Copyright © 2010 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2010 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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So September "12"? Remember the heightened fears America felt back then? Remember overheard conversations in diners and how they shut down highways in Florida? Well, the Ft. Hood shootings seems to have led to the same: concerns that five Muslim soldiers were plotting to poison the food at their South Carolina base have led to four of them being pushed out of the Army. And yet...
Their exit, according to Wilson, is related to minor theft, not the investigation itself. It could well be appropriate that they were shown the door under these circumstances, and although I don't want to discount the importance of "If you see someting, say something" programs, it's not encouraging to hear that fear is leading to unjustified concerns, seizing laptops, and so on. It feels like that Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo who was investigated for treason, and ultimately discharged for having porn on his computer. Oooh, that smell... Sure smells like a cover-up to me. The shoe is on George Will's other foot. Ezra Klein takes note of George Will's attempts to cast Democrats as hypocrites over the fillibuster, and finds Will guilty of the same charge. There are few who come out as stalwarts of consistency here; the GOP reminds us that Senator Burd (D-WV) is against using reconciliation to pass health care reform. But it's worth pointing out that the trait of consistency is not sufficient to determine what's correct. 
Sorry, bub, torture doesn't really square with your Catholicsm. So: ex-Bush speech writer Marc Thiessen thinks waterboarding is OK with the teachings of his church, Roman Catholicism. I confess that I was not aware of this particular defense of his until reading the religion column at the New York Times; but I was glad, reading it, that Thiessen's claims have already been debunked with a careful reading of an encyclical from John Paul II:
I'm sorry I'm late to this discussion, because Thiessen's use of Catholicism to justify torture is galling. And amidst the NY Times column there's this:
That is, the mere fact that you're willing to do something means that it cannot be wrong. All concepts of temptation and mortal sin are thereby thrown out the window; morality is governed by the willingness of the sinner to sin. How, on earth, could someone have the temerity, the presumption, the arrogance to write about whether or not his religion approves of something so hotly debated as torture without bothering to speak to some church higher up than himself? How? Of course, I know the answer: too many people in the Bush Administration were there because they had no sense that thinking twice was ever valuable.
The health care summit. The planets aligned to allow me to see most of the health care summit (I was taking the day off anyway, because it was my birthday and I needed to renew my driver's license, and the weather was just all wrong to venture out for photography), and so I did. It was a hiccup to find out it wasn't on the C-SPAN outlets on my system, and CNN was talking too much, so I wound up watching most of it streaming on the Intertubes. Obviously there are a lot of things to react to; I found most of the Republicans came off as earnest and generally not pulling out talking points. I was also impressed to see Ryan raise a point on double counting which Jeff Sessions had raised in December; I don't think the Democrats had a proper response to Sessions (did I miss it?), and no one responded to the same point today, from Ryan. But the single moment which, to me, best framed the entire positions of the two parties was this. Late in the day, Senator Debbie Murray, (D-WA) told a story about a child/teen she'd met whose mother had a good job, became ill, had health insurance through her job, but lost her job because of the time her illness demanded, lost her health insurance, medical attention, and ultimately her life. It was one of those stories which should reach everyone. Her remarks were followed by Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican. Now, Coburn had been constrained today, and was attentive to policies and costs. But when he followed Murray there was no transition whatsoever, nothing acknowledging that he'd heard what he'd just heard; it was a complete absence of humanity on his part. It would have not have been difficult for him to have said something like, "that is exactly the kind of story which we all hate to hear and makes it so clear that we need to reform this, it's why we all want to do something, even if we can't agree to the how." He didn't need to cede ground on the how, he just acted as if he'd been doing crossword puzzles again. It seems to be a depressing fact that the Republicans refuse to acknowledge the human costs of the failure to reform health care. This morning I brought up the estimate that 45,000 people die in the US every year due to a lack of health insurance. Has any Republican spoken to this? UPDATE: this post has been updated to correctly refer to Senator Murray; thanks to Judy for the identification. A one legged table? Tom Harkin made an important argument against an incremental approach to health care reform, countering GOP desires to go in steps, starting exclusively with insurance company reforms. Harkin pointed out without other reforms, trying to reform insurance company practices would lead to skyrocketing premiums. Harkin laid out how you need cost reduction efforts, mandates, and so on, and how without them along with insurance regulation, it wasn't going to work: they need to be there together. Boehner pirouettes, again. John Boehner, who complained that the bill was too long, then too short, that hearings weren't on C-SPAN, then that Obama's summit is, has a whole new dance step: he asked Obama to invite Stupak to today's summit. The funny thing is, when Stupak's amendment was part of the House bill, Boehner still voted against it. So why does he care whether or not Stupak is there? It's not like it's going to be a deciding factor. Portions of America support amendments like Stupak's amendment, no doubt; but bigger portions know when the GOP is just bluffing. They got nothin': they still refused to offer a comprehensive plan that insures Americans, and they still don't acknowledge reports that 45,000 Americans die unnecessarily, annually, due to lack of health care insurance. Boehner is SO pro-life.
Dick and Liz bummed. Big time. Well, excuse me for concluding that Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz are little beyond one trick ponies, without any vision, and clinging to beliefs that the one, the only way to battle terrorism, with their so-called "enhanced terrogation techniques." First, we had information from Guantanamo itself that suspects were talking before waterboarding. Second the so-called "underwear bomber" who was sharing information both before and after being read his Miranda rights. And strike three, the Afghan who was going to bomb the NYC subways last year: he pled guilty today, and is cooperating with authorities. Geez, Dick, Geez, Liz: it must suck to be you. We have our humanity, and you both lost yours. Someday the history museums will have dioramas of you two, as a caution to how good intentions can, indeed, pave the wrong roads.
Update from the Bureau of Meaningless Statistics. The United States Olympic Hockey Team has defeated the Olympic hockey team from its number one oil importer. Let's be clear about this: they beat the hockey team from the country which sends us more oil than any other country, okay? Did this ever happen under Bush? No. So I ask you, who's more tough on terrorism? Think of all those clogged arteries we were getting from Molson and Canadian Bacon. Obama has put a stop to this. Don't mess with Chicago, I'm tellin' ya.
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