Today: Senator Barbara Boxer, Jeremy Scahill, and a look at the costs of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
‘Busted
Rachel started us off with — oh, here’s a shocker — some bald-faced lying by Republicans in an attempt to trick the most ill informed segments of the public. (Some of whom, it turns out, are members of the press.)
The Democrats, having pulled their nards out of that old Mason jar in the attic, are finally thinking about using the reconciliation process to actually get things done. The Republicans are calling that the “nuclear option,” even though that’s the name they themselves used for a very different thing a few years ago.
It’s nice to know they’re finally getting into recycling.
So it’s not really the nuclear option, it’s the handgun option. And they know that. And the Republicans have used it a lot. (They never could resist handguns.)
It’s an openly dishonest, jerk move. And it’s not something anyone should be surprised by anymore.
This isn’t about a few acts of bending the truth or an occasional decision of politics over policy. The Republicans have created a culture in which winning is valued over honor, fair play, honesty, and the interests of the nation.
That’s part of the reason they swung into screeching paranoia over the invitation to today’s bipartisan health care conference: They don’t really speak bipartisan anymore. In Republican minds, when the Democrats offer something, they must really be trying some sort of trick.
It’s like how con artists think everyone else is trying to con them. They can’t see the world any other way. And, with nothing else to offer, they can’t see any way to move forward but to keep grifting.
It must be a bleak, foul inner landscape for the chief offenders. I’d feel bad for them if they weren’t trying to destroy legislation that would save thousands of lives a year.
But, hey, at least they look impressively forceful and indignant while lying on Fox.
“Deal with It”
Still frustrated over the games and lying? Never fear. Rachel served up a glorious clip of Congressman Anthony Weiner (D — New York) saying everything you’ve been wanting to say, right there in Congress. It is immensely satisfying.
Rachel followed up with about eight cans of whoop-ass. Let’s hope some of the Democrats saw it before hitting the health care summit.
Terrorism
Joseph Stack decided that the answer to his problems was to commit suicide and kill as many innocent strangers as he could while he did, so he flew his plane into the building that housed the IRS offices in Austin, TX.
Stack did, in fact, kill an innocent stranger, Vernon Hunter, a veteran who did two tours of duty in Vietnam.
Representative Steve King (R – Iowa) — who spent a good chunk of the health care debate posturing about his highly moral pro-life views — thinks that murdering a man because it’s frustrating to pay taxes is neato.
He is exactly that stupid and unfeeling.
The one good thing about the vile public statements King has been making is that he has given his own sleazeball game away and we can be done with him. He does not have a moral compass or any real principles. Anything he says is unexamined grandstanding and pure horse manure.
We don’t have to pay attention to anything King says ever again. Just leave him where he is: beneath contempt.
Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com joined Rachel to discuss the sick trends in the rhetoric of the right and the national reluctance to use the word “terrorism” when we’re talking about non-Muslim white guys.
Letter from a Mountain Soldier
Congressman James Moran (D — Virginia) took to the floor to show how cruel Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell really is. He took examples from a letter from a military officer, which you can read in full on the TRMS site.
Rachel pointed out that the U.S. Navy has just ended its ban on women serving in submarines — close quarters indeed — without all the debate and hand-wringing and assumptions that trained professionals will suddenly lose their minds. Someone noticed the policy was silly and they did away with it.
Let’s hope the sanity is contagious.
Oh No Xe Didn’t
How is Xe /Blackwater or InFernalCo or whatever they’re calling themselves still up for government-funded work that isn’t breaking rocks on a chain gang?
Exactly how many evil things do they have to do in a row to get pushed off the gravy train? If they break the streak does the count start over or something?
Rachel was stunned by the fact that a Blackwater employee in Afghanistan got away with signing out 200 AK-47s under the fake name “Eric Cartman.”
Me, I’m still trying to get my mind around the fact that Blackwater had a system that allowed one to sign out automatic weapons.
