Tidbits

Tea Party darling and austerity hawk Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, took a state helicopter to his son's high school baseball game, landing in a nearby ballfield; the rotund governor was driven in a car the remaining 300 feet to the stands. A spokesman said there was nothing inappropriate about this use of the helicopter.

UPDATE:
Christie has paid $2,251 (a second source cites it as $3,383.79) to the state to cover the cost of this trip; he and his wife left the ball game and flew 75 miles on the chopper to a meeting with "a group of top GOP campaign contributors from Iowa." Apparently Christie has flown on the helicopter 35 times; no report (yet) on whether those trips were, unlike this one, on state business.

**********

It's not news, but I didn't blog it at the time, and it's a classic. Newt Gingrich (who conducted a six-year affair with his present wife, Callista, behind the back of his second wife, while he condemned Bill Clinton in the harshest of terms for his immoral behavior and urged Clinton's impeachment) had this to say about his past adulterous liaisons:

“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate."

I felt so much passion for my country I just had to ... well, you know.

**********

I don't like the way things are going on the debt ceiling. Just two or three months ago, even prominent Republicans were saying flat out, without qualification, "The increase has to be passed." (There's a handy quote from Reagan I could trot out if asked to the effect that "It would be insane not to pass the debt ceiling increase" back when he faced the same scenario.)

But now those same prominent Republicans (I'm looking at you, McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor) are playing much harder ball, being jabbed from behind with sharp sticks by wild-eyed Tea Partiers -- who don't give a damn about the U.S. defaulting on its debt or the world economic crisis that would result -- demanding that the bill include outrageous cuts to Medicare and caps on future spending. And Democrats seem to be succumbing.

I wish Obama had come out in January with strong Democratic support in the House and the Senate to say, "We will play no games with the debt ceiling increase. I will veto any such bill that has any Republican riders attached. We will consider the Republicans' demands for caps and cuts during the upcoming debate over the 2012 budget."

Oh, well.
**********
ABC News has the following quote from Sarah on her non-political tour:

"Each site we're at is just so inspiring and confirming in me and in my family how important it is that we all learn about our foundation so that we can move forward very clearly."

Do you feel inspired and confirmed about that vision of that Sarah with her patriotic finger movin' very clearly forward on that nuclear trigger also? You betcha!
**********
There's a new NYT op-ed columnist named Joe Nocera. Here's a quote:

It would be nice if we could treat the Ryan plan not as an object of derision but as a launching off point for a serious debate.  That way, maybe for once we could avert a crisis instead of acting shocked when it finally arrives.

Right. Let's treat killing off Medicare as a "launching off point for a serious debate." What would that "serious debate" be about? Killing off Social Security? That could be followed by a "serious debate" about outlawing unions. How courageous!

I'm not a big fan of this Nocera guy so far.
**********
Dick Cheney, at a public appearance at an "energy event," as reported by the Houston Chronicle:  "I worship the ground that Paul Ryan walks on." Warped theology from an unrepentant Neocon.

Oh, and disgraced former megachurch pastor Ted Haggard has a small movie part in a Christian sex comedy. Oh, and the Westboro Baptist Church were scheduled to demonstrate over Memorial Day weekend in Joplin, Missouri, about how the tornado was God's punishment on the evil citizens of Joplin (especially the homosexuals). But when thousands of angry counterdemonstrators showed up, the Baptist bunch didn't. Oh, and Pat Robertson said this weekend that opposing Islam was just like opposing Nazis. Can't you feel the love?
********** 
William Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, contributing editor for The New Republic:

So—to repeat—those of us who reject conservative assaults on government do so for forward-looking, practical reasons, not out of obsolete ideological commitments. We believe that without appropriate government activity, our country will be less efficient and productive as well as less secure and humane. That doesn’t mean that we should resist all proposed reforms, even when they involve long-cherished programs. But we must defend the need for government, staunchly and unapologetically, against the narrow and blinkered attacks that have come to dominate our public discourse.

**********
Great story, possibly apocryphal: Ronald Reagan, though he had been politically active as president of the Screen Actors Guild, surprised the pundits when he announced his candidacy for governor of California. His first major political interview was with the San Francisco Chronicle, when a reporter visited Reagan at his ranch in Santa Barbara.

The reporter was met by Reagan's political operative, the wily Lyn Nofziger. "Wait a minute," said Nofziger; I'll see if Mr. Reagan is ready." He found Reagan ready for the interview -- dressed in English riding habit.

"That won't do," said Nofziger. Have you got jeans and boots and a cowboy hat?" Reagan had played a cowboy in the movies, but this was when the political image of Reagan-as-cowboy was established. An image of Reagan in that goofy English get-up could have changed the world. (Sigh ....)
**********
In the aftermath of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's ferocious attack on the public sector unions in his state, when crowds of up to a hundred thousand -- grassroots, not astroturf -- showed up to demonstrate in the snow night after night at the Statehouse in Madison, six Republican senators (and no Democrats) are facing recall elections in July. The 19-14 Republican majority in the Wisconsin Senate could be overturned, along with Walker's repressive legislation.

Walker himself cannot face recall until next January, but the groundwork is being laid.
**********
This was part of a comment to a post I made in Daily Kos:

The economy is losing need for the people as either labor or consumers.

How well and succinctly put! Outsourcing is replacing U.S./Canadian labor at a fraction of the cost. Marketing is increasingly aimed at those consumers who can afford it: the very wealthy here and the huge numbers of the moderately well-off being created in the developing world.

So who needs us? Well, the ultra-rich will always need people to clean their pools, iron their clothes, shine their shoes, and hold open their doors. But unless you're a lawyer defending their chicanery, or an accountant helping them to avoid paying a fair share of taxes, or a plastic surgeon staving off the effects of age and decadence, it's not going to pay very well -- and there are going to be desperate people lining up behind you for the chance to do your job for less.

**********

A new poll from Dittman Research in Alaska shows Sarah Palin's favorable/unfavorable rating at 36%/61%. In the recent Senate race in Alaska, Sarah backed Tea Partier Joe Miller, who lost decisively to a write-in opponent, Palin nemesis Lisa Murkowski. This poll put Miller's favorable/unfavorable rating today at 18/73, and Murkowski's at 71/27. Palin as kingmaker? Maybe not so much.

**********

Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) found that between 2008 and 2010, a dozen major corporations earned a total of $173 billion in profits and paid an average federal income tax rate of -1.5 percent: they actually got money back from the Treasury. Here they are:

• General Electric
• American Electric Power
• Dupont
• Verizon Communications
• Boeing
• Wells Fargo
• FedEx
• Honeywell International
• IBM
• Yahoo
• United Technologies
• Exxon Mobil

Tax reform, anyone? Or do we bow to the Tea Partiers and refuse to raise taxes on corporations in any way, shape, or form?

**********

Donald Trump, still taken seriously enough to appear on Fox & Friends (well, okay, that's not all that great a badge of seriousness), announced that the Ryan budget proposal was "a Republican death wish." Oh, Donald, we'll miss your "Kinsley gaffes": defined by pundit Michael Kinsley as "when a politician accidentally tells the truth."

**********

Thomas Friedman, NYT columnist, Iraq war cheerleader and Bush economic apologist:

In America, President George W. Bush used the post-9/11 economic dip to push through a second tax cut we could not afford. He followed that with a Medicare prescription drug entitlement we cannot afford and started two wars in the wake of 9/11 without raising taxes to pay for them — all at a time when we should have been saving money in anticipation of the baby boomers’ imminent retirement. As such, our nation’s fiscal hole is deeper than ever and Republicans and Democrats — rather than coming together and generating the political authority needed for us to take our castor oil to compensate for our binge — are just demonizing one another.

 Eight years too late, Tom, but ... whatever.
**********
Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor, has a piece at HuffPo entitled Tea Party: Drug Tests For Everyone!

In the past week, Florida has passed two laws requiring drug testing: one for welfare recipients and the other for state employees. This is contrary to our friends in the Tea Party's stated concerns: limiting government and protecting constitutional rights. Here's the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Winkler maintains:

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that government-mandated drug testing is a "search" governed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.... Random drug testing is what is known as a "suspicion-less" search. Even without probable cause to believe the person required to pee in a cup has done anything wrong, he or she is forced to turn over bodily fluids for government inspection.

And of course a vast new bureaucracy would have to be created to administer the tests and deal with the results. This legislation strikes a double blow at limiting both government size and intrusion.

**********

Huckabee's hinting he might not be averse to nomination for vice president.

**********

Weinergeddon: It's looking more and more to me that the notorious picture is indeed a soft-core picture of the man himself. I'd say it was probably a private, personal picture that was stolen; I very much doubt that Weiner sent the offending tweet to the 21-year-old female college student. There is no doubt we will learn more from the massive media coverage certainly yet to come.