A Matter of Priorities

It is, of course, a tragically stupid tale:

Little League Baseball has stripped the U.S. championship from Chicago-based Jackie Robinson West and suspended its coach for violating a rule prohibiting the use of players who live outside the geographic area that the team represents, it was announced Wednesday.

Jackie Robinson West must vacate wins from the 2014 Little League Baseball International Tournament — including its Great Lakes Regional and United States championships.

The team’s manager, Darold Butler, has been suspended from Little League activity, and Illinois District 4 administrator Michael Kelly has been removed from his position.

The organization found that Jackie Robinson West used a falsified boundary map and that team officials met with neighboring Little League districts in Illinois to claim players and build what amounts to a superteam.

As a result, the United States championship has been awarded to Mountain Ridge Little League from Las Vegas.

“Quite honestly, we had to do this,” Little League International president and CEO Stephen D. Keener told ESPN on Wednesday. “We had no choice. We had to maintain the integrity of the Little League program. … As painful as this is, it’s a necessary outcome from what we finally have been able to confirm.

“The real troubling part of this is that we feel horribly for the kids who are involved with this. Certainly, no one should cast any blame, any aspersions on the children who participated on this team. To the best of our knowledge, they had no knowledge that they were doing anything wrong. They were just kids out playing baseball, which is the way it should be. They were celebrated for that by many, many organizations, many people. What we’re most concerned about today is that it’s going to be hard on these kids. And that’s the part that breaks your heart.”

(ESPN)

People are, as you might imagine, furious. And they should be. Yet what is it about our society that so many people waste so much energy being furious about the wrong thing?

Not Quite Unspeakable

While it is true that Adam Huber has been on a roll, it is also true that I have already given away the punch line once tonight, which leaves me in the strange position of saying, “Well, yeah, it only goes downhill from there, but that’s kinda the point. And, hey, there’s a Ruth Buzzi joke in there!”

Or is that cheating, too?

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Huber, Adam. “This Doofus has Not Been Rated”. Bug Martini. 10 February 2015.

A Confession Unto the World Weiner

With apologies to the Weiner Almighty; forgive me, Weiner, for I have sinned, and yes, I owe you another apology for trying to cram “weiner” into the sentence twice thrice.

Still, though, it is unkind to give away the punch line. Then again … something about cosmic justice goes here. That is to say, if only ....

I mean, it was always a doctor, or a lawyer, or in the eighties an MBA or other special someone in finance, and even if one hasn’t a care in the world about who their daughters marry, look at what the rest of us have gotten from that stupid, greedy ownership culture.

No daughter of yours is going to marry a Negro? No son of yours is gonna be a queer? Tell us this: Now that your kids have fucked the whole of American society, are you proud of the social disease you passed along?

So while you fret about whether or not you own your kids’ sex lives or whatever, the rest of us will be over in the corner talking about something important. You know, like giving away the punch line.

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Weiner, Zach. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. 11 February 2015.

A Modicum of Derisive Laughter

All I’m gonna say is that Cartoon Brian Williams has a point.

Detail of Tom the Dancing Bug, by Ruben Bolling, 12 February 2015; via Daily Kos Comics.

An Interesting Point About King v. Burwell

Ah, Gail Collins:

Here is how great the Affordable Care Act is doing: The Supreme Court is about to hear a challenge to the law, filed on behalf of four Virginia plaintiffs, who claim to have suffered grievous harm by being forced to either buy health coverage or pay a penalty. Lately, reporters have been trying to track down this quartet of pain, and discovered they are:

— A 64-year-old limo driver who does not seem to be required to do anything under the Affordable Care Act because the cost of even a very cheap health care plan would be more than 8 percent of his income. (People who have to pay more than 8 percent are allowed to just opt out of the whole program and stay blissfully uninsured.) Also, he’s a Vietnam veteran and thus presumably eligible for free veteran’s health care, making the whole discussion even more irrelevant.

— A 63-year old man in Virginia Beach who would apparently have been eligible for stupendous savings on health insurance under the new law. And who is also a veteran.

— A woman who listed her address as a motel where she hasn’t been staying since late 2013. And wherever she is, she probably wouldn’t have any Obamacare problems because of the 8 percent rule.

— A 64-year-old woman who seemed to have little or no idea what the case was about. “I don’t like the idea of throwing people off their health insurance,” she told Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones.

That plaintiff, an anti-gay rights activist, also told Mencimer that because of previous health problems, she faced insurance costs of $1,500 a month, a vastly higher premium than she’d pay under Obamacare. Also, The Wall Street Journal determined that her annual rate of pay as a substitute teacher was so low she, too, should be off the hook because of the 8 percent rule. Also, she’s about to qualify for Medicare.

Comments by some of the plaintiffs did suggest that they experienced serious pain over the fact that Barack Obama is president. “… When he was elected, he got his Muslim people to vote for him, that’s how he won,” one told Facebook.

Yellowhammer Pride

“Probate Judge Don Davis is hereby ENJOINED from refusing to issue marriage licenses to plaintiffs due to the Alabama laws which prohibit same-sex marriage. If Plaintiffs take all the steps that are required in the normal course of business as a prerequisite to issuing a marriage license to opposite-sex couples, Judge Davis may not deny them a license on the ground that Plaintiffs constitute same-sex couples or because it is prohibited by the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act or by any other Alabama law or Order pertaining to same-sex marriage. This injunction binds Judge Don Davis and all his officers, agents, servants and employees, and others active in concert or participation with any of them, who would seek to enforce the marriage laws of Alabama which prohibit or fail to recognize same-sex marriage.”

―Judge Callie V. S. Granade

So it begins.

As some Alabama judges continue to refuse the United States Constitution, to which they had hitherto sworn, federal Judge Callie Granade of the Southern District of Alabama―indeed, the very judge Chief Justice Roy Moore and others are refusing to recognize―has issued a straightforward response in ordering a Mobile County Probate Judge, Don Davis, to do his damn job.

Amanda Terkel of Huffington Post tries to explain:

A federal judge ordered a county official in Alabama to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples Thursday, saying they can no longer ignore her earlier ruling that struck down the state’s marriage equality ban.

Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban began crumbling in January, when U.S. District Judge Callie Granade found it unconstitutional. At the request of the state attorney general, Granade put a two-week stay on her ruling so the state could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and delay it even longer. On Monday morning, however, the Supreme Court declined to get involved, and Alabama became the 37th state where gay marriage is legal.

Despite the ruling, dozens of probate judges around the state have refused to comply with Granade’s ruling. According to the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, as of Thursday afternoon, only 23 of the state’s 67 counties were issuing marriage licenses to all couples.

Their defiance is due to instructions from Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore (R), who sent an order to the state’s probate judges Sunday night not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. He argued that they were not bound to follow the federal ruling.

The South might hope to rise again, but this romp is pretty flaccid. Even Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas knows the anti-gay day is over. But, you know, this is how it goes. Alabama really needs to fight this fight, and lose, so it can feel further injured by the fact of being American.

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Granade, Callie V. S. “Order”. Strawser, et al., v. Strange and Davis. United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama Southern Division. 12 February 2015.

Terkel, Amanda. “Federal Judge Orders Alabama Official To Stop Denying Marriage Licenses To Same-Sex Couples”. The Huffington Post. 12 February 2015.

The Brownback Way

“In a development that falls somewhere between ‘I can’t believe he hadn’t done this already’ and ‘My God, what a monumental prick,’ Brownback issued an executive order Tuesday removing gender identity and sexual orientation from the classes of protected Kansas government employees, which include race, color, gender, religion, national origin, ancestry or age.”

―Luke Brinker

Because what would we do without Kansas?

The critique is fairly straightforward; Luke Brinker of Salon opens with the basic review:

Confronting a $344 million budget deficit following the failure of his supply side economic experiment, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is a busy man these days, further slashing education in a state that had already imposed among the largest cuts in the nation, gutting the state’s pension system, and diverting funds from vital infrastructure programs in an effort to clean up the mess his tax cuts for the wealthy created. But amid all this, the governor still has time to deal with other matters, as he demonstrated today, with a quintessentially Brownbackian assault on the civil rights of LGBT Kansans.

Steve Benen wraps it into a larger consideration of conservative “culture warriors”:

Anyone tempted to believe Republican officials are slowly giving up on their staunch opposition to gay rights received quite a wake-up call this week. Much of Alabama is defying the federal courts on marriage equality; Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) are talking about amending the U.S. Constitution; and in Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has decided to roll back LGBT protections for no apparent reason.

Or perhaps a more bland description, you know, like an actual news article from Jonathan Shorman for the Capital-Journal:

Then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, signed the order in 2007 prohibiting discrimination against most state employees on the basis of sexual orientation, The Associated Press reported at the time.

The order required agencies under the governor’s direct control to ensure they have programs to prevent harassment against gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and people who have had surgery for sex changes. It covered 25,000 of the 41,000 state employees.

On Tuesday, Brownback issued a new executive order canceling Sebelius’ order.

“This Executive Order ensures that state employees enjoy the same civil rights as all Kansans without creating additional ‘protected classes’ as the previous order did,” Brownback said in a statement.

“Any such expansion of ‘protected classes’ should be done by the legislature and not through unilateral action. The order also reaffirms our commitment to hiring, mentoring and recognizing veterans and individuals with disabilities.

In other words, equality in America should be subject to the kind will of supremacists. Just like Brownback’s deep Christian faith instructs him to usurp God’s authority on Earth. Recent generations have included in their puerile instruction from parents that the commandment about not taking God’s name in vain pertained to things like not saying, “God damn it!” or, “Jesus Christ! what was that?”

Governor Brownback reminds exactly the cost of that sinful deception; he should not take the Lord’s name in vain. Just like he pretends to supersede the U.S. Constitution, he also acts to supersede Jesus fucking Christ.

Then again, this is Kansas we’re talking about. Hateful megalomania seems epidemic in the Sunflower State.

† † †

Your Congress at War … With Itself … Again

The setup: Remember how Republicans used to denounce President Obama as a “king” and lamented his unprecedented executive power?

Can we try laying on thick? Remember how Republicans and Democrats alike handed President Bush what essentially amounted to perpetual war powers?

Now, remember: President Obama is currently operating in the Iraqi-Syrian theatre, against Daa’ish, under authority granted by the Authorization for Use of Military Force granted President Bush in 2001 to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and, apparently, everyone else in Iraq.

We might also remember some back and forth in there about the fact that it is Congress who grants war powers to the president, yet it was also Congress who wanted President Obama to march down to Capitol Hill with a plan that satisfies their desire to send our troops to war.

So President Obama did just that. Well, at least, the marching down with a plan part.

And of course, Republicans are upset that he did so.

Steve Benen tries to explain an emerging, familiar theme―

In terms of the politics of the AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force), the president’s language was not well received on Capitol Hill – many Democrats said the resolution, as written, is too broad and includes too few restrictions, while most Republicans said it’s too narrow and includes too many restrictions. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), demonstrating his trademark wit, called the proposed language “utterly stupid.”

The dynamic has annoying familiarity to it:

1. Congress demanded to President Obama, “Send us a resolution!”

2. President Obama responded, “Fine, here’s proposed language.”

3. Congress then declared, “We don’t like this resolution!”

Perhaps now would be a good time to remind lawmakers that they could have – at some point over the last six months – worked on writing their own language to consider. Perhaps “legislators writing legislative language” would have been too obvious.

―except this time there is a twist:

… pay particular attention to the detail about Obama putting an expiration date on the resolution – something that didn’t happen in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

As near as anyone can tell, Republicans appear to be upset that the war powers request is mission-specific and has an expiration date requiring renewal after three years. Benen points to his msnbc colleague David Taintor:

Former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, who is eyeing a White House bid in 2016, criticized Obama’s resolution as too limited.

“All options need to be on the table in combating this Radical Islamic threat,” Santorum said in a statement distributed by his Patriot Voices PAC. “We need to take the fight to our enemy without the constraints this Administration is proactively placing upon itself and this President’s successor. The next President needs to be able to have all the tools at their disposal to not just conduct military operations, but win this war.”

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who is also considering a White House bid, said Obama’s war proposal need only be one sentence. “I would say there is a pretty simple authorization he could ask for, and it would read one sentence. And that is: ‘We authorize the President to defeat and destroy ISIL, period.’ And that’s, I think, what we need to do,” Rubio said Wednesday in a speech on the Senate floor.

Those who preach that there is no difference between the parties should take a moment to explain this one: Democrats are concerned that the AUMF request is too vague and will license widespread warfare. Republicans are upset that the AUMF fails to demand either widespread or perpetual warfare.

No difference at all, there, eh?

Here we go. Iiiiiiiiiiit’s wartiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime!

(Those who might remind as we did above that our troops are already engaged in this war might also wish to take a note; previously, the U.S. was merely fighting this war, and now we are preparing to officially commit to it. And given that our response to 9/11 and its connections to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen was to invade Iraq, one wonders if maybe Republicans might actually be hoping for another petition to perpetual warfare. After all, in matters of war and peace, or life and death, it’s important to keep the really important things in mind, like posturing for the 2016 election. No, seriously, just think about what’s happening; a president with a Nobel Peace Prize is asking to go to war and Republicans are pitching a fit because it’s not a big enough war.)

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Benen, Steve. “Congress balks at war resolution it didn’t want to write”. msnbc. 12 February 2015.

Taintor, David. “Obama asks for new war powers: ISIS is ‘going to lose'”. msnbc. 11 February 2015.

Your Liberal Media Conspiracy (Walker’s Bone Mix)

Wow.

So, you know, many who consider themselves Republican or try to convince you that they are “independent” will occasionally complain about the evil liberal media conspiracy by which apparently the conservative-tending owners of newspapers and other media outlets are all conspiring to force their reporters to write left-wing propaganda. The specifics will vary, but the general theme holds: If the news cycle is against Republicans in any way, it’s a conspiracy.

And it is indeed one of those alleged bastions of pernicious liberalism that brings us today’s liberal media conspiracy offense.

The conspirator’s name is Alan Rappeport, and he writes for The New York Times.

You might remember yesterday’s strange tale of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) traveling to London and gobsmacking a host while speaking to Chatham House, a royally-endorsed foreign policy wonkbox. The gist of the story, of course, is that when presented with a question about the theory of evolution, Walker chose to punt and counterintuitively claim it an issue politicians are supposed to stay out of.

There are, of course, any number of angles to this. Republicans in London are a dangerous idea. When did evolution become something politicians punt on? Do conservatives recognize that our international neighbors think we’re absolutely weird about this? What are the implications of our political system being subject to such delusional litmus tests that Republicans are absolutely quaking in their boots at the thought of acknowledging science?

Enter The New York Times, who thought Mr. Rappeport would best serve their First Draft blog, intended to bring us breaking news, by rehashing and reframing Mr. Walker’s embarrassing gaffe under the headline, “Walker Steps Back From Evolution ‘Punt'”.

As we noted yesterday, in (ahem!) “stepping back” from his comments, the Wisconsin Republican was still too frightened to say the word “evolution”; his “step back” is, essentially speaking, is to stand in one place and whine like a petulant, untrained puppy.

And the liberal media conspiracy? The New York Times, an alleged chief conspirator? Why wouldn’t it rehash and reframe a story, bringing us exactly nothing new, in order to throw Scott Walker a bone? You know, because that sounds exactly like what a liberal media conspiracy would do.

Mr. Rappeport’s “First Draft” needs some work.

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Rappeport, Alan. “Walker Steps Back From Evolution ‘Punt'”. First Draft. 11 February 2015.