National Defense Resources Preparedness: Wearing the Duncecap

Don't you hate it when you rediscover people from your past on Facebook and they turn out to be closeminded rightwing Fox-watchers? Don't you hate it even more when it's someone like, say, a teacher, and you discover that they don't read, but absorb Fox spew as gospel?

 Yep, happened to me today. A former teacher inserted himself into a Facebook conversation about the "National Defense Resources Preparedness" Executive Order signed by the President on Friday, and the teacher was clueless but opinionated (the two are never mutually exclusive with certain rightwingers). I hardly knew what to say... "Dear Mr. X: Please go finish the reading assignment before you try to participate in the discussion with the rest of the class." ?

 At any rate, frustration abounds everywhere this weekend as the righties go nutsies over this Executive Order, failing to notice that its basis has been in place for over half a century, and that it has been (again) essentially unchanged in its latest incarnation. A common complaint accompanying the sudden discovery by many that this EO exists is that the President can now seize property and conscript labor at his whim (including in peacetime): in fact, we've been living under that language for years, and though the peacetime part is true, the President's power is actually balanced by the Cabinet in this particular EO, so the whim part is rightwing Obama-fear. And further failing to notice in their horrified outrage over the (insert incendiary phrase of choice here, selecting from the following: fiat; Communist cabal; plot for dictatorship; Socialist thingie) Obama pulled off when signing this EO that Congress (let's call them government branch number one) passed the Defense Production Act in 1950, laying the groundwork for this Executive Order that President Obama, like W. Bush and Clinton before him, has signed.

And failing to find out that the Supremes (let's call them government branch number

two) have made rulings that cover what the breadth of a president's executive power is (with a key one, in fact, being made regarding Harry Truman's overreach of executive power in an Executive Order not long after Congress passed the Defense Production Act), and that it could likely be said that Congress has been implicitly approving the basis of this EO for decades.

 And failing to notice that the power vested in the Commander in Chief (let's go ahead and call him government branch number three) by Article II of the Constitution is, in any case, well balanced by the Cabinet in this particular Executive Order.

 Why let the facts get in the way of a good head of horrified steam occasioned by blind hatred of a President, though? (Hmmm.... because one is willing to believe this sketchy president will seize any opportunity to seize power in some kind of Executive Order coup?) Why read legislation from those boring, dusty old National Archives when one can crib from Fox News? Why go to the library when one can copy test answers from one's neighbor? But wait... Mr. X, you frowned on that back in the day, saying we needed to learn to think for ourselves. Sorry, but you need to wear the class duncecap today. Oh, and go read the assignment: Executive Order -- National Defense Resources Preparedness; National Archives; and Congress for Kids: [Constitution]: The Three Branches of Government.

Palin and Game Change: Vote For Me; I Know Nothing...

Sad, but true: "Since Palin, though, ignorance has become more than bliss. It’s now an attribute, an entire platform: Vote for me, I know nothing and hate the same things you do." (Via Richard Cohen's "Sarah Palin’s foolishness ruined U.S. politics" -- Washington Post, 3/12/12: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sarah-palin-and-other-ignorant-candidates/2012/03/12/gIQAoOPG8R_story.html)

Sarah Palin, the queen of incompetence and political malfeasance, is in the news again (just in time to help re-elect Obama) thanks to HBO's new film "Game Change," airing now on HBO and based on a

segment of the book by the same name. In watching "Game Change," I gave much thought to how vitriol and lies/half-truths entered -- nay, *roared* into -- conservative politics in a frighteningly new way with Palin. Giving her a national voice and influence by lending Palin his own respectability is a shame McCain will have to take to his grave: in Palin's polluted wake, our national conversation has deteriorated. Granted, that's not specifically her fault -- the populace was obviously ripe for a crazy, ignorant conservative and perhaps the candidacies of a woman and a black man on the Dem side fanned the fear in the GOP base to an inferno, the flames of which continue to birth bigoted, misogynistic GOP representatives -- but the film is a good reminder that we must *vote* in order to keep monstrously ignorant people out of office and to re-elevate our national conversation.

Worth watching, by the way, is Palin's delusional "Game Change We Can Believe In," her video rebuttal to the "Game Change" film. It's hosted on her .... site (hard to know what to call SarahPac.com, but while you're there, she handily provides a place where one can donate money to support her life... so perhaps best to just call it her begging area on the internet; her piece of the virtual sidewalk where she panhandles while holding up word-salad signs, fortunately located in the trailer park part of town where most of us seldom see her).

War On Women Update: Rick Perry's Texas Skirmish

So. Texas Governor Rick Perry decided to remove Planned Parenthood from Texas's Medicaid-funded Women’s Health Program (WHP) providers because three percent of Planned Parenthood's services are abortion. Because the governor of a state doesn't get to choose which doctor a woman sees (i.e. gives Medicaid dollars to), the federal government, which supplies 90% of Texas' WHP funding, then properly cut off Texas's federal funding for its WHP (via a rule regarding Medicaid accessibility that's been in place since W Bush). Did I miss anything there?

Medicaid’s Women Health Program gives Medicaid reproductive health coverage to women who aren't poor enough for the rest of Medicaid, basically. Texas's WHP provided services to around 130,000 women. Perry threw those women under the bus to make some anti-abortion point. Right?

So, to recap: Rick Perry violated federal law and caused a problem with Texas's WHP funding. Perry then tweeted, “Obama Admin ends #WHP via media conference call; @GovernorPerry pledges state will keep pgm going.” Other than the fact that "admin" is not a proper noun deserving capitalization, did I miss anything else?