On That Gettysburg Snub - With A Local Connection!

Much has been written in the last few days about President Obama and his "snubbing" of the ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  CNN's Ashley Killough even posted this analysis of that decision:

As Pennsylvania gears up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address on Tuesday, one prominent Abraham Lincoln fan won't be in attendance: President Barack Obama.

The National Park Service announced a few weeks ago the President won't be part of the activities commemorating the historic speech, and critics have since assailed Obama for skipping the event.

And who's the first critic assailing Obama?  The Trib's own Selena Zito:

"It would be an occasion for him to honor a crucial time in our past, to create a historical bridge to today," Salena Zito, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer, wrote in a column.

"His dismissal of the request shows a man so detached from the duty of history, from the men who served in the White House before him, that it is unspeakable in its audacity," Zito added. "Ask almost any person in this historic town; even his most ardent supporters here are stunned." [Emphasis added.]

Missing, of course, from Zito's column is any sort of historical context - an omission also found in some of the regular news coverage of the event at the Trib.  Here's Mike Wereschagin:

Several of the new citizens said they'd been told President Obama would attend the ceremony. Instead, a National Park Ranger read a brief speech from the president and a message he recorded for the 16 new citizens was played.

Obama's decision not to appear “made him look bad,” said Mike Wood, 39, of Chesterfield, Mich. He should have come “just to show his respect,” said Wood, a re-enactor with the 7th Michigan Cavalry and author of the nonfiction Civil War book “Tuebor.”

And what was this omission of context?  Take a look:

But Obama's decision not to attend the Gettysburg commemoration ceremony is typical for a sitting president. President Reagan did not attend the 125th commemoration of the Gettysburg Address - in fact, Reagan never visited Gettysburg during his tenure in office. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton also never visited the battlefield as president, and President George W. Bush toured the site in 2008, but did not speak or attend a commemoration ceremony. In fact, according to Hanover, Pennsylvania's local paper, The Evening Sun, William Howard Taft was the only sitting president to ever visit the site on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address

That's right - Ronald Wilson Reagan never visited Gettysburg during his entire tenure in office and didn't attend the 125th commemoration of the speech.

Can we get that Civil War re-enactor declare that it made Reagan "look bad" by not showing?  Or  how it shows Reagan's disrespect?  Can we get Selena Zito to go on record saying that Reagan's unspeakably audacious failure to attend the 125th commemoration shows his detachment from the duty of history, from the men who served in the White House before him?

Yea, I didn't think so either.

So Sad. So Unbelievably Sad

News from The Trib:

Two of WPGB-104.7's original hosts no longer work there.

On Monday, Clear Channel Media + Entertainment Pittsburgh spokeswoman Kathryn Ferri said conservative broadcasters Jim Quinn and Rose Somma-Tennent were replaced with David Bloomquist, known on WWVA-1170 in Wheeling as “Bloomdaddy.”

“WPGB tried to reach new terms with Jim Quinn and Rose Tennent, but as that was unsuccessful,” Ferri emailed, “they will be moving on and we support and thank them for the contributions they have made.”

Quinn and Tennent could not be reached for comment.

And and this is strange because they usually won't shut up.

From their website:

As we have new information, we will keep you posted at www.warroom.com on the front page. Be sure to check in there periodically for updates.

Our commitment has been, and will always be, to conservative values and to this great country of ours.

Rest assured, we will be back on the air!

So they're out of work.  I wonder if they're going on unemployment (and somehow or other become like the rest of the lazy 47% who mooch off of hard working Amurikuns like me).  As one astute reader said in an email:

Ordinarily, I feel bad about anyone losing his/her job. Hard to care quite so much in this case, though.

Now, why would that be?

Let's look at some of Quinn and Rose's greatest hits.  There was this from 2008 where, in making a point about guv'ment dependency made an analogy to something completely different:

You know, if you were a slave in the old South, what did you get as a slave? You got free room and board, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children because that was just, you know, tomorrow's slave. So, you got a free house, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children. Can I ask a question? How's that different from welfare? You get a free house, you get free food, and you get rewarded for having children. Oh, wait a minute, hold on a second. There is a difference: The slave had to work for it.

Yea, he apologized for that one - well, kinda sorta apologized. While he said he still believed his point was valid, it was only the way he made it that was offensive.

Um, ok.

Then there was this from Rose about how President Obama might be, you know, the prince of darkness:

All the insects and the rodents come out for this man, or something. They're attracted to him. I think it's like - you know, like, those devil movies, because, you know, like they're - like they're attracted to the devil or something. I'm just saying.

Then there was this call for violent revolution:

Discussing health care reform, Jim Quinn stated, "You have got to say no to this, and if they push this through, you need to riot in the streets. You need to riot in the streets." He further said, "Our country was built on revolution and it's about time we took it back. These people are dangerous," and, "It's about time to put an end to this leftist control of this country, and if a revolution is what it takes, damn it, then that's what it's going to take, because liberty will not be denied." [The War Room with Quinn and Rose, 9/10/09]

 And then this from this month - their website says it was read on the air November 7, 2013:

James Manning recently interviewed a high school friend of Barack Obama, who claims to have known him back in the 1970s as Barry Soetoro. Mia Marie Pope says that Obama identified himself as a foreigner and a crack-smoking homosexual.

Yea, I am thinking the nation's airwaves have just gotten (on average) slightly less crazie with Quinn and Rose no longer polluting them.

Jack Kelly Sunday

Well, it's been 10 days since I posted this.  That was the blog post where I pointed out how the CBS Benghazi "story" that the P-G's Jack Kelly built his entire column on had been retracted by CBS.

When will the column be retracted by Jack Kelly?  I asked but to no avail, it seems.  So far, it's still up - and with no correction or anything to indicate an update to reflect the reality of the situation - that CBS retracted the 60 Minutes Benghazi story.

So what does the Post-Gazette's Jack Kelly do today?

Opens up with another debunked CBS "news" story:

The personal information you give to Healthcare.gov “is protected by stringent security standards,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Not so.

“Software experts tell CBS News they have identified multiple security issues,” Jan Crawford reported Nov. 5. “We gave one technology expert the real HealthCare.gov user name of a CBS employee. Within seconds, he identified the specific security question she selected to reset her password.”

“Four days before the launch the government … granted itself a waiver to launch the website,” said CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. “The final required top-to-bottom security tests never got done.”

The top operations officer for the Obamacare websites told the House Oversight Committee that he was never given a Sept. 3 memo that detailed six security problems which pose “limitless” risk.

This is the CBS report to which the intrepid Jack is referring.  That last paragraph, however, refers a subsequent CBS report by Attkisson - and that's where the whole thing falls apart.

The public debunking happened in public at a Congressional hearing four days ago on November 13:


Here's my transcript of the discussion between Representative Gerald Connolly and Henry Chao (the top operations officer for the Obamacare websites, Kelly's referring to) and starting at about 1:44 in we hear:

CONNOLLY: Mr. Chao, during your interview with committee staff on November 1, you were presented with a document you had not seen before. And it was entitled "Authority to Operate," signed by your boss on September 3, 2013, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: The Republican staffers told you during that interview that this document indicated there were two open high-risk findings in the federally facilitated marketplace launched October 1. Is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: This surprised you at the time.

CHAO: Can I just qualify that a bit? It was dated September 3 and it was referring to two parts of the system that were already--

CONNOLLY: You are jumping ahead of me. We are going to get there. So when you were asked questions about that document, you told the staffers you needed to check with officials at CMS who oversee security testing to understand the context, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: The staffers continued to ask you questions, nonetheless, and then they - or somebody - leaked parts of your transcript to CBS Evening News, is that correct?

CHAO: Seems that way.

CONNOLLY: Mmm. Since that interview, have you had a chance to follow up on your suggestion to check with CMS officials on the context?

CHAO: I have had some discussions about, uh, the nature of the high findings that were in the document.

CONNOLLY: Right. And this document it turns out, discusses only the risks associated with two modules, one for dental plans and one for the qualified health plans, is that correct?

CHAO: Yes.

CONNOLLY: And neither of those modules is active right now, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct.

CONNOLLY: So the September 3 document did in fact, not apply to the entire federally facilitated marketplace despite the assertions of the leak to CBS notwithstanding, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct.

CONNOLLY: And these modules allow insurance companies to submit their dental and health plan information to the marketplace is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: That means that those modules do not contain or transmit any personally identifiable information on individual consumers, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: So to be clear, these modules don't transmit any specific user information, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: So when CBS Evening News ran its report based on a leak, presumably from the majority staff, but we don't know, of a partial transcript, expert- excerpts from a partial transcript, they said the security issues raised in the document, and I quote, "could lead to identity theft among buying insurance," that cannot be true based on what we just established in our back and forth, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct. I think there was some rearrangement of the words that I used during the testimony in how it was portrayed and-.

CONNOLLY: So to just summarize, correct me if I'm wrong, the document leaked to CBS Evening News didn't in fact not relate to parts of the website that were active on October 1. They did not relate to any part of the system that handles personal consumer information, and there, in fact, was no possibility of identity theft, despite the leak.

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: Thank you, Mr. Chao. I yield back. [Emphases added.]

Seeing that Jack has yet to correct the record of his flawed CBS sourced Benghazi column, I don't have much faith that he'll be correcting the record of this flawed CBS sourced Affordable Health Care security risk column anytime soon.

Hey, Ma! Look At ME!

From the Daily Kos:

New report by Keystone Progress unveils Commonwealth Foundation and Allegheny Institute as part of web of groups pushing national corporate agenda at the expense of Pennsylvania’s middle class

(HARRISBURG, PA)— Keystone Progress and the Center for Media and Democracy released a new report today that exposes how two nominally independent tanks—the Commonwealth Foundation and the Allegheny Institute—are taking their cues from right wing funders, the Republican Party and the agenda established by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

The report, entitled “The Commonwealth Foundation and the Allegheny Institute: Think tanks or corporate lobbyist propaganda mills?” exposes the relationship of far-right State Policy Network (SPN) to both groups. SPN is a web of conservative state-based think tanks across the United States. In addition to its state think tank affiliates, many other national right-wing organizations are associate members of SPN, including the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Cato Institute, the Franklin Center, the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. [Bolding in original]

You can take a look at the report here.

And on page 17 you can read this:

Scaife has been accused of using his newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, to promote conservative principles through the Allegheny Institute’s comments and research.^clvii The Tribune-Review has failed to state its conflict of interests when quoting an Allegheny Institute official or using research from the Institute.^clviii In August, 2013, at least five articles cited the Allegheny Institute, including a “puff piece,” promoting Institute president Jake Haulk.^clix None of them mentioned the connections between the Tribune-Review and the Institute.^clx

In August 2012, the progressive Pennsylvania blog “Two Political Junkies” accused the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review of not reporting a story due to its connections to the Scaife family^clxi. [Links included back to 2PJ and self-serving emphasis added.]

Needless say, the report's a good read.  The report's authors do a great job describing the financial twining between Scaife and both the Commonwealth Foundation and the Allegheny Institute.

They also point out the connections between the Commonwealth Foundation, Allegheny Institute and ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Did you know Scaife had a hand in the foundation of ALEC?

We wrote about it here, citing the Washington Post, from May 2, 1999:

Scaife has given ALEC more than $2 million since 1975, keeping the group alive in its early years. Now his donations ($75,000 last year) are an insignificant part of its budget. [Emphasis added.]

Awkward kung fu moves!

More On The Rev. Marietta Ewing And His Decalog

It's been a while since I blogged on this story and there've been a few developments.

First, let's congratulate the South Connellsville Council for doing the right thing (or at least for not doing the wrong thing)  From Marc Hofmann of The Trib:

Almost a year after the ongoing controversy surrounding the Ten Commandments monument started in Connellsville, South Connellsville council made a decision about an offer to place a monument in the borough.

During Monday's regular meeting, Councilman Clyde Martz said he received communication from the Rev. Ewing Marietta, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church, about placing a Ten Commandments monument at the South Connellsville Honor Roll.

There's Reverend Marietta again. This can't be good.  A few paragraphs later:

South Connellsville had to vote on placing a monument at the honor roll, a borough-owned property.

“We were advised by our solicitor to definitely not do that,” Martz said, adding the advice came from the fact that the issue has not been resolved with the school district in their ongoing legal battle and it would mostly likely end with a lawsuit against the borough. “That will put the borough in risk that we don't need at this time.”

Council unanimously voted against placing the monument at the honor roll. Council President Mark Ward did not attend Monday's meeting.

Good for them.  What's conveniently (and insultingly) left out of Hofmann's reporting is that while it's true that Connellsville's case has not yet been resolved, the question as to whether the Ten Commandments can be posted at a public school has been.  By the United States Supreme Court.  33 years ago:

This is not a case in which the Ten Commandments are integrated into the school curriculum, where the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like. Posting of religious texts on the wall serves no such educational function. If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.

Hofmann's piece implies that the issue of posting the Commandments in a public school "has not been resolved" which is simply untrue.  Not permissible in 1980.  Not permissible now.  Posting The Commandments on private property is not the question here no matter how much goalpost moving is tried.  Something the good reverend doesn't seem to understand.  In a recent letter to the editor, he writes:

Because one person objected to the 1957 Ten Commandments monument at the Connellsville Junior High, residents have been awakened. We are offended because it is God's word. It also is the free-speech rights of the members of the Fraternal Order of Eagles who placed the Decalog, the students, the citizens of Connellsville, Nomalville, Dunbar, Dunbar Township, Bullskin Township, South Connellsville, White, Juanita and every other town in Connellsville Area School District to keep the commandments there. This county is made up of mostly Christians who will not back down, will not sit down and cower to some bully telling us that we cannot tell our children about the Christian heritage of the United States.

Reverend, it's not because "one person objected" and it's not a free-speech issue for those who want to sidestep the Constitution and impose their particular metaphysics onto everyone else.  It's about our secular government being fair to everyone.  Everyone not just the largest group of bullies who are offended because everyone doesn't agree with them.

Doesn't The Lord dislike liars who sow discord in a community?

More On David Horowitz And The Trib

Yea, we all know where this one's going.

Take a look at this from Eric Heyl and The Trib:

Conservative writer David Horowitz is the founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a California think tank, and the editor of FrontPage Magazine. Horowitz spoke to the Trib regarding the publication last week of the first volume of a planned 10-book series, “The Black Book of the American Left.”

As I said, we all know where this one's going.

Completely unmentioned in this interview with Horowitz are the millions upon millions of dollars the three foundations (Allegheny, Carthage and Sarah Scaife Foundations) controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife have poured into the coffers of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

How much, you ask?

According to the Bridgeproject, upwards of $7.7 million.  That's out of about $21.4 million of total foundation money listed.  It's more than a third of all the foundation money Horowitz has gotten over the years.  More than a third from the owner of the paper that's interviewing him for this puff piece.

Regardless of what's actually said in the interview, the omission of such a detail effectively erases any credibility it has.

It's been a while since I've written this, but it still holds: the circle jerk continues.

Memo To State Senator Kim Ward

Interesting what tumbles out of the interwebs, ain't it?

First, we start here, at the Trib Whispers column:

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN. Singer Cyndi Lauper apparently could use a civics lesson.

After learning that state Sen. Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, was in the audience for her Nov. 3 concert at Greensburg's Palace Theatre, Lauper pointed out that a senator was there and said that if ObamaCare is good enough for the public, it's good enough for legislators, then complained about the federal government shutdown.

Ward said the dig came right after Lauper sang “True Colors.”

Ward wasn't ruffled in the least, but noted that Lauper did not realize Ward is a state , not U.S., senator and had nothing to do with ObamaCare or the shutdown.

“It was cool to be recognized by a famous liberal who can really sing, even if she doesn't know the difference between state and federal government,” said Ward, adding that the concert was great.

I wasn't at that concert so I have no way of knowing whether any of this is true - but neither does the Trib, does it?  Take a look at that second paragraph.  DID Ms Lauper actually say that?  And if they did, then how do they know?

They write it up as if it's common knowledge.  However, it all comes from State Senator Ward's Facebook page:

This would have been a good time for State Senator Ward to correct Cyndi Lauper's Obamacare error - but Ward didn't.   She should know that this is simply untrue.  But she doesn't. When one commenter posits with the curiously convoluted:

Seems Cyndi is a confused little liberal. Exactly who's idea was it to exempt themselves from the abomination of obamacare?

Hempfield's State Senator responds with:

I'm pretty sure that the folks who mandated Obamacare on all of us are the ones who exempted themselves.

The only problem?

Congress is not exempt from the Obamacare:

For many years, Congress chose from a variety of insurance plans offered by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, which serves more than 8 million federal and retired workers and their dependents.

That stops in January, when lawmakers and some staff will be required instead to pick from plans on the health care law’s new exchanges — now known as marketplaces.

That’s because Congress faces a specific Obamacare provision forcing lawmakers from their current plans into new marketplaces — something that doesn’t apply to other Americans. [Emphases added.]

It is most disappointing (if not downright embarrassing) for a Pennsylvania State Senator to get this one so wrong.

Question For The Post-Gazette and Jack Kelly

Now that this:

There was a large crack Sunday night in the wall of silence the “mainstream” media have erected around the events in Benghazi on the night of 9/​11/​2012.

CBS broadcast on its “60 Minutes” program a segment that featured an interview with one of the eyewitnesses to the attack on our consulate the Obama administration has been trying to hide from congressional investigators.

He is “Morgan Jones.”

(For those who might still not know, Morgan Jones is the pseudonym of one Dylan Davies.)

Well, it turns out that what Jack Kelly was talking about turns out not to be completely true:

LARA LOGAN: Good morning Norah, well. You know the most important thing to every person at 60 Minutes is the truth and today the truth is that we made a mistake, and that's very disappointing for any journalist. It's very disappointing for me. Nobody likes to admit that they made a mistake, but if you do, you have to stand up and take responsibility and you have to say that you were wrong, and in this case we were wrong. We made a mistake. And how did this happen?

Well, Dylan Davies worked for the State Department in Libya. He was the manager of the local guard force at the Benghazi special mission compound, and he described for us his actions that night, saying that he had entered the compound and he had a confrontation with one of the attackers, and he also said that he had seen the body of Ambassador Chris Stevens in a local hospital. And after our report aired, questions were raised about whether his account was real.

After an incident report surfaced that told a different story about what he'd done that night. And, you know, he denied that report. And he said that he told the FBI the same story that he had told us, but what we now know is that he told the FBI a different story to what he told us. And, you know, that was the moment for us when we realized that we no longer had confidence in our source, and that we were wrong to put him on air, and we apologize to our viewers.

CNN has more:

On Thursday a U.S. official told CNN that there were discrepancies between the contractor's accounts to the FBI and CBS, although the official did not specify them.

A second U.S. official told CNN the same thing Friday.

The New York Times, citing two senior government officials, reported Thursday that the contractor told the FBI he did not go the Benghazi compound on the night of the attack.

And so CBS has apologized said that they were wrong for using Morgan Jones/Dylan Davies as a source.

And so now I am wondering, considering the fact that CBS has effectively retracted the story, when will Jack Kelly?

ENDA In Da House!

First the news:

The Senate voted Thursday to approve the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, landmark civil rights legislation that would make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT individuals in the workplace.

The final vote was 64-32, with 10 Republicans joining Democrats. The Republican senators backing the legislation were cosponsors Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), along with Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

You'll note that Pennsylvania's very own Pat Toomey voted for the bill.  We'll get back to him in a little bit.

But what is this ENDA bill?  You can read the Congressional Research Service summary here, if you like.  Or, Ed O'Keefe has a more prose-worthy explanation here. O'Keefe writes:

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act would ban employers from firing, refusing to hire or discriminating against workers or job applicants based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Pointing out that:

Currently 21 states and the District of Columbia have laws prohibiting workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Seventeen states and the District also bar discrimination based on sexual identity. Maryland passed a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in 2001; Virginia has no laws regarding sexual orientation or gender identity on the books.

ENDA is Federal legislation that would cover all the states (even Virginia).

So how does our friend Pat Toomey enter into this discussion?

He proposed an amendment whose stated purpose was to:

To strike the appropriate balance between protecting workers and protecting religious freedom.

But in reality it would have expanded the "religious" exemptions so broadly as to effectively weaken the whole legislation.  As Jonathan Tomari at Philly.com explains:

Under Toomey's plan, exemptions from the ban would cover organizations managed by a church or religious group, those formally affiliated with a particular religion, or those that teach a curriculum directed toward propagating a particular religion.

His amendment specifies that the exemption includes groups that don't primarily engage in religious work - for example, a school that teaches religion only a few hours a week, or a hospital affiliated with a religious group.

Any expansion of the "religious" exemption means, of course, more LGBT employees being shown the door.

The amendment was voted down 43-55.

In spite of that, as we stated above, Toomey voted for ENDA.  Good for you, Pat.

So how does it look in the House?

Not so good.  From Sam Stein at the Huffington Post:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) affirmed on Monday morning that he would oppose a law that would prohibit discrimination against gay and lesbian employees in the workplace, citing the possibility that it would put a financial burden on businesses.

"The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement.

Nearly complete BS, of course.  Factcheck.org explains why:

House Speaker John Boehner announced his opposition to a bill that would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity with a statement from his spokesman saying the bill “will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs.” But the facts suggest there’s not as much to these claims as Boehner lets on.

Boehner’s office points to a Congressional Budget Office forecast that says the legislation, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), would lead to a 5 percent bump in discrimination cases — which is about 5,000 new cases per year. But it does not say what percentage of them may be deemed “frivolous.”

A report released by the General Accounting Office in July found “relatively few employment discrimination complaints based on sexual orientation and gender identity” in states that have already enacted laws prohibiting such discrimination. A study by the Williams Institute at UCLA found workplace complaints based on sexual orientation were made at about the same rate as complaints based on race or gender.

As for Boehner’s claim that ENDA would “cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,” that may well be the outcome in some isolated cases, but the law specifically applies only to companies with 15 or more employees — which exempts nearly 90 percent of all small businesses (and nearly a third of those employed in businesses with under 500 employees).

But Boehner's got the House's Tea Party Caucus to deal with so "reality" as a concept to the Tea Party crowd is much more malleable than "reality" is in, well,  reality.

And again millions of Americans will have to suffer for it.

LANDSLIDE

From the County website, with all precincts counted:

Josh Wander (REP) - 5,012 votes (11.46%)
William Peduto (DEM) - 36,856 votes (84.30%)
Lester F. Ludwig (IND) - 1,514 votes (3.46%)
WRITE-IN - 340 votes ( .78%)

So, yea, when the P-G calls it a landslide, I can't think they're far off.

More from the P-G's James O'Toole and Moriah Balingit:

Tuesday night, the 49-year-old Democrat brushed aside token opposition to become Pittsburgh's chief executive, officially capturing the mayoral post he first sought nearly a decade ago. In January, the veteran councilman will move to the opposite end of the fifth-floor hallway of the City-County Building, to the grand corner office about to be vacated by his longtime rival, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

As expected, Mr. Peduto was able to declare victory against Republican Josh Wander and Les Ludwig, an independent, shortly after the polls closed.

The results also brought victories to city council candidates expected to be reliable allies of the new administration. Dan Gilman, Mr. Peduto's longtime aide, will succeed him in the East End District Mr. Peduto had represented since 2001. Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak won re-election to her South Hills district. In a special election to fill the seat recently vacated by Patrick Dowd, Deb Gross won in a crowded field abetted by a turnout operation quarterbacked by the Peduto campaign team.

 Then there's this from Mike Wereschagin and Bob Bauder of the Trib:

Peduto won 84 percent of the vote on Tuesday with 96.8 percent of precincts reporting, walloping two challengers who barely put up a fight. His 35,000 votes topped the 28,600 Mayor Luke Ravenstahl won in the last mayor's race, in 2009.

And:

“We are the next great American city. It's about building from within, rebuilding the neighborhoods that built this community,” Peduto said after appearing on stage twirling a push broom at the Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum in Homewood, the neighborhood where his grandmother settled nearly 100 years ago.

“The heart, the strength, the power of the entire region will come from within the city's borders,” said Peduto, a data-crunching, hockey-playing East End progressive from a traditional Italian-American family.

 Congratulations, Mr. Mayor-elect!

Get Out And Vote!

 

With Lil Mayor Luke so nonexistent he's practically a UPMC employee, our city craves a real leader: One with a clear vision, real ideas, a belief in community engagement, and who is bursting to get to work. This has led to the extraordinary circumstance of the conservative Tribune-Review and the middle-of-the-road Post-Gazette finally catching up to what progressives have long known: Bill Peduto is the best choice for Mayor of Pittsburgh. Now it's time that we get out and give him the mandate he deserves. We also need to make sure he has a City Council who will work together with him to make Pittsburgh the city we know it can be.

 

This half of 2pj endorses:

 

Bill Peduto for Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh

Natalia Rudiak for City Council, District 4

Deb Gross for City Council, District 7

Dan Gilman for City Council, District 8

Eleanor Bush for Common Pleas Court

Jack McVay Jr. for Superior Court

 

Marty B. O’Malley for Mayor of Forest Hills Borough

*** Obligatory Disclaimer: As everyone should know by now, I've been working part-time for People For Peduto since 2010



Crickets...All We Hear Is Crickets.

From NBCNews:

Clues on a possible motive for an armed assault at Los Angeles International Airport emerged Saturday, with reports that the suspect was carrying a “manifesto” associated with the antigovernment “patriot” movement and a note saying he intended to murder at least one Transportation Security Administration officer.

The Associated Press, quoting a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation, reported that suspect Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, said in the note found in the duffel bag he carried into the airport on Friday that he wasn’t targeting a specific TSA employee.

Here's what the AP had to say, specifically, about the note:

The letter in his duffel bag refers to how Ciancia believed his constitutional rights were being violated by TSA searches and that he's a "pissed-off patriot" upset at former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

"Black, white, yellow, brown, I don't discriminate," the note read, according to a paraphrase by a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The screed also mentioned "fiat currency" and "NWO," possible references to the New World Order, a conspiracy theory that foresees a totalitarian one-world government.

And some possible context from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Ciancia’s language and references seemed to put him squarely in the conspiracy-minded world of the antigovernment “Patriot” movement. The New World Order refers to a longstanding conspiracy theory that today, in its most popular iteration, claims that global elites are plotting to form a socialistic “one-world government” that would crush American freedoms. Often, the root of the alleged conspiracy is traced to the 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve and the adoption of fiat currency — paper money that is not backed by gold, as it was once was in the U.S.

Now, let's play a game.

What if, say, instead of going by "Paul Ciancia" the shooter's name was "Mohammad ANYTHING."  Now imagine if in his duffel bag there was a Koran and a note protesting any number of US guv'ment actions (Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, drone strikes, you get the picture).

How soon would the rightwing media have pounced on this aspect of the story?  How soon would they be calling for enhanced scrutiny of the nation's Islamic communities?

Instead, because it looks at this point like just another well-armed anti-guv'ment "patriot" acting out on his right-wing conspiracy theories, we get something else entirely.

Fact-Checking A Fact-Checker - Colin McNickle Edition

In a rather scathing indictment of a Republican (and conservative, though obviously not conservative enough) member of Congress by a conservative columnist writing for the conservative paper in that Congressional district, the Trib's Colin McNickle writes this about Congressman Tim Murphy:

“We were promised a website where people could easily compare plans and costs,” said Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., on Thursday during a contentious hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the many failures of the ObamaCare website.

“Five-hundred million dollars later” (it's actually something like $700 million and counting) “we find that the American people have been dumped with the ultimate Cash for Clunkers, except that they had to pay the cash and still got the clunker,” the Upper St. Clair legislator said.

It's a great line but one laced with hubris, irony, hypocrisy and whistling past the graveyard.

For you see — and many of you might have forgotten and Mr. Murphy obviously is hoping you have — Murphy voted for Cash for Clunkers, that odoriferous multibillion-dollar government intervention that would have been funny if it weren't such a perversion.

What McNickle also left out was Congressman Murphy's support of the strained rollout of Medicare Part D in 2006.  Here's what Murphy said THEN about that glitchy Bush-era guv'ment program:

It is of no value, as a matter of fact, it is a negative value and of questionable ethical value I think sometimes if people only spend their time criticizing the glitches that have been in the program, as with any program that occurs, whether it is a public or private program, criticizing it, standing on the outside and frightening seniors, frightening seniors into thinking that because there was complexities and difficulties, therefore they should not sign up. [Congressional Record, Page H1665]

But that's a minor point - the major fail of McNickle's fact-check is the cost of the Obamacare website.  He says it's something like "$700 million" and reality says otherwise.

From the Washingtonpost's Glenn Kessler.  His initial assessment is admittedly fuzzy:

So here’s where we stand.

A conservative figure would be $70 million. A more modest figure would be $125 million to $150 million. Or one could embrace the entire project, as outlined by GAO, and declare that it is at least $350 million.

But he added a few updates - one with an upper/lower limit:

The floor for spending on the Web site to date appears to be at least $170 million, with an upward potential of nearly $300 million.

Significantly lower than the "factual" numbers so innocently slipped by your eyes by the "fact-checking" Colin McNickle.

According to Mediamatters, there's only one place where such a large number as McNickle's is found (though they go up to a billion).  That would the the Scaife-owned Newsmax.

And, as we all know, Scaife owns the Tribune-Review.  Where Colin McNickle hangs his fact-checking hat.  How interesting.

Happy Halloween!

 

And, for something truly terrifying, there's this:

Ted Cruz's Father Suggested His Son Is 'Anointed' to Bring About 'End Time Transfer of Wealth'

(Does that come with zombies?)

Mike Pintek and Ann Coulter, BFFs - seriously?

I caught a few minutes of Mike Pintek's show on KDKA yesterday.  I was lucky enough (I suppose) to snag a few minutes of his interview with Ann Coulter.

Why would anyone take Ann Coulter seriously these days?  Let's examine some of the ways she's invalidated herself.

Well there's this:

Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter shocked a cable TV talk-show audience Monday when she declared that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian.

And this:

I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.

And finally this:

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

THAT'S who Mike Pintek invited onto his air yesterday.  I'll ask it again: In light of the above, why would anyone take her seriously?

Seriously, Mike.  Why?

In any event, they were talking about the recent NBC reporting about the ACA:

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

It all has to do with which policies were "grandfathered in" and which comply with ACA regulations.  From NBC again:

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Mike and Ann were discussing how Obama "lied" by withholding this information until now.

Except that it was reported a few years ago.  Here - THREE YEARS AGO.

Ann made the comment to the effect that had this been a republican president, the Democrats would be saying it's an impeachable offense.

No, Ann.  An impeachable offense would be:

• Okaying torture
• Lying to Congress to justify an illegal invasion
• Sidestepping the FISA court

All of which were committed by the previous republican president.

Why would anyone take Ann Coulter seriously?  And more importantly, Mike, why would you?

Now This Is Embarrassing...But Not For The Obvious Reason

From the P-G a few days ago:

A Pittsburgh-based partner at law firm Reed Smith lost his cool on Twitter last week, and lashed out at an account he thought represented the Supreme Court but was in fact a well-established blog.

The Twitter account has since been deleted and the law firm issued a statement that the matter is being reviewed internally.

Which is all well and good, I suppose.  But what exactly happened?

From the Above The Law blog:

It appears that [attorney Steven M.] Regan, mistaking the Twitter feed of SCOTUSblog for an official Twitter feed of the U.S. Supreme Court, wanted to weigh in on the Court’s recent decision to hear a challenge to EPA regulations about greenhouse gas emissions. He originally tweeted: “@SCOTUSblog – Don’t screw up this like ACA. No such thing as greenhouse gas. Carbon is necessary for life.” After SCOTUSblog tweeted back “Intelligent life?”, Regan dropped the F-bomb. (If you’d like, you can read related tweets over here.)

Regan actually tweeted, "Go f@ck yourself and die."

Which is more embarrassing, I wonder?  Mistaking the SCOTUSblog for the Supreme Court or a partner at a prestigious downtown lawfirm making an ass out of himself by using profanity on a completely public forum or...(now wait for it)...using that profanity in that mistaken tweet by communicating to the world his near-total misunderstanding of climate science?

Yea, you can guess where I think Steve Regan embarrassed himself.

More On Rick Saccone

This made it to my Facebook account the other day:

Pennsylvania public school districts would be required to post “In God We Trust” in every school building under legislation that advanced out of a committee in the state House of Representatives this week.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Rick Saccone...

Ok, we need to stop here for a second or two.  Remember Rick Saccone?  He's this guy - the Bible-loving, Sharia-hating, torture-excusing Rick Saccone.

Here's the bill, by the way.

And, although I am not a lawyer, I have to guess that it's probably unconstitutional.  And here's why.

We'll start with the Pennsylvania Constitution.  Section 3 states:

All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship or to maintain any ministry against his consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship.

Take a look at that last phrase.  By slapping the motto on the walls of every public school that's exactly what the outcome.  While the bill does state that:

The Federal 5th, 9th and 10th Circuit Courts have ruled that displaying the national motto passes constitutional muster so long as the purpose of the display is to advance or endorse the national motto rather than a particular religious belief or practice.

Do we really think that Pennsylvania's "Year of the Bible" legislator wants "In God We Trust" posted in every public school as anything other than an endorsement of a set of religious beliefs?

For that we have Torcaso v Watkins (1961) a Supreme Court decision from a little more than a half century ago that included this handy paragraph:

We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person "to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion." Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.

And Lee v Weisman (1992):

In religious debate or expression, the government is not a prime participant, for the Framers deemed religious establishment antithetical to the freedom of all. The Free Exercise Clause embraces a freedom of conscience and worship that has close parallels in the speech provisions of the First Amendment, but the Establishment Clause is a specific prohibition on forms of state intervention in religious affairs, with no precise counterpart in the speech provisions.  The explanation lies in the lesson of history that was and is the inspiration for the Establishment Clause, the lesson that, in the hands of government, what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce. A state-created orthodoxy puts at grave risk that freedom of belief and conscience which are the sole assurance that religious faith is real, not imposed.

The lessons of the First Amendment are as urgent in the modern world as in the 18th century, when it was written. One timeless lesson is that, if citizens are subjected to state-sponsored religious exercises, the State disavows its own duty to guard and respect that sphere of inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark of a free people.[Emphasis added.]

What else could it be than a "state-created orthodoxy" in a public school when a sign that reads "In God We Trust" for all the students to read and to digest?

And who, in fact, are the "we" in this anyway?

Looks like it's time to drag this video out again

Recent Headlines:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl tweets of work from off-site"

KDKA News: "Some Raising Questions Over Mayor’s Recent Tweets"  

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Ravenstahl defends tweeting about work from other locations"

Peduto Ad's Gone National!

Hey, remember this?  That was when the OPJ blogged on Councilman Bill Peduto's new TV ad.

Well, coverage of the ad has gone national with a story on it at Thinkprogress.

Travis Waldron writes:

Pittsburgh city councilman Bill Peduto, the Democratic nominee to become the city’s next mayor, this week released a new television ad targeting the use of public funds to expand Heinz Field, the home of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers want the city council’s Stadium and Exhibition Authority to pick up most of the $40 million tab for adding 3,000 seats to the decade-old stadium, but the authority has resisted, arguing that the expansion doesn’t meet the terms of the team’s lease with the city.

In the folksy 30-second ad touting Steeler staples, Peduto outlines it not as a battle between a team and the city, but a question of whether the money should go to the stadium or toward youth programs.

“I’m Bill Peduto, and I’ll cheer with Sax Man for the Steelers,” Peduto says in the ad. “But instead of more money for stadiums, it should go to youth programs. I’ll answer to Coach Jeff and Earl the street sweeper, not the downtown insiders. Some things should never change. But who your mayor fights for will.”

So, who's Thinkprogress?  Here's how it describes itself:

Think Progress is a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. The Center for American Progress Action Fund is a nonpartisan organization.

ThinkProgress was voted “Best Liberal Blog” in the 2006 Weblog Awards and chosen as an Official Honoree in the 2009 and 2012 Webby awards. It was also named best blog of 2008 by The Sidney Hillman Foundation, receiving an award for journalism excellence. In 2009, ThinkProgress was named a “Gold Award Winner” by the International Academy of Visual Arts.

So it's the political blog tied to the Center for American Progress and this is how the CAP describes itself:

The Center for American Progress is an independent nonpartisan educational institute dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action. Building on the achievements of progressive pioneers such as Teddy Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, our work addresses 21st-century challenges such as energy, national security, economic growth and opportunity, immigration, education, and health care. We develop new policy ideas, critique the policy that stems from conservative values, challenge the media to cover the issues that truly matter, and shape the national debate. Founded in 2003 by John Podesta to provide long-term leadership and support to the progressive movement, CAP is headed by Neera Tanden and based in Washington, D.C.

See?  National political blog of a national progressive think tank.

UPMC Revises Website

 

 

Story here.

 

That's Church's take here. 

Ah...What We Find, When We Dig.

From today's Tuesday Takes:

The prospects for reining in the Obama administration's out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency are brighter because the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether it has overstepped the authority to regulate “greenhouse gases” it was granted by the justices in 2007's Massachusetts v. EPA .

You'll note, of course, that the irony quotes are there for a reason.  But that's not what we're here for.  Scaife's braintrust does the usual "liberal EPA overstep" dance blah-blah-blah.  But let's take a look at what the Supreme Court actually said:

12-1146 ) UTILITY AIR REGULATORY GROUP V. EPA
12-1248 ) AM. CHEMISTRY COUNCIL, ET AL. V. EPA, ET AL.
12-1254 ) ENERGY-INTENSIVE MANUFACTURERS V. EPA, ET AL.
12-1268 ) SOUTHEASTERN LEGAL FOUNDATION V. EPA, ET AL.
12-1269 ) TEXAS, ET AL. V. EPA, ET AL.
12-1272 ) CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, ET AL. V. EPA, ET AL.

The petitions for writs of certiorari are granted limited to the following question: “Whether EPA permissibly determined that its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases.” The cases are consolidated and a total of one hour is allotted for oral argument.

You'll note that nestled warmly among all the pro-business groups challenging the EPA in the list of cases to be consolidated is something called the "Southeastern Legal Foundation."

Guess who's given more than 58% of all the foundational support to the Southeastern Legal Foundation?

That's right, Tribune-Review owner Richard Mellon Scaife.

According to the Bridgeproject, the Southeastern Legal Foundation has received a total of $3.817 million dollars from various foundations over the years.  $2.225 million of which has come from either the Sarah Scaife or Carthage foundations, both controlled by Tribune-Review owner Richard Mellon Scaife.  Unless my math is wrong, that's a tad more than 58% of the total.

Hmmm...so a legal foundation's challenge to the EPA has made it to the Supreme Court and a conservative editorial board cheers them on - all with no mention whatsoever of the millions that their boss has funneled to it.

Ah, the things you find when you dig, just a little.

He's baaaack!

Bill Peduto is back on Pittsburgh's airwaves--along with some neighborhood icons--with a brand new ad. Enjoy:

 

Bad News For RM Scaife

We all know how embedded Richard Mellon Scaife is with the Heritage Foundation.  The owner of the Tribune-Review is vice chairman of the board of trustees and his foundations have given wads of sweaty money (at least $24 million worth) to that venerable rightwing think tank.

But yesterday, Senator Orrin Hatch called them out:


The important part:

Heritage used to be the conservative organization helping Republicans and helping conservatives and helping us to be able to have the best intellectual conservative ideas. There's a real question on the minds of many Republicans now, and I'm not just thinking for myself, for a lot of people - is Heritage going to go so political that it doesn't amount to anything anymore? I hope not. I'm going to try to help survive and do well. But right now I think it's in danger of losing its clout and its power around Washington, DC.

Uh-oh.

So what's Scaife's braintrust gonna now do with Orrin?  Only last August they praised him for this speech on the Senate Floor.

Like the rest of the GOP's internal arguments, this'll be fun to watch.

The VOTE

Ok, so the disaster's been avoided.  For now.

From the AP (by way of the P-G):

Up against a deadline, Congress passed and sent a waiting President Barack Obama legislation late Wednesday night to avoid a threatened national default and end the 16-day partial government shutdown, the culmination of an epic political drama that placed the U.S. economy at risk.

The Senate voted first, a bipartisan 81-18 at midevening. That cleared the way for a final 285-144 vote in the Republican-controlled House about two hours later on the bill, which hewed strictly to the terms Obama laid down when the twin crises erupted more than three weeks ago.

In The House, they made a few changes. From the NYTimes:

Most House Republicans opposed the bill, but 87 voted to support it. The breakdown showed that Republican leaders were willing to violate their informal rule against advancing bills that do not have majority Republican support in order to end the shutdown. All 198 Democrats voting supported the measure.

So they sidestepped the Hastert Rule.  Interesting.  Here's how the AP characterizes the bill:

Simplicity at the end, there was next to nothing in the agreement beyond authorization for the Treasury to resume borrowing and funding for the government to reopen.

But I'm more interested in the 18 Senators and 144 House members who voted against the bill.

Against a bill that averted a national default (and the resulting economic chaos that was sure to follow).  Against a bill to reopen the guv'ment (allowing hundreds of thousands of guv'ment employees to get back to work).  Who could possibly vote against that?

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania House Members Scott Perry, Joseph Pitts, and of course, Keith Rothfus, that's who.

They voted to keep the memorials closed, they voted to damage the nation's credit rating and send the world into another economic crisis.

All in a stupid attempt to stop the Affordable Care Act.

Something to remember when they're up for re-election.  Or they're quoted in the news about anything.

More On Sarah Palin

Hey, remember when Sarah Palin said this?

Our vets have proven that they have not been timid, so we will not be timid in calling out any who would use our military, our vets, as pawns in a political game.

I touched on this yesterday.

Guess who else thinks she's the one using our nation's vets as pawns?  The organizers of the march she and the tea party "hijacked" (their term, not mine, though it certainly fits).  Take a look from their webpage:

The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message. We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle is about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner.

So I ask in passing, who's using the vets as pawns in a political game?

• Sarah Palin
• Ted Cruz
• The Tea Party
• The GOP
• Anyone else who brought about (or who supported) the governmental shutdown but is now protesting the barricades at the veterans' memorials

I'll let Martin Bashir sum it all up fer y'inz:

It’s time now to clear the air, and in today’s edition of pretense and hypocrisy, we bring you an act of such brazen dishonesty and speciousness that it’s hard to know where to begin.

Couldn't have put it better myself.  But I guess that's why Bashir gets the big bucks to be on TV and I'm late for my office job.

So WHO Could Have Stopped The Shutdown BUT DIDN'T?

This happened this weekend (from FoxNews)

Veterans marched on Sunday in Washington in protest of the partial government shutdown that has kept them and other Americans from visiting war memorials across the country, with support from several star conservatives.

“This is the people's memorial,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told a crowd of several hundred gathered near the WWII Memorial on the closed National Mall, which has become a national symbol of the shutdown and the country’s response. “Simple question: Why is the federal government spending money to keep veterans out of the memorial? Why did they spend money to keep people out of Mount Vernon, Mount Rushmore? Our veterans should be above political games.”

Yes, they should be.  But it's the Ted Cruz and the Republicans who are playing right now.  You'll see in a minute.

Then there's this from the Wall Street Journal:

“Mr. Obama, Take down this fence,” yelled Aaron Everett of Pittsburgh, Pa. Asked why he was there, he said, “I don’t want to be told what I have to buy or what memorials I can’t see.” Several protesters said they sought to impeach the president and that they blamed him for the government shutdown.

You'll note the Reagan paraphrase as well the (possible) reference to the Individual Mandate section of the Affordable Care Act (which his news sources has failed to inform Mr Everett that it is actually an idea from the Scaife-funded Conservative Heritage Foundation).  Then there's the call for impeachment.  Why?  What's the high crime and/or misdemeanor?

Didn't they know that the House Republican leadership could have stopped the shutdown but didn't?

Let's go see how.

From Talkingpointsmemo:

Late on the night of Sept. 30, with the federal government just hours away from shutting down, House Republicans quietly made a small change to the House rules that blocked a potential avenue for ending the shutdown.

And here's the rule in it's original shut-down form this is "Clause 4 of Rule XXII" of the House Rules:

When the stage of disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be privileged.

TPM explains:

In other words, if the House and Senate are gridlocked as they were on the eve of the shutdown, any motion from any member to end that gridlock should be allowed to proceed. Like, for example, a motion to vote on the Senate bill. That's how House Democrats read it.

And this is how they changed it:

Any motion pursuant to clause 4 of rule XXII relating to House Joint Resolution 59 may be offered only by the Majority Leader or his designee.[Emphasis added.]

Meaning:

So unless House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) wanted the Senate spending bill to come to the floor, it wasn't going to happen. And it didn't.

And Speaker Boehner could end the shutdown today if he wanted to.  He has the votes to end it but still chooses not to.

Of course it's all here:

Of course it is.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due. Again.

Don't normally agree with the Trib's Eric Heyl, but he's 100%, absolutely, totally and without any sort of snarky bloggery sarcasm, completely correct with this column.

Here, I'll let Eric frame the argument:

There's due process, then there's overdue process.

Chuck McCullough's criminal case long ago turned into a protracted process whose resolution is ridiculously overdue.

And:

McCullough, 58, an Upper St. Clair attorney, is accused of bilking an elderly client, the late Shirley Jordan, out of more than $200,000. He was arrested in February 2009. That was 56 months ago.[Emphasis added.]

If I may point out something, if you google "Chuck McCullough arrested" you will get, on top of google's search list, this blog post - the date was February 9, 2009.

That was only 20 days after the President Obama's first inauguration.  Think of that for a second.  The Kenyan Socialist President's time in the White House exceeds McCullough's post-arrest-pre-trial time by a skosh under three weeks.  Think of all that's happened in that administration in those 56 weeks.

• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (February 17, 2009)
• Cash for Clunkers (August 6, 2009)
• The Nobel Peace Prize (October 9, 2009)
• The Affordable Health Care Act (March 23, 2010)
• Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act (December 22, 2010)

And so on.

What movies were were released after Chuck McCullough was arrested?

• Avatar (Premiered December, 2009)
• Both Star Trek films (April, 2009 and April, 2013)

So you remember seeing Avatar in the theatre?  However long ago you think that was, Chuck McCullough was arrested before that happened.

And so on.

Eric ends with:

If he hasn't succumbed to old age by the time the trial begins, McCullough might be sorely inconvenienced attempting to attend the proceedings. It wouldn't be the relatively quick commute from his home in Alpha Centauri that would prove irksome.

I'm glad Eric brought this up.  Did you know that Alpha Cenari is 4.37 light years away?  That's about 53 months.

So if they had sensitive enough equipment and if that sensitive enough equipment is pointed our way and if they could understand Pittsburghese, the residents on whatever planets that may be circling around Alpha Centauri are just hearing the news about Chuck McCullough's arrest.

Think about that.

PodCamp Video!

For those of you who missed my talk at this year's PodCamp (and you know who you are) here's the video. If you'd rather not sit through possibly THE most boring 46 minutes ever recorded in human history (and this includes the recorded performances of Yves Klein's Monotone Symphony) I can send you a copy of the paper I wrote.

Or you can watch the video:

Politician or Porn-itician?

Rachel Maddow and Michael Strahan guessed whether photos shown to them by Andy Cohen were porn stars or a politicians last night on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live show. And while they correctly identified a photo of Brian Sims as a politician, Rachel could not have been more wrong on Sims' views. She said of Sims, "He looks like the guy who's the head of the anti gay marriage group."

Whoops! Wrong, Rachel. You owe Brian a big apology!

Sims is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the 182nd district and was the first openly gay person elected to that body. He's very much pro same-sex marriage and an activist for LGBTQI rights. In fact, he introduced HB1686, the Pennsylvania Marriage Equality Act earlier this month. Moreover, he gained the ire of Daryl Metcalfe (always a good sign!) and got some national press with this:

In June 2013, after the Defense of Marriage Act had been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, Sims tried to make a speech in the Pennsylvania House supporting the decision. Daryl Metcalfe, who was one of several representatives who blocked Sims from speaking, said ”I did not believe that as a member of that body that I should allow someone to make comments such as he was preparing to make that ultimately were just open rebellion against what the word of God has said, what God has said, and just open rebellion against God’s law.”

Sims was all over the Pittsburgh region in the last couple of days advocating for the end of discrimination against gays.

He's also appeared on Rachel's show in the past.

Release Your Inner Zombie at the CHS Benefit Party!

 

Community Human Services Corporation (CHS) serves the Pittsburgh community by providing a wide variety of services to ensure that thousands of children, seniors, veterans and adults can meet their basic needs when it comes to housing, mental health support, health care and more. Founded in the early 1970s by concerned South Oakland residents, the organization has grown over the years to become one of the region’s leaders in providing services that enhance people’s lives and improve communities.

They need your help to continue giving their help and they're making it as fun and entertaining as possible by throwing a benefit party...Zombie Style!

On October 19, 2013 from 7 p.m. to midnight CHS will host a party—No One Survives Alone: A Benefit Party with Zombies—at Clear Story Studios at 1931 Sidney Street on Pittsburgh’s South Side. All funds raised through the ticket sales and raffle items will help CHS serve thousands of area families. No One Survives Alone is made possible through a generous sponsorship by Yuengling.  

CHS wants you to have fun with this party. Have you long dreamed of dressing up like a zombie prom queen, but never had the chance? Here’s your opportunity. Fancy yourself the defender of the human race? Feel free to dress as a zombie hunter (though no weapons, fake or real; let’s be reasonable in our fun). Feel like you work best in a cocktail dress or a dress shirt? No need to dress like an extra of the Night of the Living Dead. Not sure how to get in character? CHS will have a professional makeup artist on site to help you out. The most important part is to come ready to enjoy yourself with food, drinks and music to support a good cause.

Tickets are available in advance for $50, but they will go up to $60 at the door, so purchase yours now online here!

It's their party and they'll do what they want

Keith Rothfus And The Suicide Caucus

By the way, the "suicide" rhetoric come not from the left but from the right - Charles Krauthammer:

Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist and regular Fox News panelist Charles Krauthammer warned over the weekend that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was leading Republicans on a “suicide” mission to defund President Barack Obama’s health reform law with an attempted government shutdown.

And:

“It would be over a cliff for the GOP,” Krauthammer said on Sunday’s edition Inside Washington. “I admire the sincerity and the passion of those who don’t want to pass the budget unless you get rid of Obamacare, but it is utterly impossible in the real world. And the only thing it will do is to undo all the gains the Republicans have made over the past year, and undo their very real chances of having great successes next year.”

“I think it’s a suicide caucus, and I hope enough of them will realize that so that [House Speaker John Boehner] will have a majority, even if it’s a bare majority, to pass a continuing resolution,” he added.

Recently, the P-G called out some local House Members on their tea-party affiliations:

The shutdown of the federal government shouldn't be dismissed in the cliched terms of "those people in Washington." Some of those people live right here. They are our members in the dysfunctional House of Representatives who have now exported their dysfunction to the nation.

Republican Reps. Keith Rothfus of Sewickley, Tim Murphy of Upper St. Clair, Mike Kelly of Butler and Bill Shuster of Blair County -- we're talking about you.

Do you think of yourselves as extremists? No? Then what are you doing siding with Tea Party radicals who have dragged the Republican Party to one extreme -- shutting down the federal government -- and who may embrace the ultimate craziness, default on the federal debt later this month?

There's one name on that list that also shows up on this letter to Speaker Boehner: Keith Rothfus.

Apart from signing a letter that contains this gut shearing bit of historical revisionism:

Moreover, the Internal Revenue Service, an agency now publicly known to have deliberately discriminated against conservative entities, pro-Israel groups and other organizations...

Yea, as we already know those "other organizations" were liberal groups.  But let's move on to this:

Since much of the implementation of ObamaCare is a function of the discretionary appropriations process, including the operation of the “mandatory spending” portions of the law, and since most of the citizens we represent believe that ObamaCare should never go into effect, we urge you to affirmatively de-fund the implementation and enforcement of ObamaCare in any relevant appropriations bill brought to the House floor in the l l31h Congress, including any continuing appropriations bill.

So one of the local people we have to thank for the guv'ment shut down is Representative Keith Rothfus, we should let him know how good a job we think he's doing.

Or we could, except it doesn't look like he accepts email from outside his district.

Here's his DC info:

Washington, D.C. Office
503 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2065
Fax: (202) 225-5709
Hours: 8:30AM - 6:00PM

We should all call him and thank him for helping to shut down the guv'ment.

Congressman Mike Doyle Knows His Internet Memes!

And puts them to great use -- good on him!

Can I burn down your house? No Just the 2nd floor? No Garage? No Let's talk about what I can burn down. No YOU AREN'T COMPROMISING!
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 2, 2013

UPDATE: And Congress just went into recess because of reports of shots fired near/around the Capitol--so much for a lighthearted post...

PodCamp 2013 Announcement

Will you be attending PodCamp this October 5?

I'll be there - I'm doing this:

In the wake of recent revelations by Eric Snowden and Glenn Greenwald about the world wide electronic surveillance carried out by the National Security Agency, what are the legal limits of our privacy online? What data have they been gathering, how have they been gathering it and what does that all mean?

Just a note for our friends in the intelligence community: Everything I'll be discussing comes from published sources.  That is to say, nothing's from Anonymous or Wikileaks.  But I suspect you already know that.

Just a note for Anonymous: Hey guys.  Drop me a line sometime.  I'd love to hear from you.

Sue Kerr's hosting a session too.  As is Thomas C Waters.

An interview with a member of the Tea Party Caucus in the House

More On GOP House Members And Their Tea Party Overlords

From The President of the United States Of America:

At midnight last night, for the first time in 17 years, Republicans in Congress chose to shut down the federal government. Let me be more specific: One faction, of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government, shut down major parts of the government -- all because they didn't like one law.

This Republican shutdown did not have to happen. But I want every American to understand why it did happen. Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to fund the government unless we defunded or dismantled the Affordable Care Act. They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans. In other words, they demanded ransom just for doing their job.

Can we start calling the Tea Party Caucus zealots from now on?  How about bullies?  How about ignorant ideologues who have no idea what governing means?

I am surprised they didn't demand the president's REAL birth certificate (or a confession for Benghazi, or the IRS or Climategate) as a prerequisite for "bipartisan negotiations" where they get everything they want and the twice elected president gets nothing in return.

Obligatory Pittsburgh Post

Shutdown

Yes, the federal government has been shut down. Here's Jon Stewart's great take on it. The only thing missing from it is the fact that there are enough votes in the House to pass a clean Senate bill. The blame lies with 30 to 60 representatives--call them, oh I don't know, TEA PARTY members--and House Speaker John Boehner who fears them.

  (If you're in Pittsburgh, you can learn more about the Affordable Care Act at this event today.)