Monthly Archives: January 2010

Pro Life Terrorist Convicted

Excellent news.

The jury deliberated for just 37 minutes before finding Scott Roeder of Kansas City, Mo., guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder in the May 31 shooting death of Dr. George Tiller. The 51-year-old faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years when he is sentenced March 9. Prosecutor Nola Foulston said she would pursue a so-called “Hard 50” sentence, which would require Mr. Roeder to serve at least 50 years before he can be considered for parole.

Mr. Roeder had confessed publicly before the trial and admitted again on the witness stand that he shot Dr. Tiller in the head in the foyer of the church where the doctor was serving as an usher. He testified he felt the lives of unborn children were in “immediate danger” because of Dr. Tiller.

Mr. Roeder also was convicted of aggravated assault for pointing a gun at two ushers at Tiller’s Wichita church after the shooting.

This vile terrorist destined for hellfire will no doubt become a matryr behind bars for anti-choice whackjobs like David Anderson. Indeed, that prospect almost makes me want Roeder to be executed, and I am unclear as to why he is not being executed. He committed first degree murder in Kansas. Deep red Kansas!

Coons Campaign Commercial #1

CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL # 1: A series of photos of Mike Castle with those giant faux Federal checks. (Wacky Warner Brothers-style cartoon music in background).

COPY: (Light-hearted voice redolent of faint ridicule) “What two things do these pictures have in common? One, each shows Mike Castle presenting a giant  check for a Delaware program. And, two (music stops), Mike Castle voted against each and every one of these programs.”

“Mike, who do you think you’re fooling?” (Close-up on his gargoyle standard-issue photo grin.)

Use the ‘Clutch Cargo’ moving lips technique (or, I think, the Space Ghost popsicle stick mouth technique) on last photo w/Castle ‘trying to talk’, but only sputtering out the ‘Porky Pig’ stutter.

Announcer says, “That’s all, folks”.

You’re welcome.

Pay me what you can…

What’s Going On With Republicans?

On Wednesday Obama gave a great State of the Union speech. It had been a rough couple of weeks for Democrats, most of it from the Democrats own making. Obama defied the pundits by giving a speech that wasn’t full of apologies, but instead stated that his policies are still right and dared everyone to follow him. What, exactly, happened with Republicans, though? McDonnell gave a rather empty, but not embarrassing, speech yet the Republicans seemed frantic and crazy yesterday – did anyone else notice?

In the State of the Union speech, Obama put Republicans on the spot. They sat on their hands for bank regulations and bank fees. They also sat on their hands for tax cuts. Then a whole bunch of them went into public and whined that Obama is so mean to them. 🙄

So, this all seems like standard politics so far. What else happened? Two Republicans had crazy meltdowns on camera. First it was Judd Gregg who went nuts when asked what programs he would cut (isn’t that fair since they say stopping spending is the way forward):

Andrew Breitbart, a conservative media mogul, went nuts on David Shuster regarding the James O’Keefe teabugger story. Breitbart employed O’Keefe (warning: this video is a shoutfest and painful to watch):

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

Republicans also voted against a bipartisan debt commission, against PAYGO rules which they championed and word is that the GOP purity test is going to fail. President Obama’s SOTU speech was good but was it that good? What is going on? Is the pressure of actually maybe having to try to do some governing getting to them?

If Republicans make big gains in November, it won’t be because their policies are popular. It will be because right now the Republicans best friends are dithering and spineless Democrats.

Five Flip Flops: Castle Now Says Stimulus Not Enough, is for Job Creation after he voted against it

In February 2009, Mike Castle voted with his party and against Delaware in opposing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

And almost immediately afterwards, the hyprocrisy show began. In May, Mike Castle celebrated the restoration of the Wilmington Train Station, paid for by stimulus funds. Then, in early July 2009, Mike Castle was taking credit for AMTRACK project funded by stimulus money. And here is Mike Castle helping present a nice big stimulus check that he voted against:

That was for an announcement by Gov. Markell of waste water project funded by the Stimulus.

And now, Mike Castle is saying that the stimulus did not go far enough!!! So, first it was too much, then it was just right, and now it is not enough. Castle wants Delaware and the Northeast to get money for high speed rail just like Florida, the South, and the West did, and he is angry the stimulus funds did not provide for such projects here in the First State.

“These are our tax dollars, and while I don’t agree that this [stimulus] funding has been successful in its stated goal of long-term job creation, I will not sit by while our money goes to other states,” Castle said.

How interesting. Mike Castle is now interested in job creation. Tell me then, why did he vote against the jobs bill in December?

[Castle] opposed this second stimulus for the same reasons he opposed the first $787 billion stimulus package in February. “We cannot spend our way back to economic prosperity,” Castle said in a statement. […] The jobs bill is designed to steer money from a financial bailout program to infrastructure projects and job-creation and job-preservation efforts while extending unemployment benefits and subsidies for COBRA insurance for laid-off workers.

So, let’s review. Mike Castle is and was against stimulus spending. But he happily takes credit for stimulus projects, and indeed demands more funds for rail projects in Delaware and the Northeast. Mike Castle votes against a jobs bill, but then complains that we aren’t doing enough to create jobs.

{Count Dracula voice} One, Two, Three, Four, Five! Five Flip Flops. {end Count Dracula voice}

Dear Dr. Liberal: Storytime!

Dear Dr. Liberal:

So a Republican male centerfold beats a Democrat in Massachusetts and its the end of the world for Democrats. While late last year a Democrat beats a teabagger in historically strong Republican Congressional district and there wasn’t this cry of anguish from the Republicans.

Why are the Democrats the biggest bunch of spineless reactionaries around? Or, in Dr. Liberal terms, why are most Democrats douchenozzles and run with the fight gets tough?

Sincerely,

A Democrat with a Spine

Dear Spiney,

Pull up a chair.  Warm your hands by the fire and help yourself to a glass of bourbon.  No. Not that Maker’s Mark.  That was a gift from Michael Moore which he gave to me when Jesse Helms died. Yes, the Jack Daniels is okay. It isn’t really Bourbon of course, but it is fitting because the story of our party’s demise goes back to the hills and hollers of old Tennessee.

It all began with a man named Albert Arnold “Al” Gore, Jr. who was born in Washington DC on March 31, 1948 but pretended to be from Tennessee.   Gore served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Then he ran a shit ass campaign for President hiring both Donna Brazil and Joe Lieberman for key positions. His shit ass campaign was a disaster for the country.  Mainly because it allowed the truly execrable George W. Bush to become the President of the United States, but also became the pattern for Democratic sissyhood that continues to this very day.

You see Spiney, Al Gore ran an “electoral college (50% plus 1) campaign”. That means he ran on the assumption that Democrats have no core values, but can win by pandering to a few voters in Ohio and a few in Florida while taking for granted that all liberals will vote for the Democratic candidate, because WTF? They aren’t going to vote for Bush right?

This strategy (if you can call it that) is rooted in a Washington DC based idea that Democrats are eggheads and can’t win over the “middle” by talking about things they want to do.  It is a strategy predicate on the assumptions that the obvious outcome of running on the democratic values of “reason based” policy making and economic justice would be electoral disaster when voters only want to know one thing – which candidate would I rather have a beer with?

During the 1990’s people like Al Gore and Donna Brazile, and John Kerry had lots of talks with David Broder over cocktails and salmon roe canapés in Georgetown, and they all agreed that average beer drinking, NFL football watching Americans would never go for Democrats acting like Democrats.  David Broder, the Dean of Washington Journalists,  spoke to a taxi driver once and therefore, he was dead certain that the more Democrats act like Republicans, the less Democrats talk about rich people and corporations getting a free ride compared to people making $30,000 a year,  the better they will do in elections.   The two worst thing Democrats could ever do would be to listen to its base and have a coherent message.

The rest is history.  Every Democratic retreat, capitulation, compromise, was foretold by Gore’s failure to forge a modern vision for the Democratic Party that energized its base voters while ignoring inside the beltway conventional wisdom.   From the flaccid Gore capitulation to GOP bullying during the recount, to the abysmal John Kerry “electoral college” strategy loss to our recent folding of the tent on Health Care Reform.

The point I’m making, of course, is that to win – we have to compromise MORE with Republicans, not fight.  Fighting would make us look angry and partisan.  David Border’s taxi driver hates that shit.  Also, we need to be vigilant.  We started to have a coherent Democratic message during the Obama campaign when he spoke about Health Care reform being a moral issue at every campaign stop, but luckily that has been fixed.  We have to make sure a coherent message does not come back into the picture or we might fire up the base and thereby lose in Lake County Ohio.

Corrections:

I may have something to correct someday, although I seriously doubt it.

The Doctor is out!

The Markell Budget (Updated)

Governor Markell has unveiled his FY2011 Budget proposal, which will seek to eliminate a $254 budget deficit with $143.6 million in spending cuts and cost savers, $59.8 million in additional federal funds, $39.7 million in anticipated table game revenues and $10.6 million that is extra money in the Rainy Day Fund. Ginger Gibson of the News Journal has the few details that have been released so far:

* Savings from cuts in several departments, which includes proposals to consolidate office space and merging divisions in state agencies and better manage real estate, and otherwise make state government run more efficiently, that will save $1.1 million or more.
* No tax increases.
* Reduction of benefits for future state employees, including changes in employee contributions to the pension fund and health insurance, that will save $75 million over the next five years.

I will update this post as new details become available shortly.

Update: More details:

* The $253 million defecit will be closed entirely by cost cutting. No raising taxes or fees, and no state employee layoffs.
* There will be a renegotiation of the state’s pharmacy contracts to drive down employee health care costs.
* The Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Education will be consolidated and hours will be cut at the Smyrna rest stop and the E-Z Pass Customer Service Centers. You will no longer get your EZ Pass statements or income tax booklets by mail.

Still more details:

* No restoration of he 2.5 percent pay cut state employees received last year.
* Authorizes the hire of 90 new teachers and allow salary step increases for state workers who are entitled to them. Otherwise, salaries are frozen.
* They also plan to accomplish the $140 million in savings through smaller cuts, like eliminating funding for beaver control ($25,000), only cutting the grass every other week at the Herman Halloway campus outside Wilmington ($15,900) and reducing the hours at the Smyrna Rest Stop ($380,000).
* The Budget includes a $356.5 million proposed capital spending for construction and road projects. That includes $60 million in cash and the remainder would be funded through bond sales.
* It also includes $98.8 million in construction for public education for projects that have already been approved by various districts.

Letter From Haiti

Guest post by Paul Baumbach
Crossposted at Paul’s Progressive Postings

This is from a friend of a friend of my sister. She is in Haiti, and in her emails she shines a light into what is really happening in Haiti, not what the media is reporting:

This afternoon, feeling helpless, we decided to take a van down to Champs Mars (the area around the palace) to look for people needing medical care to bring to Matthew 25, the guesthouse where we are staying which has been transformed into a field hospital. Since we arrived in Port au Prince everyone has told us that you cannot go into the area around the palace because of violence and insecurity. I was in awe as we walked into downtown, among the flattened buildings , in the shadow of the fallen palace, amongst the swarms of displaced people there was calm and solidarity. We wound our way through the camp asking for injured people who needed to get to the hospital. Despite everyone telling us that as soon as we did this we would be mobbed by people, I was amazed as we approached each tent people gently pointed us towards their neighbors, guiding us to those who were suffering the most. We picked up 5 badly injured people and drove towards an area where Ellie and Berto had passed a woman earlier. When they saw her she was lying on the side of the road with a broken leg screaming for help, as they were on foot they could not help her at the time so we went back to try to find her. Incredibly we found her relatively quickly at the top of a hill of shattered houses. The sun was setting and the community helped to carry her down the hill on a refrigerator door, tough looking guys smiled in our direction calling out “bonswa Cherie” and “kouraj”.

When we got back to Matthew 25 it was dark and we carried the patients back into the soccer field/tent village/hospital where the team of doctors had been working tirelessly all day. Although they had officially closed down for the evening, they agreed to see the patients we had brought. Once our patients were settled in we came back into the house to find the doctors amputating a foot on the dining room table. The patient lay calmly, awake but far away under the fog of ketamine.

Half way through the surgery we heard a clamor outside and ran out to see what it was. A large yellow truck was parked in front of the gate and rapidly unloading hundreds of bags of food over our fence, the hungry crowd had already begun to gather and in the dark it was hard to decide how to best distribute the food. Knowing that we could not sleep in the house with all of this food and so many starving people in the neighborhood, our friend Amber (who is experienced in food distribution) snapped into action and began to get everyone in the crowd into a line that stretched down the road. We braced ourselves for the fighting that we had heard would come but in a miraculous display of restraint and compassion people lined up to get the food and one by one the bags were handed out without a single serious incident.

During the food distribution the doctors called to see if anyone could help to bury the amputated leg in the backyard. As I have no experience with food distribution I offered to help with the leg. I went into the back with Ellie and Berto and we dug a hole and placed the leg in it, covering it with soil and cement rubble. By the time we got back into the house the food had all been distributed and the patient Anderson was waking up. The doctors asked for a translator so I went and sat by his stretcher explaining to him that the surgery had gone well and he was going to live. His family had gone home so he was alone so Ellie and I took turns sitting with him as he came out from under the drugs.

I sat and talked to Anderson for hours as he drifted in and out of consciousness. At one point one of the Haitian men working at the hospital came in and leaned over Anderson and said to him in kreyol “listen man even if your family could not be here tonight we want you to know that everyone here loves you, we are all your brothers and sisters”. Cat and I have barely shed a tear through all of this, the sky could fall and we would not bat an eye, but when I told her this story this morning the tears just began rolling down her face, as they are mine as I am writing this. Sometimes it is the kindness and not the horror that can break the numbness that we are all lost in right now.

So, don’t believe Anderson Cooper when he says that Haiti is a hotbed for violence and riots, it is just not the case. In the darkest of times, Haiti has proven to be a country of brave, resilient and kind people and it is that behavior that is far more prevalent than the isolated incidents of violence. Please pass this on to as many people as you can so that they can see the light of Haiti, cutting through the darkness, the light that will heal this nation.

We are safe. We love you all and I will write again when I can. Thank you for your generosity and compassion.

With love from Port au Prince,
Sasha

[Ed Note – UI] This letter references an earlier letter, which can be read here “Second Letter From Haiti”.

Thursday Open Thread

It’s Thursday and the day after the State of the Union address. Amazingly, I’m not hung over. President Obama didn’t say “let me be clear” one time last night (that I caught). Although he did say “Middle Class,” “jobs” and “Main Street.” (My own personal drinking game.) Let’s open this thread.

The teabuggers were pretty stupid. An expert weighs in:

The affidavit itself reads like a bad script for an episode of the A-Team. Two members of the group dressed up as telephone repairmen and attempted to gain access to the telephone closet. They headed for the Senator’s office, attempted pretexting and were directed to the GSA office down the hall where the plot was uncovered when the pair were asked for identification and claimed to have left it in their van.

Now it is quite possible that a GSA employee would have been trained to recognize a telephone company ID badge, but I don’t know what one looks like and the typical security guard at a non-government facility wouldn’t either. For a few hundred bucks the conspirators could have bought a second hand badge printer on EBay to create their own badges and greatly reduced the chance of getting caught.

Using fake ID reduces the risk of being caught but increases the penalties if caught. Possession of a fraudulent access device is a federal crime, as is possession of means to create fraudulent access devices. Using real identification greatly increases the risk of being caught, but some do so anyway.

The post goes on to identify some of the security procedures of a federal building. Don’t let conservatives tell you that this is just some young guys pulling a prank. These guys are a part of the conservative think tank system. Each of them get some kind of paycheck from the VRWC. Dai was also representing himself as some kind of national security expert and was paid for this. O’Keefe was funded by Breitbart and Flanagan belonged to some conservative think tank. These three guys also started “alternative” conservative newspapers at their college, which is apparently how to get noticed and invited into the VRWC.

Oh, my. They just can’t help themselves, can they?

TeaParty.org, a Houston-based group founded by Dale Robertson, yesterday sent an email fund-raising solicitation, obtained by TPMmuckraker, headlined “Obama Pimping Obama-Care, One Last Time!”

The photograph below — showing the president as a stereotypical African-American pimp, sporting a pencil-thin mustache and a zebra-striped, fur-brimmed fedora, complete with a feather — illustrated the theme:

The Teabugger Justification, For What It’s Worth

Supposedly, this is what the teabuggers were up to. I don’t believe it, because it doesn’t make any sense.

Mystery solved? NBC is reporting that James O’Keefe and his three companions were carrying out a plan to gauge how the staff of Sen. Mary Landrieu would respond if their office phone system were disabled, following complaints by conservative constituents that anti-health reform calls were not getting through to the New Orleans office.

Three days later, this is what they’re coming up with. Does that make any sense to you?

Here’s the key part of the new NBC report, which at least partly backs up a theory first raised by Marcy Wheeler:

A law enforcement official told NBC News that the four men were not trying to intercept or wiretap the calls.
Instead the men, led by O’Keefe, wanted to see how her staff would respond if the phones were inoperative, the official said.

They were apparently motivated by local criticism of Landrieu — some voters reportedly felt it was too difficult to get through to her office to register their views.

Citing law enforcement officials, Keith Olbermann said on the air last night that O’Keefe wanted to see whether Landrieu’s staff responded to a broken phone system by laughing it off, or by expressing concern about the plight of constituents trying to make their views known in vain.

Ummm….wouldn’t the office staff just ask the telephone repair guys that were already in the building to repair the phones? Wouldn’t the staff clue in that phone guys just came and now the phones don’t work? I guess I just don’t buy this explanation – it doesn’t make any sense. It sounds like brain-damaged squirrels thought of it.

Coons is Running for Senate

We have it from several sources that New Castle County Executive Christopher Coons announced at a State of the Union watch party last night that he is indeed running for Senate against Castle.

Now, in order of preference, Coons is my third choice after Biden and Denn. But at least he is a credible Democrat who has held office rather than the also rans we have been running against Castle for the last 18 years. Indeed, in Coons Castle has his strongest opponent since his first race for Congress in 1992. For Coons to win, though, he needs to go after Castle and his horrid voting record with the same fire President Obama exhibited last night. Coons will lose if he is on the defensive about anything. He must not only be on offense about his own record as County Executive, but also about both President Obama’s record and Castle’s record in opposing Obama and supporting Bush for eight years.

To quote a progressive friend, to beat Castle, “we need to be ‘all in.’” This necessarily means that the Anonones and Nancy Willings of the world must get over themselves. You want to beat Castle? Well then you support Chris Coons, find another candidate equally credible or more so, or shut up.

Legislative Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., Jan. 28, 2010

Last Pre-Game Show for 6 weeks, as the General Assembly recesses for budget hearings.

That means that today will be busy, with certain bills being fast-tracked for final passage before the recess.

Yesterday’s activity sets the stage for today, meaning it’s time for the…

POST-GAME WRAP-UP

The General Assembly’s latest sop to Del-Tech, SB 202 (or more precisely, SS1 for SB 202) passed the Senate. Basically an omnibus catch-all bill for several fiscal matters, the bill also exempts Del-Tech from complying with permitting procedures required of everybody else. If someone has an explanation as to why this is in the public interest, please come forward. And, if someone has an explanation as to why this is being stuffed into an unrelated bill, please come forward. The very fact that this favor for Del-Tech is being stuck into an unrelated bill says all you need to know about why they didn’t want it seeing the light of day on its own. This appears to have descended on Dover when it comes to saying anything about it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1eUIK9CihA[/youtube]

I expect this bill to be worked in the House today before the break, probably under a motion to suspend rules, so an explanation would be appreciated. Even a question about it on the floor would be nice.

It is also possible that nominations were considered by the Senate yesterday, but there is no record of it in the Session Report, which is in keeping with there being no notice of the nominees on the Executive Committee agenda. The attitude of a lot of these officials is that, the more that they are ridiculed for obvious failure to provide the public with the most basic of information, the more obstinate they get about providing it. Uncle Thurm may be gone, but Tony DeLuca seems committed to the ‘Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell’ policies of his predecessor.

PRE-GAME SHOW

The Governor will present his proposed FY ’11 Budget today, and that will be the focal point of everything. I don’t know to what extent he will offer specific revenue enhancers to offset projected deficit figures, but I want to see progressivity restored to the income tax code, and the wealthy finally forced to pay their fair share after they’ve enjoyed 20-plus years of inequitable tax breaks.  Real meat is being cut out of essential programs, and it is simply unfair not to expect the To the Manor Born set to pay. Not if you’re a Democrat.

The Senate Agenda, as expected, features HB 310(Schwartzkopf), which legalizes and establishes a framework for table games at Delaware casinos.  So far, no senate amendments have been placed with the bill. I mention this because, sometimes, especially right before a recess, you get this Alphonse/Gaston thing going, where one body puts an amendment on the bill, which then requires that it go back to the other house for approval. Unless there’s something absolutely essential, I doubt that the bill will be amended, and it will be to prevent anything interfering with a bill going to the Governor’s desk this evening. Nothing else on the agenda strikes my fancy but, check it out, YMMV.

The House Agenda features…yep, no surprise, the Del-Tech sop in the guise of SS1/SB 202. The initials “MTSR” that you see on the agenda stand for “Motion to Suspend Rules”, which will enable the bill to come to the floor without going through committee. I, for one, will look to see whether an amendment is introduced striking the offending Section 4, and whether those House members in Del-Tech’s thrall/employ will abstain from voting due to conflict-of-interest. The bill requires a 3/4 vote, so, if enough like-minded ‘good-government’ legislators raise objections, the offending section may have to come out. I’m not holding my breath.

Sen. DeLuca’s companion bill to HB 310, SB 188, is also on the agenda and should fly right through.

I’ll be back tomorrow with my Post-Game show. Should be lotsa news coming out of today’s doings…