Wednesday
Sep302015
The Commentariat -- October 1, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
Afternoon Update:
Republicans on the Planned Parenthood Inquisition complained about Cecile Richards' high salary. BUT Margo Sanger-Katz & Claire Miller of the New York Times: "Her pay puts her in the top 1 percent of all earners in the United States. But her salary is actually on the low side when it is compared with executive pay at other large nonprofits. When compared with the pay for hospital executives running nonprofit health care organizations of similar budgets, it is actually well below the norm."
*****
David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "With only hours to spare on the last day of the fiscal year, Congress approved a temporary spending measure to avert a shutdown and keep the federal government operating through Dec. 11. In the House, the measure was approved only because of strong support by Democrats.... In one last display of their fury, House Republicans on Tuesday adopted another resolution to cut off government financing to Planned Parenthood. The resolution was to be sent to the Senate, where Democrats were certain to block it.... The temporary spending bill does nothing to resolve the core disputes between Republicans and the White House, setting up even bigger battles in the months ahead." ...
... David Lawder & Richard Cowan of Reuters: "President Barack Obama signed the spending extension into law later on Wednesday, the White House said in a statement."
Carl Hulse & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "A long-awaited bipartisan proposal to cut mandatory prison sentences for nonviolent offenders and promote more early release from federal prisons is scheduled to be disclosed Thursday by an influential group of senators who hope to build on backing from conservatives, progressives and the White House. The comprehensive plan, which has the crucial support of Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who heads the Judiciary Committee, is the product of intense and difficult negotiations between Republicans and Democrats who hope to reduce the financial and societal costs of mass incarceration that have hit minority communities particularly hard."
The Hypocrites Revolt. Manu Raju, et al., of CNN: "House Republicans on Wednesday sharply repudiated Rep. Kevin McCarthy's comments that suggested the Benghazi oversight committee had succeeded by tarnishing Hillary Clinton, saying it undermined their party's messaging on a key issue and raised questions about his ability to be the GOP's top communicator.... Speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer..., Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said McCarthy should apologize, saying the California Republican made an 'absolutely inappropriate statement.' Privately, Republicans were outraged by the remarks, saying the House majority leader had given Democrats unfounded ammunition to argue that the committee's investigation is squarely being driven by politics...." ...
... Steve M. on House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's supposed gaffe, acknowledging that the Benghaaazi! investigations are nothing more than partisan strategy to undermine Hillary Clinton: "Beyond the acknowledgment of an obvious fact -- that the committee's goals are entirely political -- notice that McCarthy doesn't even bother with the right's usual phony sanctimony about Benghazi.... I guess the pretense that this is about lost lives is being dropped.... The conventional wisdom about McCarthy is that he's not one of the lunatic zealots, but in this interview he's certainly trying to establish his lunatic-zealot cred." See also Tom McCarthy's report linked under Presidential Race. ...
... Ed Kilgore: "The idea that Republican members of Congress will clutch their pearls in horror that McCarthy defended their performance is a big reach, in my opinion. These folks are so beyond the norms of behavior that you'd expect of your children that it's absurd to hold them to those kind of standards. When one of them gets caught in a lie, that's a badge of honor, and it's not even remotely problematic to get caught telling the truth if the truth is that you've been lying."
Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Speaker John Boehner secretly met with Rep. Trey Gowdy Tuesday to encourage him to jump into the race for House majority leader, a dramatic attempt by the chamber's top Republican to try to influence the intraparty election.... But Gowdy (R-S.C.) said late Tuesday that he had no interest in running for the No. 2 position in House leadership, and he would prefer to remain atop the Benghazi select committee." ...
... Here's Rachel Maddow's segment on Kevin McCarthy's excellent verbal skills. Pathetic :
Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: John Boehner's "failures, political and substantive, were due mostly to cowardice.... Boehner adopted an extreme version of the so-called Hastert rule, named for his predecessor as Speaker, Dennis Hastert, who is now under indictment for alleged financial crimes connected to blackmail payments (he has pleaded not guilty). The Hastert rule holds that the Speaker should never allow a vote on a bill unless it's supported by a majority of the Republican caucus. But Boehner's approach was to keep bills off the floor that were opposed by a minority of Republicans -- the Tea Party caucus, which only numbers about fifty -- effectively giving them a veto over the work of the House.... And what did Boehner's cowardice in the face of the Tea Party stalwarts get him? They forced him out anyway. Boehner built his career around keeping his job, and he still failed." Thanks to Diane for the link.
The Chaffetz File. Carol Leonnig & Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "An assistant director of the Secret Service urged that unflattering information the agency had in its files about a congressman critical of the service be made public, according to a government watchdog report released Wednesday. 'Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out,' Assistant Director Edward Lowery wrote in an e-mail to a fellow director on March 31, commenting on an internal file that was being widely circulated inside the service. 'Just to be fair.' Two days later, a news Web site reported that Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, had applied to be a Secret Service agent in 2003 and been rejected.... The report by John Roth, inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, singled out Lowery, in part because of his senior position at the agency. The report also cited Lowery's e-mail as the one piece of documentary evidence... of the desire for the information to be public." Although dozens of Secret Service members knew about the info on Chaffetz, the agency's director Joseph Clancey claims he was not in the loop. CW: Oh, shame on the leaker(s) & ha ha ha.
Amanda Marcotte in Slate: "Despite all the hand-waving about fetal tissue, Tuesday's [Planned Parenthood] hearings were a confirmation that the attacks on Planned Parenthood are a proxy for the larger religious-right movement to reverse the sexual revolution brought to Americans by feminism and reliable contraception.... Deluging people with bloody fetus pictures isn't dissuading them from their enthusiasm for affordable contraception that makes stress-free recreational sex possible. Watching Republicans, mostly men, gang up on Cecile Richards indicates the deep contempt for women that drives the anti-choice movement." ...
... Gail Collins: "Richards was fine, whenever she could get a word in edgewise. She explained several times that Planned Parenthood's federal funding was mainly just Medicaid payments for treating low-income patients. However this is a concept that her opponents made it clear they plan to never get their heads around." ...
... Christine Hauser of the New York Times: "Daniel Handler, the author of children's books under the pen name Lemony Snicket, announced with his wife, Lisa Brown, an author and illustrator, that they are donating $1 million to Planned Parenthood.... Mr. Handler and Ms. Brown posted the announcement the day before the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, testified on Capitol Hill over what she called 'outrageous accusations' by Republicans who said that her organization profits from the sale of fetal tissue." Thanks to contributor mae f. for the link.
Dana Milbank: "Fresh from her triumph Tuesday over the Brookings Institution in which she forced the ouster of a corporate-backed scholar..., [Elizabeth Warren] was at Lutheran Church of the Reformation on Capitol Hill, firing up a crowd of housing activists Wednesday afternoon.... Warren blasted the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, both run by Obama appointees, for selling troubled mortgages to hedge fund investors at a discount...."
Donald McNeil of the New York Times: "Everyone who has H.I.V. should immediately be put on antiretroviral triple therapy and everyone at risk of becoming infected should be offered protective doses of similar drugs, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday as it issued new H.I.V. treatment and prevention guidelines."
Annie Lowrey of New York on how systemic tax evasion by large corporations fuels inequality. And makes a mockery of the "free market."
Linda Greenhouse: Nobody likes Chief Justice John Roberts.
The Quiet Bigotry of the Pope. Laurie Goodstein & Jim Yardley of the New York Times: "For nearly eight hours, Vatican officials refused to confirm or deny that the meeting [with Kim Davis] had occurred, before finally confirming it on Wednesday afternoon.... The episode added a new dimension to an American tour in which the pope drew rapturous throngs and surprised admiration from liberal Americans thrilled to hear a pope stake out left-leaning positions on poverty, the environment and immigration. Suddenly, on Wednesday, religious conservatives were cheering....,putting the Davis visit together with the pope's subtle speech on religious freedom on Saturday and his unscheduled stop in Washington to see the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns that is suing the federal government over the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate." ...
... Charles Pierce: "Given this pope's deft gift for strategic ambiguity and shrewd public relations, it's hard for me to understand how he could commit such a hamhanded blunder as picking a side in this fight.... This is, obviously, the dumbest thing this Pope ever has done. It undermines everything he accomplished on his visit here. It undermines his pastoral message, and it diminishes his stature by involving him in a petty American political dispute. A secret meeting with this nutball? That undermines any credibility he had accrued on the issue of openness and transparency. Moreover, it means that he barbered the truth during the press conference he held on his flight back to Rome, in which he spoke vaguely about religious liberty, and freedom of conscience...." ...
... Patrick Scott in the Hill: "... whose liberties were truly under attack in this scenario? The county official who refused service to a portion of her community, or those members whose right to marriage, legally upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, was being denied? Conscientious objection, it's true, is a right of an individual citizen. But when employed by the government, the role of 'citizen' is subjugated by the obligations that come with representing the local, city, state or federal government. In this capacity, the individual is no longer a single voice, but the voice of an entire institution." ...
... Pete Williams of NBC News: "Kentucky Gov. Steven Beshear, urging a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed against him by Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, says her legal claims 'demonstrate the absurdity' of her position. In court documents filed late Tuesday, Beshear argued that because he never ordered county clerks to do anything in issuing marriage licenses, her lawsuit against him has no merit."
Presidential Race
Matea Gold & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton's front-runner status in the Democratic presidential primary fight was jolted Wednesday by a new and unexpected vulnerability: a financial one. The more than $28 million that Clinton's campaign announced Wednesday it had raised in the third quarter was nearly matched by the $26 million that Sen. Bernie Sanders brought in, thanks to small contributions that came in for him at a faster clip than even in President Obama's campaigns." ...
... Natalie Andrews of the Wall Street Journal (not firewalled): "With hours to go before the third quarter campaign finance filing deadline, the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said it reached its goal of one million individual online contributions. He is the first candidate of the 2016 campaign to announce it had reached this number -- and he reached it faster than President Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012."
Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "A day after a top Republican touted the impact on Hillary Clinton's poll numbers of a congressional probe into the 2012 Benghazi attacks, the former secretary of state condemned the comments as 'deeply distressing'. House majority leader Kevin McCarthy said in an interview Tuesday night that the House select committee on Benghazi was part of a Republican 'strategy to fight and win'....'When I hear a statement like that, which demonstrates unequivocally that this was always meant to be a partisan political exercise, I feel like it does a grave disservice and dishonors not just the memory of the four that we lost, but of everybody who has served our country,' Clinton said, according to a transcript of [an] interview [with Al Sharpton to air Sunday on MSNBC]." ...
... Jennifer Epstein of Bloomberg: "Hillary Clinton and her fiercest defenders couldn't have said it better themselves. Instead, the Republican leading the race to replace John Boehner as House speaker said it for them, boasting Tuesday that his party has spent nearly three years dragging her through investigations of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi in hopes of doing serious damage to her presidential campaign.... Earlier, Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon called McCarthy's words 'a damning display of honesty by the possible next speaker of the House,' who has 'just confessed that the committee set up to look into the deaths of four brave Americans at Benghazi is a taxpayer-funded sham. This confirms Americans' worst suspicions about what goes on in Washington.'" ...
... Michael Shear & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Three emails sent to Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2011 when she was secretary of state contained information that should have been considered 'secret,' the government's second-highest classification, according to a State Department review of about 6,300 pages of her emails made public on Wednesday." ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "The latest trove of Hillary Clinton's emails show how the former secretary of state dealt with with major geopolitical events.... But the messages made public by the State Department also show the more personal side of Clinton.... Here are a few of the must-read emails...." ...
... Rachel Bade, et al., of Politico: "Hackers tried to target Hillary Clinton's homemade personal system at least five times in one day while she served as Secretary of State, according to new emails released Wednesday under a court order. Clinton received on Aug. 3, 2011, at least five messages that appear to contain virus-laden attachments.... Another email released Wednesday suggests that even before the August 2011 phishing scam bombarded her inbox, Clinton was aware of hacking problems with personal email accounts.... 'NO ONE uses a State-issued laptop and even high officials routinely end up using their home email accounts to be able to get their work done quickly,' she wrote, suggesting they use that argument to make the case for more State technology funding in the budget. State budget cuts, she said, would 'make matters much much worse.'... Clinton agreed with her former aide's suggestion that they tell the public about how State officials routinely use their own accounts.... The RNC pounced on the chain released Wednesday, arguing that the messages suggests Clinton and her staff were well aware of the threats posed to their use of personal email systems."
Jeff Zeleny of CNN: "Vice President Joe Biden has extended his window for deciding whether to jump into the 2016 presidential campaign, several Democrats say, allowing the contest to play out even longer before he answers one of the biggest questions hanging over the race for the White House. He is not preparing for the first Democratic debate on October 13 in Las Vegas and is not expected to participate, people close to him say...."
More than everything you ever wanted to learn about Melania Trump in the New York Times (here) & the Washington Post (here.) CW: Also, People magazine has Melania on the cover, but I forget where I saw the link, & I'm not looking for it. ...
Last week, in an effort to invent some proof that Carly Fiorina had seen something that doesn't exist, her superPAC made its own YouTube video. Dahlia Lithwick (Sept. 25): "The [Fiorina superPAC] video uses spliced footage from the Grantham Collection, an unsourced image of a stillborn, and a CMP image of a Pennsylvania woman's stillborn baby, used without her permission.... The very meta nature of the enterprise stunned me -- trying to doctor doctored videotapes and still failing to produce an image that corresponds to Fiorina's narrative. It's truthiness elevated to almost cosmic levels."
... CW: Yesterday, we linked to posts suggesting that the fetus in the Center for Medical Progress was probably stillborn. Heather of Crooks & Liars: The mother -- who opposes abortion -- has confirmed that the fetus was hers & that it was stillborn at 19 weeks, & she strongly objects to use of his image in the video, which she did not authorize. ...
... David Edwards of the Raw Story, that "David Daleiden, the project lead Center for Medical Progress' anti-Planned Parenthood campaign, admitted on Wednesday that an alleged fetus on a table that GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina described during a graphic anti-abortion rant was actually from a miscarriage." But so what? "'It's the same kind of fetus,' Daleiden continued to insist." Chris Cuomo is the questioner here:
... digby, in Salon: "Just like Dick Cheney, [Carly Fiorina] makes outrageously dishonest claims, refuses to admit it when she's caught and stubbornly barrels ahead confidently insisting that her claims are true even when presented with proof that they are not.... The right actually appreciates this unwillingness to ever say you're sorry. It shows commitment to the cause." ...
... Ana Marie Cox in the Daily Beast: "Call it Car-lying. Describing things into reality is a trademark of Fiorina's, a style of mendacity that sets her apart from career politicians. Indeed, the reason she doesn't come off as a politician is she's still in marketing. At Hewlett-Packard, employees said she 'embellished' the company's 'future products, strategy and even history,' adding a fictitious personal visit from Walt Disney to the true story about Disney Studios being an early client." She even advised then-CIA Director Michael Hayden on how to lie. "... by sheer force of articulated will she has fabricated her own reality, to the point that her Super PAC spliced together a different video to illustrate just what it is she said she saw."
Lawrence Krauss of the New Yorker on "Ben Carson's scientific ignorance.... While many may debate whether his lack of public-service experience disqualifies him from serious consideration in this race, Carson's ideas about religion, science, and public office, as revealed in the past week, suggest that there are far deeper reasons to be concerned about his candidacy for the highest office in the land." Thanks to Diane for the link.
Turns out Mitt Romney cares about poor people (the 47 percent), minorities (Obama giftees) & immigrants (self-deportation). Also says Donald Trump won't win the nomination.
Beyond the Beltway
Carol Cole-Frowe & Manny Hernandez of the New York Times: "Richard E. Glossip, the death row inmate who challenged the constitutionality of Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol before the Supreme Court, was granted a stay of execution shortly before he was scheduled to be put to death here Wednesday.... 'Last minute questions were raised today about Oklahoma's execution protocol and the chemicals used for lethal injection,' [Gov. Mary] Fallin said. 'After consulting with the attorney general and the Department of Corrections, I have issued a 37-day stay of execution while the state addresses those questions and ensures it is complying fully with the protocols approved by federal courts.' A new execution date was set for Nov. 6."
AP: "An Oklahoma sheriff quickly decided to resign on Wednesday after he was indicted by a grand jury called to investigate his office following the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by a volunteer deputy. Tulsa sheriff Stanley Glanz was indicted on two misdemeanor counts. The grand jury accused the longtime law enforcement officer of refusing to perform his official duties for not promptly releasing documents in an internal investigation related to the volunteer deputy, Robert Bates, one of Glanz's longtime friends."
He Should Go Eat Worms. Nick Gass: "Scott Walker remains unpopular among Wisconsin voters in the first poll conducted since the Republican governor ended his presidential campaign. More than six in 10 Wisconsin voters, 62 percent, do not want Walker to run for a third term as governor in 2018, according to the results of a new Marquette University Law Poll out Wednesday. Just 35 percent said he should seek a third term. Walker's approval rating slid to a new low: 37 percent, with 59 percent of voters disapproving."
The Chinese Are Killing Us! Joseph Berger of the New York Times: "The New York Military Academy, a 126-year-old boarding school whose graduates include the Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, was bought on Wednesday for close to $16 million at a bankruptcy auction by a nonprofit group controlled by Chinese investors, who told academy officials that they would keep it open as a high school." CW: Ha ha. Evidently the Donald couldn't afford to keep his beloved alma mater alive, but the Chinese could.
News Ledes
NBC News: "Twelve people, including five American service members, were killed early Friday when a U.S. C-130 transport plane crashed while taking off from an airport in Afghanistan, a U.S. military official said."
Weather Channel: "Hurricane Joaquin strengthened to major hurricane status as a Category 3 storm Wednesday night, and is now hammering the central Bahamas. Prospects remain worrisome for the U.S. mainland as the official forecast continues with a chance of the East Coast seeing its first landfalling hurricane in 15 months." ...
... Update: "Hurricane Joaquin intensified to an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm Thursday afternoon, and continues to hammer the central Bahamas with hurricane-force winds, storm surge flooding and torrential rain. The odds of the U.S. mainland seeing its first landfalling hurricane in 15 months are dwindling as the forecast track continues to trend farther to the east. The best chance for an East Coast landfall is now shifting toward New England, but if Joaquin's center should reach land there, it would likely do so as a tropical storm rather than a hurricane."
New York Times: "In a second day of raids in Syria, Russian warplanes carried out a new round of airstrikes on Thursday that -- contrary to Moscow's assertions -- appeared to be targeting not the Islamic State but a rival insurgent coalition." ...
... New York Times: "Russian aircraft carried out a bombing attack against Syrian opposition fighters on Wednesday, including at least one group trained by the C.I.A., eliciting angry protests from American officials and plunging the complex sectarian war there into dangerous new territory. Russia's entry into the Syrian conflict, foreshadowed by a rapid military buildup in the past three weeks at an air base in Latakia, Syria, makes the possibility of a political settlement in Syria more difficult and creates a new risk of inadvertent incidents between American and Russian warplanes flying in the same area."
Washington Post: "Afghan troops punctured the Taliban's grip on the northern city of Kunduz Thursday, pushing into the center of the city as part of a U.S.-backed counter-offensive aimed at restoring public confidence in the country's beleaguered military."
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Reader Comments (17)
Rachel Maddow lead with a piece that showed Kevin McCarthy to be amazingly stupid, beyond his well publicized gaffe on the Sean Hannity show. The man can barely speak English, at least in the many clips shown. As far as I can tell, this story hasn't yet been posted to the Maddow website, but probably will be soon. It's worth looking at, considering the Speaker is third in line to the presidency.
McCarthy comes across as an idiot.
@Victoria D.: A few days ago, Dana Milbank focused on McCarthy's problems with his native tongue.
Marie
It has been delicious here in Wisconsin enjoying analyses of Walker's demise as a national candidate, even as we brace ourselves for the attack on the state's civil service system which is one of the best in the country.
Just wanted to point out a small example of our media fluffing up Walker's image: in the linked Politico story, much is made of his low presidential polling numbers in the state (before he dropped out). However, the public TV station in Madison, as well as many print publications, touted his 25% support as evidence that "Wisconsin likes Scott Walker."
I get very tired of the line that Wisconsin deserves Walker because he was elected "three times"--one of those times being surviving a recall. There are several reasons for his success in the state, and one of them is that the media is in his pocket.
Oh, Lordy, lordy looks like we have another politician whose language skills resemble those of Palin and Bush. Yes, Victoria, I saw the same segment of Maddow where Rachel could hardly contain herself from collapsing in laughter. Not having listened to McCarthy I was taken aback not only at the garbled speech, but the lukewarm tone of his voice along with a sense that this is not the brightest bulb. This is the guy we want as Speaker? Someone called McCarthy a "political hack"––spends most of his time raising money for Republican house members. Hasn't done anything of significance except named two post offices.
So could we conclude the House does not want a firm father in charge but a guy like Kevin that they can handle with ease and run roughshod over like naughty children hell bent on destruction?
Check out Charles Pierce's latest analysis of the pope's meeting with Davis. I think he's got it right.... it was a set-up.
I would like to propose for the DSM a new psychiatric disorder, PPD
Politician Personality Disorder. The characteristics include:
NPD- Narcissistic personality disorder
Sociopathic type lying
Diligent effort to avoid information or anything that can be called a fact.
I was thinking of naming this RPD but to be fair there are a few cases of DPD. It is interesting that the vast majority of R's running for POTUS fit the profile.
OMF'nG.
I have to admit that I've never actually heard much said by Kevin McCarthy except the bullshit boilerplate he mumbled when raised to his present position of authority. Since I don't have cable, my exposure to his speech problems has been severely limited. Something to be thankful for, I suppose, because this guy seems like a prime example of the species Politicus Dunderheadius.
Looking back at the three previous wingnut speakers who have darkened the capitol dome with their presence over the last 20 years, we find a diminishment of skills, brains, and political talent, as we move from one to the next starting with the Newt, moving on to Denny Hastert, then to Boehner, and now, Speaker Apparent, Kevin McCarthy, Mr. Brainy Eloquence.
The first was a self-promoting, bomb-throwing infant with a penchant for deception and an ego that got him, finally, tossed out. The second was a sock puppet now on trial for lying to the FBI about a former boyfriend who was blackmailing him and....Oh Christ, these Wingers and their sexual escapades!...bringing us to Boehner, a teary-eyed, drunk immobilized by fear and uncertainty about how to maintain his balance with the gavel in one hand and a drink in the other. And now a guy you'd have second thoughts about bringing in to speak to first graders (most of whom have a better command of the English language).
Now compare those three chuckleheads to Nancy Pelosi, a real speaker. A serious person with experience, gravitas, and the political savvy and will to get things done.
What the hell is it about the Republican Party? Why so many incompetent bird brains and bug-eyed zealots who don't know the difference between the legislative process and a game of Chutes and Ladders? I think the reason is neither they nor the people who send them to Washington have any interest in governing. They couldn't possibly care less. So what difference does it make if their disregard for democracy and the nation's welfare places a guy two steps from the presidency who says stuff like "...[the president] also stand by a Russia blackmails and entire continent, all the while keeping the place of the band on America."
What.The.Fuck was that all about?
This is also why complete morons like Louie Gohmert, narcissistic nihilists like Ted Cruz, and adolescent pants-shitters like Tom Cotton make it to congress and compete for a chance to run the country into the ground.
So now we're about to have a Speaker of the House of Representatives whose sum total of legislative achievements is naming a couple of buildings. Not erecting them. Not designing an innovative program for what goes on inside them. Just putting a sign out front with a name on it. Boy, I'd be so proud if I were a Republican voter! Not one building. TWO buildings. Two WHOLE buildings.
But hey, that's more than Ted Cruz has accomplished.
Those Republicans. They sure can get it done, can't they?
"It's the same kind of fetus."
(Ah, yes - Let's hear it for The Sanctity of The Unborn!)
While I suppose I should not be surprised, I am - nonetheless - horrified by David Daleiden (thank you, Marie, for posting this) . . . both by his crude and dispassionate rationale *and* by the exploitation of this woman's miscarriage.
That this mother referred to her stillborn as male ('she strongly objects to the use of his image') . . . "heartbreaking" doesn't even come close.
I can assure Herr Deleiden that bringing a life into the world - successfully or otherwise - is both personal and profound. And that, whether joyously full-term or grief-stricken-ly stillborn, neither outcome ever reduces to 'the same'; neither inspires dispassion; neither deserves exploitation.
Sickened To The Core
@pat: Thanks for contributing. Pierce's post is here. He speculates that Davis was among a boatload of people a conservative bishop ran by the Pope, & Francis may not have known who Davis was. Pierce's theory is plausible, but it's just theory.
It is extraordinary that Francis seemed to undermine his exhausting tour by giving a thumbs-up to Davis. So maybe it's true that he just wasn't paying attention. A lot of politicians & other leaders find themselves in embarrassing photo-ops with all manner of jerks they don't know anything about.
Marie
The theory floated by Charlie Pierce about Pope Frankie's meeting with St. Kim of Redneckia is entirely plausible. Francis seems like a pretty cagey fellow in terms of his political radar. He has an agenda and he realizes that the two hats he wears, leader of church and leader of a political entity, need to be shifted and angled with great precision.
That being said, as Charlie points out, the Vatican is a hive of ambitious, crafty schemers almost all of whom are where they are because of two exceptionally conservative popes, Wojtyla and Ratzinger, the second of which could give any Mafia don a run for Most Machiavellian Asshole.
Then there's the fact that world leaders are often beset by requests for audiences (especially popes) and attract all manner of publicity seekers like Redneckia Kim, and it's not usually the pope who lines them up and vets them, meaning it's entirely possible that someone with their own agenda could slide a ringer into that line. Then add to this the fact that there is no national branch of the Catholic Church more conservative than the United States church. It's a Murderer's Row of wingnut heavy hitters, placed there by Ratzinger to have his back.
So if Francis got punked by one of Ratzinger's moles, I'd not be a bit surprised. Look at it this way. Francis' entire US tour, when he was in control of the message, was resolute, well thought out, and executed most astutely. Given such a professional performance, it seems unlikely that at the end of this opera, he'd be singing "De Old Folks at Home" and "Shall We Gather at the River" with a cheap, law-breaking publicity hound, stinking up a really fine bit of drama with a god-awful croaking sour note as his finale. Might as well bribe the brass section of the Metropolitan opera to do the Sad Trumpet thing at the end of Die Walküre.
I'm not suggesting that the guy will be showing up at drag clubs and walking in gay pride parades anytime soon. The official stance of the Church is what it is. But he's been trying to sheath the drop forged steel hammer his predecessors have used to whack anyone not toeing the line. Meeting with a self-promoting jackass like Davis is like having someone spray paint "God Hates Gays" on the side of the Pope-Mobile he's using to give the exact opposite message.
Oh, and one other loose end. I've seen comments to the extent that the pope needs to come out and explain himself over this possible gaffe. (Sidebar: if, as some suggest, it wasn't a gaffe, but an expression of the pope's actual feelings, he had plenty of opportunities to make his true position known in a much more official and appropriate manner than an "attaboy" to Kim Fucking Davis.)
I don't think he will. If he was punked, and it looks like he may have been, he may decide to exact a proper punishment for making the pope look bad. But it won't be in public. Plus, few leaders like to come out and admit that one of their subordinates had just shoved a ramrod up their ass. He's as much admitting that he wasn't really in charge and didn't know what was going on (although at that point in the trip, he was just doing what these guys do, and it would be an entirely believable explanation, but it wouldn't look very....er...popely).
But since he's the Pontiff, he can easily recover from this. He'll have plenty of time to do and say things that distance himself from St. Kim and her brigade of haters, if he so chooses, without publicly slamming the people who set him up.
Are you guys as sick as I am at reading about yet another "temporary spending measure"?
I've lived my whole life without hearing about one temporary spending bill after another. It's only since the 'baggers rode into town caressing their guns and Bibles that things have gotten so far out of hand.
They use the federal piggy bank to try to break the country to their will. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, historians will look back on the 'bagger era and wipe their collective brow that those assholes are out of sight in the rear view mirror.
Brain dead cowardly supporters of the NRA, another banner day for you all!
Happy Hour and the NRA is buying. Congressmen, that is.
Another big shooting, deaths in double digits, Wayne LaPierre, beside himself as usual when these things happen, dancing on the ceiling, wiggling his little woody. Dozens more innocent Americans shot, for FREEEDOM! Dammit. At least 13 dead and 20 injured! Whoopee!
But stay tuned, that death toll could go up, up UP!
Thank you Jesus, for gun nuts and a SHITload of weapons! We really are exceptional.
Akhilleus: short term spending bills are not a product of the Tea Party invasion, but they did become common in the 1980s with the Reagan gang, So, yes, due to wingers, but not TP per se. My very favorite was the Continuing Resolution (CR) associated with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings in the mid-80's, which solved all of our fiscal problems by capping fed spending. Abrogated so fast it was dizzying. Fed program managers got used to checking the daily funding status like the weather.
The budget process has been chickenshit since Reagan.
Kevin McCarthy couldn't pass my intermediate English class. I have French students, 18 years old, that speak better than him. French students! I don't know about your knowledge of the French speaking English, but it ain't pretty. Not that Americans can talk of course.
I'm actually thinking about compiling his bullshit with subtitles and using it to find the errors. I'll definitely make a few sly remarks about how this is one of America's finest here. That should make them feel better about their own speaking levels.
@safari:
Good luck with parsing a McCarthy sentence!
Marie
@ Marie
Haha, I thought about that right after I hit send...well shit, first I'd have to figure out WTF he's trying to say in the first place... "all the while keeping the place of the band on America." That shit's deep!