In Which I Toss Aside Political Correctness In My Quest For Universal Love

 Opinion | thepilot.com

Here are a few random observations on the bizarre happenings of the last couple of weeks:

— On March 11, Sen. Orrin Hatch told a reporter from the right-wing “news” site Newsmax that he doubted that President Obama would nominate a nice moderate judge to fill the seat of the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

For example, Hatch noted, “he could easily name Merrick Garland (Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals), who is a fine man.”

Hatch quickly went on to say, “But he probably won’t do that, because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the (liberal Democratic base) wants.”

So whom did the president nominate on March 16? None other than that “fine man” himself, Judge Merrick Garland. It’ll be fun to watch all of the people like Hatch who have praised Garland and voted for him to be chief suddenly acting like the guy’s some raging liberal who’s unfit to wear a judge’s robe.

Let’s face it, Republicans: The president of the United States is messing with you. And he’s doing it brilliantly.

— Meanwhile, Sen. Pat Toomey revealed more than he probably thought he had when he took to Twitter to say, “Should Merrick Garland be nominated again by the next president, I would be happy to carefully consider his nomination.”

Another senator, the aptly named Jeff Flake of Arizona, said he’d vote for Garland in the lame duck session after the election if Hillary Clinton won to keep her from nominating someone farther left. So much for the principle that they’re just “waiting for the people to speak.”

News flash, ladies and gentlemen: They did speak. Twice, when they elected Obama by large margins, knowing that part of his job for the entirety of both four-year terms would be to appoint Supreme Court Justices whenever vacancies come due.

He’s done his job, senators. Now do yours.

— On this past week’s sort-of-Super Tuesday, Donald Trump gathered a large number of the delegates he’ll need to win the Republican nomination outright.

His rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich, however, also won enough delegates to get closer to their dream of denying Trump that knockout victory and possibly throwing the nomination wide-open at a so-called “open” or “brokered” convention in Cleveland.

I wouldn’t do that if I were you, warned Trump. If he doesn’t get the nomination “automatically,” he told CNN, “I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots. I’m representing a tremendous, many, many millions of people. … I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”

Got that? The man who aspires to be the leader of the Free World is threatening his own party like a bit player on “The Sopranos.” It’s a heck of a thing when the ‎GOP’s best hope is a brokered convention that’s only a figurative bloodbath and not a literal one. I don't envy them.‬‬‬‬

— Speaking of Trump and violent thuggery, it seems that he’s backpedaling on his statement that he’d “pay the legal fees” of people who beat up protesters at his rallies, such as the old geezer who walked up and cold-cocked a black protester being led out of the arena in Fayetteville.

By “backpedaling,” I mean “lying and claiming that he ever said it, even though he’s on video as saying exactly that.”

There have been some classic liars in the American political scene, but the Republican frontrunner is in a class by himself. This is a man who can deny something happened, even as he’s looking at a video of it happening.

That’s either a rare gift of sheer nerve or a complete disconnection from reality. But somehow, his supporters say they love Donald for “telling it like it is.”

— Trump’s supporters also say they love him for the fact that “he doesn’t care about political correctness.”

When you actually look at what they call “political correctness,” however, it becomes clear that all “PC” really means is having some degree of sensitivity about how your words might affect, offend, even wound people.

Well, if that kind of sensitivity is what you despise and resent, then allow me to be politically incorrect: If you’re voting for this con artist, you’re a bloody moron. A rube. A sucker for this cheap carnival barker who preys on your anger, fear and ignorance to make you feel like you’re an oppressed minority when you’re anything but that. Grow the heck up.

There. I told it like it is with no concern for political correctness. Love me now?

Way Too Interesting

 Opinion | thepilot.com

So now Donald Trump, the red-faced, bellowing bully who’s taken the Republican Party by storm, has won New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — and now seems unstoppable in his quest to lead his party to the most crushing general election defeat in modern history this November.

It appears that all of us have fallen under the old curse “may you live in interesting times.” Because our nation’s political life has gotten way too interesting, and I’m thinking it’s going to get worse.

It’s already interesting that many of the same people who sniff disdainfully about liberals “calling people names” are cheering loudly for someone who’s made it the primary tactic of his campaign.

It’s already interesting that many of the same people who’ll have an attack of the vapors if someone says a swear word on TV or posts one on the Internet are supporting a man who says he’ll “bomb the [bad word] out of ISIS” and who gleefully repeats a vulgar slur over the microphone when one of this supporters uses it against one of his opponents.

It’s interesting that the people who have made Planned Parenthood their new bogeyman and who have demanded it be defunded and shut down are now lining up behind the man who said, out loud and in public, that that organization has done “some very good work.”

It’s interesting that the people who claim to honor the sanctity of marriage are so enamored of a man who left his first wife after a well-publicized affair with another woman, who then married and divorced said woman, and who is now married to a third woman 24 years his junior.

It’s interesting that the people who screech about Hillary Clinton’s “lies” are backing a man who claims that he wrote in 2000 that “we needed to take Osama bin Laden out” (he didn’t), a man who claims “our president wants to take in 250,000 from Syria” (the actual number is closer to 10,000), a man who claims the actual unemployment rate is “probably 28, 29, as high as 35. …. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent” (even the highest measure of unemployment isn’t a quarter of that, and that measure — the so-called “U6,” which counts even the people who are working part time as unemployed — is the lowest it’s been since 2008).

The fact-checking site Politifact reports that it looked at “more than 70 Trump statements and rated fully three-quarters of them as Mostly False, False or ‘Pants on Fire,’” a designation they use for “a claim that is not only inaccurate but also ridiculous.”

Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can listen to a Trump supporter talk about Hillary Clinton’s “lies” without laughing in their face. I certainly can’t.

But I suspect the interesting times have just begun.

It’s going to be interesting when the people who completely flipped out when First Lady Michelle Obama wore a dress that exposed her bare arms try to tell us that it’s no big deal when Mr. Trump’s prospective first lady’s nude and semi-nude pics from her modeling career begin popping up on the Internet. (Actually, it’s already begun. Or so I hear.)

It’ll be interesting when the people who’ve jeered at the idea that American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens died because George W. Bush lied about WMDs to get us into the Second Iraq War throw their support behind the man who got on a debate stage on Feb. 13 and said exactly the same thing.

It’s going to be interesting when the people who were outraged at the idea that the Dear Leader Dubbya didn’t “keep us safe” because 9/11 happened on his watch, people who demanded that anyone who said such a thing be silenced, start waving flags at the Republican Convention in support of someone who said exactly that.

What’ll be most interesting if and when the GOP nominates Donald J. Trump to be president will be watching that party finally reveal itself as the party its most strident detractors have always claimed it is: a party not of conservative values, but of authoritarian ones. A party of hypocrites with no principles whatsoever other than “Us Good, You Bad.” A party of bigots, racists, willfully ignorant know-nothings, war-mongering imperialists, rage-junkies, paranoids, and brutal thugs for whom Vladimir Putin’s “my way or the gulag” style of governance is something to be admired and emulated.

That’s more interesting than I’d like to see things get, actually, but it looks like those are the interesting times in which we’re living.

Ready To Do What It Takes? Not Hardly

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Folks, I am going to tell y’all a secret, something that will shock and amaze you. It’ll rock your world and possibly cause you to question everything you thought you knew. In fact, if you’re not sitting down while reading this, maybe you should.

Sometimes I actually agree with Robert M. Levy.

I know, I know, it surprises me too when I look across the page at my staunchly Republican fellow Pilot columnist, read the piece next to mine, and go, “Hmmm, he may have something there.”

Oh, it doesn’t happen all the time — in fact, probably not most of the time. But I agree, for example, that we shouldn’t be undercutting the president’s nuclear deal with Iran, even as we disagree on how bad it is. Bob seems to think it’s terrible; I find it merely mediocre. But we both agree that the alternative of no deal at all is worse.

I also agree, to a point, with his assertion in last week’s column that there’s a power vacuum in the Middle East that’s making it easier for ISIS to commit atrocity after atrocity, and creating a refugee crisis of a size and urgency not seen since World War II.

The question I’d like to address in response however, is why. Bob seems to blame President Obama. I don’t think that tells the whole story. And no, I’m not blaming George Dubbya Bush, either — at least not entirely. I think the problem is bigger and wider than any one president or party.

Bob’s column recalls the spectacle of “American and Allied forces liberating Paris” and of the days when “America became the liberator of the free world as kisses were exchanged in Times Square.”

So far, so good. But remember what it took for us to do all that. The attack on Pearl Harbor shocked America almost overnight onto a war footing. As civilians lined up to sign up, our homeland standard of living changed drastically. Auto plants switched from making cars to making tanks and other war machines. New tires became nearly impossible to get. Kids collected scrap metal. Gas and foodstuffs were rationed. Buying war bonds became a patriotic duty.

And then, when the last German and Japanese soldiers had laid down their arms, we poured hundreds of billions of dollars into rebuilding their countries, because we knew that impoverished and broken countries were ripe pickings for the Soviets.

Can you imagine something like that happening now, in response to ISIS? Dear Lord, when the president endorsed a voluntary national public service program, he was accused of trying to create a new SS. His wife endorsed healthy eating and exercise, and suddenly right-wing pundits were screaming about “tyranny” and declaring it a sacred American right to raise a generation of roly-poly little couch potatoes.

We can’t even conduct a military training exercise in the Southwest without a pack of loonies — some of them in the U.S. Congress — taking to the airwaves and Internet to declare that it’s an invasion of the U.S. by its own Army. Oh, and support for “foreign aid”? Fuhgeddaboutit.

You want a World War II level response to ISIS butchery? You’re going to need a World War II level of citizen participation, sacrifice, and yes, money. And We the People haven’t been ready to do that for a long, long time.

It didn’t begin with the Obama administration. It didn’t even really begin with the George Dubbya Bush reign of error, although we did see quite a bit of the same unwillingness to even ask the people for sacrifice. Even after 9/11, Dubbya suggested we should just go about our lives, go shopping even. In the run-up to Dubbya’s Wacky Iraqi Adventure, we were assured, falsely, that “Iraq will pay for its own reconstruction” (Paul Wolfowitz), and that it was doubtful that the war would last six months (Donald Rumsfeld).

But, no, it didn’t start with them. It took years of short, easy-to-win conflicts against laughably weak opponents like Panama and Grenada to lull us into the feeling that the projection of American power and leadership is something that can be done on the cheap, something we could watch from our La-Z-Boy recliners before flipping over to watch “Jeopardy.”So the next time someone compares ISIS to the Nazis and demands that “American leadership” be used to defeat it, take a moment to think about what it took last time and ask them: Will you, personally, make the kind of sacrifices Americans had to make to defeat that enemy? Are you willing to pull together, even under a president you didn’t vote for, to make that happen? If not, then maybe in the words of the old saying, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Mad About the "Clinton Cash" Non-Scandal? Well Here's Your Alternative.

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

So, apparently, an upcoming book, the ponderously titled “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” seems poised to set a record for the shortest time between a Clinton “scandal” breaking into national news and its complete collapse into a big ol’ pile of nothing.

Considering the resume of the author, a longtime professional Republican operative named Peter Schweizer, this book is clearly one of those right-wing tomes designed not to put forth any actual agenda or philosophy of governance, but to tear down the Democratic front-runner with an eye toward giving whichever piece of damaged goods is the last Republican standing a shot at the White House.

A pretty dismal strategy, to be sure. But fear not, good friends, I offer you a way out of the gloom. Bear with me for just a bit and I’ll show you.

First, let’s have a look at the allegations. They consist of the usual ginned-up “OK for me but not for thee” scandal-mongering guaranteed to make the hearts of the editors of Clinton-hating mainstream media outlets like The New York Times go pitter-pat.

The former “newspaper of record” breathlessly reported on allegations in the book that donations by officers of a Canadian company to the charitable Clinton Foundation led to the takeover of some American uranium mines by the Russian company that eventually acquired the Canadian company. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton got a big speaking fee of $500,000 from, not the Russian company or the Canadian one, but from “a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.” (I know, it’s convoluted, but most right-wing conspiracy theories are.)

Sounds pretty ominous, right? Sure, until you actually start thinking.

Before the book was even released, Schweizer was forced to admit, on talk show after talk show, that there was absolutely no evidence that there was criminal wrongdoing or any “direct action” by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to influence decisions on behalf of foreign companies that donated to the Clinton Foundation.

Even Fox News’ Chris Wallace had to point out that the decision on the uranium mines was approved by no fewer than nine federal agencies, not just the Clinton State Department. (No, Hillary Clinton did not control all nine of them.)

Pressed to provide evidence, any evidence, of the actual criminality he alleged, Schweizer was forced to fall back on the old right-wing dodge, “Well, I got nothin’. I’m just raising questions.”

Maybe, he suggested hopefully, some good old-fashioned congressional investigations with the customary Blizzard O’Subpoenas will turn something up to discredit Clinton. You know, like they did with Benghazi. Except wait — they didn’t.

Big Money is, without a doubt, a pernicious influence in American politics. But if you can say with a straight face that donations to the Clinton Foundation or big speaking fees paid to the Clintons are worthy of congressional investigation while turning a blind eye to Republican pols pandering to billionaires like Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers, then, let me put this as politely as I can: You’re full of it.

But, as promised, I offer you a way out of hypocrisy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Oh, I know, I’ve pooh-poohed the idea of the junior senator from Vermont going for the Democratic nomination. Largely because he wasn’t, you know, a Democrat. But it seems as though that rumpled, lovable old coot is about to throw his hat into the ring with a “D” on it. And boy, does he hate the big money style of politics.

He’s called for a constitutional amendment “making it clear that the right to vote and the ability to make campaign contributions and expenditures belong only to real people, not corporations.”

And he’s “continuously supported the DISCLOSE Act, which would lower the veil of secrecy over campaign finance and prevent foreign corporations, individuals and governments from interfering in our political system.” In Bernie Sanders’ America, political marriage, so to speak, would be between one American man (or woman) and one candidate. Per election, at least.

So, Republicans and Democrats, wingnuts and manic progressives: If you’re disgusted with the Clintons for associating with big donors and getting big contributions, then won’t you join me in supporting the only candidate who actually has a plan to get that kind of big money out of politics?

I mean, surely, you don’t think big speaking fees or contributions to private foundations are only bad or suspicious when Bill or Hillary Clinton are involved, right? If that kind of perceived influence-peddling makes you mad, then Bernie’s the only logical choice, right?

Right?

Latte Is The New Teleprompter

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Once again, the shrieking outrage over a photograph of President Barack Obama saluting with a cup of coffee in his hand as he steps off Marine One reveals that there is nothing too small or trivial but that the American right won’t throw a giant hissy fit over it.

It’s all very amusing — until you realize what it says about the state of right-wing thinking.

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the photo: President Obama, on his way to the U.N., stepping off the helicopter, flanked by saluting Marines on either side. He has his coat slung over one arm and is returning the salute with, horror of horrors, a cup in his hand.

Of course, the right-wing hysteria machine, apparently made up of people who have nothing better to do than comb through every photograph of the president looking for something to be apoplectic about, leapt immediately into action.

“How disrespectful was that?” Republican strategist Karl Rove asked. Half-Term Governor Sarah Palin mocked Obama’s lack of military service in a speech to a “Christian values” convention, a speech in which she also identified the president’s home address as “1400 Pennsylvania Avenue” — actually the address of a park next to the historic Willard Hotel. (It should be noted that neither Rove nor Palin served in the military.)

The National Republican Senatorial Committee even created a website — yes, an entire website — to protest.

Thing is, the president isn’t required to salute at all, and in this situation probably shouldn’t have. According to the regulations published by the Department of the Army (and available online), a salute isn’t required when “carrying articles with both hands” and “when either the senior or the subordinate is wearing civilian clothes.”

In addition, for 192 years of our nation’s history, presidents (including war heroes like Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower) didn’t return the salute at all. The practice originally started with Ronald Reagan, who apparently ran around saluting everything in a uniform.

When a Marine aide let him know that that wasn’t standard protocol, Reagan went to the commandant of the Marine Corps, who told him, “You’re the [bad word] president. You can salute whoever you want.”

Of course, you can just imagine the howling that would have ensued if Obama hadn’t saluted at all. Or if, like the President Who Must Not Be Named, he was photographed, several times, saluting while holding his Scottish terrier in one hand. That’s different, we’re told by the Raging Right. Because — just because it is, OK?

So what next? Will Darell Issa convene hearings on “Latte-gate?” Will there be subpoenas demanding to know if the president took cream or sugar, and if so, was it an American brand? Will there be a breathless (and quickly debunked) expose on “60 Minutes”?

“Tonight on ‘60 Minutes,’ some guy you’ve never heard of who claims to have been a barista on Marine One has written a book in which he details his harrowing experiences on Sept. 23, 2014. He tells us how he would have heroically taken the cup from the president’s hand himself, but received a ‘stand down order’ for some reason we don’t know, but which we know is somehow Obama’s fault. I’m Lara Logan, and am as baffled as you are as to why I still have a job.”

More likely, “latte” will became the new “teleprompter”: a word wingnuts randomly drop into any conversation about the president in an attempt to craft a clever insult that only serves to point out how mindless and ill-informed the person delivering it actually is.

Example: “Wow, did you hear some guy jumped the fence and broke into the White House?” “Yeah, Obama was so surprised he nearly dropped his latte. Get it? Latte! HAW HAW HAW!”

It’s important, the wingnuts say, because it shows a pattern. They’re right, but not in the way they think. The real pattern is this: The right has certain narratives, certain themes they cling to. In this case, the theme is “Obama hates the military.” This is patently absurd, as anyone outside the right-wing anti-information bubble knows. But the truth doesn’t matter to these people. Any information that contradicts the narrative is rejected. Anything they come across, no matter how minor, is warped to fit the theme.

Fix the facts around the theory, instead of the other way around. Sound familiar? That’s the right-wing mindset that got us into the Iraq War. And that’s where it stops being amusing.

Wingnuts: We Don't Want War, But Everything Else Makes Obama a Wuss

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

The Republicans and their captive media are saying a great many things about the Russian incursion into Ukraine, but there’s one thread that runs through it all: It’s not Vladimir Putin’s fault, it’s all Barack Obama’s.

For example, some commentators, such as The Washington Post’s Mark Thiessen and Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin, claim that President Obama’s “weakness” in Syria somehow “emboldened” Putin to invade Ukraine.

Oh, really? What weakness was that? The weakness where, under threat of U.S. bombing, the Assad regime caved and agreed to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile?

Or maybe they think it was “weakness” not to defy the will of the American people and put American boots on the ground in a complicated, many-sided religious-based conflict which would have us fighting alongside elements of al-Qaida. That would have been insane recklessness and wrong-headed adventurism that would make the Iraq debacle look like the pinnacle of strategic brilliance, but it wouldn’t look weak.

According to a story in The Washington Post, Sen. John McCain called the Russian aggression “the ultimate result of a feckless foreign policy in which nobody believes in America’s strength anymore,” even as he admitted that the U.S. “does not have a realistic military option to force Russian troops to withdraw.”

In another forum, McCain suggested sanctions on Russia, which the administration is considering. How much you want to bet if they do what McCain suggests, he’ll still call them weak?

At least the folks at Fox News had a more measured response. “Even if [the president] wanted to help … we simply don’t have the ground forces to do it,” said Bill O’Reilly. “And confronting the Russians in the air would lead to major hostilities that the USA cannot afford right now.”

Frequent Foxista Charles Krauthammer agreed: “Well, obviously it’s beyond our control. The Russians are advancing. There is nothing that will stop them. We are not going to go to war.”

Oh, wait, my mistake. Those quotes from Fox were from 2008, when the Russians invaded another neighbor, Georgia. You know, back when we had a president of Fox’s preferred party, a president who claimed to have “looked into Putin’s soul,” a president who still bears no blame for anything he did in the minds of the right.

Now, when “that one” is in the White House, we have Steve Doocy saying that the president “hasn’t done much” to solve the situation, and Bill O’Reilly claiming that the crisis occurred because Obama has “lost moral authority.”

Meanwhile, the Fox Nation website put up a page of video of Putin doing, as they described it, “macho things,” including the inevitable horseback riding with his shirt off. Frankly, the only thing creepier that Putin’s constantly releasing videos of his shirtless self is the right’s panting obsession with his “manliness.”

Perhaps the purest expression of the right wing’s attitude was capsulized by Mister 9/11 himself, Rudy Giuliani. Speaking to Fox’s Neil Cavuto, Rudy revealed that what he really admires and wants in an executive is ruthless dictatorial strong-arming:

“Putin decides what he wants to do and he does it in half a day, right? He decided he had to go to their parliament. He went to their parliament. He got permission in 15 minutes. He makes a decision and he executes it, quickly. Then everybody reacts. That’s what you call a leader. President Obama, he’s got to think about it. He’s got to go over it again. He’s got to talk to more people about it.”

There you have it, folks. To the right, Obama’s problem is that he’s not more like the dictator Vladimir Putin. Of course, when the president does do something, they scream that he’s worse than Hitler.

I’ve been critical in these pages of President Obama’s foreign policy, but I can tell you this, without reservation: I am so glad right now that he’s president and that John McCain and Rudy Giuliani aren’t.

John Kerry’s gone to Kiev and other capitals to show our support for the current Ukraine government and drum up more, our NATO allies are meeting to discuss how to deal with the crisis, the G7’s suspending preparations for the planned G8 summit in Sochi. And all the while, the president works with our international partners to create further steps to isolate Russia as punishment for its aggression.

Meanwhile, the saber-rattlers claim not to want military action, but criticize every option short of it as puny and weak — even options they themselves have suggested.

As Barney Frank once said, in a saying that should be the slogan of the Democratic Party, “We’re not perfect, but they’re nuts.”

Calling All Wingnuts: The "Both Sides Do It" Challenge.

Whenever anyone points out some racist, violent, misogynistic, or just plain nutty statement like any of the ones below: 

It's not long before someone comes along at says "well, Democrats say crazy shit too." And every time, it's usually one of a very few statements, like the one about Guam tipping over or some WTF? statement from Maxine Waters, or Barack Obama's "57 states" stumble. 

So here's the challenge: can anyone provide me with an example of any Democratic politician calling for the killing of political opponents, advocating allowing rape inside of marriage, claiming some disaster or disease is God's punishment for not following their religious belief, or calling for a city to be turned into an internment camp? Feel free to respond in comments. 

Filibusted

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion:

So Harry Reid finally did it. Frankly, I didn’t think he had the gumption. But it seems he’d finally had enough of the Republicans’ extended temper tantrum and took away their favorite toy — the filibuster of Obama administration nominees.

Now judicial and Cabinet nominees will need to be confirmed only by the simple “up or down vote” the Republicans were so fond of demanding during the years when it was Democrats filibustering Bush nominees.

The reaction was predictable, as the party that originally came up with the idea of the so-called “nuclear option” went into the usual hysterics. “Dictatorial,” tweeted Sen. Jeff Sessions. “A raw power grab by Senate Democrats and President Obama,” whined Lindsey Graham.

Right-wing pundits joined in as well. Rush Limbaugh referred to the rules change as “total statist authoritarianism” and compared it to a law allowing women to be raped. (Classy as always, Rush. How’s that Republican outreach to women voters going?) Charles Krauthammer went on Faux News and called the move “an example of the lawless way Obama has run the government.”

All of this might be more persuasive if they didn’t say the same thing about pretty much everything the president of the United States does.

It might also be more persuasive if there wasn’t so much footage of Republicans calling for exactly the same filibuster reform they just got. Limbaugh, for example, once called the filibuster “unconstitutional” and said a rules change like the one that just happened should properly be called the “constitutional option,” not the “nuclear” one. And you know what? He was right. Then, not now.

Accusations of hypocrisy aside, the way the filibuster’s been done for the past few years is a travesty, and it should have been done away with years ago. If we’d had an actual Jimmy Stewart-type filibuster, where you had to stand there and talk, it wouldn’t be such a problem, because there’d be some sort of limit to it.

It would end with some compromise, or withdrawal of the bill or nomination in question, or because the filibusterer gave up. That would delay action by the Senate, which in some cases is a good thing.

But the way it’s been done in the past few years, someone just had to say they’re going to filibuster and the bill or nomination died right then and there for lack of a super-majority. The traditional filibuster would help make the Senate, in words attributed to George Washington, the “cooling saucer” for legislation; the current rule stopped the tea from getting made in the first place.

And stop it the Republicans did, at an unprecedented and abusive rate. Sen. Reid presented a chart showing that 82 nominees had been blocked under President Obama, but 86 had been blocked under all the other presidents combined. The online fact checker Politifact weighed in and said that Sen. Reid’s graphic was wrong. The situation was actually worse.

“There were actually 68 individual nominees blocked prior to Obama taking office,” they calculated, “and 79 (so far) during Obama’s term, for a total of 147.” That means that so far, “blockages under Obama actually accounted for more than half of the total, not less than half. Either way, it’s disproportionate by historical standards.”

The Republicans made no bones about the fact that their obstructionism had nothing to do with nominees’ actual qualifications. For example, when a “60 Minutes” story about the Benghazi murders came out, Graham threatened to block every Obama nominee if he didn’t get another hearing to interrogate the survivors of the attack. When the story turned out to be a hoax, Graham said it didn’t matter, he was going to block the nominations anyway.

When the filibuster proves to be a tactic of extortion, spite and payback rather than an actual reflection on qualifications, then it needs to go, no matter who’s in power. Like every other privilege, when you abuse it, you lose it.

But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the filibuster of nominees is a vital part of the Senate and of democracy itself.

Let’s also assume, purely for the sake of argument, that the Republicans are going to retake the Senate next year as they claim. In that case, I call upon all Republican candidates to swear that they’ll reinstate the old filibuster rules on Day One, and every Republican to hold them to the promise.

Think they’ll do it?

In Which I Try To Bring Left And Right Together

Outrage Should Cut Both Ways | The Pilot: Southern Pines, NC

I agree that the seizure of the phone records of The Associated Press by the Department of Justice is outrageous.

I also agree that it's outrageous for the IRS to have singled out tea party groups for extra scrutiny regarding their petitions to get tax-exempt status as "social welfare," rather than "political" organizations.

But these scandals give all of us, on the left and the right and the big squishy middle, an unprecedented opportunity to work together. Let's start with the DOJ seizure of AP's phone information.

They're being typically close-mouthed about it at the time of this writing, but it appears that the information was gathered pursuant to investigatory powers that were greatly expanded as a major part of the 2001 Patriot Act, including the infamous "National Security Letters," which allow the government to legally demand information without judicial oversight or the knowledge of the person being investigated.

And, while the DOJ won't say what investigation the phone records were pertinent to, we do know they've been investigating who leaked information to AP about a CIA operation against a terrorist cell in Yemen, a leak which the DOJ claims threatened national security.

I hate to say "I told you so," but I can't help but mention how ironic it is that I was once called a traitor for writing columns against the act, by the same sort of people who claim to be outraged now.

I said at the time, "Do you want to turn that kind of power over to Hillary Clinton?" (Because back then, it looked like Clinton was a lock for the Dem nomination.) The right wing response? "YOU WANT US TO GET ATTACKED AGAIN!!! 9/11 WAS CAUSED BY YOU LIBERALS!!!!! AAAAAAAHHH!!!!"

But let's not dwell on the past. It's time to pull together.

As for the IRS: It was absolutely wrong for the IRS to give extra scrutiny to tea party groups to see if they were involved in partisan political activity inconsistent with their nonprofit status. I mean, of course they were. All you had to do was look at their signs and listen to their rhetoric. But it was unfair to single them out.

But does anyone remember the outrage over Bush-era IRS auditing of the NAACP? Remember the outrage over Bush-era IRS audits of Greenpeace? Remember the outrage when All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena was threatened with losing its tax exempt status for speaking out against the Iraq War before the 2004 election (while other churches in Ohio were openly campaigning for Republican candidates)?
Yeah, me neither. Because none of that outrage ever happened, even though the actual outrages did. 

But again, let's not dwell on the past.

So here's the plan. Even though there's no evidence that the extra scrutiny of the tea party groups was ordered by the White House, I am, for the sake of amity and bipartisanship, willing to join in the Republican call that the president apologize for it in addition to merely condemning it.

You folks on the right need to see if you can get ahold of Dubbya and get him to put down his paint brush long enough to retroactively do the same in regard to progressive groups that got the same treatment.

Going forward, I'm calling on the IRS to carefully scrutinize all organizations claiming tax exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, to see if they're actually partisan political rather than social welfare organizations. I expect my friends on the right to demand the same.

It should be noted, however, that conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS spent more than $263 million during the 2012 campaign, while liberal counterparts like MoveOn.org spent "only" $35 million, according to a study performed by the Center for Responsive Politics and reported in the Washington Post. So it may look to the right as if they're being singled out again. But it's just the numbers. You do more than seven times the spending, you'll get more than seven times the investigations. I'm sure you won't mind.

As for the scandal over the phone records, I'm calling on the president and the Democrats in Congress to repeal the Patriot Act, or any provision of any law that allows the FBI to demand phone and other records they claim are "relevant to an investigation of terrorism or clandestine intelligence activity," without any judicial oversight.
I'm sure all of my friends on the right agree (now) that that kind of power shouldn't be given to anyone, even in investigations of national security leaks. If it is given, it's going to be used, because if it isn't, and something terrible happens, we know who'll get blamed, tarred and feathered. So best not to let the government have the option.

At long last, let us work together. I'm looking forward to it.