Rebuffs for conservative attacks on Sotomayor: Liberal Talking Points for the day

If you're so inclined as to come to the defense of the "most conservative Supreme Court pick Obama could have made", HuffPo blogger-reporter Jason Linkins reviews how (arch-conservative) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has argued that "courts make law" (as conservatives are accusing Sotomayor of saying as a reference to "activist judging") and empathy and the racial background/history/experiences of a candidate were brought to bear in the nominations of Alito and Clarence Thomas:

This all comes courtesy of HuffPost reader Doug Schafer, who is of the opinion that journalists ought to avail themselves of this citation from Scalia whenever the "judges don't make law" canard arises. I agree!

Additionally, Sotomayor's critics are up in arms over the fact that she has admitted that her ethnic background has an affect on her decision making process. Who does she think she is? Well, as it turns out, she probably thinks she's being very similar to Justice Sam Alito:

ALITO: Senator, I tried to in my opening statement, I tried to provide a little picture of who I am as a human being and how my background and my experiences have shaped me and brought me to this point. ... And that's why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position. [...]

And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.

[WATCH.]

And, in a related way, the criticism over "empathy" fits the same "this-was-once-deemed-okay" mold. My experience teaches me that only robots lack empathy, and that most people value it. Yet, ever since President Barack Obama cited it as a focus of his, in his search for a replacement for Justice David Souter, the whole notion of "empathy" has been treated as an alien thing that threatens the sanctity of court decisions.

That's weird! In July of 1991, "empathy" was one of the major selling points presented at the nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas...

And speaking of Supreme Court Joke Justice Joke Clarence Thomas, HuffPo's Trey Ellis writes:

When a middling black student from Holy Cross goes on to Yale Law School, graduates in the middle of his class and is rated by the American Bar Association between "qualified" and "not qualified," the right festoons him with laurels. Clarence Thomas, you see, reaffirmed the comforting notions many in the right have about the supremacy of white maleness. George the First nominated him clearly because any black jurist would do and there he stands today, a reassuring beacon of black inferiority.

(I'm not saying that the first George Bush wouldn't have picked a more qualified black arch conservative if there had been one laying around. In matters of race the first George Bush wasn't such a bad egg.)

Nevertheless, for the far right his nomination was a wet dream and the humiliating effect on competent black folks is the same.

Sotomayor's been dealing with this crap for years. The LA Times reports today that in law school she sued a white-shoe Washington law firm for the exact same kind of white-male- supremacist attitudes the right is regurgitating her way right now...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hypocrisy's ok when I do it.

Absolute Insanity

HuffPo has more examples of the wildly over-the-top and hysterical Teabagging protests, from "Barack Hussein Obama: The New Face of Hitler" to a quite well-drawn poster of Obama slitting Uncle Sam's throat from behind, to "Obama: What you talkin' about Willis? Spend my money?" and "The American Taxpayers Are the Jews for Obama's Ovens" and "Obama's Plan: White Slavery."

Two points:
a) Wow, that is some amazing batshit wingnuttery, and
b) Seriously? Can we really pretend that this doesn't have at least something to do with race for a lot of these protesters, from the "white slavery" worries and Diff'rent Strokes references, among other things?

My mind, she is being blown (like the winds of gayness blowing each other in the concerned video from Stephen Colbert).

The weird thing is, as Jon Stewart said, these people have taken the worst/most nonsensical aspects of the politically leftist protests in terms of hyperbole and crazy attention-drawing but hard-to-take-serious costumes, making it hard to agree with them, even when you agree with them.

"...People whose theatrical flair makes it impossible to take them seriously, even if you agree with them. [beat] 'You know, Big Boobed Obama in Her Underwear Holding a Mutilated Elmo is right about our government.'"

I mean, I do agree with some of the points about funding banks over real, actual people, I do have concerns about the bailout, there's constructive conservative-progressive common ground to be had... but I'm thinking me & Mr. White Slavery Accusation just wouldn't see eye to eye enough outside of that essential point to make constructive use of any zone of agreement... [sigh]

Also, the Idiot's Guide to Idiotic Tax Protesters

Sometimes J-Fav economic Bob Reich (a Clinton-era economic official who often says sensible things but seems to have -- essentially admitted in his own book -- lacked the courage to vigorously oppose idiocy and greed while he's within the political system rather than just a commentator) writes "A Short Citizen's Guide to Kooks, Demagogues, and Right-Wingers On Tax Day" over at his TPM Blog. The thing is really damned good, so here's a large non-consecutive sample to whet your appetite:

1. "Americans pay too much in taxes." Wrong: The United States has the lowest taxes of all developed nations.

2. "The rich pay too much! The top ten percent of income earners pay over 72 percent of all income taxes!" Misleading: The main reason the rich pay such a large percent is they've become so much richer than the bottom 90 percent in recent years. If you look at what they pay as individuals -- the percent of their incomes over and above the highest rate below them -- you'll see a steady decline over the years. When Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the marginal rate on the highest earners was 91 percent (after deductions and tax credits, closer to 50 percent)...

...

4. "Obama is raising your taxes!" Wrong. Obama is cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans, by about $400 per person a year -- not a whopping tax cut, to be sure, but not a tax increase by any stretch.
...
6. "We have a patriotic duty to stand up against Washington taxes!" Just the opposite. We have a patriotic duty to pay taxes. As multi-billionaire Warrent Buffett put it, "If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you'll find out how much this talent is going to product in the wrong kind of soil. I will be struggling thirty years later." President Teddy Roosevelt made the case in 1906 when he argued in favor of continuing the inheritance tax. "The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government."

Hmm... that last bit certainly doesn't sound much like certain self-proclaimed Teddy Roosevelt Republicans.

I swear... American memory has always been short (my favorite example was the Olympics some years ago in Greece, where Americans were surprised there was a not-insignificant amount of dislike for us among the Greek -- they were understandable still pissed we had supported a dictatorship in Greece in the 60s & 70s, i.e. well within living memory, which, darkly amusingly enough, we as an overall country had rather forgotten that and were perplexed by their "anti-Americanism"), but right now we're like a mad-high dude with our "linear memory" completely disrupted -- we can't even remember what happened five minutes ago, especially when that requires some level of cognitive dissonance. Cheeses cristers.

Republican Revolt: WTF?

I haven't been closely following the mainstream news recently, but while I know Olbermann & Maddow have been covering the Republican/conservative grassroots-ish Fox News supported TeaBagging rallies, I haven't found much in the way of satisfying analysis on-line. On the other hand, I haven't looked very hard -- but Slate hasn't covered it closely, let's say. The Daily Show, on the other hand:

Jon Stewart Slams Hannity, Bachmann, And Beck: Defeat Is 'Supposed to Taste Like a Sh*t Taco'

Stewart: Yes, tyranny. A.K.A. our democratically elected President. You know what guys....I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing. And I feel for you because ah...I've been there. A few times. In fact one of them was a bit of a nail biter. But see, when the guy that you disagree with gets elected, he's probably going to do things you disagree with. He could cut taxes on the wealthy. Remove government's oversight capability. Invade a country that you thought should not be invaded but that's not tyranny. That's democracy. See now you're in the minority. It's supposed to taste like a s#%t taco. And by the way, if I remember correctly when a disagreement was expressed about that President's actions when ya'll were in power I believe the response was "Why do you hate America?". "Watch what you say." "Love it or leave it." "Suck on my truck nuts." ..... For god's sake guys. You've been out of power for ten f*%#ng weeks. You've got a mid-term election in twenty months. Pace your rage! (h/t C&L)

Yesterday night, and previously, in the paragraph linked above, The Daily Show has been pointing out the wild WILD crazy hypocrisy of this Republican Uprising. Perhaps John Oliver only interviewed the craziest of the crazies on yesterday's show, but they argued that the Obama Administration was worse than England's rule over The Colonies (with Oliver hilariously defending England's imperial fiendishness, with its torture, tyranny and wiping out of the Native Americans), and called the prospective couple % increase in tax rates -- to still far LOWER than it was under, say, Reagan, much less Kennedy -- taxation without representation. Even though, as John Oliver pointed out, they do have representation. And Stewart, at some point, I don't remember what day, pointed out -- in democracy, yes indeed you have the right to voice and support positions and politicians representing these. But these CrazeFuck Wackaloons seem to have confused the right to representation for the right to always win. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Stewart highlighted Fox News peeps' hypocrisy over all this, what with their ridiculing of lefty protesters in years gone by and warning leftiest that their language and anger and criticism was unpatriotic or even "dangerous" or incitations of violence, yet now Bill O'Reilly talked in front of a graphic saying "The protests are perfectly valid: arguing about government size is perfectly valid." Sure, yeah, great -- where was all this assurance of "validity" for lefty protesters? Where is the Hannity that criticized an activist for advocating "anarchy on the streets of Washington" as being a threat of violence, yet two days ago agreed with a righty activist that what we need is "a revolution" right now against this government?

What TYRANNY are they talking about? In the name of all that's right and good -- is it really the prospect of a tax increase? Is it really the money given to the self-same market capitalists that have had the Right's backing (and the Left in government as well, actually) for decades that is pissing them off? While I agree that this money to the banks et al. is shady at best and downright intellectually and morally bankrupt on the O administration's part at worst (see commentary at Talking Point Memo on how the assumptions behind giving insolvent banks money to get a recovery are a bit facile at best), this is not a new tyranny. And in what world is this worse than the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where, by any count, thousands of innocent civilians have died and we've spent billions of dollars and lost or had wounded thousands of our citizens? In what world is this worse than support for Israel despite its contravention of the nuclear weapons treaty (Israel is not an openly nuclear state, though it's widely agreed that they nonetheless have nuclear weapons and are therefore in violation of the relevant treaties) yet pressuring Iran to obey the same rules we don't require of our allies? (Of course, that makes perfect realpolitik sense, but realpolitik also often includes telling the truth about one's utilitarian motivations)? In what world... well, I could go on. But in sum: this is RE-FUCKING-GOD-DAMNED-DUNCULOUS. Argh.

Sorry. I just lose it every time I see the women interviewed on the Daily Show that, well, refused to be interviewed because Jon Stewart has a communist agenda. It's not so much that she hates Jon Stewart (or at least his agenda), it's WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH COMMUNISM? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? AHHHHHHHHHH!

Cheeses fuck, but our country is home to some messed up political dynamics.

ACORN: A Good Apple

I was outraged that Obama didn't bother to defend ACORN against McCain's ridiculous charges last night.

ACORN registers people to vote; we all agree this is a good thing, right? Well, the voter fraud charges against them are largely BULLSHIT, and I'm here to tell you why.

Three articles:
Nuts About ACORN: Believing in vote fraud may be dangerous to a democracy's health.By Dahlia Lithwick

and

So where's the ACORN voter fraud? and Republican Voter Fraud Hoax by Brad Friedman (US citizen and not-voting-for-Obama-er, despite what the commenters at The Guardian UK thought. Read the endless comments for a gamut of arguments, and scary shit about the socialist revolution that Obama is self-apparently NOT leading, not to mention that most people couldn't even correctly define any of a myriad of CORRECT definitions of socialism or distinguish it meaningfully from communism... I know it's bad to say, but I once again am ready to leave this shit and emigrate. Actually, for the first time -- last two elections I felt it was my duty to stay, but fuck that, I need a change of arguments at least, even if there's stupidity and disagreement everywhere. I need NEW political viewpoints and arguments to feel condescending towards, no more American discoursic treadmilling for me.)

(Of course, I have no actual plans to leave. But dammit, I'm getting too old for this shit. =)

ACORN is getting slammed over ridiculous, fictional sh*t.
A) They're required by law to turn in all filled out registration forms, EVEN IF THEY ALREADY KNOW THEY'RE FRAUDULENT. Would you rather ACORN itself decide which registration cards are good and which aren't?
B) They VOLUNTARILY report irregularities; one police raid of their offices was to seize files THEY'D ALREADY REPORTED AS QUESTIONABLE, without being asked. In fact, most cases "against" ACORN have been on people they themselves have turned in.
C) They register MILLIONS of VALID voters each year; the fraudulent cases represent less than 0.5%.
D) No one has EVER successfully linked voter REGISTRATION fraud, and actual VOTER FRAUD -- because all voters have to show up with an ID. Consequently, ACORN has never been connected to VOTER FRAUD.
E) They do NOT pay by the registration card; they pay BY THE HOUR.
F) They register ANYONE who they encounter on their drives; Dem or Rep. They focus on urban, poor, and minority populations. The majority of urban, poor, and minority populations are DEMOCRATS. Maintaining that ACORN is biased because they population it services is primarily Democratic is like claiming that the Detroit DMV is racist against whites because most of the people it serves are black.