"Like Chocolate Milk"

Ummmmm... (Via atrios)

GULFPORT — U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor on Saturday said people shouldn’t be so scared about the massive oil spill in the Gulf; he said after flying over it, “it’s not as bad as I thought.”

. . .

He described the spill as a light, rainbow sheen with patches that look like chocolate milk.

He did not see any traces along the Louisiana shore, near the Chandeleur Islands in Louisiana or the barrier islands in Mississippi.

He said the closest he saw oil was 20 miles from the Louisiana marsh and that it was further than that away from the Chandeleur Islands and even further from the barrier islands.

“It’s breaking up naturally; that’s a good thing. The fact that it’s a long way from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, that’s a great thing, because it gives it time to break up naturally,” he said.

Walker said the sheen could collect on beaches and in estuaries, but it will evaporate within a week.

Walker’s plan is to let any sheen that makes its way into the marshes evaporate naturally.

“That’s what we will probably do, is leave it alone and let nature take its course,” he said.

Given the number of times he said naturally in that interview, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what that word means.

Gene Taylor is a Congressman, one of the several hundred people in charge of making the laws for this country.

Drill Baby Drill (Obama Edition)

Not April Fools:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

But while Mr. Obama has staked out middle ground on other environmental matters — supporting nuclear power, for example — the sheer breadth of the offshore drilling decision will take some of his supporters aback. And it is no sure thing that it will win support for a climate bill from undecided senators close to the oil industry, like Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, or Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana.

The Senate is expected to take up a climate bill in the next few weeks — the last chance to enact such legislation before midterm election concerns take over. Mr. Obama and his allies in the Senate have already made significant concessions on coal and nuclear power to try to win votes from Republicans and moderate Democrats. The new plan now grants one of the biggest items on the oil industry’s wish list — access to vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling.

But even as Mr. Obama curries favors with pro-drilling interests, he risks a backlash from some coastal governors, senators and environmental advocates, who say that the relatively small amounts of oil to be gained in the offshore areas are not worth the environmental risks.

The Obama administration’s plan adopts some drilling proposals floated by President George W. Bush near the end of his tenure, including opening much of the Atlantic and Arctic Coasts. Those proposals were challenged in court on environmental grounds and set aside by President Obama shortly after he took office.

Offshore drilling, not really what you expect your Democratic president to be actively pursuing. I was under no illusions that Obama was going to be any kind of progressive when we elected him to office, but I didn't expect to be fighting him on shit like this.

Maryland, Delaware... well at least it isn't close to home. Let the oil companies poke around and see if they find anything, cause if there's anything they've taught us over the years it's that accidents never happen. I'm sure already cash strapped efforts that have fought so hard to preserve the Chesapeake Bay will love the exciting new challenges that this might bring!

There's no changing how horrifically bad this decision is (at one time Obama felt the same way), so we might as well look at the real reasons he'd do something this stupid. I think it's two fold, with each reason dumber than the last:

(1) Positioning himself as the David Broader president, as the last honest man standing between the right and left:

Ultimately, we need to move beyond the tired debates between right and left, between business leaders and environmentalists, between those who would claim drilling is a cure all and those who would claim it has no place. Because this issue is just too important to allow our progress to languish while we fight the same old battles over and over again.

You know who isn't tired of these age old debates between business leaders and environmentalists? I'm gonna guess it's the business leaders, because they've gotten just about every fucking thing they've wanted over the last ten years. If there was some grand debate about role of conservation during the Bush administration I'm pretty sure I missed it. I remember years of environmental regulations getting pillaged, trying to open up national parks for drilling and doing nothing about global warming, but maybe I'm forgetting something.

There's something admirable about how open Obama is about his triangulation. Clinton would try to talk a good game to all sides, and triangulate the policy decision, but not Obama. The man doesn't just use Clintonian Triangulation as a political strategy, he's made it the ethos of his presidency. Defending a decision like this by saying that "he's tired of left and right debates", and then taking a right wing position is pretty amazing. He simply doesn't care what his supporters think about anything he does, and why should he? A large number of his supporters will blindly buy his reasoning just because he said it, so he really has no reason to give a shit what they think on anything.

(2) He thinks doing this will help him win Republican support on worthwhile climate bill, and deprive them of their talking points. Marc Ambinder:

With one fell swoop, Obama deprives Republicans of the major talking point they’d use to object to more expansive government-based climate remediation and energy prospecting policy.

Fucking Madness. Anyone who believes that Republicans will stop trying to make Obama's climate bill worthless because he gave them a head start must have their head shoved so firmly up their own ass that they missed everything that happened over the last 14 months. Almost every major republican has already slammed it as not going far enough because get this: Obama did it, and they want to be elected in November.

Maybe Obama should just complete the ultimate 11 dimensional chess move and become a Republican. If Obama was adopting their Republican policies as a Republican president, that would really put them in a bind!

In all seriousness, if this was actually one of the political calculations that led to this decision, then we really need to reconsider how smart we all think Obama is. The distance between idealistic and naive isn't all that far apart to begin with, and every decision like this puts him further and further into the latter's camp.

Bad policy, bad politics, and a shit sandwich to everyone who helped get him elected because they wanted to end the Bush Era's environmental policies.

But it will make David Broader happy, so really, what else matters?

Why I Love Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan is a Ranking Budget Committee member for the Republicans, meaning he would become chair should flip to Republican control this fall. What makes Paul Ryan special is that he is very upfront about things that other Republicans fear saying out loud, such as their desire to gut our country's two extremely popular social safety net programs, Medicare and Social Security.

Now the Center for Tax Justice has looked at Ryan's Tax proposal... and notices that he is openly proposing a tax increase for anyone outside of the top income brackets, as well as massive tax cuts for the super wealthy: (Via Yglesias)

Thank you Paul Ryan! If only all Republicans were this upfront with their hideously stupid ideas!

"Tough Shit"

A lot of this stuff isn't about policy. The sheer contempt that many Republicans have for those less fortunate than them is really stunning: (Via atrios)

Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, is single-handedly blocking Senate action needed to prevent an estimated 1.2 million American workers from prematurely losing their unemployment benefits next month.

As Democratic senators asked again and again for unanimous consent for a vote on a 30-day extension Thursday night, Bunning refused to go along.

And when Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) begged him to drop his objection, Politico reports, Bunning replied: "Tough shit."

. . .

The stakes are enormous: provisions of last year's stimulus bill that allow extra weeks of unemployment benefits and COBRA health coverage are set to expire on Feb. 22. State workforce agencies have already sent out letters informing recipients that they'll be ineligible for extra "tiers" of benefits starting next month. The National Employment Law Project estimates that 1.2 million people will prematurely lose benefits in March.

What a monster. If you've got a few extra minutes in lunch hour, let him know how you feel:

202-224-4343

Like atrios said, be polite, and don't use any language that the esteemed Senator from Kentucky wouldn't be comfortable with.

A Disastrous Year For Labor

Harold Meyerson on the first year of the Obama Administration for Organized Labor:

For American labor, year one of Barack Obama's presidency has been close to an unmitigated disaster.

Labor's primary priority -- the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) -- died when the Democrats lost their 60-vote majority in the Senate. Labor's normal priority -- a functioning National Labor Relations Board -- also seems out of reach, with Republicans on Tuesday blocking the appointment of Obama nominee Craig Becker (that's why Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown scurried down to Washington last week to take his seat). Other key legislation for which labor has lobbied, including health-care reform and financial regulations, languishes in the Senate.

For the unions, the Senate's inability to pass EFCA is devastating and galling. Democratic senators had developed a compromise proposal that would have jettisoned the controversial "card check" process -- by which unions could be organized without a secret ballot -- in favor of expediting the election process (so that management couldn't delay for months, or even years, employees' votes on whether to unionize) and stiffening the penalties for violating the rules that govern election conduct.

The compromise had a shot at winning all 60 Democratic votes. The unions, which spent more than $300 million in the 2008 elections on Democrats' behalf, wanted a vote on EFCA last year, but Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked them to wait until health reform had passed. (Their requests for confirmation votes on NLRB appointees were similarly delayed.)

As much as Obama and the Senate Democrats seem to get aroused at how far they can throw their biggest allies under the bus, I'd always figured they'd throw them a bone here and there out of self preservation. Well, they haven't even done that, and they'll reap the rewards of that strategy this fall:

Union leaders warn that the Democrats' lackluster performance in power is sapping the morale of activists going into the midterm elections.

"Right now if we don’t get positive changes to the agenda, we’re going to have a hard time getting members out to work," said United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard, in an interview.

“There’s no use pretending any longer.”

The biggest threat, of course, is apathy from a Democratic constituency that has a history of mobilizing for elections.

"You're just not going to be able to go to our membership in the November elections and say, 'Come on, let's do it again. Look at what the Democratic administration has done for us!'" Gage said. "People are going to say, 'Huh? What have the Democrats done for us?'"

See unlike the corporate front groups that fund the other side's political work, unions are made up of living breathing people that need to be given reasons get off their ass and campaign. Things like "we passed the Lilly Ledbetter Act"(something even zombie Clinton could have done) and "we didn't fuck you over as hard as John McCain would have" aren't really going to cut it. So keep at it guys, not only are you screwing over the working class but you're insuring your own demise in the process.

I'd me more than happy to watch a Democratic bloodletting in November if I thought there was the slightest chance that the party learn the right lesson from it. They never do though, and the media will write about how Blanche Lincoln lost because she spoke nicely about the Kenyan usurper and Harry Reid lost because he pushed too hard to enact a progressive agenda.

I know this may sound pretty dire, but watching these people make the same mistakes over and over again doesn't exactly inspire hope. And when you imagine some generic Scott Borwn looking Republican running a faux populist campaigns based on Obama's ties to Wall Street, it's enough to make you wanna throw up.

We're All Teabaggers Now!

Well, not all of us. Just a majority of the Republican party. The results from Kos' massive poll of self identified Republicans:

OBAMA and AMERICA

Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?

Yes 39
No 32
Not Sure 29

For what? Who the heck knows. Who needs high crimes or misdemeanors when...

Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?

Yes 63
No 21
Not Sure 16

That's the power of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, after one year of relentlessly claiming Obama is the second coming of Lenin ... and Hitler!

Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?

Yes 42
No 36
Not Sure 22

We still have over a half of Republicans who don't think Obama was born in the US or think it's a matter open to debate.

Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?

Yes 24
No 43
Not Sure 33

Not just a quarter of Republicans believe this ludicrous premise, but another third think it's a matter open to debate. How do you negotiate with a party whose rank and file are that divorced from reality? And speaking of divorced from reality...

Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?

Yes 21
No 24
Not Sure 55

One in five Republicans think ACORN is so powerful as to magically make 10 million votes appear. Another 55 are open to the theory. In other words, just 24 percent of Republicans have an even passing relationship with reality.

Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?

Yes 53
No 14
Not Sure 33

Sigh...

Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?

Yes 31
No 36
Not Sure 33

I bet more people think Obama is racist, but were too afraid to tell a live operator the truth.

Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?

Yes 23
No 58
Not Sure 19

Holy fuck.

Republicans are officially the party of the teabagger, there's no question about it. And as kos points out in the post, this is exactly why striving towards "bipartisanship" is a completely pointless endeavor.

Say you're an elected Republican from a non insane district. You don't think Obama's a Muslim or should be impeached. Policy wise, you don't have that much disagreement with many of the administration's centrist/pro corporate proposals. Obama sees this and asks for your support on a reform that's been watered down enough to your likeness. From a self preservation standpoint there is literally no reason to work with him.

Option A is to work with Obama, leaving the door open for you to get crushed in a primary by people who will accuse you of attempting to aid his socialist Muslim agenda. If you don't get primaried, you risk alienating a majority of your base in the general election for having so much as worked with Obama.

Option B is to do nothing, not face a primary challenge, keep your cushy job, and maybe you'll have much more power in the majority next year!

While Obama may think being nice can change the climate on capitol hill, what he can't change is the craziness of the Republican electorate. Republicans would be insane to work with him, and Obama would be nuts to keep trying to gain their support.

Strange Outcomes From Brown's Victory

In the crazy world of current day politics where 59 votes out of 100 isn't a governable majority, could Brown's election have helped progressive politics in the short term? Chris Bowers thinks it might:

If we achieve the reconciliation path, it would be possible to re-insert the Medicare buy-in during that process. There are no parliamentary issues about inserting a Medicare buy-in through reconciliation, and at least 56 Democratic Senators were supportive of such a buy-in back in December (only Conrad, Lieberman and Ben Nelson expressed worries about it).

It is remarkable and ironic how the defeat in Massachusetts could actually spur Democrats to move in a good direction for progressives. That defeat has revived the public option, made stopping Bernanke a real possibility, and opened up talks about reforming the filibuster. It also has prompted the Senate to throw in the towel on a climate change bill, which is good as long as EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gasses isn't stripped.

Could the Massachusetts special election actually make things better for progressives? That would be very surprising, but it isn't out of the question.

We live in strange, strange times...

Is Our Presidents Learning?

Doesn't look promising:

President Obama plans to re-emphasize his interest in bipartisanship by addressing House Republicans this week, but whether that will produce an election-year truce is very much in question.

Great idea! It'll be useful practice for when he'll actually need to work with Republicans when this type of stupidity hands them control of congress next November.

He wasn't talking about this, but I think Jon Stewart said it best the other night:

"It's not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It's that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs."

Update: The learning continues... (via TPM)

We're starting to pick up hints that the White House is making another serious bid to pick up the vote of Sen. Olympia Snowe. Really? If they do it and get a reasonable bill, great. But it's exceedingly difficult for me to see that as a realistic possibility.

President Snowe!

Glad to see she's back in the picture, I'm sure she'll be open to supporting a good bill this time. At least it gives me an excuse to use this:

Remember That Guy Who Was Incompetent and Universally Hated? Yeah, Let's Get Him!

Fresh, bold thinking from the Heritage Foundation:

The U.S. government response should be bold and decisive. It must mobilize U.S. civilian and military capabilities for short-term rescue and relief and long-term recovery and reform. President Obama should tap high-level, bipartisan leadership. Clearly former President Clinton, who was already named as the U.N. envoy on Haiti, is a logical choice. President Obama should also reach out to a senior Republican figure, perhaps former President George W. Bush, to lead the bipartisan effort for the Republicans.

There are probably dumber ideas out there, but so far I haven't seen any that top this.

Why Deeds Lost In Virginia

Hint: It's not because they don't want health care:

Instead of attempting to energize more young and minority voters to the polls to make the electorate more representative of Virginia–they began running a campaign targeted to the people already planning to vote. Creigh began bashing federal Democratic priorities like “Cap and Trade” and health care reform to appeal to the conservatives that were headed to the polls.

And every time he did it, polls indicated turnout shriveled even further among Democrats and progressive voters–making the electorate even older, whiter, and more conservative. To which Creigh responded to by bashing federal Democrats more–which resulted in even more progressives becoming disengaged. Over and over, the cycle continued. Over the last six weeks, PPP polls indicated the share of the electorate that identified as Democrats declined from 38% to 31%. In other words almost one out of every five self-identified Democrats planning to vote on Labor Day has since then looked at Creigh Deeds and his conservative message, and decided they weren’t voting. Ouch!

The people feeling this voter depression most are Democrats running downballot from Creigh for Lt. Governor, Attorney General and the House of Delegates. When an upballot candidate loses because Independents break against them, downballot candidates still have a chance by winning those Independent voters back to vote for them. But when an upballot candidate depresses the base and changes the composition of the electorate, there is nothing a downballot candidate can do. Which is the major reason why Republicans will sweep all three statewide offices today and make major gains in the House of Delegates, barring a last minute miracle.

The lesson for candidates in 2010 is clear: do not depress your base when our electorate is already far less likely to vote than Republicans to begin with. Successful candidates in 2010 will find a way to engage young voters and minority voters so they come back to the polls–and AFTER they do that, work on winning over enough Independents to win.

It would be nice if this election killed this crappy strategy once and for all, but the media seems to think Deeds lost because Obama is increasing the deficit or something, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

Only Thing Left for Skins Fans To Do: Stay Home

I know it's long, long overdue, but it's time for me break my silence regarding the utter travesty that is the 2009 Washington Redskins. As bad as things have become recently, it's been hard for me to find a unique perspective to add to what has been an overwhelmingly negative backlash from fans and media alike to the mismanagement of this team by Dan Snyder. It may sound shortsighted to say this, as I haven't really been alive for that long, but this is undoubtedly the lowest point in my lifetime of Redskins' fandom.

Yes, lower than starting 0-7 in 1998. Lower even than going 3-13 in 1993, two years removed from winning Super Bowl XXVI. That is because even though the Redskins fielded some horrible teams throughout the 90's, the franchise still resembled somewhat of an actual football organization.

Therein lies the problem with this season; the Redskins are no longer an organization, we are a dictatorship. I don't have time to go over all the reasons that Dan Snyder is an egomanaical, self-interested, cold individual. Again, I know I'm young, but even I thought I'd seen it all until he actually banned fans from carrying signs into games.

With this being the bye week, I'll take this opportunity to announce that I'm officially done with the Redskins this season. I'm through with them. At least, as they are currently constructed. This past Monday's loss to the Philadelphia Eagles was the first game I can remember which I didn't feel any emotion at any point. Win or lose, I really would not have felt anything. Each time the Eagles scored (usually in spectacular fashion), I felt absolutely nothing.

Now, I'm not saying that I'm renouncing my fandom; I will forever root for the Washington Redskins football team to win. However, I'm declaring this season over and urging all of my fellow Skins fans to do the same until major change is enacted within the team's structure. So here is my plea: as hard as it may be to do, just stay home. Please do not support Snyder's egotistical regime any longer. I want to see empty seats throughout FedEx Field. Anything less will fail to register any significant message.

Watching this version of the Redskins is like watching a loved one die. There is so little you can actually control to help the situation improve, except helplessly watch as things get worse. The only difference, aside from the obvious fact that football is just a game & isn't life or death, is that there is one thing we can do as fans.

Just stay home.

Blanche Lincoln 2010: Can't Someone Else Do it?

Apparently the senator from Arkansas has been watching some Simpsons Reruns:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Sen. Blanche Lincoln says business and labor groups, not lawmakers, should be the ones to work out a compromise on a union organizing bill.

Lincoln said that she still opposes the Employee Free Choice Act and doesn't think the legislation should be considered while lawmakers are dealing with health care and other issues. Business groups have opposed the act because it would allow employees to unionize by signing cards instead of holding secret ballot elections.

Democratic lawmakers are working on a compromise version of the bill that may remove the so-called "card check" provision. Lincoln said any compromise would need to come from business and labor groups.

Lincoln spoke at the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Arkansas annual meeting in Little Rock.

Clearly big business will "come together" with organized labor and restore the same rights that they have methodically destroyed from existence over the past 30 years. I actually heard Senator Lincoln say this same thing during a lobby visit several months back and assumed she was just rambling. Nope, apparently she really is so clueless that decided to make this idiocy one of her main talking points on the Employee Free Choice Act.

And aside from the mind blowing stupidity of that comment, there's nothing like a LAWMAKER deciding that she isn't in the business of MAKING LAWS. With firm convictions like this, how can she lose?

"Put Her In Her Place"

Stay classy, NRCC:

The GOP congressional campaign committee sent out a fundraising appeal today calling Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal to put Nancy Pelosi "in her place" over the war in Afghanistan.

The NRCC email accused Pelosi of "backpedaling" on support for the war "amidst increasing criticism from the radical left." Pelosi recently said liberal support for the troop increases McChrystal has advocated could be "difficult" to obtain.

NRCC communications director Ken Spain, quoted in the fundraising email: ""Nancy Pelosi continues to make party politics a higher priority than our national security. Rather than listening to a four-star general's assessments on Afghanistan, General Pelosi somehow believes she is better suited to craft our country's military policy."

"Taxpayers can only hope McChrystal is able to put her in her place," the email concludes.

Get it? Get it? She's a woman! It's not her place! Get it? Get it?

Michael Schwartz Has A Plan

Having already examined a list of hard hitting topics straight from Free Republic threads, the Value Voters summit decided to tackle something called "The New Masculinity", and much to Troy Polamalu's disappointment, it was not a discussion on the NFL's over the top fines for physical play.

The New Masculinity

Feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new "masculinism" right. Such a "masculinism" will have its dovetailing counterpart in a new "feminism" for they mutually define each other and, in nature, are meant to be complementary. This panel will begin this exploration.

A conservative conference panel that can't discuss "masculinity" without going into how much they fear/hate women doesn't exactly qualify as news, but when a prominent Senator's Chief of Staff decides to hijack the panel for his own personal craziness...

A few minutes into his speech, Schwartz moved to the topic of pornography, calling it a “blight” and a “disease” that parents’ “sons” would encounter. Noting that he was about to get “politically incorrect,” Schwartz said that it is his “observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people”:

SCHWARTZ: But it is my observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. They speak badly about homosexuality. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it. And that’s a good instinct. After all, homosexuality, we know, studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that its genetic and all those studies have proved its not genetic. Homosexuality is inflicted on people.

Schwartz then recalled “a very good friend” of his “who was in the homosexual lifestyle for a long time,” saying that he “had good conversations about, about the malady that he suffered.” He then relayed “an astonishingly insightful remark” his friend had made about the relationship between pornography and being gay:

SCHWARTZ: And one of the things that he said to me, that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark. He said, “all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.” You know, that’s a, that’s a good comment. It’s a good point and it’s a good thing to teach young people.

So just to recap:

• Step One: Rile up homophobia in young boys.

• Step Two: Convince young boys that watching men and women having sex will make them gay.

• Step Three: Pornography ends because young boys are scared they will become gay.

• Step Four: Homosexuality ends, because porn is no longer forcing people to be gay, or something

There's so much to like about a plan centered around convincing people that sex=bad. I'm sure that message will resonate soundly with the teenage boys he's hoping to reach.

Oh yeah, and just to reiterate, this is the completely serious plan from Senator Tom Coburn's top adviser to end pornography and gay people.

Kind of defies parody, doesn't it?

DC Welcomes the Values Voters Summit!

Here, take a look at this list of workshops they're holding tomorrow- please note that I didn't make up any of these:

-TRUE TOLERANCE: COUNTERING THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
THE THREAT OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

-OBAMACARE: RATIONING YOUR LIFE AWAY

-MARRIAGE: WHY IT'S WORTH DEFENDING AND HOW REDEFINING IT THREATENS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

-GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: THE NEW FACE OF THE "PRO-DEATH" AGENDA -
Ultimately, climate change hysteria rests on an unbiblical view of God, mankind, and the environment.

-SPEECHLESS - SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS

-THE NEW MASCULINITY - Feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men.

-THUGOCRACY - FIGHTING THE VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY

-DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD

-ACTIVISM AND CONSERVATISM: FIT TO A TEA (PARTY)

Seriously, they couldn't find one real problem to work on? Not a single challenge facing our nation appealed to them, so they came up with all that instead? I wonder how many people went home after the tea parties last weekend just in time to jump back into the bus and triumphantly return to DC for this crap.

More rave reviews for the Baucus Plan!

Now Howard Dean is getting in on the action, blasting it thoroughly:

Howard Dean, former Democratic National Committee
chairman, minced no words about Sen. Max Baucus's
healthcare proposal, unveiled to the public this
morning. "The Baucus bill is the worst piece of
healthcare legislation I've seen in 30 years," Dean
said last night at a healthcare town hall and book
signing in Washington. "In fact, it's a $60 billion
giveaway to the health insurance industry every year,"
he said. "It was written by healthcare lobbyists, so
that's not a surprise. It's an outrage."

Great job, Baucus!

Stay Classy, Max Baucus

Rewarding idiocy:

I just got off the phone with Frank Sharry, Executive Director of the immigrant rights group America's Voice, who's not exactly pleased that Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Max Baucus (D-MT) are responding to the Joe Wilson scream incident by writing immigrant restrictions into health care legislation.

"Baucus and Conrad are caving on a fake issue that is trumped up by Republicans not to better the bill but to trump up opposition to reform," Sharry declared. "I just find it stunning that they would validate what Joe Wilson did."

Sharry also points out that the changes to the bill are likely to be extremely inefficient.
Under Medicaid, he says, "there is currently a verification system in place called the SAVE program, which works pretty well."

. . .

So not only is this particular method of avoiding systemic abuse by low-wage, undocumented residents ineffective and politically dubious. It's also extremely wasteful. Thankfully, though, Congressmen like Joe Wilson will no longer be tempted to scream "you lie!" at President Obama. Or maybe it won't even accomplish that.

Throwing Van Jones Under the Bus

Two must reads on the subject:

Jane Hamsher on the relationship between progressive institutions and the Obama Administration.

Baratunde Thurston on the general stupidity of the whole thing:

Too often, this White House has sent the signal that it seeks common ground and conciliation with parties interested in its total destruction. From my point of view, negotiating with ignorance, fear, hate and irrationality is insane. For example, when a major Republican figure in the health care negotiations spreads the death panel lie (Grassley), you see him for what he is, realize you’re dealing with a group of psychopaths, and reset the objectives. “Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be? Cool. Good to know what we’re dealing with. Thanks for your time. We won’t be needing your services anymore. We’re taking our ball and playing somewhere else.” Negotiations require trust and trust assumes that all parties are not completely batshit crazy.

I realize I’m lumping a variety of “opposition” camps together: birthers, deathers, those who accuse the president of racism and those who accuse him of socialism. I’m grouping them because to me they all come from the same place. They’re engaging in a form of terrorism. They are using psychological violence (and occasionally the threat of real violence) to pursue a political objective, and in so doing, inflicting harm upon non-combatants.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the movies, it’s that “The United States of America does not negotiate with terrorists.” Yet this White House is willing to let these psychological terrorists set the terms of the debate and negotiate from their insane positions. One group of people is trying to talk about co-pays. The other thinks the president is a secret Kenyan. One group of people sees the creation of domestic, sustainable jobs as a cornerstone of the 21st century economy. The other thinks the president is going to murder your grandmother. This is not legitimate political discourse and to make decisions acknowledging terms so far apart in their reality is just plain stupid.

Van Jones was one of the good guys. A really, really good guy. He used his education and his passion to combat police brutality and the massive, wasteful incarceration of so many of this nation’s young, brown people. Having fought in the trenches for so long, he saw an opportunity to build hope and jobs and tangible communities as the world responds to the climate crisis. He connected the dots and inspired action and had a vision. He was the rare outsider who got a chance to move inside, and move he did.

. . .

I’m heartbroken over Van’s departure because it’s these little meaningless concessions that undermine people’s faith in the system. You get folks all riled up about change. You empower a man who embodies that change. And they you let him be run out of office by fucking Glenn Beck? So Glenn Beck is running the White House now? Is that how it’s gonna be? Just tell me that I knocked on all those doors for nothing, and I can start the grieving process, but don’t pretend this will solve anything.

Van Jones made a mistake, and he apologized for doing so. His crime was signing a petition that he didn't read.

On the grand scale of important things, compare that with cheating on your taxes, staying rent free in a house owned by someone involved with the industry you're overseeing, and hiring your chief of staff directly from the company that's already benefited the most from the government's interventions.

And for purely practical purposes, just what exactly did this solve? Is the White House a safer/less corrupt place without Van Jones? Will it make legislation easier to pass? Will it make our make our discourse less insane? Will it make Glenn Beck and others lay off the Obama administration?

Of course it won't.

Beck attacked Van Jones long before he knew about this "scandal" because he's a caricature of everything that the nutjobs who give him his ratings despise. He was a member of the Obama Administration, unabashedly progressive, and black.

If only he'd cheated on his taxes.

Some things are worth fighting for, and Van Jones was one of them.

World Class Stupidity

If it's so good... why aren't you on Medicare?????:

Can't Get Enough of the Bush Family?

So fucking absurd:

NEW YORK – NBC's "Today" show has hired someone with White House experience as a new correspondent — former first daughter Jenna Hager.

The daughter of former President George W. Bush will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education to television's top-rated morning news show, said Jim Bell, its executive producer.

Hager, a 27-year-old teacher in Baltimore, said she has always wanted to be a teacher and a writer, and has already authored two books. But she was intrigued by the idea of getting into television when Bell contacted her.

Glenn Greenwald rightfully takes the opportunity to sound off:

They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it's really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There's a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.

. . .

Just to underscore a very important, related point: all of the above-listed people are examples of America's Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work -- The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor -- who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice -- is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

I just want to make sure that's clear.