Commonwealth Commonsense

A Use for Gitmo

Maybe we’ve found a use for Gitmo after all.  Let’s send this guy there.

"To all modern Sons of Liberty: THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW."

These were the words of Mike Vanderboegh, a 57-year-old former militiaman from Alabama, who took to his blog urging people who opposed the historic health-care reform legislation -- he calls it "Nancy Pelosi's Intolerable Act" -- to throw bricks through the windows of Democratic offices nationwide.

"So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party [that they] cannot fail to hear, break their windows," Vanderboegh wrote on the blog, Sipsey Street Irregulars. "Break them NOW. Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats. But BREAK THEM."

Law? What Law?

Seems things got testy at the Senate Finance Committee today.  Chairman Max Baucus was getting impatient with an amendment GOPer Jon Kyl of Arizona wanted considered.  Kyl didn’t like that.

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona indignantly raised his voice after committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana urged him to hurry up and finish a point. An outwardly irritated Kyl told Baucus he was not delaying, but was instead trying to make an extremely important point about flaws in the legislation. Baucus shot back that while Kyl's point might be important, he also was holding up the panel's work.

Kyl was speaking in favor of a GOP amendment that could have prevented the government from implementing the bill — even if it's passed and signed into law.

Gee, Mr. Kyl, if you want to pass a law that the government can ignore, you need to run for the Senate in North Korea.

Stifling Free Speech, Part 2

ABC is reporting that Texas Republican Senator John Cronyn is sending a letter to the White House complaining that the Obama administration is stifling free speech by asking supporters to send the administration any “fishy” emails they receive about healthcare reform.  “Fishy” is a funny word to use in this case, as what they apparently were referring to emails that make claims about reform that the reader finds unusual given what s/he heard from reputable sources.

Seems Republicans want to make any outrageous claims they want to without being scrutinized.  What they want is to limit my free speech by prohibiting me from telling others that their claims are wrong.

But fishy was the wrong word.

Pay to Play

The American Conservative Union is for sale.

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.

Do You Live in a "Pro-America Area of This Great Nation"?

We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C.... We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom."

--Sarah Palin, Oct. 17, 2008

I read this and panicked.  Did I live in an anti-American part of the country?  Being so close to the nation's capital, I had reason for concern. 

More important, was I born in a pro-American part of the country, because if not, could I be congenitally -- and irreversibly -- anti-American?  I called my hometown mayor's office.  The woman who answered had not been asked the question before, so she said she'd need to do some research and call me back.  It took only 10 minutes before she called.  I knew that was a bad sign.  It's an older town. I expected it to take awhile to review the records.  A quick call suggested she found bad news without much trouble. 

I was right.  Seems there were records of civil disturbances against the government there that slowly grew over time and eventually spun out of control.  My hometown had a distinct history of outright rebellion and armed insurrection.  Philadelphia is clearly not a pro-American part of the country.  I sure hope the Phillies play the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.  I hear it's equally anti-American.  That way, not everyone in the pro-American areas of the country would root against the Phils.

I then conducted research to find out how else I might tell if an area of the U.S. was pro-American or anti-American.  I talked not just to people at city halls across the country.  I talked to regular people.  No elites.  In fact, I tried in most cases to limit my interviews to plumbers, or at least guys who revealed more than we care to see when they lean over. I also asked Congresswoman Michele Bachman of Minnesota.  On "Chris Matthews' Hardball" yesterday she seemed to be an expert and had a good antenna for what makes an anti-American American. 

 

Here are the results of my research.  To make it easy for you stupid "leftist liberals" (as opposed to you right-wing liberals or left wing conservatives), I've put the differences in a simple chart, figuring that this narrative has already overtaxed your limited powers of comprehension.

Pro-American Areas	Anti-American Areas
Flags are everywhere	Flags only used as curtains or seat covers on old VW buses
All restaurants have fluorescent lights	Not only have but list Middle Eastern restaurants in the phone book
Are proud of their "Negro boy" who is the tailback on the state championship football team	Allow African Americans to play quarterback
Cars park front in on Main St.	People ride busses -- and everyone can sit anywhere they want
Folks at city hall are helpful and friendly	City hall signs are in English and Spanish
People are hard working and play by the rules	People trade derivatives and credit default swaps
Women always wear lipstick	Only put lipstick on pigs
Drink Pabst Blue Ribbon	Drink Pinot Noir and wash it down with valium
Overweight only means "the more tread on the tire, the smoother the ride"	Go to gyms after they graduate high school
Marge can give you a wash and a perm	Kim Nguyen does your nails
Guys at the hardware store know a hammer from a nail	Guys at Home Depot don't know their left from their right
Admire those who are "protecting the virtues of freedom"	Want to actually practice freedom of thought
Love those who are "teaching our kids"	Allow their kids to think about what they are taught
Love "everyday Americans"	Have a mild appreciation and some tolerance for all kinds of Americans...in the next neighborhood
Appreciate the one-on-one battle of wits between wild animals and a 12 gauge shotgun	Never even try to shoot a wolf from a helicopter
Elect beauty queens to public office if they can play the flute	Elect Barney Frank
Can talk real good and don't need no newspaper...also	Read the Times then The Post every day, and for a different viewpoint they read The Post first
Plumbers make $250,000 a year	Plumbers haven't worked since Watergate

I used to like John McCain.  And then I hated him.  Now I feel sorry for him.  Think what you may of him, but can you imagine his reaction when his aides came to him yesterday and said Sarah implied to a crowd that some parts of the country were anti-American?  He's dying a political death of a thousand cuts, some self-inflicted, some self-induced and many from the little lady a heartbeat away.  If there is a God, McCain will go back to the Senate a tragic figure of American politics. 

And Sarah will go back to Alaska wondering what the fuss was all about.

If McCain Says It to his Face, What Will Obama Say?

Sen. Barack Obama told Charlie Gibson that he doesn't know why Sen. John McCain didn't say to his face what McCain has been telling his campaign crowds.  Should McCain gather enough courage to say it at the next debate, here's what he should say.

Sen. McCain, you once said you wanted a respectful campaign about the issues facing the American people.  Those issues are much more critical than they were when you said that.  Since then, our economy is imploding and Americans' retirement accounts have shrunk dramatically. 

But that's not the campaign you're running now.  Instead, you have sunk to repeated character assassination with charges you know to be false.

Mr. Ayers committed his acts when I was 8 years old.  I've condemned them.  Now -- I admit -- I admit that I didn't condemn them when I was 8 years old. So if you want to criticize me for not condemning him right away, I guess I'll have to accept that criticism.  But I have unequivocally condemned his acts.  And as has been reported all across this country, Mr. Ayers and I are not friends.  He does live in my neighborhood and we both served on boards of organizations that looked to improve education and relieve poverty.  You may think that's a crime. I'll let the American people be my judge.

Are you, Sen. McCain, willing to be condemned by the actions of any of the people who have supported you?  Would that include Charles Keating?  Would that include Pastor John Hagee?  Do you, Sen. McCain, want to be judged by members of groups you've been associated with?  Maybe John Singlaub, the leader of a group linked to Nazi collaborators?

Let's stop this nonsense of trying to find ways to divide the American people over manufactured controversies?  Let's discuss how we want to lead this country. Shame on you, John.

And by the way, if this line of attack continues, I think Obama should bring it up at the next debate, accusing McCain of being two-faced and a coward.

Hastert Doing the Dirty Work

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said he opposes extending time to the bi-partisan commission looking into the 9/11 attacks. Republicans Tom Kean, who is heading the investigation, and another Republican member both want more time, due in part to the stonewalling by the Bush White House that has hampered the commission. Republican John Lehman, a former Navy secretary, called opposition unacceptable, according to The Washington Post.