Month: February 2009

Where Are They Now? Homophobic Fuckwit Edition

Dana Hunter1 Comment

We left Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars foaming at the mouth over teh evil gays a few days ago. He seemed on top of the world, free to let his homophobia range wide and free with such statements as “To me, homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion. And you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts! But I don’t care.” Oh, and don’t forget, “It’s the beginning of the end. Oh, it’s worse than that. Sure. Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide.”

You may have thought that Sen. Buttars needed a nice, long lie-down in a soft, quiet room, preferably with a few good doses of anti-psychotics on board. But, like me, you might not have expected much to come of it – we’re talking Utah, home of the Mormon Church and the Prop 8 crusade. However, it seems Buttars’s anti-gay rhetoric was just a little too hot for even Utah Cons to handle:

Today, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Buttars’ Republican colleagues have decided to kick him out of the state senate judiciary committee:

Sources familiar with the Senate discussions, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Senate Republican caucus decided to remove Buttars from the Senate Judiciary Committee, a panel which he currently chairs.

It is unclear how that move would affect his position on another panel, the Judicial Confirmation Committee, which he also chairs and is a member of by virtue of his position on the Judiciary Committee.

[snip]

In the press conference, Waddoups continued to defend Buttars. “I want the citizens of Utah to know that the Senate stands behind Sen. Buttars and his right to speak, that we stand behind him as colleague and support his right to serve in this state,” Waddoups said. Meanwhile, Buttars refused to apologize for his comments, in a senate blog post:

When it comes right down to it, I would rather be censured for doing what I think is right, than be honored by my colleagues for bowing to the pressure of a special interest group that has been allowed to act with impunity.

And his colleagues’ response to Buttars’s last stand?

The outrage prompted a frank, closed-door discussion among Senate Republicans on Thursday, and Senate President Michael Waddoups said he decided to boot Buttars off of two committees — the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee and the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee — both of which Buttars leads.

Before you congratulate the Utah GOP on showing some sense, consider Waddoups’s words:

Waddoups refused repeatedly to clarify which of Buttars’ opinions are shared by himself or Senate leaders.

He said the decision to remove Buttars from the committees was ultimately his own as president, a move he made so the Senate could function smoothly. The judiciary committee, in recent years, has heard most of the bills dealing with gay and lesbian rights, and removing Buttars from his position would remove the “personalities” and focus on the issues, Waddoups said.

However, the Legislature has defeated all of the so-called Common Ground initiatives, which sought to extend some rights to same-sex couples, including one that Buttars helped defeat in the judiciary committee.

“It frees Senator Buttars to feel more at ease in saying how he personally feels without feeling as if he’s personally speaking on behalf of his committee and the Legislature,” Waddoups said.

That’s right. Not a single word condemning rabid homophobic spew. Instead, Waddroups wants Buttars “to feel more at ease in saying how he personally feels.”

For. Fuck’s. Sake.

In other homophobic fuckwit news, Sarah “But I Have a Gay Friend!” Palin is terrified of children’s literature when it contains teh gay:

In a new biography of Palin released this week, Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin, her former campaign manager details Palin’s disgust at the idea of a gay-friendly book. During her 1996 mayoral campaign, Palin questioned the local library director about the “content and selection” of the library’s books. [p. 76]

One book that Palin questioned as not being “appropriate for the public library” was Daddy’s Roommate, a story about a young boy whose father is gay and moves in with his partner. Palin’s campaign manager at the time, Laura Chase, urged Palin to read the book before passing judgment:

I found it to be a sensitve book about showing love for additional family members. I took the book to show the other council members and said I felt it was inoffensive and suggested for everyone to read it, but there were not takers. I said, ‘Sarah why don’t you take it home and read it.’ I could tell by her body language she cringed at the idea.I was shocked. It blew my mind that she wouldn’t look at it. [p. 77]

Palin said the the book should be kept behind the library reference desk, telling Chase that “it shouldn’t be in a place where kids can get it without their parents knowing.” [p. 77]

Because the Lord knows if kiddies get hold of contraband like that, they might figure out that gays are *gasp* ordinary folks, and the right wing won’t have the club of homophobia to bludgeon people into compliance with anymore. Next thing you know, buh-bye Republicon party – because without the culture wars, they ain’t got nothing.

It’s just funny that Sarah Palin’s shit-scared of a children’s book herself. Whatsamatter, Sarah – worried your opinions might change? Or are you scared you’ll catch teh gay?

Betting’s open on how long it’ll take before some frothing fuckwit on the far right wing floats a Palin-Buttars ticket.

Where Are They Now? Homophobic Fuckwit Edition
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Three Views of Cons

Dana Hunter2 Comments

It seems that with the advent of the Dems, our Con politicians have gone completely off the deep end. My imagination failed me. I didn’t think they could get much worse than they’d been during the Bush era, but where they’ve failed on all other levels, as sideshow freaks they are an unqualified success.

Case in point:

Right winger talkers are just losing their minds over the fact that Obama is now President. I know they lack humor so could it be that they actually think this is funny?

Discussing President Obama’s signing of the economic recovery bill at a ceremony in Denver, 630 KHOW-AM’s Peter Boyles on his February 18 program repeatedly referred to one of the ceremony attendees, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Denver), as “Vagina DeJet” and “Vagina DeGette.”

And a Republican state Sen joins in the conversation like it’s no big deal. He should apologize immediately.

CALDARA: When Schultheis speaks, it’s a real room-clearer.

BOYLES: As soon as Schultheis spoke, I said, “It’s time to fire up the bike.” But then I went out to the museum. And, you know, I went over to Fox News, and all the media trucks were over there on the north side. Guys, there wasn’t 75 people there.

SCHULTHEIS: That’s what I hear. Hardly anybody.

BOYLES: I mean, now there were 250 of, like, Vagina DeJet was in there, and other people, they were the 250 selected, hand-picked — Federico Peña was in the front row. I was shocked to see that.

The state senator in question is Dave Schultheis, whose priorities can be discerned here. He makes not a peep of protest at Boyles’s assinine, locker-room misogyny. I wonder how he’d react if a talk radio host started calling him Penis Schultheis? Would he believe that’s an appropriate way to reference a lawmaker?

I somehow doubt it. Cons are infamous for the double-standard.

A couple of things got me thinking differently about them, though. Rather than just a bunch of batshit insane fucktards, what if they’re just miserable pooches? Do they need not censure or antipsychotics, but the kind ministrations of a dog whisperer instead?

The Dog Whisperer never fails a dog. He helps owners become “pack leaders” who learn how to make their dogs into relaxed, contented animals. Cesar Millan demonstrates to each owner how their dog responds to calm, positive, assertive energy. Some dog transformations are miraculous – but these are miracles you can believe in because they take place before your very eyes.

Obama’s efforts at bipartisanship remind me of the failing efforts of dog owners before Cesar Millan shows up. They assume that their dogs are like humans and will respond to the right combination of love, understanding, and operant conditioning.

But dogs don’t think like humans. Dogs are pack animals. Dogs instinctively look for the leader of the pack, and they follow. If no leader emerges, they become the leader. They do what their instincts tell them a leader does. No amount of love or understanding or even rewards and punishment changes this. They simply must have a leader to follow or they will continue to misbehave, even to the point that they get themselves killed. Republicans in Congress have been allowed to let their instincts run wild – “tax cuts, more tax cuts”…”this is a spending bill!”…etc. They followed their leader over cliff after cliff for eight years. They don’t know any better. Left to their instincts they will take us over more.

Obama has to become the leader of the pack. He has to stop tolerating bad behavior on the part of Republicans in the House and Senate. He has to take over their territory on the issues, and deliver sharp corrections to get their attention when they get out of line.

This makes an intriguing sort of sense. I hadn’t thought of them this way before, but the Cons do remarkably resemble the pair of evil Westies veternarian James Herriot once wrote about, dogs who delighted in causing people misery and pain because their owners had left them leaderless. They weren’t inherently mean or evil, they just didn’t know what to do, and they were miserable trying to be their own leaders.

Then again, while the Cons resemble miserable mutts, they also resemble – well, cons:

The only upside I can see to any of this is that political science students attempting to grasp the nature of conservatism need no longer waste any more time studying Friedman, Oakeshott or any of the other great minds of wingerdom. They need only read the latest e-mails from Nigeria, and everything they need to know about conservatism will become crystal-clear.

That’s just the denouement to Steven Hart’s excellent case, which really must be read in its entirety.

So, my darlings, after perusing the above, which possibility resonates for you? Do Cons strike you as clueless jackasses, undisciplined dogs, or scam artists?

Three Views of Cons

Happy Hour Discurso

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Governor Bobby Jindal gives a big fuck-you to his state’s unemployed:

When President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act last week, it included three different provisions to benefit unemployed workers. The first provided funding to states that allowed for a $25 per week increase in benefits. The second extended the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program which gives 20 weeks of federally-funded unemployment benefits to individuals “who had already collected all regular state benefits,” while the third provision widened the pool of people eligible to receive unemployment benefits.

Today, however, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced his intention to oppose changing state law to allow his Lousiana citizens to qualify for the second two unemployment provisions. Jindal said the state would only be accepting money to increase the unemployment insurance payments for those who currently qualify for unemployment insurance.

In all, Jindal turned away nearly $100 million in federal aid for his state’s unemployed residents. Further, as the National Employment Law Project projected on Febuary 13, EUC extension alone would have benefited 24,981 Louisiana residents. Jindal justified his decision by claiming that expanding unemployment benefits would result in tax increases for businesses.

Is it just me, or does this seem batshit fucking insane? These people are so hung up over taxes that they’re willing to starve poor people over tax increases that wouldn’t even happen. As Think Progress notes, the state could end the program a few years from now, before tax increases became necessary.

And this is one of the fuckwits who’s rumored to be a strong contender for the Republicon presidential nomination come 2012. If this is what they have to offer, it looks like they’d best get comfy in the wilderness – they won’t be leaving it any time soon.

Consider what all their grandstanding has earned them thus far:

If you dig into the new Research 2000 weekly tracking poll, you’ll find some really rough numbers for GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

McConnell’s favorability rating is twenty three percent, and his unfavorability rating is fifty one percent. Boehner’s fave rating is seventeen percent, and his unfave is fifty four percent. The Congressional GOP’s fave rating is eighteen percent.

By contrast, Nancy Pelosi is in the forties, and Harry Reid is in the thirties.

And a quick look at the broader picture suggests that the GOP leadership has sunken in popularity since mid-January, when President Obama took office, suggesting once again that the performance of GOP leaders in the big stimulus debate has hurt them. The Dems have held steady or risen a bit.

Their only hope is that the stimulus fails spectacularly. Guess what they’ll be working to ensure happens – while hedging their bets by selectively loving it. We shall see how easy it is for the terminally unbalanced to walk that tightrope.

I don’t think Paul Krugman believes they have the requisite intelligence to pull off such stunts:

So when I read something like this:

“Why should we reward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with $200 billion in taxpayer dollars without first reforming these housing entities that were at the heart of the economic meltdown?” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

and people ask what on earth Boehner might mean when he talks about taxpayers “rewarding” institutions that are owned by taxpayers, I go for Occam’s Razor: Boehner doesn’t have some complicated notion in mind, he either doesn’t know that the government took over F&F months ago, or he just doesn’t get this “government-owned” concept.

This is what happens when the Con party becomes so outrageously inane that only stupid people or the woefully uninformed vote for them. We end up with outrageously stupid politicians. That in turn leads some leading lights on the Con side to contort the facts in order to pretend they’re not quite as stupid as they appear. As you might expect from such a sideshow, the contortionist act is painful for the actor and hilarious for the rest of us:

Neocon mastermind Richard Perle spoke in D.C. yesterday, and argued, with a straight face, that neoconservatives don’t actually exist. And if they did exist, they wouldn’t deserve the blame for the Bush administration’s foreign policy failures.

Dana Milbank, who was on hand for Perle’s remarks, said the experience of listening to all of this was like “falling down the rabbit hole.”

“There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy,” Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. “It is a left critique of what is believed by the comment
ator to be a right-wing policy.”

So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? “My name was on it because I signed up for the study group,” Perle explained. “I didn’t approve it. I didn’t read it.”

Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by Perle, giving a “moral” basis to Middle East policy and demanding military means to remove Saddam Hussein? “I don’t have the letters in front of me,” Perle replied.

Right. And the Bush administration National Security Strategy, enshrining the neoconservative themes of preemptive war and using American power to spread freedom? “I don’t know whether President Bush ever read any of those statements,” Perle maintained. “My guess is he didn’t.”

It was apparently quite a performance, which literally drew laughter when Perle insisted, “I’ve never advocated attacking Iran.”

[snip]

Apparently, at the end of yesterday’s event, the moderator thanked Perle for being there: “You certainly kept us all entertained.”

Take a moment to fully appreciate Perle’s pathetic attempts at dodging reality. “My name’s on it, but I didn’t read it.” “Maybe I said those things and signed those letters, but since they’re not in front of me, can’t remember a thing!” “Bush probably didn’t read my babble, so you can’t say he was influenced by it.” What a spectacular ass.

You may have noticed a sudden and dramatic uptick in the asshattery lately. This has not gone unnoticed by the White House, which is taking the opportunity to have some fun and score political points at the asshats’ expense:

The White House has declared war on Rick Santelli.

The CNBC squawker is already, by now, infamous for his rant about “the losers’ mortgages.” Matt Drudge and the conservative blogosphere tried to turn him into the new Joe the Plumber — or perhaps something even bigger. Now, if White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has his way, Santelli may become something quite different — the public face of opposition to President Obama’s plan to stabilize the housing market.

Gibbs tore into Santelli today, blasting him from the White House podium with language that would cause an international incident if CNBC were a sovereign nation. “I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives, or in what house he lives, but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, stay in their job, pay their bills, to send their kids to school, and to hope that they don’t get sick or that somebody they care for gets sick and sends them into bankruptcy,” Gibbs said, all the usual Southern charm drained from his voice, replaced with venom. “I think we left a few months ago the adage that, if it was good for a derivatives trader, that it was good for Main Street. I think the verdict is in on that.” If Santelli didn’t like the housing plan, Gibbs said, it was because he didn’t have any idea what was in it. “Every day when I come out here, I spend a little time reading, studying on the issues, asking people who are smarter than I am questions about those issues,” Gibbs went on. “I would encourage him to read the president’s plan and understand that it will help millions of people, many of whom he knows. I’d be more than happy to have him come here and read it. I’d be happy to buy him a cup of coffee. Decaf.”

And then he twisted the dagger a little: “Let me do this, too. This is a copy of the president’s home affordability plan. It’s available on the White House Web site, and I would encourage him, download it, hit print, and begin to read it.” He wrapped up the Santelli portion of the briefing with one final zinger. “It’s tremendously important that for people who rant on cable television to be responsible and understand what it is they’re talking about,” Gibbs said. “I feel assured that Mr. Santelli doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

That, my darlings, is one hell of a towel-snap to the nads. And I get the feeling the White House is only warming up.

The next few months should be interesting. Make sure you’ve stocked up on your popcorn.

Happy Hour Discurso

Friday Favorite Physics Cats

Dana Hunter2 Comments

Two of my great loves: physics and cats. Thanks to the intertoobz, I can indulge them all at once.

This was my opinion of biology once. Then I discovered molecular biology, got to know evolutionary theory better, and realized there wasn’t anything “soft” about it at all…

This is a frequent experience at Casa de Dana. I do believe my cat has several wormholes scattered throughout the apartment – either that, or she’s discovered how to use Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Nothing else explains why she can pop so suddenly out of nowhere.


String theory: exciting, elegant, and damned cute!


Every cat seems to have a touch of Schrödinger’s Cat in them.


Cats sometimes do seem to defy the laws of physics. A friend and I once tried to clean off her coal-dust covered kitty by dropping it in the wading pool. I’d never seen an animal go from a vertical fall to a horizontal flee without any intermediate stages before – and this cat didn’t even ruffle the water. They prove the impossible possible every day.

Who can resist a kitteh that imitates Einstein? Not me. And I’ll bet I’m not alone here.

Friday Favorite Physics Cats

Hilzoy Takes WaPo to the Woodshed

Dana Hunter1 Comment

This, my darlings, is a thing of beauty. To briefly recap: George Will, fact-challenged Washington Post columnist extraordinaire, recently penned a climate change denialist column so egregious in its errors that it nearly defies description. Days went by as we waited with baited breath for the WaPo to publish a correction. None was forthcoming. And then, a response!

I have also been following the various requests for comment from the Washington Post, and wondering when the Post might respond. Now they have:

“Thank you for your e-mail. The Post’s ombudsman typically deals with issues involving the news pages. But I understand the point you and many e-mailers are making, and for that reason I sought clarification from the editorial page editors. Basically, I was told that the Post has a multi-layer editing process and checks facts to the fullest extent possible. In this instance, George Will’s column was checked by people he personally employs, as well as two editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors. The University of Illinois center that Will cited has now said it doesn’t agree with his conclusion, but earlier this year it put out a statement that was among several sources for this column and that notes in part that “Observed global sea ice area, defined here as a sum of N. Hemisphere and S. Hemisphere sea ice areas, is near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979,”

Best wishes,

Andy Alexander

Washington Post Ombudsman”

Until I read this, I had been under the impression that newspapers didn’t do as much fact-checking as magazines, because of deadline pressure; and I had imagined that the inaccuracies in George Will’s column might result from applying standards designed for reported stories to columns. But on reading that Will’s column had been subjected to a “multi-layer editing process”, and that this “process” had checked the facts “to the fullest extent possible”, I realized that I had been wrong. Naturally, I clicked the link Mr. Alexander provided, and read it. Did he? I don’t know what would be worse: that he did, and takes it to support Will, or that he didn’t take his job seriously enough to bother.

Hilzoy takes Mr. Alexander’s link, and beats him thoroughly with it. Then she continues the beating by reading the Science article Will quoted in defense of his indefensible position. Go witness. It’s a classic in the annals of correction, destined to go down in history as one of the most merciless trips to the woodshed in blogging history. She does the job that the WaPo’s “multilayer editing process” somehow found impossible.

It’s incredible to me that a national paper could not only publish something so insanely wrong on every level, but then claim they’d fact-checked it. Were I the Post, I’d be claiming an unprecidented breakdown in the editing process – it would be far less embarrassing than demonstrating that multiple people failed to read so much as the two most easily-accessed papers cited in Wills’ column, both of which take a howitzer to his conclusions.

Alas, one trip to the woodshed, even one as epic as this, will not be enough for the WaPo team. They need to be set back a grade and placed in special education for the clueless on climate change. Thankfully, a class is available, and it has a proven track record helping the climate change challenged wake up and smell the CO2.

Let us hope it can rescue the WaPo before they become the identical twin of the Moony Times.

Hilzoy Takes WaPo to the Woodshed

Where Are They Now? Confused Con Edition

Dana Hunter


Remember Carol Carter, the Republicon party official who emailed a racist joke to a select few friends and threw a sniveling fit when someone called her on the carpet? She’s had a busy ten days.

Some things are too embarrassing even for the GOP, so she resigned. Then she tried to rescind her resignation. Failing that, she wants to run in the election meant to replace her. Or maybe she doesn’t. She’s all confused. And she’s still confused over the definition of an apology:

At the local party meeting this week, Carter continued the “sorry you found out” apology tour, saying:

Please accept my deep and sincere apologies. I was wrong to have shared any such materials even with a few.

Hmmm, not sorry for the horrendously insensitive and racist content? Just that you shared it? Nice. But she goes on:

The media frenzy that happened was beyond my comprehension, and in the heat of the moment I e-mailed a resignation.

To those of you who leaked to the media, I’m ashamed of you.

That’s right, email leakers and evil media forces- Carol is ashamed of YOU!

I love this. “In the heat of the moment,” she resigned, all because some untrustworthy bastard leaked her lack of humor, the media decided that a Con official making racist jokes might just be newsworthy, and who could’ve known that sending around inappropriate emails when you’re in a position of authority could blow up in your face? So, y’know, since her resignation was kinda sorta like a crime of passion, she didn’t really mean it and she’d like her job back – even though she hasn’t yet managed a proper mea culpa for being a racist fuckwit.

Expect to see her added to the Palin-Santelli dream ticket as a top cabinet-level pick any day now…

Where Are They Now? Confused Con Edition

Happy Hour Discurso

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Our mainstream media in action:

Speaking to the Justice Department in honor of Black History Month yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that “we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.” When it comes to discussing race, he said, the U.S. is “essentially a nation of cowards.” He said that the Department has “a special responsibility,” and that as long as he is Attorney General, the Department “must — and will — lead the nation to the ‘new birth of freedom’ so long ago promised by our greatest President.”

Apparently, the notion that the DOJ might “lead the nation” in protecting and upholding justice greatly alarmed Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. Interviewing Juan Williams this morning, she declared that “addressing racial ills…strikes fear down the spines” of conservatives:

KELLY: He said they [the department] has a special responsibility in addressing racial ills. That — that strikes fear down the spines of many conservatives in this country, because they don’t want the Justice Department taking us back to the day when they get heavily involved in things like affirmative action, and things like voter registration rights. […]

WILLIAMS: What you will see I think is more aggressive enforcement in terms of existing civil rights laws. And that was the fear that the existing civil rights laws were not being enforced by the Bush justice department.

KELLY: Well a lot of people thought that the Bush Justice Department sort of got us back to the point where we were — we were being reasonable.

Reasonable? Not enforcing the law is considered “reasonable” in Megyn’s world? And assclowns like this end up on national television?

Lest you think it’s just Faux News going off the deep end, this has to be seen to be believed:

As Calculated Risk notes “some say this may be the rant of the year.”
CNBC’s on-air editor, Rick Santelli, calls ordinary Americans who face losing their homes to foreclosure “losers” who don’t deserve government help.

The Obama Administration is trying to slow down the foreclosure rate by encouraging (via subsidies) lenders to reduce payments and allowing another 3-4 million homeowers with mortgages owned/supported by Fannie/Freddie to refinance, but Santelli apparently thinks that’s unAmerican, deserving of another “tea party.”

And the financial fuckwits cheering him on are like the rancid cherry on top of outrageous stupidity.

Speaking of outrageous stupidity, check out this Bush rubber-stamp suddenly deciding that the White House must keep its nose clean:

I’m sorry, the Irony-O-Meter I keep on my desk just burst into flames.

A California Republican congressman has called on President Obama to put in place a system that ensures all White House emails be preserved even if official business was done through private e- mail accounts.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the senior Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, made the request in a February 19 letter to White House Counsel Greg Craig.

Issa specifically mentioned the new administration’s brief use of Gmail accounts after Obama was sworn in last month, as they waited for the official White House e-mail accounts to become active.

“As you know, any e-mail sent or received by White House officials may be subject to retention under the Presidential Records Act (PRA),” Issa wrote Craig in the letter.

“The use of personal e-mail accounts, such as Gmail to conduct official business raises the prospect that presidential records will not be captured by the White House e-mail archiving system. Consequently Gmail users on the President’s staff run the risk of incorrectly classifying their e-mails as non-records under the [Presidential Records] Act.”

[snip]

When Henry Waxman raised concerns about all of this, Darrell Issa dismissed the questions as partisan sniping.

But now Issa is worried about the Obama White House failing to fully comply with the Presidential Records Act. Funny, up until recently, Issa preferred to pretend the Presidential Records Act didn’t exist. I wonder what changed his mind?

Funny how Faux News and Friends only care about “fair and balanced” when the Cons are in control, and how Cons in Congress only care about the law when it’s the other side in charge. Whodathunkit?

Happy Hour Discurso

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Stimulus!

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Ah, I’m sure the desperate citizens of these states find it heart-warming that their Con governors are standing on ideology:

BATON ROUGE, La. – A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.

Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.

[snip]

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the No. 3 House Democrat, said the governors — some of whom are said to be eyeing White House bids in 2012 — are putting their own interests first.

“No community or constituent should be denied recovery assistance due to their governor’s political ideology or political aspirations,” Clyburn said Wednesday.

In fact, governors who reject some of the stimulus aid may find themselves overridden by their own legislatures because of language Clyburn included in the bill that allows lawmakers to accept the federal money even if their governors object.

He inserted the provision based on the early and vocal opposition to the stimulus plan by South Carolina‘s Republican governor, Mark Sanford. But it also means governors like Sanford and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal — a GOP up-and-comer often mentioned as a potential 2012 presidential candidate — can burnish their conservative credentials, knowing all the while that their legislatures can accept the money anyway.

Considering how the Con base is shrinking, it seems to me that’s a fool’s gamble. How easy will it be for challengers to annihilate them with “Governor X rejected the money that saved your house/kids/job” ads?

Meanwhile, the insanity in California just gets more insane:

Just to update everyone on the meltdown out here in California – last night the Republicans in the State Senate engineered a putsch, deposing their leader in the dead of night because he was insufficiently unconcerned about the welfare of the state.

Around 11 p.m., a group of GOP senators, unhappy with the higher taxes that Senate leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto agreed to as part of a deal with the governor and Democrats, voted to replace him in a private caucus meeting in Cogdill’s office. Shortly before midnight, it was still unclear who would replace him.

Cogdill’s ouster could be a major setback to budget negotiations. Cogdill was a lead negotiator on the budget package and had committed to voting for it. If he were removed from his leadership post, a new Senate minority leader would likely try to renegotiate the deal, which lawmakers spent three months forging.

This is what happens when you give Cons a 2/3 majority cudgel. And, as Paul Krugman sez:

Everyone should be paying attention to the political/fiscal catastrophe now unfolding in California. Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster — and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority.

This could be America next.

Principled opposition is one thing. It’s necessary and healthy in a democracy. But the obstructionism the Cons are engaging in isn’t principled, it’s just destructive and deadly dangerous. How much of the country do we let them destroy before we have them declared a danger to self and others and carted off to a nice, quiet room with deeply-padded walls, where they can be gently reintroduced to Mr. Reality while the rest of us fix all the stuff they broke during their psychotic rampage?

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Stimulus!

Where Are They Now? Con Comeuppance Edition

Dana Hunter

Time to catch up with a few of our favorite Cons and see how fortune is favoring them.

First up, we’ve got Jeff Frederick. When last we looked, Frederick was vying for the World Champion Wingnut Award by dissing Darwin, and making a twit of himself on Twitter. Alas, it appears his star has burned out too early:

Just days after being embroiled in Virginia’s first Twitter-gate scandal, the chairman of the commonwealth’s Republican Party is giving up his seat in the House of Delegates — with one catch. He wants his wife to take his place. [snip] The saga continued Friday morning when he sent an e-mail to his constituents saying he wouldn’t seek a fourth term. “For me, it has always been about serving — not power or position — and because God has opened up other doors for me, I am glad to be of service elsewhere,“ Frederick wrote. But while God is acting like WMATA, Frederick’s own decision opened the door for his wife to take his place. She’s not entirely sure she’ll go for it, but already has a Web site, http://www.VoteAmy.com. Jeff Frederick’s own Web site, VoteJeff.com, now redirects to a site with a big picture of his wife, as well with a message of, well, hope: “Jeff Frederick isn’t running for re-election, but maybe we can elect another Frederick to the House of Delegates. Help Jeff convince Amy to run.”

Because what Virginia needs is dynastic dumbfuckery.

You may wonder why Del. Frederick decided to bow out stage right. He’ll tell you it’s because he promised he wouldn’t run again. Others may tell a different story, especially the Virginia GOP’s abruptly former chief fundraiser, who had this to say in his calling-it-quits letter:

“Unfortunately the problems of structure, power projection, consultant interference, interpersonal difficulties, years of internal malaise, Luddite attitudes, leadership, and unity of purpose stand in the way of any hope of success,“ said Curt.

Ouch. Very ouch. And, of course, it gets better:

Kenneth Klinge, a former state GOP executive director who last fall urged Frederick’s removal, said the Curt resignation is a signal that Frederick’s chairmanship is short-lived.

“Good news comes in strange packages,“ said Klinge, adding, “How can you be weakened when you’re already a zero?“

Curt wrote of the GOP: “The organization is dysfunctional.“

Shiny happy people holding hands they are not. I can hardly wait for the end of this saga.

Time now for Cao. Hailed as the hero of the GOP when he first burst on the scene (OMG, a Vietnamese man, we have minority cred!!11!1!), temporarily appearing as an actual Republican with principles rather than a Con with nothing but ideology and a herd instinct, he raised our hopes high, and then dashed them by cravenly kowtowing to Cantor et al. Considering a heavily Democratic district elected him only because the alternative was a corrupt old bugger who kept mounds of cash in his freezer, an astute political observer might assume that voting the Con party line against his own constituents wasn’t the wisest move – and that observer would be so right (h/t):

Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, the Vietnamese Republican who made a successful longshot bid for Congress in an overwhelmingly black and Democratic New Orleans district, is the subject of a recall petition filed by critics of his vote against President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package.

Rev. Aubry Wallace is the chairman of the recall effort. In a news release, he and Rev. Toris Young criticized Cao for twice voting against the stimulus bill, which Obama signed into law this week.

If Cao is indeed the future of the GOP, it’s not a very bright one.

Speaking of things that aren’t bright, I’m sure you all remember Sarah Palin. We left her stumped by a legislator’s simple question on matters of governance, which, y’know, you kinda sorta expect a governor to be able to answer. I must preface the following by stating that she was not under consideration for a position in the Obama cabinet, tax woes notwithstanding (h/t):

Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home, under a new determination by state officials. The governor’s office wouldn’t say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

This, of course, comes after the humilation of having to admit that your daughter’s right about the futility of abstinence-only programs.

They say fortune favors the bold. It seems to favor boldly bashing wingnuts this week. Here’s hoping this happy state of affairs continues.


Where Are They Now? Con Comeuppance Edition