At Least I Know I'm Free

Yeah, That'll Be Good for Business

By Keith R. Schmitz

Truck driver driving through Arizona arrested for not having papers.

Thought the GOP was supposed to be a pro-biz party.

Got to bet this bone-headed law will be disruptive to interstate commerce since so many truckers fit the immigrant profile. Trucking companies will have to screen who does or doesn't get to traverse Arizona or risk getting tight trucking schedules thrown off kilter.

It's Been a Bad Week For Paul Ryan

by Bert

With all the grace of a power-drunk pachyderm, the Republicans are attempting this weekend to execute a hockey-stop now that the country finally sees them with total clarity as a no, nothing party. The turning point was maybe the session that President Obama presided over with retreating Republicans in Maryland on Saturday.

Congressman Paul Ryan is also trying to switch directions.

As recently as Friday, Ryan instinctively dismissed and mocked the Obama visit when “interviewed” by right-wing radio host Charlie Sykes. Sykes asked Ryan if this visit to the GOP retreat wasn’t just Obama paying lip service to the idea of bipartisanship.

“Well it’s a ten-minute speech with a bunch of tv cameras filming it and then he takes off,” Ryan replied. “So I’m not sure what we’re going to get out of that.” Ryan wrapped up with condescending insincerity: “I’m glad he’s coming. Always it’s a delight to hear from the president.”

Well, it turns out the session in Baltimore lasted 90 minutes and, rather than empty photo op, was “riveting political theater”

And, since Obama insincerely praised an insincere counter-proposal by Ryan at the session, now Ryan is suddenly willing to highlight the meeting for his own publicity purposes. Pundit Nation also noted that this is quite a shift in tone for Ryan.

Ryan, in his press release after the meeting with Obama, in effect acknowledges that the “Party of No” label is sticking to the GOP. Reminds me of the Hamlet line: “My lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

I applaud the President for rejecting his Democratic colleagues’ false ‘Party of No’ attacks. Tackling our economic and fiscal challenges require real solutions and serious dialogue. I look forward to working with the President on rising above the partisan attacks – and tackling our generation’s greatest challenges.”

Sorry Charlie, but who is it again that is paying lip service to bipartisanship?

It's Been a Bad Week for the Right Wing

by Bert
My, my, my. This past week has been a very bad one for right-wing conservatives, hasn’t it? I mean, youch.

There was the exuberant gloating about the election of Republican Scott “Mr. 41” Brown in Massachusetts, unequivocal cheers for the Supreme Court ruling for corporate cash in elections, clucking indignation at the president’s call for bank regulation.

Most of the time the right is disciplined in their dissembling. But they couldn’t contain themselves last week. For once they let loose with what they really stand for.

It is obvious now to everyone that the right wants no change in a problem-riddled health care system, that their only role is to obstruct and destroy any government initiative. When Rush said his only goal is failure for America he was speaking not just for himself, but for an entire party. The GOP is the no, nothing party.

And if conservatives have any core beliefs at all besides political power, it is that they want to deliver for their real constituency: the wealthy and powerful. This past week showed the right adores banks and corporations more than anything else, and certainly more than democracy.

That makes last week ultimately bad news for the right. Because Americans will begin now to see through the tawdry garments they use to festoon savage capitalism and oligarchy.

The fact they have shed any last pretense and now openly support the tyranny of privilege makes the last week the beginning of the end for the right. The fact they have danced on graves rather than strive along some path toward the horizon proves they have no vision. They are classic vandals.

In a manner that annoys the merde out of worldly-wise Europeans, Americans are genetically idealistic and optimistic. You can implant a nameless, unreasonable, and unjustified fear in some of us in dark times like the present. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. And nobody likes a whiner.

Land of the Little People

By Keith R. Schmitz

The terror trials are coming to New York City and there is a possibility that a prison in North Illinois (with the lusty urging of the locals) will take some of the Gitmo inmates. And like clockwork the exploitation begins.

This morning Politico.com tells us that in predictable fashion and like dogs salivating to Pavlov's bell, the GOP will look to exploit the ginned up concern in next year's midterms. And why not. They have little else to offer us and how can they when they hate government. Several GOP members in Congress have already jumped in on the panic.

So no surprise mistress-marrying, criminal crony promoter, 9/11 parrot Rudy Guiliani is whipping this issue like a rented mule. Locally one TV station did a 10:00 news promo the other night with the alarmist statement "are terrorists coming to Illinois near the Wisconsin border?"

The question is if we are the strongest nation on earth, how come those who spout that statement the most are acting like it the least?

I'l Have What He's Having

By Keith R. Schmitz

Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson has created a minor cable TV furor with his tongue-in-cheek dig that the GOP plan for health care is "just die."

In predictable fashion, the dish it out but can't take it GOP is crying like babies. Since the dawn of August we have seen a parade of Republican congress members lay wild charges about death panels, government control of health care, and of course, an apology from Joe Wilson that isn't an apology because he is fund raising off his disruption.

So now we have Freshman representative Grayson not only using his apology to dig the dig deeper, but bursting onto the set at CNN and audaciously taking on an entire panel and standing his ground.

I for one would like more reasoned discussion but we haven't seen it from the GOP. Sure supporters of health care from time to time have gone off the road, but we all know who has ginned up the hysteria. So for the time being, this the way the game is being played. Though well-framed arguments are great, it is overpowering the other side that carries the day. Just the way it is right now.

We need more Democrats like Alan Grayson.

What If?

By Keith R. Schmitz

Let's toss this cow into the piranha pool.

When we were attacked eight years ago, we all pulled behind the President. Practically all of us -- 90% of the country.

That certainly included Democrats who swallowed their anger over their suspicions that the election was stolen. They readily recognized the country was in assaulted and did what every good American should do -- pull behind the President out of respect for the office regardless of who is in it.

What do you think will happen if it happens again? What do you think Charlie Sykes, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Joe Wilson, Newt Gingrich and all the rest will tell their minions to do if we are visited by another black day?

Recovery Act

By Keith R. Schmitz

Call me an optimist (been called worse around here).

But now that the White House is nearing the conclusion that trying to work with people who are so ideologically frozen that it is comparable to beating your head against the wall, when the administration does pull the trigger the President's approval rating will rise.

This is providing he and the Democrats in Congress come up with a plan that is more to people's liking -- regulating insurance company cherry picking and their practice of rescission, a robust public option, optional end of life counseling, and maintaining the subsidies or very small businesses to name a few.

Bet you that the five to ten percentage points that comprise the disapproval rating are progressives who are uncomfortable, no make that mad, at the caving in to the rad right.

Anyone who hates the idea of health care reform and of course hate the President are already in the disapproval numbers already in there already and should not grow.

Looks like reconciliation may be the path when the Democrats have to deal with irreconcilable differences.

Dare to Compare

By Keith R. Schmitz

It seems so unfair to pick on Sarah Palin since there is a lot less than meets the eye. But you still have supposedly serious people acting like she is a serious candidate, so when a dish is served it must be eaten.

That being said, as bad as she is when she stands alone put her up against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotmayor and the Sarah Barracuda absolutely wilts.

Margaret Wente with the Toronto Globe and Mail splashes water on the arguments of the anti-Sotomayor crowd by comparing the judge against their hero ex-Gov. Palin:

According to leading Republican pundits, Judge Sotomayor is a hot-tempered, dim-witted bigot whose judicial activism (read nutty identity politics) could play havoc with the Constitution. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, even called her a “Latina racist.” Amazingly, these are the same people who continue to insist that Sarah Palin is qualified to run for president of the United States. They insist she is the victim of a vicious smear job by the eastern media elites.

And for those who keep telling us that character counts and that there are 50 Rules:

Ms. Palin despises people who were educated in elite Ivy League universities. Judge Sotomayor, on the other hand, was smart enough to get into them. She put herself through school on scholarships, and graduated from Princeton with top honours. Ms. Palin, who finds homework disagreeable, has never doubted her own abilities for a minute. But Judge Sotomayor worries constantly that she's not good enough. “I am always looking over my shoulder, wondering if I measure up,” she has said.

As much as Palin and her undiscriminating (except sometimes when it comes to race) supporters whine about the people who have eyes and ears in the media and outside of the rad right, their real bane is George W. Bush.

In the past, the GOP became real masters at playing the game of presenting a mediocre candidate because at that time, they could sell the idea that government didn't matter so why should the people the offered up who managed it. At the same time, they could present critics as being detached from "real America" who could admire someone who was not an Ivy League snob. Note W did attend an Ivy League school or two.

Now things have changed. Most voters have noticed that when you have a proudly incompetent candidate, you have a government that can make your life complicated.

Nobody seems to care when things are running smoothly but when the economy runs into the ditch, people do point fingers.

Sarah Palin cannot play that card of the defiant incompetent except among the resentful and those who believe that the role of government is to strictly protect the unborn.

But she could play the element of surprise and find a way to improve and bone-up as they say. Maybe, just maybe, she could become a wise gringa. But when it comes to Sonia Sotomayor, Sarah has a long way to go.

Some Need a Cold Shower

By Keith R. Schmitz

In the spirit of "drill baby drill" the right, because they do things because they are political not because they are smart, have been pushing on The President to push on the Iranian government. At least that's Friday's Hot Read.

The question is, have the sweating conservative politicians and pundits asked the protesters? Here's why. Looks like Obama might be ready to swat another fly.

Side note, archetypal southern politician Saxby Chambliss the other day countered an assertion that through we meddled in Iranian politics years ago and risk turning off the Iranians, "nobody today would remember that." Bet you Chambliss is still fighting the Civil War.

And She's a Racist?

By Keith R. Schmitz

For what seems to be an endless week or two, conservatives have been baying at the moon over a greatly puffed up statement made by Supreme Court pick Sonia Sotomayer supposedly revealing her "racism."

Used to be they could get away with this kind of nonsense to the point of getting a president impeached, because that was horrible, just horrible and we have to do something about it.

Now one statement makes Judge Sotomayer the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Talk about your bigger tent.

Now people have gotten wide and getting away with it is not what it used to be. Besides, many of those who bellow racism are quite likely very expert in practicing it themselves. Hence the laughability.

Now word has come up that one of the advisers to two of leading voices -- Tom Tancredo and Pat Buchanan -- has a bit of a race problem himself.

On July 7, 2007, Marcus Epstein had too much to drink and stumbled onto Georgetown’s scenic, shop-lined M Street, walking in no particular direction. At 7:15 p.m., he bumped into a black woman, called her a “nigger,” and struck her in the head with an open hand. An off-duty Secret Service agent was watching. Epstein “jogged away,” according to the agent’s affidavit, and when Epstein was finally chased down, he “continued to flail his arms while being taken into custody.”

It would be nice if these guys would pay less attention to fanciful racism charges and tend to their own house.

GOP Chock Full O'Nuts

By Keith R. Schmitz

Craig Crawford writing in CQ Politics hits so many nails on the head:

Speaking as a white male, I'm tired of nuts representing my kind. "Identity politics" is the latest war cry from the angry white male camp led by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan and George Will. (Some locals will come to mind).

During the last presidential election I was chatting with a white male friend who was planning to vote for Barack Obama but asked, "How can a black man with such a weird name ever get elected?" I replied, "Because we don't run this country by ourselves anymore."

Nobody called it identity politics when only white males had the power -- like when they wrote our originally racist and sexist Constitution (which could explain why the white male crusaders are so fond of "strictly interpreting" the Constitution as it was originally intended).

So what if President Obama picked Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court because she's a Latina who happens to be qualified? On the Supreme Court, as we've seen in the White House and beyond, it is about time for some politics of diverse identities.

Another GOP Exploding Cigar

By Keith R. Schmitz

The right wing has been salivating over the prospect that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew and approved waterboarding, somehow exonerating those in the Bush administration who wanted a return to the Spanish Inquisition. For sure they saw this as a distraction from the effort of the Obama administration to push through its reforms.

Again another setback for the GOP. They have been pushing and pushing and pushing the notion of Pelosi's culpability in supposedly approving waterboarding, making it OK. Now Majority Steny Hoyer is calling their bluff -- and more.

Here's the problem for the incredible shrinking party. According to The Hill, Hoyer is calling for the records on the Congressional briefings to be brought out into the sunlight.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, has pushed for hearings after engineering the release of CIA documents that say Pelosi, the panel’s ranking Democrat in 2002, was briefed on interrogation techniques used on a terrorism suspect who is now known to have been waterboarded.

But former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who received a similar briefing at the time, has also said he wasn’t told that prisoners were being waterboarded.

Oops. The speaker might very well be vindicated and the GOP embarrassed. Life goes on.

It's Like Being Dumped by Newman

By Keith R. Schmitz

Sam "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, told TIME Magazine that he's so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party.

Fine Whine

By Keith R. Schmitz

Off the Wisconsin GOP web site:

Campaigning for governor, Jim Doyle promised to eliminate 10,000 state government jobs. To date, the administration has actually taken on an extra 3,000 jobs since Doyle took office. On the other hand, the private sector has LOST 69,4000 jobs on Doyle's watch.

Let's unravel this logic. We have lost nearly 70,ooo jobs in Wisconsin. The state GOP wants the state to throw 10,000 or even 13,000 of their employees out on the street?

The fact that we have 70M people out of work in the private sector has little to do with having 13M working in the public sector. Many other factors contributed to that job loss, including a good measure of GOP policies.

As in all bad recessions the government becomes the employer and purchaser of last resort. To listen to these acolytes of Grover Norquist would make the situation much worse. Except for the teabaggers, the American public at least knows better.

"Specter's Switch a Wake-Up Call for the GOP..."

By Keith R. Schmitz

...according to the Huffington Post.

Bet they roll over and hit the snooze button.

GOP Self-Inflicts Wound

By Keith R. Schmitz

You bet Arlen Specter jumped the GOP for political reasons. Conservative Congressman Pat Toomey was ahead of him by at least 20 points in the polling, and it looked for certain Specter would not survive the primary.

But the primary is the primary presented for the inspection, as Rod Serling would say, of an increasingly right wing party.

A growing segment of not only Pennsylvania but of the rest of the USA is walking away from the policies which have proven to be disastrous for the country and for individuals smart enough to recognize when they are being smacked around by the system.

But why did the GOP make it so easy for Specter? This is a party that has gone away from practicality and now thinks politics is some rite of purity. For all of our faults, many Democrats have become cognizant of what the average thinks like, not supposed to think like.

Paul Ryan this morning on Scarborough was decrying the Democrats for being far left. But when you are so far to the opposite side as he is and so many in the GOP, everyone looks like a Red.

Specter wants health care reform. The GOP is deluded into thinking we have the best health care system in the world and would do all they could in the Senate to block it or water it down. Now it appears we can get that reform without the taint of reconiliation, but a plan voted by the full Senate.

Meanwhile, the GOP has gone for Stalinistic purges. Just ask Mary Panzer. It wasn't too long ago when during the state GOP convention that the right wing blogs were agog when the party came out and said they would only support only true conservatives.

It's their party, but now this kind of hubris has led to today's news.

But it happens. The GOP was once riding high, but gravity always reminds you where the ground is.

The Democrats of course could screw up, but that won't happen any time soon. To their benefit the GOP is still intoxicated with sophomoric economic fantasy that the cushion is there if the Democrats stumble.

Happy 100 Days Barack Obama.

Balkanization Update -- Now that Arlen Specter has come out as a Democrat, GOP Party Leader Rush Limbaugh has told John McCain and his daughter Meghan to leave as well. Better listen!

Two legs good. Four legs bad. GOP "Consistency" on Deficits

By Keith R. Schmitz

Why are the only hard news interviews seemingly on the Daily Show?

The other night Jon Stewart put New Hampshire Senator John Sununu on the griddle over the new found GOP religion on deficits (emphasis mine).

Stewart: I'm not an economist, but let's say I start out with a surplus and I say lets have a tax cut to stimulate the economy, lets make it 1.2 trillion dollars and that surplus turns into a deficit. Why would I at that point go, hey you know what could fix that? A tax cut.

This GOP view seems to change with administrations, and as usual right wing talk radio carries the water.

Remembering back a few years ago a combination of boredom and lack of knowledge about my high blood pressure led me to tune in Mark Belling one afternoon during the Bush administration. He was challenging his listeners to come up with a reason why deficits were bad. Since he was not exactly broadcasting to the Wharton School of Business no answers were forthcoming.

It occurred to me that rewinding to the early years of Bill Clinton when again I was bored and not knowledgeable about high blood pressure Belling was then exhibiting his brand of mental unhinging on deficits.

Clinton goes on to build that surplus $1.2 trillion surplus, despite his "distractions" and GOP railing about "tax and spend" Democrats.

Now rather than tax cuts for the wealthy and a boneheaded invasion of Iraq to bequeath to our grandchildren there is deficit spending intended to help out our economy and average people. GOP defines these deficits as wasteful.

Two legs good. Four legs bad.

Maybe the GOP should change their web site URL address to Expediency.com.

Update: F. Jim proves more of the above point. Someone please explain (and I'm sure someone will) why blowing money out of a confetti cannon at the Defense Department does not constitute reckless spending?

Saddle Sore

By Keith R. Schmitz

Once again another Republican gets the wrists slapped for unauthorized music use.

This time it is GOP Congressional Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), the southern version of Pompadour Paul Ryan.

Cantor released a music video last week using Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle" to definitively announce "The House GOP is back" because of his party's unanimous opposition to the stimulus.

Cantor's clip has since been pulled from YouTube after a copyright infringement claim filed by Stage Three Music, which owns the rights to the song.

This of course, is not the first time off the GOP being too clever by half and paying for it. If you recall last year the Wilson sisters got ticked when Sarah Palin used Barracuda at rallies. There are many other instances.

For a party that prides itself on being business experts, they seem to know precious little about copyright laws.

What's the Rush?

By Keith R. Schmitz

First a joke.

What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?

One is a big flaming Nazi gas bag. The other is a dirigible.

Any ways thanks to the GOP and those who love them, tap dancing isn't dead. Such as it is in a letter that ran in today's Journal Sentinel:

Leonard Pitts' Jan. 27 column "Limbaugh's calculated rage" read like it was from one (of many?) who doesn't listen to Rush Limbaugh but feels free to criticize something without knowing the context in which the comment was made. If Pitts did know the context, he did not share that with his readers. It was this: Limbaugh believes President Barack Obama intends to try to grow big government and move the United States toward a European-style socialism. Limbaugh wants the president to fail to be able to set policies in place to do that.

As some of you may remember Milwaukee had a couple of Socialist mayors, church-going all, and things ran better here than during the past eight years under a less so socialist president.

Been to Europe? Unless people are putting on, and they are very bad at that in France, Europeans under crushing socialism don't seem so glum.

But what about this concept of the country succeeding, but Obama's policies failing?

Huh? Right now we will be pretty much operating on what will be Obama policies, so the success of this country is not mutually exclusive to Obama's programs. That would be like removing the core of an apple without breaking its skin.

But since when has logic been part of the Limbaugh nation, once referred to as the Republican party?