Bad Deeds for 6-17-2010

 

Limbaugh’s Solution to Childhood Hunger: Kids Should ‘Dumpster Dive’ – Responding to an article Wednesday at AOL.com that reports 16 million children will go hungry this summer once free or subsidized school lunches are no longer available, Limbaugh suggested:

“Try your house.” It’s a thing called the refrigerator. You probably already know about it. Try looking there. There are also things in what’s called the kitchen of your house called cupboards. And in those cupboards, most likely you’re going to find Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, Lays ridgy potato chips, all kinds of dips and maybe a can of corn that you don’t want, but it will be there. If that doesn’t work, try a Happy Meal at McDonald’s….

There’s another place if none of these options work to find food; there’s always the neighborhood dumpster. Now, you might find competition with homeless people there, but there are videos that have been produced to show you how to healthfully dine and how to dumpster dive and survive until school kicks back up in August.

Limbaugh suggested that the problem of childhood hunger is an artificial creation from people who believe that “rotten” parents “let their kids go hungry.”

 

Republican Congressional Candidate is Not a Fan of Facts – Tea Party-backed Republican candidate Bill Randall, who is vying to capture North Carolina’s 13th district U.S. House seat, is a big fan of truthiness (facts don’t matter, it’s how you feel that makes something true):

“Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion,” Randall said at a press conference Tuesday. “I don’t know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company violating a safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak.”

 

Republican Texas Congressman Joe Barton Apologizes to BP for Making Them Set Up a Trust Fund to Pay for the Damages They Caused – BP CEO Tony Hayward appeared before a House Energy panel Thursday and Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) called the $20 billion trust fund a “shakedown” and apologized to the oil company.

“I’m speaking totally for myself and I’m not speaking for the Republican Party and I’m not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself, but I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it’s a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown. In this case, a $20 billion shakedown with the Attorney General of the United States who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that’s unprecedented in our nation’s history that’s got no legal standing and what I think sets a terrible precedent for the future,” said Barton.

“I’m only speaking for myself. I’m not speaking for anybody else, but I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong and is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize,” he said.

Barton blatantly shows his bias against Americans and the worst environmental disaster to hit this country and for his own craven interests. Frankly, I think Nancy Pelosi should make him apologize to Americans on the House floor since he was also the chief architect of the Cheney Oil Act that deregulated oil industry, waived EIRs and allowed this travesty to happen.

Here’s his contact information if you’d like to share your opinion of his groveling in front of BP.

 

Conservatives Are Dangerously Misleading the Country About the Economy – Bush left us with a $1.4 trillion deficit, and the unemployed and poor are paying for that. Part of the problem is that conservatives have been successful at misleading the public into thinking this huge deficit was the result of Obama’s stimulus when it wasn’t. (The public also conflates the stimulus with the Bush banker bailouts.)

With the election looming this misperception puts the heat on Democrats who didn’t get the Cheney message that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” They are putting themselves in the role of taking the candy away — and hurting the unemployed and poor, while risking tipping the economy back into recession. They think this will help them in the election. Republicans are barely able to keep their snickering to themselves.

Outside of the DC bubble it is clear that the Republican strategy is to cause economic pain, and then run against Democrats for causing economic pain. And this is exactly what they are doing. (Similar to the strategy of blocking everything the Congress does, and then running a campaign of “Democrats aren’t getting anything done so vote for us.”)

Regards,

Jim