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This just in: You still can’t count on Baird

by — ,

Oh fer Chrissakes. Now the nation gets to endure more clap-trap from Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., from my own district right here in WA-03.

As with many narcissistic politicians, he just can’t help himself. From Salon:

“We had a series of briefings in the Democratic caucus,” he said. “At the final briefing before the vote, there were — I would guess — 30 staffers, most of them master’s or Ph.D’s, many of whom spent their entire life on healthcare; experts in the arcanery of this bill, and they would stand up one by one and answer questions as they arose from the caucus… You have to say, so what’s the average person supposed to do to make sense of this if it takes 30 Ph.D career staff members to explain it? And that’s after months of prior explanation.”

Translation: I’m smarter than you. Yeah, it may be a very good thing this guy isn’t running again.

I had a sneaking suspicion we’d be hearing from Baird once people started trying to count votes in the House again, and sure enough, the professor doesn’t miss the opportunity.

The time for this kind of self-indulgence ended a long time ago; in retrospect it ended when the House failed to act ahead of the August recess last year. The summer recess ended for people who live in D.C., but those of who us actually live here got to enjoy the smoking rubble and delectable wingnut odor for months.

The best thing to do would be to ignore Baird, as he is a lame duck, rendering him even more ineffective than he has been over his career. (You have to scroll down to number 212 in the House column!) But it doesn’t look like he’s going to go quietly.

Of course Baird is going to fuck this up if he can, it’s who he has become. Sure, he’ll pretty it up with some more “smarter than you” talk, but in the end it’s his last hoorah, and a chance to show D.C. just what a very serious person he is. There are jobs to be had in the future, you know.

Comments

  1. 1

    You can’t count on alot of Dummocrats Jon–
    Here is yet another one who won’t be running for re-election:

    New York Rep. Eric Massa will not seek re-election after serving just one term, Fox News learned Wednesday. The New York Democrat was facing a tough race in a district that flipped from Republican to Democrat in 2008. Massa defeated incumbent Republican Randy Kuhl in a district that has been dominated by Republicans since the Civil War.

    There had been reports suggesting a more nefarious reason could be at work. The New York Daily News reported that the congressman warned that reporters would be “hearing things that aren’t true.”

  2. 2

    When Democrats start to sound like Mr. Klynical, it’s time for them to leave. Fast.

    Talk about flaming out, though. Maybe Baird simply succumbed to the vast intellectual wasteland that is Clark County.

  4. 4

    Good riddance to Baird. Calling him a douchebag is an insult to actual douchebags that at least perform one useful function.

    He is notorious for being the one of the worst bosses in Congress. Having met with and lobbied his staff, I’d have to agree, but add that he also has one of the worst staffs in Congress. We met with his staff because Baird couldn’t be bothered to meet with constituents.

    Did I mention douchebags?

  5. 5

    N in Seattle–
    The link you provide says this
    ” Rep. Eric Massa, a freshman Democrat from New York, said Wednesday that he will not seek a second term after a recurrence of cancer late last year, dismissing blog reports that he had harassed a staffer.”

    Hey, I care so much about Eric Massa that I hope the report about him harassing a staffer IS the true reason and he DOESN”T have a recurrence of Cancer.
    How’s that for compassionate Conservativism!!

  6. 6

    @3 Just yesterday the KLOWN was praying for a massive 8.8 earthquake to hit our region and to kill tens of thousands of Puget Sound residents. If Goldy started banning people for being too disgusting and stupid for words, the Klynical KLOWN would be the first to go.

  7. 7

    Steve
    I don’t know. The competition here for that honor is awfully steep. I think Puddy would be crushed if he didn’t win. Little Ricky Dumbass would blame a liberal conspiracy, and, of course, we know who manoftruth would blame. Maxie would just go off to a quiet corner and try to calm down by playing with himself. Things would get kind of ugly, I’m afraid.

  9. 9

    C’mon, boys & girls.

    Try to give DeVore one thread, his first, to generate enough interest to break out of single-digit responses.

  11. 11

    So let me be the first. Spew #10. Two digits. Finally.

    Has anyone else noticed that Max’s comments are invariably incisive and excellent? He’s our SuperMax. Florence, CO has nothing on us.

  13. 13

    @6 And only the day before yesterday Cynical was lying about a state liquor store clerk making over $100,000 a year. The guy actually earns $13.50/hr.

  14. 14

    @11 “Max’s comments are invariably incisive and excellent”

    You guys are vain, aren’t you?

  17. 17

    16
    No kidding. Max at 2 speaks the truth. You, on the other hand? Uh, not so much. You are quite full of yourself, though.

  18. 18

    Conservative Mag Calls Appeasement Claims ‘Bunk’

    “Conservatives call Obama too weak to be a warrior. Tell that to the Taliban”

    From the conservative U.K.-based newsmagazine The Economist:

    “If there is one thing conservatives agree on, it is that Barack Obama is not tough enough to be commander-in-chief. … Most of these barbs are bunk. … Mr Obama is … quite ruthless about blowing [America’s] enemies to scraps. … Mr Obama orders assassinations at a far brisker pace than George Bush ever did. … In short, it is far from clear that Mr Obama’s policies have led to gentler treatment for terrorist suspects abroad. The opposite may be true. … More generally, the notion that Mr Obama does not take seriously his responsibilities as commander-in-chief is risible. … If he fails, it will not be for lack of steel.”

    http://www.economist.com/world.....d=15579751

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Of course, everything wingers say is bunk. All I’m saying here is that Britain’s most respected conservative publication says it’s bunk. That ought to be good enough for any reasonable person.

  19. 19

    But, but, but Rabbit, that can’t be true because all of wingnuttia says it isn’t true.

  20. 20

    6. Steve spews:

    @3 Just yesterday the KLOWN was praying for a massive 8.8 earthquake to hit our region and to kill tens of thousands of Puget Sound residents

    Another lie by the drunken liar.
    Drinking on the tollycraft again??
    Show me where I said the above??
    You can’t.
    You are a drunken liar.

  21. 21

    Racist Roger Rabbit lies repeatedly about his stock portfolio. I busted him several times on his out & out lies.

  22. 22

    Hey Rog–
    Gonna call Puddy any mo’ racist names cuz he ain’t toein’ the pergressive line?
    Any black person who disagrees wit’ you is an Uncle Tom..or Flying Monkey…or some other atrocious name.
    You want Black Folks for their votes…that’s it. If not, you trash ’em.
    You ain’t a rabbit…you is a racist pig!

  24. 24

    @17….more irrelevant spunk from Proud Ball-licker……catch him next week in his pink ballerina’s outfit riding a seat-less unicycle at the pride parade…

  25. 25

    And only the day before yesterday Cynical was lying about a state liquor store clerk making over $100,000 a year.

    Yeah Dumb Bunny, you accused Puddy of those words. Of course it was another of your smelly Pellets fricknfrack loves to read.

    BTW Dumb Bunny where’s da proof on 20-27% of Americans being racist? You said it fool!

  27. 27

    Proud Goatist,

    Cynical stoops down and condescends to deliver the same amount of love the Dumb Bunny delivers in a thread. Usually there is much more love from Cynical but the Dumb Bunny makes peeps “crazy”. The only thing is the Dumb Bunny is a crusty old moron who brags about animal sex and who claims 50% of Americans who disagree with Odumba are racists. Yet, there is no proof, just smelly pellets.

    Maybe that’s why fricknfrack likes the Dumb Bunny comments… it’s the animal sex commentary.

  29. 29

    @28…no hate on this end – you are free to be as sick a motherfucker as you want. its a free country.

    more gays = more ladies for Big Max… hahaahhah

  30. 30

    The KLOWN sez: “Flying Monkey…or some other atrocious name”

    The HA dumbfuck-o-meter done blew up with that one.

  31. 31

    What Part Of ‘Private Property’ Don’t They Understand?

    Members of the pro-gun “open carry” movement insist on carrying their weapons in Starbucks and other restaurants, AOL News reports.

    http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....s/19381679

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Uh, guys, Starbucks is PRIVATE PROPERTY and if the PROPERTY OWNER says “no” that means “no.” If you come to my burrow packing heat, and I tell you “no guns” and you don’t comply, you’re gonna leave. Either voluntary or feet first, but leave you will.

  32. 32

    and starbucks has decided to tell the anti-gun nazis to stuff themselves…love it.

  37. 37

    I made only $37.50 in the stock market today, but that’s still more than an Arkansas chicken farmer gets.

  38. 38

    @22 I’ve called puddinghead a lot of things, but I never called him a “flying monkey.” You’re confusing me with someone else.

    I am, however, calling you a liar — because you are one. State liquor store clerk Thomas D. Taylor makes $13.50/hr, not $105,000/yr. You were full of shit when you said that.

  40. 40

    @33….guess that just proves that we should have put a .45 into the back of all their heads and be done with the problem. Now who was it that wanted all those detainees freed? hmmm..

    click..click..boom..

  41. 41

    @27 “Bunny makes peeps “crazy”.”

    Don’t blame your genetic defects on me. I’m not your mother.

  43. 43

    @27 “animal sex commentary”

    So? I’m a rabbit. What kind of sex do you expect me to discuss? In the crowd I run with, we refer to human coitus as “bestiality.”

  44. 44

    @42…amber ale. Might not be too bad, although I prefer a good, authentic Hefe myself.

  45. 45

    @32 If you actually read a news article once in a wall, instead of picking your commentary out of your nose, you’d know that Starbucks caved in to the gun nuts. That’s why it’s in the news, moron.

  48. 48

    Roger

    18. Roger Rabbit spews:

    Conservative Mag Calls Appeasement Claims ‘Bunk’

    “Conservatives call Obama too weak to be a warrior. Tell that to the Taliban”

    The Economist is anything but “conservative” … certainly it is not “conservative” in the American, Reprican sense where conservative and lunatic are not far apart. HOWSEVER, even in the England, the Economist is NOT a supporter of either the misnamed “labor” government or the misnamed “conservative” opposition.

    The Economist is sometimes called libertarian, but it equating the Economist with the crotch sniffers of the tea bag movement here also makes no sense.

    Of course, if it were not for the penchant Americans have for newspeak, we might refer to the Economist using its own term .. “liberal.”

  53. 53

    How many times have I told you people to quit dropping quarters in GBS … aren’t you getting tired of the same old BS/GBS song?

    Rabbit did not vindicate your argument because you have no argument. Rabbit had no argument of his own, unless I missed it. What he had and what you have is blatant assertion that emanations and penumbras of a wall of separation are somehow invisibly embedded in the First Amendment.

    The U of Chicago book, whether or not you agree with it, makes it difficult or impossible to continue to continue to pretend that your phantom of separation can withstand strict or casual scrutiny. The book reflects a reality-based perspective that you and Rabbit, stewing in a mythology of mush, seem not to understand. You’re pumping irony, GBS: swatting at faith while your “arguments” come from a naive useless faith in secular-fundamentalist fable. The book, on the other hand, is about what was and is.

    So perhaps you and Rabbit should read it. Then, if you think you can argue against it, your arguments might be worth our time. Quit dodging. Quit playing to your amen-corner echo chamber. Read. The. Book.

    ** Early American history: Is Roger Williams early enough? He first posited the “wall” that Jefferson tried, post hoc, to graft on the Establishment Clause. PH from the U of C explains why neither the wall metaphor of Williams nor its restatement by Jefferson is a reliable guide to anything except, perhaps, some local sectarian issues of Williams and the Federalist politics of 1802. Still with us, GBS, or is this over your head? Maybe you’re in over your sheet. Getting a little too nuanced for your bumper sticker “arguments” from the trash web?

    Or are you totally on top of this history behind the “history” you hang out with? PH at U of C uses evidence, logic, and law to deconstruct Jefferson. Past time for you and your pet Rabbit to use evidence, logic, and law to deconstruct PH from U of C, if you can. Apparently you can’t.

    ** TJ, the original D (they called themselves Republicans then) was very often very wrong. He was wrong as a cheerleader for the French Revolution. He was often viciously wrong as a factional infighter. He was on the wrong side of slavery. Most important, he was wrong about America. He thought we were and would always be and should always be a fractionated nation of sturdy yeomen. Not much of a nation at all, in other words. More like a commune cobweb of back-to-the-land hippies. Hamilton, with all his faults, had a clearer vision and a better brain.

    ** Arrogance. I’m born-again Jewish. I’m agnostic about your anti-Christian bigotry, and am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and to give myself an out: Maybe your bigotry is more apparent than real. Perhaps you’re just dazed, confused, and misunderstood.

    I’m also agnostic about the Bill of Rights. Unlike you, I won’t and can’t pretend to have strolled through the minefield of constitutional law. No arrogance here, GBS. The arrogance is there, coming from you. You seem to have a previous condition of certitude about what the First Amendment means, and you seem unwilling to challenge the simple-minded arrogance of your certitude.

    ** Dusky Sally footnote: lostatsea or somebody mentioned TJ and SH as if rumors are established fact. They’re not. They’re rumors.

    ** Homophobia. None here. In fact, I’m hot for Rabbit. Especially when he’s hanging out with Hef and the Mansion. His satin ears are a turn-off, but his little white tail revs my engines.

    =============
    Sorry (not really) to beat you down in public like this, GBS, but you had it coming and somebody’s got to do it. You had a week to come up with facts, for a change, and arguments, for a change. You came back with shit. Can’t give you the swirly you deserve, so I’m letting you off easy. Just a beatdown. And I’m pulling punches because you’re not Gman.

  54. 54

    It’s nice to know that once we take over the house and the Senate come 2010 all we need is a simple majority to overide a presidential veto. Thanks for rewriting the rules donks. Now we can quickly roll back all the stupid, silly, liberal guvmint programs.

  56. 56

    @44 “I prefer a good, authentic Hefe myself”

    You gotta be kidding. That’s a joke, right?

  57. 57

    @50 Perdue Farms is privately held, but based on gross sales of $4.1 billion, and assuming some dilution of ownership within the family, I’d guess he makes over $100 million a year.

  58. 58

    @53 I don’t mind beating you down in public, because all that historical stuff is well and good, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing. The First Amendment means what SCOTUS says it means, no more or less, and the only relevant reading is the SCOTUS cases on the subject. In addition, if you’re not a lawyer, you probably won’t understand what you’re reading; and unless you’re a constitutional lawyer specializing in First Amendment law, what you say about “separation of church and state” is either personal opinion or presumptuous. In other words, what an ACLU lawyer says is probably a great deal more informative than what you say.

  59. 59

    And, of course, there’s a trick to it; and the trick is, all law is case-specific, so until you have the real-life facts of a real-life dispute in front of you, anything you say on the subject is a generalization, which is subject to the limitations that all generalizations suffer from.

  60. 60

    I’m saying: Read. The. Book.

    Need a public-payroll ESL translator to help you understand what I just said?

    Need a public-payroll ESL translator to help you read?

    We’ll wait here while you get help. We’ll leave the light on for you.

    (@58 is probably meant for GBS, tho, since he’s mired in all that historical stuff. He arrogantly claims to have it all figured out. He claims to have rushed in to con-law quagmires where even SCOTUS fears to tread.

    GBS a fucking fool, and Rabbit isd his prophet.)

  61. 61

    Exactly the point I was trying to make to fucking fool GBS, Rabbit. Was trying to tell him that his pathetic arrogant certitudes about Everson are unsustainable.

    But am sure his brilliant pet Rabbit can sustain an Everson argument until the factory-farm cows come home.

    (isd = is)

  63. 63

    “Separation of church and state” is the legal doctrine that has resulted from the interpretation of two distinct clauses of the First Amendment, the “Establishment Clause” and the “Free Exercise” clause. However, constitutional law on the subject does not end there, because Article VI prohibits religious tests for federal office and the Fourteenth Amendment extends the Bill of Rights to the states. (Thus, for example, while some official state churches existed early in the history of our country, these were rendered impermissible by the extension of the Bill of Rights to the states.)

    The concept is intellectually challenging because it involves melding a prohibition on governmental conduct with a guarantee of individual rights. In any given case, the legal issues may break down into one or the other, or a combination or interplay of the two. For this reason, the jurisprudence in this area is complex.

    It is generally believed the actual phrase was first used by Thomas Jefferson in an 1802 letter, and it was adopted by the Supreme Court in 1878 (in the Mormon polygamy case of Reynolds v. United States) and has been used by the Court many times since, including in the 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education. The fact the issue continues to be debated does not mean the law is unsettled. There is a large body of caselaw at the federal and state levels, the thrust of which is that government may not interfere with individual religious beliefs (but may proscribe religious practices, such as polygamy or human sacrifice, that violate secular laws) or impose religious beliefs or practices on individuals (thus, the cases striking down laws requiring teaching of creationism in public schools).

    This does not, however, preclude the existence of a religious dimension in the political realm of society (thus, references to “God” in presidential speeches are not unconstitutional). It is important, however, to maintain the distinctions between the various components making up the overall legal doctrine governing the relationship between government and citizens in matters touching on religion, or confusion and inaccurate perception of what the law really is will surely result.

  65. 65

    62
    Hefeweizen is for people who claim to like beer, but, down deep, like wine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . .

  66. 66

    What the wingnut argument on the “separation of church and state” boils down to is, because they argue there isn’t one, it follows there isn’t.

  67. 67

    @61 Okay, since you’re such a fucking expert, why don’t you tell us what Everson means today. Betcha you get it wrong.

  68. 68

    As a religious person, I believe the separation of church and state protects the church from the state. Countries with state religions breed citizens who equate their distaste for their government with what must be wrong with their religion. Conservatives want government out of their lives, or so they claim. Do they really want government to endorse religion? For instance, do they really want schoolchildren to be saying, “one nation, under God”? Uh, I don’t. It is an affront to both the Constitution and to religion.

  69. 69

    @40 “click..click..boom..”

    It appears you see things Obama’s way, therefore you ought to support him:

    “American drones fired missiles at suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan’s tribal areas 55 times last year, killing hundreds of jihadists and who knows how many civilians. This year, the killing has accelerated; so far more than a dozen strikes have been reported. Mr Obama orders assassinations at a far brisker pace than George Bush ever did.”

    (See #18 for link)

  71. 71

    @69..he can start with playing target practice withe the human trash in Guantanamo….not by giving them lawyers

  76. 76

    Good luck electing a rabid left-winger to replace Baird in Clark County! Fucking idiots.

  77. 77

    “You have to scroll down to number 212 in the House column!”

    Which makes him a giant in the House compared to Double Dip Dave Reichert, who clocks in at 401st.

    As the years go by, it becomes increasingly obvious Reichert is in the House only because he wanted not one but two taxpayer-funded pension checks, while doing as little actual work as possible.

  78. 78

    Rabbit @ 63–
    NOW YOU ARE PLAGARIZING FROM WIKIPEDIA???
    What a lawyer you are.
    Now you are a RACIST PIG and a PLAGARIZER FROM WIKIPEDIA??

    Too Dang Funny!

  79. 79

    274…you drink jack because you have no taste – hell, I wouldnt wash car parts in that cheap swill..

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