I have a number of political links from yesterday, so I thought I'd put them in their own linkee-poo and clear the baffles for a less spittle flecked linkee-poo later today. Sounds like a Good Idea™ to me.
"'Past experience has shown that when Hill people talk about reform, they often seek to weaken it,' (said) Meredith McGehee… who worked on Hatch Act reform… rank-and-file federal employees 'take the Hatch Act quite seriously but get disheartened when they see the upper echelons and political appointees being active.'" The Hatch Act has, personally, been a pain in the rear. But it's there for a real reason. I guess corruption is a bipartisan issue.
Well, that would disqualify almost all of the GOP Presidential Candidates. I'm so glad that the GOP is the party of "getting government out of your lives." Just think how crazy they would be if they actively accepted that they wanted to control the minutia of your life? Granted, okay, these are laudable goals, but are they really the bailiwick of a political party vetting committee? At least they acknowledge reality that they can't stop someone from getting on the ballot without their "blessing", and they're not actually going to force candidates to sign their purity pledge.
Mitt Romney on "my tax plan can't be scored," after independent accounting says it would blow the roof off the top of the deficit. Or, in other words, it's the Pie in the Sky Wishful Thinking Fairy at work again. Also, he admits that it's not really a plan at all.
Proving the axiom, there's no conservative fear-based lie that can be so thoroughly disproven that some whackjob won't bring it up again.
"Is there anybody here who thinks that makes a lot of sense?" No, Mr. President. There's no"body" who thinks that makes sense. Semi-organized slime molds with a propaganda agenda, however, think it makes all too much sense. Even after they fought so vociferously in 2004 to remind us the President can do very little to reduce world oil prices by themselves. Also note the same people who advocated for intervention in Libya, and then gnashed their teeth over how the president was getting us in involved in a war in Libya are now the same people who are advocating intervention in Syria.
Just because it's fallen off the radar screens, the 99% of us are still getting screwed while the 1% keep making more, and more, and more money.
Just in case you thought Sandra Fluke was a fluke of Rush Limbaugh going off his meds, nope. Obviously Rush is feeling more than a little intimidated by the women folk. Sorry Tracie McMillan, Rush is pretty much the definition of misogynist. He just hid it well for a long time, which is why you didn't see in when you watched the show in your High School clasess. (Grokked from Paolo Bacigalupi)
2 comments:
Ah, the Hatch Act.
There are a lot of ethical areas in which the rank-and-file career government employees are treated very differently than the elected ones. I can't accept a $10 Christmas present from my postdoc, but Senator X gets thousands of dollars of goodies? Yeah.
See, I'd like it to see tightened up on the political side and a little more common sense on the career side.
And the whole, "allow career employees to run for office," thing, I can see some loosening (ie, run for political office that has little to no interaction/influence with your career office. Such as a state employee could run for local office. that kind of thing. Were you draw the lines though, that quickly gets tricky.
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