Happy Hour Discurso

jacob

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

I know, I’m late. Aunty Flow arrived and is acting remarkably like Grampa McCrankypants (h/t Crooks and Liars for that glorious nickname). My computer is being more obstructive than the filibuster-mad Senate Cons. My brain feels like Sarah Palin has been chirping into it.

And the stupid just never stops.

In the waning days of the Bush regime, it seems a scorched-earth policy is firmly in place:

Bush’s presidency may be winding down, but he’s not quite done with his conservative domestic agenda.

Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states.

The administration has written language aimed at pre-empting product-liability litigation into 50 rules governing everything from motorcycle brakes to pain medicine. The latest changes cap a multiyear effort that could be one of the administration’s lasting legacies, depending in part on how the underlying principle of pre-emption fares in a case the Supreme Court will hear next month.

This amazing piece, from the Wall Street Journal’s Alicia Mundy, hasn’t generated a lot of attention so far today, and that’s a shame. The administration’s efforts on this are likely to have a huge impact.

Corporate America has been calling for some mechanism to “preempt” product-liability litigation for years, and Bush had promised to deliver. The White House, however, had limited options in dealing with a Democratic Congress which cares about consumer protections.

So, the Bush gang is adding provisions to obscure federal regulations that will block product safety lawsuits by consumers and states. The scheme would affect products ranging from cars to prescription medication to railroad cars.

At this rate, he might as well just nuke the place on the way out. It would be quicker.

Bush also uncapped his extra-special signing statement pen to let Congress know what he thinks of their little schemes to limit his authority:

Yesterday, President Bush asserted “that he had the executive power to bypass several parts of two bills: a military authorization act and a measure giving inspectors general greater independence from White House control,” the New York Times’ Charlie Savage reports:

In the authorization bill, Mr. Bush challenged four sections. One forbid the money from being used “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq”; another required negotiations for an agreement by which Iraq would share some of the costs of the American military operations there. […]

In the other bill, he raised concerns about two sections that strengthen legal protections against political interference with the internal watchdog officials at each executive agency. One section gives the inspectors general a right to counsels who report directly to them. But Mr. Bush wrote in his signing statement that such lawyers would be bound to follow the legal interpretations of the politically appointed counsels at each agency.

Bush has issued signing statements to bypass more than 1,100 sections of laws. A recent report by the House Armed Services Committee said Bush has used the statements in a “broad and unsubstantiated” manner and that 78 percent of them “have raised constitutional or legal objections.”

Seventy. Eight. Percent.

This man doesn’t give two shits about the Constitution. He doesn’t give one single shit about democracy. He’s a petty tyrant with the mind of a three year-old, playing Big Man In Charge, high on the power to tell whomever he wants to fuck off and suck his Dick.

He has issued nearly double the number of signing statements of all previous presidents combined.

And I will tell you exactly what will happen: if Obama gets elected, he won’t abuse that power. He will, in fact, roll back some of the more egregious abuses. It’s what Democrats do. And then some Republicon sack of shit will get elected, whether in 2012 or 2016, and will gleefully start exceeding all of the worst abuses of the Bush presidency, and will say, “There’s a precedent. Bush did it, and nobody stopped him. You can’t cry foul now.”

Mark my fucking words.

We should have impeached this son of a bitch. Is anyone surprised that the fucking White House sent memos to the CIA in 2003 specifically authorizing torture? Is anyone shocked that we only discovered this because said memos leaked to the media? Is anyone flabbergasted that new reports state for certain that Bush & Co. abused taxpayer money to get Republicons elected? No? I didn’t think so.

Continuing our series of non-shocks, McCain’s campaign has no fucking idea how you go about telling the truth, or even a plausible lie:

Yesterday, Murray Waas revealed that the head of Sen. John McCain’s transition team, power lobbyist William Timmons, was involved in a lobbying effort on behalf of Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s “to ease international sanctions against his regime.”

Today, MSNBC’s David Schuster asked McCain spokesperson Ben Porritt about the revelations. Porrit claimed that the campaign has had no associations with lobbyists, quickly changing the subject to Bill Ayers:

I’m actually not too familiar with his history, but what I do know is that throughout our campaign, we’ve talked about this a lot, we’ve had no associations with any lobbyists on our campaign, and I think there’s questionable associations with Barack Obama that needs to be addressed before we even get into talking about the transition…

Sigh. Fish. Barrel. Here’s a bazooka. Shoot:

It is absurd to claim McCain has “had no associations with any lobbyists.” He has at least 164 former lobbyists running his campaign, fundraising, and setting his policy agenda — including Charlie Black, Rick Davis, and Randy Scheunemann.

It would be nice if once, just once, the McCain campaign would tell an outrageous lie that takes some actual effort to debunk. Sarah Palin lies all the time, maybe she’ll come up with one by accident… oh, fuck, who am I kidding?

But yesterday, during an interview with the local CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, Palin stooped a little lower, stating flat out that the Legislative Council’s report had found that she did not abuse her power:

PALIN: [T]he report that came out also was very clear in that there was no unethical or unlawful behavior on my part. … No abuse of power there at all.

Sigh. Fish. Barrel. Here’s a Gatling gun. Shoot:

Of course, not only did the report find that Palin abused her power as Alaska’s governor, but it also found — despite her claim to the contrary — that she acted unethically and unlawfully.

In fact, the media have caught on to the McCain-Palin campaign’s lies about the report’s findings. The Washington Post called Palin’s false characterization of the report a “reverse of the truth” and ABC’s Jake Tapper called it “flatly false.” The Anchorage Daily News, Palin’s home state newspaper, said Palin’s response is “downright Orwellian.”

There’s no challenge anymore.

And tell me, when was the last time you remember the Secret Service having to investigate remarks coming out of an official campaign event?

Yesterday was the latest in a series of incidents in which McCain/Palin supporters shouted threats relating to Barack Obama during a campaign rally. A number of you have emailed me, wondering where the Secret Service is in all of this.

Apparently, the threats have not gone unnoticed by the Secret Service, which is reportedly taking a closer look at yesterday’s Palin event in Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a threatening remark directed at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during a political event in Scranton.

The agency followed up on a report in The Times-Tribune that a member of the crowd shouted, “Kill him!” after one mention of Mr. Obama’s name during a rally Tuesday for Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Wonder how easy it is for your supporters to vote when they’ve been locked up by the Secret Service for threatening to kill your opponent?

Ah, well. At least all the signs are still pointing toward a long, sweet Republicon vacation in the political wilderness:

GOP Pulls Out Of Only Possible Senate Pick-Up

The NRSC is pulling out of the Louisiana Senate race, which had been the only real opportunity for the GOP to pick up a Senate seat from the Democrats this year — they are now playing 100% on defense. A Republican source confirmed to Election Central that their ads will be pulled.

That news. It’s wonderful. It’s like sinking into a nice, warm bubble bath, with champagne and bon-bons. Now, if they suck as badly at defense as they do at governing, we should be in a for a fantastic four years.

Happy Hour Discurso
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An Urgent Question for Tonight's Debate

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The ACLU sent me an email with an interesting question. I’d dearly love to have the answer to this one:

Tomorrow night, at the last debate, one thing we can be sure of is that Barack Obama and John McCain will go out of their way to tell us how much they respect America’s fighting men and women. There’s a simple test that moderator Bob Schieffer can use to see if they mean it.

He can ask them how and when they plan to put an end to our government’s ineffective and unnecessary spying on the personal phone calls of innocent Americans, including the phone calls of military personnel serving far away from home.

Late last week, two whistle-blowers — former National Security Agency (NSA) military intercept operators — the people who actually listen in on phone calls — revealed that hundreds of innocent Americans, including soldiers and humanitarian workers for the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, were routinely and intentionally eavesdropped on.

It’s hard to think of a more insulting way to disrespect those serving our nation and the world overseas than intruding on their personal, sometimes intimate, phone calls back home.

Email Bob Schieffer, and tell him to ask the candidates about warrantless NSA spying on innocent Americans, including military personnel and international relief workers. (Clicking on this link will open up a new window in your browser.)

Anyone vying to be our next Commander in Chief should have a ready answer. The only way to stop this reckless spying is to make sure the NSA does not have unchecked spying power. That is why the ACLU is challenging the FISA Amendments Act with our Amnesty International v. McConnell lawsuit brought on behalf of an impressive array of journalists, human rights organizations and lawyers.

I can hardly wait for McCain’s answer….

An Urgent Question for Tonight's Debate

Dear Republicons: You Are Most Assuredly Fucked

jacob

I’ve spent nearly a month now watching red bits of the map turn purple, then blue. My eyes are sore from rubbing.

Just a few short weeks ago, I was in a passion of despair. It looked like we would, at best, miss electing a McCain/Palin idiocracy by a hairsbreadth. I believed we would have to fight like furies to get a few good Dems onto Capitol Hill. We’d have to write off a good number of states and races as utterly unwinnable. I was convinced we were in for years more of the same partisan wrangling that has paralyzed this nation. No matter if Obama won – it wouldn’t be with a mandate to change this country, and it wouldn’t be with enough Dems to allow him to do anything more than hold a few flimsy pieces of ground against Republicon assaults.

And then, the numbers changed. State after state began falling to Obama. Battlegrounds shifted to states that had seemed adamantium for McCain. We suddenly were past No Man’s Land and swarming unassailable trenches. But that’s Obama, I thought. I know conservative voters who’ll vote for him, but will vote solid red downticket.

Well, my darlings. We appear to have entered the very bunkers of our enemy and are now boozing it up with the enemy’s stalwart allies. A lot can change in three weeks, but perhaps not when we have so many of our former opponents drunk on hope. Our opponents are having to furiously dig new trenches in territory they never thought they’d have to defend, and those trenches might soon be overrun by a maurading band of liberals, progressives, independents, and disillusioned conservatives intoxicated by the notion that yes, we can build a better future.

What makes me so certain? It’s the current condition of the Republicon races, which are, in a word,

Pathetic.

Darren White and Erik Paulsen were prized Republican recruits, House candidates poised to be the new face of the GOP on Capitol Hill.

But as the two head into the homestretch of their campaigns, GOP operatives say they’ll probably have to win — or lose — on their own. The money national Republicans earmarked for White in New Mexico and for Paulsen in Minnesota will likely go instead to protect GOP incumbents who once looked like locks for reelection.

GOP Reps. John B. Shadegg of Arizona, Lee Terry of Nebraska, Henry Brown Jr. of South Carolina and Dan Lungren of California are all fighting for their political lives, a reversal of fortunes that has caught even the most astute campaign observers by surprise.

Shadegg’s AZ-03 is R+5.9.
Terry’s NE-02 is R+9.0.
Brown’s SC-01 is R+9.6
Lungren’s CA-03 is R+6.7.

The least conservative of those districts, Shadegg’s Arizona one, gave Bush a 17-point victory in 2004, 58-41. Yet here are entrenched, long-time incumbents depending on their party’s broke committee to help bail them out.

“If you’re a Republican in a less-than-outstanding district, you want to have taken a poll in the last two weeks no matter who you’re running against,” said David Wasserman, an analyst on House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

“The DCCC has made advertising decisions that have forced Republicans’ hands,” he continued, mentioning Terry’s seat in Nebraska and one held by conservative Rep. Mark Souder in Indiana. “Republicans, in turn, need to spend in these districts. And $500,000 to the [National Republican Congressional Committee] is a whole lot more meaningful than $500,000 to the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee].”

Guys, we have something incredible shaping up — the Republican Party is broke and unable to support any of its challengers. What’s more, the map is so deep, and discontent in this country so high, that almost everything is competitive.

Former GOP consultant Allan Hoffenblum said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and other California Republicans, including Reps. David Dreier and Brian Bilbray, are also at risk.

“The Republican base is not sufficient by itself to elect a Republican in those [California] districts; they still need the independent vote,” Hoffenblum said. “In the past decade, they have been reliably voting Republican for president and for Congress. … There are a lot of angry and scared voters out there. This is not your traditional environment.”

How to Republicans defend when almost any district can be unexpectedly competitive? They can’t. They are being forced to circle the wagons around a few of their most prized seats (like AZ-03’s conservative darling, John Shadegg).

This is a committee that began the cycle bragging about retaking the seats they lost in 2006 and challenging other endangered Democrats. Then they talked about holding their open seats. Now they’re left defending Dan Lungren? Dan Lungren?

Yes, Kos. Dan Lungren, even so. St. Ronnie himself would probably be fighting a losing battle in this political climate.

This is turning in to a rout. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Dear Republicons: You Are Most Assuredly Fucked

Stop Sticks for the Hate Talk Express

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McCain’s lukewarm attempts to dial back the hate he and Palin have unleashed aren’t cutting it. They’ve taken this campaign down into outrageous depths of depravity. They’re bringing out the worst in their supporters.

It’s time for them to clean up the mess they’ve made.

Let ’em know.

This is the open letter we’re publishing and sending to to the McCain/Palin campaign.

Dear Senator McCain and Governor Palin,

Time and again in America, people of all races and backgrounds have overcome division and fear, and come together to uplift the country and create a more equal and just society. It’s part of what makes this country great.

With an African-American nominee running on a major party ticket and a woman on the Republican ticket for the first time in history, this campaign has seen Americans–men and women of all races–inspired to continue that great tradition, coming together to bridge the gaps that history has set between us in service of our national progress.

But let us be clear: while we have made great strides in this country when it comes to racial equality, we are not finished. Now, more than ever, we need leadership that understands that we live in complex times where too many are quick to judge another by the complexion of their skin or the sound of their name.

In the last few weeks, Senator McCain and Governor Palin, rhetoric at your campaign events has taken an increasingly dangerous tone that seems to ignore the precarious state of our progress when it comes to race and ethnicity.

Supporters at your rallies and other events have used hateful language and called for violence against Sen. Obama yelling “kill him!” “off with his head!” and “bomb Obama.”

For the most part, you have stood by in silence. In addition, you have also repeatedly made statements that somehow connect Senator Obama with terrorism. Your surrogates have emphasized his middle name. This is problematic and dangerous, and we believe helps create the conditions that have given rise to these incidents of violent rhetoric from some of your supporters.

Today, we’re standing together as Americans of all political persuasions to express our deep concern that the decisions of your campaign are contributing to a dangerous atmosphere of paranoia, division, and hate that, as we have already seen, has the potential to seriously harm our country and its progress.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

In these trying times, candidates seeking the highest offices in the land must call on the best in each of us, and call off the worst.

We urge you to join people of conscience from all races and backgrounds to reject the politics of division and fear, and come together to uplift the country and create a more equal and just society.

— The undersigned —

Stop Sticks for the Hate Talk Express

Two For Obama. In Other News, Dana Hunter Suffered Heart Failure…

jacob1 Comment

They did it. They really did it.

My parents, my conservative parents, including my “Rush Limbaugh conservative” stepmother and my McCain-admiring father, got their mail-in ballots over the weekend. My stepmother, of course, was dead-set on Obama. My father not so much. I figured they’d probably end up canceling each other out.

But my father, who has not voted for a Democrat for president ever, voted for Obama.

Then he proceeded to search the ballot for other Democrats running for national office, and voted for them. “If we’re going to do this thing, we’ve got to do it right,” he solemnly informed my stepmother. He wanted to make sure that Obama had a solid Democratic majority to back him up.

It was the war that did it. He doesn’t really agree with Obama on anything else, but quibbles over economic and domestic policy didn’t matter when set against the fact that McCain wants to keep us indefinitely in a useless war, and start other useless wars on top of it.

My dad’s a Vietnam vet. He knows a little something about the price of useless wars.

Still.

Holy shit.

The way Obama’s going, we could end up with de facto one-party rule in this country. The Cons could find themselves reduced to nothing but background noise. All of the smart conservatives are heading Obama’s way. And for the most part, it’s not a protest vote. They really like him. Even my father, who doesn’t like Obama’s liberal tendencies, seems to respect him.

If Obama manages to do with his first term what I think he’s going to do, you’re going to hear the term “Reagan Democrats” replaced with “Obamacans.” I guarantee it.

Yes. We. Can.

Two For Obama. In Other News, Dana Hunter Suffered Heart Failure…

Happy Hour Discurso

jacob

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Who’s connected to terrorists, again?

It is thus particularly ironic that William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who heads McCain’s presidential transition team, was involved in a lobbying effort on behalf of Saddam Hussein around the same time as Clinton launched strikes against Iraq “to ease international sanctions against his regime,” as Murray Waas reports today on The Huffington Post:

Talking points that Timmons produced for the lobbyists to help ease the sanctions, for example, were reviewed ahead of time by [Saddam aide Tariq] Aziz, [lobbyist Samir] Vincent testified in court. Proposals that Timmons himself circulated to U.S. officials as part of the effort were written with the assistance of the Iraqi officials, and were also sent ahead of time with Timmons’ approval to Aziz, other records show.


Beginning in 1992, Waas adds, Timmons “worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.”


I’d dearly love to see McCain have to explain this one. Not that he will. Republicons can associate with terrorists and states sponsoring terrorism all they like, and they’re “patriots.” Dems so much as pass a “terrorist” on the street, and they’re traitors to the country. That’s one of the many disgusting double-standards we need to work on changing.

Obama might want to consider mentioning the above gem if McCain puts his money where his mouth is tomorrow night:

Last week, it seemed as if the Obama campaign went out of its way to bait John McCain on the Bill Ayers “issue.” Obama, Biden, and surrogates said they were surprised McCain talked all about Ayers leading up to the debate, but not at the debate itself.

“Well, I am surprised that, you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face,” Obama told ABC’s Charlie Gibson. “But I guess we’ve got one last debate.”

Obama, in this sense, was almost daring McCain to make these attacks directly.

The taunting apparently worked. This morning, McCain told a St. Louis radio station that he feels compelled to make the attack now, and it’s Obama’s fault.

“Oh, yeah. Y’know, I was astonished to hear him say that he was surprised for me to have the guts to do that, because the fact is that the question didn’t come up in that fashion. So, y’know, and I think he’s probably ensured that it will come up this time. And, look Mark, it’s not that I give a damn about some old washed-up terrorist…”

He doesn’t care about Ayers, but he feels compelled to keep talking about Ayers, and has now effectively promised to bring up Ayers
at a debate. Not that he cares, though. Not at all. Perish the
thought.


Isn’t it precious how nothing’s ever McCain’s fault? His campaign had to go negative because that meanie Obama wouldn’t agree to a billion town hall meetings instead of three debates. Sarah Palin contradicted him on Pakistan policy because of “gotcha” journalism. And there are six thousand and eighty-nine different things McCain’s not responsible for because he was a POW. For fuck’s sake. This man is the very definition of “pathetic whiny bitch.”

For a man who doesn’t “give a damn about some old washed-up terrorist,” he certainly has a campaign and a party that seems to give an awful lot of damns. And for a man who’s trying to dial back the frenzy at his campaign events, he’s doing a piss-poor job:

The Scranton Times-Tribune notes that yet another McCain supporter at a rally today with Gov. Sarah Palin yelled “kill him!” in reference to Sen. Barack Obama:

Chris Hackett addressed the increasingly feisty crowd as they await the arrival of Gov. Palin. Each time the Republican candidate for the seat in the 10th Congressional District mentioned Barack Obama the crowd booed loudly. One man screamed “kill him!”


Last Monday, a supporter also yelled “kill him” at a rally. In the past weeks, McCain supporters have called Obama “an Arab,” “Little Hussein,” and a “terrorist.” (HT: TPM)


I’m starting to think McCain prefers to keep the base angry and paranoid. How else is he going to win?

And there are plenty of angry and paranoid people infesting the Republicon ranks. Look at what happened to Christopher Buckley:

Christopher Buckley, the author and son of the late conservative mainstay Willia
m F. Buckley, said in a telephone interview that he has resigned from the National Review, the political journal his father founded in 1955.

Mr. Buckley said he had “been effectively fatwahed by the conservative movement” after endorsing Barack Obama in a blog posting on theDailyBeast.com; since then, he said he has been blanketed with hate mail at the blog and at the National Review, where he has written a column.


Some here may decide to indulge in the game of false equivalencies and say that the Dems wouldn’t behave any differently if one of our own embraced McCain. If you decide to play, you had better fucking bring me proof, and it had better be just as insane and nasty as what Buckley has been forced to endure.

I’ve never seen Dems do anything as nasty as the right does. Ever. And that alone, even if I didn’t agree with their politics or policies, would cause me to vote straight D. The Republicons need a time-out until they can behave themselves again.

Happy Hour Discurso

OMG!!1! The Terrorists Might Develop Weapons of Mass Vaccination!!111!!1

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There is an excellent reason why most of my posts tagged “politics” are also tagged “stupidity.”

How stupidly, small-mindedly paranoid is this?

… deep inside an 86-page supplement to United States export regulations is a single sentence that bars U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu and dozens of other viruses to five countries designated “state sponsors of terrorism.”

The reason: Fear that they will be used for biological warfare.

Under this little-known policy, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan may not get the vaccines unless they apply for special export licenses, which would be given or refused according to the discretion and timing of the U.S. Three of those nations — Iran, Cuba and Sudan — also are subject to a ban on all human pandemic influenza vaccines as part of a general U.S. embargo.

So, let me get this straight: our government, in its infinite lack of wisdom, has decided not to export vaccines for a disease that could make the 1918 flu pandemic look like an outbreak of the sniffles, and their reasoning is that said vaccines might be “used for biological warfare.”

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?

Let’s check in with Mr. Reality.

The flu vaccine is a dead virus – you can’t breed and mutate it and the scientific consensus is that the chances of using it to make a bioweapon are nil. But with a six month red-tape delay in sending vaccine to other nations, the chance that a mutation “in the wild” which isn’t contained by having vaccine available and triggers a worldwide pandemic of a human-contagious strain of bird flu goes up astronomically.

I’m sure that some people on the right believe this would be a bonanza – after all, they don’t give a rat’s ass about scary brown people dying in droves. Let the bird flu kill ’em all. That means less people we have to bomb to death, right? Somehow, they manage to justify this thinking without admitting they are inhumane, racists assholes.

Ethical considerations aside, let’s see how well their “reasoning” plays out when a virus doesn’t get stopped in its tracks by timely vaccination, mutates, and then spreads throughout the world. Neocons and right-wing paranoiacs seem to believe the United States is protected from other countries’ germs by a magic bubble – or perhaps their magic sky daddy. Reality sez otherwise:

If ever there was a self-defeating and ridiculous policy in the age of global interconnection, this is it. When disease in a small village on the edge of the rain forest can travel to an international travel hub within the incubation period of virtually any known disease of concern, this kind of policy endangers everyone, including all US citizens.

[snip]

Meanwhile, this merely vindicates that raging nutcase and incompetent, Indonesian health minister Siti Fadilah Supari, who first raised the issue of US bioweapons policy in the debate over sharing influenza viruses. Perhaps vindicates is the wrong word. More appropriately, it shows that the US has its own raging nutcases and incompetents, like U.S. Commerce Assistant Secretary Christopher Wall and his colleagues.

Small minds, thinking tiny, in unison.

div.blogMain p.newMeta2 a {display: block; float: left; margin-right: 24px; padding: 3px 0 3px 24px; background-position: 0 50% ! important; background-repeat: no-repeat;} We must, for our own health and safety, and for the well-being of the world we all have to share, clear these stupid fucktards out of our government, and never ever give them power again. The future of human life on this planet depends on it.
OMG!!1! The Terrorists Might Develop Weapons of Mass Vaccination!!111!!1

Dems Behaving Badly

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I spend the majority of my time on this blog wielding the Smack-o-Matic with vigor against the Republicon party, and very little of it beating on Dems. This is because Dems don’t do outrageous shit in nearly the quantity as Cons. But no political party is filled with saints, and every once in a while, erstwhile Dems present a perfect target for the tender attentions of my instrument of wrath.

Let us begin with Rep. Tim Mahoney, who replaced Republicon Mark Foley after that incident with the White House pages. He is running on the slogan “Restoring America’s Values Begins at Home.” Let’s see how that’s going:

West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee.

Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen, a $50,000 a year job for two years at the agency that handles his campaign advertising, the staffers said.

Might as well take that slogan out back and shoot it in the head. The best that can be said is that he wasn’t shacking up with underage boys.

So, there’s going to be an ethics investigation, and he could very well lose his seat. Tell me, how much will he be missed?

This really could not have happened to a more deserving Democratic candidate. Though he is not the most conservative member of the House caucus, Tim Mahoney is the very antithesis of a “better” Democrat. In addition to being a lousy vote, he’s a terrible Democratic team player, and judging from his behavior on that tape, an arrogant, abusive scoundrel to boot.

If Mahoney loses a reelection bid that had previously been in good shape, it’s likely few tears will be shed for him by the party:

U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney calls himself a Blue Dog Democrat. Some Democrats think he’s just a dog.

At a time when some Hillary Clinton loyalists would rather stick a flag pin in their eye than rally behind Barack Obama — but are doing so anyway because of the larger goal of taking back the White House — Mahoney can’t bring himself to back the party’s first African-American nominee.

…

“I don’t owe the party anything,” said Mahoney, whose election helped the Democrats take control of Congress. “If anybody owes anybody anything, it’s [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi who owes a debt to me.”

Please. The Speaker and the party owe what, exactly, to Mahoney? He’s a recalcitrant, accidental Congressman who owes his very election to a fortuitous scandal, and was one of fully thirty Democratic freshman to take Republican-held seats in 2006. For that, we should apparently bow down and worship at his feet.

Oceans of tears shall be shed, I see. A rending of garments and gnashing of teeth may be in order, even so.

It would have been nice for this scandal to break while the Dems in Florida had a chance of fielding another candidate for this election, but this puffed-up asscrunch would’ve been going down in 2010 anyway. With Dems like this, we might as well have Republicons.

Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, there, Tim.

Right, then. Moving on. Who else deserves a good sharp smack? Oh, hey – we’ve got a global warming denier!

In a debate this past Saturday night, Democratic candidate Bob Conley — who is challenging incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham — firmly proclaimed his denial of global warming science. Asked if global warming is real, this is how Conley answered:

CONLEY: It really is the arrogance of man to think that we are having any effect. I’m an engineer. So I understand that we don’t have constant things in the physical world. We have a lot of fluctuations.

And when we see, looking back how we have had fluctuations in temperature over time. And when we see how when I was a child we were told whether it was global cooling. We’ve been told in recent years well there’s global warming. Well then last year was the coldest — the coolest record in the recent trend. It’s something. I don’t think we ought to be making really haphazard statements of policy or trying to change policies on this side.

Conley also claimed we need to look beyond what “special interests here in the United States” are saying, and instead consider what “academics are publishing in Europe and elsewhere.”

Ye gods, he sounds almost exactly like a Con! Why would a Dem sound like a Con, pray tell?

A T[hink] P[rogress] reader notes that Conley was very recently a Republican. “Conley supported Republican Ron Paul in the January GOP presidential primary and was a member of the Horry County Republican executive committee before seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for Graham’s seat.”

That might be why: he was a Con up until about five minutes ago. Oh, and he’s an engineer. What the fuck is up with so many engineers being global warming deniers and in general falling for pseudoscience?

If Lindsey Graham wasn’t such a fuckwit, I’d say we’re better off keeping him. He, at least, doesn’t deny global warming’s human causes. However, this is the same idiot who proudly proclaimed he would’ve voted against a waterboarding ban, was part of John McCain’s waltz through a Bagdad market, and called Joe Lieberman a national treasure. It seems South Carolina has the choice between Dumb and Dumber. Fortunate them.

Speaking of Dems who don’t quite get the whole need to take drastic action againt global warming thing…

As the 110th Congress comes to a close, two of the legislators in charge of climate legislation in the House of Representatives yesterday released a draft climate plan. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the powerful chair of the House Energy and Co
mmerce Committee, and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), chair of the Energy and Air Quality subcommittee, have primary jurisdiction in the House for legislation that puts mandatory limits on carbon emissions. Although such legislation has been a top priority for Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) since she became Speaker of the House in January 2007, Dingell and Boucher declared they would not be rushed, instead working on the 2007 energy bill, holding several hearings and releasing four white papers from October to May of this year. Dingell’s district is in the heart of the U.S. auto industry; Boucher represents Virginia’s coal country.

You know what’s coming, don’t you? Yes, you do. The Men Who Would Not Be Rushed have put forth a draft that puts off significant reductions in emissions until after 2020 (i.e., after it’s already too late to stop Mother Earth from frying in our greenhouse gasses), would “outlaw any state or regional cap and trade program,” and three out of four of their carbon permit scenarios basically give the store away to polluters. They’re doing a fantastic job for their friends in the pollution industry, not such a great one for people interested in having a liveable planet in the coming decades.

The Wonk Room’s verdict?

Dingell and Boucher believe that low-income families must be protected, that industry should receive pollution cost protection and new technology support, and that all else is up for debate. Over half of their Democratic colleagues indicated last week a very different set of priorities, that focuses not on protecting polluters but on respecting scientific urgency, delivering economic equity, and capturing the energy opportunity.

I’ll take that second set of priorities, thanks ever so much. Especially the “respecting scientific urgency” bit.

My darlings, it is not so much the quantity of the Democrats as the quality that we’ll have to be looking toward in the coming years. Majorities are nice, but not terribly useful when a sizeable portion of your majority are Honorary Cons. And we mustn’t forget, in the heady rush of sweeping the Cons out of power, that those we install in their stead need to be held up to a high standard of performance. Power and big corporate money corrupts Dems as well as Cons, just to a somewhat lesser degree (mostly because the Cons have had most of the power and the corporate cash lately). The sovereign remedy against this is letting them know, in no uncertain terms, that we’re watching. And we’ve got Act Blue and Accountability Now there to hit ’em where it hurts when they fail to act like Dems.

We put them there. We can remove them. They answer to us.

It’s that’s simple.

Dems Behaving Badly