"You Super Hot Diva Baby...": Sarah's Fourth Grade Field Trip Begins.

The quote in the post title comes from a man named Tim Green (this is his Facebook page). He posted it on Sarah Palin's Facebook page this past Saturday. The actual quote is:

I WILL BE VOTING FOR YOU SARAH HANG TOUGH STUR IT UP AND TAKE NAMES YOU SUPER HOT DIVA BABY YA GO GIRL!

I won't criticize the spelling; spelling has always been a hit-or-miss proposition on the Internet. Besides, Tim was extra-ecstatic over Sarah's decision to run... around the East Coast for a while, on her "One Nation" tour, in which she will get us past this "critical turning point" in our nation's history by connecting with our founders "to clearly see our way forward."

The tour will restore "all that is good and strong" about America, and is basically a field trip for Sarah Palin, one in which she'll learn to look forward by turning around to see what's happened.

Already, it has stopped in Washington, D.C., where Sarah learned that the our Founding Patriots were foresighted enough to write down the Constitution:


About which, Sarah posted:

On this tour, when I speak of "fundamentally restoring our country," that means restoring it to the ideals found in our charters of liberty. What a great morning we just had seeing the collection of these founding documents at the National Archives!

I'll give Sarah some credit and assume she does not mean restoring this language, put in by the Founders:

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

That's the Fugitive Slave clause, a clause helpfully included by the Founders Sarah celebrates; it wasn't removed from the Constitution until the passage of the 13th Amendment. (But it might still have been in the version Sarah viewed at the archives.)

Interestingly, there was quite a Constitutional debate last week about the "USA Patriot", or whatever the actual name of the law was; it should have been called the "Effective Repeal of the Fourth Amendment Act," but that's not as catchy.

Here is what "On The Issues" has on Sarah's stance on the Patriot Act: It says she does not agree with the proposition that "The Patriot Act Harms Civil Liberties."

Sarah Palin didn't say that, of course; On The Issues derived it from her other stances on civil liberties, such as:

"Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... [Obama's] worried that someone won’t read them their rights?" (September 3, 2008.)

Timothy McVeigh was read his rights. So was the Unabomber.

We should acknowledge that, on Christmas day, the system did not work. This terrorist trained in Yemen with al Qaeda. His American visa was not revoked until after he tried to kill hundreds of passengers. On Christmas day, the only thing that stopped thi terrorist is blind luck and brave passengers. It was a Christmas miracle. And that is not the way that the system is supposed to work.

What followed was equally disturbing after he was captured. He was questioned for only 50 minutes. We have a choice in how to do this. The choice was only question him for 50 minutes and then read his Miranda rights. The administration says then there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants. But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would have liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our U.S. constitutional right to remain silent.

She said that on February 6, 2010. It was about the "Christmas Day Bomber," who failed, and who is in custody, awaiting trial. Making us take off our shoes and belts to get on a plane did not, in fact, work. What did work was the criminal justice system apprehending a criminal and keeping him off the streets pending trial.

Why doesn't "On The Issues" have direct quotes from Sarah Palin on the Patriot Act?

Because she's never, to my knowledge, spoken publicly about it. Stay tuned for more discussion of what Sarah learns on her field trip, and about what she won't talk about.

GOP: "We can't pay for all these projects we've approved unless we can give Grandma's prescription money to insurance lobbyists."

I'm paraphrasing Senator Mitch McConnell, who took to the airwaves on Sunday to announce that he's now against all this spending he's been approving for years.

McConnell's past support of spending includes pushing for $25 million to go to a firm that was under criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice at the time, and also votes for "No Child Left Behind," plus an $82 billion extra appropriation in 2005 to "fight terrorism" through better state drivers' licensing, $295 billion for transportation projects, $66 billion in research proposals, and who voted, in 2005, against a limit on increasing spending ... and voted against spending limits again in 2009.

So it comes as a surprise -- to those who expect something other than pandering and hypocrisy from Senators -- that McConnell announced today that any raising of the debt ceiling had to include Hypocrite Paul Ryan's Plan To Feed Grandpa To Insurance Companies:

"We are going to discuss what ought to be done," McConnell said during an appearance on Meet The Press. "I can assure you that to get my vote to raise the debt ceiling, for whatever that is worth… Medicare will be a part of it."

(Source.) McConnell's past support of huge spending bills is relevant, of course, because "raising the debt ceiling" is something that needs to be done for programs Congress has already approved, but has not appropriated money for. Raising the debt ceiling is not a new tax, or a new program or anything new; it's done to raise money for programs -- including the billions upon billions personally approved by Lying Hypocrite Mitch McConnell -- required to be performed by Congress.

In other words, Congress passed these programs, but didn't (yet) pay for them, and ordered that the Executive Branch do these things, but didn't (yet) pay for them... and now McConnell wants to go all lying hypocrite and claim that he's against the spending he voted for.

But he's not against it; he's for the programs (he voted for them) and he's for spending the money (he voted for it) he's just against actually paying for it.

Oh, and, you Racist Tea Partiers supporting him now? Don't get all excited: McConnell is a recent convert to the Racist Tea Party Anti-Debt Limit Increase movement, having voted before to increase the debt limit with no qualms in 2005, and 2006...

...and that's just the two I could find before thinking about Mitch McConnell made me want to puke and I had to quit.

Dick Cheney Has Found Religion! (Bad Republicans)

And it's not -- surprisingly, "the Sith," but instead, the "Cult of Hypocrisy" headed by Hypocrite Paul Ryan, a cult which has now reached (we can hope?) its zenith; anytime Dick Cheney signs onto something, everyone who doesn't eat orphan hearts for breakfast should be backing away as quickly as possible.

Here's what I'm talking about: Dick Cheney quote unquote "worships the ground Paul Ryan walks on," as he said in a recent interview:





Here's some things you need to know about Dick Cheney's own hypocrisy on government: He is worth some $100 million, personally, but accepts free protection from the government's Secret Service, protection that was extended beyond the ordinary six months by President Obama, and while he was in office, Cheney benefitted from so-called "Cadillac health care" provided... by the U.S. Government.

Here's a more realistic look at Dick Cheney: an ad that notes that without government protection, he'd be dead. Of course, Dick Cheney doesn't have to worry about that anymore, and he can therefore worship Paul Ryan and Paul Ryan's plan to hand tax money over to insurance companies while killing senior citizens who don't happen to be Vice President and/or insanely wealthy.

This man is stupid, and a racist. (Bad Republicans)

His words, not mine. Representative Joe Walsh is the one who called himself stupid, and also labeled himself (unwittingly?) a racist.

First the racism: There is no easier way to prove that what you're about to say is offensive than to announce that what you're about to say is not offensive. Saying This isn't racist but... ensures that whatever follows the but will be among the most racist things you've ever heard.

So when freshman (Republican, of course) racist Representative Joe Walsh, whose main goal is to get on TV enough to land a Fox job*

*more about that in a bit

talked to Slate about his "career" so far, he was asked why he thought Barack Obama always carried Chicago and the Chicago suburbs (where Walsh hopes to be re-elected), he said:

Why was he elected? Again, it comes back to who he was. He was black, he was historic. And there's nothing racist about this. It is what it is.

Yes. "It is what it is," the closing argument of the nincompoop -- and what it is here is racism. Saying that Barack Obama was elected because he was black is racist.

In case you doubt that Walsh is a more telegenic David Duke, he elaborated:

They [the press] were in love with him because they thought he was a good liberal guy and they were in love with him because he pushed that magical button: a black man who was articulate, liberal, the whole white guilt, all of that.

All of that stuff being all the stuff that makes a black man not a good president, just one we elected out of white guilt.

Walsh is also stupid, which is among the lesser of his problems, but he's refreshingly honest about his stupidity. He voted for a spending bill that was three times larger than many Republicans (claimed to) want, and announced that he'd done so because he was in favor of cutting spending. Then he admitted that he doesn't know how Congress works:

We all have strengths and weaknesses... We are all better at certain things than others. I still am someone who doesn't understand the way the legislative process works. I do, but I don't.

This is the "Tea Party," in a nutshell: racists who have no idea how government works, but who are in love with the sound of their own voice.

But to dismiss Walsh as just a Tea Party wingnut is to do him a disservice: he has his eye set on bigger things. A several-times over electoral loser who is likely to be edged out of his district come redistricting time, Walsh owes $317,000 more than he has, a negative net worth that suggests he's not in this for the long haul; he's turned down pension benefits and health care and sleeps in his office, has introduced only three bills so far, but has appeared on national TV 28 times in six months -- more than one time per week.

What does that suggest Walsh's plans are when his sole term is up? The fact that he took acting lessons prior to running tells you what you need to know. Next up: FOX News, home to many a Republican loser.

Let Them Eat Bullets! (We Have Enough Money)

Only Republicans likely mean that headline literally when it comes to the poor or hungry -- we know the GOP likes to shoot opponents to make a point -- but in this case, it's both Republicans and Democrats who are busily screwing over the poor as they do things that are, well, less important than making sure people don't die of hunger in our country.

What's less important than making sure people don't die? Making sure people do die -- according to the Obama Administration, which spent $600 million already in the Libya "effort" and plans to spend $40 million a month to keep on shooting at (some) Muslims. (Source: The National Interest.)

What's interesting about that $40-million-a-month thing -- more than $1,000,000 per day -- is that the Obamans in the federal government requested only $73 billion for food stamps in their next budget -- having cut more than $13 billion from that program already. So we have enough money to bomb North Africa in a Colonel Cathcart-esque escalation of militarism, but we cannot afford to fund food stamps.

Which, by the way, don't actually need funding. See, the food and nutrition programs (which Obama is cutting by nearly 1/6, remember) are running a surplus. Those programs used their money wisely and have funds left over, funds that they're not currently using.

Which is where the Republicans come in; Republicans hate it when government works, unles the government is paying for Hypocrite Paul Ryan's college or John Boehner's skin-and-lung cancer treatments (in the near future.) So they're stripping the surplus of money to use for other things, like paying for the programs the House Of Representatives approved in the past but didn't actually allocate funds for.

You realize that's what the "debt" is, right? It's money our government -- which was controlled entirely by Republicans for much of the past decade -- decided to spend but didn't actually come up with a source of revenue for. So now, having decided to spend more without wanting to come up with a new source of revenue, they are literally taking food from starving people.

Shoot Libyans to score political points, or starve people to death in the name of tax breaks: I give you your 2012 presidential options.

Maybe the GOP should bring back "the Grizz." (Campaign 2012)

People who are either up in arms about, or excited about, or downright gleeful about, the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls, should settle down.

As someone who dreads further Republican incursions into state and federal government, I would be either losing sleep over the prospect that Michele Bachman might get nominated and spend the next four years staring into the wrong camera while claiming that the Founding Fathers hated gays, or I would be ecstatic over that, depending on whether I thought people other than racist Tea Partiers would actually go to the polls in 2012.

Except that I know that most of the people "running" for the GOP nomination right now are, in reality, running for slots on FOX News or for self-aggrandizing purposes. (Right, Herman Cain? You admitted as much on NPR last week, and what kind of Republican willingly speaks to NPR?)*

*Here, by the way, is what Republicans think of NPR: they can use it, like other liberal demons, to mis-educate their racist, paranoid base. Republicans successfully convinced Americans that NPR was sucking the air out of the room where they keep the budget, so to speak: A poll in April, 2011, shows that 7% of the people polled thought the Corporation for Public Broadcasting got fifty percent (or more!) of the federal budget No wonder they hate it; imagine what we could do for troops in Afghanistan with the trillions we're spending on Big Bird!

But I digress. The point is, nobody out there "running" for the GOP nomination will matter much when the time comes to actually run for the GOP nomination, as anyone remotely conversant with history knows.

I am remotely conversant with history, and so I remember that in 1992, in New Hampshire, home to the first primary, the top vote-getter was Paul Tsongas, and other top vote-getters included Tom Harkin, Mario Cuomo, and Tom Laughlin -- film's Billy Jack, who beat Ralph Nader by 0.12% of the vote.

Granted, Bill Clinton finished second in New Hampshire, as an "insurgent" candidate, but the rest of the people who were on a roll early on were people who went on to have zero impact on national politics.

In 2004, the early field in the Democratic presidential race included Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Dennis Kucinich, Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, and the "Rev." Al Sharpton. In total, those early-leaders have had less of an impact on the national scene than I did as an intern in Washington in 1994.

The re-election of a president often poses a problem for the party that doesn't hold the White House; both of those were examples from years when a Republican president was running for re-election, and the 1992 primaries drew a particularly weak crowd because at the time that many contenders should have been forming campaigns, H.W.'s approval rating was 89% -- a high that wouldn't be exceeded until Worst President Ever hit 92. (We in America love to sometimes love the Bush presidents.)

Presidential re-elections cause problems for Republicans, too, though: in 1996, Clinton's initial challengers lined up at the Iowa caucuses, and they included not just Bob Dole, but people like Lamar Alexander, Phil Gramm, and the immortal Morry Taylor.

What? You don't remember the immortal Morry Taylor? I thought nobody would ever forget Maurice "Morry" Taylor, who was the CEO for Titan International, Inc., earned the nickname "the Grizz" for being tough as a bear, and who ran for president and then wrote a book about the experience.



Morry's story is important to note because if there's one thing Republicans love more than misleading people about how much money is given to NPR's "Monkey See" blog, it's falling briefly into love with a CEO who wants to run the government like a business, and also because Morry tells you exactly what will happen to Herman Cain's candidacy, except that when Morry ran his vanity campaign, FOX News was in its infancy and did not serve as a cushy landing spot for failed presidential aspirants.

My advice for Democrats: don't get too despairing, or too excited, about the current flock of also-rans, as you won't hear much from them come next spring.

My advice for Republicans: Please please please nominate Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann, because the fall TV season is not looking so good and I need some fun.

Who'd have thought the Heritage Foundation and Henry Rollins are soulmates?

What started out, for me, as a follow-up post about how the man nobody knows continues to have positions even he doesn't know, a follow-up I was going to write after reading that John Huntsman, or, as voters call him, "Who?!", was stumped again while stumping on the campaign trail, again tripped up by his own past -- denying that he was for individual mandates in health care reform despite numerous former staffers insistence that "Who?!" was for them before he was against them, only as I read the articles detailing "Who?!"'s joining what can only be termed a Republican Dance Craze Entitled The Flip-Flop, I began to think that maybe something bigger was going on here...

... and turns out I was right, as it turns out that the much-hated individual mandate (which actually was the idea of the very insurance companies that now claim to want to fight it) was the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation, which you may recognize as an uber-conservative "think tank," although to hear the Heritage Foundation tell it, they never really thought much of the individual mandate, and they certainly don't like it now.

Writing in an op-ed piece back in April, Robert Moffit, ("a seasoned veteran of more than three decades in Washington policymaking," according to his bio on the HF's website,and also obviously a man who admires Andy Rooney's choice in eyebrow length):

says that ObamaCare resembles his ideas

only in the sense that, say, a double-quarter-pounder with cheese "builds" on the idea of a garden salad. Both have lettuce and tomato and may be called food, but the similarities end there

...double-quarter-pounders with cheese being a big part of why we need health care reform, and also, if you're going to convince Americans to take your side, you really ought to be trying to convince us that you're the double-quarter-pounder. Comparing yourself to a garden salad is a sure way to make us vote the other guy in.

But still, if I'm going to accuse the HF of hating ideas solely because a Democrat likes them -- something that seems to belie the sobriquet of Think Tank -- then I should read his whole piece. Read it with me!

Moffit announces upfront that his attack on a law designed to let people live free rather than die in the streets is not partisan:

Heritage has a long history of nonpartisanship. President Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform package whose key provisions did originate at Heritage.

A "long history" that goes back as far as the 1990s!

But in congressional testimony and elsewhere, we have been crystal clear about our position on this health-care law since Day One. So every time the president and his amen corner say that the Heritage Foundation engendered provisions of the law, Americans should realize that it's not an attempt to share credit but a disingenuous effort to sell this unpopular law.

We all know how Americans are just suckers for everything the HF says we should love. That was why we all went crazy over the Macarena, wasn't it?

Moffit, and HF, oppose ObamaCare on substantive grounds, not just because it's a metaphorical double cheeseburger:

First, Heritage did not originate the concept of the health insurance exchange. Furthermore, the version of the exchange we did develop couldn't be more different than that embodied in this law.

For us, the health insurance exchange is to be designed by the states.

The Christian Science Monitor -- a bastion of liberalism? -- says this about ObamaCare:

The health care reform bill calls for each state to set up an 'exchange,' or marketplace,

So maybe it's that HF only opposes marketplaces when Obama wants them? It's unclear. Let's move on to other objections.

The other charge -- repeated on this page and elsewhere -- is that the federal individual mandate in Obama's health-care plan came from us.

For the record, we think that the law's federal mandate is unconstitutional.

This is where things get murky, and I don't mean just because HF's legal opinions on constitutionality come from Edwin Meese III, who is either a "prominent leader, thinker, and elder statesman" (according to HF) or a man who resigned as Reagan's attorney general after being accused of being complicit in the Wedtech scandal (according to history.)

But what of the claim that HF actually supported individual mandates? Moffit deals with it head-on:

Yes, in the early 1990s, we, along with other prominent conservative economists, supported the idea of such a mandate. It seemed the only way to solve the "free-rider" problem, in which individuals can, under federal law, walk into any hospital emergency room nationwide and rack up big bills at taxpayer expense.

Those stupid free-riders and the way they want their lives saved at taxpayer-expense.

Does "it was the early 1990s, everyone was doing it" fly? Things were crazy back then, after all: Clinton was in the White House, Hillary was not baking cookies, Henry Rollins was just starting his spoken-word career. Anything goes, even, apparently, unconstitutionality.

Until you look into it. Moffit writes:

Our research in the ensuing two decades has led us to realize our initial idea was operationally ineffective and legally defective.

It would never work to force people to purchase insurance policies to protect their health. Health, after all, is completely different than, say, an auto, so the fact that 49 states have found it operationally effective to require drivers to purchase auto insurance should not in any way be taken as an indication that such an idea would also work for health insurance. After all, can you get three sheets to the wind and fall into your health like you can a car?



I didn't think so. See how different health insurance is from car insurance?

But about this research that showed how wrong your think tank was... Was this research you could have done before promoting the apparently-defective/illegal idea of individual mandates? Because, again, think tank... one supposes that such an institution would look into an idea before floating it, Richard Heene-style. Or was it research that developed in the ensuing two decades? Because I don't recall there being heady legal debate in our courts (until now) about the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Was it perhaps not in the courts I'm familiar with? Was it on Judge Judy?

Moffit makes a passing reference to his new ideas -- ideas we should be very suspect of, now that we know that HF simply throws a bunch of stuff against the wall and waits to see if Democrats like it before looking into how effective/legal it might be -- and notes that:

This is what researchers and fact-based policymakers do when they discover new facts or conduct deeper analysis.

No, what researchers do is research before they make plans and public policy. What HF seems to do is run policy-making much like Brett Favre ran an offense: scramble around and hope things work out in the long run, and then blame someone else when they don't.

Note that Moffit doesn't identify what new facts he (or anyone else at HF) uncovered, or what deeper analysis was performed.

Now, true, regression to the mean often means (as The New Yorker pointed out not long ago) that studies making outrageously positive claims many times later are found out to be not so positive (but still outrageous) but there's another factor at play in the societal movement to declare something (red wine, eggs, individual mandates) great one day and suspect the next: selection bias.

In science, that's a descriptive term intended to help explain why researchers are more apt to interpret results in a way that supports their hypothesis, and why publications tend to promote studies which show good outcomes rather than bad.

In politics, it explains why "think tanks" and "intellectuals" were for something before they were against it.

Or, as Henry Rollins once put it: "“I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention."

A blast from the past: The more things change, the more I realize I still despite Cindy McCain.

Earlier this week, Cindy McCain's doppleganger was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine (a/k/a "The Print Version of Tina Brown's private blog), and inside, Cindy McCain was given an entire page of free press to describe how she personally dealt with being an almost-first lady. I thought it fitting, then, to go back and revisit an essay I wrote about Cindy McCain's impact on politics; this first appeared online on September 7, 2008 -- an eternity ago, it feels like, but not all that long:

******************************************************************************



I came to a realization this morning, a realization that cemented my resolve to, every Sunday, highlight one way in which America is letting us down -- allowing some people to live selfish lives at the expense of others, when there is more than enough wealth in America to allow everyone to live a decent life.

The realization was this: I subscribe to Newsweek magazine, and read it pretty much cover to cover every week. Despite that, and despite reading our daily paper, and despite listening to news-talk all day at work and watching CNN Headline News while I get ready for work, I had no idea what Barack Obama's health plan was when I wrote the first Shame On America Sunday a few weeks ago.

Not through a lack of trying -- like I said, I keep up with the news pretty well. But the news isn't keeping up with the news. The news is focused on things like (from a recent Newsweek) stories about how often Joe Biden says "literally" in his speeches.

That's why Shame on America Sunday is necessary: because the media no longer covers "the news."

Instead, they cover things that aren't news and that somehow, unbelievably, also aren't the cause of a revolution. They cover things like what Cindy McCain is wearing, and the story becomes, somehow, "Isn't she becoming a classier broad," when the story should be "How are Americans of the 21st century more immune to decadence being shoved in their faces than the French of the 18th century?"

Actually, there are any number of stories that could have been spawned by Cindy McCain's outfits at the Republican convention. The headlines for those stories include, but are not limited to "Cindy McCain hates poor people and wants them to know it," or the similar "John McCain will not do anything to help anyone who isn't already rich."


We didn't get those headlines. We got, instead, this:

Cindy McCain sets tone for GOP fashion.

That is an Associated Press headline. The Associated Press -- not "People" or "US" or "Women's Wear Daily," but the Associated Press is reporting on Cindy McCain's fashion choices.

And what do they report? They report this:

"Vanity Fair editors estimated that [Cindy] McCain's fierce saffron shirt dress with the popped collar, diamond earrings, four-strand pearl necklace, white Chanel watch and strappy shoes totaled up to $313,100."

(Source.) Leave aside, for the moment, that Associated Press is simply reporting what others are reporting, and focus on how it is that any portion of the story out of the Republican Convention is what Cindy McCain is wearing.

Then focus on the fact that if we're going to hear about what Cindy McCain is wearing, it has to be in the form of a fawning, sycophantic article that froths at the mouth with love for Cindy McCain -- who is the very epitome of what Tom Wolfe called a "social x-ray" in The Bonfire of the Vanities-- froths at the mouth with love for her, instead of frothing at the mouth with vitriol over the fact that while the government is taking over two large mortgage lenders and more and more are losing their houses, Cindy McCain is wearing an outfit that costs six times more than the median annual salary in America.

Why were there exactly no stories (until this one) pointing out Cindy McCain's obvious disdain for people in the United States, based upon her decision to wear an outfit that costs six times what the average household income is? (Source.) Why were there exactly no stories (until this one) pointing out that either John McCain agrees with his social x-ray wife that it is appropriate to wear a $313,000+ outfit while people are losing their houses and at a time when one in 10 Americans earns less than $20,000 per year, (Source) or, if he doesn't agree, then he's simply oblivious to the facts?

Oblivious or disdainful of poor people: which is it, John McCain?

Cindy McCain's gall in wearing that outfit is even more shameful after you read this:


That is a letter written by a beneficiary of "Back-to-School Clothes For Kids," a website you can get to by clicking this link. "Back-to-School Clothes for Kids" does what it says (unlike the GOP and John McCain): they provide clothing for kids whose families can't otherwise afford to get a new back-to-school outfit or two. You know, those kids whose families come from the people who don't wear $313,000 dresses to a giant party where their husband will lie about whether he actually intends to help anyone's life get better if, God forbid, he is elected.

They buy clothes for younger kids; for older kids, they have "S.W.A.T. Nights" -- Shopping With A Teen nights -- where volunteers give teens a budget and help them pick out nice clothes to go back to school in.

Why do we live in a country where a social x-ray can wear a $313,000 dress for one night -- while young kids have to hope that someone, somewhere, will donate $20 so that they can get a new pair of blue jeans to wear to school?

Why do we put up with that?

Why isn't Cindy McCain being forced to hang her head in shame?

Do you think that Cindy McCain was as grateful for her $313,000 dress as Shawn was for the new outfit? As grateful as the kids shown in these pictures (all are from Back-to-School Clothes For Kids' website) are for theirs?

No, I don't, either.

Some people have said that Shame On America Sunday doesn't fix anything, it just complains. So to remedy that, I will for each article provide not one, but two solutions.

The Fix: There should be a federal consumption tax that kicks in at $500 for any consumer item other than food, cars and houses (which I'll deal with separately.) The consumption tax should be equal to 50% of the price of the consumer item. Maybe if her outfit had cost her $469,500, Cindy McCain would have thought twice about purchasing it. I doubt that, since social x-rays (and the McCains) have no conscience, but at least our society would have gotten $156,750 in extra tax revenue.

That tax revenue should be earmarked specifically for poverty-relief efforts, including a new national project, like Americorps only better, to provide good-paying jobs to people by employing them to help replace and upgrade our aging telephone and data network and extend that network to rural areas.

What You Can Do Until It's Fixed: Send money to "Back-to-School Clothes for Kids," P.O. Box 304, White Plains, NY 10605. For more information, call (914) 576-6053, or email info@backtoschoolclothes.org. Many local Salvation Army posts hold back-to-school clothing drives, too -- check their website out here.

Then, to make sure your message gets across, when you make your donation, send an email saying that "Rather Than Support Rich People Getting Richer, I gave money to help poor people buy clothes" to Cindy McCain c/o her husband's failed presidential campaign at "info@johnmccain.com." (If you like to mail things, then write it on a postcard to Cindy McCain, /co John McCain 2008, P.O. Box 16118, Arlington, VA 22215.)


I firmly believe that no adult should be allowed to earn more than $200,000 per year; that health care is a basic right, and that America can do better. Lots better.

***********************************************************

That was what I wrote then; obviously, Cindy McCain's inestimable (or is it estimable; Vanity Fair estimated it) fashion choices did not help her husband win the election; but it seems as though the battle was won but the war was lost; three years later (almost) Newsweek still has several pages on how prospective First Ladies should style their hair, and nobody (much) is reporting on the fact that the federal government is accusing five major mortgage lenders of defrauding it by lying about how they were foreclosing.


"Back To School Clothes For Kids" still exists, though: you can go to their website by clicking this link.

The Man Nobody Knows Has Positions Even He Doesn't Know (But Still Wants To Be President)

Former short-term Utah governor John Huntsman -- or, as most voters call him, "Who?!" - -has resigned from the post he took after resigning from the governorship (the GOP loves its quitters) and has decided to run for president in the most tentative way possible: by not really telling people what he thinks, and then immediately changing his mind.

Speaking to a New Hampshire crowd composed primarily of reporters (and some people who just wanted to eat dinner), "Who?!" was asked (privately) about the controversial plan wherein Hypocrite Paul Ryan has proposed mugging Grandma at gunpoint to keep insurance executives fat and happy, and said this:

“there’s a lot that’s part of the Ryan plan that needs to be considered.”

Which is not quite the wholehearted support one would expect from a bona fide conservative. We don't know what "lot" "needs to be considered," (or what part isn't worth considering) because if reporters asked him that follow-up, they didn't bother noting what he said.

They also didn't bother noting that apparently later that day, in remarks that were broadcast today, "Who?!" said he would have voted for the Ryan plan had he not been gallivanting around in China:

“I would have voted for it … including the Medicare provisions,"

So: Did "Who!?" not have time to read the most prominent piece of legislation extant before opting to speak to reporters in New Hampshire, and only then went back to read it before going on TV?

Or did someone in his camp remind him, when he waffled on Ryan"Care", what happened to Newt after he took on the plan that should be called "Grandma Got Run Over By A Special Interest Group?"

Republicans are hoping that if they can't legally keep people from voting, they can at least make them too tired to do so.

With Voter ID having passed the Wisconsin Senate today (May 19, 2011) (gosh, will Governor Patsy sign it? I wonder!), one might wonder what is the next front in the Republicans' assault on democracy. I think I've figured it out:

Out-of-state special interests were able to gin up recalls of three Democratic senators in Wisconsin -- in part by forging the signatures of Democrats' dead relatives on the petitions -- and those recalls were originally going to be scheduled at the same time as the recall elections for the 6 Republicans who face votes.

But now, it turns out that far too many Republicans are interested in running to let that happen -- and the three Democratic senators' recalls elections face likely primaries.

Several smart people -- notably @danpotacke and @legaleagle thought that the primaries might be to use the other recalls as a sort of slingshot: take Democratic gains in the first 6, and use them to spur voters to the polls for the last 3 recalls.

But I think it's something more: I think it's the Republicans' plan to try to wear down Democratic voters, who will have to get to the polls to support the Democrats who run in the first 6 races, only to then turn around and have to go back to the polls not much later to vote in favor of the remaining 3 Democrats who face recalls. And then, about three months later, the Democrats would have to start the much-talked-about Governor "Patsy" Walker recalls.

That's a lot of voting, and if there's one thing Republicans hate, it's a lot of voting -- so can their plan be to hope that the momentum dies down, that people get fatigued and move on? Elections on off-years and in the spring tend to result in lower turnout already -- and having a repeated series of elections may be intended to depress votes more.

Or, could the plan be even more simple: take advantage of the lack of fundraising limits that apply in recall elections, and raise big money for the "group organizing the recalls." As noted by Fox 11 (among other sources):

Once a recall effort begins, the financial floodgates open wide for both the group organizing the recall and the politician being targeted. Normally, in a state senate race, candidates can only receive $1,000 from each person or political action committee. Candidates can only get $22,425 total from special interest groups and political parties.

Committees to recall Democratic Senators have thus far lagged behind in fundraising compared to the committees recalling Republicans -- so extending the deadline for the recall allows for a longer fundraising period -- possibly one that'll help the state Republican party recoup the $150,000 it's spent supporting recalls so far.

Life Imitates Art; Or: We Can Expect That Saif Al Adel Will Soon Be Working In A Bowling Alley.

I really thought that when Stephen Colbert began talking about Al Qaeda's selection of Saif Al Adel's as the new head of Al Qaeda, he would manage to relate it to The Office's ongoing drama (?) about the search for someone to replace Michael Scott:



But instead, I was surprised to learn that not only was Colbert not mocking Al Qaeda via The Office, but that Al Qaeda was copying The Office!

That much is apparent to anyone who, like me, either remembers the early storyline on The Office, or who, like me also, recently re-watched some of those earlier storylines on The Office while playing trains with their twins.

Specifically, the storyline that culminated in "The Job," the Season 3 finale of The Office, involved Dunder Mifflin searching for someone to replace Jan, with Michael Scott assuming that he would get the promotion -- only to lose it to fresh-faced (and beardless) Ryan Howard; how is that storyline not exactly what just happened with the Al Qaeda job? It's pretty apparent to me that Osama bin Laden's satellite dish was DVR'ing the same things I was. (But don't hold that against me.)

Two other notes on this story:

One, I am uncomfortable with the hearty cheer Colbert's crowd gave to Saif Al Adel's assumed-death-five-years-from-now; granted, he is a terrorist, but I don't think civilized people cheer the death of anyone.

And,

Two, Saif Al Adel's Wikipedia page, at 1,530 words, is shorter than Ryan Howard's (5,644) by some 12 pages; but, then, Saif's page is notably lacking in features such as a three-paragraph discussion of how Dwight Schrute feels about Saif.

Bad Republicans: You won't catch Kathleen Passidomo wearing anything slutty... in public.

Why do women get raped? If you said "Because of the way eleven year olds dress, lookin' all slutty and askin' for it," you'll probably win election in Florida by a healthy margin.

That was the answer given by Florida State Representative Kathleen Passidomo, an attorney and Republican (of course) who took advantage of a horrific gang rape in Texas to promote her personal cause: cleaning up the act of those trampy middle schoolers who give boys bad thoughts. While debating a dress code bill, Passidomo came up with the bright (?) idea of using the gang rape in her favor:

"There was an article about an 11 year old girl who was gangraped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute... And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it's incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn't happen to our students."

Don't get all up in arms about "blame the victim" mentality -- Passidomo isn't blaming the victim, she's blaming the victim's clothes. That the victim chose. And that the victim's parents let her wear.

Because an 11-year-old in blue jeans is just asking for it.

On Wisconsin: Essays About Wisconsin politics in particular.

Secretary of Death Dennis Smith decides you've got enough health, thank you very much.

Quit helping me, please: The GOP pretends what it's doing is helping the unemployed, but they're lying.

How'd you like to have EVEN LESS health coverage than you do now? Wisconsin plans to reduce insurance mandates... sneakily.

What, exactly, is the State's involvement in "Visit Beloit?"

What if we made it so people could afford college and wanted to stay in Wisconsin? (A proposal to modify state education.)

Spoiler Alert! Teachers are starting to shoot themselves in the foot.

Bad Republicans: A Wisconsin Recall Roundup.

What's behind Gov. Patsy's biological war on Wisconsinites?

Inside the Kaukauna School District's alleged (but probably nonexistent) $1.5 million surplus.

6 Things to Know About Wisconsin's Budget (That Aren't Collective Bargaining.)

Where was Glenn Grothman on Memorial Day?

Scott Walker's plans cost Wisconsin millions, but help Pennsylvania companies.

A Blast From The Past:

More than simply old posts recycled, A Blast From The Past takes posts I wrote a long time ago and points out how right I was. If I'm ever wrong about something, I'll post that, too. But it hasn't happened yet.

Colleges and Student Loans: paying chancellors a lot of money costs us opportunities for the future, and gets us nothing in return.

Cindy McCain exemplifies what's wrong with Republicans.

Campaign 2012, Table of contents:

You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and you can't get Racist Tea Party votes without attacking a black man. (Mitt Romney's fight with a rapper leads to a song.)

Maybe the GOP should bring back "the Grizz." (Why not to get too excited about early declarers.)

The more things change, the more I realize I still despise Cindy McCain.

The Man Nobody Knows Has Positions Even He Doesn't Know (But Still Wants To Be President)

Newt Gingrich: "You can't hold me responsible for my positions, because I was ignorant."

You super hot diva baby: Sarah Palin's tour.

GOD-PAC: Where the Almighty stands on the issues (according to Michele Bachmann)

Newt Gingrich: "You can't hold me responsible for my positions, because I was ignorant."

Newt Gingrich has been taking heat from Fox News and various GOP elements for his past support of individual mandates -- the portion of ObamaCare that Republicans now profess to hate.

But Newt took issue with people holding him responsible for positions he took, because how unfair is that? And also, he was dumb back then and never got through reading the whole Constitution.

Talking to Greta Van Susteren, a journalist whose influence is so diaphanous that her BFF can't even remember her for five minutes, Newt defended his earlier defense of individual mandates. (My comments are in red.)

VAN SUSTEREN: Let me ask you...are you saying in 1993, that there was some sort of hybrid of mandate or whatever supported by the Republican Party. And now, that was in response to the Clinton administration. And now, you've changed, is that it?

[NOTE: Look at that journalism: "hybrid of mandate or whatever." You can tell Greta totally researched this issue.]

GINGRICH: No, no. I'm saying that ...virtually everybody in the conservative movement was united in trying to stop "Hillarycare."

Now, nobody at that time was talking about the 10th Amendment. Nobody at that time was talking about this kind of constitutional issues.

[NOTE: Newt is saying this: "It would have been totally different if everybody in the conservative movement had been asking is what we're proposing -- individual mandates circa 1993 -- even constitutional? But we were so united in trying to stop Hillarycare that we just threw out the Constitution, or maybe hadn't read it yet. The Constitution just wasn't important when it came to fighting HillaryCare, whereas, it's totally important when it comes to fighting ObamaCare.][Also: "Everybody else was doing it" is a lame excuse for a teenage beer party; it's an even lamer excuse for ignoring what you now think is a Constitutional requirement.]

[GINGRICH, con't] But to jump from that and say, gosh, if Newt said this in 1993, he must be for Obama -- skipping, by the way, 2 1/2 years of active consistent opposition to Obamacare? I mean, I think the kind of amnesia that Washington gets into is, frankly, silly.

[NOTE: What kind of amnesia? The kind of amnesia that remembers that Newt was for it before he was against it? Or the kind of amnesia that says Newt has been opposed to Obamacare for 2 1/2 years but was pretty much in favor of it for 16 1/2 years before that? Gosh.]

[GINGRICH, con't] But let me put that to one side because I want to set a precedent for a new kind of presidential campaigns.

[NOTE: The precedent Newt wants to set is to run the kind of presidential campaign where he doesn't have to answer for anything he did in the past. But that's not a new kind of campaign; that's the kind of campaign McCain ran in 2008.]

[GINGRICH, con't] And I thank [Heritage Foundation founder] Ed Feulner and Bill Bennett for helping me walk through what people were hearing, which is not what I intended to say.

[NOTE: I have never needed two other people to help me explain to people what I really meant as opposed to what I actually said, but, then, I'm not running a new kind of presidential campaign. Gosh.]

[GINGRICH, con't] I made a mistake....

VAN SUSTEREN: When you say you made -- when you say you made a mistake, are you saying that you chose the wrong words or that's not what you thought? Or I'm not sure I understand. Are you speaking about using the words as right wing social engineering, because that seems to be what has really sort of lit your party on fire?

GINGRICH: Look, I made two mistakes.

[NOTE: I imagined, at this point, Newt looking around wildly, trying to find Ed Feulner and Bill Bennett to help him walk Greta through what she was hearing.][Also, Newt's mistakes doubled in about one second. That is an exponential growth rate for mistakes.]

GINGRICH: First of all, if you back and listen to the question David Gregory asked me, I should have said I'm not going to answer it. It's a hypothetical baloney question that had no hope of happening.

[NOTE: The resurrection of the "trick question" defense is proof of the indelible stain Sarah Palin has left on the GOP.]

GINGRICH: The Republicans don't control the Senate. They don't have the White House. They can't do what Obama did. And I should just dismiss it. So, that was a mistake.

[NOTE: Yes. Newt should definitely not have answered a question that first assumed that Newt had reached his goals of Republican control of government, and then asked him what he would do if he reached those goals. Trick question! Gosh!]

GINGRICH:The second was some of the words I used.

[NOTE: Newt Gingrich has three advanced degrees: A bachelor's, a masters, and a Ph.D. He is listed as the author of 28 different books on Amazon. He runs a communications firm. And he can't pick the right words to use?]

GINGRICH: But I was trying to say something that's really important.

[NOTE: Which is why he didn't bother choosing carefully the words he used to say that?]

GINGRICH: We are at the beginning of a process of solving the entitlement problems of the United States. These are enormous challenges.

I believe deeply, that the American people have to be an integral part.

[NOTE: Like Navin Johnson, we're just happy to be in there somewhere.]

(Source.)

Newt didn't actually end there, but I wanted to finish up with a bang, so I saved the best for last. Quoth The Gingrich:

So, let me say on the record: any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood.

Be forewarned, press: If you go around quoting what Newt says, you are lying. Because you can't be sure what you heard Newt say until he (with his trusty group of advisers) later walks you back to what you heard Newt say.

To Recap: I Was Right About The Irrelevant Legislature and J.B. "Van" Hollen's Attitude Toward Courts.

Yesterday, the Wisconsin Assembly voted to give the Governor veto power over the rules passed by administrative agencies, rules meant to enforce laws the Assembly passed. And on Monday, Governor "Patsy" Walker ordered Wisconsin A.G. J.B. "Van" Hollen to stand down in the defense of the state's same-sex registry law.

I could do a new post about both of these, but a post I did over on Thinking The Lions when this was just a feature on that blog pretty adequately sums up both actions, so here's a bit of Instant History as I walk down memory lane and reprint a post from February, 2011:

***********************************************************************

Today in Wisconsin: The legislature votes to make itself irrelevant, and the AG says only Republican judges can be right. (Publicus Proventus.)

Quite a banner day in Wisconsin politics, as that headline suggests.

In news that seems boring but is far more important than you'd expect, the Wisconsin legislature today decided to do away with "separation of powers." From Channel 3000:

The state Assembly has passed a bill granting Republican Gov. Scott Walker oversight of state agencies' rule-making powers.

The bill passed 59-34 Wednesday was derided by Democratic critics as nothing more than a power grab. Walker and supporters said it will increase accountability and help to rein in agencies that craft rules that exceed lawmakers' intent.

State agencies carry out laws that legislators pass by developing administrative rules, which have the force of law.

The bill passed would add a number of new steps to the rule-making process, including extensive economic impact studies.

It would also require the governor to sign off on a statement outlining a rule's scope before work could begin on a draft.

Rep. Mark Radcliffe was the only Democrat to vote for it.

Here's what you need to know: Legislatures pass laws, governors enforce them. To fill in the gap between very-broad-laws and very-specific-needs, for a long time now the legislature has let government agencies make rules that help implement the laws. (Rules like the one at issue in this case.) Those rules have the force of law, but the legislature can always amend, revoke, or otherwise affect them.

Which means that the agencies make the rules subject to legislative oversight: if a rule is made that the public (or the legislature) doesn't like, the Assembly and State Senate can vote to repeal the rule.

But now, the rules will have to be approved by Governor Patsy. Which seems all well and good to the GOP that passed these rules -- but that's because their guy is in charge. How will they feel when a Democrat gets elected?

Having ceded rulemaking power largely to the executive, the Legislature has made itself irrelevant. It can pass a law-- but Governor Patsy (or any future governor) can keep that law from being effectively implemented by simply vetoing any rules an agency tries to pass. In the past, governors would have had to do something like withhold funding or give directives regarding how to enforce rules. Now, the Wisconsin governor's office -- already gifted with the power to craft legislation via the line-item veto -- gets rulemaking authority, too.

In fact, it appears in Wisconsin that -- unlike what the first US Supreme Court Chief Justice said -- it's the province and duty of the executive to say what the law is. And executive includes Wisconsin AG J.B. "Van" Hollen, who's decided that Republican judges are the only judges who matter, so far as he's concerned. Reacting to the news that a judge has ruled the Health Care Reform Bill unconstitutional, "Van" said:

Obamacare is “dead” and the state is not legally required to carry out the new federal health care law. Van Hollen, the Badger state’s top law enforcement officer, issued a statement in the wake of a 78-page ruling by a federal judge in Florida on Monday, Jan. 31, striking down the federal health care reform plan as unconstitutional: “Judge Vinson declared the health care law void and stated in his decision that a declaratory judment is the functional equivalent of an injunction. This means that, for Wisconsin, the federal health care law is dead -- unless and until it is revived by an appellate court. Effectively, Wisconsin was relieved of any obligations or duties that were created under terms of the federal health care law. What that means in a practical sense is a discussion I'll have in confidence with Governor Walker, as the state's counsel.”

That's interesting for two reasons: First, while the AG is correct that the judge's decision was the "functional equivalent" of an injunction, meaning that federal officers are presumed to obey the law, and the law is here that the Court found the law unconstitutional, the AG doesn't say why he will listen to Judge Vinson and not other judges.

Judge Vinson is one of four judges to have ruled on the law so far -- and two of the four found it perfectly constitutional, while two have ruled against it. So how can "Van" Hollen pick which judge to listen to.

Secondly, if "Van" feels bound by everything a district court says, why isn't he making sure that same sex couples can marry in Wisconsin? After all, didn't a federal district court rule that marriage is a constitutional right? Yes, one did.

***************************************************

That was the post -- and now "Van" is going to make sure that he ignores one court (a federal court, of all things!) and hopes to get a favorable ruling in another court on that same-sex registry issue.

Click here for more posts like this one.

Is Hypocrite Paul Ryan actually a dedicated public servant? (Guess what my answer is?)

Hypocrite Paul Ryan today announced that he won't run for the Wisconsin Senate seat that Herb Kohl has announced he's not seeking re-election to in 2012. (I'd say "the seat that Herb Kohl is vacating," except it's pretty clear Kohl vacated the seat years ago but still hung around D.C.).

The announcement prompted at least some commentators (and Ryan himself) to laud Ryan for his dedication to completing his handout of government money to insurance companies.

They didn't put it that way, of course -- but Hypocrite Ryan himself said:

Our nation is quickly approaching a debt crisis that will do serious damage to Wisconsinites and all Americans if it is not properly addressed...I believe continuing to serve as chairman of the House Budget Committee allows me to have a greater impact in averting this debt-fueled economic crisis than if I were to run for the United States Senate.

(Source.)

(About that debt crisis: A group called the "Republican Liberty Caucus of Wisconsin" says that Ryan voted for TARP, the Economic Stimulus bill, the GM/Chrysler bailout, the July 2009 stimulus, expanding the drug benefit for Medicare recipients in 2003, Section 8 housing vouchers in 2006, extending unemployment benefits by 30 weeks in 2008, and Head Start in 2007... among other big-ticket items Paul Ryan voted for. Who's created that crisis we're approaching?)

Ryan was also lauded on the radio today for that "dedication" to his plan, and his move was deemed a good one that will get him more "seasoned" by another writer.

So did Paul Ryan stay put because he's just so darned gung-ho about deficit reduction (and his determination to give away senior citizens' health care to his insurance contributors?) Or did Paul Ryan stay put because there's little to no chance he'd win a Senate seat, while he is guaranteed to win re-election in 2012 and may also be tapped to run for Vice President?

Odds are it's the latter reasons driving Mr. Benefit From Government Money.

Ryan defeated his challenger in 2010 by over 100,000 votes, and has never gotten less than 57% of the vote (with that lowest percentage being his first win.) With the GOP (tentatively) in control of redistricting in Wisconsin, his seat isn't likely to get less safe.

But Ryan is unpopular in Milwaukee and Madison, and a February 2011 poll had him losing to Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, with a 36% negative rating. The Democrats and labor are up in arms in Wisconsin and might take 2012 more seriously than they took 2010, and Ryan knows that.

Ryan would have to vacate his safe seat and run for an uncertain Senate position -- and even if he won, might end up being less prominent. He would be the junior senator from Wisconsin (junior to Ron Johnson!) and give up the seniority-earned positions that have made him a national star in the House. (He's the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, and sits on the powerful House Ways And Means Committee, the main tax-writing House committee.)

Ron Johnson, meanwhile, was assigned to the Senate appropriations, budget, and homeland security committees-- so Ryan likely would not get on those, and would not be a chairman unless the GOP takes back the Senate in 2012, and would be 1 of 100 senators.

So, run and lose and get nothing; run and win and get back-benched in the Senate for six years. Why run?

In addition, Ryan has frequently been mentioned as a potential Vice Presidential candidate; while he's squelched any talk that he'd run for President (for now), getting mentioned as a VP candidate (even if he isn't selected) can help secure a position in the cabinet if a Republican wins (it worked for Tommy Thompson, right?), and running for VP but losing can end up being very lucrative, too.

Right, Sarah Palin?

So don't get all heads-over-heels clucking with approval of Hypocrite Paul Ryan's commitment to this or dedication to that. If he leaves his safe seat at all it'll be for a cabinet position in 2012, or, equally likely, a Fox job.

Government Works For Me (Table of Contents)

Government works for U.S.: Government workers try to promote the fact that they are useful.

The private sector turns out not to be so good at not killing people.

Charlie Sheen, Or Public Official, 1:

Time for the first-ever installment of what I'm sure is going to be an ongoing feature on this site, a new quiz show called:

Charlie Sheen, Or Public Official?!

The only game show that asks you to determine whether the actions in question were done by Charlie Sheen, or by a noted public official! (Or did you get that from the name of the show?). Let's start today's episode. Simply review the fact situation, and then determine whether what happened was done by Charlie Sheen, or by a public official! (Bonus points for guessing whether the person got arrested!)

1. A 32-year-old housekeeper complains to police that when she went into a $3,000-per-night suite, at 1 p.m., to begin cleaning up, the occupant of the suite emerged naked from the bathroom, chased her down, raped her, and then fled to the airport.

Charlie Sheen? Or Public Official?

If you guessed Public Official, give yourself a point: That's the allegation against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the current head of the International Monetary Fund.

Pictured: Not Charlie Sheen.

Bonus Question: Was Strauss-Kahn arrested?

If you said "Yes," give yourself another point: Strauss-Kahn was tracked down at the airport and pulled off an Air France flight, and is awaiting arraignment in New York City -- the same city that declined to press charges against actor Charlie Sheen after police responded to calls alleging that the actor had a naked screaming woman locked in a closet.

See you next time on "Charlie Sheen, Or Public Official!" Until then, keep on #winning!