The Torture Report

The Senate Intelligence Committee has announced that it will release its torture report tomorrow (Tuesday the 9th). Already, the squawking has begun from the usual suspects:

The biggest political story over the next 48 hours is likely to be the Senate Intelligence Committee's report this week on the torture of CIA prisoners during the Bush era. And even before its official release, folks are already preparing for a fight. "A long-awaited Senate report condemning torture by the Central Intelligence Agency has not even been made public yet, but former President George W. Bush's team has decided to link arms with former intelligence officials and challenge its conclusions," the New York Times says. But it's quite possible that the political fallout -- domestically -- could be small. After all, many Americans have already made up their minds on these interrogation practices long ago. But the real immediate impact could be overseas, with the Obama administration bracing for the report to produce violence and unrest directed at U.S. embassies and western personnel in the Middle East.

Source: NBC News

There is much to unpack here, but let's begin with the claim that there will be unrest overseas as a result of the report being published.

I have no doubt that there will be some measure of trouble abroad because of the Committee's report, but that does not impress me enough to argue that the report should be buried. Whatever unrest we face will largely be our own government's fault for choosing these so-called "interrogation techniques" in the first place!

The chickenhawks, seeming to subscribe to the "it's not wrong if the US government does it in the name of national security" school of thought, have already come out of the woodwork to cluck about how the report should not be released. "They're animals!" said several people commenting on the NBC Nightly News' Facebook page in reference to our terrorist enemies.

I have likely said this before but I will say it again: I don't give a damn what it is someone (supposedly) did to merit being waterboarded - if we tortured, we broke international law. And if we broke international law, I want to know about it.

It's not enough to simply say that we're the "good guys" - we have to actually act like it. Treating our enemies like animals and using internationally banned "interrogation techniques" on them are things that terrorists do. Have we truly been so scared by the threat of terrorism that we want to devolve into using some of the tactics from their playbook to succeed in the "war on terror"?

You become what you hate.

There is one final angle to this that I find most interesting. Many of the same people who are so trusting of the government's actions in the name of national security are some of the same people who usually don't trust the 'gubmint' as far as they can smell it.

The government wants to make dietary suggestions to beat the obesity epidemic? That's BIG GUBMINT RUN AMOK! The government wants to act as though it's above the law in the realm of national security matters? What could go wrong?

"The Need To Vent"

I can't help but appreciate the irony. As Rachel Maddow has pointed out on her Maddow Blog, Republicans lately have been pointing to their need to "vent" in the wake of president Obama's executive action concerning immigration:

The Republican-led House may vote this week to undo President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration, House Speaker John Boehner told lawmakers Tuesday as he sought to give outraged conservatives an outlet to vent over Obama’s move without shutting down the government.

            

Boehner, McCarthy and Scalise need to craft a process that will allow conservatives to vent, but prevent a shutdown.

           

The resolution to undo the president’s action, however, would largely be a way for House Republicans to vent their displeasure, and could come as early as Thursday.

House Speaker John A. Boehner, who has pleaded with fellow Republicans to avoid a contentious government shutdown fight, appeared to win support on Tuesday for a plan that would allow members of his party to vent anger at President Obama while keeping the government open beyond next week.

Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/homeland-chief-faces-gop-critics-on-immigration/2014/12/02/a83c0b4c-79fa-11e4-8241-8cc0a3670239_story.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/lame-duck-congress-agenda-113222.html?hp=t1_r

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/us/house-gop-weighs-symbolic-immigration-vote-in-plan-to-avoid-shutdown.html?_r=0

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/12/02/boehner-plan-avert-shutdown-appears-gain-support-congress-races-finish-its-work/kfdQyZVBhZHaL2ordY12GL/story.html

The president hurt conservatives' feeling, so now they need to "vent" in order to make themselves feel better.

One of the big straw men that many conservatives often knock down about liberals is our supposed reliance on feelings and self-esteem. Conservatives, they argue, are made of stronger stuff that isn't offended by ideas that run contrary to theirs.

Yet Republicans in office are apparently such big babies that Obama taking action without them - which, by the way, is completely within his authority - cuts them so much to the quick that they have to take symbolic, empty gestures to make themselves "feel better". Those actions, it should be noted, come at the expense of what is best for the country.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.

Joni Ernst

I weep for the future of this country. I really do.

It doesn't even seem to matter anymore if a candidate has a good grasp - or any grasp at all - on the big issues of the day, but whether they "appear confident" or seem like the type of person with whom average Americans would like to have a beer.

This is certainly the case in the Iowa senate race between Democrat Bruce Braley and Republican Joni Ernst. The two went head-to-head in a debate last evening, and Ernst apparently showed that she knew nothing about the relevant issues of the race. The Des Moines Register writes:

[Ernst’s] low point was “stubbornly pushing the claim that Obamacare cut Medicare benefits, an argument repeatedly debunked by nonpartisan fact checkers, and her confusion on a question about current ‘job-killing’ regulations, where she cited cap-and-trade, which is not law,” [Kedron Bardwell, an associate professor of political science at Simpson College in Indianola] said.

 

[Dennis Goldford, a Drake University political scientist] said Ernst is “an excellent performer.” “She looks right at the camera. She seems to radiate a certain kind of confidence,” he said.

 

But Ernst didn’t often say anything of substance, Goldford said.

Source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2014/09/28/braley-ernst-debate-simpson-college/16396423/

The same article was quick to point out that Ernst "looked directly at the camera" and "seemed to radiate a certain type of confidence". I'm getting flashbacks from the 2008 election, when Sarah Palin didn't know shit from shinola but captivated conservatives because she was folksy and winked at the camera during her debate with Joe Biden.

Do the American people really fall for this style-over-substance malarkey? Apparently so, because as the Register also reported, Ernst's performance was characterized by mischaracterization after mischaracterization of the issues at hand:

She used federal cap and trade rules as an example of factors undermining job creation, though there never has been federal cap and trade legislation.

Asked to explain her support for bills that would have banned forms of birth control and in-vitro fertilization, Ernst simply said that the legislation she supported "didn't pass" (which, of course, beside the point).

Ernst also admitted to not understanding the science of climate change and whether global warming is man-made or not (there's a lot of that going around) and claimed, speciously, that Social Security was set to go bankrupt in twenty-odd years.

She is also beating her Democratic opponent by six points, according to Iowa polling.

I know that members (and prospective members) of Congress can't be experts on every issue when they're trying to run a campaign. Not all of us are economic wonks or climatologists. However, before I elect someone to represent me in Congress, I would want to make damn sure that they first know what the hell they're talking about when they discuss their platform. We don't need more idiots in Congress who wouldn't know how to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel* - we have enough of those already (most of them are in the Republican caucus). What we need are smart policymakers who have a basic grasp on the issues and are willing to tell the American people what they may not want to hear - "folksiness" be damned.

Or to put it another way: who would you rather have as a pilot of your airliner - someone who flunked a basic aeronautics test, or someone who knew their way around the cockpit? Ernst appears to be an example of the former.


*This quote is attributed to Pres. Lyndon Johnson. It is unfortunately not original with me.

Success In the Bluegrass State

For evidence that "Obamacare" is a resounding success, look no further than the state of Kentucky:

'Nuff said.

"Negative Control At Helm"

The UN recognizes 193 nations in the world. Of those, the United States maintains an embassy in 169. According to reporting from Rachel Maddow, however, about a fourth of this country's embassies are operating without an ambassador.

You can thank Republicans in Congress for this, as they have refused to confirm any new ambassadors:

The Senate may not be confirming nominees to posts in a slew of countries before departing for the August recess, but after some procedural maneuvering, the U.S. will be getting a top diplomat in Russia.

 

Senators confirmed the nomination of John F. Tefft by voice vote as the chamber finished evening business after he faced objection to confirmation by unanimous consent earlier in the night.

Source: http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/republicans-block-ambassador-nominations-in-nuclear-option-fallout/?dcz=

Why aren't Republicans interested in appointing ambassadors at a time when world events are as unstable as they currently are? Senator Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo) explains:

“We used to pass ambassadors and all kinds of people en bloc like that, but we have this nuclear option now that the majority chose so it takes a little longer to do that whole process, and on that basis, I object,” Enzi said.

 (Source is same article)

Got that? Normally, Republicans would be more than happy to actually provide this country with the ambassadors it needs for proper foreign relations. But because their feelings were hurt when Democrats used the "nuclear option" to put an end to constant Republican filibustering, they're instead going to sit on their hands and pout.

This is yet another in a series of examples of Republicans who apparently hate Obama more than they love their country - or are interested in serving their country by providing what the US needs to continue its diplomatic work.

Another Day, Another Failure

Do the Tea Party Republicans in Congress who keep blocking legislation truly love their country?

That's not a question I ask lightly. Because the patriotism of liberals like me is routinely questioned by some of the same people who are the subject of this blog post, I'm loath to question the patriotism of others.

And yet I have long wondered about people - like many Tea Partiers who emblazon their organizations with words like "patriot" and "liberty"  - who bluster about what big patriots they are. It seems to me that the more you talk about how much of a patriot you are, or how humble you are, it often turns out that you're not actually all that patriotic or humble.

With that in mind, we turn to news from yesterday that Republican leadership has again failed to pass a bill. But not just any bill, mind you, but a bill containing Republican-friendly language on an issue - immigration - that has long been a source of Republican bluster about "securing our borders":

Democrats blamed Boehner for chasing after conservative votes for the border bill that were never going to materialize, after he initially proposed a more robust $1.5 billion plan that likely would have drawn some Democratic votes. Instead, as conservatives balked at that price tag, GOP leaders shrank the bill in an effort to grow the Republican vote – while losing Democrats.
“The worse the bill, the more votes on the Republican side,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in the closing minutes of the debate.

The pulling of the bill marked an embarrassing failure in the first real test of the new leadership team that takes office Thursday following Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor’s resignation as majority leader.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/31/at-11th-hour-house-gop-poised-to-pass-border-bill/

All of this to block passing a bill that doesn't actually solve the humanitarian crisis at the border, but simply allows Republicans to go home to their constituents and say "Well, we did what we could". They couldn't even pass a bill that's all show and no substance.

This Congress' inability to pass anything thanks to the intransigence of the Republican base has, in my opinion, gone from being infuriating to scary. If our elected officials cannot even pass basic legislation what will it mean for this country as a whole? I fear a number of nightmare scenarios: Americans dying on a highway bridge somewhere because of Congress' inability - refusal, even - to address this nation's crumbling infrastructure, or this country's financial solvency called into serious question because of another big fight over raising the debt ceiling.

The usual suspects, of course, will be quick to blame the president. I'm sure Republican politicians are banking on the American people blaming Obama for the lack of action on immigration. To paraphrase a character from the Disney movie A Bug's Life: as the leader, everything is your fault.

The interesting aspect of this story, however, is the fact that it serves to illustrate that the problem is coming not from the Executive Branch or from the Democratic coalition in Congress, but from the Republicans. The base seems so poisoned against Obama, so set in its opposition, that it is forcing the leadership to reject bills that Republicans would normally like.

You would think that if immigration was truly an issue that was consequential to this country's health and survival, as Republicans have claimed, they would be quick to find a solution to the current refugee crisis. Yet once again, we see politics, as well as pure spite towards Obama, get in the way of what's best for the country. This is a pattern that has, unfortunately, continued to repeat itself since Obama was elected the first time, from Mitch McConnell suggesting that ensuring Obama was not reelected was more important than helping his country to Republican attempts to thwart attempts to raise the debt ceiling.

This history is what leads me to seriously question the patriotism of the self-professed super patriots currently in Congress, who speak in such glowing terms about our founding fathers and their values, and yet seem interested in destroying what our founding fathers created all in a Moby Dick-like quest to "get" Obama.

My country may not survive that quest, however, and I find that I love my country more than I love asinine electoral politics. Shame on Republicans for not feeling the same way.

"Leading From Behind"

I finally got around to watching Sunday's Meet The Press. Aside from the usual beltway blather about Obama being "weak" on foreign policy, there was one part of David Gregory's 'roundtable' that stuck out at me: claims that the president "looks weak" economically.

In actuality, the numbers speak for themselves, and they make Obama look pretty damn good. For one thing, the job market is as strong as it's been since before the Great Recession

But in recent months, something has changed. On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that U.S. employers added 288,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent, its lowest level since September 2008, the month Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy sparked a global financial crisis. The U.S. has added 1.4 million jobs so far this year, making it the best half-year since the recession ended. Payrolls are up by 2.5 million over the past year, also the best mark of the recovery.

Source: Five Thirty Eight

The Wall Street Journal added:

U.S. employers added 288,000 jobs in June, far more than economists had forecast and a sign of strength in the labor market. Job growth in April and May was sharply revised upward as well. The gains mark the fifth consecutive month that nonfarm payrolls grew by more than 200,000, a streak unmatched since the late 1990s.

Source: Wall Street Journal

"Sure, sure," some may retort, "But what about the stock market?". Well, actually, the Dow recently reached a high of 17,000.

Terrance Odean, a finance professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is expecting the Dow reaching 17,000 will spur more buying.

“I expect that the biggest effect of hitting 17,000 is that the event gets news coverage and, in the process, reminds (or informs) investors that the market has been going up,” Odean told MarketWatch in an email. “While this could prompt some people to sell, I’d expect it to trigger more buying than selling.”

 Source: Market Watch

"That said, investors should be feeling good about Dow 17,000," Scott Wren, a senior equity strategist with Wells Fargo Advisors, wrote in a note to investors. "The stock market has more than recovered from levels seen during the financial crisis more than five years ago. Slow and steady can win the race; and it has."
The Dow has climbed more than 10,500 points since its Great Recession low of 6,547.05 on March 9, 2009.

Source: Seattle Times

As for the storied deficit, it has shrunk - not grown - on Obama's watch:

The federal budget outlook will continue to improve this year, with the deficit projected to shrink to $514 billion — the lowest level since President Barack Obama took office.
Rebounding tax receipts and slower spending will help narrow the budget shortfall for the third consecutive year, the Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday. The deficit will continue to fall next year, to $478 billion, before beginning to climb again in 2016, as costs related to aging baby boomers mount.

Source: Politico

(All emphasis mine)

Not bad for a president so many derisively accuse of being a "Socialist". But don't wait for the so-called "liberal press" to report much on these good numbers - they're so worried about appearing "biased" in the eyes of noted centrists like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity that they skew coverage to the right in a ham-handed attempt to "balance" the news.

A lie by omission, of course, is still a lie. As long as this good news doesn't receive proper coverage, however, it gets passed on until it becomes gospel to under-informed voters. So much for the media doing its job...

Son, You're Gonna Drive Me To Drinkin'

Am I a 'nattering nabob of negativism'?

One of my friends on Facebook has, in so many words, accused me of it in the past. I will be the first to admit that I sometimes tend to focus on the negative - people and policy that piss me off - instead of the good things happening, though I also blog to inform as many as possible about some of the underhanded bullshit that you never hear about on Nightly News.

But it's also true that one of my biggest criticisms of Bob Gorrell - the editorial cartoonist who has appeared in multiple posts here - is that he's a relentlessly negative, naysaying critic of the president who ignores or glosses over Obama's accomplishments (which are many).

To make up for any Gorrell-like negativism that I may display, I'd like to post some editorial cartoons that actually make me happy:

This is excellent. Despite all the claims from some that things were so much better back in the "good ole days", the so-called "Reagan revolution" of the '80s and the "Republican revolution" of 1994 has been busily rolling back policies from the past that were more progressive than what passes for "progressive" today.

During the Eisenhower era, the tax rate percentage for the wealthiest Americans was in the nineties:

Today we hear that an increase of a few percentile points to the one-percenters' tax rate is akin to "Socialism", though the country managed to survive - and thrive - thanks to progressive policy.

The people are willfully dense of our nation's history and the helpful policies that some in Washington have been dismantling in the name of "small government".


Along the same lines, here's another excellent Ruben Bolling creation:

The arguments from those who think that the poor are just "lazy" or need to work harder to improve their station - which tellingly, never come from those who are themselves poor - are incredibly simplistic. My generation has been told time and time again that if we do well in school, go to college and graduate, we will find ourselves a well-paying job that sustains us.

The unfortunate reality is that even with a two-year degree from an accredited community college, few employers - especially in "STEM" professions - won't give you the time of day.

So the solution is to just get your Bachelors degree, right?

Well, you still have to get your foot into the door before you can get a great job - degree or not. So you search and search and search, but nobody will hire you for "lack of experience".

Of course, you can't get relevant work experience without actually working!

My point is this: the poor need more than platitudes about "bootstraps" and how they're lazy moochers for needing assistance. As an aunt of mine used to say, "it takes a sight to live", and it's hard to make it in a world where there are already two strikes against you because you're poor and can't buy or influence your way to success (like the rich).

It's true that it's not the rich people's fault that you're poor, but sometimes, it's not the poor person's fault either. The sooner we realize that, helping people and lifting them out of poverty instead of blaming them for our economic troubles, the sooner we'll actually live up to the ideal of being the "Christian nation" we claim to be.

Many thanks to Ruben Bolling for his consistently good cartoons!

Those Who Live In Glass Houses...

House Republicans recently took time out of their busy, busy schedules to ban funding to renovate the White House bowling alley. The planned renovation, which had already been scrapped, was characterized by Representative Pat Meehan (R-Pa.) as "a want, not a need".

Good work in solving problems that don't actually exist, House Republicans.

There is, however, a bigger dynamic at work here: for all their worry about "wants" and "not...need[s]", Republicans sure seem eager to spend taxpayer money on a frivolous lawsuit against the president.

The irony was not lost on Democrats:

Democrats on the House Rules Committee said that voters had a right to know at least a projection of how many taxpayer dollars would be spent on a lawsuit they dubbed a “political stunt.”

“The American people have endured enough waste from this House Majority and we are demanding an estimate so that Members of Congress and the American public will know the true cost of the House’s petty partisan lawsuit against the president,” Rep. Louise Slaughter (N.Y.), the top Democrat at House Rules Committee, said on Thursday.

Source: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/212615-house-dems-demand-cost-of-obama-lawsuit

It's a fair question. The self-appointed party of "fiscal responsibility" sure seems willing to waste taxpayer money on a lawsuit regarding Obama's delayed implementation of a part of the Affordable Care Act that Boehner doesn't want Obama to implement.

Another example of "penny wise, pound foolish".

Next time Republicans pontificate about "wants vs needs", perhaps they would do well to remember the old adage about those who live in glass houses. This frivolous lawsuit, after all, is "a want, not a need" that is an enormous waste of time and taxpayer money.

Michael Ramirez Is A Vile Human Being

It's not often that I call out editorial cartoonists for their often disgusting opinions. Every once in a while, however, there comes a political cartoon that's so despicable that it deserves to be singled out because the author is a shitstain on humanity's bottom.

Today, this dubious honor goes to Michael Ramirez, editorial cartoonist for Investor Business Daily and professional shithead, for this abomination:

This is, of course, a response to today's yesterday's news that an errant Israeli missile had killed four Arab children who had been playing on a beach.

Now, I admit that I don't follow Israel-Hamas politics that closely. I don't really have a dog in this fight, except that I suspect that Israel is not always the squeaky-clean, put-upon state that some in this country make it out to be.

Regardless of your politics, in what world is it acceptable to say that having a problem with Israel merits the deaths of children - who, I should add, have nothing to do with your conflict?

Two Pulitzer prizes, ladies and gentlemen. This shithead who celebrates the death of innocents as "payback" has earned two Pulitzers for his cartooning.

Why Women Take Birth Control Medicine

A lot of controversy has been swirling around the use of birth control since the Supreme Court's terrible Burwell v Hobby Lobby inc. ruling a few weeks back. In response, Buzzfeed released an excellent article asking twenty-two of their female contributors why they use birth control meds.

You can read the article here. My favorite, of course, is this one:

 

A female friend of mine, who made me aware of the article's existence (shout out to my good friend Kristi B.!), pointed out that it's unfortunate that women have to justify - to lawmakers, their employers, etc - their use of birth control meds lest they are assumed to be sluts. I had assumed that we settled the birth control debate fifty years ago, but that's just another testament to the extremism among many of those on the right.

"Obamacare" Is Working

"Obamacare" continues to succeed, and of course, we continue to not hear about from most of our supposedly "liberal[ly] bias[ed]" news media:

The growth of federal spending on health care will continue to decline as a proportion of the overall economy in the coming decades, in part because of cost controls mandated by President Obama’s health care law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

 

The budget office said in its annual 25-year forecast that federal spending on major health care programs would amount to 8 percent of gross domestic product by 2039, one-tenth of a percentage point lower than its previous projection.

 

With the latest revision, the budget office has now reduced its 10-year estimate for spending by Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs by $1.23 trillion starting in 2010, the year the health care law took effect. By 2039, the savings would amount to $250 billion a year today, or about 1.5 percent of the economy.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/business/budget-office-revises-estimate-of-federal-spending-on-health-care.html?_r=0

It should be noted that this is a forecast - we can't know the state of the 2029 economy in 2014. However, the health reform that critics excoriated as "out-of-control spending" is set to make dreaded gubmint programs work more efficiently - not less.

In other words: Obama was right!

No Time For Impeachment

Republicans have a new excuse for why they haven't yet pursued impeachment of the president: they're just too damn busy!

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX) was somewhat more sympathetic to the idea but even he opposed initiating impeachment proceedings “right now,” arguing that the House is too busy to get to it.

 

“The president deserves to be impeached. Plain and simple,” he said. “But … we have so much on our plate that it’s not practical.”

Source: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/house-conservatives-oppose-impeachment

Got that? They're not opposed to impeachment because the idea is dumber than shit...it's just that the Congress that has made past "do nothing" Congresses look good in comparison simply has "too much on [its] plate".

Steve Benen of Maddow Blog helpfully created a graph that compared the amount of legislation passed by Congress:

That tiny bar at the far right end of the graph (how appropriate) represents the number of bills passed by the current Congress. And although it's true that quantity does not necessarily indicate quality, most of the legislation passed has not been substantive:

Out of the 126 laws passed by the 113th Congress so far, only 99 are considered substantive and not related to ceremonial recognitions.
By contrast, 144 laws had been enacted at this same point in the last Congress, and 105 of those were non-ceremonial.

Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/212041-a-do-nothing-congress#ixzz37eImVkDF

So the same Congress that has had difficulty in keeping the lights on suddenly finds itself too busy to impeach the president (for reasons known only to the crazies)? Perhaps we should be grateful for small favors, but I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of this newfound busyness to amount to anything.

Muslims in the US

I was planning to (finally) update this blog with the Daily Caller's hilariously inept attempt to smear Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey (more on this soon - check back) or other news pieces. However, I found a blog entry that was so damn good that I couldn't pass up posting it here. It's a long read, but well worth the time.

Believe it or not, Muslim support for the Republican Party did not waver in the face of its gradual Christianization. On the contrary, Muslims saw common ground with Christians on most social issues. While the topic of abortion is not nearly as cut-and-dried for Muslims as it is for many Christians, the Muslim community certainly agreed with the goal of limiting them as much as possible – and more to the point, in limiting unwanted pregnancies in the first place by stigmatizing casual sexual encounters. Muslims shared with their Christian neighbors their belief in the sanctity of the nuclear family, and their belief that a household headed by a married mother and father was the best household in which to raise children.

By 2000, the Muslim community in America was several decades old, and had started to mature as a political entity. Muslim organizations almost unanimously endorsed George W. Bush. I voted for Bush that year. I would have voted for Bob Dole in 1996 if I weren’t so busy with medical school that I forgot to vote; I would have voted for Bush Sr. in 1992 if I weren’t still 17 years old.

In the 2000 election, approximately 70% of Muslims in America voted for Bush; among non-African-American Muslims, the ratio was over 80%.

Four years later, Bush’s share of the vote among Muslims was 4%.

What happened? Well, a lot.

The GOP and Me

The most shameful legacy of the 9/11 years is not torture, not Gitmo, not Abu Ghraib or even the Patriot Act. It's the irrational fear and hatred that the attacks have caused some in this country to harbor towards Muslim Americans: casting suspicion on Muslim Americans who want to build a mosque in their neighborhood, placing innocents on the 'do not fly' list, searching the private records or Muslims who were born and raised in this country but committed no crime - just happened to have a name that sounded "Arab".

9/11 should have been a chance for this country to show the world that we were better than those who attacked us. We don't allow the terrorists the privilege of seeing that their goal - to frighten us into submission - has worked.

But that's exactly what we did. The Patriot Act, torture, even the war in Iraq - those were not signs of strength, but the desperate acts of a people who were so scared that they were willing to go back on some of their most cherished beliefs for an illusion of security.

In that sense, Osama and his terrorist allies won the moment we allowed fear - and not rationality - rule the day.

Khattala

Obama just isn't fitting into Republicans' carefully-cultivated narratives about Democrats, and it must drive them completely bonkers.

You see, as a Democrat, Obama is supposed to be "weak" on national security issues - a namby-pamby, politically correct appeaser whose foreign policy can't match up to the patriotic machinations of his Republican betters.

Unfortunately, it was on Obama's watch that Osama bin-Laden was finally brought to justice, after seven years of Bush's smirking jokes about finding WMDs under a podium at the White House correspondent's dinner and "I'm just not that concerned about bin Laden". And it is now on Obama's watch that one of the masterminds behind Benghazi, Ahmed Abu Khattala, has been captured by American forces.

This comes, as you may know, after almost two years of Republicans hounding the president at every turn over made up scandalmongering involving the Benghazi terrorist attack. The most common line has been to criticize Obama for not finding the perpetrators of the attack fast enough to suit the GOP:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), for example, released separate statements on the two attacks. In his Benghazi statement, he says it's unacceptable that those responsible haven't been found.
"It is disgraceful that one year later, even though a number of the terrorists who participated in this attack have been identified, not a single one has been brought to justice," Boehner said.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/09/11/on-sept-11-anniversary-republicans-hit-obama-on-benghazi/

Now that Obama has completely proven Republicans wrong about their perceptions of Democratic foreign policy, however, the GOP can't seem to get its story straight on Khattala:

According to multiple sources on the ground, including some with direct knowledge of the operations to identify and hunt the Benghazi suspects, intelligence that could have been acted upon at times has been ignored or put on hold. Further, they say, the recent capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala -- now on a ship bound for the U.S., expected to arrive this weekend -- was an easy one.
"He was low-hanging fruit," one source told Fox News. "We could have picked him up months and months ago and there was no change, or urgency to do this now."

 Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/27/sources-us-letting-benghazi-suspects-off-hook-recent-arrest-small-potatoes/

…Mr. Abu Khattala likely was little more than a patsy. Yes, he was captured on video-surveillance footage at the scene of the burning diplomatic compound, but my sources say he was just part of a large “pickup team” of local jihadis that the attack’s real organizers successfully manipulated.

Source:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/2/timmerman-finding-a-patsy-in-benghazi/?page=1

Let's see if I have this straight: before Khattala was in US custody, he was a terrorist mastermind whose capture was of the utmost importance to our national security, and it was an outrage that the president had not yet nabbed him.

Now that Khattala is in custody - captured by a Democratic president, to boot - he is suddenly "small potatoes" - a "patsy" whose apprehension gains us nothing.

Would we be hearing these same type of dismissive reports from Fox News if a Republican president had apprehended Khattala? It's doubtful.

The real issue here is not whether Khattala is truly "small potatoes", as Fox is so desperate for us to believe. Instead, the issue is that in the wake of its major national security disasters (Iraq, failure to find Osama, etc), Republicans are left with little alternative than to just discredit president Obama's successes.

Strange behavior indeed from people who claim to be such patriots.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish Part Deux

I said a few days that when it comes to governing, Republicans are "penny wise and pound foolish, meaning that preconceived ideas (often set in concrete) about government being "inherently wasteful" often become self-fulfilling prophecies when the GOP gains power.

There are plenty of examples of this conscious and unconscious sabotage of government. One came today in the form of a news story about the numbers of staffers in Congress:

A quick refresher: In 1995, after winning a majority in the House for the first time in forty years, one of the first things the new Republican House leadership did was gut Congress’s workforce. They cut the “professional staff” (the lawyers, economists, and investigators who work for committees rather than individual members) by a third. They reduced the “legislative support staff” (the auditors, analysts, and subject-matter experts at the Government Accountability Office [GAO], the Congressional Research Service [CRS], and so on) by a third, too, and killed off the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) entirely. And they fundamentally dismantled the old committee structure, centralizing power in the House speaker’s office and discouraging members and their staff from performing their own policy research. (The Republicans who took over the Senate in 1995 were less draconian, cutting committee staff by about 16 percent and leaving the committee system largely in place.) Today, the GAO and the CRS, which serve both House and Senate, are each operating at about 80 percent of their 1979 capacity. While Senate committee staffs have rebounded somewhat under Democratic control, every single House standing committee had fewer staffers in 2009 than in 1994. Since 2011, with a Tea Party-radicalized GOP back in control of the House, Congress has cut its budget by a whopping 20 percent, a far higher ratio than any other federal agency, leading, predictably, to staff layoffs, hiring and salary freezes, and drooping morale.

Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaugust_2014/features/the_big_lobotomy050642.php?page=all

Again, this is penny wise and pound foolish. In the short run, the elimination of these staffers may indeed save taxpayer money. But what's the effect in the long run on Congress when it lacks the staff to properly research and draft legislation that could be beneficial to the country?

Tellingly, while professional staff in Congress has been slashed during Republican years, other areas have expanded:

Since Republicans took control of the U.S. House in January 2011, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has led a cost-cutting effort that has trimmed staff for House committees by nearly 20%, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. But the number of committee staff responsible for press and communications work has increased by nearly 15% over the same period, according to House spending records.
In the first three months of 2010, with Democrats still in control of the chamber, the primary committees of the House reported employing 1,570 staff members, 74 of whom had "press" or "communications" or related terms in their job titles. Over the same period this year, the same committees reported 1,277 total employees, a 19% cut, 85 of whom had communications-related job titles.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the numbers are "completely unsurprising. We promised responsible oversight of the Obama administration, and effective oversight requires communicating with the American people."

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/07/01/house-staff-cuts-communications-press/11425389/

This says a lot about the current state of the GOP. Staffers involved in doing actual work, like research for pending legislation, are out the door. The big focus now is "messaging" - telling the American people what they want to hear without actually acting on it.

As a result, Congress will be hobbled as it tries to solve the many problems currently facing the country. That's OK though, right? All the better for Republicans looking to prove their point about government's wastefulness and uselessness.

"They Say It Is A Capital Offense"

(With apologies to Bob Marley)

Ever since Boehner announced his intention to sue president Obama over "executive overreach", the pending lawsuit has become the talk of the town in Washington, DC. The news set off a feeding frenzy of speculation and criticism towards Boehner for wasting everyone's time with such a frivolous lawsuit.

For his part, Obama and company are reportedly thrilled about the lawsuit, eager to use it to make clear distinctions between a do-nothing Congress and a president who is being sued for trying to do his job:

[H]ere is something that shouldn’t be ignored: The White House LOVES the lawsuit. For one thing, it gives meaning to the White House’s various executive actions. Earlier this year during the State of the Union, many of us proclaimed [the president and his team are] simply playing “small ball.” But given this lawsuit, Republicans certainly don’t see them being small.

 

In addition, the lawsuit only emphasizes the contrast that one branch of government is doing SOMETHING while the other branch is doing NOTHING. Bottom line: The White House sees a political opportunity here – an opportunity that Republicans might not have seen coming.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/why-immigration-reform-died-congress-n145276

But now we can set aside some of the speculation, as the National Republican Senatorial Committee has finally come up with the bullshit charges they've decided to include in their lawsuit:

1) The time President Obama waived Obamacare for Unions, but not for you.

 

2) The time The Obama Administration spied on journalists and wouldn’t say why.

 

3) The time President Obama decided to attend the Senate Democrats retreat but not campaign with any of them.

 

4) The time President Obama restricted journalists from taking video and photos of him. Instead forcing them to use media provided by the White House.

 

5) The time President Obama delayed the KeystoneXL pipeline for more than 5 years, costing tens of thousands of jobs.

 

6) The time President Obama told you, you could keep your health plan even though he knew you couldn’t.

Source: http://www.nrsc.org/blog/6-times-the-president-did-whatever-he-wanted

This is it? These are the "high crimes and misdemeanors" that Republicans find egregious enough that they're suing the president - whining about the Keystone XL pipeline and attending a retreat for Senate Democrats?

In a previous blog post, I expressed a lot of anger over this obvious election year stunt. Today I can't help but shake my head over how pathetic this has become.

There have been many scandals of various sizes over this nation's two hundred twenty-odd year history: credit mobilier, tea pot dome, Watergate, Iran-Contra....

Now in 2014, Republicans are seriously arguing that Obama attending a retreat for Senate Democrats and then not campaigning with them is an example of an "imperial presidency" that must be shut down with a lawsuit.

Let's hope that Democrats add to their numbers in Congress this November so that there are actually adults working in Congress.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

I've often said that the Republican party has a tendency to be penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to funding: complaining about funding basic government functions in the name of so-called "fiscal conservatism", but then spending freely on things that suit their agenda.

Now we have one of many examples that prove my point.

In Michigan, state Republicans have apparently decided that they're just too strapped to pay for infrastructure fixes. State infrastructure has gotten bad enough, however, that the Laborer's International Union has taken to driving around a school bus crushed by an errant bridge girder to drive that point home:

Source: http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/06/24/its-gone-beyond-repairs-state-rep-says-about-michigan-roads/

However, despite Michigan Republicans' claims of poverty, however, they've somehow managed to find $800,000 to give to a pro-life group:

An organization to help pregnant women in Michigan say “no” to abortion could see an $800,000 boost next year.
Under its newly passed budget, Michigan would expand its partnership with a faith-infused nonprofit group called Real Alternatives to fund “life-affirming” pregnancy centers throughout the state. Stocked with free diapers, toys and clothes, the center offers parenting classes and counseling on topics like adoption. Staff also advise women on how to tell their boyfriends and parents that they have decided to keep their baby.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/23/michigans-budget-includes-800000-for-abortion-alternatives/

Now, I'm not a Michigander, so I can't speak with authority about the state of infrastructure in that state. But if bridges and roads there are so bad that someone has to drive around a crushed school bus to call attention to the issue, you would think that infrastructure was a problem that needed to be addressed.

Priorities, priorities. Conveniently, Republicans are just strapped when it comes to paying for fixes to infrastructure that could hurt Michiganders that are currently living. But when it comes to anti-abortion groups, their generosity is enough to garner an $800K donation.

Penny wise and pound foolish, exhibit A.

The Wally Party

Today's Congressional Republicans remind me of Wally from Dilbert: they spend more time and effort trying to avoid doing real work than it would take just to do their jobs.

Take John Boehner. He's decided that Obama has created such a "constitutional crisis" with his executive orders that he's going to sue the president over it.

Asked to clarify by reporters today, Boehner had this to say:

“I believe the president is not faithfully executing the laws of our country, and on behalf of the institution and our Constitution, standing up and fighting for this is in the best long-term interest of the Congress,” Boehner told reporters.

Source: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/boehner-lawsuit-obama

I must admit that this stupid bullshit has taken me from mildly disliking Boehner to thinking that he's a clown. This junk lawsuit - and make no mistake: it is frivolous - is a monumentally stupid waste of everyone's time.

Let's review the topic of executive orders. Compared to his predecessor, Obama has issued fewer executive orders - 168 over two terms in office as opposed to 291 from Dubya (source: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php). That's far less than the multiple hundreds of XOs our sainted elected officials would like you to think have been issued by an order of magnitude or more.

Furthermore, when you look at the average number of executive orders issued per day while in office, Obama is well below  both the average for Democrats and the average issued by Dubya. The Brookings Institute helpfully illustrated this in a chart that I suspect will be seen a lot in the coming weeks:

But even ignoring all of these statistics, the fact of the matter is that none of this would be happening if Boehner and his colleagues in Congress were doing their job! There is a reason Obama has decided to bypass Congress: because Republicans have decided that they're finished doing anything constructive - even projects like funding infrastructure that would arguably help the country - because they would prefer to act like pouty spoiled brats over losing the last two general elections.

This is why Rachel Maddow has long said that Republicans are in a post-policy phase: we elect these people in office to sit around and do nothing in office that will either help the country or the people that elected them in the first place.

Obama is sick of being blamed for Congress' intransigence, and who can blame him? He has a legacy to consider, and I'm sure he'd rather have a long line of successes equal to that of "Obamacare" after his name than endless bickering with Congress over doing the basics such as funding the government.

Boehner - and anyone else who actually advocates this junk lawsuit and/or impeachment, is a moron. As long as we keep clowns like this in office, the longer we're going to see the country burn as Congress - at least the Republican delegation - fiddles. How long are we going to continue putting up with this nihilism?

Freedom of Speech vs Freedom from Consequences

I realize that I have missed my 'Sunday Stupidity' entry for this week. Unfortunately, college finals happen, and I simply haven't the time to write out a long post on the idiocy featured on the Times-Dispatch editorial page yesterday. Instead, I will address a far more important issue.

A letter to the editor in today's Times-Dispatch:

The Times-Dispatch occasionally expresses disapproval of “political correctness” in political discourse. Your editorial “Wrong Word,” taking John Kerry to task for his “apartheid” comment, suggests to me that the malady has penetrated even your own good offices. Speaking at a closed-door meeting, Kerry expressed concern that if a peace agreement is not achieved, providing for two states (Israeli and Palestinian), then Israel risked becoming an “apartheid state.” Kerry has, as noted in your editorial, expressed regret for using the term., even though top Israeli leaders have themselves invoked the specter of apartheid in a single, unitary Israeli state.
During his many years in the U.S. Senate, Kerry had a strong record of support for Israel and its security. Since becoming secretary of state, he has given highest priority to achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians. None of this moves the Times-Dispatch to forgive the secretary’s politically incorrect choice of words. Rather, you liken his comment to those of “Israel bashers from the hard left.” Your concluding statement tops that, declaring that “Kerry either is ignorant or malevolent, or both.” From my perspective, your editorial follows the mantra of the hard right — any statement even conceivably critical of Israel is forbidden. Perhaps we can agree that rigid adherence to “political correctness” -— whether in deference to the right or left — impedes the search for truth.

It always happens, without fail. You could practically set your watch by it.

Someone, somewhere, in a public setting, says something stupid. Or racist. Or sexist. Or all of the above. As they are reaping the consequences for their poorly-considered words, however, someone almost always comes out of the woodwork to whine: "free speech! They're entitled to their opinion!". This is the common thread running through the Chik-Fil-A CEO, Phil Robertson and Donald Sterling sagas.

It represents a major misunderstanding of what the First Amendment says. It entitles you to the freedom to say whatever you like - not the freedom from consequences when you do so. Words are powerful. They have consequences. The freedom to say whatever we like with no consequences is one of the rights we voluntarily surrender to live in an orderly, civilized society.

There is also the right of a business to control how they are perceived by the public. If the NBA, or A&E, or any other company don't want to be associated with some idiot with diarrhea of the mouth, they have the right to disassociate themselves - via firing, suspension, fines, or whatever other punishments they decide to mete out, within reason.

Before we start treating people who casually toss out racial (Sterling) or sexual (Robertson) slurs and stereotypes as put-upon heroes, it would behoove us to remember that our society has set certain standards of behavior, and the gentlemen above have violated them. Anywhere else, as a result, they would be asked to leave as punishment for their transgression. Why should the public arena be any different?

"Only 67% of consumers paid their Obamacare premiums"?

Many thanks to the always-excellent reporting from Rachel Maddow for this news bit

Bereft of any actual ideas on health care, Republicans have fallen back on several conflicting talking points: "Obamacare" is either covering too many people or not covering enough; they can't seem to decide.

Now it appears that those suffering from Obamacare Derangement Syndrome have a new talking point they're eager for the media to pick up: the ACA enrollment numbers don't actually count, because "only 67%" of enrollees have paid their premium. That comes from this news item from The Hill.

Unfortunately, like most (if not all) of the GOP lines on health reform, this one is highly misleading, if not outright untrue.

As Rachel Maddow reported on her blog today, these numbers are at odds with figures from health care companies themselves, which point to 80-90% of enrollees paying their premiums. We know that insurance companies have no reason to 'cook the books' when it comes to enrollment numbers (unlike the GOP), so their figures are infinitely more believable that those issued by partisans trying to make a political point.

Setting that aside, however, Republicans chose April 15th as the cut-off date for their figures. What's the problem with that? The fact that many enrollees didn't receive a bill until April 15th, since they enrolled by the March 31st deadline. One can hardly expect someone to pony up the money to pay their first premium on the same day they received their bill.

Charles Gaba explains this in not-quite-as-polite terms here.

Even more damning is the fact that Republicans were warned that the numbers were misleading - they just didn't seem to care (source).

So, at the end of the day, we have a highly misleading statistic that Republicans can use to...what? Convince the American populace to shy away from signing up for Obamacare, thus putting them at risk due to lack of health insurance?

Do Republicans even have a conscience anymore, or is everything just politics to them?

Sunday Stupidity: The Takes One to Know One Edition

I'm a subscriber to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and although it's a pretty good newspaper, it leans pretty conservative. Credit where credit's due: the editorial staff is usually pretty balanced with its opinions. However, the right-wing loons seem to come out of the woodwork on Sundays with letters to the editor filled with dumb opinion and asinine commentary on current news item.

In response to that, I'd like to start what will hopefully become a regular feature on this blog: the Sunday Stupidity, in which we examine the cream of the crap and address the letters, columnists and naysayers I have to endue in my local paper.

Today we're featuring two luminaries of conservative opinion: George Will and Victor Davis Shithead Hanson.

Now, I must be honest: George Will can occasionally be a pretty good columnist. But as my Dad has pointed out: he often gets so enthralled with his own erudition and sophistication that he becomes insufferable. This is one of those times.

Link: Obama The Adolescent

In the above column - posted for your reading displeasure - Will sneers about Obama arguing like an "adolescent" because the president dared to use the term "stinkburger" to describe Rep. Paul Ryan's recent budget "plan".

To be fair, it could be argued that Obama shouldn't have said that. Perhaps presidents should be slightly above the name-calling.

On the other hand, for Will to accuse the president (and his supporters) of being "adolescent" is nothing short of hilarious considering the Republican party's recent history. This is a party whose leaders have practically called Obama every name in the book; who show the president so much disrespect that they can't resist shouting out "you lie!" during the State of the Union; who have pouted, folded their arms across their chests and refused to do any work because they didn't get their way in previous general elections; and who have wasted time trying to repeal "Obamacare" over fifty times.

But please, George Will -  tell me how Obama is the one acting like an "adolescent".

Not only that, but for conservatives to pretend that their oh-so-delicate sensibilities were offended because Obama (gasp!) said "stinkburger" is absolutely ridiculous. Cheney tells people to "go f- [themselves]" on the floor of Congress, but it's supposedly a Major Scandal when Biden says "big f-ing deal" or Obama says "stinkburger".

Please.

Next on the list is Victor Davis Hanson, whose columns regularly read like a crotchety old man's laundry list of Things I Think Are Wrong With The World. In his latest column, Hanson argues that Harry Reid is a "corrupt bully":

Link: Harry Reid, Corrupt Bully

Some of what Hanson says about Reid, if true, could count as scandalous. An example is Reid supposedly using campaign funds to buy jewelry for donors. Of course I don't support the misuse of funds specifically earmarked for campaigns to reward donors and friends!

What really gets me from this column, however, is this passage:

Reid is back in the news for denigrating the peaceful supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, a popular critic of the Bureau of Land Management policy, as “domestic terrorists.”

McCarthy in the 1950s became infamous for smearing his opponents with lurid allegations that he could not prove, while questioning their patriotism. Reid has brought back to the Senate that exact same McCarthy style of six decades ago — and trumped it.

Let's talk about Cliven Bundy's "peaceful supporters", shall we? Are these the same "peaceful supporters" who arrived to point guns at federal officials for trying to do their jobs? Or perhaps these "peaceful supporters" are the ones who planned to use their wives and children as human shields if the Bundy standoff devolved into a shooting match.

Yes, they certainly sound peaceful to me...

Not only that, but accusing Harry Reid of being another Joe McCarthy is ridiculous on its face. McCarthy was an attention-whoring Senator who threw out Communist accusations like some people throw candy to children. He is almost universally reviled nowadays (except by far right-wingers who think he's a poor, misunderstood soul) as a dirty-dealing, red-baiting jerkoff who is recognied as being a face of one of this country's darkest and most paranoid eras.

I don't necessarily stand by everything Reid has said during his tenure, but to call him another McCarthy is a stretch. Simply calling people names is not "McCarthyism" - it's ruining livelihoods with unfounded hearsay in an attempt to garner attention for oneself. Neither Petraeus nor any of the other people mentioned as being Reid's victims ever lost their careers and good reputations because of anything Reid said about them.

To claim otherwise is to completely miss the point of the McCarthy era and to disrespect those who did lose their livelihoods.

Obamacare Is Working...Republicans Are Not

The idiots can't even keep their story straight!

On Faux News recently, Steve Doocy had his hair on fire about "Obamacare":

The CBO said yesterday at the end of this year, 42 million people will still be uninsured. 42 million! We blew up everything for one or two million while 42 million are still going uninsured? That’s not what we were sold.

So...wait a minute: now Republicans are trying to argue that the law doesn't go far enough?

This sure is a change from the line we've been hearing about how so-called "Obamacare" is "Socialism" because it goes too far in helping the uninsured. Bereft of any actual policy to improve the health care law or bring new ideas to the table, Republicans seem willing to attack Obamacare from the left.

Quite an awkward position for the party who has never seemed to give a damn about the uninsured - until it's politically convenient.

Happily, there is evidence that cynical Republican policy isn't working - even in states that are receptive to the GOP:

Despite strong dislike of President Obama’s handling of health care, a majority of people in three Southern states – Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina – would rather that Congress improve his signature health care law than repeal and replace it, according to a New York Times Upshot/Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

The poll also found that a majority of Kentucky residents – and a plurality in a fourth state, Arkansas — said they thought the health care marketplace in their state was working well, even as they expressed strong disapproval of the health care law. More than twice as many Kentuckians say their state exchange is working well than say it is not.

 Source: NY Times

It's pretty pathetic when even voters who are sympathetic to your views just aren't listening anymore. But then again, that's what happens when you have no ideas other than "Obamacare bad. Repeal Obamacare" - the voters get sick of hearing it and want to hear policies that will actually benefit the country.

Republicans have lost this fight. Time to move on.

The American Judicial System

Sometimes, it's almost like the self-professed "patriots" and worshipers of the American Constitution don't actually understand how the system works.

Remember Debo Adebgile, Obama's nominee for Assistant Attorney General? A little over a month ago, the idiots that be in Congress, responding to fearmongering "reporting" on Faux (Fox) News for reasons beyond my understanding, decided that it was a Major Scandal that Adebgile represented bad guys in court:

The Senate voted 47-52 Wednesday to reject controversial nominee Debo Adegbile as an assistant attorney general.

 

Seven Democrats voted against moving forward with President Obama’s nomination of Adegbile, which the Fraternal Order of Police and other groups opposed because of his involvement in the defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.

 Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/199979-senate-rejects-obama-nominee-who-defended-convicted-cop-killer

Never mind that John Adams himself represented a British soldier in the wake of the Boston Massacre, an act he later called "one of the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country" (Source). Never mind also that the Constitution specifically requires that everyone - regardless of their crime(s) - receive a speedy, fair and impartial trial with legal counsel.

No....Adebgile was a "brown" who represented one of "them" in a court trial. Therefore, he's guilty by association.

They say that they're not racists - that in fact, liberals overuse the so-called "race card" to quash debate. But when you're this willfully dense about the American judicial system, and it involves a black man with a funny name, it tends to make you look like a reactionary bigot.

Cliven Bundy and the Culture of Entitlement

Let's talk about Cliven Bundy.

As soon as I saw the story reported on Nightly News, I knew it was going to bring out the anti-government wingnuts from the woodwork.

Turns out I was right. Responding to allegations that the federal government has "seized" his property, right-wing militia groups swarmed to Nevada to turn what should have been fairly routine and peaceful into a tense stand-off.

The government backed off, not wanting bloodshed (which would have only fueled the fire), so they backed off - for now. Bundy and his supporters are claiming victory.

At first blush, it certainly looks like the wingnuts are right - that this is "big government" seizing a private citizen's property by force. But when you dig deeper, Bundy begins to look less and less like a put-upon citizen and more like a leech:

This conflict arises out of rancher Cliven Bundy’s many years of illegally grazing his cattle on federal lands. In 1998, a federal court ordered Bundy to cease grazing his livestock on an area of federal land known as the Bunkerville Allotment, and required him to pay the federal government $200 per day per head of cattle remaining on federal lands. Around the time it issued this order, the court also commented that “[t]he government has shown commendable restraint in allowing this trespass to continue for so long without impounding Bundy’s livestock.” Fifteen years later, Bundy continued to defy this court order.

Last October, the federal government returned to court and obtained a new order, providing that “Bundy shall remove his livestock from the former Bunkerville Allotment within 45 days of the date hereof, and that the United States is entitled to seize and remove to impound any of Bundy’s cattle that remain in trespass after 45 days of the date hereof.” A third federal court order issued the same year explains that Bundy did not simply refuse to stop trespassing on federal lands – he actually expanded the range of his trespassing. According to the third order, “Bundy’s cattle have moved beyond the boundaries of the Bunkerville Allotment and are now trespassing on a broad swath of additional federal land (the “New Trespass Lands”), including public lands within the Gold Butte area that are administered by the BLM, and National Park System land within the Overton Arm and Gold Butte areas of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.” The third order also authorizes the federal government to “impound any of Bundy’s cattle that remain in trespass.”

Source: Ian Millhiser

To sum it up: Bundy has been illegally grazing his cattle on federal land for decades - even after receiving a court order to stop. Even a court order wasn't enough to stop him, though, and he just continued trespassing on federal land - perhaps hoping for a confrontation so that he could become the next braindead conservative hero.

There are several ironic points here. The same right-wingers who are constantly screaming about personal property rights are some of the same people now gleefully trespassing on federal property to prove some "point" about big gubmint. One wonders what the effect would be if I bought several head of cattle and allowed them to graze in a Tea Partyer's front lawn.

It's the gubmint, though, so it's totally different, right?

Even more striking, though, is the sense of entitlement that these people - who prattle endlessly about the so-called "culture of entitlement" - seem to have. They're trespassing on federal property, but they expect the government to just let it happen because...they're "sovereign citizens" or some bullshit like that. The rules apply to everyone else, but not Cliven Bundy.

But it's not just this issue; take the "controversy" over IRS tax-exempt status. Many conservative groups are virulently anti-IRS ("abolish the IRS!" and "audit the fed!") and openly political. And yet they expect the same government agency they endlessly denigrate to just hand them tax-exempt status, no questions asked.

To do otherwise would be the gubmint out of control!!!111

Perhaps conservatives who rail against "entitlement" see something of themselves in those that they criticize....

"Disliking" The Wealthy

Add Kathleen Parker to a growing list of "people who should know better".

In her most recent column, which ran in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, Parker addressed the recent back-and-forth between Harry Reid ("The Kochs are unamerican") and the Koch brothers ("collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents"). That in itself isn't the problem; this is:

Reid suffers no remorse and fired back that he was delighted if people now knew who those un-Americans are. The more who despise the Kochs, the better. The Kochs aren’t just leaders of the Republican Party, as Democrats are proposing; they are the face of the Haves. To dislike the Kochs is to dislike the wealthy in general.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-democrats-try-to-make-the-koch-brothers-the-new-face-of-the-gop/2014/04/04/3aab84da-bc28-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html

Now, to be fair, I like Kathleen Parker. I don't always agree with her viewpoints, but she's usually more reasonable and fair than many of the right-wing columnists that my paper runs (*cough* Krauthammer *cough*). In this case, however, I have to seriously take issue with the contention that Democrats "dislike the wealthy" because of Reid's spat with Charles Koch.

I understand what Parker is trying to say: that the Koch brothers have become the face of the wealthy. To a certain degree, she may have a point: to Democrats already upset with Supreme Court rulings that have allowed unlimited, unregulated money to flow freely into our political system, the Kochs have become a demonstration of everything that's wrong with politics in the year of our Lord 2014.

To say, however, that it's an indication that Democrats "dislike the wealthy" is absolute bullshit that should not go unchallenged!

After all, it's not like the Kochs are innocent lambs who are suddenly facing unfair criticisms from the Democratic establishment. For decades, these men have spent millions of dollars to discredit, malign and misrepresent politicians who don't toe the line and run on a platform that benefits billionaires like them. Through Koch-funded groups like "Americans For Prosperity" and others, we've seen numerous commercials attacking "Obamacare" with misleading ads purporting to tell the stories of "victims" whose health coverage has suffered since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

So when Charles Koch whines about opponents that engage in "character assassination", it's like the pot calling the skillet black. Apparently, the Kochs can dish it out, but they can't take it when their political opponents grow a spine and begin to fight back.

Is this an indication of Democrats like Harry Reid "disliking the wealthy", or simply having an issue with the wealthy having a disproportionate ability to influence the political system? Why is it that whenever issues concerning the wealthy come up, there is a tendency of some to immediately jump to accusations that disapproval of the existence of an uneven playing field (tilted towards the rich) is the same as "disliking" or "hating" or "being jealous of" the rich?

I don't necessarily agree with Reid's decision to label the Koch brothers as "unamerican". That's a strong accusation to level against anyone, and it brings to mind the paranoia-fueled McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. The Kochs are clearly not unamerican.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, however, they do have too much control over the political process as they pour billions of dollars of "speech" into the system, drowning out the "speech" of average Americans like me who don't have the means to buy a Congress that's favorable to their agenda. If the Kochs don't want politicians to say "mean" things about them publicly, perhaps they should not thrust themselves into the limelight.

No, Parker - Harry Reid does not "owe the Kochs an apology".

Excuses, Escuses

Boehner has an excuse for why he and his caucus are dragging their feet on immigration reform:

House Speaker John Boehner blames President Barack Obama for Congress’s inability to pass an immigration reform bill, saying that it’s a lack of trust in the president that keeps members of the GOP from getting it done.

 

“The American people want us to deal with immigration reform,” Boehner said on Fox News’s “Kelly File” on Monday. “I’ve tried to get the House to move on this now for the last 15 or 16 months. But every time the president ignores the law, like the 38 times he has on Obamacare, our members look up and go, ‘Wait a minute: You can’t have immigration reform without strong border security and internal enforcement, how can we trust the president to actually obey the law and enforce the law that we would write?’

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/john-boehner-obama-immigration-105467.html

"Gee...we'd like to do our job, but the president is so untrustworthy that we can't seem to give enough of a damn to do it".

This has to be one of the laziest excuses for slacking off that I've ever seen.

Let's leave aside the fact that the president has not "ignored the law" when it comes to Obamacare. The ACA is settled law. I'm sure Boehner doesn't forget the Supreme Court ruling from last year or the year before that ruled the individual mandate Constitutional?

I also hasten to point out the fact that Obama has been far more severe with deportations than even his predecessor - a fact that has caused the president to receive criticism from those on his side of the aisle.

Whether or not Obama is trustworthy or has followed the law, however, is beside the point. House Republicans bear the onus of passing a comprehensive immigration bill, and whether they end up doing so or not has absolutely nothing to do with Obama whatsoever. Republican failure to reform our immigration laws will be a failure on the Republicans' part - not Obama's.

This is a pattern for Congressional Republicans: a litany of excuses for why they can't or won't do their job, and little if any actual work. If I, as a current college student, did that, I'd have failed out of my classes several semesters ago.

It's time for Republicans to dispense with the excuse-making and start with doing their job.

Congressional Investigations

Clinton got a blowjob in the Oval Office, and it was a Major Constitutional Crisis that required a feeding frenzy of hearings and even impeachment proceedings.

Dubya lies us into a conflict with a sovereign country that leads to thousands of men and women in our Armed Forces getting killed and Iraq being opened up to greedy oil companies and war profiteers and descending into civil war.

He completes two terms of office with nary a peep.

Sunshine

I have always maintained that the current crop of Republicans in Congress rely on the American people's ignorance and apathy to get into office. If average citizens realized half of the crap that Republicans try to pull while in office, I don't think they would even be as popular as they are now - which is not saying much.

There is no better proof of that than this current flap in Arizona regarding a so-called "religious freedom" bill. The legislation in question would allow business owners to choose not to serve homosexuals based on "sincerely held religious belief".


To her credit, Governor Jan Brewer decided against sending her state back to pre-Civil Rights Act America and vetoed the bill. True religious freedom, a positive right that does not include the freedom to discriminate against others, has been protected.

My point is not to harp on the legislation in question, however. The arguments against such an execrable bill should be self-evident enough that there is no need for me to outline them. Instead, the focus of my attention is the phenomenon of similar bills proposed in Kansas, Missouri and Mississippi being tabled or deferred after the Arizona legislation was vetoed by Brewer.

I highly doubt that it's a coincidence that we're suddenly seeing such similar bills proposed by state Republican politicians. We've known for a while that the GOP has an impressive network through which talking points and the current legislative agenda is disseminated - it's called talk radio and ALEC. If Tucker Carlson says, as he did recently after Brewer's veto, that the effort to kill the anti-gay legislation is "fascism", that is the talking point that Republicans everywhere will soon be spewing on the news and in the halls of Congress.

What is striking, however, is the fact that a little "sunlight" - the American people discovering what Republicans were trying to do and working to stop it - is all it took to stop anti-gay discrimination from being codified into law.

Let that be a lesson to those who claim that their vote "doesn't count" or that staying home on election day won't have a real impact on this country.

The Value of Education

I'm finally reviving this blog after months of letting it gather dust in one of the forgotten corners of the internet. Although I have plenty of homework to do (I'm a college student), I just have so much to say about so many things that I can't help but continue to post. So look for more articles in the coming days.

An article in Time this month contains a laudatory article on a new type of high school that has opened in Chicago (I believe). Students attend this school for six years instead of four, completing the usual amount of high school and then two years of college. The idea is that they leave school with both a high school diploma and an associate degree, thus increasing their odds of finding a job.

The school itself is a joint effort between IBM and the public school system to produce more students in "STEM" (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) professions, which should bolster the economy and help low-income students at the same time.

I must admit that I have mixed feelings. As someone who has been on the wrong end of the hiring pool, I can certainly understand and appreciate the need to help graduates find work. Although computer science (my major) is a field with any number of opportunities, I quickly found that there just aren't that many jobs for a recent graduate with an associate degree - especially when you are unfortunate enough to finally graduate....in the middle of the Great Recession. The requirements for most programming jobs I've seen begin with at least a Bachelor degree level of education, if not graduate school level.

The article mentioned that a third of job openings could be filled except for the "skill gap" phenomenon - the fact that recent graduates supposedly don't have the training or skills necessary for entry-level positions. I would counter that it is becoming increasingly hard nowadays to find a job in your chosen profession - not just supposedly "soft" degrees like English literature or philosophy, but even technical degrees - without going to graduate school, which is ridiculous.

On the other hand, I'm a bit put off with the idea of pushing the "STEM" professions over everything else. I certainly understand that those in "STEM" careers are usually the innovators who bolster the economy and keep the country running. Where would we be without our engineers and mathematicians?

However, perhaps certain students don't want to be an engineer or scientist. It could be that they don't have the science or math skills necessary for such professions. It could also be that their passions lie in examining literature or creating art. Are we really going to tell such students that they have to abandon their passions to become more "marketable" or to help the economy?

I understand that finding a job and making good money is not as easy for philosophy or English majors. Some graduates may not find jobs in their field and move on to something else. Alex Trebek, for example, was a philosophy major in college. For the part thirty-odd years or more, he has been hosting various game shows - the most popular of which, of course, is Jeopardy!.

If we are serious about telling our children that college affords them the opportunity to pursue their passions, however, we should allow them to actually do that instead of pushing them into more convenient careers!

It is also true that artists and musicians possess major cultural value. Classical Greece is known just as much - or more - for its beautiful poetry, sculpture and art as it is for its feats of engineering. In my opinion, the difficulty artists and musicians often have in finding well-paying jobs says less about them - and their profession - than it does about our society.

One of the more bitter ironies of our age is the fact that higher education is pushed extremely hard: "if you want to earn more money, you've got to go to college and earn a degree!". The statistic that college graduates earn twice as much (or more) than high school graduates is continuously pounded into the brains of students like a drumbeat.

So students "do the right thing" and go to college, eventually earning a degree only to find that a four-year degree is increasingly not enough nowadays. Many of the best entry-level positions require a Master's degree or even higher before you will even be considered.

I applaud efforts like the school featured in Time that seek to fix such discrepancies, but I question whether they're pushing students into fields in which they don't have the ability or skills to survive. At the same time, I wonder whether the problem of finding well-paying work post-graduation is less an economic issue than a flaw in our educational system.