Government Shutdown Averted; GOP Loses to Planned Parenthood

A shutdown of the Federal Government has been averted. A continuing resolution will be passed tonight (already passed by voice vote; actual vote to likely occur a little after Midnight) to prevent a shutdown and the budget will actually be voted on next week and will contain $39 billion in cuts. The riders -- including the one to defund Planned Parenthood -- will be voted on separately next week so that Republicans can get their public hard-on over denying women health care for their lady bits.

Here's what the overall spending cuts compromise looks like:

(Click to enlarge; original here)
The defunding for Planned Parenthood actually had nothing to do with abortion. Federal funds are already prohibited by law from covering abortions. The funds the GOP wanted to cut were for Title X funding -- a program started by President NIXON -- which:

"...fund a range of preventive health care services free of charge to patients at or below the poverty level. For low- to moderate-income patients, there is a sliding fee scale for access to Title X services, which include breast and pelvic exams, Pap smears and other cancer screenings, HIV testing, pregnancy testing and counseling, and affordable birth control."

And, speaking of Planned Parenthood and abortion, despite claims today that "that’s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does," here's the actual breakdown of what they do:
Notice, that would be 3%, not 90%.

Here's GOP female House members avoiding saying what they think of Title X:

And, to take the bitter taste out of you mouth from the above video, here's Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards' cover version of the White Stripes "Effect and Cause."*

Rock on, Congresswoman, rock on.

*(h/t to Digby)

Time

. Not.
I understand that if the government does shutdown, my sister who works at the Library of Congress will still be working, she just might not be getting paid. .

Lucille Prater-Holliday Fundraiser

Find out more/RSVP here. .

The Tribune-Review Cheers For The Ryan Budget

I wanted to post on this stuff yesterday but other things (doncha know) got in the way. (Hey, that's dactylic!)

Now here's something that no one would have suspected. No one. Never. Nope.

The Editorial Board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review likes Congressman Ryan's budget:

A monumental moment occurred in the city of monuments Tuesday as Republicans battled to fix the fiscal 2011 budget mess inherited from Democrats (who, conveniently, forget that they put last November's election ahead of their fiduciary responsibility).

House Republicans, led by the plain-speaking Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, introduced a fiscal 2012 budget that pulls no punches and minces no numbers in finally getting serious about addressing the federal government's fiscal mess.

It slashes trillions in spending over the next decade, including nearly half-a-trillion dollars through 2013. It boldly tackles Medicare (an even worse ticking time bomb than Social Security), phasing in a private-sector, market-based solution that's far more senior-friendly.

The Tribune-Review is in favor of abolishing Medicare - just so you know.

But that's not the big news here. Take a look. From the Huffingtonpost:

When Paul Ryan unveiled his budget today, he touted it as a "Path to Prosperity" and he and his colleagues kept saying it was "based in fact." In reality, Ryan's claims of prosperity are based on an analysis - written at his request by the conservative Heritage Foundation - that has more basis in magic than economics. [emphasis added.]

Now, who would have guessed that Scaife's braintrust would be cheering about a budget that's based on an analysis by the Scaife funded Heritage Foundation?

But even that's not the big news. What's the big news, you ask?

From the National Journal:

The Republican budget’s economic projections are rosy, including growth rates of over 3 percent for the next three years. An analysis performed by the conservative Heritage Foundation at Ryan’s request found the unemployment rate would be reduced to 4 percent in 2015 by Ryan’s budget, an incredibly low number when many economists believe the economy will not return to so-called “full employment” of about 5 percent until years after that.

As Matt Yglesias points out:

It’s worth noting that this is not just unrealistic, it’s impossible. When unemployment drops beneath 5 percent, the Federal Reserve starts raising interest rates until a recession pushes it back up. This is deemed necessary to prevent inflationary wage increases.

But even that's not the big news. The big news is that the Scaife-funded Heritage foundation got the numbers wrong and pulled them from the report. Krugman has the evidence, if you wanted to go see it.

Not a word about any of this from the braintrust, of course. They dutifully cheer what their boss has already paid for (flawed as it is).

What We Have He-uh Is A Failure To Communicate...

Or rather a huge communication failure.

Here's the story. Earlier today this was posted at my friend Jennifer's blog:

Spurred on by something that showed up in my Facebook stream, I called my Congressman, Rep. Mike Doyle to ask about his stance on HR-3 and HR-358. The nice young man who answered the phone told me that Rep. Doyle has yet to take a position on these bills….

Really?

You can read the rest of her blog post to see that she was pissed. And considering the bills, it's easy to see why. It was also cross-posted at the Pittsburgh Women's Blogging Society.

First HR 3 - The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. From the CRS Summary:

No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act - Prohibits the expenditure of funds authorized or appropriated by federal law or funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by federal law (federal funds) for any abortion.

Prohibits federal funds from being used for any health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion. (Currently, federal funds cannot be used for abortion services and plans receiving federal funds must keep federal funds segregated from any funds for abortion services.)

Disallows any tax benefits for amounts paid or incurred for an abortion or for a health benefits plan that includes coverage of abortion, including any medical deduction for such amounts or any credit for such an employer-sponsored plan.

And so on. It's pretty restrictive. It's also the bill that includes an interesting redefinition of sorts. From Section 309, the act's monetary limitations are not in place:

if the pregnancy occurred because the pregnant female was the subject of an act of forcible rape or if a minor, an act of incest;

So the sex needs to be forced (but not, say, drugged or merely threatened) for it to be rape. Also a pregnancy produced when, say, a 14 year old girl is "seduced" by a 29 year old man who isn't a relative are safe.

Then there's HR 358 The Protect Life Act which copies the "forcible rape" language of HR 3.

Easy to see why someone who values a woman's right to choose would be seriously annoyed at a Congressman who doesn't yet have a position on such odious legislation.

The only problem? According to the comment Congressman Doyle left at the blog, he has taken a position on the legislation:

Like you, I am strongly opposed to both H.R. 358 and H.R. 3. As you know, these two pieces of dangerous legislation would impose unprecedented restrictions on health care providers and insurers.

Specifically, H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act, which was introduced by Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA), would change our tax laws so that people who purchase their insurance in their state health care exchange (as established by the Affordable Care Act) will not be able to be used to purchase a plan with abortion coverage, even if they write a separate check to cover the abortion coverage included in their health insurance. No plans that provide abortion coverage can have a participant that takes a federal tax credit. People who receive credits will only be permitted to purchase abortion coverage as a rider. This would essentially mean that no longer would any health insurance plans include abortion coverage.

In addition, H.R. 358 includes a provision that allows hospitals to refuse abortion care even when a woman’s life is in danger. It does this by expanding current laws on conscience protections to allow hospitals to refuse abortion in care in all circumstances – even if a woman is hemorrhaging/has preeclampsia/will die if an emergency abortion is not performed – as a matter of conscience. The hospital not only doesn’t have to provide the life-stabilizing care, they don’t have to refer the woman elsewhere, or help with transportation. The scope of these restrictions is unprecedented.

Lovely legislation, huh?

It was an errant intern who blew it on this one - a huge snafu to be sure.

I am sure Jennifer will have more to say about it on Friday.

In Which I Defend Ginny...Sort Of

Let me start with my comment at Ginny's blog and work backwards:

For the record…

I have nothing to say about Ginny’s party affiliation or self-identification as a conservative.

My blog post only questioned the quotation marks that Ginny used around the phrase “war criminal”. In itself that’s neither a left/right, Democratic Party/Republican Party issue. Torture’s a human rights issue and the fact that it happened in this country should forever disgrace the president who allowed it and the political party that supported that him.

For the record.

For those few, those happy few, unacquainted with the story, I'll try to sum it up in a nutshell.

• Virginia Montanez, aka Pittgirl, admits to being a republican (and a conservative) here.
• There's something of a loud response from her many (MANY!) fans (250+ comments in the comments section of that blog post).
• I question what looked to me like the irony quotes around the phrase "war criminal" she used in describing George W Bush - more on that in a bit.
• Sue Kerr responds quite positively on her blog with this, And gets a short, teary-eyed thank you from Ginny herself.
• The comment on my blog post was neither short nor teary-eyed.

That's about where things stand now.

Let me reiterate what I said in my comment on Ginny's post: I have nothing substantial to say about her political or party affiliations. We live in a free society (we're still free, right? The Koch Brothers haven't bought out the entire political process yet, have they? Just checking.). Each of us is free to believe what we want to believe; politically, religiously, morally, and so on. And so it's rather disappointing to learn of Ginny's now-former fans who, in a fit of anger, decide not to read her very funny (if mostly non-political) blog on account of these up until now mostly unacknowledged politics. The two have little if anything to do with each other.

If, on the other hand, they want to avoid her site because of her conservative politics so be it. They loose the giggle but gain...I am not sure what. But that's not for me to say anyway.

However, while we are free to believe what we want to believe, we also have to acknowledge that by labeling ourselves as a member of a group (in this case a political group), we have to accept that that comes with a certain amount of baggage. When the group does something good we have the right swell with pride at our membership. But we also have to accept some responsibility when the group does something not so good. That's the baggage of membership.

If you don't want the baggage, leave the group - especially if you don't agree with it.

That being said, Ginny walks back the irony quotes. From her comment:

Sorry I missed all the drama. Because my quotation marks around "war criminal" seem to be what has irked so many, let me explain.

I wrote that post in under ten minutes, didn't proof it, posted it. I had no motive behind any of my punctuation. I put quotes around war criminal not to be ironic, but because, and I mean this honestly, I was quoting the reader who said that. Honestly.

Do I think that those that view George Bush as a war criminal have a valid opinion. Of course I do. That day that I came out was honestly one of the hardest days of my life and to have people suddenly jump on me for voting for Bush, write about how I voted for a war criminal, etc. on top of all the other shit that happened that day, honestly was unexpected.

I'll take her at her word that she didn't intend any irony. I am not sure that gets her off the hook, though. Here's what she wrote:

This resulted in some uproar from readers who were shocked I ever voted for a “war criminal.” Yes. WAR CRIMINAL. I voted for him because as you already know ME LOVE KILLING! GRRRRR.

Not sure I'd want to make a joke minimizing either torture or the deaths of 4500+ American servicemen and women (not to mention the countless Iraqis who died). Deaths, let's all remember, that were a direct result of the actions and decisions of the man who won the 2004 election.

I'd not want to make that joke - but that's just me.

My question at the end of my blog post, however, is still valid. If the quotation isn't ironic, then why the vote for the war criminal?

Thanks, Early Returns!

Well, now I definitely know for whom I'm voting.

The New GOP Budget - What WONDERFUL News For Us!!

The CBO has done an initial analysis of the latest GOP budget proposed by Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI).

First a caveat from the CBO:

CBO has not reviewed legislative language for the proposal, so this analysis does not represent a cost estimate for legislation that might implement the proposal. Rather, it is an assessment of the broad, long-term budgetary impacts of the proposal, with results spanning several decades and measured as a share of GDP

That being said, just guess what it found? Here we go:

Among other changes, the proposal would convert the current Medicare program to a system under which beneficiaries received premium support payments—payments that would be used to help pay the premiums for a private health insurance policy and would grow over time with overall consumer prices. The change would apply to people turning 65 beginning in 2022; beneficiaries who turn 65 before then would remain in the traditional Medicare program, with the option of converting to the new system. Additionally, the proposal would convert the matching payments that the federal government makes to states for Medicaid costs under current law into block grants of fixed dollar amounts beginning in 2013. Those amounts would grow over time with overall consumer prices and population growth. Further, the proposal would repeal the key provisions of the major 2010 health care legislation that deal with insurance coverage and certain other provisions. Under the proposal, mandatory spending for health care would be about 6 percent of GDP in 2030 and 2040 and about 5 percent in 2050, CBO estimates.

See that first part? That's the GOP doing away with Medicare. If you turn 65 in 2022 (or anytime thereafter) you'll get a voucher to help you pay for your private health insurance. If you can't afford the costs above that, tough nuggies.

TPM has more:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's initial analysis of the House GOP budget released today by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is filled with nuggets of bad news for Republicans.

In addition to acknowledging that seniors, disabled and elderly people would be hit with much higher out-of-pocket health care costs, the CBO finds that by the end of the 10-year budget window, public debt will actually be higher than it would be if the GOP just did nothing.

Under the so-called "extended baseline scenario" -- a.k.a. projections based on current law -- debt held by the public will grow to 67 percent of GDP by 2022. Under the GOP plan, public debt would reach 70 percent of GDP in the same window.

And:

If the current Medicare system were allowed to continue, CBO found that an average 65-year-old beneficiary's costs would be only 25 percent of what it'd be in the individual private insurance market. Under the GOP plan, those costs would jump to 68 percent.

Many thanks to our many friends in the GOP. I am sure they're all wonderful people just as I am sure they are members of a political party that's just proposed this cruel "let's erase Medicare to save it" budget.

More On Chuck McCullough (Yet Again)

Today, I am quoting the Trib but not to criticize what it says there. I'm just setting the stage:

What a mess: A judge once again has delayed the felony theft trial of Chuck McCullough of Upper St. Clair. And that means Republican voters could nominate for Allegheny County chief executive a fella in the May primary who, if convicted, would have to be yanked from the November ballot. Mr. McCullough, you'll recall, won an at-large County Council seat four years ago, after the criminal investigation was publicly known. Democrats are highly amused.

There are two more amusing things to be found at the P-G. First some more info from McNulty:

Republican county executive candidate Chuck McCullough got some great news last week.

Just about every story on the attorney and former Allegheny County councilman-at-large mentions two things: that he's awaiting trial on charges he stole money from elderly client, and that the trial is set May 9, just a week before the May 17 primary. Can you take the second half of that out of the boilerplate.

Last week Common Pleas Court Judge Donald Machen granted a postponement of the trial, as requested by defense attorney Patrick Thomassey. They plan to schedule a new one this week.

McCullough was charged in February 2009.

He is running against tech executive and Mt. Lebanon commissioner D. Raja for the party's nod for exec. Tea party official Patti Weaver dropped from the race March 23.

The postponement, we are told, is due to an out of state personal matter Chuck's defense attorney has to attend to.

In case you've forgotten the charges, here's the what the P-G had to say in February, 2009:

The Allegheny County councilman accused nearly two years ago of improperly making $40,000 in political contributions from an elderly widow's trust fund has been charged with 23 criminal counts, including theft, misapplication of property, criminal conspiracy and making false reports.

Charles P. McCullough, who was elected in 2007 after some of the allegations had come to light, was arrested yesterday and released on $20,000 straight bond.

Also charged was Mr. McCullough's sister, Kathleen, who is named in relation to the trust account in the jury presentment. She also was charged in a separate embezzlement case.

His sister's already been convicted of that separate embezzlement case, though Chuck was involved in that case, too.

And why is this so amusing? From the other report at Early Returns yesterday:

The first poll on the GOP side of the county executive race shows Chuck McCullough with a 6-point lead over D. Raja, with a lot of undecideds and high negatives for both candidates, according to PoliticsPa.

An automated poll of 385 registered Republicans by Municipoll for PP showed McCullough with 30% to 24% for Raja, with 46% undecided and a 5 point MoE. The high negatives? 21% for McCullough and 18% for Raja.

From PoliticsPa:

However, McCullough’s pending legal issues seem to have put a dent in his approval ratings. A mere 5.4 percent of voters have a favorable impression of the Councilman, who has been accused of defrauding an elderly widow. (The Post-Gazette reported Sunday that his trial has been postponed until after the May 17 primary). 21 percent have a negative opinion of McCullough, with 73 percent undecided.

The local powers that be in the GOP are not happy. From the Trib:

The delay could bring political help or damage to McCullough, 56, a Republican from Upper St. Clair, said GOP Chairman Jim Roddey. But it's definitely bad for Republicans, he said.

If McCullough would defeat D. Raja, 45, of Mt. Lebanon in the primary, but gets convicted of bilking the multimillion-dollar estate of widow Shirley Jordan before the general election in November, he would have to be removed from the ballot.

"Unfortunately, I think there's a real risk," Roddey said. "I don't know what the contingency plan would be."

So with all that bad press (and some serious legal action pending) McCullough is still 6 points up among likely Republican voters and nearly three quarters are still undecided?

THAT'S amusing. Even from a non-Democrat like me.

Photos from Pittsburgh's "We Are One" March & Rally

The union thugs were out in full force:


As were the class warriors:


500 strong according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (P-G video here):


(3-photo montage)
They were all out in Pittsburgh today as part of the nationwide "We Are One" action. In Pittsburgh, there was a rally at EQT Plaza and then a march and rally to Governor Tom Corbett's Pittsburgh headquarters for another rally.

Fact Checking Rick Santorum

Lil Ricky's at it again:

A third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion.

And both major fact-checking sites call this one false. Both.

First factcheck.org:

Rick Santorum incorrectly stated that “one in three pregnancies end in abortion” in the United States. It’s actually fewer than one in four.

Santorum appeared on a New Hampshire radio talk show, blaming abortions for “causing Social Security and Medicare to be underfunded.” But he not only misstated the abortion statistic, he also got it wrong when he said that "our birthrate is now below replacement rate for the first time in our history." The total fertility rate, not the birthrate, is used to determine the stability of a nation’s population, and the U.S. total fertility rate was below its replacement rate from 1972 to 2006. Finally, Santorum also misrepresented France as lagging far behind its replacement rate.

If Rick's ever going to be take seriously (yea, I know - that's a giggle!) he's going to have to get the numbers right. And now I'd like to introduce Rick to something he may never have met. The facts:

In a March 2011 report, the nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute reported that there were 22.4 abortions for every 100 pregnancies in 2008, excluding miscarriages. (The chart can be found in Table 1 on page 3.) The 2008 data is the most recent available, according to Guttmacher spokeswoman Rebecca Wind. The institute’s chart goes back to 1973, and the abortion ratio never reached 33 per 100 pregnancies. Its peak was 30.4 in 1983.

So the highest rate was during Ronald Reagan's first administration?

I wonder how they're gonna blame that on Bill Clinton's penis.

But I digress.

Politifact, on the other hand, went straight to the CDC's numbers:

We chose 2003 as our representative year, since it was the most recent year for which we were able to obtain all of the relevant data.

We set out to determine the number of known pregnancies in 2003. We say "known" because some pregnancies end due to natural causes at a very early stage, often before the woman even realizes she is pregnant. CDC only offers statistics for fetal deaths beginning at a fetal age of 20 weeks, so that’s the parameter we’ll use in our calculations.

To calculate the number of known pregnancies, we added together three figures: the number of live births, the number of fetal deaths (these include natural miscarriages and stillbirths), and the number of abortions. Here’s the data for 2003:

Live births: 4,090,007
Fetal deaths: 25,653
Abortions: 1,250,000

Total known pregnancies: 5,365,660

So abortions account for 23.2 percent of all known pregnancies. That’s less than a quarter of all pregnancies, rather than the one-third Santorum said.

And Rick has another flaw in his "logic" (see what I mean about those irony quotes?). Politifact:

A 2005 Guttmacher study of more than 1,200 women who had undergone an abortion found that a little under half cited the desire not to have additional children as a reason for having their abortion. This means that a substantial minority -- and possibly as many as 53 percent -- expected to have children after the abortion. This pattern was particularly strong among younger women in the study (less than a quarter of those 19 or younger said they were done with childbearing) and among those who had no children at the time of the abortion (only 3 percent said they were done with childbearing).

From an email quoted by factcheck.org, Guttmacher spokesperson Rebecca Wind:

The group of women most likely to have an abortion are in their early 20s. They may already have one child and don’t want another at that time, or they may be childless but desire to have children in the future. Either way, the abortion postpones the birth of their child, it does not eliminate it — and there is no impact on the overall population. Some abortions actually terminate pregnancies that would have ended in miscarriage, so again you can’t assume that every abortion would have otherwise resulted in a live birth.

But let's remember that Rick's a big fan of Intelligent Design - so science and logic are probably not among his intellectual strengths.

Scaife's Tantrum Continues

With this from the Trib:

For those who don't know what's going on, we'll turn (wisely and reverently) to Potter's Slag Heap:

I've often thought of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's editorial page as a form of performance art: Reading it is like watching a performance by Karen Finley ... except when it's time to simulate the smearing around of fecal matter, the creators use newspaper ink instead of chocolate.

Even so, I never thought of the Trib's editorial page as a place to find art criticism. Until today, with the publication of this rather singular piece of journalism.

Headlined "A slip and a slap at the Carnegie," the unsigned editorial denounces the Carnegie for the marketing of its current exhibit, Paul Thek: Diver. [Italics in original.]

Potter finds the bud of the bud:

On the one hand, [The Trib editorial board] affects to be speaking for us dumb yinzers, who just like art if it's got pretty "kellers" n'at. On the other hand, the paper's real gripe is with cultural institutions who ignore the demands of wealthy elites -- the people who "butter its bread."

It's because of this:

From the Trib's art criticism:

But what's even more tasteless is that for one of the billboards used to promote the retrospective, the Carnegie chose a Thek work that features the phrase "Afflict the Comfortable, Comfort the Afflicted" in yellow paint surrounded by a sea of purple.

The saying is a variation of one coined by late 19th- and early 20th-century journalist/humorist Finley Peter Dunne, actually part of a much larger cautioning against some newspapers' proclivity to misuse their power. Since that era, the phrase has been roundly misemployed -- interpreted literally -- by liberal media types and their oftentimes socialist acolytes.

For what it's worth, the Trib's braintrust underplays Dunne's quotation - and inadvertantly gets caught in it's own sticky. For some background into Dunne's line, here's journalist and writer Michael Geffner:

Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. “In the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, an H.L. Mencken-like newspaper editor says, ‘It is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’ Credit for this credit gets passed around. In his 1942 quotation collection, Mencken attributed the saying as ‘author unidentified’ – although Mencken himself is sometimes thought to have been that author. (He was prone to quoting himself anonymously.) Four decades before Mencken’s collection was published, however, Finley Peter Dunne wrote this observation by his philosophizing bartender, Mr. Dooley: “The newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis force an’ th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead and’ roasts thim aftherward.”

It's a complaint about the level of power exercised by all the media (not just some, as the Braintrust self-servingly tried to assert). I would imagine Dooley shaking his head at a newspaper trying to influence, for example, the administration of a museum.

Potter, thatlousybastid, puts it much better (of course):

Hmmm ... newspapers that abuse their own power? You don't say. I can see why a paper owned by Richard Mellon Scaife wouldn't want me to interpret such a warning literally. If you did that, after all, you might suspect that the publisher could be using his paper's editorial page to settle a personal grievance.

For lo! That "afflict the comfortable" business is, it seems, disrespecting wealthy benefactors ... like the ancestors of Mr. Scaife himself!

And then:

But what's really interesting about this editorial is not what it says about the museum ... but what it suggests about the Trib's ideas of philanthrophy. Apparently, the Trib believes that once you take money from a rich person, you are to consider yourself bought and sold. You are never to say anything that your benefactor -- or his heirs -- might disapprove of. When you take a check from a guy with a lot of money, in other words, you are supposed to be his bitch, forever.

That, I'm guessing, is what it means to be Dick Scaife's editorial writer. Similar rules may apply to the numerous think tanks that have been bankrolled with Scaife's money. Whether such rules should apply to a museum, however, is a matter for debate.

I don't think there's much debate on this point for Richard Mellon Scaife. You take his money you do as he says.

The tantrum continues.

We Are One

(Click to enlarge)

The We Are One events which are running from the 1st through the 5th have been billed as "Pittsburgh Labor, Faith, and Community Organizations Honor the Memory of Marin Luther King with Action" but they really are for the 90% of the country who have been battered during the last decade or so. They're for those of us who don't believe you have to have at least 7 million to be considered "rich."

They're for those of us who haven't been brainwashed to think that we should decry public unions making a good wage or having decent benefits -- who know we can't lift ourselves up by putting down them down. They're also for those who believe in the dignity of work -- all work -- something that Republicans used to at last give lip service to but now denigrate the labor of teachers and firefighters and police officers.

They're for the rest of us who have seen our salaries stagnate or decline while the earnings of the wealthiest grow exponentially. They are for those of us who have seen our school budgets slashed and burned; our infrastructure crumble; our land, water and air befouled; and the gutting of any help for health care costs.

These events are for those of us who know that there is Class Warfare and that we have lost. Please attend if you possibly can:

Monday, April 4 - National Day of Action

Noon: We Are One Protest EQT Plaza, 6th St. and Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh Followed by educational leafleting and sidewalk march to Gov. Tom Corbett’s office at 301 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh

1:00 PM: Free luncheon featuring National leader of Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME) United Steelworkers headquarters, 60 Blvd. of the Allies, Pittsburgh, Featuring Pipino Cuevas Velázquez of SME

3:00 PM to 5:00 PM: Labor and Economy Lecture Featuring USW International President Leo W. Gerard, US Steel CEO John Surma speaking at CCAC Allegheny Campus, Foerster Student Service Center Auditorium, 808 Ridge Ave., Pittsburgh, 15212.

7:00 PM: Pipino Cuevas Velázquez Event This international Labor Leader will be joined by local leaders of public sector unions from around the U.S. and Pittsburgh who are fighting against cuts and the attack on fundamental labor rights. University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Room 107 3900 Forbes Ave., 15260

See other events/RSVP here

G.E. Apologizes

In an early morning press conference today, General Electric Chief Executive Jeff Immelt apologized for their recent corporate tax controversy. G.E. is the nations's largest corporation. Despite reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion for 2010 (5.1 billion from US operations), G.E. not only paid zero in federal income taxes in 2010, they claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

Immelt acknowledged, "The fact that we paid nothing to the I.R.S. this year can only be described as obscene." He went on to add:

"When a company's lowest paid employee pays more in federal taxes than the company itself there is a fundamental flaw in the system. In this tough economy millions of hard-working Americans are struggling to just get by let alone to pay their own taxes. Moreover, they are being hit on all sides by cutbacks in government services at both the federal and state levels. Frankly, I'm surprised that they aren't rioting in the streets."

Immelt said that corporations like G.E. should not be able to concentrate their profits offshore and said that as President Obama's liaison to the business community and as the chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, he plans to lobby other American multinationals to imagine a better way. "We must be better corporate citizens. We must pay our fair share," he said.

At the end of the presser, Immelt replied to a question about the G.E.-designed reactors at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant with, "My bad." .

Faith In Politics (But Only The Acceptable Faith)

A few weeks ago, I blogged on Rick Santorum's hypocrisy regarding faith in the public sphere. For him, there should be more faith in the public sphere (he's not a fan of the separation of Church and State) but only the faith(s) acceptable to him and people like him.

Good religion (his) should be in, bad religion (Islam, not-his) should be out.

Still no word from Lil Ricky on how that gibes with this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

But I digress.

Needless to say, this feeling is widespread amongst our good friends on the other side of the political aisle. From Huffingtonpost:

While most eyes were on the Conservative Principles Political Action Committee conference in Iowa on Saturday, many of us who follow the religious right were more interested in another conference, also held in Iowa, on Thursday and Friday. This other conference was the Rediscover God in America conference, where all the same potential 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls that appeared at the Saturday's Conservative Principles PAC conference told us what they really think -- that America should be governed by biblical law.

Sure, there was a lot of talk about important issues like the economy at the Conservative Principles PAC conference, but it was at the Rediscover God in America conference that we learned that all of our economic policies should be based on the Bible. And who did we learn this from? None other than Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton, who kicked off the conference with a lengthy presentation of his usual historical hogwash. Then, one by one, as the potential Republican presidential candidates took the podium to let the audience full of pastors know just how Christian they are, each began by gushing about what a great historian and good friend David Barton is.

Among them:

But the most outrageous statement by far came from Mike Huckabee, who expressed his admiration for Barton by saying that he "almost wished" that "all Americans would be forced -- forced at gunpoint no less -- to listen to every David Barton message."

While that last part should please our 2nd Amendment friends, again no word on how forcing someone to listen to a religious message meshes with the 1st Amendment.

But that's just on the Christian end, what does Huckabee have to say about Islam? From Politics Daily:

Just days after stirring Muslim ire for ripping Islam as "the antithesis of the gospel of Christ," Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee again sharply critiqued the religion, telling an evangelical magazine that Muslims are receiving special treatment "at the expense of others" -- apparently referring to Christians -- and that is "un-American."

In the interview with Christianity Today, Huckabee was asked about New York Rep. Peter King's controversial plan to hold hearings in March on the alleged radicalization of American Muslims, and Huckabee responded by talking about concerns that Muslims wanted to "impose" the Islamic religious law code known as Sharia on Americans.

Sharia law cannot be used to trump U.S. laws, but conservatives, including Newt Gingrich -- another GOP hopeful for 2012 -- have gained traction with their base by arguing that it can, and Huckabee seemed to be joining that camp.

"We live in a country where people are free to be Muslim. They're not free, however, to impose a Muslim law as if it were civil law," Huckabee, a Baptist and former pastor, said.

On the other hand, imposing Christianity as if it were a civil law? That's completely OK.

Can I say it again?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

Can I get an amen?

PLAYBALL!

Of Squirmishes and Turd Sandwiches

"Squirmish"

Half-Governor Sarah Palin is at it again. The Shakespeare of Wasilla has created another new word. While criticizing President Obama on our action in Libya, she said the following:

“[D]o we use the term intervention, do we use war, do we use squirmish?”

Uh, Sarah. May I call you Sarah? I guarantee you that Obama doesn't call it a "squirmish." And, personally, I get all "squirmish" whenever you speak:

"Turd Sandwich"

Besides, apparently he's calling it a "turd sandwich":

Ha! This One's Funny!

From today's Tribune-Review:

The George Soros-funded liberal group Media Matters might be violating its tax-exempt educational status by announcing it will engage in "guerrilla warfare and sabotage" against Fox News, says Mark Tapscott of The Examiner in Washington. That's because the group's 501(C)(3) status prohibits partisan political activity. The IRS will nip this in the bud, right? If we had a buck for every snicker just snorted, we'd be rich.

Here's the politico article the Scaife-funded editorial board references. In it, Mark Tapscott writes:

Media Matters, the George Soros-backed liberal agit-prop shock troops based in the nation’s capital, has declared war on Fox News, and in the process quite possibly has stepped across the line of legality.

David Brock, MM’s founder, was quoted Saturday by Politico promising that his organization is mounting “guerrila warfare and sabotage” against Fox News, which he said “is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.”

To that end, Brock told Politico that MM will “focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests …” Murdoch is the founder of Fox News and a media titan with newspaper, broadcast, Internet and other media countries around the world.

There is nothing in the Politico article to suggest that Brock, who was paid just under $300,000 in 2009, according to the group’s most recently available tax return, has moved to change his organization’s tax status as a 501(C)(3) tax-exempt educational foundation.

Here's the Politico article Tapscott references.

The only problem with this whole argument is that the only way for Fox "News" to defend itself is to declare that it IS a part of the GOP. Fair and balanced, no more.

Even then, it's iffy -because here's what the IRS actually says:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention. [emphasis added.]

So unless Mediamatters starts telling people to favor one campaign or set of campaigns looks like they're safe.

Another made up scandal brought to you by the right wing media noise machine.

Bumped Into A Retired Admiral This Afternoon

Coincidences are fun!

Late this afternoon I found this at Early Returns 2.0:

The former Navy admiral and congressman is back in Pittsburgh today after speaking at a Marcellus Shale conference, and continuing his thank-you tour of supporters from his US Senate run.

Not 20 minutes later, I as I am leaving the building I work in who should I see walking towards the coffee shop in the lobby?

The former Navy admiral and congressman, Joe Sestak.

Obviously, he had no idea who I was (and why would he?) but he shook my hand graciously as he thanked me for supporting him in his bid for the Senate.

Classy guy all around.

But Ginny, He IS A War Criminal

My friend Ginny wrote yesterday:

The very day I outed myself as Virginia Montanez instead of PittGirl, Chad Hermann at the Radical Middle latched on to this letter to the editor I wrote when George Bush was re-elected, wondering how my readers were going to like me knowing I was a Republican. This resulted in some uproar from readers who were shocked I ever voted for a “war criminal.” Yes. WAR CRIMINAL. I voted for him because as you already know ME LOVE KILLING! GRRRRR.

But Ginny, why the use of the ironic quotation marks? Bush IS a war criminal and he was when you voted for him in 2004. He approved the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and KSM (as he's known in intelligence circles) was waterboarded in 2003 - well before the 2004 election.

I don't think I need to spell out (again) how waterboarding is torture and how torture is against international and US law and how torture is a war crime, do I?

Even without the Bush-approved torture, the case could be made for war criminal by the invasion of Iraq itself and the dishonesty he used to support it - where were the connections to al-Qaeda? the sale of uranium in Niger? the WMD? They were no where to be found. The foundations for the war were fraudulent even if the war resulted in halting Saddam Hussein's murderous regime. Bottom line is that all that blood (American, Iraqi, British, etc) IS on Dubya's hands.

Whatever else belongs in your otherwise thoughtful and nuanced blog post, the irony quotes don't.

Perhaps I misunderstood (and if I did, then I apologize in advance) and you DO think that Bush is a war criminal and you were merely quoting one or more readers with your use of the quotation marks.

If that's the case, then why the vote for the war criminal?