Scarecrow

Seizing the occasion of NPR firing Juan — but I’m so perfect to fill that slot on Fox All Stars — Williams, the entire Republican Wurlitzer is calling on Congress to defund the evil NPR, and while they’re at it, why not just take out the last vestiges of public funding for public radio and television, the perceived bastion of liberal –by which they mean rational, non-Christian– journalism.

Delaware Tea Party Republican candidate, Christine O’Donnell is surprised to learn there’s a clause in the 1st Amendment prohibiting the government from establishing a religion. But that’s just par for a group that has little respect for the US Constitution.

The various lists of things Obama could and should do won’t get very far until the President acknowledges the views he’s accepted and listened to fall woefully short of what the country’s problems need.

There was a telling moment in last night’s Nevada Senate debate in which Sharron Angle and Harry Reid explained how they view the proper role of government and its relationship with corporate America. And their answers must have made the nation’s largest corporations smile.

The Democratic Party, while not yet in denial, is not running on a platform to address any of nation’s critical problems. They’re silent. And without knowing what, if anything, they plan to do about the monstrous issues facing the country, they’ve given the voters no reason to vote for them.

Translated LA Times: Today LA Sheriffs seized $234,000 worth of harmless products from small businesses in a move certain to harm their businesses, increase unemployment and withdraw money and trade from a lagging economy.

Is it rule of law hypocrisy week? A few days ago, the Obama State Department announced sanctions against Iranian officials for human rights violations — kidnapping, imprisonment, beatings, torture — perpetrated against Iranian protesters. This week, ignoring it’s own drone bombing campaign, the US is fretting over so-called “extrajudicial killings” allegedly carried out by the Pakistani Army.

Finally, the Obama Administration and human rights advocates agree that when government officials condone, order or engage in kidnappings, renditions, blackmail, beatings and torture, those officials should be held personally accountable and sanctioned under international law . . . As long as they’re Iranians.

ABC This Week’s Amanpour came armed with videos and quotes to show Mitch McConnell how embarrassed any rational person would be by the nutty positions expressed by Republican candidates like Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, Joe Miller, and Christine O’Donnell. But McConnell dodged every question; Amanpour simply gave up trying to get honest answers.

In early 2009, the Administration proposed to put the banks through “stress tests” to see how they’d survive more adverse scenarios. So why didn’t the economic team also have a test in case their own recovery plans proved to be insufficient?