Headlines no one read this week

With all the buzz over the State of the Union address, the iPad launch (yes, Steve Jobs should run product name choices past his wife, at the very least), and President Obama's very wonderful, magical 90 minutes of debate at the GOP House of Representatives retreat, a few worthy news items were missed.

Justice for Dr. Tiller

Dr. George Tiller's murderer, Scott Roeder, was convicted of first-degree murder on Friday. The jury deliberated for a half hour before finding him guilty. Frankly, they would have had to have been asleep in order to arrive at any other verdict, given Roeder's testimony not only confessing, but bragging about it.  (More about Dr. Tiller here)

MOMocrats on Facebook: Stop Lurking and Join the Party!

The MOMocrats are expanding our social media reach, and inviting you to join us on Facebook.  Just go over to Facebook, sign in, and become a fan.  We're also working on a monthly newsletter, The MOMocrats Messenger, that you can sign up for via Facebook or in our sidebar on the right.  Our Facebook fan page is located at http://www.facebook.com/MOMocrats

We invite progressive moms, dads, friends, and anyone who ever had a mom to join our efforts to raise awareness and take action on issues involving women and families.  We'll be announcing some big action plans soon, so stay tuned.  You won't want to miss all the fun! 

Bob McDonnell's Republican Response to the SOTU: A Military Misstep

Last night, the MOMocrats hosted a live blog of the State of the Union address and the Republican response.  It was an inspiring speech by Obama and, I think, one of his best.  The Republican response, however, had me out of my seat hollering at the TV, and not in a good way.

The State of the Union is, I think, a marvelous example of how inspiring our political system can be.  I never fail to be moved when I hear the Congressional Cryer yell, "Madame (or Mister) Speaker, the President of the United States!"  It doesn't matter whether the President in question is a Republican or a Democrat; it's always a thrilling experience.  The State of the Union is required by Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states, "He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient...." Since 1790, the State of the Union has been delivered approximately every 12 months.

All members of Congress, from both sides of the aisle, are present, as are some of the Supreme Court justices, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President's Cabinet, with the exception of the designated survivor. (As an interesting side note, the designated survivor for last night's address was Shaun Donovan, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.)  While Congress invites the President to attend, it is typical for the White House to invite guests as well.  Last night, several military service and family members were in the box with Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden. 

There are many perks to being President, one of which is having the military and military backdrops at your command.  This use of the military and its service members as props became much more common during the term of George W. Bush. The most prominent being Bush's landing on an aircraft carrier and then speaking with a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background.

Make no mistake, the State of the Union, while definitely a political event, is not a partisan political event.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff and invited military guests attend as part of their service to our country.  The rebuttal to the State of the Union is another animal entirely.  It is completely partisan, begun only in 1966 and traditionally given by a representative from the party not currently occupying the White House.

Virginia Governor (of only 11 days) Bob McDonnell gave the Republican response from the Virginia capitol building in Richmond.  McDonnell had an audience of mostly regular people. (Oh, and some Virginia Republican legislators.  Bob apparently failed to invite any Democrats until about 2 hours before the drop dead RSVP time on the afternoon of the speech.)  There were even people behind McDonnell on risers as if it were a political rally.  The setting was a smart move on the part of Republican strategists.  It gave McDonnell and audience responding to him, giving the speech a much more "official" and emotional appeal than canned studio speeches given in the past.

The content of McDonnell's speech was not surprising.  It was rendered somewhat irrelevant by most of President Obama's speech, but that tends to be par for the course when you're responding to a speech you haven't yet read or viewed, with pre-loaded teleprompters.  Plus, I read the rebuttal before the State of the Union began, so I knew what was coming. No, what surprised me was the individual sitting behind McDonnell and to our left.

Do you see that guy in Army green behind McDonnell?  The individual in question is Staff Sergeant Robert Tenpenny, who apparently served with McDonnell's daughter in Iraq.

That's a problem.

Nancy Pelosi, my heroine

Despite all the drubbings Speaker Pelosi has received over the years from liberals, I've got nothing but respect for her, which grew as I watched how she shepherded the House health care reform bill to that 220-215 vote. Yes, I hate the Stupak amendment, but she handled even that with considerable political savvy by forcing Representatives to declare for or against it while America watched. But to get a flavor of who Nancy Pelosi really is, read what she said after last night's SOTU address about health care reform:

...we will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit.

Compare that to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's remarks:

"We are going to move forward on health care. We're going to do health care reform this year. The question at this stage is procedurally how do we need to get where we need to go."

Pelosi: We're gonna get this done if I have to snake it through the pipes myself.

Reid: Yeah, yeah, when we have the sun and moon aligned exactly right and the planets all bow to the God of 60, we'll see if we can't get something done.

I'm not one who thinks in terms of gender all the time, but Pelosi sounds like me, and my mom, and my grandma. She understands in very real terms what it means to be in need and not have time to sit around and wait. Reid, on the other hand, strikes me as someone who is so lackadaisical he'd invite the invaders to dinner before he figures out they're the enemy.

Of course, sources tell me that in the past week, Reid is still thinking he can find a 60th vote to pass a conference committee report rather than use reconciliation.  Yeah, that would be right after the unicorns take off from Ronald Reagan National Airport, right?

Related articles by Zemanta

• House, Senate leaders say push for health care reform continues (cnn.com)
• Pelosi: Needed Changes To Senate Health Bill 'Aren't Minor Tweaks' (huffingtonpost.com)
• Pelosi lays out possible path for health care (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

MOMocrats Live Blog the State of the Union

Join the MOMocrats here tonight for a live blog of the President's State of the Union address. The fun will begin at 8pm EST and continue through Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's response for the Republican party.

Update: Full text of the State of the Union address (as released to the press) and the rebuttal, below.

Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter says "Send the Men Home!"

How can we get health care done? Easy, if you believe some women in Congress:

I heard about Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's (D-N.H.) comments before they hit the mainstream media yesterday, thanks to XM Radio channel POTUS (Politics of the United States!) -- send the men home and we just might get health care reform done!

The poor congresswoman is taking all sorts of flack now for that comment with Republican men crying, "SEXISM!"  But is it sexist if it's true?

James O'Keefe, Fox News-Breitbart hero, ACORN stomper, arrested for plot to wiretap Landrieu's office

Fox News is quite beside themselves over it, beseeching everyone to wait for context. Because surely there must be some reasonable explanation for O'Keefe to be in Senator Mary Landrieu's office poised with his finger on the phone video button while two 'workmen' (one of whom is the son of Acting US Attorney Bill Flanagan) paid a visit to the phone system under the pretense of 'repairing' it.

Here's some context: James O'Keefe was the architect of the much-ballyhooed ACORN sting back in September. That was the sting that caught a couple of ACORN employees engaging in some pretty bad judgment calls, did irreparable harm to the ACORN brand, causing Congress to defund them only to have the Supreme Court call that defunding unconstitutional. That James O'Keefe. The young real-time wired darling of Fox News and Andrew Breitbart. (I thought about linking you to the story but I know how Uncle Rupert feels about the whole linky thing, so you should probably just Google it if you don't remember.)

Anyway, according to reports, here's what happened:

O'Keefe, 25, was already in Landrieu's New Orleans office Monday when Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel, both 24, showed up claiming to be telephone repairmen, according to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office. Letten says O'Keefe recorded the two with his cell phone.

Once inside the reception area, Flanagan, the son of acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan in Shreveport, and Basel asked for access to the main phone at the reception desk.

After handling the phone, "Flanagan and Basel next requested access to the telephone closet because they needed to perform work on the main telephone system," Letten's office said.

The men were directed to another office in the building, they're accused of again misrepresenting themselves as telephone repairmen. They were arrested later by the U.S. Marshal's Service. Details of the arrest were not available. A fourth man, Stan Dai, 24, was also arrested, but Letten's office said only that he assisted the others in planning, coordinating and preparing the operation.

Well, this is quite a development. It certainly sounds like O'Keefe was pulling a page right out of the Nixon playbook with this one, because I guess resigning in disgrace is somehow a badge of honor in Republican-land?

Snark aside, assuming these allegations are true, they point to just how low the right wingers will sink to disenfranchise voters. The choice to try to disenfranchise voters in Louisiana and hopefully somehow catch Landrieu in an act at the same time is just more evidence of their cynical sliminess.

I'll wait to see how things unfold because I actually believe in the presumption of innocence and the Constitution, but right now, things are looking like they could be ugly.  According to the FBI press release, they're looking at some hard time:

If convicted, FLANAGAN, BASEL, O’KEEFE, and DAI each face a maximum term of 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three (3) years of supervised release following any term of imprisonment.

FBI Affidavit at Gawker

FBI Press Release

UPDATE: I was curious about Stan Dai, started doing a bit of searching and came across some of the same information this person found. If this is the same Stan Dai, he has a weird idea about what "defending democracy" is all about.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Fox News Devastated Over Arrest Of ACORN Pimp, Says The Story Probably Needs 'A Lot Of Context' (thinkprogress.org)
• More Liddy Than Woodward & Bernstein? (talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Pa. prosecutor won't retry dozens of tainted cases (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) via Democratic Underground

Game Change -- Sexism at its Worst

So let me get this straight -- with the exception of Michelle Obama, all the women who were center stage in the 2008 presidential election (whether they were candidates or not) are bitchy, stupid, whining shrews?

If this is where we are in 2010 when it comes to permissible portrayals of women, I may have to live to be 237 before we're treated with even a modicum of respect.

I am SO weary of men journalists (and some women) thinking they can get away with sexist slams of women in the name of political commentary. The authors of Game Change, the long on gossip, short on real reporting book, apparently want us to believe that all the things we hated about the 2008 presidential campaign can be blamed on the women who were involved.

Yes, ladies -- apparently everything you didn't like in 2008 was all our fault!

Seriously?

Go Read It: A way forward on health care reform in 2010

As is now well known, there have been recent setbacks that make taking the next step difficult. Some may see the value in leaving the door ajar, or perhaps coming back to it at a later time. Opponents would have lawmakers believe we'd all be better off if they just closed the door and walked away.

Steve Benen lays out a comprehensive and well-thought out plan to get health care reform passed, vowing not to let Kristol and company hijack it the way they did in 1994. He's got strong arguments and strong words. Read it, then save the PDF and pass it around.

FemLaw on Daily Kos has a great call to action and argument for why we need to get behind our representatives. They aren't hearing us because the teabaggers are jamming the lines, among other things.

Finally, David Waldman explains the "sidecar reconciliation" plan in plain English.

Is Canada a Utopian Escape from American Politics & Conservatism? What One Canadian Says.

By MOMocrats Guest Writer, Ann Bibby

It’s been a difficult week for Democrats and centrist minded Independents in the United States. Martha Coakley lost Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat to Republican Scott Brown. The Supreme Court overturned rules established by Congress to regulate campaign financing. 

Democrats are telling the Health Care Reform Bill that “we need to take a break,” and the President’s call for a return to common sense banking regulation was greeted on Wall Street by a collective panic attack.

 

Has Canada ever looked so inviting?

 

Whenever life in the land of the free and home of the brave seems constricting and scary, many of my Democratic and Independent friends remind me of how lucky I am to have achieved the dream. Canadian Permanent Residency.

 

“Look at you,” they say. “Basking in the last frontier in northern Alberta with your provincial health care and your government that has a firm exit date from Afghanistan.”

 

“I need to find me a Canadian boyfriend,” a single friend has remarked. “Escape from the Teabag mentality and the Sarah Palin worship.”

 

Normally, I have nothing to say. I read. I know. I am glad that I am here and that my daughter will grow up in a country that prizes individual liberties in a way that my native land never really seemed to. It would surprise people in the lower 48 a great deal to know that the provinces are fiercely independent and resent any attempt of over-reach from the central government in Ottawa. They run their own health care systems. They set school curriculums for the students residing within their borders. And though they like the fact that our popular vote gives us a say in choosing our President, whereas they have only indirect influence on who becomes Prime Minister, they find our presidential election process an endless nightmare from which nothing much good ever comes.

 

But my American friends who harbor dreams of emigrating to a Canadian Utopia need to stop and consider a few facts.