Month: March 2010

Come The Rightwing Revolution, We Won’t Need To Pee

by tristero

Can’t you just hear Limbaugh saying, “Well, just keep your legs crossed, what’s so hard about that?”

Shhhhh

by digby

Don’t tell anyone:

Republicans like a politician who stands up for what he believes — even if he believes the Republican Party is populated by a bunch of “knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.” The candidate leading the Florida GOP primary to determine who will take on Rep. Alan Grayson, the Democrat who represents the Orlando-based district, is none other than Grayson himself, according to a poll paid for by his campaign. Grayson is a freshman congressman who has drawn scorn from the GOP and has quickly built a nationwide following of progressives.

I think anyone who has the guts to speak to people’s frustration and anger in a coherent fashion is likely to be respected by his or her constituents. (More than half of populism is attitude and if you can’t muster that, you can’t make people believe you.)

Grayson is a very smart guy, in command of the facts who knows how to communicate with passion and conviction. One would have thought that was a requirement in politics, but it turns out it isn’t. He’s unusual and it’s too bad for the Democrats that he is. They need more like him.

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2GOOD2BTrue

by digby

In case you were wondering about that Justice Roberts resignation rumor, here’s what apparently happened:

Here’s an account of what went down in Professor Peter Tague’s criminal law class this morning, from a 1L at Georgetown Law:

Today’s class was partially on the validity of informants not explaining their sources. [Professor Tague] started off class at around 9 am EST by telling us not to tell anyone, but that we might find it interesting that tomorrow, Roberts would be announcing his retirement for health concerns. He refused to tell anyone how he knew. Then, at around 9:30, he let everyone in on the joke.

Note the timestamps on the Radar posts. The first one came out at 6:10 a.m., i.e., the Pacific Time equivalent of 9:10 a.m. Eastern time. The retraction came out at 6:36 a.m., i.e., the
Pacific Time equivalent of 9:36 a.m. Eastern — shortly after Professor Tague let his class in on the joke. A second Georgetown Law student confirms this account:

Our criminal justice professor started our 9 am lecture with the news that roberts will be resigning tomorow for health reasons — that he could not handle the administrative burdens of the job. He would not say how he knows — but halfway through our lecture on the credibility and reliability of informants he revealed that the Roberts rumor was made up to show how someone you ordinarily think is credible and reliable (ie a law professor) can disseminate inaccurate information.

By then the horse was out of the barn — and running at a gallop:

[B]etween the hour when the class began and when he revealed that he made it up, plenty of students txted and IM’ed their friends and family…. [So] there’s a very good chance that the Roberts rumor that spread like wildfire on the internet was sparked by an eccentric law professor trying to make a point.

I’d say he made it.

Not that I haven’t fallen for a few of these in my time. It’s an occupational hazard. But if this one had been true, it would definitely have been worth waiting for.

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Alaskan Idol

by digby

If Sarah Palin is a serious presidential contender, this could be the final transition from a traditional presidential campaign to a full fledged American Idol style election:

The former Alaska governor is teaming with uber-producer Mark Burnett (“Survivor”) to shop a reality series about her home state, network sources confirm. Palin and Burnett made the rounds at least three of the major broadcasters (NBC, ABC and Fox) while in Los Angeles for her taping of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” this week.

Palin and her family would be on-camera in the show, which one executive described as “‘Planet Earth’ meets Alaska meets her family,” referring to Discovery’s high-definition nature hit.

“There’s an awful lot of interest in her,” one executive said. “As a short-order series, it might work. It would depend on what kind of footage you get.”

Oh, I think we have a hint. Remember the footage of her fixing cheese dogs and moose chili for the kids in her business suit?

Or how about this?

Don’t underestimate the appeal of this. After all, we are already voting for presidents on the basis of whether or not you want to have a beer with them. She could be the first Reality TV president.

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Tearing Off Pieces

by digby

The other day I wrote about having that sick feeling in my stomach over the latest attack on the social contract with respect to the unemployment benefits extension. I think we always find these attacks startling and somewhat paralyzing when they happen because they go against our instinctive belief in a certain national moral consensus. They are radical propositions that seem so outrageous that we can’t believe we have to argue the point until it’s too late.

I used the issue of torture as a previous assault on the social contract and I think it’s been born out that as a nation we no longer believe in an absolute prohibition on torture. You’ll recall that at one time President Bush very scrupulously insisted “the United States doesn’t torture,” an odd turn of phrase which was later adopted by President Obama as well. Aside from the legal exposure, I think it was the old tribute vice pays to virtue in that they at least paid lip service to the idea that torture was wrong (even if they winked and nodded to the bloodthirsty sadists while they did it.) Today what we hear are full-throated defenses of torture. They’ve successfully defined this deviancy down.

Get ready for another one, which takes a slightly different approach although not one which is unprecedented:

As Greenwald says:

This new ad — from Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol’s group “Keep America Safe” — might truly be the most repellent and vile political ad of the last decade.

It’s another example of the patented “I know you are but what am I” routine which the Republicans have perfected over the years. This one is obviously designed to create some equivalency in the minds of citizens between the heinous torture advocates Yoo, Bybee, Addington etc, and defense lawyers who, by definition, very often defend guilty clients. Indeed, it’s a cornerstone of our judicial system. I assume the right wing radio talkers will spin the idea that these defense lawyers are terrorist sympathizers hard and before long, we’ll have full fledged debates about whether or not they should be disbarred. At that point, most Americans will tune out and say “they’re all scum” and that will be that.

But the larger point is that this kind of argument, however cynically designed to cover Dick Cheney’s historical legacy, results in the same ripping of the social contract as the torture “controversy.” Over time a fair number of people begin to believe that something we were all taught in grade school as an absolute — a constitutional right to counsel — is controversial. And another piece of our consensus about what the constitution means will have been destroyed (by some very creepy authoritarians, I might add.)

And the greatest irony of all this is that for decades one of the most famous screeching critics of what they used to call moral relativism was none other than Lynne Cheney. Shamelessness and hypocrisy doesn’t even begin to explain it.

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A Gentleman And A Scholar

by digby

From a March 4 post on Twitter by Michael F. Cannon, Director of Health Care Policy Studies at the Cato Institute:

Look closely. It sounds like he’s got some experience in the matter.

Courtesy Media Matters

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Men Of Principle

by digby

Stupak’s getting quite a bit of press this morning for this:

Democrats would kill healthcare over abortion

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A dozen House of Representatives Democrats opposed to abortion are willing to kill President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan unless it satisfies their demand for language barring the procedure, Representative Bart Stupak said on Thursday.

“Yes. We’re prepared to take responsibility,” Stupak said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.

“Let’s face it. I want to see healthcare. But we’re not going to bypass the principles of belief that we feel strongly about,” he said.

He doesn’t want to see health care. The Senate bill does not allow the government to pay for abortions and the entire argument is ridiculous on its face. This is not about principle. It’s pretty clear that it’s about the religious right caring more about regaining its political clout and hoping that the failure of health care reform will be rewarded by the GOP. And Bart Stupak is their accomplice.

I’m waiting for a liberal health care reform advocate to tell me that pro-choice people in the House need to offer up a bill that would prohibit anyone from paying for an abortion if their money has ever been touched by someone who is opposed to it — or perhaps offer to give up the right to abortion altogether. And if they refuse, they will be accused of being uncaring about all those people who will be harmed by their willful refusal to compromise for the greater good and lectured about all the poor women who will get other kinds of care if they will just make this one silly little compromise.

Oddly, I haven’t heard a lot of commentators making that argument about the staunch Catholic, Bart Stupak. But then that would be rude because he’s allegedly arguing from religious conviction while the feminists who are desperately trying to hang on to some form of access to their right to own their bodies are just being selfish Divas. So, it’s completely different.

Update: Here’s more from Jessica Arons at The Nation.

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Make a Call

by digby

This is worth doing:

America’s dependence on foreign oil hurts our economy, our nation’s security and the health of our planet. By investing in a clean energy future now, we can create millions of jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and tackle climate change — all at the same time.

We can do it by passing comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation – now.

Americans from all walks of life are joining together to call their senators and demand passage of comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.

The time is now. We cannot wait any longer. Make the call.

Use the Click-to-Call tool at this link. Enter in your information and you will get a call with a short message from us and be patched into one of your senator’s offices.

The right’s noise machine is very powerful and they have the ability to mobilize ens of thousands via hate radio and Fox. They almost always do it by having their audience call the Hill en masse over a sustained period of time.

I keep hearing all these politicians from both parties droning on and on about how irresponsible it is to leave a (theoretical) large deficit for their children and grandchildren. But most of these same folks don’t seem to care at all about leaving them with a planet that is increasingly unable to sustain human life as we know it. I’ve always suspected that money is more important than life to many of our leaders, but this is ridiculous.

If you can find the time today, it would be great if you could call.Just click here.

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Yuck!

by tristero

From Jill Richardson, a press release from the Organic Consumers Association :

Twice a year since 2007, the SFPUC [San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission] has hosted “Compost Giveaway Events” in locations throughout the city. Although the city has marketed the material as “organic compost” or “organic fertilizer,” it turns out that it is really toxic sludge generated by San Francisco and seven other counties’ industrial, hospital, commercial and residential sewage. Residents who had lined up at the giveaways were outraged to learn of SFPUC¹s bait-and-switch.

“I had no idea that the free sludge was toxic. I am just shocked that this has happened for so long,” says one such gardener, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by the city. “I have some stuff left in the shed but I won’t use it. I am very unhappy about the entire situation; I have used biosolids [a made-up euphemism for sewage sludge] for two straight years only to find out that it doesn¹t adhere to the community garden¹s strict rules on organic practices.”

In fact, the USDA explicitly prohibits food grown in sewage sludge, or in any “product” derived from sewage sludge, to be labeled organic. Sewage sludge is a noxious stew derived from all the industrial, hospital, commercial, residential and radioactive wastes and stormwater runoff that end up in municipal sewer systems.

San Francisco wants you to believe that their sewage sludge is greener and safer than most cities because SF is less industrialized. Their website falsely claims that the “free compost” being given away comes from SF’s sludge alone.

In fact SF’s “free organic fertilizer” comes from seven counties besides SF, some of them–like Fresno and Solano–heavily industrialized with giant oil refineries, metals industries and chemical plants that generate enormous quantities of hazardous and toxic materials.

This sludge containing hazardous materials from all eight counties are blended at Synagro’s waste management facility in Dos Palos and then shipped back to SF to be “given away” to the unsuspecting public as “organic biosolids compost.”

And what exactly is in the sewage sludge? Jill reports (I’ll add a link when Jill provides one):

At the moment, an independent lab is testing the sludge and sending back its preliminary results. So far they are seeing PBDEs, nonylphenols, triclosan and some “new” non-PBDE flame retardants in the samples in “decent amounts.” Triclosan is widely used in antibacterial soaps. PBDE is a flame retardant that may cause neurobehavioral problems.

I take no joy in reporting this, as it means that many SF residents are eating from gardens contaminated with this stuff (and a whole lot more)

Whoa.

Another post from Jill in which we learn that the company that provided the toxic sludge is owned by the Carlyle Group. A google news search turned up no mainstream coverage of this. This is the closest. If there’s more, pls let me know.

Republican Tea

by tristero

There are a lot of folks who think that the Tea Party is a genuine grassroots, populist movement not allied with the Republican party. I’ve never believed it. The latest example.

Adding: I’m not saying all Republicans are teabaggers and vice versa. I’m saying it’s become, if it wasn’t always, an initiative to energize that part of the base of the Republican party that is white and doesn’t run large corporations. Naturally, Republicans have other programs in place to attract bucks from large companies and these appear to have positions that contradict the Tea Party; eg, federal payouts to the too-big-to-fail with no strings attached. No doubt, Republicans are playing up the differences between these two parts of the base in order to shake as much money as they can from both.