On April 25 - Thursday evening - American icon and humble hero George W Bush took one small step for man, one slip-and-fall for humanity - as he re-entered a spotlight until-recently blissful to have been abandoned by him, for the dedication of his presidential library. Put aside for the moment that having an actual structure that houses things you read dedicated to him is like honouring Chris Christie with a gluten-free restaurant or naming a Bar Mitzvah after Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Hell, I half expected him to don his trusty flight suit and declare "all major combat operations over in Iraq", you know, just for the memories.

But really, he did not have to do anything of the sort. For it was perfect timing for the My Pet Goat Athenaeum to emerge from the steamy Sun Belt hydrofluorocarbons just as one disaster after another befell the country, a helpful reminder of the eight torturous (in more ways than one) years he and his corrupted West Texas ideology made the rest of the United States resemble, well, West, Texas.

From the explosion at the fertiliser plant due to flagrant flouting of environmental regulations to the attack in Boston, the rejection of common sense gun safety to the square dance around sequestration; this was shaping up to be a Bush Legacy week whether he stayed home to paint nude portraits of Jeb or chose to step out and try to defend a presidency many Americans must be still convinced was just one long phantasm brought on by a bad batch of Peyote.

Michael Lind points out in, Made In Texas, that we have had conservative presidents over the past century and southern presidents. We have not had the combination. And it is an important distinction. As Lind put it in an interview with BuzzFlash (2002), "His [Bush's] political values - ranging from aggressive militarism in foreign policy to small-government ideology and fervent support for laissez-faire economics" have come to define much of our political culture in Washington - hence last week.

First, we had the Festrunk Brothers launch an attack on the Boston Marathon two weeks ago, and just about everything involved had Bush's West Texas political culture written all over it. Because of the NRA, which "worked out of his White House", there is no way to track where gun powder was bought as there is with plastic explosives. Because... freedom! (And defence contractor profits!).

There was the fact that these two clowns apparently committed these atrocities because of anger over Iraq - for which I hope the younger brother (I refuse to give them attention by using their names) spends a nice, long, pain-enveloped life carving rocks into chess pieces at Shawshank. Ahh yes, Iraq. Remember that war? The one that George W Bush lied us into with tales of yellowcake and "curveball", that has now cost up to about $2 trillion?

It is because of this war, unpaid for tax cuts and Big Pharma boondoggles that we apparently have to eliminate Medicare, according to the Pied Piper of granny starving, Congressman and former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. But let us eliminate, post haste, the part of our silly self-created "sequestration" - flight delays! - that causes inconveniences to wealthy members of the Congress on their way to the next Ladybank-single-malt-festooned, campaign contributor bribe-fests.

We were also recently treated to the West Texas answer to allowing weapons of war on our streets to blow apart toddlers in schools. Nothing. Unless you count Congress' finding ways to allow itself to insider trade again. Because... freedom!

Finally, there is the tragedy in West, Texas. A fertiliser-plant explosion near Waco (just like the Crawford pseudo-ranch!) that engulfed the neighbourhood, due to an understaffed and barely functioning Chemical Safety Board (by Congressional design), a lack of common-sense zoning requirements and the no-follow-ups rule we like to impose on the Environmental Protection Agency when they find that a plant like say, this one, had no risk management plan in 2006. But hey, the plant self-reported (is that like self-deporting?) that it posed "no risk" of fire, and why would they lie?

You may remember that a certain convict-Congressman named Tom DeLay - of West Texas - compared the EPA to the "Gestapo" and current lunkhead Texas Governor Rick Perry attacks the very same EPA for its "misguided and job-killing policies", as opposed to his people-killing ones. And then there is, once again, George W Bush. The Decider decided as President that, as dictated by his West Texas ideology, he would assault the EPA by any means necessary, short of naming the former Arabian Horse Association guy to run it (he saved that for FEMA... phew!).

So, in a way, it was fitting to see the George W Bush library opening this past week. It is his West Texas world. We are just stuck living in it.

This syndicated column first appeared at Al Jazeera English

Follow me on Twitter: @CliffSchecter

There was a moving and powerful event this morning at Union Station in DC where low wage workers for federal contractors, leaders of the faith community, and members of Congress all did a little preaching to President Obama. Their message could not have been clearer: It is time to finally to do something real to help low wage workers step out of poverty and into the middle class.

The event was the kickoff for a new organizing initiative called Good Jobs Nation, a project that I have been working on with a coalition of faith, community and labor organizations. There was a report released by Demos, which documented that the federal government through its government contracts is the nation’s biggest creator of jobs paying less than $24,000 a year, and there was a video released at the event which does a great job of summarizing the issue which you can look at here:

Fast food workers in New York City, Chicago, and other cities; Wal-Mart workers all over the country have as well; truck drivers that take goods in and out of our nation’s ports; and workers at companies who contract with the federal government: they are all organizing.

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Susie Sampson asks Americans: What grade would you give Congress?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Public opinion matters a great deal in the American system of government, just as it does in any democracy. But it sure isn’t the only thing that matters, as the following true story demonstrates. It’s what I call A Tale Of Two Constituencies.

Before I get deeper into my tale, though, my reader should know that in the land this tale comes from, the President had been elected and re-elected on not only a progressive platform, but arguably with the most populist rhetoric in 40 years. He had run his campaigns on fighting for the middle class, protecting the vulnerable from harm, taxing the wealthy, and taking on the wealthy special interests who were harming our economy. His re-election campaign had bragged about taking on Wall Street, and harshly criticized the vulture capitalist business practices of his opponent. And because of running these kinds of campaign, this President won 2 decisive victories in a row, becoming the first President of his center-left party to win a clear majority of the votes more than once since the 1930s.

So that gives you a sense of the kind of land this was, and the kind of President they had. Now for my tale. You see there two constituencies I wanted to compare and contrast in this democratic land governed by this center-left populist…

The first was extremely small in number, depending on how you count it only a few thousand people at the most. They represented the least popular institution in American society, even less popular in many polls than the Congress, which was saying something in a land where the Congressional leadership had been rated as less popular than head lice and root canal surgery. The group in question was widely blamed for an economic collapse more severe than any in 80 years, and was widely believed by journalists covering them, lawyers for many different clients who had dealt with them, and ex-prosecutors following their practices to have engaged in massive and wide-scale fraud on top of an estimated million counts of perjury in just one scam that they pulled off (something referred to by the media as robo-signing). They were reviled by every major bloc of American voters, including those of the conservative party as well as by all the key blocs of swing voters. And to top it all off, with their money and their rhetoric, they overwhelmingly supported the losing candidate in the Presidential election.

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Rachel Maddow broke the news on her show last night. (Happy belated birthday, too, Rachel!) Connecticut legislators have agreed on a framework for a comprehensive gun safety package. In this interview with Connecticut Senator Williams, he reveals that the agreement is bipartisan, even though Democrats had the votes to pass legislation without Republicans.

Not mentioned anywhere? The National Rifle Association. They were irrelevant in this process. Got that, Congress? Irrelevant.

Via NBC News:

The bill includes a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines like those Adam Lanza used to fire 154 shots in four 4 minutes Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, a new registry for existing high-capacity magazines and background checks for private gun sales, NBC Connecticut reported.

While the measure would ban the sale of ammunition magazines able to handle more than 10 bullets, Gov. Dannell Malloy and parents of the Sandy Hook victims objected to a "grandfather clause" that will allow current owners of such magazines to keep them.

[...]

In what was being described as a first in the U.S., gun owners would have to register current magazines accommodating more than 10 rounds with the state by January, The New Haven Register reported.

The measure would also require universal background checks for all firearm sales — many states don't require them for private sales, such as those between family members or collectors — and would add 34 more weapons to the state's list of banned semi-automatic assault-style weapons.

The Register reported that the bill would also strengthen penalties for gun trafficking and would expand the Board of Firearms Permit Examiners to include a mental health professional and a retired judge.

It certainly doesn't appear that the NRA intimidated Connecticut lawmakers on either side of the aisle, nor should it intimidate Congress members. Are they paying attention?

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While support for gay marriage has surged the last ten years in America there are still those in the Senate that cling to the religious right's archaic beliefs about the subject. And then there are those like Saxby Chambliss who are utterly asinine in how they express their views.

Support for gay marriage is picking up steam all over the country — except on Capitol Hill.Take Sen. Saxby Chambliss. When asked if his views had changed on gay marriage, the Georgia Republican quipped: “I’m not gay. So I’m not going to marry one.”

“I’m not gay. So I’m not going to marry one.” WTF does that mean? Gay marriage is not for non-gays, you ass. Gay marriage is for teh gays, hence the name, get it? How repulsive is this man? Is there any wonder why Congress is so frakked up with morons like this?

And then there's Senator Rand Paul, the media darling of the past few weeks. Right after he stood up against the droning of US citizens on US soil he immediately began to kowtow to the religious right with his push for "Life at Conception Act" and when asked again about gay marriage, said this:

“I believe in traditional, historic and the religious nature of marriage,” said Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the tea party Republican and possible 2016 presidential candidate. “Marriage is always a state issue, and I think it should remain a state issue.”

States' rights doesn't work as an excuse with this issue because married couples move from state to state all the time. And that's not even getting into the civil rights issue either.

Oy, my head hurts. Please make it stop.

Praise be to Judge Antonin Scalia, for he sees what the rest of us do not. The man for whom nasty, brutish and short is not simply a political formulation, but a mirror image, can look at hundreds of years of slavery, 100 more of legalised segregation and another 50 of daily discrimination and see "racial entitlement" in the basic right to vote in America. I guess it's kind of like the right-wing-clown entitlement enjoyed by our current Supreme Court.

Scalia, of course, was a modern Republican (in a robe) before it was even cool. I mean that in the sense that it's clear to anyone taking so much as a gander at what animates the GOP of 2013 - as well as Scalia's immunity to legal reasoning - that it's not any set of policy ideas, but simple emotion: all-consuming, blood-curdling, vein-bulging-out-of-the-forehead, Mel Gibson-watching-Fiddler-On-The-Roof ANGER.

Policy-wise, the GOP is an entity that literally lacks any new ideas, has no interest in governing and has rejected all of its own policy positions from as recently as early 2008 as "oh-my-God-we're-all-doomed!" creeping Socialism (see: cap and trade, earned-income tax credit, individual healthcare mandate). Rejecting anything right wingers sneeringly see as created by them-there libruls is the secret handshake of modern conservatism.

You believe in global warming? Then they don't, dang it! You accept that human beings didn't ride saddleback on a brachiosaurus into the Battle of Little Bighorn? They have an App for that, the Creation Museum, where you can ride Noah's Ark with your friendly Triassic-period imperial walker. You offer them way-too-friendly a deal on the budget? Then as Cartman from South Park says, "screw you guys... I'm going home".

The most potent example is the rise and fall of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as conservative heartthrob. He was a Republican Superhero just a year ago, when he headlined what Republican consultant Steve Schmidt called "The Star Wars Bar" of conservative gatherings, the CPAC Conference. Yet, he was quite publicly not invited to this year's CPAC.

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Lauren Mayer sings of Congress. Open thread below...

[start at about 7 minutes in for the segment on ACORN]

Oh, those silly conservative congresscritters. Did someone forget to tell them they killed ACORN years ago, or is it just a stupid obsession with beating dead horses?

Huffington Post:

A new short-term budget bill introduced on Monday by House Republicans includes a bizarre provision banning federal funding to anti-poverty group ACORN, despite the fact that the group has already been stripped of federal funding -- and has been defunct for nearly three years.

ACORN leaders announced that the group was disbanding in March 2010, after Congress cut off all federal funding to the organization. The provision in the current GOP budget bill [PDF], buried on page 221 of 269, would duplicate legislation that has already passed, to target an organization that does not exist.

Are there any impeachment provisions for stupidity?

Today is the day the package of budget cuts they call the "Sequester" takes effect. There will be endless postmortems and realtime analyses. But as its draconian effects, there's one thing to remember above all: Congress did this.

We've criticized both the president's handling of this situation and the media's reporting of it. But, in the end, this is an act of Congress. Congress passed the bill that put these cuts into effect, and it can repeal that bill -- today, if it so chooses. (Rep. John Conyers has introduced a bill to do exactly that. It's called, reasonably enough, the "Cancel the Sequester Act.")

The "Sequester" follows the long-standing "trigger" strategy we first wrote about in 2011. The idea, which was probably dreamed up by some high-priced consultant, seems to be this: Pass a bill that creates some "trigger" effect at some point in the future. If nothing else is done the "trigger" goes off, and highly unpopular and destructive spending cuts will go into effect as if untouched by human hand.

By using the "trigger" strategy, politicians believed (and apparently still believe) that they can escape the political and moral consequences of their own actions. It wasn't me that did these things, they can argue, it was the "trigger."

The forces of austerity have cooked up a number of triggers during their multi-year battle against government, which escalated right after Wall Street decimated the economy. They've had different names: Debt ceiling. "SaveGo." Fiscal cliff. And now, Sequester.

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