The Commentariat -- May 21, 2013
Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post: "... it appeared increasingly likely that residents who lost homes and businesses [in the Oklahoma tornado] would turn to the federal government for emergency disaster aid. That could put the state's two Republican senators in an awkward position. Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, both Republicans, are fiscal hawks who have repeatedly voted against funding disaster aid for other parts of the country. They also have opposed increased funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administers federal disaster relief.... Oklahoma currently ranks third in the nation ... in terms of total federal disaster and fire declarations, which kickstart the federal emergency relief funding process.... And despite their voting record on disaster aid for other states, both Coburn and Inhofe appear to sing a different tune when it comes to such funding for Oklahoma." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...
... Emily Pierce in Roll Call: "The tornado damage near Oklahoma City is still being assessed and the death toll is expected to rise, but already Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says he will insist that any federal disaster aid be paid for with cuts elsewhere." ...
... Steve Benen: "I've seen many note overnight that Coburn is at least consistent -- there are plenty of politicians who've balked at disaster-relief funds when there's a devastating storm, only to change their minds when their constituents are among the casualties.... But while consistently is welcome, it doesn't change the questions about unnecessary callousness." ...
... ** David Sirota in Salon: "... there's an increasing chance that we will not be [prepared for weather events] thanks to the manufactured crisis known as sequestration. As the Federal Times recently reported, sequestration includes an 8.2 percent cut to the National Weather Service. According to the organization representing weather service employees, that means there is 'no way for the agency to maintain around-the-clock operations at its 122 forecasting offices' and also means 'people are going to be overworked, they're going to be tired, they're going to miss warnings.' Though the last few years saw a record number of billion-dollar weather cataclysms, the weather service remains a perennial target for budget cuts.... The good news is that the National Weather Service station in Norman, Oklahoma had a warning in effect for 16 minutes before the most recent Oklahoma City tornado hit."
Drip, Drip, Drip. Juliet Eilperin & Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "Senior White House officials, including Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, learned last month about a review by the Treasury Department's inspector general into whether the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, but they did not inform President Obama, the White House said Monday. The acknowledgement is the White House's latest disclosure in a piecemeal, sometimes confusing release of details concerning the extent to which White House officials knew of the IG's findings...." ...
... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The details provided by the White House on Monday went beyond its previous account, and may provide additional fodder for critics pressing to understand what and when the president and his team knew about the I.R.S. misconduct. During a series of television interviews on Sunday, Dan Pfeiffer, the president's senior adviser, made no mention that Mr. McDonough or others had been notified and said that the White House had 'no idea what the facts were' when [Kathryn] Ruemmler, [the White House counsel,] was informed. Mr. Carney on Monday acknowledged that she was in fact told that certain key words like 'Tea Party' and 'patriot' were used to target conservative organizations." ...
... AS of 8 pm ET Monday, video of Carney's briefing is strangely unavailable on the White House site. C-SPAN has it here. Update: the White House site has the presser up now....
... Gee, maybe this is why the White House is changing its story: posted shortly before Carney's presser -- which he delayed by an hour -- came this from Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is the chairman of the committee, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican, forwarded a six-page letter to Steven Miller, the acting I.R.S. commissioner, who announced his resignation last week. It contained 41 pointed questions about the I.R.S.'s efforts to single out for special scrutiny conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Those questions, which are to be answered by May 31, go well beyond the agency's actions and address the questions Republicans have been asking for a week: Who in the Obama administration knew what? And when did they know it?" ...
... Former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich in the Hill: "In those rare cases when information about the audit or investigation goes beyond the agency in the executive branch, it would be unprecedented in my experience for anyone outside the agency to become involved in the customary back and forth between the IG and the agency, much less to intervene with the IG before his work is complete. Intervention of this kind would be foolish, inappropriate and dangerous to those who attempted it. Such actions could be viewed as obstruction of the IG's work." CW: read the whole post. Bromwich explains quite clearly why heads didn't roll before the IG published his report. ...
... It's Tax-Cheatin' Time! Peter Kasperowicz of the Hill: "House Republicans last week proposed legislation that would suspend the ability of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to conduct audits until the IRS itself is audited by Congress. The bill, from Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), is the latest in a string of measures that have been offered in the wake of the IRS's admission it applied extra scrutiny to conservative groups over the last few years."
William Barr, Jamie Gorelick & Kenneth Wainstein in a New York Times op-ed: "As former Justice Department officials who served in the three administrations preceding President Obama's, we are worried that the criticism of the decision to subpoena telephone toll records of A.P. journalists in an important leak investigation sends the wrong message to the government officials who are responsible for our national security. While neither we nor the critics know the circumstances behind the prosecutors' decision to issue this subpoena, we do know from the government's public disclosures that the prosecutors were right to investigate this leak vigorously. The leak -- which resulted in a May 2012 article by The A.P. about the disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner -- significantly damaged our national security."
Impeachment! This is an administration embroiled in a scandal that they created. It's a cover-up. I'm not saying impeachment is the end game, but it's a possibility, especially if they keep doing little to help us learn more. -- Rep. Jason Chaffetz (RTP-Utah) ...
... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "In other words, if Obama doesn't do more to help House Republicans figure out why they should impeach him, then House Republicans might not have any other option than to impeach him." ...
... Robert Costa of the National Review: Rep. "Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, says President Barack Obama may face impeachment over his administration's response to the Benghazi attack. 'They purposefully and willfully misled the American people, and that's unacceptable,' Chaffetz tells me. 'It's part of a pattern of deception.'" Also, the State Department muzzled people whom Chaffetz wanted to interview, & the White House has been "evasive." Via Greg Sargent. ...
... Kevin Drum: "According to Chaffetz, impeachment isn't a sure thing, it's only a possibility. That's totally non-crazy. All that's left now is to find some actual presidential wrongdoing. But I'm sure that's just a technicality." ...
Josh Rogin in the Daily Beast: "Following the attack in Benghazi, senior State Department officials close to Hillary Clinton ordered the removal of [Raymond Maxwell,] a mid-level official who had no role in security decisions and has never been told the charges against him. He is now accusing Clinton's team of scapegoating him for the failures that led to the death of four Americans last year.... One person who reviewed the classified portion of the ARB report told The Daily Beast that it called out Maxwell for the specific infraction of not reading his daily classified briefings, something that person said Maxwell admitted to the ARB panel during his interview." ...
... Joan Walsh of Salon: "What's most disturbing ... is that the paranoia and anger of the Tea Party base, as echoed by an intimidated, primary-averse GOP leadership, are taken seriously by Beltway journalists, who then lose their own ability to distinguish fact from right-wing fantasy." ...
... It's the Economy, Stupid. Nate Silver: "There are a lot of theories as to why Mr. Obama's approval ratings have been unchanged in the wake of these controversies, which some news accounts and many of Mr. Obama's opponents are describing as scandals. But these analyses may proceed from the wrong premise if they assume that the stories have had no impact. It could be that the controversies are, in fact, putting some downward pressure on Mr. Obama's approval ratings -- but that the losses are offset by improved voter attitudes about the economy."
Nelson Schwartz & Charles Duhigg of the New York Times: "Even as Apple became the nation’s most profitable technology company, it avoided billions in taxes in the United States and around the world through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most experts had ever seen, Congressional investigators disclosed on Monday. The investigation is expected to set up a potentially explosive confrontation between a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief executive, at a public hearing on Tuesday." ...
... There is a technical term economists like to use for behavior like this. Unbelievable chutzpah. -- Prof. Edward Kleinbard ...
... Tony Romm of Politico: "A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook's inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 -- a characterization Apple flatly rejects."
Edward Wyatt of the New York Times: "The Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to defend its net neutrality rules against a court challenge got major support on Monday from the Supreme Court, which ruled in a separate case that regulatory agencies should usually be granted deference in interpreting their own jurisdictions. In a 6-to-3 decision, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that in cases where Congress has left ambiguous the outlines of a regulatory agency's jurisdiction, 'the court must defer to the administering agency's construction of the statute so long as it is permissible.'" ...
... AP: "Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy, dissented."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide [a] case concerning prayers at the start of town meetings...." CW: I expect the Court to endorse Jesus. ...
... RE: the Washington Post's story on the Fox "News" leak investigation linked yesterday, Josh Gerstein of Politico writes, "In September 2010, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ... ruled ... that the Justice Department was not required by law to notify Fox reporter James Rosen that prosecutors had obtained his emails in connection with an investigation into a leak about North Korean plans to test a nuclear weapon." CW: The New Republic on Lamberth, a Reagan appointee.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is really pissed off at President & Mrs. Obama. CW: I think he's wrong -- till the next-to-last paragraph -- but his complaints are worth considering.
Brookings Institution fellows Elizabeth Kneebone & Alan Berube in a New York Times op-ed: "...in the 1990s, poverty in suburbia began to accelerate at a faster rate than poverty in the cities. Sometime after the 2001 recession, more poor people lived in suburbs than in cities for the first time (even though the poverty rate remains higher in cities). The Great Recession, set off by a subprime mortgage crisis that began in suburbs and exurbs, accelerated the trend.... Policies to help poor places -- as opposed to poor people -- haven't evolved much beyond the War on Poverty's neighborhood-based solutions."
Philip Bump of the Atlantic on the Robert Gibbs-Maureen Dowd feud: "Does Gibbs have a point? Has Dowd's writing been the same for eight years? When it comes to covering Gibbs' favorite topic, the president, the answer is basically yes. Since before the 2008 campaign, Dowd has repeatedly argued that Obama can be weak and distant." Bump republishes pertinent excerpts from some of Dowd's old columns. (See also yesterday's Commentariat, which now includes Dowd's response to Gibbs.)
Stephen Colbert takes care of Jonathan Karl (this part of the segment begins at about 3:55 min. in:
Yes, Karl never saw the e-mail, so when he quoted from it, those "quotes" were in "quotes." I mean that's what you call "journalism."
Right Wing World
It's Easy Bein' Black. Kate McDonough of Salon: "Rush Limbaugh announced on Monday that President Obama won't be impeached over recent controversies and that 'Benghazi is not going to touch' him ... because Obama is black, and 'the American people are not going to tolerate the first black president being removed from office.' ..." With audio. ...
Brian Beutler of TPM: "The Secret Service is following up on recent comments by right wing radio host Pete Santilli, who claimed to want to shoot former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the vagina and see President Obama tried and shot for treason. 'We are aware of Mr. Santilli's comments and will take the appropriate follow up action...,' a Secret Service spokesperson, told TPM on Monday. 'He certainly has a right to free speech, but the Secret Service has a right and an obligation to determine what a person's intent is when making comments like this.'" Beutler publishes some of Santilli's remarks & links to an audio of his comments.
The Louie Gohmert News
Thank goodness that the IRS was not around to help the founders when they founded the country, or otherwise they'd [have] probably shot the Boston Tea Party participants. They would have killed off over half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.... And this country would have never had gotten started if this Department of Homeland Security had been around to be helpful -- so called -- to our founders. -- Louie Gohmert, on the House floor
Following "Gohmert logic," I have to wonder why the IRS didn't shoot all those Tea Party C-4 applicants. -- Constant Weader
News Ledes
New York Times: "Jamie Dimon, the nation's most powerful banker, can hold onto his title of chairman after JPMorgan Chase's shareholders decisively defeated a proposal to split the two top jobs. The vote to split the roles of chairman and chief executive -- both of which have been held by Mr. Dimon since 2006 -- received only 32.2 percent of shares voted. That is down from a vote of roughly 40 percent in support of a similar proposal last year. All 11 directors of the bank's board were also re-elected."
New York Times: "Emergency crews and volunteers continued to work through the early morning hours Tuesday in a frantic search for survivors of a huge tornado that ripped through parts of Oklahoma City and its suburbs, killing at least 91 people, 20 of them children, and flattening whatever was in its path, including at least two schools." The Oklahoman currently has links on its front page to many tornado-related stories. ...
... The Lede has updates here.
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Reader Comments (17)
When the Senate passed the $50.5 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package on January 28, 2013, 36 Republicans voted AGAINST the bill. At least 31 of these AssHats were Republicans who had previously supported emergency aid efforts for disasters in their own states.
Opponents complained that the bill was full of too much "pork." However, 30 of them had previously voted "no" on the $9 billion dollar Sandy relief bill. All five members of the Senate Republican leadership voted "no" on both.
Fast forward to May 20, 2013. Several horrendous tornadoes slice through Oklahoma--leveling two schools, many neighborhoods and killing at least 51 (probably many more). It is a scene of devastation and misery. So....what is going to happen with the two Oklahoma senators--James Inhofe (R) and Thomas Coburn (R) who both twice voted "no" for Hurricane Sandy relief. Are they going to come creeping in their little "humble pie tap shoes" to say that Oklahoma is a special case, and really, really, really needs EMERGENCY funding. I hope FEMA approves the funding, but not before Obama gives these cretins a long nasty and public lecture about their selfishness and immorality when it comes to the desperate needs of their countrymen/women. (Of course, he will not, but I can dream, can't I?)
And who are these people living in Oklahoma--who have a terrible economy, record rates of obesity, and obscene rates of infant mortality--yet repeatedly vote for Republicans in the Senate, House Governorship and Statehouse--politicians who apparently care not at all about most human pain and suffering? Perhaps Oklahoma, like Texas, should be urged to secede. I do not see they bring anything except oil to the table of our country!
I hope the above post is intended to be sarcasm of some sort, because if that is what first comes to mind after reading that almost 100 of our fellow citizens (including 20 small children) are dead then there is much less hope for this country than I had thought.
@John H. I don't see Madison's comment as "intended sarcasm," & I'm not sure where you're getting that idea. Perhaps you are unaware that this is first & foremost a political site, so contributors generally write on the political aspects of news events (though they are also likely to write on, say, the sociological or psychological aspects of political events).
I have no idea what "first came to Kate's mind" when she heard about the killer tornado, and neither do you. But her thoughts about the thoughtless Senators are very apt here. In fact, I agree with her.
I would take it a step further & argue that lives would have been saved if government entities had acted more responsibly. Would the tornado have been as huge & destructive if we had heeded scientists' warnings 30 years ago & become serious about mitigating the effects of climate change? Would more lives have been saved if local & state governments & school boards in tornado-prone areas had required that every new house, every trailer park & every school be built with a storm cellar? I think the answer is yes. Some people are alive today because they rode out the Moore tornado in their storm cellars. While humans can never put an end to natural destructive phenomena (the biblical flood story was common to many early cultures, suggesting there was in fact a flood or floods that wiped out many early settlements), we can make better efforts to keep ourselves & our children safe.
I live in Florida, where building codes are pretty stringent, & those codes have saved countless lives. These are precisely the kinds of "curbs on freedom" that legislators like Jim Inhofe & Tom Coburn oppose. Oklahomans voted for these & other anti-government representatives when they should have been demanding that government write & enforce laws that help protect residents from natural & other calamities.
As some pundit (Ezra Klein??) wrote several days ago, when our children & theirs look back on the big scandal of the Obama years, it isn't going to be about Benghazi talking points -- which Inhofe thinks could lead to the impeachment of the President -- but our failure to deal with climate change -- which Inhofe thinks is a hoax created by Al Gore, the U.N., "Hollywood elite," George Soros & Michael Moore.
Were these my "first thoughts"? Well, no. But they are my thoughts & I won't apologize for them. I don't think Kate Madison's thoughts warrant an apology either.
I don't know what your "hope for this country" is, but if more people -- like Madison -- had hopes for this country that included sensible laws & regulations, we would all be better assured to have the actual freedom (as opposed to the freedom from responsibility espoused on the right) to engage in the "pursuit of happiness."
Thanks for your comment. I don't generally allow comments that attack other contributors, but I've let yours stand because I think it's akin to a POV that we too often hear -- that it's wrong to "politicize" natural & manmade disasters, that anything beyond weeping & wailing & wringing of hands is insensitive & opportunistic.
Marie
The Earth is, once again, sending a message of the turmoil it is in. Are we listening? Some are. Too many are not. It is a human tragedy AND a political tragedy. Republicans (and some Democrats) are only concerned about their Financial Masters on Wall Street, the oil industry and the pharmaceutical industry whose greed supersedes human compassion (as well as their so called 'faith'). Marie, as usual, presents the key issues.
@JohnH; It was God's will that sent the tornadoes through God loving Oklahoma because God doesn't like suck-ups. Now that's sarcasm!
Ms. Madison's point was not sarcastic in any way. I believe she was pointing out certain political office holders are both heartless and morons. Heartless because they only serve themselves and their own interests. Morons because their self-interests exclude any thoughts that anthropomorphic climate change results in disastrous weather patterns.
Further more, I'll state there is not a person that responds to this blog who's first thoughts weren't towards the victims and their families. If you are looking for callous indifference I suggest you start with the two elected senators from Oklahoma.
One wonders whether Coburn is going down to Oklahoma to survey the damage, hug a lot of people and then let them know he would be against any federal funds to help them UNLESS there would be cuts elsewhere. Will someone haul off and hit him with some of that debris? Will he leave the scene unscathed? At least he is consistent?––you bet, consistently callous and asinine.
A word about yesterday's Jane Mayer (one of our best investigative reporters, ever!) piece plus the video which I had seen before, but watched it again. After viewing it I felt so defeated––thought how we all think we can make a difference by raising our voices and giving our paltry sums to this action committee or to candidates only to discover it doesn't really make a difference. When PBS which is in large part sponsored by someone like Koch has to shy away from a program that would put him in a bad light then we and they are royally fucked. Money not only speaks, but its song is one only the rich and the richest know how to sing.
And Kate––I agree with everything you said.
@MAG: to answer your question from two days ago: I never watched "Will and Grace", but I think I know which actress you were referring to. Sessions is in a class by himself––his barbs are coated with that Southern honey along with that twinkle in his jaded eyes.
I have no idea what plans are being made in the offices of Senators Inhofe and Coburn regarding the terrible tragedy in their home state (exacerbated, as Marie notes, by their decades long intransigence concerning (1) the effectiveness (and often absolute necessity) of government assistance in such times and (2) the undeniable fact of climate change which, of course, they deny), but it appears that at least in the case of Coburn, political calculation is A#1 (in case anyone is pondering what went may have gone through Coburn's mind after hearing about those that died in the recent tornado event).
He has demonstrated his callousness many times in the past (surely we have a better word for this--misanthropy might do it but that would only be directed to the have nots. How 'bout barbarism?) as when he voted time and again for an unfunded war that has cost over a trillion dollars but the gave the finger to veterans who fought his war when they came back looking for help in getting a job. He also put a hold on any additional healthcare for returning veterans. But wait, isn't this guy a doctor AND a Baptist minister.
Well.....never mind. He's a doctor, a minister, AND a GOP extremist. That makes it all okay.
So anyway, now, in order that he not be called a callous...oops, make that a barbaric hypocrite (which he still is, nonetheless), it looks as if his political calculation will lead him to deny his constituents devastated by this tornado any help from the Federal government. Oh, unless it can be offset by cuts elsewhere. Hmmm....I wonder what can he be thinking of? Maybe help for inner city school children can be cut. Nope, sorry, already gone. How about help for the poor? Oops. That's gone too. Maybe we can cut some highway program or cut back on building new schools, say, in three or four blue states. Yeah, that sounds about right.
My proposal is for him and his staff and every other senator who votes against emergency relief to toss their yearly salaries into the hat. And funding for their favorite pork projects. Maybe we can cut a couple of defense weapons programs that have been on the books for a decade and will never see the light of day except for the $100 billion or so they will suck out of taxpayers pockets directly into MIC conglomerates.
Well, I guess not, because that would infringe on FREEEDDOOOMMM.
So sorry, people of Oklahoma. It looks like you might be left on your own, because, you know....consistency is important.
We won't even mention what Emerson has to say about that.
Good luck now, y'all take care.
Coburn has stated that he will not run in 2016. His position against approving Federal aid for his constituents is purely an ideological stance that can't really resonate with the people he represents. It will be interesting to see the position Inhofe takes as he needs votes in a re-election bid.
It is exceedingly difficult to find positions, other than the dissolution of the Federal Gov't, that comports with the ideological march by the right toward complete state control. Although this is not a new position, it is being acted out in a much more extreme way, with wider participation by elected officials, than I have seen in my lifetime. The irony is that much of the right would not survive in a survival of the fittest scenario, with no support from a central Gov't. Rand and Gohmert would make excellent pig fodder, but not much else. Ignorance is a burden for those who would seize control.
I believe that the national media is, in large part, responsible for defining the emotional responses which are acceptable in our culture. They must be extremes to capture our fleeting attention. Like Marie points out, exploitation of loss and grief is not compassion. It is craven sentimentality for profit. Ignorance obscures real critical thought about cause and effect. Outrage and faux sentimentality have become the 2 most preferred and acceptable cultural expressions of emotion in the last several years. Unfortunately, comments about focusing on tragic aspects which then often morphs to outrage, ensures repetition.
Watched as much of today's presser as I could before finally yawning, and I'm almost in awe of Carney's patience with the stenographic press (which can't seem to read its own shorthand). I say "almost in awe" because Carney must be a mooslum--no muricun flag lapel pin is the tip off.
Congressman Gohmert opined that if the IRS was around during the Boston Tea Party, they would have shot the patriots.
Actually, it was pretty much the other way around. When the British sought to impose internal taxes on colonies prior to The Revolution, the New England Patriots (this was before they joined the NFL) threatened to tar and feather, burn out, rough up or kill the Crown tax collectors. The latter, who had applied for the collection jobs in expectation of gaining a decent income, in almost every case abandoned their positions, and in some cases had to seek protection. The job was too dangerous, because the activists opposing taxes were known to be looking for blood and trouble.
The Tea Party itself was not caused by taxation, directly, but by monopoly. New England merchants had to import tea from England, where taxes had been paid and built into the price. The Crown gave the East India Company (then struggling to stay solvent) the right to sell directly to colonists, without having paid the tax in Britain. New England merchants could not compete with John Company's tax-free price. Over the side with the tea chests!
History is much more interesting than bullshit.
@Patrick: Yes, and also, "Taxation Without Representation" holds true today since Congress is doing nothing to forward the views of the voters ~ job creation, gun control, health care, etc., etc., etc. The Tea Party of old and The Tea Party of new are not even a twig on the family tree.
Patrick and Mushiba,
This is why allowing people to spout off about factual/historical events and people, and replaying their delusional impressions or fabricated flights of fancy verbatim without so much as a basic fact check is so dangerous.
Crapulous mush of the kind chronically upchucked by Gohmert, Bachmann, Beck, et al. is scooped up by equally fact-free outlets who fling it hither and yon across the web where it is recycled again and again until finally you see some imbecile at the Times who thinks chimerical bullshit, after it's been laundered through by enough hacks is safe to be crudely fashioned into a straight story in the "legitimate" press.
It might start in the gutters with Gohmert or Drudge but after a few days (or hours) it ends up being flogged in MSM places that should know better.
So Gohmert says the IRS would have shot participants in the Boston Tea Party. This gets filtered through various red state sites and turns into "Obama plans to murder Tea Party activists" and finally it shows up on a mainstream site under the semi-humorous (or not) lede "Could Obama's IRS have any reason for sentencing people to death?" And from there it becomes gospel to the hyenas. Like the screams about Obama coming to take the guns (and de white womens, too).
This one of the most efficient ways the right has for dumbing down the population and sowing virulent stupidity. And the result can't even be generously termed "Civics Lite". It becomes, rather, something akin to "Sivicks for Patriots!"
...and idiots.
The only thing I can take issue with @Kate Madison's statement is the complete generalization of an entire state's population.
As is being discussed here, I don't think all of these people actually knowingly voted for Neo-Extremist heartless bastards. But the Repugs have perfected the art of favorable messaging, massaging the brains of the uneducated, poking their brains right where it hurts so good. I certainly don't contest that these states have their fair share of dung beetles, searching out bullshit and bringing it home with them. Living and rolling in it. Yet living among the dung beetles there also reside harmless grasshoppers not sure which direction to go and of course there's the occasional butterfly. (Yes, I just compared Oklahoma society to arthropods, thank you).
I hail from Brownbackistan and while you guys do need us for agricultural purposes (although we need to start looking for another cash crop seeing our aquifers are a runnin' dry), we otherwise don't bring much of National added value either. But does that mean you guys are ready to lump us all together under the Tri-Corn hat and throw us civic-minded citizens to the wolves too?
I certainly hope not.
Ideally we could set up a National Swaperoo System where we can pick our teams like the good 'ol days of dodgeball.
Oh, boy! Bill Keller wants to bring back special prosecutor, Ken Starr. http://keller.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/bring-back-ken-starr/?hp
A joke, right? Unfortunately, it doesn't tickle my sense of humor.
@MAG. I buy into Charlie's reaction to Keller.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/A_Truly_Bad_Idea
@ safari: "And who are these people living in Oklahoma--who have a terrible economy, record rates of obesity, and obscene rates of infant mortality--yet repeatedly vote for Republicans in the Senate, House Governorship and Statehouse..." I read from this that Kate is asking who the people are that continually vote for Republicans who do virtually nothing to help them or their state. This does not mean ALL the people that live in Oklahoma , just the ones who are not helping themselves. I think everyone here realizes that even in Brownbackian Country there resides sanity and sensibility among the populace––like you, for instance. And no throwing anyone to the wolves –––they are just as finicky as the next creature and like their prey well seasoned and easily digested.
@PD Pepe and JIG-
Thank you for coming to my defense! My computer has been down all day, and I have been out enjoying the storm here. (Yes, that is sardonic.) There is no way I would characterize an entire population of anywhere as crazy and self-destructive. PD got it right: I was referring to those in Oklahoma who keep voting FOR the crazoid Oklahoma politicians--elected year after year--against their own self-interests. And, sad to say, that includes a lot of people. But, of course, not all. Ever.
There is an old saying to which I subscribe: "People are people where ever you go." Trite, but true. I am an optimist about the essential goodness of people, but a pessimist about their gullibility and lack of critical thinking skills. Therefore, we get senators like Inhofe and Coburn, and many more in Red states--even in a few Blue ones.
My lastest "issue" with Oklahoma was revealed tonight on Anderson Cooper's show. He talked with people who had constructed tornado shelters to keep safe during horrendous weather events--and innocently asked: "What about the schools? Are there not safe shelters in the schools?" The answer: "Oh no, there is not enough money to build them in the schools." Now, I ask you--all of you--how sick is that? I watched Cooper blink and choke back his response. No way could he say the logical, but "politically incorrect"
answer: Why the fuck not?"
So...in spite of many decent people in Oklahoma, I will continue to think of it as a backward, oil-rich, but human unfriendly state until, its government and representatives can put their attention where it belongs--on the welfare of all of their people. And that means building safe shelters in ALL of the schools!