Spot the Idiot, Again
Doing editorial pages this week, while the regular ed guy is on vacation. The letters to the editor are the usual dreary pack:
This purports to be from a local resident, and I'm sure it was sent in by the person who has the e-mail address attached to it. But this one caught my eye, because I read blogs and I know that there are organized campaigns by progressive activist groups to flood newspapers with what are essentially carbon copies of political action groups talking points.
It didn't take long to hook up this particular letter with its source: Moveon.org, which has this on its Web site:
I've italicized the parts that are the same as the supposedly local letter to the editor. Identical, down to the misspelling of the judge's name (it's Rogers).
In the next 10 days the Republicans will try to use the "nuclear option" to seize absolute power to appoint judges who will roll back decades of progress in protecting worker rights, the environment, and privacy.
The "nuclear option" is a parliamentary trick to eliminate the filibuster - the right to extend debate on controversial judicial nominations.
One of the first judges the "nuclear option" would force through is Janice Rodgers Brown of California, who is nominated for the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals, a common stepping stone to the Supreme Court.
Judge Brown follows an extremist judicial philosophy that calls for the courts to block Congress from guaranteeing such things as the 40 hour work week, the minimum wage, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.
This purports to be from a local resident, and I'm sure it was sent in by the person who has the e-mail address attached to it. But this one caught my eye, because I read blogs and I know that there are organized campaigns by progressive activist groups to flood newspapers with what are essentially carbon copies of political action groups talking points.
It didn't take long to hook up this particular letter with its source: Moveon.org, which has this on its Web site:
In the next 10 days the Republicans will try to use the "nuclear option" to seize absolute power to appoint judges who will roll back decades of progress in protecting worker rights, the environment, and privacy.
The "nuclear option" is a parliamentary trick to eliminate the filibuster - the right to extend debate on controversial judicial nominations.
One of the first judges the "nuclear option" would force through is Janice Rodgers Brown of California, who is nominated for the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals, a common stepping stone to the Supreme Court.
Judge Brown follows an extremist judicial philosophy that calls for the courts to block Congress from guaranteeing such things as the 40 hour work week, the minimum wage, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.
I've italicized the parts that are the same as the supposedly local letter to the editor. Identical, down to the misspelling of the judge's name (it's Rogers).
