Sunday Morning Coffee (or Tea) – 71
Just a few newsworthy items (and comments thereon) that have been making their way through the political universe this past week. Please ponder and maybe chuckle a bit before enjoying a wonderful day!
BREAKING NEWS: Lynnrockets was glad to hear that somebody else agrees that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) is like a caricature of some sort of “Sopranos“-like television politician. Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D) criticized Christie’s confrontational and headline-grabbing governing style, calling it a “stand-up routine”. He also accused Christie of being “abusive towards public employees.” Furthermore, he called Christie a hypocrite over his tough budget talk for skipping a $3 billion payment into the state’s pension fund and allowing New Jersey property taxes to increase. Be careful Governor O’Malley because Christie may send “Paulie Walnuts” after you!
THIS JUST IN: This week’s episode of “Republicans Eating Their Own” features Tea-Baggers and conservative Republican Rep. Joe Barton. The Texas Republican is remembered most as being the out-of-order loudmouth who shouted “You lie!” on the House floor as President Obama was explaining that the health care reform law did not cover illegal immigrants. He also dismissed the $20 billion BP victims’ escrow fund as a “shakedown” on the part of the Obama administration. You would think that this whack-job would be a darling of the Tea Party, what with their warped sense of politics. Yet, this week at the Tea Party Patriots sponsored American Policy Summit, Barton was booed by the faithful. Apparently acknowledging public debate over a possible government shutdown, Barton told the audience about the legislative action – called a continuing resolution – recently passed in the House that temporarily funds the government in lieu of an actual budget. The measure would fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2011, which ends September 30, and cuts $61 billion from current spending levels. The Tea-Bagger response? Wild shouts of “Boo, boo!, More, more!”. The uncouth Barton and the misguided Tea-Baggers deserve each other.
BREAKING NEWS: This week’s episode of “Not Everybody Learns From History” stars Newt Gingrich. In an editorial published today in the Washington Post, the disgraced former Republican House Speaker and serial wife-cheater writes of a possible government shutdown caused by Republicans, “Those who claim that the shutdown was politically disastrous for Republicans ignore the fact that our House seat losses in 1996 were in the single digits.” Someone should remind Gingrich that during the last government shutdown at the end of 1995 – a three-week event that has since been attributed to rocketing President Bill Clinton back into political favor among the electorate after a bruising midterm election defeat for the Democrats in 1994 – Republicans ultimately compromised with a newly-energized Clinton after the public backlash suggested the GOP was taking a huge political hit. The shutdown also precipitated Gingrich’s ultimate embarrassing resignation from Congress. Here’s hoping history repeats itself once again.
THIS JUST IN: GOP operative Roger Stone, who is currently an informal adviser to Donald Trump said this week that Trump is likely to take a page out of other recent billionaire political aspirant’s playbooks and cut himself a check to the tune of $200 million to finance a run for the presidency. In light of the fact that Trump has filed for bankruptcy protection on at least four occasions, it is surprising that he has $200 million. Just what a country with an ailing economy needs, a President who has gone bankrupt multiple times.
BREAKING NEWS: The New York Times reported last week that after Judith Regan was fired by HarperCollins in 2006, she claimed that a senior executive at its parent company, News Corporation, had encouraged her to lie two years earlier to federal investigators who were vetting Bernard B. Kerik for the job of homeland security secretary. The News Corporation executive, whom she did not name, wanted to protect Rudolph Giuliani and conceal Regan’s affair with Kerik, she said. It has now been revealed that the person urging her to lie was none other than Roger E. Ailes, the powerful chairman of Fox News and a longtime friend of Mr. Giuliani. Anyone surprised?
THIS JUST IN: This week’s episode of “Your Tea Party At Work” features the Montana Tea-Baggers. The AP reports that, “with each new bill they file, newly elected Tea Party lawmakers are offering Montanans a vision of the future. Their state would be a place where officials can ignore U.S. laws, force FBI agents to get a sheriff’s OK before arresting anyone, ban abortions, limit sex education in schools and create armed citizen militias.” How’s that for change you can believe in?
BREAKING NEWS: You may have missed it, but last Wednesday somebody over at Fox News spoke the truth. Host Shepard Smith said that there is no longer a budget crisis in Wisconsin and that the battle in the state is all about politics and union-busting. Specifically he said, “to pretend this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey.” What are the chances that Smith is rewarded for his candor by receiving a pink slip this week?
THIS JUST IN: Speaking of Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott Walker attempted to divide the unions by proposing to restrict the collective bargaining rights of some unions but not others. His labor-busting bill will exempt the police and fire unions who endorsed his candidacy. His divide-and-conquer plan has unexpectedly failed. Blogger Ryan Harvey reported, “Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside. Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!”‘. OK Walker, what is Plan B?
BREAKING NEWS: We are still waiting for Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown to either identify the child sex offender that he claims molested him at a summer camp or to admit that he embellished the story to sell books. Despite the fact that law enforcement agencies have requested that Brown identify the sexual deviant, Brown has refused to do so. In the meantime, Brown’s inaction allows a child molester to remain on the loose and free to strike again. This story is not going away.
THIS JUST IN: It would not be a complete weekly news wrap-up without a Sarah Palin story. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver called Sarah Palin a “Froot Loop” for criticising the Obama administration’s healthy eating initiatives, and said getting healthy foods to kids is a civil rights issue. Apparently the former ex-quitting half-term Governor of Alaska and failed reality television personality is now being targeted by other reality television stars. You just have to love it!
BREAKING NEWS: Speaking of “Froot Loops”, did anyone see Joe Scarborough question Glenn Beck‘s sanity this week? His criticism of the Fox News host was simply scathing. Scarborough said, “This guy is losing it before our eyes. He’s bad for the conservative movement. He’s bad for the Republican Party. He’s bad for Fox News…even guys over at Fox News have to start thinking, this can’t last. He’s out of control.” But as we always say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s go to the tape…
Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s topical song parody. Enjoy!
LAST TRAIN TO NUTSVILLE
(sung to the Monkees song “Last Train To Clarksville”)
Take the last train to Nutsville
Beck will meet you at the station
You can be there by four-thirty
Cuz Fox made your reservation
The Beck Show, oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
Glenn lost his mind without warning
And it won’t be back again
Glenn Beck’s facing stormy weather
And it’s causing quite a strain
So, he must go, oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no
He might have a lobotomy on his dome.
Take the last train to Nutsville
Glenn Beck is their famous patient
If he’s not crying he’ll blow some kisses
But don’t attempt conversation
Oh… oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
Take the last train to Nutsville
That’s where Glenn Beck now calls home
We can’t hear him making noisy
Conversation all alone
He’s feelin’ low. Oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
And I don’t think that Glenn’s ever coming home.
Take the last train to Nutsville
Take the last train to Nutsville
(repeat and fade)
Posted on February 27, 2011, in Fox News, Glenn Beck, Joe Scarborough, Newt Gingrich, Republican, Sarah Palin, Scott Brown, Songs, Tea Party and tagged American Policy Summit, Beck, Chris Christie, Donald trump, fox, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Jamie Oliver, Joe Barton, Martin O'Malley, Newt Gingrich, palin, Roger Ailes, Sarah Palin, Scott Brown, Scott Walker, Shepard Smith., Tea Party, Tea-Baggers. Bookmark the permalink. 7 Comments.
Lynnrockets' Blast-Off 
Class Warfare
Walker hasn’t just tried to divide Wisconsin Unions; he’s pitted his constituents against each other -union vs. non-union, public vs. private- in a race to the bottom. In what other country do politicians run for office on the promise of beating down their own constituents in favor of fat cat special interests? Libya doesn’t count.
Walker himself has been a humdrum government employee for most of his life, so it’s no wonder that Koch’s would-be offer to fly him out to Cali to really show him a good time seemed so “outstanding”.
Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.
By PAUL KRUGMAN/New York Times
Here’s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn’t Cairo after all. Maybe it’s Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence. As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular — in a bad way. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war, those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision.
Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises” — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.”
The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,” which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society.
What’s happening in Wisconsin is a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.
For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process.
And then there’s this: the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state.
If this sounds to you like a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering — remember those missing billions in Iraq? — you’re not alone. Indeed, there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker’s anti-union push, felt compelled to issue a denial that it’s interested in purchasing any of those power plants. Are you reassured?
If Mr. Walker’s plan was to push his bill through before anyone had a chance to realize his true goals, that plan has been foiled. And events in Wisconsin may have given pause to other Republican governors, who seem to be backing off similar moves.
But don’t expect either Mr. Walker or the rest of his party to change those goals. Union-busting and privatization remain G.O.P. priorities, and the party will continue its efforts to smuggle those priorities through in the name of balanced budgets.
Great column. Thanks BP.
Yeah, and now that Walker’s been such a great help in getting his opponents organized, others will have the infrastructure set up for others to fight elsewhere. Kind of like how the Iranians, while they may have been beaten down after Neda was killed, gave rise to others protesting the high cost of food while the billionaires suck all the money from the country.
Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein
Although the book is about economics, it reads like a murder mystery/crime thriller.
Your local socialist library should have it.
Anonymous Doctrine:
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/150064/billionaire_koch_brothers_next_target_of_"anonymous"_hacker_group?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet
Laughing my ass off while singing this song!!!!!!