political_talk

Bachmann Jumps the Shark Again, Likens Financial Reform to Mussolini’s Italy

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), who can always be counted on for hyperbole and assorted fabrications chained together in to her very own special drivel-language, jumped the shark, yet again, during a Tuesday evening webcast with a Tea Party PAC. She likened the financial reform bill currently in Congress with the policies of the fascist government in Italy during Mussolini's reign:

Let's remember really what this is. This has a lot in common with Italy in the 1930s and they way Italy dealt with economics. It still continues private ownership of business but government is in control.

So government control of the private business, while it's private ownership, that's still at the end of the day the federal government virtually having a say over private business. We lose freedoms; we lose economic competitiveness.

And don’t forget, Italy is in tough shape financially, and that’s not what we want for the United States.

The Governator Pokes Fun at Arizona

During his commencement address to students at Emory University on May 10, 2010, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger poked a bit of fun at the outrage of the recently enacted illegal immigration law in Arizona, which requires racial profiling to enforce.

I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, CA 1947 -

---

Arizona’s immigration law. 

Source of image: John Spink/Atlanta Journal Constitution

Liberal Columnist TBogg Paraphrase of Ross Douthat Article

Ross Douthat (pictured in the image at left), conservative columnist for the New York Times, is against choice for women. He probably likes the new Oklahoma travesty law too. Liberal blogger, TBogg, accurately paraphrases Douthat's original article so that you don't have to read it:

Conservatives are kept poor and stupid because they refuse to stoop to the level of the liberal elitists who get ahead in life by killing their own babies. Totally unfair.

Frank Rich: Profiles in Courage NOT the GOP

New York Times columnist, Frank Rich, in his column about the Arizona immigration law recently enacted which promotes the use of racial profiling. 

There are few profiles in courage among the leaders in this G.O.P. — only a lot of guys hiding under their desks.

Mike Huckabee on the Constitution and the "living God"

During a campaign (during the primary presidential campaign) stop in Warren, Michigan, in 2008, Mike Huckabee made it clear that he believes that we need two new amendments to the Constitution. One a human life amendment, and the other an amendment which would define marriage as between a man and a woman only.

I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

Jon Stewart on Orly Taitz

  Jon Stewart, mocking Orly Taitz, while addressing the ridiculous spectacle of the birther movement.

Wait, she’s an attorney, a dentist, and a real estate agent. Are you looking to have a botched root canal, sue for damages, and then use the settlement money to buy the house of your dreams? If so, you can call me, Orly Taitz, your one-stop shop for all things legal, tooth, and shelter related.

Via Daily Show Video

Glenn Beck & Rep. Steve King on the vote for health care reform

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)  discussed the vote on health care reform with Glenn Beck of Fox News on Beck’s radio show (March 2010). The vote was slated for a Sunday.

They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God.

Beck responded with his usual googly-eyed nonsensical gibberish.

You couldn’t have said it better. Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity, that is a — this is an affront to God. And I honestly, I don’t think anybody is like, “yes, and now what we’ll do is we’ll vote on the Sabbath.” But I think it’s absolutely appropriate that these people are trying to put the nail in the coffin on our country on a Sunday — something our founders would have never, ever, ever done. Out of respect for God.

So, you would think that no Republican ever called for a vote on a Sunday. You would be wrong. Via Think Progress:

On Palm Sunday in 2005, the Republican-controlled Senate passed a controversial bill to allow a federal court to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo. The House passed the same bill shortly after midnight on Monday morning.

Via Think Progress.

Sen. Lindsey Graham on health care reform

In March of 2010, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) began referring to health care reform as a “suicide run”, making an attempt to compare it to a Japanese bombing run. This quote is from an interview Graham did on a local radio station.

Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and you know, they’re making a suicide run here,

Via Think Progress.

Rep. Paul Broun calls the Civil War the ‘Great War of Yankee Aggression’

On March 18, 2010, in his overly zealous effort to aid in defeating health care reform, Rep. Paul Broun (R- Ga.) made the following statement on the floor of the House of Representatives:

If ‘ObamaCare’ passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression.

Sen. Tom Coburn tells seniors that they will die sooner because of health care reform

The outright lies, the myths, and the hyperbole flew during the battle for health care reform in 2009 and 2010. Including this fabricated myth from Sen. Tom Coburn (R- OK) who made this claim on the floor of the Senate in December.

I have a message for our seniors: “You’re going to die sooner.”

George Will on Media Fascination With Sarah Palin

A surprisingly astute quote by George Will from his article dissecting the media's fascination with Sarah Palin, "Sarah Palin and the mutual loathing society". I especially liked the last two lines.

Political nature abhors a vacuum, which is what often exists for a year or two in a party after it loses a presidential election. But today's saturation journalism, mesmerized by presidential politics and ravenous for material, requires a steady stream of political novelties. In that role, Palin is united with the media in a relationship of mutual loathing. This is not her fault. But neither is it her validation.

---

Source:  The Washington Post, George Will

Palin Lies on Leno

On The Tonight Show, Palin spewed her usual gibberish in reference to her Family Guy remarks, and her lack of opportunity (oh, please...) to follow up after the media responded.

I commented and then that gets out there in the blogosphere, it gets out there in the different forms of the mediums that we have today. And then it’s left there, not an opportunity for me to follow up and kind of elaborate on what I really meant and what I really thought of the thing.

---

Source:  Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, The Atlantic, 'Lying on Leno'

Howard Zinn on War in Our Time

We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.

---

Source:  Dr. Howard Zinn, The Progressive Magazine, November 2001
Image of painting [of Dr. Zinn] by Brett Cook

There is no flag large enough......

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable.

---

Dr. Howard Zinn

HOWARD ZINN: How Change Occurs

I would encourage people to look around them in their community and find an organization that is doing something that they believe in, even if that organization has only five people, or ten people, or twenty people, or a hundred people. And to look at history and understand that when change takes place it takes place as a result of large, large numbers of people doing little things unbeknownst to one another. And that history is very important for people to not get discouraged. Because if you look at history you see the way the labor movement was able to achieve things when it stuck to its guns, when it organized, when it resisted. Black people were able to change their condition when they fought back and when they organized. Same thing with the movement against the war in Vietnam, and the women's movement. History is instructive. And what it suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper. Anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place.

---

Source: Wikiquote
Dr. Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn: Defining Patriotism

If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles

---

Source: Wikiquote
Dr. Howard Zinn

President Obama: With all due deference to the separation of powers.......

On January 27, 2010, in his first State of the Union address to Congress and the American people, President Barack Obama leveled a strong recrimination at the Supreme Court for the controversial ruling made in the Citizens United case, decided on January 21, 2010.View the video excerpt below. The full transcript, along with the full video of the SOTU is here.

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that's why I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that corrects some of these problems

GOP Senate Candidate Compares Embryonic Stem Cell Research to Nazi Death Camps

"In March 2009, President Obama issued an executive order that removed President Bush’s limitations on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, ending the tragic politicization of the issue that existed under the former president." [...]

GOP Senate candidate, Gary Coleman [R-AR] attacked President Obama regarding this decision:

Embryonic stem cell research is taking the concept of taking a life and using it to conduct experiments so we can temporarily extend somebody else’s life. Let me tell you what I just described. I just described what the Nazis did to the Jews in the death camps of WWII.

---

Source: Think Progress 
Science Magazine

Chief Justice John G. Roberts on Affirmative Action

In a Supreme Court packed with conservatives, this was no surprise. Chief Justice John G. Roberts:

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

---

Source: Seattle School District case (2007-06-28)

Samuel A. Alito: A judge can't have any agenda......

Faced with the well-founded skepticism of the Democrats during his confirmation hearings in 2006, Samuel A. Alito attempted to present himself to the Senate Judiciary Committee as an "open-minded judge with no agenda other than the rule of law".

A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have a preferred outcome in any particular case, and a judge certainly can't have a client.

A judge's only obligation -- and it is a solemn obligation -- is to the rule of law. And what that means is that in every single case, the judge has to do what the law requires.

---

Source: NPR - Day One: Alito Stresses Rule of Law