As they say crime should fit the punishment. Likewise celebration should fit the achievement. If you want to call passage of the HCR bill a victory, it is a Pyrrhic one. That is why I find it embarrassing to pat our own backs so vigorously as expressed in the recent congratulatory letter from Justin Ruben.

Jonathan Gruber FAIL: Exhibit 1.

Let’s be clear, if a member of Congress or one of their staff is seriously assaulted, the blame will squarely lie with the Republican Party and its leadership in particular. I say seriously assaulted because Rep. Cleaver was spat upon on Sunday and that constitutes assault. But it will not be a legal culpability that the Republicans will have to bear it is the moral responsibility that they as people elected to represent and lead this nation.

We have seen some back peddling from a few Republicans, softly decrying the actions of their supporters as “nuts” or a “ few isolated incidents”. This, of course, completely ignores the years of ever growing rhetoric which paints their political opponents as traitors or baby killers or Socialists or Nazi’s.

This is the problem with maximalist rhetoric. When your opponent and or their policy is compared, without caveat, without any nuance to the worst of the worst of humanity, it takes the social limiters that a civil society depends on off line. If one group of people is really trying to destroy America, then why isn’t it okay to take up arms against them? If one political party is actually voting to kill your grandmother, isn’t that an imminent danger that demands an extreme response?

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Will the House put the public option back in the HCR bill?

exemption for States from HCR

When I was a six or seven, I asked my Dad to explain what political conservative was (yes, I was just as big a politics nerd as a child as I am now, it must be genetic). It was harder than he thought but he came down on the definition that a conservative was someone that wanted to keep things as much the same as they were or are today as possible. Dad was great in that he did not attach any negative connotations to this desire, in fact he made a point to say that it was important to have folks like this, lest the nation make big mistakes. It is sad to say, but the definition Dad provided 30 plus years ago does not seem to apply anymore.

The actions of the current conservatives and the Republican Party where they make their home seems to be far more about turning back the clock then slowing the pace of change. The best example of this is their legal thinking. Any time there is a new law that they do not like, they run all the way back to the Constitution and say that it is not in that venerable 223 year old document.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Adventures in e-mail Kool-aid distribution.

His pre-existing diabetic condition is why he wanted the job

You can read it for yourself.

A quick question