;)
The Commentariat -- Jan. 29, 2015
Internal links removed.
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "During an all-day confirmation hearing that highlighted Republican anger with the administration, [attorney general nominee Loretta] Lynch declined repeated opportunities to disavow actions taken by the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Instead, the first African American woman nominated to be attorney general cast herself as a career federal prosecutor determined to uphold the rule of law and willing to provide honest counsel to the president even when he might disagree." ...
... Lynch's opening remarks:
... Dana Milbank: Republicans "who figured they could take out their frustrations on Lynch had misjudged her: The nominee has a long and impressive résumé as a no-nonsense prosecutor, and she managed at Wednesday's hearing to be both assertive and anodyne in her testimony, expert in the law but opaque about controversial legal matters. As important, Lynch, with the help of committee Democrats, painted an unassailable biography: This daughter of a fourth-generation minister and a segregation-fighting mother from the South would be the first African American woman to be the nation's top law enforcement official.... Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) toned down his prepared statement as he read it.... Even the dyspeptic Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) acknowledged that his legal friends in New York describe her as 'a U.S. attorney who honored and respected the law.'" ...
... Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post: "Why is Sharyl Attkisson testifying at Loretta Lynch's confirmation hearing? Henderson lists some of the other witnesses Republicans have called: they all have zip to do with Lynch. Zip. These twisted old farts are going to pass Lynch out of committee. They don't give a whup about her. Their purpose is to hammer Holder & Obama.
Dana Milbank: "'Yes, there have been a couple of stumbles,' John Boehner acknowledged Tuesday.... What has happened since Republicans took full control of Congress three weeks ago has been less a stumble than a pratfall involving the legislative equivalent of a banana peel, flailing arms, an upended bookcase, torn drapes and a slide across a laden banquet table into a wedding cake.... Chaos could be found around every corner of the Capitol on Tuesday morning." ...
... CW: When all else fails, Dana, there is but one answer: vote to repeal ObamaCare. Ergo, that's exactly what Boehner has scheduled for next week. Hey, it passed the first 50 times, so there's little reason to think there will be a snafu this time.
The Bibi Bonus. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The decision by the Israeli prime minister to accept an unusual invitation from House Republicans to address a joint session of Congress has had the unintended effect of helping the [President Obama] rally Democrats as his administration negotiates a delicate nuclear deal with Iran. For months, the issue of imposing sanctions on Iran has split many Democrats from the president.... But Mr. Netanyahu's planned speech -- a provocation of the president that many Democrats found distasteful and undiplomatic -- has helped shift the political dynamic." ...
... Julie Davis of the New York Times provides some background on Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., who was born in the U.S. & who began his political career as a GOP operative. Dermer arranged Netanyahu's speech before Congress & kept it secret from Secretary of State John Kerry, with whom Dermer met the day before John Boehner announced the speech. ...
... Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) this week warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his coming speech before Congress threatens to sink the nuclear talks between Iran and the United States, the Democratic leader said Wednesday. 'I think that such a presentation could send the wrong message,' Pelosi told reporters during the Democrats' annual issues retreat in Philadelphia. 'That's my view, and I shared that with the prime minister today.'" ...
** Juan Cole: "The audacity of Speaker of the House John Boehner colluding with the prime minister of a foreign country to undermine a sitting president is, I think, still not entirely appreciated. And the whole point of the plot with Binyamin Netanyahu is to stop a sitting president from successfully making an opening to a former enemy, reducing the likelihood of war.... And frankly I don't think a Speaker would have dared try to treat a white president that way." Read the whole post on how "Israel went from being a Democratic to a Republican project."
Law professor Eric Segall looks at the alternate history created by the instigators of King v. Burwell, the case claiming that residents of states which have not established their own health insurance exchanges are not entitled to subsidies: "... as of this moment, there is not a shred of evidence that, in 2010, when the law was passed, any member of Congress or the Administration believed federal subsidies would be unavailable on federal exchanges. If anyone can demonstrate otherwise, then we can have the argument. So far, no one has come close." ...
... Via Paul Waldman: "It's going to take a titanic act of disingenuousness for the Supreme Court to accept the plaintiffs' absurd argument in this case. But worry not: there are at least four justices, and maybe even five, who are up to the task." ...
... Brian Beutler: "It's not sufficient -- at least for political purposes, and probably for legal purposes -- for conservatives hoping to gut Obamacare to argue that 'the plain text of the ACA reflects poor statutory draftsmanship....' So they have concocted a theory of intent, wherein a few in-the-know Democrats drafted the law this way on purpose, and confusion reigned until a handful of conservative lawyers swooped in to inform the world.... King v. Burwell now rests on an argument that has crossed the fuzzy line dividing revisionist history from X-Files-style conspiracy theory." ...
... Steve Benen: "The rationale behind the King v. Burwell case at the Supreme Court -- the final Republican effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act -- has slowly unraveled in recent weeks, but just over the last couple of days, the entire anti-ACA argument has effectively become gibberish.... Left with no evidence or connection to reality, the people supporting this lawsuit -- which is to say, the people who pretend to believe the lawsuit has merit -- have resorted to an alternative-universe theory in which they see a reality no one else can see." ...
... Sam Baker of the National Journal: "Health insurance companies and hospitals mounted an aggressive defense of Obamacare's insurance subsidies Wednesday, warning the Supreme Court that eliminating the payments would be 'grossly inequitable' to millions of Americans. Both industries have a lot on the line as the court prepares to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit that aims to cut off the Affordable Care Act's premium subsidies in most of the country. In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, health insurers said a ruling against the subsidies would have widespread and severe ripple effects, potentially throwing states' entire insurance markets into chaos." ...
... CW: I doubt the confederate Supremes will carefully read (much less heed) briefs filed by Democratic legislators (you know, the people who wrote the law) & governors (who administer it), but surely they will care what captains of the insurance industry have to say. It seems to me these briefs could matter. ...
... AND This Is Rich. Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter Wednesday to the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), demanding the administration show its hand in case the court rules against ObamaCare this summer.... [HHS Secretary Sylvia] Burwell has repeatedly said she remains confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the subsidies. When asked about how the administration is preparing states for the worst-case scenario, Burwell has flatly declined to discuss the plan." CW: Republicans in Congress has been promising for, what, five years?, to develop a plan to replace ObamaCare, & they still don't have anything you couldn't scribble on a cocktail napkin. But they want the administration to immediately devise a contingency plan in case the Supremes rule in favor of the plaintiffs in a GOP-endorsed nonsense lawsuit to undermine the ACA. ...
... Oh, Excuuuuse Me. Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner: "House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said on Wednesday night that after nearly five years of opposing President Obama's healthcare law, Republicans were preparing to release an alternative in this Congress. 'There will be an alternative and you'll get to see it,' Boehner told Fox News' Brett Baier. This is a worthy goal that's long overdue, but one that's easier said than done. As I detail in my new book, Overcoming Obamacare, the problem isn't that Republicans haven't released any healthcare plans, but that they've had trouble rallying around a single one due to some fundamental differences."
Gail Collins on drone control. Here's a part about Congressional oversight: "Take Representative Sean Patrick Maloney [D] of New York, whose wedding photographer had a drone taking pictures during the happy occasion. When critics accused him of violating F.A.A. rules[, which prohibit commercial uses], Maloney said he 'wasn't up-to-date on the lack of regulations around the emerging technology.' The same thing was true, the congressman argued, of 'most people who are about to get married.' Excellent point! Although most people who are about to get married are not serving on the House transportation subcommittee on aviation.... 'They better beware, because I've got a shotgun,' said Senator Rand Paul [R], when asked about drones after the White House incident." ...
... CW: If I'm not mistaken, both parties disqualify potential candidates who do too well on party-tailored intelligence tests. Sample question on both: Which of these people is least like the others? (a) Oil company lobbyist, (b) Eccentric billionaire, (c) SuperPac CEO, (d) Ordinary citizen. (See comment threads from yesterday & the day before for context.)
It Depends upon What the Meaning of "Rich" Is. Josh Barro of the New York Times on why President Obama's proposal to end tax benefits for college tuition accounts was doomed. ...
... CW: This also explains one of the major reasons ObamaCare remains unpopular despite all the people it has helped. Americans who are paying for the ACA -- both in insurance premiums & in taxes -- are those whom Barro labels the "merely affluent." ACA opponents are not just ignorant Tea party wahoos who actually benefit from the ACA; they are people whose incomes are -- not coincidentally -- in the range of many members of Congress, their staffs & professional political activists.
Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: Wingers are so over Sarah Palin. Tumulty runs down what some of the more influential confederates are saying now about Palin, & contrasting their comments today with their over-the-moon hype of 2008. CW Note: Poor Palin is so dumb that she has bought into the media myth that here teleprompter failed during her coherent 2008 convention speech. She told Sean Hannity that whopper just this week. And it is a whopper. ...
... Confederate Matt Lewis in the Daily Beast has had a teeny crisis of conscience: "... it does feel like we have finally reached a tipping point where criticizing Palin isn't only acceptable for conservative opinion leaders, it's now almost expected.)... Before most Americans had ever heard of her, I was among the few suggesting she'd make a fine veep pick. My intern at the time even started the Draft Sarah Palin movement. A few years later, I edited a book of Palin quotes, titled The Quotable Rogue.... It's probably time to concede that the early critics of Sarah Palin had a point, and that they shouldn't have been tarred and feathered and (in some cases) nearly purged from the conservative movement." ...
... CW: Here's what I really don't get. How is it possible for anyone who can write a newspaper column not to have realized Sarah Palin was a dimwit? How about, as a ferinstance, comparing Loretta Lynch's opening remarks with Palin's Iowa Freedom Summit speech, one for which "interested" presidential candidate Palin had months to prepare. Which of these women seems qualified for high public office? ...
... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Charlies Pierce: "That a man under criminal indictment [-- Rick Perry --] can zip around the country, selling T-shirts off his own alleged wrongdoing, and do so full in the knowledge that his criminal indictment is treated in the coverage as less important than the fact that he wears glasses now, is a dreadful verdict on journalistic malpractice. The fact that Scott Walker is under investigation (again) for crimes in (another) office really ought to count more than the fact that he's learned how to yell at people on the stump."
Charles Pierce finds a few flaws in a Politico report on Joni Ernst. CW: I'm curious to see how long reporters give Ernst the Palin benefit-of-the-doubt pardon. Will it be long enough for Ernst to remake herself into a sane person? Or will she remain "unavailable for comment" forevah? Or must we wait five or six years for the MSM to start writing stories that put "Ernst" & "unhinged" in close proximity?
The Accidental Journalist. Catherine Thompson of TPM: In a Fox "News" interview, host Megan Kelly sort of called out the fellow she accidentally called "Fuckabee" on-air for saying that New York women -- presumably Fox "News" employees -- were "trashy." "'Well I do have some news for you before I let you go,' Kelly ribbed her former colleague. 'We're not only swearing. We're drinking, we're smoking, we're having premarital sex with birth control before we go to work, and sometimes boss around a bunch of men.' 'Oh, I just don't want to hear that,' Huckabee responded."
Steve M.: Over at Breitbart News, the folks are outraged that fundamentalist American Muslims resolve intrafaith conflicts pretty much the same way fundamentalist American Jews & Christians do. CW: Now all the confederate ladies will worry they'll soon be forced to wear burkas over their splendid Gone with the Wind hairdos, even if Michelle Obama doesn't have to. ...
... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) praised Michelle Obama on Twitter Wednesday for not wearing a head covering while visiting Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. 'Kudos to @FLOTUS for standing up for women & refusing to wear Sharia-mandated head-scarf in Saudi Arabia. Nicely done'."
Elias Isquith of Salon: "The long game [the Koch brothers are playing] is a House of Representatives that is, thanks in part to Citizens United and the 2010 census, almost guaranteed to stay Republican for the foreseeable future. The long game is a GOP establishment that knows it can only diverge from the Tea Party in style (and not substance) if it wants to survive a primary challenge from a Koch-funded opponent. The long game is a new era of almost unprecedented dominance on the part of the GOP when it comes to politics on the state level. And the long game is a feeder system that sends those far-right state-level conservatives to Congress -- while threatening to replace them with someone else if their time in D.C. weakens their devotion to the cause." ...
Presidential Election
Marco Wins Billionaires' Bowl. Ken Vogel & Tarini Parti of Politico: "In an informal straw poll of some conference donors, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida came out ahead of four other would-be GOP presidential candidates who had been invited, according to an attendee familiar with the results. The poll was conducted by Frank Luntz, a veteran GOP pollster [& Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer's former boss], during a break-out session of the conference, which wrapped up Tuesday after a long weekend of presentations and discussions at the Ritz-Carlton in Rancho Mirage, Calif." Rand Paul came in last." CW: Maybe it was a beauty pageant. Hair matters. ...
... Steve M.: "These people are rich, influential CEOs, but they watch Fox News just like every other wingnut. If you want their money, before you open your mouth in their presence, ask yourself: Would Sean Hannity say this? If the answer is no, shut up."
The Many Mansions of Mitt. Matt Visor of the Boston Globe: "Two years ago, Mitt Romney didn't think he would run for political office again. And in the aftermath of his bitter defeat in the presidential campaign, he embarked on something of a real estate spree. He simultaneously began building two multimillion-dollar homes, one [in La Jolla, California,] and another outside Salt Lake City. He also bought a third, a slopeside ski chalet in Park City, Utah.... Romney ... may recognize the trouble his real estate holdings could cause in another campaign. He is taking steps to shed some of his property, including retaining a broker who is currently showing the La Jolla home to potential buyers...." Entertaining reading. ...
... Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will attack former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the economy and foreign policy during a speech at Mississippi State University on Wednesday night. According to speech excerpts obtained by NBC, Romney, who has indicated if he decides to run for president again one of the pillars of his campaign would be inequality, will ask 'How can Secretary Clinton provide opportunity for all if she doesn't know where jobs come from in the first place?'" ...
... Update: Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: Mitt "Romney ... made clear that his prospective 2016 bid would focus squarely on foreign affairs and poverty -- and that [HIllary] Clinton ... was in his sights."
The reason I'm Republican is because I want to help the poor, the middle class. The rich in America, by the way, are fine. -- Mitt Romney, 2015
I'm not concerned about the very poor -- we have a safety net there.... I'm not concerned about the very rich -- they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling. -- Mitt Romney, 2012
Most of former Gov. Flip-Flop's flipflops are not true flipflops. His underlying political philosophy is consistent; only his rhetoric changes. And much of that rhetoric is disingenuous. The poor & middle-class he's so "concerned" about would definitely get the shaft if we all lived in RomneyWorld. -- Constant Weader
Ali Elkin of Bloomberg Politics: "With few other presidential prospects emerging in her party, Hillary Clinton is considering waiting until July to announce her candidacy, Politico reported Thursday, citing top Democrats."
Beyond the Beltway
Reuters: "The US supreme court on Wednesday agreed to temporarily block the execution of three Oklahoma prisoners who are challenging the state’s lethal injection procedure. The court's action means that convicted killers Richard Glossip, John Grant and Benjamin Cole will not be put to death using the sedative they object to until after the supreme court decides whether the procedure violates the US constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The court's brief order leaves open the possibility that the state could try to proceed with the executions using a different combination of drugs."
Steve Barnes of Reuters: "A bid to end Arkansas' practice of honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Confederate General Robert E. Lee on the same day failed in a state legislative committee on Wednesday.... [The] legislation was criticized by Confederate legacy organizations that saw it as a slight to an important figure in the South's history." CW: Once again, confederates carry the day. I think you'll agree it is right hard to see any difference between Confederates & confederates.
Alan Blinder & Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: After court proceedings reveal lurid details about a brutal campus rape committed by school football players, Vanderbilt students react with indifference: "In interviews, reactions mostly clustered around two poles: This is not the sort of place where such things happen, or they happen everywhere -- and either way, no one should point a finger at Vanderbilt.
Charles Pierce writes quite a good assessment of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo & seems not at all upset that U.S. Attorney Preet Bhahara is hot on Cuomo's heels.
Chris Fitzsimon of N.C. [North Carolina] Policy Watch on the abrupt firing of popular U.N.C. President Tom Ross: "There is a conspiracy here all right, a carefully orchestrated plan by right-wing political interests to complete their takeover of the state by firing the head of the university system, a public institution that they have been seeking to dismantle for years. It's not clear what happens next, though a search committee will be formed." ...
... Via Charles Pierce: "The empire building in places like Wisconsin and North Carolina by local oligarchs like Art Pope, abetted by the useful idiots they install in office, is the basic foundation for the politics of the new Gilded Age. Rarely, however, are things as blatant as this attempt to bring one of the country's finest systems of higher education forcibly into the theocracy of The Market. There are only two actual Koch Brothers, but there are dozens of distant cousins doing the same kind of damage." ...
... MEANWHILE, in Wisconsin. Lucy McCalmont of Politico: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, defending proposed budget cuts for higher education, took a swipe at university professors who he said could be 'teaching more classes and doing more work.'"
News Ledes
New York Times: "... Greece backed away from strong statements denouncing sanctions [against Russia] and joined other countries in the 28-member [European] bloc in a unanimous vote in favor of expanding a list of sanctioned individuals, mostly Russians, and of work to prepare 'any further action' to pressure combatants to respect a stillborn truce agreement from last year."
CNN: "The U.S. military and intelligence community now suspect that one of the five Taliban detainees released from Guantanamo Bay in return for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May of last year has attempted to return to militant activity from his current location in Qatar by making contact with suspected Taliban associates in Afghanistan, multiple officials tell CNN."
Washington Post: Three American contractors and an Afghan national were killed in a shooting at a military base at Kabul's airport Thursday...."
Los Angeles Times: "Rod McKuen, a prolific songwriter and poet whose compositions include the Academy Award-nominated song 'Jean' for the 1969 film 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,' has died. He was 81."
New York Times: "Colleen McCullough, a former neurophysiological researcher at Yale who, deciding to write novels in her spare time, produced 'The Thorn Birds,' a multigenerational Australian romance that became an international best seller and inspired a hugely popular television mini-series, died on Thursday on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific, where she had made her home for more than 30 years. She was 77."
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Reader Comments (11)
If we didn't know any better we'd think Boehner was a double agent working for the White House. His invite to Bibi has played beautifully in getting those Democratic hawks to concede in their wanting NO MORE sanctions for Iran, no more dilly dallying–-(bomb, bomb, Iran with beachy boys humming in the background) plus looks like Dermer (Bibi's brain––A Karl Rove occupation) has put his foot in it which has led to––finally––some clear eyes open on Israel's agenda here. So thanks, John–-much obliged.
Watched part of the confirmation hearings on Loretta Lynch who presents beautifully and strongly––and SMART. It was John Cornyn who asked Lynch, "You aren't Eric Holder, are you?"––In other words, you aren't gonna be that shit faced sombitch we've had to deal with all this time–––Well, no, John, you idiot, but she's going to give you some headaches, I'm sure. She has rounded up all the usual suspects while serving in N.Y. and brandishes very sharp knives underneath that attractive dress. She means business and it might be yours, John. By the way, I understand that she's not for legalizing pot and something else that is conservative, but can't remember what.
Something I just noticed this morning over on Infotainment is the Bill Clinton bit–-"The logs also show that Clinton shared more than a dozen flights with a woman who federal prosecutors believe procured underage girls to sexually service Epstein and his friends and acted as a 'potential co-conspirator' in his crimes." Wow––if true, why hasn't this been more newsy? I don't care about Bill's willy, but do care about these underage girls and isn't it Hillary who is a strong advocate of protecting young girls from the sex trafficking trade?
The number of perfidious acts and speeches spewing out of Right Wing World, like raw sewage from a ruptured outfall pipe, as represented out here this morning would make me think of End Times if I thought about it too long.
So much merde, so little temps.
Wading through the muck of the impending Court vivisection cum barbecue of the ACA, I was struck by something from Paul Waldman's roundup of the ridiculous in the Post:
"The Obama administration is trying to use Antonin Scalia’s own dissents from the 2012 case on the ACA to convince him to uphold the subsidies. I suspect they underestimate his intellectual flexibility."
"Intellectual flexibility" is putting it mildly.
I've always wondered how Scalia got his reputation for being a "conservative" (in the true sense of the word) justice, one for whom the concept of precedence/stare decisis, had--at least at one time--some value. Where did this come from? Does he have a secret press agent pumping this crap out into the aether?
As early as five years after first darkening the Court's hand towels, Scalia already had a reputation as a malleable malcontent, but one who also believed (and still does) that he has a direct exegetical connection to the god-like founders, whose words are sacrosanct.
A 1991 article in the Cardozo Law Review, written by Yale Law School professor, Robert Burt, parses Scalia's weird split personality when it comes to legal decision making. On the one hand, he treats certain ideas as impermeable to change and on the other, his sense of personal ideology and control allows him to toss out decades of established law:
"Prior rulings command Scalia's respect primarily when he sees independent reasons that would lead him to decide the case the same way it it appeared before him today. If the precedent cannot be justified on this independent basis, there is a presumption--apparently strong though rebuttable--for discarding it."
Scalia also believes that, although he has complete authority to change laws however he sees fit, depending his personal whims, according to Burt, he "emphatically rejects the proposition that 'interpretation [of the Constitution] must change from age to age' and that the proper function of the Supreme Court is "to apply current societal values" in constitutional adjudication." A phenomenon we have seen all too frequently.
Burt goes on to say that Scalia's take on precedent hinges on his conception of what deserves the "encomium of 'law'". Thus, at least in his own mind, startling intellectual inconsistencies notwithstanding, Scalia is free to decide what past Court rulings deserve his respect and which don't.
This isn't to say that justices are locked in to previous Court rulings, if that were the case, Dred Scott would still stand, but to indulge in wholesale housecleaning because of ideological preferences, overturning decades of established law for reasons no more compelling than personal pique is the height of arrogance and irresponsibility.
I'm pretty sure Scalia doesn't give a fig what anyone else thinks. And he clearly doesn't care, and largely, neither does Roberts, about the chaos these fits of pique dish out to the American public at large, so long as personal ideology is satisfied.
Burt concludes that Scalia's devaluation of the past "follows from the root of principle of his jurisprudence--that the strong are entitled to rule."
Ahhhh...there it is!
A fascinating early look at Scalia's sense of personal privilege, offering an understanding of his need to command and rule from his seat on the highest court in the land. It's worth a read.
Scott Walker, Wingnut Primus, the new title conferred upon his royal dickhead after the recent meeting of the Confederacy of Dunces in Iowa.
According to a Peter Beinart piece in the Atlantic, Walker is partying like it's 1979.
He's flexing his Confederate bona fides by telling Latinos, African-Americans, progressives, women, union workers, immigrants, non-English speakers, non-Christians, and anyone else who dares to get in the Kochs', er...his...way, to fuck off, in no uncertain terms.
He's peddling the Morning in America pap that Reagan tried to sell a generation ago. In his screed to the other Confederates, he let them know that an all white, all Christian, all Confederate, all racist, anti-progressive, all American dream is still possible:
"...he actually asserted that the United States is 'one of the few places left in the world where it doesn’t matter what class you were born into, it doesn’t matter what your parents did for a living. In America, the opportunity is equal for each and every one of us.' As even National Review has noted, that just ain’t so."
But this must be the sort of stuff the Kochs want him to blurt out. After all, the marionette says and does nothing unless his strings are pulled by the masters.
Oh, and it's interesting, but entirely predictable, that as soon as the COD dance party ended, Scotty boarded a plane and flew at Mach 6 out to prostrate himself before the Kochs and their deep-pocketed friends.
Up, Scotty, Up. That's a boy!
(I think I'm gonna readjust my sense of gloom about the way these Iowa Confederacy of Dunces meetings tend to confer more idiots upon the country. The Walker/Koch puppet show might impress the wingnuts but I'm thinking the rest of the country will be appalled by this retro bullshit.)
Republican perfidy continued...
Disclaimers notwithstanding, the Boehner/Netanyahu backdoor alliance smacks of nothing less than treason. If this were all on the up and up, why all the skullduggery and secretive discussions? Why hide everything until the last moment if you didn't realize what a disloyal and deceitful caper you were trying to pull off? It's one thing to be disloyal to a man, Barack Obama, but congressional Republicans and their leadership are now demonstrating their disloyalty to the office of the President of the United States and to the United States itself.
They should all be impeached, and if negotiations with Iran go south and something really bad comes out of all this, stood up against a wall and shot.
These people are beneath contempt, but they have so much of it themselves, it would be hard not to be.
Cole is exactly correct when he declares that none of these racist pigs would dare do this to a sitting white president.
I'm going to disagree with AK and Juan Cole. I think the Republicans would do any and all of this treasonous crap to any person in power who does not tow the supply-side plutocrat line.
They impeached Clinton. In the years between then and now the crazy has seeped into state and local government and brought true nut cases into the halls of Congress. In the 2012 Republican primary, they ostracized Huntsman, the only one who had any sense of reality left in him.
I am sure Obama's race has an effect on some of them, but they will do everything possible to crush anyone who speaks up for the average American trying to live in the reality-based world.
Seems to me everyone is right on this. The problem with Democrats, even a Democrat as white & business-friendly as Bill Clinton, is that they upset the white-guy order by putting women & people of color in positions of power. They chip away at white-guy privilege.
Democrats also are "uppity" in that they believe in a meritocracy of sorts & don't stick close enough to the practice of rewarding those loyal to the status quo.
Obama, unlike previous Democratic presidents, is a living symbol that the top dog doesn't have to be a fleshy white guy. Hillary Clinton, should she be elected, will be another reminder of that, & she will get the same treatment as Obama has -- worse, perhaps, because she's not as polite & pleasant as he is.
Every person in power who does not fit into the white guy's mold presents a direct challenge to them. Ergo, censure Eric Holder, someone who by every rational standard is a preserver of the status quo. Except the one standard, which is about all the white guys can see in Holder.
The fact that Republicans lately have put more women & people of color in top jobs does not refute that. The non-white guys they put in place are tokens who "know their place." Was Condi Rice running the Iraq operation? Nope. Was Colin Powell? Nope. The women & minorities to whom Republicans give "leadership" roles are also, to an extent, an in-your-face response to Democrats. Look, look, we know some black people, too! The best example of that is nominating Clarence Thomas to "replace" Thurgood Marshall.
Ostracizing Huntsman, BTW, was a direct result of his being Obama's ambassador to China. If he had been a has-been governor, he would have been taken more seriously. But he broke the loyalty oath. (It didn't help that he was a Mormon; that didn't help Romney, either.)
This isn't racism -- though there is some -- as much as it is status-quoism. Republicans have seen the new American order, & they don't like it.
Marie
Time to kvetch.
So I spot a piece on the Atlantic site, the title of which is "How Obama Has Left Red States Deeper in the Red" and I thought....really?
And I don't know who writes the headlines for that site, but I'm guessing they didn't actually read the whole piece. But if they did....wtf.
The headline, along with some lines at the top make it seem like the president has been vindictively sticking it to red states. The truth is, as is finally presented, that red states have been sticking it to themselves.
Discretionary spending from the federal government goes more to blue and purple states largely because red states have been telling Obama to keep his money. Add to that the fact that most red states have turned their backs on the enormous windfall of cash from Medicaid expansion through the ACA, and you have a pretty big gap, a gap caused not by the president, but by brain-dead right-wing ideologues.
I'm not even going to bother trying to write a snappy close for this one.
Fuck it.
“Seventy nine percent of adults say that science has made life easier for most people and a majority is positive about science’s impact on the quality of health care, food and the environment.” So says a recent Pew poll. I’ve often wondered what kind of a world we’d have today if those second century goatherds had fetishized an algebra text instead of a book of folklore.
James Singer: Considering that we are where we are after about 500 years of science and your shepherd lived 1800 years ago I would guess that we would be either a tiny remnant riding in metal capsules headed to Keplar 144 or a much smaller group cooking lemmings for supper.
A side panel of that Pew report I find dismaying. Question: which occupational group is the most beneficial to society? Answer: military 78%; teachers 72%; Doctors 66%; and so on. The kind of answer I would expect from a tribe living on some sluggish tributary of the Amazon.
I would suggest that humanity's interest in the scientific method, that is, the erection of a superstructure of axioms used to aid our understanding of the real world, started quite a bit earlier than 500 years ago, and quite a bit earlier than 1,800 years ago.
The work of Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes, and Eratosthenes preceded the rise of Christianity by centuries. Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth 200 years before the birth of Christ.
Sumerians began to collect and collate number based observations several millennia before that event.
Anti-science haters have always been around. The difference is that haters and deniers in the middle ages, the Renaissance, right up to the 20th centno matter how wealthy, didn't have the power to affect the fate of the planet.
Now they do.
Oh crap.
Mitt not running?
What'll I do with all that new material I've been working up for Rat 3.0?
The fink.