The Guano Reports are a series of updates to the ever-growing list of people, politicians and other public figures, who are just lucid enough to have a conversation, but definitely live in a world of their own creation. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) Michele Bachmann exploded onto the Batshit Watchlist in 2008, despite having opposed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act the previous year. Her opposition was no more than regurgitated conservative talking points and was worth a blip on the radar, but not more than that. In 2008, however, Bachmann jumped to the forefront of the Guano Report and continues to deliver fresh poo to this day. First was her liberal stance on the contentious issue of choice. I’m referring of course to the choice of light bulbs. In 2008, Mrs. Bachmann introduced the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act which would:
provide for the repeal of the phase out of incandescent light bulbs unless the Comptroller General makes certain specific findings.
Damn straight! Nothing is more American than incandescent bulbs. Why, to lose them would be to lose a part of our culture. After all, wasn’t it an American (Thomas Edison) who invented the light bulb when he drew a portrait of himself having an idea?
While one kooky bill is enough to get your name on the Batshit Watchlist, full fledged Guano Reports require much more evidence. I present the following:
With a patented politician grin on her face, Bachmann declares that not all cultures or values are equal. First, statements of cultural equivalence, or values equivalence, are absurd because we don’t score or assign merit to them. On some level, however, she has a point. I consider myself, in her terms, a multiculturalist, but I would never celebrate a cultural practice that mutilates an infant's genitalia (female or male). Neither would I celebrate values that are based in fear and radical superstition, like the Taliban or fundamentalist Christianity. But that’s not what she’s talking about. She is specifically answering a question about cultural assimilation. Her answer discusses emigration and requires immediate subordination of incoming cultures to the host. Anything less and the host culture loses its identity, as she describes happens in France. Forget for a moment that such an analysis can’t be found in any sociology textbook, but the very idea of “assimilate... resistance is futile,” is grotesquely xenophobic (on that note please submit any Mark Krikorian droppings for GR review). Not only does she misrepresent the European riots, which were about real civil issues and youths that were killed in what they thought was a police chase, she uses it to take a culture war stab at Islam. Her answer intimates that the Muslim culture is inferior to our superior American culture or to the frog culture in smelly France even. Sorry, Congresswoman, but the great American melting pot is not a smelting bin where we separate all the inferior cultural traits to extract the true American inside everyone. Our goal is to live together as one nation, not to achieve cultural homogeneity.
Bachmann’s body of work is just prolific. This blog can’t even begin to scratch the surface of her insanity, going back to her ads against gay marriage in 2004:
to her recent paranoia over the census where she boasts of breaking the law. But some things just can’t be overlooked. Like her confusion over evolution.
Nope. No controversy. Perhaps over how the mechanisms of evolution worked over time, but not about it’s truth. There are fewer, in fact, scientific thoughts that are as widely accepted as fact than evolution. Sorry, lady. You’re wrong. But Bachmann’s ignorance of science doesn’t stop at evolution. Consider this:
or this:
There is no global warming and carbon dioxide is natural and so not dangerous. Oh...kay.... Well, arsenic is natural. Hemlock is natural. Snake venom is natural. So why don’t you chug some rat poison, chow down on some spotted cowbane and party with some rattlers and see where that gets you.* She chooses, with evolution and global warming, to ignore the scientific consensus and read from her Republican Party approved talking points memo in order to affect policy. But what can you expect from the lady that RNC Michael Steele, "be da man," or who publicly raped George Bush?
That she makes no attempt to gather facts and understand her topics, that she makes no attempt to understand the words she regurgitates for the drivel they are, that she actively promotes her criminal boycott of the Constitutionally mandated Census, that she frequently uses fear, paranoia and lies to bully her constituents and the fringe of her party, the so-called based into submission makes Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN, D6) today’s Guano Report Dump of the Day.
* NOTE: That was sarcasm. Brutal yes, but sarcasm nonetheless. Please don't leave angry comments or threaten to sue me if you're Bachmann legal counsel. I am merely making a point about the dangers of scientific ignorance, which Michele displays in spades.
Before any of my conservative friends pop their favorite champagne and celebrate the defeat of notorious reverse racist Sonia Sotomayor at the hands of the Supreme Court, let’s put the Ricci v DeStefano case into perspective. From the time of her nomination, bloggers, media moguls and friends of mine that live in foreign countries have been outraged that the president used “emotion and empathy” as choice criteria and not judicial temperament (cough!). For Republican pundits, rejecting discrimination claims by a margin of 8 to 1 just isn’t impartial enough (choke!). Her nomination is nothing more than identity politics at best , otherwise outright racism(here it comes...). Her name is just... just... UNNATURAL to the English language (bleeeeaaarrrrcch!)! The Ricci case may appear to add credence to the line that Sotomayor is inexperienced or out of touch, but take a closer look and you will see both her experience and her judicial restraint clearly.
First the facts of the case:
In 2003, the New Haven, Connecticut, Fire Department sought to fill captain and lieutenant positions. Because its union contract required promotions to be based upon examinations, the City contracted with Industrial/Organizational Solutions (IOS), Inc. to develop exams given to qualifying applicants. The results of these exams would not have allowed for the promotion of any black firefighters due to their low scores. Further, black applicants’ pass rate on the lieutenant exam was half of the rate for white applicants. The city’s exam review board could not decide whether the tests were racially biased based on a representative of an IOS competitor's testimony that the results showed “adverse impact.” Another witness, an experienced firefighter, testified that the exams were comparable to those he had taken in the past. Officials were concerned that if the test results were certified, then the city could be subject to a disparate treatment suit from minority applicants who did not qualify for promotions. The results were not certified. A group of white firefighters, including one Hispanic, who scored some of the highest results on the exams, filed a Title VII suit against the city and its officials. The district court ruled that the City did not need to certify the results because doing so could subject it to litigation for violating Title VII’s disparate treatment prohibition. On appeal, the Second Circuit, showing judicial restraint, affirmed the district court’s opinion. The unanimous panel, which included Judge Sotomayor, concluded that the city could not be held liable for its failure to certify because it tried to fulfill its obligations under Title VII.
That attempt invited a suit over the selfsame law. New Haven was damned either way. Rather than go into the particulars of the case one by one, and they are complex, let’s look at the judicial history of this case as it relates to Judge Sotomayor. Sotomayor affirmed the decision of the federal district court judge. Her decision was part of a unanimous panel of three judges from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. By a 7-6 majority, the Second Circuit refused to reverse that panel's ruling. Finally, four out of the nine Supreme Court Justices, including the guy she is to replace, agreed with her.
The Supreme Court’s decision is far from surprising. Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito issued the majority opinion in favor of the petitioners; thus, overruling the lower courts’ decision. Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter, and Breyer sided with the lower courts. We can put questions about her experience and her judicial temperament to rest. The only reason the right has celebrate Ricci, is that of the minority of federal judges to rule in the petitioners’ favor, five of them had the final say. The right has to be careful celebrating this decision. Do so too loudly and it sounds as if they are celebrating the government favoring a white man’s right not to be discriminated against over a black man’s right not to be discriminated against.
Of her alleged racism, I have already written. Here are, however, some quotes that might lend credibility to those charges of racism:
when a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn’t that long ago when they were in that position…
When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.
Whoops! Wait... that was Samuel Alito three years ago.
Alito then, like Sotomayor in her 2001 speech, was alluding to the human condition of having experience factor into decision-making. He got a pass and no one challenged him for using his “emotions” or being too empathetic. In her speech, Sotomayor pointed out that while her experiences shape who she is, she has to rise above them and consider how her decisions (as the person so shaped) will affect everyday Americans in their everyday lives. This isn’t racism of any kind. It’s the human condition.
The bigger surprise in the Ricci case would have been if Kennedy had upheld the lower courts' decision instead of disregard it. Predictably, that did not happen. The Supreme Court reversing her, and her colleagues', decision has no bearing on her fit on that bench. At a 60% reversal rate, Sotomayor is the Ted Williams of appeals judges. The Supreme Court reverses about 75% of cases it hears and Alito had a reversal rate of 100%. She has the experience and the judicial temperament. Personal attacks on her intellect (second in her class at Princeton) and ethnic identity are base as well as wrong. Her empathy, like that of Sam Alito's, should be seen as an asset, not a detriment. In short, get ready America... you will have a "Hispanic chick-lady" as your next Supreme Court Justice.
