Last Call For Tone Police

If there's any hard and fast truism in dealing with the Politics of The Perpetually Aggrieved in the Age Of Obama, it's that any conversation with the Perpetually Aggrieved involving race invariably ends with "Your implication that I may be racist is far worse than any actually racist things I may have done or said."  Once the game reaches that point, it then immediately ends with "You're the REAL racist!" and then endless outrage until the process is repeated.

Exhibit A in this game is Pittsburgh Police Chief  Cameron McLay.




Most likely this picture of McLay here saying that he will challenge racism at work and end white silence could cost him his job.

The picture of the chief holding the sign set off the Pittsburgh Police union.

FOP President Howard McQuillan told KDKA’s Marty Griffin: “The chief is calling us racists. He believes the Pittsburgh Police Department is racist. This has angered a lot of officers.”

Police Chief Cameron McLay released the following statement about the allegations:

“I was hired to restore the legitimacy of the police department. I did not seek these young activists out. I was stopping for coffee at First Night. Their message is not anti-anybody. It is simply a call for awareness. The photo was a great, spontaneous moment in time. Please join dialogue for community healing.”
Sources tell Griffin that McLay has been called to a meeting at City Hall regarding the photograph.

Police officers were so outraged by the photo, they thought it was photoshopped, but the police chief confirmed it was real.

A source of Marty Griffin’s inside the Mayor Bill Peduto administration has called the photograph potentially very destructive, with no upside.

However Kevin Acklin, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, tells Ralph Iannotti, the mayor continues to support Chief McLay unequivocally in his efforts to improve dialogue between police and the community at large.

For now Chief McLay has the backing of the Mayor, but something tells me that's not going to last very long and the Chief will have to resign.  Which is a shame.  America should be backing Cameron McLay 100% because he's right.

But the Perpetually Aggrieved will most likely collect another scalp.

Back In Re-Session, Con't

Not only do Republicans control Congress, they control an overwhelming majority of state legislatures as well, include 100% control (legislative and executive) of 24 states.  In a very meaningful way, the gridlock in DC is no longer the battlefield, the states are.

That battle is all but over in 2015, and the red states have won.

The unprecedented breadth of the Republican majority — the party now controls 31 governorships and 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers — all but guarantees a new tide of conservative laws. Republicans plan to launch a fresh assault on the Common Core education standards, press abortion regulations, cut personal and corporate income taxes and take up dozens of measures challenging the power of labor unions and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Before Election Day, the GOP controlled 59 partisan legislative chambers across the country. The increase to 68 gives Republicans six more chambers than their previous record in the modern era, set after special elections in 2011 and 2012.

Republicans also reduced the number of states where Democrats control both the governor’s office and the legislatures from 13 to seven.

Democrats have all but ceded the states to the GOP.  Democratic voters certainly don't care anymore.  So look for the Kansas model to become the new normal.

A new round of the culture wars is also inevitable in 2015. Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony List, said she expects that measures to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy will advance in Wisconsin, South Carolina and West Virginia. Missouri, too, is likely to take up some abortion-related bills.

In Tennessee, voters gave the legislature new powers to regulate abortion, and state House Speaker Beth Harwell (R) has said her chamber will take up three measures requiring mandatory counseling, a waiting period and stricter inspections of clinics.

Conservative activists also are targeting Common Core, the national education standards adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia over the past few years. Opposition from parent and community groups has become a hot political issue on the right over the past year, leading three states — Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina — to drop out of the program.

Some states will attempt to join those three in leaving the program altogether. Others will try to change testing requirements or prevent the sharing of education data with federal officials. In recent interviews, several Republican governors who support Common Core say they expect debate in their forthcoming legislative sessions.

“The biggest concern and opposition you hear from conservative legislators is, ‘We don’t want Washington dictating curricula,’ ” said Utah state Sen. Curtis Bramble, a Republican.

Obama is the only person standing between the barbarians and the gate.  And we only have two years of him left.  After that, if we lose in 2016, it's going to be a long, brutal slog.

Maybe we should do something about that.

Back In Re-Session

Tuesday marks the beginning of the All-New Even Worse GOP Congress, and the first order of business is repealing the last six years of President Obama's agenda.

The new Republican-run Congress convenes Tuesday eager to pursue a dream the party’s been chasing for six years: Dilute, dismantle or defang key Obama administration policies on immigration, environment, health care and more.

First up this month will be approving the Keystone XL pipeline that Obama’s been reluctant to back. Next on the agenda: Trying to overturn his November action easing deportation policies for millions of undocumented immigrants.

There’s lots more. Many Republicans plan to grill and possibly stall Obama’s defense secretary and attorney general nominees, try to block the president’s new Cuba policy and chip away at the 2010 health care law.

Republicans start the year with a lot of muscle. The party will control 247 of the 435 House of Representatives seats, the biggest Republican bloc in 84 years. The party will have 54 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

That means they'll control every aspect of congressional activity: topics for committee hearings, the Senate and House floor schedules and who can amend bills.

Democrats have three avenues of influence. Senate legislation usually needs 60 votes to stay afloat, meaning Republicans would need some Democratic votes. An Obama veto still would need two-thirds majorities in each chamber to be overturned. And Republicans are still prone to intraparty warfare between conservatives and more pragmatic lawmakers.

So the best case scenario for America over the next two years is that Republicans block themselves in Congress.  But this is what you voted for America.

Or didn't vote for.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2015/01/02/5997090/gop-congress-returns-tuesday-ready.html#storylink=cpy