Other Stuff

So because I have some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder and am posting less right now as I await the ramp-up to a dedicated site on FDL, here are some quick hits on stories I didn't get to on that site today:

• Congress will hold hearings on those forged letters from astroturf groups sent to swing-state Dems urging them to vote against the House climate bill. This needs to be more than investigated by Congress; the Justice Department should get involved.

• Another day, another GOP front group headed by neocons. This one's called "Keep America Safe." It's a Bill Kristol/Liz Cheney special. Nothing but good can come of that.

• NOAA steps up and warns against indefinite offshore drilling without limits. This is one of those small benefits of the Obama Administration, that relatively sane regulatory agencies are starting to assert themselves.

• A nice piece from Peter Orszag on the delivery system reforms in the bill.

• Jon Corzine has a couple new attack ads out, slamming Chris Christie for his ties to corporate interests and the Bush Administration. Corzine has been relentless.

• Publius calls it Rick Perry's Saturday Night Massacre, and I agree. He's now fired ANOTHER member of the commission looking into whether Texas killed an innocent man. This is a huge story going completely unnoticed by the national media.

• Charlie Rangel's getting a primary challenge. Charlie Rangel NEEDS a primary challenge. Corruption is not a partisan issue.

• North Korea may be launching missiles, but they're also agreeing to talks. Guess the missile launches aren't going well. Meanwhile, Russia is splitting from the US over the issue of sanctions for Iran, with the Foreign Minister calling them "counterproductive."

• Tim DeChristopher, the activist who bid up oil and gas leases without the ability to pay in an effort to deep-six the potential drilling, is charged with two felony counts for his activism. For bidding on something? Really?

Murder In Texas: Update

Glenn Smith writes that a Texas state Senator is trying to investigate the astonishing "Saturday Night Massacre"-style dismissal by Gov. Rick Perry of three members of a commission which was about to look into his negligence which led to the state-sanctioned murder of an innocent man. He wants the newly installed member of the Texas Forensic Science Commission to schedule a hearing on the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, and fast.

Last week, Perry scuttled the Texas Forensic Science Commission hearing into the evidence that convicted Cameron Todd Willingham, scheduled for last Friday. The governor, without warning, replaced three of his four appointees to the nine-member commission. The commission had been scheduled to hear from nationally recognized arson expert Craig Beyler, who had issued a report in August questioning the evidence in the Willingham case. Beyler wrote:

The investigators [in Willingham's case] had poor understandings of fire science and failed to acknowledge or apply the contemporaneous understanding of the limitations of fire indicators. Their methodologies did not comport with the scientific method or the process of elimination.

Sen. (John) Whitmire said he would bring Williamson County prosecutor John Bradley, Perry’s newly appointed Forensic Science Commission chairman, before his Senate committee. Craig Beyler should also testify, saying publicly what Perry stopped him from saying last week. A legislative committee shouldn’t pre-empt an executive branch function — even if it’s been obstructed by the governor. But Beyler has already publicly issued his report. Legislators have a right to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

Also somewhat lost in the outrage over Perry’s Nixonian action were statements from two of those let go from the Forensic Science Commission, Fort Worth prosecutor Alan Levy and Commission Chairman, Sam Bassett, an Austin lawyer. Neither man had prior knowledge that the axe was falling on their heads, and that raises further questions about Perry’s motives. Perry said his action was just “business as usual,” noting that the terms of the agency officials had expired. Operating under business as usual, their dismissals would not have been kept secret from them.

Smith has a lot more at the link. I don't know if this case will start a national debate on the death penalty based on how the system sent an innocent man to his death, but clearly Rick Perry doesn't want to have that debate. Seeing that he's in a primary fight for his job, and the cover-up is so brazen and obvious, we could actually see this get some wider attention.

Perry's Cover-Up

I'm sure the Fox-bots will be talking about some other grave misconduct inside the Obama Administration today ("the candy czar took a Snickers bar away from a baby!"), but a truly sickening story of political cover-up is unfolding in Texas, should they care to turn their heads.

A top prosecutor in the Tarrant County district attorney's office said Wednesday that he has no idea why Gov. Rick Perry abruptly removed him from the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

Perry abruptly replaced three members of the commission -- including the chairman -- just two days before it was to meet to discuss a finding that a faulty investigation might have led to the execution of an innocent man.

The meeting was subsequently cancelled.

Perry also removed board member Aliece Watts, a forensic scientist in Euless.

The governor told The Associated Press that the board members' terms were expiring and that replacing them “was pretty standard business as usual.”

But several board members have had their appointments renewed, The AP reported.

The chairman was replaced by a DA named John Bradley, "one of the most conservative, hard-line prosecutors in Texas," who never heard of the position until Perry offered it to him on Wednesday.

Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in 2004 for an arson that killed his three daughters, but the overwhelming body of evidence, detailed in this New Yorker article, is that he was an innocent man. The article notes that Dr. Gerald Hurst, an arson expert, ran an investigation of the incident and concluded there was no evidence pointing to Willingham and that the fire resulted by accident, and delivered a report saying the same to Gov. Perry's office before the execution, which the Governor then ignored (there's no evidence he even looked at it). The board meeting to review the case could have determined that Perry's negligence led to the state killing someone innocent of any crime.

Perry didn't want that information revealed, and so he shut down the board. And given that he faces a March primary for another term as Governor, he probably really wanted to make sure that the board wouldn't meet again until after then.

Simon Malloy writes:

This is all, at the very least, quite fishy. It's also potentially earth-shaking -- never before has it been conclusively determined that someone in this country was wrongfully put to death. If Cameron Todd Willingham's innocence can be proven, it would upend the entire rationale behind our system of capital punishment. And yet there hasn't been a whole lot of media coverage - a Nexis search of all news sources for the past two days for (cameron w/2 willingham and perry) turned up seven results.

What are we being treated to instead? In-depth and sensationalist reports about what President Obama's "safe schools czar" said to one of his students 21 years ago. That's the problem with letting Glenn Beck set the news agenda - the stories that actually matter sometimes slip through.

We're talking about state-sanctioned murder here, or at least negligent homicide, with one of the most obvious cover-ups to that action.

I know I'm not conservative enough to be America's assignment editor, but this seems worth a mention.

The Patriots

The counter-protesters at an event in Austin, TX yesterday just took the vile rhetoric we've seen on display this August one extra step:

"the protesters had Larry Kilgore, a “Christian activist” and candidate for governor who has endorsed executions for homosexuals; Debra Medina, a Ron Paul Republican and a slightly-less long-shot candidate for governor; and Melissa Pehle-Hill, yet another fringe candidate and a member of a self-appointed “citizens grand jury” investigating Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Soetoro."

Kilgore captured the sentiment of the mob. (video here)

“I hate that flag up there,” Kilgore said pointing to the American flag flying over the Capitol. “I hate the United States government. … They’re an evil, corrupt government. They need to go. Sovereignty is not good enough. Secession is what we need!”

“We hate the United States!"

Just a lone nut, I guess. Except the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, flirted with the secessionists a few months ago. He didn't attend this protest, which I guess is a positive step.

But this has increasingly become the Republican base. A group of people who feel completely justified in chanting "We hate the United States!" I seem to remember being told that I hated America and I was "on the other side" and "in league with the terrorists" because I didn't agree with an unnecessary, illegal and ultimately disastrous war. I don't have tape of myself from every day in that time, but you can trust me that I never chanted "We hate the United States" in front of a state capitol building.

Note, too, the lady who used the phrase, "the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots," a quote from Thomas Jefferson, often misappropriated by extremists and the Patriot movement. Timothy McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt that bore this inscription when he was arrested for murdering 168 people in Oklahoma City.

What the report reflects is a reality that law enforcement trying to deal with domestic terrorism in America must confront: Their subjects are thoroughly American; many of the people drawn into these movements are, if anything, "hyper-normal." Their version of "patriotism," for instance, is so extreme that they actually hate not just their government but their fellow citizens -- in essence, their country: because, you see, it has been "perverted" from its original purposes.

The hyper-normality is a kind of intentional camouflage. The Patriot movement, and militias in particular, were a very specific and intentional strategy adopted in the 1990s by the white supremacists and radical tax protesters of the American far right -- and the whole purpose of the strategy was to mainstream their belief systems and their agendas. The tactic was to adopt the appearance of normal, "red-blooded" Americanism as a way of pushing out the idea that their radical beliefs are "normal" too.

In the process, they often adopted time-worn "patriotic" sayings and symbols, such as the "Don't Tread On Me" flag Beck wears, as their own -- though with a much more menacing meaning. If you've seen that flag at an Aryan Nations compound, as I have, you never quite look at it the same.

This is why the meaning of Thomas Jefferson's quote above is quite different for them than it is for you and me. To all outward appearances, it is just an expression of avid patriotism. But to a Patriot movement follower, it means something potentially deadly.

Patriots who use the symbols of American history while claiming overtly to hate America. This would be something good to ask Dave Neiwert about tomorrow.

Is There One Moderately Sane Republican?

Kay Bailey Hutchison wants to be Governor of Texas. She was favored to win the Governor's race in 2010 over the current Governor Rick Perry, although Perry has moved ahead in the last few months. Resigning from the Senate to campaign full-time would doubtlessly raise her profile and give her a chance to regain the lead. So she announced that she would do just that, sometime in October or November. Texas has a special election requirement for Senate vacancies (though the Governor can appoint a temporary replacement), so there would be a May 2010 TX-Sen race.

And a day later, she turned that announcement into a threat??

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's message Wednesday was as simple as it was confusing: If Gov. Rick Perry does not quit his re-election race to give her a free run at the Republican gubernatorial nomination, she will quit the Senate to run against him.

In a bizarre series of interviews, Hutchison — who has been in the Senate for 16 years — said Perry is wearing out his welcome by wanting to win re-election so he can have 15 years as governor. And if he does not get out of her way, she will quit her job to take him out.

Wednesday morning Hutchison told a Dallas radio station that she planned to quit her Senate seat in October or November to challenge Perry.

Several hours later, however, she told reporters in Washington that her statements had been misunderstood and what she really wanted was for Perry to get out of the race.

“Nobody expected (Perry) to run for 15 years, and I think there's a chance that he wouldn't run because he would see how divisive it is and that he's trying to stay too long and that he can really help in many ways if he doesn't run, in which case I could then be able to stay in the Senate all the way to the end,” Hutchison said, according to Congressional Quarterly.

Who the hell does that? Perry is LEADING right now. Why would he want to accommodate her by leaving the race so she doesn't have to quit the Senate? Does she realize that Perry would get to name her temporary replacement? Does she realize that most politicians kind of like that kind of power? Does she realize that politicians don't usually quit campaigns to make it easier for their opponents?

Can ANYONE here play this game?

The Fiscal Conservative Twins

Funny how these right-wing governors have trouble holding to their principles.

Mark Sanford and Rick Perry held a "Tea Party II" a couple months ago, where they came out against stimulus spending and for fiscal responsibility. That was then, and this...

In March, Texas Gov. Rick Perry rejected $555 million in federal stimulus money that would have expanded unemployment benefits for Texans. Perry argued at the time that accepting the stimulus dollars would force the state to expand eligibility to include thousands of low-wage workers — including part-time employees like single mothers, college students and senior citizens — which Perry bemoaned would burden tax payers with “higher taxes and expanded obligations.” When explaining the decision, Perry told Fox News, “this was pretty simple for us.” But now Perry is reversing his decision. Texas has asked the federal government for a $170 million loan to ensure the state is able to continue paying out unemployment benefits.

...is now:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford shed his fiscal conservatism on several taxpayer-funded international trips, including a South American jaunt that included time with his mistress, choosing expensive first-class or business-class seats while his aides sat in coach.

Sanford, who once criticized other state officials for costly travel, charged the state more than $37,600 for one first-class and four business-class flights overseas since November 2005, expense records show. Other state employees flew in the back of the plane at a fraction of the price, according to the documents.

The Republican governor, who balked at taking federal stimulus money after arguing it was an unwise use of taxpayer funds, charged the state $8,687 for a Delta Airlines trip to Brazil last year that included a leg in business class, state expense records show.

I really can't listen any more to these privileged men talking about being good stewards of taxpayer money and then treating themselves to perks, or talking about rejecting a handout from Washington and then asking for a bigger handout.

God Bless Texas

I think I have to take back everything I've ever said about Texas now. The State House just extended a certain middle finger to one Gov. Rick "The Fightin' Secessionist" Perry:

AUSTIN – House members virtually wiped out Gov. Rick Perry's office budget Friday in order to help veterans and the mentally ill.

With little debate, the House on a voice vote approved erasing 96 percent of the nearly $24 million that budget writers had recommended for Perry's office operation over the next two years.

Some Democrats cast the House's move as a rebuke of the governor's recent comments about Texas seceding from the Union.

"That's the headline: 'Two days after governor says we ought to secede, House zeroes out the governor's budget,' " said Appropriations Committee vice chairman Richard Raymond, D-Laredo.

I'm sure that eventually, his office will get funding, as the piece makes clear. But that's one hell of a nice headline. Maybe the Governor can secede from the legislature.

The Line Of Secession

With all the talk of secession in the air, Rasmussen polled Texans about it, and they found that 31% thought that " individual states have the right to leave the United States and form an independent country," and 18% answered yes to "If you could vote on the issue, would you vote for Texas to remain in the United States or to secede from the United States and form an independent country of Texas?"

Roughly one out of every five people in the state of Texas think they should go ahead and form an independent country. If you're in line at the bank with five people, one of them believes this.

Now, Rick Perry, the king of the 18 percenters, wants us to believe he wasn't calling for secession, just asserting the sovereignty of the state of Texas under the 10th Amendment. This is classic Overton window stuff, putting secession on the extreme while making this assertion of sovereignty - and by extension the belief that the President is violating the Constitution - seem banal and reasonable. But of course, this is ridiculous. The President in the stimulus package offers the states the ability to accept federal funds, with certain qualifying guidelines. States can comply to the guidelines and accept the funds, or refuse the funds. That actually is the very definition of the 10th Amendment. It's not the President's fault that, during a recession, it would be deeply unpopular not to change the guidelines. Indeed, Secessionist Perry's own legislature in Texas voted to accept stimulus money for unemployment by changing their guidelines. Which I guess makes King Richard want to secede from the Texas legislature.

Now, back to that 18% number. 18% of the voting public from the last election would be around 20 million people. Which puts the 250,000 or so teabaggers in perspective, doesn't it? Basically, that was a collection of people so angered by losing power that they want to either create their own country or forcibly take back this one. In other words, nutters.



By the way, you'll surely be shocked to know that Tom DeLay lied on national television when talking about this.

...By the way, if any Democratic elected official ever even dipped their toe in the secession water, they'd be the second coming of Ward Churchill and forced to resign. Just sayin'.

Secession Follies

This reference to secession by Texas Gov. Rick Perry has actually flipped the light switch on for some people as to the extreme nature of the rhetoric coming from the hard right. Let's be clear - for eight years, George Bush broke the economy, rang up massive debt, started unnecessary wars, wiretapped American citizens and committed torture in our name, and crickets from these folks. In under 100 days, Obama has inspired cries of secession. I guess the tax cut wasn't big enough.

PERRY: Oh, I think there’s a lot of different scenarios. Texas is a unique place. When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pays attention. We’ve got a great Union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what might come out of that.

Earlier, I remarked, tongue partially in cheek, that Texas ought to secede for the good of the nation. But let me acknowledge the fine Texas Democrats down there who pushed back on this today. Sen. Rodney Ellis slammed Perry pretty hard, and Rep. Jim Dunnam went further:

I love Texas.

I am fortunate that my great-grandparents moved to Texas over 100 years ago, and I am deeply proud of our state.

Every 2 years, my colleagues in the Legislature and I spend time away from our families trying to make Texas a better place. I am honored and privileged to do so.

However, I am also an American. And I am proud to be an American. There is even a song I like that says that - you probably know it.

Every Texas elected official takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. I take oaths seriously, and that one most of all. And every day during the legislative session we pledge "allegiance" to the flag of the United States.

We even require every public school child to recite the pledge -- every day. That is "one nation, under God, indivisible."

"Indivisible."

Yesterday, our Governor had the opportunity to disavow anti-American rhetoric of secession. He chose not to, and instead he chose affirm those who believe and actually contemplate that our nation is divisible.

What do I say to my youngest daughter when she asks "why do I recite the pledge every day at school, if our Governor doesn't believe it?"

Perry has since tried to walk this back, but not many people are buying it. But if a Republican said it and it's divisive, you can be sure there are enough party leaders willing to defend him. Rush Limbaugh dug it. And Tom DeLay made up a bunch of gobbledygook to try and defend this.

Q: You can’t secede from the Union!

DeLAY: Texas was a republic. It joined the Union by treaty. There’s a process in the treaty by which Texas could divide into five states. If we invoke that, and the last time it was voted on was 1985, the United States Senate would kick us out and nullify the treaty because they’re not going to allow 10 new Texas senators into the Senate. That’s how you secede.

Chris Matthews kept asking DeLay, who's under indictment, what the hell Perry was doing inflaming the public with this kind of rhetoric, the kind that killed 600,000 people in the Civil War, and DeLay fell back on a bunch of talk about the 10th Amendment (which is not germane), and he really couldn't wriggle out of it.

By the way, this is spreading. The Georgia State Senate has threatened to secede as well.

Republicans have seriously gone around the bend. John Aravosis has this right:

The Republican party has a serious problem with extremists, not just in its midst, but among its leadership and its key allies in the faux media (FOX News) and its grassroots (Limbaugh, the blogs, and the religious right). The GOP is quite literally pushing their most extreme followers to violence. And now that they're calling on the government to ignore known terrorist threats, it's only a matter of time before something violent happens, and then the Republican party will find itself out of power permanently.

Please Secede

In the old days they would call this sedition. And when I say "the old days," I mean last year when George Bush was President (h/t John Cole):

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax “tea party” Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states’ rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, “Secede!”

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall — one of three tea parties he was attending across the state — that officials in Washington have abandoned the country’s founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt.

Perry repeated his running theme that Texas’ economy is in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the “federal budget mess.” Many in the crowd held signs deriding President Barack Obama and the $786 billion federal economic stimulus package.

Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters’ questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

He's actually gone further, by endorsing a meaningless resolution affirming the 10th Amendment as a claim of "sovereignty" for Texas. And he gave a speech yesterday where he said "We think it's time to draw the line in the sand and tell Washington that no longer are we going to accept their oppressive hand in the state of Texas." Curiously, that time came only after these actions:

Governor Rick Perry, five days ago: Governor Perry Calls FEMA To Assist With Wildfires

Governor Rick Perry, last month: Governor Perry Calls For 1,000 Troops To Be Sent To Border

Governor Rick Perry, five months ago: Governor Perry Requests 18 Month Extension Of Federal Aid For Ike Debris Removal

I have to agree with Matt Yglesias in hoping that these states like Texas and others in the Deep South go right ahead and secede. They are a cancer on the public Treasury, taking more out of the government than they put in. So if they want to figure out how to manage their own affairs, I see no reason not to have a peaceable split. Matt provides this nugget:

Obviously, one advantage of large-scale secession of the most conservative states is that it would be a lot easier to pass progressive legislation. An aspect of Civil War history that people don’t tend to appreciate is that the temporary departure of the Dixie bloc of Senators allowed a huge flowering of legislative activity that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible. In addition to prosecuting the war, the Lincoln-era GOP took sweeping action on industrial policy, infrastructure, land reform, etc. much of which would have been extraordinarily difficult to accomplish had the southerners just stayed in their seats and used the considerable levers of obstruction that are available to legislative minorities.

I hope we wouldn't fight this impulse to rid the nation of this lead weight. Hopefully Emperor Perry could patriate wingnuts far and wide and get them the hell out of our hair for good. I wonder what it would look like 10 years later to see the entire Republic of Texas crawling on its knees and begging to get back in the US. Could be good for a laugh.

Fun fact: Rick Perry was once a Democrat who supported Al Gore for President in 1988!

Party Of No Clue

I briefly alluded to Mark Sanford rejecting stimulus funds that will result in up to 7,500 teachers being laid off. South Carolina legislators are trying to outflank him on that. But he's not the only one. Governor Goodhair of Texas is denying his citizens stimulus funds, too:

Gov. Rick Perry will announce today that he is blocking the state from accepting $550 million for expanded unemployment benefits as part of the federal stimulus package.

With an upscale Houston hardware store as his backdrop, he will paint the expansion as a burden on small business.

The Legislature still could move to change state law to draw down the money, but those changes would be subject to a Perry veto.

To be eligible for all the money, Texas must enact legislation that would change how the state’s calculates a worker’s eligibility and extend benefits to more workers, including those looking for part-time work.

Arnold Schwarznegger is trying the same thing in California, with the same argument that the changes in eligibility would impose an "unnecessary burden" on state businesses. Actually, what would impose a burden on them is them having to file for bankruptcy because nobody's buying goods because their unemployment ran out.

There's no real argument for this obstinacy from a policy perspective, just shopworn and outdated ideology. Sanford compared the stimulus to the policies of Zimbabwe, saying all this federal spending will lead to hyper-inflation. I wish! Right now we're in a deflationary spiral, and the only thing the Fed has the monetary tools to combat is inflation at this point. If we were experiencing any inflation at all, it would mean that the economy is at least sort of working again.

Then there's the argument that all this fiscal policy is like what FDR did during the Depression. Yes, they use that as a negative. The Bible for this revisionist history is a book by Amity Shlaes, and Jon Chait fairly well demolishes it.

Now here is the extremely strange thing about The Forgotten Man: it does not really argue that the New Deal failed. In fact, Shlaes does not make any actual argument at all, though she does venture some bold claims, which she both fails to substantiate and contradicts elsewhere. Reviewing her book in The New York Times, David Leonhardt noted that Shlaes makes her arguments "mostly by implication." This is putting it kindly. Shlaes introduces the book by asserting her thesis, but she barely even tries to demonstrate it. Instead she chooses to fill nearly four hundred pages with stories that mostly go nowhere. The experience of reading The Forgotten Man is more like talking to an old person who lived through the Depression than it is like reading an actual history of the Depression. Major events get cursory treatment while minor characters, such as an idiosyncratic black preacher or the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, receive lengthy portraits. Having been prepared for a revisionist argument against the New Deal, I kept wondering if I had picked up the wrong book [...]

Shlaes begins every chapter with a date (say, December 1936), an unemployment percentage (15.3) and a Dow Jones Industrial Average. The tick-tick-tick of statistics is meant to show that conditions did not improve throughout the course of Roosevelt's presidency. Yet her statistics are highly selective. As those of us who get our economic information from sources other than the CNBC ticker know, the stock market is not a broad representative of living standards. Meanwhile, as the historian Eric Rauchway has pointed out, her unemployment figures exclude those employed by the Works Progress Administration and other workrelief agencies. Shlaes has explained in an op-ed piece that she did this because "to count a short-term, make-work project as a real job was to mask the anxiety of one who really didn't have regular work with long-term prospects." So, if you worked twelve hours per day in a coal mine hoping not to contract black lung or suffer an injury that would render you useless, you were employed. But if you constructed the Lincoln Tunnel, you had an anxiety-inducing make-work job.

In response to this criticism, Shlaes has retreated to the defense that unemployment was still high anyway. "Even if you add in all the work relief jobs, as some economists do," she has contended, "Roosevelt-era unemployment averages well above 10 percent. That's a level Obama has referred to once or twice--as a nightmare." But Roosevelt inherited unemployment that was over 20 percent! Sure, the level to which it fell was high by absolute standards, but it is certainly pertinent that he cut that level by more than half. By Shlaes's method of reckoning, Thomas Jefferson rates poorly on the scale of territorial acquisition, because on his watch the United States had less than half the square mileage it has today.

This is the intellectual heft on the right. And it manifests itself into policy with things like the "no-cost stimulus" - really - which would create two million jobs by, um, drill baby drilling, I guess. Never mind that oil prices are down, auto mileage is down and it takes ten years to get a drop of oil out of a new platform. That's going to be the "timely, targeted" stimulus to save our souls.

I'm beginning to think that, by trying to talk himself out of the RNC Chairmanship, Michael Steele is the SMART one.

No With One Hand, Yes With The Other

You've seen these reports of Republicans touting projects in the stimulus that they voted against, as if we all wouldn't notice. I'm looking forward to Josh Marshall's hypocrimap, which will provide a convenient graphical listing of all these charlatans.

Perhaps more annoying is the habit of Republican governors to yowl about rejecting stimulus money, and then resigning them themselves to just having to take it. Here's South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, the closest thing to Herbert Hoover in the party, backing down:

The final wall of resistance against stimulus spending has now crumbled: South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, perhaps the most vocal critic of the bill outside of Capitol Hill, now says he'll spend the money that his state receives -- at least some of it, anyway.

This is definitely a change. Sanford previously said he had his staff looking at the plan, but "for a different reason" than other governors -- that is, to figure out what was wrong with it. And South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn, the House Dem Whip, had been exploring ways to force Sanford's hands.

And Governor Goodhair, as Molly Ivins used to call him:

Yet another anti-stimulus GOP governor, who had been hinting previously that his state would be turning down cash, is now accepting the money.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who co-wrote an op-ed piece with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford about all the things that were wrong with the bill, has now informed the White House that he'll accept the money. (By the way, Sanford is taking some of the money, too.)

Part of this is that Clyburn also put in a provision to give aid directly at the local level if the state governors rejected it, which is smart of him (Clyburn is from Sanford's state of South Carolina). But was there any doubt that these losers would cave? I want to find the Republican whose ideals stand strong in the face of free money. It was completely obvious, and annoying that they would even presume to have anyone believe they were making a principled stand.

You Forgot Florida!

That's been the mantra of Rudy Giuliani, his last hope for a victory to reverse momentum before the big Feb. 5 states. And already, even before Iowa, that's over. It's Huckabee at 27%, Romney at 23%, and 9iu11iani at 19%. The good news for him is that his number does have components of 9/11 in it.

Add that to this embarrassment, with Texas Governor Rick Perry temporarily forgetting who he endorsed.

"The issue becomes very, very clear to me from the standpoint of who I want to support and it is Mike Huckabee." Perry said yesterday while filing papers for Giuliani to participate in the Texas primary. "And it goes to the next level, who do we have that is the most electable of our the candidates, and I think without a doubt it is Rudy Giuliani."

Whoops! It's kind of bad form to say that the guy you endorsed isn't the guy you want to support.

And then there are the continuing allegations into Rudy's business practices, including taking $30 million dollars from a company that sought to spy on Americans.

Rudy's resume is the opposite of what you would want in a leader. And now the 9/11 bloom is well off the rose. His decline and fall is supremely gratifying, because a Giuliani Presidency would be terrifying.

Wherein I Praise Conservative Governors

When conservatives do something right, I am not afraid to call attention to it. And in Florida, Charlie Crist is doing the right thing that his predecessor Jeb Bush would not.

Gov. Charlie Crist said Thursday he wants to spend about $32 million to convert all voting machines in Florida to produce paper trails.

''What we're talking about here is Democracy and it is precious,'' Crist told a crowd of several hundred people at a gathering of the nonpartisan Voters Coalition of Palm Beach County.

''You should, when you go vote, be able to have a record of it,'' Crist said, calling it ''common sense.''

The proposal will be part of Crist's budget he presents to the Legislature on Friday.

It's more than common sense, but it took a long time for a Republican to embrace it. And it's significant that this is happening at Ground Zero for election troubles, Florida. Even Brad Friedman of BradBlog have to give kudos to Crist, while hammering Crist's Secretary of State office for continuing to cover up failures in the recent FL-13 election (you know, the missing 18,000 votes scam).

Positive reinforcement also needs to go out to Texas governor Rick Perry, who signed an executive order mandating the use of the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine in all schoolchildren in the state. This vaccine is almost entirely effective in stopping the spread of cervical cancer, which kills thousands of women annually. The religious right's attempt to preventing the approval of the vaccine, because they felt it would allow young girls to be more promiscuous, is maybe the ugliest example of how the theocons would rather see women die than not bend to their will. Perry may not be doing this for the right reasons - the mandatory order will net Merck, who produced the vaccine, billions in sales - but he's right in doing it. Anyway, I'd like to see government reward pharmaceuticals like Merck who produce drugs in the public interest rather than the latest and greatest version of Viagra. Saving women's lives and stopping the spread of a particularly lethal form of cancer deserves a just reward. And Perry deserves praise for ensuring that every girl in his state will get vaccinated.