I’m sure everybody’s read the story about the brutal attack in London where a British soldier was hacked to death. British PM David Cameron called it an “act of terror.” So I’m now waiting for Darryl Issa and Fox News to condemn him for not calling it a “terrorist attack,” which of course is something completely different.
On the list of places I’m glad I don’t live, Arkansas is definitely in the top ten, I think (there’s actually a tie between lots of places for that number 10 spot). Why? Well, for example, Arkansas wingnut Tom Cotton attempted to introduce an amendment to the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013, which seeks to penalize anyone who violates human rights, engages in censorship, or commits other abuses associated with the Iranian government. That doesn’t go far enough for Uncle Tom, though.
Cotton also seeks to punish any family member of those people, “to include a spouse and any relative to the third degree,” including, “parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids,” Cotton said.
“There would be no investigation,” Cotton said during Wednesday’s markup hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “If the prime malefactor of the family is identified as on the list for sanctions, then everyone within their family would automatically come within the sanctions regime as well. It’d be very hard to demonstrate and investigate to conclusive proof.”
So, like, if your Uncle does something bad, bam – you’re going to jail for 20 years, no questions asked. You didn’t have to even know about it and since it would be hard to prove, we just won’t require any proof.
It’s kind of like what happens to the families of Chinese or North Korean dissidents who mysteriously disappear.
After it was brought to Tom’s attention that this was actually unconstitutional, he reluctantly withdrew his amendment. Oh, that pesky constitution. Better luck next time, Tom.
Getting out of the shower this morning, I slammed my toe on the metal ridge where the shower doors used to slide (before I took them out and put up a regular shower curtain). Slammed it so hard, it bled, even. And it was the bad toe on the bad foot, so it really hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. Then I smacked my knee getting into the car to go to work, and that still hurts. And, just now, I yawned so hard I pulled my trapezius muscle. I have a feeling this is gonna be a sucky day.
So I just calculated my biorhythms, and the bad news is that I’m on a downward trend for physical, intellectual, and emotional – and I’m not even bottomed out yet. Things look pretty bad for Memorial Day weekend. Fortunately, the weather is gonna suck, too. Well, not suck, really. But it’s gonna be pretty cool, so I don’t think there will be any swimming going on. But maybe I can get some shit done – assuming my body doesn’t completely fall apart, in which case I’ll just sit out in the sun and read.
But first, I gotta get through today.
Somebody Did Something
By GAIL COLLINS
Whenever the world of Washington seems hopeless, someone will point out that the Senate Judiciary Committee did a good job on immigration reform.
That’s it? Yeah, pretty much.
Immigration reform has been the 2013 bipartisan bright spot in the Senate, unless you were really moved by the day they voted to debate gun control before killing all the gun control plans. The committee members cheerfully plowed through 300-odd proposed amendments, while taking turns telling which country their great-grandfather came from. There was, of course, a lot of disagreement, although almost everybody seemed to enjoy slapping down ideas offered by Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
Mainstream Republicans have been super-energized to do immigration reform ever since the Hispanic vote went against them in the last election. Democracy does work. If somebody came up with a dramatic poll showing that all the people with diabetes, asthma and chronic back problems had voted against Mitt Romney, there would no longer be a problem getting funding for health care reform.
High points in the committee’s long slog toward passage included a proposal from Tea Party icon Mike Lee of Utah to exempt employers of “cooks, waiters, butlers, housekeepers, governesses, maids, valets, baby sitters, janitors, laundresses, furnacemen, caretakers, handymen, gardeners, footmen, grooms, and chauffeurs of automobiles for family use†from checking to make sure their help had the proper legal status. It didn’t go anywhere, but if you happen to run into Lee, feel free to say: “The butler did it.â€
The most painful low point in the committee’s deliberations came at the end, when the Democrats gave up on an amendment allowing same-sex spouses the same right as heterosexuals to apply for permanent resident status for their partners. It’s not every day when you hear a senator announce that he had decided to support a move that involved “rank discrimination.†But the Republicans who were needed to get an immigration bill through the Senate had made it supremely clear that if any hint of gay marriage entered the legislation, they were going to take their toys and go home.
Decide for yourself how you feel about this one, people. Stand up for equality or finally get a major bill through the Senate? Defend equality or cave in and hope that the Supreme Court bails you out when it rules on the Defense of Marriage Act next month?
It is, at minimum, a useful reminder of what lawmaking looked like back in the days when the two parties made deals and we complained that nobody was sticking to their principles. Back to the can-do days when senators routinely said things like Senator Orrin Hatch’s explanation of his thinking on immigration: “I’m going to vote this bill out of committee because I’ve committed to do that.â€
The bill, which would give millions of undocumented residents a path toward eventual citizenship, now goes to the full Senate, where it actually looks as though it’s going to pass. Any further progress would require cooperation from the House of Representatives, the circle of hell where the damned are condemned to spend eternity voting to repeal the health care reform law.
Perhaps you missed the one last week. Let me summarize:
■“The Obamacare law must be ripped out by its roots!â€
■“The 37th time! The 37th time!â€
■“A malignant tumor that’s metastasizing on America’s liberty!â€
■“We have spent over 56 hours on the floor debating repeal of the law of the land!â€
The House Republican leadership would probably rather have been working on something else. But the newer members whined that they’d hardly had any opportunities to vote to repeal Obamacare at all. “It sends a great statement back to our district,†said Representative Ted Yoho, Republican of Florida, who many people enjoy quoting because they like saying Ted Yoho.
Also, it’s hard for the Republicans to agree among themselves about anything else. One influential conservative organization recently urged Speaker John Boehner to drop the whole legislation idea completely and just hold committee hearings about the I.R.S. scandal and Benghazi forever.
“Recent events have rightly focused the nation’s attention squarely on the actions of the Obama administration,†argued the Heritage Action for America. “It is incumbent upon the House of Representatives to conduct oversight hearings on those actions, but it would be imprudent to do anything that shifts the focus from the Obama administration to the ideological differences within the House Republican conference.â€
We really hate it when they get imprudent.
PJ, other than stubbing your bad toe, you haven’t mentioned how your foor is doing or whether you found out what’s wrong with it. Is it any better? Is amputation off the table?
My foot is much better than it was. It still hurts and it’s still swollen, but I can walk around without looking like Tim Conway doing Mr. Tudball.
I have no idea what the deal is with it. The pain at this point seems to be in the tendon on the top of my foot that attaches to the big toe (the extensor hallucis tendon). And also this thing on the side of my foot that I think is a bunion (it sticks out and is red and hurts).
Amputation seems less likely at this point, but I don’t think I’d rule it out completely.
I’m glad it’s better but I still think a podiatrist may be a good idea.
I just got up so I am not sure if the Nutsy Rifle Assholeciation has weighed in about the dearth of manly firepower in England that could have stopped the whole thing, registration would not have prevented this, people kill people, blah blah blah. Never mind what these guys might have been able to do with an NRA approved automatic weapon or two with an extended clip or the authorities swarming in with guns blazing ala the NYC cops at the Empire State Building. Not to mention that the London police apprehended the two turrists without killing them unlike the 3 FBI agents who managed to kill a possibly unarmed suspect connected to the dead Boston bomber yesterday as he was preparing to sign a confession in another matter.
Still waiting for the NRA spin on the tornadoes. Maybe a gun safe/storm/bomb shelter they can market?