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Arch kindly calls it cognitive dissonance. I call it what it is: hypocrisy.
What is it with all these conserv-o-partisans like Fran Eaton at Illinois Review clamoring for Gov. Blagojevich’s head simply because he’s an inept quasi-leader who stomps his feet when he doesn’t get his way and has been implicated — though not yet charged, let alone convicted — in several legally questionable activities…?
Don’t they realize that also describes their not-so-lovable Pres. Bush to a T?
As a two-time Bush endorser, the Trib simply put the question of recall out there (likely knowing full well others would call for impeachment). Illinois Review’s Ms. Eaton, herself a well-recorded Bush defender and dogmatist, takes that next step and yelps, “Anything less than impeachment is dereliction of lawmakers’ duties.”
Yet, the only difference at this point is the number of letters after the B in their last names. Other than that, their leadership “styles” (I’m being generous) are almost exactly alike.
I’ve switched out the header to reflect the autumn season: enjoy.
We’re seeing a mix of some amazing fall colors around here, along with a few real duds that look like dried up nothings.
Commence open threading…
As Arch recently noted, the Republicans’ spin on immigration is about the only issue where they get any traction at all among the electorate.
Unfortunately for we here in the electorate, the Republicans’ solution so far has been to xenophobicly rail against illegal immigrants (all too often sweeping legal immigrants into the mix for good measure) and promote building 1/3 of a wall — neither of which actually solves the fundamental problem that our great nation’s immigration policy is fundamentally flawed and the system for accepting new immigrants is, quite frankly, broken.
So one is left to wonder whether or not 14th CD Candidate Jim “Helicopter” Oberweis — known for his serial exaggeration, FEC fines, superfat ice cream and pandering induced flip-flopping — and his con buddies like former Democrat Tony Peraica are going to talk about real solutions or simply spew a bunch of hateful, anti-brown people rhetoric during their upcoming Women’s Republican Club forum on immigration in Wheeling.
The Women’s Republican Club tells us that, “Up for discussion are the implications, consequences, and political ramifications of the immigration issue.” I take that to mean they may actually try discussing fundamental solutions rather than just unsustainable slash-and-burn rhetorical stances, but who knows.
Oh, and, “There will be a Q & A,” so since the forum is “open to the public and free”, perhaps someone would be willing to sit through it all to “Q” and hopefully get a legit “A”.
Maybe you’ll even get free ice cream… or a helicopter ride.
Specifics according to Anne Leary at ilgopnet:
Guest speakers include businessman and GOP political leader Jim Oberweis, State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), attorney and Cook County reform leader Tony Peraica, and agriculture industry leader David Bender. [...]
The event is free and open to the public.
Monday, Nov. 5
Doors open at 7 p.m. Forum begins at 7:30
Chevy Chase Country Club, 1000 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Wheeling
Expected adjournment before 9 p.m.
PS: The description of the speakers leads one to wonder just when Mr. Oberweis, who is 0 for ?X# in major campaigns, became a “GOP political leader”… 
Boohoo. Red State has had enough of actual paleocons dropping by and is banning Ron Paul supporters from posting at their collapsing tent community.
Turns out the “Conservative News and Community” has decided there’s no longer room for that “Community” bit. Riding the cons in the Bush “Administration” down their slippery slope past Nixonland will do that to ya.
I can understand moderating and banning random commenters here and there whose material is inflammatory, obvious sockpuppetry and the like, but Ron Paul fans are welcome to add their two cents of support here if they feel like it. They may have his radically conservative ideas called into question, but at least he gets it on Iraq.
When did the rest of the “strict constructionist” Republican’ts decide 1A wasn’t so important, after all?
[Update: Forgot the links at first. Now fixed.]
The Chicago Tribune excoriated Gov. Rod Blagojevich over the weekend:
Blagojevich is an intentionally divisive governor and a profoundly unhelpful influence. He is unwilling or unable to see the chaos all around him. This year, lawmakers failed to make progress on schools, on state pension reform, on any number of critical matters. Mass transit in the Chicago region is about to implode, largely because of the state government’s failure.
While their gripes about Blago are familiar and I agree with several of them…
This is coming from the same paper that endorsed George W. Bush twice???
And they had to cite the conservative National Conference of State Legislatures for “research” about recalling a Guv?
Hypocrites.
The only reason the Tribune doesn’t have a similar “bill of particulars” against Pres. Bush is because the Republican Congresses refused to actually investigate the guy and, now that Dems are back in charge, the president’s staff (past and present) refuses to honor the growing number of Congressional summonses and the Bush-led Justice Dept. has indicated they’ll refuse to enforce them. Not that a newspaper which would endorse a Rubber Chicken as long as it had an R after its name would ever bother publishing such a list damning their president (gone are the days of “nobody of sound mind can read [the transcripts] and continue to think that Mr. Nixon has upheld the standards and dignity of the Presidency.”)
Illinois, like the United States itself, does have a “recall” option: impeachment. It is up to the State Legislature and the Congress, respectively, to determine what is or is not an impeachable offense. With self-serving, hypocritical editorial bents such as that seen over the weekend, the Tribune does not help further that option at either the State or Federal level.
In another of his attempts at mimicking the shock-jock mentality of Ann “say anything for a buck” Coulter, local conserv-o-partisan Dan Proft asks the intentionally leading question, “BET racist against black people?” He opens with the mellow and understated line:
If the Aryan Nation plotted to develop a media property designed to denigrate and destroy black culture, could they do a better job than Black Entertainment Television (BET)?
Pure brilliance, Mr. Proft. Pure. Brilliance. The entire sad attention-seeking commentary is apparently what Mr. Proft thinks passes for a reasonable comparison between the “Jena 6″ and the “Little Rock 9″, ostensibly in reaction to the occasion of two of the Jena 6 teens being feted during the BET Hip-Hop Awards.
The following passage is one example of Mr. Proft’s dismissive attempt to muddy the waters and dilute the import of trying to understand and confront the racial dichotomy that is found in Jena (and, by extension, is still happening throughout our nation even today):
In Little Rock in 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower intervened to protect the students, enforce desegregation, and uphold the principle that all are to be treated equally under the law.
In Jena in 2007, Al Sharpton intervened to do exactly the opposite, advocating essentially that the law may be disregarded if one has a racial grievance.
Actually, what Al Sharpton was doing was pointing out the very different treatment standards between white teens and black teens in the Jena judicial system and under the local District Attorney. The fact is Mychal Bell — the black teen painted as the “head” of the Jena 6 — has already served 10 months in jail as an adult. Rev. Sharpton has said that, yes, he should have been punished for his role in the fight but, no, not punished as an adult for the crime of attempted murder — and argues that this should be Mr. Bell’s argument in the court of law, not the court of public opinion. In Rev. Sharpton’s own words:
The response is very simple. Mychal Bell has done ten months in jail as an adult, that even the Louisiana courts are saying he should not have been tried with. I think that, one, no one ever said that we condone schoolyard fights, but that’s what it was. And the punishment should have been a schoolyard fight. Had these young men been dealt with in juvenile court in a regular proceeding for juveniles like any other juvenile, including the white student that pulled the gun, the shotgun at the school, and the white student that beat up, I believe it was young Mr. Bailey at the party, I don’t think there would have ever been an issue, local or national.
It’s too bad for Mr. Proft’s fictional little world that the Internet exists and any one of us can go and look up the facts to dispute his wild-eyed claims.
In an effort to squash an efficient, well-liked social program aimed at helping kids and their families with healthcare costs… the Republicans are dusting off their lies about SCHIP mere days after putting that binder back on the bookshelf. They apparently feel a need to do so because the existing SCHIP bill’s extension is set to expire (The original, Clinton-era law already did expire so those kids and families in the program are on borrowed time.).
The most insidious of their lies is that Dems have somehow failed to compromise — the entire bill that Pres. Bush vetoed was a compromise. The Dems originally wanted the expansion to be much larger and to be based on a more stable PAYGO funding source. The Senate Republicans scaled the size back and insisted on using tobacco taxes.
When it looked like the whiney wing of the Republican Party was going to torpedo the compromise, the existing law was extended to mid-November and Congress is now at the point of trying to re-renegotiate a compromise that accomplishes the original intent of SCHIP while fixing some of the flaws which developed in the previous, about-to-expire-again law. These are, of course, all things the Congress already accomplished once, but the radical John Birchies in the House GOP couldn’t stand to see a successful program that helped real Americans be improved.
The formerly “grand” old party’s own conservative Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) has explained over and over how his own party’s lies are, in fact, lies.
Pat Oliphant has the perfect cartoon commentary for those Republicans whose noses just keep growing.
Thinking it’s necessary to lie about a program designed to help kids and their families is just pathetic and weak.
PS, Republican’ts: Low-income children are benefitted by other programs like Medicaid. Ever heard of it?
SCHIP is for middle incomes, and the President is the one who approves whether or not various states can exceed income levels stated in the current SCHIP law so all your griping about this or that family making too much money to be eligible? Blame the guy in the White House who approved that eligibility.
Mark Pera just released his first ad of the season. It’s online-only right now but is schedule for TV time beginning next week.
Take a gander and notice that Mr. Pera exhibits one thing sorely lacking in Washington: a spine.
Arch also had a detailed write-up earlier today about his positive encounter with Mark Pera a few weeks back in Chicago. In it, Arch describes why he thinks voters in the 3rd shouldn’t just vote against annointed son Dan Lipinski but should actually vote for Mark Pera.
That same Archpundit post was also promptly invaded by “Jerry Bennett” concern trolls which is odd since Mr. Bennett, mayor of Palos Heights Hills, endorsed Dan Lipinski for Congress so no one can figure out why the heck he’s now running against the guy he endorsed. It’s not like Mayor Bennett has any positions he’s running on… Hmm, I wonder.
I ask because, well, I don’t know what to think.
I want a strong challenge against Peter Roskam, but I’m not sure if Col. Morgenthaler is the right choice. She was the Army spokesperson during Abu Ghraib. She has started criticizing the war, but she still defends things up to a point (it was going well, but not anymore). She says she wants the soldiers to come home, but there’s a big “but” in there. I want to get behind her, but I don’t know…
She’s supposed to be formally announcing today. What are your thoughts on this?
Apparently Sen. Durbin’s main reelection opponent, Republican Steve “Slippery” Sauerberg, thinks military service amounts to a hill of beans.
Dr. Sauerberg sent out a press release earlier chastising Sen. Durbin’s DREAM Act and spouting off a bunch of illogical spin about the bill. Unfortunately for Dr. Sourpants, one component of that bill would be to give immigrants citizenship after they complete two years of military service.
Why does Dr. Sauerberg oppose honoring service in our military? What does he have against those who volunteer to sacrifice for his right to put them down so?
Note to Dr. Sauerberg who wants to be “Senator” Sauerberg… The Senate didn’t “reject” the bill. The DREAM Act actually earned a majority at 52-44 on the procedural vote, but the xenophobic wing of the Republican caucus withheld enough ayes that the bill couldn’t get the 60 vote supermajority which is apparently now required for everything from nose picking to major legislation. Without those 60 yes votes, anything is subject to the obstructionist “just kidding about that whole nucular option thing” Republicans who suddenly decided on November 8, 2006 that upperdown votes weren’t actually a good idea any more.
The southern half of California is literally ablaze so the rationale for helping the following charities is self-explanatory:
- Salvation Army* - [Update] For those of you who choose to also vote with your wallets, Dogemperor describes in a Daily Kos diary how the Salvation Army has begun discriminating against Jewish and other folks and also may conduct “church background checks” on people, with encouragement from arch-conservative Dominionist circles. I’ll leave the link up for now since they are such a well-known organization, but you should read DE’s information about the Salvation Army (which always has been a Christian-related organization) before you decide to donate to them. [/Update]
- Charity Navigator rankings of 5 best (and 5 worst) veteran and first responder charities
And not all of the homes being lost are mansions that belong to millionaires. A great many people are going to need help rebuilding so check out Habitat for Humanity:
- Greater LA Habitat for Humanity
- Orange County Habitat for Humanity
- San Diego Habitat for Humanity
- Ventura County Habitat for Humanity
- List of all California Habitat chapters
UPDATE: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it was found that several charities promoted by Pres. Bush’s FEMA outfit were actually front groups for conservative organizations with a clear, biased agenda.
Dogemperor put together a diary at DKos outlining several examples of charities that have been vetted by independent sources. I recommend you read DE’s essay and suggestions.
DE also notes Charity Navigator (whose Top and Bottom 5 lists I linked to above) and Give.org as independent verifiers of charities.
I can barely type for the laughing… TPM tells us:
Tom Tancredo has taken his fight against illegal immigration to the Senate side — by calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asking them to raid a press conference yesterday by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), at which Tancredo mistakenly believed illegal aliens would be attending.
Durbin was presenting a bill that would confer legal status upon illegal immigrants who have graduated high school and will attend college or serve in the Armed Forces for two years. Accompanying Durbin were three immigrant students, all of whom are in the United States legally on temporary visas. No action was taken by ICE.
Consider this: there are just as many illegal immigrants in Tom Tancredo’s tube of toothpaste as there were at Sen. Durbin’s press conference.
And yes, immigrants who volunteer to defend our nation’s Constitution and freedom ought to be able to also call it their own Constitution and freedom. In other words, immigrants serving honorably in our Armed Forces ought to be granted citizenship. If they can bleed for Americans, they ought to be able to become Americans themselves.
Will the irrational Republican fear of “them” ever subside? And Rep. Tancredo wants to be our president? That he has any support at all is a sad commentary on the state of the formerly “grand” ol’ party.
How pathetic is it when your approval rating is below Bush’s? No, I’m not talking about the approval of the Congress as a whole. I’m talking about our very own Dear Leader, Governor Blagojevich. Rasmussen’s latest polling pegs Bush’s approval rating at 31% in Illinois (down 1 point from last month). Blagojevich dropped to 16%. Let me say that again…
S-I-X-T-E-E-N P-E-R-C-E-N-T!
Don’t get me wrong, Blago wasn’t terribly popular when his current term began. He won re-election with less than 50% of the vote. But he has dropped to 16%. 6 point drop in one two months.
I’ve complained about this Governor quite often in the past. I’ve never really liked him. One of the first things he did upon entering office was cut funding for higher education (with my Alma Mater taking the biggest hit, I believe (UIUC)). Coincidentally, UIUC’s tuition has risen astronomically since Blago became governor.
But his handling of the budget situation and the RTA problem has been absurdly awful. He issues fiats saying this is what’s going to happen and takes everyone by surprise. Then he complains when the legislature won’t play ball. He fights Mike Madigan at every opportunity, no matter how ridiculous. He is willing to risk sinking the economy in Northeastern Illinois so that he can abide by a campaign pledge.
At this point, it’s all about the Governor’s ego. He has to beat Madigan at something. I never thought I would see the day where Madigan looked like the good guy. Well, that day is here. Mike Madigan is the good guy in Springfield. It’s time for the Governor to govern, not fight with the Speaker.
Governor, you will never win another election in this State. This approval rating should show you that. Give it up. You lost. It’s over. You are now a lame duck.
You are almost as unpopular as Dick Cheney, sir. Twice as many people in this state think George Bush is doing a good job than think you are doing a good job. Those 16%? They are on your payroll.
Update: Rich Miller has another story up today about our Dear Leader. The Governor did a press release saying he met with all the Legislative leaders, except for Mike Madigan, and hammered out a deal to save the RTA. The release went on to say that Tom Cross was to meet with Madigan to convince him to get on board and drop his support for SB 572.
Unfortunately for the Governor, his bff, Senate Prez Emil Jones said he knows nothing about such a deal, but he has heard ‘rumors.’
Tom Cross said a deal had been discussed, but nothing was concrete.
Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson said that there is no plan.
And the RTA and its’ related agencies are completely in the dark.
Good Job Governor!!!
[confetti and balloons]
Welcome to Jerry101, Illinois Reason’s newest blogger. He’s got a post up just below introducing himself and also listing a few campaign notes.
[/confetti and balloons]
Here’s an open thread to discuss “autumn” vs “fall” now that July-in-October seems to be over.
I’m Jerry 101, and Rob has kindly asked me to start blogging here. I usually comment at DailyKos, and occasionally write a diary there. I’ve recently been helping another kossack organize some meetups featuring Mark Pera, Dan Seals, Daniel Biss, and Ron Shepston.
I’ve also been known to comment and write the occasional post over at Prairie State Blue, where I’m known as JJCPA. I’ve also been known to chime in at various other local and national blogs. I live in Chicago, and I plan to mostly write about campaigns around the state, both federal and state level (where possible).
Anyway, today Mark Pera’s campaign sent out an e-mail telling us that he’s about to go on-air in his race against Dan Lipinski. From the e-mail:
In other news, we also filmed our first campaign TV ad on Monday and, if everything goes according to plan, “Real People,” will be up on the air on Monday, Oct. 29 - the same day we file our nominating petitions to appear on the ballot.
The fact that we are going up on the air more than three months before the election is a testament to our ability to raise serious campaign dollars. Thanks to you we are going to be among the very first Congressional campaigns in the entire country to advertise on television.
The campaign has recently been featured in a front page story in the Chicago Tribune. Rob already covered the story earlier this week, but I wanted to point out that the only supporters for the incumbent, Dan Lipinski, came from the Republican side of the aisle in the form of former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach and north shore Congressman Mark Kirk. The story was just as much about the netroots, and the help that the Pera campaign has received from them.
Normally, people try to at least learn a little bit about a given subject (say, science) before they start piping up about it.
Not so Illinois Review editor Fran Eaton.
I’m all for the Big Guy Upstairs, but I don’t think he literally created Adam out of mud just because that’s what folks talked about around the campfire a few millenia ago. These were folks who likely had no knowledge of medicine, let alone the Hippocratic Oath … which hadn’t yet been invented.
Not so Fran Eaton. As Arch explains she apparently lacks a junior high level understanding of biology. And because she doesn’t understand, she exclaims that she must be right. In other words, she does not think, therefore she’s adamant that the Biblical allegory is fact and that she was made from mud and one of Adam’s ribs.
Again, turning to Arch, even the Pope — conservative as his German self is — claims that such creationist, evolution-denying folks are pagans. My own pastor growing up (I’m one of the frozen chosen, so Lutheran it’s pronounced Lute’rhin) always put the ars scientifica in laymen’s terms like this: God is omnipotent, yet He laid out knowledge for mankind to discover, each bit of understanding coming in its own time.
Thus, God knew the Americas were there before the Aleutian ice bridge allowed man to travel into early Alaska, the Vikings crossed the north Atlantic and Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. God knew that vitamin C fought off colds and rickets before Limeys took to those same seas with their stocks of citrus. His hand was there guiding Galileo, Newton, Salk, Einstein, Darwin and even Watson as they made their “discoveries”.
In my pastor’s view, the Lord left the knowledge there to be discovered by mankind. Because of mankind’s loss of innocence (see: snake + apple), we would then be faced with a choice — use those discoveries for good or ill. I could go on. They were fascinating discussion for a nerd in a parochial school.
And yet, for all those discoveries and the scientific reasoning backing up those theories, they are all dismissed by those who refuse to spend a few minutes actually reading and trying to learn something…
And those of us who do have a junior high level of biology understanding, well of course we get called “elitists” by the likes of those whom the Pope calls pagans. Whole lotta name-calling there.
(This whole sad tale of Ms. Eaton’s failed education started as a squabble between generally reasonable conservative Dan at Move On and Shut Up when he called out conserv-o-partisan Ms. Eaton’s vacuous railing about how racism proves evolution doesn’t exist … or something. Dan called her a “shrill beast” and her “Who Me?” response ended up proving his point, and digging her own hole of evident ineptitude deeper.)
Rich Miller noted last Friday that the Peoria Journal-Star literally copied and pasted the spin from a press release by Congressional candidate Aaron Schock. The PJ Star is the hometown paper of conservative Republican State Rep. and Congressional candidate Aaron Schock.
What’s that baloney line about the media … that they’re somehow “liberal”? Umm, sure.
Mr. Miller writes:
Anyway, on to the Peoria area, where state Rep. Aaron Schock announced some endorsements yesterday in his race to replace retiring Ray LaHood. The Peoria paper copied and pasted his spin right into the lede…
State Rep. Aaron Schock said his campaign for Congress was boosted Thursday by endorsements from two dozen municipal leaders in Woodford and Tazewell counties.
Despite the PJ Star’s promotion of their burg’s conservative legislator, Billy Dennis explains those “two dozen municipal leaders” may not amount to a hill of beans:
But why are these guys endorsing him? Probably for the same reason the PACs are pumping money into Schock’s campaign — he’s the perceived front runner, which can be a self-fulfilling prophesy in a primary election.
I can’t help but feel that endorsements all these county party chairs, city council members and county board members mean nothing if Ray LaHood – one of the most electorally popular politicians in central Illinois — decided to, for whatever reason, come out for John Morris or Jim McConoughey.
But at least the PJ Star’s reporter, Karen McDonald, was able to save some time by copying and pasting Rep. Schock’s promo as the PJ Star did its own part to fulfill what Mr. Dennis sees as a self-fulfilling prophecy. (The whole “article” should’ve had a byline of “Local Republican Officials” and been placed on the op-ed page.)
Tribune Washington Bureau reporter Jim Tankersley ran a story called “Bloggers dog Dems who vote Bush” today, a cute play on some Democratic activists’ epithet against one of the story’s subjects.
It’s about 3rd District Congressional candidate Mark Pera; the effect of “netroots” support on the race; and his opponent, incumbent annointed son Dan Lipinski. Cong. Lipinski is often referred to as a “Bush Dog”, as in further right than a Blue Dog Democrat and more like a lap dog of the president.
In order to more fully represent what Rep. Lipinski must consider his bipartisan bona fides, Mr. Tankersley also interviewed Republican Congressman Mark Kirk for his take on Rep. Lipinski. (Kirk and Lipinski have been bosom buddies over the past year on everything from Indiana allowing BP to dump toxins into the Lake to covering for Pres. Bush’s failed Iraq strategies by trying to codify those failures into law.)
While the article is a fairly he-said/she-said sugarpop, there is a laugher in the very last few lines:
Kirk gives Lipinski much better odds. “Netroots generally always fail,” he said. “We all remember the administration of President [Howard] Dean.”
As most folks who think beyond what the media and spin artists say, it’s clear Gov. Dean’s failures were along the lines of organizational flaws, not so much flaws in the base that supported his candidacy. (In fact, much of that base is still intact in one form or another, Democracy for America being the main example.)
Moreover, someone forgot to tell this “netroots generally always fail” bit to Senators Jim Webb (D-VA), Jon Tester (D-MT), and other recently elected members of Congress, all of whom were promoted by the “netroots” in their primaries over more Establishment candidates and then propelled to victory in part thanks to the efforts of the “netroots” which so many Establishment-types disparage. Indeed, the article itself points to a direct contradiction of Rep. Kirk’s claim: Mark Pera outraised the incumbent in Q3 thanks in large part to that “netroots” backing, something that even the Trib’s Tankersley admits is highly unusual.
This line the “netroots generally always fail” seems to stem from the false notion that because these folks are organizing online that they never leave their keyboards, let alone get out of their jammies. Never count your chickens before they hatch, but if Establishment folks want to believe “netroots” backing “generally always fails” … then such is life.
Senator Dan ‘the Tiger‘ Kotowski* just earned another accolade from Rick Pearson and the Illinois State Rifle Association.
A few months back he won their first ever Big Grabowski award for his efforts at trying to keep our communities safer. This time, it was apparently a tie as the ISRA doled out what they’ve called “Enemies of Freedom” titles. Both Sen. Kotowski and gun supervision activist Thom Mannard were given this title.
“Enemy of Freedom?”
Sounds dramatic … what do you do to enemies? No, not the Osama bin Forgotten type of enemy who Pres. Bush allowed to escape into the Waziristan region of Pakistan and just killed scores of people in a double-bombing in that same country. I mean the other kind of enemy, the kind you either capture or kill.
Think about that. ISRA just implied we need to capture or kill a sitting Illinois State Senator because they consider him an enemy. No, they didn’t say it out loud. But the choice of the word “enemy” (especially paired with “freedom”) is peculiar, and telling.
No wonder the ISRA’s silence was deafening after some deviant called in a death threat to Sen. Kotowski’s office. (Actually, instead of condemning any such threats and those extremists who would make them, the ISRA complained that one of their members was visited by police in the process of their information-gathering investigation into the original threat.)
And hyper 2A literalists went berzerk defending ISRA’s Year of the Vitriolic Snake Venom tirades against Sen. Kotowski? This “Enemy of Freedom” rhetoric and all the other, earlier bullpuckey from the ISRA and its allies is precisely why nutjobs get all lathered up into a frenzy and run around calling in death threats.
But let’s consider what freedom is.
Freedom is being able to live without fear that some headcase can go buy a gun, using a loophole or not, and go on a rampage.
Freedom is being able to gather 200 of your friends to gripe about your political opposition.
Freedom is being to able to call people petty names like “Enemy of Freedom” or “Grabber of the Year” (or inadvertantly cool names like “Tiger”).
Freedom is being able to vote a candidate that you trust will have the integrity, smarts, compassion, gumption and sense of humor he appears to have every single time you meet the guy, as 28,244 voters did last year in electing ‘El Tigre,’ aka, ‘the Big Grabowski.’
Freedom is being able to be crabby and act like whiney little brats after a guy you don’t like wins such an election.
Freedom is being able to work with hundreds of other volunteers to help that same candidate overcome those ten score of imported single-issue activists.
But, freedom is not about lying about other people’s records or threatening their lives.
* Totally unrelated sidenote… That Tom Roeser link referring to Sen. Kotowski as “Tiger Dan” (because he’s always working so hard) also contains two misleading cheap shots.
First, Mr. Roeser claims Sen. Kotowski was avoiding his WLS show for some reason. He wasn’t. You may recall that there was a marathon overtime session this year. As I understand it, his schedule was difficult to navigate and Mr. Roeser, or at the very least his producer, should’ve been man enough to admit that instead of trying to spin like Sen. Kotowski wasn’t interested. (Mr. Roeser did at least follow-up in a later blogpost acknowledging that El Tigre is a gentleman and they’d schedule a mutual time for a show appearance.)
Second, Mr. Roeser referred to Sen. Kotowski’s interest in gun safety as “Johnny one-note gun control spiel”… Clearly, Mr. Roeser has not prepared for his radio show appearance with Sen. Kotowski because he worked on several issues — education, ethics, privacy, veterans affairs, etc. — throughout his first session in Springfield. Similar hollow complaints have been mentioned by the true “Johnny one-notes” here on this blog as 2A literalists only pop up whenever I mention Sen. Kotowski. Not only does his legislative record already put the lie to the “spiel” spin, but his schedule of community meetings (here’s just one example) also provides evidence he’s interested in more than just a single-issue.
Disclosures-a-go-go: I volunteer for Sen. Kotowski’s election campaigns, and happily so. The single-issue folks disgruntled with Sen. Kotowski have little room to complain about other matters given Sen. Kotowski’s broad interests in improving life in this state and making our government more efficient and our politicians more accountable.
Daily Kos front-pager (ie, columnist) Georgia10 put together a very nice write-up of Daniel Biss, candidate for State Rep vs. incumbent GOP Beth Coulson.
Often, we wonder how the most vapid and vile of our country rise to highest echelons of power. Well, that’s because far too often, we have the good, decent, and smart people who should be in public office refuse to leap into the public arena. The cringe-worthy media, the stress of campaigning, and the sheer fortitude of spirit and strength that running for office requires frequently turns off even the most ambitious citizens.
But that’s what this people-powered movement is all about, isn’t it? Giving the best among us the support they need to elbow their way in positions of influence, so that those good, and decent, and smart people can enact meaningful and lasting change.
…Contrast that with the weak attempt at hay-making which Rep. Coulson fired across Mr. Biss’ bow some weeks back, as she accused him of trying to be secretive with his campaign fundraising when she herself has had plenty of opportunity in Springfield to fix the rules Mr. Biss was following to a T. (Since then, Mr. Biss has revised his own internal rules and disclosed more info about his donors than required. This means his own campaign’s reporting procedure is more stringent than state law.)
Michael in Chicago did an excellent run-down of the many lies freshman Republican Cong. Peter Roskam (IL-6) is telling as he tries to explain away his vote against children’s healthcare… Other constituents had also noted that Rep. Roskam was not telling the truth about the SCHIP compromise bill.
Like many of his Republican colleagues who also choose to peddle such falsehoods, Rep. Roskam is either misinformed or choosing to deliberately mislead people about the compromise bill.
Michael’s run-down actually responds to each of Rep. Roskam’s (and the other conservatives’) fibs by quoting none other than conservative Republican Senator from Kansas Pat Roberts, one of the compromise bill’s authors.
As with Sen. Dick Durbin’s schooling of Rep. Judy Biggert’s own misinformation earlier in the week, after reading Sen. Roberts’ factual statements about the bill it’s abundantly clear that none of Rep. Roskam’s reasons for voting against SCHIP hold water.
Unfortunately, some of the minority Republicans are choosing to continue peddling lies. Yesterday their leader, Rep. John Boehner told the media a whopper. Per the Tribune:
…the GOP’s leadership in the House said it was not given a chance to negotiate a compromise. “I would hope that the political games will come to an end,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Mr. Boehner appears to have “no recollection” of the House Republicans opportunity to negotiate a compromise from a few months ago when the bill was first being negotiated. Sadly, the HGOP decided they didn’t agree with the majority of Americans who wanted to see an expansion of SCHIP. Instead, the House Repubs took the President’s side and favored a scroogelike token expansion (that barely covers health cost inflation) which they knew from the outset would not be acceptable to either the majority of Congress or, more importantly, the majority of Americans. So, the House Repubs chose not to compromise from the start.
Contrast that with the Senate Republicans who decided to listen to the American people and chose to work with the Dems to develop a compromise … and so they did.
In comparison, the House Republicans chose to sit in a corner and suck their thumbs … and so they did.
I too would hope the political games would come to an end and that the House Republicans who voted against America’s youth will stop fibbing.
Don’t the people of the 6th district deserve someone better than a fibber? Doesn’t America deserve better than a Congress full of ‘em?
Your GOP USA ILLINOIS EDITOR David John Diersen is outraged that I explained, using the conserv-o-partisans’ own logic, that he is a) anti-Christian, b) anti-Semitic, and c) labeled Jesus as being a Socialist*.
Again, I simply applied the conserv-o-partisans’ own logic about “anti-Christian bigots” and “anti-Semitism” and to Mr. Diersen’s own writings calling a rise in influence among Christian and Jewish leaders and laypeople an “UNMITIGATED TRAGEDY”.
Now, it seems to be the case that Mr. Diersen believes he is neither “anti-Christian” nor “anti-Semitic”.
Then perhaps the conserv-o-partisans’ claptrap “logic” — labeling anyone, even the faithful, who oppose them politically as “anti-Christian” or “anti-Semitic” — is faulty. Perhaps it is even outrageously faulty at that.
Ya think?
* - Again, using the conserv-o-partisan “logic” — which Mr. Diersen appears to be backhandedly arguing is faulty to begin with — Mr. Diersen did indeed call Christ a socialist since he referred to some on “the left” who make that claim.
Yet, Mr. Diersen didn’t bother providing evidence of such leaving the reader with the implication that referring to Christ as a socialist is somehow “bad” despite the fact that many of Christ’s teachings are mirrored in pure-bred socialism policies — compassion for all, social justice, egalitarianism, rejection of greed, pacificism, and more. (I distinguish “pure-bred” from dictatorial crackpots who simply use socialism as a policy means to obtain and maintain power, much the same way Republicans have warped conservatism over the past several decades for the same purposes. But somehow I doubt that Mr. Diersen will grasp that important distinction.)
Perhaps Mr. Diersen needs to read the Acts of the Apostles (he might want to sit down first):
32 And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
33 And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
34 Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
35 And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
A community being of one heart and one mind? None of them claiming anything as his own but holding everything commonly together? Redistribution of goods such that no one has any need?
…What other political philosophy that starts with “comm-” does that sound like? I wonder, though actually reading the New Testament does help clarify just why some folks might consider Jesus the Christ to be the first socialist…
UPDATE: Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter calls Catholics “devils” because they disagree with his unpopular No vote on the bipartisan SCHIP compromise. Since when did the GOP become so full of “anti-Christian bigots“.
Classy.
Attorney General nominee Mike Mukasey at one point a few years back in his Senate confimation hearings compared the White House-approved tactics used at Gitmo to Nazi torture tactics (the Trib conveniently softens it up, saying only Mukasey “explicitly [told] a Senate panel he disapproved of the position on abusive interrogation practices backed by his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.”)… [UPDATE: Video here.]
Sounds familiar… Isn’t there a Senator who made the same comparison a few years back based on an FBI report about Gitmo?
Don’t Republicans, almost to this day, keep lying about that Senator by claiming he somehow called our troops “Nazis” (which couldn’t be further from the truth)?
Well, you don’t need me or anyone else to tell you. You can read the FBI report (PDF; detailed news article here) about the White House-approved torture yourself. From the Guardian article:
Captives at Guantánamo Bay were chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, urinating and defecating on themselves, an FBI report has revealed. [...]
Besides being shackled to the floor, detainees were subjected to extremes of temperature. One witness said he saw a barefoot detainee shaking with cold because the air conditioning had bought the temperature close to freezing.
On another occasion, the air conditioning was off in an unventilated room, making the temperature over 38C (100F) and a detainee lay almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. [...]
“There was an unknown bearded longhaired d (detainee) gagged w/duct tape that had covered much of his head … No answer how they planned to remove the duct tape” [...]
It acknowledged that soldiers and interrogators had kicked the Qur’an, had stood on it and, in one case, had inadvertently sprayed urine on a copy. [...]
And those are just a few of the tactics used at Gitmo. Remember, all those “interrogation techniques” were approved by the White House. Our soldiers (and “contractors”) were carrying out White House orders.
Then compare it to actual tactics used by Nazis:
Even persons who were only suspected of opposing any of the policies of the German occupation authorities were arrested, and on arrest were interrogated by the Gestapo and the SD in the most shameful manner. On 12th June, 1942 the Chief of the SIPO and SD published, through Mueller, the Gestapo Chief, an order authorising the use of “third degree” methods of interrogation, where preliminary investigation had indicated that the person could give information on important matters, such as subversive activities, though not for the purpose of extorting confessions of the prisoner’s own crimes. This order provided:
Third degree may, under this supposition, only be employed against Communists, Marxists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, saboteurs, terrorists, members of resistance movements, parachute agents, anti-social elements, Polish or Soviet Russian loafers or tramps; in all other cases my permission must first be obtained …. Third degree can, according to circumstances, consist amongst other methods of very simple diet (bread and water), hard bunk, dark cell, deprivation of sleep, exhaustive drilling, also in flogging (for more than twenty strokes a doctor must be consulted).
Judge Mukasey himself acknowledged, “We don’t torture, not simply because it’s against this or that law or this or that treaty. Soldiers of this country liberated concentration camps and photographed what they saw there as a record of the barbarism they opposed. [Torture is] antithetical to what this country stands for.” (emphasis added)
Yet, somehow now that he’s in the running for Attorney General, Judge Mukasey has suddenly forgotten what is or is not torture… Torture is not an American value. If Judge Mukasey has forgotten this basic truth so readily since his nomination, what other American values might he forget?
Carpetbagger Report has a very good analysis regarding Judge Mukasey’s remarks (comparing US torture at Gitmo to the Holocaust) and Senator Durbin’s remarks (comparing that same White House-approved torture to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others”). They conclude:
And yet, here we are, and the president’s nominee for Attorney General is making the same analogy. No one gasped, or expressed outrage, or demanded an apology. Mukasey’s comparison made sense, just as Durbin’s did.
It’s a reminder that the right, for all of its many faults, can manufacture an outrage out of nothing, and then pretend it never happened. It’s almost impressive, in an offensive kind of way. (emphasis added)
So Judge Mukasey is opposed to torture but ‘doesn’t know’ whether a widely-acknowledged torture technique is actually torture. And the conserv-o-partisans grow strangely silent when yet another national leader compares the White House-approved torture at Gitmo to Nazi tactics.
Is it any wonder Americans are leaving the right side of the aisle in droves?
(h/t Lighthouse Keeper and Hesiod, the bloggers of TPM Muckraker and Election Central, and The Carpetbagger Report)
Despite the fact it was a bipartisan compromise to update a highly successful and trusted program which promoted the general welfare of our youngest citizens, Republicans won a phyrric victory by killing the override on Pres. Bush’s SCHIP veto.
There were only 273 votes to override — 290 were needed — with almost all Illinois Republicans voting against an override:
If you live in one of their districts, scold them for their ignorance.
Only Republicans Mark Kirk and Ray LaHood had the guts to stand up to the compassionless, hard-line conservative John Birch Society wannabes who lied through their teeth and tarred-and-feathered little kids to get their way.
From CNN:
Before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke of a middle-class family caring for a child with a birth defect, asking lawmakers: “So when the president wants to have 4 or $5 billion for children in this initiative, is he the one, the decider, who wants to go to that family and say, ‘Your child is out’?”
“We’re lobbying for all of the children,” said the California Democrat.
Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner explained his and other opponents’ stance on the bill.
“What we’ve been working towards is trying to find a way to say that we ought to insure poor children first,” said the Ohio Republican. “Let’s not let this become another Washington program that starts with one principle of mind and then becomes something for everyone.”
The bone-headed Republican Minority Leader Rep. Boehner may want to check the facts and stop lying: SCHIP is and has always been designed to help middle class families, the kids with parents who are working but who (for whatever circumstance) are unable to afford private insurance. SCHIP is a safety net to help those families obtain that private insurance for their kids.
That’s why the health insurance industry and HMOs were for it, Catholics and other religious groups were for it, doctors and hospitals were for it, and the vast majority of Americans were also for it (even 54% of self-declared Republican voters supported it).
Unfortunately for those 54% of GOP voters and the rest of America, those elitist Republican “leaders” thought they knew better than the rest of us and proved yet again that for them being “pro-life” ends at birth.
Radical Republicans in the form of cold-hearted, drain-the-country-down-the-bath-tub reactionaries won today; and our nation’s youngest citizens lost.
Sadly, David John Diersen did not appreciate the fact that I called a spade a spade yesterday by pointing out that his reference to a rise in the influence of Christians as an “UNMITIGATED TRAGEDY” was, in fact, anti-Christian.
Perhaps Mr. Diersen missed that session of conserv-o-logic studies at Partisan Playschool so I shall explain:
- Mr. Diersen claimed a rise in Christian influence is an “UNMITIGATED TRAGEDY” when he wrote… “WALL STREET JOURNAL — UNMITIGATED TRAGEDY: The Rise of the “Religious Left” - Steven Malanga” (emphasis added to highlight the portion of that phrase which is Mr. Diersen’s opinion of the information in the WSJ article)
- Because the subjects of that WSJ article include Christians, Mr. Diersen opposes them, calling their influence in the public sphere an “UNMITIGATED TRAGEDY”
- Ergo, Mr. Diersen is anti-Christian — he opposes Christians
- This, friends, is based on the conservatives’ own logic in applying such labels, as evidenced again this week by none other than Mr. Diersen’s fellow Illinois Reviewer, Fran Eaton. (In fact, using the logic of other conserv-o-partisans like Anne Leary, Mr. Diersen is also clearly anti-Semitic since rabbis and Jewish folks are also discussed in that WSJ article and Mr. Diersen also opposes those rabbis)
Outrageously, Mr. Diersen fails to recognize this and instead upped the ante today by whining that he thinks, “The Religious Left outrageously promotes socialism and outrageously argues that Jesus is a socialist.”
Considering the many ways in which Christ promoted an egalitarian, compassionate and communal society it’s clear that the strong moral responsibilities we each hold for one another (ie, united we stand) and which run throughout the ideology of progressivism and liberalism share a direct relation to Christ’s teachings whether Mr. Diersen labels Christ a “socialist” or not.
More to the point, despite Mr. Diersen’s claims of today, not all “Religious Folks and ‘Christians’ oppose socialism” (by “socialism” I take it that Mr. Diersen is implying “the Left” as so many conserv-o-partisans constantly do).
The words Democrat and Republican are not found anywhere in the Bible, not even the King James Version. All are equal in the Eyes of the Lord; and none are without sin, Mr. Diersen.
It is blasphemous for any mortal to declare who is or is not Christian, simply based on partisan politics. Christ didn’t say, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; unless they are socialists, liberals or progressives. Then you may hinder them” … as Mr. Diersen so clearly would in his anti-Christian zealotry.
UPDATE: Mr. Diersen still not grasping the concept…
I’m guessing the thing ain’t a day past 6,001 years old. 85 million? Who can even count that high? Too many zeroes. And who ever heard of a dinosaur quacking like a duck anyway.
I’m sure Andy Schlafly and the Gigglepediers will back me up on that logical assessment based on an approximation of Biblical timing according to retranslations of earlier oral histories. I wonder if Adam and Eve dined on duck-billed dino a l’orange… They must have, I tell you.
Other than bald-faced partisanship lemmingness, it’s very murky as to just what the Republican leadership doesn’t get about SCHIP and the clear-as-day need to override the President’s unpopular and uncompassionate veto.
Because of the overwhelming and bipartisan popularity of the successful program, and the overwhelming and bipartisan call for its expansion as times change (with inflation and job situations evolving) … those relatively few Americans (ie, dyed-in-the-wool, John Birch-like conservatives) have decided their only chance of stopping an override of the President’s veto is to lie, lie again, lie some more, keep lying, try hiding the truth for a spell, and then, for good measure, stalk 12-year-olds and trash 2-year-olds who benefit from the successful program while, because they’re too ignorant to think things through, lying about their parents.
Even the Senate Republican leadership was about to get in on that smearing action, attacking 12-year-olds, though they backed off when they realized their activist base was off its collective rocker. The No-voting Republicans are still standing in lockstep unison, running directly counter to their constituents’ wishes.
All this has led to even mainstream Republican partisans growing disgusted by the level of lies and tone of vitriol and conservative Republican Senators having to come out and stand up for a good, bipartisan compromise bill.
Now, the President’s bizarrely hypocritical rationale for vetoing is well-documented. It is what it is for all to see.
But the House Republicans’ refusal to recognize a good program when they see it, and one developed in bipartisan fashion no less (those funding questions ought to go to Senate Republicans, who insisted on a tobacco tax), is beyond bizarre and into the land of the nutty.
And that brings us to Rep. Judy Biggert and Sen. Dick Durbin, both of Illinois. Last Thursday, Rep. Biggert submitted a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune on why she would not vote to override the President’s veto. Her reasons for maintaining the override were full of holes (as some of the above links prove). First and foremost, Rep. Biggert erroneously declares, “This is a program designed to provide health care for low-income children.” Actually, this is a program designed to assist families who are in the lower- to mid-middle class — the working poor, depending on the cost of living where they live — secure health care. It does not provide health care; it makes it possible for families to afford private health care.
As for the rest of Rep. Biggert’s letter, I’ll let the Senior Senator from the State of Illinois do the talking, through his own letter to the editor refuting Rep. Biggert’s hollow assertions:
SCHIP bill accomplishes Biggert’s goals
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Ill)
October 16, 2007U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.) argued [...] that she wants two things: to remove parents from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and to work in a bipartisan fashion. I agree but the bill she opposes does both of those things — it removes parents from the CHIP program and was accomplished through bipartisan cooperation. [...]
[...] Currently, 14 states cover adults because the Bush administration gave them permission or waivers to do so. This bill eliminates that waiver system. As Biggert points out, because of those waivers, Illinois would spend more money on adults than children in the first year. What she doesn’t point out is that the bill provides a three-year transition period that removes all adults from the CHIP program. [...]
As we worked out this bipartisan compromise, we took the steps necessary to decrease the likelihood of individuals switching from private insurance to CHIP. [...] In fact, the American Health Insurance Plans, a national trade organization representing 1,300 private health insurance companies, recently announced its support for this bill.
I am disappointed that Biggert raised the emotional argument that this new program would insure undocumented children. The bill expressly prohibits coverage of these children.
Most important, this bill accomplishes its goals in a fiscally responsible way. It doesn’t add to the national debt but instead pays for the program through a tax on cigarettes — a decision two out of three Americans support. [...]
There is really much more in the full letter, so go read it.
Not a single one of Rep. Biggert’s claims for voting against kids actually stand up to the light of day. She and her fellow Republicans — Congressmen Peter Roskam, Jerry Weller, Dennis Hastert, Tim Johnson, Don Manzullo and John Shimkus from Illinois alone — who voted against kids must reconsider and vote to override the President’s veto tomorrow.
The only claim any conservatives have used against SCHIP that does stand up is the notion that they simply disagree with expanding a program, any program (let alone continuing it in the first place). Well, the John Birchers among us can be against efficient, proven government programs if they want … but even Ebeneezer Scrooge grew a heart after a time.
UPDATE: Gadzooks! Now the Republican “leaders” (if you can still call the folks at the head of the lemming herd that) are lying about their lying.
In today’s “GOPUSA ILLINOIS DAILY CLIPS – OCTOBER 17, 2007” compendium of news and commentary with a decidedly Dave Diersen-esque spin… we learn that Mr. Diersen thinks the Wall Street Journal article entitled “The Rise of the ‘Religious Left‘” describes, in Mr. Diersen’s words, an “UNMITIGATED TRAGEDY“.
It seems odd that any self-proclaimed holder of “conservative” values would think the rise of any religious group would be a “tragedy”, let alone an unmitigated one.
Do those conservative values include ignoring, even ostracizing, other Christians and calling a rise in their influence a “tragedy”?
This sort of foul hypocrisy borders on blasphemy as mere mortals and sinners such as Mr. Diersen attempt to divine who is or is not worthy of God’s Grace and Love; and they do so based on base politics of all things.
Unfortunately, the only “unmitigated disaster” here is that such questioning of political opponents’ faith is simply Par. For. The. Sad. Sad. Course. (no, Really.) from conservative partisans who would rather protect the Republican Party than accept that Christians may hold values other than those reflected in today’s Republican leadership. Values such as compassion, responsibility, equality, forethought, and the like which all too often are clearly missing from what’s left of the modern Repub Party thanks to mishandling by its elected leaders.
Thus, it is unfortunately unsurprising that a precinct captain, partisan activist, and conservative “editor” would choose to denigrate Christians — proving yet again that the party of “moral values” is Orwellian at best, and blasphemous hypocrites at worst.
What would Jesus do, indeed.
UPDATE: Mr. Diersen tries to explain away his anti-Christian statement… yet only succeeds in diving further into the depths of blasphemy.
How these ingrates can possibly say they support our troops and maintain a straight face is unclear. What don’t they understand about actual sacrifice for our nation?
No sooner had her campaign been publicly announced than some apparently illegal group decided to attack Col. Jill Morgenthaler, the Democratic candidate set to run versus freshman Congressman Peter Roskam (R).
I detailed yesterday the many ways in which Roskam and his backers poured vitriol and mud all over Major Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War vet and helo pilot who lost her legs so that those numskulls could exercise their First Amendment right to slime her.
That they’re already slinging the gunk at Col. Morgenthaler is a sign of both how desperate they are to cling to power and how despicably in the gutter their mindset is.
Hiram Wurf notes the subversive conservative mailer is actually a switcheroo: it appears to be an endorsement of Col. Morgenthaler but ticks off a bunch of negative points. Gee, sounds like those nasty, harassing phone calls that got dumped into the 6th throughout the last campaign. On top of that, Arch notes that the group the card is attributed to (”Patriotic Democrats of DuPage”) appears to be illegal since no such group is listed in FEC filings even as the mailer appears to advocate for a Federal candidate. (PS: Nice typos in the text, ya maroons.)
What is the “Patriotic Democrats of DuPage”? A figment of some partisan’s imagination since the group appears to be made-up. (Now, certainly there are a good many patriotic Dems who live in the DuPage Valley … but there is no such legal organization by that name.)
You can view the deceptive postcard content here (jpeg, thanks to Arch for hosting).
Archpundit’s scan does not include the mailer’s indicia — and that could be used to at least track down the mail house that sent it.
The card cites two references for its material. The first goes to what looks to be a personal blog apparently by Col. Jill Morgenthaler herself but last updated on August 14, 2004… I’d wait for confirmation from the Morgenthaler campaign but a quick Google search appears to confirm that it was written by her. The actual “supportusamilitary.org” site was set up by a fellow named Jeremy Jenson of Minnesota as a means for servicemembers to update folks back home and for us at home to support our troops through letters and care packages.
The second citation goes to a 2005 Indiana University School of Journalism article on the military and the media by reporter Suzannah Evans.
Both the blog and article feature much more content than the few cherry-picked, out-of-context bits this deceptive mailer recites. Too bad the conserv-o-partisans only support our troops when the troops agree with their malarkey.
UPDATE 1: Could the cart have been put before the horse here? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve made a mistake (at least I admit ‘em). Some folks among the progressive ‘roots are beginning to wonder (here and here) whether these cards were sent by rascally Repub-backers or progressives who oppose the war and were firing a warning shot across the bow of the nascent Morgenthaler campaign. The thinking is non-voter registration list names are used (ie, nicknames) and the mailing list seems inordinately small, so it might’ve been some progressive advocate working out of their living room. We may never know for sure what’s what.
Isn’t it sad that Cong. Roskam and his allies ran such a dirty campaign last year that folks naturally presume it to be their handiwork?
No matter who did it the cards look to be illegal given they lack the requisite Federal Election-required identifications and disclaimers, but I’m no lawyer.
UPDATE 2: Rich Miller interviewed Col. Morgenthaler earlier today and she indicates the flier is half-cocked (my word, not hers):
The flier, which was apparently sent to Democrats in the district, damns her with praise, claiming, among other things, that she was the Army’s “go-to” person during the notorious Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
Morgenthaler said this morning that she was indeed the Army’s spokesperson during the scandal and a quick search shows she was widely quoted in the media.
“I was trying to make sure we got the facts out,” Morganthaler said, claiming that the scandal and the lack of leadership “led to a lot of good things being discounted.”
The flier also claims that Morgenthaler was a member of the Army’s Psychological Operations team in Qatar, but Col. Morgenthaler, who is Gov. Blagojevich’s deputy chief of staff for homeland security, said her involvement with Psy Ops was limited to a tour in California back in 1984 and likened her job to “advertising and marketing.”
Apparently, however, somebody is using Psy Ops against her now. Morgenthaler said this morning that, despite the claims made in the flier, she was not recruited by Congressman Rahm Emanuel. She has spoken with Emanuel, she said, but others, including fellow soldiers and Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth, who lost to Roskam last year, have been far more influential.
As for progressives’ (and likely conservatives’) interest in learning more about Col. Morgenthaler’s position, she hasn’t yet officially announced so it’s a bit premature to expect well-rounded platforms (though hopefully she’ll do better than Coach Dick Versace when the time comes). But, she did tell Mr. Miller:
As for the future, she doesn’t want an immediate pull-out, but said, “We can’t stay the course either.” She thinks several important voices have been overlooked in a search for a solution, including the British and other regional leaders like the Queen of Jordan, whom Morgenthaler praised for her insight.
Finally, since the hypocritical con partisans kept railing against Maj. Tammy Duckworth for not living in the 6th (her home had been retrofitted by her Army colleagues and other volunteers to accommodate her severed limbs), Col. Morgantheler also says she is currently house hunting to move into the 6th — the exact same thing Peter Roskam did in his first run for Congress years ago. Her current house is close to, but not in, the 6th.
What planet is Eunice Conn on? She tells us today that she was:
…a bit saddened when I read that [Illinois Republican Party chair] Andy McKenna endorsed Steve Sauerberg … because Mr. McKenna did not meet with all the candidates running for the U.S. Senate seat.
You see, Eunice apparently knows another Republican candidate, Mike Psak. And I can understand her disappointment to a degree. Dr. Sauerberg hedged on so many questions at his kick-off announcement that news columnists labeled him “slippery“.
But poor, poor Eunice… She must’ve missed all the news about Andy McKenna and IRP specifically recruiting Dr. Sauerberg. Why wouldn’t Mr. McKenna endorse him?
Fran Eaton over at Illinois Review had steam coming out of her head yesterday after Dan of Move On and Shut Up told her off. …Knee-slapping fun for the whole room.
Essentially, Dan was writing in response to an earlier post by Ms. Eaton indicating that social cons may reconsider support for the Republican Party. Dan said good riddance, in not so many choice words.
The result is that Ms. Eaton is now adamant that her friends — the folks who think the sun revolves around the earth, the people who believe people rode dinosaurs like horses, and the tweedles dee and dum who explain it all away with bullpuckey as if it were a cult — will not be leaving the Republicans, even though their siren is calling for them to abandon the cross-dressing philanderer Rudy Giuliani should he become the nominee. (Just why Giuliani would be the catalyst for such a move is unclear since none of the