Pundit Country

For the week ending January 31, 2009.

As always, these pieces come from Right-Wing Watch and Hatewatch.

• TPM: Alleged Phone Tamperer O’Keefe To Go On Hannity Tonight.

• The Family Research Council is seeking signatures for a petition opposing efforts to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

• Rep. Michele Bachmann has $1 million in the bank for her re-election bid.

• Religious Right activists are holding a prayer vigil outside of CBS headquarters in support of Focus on the Family’s anti-choice Super Bowl ad.

• Student Activists Confront Anti-Semitic California Prof

• It might help if Rudy Giuliani actually watched the State of the Union Address before he went on television to criticize it.

• Is Orly Taitz planning on running for office? (please say yes)

• Politico has an excellent piece on the right-wing groups who have been funding and training activists like James O’Keefe.

• Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz has submitted legislation in the House of Representatives that would overturn D.C.’s marriage equality bill

• Think Progress: Fox News Devastated Over Arrest Of ACORN Pimp, Says The Story Probably Needs ‘A Lot Of Context’.

• Raw Story: GOP sends fundraising letter disguised as ‘Census’ form.

• Operation Rescue wants to make it clear that it has nothing to do with Randall Terry.

• Randy Travis will be headlining the first annual Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Concert.

• David Weigel: Tea Partiers and FreedomWorks Craft a 2010 Agenda.

• Apparently, the election of Scott Brown “put a stake in the heart of Camelot.”

• Where online politics goes wrong:  “Virtual March for Life“

• Controversial Oregon Campus Group is Relocated

• Joe.My.God: Pastor Launches Boycott Of Houston Over Lesbian Mayor Annise Parker.

• Is there a political litmus test for football coaches now?

I don’t consider them Democrats, I consider them netroots, and they’re different. “And if I see that they vote in every election or most elections, I’ll be worried. But I’m not sure that they’re regular grown-up Democrats. I think that a lot of those people are troublemakers who love to sit in the backseat and complain. They’re not interested in governing this country. They never ran for office, they’re not interested in working for somebody in public office. They get their giggles from sitting in the backseat and bitching.”
-Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s show Hardball,  shares his thoughts on the netroots.

Shorter Matthews: These damn activists with their facts and stuff won’t let the political elite run this country the way we want to.

Related articles

• Chris Matthews, are You Talking to Me? (seminal.firedoglake.com)
• Ignoring Dean, Matthews claims that “netroots” critics of health care reform “never ran for office” (mediamatters.org)
• Will Obama Kill The Netroots? (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Chris Matthews Thinks Health Care Reform Is Being “Hung Up By The Left” (huffingtonpost.com)

When choosing to use military force against another nation, the following principles seem to apply to the following men.

Barack Obama:  the principle of “just war“, first formally enumerated by St. Thomas Aquinas, which holds that a conflict can and ought to meet the criteria of philosophical, religious or political justice, provided it follows certain conditions before being engaged.

George W. Bush:  Just ’cause he had nothing better to do that day.

Related articles

• Obama, Afghanistan, and the ‘just war’ (crosscut.com)
• “Just War” Is Just Words (nader.org)
• A Last Word on the Just War Tradition (palamas.info)
• Liberals should beware the lazy cry of betrayal | Martin Kettle (guardian.co.uk)
• Obama Nobel Peace Prize speech (blogs.law.harvard.edu)

This clip, from the PBS investigative news program Frontline, covers their report on the credit card industry since before and immediately after the crash.It’s an eye-opening look at what is essentially and industry that has bribed it’s way into making usury both a legal and desirable business practice.

I have to admit I was stunned at the some of the practices the industry is allowed to continue with, even after the most recent attempt at Congressional reform. It makes me glad that I bank with a credit union and discarded my credit cards years ago. In fact, it’s doubtful I’ll ever go bank to a bank after watching this.

The entire program runs about an hour in length, but is well worth your time. My immedaite takeaway from the piece was this:

1) Elizabeth Warren should be hired immediately to serve a larger role than adviser to Congress on financial matters. She really is that smart and capable of explaining this mess in layman’s terms.

2) Tim Geithner needs to be let go (despite my earlier assertion) if for no other reason than he simply doesn’t command the respect or fear that he needs to from the banking industry to get them to comply with his demands. That or he’s just incompetent.

3) President Obama needs to stop craving the approval of the system he needs to radically reform and just do it. People will wait (even for him) for only so long.

4) The idea of a federal Consumer Protection Agency is one of the better ones this crisis has precipitated and should be pushed for the greatest determination.

Related articles

• Advocating For A Consumer Financial Protection Association (themoderatevoice.com)
• Elizabeth Warren: Financial Rules ‘Literally Don’t Work Anymore,’ Regulations Should Be ‘Clear And Painful’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Joel B. Schwartzberg: Elizabeth Warren: Hard Truths About the Economy (huffingtonpost.com)
• Audio: Hidden Fees on Credit Cards (usnews.com)
• The beginning of the end of meaningful regulatory reform (blogs.reuters.com)

What with all of the news regarding the officer shooting in Lakewood, WA today, I completely forgot that today is the 10th anniversary of the start of N30, or what it’s become known as: the Battle in Seattle.

It’s kinda odd looking back then and seeing where we are now. We were largely ignored by the WTO then and they seem to have repeated that strategy with every subsequent protest since as more and more of the world’s wealth goes to fewer and fewer hands.

Anyway, some of the readers I’ve seen have been posting a “where I was” perspective of the events of that day and I thought I’d add mine. I knew exactly where I was on the 30th. Right behind this photographer, much to the consternation of my girlfriend at the time.