Daily Archives: March 24, 2010

Burris Breaks From the Violence.

I could not have said it better myself:

This behavior by Congressional Republicans (childish) and certain Tea Party elements (criminally dangerous) will cost the GOP in 2010.

By now, you have heard that 10 Democratic members of Congress have had their lives threatened since the passage of health insurance reform. One member from Virginia, Tom Perriello, had his brothers’ home vandalized in such a way, at the express direction of a teabagger blogger coward named Mike Troxel, that could have lead to an explosion, fire, or worse… death. This teabagger terrorist listed the address of the brother of the Congressman on his blog and told his readers that they should “drop by” and provide “a personal touch” in expressing their opposition to the new health care law. And being a teabagger, and thus by definition being ignorant and stupid, Troxel posted the wrong address, thinking that he was in fact posting the address of the Congressman himself. By the grace of God, no one was hurt and the only property damage was a cut gas line.

You know, calling Congressman horrible racial and bigoted names is one thing. That only proves them to be racists and bigots, but it really does not harm people, except their feelings. It is a horrible consequence to free speech that we must live by in order to enjoy the greater freedom of free speech. But directing or threatening violence to those you disagree with politically is not free speech. It not only should be a crime, but it is a crime.

And this Troxel bastard and the as of yet unidentified vandals should be arrested. And to put the fear of God in them and those like them, they should be charged with Attempted Murder, and should they be convicted, they should receive the maximum penalty under the federal or state laws (this could be a state crime or a federal one).

And before Hube or other right wingers bring up my infamous “Round them up” remarks from September 2008, it should be noted that I would have been just as culpable if some deranged liberal had followed my direction and shot a Republican. I was engaging then in the type of hyperbole we saw often during that election year, to our (hopefully) mutual disappointment. But the level of hyperbole embraced by the teabaggers now has left the realm of hyperbole, especially when you actually call up Congressman and threaten their lives, and the lives of their children, directly. It stops being hyperbole when you post specific addresses. It stops being hyperbole when you take action and vandalize property and hurt people.

So I give the utmost credit to Dave Burris for recognizing the same thing, and for calling out his own party and ideological brethren for it. And I agree that the Republican Party is going to pay for their actions with a disappointing showing at the ballot box. Sure they may still win 15 to 20 seats, but they all expect a complete takeover of Congress by such margins that will make complete repeal of health insurance reform not only possible but probable. When that doesn’t happen, I fear the even more violent and hyperbolic reaction from the right. We often say that the hate can’t get much worse…. but it can.

Postal Service Looking for Five Day Week

This idea has been kicked around for several years now, but the US Postal Service is now taking the first formal steps toward five-day delivery:

The postal governing board agreed to ask the independent Postal Regulatory Commission for an opinion on dropping Saturday delivery. That request goes to the commission next week.

Under the proposal, mail delivery to homes and businesses and mail collection from blue mailboxes would be limited to Monday through Friday.

However, post offices that are now open on Saturdays would remain open, and Express Mail delivery service would still be available seven days a week.

In addition to getting the opinion of the Regulatory Commission, the Postal Service would need, and this should now strike fear into the heart of anyone trying to accomplish anything, the approval of Congress. I can see it now: Michelle Bachmann calling people to arms to defend their right to mail stuff on Saturday from the oppression of socialist tyranny blah, blah, blah…

But seriously, as the report notes, action is necessary because the post office is rapidly losing both business and money:

As Americans turned more and more from paper to electronic communications, the number of items handled by the post office fell from 213 billion in 2006 to 177 billion last year. Volume is expected to shrink to 150 billion by 2020.

The post office lost $3.8 billion last year and is facing projected losses of as much as $7 billion this year.

There are a number of other ideas bouncing around, including closing some post offices and even broadening the Postal Service’s business model. Additionally, they have big pension issues, too. And of course, there’s always talk of privatization.

And on the topic, it’s always struck me funny when people cite the post office as an example of an inefficient government agency. Bear in mind, the Postal Service is fully self-funded, and receives no tax dollars. It’s really more like a heavily regulated monopoly, along the lines of a utility. Either way, it’s obvious something has to be done soon. Would anyone really miss Saturday mail deliveries?

Wednesday Open Thread

Well, I’ve had an interesting morning so far. The police knocked on my door at 2 AM to inform us that me and my husband’s cars had been vandalized with graffiti. Apparently some geniuses went through the neighborhood and spray painted a lot of cars and even some houses. My husband and I then spent an hour and half scrubbing the cars down to get the worst of the graffiti off. It’s not all gone (we’re making an insurance claim), but car no longer has a racial slur written on the side and my husband’s car no longer has a giant penis on it. So, I’m hoping your day is better than mine so far. Let’s start an open thread.

I’m not sure what Christiane Amanpour ever did to TV critic Tom Shales, but he wrote a hit piece on her elevation to host of ABC’s This Week:

In a way, Amanpour, scheduled to leave CNN after 18 years of international coverage and take over the program in August, could be seen as the opposite of the perfect candidate. “This Week” deals mainly in domestic politics and inside-the-Beltway palaver, an area where Amanpour is widely considered to deficient. Consider: Whenever CNN has thrown one of its big election-night, convention, or presidential debate spectaculars, drafting nearly every living staff member to appear, Amanpour has had a conspicuously low profile.

And even though Amanpour has often been touted for her expertise on foreign affairs, she has vocal and passionate critics in that arena as well. Supporters of Israel have more than once charged Amanpour with bias against that country and its policies. A Web site devoted to criticism of Amanpour is titled, with less than a modicum of subtlety, “Christiane Amanpour’s Outright Bias Against Israel Must Stop,” available via Facebook.

Amanpour grew up in Great Britain and Iran. Her family fled Tehran in 1979 at the start of the Islamic revolution, when she was college age. She has steadfastly rejected claims about her objectivity, telling Leslie Stahl last year relative to her coverage of Iran: “I am not part of the current crop of opinion journalists or commentary journalists or feelings journalists. I strongly believe that I have to remain in the realm of fact.”

Shales then cites for evidence the conservative idiot site of Newsbusters. So what is Shales saying, exactly? Is he saying that because Amanpour is Iranian-American that she’s kind of suspicious? I think it’s an interesting choice myself. I think ABC may be trying an experiment to take the Sunday shows in a new direction, which is desperately needed, IMO.

Washington State’s idiot AG forgot to inform the governor that he was joining an anti-HCR lawsuit.

You can hear her here, on the Dave Ross Show from today. She is filing a brief against him. Open warfare in the State House in Olympia! I love it, except that I’d love more for McKenna to back off and stop doing this to Washington State. You can also watch Chris Gregoire’s response when she first heard about this:

I think the GOP is going to totally overreach on the HCR opposition. Right now Republicans are spending hours fighting the reconciliation bill, in effect defending the Cornhusker Kickback. Some Republicans have already started walking back the HCR repeal talk – I guess they can see the commercials about how Sen. X wants to ban you for pre-exisiting conditions.

One Simple Reason Why the Health Care Law’s Mandate IS Constitutional

First of all, let me say how much better I like writing “Health Care Law” than “Health Care Bill”. But on to the topic, there is a simple but under-reported fact in the whole “The individual mandate is unconstitutional” debate, that, while not new, only came to my attention last night. Last night on Countdown, not-Keith Olbermann (a.k.a., Lawrence O’Donnell) brought up a small, but very important piece of legislative detail about the individual mandate, and it blows any chance of Constitutional-based overturning out of the water.

You see, we tend to talk about the IM as “The government forcing everyone to buy insurance or get fined”, but that’s not really what it is — at least the way it’s written. And the way it’s written, there is no question that Congress has the power to do it. If there’s one thing that Congress certainly does have the power to do, it’s impose taxes. That’s the main reason we have the Constitution we do, and not the Articles of Confederation. And that is how the IM is written — as part of the tax code. That so-called “fine” that would be imposed for not buying coverage? It’s actually an excise tax, imposed on those who do not have coverage (or who are otherwise not exempted). Imposing taxes is unquestionably within Congress’ stated powers. You can argue the moral or ethical aspect of the IM all you want, but its constitutionality is firm.

On different but related note, one of the other arguments against the IM has been the “Never before has the government forced people to buy things from private companies before!” position. Well, guess what? That’s not true, either, as Think Progress reports. It was done over two hundred years ago by none other than The Founding Fathers themselves. I’ve never thought that the “It’s unprecedented!” argument alone was very valid, but it’s interesting to see that even that doesn’t stand up.

You Must Read This Post

The post is really too good and too complete to give a good excerpt. It’s called “An open letter to conservatives” and it’s a well-researched post on some of the Republican hypocrisy, lies and calls for violence with many, many links included.

Now the advice. You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some expamples — by no means an exhaustive list — of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

Just another small taste:

Hatred

You have to condemn those among you who:

call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot;
elected leaders who say “I’m a proud racist”;
state that America has been built by white people;
say that poor people are poor because they’re rotten people, call them “parasitic garbage” or say they shouldn’t be allowed to vote;
call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don’t like their politics ( re – pea -ted – ly );
assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son’s politics;
declare that those who disagree with you are shown by that disagreement to be not just “Marxist radicals” but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
joke about blindness;

All of these statements have links, some of them multiple links. It’s a great resource post and I’m planning on putting it in my favorites folder.

Palin Says “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”

Hop on over to her Facebook page and find her targets – Complete with cross-hairs.

Conservatives are playing a very dangerous game.

Some are even issuing instructions…

On Friday, former militia leader Mike Vanderboegh called for anti-Democratic vandalism across the country to protest the health care bill.

Vanderboegh posted the call for action Friday on his blog, “Sipsey Street Irregulars.” Referring to the health care reform bill as “Nancy Pelosi’s Intolerable Act,” he told followers to send a message to Democrats.

“We can break their windows,” he said. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”

And, apparently in response, there were attacks in–at least–Wichita, KS, Tucson, AZ,  Rochester, NY, Niagara Falls, NY.  Vanderboegh has proudly claimed credit for the coordinated attacks.

We might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary?  And it’s not an isolated incident…

So many lone wolves.  Dare we call it a pack?  And it’s getting very personal.

A tea party organizer angry over Rep. Thomas Perriello’s (D-Va.) vote in favor of health care reform published what he thought was the freshman member’s home address on a blog, in case any readers “want to drop by” and provide a “personal touch” to their views.

Drop by and provide a personal touch?  Maybe another brick through a window?  Of course the Conservative Einstein listed the wrong Perriello.  The address supplied was that of Perriello’s brother and wife who have four children under the age of 8.

Digby concludes: “I think the lesson here is that not only should members of congress who voted for universal health care tighten their their security but anyone who shares their last name should probably start looking over their shoulders as well. Word to the wise.”

And perhaps Dems should watch their children as well…

Slaughter has been at the center of the push for reform. Last Thursday she received a chilling recorded message at her campaign office. “Assassinate is the word they used…toward the children of lawmakers who voted yes.”

Of course, the President is fair game.

I could go on and on.  In fact, feel free to post other examples in the thread.

So when Palin says “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” everyone knows what flames she’s fanning.  And only a fool can’t see where all this “talk” is heading.

Legislative Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show-Wed., March 24, 2010

Looks like they must’ve installed some new, even more compelling, solitaire games on the Legislative Council computers. How else can you explain that yesterday’s session report cites activity going back to at least June of 2009 as new action effective yesterday? Perhaps the porn filter was on the fritz?

With that caveat, here is yesterday’s session report. Based on this report, Deborah Hudson (Capano)’s HB 3 passed the Senate for the third consecutive day. Granted, the bill is still horrible, but it passed last Thursday. Hello-o-o-o, anybody actually working down there? Not to mention bills previously released from committee being released from the same committees again. Were I a conspiracy theorist, I would, um, theorize, that Legislative Council is being directed to do this on purpose so that people won’t read what’s going on.

Lotsa new bills introduced, including one that will forever label a dog who goes after a cat as a dangerous animal. Now, I’m sure that many of you own both cats and dogs. We do. Seriously, how often does a cat provoke a dog? How many times a day? Sen. Simpson would blame the victim, i.e. the poor unsuspecting dog who was just minding his/her own business when ‘Precious’ raked its eyes. Oh, the canine calamity! Seriously, I know it’s a slow year, but do we really need a silly bill like this? For blogging purposes, the answer is ‘yes’. Keep bringin’ teh stupid, guys & gals!

As predicted yesterday, Rep. J.J. Johnson’s HB 284 passed the Senate unanimously. Since a Senate amendment was added, it will go back to House for final passage, likely on Thursday.

Sen. Bethany Hall-Long’s bill defining ‘title nurse’ and permitted practices passed the House unanimously, and now goes to the Governor’s office.

One interesting bill on today’s Senate agenda (out of two):

SB 157 (Peterson)-“Consistent with federal law, this bill protects up to $125,000 of a debtor’s equity in their principal residential home in a bankruptcy proceeding.”

Both the House and Senate have numerous precious few committee hearings scheduled for today.

HOUSE COMMITTEE MEETING SCHEDULE-As always, click on the individual committees to get today’s agendas. Here are some of the highlights, according to moi:

House Administration Committee-HB 357 (Atkins)–This is John “Law-Abiding Citizen Since 2007” Atkins’ bill seeking to turn Delaware into an armed camp. No doubt, he’ll have an amendment or two limiting the carnage to housing authorities and other preferred spots, but this is the NRA’s attempt to use courts currently clogged with right-wing ideologues to forever change gun restrictions in Delaware. BTW, since Atkins often refers to protecting the rights of ‘law-abiding’ citizens, which is standard NRA boilerplate, would he be eligible to carry a gun under this bill? Perhaps he or *coughcough* anon with a period will drop by to explain. In the meantime, this bill should be buried in committee by leadership.

House Judiciary Committee-HB 336 (Barbieri)-Rep. Barbieri who, I believe, is a social worker, is sponsoring this bill that would give Family Court enhanced ability to extend ‘no contact’ orders in order to forestall and/or prevent domestic violence and abuse. Looks like a real good bill to me.

SENATE COMMITTEE MEETING SCHEDULE-What a joke. One committee meeting w/no posted agenda; an Executive Committee hearing to consider ‘appointments’, once again with no names listed; and two joint House/Senate Committee hearings. Here’s what we know: Delaware State University President Dr. Harry Williams will address the Joint Education Committee. That’s it.

Oh, we also know that Sen. DeLuca continues to mock FOIA by not even posting the list of nominees being considered by the Senate Executive Committee. If any committee member or staffer would care to shed some light on the names, feel free to post here or to contact DL via the Tipline. And look on the bright side–it’ll drive DeLuca crazy!

Michelle Rollins Speaks

Thanks to commenter John Manifold for pointing us to this post at Delaware Grapevine. Sussex County Republicans celebrated a belated Lincoln Day event and Michelle Rollins was one of the featured speakers. She sounds like she’s going to run:

“Four score and seven days ago, I awoke with a dread that said I can throw my shoe at the TV, but Nancy Pelosi does not go away,” Rollins said.

“It is time for those of us who believe in our American system to put aside our wonderful lives and say, the American system is too important to us to sit back and hope that someone fixes it.

“I’m not here to announce tonight, but I’m here to tell you I’m very close in the process to making that decision, because we cannot allow our grandchildren to be deprived of the lives and opportunities we had growing up as children in America.”

From Cohen’s reporting, it sounds like Republicans are already doing a touchdown dance and Mike Castle is measuring the curtains for his new Senate office. Neil Newhouse, the pollster for Scott Brown and perhaps for Michelle Rollins, was the event’s featured speaker.

“This is the single best year for the Republicans since 1994. If you ever wanted to run for office as a Republican, this is the year,” Newhouse said — with one caveat. “Scott Brown’s election was an early wakeup call for the Democrats. This is why it’s not 1994 all over again.”

Apparently Republicans are calling the Brown victory the “Teddy Turnaround.” This more than anything makes me want to make sure that neither Mike Castle nor Michelle Rollins go to Washington, D.C. next year.