Welcome to a somewhat personalized version of Worthy and Wicked for April 4, 2010. With the end of the health care debate in Congress, it hasn’t been nearly as entertaining a week in Washington, but no worries – we have several noteworthy entries from outside the Beltway for this week.
THE WORTHY
This week’s worthy isn’t timely so much as overdue. Normally when I think of people who banner the banner of the progressives, I think of Dennis Kucinich or Howard Dean. But over the past year I have watched one Democrat continually take up the progressive cause and fight based on principle. This person has also been willing to call out right-wing garbage wherever he sees it, including going on Fox News to take on Bill O’Reilly. This week’s Worthy is Rep. Anthony Weiner (NY). Just watch him on this clip as he takes on the lies of Fox and the right-wing and actually speaks the truth on the health care bill. He corrects O”Reillys mistaken assertions that government bureaucrats are going to actually manage individual health care plans or services, and cuts down the notion that failing to buy health care will be a criminalized offense. There is no real penalty for refusing to buy health insurance, as the fine has been rendered unenforceable under the law. This is good stuff.
Kudos to Rep. Weiner!
To further clarify the point on the fine, listen to Laurence O’Donnell read from the actual bill. This starts at 1:00 into the piece and the key bit of data responding to O’Reilly is found at 2:18.
Isn’t just amazing what you can learn when you stop listening to the right-wing noise machine?
THE WICKED
We’ve got quite a list here this week, so let’s dive right in.
The runner-ups are:
Rush Limbaugh - Didn’t Mr. Limbaugh say that he was going to flee the country if the health care bill passed? Don’t listen to me – Listen to the wingnut himself – the comment starts at 1:18 and he promises to move to Costa Rica. So why the frack is he still here? Rush, you aren’t a hypocrite, are ya? Or does it just take this long to pack all those drugs you are on?
Sarah Palin and Faux News - So Sarah Palin starts a tv show called Real American Stories on Faux News and her “guests” are to be Toby Keith and LL Cool J. The only trouble with this picture? Nobody bothered to tell Toby Keith or LL Cool J. It seems that Faux decided to splice old interviews together to make it look like Palin was actually interviewing them. LL Cool J the complained on Twitter, writing:
“Fox lifted an old interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & are misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Sarah Palin’s Show. Wow.”
Faux pulled his portion out and then vented on him as a “fledgling” actor. I guess he was only considered a good guy if Faux could manipulate his image as they saw fit. Fair and balanced, indeed.
Scott Ritter and Truthdig – Now any reader of this site knows that I find a lot of information and inspiration from Truthdig. But even the left-wing screws up, and we are determined to call out idiocy on the left as well.
Mr. Ritter, you may know, was the former chief United Nations weapons inspector during the Bush Administration’s buildup to the illegal invasion of Iraq. And since leaving government service, Mr. Ritter has been a regular contributor to Truthdig on issues related to inspections and weapons of mass destruction. I have enjoyed his work and even used some of it on the previous OLV site.
That was before I know about Mr. Ritter’s “hobby.”
It turns out that Mr. Ritter was arrested in November 2009 for masturbating over a web cam for someone that he believed was a 15 year old girl. This follows two arrests of Mr. Ritter in 2001 for trying to arrange meetings with underage girls who turned out to be law enforcement officials. The first case did not result in criminal conviction and the record was sealed, pending his good behavior.
OLV and several others complained to Truthdig about retaining Mr. Ritter’s contributions, but Truthdig has thus far not addressed the issue. In the meantime, some on the left are painting this as a government conspiracy against Mr. Ritter in order to have leverage on him. This is complete and utter nonsense. The most recent arrest happened during the Obama Administration, not the Bush Administration, and was the result of local law enforcement in Barrett Township (PA) while Mr. Ritter was tucked away at his home in Delmar, NY, a quiet suburb of Albany. Based on all observable evidence, Mr. Ritter simply has mental issues, and those issues threaten the welfare of children. That is not a political issue… there are sick people on the left, on the right, and in the center. Mr. Ritter needs mental health help, and now faces up to seven years in prison. And it’s time for Truthdig to stop carrying his contributions, as they reflect on the credibility of their very fine publication.
Speaking of child molestation, how about a nomination for the Catholic Church and the abuse story that will simply never go away because the Church keeps making it worse. It’s bad enough that society made it acceptable for priests not to be reported when these acts were committed back in the 1950s. But for the Catholic Church to be aware of it, and to protect the priests rather than the innocent victims in these cases is simply nauseating. This week the Church spent its time educating the world on why the Pope is immune from prosecution rather than taking responsibility for its actions and taking corrective steps. While the Church wants to claim that these abuses will no longer be possible, their credibility is right on par with Congressional Republicans right now, which is to say nonexistent. As abuse claims spread across Europe (proving it is not an American Catholic phenomenon) and even point to the Pope having some previous knowledge, the Vatican sticks its collective head in the sand.
Even worse, the Pope’s own preacher later compared the persecution of the Church to the “collective violence suffered by the Jews.” This has to be one of the most unconscionable remarks I have ever heard. And while Father Cantalamessa later apologized, the damage was done. Th good father’s comments completely underscore the cluelessness of the Catholic Church.
I know there are readers of this site that are Catholic and may find this upsetting. I hope what they find upsetting is that children were abused, and not that the Church is under fire for its response. I was raised Catholic and despite being Agnostic have retained an affinity for the Church – it is hard to grow up immersed in something and not have some reservoir of feelings for it. But now when I think of the Church, I think of my good fortune to have never been molested by a priest, and have to wonder how many people that I grew up with may in fact have been victimized. One thing is for sure, if I were Catholic now I would think long and hard before putting that personal check in the collection basket. Would I really want my money supporting Vatican lawyers? I don’t think so.
But now we come to some of our more entertaining nominees…
The Guardians of the Free Republics – This priceless group of wingnuts seeking to “restore biblical law” wrote to more than thirty governors, demanding that they leave office within 72 hours or face “removal” – apparently through non-violent means. The Restore America Plan is essentially a statement that challenges federal supremacy in the U.S. and takes aim at corporations. Essentially, it is right-wing libertarianism run a muck and demanding the removal of state executives only serves to motivate fringe elements that might be inclined to take up arms against the government, similar to what we saw last week with the Hutaree. Apparently the Tea Party people are just too reasonable for the “Guardians” to join their protests.
In this clip, Howard Dean does a great job (one of the best I have seen) talking about the need for civility in political debate. Kudos to Howard.
Dr. Jack Cassell – Good ole Jack has decided that his political views trump his responsibilities as a physician. Here is the sign he posted on his office door:
This kind of gives a whole new meaning to the term “piss pot”, doesn’t it? Thanks to Keith Olbermann for calling Cassell out in a Quick Comment.
But our winners? My former in-laws, who unfortunately I feel I must offer anonymity for in the interest of domestic peace (for my ex-wife) and because the information I am sharing came from something they had on their private property, as opposed to something they displayed for public view. It’s a minor distinction since this is most likely a sign they have carried at a public protest, but really they are getting the award for simply proving what I have always known – that they are wingnuts. Honestly, news that they had joined the Tea Party movement failed to surprise me… if anything I am surprised that they waited this long to join.
Here is the sign that they have placed up at their homestead:
Very frankly, these pillars of Christianity (don’t even get me started) match the profile of Tea Baggers (do Tea Baggers not yet get the irony of this name?) in that they are BORs. Of course you ask, what’s a BOR? Nothing more than a bitter, old racist. They are living proof that college degrees and emotional intelligence are can be mutually exclusive. I’m just surprised that they didn’t leave enough room on the sign to say that President Obama is a foreign born Muslim Communist who is out to deprive white people of their way of life – oh wait, we haven’t seen the back of the sign yet.
I remember one very “special” family gathering where the whole extended clan got together and talked about old times. Knowing that they had a Democrat in the room (I was a Dem then, not a progressive), they decided to try to provoke me. The subject matter…? Reminiscing about the old days when people would gather at Nigger Lake to…. no seriously, they said, it was called Nigger Lake, and even showed up on maps that way. They asserted that no one thought anything of it, but that was in those days before everything went “pc”. Yes Rednecks, I can see how you think that the world went “pc” as opposed to thinking instead that maybe we tried to stop being ignorant and racist.
As to their wonderfully educated and articulated claims… where to begin? Deficit spending? I recall that Bill Clinton handed George W. Bush a budget surplus…anyone seen that lying around? I wonder what Bush did with it. Oh that’s right, he EXPANDED government, gave tax breaks to the wealthy that couldn’t be financed, and used the cash to launch an illegal war against Iraq when the economy was starting to tank. But it’s all Obama’s fault (eye roll). The President’s current expansion of government is a time-proven method for getting an economy out of a deep recession, a recession created while the Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress. Further government spending has been the result of an unfortunate need to correct the errors of de-regulation (caused by every President since 1980) that resulted in the near collapse of our financial system.
Socialized medicine? Really? Have you actually read the bill? Do you understand that this is the bare minimum reform, and based on ideas proposed by Republicans? Oh, don’t let the facts get in the way of your narrow world view.
You’ve had enough change, eh? May I suggest that you go in on a duplex in Costa Rica with Rush Limbaugh?
For this and other more important reasons, my former in-laws worry that if anything ever happened to my ex-wife that I would not allow my children to see them.
You think?
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