Jon Kyl Returns as a GOP Ill-Humor Man

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl  continues to operate in a parallel universe when he tries to explain complex issues.  For example, Talking Points Memo reports that Kyl  blames President Obama for President Bush's failure to enact the White House's immigration reform bill in 2007.  One problem: As senator, Obama voted for the bill; Kyl  joined the filibuster against it.

Why do I get worked up about his nonsense?   Well,  I must remind myself that Kyl was the pathetic guy  who accused Planned Parenthood of devoting more than 90 pct.. of its activities  to abortions.   When the number splattered in his face (3 pct. is  more like it), a  Kyl spokseman said the senator's  comment was"not intended to be a factual statement".


Bulletin; 
Kyl is now suggesting that Obama should be impeached for his new immigration policy.    How can such a beautiful  state be corrupted by screwies like Kyl and, for that matter, Gov. Jan Brewer? And for that matter, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And...that's more than  enough already. .

From Jordan to Kyl, thanks for, um, a fresh viewpoint

BY MANAGING TO stay awake until the late hours for the climax of the epic budget battle, I learned some things that will make me a better-informed citizen.

Rep. Jim Jordan. the Ohio congressman from the Urbana area who is chairman of the right-wing Republican Study Committee, said he he will vote against the deal because it does not represent the reason that he was elected to Congress.

Jordan told reporters after the deal was announced:

"We don't want to shut down the government, we want to do what the American people sent us to do: achieve savings for taxpayers, and not have our tax dollars go to abortions."

There he goes again, even when we know that it is illegal under the Hyde Amendment to spend Federal tax dollars on abortions. But by conceding that, the family-values pro-life guys like Jordan will lose traction with their political base. Let the rcord show, in Jordan's words, that the November election was not about the economy and jobs, but about abortion. By the way, Jordan will be one of the honored guests at tonight's Summit County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner hosted by Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, who has described Jordan as a "fast-rising conservative star." (Do you think that's really the identity that Alex has in mind for himself in the Kasich regime?)

We also learned a novel way to spin the truth from Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, who ranted that Planned Parenthood, now considered to be a subversive organization by the fringe, spends "90 pct. of its money on abortions."

Well, folks, it didn't take long for a lot of people to take that down. Actually, a very small percentage of the money goes to abortions. So it came time for Kyl's office to explain his numbers. I wish I were smart enough to construct its answer, but that isn't possible, so here it is from Kyl camp:

"His remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, an organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions."

That brand of semantics will add a whole new dimension to political double-speak.

When change means some of the same old lobbyists

AS THE POLITICAL reformers crowd into the new Congress, you can put the following report under the heading of, the more things change the more they stay the same.

ITEM: When Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landreau flew out of the chute to savage President Obama's tax compromise as "nonsensicalness and almost, you know, moral corruptness," it left me, you know, with the feeling that Katrina had garbled her memory (she did also defend BP on the oil spill, you know, you know. The problem with her outrage, however, is that she voted in favor of the Bush tax cuts in the early 90s.

ITEM: Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, of Arizona, an ardent opponent of earmarks, did manage to get a big one for old times' sake by slipping into another bill a $200 million Federal grant to one of his state's Indian tribes. His office insisted it wasn't an earmark. Right. Problem solved.

ITEM: The Washington Post had this to say about the all of the fresh faces who are arriving on Capitol Hill to clean up government: "Many incoming GOP lawmakers have hired registered lobbyists as senior aides. Several of the candidates have strong support from the anti-establishment Tea Party movement." And as Think Progress pointed out, "These lobbyists are not public servants. They are experts at carving out special deals and tax giveaways to powerful corporations."

Want a prominent example? Rep.-elect Mike Pompeo of Kansas has named Mark Chenowerth as his chief of staff. Chenowerth is a former lawyer-lobbyist for Koch Industries, owned by billionaires Charles and David Koch. They are remembered as the major sugar daddies of the Tea Partyers in the past campaign. (Guess where Chenowerth is going with this one to look after all of those angry little folks who want their government back!)

So far more than a dozen pols have been identified as having hired big-time lobbyists to shape the style of their humble offices.

I wonder if any of this has gotten back to the raging placard-wavers at the Tea Party rallies.

Thurgood Marshall on trial by Senate overdogs

FOR A BRIEF MOMENT, may we consider the work of those overdogs on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are looking for various desperate ways to embarrass Elena Kagan? Overdogs? Well, what other antonym is there for committee member Sen. Jon Kyl, the Republican whip from Arizona, who linked Kagan to former Justice Thurgood Marshall's sympathy for "underdogs".

I had fully expected the confirmation hearings to be another fruitless witch hunt - but the minority overdogs have actually turned it into a warlock hunt. They have not hesitated to attack Marshall, the nation's first African-American justice, as a "well-known liberal activist judge", to quote Alabama's Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is always around to add southern-style scholarly charm for any debate.

Kyl, an ascendent masculine overdog, complained that Kagan was much too friendly to underdogs because she was a disciple of Marshall, complaining that she "wrote a tribute to Justice Marshall in which she said in his view it was the role of the courts and interpreting the Constitution to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government".

Marshall, a civil rights icon, died more than 17 years ago but there are some things that overdogs, like their symbolic elephants, are inclined never to forget.