First Draft

Wankers

No matter how many damn Democrats we elect, it seems there's a neverending supply of them willing to deplore the incivility of their own colleagues just to get their names in the paper:

The Politico reports that some of Grayson's House Democratic colleagues are creating some distance from him in light of this. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) called the comment "inappropriate and unfair" to Robertson. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was more blunt: "Is this news to you that this guy's one fry short of a Happy Meal?"

ZOMG HE CALLED A WOMAN A WHORE! I called Joe Lieberman a whore last week, a truck-stop whore in fact, so I'm nobody to talk, but do we really need to slap Grayson around publicly, Democrats? The Republicans have no problem clutching their pearls on this one:

NRCC spokesman Andy Seré released this statement: "Alan Grayson is a vile and vulgar man whose behavior brings shame to Central Florida on a near-daily basis ..."

Vile and vulgar! A lot of alliteration! Good gravy! 

So they're doing a fine job of kicking him in the face, and as usual he's not backing down, and the only possible reason for Weiner and Hoyer to get involved on top of that is to get someone to mention their names. Talk about whores.

A.

Opting Out

Burnt Orange Report:

Apparently, the opt-out will require a 2/3 vote of the state legislature, with the governor able to veto an opt-out. We don't have a link for this yet, but that's what folks close to the process are suggesting to Burnt Orange Report.

Under this scenario, Texans would be able to participate in the public option (if they qualify) in 2013. Legislatures would then have to intentionally deny their constituents insurance by opting them out of the public option.

Importantly, states CANNOT opt out of the consumer reforms that will lower costs, prevent rescission, and stop insurers from denying you coverage for a pre-existing condition. These reforms are huge in making the insurance companies work harder to provide care, rather than just pile up profits.

Other questions that need to be resolved as we work through the sausage-making process:

• As governorships and legislative control pass between the two parties, can states opt out later on?
• Can a state opt in if it previously opted out?
• Are there different processes for states with unicameral and/or bicameral legislatures?
• Can states pro-actively pass legislation to opt out before 2014?

The question being, should the opt-out survive into the final bill, exactly how many Republican state legislators and governors and two-bit moron politicians are willing to throw their constituents' lives away to make two-bit moron points on the two-bit moron news? And how many of their constituents are willing to throw their own kids' lives away so they can go to tea parties and scream about socialism? You wanna bet on the ability of backwards-looking people to cut their own feet off just so they can keep bitching about how hard it is to walk? You wanna bet against that?

A.

NOLA Notes: James Gill On Ray Nagin

I've spend a lot of time over the last 4 years mocking my local daily paper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune. I met one of their best reporters a few years ago and told him about my blog. He said: "We at the Times-Pravda are well aware of your work." I called them that because of the Picayune's tendency to let its editorial views leak into the news hole. They've always had sacred cows among the Gret Stet's pols: the current one, approrpriately enough is Governor PBJ, boy exorcist and former Hindu. Mayor Nagin used to be on the paper's de facto "let alone list" but not any more.

That brings me to the Picayune's resident cynic, columnist James Gill. Gill has been at the Picayune since the beginning of time; not really it just seems like it. Gill is a British transplant to New Orleans and the transplant took. He writes elegant snarky prose in a sort of high-Tory Disraeli/Muggeridge style. I don't always agree with his eclectic views but he writes like a dream and good prose is worth savoring.

James Gill understands NOLA's ruling class, both white and black. That brings me to his latest column about our very own village idiot, Mayor C Ray Nagin. Nagin has spent most of his second term with his foot lodged in his mouth while being investigated by the feds and watching his popularity reach nearly Bushian depths. I've been calling the Mayor a dumbass for years but the MSM has only recently joined the scrum. Gill's Sunday column was entitled Is Mayor Ray Nagin As Dumb As He Seems? Here are the first few grafs, it's a masterpiece of sarcasm worthy of Gore Vidal or Doug Piranhna:

If Mayor Ray Nagin were as dumb as he seems, he couldn't possibly have progressed beyond third grade.

This must all be a stunt. As he prepares to exit City Hall, he is having a great laugh at our expense.

While he, his wife and assorted flunkies see the world on our dollar, he neglects no opportunity to unburden himself of some fatuous observation and make all his constituents writhe in embarrassment.

They deserve it to some extent, because they re-elected him after he repeatedly made a bozo of himself in the aftermath of Katrina. He came in for a lot of public criticism at the time and it must have bruised him, for he now appears determined to exact a terrible revenge. He has resolved to see how New Orleans likes having a doofus for a mayor.

Me, I don't like it but we're only stuck with C Ray until May, 2010. Besides, we can always think about the unde-fucking-defeated New Orleans Saints until then. We have our priorities straight here in Debrisville and the Saints come first...

Update: Looking at the post, I realized that I didn't endorse the content of Gill''s column. His description of Nagin's running commentary on *everything* is spot on. The Mayor never shuts up and puts his foot in his mouth on almost a daily basis. He is a gaffe machine: if I wanted to I could jump down his throat at least twice a week for saying something really stupid.

And While We're At It, Just Bite Me So Hard, John McCain

What a nasty, bitter, bitchy little putz:

Republican Senator John McCain, later at the Reuters summit, advised Obama to tread carefully in a town where political enemies come with the territory.

"I think I've been around this town, in the view of many, too long. But long enough to see what the Greek god Hubris will do to administrations," said McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama.

"And if I were advising the president, which obviously in the administration I'm not, I would encourage them to tread very carefully in making enemies intentionally," he said. "I've found in Washington you pick up enough enemies just conducting your normal life without going out and picking some out."

Emphasis mine. You know who makes me crazy, like really really makes me crazy? People who let opportunities to do the right thing pass them by, and then flap around making up excuses why they didn't do the right thing. You wanted to advise the president, John? You wanted to give the president the benefit of your all-inspiring words of wisdom, your learned counsel, the hard-earned truths of your life and your world?

Well, you had the fucking chance to do that, and you fucking fucking blew it. You could have been someone and did something important when, during the most critical election of our time, you could have abandoned the Let's Keep Going This Clusterfuck Tastes Like Ice Cream Party and been a part of something extraordinary. But no. And even in 2008, you could have run your campaign in a way that wasn't a national disgrace and an embarrassment, and still have been respected by people for what you'd done in the distant past if not what you'd done recently. But no. Again.

When presented with chances to act like a grown-up you passed them all by, and now you want to jaw about wisdom and hubris? About enemies? And about how you're not advising this administration, except through the Sunday talk shows? Give me a fucking break.

Schmuck.

A.

Speaking of Weenies...

... here's a video of Bitter Vitter running away from a question about Malaka Keith Bardwell the racist Tangipahoa Parish Justice of the Peace:

It's vintage Vitter: he's a bully and he *always* flees when called on his bullshit.

Hat Tip: American Zombie.

Oh Jesus God, Shut Up, Lamar

For serious:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top U.S. Senate Republican invoked the memory of the scandal-marred Nixon administration on Wednesday to urge U.S. President Barack Obama: "Don't start an enemies list."

Senator Lamar Alexander told Reuters he sees the Obama White House adopting an attitude similar to that of the Richard Nixon White House four decades ago, that "everybody is against us and we are going to get them."

Alexander cited as examples the Obama administration threatening to strip the insurance industry of its exemption of federal anti-trust laws, "taking names" of bondholders who opposed the auto bailout, its reported aim to "neuter the U.S. Chamber of Commerce," boycotting Fox News Network and "calling out" of others who oppose it.

"I'm suggesting to the president that he back up and start over," said Alexander, a member of the Senate Republican leadership. "Don't start an enemies list."

I say this as someone who knows well the therapeutic benefit of making a list of everybody who's fucking with me this week, but seriously, Lamar, there were a million problems with Richard Nixon and ain't none of them that he made a list. You should know. YOU WORKED FOR THE EVIL LITTLE FUCKER. This is sort of like the guy who runs out to get Satan's Slurpee telling other people not to consume so much sugar because it makes you twitchy.

In my fantasy world, Obama's response to all this "enemies list" nonsense is something along the lines of, "Don't worry about me keeping a list. Worry about keeping yourself OFF IT."

A.

Misnomer

My current fave rave member of Congress is Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York who is anything but a wiener, weenie or, heaven forfend, a whiner. He is a bit of a hot dog but, hey, he's a politician so that's to be expected. Just slap a bit of mustard and relish on him. Okey doke, I've exhausted the frankfurter jokes and Felix has been in the grave for a long time. Anyway, Mr. Weiner comes from what Howard Dean called the Democratic wing of the Democratic party and is one of the House Dems standing firm for the public option. Here's Congressman Misnomer's appearance last night on Countdown:

Here's hoping that Speaker Pelosi and her troops hold firm. It's putting some salutary pressure on that deboned chicken Harry Reid and on the White House. Watching Mr. Weiner last night brought me back full circle to yesterday's post wherein I urged the President to get in touch with his inner LBJ.  Maybe a body snatching is in order: Lyndon Johnson would be asking the hold-out Senators what projects they'd like in the pipeline. Most Senators can be bought off with the promise of a dam or a new highway project. For example, Mary Landrieu is all about bringing home the bacon and there are lots of projects in Orleans Parish that need full federal funding such as world class levees. Hint, hint.

I'm sure that Ben Nelson and some of the other recalcitrant blue dogs have their own pet projects. Lord knows there's all that stimulus money out there. I only hope that the President isn't too much of a goo-goo for his own good. He should be using the FDR/LBJ/Daley playbook right now to get the public option through. All the Senate "moderates" have to do is to agree to vote for cloture: they don't have to vote for the final bill. But It's time to close the deal.

It's a pity that too many pols are like the kids in the classic Oscar Meyer commercial:

Be Great Instead of Being Ashamed

Bono, and Obama:

“We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”

They’re not my words, they’re your president’s. If they’re not familiar, it’s because they didn’t make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity — if the words signal action.

The millennium goals, for those of you who don’t know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They’re a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t there in 2000, but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further — all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.

A.

It's Time To Step Up, Mr. President

I  hate using cliches; especially such a hackneyed sports derived one as "step up." But it fits the current state of the health care reform debate.  Big Mo, as Poppy Bush once memorably dubbed momentum, seems to be on the side of the pro-public option, uh, side. The estimable Iowan Tom Harkin has, uh, estimated that 52 Senators favor some form of public option and that it's time for the slackers, weenies and namby pampy Dems to get out of the way of the majority. My language, not Senator Harkin's but I can imagine him using stronger language. One of them is, of course, my senior Senator Mary Landrieu. (Note to Keith Olbermann: it's pronounced Lan-drooo, not Land-dreau. She's never played CF for the Twins and Dodgers. End of parenthetical elocution lesson.)

Where was I? Since Athenae has already handbagged Max Baucus, I'll take on the role of President Obama in all this. Senators are unruly, spoiled and egocentric children so it's time for the President to set some limits and tell them what he will and will not accept. The refusal of the White House to insist upon some variation on the public option is vexatious at best and foolish at worst. Why? The sucker is increasingly popular, that's why. It looks as if good politics and good public policy are converging but the White House seems to be leery of getting its hands dirty. It's time for them to stop wringing their hands and roll up their sleeves. Holy crap, the cliches are flying thick and frakking fast...

I think it's time for Obama to go LBJ on their asses and twist some arms, call in some chits and pin this sucker down before it slips away. You've got to reach for the prize: it doesn't just fall into your hands like ripe grapes from the vine. You've got to work the fucking vinyard to make a decent wine. End of terribly labored agricultural metaphor.

I personally think the President, his gentlemanly demeanor notwithstanding, has the steel to push hard enough to prevail. But great oratory isn't enough: he needs to be willing to show some Senators their political graves and how their own fortunes will suffer along with those of the Obama adminstration if things fall apart. Holy Joe Lieberman, come on down, you sanctimonious malaka. It's time for Obama's refusal to hold a grudge over Lieberman's 2008 apostasy (an odd term to apply to this Senator but it fits) to be cashed in: get the sumbitch to STFU and at the bare minimum agree to oppose a Republican filibuster. After all, Holy Joe is as politically vulnerable as a hemophiliac in room full of icepicks back home in the nutmeg state, which, btw, is one of my favorite state nicknames. Louisiana should be the roux state as well as the bayou state...

Essentially, it's time for the White House to kick some ass. Remember what happened 15 years ago when a Democratic Congress defeated a Democratic President's health care reform package? Annihilation in 1994 and the Gingrichian reign of error on Capitol Hill. And this time there's no excuse: the Goopers are on the verge of self-destruction and cannibalism. Let them eat their own instead of us this time. Hmm,  I wonder how wingnuts taste best: boiled or grilled? Probably neither...

So, Mr. President, step up and produce a health care bill worthy of your oratorical prowess. You have a chance at accomplishing something very important. Don't settle for the watered down gruel being served by the likes of  Max Baucus: give us something substantial and energize the Democratic base for the off-year election in 2010. Pass a shitty bill and there will be major losses: the Paultards, dittoheads, teabaggers and wingnuts will turn out to vote, let's give our side a reason to be enthusiastic.

End of a rare pep talk from me. The snark will flow again soon and I'll try skipping the cliches as well: I'll just play one game at a time and blah and blah and blah...

Hey, Max

Who's an asshole? You're an asshole:

Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) insisted on Monday that a public option for insurance coverage was very much "alive" as he and two other Democratic senators merged together disparate health care bills.

But in what will surely be a disappointment for progressives, the Montana Democrat hinted strongly that the provision would be watered down.

"This issue is alive and we are looking at it to see what makes the most sense," the senator declared on a conference call with reporters. "The major overall goal here though is to get health care reform that passes the Senate, gets 60 votes, and I just don't know if there is 60 votes for the most pure kinds of the public option. There may be 60 votes for the less pure kinds."

The less pure kinds, Baucus explained, were co-ops, a public plan triggered by economic conditions and an insurance structure that allowed states to opt in or out of a public option.

Let's make one thing painfully clear to Maxie here. This is all made-up word-game bullshit. There is literally no law against passing a bill that will actually do good and help people. There is no reason to flap around pretending that that knuckling under is any kind of necessity but a political one, and yes, I do get how the world works, and that's why it pisses me off. This kind of mealy-mouthed excuse-making shit is why people rank senators somewhere on the job approval list below Balloon Boy's dad and people who liberate mink farms.

This is why it is painfully easy to convince people to fucking hate government in general and Democrats in particular. It isn't that you aren't all nice people with good intentions, or that you really do eat puppies while saluting Chairman Mao and singing the Marseillaise. It's that you know the right thing to do, you tell us you know the right thing to do, we put you in office to do it, and you act like there's an invisible wall too high to scale preventing you from getting there. You're so transparently full of shit and I mean all the time, Max. This isn't hard.

What can you get 60 votes for? You can get 60 votes for anything you damn well please. You have 60 Democrats including Joey the Connectictut truck-stop whore and Cyborg Robert Byrd, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Don't come at the American public with this vaguely apologetic bullshit about what you can get people to agree to, because I don't know how hard you've been working in the first place and in the second, however hard you've been working ain't none of you assholes gonna have to join the Army so your kids can see a doctor, you fuckholes. I swear, all this wrangling is just so much whining and I'm so sick of them talking about it as if it's really a thing.

If Max Baucus wanted to tomorrow, he could get 60 votes for a strong true public option by standing up and announcing he'd come around, and fuck the insurance companies, and from now on anybody what wants their shit done in his committee will do what he says. He could do that. But he doesn't want to, so instead he makes up a little story about how it's too hard. It's not too hard. There's no such thing as too hard. There is only inadequate will and the neverending human capacity to bullshit oneself, that's all there is in the world. Don't come to me with the one, and tell me it's the other.

Schmuck.

A.

Poor Poor Pitiful Berlusconi

Above: Silvio Berlusconi contemplates getting fresh with a fresco.

As a longtime resident of the Gret Stet of Louisiana, I'm an aficionado of political scoundrels; especially those who combine randiness, corruption and a sense of humor. Edwin Edwards, our 4 term former Governor, who is currently a guest of the Feds, was the quintessential Louisiana pol. Fast Eddie, however, was a piker compared to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi is back on my radar screen, in part, because an Italian Court ruled that he *would* have to stand trial on corruption charges. But it was his response to the ruling that provoked this post. Upon hearing the news Berlusconi, without a trace of irony, declared that, "I'm the most persecuted man in the history of the world."

Really? The MOST persecuted ever? The hooker-hiring tevee tycoon and slippery politician Berlusconi? Silvio Fucking Berlusconi? Berlusconi: the greedy, grifting megalomaniac? Wow, who knew?

This quote is even funnier than the time he complimented President Obama for his tan. If he resigns office, Silvio should consider a career in stand-up comedy: he could be the Rickles of the European Union. He was on a roll the other day; not only did he go on about being "persecuted" he patted himself on the back:

"I am, and not only in my own opinion, the best prime minister who could be found today.I believe there is no one in history to whom I should feel inferior. Quite the opposite."

You gotta give Berlusconi credit: he's both a lover and a fighter. Of course, the person he loves the most is himself but his life story proves the fallacy behind the Beatles song, Can't Buy Me Love. Money has bought Silvio "love" as well as office and, in the great tradition of one of his crookedest predecessors, Giulio Andreotti, it may well buy his way out of his current legal dilemma.

My advice to Silvio is to cancel the "I'm persecuted" pity party (too Nixonian) and stick to the bravado, it's ballsier and infinitely more Italian. But if he wants us to feel sorry for him, here's a possible theme song:

Yeah, I know: the segue into Cadillac Ranch doesn't entirely fit the post. But as far as I know, Springsteen never wrote a song called Lamborghini Ranch although it sounds like a winner to me...

Finally, after finishing this post, I wrote something about Edwin Edwards at my own little corner of the net and posted some swell grapics. Check 'em out.

Peace Prize Flap Reading Assignment

I've found it a bit disturbing that some on the Left seem to be ridiculing Obama's peace prize in a way that *almost* echoes the Right Wing noise machine. Remember, nobody campaigns for a Nobel Prize, they sometimes emerge out of nowhere and are often awarded to *encourage* good works in the future as well as to reward past performance.

Having said that, here's your reading assignment and, yeah, I'm bit late: I was at a meeting of the procrastinators club and our starting time kept getting put back. Now where was I? There are two fine pieces at Salon by Juan Cole and Joan Walsh that place the whole thing in historical context. Imagine that. Juan discusses the guidelines handed down by Mr. TNT in his will for the committee to consider and Joan lobs out this pertinent observation about past prize winners:

In recent years the Nobel Peace Prize has more often honored promise and encouraged progress than it marked concrete, permanent achievements in the realm of world peace. So the prize went to President Carter's ultimately unsuccessful 1978 Middle East peace drive; and to the same still uncompleted effort by Yassir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994. In 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi won the prize in her jail cell, but the point was to support democracy in Burma (and 18 years later, she is still under house arrest).Thinking about the Northern Ireland Catholic and Protestant "Peace Mothers" who won the award in 1976,  years before real peace accords, I suddenly saw Obama's win as strangely humble, and personal: One man trying to reverse the bloody tide of recent American history.

I agree with Joan wholeheartedly. Candidate Obama was, to some extent, a Rorschach test onto whom his supporters projected their own beliefs and aspirations. Some saw him as a pragmatic centrist whereas others saw him as liberalism incarnate; add in the fact that he's our first minority President and that's a helluva burden to shoulder. This is a country that's had only one non-Protestant President, after all.

Obama is not perfect and has moved more slowly on some things than I would have liked BUT he's trying to do the right thing, which is something that should be encouraged. The Bushies left an unholy mess on so many fronts that it is IMPOSSIBLE for all those wrongs to be righted in a mere 9 months. I don't need to go into chapter and verse on the many problems inherited by Obama that predate the last 8 years. Remember: don't ask, don't tell was the end result of Bill Clinton's ill fated attempt to end the ban on gays in the military. Holy backfire, Batman.

Do I think people should stop heckling the President when they think he needs prodding? Absolutely not: I've nipped at his heels myself.  Just don't expect miracles: he's only human.

 

Uh oh, that was Todd with Utopia; perhaps that has some deeper meaning. Nah...

Cross-posted at Adrastos.

Well, There'll Be No Living With Him Now

Clearly this is a sign of Obama's overexposure:

OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.

I am attempting to imagine the conversation in the West Wing this morning.

A.

Stay Classy, Ms. Johnson

BET  co-founder and honchette, Sheila Johnson seems to have a bad case of foot in the mouth disease. It runs in the family: her hubby, Bob, then a Hillary-ite went after Barack Obama for being a reformed pot head during the primaries.This year, Ms. Johnson has crossed party lines to support ultra conservative Gooper Bob McDonnell for Governor of Virgina. She's gone after Democratic nominee, Creigh Deeds, because he <get ready> stutters.

"We need someone who can really communicate. And Bob McDonnell can communicate. The other people that I talk to, and especially his op-op-op-op-op-op-opponent di-di-did this all through my interview with him. He could not articulate what needed to be done."

Oh, nice. It *is* true that McDonnell did an excellent job communicating his very retrograde views about gays and working women in his masters thesis. I wonder what Ms. Johnson thinks of them apples. One also has to wonder if she throws bones at seeing eye dogs to lure them away from their people and laughs when they trip and fall. She may even make like Tommy Udo and push wheelchair bound little old ladies down staircases.

It will be interesting to see if this turns into another macaca moment since there's video:

Malaka Of The Week: David Vitter

Yeah, I know Vitter is overqualified for this dishonor: he's awful enough to be malaka of the year, decade or century. The worst thing is that the arrogant bastard is one of *my* Senators. I've hated Vitter since he was an overweening, obnoxious insufferably self-righteous conservative goo-goo state legislator. In fact, to know Vitter is to loathe him. That's why they had to produce ads in 2004 showing that his kids liked him because nobody else does. No one. Why do you think he needs to pay for nookie?

He's a malaka with many nicknames: Vitty-Cent, the Sinning Senator and Diaper Dave are three of the better ones. Me, I call him Bitter Vitter; a nickname I filched from my friend Clancy DuBos who is the gold standard among NOLA political commentators. Bitter Vitter fits: he's a man who is angry at the world and ready to kick it in the bollocks, cut them off and feed them to a wolfpack. That's my Senator or should I say: take my Senator, please. Henny Youngman would know how to deal with Bitter Vitter: he'd have shoved his violin bow either up the Vitty's ass or down his throat. Either insertion would have been most enjoyable.

Bitter Vitter's latest malakatude is an example of his inability to STFU when he smells political blood. Vitter is a predator and the weakest prey in the political forest right now is <drum roll> ACORN. Talk about easy pickings in the wake of the fake pimp and prostitute scam. I'll let the Picayune's ace politics maven, Stephanie Grace, describe it for me. Hell, she's paid to do this and all I get is ferret food and Puck and Bucky hate to share so I'm SOL:

Now might be a good time for U.S. Sen. David Vitter to rethink the whole zero tolerance thing. I know, I know, righteous indignation is his calling card. Always has been, ever since he made a name for himself in the Legislature by pointing his moralistic outrage at the all-too-deserving governor, Edwin Edwards.

But you've got to admit, ever since Vitter was forced to own up to his involvement with a Washington escort service two years ago, zero tolerance just isn't working for him.Consider how Vitter's recent offensive against another supposedly easy target, the scandal-plagued community activist group ACORN, blew up in his face.

Blew up in his face? That's an understatement, Steph. It was more like a really, stinky loaded diaper splattering all over him. Yuck.  Hmm, I wonder whether he uses disposables or a diaper service. Probably the former...

Back to La Grace:

The good news for the GOP: a couple of independent activists posing as a hooker and pimp caught ACORN workers in several states offering advice on how to conceal a prostitution ring. The bad news for Vitter needs no explanation.

Suddenly, cracking down on ACORN had gone mainstream. The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 83 to 7 to block the group from receiving any financing from the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. Vitter skipped the vote, but didn't stay quiet for long. Soon he was back, demanding, among other things, a racketeering investigation into the group's activities.

You've got to wonder, for a smart guy, shouldn't he have foreseen where this would all go?

This week, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington decided to turn the spotlight right back on ACORN's self-appointed accuser when it announced it had filed a bar complaint against Vitter, an attorney by trade. "Vitter Seeks Investigation of ACORN for Assisting Fake Prostitution Ring," the gleeful press release read. "CREW Seeks Investigation of Vitter for Role in Real Prostitution Ring."

That's right, Vitter's instinct for the kill got the better of him and now he has to deal with a formal complaint to the Louisiana Bar Association that essentially calls him a sleazy, whoremongering, hypocritical malaka. Well, they use politer terms such as bringing discredit on the legal profession, yadda yadda, yadda. But a douchebag is a douchebag and a malaka is a malaka; and a full diaper smells just as bad whether you call the contents shit or poop. Btw, I dislike the word poop: it sounds too cute, shit is not cute.

Bitter Vitter's relapse into severe malakatude has made my week. He appeared to be skating through his problems and on his way to re-election in the depressingly red state of Louisiana. It's also a forgiving place: our former three term Governor Edwin Edwards famously said in 1983 that the only way he could lose that race was "to be caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl."

This  latest hooker hoopla may, however, just be a temporary setback for a man who will do ANYTHING to get re-elected and had no friends to begin with. If he had a soul, Vitter would sell it to be re-elected; he would sell his mother into white slavery and auction off the family pictures to win in 2010. He's like a cornered pitbull, which makes him very dangerous indeed. Democratic Congressman Charlie Melancon may be too nice to take out Bitter Vitter but I wish him well. Melancon is a conservative Democrat but at least he's not a disgrace to the Gret Stet of Louisiana and he's certainly NOT a malaka.

The Sun Sets On Labour

It's party conference season in the United Kingdom and the governing Labour Party just had its annual confab in Brighton. The mood of the party was even gloomier than the visage of its somber leader, Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The PM tried to give an upbeat speech but his lack of charisma and the party's electoral problems resulted in more yawns than kudos. 

The Conservatives have been on the comeback trail ever since picking the youthful, moderate and telegenic David Cameron as leader. Sound familiar? Think of him as Tony Blair lite. The Tories are finally living down their reputation as the "nasty party" and it is Labour about whom dire predictions are being made. This should serve as a cautionary tale for both parties in the US and A: during the '80's Labour was considered unelectable, likewise the Tories in the late '90's and early aughts. Things are never as good or bad politically as they look at a given moment.

The latest blow to Labour's re-election prospects was the decision by Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper to switch its endorsement from Labour to the Tories. 

Tony Blair spent a lot of time and energy sucking up to Murdoch with the result that The Sun supported Labour in its three recent victories. News Corp's UK operation seems less ideologically driven than stateside. Apparently, Rupert's wife leans left and fell for the Artful Dodger's charms. Gordon Brown is a very smart man but charm is NOT his strong suit. He's long played Al Gore to Blair's Bill Clinton but unlike Gore, Gordon isn't lively in private: he's a stolid, solid Scotsman. The word dour could have been coined to describe the Prime Minister.

New Labour threw away its golden opportunity to govern for 20+ years when Blair failed to follow the example of Harold Wilson during Vietnam and stay out of an American misadventure. Instead, the Blair government  joined Bush in his Iraqi folly. Blair was convinced he could manipulate and moderate Bush's war lust but he was wrong. Blair went from being the savior of his party to terribly unpopular therein, which, of course, reactivated the bitter and corrosive Blair-Brown rivalry. What a waste.

The good news for the British people that if they want to send Labour a message they can vote for the left of center Liberal Democrats who are a party with a good message but a fatal inability to win enough seats in Parliament to enter government. The other bit of good news is that David Cameron is a moderate Conservative who's more likely to govern from the center and not the Thatcherite right. Besides, he's unintentionally funny, which is good for satirists the world around.

I couldn't resist the cliched post title. Perhaps I read too much Kipling as a tadpole: an unfashionable but brilliant writer who was one of many to write about the sun never setting on the British Empire. Those days are, mercifully, gone but the phrase lives on in literature and rock and roll:
 

Your Shit Needs ID

Alan Grayson had something to say to Republicans today.

Maybe you should just set those tax dollars on fire, Senator Hatch

Not content with a full morning of carnage, the Senate Finance Committee apparently had a bit of time on its hands after throwing the Public Option under the bus Tuesday.  So they stayed late and passed a measure by Orrin Fucking Hatch to restore funding for abstinence fucking only education.  How much money?  How much of our tax dollars do 12 committee members want to spend on something that EVEN TEXAS finally admits doesn't work?

Fifty million.

Annually.

Yeah, vote down substantive change that would help tens of thousands of people get comprehensive health care but by all fucking means, let's approve spending $50,000,000 a year on a crap notion that is not just completely divorced from reality but also contributes to higher rates of teen pregnancy and STDs.  

Not that it redeems him any, but Max Baucus was against the idea.

An alternate measure offered by Baucus also passed. Baucus' measure, which passed 14-9, would make money available for education on contraception and sexually transmitted diseases, among other things, in addition to abstinence. Lawmakers will have to reconcile the two measures, both approved during debate on a sweeping health overhaul bill, as the legislation moves forward.

These people make me sick.

The Trashanova

My city has a celebrity garbageman, I bet yours doesn't. But he's not one of the guys who gets up obscenely early to ride on the back of the garbage truck: he's their boss. His name is Sidney Torres and he's gone from being born with a silver spoon in his mouth to making money off rubbish. Here in Debrisville aka New Orleans we call him the Trashanova. Why? Because he's the handsomest frakking garbage man in the frakking galaxy:

El Sid, as I like to call him, is actually just another greasy, politically connected contractor who oozed out of the sewer post-K and ended up with *part* of the city's trash business. His slice of the garbage contract pie includes the French Quarter, which makes Torres the center of both attention and controversy. And the Trashanova knows how to capitalize on publicity; a gift that he's about to take nationwide via a reality show on TLC. The pilot will focus on the dashing dustman as he and his minions pick up during the Voodoo Music Experience on Halloween weekend. That means he'll have the chance to compare his massive ego with those of fellow reality teevee star Gene Simmons or his old boss Lenny Kravitz. That's right: the Trashanova used to be Lenny's personal assistant, a rich boy working for a rock star. Go figure.

Sidney Torres is not just a figure of fun: the trash contract he shares with two other companies is preposterously expensive and has been the subject of more controversy than you can shake a stick at. Torres, his relations and friends, of course, donated generously to the re-election campaign of our shiny headed fool of a Mayor Ray Nagin. It's way too complex to go into in this post BUT suffice it to say that trash isn't the only thing that stinks about Mr. Torres.

Here's the Trashanova in the City Council chamber with Nagin's Sanitation Director Veronica White who's famous for trash talking and for both idolizing and emulating Whitney Houston:

This has been a superficial introduction to the world of the Trashanova about whom there was even an amusing spoof blog written by a guy who called himself Faux Sidney. There are times when I feel like I'm living in a Marx Brothers film and this is one of them.

Finally, just to give you a taste of what you might be in for on TLC, here's one of El Sid's teevee commercials, all of which feature him racing about the Quarter in a golf cart:

My Primary Vote, Ladies and Lolcats

Allow me a moment here.

AWW HELL YEAH BITCHES IT'S FUCKIN' ON NOW WHO WANTS SOME HUH WHO WANT SOME YOU YOU AND WHAT ARMY I SAID WHAT ARMY DROWN THE KIDS AND SHOOT THE NEIGHBORS WOULD YOU GET A LOAD OF THIS MOTHERFUCKING SENATOR HE'S ALL "REPEAL YOUR MOM" AND SHIT. YOU CAN'T HANDLE HIS RIDE. YOU CAN'T DO A DAMN THING ABOUT THIS BITCH. HE'LL BANG YOUR GIRLFRIEND AND MAKE YOU APOLOGIZE TO HIM FOR IT. HE'LL TAKE CANDY FROM A BABY AND THEN GIVE IT RIGHT BACK TO THAT BABY BECAUSE THAT'S THE KIND OF SEXY BITCH HE IS SO JUST RECOGNIZE, AND BASK IN THE GREATNESS THAT IS THE DODD.

(Format stole from here.) 

Okay, here's what's actually going on:

Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced today that they will introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, which eliminates retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly participated in President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.

“I believe we best defend America when we also defend its founding principles,” said Dodd. “We make our nation safer when we eliminate the false choice between liberty and security. But by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who may have participated in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, the Congress violated the protection of our citizen’s privacy and due process right and we must not allow that to stand.”

Feingold and Dodd are both up for re-election. Give them turkee if you can in the next few months because they will need it.

A.

Don't Defend

Attack:

Issa knows what he's doing--why don't the Democrats hold angry, ugly, hearings with Census workers who have been attacked, spat on, threatened and put Bachmann and other right wing poster nuts for anti-federalism and anti-census nonsense on a show trial? If you aren't on offense, you aren't even on defense. This is no long game they are playing. They are playing dead.

A.

Can you hear me now?

I don't know about you, but when I heard the news Monday that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski had announced plans to formalize net neutrality principles, Kay Bailey Hutchison and the Texas gubernatorial race were the farthest things from my mind.

But within just a couple of hours KBH was swaggering around on Twitter, throwing down trash talk.

#KBH leading fight against #Obama #netneurality overregulation of Internet. More job killing regs from WH. http://tinyurl.com/n2g859 #tcot 4:43pm, Monday September 22

So it was "Team Kay," not Kay herself, and she was actually just one of a group of particularly slimy Republicans: John Ensign, Sam Brownback, David Vitter, Jim DeMint, and John Thune, but as ranking member of the Commerce Committee, I guess she gets to say she's "leading the fight." She hooked a quickie amendement onto a funding bill for the Interior Department that would forbid the FCC to use any funds:

(1) to implement any internet neutrality or network management principles; or (2) to promulgate any rules relating to such principles.

Sure, she's still acting as a sitting Senator but I see this as part of the already ginned-up Texas gubernatorial circus. Gov. Goodhair has been painting KBH as a big spending, big government, centrist federalista. Jumping on this gives her the opportunity to act like a "real" Republican. Hell, calling net neutrality "overregulation" is almost as good as calling President Obama a racist, and even though she previously voted for the bailout and S-CHIP, this is a good way to prove she still hates hippies.

Thing is, the press release for all this fight-leading was a tad bit schizophrenic. 

Oddly, Hutchison’s press release seems to define “net neutrality” as something the senator supports.

Net neutrality refers to policies that promote the internet as an open platform for innovation and economic growth, while discouraging intentional discrimination against particular content or applications. These basic principles have been in place for years and have successfully spurred major advances in content, applications and performance with minimal government involvement.

And that's ... a bad thing?

But a Hutchison staff member, speaking on background, says the language is in keeping with the senator’s belief that the internet currently is open and working well, and that the market has fixed itself, after a small number of high-profile cases.

Actually, the language was in keeping with stenography, dictation straight out of the mouth of the telcos:

"I am deeply concerned by the direction the FCC appears to be heading," said Hutchison in a statement. "Even during a severe downturn, America has experienced robust investment and innovation in network performance and online content and applications. For that innovation to continue, we must tread lightly when it comes to new regulations. Where there have been a handful of questionable actions in the past on the part of a few companies, the Commission and the marketplace have responded swiftly."

"Innovation" is what gives it away. The anti-net neutrality forces have done their best to lay ownership to the word. Because throttling bandwidth is exactly the same as creating new and better ways to do things.

I guess if she loses to Goodhair, she'll be able to pick up some bucks by doing ads for AT&T.

Malaka Of The Week: Congressman Steve King

The malaka of the week sweepstakes didn't need to run the whole consarn week thanks to a bit of idiocy out of the corn fed mouth of Iowa wingnut Steve King. The King of nothing was responding to a question posed by the Hill, "what vote would you like to redo?"

“I don’t really go back and re-live that sort of thing. Some of the big votes that I’ve thought about, some of the jury’s still out. And at this point, maybe I’d answer that question another way, probably the singular vote that stands out that went against the grain, and it turns out to be the best vote that I cast, was my “no” vote to the $51.5 billion to [Hurricane] Katrina. That probably was my best vote.”

Mr. King is well known as one of House GOP Leader Boner's more gaffe prone acolytes but this is rich even for him. I particularly like the bit where he admits to being completely unreflective. How Bushian is that? 

Additionally, King is from a state that has been flood prone so he really should keep these thoughts to himself. Of course, when you put your foot in your mouth as much as Congressman Malaka does, you get used to talking around it. Sure, it's garbled but it's not like the dude ever makes any sense. Here's one of his classic riffs after the 2006 death of the terrorist honcho Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

"There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he's at. And if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas."

Yes, that's right: he insulted the legendary journalist Helen Thomas who was 85 at that time. It takes a real malaka to mock an old lady; especially one of Ms. Thomas' accomplishments.

Another of King's claims to fame is his extreme homophobia. His response to the advent of gay marriage in Iowa was to warn of it becoming a "gay marriage Mecca" for "those people." King is wont to use the term  "those people" when referring to gay men, for whom he has a special distaste. Hey, at least he doesn't call "those people" cornholers. Hmm, maybe that's not an insulting term in Iowa...

Steve King is overqualified for the title of malaka of the week. His malakatude covers the waterfront; of course, he wouldn't pay to rebuild a waterfront in New Orleans. Anyway, King may be overqualified but in the immortal words of Adrian Monk: "he's the guy."

Hat Tip: Kevin Allman of the Gambit Tabloid Blog.

Dancin' With The Bug Man

I have a dose of the non-swine flu, which seems to make me feel evil or something like that; at least I'm not oinking or getting calls from a teevee news doc. In short, I'm cranky and have felt like spreading some pain around the internets ever since I saw this clip at TPM first thing this morning. Damn you, David Kurtz, you've led me to the heart of darkness that is Dancing With The [B-List]  Stars:

Party On, Boris

My favorite story of the day comes from, of all places, USA Today. It makes me feel like a wayward traveler or something. Anyway,Taylor Branch is coming out with a book about the Clinton Presidency based on hours and hours of secret interviews with Bill whilst he was President. Apparently, Clinton hid the tapes in his sock drawer so I would have called the book, The Sock Drawer Tapes. You missed the boat on that title, Taylor...

The best bit in Susan Page's story is about everyone's favorite drunken Russian Uncle, Boris Yeltsin:

He [Clinton] also relayed how Boris Yeltsin's late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.

The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him.

The image of a shitfaced Yeltsin in his underwear almost renders me speechless. I do wonder, however, if they were boxers or briefs. I've heard tales of a naked and soused Churchill wandering about the White House but he never hit the road like Boris. I think Winston preferred room service to pizza: aristocrats are like that and nobody ever accused Boris of being an aristo...

 

Okay, Now I'm Really Alarmed

I've tried not to take the teabaggers as any kind of OMG TERRORIST THREAT, mostly because they're the same stupid assholes you can find at any Burger King or tailgate party who will gladly tell you that they're not racist, they just don't like "all those black kids who talk loud" or some such (I'm not gonna link to the Dan Riehl post, it's too depressing right now) and it's just so DUMB.

Then I woke up this morning to discover they're freaking out LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS.

I mean sweet holy Jesus I thought the site had been hijacked when Greg pointed me its way. I checked my calendar. I checked my blood alcohol level. I checked to make sure the carbon monoxide detector hadn't gone off. This was the premier Kerry-hating Muslim-hating DEMONrat-hating site of all time, the place that made even the Freepi look reasonable.

And now? Look at the comments to the post:

Picture 1: Flat out racist.
Picture 2: Racist Nirther.
Picture 3: Racist Islamophobe Nirther.
Picture 4: Racist Nirther.

~75% of racist bullshit (based on this little unscientific poll) comes from Nirther conspiracy kooks.

Step 1: Get rid of the goddamn nirthers. Relegate these bastards back to the JBS fringes of the Libertarian party where they belong. The remaining racists will be fewer and easier to shun. The adults in the party outside of the commenters here should have been hammering these idiots from day one.

There are also walrus/seal macros. MOCKERY. Questioning is one thing, but mockery?

Thank God we still have the Freepi to remind me of the teabaggers' influence and righteousness. Though this does seem to be mostly a wingnut-on-wingnut mudfight, I am still incredibly freaking disturbed to find things on LGF with which I even remotely agree.

A.

Satan's Botoxed Handmaiden

That's my friend Kevin Allman's pet name for Arianna Huffington nee Stassinopoulous. His main beef with Satan's Botoxed Handmaiden (hereinafter SBH except for when I need a laugh) is that she talks a "progressive" game whilst "borrowing" content and not paying for it while making a packet herself. I am no longer able to see Arianna without thinking of her as SBH. Thanks, Kevin.

Me, I have other gripes with Arianna. She's a trendhopping opportunist who gives my ethnic group a bad name. I'm only half Greek but olive oil, lamb's blood and Grecian hyperbole flow in my veins and I find Arianna to be one of the most annoying people around. If I see her on  teevee, I change the channel or hit the forward button on the dvr. Her accent reminds me of one of my more unassimilated and overly dramatic relatives so I hit the mute button as well.

Admittedly, Greek-Americans have a mixed track record in American politics but for every crooked dumbass like Spiro Agnew there's been a Paul Tsongas. Sure, Tsongas sounded a bit like a Yankee Elmer Fudd but he was whip smart and had a sharp tongue. He was the one who called Bill Clinton "pander bear," which is one of the funniest lines uttered by a candidate in my lifetime. Michael Dukakis may have been a tone deaf Presidential candidate but he was a fine Governor and an honest, albeit clueless, man. He also proved that NOT all Greeks are, in the immortal words of Foreigner, "hot blooded, hot blooded." The Dukakis example meant that I no longer had to live life as if it were a Kazan movie, which was a relief for someone who is half Norwegian and occasionally hears the siren song of the Norwegian bachelor farmer. And that's okay as long as I don't have to eat the grub: I'll take moussaka over pickled herring any day.

So, in the age of Arianna all I can is ask is this: where have you gone John Brademas and Paul Sarbanes?

One thing I *can* say for Satan's Botoxed Handmaiden is that she's provided grist for Tracey Ullman's mill:

Jim Clyburn On Rebuking Joe Wilson

I started off as one of those wanting to move on after the entertainment value of Confederate Joe Wilson's outburst ended. But his colleague from South Carolina, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, is advancing a theory that's not unlike putting a dog's nose in its mess as a proper punishment:

Clyburn also said that cracking down on Wilson is a matter surviving in the cut-throat politics of South Carolina. "In South Carolina politics, I learned that the olive branch works very seldom," said Clyburn. "You have to come at these things from a position of strength. My father used to say, 'Son, always remember that silence gives consent.'"

Wilson is, of course, not going to learn from his mistake (he probably loves the smell of dog shit) but Clyburn's argument resonates with me since I live in a blue pocket of the red state of Louisiana. Besides, if a House Democrat had called President Beavis a liar, the Goopers would have wanted him boiled alive, shelled and drowned in Tabasco sauce. Uh oh, I must be hungry, sounds like a crawfish boil to me...

My conclusion:  Clyburn may be right in wanting to serve up a little redneck on the half shell. It won't taste very good but watching a wingnut squirm is *always* entertaining.

Beck-Ola 2009

It seems to be 9/12 sign day here at First Draft. My post was finished and waiting in the bullpen before Athenae threw that hard slider so I added this wee intro. This group blogging thing is harder than it looks.

Speaking of groups: The original Beck-Ola was a 1969 elpee (you know, one of those round black vinyl doohickeys with a hole in the middle) by the Jeff Beck Group whereon the guitar god was joined by Rod Stewart and Ron Wood to make some heavy blooze rock. <cue power chords> Beck essentially created the template for Led Zeppelin and countless others but was too restless to cash in. BUT that's not the Beck-Ola in question, it's my pet name for the Glenn Beck inspired hootenanny (hate-enanny?) they had in Washington last weekend.

There are some pretty remarkable Beck-Ola 2009 photos floating around the internets this week. Most are your common garden variety Obama is a Hitlerite Commie Fascist dictator who wants to take your guns away and force your womenfolk to have abortions. My favorite is below and it's rather inventive; presenting an unlikely trinity of Stalin, Mugabe and Obama:

I stumbled onto the picture on a Flickr page dubbed the NineTwelve Photos photostream. They have all sorts of zany pictures of Paultards, Freeperazzi and other assorted nutjobs at the demonstration. These are, of course, the folks who some in the MSM keep assuring us are just ordinary Joes who are angry but NOT bigots; a point amply supported by this comment on this picture at Flickr: 

"Mugabe is a NEGRO and so is BARACK OBAMA and they're both COMMUNISTS just like STALIN so you'd better watch out, Dems - you're not fooling ANYBODY with your NEO-STALINIST MUGABE PUPPET REGIME."

Maybe not.

Hmm, this explains so much: my cravings for borscht, ballet and hyperinflation in particular. We're all Neo-Stalinist Mugabe-ites. Who knew?

Well, at least the marchers aren't sexist, he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, but their anti-Three Stooges bias really ticks me off

:

It's time to bring this exercise in semi-coherent thought full circle and back to the Jeff Beck Group. I don't know about you but contemplating Beck-Ola 2009 has got me all shook up:

Ours

Hunter:

Conservatives and assorted hangers-on want to represent the 9/11 anniversary their way, to such an extent at this point that they're not even willing to share the same day as the rest of the nation. On their day, they can say vicious things, and be as reactionary and bitter as they want, and take all the birthers, teabaggers, deathers, immigrant-bashers and all the other bottom rungs of ultra-conservative society and lump every political grievance all together into something that both is and is not explicitly about 9/11. Because it's not our 9/11, not the one the nation knows, but a different 9/11 of their own making. On a separate day.

I said yesterday that I learned about the Internet from the fandom Internet, and this is one of those times my years on Livejournal and Yahoo Groups become really useful, because what we're basically talking about here is fannish entitlement. The idea that because you love something, or think you love something, you get to say how it goes. You care about it, therefore you're in charge of it, and when it becomes blindingly clear that you're not in charge, that your love and what you think of as your dedication to your favorite thing means exactly shit to the people actually in charge, well, cue the angry ritual burning of the Buffy T-shirts, is what I'm saying.

Absolutely, there's racism in there too, and a general hatred of Democrats, attention whoring, and the basic human need to yell out one's frustration lest it choke one in bed, but mostly it's fannish entitlement. These people are fans of something they call America, a long-running comedy/drama series in which cowboys fight bad guys while fucking prom queens and then feeling bad about it in church, all the while wearing a flag. Trouble is, the people now running that show are taking it in a direction some of its fans don't like, and those fans are throwing a tantrum in very large part because they don't have a say and they know it.

Our White House, that sign. Eerily reminiscent of the Villager creed about the Clenis, that Washington "wasn't his place," that this belongs to ME because I think it does. I'm not being sympathetic to the many-headed Teabag monstrosity over here. I am saying, this is what happens, and eventually, if you don't empower pissed-off fans, even a lot of them, they go away. JK Rowling is taking exactly no notice of everybody who hated the epilogue to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because she's too busy counting her giant pile of money. Obama's the president, he wins. He is under absolutely no obligation to listen to anybody, even lots of anybodies who show up on his law in costumes.

This is, of course, exactly what enrages them, but it doesn't mean he has to give a shit.

A.

We're stuck in neutral

(This conversation needs to be happening in the Oval Office right-frickin-now.)

I spent the past several days watching the parent-in-the-store-with-whiny-kid approach Obama's been taking toward health care reform and pretty much anything else. The kid is screaming and threatening and punching and the parent is doing the "now, now" thing.

As a parent of a "dramatic" child, we've got a pretty simple philosophy when it comes to this kind of stuff: first time, it's "Midget, you need to stop this right now." Second time, it's "You will stop this now (complete with parent eyes and pursed lips)." Third time, the punishment is coming down the pike. We rarely get there because she knows it's there and that it ain't pretty. (Relax, I don't beat my kid. There is a fine line between corporal punishment and strict reinforcement.)

I want my president to do that. I want him to do the "we're going to try to get you to buy in." That happened, the kid was still screaming. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten to stages two or three yet and the kid is now attracting attention from the guy at the deli counter, the kid stocking fruit and the "non-parent parents" who feel that they should give you "the look" to let you know you're failing.

Mr. President, I picked you because you gave me hope. This is a rare thing for a born cynic and a jaded former journo. Usually I pick between the lesser of two evils. However in your case, I wanted you to do stuff. I wanted you to move stuff. I wanted you to fix stuff.

Sure, you moved in to a house after the worst possible tenant. The back door was missing, there were urine spots on the walls and a pizza was some how stuck to the ceiling in the bedroom. I get that. There's been a lot of elbow grease you needed to apply to make the place livable. However, sir, we're now beyond being grateful for running water and a heater that works. It's not enough to talk the game. We've got to live the game. Having the tools to do what you want only has merit if you actually use those tools.

There are a lot of people like me, and I don't even need universal health care. I don't need this program, but I want it anyways because it's good, it's right and because it'll show me that you can actually do something.

You took over from the "war" president and promised to be his opposite. However, to borrow a phrase, the opposite of war isn't peace.

It's creation. Create something.

And don't let the whining in the cart continue. Spankings are acceptable.

The Speech

If I say it was a good speech, will you promise not to hit me?

Seriously, the man can talk a good game, I think we all know this by now, but what was actually in there for me? Was good, bad, and ugly.

The good:

1. Ending recission (seriously, it's so outrageous sometimes I think we forget it's not already against the law and that ending it will be a huge fucking deal):

Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most.

2. Support for a public option at all:

But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange.

3. Calling out GOP crap for what it is:

I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.

The bad:

1. Mandates to purchase coverage and penalty fees for going without. If you don't have the money for insurance, and I honestly do not know any of these apparently thousands of people who don't have insurance cuz they just don't wanna, you will not have the money for fines. Getting everyone INSURED isn't the goal. Getting everyone healthy is. And the auto insurance comparison is bullshit; no child has to pay for car insurance and you don't have to have it if you don't drive. You can choose not to drive but last I checked you can't choose not to get cancer or get hit by a bus.

And unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek – especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions – just can’t be achieved. That’s why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance – just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.

2. Going soft on the insurance companies in general. Here's a newsflash, even people who work at insurance companies think insurance companies suck. In fact, ESPECIALLY people who work at insurance companies think insurance companies suck. There's really nothing to be lost by demonizing them outright, since that's what they're gonna hear anyway.

Now, I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business. They provide a legitimate service, and employ a lot of our friends and neighbors. I just want to hold them accountable. The insurance reforms that I’ve already mentioned would do just that.

3. All this revenue-neutral bullshit. Literally no one cares about deficits. Even the teabaggers don't care, and the way I know that is that their wonderful fiscally responsible protests were nowhere during the Bush tax cuts and the two wars we started. People may say they care about the deficit but really, they care about if their lives are getting better. Right now their lives suck because if they get sick they're screwed, and ON TOP OF IT we're adding to the deficit. If everything else was shiny and happy, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And by the by, I'd like the next time someone comes up with a supplemental war spending measure for it to be put on hold until it was revenue-neutral. What a load of shit.

I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.

The ugly:

1. FOUR YEARS? Four years to enact the most paltry of reforms? Look, I get, as Sherrod Brown was pointing out on Keith's postgame, that saying you're gonna do it in four years doesn't mean it has to take four years, but you'll pardon me for not exactly trusting a damn word out of anybody's mouth in Washington about health care reform, mmkay? "Trust us, it won't take four years," I mean, dude, it shouldn't take four minutes because somebody, somewhere, is being assasinated by a spreadsheet right this very moment and "be patient while the insurance companies get comfortable with the fact that the day is no longer theirs" isn't gonna save THAT GUY.

And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right.

2. Remember all those Bush speeches when he was president where he slapped around his own party's most passionate supporters for passionately supporting what they wanted? Remember how he went in front of Congress and talked about "some on the right" who were kind of kooky and out there? Remember that? WELL ME FUCKING EITHER. God almighty, I knew this concilatory crap was Obama's kink but I just sort of assumed that like a lot of the shit he said about the rule of law he didn't really mean it. But there he was, creating false equivalencies between people who want to give others health care, and people who want him dead.

Blah blah blah political calculation: Look, if you're a progressive Dem and you've been working your ass off do you really want to be compared to Chuck Grassley? I'm sure that kind of tit-for-tat everyone-is-an-asshole talk will make Tweety wet his panties but boyfriend only has one vote and it's already yours, so WTF?

But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.

What confusion has there been? Did Richard Cohen write this section? The only "confusion" that there has been has been the result of talk radio psychos and Republican congressmen trying to get famous, plus, you know, the wilfull ignorance of the AP and NPR when it came to the real cost of any public plan. If you're not batshit crazy, you ain't confused, and if you're batshit crazy, you're probably not listening to the president anyway. If Obama could somehow manage to talk about how batshit crazy the Republicans are without this kind of passive "mistakes were made on all sides" thing, I wouldn't mind so much since it's mostly a waste of his time and not mine, but I resent being slapped around just so that his hand can land on Republicans too.

3. Not going whole hog and threatening a veto without a public option. Again, blah blah blah I get it. Still, the problem now isn't that we don't all know we should have reform and love each other. The problem is that you have all these different camps looking to you for direction and these ain't critical thinkers. They're in Congress. Tell them what you want.

Following the speech a giant hybrid meatspace/Interwebs argument broke out between me, Mr. A, and a few people in the van over whether this was as good as we could get but not enough, totally shitty and half a loaf, half a moldy loaf, Obama being Obama, a total betrayal of the idea of hope and change, or just the first step in a series of steps. That argument, in this house at least, is still going on.

A.

Crack Van Comes Alive

All right. Posts in the van belong to their posters. First Draft is not responsible for anything, ever. No kittens were harmed in the making of this socialist death panel van. Play nicely.

Update: Van closed. Thank you to all who stopped by, and don't forget to hit the care package thread below.

A.

All aboard the First Draft Crack Van tonight!

 

It's been a while but the van rolls tonight for the POTUS health care address. 6 p.m. Central.  Be there!

Top Ten Things I Would Like to See Happen Tomorrow Night But Won't

10.  "Hello, America!  There's a black man in the White House.  To those of you who just puckered, get the fuck over it."

9.  "Max Baucus, if you don't want to wake up one fine morning with a horse head in your bed, stop sabotaging the public option."

8.  "Glenn Beck can kiss my black ass."

7.  "With regard to Van Jones...if you want good government, you need good people running it.  The Republicans and their noise machine seem hell bent on driving every last good person out of government.  What does that tell you?"

6.  "A majority of Americans elected me.  They elected a majority of Democrats in the Congress.  So why the fuck are we worried about keeping the Republicans happy?  THEY LOST!"

5.  "To the parents who were freaking out about my speech to their kids:  if asking your kids to stay in school freaks you out, then pull your kids out of school.  Get rid of the morons, and we'll help a lot of schools improve their test scores."

4.  "To the so-called liberal media:  Last week it was "death panels."  This week it was the freakout over my speech to the kids.  Next week it will be that my toe jam is causing mesothelioma.  The week after that, it will be my supposed responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ.  When the fuck will you stop treating this as news and start treating it as a potload of whiny, paranoid ranting by people who deserve about as much attention as that guy on the corner screaming, "BUNNIES ARE EATING MY EAR HAIR!"?

3.  "Health care reform:  You want it.  You know we need it.  So why the hell are you listening to the people who told you that if the government throws a bunch of money at rich people, you'll get some when they poop on your head?"

2.  "To the Democrats in the Senate:  grow a pair.  Ted Kennedy and Paul Wellstone deserve nothing less.  And Paul has been waiting for far too long."

1.  "You compromise when the middle ground is acceptable.  Giving up the public option is not acceptable.  On that I will not compromise."

I really, really wish I'd hear that last one, but I don't plan to hold my breath.  I wish I could crack van with y'all, but I have a prior engagement.  Somebody make a few random kitten noises for me, 'k?

Um, YEAH

Durr:

... would Obama get his strength and leadership numbers up if he directly took on the insurance industry and the Republicans?

YA THINK? People love winners and that's why Yankee Stadium is filled to the rafters, it's why people continue to pay for Red Wings tickets and it's why they continue to vote Republican in the absence of a compelling alternative. Obama would get his strength and leadership numbers up, and he'd get his actual strength and leadership up, and Congress would have approval ratings slightly higher than chlamydia, if they all directly took on people who want you to starve and die and go bankrupt and preferably in that order.

Why is this always so fucking hard to get? We are not talking about rocket surgery here. I get that in the Senate everybody's friends and you don't want to upset your friends and absent calling somebody Macaca in public there's basically no way you won't get re-elected as a senator so fuck it, but there comes a point ... right? When you get sick of being a national joke? Don't these people ever get tired of getting their lunch money taken?

I've been saying it for years, and lots of us dirty fucking hippies have been saying it for years: the only thing a bully understands is a good hard punch to the face. So punch. 

Crack van Wednesday night.

A.

When they come back against him, and they will

All Barney Frank is waiting for is for someone to condemn him for ridiculing this "real American," a poor concerned citizen just trying to express her fears.  I hope they do because then he gets to go on television and restate his point even louder: that it is, in fact, obscene, vile, not to mention idiotic, for low-information pissed-off culture warriors to compare a sitting US president on the opposite side of the political spectrum from them with a psychopath who murdered six million humans.

I do not care how angry you are, what life has handed you, how scared you are about what's going on around you. When you do something shameful, you deserve to be shamed for it.

More like this, Democrats. If not this exact behavior, in this spirit. Like you are on the right side of history, like you aren't ashamed to say so.

Dealing with Protests

Remember when Bush needed 14,000 cops in a country where owning handguns was illegal?

Scotland Yard is in overall charge of security for Mr Bush's visit - which begins on Tuesday - and on Monday said it had increased from 5,000 to 14,000 the number of officers it will have on the streets during the visit.

Mr Bush will also be protected by hundreds of armed guards from the US.

They will not be granted diplomatic immunity, and will be subject to the British legal system if they shoot anybody, the Home Office has promised.

Not that I'm all that nostalgic for the days of presidential thuggery but COME ON, people. Assault rifles at health care events? Just because it's legal doesn't mean you should DO IT.

A.

Charming

Somebody talk to me about the need to respect the office of the president again, please. I recall hearing that argument a lot when it was about blow-up dolls of Bush.

A.

Freedom Fighters, Patriots, Poseurs

You know, I wrote some pretty intemperate shit back before the 2004 election, about the clash of civilizations and the death of all we hold dear, about the true worth of the work we did and the karmic bitchslap that surely awaited our opponents, about BREAKING THE LAW and ALL THE DEAD PEOPLE and whatnot. But honest to God, and I've been combing the archives for a while now, I don't think I wrote anything quite as crazymaking as this:

People around me are telling me to step back and let someone else fight the fight. You are spending too much time on it. You are setting yourself up as a target. The other side is too powerful.

But I tell them and all that are trying to stop me:

-I am going to rest up (for a few hours) and fight harder
-I am going to double my efforts to make up for our lost patriot
-I am going to be smarter and know how to fight with the arguments
-I am going to remember everyday what is at stake: freedom and liberty can be wiped out with one vote
-I was a swing voter in a swing state: I am not anymore.
-This fight has shown me what is GREAT about this country and what I am willing to do to keep it that way.

Tomorrow, I will go to work and contact the blue dogs and take the fight to the streets to win the hearts and minds of the American people. After all, isn't it "we the people" that make this country great and can preserve it's greatness? I no longer ask why this job has fallen to me and other patriots.

But, I have to ask why aren't more people paying attention? Standing next to me? Why aren't more people taking to the streets like they did in Iran?

If we wait until a freedom is taken away, isn't it too late then? So what are you willing to do today to keep our freedom?

Because ... what does that even mean? In the first place, the problem the Tea Parties have is that aside from being imbued with a general sense of fuck you liberals, there isn't much point to them. They're not solely rallies against tax increases and they're not solely conspiracy gatherings and they're not solely anti-health care reform. They're just this mishmash of shit that lots of nutters are against or for, and it's hard to sustain people's interest in something that has no clear purpose and no clear goal. It's harder still to get media attention for a story that can't be explained in ten seconds. "Today, Bob, we're reporting live from the scene of a rally against ... stuff ... with people."

But seriously, what the fucking fuck with Drama Queen up there? As I said, I've written some pretty self-important crap in my half-decade here on the political internet (Jesus Christ, I'm old) but I can excuse some of it given that there was a war going on and thousands of people were about to get dead for no reason anyone could explain coherently, and also that the president was breaking the law and literally nobody cared, I mean you could not get people to care by paying them. That speech up there is about being against things, and for other things, among them greatness, and America, and possibly Sarah Palin, all of it couched in terms Henry V at Agincourt would have found hyperbolic beyond endurance. What the chocolate hell, I mean:

I am going to be smarter and know how to fight with the arguments

Too easy.

A.

Wow, Kent Conrad's a Tool

We need Republicans. Neeeeeeeeeed them. Need them so BAD:

"We're less interested in hard deadlines than in moving the process forward. The deadlines have had a disciplining effect. ... What we don't want is for the process to bog down here. We want to keep moving forward, and I believe we will.

That final piece, however, will require GOP backing — something Sen. Mitch McConnell said was unlikely. The Senate minority leader said congressional Democrats are having difficulty selling a health care bill to their own members.

"The only thing bipartisan about the measure so far is the opposition to it," said McConnell, R-Ky.

It's a reality a key Democratic senator acknowledged. Even though the Democrats enjoy a majority in the Senate, some are skittish about the financial or political costs of the proposals.

"Look, there are not the votes for Democrats to do this just on our side of the aisle," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., the chairman of the powerful budget committee.

Well, there would be the votes for Democrats to do this if you and the rest of the selectively fiscally conservative attention-whoring fucktards calling themselves "Blue Dogs" would pull your heads out of your asses and at any point decide that you all are members of this party for a reason. If someone would tatttoo a picture of your Congressional majority on the back of your right hand so that every time you're pulling your pud to the idea of getting on Hardball you would be able to see just how much goddamn blue there is. If maybe, just maybe, you'd stop demanding we all understand how hard it is to want to lick the mirror as much as you do and start considering whether wanting to kiss yourself with tongue just might be excessive self-regard.

Jesus Garden Weasel Christ, man, people are basically being assassinated by economics and waiting in lines for like nine hours to get a tooth pulled in a fucking BARN, right now, in the United States of America. And I have yet to hear anything that sounds like anything even close to an explanation as to why that's okay.

A.

Kickass Democrat Video: MURPHY EDITION YOU GUYS

I know I am spending too much time at ONTD and its various iterations (ontd_startrek is my favorite, but it's usually down due to 6 million people posting Kirk/Tribble .gifs at once) because lately I even think in AOL kiddiespeak. By which I mean OMG U GUYZ SRSLY:

SAY IT! SAY MY NAME!

A.

Give It Back!

We're going to have to invade England now because they have our stuff:

LONDON — British researchers have announced the discovery of a rare original copy of America's Declaration of Independence _ just in time for the Fourth of July.

Katrina McClintock, a spokeswoman at the National Archives, said Thursday that a researcher accidentally discovered the "Dunlap print," named after a printer, several months ago. The find was announced only after it could be properly catalogued.

Edward Hampshire, the National Archives' specialist in colonial materials, said the find was "incredibly exciting."

"It is likely that only around 200 of these were ever printed, so uncovering a new one nearly 250 years later is extremely rare, especially one in such good condition," he said.

He said the declaration is one of the most important documents in history because it marks the birth of the United States.

*Grabby hands*

A.

Political Apology Bingo

You know what was missing from Sanford's apology yesterday? "I apologize to all the loving same-sex couples out there — couples that I helped to demonize as a member of the party of bigotry and 'defending marriage' — for being a ginormous hypocritical asshole."

Via ONTD_Political.

A.

The irrelevant in the room

As noted here previously, the POTUS is not on my list of favorite people right now. I will say this, though: in yesterday's press briefing kerfuffle, I'm coming down on the side of Team Obama. 

So go ahead and call me obtuse and disrespectful of protocol, willing to look the other way and ignore an obvious conspiracy to collude. Oh, and also? Give me a fuckin' break, Politico. And please, Dana Milbank? Upstanding bipartisan bastion of freedom of the press now, are we? Outraged a Democratic president would "pack" the press room with a "planted" questioner?  Have some smelling salts, dearie, the swooning chaise is over there.  

Speaking of conspiracies, anyone else recall Milbank's snide mocking of John Conyers and the Democrats who first dared to attempt an inquiry process about Bush-Cheney dragging the US into the Iraq war? Not content to cast the Democrats as conspiracy theorists "playing house" in "the land of make-believe," what Milbank really seemed to relish was pointing out the impotence of the effort. Whether all that silly Iraq stuff was true or not was beside the point, but weren't Conyers "and his hearty band of playmates" ridiculous meeting down in the basement, acting like they mattered and all? 

Back to the present: I know they aren't foreign correspondents but while Calderone (Politico) and Milbank, et al, sniped and whined about planted questions and bloggers getting called on between, and not after, the wire services, Nico Pitney went back to work like he has been for the past couple of weeks. And yeah, he's just a blogger, he's just aggregating and linking and passing along bits of information. But that's pretty much all that's out there right now and no small amount of what the American public knows about the situation in Iran came straight through Pitney, the NYTimes Lede blog, and handful of others. No, it's not analysis from vetted sources, no it's not news reporting, but it's vital (as well as viral). It's relevant and in the context of this extraordinary moment, Politico and Milbank's concerns and spin come off as anything but.

Obama's team isn't perfect but they aren't stupid either. They made an instinctively cogent connection with the heart of the Iran protest, and turned it to their advantage by letting the POTUS get in front of Republican potshots about his response to it. Does anyone, from Joe Normal in front of his TV to the denizens of The Village in DC, really harbor any illusion that presidential press briefings are completely off-the-cuff opportunities for journalists to practice their finely honed skills?  As anyone who follows Mark Knoller, Ana Marie Cox, Chris Cilizza, Jake Tapper, or the other "journo-twits" over on the Twitter machine can see, it's more like feeding time at the zoo, and if the POTUS is at the podium, there is usually some advanced arrangements between the WH press office and those in the media who might be called on, especially those outside the standard pool.  Was there more stagecraft than usual involved yesterday? Sounds to me like there was. Was it worth it? I'd say the White House scored points on substance, and in a style appropriate for the current connection between the people on the streets of Tehran and Americans who've grown to feel involved. Iran and America have a bigger story, on a bigger scale, ahead of them, but right now, it's a different kind of narrative.

Ah, Memories

Of 1968:

The violent clashes between police and protesters during the 1968 Democratic National Convention aren't typically considered proud moments in Chicago history.

But some members of the Fraternal Order of Police want to change that. On June 26, the Chicago police union will hold a "Chicago Riot Cops Reunion" at its hall to set straight "what really happened," according to the reunion's Web site.

"The only thing that stood between Marxist street thugs and public order was a thin blue line of dedicated, tough Chicago police officers," the Web site says. "Chicago police officers who participated in the riots continue to endure unending criticism -- all of which is unwarranted, inaccurate and wrong."

[snip]

"It's just a get-together for guys who worked together 40 years ago," he said. "Nothing more."

A.

Power

I look forward to howls of Republican outrage over this:

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

CREW says it will file a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

You know, all along during arguments with wingnuts they kept assuming this was all Bush Derangement Syndrome, that the only reason anybody wanted to know anything was to mess with Bush. Well, now it's turned back around, because what we said then is coming true: these weren't just powers we didn't want Bush to have. They're powers we didn't want ANYBODY to have. Too bad it's going to take a Democrat screwing this up to get 'em on board with that idea.

A.

Someone Please Take the Internet Away From Him

Jesus, Grassley:

The Senate's most notorious tweeter, Chuck Grassley, stood by a recent post he made in which he harshly rebuked Barack Obama. The Iowa Republican argued on Sunday that it was the president who had taken the "cheap shot" at him and his congressional colleagues.

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Grassley was asked to explain why he whacked Obama in a tweet during the president's recent trip to Paris.

"Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL," read Grassley's post.

Was that, host Chris Wallace wanted to know, "senatorial?"

"Very senatorial," replied Grassley. "Because you know why? We've had dialogue with this president since January 20 on a program to get a bill to the floor for July. And we're still on that timetable. And the president, to say that we ought to deliver it, made it look like Congress wasn't working, the very weekend that we were working Saturday and Sunday in Washington to keep on schedule while he was sightseeing. He didn't need to say that. It didn't contribute to it. It was a cheap shot."

You know, every time I hear that we need greater measures to protect children online, I think we also need the same protections for folks at the other end of the age spectrum. For every dumbass 15-year-old who posts sexy photos on her MySpace there's some older adult dipshit who gets a new toy and blows his hand off with it. A lot of the truly spectacular Internet fail lately has come from supposed grown-ups.

A.

Being Happy About The Election Doesn't Mean We Didn't Think He'd Suck In Some Way

My real problem with all the OH MY GOD YOU GUYS GOT SUCKERED NOW I BET YOU WISH YOU'D VOTED FOR HILLARY/MCCAIN/NADER/MCKINNEY/RONPAUL HUH that goes around every time somebody opines that Obama fucked something up is the presumption that everybody thought Obama would solve all our problems.

I remember people supporting him passionately but I do not, outside of psycho Kos diaries, remember a whole lot of "well, this is all it's gonna take and then we can go home." All these pieces seem to begin, "unlike all you other fuckers, I alone was smart and pure enough to realize that Obama would require shoving in leftward directions," and I don't know who the argument addresses. The psycho Kos diarists? People making Obama YouTubes? Diddy? Who are we lecturing here?

And no, giving the guy ten minutes after the inuaguration speech to get his briefcase and move into the house doesn't count as giving him a free pass. I had a lot of arguments with a lot of people during the primaries but during none of them was my position ever that Obama was perfect. My position was that Chris Dodd was perfect, so I guess I should be all BRB DODD FANFIC right now, but I learned a while back that screaming I TOLD YOU SO at people you're in a lifeboat with doesn't get you out of the lifeboat any faster.

As to Jane's point:

The Bush administration and their wars gave fuel to the progressive movement in this country, no doubt. I was personally at a loss during the primary battles -- from a movement perspective, I understood our job to be to hold fast to our principles and reward candidates for hewing to them and make them compete for our support.

The stuff you care about doesn't become any less the stuff you care about because a guy who doesn't make you ashamed to be a mammal is in the White House.

A.

Acting like legislators, acting like Democrats

So, that stack of bills that didn't get passed that I mentioned in my other post? It was a big stack and some of them were much-needed, like changes to Medicaid, solar energy incentives, Board of Education reform, controllling development in the Hill Country, and a whole lot more.

So, what happened? Voter ID, that's what. Changing the laws so that citizens would have to present a current driver's license, or two other forms of identification, in addition to their voter registration. Texas Republicans, like Republicans in numerous other states, have been pushing for voter ID for several sessions. Texas Democrats, like Democrats in those other states, have blocked such efforts, calling them what they really are: voter suppression aimed at intimidating minorities and seniors.

Democrats had been able to block previous Voter ID attempts because of the longstanding state rule requiring a two-thirds supermajority to bring legislation to the floor for a vote. So, right off the bat, early in this session, the Senate voted to suspend the two-thirds requirement and they passed Voter ID. You might remember the last time the two-thirds requirement was suspended...when the bill clearing the way for the Republicans gerrymandering redistricting of the state passed.

So, the Senate rammed through their shiny brand new voter suppression bill and sent it to the House. Then began the time-honored dance of strategically massaging the legislative calendar and agenda such that it favors legislation that the dominant party, the Lt. Governor, the Speaker, and the Governor (all Republicans) want to get passed. By backloading the calendar so that critical bills would be imperiled if the Democrat-heavy House decided to try and delay passage of Voter ID or water it down with amendments, the Republicans essentially were betting they could beat the Dems in brinksmanship, doubling down on the certainty that the Democrats would blink and back down.

But the Dems didn't blink.

After weeks of haggling in committee, Voter ID came up for a vote and the Democrats in the House began to chub. Chubbing is akin to filibustering, talking about minor bills and points of law and possible amendments while running down the clock until, at the last minute, everything has to get rearranged so that legislation that absolutely has to get passed becomes the priority.

And that's how the Texas House Democrats successfully killed Voter ID. Yes, there was undeniably high collateral damage, and yes the Republicans called them partisan obstructionists dependent on hordes of illegal brown voters to keep them in office, but they did something I sure haven't seen much of in the U.S. Congress: they acted like Democrats and killed a bill aimed at disenfranchising minorities, the poor, and the elderly. Like House minority leader Jim Dunnam said,

“Anytime you have a bill that is going to suppress turnout of legal voters, if you are not willing to stand up to that you shouldn’t be a legislator.”