Tag: Rethuglicans

Republican Spending Cut Proposal

Seth Anderson0 comment

When First Into This Country

Some more specifics on the proposed Republican slice and dice we mentioned yesterday.

The Republicans’ blustery budget-slicing rhetoric that marred the midterm elections has finally come to pass — only, when you break it down, it kind of looks like they have no idea what they’re doing. The Republican Study Committee announced its plan yesterday to cut spending to the tune of $2.5 trillion over the course of ten years. While that number will certainly resonate with their base, the problem is they don’t specify how they’ll do that. The specific programs and allocations they wish to gut only amount to $330 billion, with the rest of the cuts coming from “discretionary spending limits through 2021 at 2006 levels on the non-defense portion of the discretionary budget.” This is, as the Wonk Room put it, “hand-waving” that, in practice, would result in huge cuts to popular programs like Pell Grants, the National Park Service, the Coast Guard and more.

However, the cuts they do have specified aren’t exactly programs we’ll easily take on the chin. Predictably, they want to sever huge numbers from the budgets of programs for the arts, including $445 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $167.5 million from the NEA. Further, the federal workforce, high speed rail grants and DC’s transit authority (the Metro), healthcare administrative costs and more. Not on the table, predictably, is the defense budget, which is a gusher of money that most members of the GOP refuse to cauterize

(click to continue reading GOP Introduces Insane $2.5 Trillion Budget Cut Proposal, But Stumbles and Mocks Specifics | AlterNet.)

and

So what we have here, in essence, is a document concluding that $330 billion in specific cuts plus some hand-waving equals $2.5 trillion. It’s the underpants gnome theory of federal budgeting.

What the GOP leaves out is the real consequence of reducing all non-defense discretionary spending to the 2006 level. Such a cut would mean significant reductions in Pell Grants, federal highway funding, the National Park Service, federal education funding, cancer research, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service. Here are some specifics*:

  • Pell Grants: About $14.9 billion in cuts
  • National Park Service: $600 million
  • Immigration and Customs Enforcement: $2.9 billion
  • Secret Service: $300 million
  • Coast Guard: $2.6 billion.
  • National Institutes of Health: $5 billion
  • Federal Prison System: $1.5 billion.

Every dollar that is preserved in those programs and agencies means that a deeper cut has to be made somewhere else. The RSC also left the defense budget completely off the table.

(click to continue reading Wonk Room » What The Republican Study Committee Didn’t Say In Its Spending Cut Proposal.)

Republicans hate America, in other words, and want it to turn into a banana Republic as soon as possible.

And from Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones:

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)’s Republican Study Committee on Thursday released a list of programs they’d like to see cut as part of the Spending Reduction Act of 2011. Clean energy, efficiency, rail, and climate programs were all atop the two-page list of cuts, reaffirming the fact that when Republicans say they want an “all of the above” energy plan, they really mean just coal, oil, gas, and sometimes nuclear.

On the cutting room floor, if the committee gets its way: the Applied Research program at the Department of Energy, Amtrak, and the Washington Metro, among other programs that help reduce energy use and develop new technologies.…

  • Energy Star Program. $52 million a year.
  • Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants. $2.5 billion a year.
  • Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings.
  • Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.
  • Technology Innovation Program. $70 million annual savings.
  • Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings.
  • New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings.
  • FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. $200 million annual savings.
  • Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings.
  • Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program. $56.2 million annual savings.

Most of these are small changes in the grand scheme of things the federal government spends money on. Notably the list doesn’t include cuts to defense or, more pertinent to the energy conversation, cuts to our investment in highways. And our research and development expenditures for energy are already paltry compared to other federal programs.

(click to continue reading Republicans Target Energy Spending | Mother Jones.)

links for 2011-01-21

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US Chamber of Commerce hates US consumers

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Circular Reasoning

Elections do matter, part the 23,427th. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is going to be working hand in hand with their lackey imperialist running dogs in Congress, also known as the Republican Party, and their goal is clear – destroy all consumer protections as soon as feasible.

Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue has declared war on the American consumer, telling Congress to “starve to death financially” the consumer financial protection bureau.  What will really send a chill down your spine: he “added that the Chamber would be “deeply involved in the regulatory rulemaking” moving forward.”

In an address before 200 business executives in Minneapolis yesterday, Donohue pledged to “starve to death financially” new regulatory agencies:

He decried a “regulatory tsunami” that is “keeping your children out of work, that’s putting your father out of work.” He called for the repeal of health care reform, said the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation vastly overreached, and described the consumer protection agency created by that legislation as, “the most intrusive you’ve ever seen anywhere.” He pledged to work with Congress to “starve to death financially” new regulatory agencies and rule-writing efforts.

This is a pretty clear declaration that the Chamber will push Republicans to complete their drive to defund the Consumer Protection Bureau, denying it the money it needs to get off the ground. (In July, the Bureau will begin to receive an independent funding stream from the Federal Reserve.) Donohue also seems to want to deny funding to the other federal regulatory agencies involved in implementing Dodd-Frank.

(click to continue reading Daily Kos: State of the Nation.)

 

House GOP Slicing Federal Budget

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Variations on a Theme

I haven’t read the bill, and of course, it probably won’t be passed in quite this form, but why is defense spending not part of the budget cuts? There is zero money for Amtrak, zero. Assholes.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, will unveil the bill in a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday morning.

Jordan’s bill, which will have a companion bill introduced in the Senate by Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, would impose deep and broad cuts across the federal government. It includes both budget-wide cuts on non-defense discretionary spending back to 2006 levels and proposes the elimination or drastic reduction of more than 50 government programs.

Jordan’s “Spending Reduction Act” would eliminate such things as the U.S. Agency for International Development and its $1.39 billion annual budget, the $445 million annual subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the $1.5 billion annual subsidy for Amtrak, $2.5 billion in high speed rail grants, the $150 million subsidy for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, and it would cut in half to $7.5 billion the federal travel budget.

But the program eliminations and reductions would account for only $330 billion of the $2.5 trillion in cuts. The bulk of the cuts would come from returning non-defense discretionary spending – which is currently $670 billion out of a $3.8 trillion budget for the 2011 fiscal year – to the 2006 level of $496.7 billion, through 2021.

…

Other cuts in the Jordan proposal include putting the $45 billion remaining in the stimulus toward deficit reduction, eliminating federal control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of $30 billion in savings, and clawing back $16 billion currently scheduled to go toward helping state governments pay for Medicaid recipients.

There are clear cut significant costs to such a proposal. Getting rid of the $6 billion or so in stimulus that is reserved for state governments in the upcoming fiscal year, along with the $16 billion in state Medicaid payments, would compound what is already set to be the worst year of fiscal problems yet in this economic downturn for state governments. They face their biggest deficits of the recession already because stimulus money has for the most part run out, and are in the process now of figuring out what services they will have to cut.

But Jordan said Wednesday that the nation must endure short term pain of its own choosing to avoid long term pain that it is far more serious and beyond its control.

(click to continue reading House GOP conservatives set to unveil $2.5 trillion in deep spending cuts | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.)

So America, are you ready for some pain? Get ready as your newly elected Rethuglicans gut every domestic program in their quest to return us to the Robber Baron era. You know, child labor, no pollution controls, mandatory 70 hour work weeks, etc. A good time to be a banker, an insurance CEO, or an industrialist, not so good for the rest of us.

New Momentum For 9/11 Health Bill

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Freedom Isn't Free

One objection the Rethuglicans have to the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act is of funding. Faux deficit hawks like Tom Coburn want the costs of the bill to be paid for by reducing a social service, or gutting EPA, or something along those lines. Senators Gillibrand and Schumer proposed instead:

Summary of New Offsets for 9-11 Health Care Act (HR 847) In the substitute amendment planned for HR 847, three offsets will replace the House-passed bill’s “treaty swapping” provision. The offsets, described below, contain no new taxes or fees on the American taxpayers or American businesses. Furthermore, the substitute amendment is estimated to reduce the deficit by $57 million over 10 years.

1. Savings Generated by Reducing Future U.S. Government Procurement Payments by 2 Percent to Companies Located in non-GPA countries ($4.59 billion over 10 years) Every year, the United States spends between $35 billion to $40 billion per year on procurement of goods and services from foreign manufacturers and companies located abroad in countries that are not members of the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) instead of from American companies.

The 9/11 rescue worker bill would impose a 2 percent excise fee on foreign manufacturers/companies located in non-GPA countries receiving government disbursements made pursuant to future procurement agreements. This proposal would both legally and practically operate to prohibit companies from raising their prices to offset the new fee. Imposing this new fee will create short-term and long-term savings. In the short term, savings will materialize from competitive foreign contracts as companies offering substitute products and substitute processes will agree to digest all or some portion of the 2 percent fee decrease to attract/maintain lucrative U.S. procurement business. In the long term, foreign countries will be incentivized to sign the GPA and the U.S. will be incentivized to look to domestic sources to fill procurement needs.

Even though the cost of procurement to the U.S. Government might initially increase when we purchase U.S. goods and services, net revenues to the government will increase when U.S. employees and U.S. companies pay taxes on the procurement contracts they receive (as opposed to foreign companies and employees receiving these contracts who pay less/no taxes).

2. Continuation of H-1B and L-1 Visa Fee for Outsourcing Companies ($800 million over 10 years) As part of the Emergency Border Security Appropriations Act of 2010, which passed the Senate unanimously in August 2010, fees were raised on H-1B and L-1 visas for companies who have more than 50 percent of their employees on these visas (this affects outsourcing companies such as: Wipro, Tata, Infosys, Satyam—but does not affect American companies such as: Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Apple, etc). This fee was set to expire on September 30, 2014. This bill will extend this fee until September 30, 2021 to continue leveling the playing field between companies that follow the Congressional intent behind these visa programs and companies that use these visas to outsource American jobs.

3. Continuation of Travel Promotion Fee ($1 billion over 10 years) The Travel Promotion Act, which passed the Senate 78-18 in 2010, placed a small travel promotion act fee on certain travelers to the United States that was set to expire in 2015. This fee will simply be extended until 2021 and sunsets at that point.

(click to continue reading Gillibrand, Schumer: New Momentum For 9/11 Health Bill | WKBW News 7: News, Sports, Weather | Buffalo, NY | Local.)

Senator Coburn (R-Lunatic) is having none of that:

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn will not allow a proposal that would cover health-care costs for Ground Zero workers to go through the Senate before Christmas, a Coburn aide told Washington Wire this morning.

Mr. Coburn wants the package to be funded through spending cuts, the aide said. He and others in his party have questioned whether the money would overlap with workers’ compensation and other aid provided to Sept. 11 first responders. Mr. Coburn told Politico he wants the measure to work its way through committee rather than being fast-tracked, which would make it tough for senators to finish their work in the next few days.

Wisconsin and Ohio Get Their Way and Lose Rail Money

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Dreams of Industry dashed

Morons. Even worse, morons getting their way. What’s funny is that I always thought the Republican goal was to take the country back to the Robber Baron era1. If they studied history at all, they’d remember that trains were the main transportation option back then.

Gov.-elect Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Gov.-elect John Kasich in Ohio campaigned on pledges to stop passenger-rail projects in their states. On Thursday, they got their wish.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood rescinded nearly $1.2 billion that had been allocated to Wisconsin and Ohio for new train lines. Wisconsin, which received $810 million for a passenger train between Madison and Milwaukee, will have to forfeit the entire amount. Ohio must give up $385 million of the $400 million allocated for a train connecting Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.

The funds will be redirected to train projects in 14 states. California and Florida will receive the largest portions, up to $624 million and $342.3 million, respectively. Wisconsin will retain up to $2 million for the Chicago-Milwaukee line.

(click to continue reading Wisconsin, Ohio Off the Rails – WSJ.com.)

Footnotes:
  1. no federal regulation, tiny taxes, return to the gold standard, yadda yadda. You know, like Somalia or something [↩]

Funding for Wisconsin Rail Project in Jeopardy

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Wake if You Want To

Follow up on the ridiculous Republican rail opposition in Wisconsin

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Wisconsin’s governor-elect, Scott Walker, that the federal government will take back the $810 million in stimulus funding granted to the state for a high-speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison if Mr. Walker doesn’t soften his opposition to the project.

…

“I respect the power of governors to make decisions for their states,” Mr. LaHood wrote to Mr. Walker. “There seems to be some confusion, however, about how these high-speed rail dollars can be spent. For this reason, I would like to set the record straight: None of the money provided to Wisconsin may be used for road or highway projects, or anything other than high-speed rail. Consequently, unless you change your position, we plan to engage in an orderly transition to wind down Wisconsin’s project so that we do not waste taxpayers’ money.”

…The Obama administration announced in January that $8 billion of stimulus funding would go toward building 13 high-speed passenger-rail networks across the U.S. Two weeks ago, the federal government separately awarded an additional $2.4 billion for high-speed rail projects nationwide.

On Monday, the U.S. Transportation Department said that in addition to the grants for high-speed rail, Wisconsin has received more than $703.7 million in separate stimulus funding for other road, bridge, highway, transit and airport projects.

(click to continue reading Funding for Wisconsin Rail Project in Jeopardy, LaHood Warns – WSJ.com.)

Scott Walker seems to be confused, as Wisconsin already has incoming federal dollars earmarked to be used to shore up roads and bridges. I wonder if he’s even thought his opposition through, or if it just is a convenient campaign slogan, meaningless, in other words.

While I would like there to be high-speed rail to Madison (or any rail, actually), if the rail line ignored Wisconsin, and just went directly to Minneapolis, I could live with that.

if you don’t like Texas, stay the fuck out

Seth Anderson1 Comment

John Kelso reads Governor Good Hair Perry’s book so we don’t have to, and boils down its essence to this blunt thought – stay out of Texas unless you are a Tea Partier. Such a friendly message. Texas hospitality, indeed.

Perry’s solution to all this is that if you don’t like what’s cookin’ in your state, leave. I think this is a first in American history. I don’t recall a chamber of commerce type ever telling potential customers to take a hike. I mean, I’ve done it in my column with Californians, but I was just kidding. Perry, apparently, is serious. “If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas,” Perry writes. “If you don’t like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don’t move to California.” This strikes me as Middle Eastern thinking, putting people in places based on their beliefs. You got your Shiites over here and your Sunnis over here. Thank you, Ayatollah Perry.

(click to continue reading Perry’s book: if you don’t like Texas, stay out | Kelso’s Cranky Corner.)

Why I'm Glad We Moved Away from East Texas

Of course, 40-some percent of Texans would disagree with Perry, but hey, as far as he’s concerned, these folk should pack up and leave, or else just shut up and enjoy it.1

Footnotes:
  1. It being a euphemism for whatever unpleasant act you wish to imagine. Famously, Clayton Williams once likened rape to bad weather, quipped: “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it” [↩]

Fox News gets subpoena power via its client

Seth Anderson0 comment

CLTV Truck

Fox News gets subpoena power via its client, the Republican Party. Oh, how lovely.

Fox News figures are telling the incoming Republican House majority how to use its investigative authority, compiling a growing list of targets in the Obama administration.

 

Fox Nation highlights “GOP’s First 4 Potential Investigations of Obama.” Fox Nation trumpeted a November 3 BusinessInsider.com article that discusses four possible House investigations into “criticisms of administration officials and their decisions,” including the phony New Black Panthers scandal, conversations between the White House and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) leading up to his Democratic Senate primary, funding of ACORN and its successor groups, and the administration’s response to the BP oil spill.  Many of these investigations are based on phony scandals that have been aggressively promoted by Fox News.

(click to continue reading Fox News gets subpoena power | Media Matters for America.)

Fist Bumps

In other words, the next two years are going to be devoted to fake scandals, played out in the conservative media and echo chamber, and not to doing the people’s business. Can’t wait.

 

links for 2010-11-08

swanksalot0 comment
  • DeMint Says No Lifting Debt Ceiling Without Cuts Then Can’t Name Any Specifics Besides Earmarks | Video Cafe
    Jim DeMint says he’d be willing to shut down the government, the country to go into default on our debt and probably throw us into a world wide great depression by refusing to raise the debt ceiling if we don’t do something to get the budget balanced. When asked by David Gregory on this weekend’s Meet the Press to name specifically what he’d cut DeMint can’t name any specifics other than earmarks. He does also cite Paul Ryan’s plan which includes privatizing Social Security and Medicare so Wall Street can get their hands on the Social Security Trust Fund.
    (tags: Rethuglicans retarded)
    Embalming+Chemical+Man-+Chicago-760662.jpg

Wisconsin high-speed train work halted due to Republican Jerk

Seth Anderson4 Comments

Road closed

Incoming Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is an ass. Infrastructure improvements help all of us, we need a national transportation policy that doesn’t consist simply of making more interstates. The proposed high speed rail shouldn’t be cast aside for partisan reasons – Republicans ride the rails too.

Preliminary work was halted Friday on Wisconsin’s plans for high-speed passenger train service between Milwaukee and Madison, officials said.

While the announcement by outgoing Gov. James Doyle, a Democrat, suspending design and engineering work did not kill the $810 million federally funded project, the proposed extension to Madison is in jeopardy.

The proposed route would connect with Amtrak’s existing Hiawatha service between Chicago and Milwaukee, and it would increase top train speeds to 110 mph from 79 mph. In addition, Wisconsin has been partnering with Minnesota to extend the high-speed corridor to Minneapolis.

Doyle’s decision follows Tuesday’s election of Republican Scott Walker to become Wisconsin’s next governor. Walker campaigned against building a high-speed rail network, saying his priority would be to repair roads and bridges. He called the passenger rail project a waste of taxpayer money.

Wisconsin Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi, chief architect of the state’s high-speed rail plans, said the project is on hold while he and other officials study “the real-world consequences” of the incoming administration’s agenda.

(click to continue reading Wisconsin high-speed train work halted – chicagotribune.com.)

Maybe I Was Dreaming, Maybe It Was Real - Agfa Scala

Also in Ohio, the idiots are now in charge:

Meanwhile, Ohio Gov.-elect John Kasich reiterated his opposition to spending money on high-speed train service between Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and other cities in the state.

High Speed Rail proposal

There’s a Sierra Club petition you can sign, if you are into such things:

Wisconsin recently received grant funds to build a high-speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison. This project is part of the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, a plan that calls for a 3,000-mile passenger rail network serving nine states with frequent service and top speeds of 110 MPH. Please sign this statement of support for High-Speed Intercity Rail for Wisconsin.

Virginia Thomas is Creepy

Seth Anderson0 comment

Almost twenty years after the notorious 1991 conformation hearing, Virginia Thomas – wife of ultra-conservative Clarence Thomas, and a notorious Rethuglican Tea Bagger herself – calls up Anita Hill out of the blue, and creepily demands an apology. If I was Ms. Hill, I would turn the message over to the FBI too, there seems to be a veiled threat contained therein. Maybe Ms. Thomas had a few too many limoncellos?

Limoncello

Andrew Gully, senior vice president of the Brandeis University communications office, confirmed that Ms. Hill had received the message and that she had turned it over to the campus department of public safety. That office, in turn, passed it on to the F.B.I.

ABC News quoted from the voicemail:

“Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” it quoted from the voicemail. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”

Ms. Thomas has long been active in conservative circles in Washington, and in the past year has rose to greater prominence as the founder of a new nonprofit activist group, Liberty Central, which opposes what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats.

Her activities with the group have raised questions of judicial ethics because the group, which pays her, has accepted large contributions from unidentified donors. She began the group with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000 from undisclosed contributors, tax forms show.

(click to continue reading Thomas’s Wife Reaches Out to Anita Hill – NYTimes.com.)

It has been a long time since I revisited the facts of the contentious proceedings, but shouldn’t Justice Thomas be proffering the apology?

ABC has more:

Mark Matthews of [ABC] affiliate KGO learned about this and reached out to Virginia Thomas.

Thomas emailed him, saying: “I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get passed what happened so long ago.    That offer still stands, I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”

Hill tells ABC News: “Even if it wasn’t a prank, it was in no way conciliatory for her to begin with the presumption that I did something wrong in 1991. I simply testified to the truth of my experience. For her to say otherwise is not extending an olive branch, it’s accusatory.”

She continues: “I don’t apologize. I have no intention of apologizing and I stand by my testimony in 1991.”

(click to continue reading Virginia Thomas Leaves Anita Hill a Voicemail Asking for An Apology — Hill Says No – Political Punch.)

links for 2010-10-13

swanksalot0 comment

 

  • More Tea Party Hilarity — RollingStone.com
    This whole concept of “good welfare” and “bad welfare” is at the heart of the Tea Party ideology, and it’s something that is believed implicitly across the line. It’s why so many of their political champions, like Miller, and sniveling Kentucky rich kid Rand Paul (a doctor whose patient base is 50% state insured), and Nevada “crazy juice” Senate candidate Sharron Angle (who’s covered by husband Ted’s Federal Employee Health Plan insurance), are so completely unapologetic about taking state aid with one hand and jacking off angry pseudo-libertarian mobs with the other.
    (tags: Rethuglicans)
    Conjuring_Today.jpg
  • H&FJ Fonts: Finishing Touches
    In the middle of Gotham, our family of 66 sans serifs, there is a hushed but surprising moment: a fraction whose numerator has a serif. So important was this detail that we decided to offer it as an option for all the other fractions, a decision that ultimately required more than 400 new drawings. Why?

     

    As you’ll read below, it’s something that we added because we felt it mattered. Even if it helped only a small number of designers solve a subtle and esoteric problem, we couldn’t rest knowing that an unsettling typographic moment might otherwise lie in wait. We’ve always believed that a good typeface is the product of thousands of decisions like these, so we invite you to join us on a behind-the-scenes look at some of the invisible details that go into every font from H&FJ.

    (tags: fonts typography design)
  • LAZ Parking Meters Being Stolen – Chicagoist
    20 of the 200-pound boxes have been stolen in recent weeks, with most of the thefts happening in Area 5. Both the Police Department and Chicago Parking Meters LLC have said that the thefts are being treated seriously and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
    (tags: chicago republished swanksalot)

Put Money in the Parking Meter or else!

Sharron Angle Vs. Geography

Seth Anderson0 comment

Lone Star Lame Duck

Sharron Angle is just retarded, no? What other explanation can there be? She recently said, with a straight face:

“My thoughts are these, first of all, Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don’t know how that happened in the United States,” she said. “It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”

Dearborn, Mich., has a large Muslim community. But Frankford, Texas? Well it doesn’t exist— it’s a former town that was annexed into Dallas around 1975. The former town was close to what is now the Bent Tree Country Club.

(click to continue reading Islamic law in Frankford, Texas —- Oh really? | OPINION Blog | dallasnews.com.)

Frankford, Texas, is about a ten minute drive from George W. Bush’s new home on 10141 Daria Place, maybe that’s the connection? More from the Texas State Historical Assocation, that raging liberal organization1

FRANKFORD, TEXAS. Frankford was nine miles northwest of Richardson in extreme southwestern Collin County. Settlement of the area began around a campsite on the Shawnee Trail near a small spring on Halls Branch, used in the 1850s and 1860s as a stopping point and watering hole for traildrivers and other travelers. A small town developed after the Civil War at the nearby crossing of the Addison and Weber roads (later known respectively as the Dallas North Tollroad and Hilton Head Road), and a post office opened on May 11, 1880, under the name Frankford. By 1890 the town had a population of eighty-three, a steam gristmill, a corn mill, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, two general stores, and three churches.

The St. Louis Southwestern Railway bypassed the town in the late 1880s, however, and many Frankford residents moved to Addison, Plano, and other nearby communities. In 1904 the Frankford post office was closed, and in 1907 its lodge hall, which had served as a nondenominational church, was moved to Addison. A second church, built in the 1890s, continued to serve a predominantly Methodist congregation until 1924. By the mid-1930s the town was no longer shown on county highway maps. Its church building was restored in 1963 by the Frankford Cemetery Association, which arranged for the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion to worship there.

The city of Dallas annexed the area in 1975, and in 1990 local children attended the Plano schools. All that remained of the community in 1990 was the Frankford Church and Cemetery, adjoined by residences on three sides and by the Bent Tree Country Club to the south.

(click to continue reading Handbook of Texas Online – FRANKFORD, TX.)

Even claiming Dearbon, Michigan, as free from the laws of the United States is laughable. I doubt Sharron Angle could even find Dearborn on a map, much less talk for more than thirty seconds without saying something ridiculously, factually incorrect. I’ve been to Dearbon a few times, and while there is a large Middle Eastern community there, some of them are Lebanese Christians, etc.. No to mention that the headquarters of the notably fundamentalist Islamic organization2 Ford Motor Company is located in Dearborn.

It Pays to Play

Actually, the mayor of Dearborn responded by asking Angle to educate herself a little3

[Dearborn Mayor John ]O’Reilly appeared Monday night on CNN to defend Dearborn.

Today he gave Action News a copy of the letter he sent to Angle.

“This is the most absurd, inane answer I’ve ever heard. And she was led by the questioner, but should have been mature enough to say I don’t think that’s happening,” said O’Reilly.

O’Reilly said the last census revealed that only thirty percent of the population in Dearborn is Arab American.

“Nobody is trying to control Dearborn. Muslims have been in Dearborn, there has been a mosque in Dearborn for 90 years. So the notion that there’s this new phenomenon and Muslims are taking over America is certainly not substantiated in this community,” said O’Reilly.

(click to continue reading Dearborn Mayor John O’Reilly takes on Sharron Angle’s comments that Sharia exists in Dearborn.)

From the comments of the above cited article:

The breakdown of religious affiliation among Arab Americans is as follows: 63% Christian (35% Catholic, 18% Orthodox, 10% Protestant)  24% Muslim 13% Other; Jewish, No Affiliation

Footnotes:
  1. kidding, of course, but in case you didn’t catch it [↩]
  2. kidding, again [↩]
  3. yeah, right, that’s gonna happen [↩]

links for 2010-10-12

swanksalot0 comment
  • Frequently Asked Questions | U.S. Chamber of Commerce

    It is the policy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce not to distribute or make public information about our members. To find out if a specific company is a member, you will have to contact the company directly.

    The_man_who_knew_too_much_1934_poster.jpg

    Secrets, secrets, I guess not many want to be associated publicly with this shady partisan organization

    (tags: corruption corporate_evil)
  • No More Room in Kansas Prisons, Now What? – TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime
    The answer should be apparent: We need to run from the “tough on crime” policies of the 80’s and 90’s. It’s time for greater emphasis on alternative sentences, an end to mandatory minimums and increased good time. There should be more spent on prisoner re-entry programs and prevention and less on prisons.
    (tags: crime Drug_War)Reefer Madness.jpg
  • Answers From a Window Cleaner, Part 2 – NYTimes.com
    In our apartment building, the windows are cleaned professionally once per year. According to the window cleaners, if you don’t do this, the windows could brown. Is this true? Or was this just a sales tactic? It is true. If your windows are not cleaned often, at least an average of four times a year, the sun will bake the dirt onto the glass and ruin them.
    (tags: diy)
  • The Waldseemüller Map: Charting the New World | Photo Gallery | Smithsonian.com
    The Waldseemüller map, printed in 1507, depicted the New World in a new way—”surrounded on all sides by the ocean,” in the words of an accompanying book—and named the continent for the Florentine merchant who had sailed down its eastern coast.

    Wish this was a bigger reproduction though

    (tags: maps history)
  • Andersonville Galleria
    What is the andersonville galleria? The andersonville galleria, in the heart of the thriving Andersonville retail corridor, is a retail market building that currently features over 90 tenants offering apparel, jewelry, artwork, home furnishings, giftware, accessories, antiques. fair trade, and gourmet treats.

    The andersonville galleria is located at 5247 N. Clark Street, in Chicago, which is right in the heart of Andersonville

    (tags: chicago arts)
  • The Monkey Cage: Who Likes Political Science? Determinants of Senators’ Votes on the Coburn Amendment
    We called Senator Coburn’s Washington office to find out his annual operating budget. His assistant revealed that Coburn’s office has an estimated annual budget of $3 million, and that none of that recurrent funding has led to a cure for cancer.

    That is, as of 2008 or so, this country spent about $5 million funding political science research, and about $3 million funding Tom Coburn.AssholeBadge.jpg

    (tags: science Rethuglicans)
  • I Think I Finally Figured Out What’s Been Bugging Me About the NYT Piece on TribCo | The Blog
    Those of us in the industry have watched a series of ill-timed decisions wreck a lot of careers in the past few years, so it’s hard for me to get specifically exercised about Zell and Michaels (and you may have noticed a rash of mismanagement in other industries over the same period that, like, brought the national economy to its knees). Zell, Michaels, et al certainly deserve what Carr gave them. But the rot’s a lot deeper
    (tags: media)
  • What “Free Public WiFi” Is and Why You Should Avoid It
    Hang out in airports, coffee shops, or other laptop-friendly spots for a while, and you’ll find “Free Public Wi-Fi.” NPR explains that “Free Public WiFi” was never free, and never public, and not actually a Wi-Fi service. It likely started as a joke or prank, but then spread around the world because of a quirk in pre-SP 3 versions of Windows XP:
    (tags: WiFi Windows_sucks)
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