Multi Medium

Quote Of The Day

From Politico’s story about the GOP’s reform plans if (when) they retake control of the House:

They make clear that they plan not only to change the top-down management style of Speaker Nancy Pelosi but also to pare back the excesses and power plays that occurred during the 12 years of Republican control under Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay.

A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  Ha.

Right.  “We’ve learned our lesson, we promise we won’t be dicks anymore.”  That sounds totally plausible, on account of the Republicans are so much more moderate and reasonable now.

This is totally going to suck for Obama and the Democrats, but, well, they’ve kind of earned it.  Unfortunately it’s going to suck for the rest of us too, and we didn’t.

Add comment September 2nd, 2010 at 07:14am Posted by Eli

Palintology

What more appropriate publication to write about Sarah Palin than Vanity Fair?  Michael Joseph Gross has a long but amazing profile of Herself in the latest issue.  Adjectives that come to mind include: thin-skinned, vindictive, secretive, manipulative, callous, angry, selfish, greedy, and phony.  There’s also some interesting nuggets about her nasty sockpuppety supporters and use of suspiciously ephemeral shell PACs to launder her speaking fees.

And then there’s this:

There’s a general consensus in town that, at least since the start of the 2008 campaign, Todd has been shouldering the bulk of the parenting and that Sarah’s relationship with her children has grown more distant. The children did not, as Sarah has claimed, have a chance to weigh in on her decision to run for vice president. She did not even deliver the news to them personally; as has been reported, she asked McCain’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, to do it for her. Todd reportedly told Sarah that, if the children spent too much time on the campaign trail, they would pay a price: grades would tumble and discipline would fall apart. When she agreed to serve as McCain’s running mate, one of her children was already failing in school, according to campaign aides. But Sarah, these aides say, seemed comforted by having the children around, and she seemed lonely when they were gone. An aide overheard conversations between Sarah and Todd in which Sarah tried to make a self-serving argument sound selfless, holding that the campaign was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one that she could not deny the children. “I don’t care what it costs,” she said. “I want them here.” Although the couple hired a nanny to help the children with their homework, little homework got done.

On the road, aides say, Sarah spared the rod. When one child refused to sign autographs unless she was provided with pink or purple Sharpies that had been custom-printed with her name, the staff tried to argue that black Sharpies—the only kind they had—would do just fine. But Sarah ordered them to do what the child said, and personalized pink and purple markers were produced. Another time, when one daughter wanted to have her hair and makeup done by Palin’s campaign stylists (the children’s grooming was not part of their job), Palin’s initial response seemed like an old-fashioned lesson in manners. According to an aide, Palin told the daughter that, since she was seeking a favor from the stylists, she should ask them nicely herself and see what they said. When the stylists apologetically told the girl they didn’t have time that day, Palin, incensed, sent the child back to give them a message: “Tell them they don’t have a choice. They have to do it.” And so they did.  Despite railing at the press for invading her family’s privacy, Palin showed little ambivalence during the campaign about making some aspects of the childrens’ private lives public to serve her interests. Soon after her nomination, she brought up with McCain aides the subject of Bristol’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Levi Johnston: “Would it be good for the campaign if they got married before the election?” she asked, and went on to wonder whether one weekend or another would be more advantageous for media coverage.

Enjoy!

Add comment September 1st, 2010 at 07:45am Posted by Eli

Selective Lone-Nuttery

Stanley Fish had a nice column in yesterday’s NYT pointing out the cynical inconsistency of right-wing reaction to terrorist attacks, depending on the perpetrator:

In the brief period between the bombing and the emergence of McVeigh, speculation had centered on Arab terrorists and the culture of violence that was said to be woven into the fabric of the religion of Islam.

But when it turned out that a white guy (with the help of a few of his friends) had done it, talk of “culture” suddenly ceased and was replaced by the vocabulary and mantras of individualism: each of us is a single, free agent; blaming something called “culture” was just a way of off-loading responsibility for the deeds we commit; in America, individuals, not groups, act; and individuals, not groups, should be held accountable. McVeigh may have looked like a whole lot of other guys who dressed up in camouflage and carried guns and marched in the woods, but, we were told by the same people who had been mouthing off about Islam earlier, he was just a lone nut, a kook, and generalizations about some “militia” culture alive and flourishing in the heartland were entirely unwarranted.

(…)

It is wrong, we hear, to regard the proposed mosque or community center as an ordinary exercise of free enterprise and freedom of religion by the private owners of a piece of property. It is, rather, a thumb in the eye or a slap in the face of the 9/11 victims and their families, a potential clearinghouse for international terrorist activities, a “victory mosque” memorializing a great triumph of jihad and a monument to the religion in whose name and by whose adherents the dreadful deed was done.

But according to the same folks who oppose the mosque because of what it stands for, Michael Enright’s act doesn’t stand for anything and is certainly not the product of what Time magazine calls a growing “American strain of Islamophobia.” Instead, The New York Post declares, the stabbing is “the act of a disturbed individual who is now in custody,” and across the fold of the page columnist Jonah Goldberg says that “one assault doesn’t a national trend make” and insists that “we shouldn’t let anyone suggest that this criminal reflects anybody but himself.”

The formula is simple and foolproof (although those who deploy it so facilely seem to think we are all fools): If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.

How many violent homicidal right-wing crazies do we have to see before we see some conservatives start to admit that maybe, just maybe, that DHS report was right about the dangers of right-wing extremism, not to mention all the provocative teabagger rhetoric about 2nd Amendment remedies and watering the tree of liberty?  Or are murder and incitement okay as long as you pretend that they’re motivated by patriotism?

Add comment August 31st, 2010 at 07:48am Posted by Eli

It’s Not Just Hyperbole

Conservatives really are crazy:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are “converting Denver into a United Nations community.”

“This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”

“This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms,” Maes said.

He added: “These aren’t just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to.”

Maes said in a later interview that he was referring to Denver’s membership in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an international association that promotes sustainable development and has attracted the membership of more than 1,200 communities, 600 of which are in the United States.

I guess the UN will be using its famous black helicopters to force everyone to ride Hickenlooper’s Communist UN Bikes.  When they’re not busy fluoridating the water to contaminate our purity of essence, that is.

Add comment August 5th, 2010 at 07:13am Posted by Eli

Won’t Someone Think Of The Oil Companies?

Shorter Jonah Goldberg: The offshore drilling ban is the real tragedy of the Gulf.

No, really.  Because he has cheerfully embraced Michael Grunwald’s happy propaganda story about how the oil is all dissolving and everything’s going to be fine and the environmental impact isn’t really a big deal at all (um, right).  He also appears to embrace Grunwald’s assumption that any dead animal carcasses that are not obviously covered with oil must therefore have died of natural causes.  Either that or he’s incredibly dishonest, but surely that can’t be true, right?

Some birds were oiled and died, always a sad sight. But according to Time magazine, the number of birds killed is — so far — less than 1 percent of the avian casualties of the Exxon Valdez. And to date, only three oiled mammal carcasses have been recovered. Three.

Wow, three sure is a small number, isn’t it?  Maybe there isn’t anything to worry about after all!

But if you look at the actual report (PDF) from the Deepwater Horizon Response site (which probably has best-case numbers, and of course doesn’t count dead animals that weren’t recovered), you see that while there were only three oiled mammal carcasses, there were 64 overall. Still not a huge number, but bigger than Jonah’s carefully-parsed figure by a factor of 21.  And mammals are the smallest of the categories encompassed by the report.  There are 504 dead sea turtles, and 3455 dead birds (but that’s nowhere near the number of birds killed by the Exxon Valdez spill, so that’s okay).  But no count of the number of dead fish, or shrimp, or oysters, much less damage to coral reefs and other deep-sea habitats, or even the number of Gulf residents and cleanup workers sickened by dispersants or oil fumes or tainted seafood.

But hey, we only found three dead mammals with oil on them, so that proves that this is just those crazy tree-hugging liberals getting hysterical again and trying to take away everyone’s jobs!  I’m surprised Jonah didn’t cite the lack of seal, otter and walrus casualties as proof that BP’s environmental response plan is working perfectly.

Add comment August 3rd, 2010 at 08:18pm Posted by Eli

Objectively Pro-Dog-Poop

As Goldy says, the saga of poop bags in Everett, WA offers a great example of the conservative mentality in a nutshell (or poop bag, as the case may be):

If you thought yesterday’s post on dog poop bags was just a quick toss-off, well think again, for the moment I saw the Seattle Times/AP piece on cash-strapped Everett spending $8,430 on plastic dog poop bags, I immediately recognized an opportunity to provoke a conversation on what I believe to be the most pernicious aspect of today’s conservative movement: its stubborn insistence on choosing ideology over reality.

(He then quotes some right-wing commenters ranting self-righteously about how dog owners should take responsibility for providing their own poop bags and the government shouldn’t be spending money on this.)

Fecal coliform bacteria is one of the most serious pollutants in many of our nation’s urban streams, and modern DNA tests routinely trace the majority of the contamination back to dog waste. That’s why, in an effort to combat both this very real health concern, and the general nuisance factor of unpicked-up poop, municipalities nationwide have pursued a coordinated campaign that includes general public outreach and education, the creation of dedicated off-leash parks with adequate waste handling facilities, and yes… providing and stocking taxpayer funded poop bag dispensers at parks, trails and other popular dog walking routes.

Municipalities maintain this expense, even in the face of dramatic budget cuts, because it works… not just due to the convenience, but because the mere visible presence of these bag dispensers and waste receptacles is socially reinforcing, resulting in a dramatically higher compliance rate with existing pooper scooper laws. From a public health and quality of life perspective, few public expenditures produce such bang for the buck as the $8,430 Everett spends on plastic poop bags.

But that’s not good enough for the personal responsibility crowd. The mere notion of spending public dollars on something individuals should do for themselves offends their sensibilities. And so they would prefer to see their public sidewalks, parks and trails covered in shit than admit that sometimes, reality trumps ideology.

(…)

Today’s conservatives seem so obsessed with how people should behave, that they have little or no tolerance for how people actually do behave. So steeped in faith — faith in God, faith in the market, faith in American mythology, faith in their personalized reading of the Constitution — nothing will stop today’s conservative leaders from advocating what should work over what actually does.

I think that’s correct for social conservatives, but it’s not quite right for fiscal conservatives.  Where social conservatives can’t bear the thought that someone, somewhere might be having a good time, fiscal conservatives can’t bear the thought that someone, somewhere might be getting something for free at their expense.  It doesn’t matter whether the benefits outweigh the costs, someone is getting something for free.

That’s why they hate any kind of stimulus spending – it doesn’t matter whether it boosts the economy and makes everyone richer, someone is getting something for free.  Of course, they don’t mind so much if that someone is already filthy rich, because they’ve obviously worked hard to get that way and deserve every benefit that society can give them.  But ordinary schmucks or – God forbid – minorities or immigrants?  How dare they take my hard-earned money!

As I have said before, if you offered to pay a conservative ten dollars to give five dollars to a homeless guy, I don’t think they could bring themselves to do it.  They would rather deprive themselves than benefit someone they view as undeserving.

Add comment July 29th, 2010 at 07:49am Posted by Eli

The New Patriotism

Whatever happened to “America, love it OR leave it”?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s suggestion in April 2009 that his state might consider secession drew a round of mockery nationwide, but his blustery populist rhetoric earned him serious traction among GOP primary voters in his re-election fight against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

(…)

Rep. Zach Wamp, one of three candidates seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Tennessee, told Hotline OnCall that Perry had the right idea. Wamp argued that mandates forced on the states by the Obama administration’s health care bill have put secession on the table.

“I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government,” Wamp told Hotline OnCall Friday.

Wamp said he hopes voters send a message in November that the federal government should “strictly adhere” to the Constitution.

“Patriots like Rick Perry have talked about these issues because the federal government is putting us in an untenable position at the state level,” he told OnCall.

This is a very interesting definition of “patriot” that I have never seen before, but I assume that it simply means that Perry and Wamp’s loyalty is to the real America, not the United States with its oppressive Constitution and liberals and whatnot.  Fine, whatever.  But I sure as hell don’t want to hear any more conservatives making fun of Alec Baldwin for threatening to leave the country during the Bush administration, understood?

Add comment July 24th, 2010 at 04:24pm Posted by Eli

Very Selective Budget Hawkery

Michele Bachmann, head of the House’s new Tea Party Caucus, explains why tax cuts don’t require any budget offsets:

I think we need to be paying for all the spending that’s going on.  But when people can keep more of their own money that shouldn’t be considered a cost.

Ohhh, I see.  But the thing is, it actually is a cost.  Anything that increases the deficit – which Bachmann’s own party insists is The Most Scary Important Thing In The World – is a cost.  She’s basically arguing that ice cream has no calories because it’s so damn tasty.

Add comment July 21st, 2010 at 07:17am Posted by Eli

Why Do We Need The Onion?

The Onion:

Spurred by an administration he believes to be guilty of numerous transgressions, self-described American patriot Kyle Mortensen, 47, is a vehement defender of ideas he seems to think are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and principles that brave men have fought and died for solely in his head.

“Our very way of life is under siege,” said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination. “It’s time for true Americans to stand up and protect the values that make us who we are.”

(…)

Mortensen said his admiration for the loose assemblage of vague half-notions he calls the Constitution has only grown over time. He believes that each detail he has pulled from thin air—from prohibitions on sodomy and flag-burning, to mandatory crackdowns on immigrants, to the right of citizens not to have their hard-earned income confiscated in the form of taxes—has contributed to making it the best framework for governance “since the Ten Commandments.”

(…)

“The freedoms our Founding Fathers spilled their blood for are vanishing before our eyes,” Mortensen said. “In under a year, a fascist, socialist regime has turned a proud democracy into a totalitarian state that will soon control every facet of American life.”

NPR:

Along with the “Don’t tread on me” flags and the George Washington impersonators, the Constitution is ubiquitous at Tea Party events, whether it’s reproductions of the original parchment or pocket-sized copies.

Karen Cole says she carries a copy in her purse. “The Democrats are eviscerating our Constitution,” she says. Her friend Betty Anne Olsen agrees. “This current administration is trashing our Constitution; they couldn’t care less about the values. They’re breaking the laws.”

And how does she know that?

“I do not study the Constitution, no, but I’m well aware of my history,” Olsen says. “I’m well aware of how this country was founded, and I’m well aware of what has happened to it in current years.”

Tea Party members are often vague about exactly how their constitutional rights are being denied. But they all believe the federal government has expanded far beyond what the Constitution intended.

Parody is dead.

Add comment July 15th, 2010 at 11:47am Posted by Eli

I Want My Country Back

From the insane racist conservatives who insist that Obama is the one who’s stirring up race hatred.  Against white people, that is.

I have a lot of problems with Obama – I think he’s been a huge disappointment with outright disdain for the progressive movement, but here’s a news flash: Not being enthusiastically on board with white racism does not actually make someone an anti-white racist.

Add comment July 13th, 2010 at 11:28am Posted by Eli

Nooo They Be Takin’ My Jesus

That’s what Republican congressional candidate Ed Martin says, anyway.  He doesn’t explain how exactly, but why would he lie?

One thing I like to say is: America is great, not because of our genetics. We’re great because we created a place and space where people can be free. And they can choose Christ, they can choose to be faithful.  They can worship, and they find their way to the Lord. And — or some of them don’t. We sure want them all to, but some of them don’t.

And part of that freedom — when you take a government and you impose, and take away all your choices. One of the choices you take away is to find the Lord.  And find your savior.

And that’s one of the things that’s most destructive about the growth of government. It’s this taking away that freedom. The freedom — the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation. And to find Christ, for me and you.

And I think that’s one of the things that we have to be very, very aware of that the Obama Administration and Congressman Carnahan are doing to us.

Scary!  Obama’s anti-religious policies must be stopped!  Uh, whatever they are.

Add comment July 13th, 2010 at 07:17am Posted by Eli

Great Moments In Journalism

The New Republic hires a right-wing liar as their new fact-checker, apparently out of fear that their stories may contain too many facts.

You guys do know that no matter how much you try to distance yourselves from reality, conservatives will still accuse you of liberal bias, right?

Add comment July 10th, 2010 at 06:09pm Posted by Eli

It All Depends On What The Meaning Of “People” Is…

Ah, Republicans. (Not that the Democrats are much better.)

It was barely a month ago that House Republicans announced the launch of a new website, America Speaking Out, that was designed to “craft a new agenda” based on input from real Americans.

Said a spokesman:

“There’s going to be a months-long period of engaging with the American people, asking for their ideas and [gauging] what their priorities are, and that’s going to take time,” Buck said. “Most people come up with an agenda in a back room in Washington, put it forward and say here’s what it is, take it.”

And today House Republicans are opting to be most people:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) have invited senior Republican lobbyists and top officials from several large trade groups to the Capitol next week to provide their suggestions for a new GOP agenda.

The meeting is part of the House leaders’ initiative called America Speaking Out, which is intended to draw broad input to create a new policy agenda for the party to launch in the fall.

An e-mail invitation sent to more than 20 trade representatives and obtained by Roll Call summoned guests to Boehner’s second-floor office on July 16 “to discuss House Republican efforts to produce a new policy agenda with a small group of trade association leaders.”

Actually, given the kind of bizarre pronouncements Republicans usually make about what “the American people” want, or what’s good for “the American people”, it’s really not surprising at all to find that they’re thinking of the corporate lobbying community.

Add comment July 9th, 2010 at 07:00am Posted by Eli

Republicans Persist In Their Inability To Take It

This is just too hilarious…

In recent weeks, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has circulated information to local reporters about Republican candidates in close races. Among the claims:

– That Jim Renacci of Ohio once owed nearly $1.4 million in unpaid state taxes.

– That David Harmer of California received $160,000 in bonus and severance pay from a firm that got a federal bailout.

– That Jon Runyan of New Jersey got a legal break in property taxes for his 25-acre homestead by qualifying for a farmland assessment thanks to his four donkeys.

(…)

“When the issues are cutting against you, it is typical for a party in trouble to resort to other means,” said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “With the unemployment rate unacceptably high and President Obama’s approval rating falling, they have nothing left to run on other than character assassination.”

Yes, that’s right: The party of Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Andrew Breitbart, James O’Keefe, Dan Burton, Ken Starr, and the Swift Boat Vets is complaining about Democrats resorting to character assassination to compensate for unpopular policies.  I dunno, maybe the Republicans would be more understanding if the Democrats just made shit up like they do.

Also, it’s a shame the story focuses entirely on House races and doesn’t mention that the Republican’s serial liar nominee for the Illinois Senate makes the right-wing caricature of Al Gore look like George Washington.

Add comment July 8th, 2010 at 08:14am Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

Shorter Bobo Brooks: Stimulus bad, austerity good.  Demand-side economists smart, but stupid.

I will give him credit for advocating for extending unemployment insurance and giving the states help, but overall he sounds a lot like a global warming denier the day after a blizzard.

Dean Baker takes him apart here.

Add comment July 6th, 2010 at 11:34am Posted by Eli

Epic History Fail

Rand Paul is right, but for the wrong reason:

Republican U.S. Senate nominee Rand Paul likened the United States to the Roman Empire in the days before it fell during a speech at a tea party rally on Thursday.

“In the latter days of Rome, the economy was crumbling, the emperor … would placate the mob with bread and circus — food and entertainment to placate them since the economy was in shambles and dwindling around them,” Paul told several hundred people gathered for the rally in a Bullitt County park.

“Now in our country, as our economy is in shambles, they give us Cash for Clunkers and a stimulus check and they tell us to go to the mall and spend your money and everything will be OK … That’s not how you become prosperous as an individual or a country,” he told the crowd of supporters.

I agree with the comparison of America’s current state to the fall of Rome, but Paul conveniently overlooks the fact that a large part of the reason for the fall of Rome – and the United States – is that the wealthy interests captured the government and made it serve their welfare instead of the country’s.  This included cutting their own taxes so that the government no longer had a sufficient revenue base to sustain itself.

Paul also misunderstands the purpose of a stimulus, as did Dubya – a proper stimulus is not about telling people to spend more money into the economy, it’s about enabling them to spend more money into the economy.  You know, by helping them get jobs and stuff, because employed people spend more than unemployed ones.  The problem with Obama’s stimulus wasn’t that it was a bad strategy, it was that it was too timid and conservative to have much of an effect.

Add comment July 2nd, 2010 at 07:40am Posted by Eli

My Genius Foolproof Immigration Reform Plan

I think I have finally figured out an immigration strategy that Republicans can get on board with:

Invade and annex Latin America.  The Republicans get to indulge their undying love for conquest and occupation, and everyone in (and from) Latin America becomes an American citizen and can come and go as as they please.  Everybody wins!

Add comment July 1st, 2010 at 11:21am Posted by Eli

Sooo Not Helping

Sharron Angle attempts to “clarify” her insane statements, and only ends up making herself sound even more stupid and crazy:

In her first major interview since winning the Nevada Senate primary, Republican nominee Sharron Angle backed away from some of her previous comments, including how “people are really looking towards those Second Amendment remedies” to “take Harry Reid out.”

“I was speaking broadly, as you saw, about the Constitution, and that was the context of that rhetoric,” Angle said of her provocative comments concerning the Senate majority leader, which she made on a conservative radio show in January. “I admit that was a little strong to say, ‘take him out.’ I meant to say ‘take him out of office,’ and taking him out of office is a little different.”

Ah yes, of course, she must have been talking about forcing Reid from office at gunpoint instead of killing him.  Well, that’s much better.

This is my personal favorite:

Ralston pressed Angle on her comments to the state Assembly in 1995 that the “tenet of the separation of church and state is an unconstitutional doctrine.” When Ralston insisted that the separation of church and state is indeed in the Constitution, Angle disagreed.

“No it doesn’t, Jon. No it doesn’t,” Angle said. “Actually, Thomas Jefferson has been misquoted like I’ve been misquoted out of context.”

Yes, apparently the First Amendment has been misquoted out of context.  Because no one’s ever read the entire Constitution, I guess.  I wonder if the Second Amendment’s been misquoted too.

This is pretty great too:

In the Ralston interview, Angle reiterated her position as an abortion opponent but cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, the famous 1973 court case that made abortion legal, as her reason why government should play a role in setting restrictions.

“I always say that I value life, my position has always been that government should stay out of this matter,” Angle said. “But in 1973, they chose to get involved in this.”

So… government should stay out of abortion… by banning it?  Fascinating.

As Blue Texan says, Harry Reid is very, very lucky.  Perhaps Angle’s primary victory actually reflects Republican awareness that they’re much better off with Reid as Majority Leader…

1 comment July 1st, 2010 at 07:21am Posted by Eli

Great Moments In Campaign Ads

Apparently this is not a parody.  Her entire campaign message appears to be, “I’m a conservative and I really really like guns.  Yay, guns!  So if you like guns, you should totally vote for me.”

I don’t think it really counts unless she’s wearing a camo or American flag bikini, though.

(h/t WT)

2 comments June 30th, 2010 at 11:26am Posted by Eli

Great Moments In Spin

Florida Republicans want to pass their own version of Arizona’s show-me-your-papers law… for the immigrants’ own good:

[Rep. William] Snyder, a former police officer, said the proposed legislation is needed to protect undocumented immigrants, who are vulnerable to abusive employers and violent criminals.

“This is a human right issue,” he said. “They don’t enjoy the same rights and privileges that you and I do. The solution is to enforce the laws that currently exist and to discourage people from coming here to ‘find a better life’ when in fact they just come here and are victimized.”

Aww, what a sweet compassionate man.  He only wants to harass Hispanics to protect them.  Needless to say, Florida’s immigrant and Hispanic communities don’t see it quite the same way…

“The reaction is, ‘What? This is ridiculous,’ ” said Neelofer Syed, a Tampa immigration lawyer who hails from Pakistan. “It is supposed to be that you are legal until you are proven guilty. This law is like, ‘we think you are guilty unless you establish that you are innocent.’ ”

Rep. J.C. Planas, a Republican from Miami, called it an election year stunt.

“I don’t understand how anyone can think the Arizona law is good for Florida,” said Planas, chairman of the Florida Hispanic Legislative Caucus. “It is a huge waste of police resources to start doing these things.”

I’m wondering what the Cuban community thinks of this.  I’m no expert on Florida politics, but I got the pretty strong impression that they have an awful lot of political clout, and antagonizing them seems like a really bad idea.  I’m not sure they necessarily see things the same way as the Hispanic population in general, but they would certainly be subject to being harassed for their papers, so I can’t see them being big fans.

Add comment June 29th, 2010 at 11:34am Posted by Eli

Conservative Hypocrisy? No One Could Have Anticipated…

This is great.  Nitpicker collects a whole bunch of National Review quotes full of outrage against MoveOn for comparing Bush to Hitler (and by MoveOn, of course we mean a couple of anonymous make-your-own-campaign-ad contestants whose entries were taken down as soon as MoveOn became aware of them).  My personal favorite is by the guy who wrote that book about how liberals are just like Hitler:

…in polite and supposedly sophisticated circles in America today it is acceptable to say George Bush is akin to a Nazi and that America is becoming Nazi-like. Indeed, in certain corners of the globe to disagree with this assertion is the more outlandish position than to agree with it.

[...]

I don’t say this because I feel a passionate need to defend George Bush. I would make the exact same points if Al Gore were president. I would make the exact same points if anybody running for the Democratic nomination were president. This has nothing to do with partisanship. It has to do with the fact that such comparisons are slanderous to the United States and historical truth and amount to Holocaust denial. When you say that anything George Bush has done is akin to what Hitler did, you make the Holocaust into nothing more than an example of partisan excess.

That’s awesome.  As Nitpicker points out not only has Jonah not “[made] the exact same points” now that his fellow conservatives are comparing Obama to Hitler, but he wrote an entire book that does exactly what he claims to find so nonpartisanly despicable.  I can’t wait to see Jonah’s incoherent and snotty rationalization of his epic hypocrisy, but I probably never will.

2 comments June 24th, 2010 at 11:33am Posted by Eli

Conservatives Vs. Kagan

Personally, I think Robert Bork attacking Elena Kagan is just about the best thing that could happen to her, at least in terms of bolstering her (near-zero) credibility as a progressive, but it’s the non-Bork part of the story that really jumps out at me:

Gerard Bradley, a Notre Dame law professor, and William Saunders, senior counsel of Americans United for Life, added that Kagan’s admiration of Thurgood Marshall – the first black Supreme Court justice – indicate she would bring pro-abortion rights views and a political agenda to the bench.

“No one would describe Justice Marshall as particularly analytically driven,” Bradley added. “They would describe him as a particularly politically driven justice.”

“We are concerned that [Kagan] is quite extreme on the abortion issue and that she would be an agenda driven judge,” Saunders said.

Because if there’s one thing conservatives can’t tolerate, it’s judges who issue rulings based on politics and ideology rather than impartial legal analysis.

Also, props to Politico for this little zinger at the end:

Tuesday, the New York City Bar Association rated Kagan as “highly qualified” according to their 140-year history of evaluating judicial nominees. The only candidate that they have not rated either “highly qualified” or “qualified” since 1987 was Robert Bork.

I still don’t want to see her on the Supreme Court, but that was a thing of beauty.

Add comment June 24th, 2010 at 07:33am Posted by Eli

Austerity For Thee, But Not For Me

There’s a great – and telling – juxtaposition in today’s PostPolitics.  A story about corporations complaining that regulation and tax increases are hurting economic growth shares the page with a photo gallery of long-term “discouraged” unemployed people.

So on the one hand you’ve got the conservative talking point that you can’t raise taxes to reduce the deficit because it slows down the economy, and on the other hand you’ve got the unemployed people who conservatives don’t want to help because it would… increase the deficit.

Well, which is it?  If the deficit is such an existential threat that it trumps any thought of stimulating our way out of a deep recession, then why can’t we raise taxes on the have-mores instead of cutting Social Security and other benefits for the “lesser people”?  And if economic growth is more important than balancing the budget, then why can’t we extend unemployment benefits and spend more stimulus money where it will actually create jobs?

Don’t tell us that we have to sacrifice economic growth and Social Security to the balanced budget god, and that we can’t raise taxes because it would kill economic growth.  Please just choose one ridiculous position and stick to it.

(Cross-posted at The Seminal)

2 comments June 23rd, 2010 at 07:03pm Posted by Eli

Won’t-Do America

Bob Herbert has a great column in yesterday’s NYT about how the U.S. has let greatness slip away, mishandling crisis after crisis and allowing their opportunities go to waste.  But I think his perspective is a little skewed:

As a nation, we are becoming more and more accustomed to a sense of helplessness. We no longer rise to the great challenges before us. It’s not just that we can’t plug the oil leak, which is the perfect metaphor for what we’ve become. We can’t seem to do much of anything.

(…)

We are submitting to this debacle with the same pathetic lack of creativity and helpless mind-set that now seems to be the default position of Americans in the 21st century. We have become a nation that is good at destroying things — with wars overseas and mind-bogglingly self-destructive policies here at home — but that has lost sight of how to build and maintain a flourishing society. We’re dismantling our public school system and, incredibly, attacking our spectacularly successful system of higher education, which is the finest in the world.

How is it possible that we would let this happen?

We’ve got all kinds of sorry explanations for why we can’t do any of the things we need to do. The Democrats can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. Our budget deficits are too high. Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck might object.

Meanwhile, the greatness of the United States, which so many have taken for granted for so long, is steadily slipping away.

It’s not that we can’t fix anything, that we’ve become too collectively stupid to figure out solutions to problems, it’s that we won’t fix anything.  Our political system has become so corrupt that concern for protecting the well-being of corporations and the wealthy now trumps all other considerations.  Remove that constraint, and a whole realm of possibilities and solutions opens up.  But as long as we’re stuck with it, we will continue to muddle through with half-assed band-aids that don’t work because they were designed by the very industries whose recklessness and criminality made them necessary.

Add comment June 23rd, 2010 at 07:25am Posted by Eli

Maybe Alan Simpson Is Good For Something After All

If we’re really lucky, Simpson’s rude and dishonest diatribe will provoke enough discussion that the truth of the Social Security situation will finally seep into the public discourse and discredit Pete Peterson and Obama’s cut-the-deficit-by-slashing-social-security commission.

The more people hear that Social Security is self-funded by US Treasury bonds paid for by our payroll taxes, the more they’ll realize that benefit cuts are nothing more than theft, plain and simple.

Add comment June 22nd, 2010 at 07:08am Posted by Eli

Co-Wanker Of The Day (Part 3)

Alan Simpson.

Holy crap, just read the transcript of him repeatedly insulting, belittling, and swearing at Alex Lawson, accusing him of spouting misinformation while spewing a geyser of it himself.  Rahm must have picked this guy to co-chair the deficit commission.

1 comment June 18th, 2010 at 06:28pm Posted by Eli

Co-Wanker Of The Day (Part 2)

Joe Barton:

BP’s CEO, Tony (I want my life back!) Hayward is testifying today before a House Committee, and he just received a heartfelt apology from one of his most loyal subjects. Joe Barton (R. Texas) just apologized to BP.

The Republican Party’s quintessential oil Congressman, Barton told Hayward how shameful it was that the Obama Administration would “shake down” BP by demanding that it give up dividends to shareholders and instead set aside a small fraction of their net revenues to the greedy Gulf folks who’ve been only slightly inconvenienced by losing their jobs, their livelihoods, and their environment. Never mind that BP agreed to this on its own, because it knows or fears it’s legal liability may eventually become worse.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these people???

For what it’s worth, even some of his fellow Republicans think that was beyond the pale (even if the GOP’s prevailing feeling is that we shouldn’t make BP pay too much), forcing Barton to issue a non-apology apology apology.  Or something.

Add comment June 18th, 2010 at 11:36am Posted by Eli

Co-Wanker Of The Day (Part 1)

Nevada GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle:

As Talking Points Memo’s Justin Elliott described in a June 15, 2010 story, Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle was a member of the Independent American Party of Nevada during the 1990’s, from 1992 to 1997, during which time the IAPN engaged in bizarre anti-gay agitation and campaigns to legalize discrimination against homosexuality. Describes Elliott,

The small party attracted considerable controversy in 1994 when it took out a newspaper ad titled “Consequences of Sodomy: Ruin of a Nation,” which suggested HIV could spread through the water.

It wasn’t a fluke. As Elliott’s TPM story goes on to detail,

During the period that Angle was a member, the party bought a red, white, and blue 16-page advertising insert in several Nevada newspapers to promote an effort to add a clause to the state constitution stating that “objection to homosexuality is a liberty and right of conscience and shall not be considered discrimination relating to civil rights,” according to a 1994 article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The so-called Minority Status and Child Protection Act would have explicitly allowed discrimination against gay people in jobs and housing.The party then picketed a newspaper, the Reno Gazette-Journal, that refused to run the ad.

Angle apologists will no doubt try to claim that Sharron Angle’s stance towards homosexuality and gay rights has changed since the 1990’s, but that’s not going to be so easy given that, according to Angle’s current official biography, “She is proud of her past chairwomanship of We the People Nevada PAC that sponsored the Property Tax Restraint Initiative.”

The We The People PAC had a web presence from 2003 to 2007, during which time its statement of principles web site page declared, “The radical homosexual movement and other groups seek to destroy the traditional family structure which is the underpinning of society. Their agenda should be opposed.”

I’m always kind of mystified by any claims about the existence of a vast gay conspiracy in a country where only a few gay people can get married, where they can be legally discriminated against, and where they’re not allowed to serve openly in the military or even donate blood.

Least. Effective. Conspiracy. Ever.

Also, Sharron Angle is a despicable fanatic.

Add comment June 18th, 2010 at 07:16am Posted by Eli

Republican Logic

Haley Barbour sums up the Republican position perfectly:

If BP is the responsible party under the law, they’re to pay for everything. I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they’ll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income. … But this escrow bothers me that it’s going to make them less able to pay us what they owe us. And that concerns me. … [I]t bothers me to talk about causing an escrow to be made, which will — which makes it less likely that they’ll make the income that they need to pay us.

Obama needs to be tougher about holding BP accountable… without harming them in any way.

Add comment June 17th, 2010 at 11:17am Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

Rand Paul, Concerned Environmentalist:

Q: What about mountaintop removal?

PAUL: I think whoever owns the property can do with the property as they wish, and if the coal company buys it from a private property owner and they want to do it, fine. The other thing I think is that I think coal gets a bad name, because I think a lot of the land apparently is quite desirable once it’s been flattened out. As I came over here from Harlan, you’ve got quite a few hills. I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there.

Sure, who needs stupid hills, right?  They’re always getting in the way of stuff and they’re hard to build on.

For an encore, maybe Paul can go down to the Gulf and tell them that he doesn’t think anybody’s going to be missing a few miles of shoreline here and there either.

Add comment June 14th, 2010 at 07:50am Posted by Eli