Have you noticed that, in particular when Sarah Palin is concerned, the definition of a “Gotcha Question” seems to be, “Any question a conservative politician answers badly”? In other words, the definition of the question depends not on the question, but on the answer.

Take, for example, the most recent question Palin responded to about her museum visit. The question was, “What have you seen today and what are you going to take away from your visit?”

Sorry, but that’s not a “Gotcha Question.” I could answer that without ever having seen the museum; the stock answer would be that it was a rich cultural and historical experience which all Americans should share, yadda yadda. Palin tried to get specific, and, as a matter of course, came out sounding like an goofus. She “got” herself; the question was not the problem.

Neither was one of the first questions asked to Palin to be so categorized:

And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

What that boils down to is, “What do you read to stay informed?” Again, not a “Gotcha Question.” Even if you don’t want to be honest, just cite the major papers in Alaska, maybe online sources like The New York Times, stuff like that.

The fact is, these questions are not only far from being “Gotcha Questions,” they are arguably softballs, the kind of questions that politicians love to get because they can be answered quickly, uncontroversially, and can easily be used to segue into their favorite talking point. “What do you read to stay informed?” could be answered by citing one news source as an example, and then highlighting an article which the source published recently that concerned an issue you want to make a point about. Politics 101. Kindergarten stuff. That Palin went all deer-in-the-headlights did not make the question a “Gotcha,” it simply demonstrated how shallow and inept she is.

Conservatives, however, rail against these media questions as if the questions themselves were really objectionable, when, in fact, the media is nothing more than a convenient scapegoat upon which to heap blame and scorn whenever they wish to excuse or disguise their own failures. When you say something stupid, blame the media. Gingrich did this when he was asked about Medicare and gave his opinion. His opinion turned out to be highly unpopular with his party, and so Gingrich blamed the interviewer.

You know that it is dishonest when the judgment rests on political preference, and not on the facts. A similar example would be “legislating from the bench,” which should refer to judges who create laws where none exist (which right-wing judges do most often of all), but conservatives use it to mean “any legal decision we disagree with.”

The fact is, a “Gotcha Question” is one which is specifically designed to be tricky or devious, fully intended to trip up the respondent and make them look bad. If the question is easy and the respondent fouls up anyway, that does not reflect on the question. Now, if an interviewer had asked Palin, “On which continent would you find the nation of Papua New Guinea?” that would have been a “Gotcha Question”–as few Americans, probably even few politicians, would know the answer to that question–but flubbing a geography question could easily make a politician look dumb even when they aren’t.

Another kind of “Gotcha Question,” the worst kind, in fact, is the question designed to force a respondent into a lie which can then be exposed. If you have the goods on someone, but don’t let them know that you do, and them ask them a question about it that you know they will lie to–that’s the ultimate “Gotcha Question.”

Conservatives are entirely political in their judgment of such questions. They would without any doubt whatsoever despise such a question if a conservative were so set up, but there is as little doubt that their favorite question of all time remains, “Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky?” That was a “Gotcha Question” because the prosecutors knew Clinton had, they had evidence on it they could use, they did not inform Clinton of this, and they knew, even hoped, that he would lie under oath about it. That’s the “Gotcha Question” of all “Gotcha Questions.” But ask a right-winger if they think it was unfair, and they will deny it vehemently. They adore that question, will defend it utterly, and have no problems with it.

In contrast, being asked questions like “What do you read?” and “How was the museum visit?” simply don’t even come close to being “Gotcha Questions.”

As Jon Stewart pointed out, “It doesn’t make it a got-cha question just because it got-ya.”

Yep. Wisconsin State Senator Dan Kapanke said that. It was a meeting with other Republicans, discussing the recall votes. The key quote:

We’ve got tons of government workers in my district – tons. … We have to overcome that. We gotta hope that they, kind of, are sleeping on July 12th – or whenever the (election) date is.

First question: if his district has so many government workers–if that’s who he represents, if those people are the ones he is supposed to be working for and fighting for–exactly why did he decide to screw them over with the union vote? I mean, I think that’s why his kind of job is called being a “representative” of the people, instead of, say, “party hack.”

If he’s screwed because he did something that hurt most of his constituents, then he absolutely deserves to be recalled. What the hell was he thinking?

Worse, he now actually has the cajones to say that he hopes the voters “kind of are sleeping” on election day. Whenever that is.

How did his campaign manager try to explain that comment off? According to her, (a) “some” of the people Kapanke was speaking to were “government workers,” and (b) he was just trying to encourage supporters to come out to vote.

Really. She said that.

First, the meeting was amongst Republicans at a country club. Something tells me there weren’t too many elementary school teachers in attendance. If there were “government workers” there, they were probably fellow party officials.

Second, trying to pass off “I hope my constituents are sleeping on election day” as “encouraging his supporters to come out to vote” is about as asinine an explanation as I can imagine. The campaign manager might as well have said that the senator was just trying to say that he hoped his constituents were idiots and could not tell the difference.

This is the quality of Republicans today: committed only to the party line, contemptuous of pretty much everything else.

When Republicans first started talking about their Medicare plan back in April, I could hardly believe they were serious–and I predicted that it would cost them dearly if they were really going to try it out. That was before we knew the public’s reaction.

Now we know.

Case in point: New York’s 26th congressional district, recently vacated by Chris Lee after his now-infamous shirtless photo on Craigslist.

The 26th district is heavily Republican. Though held by a Democrat for most of the 90’s, it was redistricted after the 2000 census, and since then, Republicans have won by varying margins. The closest Democrats came to reclaiming the seat was in 2006, when Republicans were incredibly unpopular and the House fell to the Democrats; even then, the 26th was won by a Republican by 4% of the vote. In other elections in the last decade, Republicans have won by margins of 11.3%, 14.5%, and 51.2%, with Lee winning the seat handily by a margin of 47.2%, with 73.6% of the vote over the Democrat Philip Fedele’s 26.4%.

Now that Medicare is a big issue, Republicans are finding themselves in trouble. 21% of respondents to a poll in the 26th said that Medicare was the single most important issue in deciding their vote, followed by jobs (20%), the budget deficit (19%), and then by taxes and health care (12% each).

And with the special election just three days away, the Democrat, Kathy Hochul, has jumped ahead in the polls and now leads the conservative candidate by 4 points. Hochul carries the largest block, 42%, followed by Republican Jane Corwin, with 38%, with 12% going to the Tea Party candidate. True, the vote is being split on the right, but considering that the Democrat got only 26% of the vote just a year ago, this is pretty significant.

Furthermore, 66% of voters say their minds are made up, with another 27% saying that it’s unlikely they will change their minds by election day, with Democrats being the most firm in their decision. With only 7% to work with, that’s not much hope for the Republican–especially since most of the undecideds are independents and Tea Party people. You might think that was good for the Republican, but almost all of the people who defected from the Tea Party candidate so far have gone for Hochul, the Democrat. Which means that if anyone stands to gain from the uncertains, it’s Hochul.

If Hochul wins, it will be interesting to see the reaction of the GOP regarding their Medicare plan. Already they have tried to walk back from it, but walked right back into it shortly after that, even going so far as to vote for it nearly unanimously and shooting down one of their most popular presidential candidates because he dared speak out against it.

Will they continue to walk into the buzz saw, claiming the 26th was only an aberration? One can only hope so. Unless they are stupid, they will not only shelve the Medicare plan, but also do a 180 and disown it, with nothing less than a new bill that bolsters Medicare in its present form. Yes, they’ll look like pandering hypocrites, but they already look like that anyway. At least they won’t be firmly gripping a third-rail issue any more.

Amazingly, I get the sense they will not do this, but will instead, like lemmings were once thought to do, swarm in lockstep over the precipice on this one.

Like I said, one can only hope.

Republicans are seriously threatening to let the debt ceiling expire, something which would have dire consequences for the U.S. and world economies. In response, Obama should give them nothing. Nada. Not a penny. Not even a kind word.

Frankly, the whole GOP romance with Hostage politics is getting more than just a little too unnerving. They were obnoxious over taxes, threatening to deny everyone a tax cut unless the rich got one too–and Obama caved. The GOP won the battle, and discovered that they could take hostages and Obama would fold. So then they threatened a government shutdown, and, predictably, Obama played footsie with them; even though he wound up giving them very little in the end, the impression was that he played ball, and that the GOP either got something, or came close.

Almost immediately after that, the GOP, emboldened from the apparent success of their hostage-taking so far, announced they had two more hostages: Medicare and the Debt Ceiling.

This is why you don’t deal with hostage-takers: if you give them a cookie, they’ll want a glass of milk. It’s too easy to take hostages, and there’s no end to their supply. Obama dealt with the GOP when it demanded ransom, and lo, just days later, they produced brand-new hostages.

Medicare, so far, has come back to bite them in the ass. They continue to vacillate between saying that they’re not going to do it, and threatening to go all the way. You get the feeling that (1) they want to do it, (2) they know that it would be politically damaging, but (3) they believe they can use it as a huge bargaining chip to get other things they want. The Democrats actually are on pretty strong ground here, and know that they can use the Medicare plan to hurt Republicans in next year’s election. As a hostage, it’s kind of a loser because it would be harder for Republicans to harm it.

The Debt Ceiling, however, is something else. It is more like the government shutdown, in that Republicans actually have the power to make it happen by withholding a vote. But the debt ceiling is like the government shutdown on steroids. Steroids from hell. Seriously, this could wreck the economy–but the Republicans are holding it back like it’s a dessert they want to withhold to punish a recalcitrant child.

Obama has got to stand firm on the debt ceiling thing. He has to call the Republican’s bluff. Dealing with the Republicans when they threatened to shut down the government was bad enough; it brought about the current crises, and if Obama continues to deal with them, the GOP will keep on doing this, and every few months we’ll have another situation where the GOP is threatening to destroy some aspect of America in order to get what they want.

Another reason Obama should not give an inch is that the debt ceiling, unlike the government shutdown, is not something the GOP can pin on Obama. The GOP can’t let the debt ceiling go unchanged and then tell Americans that the president wrecked the economy. And if they do let this go, it won’t be like the government shutdown, which is bad–it would be completely disastrous. Republicans would have to be a hundred times more stupid and crazy than they could possibly be to make this happen. The GOP would be literally committing suicide if they ran the economy into the ground over political game-playing.

Obama will be pressured, though; he may think or people may tell him that he has to do something. And that is true, in that he has to appear before the American people and tell them that the GOP is out of bounds on this one. That the debt ceiling is not a bargaining chip, it is not something you hold hostage, and that in all good conscience, there is no way on earth that he will budge on this one, and that if the Republicans have decided to wreck the economy, there’s nothing he can do about it.

That Obama seems to be unwilling to do is stupid. This is not a choice for him, unless he wants to face this situation every other week. If Obama really wants to keep playing the “I’m reasonable, I’m not partisan, so I’ll talk to them regardless of what they’re doing” game, then he’s an idiot. He has to draw the line in the sand.

Otherwise, a week or two after he makes some sort of deal with the GOP, yet another hostage–or three–will materialize, and we’ll be back at square one. Because when the GOP sees that destructive behavior wins them something, they make it a standard practice, like they did with obstructionism and blazingly hypocritical partisan attacks.

Obama has to make clear to the GOP that they cannot simply print free currency like this, like a child demanding a toy or else he’ll use his baseball bat to destroy something else in the house. It was bad enough when the brat threatened to bash in the TV set, but now he’s saying he’s going to take it to grandma’s head.

Time to take the baseball bat out of his hand and teach the little snot a lesson he’ll never forget.

Rand Paul:

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.

I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.

By this logic, one’s right to religious belief enslaves clergy; the right to keep and bear arms enslaves gun dealers; the right to legal representation enslaves attorneys; and, I suppose, the right to free speech enslaves, well, anyone who you want to have listen. While we’re at it, don’t we all have a right to life? That makes slaves out of everyone who does anything that keeps people alive.

Apparently Paul does not quite understand the meaning of the word “rights.”

Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels now says he will sign a bill that will defund Planned Parenthood because they perform abortions. Not just of state funds, but of federal funds, including Medicare. Despite the fact that $0 of public money goes to abortions, despite the fact that 97% of their services are vital health needs for women, despite the fact that most (about 60%) of the people who depend on Planned Parenthood are below the poverty line, despite the fact that this move will threaten the health of women across his state, and despite the fact that this move will do nothing to stop abortions.

So, why is he doing it?

Daniels’ decision was closely watched since he is considering a presidential run. His earlier call for a “truce” on social issues had garnered the ire of social conservatives, and the bill was seen as a test of where he stood on such issues.

Oh, nice. Daniels is uselessly endangering women’s health and putting their lives at grave risk as a political move to slap liberals and pander to the right-wing core for the sake of his political career.

What a hero.

John Boehner, April 25, 2011, in an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl:

JONATHAN KARL: Now Paul Ryan’s budget, which you voted for, which all but a handful of your members voted for, it ends Medicare as we know it.

SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: Now that’s Democrat talk.

JONATHAN KARL: Okay, what does it do then?

SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: I wanted to call it somethin’ else, because that’s what it is. It transforms Medicare into a plan that’s very similar to the President’s own healthcare bill.

Hmm, OK. Let’s see, what did Boehner say about “the president’s own healthcare bill”? Allow me to introduce John Boehner, on November 3, 2010, talking about Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which he called a “monstrosity”:

Listen, I believe that the health care bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country.

So, taking Boehner at his word, he wants to “transform Medicare into a plan that’s very similar” to a “monstrosity” that “will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country.”

Keep talkin’, John. Those Democratic campaign ads won’t write themselves, y’know.

Obama finally released his long-form birth certificate. So, now that the document Birthers have said would end this once and for all has been released, they will finally stop their stupid, bizarro conspiracy theories.

Yeah, right.

Maybe Obama sensed that the right wing was reaching a threshold and would soon leave the whole thing behind–but that this action would stoke the flames of interest and resuscitate what is, after all, a great boon for the Democrats.

Trump was furious when city officials revealed that he hadn’t voted much for a few decades:

Records unearthed by NY1, Trump’s hometown news station, show he has not voted in primary elections for 21 years. City election board spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez confirmed NY1’s story at the weekend.

The news prompted a furious denial from Trump. “I voted in every general election … You’re going to pay a big price because you’re wrong … I have records that I voted and so does the board of elections … I signed in at every election,” he told NY1.

“Pay a big price,” huh? What, he’s going to sue?

And you know what would work better than threatening to show records that you voted? Actually showing records that you voted. If I were Trump and I had the records, I would have simply picked up the records (presumably they are not buried in the arctic or anything) and shown them right away. So far, no records.

Instead, all we get is hot wind from a man who has shown the intellectual and political savvy of a turnip. Really, the man thinks he’ll lower oil prices by just blustering, and had no idea why privacy had anything to do with abortion. And when he claimed that he was uncovering dirt on Obama in Hawaii and was asked for an example, he told the interviewer, “That’s none of your business.”

Right now, Trump has even less credibility than Palin, and that is saying a hell of a lot. It’s not everyone who can appear even dumber and more blustery than her. Seriously, Trump could claim that he was breathing and I would not trust him until someone held a mirror up to his nose.

So, naturally, he’s the most popular presidential candidate amongst Republicans.

Republicans are more and more trying to get away with ignoring the law. Of course, in the past, it has been mostly interpretations, such as that of constitutional law–that the First Amendment doesn’t mandate a separation of church and state, for example, or that the Ninth Amendment effectively does not exist. Recently, we have started to see more examples of Republicans rather blatantly flouting the legal process.

After Republicans in Wisconsin rammed through a law which stripped educators of their collective bargaining rights, Democrats filed a lawsuit pertaining to the process involved in passing the law; pending the outcome of that case, a Wisconsin judge ordered that the law not be published or implemented. Republicans ignored the the judge, publishing it anyway. Laws are published by the Secretary of State in an official publication, which is what the judge order halted. Republicans simply published it on their own elsewhere and claimed that this effectively invalidated the judge’s order.

So the judge reissued the order, noting that the original order was more than clear enough but emphasizing that the law may in no way be published. Again, Republicans ignored the judge, taking only minutes after the second order to publicly claim that the law was in effect and that was that.

Republicans were, effectively, claiming that they could simply ignore the courts. The court was not amused, and the judge issued a terse order stating unequivocally that the law was not published according to law and it was not in effect. Probably knowing the Republicans would simply continue thumbing their noses at the law, the judge threatened sanctions this time if they did not comply. Finally, the Republicans gave in.

They are not the only ones to have unique views on how the rule of law works, however. Republicans in Washington are currently trying to engineer a shutdown of government, held back only by the knowledge that they would, rightly, be blamed for the shutdown. In their latest ploy to make it all seem like the Democrats’ fault, they are presenting a “Prevention of Government Shutdown Act” (so named to give the impression that Democrats have been trying to shut down the government while Republicans have been trying to stop them). That little piece of grandstanding is not so startling as what Cantor, at a press conference, claimed would happen:

On Friday, we will bring to the floor, the Government Prevention of, excuse me, the Prevention of Government Shutdown Act. And that will say to the American people: the Senate’s got to act, prior to the expiration of the CR. If it doesn’t not act, HR 1 becomes the law of the land. [emphasis mine]

Cantor and the Republicans were actually claiming that they could enact a law all by themselves so long as the Senate did not agree to what they demanded. Which, of course, is utter horse manure. Both houses must agree on the exact wording of the bill and then the president has to sign it. To simply claim that House passage alone can make it “the law of the land” is astonishingly stupid.

So said Lawrence O’Donnell, who took Cantor to task for this attempt to ignore not just the law, but the Constitution itself. Apologists for Cantor called it an “error,” as if it were a slip of the tongue Cantor made at the press conference–but that “error” was written directly into the legislation, H.R. 1255, which says:

Deadline for Consideration of Legislation Funding the Government for the Remainder of Fiscal Year 2011- If the House has not received a message from the Senate before April 6, 2011, stating that it has passed a measure providing for the appropriations for the departments and agencies of the Government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, the provisions of H.R. 1, as passed by the House on February 19, 2011, are hereby enacted into law. [emphasis mine]

There’s no error; Republicans were trying to claim that if the Senate didn’t vote on the issue by a date that Republicans set, the House would just overrule the Senate and roll past the president and make their own law.

One can only assume that, unless the Republicans have gone completely insane–which I am not discounting–that this is precisely nothing more than a PR stunt. After all, for H.R. 1255 to pass, it also would have to be approved by the Senate and signed by the president. However, to assume that this would happen would be complete and utter fantasy. In short, it’s all window dressing, all intended to give the public the impression that everything bad that happens is the Democrats’ fault–that being the cover the GOP is looking for the shut down the government.

Something in me, however, says that there are actually Republicans who believe that they could do this, or at least claim they did it and then hold their breath until they turned red in the face (they would never turn blue, after all). This is the extent to which Republicans have simply stopped recognizing what the law is and instead believe that they can claim that the law is whatever they say it is.

Just in case you forgot how essentially dishonest the opposition to Obama is, here’s a reminder.

Newt Gingrich on Fox News, March 7th:

Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening. And we don’t have to send troops. All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes. … This is a moment to get rid of him. Do it. Get it over with.

So, Obama went the no-fly-zone route, bombed to defend Libyan rebels, and did not commit ground troops. All good, right?

Newt on the Today Show , March 23:

I would not have intervened. I think there are a lot of other ways to affect Gaddafi. I think there are a lot of other allies in the region that we could have worked with. … Having decided to go there, if Qaddafi does not leave power it will be a defeat for the U.S., it will lengthen our engagement, it will increase our costs.

Criticism of Obama from the right wing is, and never has been, about anything he has actually done. Obama doesn’t bomb Libya, he’s wrong. Obama does bomb Libya, he’s wrong. Nor is this the only example; half the stuff Obama has done is stuff that Republicans used to support, not too long ago. They don’t oppose ideas, or policy, or very much at all, in fact. If Obama does anything, it’s wrong and will harm the country. And if Obama were to do something they could not possibly oppose–like advocate for a ban on abortion, for example–they would simply switch to criticizing how and why he’d do it while the goal posts much farther down the field and criticizing him for not going that far.

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By the way, a little aside: right-wingers are now saying that the presidency is “beneath” Sarah Palin, and that it would be a “step down” for her. (Didn’t you know? Palin is the new Oprah.)

And liberals, in case you forgot, are elitists.

I hope that all the American voters who voted out Democrats for supposedly not paying enough attention to job creation are paying attention to the kind of garbage that Republicans are wasting time on instead. Back in 2009, Democrats passed the stimulus bill right away, and while it did not solve every problem, it prevented millions of jobs from being lost and helped bring us back up to where we are now. What has the GOP done to create jobs? Essentially, got rich people loads more money by extending their tax cuts. Problem solved! Worse, the GOP, since Day One, has been spending most of their time on drivel which is as vehemently partisan as it is boneheaded and futile.

Recently, for example, the GOP wasted time trying to defund NPR as a result of a publicity stunt by a criminally irresponsible right-wing punk/prankster famous for wildly misrepresenting the truth. Despite the fact that they knew full well that this would never pass the Senate, the GOP nonetheless wasted swaths of valuable congressional time in session to what amounted to a completely insipid publicity stunt, instead of doing anything to save jobs.

Their next idiotic PR stunt? Passing a law that would turn the IRS into abortion cops:

Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how Americans have paid for their abortions. To ensure that taxpayers complied with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest. And one tax expert says that the measure could even lead to questions on tax forms: Have you had an abortion? Did you keep your receipt?

In testimony to a House taxation subcommittee on Wednesday, Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee, confirmed that one consequence of the Republicans’ “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” would be to turn IRS agents into abortion cops—that is, during an audit, they’d have to determine, from evidence provided by the taxpayer, whether any tax benefit had been inappropriately used to pay for an abortion.

Bad enough that the IRS would now be requiring your medical history as part of your tax returns; worse that they would then interrogate rape victims for tax purposes. More importantly, how exactly would the IRS determine that the woman in question spent “tax benefit” money on the abortion, as opposed to just money she earned? If the law has any meaning whatsoever, it would essentially treat any money spent by the woman as potentially part of that “tax benefit.” Meaning that if a woman who had an abortion got any tax break that could be called a “benefit,” she would not be allowed a medical procedure or else would be penalized in the form of higher taxes. Do I even need to mention that these are the same people who are trying to say government should get out of our personal business?

Not that any of this matters–it will obviously be DOA when it gets to the Senate. The point, of course, is that this is all just a massive waste of time, at taxpayer expense, for nothing more than a staunchly partisan attack, when people are out of work and hurting. Instead of doing work to solve any problems faced by the people, the GOP is hard at work throwing their own feces at the opposition like a pack of drug-addled howler monkeys. Not that this is any different from any other time in the past many years.

Will the voters react to this as they reacted to just the perception that Democrats weren’t doing enough to solve the job crisis? Will they get the hint that if Republicans are rewarded for their batshit-crazy routine in 2012, that this will spread to both houses and only intensify?

If history is any indication, the answer is, sadly, no.

Network neutrality has always been about fairness, freedom, and independence. Which is probably why Republicans hate it so much.

Network neutrality is about everyone being equal on an unfettered, decentralized frontier, intentionally left untouched by invasive rules or controls. It is akin to a free public space where people can do what they wish, no one given priority over anyone else. Currently, it keeps telecoms from taking what has been a public resource from day one, grabbing it as their private domain, and using it to squeeze as much profit from the public as possible. Again, reasons for Republicans to hate it.

Network neutrality has always been the rule of the Internet, you might say that’s a big part of what defines it. It’s an important reason why the Internet has been so successful, as a domain free from outside interference. Network neutrality opponents want to change things, they want to turn it into a privately-controlled commodity, in which corporations would have control over how fast you go, how much you pay, what you do, and how you do it–controls which the government has never tried to impose, a free and unfettered state of being that the FCC wishes to allow to continue.

And yet to hear Republicans talk about it, network neutrality is somehow a new idea, something which will change the Internet into an over-regulated quagmire–when the exact opposite is true.

To trash the idea of network neutrality, they throw vague and unsupported accusations that the concept is somehow connected to things Republicans hate–“government regulation” being the big one. In this case, however, the government regulation is not to stifle or control, but the exact opposite. It’s a regulation which would keep industry’s–and government’s–hands off.

However, here’s Boehner rattling on about the concept, clearly either clueless or an industry shill, but more likely both:

“’Network neutrality,’ they call it. It’s a series of regulations that empower the federal bureaucracy to regulate Internet content and viewpoint discrimination. The rules are written vaguely, of course, to allow the FCC free reign.

”The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over local broadcasters who have been serving their communities with free content for decades.

No, it would empower the government to maintain the Internet as the government has maintained it from the beginning. It does not “regulate content,” it ensures that content will not be interfered with. It does not allow the FCC to be a traffic controller, it keeps the telecoms from become traffic controllers. In ensures that free content will be protected from the “local broadcasters” (read: big telecoms) who want to end the whole concept of free content.

Note the language, though. “They” call it that, as if there is some mysterious, nefarious “they.” “Regulations,” “empowering federal bureaucracy,” “regulate,” “viewpoint discrimination,” “vague,” and regulatory “free reign.” Almost every other word in that sentence is a carefully-crafted fright word intended to push scare buttons that the right wing has worked for decades to instill in the people. Almost his entire rant is chock-full of this crap.

“As far as I’m concerned, there is no compromise or middle ground when it comes to protecting our most basic freedoms.

”So our new majority in the House is committed to using every tool at our disposal to fight a government takeover of the Internet.

The government created the Internet, you ignorant sellout. He’s trying to make it sound like the Internet was created by the telecoms, so they should get to “keep” it. “Our most basic freedoms”? What the hell is that supposed to mean? How do you propose that allowing telecoms to control content, restrict the free use of applications, and segregate a public resource so it can charge a premium to users, will “protect our most basic freedoms”? Just the opposite–you and your patrons want to destroy the equality which has been the hallmark of the Internet since its inception. Your plans would open the doors, for the first time ever, to service providers censoring content and working to harass those they disapprove of, a state of affairs expressly forbidden by network neutrality.

“Already, the committee has held hearings to give FCC regulators a chance to explain the need for this intrusion. It won’t surprise you to hear they haven’t been able to give the American people a straight answer.

Again, ”committees,“ ”hearings,“ ”regulators,“ ”intrusions.“ Be afraid and do whatever we say, you dim-witted cattle.

And an ”intrusion“? How the flying frack is a set of rules which essentially says, ”hands off and allow people to do as they please“ an ”intrusion“? Especially compared to the corporate controls you want to institute, giving this massive thing of value to the telecoms for free.

Then Boehner uses a segue to his next line of spouted waste, drawing an analogy between network neutrality and yet another boogeyman of the far right:

”Congresswoman Blackburn has been a national leader on this issue, holding the FCC’s feet to the fire. She has called net neutrality ‘the Fairness Doctrine for the Internet.’

“The ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ that’s another threat to freedom with an innocuous name.”

Yes, heaven forbid that money not be allowed to buy a louder voice. What a travesty to plutocracy that would be. However, aside from the complete disconnect between the two concepts, the Fairness Doctrine is just yet another red herring, a fictional scare tactic, like Obama banning guns, or the return of the New Black Panther Party, or “death panels,” a false specter to galvanize the party faithful.

Even in this age where lies and corruption stand as the mainstay of Republican politics and policy, this outright fictional spew is galling. But this is what we have come to expect from this man–to sell out the American people for money and power. What else is new?

It hurts me to see a news organization get involved in politics to that level.

–Juan Williams, talking about CNN on Fox News

CNN, for the record, had a guy on the scene who rather simply and straightforwardly said that doctors were “helping out” teachers in Wisconsin by writing false notes that the teachers were ill when they were participating in a sick-out. The statement was not even sympathetic to the teachers or the doctors, it was simply stating that the doctors supported the teachers, nothing more than what actually happened. That was Williams’ assessment of how CNN was “getting involved in politics.”

Right-wingers are angry about how taxes are so high, despite the fact that taxes are pretty much as low as they have been for a very long time. They’re also agitated about inflation, despite the fact that inflation is as low as it has been for a long time, and shows no signs of increasing. They’re fearful of Muslims and Sharia Law taking over America, when there’s pretty much zero chance of that happening. They are perennially up in arms about a “War on Christmas” which just isn’t there. They fear a New Black Panther Party which is nothing more than a phantom. They fear that gays getting married will destroy the institution of marriage itself. They fear Death Panels. They fear a communist president born in Kenya who is robbing us of our freedoms and will confiscate all our guns as he imposes a fascist dictatorship.

Exaggerated fears are one thing. But right-wingers today seem fearful of things that mostly just don’t even exist.

But don’t try to tell them that global climate change is anything to worry about. There’s simply no conclusive evidence for that. I mean, really, folks, let’s not get carried away.

Barack Obama, in his State of the Union Speech:

What we can do — what America does better than anyone else — is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. … America still has the largest, most prosperous economy in the world. No workers are more productive than ours. No country has more successful companies, or grants more patents to inventors and entrepreneurs. We’re the home to the world’s best colleges and universities, where more students come to study than any place on Earth. …

I know there isn’t a person here who would trade places with any other nation on Earth. …

[W]e believe in the same dream that says this is a country where anything is possible. … That dream is why [John Boehner] can preside as Speaker of the House in the greatest nation on Earth.

John Boehner, the next day, said:

[Obama and others on the left] have refused to talk about America exceptionalism. We are different than the rest of the world. … We’ve got more innovators, more entrepreneurs, and that is exceptional but you can’t get the left to talk about it. They don’t — they reject that notion.

Dude, you were sitting right behind him. He was talking about you just before saying America was the greatest nation on Earth. Weren’t you listening? Or were you too absorbed in thinking of useless, grandstanding stunts to get rid of budget-reducing health care reform that would cover tens of millions more people?

Democrats are apparently refusing to allow the incoming “We’re All About the Rules” Republicans to bypass the rules which would allow the GOP to more quickly attack the health care legislation the Democrats worked so hard to get passed.

Well, isn’t that what the Republicans said they wanted?

Only days from a mid-term election in which they are widely expected to take control of the House, the slogan of the nearly empowered congressional Republicans can be put into two words: “no compromise.” …

“This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles,” Boehner said during an appearance on conservative Sean Hannity’s radio show.

If this report is accurate, then the Democrats gave them exactly what they said they wanted: no compromise. Frankly, I think they had a hell of a lot of gall to go to the Dems and even ask them for that. After treating the Dems like crap and obstructing at every turn, they suddenly want the Dems to cave in even when the GOP trips itself up?

I almost hope that Pelosi and the gang gave Boehner a florid Cheneyism in response. He richly deserves exactly that.

There’s a rule of thumb which says that the more loudly something is claimed the more likely it’s not true. Fox News is an excellent example, making the loudest claims about how objective it is.

This applies just as appropriately to Republicans in the House, who carried out a big grandstanding stunt by reading the Constitution aloud, in essence implying that it was being ignored by Democrats, and that Republicans were committed to carrying out the letter of the law, all part of their larger movement to emphasize how they are all about rules and order. Following the rule of thumb, one can assume that the implied message is indeed not true.

It did not take long for evidence of this to materialize. Two Republican House members–including the chairman of the Rules Committee himself–participated in debate and votes in committee without being sworn in. Not only against the rules, but against the Constitution itself. Apparently they were too busy reading the Constitution to actually bother to follow the document’s rules. This put them in the embarrassing position of going to the Democrats–specifically, Nancy Pelosi–to beg for an agreement to let the whole incident be ignored by agreement so the GOP could ram through it’s pathetic attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act sooner, without having to take the time to follow the rules properly. (One does not have to guess what the Republican’s answer would be were their positions reversed.)

All this as Republicans get on another grandstanding high horse, reducing the budget deficit–as if they are all about reduction and Democrats are about ballooning it. This just weeks after they forced a 2-year extension on tax cuts for the rich which will cost us a hundred or two billion, with the full GOP intent of making those cuts permanent–even though a majority of Americans see raising taxes on wealthy people as the most popular way to reduce the deficit.

How else are Republicans going to “reduce” the deficit? By trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. The problem: the CBO says that doing so will actually inflate the deficit to the tune of $230 billion, and will only get more expensive as time goes on and the ten-year cost-saving estimate of the act begins to encompass more of the money-saving that will come at the far end of that estimate. Republicans predictably responded by calling the CBO estimate an “opinion” while couching the name of the ACA in the obligatory right-wing “job-killing” epithet.

Oh, and the Constitution reading which was ignored by Republicans themselves? That cost about $1.1 million. Not to mention all the time wasted in the health care repeal legislation that they know will just be killed in the Senate or vetoed by the president.

If the Republicans were actually interested in cutting costs, they should have immediately worked to fix a budget error, caused by the Republican obstructionism last year, that forces NASA to spend $475 million on a rocket they don’t need. But that would mean actually doing work that means something, rather than pulling PR stunts that play well to their base.

So, good job, Republicans, in showing the American public exactly how wasteful and stupid you all are.

When I saw this first, I thought it was out of The Onion. Then I figured, OK, it’s true, but it’s just some unknown blogger or wild-eyed rant rag publishing some looney conspiracy theory that even they didn’t take too seriously. It was a report that right-wing sites are clamoring that Obama is planning to give America, or parts of it, especially Manhattan, back to the Indians. OK, I thought. A left-wing site has taken some random post by a nutball wingnut blogger and had fun with it. The sad fact is… not really.

It regards something called the “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” a document intended to symbolically recognize the suffering and mistreatment of the 370 million indigenous people around the world. It recognizes their equal rights and generally how they have been shafted throughout history. Naturally, this has aroused the ire or many who exist among the “shafting” peoples, worried that they might be called to actually do something about it, or worse, in the areas of the world where people are still being displaced because they live in areas others want to use, development of these new resources might be inconvenienced.

But in the U.S., this is a sore point primarily because of the fact that it points out rather unfortunate aspects of our own history. In short, we’ve done some pretty nasty stuff–stealing what they had, violating our agreements, and generally treating them like crap. Just recognizing this fact chafes the right wing, which prefers to whitewash history so that we never did anything wrong (or you are an America-hater who apologizes to people, as if America ever needed to do something so shameful and self-vilifying) or at least had really good reasons for doing things that kinda looked bad, but it wasn’t as bad as those left-wing traitors are trying to make you believe.

This, and their relentless quest to find anything to smear Obama with and make the American people fear and loathe him, have led right-wingers to find news in the fact that Obama has reversed Bush’s policy and now backs the UN declaration. They are making the claim that this will lead to court cases which will return U.S. property to Native American tribes. Well, at least that’s the tamed down version of the claim.

Keep in mind that the declaration is wholly non-binding, and has no real legal relevance.

Conservative coverage of the otherwise tame story started in the right-wing Washington Times, which dredged up concerns that Obama’s support for the declaration would lead to legal restitution battles:

Objections to the declaration include its potential to conflict with U.S. law, its failure to define exactly who indigenous peoples are, and its support for tribes seeking claims on lands occupied hundreds of years ago. Article 26 of the declaration states that “indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.” …

Article 28 states that indigenous peoples “have the right to redress,” which can include “restitution” or “just, fair and equitable compensation” for lands and resources they have traditionally owned or occupied, but which have been “confiscated, taken, occupied” without their consent.

The article, printed on December 16, fell short of saying we were giving America back to the natives, but definitely raised concerns about reparations.

On the blogger level, this started generating concern, with the article reprinted on a number of right-wing sites.

Then, a few days later, right-wing news sites started reworking the story to a gradually more alarmist tone:

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama, addressing a tribal nations conference at the White House last week, announded that the U.S. government is now supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which includes a sweeping declaration that “indigenous peoples” have a right to lands and resources they traditionally occupied or “otherwise used.”

“Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired,” says the U.N. resolution.

The story goes on to emphasize several points in the U.N. declaration which give the impression–especially to those steeped in right-wing mythology–that America will soon be awash with apologies to others, reparations, liberal-media-driven national self-recriminations, and so forth. Weight is given to the declaration as a driving legal force:

Brent Schaefer, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation, told CNSNews.com that although the U.N. declaration now supported by the Obama administration is non-binding, it represents a “significant policy shift” from the Bush administration.

Schaefer also said that before crafting legally binding international treaties, the U.N. usually starts the process with a non-binding resolution — a fact that will put the U.S. in a more difficult position if it objects to similar language in a formal treaty.

“It puts our negotiators in a weaker position going forward,” Schaefer said.

Introduced into the story at this point is a minor Obama PR event where, like pretty much every president before him, he welcomes members of a Native American tribe and accepts an symbolic offer to become a tribe member–in Obama’s case, the Crow tribe. Emphasis is put on the Crow name he is given: “One Who Helps People Throughout the Land.”

This again stirs a number of right-wing blogs into spreading the meme. Other sites jump forward to more alarmist language, but we’ll get back to that a bit later.

A few days after the CNS account, the story swings back to the Washington Times, which attempts to fan the flames with an editorial:

Some of UNDRIP’s articles are so vague that they promise virtually unlimited government largesse, such as Article 21: “States shall take effective measures and, where appropriate, special measures to ensure continuing improvement of [indigenous peoples’] economic and social conditions.” Those concerned that UNDRIP is a devious means to justify some form of reparations to American Indians for the sins Mr. Obama has declared the United States guilty of need look no further than Article 11. This proposition explicitly states that the government “shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.”

Articles 26 through 28 are even more alarming. They deal in detail with the issue of the “lands, territories and resources which [indigenous peoples] have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.” UNDRIP compels governments to “establish and implement, in conjunction with [the] indigenous peoples concerned, a fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process” for addressing historic land claims and asserts the “right to redress” for “confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged” lands. Compensation is to take the form of “lands, territories and resources equal in quality, size and legal status or of monetary compensation or other appropriate redress.”

It would be easy to dismiss UNDRIP recognition as the type of symbolic gesture the embattled president has to make to placate his left-wing base. The declaration is not yet legally binding, but it lays the groundwork for the next stage in the process of codifying its mandates as international rights in an international convention or covenant. And even though UNDRIP is not binding, it plays to Mr. Obama’s personal sentiments and post-colonial worldview, and his administration is certain to formulate policies that treat the declaration’s mandates as compulsory even if they aren’t. UNDRIP is the ultimate “evil white man” guilt trip. For those who would wipe clean the past 400 years of “European colonization of North America,” this is the next best thing.

Again, the writing is distributed around the right-wing blogosphere. A few days after that, Fox News adds its voice–not an editorial, so a bit more tame, but still alarmist, using John Bolton this time:

But John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the “abstract” document — which in several sections discusses the “right to redress” — will probably be used to fuel new legal claims. And he predicted the issue would complicate those cases more than it would help either side actually resolve them.

“It’s a kind of feel-good document that has so many unclear phrases in it that nobody’s really sure what it means when you agree to it,” Bolton told FoxNews.com. “It’s wrong and potentially dangerous to sign onto a document that you don’t fully understand the implications of.”

Get that? It’s “potentially dangerous” with frighteningly vague “implications.” The Fox article does some interesting gymnastics to both mention the non-binding status of the declaration, but alternately to stress that there is something insidiously binding to it, but we can’t really say, it’s just this thing we’re trying to tell you but can’t without being called out on it, wink wink.

Tellingly, the article ends thusly:

Carl Horowitz, a project manager with the National Legal and Policy Center who follows discrimination cases against the federal government, used the r-word — reparations — to describe those implications.

“It reflects a global egalitarianism,” he said. “It’s a shakedown.”

So now, by Christmas, we have the meme pretty fully established. All that is left is for the minions to run with it. By this time, the alarm has already started to spread at the lower levels; even before some of the more alarmist media stories ran, we saw stuff like this, people like Bryan Fisher, writing for a blog hosted by the fundie AFA org, on December 21:

President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords.

The Bush administration rejected this proposal in 2007, on the common sense grounds that it would give a sub-national group veto power over the laws enacted by a democratic legislature.

I see no reason why the president, after he leaves office, can’t submit himself to the authority of any Indian tribe he wants to. Perhaps he figures that, as an adopted Crow Indian, he will be the new chief over this revived Indian empire.

I’m pretty sure that’s not satire. I tried to check the site but could not find an “About” page, where satire is usually announced, and checked out other portions of the site, which seem to be just as serious, or at least apparently so. The problem is, this is so lunatic in its tone, it comes across as outrageous satire. But I think that, while he may have been using what to his sense was a a bit of sarcastic hyperbole, the article was serious in its intent.

So by Christmas, when the major media outlets have already hyped up the story, the stage is set to take it further at higher levels. WorldNetDaily jumps in with an article titled–not sarcastically or satirically–Obama to give Manhattan back to Native Americans?

President Obama is voicing support for a U.N. resolution that could accomplish something as radical as relinquishing some U.S. sovereignty and opening a path for the return of ancient tribal lands to American Indians, including even parts of Manhattan.

The issue is causing alarm among legal experts.

So now Manhattan, for its symbolic value as the incredibly valuable land we cheated Indians out of for cheap jewelry, is being given away. “Legal experts” are expressing “alarm” now. This shored up with an editorial. Again, with the reprinting and echo–chamber effect.

As for the Manhattan bit, the WND article buried its justification for that bit at the bottom of the article; apparently, a major source for the story, a college professor who (from what I could tell of web searches) is either an itinerant adjunct or perhaps now has a position at a community college in Arizona, noted that some tribes want to repurchase land in Manhattan. That, apparently, is it–this somehow morphs into “Obama to give Manhattan back to Native Americans.”

This is what passes for “spreading truth” in the right wing. A story which, in any other venue, would be laughed off as a joke, or presented as rank satire, is taken seriously, making the top conservative news outlets, including newspapers and media networks which reach millions of people who take what is printed there as gospel.

I’m still having trouble accepting the fact that this is the level of their “journalism” and that so many on the right actually seem to think there is some real-world relevance to what they’re ranting about. In one sense, it simply is yet another example of the craziness we have been seeing for years; but even after seeing stuff like this again and again, I still cannot fully accept that this crap is actually happening.

59 Republicans voted against even scaled-back health care for 9/11 first responders. Among them, unsurprisingly, is Michele Bachman, who boasted about her “no” vote:

The last vote taken by this Congress offered a sad commentary on the abysmal lame duck session that was run by the Democrat[ic] majority. Almost 40 percent of House members were not even present for the vote on the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. Additionally, Members of Congress have a responsibility to review bills before they vote, but Speaker Pelosi hurried this bill through, disregarding normal House procedure. The heroes who responded on 9/11 deserve to be made whole, but the measure which passed the House today falls short, and that’s why I voted against it. …

At a time when government spending is out-of-control this Congress should not have pushed a bill with more than $4 billion in new spending through this lame duck session.

So, she’s proud to vote against health care for 9/11 heroes because…

1. Almost 40 percent of House members were not even present for the vote. Why is this? It’s because Republicans stopped the bill from being voted on earlier, and have been obstructing it for a few years. It had to be handled now because it is unlikely the next House, run by Republicans, would pass the bill at all. Not the Democrats’ or the legislation’s fault that so many Congresspeople left town before business was finished, nor is it material in any way otherwise–about the same number of Democrats left as Republicans, and their being present would not have changed the outcome. So this point is totally irrelevant.
2. Members of Congress have a responsibility to review bills before they vote, but Speaker Pelosi hurried this bill through, disregarding normal House procedure. Considering that the bill was introduced almost two years ago and was voted on in the House in September, one would think Bachmann and everyone else would be familiar with the bill by now. The Senate amended it–but these amendments were proposed by Republicans, not Democrats. If Bachmann doesn’t know what her own party is doing, then she can only blame herself. But we can be certain that (a) she (and all other Republicans in the House) knew damn well exactly what was in the bill, and (b) are demanding something that would simply kill the bill–which is what they want.
3. At a time when government spending is out-of-control… …because of the GOP’s wars and massive tax cuts for the rich…
4. This Congress should not have pushed a bill with more than $4 billion in new spending. Um… this bill’s costs are paid for [PDF]–plus several tens of millions of dollars to boot–by a 2% excise tax on foreign manufacturers selling to the U.S. government. Bachmann was perfectly fine with hundreds of billions of dollars, unpaid for, spent on tax cuts for rich people who don’t need them, but health care for 9/11 first responders which is paid for is “out of control spending.”

Bachmann even claimed she voted no on the bill, cut by 40% by her party, because it “falls short.” I suppose that by “falls short,” she meant that the bill should have been cut down to zero instead of just down to $4.2 billion. She certainly could not mean that she herself wanted more to be spent, as she clearly pointed out that even $4.2 billion is too much spending.

Either that or she’s just throwing together a heap of nonsensical B.S. to explain off why she is being a heartless ass, especially right before Christmas. But that couldn’t be.