Welcome to today's RedState Morning Briefing Summary (RMBS FAQ).
Today's mood: infuriating. This Morning Briefing was just chock full of stuff that plain pissed me off.
On a completely random note, the citizens of Ozark, Missouri celebrated the opening of a snazzy new community center. It was paid for by a small increase in sales tax. Republican Senator — and all-around douchebag — Roy Blunt was on hand to join in the celebration. He neglected to condemn the enterprise as being about "higher taxes and more government spending" nor did he use the word "socialism." I'm sure he'll admonish the citizens of Ozark — who went about 75% for John McCain, I believe — during next year's election. Yeah, that's when he'll excoriate those hillbilly socialists. Yup. Definitely.
Congress votes to protect pedophiles, but not veterans
This is really kind of mind numbing and demonstrates what is wrong with Congress.
This has come up in a previous edition.
One argument against hate crimes legislation is that it targets things that are already illegal; murder is already illegal, for example. The counter-argument is that in some cases, there is a tacit cultural approval for committing crimes against certain kinds of people. So, while murder may already be illegal, that doesn't stop some people from thinking that it's an OK thing to do to, say, a gay man.
So here's the deal with this bill: it makes sex offenders a protected class and does not make veterans a protected class. What the RedState response demonstrates is the ongoing inability of the wingnuts to understand the basics of justice.
Sex offenders have legal rights too, and yet many — way too many — people would gladly look the other way if a crime was committed against one of these people. Why? Because "it's OK if you do it to those people." The fact that unquestionably bad people have legal rights is a fundamental mental stumbling block that the right wing has; it is at the core of torture issue. If we can't guarantee the human rights of the most reprehensible humans, then we don't really respect human rights — they're really just privileges we give to people we like.
On the other issue, awarding protected status to veterans really makes a mockery of the idea of hate crimes bill. You don't have to go any farther than right here on Daily Kos to find examples of hate speech against veterans. Speech, as ugly as it may be in a given instance, is not a crime, however. What is notably lacking is any history of actual hate crimes against veterans.
Wingnuts like to cast hate crimes laws as, "People we like more than other people" laws. The "libruls" pass laws protecting gays, black, and women because they want to give these people "special rights" which somehow means that there are fewer rights for "real Americans" to enjoy or something. By trying to insert the veterans provision, they were really trying to cast this as, "Libruls love child molesters but not veterans."
Hate crimes bills are not about love, they are about justice. Of course neither justice nor love are the least bit familiar to the right wing, as they find it more expedient to traffic in fear and hate, which is essentially what they're doing in this item.
(Note: I can accept that it may have been politically tone deaf to include sex offenders as a protected class. It was however, the morally just thing to do and why not do it while we have the power to get it through Congress?)
Ann Coulter Wins.
Ugh. I had to watch a clip of Ann Coulter and now I want to punch her.
Joy Behar, guest-hosting for Larry King, makes a rather clumsy attempt to demonstrate that Ann Coulter really believes that water-boarding is toture by pointing how that she (Ann) would be unwilling to endure it. In a moment of classic Coulter, Ann ups the Stoopid™ by several orders of magnitude with a falsehood ("half the anchors on Fox News have been water-boarded" — if only that were true!) and an incoherent counter-attack: Coulter compares support of water-boarding with support of abortion.
Naturally, like dogs likes eating cat turds, RedState gobbled up this tragic piece of rhetoric.
Joy Behar’s floundering response, "That’s quite a jump," is entirely without merit. Joy Behar’s entire "point," such as was, was to point out Coulter’s alleged hypocrisy in that she supports waterboarding being done to others, but does not want to be waterboarded herself. Of course, to any sentient being, this argument carries zero force; almost no one wants to be thrown in prison themselves, but almost everyone favors prison sentences being imposed on others in certain circumstances. This does not demonstrate intellectual inconsistency or hypocrisy on the part of the vast majority of America, it demonstrates that punishment works in part because we don’t want it to happen to us.
Once again, the torture lobby misses the point. If anyone "wins" on this topic, it's Andrew Sullivan:
One way to look at how the Bush administration redefined torture out of existence, so that it could, er, torture human beings, is to compare their criteria for "enhanced interrogation" with those for rape. Raping someone need not leave any long-term physical scars; it certainly doesn't permanently impair any bodily organ; it has no uniquely graphic dimensions - the comic book pulling-fingernail scenarios the know-nothings in the Bush administration viewed as torture; and although it's cruel, it's hardly unusual. It happens all the time in regular prisons, although usually by other inmates as opposed to guards. It barely differs from the sexual abuse, forced nudity and psychological warfare inflicted on prisoners by Bush-Cheney in explicit terms.
There is a difference between "punishment" and "torture." As Sullivan brilliantly illustrates, it may not be a purely physical distinction, it may be a moral one. Of course, morality is something the right merely talks about, but clearly doesn't actually understand.
Jeb Bush is Right
Much has been made of this sensational headline over the weekend. My, my we’ve become quick to eat our own and throw Jeb Bush under the bus.
Look, Erick, at this point in time, Republicans only know how to do two things: find sex partners in bathroom stalls and throw each other under the bus. Given the options, don't you think that the under-the-bus option is better?
Anyway, Erick is referring to the headline, "Jeb Bush, GOP: Time to leave Reagan behind." I guess Jeb figured he was OK because he wasn't criticizing Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh, and maybe he was right because Erickson vigorously defends his statements of Reagan's irrelevance:
If you remember, Reagan ran in 1980 against Jimmy Carter and stagflation. He ran against appeasing the Soviet Union. He ran against an out of touch and out of control Washington. Guess what? Most people these days think it was Republicans who caused the current economic crisis and Republicans who dismantled Reagan’s vision of government in favor of out of control government.
Yeah, why would anyone think that the Republicans, who had unfettered power from 2002-2006, have anything whatsoever to do with the state of our economy or our government? That's just crazy talk.
Bottom line: Jeb Bush made a reasonable point, but he appeared to dismiss Saint Ronnie and is being roasted by "the base." Bush was talking about the launch of a "listening tour"; Limbaugh responded by saying that they need to go on a "teaching tour." "Party Unity My Ass" never sounded so good.
Obama Stimulus Tracking Site Up and Running By... October
I have not yet blogged about Recovery.org, the indispensable site set up by Onvia to keep track of how the Obama administration is spending your ’stimulus’ money. Recovery.org offers a number of ways to search - by state, county and program. They provide updates on how much stimulus funding is spent over time, and how may jobs the administration contends have been created (or saved). The site is doing quite well considering that it must rely on federal agencies for much of its information.
While Recover.org is a private site, the Obama administration has also set up its own site - Recovery.gov. It does not seem to be as up-to-date as the private site, but you can’t really expect a government agency to to move as efficiently or nimbly as the private sector. But while they may lag behind, they’re doing their best to ensure that Recovery.gov is running smoothly by... October
Mostly this just pokes fun at the Obama Administration because its site isn't going to be up until many months from now and the private site is already running. Of course, the government has to be much more careful about how and what it publishes than a private company. Also, Obama deserves points for even having a site.
The article also highlights the fact that the government anticipates an estimated 7% loss to waste, fraud and abuse. The response is that the Obama Administration official also thinks this is way too high and they're doing what they can to keep this from happening. (I have a suggestion: keep the money away from Republicans.) The RedState article does not suggest the obvious solution: just hide the waste fraud and abuse like the Bush Administration did. It worked perfectly! No one noticed (i.e. no one in the wingnut blog-o-sphere ever mentions it).
Chuck Schumer Drops the Mask
"The world has changed," Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York proclaimed on MSNBC. "The old Reagan philosophy that served them well politically from 1980 to about 2004 and 2006 is over. But the hard right, which still believes ... [in] traditional values kind of arguments and strong foreign policy, all that is over."
Well, certainly traditional values and a strong foreign policy are no longer welcome in Washington. But maybe, just maybe, the American people haven’t given up on them just yet.
Make it stop! The incessant whining and the ceaseless dog whistles to the Right Wing Hate machine. What "traditional values"? That black people aren't people and can be property? That women can't vote? That interracial marriage should be illegal? Oh please, RedState, be up front about it. One of the teabaggers I saw pictured had a sign calling for the repeal of the 14th Amendment. Yeah, let's roll of 'em back, 'cause if they weren't there in the first place, they must not be "traditional."
It never ceases to amaze me how right-wing "tradition" usually means, "50 years ago." 50 years from now, some married gay Republican will be whining that "this is a Christian country" and "we need to get back our traditional values and make marijuana illegal again!" Mark my words.