Irony in Tennessee

Posted on February 21, 2014 by wellsdc

By Richard Bartz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Pictured: Volkswagen plant. Not pictured: Chattanooga.

Republicans worked overtime to meddle in the affairs of private industry in Tennessee, as workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga voted on whether or not to unionize. Volkswagen itself, i.e. the employer who would be directly affected by unionization, remained neutral on the issue throughout the process. Republican politicians felt no such compunction to keep government hands off of business, though. Amid threats to legislatively withhold future incentives for Volkswagen to invest further in Tennessee, and some ridiculous Civil War analogies, workers narrowly defeated the unionization plan.

This ought to be a victory for business, right? Volkswagen can now create even more jobs in the state, secure in the knowledge that their workers will never dare talk back to them, so everything should be coming up roses for Tennessee’s economy.

Well, no.

Republicans apparently mistook Volkswagen for an American company that ships jobs wherever wages are cheapest and workers are the most powerless, not a company that gives workers a strong voice in its affairs. That misunderstanding, whether deliberate or inadvertent, may cost the state, or maybe even the entire South, more investment by foreign auto makers.

Nice going, jackasses.

Photo credit: By Richard Bartz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Gay People Are Welcome in Larry Kilgore’s Revolution…….but Then What Happens???

Posted on December 20, 2013 by wellsdc

Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Kilgore is apparently willing to work with teh gayz in getting Texas to secede, but I can’t imagine his vision of Texas would be a good place to live.

I am a Christian, and I have lots of Christian beliefs. However, I am trying to build a coalition of all different types of people. I look at the lesbians and the homosexual folks and I say, ‘Hey, D.C. is stealing my money just like they’re stealing your money.’ After we get our freedom, then we can decide all that stuff — hopefully at a county level. Right now, lesbians and homosexuals and Christians may have differences with each other, but we’ve got a bigger enemy.

This is a good example of the remarkably narrow definition of “freedom” that people like him use.

The Wrong Side of History

Posted on December 19, 2013 by wellsdc

I sincerely hope that history will mock these people:

The Harris County GOP sued the City of Houston on Tuesday, challenging Mayor Annise Parker’s decision to extend health and life insurance benefits to legally married same-sex couples whose marriages have been recognized in states with marriage equality laws.

The new policy has been put on hold by District Judge Lisa Millard after signing a temporary restraining order. The policy won’t go before a judge until after New Year’s Day, on Jan. 6, 2014.

Jared Woodfill, the chairman of the Harris County GOP, is leading the lawsuit. “This is one of the most egregious acts by an elected official I’ve ever seen,” said Woodfill. “They just decided to, unilaterally, as a lame duck, thumb their nose at the will of the people and just spit on the U.S. Constitution.”

Where exactly in the U.S. Constitution does it say gay marriage is illegal remains to be mystery.

The Inefficiency of Republican Government: Christmas Edition

Posted on December 10, 2013 by wellsdc

I wonder if people will ever figure out that, by electing Republicans to office, they are making their rhetoric about the inefficiency of government into a self-fulfilling prophecy:

Texas Values, a faith-based political advocacy organization, on Monday hosted an educational event to make sure that parents, students and others know about House Bill 308, the so-called Merry Christmas Law that the Texas Legislature passed this year. The law is meant to to ensure that public school districts can educate students about the history of traditional winter celebrations and can use traditional winter greetings, such as “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hanukkah,” without fear of litigation.

Then again, maybe people do realize it and just don’t care.

The Chicago Way

Posted on November 11, 2013 by wellsdc

Ever since 2008, I have heard people decry President Obama as a “Chicago politician,” as though that in and of itself is enough to condemn him to historical ignominy (yeah, I’m using $0.50 words today). I have never really been sure how Obama’s actions in office so far can have such purportedly obvious parallels to the erstwhile corruption of Chicago’s municipal government, but then I am not psychologically predisposed to dislike everything this president says, does, likes, touches, or looks at.

Here’s the problem, at least as I see it, with describing Obama as a “Chicago politician” without much in the way of context: it makes me think of Jim Malone in 1987’s The Untouchables, Sean Connery’s Oscar-winning performance:

You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! And that’s how you get Capone.

If the rhetoric against the sitting president puts people in mind of the greatest speech of Sean Connery’s film career, or really any role ever played by Sean Connery (except maybe Zardoz), you’re probably doing it wrong.

Put another way, Republicans should not assume that they are Elliot Ness in this analogy.

Also, you might consider not calling it “Chicago-style politics,” because the only other thing to which the descriptor “Chicago-style” applies, to my knowledge, is really, really, really good pizza. Think about that.

I’m Sure the Poll Is Skewed

Posted on November 9, 2013 by wellsdc

Given that the respondents for this poll consist of MSNBC readers, I’m sure there’s a sampling error. Still, that’s a pretty overwhelming vote for millionaires (that was my vote, and this was the graphic it gave me.)

Some Conservatives Love America Far More as an Idea Than an Actual Country

Posted on October 17, 2013 by wellsdc

From Fareed Zakaria:

The era of crises could end, but only when this group of conservatives makes its peace with today’s America. They are misty-eyed in their devotion to a distant republic of myth and memory yet passionate in their dislike of the messy, multiracial, quasi-capitalist democracy that has been around for half a century — a fifth of our country’s history. At some point, will they come to recognize that you cannot love America in theory and hate it in fact?

Fetuses, the 26th Amendment, and Texas Republicans

Posted on September 3, 2013 by wellsdc

Childhood hijinks, or sinister liberal plot?

If fetuses in Texas could vote, they’d probably vote Republican, at least according to one state official:

In a recent speech to an anti-abortion group on the economic impact of terminating pregnancies, Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman, a Republican candidate for attorney general, said he believed many unborn babies “would have voted Republican.”

***

Smitherman spokesman Allen Blakemore called the candidate’s statement a matter of statistics.

“Of course he was referring to the ones in Texas,” Blakemore said, “and we know that the majority of Texans vote for Republican candidates.”

I am honestly just too worn out to bother trying to make fun of Smitherman directly, and this comment actually boggles my mind to the point where snark begins to fail me. Instead, I will point out the callous disregard Smitherman shows for children through this comment. Apparently he wants to give the franchise to fetuses, but nothing he said indicates that he would support granting similar voting rights to children between the ages of birth and eighteen. Individuals in that age range do not have the right to vote, per the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

What does Smitherman know about children that would cause him to seek to suppress their voting rights in this manner? What is behind this push for a fetal franchise? Are Texas children far more liberal—and therefore more likely to vote for Democratic candidates—than their amniotic-submerged counterparts? Or is something more sinister at work here?

Or, in the alternative, is Barry Smitherman talking completely out of his ass? History will decide (assuming that we’re still even bothering to teach history in the future).

Photo credit: xandert from morguefile.com.

The Complacency of the Texas Conservative

Posted on June 29, 2013 by wellsdc

“It must have been a rude shock for [Lt. Governor David Dewhurst] that people were paying attention … He hasn’t seen participatory democracy in a really long time.”
–Cecile Richards

After ten years of holding all major statewide offices and both houses of the Legislature, Texas Republicans seem to have forgotten what it’s like to face direct disagreement.

The next thirty days are going to be very interesting.

Senator Ted Cruz, Green Party Double Agent?

Posted on March 20, 2013 by wellsdc

More than meets the eye?

Ted Cruz, the Republican freshman senator from Texas, has, to put it lightly, been a colossal embarrassment for our state. I won’t even bother listing his accomplishments in his barely two months in office, but if his goal was to keep himself in the headlines making all Texans look bad, then he is doing a bang-up job.

A recent vote on a seemingly uncontroversial resolution, however, has made me wonder if there is something deeper at work here:

In an unusual move, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected last week to a routine Senate resolution commemorating Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week.

Congress passes hundreds of resolutions, meant to commemorate everything from a special awareness week or Little League champions. The resolutions lack any real power of law and are predominantly ceremonial. For example, earlier this month the Senate passed resolutions to mark “World Plumbing Day” and commemorating the three-year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake.

In order to keep business moving and not clog the Senate floor, they are normally passed in bulk through a “unanimous consent agreement,” meaning a vote isn’t tallied since both sides agree to it.

But last week, Cruz objected to including the MS Awareness resolution. He was unhappy with a clause in the resolution describing the purpose of the Multiple Sclerosis Coalition, according to a Democratic staffer.

Now, I suppose we should take anything a “Democratic staffer” says with a grain of salt, as it could be anybody from a 16 year-old Senate page to Vice President Joe Biden. Either way, it is unlikely to be someone with first-hand knowledge of the contents of Ted Cruz’s head (that joke is too easy.) We don’t know, based on Politico‘s reporting, what clause the senator found objectionable. I am going to assume that it reads “WHEREAS, kittens are adorable…” Continue reading →

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