From Berlusconi reality to Arshinkoff servility to Kasich

DAY TWO: Government Shutdown

Has Italy finally surpassed the U.S. in practical governing?  We've always been told that Italy has become at least a  6th world nation for the instability of Rome in rotating leaders.  But as America finds itself in the death grip of House psychos, Italy has staved off disaster thanks to Silvio Berlusconi, who  has called off his threat to topple the government.  Berlusconi, convicted of corruption  and a lot of other stuff, has been the nasty king of politics in Italy for many years.  But he has turned to reality by having his People of Freedom Party (sound familiar?) support a vote of confidence  to save the coalition government. Is the U.S. House listening?

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The Tea Party defenders of the shutdown continued to insist that Obamacare is "unconstitutional", one after another preening their ignorance for the TV cameras late into the night.  What is it that they don't understand about the historical truth that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it to be constitutional?  That the law was passed by the Congress of which many are now members?   That Obama has twice been elected even though the same critics tried to advance it as a political issue?  As I've written earlier, shouldn't they at least  be honest about it and say they hate Obama?

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So now we encounter one of the GOP's leading dead-enders, Newt Gingrich, on Pat  Robertson's program saying such dumb things that "Obama refuses to behave as an American president"  with the giggling reverend in agreement. Gingrich said  Obama places himself above the Constitution" - there, folks, the Constitution, again.  He has also supposed that the president holds  a "Kenyan anti-colonial world view," whatever that means.  Maybe Robertson should pray for Newt's lunacy.

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Talk about misdirected elitism:  How else can you explain the  Summit County Republican Party's servile  agreement with Gov. Kasich to bar all media, including the Beacon Journal,  from Tuesday night's finance committee dinner at the Fairlawn Hilton?  As the University of Akron's go-to guy for Kasich favors,  shouldn't we expect party Chairman Alex Arshinkoff to lobby the governor to give up his maniacal attitude toward all media interviews. But when Kasich can get away with it in the local party's house, it's bush-league politics at  both ends.  (For more, read my piece posted today on Plunderbund.)

BJ: Beware of tax exempt profitable non-profit telemarketers

Back in the '90s, I visited  the splashy InfoCision headquarters on  Springside Dr. for a Plain Dealer story on what the huge telemarketer was all about. Passing by the offices and caller modules I was fixed on the posters that had nothing good to say about the Clintons.  No one could ignore the politics in the air.

I was reminded of that experience by Bob Dyer's two-part series in the Beacon Journal that turned up a lot of  negatives about the InfoCision  policies from his interviews with former employes who had engaged in a class-action suit against the company.
There were complaints about working conditions, pay policies and deceptive tales told to prospective donors about fairy-tale matching grants.   As Dyer reported, the suit was "settled quietly" last year before it went to trial.

Although InfoCision has many clients that add up to the second largest telemarketer in the country,   it is also true  that it has raised money tilting toward  conservative religious groups, which, in turn, are head over heels into political mischief.    There is an invisible line between religion and politics these days, and if Pat Robertson's organization enjoys InfoCision's fund-raising talent as a client, it is fair to raise the question of the silliness of tax exemptions  to the giant telemarketer as well as to all other tax exempt enterprises that operate under the guise of charitable social work. From that standpoint, the "scandal"  over the government's targeting of some major non-profits should be a blessing in disguise.

Unfortunately, the controversy will not need a long recuperative period for the offended non-profits.  The reason, as usual, is that we're talking about big money here.  And much of the establishment is perfectly content, with a wink and a nod,   to take what InfoCision raises for the public "good" - as with the Diabetes Assn. - or the naming of the University of Akron's  new football stadium thanks a $10 million gift from the late Gary Taylor, InfoCision's founder.

Good job, Bob Dyer.  But until you are able to raise that kind of money, you can have no hope that anything will change in the definition of an elephantine tax exempt   political and religious handyman in charge of the cash flow.

Robertson or Scalia? A tough call

I haven't decided whether to recognize the Rev. Pat Robertson  or Justice Antonin Scalia as this week's winner of the coveted Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award. Neither is a rising star in his class anymore but both are known to draw extensive  media attention when they speak.  It's sort of like the NFL referee announcing the crucial decision by the deciders in the booth on high for a disputed play down on the field.

First, Preacher Robertson told his TV audience that  people should be careful about wearing second-hand clothes without thoroughly laundering them because it was possible that they may possess "demonic spirits". Prayer, too, would help protect the new wearer, he said, to "rebuke any spirits that happened to have attached themselves to objects". (No, he's not talking about ancient tree spirits!)

Not that he's totally sure about this threat, but "it ain't going to hurt" to be careful.

That seemed to qualify as a winner until along came Scalia - a Supreme Court justice, for heaven's sake - who expressed his distaste for the Voting Rights Act in the case being argued before the court by describing it as a "perpetuation of racial entitlement".  The historians are sure to mention this somewhere in their accounts of Scalia, just as they have never let modern readers forget the day in 1857 when Chief Justice  Roger B. Taney ruled in  the  Dred Scott case that slaves should never-never become citizens, even if they were freed.

It had been a close call,  but now that I've revisited the details and the sweeping consequences,  the GALL award goes to Scalia.   (But I did throw some industrial strength cleanser into the washer!)

The Rev. Pat: angered by the Tebow trade

BY NOW, YOU'VE probably heard the grisly story of how some of the unsaintly New Orleans Saints were running a pool to harm opposing quarterbacks. Not that you needed a pool for that sort of thing to happen. Even the head coach, Sean Payton, was in on the deal and has since been suspended without pay ($7.5 million) by the NFL for a year.

Anyway, TV preacher Pat Robertson has his own ideas about the fate of certain quarterbacks.

Robertson is miffed because the Denver Broncos, who just signed superstar QB Peyton Manning, traded Tim Tebow, the prayerful quarterback, to the New York Jets. He accused Denver of treating Tebow "shabbily".

"And you must ask yourself," the Rev said, "OK, Peyton Manning was a tremendous quarterback, but he's been injured. If the injury comes back, Denver will find itself without a quarterback - and in my opinion, it would serve them right."

Anybody in doubt about what has to happen to serve 'em right?

Ol' McDonnell's charm in Ohio, too?

IF YOU ARE LOOKING for a hint or two about the nature of life under a governor like John Kasich, you might want to check out his newly-arrived fellow Republican conservative Bob McDonnell of Virginia. It would be too extreme, perhaps, to mention McDonnell's instant executive order as governor that stripped gays and lesbians from protection against discrimination in their jobs. In so doing, he erased an order by his predecessor, Tim Kaine (now the Democratic National Committee chairman) that guaranteed such protection. (McDonnell's anti-gay stance should come as no surprise: He's of the same mind as his close friend, TV-preacher Pat Robertson, and is an alum of Robertson's Regent University.)

But on the economic front, McDonnell immediately went after the state's $4 billion deficit with a series of proposed cuts that, as they usually do, fell heavily on the lower end of the economic pyramid: Medicaid, dental services, home care for invalids. free medical services. Schools and local governments all took hits, as well as state parks, five of which would be closed.

His proposals are being thrashed out in the legislature and it isn't clear what will survive or be modified. As for McDonnell, he says he understands the pain but his program will be accomplished without raising taxes (which says nothing of the local governments that will somehow have to find relief from taxes). In a consoling mood, the guv said:

"There is no doubt in my mind that it will cause hardship for our citizens, that real Virginians with real difficulties, whether it be medical or education or others, will be adversely affected by the decisions of the legislature and my decisions over the course of the next two years." Real Virginians with real difficulties? Can an unreal governor know the difference?

By the way, in case you missed it, McDonnell, now considered to be another rising star in the GOP's right-wing firmament after the pratfall of Bobby Jindal , was chosen by the party's leadership to respond to President Obama's State of the Union speech. Yeah, I watched him for a minute or two until he told a wildly approving Virginia House of Delegates that he favors "jobs with dignity" for everyone. Cool. But it wasn't until a few days ago that we learned he didn't mean to include gays, who may not be real Virginians these days.

The Rev. Pat crazily falls from a cliff

WHEN PAT ROBERTSON asserts that Haiti's tragedy is God's punishment for the stricken country's "pact to the devil," it is not only brutally insensitive but a clear sign that the Rev. Pat is undeniably unbalanced. Sadly, he has a support group that will agree with his gibberish.

UPDATE: THIS MADMAN PREACHER IS NOW SAYING ON THE 700 CLUB THAT THE EARTHQUAKE COULD BE A "BLESSING IN DISGUISE." How's that? Well, he says, it destroyed all of the shanties so that new buildings will now be able to replace them. Why do I stress all of this about this so-called Christian creature? Robertson needs to suffer the wrath and ridicule, not of his Maker, but of the civilized world that must condemn him and his kind. Either that, or send him off to an asylum.