If You Play Nice, Maybe You Can Have Healthcare
- Your RNC is just not comfortable with handing over the company credit card to Michael Steele to spend on his “hip hop,” or whatever it is the kids are saying doing days. (The Hill/Washington Times)
- If healthcare reformers don’t stop saying mean things about healthcare reform blocker Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), then he will pull this car over right now! and nobody will get healthcare. (TPMDC)
- Here are some lovely photos of that time someone at the Pentagon thought it would be a good idea to fly Air Force One straight over the Manhattan skyline. (NYT The Caucus)
- President McCain just does not care for this Obama upstart and his “change” that he keeps talking about. (CNN Political Ticker)
7/31/09 8:03 pm | | Permalink | Tags: Air Force One, Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, healthcare, John McCain, Michael Steele, RNC
Shorter Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)
Eric Cantor Rips Chris Matthews, MSNBC, HuffPo, Liberal Bloggers For Inflating Birther Story
- Why are the liberals so obsessed with Obama’s birth certificate?
[Ed.: Ahh, the joys of being able to rip-off my old posts. Thanks, Rep. Cantor, for staying on message!]
7/31/09 4:41 pm | | Permalink | Tags: birthers, Eric Cantor, shorter
If People Wanted Insane Rambling, They’d Switch to FOX
- When Lou Dobbs rants like a lunatic about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, fewer people want to watch his show. Weird, huh? (NY Observer)
- Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) has killed funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site. Too bad, it could have doubled as Lou Dobbs’ studio. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
- Your WMATA will launch major improvements to its online trip planner tomorrow, except in the “accurately predicting how much time it takes to get from place to place” area. (DCist)
- The District has a budget, thanks to your D.C. Council. And they didn’t even need a giant knife to get it done! (Citydesk/Christian Science Monitor)
7/31/09 3:54 pm | | Permalink | Tags: Barack Obama, birthers, Harry Reid, Lou Dobbs, Metro, Washington D.C., Yucca Mountain
Wanker of the Day
Rudy Giuliani
7/31/09 2:24 pm | | Permalink | Tags: healthcare, Rudy Giuliani, WOTD
GOP’s 1-for-2 on Facts about Barack Obama
- Riding on the Metrobus, you used to only have to worry about whether your driver was reading while driving or illegally talking on their cell phone, or trying to kidnap you, but now you also need to say an extra prayer that your bus driver has a valid driver’s license. (Washington Examiner)
- If you want to convince your members of Congress to change their positions on something, you could try sending forged letters from interest groups in their districts. Except to Tom Periello (D-VA), because he’s on to that now. (Charlottesville Daily Progress)
- Your GOP still might not believe that Barack Obama is an American citizen, but at least they’ve figured out that he’s not a Muslim. Baby steps, people! (Pollster)
- Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) can only do one douche-y thing at a time, so he will vote for Sonia Sotomayor. (MSNBC First Read)
- Oh dear, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has prostate cancer. Fortunately his doctors caught it pretty early, and he expects to be back in the Senate after the August recess. (CNN Political Ticker)
7/31/09 1:58 pm | | Permalink | Tags: Barack Obama, birthers, cancer, Chris Dodd, Max Baucus, Metro, Muslim, Sonia Sotomayor, Tom Periello
Quote of the Day
When he’s not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likable guy.
– Henry Louis Gates, Jr., after sitting down with Sergeant James Crowley, President Obama, and Vice President Biden for a couple beers last night.
7/31/09 1:37 pm | | Permalink | Tags: Barack Obama, Henry Louis Gates Jr., James Crowley, Joe Biden, QOTD
Most Republicans Don’t Believe Obama is American
Here’s why so many Republican members of Congress dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge when asked if they believe Barack Obama is a United States citizen: their constituents are brithers. A new Research 2000 poll found that more than three-quarters of Americans believe that Barack Obama was born in the U.S. When you break it down by party, though, only 42% of Republicans think Obama is an American citizen, with 28% saying he’s not and 30% unsure.
That means that in the face of all the evidence that has been presented, 58% of Republicans still have some (or a lot of) doubts as to whether the President of the United States is American. For the more visual among us, here’s that in a picture:
This is what happens when so-called journalists like Lou Dobbs go on television and legitimize the birthers. The same people who just a few years ago said that questioning the President on anything–war funding or Guantanamo detention or wiretapping or even tax cuts–was “unAmerican” are now able to get away with the patently false claim that Barack Obama is not legally qualified to be president.
Update: Glenn Thrush asks the inevitable question:
Surprise, surprise: Birther sentiment was strongest in the South and among the 60-plus crowd – presumably because seniors can’t log on to the Internet and rely on rumor, word of mouth and right-wing talk radio.
When do we start a serious dialog about the Birther movement being a proxy for racism that is unacceptable to articulate in more direct terms?
7/31/09 11:04 am | | Permalink | Tags: Barack Obama, birthers, Lou Dobbs
Irresponsible Taser Policies
Whenever you read stories about cops using tasers on people, the police department always says that the tasing was “within departmental guidelines” or “followed departmental policy” or some similar ass-covering statement. But when you read stories like these, you have to wonder what those guidelines and policies are.
First, we have the 72-year-old woman:
Just after two in the afternoon on May 11, the video shows Deputy Chris Bieze stopping Kathryn Winkfein for speeding on a notoriously dangerous strip of Highway 71. After completing the paperwork, the officer returns to Winkfein’s truck, but she refuses to sign the speeding ticket.
“Take me to jail,” Winkfein demands on the tape, “I’m a 72-year-old woman.” That’s when the deputy opens the driverside door to arrest the great-grandmother. “Give me the ******* ticket now,” Winkfein curses. The deputy shoves her. ”You’re gonna push me? A 72-year-old woman?”
The shove, the Constable’s office says, served to get the two out of oncoming traffic. Then, the deputy warns her one of five times.
“Stand back, “ Bieze says. “I’m gonna tase you.” She responds by saying, ”I dare you.”
The deputy announces he’s going to taser Winkfein, and the woman hits the ground as the taser is deployed.
Now, you could certainly say (and I’m sure they have) that the woman was cursing at the officer or that she was generally not cooperative in the giving of the ticket, but does any of that justify the use of deadly force (and yes, tasers are deadly) against an unarmed old woman? Would the police officer in this case really have been unable to take this great-grandmother into custody if he hadn’t tasered her first?
And then there’s the question of whether it is “following departmental policy” to taser a person who can’t hear or can’t understand police instructions:
Mobile police used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf and mentally disabled man Friday after they were unable to get him to come out of a bathroom at a Dollar General store, authorities said.
After forcibly removing Antonio Love from the bathroom of the Azalea Road store, officers attempted to book the 37-year-old, on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and failure to obey a police officer, but the magistrate on duty at the jail refused to accept any of those charges.
…
Christopher Levy, a Police Department spokesman, said the officers didn’t find out that Love had a hearing impairment until after they got him out of the bathroom and found a card in his wallet indicating he was deaf.
The officers’ decision to take Love to jail — even after they discovered his disability — as well as their conduct throughout the incident is still under investigation, Levy said.
Use of the Taser and the pepper spray appear to be justified according to the department’s policy, he said.
Love, whose family said his mental abilities are about that of a 10-year-old, wrote them a narrative of the incident as he recalled it.
The hand-scrawled, six-page note and the official police account of the confrontation are strikingly similar in their recitation of the chain of events.
Love’s retelilng of events, written in a 10-year-old’s broken English, describes how we was sitting on the toilet because of a stomachache when he heard what he thought was someone trying to break into the bathroom. Then, police “poisoned” (pepper sprayed), tased, and mocked his disabilities before hauling him off to jail, where a judge could find no justification for their actions.
And all of this was “justified according to the department’s policy.”
It’s long past time to change these policies that allow police to tase the elderly, the deaf, and the disabled. Police officers need to understand that a taser is not an “alternative” to deadly force. It is deadly force.
(h/t Pandagon and Citydesk)
7/31/09 10:20 am | | Permalink | Tags: police, tasers
Showing Up to Events is “Politics as Usual”
- Your U.S. government finally came up with a program that everybody likes, the cash-for-clunkers program, so they are ending it for lack of funding. (WaPo)
- In addition to kinda being a wanker on healthcare reform, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is also not sure if he’ll vote for Sonia Sotomayor. (The Hill)
- Is Rick “The Hair” Perry a gay? The guys who programmed Kay Bailey Hutchison’s website think so! (Austin American-Statesman)
- Sarah Palin’s first event as not-Governor was going to be a speech at the national shrine to Republican Jesus, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, but now she is just not going. Mavericky! (CNN Political Ticker)
7/31/09 8:31 am | | Permalink | Tags: cash for clunkers, economy, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Max Baucus, Rick Perry, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Sarah Palin, Sonia Sotomayor, TX-Gov
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