Category: Politics

Straight Talking Politician of the Week

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Rotterdam’s mayor, who is himself a Muslim, has some choice words for Islamists who wish to eschew modernity, “Pack your bags, and f%$# off.”

The Moroccan-born mayor of the Dutch port city of Rotterdam said in a television appearance on Tuesday that Muslims like himself who choose to live in the West should adopt a more tolerant worldview or “pack your bags and f%$# off.”

 ………

 Aboutaleb moved with his family to the Netherlands when he was a teen. During the television program Nieuwsuur (News Hour), he spoke to Islamists living in the West, saying, “It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom.”

 “But if you don’t like freedom,” he continued, “for heaven’s sake pack your bags and leave.”

 “If you do not like it here because some humorists you don’t like are making a newspaper, may I then say you can f%$# off,” Aboutaleb said.

Straight talk from a politician, how quaint.

I wish that there were more politicians like Aboutaleb, and fewer snollygosters out in the political sphere.

This is the 2nd Most Schandenfreude I’ve Felt Today

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The judge overseeing the corruption case against Bob McDonnell has denied his motion to remain free while he appeals:

A federal judge on Tuesday denied former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s request to remain free while he appeals his corruption convictions, which means he could begin his two-year prison sentence by 9 February.

US district judge James Spencer in Richmond denied the request, unpersuaded by arguments from McDonnell’s lawyers before his 6 January sentencing. Prosecutors had opposed the request.

On Monday, McDonnell’s attorneys had reiterated the request and argued that the appeal could take almost as long as the sentence itself. They also said the appeal would raise substantial questions, including whether the government’s interpretation of an “official act” is correct.

But in his Tuesday decision, Spencer said it’s not a “close question” that justifies release pending appeal. He also noted that he previously concluded that “substantial evidence supports the jury’s finding of a quid and fairly specific, related quo”. And he dismissed arguments raising concerns over the jury selection process and deliberations.

One would hope that some time in the slam will give him a broader view of the diverse tapestry, but I rather imagine, like the Humbug from Norton Juster’s masterpiece The Phantom Tollbooth, he will, “Swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and not get wet.”

I could be wrong about his possibility of finding perspective or perhaps enlightenment in prison, but I do not expect this to happen.

Still, the fact that he is less than a month from going into the slam provides me a bit of (admittedly cruel) perverse satisfaction.

The Fix Was In All Along

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Three weeks ago, Vermont Governor, Peter Shumlin, having failed to secure an absolute majority in the election, throwing the results to the state house, announced that he was scrapping his plans for single payer.

While he claimed that politics had nothing to do with it, a subsequent analysis appears to indicate that he deliberately cast the numbers for single payer in the worst possible light:

Gov. Peter Shumlin could have proposed a financing plan for single payer health care that cost $1 billion less than the one he presented to the public Dec. 17.

Instead, demoralized after a stunning near defeat in the General Election, Shumlin scrapped his long awaited, universal, publicly financed health care plan because he said it would shock Vermont’s fragile economy.

………

But critics say now Vermonters won’t know if single payer could have succeeded in 2015, because after Shumlin decided it wasn’t feasible, he found a way to mitigate the inevitable wave of political backlash and appease his main constituencies: liberal advocates, business leaders, providers, and teacher and state employee unions.

Shumlin had said he would present a menu of options to the Vermont Legislature in the two year run up to the announcement, but instead he presented one plan that Vermonters could not afford.

One of the alternative plans proposed by his health care reform team that was not considered in the final analysis was a much less expensive, $1.6 billion option, that would have offered a universal, publicly financed insurance plan with benefit levels on par with what is available to most Vermonters in the commercial insurance market today, according to documents provided by the Shumlin administration.

“I don’t know exactly when he made that decision, but once it was made, there is no question in my mind that Shumlin pivoted to his roots and his instincts, which are purely political,” said Hamilton Davis, a journalist and longtime observer of Vermont health reform.

“He hung everything he could on it and walked away.”

John Franco, a prominent Burlington attorney who has been involved health care reform for two decades, says that Shumlin purposely chose a plan that covered 94 percent of individuals’ health care costs. Proposing an overly expensive option, Franco says, was a political calculation.

“If you build an airplane out of lead, it’s not going to fly,” Franco said.

………

But buried on the 260th page of the appendices to his report released just before New Year’s Day, is a financing plan that might have been a reasonable starting point for going forward.

This plan would have offered insurance at a level that is equal to the average employer plan now on the market and would have cost $1 billion less than the Cadillac level plan Shumlin rejected.

It appears that he overstated the costs by about $1 billion, which is over $3000 per resident of the state, over $5000 per worker, and that is not including the fact that he, “The Shumlin administration assumed there would be zero administrative savings to the program in year one.”

Why did this happen?

Perhaps because the legislature is voting on who gets the next term of Governor tomorrow, and some of the business and medical interests in the state cut a deal not to lobby for his opponent?

There is a part of me that is hoping that the legislature elects the Republican, because Shumlin has been a portrait in cowardice.

Cuomo and Christie Find a New Way to F%$# the Poor

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As a part of the phony Port Authority plan to the proposed by Cuomo and Christie, they are looking to end overnight PATH service Irks Riders, which would have toe effect of making commuting to work for the night shift in “The City that Never Sleeps” less convenient and more expensive:

………

As if Mr. Parada’s commute were not grueling enough, he and thousands of his fellow riders found out there could be no commute whatsoever in the future. At the end of December, their Legislatures already adjourned, Governors Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey, vetoed a sweeping bill that would have reformed the agency. The governors, who jointly control the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, then unveiled a report of their own calling for changes.

Buried among the proposals was one considering the elimination of service between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on the Port Authority Trans-Hudson, known as PATH, the train linking Manhattan with nearby cities in New Jersey.

During this time, ridership plummets, with roughly 2,000 crossing the Hudson on weeknights. They account for just under 1 percent of daily passengers, and eliminating service would save the authority $10 million from its $330 million budget, according to the governors’ report.

The idea was universally rejected by those lonely souls crisscrossing the Hudson River in the early morning hours, including the bartenders and clubgoers, the swing-shift construction and postal workers, and the foreign-exchange traders heading in on Frankfurt time.

To them, the overnight PATH is a lifeline, the only one into or out of New York City when all other trains and buses have stopped and taxis, at $50 to $100, are too costly.

I guess that they need to free up some money for do nothing jobs for their political allies.

Ratf%$#s.

This is Repulsive

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In the 2nd World War, the perfidy of the Vichy government was in many ways unique unique, because it sent Jews to the death camps without the Nazis ever making such a request.

Well, they mayor of the town (commune) of Champlan has proven to be a worthy heir to this horrid bit of history:

A Roma baby girl has been denied a burial space by a French mayor, sparking outrage among activists.

The girl, who died on 26 December, reportedly of sudden infant death syndrome, was refused burial in Champlan, south of Paris.

The mayor said priority had to be given to taxpayers.

The mayor of nearby Wissous, Richard Trinquier, described that decision as “incomprehensible” and said that he would offer a grave.

The girl’s family lived in a camp in Champlan.

The mayor of Champlan, Christian Leclerc, was quoted by Le Parisien newspaper as justifying the decision by saying that his town was running out of burial space and that “priority is given to those who pay local taxes”.

This is repulsive on so many levels.

Rather unsurprisingly, the mayor is a member of the right-wing Divers Droite (DVD) party, a rather motley assortment of otherwise unaffiliated conservatives.

Sounds rather like a French Tea Party.

Also, I have to say that the echos of the rise of Fascism in Europe are profoundly disturbing.

Pass the Popcorn

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Pass the Popcorn

In response to the scandal over incoming House Whip Steve Scalise’s giving talk at a David Duke funded group in 2002, David Duke has spoken, and he has a list:

David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan at the center of a brewing congressional scandal, told Fusion on Monday that two of his top associates invited Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) to a conference hosted by a controversial Duke-founded group in 2002.

Scalise, the House Majority whip, has come under fire after reports emerged he had spoken before the conference in 2002. Duke’s group, the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, or EURO, has been described as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a characterization Duke rejects.

Scalise’s office didn’t deny he had spoken at the conference — stopping short of confirming it — but pleaded ignorance and said he was “never affiliated with the abhorrent group in question.”

Duke told Fusion he has met with Scalise several times, along with other members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation. He believes two close associates — Howie Farrell and Kenny Knight — invited Scalise to speak at the conference.

………

And he delivered a warning to both Republicans and Democrats: Treat Scalise fairly, and don’t try to make political hay out of the situation. Or he said he would be inclined to release a list of names of all the politicians — both Republicans and Democrats — with whom he has ties.

“If Scalise is going to be crucified — if Republicans want to throw Steve Scalise to the woods, then a lot of them better be looking over their shoulders,” Duke said.

(emphasis mine)

If you are a politician that he has called out, I’d be worried.

Relying on the kindness of David Duke is not what I could calling a winning strategy.

Snark of the Day

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At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall muses on the whole Steven Scalise talking to white supremacist group scandal, finishes with this bit:

I continue to think this is the most trenchant piece of analysis on the on-going issue of right-wing Republicans accidentally speaking to white nationalist organizations.

The link he posted connects to a classic article from The Onion, Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?

That’s gonna leave a mark.

This Isn’t a Scandal, It’s a Bullet Point on a Republican Political Resume

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It turns out that the new House Majority Whip in the Congress spoke to David Duke’s white supremacist group in 2002:

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House, addressed a group of white supremacists and neo-Nazis in 2002, a Scalise spokeswoman confirmed Monday as his party prepared to take control of both chambers of Congress.

Mr. Scalise made his remarks to the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, which was founded two years earlier by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana politician. Mr. Scalise was a Louisiana state legislator at the time.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has described the organization — which uses EURO as an acronym — as a hate group, while noting that in recent years it has “accomplished little” and serves “primarily as a vehicle to publicize Duke’s writing and sell his books.”

Moira Bagley Smith, a Scalise spokeswoman, said the congressman “has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question.”

Dude?!?!?

Why are you dissing your base?

Seriously, David Duke in 2002?  How could you not know who you were talking to.

Then again, the Republican party is far less inclusive than it was in 2002, when Trent Lott was bounced as Senate Majority leader for endorsing Strom Thrumond’s 1948 segregationist bid for the White House.

Pass the Popcorn

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The Greek Parliament failed to elect a new President, which means that snap elections need to be held, and it looks like the left leaning Syriza Party, which has been dismissive of the “stay in the Euro zone at all costs” of the mainstream parties looks likely to win:

Greece will hold early national elections on Jan. 25, stoking concerns over the future of the country’s financial bailout, after lawmakers failed to elect a new president in a third and final round of voting Monday.

 The conservative-led coalition government’s candidate for the presidential post, 73-year-old former European commissioner Stavros Dimas, garnered 168 votes from parliament’s 300 seats — short of the 180 votes needed to win.

 According to the country’s constitution, parliament must now be dissolved within 10 days. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said national elections will be held “at the soonest possible date” — Sunday, Jan. 25.

 ………

 Investors are worried that the main left-wing main opposition Syriza, which is consistently ahead in opinion polls, might try to renege on the terms of the bailout deal that is keeping the country afloat.

 Syriza has pledged to roll back some of the reforms the country has implemented in order to qualify for billions of euros in rescue funds from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund — although it has recently somewhat softened its rhetoric about unilaterally pulling out of the bailout deal.

Seeing as how the “bailout deal” has Greeks chopping down their forests to stay warm in the winter, massive unemployment, and hospitals without necessary equipment or drugs in order to repay German and French bankers, I understand why the Syriza party is a bit skeptical that this is in their best interests.

BTW, the IMF is already trying to influence the election:

The International Monetary Fund announced Monday that it would suspend the disbursement of financial aid to Greece until a new government takes power following next month’s elections.

 In a communique, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said that talks with Greek authorities over the international financial bailout would be resumed as soon as a new government is chosen after parliamentary polls are held in late January or early February.

 The announcement came shortly after the sharply divided Greek parliament once again failed to elect a consensus candidate to occupy the largely ceremonial office of the presidency, making the legislative elections originally set for 2016 inevitable.

Tell me that this is not a flat out threat from the so-called “technocrats” at the IMF.

If Syriza were smart, they would promise an aggressive program of going after the big name tax evaders and soaking the rich.

Technically, it would fit the requirements of the bailout, and it could very allow for sanctions against the foreign banks who have facilitated the hiding of assets.

A few bounties to people who leak bank data, and some snatch and grabs of particularly egregious offenders among the Greek upper class by the national constabulary, and they would be well on their way to solvency.

Here is an Interesting Perspective on Russia Today

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Admittedly, he has many reasons for animus towards Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, which would give him a more favorable view towards the current Russian President, but the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev credits Vladimir Putin with saving Russia as a Nation is a significant statement:

Russian President Vladimir Putin saved the country from falling apart, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said during the presentation of his new book ‘After the Kremlin.’ Gorbachev also commented on the situation in Ukraine and NATO expansion.

 “I think all of us – Russian citizens – must remember that [Putin] saved Russia from the beginning of a collapse. A lot of the regions did not recognize our constitution. There were over a hundred local constitutional variations from that of the Russian constitution,” RIA Novosti quoted Gorbachev as saying on Friday.

………

 In terms of Russia’s worries over NATO’s expansion, Gorbachev agrees that the US is playing a key role in the process. “[NATO] began to establish bases around the world…I think the president [I believe that he is referring to Putin here, not Obama] is mostly right when drawing the attention to the special responsibility the US has,” Gorbachev said.

 Meanwhile, when speaking about the domestic situation in the country, the former president of the USSR expressed confidence that Russia will get out of the crisis, adding that the only questions are “when and at what price.”

 “Now we need to be very careful in politics – what policy is implemented, by who, and who stands to benefit?”

In total, I do think that Gorbachev is saying that he agrees with Putin’s assessment that NATO in general, and the US in particular, still seem determined to wage some sort of war against Russia.

I Finally Have Some Meaningful Thoughts About the Police Shootings in New York this Saturday

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My first thought is that the NRA is a much bigger threat to the safety of police officers than peaceful protesters, civilian review boards, or criticism:

The last year when Ismaaiyl Brinsley—the man who killed two New York City cops on Saturday—should have been able to buy or carry a gun was 2008, when he was convicted of felony shoplifting, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 2011, he pleaded guilty to more felonies after he shot a woman’s car with a stolen handgun. Over his life, he had 19 arrests in Ohio and Georgia.

As a felon, Brinsley was barred under federal law from buying a gun. Had he undergone a background check, he would have failed it and authorities could be notified. Yet the National Rifle Association argues that bad guys will get their hands on guns regardless of the law. The lobby points to violence in states with strong gun laws as evidence of gun control’s ineffectiveness.

In fact, it’s weak gun laws that enable felons, domestic abusers, and the mentally ill to arm themselves. Whereas licensed gun sellers must conduct background checks, unlicensed secondary market sellers face no such requirement in more laissez-faire states.

This is a direct result of the gun show loopholes and other similar exceptions foisted upon us by the ammosexual lobby.

The second thought is that the advocates for police in general, and the PBA in New York City in particular, are demanding that criticism and accountability for the police be non-existent:

I covered New York politics for 15 years, and I saw some awfully tense moments between the police and Democratic politicians. But there has never been anything remotely like the war the cops are waging right now against Mayor Bill de Blasio for the thought crime of saying something that was completely unremarkable and so obviously true that in other contexts we don’t even bat an eye when someone says it. And for that, the mayor has blood on his hands, as Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association head Pat Lynch said Saturday evening after the hideous assassinations of two NYPD officers?

Let’s rewind the tape here. On Dec. 3, in the wake of the Staten Island grand jury’s refusal to indict in the case of the police homicide of Eric Garner, de Blasio gave a press conference at a Staten Island church. He spoke of the need to heal and so on, the usual politician’s rhetoric, and then he uttered these words:

This is profoundly personal for me. I was at the White House the other day, and the president of the United States turned to me, and he met Dante a few months ago, and he said that Dante reminded him of what he looked like as a teenager. And he said, I know you see this crisis through a very personal lens. I said to him I did. Because Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years, about the dangers he may face. A good young man, a law-abiding young man, who would never think to do anything wrong, and yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face—we’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.

Dante de Blasio, as you surely know, is a mixed-race young man of 16 who looks black and sports a large, ’70s-style afro. Does anyone seriously think that his father should not have told him what he did? Come on. We all know the odds (actually, we don’t, more on which later). We hear every prominent black man in America who has a son and who decides to talk about this publicly—football players and actors and others—say exactly the same thing. We’ve heard it hundreds of times. Are these men lying? Are they paranoid weirdos? Of course they aren’t. They are fathers, describing to the rest of us what I thought was a widely acknowledged reality.

I understand that any management-labor dialogue is necessarily fraught, but this is literally a prescription for a police state, and Pat Lynch should be condemned.

What’s more, this attitude is likely to make police officers less safe.

Barack Obama is Never Going to Say What Hilary Just Said

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Hillary spoke the three words that Barack Obama never will, “Black lives matter.”

Obama’s entire professional life has been about avoiding anything that would make him to appear to be an “angry black man”, so we won’t here this from him:

Clinton also addressed the recent protests that have erupted across the US and drew links between violence at home and abroad.

She declared: “Yes, black lives matter,” a mantra of demonstrators around the country who have been protesting about grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers involved in the deaths of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and in New York.

She wondered what Kennedy would say about “the thousands of Americans marching in our streets demanding justice for all” and “the mothers who’ve lost their sons”.

“What would he say to all those who have lost trust in our government and our other intuitions, who shudder at images of excessive force, who read reports about torture done in the name of our country, who see too many representatives in Washington quick to protect a big bank from regulation but slow to take action to help working families facing ever greater pressure?” Clinton said.

Props to Hillary for saying those three words, and shame on Obama for not saying those three words.

Dumb-Ass………

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Taking a page from the Barack Obama book of pre-capitulation as a negotiating tactic, the Syriza party has ruled out any possibility of Greece exiting the Euro:

Last week, the stock market in Athens suffered its worst day in decades, and Greek politicians bickered over the political uncertainty provoked by the presidential vote.

Greece’s largest opposition party, Syriza is currently ahead in the polls. A snap election could find the party into power.

In an interview with EurActiv Greece, Papadimoulis, an influential figure in Syriza, attempted to dash these fears, saying that a Syriza government is committed to keeping the country in the eurozone.

“There is absolutely no case for a Grexit. Those who invoke such a possibility play a propaganda game against the Greek and European economy,” Papadimoulis said.

He added that the actual danger for Greece is its social disintegration and its transformation intoto a “debt colony” and for Europe, a new phase of recession, higher unemployment and poverty.

In an attempt to appease international lenders and possible investors’ fears, Papadimoulis made it clear that there is no Syriza party member who speaks in favour of returning to the drachma.

If you want to avoid Greece becoming a debt colony of Frau Merkel,* you cannot unilaterally disarm.

To the degree that you take a Greek exit from the Euro Zone, or possibly an exit from the EU off of the table, you are weakening your bargaining position.

Look at what Iceland did, and take f%$#ing notes.

*Horses whinnying.

I Doubt his Motives, but I Approve the Action

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has banned fracking in New York state:

Finally, New York is about to ban fracking.

In a long-awaited decision, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the state will not move forward with high volume hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, because of the threat it poses to air, water and public health.

The governor’s been hedging on the issue since 2012, when his administration first undertook a health impact review. At a public year-end cabinet meeting Wednesday, New York state Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker provided an overview of what he said could be ”significant health risks” from the oil and gas extraction process, which has been prevented in the state under a temporary moratorium put in place in 2008.

“Would I live in a community [with fracking] based on the facts I have now?” Zucker asked. “Would I let my child play in a school field nearby, drink water from the tap or grow vegetables from the soil? My answer is no.”

He concluded, “I cannot support high-volume hydraulic fracturing in the great state of New York.”

I cannot help but assume that there is a crass self-serving reason behind this, because, well, it’s Andrew Cuomo.

Still, it was the right decision.

Yes, Jeb Bush Should be Stapled to the Whole Sordid Terri Schaivo Affaire

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Charlie Pierce reminds us of what he did:

Jeb Bush made a family tragedy into a family horror. He willingly put the power of his office behind lunatics who were jumping fences, calling bomb threats into elementary schools, putting bounties on Michael Schiavo’s head, and endagering great people doing wonderful work at a hospice. This episode shouldn’t be an obscure part of his past. It should define him as a politician, and as a man.

Just to remind you.

Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, and then Governor Jeb Bush decided to intervene to prevent the removal of her feeding tube in a transparent attempt to make nice with the “Pro-Life” terrorist crowd.

Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband, and the target of this obscenity, has some choice words for the “smart” Bush:

In his announcement Tuesday that he would explore a 2016 presidential bid, former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) promised to focus on “ideas and policies that will expand opportunity and prosperity for all Americans.” But he made no mention of his most controversial act during his two terms in office: his attempts to take custody of Terri Schiavo and overrule her husband Michael’s decision to remove her feeding tube, fifteen years after cardiac arrest had left her in a vegetative state.

ThinkProgress spoke with Michael Schiavo and the attorney who represented him in the matter, George Felos, about Bush’s presidential candidacy. Both expressed concern that Bush’s record was one of government interference and opposing individual liberty.

“If you want a government that’s gonna intrude on your life, enforce their personal views on you, then I guess Jeb Bush is your man,” Schiavo explained, adding, “We really don’t need another Bush in office.”

………

Though Michael Schiavo got a court order in 2002 to remove his wife’s feeding tube — he said his wife had not wanted to be kept alive artificially — Jeb Bush intervened, pushing the state legislature to pass an unconstitutional bill in a special session giving him authority to order the feeding tube reinserted. When a state judge ordered it removed again, Felos told ThinkProgress, Bush “manipulated the organs of state government in order to try to evade the court order.”

“Through the Dept. of Children and Family Services and through the Department of Law Enforcement they tried in the courts to ignore the higher court pronouncements – this was documented in an article by the Miami Herald,” he recalled, though, “when local authorities said you’re going to have to go through us in order to get her, and the state law enforcement agency backed down.”

………

“It’s one thing to have your own personal beliefs,” Felos said, “It’s quite another to use your official powers and your official office to subvert the court and the lawful process.”

He also recalled that after Schiavo’s death, Jeb Bush went after Michael Schiavo personally, asking the state’s attorney to investigate whether he had called 911 fast enough. “It was very odd, almost like a personal vendetta the governor had towards Michael Schaivo.” The state’s attorney found no evidence against him and closed the case. “The propriety of using your office to hunt and harass people, as the governor did to Mr. Schiavo after his wife’s death, I think raises significant questions about his judgment and his character,” Felos said.

Michael Schiavo, nearly a decade later, said he believes Jeb Bush’s intervention was a purely political move and an act of buffoonery. “If you want a government that’s gonna be intrusive and interfere in your personal life, vote for Bush. If you want to live like that, want people to interfere in your personal lives, then vote for him,” he said.

The whole Schiavo matter defines who and what Jeb Bush is as a politician and as a person.

It should also be noted that when it became national news, the American public recoiled in horror.

They should recoil in horror at Jeb Bush as well.

Finally!

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Following the exchange of Alan Gross and the Cuban 5 3, (More on that in a subsequent post) Obama has announced that the US and Cuba will be establishing formal diplomatic relations:

President Obama on Wednesday ordered the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba and the opening of an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century as he vowed to “cut loose the shackles of the past” and sweep aside one of the last vestiges of the Cold War.

 The surprise announcement came at the end of 18 months of secret talks that produced a prisoner swap negotiated with the help of Pope Francis and concluded by a telephone call between Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro. The historic deal broke an enduring stalemate between two countries divided by just 90 miles of water but oceans of mistrust and hostility dating from the days of Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill and the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban missile crisis.

 “We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the White House. The deal, he added, will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas” and move beyond a “rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”

We must also thank the Super-Pope for helping this along:

Pope Francis encouraged the talks with letters to Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro and had the Vatican host a meeting in October to finalize the terms of the deal. Mr. Obama spoke with Mr. Castro by telephone on Tuesday to seal the agreement in a call that lasted more than 45 minutes, the first direct substantive contact between the leaders of the two countries in more than 50 years.

I am liking this Pope more and more.

Of course, the dead enders and political cowards, like Senators Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio, are having a hissy fit over all this, but both as a matter of policy and a matter of politics, they are simply wrong.

This policy has been in place for longer than I’ve been alive, and it has never worked.

The fact that it is also a hearty f%$# you to the most radical elements of the Cuban emigre community, the nut-jobs who gave us the Elian Gonzalez cluster f%$#.

BTW, if you really hate the Castro regime, we need to let the banksters in to destroy the regime.

The CIA never could, but the crooks that we coddle on Wall Street can overthrow the Castros.

Win

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This is epic. Brad and Dallas Woodhouse are brothers and pundits. One is a Democrat, and the other is a Republican, and while they were on CSPAN, their mom called in to berate them for fighting at family gatherings:

Everybody knows that the best part about CSPAN is the unpredictable nature of the show’s call-in segments, where regular hosts and guests do an admirable job of fielding unusual questions with no advance warning. But brothers Brad and Dallas Woodhouse are now the champions of awkward CSPAN calls, after the politically divided brothers ended up taking a call from their mom.

“Oh God, it’s mom,” Dallas Woodhouse said as soon as “Joy” from North Carolina started to speak.

“You’re right, I’m from down south,” she said. “And I’m your MOTHER.”

She’d called to take issue with something her kids said on air: That the brothers’ political bickering — you see, one is liberal, and the other is conservative — is typical of most families. “I don’t know many families that are fighting at Thanksgiving,” she said. “I’m hoping you’ll have some of this out of your system when you come here for Christmas. I would really like a peaceful Christmas.”


Epic

One Thing Worse than Being a Whiny Bitch is Being a Whiny Bitch with Permission to Shoot People

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The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, New York City’s largest police union, on Friday called on cops to keep Mayor Bill de Blasio away from police officers’ funerals.

The union published a notice on its website urging officers to keep de Blasio or City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito away, the New York Daily News reported on Friday.

“DON’T LET THEM INSULT YOUR SACRIFICE!” the notice reads.

Officers can download a form to request that de Blasio and Mark-Viverito not attend their funerals “in the event that you are killed in the line of duty.”

“Due to Mayor de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s consistent refusal to show police officers the support and respect they deserve, I believe that their attendance at the funeral of a fallen New York City police officer is an insult to that officer’s memory and sacrifice,” the form reads.

and

A Cleveland police union has demanded that the Cleveland Browns football team apologize for a player who wore a T-shirt before Sunday’s game protesting the police shootings of two black people.

Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins wore a shirt reading “Justice for Tamir Rice And John Crawford III” during pre-game warmups. Rice, who was just 12 years old, died last month after a Cleveland police officer shot him when he mistook the boy’s toy gun for a real weapon. Crawford, 22, was shot dead by police in August at an area Wal-Mart while he was holding an air rifle.

Cleveland Police Patrolman Union President Jeff Follmer sent local TV station WEWS a statement after Sunday’s game that called for an apology from the NFL team. “It’s pretty pathetic when athletes think they know the law,” the statement read, as quoted by WEWS. “They should stick to what they know best on the field. The Cleveland Police protect and serve the Browns stadium and the Browns organization owes us an apology.

Seriously.  If a member of the police force cannot deal with the rather anodyne statements about controversial use of force by the department, they need to find another line of work.

I would suggest that they apply to be professional  Klein Bottles, because with their heads so far up their asses, there would be very little adjustment.

Obama Must Hate Warren Right Now

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Elizabeth Warren’s campaign against Wall Street insider Antonio Weiss’ nomination for undersecretary for domestic finance for the US Treasury is picking up steam:

Under pressure from progressive groups to reject Wall Street influence, three more Senate Democrats yesterday turned against the nomination of Antonio Weiss for a senior post at the U.S. Treasury Department.

President Barack Obama’s choice of Weiss, an investment banker at Lazard Ltd. (LAZ), has put him at the center of an ideological fight within the Democratic Party over the finance industry’s clout in Washington.

The attacks are coming from Democrats who say the Obama administration relies too much on Wall Street veterans to fill important regulatory posts. They are criticizing Weiss, in particular, for his role in engineering tax-lowering inversion deals for U.S. companies.

The opposition yesterday from Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Al Franken of Minnesota further complicates the nomination for the administration and Democratic leaders. After defending Weiss’s Democratic bona fides and accepting his campaign contributions, they’ll have to turn to Republicans to get him into office.

“This fits the administration’s pattern of choosing Wall Street insiders to senior policy positions instead of those with strong consumer protection or community bank and credit union experience,” Manchin said on the Senate floor yesterday.

There are now note enough Democratic votes to 

Neither Shaheen nor Manchin are representatives of the “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party,” and the fact that they are bucking the President is a big deal.

It appears that the idea that someone who has no background in domestic finance is a good selection for the undersecretary for domestic finance, simply because they are a big Democratic donor, and they have a background in the financial industry is no longer as universally held as it used to be.

It also appears that people are finally getting the idea that multimillion dollar payouts from the financial industry for people who go into government service is implicitly corrupt.

Good.

Any discomfort that Barack Obama might experience because a portion of the Democratic Party has realized that he is Wall Streets biggest fan is well deserved.