Bad Deeds for 4-27-2009

 

Rove Mocked Spending on Flu Preparedness – Writing in a column in the Wall Street Journal in February, Rove attacked Democrats for what he dubbed as reckless spending — stimulus money being doled out to industries “that added jobs last year.” What nefarious programs were Democrats trying to insert? Among other things, Rove cited $900 million for “pandemic flu preparations.” The $900 million Rove rebuked was killed when House and Senate negotiators met to iron out differences of the stimulus package between the two chambers.

 

Tea Party Death Threats – Daniel Knight Hayden, 52, was arrested by FBI agents who identified him as the Twitter user CitizenQuasar. In a series of tweets beginning April 11, CitizenQuasar vowed to start a “war” against the government on the steps of the Oklahoma City Capitol building, the site of that city’s version of the national “Tea Party” protests promoted by the conservative-leaning Fox News.

“START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be the FIRST DEATH!,” read a tweet at 8:01 PM that day. “After I am killed on the Capitol Steps, like a REAL man, the rest of you will REMEMBER ME!!!,” he added five minutes later. Then: “Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads [sic} and throw the[m] on the State Capitol steps.”

Hayden’s MySpace page is a breathtaking gallery of right-wing memes about the “New World Order,” gun control as Nazi fascism, and Barack Obama’s covert use of television hypnosis, among many others.

 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry Takes Washington Money – When it’s for His Campaign – Rick Perry has railed against Washington, but when it comes to campaign cash, the governor has raised far more than rival Kay Bailey Hutchison from the nation’s capital. The governor’s financial support from the Beltway undercuts efforts to distance himself from the nation’s capital by painting himself as the candidate of Texas-style government and Hutchison as the candidate of Washington, which recently landed Perry in the national spotlight amid talk of Texas secession.

“Governor Perry has built a fundraising mechanism well beyond the boundaries of Texas,” said Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign money. “He has been very successful with special interest groups inside the Beltway.”

 

Republican Kit Bond Misrepresents the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Torture – The following exchange took place on Fox News Sunday:

Senator Kit Bond: First Carl I would say that there’s a very strong dissent from five members of your committee who said that your report was fallacious, it’s counter productive and your report itself was the one that offers the greatest opportunity for negative publicity and the high level abusive techniques that you talk about.
[…..]
Senator Carl Levin: I’ve got to answer that one thing because I’m chairman of the committee. There was no objection to this report. Seven Republicans were there when we voted on it. Not one dissented. We had months and months of opportunity for any dissenting views. That’s the report. It’s a unanimous report of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham and other Republicans specifically were there when this approved. Had every opportunity to file a dissent. Did not do that and it seems to me that it is clearly the action of a bi-partisan Senate Armed Services Committee.

 

Why Do Conservatives Hate America So Much to Call Our Great Country a “Banana Republic” – It doesn’t make sense anyhow:

Sean Hannity argues in favor of investigations and prosecutions of past administrations — as long as the past administrations are Democratic administrations. But they say that investigations into whether laws were broken under a Republican administrations equates America to a banana republic. That’s what the conservative media consists of: partisans offering inconsistent, insincere, and nonsensical arguments on behalf of torture and the depraved thugs who authorized it.

 

US Firms Have Offshored 22,000 Green Technology Jobs to India Since January 1, 2009 – US firms have offshored 22,000 green technology jobs to India since January 1, 2009, Doug Brown, co-author of the influential 2009 Green Outsourcing Report. Noting an interesting irony the authors of the report say, “In the US, green stimulus plan is creating low-wage installation and construction jobs.” But, in India, which is usually associated with cheap and low-skill work, “…New green jobs include higher dollar engineers, strategic business management and support technicians charged with designing innovative environmental friendly solutions,” they add. Green offshoring is creating demand for sustainability engineers, marketing and business development executives, data center management engineers, utilities and electric engineers and quality specialists in India, Brown informed TNIE.

Regards,

Jim