Bark Bark Woof Woof: March 2010

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Everybody Counts

And I mean everybody, and that includes married people. All married people.

HT to Annie Laurie at Balloon Juice.

Free Speech Isn't Free - Update

Following up on my post from yesterday, a commenter at Shakesville informs us (as in Melissa who passed it on to me) that Bill O'Reilly has paid the legal costs for Mr. Snyder. Good for him, and I mean that sincerely.

As the commenter noted, Mr. Snyder will still have other legal costs to pay as he proceeds towards the Supreme Court, so I'm sure he'll continue to need our support.

Tea Time in Florida

Does Marco Rubio have a problem with some of the tea party people in Florida? Evan McMorris at TPMDC seems to think so.

Despite carrying the torch for insurgent conservatives everywhere, Rubio actually has a problem connecting with the tea parties in his home state, according to several tea partiers I spoke with yesterday. Tea partiers aren't sold on him yet, and they're worried he's abandoning them now that he's winning.

[...]

Other tea partiers say they're worried that Rubio is abandoning them.

"There's been a little bit of frustration that he's become more centrist," South Florida Tea Party Patriot leader Everett Wilkinson said. "He used to reach out to us, but now his staff won't get back."

"I know he has to budget his time," Wilkinson said, "but he's also got to take care of his base -- the tea party put him where he is in the first place."

Welcome to the real world, teabaggers. You're going to get this from just about every candidate you back because while you have your narrow little agenda, any smart politician -- and I'd say Marco Rubio is one -- knows that you don't win an election state-wide in Florida by appealing to just the base.

It's also a matter of perspective; to say that Marco Rubio has become more "centrist" tells you a lot about where these folks are coming from. And then there's Bud Day, last seen as a Swift Boater, who's now endorsing Charlie Crist because Marco Rubio reminds him too much of that colored fella.

“You know, we just got through (electing) a politician who can run his mouth at Mach 1, a black one, and now we have a Hispanic who can run his mouth at Mach 1,” Day said. “You look at their track records and they’re both pretty gritty. Charlie has not got a gritty track record.”

Day confirmed he was speaking of Obama and Rubio.

“You’ve got the black one with the reading thing. He can go as fast as the speed of light and has no idea what he’s saying,” Day said. “I put Rubio in that same category, except I don’t know if he’s using one of those readers.”

And to prove that the Crist campaign is either tone-deaf or also trying to reach the antebellum base, they were very grateful for the endorsement:

“I am more than honored to have the endorsement of Colonel Bud Day,” Crist said in the release. “Colonel Day is a true American hero who has served our country well, and I could not be more grateful for his support.”

No word on whether or not Gov. Crist uses one of those reader things.

You Know The Drill

Oh, yip-yah.

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.

Anything that makes an oil company happy gives me the creeps, especially since they've seen fit to fill the airwaves with all these feel-good commercials about how environmentally conscientious they are. Oh, sure, and the check's in the mail and ... we know the rest.

I am very sure the Obama administration will go to great pains to assure us that all the necessary precautions will be taken to protect the environment and if we're going to be energy-independent we have to find resources here at home and blah blah blah. I just wish they had the nerve to say that they're trying to either suck up to the Republicans or he's trying to undercut them on a campaign issue.

Chances are the only thing we'll get out of it are huge globs of tar on New Smyrna Beach.

Short Takes

President Obama signed the reconciliation bill for healthcare. It also gets the banks out of the student loan business.

The Vatican continues to push back against the sex abuse scandal.

The East Coast braces for flooding.

President Obama and French President Sarkozy want sanctions against Iran.

The new U.S. plan for Haiti: nation-building.

Taking the fall -- An RNC staffer got the axe for submitting the bill for the trip to Voyeur West. (But what about the person who approved the expenditure?)

Kendrick Meek has turned in his petitions to qualify to run for the U.S. Senate.

Two people were rescued from a stalled ride at the Miami-Dade Fair. (I mention this because it made "Breaking News" on MSNBC.)

R.I.P. Jaime Escalante, the teacher who inspired the film Stand and Deliver.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Free Speech Isn't Free

Not being a lawyer I can't figure out the rightness of this ruling, but there it is.

Lawyers for the father of a Marine who died in Iraq and whose funeral was picketed by anti-gay protesters say a court has ordered him to pay the protesters' appeal costs.

On Friday, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered that Albert Snyder of York, Pa., pay costs associated with Fred Phelps' appeal. Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, which conducted protests at the funeral of Snyder's son, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, in Westminster in 2006.

Lawyers for Snyder say the Court of Appeals has ordered him to pay $16,510.80 to Phelps for costs relating to the appeal, despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the Court of Appeals' decision.

They say that Snyder is also struggling to come up with fees associated with filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We are extremely disappointed," said Sean E. Summers, an attorney for Snyder. He added that the U.S. Supreme Court will likely hear the case during its October term and make a decision in June of next year.

"The Court of Appeals certainly could have waited until the Supreme Court made its decision," Summers added. "There was no hardship presented by Phelps."

Summers said there is no timetable for when the costs must be paid, but if his client doesn't have the money when Phelps requests payment the matter would go into collections. Snyder could lose his property or his wages, Summers said.

Summers added that if Snyder pays Phelps' court costs and then receives a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, "imagine him trying to get money back from Phelps."

I get it that Phelps, being the defendant in the suit, has the right -- somehow -- to demand that his legal costs for the appeal be covered by the plaintiff. It's one of those things that makes our justice system so maddening... and ultimately blind.

If you wish to contribute to the legal fund for Mr. Snyder, go here.

HT to Steve M.

Good Reaction

Congratulations -- a day late -- on the fifth anniversary of The Reaction, the blog of Michael J.W. Stickings.

I'm honored to be a part of that enterprise, and I wish him and all my fellow Reaction-aries a long and happy future.

Marksism

Guy Marks was a comedian that used to make the Dean Martin roast circuit, and I remember this little ditty from way back when I was in high school on the J.P. McCarthy morning radio show on WJR.

Fraudulenty Charitable

Joe Conason at Salon wonders what Sean Hannity and Oliver North are doing with all that money they're supposedly raising for charity.

A potentially damaging scandal erupted today that implicates Fox News Channel personalities Sean Hannity and Oliver North in the worst kind of charitable fraud. According to complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission and the IRS, the two right-wing icons have exploited American veterans for personal and partisan gain. The actions filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington accuse Hannity and North of misusing millions of dollars collected by the Freedom Alliance, a charity they promote and control.

Similar accusations were aired recently by right-wing blogger Debbie Schlussel, who complained that the "Freedom Concerts" sponsored by the Freedom Alliance and headlined by Hannity were not donating all proceeds -- estimated at more than $10 million -- to scholarships for the children of wounded and killed service members, as advertised. But now CREW, which had been investigating the same allegations independently before Schlussel posted her warning, has completed its own probe and filed legal actions before the two federal agencies.

The CREW complaint to the FTC charges that "Hannity and Freedom Concerts have engaged in illegal and deceptive marketing practices by suggesting that all money generated by ticket sales for the Freedom Concerts he sponsors each summer goes to scholarships for children of killed and wounded service members." Duane Ward, the promoter who heads Premiere Marketing, which produces the concerts, also runs Premiere Speakers Bureau -- which exclusively represents Hannity and North. "After staging the concerts, Premiere donates an unknown portion of the concert proceeds to the Freedom Alliance," according to CREW.

It doesn't surprise me at all that these two would pull this kind of con. What I find amazing is that they bothered to go to all the trouble of setting up a phony operation at all. They probably would have made as much money if they had just said to their listeners, "Send me money."

Recruiting Young Republicans

Via digby, a Republican blog in Orange County, California is reporting that the night at the Voyeur West club in West Hollywood that wound up on the RNC credit card was part of an event to get new members to join the Party.

According to sources who were in attendance that night, the "official" part of the evening started with 50+ person dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel, then carried on throughout the evening, eventually ending up at Voyeur. While RNC employees, who were in town to recruit members to its "RNC Young Eagles" program, did participate throughout the entire evening and did find their way to the bondage-themed club, Michael Steele himself was "not in attendance" for any portion of the evening. Brown, by the way, is reportedly a "Young Eagle" himself, a fundraising sub-group of the RNC which targets larger donors based on age group.

Nothing says "join the Party of Family Values" by getting shitfaced with a bunch of strippers.

Short Takes

The death toll in the Moscow subway bombings is up to 39.

G-8 nations are pushing for sanctions against Iran.

South Korea says its ship might have been sunk by a North Korean mine.

The sexual abuse scandal is getting close to the Vatican.

Delaware and Tennessee win in the Race to the Top.

Poll: McCollum has a lead over Sink in the Florida governor race.

R.I.P. Donald Frey, the designer of the Mustang.

Monday, March 29, 2010

A Real Threat This Time

A man is in custody in Pennsylvania for posting a YouTube threat against Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).

In the video, Norman Leboon says Cantor will "receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer's abominations."

The San Francisco office of the FBI received a copy of the video on March 26, according to the affidavit in the case. You can read the press release and affidavit on the case here.

The affidavit paints a picture of Leboon as a deeply disturbed person. When he was visited by federal agents on Saturday, he "stated that he is the 'son of the god of Enoch' and that his father speaks through him. Leboon stated that Eric Cantor is 'pure evil'; will be dead; and that Cantor's family is suffering because of his father's wrath."

Last week, Mr. Cantor said he was "directly threatened" when, according to Richmond police, a stray bullet fired at random broke a window at a campaign office, and he earned a share of mockery for making a big deal out of it. Mr. Leboon is the real deal, at least in terms of making the threat, although he doesn't limit his wrath to Mr. Cantor; he claims to have made over 2,000 video threats against everybody on the left and the right.

This is obviously someone who needs some serious medical attention, and I hope he gets it.

Are They Or Aren't They?

Following up on this story, the United States has charged nine members of the Michigan militia group on a variety of charges.

Nine members of a Michigan-based Christian militia group have been indicted on sedition and weapons charges in connection with an alleged plot to murder law enforcement officers in hopes of setting off an anti-government uprising.

In court filings unsealed Monday, the Justice Department accused the nine people of planning to kill an unidentified law enforcement officer, then plant improvised explosive devices of a type used by insurgents in Iraq to attack the funeral procession.

Eight of the defendants were arrested over the weekend in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. A ninth remained at large, the Justice Department said. The indictments against them were returned last Tuesday. The defendants were identified as members of Hutaree, described by federal prosecutors as an anti-government extremist organization based in Lenawee County, Michigan, and which advocates violence against local, state and federal law enforcement. The group saw local and state police as “foot soldiers” for the federal government, which it viewed as its enemy, along with participants in what they deemed to be a “New World Order,” according to the indictment.

“This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society,” Andrew Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge in Detroit, said in a statement. “The F.B.I. takes such extremist groups seriously, especially those who would target innocent citizens and the law enforcement officers who protect the citizens of the United States.”

A law enforcement official said that the alleged plot was unconnected to recent threats against Democratic members of Congress who voted for legislation overhauling the nation’s health care system.

A Web site for the Hutaree group talks about a coming battle against the putative forces of the Antichrist and hosts an “evil Jew Forum,” but does not appear to focus explicitly on recent political events.

So, when the FBI arrested the members of the Hutaree group and presumably read them their Miranda rights, did the right wing howl that they're being treated like "criminals" instead of the terrorists that they are? Are they going to object to them being tried in civilian courts and will they demand that they be shipped off to a military tribunal where they can't use the justice system as a soapbox for their hate-filled rhetoric?

Or because they're white Christians, will the right wingers defend them as God-fearing Americans exercising their 2nd amendment rights?

You make the call.

Party Animal

I always thought RNC Chairman Michael Steele was a fuddy-duddy. Apparently I've misjudged him.

A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

I'm sure there's a simple explanation; he just stopped in to get directions to Pastor Rick Warren's church and use the bathroom.

Steve Benen has an update: "The RNC now claims that a 'non-committee staffer,' not Steele, spent the money at Voyeur West Hollywood. The RNC chairman, the party insists, was 'never at the location in question.'"

It probably goes without saying, but I'm all for everyone letting her or his freak flag fly high and proud. I'm just not sure that said flag-waving needs to happen on the RNC's dime -- but we'll see. Maybe the Republican donors are more open-minded than I am.

Update via Steve M: The "non-committee staffer" is "Erik Brown of Orange, Calif., who has donated about $10,000 to GOP candidates and is listed in public records as the CEO of Dynamic Marketing Inc., with offices in California and Washington."

And wouldn't you know it, he's a real upstanding member of his community. "Erik is married to Alison Brown, a graduate of Chapman University and an MBA student at UCI’s Merage School of business.... A former director of the Sunday school, Alison and Erik reside in Las Flores, California and are actively involved in the ministries of their local church."

I'm glad to see the RNC reaching out to the LGBT community in such an active way.

HT to digby and Melissa.

Gone Phishing

I got an e-mail the other day:

Dear U.S. citizen,

• 5,000 American Airlines AAdvantage(R) bonus miles:
( Earn 5,000 bonus miles with the American Airlines Survey for year 2010 )

and
• $50,00
( The $50,00 will be debited within 48h )

Earn AAdvantage(R) miles for award travel on American Airlines or over 20 airlines, stays at hotels worldwide and car rentals with the AAdvantage(R) program.
Discover the benefits of membership in American's frequent flyer program. View current news and information about the AAdvantage program.
The AAdvantage(R) program is American's travel awards program. It was the original travel awards program, established more than 25 years ago, and today is the world's largest program. In addition, members earn miles when staying at AAdvantage hotel partners or when renting a car from a partner company.
Currently over 30 hotel partners representing more than 60 brands and all seven major car rental agencies are AAdvantage partners.
Miles can be redeemed for a variety of travel awards around the world on American Airlines, AmericanConnection, American Eagle and our airline partners.
Enjoy American Airlines AAdvantage(R) Survey:
Your $50 & 5,000 miles bonus code is: AA-US-28189
Complete the attached form and follow the reward steps.

Thank you very much for your help and your patient and hope you will enjoy the American Airlines reward program in the future.

Sincerely,
Sandra L. Weller
sandra.weller @ aa.com

American Airlines Reward Department
American Airlines
P.O. Box 689182
Des Moines, IA 50368-9182

Okay, can anyone out there tell me what's wrong with this picture? Don't raise your hand, just shout it right out if you think you know.

That's right, it's a phishing e-mail from someone trying to separate me from my money by masquerading as the American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flier plan. How do I know it's not on the up-and-up? Let me count the ways. First, it addresses me as "U.S. citizen." Second, although it purports to come from someone in the U.S. (Sandra L. Weller in Des Moines, IA) it's written in stilted English ("Thank you very much for your help and your patient and hope you will enjoy the American Airlines reward program in the future") and it uses the European fashion of decimals by using a comma instead of a period ($50,00). Third; anyone who knows anything about frequent flier programs knows that they are usually free; you do not have to pay to enroll in them.

Most of these scams come from Russia or Central Europe, as opposed to the comical ones from Nigeria or Cote d'Ivoire. I have a feeling that when "Sandra L. Weller" isn't trying to rip me off, she's plotting beeg trouble for Moose and Squirrel.

Like most people with e-mail, I get these all the time. When they're the obvious ones from banks I never heard of, I snicker and delete them; sometimes, when it's masquerading as a company I do business with such as my bank or PayPal, I take the trouble to forward it to them so they can log it; PayPal tells you to forward it to spoof@paypal.com. But most people I know delete them without even opening them; in fact, if your anti-virus software isn't up to date, it's not a good idea to open them at all because they can trigger a Trojan Horse program that installs itself on your computer and takes your information without you even knowing it. This one from "American Airlines" was so clumsy that I knew it was safe to open and then hold up for mockery.

So the next question is, if this kind of thing is so obviously bogus, why do the scammers keep sending them out?

Simple: it works. In spite of all the warnings and all the obvious clues that this isn't from American Airlines, I'm willing to bet that "Sandra L. Weller" got a bunch of people to fall for this bait hook, line and sinker. Millions of people around the world do it every day. I know a lot of very intelligent and thoughtful people who have been phished; the scammers are getting very good at their techniques. One of the most ingenious ones I've seen is one from the Nigerian Ministry of Finance that says they're conducting an investigation into fraudulent e-mails emanating from their country and they'd like my cooperation to see if my bank account has been hacked. All I have to do is submit my account number for verification....

It's not just the foolish or the greedy who think that by paying someone in Nigeria $300 they'll inherit "100,000 millions $" or that they can fly first class on their next flight for "$50,00", and it's not just get-rich-quick schemes that people fall for. And it's not just a child of the Information Age; organized religion has been peddling the talking-snake oil for centuries. The internet has made viral the back-fence gossip and we've all gotten the e-mails forwarded from friends and relatives that tell us that they have found President Obama's real birth certificate (he's from Cardassia), or that he signed an executive order giving millions of dollars to Hamas. They go back to the Clinton administration and they didn't stop when George W. Bush became president; I got e-mails (and still do) claiming that 9/11 was an inside job. That shows that internet scamming is, at least, bipartisan; politicians have found that they can raise a million bucks overnight based on a soundbite.

But this also tells me why something like the Tea Party movement has taken off. Aside from the politics, when it comes to passing along a story, whether it's true or not, we humans have a remarkable tendency to trust information that either reinforces a particular point of view that we harbor -- "See, I'm not the only one who thinks that" -- or it makes a promise that for an instant we think will benefit us -- "Can I really make $10,000 a month addressing envelopes?" And even if they may doubt what they read, or worse, don't have an informed opinion about what they're being told, they fall for it. Even when there is an obvious contradiction of logic -- "keep your government hands off my Medicare" -- or a complete lack of irony in that one of the advocates of vandalism against the people who voted for healthcare reform is a man who depends on government disability checks for his income, it doesn't seem to dawn on them that they are either misinformed or are being deliberately manipulated by people like "Sandra L. Weller" who knows there are pigeons to be plucked and windows to be broken. (Any truth to the rumors that they're being instigated by some people behind the scenes at Jeld-Wen?) The message gets out, and since it's on the Internets, it has to be true.

It's a balance between the cynical -- "See, I told you he was a gay communist Socialist Muslim from Kenya!" -- and the hopeful -- "Forward this e-mail and the Baby Jesus will send you flowers" and it all gets swallowed up by people who desperately hope that reality and life isn't as mundane as they're really afraid that it is.

Militia in Michigan

From the Detroit News:

At least seven people, including some from Michigan, have been arrested in raids by a FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana as part of an investigation into an Adrian-based Christian militia group, a person familiar with the matter said.

The suspects are expected to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Monday.

On Sunday, a source close to the investigation in Washington, D.C. confirmed that FBI agents were conducting activities in Washtenaw and Lenawee counties over the weekend in connection to Hutaree, a Christian militia group. Detroit FBI Special Agent Sandra Berchtold told The Detroit News the federal warrants in the case are under court seal and declined further comment.

Sources have said the FBI was in the second day of raids around the southeastern Michigan city of Adrian that are connected to a militia group, known as the Hutaree, an Adrian-based group whose members describe themselves as Christian soldiers preparing for the arrival and battle with the anti-Christ.

WXYZ-TV reports that helicopters were spotted in the sky for much of Saturday night, and agents set up checkpoints throughout the area. Witnesses told the station that it was like a small army had descended on the area. The Department of Homeland Security and the Joint Terrorism Task Force are also involved in the raids.

The conventional wisdom is that the militia movement is something that is a Western-state phenomenon; Idaho, Montana, that sort of place, but these folks are everywhere, especially in rural areas in states where the economy is suffering. I remember seeing them in northern Michigan in the early 1990's right after the Oklahoma City bombing, and Timothy McVeigh was involved with militia groups in Michigan. And as Oliver Willis notes, "These groups seem to pop up when America has the nerve to elect a Democratic president, let alone a black one."

Steve M has some more thoughts and insight at NMMNB.

Short Takes

There were two suicide bombings in Moscow that killed over 35 people.

President Obama made a surprise trip to Afghanistan yesterday.

The FBI raided some militia sites in southeast Michigan.

Gov. Crist and Marco Rubio debated on Fox News Sunday.

Ford sells Volvo to a Chinese group.

Blogging Forecast

Blogging may be light and variable this week as I'm on spring break and have some other things going on that will change the usual schedule.

For one thing, I'm going to sleep in a little.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Sunday Night at the Movies

Gypsy (1962) - in memory of "Baby June" Havoc, the burlesque and vaudeville star.

Lazy Days

I went with Bob and some friends who own classic cars on a little road trip yesterday to Islamorada in the Keys. We left in the morning, made a couple of stops along the way, and arrived in time for a nice lunch at a place called Lazy Days at Mile Marker 79.

Cormorant
More below the fold.

Some of the cars.

Lazy Days

Pelican

It was a great time, and reminds me of a line from a play:

BOBBY: ... Look around you. The sun, the sand, the water, the sky. Every day you go down to the water and you see all those people just having fun; the kids splashing around, the college kids on spring break running around with their shirts off, having the time of their life. Every time you go to that little restaurant on the water and you hear those people laughing it up and loving the fact that it’s the middle of January and they’re sitting there in the sun. And there you are thinking, wow, tomorrow they have to get back on the plane and fly back to Minneapolis or ...(shuddering)... Toledo, and here you are...you live here. It’s what you always wanted. You’re doing what you always wanted.

Sunday Reading

Ta-Nehisi Coates reviews the Tea Party protesters and decides that they need to learn the art of effective demonstrating.

I hear GOP folks and Tea Partiers bemoaning the fact that media and Democrats are using the extremes of their movement for ratings and to score points. This is like Drew Brees complaining that Dwight Freeney keeps trying to sack him. If that were Martin Luther King's response to media coverage, the South might still be segregated. I exaggerate, but my point is that the whining reflects a basic misunderstanding of the rules of protest. When you lead a protest you lead it, you own it, and your opponents, and the media, will hold you responsible for whatever happens in the course of that protest. This isn't left-wing bias, it's the nature of the threat.

There is of course a deeper question about the limits of strategy. It's possible that if the Tea Partiers cleaned up their ranks--purged the birthers, publicly rebuked people like this guy, banned Hitler signs, loudly rejected any instances of racism--that they simply wouldn't have much of a movement left. Martin Luther King was trying to lead a black community that was demonstrably patriotic, and had, in the main, rejected political violence as a strategy. He could afford to be picky. In the case of the Tea Parties, it's possible that once you subtract the jackasses, you just don't have enough energy left.

More below the fold.

Fred Grimm on Florida's plan to get rid of teachers.

The plan: Get rid of teachers. Run the suckers off. Send them to bartenders' school. Let them go teach in highfalutin states like Mississippi or Alabama.

The fellows in the Senate have taken a first drastic step, passing a bill that explodes any notion of classroom-job security -- ending tenure and putting all Florida teachers on one-year contracts.

The bill, if it passes in the House (which is about like wondering whether it'll rain in August) would eliminate bonuses teachers receive for National Board Certification. The Legislature -- the Republican majority, anyway -- wants to rid Florida of this notion of giving teachers raises based on seniority or (God forbid) advanced degrees. Last thing we need in Florida are a bunch of professorial eggheads filling young minds with nonsense like evolution or global warming.

Instead, teachers' jobs and salaries will rely on two criteria: First, professional evaluations. (How well they suck up to the principal. Principals, under this new law, will be addressed as ''your greatness'' and will be hand-fed peeled grapes by young teachers in school cafeterias.)

The old FCAT tests are out. Instead, teachers will devote all their classroom time to teaching to new, even more intricate tests. Because job security and pay now depend on the results.

Senators have not yet written the new tests, perhaps calculating that it would be hardly worth the trouble if the state's teachers flee en masse. But it's apparent Florida's legislative leadership wants a cheaper, more realistic approach to public education. (The senate has already figured a way to render 14,000 high school grads ineligible for Bright -- now known as Dim -- Futures Scholarships.)

Here in Florida, we don't want public-school kids to waste their time on artsy pursuits or on high-concept math and science. The new tests must reflect the economic reality of modern Florida. Instead of conventional geometry, kids will be tested on how to construct a pyramid scheme. (Scott Rothstein, with many friends in the Republican Party, can provide his expertise.)

Tests should explore whether a student grasps the formula necessary to qualify an unemployed, previously bankrupt felon for a $500,000 subprime mortgage. Or how to bill Medicare for the care of nonexistent patients.

[...]

Face it. The Legislature has no interest in tests tailored to smarty-pants kids from Silicon Valley. Not for a Hooters job here in silicone valley.

The 2010 Legislature has a new motto for public education: ''This ain't rocket science... whatever that is.''

Crocodile tears -- Steve Benen on the GOP's hypocrisy on recess appointments.

A few days ago, Senate Republicans started expressing their concerns about possible recess appointments. Sure, they said, President Obama easily won his election. And sure, they noted, he had sent qualified nominees to fill key government posts. And sure, they conceded, if the Senate actually voted on these nominees, they'd be confirmed.

But, these Senate Republicans said, if the president interfered with their blind, reflexive obstructionism by making recess appointments, they were going to complain a whole lot.

And complain they did.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pronounced himself "very disappointed" with the move, charging that it showed "once again" that the Obama administration has "little respect for the time honored constitutional roles and procedures of Congress." The president's team had "forced their will on the American people," McCain fumed in a written statement. [...]

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell also joined in the protests of Obama's recess appointments on Saturday, calling them "stunning" and "yet another episode of choosing a partisan path despite bipartisan opposition."
The whining is cheap as it is hypocritical. It's not the president who's shown "little respect for the time honored constitutional roles and procedures of Congress" -- that's actually backwards. Obama has been reluctant to use recess appointments specifically because he wants to see the Senate do its job. But it's reactionary Republicans like McCain who prefers to ignore "time honored constitutional roles and procedures" -- such as the notion of giving qualified nominees up-or-down votes.

Also note the selective outrage. McCain was only too pleased to support George W. Bush's recess appointments, even for outrageous nominees like John Bolton. Indeed, during Bush's presidency, McCain implored the then-president to use this tactic more often. There were no bitter press releases about "time honored constitutional roles and procedures."

McConnell is hardly any better. On Fox News five years ago, McConnell not only defended recess appointments, he noted, "[T]ypically senators who are not of the party of the president don't like recess appointments."

You don't say.

Doonesbury: say what?

Short Takes

President Obama makes 15 recess appointments and pisses off the GOP.

What's Iran up to with their nukes?

Prime Minister Malaki contests the results of the Iraq election.

Just because they had an election in Iraq doesn't mean the violence is over.

Barbara Bush is in the hospital.

An arrest has been made in the murder of Kendall Berry.

The Miami Herald re-investigates the case of Adam Walsh.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Mirror, Mirror

The Republicans' ability to control the message is, according to billmon, its mission in manipulating both the people and the press.

Karl Rove’s White House was, in many ways, the Olympian ideal of a disinformation operation -- a propaganda achievement that will probably never be topped, at least in American politics (God willing). But it looks as if the House Republicans are giving it the old college try.

Thus the rather amazing press conference Minority Whip Eric Cantor held earlier today, in which the Virginia Republican in effect accused the Democrats of inciting violence against all those innocent teabaggers out there who are simply expressing their sacred constitutional right to spit on black people and fax pictures of hangman’s nooses to their elected representatives.

[...]

The specific disinformation technique in play is one I call "mirror image" (or, when I’m in a Star Trek mood, "Spock with a beard"). It consists of charging the opposing side (i.e. the enemies of the people) with doing exactly what you yourself have been accused of doing, typically with a hell of a lot more justification.

"Mirror image" was Rove’s standard response on those relatively rare occasions when the Bush White House seemed to be losing control of the media narrative.

Thus, when Richard Clarke blew the whistle on the Bush White House sleepwalking past the CIA’s warnings about Al Qaeda in the summer of 2001, the White House quickly constructed a competing story line in which Clarke himself was the official responsible for flubbing the response.

Likewise, when the Democrats began making noises in early 2004 about using Bush’s somewhat, er, questionable, accounts of his National Guard service against him, the Republicans quickly rolled out counterclaims that John Kerry had lied about his war record.

But the example I recall most clearly came during the Valerie Plame investigation, when Fox News suddenly tried to argue that Rove was the aggrieved whistleblower, and Joe Wilson and his wife where the sleazy insiders who had leaked classified information:
Rove warned [a reporter] away from the idea that Wilson's trip had been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney. "He gave proper guidance to a reporter who got disinformation in a leak" meant to assign responsibility to Cheney, former Bush aide Ed Rogers told FOX News.
As I wrote at the time: "This is starting to resemble that famous Star Trek episode in which Captain Kirk winds up in a parallel universe where the Federation, not the Klingons, are the evil barbarians and Spock has a nasty beard."

[...]

The basic objective of all this, as I wrote way back when, is very simple:
The goal is to confront the public with two sides hurling identical charges at each other -- the better to convince them that it's just another partisan mudfight and who the hell knows . . . anyway.
In that sense, the "mirror image" technique is a like a bomber scattering chaff behind it to try to fool enemy radar or deflect a heat-seeking missile from the real target. As I said, it’s one of the tricks Rove would use when Team Bush lost the news cycle, which suggests the past few days of coverage of the Great Teabagger Freakout have done some real damage –- or at least, that the Rovian high command thinks it has done some damage.

Will the ploy work this time? I don’t think so, or if so, only to a limited degree. The material may have been brilliant, but the performance sucked –- even Cantor couldn’t make himself sound like he actually believed it. Sure, Fox News is ready (as always) to take the baton and run with it, but I think the mainstream corporate media deadheads, brain dead as they may be, have finally picked up on the scam.

That remains to be seen; all they will do is change the message and wait for the deadheads to pick up on the next shiny object.

PS: It's just a coincidence that both of my posts this morning have Star Trek-themed titles. It has nothing to do with the fact that I just got the DVD of the latest Star Trek film. Nothing at all.

He's Dead, Jim

From the AP, reprinted in its entirety.

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) -- Police say they charged a Pennsylvania man with public drunkenness after he was seen trying to resuscitate a long-dead opossum along a highway. State police Trooper Jamie Levier says several witnesses saw 55-year-old Donald Wolfe, of Brookville, near the animal Thursday along Route 36 in Oliver Township, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The trooper says one person saw Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance. He says another saw Wolfe attempting to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Levier says the animal already had been dead a while.

The Associated Press could not locate a home telephone number for Wolfe.

Short Takes

Lotsa dough -- The U.S. stands to make an $8 billion profit off of the bailout of Citi.

The U.S. and Russia have a deal on nuclear weapons.

The Iraqi election outcome could be interesting.

Rescuers look for survivors of a sunken ship in South Korea.

Obama's second TSA nominee withdraws.

Charges reduced on right-wing pranksters.

Floridians' income is down 2.7%.

The state may take over the Coconut Grove Playhouse theatre.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Seems Like Yesterday

Forty years ago this week I came down to Miami to visit the University of Miami as a prospective student. I was a junior in high school at the time and I was considering several colleges; among them Northwestern, Rollins, Stetson, Lake Forest, and Fort Lewis in Durango, Colorado, only because two of my best friends were applying there, too. But Miami sounded pretty nice; they had a drama program and my grandmother lived here. So after a week of skiing in Colorado and affirming the fact that I really didn't like winter all that much, I flew down here to see what UM had to offer.

My grandmother met me at the airport and took me directly to the campus in Coral Gables. I remember we parked near the Ring Theatre and strolled across the wide lawn to the administration building to pick up an application packet. Having flown down from Toledo that morning where the late March temperatures were still in the 30's and the skies were cloudy all day, to arrive in sunshine, 80 degrees, and seeing people strolling around campus in tank-tops and cut-offs basically sealed the deal even before I poked my head into the theatre in the middle of one of Buckets Lowery's acting classes. Almost exactly a year later I got the acceptance letter from UM, and in September 1971, on my 19th birthday, I returned to Miami and moved into the then-un-air-conditioned 1950's-style Mahoney Hall dorm and ... the rest is history.

I drive past UM every morning on the way to work. It has changed a lot over the last forty years, going from a campus that looked more like an industrial park than a seat of academic learning to a beautifully landscaped enclave. I made a lot of friends in the years I was there and they're still with me, either in spirit or through the mail, Facebook, or, as in the case of the dear Old Professor, almost every day. And I can still walk across that wide lawn and still see what I saw back then.

Is She Or Isn't She?

Rachel Maddow clears up once and for all whether or not she's running for the Senate in Massachusetts against Scott Brown.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

But can you really believe her?

Frum's Next Gig

I frankly don't care whether or not David Frum has a job with the American Enterprise Institute or why they dumped him a few days after he went on TV and criticized his fellow Republicans for bringing about their own "Waterloo." First, it's all too much inside-the-Beltway high school gossip for me to really give more than a flying rat's ass, and second, Mr. Frum, who used to write speeches for George W. Bush, coined the term "Axis of Evil," defended the Iraq war, and thought that Sarah Palin was qualified to be the Vice President of the United States, deserves whatever fate befalls him for aligning himself with the vindictive and vengeful crowd populated with the likes of Karl Rove, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh, and he finds out just how open-minded and understanding they can be when someone criticizes them.

I'm sure he'll be able to land a gig somewhere and make a very comfortable living as the sadder-but-wiser concern troll.

Who's Responsible

For a party that sold itself as the party of personal responsibility and rode to the polls astride the chant of "character counts," the Republicans have proved themselves to be both breathtakingly hypocritical and incapable of accepting responsibility for their own actions. For example, all of the vandalism and threats of violence against the Democrats who voted for the healthcare bill turns out to be the fault of... the Democrats, according to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)

"Legitimate threats should be treated as security issues, and they should be dealt with by the appropriate law enforcement officials," Cantor said. "It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain. That is why I have deep concerns that -- some [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] chairman Chris Van Hollen and [Democratic National Committee] chairman Tim Kaine, in particular -- are dangerously fanning the flames, by suggesting that these incidents be used as a political weapon."

That's a pretty neat trick; blaming the Democrats for raising legitimate concerns about the over-reaction of the crazy branch after the Republicans used terms like "Armageddon" and egged on the protesters from the floor of the House. I think we've reached the graduate level of the Culture of Victimhood.

This curious turnabout of Mr. Cantor is one step up from the usual meme of "both sides do it" which the GOP uses when it condemns things like Sarah Palin posting a map of the U.S. with Democratic districts in the cross-hairs of a gunsight. Yeah, everybody does it; remember all those bricks thrown through the windows of the GOP House members after Bush v. Gore or the vote to go to war in Iraq or all of those Democratic party leaders that told the party faithful to "reload" and put Tom DeLay on the "firing line"? Yeah, me neither, because it never happened. A lot of people made fun of George W. Bush and mocked him, but that was snarkery -- which got the Republicans all pissed off, too, because it was absolutely unpatriotic to mock a president during a time of war -- but these people are dangerous and they're being enabled by what passes for Republican leadership. Paul Krugman sums it up:

For today’s G.O.P. is, fully and finally, the party of Ronald Reagan — not Reagan the pragmatic politician, who could and did strike deals with Democrats, but Reagan the antigovernment fanatic, who warned that Medicare would destroy American freedom. It’s a party that sees modest efforts to improve Americans’ economic and health security not merely as unwise, but as monstrous. It’s a party in which paranoid fantasies about the other side — Obama is a socialist, Democrats have totalitarian ambitions — are mainstream. And, as a result, it’s a party that fundamentally doesn’t accept anyone else’s right to govern.

Dr. Krugman laments the fact that we no longer have two reasonable, rational parties in America, and to some degree I agree with that noble sentiment. But I also believe that actions have consequences and the Republicans and their tea-party allies -- and don't let anybody tell you that they're not a part of the GOP -- have to be held accountable for their actions. That's what being "responsible" means.

Short Takes

It's over -- the reconciliation bill passed the House last night 220-207.

North Korea rattles the "nuclear strike" sabre.

Another caveman heard from -- Bin Laden sends a missive.

Foreclosures rose in the 4th quarter of 2009.

Student loan overhaul was in the reconciliation bill.

Secretary of Defense Gates follows through on his promise to change DADT.

The Florida legislature gets a lesson in education funding.

Going broke? The City of Miami faces some tough finances.

Get more fiber... as in Google Fiber -- and some cities in South Florida want it.

Friday Blogaround

Healthcare passed and the righties went BSC. Here's how the LC saw it all.

- A Blog Around The Clock: research blogging awards.
- archy: violent escalations.
- Bark Bark Woof Woof: when opportunists knock.
- Bloggg: when it rains...
- Dohiyi Mir and the nocturnal noises of wild creatures.
- Echidne Of The Snakes: women and religion.
- Florida Progressive Coalition Blog and Florida's assault on teacher tenure.
- Left Is Right: bits and pieces.
- Pen-Elayne on the Web has an amazing video and a great new look.
- Rook's Rant: thanks, Rook.
- rubber hose: come celebrate nauruz.
- Scrutiny Hooligans: that's different.
- Stupid Enough Unexplanation: intemperate words.
- The Invisible Library: what if they had passed real healthcare reform?
- The Yellow Something Something: triumph over fear.
- WTF Is It Now?? a battle in Georgia.

~~Forced furlough~~ Spring break is here.

Friday Catblogging

"No tea party here."

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Thursday Night Tom Lehrer

Let's get elemental.

Quote of the Day

Garrison Keillor:

Now Sen. McCain says there will be no further cooperation with the administration. OK then. Thanks for clearing that up. Now that bipartisanship has been buried for good, Democrats can get about the business of running the government, which is their duty as the majority party, and let the Republicans sulk in their rooms and work on their Facebook updates. They’ve made it clear that if Mr. Obama suddenly decided to come out in favor of Mother’s Day, they would fight against it as a ruthless exercise of federal power and a violation of due process. Fine. Talk to the hand.

I can so hear my mom saying that.

Question of the Day

In light of the post below,

How much -- if any -- money do you give to public broadcasting?

Harmonic Convergence

I listen to both of Miami's public radio stations; WLRN, which is the NPR outlet and broadcasts mostly news and chat during the day and jazz and an overnight program during the week called Sounds of the Caribbean, which is everything from calypso to reggae to ska and everything else (and is great to wake up to); and WKCP, which is the all-classical music station and is a repeater for Minnesota Public Radio's classical channel. (The DJ's try to make it sound like they're local by inserting weather and events news, but occasionally the CD player with the pre-programmed material slips up and we get a station ID and weather forecast for the Twin Cities.)

Being public stations they naturally have to hold fund-raisers, and it turns out that both of them do them in March. WLRN started last week and is still going on, and WKCP started yesterday. So for at least two days, both stations are overlapping in their ~~begging~~ soliciting. That means I'm finding other sources of audio entertainment. At work I'm listening to CBC Radio 2's classical feed, which is basically Muzak; no intro, no outro, and once in while someone popping in to remind me that I'm tuned in to the CBC.

I support public broadcasting and donate what I can when I can. So that means on the first day of the fund-raiser I send it in and then switch them off. I hope both stations reach their goals and more, and I wish they would send out a notice when regular programming resumes and the guilt trip has come to a complete stop.

The Dean Has Spoken

The Dean of the Villagers, David Broder, endorses the healthcare bill, framing it in the context of the tenure of Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), who, like the Knight Templar in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, has been waiting centuries for deliverance.

In coming weeks and months, we will all have occasion to be reminded that we are hardly pioneering. We are belatedly catching up to what every other advanced industrial society has long guaranteed its people. Dingell reminded me that when Medicare was passed in 1965, he thought insurance would quickly follow for the rest of the population.

Next year, if not before, Congress will surely have to amend the new law to deal with some of the flaws its critics have noted. In fact, lawmakers will be dealing with health care every time they meet for the foreseeable future.

Inevitably, the cost of the guarantees embodied in this bill will confront a future Congress with hard choices these legislators finessed.

And yet, as John Dingell can testify better than anyone, it is worth celebrating, as Obama did, the achievement of a nation that did what is hard, and necessary, and right.

You have no idea how good that makes me feel to know that Mr. Broder has blessed the bill. My life is now complete.

Pay Now or Pay Later

According to the New York Times, Social Security will go into deficit this year.

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.

The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.

It's not like the program is going to go broke; there are contingencies that were put in place the last time Social Security was threatened by a recession back in the 1970's. But the sheer number of people who will in the next ten years become eligible for it -- including me -- will skyrocket thanks, ironically, to better healthcare and the fact that the bulk of the baby boomers will hit the magic number of 65 starting this year. So it might not be a bad idea to figure out some way to keep it solvent. If the Great Recession taught us anything, privatization isn't the way to go -- investing in Wall Street is a dicey choice -- so there needs to be some really interesting alternatives brought into the picture.

Tangentially, it illuminates an interesting point. The anti-healthcare-reform folks are arguing that the federal government has no right to force people to buy insurance and therefore the healthcare bill, with its individual mandate, is unconstitutional. Except the government already forces everyone who earns a paycheck to pay for insurance and healthcare. Take a look at your paycheck. See that deduction -- usually about 7.65% of your pay? That's the FICA (Social Security) and Medicare deduction. That's not withholding; that's a payment into the system. You can't not pay it unless you work for a state government that has an equivalent program like Colorado's PERA, and that's not voluntary, either. Also, you may pay into workers compensation, liability, and unemployment insurance funds. In Florida, depending on where you work, it can be about 3%. Again, it's not voluntary. (Ironically, where I work the only "fringe benefit" that I can opt out of is health insurance.) So if the just-passed healthcare bill is unconstitutional, so is Social Security, Medicare, and just about every state pension plan on the books. Given that we're approaching the 75th anniversary of Social Security and the 45th anniversary of Medicare and so far no one's been able to mount a credible challenge to their legality, I'd say the chances of tossing the bill on those grounds are a bit shaky.

Besides, do you really want to tell several hundred million aging boomers that they're out of luck? That would be a major bummer.

Sticks and Stones

The Washington Post is reporting that at least ten Democrats have received death threats over the passage of the healthcare bill.

More than 100 House Democrats met behind closed doors Wednesday afternoon with representatives of the FBI and the U.S. Capitol Police. The lawmakers voiced what one senior aide who was present described as "serious concern" about their security in Washington and in their home districts when they return this weekend for the spring recess.

Usually only the congressional leadership has regular personal protection from the Capitol Police. But at least 10 lawmakers have been offered increased protection by law enforcement agencies, said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).

Asked whether members are endangered, Hoyer said: "Yes. [There are] very serious incidents that have occurred."

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer e-mailed senators and staffers Wednesday telling them to "remain vigilant." Gainer, a former Capitol Police chief, said in an interview that the warning was meant to "assuage people's fears."

But House Democrats say they are unnerved.

"Our democracy is about participation," Hoyer said. "Our democracy is about differing and debate and animated debate and passionate debate. But it is not about violence."

The Republicans, in the person of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), offered a limp and equivocating response, basically saying well, yeah, we're against violence but you can understand why people are angry.

No, actually, I don't buy that, and if the tables were turned and these were liberals throwing rocks and faxing nooses to black Congressmen -- like that would ever happen -- the Democratic leaders would be racing to a press conference to condemn it so fast it would take the light three years to catch up to them. After all, the backlash to his making a passing reference to Hitler on the floor of the Senate got Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to practically burst into tears. So if the GOP is truly sincere about condemning the threats, they'll get the word out to their allies in talk radio like G. Gordon Liddy and Glenn Beck to knock it off. They can't control all the Cheeto-munching paranoids in Alabama who spend all their waking hours polishing their rifle barrels and sending out missives to "pay a call" on their representatives, but they sure as hell can stop egging them on from the balcony overlooking the Capitol grounds.

What this tells me about the GOP and their teabagger buddies is that they are basically out of ideas and have no coherent way of discussing policy or alternative solutions. In the Senate they're filing frivolous amendments to slow down the passage of the reconciliation bill and gum up the works. It's not as violent or physically intimidating as throwing a rock through a plate glass window or cutting the gas line from a propane tank or leaving hate-filled voice mail messages (which are always anonymous because, like anonymous commenters on blogs, they haven't got the guts to leave a trail of accountability), but the purpose is the same: they can't stop the bill with reason and ideas so they resort to fear and loathing.

So this is the best that a major political party in the United States has to offer in 2010. Really?

Bonus: I can't resist putting up this video to show how John Boehner can really get down with his bad self.

HT to skippy for the video.

Short Takes

Russia and the U.S. report a breakthrough in arms talks.

The Vatican ignored warnings about an abusive priest.

A 6.2 magnitude earthquake has hit west of Manila.

The reconciliation bill may need a couple of tweaks and go back to the House.

DADT will be harder to enforce under a new plan from the Department of Defense.

President Obama talks tough to Cuba.

The Florida legislature voted to kill teacher tenure.

R.I.P. Robert Culp.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Clear as Kristal

There have been reports of vandalism at the offices of Democratic congresspeople and party locations around the country in the wake of the passage of the healthcare bill.

On Friday, former militia leader Mike Vanderboegh called for anti-Democratic vandalism across the country to protest the health care bill.
Vanderboegh posted the call for action Friday on his blog, “Sipsey Street Irregulars.” Referring to the health care reform bill as “Nancy Pelosi’s Intolerable Act,” he told followers to send a message to Democrats.

“We can break their windows,” he said. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”
And, apparently in response, there were attacks in–at least–Wichita, KS, Tucson, AZ, Rochester, NY, Niagara Falls, NY. Vanderboegh has proudly claimed credit for the coordinated attacks.

Rachel Maddow did a good piece on Mr. Vanderboegh last night.

Okay, so this is one disgruntled nutball in Alabama who, with an outsized ego, is taking credit for this. It's hardly what I would call a coordinated attack by roving bands of thugs in brown shirts marching through major cities across the country. I am pretty sure that what passes for responsible leadership in the GOP would condemn this and realize that such tantrums and spasms of violence don't do their side any favors. They're going to hold a press conference any minute now to tell their followers to suck it up and take it like the grown-ups that they are.

And in the true fashion of finding a moral equivalency, they would point to the rash of broken windows and rioting in the streets that took place in 2000 after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bush v. Gore and all the sore losers in the Democratic party took out their anger on Republicans. Right?

HT to digby.

Good Questions

Fallenmonk follows up the Harris poll of Republicans with a few questions of his own.

How many of the 67% who think Obama is a socialist know what a socialist is?

How many of the 57% who think he is a Muslim know what a Muslim is?

How many of the 45% that think Obama is foreign born think Hawaii is a foreign country?

How many of the 38% actually know what Hitler did and how many know he claimed to be a Christian?

How many of the 24% who think Obama is the Antichrist can tie their shoes without assistance?

Curb Repeal

Ezra Klein makes a couple of good points as to why the Republicans' chatter about repealing the healthcare bill is a fool's errand. First, the part they're complaining about the most -- the individual mandate -- was proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation and in one case signed into law in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney.

Second, if the Court finds the individual mandate does violate the Constitution, it wouldn't mean the end of the bill, just a small but important part of it, and it could be replaced.

And finally, after all the years of conservatives complaining about trial lawyers and lawsuits, Ezra comes up with a modest proposal:

No conservative who supports these legal challenges can complain about activist judges ever again.

Case dismissed.

When Opportunists Knock

Bill McCollum, Florida's attorney general and (ahem) Republican candidate for governor, joined a bunch of other mostly Republican attorneys general in filing suit against the healthcare bill even before the echo of Joe Biden's f-bomb faded from the signing ceremony.

''We simply cannot afford to do the things in this bill that we're mandated to do,'' McCollum, a Republican candidate for governor, said in a packed news conference in Tallahassee, hours after making his pitch on Fox News.

Normally, that sort of media exposure is campaign gold. This year, the electorate is tough to gauge, pollsters say.

Though most polls show more Americans opposed the healthcare bill than supported it, recent surveys suggest that people are warming up to it. Gallup, one of the nation's leading polling firms, reported Tuesday that 49 percent of those surveyed now support the bill's passage, while 40 percent opposed it.

With such swings in sentiment, pollsters and political strategists are split over whether McCollum's court fight is a vote-getter -- or a risk to his gubernatorial campaign if more Floridians start supporting the law. The new law calls for $250 subsidies for some needy seniors, some small-business tax credits and more insurance coverage for children with preexisting conditions.

So if Mr. McCollum has a better idea on how to provide for Floridians without health insurance, let's hear them:

Asked what he has done to help reduce the ranks of the uninsured or improve healthcare quality, McCollum said ''that's not my job to do as attorney general.'' But, he said, he has ''advocated'' good public policy.

McCollum said his job is to protect citizens from laws like the health reform bill. McCollum noted that one state attorney general who has joined the lawsuit, James ''Buddy'' Caldwell of Louisiana, is a Democrat.

''This is not a partisan issue in terms of the constitutionality of this law,'' McCollum said. ''It's a question [about] the rights and freedoms of the individual citizens in upholding our constitutional duties.''

Oh. So it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he's running for governor in the same party -- and trying to attract the same audience -- as the teabagger fav Marco Rubio who now has a two-to-one lead over Gov. Charlie Crist. Well, if Mr. McCollum doesn't make it to the governor's office, he can have a very nice career as a weathervane. He's already proven to be a master at being a political opportunist.

Sidebar: See what happens when a state attorney general joins the lawsuit without telling the governor of the state.

Short Takes

The bill is signed. (And yes, it is a "big fucking deal.")

Now the Senate has to finish the reconciliation bill.

They're trying to smooth things over with Israel.

Some insurgents in Afghanistan have a peace plan.

The stock market is taking off.

The South Florida real estate market is edging up, too.

Teacher tenure in trouble in Tallahassee.

The pythons are still in the Everglades despite the cold winter.

Bert Blyleven likes the White Sox and the Tigers in the AL Central.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Shine A Red Dot On It

The meme from the Republicans and their enablers leading up to the passage of the healthcare bill was that the bill was going to be "rammed down the throats of the American people." Aside from their obsession with violent (not to mention kinky) imagery (and these are the same people who are hung up on gay marriage because, well, you know what goes on in those bedrooms...), they're just plain wrong. John Cole sets them, um, straight.

The bill was passed with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, as required by law and Senate rules. It was then passed in the House by majority rule and in accordance with all House Rules.

It was done so by a Democratic majority elected sixteen months ago along with a Democratic President who campaigned daily on Health Care reform, and who received the most votes in the history of American elections and won by the widest margin in decades.

The bill was crafted quite openly, after a year and a half of public debate, and the exact Senate bill that was passed in the House yesterday has been available for people to read and discuss for three entire months. This was the slowest, most open, most thoroughly discussed piece of legislation in my lifetime.

Anyone who says this was “rammed down” anyone’s throats simply does not know what they are talking about.

As commenter scav noted at Balloon Juice, "Some days, you just get the feeling they’d be baffled by the mechanical principles of a see-saw."

I think if someone had showed up with a laser pointer in the House gallery and pointed it at the wall, we could have distracted the entire Republican caucus throughout the entire debate.

Fair and Balanced

Jurassicpork at Welcome Back to Pottersville:

Let's try an experiment: Next time a progressive blogger gets on TV opposite, say, Andrew Sullivan and/or GOP Chairman Michael Steele, try making race-based, homophobic remarks. Call Sullivan a "faggot" and Steele a "nigger." Yell and scream on top of them when they try to make their points. Lace your diatribes with patently untrue propaganda. Demand that Sen. John McCain produce his birth certificate from the Panama Canal. Bring the American flag to the sound stage and crow about the North beating the South in the civil war and the virtues of Socialist ideology.

Now, see how long it'll be before you're invited back on that show or on any nationally televised program. You personally would lose credibility and the progressive movement as a whole would lose a lot of credibility as a result.

[...]

Yet if we were to engage in the same tactics such as calling an African American Republican member of Congress (not that there's any such thing) a "nigger", continually get our facts wrong and talking about an emerging Socialist state that simply doesn't exist (the compromised and corporate-friendly HCR bill that will further concentrate wealth in the upper economic strata, in fact, is the exact opposite), we would've been discredited in a heartbeat on conservative blogs and on Fox "News" and laughed off one sound stage after another. We would've been treated like the passing fad that we would have been.

So how come the same rules don't apply to the Tea Baggers, a rabid, ignorant faction that, whether or not they intend to, seems bound and determined to catapult us back to the pre-Civil Rights days when African Americans were forced to sit in the back of the bus and were kept from voting?

The answer is pretty straightforward: the GOP does not have anything else to offer. They have conceded their leadership and party direction to a mob that boasts that they do not have a leader and has no problem shouting racist and homophobic threats, not to mention openly advocating the assassination of the president. The bookers on chat shows have to choose between the likes of Liz Cheney, Sarah Palin, John McCain, Michael Steele, and Karl Rove, all of whom represent the epic failures of the past. Even their prospective candidate for the next election, Mitt Romney, is doomed because he's going to run against a healthcare bill that was largely modeled on the one he championed and signed when he was the governor of Massachusetts. So as the Democrats found when they were in the wilderness between 1968 and 1976, the direction of the party falls to the ones who make the most noise.

Her Reputation Precedes Her

Ann Coulter has been invited to speak at the University of Ottawa, and she got a reminder from the university's Academic Vice President and Provost Francois Houle that Canada has different laws than those here in the U.S.

"Our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or "free speech") in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here."

He continued, "Promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges."

Based on what Ms. Coulter has said in the past, her speech could be very short: "Hello. Thanks for having me. Nice country you have here. Goodbye."

It's Not Complicated

David Brooks is confused.

Nobody knows how this bill will work out. It is an undertaking exponentially more complex than the Iraq war, for example.

It gets a little easier to figure out when you remember that the point of healthcare is not to invade a sovereign country for no good reason and kill a lot of people, including several thousand of your own soldiers.

Short Takes

Israeli PM Netanyahu takes a hard line over settlements.

President Obama will sign the healthcare bill today.

Google bails on China.

Former Presidents Bush and Clinton visit Haiti.

ACORN is disbanding nationally.

Former officials of Blackwater could face charges.

The Florida GOP takes on healthcare... not to get more to the people, but to sue the federal government.

Sexting could become a crime for Florida teens.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Oh, Grow Up

From The Hill:

House Minority Leader John Boehner told his conference to "behave like grown-ups" if the healthcare bill is passed by the House on Sunday.

The Ohio Republican made the warning at a quick closed-door meeting with fellow House GOP lawmakers at noon in the Capitol.

According to several lawmakers who attended the 15 minute meeting, Boehner said "we will behave like grown-ups," and not engage in taunting the vulnerable Democrats who support the controversial measure.

So, how'd that work out?

What tristero said:

For over an entire year, Republicans refused to act like grown-ups when it came to healthcare reform, They never proposed anything even remotely serious. And rather than help the American people understand the issues, they simply chose to scare us. They lied, they delayed, they threw genuinely enormous tantrums, and they lied some more.

Finally, when push came to shove and they had the opportunity to vote, they behaved like immature, frightened infants. Not a single Republican had the guts to defy their dictatorial leaders and the deep pockets of the corporations who back them. Not a single Republican had the courage to represent his country's interests instead of the insurance companies'.

Congratulations, Republicans. You are now officially the Party of Two-Year-Olds.

Quotes of the Day

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on working with the Democrats now that they've passed healthcare:

There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year. They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it.

Billy Preston in 1974:

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.

Village Voices

The pundits are out in full force with their reactions to the passage of the healthcare bill. A few samples:

Paul Krugman in the New York Times:

[T]he emotional core of opposition to reform was blatant fear-mongering, unconstrained either by the facts or by any sense of decency.

[...]

And let’s be clear: the campaign of fear hasn’t been carried out by a radical fringe, unconnected to the Republican establishment. On the contrary, that establishment has been involved and approving all the way. Politicians like Sarah Palin — who was, let us remember, the G.O.P.’s vice-presidential candidate — eagerly spread the death panel lie, and supposedly reasonable, moderate politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley refused to say that it was untrue. On the eve of the big vote, Republican members of Congress warned that “freedom dies a little bit today” and accused Democrats of “totalitarian tactics,” which I believe means the process known as “voting.”

Without question, the campaign of fear was effective: health reform went from being highly popular to wide disapproval, although the numbers have been improving lately. But the question was, would it actually be enough to block reform?

And the answer is no. The Democrats have done it.

David Frum at his blog the FrumForum:

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

[...]

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

Ross Douthat, also in the New York Times:

During the decades since the Great Society, American liberals have passed through a period of Mondale-Dukakis denial, in which they were convinced they were just an election away from picking up where Lyndon Johnson left off; a period of Clintonian acceptance, in which they came to terms with the new center-right reality; and then an era of slowly-reviving ambition, which culminated in the election of Barack Obama.

This newfound confidence has been palpable throughout the health care debate. Yes, liberals have wrung their hands over the compromises required to pass the bill. But nothing has dislodged their fundamental assumption — an assumption straight out of the golden age of ’60’s liberalism — that a bill this costly, this complicated and this risky can be made to work, so long as the right people are in charge of implementing it.

As a conservative, I suspect they’re wrong. But now that the bill has passed, as a citizen of the United States, I dearly hope they’re right. Indeed, I hope that 20 years from now, in an America that’s healthier, richer and more solvent than today, a liberal can brandish this column and say “I told you so.” Because the alternative would mean that we’re all about to be very sorry, and for a very long time to come.

E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post:

For Obama, this struggle was transformative. He began his administration full of hope that his campaign pledge to achieve concord across party lines was a realistic possibility. But when faced with implacable Republican opposition, he jettisoned the happy talk and came out fighting.

If bipartisanship is more fashionable than partisanship, partisanship with a purpose is infinitely preferable to paralysis. Obama has made clear that he will reach out when he can, and do battle when he must.

By temperament, the president is more a consensus builder than a warrior. But he is also a practical man who wants to accomplish big things. On Sunday, he did just that on health care, and he earned a place in history.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Blogger Template Designed and Implemented by CLWill