Sat. May 12, 2012:
Four Apologies, dear readers:
1.. Until reading through the first 40 reactions to the following op-ed [in Bloomberg News] about Richard Lugar's primary defeat in Indiana, it had not occurred to me that bipartisanship can be a real negative.
Read this link, and draw your own conclusions:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-09/lugar-concession-speech-tells-all-about-polarization.html
Perhaps it is, in fact, a code word for "enabling" the status quo, of bloated deficits & a runaway national debt. It is an error on my part, not to have conceded, before now, that this is a possibility. Folks of a different bent might consider likewise conceding that man-made global warming is also a possibility. In both cases, do we not agree that something should be done now, to hedge against a future catastrophe?
2. It is also an error not to have balanced my last post's recommendation of David Brooks's centrist views with those of Paul Krugman's leftish views -- about the same crucial deficits/debt issue raised in #1 above. This is the first time I've seen Krugman disagree so urgently -- the next day -- with his fellow columnist who writes for the same op-ed page. It was as if Krugman was about to call out Brooks by name!
Again, decide for yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/opinion/krugman-easy-useless-economics.html
3. At times, this blog falls into the error of coloring The New York Times as a lapdog of President Obama. As a form of correction, let me quote one sentence (the underscoring is mine) from yesterday's prime NYT editorial on Obama's personal support for same-sex marriage:
"This is a president and a White House that has not always been unwavering in taking positions of principle, including on this issue." [Almost British, in its understating].
4. And finally, the following is an error of partisan bad taste:
http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/05/11/my-school-days/
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Four Valid Republican Points
Wed. May 9, 2012:
1. Paul Ryan is coming to his senses -- if he doesn't reverse himself -- about basic banking:
THE EDITORS: Even Paul Ryan agrees: “Don’t let banks use their customers' money to do anything other than traditional banking.” Sounds like an endorsement of the Volcker rule in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
2. Moderate Republican columnist David Brooks argues persuasively that both Democrats [including colleague Paul Krugman] and Republicans are debating the wrong question:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/opinion/brooks-the-structural-revolution.html
3. Even NYT editors agree with Republicans that President Obama has been far too passive a leader
-- especially on health care reform. "Even Democrats say the president has been too aloof in his first term, not bothering to make his case in the Capitol, not interested in the LBJ-style flesh-pressing or arm-twisting that can rescue a law out of the mortuary of bills . . . He never made the sale with the public on the [Affordable Care] law . . . rather than shy away, it is time to explain [the law] to the public in detail what that would mean and why it is important that he be there to fight for it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/opinion/campaigning-beyond-inspiration.html
4. A few Republicans who oppose gay marriage may not be as bigoted as opponents assume.
There are plenty of older folks, of both parties, who hold the following credible position:
All citizens -- including gays of both genders -- should enjoy absolute & total equal rights regarding marriage, BUT: the word "marriage" itself does have a different history.
Exhibit A: The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (NY, 1966) defines "marriage" as
"The social institution under which a man and a woman establish their decision to live as man and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc."
One does not have to be a "bigot" to feel jarred by, literally, a reversal of this definition.
Simple solution: Coin a new word, for the new, full equality for a pair living together by legal commitments & religious ceremonies totally equivalent to "marriage."
Worthy readers, feel free to submit your candidate for the new word:
"Pairriage"?
1. Paul Ryan is coming to his senses -- if he doesn't reverse himself -- about basic banking:
THE EDITORS: Even Paul Ryan agrees: “Don’t let banks use their customers' money to do anything other than traditional banking.” Sounds like an endorsement of the Volcker rule in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
2. Moderate Republican columnist David Brooks argues persuasively that both Democrats [including colleague Paul Krugman] and Republicans are debating the wrong question:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/opinion/brooks-the-structural-revolution.html
3. Even NYT editors agree with Republicans that President Obama has been far too passive a leader
-- especially on health care reform. "Even Democrats say the president has been too aloof in his first term, not bothering to make his case in the Capitol, not interested in the LBJ-style flesh-pressing or arm-twisting that can rescue a law out of the mortuary of bills . . . He never made the sale with the public on the [Affordable Care] law . . . rather than shy away, it is time to explain [the law] to the public in detail what that would mean and why it is important that he be there to fight for it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/opinion/campaigning-beyond-inspiration.html
4. A few Republicans who oppose gay marriage may not be as bigoted as opponents assume.
There are plenty of older folks, of both parties, who hold the following credible position:
All citizens -- including gays of both genders -- should enjoy absolute & total equal rights regarding marriage, BUT: the word "marriage" itself does have a different history.
Exhibit A: The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (NY, 1966) defines "marriage" as
"The social institution under which a man and a woman establish their decision to live as man and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc."
One does not have to be a "bigot" to feel jarred by, literally, a reversal of this definition.
Simple solution: Coin a new word, for the new, full equality for a pair living together by legal commitments & religious ceremonies totally equivalent to "marriage."
Worthy readers, feel free to submit your candidate for the new word:
"Pairriage"?
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Mr. President: Some Republicans Do Good
Tues. May 8, 2012:
Open Letter to President Barack Hussein Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Mr. President,
Readers of the bitesfromedwin blog can be forgiven for concluding that Republicans are all anathema.
But this is not so. In fact, although I'm likely to vote for you in 2012, I'm also voting against the scorched-earth politics of what the Founders intended to be "Loyal Opposition." Since Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2009, Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint announced the party's extreme-rightist-driven agenda: Do whatever it takes to make Barack Obama a 1-term president.
But here is a list of good Republicanism, and it would sure be easier to vote for you in 2012 if you had not made the following mistakes:
1. Openly embrace your own commission on the national debt & deficits -- Simpson/Bowles. It included Republican & Democratic proposals that could help the country a whole lot. Yet, not a word from you.
2. Support 80-year-old Richard Lugar, U.S. Senator (R-Indiana), by speaking out against him, or in favor of his Tea Party opponent. [Most Indianans hate Obama so much, that anything he recommends will be opposed in Indiana!] Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, Lugar & his conservative Democratic colleague Senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) have done more to secure loose nukes -- sometimes out of their own pockets! -- than anyone.
Yet today, with no word from you or any other bipartisan voice, a Tea Party candidate will unseat Richard Lugar in Indiana's Republican primary election. We are watching a great nation self-destruct with such myopic extremist politics. You could have led, here, via "Opposite Day."
3. Be more pro-active, in ways that Paul Krugman suggests. Yes, Republicans blocked everything, but earlier quiet steps by the White House could have headed off last fall's budget deficit debacle.
Instead, too often your White House team seemed paralyzed into inaction.
See Krugman's "Plutocracy, Paralysis, Perplexity":
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/krugman-plutocracy-paralysis-perplexity.html
and
"Those Revolting Europeans":
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/opinion/krugman-those-revolting-europeans.html
4. When Republicans are funny, make a big deal of giving them credit. It will help you with independents, I promise you -- as would steps #1 & #2 above, if not #3.
Republicans CAN be funny:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/87be7156f5/republicans-get-in-my-vagina
Mr. President, as expert as your campaign advisors are, you need to trust your own decent instincts toward doing what the country needs. Believe me, giving bipartisan credit is atop the list right now.
Sincerely,
bitesfromedwin
Open Letter to President Barack Hussein Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Mr. President,
Readers of the bitesfromedwin blog can be forgiven for concluding that Republicans are all anathema.
But this is not so. In fact, although I'm likely to vote for you in 2012, I'm also voting against the scorched-earth politics of what the Founders intended to be "Loyal Opposition." Since Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2009, Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint announced the party's extreme-rightist-driven agenda: Do whatever it takes to make Barack Obama a 1-term president.
But here is a list of good Republicanism, and it would sure be easier to vote for you in 2012 if you had not made the following mistakes:
1. Openly embrace your own commission on the national debt & deficits -- Simpson/Bowles. It included Republican & Democratic proposals that could help the country a whole lot. Yet, not a word from you.
2. Support 80-year-old Richard Lugar, U.S. Senator (R-Indiana), by speaking out against him, or in favor of his Tea Party opponent. [Most Indianans hate Obama so much, that anything he recommends will be opposed in Indiana!] Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, Lugar & his conservative Democratic colleague Senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) have done more to secure loose nukes -- sometimes out of their own pockets! -- than anyone.
Yet today, with no word from you or any other bipartisan voice, a Tea Party candidate will unseat Richard Lugar in Indiana's Republican primary election. We are watching a great nation self-destruct with such myopic extremist politics. You could have led, here, via "Opposite Day."
3. Be more pro-active, in ways that Paul Krugman suggests. Yes, Republicans blocked everything, but earlier quiet steps by the White House could have headed off last fall's budget deficit debacle.
Instead, too often your White House team seemed paralyzed into inaction.
See Krugman's "Plutocracy, Paralysis, Perplexity":
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/krugman-plutocracy-paralysis-perplexity.html
and
"Those Revolting Europeans":
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/opinion/krugman-those-revolting-europeans.html
4. When Republicans are funny, make a big deal of giving them credit. It will help you with independents, I promise you -- as would steps #1 & #2 above, if not #3.
Republicans CAN be funny:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/87be7156f5/republicans-get-in-my-vagina
Mr. President, as expert as your campaign advisors are, you need to trust your own decent instincts toward doing what the country needs. Believe me, giving bipartisan credit is atop the list right now.
Sincerely,
bitesfromedwin
Saturday, May 5, 2012
FINALLY! A Clarion Call About U.S. Politics 2012
Sat. May 5, 2012:
Desperate Readers: Before you do another thing, drop everything & Praise the Lord.
At long last, there appears to be a "Hello Out There."
Thomas Mann & Norman Ornstein, It's Even Worse Than You Thought [2012].
Aimed at us few millions who feel that both the Democrats and the Republicans are dangerously full of bullbleep, and we better fix the whole system.
Quick.
Too busy for a whole book? Okay, but at least scroll all the way down for some reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-ebook/dp/B007UPDFKA
Still skeptical?
For Exhibit A:
Contrast this partisan counter-attack ad, answering another partisan ad.
http://www.upworthy.com/this-is-how-you-kill-an-attack-ad
Desperate Readers: Before you do another thing, drop everything & Praise the Lord.
At long last, there appears to be a "Hello Out There."
Thomas Mann & Norman Ornstein, It's Even Worse Than You Thought [2012].
Aimed at us few millions who feel that both the Democrats and the Republicans are dangerously full of bullbleep, and we better fix the whole system.
Quick.
Too busy for a whole book? Okay, but at least scroll all the way down for some reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-ebook/dp/B007UPDFKA
Still skeptical?
For Exhibit A:
Contrast this partisan counter-attack ad, answering another partisan ad.
http://www.upworthy.com/this-is-how-you-kill-an-attack-ad
Thursday, May 3, 2012
What This Blog Needs: See "ON THE SCREEN"
Thu. May 3, 2012:
In our 21st-century information-saturated world, what is immediately visible on screen becomes even more crucial. Journalist Jackie Calmes's "Ad Watch" sheds light, in "Obama Spot Offers a Rebuttal and a Jab at Romney":
"ON THE SCREEN: Whenever the narrator talks about Mr. Romney or big oil, the screen has a black background. First, the ad shows a small, anti-Obama video clip, and alongside are the narrator's words, in white type, rebutting it. Then the words "Big Oil's New Attack Ad" whip over the video clip, covering much of it. The screen briefly turns a more pleasing light blue: A color photo of a determined-looking Mr. Obama is next to a map of the United States under the words 'Jobs created by President Obama's clean energy initiatives.' The map fills with circles denoting locations of job-creating projects. Back to black, as the phrase 'What about Mitt Romney?' is followed by black-and-white photos of the candidate. Beneath the phrase 'The Romney Record' are phrases about shipping jobs overseas (on a global map, Mexico and China suddenly pop out in red); outscourcing Massachusetts jobs (a photo of the Massachusetts State House switches to one of India's Taj Maal); and supporting tax breaks for outsourcing companies (a photo appears of an abandoned plant). Throughout the ad, in small type are news media citations supporting its assertions." [For the whole article, including the ad's script and accuracy, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/politics/ad-watch-obama-spot-offers-a-rebuttal-and-a-jab.html ]
PS If, dear readers, anyone doubts David Brooks's sad truth of yesterday's post -- about USA bringing itself down with self-destructive polarizing -- here is a little more:
1. Turns out the Paul Ryan Budget architect himself -- one Henry Aaron [no relation] -- says "it won't work." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/henry-aaron-paul-ryan-medicare_n_1466826.html
2. Remember yesterday's Texas story, about a federal district judge prohibited a Texas law from banning Planned Parenthood clinics from participating in a health care program for low-income women? Well, "hours" afterwards, a federal appeals judge reverses, allowing Texas to do so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/texas-judge-stays-order-on-health-care-program.html?_r=1
3. Did you hear the one about Romney's openly gay foreign policy spokesman quitting?
The head of Log Cabin Republicans said that the Romney advisor Richard Grenell "was essentially hounded by the far right and far left."
Quod Erat Demonstratum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/politics/romneys-foreign-policy-spokesman-quits.html
In our 21st-century information-saturated world, what is immediately visible on screen becomes even more crucial. Journalist Jackie Calmes's "Ad Watch" sheds light, in "Obama Spot Offers a Rebuttal and a Jab at Romney":
"ON THE SCREEN: Whenever the narrator talks about Mr. Romney or big oil, the screen has a black background. First, the ad shows a small, anti-Obama video clip, and alongside are the narrator's words, in white type, rebutting it. Then the words "Big Oil's New Attack Ad" whip over the video clip, covering much of it. The screen briefly turns a more pleasing light blue: A color photo of a determined-looking Mr. Obama is next to a map of the United States under the words 'Jobs created by President Obama's clean energy initiatives.' The map fills with circles denoting locations of job-creating projects. Back to black, as the phrase 'What about Mitt Romney?' is followed by black-and-white photos of the candidate. Beneath the phrase 'The Romney Record' are phrases about shipping jobs overseas (on a global map, Mexico and China suddenly pop out in red); outscourcing Massachusetts jobs (a photo of the Massachusetts State House switches to one of India's Taj Maal); and supporting tax breaks for outsourcing companies (a photo appears of an abandoned plant). Throughout the ad, in small type are news media citations supporting its assertions." [For the whole article, including the ad's script and accuracy, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/politics/ad-watch-obama-spot-offers-a-rebuttal-and-a-jab.html ]
PS If, dear readers, anyone doubts David Brooks's sad truth of yesterday's post -- about USA bringing itself down with self-destructive polarizing -- here is a little more:
1. Turns out the Paul Ryan Budget architect himself -- one Henry Aaron [no relation] -- says "it won't work." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/henry-aaron-paul-ryan-medicare_n_1466826.html
2. Remember yesterday's Texas story, about a federal district judge prohibited a Texas law from banning Planned Parenthood clinics from participating in a health care program for low-income women? Well, "hours" afterwards, a federal appeals judge reverses, allowing Texas to do so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/texas-judge-stays-order-on-health-care-program.html?_r=1
3. Did you hear the one about Romney's openly gay foreign policy spokesman quitting?
The head of Log Cabin Republicans said that the Romney advisor Richard Grenell "was essentially hounded by the far right and far left."
Quod Erat Demonstratum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/politics/romneys-foreign-policy-spokesman-quits.html
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
"We Have Met The Enemy, And They Are Us"
Wed. May 2, 2012:
Today's title originated with Walt Kelly, creator of the mid-20th-century comic strip Pogo.
In that vein, worthy readers, your text for today is bipartisan David Brooks, "Warfare or Courtship In 2012?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/opinion/brooks-warfare-or-courtship-in-2012.html
Will history prove Brooks correct?
In 2112, will any surviving humans remember the cause of USA's self-destruction?
Our absolute political dysfunction is suspect #1. Republicans in 2012 have decided that, to beat President Obama [AND win both the House & Senate], they will take every weakness of candidate Mitt Romney, they will claim that Obama has an even worse form of the same weakness. Prior to 2012, Republican strategy has been more bludgeon-like -- "just say no" to every single Obama idea, and then blame him for the resulting inaction.
Peruse yesterday's news, and you will see it everywhere:
1. "Global warming" is an indisputable fact backed by bipartisan science -- right? Wrong!
An MIT professor of meteorology, Richard S. Lindzen, has made a career out of claiming that clouds will save planet earth from global warming. Though he represents only 3% of all the science on the question, he has become a hero of the rightist deniers, and gets at least 50% of air time about global warming. "If I'm wrong," asserts Lindzen, we'll know it in 50 years and can do something."
How can a Lindzen gain as much credence as 97% of the science opposing him?
[See Steve Coll's new book, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, which includes chapter & verse about Exxon's deliberate campaign of sewing confusion & obfuscation against the 97% of scientists who read the evidence of global warming as urgently real.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/science/earth/clouds-effect-on-climate-change-is-last-bastion-for-dissenters.html
2. Obama prefers sanctions -- not yet another Middle East war -- to end Iran's nuclear weapons program. No brainer -- right? Wrong! Republicans say he is selling out our crucial ally Israel.
3. Obama made the brave decision to approve the Navy Seals' mission vs. Bin Laden. Bipartisan joy and relief -- right? And, Senate Committee on Intelligence vows that secret evidence shows we found Bin Laden without evidence gleaned from torture -- right? Wrong! "Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order," disparaged Romney [even though back in 2007 Romney had said that "It's not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person]. The very water-boarding that Obama condemned enabled the CIA to glean the crucial information that found Bin Laden, claims former CIA agent & head of its "clandestine service" wing & Republican sympathizer Jose A. Rodgriguez Jr. on CBS's 60 Minutes.
4. The use of armed drones to take out impending terrorist plotters, in places like Pakistan & Yemen, has sharply reduced the cost & risk of warfare to its operators -- right? Wrong!
This time, however, the opposition comes not from kill-baby-kill & pro-torture Republicans, but from more sober futurists, who express "growing concern" about a "future in which other countries also acquire drones."
5. Environmental Protection Agency, created under Republican Nixon, wants to stop polluters in Texas & elsewhere. No one wants pollution -- right? Wrong! Republicans had a hissy-fit and then hounded to resignation an anti-polluter EPA official, because he did use a stupid "crucify" metaphor to try explaining EPA's need to make examples of bad polluters.
6. Minnesota governor Mark Dayton [D] is trying to expand health insurance coverage and remake Minnesota's insurance market toward major savings for all Minnesotans. He has meticulously detailed advice from consmer groups, labor unions, doctors & hospitals, emplyers, insurance companies, agents & brokers, and American Indian tribes. Huge positive step -- right? Wrong! "For reasons of ideology and politics," extreme right-wingers "want to bash our effort to establish an exchange, rather than join it." Republican legislators declined an invitation even to participate in a task force to study the plan.
7. During the Watergate Scandal of 1972-1974, reporter Bob Woodward met "Deep Throat" many times in a garage, and by 2005 Mark Felt confirmed this as he unmasked himself -- right? Wrong!
Jeff Himmelman [Republican apologist for Nixon?] claimed Woodward's boss Ben Bradlee had doubts, in his new biography of Bradlee. In the quote of the day, Woodward said:
"This is a classic case of manufactured controversy, as best I can tell."
8. Conservative Supreme Court justices always proudly protect free speech, as they did with their Citizens United ruling [which has drowned the 2012 presidential campaign in superPAC billions] -- right? Wrong! The High Court seems to be squeamish about some forms of free speech. Back in 1971, the Court had ruled that the 1st Amendment would not tolerate the punishment of Paul Cohen, who was arrested in 1968 for wearing a jacket in a los Angeles courthouse that bore a 3-word phrase concerning his attitude toward the draft.
[Cohen's lawyer characterized the phrase this way: "Mr. Cohen was not actually advocating sexual intercourse with the Selective Service."]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/us/a-word-heard-everywhere-except-the-supreme-court.html?ref=adamliptak
IF U.S.A DISINTEGRATES, WALT KELLY'S OBSERVATION WILL LOOM LARGE:
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY, AND THEY ARE US."
Today's title originated with Walt Kelly, creator of the mid-20th-century comic strip Pogo.
In that vein, worthy readers, your text for today is bipartisan David Brooks, "Warfare or Courtship In 2012?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/opinion/brooks-warfare-or-courtship-in-2012.html
Will history prove Brooks correct?
In 2112, will any surviving humans remember the cause of USA's self-destruction?
Our absolute political dysfunction is suspect #1. Republicans in 2012 have decided that, to beat President Obama [AND win both the House & Senate], they will take every weakness of candidate Mitt Romney, they will claim that Obama has an even worse form of the same weakness. Prior to 2012, Republican strategy has been more bludgeon-like -- "just say no" to every single Obama idea, and then blame him for the resulting inaction.
Peruse yesterday's news, and you will see it everywhere:
1. "Global warming" is an indisputable fact backed by bipartisan science -- right? Wrong!
An MIT professor of meteorology, Richard S. Lindzen, has made a career out of claiming that clouds will save planet earth from global warming. Though he represents only 3% of all the science on the question, he has become a hero of the rightist deniers, and gets at least 50% of air time about global warming. "If I'm wrong," asserts Lindzen, we'll know it in 50 years and can do something."
How can a Lindzen gain as much credence as 97% of the science opposing him?
[See Steve Coll's new book, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, which includes chapter & verse about Exxon's deliberate campaign of sewing confusion & obfuscation against the 97% of scientists who read the evidence of global warming as urgently real.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/science/earth/clouds-effect-on-climate-change-is-last-bastion-for-dissenters.html
2. Obama prefers sanctions -- not yet another Middle East war -- to end Iran's nuclear weapons program. No brainer -- right? Wrong! Republicans say he is selling out our crucial ally Israel.
3. Obama made the brave decision to approve the Navy Seals' mission vs. Bin Laden. Bipartisan joy and relief -- right? And, Senate Committee on Intelligence vows that secret evidence shows we found Bin Laden without evidence gleaned from torture -- right? Wrong! "Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order," disparaged Romney [even though back in 2007 Romney had said that "It's not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person]. The very water-boarding that Obama condemned enabled the CIA to glean the crucial information that found Bin Laden, claims former CIA agent & head of its "clandestine service" wing & Republican sympathizer Jose A. Rodgriguez Jr. on CBS's 60 Minutes.
4. The use of armed drones to take out impending terrorist plotters, in places like Pakistan & Yemen, has sharply reduced the cost & risk of warfare to its operators -- right? Wrong!
This time, however, the opposition comes not from kill-baby-kill & pro-torture Republicans, but from more sober futurists, who express "growing concern" about a "future in which other countries also acquire drones."
5. Environmental Protection Agency, created under Republican Nixon, wants to stop polluters in Texas & elsewhere. No one wants pollution -- right? Wrong! Republicans had a hissy-fit and then hounded to resignation an anti-polluter EPA official, because he did use a stupid "crucify" metaphor to try explaining EPA's need to make examples of bad polluters.
6. Minnesota governor Mark Dayton [D] is trying to expand health insurance coverage and remake Minnesota's insurance market toward major savings for all Minnesotans. He has meticulously detailed advice from consmer groups, labor unions, doctors & hospitals, emplyers, insurance companies, agents & brokers, and American Indian tribes. Huge positive step -- right? Wrong! "For reasons of ideology and politics," extreme right-wingers "want to bash our effort to establish an exchange, rather than join it." Republican legislators declined an invitation even to participate in a task force to study the plan.
7. During the Watergate Scandal of 1972-1974, reporter Bob Woodward met "Deep Throat" many times in a garage, and by 2005 Mark Felt confirmed this as he unmasked himself -- right? Wrong!
Jeff Himmelman [Republican apologist for Nixon?] claimed Woodward's boss Ben Bradlee had doubts, in his new biography of Bradlee. In the quote of the day, Woodward said:
"This is a classic case of manufactured controversy, as best I can tell."
8. Conservative Supreme Court justices always proudly protect free speech, as they did with their Citizens United ruling [which has drowned the 2012 presidential campaign in superPAC billions] -- right? Wrong! The High Court seems to be squeamish about some forms of free speech. Back in 1971, the Court had ruled that the 1st Amendment would not tolerate the punishment of Paul Cohen, who was arrested in 1968 for wearing a jacket in a los Angeles courthouse that bore a 3-word phrase concerning his attitude toward the draft.
[Cohen's lawyer characterized the phrase this way: "Mr. Cohen was not actually advocating sexual intercourse with the Selective Service."]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/us/a-word-heard-everywhere-except-the-supreme-court.html?ref=adamliptak
IF U.S.A DISINTEGRATES, WALT KELLY'S OBSERVATION WILL LOOM LARGE:
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY, AND THEY ARE US."
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Colbert's Republican Humor; and 5 Unfunnies
Tues. May 1, 2012:
"The Colbert Report" & Guns & N.R.A.
http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/mon-april-30-2012-diane-keaton
THEN,
1. Inspiring obituary: George Vujnovich, 96; Led 1944 Rescue of 500 Airmen Behind German Lines
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/nyregion/george-vujnovich-96-led-rescue-of-airmen-in-world-war-ii.html?_r=1
2. Republican state legislatures have quietly undermined new voters' right to vote in 30 states since the last presidential election. For example, in Florida: "a new requirement that voter registration signatures be handed in to state officials within 48 hours after they are collected." In Ohio: "new laws that discourage precinct workers from telling voters where to go if they show up at the wrong precinct."
Republicans clearly don't want new voters to vote -- they are trying to roll back the historic trend of democratizing our republic ever since ratifying our 1787 Constitution.
Watch Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus [who famously likened women to caterpillars] twist this stealthy Republican state-by-state practice -- into the Democrats' fault:
"for anyone to politicize the issue reeks of desperation and represents the worst in modern politics."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/nyregion/george-vujnovich-96-led-rescue-of-airmen-in-world-war-ii.html?_r=1
3. NYT profile of Paul Ryan, 42, Republican from Wisconsin, chair of House Budget Committee [& author of the notorious Ryan budget that would slash federal aid to the needy but cut taxes for the wealthy]. Includes grudging admiration from a Democratic colleague from Wisconsin: "I'm stunned by how oblivious he is to the pain his policies would cause people . . . What amazes me is that someone that nice personally has such a cold, almost academic view of what the impact of his policies would be on people."
4. The "Romney touch" again, this time to a college audience last week: First he denounces President Obama's "divisiveness," and then he tells the kids: "Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents [emphasis mine], start a business."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/us/politics/paul-ryans-kinetic-rise-in-gop.html?pagewanted=all
5. Bill Keller's new profile of North Korea -- "miserable, totalitarian, nuclear and erratic. It is the hermit kingdom, the dark side of the moon." But "the really scary thing about North Korea," says Keller, is "The Day After" its collapse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/opinion/keller-the-day-after.html
"The Colbert Report" & Guns & N.R.A.
http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/mon-april-30-2012-diane-keaton
THEN,
1. Inspiring obituary: George Vujnovich, 96; Led 1944 Rescue of 500 Airmen Behind German Lines
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/nyregion/george-vujnovich-96-led-rescue-of-airmen-in-world-war-ii.html?_r=1
2. Republican state legislatures have quietly undermined new voters' right to vote in 30 states since the last presidential election. For example, in Florida: "a new requirement that voter registration signatures be handed in to state officials within 48 hours after they are collected." In Ohio: "new laws that discourage precinct workers from telling voters where to go if they show up at the wrong precinct."
Republicans clearly don't want new voters to vote -- they are trying to roll back the historic trend of democratizing our republic ever since ratifying our 1787 Constitution.
Watch Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus [who famously likened women to caterpillars] twist this stealthy Republican state-by-state practice -- into the Democrats' fault:
"for anyone to politicize the issue reeks of desperation and represents the worst in modern politics."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/nyregion/george-vujnovich-96-led-rescue-of-airmen-in-world-war-ii.html?_r=1
3. NYT profile of Paul Ryan, 42, Republican from Wisconsin, chair of House Budget Committee [& author of the notorious Ryan budget that would slash federal aid to the needy but cut taxes for the wealthy]. Includes grudging admiration from a Democratic colleague from Wisconsin: "I'm stunned by how oblivious he is to the pain his policies would cause people . . . What amazes me is that someone that nice personally has such a cold, almost academic view of what the impact of his policies would be on people."
4. The "Romney touch" again, this time to a college audience last week: First he denounces President Obama's "divisiveness," and then he tells the kids: "Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents [emphasis mine], start a business."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/us/politics/paul-ryans-kinetic-rise-in-gop.html?pagewanted=all
5. Bill Keller's new profile of North Korea -- "miserable, totalitarian, nuclear and erratic. It is the hermit kingdom, the dark side of the moon." But "the really scary thing about North Korea," says Keller, is "The Day After" its collapse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/opinion/keller-the-day-after.html
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