The Murders at Planned Parenthood And The Unbelievable GOP Response

Yesterday on Morning Joe, Joseph McQuaid, the publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, was asked why his newspaper was endorsing Chris Christie for president.  Mika Brzezinski asked what successes in Christie's record would stand out as something he could accomplish on a grand scale. Without even blinking, McQuaid rattled off three things.  The first two, apparently in order of importance, were these: Christie is pro-life and has vetoed several pro-abortion bills.  He has defunded a block funding for Planned Parenthood.  (The third one--because there were three--was about Christie keeping taxes in check.)

Four days after the latest attack at a Planned Parenthood clinic, where three people died--none of whom were there for abortions--after a gunman opened fire, then surrendered, telling the police "No more baby parts", meaning he actually believed the outrageous lies put forth by Carly Fiorina and other Republican operatives that the clinics were ripping apart babies and selling off parts to the highest bidders, the publisher of a major New Hampshire newspaper saw Chris Christie as the best choice for President of the United States because he has an anti-abortion, anti-Planned Parenthood record.

Granted, I was sitting in my living room, unencumbered by having to worry about how this interview was going and whether lots of people were watching it, but honestly?  Abortion and Planned Parenthood first on the list?  Good lord, people, hackles--or at least eyebrows--should have been raised!  Did the "Morning Joe" panel hear what he said?  Did they remember what happened just last Friday in Colorado Springs?

Innocent people were maimed and murdered by an anti-abortion zealot driven to that kind of madness by relentless, hate-filled, dishonest propaganda perpetrated and generated by Republican leaders.  Yes, Republicans.

And yet, days later, the publisher of a major American newspaper goes on television and endorses a Republican candidate based almost exclusively on his past actions against legalized abortion and against the very organization currently in the news, not over anything they've done wrong, but because somebody went in and shot up one of their clinics.  (I'm repeating myself. I know. Allow me.)

This is how Republicans have to operate now  Their policies are so devoid of the common good their only choice is to resort to lies and fear to ensure they'll keep their jobs.  Nothing new there.  But now, impossible as it seems, they've hit a new low.  They see this latest tragedy at a Planned Parenthood clinic as just the ticket to resurrect their opposition to any taxpayer funding to PP clinics.

This week the Republicans in Congress are working feverishly to fast-track legislation to defund Planned Parenthood.  Honest to God.  I swear on a stack of U.S Constitutions.  I am not making this up (From ThinkProgress):

The unfounded accusations against Planned Parenthood have been linked to the recent tragedy in Colorado.  "No more baby parts," the suspected shooter Robert Dear, who killed three people in the clinic and wounded multiple others, reportedly told authorities.

But lawmakers haven't been deterred from using this inflammatory rhetoric to target the national women's health organization, downplaying the connection between the two.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the Republican whip, told the Associated Press that the shooting and the investigations into whether Planned Parenthood is illegally profiting from aborted fetal tissue donations are "separate issues completely."

Can you say "Benghazi"?

I would once again like to remind the Republican opportunists already frothing at the mouth over their perceived victory that 1) abortion is not the main function at PP clinics--it's barely a blip--and 2) no federal funds have EVER gone toward abortions--at Planned Parenthood or anywhere else.

Only the lowest miserable bastards would go after Planned Parenthood less than a week after a murderous rampage at one of their clinics.  But I don't have to tell you low miserable bastards who you are.  You already know who you are.

And there's the problem.


(Also at Dagblog, The Broad Side, and Crooks & Liars)

Bravo, Chris Matthews. I will Never Call you "Tweety" Again

 I can't say for sure (because there's no definitive source that I could find), but calling Chris Matthews "Tweety" started about three years ago, probably on Twitter.  All I can say about it is that the first time I saw it in print I instantly understood the connection. Whether it refers to "Tweety Bird" in the cartoons, or the incessant tweeting some birds do just to drive you crazy on a quiet morning, it conjures up a kind of squeaky, never-ending cacophony.  Tweets with no seeming function except to make sound.   Tweets and trills and calls and caws, over and over again, no matter when or where or what the occasion. Tweets that cannot be interrupted except maybe with the full force of a BB gun.

I took a break from Matthews for a while after he remarked that Hillary Clinton won the NY Senatorial race solely because her husband publicly chased skirts and people felt sorry for poor Hil. He took some deserved flak for that one, but it didn't stop him from running his mouth over and over again.  He got Michelle Bachmann to say she thought congress should be investigated to see how many "anti-Americans" were lurking there, and even now he boasts about his role in Bachmann's rise to celebrity status--as if that's something anyone would be proud of.

He reminded me of a certain aunt who verbalizes every tiny thought without slowing down for even a second to do the necessary mental editing.  If you're too fat or too thin or you're wearing your hair funny or you don't know how to pronounce "nucular" you and everyone within range will hear about it.   If you open your mouth to say something it becomes a contest to see who can talk over the other the loudest and the longest.  She always wins.

It's that way with Matthews on Hardball, but then again it's his show.  Every guest who makes an appearance on Hardball knows the routine: They'll open their mouths to speak, words will start to come out, and something in those first few words will trigger a memory in Chris's head and he will not hear another word.  He'll be off and running and the invited guests will become the audience and all they can hope for is that the few words they did get out were good enough.

But on the morning of the first day of the 2012 Republican Convention in Tampa, Matthews, a "Morning Joe" panelist, was surprisingly quiet.  Even when Republican chairman Reince Priebus began talking--not about the wonders of the convention and the virtues of the candidates within, but about the evils of President Obama's policies, Matthews kept his mouth shut.  If Priebus, poor man, had stuck to the truth, he might have finished the segment with his dignity intact.  Instead, he got into the already disabused lie about Obama getting ready to drop work requirements for welfare recipients.

At this, Matthews sat up, talons out, ready to swoop.  "I have to call you on this, Mr. Chairman," he says politely, but within seconds we realize (with undisguised glee--at least in this house) that feathers will fly, blood will flow, and it ain't gonna be pretty.

But observe for yourself.  It must be seen to get the full effect. And watch the reactions of the other panelists.  It's as close to a free-for-all as you'll get outside of "The Housewives Of" shows. (I'm guessing Joe and Mika won't be inviting Chris back for Frappuccinos any time soon.)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

There are going to be times in the future of Hardball when Chris Matthews will annoy the hell out of most of us. He got where he is because he is who he is.  But one thing Matthews requires of the people who sit in front of the cameras is that they tell the truth.  Sometimes they forget that, and that's when it gets interesting.

Something has happened to Matthews in the last year or so.  He is far from an Obamabot, but he knows unfairness when he sees it.  When the Republicans would not back down from the birther issue, it was as if a tiny sliver of his inner Murrow awakened and he hasn't let up since.

The old Tweety would seek and find a silly kind of shallow humor in almost everything political, and he wasn't above exploiting it.  The new Chris Matthews sees hurt where it exists and feels compelled to advocate for a fix.  His concern for the disenfranchised and dispossessed is palpable and sincere.

He still forgets his manners when he has guests at his table. He still loves the sound of his own voice.  But he has grown up.  Maybe now he deserves a real name. 

No Surprise: Erin Burnett doesn't get the Wall Street Protesters.

For her CNN "Out Front" debut on Monday, Erin Burnett went to the Occupy Wall Street protesters to see for her corporate-shilling self what the heck all the fuss was about.  She couldn't find a single person who knew why they were protesting.  Imagine that.

"I saw dancing, bongo drums, even a clown.... I asked several protesters what it was that they wanted. Now, they did not know.... They did know what they don't want."

 

This is not new.  I've heard many pundits question whether the people holding the signs have a real agenda or just want to be out there in front of the cameras holding silly signs, dressed in goofy garb, doing the Kumbaya thing. (Yes.  Wherever there's a protest, they'll be there, too.  Bless their hearts.)

 

But the claim is that nobody in that crowd really knows the reasons for the protests.  I guess if you were one who isn't listening, or more likely, refuses to listen, you might not get the message. 

 

This is it in a nutshell, from the Occupy Wall Street website:

 

Occupy Wall Street is [a] leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.

 

I probably won't spend a lot of time watching Erin Burnett's new show, but I've had her number for a while.  If you just look at that angelic face, those deep, darling dimples, you might miss who Erin really is.  

 

 

 

She is a Wall Street groupie who searches, but can only find eensy-teensy, little bitty problems with her chosen pals.  

 

She is about to marry a CitiGroup exec, thereby solidifying her affection for the Street.   

 

She is a supposed reporter who once told the folks on AM Joe to take a larger look at China, who might be as successful as they are because they don't coddle people by paying them when they're unemployed.  (Not in itself true, but she said it ever-so-sweetly, even apologetically, as if she really hated to spoil a perfectly good discussion, but it needed to be said kind of thing, so nobody jumped on it.)

 

And Rush Limbaugh loves her.

If you watch Erin Burnett's "Out Front", you're going to hear what sounds perfectly reasonable, because the person saying it is about as far from a Maria Bartiromo as one can get.  But I'm seeing nothing but love songs to Wall Street already, which is okay as long as CNN isn't promoting it as a family show.

FRIDAY FOLLIES: Bachmann's look, Mitt's People, and the Artistry of the All-seeing Blind.

Michele Bachmann was on Newsweek's cover this week and editor Tina Brown swears to all who will listen that Bachmann's bizarre cross-eyed skyward gaze was meant only to "capture her intensity".  About the crossed-eyes, Tina says she doesn't see it.  She honestly doesn't know what all the fuss is about.  (Cough, choke, gasp, gag.)

She was on "Morning Joe" last week defending her choice, and what an entertaining few minutes that was!



Now there are cries of foul and/or sexism and/or foul sexism.  Even Miss America got into the fray on Fox and Friends.  Did she think the cover was racist?  Well, yes she did.

But as someone who has never had the good sense to put on a photo face when a camera is pointed toward me, I might actually have some sympathy for the expressive Rep. Bachmann.  I blame it on my Italian heritage.  While I'm talking with my hands I can make some pretty awful faces, especially if I'm in a rage about the Tea Party and people like Michele Bachmann.  Or being put on hold having to listen to Jazz when I'm trying to get something done that requires telephone support.  Things like that.   (No, I'm not going to show classic examples here, though there are plenty of them out there.)

I know what it is to get caught with the goofy face.  It's embarrassing.  And I thought that's what happened with Bachmann until Tina Brown talked about the photo shoot.  The cover photo wasn't a candid, it was a studio portrait set up with a photographer who had all the time in the world to get a good one.  OMG.  Tina.  You scamp.

Mitt Romney got caught admitting that corporations are people, thus ensuring some big bucks in the campaign coffers from the corporate persons.  That would be a good thing if Republicans actually wanted him as their candidate, but they don't seem to be leaning that way.  Still, he's out there giving it all he's got, and all he's got is the best entertainment at the Iowa State Fair.

ROMNEY: Corporations are people, my friend. We could raise taxes and --
[unintelligible crosstalk]
ROMNEY: Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. So -- [audience laughter] where do you think it goes?
[shouts]
Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets.
Okay -- human beings, my friend.
Number one, so number one: you can raise taxes. That's not the approach that I would take.
Number two, you can make sure that the promises we make are promises that we can keep. And in my view, the areas that you have to consider are, for higher-income people ...

Well, that was kind of nutty...  I went looking for someone coming to Mitt's defense but so far all I've found is a quote from a Romney spokesman on an update to a piece on Talking Points Memo:

Update: Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom took to Twitter to defend Romney's quote: "Do folks think corporations are buildings? They're people who incorporate to conduct business. They create jobs and hire more people."

Okay, that's better.  I get it now.  Meanwhile, the DCCC has already come out with a video using Streisand's "People" as background music.  It's here.

I was all over the tube looking at comments.  Someone wanted to know if corporate takeovers could now be considered kidnapping.  Someone else wanted to know if two male corporations could get married or would they have to settle for a merger.  So I added a few myself:  When does the awkward teenage phase end?   Is there a diet for obese corporations?  Can they bake a cherry pie?  Who does their nails?  Can one of them become President of the United States? Can we punch them in the face?  How do we tell their faces from their asses?

It's a zoo out there, my friends.  Nuts is the new normal.


Moments of Sublime:  On one of my quests for interesting distractions, I found a link to a blind painter.  How does one paint if one can't see?  Well, seeing is in the eye of the beholder, it seems.  These artists would be remarkable if they were simply artists who could paint. The fact that they paint while blind makes them awesome in my eyes.

John Bramblitt became blind at age 30.  He has never seen his wife or child, nor any of his subjects, yet he paints them beautifully and accurately.  He explains his technique here.

 

This is Maria Santos.  She was blinded in a car accident when she was just 22 years old and already an accomplished artist.  Watch the video about her experiences here.

 What inspirations they are.  They've developed whole new ways of seeing in order to accomplish their dreams.  There are lessons to be learned from them, but for now...just enjoy.

Cartoon of the Week

Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press

We are the Ordinary People of Our Time

"[Howard Zinn's] fame and popularity came from helping us see America from the ground up - as ordinary people struggling to gain and hold their place in it. When no history book told that story as it should be told, he wrote the book himself -- A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. It became a perennial best seller."

Bill Moyers Journal, 1/29/10

Think of those who joined in — and in many cases became leaders of — the abolitionist movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the feminist revolution, the gay rights movement, and so on.  Think of what this country would have been like if those ordinary people had never bothered to fight and sometimes die for what they believed in.

Bob Herbert, "A Radical Treasure",  1/29/10

___________________________

As the woes of this country escalate instead of dissipate, as millions of us go to bed each night knowing that we won't stop thinking about tomorrow, it's a pretty safe bet we're eventually going to work up to, and beyond, the point of just edgy. (I think we saw it in Massachusetts last week.  Yes, Martha Coakley had to be dragged kicking and screaming onto the campaign trail, and probably deserved to lose, but why was she the candidate in the first place?  That was the best the Massachusetts Dems could do?)

In millions and millions and MILLIONS of households, every day is a new calamity.  Some if not most of these calamities are fixable with a little help from Those who Have--including the government, whose holdings are largely OURS anyway.  If they were seriously working on the jobs situation--creating them, bringing them back to America, being honest about what constitutes a livable wage--people would be seriously working.

If people were working, they would be living in their homes, not standing on the outside looking in. They would be buying groceries and trying on clothes and sitting for family portraits again.  They might even be turning up their thermostats.

If banks were making low-, or even reasonable-interest loans, the people with jobs would be purchasers again, entrepreneurs would be building small businesses again, and all who were honest enough would be paying their fair share of taxes again.

If some of those billionaires would stop worrying about how they'd survive if they suddenly became millionaires again, and see themselves less as the privileged few and more as the instigators of this mess, we might get out of this mess quicker.

If the U.S (as in United States) Chamber of Commerce became less the foul foreign-interest chamber pot and more the cheerleaders for true American commerce, those meaningless slogans about "jobs, jobs, jobs" might actually morph into jobs, jobs, American-made jobs.

But so far, none of those things are happening, and we're left with a conundrum:  How do we--that's WE, as in we, the citizens, the hoi polloi, the common people,  the teeming masses, the heedless multitudes--build up the strength to fix this?

The truth is, I don't know.  I've spent months thinking about this, ever since Barack Obama became president, and it all comes down to--I don't know.  So if you're still with me and you're waiting breathlessly for an answer, you might as well exhale. I'm just one lone person here, same as you, thinking hard, talking my head off, working up the energy to march to and against and for. . .without even a hint of a plan taking shape.

Frank Rich gave me a real eye-opener on Sunday when he wrote:  "The historian Alan Brinkley has observed that we will soon enter the fourth decade in which Congress — and therefore government as a whole — has failed to deal with any major national problem, from infrastructure to education. The gridlock isn’t only a function of polarized politics and special interests. There’s also been a gaping leadership deficit."

It's true.  The Democrats, my party for better or. . .dammit. . .bounce between lethargy and stupidity.  Harry "public option is too HARD" Reid was so riled up over what's happening around here, he merely yawned during the SOTU speech but didn't actually fall asleep.  Nancy Pelosi seems to think that grinning is the solution to everything.  And the Blue Dog Democrats take pride in being the infiltrators from the enemy camp.  The few who actually see some urgency in saving the country--damn the torpedoes--say all the right things but in voices so weak everybody gets away with pretending they can't hear them.
 
If you count the 535 house and senate members in Congress, plus the president, the vice president and the entire West Wing, plus the deputies and the assistants to the deputies, plus a whole slew of pundits who claim to know everything, that's a lot of people wandering around in a fog looking for answers to what ails us.

So a year later, here they are, bragging about unemployment numbers in the tens of thousands per month instead of hundreds of thousands,  still without a WPA-like emergency jobs program that would immediately put people to work rebuilding America, still without any hope of a health care reform bill that first and foremost addresses health.  And those are just the big things.

Obama gave his State of the Union speech early last week and then, a few days later, went to see the Republicans at what was laughingly called their "retreat" (they don't "retreat", we do).   I'm always looking for signs, it's true, but last week I might have seen the first signs of a leader ready to fight.
 Some words from our president that gave me hope:

"In this new decade, it's time the American people get a government that matches their decency, that embodies their strength.

 ". . .And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America.

". . .So tonight, we set a new goal: We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support 2 million jobs in America.

". . .I took on health care because of the stories I've heard, from Americans with pre-existing conditions whose lives depend on getting coverage, patients who've been denied coverage, families, even those with insurance, who are just one illness away from financial ruin.
After nearly a century of trying -- Democratic administrations, Republican administrations -- we are closer than ever to bringing more security to the lives of so many Americans.
The approach we've taken would protect every American from the worst practices of the insurance industry.  (This worries me.  What about the least worst practices?)

"...To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.

"...And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, a supermajority, then the responsibility to govern is now yours, as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.  So let's show the American people that we can do it together."

Near the end of his speech, he said,  "I don't quit.  We can't quit."   I loved hearing that.  It sounded as if we had started. 

At the Republican Retreat in Baltimore, Obama did a little hand-smacking:  (He did a lot of brown-nosing, too, but I expected that.)

"I'm not suggesting that we're going to agree on everything, whether it's on health care or energy or what have you, but if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

"I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America."

 Well, that was on Friday, so on Monday morning I tuned in to "Morning Joe" to hear Joe and bunch's take on the dressing-down in Baltimore.   When I got there, Mika was in the middle of reading a couple of paragraphs fromWSJ about Obama's detached style and his perceived lack of irony.  Joe latched onto it and every time someone said something favorable about either the SOTU speech or the Baltimore Q&A, Joe said, in effect, "Yes, but is he ironic?"

It came from this piece entitled, "The Obama Spell is Broken", by Fouad Ajami:
"We have had stylish presidents, none more so than JFK. But Kennedy was an ironist and never fell for his own mystique. Mr. Obama's self-regard comes without irony—he himself now owns up to the "remoteness and detachment" of his governing style. We don't have in this republic the technocratic model of the European states, where a bureaucratic elite disposes of public policy with scant regard for the popular will. Mr. Obama was smitten with his own specialness.
In this extraordinary tale of hubris undone, the Europeans—more even than the people in Islamic lands—can be assigned no small share of blame. They overdid the enthusiasm for the star who had risen in America."

It takes some bodacious, mendacious audacity to write in the Wall Street Journal about hubris or ". . .a bureaucratic elite [that] disposes of public policy with scant regard for the popular will" after those not-so-long-ago (but really, really long) Bush years, but if anybody can pull it off, it's the WSJ.   Their audience has the most to lose if Obama wins his battles.

It's the ordinary people (that's us) who need to keep Obama where he is.   Underneath the "uniter" facade is a street fighter.  "Community organizer" is on his resume.  He knows what it's like to be ordinary.  So he might not have the answers, and I might not have the answers, and I might not know exactly where we're going (and he might not, either), but I'm picking sides.  That's something.

___________________________

Signs that I'm getting way too immersed in this "saving the country" business:  I saw this internet bumper sticker the other day and I immediately thought of congress:  "I'm not really slapping you, I'm just high-fiving your face."

The Mainstreaming of Hate: That's Entertainment!

As a group, they are the pop culture equivalent of necrotic carrion beetles, crawling with insectile determination from one infected open wound in the American psyche to another. The wounds include fear of race, fear of foreigners, fear of sexuality, fear of difference, hysterical religious fundamentalism, violent nationalism, and paranoia. They lay their eggs in the infected abrasion, then scuttle away. When the eggs hatch, disgorging rage and discontent, they start counting money.

Michael Rowe on the Pop Culture hate mongers, "Death at the Museum and the Degradation of the American Dialogue", Huffington Post, June 11, 2009

There have been mutterings for years about the insidious effects the constant barrage of hate talk has on the unhinged fringe. One day's look at the internet, one day's listen to the radio, a few hours of Fox News prime time is all one needs in order to get the full picture. Hate sells. That's the bottom line.

Never mind that it corrodes our National psyche and sends the loonies to near-orgasm. . .it's fun! The people who are out there on the front lines selling hate--Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Savage, Coulter, Hannity, et al--are enjoying the hell out of the impact their carefully choreographed and mostly disingenuous rantings have on an increasing number of followers.

And their followers slurp up every spurting syllable, as if from God's lips. . .

Janet Napolitano tried to warn us in a Homeland Security memo entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment", but was so severely shot down she ended up having to apologize for it!

I wish she wouldn't have done that. I wish the White House had backed her up and let it ride. We cave to extremists at our own peril--which is exactly what her own memo warned us about.

Eugene Robinson writes about it today:

For days, some conservative commentators tried mightily to paint the memo as an underhanded attempt by the Obama administration to smear its honorable critics by equating "right-wing" with "terrorism." It made no difference to these loudmouths that the number of hate groups around the country has increased by more than 50 percent since 2000, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. It didn't matter that the memo was backed up by solid intelligence and analysis. For these infotainers, the point isn't to illuminate a subject with light but to blast it with heat.
And it wasn't just the Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world who pretended to be outraged. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused the administration of trying "to segment out Americans who dissent from this administration, to segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration, and labeling them as terrorists." Steele seems to have decided that telling the truth isn't nearly as important as the high-temperature exercise known as "firing up the base."

The thing is, though, that words have consequences.

There's profit for the pundits, and perhaps personal advantage for some politicians, in calling President Obama a "socialist" and calling Judge Sonia Sotomayor a "racist Latina" and claiming that Democrats want to "take away your guns" -- in creating and nurturing a sense of grievance among those inclined to be aggrieved. But what about those who might not understand that it's all just political theater?

Paul Krugman writes about it today, as well:

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

This set the crew at "Morning Joe" off on such a tangent, they were practically foaming at the mouth (and it wasn't Starbuck's froth). Suddenly Krugman, that past Morning Joe guest, that great American hero, that deserved Nobel Prize winner, was nothing more than a Left Wing toadie. The gushing is over.

It's an odd state we're in when supposedly reasonable, responsible, intelligent adults defend extremism from any quarter. And yet we see it all the time. We declare the First Amendment as our arbiter. Free speech, as long as nobody dies. Free speech, above all else.

Adam Liptak wrote a piece in Wednesday's NYT called "Hate Speech or Free Speech? What Much of West bans is Protected in U.S." In it, he talks about how much stricter Hate Speech laws are in Canada and other civilized countries:

A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article's tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.
Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.
Under Canadian law, there is a serious argument that the article contained hate speech and that its publisher, Maclean's magazine, the nation's leading newsweekly, should be forbidden from saying similar things, forced to publish a rebuttal and made to compensate Muslims for injuring their "dignity, feelings and self respect."

Oh. My. God. Can you imagine the battle royal in this country if we came up with something similar? Wouldn't those hideously hateful entertainers have a field day with that one?? Here's more:

Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France.

Well, who cares? We hate all those countries, anyway. What do they know? They're not the Greatest Country in the World.

So which one of us is going to be the first to admit that it's time to cast a new look at our First Amendment rights? What does it really mean? Are there absolutely no limits? The fomentors have gone way beyond "sticks and stones". They not only revel in the attention it brings, they're addicted to it.

There are millions of people who take to heart every seriously off-base utterance from the Right Wing extremist "entertainers", and the number of incidents caused by their acting-out is only going to increase--unless we as a society stop allowing hate speech to masquerade as amusement.

Even little children understand how hurtful words can be. We teach them not to lie or to slander. We would never condone in children the kind of language we protect in adults.

And the irony to me is this:  Those adults we're in the business of protecting? They're not worth it.

Ramona

Dr. B to the Super Rich: When will you be rich enough?

. . .The huge bonuses over the last decade or so skimmed off about 300 billion dollars into private pockets. Now what can those people do with that money? How many yachts can you own? How many homes can you own? How many planes can you own? It's that level of income which could, I think, make a contribution to class solidarity rather than be the cause of class hatred and social hatred, [and] Class warfare, eventually.
Dr. Zbiginiew Brzeznski, Morning Joe, March 26, 2009

One day last week I woke up to a bit of remarkable television--and it was on "Morning Joe". Seriously. If, before I turned on the TV, Joe was his usual puffy-chested, when-I-was-in-congress blowhard, I missed it. If Mika was her usual schizo hand-wringing, sorry-for-even-existing, here-comes-tough-mommy self, I didn't see it. If Jim Cramer did a freaky voodoo dance (he was a guest that morning), I didn't see that, either.

What I saw was Dr. Zbiginiew Brzeznski--Mika's father--giving the clearest, harshest, most insightful lecture to the super rich I've ever even dreamed of witnessing. (Mika makes no bones about the fact that he is the most intimidating figure she's ever known. Yes, I could see that. But the thing is--he's on our side. I love that about him. Even though he'd scare me to death, too.)

The most amazing thing about the segment with Zbiginiew--among many amazing things--is that it went on for over 17 minutes with barely an interruption. He began by talking about Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan (interesting stuff there, too) and then, at about 7:26 on the video, Joe changed the subject by saying, "Dr. Brzeznski, you've talked about the danger of runaway populism. (Eds note: ???) Some mocked you. Over the past two weeks we've seen your predictions unfold, from Capitol Hill to Wall Street to Main Street."

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That was it. Joe shut up and let Dr. Brzeznski talk. (Remember when Zbig called Joe "stunningly superficial" a while back? That might have been why.)

"There is a growing anger in this country," Dr B said, "a growing sense of resentment. There is a feeling of fundamental unfairness. . .We saw a list of people who have made more than a billion dollars in one year. A billion is a thousand million. Can you imagine making more than a thousand million a year? And how were most of those funds made? They didn't make them by creating new jobs, building new factories, making new technological innovations which then cumulatively enriched America. They made it by complex financial transactions which few people understand. Which, in effect, just sort of swooshed off money into private pockets. . .It's almost like a huge national ponzi scheme."

Here I thought I heard some slight whimpers of protest, but the good doctor was on a roll:

"Now, what gets me really is in this situation of anger and resentment and the growing risk of class hatred, no one from the private sector has stepped forward and said 'Let's organize a national solidarity fund in which the people who made so much money. . .money which is difficult to understand and to even justify, [should] contribute, to help, to pull us together'. The taxpayers are contributing. The president has urged us to pull this together, and we're doing it. You're doing it, I'm doing it, and a lot of much poorer people than us are doing it.

Where are the rich people who have made hundreds of millions, thousands of millions in some cases? Why don't they step forward? We have the names of some who are returning the bonuses; what about the others who are not?

There should be social pressure and if some major figures from the public sector with great reputations who have made a lot of money but who are generous in philanthropy stood forward. . .maybe there would be a movement to do something about social rehabilitation, social reconciliation, social solidarity. I think this is very much needed."

(Did you see the CEOs coming out of the White House meeting yesterday? What was the one thing they all said they agreed on with the president? "We're all in this together." Something tells me either Zbigniew was in the room with them or the specter of Zbigniew was in the room.)

Finally, Jim Kramer spoke--softly, a little petulantly, with head down though not in full kowtow position. He said, " . . .These hedge fund managers who made money are- a lot of them grew up regular, normal people who grew up in America and managed to just win big. We don't want to discourage people from winning big who are from normal origins, who are not silver spoon people."

To which Dr B., refraining admirably from slapping the little wanker upside the head, said, "Well, that's fair but. . .there's also a limit to what 'win big' really means in a society in which there are still a lot of people who are very poor--who are not winning big but losing much. Do you really need billions of dollars to be happy? What can you do with them? At some point it seems to me that social responsibility comes to play. . ."

He talked almost non-stop on the subject, without commercial interruption, for over 10 minutes. He pointed out the obvious: "If you made 500 million dollars and you gave away 250, I think you would still be left with enough to enjoy. The point is, there has to be some demonstrable response to this sense of crisis today from the rich people, rather than have them hide, or hire security guards, or insist that they stay anonymous."

Mike Barnicle came in then, and told a poignant story about the mill town in Massachusetts where he grew up . He talked about the "big winners\ who had more or less raped that town and other towns like it":

"Made millions for themselves, and yet the factories that they bought and sold that enriched them are now closed. They didn't build any new factories. They didn't create any new jobs. They left behind the skeletal remains of a city that was once vibrant and they've moved on to their big billion dollar salaries and this, I think, is part of the Bunsen burner, the fuel that is igniting this incipient class warfare in America."

It wasn't because the town had gone bad or the workers didn't work. It wasn't because people didn't pray hard enough or sing loudly enough. It wasn't a case of "tried but failed". It was because those lousy SOBs rode into town with premeditated plunder on their minds. (This is not Barnicle talking. This is me interpreting what I saw on his face and heard in his voice.)

There was much more, of course. I've probably already violated some copyright law by transcribing almost word for word a large portion of this conversation. (I'm doing it mainly for those who still have slow dial-up. They can't watch those streaming videos without having to wander off for a fortnight or two until the damn things finally reach the end.)

When Dr. Brzeznski was finished, I had visions of  the Morning Bunch finally getting with it, bursting into "Hoo Rahs", doing fist bumps and cheers. They did rise up from their seats a little and made muffled noises of assent, but of course they couldn't let themselves go that far, considering who they are and what they've either advocated or ignored in the past.

Mika, bless her heart, had the final word after those long minutes of having to huddle in the shadow of her father's brilliance:  

"In America we don't think about--actually, I'm sorry, but there is a certain way of thinking--greed--put it on credit. We just don't think of--I'm sorry, we just don't think this way."

Is that priceless? Could you, in all honesty, turn it off after that?

Yeah, me too.

A contract is a contract--WHEN??

The real scandal of AIG isn't just that American taxpayers have so far committed $170 billion to the giant insurer because it is thought to be too big to fail -- the most money ever funneled to a single company by a government since the dawn of capitalism -- nor even that AIG's notoriously failing executives, at the very unit responsible for the catastrophic credit-default swaps at the very center of the debacle, are planning to give themselves over $100 million in bonuses. The scandal is that even at this late date, even in a new administration dedicated to doing it all differently, Americans still have so little say over what is happening with our money.
Robert Reich here.

I'm going to make this short because I want to go off and think about that number, $170 BILLION.  I might have to get out my handy calculator again, but from right here, right now that looks like a whole hell of a lot of money.

I guess we're supposed to feel good about the $100 million worth of bonuses going to those needy, worthy AIG execs, since it's nowhere near $170 BILLION.

I guess we should all feel good about honoring contracts. After all, these same people have always been so good about honoring contracts with their workers. Doesn't Big Business enter into contracts with ALL workers? Don't they promise, at the hiring of those workers, that if they do their jobs they'll be entitled to job security, pay raises, reasonable benefits--and best of all, down the road, a bankable, safe retirement fund that'll take them happily and healthily into their Golden Years?

What? They don't? They haven't? I'm shocked.  I thought all those other figures--more than 600,000 workers losing jobs EVERY MONTH--were just more socialist propaganda.

Those unemployment lines? Pshaw! They're people who really don't want to work and would rather collect checks from the government. (See Erin Burnett's "maybe, possibly, some people say, let's look at China" here.)

Seven hundred out-of-work Americans standing in line for a handful of jobs? Grand-standers, actors even,  probably hired by the Democrats to make a pathetic point.

A Bailout LOAN for GM? Ridiculous! The unions must die. . .

But let's, in the name of all that's holy, save those CEO bonuses. We will not survive as a civilization without them. We can't let AIG fail!!

But wait. . .that was yesterday. This is today. Is there anybody today, besides Erin Burnett, who believes that taxpayers should be paying huge multi-million dollar bonuses to AIG execs? Erin, dearheart, was just on Morning Joe claiming that if AIG doesn't honor those contracts, they'll end up paying twice that amount to some upstanding businessmen in London who are obviously entitled. To which Mort Zuckerman, sitting on the set, said, Outrageous! It's a rogue operation in London. AIG should never have had dealings with them. (How come Erin didn't know that?)

So can we all agree now that if we're going to own 80% of AIG we should have a say in who gets what? Thank you. Now can we, the taxpayers, light a fire under our leaders and get them to do what they promised to do when we gave them all of the power?

I think we can. The calculator can wait. Those number are too big for my little mind, anyway. I'm going after my congressmen instead. I've got their numbers and I know how to use them.

Ramona