Month: March 2010

Il diavolo

by digby

Randall Terry converted to Catholicism in 2006. But they may find that he’s a lot more trouble than he’s worth:

Demonstrations to be Held at Vatican Against Nancy Pelosi. ‘DC Arcivescovo Wuerl; Scomunica Nancy Pelosi!’

American pro-lifers to hold demonstrations in front of Vatican against ‘Catholic’ Nancy Pelosi.

Message: ‘D.C. Archbishop Wuerl, Obey Church Law: Excommunicate Pelosi.’

Contact: Catherine Veritas, 904-687-9804; www.humbleplea.com

ROME, March 21 /Christian Newswire/ — The following is submitted by Randall Terry, Insurrecta Nex:

What: Demonstration against Nancy Pelosi and Washington DC Archbishop Donald Wuerl; re, paying for child killing in so-called health care.

When: First demonstration, 3 PM local (Rome) time, Monday, March 22. Second TBA

Where: On Italian soil, directly in front of Vatican fence in front of St. Peter’s.

Who: Randall Terry, and 10 American Pro-lifers from The Vanguard of St. Catherine of Siena.

Why: Nancy Pelosi has betrayed the Catholic faith, fought to shed innocent blood, and repeatedly voted to take money from Americans to pay for the murder of innocent babies.

Meanwhile, Washington DC Archbishop Donald Wuerl, has refused to rebuke her for this evil, and also continues to serve her Holy Communion.

Signs (in English and Italian) will state:

Archbishop Wuerl
Excommunicate Nancy Pelosi!

DC Arcivescovo Wuerl
Scomunica Nancy Pelosi

American Bishops:
Obey the Pope!

Vescovo Americano
Devi Obbedire Al Papa!

Archbishop Wuerl: Enforce Canon 915!
No Communion for Pelosi!

Archbishop Wuerl:
Obey Church Law or Resign.

Randall Terry states:

“This bill is the most horrific treachery against life since Roe versus Wade. I would hate to be in Nancy Pelosi’s shoes on the Day of Judgment.

“President Obama’s executive order – should it come to that – will not be worth the paper it is written on.

“And DC Archbishop Wuerl – more than any prelate in America – is responsible for this calamity by his silence. Has he even once publicly rebuked Pelosi for trying to force us to fund murder, or openly tried to derail her?

“Worse yet, Archbishop Wuerl still permits Nancy Pelosi to receive Holy Communion. This scandal reeks to the heavens.

“If Archbishop Wuerl does not have the integrity and courage to uphold the teachings of the Church, defend babies from murder, protect the faithful’s rights, and protect the Holy Eucharist from sacrilege, he should resign, and ‘let another take his office’ who has true apostolic valor.

“If Archbishop Wuerl won’t defend the Holy Eucharist over a crime of this magnitude, he is either clearly deceived, or defiantly disobedient. Either way, he is not fit to be the D.C. Archbishop.”

It’s not like the Vatican doesn’t have enough moral turpitude to worry about without dealing with an addled American conman. When it rains it pours.

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Cracked Thesis

by digby

As predicted, the Republicans’ lunatic behavior means that Obama lost his “promise” by failing to turn shrieking harpies into calm, deliberative statesmen:

But there is no doubt that in the course of this debate, Mr. Obama has lost something — and lost it for good. Gone is the promise on which he rode to victory less than a year and a half ago — the promise of a “postpartisan” Washington in which rationality and calm discourse replaced partisan bickering.

Never in modern memory has a major piece of legislation passed without a single Republican vote. Even President Lyndon B. Johnson got just shy of half of Republicans in the House to vote for Medicare in 1965, a piece of legislation that was denounced with many of the same words used to oppose this one. That may be the true measure of how much has changed in Washington in the ensuing 45 years, and how Mr. Obama’s own strategy is changing with the discovery that the approach to governing he had in mind simply will not work.

“Let’s face it, he’s failed in the effort to be the nonpolarizing president, the one who can use rationality and calm debate to bridge our traditional divides,” said Peter Beinart, a liberal essayist who is publishing a history of hubris in politics. “It turns out he’s our third highly polarizing president in a row. But for his liberal base, it confirms that they were right to believe in the guy — and they had their doubts.

The last three presidents have been polarizing? I suppose you could put it that way. The other, more accurate, way to put it is to admit that the Republican party has gone batshit insane and so the country is polarized between their freakshow and the normal people.

Clinton ran as a centrist and governed as one and the Republicans impeached him for his trouble. Landslide Bush turned the executive branch into an imperial office, invaded countries without reason and tortured people. I suppose you could call that “polarizing” but perhaps it’s more accurate to say he was a manifestation of his political party — which is, as mentioned, batshit insane. Obama just passed a market friendly health care bill that was originally proposed by Bob Dole, largely against the will of the left. And the right wing, as usual, is apoplectic to the point of near mass insanity.

It’s not like the two Democratic presidents of the three did anything that can logically be construed as so liberal that the other side can’t support them. It’s simply that Republicans believe no Democrat can possibly have a legitimate claim to the presidency at all. (See previous post.)

Beinert has been making this ridiculous claim for a couple of weeks now so I assume he’s developed this cracked thesis for his book in which he will claim that Obama, in an act of sheer “hubris,” decided to govern as a radical left winger in defiance of the country’s clear desire for a post-partisan healer.

If only it were true.

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Because It’s Bad It Must be Good

by digby

Think Progress:

National Review’s Jay Nordlinger posted a letter yesterday claiming that the incidents proved that “Racism in America is dead.”

As everyone sweats out the final Obamacare tallies, I’m struck by a couple of other stories. In one case, someone reported hearing an anti-black epithet used at a political rally. In another case, dogged police finally arrested the perpetrator of an intolerable crime. The perp is a 16-year-old kid who made a potentially offensive comment on a Wal-Mart overhead speaker. That these things are even remotely newsworthy leads me to one conclusion: Racism in America is dead. We had slavery, then we had Jim Crow — and now we have the occasional public utterance of a bad word. Real racism has been reduced to de minimis levels, while charges of racism seem to increase. I’ll vote for the first politician with the brass to say that “racism” should be dropped from our national dialogue. We’re a good nation, among the least racist on earth . . .

On his radio show this morning, conservative talker Bill Bennett endorsed the letter writer’s thesis, saying “I think that’s right”:

BENNETT: I think that’s right. Is there occasional racism, of course. But this country’s been transformed on the issue of race. You talk to young people, they don’t even understand how people could have judged people by race. They just don’t even, it doesn’t even parse. So, you know, what some of the liberal Democrats want to suggest is that Republicans and conservatives are still, you know, they have one, one scenario for this. It’s Mississippi burning and, you know, they’re still there. But the country is not there. Mississippi isn’t Mississippi of Mississippi burning. Transformed society on this issue. And everybody who is honest would admit to that.

To the extent that things are better, it’s no thanks to the conservative racists, of course, who fought it every step of the way.

This is the essence of Bizarroworld conservatism: the fact that there were people screaming “ni**er” at civil rights heroes in April 2010 means that racism is dead. And the statistics proving African Americans are still discriminated against? Why, the mere fact that we know about these statistics proves that racism is dead.

The 9.7 percent unemployment rate is an understated fiction. The “real” unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers and those who work part time instead of full time, is closer to 16.5 percent.

The African American unemployment rate, reported at 16.7 percent, is closer to 29 percent when discouraged workers and others are included. Last month, the Black male unemployment rate rose, while the white male rate dropped.

That’s excellent news. Indeed, the fact that 60% of blacks are allowed to work at all, is a sign of great racial progress. What could be more logical?

Update: Amanda Marcotte makes an important observation about all this, as it relates to my earlier post about the right’s seeming inability to accept the idea of democracy. This is correct:

Well, it’s simple, really. They assume, if they don’t state it outright, that large numbers of American voters shouldn’t have the right to vote. That’s the implicit argument when Sarah Palin praises white rural voters as “Real Americans”, when Birthers obsess over the idea that the first black President simply can’t be eligible for office, when tea baggers yell racist and homophobic slurs at politicians, and when they insist that you eliminate black voters from the count if you want to find out how popular a politician “really” is. When Bart Stupak laughed out loud at the very idea that nuns have opinions worth listening to—and listed a bunch of men whose opinions were the ones that counted—you had a similar sentiment being expressed. Universal suffrage seems like a fundamental part of democracy to liberals, but it appears that conservatives think it de-legitimizes the results of elections. And that if you do something without Republicans on board, you’re eliminating those who represent the only people who count.

These people believe they represent a majority and they do: of white people. Obama only has a 35% approval rating among whites, (which is down from the 42% of whites that helped elect him.) If you have white supremacist tendencies, you’re going to believe that he isn’t representing a majority of Real Americans.

Indeed, it explains why Democratic presidents in general can’t ever be legitimate. They are, after all, always elected with the support of African Americans, Hispanics and feminist women. That wasn’t what the founders intended, now was it?

Read Amanda’s whole piece. She’s answered this riddle.

Oh Nooes!

by digby

I guess the Dems have really gone and done it this time:

Democrats shouldn’t expect much cooperation from Republicans the rest of this year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Monday.

Terrifying prospect.

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Cool Hand Luke

by digby

There are different ways of interpreting the Bible, but this is pretty unbelievable:

Stephen Colbert,interviewing Mary Matalin:

Colbert: First question, why are you wearing a cross? You know Jesus preached social justice. Makes you look like a commie.

Matalin: Yes he did. He also preached teach em how to fish. Not give em a fish, right? You don’t work you don’t eat.

Colbert: He said “I will make you fishers of men.” I don’t think Jesus said “if you don’t work you don’t eat.” I think that was Cool Hand Luke.

I think this explains the reason why the Republicans are so upset at the idea that the government should do something to help the tens of millions of people who don’t have health insurance. They think it says so in the Bible. The problem is that the people they’re listening to see Atlas Shrugged as the Bible. That misunderstanding has led to some confusion.

You should go look at the video to see the size of the glittering diamond cross she’s wearing. I think she must have ripped it off of a Cathedral somewhere. I don’t think the Queen of England in her capacity as head of the Church has anything like that. (Either that or it’s one of those Baby Phat zircons you can buy in the Lillian Vernon catalog.)

Update: Here you go:

Beck: “Jesus Martinez” might favor health bill, “[b]ut not the Jesus from Nazareth that I know”

The Night The Country Died

by digby

The horror of forced health care is so terrible that it will, like slavery and the Great Depression, call forth poets and songwriters to speak for the oppressed and the displaced. I think when history records this era, it will see Michael Bérubé as the Woody Guthrie of the teabag movement:

The night the country died In the deep of a Sunday night
In the land of the health care bill
When the free republic died
And they talk about it still When a man named Al-Barack
Took his fascist voting bloc
And he called his gang to war
With the forces of the law I heard my grandma cry
I heard her pray the night the country died
Brother what a night it really was
Brother what a fight it really was
Glory be I heard my grandma cry
I heard her pray the night the country died
Brother what a night the people saw
Brother what a fight the people saw
Yes indeed And we took our tea in bags
Through the streets around the Hill
As we screamed at blacks and fags
Chanting, “n****r kill the bill.” There was Boehner on the floor
And threats of civil war
But by midnight it was done
And the socialists had won I heard my grandma cry
I heard her pray the night the country died
Brother what a night it really was
Brother what a fight it really was
Glory be I heard my grandma cry
I heard her pray the night the country died
Brother what a night the people saw
Brother what a fight the people saw
Yes indeed Then there was no sound at all
But a hush upon the Mall
For as the clock struck one
The death panels had begun
And then at the break of day
Obama took grandma away* The night the country died
The night the country died
Brother what a night the people saw
Brother what a fight the people saw
Yes indeed

Congratulations Or Even A Sigh Of Relief Are A Waste Of Time

by tristero

Given their disgracefully clueless performances in the recent past, I have no doubt that right now leading Democratic strategists at the White House, in Congress, and across the country are pouring out the champagne and letting down their guard. Think I’m kidding? Read this:

All of the Rs have very long, very disappointed, very glum faces. None of them seem able to even conjure up a bit of good old-fashioned outrage for a decent rant. They know what’s coming. They know they can’t stop it. They look defeated.
As a decades-long C-SPAN junkie, I don’t think this debate will have nearly the kind of fireworks that we might have been expecting. After all of this, I believe this is going to end with a whimper. There’s just no heart in the Rs for a fight anymore. I wonder if the same is true with the tea partiers. Will they be angered or deflated?

That question doesn’t deserve a response, but Josh takes it seriously, and thinks his commenter may be “prescient.”

Uh-huh. My guess is that such naively optimistic, and thoroughly delusional, sentiments are rampant right now. They think “we” won. Even worse, they think that Republicans realize they lost and have folded. That is sheer nonsense.

Democrats fail to understand that the real fight, the one with no holds barred whatsoever, began exactly one millisecond after the gavel came down. And if history is any judge, they are completely unprepared for what is about to hit them.

Foul epithets? Teabaggers carrying guns to rallies? Members of Congress finding excuses to justify terrorism against government offices? Don’t Democrats get it? That’s what the rightwing fanatics hellbent on wrecking this country were doing when they were being polite. That’s their idea of civility. The gloves have just come off. After all, they got nothing to lose.

“A republic if you can keep it,” a wise American once said. I’d feel a lot more confident that we could if I thought that Democrats had the slightest understanding of exactly what it will take.

Further reason neither to celebrate or relax: Let’s not forget this bill is, as they say, far from perfect.

Does all this sound ungrateful and churlish? Let’s see where we’re at in November. Then let’s see where we’re at in 2012.

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UPDATE: In case it’s not clear how unprepared Democrats for what’s about to come down, here’s a little taste of the problem:

Kathryn Jean Lopez chimes in, “Congratulations, Democrats. Beginning now, you own the health-care system in America. Every hiccup. Every complaint. Every long line. All yours.”

It’s like Lopez didn’t notice that the bill took almost a year to pass because of the constant bait-and-switch run by conservatives who pretended to be interested in a compromise. No Republicans voted for it in the end, but because of that process, the law has the indelible imprint on it of the obstinate Republican minority.

Got it? No? Ok, let me explain.

I got no problem with refuting stupid, emotionally irrational, and utterly fact-free assertions from crazy people through the calm use of reason. But responding to Lopez’s loopy claptrap by writing “the indelible imprint … of the obstinate Republican minority” isn’t calm or reasonable rhetoric. It’s just pretentious, self-indulgent and condescending.

So what’s better? Well, I only had a minute or so, but here’s a start:

For over an entire year, Republicans refused to act like grown-ups when it came to healthcare reform, They never proposed anything even remotely serious. And rather than help the American people understand the issues, they simply chose to scare us. They lied, they delayed, they threw genuinely enormous tantrums, and they lied some more.

Finally, when push came to shove and they had the opportunity to vote, they behaved like immature, frightened infants. Not a single Republican had the guts to defy their dictatorial leaders and the deep pockets of the corporations who back them. Not a single Republican had the courage to represent his country’s interests instead of the insurance companies’.

Congratulations, Republicans. You are now officially the Party of Two-Year-Olds.

Democracy

by digby

The teabaggers are all upset that the Democrats passed a bill without any Republican votes. Evidently, this makes it illegitimate and unconstitutional. I’m not surprised they think this. They get their constitutional instruction from Glenn Beck.

But what can you say about the front runner for the 2012 presidential nomination?

A Campaign Begins Today [Mitt Romney]

America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation — rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he has succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better.

He calls his accomplishment “historic” — in this he is correct, although not for the reason he intends. Rather, it is an historic usurpation of the legislative process — he unleashed the nuclear option, enlisted not a single Republican vote in either chamber, bribed reluctant members of his own party, paid-off his union backers, scapegoated insurers, and justified his act with patently fraudulent accounting. What Barack Obama has ushered into the American political landscape is not good for our country; in the words of an ancient maxim, “what starts twisted, ends twisted.”

I can’t help but recall hearing a whole lot of patronizing advice from these same people a few years back when anyone breathed that President Bush might not have legitimately taken office since he lost the popular vote, his brother manipulated the system in Florida and he was was installed by a partisan supreme court decision. Back then it was all “get over it,” and “I’ve got political capital and I’m gonna spend it!” Now, these same people are all screaming that it’s a usurpation if the Democrats win the majority and then pass legislation that they don’t like.

It’s fairly clear that Republicans don’t understand how democracy works. You campaign, people vote, you win elections, you get a majority, you pass legislation. They seem to think Democracy means that that elections are irrelevant, majorities are meaningless and that all legislation is contingent upon the permission of the Republican Party.

I’m sorry these people are so unhappy. I know how they feel. I used to hate it when the Republicans passed some disgusting initiative that went against everything I believe in. But I don’t recall having a mental breakdown at the notion that they could do it even though I didn’t want them to. The idea that they were obligated to do my bidding didn’t actually cross my mind.

As they used to say repeatedly, “elections have consequences.” If the people don’t like this bill, they have every right to turn the Democrats out of office and repeal it. But screaming hysterically that it’s cheating to pass legislation with a majority just proves that these folks’ great reverence for the constitution is based more on their love of wearing funny hats than anything that’s written in it.

This is how the system works. If you don’t like it, start pressing for a constitutional amendment that requires that all legislation be approved by every teabagger in the land before it can be enacted. Or start campaigning to put your teabaggers in office so they can have a majority and enact the legislation you like. In either event, stop the whining about “abuse of power.” They passed a bill you don’t like, for crying out loud, it’s not like they seized office with a partisan decision by the Supreme Court and then invaded a country that hadn’t attacked us or anything…

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Grayson Sez

by digby

In 1968, a ten-year-old boy had to go to the hospital four times a week for treatment. Without that treatment, he had trouble breathing, and he felt like he was suffocating. Because he was suffocating. His health care was covered by his parents’ health insurance. But then they lost their jobs. They were worried about how they would pay the rent. He was worried about whether he would live or die. How can we let a 10-year-old think about such things? Whether you are Democratic or Republican, left-wing or right-wing, liberal or libertarian, you know in your heart that that’s wrong. And it’s what you know in your heart, your empathy, that makes you human. I was that 10-year-old boy. And I haven’t forgotten.

That’s why I support universal, comprehensive and affordable health care for all American. For you. For me. And for sure, for my five young children, and yours, too. The supposed “sins” of joblessness, homelessness and poverty, those “sins” of the parents, should never descend on the children. I’m fighting for a decent life for all, especially our children. That’s why I voted yes on today’s health care reform bill. It’s an historic first step. Historic. But we’re not done. The framework for a comprehensive health care system is in place. Now we must finish the job. Our Medicare You Can Buy Into Act now has over 80 cosponsors in the House and over 40,000 citizen cosponsors at WeWantMedicare.com. It’s a simple bill, to let you and me buy into Medicare. You want it, you buy it, you got it. www.wewantmedicare.com

This reform bill has many holes in it, as you know. And when that becomes obvious, it’s going to be necessary to have the public plan sponsored and ready, the idea fully developed and the political support in place to quickly pass this when the opportunity strikes.

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What’s New?

by digby

So, did anything happen while I was out? Oh, right the Republicans made asses of themselves:

If you think that was bad, this will make you sick.

Is there a slimier reptile in the land than Mike Pence?

And why are their constituents so mad? They have no idea

Oh, and while all these lovely folks were whining, crying, lying and bitching, the House Democrats passed a comprehensive health care reform bill.

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