SweaterFest 2012 comes to Bibleburg

February 7, 2012February 7, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

The would-be Sweater Vest-in-Chief, Rick “Man On Dog” Santorum, is bringing his clown act back to Bibleburg this morning.

The Frothy One has garnered the endorsement of fundamentalist windbag Jimmy Dobson and other local wingnuts and is expected to do well here in today’s caucus because the Bibleburg wing of the GOP loves nothing better than some bad noise from a pudgy loser (yes, I’m looking at you, Dougie Bruce).

In fact, if the pope’s bestest little soldier cares to stick around until the 13th, he can catch Bruce’s sentencing for his conviction upon (among other things) filing a false return, evading state taxes, attempting to influence a public servant and failing to file returns between 2005 and 2010. Good times.

Meanwhile, the venue for today’s SweaterFest seems appropriate. It’s The Depot, a failed restaurant turned “events center” that’s conveniently located just a stone’s throw from the Marion House Soup Kitchen, which serves the refugees from our last Republican administration.

Very few sweater vests in that congregation, the members of which are still waiting for life to begin after conception.

Petri dished

February 2, 2012February 2, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

The Petri amendment to restore Transportation Enhancements to the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act has failed by just two votes, 29-27.

Arguments that walking and cycling are legitimate modes of transportation worthy of federal support fell on deaf ears in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.), noting that his amendment was supported by the National Association of Realtors and the National Heart Association, said bike and pedestrian projects “add value to our neighborhoods” and provide “a balance to our national transportation program.”

Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) added that increased walking and cycling would reduce congestion on American roads.

“This is not just throwing something out for recreation. This is truly transportation,” he said. “We have to recognize that we’re never going to build enough roads to accommodate everyone. We need to encourage people to be taking other forms of transportation.”

But Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Penn.) said the cuts to bike-ped funding were “fundamental” to reforming the nation’s transportation program.

“Spending money on bike paths is nice, but it’s a community-based function,” he said. “It’s not for the federal government up here in Washington to tell states that they must spend these monies.”

Uh huh. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va), ranking Democrat on the committee, noted that the 845-page bill was introduced just a few days before markup and asked for those who had read the entire measure to raise their hands. Asked how many hands he saw, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) replied, “I can’t count that low.”

So just what is it that the federal government is supposed to do? Beyond straining at gnats and swallowing camels, that is?

• Results of the vote on the Petri amendment

Four wheels good, two wheels bad

February 1, 2012February 1, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

This may astound you, but there are times when I fear that our elected representatives don’t have our best interests at heart.

Take Rep. John Mica (R-Big Oil). The American Energy and Infrastructure Act, scheduled to be marked up on Thursday by Mica’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has been described by Ben Goldman of DC.Streetsblog.org as “a return to 1950s-style transportation policy” that is “particularly unkind to transit and bike/ped programs.”

Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists has penned a list of the top-10 problems with the proposed legislation, and I expect there are many more than 10.

Andy told my colleagues over at Bicycle Retailer and Industry News that the legislation undoes 20 years’ worth of progress made toward including cycling and walking in the national transportation plan.

“We were expecting the funding would be under attack but were surprised at how carefully they want to take bike/ped out of the bill altogether,” Clarke said. “There were sections of the bill that we didn’t know they knew existed. They’ve gone out of their way to attack the bike/ped portions.”

It truly boggles the mind. Self-described “conservatives” who don’t bat an eyelash at starting wars that run into the trillions of dollars take the greatest possible umbrage at the pennies required to create and maintain sidewalks, bike lanes and pedestrian/bicycle trails that provide safe havens for the folks who’d just as soon not crank up the family tank for short trips to school, shopping or work.

Jesse Prentice-Dunn of the Sierra Club told Streetsblog that the bill represents “a significant step backwards for safe biking and walking.”

“Today more than 12 percent of trips are made by foot or bike, yet less than 2 percent of our nation’s transportation funding goes towards biking and pedestrian infrastructure,” Prentice-Dunn continued.

“According to the Alliance for Biking and Walking, bike commuting increased 57 percent between 2000 and 2009. Instead of increasing investment in transportation options that Americans want, the House bill appears to funnel more dollars towards roads, further deepening our addiction to oil.”

Addicted to oil? Say it ain’t so! I’m certain the only reason we want to keep the Strait of Hormuz open is to defend the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Dexter Romney guts Gingrich

January 31, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Charles P. Pierce opines on the Florida primary so I don’t have to:

“(I)t was how Romney delivered the speech that was so revelatory. This is a rich kid who likes flogging The Help. There were just enough shit-eating, country-club grins as he delivered his rancid material to show you what the guy must have been like in those golden moments when he realized that there was more dough in wrecking a company than in investing in it.”

It ain’t over until the fat dog stinks

January 31, 2012January 31, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

It would be swell if, when the votes are tallied and today’s primary finally ends in Florida, animal control would drag Newt Gingrich off to a small wire cage in a cheerless concrete building, where he could bark day and night and none of us would have to hear it.

I doubt he’d be adopted; ol’ Newtie looks like a biter to me. And before long, that would be that.

Alas, he is a mutt who walks on two legs and thus will remain at large as long as Sheldon Adelson cares to give him a loose leash. The Mouth That Roars continues to generate its own reality-distortion field, claiming “momentum” in Florida — though at least one poll shows the RomneyBot 2012 with a 14-point lead — and canceling press charters to keep those annoying fact-checkers at a safe distance.

This morning on “Fox and Friends” Newt was predicting that “the conservative vote will be dramatically bigger than Governor Romney’s. So we’ve got to find a way to consolidate conservatives, and I’m clearly the front-runner among conservatives.”

In other words, if all you losers will have the goodness to piss off, I got this.

Good luck with that, Newtie old scout.

The RomneyBot 2012 can money-whip this fat yellow dog from now until the convention and still have enough left over to buy the general election — though why he doesn’t just paint one of his three houses white and call it good remains a mystery to me, since he’s never articulated exactly why he wants to be president beyond a general desire to cause harm to humans (so much for Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics).

But since it seems that GOP voters find each of the four remaining candidates more or less repellent, ol’ Newtie will continue barking and chewing and peeing on things until his casino owner decides he’s bet on the wrong mutt in this race to the bottom and has him put down.