Bad Deeds for 2-6-2009

Republicans Trying to Mislead Us About the Stimulus Bill – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was on CBS’ “Face the Nation” fulminating about a provision he found in the proposed government stimulus package. The provision, he said, would provide $150 million for “honeybee insurance.” “This is nonsense,” he said, as if he took it personally. You had to think he got stung as a kid or maybe caught a local swarm in the act of recruiting aphids for Al Qaeda. It turns out that the Senate minority leader took his cue from Neil Cavuto of Fox News, who has been carrying on about the topic for more than a week. Their campaign was joined Tuesday by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who stood on the floor of the chamber challenging “any member to come and explain what that provision was.”

It is, in fact, a disaster insurance program for all livestock producers. Beekeepers obviously would be minor beneficiaries next to, say, cattle ranchers, so it’s a tad bit dishonest to label the whole program “honeybee insurance.” The provision simply continues a program enacted by Congress last year, overriding a veto by President Bush. In other words, the Senate voted on it twice in 2008 — once to enact and once to override. Connoisseurs of political comedy will see the punch line coming: McConnell and Vitter voted yea both times.

So it turns out that McConnell isn’t really against honeybees. He’s only using them to pretend that he’s got a principled objection to a stimulus plan aimed at pulling the country out of the most severe recession in decades.

 

The Republican Party is Trying to Push the Economy Over the Edge According to Nobel Prize Winning Economist – Nobel Prize Winning Economist Paul Krugman has the following observations about the economic situation:

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts. It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated. … The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

(Why would they want to do that? Remember that Rush Limbaugh is their spiritual leader and Rush said he wants Obama to fail.)

 

Republicans Out-of-Touch on Immigration; Still Want Racialist Extremism – Last week at the National Press Club in Washington, a group seeking to speak for the future of the Republican Party declared that its November defeats in Congressional races stemmed not from having been too hard on foreigners, but too soft. The group, the American Cause, released a report arguing that anti-immigration absolutism was still the solution for the party’s deep electoral woes, actual voting results notwithstanding. The report’s author, Marcus Epstein, urged Republicans to double down on their efforts to run on schemes to seal the border and drive immigrants out.

What was perhaps more notable than the report itself was the team that delivered it. It included Bay Buchanan, former adviser to Representative Tom Tancredo and sister of Pat, who founded the American Cause and wrote “State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.” She was joined by James Pinkerton, an essayist and Fox News contributor who, as an aide to the first President Bush, took credit for the racist Willie Horton ads run against Michael Dukakis.

So far, so foul. But even more telling was the presence of Peter Brimelow, a former Forbes editor and founder of Vdare.com, an extremist anti-immigration Web site. It is named for Virginia Dare, the first white baby born in the English colonies, which tells you most of what you need to know. The site is worth a visit. There you can read Mr. Brimelow’s and Mr. Buchanan’s musings about racial dilution and the perils facing white people, and gems like this from Mr. Epstein: “Diversity can be good in moderation — if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.”

 

Fox News Chooses Big-Time Tax Delinquent Dick Morris To Criticize Tom Daschle’s Tax Problems – What other network would put on a tax delinquent to criticize someone else for not paying his taxes properly – twice? Not only that, while clearly relishing the tax problems of Tom Daschle, the “we report, you decide” network didn’t think it worth telling its viewers that its own expert, Dick Morris, has recently paid almost $2 million in back taxes.

 

Fox News Guest Says Barack Obama Was Elected Mostly By Black Racists And White Guilty People – During the 2/3/09 Sean Hannity show, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson announced, “I think we all agree that Barack Obama was elected by, mostly by black racists and white guilty people.” Although Hannity professed to be shocked by Peterson’s remarks, he has a long history of making such statements in Hannity’s presence. Also, Hannity is associated with Peterson’s organization, BOND, and gave no indication he would discontinue that association. Furthermore, Peterson is booked tomorrow on FOX & Friends. Will FOX News continue to welcome him? All indications are that they will.

 

Conservative Bernard Goldberg Suggests Beating Up New York Times Writer with a Baseball Bat – Bill O’Reilly may have become unhinged when he declared war against the New York Times, but author and FOX News regular Bernard Goldberg is ready to carry out violence. When O’Reilly asked tonight how he should respond to the Times’ recent editorial criticizing his racialist extremism toward immigrants, Goldberg responded, “I probably would have gotten a baseball bat and gone down to the New York Times with it and found the person that wrote the editorial, but that’s me.”

 

After Bush Chief Of Staff Slams Obama’s Informal Appearance in Oval Office, Photo Shows Bush in Oval Office Without Jacket – President Bush’s former Chief of Staff Andrew Card blasted President Obama for breaking the Bush dress code, which reportedly required that a jacket be worn by anyone entering the Oval Office. However, a photo shows a jacketless President Bush in the Oval Office. (Is that the sound of Card’s glass house shattering from the stones he threw?)

 

Wall Street CEOs, Investment Bankers Charged Prostitutes on Corporate Cards, Madam Says – Wall street lawyers, investment bankers, CEOs and media executives often used corporate credit cards to pay for $2,000 an hour prostitutes, according to the madam who ran one of New York’s biggest and most expensive escort services until it was busted last year. But prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office chose not to pursue any of the corporate titans, says Kristin Davis, who pleaded guilty last year to charges.

 

Bush Administration Overpaid Banks in Bailout, Watchdog Says – The Bush administration overpaid tens of billions of dollars for stocks and other assets in its massive bailout last year of Wall Street banks and financial institutions, a new study by a government watchdog says. The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a report released Friday, said last year’s overpayments amounted to a taxpayer-financed $78 billion subsidy of the firms.

In a bright spot for the rescue program, the same banks that received capital infusions from Treasury have already paid $271 million in dividends to the federal government and are expected to pay $1.5 billion more in dividends by the end of this month. Wells Fargo, which received a $25 billion infusion, has already announced it would pay Treasury $371 million in dividends this month.

 

Dick Cheney Says If Anything Happens Now, It’s Not His Fault – Former Vice President Dick Cheney gave an interview to Politico where Cheney warned that there is a ‘high probability’ that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed.” Get it? Since we already know that the Obama administration intends to change, has already begun changing, some of those policies, we’re supposed to conclude that if there’s a future attack, it’s entirely because those policies were changed.

And not, say, because George Bush and Dick Cheney left their successors (and the rest of us) a world laced with an even wider network of plotters, with the abuses of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, “black sites,” etc., giving potential enemies even greater incentive to do us harm, and with the mastermind of 9/11 still alive and still turning out inflammatory videos. A more dangerous world, in many ways. Yet Cheney wants us to believe that the next attack, if and when it comes, will be all Obama’s doing.

Here’s another interpretation (parody) of what Cheney said:

“Good luck, America,” said former Vice President Dick Cheney in a goodbye interview with Politico. “Without me, you’re nothing. Without me patrolling your shores, without me arguing for the right to torture Muslim people we think are terrorists, without me whispering instructions to your President, you’re all going to die. I don’t mean to scare you, but it’s just that simple.”

Regards,

Jim