It's not about race

From an Oklahoma state rep (R):

Kern voted for the amendment, arguing that minorities earn less because they don't work as hard.

"We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic," Kern said, "but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school?

"I've taught school," she added, "and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."

I've taught school and I saw a lot of people who didn't study because ... well, they just didn't study.

apparently you have that luxury when you are white.

.

News of the weird

That would be the state somewhere to our south, dangling down obscenely from the underbelly of Georgia, the great state of ...

.. the truly weird. And this is not just my opinion. It's on AOL! Just check it out.

"It doesn't seem like anybody is really from Florida -- it just seems like a transient state where all the miscreants wind up," Greenlee said.

Which is what Budweiser the lawyer told me over thirty years ago.

Truthiness

Here is a quote from the Washington Monthly:

* Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum (R) was asked yesterday on Fox News about his vote in support of Medicare Part D. "I was against that. I spoke against it. I worked against it. But we lost," he said. The detail Santorum hopes Republicans overlook: he voted for it, and didn't even try to pay for it.

Some journalists are so picky.

besides, it probably wasn't meant as a factual statement.

.

Bankers Bane

I mean a bane to us. Here is the latest from those wonderful folks who helped bring on the greatest recession in personal memory.

J.P. Morgan Chase said Friday it will pay $27 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the bank of overcharging members of the military for their mortgages and prompted a federal investigation, a congressional hearing as well as public outrage.

In the suit, Marine Corps Capt. Jonathon Rowles charged that the bank refused to lower the interest rate on his mortgage, as required under a federal law, after he was activated for duty. When Rowles refused to pay the higher rate, the bank called his home up to three times a day and threatened to foreclose, according to the suit, which was filed in July.

All of which is against Federal law. Chase probably thought they were jsut helping the war effort I suppose.

bonuses all around, if not a governorship somewhere

A place I know ...

... very, very well. Nichols Hardware in Purcellville, Virginia. When I was a little boy my grandfather would take me and my brother Tom there all the time. Then it was a real working hardware store filled with farmers and builders getting their tools and supplies. I was stunned when I went back a few years ago and found that it has not changed. At all. Same creaking wooden floors, same cramped quarters. I even spoke to the clerk who checked me out and discovered that he went to the same elementary school I did in Hamilton just a few classes behind me.

It was almost surreal how little had changed.

But today there is news that one of the co-owners, Ted Nichols, has been killed in a car accident and Nichols Hardware's fate is now uncertain. It has been in business for 97 years.

Here is the article about it from the Washington Post.

Republicans in Alaska

Amid growing signs that the Tea Party is fading in energy, losing focus, being coopted in Congress, and in general revealing that it was about nothing, Frum Forum mounts some statistics from Alaska.

A new Dittman Research poll in Alaska shows Sarah Palin’s favorable rating is upside down at 36% to 61%.

For comparison, the U.S. Senate candidate Palin backed, Joe Miller (R), is even worse off at 18% to 73%. And her arch nemesis, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), is at a sky high approval of 71% to 27%.

The part about Palin doesn't interest me since Big Al in Alaska told me months ago that her star had set as far as Alaska was concerned. But Joe Miller has tanked and Murkowski rides high.

Now that's interesting. Miller was Tea Party all the way and managed in the rage of the moment to unseat the establishment Murkowski who then went on to show that there are Republicans, and there are Conservatives, and there are Tea Partiers. In other words, at least in Alaska, the struggle between Tea Party insanity and something at least approaching sanity has been fought.

And won.

for the time being.

Now they're mechanized

[from Andrew Sullivan]

Religious tolerance at the academy

I am having great fun reading Alexandre Dumas' La Reine Margot about the St Bartholomew Day's massacre. But that was far away and long ago and we are more tolerant these days.

Here, by chance, is a quote from one of my 'Migration in World History' students essay on their family:

The family "converted from Catholicism to Christianity."

And I am sure they are better Christians for it.

.

Words from Carmen

Politics have been pretty depressing lately, so when Carmen pointed to a TPM headline and said "That was so damn funny!" I had to take a look.

You should too.

Essentially the Demos almost tricked the Repubs into actually passing one of their own lunatic budget ammendments. The Repubs had to scramble to get enough of their saner members to vote against their own bill.

it's even funnier if you watch the video.

.

And I thought it was the Virgin Mary

Someone just paid

£500

for a jelly bean that looks like Kate Middleton.

words fail me.

Not a factual statement - again

This time from Tim Pawlenty, via Washington Monthy:

* Former Republican Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) accidentally slipped yesterday, dropping the pretense of his exploratory committee, and told CNN, "I'm running for president." His aides soon after said this didn't mean Pawlenty is formally running for president.[my italics]

Formally.

as opposed to actually?

The Great White Hope

(personal photo of a reader on Daily Dish)

Without Comment

Profiles in political ... uh... something or other

Here is an actual quote (from Andrew Sullivan) from Sen. Kyl's office.

"[Senator Jon Kyl's] remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions," - a statement from Kyl’s office.

And the reason you would admit that your boss' public statement was "not intended to be a factual statement" (love that phrase) would be that it was, in fact, untrue:

Kyl had claimed that abortion is “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does," when in fact that figure is 3 percent

It is so refreshing to have someone admit that they are peddling non-factual statements in politics, though I am not sure which is dumber, Kyl for the original statement, or his staff for the truly illuminating walk back. To illustrate your point, you just make stuff up and 3% is notionally in the ballpark of 90%.

wish I could write history articles and books that way.

.

It's Not About Race

Back to the Future, at least among the Repubs of Mississippi.

In a PPP poll released Thursday, a 46% plurality of registered Republican voters said they thought interracial marriage was not just wrong, but that it should be illegal. 40% said interracial marriage should be legal.

"It's like coming home."

depending on what you mean by 'home'

O Florida!

The great state to our south. Its recent gubernatorial election has pretty much trashed its reputation, even among Floridians. Here is a quote from Washington Monthly.

There's just something remarkable about the scope of Maine Gov. Paul LePage's (R) buffoonery. Part of it has to do with expectations -- Florida's Rick Scott (R) is every bit as ridiculous, but it's Florida, so expectations are lower. Maine, however, as states go, appears to be quite sane.

Always remember: in a two party system not to vote is voting for the guys that win. You wanted them, you got them.

you should hear my 91 year old mother on the subject of her state's new governor. She always did make more sense than the rest of the family.

The rewards of performance

Remember the folks who brought you the BP oil platform explosion and the oil leak into the Gulf? What did they suffer from such lax, and expensive, incompetency?

Bonuses all around.

From CNN:

Declaring 2010 "the best year in safety performance in our company's history," Transocean Ltd., owner of the Gulf of Mexico oil rig that exploded, killing 11 workers, has awarded its top executives hefty bonuses and raises, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Meanwhile I win a big teaching award and an effective pay cut along with it.

makes you wonder what they were doing in all those other years.

A REALLY big ad

Aussie beer.

Awesome ad.

.