Political Mayhem and HooHaw

Nate the Great Silver at www.fivethirtyeight.com at his new digs at the New York Times has his new Senate model up and running. He called all 35 Senate races in 2008 correctly. His finaly tally today is Democrats lose 6 to 7 seats. Democrats 52.4; Republicans 47.1 and Other .5 I love the fractions. In future posts, we'll get to the specific races. Next week Nate promises the House predictions--I shudder.

One observation I have is that earlier this week Beltway pundits wrote op-eds predicting a possible Republican take-over of the Senate. Somehow no one cares to base any of this on empirical evidence. To do that, the Republicans would have to win all of the 10 seats, where they seem to have a possibility. So a Republican take-over of Congress would mean the GOP would have to win all 10 Senate seats that are possible and all 40 of the Democrats vulnerable seats. If they did that, be very scared. It would mean that the political universe of the United States had radically changed within the last 18 months and that we face a fascist threat--which we may anyway.

Usually mild-mannered Norm Ornstein of AEI, after John "The Tan Man" Boehner's exposition of the Republican economic program yesterday commented that Tan Man and Eric Cantor are the Homer and Bart Simpson of Congress "merely content to play adolescent antics and games". From the neoconservative Kingdom, that smarts. Norm also mentioned that all of the Republican moderates in the House could have caucused in Mike Castle's closet. He said that the politics of Congress after this election will be worse. The moderates on both sides will be obliterated. He mentioned that Castle would be going on to the Senate.

After beating the drum on deficit and the national debt, the GOP has scared its own base. A CNN poll suggest that only 50% of Republicans want to extend the Bush tax-cuts for the rich. As for tax-cuts for those making under $250,000, 69% of liberals support that approach, 53% of moderates and only 36% of conservatives. More conservatives want to extend the tax cuts for the very rich than for the middle and lowe-income brackets , even though all economists agree that the reverse positions would actually stimulate the economy.

Just to play the Devil's Advocate, let's say the Republicans take back the House. How much trouble would new members cause for the Tan Man? Particularly if they come from the two dozen African-American members recruited by Michael Steele? While we see the ethics problems with Rangel and Waters on the Democratic side, the whispers around town say that the Tan Man has several serious ethics problems with Republicans but he said he deals with those "privately." If in the majority, these would not be private any more. How long under these circumstances would a majority actually survive? Boehner has frequently had to tell the "Family Values" members to stop partying with women lobbyists.

I urge everyone to read Jane Mayer's piece "Covert Operations" in the new New Yorker on the role of the Koch Brothers in trying to undermine the Obama Administration. Both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow last night had segments on their show about how the Koch brothers bankroll the Tea Party and organize fake astro-turf groups to lobby against regulations and anything that might affect climate change so as to protect their financial interests. As the book Radicals for Capitalism describes, the Koch brothers are self-proclaimed radical libertarians, who not only want to eliminate the social welfare state but also the government itself. They differ slightly from their father, who was a founding member of the John Birch Society and was involved in the FDR as a socialist campaign.

Washington awaits Glenn Beck's Dishonor Valor rally, where he will unfold his Mormon Libertarian vision of America which will reclaim the Civil Rights Movement for white supremacists. One organizer has printed out a helpful map of Washington warning attendees where black people hang out and what metro lines to take to avoid people of color. There are also addresses of Democratic leaders of Congress, which you may want to call or shoot. Martin Luther King's son had a classy op-ed in today's Washington Post reminding readers of his father's commitment to social justice and hinting that Beck's rally was a sign of disrespect.

Beck will racially heal the country with voices of tolerance . Sarah Palin has just supported Dr.Laura after her Tourette's rant of the "N" word. Ted Nugent , who hailed Dubuque as a "real white city", will join them on stage. And Michelle Bachmann, Christianist from Minnesota, wants her followers to be "armed and dangerous". This is sort of like Hitler trying to co-opt the message of Mohatma Gandhi.

Political conservatives are growing disenchanted with Glenn Beck for abandoning the 9-12 project, which he started. The Christian Right is getting a bit dispturbed by people like David Barton, Christian revisionist, for defending Beck. What the fundamentalists have been noticing and average viewers wouldn't get is that Beck is increasing introducing themes of Mormon theology into his shows.

This is most evident when he started a spontaneous rant on American Indian civilization. He accused the Smithsonian of covering up the true facts of a discovery in the Ohio mounds of the Ho-Ho-Kum culture. Beck claims that a piece of pottery was found there which was inscribed with bold printed Hebrew. This piece he says contains the Ten Commandmants. Then he quotes approvingly from Thomas Jefferson's speculations of where the Indians came from. All interesting stuff but you would have to know that Mormon theology says that the American Indians were descended from an Israelite tribe, who travelled to North America before Columbus. All of what he said about the Ho-Ho-Kum mounds is nonsense but widely believed by Mormons.

Beck says his address will be based on some talking points because he doesn't want to interfere with the "Spirit". Now remember the Koch industries' front-ground Americans for Prosperity are providing cut-rate packages for people to attend the Beck rally. There will be Tea Baggers there. Now Beck in his last shows suggested that William Penn's method of dealing with American Indians may be a model for our racial cooperation. I think there may be some suprises for Beck's free-market fundamentalist fans on Saturday. He's going to weave a Mormon interpretation of the origins of America together with a homily on the Founding Fathers and suggest America never was the same after the first generation of revolutionary founders. By the end you might see steam come from the fundamentalists ears. By the end , Beck may just piss everyone off.