The Hollywood Liberal

Late Late Night FDL: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Victor Borge and Rowlf The Dog — Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, from episode 405 of The Muppet Show.

Victor Borge and Rowlf The Dog — Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, from episode 405 of The Muppet Show.

Grab your popcorn, put your feet up on the coffee table, and try to keep the spitballs off the screen please.  This is Late Late Night FireDogLake, where off topic is the topic … so dive in.  What’s on your mind?

?

Cat on a Hot Tin Pyramid
Cleopatra has died, 2,000 years after she killed herself in ancient Egypt. Long live Maggie the Cat.

By Deanne Stillman

Cleopatra has died, 2,000 years after she killed herself in ancient Egypt. Long live Maggie the Cat.

Related Entries

• April 1, 2011 You Don’t Get to Know the Calorie Count of Your Movie Popcorn
• March 25, 2011 Their ‘Perestroika’

Black Unemployment Rises Even As Overall Jobless Rate Drops
Two weeks. That was the longest stretch of time Michael Seals, 58, has ever looked for work. That was the longest stretch, until now. Seals,…

Rep. Earl Blumenauer: Giving Witch Hunting a Bad Name
Sometimes legislative hearings are long and boring. Sometimes they are excruciating. Yet rarely are they embarrassing. I think today marked a first in terms of…

Tea Party Leader: Scott Brown Threw Us ‘Under The Bus’
Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips said on Friday that Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) threw members of the conservative movement “under the bus” by making…

HUFFPOST HILL – House Passes Anti-Union Bill
The only thing the Obama administration is delaying more than its support of gay marriage and a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is a ban…

Right-Wing Media Smear McDermott; Claim He Called The Constitution “Silly”

The right-wing media have seized on an eight-second video clip of Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) to claim he called the Constitution “silly.” In fact, McDermott was criticizing Republicans for not focusing on “job creation” in favor of doing “silly” things like reading the Constitution on the House floor.

Right-Wing Media Declare McDermott Is “Tired Of Reading That Silly Old Constitution”

Fox & Friends Attack McDermott, Claims He “Call[ed] Constitution ‘Silly.'” During the April 1 broadcast of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy misrepresented McDermott’s criticism of House Republicans, suggesting that McDermott called the Constitution “silly.” During the segment, on-screen text read, “Dem Calls Constitution ‘Silly,'” and Doocy criticized McDermott by stating, “That silly old Constitution. Why read it?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/1/11]

Carlson: “Here is Congressman Jim McDermott Saying” “Who Remembers [The Constitution], Anyway?” From the April 1 broadcast of Fox & Friends:

CARLSON: Let’s talk about the issues here in America. Well, maybe except for a congressman who doesn’t believe that we should go all the way back to the Constitution, because who remembers that thing, anyway? Well, here’s Congressman Jim McDermott saying just that.

McDERMOTT : I am tired of reading the Constitution and all the silly things we have done for the last 13 weeks.

DOOCY: He’s tired of reading that silly old Constitution. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/1/11]

Examiner.com: “McDermott ‘Tired Of Reading The Constitution.'” A March 31 post to Examiner.com reported:

Washington Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott had sharp words for the GOP Thursday, when he said:

“I’m tired of reading the Constitution and all the silly things we’ve done for the last 13 weeks.”

McDermott – known for outrageous and highly partisan remarks – lamented time he felt was wasted and asked, “when are we going to see anything having to do with job creation,” according to a post at Real Clear Politics. Perhaps McDermott hasn’t heard about the effort by the GOP to cut wasteful spending from the budget or the attempt to repeal the massive health care law. [Examiner.com, 3/31/11]

HotAir Admits Video Is “A Little Unfair,” Yet Criticizes Him Anyway. In a March 31 HotAir post, Ed Morrissey wrote that the video clip was “[a] little unfair” because “McDermott is objecting to the time spent on reading the Constitution at the beginning of the 112^th Session of Congress, not the Constitution itself.” However, Morrissey added:

But hey, McDermott’s 7th CD keeps sending him back to Congress despite his pork-barrel politics, so who knows? Maybe this is a winning message for McDermott in the next election after all. Do voters in WA-07 find the Constitution annoying, too? [HotAir, 3/31/11]

National Review: “Be Proud, Washington’s 7^th District” Of McDermott’s “Exasperation Of ‘Silly Stuff’ Like ‘Reading The Constitution.'” In a March 31 National Review Online post, Jim Geraghty stated: “Be proud, Washington’s 7th District, as your congressman, Jim McDermott, expresses his exasperation of ‘silly stuff’ like ‘reading the Constitution.'” The post failed to mention the original context of the remarks. [National Review Online, 3/31/11]

In Fact, McDermott Criticized GOP For Focusing On “Silly Things” Instead Of “Helping This Economy”

McDermott Criticized GOP For Focusing On “Silly Things” Like “Reading The Constitution,” Instead Of Jobs. On March 30, McDermott made remarks on the House floor in which he criticized the Republican-led Congress’ focus on “silly things,” like requiring the entire Constitution to be read aloud, instead of focusing on the economy. From his remarks:

McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, the Republican follies go on. The Republicans have done nothing in their 13 weeks in charge of this House to help Americans get jobs, nothing to open markets for businesses to expand, nothing to open up markets overseas for American workers and businesses to compete more fairly. While they hold the economy hostage to their cultural war agenda, maybe we could do something to help the American people.

I rise today in support of the effort to defeat the previous question so that we can take a first step toward addressing the egregious imbalance between China’s currency and our own.

[…]

After years of an unlevel playing field, it is time to act; and this motion to defeat it and bring it to the floor is the right kind of measured first step we can take now. I hope the Republicans will join us in helping this economy. I am tired of reading the Constitution and all the silly things we have done for the last 13 weeks. When are we going to see anything having to do with job creation? [Congressional Record, 3/30/11, emphasis added]

McDermott Made Similar Comments On MSNBC. During the March 30 broadcast of MSNBC Live with Cenk Uygur, McDermott discussed the possibility of an upcoming government shutdown. During the broadcast, McDermott stated: “Mr. Cantor has been running the Republican follies in the House now for 13 weeks. You know, we read the Constitution and we’ve done — we passed all kinds of silly bills that had no impact. We haven’t passed a single bill related to a job.” [MSNBC Live, 3/30/11, accessed via Nexis]

The Normalization Of Nullification
For most of the last century, talk of secession, nullification and the rest of the extreme states-rights lexicon were relegated to the fringiest parts of the political fringe. But since Barack Obama entered the White House in January 2009, mainstream…

911 Call Alleges Bradley Manning Threatened Stepmom With Knife
A Frontline investigation reveals that alleged Wikileaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning threatened his stepmother with a knife in 2006. Manning’s father, Brian Manning, in an interview with Frontline said the incident spawned from a discussion of Bradley Manning needing to…

Madam Jane predicts: America will never grow a pair
“The American Dream has died,” stated Madam Jane this morning over coffee. “This country is doomed to never again amount to more what it is now — a cheap source of rent-a-cop armies for corporations and an economic blood donor to keep the personhood of Big Business alive and well.” But surely it can’t be […]

AlterNet’s Joshua Holland Talks to Laura Flanders About Republican Hostage-Taking on GritTV
"It’s not that we don’t want you to have these things," conservatives say, "It’s just that they’ll ruin the economy and bring about widespread catastrophe."

Presented By:

Libya Speech — Echoes of the ’90s and ’00s, Guideposts for the ’10s
For a sizable segment of the foreign policy community, the genocides and humanitarian crises of the 1990s were a formative experience. In other words, as we debate the response to Libya, many of us can’t helping thinking back to the…

Bar-Owning GOP Montana State Representative Says Stricter DUI Laws Are ?Destroying A Way Of Life?

The Montana state legislature is currently debating a series of bills related to Driving Under the Influence (DUI) laws. The bills would increase the penalties for adults who facilitate minors’ access to alcohol, count older DUI offenses against a defendant in sentencing, and require new training for vendors who sell alcohol.

Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Alan Hale took to the floor of the Montana legislature to slam these bills. The legislator — who actually runs a bar in Basin, Montana — declared that the new DUI laws are harming small businesses and destroying a way of life:

HALE: These DUI laws are not doing our small businesses in our state any good at all. They are destroying them. They are destroying a way of life that has been in Montana for years and years.

Watch it:

“As we’re approaching April Fools Day, I would certainly hope that’s what he’s proposing because that would be completely out of line otherwise,” said Hardin, Montana, teacher Dohn Ratliff. “I’ve witnessed too many of my own students that have been killed by drunk drivers, and I think more needs to be done, not less.”

Anti-EPA House Votes To Let Agribusiness Dump Pesticides In Our Water

The Tea Party Congress doesn’t just hate EPA rules that protect against industry destroying our country with greenhouse pollution, mercury, coal ash, and mountaintop removal. By a veto-proof margin, the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to prohibit Clean Water Act limits on pesticide pollution of lakes, streams, and rivers.

Lobbyists for industrial agriculture polluters cheered the 292-130 vote for H.R. 872, which “will amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Clean Water Act to clarify Congressional intent and eliminate the requirement for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits for applications of pesticides approved for use under FIFRA.” The California agribusiness lobby Western Farmers Association praised the “practical, bipartisan example of eliminating government regulations that needlessly increase farm business costs“:

The measure would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from requiring farmers or companies to comply with the Clean Water Act when using pesticides on or near water sources. The bill’s supporters said pesticides are adequately regulated by other laws. The bill passed 292 to 130 on Thursday. The 130 negative votes came from Democrats. Fifty-seven Democrats joined 235 Republicans in supporting the bill, which has yet to see Senate action.

Clean Water rules against pesticide pollution are hardly “needless.” The waters that are home to fish and that feed our drinking water supply are being poisoned. Agribusiness uses hundreds of millions of pounds of FIFRA-approved pesticides like atrazine, metolachlor, cyanazine, alachlor, acetochlor, metribuzin, bentazon, and trifluralin a year. These pesticides, linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders, are found in nearly every single stream in the United States.

Following a 2006 USGS report on the nearly ubiquitous pesticide contamination of our streams, rivers, and the fish that live in them, the EPA under Bush tried to establish a loophole-ridden rule that was thrown out by the courts. The EPA was given until April 9, 2011 to establish new rules, but was granted a delay until October 31 on Tuesday.

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

Pastor Terry Jones calls off Koran burning plans
After meeting with a Florida Imam, the highly-controversial Rev. Terry Jones says that he will no longer burn copies of the Koran on September 11. Kelly Cobiella reports from Gainesville, Fla.

Afternoon Fix: Trent Franks not running for Senate
Trent Franks will not run for Senate, at least one Wisconsin senator faces a recall, Donald Trump has a new gig on Fox News and President Obama wants to raise $750 million.

Federal workers on possible government shutdown
Federal employees and contractors at L’Enfant Plaza and Federal Triangle express their opinions and perspectives on the potential government shutdown.