Torture and the truth in Obama's America

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's a lot to like, I suppose, about Obama's America, or, at least, about Obama's high-falutin' (and idealistic, if not delusional) rhetoric about America. It would seem to be a better place, than, say, Bush's America.

But not by much.

Sure, Obama deserves much of the credit for health-care reform (even if he didn't ever push for a public option and, on this as on pretty much every other issue, gave in to Republican demands without much of a fight and certainly without ever using his bully pulpit to achieve more progressive ends) and for pulling the economy back from the brink of utter catastrophe and for improving the country's standing around the world, but otherwise, as we look back over his first two-plus years, he has extended Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, protected Wall Street from being held accountable for the financial meltdown, and, much to his and the country's discredit, continued Bush's anti-democratic and illiberal national security state.

On this last point, here's yet another shameful case in point, via Glenn Greenwald:

On Friday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denounced the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention as "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid," forcing President Obama to address those comments in a Press Conference and defend the treatment of Manning. [Yesterday], CNN report[ed], Crowley... "abruptly resigned" under "pressure from White House officials because of controversial comments he made last week about the Bradley Manning case." In other words, he was forced to "resign" -- i.e., fired.

So, in Barack Obama's administration, it's perfectly acceptable to abuse an American citizen in detention who has been convicted of nothing by consigning him to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, barring him from exercising in his cell, punitively imposing "suicide watch" restrictions on him against the recommendations of brig psychiatrists, and subjecting him to prolonged, forced nudity designed to humiliate and degrade. But speaking out against that abuse is a firing offense...

Of course, it's also the case in Barack Obama's world that those who instituted a worldwide torture and illegal eavesdropping regime are entitled to full-scale presidential immunity, while powerless individuals who blow the whistle on high-level wrongdoing and illegality are subjected to the most aggressive campaign of prosecution and persecution the country has ever seen. So protecting those who are abusing Manning, while firing Crowley for condemning the abuse, is perfectly consistent with the President's sense of justice.

As always, here's the problem? What's the alternative? This, but even worse, under Republican rule.

And so we who abhor what is going on -- the government's authority to invade privacy, among other things, under the Patriot Act; the treatment of Bradley Manning; Gitmo remaining open with detainees kept indefinitely and subjected to military "trials"; etc. -- end up backing Obama (and his Democratic enablers) just because the other side is worse. Which is hardly much of an endorsement of the president.

That's my pragmatism speaking. Ultimately, the choice is clear.

But that doesn't make this any better.

Whatever good it will do, if any at all, we must keep up the pressure on Obama and expose the injustices that are being committed under his rule, injustices for which he himself must be held accountable.

Mitt Romney is toast

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

According to a spokesman, "Mitt Romney is proud of what he accomplished for Massachusetts in getting everyone covered."

According to that spokesman, "Romneycare" isn't like the Affordable Care Act (i.e., "Obamacare," according to Republican propaganda) because it's a single-state system, not a national one, and because "[a] one-size-fits-all plan for the entire nation just doesn't work." States, he asserted, should have "the power to determine their own healthcare solutions."

There is much to recommend Romneycare, once the sort of thing Republicans supported, but the argument that states should all have their own individual systems is silly. Moreover, the two systems are "essentially the same," as Yglesias noted last year -- Romneycare even includes a dreaded individual mandate, now the main target of opponents of the Affordable Care Act -- and Romney has been all over the place distancing himself from the Affordable Care Act. He's obviously landed now on the federal/state distinction, but that won't get him anywhere in today's GOP. Indeed, Karl Rove said last month that Romney basically needs to admit that his heath-care reform in Massachusetts was wrong and that he should apologize for it. Apparently that's not about to happen, not with Romney adamantly defending the Obama-like system that bears his name.

Prediction: Mitt Romney will not be the Republican nominee for president in 2012. He's toast. And, try as he might to protest his sufficiently right-wing cred, he's just making it worse for himself. He did a very good thing in Massachusetts, something he should be very proud of. Don't expect Republicans, and particularly the base, to give him the benefit of anything. They'll destroy him, and that will be that.

(Yes, that's the easiest prediction I've made in a long time, maybe since I picked Christine O'Donnell to lose the Delaware Senate race in a landslide. I don't claim to be a crystal ball. Some things are just obvious.)

How the GOP is a party of words: Promises are promises are promises...

By Nicholas Wilbur

Transitions are always difficult. If you're a Republican, Change® is particularly tough to swallow – which is why the GOP spent the last two years projectile vomiting on anything that tasted like "Progress" and throwing filibuster tantrums whenever Congress debated a bill on Capitol Hill.

They swept the midterm elections, nonetheless, not with a strong record – or any record at all – but by riding the coattails of the anti-government prattle of the Tea Party patriots who flooded the mainstream media with sensational circus theatrics and apocalyptic prophesies of the country's imminent demise were Democrats to remain in power.

The seemingly sane but obviously stubborn Republicans teamed up with Tea Party candidates and capitalized on the nation's fears and doubts by crafting a national message so bold it could not be ignored, even by liberals, who, for good or ill, were transfixed. Traditional Republicans, as the media has since dubbed the non-Tea Partiers, touted a "repeal and replace" strategy to undo the alleged devastation wrought by the Obama Administration and his Democratic Party minions in Congress. The Teabaggers, as the left-wing media dubbed the ideological extremists, did their part by peppering the rhetoric with threats to amend the Constitution and deny citizenship to brown people, abolish the IRS, and defund the departments of interior, commerce and education that these Fox News junkies believed had become a black hole for taxpayer dollars. 

But Republicans knew they couldn't continue riding in the back of the leadership bus through 2011. With majority control of the lower branch of Congress, there was a sudden expectation that these new leaders would actually lead, that these new lawmakers would actually make laws. Bitching and whining and obstructing the legislative process at every turn would not suffice with majority status in "the people's house" of Congress. 

They had to appear, at least on the surface, that they were worthy of the government paychecks they received.

And so, after a year-long campaign focused on accusing Democrats of ignoring the main concern of the American people – job creation – Republicans got right down to business upon entering office. Sort of. 

They amended the House rules to require that all bills brought to the floor include a constitutional citation of lawfulness. They rescinded the already limited voting rights of delegates from D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and elsewhere. They required that all bills include spending cuts to offset any costs needed for implementation of the newly-proposed legislation (exempting, of course, tax cuts for the rich and their repeal of President Obama's health-care law). And they changed the House schedule to give every lawmaker one week off for every two weeks worked. 

That was just the beginning. 

As they settled into their new positions of power, Republicans showed their dedication to the financially strapped American working class by introducing... a bill to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, a bill to abolish the IRS and eliminate the income tax, and another bill that would redefine rape. 

Having promised to cut $100 billion from the federal budget this fiscal year, Republicans drafted legislation to free up a whopping $61 million (yes, million) in the budget by abolishing public financing for presidential elections. Most recently, they voted on what amounts to an office memo, a skeletal outline, a very rough, very unspecific, and very ambiguous House Resolution that calls for $32 billion in cuts.

Not exactly landmark legislation. Not legislation at all, in most cases. In fact, the only significant piece of legislation proposed thus far by Republicans has been the health-care repeal bill, which, given its chances of becoming law, wasn't much of a bill at all. They spent the last year promising to "repeal and replace" the 2,000-plus-page law known by conservatives as "ObamaCare," but the "replace" portion of the promise was conveniently absent from the two-paragraph repeal bill passed in the House. As they knew it would, this faux legislation failed in the Senate.

So here we are one month into the new Congress, with Republicans still reeling from a landslide victory over Democrats in the midterm election, and what do we have to show for it? 

Nothing. 

And looking back, we should not be surprised. We all saw this coming. 

After "shellacking" Democrats in the midterm elections, Republicans returned to Washington intent on "saving millions of taxpayer dollars." They began this quest by attempting to eliminate grant funding for public radio. The $3.2 million in projected annual savings was pittance, they knew, and doomed to failure, as they eventually saw. But they tooted their horns and banged their drums nonetheless, eventually blaming liberals for offering government handouts to Not Pro Republican media outlets. Next in line: banning earmarks, another pittance estimated to save $16 billion a year. That fell flat when Republicans realized that banning earmarks meant they could no longer fund infrastructure projects in their home states. There were also targeted efforts to deny unemployment benefits, thwart the judicial "interference" in cases where employees are raped on the job, and kill a bill to award health care to 9/11 first responders. 

The last two months of the 111th Congress saw more of the same blind Republican opposition that had defined their presence in Washington, really, since Democrats won the majority in 2006. In the final days of 2010, Republicans followed up their backward opposition to the DREAM Act and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by fighting vigorously against even the no-brainer nuclear arms treaty with Russia, New START. 

They railed against excessive government spending (without acknowledging their role in the unpaid-for prescription drug program, the Bush tax cuts, and the two wars that created a $1.3 trillion deficit by the end of Bush's second term), but then balked when it came time to identify specific spending cuts. Perhaps in their most egregious display of hypocrisy, Republicans threatened to shut down the government if President Obama and the Democrats didn't get on board with the GOP priority of extending Bush's tax cuts for another two years. 

It worked. The rich kept their disproportionate tax breaks, but the result didn't quite live up to the Republican Party's pledge to cut spending back to 2008 levels, as outlined in their "Pledge to America" campaign manifesto. Conversely, it cost about $100 billion more than the 2009 economic stimulus bill they so loathed. 

The empty promises, the lofty and impractical goals, the "repeal and replace" agenda that has thus far come up empty on both fronts – these have all proven mere strategies in a shell game of hallow rhetoric meant to brainwash taxpayers into thinking that their new leaders in Washington are well-deserving of the $174,000 (plus health care benefits) that we pay them for representing We the People.

The naysayers and witch hunters of anything smelling of liberalism have demonstrated that they are not patriots defending against Socialism as much as they are stalwart defenders of the Bush-era status quo. The people loved them for it throughout the last congressional session, they praised them for it throughout the campaign season, and they turned out in swaths to reward them for it at the ballot box on Nov. 2, 2010. Now a month into the 112th Congress, Republicans are enjoying their highest popularity rating in years.

Republicans interpreted the last election as a mandate against the progressive agenda. Voters, they said, showed unequivocally that they wanted whatever was the opposite of progress and change. 

This is about as close as it gets.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.) 

***********

Background photo of John Boehner from National Journal.

Republican favorable/unfavorable chart from Gallup.

Activist judge Roger Vinson's ruling makes George Washington unconstitutional

By Nicholas Wilbur

I'm not an ambulance chaser, nor am I a judge. I can't even claim sidekick status to a comic book superhero who rights the wrongs of America with his doctorate in constitutional law.

But riddle me this, Batman: If the president signed a law forcing every American to purchase a rifle and ammunition in preparation for a possible call to active military duty, but the Constitution specifically forbade forcing Americans to purchase ammunition, could a federal judge then overturn the entire law – including the rifle mandate – on the basis that only the ammunition portion of the law was illegal?

A judge in Florida has ruled against President Obama's health-care reform law, saying that the provision that forces Americans to buy health insurance is a breach of Congress' constitutional authority. He did not argue the illegality of the law's other provisions. He said only that the mandate (the ammunition provision, in this seemingly left-field metaphor) was unconstitutional.

Federal district judge Roger Vinson argued that, "[b]ecause the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void."

It would be easy to brand this 70-year-old, bachelor's degree-educated wannabe Tea Partier as a kook who admitted to relying on the legally insignificant analyses of a known hate group to craft his ruling. Rest assured, his education, his age, and his apparent bias do not play into my critique. Calling Vinson a geriatric Frankenstein pig fucker with shit for brains would not be a merit-based evaluation of his mental capacity, his overall intelligence, and his cognitive ability to perform the duties expected of a judge, which is why I'm not arguing that he's a pig fucker. I'm merely asking how a man tasked with interpreting the legality of public policy can denounce every aspect of a law on the basis that one aspect of it is, in his opinion, unconstitutional.

Rather than rule only against the mandate portion of the law, as was the expectation and the precedent set in a mirror ruling made by a federal judge in Virginia, Vinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, instead threw out the entire law on the basis that all the reforms will fail without the mandate. Granted, President Obama's health-care law doesn't include a "severability clause" that would allow the judge to strike down a portion of the law without invalidating the entire law, but if Vinson believes the entire law is illegal, then why didn't he issue an injunction against the policy and immediately halt its implementation?

First of all, we must ask if the health-care law itself would be invalidated without the mandate, as that is the basis for Vinson's ruling. It turns out several states have created laws banning insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Also, Vinson did not rule that the provision in the law that allows children to stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26 was unconstitutional. These provisions would still be in place without the mandate. They would still be legal.

It doesn't require a magnifying glass to read between the lines of Vinson's ruling. He's saying what even the president has said – that without the mandate, the bill would fail. But failure, in this sense, means it wouldn't generate the revenue predicted, it wouldn't achieve the coverage rates predicted, and it wouldn't lower costs for individual insurance consumers as predicted.

The question, however, is not whether or not the bill is effective. It is the job of Congress, of lawmakers, policy experts, and legislative analysts to determine the effectiveness of a bill. The question is, when did it become the job of a judge, of an interpreter of the law, to decide effectiveness?

We talk often, and we often talk vehemently, about "activist" judges. Any leftist who angers the right is an activist judge. Any right-winger who pisses off the left is an activist judge. In most cases, these are ideological critiques, not merit-based evaluations.

This, I think, is one of the few cases where the "judicial activism" argument holds water. It would not be inappropriate for a federal judge to air his personal views that health-care reform would be cheapened without a mandate. We wouldn't balk at the observation, as the president and nearly every Democrat in Congress has already admitted as much. But is it appropriate that a judge has shot down an entire law based on the personal evaluation of how effective a law would be without the one portion he has deemed unconstitutional?

That's the question. I'm open to critiques.

As for my seemingly unrelated metaphor of the rifle and ammunition mandates, that actually happened. It was, in fact, one of the framers of the Constitution, George Washington, who forced every American to arm himself. In a way, this was health-care insurance, 1770s-style. No judge ruled it unconstitutional. Probably few citizens deemed the mandates unjust. It was logical to protect oneself. And in that sense, its no different than modern health-care reform.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)

Polls say America fears sodomy more than socialism

By Nicholas Wilbur

There is nothing profound in the pronouncement that politicians only cite public opinion polls that strengthen their argument, promote their cause, and reinforce their agenda.

What is rather interesting is how quickly Republicans have abandoned the "will of the people" rhetoric now that a majority of public opinion polls show growing opposition to the GOP's efforts to overturn President Obama's signature health-care reform law.

After spending the entire campaign season of 2010 railing against reform as a "government takeover" of the health-care industry – an allegation that earned Republicans the 2010 Bullshit of the Year Award from the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.com – the GOP last week took the first step toward manifesting its campaign promise by passing a law in the House to repeal health-care reform.

But just as Republicans begin implementing the "repeal and replace" portion of their "Pledge to America" campaign manifesto – sans the "replace" part, of course, as that would require drafting actual legislation – the ever-fickle mob up and left the GOP corner.

It was as if the public suddenly started tuning out Fox News and tuning into the boring but accurate Cable News Network (CNN). It was as if, overnight, the lies about Obama's "job-killing, budget-busting" reform no longer had the effect of paralyzing Americans with fear of a Kenyan-colonialist-Communist takeover. And every Republican in D.C. was left staring cross-eyed at their lobbyist lovers, at the brink of tears, on the edge of sanity, in the shadows of doubt, wondering if the American electorate suddenly took up huffing ether as an after-work pastime. Whatever the cause of this curse, it seemed voters had turned into a gang of liberal goons. At least that's what it felt like to read the polls.

Nobody has an explanation for why it happened, but it happened nonetheless. Somehow, the populace started to understand what repeal really means: that without the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could once again revoke coverage on a whim, deny care based on pre-existing conditions, and go back raping patients on costs and premiums without cause or pause.

In short, Americans began to fear "socialism" much less than they did sodomy: 

• A CBS/New York Times poll conducted Jan. 15-19, 2011, shows that 48 percent of Americans support the health-care reform bill compared to 40 percent who oppose it.
• An Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 40 percent support the law versus 41 percent who oppose it, a significant shift from the 38-47 split in November, and that only one in four back full repeal of the law. 
• "Strong opposition stands at 30 percent," the Los Angeles Times reported, "close to the lowest level registered in Associated Press-GfK surveys dating to September 2009." 
• A survey conducted by NBC News/Wall Street Journal Jan. 13-17, 2011, recorded a tie at 39 percent between supporters and opponents of the law. Those who strongly favor repeal (35 percent) nearly tied with those who strongly opposed repeal (34 percent). 

Of course, fearmongers should rest easy knowing that polls don't really mean anything, which, coincidentally, is the new mantra of the Republican Party now that public opinion no longer reinforces the GOP's anti-anything-Obama agenda.

Polls don't educate the populace about policies. They merely ask for opinions. Opinions that are based on false truths mean nothing. And because Americans watch Fox News more than any other network, most American opinions exist in a galaxy far beyond reality, on a planet populated by other intellectually challenged simian playmates. For Democrats, public opinion should be generally ignored, as it is the job of the intellectual elite to identify the ills of society and seek to correct them via reform. For Republicans, such a shift in public opinion is an omen of the eroding support of the party's base.

As an aside, it would be nice if pollsters recorded only the opinions of educated, intelligent human beings, as it would save us from having to independently decipher how many of the respondents actually knew what they were talking about, but this would necessarily exclude Sarah Palin fans and Glenn Beck followers, Tea Partiers and most libertarians, which would undermine the Republican Party's love of citing polls. What use is public opinion if you can't inflict the populace with blood-sucking parasites that penetrate logic and infiltrate reason with the apocalyptic rhetoric of socialism? If idiots are barred from the polling pool, of what use is the poll in pushing a conservative agenda?

Polling only educated, intelligent people is admittedly ridiculous and unrealistic – not to mention repetitive, as most polls already segregate respondents by party affiliation, and what Republican cares what Democrats think?

With the "will of the people" argument now rolling slowly but steadily into the Democratic Party's court, don't expect Republicans to give public opinion much credence in coming weeks. Like an incarcerated drug dealer, vox populi is no longer a convenient talking point for the politicians who've spent the last year upholding health-care polls as irrefutable gospel and unquestionable evidence for why they're advocating repeal.

Instead, look forward to a post-election continuation of the Republican Party's campaign offensive, equipped with all the scary rhetoric, math manipulation, and hyper-demonization of Obama's "socialist" agenda that characterized the last year or more of right-wing sound machine.

Or, if there is any shred of intelligence within the Republican Party's leadership, they will stop trying to appease the Tea Partiers with a repeal of health-care reform and move on to repealing Wall Street reform, revoking stimulus spending, protecting "traditional marriage." or any of the other bullshit policies they promised to pursue in their "Pledge to America."

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)

For GOP and health-care reform, politics trumps leadership

By Nicholas Wilbur 

Republicans may sometimes demonstrate a butter-finger grasp on reality, but they're not so deranged that they sincerely believe that pigs will sprout wings and fly or that hell will freeze over anytime soon.

And yet, they're knowingly pissing into the wind by trying to overturn what is arguably the most historic piece of social legislation since civil rights. The GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill this week to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. It's doomed in the Senate, where Democrats maintain majority voting power, and even if Republicans managed to lure enough Democratic Senators to the dark side and join them in their repeal efforts, there is no doubt that President Obama would veto it.

Odds are everything in legislating, and they aren't looking good right now for Republicans. But what if legislation isn't the goal?

There is ample evidence to support the claim (made here, by me) that Republicans aren't in fact suffering from the romantic idealism of some deranged dream wherein they believe they will actually succeed in their efforts to repeal health care. They know it's doomed.

The media arm of the Republican Party admitted as much after the vote Wednesday. In a moment of uncharacteristic accuracy, Fox News ran a story describing the House vote as "largely symbolic":

The newly muscular House Republicans voted Wednesday to overturn President Obama's health care overhaul – a move that is largely symbolic because the Democratic-controlled Senate is poised to ignore it while Obama is certain to veto it should it somehow pass through Congress.

And two of the GOP's leading anti-hope pitchmen admitted it a day before the votes were cast.

In an interview with Fox's Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday, nationally syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer gave worried Tea Partiers a glint of hope in the possibility that Republicans could convince enough Democrats in the Senate to overturn the law. The goal is not to then rev up the lobbying machine and persuade the president against a veto. The goal is to make it a political issue for Obama in his 2012 re-election campaign:

[T]here are 23 Democrats [in the Senate] who have to be re-elected in 2012, and a lot of them are in red states. You could get a majority on that. Now, of course, it's not going to get enough to override a veto, but the whole purpose of this –- nobody expects that ObamaCare will be repealed in the next two years – but it will be one of the major issues in the presidential election, and that I think is what it ought to be.

Because of the presidential veto, the repeal bill won't become law even if it gets the nod from both chambers of Congress – Tea Partiers can thank the Constitution for that one – but Republicans are making sure that health care is a political issue for the president in his re-election bid.

Is it completely accurate to say that Republicans drafted this two-paragraph repeal bill to replace a 2,300-page reform law only because they wanted to make it a campaign issue for Obama in 2012?

Yes. They knew it couldn't pass.

Are we surprised?

No. This is the Republican messaging machine in action, two years early.

Despite the staunch anti-reform rhetoric, Republicans actually have no hopes of repealing health-care reform. They care only about the potentially negative political effects health-care reform would have for those forced to defend it during the next election. They are using the legislative process to erect election hurdles for the president and the Democratic Party. It may prove an effective engineering tactic in crafting 2012 talking points, but it will also remind Americans why they so loathe the vile and manipulative world of D.C. politics.

Democrats spent the last two years earning the title of the most productive majority party in Congressional history. Republicans spent the last two years obstructing the legislative process by filibustering more bills than any other minority party in history. We thought they did this because they legitimately opposed the legislation proposed by the majority party. With this repeal bill – the first significant piece of legislation drafted by the majority Republican Party – we know the truth: that Republicans have no use for policy; they care only about politics, whether they're in the minority or the majority. Considering that their politicking resulted in a near sweep of the 2010 midterm elections, there's no reason to expect any less. What would be the point in tackling actual issues when partisan demagoguery has proven effective enough in garnering public support?

We often use "lawmaker" and "politician" interchangeably, and while some have successfully toed the line between the two by exercising the tactics of the latter in order to pass laws that earn them the title of the former, Republicans are evidence that there is, in their case, a stark contrast between legislating and politicking.

At least now we know.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Who the hell is Reince Priebus?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Why, he's your new RNC chair!

With Michael "gaffe-fest" Steele out of the way, after a memorable two-year term of one embarrassing (for him and his party) moment after another, Priebus, previously the GOP party chair in Wisconsin before working for Steele at the RNC, stormed to a win in the seventh round of voting yesterday afternoon to capture the top spot at the Republican National Committee.

So let the Reince Priebus era begin!

Think Progress has a helpful overview of just who this guy is and what he's all about: 

– Priebus's law firm sought funds from Obama's stimulus package: Connecticut GOP chairman Chris Healy noted that Priebus's Wisconsin law firm helped its clients obtain federal stimulus funds, citing the fact that Priebus's name was attached to the "Stimulus and Economic Recovery Group." Priebus immediately responded to the story, claiming he had never worked with his firm's "Stimulus and Economic Recovery" group. 

– His law firm says the recently passed health care bill is constitutional: Priebus's law firm not only says the law is constitutional, but has touted its benefits to clients. 

– Implicated in voter caging: While Priebus was chair of the Wisconsin GOP, the state party engaged fomented voter fraud conspiracies and hatched a voter caging plot with well-funded right-wing allies to suppress minority votes. One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross said, "When voter suppression allegations have surfaced in Wisconsin for the past decade, the name Reince Priebus isn't far behind."

– He has the backing of many of the Barbour clan: Henry Barbour, a committeeman from Mississippi and the nephew of Gov. Hale Barbour (R-MS), enticed Priebus into running for the RNC chair. Also, Nick Ayers, a close Barbour associate and executive director of the Republican Governors Association, reportedly gave behind-the-scenes support to Priebus, leading many to believe Priebus would favor Barbour for president in 2012. Priebus responded by saying, "I'm not Haley's choice, I don't think that Haley has any horse in the race, and he's made that pretty clear on the record."

– Priebus had close ties to former chairman Michael Steele, then stabbed him in the back: Priebus was Steele's general counsel and frequently served as Steele's top liaison to committee members. In a memo sent to RNC members, Connecticut Party chairman Chris Healy said that Priebus is partly responsible for the RNC's poor performance. Commenting on Priebus' run, Steele recently said, "It's disappointing, you would hope that the bonds of loyalty were thicker than they apparently were."

– Priebus mistakenly called for Obama's execution: In a media conference call about Osama Bin Laden, Priebus slipped and accidentally called for the "execution" of Obama three separate times. "My guess is he would believe that Obama should be executed and he oughta be treated as a war criminal," Priebus explained. 

And this is from his Wikipedia page:

In the December 1, 2010 RNC candidate forum, Priebus provided a few details about his politics. He said he believes the RNC is "part of" the Tea Party movement; believes in the Christian God and stated that if he were elected as RNC chair it would be through God's blessing; believes it is the Republican Party's mission to "save our country, to save our party, and to take back the White House"; believes someone who is "pro-abortion, pro-stimulus, pro-AIG ... might not be a Republican"; and believes that being pro-life is "paramount" to the Republican Party platform. He wants to ban earmarks and to require photo IDs to vote. He opposes the legal recognition of same sex marriage.

So... he's a self-aggrandizing hypocrite and opportunist who's connected to Haley "perfect Republican" Barbour, who has been involved in racist voter suppression, who, like his former boss, is fully capable of making appalling gaffes, and who is an ideological extremist who adheres to far-right (but mainstream GOP) positions on social and economic issues and loves the Tea Party?

Wow. Does it get any better than that?

The amazing recovery of Gabrielle Giffords

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We've been focusing a great deal on the shooting and on what was behind it, that is, the larger socio-political context, but, lest we forget, the most amazing part of the story is happening at a hospital in Tuscon:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is able to breathe on her own, doctors said Tuesday.

Giffords remains on a ventilator to help her recovery, said neurosurgeon G. Michael Lemole Jr.

Giffords now has a "101 percent chance" of surviving Saturday's shot to the head, said trauma surgeon Peter Rhee.

"She will not die—she does not have that permission from me," he said.

Monday, Rhee said the congresswoman's chances of survival were 100 percent.

Giffords remains in critical condition in the intensive care unit, they said.

"It's going to happen on her timeline, not ours," Lemole said.

"She has no right to look as good as she does, but we all have to be patient," said Lemole, noting that recovery from a shot through the brain can take a long time.

"She's on her own schedule," he said. "It's a week to week, month to month" healing process."

Doctors have been able to "back off" the sedation the congresswoman is receiving, Lemole said.

Giffords is responding to commands by moving on both sides of her body, Rhee said.

Some tests involve testing responses to pain, he said.

"We do a test called a sternal rub," he said, by pushing down hard on the breastbone to cause a response.

"We say, 'Gabby, show me your thumb' and push down," he said.

She now responds to the request by giving a thumbs up to avoid the push, he said. "She's doing it on her own."

Truly amazing. And wonderful news.

Of course, Giffords is receiving excellent medical care, including from two military doctors (who were brought in because her husband, an astronaut, is in the Navy.

All Americans should have access to such care, and the vote Giffords cast for health-care reform helped last year helped move the country towards a fairer and more just system for all. Consider what she herself wrote in August 2009:

We are as great nation. We deserve the best health care in the world. How we get it is the real question.

We need reform that puts patients first. It is not right and not fair that insurance companies can deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, or impose lifetime limits on service.

I support reform that allows Americans to keep their current health care program, keep their doctors and keep their hospitals.

I support reform that creates competition through a strong public option that lowers everyone's costs and competes with private insurers.

I support reform that allows Arizonans who lose their jobs to afford insurance so they can get back on their feet without fear of getting sick without medical care.

I support reform that will slow the growth of health care costs and does not impose new taxes or burdens on our nation's most valuable economic contributors, small businesses.

Last month, this nation observed the 40th anniversary of our arrival on the moon – one of the most awesome accomplishments in the history of mankind. Now our generation has our own opportunity to make history.

A nation that can leave footprints on another celestial body is up to this challenge.

Providing Americans with health care that gives them lifetime security and peace of mind must be America's next great accomplishment.

And there is still work to be done -- at the moment, to reject Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Of course, we must remember that Giffords wasn't the only victim of Saturday's shooting. Six people died and 14 others, including Giffords, were wounded -- six of the wounded are still at University Medical Center, and, two, including Giffords, are still in critical condition.

We wish them all the best health care available. And we wish them all well.

GOP walks unarmed into health-care repeal battle

By Nicholas Wilbur

Ed. note: Most of our posts the past few days have, understandably, been on the Arizona shooting. We'll have more on that terrible story, but now let's turn back to Congress and the House Republicans' effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. This is the first of two excellent posts by Nicholas on that very topic. The second will appear tomorrow. -- MJWS

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It would take more than a golden parachute from Goldman Sachs, more than a harem of Argentinian mistresses, more than a closet full of George Soros puppets, and more than lifetime supply of loofahs combined to convince President Obama and the Democratic Party to undo the most historical piece of legislation passed in decades.

And yet Republicans have decided that their first order of Congressional business as the majority party in the House will be to attempt to overturn a 2,000-page health-care reform law that took Congress an entire calendar year to pass, and to replace it with a two-paragraph repeal bill that has virtually no chance of becoming law.

To expect that the very lawmakers responsible for crafting such legislation will turn around a year later and completely scrap it is about as logical as placing a lemon on the sacrificial alter and praying to God for a Ferrari. Republicans would have more luck training their pet unicorn to walk on water.

The GOP's "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" will sail through the House of Representatives on a party-line vote only to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Even if pigs sprouted wings and Republicans managed to convince enough Democratic senators to vote for repeal, President Obama still holds the veto pen.

So what's the point?

Is it purely symbolic, as some political analysts have proposed?

After campaigning for more than a year against "Obamacare," it could indeed be construed as hypocritical not to vote on a repeal bill, even if it is doomed to failure. The Republican Party's constituents would be livid if the men and women they elected during the 2010 midterms arrived in Washington only to abandon the promise they made on the campaign trail – the promise to return America to the days when it was legal for insurance companies to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, to drop coverage when patients get sick, to charge women higher premiums than men, and to push seniors back out into the doughnut hole of prescription drug limbo.

Conversely, those same constituents were also promised a trimmed federal budget and a lower deficit, neither of which is possible if the first order of business in the new Congress is to repeal a health-care law originally projected to save $143 billion over 10 years. The latest projection – released on Jan. 6, 2011, by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office – pegs the GOP's repeal at a minimum cost of $230 billion through 2021. Not exactly an ideal vehicle for deficit reduction. 

Despite the hypocrisies, despite the facts, Republicans continue their assault.

Either I'm failing to see the purple elephant in the middle of room, or the GOP is completely delusional. If I were a gambling man – which I am – I'd put my money on the latter. Here's why:

Republicans have been playing politics for two years. As staunch defenders against all things Democratic, they have utilized the filibuster to defeat any legislation that appeared to advance the "socialistic" agenda of the Obama Administration. Rather than proposing new laws, Republicans lambasted the leftist agenda by issuing vague but apocalyptic sound bites about how this or that bill would undue the very fabric of America woven by our all-knowing founding fathers. If it wasn't unconstitutional, it was too costly – and most of the time it was both, on top of being too liberal, too socialistic, too Marxist, or just plain untimely. This was the approach to opposing even no-brainer policies such as unemployment benefits, health coverage for 9/11 first responders, and legal discourse for rape victims. And it is the easiest role to play.

What's worse, the Republican Party's obstructionist tactics became so commonplace that neither the media, nor the voters, nor the Democratic Party vigorously called out Republicans for failing to deliver honest, detailed justifications for their blind opposition.

Now that they are in charge of actually drafting legislation, Republicans are more than a bit out of practice. Pushed into a role of having to lobby fellow lawmakers to support their agenda, Republicans are about to realize that the hollow rhetoric and apocalyptic "messaging" that worked so well in scaring the piss out of the politically uninformed masses isn't going to achieve the same level of persuasiveness with members of the opposite party.

They are walking unarmed into battle. And they will lose.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Steve King

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Certifiable GOP wacko Rep. Steve King (R-IA) -- who's been our CRD several times before (see here, here, here, and here, not to mention here) -- yesterday made what TPM's Rachel Slajda graciously called "an original argument... for why health care reform is unconstitutional."

Responding to Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), who made the sensible and oft-made case that "health insurance counts as interstate commerce and therefore falls under the Congress's constitutional powers, King argued that there are people who never even use health care -- and therefore a law requiring them to buy insurance is unconstitutional." And just who are these people? "There have always been and likely will always be, babies that were born, lived and died within the jurisdictions of the individual states," he said, "who never cross a state line, access no health care and therefore do not impact interstate commerce."

Wait... what? Polis was confused, too. Just who are these people who as babies don't receive any health care at all? This is priceless in its craziness:

I hate to tell you but they show up in garbage cans around this country, sir,

said King.

Yes, that's right, the interstate commerce argument doesn't apply because of all those babies in garbage cans who manage to live and die without ever accessing health care.

"Polis was more or less speechless," notes Slajda. Can you blame him? This is just the sort of unsubstantiated claim, just the sort of insanity with a straight face, Republicans pass off as rational argument on a regular basis -- not just with respect to health-care reform but with respect to pretty much everything.

I realize that Republicans oppose the very idea of factual evidence, but here's the video:

Here's hoping Speaker Boehner learns to speak the truth

By R.K. Barry 

A CNN / Opinion Research poll conducted between December 17 and 19 indicated that 56% of Americans hold either a positive view of Obama's health-care reform or are of the opinion that it is not liberal enough. More specifically, 43% like it as it is and 13% would probably have liked to see a public option. That leaves 37% who are opposed because the reform package is too liberal and 7% who have no opinion.

Let's be clear here. Of those expressing an opinion, 56% reject the Republican critique of "Obamacare" and only 37% side with the GOP.

Given those numbers,  it is rather difficult to understand what Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) was talking about when he said of health-care reform that "we just need to repeal it as the American people have spoken out and said."

I'm sure if I spent just a bit of time doing some Google searches I could find a dozen more Republicans saying that their midterm gains were in large part about Americans rejecting health-care reform. I know recently-installed House Speaker John Boehner has been saying similar things. You will forgive me if I don't dig up all the relevant quotes. It hardly seems necessary. 

John McCain recently railed against the repeal of "don't-ask-don't-tell" as an affront to the electorate despite the fact that polls put support for gays serving openly in the military at upwards of 80%. Same idea. Say the opposite of what is demonstrably true and a lot of people will believe the lie and repeat it either because they want to believe what is untrue or because they are too lazy to do a bit of research.

We're not talking about differences of opinion about things that cannot be shown empirically but about things that are, by modern and generally-recognizable standards of truth, considered to be matters of fact. And before you take issue with polling as a source of gathering information of citizens preferences, I assure you that it has become pretty darn accurate over time.

But just think about the idiotic ideas that have fairly recently been in circulation amongst far too many Americans: Obama is a Muslim; he was not born in America; he is a socialist; he hates America; climate change is an elaborate hoax; and almost any piece of weirdness that comes out of Glenn Beck's mouth. And then there are the claims by various Republicans that Americans reject health-care reform or gays serving openly in the military.

Conservative politics in America seems to be far too much about just saying shit, no matter how absurd, just to see who is either stupid enough or lazy enough to accept it as truth.

I once read something, which I admit may not be true but struck me as plausible and at least suggestive. It was a claim that the KGB, the intelligence agency of the former Soviet Union, would work through its networks to put clearly untrue information in circulation that would support its interests simply because a certain subset of the population will always accept as plausible anything they hear and repeat it.

In my experience, it is not uncommon to hear someone offer an opinion contrary to all facts with the commnt that they had heard it somewhere, though they could not tell you where or what proof was provided.

For the longest time, the suggestion that tobacco did not cause cancer was in this camp, though thankfully that is now a part of the past.

As I say, just put it out there and some people will believe it and repeat it. Too much of politics is done this way, which, when bending the truth, seems to be about the maxim "go big or go home."

What I would say to the Eric Cantors and John Boehners of the world is that they should go ahead and work for the legislative agenda of their choice or the choice of those they think got them elected. But please do try to keep the bullshit to a minimum about the extent to which you are speaking for "the American people."

Although if you want to attack health-care reform, which seems to be pretty popular, and fight for tax cuts for the super rich, which seem to be pretty unpopular, that's fine with me. See you in 2012.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Quote of the Day: Dana Milbank on Republican hypocrisy (and worse)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As the Republicans take over the House, it's time for some perspective. And Milbank's got it:

For incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor and his House Republicans, something strange happened on the way to Wednesday's "Opening Day" of the new Congress.

For two years, Cantor and his colleagues campaigned against high deficits. Now, in the new majority's first major act, they plan to vote to increase the deficit by $143 billion as part of a repeal of health-care reform. [Ezra Klein has more on this.]

For two years, Cantor and his colleagues bemoaned the Democrats' abuse of House rules to circumvent committees and to prevent Republicans from offering amendments. Now, Cantor confirmed on Tuesday, Republicans will employ the very same abuses as they attempt the repeal.

For two years, the Republicans complained about unrelenting Democratic partisanship. Now they're planning no fewer than 10 investigations of the Obama administration, and the man leading most of those has already branded Obama's "one of the most corrupt administrations" in history.

For two years, the Republican minority vowed to return power to the people. Now the House Republican majority is asking lobbyists which regulations to repeal, hiring lobbyists to key staff positions and hobnobbing with lobbyists at big-ticket Washington fundraisers.

Not that we could have seen this coming or anything. Right, American voters?

Happy New Year! Happy 112th Congress! Enjoy reaping what you have sown!