;)
The Commentariat -- February 4, 2015
Internal links removed.
Marina Koren of the National Journal: "Like Loretta Lynch, Ashton Carter is not a controversial Obama administration cabinet nominee. And like Lynch, Carter presented himself as a partner to the Senate committee that will help determine whether he is confirmed as the country's 25th secretary of defense.... Members of the committee appeared to appreciate Carter's opening testimony, which focused on the need to combat terrorism abroad and end hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, to U.S. military funding.... But this confirmation hearing, like the one for Lynch for attorney general held last week, is not about Carter. It's about President Obama's handling of foreign policy in the late years of his presidency, and the Department of Defense that current secretary Chuck Hagel will leave behind."
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked Republicans from taking up a bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security but roll back the President Obama's recent executive actions on immigration, setting up a showdown over the agency -- and the administration's immigration policies -- before money for the department runs out at the end of the month." ...
... Mike Lillis of the Hill: House "Republicans, including Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), are vowing to hold the line on tying funding for the Homeland Security Department to language reversing Obama's executive actions on immigration -- even after Senate Democrats blocked their bill from being considered in the upper chamber. 'There's not a Plan B, because this is the plan,' Scalise said minutes after the Senate vote, according to Fox News's Chad Pergram. Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) echoed that message, saying 'many of us agree that we should stand behind the one bill that we sent over there.' CW: Sure sounds like the House is threating a government shutdown."
Fifty-six: Let's see, that's two score and 16. It's 4.5 dozen. But no matter how you add it up, it has to be some sort of world record in political futility. -- Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) ...
... Dana Milbank: "In Tuesday's repeal effort by House Republicans -- their first of this Congress and their 56th overall -- it became clear that they had succeeded at one thing: They had bored even themselves into a slumber. For much of the debate Tuesday afternoon, no more than a dozen seats were occupied on the pro-repeal side of the House. More than once, the GOP had nobody available to speak.... Proponents of the law had the passion." ...
... Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times: The House's 56th vote to repeal ObamaCare Tuesday could have serious repercussions if the Supreme Court is paying any attention. If the Houses fails "to address in advance the consequences of the court's overturning ACA subsidies, a court majority may conclude that the consequences are just too dire, and uphold the subsidies." ...
... Never fear. The House is coming up with a plan this very minute:
"The House GOP's Most Awesomest Wish List For An Obamacare Replacement." Sahil Kapur of TPM: "House Republicans want a health care plan that lowers costs, covers pre-existing conditions, grows the number of insured and lets people keep their plans and doctors -- all while 'eliminating job-killing policies and regulations.' The extraordinary wish list is written into the House legislation to repeal Obamacare [passed Tuesday]. It's another sign of how far Republicans are from having a viable alternative to Obamacare even as they insist on it being repealed. The guidelines seem not to grapple with the difficult policy tradeoffs at play, such as raising spending versus letting Americans go uninsured or imposing mandates versus letting insurers refuse to cover sick people." ...
... CW: TPM tries to do serious reporting. It really does. But sometimes a writer just can't help but jot down "Most Awesomest Wish List." ...
... Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, acknowledged that 'there has not been a unified Republican position' on how to replace the health care law or respond if the Supreme Court upholds the challenge to subsidies in states using the federal insurance exchange.... If the Supreme Court rules in favor of plaintiffs challenging the subsidies -- a decision is expected this year -- 'it will destroy health insurance exchanges in 30-odd states in the blink of an eye,' Mr. Cole said...." (Emphasis added.)
... digby, in Salon: "With this week's insanity, it's time to call GOP's health care approach what it is: a death trap for the non-rich."
... Republican "Leaders" Are No Longer Pretending to Be Sane.
Zandar of Balloon Juice: "Newly minted North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis will see your ant-vaxxer nonsense and raise you the freedom from having to wash your hands....":
In Right Wing World, the Chef Will Piss in Your Soup. Brendan James of TPM: "In a week packed with news over concerns for public health, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) described his own history of opposing certain health and hygiene regulations, including those that require employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead:
... Digby: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the feces of patriots and tyrants." ...
... CW: It isn't often that New York Times editors weigh in on toilet practices, but the page's top dog couldn't help it today. ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos: "Thom Tillis is not, however, a true libertarian. He is a fraud, because he thinks maybe you should be able to serve food with occasional human feces on it so long as you post a sign somewhere saying so. That's not actually saving any regulation, that's just shifting the regulation from an anti-poop regulation to a poop-neutral regulation." ...
... Paul Waldman: "Sometimes, you have to put up with one onerous regulation -- mandating a posted sign -- to taste the sweet nectar of freedom -- not having to wash your hands between going to the bathroom and preparing food for others. This is the kind of nuanced understanding of liberty that only a tea party senator can offer to the country." ...
... CW: I shall be wanting Tillis's friend & colleague, the gentleman from Kentucky; to wit, Li'l Randy -- to weigh in on this. Tillis's support of awful offal in your coffee is the logical next step along the path of Paul's Freeedom Trail.
Edward-Issac Dovere & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Vice President Joe Biden won't commit to attending Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to a joint meeting of Congress next month. He's not the only one. Dozens of House Democrats are privately threatening to skip the March 3 address, according to lawmakers and aides, in what's become the lowest point of a relationship between the Israeli prime minister and President Barack Obama that's never been good.... 'We defer to Democratic members if they'd like to attend or not,' a White House aide said Tuesday." ...
... CW: Just Don't Go was my first visceral thought upon hearing of the Boehner-Netanyahu scheme. My second: Democratic MoCs won't have the guts. So we'll see.
We in the Democratic Party raised millions out of poverty into the middle class, and made them so comfortable they could become Republicans. -- the late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill
... Ah, the Merely Affluent. Thomas Edsall: "Middle-class populism ... raises a host of problems for the Democratic Party. When the middle-class populist message is turned into actual legislative proposals, the costs, in the form of higher taxes, will be imposed on the affluent. Such a shift in the allocation of government resources threatens the loyalty of a crucial Democratic constituency: well-off socially liberal voters.... They are not eager to see their taxes raised.... If such a simple and straightforward proposal as the shift of government dollars from affluent families to far less advantaged families scraping to pay college tuition [the 529 college savings tax break] gets an instantaneous thumbs down from Pelosi, Schumer and Van Hollen, the realistic prospects for a middle-class agenda, if the Democrats return to power, are marginal at best."
William Baude, in a New York Times op-ed: The Supreme Court makes thousands of decisions every year that are issued in complete secrecy. "The court is in the spotlight more and more. Transparency in all its decisions is vital to its continued legitimacy."
Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "Judging from her e-mails, Jill Kelley was star-struck by the big-name military commanders rotating between the war zones in the Middle East and her home town of Tampa. And they were equally smitten with her.... Now, a glimpse into Kelley's relationship with military commanders has emerged from another, previously undisclosed batch of e-mails.... The Washington Post requested the e-mails in November 2012 under the Freedom of Information Act. More than two years later, after numerous unexplained delays, the Pentagon released 238 pages of heavily censored documents." ...
... CW: One does have to wonder what the government is censoring. If these are "innocent" e-mails between military personnel & a groupie, why would they contain any material -- other than perhaps references to others not involved in the scandal -- that had to be redacted for, um, national security reasons?
It Depends on What the Meaning of "Pandering" Is. Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post: Sarah Kliff of "Vox reported Monday afternoon that candidate Obama had 'pandered to anti-vaxxers in 2008' by questioning 'the validity of vaccines.'" Several other news outlets followed up with similar stories, even as other reporters were disproving the claim. But Ezra Klein of Vox is sticking to Kliff's misleading story. Kliff has updated her story. A little. But the "pandering" headline remains. ...
... CW: I get that reporters make mistakes, & Kliff was relying on Brendan Nyhan -- a reputable journalist as well as on an old (and shortly thereafter revised) Washington Post fact-check -- in issue her "pandering" charge. Other outlets tweaked their stories to get closer to the facts. Klein is embarrassing himself here by insisting Obama's willingness to be polite to a voter, while still disagreeing with him/her, amounted to "pandering."
Scott Shane of the New York Times: "In highly unusual testimony inside the federal supermax prison, a former operative for Al Qaeda has described prominent members of Saudi Arabia's royal family as major donors to the terrorist network in the late 1990s and claimed that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a Stinger missile with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy in Washington. The Qaeda member, Zacarias Moussaoui, has received a diagnosis of mental illness but was found competent to stand trial on terrorism charges. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 and is held in the most secure prison in the federal system, in Florence, Colo.... In a statement Monday night, the Saudi Embassy noted that the national Sept. 11 commission had rejected allegations that the Saudi government or Saudi officials had funded Al Qaeda."
The "Urban" Vote. Annie Karni & Celeste Katz of the New York Daily News: "President Obama was shocked and irritated by Mitt Romney's concession call in the 2012 presidential election and claimed Romney insinuated that Obama won only by getting out the black vote, according to a new book by presidential campaign strategist David Axelrod. Obama was 'unsmiling during the call, and slightly irritated when it was over,' Axelrod writes. The president hung up and said Romney admitted he was surprised at his own loss, Axelrod wrote. "'You really did a great job of getting the vote out in places like Cleveland and Milwaukee,' in other words, black people,'" Obama said, paraphrasing Romney. 'That's what he thinks this was all about.'" Romney is white. CW: He probably still thinks he lost the election to those free ObamaPhones.
Eliza Berman of Time: "Fifty years ago, the debate centered not on whether to vaccinate babies, but whether a pregnant woman infected with the virus should be able to decide whether to have the baby in the first place.... A growing movement calling for legalized abortion would declare victory with Roe v. Wade eight years later, but until then, women seeking abortions would either be denied or undergo the procedure in secrecy. A small number of doctors, however, chose to deliberately defy the law and perform abortions on women whose fetuses had been exposed to the German measles, also known as rubella." Thanks to Julie for the link. ...
... A great commentary by Akhilleus in today's thread on the libertarian's fetish for "freedom" to flout good public health practices.
Ishan Taroor of the Washington Post: "There's no Western statesmen -- at least in the English-speaking world -- more routinely lionized than Winston Churchill. Last Friday marked a half century since his funeral.... But there's another side to Churchill's politics and career that should not be forgotten amid the endless parade of eulogies. To many outside the West, he remains a grotesque racist and a stubborn imperialist, forever on the wrong side of history. Churchill's detractors point to his well-documented bigotry, articulated often with shocking callousness and contempt.... Churchill's racism was wrapped up in his Tory zeal for empire.... As a junior member of parliament, Churchill had cheered on Britain's plan for more conquests, insisting that its 'Aryan stock is bound to triumph.'" Read the whole article.
Presidential Race
The Anointed One. Part of me looks back and thinks that maybe God put me and my family through [union-bashing, leading to claimed death threats against him] all this for a purpose - and it wasn't just to get things done in Wisconsin, and it wasn't just to win all those elections in a state that normally doesn't go Republican. Maybe it was to set us to ... help get our country on the right track. -- Gov. Scott Walker, in an Iowa conference call Tuesday
... Ed Kilgore: "Walker's getting into a real groove in using the 'death threats' he and his family supposedly received as a sign of the martyrdom -- a sort of stigmata -- Christian conservatives are expected to confess these days. Sarah Palin couldn't do it better." ...
... Steve M. "Scott Walker has his script memorized." Looks like he can plug it in to any "conversation." "The key to beating Walker is going to be to knock him off script." ...
... CW: This was readily apparent when Martha Raddatz asked him about how to deal with ISIS. He used the word "aggressive" & attached it actually or implicitly to the phrase "around the world" three times in, what?, a one-minute exchange. That's his foreign policy in toto: "act aggressively around the world." Raddatz, in fact, did knock him off his limited script when she asked him what that meant. Because, he hadn't thought about that. If you don't hear Scottie repeating "act aggressively around the world" numerous times in the coming months, that means he got a new scriptwriter.
NEW. Amy Davison of the New Yorker: "There are so many people who consider Chris Christie a true friend, according to Chris Christie. This isn't just a matter of love but of legality, because New Jersey's ethics rules stipulate that the state's governor has more leeway in accepting gifts from his personal friends than from, say, businessmen with an interest in the Port Authority, or from the king of a Middle Eastern country." One wonders "whether Christie believes his own excuse -- that his wealthy hosts take disinterested pleasure in his company -- or is offering it cynically. The first suggests a delusional faith in his own charm (and that of his stepfather, mother-in-law, etc.), the other an openness to trading on his office. Neither is good, and both make him vulnerable."
Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Tuesday said he believes children should be vaccinated, but he said he supports exemptions for people with certain religious beliefs.... Cruz told reporters that the controversy over vaccines is 'largely silliness stirred up by the media,' according to Politico.... 'Nobody reasonably thinks Chris Christie is opposed to vaccinating kids other than a bunch of reporters who want to write headlines,' he said."...
... CW: Right, and the words flowing from the mouths of elected officials had nothing to do with it. Also, note that one has to have "certain" religious beliefs to be worthy of an exemption. I would guess Pastafarianism is not one of Ted's approved belief systems. And what about the religious beliefs of waiters whose faith eschews ritual handwashing? Any thoughts on that, Teddo? Ah, well maybe Thom Tillis's filthy extremism is nothing but silliness stirred up by the media.
Stump the Reader. The fellow on the left, who would never want to be referred to as "the fellow on the left," is likely to run for POTUS. This is his official portrait. Good luck guessing who he is. ...
... "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Oh, crap, following is an update, via Politico, from Jindal's chief-of-staff Kyle Plotkin. Kendall Breitman of Politico: "Plotkin then began retweeting examples of what he described as 'liberals who are trolling me and think that the Governor looks insufficiently brown in the painting.' Jindal's office continued to accuse liberals of being 'fixated on race' on Wednesday." AND the newly-defined "official portrait" is such an excellent work of art:
Hey @CenLamar-that's not the official portrait. Constituent loaned it.This 1's official. Thx 4 ur race-baiting tweet pic.twitter.com/wx2SBY3ZBQ
— Kyle Plotkin (@kjplotkin) February 4, 2015
CW: Re: a comment in today's thread, I found the two images to the right side-by-side in a Google image search. The painting on the left is a portrait of the guy on the right. I have to say, in Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner's (R-Wis.) defense, he is way better at choosing artists to paint his official portrait than is the fellow portrayed above:
Beyond the Beltway
Annals of "Justice," Ctd. "If You Can't Fix It, Hide It." Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Amid the recent rash of high-profile screw-ups in executions, new cover-up measures have been passed in more than a dozen states, allowing departments of corrections to increasingly refuse to disclose where their execution drugs come from, how and if they were tested, and whether corrections officers are qualified to administer them correctly. In response to these clampdowns on information about how tax dollars are being spent and how prisoners are being executed in their citizens' name, lawsuits have been filed by capital defense attorneys, civil liberties groups, and news organizations in Oklahoma, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Arizona." ...
... Lithwick cites C. J. Ciaramella of the Daily Beast (January 2015): "America’s neurotic position of keeping the death penalty legal, while also requiring it to be as bloodless and sterile as possible, has led to a situation where states are relying on experimental combinations of drugs that are vetted by a quick glance at popular reference websites and purchased in secret from anonymous, barely regulated pharmacies with significantly less reliable products than major pharmaceutical companies." ...
... CW: Huh. In the view of Lithwick & Ciaramella -- & that busybody Sonia Sotomayor -- "a quick glance" at "WikiLeaks or whatever it is" or drugs.com does not constitute "research." And I thought when I relied on "WikiLeaks or whatever it is" this morning to ascertain the meaning of "rotflmao," I was doing topnotch scholarly research.
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The question before Pennsylvanians is this: Is Kathleen G. Kane [D], the first woman to be elected as the state's attorney general, the victim of angry men who targeted her after she exposed their pornography habits? Or are Ms. Kane's problems -- she stands accused by a grand jury of a bevy of crimes -- the self-imposed travails of a political comet who rose from obscurity to eminence, only to be undone by her own temperament and inexperience?"
Richard Leiby of the Washington Post: "About a month after a white officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., the city's assistant police chief, Al Eickhoff, took to Google and searched under the words 'less lethal.'... Browsing a California company's Web site, Eickhoff found pictures and videos of a ... device docked on a normal handgun barrel. When a bullet fired, it melded with an attached projectile ... that flew with enough force to knock a person down, maybe break some ribs, but not kill him, the product's makers said -- even at close range.... This week, five Ferguson police instructors will train to use the device; the department plans to introduce it to the entire force of 55 officers."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Walter Liedtke, who served for 35 years as a curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was a renowned scholar on Vermeer and the Delft School, died on Tuesday, one of six victims of the crash of a Metro-North commuter train in Valhalla, N.Y. He was 69."
WFAA Dallas-Fort Worth: "One of the infamous 'Texas 7' fugitives was executed by the State of Texas Wednesday night. Donald Newbury was put to death for his role in the murder of an Irving police officer on Christmas Eve in 2000. He was declared dead by lethal injection at 6:25 p.m."
Washington Post: "Jordan's King Abdullah II vowed Wednesday that his military forces would hit Islamic State militants with 'relentless' strikes upon 'their own homes,' an escalation that could place Jordan in the middle of the Syrian civil war. The king huddled with his security cabinet and top generals Wednesday just hours after Jordan hanged two convicted terrorists in retaliation against the Islamic State, which posted a video Tuesday of its fighters burning alive a captured Jordanian pilot in a cage."
Bloomberg: "The founder of the Silk Road website faces life in prison for running an underground Internet emporium that catered to hackers and drug traffickers. Ross Ulbricht, 30, who used the moniker 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' offered people the chance to anonymously buy illegal merchandise and services by using bitcoins. On Wednesday, a jury took about three hours to find him guilty on all seven federal charges."
New York Times: "A crowded Metro-North Railroad train passing through Westchester County at the height of the evening rush on Tuesday slammed into a sport-utility vehicle on the tracks at a crossing, creating a fiery crash and explosion that killed seven people, injured a dozen and forced the evacuation of hundreds. On Wednesday, federal transportation safety officials were prepared to travel to New York to investigate the crash, the deadliest in Metro-North's history." See also yesterday's Ledes.
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Reader Comments (24)
Marie, your mystery guest looks a bit like my favorite comedian, but without the sweatervest, it's difficult to tell.
CW: I'm bringing forward this comment by Gloria, made late in the day yesterday, so more people can read it:
I am sad to read the articles about deregulation of goods and services. These points link in to the recently highlighted articles on the upper middle class and the high costs incurred by being poor. As all readers here know, regulations have been introduced over the past 200 years or so because so many people were sickened, poisoned and injured by substandard products. This disproportionately affects the poor, who have less access to competition and quality due often to locale, time, transport, health, ignorance (due to substandard education, see all of the above). So deregulation fits perfectly with the Confederate agenda. If you are not rich enough to seek out clean, safe food, housing, etc, tough.
I am astonished to see the responses to the gentleman who walks 21 miles a day in Detroit. This case we are told proves that we don't need government because people will rally to help those truly in need. So, if you can walk 21 miles a day, day in and day out, for ten years, through all weather, then someone might help you.
The only people who seem to be really, really good at skewering the Confederates are the Confederates. It beggars belief what a tall glass of water the Democratic party is. The Dems should sack all their own spin doctors and just use those from the GOP candidates.
I do have a small offering, though, for a bumper sticker type slogan that was mentioned some (considerable) time ago. I am the only person I know who rotflmao at it, so maybe not!
I Mind the GOP
It's more of an abyss.
Gloria
@Gloria, unfettered capitalism bows only to profit so we consumers end up with drywall from China that is toxic, for an example. My favorite, lead in the coloring of Mexican candy wrappers. Or as the fine senator from North Carolina offers, a little shit in your soap. It's a buyer beware world brought to us by those that don't give a shit (or do if you own a restaurant in North Carolina).
Now, would you explain to the ignorant( that'd be me) what 'rotflmao' stands for?
@JJG: Allow me to assist.
Rolling On The Floor, Laughing My Ass Off.
When in doubt, consult the Googles.
Marie
RE: The Picture: At first glance I thought Scott Walker? But then I looked at that mouth and that smile belongs to only one person--the B.J. of southern comfort. How extraordinary that his portrait is white-washed and is only a faint facsimile of the real Bobby J. How can this be? I ask myself and myself can come to only one conclusion: the dude wants to be someone other than who is he is––we always knew he seemed uncomfortable in his own skin––perhaps that was his problem from the very beginning.
Thanks to Gloria's fine post I had to revive my understanding of "rotflmao" not having come across that for many a moon. But it took some minutes––ponder I did at the strange letters but finally figured that it was "rolling on the floor laughing my ass off"––always pictured that literally which was somewhat disconcerting.
Re the extraordinarily imaginative portrait: I guessed Jindal immediately (is there a prize?). But mainly because I didn't see the resemblance to anyone else. You have to wonder what Jindal views as the purpose of such a laughably idealized portrait. Maybe he plans to carry it around to all his public appearances and hold it in front of his face so he can fool the voters into thinking he's a WASP.
Word has it that Tom Tillis and Rand Paul are opening an eatery down N.C. way somewhere on some highway off the beaten path. It will be called "Randy and Tommy's Diner Deluxe, welcome to all EXCEPT blacks, Mooslems (misspelled, of course) and Jews with those funny caps on their heads and a notice on a wall near the lavatory: WE DO NOT REQUIRE HAND WASHING OF OUR HELP and in smaller letters––"we expect them to do that on their own." Because, as Akhilleus always says––freedom! God Bless America signs are scattered throughout along with a 20 ft. flag flying in front. Don't know what their speciality of the house will be, but you can bet it ain't gonna be good.
@PD Pepe: I remember when the Specialty of the House was a big, fat, juicy life member of an elite club. (Li'l Randy might be a bit tough on the choppers, but slow-cured Tillis-on-a-spit could be tasty.) Now you're implying the best you can get is fricassee of feces with urine-based bearnaise & a side of deadly-germ-infused salade. What a let-down.
Marie
P.S. As I suggested above, it's right difficult to be serious when all of your cast are stock characters out of theater of the absurd. So sorry about that.
@PD, given that NC is also a top pork producing state and their fondness for BBQ they might consider "Smoky Mountain Oysters served in a tangy vinegar and ketchup sauce." Perhaps Joanie E. can offer her assistance.
We RCer's often note with dismay how oblivious the Right has become to what would seem stark and undeniable reality, but when politicians, who depend for their power and position on the approval of other people, spew libertarian drivel that assumes, implies and often startlingly states there is no such thing as community or community interests, like, let's say, public health and safety, and presents such twaddle directly in the face of the other people (a whole community of them) whose value, even existence, their rhetoric denies, what remains of my mind here in the 21st (the 21st for goodness sake!) century is beyond boggled.
Here at home, with a state budget four or so billion out of whack, we're fussing over daylight savings time. Is that another Rightist enthusiasm I just don't grasp? Gummint intrusion on nature and all that? Summer daylight until 10 PM as much against the Ordained plan as abortion, hand washing and vaccinations?
At least all today's head shaking will keep my aging neck vertebrae loose.
I had a good chuckle at Jindal's protrait, but then saw this buzzkill https://twitter.com/mckaycoppins/status/562764994610466818/photo/1
Thom (Eat Shit and Die) Tillis vs. Dr. John (Sanitation Saves Lives) Snow.
Here's an idea, in the interest of FREEDOMMMM, let's make all public health regulations voluntary. After all, if the guvmint says to do it, it must be evil.
The question these lamebrains don't ever seem to consider is why public health regulations were developed in the first place. Hint: it wasn't because Obama wanted to steal their freedoms.
Yesterday I mentioned that a primary component of collapse in any society is the tendency of leaders to insulate themselves from the consequences of terrible and demonstrably bad policies that affect the entire population. For thousands of years, humanity suffered regular outbreaks of plagues that killed millions over the centuries; plagues stemming largely from ignorance, from unsanitary conditions and the spread of communicable diseases.
The two most important discoveries in curtailing the death toll from plagues and the spread of disease were the importance of sanitation and necessity of widespread vaccination.
Republicans want both of those things to be voluntary now.
I'm pretty sure when Dr. John Snow discovered that human feces contaminating London water were responsible for the regular--and quite horrible--outbreaks of cholera epidemics in the mid 19th century, adherence to new sanitation regulations was not considered voluntary. You could be clapped in irons for ignoring them. Instead, London initiated the largest and most complex public works project of that era in order to combat these outbreaks, the London sewer system. No doubt Thom Tillis, Li'l Randy, and Chris Christie would have considered this a waste of money and demanded that sanitation be made voluntary.
So why not? Let's knock off all those regulations for keeping food and water sanitary. And while we're at it, let's get rid of the CDC and the FDA. Someone out here mentioned Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" recently. That is the natural destination of where Republican ineptitude and ignorance will take us. Back to the Jungle. And worse.
I really don't give a shit (literally) about some faux libertarian nonsense about "choice" when it comes to public health and I don't think any of those who, in human history, labored mightily to bring us out of the dark and into the light of modern science, of immunity from disease and relief from cholera and other deadly--and preventable--outbreaks would either. Talk about ivory tower ideals trumping the real world.
The idea that these jackasses, with blithe indifference to human health and safety, smugly suggest that we throw off hundreds of years of scientific advances purely to satisfy their immature need for some adolescent notion of ideological purity, is the essence of what is required for social collapse.
Do we make it voluntary for small children to leave the bathroom after peeing and pooping without washing their hands? What about their FREEEDOOOMMMS? But pols like Thom Tillis eat at places like the Palm where employees wash their hands anyway, because they're not idiots. So those pols will be nicely insulated from the consequences of their own stupidity.
You know who won't be? Poor people. People who eat at McDonald's and Burger King.
But this is beyond stupidity, and it demonstrates how dangerous these people are to the public commonweal.
I can only imagine what Dr. Snow, after laboring for decades to prove the necessity of cleanliness and sanitation for saving lives, would say if you told him that 180 years later, some American politicians were saying "fiddlesticks" to his findings.
P.S. Anyone interested should pick up Deborah Cadbury's excellent "Dreams of Iron and Steel", an historical look at the building of seven major modern wonders, including the London Sewers, Transcontinental Railroad, the Bell Rock Lighthouse, and the Hoover Dam. Ripping good stuff. Pretty sure it's not on Thom Tillis' bookshelf. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure anything is on Thom Tillis' bookshelf. Her description of the plight of those suffering from cholera is hair raising, but what's human suffering to 'baggers as long as they've got theirs?
@Akhilleus: One would think these dunderheads who are so into the glories of capitalism would see the huge economic advantage of good health practices. Or do they think that in the New American Plutocracy, the Captains of Industry can just keep replacing the serfs who die off with new, healthier serfs?
Of course that raises the question of who will be left to buy their excellent American products, but I suppose consequences are too complex to fit the libertarian bumper-sticker "philosophy."
Every time I think I can't be amazed again by the ignorance of our "leaders" -- it's snowing so global warming is a hoax -- comes Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, and the person who will headline tomorrow's "Today in American Stupid."
Marie
The Jindal picture is from the same suck-up school of portraiture as James (Aren't I svelte?) Sensenbrenner's official portrait.
The real life Sensenbrenner--"portly" is the polite and not very accurate description of this tub--who guffaws about the size of Michelle Obama's ass, is about as close to the image in his portrait as Dorian Gray was to his, except in this case, it's a kind of Reverse Dorian.
The real life Sensenbrenner is a loathsome bloated load while the Reverse Dorian in his painting is a good looking guy at least 150 lbs lighter. I guess Bobby Jindal wanted to look lighter too, just in a slightly different way.
Is it too obvious to say that these guys inhabit such insulated solipsistic worlds that they are unfit for any office beyond trash collection?
Oh-oh. They wouldn't be do that job. That would mean sanitation, and that's voluntary.
Let there be shit in the streets and fantasy images on the walls.
The world of the GOP.
Here's a Sensenbrenner comparison: fantasy vs. fat-ass-see. The picture is part of a gif so wait a second. You'll know it when you see it.
Marie,
The internal contradictions isolating right-wing thought processes from rationality are legion, and adumbrating even a small fraction of those contradictions would be maddening to the writer and ultimately useless because wingers, if you were hoping to convince them of the logical fallacies raining like cats and dogs on their mental landscape, would simply tune you out. They don't think empirically so their thought processes are never retuned to new--or factual--information.
Of course one would expect that a healthy population would aid the goals of capitalism. It's hard to acquire wealth when workers are sick and potential customers are dead.
Same for environmentalism.
And if you really were for peace, why is your first choice towards that end to bomb the shit out of the other side?
Why, if you live in a trailer park do you vote for policies that ensure that you'll soon lose that trailer and shortly be living in a shotgun shack so some banker can buy his fifth vacation home?
Why, if you are without life insurance and suffering from debilitating conditions, seeing your kids going without insurance and your aging parents living their last days in pain, would you vote with those who aim to guarantee that won't change.
And why would lower income people who are beset by unemployment choose to align themselves with plutocrats rather than with their natural allies, others who are in that same place, even if they're not all white?
Wingers have got the tribal thing down cold. And the propaganda thing as well. They could get their vassals to vote for salt water while on a raft in the South Pacific, because Freedom. And Jesus. And tribe.
But never because of logic.
....but now and then, reality encroaches so far up the ass that one's nose starts to twitch.
And currently, it's Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam's nose that's twitching.
Guv Bill has been fighting the good fight against dirty, evil, soshulist, awful, terrible, Kenyan healthcare for the residents of his state who have been just fine since forever with a bandaid and a little iodine. (Didn't Daniel Boone once remove his own spleen with a rusty knife?) But leaving all that federal money on the table is too much even for Better Dead Than Red Red Staters.
The problem now is for the guv to make sure his constituents, and Rush Limbaugh, know that he is expanding Medicaid and adopting some other government healthcare system but whatever it is it's NOT OBAMACARE!
Got that? It's REPUBLICARE, or some shit like that. Even if there is no such thing. But Haslam is trying to tell anyone who will listen that this is a Republican healthcare initiative that has nothing to do with OBAMACARE.
See?
And we will now climb out of this hole we've dug for ourselves by using this big aluminum thingy with two long sides and rungs in the middle but it's NOT A LADDER so stop saying that!
Oh lookie see what some Vermont folks had to say about an eighth grade girl's suggestion for a Latin motto for the state: Alas–all I can say is Sic transit gloria mundi (so passes away the glory of the world) which incidentally are the words used for the crowning of the Pope.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/02/1361916/-Hey-Tea-Party-Latin-Was-the-Language-of-Ancient-Rome?detail=email
I saw this piece yesterday, about wingnut beefcake boy Aaron Schock, (R-Illinois), but decided to give it a "meh" until I read this.
Schock has redecorated his congressional digs to look like a room from the Edwardian era Downton Abbey, even though he claims he's never seen the show. And I want to decorate my living room to resemble the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, even though I've never seen it, but wouldn't it be cool to have that captain's chair in front of the TV, even if you've never seen it?
Anyway, this is mostly ho-hum stuff until you get to the part that Schock, who loves the look of Downton Abbey even if he's never seen it, has voted repeatedly, with Lyin' Paul Ryan, to kill PBS.
Wonkette, predictably, has been having fun with this.
Oh, and also, he claims the decoration and design of his Downton Abbey-which he's never seen-Office was done without any charge to taxpayers, which is great, but also illegal and an ethics violation. Oh dear, so many wingnuts, so many pain in the ass ethical guidelines.
Oops.
I doubt that this will impact Schock's chances at reelection, but I bet the Dowager Countess would have something snappy to say about that if it did.
Does this mean that Thom Tillis' office will have the rest room replaced with an outhouse style hole in the floor and no sink?
PD,
As Pliny would say: "Ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret"
Shoemaker, don't judge above the sandal. In other words, your expertise ends here so STFU.
Sorry for the confusion, people! I've got teenagers.
Mark Morford on E.O. Wilson’s new book “The Meaning of Existance” :
“It’s not climate change. Not overpopulation. Not war, or disease, or resource abuse. Those are all very real, but they’re also merely the consequence, the end result of centuries of blind, dogmatic adherence to, well, to God.
“That’s right, the biggest problem humanity faces – and has faced for just about ever – is religion. Rabid tribalism.”
Everytime I read/hear a Republican's vision of their shining city on a hill I flash back to the time I stood on a pedestrian overpass over an expressway in Johannesburg South Africa. On one side of the evpressway rises the largest hospital in Africa where Dr Barnard performed the world's first human heart transplant. On the otherside of the expressway is an open air market where freshly slaughtered cattle hang, slowly disappearing as a machete hacks off pieces for sale and witchdoctors boutiques stock jars of the indescribable, cures for everything from impotence to cancer.
To me the scene symbolized South Africa working from an animist pass to a modern future. It just as well symbolizes a Republican dream as America progresses from a society of big government and science to a future society of individuals freed from the evil of government and science.
James,
Edward Gibbon agrees wholeheartedly.
Gibbon considered Christianity, and its adherents' disdain for the responsibilities of Roman citizenship, to be a primary, essential factor in the demise of Roman Empire.
Funnily enough, we have plenty of religious goobers today demanding that adherents do today what they did in the days of the Roman Empire, and that is, abjure loyalty to country.
How often do we hear Christian preachers today instructing the faithful to ignore their responsibilities as citizens in favor of religious demands?
All the time.
We even hear it from those running for president.
Decline and Fall to follow.
Ak,
Maybe you ought to take an extra big slug of your favorite adult beverage before watching this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/03/1362064/-Christian-minister-opens-Tennessee-Senate-with-prayer-to-end-Medicaid-expansion
(Scroll down the post for the video. It won't allow me to just copy the url for the video. Sorry.)