The series that brought you Miss South Carolina’s bumbling attempts to discuss foreign policy and Britney Spears’ drunk performance at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards is back, this time with Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential nominee.
I have tried really, really hard to ignore Sarah Palin since the election ended and the immediate threat of her holding national office subsided, but today I have to make an exception because 1) she resigned from her post as governor of Alaska a full year and a half before the end of her term, and 2) she sounded completely bat shit crazy while she was doing it.
So, Wanda Sykes likened Rush Limbaugh to a terrorist at this year’s White House Annual Correspondents’ Dinner, and it’s unleashed a conservative media maelstrom about how inappropriate her comments were.
Ok, so a handful of republican-run states are declaring they don’t need the government’s stinking stimulus money, all in the name of the “return to fiscal conservative values” that’s suddenly so vogue among the mountain-climbers of the Grand Ole Party.
Among these states: Idaho, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas, and …Alaska.
I guess it’s easy to say no to a federal stimulus package when you’ve already been benefiting from your own personal federal stimulus for the past two and a half decades.
(In fact, the only one of the five states “threatening” not to accept the stimulus that isn’t a beneficiary state is Texas, for which the money received/taxes spent columns come out close to even. So, fine, Texas. But the other four? Seriously. Bad, bad political bluff.)
While all the clean energy folks were still recovering from their Obama-election hangovers, the Bush administration opened–and closed–a 30 day public comment period on a proposition to drill off the shores of Virginia.
This reminds me a little of the “public commenting period” earlier this year on a federal rule change that, among other things, aimed to redefine pregnancy as beginning at the point of conception. No one seemed to know about that one, either. I can’t really even begin to articulate how maddening it is that the public isn’t better made aware of these “public” vetting opportunities.
Maybe instead of covering shit like this, CNN and co. can include a section on their websites dedicated to listing rules and policies up for public comment and providing basic ‘how to’ instructions.
A month after the Election Heard Round the World, a few observations/comments/etc…
First off, I think Clinton was a smart choice for Secretary of State. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. And don’t be afraid of smart people with strong opinions.
Which brings me to Obama’s appointments in general. He’s gotten a lot of flack for those he has made thus far: Too Clintonian, too bipartisan, too predicatable, et al. More than one headline has mocked the president-elect’s campaign mantra with headlines asking, “What change?” But, for what it’s worth, I think having a leader who is not afraid to give a platform to people who might not agree with him is a change–and one with a significance we should not underestimate.
There’s been a decrease in the blatantly racist comments that national radio show callers were making directly after the election. Instead, folks seem to be reverting back to veiling their racism under the guises of their “political beliefs,” “conservative values,” et al. I’m not sure this is progress. It was acutely horrible about hearing callers “blame” the election on “all those black people” who came out and voted–as though black people’s votes counting was a sneaky loophole or something–but when a statement is that obviously fucked up, it demands a response. The double-speak muckety muck is a lot easier to gloss over, ignore, and make excuses for. And that is not a good thing.
And, on a personal note, politics might still gut my family and leave its collective entrails dragging across the eastern seaboard before the next four (or eight) years are through. Gotta get me some armor…
Back on August 21, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt went ahead with a rule change that requires that any health organization receiving federal money certify in writing that their employees have the right to refuse to assist in any way with medical services they deem objectionable.
While the issues this raises for abortion rights activists are pretty obvious, the ramifications go deeper than that. The rule gives health providers clearance to refuse any medical treatment or procedure that they may find morally or religiously objectionable. It opens the door for pharmacists to refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions, and for doctors to refuse rape victims the morning-after pill as a matter of “conscience.”
(Perhaps the only thing more horrifying than this rule is that the revised version that was put in place is less horrifying than the original, which explicitly redefined pregnancy as beginning after conception and before implantation. Thank Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray for that text change.)
Hopefully this makes you as angry as this makes me, and hopefully this anger leads you to write an official statement objecting to the rule–something that is allowed for 30 days after the rule’s inception. (Toward the bottom of the entry linked above, there are two links you can follow to make such a statement.)
