....and honestly it was pretty damn depressing. I happened to be allowed into the senate gallery today, and got to observe them for about 20 minutes.
Well except "them" isnt really accurate. It's more of a "him". Now look to be fair I did miss (by about an hour or so) the big news making confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary, since the GOP finally i willing to believe Friends of Hamas doesnt exist.....well that and someone changed John McCain's diaper.
So when I was in there, no big history making thing was happening. But still even granting that it was a bit depressing.
See Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin was giving a speech, on if it was a good idea to arm the Syrian rebels. Now I'll be honest, I wasnt able to in there long enough to know what his position was, as I only caught the tail end, nor is the point of this post to debate if thats a good idea.
The point was WHO was in the chamber. Dick Durbin, who as I mentioned ended his speech and Ben Cardin (D-MD), who had his own speech to give supporting (I believe) Durbin, Harry Reid popped in for a few seconds, I think to confer with a staffer and possibly Ben Cardin (out of my line of sight). (and to be fair also in the room were the required staffers and the presiding officer, who I didnt recognize at the time but believe was either Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) or Lisa Murkowski (R-AL) but thats based on looking at headshots after getting internet back (no electronics in the galley) so I might well be wrong)
That's kinda depressing. I mean look anyone who has access to CSPAN knows congress is fairly boring, especially since most of the procedural stuff is full of so much jargon it barely sounds like English.
But like one of the people in my group put it "you think they would be here out of respect at least, since this is an important issue". And I have to be honest, I agree. Its just sad to see the senate chamber while in session, have more people in the gallery (even excluding my group) than in the chamber itself.
I remember when I went to the UK. On the tour of the House of Common's they mentioned the chamber wasnt actually big enough to hold all the members.....but it wasnt a problem because all the members were never there at the same time, even on critical votes and issues.
I didnt say anything, but my thought was "that just makes your government sound pathetic, like they dont really give a shit." Well surprise.....guess out government really is based on the British system.
Although as far as I know, all our senators DO show up for the actual votes, even if they miss the speeches And to be fair, rarely do speeches change peoples minds.
And thanks to CSPAN (and the internal capital network) Members of Congress can watch the goings-on in either chamber from their office building And given that one of the staffers that was in the chamber was seeming to fill a glass of water on one of the desks on the GOP side, its quite possible that that is exactly what happened here.
Durbin left the chamber after speaking, even with Cardin voicing support, so between that and the cup, I do think its very likely, that at least on the important issues, Congress is at least paying attention, show up to speak when its their turn, and just work better in their office. But still the sight of an empty chamber LOOKS very sad and depressing.
Politics is supposed to be at least half perception, so you'd think Senators would play the game a bit more.....just in case their constituents are in the gallery (although Senator Cardin is my state senator, I'm speaking more broadly).
Point is rather then make me think "dude cool I got to see congress in action" I left feeling kinda depressed and disillusioned which is not good
Moral of the story: Now I know why CSPAN uses so many tight close up's..........
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
The [rest of the] Week in Stupid.
Apparently there was a presidents day sale on stupid this week, Say something dumb, get something dumber for free. I already had to split "this week in stupid" in half so as to not get over loaded. And yet its not even 3 o'clock on Friday yet (at least as I start typing this) and I've already got an even longer second half of the week. (also before I forget, for some reason the first half of the weeks post got covered with a white background on a lot of the text making it very hard to read, that's been corrected so if you didnt or couldnt read it before, try again by clicking the above link)
So anyways let the cavalcade of cretins begin (again)!!!!!!
First up, honestly a nobody, in that he's not famous yet, but he might be some day Erick Wyatt, who I believe intends to challenge Senate Minority Whip (and professional crazy person John Cornyn. Now I say believe because that appears to be the consensus about what Mr. Wyatt was trying to do, the problem is that on his filing he claimed he was running for the "Republoican" nomination.
Yea see, if you want to run for office, actually knowing how to spell the name of the party you want to run for is kinda a big help. And speaking as someone who has a spelling disability, if you cant do it, get a friend to check your paperwork first.....or even just write the stuff in Microsoft word. Just saying your not off to a great start.....
Next up, an unprecedented second double nomination in the same week. This time to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who had a rather rough Wednesday.
See first (or at least reported first) Chuck Grassley had a town hall in which he was asked this question
"They’re saying that they’re going to start, in 2013, putting microchips in government workers and then any kid that enrolls in school, starting in pre-school, will have a microchip implanted in them so that they can track them. [...] Is that true?"
Now Grassley gave the following answer:
"No. First of all, nothing can be done to your body without your permission. It’d be a violation of the constitutional right to privacy if that were to happen."
Now to be fair, Grassley is 100% correct in his argument. There is however one small problem, the first mention of the constitutional right to privacy was in the Supreme Court case Roe V Wade, that legalized abortion. Multiple pro choice organizations have rated Senator Grassley a "0" or "F" in terms of his support for right to choose as he has dedicated much of his senatorial career to attempting to overturn Roe v Wade and using his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to grill federal court nominees on their potential stands on Roe v Wade. Which apparently he has never read, so doesnt know that's were the right to privacy come from OR is actually dedicated to removing the road block to forcing your children to be Microchipped.
Second up, that same day, at the same town hall, responding to a different question, this time about why he didnt support the Violence Against Women Act, Senator Grassley said this
"One provision that non-Native Americans can be tried in tribal court. And why is that a big thing? Because of the constitutionality of it, for two reasons. One, you know how the law is, that if you have a jury, the jury is supposed to be a reflection of society. [...] So you get non-Indians, let me say to make it easy, you get non-Indians going into a reservation and violating a woman. They need to be prosecuted. They aren’t prosecuted. So the idea behind [VAWA] is we’ll try them in tribal court. But under the laws of our land, you got to have a jury that is a reflection of society as a whole, and on an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right? So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial."
Yea um on that bolded part, I think i can dig up a few million or so black people who might be able to explain to you how thats not the case....or Women....or Latinos......or well anyone who's not a white man.
Hell I can even dig up some lawyers who will likely tell you one of the major goals of jury selection is to get a jury you believe will be able to connect with your client, even if only on racial or gender lines.
So yea, apparently its not just Roe V Wade he hasnt read, its the entire Constitution, or at least the 6th amendment, you know the things he checks to make sure judges understand before he confirms them, that might be hard to do since he's never read it.
Next up on the motorcade of the moronic Congressman Louie Gomert, explaining why you need to buy a gun and why your right to do so should never even be the slightest bit infringed.
"[The Second Amendment] is for our protection and the founders’ quotes make that very very clear and including against a government that would run amuck. We’ve got some people who think Sharia Law should be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there… to make sure all of the rest of the Amendments are followed."
I'm pretty sure the only people who think Sharia law should be the law of the land are either the sources right wingers make up in order to scare you into voting for them (since no one agrees with them on any issue) and/or the voices in your head.
Also as far a suggesting shooting people who practice different religions 1) I think your kinda forgetting to follow the other amendments (namely the first) and 2) Oak Creek mean anything to you congressman? If it doesnt I would tell you to look it up, but I know you wont because you clearly hate reading and facts, and you dont read my blog anyways since I use words larger then one syllable.
And up next, a history making first for this blog, the first ever Third nomination in a single week (see this week in stupid part 1 for the other two), to FOX news. This time it was contributor Lisa Daftari taking about the expansion of Al Jazeera into US markets.
"They’re apparently expanding to eight cities, including Detroit, Michigan. Detroit, Michigan is a large ex-pat community of Muslim-Americans and sleeper cells have been detected. You can Google this, you can find out all this information. So if you’re trying to set yourself apart the Qatari petro-dollars are backing this, you’re still developing in this area where the sleeper cells have been detected."
Now to be fair to Mrs. Daft-and-airy I did once hear of Muslim Sleeper cell being run out of Detroit ...the problem? it was run by this guy:
And he hasnt been on TV since 2005. But no I get it, all Muslims are anti american and all the ones here in major cities are sleeper agents trying to kill up.
By the way who wants to be the one to tell Mrs. Daftari that the number two shareholder in the company she works for is this guy:
Maybe Mrs. Daftari is actually a Muslim sleeper. I mean look at her boss....and her name? that's totally not an american name, in fact according to her bio it's Iranian......
but hey, luckily to work at fox you only need to look hot and be like Ron Burgundy and read what ever is on the teleprompter without thinking about it.
Caren Teves lost her son in the Aurora movie theater Shooting, and sent Senator McCain a letter about her son's death and asked McCain why he wont support the Assault Weapons Ban. The letter he sent back didnt mention the Ban or Aurora and was all about Newtown. BUT that's not the end of the story.
Mrs. Teves also recently attended a Town Hall hosted by McCain, and again explained what happened to her son, and asked about McCain's refusal to support the Assault Weapons Ban. McCain's reply?
"I can tell you right now you need some straight talk..."
Actually you know what, let me stop you right there Senator. You know how when you get back to some hot girl's place, and she goes into the bathroom and changes into what she thinks is sexy lingerie and kinda slinks out of the bathroom and asks you what you think? Well you know how "You look like a gutter slut" is the wrong answer.
Yea same deal with telling any one who just lost a kid "I can tell right now you need some straight talk".
Especially given what you followed it up with:
“I can tell you right now you need some straight talk. That assault weapons ban will not pass the Congress of the United States.”
Yea see thats kinda WHY shes asking you the question, telling her basically he question is stupid and thats straight talk she needs to hear really is a dick move.
Next up the final nominee for this part of the week, and once again making history as I give yet another nomination to FOX news, (their 4th of the week....btw if anyone at FOX is reading this and you want to know why your ratings are at a 12 year low, I can think of at least 4 reasons) this time to Bob Beckel and "the five".
Now for those who dont know Mr. Beckel he's one of the 5 hosts of the show "the Five" and his role is to pretend to be the liberal one, by saying things conservatives pretend liberals would say like saying in reference to Julian Assange that because he [Beckel] was anti death penalty the only thing to do would be "illegally shoot the son of a bitch" referred to Jews at a Romney fundraiser as "a bunch of diamond merchants we don’t know the names of. "and suggest all nudists were "probably gang-banged [as children], I don't know!" Now to be fair, those quotes are just from when he is on the five, every time hes on another show he gives the standard conservative line. In fact he is the guest in the video embedded in this post who cant possibly agree with Bill O'Reily more about something Bill was wrong about and everyone else already knew
In otherwords if this guy is a liberal I'm Batman AND Spiderman.
Now thats just the context for this next quote, said earlier this week while pretending to play the role of a liberal trying to explain why colleges shouldnt allow for conceal carry to stop rape?
"When's the last time you heard about rape on a college campus?"
Which of course led to absolute shock from the rest of the panel.
now of course as Mr. Beckel, and the rest of the Five well know, College campuses are where women are MOST likely to get raped, and usually through non violent means (roofies).
Luckily for all of us Mr. Beckel's not too good with his assignment to pretend to be a liberal so the stuff he says comes across as so stupid it just gets laughed at. But I'd say it says something about how FOX views its own viewers that they think their viewers are stupid enough to fall for his act.
BUT at the end of the day, while McCain and Beckel may need to fight it out for "Dick of the week" our stupidest person of the week is still Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin, who won the first part of the week with her comment about Babies being organs.
Sorry guys, better luck next time.
So anyways let the cavalcade of cretins begin (again)!!!!!!
First up, honestly a nobody, in that he's not famous yet, but he might be some day Erick Wyatt, who I believe intends to challenge Senate Minority Whip (and professional crazy person John Cornyn. Now I say believe because that appears to be the consensus about what Mr. Wyatt was trying to do, the problem is that on his filing he claimed he was running for the "Republoican" nomination.
Yea see, if you want to run for office, actually knowing how to spell the name of the party you want to run for is kinda a big help. And speaking as someone who has a spelling disability, if you cant do it, get a friend to check your paperwork first.....or even just write the stuff in Microsoft word. Just saying your not off to a great start.....
Next up, an unprecedented second double nomination in the same week. This time to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who had a rather rough Wednesday.
See first (or at least reported first) Chuck Grassley had a town hall in which he was asked this question
"They’re saying that they’re going to start, in 2013, putting microchips in government workers and then any kid that enrolls in school, starting in pre-school, will have a microchip implanted in them so that they can track them. [...] Is that true?"
Now Grassley gave the following answer:
"No. First of all, nothing can be done to your body without your permission. It’d be a violation of the constitutional right to privacy if that were to happen."
Now to be fair, Grassley is 100% correct in his argument. There is however one small problem, the first mention of the constitutional right to privacy was in the Supreme Court case Roe V Wade, that legalized abortion. Multiple pro choice organizations have rated Senator Grassley a "0" or "F" in terms of his support for right to choose as he has dedicated much of his senatorial career to attempting to overturn Roe v Wade and using his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to grill federal court nominees on their potential stands on Roe v Wade. Which apparently he has never read, so doesnt know that's were the right to privacy come from OR is actually dedicated to removing the road block to forcing your children to be Microchipped.
Second up, that same day, at the same town hall, responding to a different question, this time about why he didnt support the Violence Against Women Act, Senator Grassley said this
"One provision that non-Native Americans can be tried in tribal court. And why is that a big thing? Because of the constitutionality of it, for two reasons. One, you know how the law is, that if you have a jury, the jury is supposed to be a reflection of society. [...] So you get non-Indians, let me say to make it easy, you get non-Indians going into a reservation and violating a woman. They need to be prosecuted. They aren’t prosecuted. So the idea behind [VAWA] is we’ll try them in tribal court. But under the laws of our land, you got to have a jury that is a reflection of society as a whole, and on an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right? So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial."
Yea um on that bolded part, I think i can dig up a few million or so black people who might be able to explain to you how thats not the case....or Women....or Latinos......or well anyone who's not a white man.
Hell I can even dig up some lawyers who will likely tell you one of the major goals of jury selection is to get a jury you believe will be able to connect with your client, even if only on racial or gender lines.
So yea, apparently its not just Roe V Wade he hasnt read, its the entire Constitution, or at least the 6th amendment, you know the things he checks to make sure judges understand before he confirms them, that might be hard to do since he's never read it.
Next up on the motorcade of the moronic Congressman Louie Gomert, explaining why you need to buy a gun and why your right to do so should never even be the slightest bit infringed.
"[The Second Amendment] is for our protection and the founders’ quotes make that very very clear and including against a government that would run amuck. We’ve got some people who think Sharia Law should be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there… to make sure all of the rest of the Amendments are followed."
I'm pretty sure the only people who think Sharia law should be the law of the land are either the sources right wingers make up in order to scare you into voting for them (since no one agrees with them on any issue) and/or the voices in your head.
Also as far a suggesting shooting people who practice different religions 1) I think your kinda forgetting to follow the other amendments (namely the first) and 2) Oak Creek mean anything to you congressman? If it doesnt I would tell you to look it up, but I know you wont because you clearly hate reading and facts, and you dont read my blog anyways since I use words larger then one syllable.
And up next, a history making first for this blog, the first ever Third nomination in a single week (see this week in stupid part 1 for the other two), to FOX news. This time it was contributor Lisa Daftari taking about the expansion of Al Jazeera into US markets.
"They’re apparently expanding to eight cities, including Detroit, Michigan. Detroit, Michigan is a large ex-pat community of Muslim-Americans and sleeper cells have been detected. You can Google this, you can find out all this information. So if you’re trying to set yourself apart the Qatari petro-dollars are backing this, you’re still developing in this area where the sleeper cells have been detected."
Now to be fair to Mrs. Daft-and-airy I did once hear of Muslim Sleeper cell being run out of Detroit ...the problem? it was run by this guy:
 |
| WWE's Muhammad Hassan, Billed from Detroit |
By the way who wants to be the one to tell Mrs. Daftari that the number two shareholder in the company she works for is this guy:
 |
| Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, Second largest shareholder in FOX's Parent company Newscorp. |
but hey, luckily to work at fox you only need to look hot and be like Ron Burgundy and read what ever is on the teleprompter without thinking about it.
 |
| Look hot? Check. Brainless? check. You're hired, welcome to FOX. |
Next up, and our winner for Dick of the week, even if he didnt get Stupidest person of the week, Senator John McCain.
Mrs. Teves also recently attended a Town Hall hosted by McCain, and again explained what happened to her son, and asked about McCain's refusal to support the Assault Weapons Ban. McCain's reply?
"I can tell you right now you need some straight talk..."
Actually you know what, let me stop you right there Senator. You know how when you get back to some hot girl's place, and she goes into the bathroom and changes into what she thinks is sexy lingerie and kinda slinks out of the bathroom and asks you what you think? Well you know how "You look like a gutter slut" is the wrong answer.
Yea same deal with telling any one who just lost a kid "I can tell right now you need some straight talk".
Especially given what you followed it up with:
“I can tell you right now you need some straight talk. That assault weapons ban will not pass the Congress of the United States.”
Yea see thats kinda WHY shes asking you the question, telling her basically he question is stupid and thats straight talk she needs to hear really is a dick move.
Next up the final nominee for this part of the week, and once again making history as I give yet another nomination to FOX news, (their 4th of the week....btw if anyone at FOX is reading this and you want to know why your ratings are at a 12 year low, I can think of at least 4 reasons) this time to Bob Beckel and "the five".
Now for those who dont know Mr. Beckel he's one of the 5 hosts of the show "the Five" and his role is to pretend to be the liberal one, by saying things conservatives pretend liberals would say like saying in reference to Julian Assange that because he [Beckel] was anti death penalty the only thing to do would be "illegally shoot the son of a bitch" referred to Jews at a Romney fundraiser as "a bunch of diamond merchants we don’t know the names of. "and suggest all nudists were "probably gang-banged [as children], I don't know!" Now to be fair, those quotes are just from when he is on the five, every time hes on another show he gives the standard conservative line. In fact he is the guest in the video embedded in this post who cant possibly agree with Bill O'Reily more about something Bill was wrong about and everyone else already knew
In otherwords if this guy is a liberal I'm Batman AND Spiderman.
Now thats just the context for this next quote, said earlier this week while pretending to play the role of a liberal trying to explain why colleges shouldnt allow for conceal carry to stop rape?
"When's the last time you heard about rape on a college campus?"
Which of course led to absolute shock from the rest of the panel.
now of course as Mr. Beckel, and the rest of the Five well know, College campuses are where women are MOST likely to get raped, and usually through non violent means (roofies).
Luckily for all of us Mr. Beckel's not too good with his assignment to pretend to be a liberal so the stuff he says comes across as so stupid it just gets laughed at. But I'd say it says something about how FOX views its own viewers that they think their viewers are stupid enough to fall for his act.
BUT at the end of the day, while McCain and Beckel may need to fight it out for "Dick of the week" our stupidest person of the week is still Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin, who won the first part of the week with her comment about Babies being organs.
Sorry guys, better luck next time.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Right Wing reality break refuses to allow them to admit that they got played.
So if you read my blog over the last couple of weeks, you probably saw my blog on why Defense Secritary Nominee Chuck Hagel was blocked.
If you didnt all you need to know is one of the big reasons for the block was about alleged unreported anti Israel speeches and payments for said speeches given to Hagel by what was first called "north korean or Iranian groups" as SenatorJoe McCarthy Ted Cruz called it them on the Senate floor.
This appears to have been based on a story published by Breitbart.com called "SECRET HAGEL DONOR?: WHITE HOUSE SPOX DUCKS QUESTION ON 'FRIENDS OF HAMAS'"
By the way, if the name Breitbart sounds familiar, this is the same group who faked the ACORN scandal by doctoring tapes, faked the Shirley Sherrod incident by editing her words, and at the time of the untimely death of the sites founder and namesake last year were working on a huge story, which they released, that they claim was a top secret never seen tape the white house never wanted released in which President Obama as a college student was shown hugging a known terrorist.......well except the known terrorist turned out to be a college professor and the tape came from a PBS documentary that had run in 2009 that Obama had given them the footage for.
In otherwords slightly less credible then The Onion as a source.....in fact the group "Friends of Hamas" was found, shockingly not to actually exist less then a day after the story was posted. Which was sadly a waste of journalism, cause really what front group for a terrorist organization would actually be stupid enough to include the groups name in theirs? it defeats the point. (in fact according to slates Dave Weigel it took him all of 20 minutes to call the FBI and the Treasury department to confirm neither of them had ever heard of or were watching the finances of a group called friends of Hamas)
Not that that stopped it from spreading, I mean Cruz had started it on the Senate floor, so soon everyone was running with it.
CNN contributor Erick Ericson posted it on his website, Redstate.com.
The online version of the well known conservative newsletter National Review ran the story.
FOX news ran the story.
And one of their hosts, former govenor and presidential contender Mike Huckabee got into the act as well, saying on tour in Israel that "If it proves true the rumors of Chuck Hagel's having received funds from Friends of Hamas, if that's true than on its face that would disqualify him,"
The Washington Times even ran a piece, that capitalized on the name "friends of hamas" in the headline, however only referred to "friends of a terrorist organization" in the article.
Senator Rand Paul chimed in on the Hugh Hewitt radio show saying specifically in regards to Friends of Hamas:
"You know, I saw that information today, also, and that is more and more concerning. With each day, there are new things coming out. So part of me wonders if the nomination continues to go on, and we’ll see how that goes. There are also either some organizations or corporations he’s been involved with that people, Ted Cruz in particular, has been asking are there any foreign contributors. And I think that is important. If you’re going to be in that high level a position in our government, we need to know if you have foreign sponsors, or have had foreign contributors. And I think that is pretty important, because people, that’s something that needs to be known."
Now remember the group doesnt actually exist. And just in case their was doubt, take the word of the man who accidentally named the fictional group, Daily News Reporter Dan Friedman.
See he saw Ted Cruz's totally off the wall baseless accusations but figured he would actually do his job and look into the story anyways, just on the off chance he was on to something. So he called a Republican congressional staffer. Mr. Friedman relates the story in the daily news as follows
"I called a Republican aide on Capitol Hill with a question: Did Hagel’s Senate critics know of controversial groups that he had addressed?
Hagel was in hot water for alleged hostility to Israel. So, I asked my source, had Hagel given a speech to, say, the “Junior League of Hezbollah, in France”? And: What about “Friends of Hamas”?
The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed — let alone that a former senator would speak to them.
Or so I thought.
The aide promised to get back to me. I followed up with an e-mail, as a reminder: “Did he get $25K speaking fee from Friends of Hamas?” I asked.
The source never responded, and I moved on."
If you didnt all you need to know is one of the big reasons for the block was about alleged unreported anti Israel speeches and payments for said speeches given to Hagel by what was first called "north korean or Iranian groups" as Senator
By the way, if the name Breitbart sounds familiar, this is the same group who faked the ACORN scandal by doctoring tapes, faked the Shirley Sherrod incident by editing her words, and at the time of the untimely death of the sites founder and namesake last year were working on a huge story, which they released, that they claim was a top secret never seen tape the white house never wanted released in which President Obama as a college student was shown hugging a known terrorist.......well except the known terrorist turned out to be a college professor and the tape came from a PBS documentary that had run in 2009 that Obama had given them the footage for.
In otherwords slightly less credible then The Onion as a source.....in fact the group "Friends of Hamas" was found, shockingly not to actually exist less then a day after the story was posted. Which was sadly a waste of journalism, cause really what front group for a terrorist organization would actually be stupid enough to include the groups name in theirs? it defeats the point. (in fact according to slates Dave Weigel it took him all of 20 minutes to call the FBI and the Treasury department to confirm neither of them had ever heard of or were watching the finances of a group called friends of Hamas)
Not that that stopped it from spreading, I mean Cruz had started it on the Senate floor, so soon everyone was running with it.
CNN contributor Erick Ericson posted it on his website, Redstate.com.
The online version of the well known conservative newsletter National Review ran the story.
FOX news ran the story.
And one of their hosts, former govenor and presidential contender Mike Huckabee got into the act as well, saying on tour in Israel that "If it proves true the rumors of Chuck Hagel's having received funds from Friends of Hamas, if that's true than on its face that would disqualify him,"
The Washington Times even ran a piece, that capitalized on the name "friends of hamas" in the headline, however only referred to "friends of a terrorist organization" in the article.
Senator Rand Paul chimed in on the Hugh Hewitt radio show saying specifically in regards to Friends of Hamas:
"You know, I saw that information today, also, and that is more and more concerning. With each day, there are new things coming out. So part of me wonders if the nomination continues to go on, and we’ll see how that goes. There are also either some organizations or corporations he’s been involved with that people, Ted Cruz in particular, has been asking are there any foreign contributors. And I think that is important. If you’re going to be in that high level a position in our government, we need to know if you have foreign sponsors, or have had foreign contributors. And I think that is pretty important, because people, that’s something that needs to be known."
Now remember the group doesnt actually exist. And just in case their was doubt, take the word of the man who accidentally named the fictional group, Daily News Reporter Dan Friedman.
See he saw Ted Cruz's totally off the wall baseless accusations but figured he would actually do his job and look into the story anyways, just on the off chance he was on to something. So he called a Republican congressional staffer. Mr. Friedman relates the story in the daily news as follows
"I called a Republican aide on Capitol Hill with a question: Did Hagel’s Senate critics know of controversial groups that he had addressed?
Hagel was in hot water for alleged hostility to Israel. So, I asked my source, had Hagel given a speech to, say, the “Junior League of Hezbollah, in France”? And: What about “Friends of Hamas”?
The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed — let alone that a former senator would speak to them.
Or so I thought.
The aide promised to get back to me. I followed up with an e-mail, as a reminder: “Did he get $25K speaking fee from Friends of Hamas?” I asked.
The source never responded, and I moved on."
The next day is when Breitbart ran the story about Friends of Hamas.
By the way, how did Breitbart react to news that they had [once again] run a totally fictionally story?
Same as they always do, by denying its fiction, quoting the statement from their editor
"Since the original “Friends of Hamas” story was written, the media has downplayed or ignored the myriad of borderline anti-Semitic Hagel comments regarding Iran and the State of Israel, as well as the “Jewish lobby.” They have deliberately obstructed news coverage of Hagel’s well-documented supported base among friends of Hamas. Instead of asking Hagel to release the requested documents, the media has attacked Breitbart News."
Republicans want to know why your party is out of touch with Americans, generally disliked, and cant win what should have been a "gimmie" election. This is why. First it was the Un-skewed polls, showing Romney would win in a landslide, now this. This is how deep the so called rabbit hole goes. You hear anything that sounds like a story you might like and you go full out all guns blasting and never actually bother to do any real work. Your rather trash Obama then be accurate, and then when confronting with that fact, claim no you KNOW the lie is real damn it, because you like how it sounds.
Although honestly I'm wasting my breath, none of you will ever come out of the bubble enough to read this....
By the way, how did Breitbart react to news that they had [once again] run a totally fictionally story?
Same as they always do, by denying its fiction, quoting the statement from their editor
"Since the original “Friends of Hamas” story was written, the media has downplayed or ignored the myriad of borderline anti-Semitic Hagel comments regarding Iran and the State of Israel, as well as the “Jewish lobby.” They have deliberately obstructed news coverage of Hagel’s well-documented supported base among friends of Hamas. Instead of asking Hagel to release the requested documents, the media has attacked Breitbart News."
Republicans want to know why your party is out of touch with Americans, generally disliked, and cant win what should have been a "gimmie" election. This is why. First it was the Un-skewed polls, showing Romney would win in a landslide, now this. This is how deep the so called rabbit hole goes. You hear anything that sounds like a story you might like and you go full out all guns blasting and never actually bother to do any real work. Your rather trash Obama then be accurate, and then when confronting with that fact, claim no you KNOW the lie is real damn it, because you like how it sounds.
Although honestly I'm wasting my breath, none of you will ever come out of the bubble enough to read this....
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
This week (so far) in stupid.
Generally I tend to avoid doing these until near the end of the week, but if the rest of this week is anything like the first couple days I'm gonna wind up writing a novel. So I'm gonna go ahead and cut my loses do a week in stupid now, and if needed one later this week too.
First off a double nomination to FOX news and FOX Business, for their comments on President Obama's proposal on universal kindergarten.
First FOX new talking moron Stuart Varney who said
"Look what the president is doing here, it’s a repeat performance of his campaign, which is you raise taxes on the rich and you offer all kinds of free stuff to people who will vote for you in the future. Free preschool education for 4-year-olds, it’s free, here it is. Hand out the goodies."
Right because you know, 4 elections from now, when those 4 year olds can vote Barack Obama is going to be on the ticket.
Or lets take the other possible interpretation, he meant the parents of the 4 year olds who no longer have to pay for Kindergarten will be the ones who vote for Barack Obama next time.
Course both of these have the same problem, its called the 22nd amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the a person from being President more then twice.
Although I suppose its possible Varney is one of those who thinks Obama's bungling of the oath the first time around meant he wasnt actually president....in which case I supposed Obama could run again.....
Anyways on to the other paid network of real life Ron Burgundy teleprompter monkeys, FOX Business and their swing and miss on the issue.
See according to host Gerri Willis (yea I never heard of her either, shes one of the interchangeable wonder-blondes over there)
"I have to tell you, I think it’s immoral to make all of these promises, when you know you can’t afford it, we can’t afford it. Preschool for everyone, are you kidding me? We don’t have the money for that! … This is just crazy talk and I think it’s immoral to put this across as something that’s actually doable, when it’s not."
1) Immoral? really......umm Inigo do you mind handling this one?
First off a double nomination to FOX news and FOX Business, for their comments on President Obama's proposal on universal kindergarten.
First FOX new talking moron Stuart Varney who said
"Look what the president is doing here, it’s a repeat performance of his campaign, which is you raise taxes on the rich and you offer all kinds of free stuff to people who will vote for you in the future. Free preschool education for 4-year-olds, it’s free, here it is. Hand out the goodies."
Right because you know, 4 elections from now, when those 4 year olds can vote Barack Obama is going to be on the ticket.
Or lets take the other possible interpretation, he meant the parents of the 4 year olds who no longer have to pay for Kindergarten will be the ones who vote for Barack Obama next time.
Course both of these have the same problem, its called the 22nd amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the a person from being President more then twice.
Although I suppose its possible Varney is one of those who thinks Obama's bungling of the oath the first time around meant he wasnt actually president....in which case I supposed Obama could run again.....
Anyways on to the other paid network of real life Ron Burgundy teleprompter monkeys, FOX Business and their swing and miss on the issue.
See according to host Gerri Willis (yea I never heard of her either, shes one of the interchangeable wonder-blondes over there)
"I have to tell you, I think it’s immoral to make all of these promises, when you know you can’t afford it, we can’t afford it. Preschool for everyone, are you kidding me? We don’t have the money for that! … This is just crazy talk and I think it’s immoral to put this across as something that’s actually doable, when it’s not."
1) Immoral? really......umm Inigo do you mind handling this one?
Thank you. Just saying suggesting a way to improve education doesnt really fit the idea of immoral, even if you dont agree.
2) Yea my guess is it would be pretty doable. I mean we know it works thanks to Oklahoma and Georgia cause they are already doing it.
And while I grant Georgia may be flipping blue very very soon, their really isnt any state reder then Oklahoma. So if those super conservatives could figure out how to pay for it, I dont think we will have any trouble......especially since they paid for it by ending a failed education program and moving the costs over, which as I remember is the alleged Republican position on "no child left behind" Problem solved. your welcome. :P
2) Yea my guess is it would be pretty doable. I mean we know it works thanks to Oklahoma and Georgia cause they are already doing it.
And while I grant Georgia may be flipping blue very very soon, their really isnt any state reder then Oklahoma. So if those super conservatives could figure out how to pay for it, I dont think we will have any trouble......especially since they paid for it by ending a failed education program and moving the costs over, which as I remember is the alleged Republican position on "no child left behind" Problem solved. your welcome. :P
Next up former Democratic Representative and 1 of 16 candidates for Representative to fill Jesse Jackson Jr's seat Debbie Halvortson.
See as a former Rep Mrs. Halvortson, should be the front runner and even the presumptive winner in a race against 16 nobody's, but shes not, because it turns out Mrs. Halvortson has a little problem; Her NRA rating, which is an "A".
And it turns out the NRA aint too popular these days where shes running. A point picked up on in a new ad highlighting that rating run on behalf of one of her competitors who as it happens has an "F" rating from the NRA and is proud of it.
All of which sent Mrs. Halvorson to right wing media (surprisingly) to try to clear all of this up. According to national review who interviewed her (and FOX, but I'm using the NR interview for the quotes)
"Halvorson calls the ads “over the top” and “deplorable,” in part because she has systematically disavowed the positions that earned her that “A” rating."
Flip flopping....that always works well.
But what got Mrs. Halvorson here today was her excuse for flip flopping. "Asked about her change of heart, Halvorson offers a curious explanation. Because of redistricting, she says, she now represents a different constituency. “It’s kind of ironic that they’re trying to take my stance from my old district and do what they’re doing,”
So basically, she told the last people what they wanted to hear, not necessarily what she believes, and now shes telling you what you want to hear which still may or may not be what she believes.
So your flip flopping AND claiming you lie to everyone about your position. Yea this is a winning technique here....
Now for someone, who if you read this blog regularly you'll notice is getting more and more attention for slowly losing his mind, Senator Lindsey Graham.
Ok so to sum up in a sentence, the big issue with the sequester is Democrats want it to go away, and Republicans only want the defense cuts to go away and want the social program cuts to be doubled. Which has created an impasse in Washington.
Which led Lindsey Graham to propose a brand new solution
"If you want to look at ways to find $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade, look at Obamacare, don’t destroy the military and cut blindly across the board."
In otherwords Lindsey Grahams new proposal is basically to do exactly what the GOP wants AND cut Obamacare. Some compromise, I'm almost tempting to let Inigo handle this one too.
But honestly I kinda get the logic behind Grahams proposal.
After all he is up for reelection in 2014 and the right wing of the GOP thinks hes a sell out and want to replace him. And they are too stupid (or he thinks they are) to realize no president is going to repeal his signature legislation and the GOP will never have the votes to override a veto.
And of course their is the other problem with Obamacare, which was that the GOP decided it was a good idea to use that name (instead of the Affordable Care Act) to deride it, only to see it stand and become more popular everyday, and have the Obamacare name just be the general short hand for referring to it, ensuring that is what it will always be called, and should it follow all other entitlement and be massively popular, ensuring they just made Obama into a legendary president on the name of the bill alone, so they absolutly must repeal it.
Which is the other reason Graham is willing to say or do anything, including make the insane accusation that cutting a program that hasnt actually be implemented yet (2014 is the start date) would actually save money.
So yea Senator....which all due respect (which is dropping daily) you fail basic chronology. NEXT!
Next up our runner up in the race to the bottom of the barrel of brainpower, Missouri state Rep. Mike Leara.
Mr. Leara just proposed a new bill the ENTIRETY of which is below:
“Any member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bear arms, as set forth under the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States, shall be guilty of a class D felony,”
Now their are two problems with Mr. Leara's bill. The first is the obvious one, who exactly gets to make the determination as to what restricts the right of an individual to bear arms? The SCOTUS? the State Courts? the words "Well Regulated" in the second Amendment? Mike Leara? The person proposing the bill?
Basically Mr. Leara has proposed a bill that cant be enforced because there is no standard that can be used to enforce it.
But thats actually NOT why Mr. Leara made it here today, that would be for the second problem in his bill. See it turns out the bill is outright and specifically unconstitutional. Not the US Constitution (although an argument could be made for the federal supremacy clause and the federal government alone being able to interpret and enforce its laws not the states) the Missouri state Constitution. Article III section 19 reads
"Senators and representatives shall, in all cases except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during the session of the general assembly, and for the fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session; and they shall not be questioned for any speech or debate in either house in any other place."
See as a former Rep Mrs. Halvortson, should be the front runner and even the presumptive winner in a race against 16 nobody's, but shes not, because it turns out Mrs. Halvortson has a little problem; Her NRA rating, which is an "A".
And it turns out the NRA aint too popular these days where shes running. A point picked up on in a new ad highlighting that rating run on behalf of one of her competitors who as it happens has an "F" rating from the NRA and is proud of it.
All of which sent Mrs. Halvorson to right wing media (surprisingly) to try to clear all of this up. According to national review who interviewed her (and FOX, but I'm using the NR interview for the quotes)
"Halvorson calls the ads “over the top” and “deplorable,” in part because she has systematically disavowed the positions that earned her that “A” rating."
Flip flopping....that always works well.
But what got Mrs. Halvorson here today was her excuse for flip flopping. "Asked about her change of heart, Halvorson offers a curious explanation. Because of redistricting, she says, she now represents a different constituency. “It’s kind of ironic that they’re trying to take my stance from my old district and do what they’re doing,”
So basically, she told the last people what they wanted to hear, not necessarily what she believes, and now shes telling you what you want to hear which still may or may not be what she believes.
So your flip flopping AND claiming you lie to everyone about your position. Yea this is a winning technique here....
Now for someone, who if you read this blog regularly you'll notice is getting more and more attention for slowly losing his mind, Senator Lindsey Graham.
Ok so to sum up in a sentence, the big issue with the sequester is Democrats want it to go away, and Republicans only want the defense cuts to go away and want the social program cuts to be doubled. Which has created an impasse in Washington.
Which led Lindsey Graham to propose a brand new solution
"If you want to look at ways to find $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade, look at Obamacare, don’t destroy the military and cut blindly across the board."
In otherwords Lindsey Grahams new proposal is basically to do exactly what the GOP wants AND cut Obamacare. Some compromise, I'm almost tempting to let Inigo handle this one too.
But honestly I kinda get the logic behind Grahams proposal.
After all he is up for reelection in 2014 and the right wing of the GOP thinks hes a sell out and want to replace him. And they are too stupid (or he thinks they are) to realize no president is going to repeal his signature legislation and the GOP will never have the votes to override a veto.
And of course their is the other problem with Obamacare, which was that the GOP decided it was a good idea to use that name (instead of the Affordable Care Act) to deride it, only to see it stand and become more popular everyday, and have the Obamacare name just be the general short hand for referring to it, ensuring that is what it will always be called, and should it follow all other entitlement and be massively popular, ensuring they just made Obama into a legendary president on the name of the bill alone, so they absolutly must repeal it.
Which is the other reason Graham is willing to say or do anything, including make the insane accusation that cutting a program that hasnt actually be implemented yet (2014 is the start date) would actually save money.
So yea Senator....which all due respect (which is dropping daily) you fail basic chronology. NEXT!
Next up our runner up in the race to the bottom of the barrel of brainpower, Missouri state Rep. Mike Leara.
Mr. Leara just proposed a new bill the ENTIRETY of which is below:
“Any member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bear arms, as set forth under the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States, shall be guilty of a class D felony,”
Now their are two problems with Mr. Leara's bill. The first is the obvious one, who exactly gets to make the determination as to what restricts the right of an individual to bear arms? The SCOTUS? the State Courts? the words "Well Regulated" in the second Amendment? Mike Leara? The person proposing the bill?
Basically Mr. Leara has proposed a bill that cant be enforced because there is no standard that can be used to enforce it.
But thats actually NOT why Mr. Leara made it here today, that would be for the second problem in his bill. See it turns out the bill is outright and specifically unconstitutional. Not the US Constitution (although an argument could be made for the federal supremacy clause and the federal government alone being able to interpret and enforce its laws not the states) the Missouri state Constitution. Article III section 19 reads
"Senators and representatives shall, in all cases except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during the session of the general assembly, and for the fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session; and they shall not be questioned for any speech or debate in either house in any other place."
In other words you cant pass a law making it illegal to bring up a topic of conversation on any issue.
To be fair Mr. Leara is kinda aware his bill sucks as he told a website (TPM just so I dont get in trouble)
“I filed HB 633 as a matter of principle and as a statement in defense of the Second Amendment rights of all Missourians, I have no illusions about the bill making it through the legislative process, but I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
See he knows his bill cant pass, but he did it anyways to make a stand.....and well to make himself look like a dumb ass
All i got to say about that is
To be fair Mr. Leara is kinda aware his bill sucks as he told a website (TPM just so I dont get in trouble)
“I filed HB 633 as a matter of principle and as a statement in defense of the Second Amendment rights of all Missourians, I have no illusions about the bill making it through the legislative process, but I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
See he knows his bill cant pass, but he did it anyways to make a stand.....and well to make himself look like a dumb ass
All i got to say about that is
| I did try to find a picture of just the banner, but its impossible |
AND NOW, Drumroll please......OUR STUPIDEST PERSON OF THE WEEK!!!!!!!!(so far)
In fact this one is so stupid I dont even have to explain the comment, so here it is, Alabama state Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin, attempting to defend more restrictions on abortion clinics
"When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body, That's a big thing. That's a big surgery. You don't have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that."
I guess we should be grateful actually. I mean for once shes clearly not arguing life begins at conception, so I suppose this is an improvement. That said if anyone knows her old high school (or college, though some how I doubt it) biology teacher, tell him/her they are fired for being bad at their jobs.
Now the question is, how much stupid has yet to emerge this week and will Mrs. McClurkin still be atop brain-dead mountain by the end of the week? If I have to write another one of these this week, probably not, but so far I think shes got a great shot of winning this week.
Until next time, this was This week (so far) in stupid.
In fact this one is so stupid I dont even have to explain the comment, so here it is, Alabama state Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin, attempting to defend more restrictions on abortion clinics
"When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body, That's a big thing. That's a big surgery. You don't have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that."
I guess we should be grateful actually. I mean for once shes clearly not arguing life begins at conception, so I suppose this is an improvement. That said if anyone knows her old high school (or college, though some how I doubt it) biology teacher, tell him/her they are fired for being bad at their jobs.
Now the question is, how much stupid has yet to emerge this week and will Mrs. McClurkin still be atop brain-dead mountain by the end of the week? If I have to write another one of these this week, probably not, but so far I think shes got a great shot of winning this week.
Until next time, this was This week (so far) in stupid.
Be Careful what you wish against.....you just might get it.
So as I'm sure you've heard, the Republicans are really really really really against the idea of nationalized medicine. They are also really really really really against the idea of the federal government doing anything the state government could do.
Or at least thats what they claim. But now, thanks almost entirely to republicans we are closer to a nationalized, federally run, medical programs then ever before in history.
See despite what the Republicans would like you do believe, Obamacare, for good or bad, wasnt nationalized medicine. It was actually designed to be run by the states, so they could model all the exchanges to get to best plan for their own states residents much better then the federal government.
Or at least that was the idea. But it turns out due to republican unwillingness to embrace their own idea, first pitched by Orinn Hatch and the Heritage Foundation back in the 90's, the government now has to use plan B, actually making it a national run plan.
Now before you can even finish the thought "the government cant alter the law like that" let me cut you off, they dont have too. See its been in the law all along, quite clear. In fact I warned republicans about this a few months ago. Sadly none of them read my blog which is depressing.
If the states refused to implement the exchanges by a set date, which the Obama Administration moved back already to try to give more states a chance to get set up, the federal government will come in and do it for you....possibly at state expense.
And that new later deadline just came and went. So how many states decided to let the federal government come in and steal some of the states power and possibly their budget? 26.
Thats right, more then half the county will now have its healthcare managed directly by the Federal Government.
This being the same Federal Government that both passed, and now cant figure out how to stop the Sequester, the same Federal Government who just had some of its members block a confirmation hearing because they claimed the nominee took money from an organization that was made up by a website in a fake news report (that the site itself claimed was real)
Yea those guys are now directly responsible for half the country getting cheap and affordable and good health care.
Now how do you know if your one of the Lucky people who now has to rely on the federal government being competent to get healthcare?
Well the best indicator is what party does your governor belong too? If they are a Republican, then I hope your one of the 9% that approves of the job congress is doing, cause they now have direct control of your healthcare.
The only real "out" you have is if your Governor is a republican and you live out in the West, the republican governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico actually retained state power by setting up their own exchanges, as, to be fair did the governors of Michigan and Iowa. (Nevada to be fair has a fully Democratic controlled legislature)
Now oddly, since i did say its MOSTLY republicans, the inverse is true if your a Democrat, the Governors of Montana and Missouri didnt make their own exchanges. (Missouri however has full GOP control of the legislature and of the Lt. Gov)
Now even if the 24 states that approved setting up an exchange that the state runs, 7 of them asked to set up a Federal/State partnership, where the federal government will basically help run and manage, and therefore have limited control over the exchange. (the 7 states being Arkansas, Delaware, West Virginia Illinois, New Hampshire and republican run Iowa and Michigan....also Republican run South Dakota asked to set up the same system even though they did not approve setting up a state exchange) Now granted as of today only 3 of those states (AK IL DE) have been approved for a partnership, but the rest likely will be.
Now what this means is that, only 17 states will actually be fully free and independent of what the federal government wants, with 33 states either fully or partly under the control of DC, which what amounts to a nationalized federally run system.
And of those 33 states under federal control, 26 of them are entirely due to the refusal of the Republican Governors to implement Obamacare, as they decided to take a principled stand on the myth that Obamacare was nationalized medicine.....and as a result have turned Obamacare in to a nationalized medicine program.
So as the title says, Be careful what you wish against.......you just might get it.
Meanwhile hat tip to the states of Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico (and Missouri )for being "States right's" Republican States and being the only ones smart enough to read the bill and figure out how to hold on to states rights. I believe this now makes you the only 3 states with smart republicans, given how things turned out for your 26 fellows.
Or at least thats what they claim. But now, thanks almost entirely to republicans we are closer to a nationalized, federally run, medical programs then ever before in history.
See despite what the Republicans would like you do believe, Obamacare, for good or bad, wasnt nationalized medicine. It was actually designed to be run by the states, so they could model all the exchanges to get to best plan for their own states residents much better then the federal government.
Or at least that was the idea. But it turns out due to republican unwillingness to embrace their own idea, first pitched by Orinn Hatch and the Heritage Foundation back in the 90's, the government now has to use plan B, actually making it a national run plan.
Now before you can even finish the thought "the government cant alter the law like that" let me cut you off, they dont have too. See its been in the law all along, quite clear. In fact I warned republicans about this a few months ago. Sadly none of them read my blog which is depressing.
If the states refused to implement the exchanges by a set date, which the Obama Administration moved back already to try to give more states a chance to get set up, the federal government will come in and do it for you....possibly at state expense.
And that new later deadline just came and went. So how many states decided to let the federal government come in and steal some of the states power and possibly their budget? 26.
Thats right, more then half the county will now have its healthcare managed directly by the Federal Government.
This being the same Federal Government that both passed, and now cant figure out how to stop the Sequester, the same Federal Government who just had some of its members block a confirmation hearing because they claimed the nominee took money from an organization that was made up by a website in a fake news report (that the site itself claimed was real)
Yea those guys are now directly responsible for half the country getting cheap and affordable and good health care.
Now how do you know if your one of the Lucky people who now has to rely on the federal government being competent to get healthcare?
Well the best indicator is what party does your governor belong too? If they are a Republican, then I hope your one of the 9% that approves of the job congress is doing, cause they now have direct control of your healthcare.
The only real "out" you have is if your Governor is a republican and you live out in the West, the republican governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico actually retained state power by setting up their own exchanges, as, to be fair did the governors of Michigan and Iowa. (Nevada to be fair has a fully Democratic controlled legislature)
Now oddly, since i did say its MOSTLY republicans, the inverse is true if your a Democrat, the Governors of Montana and Missouri didnt make their own exchanges. (Missouri however has full GOP control of the legislature and of the Lt. Gov)
Now even if the 24 states that approved setting up an exchange that the state runs, 7 of them asked to set up a Federal/State partnership, where the federal government will basically help run and manage, and therefore have limited control over the exchange. (the 7 states being Arkansas, Delaware, West Virginia Illinois, New Hampshire and republican run Iowa and Michigan....also Republican run South Dakota asked to set up the same system even though they did not approve setting up a state exchange) Now granted as of today only 3 of those states (AK IL DE) have been approved for a partnership, but the rest likely will be.
Now what this means is that, only 17 states will actually be fully free and independent of what the federal government wants, with 33 states either fully or partly under the control of DC, which what amounts to a nationalized federally run system.
And of those 33 states under federal control, 26 of them are entirely due to the refusal of the Republican Governors to implement Obamacare, as they decided to take a principled stand on the myth that Obamacare was nationalized medicine.....and as a result have turned Obamacare in to a nationalized medicine program.
So as the title says, Be careful what you wish against.......you just might get it.
Meanwhile hat tip to the states of Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico (and Missouri )for being "States right's" Republican States and being the only ones smart enough to read the bill and figure out how to hold on to states rights. I believe this now makes you the only 3 states with smart republicans, given how things turned out for your 26 fellows.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Chuck Hagel IOKIYAR
So today we are going to do something a little different, if you'll indulge me for a minute lets play pretend.
Lets pretend a disabled Vietnam veteran, who also happened to be a republican senator, was up for a job, but became the first person in history unable to get that job, despite having all the qualification and support needed. And lets say that particular job was heading up the US military, during a time a war, and his absence leaves the military leaderless. And lets say the reason this particular republican was blocked was because the senate minority was pissed off about something he had nothing to do with, and because of an allegation that its possible he was bribed by a foreign government, BUT the only evidence to back the charge up is the fact the veteran hasnt proven that he wasnt.
And then after blocking the appointment of a disabled Vietnam veteran, turned republican senator, for the job of heading up the military during a time of war based on an event he had nothing to do with and charges that are basically transparent bullshit. the minority that blocked him, then decided to go home for the next 10 days and take a vacation.....leaving the military without a head the entire time. And then say on the way out the door, they actually agree to drop the filibuster......just as soon as they get back from their vacation.
Can you just imagine how absolutely PISSED FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Right Wing Talk Radio and the right wing blogasphere would be if this ever was allowed to happened?
You can just hear them now, throwing out treason charges, and demanding the senators who blocked this man be impeached and accusing them of working with Americas enemies cant you?
Actually you dont have to imagine. Because that just happened. And for the record, none of the people I mentioned aren't really all that pissed. Flip on the TV and check if you dont believe me....you'll likely find them either supporting the move, or ignoring it.
You see, in the right wing IOKIYAR. Its OK If Your A Republican, seriously you can do whatever it is you like. and that little R after your name = "get out of jail free".
Or at least that appears to be whats happened here. Since the GOP just made history, blocking defense department appointee for any reason. Doesnt help the reasons basically have nothing to do with the nominee at all.
What I'm saying is this, this is a "bullshit call" no matter what your political party
Look their are legitimate reasons to hold up a nomination. John Brennan, the nominee to head the CIA is also being held up. But his is being held up over questions about memo's that he authored claiming legal authority for government officials, including the CIA head to execute american citizens without a trial via Drones.
So people want to know what rules/oversight if any are actually in place, before they approve a guy to a position where he has already claimed he had the power to kill you.
Thats not whats going on with Hagel.
Hagel was blocked specifically for 2 reasons:
1) Republicans want more information about what President Obama did the night of the Benghazi attacks. There are still some unanswered questions from that night the White House hasnt answered in the 20 briefing they did for congress on the subject (assuming unlike Ron Johnson and John McCain the rest of the GOP actually is going to these things......instead of skipping them to hold a press conference on how much they care). Important questions, like was Obama wearing boxers or briefs that night? What color was Hillary Clinton's pants suit? Did Obama put a Kufi on and do a victory lap around the White House screaming ALLAHU AKBAR when he heard about the attack? Those kinds of things. You know conspiratorial bullshit because they cant how it is less people died in Benghazi then did most of the embassy attacks under Bush/.
And what did Chuck Hagel have to do ith Benghazi anyways? nothing, dude was a private citizen at the time, presumably sitting at home looking at porn on the internet..........
But hey, we need to randomly block someone to get answers to important underwear related questions, so why not the Secretary of Defense at a time of war right?
2) and so far this one is solely the creation of Ted Cruz and the far right. Is Wounded Vietnam Chuck Hagel, secretly an enemy of the state, working for communist and/or Islamic government? After all as a private citizen Hagel set up 7 financial funds, one of which apparently did some foreign investing to the amount of $200,000.
Now doesnt it seem reasonable that that money was likely intentionally put in that fund by the North Korean government? or maybe it was the Iranians? (full disclosure by the way, I also have an investment fund that invests overseas, so its possible I am also a paid Iranian/North Korean/Islamic agent covering for Hagel)
Cruz himself has no evidence of that, but I mean it seems reasonable right? So clearly its up to Hagel to clear his name from charges made without evidence
And hey then there is the charge being made by a number of right wing Web Sites, that Hagel was actually paid off by a group called "Friends of Hamas" an accusation that was backed uo on on the Hugh Hewett Radio show by Senator Rand Paul, after Hewett suggested it to the Senator
there is however one small problem however, "Friends of Hamas", does not you know actually exist.
Oh and if you needed any more evidence this whole damn move, is basically an exercise in political masturbation: John McCain and Lindsey Graham said yesterday, on the floor, minutes after voting to filibuster, they would switch their votes and end the filibuster 10 days from now, when the senate comes back from vacation.
yea, thats right they said BEFORE THEY LEFT THE FLOOR, hey we just want to fuck around for a while and be dicks for dicks sake.
Of John McCain suffers from multiple personality disorder....especially on this issue, so his announcement that he expects not to agree with himself in 10 days makes sense.
For example, back when he was running for President, John McCain suggested Chuck Hagel would be at the top of the list for Secretary of State, he made the same suggestion (in addition to John Kerry) when he attacked Susan Rice earlier this year.
Hell earlier this week, when Ted Cruz suggested Hagel was an enemy of the state as a justification for the filibuster McCain, NOW supports, McCain defended Hagel and said this “No one on this committee should at any time impugn his character or his integrity.”
Now of course I suppose in 10 days McCain may change his mind about changing his mind. I mean he already debuted a whole new 2 reasons to block Hagel on FOX news this morning.
So two points here:
1) we now have Bullshit reason Number 3: Hagel was a meanie poo poo head by speaking out against his own party. By the way does anyone remember when John McCain ran for president on the premise he always spoke out against his own party? yea........oddly for once I guess its not IOKIYAR, instead IOKIYJM Its OK If Your John McCain....
2) now McCain thinks Hagel should step aside.....BUT also thinks Hagel will get the votes when they get back....after McCain flip flops on the filibuster.
Being for it before you were against it before you were before it? IOKIYAR Seriously no on called him on that yet.
Oh and one other flip flop by McCain, and Lindsey Graham for that matter: Before today's cloture vote 6 republicans pledged to break any attempt at a filibuster based on principal, even though many of them were going to vote against Hagel; Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Roy Blunt, Rodger Wicker, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
When time came to hold the vote, Blunt, Wicker and of course Graham and McCain, said "yea we know what we said, but fuck principals" for voted in favor of the Filibuster.......right before McCain and Graham pledged to honor their pledge to break the Filibuster next time.
To be fair this means, to their credit, Collins and Murkowski kept their word and voted against the filibuster...and were joined by Senators Thad Cochran and Mike Johanns, bringing the total number of votes to break the filibuster to 59....one short of what they needed. Too bad McCain cant be trusted to remember what he said for more then 30 seconds anymore, if he or Lindsey Graham had a set, we could have avoided this whole thing. But still legit thumbs up to those 4 Republicans, for not giving into bullshit, even though I think all of them are voting against Hagel when the vote comes.
Oh a couple other profiles in courage to highlight here too, but these are more of the sarcastic variety. You see Senator Orrin Hatch voted present and David Vitter refused to vote.
Oh one last point I need to bring up. Knowing full well that the first ever filibuster of a cabinet nominee by an actual minority will have far reaching implications for how nominations proceed in the future (such as say if the GOP ever has the White House but not 60 votes in the senate, and want to confirm nominees) Hatch and many other republicans are desperately trying to convince people this isnt a filibuster.
Take Senator Jim Inhofe for example who said "It's the 60-vote margin, it's not a filibuster." Yea see their is no such thing as the 60 vote margin, the Constitution clearly states Majority +1, which is 51. The only reason we ever need 60 votes is because thats what the Senate decided is needed to break a filibuster....therefore by definition if you have a 60 vote margin, you have a filibuster.
Senator Lamar Alexander also tried to claim this wasnt a filibuster, but his excuse was even worse. "We know what a filibuster is … it's when one side or the other… decides to try to kill a nomination by requiring 60 votes." then added "Do 60 of us believe it's time to end debate on the nomination to become Secretary of Defense?"
"See we arnt filibustering, filibustering would mean we oppose the guy.....and we have every intention of confirming him.....just not right now because we can bitch"
I mean I think that sums it up best of all. This is basically a joke, the GOP have turned confirmation hearings into an actual literal joke. And honestly no one seems to care, even left wing blogs have moved on to the next story.
yet we all know had Dem's done this it, especially for made up reasons that amounted to "why not" would be a major story for weeks. But hey it seems almost universal at this point IOKIYAR.
Lets pretend a disabled Vietnam veteran, who also happened to be a republican senator, was up for a job, but became the first person in history unable to get that job, despite having all the qualification and support needed. And lets say that particular job was heading up the US military, during a time a war, and his absence leaves the military leaderless. And lets say the reason this particular republican was blocked was because the senate minority was pissed off about something he had nothing to do with, and because of an allegation that its possible he was bribed by a foreign government, BUT the only evidence to back the charge up is the fact the veteran hasnt proven that he wasnt.
And then after blocking the appointment of a disabled Vietnam veteran, turned republican senator, for the job of heading up the military during a time of war based on an event he had nothing to do with and charges that are basically transparent bullshit. the minority that blocked him, then decided to go home for the next 10 days and take a vacation.....leaving the military without a head the entire time. And then say on the way out the door, they actually agree to drop the filibuster......just as soon as they get back from their vacation.
Can you just imagine how absolutely PISSED FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Right Wing Talk Radio and the right wing blogasphere would be if this ever was allowed to happened?
You can just hear them now, throwing out treason charges, and demanding the senators who blocked this man be impeached and accusing them of working with Americas enemies cant you?
Actually you dont have to imagine. Because that just happened. And for the record, none of the people I mentioned aren't really all that pissed. Flip on the TV and check if you dont believe me....you'll likely find them either supporting the move, or ignoring it.
You see, in the right wing IOKIYAR. Its OK If Your A Republican, seriously you can do whatever it is you like. and that little R after your name = "get out of jail free".
Or at least that appears to be whats happened here. Since the GOP just made history, blocking defense department appointee for any reason. Doesnt help the reasons basically have nothing to do with the nominee at all.
What I'm saying is this, this is a "bullshit call" no matter what your political party
Look their are legitimate reasons to hold up a nomination. John Brennan, the nominee to head the CIA is also being held up. But his is being held up over questions about memo's that he authored claiming legal authority for government officials, including the CIA head to execute american citizens without a trial via Drones.
So people want to know what rules/oversight if any are actually in place, before they approve a guy to a position where he has already claimed he had the power to kill you.
Thats not whats going on with Hagel.
Hagel was blocked specifically for 2 reasons:
1) Republicans want more information about what President Obama did the night of the Benghazi attacks. There are still some unanswered questions from that night the White House hasnt answered in the 20 briefing they did for congress on the subject (assuming unlike Ron Johnson and John McCain the rest of the GOP actually is going to these things......instead of skipping them to hold a press conference on how much they care). Important questions, like was Obama wearing boxers or briefs that night? What color was Hillary Clinton's pants suit? Did Obama put a Kufi on and do a victory lap around the White House screaming ALLAHU AKBAR when he heard about the attack? Those kinds of things. You know conspiratorial bullshit because they cant how it is less people died in Benghazi then did most of the embassy attacks under Bush/.
And what did Chuck Hagel have to do ith Benghazi anyways? nothing, dude was a private citizen at the time, presumably sitting at home looking at porn on the internet..........
But hey, we need to randomly block someone to get answers to important underwear related questions, so why not the Secretary of Defense at a time of war right?
2) and so far this one is solely the creation of Ted Cruz and the far right. Is Wounded Vietnam Chuck Hagel, secretly an enemy of the state, working for communist and/or Islamic government? After all as a private citizen Hagel set up 7 financial funds, one of which apparently did some foreign investing to the amount of $200,000.
Now doesnt it seem reasonable that that money was likely intentionally put in that fund by the North Korean government? or maybe it was the Iranians? (full disclosure by the way, I also have an investment fund that invests overseas, so its possible I am also a paid Iranian/North Korean/Islamic agent covering for Hagel)
Cruz himself has no evidence of that, but I mean it seems reasonable right? So clearly its up to Hagel to clear his name from charges made without evidence
And hey then there is the charge being made by a number of right wing Web Sites, that Hagel was actually paid off by a group called "Friends of Hamas" an accusation that was backed uo on on the Hugh Hewett Radio show by Senator Rand Paul, after Hewett suggested it to the Senator
there is however one small problem however, "Friends of Hamas", does not you know actually exist.
 |
| S.H.I.E.L.D: More Real then Friends of Hamas...... |
So to recap, slandering a disabled war veteran as a secret enemy agent without evidence, IOKIYAR, in fact we will even help you spread lies.
Oh and if you needed any more evidence this whole damn move, is basically an exercise in political masturbation: John McCain and Lindsey Graham said yesterday, on the floor, minutes after voting to filibuster, they would switch their votes and end the filibuster 10 days from now, when the senate comes back from vacation.
yea, thats right they said BEFORE THEY LEFT THE FLOOR, hey we just want to fuck around for a while and be dicks for dicks sake.
Of John McCain suffers from multiple personality disorder....especially on this issue, so his announcement that he expects not to agree with himself in 10 days makes sense.
For example, back when he was running for President, John McCain suggested Chuck Hagel would be at the top of the list for Secretary of State, he made the same suggestion (in addition to John Kerry) when he attacked Susan Rice earlier this year.
Hell earlier this week, when Ted Cruz suggested Hagel was an enemy of the state as a justification for the filibuster McCain, NOW supports, McCain defended Hagel and said this “No one on this committee should at any time impugn his character or his integrity.”
Now of course I suppose in 10 days McCain may change his mind about changing his mind. I mean he already debuted a whole new 2 reasons to block Hagel on FOX news this morning.
So two points here:
1) we now have Bullshit reason Number 3: Hagel was a meanie poo poo head by speaking out against his own party. By the way does anyone remember when John McCain ran for president on the premise he always spoke out against his own party? yea........oddly for once I guess its not IOKIYAR, instead IOKIYJM Its OK If Your John McCain....
2) now McCain thinks Hagel should step aside.....BUT also thinks Hagel will get the votes when they get back....after McCain flip flops on the filibuster.
Being for it before you were against it before you were before it? IOKIYAR Seriously no on called him on that yet.
Oh and one other flip flop by McCain, and Lindsey Graham for that matter: Before today's cloture vote 6 republicans pledged to break any attempt at a filibuster based on principal, even though many of them were going to vote against Hagel; Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Roy Blunt, Rodger Wicker, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
When time came to hold the vote, Blunt, Wicker and of course Graham and McCain, said "yea we know what we said, but fuck principals" for voted in favor of the Filibuster.......right before McCain and Graham pledged to honor their pledge to break the Filibuster next time.
To be fair this means, to their credit, Collins and Murkowski kept their word and voted against the filibuster...and were joined by Senators Thad Cochran and Mike Johanns, bringing the total number of votes to break the filibuster to 59....one short of what they needed. Too bad McCain cant be trusted to remember what he said for more then 30 seconds anymore, if he or Lindsey Graham had a set, we could have avoided this whole thing. But still legit thumbs up to those 4 Republicans, for not giving into bullshit, even though I think all of them are voting against Hagel when the vote comes.
Oh a couple other profiles in courage to highlight here too, but these are more of the sarcastic variety. You see Senator Orrin Hatch voted present and David Vitter refused to vote.
Oh one last point I need to bring up. Knowing full well that the first ever filibuster of a cabinet nominee by an actual minority will have far reaching implications for how nominations proceed in the future (such as say if the GOP ever has the White House but not 60 votes in the senate, and want to confirm nominees) Hatch and many other republicans are desperately trying to convince people this isnt a filibuster.
Take Senator Jim Inhofe for example who said "It's the 60-vote margin, it's not a filibuster." Yea see their is no such thing as the 60 vote margin, the Constitution clearly states Majority +1, which is 51. The only reason we ever need 60 votes is because thats what the Senate decided is needed to break a filibuster....therefore by definition if you have a 60 vote margin, you have a filibuster.
Senator Lamar Alexander also tried to claim this wasnt a filibuster, but his excuse was even worse. "We know what a filibuster is … it's when one side or the other… decides to try to kill a nomination by requiring 60 votes." then added "Do 60 of us believe it's time to end debate on the nomination to become Secretary of Defense?"
"See we arnt filibustering, filibustering would mean we oppose the guy.....and we have every intention of confirming him.....just not right now because we can bitch"
I mean I think that sums it up best of all. This is basically a joke, the GOP have turned confirmation hearings into an actual literal joke. And honestly no one seems to care, even left wing blogs have moved on to the next story.
yet we all know had Dem's done this it, especially for made up reasons that amounted to "why not" would be a major story for weeks. But hey it seems almost universal at this point IOKIYAR.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
This week in....well everything cause sometimes stupid doesnt cover it all.
Like the title says, turns out stupid is a rather limiting word, and some times the short dumb awkward stories of the week cant really fit under that label. So with that in mind, instead of the week in stupid I present the week in everything.
This Week in Ashley Judd:
So Kentucky Senator and [Republican] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is up for reelection this year. And the GOP is pulling out all the stops to keep McConnell in office
In fact maybe you've seen this ad: (if you happen to live in Kentucky anyways)
Which is kind of odd, given that Ashley Judd isnt running for any office, let alone the senate.
Next up, this week in pre-taped.
So I dont know if your news station mentioned this or not, but mine did. When Marco Rubio gave the State of the Union, he had just finished taping the Spanish Language version....sans water-break I assume. And while that actually likely does explain the Portland Springs cameo in his speech [dry mouth from giving the speech back to back twice], thats actually not the real problem the Spanish Language version caused.
See if he's giving the Spanish version WHILE the president is still talking that kinda makes it hard for him to, you know LISTEN to the speech he's supposed to be rebutting. Also it locks him into a script as it would look horrible if he gave Spanish speakers a totally different vision of the Republican party then he gave English speakers due to modifications to more directly rebut Obama.
Which is probably the reason behind these unreported awkward comments in the Rubio Speech.
A good two or three minutes of Rubios speech followed this line and built on this argument.
"But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems. That the economic downturn happened because our government didn’t tax enough, spend enough and control enough. And, therefore, as you heard tonight, his solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more.
This idea – that our problems were caused by a government that was too small – it’s just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies."
And for the next 12 Paragraphs he proceeded to lay out that case.
Which is a bit awkward when the President himself said in the speech
"The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem. They don’t expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue....It’s not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth."
It's not much of a retort when you AGREE with the guy your supposed to be refuting. But sadly for Marco Rubio its not the most awkward part of his speech, as their was one line that made it clear, even before he gave the Spanish version he wasnt listening.
"Republicans have offered a detailed and credible plan that helps save Medicare without hurting today’s retirees. Instead of playing politics with Medicare, when is the President going to offer his plan to save it? Tonight would have been a good time for him to do it."
Turns out, the President had kinda preemptively answered Marco Rubio's challenge.
the second subject the President touched on in his speech, well in the first 45 minutes, was entitlements, and the 16 paragraph of his speech is as follows
"On Medicare, I’m prepared to enact reforms that will achieve the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission. Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs. The reforms I’m proposing go even further. We’ll reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies and ask more from the wealthiest seniors. We’ll bring down costs by changing the way our government pays for Medicare, because our medical bills shouldn’t be based on the number of tests ordered or days spent in the hospital – they should be based on the quality of care that our seniors receive. And I am open to additional reforms from both parties, so long as they don’t violate the guarantee of a secure retirement. Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep – but we must keep the promises we’ve already made."
I admit its not much of a plan, but by "speech standards" its a plan and a vision.
Just saying Senator Rubio, its a bit awkward to challenge someone to do something they just did.....
And this does even cover the fact that you just put your house on the market....you know the one you referenced in your speech as proof your determined to be one of the "common man".
Just saying dude, maybe the "Drink seen round the world" was the best thing to happen to you since it stopped anyone from noticing the rest....
And now this week in "who saw that coming? *sarcasm*
So a few months ago in response to the NRA's call to put armed guards in every school, America's toughest Sheriff and professional crack pot Joe Arpaio took them up on the offer, and grabbed a whole bunch of smucks off the street, deputized them, and put them in schools. The only real requirement seemed to be you need to provide your own gun.
Now stories quickly circulated that a couple of the guys had felony arrests. But you know Sheiff Joe assured us that was just a fluke and that they were only drug arrests (which was true)
Well it turns out, it kinda wasnt. In addition to the two previously mentioned people, it now turns out at least one of the posse members has a history of domestic abuse.
then there was the guy who was arrested BY THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE ITSELF, for pulling a gun on, and threating a man, after a minor traffic accident.
Like I said, they literally just grabbed guys off the freaking street in a rush to kiss the NRA's ass, and "prove putting people with guns in schools works"
Oh by the way, what does Sheriff Joe have to say about that that, and the fact that the people he's supposedly protection are complaining about it?
"It doesn't matter whether they like it or don't, I'm still going to do it. I can't imagine criticism coming when they're given free protection."
Like I said, this was never about protection it was about kissing NRA ass and public display of guns in schools.
And of course when you grab dudes at random off the street your going to get some criminals. I mean really who didnt see that coming?
Actually you know what, I almost forgot one, and sadly the one who seems to be the easiest to see coming when you just give random shucks on the street police powers.
Dominic Boulter was a member of the Sheriffs posse. I say was because he's about to be DEPORTED. Because you know, turns out this fine upstanding citizen empowered to enforce american laws, wasnt a citizen at all. BUT thats not the part a background check would have caught,
No see the part Sheriff Joe should have seen coming when he started giving a badge to anyone with a gun, is why Mr. Boulter is being deported.
He was found guilty of MULTIPLE counts of sexual exploitation of minors, this by the way was before he joined the posse
yep that's right, in his rush to look like the NRA golden boy and grab the spot light, Sheriff Joe gave a badge to a pedophile and send him, with a gun, to a school to "protect" children.
You know what, I had more "this week in's" but honestly nothing is going to make to more impact then that, so I'm done for today. I'm gonna go home, think of Sheriff Joe and throw up.
This Week in Ashley Judd:
So Kentucky Senator and [Republican] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is up for reelection this year. And the GOP is pulling out all the stops to keep McConnell in office
In fact maybe you've seen this ad: (if you happen to live in Kentucky anyways)
That's an ad by Karl Rove, you know the guy who used to be Bush's Brain attacking actress and Kentucky Native Ashley Judd.
Which is kind of odd, given that Ashley Judd isnt running for any office, let alone the senate.
Glad to see your not wasting time and money on stupid shit.....you definitely learned your lesson about not flushing money down the toilet from the 2012 election where you basically lost every race, didnt you Karl?
Next up, this week in pre-taped.
So I dont know if your news station mentioned this or not, but mine did. When Marco Rubio gave the State of the Union, he had just finished taping the Spanish Language version....sans water-break I assume. And while that actually likely does explain the Portland Springs cameo in his speech [dry mouth from giving the speech back to back twice], thats actually not the real problem the Spanish Language version caused.
See if he's giving the Spanish version WHILE the president is still talking that kinda makes it hard for him to, you know LISTEN to the speech he's supposed to be rebutting. Also it locks him into a script as it would look horrible if he gave Spanish speakers a totally different vision of the Republican party then he gave English speakers due to modifications to more directly rebut Obama.
Which is probably the reason behind these unreported awkward comments in the Rubio Speech.
A good two or three minutes of Rubios speech followed this line and built on this argument.
"But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems. That the economic downturn happened because our government didn’t tax enough, spend enough and control enough. And, therefore, as you heard tonight, his solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more.
This idea – that our problems were caused by a government that was too small – it’s just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies."
And for the next 12 Paragraphs he proceeded to lay out that case.
Which is a bit awkward when the President himself said in the speech
"The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem. They don’t expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue....It’s not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth."
It's not much of a retort when you AGREE with the guy your supposed to be refuting. But sadly for Marco Rubio its not the most awkward part of his speech, as their was one line that made it clear, even before he gave the Spanish version he wasnt listening.
"Republicans have offered a detailed and credible plan that helps save Medicare without hurting today’s retirees. Instead of playing politics with Medicare, when is the President going to offer his plan to save it? Tonight would have been a good time for him to do it."
Turns out, the President had kinda preemptively answered Marco Rubio's challenge.
the second subject the President touched on in his speech, well in the first 45 minutes, was entitlements, and the 16 paragraph of his speech is as follows
"On Medicare, I’m prepared to enact reforms that will achieve the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission. Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs. The reforms I’m proposing go even further. We’ll reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies and ask more from the wealthiest seniors. We’ll bring down costs by changing the way our government pays for Medicare, because our medical bills shouldn’t be based on the number of tests ordered or days spent in the hospital – they should be based on the quality of care that our seniors receive. And I am open to additional reforms from both parties, so long as they don’t violate the guarantee of a secure retirement. Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep – but we must keep the promises we’ve already made."
I admit its not much of a plan, but by "speech standards" its a plan and a vision.
Just saying Senator Rubio, its a bit awkward to challenge someone to do something they just did.....
And this does even cover the fact that you just put your house on the market....you know the one you referenced in your speech as proof your determined to be one of the "common man".
Just saying dude, maybe the "Drink seen round the world" was the best thing to happen to you since it stopped anyone from noticing the rest....
And now this week in "who saw that coming? *sarcasm*
So a few months ago in response to the NRA's call to put armed guards in every school, America's toughest Sheriff and professional crack pot Joe Arpaio took them up on the offer, and grabbed a whole bunch of smucks off the street, deputized them, and put them in schools. The only real requirement seemed to be you need to provide your own gun.
Now stories quickly circulated that a couple of the guys had felony arrests. But you know Sheiff Joe assured us that was just a fluke and that they were only drug arrests (which was true)
Well it turns out, it kinda wasnt. In addition to the two previously mentioned people, it now turns out at least one of the posse members has a history of domestic abuse.
then there was the guy who was arrested BY THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE ITSELF, for pulling a gun on, and threating a man, after a minor traffic accident.
Like I said, they literally just grabbed guys off the freaking street in a rush to kiss the NRA's ass, and "prove putting people with guns in schools works"
Oh by the way, what does Sheriff Joe have to say about that that, and the fact that the people he's supposedly protection are complaining about it?
"It doesn't matter whether they like it or don't, I'm still going to do it. I can't imagine criticism coming when they're given free protection."
Like I said, this was never about protection it was about kissing NRA ass and public display of guns in schools.
And of course when you grab dudes at random off the street your going to get some criminals. I mean really who didnt see that coming?
Actually you know what, I almost forgot one, and sadly the one who seems to be the easiest to see coming when you just give random shucks on the street police powers.
Dominic Boulter was a member of the Sheriffs posse. I say was because he's about to be DEPORTED. Because you know, turns out this fine upstanding citizen empowered to enforce american laws, wasnt a citizen at all. BUT thats not the part a background check would have caught,
No see the part Sheriff Joe should have seen coming when he started giving a badge to anyone with a gun, is why Mr. Boulter is being deported.
He was found guilty of MULTIPLE counts of sexual exploitation of minors, this by the way was before he joined the posse
yep that's right, in his rush to look like the NRA golden boy and grab the spot light, Sheriff Joe gave a badge to a pedophile and send him, with a gun, to a school to "protect" children.
You know what, I had more "this week in's" but honestly nothing is going to make to more impact then that, so I'm done for today. I'm gonna go home, think of Sheriff Joe and throw up.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
What the heck is a Sequester anyways? and whos fault is it?
So if you watched the State of the Union last night you likely heard President Obama come out against the something called the sequester.
"And that's why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts -- known here in Washington as "the sequester'' -- are a really bad idea. Now, some in this Congress have proposed preventing only the defense cuts by making even bigger cuts to things like education and job training, Medicare and Social Security benefits. That idea is even worse."
And if you watched the republican response to the State of the Union you heard Marco Rubio come out indirectly and without naming them, against half the sequester.
"And tonight, he [Obama] even criticized us for refusing to raise taxes to delay military cuts – cuts that were his idea in the first place."
And then if you happened to be willing to go to crazy town to watch Rand Paul's response on far right wing websites you heard him come out in favor of the sequester.
"Not only should the sequester stand, many pundits say the sequester really needs to be at least $4 trillion to avoid another downgrade of America’s credit rating."
now none of these 3 men stand alone. Obama's case was generally speaking, the democratic case, Rubios was half the republican party, Paul the other half of the republican party, and some of the democrats who dont agree with Obama's assessment such as Howard Dean.
Now with all due respect (on this issue anyways) to Senator Paul, there really isnt much to say about his comments, with two exceptions, so I'm just gonna get to those, and then never really mention him again.
First Paul is telling the truth, as is the president.....and the weird thing, they are quoting the same economists. See the full context from the economists, is that in the short term the sequester is a horrible idea and in the long term is a great idea, the question being should we take the short term pain for long term gain.
Now not being an economist, I'm not even gonna try to answer that question, one of the reasons I'm not going to be mentioning Paul again, I'm more concerned with the stupidity of how we got here and not is it actually a good idea short term vs long term (since I'm not smart enough to know).
But the second comment on Senator Paul is this. Despite his claims the Sequester should stand, he voted AGAINST it. So that might be a little bit of a credibility issue for him, its a great idea now because the economy is bad, but wasnt a few months ago when the economy was worse.
Nor is he alone in that by the way, Senator Rubio ALSO voted against the Sequester he is now partiality in favor of.
Now to explain Rubio's position we have to go back to exactly what the Sequester is and how we got here....and how at least half of Rubio's comments are a lie.
So you remember the fiscal cliff? how about the debt celing crisis in 2011? believe it or BOTH of those are the sequester.
In fact the Debt Celing was the cause of the sequester. I've covered this before, so I'm just gonna do the short version this time in case you missed it but:
the Tea Party decided it was a good idea not to pay our bills (which is what the debt ceiling is) so basically in order to put pressure on them to deal/not kill the country President Obama and John Bohener came up with a plan to force the tea party to act sane: create a cut so massive in the sacred cows of both sides (defense and entitlements) that is passage would be destructive to both party's therefore both sides had a good reason to figure something out to prevent this from happening, which was supposed to happen last year with the super committee.
problem is, many of the tea party are functional anarchists and the rest of the GOP dont realize the balanced approach they themselves want isnt balanced without taxes.
So nothing happened. and the Sequester looked like it was going into effect last january at the same time the Bush Tax Cuts, Payroll tax cuts and a host of other tax cuts were expiring.
Now to their credit this time the GOP accepted the tax reality and raised some taxes. The problem this time was in exchange for that, the GOP wanted their sacred cow (defense spending) removed for the sequester and the whole burden shifted to entitlement programs.
Which didnt happen, so congress just voted to move the sequester back a bit. which brings up to where we are now.
And again the sides are the same as they were in January, the Democrats are willing to get rid of the sequester if they get what they consider a balanced approach, tax increases, some defense cuts, and some entitlement cuts.
And the republicans want no tax cuts, increased defense spending and all from entitlements.
So of course most people figure the Sequester is going to hit.
Which creates a bit of a problem cause not surprisingly the Sequester, which was designed to be unpopular is very very unpopular (Paul and Dean aside).
Now if you notice in the two comments I highlighted Obama just said the sequester sucks and Rubio said its sucks and its Obama's fault.
This brings us to what will likely be THE critical sequester issue in Washington (at least publicly if they cant get a deal, whos gonna get blamed?
the GOP got blamed for the debt ceiling, and the fiscal cliff, and got almost no credit when they were avoided. So they cant afford to take another hit.
But in a usual display of GOP Stupid the day the Sequester was announced John Boehner went on TV to talk about the discussions, and when talking about the outcome
"When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the white House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy."
Thats a little bit of a problem when it turns out 98% of what you wanted has turned into the sequester (which to be fair was never supposed to happen) which everyone hates.
Its even more awkward when you look at the vote totals. In the house the idea passed 269 to 161.
of the 269 "Yes" votes, 174 of them were Republican, compared to only 95 democrats. So the majority who voted yes were republican.
And one of those yes votes was GOP Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, another was Speaker John Boehner, a 3rd was GOP majority leader Eric Cantor, also Kevin McCarthy the GOP Whip (so 3rd in the leadership behind Boehner and Cantor) voted yes.
of the 161 "No" votes 95 were democrats, 66 were republican. SO the majority who voted no were democrats.
Also thanks to 3 abstentions by the Democrats, the majority of their caucus (95+3) did NOT vote for the bill. Unlike the GOP
To be fair things look a little better in the Senate where the GOP provided 19 of the 26 No votes.
The problem is there were 47 Republicans. So less than half the Republicans in the Senate voted no. (same is true for the Democrats). And again the GOP that voted yes included the entire leadership in the Senate.
So when Marco Rubio says "this was the presidents idea" he's lying. And to be fair all the democratic leadership voted yes too so had Obama said this was the Republican's fault. But he didnt and he hasnt.
And thats going to be the facts that shape the future of this. The democrats are going to tell you "this sucks" the GOP is going to tell you "this sucks and they did it" and the Dem's are going to fire back with all the things I laid out before you, which the GOP will have no counter for.
So it looks like when the shit hits the fan, more of it is going to get sprayed onto the GOP then the Dem's,
But it still doesn't address the real issue of the Sequester, which is this: Who the fuck thought it was logical that if you guys cant agree now, you can agree in X number of months if you dont change anything? Also how is it the ONLY thing you all can agree on is that you can agree on something later.
I mean what the fuck kinda warped logic is that?
Honestly at this Point our best hope is to hope Rand Paul is right....and given that he's usually a crackpot, we are probably all fucked.
But hey at least now you now HOW your getting fucked.
"And that's why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts -- known here in Washington as "the sequester'' -- are a really bad idea. Now, some in this Congress have proposed preventing only the defense cuts by making even bigger cuts to things like education and job training, Medicare and Social Security benefits. That idea is even worse."
And if you watched the republican response to the State of the Union you heard Marco Rubio come out indirectly and without naming them, against half the sequester.
"And tonight, he [Obama] even criticized us for refusing to raise taxes to delay military cuts – cuts that were his idea in the first place."
And then if you happened to be willing to go to crazy town to watch Rand Paul's response on far right wing websites you heard him come out in favor of the sequester.
"Not only should the sequester stand, many pundits say the sequester really needs to be at least $4 trillion to avoid another downgrade of America’s credit rating."
now none of these 3 men stand alone. Obama's case was generally speaking, the democratic case, Rubios was half the republican party, Paul the other half of the republican party, and some of the democrats who dont agree with Obama's assessment such as Howard Dean.
Now with all due respect (on this issue anyways) to Senator Paul, there really isnt much to say about his comments, with two exceptions, so I'm just gonna get to those, and then never really mention him again.
First Paul is telling the truth, as is the president.....and the weird thing, they are quoting the same economists. See the full context from the economists, is that in the short term the sequester is a horrible idea and in the long term is a great idea, the question being should we take the short term pain for long term gain.
Now not being an economist, I'm not even gonna try to answer that question, one of the reasons I'm not going to be mentioning Paul again, I'm more concerned with the stupidity of how we got here and not is it actually a good idea short term vs long term (since I'm not smart enough to know).
But the second comment on Senator Paul is this. Despite his claims the Sequester should stand, he voted AGAINST it. So that might be a little bit of a credibility issue for him, its a great idea now because the economy is bad, but wasnt a few months ago when the economy was worse.
Nor is he alone in that by the way, Senator Rubio ALSO voted against the Sequester he is now partiality in favor of.
Now to explain Rubio's position we have to go back to exactly what the Sequester is and how we got here....and how at least half of Rubio's comments are a lie.
So you remember the fiscal cliff? how about the debt celing crisis in 2011? believe it or BOTH of those are the sequester.
In fact the Debt Celing was the cause of the sequester. I've covered this before, so I'm just gonna do the short version this time in case you missed it but:
the Tea Party decided it was a good idea not to pay our bills (which is what the debt ceiling is) so basically in order to put pressure on them to deal/not kill the country President Obama and John Bohener came up with a plan to force the tea party to act sane: create a cut so massive in the sacred cows of both sides (defense and entitlements) that is passage would be destructive to both party's therefore both sides had a good reason to figure something out to prevent this from happening, which was supposed to happen last year with the super committee.
problem is, many of the tea party are functional anarchists and the rest of the GOP dont realize the balanced approach they themselves want isnt balanced without taxes.
So nothing happened. and the Sequester looked like it was going into effect last january at the same time the Bush Tax Cuts, Payroll tax cuts and a host of other tax cuts were expiring.
Now to their credit this time the GOP accepted the tax reality and raised some taxes. The problem this time was in exchange for that, the GOP wanted their sacred cow (defense spending) removed for the sequester and the whole burden shifted to entitlement programs.
Which didnt happen, so congress just voted to move the sequester back a bit. which brings up to where we are now.
And again the sides are the same as they were in January, the Democrats are willing to get rid of the sequester if they get what they consider a balanced approach, tax increases, some defense cuts, and some entitlement cuts.
And the republicans want no tax cuts, increased defense spending and all from entitlements.
So of course most people figure the Sequester is going to hit.
Which creates a bit of a problem cause not surprisingly the Sequester, which was designed to be unpopular is very very unpopular (Paul and Dean aside).
Now if you notice in the two comments I highlighted Obama just said the sequester sucks and Rubio said its sucks and its Obama's fault.
This brings us to what will likely be THE critical sequester issue in Washington (at least publicly if they cant get a deal, whos gonna get blamed?
the GOP got blamed for the debt ceiling, and the fiscal cliff, and got almost no credit when they were avoided. So they cant afford to take another hit.
But in a usual display of GOP Stupid the day the Sequester was announced John Boehner went on TV to talk about the discussions, and when talking about the outcome
"When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the white House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy."
Thats a little bit of a problem when it turns out 98% of what you wanted has turned into the sequester (which to be fair was never supposed to happen) which everyone hates.
Its even more awkward when you look at the vote totals. In the house the idea passed 269 to 161.
of the 269 "Yes" votes, 174 of them were Republican, compared to only 95 democrats. So the majority who voted yes were republican.
And one of those yes votes was GOP Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, another was Speaker John Boehner, a 3rd was GOP majority leader Eric Cantor, also Kevin McCarthy the GOP Whip (so 3rd in the leadership behind Boehner and Cantor) voted yes.
of the 161 "No" votes 95 were democrats, 66 were republican. SO the majority who voted no were democrats.
Also thanks to 3 abstentions by the Democrats, the majority of their caucus (95+3) did NOT vote for the bill. Unlike the GOP
To be fair things look a little better in the Senate where the GOP provided 19 of the 26 No votes.
The problem is there were 47 Republicans. So less than half the Republicans in the Senate voted no. (same is true for the Democrats). And again the GOP that voted yes included the entire leadership in the Senate.
So when Marco Rubio says "this was the presidents idea" he's lying. And to be fair all the democratic leadership voted yes too so had Obama said this was the Republican's fault. But he didnt and he hasnt.
And thats going to be the facts that shape the future of this. The democrats are going to tell you "this sucks" the GOP is going to tell you "this sucks and they did it" and the Dem's are going to fire back with all the things I laid out before you, which the GOP will have no counter for.
So it looks like when the shit hits the fan, more of it is going to get sprayed onto the GOP then the Dem's,
But it still doesn't address the real issue of the Sequester, which is this: Who the fuck thought it was logical that if you guys cant agree now, you can agree in X number of months if you dont change anything? Also how is it the ONLY thing you all can agree on is that you can agree on something later.
I mean what the fuck kinda warped logic is that?
Honestly at this Point our best hope is to hope Rand Paul is right....and given that he's usually a crackpot, we are probably all fucked.
But hey at least now you now HOW your getting fucked.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
State of the Union: the Constitutionally mandated tradition that isn't
Now yesterday in my blog about Ted Nugent being a guest for the state of the union, and his address to the media afterwards I included this line
"You see by "tradition", (i'll explain the "" on that tomorrow) immediately following the end of the presidents remarks the opposition party the republicans in this case, give a short counter speech to the president."
Well tomorrow is now today. So why did I put the word tradition in quotes? because its not really a tradition. Because the opposition response to the State of the Union only goes back to 1966, making it 5 years younger then the current president.
Which is actually less shocking when you realize that the "traditional" state of the union, such as the one we are going to see tonight, itself only goes back to 1965.
What's that you say? your 5th grade history teacher told you that the Constitution of the United States mandates the State of the Union in article 2 section 3, so you think I'm a dirty liar?
Well actually here's the thing, both me and your beloved 5th grade history teacher are right.
See here's article 2 section 3 of the Constitution
"He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment , he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States."
You note whats missing from that? pretty much everything President Obama is going to do tonight.
1) there is no requirement as to how often the State of the Union is to be given. Just "from time to time" you know basically whenever the president feels like.
In fact prior to 1934, the State of the Union, on the occasions it was delivered was usually delivered in December, until the 20th amendment changed the term dates of congress and they didnt want to address the outgoing congress.
2) Who the president actually has to address, or where for that matter.
Like every president before him since 1913, who has given an address President Obama will address the Congress from the house chamber. Oddly though he needs an invitation from the house to do so (some law or another that says the president cant address from congress without an invite that, honestly I dont feel like tracking down, but the invite was sent last month and always is about a month early)
Because see nothing in the Constitution stipulates he make the address from the house, its just a question of logistics its the only impressive looking room in DC that can hold more then 537 people, bodyguards and guests and also looks "governmental"
Now oddly enough thats the other thing. He doesnt have to invite all 535 members of Congress or the Vice President. Read the Constitution "he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them". He could just address the Senate or just the House if he so choose. Hell if he wants to he can send them home and give the address to an empty room if the house and senate cant agree on a date "he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper"
3) Actually give a speech. This is is simple but easy to miss. Read the Constitution again, see any requirement to give a speech? nope. there isnt one. the only requirement is that he "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union" it never says HOW he has to give it.
See George Washington gave a speech for his State of the Union, as did John Adams. But Thomas Jefferson was a lazy fuck and couldnt be bothered to give a speech, so he wrote a letter and sent a clerk to read it aloud.
Ok, I admit the real reason is a bit more legitimate then being lazy. Jefferson believes a speech to congress was too monarchical, and too similar to the "Speech from the Throne" given by the Monarchs of various parliamentary governments (such as the British) at the start of the legislative session. So he opted for the much less arrogant and democratic approach of sending a letter.
Although I gotta be honest, if I was a congressman getting lectured by a clerk, I think I might be a bit pissed....just saying.
Anyways point is, after Jefferson every single president sent a clerk to give his State of the Union all the way up until 1913 when Woodrow Wilson made what was at the time a controversial decision to do it himself. Later health concerns would see Wilson return to the clerk system by 1919, his successor Harding would do them in person, after his death Coolidge did one in person, but did the rest via clerk, on "strict constructionist" grounds (which of course are bullshit since I as pointed out the Constitution is silent on the issue) and his successor Hoover did them all via clerk for the same reason.
Now up until this point, the address had actually not been called the "State of the Union: (despite the name being mentioned in the Constitution), they had been called "the President's Annual Message to Congress" with FDR being the first to use the term State of the Union, when he broke pattern and resumed giving the addresses in person, a tradition that would be upheld until today, with a few exceptions; Truman in 1946 and 1953, Eisenhower's in 1961, Nixon's in 1973 and Carter's in 1981.
But perhaps you remember back to the beginning, when I mentioned the current modern State of the Union only dates back to 1965, a good 30 years after FDR. Well see up until 1965 all the State of the Unions, no matter how they were delivered, were done in the middle of the day, at a time when congress is normally in session and therefore easiest for them. This was true regardless of if the speech was also broadcast to the public or not.
Well in 1965 LBJ decided to "take his case" for the Great Society to the public and moved the speech to its current 9 pm EST time-slot figuring that would be more convenient for the general public.
And of course it was, hence both the reason the State of the Union staying at that time slot, and the then opposition party Republicans starting the tradition of an opposition response for the same reasons (to get THEIR message out) the following year.
Now fair warning, so far I've been basically non partisan, these are the fact's behind the myth of the tradition of the state of the union. But their is one last fairly new change I want to address and I don't really think I can say what I want to about it without giving my opinion.
Maybe you've noticed and maybe you havnt, but our last two, and tonight's, state of the union have been a little odd. Their has been not 1 but two responses given after President Obama is done speaking.
The first is,as always the republican response, given by Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels and (tonight) Marco Rubio. The second is ALSO a republican response, telling you how wrong republicans were in the first response.
But that second one is called the Tea Party response, previously given by Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain and now Rand Paul (who must be thrilled beyond belief to be associated with those other two intellectual giants). And as I stated before basically it consists of a republican telling you exactly why the ideas the president proposed and the ideas their own party just proposed both suck.
In other words it undermines the very idea of the response to the State of the Union, a unified govening vision by the opposition party in contrast to the presidents vision.
Instead it just shows to the whole country just how broken one of our political parties is, they cant even agree on what they disagree with the president on, and that they are basically at war with themselves (And they wonder why they just got their butts kicked in the last election).
Further complicating the whole double response this year, back in 2010 when the Tea Party came to power, their highest profile "win" was Senator Marco Rubio, who became known in some circles as "the Tea Party Senator" or "crown prince of the Tea Party movement" despite not joining the Tea Party Caucus after being elected.
Now to be fair, Rand Paul was also elected in 2010, but is generally known much more as a Libertarian then anything else. This despite the fact that he was backed by the Tea Party and is a member of the Tea Party Caucus
So to sum up: the "Tea Party Senator" who isnt actually in the Tea Party will deliver the Republican response to the State of the Union, only to himself be rebutted by the "Libertarian Senator" who is actually a member of the Tea Party, but no one thinks of him as one, delivering the Tea Party response.
Like I said, it just goes to show off the crazy in-fighting and complete chaos in the GOP
The only upside for the GOP in this, most news networks arnt gonna cover the Tea Party response because lets be honest when you hear the name Bachmann Cain and Paul together the first word that pops into your head is Kook, and the networks dont seem to like giving airtime to kooks when they already gave two free hours in the middle of primetime away to politicians half the country ignores anyways.
So at least the people who will see how broken the GOP is will be minimized.
The national downside by the way of the double response, both Rubio and Paul are considered early contenders for the 2016 election, so hopefully if your a republican you recovered from the whole Romney mess already cause we are off to the races.....
Anyways, there you have a it a whole bunch of things you wont hear tonight on the news when they are talking about the "long honored tradition" of the State of the Union (and some political commentary at the end there cause its my blog and can do what I want damn it :P )
"You see by "tradition", (i'll explain the "" on that tomorrow) immediately following the end of the presidents remarks the opposition party the republicans in this case, give a short counter speech to the president."
Well tomorrow is now today. So why did I put the word tradition in quotes? because its not really a tradition. Because the opposition response to the State of the Union only goes back to 1966, making it 5 years younger then the current president.
Which is actually less shocking when you realize that the "traditional" state of the union, such as the one we are going to see tonight, itself only goes back to 1965.
What's that you say? your 5th grade history teacher told you that the Constitution of the United States mandates the State of the Union in article 2 section 3, so you think I'm a dirty liar?
Well actually here's the thing, both me and your beloved 5th grade history teacher are right.
See here's article 2 section 3 of the Constitution
"He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment , he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States."
You note whats missing from that? pretty much everything President Obama is going to do tonight.
1) there is no requirement as to how often the State of the Union is to be given. Just "from time to time" you know basically whenever the president feels like.
In fact prior to 1934, the State of the Union, on the occasions it was delivered was usually delivered in December, until the 20th amendment changed the term dates of congress and they didnt want to address the outgoing congress.
2) Who the president actually has to address, or where for that matter.
Like every president before him since 1913, who has given an address President Obama will address the Congress from the house chamber. Oddly though he needs an invitation from the house to do so (some law or another that says the president cant address from congress without an invite that, honestly I dont feel like tracking down, but the invite was sent last month and always is about a month early)
Because see nothing in the Constitution stipulates he make the address from the house, its just a question of logistics its the only impressive looking room in DC that can hold more then 537 people, bodyguards and guests and also looks "governmental"
Now oddly enough thats the other thing. He doesnt have to invite all 535 members of Congress or the Vice President. Read the Constitution "he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them". He could just address the Senate or just the House if he so choose. Hell if he wants to he can send them home and give the address to an empty room if the house and senate cant agree on a date "he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper"
3) Actually give a speech. This is is simple but easy to miss. Read the Constitution again, see any requirement to give a speech? nope. there isnt one. the only requirement is that he "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union" it never says HOW he has to give it.
See George Washington gave a speech for his State of the Union, as did John Adams. But Thomas Jefferson was a lazy fuck and couldnt be bothered to give a speech, so he wrote a letter and sent a clerk to read it aloud.
Ok, I admit the real reason is a bit more legitimate then being lazy. Jefferson believes a speech to congress was too monarchical, and too similar to the "Speech from the Throne" given by the Monarchs of various parliamentary governments (such as the British) at the start of the legislative session. So he opted for the much less arrogant and democratic approach of sending a letter.
Although I gotta be honest, if I was a congressman getting lectured by a clerk, I think I might be a bit pissed....just saying.
Anyways point is, after Jefferson every single president sent a clerk to give his State of the Union all the way up until 1913 when Woodrow Wilson made what was at the time a controversial decision to do it himself. Later health concerns would see Wilson return to the clerk system by 1919, his successor Harding would do them in person, after his death Coolidge did one in person, but did the rest via clerk, on "strict constructionist" grounds (which of course are bullshit since I as pointed out the Constitution is silent on the issue) and his successor Hoover did them all via clerk for the same reason.
Now up until this point, the address had actually not been called the "State of the Union: (despite the name being mentioned in the Constitution), they had been called "the President's Annual Message to Congress" with FDR being the first to use the term State of the Union, when he broke pattern and resumed giving the addresses in person, a tradition that would be upheld until today, with a few exceptions; Truman in 1946 and 1953, Eisenhower's in 1961, Nixon's in 1973 and Carter's in 1981.
But perhaps you remember back to the beginning, when I mentioned the current modern State of the Union only dates back to 1965, a good 30 years after FDR. Well see up until 1965 all the State of the Unions, no matter how they were delivered, were done in the middle of the day, at a time when congress is normally in session and therefore easiest for them. This was true regardless of if the speech was also broadcast to the public or not.
Well in 1965 LBJ decided to "take his case" for the Great Society to the public and moved the speech to its current 9 pm EST time-slot figuring that would be more convenient for the general public.
And of course it was, hence both the reason the State of the Union staying at that time slot, and the then opposition party Republicans starting the tradition of an opposition response for the same reasons (to get THEIR message out) the following year.
Now fair warning, so far I've been basically non partisan, these are the fact's behind the myth of the tradition of the state of the union. But their is one last fairly new change I want to address and I don't really think I can say what I want to about it without giving my opinion.
Maybe you've noticed and maybe you havnt, but our last two, and tonight's, state of the union have been a little odd. Their has been not 1 but two responses given after President Obama is done speaking.
The first is,as always the republican response, given by Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels and (tonight) Marco Rubio. The second is ALSO a republican response, telling you how wrong republicans were in the first response.
But that second one is called the Tea Party response, previously given by Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain and now Rand Paul (who must be thrilled beyond belief to be associated with those other two intellectual giants). And as I stated before basically it consists of a republican telling you exactly why the ideas the president proposed and the ideas their own party just proposed both suck.
In other words it undermines the very idea of the response to the State of the Union, a unified govening vision by the opposition party in contrast to the presidents vision.
Instead it just shows to the whole country just how broken one of our political parties is, they cant even agree on what they disagree with the president on, and that they are basically at war with themselves (And they wonder why they just got their butts kicked in the last election).
Further complicating the whole double response this year, back in 2010 when the Tea Party came to power, their highest profile "win" was Senator Marco Rubio, who became known in some circles as "the Tea Party Senator" or "crown prince of the Tea Party movement" despite not joining the Tea Party Caucus after being elected.
Now to be fair, Rand Paul was also elected in 2010, but is generally known much more as a Libertarian then anything else. This despite the fact that he was backed by the Tea Party and is a member of the Tea Party Caucus
So to sum up: the "Tea Party Senator" who isnt actually in the Tea Party will deliver the Republican response to the State of the Union, only to himself be rebutted by the "Libertarian Senator" who is actually a member of the Tea Party, but no one thinks of him as one, delivering the Tea Party response.
Like I said, it just goes to show off the crazy in-fighting and complete chaos in the GOP
The only upside for the GOP in this, most news networks arnt gonna cover the Tea Party response because lets be honest when you hear the name Bachmann Cain and Paul together the first word that pops into your head is Kook, and the networks dont seem to like giving airtime to kooks when they already gave two free hours in the middle of primetime away to politicians half the country ignores anyways.
So at least the people who will see how broken the GOP is will be minimized.
The national downside by the way of the double response, both Rubio and Paul are considered early contenders for the 2016 election, so hopefully if your a republican you recovered from the whole Romney mess already cause we are off to the races.....
Anyways, there you have a it a whole bunch of things you wont hear tonight on the news when they are talking about the "long honored tradition" of the State of the Union (and some political commentary at the end there cause its my blog and can do what I want damn it :P )
Monday, February 11, 2013
Ted "suck on my machine gun Obama" Nugent is headed to the State of the Union....this ought to be fun
So maybe you've heard of Ted Nugent.....if you havnt its no real surprise. He's a washed up rocker from the late 70's who never had a number 1 album release.
If you have heard of him, its probably more because of his outspoken and staunchly socially conservative views and his frequent appearances, on FOX news, where they try to avoid mentioning that one of his most popular songs "Cat Scratch Fever" is about how much fun it is to fuck anything that moves....until you get syphilis. And that most of his other hits follow in the same vein "If You Can't Lick 'Em...Lick 'Em" "The Harder They Come (The Harder I Get)," "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" "Pussywhipped" ect.
But anyways, yea that guy has become a FOX news celebrity for family values conservatism....oh and something else too, and its the something else that got him the spot at the state of the union. Gun Rights. Which isnt too shocking since Nugent is on the board of the NRA (just in case you thought Wayne LaPierre had a monopoly on crazy over there)
But see here's the problem, Nugent is well just a bit crazy. See this is his most famous rant on gun rights
So at least he's got the common sense to leave his guns at home, and not walk into a room filled with cops and secret service after telling the man he's coming to see to suck on said gun. And maybe he will actually show his respect for the office and just listen and enjoy the "honor" of hearing it live (i put honor in quotes simply because I would be bored shitless not because of anything having to do with Nugent or Obama).
Well at least during the speech anyways. See Stockman and other republicans have made it known that Mr. Nugent will have plenty to say immediately following the end of the presidents remarks, and are actively lobbying news reporters to cover him.
But it turns out that's a bit of a problem too.
You see by "tradition", (i'll explain the "" on that tomorrow) immediately following the end of the presidents remarks the opposition party the republicans in this case, give a short counter speech to the president. And this year the retort is set to be given by Fl Senator Marco Rubio, who is considered an early favorite for the Republican nomination in 2016, or well pretty much any time in the future, and is supposed to be helping the GOP with their "pretending we like Latinos" Spanish outreach, is supposed to be delivering the responce in both Spanish and English.
Which of course many people may not see if their networks cut to cover Nugent to see if he's gonna say anything outrageous or stupid instead.
Which means best case for the GOP is they get 24 hours of bad press for inviting someone as crazy as Nugent to the State of the Union (even conservative websites are referencing the machine gun comment as "What he is most known for) AND get to step all over the national roll-out of one of their future presidential candidates and their Latino outreach (fake as it is).
And that all assumes neither Stockman or Nugent do anything stupid......
Ok I admit, this isnt quite as bad PR wise as yeterdays post on trying to hit the Benghazi issue again was, but seriously it can not be this hard to get a decent PR guy and have him say "guys really you might want to rethink this, its a no win situation".
If you have heard of him, its probably more because of his outspoken and staunchly socially conservative views and his frequent appearances, on FOX news, where they try to avoid mentioning that one of his most popular songs "Cat Scratch Fever" is about how much fun it is to fuck anything that moves....until you get syphilis. And that most of his other hits follow in the same vein "If You Can't Lick 'Em...Lick 'Em" "The Harder They Come (The Harder I Get)," "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" "Pussywhipped" ect.
But anyways, yea that guy has become a FOX news celebrity for family values conservatism....oh and something else too, and its the something else that got him the spot at the state of the union. Gun Rights. Which isnt too shocking since Nugent is on the board of the NRA (just in case you thought Wayne LaPierre had a monopoly on crazy over there)
And not too surprisingly as it turns out telling elected officials to stick a gun in various parts of their anatomy, while actually brandishing the weapon in question kinda counts a death threat at least according to the US Secret Service......
nor is that the only "death threat" Nugent has made against the president, he also said this last year:
"If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year." and added "We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November," which you know, got him another visit from his friends at the secret service..... apparently admitting at the annual NRA conference (or any event) your intention to kill the president or die trying, doesnt sit well with some people.
Those comments also got him barred from Ft. Knox and pulled from a tour he was doing there.... apparently the army isn't too thrilled with someone threatening to kill their commander-and-chief. But apparently its not enough to stop you from being invited to the state of the union.
At least its not when your invited by Congressman Steve Stockman, who after Newtown introduced articles of impeachment against Obama for gun control legislation he was proposing, despite the fact that at the time, Obama had yet to say anything about the subject...(and that doesnt even consider the fact the president cant propose legislation in the first place).
Stockman by the way has also announced he plans on doing a "live truth check" of the presidents speech, an announcement he made on twitter, with the harsh tag #YouLie. As in this:
Remember that from 2009? helped kick off the "obstructionist GOP/crazy GOP narrative" that's worked out so well for them since.....
Yep the GOP is going to bring NRA member with a history of threatening to shoot the President to the State of the Union as the guest of a man who may reenact the most infamous (and not in a good way) moment at any state of the union. What could possibly go wrong?
To be fair maybe not much, to be fair as I was writing this I came across this interview with Nugent
“I will be there with a deep, abiding respect for the office of the presidency, I’m not here to represent any specific cause other than freedom and independence and ‘we the people.’ ”
“I will go in at least 20 pounds lighter than I normally walk, I will be going in sans the hardware store on my belt. I live a well-armed life, and I’ve got to demilitarize before I go.”
nor is that the only "death threat" Nugent has made against the president, he also said this last year:
"If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year." and added "We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November," which you know, got him another visit from his friends at the secret service..... apparently admitting at the annual NRA conference (or any event) your intention to kill the president or die trying, doesnt sit well with some people.
Those comments also got him barred from Ft. Knox and pulled from a tour he was doing there.... apparently the army isn't too thrilled with someone threatening to kill their commander-and-chief. But apparently its not enough to stop you from being invited to the state of the union.
At least its not when your invited by Congressman Steve Stockman, who after Newtown introduced articles of impeachment against Obama for gun control legislation he was proposing, despite the fact that at the time, Obama had yet to say anything about the subject...(and that doesnt even consider the fact the president cant propose legislation in the first place).
Stockman by the way has also announced he plans on doing a "live truth check" of the presidents speech, an announcement he made on twitter, with the harsh tag #YouLie. As in this:
Remember that from 2009? helped kick off the "obstructionist GOP/crazy GOP narrative" that's worked out so well for them since.....
Yep the GOP is going to bring NRA member with a history of threatening to shoot the President to the State of the Union as the guest of a man who may reenact the most infamous (and not in a good way) moment at any state of the union. What could possibly go wrong?
To be fair maybe not much, to be fair as I was writing this I came across this interview with Nugent
“I will be there with a deep, abiding respect for the office of the presidency, I’m not here to represent any specific cause other than freedom and independence and ‘we the people.’ ”
“I will go in at least 20 pounds lighter than I normally walk, I will be going in sans the hardware store on my belt. I live a well-armed life, and I’ve got to demilitarize before I go.”
So at least he's got the common sense to leave his guns at home, and not walk into a room filled with cops and secret service after telling the man he's coming to see to suck on said gun. And maybe he will actually show his respect for the office and just listen and enjoy the "honor" of hearing it live (i put honor in quotes simply because I would be bored shitless not because of anything having to do with Nugent or Obama).
Well at least during the speech anyways. See Stockman and other republicans have made it known that Mr. Nugent will have plenty to say immediately following the end of the presidents remarks, and are actively lobbying news reporters to cover him.
But it turns out that's a bit of a problem too.
You see by "tradition", (i'll explain the "" on that tomorrow) immediately following the end of the presidents remarks the opposition party the republicans in this case, give a short counter speech to the president. And this year the retort is set to be given by Fl Senator Marco Rubio, who is considered an early favorite for the Republican nomination in 2016, or well pretty much any time in the future, and is supposed to be helping the GOP with their "pretending we like Latinos" Spanish outreach, is supposed to be delivering the responce in both Spanish and English.
Which of course many people may not see if their networks cut to cover Nugent to see if he's gonna say anything outrageous or stupid instead.
Which means best case for the GOP is they get 24 hours of bad press for inviting someone as crazy as Nugent to the State of the Union (even conservative websites are referencing the machine gun comment as "What he is most known for) AND get to step all over the national roll-out of one of their future presidential candidates and their Latino outreach (fake as it is).
And that all assumes neither Stockman or Nugent do anything stupid......
Ok I admit, this isnt quite as bad PR wise as yeterdays post on trying to hit the Benghazi issue again was, but seriously it can not be this hard to get a decent PR guy and have him say "guys really you might want to rethink this, its a no win situation".
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Insanity is doing the same thing 5 times and expecting different results, Benghazi edition
Ok so who doesnt remember this?
That would be Mitt Romney getting fact checked live on TV on Libya and Benghazi, and it became THE moment of the last presidential debate, that solidified the idea that Mitt Romney had no idea about anything on foreign policy.
Now I freely admit, that is an edited tape. It ends in the middle of Candy Crawley's sentence, before she mentions that Romney is also correct that it took 2 weeks to for the Administration to say their was not also a mob presence at the attack. But I picked the edited version for a reason, thats the only half people remember.
Then of course famously, John McCain decided to jump on the FAILwagon, and try his hand at it.
Specifically McCain decided to attack UN ambassador Susan Rice (who has as much to do with embassy security as I do) for saying this on the air
'"Based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy — sparked by this hateful video. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that — in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent."
Which as it turned out were based on the official talking points put out by the white house. Which was the explanation for why John McCain had said the same thing the day before Susan Rice....
So yea thats kinda awkward. Didnt help that it looked like a transparent ploy to get John Kerry appointed Secretary of State, so that Scott Brown, who had just lost his senate seat, could run for Kerry's seat and head back to Washington.
Which kinda hit a snag, when it turned out Scott Brown doesnt want to run. So yea it was all for nothing, and now as a result, no one seems to give a damn about anything John McCain is doing. Apparently he has no credibility left.
Not that that stopped more Republican's from jumping on the FAILway.
Next up, Rand Paul, who decided to attack Hilary Clinton, during senate hearing on Benghazi ....the problem here was that Mr. Paul's question was about Turkish involvement in Benghazi, which led pretty much everyone watching to have the same reaction I'm sure Mrs. Clinton had in her head "Dafuq?"
Didnt help either that totally out of far right field came mere minutes after Rand Paul suggested if he was ever president [HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA] he'd have fired Clinton for not knowing anything about what was going on....Irony thy name is Rand Paul.
And by the way, coming out of those hearing, now former Sec. Clinton is the most popular politician in the country. So yea, clearly that worked out well for the GOP.....
Nor was Paul the last republican to throw his credibility under the bus.
Next up Senator Ron Johnson, who had this very awkward exchange with incoming Sec. of State John Kerry at his confirmation hearings the next day.
See Johnson asked Kerry if Kerry if Kerry would work with him on a permanent basis to find out what really happened at Benghazi, at which point Kerry then said "I think it was very clear… were you at the briefing with the tapes?"
Johnson it should be pointed on, serves on the committee that Kerry chaired, meaning any briefing for that committee of any kind both men could have been at.
Now because of that fact, Johnson had to tell the truth, because of course Kerry already knew the answer.
"No" Johnson quickly replied. Then proceeded to sit there as Kerry pointed out "Well, there was a briefing with tapes, which we all saw—those of us who went to it—uh, which made it crystal clear."
In otherwords, "Sen Johnson, how about doing your job?" So yea, as Queen would say, another one bites the dust.
All of these by the way, serves actually as BACKGROUND to the real story here. Which is that one republican still thinks this is a good idea to attack on. Enter Lindsey Graham.
Who went on "Face the nation" today and threatened to place a hold on the nominations of the Sec. of Defense and CIA head unless he gets answers to a few questions
From the Face the Nation transcript:
BOB SCHIEFFER (Host): I’m not sure I understand. What do you plan to do if they don’t give you an answer? Are you going to put a hold on these two nominations?
GRAHAM: Yes…How could Susan Rice come on to your show and say there’s no evidence of a terrorist attack when the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said they knew that night? I think that was a misleading narrative three weeks before our election.
SCHIEFFER: Let me just make sure, because you’re about to make some news here, I think. You are saying that you are going to block the nominations — you’re going to block them from coming to a vote until you get an answer to this? Now, John McCain has already said he doesn’t think the Republicans ought to filibuster this. What will you do? You’re just going to put a hold on it? [...]
GRAHAM: I want to know who changed the talking points. Who took the references to Al Qaeda out of the talking points given to Susan Rice? We still don’t know…. I want to know what our president did. What did he do as commander in chief? Did he ever pick up the phone and call anybody? I think this is the stuff the country needs to know.
Now of all the republicans, Graham has reached a new level of insanity.
1) We already did the Susan Rice thing. You can ask John McCain about it, he read the same talking points she did. And believe it or not, Susan Rice still has nothing to do with Embassy security.
2) You know what every single person (other then Romney and Clinton) mentioned in this blog has in common? they ALL sit on one of the committees actually responsible for Embassy Security, and giving the state department money for said security, (Which for the record Clinton requested and they refused). So clearly none of these guys have heard why its a bad idea to point fingers (you got 3 pointing back at you)
3) Chronology: Graham was elected to congress in 1995 and placed on a committee that happens to be responsible for embassy security. US embassies have been attacked on a near yearly basis since Bill Clinton was in office in 1998. The longest stretch of time without an attack is a tie. 1 chunk from the end of 2008 to the middle of 2010, and the second from the middle of 2010, until Benghazi. Also known as most of the first Obama term.....
Which means for all of those attack, Lindsey Graham has been on the Committee responsible for embassy security (in either the house or senate as he moved chambers in 2003)
Oh by the way, the attack in 2010, that you likely never heard of, killed 8. But you know why Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the GOP never had their panties in a twist in 2010? it wasnt a presidential election year,
Also by the way, there was another attack on an American Embassy, last week over in Turkey....but the problem is, it only killed 1 person, so Graham wont get any attention talking about it.
4) In earlier comments in that same interview (which I'll post in full below, I just couldnt find a full printed transcript) Graham blamed the incompetence of the current Sec of Defense and the current head of CIA for Bengahzi.
Now lets assume Graham is right....take a look at his threat. He's threatening to block the confirmation of their successors. Which means the incompetent people STAY IN THE JOB. Seems to me, if you actually thought they were incompetent you would want them replaced as fast as possible, not force them to stick around longer. Because we actually do kinda need a Sec of Defense and a CIA head...those are not the agencies you want running around with no one managing.
In other words Graham's just throwing a fake temper tantrum. In fact if we sum up Graham's appearence we get this:
Shorter Lindsey Graham: "Until I get to see the presidents personal diary, about one of the least lethal attack on an american embassy in my entire tenure sitting on the committees [partly] responsible for embassy security, and get to see who prepped a totally unrelated to the event black woman for TV, I am going to pretend to be outraged and shut down the entire US military apparatus, I mean its not like we were attacked and our embassies use Marines for security or anything. I mean I'd ask for his birth certificate but that is so 2009....."
The upside is, like Romney, McCain, Paul, and Johnson before him, Graham is likely going to get badly embarrassed, and never be credible enough for anyone to give a fuck about again.
But the real question is actually this: How many more times do republicans need to try this before they get it. It doesnt work, its not going to work, and honestly Seppuku is faster, less annoying and less painful to watch.....
I mean I'm all for flushing the GOP down the toilet, but even my dog knew better then to keep running into a closed door.....just saying.
(now for full context, as much of Lindsey's graham's interview on Face the Nation I can get...its about 4 1/2 minutes and I've had some issues getting it to embed which is why i didn't want to post it in the middle of the blog. Sorry about the link, best I can do.)
Now I freely admit, that is an edited tape. It ends in the middle of Candy Crawley's sentence, before she mentions that Romney is also correct that it took 2 weeks to for the Administration to say their was not also a mob presence at the attack. But I picked the edited version for a reason, thats the only half people remember.
Then of course famously, John McCain decided to jump on the FAILwagon, and try his hand at it.
Specifically McCain decided to attack UN ambassador Susan Rice (who has as much to do with embassy security as I do) for saying this on the air
'"Based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy — sparked by this hateful video. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that — in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent."
Which as it turned out were based on the official talking points put out by the white house. Which was the explanation for why John McCain had said the same thing the day before Susan Rice....
So yea thats kinda awkward. Didnt help that it looked like a transparent ploy to get John Kerry appointed Secretary of State, so that Scott Brown, who had just lost his senate seat, could run for Kerry's seat and head back to Washington.
Which kinda hit a snag, when it turned out Scott Brown doesnt want to run. So yea it was all for nothing, and now as a result, no one seems to give a damn about anything John McCain is doing. Apparently he has no credibility left.
Not that that stopped more Republican's from jumping on the FAILway.
Next up, Rand Paul, who decided to attack Hilary Clinton, during senate hearing on Benghazi ....the problem here was that Mr. Paul's question was about Turkish involvement in Benghazi, which led pretty much everyone watching to have the same reaction I'm sure Mrs. Clinton had in her head "Dafuq?"
Didnt help either that totally out of far right field came mere minutes after Rand Paul suggested if he was ever president [HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA] he'd have fired Clinton for not knowing anything about what was going on....Irony thy name is Rand Paul.
And by the way, coming out of those hearing, now former Sec. Clinton is the most popular politician in the country. So yea, clearly that worked out well for the GOP.....
Nor was Paul the last republican to throw his credibility under the bus.
Next up Senator Ron Johnson, who had this very awkward exchange with incoming Sec. of State John Kerry at his confirmation hearings the next day.
See Johnson asked Kerry if Kerry if Kerry would work with him on a permanent basis to find out what really happened at Benghazi, at which point Kerry then said "I think it was very clear… were you at the briefing with the tapes?"
Johnson it should be pointed on, serves on the committee that Kerry chaired, meaning any briefing for that committee of any kind both men could have been at.
Now because of that fact, Johnson had to tell the truth, because of course Kerry already knew the answer.
"No" Johnson quickly replied. Then proceeded to sit there as Kerry pointed out "Well, there was a briefing with tapes, which we all saw—those of us who went to it—uh, which made it crystal clear."
In otherwords, "Sen Johnson, how about doing your job?" So yea, as Queen would say, another one bites the dust.
All of these by the way, serves actually as BACKGROUND to the real story here. Which is that one republican still thinks this is a good idea to attack on. Enter Lindsey Graham.
Who went on "Face the nation" today and threatened to place a hold on the nominations of the Sec. of Defense and CIA head unless he gets answers to a few questions
From the Face the Nation transcript:
BOB SCHIEFFER (Host): I’m not sure I understand. What do you plan to do if they don’t give you an answer? Are you going to put a hold on these two nominations?
GRAHAM: Yes…How could Susan Rice come on to your show and say there’s no evidence of a terrorist attack when the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said they knew that night? I think that was a misleading narrative three weeks before our election.
SCHIEFFER: Let me just make sure, because you’re about to make some news here, I think. You are saying that you are going to block the nominations — you’re going to block them from coming to a vote until you get an answer to this? Now, John McCain has already said he doesn’t think the Republicans ought to filibuster this. What will you do? You’re just going to put a hold on it? [...]
GRAHAM: I want to know who changed the talking points. Who took the references to Al Qaeda out of the talking points given to Susan Rice? We still don’t know…. I want to know what our president did. What did he do as commander in chief? Did he ever pick up the phone and call anybody? I think this is the stuff the country needs to know.
Now of all the republicans, Graham has reached a new level of insanity.
1) We already did the Susan Rice thing. You can ask John McCain about it, he read the same talking points she did. And believe it or not, Susan Rice still has nothing to do with Embassy security.
2) You know what every single person (other then Romney and Clinton) mentioned in this blog has in common? they ALL sit on one of the committees actually responsible for Embassy Security, and giving the state department money for said security, (Which for the record Clinton requested and they refused). So clearly none of these guys have heard why its a bad idea to point fingers (you got 3 pointing back at you)
3) Chronology: Graham was elected to congress in 1995 and placed on a committee that happens to be responsible for embassy security. US embassies have been attacked on a near yearly basis since Bill Clinton was in office in 1998. The longest stretch of time without an attack is a tie. 1 chunk from the end of 2008 to the middle of 2010, and the second from the middle of 2010, until Benghazi. Also known as most of the first Obama term.....
Which means for all of those attack, Lindsey Graham has been on the Committee responsible for embassy security (in either the house or senate as he moved chambers in 2003)
Oh by the way, the attack in 2010, that you likely never heard of, killed 8. But you know why Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the GOP never had their panties in a twist in 2010? it wasnt a presidential election year,
Also by the way, there was another attack on an American Embassy, last week over in Turkey....but the problem is, it only killed 1 person, so Graham wont get any attention talking about it.
4) In earlier comments in that same interview (which I'll post in full below, I just couldnt find a full printed transcript) Graham blamed the incompetence of the current Sec of Defense and the current head of CIA for Bengahzi.
Now lets assume Graham is right....take a look at his threat. He's threatening to block the confirmation of their successors. Which means the incompetent people STAY IN THE JOB. Seems to me, if you actually thought they were incompetent you would want them replaced as fast as possible, not force them to stick around longer. Because we actually do kinda need a Sec of Defense and a CIA head...those are not the agencies you want running around with no one managing.
In other words Graham's just throwing a fake temper tantrum. In fact if we sum up Graham's appearence we get this:
Shorter Lindsey Graham: "Until I get to see the presidents personal diary, about one of the least lethal attack on an american embassy in my entire tenure sitting on the committees [partly] responsible for embassy security, and get to see who prepped a totally unrelated to the event black woman for TV, I am going to pretend to be outraged and shut down the entire US military apparatus, I mean its not like we were attacked and our embassies use Marines for security or anything. I mean I'd ask for his birth certificate but that is so 2009....."
The upside is, like Romney, McCain, Paul, and Johnson before him, Graham is likely going to get badly embarrassed, and never be credible enough for anyone to give a fuck about again.
But the real question is actually this: How many more times do republicans need to try this before they get it. It doesnt work, its not going to work, and honestly Seppuku is faster, less annoying and less painful to watch.....
I mean I'm all for flushing the GOP down the toilet, but even my dog knew better then to keep running into a closed door.....just saying.
(now for full context, as much of Lindsey's graham's interview on Face the Nation I can get...its about 4 1/2 minutes and I've had some issues getting it to embed which is why i didn't want to post it in the middle of the blog. Sorry about the link, best I can do.)
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