, ratings wise, is typically disingenuous since they usually win those prime time slots anyway, sadly enough).

Also, this Daily Kos post tells us that Current TV, Keith Olbermann’s new home, is in a very similar position viewership-wise to MSNBC prior to the first episode of “Countdown” in 2003 (so much for Keith being “newly marginalized by his move to Current TV”).

Zurawik is a typically loathsome corporate media shill who worships at the altar of his “betters,” particularly a certain 44th-president-baiting Fix Noise bully and loudmouth (as noted, with other stuff, from the third bullet here).

Finally, James Taranto of the Murdoch Street Journal opined here about the brutality that CBS News correspondent Lara Logan suffered recently in Egypt (I really wanted to avoid saying anything about this, but as usual, the wingnuts somersaulted over the line of decency – I hope all goes well for Logan, and I hope those responsible for anything she suffered are drawn and quartered and/or fed to the buzzards).

Taranto is actually fair to a point here, criticizing not only someone named Nir Rosen, about whom I know nothing, but his ideological fellow travelers also for taking their commentary on this to extremes (though I didn’t see anything about this, this, this, this, this or this...the final link includes some of the prior ones). Towards the end of his post, though, Taranto manages to equate Logan’s ordeal with criticism of Sarah Palin, as well as Bill Maher’s recent joke about Elisabeth Hasselbeck in which he mentioned Logan.

I put up the video of Lawrence O’Donnell’s interview with Maher here in which this was noted, and I can assure you that, had Maher or the rest of us known the true nature of Logan’s ordeal, no one would have been joking over it. And it is typically despicable for Taranto or anyone else to suggest otherwise.

Wednesday Stuff

And oh yeah, it looks like Scalia and Thomas of The Supremes haven't been too forthcoming on the whole financial disclosure thing concerning all of their little parties with their "pay no price, bear no burden" pals...



...and it looks like it was nothing but a non-stop "laff riot" with those zany CPAC-ers ("Stop, You're Killing Me!" - yeah, I wish...and yes, that's only a joke)...

The Daily Show - C-SNAP
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

...and I more or less had this song on my mind in response to this story - once more, PROG ROCK LIVES!...



...and I'm feeling a little generous, so here's another tune (don't know about posting tomorrow either - we'll see).

Wednesday Mashup (2/16/11) (updates)

Oh yes, isn’t it just awful that those baad autoworkers at “Government” Motors received bonuses while still taking taxpayer dough (here – of course, nary a peep has been heard from wingnut media over this).

Next, even on the exceedingly rare occasion when our Repug PA-08 U.S. House Rep “Mikey The Beloved” Fitzpatrick actually does something right, he still acts like a total wanker about it (here)…

On Monday night, Fitzpatrick voted against the Patriot Act, one of 27 Republicans to do so. After a 275-144 vote, the bill now goes to the Senate.

He said amendments that protect the civil liberties of individuals are no longer in the bill, which he voted for in 2005.

Specifically, he said, he opposes roving wiretaps that permit the federal government to listen in as someone moves from place to place. If a citizen, for example, visits a relative, that relative would then be wiretapped. Should they then go to a friend's home, that person's residence would then be bugged.

He said he's also against the FBI getting a "business records provision" that would allow the agency to find out, for example, what books an individual has checked out of a library over a 10-year period. "I'm for the Patriot Act, but only if the civil liberties of individuals under the Constitution are honored," he said.

The only difference between the Patriot Act that Fitzpatrick voted for in 2005 and the one which he voted against renewing now is that the illegal activity carried out by the telecoms in the original bill that he supported in ’05 was legalized by a Democratic congress, to its eternal shame and disgrace, here. Of course, he can now blame the opposition party for what had been taking place all along anyway (as noted here, the Patriot Act basically shreds the Bill of Rights and beyond, no matter which party is in charge of the House). And yes, this is a trap that the House Dems who were once in charge should have anticipated (and all of this sudden supposed interest in civil liberties by Mikey is just a sop to the teabaggers anyway).

And for good measure, Mikey also inflicts the following…

As vice chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, Fitzpatrick said his goal is to "remove the taxpayer as the backstop" for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie Mae has been subsidized to the tune of $1.5 billion a week, Fitzpatrick said, adding that the cost is closing in on $200 billion. In addition, he said taxpayers have spent $160 million defending the companies' top executives in lawsuits.

He said his committee is looking into getting back those attorney fees.

Wow, I'm sure that will kick-start the moribund jobless picture, won't it?

Continuing...

While he said he's for seeing "first time homebuyers get their piece of the American dream," he also said, "We can't keep pushing people into homes they can't afford."

He criticized the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act for doing just that. CRA encouraged banks to help get low-income borrowers into homes.

"The federal government forced them to do it," he said of risky loans. "Who's surprised it came crashing down? + It's highly fixable because we know how we got there.

First of all, criticizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the meltdown is typically absurd, as noted here. And if you don’t want to believe me, believe Dean Baker, who tells us from the link that Fannie and Freddie were “trailing the exuberance of the private sector” in their admittedly unwise deals.

Second, as noted here, the Community Reinvestment Act “did not contribute to the economic crisis in any substantive way” according to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

I don’t call Fitzpatrick “Mikey The Liar” for nothing, people (of course, Heaven forbid that Mikey’s designated stenographer Gary Weckselblatt would perform some simple Google searches and find out this stuff - can’t have anything interfering with the narrative, after all - though finding a way to take a shot at Jimmy Carter also was an unusually creative touch for a change, though I don't know between he and Mikey who came up with that one).

In addition, it’s nice to know that “Governor Bully” is preoccupied with “serious” issues like this one (notice I didn’t say “weighty”…the wingnut umbrage will begin momentarily). He can’t have anything besmirching the good name of the Garden State, I know.

I guess, as far as he’s concerned, this is a nice diversion from the fact that he blew about $400 million in education funding (here), killed one of this country’s largest public works projects (and he wasn't involved with the alternative noted here), and took a vacation to Disney World while he state dug out of an epic snowstorm (here), but somehow was able to pony up the dough for the Atlantic City casinos (here).

The soap opera goes on.

Update: And of course he peddles this dookey in front of the AEI, who were probably orgasmic over it.

Update 2/17/11: Uh, yep (h/t Atrios)...

Also, we have former Bushco flak Marc Thiessen bloviating as follows (here, concerning the recent events in Egypt)…

When the protests first erupted, ordinary Egyptians appeared to hope - almost to expect - that once they rose up to demand their freedom, America could not help but stand with them. Instead, they heard President Obama's handpicked envoy, Frank Wisner, declare that Hosni Mubarak "must stay in office" to oversee the changes he had ordered. They heard Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declare the United States backed "the transition process announced by the Egyptian government" (which then consisted of Mubarak staying in power until September). And they waited in vain for Obama himself to speak out clearly and align America with the democratic revolution they had set in motion. Soon their hopes gave way to disappointment and eventually anger. Demonstrators began carrying signs that declared "Shame on you Obama!" and showed Mubarak depicted as Obama in his iconic "hope" image - with a caption that read "No You Can't."

Boy, that’s weak even for Thiessen – here is the post that he links to, in which there’s no mention made of the possibility that the imagery of the Mubarak poster is meant as a criticism of Obama (if anything, it looks like it's meant as an imitation). And of course, Thiessen provides no link to the alleged “Shame on you Obama!” posters.

Actually, as noted here, Obama was trying to help get Mubarak out with a "peaceful transfer of power" and new rules on presidential elections, so much so that Deputy Minister for Galilee and Negev Development Ayoub Kara of the Israeli government told Repug presidential nominee Mike Huckabee (yes, I’m serious) that he was “disappointed by Obama’s turning his back” on Mubarak.

On top of that (and speaking of neocons), Elliott Abrams says here (as you might expect) that it’s important for Obama to imitate Former President Nutball in all of this (or something – so then, as far as Thiessen is concerned, is he admitting that Dubya had it wrong too?).

Finally, in the midst of all of the justified outrage over the latest from House Speaker John (“So Be It”) Boehner, it’s easy to forget that he said “everything is on the table” here when it comes to entitlement spending (of course, as I’ve said before, he can pretend to be a spendthrift now that the Repugs got their stinking tax cuts last year in the lame duck session – and you’d better damn believe that they’ll be back for more, unemployment be damned…also, it’s nice to see Boehner’s “firm hand” at work in control of the spoiled children composing the House majority here).

I thought Rachel Maddow had a nice feature on some of the comical budgeting of the House Repugs here (she had another good feature on Boehner last night - I'll try to track down the video).

Tuesday Stuff

(Hopefully back to posting tomorrow...)

A particularly appropriate question given this revolting development (South Dakota keeps voting against this stuff, Repug politicians keep introducing these horrific bills - lather, rinse, repeat; to support the ad, click here)...



...and "so be it," Orange Man (here)? And oh please, some wingnut remind me once more how awful Nancy Pelosi is - tell me when the spaceship lands...



Update 2/21/11: And of course, Boehner's cruel and ridiculous remark was dutifully ignored by our corporate media stenographers (as noted here, among other observations...h/t Atrios).

...and take a bow, all you idiot voters who bought the typical Repug crap on this issue last November (and I'm not going to waste a second of my life trying to source any of this nonsense)...



Update 2/16/11: More here and here...

...and yes, I know this is a commercial for the Democratic Party - tough (my response to "news" at practically any corporate media site anywhere telling us the latest about Palin and the teabaggers, no matter how mundane)...



...and RIP Kenneth Mars, one of the greatest comic character actors who ever lived...



...and I'll grant you that I never liked the newly-elected House Repug majority anyway, but I still think this song is apropos.

Monday Stuff

RIP George Shearing...



...and once more, when it's time for no-holds-barred, bring-the-hammer-down, speaking-truth-to-power editorializing - well, that means it's time for Jon Stewart...



...and this tune comes from the days when performers wrote something called "protest songs" (you can Google it), and this is a cover of a seminal Bob Dylan anthem performed by Steve Earle (introduced by the late Howard Zinn - fits Rummy to a "t"...the mike feedback gets better at about 2:30)...



...and oh yeah, before I forget, Happy Valentine's Day (carrying on the tradition).

Monday Mashup (2/14/11)

Oh, and by the way, before people start losing their minds over stories like this, read this and pay particular attention to the paths of the red and blue lines in the chart over the rest of this decade, OK?

Yes, Obama knows about the bloody debt already (and for the two trillionth time, it’s about jobs anyway as opposed to everything else). Can we all just get a grip and try acting like adults?

Also, I thought ProPublica had a good interview here with former PA DEP Secretary John Hanger, who served under former Governor Ed Rendell – what follows are some excerpts…

Q: One of the recurring issues around the growth of gas drilling is that, even if laws are in place, they need to be enforced. Does Pennsylvania have enough inspectors to oversee the industry as it continues to grow?

It does as of this moment, but I've been saying for two years that's a question that has to be asked and answered every year. As the industry grows, the answer I think will be no, if we stay with the current staffing. We hired in 2009. We hired in 2010. And if we were still in charge of the department, we would probably end up hiring again in 2011, depending on what's going on with the industry.

Q: Can that realistically be done?

Of course it can be done. If needed, and I'm not prepared to say today that it's needed, the state or a governor needs to make this a top priority and then it can happen. That's what we did. We raised the fee. ...You could raise the fee, you could restructure the fee, and you could tax the industry, how about that idea?

[Former Governor Ed Rendell and Hanger tried unsuccessfully to persuade the state legislature to levy a tax on natural gas extraction.] It's absolutely vital that this industry pay a reasonable drilling tax. That's why every other state has assessed a drilling tax. It's because there are actually winners and losers.

Are you feeling all warm and fuzzy about ripping the Marcellus Shale wide open after reading that last sentence? Neither am I...

Q: Does Pennsylvania have the laws it needs to make sure the drilling industry takes (the path of developing a “culture of safety”)?

I think there are a couple of areas where further work needs to be done, at a minimum. One is the bonding law [which requires that drillers post bonds to cover the cost of plugging and reclaiming wells that are no longer producing]. The bonding rate in Pennsylvania is scandalously low: It's ridiculous.

[Also], it would make good environmental and economic sense to have a spacing and pooling rule on the books. The details need to get worked out, but essentially, what it would do is say that wells cannot be closer than X. I've thrown out somewhere between one and two miles apart... And that gas can in fact be pooled as long as any gas used from an unwilling mineral owner is compensated for it at certainly the fair market value. [Because a single well can often drain gas from several properties, “pooling” laws sometimes allow drillers to extract that gas over the objection of some of the landowners.] Most other states have some provision like that.

So basically, the short answer to the "culture of safety" question is no. I also felt that Hanger dodged the question of who should be responsible for ensuring the environmental safety of fracking chemicals, assuming it is possible to provide that assurance (and I kept telling myself as I read this that Hanger was someone who I honestly believe was in our corner on a lot of this stuff, though at times I wondered).

Hanger’s successor at the PA Department of Environmental Protection in the Tom Corbett administration is Judge Michael Krancer; as noted here, he has been a judge on the PA environmental hearing board for the past ten years. At this point, I would say that Judge Krancer is entitled to the benefit of the doubt in his new role, and of course we wish him luck (he’ll need it, as will we all).

Update 3/3/11: Here comes that sinking feeling again (here - h/t Atrios).

Next, I think this is an appropriate time to revisit a certain Repug PA-08 U.S. House rep on the issue of jobs; as noted here from a few months ago, “Mikey The Beloved” Fitzpatrick opposed tax cuts for supposed job creation in 2005, but made noises like he supported them last year (oh, and if you read through all of the post from last October, try not to laugh too hard when you read Mikey complain about how his predecessor attended a Nancy Pelosi fundraiser, given Mikey’s own issues with such activities last month before he was sworn in…oh, excuse me, I mean to say that Mikey hosted a “reception” with a suggested dollar contribution on the invitation).

Well, given Mikey’s supposed commitment to job creation, you would think his plate would be full of meetings with leaders of startup businesses, groundbreaking ceremonies, announcements of seed funding, other related public works projects, etc.

Well, you would think that would be the case. However, you would be wrong.

As noted here under the heading of “Economy and Jobs” from Fitzpatrick’s congressional web site, there is a clip story of a meeting in which he announces “a small business advisory panel.”

And that’s it (and this gives you an idea of what Fitzpatrick has to exceed, given that his predecessor brought approximately 3,000 jobs to Bucks County).

This is typical for the galling inaction thus far from the Repugs on this topic, though; as noted here, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said that President Obama was “paying lip service to job creation,” when in fact, as noted here (telling you how much Barbour actually cares about the jobless...not!), he rejected $50 million in unemployment funds for his state through the stimulus, a boneheaded move that was overridden by that state’s legislature.

Finally, Peter Baker of the New York Times interviewed former Bushco Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for the latter’s book, as noted here (you would think someone as despicable as Rummy would take the hint, but of course his mirror, if you will, reflects everyone but himself – MoDo actually had a great takedown on him yesterday here).

As to the matter of Rumsfeld supposedly deferring to the military too much (which he states in the Baker interview), I think the following should be noted from here…

Rumsfeld has the nerve to blame others for his many mistakes. "In retrospect, there may have been times when more troops could have helped." But he insists that if senior military officers had reservations about the size of the invading force, they never informed him (according to the Post review).

In reality, Rumsfeld rejected a plan presented to him by General Tommy Franks, the head of Central Command, and his operations director, Air Force Major General Victor "Gene" Renuart, that called for more troops at the time. "Let's put together a group that can just think outside the box completely," ordered Rumsfeld then. "Certainly, we have traditional military planning, but let's take away the constraints a little bit and think about what might be a way to solve the problem."

Outside the box turned out to be easy: Rumsfeld outsourced the dirty, dull and dangerous stuff to Halliburton and Blackwater and paid them handsome profits on the multibillion dollar contracts. His compatriots at the state department dispatched 11 "idealistic volunteers … in their twenties or early thirties [who] had no foreign service experience to run the country". At the same time, Rumsfeld failed to provide working equipment to the soldiers, who were facing an increasingly hostile population.

Then, Iraq turned out to be a powder keg. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in a civil war that ripped the country apart. Thousands of US soldiers, too, were killed by roadside bombs. In December 2004, when Thomas Wilson, a low-ranking soldier from the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld: "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armour our vehicles?" Rumsfeld replied: "You go to war with the army you have."

And on the question of Rumsfeld’s resignation, which eventually occurred waay too long after the fact…

In May 2004, right after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the Economist – hardly a radical rag – ran an editorial titled "Resign, Rumsfeld", adding "responsibility for errors and indiscipline needs to be taken at the top." Nor was it just the "armchair generals" who reached this conclusion. In September 2006, three retired military officers – Major General John Batiste, Major General Paul Eaton and Colonel Thomas X Hammes, all of whom served in senior positions during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, called for Rumsfeld to resign.

…

What the citizens of the US, Iraq and, indeed, the world needed from this man today was an apology, at the very least. Plain and simple. In his 1995 memoir of the US war in Vietnam, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, Robert McNamara, another former US secretary of defence, admitted that he and his senior colleagues were "wrong, terribly wrong" to pursue the war as they did.

If only Donald Rumsfeld would do the same.

Indeed, and Peter Baker of the Times says Rummy was “unhappy at times” with former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, but everything was “handled professionally”? I guess that’s about the kind of whitewash you can expect from Rummy, who, as noted here, said Powell “did not, in my view, do a good job of managing the people under him,” and who said the following about Rice (not that I’m a rush to defend her either, I want to emphasize)…

"She'd never served in a senior administration position," he said. "She'd been an academic. And, you know, a lot of academics like to have meetings. And they like to bridge differences and get people all to be happy."

Oh, and I’m sure Rummy was looking for a little payback at Powell, who once referred to the operation of Douglas Feith, Rummy’s right-hand man, as “the Gestapo” (here), probably in response to Feith's characterization of the State Department under Powell as the "Department of Nice" here (hinted at a bit in Rummy's criticism).

(And as long as we’re discussing Rummy, I couldn’t help but recall this golden oldie…”we don’t have an exit strategy, we have a victory strategy” indeed – actually, of course, they had neither, to say nothing of Rummy’s continued pleasure over the absence of Saddam Hussein to try and cover up untidy stuff like this – and on and on and on…).

Also, Baker had this to say about Rummy’s old boss yesterday (here)…

President Bush, after all, made “ending tyranny in our world” the centerpiece of his second inaugural address, and, although he pursued it selectively, he considers it one of his signature legacies. The very notion of democracy promotion became so associated with him, and with the war in Iraq, that Democrats believed that it was now discredited. Never mind that Republican and Democratic presidents, from Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan, had championed liberty overseas; by the time Mr. Bush left office it had become a polarizing concept.

I’ve read this paragraph multiple times, and I must tell you that I don’t know what the hell Baker is talking about.

I mean, I know that Dubya literally talked about tyranny in his second Inaugural address; as noted here, though, he would tell an audience later that year that “God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq,” and our corporate media reported that with an absolutely straight face (imagine what would happen if a Democratic president were to utter words like that).

But as Pratap Chatterjee of the Guardian noted in his column earlier (written before Hosni Mubarak was forced out in Egypt)…

Today, as the crowds surge forward in Cairo in a valiant attempt to topple dictators in the Middle East, they are not quoting Donald Rumsfeld, or his boss George Bush, or recalling the removal of Saddam Hussein. Rather, in their desperate plea to be heard, they are chanting slogans against both Mubarak and the US, whom they blame for the denial of democracy as well as torture in Egypt's prisons – and in Abu Ghraib.

Saying Dubya “pursued selectively” the goal of “ending tyranny in our world” is more than a disgusting corporate media euphemism. It is an utter lie.

And to associate him with any prior president in an attempt to validate that lie is an obscenity.

Friday Stuff

As Atrios says, more like this - a lot more (here...hey teabaggers, nice job on the Patriot Act - you wanna lend a hand here too?)...



...and there are a lot of reasons why it's a good thing that Mubarak is no longer in charge of Egypt, but his criminal treatment of the press (to say nothing of his own people) is certainly one of them (sends a chill up my spine to realize how effective China has been at erasing their own recent past - a heroic one at that - from the memory of today's generation)...



...on a wholly other note, happy 70th birthday to Sergio Mendes (this clip is with his band Brazil 66, later reformed as Brazil 88...this might be my favorite Beatles cover - creates a wholly other mood, an iconic '60s sound for yours truly, including some of the Fellini-esque images of the band members)...



...and here's a whompin' little number to kick-start the weekend (hopefully one with no snow, shockingly enough).

Friday Mashup (2/11/11)

With the joyous news that the crook/despot/dictator Hosni Mubarak is finally no longer in charge of Egypt, leave it to Fix Noise to ratchet up the crazy a notch or two about SCARY MUSLIMS! SCARY MUSLIMS! SCARY MUSLIMS! SCARY MUSLIMS!!!! (and with that in mind, I give you Fix Noise “Democrat” Doug Schoen here)…

President Obama dramatically understated the level of support the Muslim Brotherhood has garnered in Egypt in his Super Bowl interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, and is most likely wrong to have asserted that the Brothers and their allies do not command majority support in the country.

…

Egyptians support Islam, its expanded role in the country's civic life, as well as Shariah.

A broad based analysis of Egyptian public opinion by Lisa Blaydes and Drew Linzerhow bears this conclusion out. They concluded that 60 percent of Egyptians have fundamentalist views, while just 20 percent are secular in their orientation.

Egyptians also support a more expansive role for Islam in Egyptian life. In Pew polling conducted last year, almost half (48 percent) say that Islam plays a large role in politics in Egypt, and an overwhelming majority – 85 percent – say Islam’s influence in politics is positive. Only 2 percent say its influence is negative. Not surprisingly, almost two-thirds of Egyptians told Zogby that Egyptian life would improve when clerics play a more central role in the political life of the country.

Egyptians also support the central elements of Shariah Law. For example, 84 percent say that apostates, or those who forsake Islam, should face the death penalty and 77 percent say thieves should have their hands cut off. A majority (54 percent) says men and women should be segregated in the workplace.

…

What does this mean for the United States? Almost certainly the next Egyptian government will be hostile to the United States and will pursue policies that are inimical to our interests. In the Zogby poll, 85 percent called themselves unfavorable to the United States and 92 percent described America as one of the two greatest threats to Egyptian interests in the world. The Pew polling bears this point out.

God, how pathetic Schoen and his ilk truly are (more here); citing a crap Zogby poll is more that a bit of a giveaway.

In response, I give you the following from here…

Mohamed ElBaradei told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood, which birthed the terror organization Hamas, is an extremist organization is “total bogus” and that the group is “in no way extremists.”

And for more on ElBaradei, I would ask that you read this profile; I believe that we’re fortunate in this country that he has emerged as the voice of the opposition (and here is another response to Fix Noise Islamophobia).

Schoen also tells us the utter nonsense that “Young people (in Egypt) use (their satellite dishes) to get their news principally from Al Jazeera, whose interest in and deference to Islamic fundamentalist and extremist views cannot be underestimated.” In response, I give you this.

This, though, is basically consistent with the Repug party line that Muslims are incapable of Democratic governance, as noted here (which makes me wonder what Dubya’s Not-So-Excellent Iraq Adventure was all about, then…and how weird is it that Grover Norquist, of all people, is the voice of reason on this issue, as noted here?).

Nobody knows exactly how events will play out in Egypt. And call me a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger for saying so, but as far as I'm concerned, the Egyptians have earned the right to decide that outcome for themselves (and Atrios says that this is a good point - for what it's worth, I totally agree).

Next, it looks like Darrell Issa is warming up for his festival of pointless “oversight” hearings, as noted here and here, including the following…

Issa, R-Calif., newly installed as head of the House committee that oversees government regulation, invited nearly 200 industries to send him lists of government rules that "threaten jobs." That's a good place to start. Where it will finish should serve as a test of integrity.

Issa got back responses extending more than 1,900 pages, which were released to the public for review in advance of a hearing today. Many suggestions, no doubt, will turn out to be useful. But among them are a parade of self-serving pleas wholly at odds with the public interest and many barely connected to jobs.

Which is particularly devious when considering the following here (and note where reducing the deficit comes on the list, by the way)...

They are a less-than-gentle reminder of recent scandals caused not by regulatory excess but by regulatory laxity in oversight of food, autos, toys, oil drilling, coal mining and — oh, yes — banks.

The USA Today editorial also tells us that companies “want relief from a new requirement that they disclose how many times larger a CEO's salary is than the median salary of other workers at the company,” as well as a rule that airlines must enforce “a long-overdue proposal to ensure that pilots get enough sleep before they get into the cockpit,” as well as a proposal that our financial overlords are screaming about that would reduce “swipe fees” for debit or credit card transactions.

Anybody have the world’s smallest violin handy?

This tells us that some of the big banks are complying with the regs on promoting ATM fees, while other banks aren’t (you shouldn’t have to get down on your hands and knees to find out what the fee is if you don’t have an account with that institution). And as noted here, Issa will likely use the hearings to go after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac once more, even though 6 percent of Fannie- and Freddie-sponsored loans made (from 2001 to 2008) were 90 days late at some point in their history, while roughly 27 percent of loans that Wall Street folded into mortgage-backed investments were at least 90 days late at some point, as noted here.

Dem U.S. House Rep Elijah Cummings is noted in the FDL post for calling for a hearing on mortgage foreclosures, though I’m sure Issa will concoct something wholly other than what Cummings has in mind. And as noted here, Cummings has also called for hearings on last year’s Big Branch Mine disaster, while his fellow Dem Carolyn Maloney has sought to emphasize that consumer protections be maintained for children facing dangers from poorly-made cots and playpens, and Dem Mike Quigley “defied anyone not to think about regulation when flying on a commercial airliner or drinking tap water in Chicago.”

Silly Dems – don’t they realize that Issa and his fellow Repug playmates are now in charge of the House (once more, heckuva job, all you who voted for this bunch of frauds last November)?

Finally, I really try not to pay too much attention to J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times, but his wankery is so spectacularly awful that it’s usually impossible to avoid it.

Here, in a column about parenting where he acts as a moral scold yet again (basically riffing off a theme I’ve encountered from him at least a hundred times already), he says the following…

In grade school, (kids) are taught that the world is filled with bullies and drugs, which is why they must be subjected to anti-bullying and D.A.R.E. lectures.

There’s other ripe stuff in this execrable dreck, but I’ll focus on his attack against D.A.R.E. (standing for Drug Abuse Resistance Education) for now.

To begin, D.A.R.E. is a lot more than a “lecture.” It’s a 10-week program that teaches students not just how to avoid drugs, alcohol, and chemical inhalants, but how to make good choices in their lives and avoid behavior that can be destructive and lead to tragic consequences (the young one recently participated in D.A.R.E. training, so I know something about this). The students participate in exercises to reinforce the concepts taught by the police officer who teaches the class (with occasional assistance from other officers), and this way, the students get the benefit of instruction from law enforcement before they become adults so they are less likely to have a detrimental experience with law enforcement later in their lives (with the cost of D.A.R.E. instruction for kids significantly cheaper than the cost of incarcerating them later as adults).

Where we reside, the D.A.R.E. program is paid for by Lower Makefield, PA township; no state or federal monies are involved (the program operates within the Pennsbury School District and is conducted at elementary schools throughout Lower Makefield and Falls Townships).

And yes, I’ve read about some D.A.R.E. programs that were run badly where the kids got the message that they basically should rat out their friends and their parents to the cops. That is very definitely not the case with the Pennsbury program, run by a thoroughly dedicated officer who has conducted the program for 11 years.

Is there evidence that D.A.R.E. programs have failed? Sure (it was founded by LA police chief Daryl Gates in 1983, though I don’t think that’s a reason to automatically discount it). But when somebody thinks that “well, my son or daughter has gone through D.A.R.E., so when it comes to teaching them about drugs, alcohol and other dangerous stuff, my work is done,” what else can you expect? Like everything else, the lessons need to be reinforced over time.

As far as I’m concerned, D.A.R.E. is exactly the type of “small government” local program that does a world of good for the kids, and lets them have a little fun in the bargain. It’s a pity that Mullane can’t descend from his editorial ivory tower long enough to observe that simple fact.

More Thursday Stuff

"Inspired by true events" as they say (h/t Daily Kos)...



...and in a related story, I never thought I would give those zany teabaggers credit for a thing (including this guy), but I have to for this (I'm afraid the extension will eventually pass anyway under a simple Repug majority - love to be wrong).

Thursday Stuff

(Posting is going to be up in the air again - maybe yes, maybe no tomorrow and for a few days.)

I thought this was a good interview Lawrence O'Donnell conducted with Bill Maher recently; I was meaning to say something about Bill Orally's joke of an interview with President Obama last Sunday, but Maher said it pretty well here I thought (and seriously, Elisabeth Hasselbeck thinks Maher is guilty of chauvinism over a joke like that? God, does the well of self-pity for conservatives in general have no bottom?)...



...and here's the nice version of the hit song by Cee Lo Green (and by the way, anybody else besides me notice that, in addition to being totally hot, his all-girl band seriously kicks ass?).

Wednesday Mashup (2/9/11)

I swear, former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm just makes it too easy sometimes (here, in the matter of the announcement that Keith Olbermann has signed with Current TV as its “chief news officer,” which will probably entail some kind of show he will host after he is allowed to appear on the air again – something approximating an actual news story on it is here, not that you’d get anything like that from Malcolm I realize)…

That way all 23,000 Olbermann viewers will know they're getting the straight KO schtick.

This tells us that Keith averaged about a million viewers a night.

In response, I wonder how many people actually read Malcolm’s blog posts each day?

Next, the Bucks County Courier Times informs us of the following (here)…

A new election season heats up in Bucks County this month, but a loose end from the last one - a voter fraud investigation centering on 1,600 absentee ballot applications - still has not been tied up.

(Republican) Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler said this week that county detectives were still investigating. In fact, he said, they conducted some interviews just last weekend.

"They get regularly interrupted (by other cases) but they're working on it," Heckler said. "They're digging in and we'll see what they come up with."

The Bucks County Republican Committee challenged more than 1,600 absentee ballot applications it deemed suspicious in the weeks leading up to the November election. Board of elections employees rejected almost 900 ballot applications that were incomplete or questionable, an unprecedented number that made elections officials suspicious.

I didn’t know the number of absentee ballots in question had reached 900 – of the 600 noted here, though, 82 percent of those rejected were Democratic voters.

Oh, and did I note that there was no mention in the story at all of the Ciervo/Fitzpatrick voter fraud letter, about which the PA Democratic Party had filed a protest as noted here?

Best of all is this nonsense from Pat Poprik at the end of the Courier Times story (she being the vice chairwoman of the Bucks County Republican Committee)…

"We want to make sure people know that voting is protected in the county," she said. "We want people to have a heightened awareness that if someone comes to their door and says it's OK to sign the name of someone else, it's not. It's critical for the nation that votes are legally cast. It's a sacred trust."

Words like that coming from Poprik are absolutely hilarious; as noted here…

- In 2008, the (Republican) Bucks County Board of Election relocated a minority serving polling location, a move that led to a lawsuit from concerned voters. [Philadelphia Inquirer, September 28, 2008]

- Across the state, Pennsylvania Republicans have engaged in widespread efforts to intimidate and disenfranchise voters. In 2004, Republicans tried to relocate 63 Philadelphia polling places, mostly in Democratic and minority serving areas. [Philadelphia Daily News, October 18, 2004]

- In 2004, Republicans tried to challenge tens of thousands of voters in Philadelphia, a desperate move that was condemned by a legal counsel to the Republican City Committee who said Republicans were being "chicken littles." [Philadelphia Inquirer, October 25, 2004]

- In 2008, Republicans attempted to institute a "dress code" for voters. Republican Party Chairman Rob Gleason worried that voters could wear "musical hats" to the polls. This move was clearly targeted at intimidating voters. [AP, October 5, 2008]

Both the Ciervo letter and the PA Voter Assistance Office stuff need to be investigated by a U.S. attorney. At this point, I wouldn’t expect satisfaction from Corbett, particularly since he’s going to have his lieutenant governor Jim Cawley giving him pointers on how to make this look as incriminating for the Democrats as possible, actual evidence (or the lack thereof) be damned.

Finally, it looks like the Senate minority leader has donned his “born again fiscal conservative” mantle, as noted here…

“This debate (on congressional spending) has completely changed,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in a floor speech on Tuesday. “Two years ago, the president and Democrats running Congress weren’t debating whether to cut spending. They were debating how much to spend…. Today, the only debate is how much to cut.”

In response, I give you the following from a conservative Republican on Medicare Part D (here, written two years ago)…

The human capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me, so it shouldn't surprise me that so many Republicans seem to genuinely believe that they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Perhaps at one time they were, but those days are long gone.

This fact became blindingly obvious to me six years ago this month when a Republican president and a Republican Congress enacted the Medicare drug benefit, which former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has called "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s."

That quote is debatable as far as I’m concerned, but you get the idea. Continuing…

(Arizona Repug Congressman Trent) Franks (who voted for Medicare Part D) is not alone among Republicans for whom fiscal responsibility never consists of anything other than talk. The worst, undoubtedly, is DeLay, who actually went so far as to attack Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., last year for his principled vote against the drug benefit, one of only nine Republican senators to do so. (By my count, there are still 24 Republicans in the Senate who voted for the drug benefit, including such alleged conservatives as Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, John Cornyn of Texas, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Jon Kyl of Arizona.)

Also, as noted here, McConnell has flip-flopped on campaign financial disclosure, as well as funding the two wars, $1.3 billion in tax cuts as well as the Medicare expansion, all financed with deficit spending (and McConnell bitched at the Dems for cutting Medicare spending by $500 billion to pay for HCR, when, in ’95, Repugs proposed cutting Medicare by $270 billion over seven years and in ’97 McConnell and McCain proposed cutting it by $115 billion over five years).

On top of that, I got a bit of a laugh out of this from someone named Tony Kondaks at Fix Noise who posits what supposedly are the four questions that liberals must be asked about the budget (I’ll cut to the proverbial chase and tell you that they are as follows: 1) What is total spending of the federal budget?; 2) What is the federal deficit?; 3) What is the national debt?; and 4) What was the most recent interest payment on the national debt?...don’t worry, he has the answers – sorry that I don’t have those figures tripping from my tongue, not being what appears to be a highly self-satisfied member of the “pain caucus”).

For the fifty-thousandth-millionth time, we should be preoccupied with job creation instead of the debt. That’s the way to pay down what we owe, with actual for-real job holders paying taxes (you know, like that baaad liberal Bill Clinton did – remember him?).

In response to Kondaks, here are at least four questions every conservative should be asked: 1) What is the current unemployment rate? (9.0, as noted here, though I don’t attribute that to job gains but people dropping out of the job search…and I’ll be keeping an eye on this number); 2) What was the rate when the Republicans were elected back to the House majority last November? (9.8, as noted here); 3) When looking at Republican vs. Democratic presidents over the last 60 years, which ones have lowered unemployment and which ones haven’t? (Democrats have lowered it and Republicans have raised it, as noted here); and 4) the presidents of which party have added more to the deficit, Republicans or Democrats? (Republicans, as noted here).

I’ll even throw in a bonus deficit question; what is the percentage of federal spending comprised by the interest on the national debt between 1970 and today? 7.3 percent in 1970 and 6.5 percent today, that’s what (here – interesting to yours truly that the latter number is smaller).

Of course, it’s disingenuous to criticize anyone for higher spending now to fix our nearly collapsed economy after our financial markets behaved like the biggest casino the world had ever seen throughout all of recorded history under the watch of a Republican president and a mostly Republican congress (and a Republican vice president who said that “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter”).

And given the fact that about 98 percent of that deficit would still remain after the cuts proposed by the Repugs (here) – well, “this debate” really hasn’t changed at all, has it, Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao?

Tuesday Stuff

This is the Rachel Maddow clip I was looking for from last night by the way - I call this case closed (I can do without this guy's narration in the beginning, and the head shots and the un-synched audio, and it craps out with about a minute to go, but it is his clip, I realize...I also don't know where he got those figures about congressional salaries; maybe he's right for some members, but I have a feeling Patrick Murphy, for example, while doing OK as he should have, wasn't pulling in three quarters of a mil...I hope all you dunces who voted Republican last November are happy now)...



Update 2/11/11: Oh yes, the House Repugs are definitely doing the people's business in light of this, aren't they? And by the way, look where the deficit shows up on the issue list.

...and every time I think that Sarah Palin can't possibly plummet to new depths of stupidity, she manages to do it as she did here...uh, Aguilera was born in New York and she grew up in PA - where does Palin want to deport her to? Croydon?

Try watching this video after losing a loved one and tell me how much it matters that she screwed up the national anthem.

Life is short, people, and you-know-what happens.



Update 2/10/11: OK, the Palin/Aguilera thing is satire and I got snagged, so my bad here...but seriously, is it that much of a stretch?

Tuesday Mashup (2/8/11)

(Note: No updates from yesterday, just fixed the title...)

(Oh, and for the record, let it be known that here and here are the latest examples of how this country's political/media/industrial complex has learned absolutely nothing from the Tucson carnage.)

This post from Michael Grunwald of Time has to do with an amendment that recently passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 96-1; it has to do with laser pointers aimed at aircraft.

And in case you were wondering, the person who voted against this eminently sensible move to punish those convicted of this offense with five-year prison terms was none other than the latest Senator Teabag himself, Rand Paul. And Grunwald heartily agrees with what Paul did…

I'm not trying to deny the seriousness of this particular problem or the idiocy of these particular idiots. Pilots say they can be temporarily blinded when lasers are beamed into their cockpits, and the FAA says it's happened 2,836 times in the past two years. This sounds like a genuine safety hazard. And it sounds as if the laser-pointer industry needs to do a better job in educating consumers about the dangers of its products. So allow me to start this education process:

Hey, idiots! Stop pointing lasers at planes!

It takes only about five seconds of thought to see that Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's amendment to impose federal penalties — up to a five-year prison sentence — for attempted plane zapping would be completely useless. How exactly would it be enforced? Would pilots who get lasered in the air contact a federal anti-laser-pointer task force on the ground? Would Tommy Lee Jones be recruited to lead the manhunts? And if a local cop somehow caught a 12-year-old goof-off trying to Luke Skywalker a 747 with a laser pointer he stole from his corporate mom, would the kid go to the federal pen? Sure, it's conceivable that someone with truly menacing intentions would point a laser into a cockpit. But does Congress think there's nothing in the existing federal code that would allow him to be prosecuted for trying to blind a pilot in midflight?

The 96 Senators who voted for this silliness would say they're just trying to send a message to the public about a dangerous activity. I support this message, as politicians like to say. But that's not really the message they're trying to send. It's more like the line on George H.W. Bush's teleprompter — message: I care. The Senators are lawmakers, so they feel as if they need to make laws to show concern; they're covering their backsides in case a laser-pointing idiot ever does bring down a plane.

As I’ve said before, it’s a good thing that people like Grunwald haven’t been calling the shots in this country throughout our history. Otherwise, Paul Revere Grunwald would have said, “Why the hell do I have to ride a horse from Boston to Lexington and warn you people? It’s one if by land and two if by sea! Can’t you just watch the Old North Church yourselves to find out if the British are coming?” Or Theodore Roosevelt Grunwald would have said “What? Construct a canal through Panama? With all of that disease down there? The French already tried that. Forget it!” Or John Augustus Roebling Grunwald would have said, “Build a suspension bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn? HAHAHAHA!!”

Besides, Whitehouse is, in part, trying to correct a legal discrepancy with his amendment – as noted here…

Interference with commercial airlines is already a federal crime. But current law has a gap that weakens the FBI's ability to investigate laser incidents involving helicopters, said Dave Joly, a spokesman for the FBI in Denver, where 38 laser incidents were reported last year. The law covers mass transportation, but helicopters aren't considered mass-transit aircraft, Joly said.

There have been many instances of lasers pointed at helicopters, including police helicopters. Helicopters are especially vulnerable because they fly at lower altitudes than planes.

The vote makes the amendment part of a bill pending before the Senate to authorize FAA programs for the next two years. It also would speed up the FAA's transition from an air traffic control system based on World War II-era radar technology to one based on satellite-based technology.

The Senate also rejected an amendment by Paul that would have exempted FAA programs from a federal law that requires government contractors to pay construction workers the prevailing local wage.

So of course, Paul saw an opportunity to ignore the threat of laser pointers and screw over federal employees at the same time (and by the way, Senator-fake-ophthalmology-certification, the “F” in FAA stands for “federal”; it’s not an “S” for “state”).

And by the way, in response to Grunwald’s snark about enforcement, I give you the following (here)…

SACRAMENTO, CA—United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced today that a federal grand jury returned a one-count indictment charging Samuel Gregory Liebman, 51, of Roseville California, with interference with an aircraft for pointing a laser at a California Highway Patrol plane.

The indictment alleges that on August 30, 2010, Liebman struck a CHP Cessna 206 multiple times with a powerful green laser while it was flying.

So yes, it is possible to arrest and prosecute someone for this act. And in case either Paul or Grunwald don’t believe me, let’s see how they react went a pilot’s vision is impaired while a plane or helicopter in which they’re a passenger begins its descent (though this is par for the course when it comes to Grunwald’s wankery, as noted here).

And I guess that’s an appropriate transition to John Harwood in yesterday’s New York Times, in the matter of President Obama’s efforts to make nice with the “pay no price, bear no burden” crowd (here)…

Export promotion, infrastructure development and support for innovation through improvements in research and education all represent goals that business shares with an administration hungry to spur investment and job creation.

Really? Then why, as Bill Scher asks here, has the “U.S.” Chamber done all it possibly could to support those zany teabaggers, who hate any government spending unless it affects their entitlements?

Most of Harwood’s article has to do with fluffing Bruce Josten, the chamber’s “top lobbyist,” in the vain hope that he’ll show some sort of conciliation towards Obama, who has done more than meet these selfish asswipes half way, though we also learn the following…

Mr. Josten dismissed Mr. Obama’s recently announced regulatory strategy, ostensibly intended to reduce unnecessary burdens on business. “It’s a rehash of Clinton’s, which was a rehash of Carter’s,” Mr. Josten said.

Actually, I guess the fact that Josten even bothered to acknowledge Harwood’s existence is a bit of a coup for Harwood, given that, as noted here, Josten usually finds a slavishly favorable environment to peddle his propaganda at Fix Noise (with humanoid Megyn Kelly acting accordingly).

And Heaven forbid that the “U.S.” Chamber come clean on its overseas funding, with Josten fulfilling his role as a Chamber “pit bull” here (and though I suppose it looks good to those supposedly omniscient independent voters out there for Obama to meet these cretins more than halfway, they are still utterly despicable, as noted here).

Next, I give you former loyal Bushie Mitch Daniels, who, as noted in yesterday’s Murdoch Street Journal here, inflicted probably the most full-throated demagoguery against the health care law yet seen, and that’s saying something…

Unless you're in favor of a fully nationalized health-care system, the president's health-care reform law is a massive mistake. It will amplify all the big drivers of overconsumption and excessive pricing: "Why not, it's free?" reimbursement; "The more I do, the more I get" provider payment; and all the defensive medicine the trial bar's ingenuity can generate.

All claims made for it were false.

Wow, could Daniels paint with an even broader brush here? And this is particularly funny since, as presidential candidate, he of course rails against the health care law, but as Indiana governor, as noted here, he asked for additional Medicaid funding from the Obama Administration.

And in response, Think Progress points out the following here…

Rather than comparing between comprehensive packages that provide a basic array of essential services — nobody is proposing covering hair plugs, as some conservatives have proposed — this former OMB director suggests that skimpy plans should also be available for purchase. People should be able to “buy what they need,” he argues, ignoring the fact that insurance should not be a grab bag: there is absolutely no way to predict what illness one will develop in the future and that this very real inability has led to widespread undercoverage and bankruptcy. If an individual purchases a very basic plan and then develops cancer in five years, what good is a “consumer driven” plan if it doesn’t cover chemotherapy?

And oh yeah, as Dubya’s OMB director, Daniels, as noted here, “displayed a disturbing tendency to make dishonest claims for political advantage on federal budget issues.”

Which, to me, automatically disqualifies him from any serious economic discussion (at least he isn’t telling baby boomers to apologize, as noted here).

Also, say hello to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Hal Rogers of Kentucky (here)…

Rogers beat Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) to win the gavel of the Appropriations panel following the midterm elections. But the post is very different than it was last year, when Democrats had control of the House, and very different from when Republicans ran the lower chamber from 1995 through 2006.

The goal for Rogers is to cut now, cut later and keep on cutting throughout the 112th Congress. He used to be a big fan of earmarks, like his Kentucky colleague, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R). But amid the Tea Party’s rise, both Rogers and McConnell have embraced an earmark moratorium.

To begin, let’s dispense with the mythology that Congress has forsaken earmarks; as noted here, “members of both parties requested nearly 40,000 earmarks worth more than $130 billion for fiscal year 2011” (and for the umpteenth time, allow me to say that I could care less about earmarks since they amount to such a tiny fraction of the federal budget anyway, though they should be disclosed).

And Rogers is indeed a fan of earmarks, to the point that, as noted here, Rogers’ hometown newspaper has dubbed him the “prince of pork.” This includes “the tiny airport that received $17 million in federal dollars but has so little traffic that the last commercial airline pulled out in February (last year – the “airport to nowhere?”). And then there’s the Hal Rogers Parkway, which was formerly known as the Daniel Boone Parkway before being (renamed for you-know-who).”

Rogers also routed funding to his daughter’s nonprofit organization, as the DCCC tells us, and Rogers’ son was hired by a firm for which Rogers helped secure a $4 million contract.

With the death of John Murtha, I wonder if we’re now going to see the same level of animus directed towards another Appropriations committee chair who has been generous with earmark funding towards his congressional district.

Don’t hold your breath.

Finally, I came across this yesterday in the New York Times and was so dumbfounded by it that I felt I had to say something…

SAN ANTONIO — Some of the world’s pre-eminent experts on bias discovered an unexpected form of it at their annual meeting.

Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s conference, where psychologists discuss their research on racial prejudice, homophobia, sexism, stereotype threat and unconscious bias against minorities. But the most talked-about speech at this year’s meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new “outgroup.”

It was identified by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the intuitive foundations of morality and ideology. He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

“This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity,” Dr. Haidt concluded, noting polls showing that 40 percent of Americans are conservative and 20 percent are liberal. In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a “tribal-moral community” united by “sacred values” that hinder research and damage their credibility — and blind them to the hostile climate they’ve created for non-liberals.

Oh, please. So now we’re talking about unconscious indoctrination of conservatives by liberals?

I suppose this is typical for Haidt, who has written pap equating liberals with the teabaggers (appearing here in the Journal, of course). And passages like this are more than a little bit of a giveaway as far as I’m concerned…

In the tea partiers' scheme of things, the federal government got into the business of protecting the American people—from market fluctuations as well as from their own bad decisions—under Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the Great Depression, most Americans recognized that capitalism required safety nets here and there. But Lyndon Johnson's effort to build the Great Society, and particularly welfare programs that reduced the incentives for work and marriage among the poor, went much further.

A lot of people just got done celebrating the 100th birthday of a guy who made it his career over the last 40 or so years of his life to tell us over and over again that government can’t do anything right. And now along comes Haidt to re-enforce that message under the guise of fighting some sort of liberal bias.

I’ll tell you what, Dr. Haidt – tell me when liberals are guilty of stuff like this, and I’ll take your bias charge (the conscious or unconscious variety) seriously. Until then, stop making excuses for conservatives, who hasn’t had a new idea about actual governance since a former Tampico, IL sports announcer started peddling investor class hallucinogenic fantasies about “Morning in America.”

Update: The link to Haidt's Journal article is acting up a bit - I think you have to subscribe to read it (heh)...my apologies.

Monday Stuff

(Hopefully back to posting tomorrow...)

Oh, and you can now cue the Bucks County Courier Times to leap to the defense of Mikey The Beloved, claiming that he has the health benefits of his wife, who's a schoolteacher, and how dare Durbin say such things to hurt "bipartisanship" (of course, if you're not a teacher or a member of Congress, you can pound sand as far as Mikey and the Repugs are concerned...Rachel Maddow had a great feature tonight on what the House Repugs are actually doing, which is typical "values" BS, trying to repeal health care of course, and after that, pretty much nothing - I'll try to get the video...and of course, Cantor sends one of his sycophants to tell the media "Well, at least we're not spending money like those Democrats," which is particularly hilarious when you consider this)...



...and I know Patrick Leahy is trying to add judicial oversight provisions to the Patriot Act, but the thing is still a stinking dead dog that erodes our civil liberties by the day, by the hour actually (and the fact that it is supported by a conservative lickspittle like James Jay Carofano is the icing on the proverbial cake)...



Update 2/10/11: I agree with Rand Paul on practically nothing, but if he's serious, kudos to him for this.

...in addition, I suppose it's a good thing that the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl - I really didn't have a rooting interest and am sick of the NFL generally largely because of this, but I have to admit that this was a cool ad...



...and RIP Gary Moore.

Sunday Stuff

(Probably no posting tomorrow, by the way...)

And with all of the Reaganalia in full swing, I thought this was appropriate (God rest Phil Hartman)...



...and here is more humor for the occasion...



...and you're not going to believe the words you're hearing from Reagan here in 1948 when he was a progressive Democrat - can you imagine what this country could be like now had he stayed true to those principles?...



...but he didn't of course, and here is a song that is, in part, a response to his idiotic policy of "constructive engagement."