Claps and Boos

Back from a jaunt to upstate New York,I missed a raft of weirdness on the internet in my days away. Some stories deserve calps and other boos.

Claps

Frank Schaeffer's post at his website "Obama is now and will be a great President." Just when you think the left and the right are going to eviscerate President Obama, Frank, recovering from his days as founder of the Christian Right, reminds us all what is at stake with this presidency and ably defends President Obama's record of achievements so far. He manages to punch out the Right for their ravings and slap down the Left for their whining.

Thom Hartmann. Thom Hartmann is growing on me. First, he explained how the original tea party was against huge corporate tax cuts--that time for the East India Company. Now, he runs a montage assembled by Think Progress on how the Ryan Plan is inspired by Ayn Rand. The kicker was his detail that Ayn Rand's libertarianism started with her admiration for a serial killer and a brutal child molester named William Hickman. Hartmann read from Rand's diary, which saw this monster as a type of Superman, who did not care about society. He went on to say that Rand actually started a novel with an Hickman character as the hero. Nice job.

TPM uncovered the nice little historical note that Ayn Rand applied for Medicare when her husband came down with Alzheimer's. The centerpiece of Paul Ryan's Ayn Rand-inspired budget is the elimination of Medicare.

Think Progress for its wonderful montage of House Republicans espousing their belief in Ay Rand interspersed with footage of Mike Wallace interviewing Ayn Rand, where she advocates the destruction of everything about America and Christianity. Her supreme virtue is selfishness and in the tape argues that self-love is superior and that the weak don't deserve love.

Paul Krugman for explaining in his New York Times post that the S&P's warning on the national debt is a big nothingburger. TPM reminds us that the last time the S&P commented on our creditworthiness was in 1995 when Newt and company threatened not to vote for the debt ceiling. Ed Klein reminds us that the S&P gave three stars to the subprime mortgages.

Rachel Maddow for solving the mystery of why Michigan appointed an emergency manager for Benton Harbor, a small lakeside town. The reason is that the town is almost 90% black and has a per capita income of $10,000. But they do have a wonderful lakeside park, which was given to the town by their mayor in the early 20th century. Well, it seems the author of the Financial Emergency Bill has an interest in developing Lakeshore Estates, which would be a high end residential community with golf courses bordering the park. The plan has been rejected by the Benton Harbor Planning Commission. But, never fear, the Emergency Manager has fired all the planning board and installed members who favor the development. A very nice job of reporting.

Wisconsin Recall Drive. The Recall drive has now hit four Republican Senators, enough to turn that body Democratic. Our favorite Senator, Randy Hopper, the one with a mistress hired by Scott Walker, sent out a mailing to his constituents and listed a phone number if they had questions. The problem is that the number is a sex talk line. Tends to reinforce attitudes about Randy Randy.

CNN's latest poll shows that 51% of Americans back same-sex marriage.

A Marist poll shows that 70% of teabaggers are opposed to Medicare cuts.

Mariano Rivero,who saved my short trip, by saving two straight games for the Yankees against the Texas Rangers.

BOOs

David Barton,phony historian and Christian. David Barton has been hitting them out of the ballpark. Barton's latest big boner was saying that the bible was against "net neutrality". He said that the idea was "evil". Last week, Barton said that Jesus was against the minimum wage and the estate tax. But he hit two today. The second is his claim that Thomas Jefferson allowed the use of Government funds to evangelize American Indians, thereby showing that he did not believe in the separation of church and state. His evidence was the treaty with the Kaskaskia tribe which allowed for funds to pay for the building of a church and the payment of a priest. What Barton never tells his audience was that Jefferson was mortified by this treaty and tried to hide its contents from Congress, precisely because he knew this provision would spark an uproar. The Indians had converted to Catholicism in the 1600s and they had requested these two items as part of the deal. Jefferson OK'd it because of realpolitik but in his writings disavowed any attempt to evangelize the Indians.

John Boehner for hiring Paul Clement , the former Solicitor-General under George W, for $500,000 to argue the case of the Defense of Marriage Act, which has been ruled unconstitutional---and trying to stick the DOJ with the bill for the defense because the Obama Administration decided not to defend the case.

John Boehner again for turning down the opportunity to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, a holiday that has-- until this year-- been celebrated on a bipartisan basis. I guess if you have access to enough money, you don't need the Hispanic vote.