Sunday Afternoon at the Last Manatee

If Dana Milbank can go through one month without mentioning Sarah Palin,then I will restrain myself over the next week from raving about the budget battles. Those patriotic Americans--Chris Smith and Michelle Bachmann--refuse to agree to any budget that doesn't eliminate the funding for Planned Parenthood. In fact, Bachmann has taken this theme up to raise funds for her PAC.

Let's hear it for Hapless Harry Reid who finally told the truth about the House's Budget. "It's the worst budget and worst written piece of legislation in U.S. history."

With the entire Mideast in flames,the House's elimination of foreign aid is even more prescient than ever before. It's sort of like Mitt Romney declaring how poor Obama is at creating jobs just as the jobs news shows over 250,000 private sector jobs having been created.

On the economic front, Robert Reich is right that the United States would have to create about 330,000 jobs per month through 2014 to get to 6.5% unemployment. With the Republican controlled states throwing hundreds of thousand public sector workers out of a job, we will not make it.

Give the Wisconsin demonstrators some kudos for keeping their sense of humor. After Fox ran footage of union strife with palm trees in the background, demonstrators have placed inflatable palm trees around the Capitol building. The democratic legislator who was tackled by police at the Capitol was actually tackled by police brought in from rural communities about 150 miles away by Scott Walker. Nice job, Rachel Maddow for this bit of news.

Congratulations to Rachel Maddow for her big bump in ratings. Good news for some of us but bad news for the state of the news in the United States. People are turning in so they can get some real news for a change as the major networks have stopped covering the Wisconsin and Midwest wars against the public sector. The Ohio parade for choice today got no coverage. It reminds me of the anti-Iraq war demonsotrations when compared to the teabaggers.

Let's hear it for David Koch. He's anti-Iraq war, pro gay marriage and pro legalizing medical marijuana. The New york Times decided to suck up in covering his MIT Koch Cancer Center. David is concerned that federal funding will be cut from programs on prostate cancer. Apparently he suffers from it and wants a cure found instead of treating his own. He also claimed that the hoax call to Scott Walker was identity theft. Now he can't call Senators because they'll believe it's a hoax. His good brother claimed on 60 Minutes that his other two libertarian brothers run their business like a criminal enterprise and that they can't stand anything they can't control.

Someone has to tell the Pentagon's spokespeople to stop using the term "The Left" when referring to any of their critics. This isn't the George W years. Really, honest to god human beings can be concerned about the treatment of the alleged Wikileaks leaker without having a political position. Keeping a detainee stripped and naked in solitary with all the lights on should raise concerns. This is especially true when this was being done for months prior to last week's charges being brought.

Charles Koch, the other evil brother, penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal explaining their position. A fascinating piece from a businessman. He hails Canada keeping the percentage of government spending below 15% of GDP, instead of our 25%. He waxes on about Canada's boom economy. What he doesn't tell the readers is that Canadians have guaranteed health care and a defense budget that is miniscule compared to the United States. This was all before the conservative Harper Government. In fact, part of Obama's argument for his health reform bill was that we were spending as a society some three times what Canada does in terms of % of GDP. If you add the national security budget,you have your difference. Another thing missing from Charles'op-ed is that Canadian banks had better controls and regulations so they didn't melt down like ours. In other words, he likes a regularted business environment that spends less on defense and provides all citizens with healthcare. Sounds good to me.

Another rainy day patriot is the CEO of 3M, who accused Barack Obama of being anti-business. He says he will move his company somewhere like Mexico or Canada where they appreciate business. Clever man. If he does, let's pass a law that all CEOs and executives must move to that country and pay their income tax. What he was suggesting was that 3M should benefit from NAFTA , while those in the headquarters benefit from the low personal income taxes. So boycott Post-Its.

Oh yeah, I forgot--it's now official--Barack Obama in two years created more private sector jobs than George W. Bush did in eight. By the end of 2011, he's be close to suprassing both Bushes' in job creation. I know you've heard this alot on television.

Government Shutdown Coming Right Up

Steve Benan of Washington Monthly claims there is a 70% chance of a government shutdown. I agree with him. Even Nancy Pelosi agrees. It's not coming because of some ideological stance by the GOP but from sheer incompetence. The House budget process, which has now zoomed to over 500 amendments,physically means the House will miss the early March deadline. There is not even enough time to reconcile the House and Senate since the two exist on different planets. I'm not even sure the House, even though it's been running to 4am, will have enough time to work through their own budget, let alone discuss a Senate version.

There are scads of things to write about in the House GOP budget. They intend to gut all government agencies that make the basic rules for the economy and even the IRS, which has to collect the limited tax dollars needed to keep the sinking ship afloat. Virtually every cut to a program offered by the GOP eliminates jobs. An early estimate of the GOP budget is that it will cost 1 million jobs.

Last night they cut all funding for the new Consumer Protection Agency. The budget goes far beyond just gutting anything that Barack Obama proposed over the last two years. It is a declaration of war on basically all government programs, with the exception of the military,which have been developed since the last Depression. A list of the cuts is mind-boogling. The fascinating point of the exercise is that the overall GOP House budget does not cut the annual deficit or the national debt. Top that off and it kills jobs and doesn't create any.

But the kicker for me was the orchestrated attack on Planned Parenthood, which received $363 million last year from the federal government. Rep. Mike Pence claimed that the elimination of federal funding for Planned Parenthood was a "victory for life". Planned Parenthood called the act "extreme and dangerous."

Mr. Anti-abortion Chris Smith from New Jersey described a abortion procedure during the second trimester in the graphic detail we haven't heard since Jesse Helms would describe pornographic acts on the Senate floor. Smith let a little cat out of the bag. He said Planned Parenthood performed 300,000 abortions per year. He claimed that was one-fifth of the abortions performed every year. So we have gone from 50 million per year to 1.5 million, closer to a statistical reality. But color me dubious still because we know from Planned Parenthood's own ads that they perform 300,000 screenings for breast cancer per year. So it's odd that the number is identical to Smith's assertions about abortions. But at least we can dispel the 50 million, Mao-purge like figures.

Men should really stop pontificating about women's health issues. Jackie Speier (D-California) immediately responded to Chris Smith and talked about having the very same procedure Smith described because of necessity and talked about losing the child. The American Taliban can't silence American women like they would want to.

Since the House Republicans want to defund Richard Nixon's creation the Environmental Protection Agency,why should we be surprised that they defunded another one of his creations--Title X Programs? Title X was created in 1970 to provide comprehensive family planning services, including all preventable health services for women. This is the program that provides Planned Parenthood with its funding. By eliminating the program,you essentially close down 4,500 community-based clinics. These clinics provide breast and cervical cancer screenings, HIV preventative education, pregnancy diagnosis and counseling. Of course, this program primarily supports lower income families. Over 1.2 million youth and adults participated in these programs last year.

Now if you are truly interested in lowering the number of abortions in America, wouldn't you support family planning programs and contraception? We know from Bristol Palin that abstinence programs don't work.

Nancy Pelosi said that the whole night's debate--several hours on Planned Parenthood--was surreal but that it posed serious risks to women's health. She called out Republicans on their clear position against family planning and urged them to go openly on the record against the idea. Jackie Speier wondered aloud what the whole Planned Parenthood debate had to do with creating jobs.

You could go batty just writing about Republican lunacy at both the federal and state level. A Republican legislator in Montana has entered a bill to declare global warming "natural" and "beneficial". After two years of marriage equality in New Hampshire,Republicans want to repeal the same sex marriage law because "it might encourage the development of sharia law."

I leave it to a leftwing blogger who parodied these efforts by writing a brief post that "Arizona has outlawed Karma."