Thoughts on President Obama's Last Day

It saddens me to have to write this, but today marks the end of Barack Obama's eight-year term as president of the United States. (You'll forgive me if I don't mention what else is going on today.) 

It also marks the eighth anniversary of this blog, Ramona's Voices. I started it in 2009, during the afternoon of Obama's first inauguration. I'd been playing with the idea of  launching a political blog for months before I actually did, but I had no idea when I woke up that morning that some time during the day an idea for a blog would come to me. 

I began taking notes and at some point the notes began to look like a blog post.  This wasn't my first blog so I knew how to set up Blogspot and buy a domain name.  I called it "Ramona's Voices", first because it was getting late and I couldn't think of anything else, but second because I knew I couldn't carry an entire political blog all by myself and so would be relying on pulling in quotes and links from people who actually knew what they were talking about and could put words together in ways that looked pretty good.

 It was Obama's energy, his promise of hope, his call for citizen duty. It set millions of us on a path we thought would surely pull us out of the muck left behind by the previous administration. In some ways it did, but the disappointments built up early: Obama's cabinet choices leaned toward Wall Street and more of the same. The Democrats held the House and the Senate for two full years and squandered their power by capitulating to Republican demands and ignoring the rising threat of outside influences like the Tea Party, the NRA, and the Religious Right.

Looking back at my blog posts over the years, I see I wasn't especially tough on either Obama or the Democrats. I'm okay with that. There were plenty of other writers who relished going on the attack against everything they did. I chose to see them as family members who needed some guidance, a push, a nudge, a smack upside the head.

That wasn't always popular, and I admit there were times I was too easy on them, but I chose, instead, to concentrate on the Republicans--something I sorely wish the press had done more often. I saw the Democrats as the good guys--and still do. I saw the Republicans as a scourge against humanity--and still do. I had no idea how bad they could get, and now the proof is before us:  Donald J. Trump, a purported billionaire with a penchant for lying, for cheating, for vendettas, a man with no knowledge of the workings of government and no interest in learning, a man who sees the highest office in the land not as the ultimate in public service but as the ultimate in power, is about to become our 45th president.

I'll miss President Obama, but until recently I had no feel for exactly how much. At some point during the last few months Obama's star power changed from shine to dazzle. His appearances drew breathless crowds. His speeches rose to such oratorical heights he left us cheering while dripping with tears. Did he change, finally becoming the leader we thought we were getting eight years ago, or is the contrast between President Obama and the prospect of a President Donald Trump so stark he couldn't help but come out the better man?

I think, during this past year and especially after that shocking November loss, Barack Obama woke up to the fact that millions of people across the country still lived in fear and desperation. His dream, it seemed, had all but died. Whether is was racism, classism, or the years of lies and ruthless interference, the job did not get done. It wasn't that he didn't try--it wasn't that he hadn't pushed for equity and unity and economic stability--it's that he didn't push hard enough, and the demagogic rise of Donald Trump, the most unlikely, unlikable presidential candidate in our history, proved it.

I'm not suggesting the Republicans had no blame in all of this. In fact, much of the blame falls on them. Wages remain low, social programs have been gutted, health insurance has descended into chaos, and our middle class is still far behind--mainly because of them. So how did they win? They won by promising to fix it all--all that they have broken will now be fixed--by them.  They talk a good game, they play on fears, they push the right buttons, they lie, cheat, and gerrymander. They win.

Obama made mistakes. He didn't seem to understand the need for economic populism, he ignored the plight of unions, he did nothing about off-shoring and outsourcing, he advocated for unpopular trade agreements, he pushed a flawed health care system that often caused more problems than it solved. In that sense, he may have opened the door to demagoguery.

Still, Barack Obama's presidency was not in any realm a failure, and may even be a greater success than we even realize. It may not have lived up to its promise, but I doubt any presidency does. His ideas, if not bold, were positive and honorable. He worked hard, he brought us eight scandal-free years, he gained respect throughout the world.  He was forced to work with the most adversarial congress in modern history. From the start they announced there would be no bipartisan teamwork. Their mission was to thwart him at every turn and they didn't disappoint.

To the president's credit, he was never vindictive, never appeared bitter. He believes in hope. He believes we can do this. What role he'll play now as a private citizen is anybody's guess, but he'll be with us. His voice will be heard. He's a man who believes in tradition and in obligation and in country. He may no longer be president but his presidential mantle will forever be with him.  We can count on that.

So thank you for your years of service, Mr. President, and for your amazing grace.

Mitch McConnell Tells a Big Fat Lie. Or Two.

Today, a little more than a month after Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly while hunting at a Texas ranch, President Obama announced his choice for a replacement.  He has chosen Merrick Garland, a D.C Circuit judge well known by most Beltway pols, almost unanimously endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats during previous nominations, a man whose views range from moderate to conservative, appealing to all but the most liberal among us.

This choice by Obama was, by all accounts, deliberate.  Republicans are on record singing Garland's praises. They go way back, these guys. Good man!  If anyone could get through the gawdawful GOP gantlet this most brilliant choice for SCOTUS would be it.

It was as if Mitch McConnell had been talking to brick walls! The day after Justice Scalia died, mere minutes after taking off his sad face, the Senate Majority Leader wasted no time making one thing crystal clear: This particular sitting president has no right appointing anyone to the Supreme Court during a presidential election year.  It should be the right of the people, McConnell said, and the right of the people doesn't start until January, 2017, when a new president not named Obama will be sworn into office.

Well, some people--even people who knew Mitch McConnell--were stunned!  What?  What did he say?   He said President Obama could nominate up the wazoo but even Jesus Christ almighty wouldn't go up for a vote. (Not his exact words.)  He would never allow a vote on any nominee put out there by Barack Obama.  Period.  End of story.

That was in February.  Today President Obama broke the news to Mitch McConnell that he, Barack Obama, president of these United States has the right to nominate anyone of his choice and the Congress of the United States had both the right and the obligation to vote on his choice. 

At a time when our politics are so polarized, at a time when norms and customs of political rhetoric and courtesy and comity are so often treated like they are disposable, this is precisely the time when we should play it straight and treat the process of appointing a Supreme Court justice with the seriousness and care it deserves because our Supreme Court really is unique. It's supposed to be above politics. It has to be. And it should stay that way.

To suggest that someone as qualified and respected as Merrick Garland doesn't even deserve a hearing, let alone an up or down vote, to join an institution as important as our Supreme Court, when two- thirds of Americans believe otherwise, that would be unprecedented. To suggest that someone who has served his country with honor and dignity, with a distinguished track record of delivering justice for the American people might be treated, as one Republican leader stated, as a political pinata. That can't be right.

It should be noted that every Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee was invited to the Rose Garden to hear the nomination speech this morning, and not a single one showed up.  Mitch McConnell was a no-show, as well.  He was writing his own speech:

"No way.  No how.  Uh uh. Ain't gonna happen.  Because Joe Biden." (Note: This is a synopsis and not the actual speech. Thank you.)

McConnell, that old constitutional scholar, brought up a previously unknown argument for his side known only by McConnell as "The Biden Rule".  According to McConnell, Joe Biden once said that a president shouldn't be able to nominate a supreme court justice during his final year in office.  There is no Biden Rule and Joe Biden never said what McConnell says he said.  In fact, Igor Volsky made that clear in a ThinkProgress article published right after McConnell made that claim, citing a partial clip of Biden's speech C-Span had put up on their website .

 Conservatives quickly pounced on the clip and used it as evidence to argue that Congressional Republicans are following long-standing precedent in refusing to consider President Obama’s nomination to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia until a new president takes the oath in January of 2017.

 But Biden's full speech undermines their claim. Rather than urging his colleagues to deny Bush's potential nominee a hearing, Biden was bemoaning the politicization of the confirmation process -- hence his suggestion of not holding a hearing in the heat of a presidential election -- and what he saw as Bush's refusal to properly consult with the Senate in selecting a nominee. In fact, just 10 minutes after calling for temporary inaction on Bush's candidate, Biden actually promised to consider a moderate Supreme Court nominee.

Later the same day, Volsky updated his piece to include this:

Joe Biden's office has released the following statement: "Nearly a quarter century ago, in June 1992, I gave a lengthy speech on the Senate floor about a hypothetical vacancy on the Supreme Court. Some critics say that one excerpt of my speech is evidence that I oppose filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year. This is not an accurate description of my views on the subject. Indeed, as I conclude in the same statement critics are pointing to today, urged the Senate and White House to work together to overcome partisan differences to ensure the Court functions as the Founding Fathers intended. That remains my position today."

But just today, some three weeks later, Mitch McConnell used that same already disputed Biden claim as reason not to consider President Obama's nominee. McConnell knows he's lying.  He has to know that WE know he's lying. But, true to form, he doesn't care. So now we wait to see who does care.  And what will happen in November if they don't.

The Flint Water Crisis: It's All Obama's Fault

Jake May—The Flint Journal-MLive.com/AP

Nearly every day I'm hearing from people who are just now paying attention to what's been going on in Michigan  Their reactions to the latest and the worst insult--the water poisoning in Flint--are many and varied, but tend to follow the same theme:  WTF??

I'm not here to judge, but it's not as if our bleating protestations haven't been wafting through the air for years. (They have been--even before 2011, when the GOP gerrymandered their way into absolute power and Rick Snyder took the oath he pretended he didn't hear.)

It's not as if we haven't been begging Michigan voters not to give ALEC, The Mackinac Center, and the Koch brothers the toehold they so actively coveted.  (We saw them coming long before their hand-picked choice, former CEO Rick Snyder, suddenly appeared on the scene.)

It's not as if we didn't vote in a referendum against emergency managers by a solid margin.  (We did that. All legal and everything. Gov. Snyder appointed them, anyway.)

It's not as if we didn't warn everyone not to vote in Gov. Snyder when he ran for his second term.  (We did that, too.  We had an excellent candidate in Mark Schauer. But every major newspaper in Michigan except one gave their support to Snyder.  (The Traverse City Record Eagle decided not to endorse anyone.)  Kind of pissy that now many of them are screaming for his head--as if they knew nothing--nothing at all--and had nothing to do with his rise.)

We've done everything we could to stop the Snyder administration from destroying our state, only to run up against a political machine so powerful we knew going in it was likely we would fail.  And we did.  Miserably.  It's embarrassing how little impact the Dems in our state have made, considering the evidence we've piled up against the guys who so relentlessly tore our state apart.

Now we have a crisis in the already impoverished and beleaguered city of Flint, brought on solely, completely, and deliberately by the Snyder administration and the emergency manager he appointed, not to assist but to replace a sitting, duly elected city government.

The lead poisoning of the city water system is a crisis of such huge proportions, the shock waves are felt all over the country.  The mainstream media--that same media we've begged for so long to pay attention--is just now stirring.  The sleeping giant has awakened and they're shocked--shocked, I tell you!--at the magnitude of the corruption and neglect.

(I would say we told you so. . .  Okay, I'm saying it:  We told you so.  But thank you, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and the pathetically few others who lent their voices to our call in an effort to stop this insanity before it lead to something like this.)

 The effects of the water poisoning in Flint are not going away.  Thousands of people, including and especially young children, have been harmed by it.  Action is needed NOW, but the Snyder administration and his GOP cronies are bobbing, weaving, fudging--anything to keep from having to take full responsibility for it.

Snyder made his "The buck stops here" speech, intended to be just the ticket to absolve him of wrong-doing.  "I take the blame.  You satisfied?  No, I won't quit!  I'm staying to fix this!" (Not an exact quote, but close enough.)  But even Snyder knows a few words at a press conference won't fix anything.  So he's moved on.  Now it's the blame game.

It's all Obama's fault.

No joke. The Michigan Republican Party put this out last week  (Thank you, Eclectablog):

 The Feds did delay their intervention.  It seems they were waiting to see what the state was going to do, while the state--namely Snyder--was waiting for an offer so it wouldn't look to his handlers like he was asking Obama for (OMIGAWD!) help.

A stupid stand-off on both sides.  It's an emergency!  Who waits for an invitation in an emergency?  But Snyder and his Boys aren't going to be let off the hook.  Nor are they going to be allowed to take the credit for any aid unless they get off their asses and start pulling those lead-lined pipes out of that system.

The rats are leaving the ship. The two Flint emergency managers involved in this scandal, Darnell Earley and Jerry Ambrose, are nowhere to be seen.  (Oh, wait. . .is that Darnell Earley over there in Detroit, emergency-managing their school system?  It is!  It was. He's gone from there, too.  His next phase is as reluctant witness in front of a House committee investigating the Flint crisis. Those cockroaches can run but they can't hide.)

In an amazing turn-around, Snyder has decided Flint no longer needs an emergency manager.  The patient is cured!  It's a miracle!

There is a new mayor in town and he has complete faith in her ability to let him off the hook.  The new mayor, Karen Weaver, will be testifying this week in front of a House Democratic Committee on the Flint Crisis. She has appeared on cable and network political shows, is becoming a regular on Rachel Maddow's show, has met with Hillary Clinton, who has promised to do her best to help, and is reaching out to anyone who will listen about where the blame lies and what needs to be done now.   If Snyder thought he had an ally in Mayor Weaver, he's as deluded as he was when he came up with that cockamamie emergency manager plan.

 News flash:  Bernie Sanders is setting up campaign headquarters in Flint.  And you've heard there's going to be a Democratic debate broadcast from Flint in March?

Now if those new-found friends could only drink the water.


NOTE: The water crisis time-line is here.  (One clarification. The MJ article says Snyder handed over his emails the next day after being pressured.  That's true.  But they were heavily redacted--some pages entirely redacted--and many pertinent emails are missing.  We're still waiting for those.) 

_________________________________

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Crooks and Liars)

Not "The Onion": GOP Senators Tell Iran Obama's Not The Boss, They Are

In a stunning open letter to the leaders of Iran, 47 Republican senators let it be known that, while Barack Obama might occupy the White House and temporarily hold the title of President and Commander-in-chief of these United States, it is Congress--most especially the Republican Congress--that holds the cards when it comes to any kind of nuclear deal.

The letter--did I mention it was addressed to the leaders of Iran?--was written by Tom Cotton, freshman senator from Arkansas, and signed by all but seven Republicans in the United States Senate.

It began like this:

An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran:

It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system.  Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously consider as negotiations progress.

Does that paragraph seem a little strange to you?  Who, outside of Monty Python, or maybe your local HOA, writes, "It has come to our attention. . ."?

Who, besides a newbie Tea Party senator (or a hotshot American Constitution 101 student) thinks it's a good idea to publicly school the leaders of another country about the laws of the United States?

Who, for that matter, writes an open letter to leaders of a country with which we're negotiating nuclear agreements, telling them they shouldn't be negotiating anything with this particular president when it's this particular congress that will ultimately have to approve? 

From the letter:  "For example, the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms.  As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then — perhaps decades.

"What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei.  The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time."

 Who writes this without knowing that congress only approves and does not ratify a treaty?

"First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them.  In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote.  A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate).  Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement."

Who does that without knowing that it's not just our country in negotiations with Iran, but a UN coalition made up of five other countries--the UK, Russia, China, France and Germany?

Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, did his own schooling yesterday:

"I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by US domestic law.

The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations.

I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement 'with the stroke of a pen', as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law."

So how did Tom Cotton get 46 other senators, many of them senior senators and wannabe presidential candidates, to sign their names at the bottom of that misdirected, miscalculated, misinformed mess? 

I can hardly wait to hear from the signers--the ones who woke up this morning, as if from a hangover, thinking, "What in hell? Where am I?  What did I do?"

The seven Republican senators who didn't sign:
1. Flake (AZ)
2. Collins (ME)
3. Corker (TN)
4. Murkowski (AK)
5. Alexander (TN)
6. Coats (IN)
7. Cochran (MS)


And, man, oh, man, (Got that from Biden) didn't the shit hit the fan?  It did.  In great steaming gobs.  So many are responding at so many different sources, it's impossible, even at this early stage, to link to them all.

Bernie Sanders accused the signers of sabotage.  And Joe Biden said this:

“In thirty-six years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which Senators wrote directly to advise another country--much less a longtime foreign adversary–that the president does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them,” Biden wrote. “This letter sends a highly misleading signal to friend and foe alike that that our Commander-in-Chief cannot deliver on America’s commitments-a message that is as false as it is dangerous.”

To which Tom Cotton, the author of the now infamous letter, who, at this writing, has no foreign policy or national security experience whatsoever, responded:

“Joe Biden, as [President] Barack Obama’s own secretary of defense has said, has been wrong about nearly every foreign policy and national security decision in the last 40 years,” Cotton said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” in a reference to former Pentagon chief Robert Gates, who ripped Biden in a tell-all memoir after leaving office.

And on it goes.  There is no end to the disrespect and outright hatred for this president.  The caterwauling against him raises by a thousand decibels each year he is in office.  The haters, including those members of congress who have made it their mission to take him down by any means necessary, aren't finished yet.  If this doesn't work--and it won't--they'll move on to something else.

It's worth noting that this all came down on the same weekend the country was recognizing the sacrifices made by the Civil Rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge 50 years ago in Selma, Alabama.  On Saturday, the same day the Open Letter to the Islamic Leaders of Iran became public, our president, Barack Obama, gave the speech of his life at the entrance of the "Bloody Sunday" bridge.

In his speech President Obama said,

"The Americans who crossed this bridge were not physically imposing. But they gave courage to millions. They held no elected office. But they led a nation. They marched as Americans who had endured hundreds of years of brutal violence, and countless daily indignities – but they didn’t seek special treatment, just the equal treatment promised to them almost a century before.  

What they did here will reverberate through the ages. Not because the change they won was preordained; not because their victory was complete; but because they proved that nonviolent change is possible; that love and hope can conquer hate." 

 And this is why the haters, even those members of congress who will never give this president the legitimacy he deserves, will lose.  We've made too many sacrifices in too many places at too many times to give in and give up and let them win.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Alan Colmes' Liberaland) 

Yes, Rudy, It Was a Horrible Thing To Say. Thank You.

According to an article in Politico, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani told a group of Republicans gathered to pay some sort of attention to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker that it's his belief that President Obama doesn't love them, him, or even the entire United States of America.

This is what he said:

"I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country."

Well, the pundit class went nuts!  The progressives could barely speak and had to hiss, they were so mad.  The Republicans haughtily explained that there was no need to explain:  What Giuliani said was very, very, very close to the truth.

Giuliani went on Fox News and said well, yes, Obama is probably a patriot but he keeps saying bad things about America, something no other president before him ever did.  He doesn't believe in American exceptionalism, blah, blah, blah.

"I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being," [Obama] said at West Point in 2014. "But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it’s our willingness to affirm them through our actions."

Then Giuliani went on the air wherever he could and kept at it and kept at it and kept at it.  The theme:  Obama is not like us.  He doesn't understand America.  He is, okay, let's just get it out there--the Other.

But Rudy wasn't being racist.  Oh, no.  Far from it, according to Giuliani:

“Some people thought it was racist — I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people,” Mr. Giuliani said in the interview. “This isn’t racism. This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism.” 

And, bizarrely, apropos of nothing, "President Obama didn't live through 9/11, I did."

So at the end of the day, you know who comes out smelling like a rose?  Obama does.  Because every person not so inclined toward stupid--Republican, Democrat, Independent, and Other--will now have to come out and defend the president. They'll have to condemn such remarks and remind the Americans that we're all Americans.  Even Obama.  Some of them--those who know November, 2016 isn't that far away--will have to hold their noses to do it, but do it they will.

The punditry will be grabbing at Obama quotes to prove he does love his country, he does love you and me, he doesn't love Muslims more than he loves Christians, he's not a Communist or an anti-colonialist, he doesn't just say bad things about America.

And all President Obama has to do is sit back and let it happen.

So thank you, Rudy.  Well done!  Now come on over here and let me give you a big 'ol hug.


(Read it at Dagblog and Freak Out Nation)

An Education By Fits And Starts But Not Degrees

My formal "college" consists of 26 community college credits, half of them in ceramics.  I took two classes in cultural anthropology, fell in love with Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart", and decided anthropology was my life's calling--until my husband called my attention to the want ads in our big city paper.  Not a single call for anthropologists anywhere, and since we were among the almost-poor, and I still had kids at home, I had to think inside the box.

I took a business class taught by a one-handed pianist who should have stuck to his night job.  He invited our class to his concert and, even with one hand, his performance was flawless.  When it came time to evaluate him, none of us could do the honest thing and point out his flaws as a teacher of business.  We gave him high marks for personality.

 I took two creative writing classes taught by an old pot-smoking hippie who wore chains and earrings and orange tennis shoes and who told us right off that he didn't care what we wrote as long as we wrote something.  I thought the guy himself was ridiculous, trying as he did to be George Carlin and Jack Kerouac, all in the same skin, so it took me a while to realize how much I had actually learned there.   It came to me much later, when I was putting together materials to teach my own adult-ed creative writing classes:  What he gave us was a setting where we could write and fail and get a huge kick out of what we were doing.  He was a teacher without judgement but with a knack for finding what could be fixed.

I took a modern literature class taught by a woman I don't remember at all--not her name, not her face, not her teaching technique.  But through her I met Eudora Welty, Joseph Conrad, Langston Hughes, and Flannery O'Connor--writers I might have overlooked if she hadn't brought them (and so many others) to my attention.

And that was the end of my formal education.  Whatever else I've learned, I've learned either by happenstance or serendipity. Being in the right place at the right time.  Stumbling across something that got me curiouser and curiouser and led me to something else that led me to something else.  Unless I got distracted; then it was something else altogether.

 Living near Detroit, I had the advantage of meeting some exceptional writers and thinkers and I latched onto them like a parasite on a host.  I tried to drain them of everything they had to give--quietly, of course, without drawing blood.  I went to readings and workshops and lectures.  I joined groups where professional writers gathered.

They taught me a trade, but it's a haphazard way to get an education.  It's not an education, in fact.  Whatever it is, it's full of holes.  Great gaping holes.  Great gaping embarrassing holes.  (I couldn't find Iraq on a map if you gave me a hundred bucks to do it. I don't know what Pi is and I'm afraid I'm missing something meaningful.  I only recently found out that Goethe is pronounced "Gurt-uh".  Good thing I never had occasion to say his name out loud.)

Now President Obama is pushing for free two-year community college for everyone.  It'll be an uphill battle, but I'm right there beside him, rooting him on.  I don't want anyone to have to take on the task of educating themselves.  It can't be done.  They need teachers.  They need campus life.  They need to argue and debate, to be challenged, to be opened up to directions they might never have taken and ideas they might never have formed on their own.  They need to be pushed and pulled and exposed to a world wholly outside of themselves.

 They need to prepare for jobs, and we as a country need to pave the way.  We need to build again, creating good-paying jobs for them to fill.  We need to smarten up, and the best way to do it is through education.

We know that now.

 Pretty sure we do.

But I could be wrong.

Ugly Politics: When the Meme is "The President Must Die" We Have To Pay Attention

At a Town Hall meeting held last week in Oklahoma, an audience member raised her hand and said to Jim Bridenstine, a congressman from the First District,  “Obama is not president as far as I’m concerned. He should be executed as an enemy combatant.”

Read that again:  "Obama is not president as far as I'm concerned.  He should be executed as an enemy combatant."  (Video here.)

 She then went on to remind Bridenstine and the audience about the Muslims Obama is letting into this country to be pilots on commercial jets, which was proof to her that "this guy is a criminal!"  She blamed congress for doing nothing when Obama "has no authority.  He has NO authority!"

And when she was finished and the camera turned back to him, the first words out of U.S. Congressman Jim Bridenstine's mouth were, "Look, everybody knows the lawlessness of this president."

He went on to describe a Chief Executive so out of control, so power-hungry, that when he couldn't get something done through executive order, "then he used foreign bodies".

He used as an example an effort in April, 2013 to ban certain types of guns, "not because they operated any differently than any other types of guns but because they looked scary". Then he tried to block magazine sizes, which, again Congress blocked.  "Which was the right answer," according to Jim.

But the congressman saved the best--or worst--for last: "Then he wanted universal background checks, which is a national gun registration, let me be clear."  Pause, repeat:  "He wanted universal background checks which is a national gun registration. . .".   And when Obama couldn't get that done he went to the U.N, where they passed an international Arms Trade Treaty, which, according to Jim, says if you have any gun that has any part manufactured in a foreign country, then they have to do more than a national background check, they have to do an international background check and it becomes an international gun registry.  (The Horror!)

Well, of course, this president signed it.  So here's how Jim sees it:

"Now let me be clear.  The Second Amendment of the United States of America is not open for debate by a foreign government."

A woman in his audience has just called for the President of the United States to be executed and this congressman answers her by bringing up the president's push for background checks, gun registration, and his dealings with foreign countries to accomplish the same.

Nobody seems to know where this meeting took place or exactly when, but someone put it on YouTube and it went viral. The press picked it up.  Bridenstine got wind of the flak and put this notice on his web page:

“A public figure cannot control what people say in open meetings. I obviously did not condone and I do not approve of grossly inappropriate language. It is outrageous that irresponsible parties would attribute another person’s reckless remarks to me."

So let's talk about who is being irresponsible.  You kept quiet when an audience member called for the death of the president, and then you added fuel to the fire. You brought up guns and the Second Amendment and insinuated that the President of the United States is in league with foreign players to take American gun rights away.

I hope the Secret Service pays that group a call and I hope you're there when they do.  You all need a lesson in Government, in Civics, in Constitutional and Sedition Laws, and in civility.

I confess that I've never been as fearful of a president's safety as I have with Barack Obama.  The gun nuts are getting bolder and the propaganda against his "otherness" is unrelenting and growing more fierce. 

There is no proof that this president has been threatened more than any other.  (I went looking.)  The Secret Service won't provide those statistics, of course, and Politifact finds no evidence and calls the charges that he has been "false".   But a simple search finds threats against this president by the thousands.  Including this one on Facebook from the Christian American Patriots  Militia (Read more here.):

The rumor is that Ted Nugent got a visit from the Secret Service for saying, "If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year."  I hope it's not just a rumor.  We'll never know unless Teddy tells us, but I hope they're doing their jobs.  That was a direct threat. (Not that it would cure him.  I wrote about his shenanigans just last month.  He gets off on this stuff.  Apparently so do a lot of other people.)

Are threats against the president illegal?  It depends.  There is this:

18 U.S. Code § 871 - Threats against President and successors to the Presidency

Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. 

But then there's this from FrumForum on July 21, 2011:

On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that comments which encouraged the assassination of President Obama and predicted that he would have “a .50 cal in the head soon” while using racial slurs against him were protected by the First Amendment. While the decision seems to be a plausible reading of existing precedents, a former Secret Service agent contacted by FrumForum thought that it exposed the president to unacceptable risk.

“It was a bad decision,” said Joseph Petro, former agent and co-author of Standing Next to History: An Agent’s Life Inside the Secret Service. He argued that permitting such remarks “creates more potential for someone to do something” dangerous. Petro claimed that, in his experience, it is normal to treat such comments as threats, saying “I’ve seen this before … Back in the Nixon days, there was a guy who put up a billboard in New Jersey saying ‘Kill Nixon.’ He was arrested and the billboard was taken down.”
“We’re all in favor of constitutional rights,” he added, but “there should be some … sensitivity shown for the unique risk that the President faces.”

The former agent suggested that the ruling was part of a pattern of recent events that did not show a proper awareness of the dangers presidents face comparing it to incidents in the past two years in which protesters brought weapons to presidential speeches. Petro also noted that the fact that the accused, Walter Bagdasarian, predicted that Obama would be shot with a .50 caliber rifle while he owned such a gun made the threatening nature of the comments especially clear.

However, two legal experts contacted by FrumForum both agreed with the majority’s central claim that Bagdasarian did not express an intention to personally kill Obama because he merely predicted the president’s killing and encouraged others to shoot him. “The speaker did not tell Obama that if he didn’t do something he would shoot him,” said Geoffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has written extensively on First Amendment issues. “The speech may have been repugnant and ugly … but it did not constitute a threat within the meaning of the First Amendment.”

I'm afraid.  I'm very afraid.  When advocating and encouraging the killing of our president is protected under the First Amendment, it's destined to become as twisted as the Second Amendment to mean whatever the advocates want it to mean.  It'll be open season on wishing the president dead.

Something will have to happen before we wake up to the harm this can bring.  I dread to think what that might be.
_____________________

(Can I just say to those who are already revving up their keyboards to remind me that George W. Bush got death threats, too?  I don't doubt it.  Every president has.  It goes with the territory.  But this was a town hall meeting where a member of congress did nothing to disabuse an audience member of the notion that the President of the United States should be executed as an enemy combatant. Instead, he immediately launched into an attack on "the lawlessness of the president" and his shady attempts to bring in foreign countries to control our guns, showing him to be a dangerous character, indeed.   Let me know when you find something comparable.)

Why You Gotta Lie? A compendium of the Worst from the GOP Revels

The media is abuzz about the speeches at the 2012 GOP Convention in Tampa, critiquing them on style, effectiveness, the number of laughs, the number of attacks on Barack Obama--especially the attacks on Obama.  Clint Eastwood even got an invisible Obama to sit in an empty chair and become the foil for some raucously out-there jokes.

On the last night of the convention, the night when Mitt Romney was to accept his party's nomination and give the speech everyone was waiting for, he was outstripped by an aging but really, really famous Academy Award-winning actor/director who called President Obama crazy and twice pretended that Obama was making crude suggestions about where Romney could put his, um, ideas.  This was a moment so bizarre it rendered even the usually verbose Rachel Maddow speechless.  The reaction over the Twitterverse, indeed over the entire Internets, was "What the Hell was THAT?"

The Romney people were scrambling the next morning to tone down the tittering. "C'mon! It was just a light moment on an otherwise wonderful night."  But it could be that the distractions are a blessing in disguise.  The first days of the convention got a lot of attention, mainly because the main speeches were rife with easily refutable lies.

The folks in the Romney camp would just as soon everybody--especially the newsguys--forget about that part.  They're out there making their case for a Romney/Ryan win and the Clint Eastwood mess is a much more agreeable distraction than a bunch of lyin' liars.

So in case anyone actually believes all that stuff coming out of their Party party, let's take a look at some of the prevarication highlights (Wouldn't it be great if the Republicans could make their case without lying about their opposition? The problem for them is if they couldn't lie about the opposition, they wouldn't have a case):

Remember Mike Huckabee's speech, where he hints at an old, outrageous (and debunked) lie that says President Obama not only believes in abortion, but believes in killing babies afterward?  This is what he said:

Let me clear the air about whether guys like me would only support an evangelical. Of the four people on the two tickets, the only self-professed evangelical is Barack Obama, and he supports changing the definition of marriage, believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the womb or even beyond the womb, and tells people of faith that they must bow their knees to the god of government and violate their faith and conscience in order to comply with what he calls health care.

(More on the origins of that lie here.)

And more:

MediaIte:  Jon Stewart video on RNC first night misquotes about Obama.

Alternet is on it with Six Big Lies from the first day of the Convention

The always entertaining LOLGOP looks at the "reporting" by Howie Kurtz.

Michael Tomasky, Howie's Daily Beast colleague, finds a web of lies in Ryan's speech.

ThinkProgress checks out the Wednesday night line-up.

The WaPo editorial board dissects Ryan's misleading speech.

Brian Beutler lists Ryan's top five fibs over at TPM.

Joan Walsh calls Ryan's lies "brazen".

Ryan Grim sets the record straight on Ryan's lies about the GM Janesville factory closing.

Alex Pareene makes fun of Rand Paul, that guy who said he got all choked up emotionally, it being like a "lump between my chin and my belly button." (To be fair, it sounds like something I might say on one of the many occasions when I begin talking before thinking, but if I saw those words on a teleprompter in front of me I would hope I'd have the good sense to think twice before saying them out loud.)

But worst than that, he's still trying out the debunked sentence-out-of-context, "You didn't build that", to see if anyone on earth will buy the lie that Barack Obama meant it as a slight to small business owners.  (Apparently they will.  Paul's audience LOVED it.)

Dan Amira at New York Magazine called Ryan's speech "effective."  He also called it "appalling and disingenuous."

Conservative Ted Frier rips Ryan for his lies in "GOP holds Masked Ball, not Convention".

Business Insider says there's a little problem with Ryan's account of Obama's role in the the AAA Credit Rating downgrade.

Chris at Eclectablog does his own round-up of GOP lies from the Convention.

And on and on it goes.  One has to wonder if putting Clint Eastwood on stage in a dumb conversation with an empty chair mightn't have been somebody's brilliant idea to make this last convention night so memorable everybody would forget about those damnable, sticky lies.

 Mightn't it have been better to give Mitt Romney a speech that was unforgettable?  Oh, right.  Romney. Even the man chosen to introduce Romney--Marco Rubio--gave a token few minutes to talk about their party's chosen leader before turning the attention to his own--Marco Rubio's--life story.  Poor Mitt gets no respect. When people are reduced to keeping count of the number of times his name is mentioned throughout the entire convention, it's clear it's not about him, it's about, I don't know. . .2016? 

 

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. 

Happy Birthday, Social Security. And Many, Many More. XOXOXO

Today marks the 77th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act, and even though it's not one of those anniversaries we might consider A Big One, it's important.  For this reason:  it may well be the last time any of us will be able to celebrate this landmark law without also being reminded of its untimely death.

Two years ago, when we celebrated Social Security's Diamond Anniversary (well, some of us did) the usual rumblings against the best and brightest of our safety net programs could be heard, but since they were far off and not unlike anything we had heard before (and since the Democrats were still in the majority), we did the usual and just ignored them.

Two years later, they're not just rumblings, they're lightning strikes. Even the folks who have the most to gain from the continuance of Social Security are getting ready to cast their ballots for the very politicians who are not just promising but itching to kill it dead.  Mitt Romney and his cohort, the SS-hating Paul Ryan, would like nothing better than to get the chance in November to kill off all such safety nets once and for all.  If they win the presidency, we can kiss goodbye any hope of saving Social Security and its offspring, Medicare and Medicaid.  The only reform we'll see is a slow elimination or corruption or privatization of the social programs many more addled Americans have now been lulled into associating with "Big Bad Government."

The creation of the Social Security program was nothing short of a miracle.  Days after FDR was sworn in for his first term, in March, 1933, he appointed a committee to come up with a plan to help the people who had become victims of a devastating depression by giving them money.  Cash in their pockets.  Money that the oldest, the ones who couldn't work, would never have to pay back.  And they did it without judgment because they knew the people in this nation were poverty-stricken because they, the government, hadn't been governing with the best interests of the citizens in mind.  In effect, they owed them.  (Well, no, they didn't say that, but they didn't have to.)

Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law.  August 14, 1935

Roosevelt envisioned creating a long-term safety net that would eventually be self-sustained by payroll deductions when everyone got back to work, but he was adamant about the need for the Federal government to start these payments before the coffers were filled.  His idea was that the normal safety nets had long disappeared, the country was in trouble, and the government had a moral duty to help out.

President Roosevelt appealed his case for Social Security to Congress this way:

In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.

The amount necessary at this time for the initiation of unemployment compensation, old-age security, children's aid, and the promotion of public health, as outlined in the report of the Committee on Economic Security, is approximately one hundred million dollars.

(Roosevelt's message to Congress on Social Security, January 17, 1935)

 For all intents, remember, the treasury was empty, and such a request must have sounded plain loony to some.  Of course it did.  The Republicans fought him all the way, but they were in the minority and they lost.  (Interesting to note, though, that 81 Republicans in the House and 16 in the Senate voted for the Social Security Act.)
Three years after the law was enacted he went before the American people and talked about what it meant for the country:

Five years ago the term "social security" was new to American ears. Today it has significance for more than forty million men and women workers whose applications for old-age insurance accounts have been received; this system is designed to assure them an income for life after old age retires them from their jobs.

It has significance for the needy men, women and children receiving assistance and for their families--at least two million three hundred thousand all told; with this cash assistance one million seven hundred thousand old folks are spending their last years in surroundings they know and with people they love; more than six hundred thousand dependent children are being taken care of by their own families; and about forty thousand blind people are assured of peace and security among familiar voices.

It has significance for the families and communities to whom expanded public health and child welfare services have brought added protection. And it has significance for all of us who, as citizens, have at heart the Security and the well-being of this great democracy.

These accomplishments of three years are impressive, yet we should not be unduly proud of them. Our Government in fulfilling an obvious obligation to the citizens of the country has been doing so only because the citizens require action from their Representatives. If the people, during these years, had chosen a reactionary Administration or a "do nothing" Congress, Social Security would still be in the conversational stage--a beautiful dream which might come true in the dim distant future.

But the underlying desire for personal and family security was nothing new. In the early days of colonization and through the long years following, the worker, the farmer, the merchant, the man of property, the preacher and the idealist came here to build, each for himself, a stronghold for the things he loved. The stronghold was his home; the things he loved and wished to protect were his family, his material and spiritual possessions.

His security, then as now, was bound to that of his friends and his neighbors. But as the Nation has developed, as invention, industry and commerce have grown more complex, the hazards of life have become more complex. Among an increasing host of fellow citizens, among the often intangible forces of giant industry, man has discovered that his individual strength and wits were no longer enough. This was true not only of the worker at shop bench or ledger; it was true also of the merchant or manufacturer who employed him. Where heretofore men had turned to neighbors for help and advice, they now turned to Government.

Now this is interesting to consider. The first to turn to Government, the first to receive protection from Government, were not the poor and the lowly--those who had no resources other than their daily earnings--but the rich and the strong. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the United States passed protective laws designed, in the main, to give security to property owners, to industrialists, to merchants and to bankers. True, the little man often profited by this type of legislation; but that was a by-product rather than a motive.

Taking a generous view of the situation, I think it was not that Government deliberately ignored the working man but that the working man was not sufficiently articulate to make his needs and his problems known. The powerful in industry and commerce had powerful voices, both individually and as a group. And whenever they saw their possessions threatened, they raised their voices in appeals for government protection.

It was not until workers became more articulate through organization that protective labor legislation was passed. While such laws raised the standards of life, they still gave no assurance of economic security. Strength or skill of arm or brain did not guarantee a man a job; it did not guarantee him a roof; it did not guarantee him the ability to provide for those dependent upon him or to take care of himself when he was too old to work.

Long before the economic blight of the depression descended on the Nation, millions of our people were living in wastelands of want and fear. Men and women too old and infirm to work either depended on those who had but little to share, or spent their remaining years within the walls of a poorhouse. Fatherless children early learned the meaning of being a burden to relatives or to the community. Men and women, still strong, still young, but discarded as gainful workers, were drained of self-confidence and self-respect.

The millions of today want, and have a right to, the same security their forefathers sought--the assurance that with health and the willingness to work they will find a place for themselves in the social and economic system of the time.

("A Social Security Program Must Include All Those Who Need Its Protection." RADIO ADDRESS ON THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT. AUGUST 15, 1938)

This is what we're fighting to save.  The moral code of this country, as spelled out by the founders, has always dictated that government is there to serve the needs of the people.  Sometimes that's ignored, as Roosevelt himself infers in his radio address, but it's never forgotten.

Even now, it's not forgotten.  Not by us.  Reading through Roosevelt's statements on Social Security, it's clear that he intended to work tirelessly to do what was right for the people still suffering from the effects of a man-made, wholly unnecessary depression.  We need to remind our leaders today--also to blame for a wholly unnecessary depression--that social safety nets are an obligation they've inherited, and are, in fact, an obligation they agreed to when they took their oaths of office and vowed to uphold the constitution.

So let's get to the meat of it: President Obama is no Roosevelt.  Not even close.  But in my heart of hearts I believe he knows in his heart of hearts what he should do. So far he hasn't done it well, but there's no denying baby steps have been taken.  He dropped the ball early on and hasn't recovered it yet, but there's hope.  With President Obama, there's hope.

If Mitt Romney is elected president, either because of or in spite of his running mate, in all likelihood the Republicans will take both the House and the Senate, and that will be the end of Obamacare, of Social Security, of Medicare and Medicaid, of any chance at easing the conditions of the poor and middle class and rebuilding a country nearly devastated by a man-made economic crisis not of our choosing and not of our making.

How do we get that message out?  I don't know, but it can't hurt to keep reminding voters that once upon a time, in conditions much like these, something happened in this country that changed us forever.  Our government took charge and did, not just what they were elected to do, but what they were morally obligated to do. They took care of a nation in mortal pain.  And the country survived.  It thrived.  So much so that, until this latest man-made fiasco, we were still seen as the greatest nation in the world.

We could keep reminding them of that.

Obamacare Ruled Not a Four-Letter-Word. Damn!

Today was the day Chief Justice Roberts creeped out the Republicans by doing the unthinkable:  He figured out a way to square the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) with the constitution and gave it his okay (if not exactly his blessing).  Such a donnybrook!  The Dems couldn't believe it, but the Republicans couldn't believe it even more. 

I won't be explaining the whole thing here, not because I can't (I really can't), but because every person with a keyboard has already weighed in on what it all means.  But even though I didn't know exactly what was going on, I was on top of it all, even before the pundits on TV.  At the very moment the decision came down, the supersmart bunch at SCOTUSblog were live-blogging from inside the courtroom, sending out the minute-by-minute news as it happened, ticker-tape style, and I have to tell you, I got goosebumps!  Because there I was, in the loop, watching those guys on MSNBC having to wait until Pete Williams came outside to tell them what had gone on inside--which, ha!  I already knew!  (Click here for SCOTUSblog's simple explanation of what happened at the Supreme Court today.  It'll explain everything.  At least for today.)

Yes, it was quite a day  The decision came down around 10:15 AM or thereabouts, and within minutes the screws began to come loose.

Both Fox and CNN jumped the gun and told their viewers Obamacare had been declared unconstitutional.

Petitions to impeach Chief Justice Roberts appeared and people came out of nowhere to sign the things.  One petition got 124 signatures before it shut down, for reasons known only to the petitioners.  Another one was at 28 signatures by 9 PM (including the ubiquitous Seemore Butts of Geneva, Il.), hoping for 1000 names by whenever.

Matthew Davis, a former GOP spokesman in Michigan wrote an email right after the decision that moved swiftly through the blogosphere,   The Koch-fueled Mackinac Center published it on their CAPCON page (Michigan Capitol Confidential), along with some straight reporting that gave no indication of where they stand when it comes to (cough, gag, retch) Obamacare.

A Lansing-based civil rights attorney who has held positions with the Michigan Republican Party and Department of Corrections, questioned in a widely distributed email today whether armed rebellion was justified over the Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare.

Matthew Davis sent the email moments after the Supreme Court ruling to numerous new media outlets and limited government activists with the headline: “Is Armed Rebellion Now Justified?”
He stressed that he wasn't calling for armed rebellion but added his own personal note to the email, saying, “… here’s my response. And yes, I mean it.”

He said he was writing with an "eye toward asking at what point the Republic is in peril."
“There are times government has to do things to get what it wants and holds a gun to your head," Davis said. "I’m saying at some point, we have to ask the question when do we turn that gun around and say no and resist.

"Was the American Revolution justified?”

Davis said the key word was “justified,” adding that a peaceful resolution toward changing the law is the goal. He said rebellion often is the end result of people who get backed against a wall and wondered when that might occur when it comes to the Obamacare ruling.

Michael Savage offered up the reason Roberts voted the way he did:  It was his epilepsy medication.  Yeah.  That's the ticket.

In the Twitterverse,  a rash of tweets went viral, much to the consternation of the original tweeters who swear they never, ever, ever tweeted that if Obamacare wasn't overturned they were moving to Canada!

And that was just today.

FRIDAY FOLLIES: Big News about Osama, Bad News for Trump, Wacky news from Bloomberg

Well, okay, I guess you've heard the big news of the week--the finding and killing of Osama bin Laden.  Most of us thought the whole operation was pretty impressive--the stealth helicopters, the brave Navy Seals, the efficient execution of the world's worst enemy--it was all good.  But for ex-presidential candidate Donald Trump it was the worst news possible after a really, really horrible weekend.  First, on Saturday night he arrived at the White House Correspondents Dinner thinking he was there as an honored guest of the Washington Post.  He wasn't even suspicious when he was booed in the lobby outside the banquet room. No, he told a reporter, the president wouldn't be mentioning his name.

Once inside and seated he looked around and was pleased to see how much closer to the podium he was than the people behind him.  He ignored the fact that there were people in front of him who were much closer as he observed with dismay that the cameras weren't in a position to be trained on him at all times. But then he perked up when the president did, in fact, mention his name!  And, as is so often the case with Trump, it all went down hill from there.  The president spent many minutes making fun of him, and when Obama sat down, some creep from SNL took over and gave it to him even worse.  The camera finally swung to Trump and caught his scowl, his pout, his utter inability to laugh at the worldview of himself.

On Sunday it was all anyone was talking about.  The embarrassing videos were replayed over and over again and the jokes just kept on coming.  But at least "Celebrity Apprentice" would be airing that night and Trump, in his own mind, saw a vindication in the expected huge numbers of watchers.  Ha!

But alas, it was not to be.  Shortly after 10 PM came an announcement from the White House that the president would be addressing the nation soon on matters of National Security.  Osama Bin Laden was dead.  Immediately the networks cut into regularly scheduled programming and went to their newsrooms.  "You're fired" would not be the highlight of this Sunday night.  Gaahhh!  (The comments on that linked site are hilarious.)




CNN hides video of Star Anchor Wolf Blitzer talking about having to apply his own makeup the night Obama announced bin Laden's death.  If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it myself.  It was at almost precisely 11:40 AM on Monday, May 2 on CNN Newsroom. Drew Griffin asked Wolf to comment on where he was when he heard the news that Obama was going to announce something big at 10:30 PM on Sunday night.  Wolf begins to sputter--apparently he was caught totally off guard by the question, as well as the announcement.  He launches into a play-by-play about getting dressed and rushing to the studio, where he finds--to his utter shock--that there are no makeup people there yet!   He looks around, and grabs the first powder puff he sees and. . .powders his own forehead before going in front of the camera.  (As icing on the cake for this Blitzer watcher, I'm watching in shuddery fascination as a gasping, wide-eyed Wolf pantomimes the patting of the puff on his brow.)

I've looked in vain for the video of this conversation, but it's probably to CNN's credit that they've relegated it to Nowhereland.  (If anybody happens to find it, my gratitude will know no bounds if you pass it along.)  The mystery of the ages is why Blitzer is still on television.  This bizarre exchange on the morning after Osama bin Laden's death deepens the mystery.  He either knows too many secrets or he's somebody's nephew.  Watching him one can drift off and forget that this is real and not SNL.  Who could parody Wolf Blitzer as well as he parodies himself?  As an interviewer he's worse than any sappy local newscaster in the deepest, dustiest hinterlands.  His idea of a brilliant question is either "What were you thinking, as. . .?" or "How horrible was it?"  As he might put it, "Dreadful".

 As if to prove that New York City is the center of all the entire universe, their Mayor Bloomberg has decided it's his job to decree that immigrants wanting to come to the U.S should only be allowed in if they promise to detour around NYC and head to Detroit.  (No, I mean it--this isn't a SNL skit or one of those crazy nightmares we Michiganders are so prone to sweat through.)

This is what he said on "Meet the Press" via the AP: 

“Take a look at the big, old, industrial cities, Detroit, for example,” he said. “They’ve got a great mayor, Mayor (Dave) Bing, but the population has left. You’ve got to do something about that. And if I were the federal government, assuming you could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together, you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agreed to go to Detroit and live there for five or ten years. Start businesses, take jobs, whatever.”
Detroit has seen its population fall from 1.8 million in the 1950 U.S. Census to 714,000 in 2010. The population dropped 26 percent in the last decade alone.
“You would populate Detroit overnight because half the world wants to come here,” Bloomberg said. “We still are the world’s greatest democracy. We still have hope that if you want to have a better life for yourself and your kids, this is where you want to come.”

Is that nuts, or what?  Where are these jobs that Bloomberg wants these people to take?  If they were in Detroit what makes him think Detroiters wouldn't be taking them?  Start businesses?  Couldn't Americans who are already here do that if it were that simple?  Nothing at all against immigrants--we've had a few in my family, too--but Bloomberg isn't talking about inviting them to Detroit.  He's talking about forcing them to settle here.  Making a law.  And he said it out loud.  On national television.  Does anybody else think that's weird?

Interesting, too,  that he wants to put immigrants on a fast train to Motown when his own state is losing two congressional seats after the last census count showed a significant drop in population in all but the area in and around New York City.  Has he looked outside lately?

Moment of Sublime:  This morning  at dagblog, William K. Wolfrum posted a link to a self-obituary by Derek Miller, a Canadian blogger who died Tuesday of colorectal cancer.  He asked his family to post his last blog, about his own death, on the day he died.

Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.

If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.

Photo:  Vancouver Sun

 
You might wonder why I chose this particular story for my Moment of Sublime, but when you read his last blog, you'll understand.  It is about as life-affirming as anything you're ever again going to read.  My heart goes out to his family, but how lucky they were to have him in their lives.  RIP, Derek Miller.


Cartoon of the Week:

A Mike Luckovich cartoon

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