Liz Cheney compared to Joe McCarthy by conservatives with her attacks on the Dept. of Justice

Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice-President Cheney, recently unleashed another attack in a long campaign against the Obama administration that has many conservatives connecting her to Joe McCarthy, one of the most vicious political scoundrels of the twentieth century.

Cheney's political fear monger group "Keep America Safe" just released an ad suggesting that certain Justice Department officials are terrorist sympathizers for having represented detainees against illegal treatment by the Bush's administration. The ad brands them as the "Al-Qaeda 7”; some of whom who had served during the Bush administration.

On this subject The Huffington Post interviewed conservative Claremont Institute fellow Paul Mirengoff, who blogged that Cheney’s group’s attack was "vicious" and "unfounded."  He said that her group’s comments were potentially worse than former Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s notorious anti-communist crusades.

Mirengoff continued that it could be worse than some of the assertions made by McCarthy, because at least McCarthy was correct in pinpointing that a few individuals had communist sympathies. Mirengoff said it is just baseless to suggest that these DoJ officials share al Qaeda values.

The comparison to McCarthy, a former Republican senator who led a series of witch hunts against members of Congress purportedly for being sympathizers of Soviet communism was an era that many have found to be shameful.

In light of all the negative feedback she is receiving from conservatives, Cheney shows no signs of retracting from those heinous comparisons. 

Republican Senator a hypocrite on reconciliation and Health Care reform

At the recent health-care summit President Obama was clear on what bipartisanship should mean. The President noted the Democrats, who happen to be in the majority, had added many Republican ideas while the health care bills were going through committee in both the House and Senate last summer. Obama said he was open to four more that came up during the health-care summit. What he's unwilling to do is give the minority veto power over a bill that has deliberately and painfully worked its way through the regular legislative process.

Republicans, on the contrary, don't want to talk about the crux of health care. They want to discuss process and turn reconciliation into a four-letter word and maintain that Democrats are "ramming through" a health bill.

In a letter to the Washington Post, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) offered a first-rate example of republican hypocrisy. From the start the Senator’s opinion piece was dishonest on a central fact. Hatch accused the Democrats of trying to ram a multitrillion-dollar health-care bill through the Senate.

What Hatch failed to state was that the health-care bill passed the Senate in December with 60 votes. The only thing that would pass under a simple majority vote would be a series of amendments to deal with money issues.

Hatch noted that America's Founders wanting the Senate to be about deliberation. Yet there is nothing in the Constitution about the filibuster or reconciliation. The Founders would likely be appalled that every major bill now needs a three-fifths majority to pass the Senate because of republican obstructionism.

Hatch misquoted Sens. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) as opposing the use of reconciliation on health care. Byrd said a year ago he was opposed to passing the entire bill under reconciliation. Conrad had said that it's perfectly appropriate to use reconciliation to improve or perfect the health care proposal, which is what the Democrats are proposing to do through reconciliation.

Hatch said that reconciliation should not be used for substantive legislation unless the legislation has significant bipartisan support. This runs counter to when he and his republican cohorts passed Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts under reconciliation, and thereby increased the deficit by $1.7 trillion which would count for substantive legislation. The 2003 tax cut could muster only 50 votes requiring Vice President Dick Cheney to break the tie.

It appears that Hatch’s and his republican friends believe that it's fine to pass tax cuts for the wealthy on narrow votes, but an outrage to use reconciliation to help middle-income and poor people get health insurance.

Minnesota Republican Bachmann hated the U.S. Census until she realized her job might be gone

Republican Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has recently come around on her fear and loathing of the U.S. Census.

Bachmann's latest communications director David Dziok said that the Representative will vote yes on a resolution today to encourage Americans to participate in the Census, and promote March 2010 as Census Awareness Month.

Just Last summer Bachmann avowed that she would not fully fill out her Census form, by only disclosing the number of people in her home. According to Federal law this is illegal, and would likely have resulted in her family not being counted. Bachmann said she was doing this in order to prevent her personal information getting into the hands of the government or ACORN, linking the collection of census data to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

In accordance with Article I section 2 of the United States Constitution; a U.S. census must be conducted every 10 years. Reminiscent of President Bush, who had authorized spying on tens of millions of Americans in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment; Bachmann had apparently decided she would only abide by those sections of the U.S. Constitution that meet with her distorted view of governing.

Only since the Minneapolis Star-Tribune published a January editorial calling upon the state's citizens to actively participate in the Census because Minnesota might lose a House seat if the State’s population is not fully counted, did Bachmann stop criticizing the Census. 

This suggests she changed her tune only now because, to her horror, her own district might likely be cut up and spread among its neighbors from a district reapportionment driven by an undercounted census.