Sunday Column

Here's my latest Sunday column in our local paper:

I assume we can all agree on this much: had there been attacks on US embassies during the Bush administration, the Democrats would have held hearings till the cowed came home. And if, say, right before George Bush’s reelection, the IRS came after a church in which a sermon was given criticizing the Iraq war, there’d have been calls for the IRS director to resign (same guy under whom the current brouhaha began, by the way, a Bush appointee after whose resignation Rs have blocked further nominees). What’s that? There were lots of attacks under Bush? And Fox “news” was silent? Surely you’re mistaken. 

And now you’re saying there was a harsh IRS investigation of All Saints Church in Pasadena after an antiwar sermon in 2004? And one of Obama’s church, too? How did I miss that? I watch Fox “news” like a hawk watches Fox “news."
I have a clean record of nobody misunderstanding or mischaracterizing what I say, and don’t want to start now. So let me be clear: I’m not excusing any of this stuff. Benghazi (interesting fact: 39% of people who say it’s “the biggest political scandal in American history” don’t know where it is, including 6% who say it’s in Cuba) is, at minimum, a tragedy; and initial accounts, for whatever reason, were inaccurate. Without doubt, bad decisions were made, as they may have been prior to the attacks during Bush’s reign, in India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Serbia, Greece, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, which went essentially uninvestigated. The cover-up, more like a mix-up, lasted about three days. That everyone within shouting distance of Fox “news” perseverates on the falsehood that the military had the capability to ride in there like Clayton Moore and stop the assault, after all manner of military leaders have debunked it, well, that’s our politics, nowadays. I haven’t seen any evidence of coordinated and continual dastardly behavior there; if Darrell Issa is right for once, maybe I will. But at this point, it looks like what Rs are really up to is preemptively discrediting Hillary Clinton before she runs for president. If you doubt that, note Karl Rove’s (tax-exempt) group’s ad that popped up like a mushroom against her.

Which brings us to the IRS. I’m appalled (not being sarcastic) that there was asymmetrical attention paid to right-wing groups as they applied for tax-exempt status. I condemn it. On the other hand, I think it’s pretty obvious that tax exemptions for so-called social action groups are being abused. The aforementioned Rovian repugnance, which spent over seventy million on political ads, is a prime example. I’d argue no political action group deserves tax-exempt status; but if some do, then scrutiny by the IRS doesn’t seem all that outrageous, assuming it’s done fairly. Like, you know, that church near the Magic Kingdom. 

Of all the privy-contents being emptied toward the ventilatory device, the issue that bothers me most deeply is the revelation of secret surveillance of emails and other records of certain AP reporters. Evidently, the records were subpoenaed; so it seems that the courts were involved, as opposed to when Bush first started snooping. Yay, Patriot Act! Irony: it was Rs who demanded Eric Holder investigate leaks. He did. Now they’re calling for his resignation. Still, unfettered freedom of the press is, in my opinion, a heck of a lot more important to the future of our democracy than, say, the ability to buy an AR 15 unaccountably at a gun show. This, above all, needs clear-eyed investigation, free of Issafication.

I’m aware that I’m rationalizing, to a certain extent, things that I might not have rationalized had someone else done them. I’m no angel. And it’s clear that Congressional Rs and the frothers at Fox are a heck of a lot more outraged at things that have happened under Obama than they ever were when the same, and much worse, happened under Bush. President Obama made what I assume was a political calculation not to pursue prosecution of war crimes and war lies by his predecessor, which have cost us more in lives and treasure than anything since, by too far to count; I guess he thought if he did, it’d cause Rs to obstruct everything he had in mind for his presidency. And that it’d fracture the country even further. How’s that for irony? Might be his most grievous miscalculation of all.

Either way, though, I admit I’m feeling a little let down by Obama right now.
 

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On Hold

For reasons not entirely beyond my control, I expect blogging to be a little thin in the next couple of weeks. But I also expect resumption will happen. Hold your applause.

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Olympic Bullshit

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Here's why Ms Snowe is full of shit: she (entirely unoriginally, and like every retired elected) says what's needed is for people to speak up. Right. But there's a tiny problem with that: the people who elected the obstructionist denialist and uncompromising legislators are perfectly happy with the situation. Think people who elected Michele Bachmann or Louie Gohmert regret it? Think they'd be telling them to compromise? Same with Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell. It's simply bullshit. It won't change, ever; not until it's too late (it already is.) Not until people stop thinking Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are gods of the gospel. Not until people recognize that public education and respect for science are critical to our future. They won't. In numbers enough to thumb the scales, they've already made up their minds.

And that's the other end of the turd that is Ms Snowe's hey-it-ain't-my-fault contention: the system is set up so that even if the idiots are in the minority, they have the power to block progress. Witness the "failed" background check legislation: a 54% favorable failure. So she can shift blame to a propagandized or disinterested public all she wants. Calling your congressman, while probably still a good idea because who knows, simply doesn't stack up against the stacked deck and the power of big money.

Or am I missing something?

Seriously?

The questioner is the Fox "news" White House correspondent. He actually can't think why there needs to be a "firewall" between the White House and the Department of Justice. I think Mr Carney was remarkable gracious. The fact is that when a White House correspondent for what calls itself a news organization is that clueless, it says much more than I care to spend the time saying about what a joke Fox "news" is, and always was. Really, truly pathetic; and it ought to embarrass everyone associated with that propaganda organization. But, of course, it won't. For obvious reasons.

The Shocking Truth

Now we can see, unvarnished, the horror that was the shockingly partisan IRS investigation of tax-exempt applicants. Here, in its awful awfulness, is the list of groups turned away at the time in question:

The I.R.S. denied tax exemption to the groups — Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts — because, the agency wrote in denial letters, they were set up specifically to cultivate Democratic candidates. Their Web sites ask for evidence that participants in their training programs are Democrats.

All I can say is, heads better roll.

(Parenthetically, it speaks loudly of the effectiveness of the well-coordinated Republican scream machine that no one in the administration pushed back by pointing out that, whereas it looks bad to have flagged certain words for scrutiny, the IRS was, in fact, doing what it's supposed to do; and that the groups about which all the gnashing is occurring were, in fact, approved; and that the ones that weren't, far as we know, were liberal ones. It's yet another example of shameless R cynicism and frustrating D wimpiness in the face of it.)

(Like what's good for the goose has never been on the other foot.)

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Fading

I gotta say, even if Obama wasn't involved or informed, there's a lot of crap piling up that's disturbing: the IRS thing, the snooping on AP... I still think the Benghazi episode is way less of an indictment of the administration than Rs would like it to be, although I suppose there could be more to come out; but all in all, there'a a lot of blush coming off the rose. Lots of high fives, no doubt, in teabaggR cloak rooms in D.C.

Even though the "spying" on the press in the name of leaks is hardly something unique to Obama, it's pretty darn concerning. At least the data were subpoenaed, as opposed to when Bush started it. Also, it's amusing (if that's the word) that the investigations of the specific leaks to AP were begun by Holder on demand of Congressional Rs, who, now that he did it, are calling for his head. Almost as if they're cynical hypocrites.

As others have written, if nothing else, it all makes gridlock even tighter: how can any teabaggR cooperate in any way with Obama now? Not that they would have... But I think we've seen all we're gonna see of progressive legislation from here on out. And I have the feeling that Obama knows it, too; and, other than during his impeachment, he'll spend as much of the rest of his time as possible out of D.C. I know I would.

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Scruples

Why the 1% need our help:

Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World

I believe they call it entitlements.

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Knowledge Of Water

THIS IS WATER - By David Foster Wallace from The Glossary on Vimeo.

Beautiful. Wish I could do it. On the other hand, he killed himself, so there's that.

This Is Huge

Evidently, it matters greatly whether you use the word "extremist" or "terrorist."

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Thursday called on the White House to release an email from a State Department official who, he claimed, attributed the deadly September attack in Benghazi, Libya to "Islamic terrorists." 

But the New York Times obtained a copy of the email, written by senior State Department official A. Elizabeth Jones, who actually made reference to "Islamic extremists," not "Islamic terrorists." 

Obama administration officials told the Times that it is important to draw a distinction between the two characterizations, "because while the White House did not initially characterize the attack as terrorism, senior officials, including Ambassador Susan E. Rice, acknowledged the possibility that extremists had been involved in the assault."

It's still not clear to me who used what term when, and who's accusing whom of what; but whoever it was and whenever and whatever, it's pretty damn awful. Or great. Or something.

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It Gets Worse...

The IRS scandal is pretty awful, and I'm glad President Obama has spoken out on it, forcefully. Whoever was responsible, they're a bunch of idiots. If the White House were behind it, Obama would deserve whatever he got as a result. (Even The Wall Street Journal says he wasn't, though.)

But there's more: turns out the IRS also targeted a church for speaking out against the White House right before the election. I'd say that's definitely an impeachable offense. Oh, wait:

Stepping up its probe of allegedly improper campaigning by churches, the Internal Revenue Service on Friday ordered a liberal Pasadena parish to turn over all the documents and e-mails it produced during the 2004 election year with references to political candidates.
All Saints Episcopal Church and its rector, the Rev. Ed Bacon, have until Sept. 29 to present the sermons, newsletters and electronic communications. 

The IRS investigation was triggered by an antiwar sermon delivered by its former rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, at the church two days before the 2004 presidential election. The summons even requests utility bills to establish costs associated with hosting Regas' speech. Bacon was ordered to testify before IRS officials Oct. 11.

I don't defend what the IRS evidently did regarding right-wing groups. It's appalling. But it's also true that having tax-exempt status requires the following of certain guidelines. I don't doubt that there are phony baloney "non profits" all along the political spectrum, and, applied fairly, they all deserve scrutiny.

Ask me, churches of any sort ought not be tax exempt. God will provide, right?

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So Obvious, All Of A Sudden

All you have to do is ask the right question.

Marx My Words

You can't say stuff like that without being called a Marxist. I can't, anyway. But here's the obvious thing that teabaggers can't seem to get through their conspiratorial Foxobeckian heads: when enough "average" people are unable to make financial ends meet; when they don't have a little extra jingle in their pockets to buy stuff, those CEOs can't sell it. And then the system breaks down.

It's in order to preserve capitalism (or, as they prefer to call it in Texas, because "capitalist" has ugly connotations, "free markets") that people are raising alarms about the enormous and getter enormouser wealth gap in this country. No one -- no one with any credibility, or ability to make it happen, anyway -- is calling for some sort of sweeping leveling of income. Paying a McDonald's worker the same as a skilled machinist. Or A-Rod. But what if CEOs only made, say fifty times their workers? Or twenty? Couple million a year ought to get most people by, right? What if businesses, like Henry Ford did, figured that their workers ought to make enough to buy the products they make? Wouldn't they, in the long run, recoup much of the increased overhead in greater sales to more people with the wherewithal?

So, how do you make such a thing happen? Clearly, in the US of A, with teabaggRs pulling the strings, you don't. Because communism. Because something. But, as with pretty much everything else they're espousing, in the long run they're dragging us down the path to ruination. Climate change denial. Disuneducating our kids. Suppressing workers' right. Tilting the scales more and more toward those with the most power. It might work fine in their lifetimes. But the next in line, even their own kids? Sorry. Not important. Besides, by then they'll all be raptured up, right?

Sunday Sermon

Sunday Column

Here's my latest in our local paper. I might cool it down for the next couple of ones...

Back in the mid 1800s there was a political party that called itself the “Know Nothings.” Ahead of their time, they were anti-immigration and pro religious purity. Eventually they disappeared, reanimating in our time, morphing into the “You Shall Know Nothing” party;” although I believe they prefer “Republican.” 

Some people don’t like it when I say things like that. But in the 1850s the name was meant ironically; today’s version flaunts know-nothingism like a banner. For today’s Republicans, to whom true conservatism is as foreign as whatever it is Sarah Palin sees from her porch, proscribing knowledge is an organizing principle. To see what I mean, let’s have an edifying look at several examples. 

Wyoming’s governor has asked President Obama not to explore the environmental impact of burning coal. Congressional Republicans kiboshed funds to study gun violence. Texas Republicans banned any mention of rising sea levels from assessments of climate change; cut the words right out of a report. North Carolina Republicans made it illegal to use sea level predictions in developing coastal management policies. A Republican congressman on the House Science Committee (!) calls science “lies from the pit of Hell.” Included in the Texas Republican party platform (Texas: it’s columnist gold) is this memorable statement: “We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills, critical thinking skills and similar programs … which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.” Imagine that: challenging students’ “fixed” beliefs by teaching them to think, exposing them to stuff their parents didn’t! 

“What a snob,” said Rick Santorum of Obama’s plans to help kids get education beyond high school. Sarah Palin mocks educated people for a living. (Full disclosure: she crossed a line with me when she derided fruit fly research, in which discipline I did my honors research project in college.) When Jon Huntsman warned Republicans not to become the anti-science party, he was ejected from presidential candidacy faster than Mitt Romney’s money hied to the Cayman Islands. Last November, Congressional Republicans squelched a nonpartisan report from the Congressional Research Service that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth. 

There’s more: A Republican congressman is introducing legislation banning the Census Bureau from collecting demographic and economic data, despite their critical importance to both public and private agencies. House Republicans have managed to restrain the National Science Foundation from doing social science research; and one of them (a Texan!) has proposed subjecting ALL research to Congressional approval, as opposed to scientific peer review. Bye-bye small government, hello Politburo! 

Everyone tends to ignore, let’s call them, inconvenient truths. But there’s only one political party methodically preventing them from being known, while characterizing intellectualism and quality education as some sort of fey elitism. From their propagandists of the airwaves to their elected officials, hiding the truth and making up falsehoods (reeducation camps! birth certificates! jihadists in the White House!) isn’t the occasional outlier, it’s the factory setting. Plan A: suffocate unwelcome information at birth; Plan B: block new facts from conception. In what way is this conservatism? How do thoughtful conservatives rationalize associating with a party that aggressively expurgates knowledge? If it bothers them, why aren’t they saying so? These aren’t made-up accusations; they’re visible to the naked eye. Where’s the outrage? Or embarrassment. 

Throughout the country, public education is under attack by Republican legislatures (some calling it “mind control”), cutting funding, seeking to give religious beliefs equal time in science classes. (Fun project: Search “4^th grade science quiz dinosaur.” Then define “mind control.”) The charter schools movement threatens to become a Trojan horse for public funding of retrogressive or religious education (happily, the Louisiana Supreme Court just declared Bobby Jindal’s plan unconstitutional), producing kids deliberately taught not to think. (Texas out-bagged that cat.) It’s as if Republicans have concluded that informed people will no longer vote for them. 

And here’s the irony: neither recognizing nor acknowledging it, today’s Know Nothing Party counts on liberals to save them from themselves. Because it sure won’t be products of their redaction-based education, or people they’ve blocked from knowing stuff, who discover a cure for cancer, who solve our energy problems, negotiate a treaty, or make the next technological leap. As long as there are liberals who value education and respect science, today’s Republicans can indulge their culture of censorship and denial, while the rest of us strive to secure the future for everyone, against the tide, facing facts.

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