The Republic of T.

There’s only thing slightly less shocking than the arrest of nine members of the Hutaree Christian militia for plotting to plotting to kill law enforcement officers (with IEDs).

That’s conservative bloggers coming to their defense. Blue Texan at Firedog lake compiles the responses at the preceding link, but this one in particular jumped out at me.

America’s vigilant Anti-Terror Warriors on the right will certainly be relieved and grateful that the FBI nabbed these guys, right?

…Classical Values sees nothing illegal going on.

Last time I looked, wanting to start a civil war (insane as it is) was not a crime.

Huh? That’s not only a defense of the alleged plot, but it smacks of a justification.

So much for “law and order” conservatism, I guess.

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I wasn’t sure, at first, about what I heard. But I pretty sure I witnessed a bit of flirtation between Parker and a little girl at the playground yesterday.

We took the boys to the playground after Dylan’s nap. (Yay! He still naps!) We thought it might rain later and wanted then to get in some outdoor play time. At one point, the hubby was pushing Dylan in the toddler swing, and Parker decided he wanted to swing. A little girl was swinging next to the one Parker chose.

When Parker asked me to give him a push, I started telling how to pump his legs so he could swing without a push. That’s when the little girl said, “You don’t know how to swing?”

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This is too rich.

See, during the campaign, I watched countless videos of McCain-Palin supporters. I compiled snippets of them for two post-election videos, and I collected the videos in an online playlist. (I’ve archived them offline, just in case they disappear and their existence is called into question.) Everywhere that McCain-Palin supporters encounters Obama supporters demonstrating outside the venue, they always said one thing that I found perplexing.

Invariably, one of them would say to the Obama-Biden supporters, "Get a job."

Huh? Why is it, I wondered, that conservatives always assume progressive don’t have jobs? 

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The big news, since President Obama signed health care reform into law, has been the threats made against Democratic lawmakers. [h/t, Prometheus.]

But there is another threat looming, that isn’t directed at Democratic officials, and isn’t getting nearly as much press.

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Well, that didn’t take long. First members of Congress were pelted with bigoted slurs and spit upon, by a crowd cheered on by Republican members of Congress, to the point that the Speaker and congressional Democrats walked across the capitol complex flanked by police — their to protect them from the mob. Then came vandalism, like bricks thrown through windows. Faxes bearing racial slurs along with pictures of nooses and gallows quickly followed, along with outright death threats. Angry Tea part activists — furious that some 30 million uninsured Americans might finally have access to health care — were encouraged to make personal visits to members of Congress, to “express their thanks”.

Now, threats and vandalism have come closer to home, and graduated to actions that could actually endanger lives: like cutting gas lines.

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I don’t know about anyone else, but this was my favorite image from today’s signing of the health care reform legislation.

You can see the rest of the event here, if you missed it this morning.

For those who don’t know, the kid watching Obama sign the bill is 11-year-old Marcelas Owens, who lost her health insurance when she lost her job, and eventually lost her life to pulmonary hypertension. Marcelas became the target of right wing attacks when he took up the cause of health care reform in memory of his mother.

Naturally, his story resonated with president Obama, who said during his remarks: “Today, I’m signing this reform bill into law on behalf of my mother, who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days.”

Oh, and why is it a big deal that the VP was heard to say “This is a big fucking deal”? After all, he’s right. It is a big fucking deal.

Not as big as it might have been or should have been, but big nonetheless.

This is one of those things you just have to see to believe. Chances are you’ve seen it posted elsewhere, but it bears replaying over and over and over again. Here’s the face of conservatism today, for ya — mocking and screaming at a man with Parkinson’s disease.

At an anti health reform rally in Columbus yesterday, Tea Partiers demonstrated why they should be taken seriously as a populist movement by heckling a man who carried a sign claiming he suffers from Parkinson’s.

A video shows the man sitting down in front of a group of protesters. “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong part of town! Nothing for free here, you have to work for everything you get!” says one guy. Then, some khaki-clad dick saunters over, flings some money at the protester and smarmily says “I’ll pay for this guy. Here you go. Start a pot.” He circles back around to scream, “I’ll decide when to give you money!” Someone yells something about communism. Someone else screams, “No more handouts!!!”

If only the health bill created some sort of panels where experts could decide if diseased commie scum like this guy are deserving of care …

If you can stomach it, the video clip is after the jump.

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If you believe the buzz in Washington, this week could very well be “make or break” for getting any kind of health care reform done — not just this year or next year, but for the foreseeable future. As a progressive, to me that means that no matter limited I believe the current reform package is, I can’t in good conscience oppose its passage. Nor can I in good conscience be indifferent to its passage. Too many people need what this reform package does provide. Too many are suffering for lack of reform, and many more will suffer without it — indefinitely, and without remedy.

They don’t have the luxury of waiting for a “better” bill, that would theoretically satisfy conservatives who believe this reform goes to far or progressives who think it doesn’t go far enough. None of us do, if we think about it.

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• mental_floss Blog » Work Attire Over the Last 10 Decades
  (tags: clothes work)
• The Jobs Of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations : NPR
  (tags: history jobs economics work)

“Better remain silent and be thought a ___________________, than to speak and remove all doubt.

So much for quiet dignity.

(With apologies to Abe Lincoln.)

(Or “CPAC: Sideshow and Snake Oil, Pt. 2″)

The circus sideshow that was CPAC folded its tent and left Washington weeks ago. However, its apparent ringmaster and chief snake oil salesman still sweats, struts, and sobs across the “stage” of conservative media — that medicine show never stops rolling and never stops hawking its “solutions” to Americans who are in desperate need of something to ease their economic aches and pains, and heal their political maladies.

And like the medicine shows of old, Glenn Beck — and others like him — peddle magical “miracle cures” that either poison directly by filling the body politic with toxic bile, or indirectly by distracting us from actual solutions, and aren’t intended to “cure what ails us” so much as to make us think that we feel better even as the illness progresses. Case in point is Beck’s latest attack on the very idea of social justice.

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Originally published in MetroWeekly.

It’s funny, and often fascinating, how so much can change in such a short time — and yet change so little. When our family arrived back home on Tuesday evening, we were the same family we were when we left home that afternoon.

Yet, as a family we experienced an important change when my husband and I — after being married in all but the legal sense for 10 years — were legally married to each other Tuesday afternoon.

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If you haven’t seen this yet, well, you should.

It never ceases to amaze me how children just “get it,” unless they’re taught otherwise. On the day we got married, Parker had a half-day at school. Before he left, he said, he told his classmates that his parents were getting married. His classmates have met both the hubby and me, so they know what that means, and it doesn’t seem to be a big deal to them.

From the mouths of babes…

• First gay marriages in District performed – washingtonpost.com
  (tags: marriage dc marriage-equality)
• ''My Rock, My Life, My Love'': Marriage equality arrives with a string of same-sex weddings, the first to be performed in and legally recognized by D.C.: News section: Metro Weekly magazine, Washington, DC newspaper
  (tags: dc marriage equality)
• Same-Sex Weddings Begin in D.C. | NBC Washington
  (tags: marriage washington dc marriage-equality)
• "Love Won Out" | NBC Washington
• Gay weddings come to US capital
  (tags: marriage dc marriage-equality)
• Gay marriage in America: Tying the knot | The Economist

• Looking forward to: The hubby and I will be part of a 1pm online chat @ marriage equality c/o WaPo. Come join in! ( http://bit.ly/byX0XH ) #

• Looking forward to: The hubby and I will be part of a 1pm online chat @ marriage equality c/o WaPo. Come join in! ( http://bit.ly/byX0XH ) #

Update: The transcript is up.

The hubby and I are participating in a Washington Post online chat about marriage in D.C., a1 t 1 p.m. today.  Come join in!

open source video, online video platform, video streaming, video solutions

With the issuing of the first marriage licenses to same-sex couples Tuesday, the District follows five states — from Iowa to Massachusetts — in allowing gay couples to marry. Same-sex couples were first able to apply for licenses in the District last Wednesday but, like all couples, had to follow the city’s three-day waiting period before getting hitched.

Rick Imirowicz and Terrance Heath, who were married Tuesday, will be online Wednesday, March 10, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the new law in the District and what it means to them and others in the GLBT community and the nation.

We did it.

The broom has been jumped. We are married.

OK. Technically, I’m getting married in the evening. But I couldn’t resist.

The next time you see a blog post from me, I should be a legally married man.

Conservatives who squawk about the deficit — and Democrats who should know better, but squawk anyway — tend to do so selectively. That is, they tend to focus only on spending. But spending is only half of any deficit equation. After all, a deficit is “the amount by which expenditures or liabilities exceed income or assets.” When it comes to the government “income” really means “revenue,” and that means if we’re going to have an honest discussion about the deficit we have to talk about about taxes.

That half of the deficit equation — income or revenue — rarely enters the discussion, but the reality is the surest way to create a deficit is to increase spending while deliberately decreasing income or revenue. Who would do something like that? Something so obviously unsustainable?

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