++With the last few days of polling producing volatile results sometimes in the same race, I noted Princeton had cut today's probability down, but remained optimistic for election day.
++Karl Rove had warned Republicans that their edge in the Senate had been lost because of a lack of money. He promptly went off to Adelson for new bucks to CrossRoads USA.
++By late afternoon, Sam Wang was again bullish. He has the prediction at 51 Democrats and Independents 49 Republicans,the meta-margin back up to 1.7. 90% if the election were held today and 70% on election day.
++The DailyKos has been warning readers off some of the recent polls, especially Quinnipiac on the Senate races which have GOP candidates making surprising strides.
++Let's hear out for Scotland. 97% of the population registered to vote and an expected 92% are to cast their ballots today.
Showing posts with label Karl Rove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karl Rove. Show all posts
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Scott Walker is a Star!
++The criminal conspiracy has made it to the front page of the Washington Post,the lead story of Huffington Post,the Daily Beast,Up with Chris Hayes, the Ed Show. Walker is catching fire.
++What people who have followed Citizens United should know is while all the rich cats can donate under the radar,it can't be coordinated according to the decision.
++The appearance of Karl Rove in an e-mail sent to him by Scott Walker shows why the IRS was investigating Rove's 501-C-4 and why the House attacked the IRS for the probe of 501-C-4s.
++The Wisconsin papers --both rural and urban--have this as front page news.
++The man has made it. He is a national figure. Now we know why Mitt Romney's name has resurfaced in the Republican Party.
++What people who have followed Citizens United should know is while all the rich cats can donate under the radar,it can't be coordinated according to the decision.
++The appearance of Karl Rove in an e-mail sent to him by Scott Walker shows why the IRS was investigating Rove's 501-C-4 and why the House attacked the IRS for the probe of 501-C-4s.
++The Wisconsin papers --both rural and urban--have this as front page news.
++The man has made it. He is a national figure. Now we know why Mitt Romney's name has resurfaced in the Republican Party.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
New York Is Saved and Other Sunday Notes
++Sean Hannity made good on his promise and has moved to Florida but keeping a ranch in Texas. New Yorkers can breathe easier now.
++In the ceremony opening the 9-11 Museum,the program deleted the scheduled musical interlude of "A Bridge over Troubled Waters" after Chris Christie spoke.
++California is burning as forest fires ramped up again as the entire state is considered a drought zone.
++April was the second hottest in recorded history.
++Richard Scaife, the 81-year old owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune has incurable cancer. Dick Scaife was a primary funder of conservative causes and institutions for generations.
++This week you can read about the largest funders of the Right in the new book "Sons of Wichita", which chronicles the history of the Scaife family and their emergence on the political scene. Goodies include inter-family disputes ,including private eyes, in the dispute over the father's estate,David's hedonistic heydays,the family's blackmailing the gay son, and the long history of federal violations. The book doesn't flinch from Dad, who favored Mussolini.
++Australia reports that "carbon sink", the capacity of the ocean to absorb carbon, has reached the tipping point where it threatens the entire marine food chain.
++Greenland is melting at a faster rate than previously thought but here in North America, glaciers in British Columbia and Alaska are melting even faster and getting now news coverage.
++Karl Rove this morning doubled down on Hillary's "brain damage" and Rinse Penis said that Hillary's health and age are fair game.
++This week may not be a good one for Karl Rove. There is a story about to emerge about his divorce and his ex-wife accusing Karl of having an affair with a man. I'm betting it doesn't emerge because of Rovian pressures and that gay is so passé.
++There has been an explosion of same-sex marriage decisions and stays it's getting confusing. Arkansas, Utah, Idaho, and the list goes on.
++Michael Lind has a provocative article in Salon about possible party alignments because of the death of "social conservatism".
++Conservative websites are attacking Jeb Bush for a host of imaginary ideological crimes but the nastiest writing is attacking his wife. They claim she doesn't like being a political wife,she isn't fluent in English,has the well-documented problem with Customs, bringing in significant purchases without declaring them. But I guess if you can attack Michelle Obama , you can attack Jeb's wife. Doonesbury today has a fake Jeb interview for good fun.
++The Right--or at least the social conservatives who met the other year at Mount Vernon--met here in Washington behind closed doors. Considering the GOP thinks this is their year,what are the Right complaining about--the nature of the GOP.
++Rubio must be running. He again asserted his anti-choice position and denied climate change. That's pretty ballsy considering this week scientific blogs ran maps how Miami and southern Florida will disappear because of the rise in the sea.
++This past week's announcement that the West Antarctic ice sheets are collapsing faster than expected raise the issue of how conservative climate scientists are. The UN report undervalued the impact of the melting poles and glaciers on the climate. What you have read is really worse.
++Ms. Geller is back hiring busses to run her anti-Islam ads and ,of course, invoked the Holocaust. Could we reach agreement that the term "Holocaust" be used only for the Holocaust. And "Hitler" is the historical figure Hitler and not Barack Obama.
++In the ceremony opening the 9-11 Museum,the program deleted the scheduled musical interlude of "A Bridge over Troubled Waters" after Chris Christie spoke.
++California is burning as forest fires ramped up again as the entire state is considered a drought zone.
++April was the second hottest in recorded history.
++Richard Scaife, the 81-year old owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune has incurable cancer. Dick Scaife was a primary funder of conservative causes and institutions for generations.
++This week you can read about the largest funders of the Right in the new book "Sons of Wichita", which chronicles the history of the Scaife family and their emergence on the political scene. Goodies include inter-family disputes ,including private eyes, in the dispute over the father's estate,David's hedonistic heydays,the family's blackmailing the gay son, and the long history of federal violations. The book doesn't flinch from Dad, who favored Mussolini.
++Australia reports that "carbon sink", the capacity of the ocean to absorb carbon, has reached the tipping point where it threatens the entire marine food chain.
++Greenland is melting at a faster rate than previously thought but here in North America, glaciers in British Columbia and Alaska are melting even faster and getting now news coverage.
++Karl Rove this morning doubled down on Hillary's "brain damage" and Rinse Penis said that Hillary's health and age are fair game.
++This week may not be a good one for Karl Rove. There is a story about to emerge about his divorce and his ex-wife accusing Karl of having an affair with a man. I'm betting it doesn't emerge because of Rovian pressures and that gay is so passé.
++There has been an explosion of same-sex marriage decisions and stays it's getting confusing. Arkansas, Utah, Idaho, and the list goes on.
++Michael Lind has a provocative article in Salon about possible party alignments because of the death of "social conservatism".
++Conservative websites are attacking Jeb Bush for a host of imaginary ideological crimes but the nastiest writing is attacking his wife. They claim she doesn't like being a political wife,she isn't fluent in English,has the well-documented problem with Customs, bringing in significant purchases without declaring them. But I guess if you can attack Michelle Obama , you can attack Jeb's wife. Doonesbury today has a fake Jeb interview for good fun.
++The Right--or at least the social conservatives who met the other year at Mount Vernon--met here in Washington behind closed doors. Considering the GOP thinks this is their year,what are the Right complaining about--the nature of the GOP.
++Rubio must be running. He again asserted his anti-choice position and denied climate change. That's pretty ballsy considering this week scientific blogs ran maps how Miami and southern Florida will disappear because of the rise in the sea.
++This past week's announcement that the West Antarctic ice sheets are collapsing faster than expected raise the issue of how conservative climate scientists are. The UN report undervalued the impact of the melting poles and glaciers on the climate. What you have read is really worse.
++Ms. Geller is back hiring busses to run her anti-Islam ads and ,of course, invoked the Holocaust. Could we reach agreement that the term "Holocaust" be used only for the Holocaust. And "Hitler" is the historical figure Hitler and not Barack Obama.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Democrats Doomed Because of Snow in D.C.
++The Amazon Post this morning ran several articles on the GOP making a big push in 2014. Morning Joe claims the Republicans are unbeatable. Karl Rove says the GOP will win big. Even David Plouffe warns that the Democrats could lose the Senate. Although he did say it will be caused if Democrats stay home.
++One indicator for the pundits is the entry into the New Hampshire Senate race of Scott Brown, who moved to New Hampshire from Massachusetts. In all the polls he runs far behind Jeanne Sheehan. His best poll shows him ten behind.
++The big new this morning is that the GOP will offer up after 6 years an alternative to Obamacare. I won't go into the details until they really,really unveil this alternative. It might be good for Democrats on the campaign trail to ask their GOP counterpart what the alternatives are. We know they want to sell junk insurance across state lines,let small business pool their insurance,have tort reform,and have catastrophic insurance but not have the protections of Obamacare. The initial price tags are an increase in the national debt and the uninsured.
++Brainwrap may end up being right about his 5.5 million prediction. Today,the 5 millionth person signed up for Obamacare.
++The Koch Brothers pulled their anti-Obamcare ads because the pushback from fact-checkers got too much that even the cancer victim had to hide.
++Talking Points Memo had a piece today about how the GOP will monkey around with Obamacare , presuming they win the Senate.
++The mindlessness today reminds me of 2010. But we should withhold judgment until June. The generic poll has Democrats leading except in the NYTimes where Republicans have a 3+ lead. All the Sunday pundits point to Obama's shrinking approval rating as evidence this will be a big year for Republicans. Today's Rasmussen is 49 Approve,49 disapprove, not the territory that W had at this point.
++Republican governors still face uphill battles in Maine, Pennsylvania,Florida, Wisconsin and Georgia. Wendy Davis is only double digits behind in Texas.
++Historically,the President's party gets hit in the 6th year of a presidency. And yes, this year the Democrats are defending more seats than the Republicans. And, yes, the Democrats have only a 36% approval rating. But, the GOP has 20%. That's a winning ticket?
++The American public have lived through the Tea Party revolution and the government shutdown and 52 attempts to repeal Obamacare without a replacement. Will this generate the same type of second term midterm that is projected?
++As the demographic of the GOP base--over 60,white male, I still can't understand why older Americans would favor the GOP when they know they are committed to destroying Social Security, Medicare and are committed to war.
++Millennials have real beefs with the Obama Administration. In particular, the continued issues of the national security state or the Deep State. Dana Millbank reports on this in the Amazon Post. The other critique is that no one was punished for their role in the 2008 collapse of the global economy.
++Any woman who votes for the GOP has to have her head examined now that the war against women has entered into the bizarre realm of trying to outlaw contraceptives, a decision that was made by the Supreme Court before I was a teenager.
++Republicans have vowed nothing significant will be done this year in Congress. A great message to elect them to total control of Congress.
++So where will the economy go. Obama, the Socialist, created the situation where there is now a record millionaires in the United States--9.63, who will of course vote against Democrats. Household wealth is now at 80.7 trillion. Consumer confidence is at its second highest since August. Retail sales increased for the first time in 3 months. As a fed official said, we are not in a "soft patch" in the economy.
++Since the extended unemployed are thought not to vote, the 2 million will have to wait until after the St. Paddy's day congressional break for a Senate vote. The House will probably not vote on it.
++President Obama's directives on overtime tries to remedy a long-time wrong and will affect millions of workers. The private sector are beginning to scream about it.
++With immigration reform receding as the GOP wants to strengthen their white vote, President Obama has decided to review deportation figures.
++Referenda on raising the minimum wage and medical marijuana may serve to get out the Democratic vote in 2014 the way anti-gay marriage votes got out the Republicans. In Florida, where the Democratic party is weak, this would be a big plus in the governor's race of Crist versus Scott.
++The GOP is great at proclaiming victory prematurely. But there is something happening that is under the radar. Last election, I wanted President Obama to campaign in Georgia because I thought he could win it. This year, we have Michelle Nunn, Sam's daughter, and Jason Carter both leading in the Senate and Governor's races.
++The last Alaskan race I liked Senator Begich because of his campaign and no-nonsense ,low-key campaign. I like how he slapped down this year's Koch ads on Obamacare and the cap and trade law--which doesn't exist and won't. I still lean toward him to win re-election.
++The two Democrats I see in trouble are Pryor in Arkansas and Hagen in North Carolina. But they are still competitive in their races. Weirdly, I think Mary Landrieu has a decent chance in Louisiana. The reason is that Jindal's approvals are in the toilet and the gubernatorial race will feature lingerie-wearing Senator Vitter.
++Democrats should consider the mini-Obama strategy that won Virginia against the Cooch.It can be duplicated.
++I still believe organization triumphs over money.
++One indicator for the pundits is the entry into the New Hampshire Senate race of Scott Brown, who moved to New Hampshire from Massachusetts. In all the polls he runs far behind Jeanne Sheehan. His best poll shows him ten behind.
++The big new this morning is that the GOP will offer up after 6 years an alternative to Obamacare. I won't go into the details until they really,really unveil this alternative. It might be good for Democrats on the campaign trail to ask their GOP counterpart what the alternatives are. We know they want to sell junk insurance across state lines,let small business pool their insurance,have tort reform,and have catastrophic insurance but not have the protections of Obamacare. The initial price tags are an increase in the national debt and the uninsured.
++Brainwrap may end up being right about his 5.5 million prediction. Today,the 5 millionth person signed up for Obamacare.
++The Koch Brothers pulled their anti-Obamcare ads because the pushback from fact-checkers got too much that even the cancer victim had to hide.
++Talking Points Memo had a piece today about how the GOP will monkey around with Obamacare , presuming they win the Senate.
++The mindlessness today reminds me of 2010. But we should withhold judgment until June. The generic poll has Democrats leading except in the NYTimes where Republicans have a 3+ lead. All the Sunday pundits point to Obama's shrinking approval rating as evidence this will be a big year for Republicans. Today's Rasmussen is 49 Approve,49 disapprove, not the territory that W had at this point.
++Republican governors still face uphill battles in Maine, Pennsylvania,Florida, Wisconsin and Georgia. Wendy Davis is only double digits behind in Texas.
++Historically,the President's party gets hit in the 6th year of a presidency. And yes, this year the Democrats are defending more seats than the Republicans. And, yes, the Democrats have only a 36% approval rating. But, the GOP has 20%. That's a winning ticket?
++The American public have lived through the Tea Party revolution and the government shutdown and 52 attempts to repeal Obamacare without a replacement. Will this generate the same type of second term midterm that is projected?
++As the demographic of the GOP base--over 60,white male, I still can't understand why older Americans would favor the GOP when they know they are committed to destroying Social Security, Medicare and are committed to war.
++Millennials have real beefs with the Obama Administration. In particular, the continued issues of the national security state or the Deep State. Dana Millbank reports on this in the Amazon Post. The other critique is that no one was punished for their role in the 2008 collapse of the global economy.
++Any woman who votes for the GOP has to have her head examined now that the war against women has entered into the bizarre realm of trying to outlaw contraceptives, a decision that was made by the Supreme Court before I was a teenager.
++Republicans have vowed nothing significant will be done this year in Congress. A great message to elect them to total control of Congress.
++So where will the economy go. Obama, the Socialist, created the situation where there is now a record millionaires in the United States--9.63, who will of course vote against Democrats. Household wealth is now at 80.7 trillion. Consumer confidence is at its second highest since August. Retail sales increased for the first time in 3 months. As a fed official said, we are not in a "soft patch" in the economy.
++Since the extended unemployed are thought not to vote, the 2 million will have to wait until after the St. Paddy's day congressional break for a Senate vote. The House will probably not vote on it.
++President Obama's directives on overtime tries to remedy a long-time wrong and will affect millions of workers. The private sector are beginning to scream about it.
++With immigration reform receding as the GOP wants to strengthen their white vote, President Obama has decided to review deportation figures.
++Referenda on raising the minimum wage and medical marijuana may serve to get out the Democratic vote in 2014 the way anti-gay marriage votes got out the Republicans. In Florida, where the Democratic party is weak, this would be a big plus in the governor's race of Crist versus Scott.
++The GOP is great at proclaiming victory prematurely. But there is something happening that is under the radar. Last election, I wanted President Obama to campaign in Georgia because I thought he could win it. This year, we have Michelle Nunn, Sam's daughter, and Jason Carter both leading in the Senate and Governor's races.
++The last Alaskan race I liked Senator Begich because of his campaign and no-nonsense ,low-key campaign. I like how he slapped down this year's Koch ads on Obamacare and the cap and trade law--which doesn't exist and won't. I still lean toward him to win re-election.
++The two Democrats I see in trouble are Pryor in Arkansas and Hagen in North Carolina. But they are still competitive in their races. Weirdly, I think Mary Landrieu has a decent chance in Louisiana. The reason is that Jindal's approvals are in the toilet and the gubernatorial race will feature lingerie-wearing Senator Vitter.
++Democrats should consider the mini-Obama strategy that won Virginia against the Cooch.It can be duplicated.
++I still believe organization triumphs over money.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Winding Down 2013
++USA Today reports that 2013 will be the best year for the stock market since 1997.
++Charlie Cook says the Democrats have only 1% chance of taking the House in 2014.
++Brainwrap reports Obamacare has hit 1,830,054 private insurance and 4,014,222 in Medicaid expansion. That's 5,844,276 total. The Administration reported 2 million surfed the Healthcare.gov on Christmas Eve.
++Karl Rove predicts the GOP will take the Senate in 2014. Senate Republicans are going to campaign against Obamacare.
++The Washington Post reports that TMac's victory in Virginia spells disaster for Mark Warner in 2014 because Former GOP chair Gillespie will run. Warner has a five point lead over the generic Republican.
++Today's CNN/ORC poll has two-thirds of Americans saying this Congress has been the worst in their lifetime. 73% say Congress has done nothing for the problems of the country.
++Jeffrey Toobin writes in this New Yorker why the Utah same sex marriage has big implications for this coming year and the potential for a real showdown in SCOTUS on same sex marriage.
++Under the radar,Stanford law professor Pam Karland,who advocated before SCOTUS to strike down DOMA and former litigator for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, will be the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Rights Section. That's great news for voting rights advocates. Unfortunately, the North Carolina case has been set for 2015 and not this year.
++American development contractor Warren Weinstein has appeared on a video by Al Qaeda pleading with President Obama to negotiate his release. He has been held captive since 2011.
++The US is shipping more weapons to Iraq to assist that government in its war against Al Qaeda.
++US Marines have been ordered to the South Sudan where that country looks like it is descending into civil war.
++The US Embassy in Kabul was attacked on Christmas but no one was hurt.
++Suicide bombers attacked the Christmas Mass in Baghdad.
++The Egyptian military government declared the Moslem Brotherhood a terrorist organization. They have added a few more charges against the deposed President Mohammed Morsi.
++The Iranian parliament passed a resolution to accelerate the nuclear program if the United States passed additional sanctions.
++Pussy Riot was released from the Russian prisons and 93 Greenpeace members were allowed to leave Russia after they had been charged with piracy.
++For those Americans who ever wondered what happens to Turkeys pardoned by the President,yesterday I visited the Turkey at his new home at Mount Vernon. He looks very healthy and was gobbling. There is even a plague that declares him the National Turkey.
++Charlie Cook says the Democrats have only 1% chance of taking the House in 2014.
++Brainwrap reports Obamacare has hit 1,830,054 private insurance and 4,014,222 in Medicaid expansion. That's 5,844,276 total. The Administration reported 2 million surfed the Healthcare.gov on Christmas Eve.
++Karl Rove predicts the GOP will take the Senate in 2014. Senate Republicans are going to campaign against Obamacare.
++The Washington Post reports that TMac's victory in Virginia spells disaster for Mark Warner in 2014 because Former GOP chair Gillespie will run. Warner has a five point lead over the generic Republican.
++Today's CNN/ORC poll has two-thirds of Americans saying this Congress has been the worst in their lifetime. 73% say Congress has done nothing for the problems of the country.
++Jeffrey Toobin writes in this New Yorker why the Utah same sex marriage has big implications for this coming year and the potential for a real showdown in SCOTUS on same sex marriage.
++Under the radar,Stanford law professor Pam Karland,who advocated before SCOTUS to strike down DOMA and former litigator for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, will be the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Rights Section. That's great news for voting rights advocates. Unfortunately, the North Carolina case has been set for 2015 and not this year.
++American development contractor Warren Weinstein has appeared on a video by Al Qaeda pleading with President Obama to negotiate his release. He has been held captive since 2011.
++The US is shipping more weapons to Iraq to assist that government in its war against Al Qaeda.
++US Marines have been ordered to the South Sudan where that country looks like it is descending into civil war.
++The US Embassy in Kabul was attacked on Christmas but no one was hurt.
++Suicide bombers attacked the Christmas Mass in Baghdad.
++The Egyptian military government declared the Moslem Brotherhood a terrorist organization. They have added a few more charges against the deposed President Mohammed Morsi.
++The Iranian parliament passed a resolution to accelerate the nuclear program if the United States passed additional sanctions.
++Pussy Riot was released from the Russian prisons and 93 Greenpeace members were allowed to leave Russia after they had been charged with piracy.
++For those Americans who ever wondered what happens to Turkeys pardoned by the President,yesterday I visited the Turkey at his new home at Mount Vernon. He looks very healthy and was gobbling. There is even a plague that declares him the National Turkey.
Friday, October 18, 2013
T.G.I.F..America Is Still Alive
++The GOP Dead-Enders are still taking the dead off the battlefield. The GOP Civil War has broken wide open and the Teabaggers are now fielding primary challenges to GOP Senators in Mississippi,Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina.
++Yes,the President did hold tough and the GOP got nothing--except what was already in the ACA law already about income verification.
++The initial cost of the shutdown was $24 billion for a stunt, the most expensive political charade in history. It will lower our GDP by .6%.
++While we escaped financial death this time,we all got wounded. Three contributors from the American Conservative--Rod Dreher,Josh Barro, and Daniel Larison launched attacks on the GOP and the TeaParty for the shutdown. Dreher in his excellent "Strangelove Republicans" hit upon something that was diving my anxiety throughout the shutdown. I lost two different retirement possibilities under W's Administration and have only begun to get above water. A default would have wiped me out and doomed any prospect that my wife and I could ever retire. Dreher points this out about millions of Americans and Barro says succinctly that the Republicans are "dangerously incompetent" and , as I noted this past week, forfeited their claim to governance.
++Charlie Cook switched 14 races from Republican to leaning Democratic because of the shutdown. In today's National Journal,Cook went further into questioning the GOP's strategy. He asked a psychiatrist what accounts for the GOP doubling down on what is obviously untrue. He answer he got was this was known as"hysterical delusional affirmation" or "delusional synergy". Writers such as David Frum and Andrew Sullivan have tagged this "epistemic closure", the inability of conservatives to deal with contradictory evidence that refutes their ideological claims. Cook's psychiatrist says this syndrome "entails the suspension of logical intellectual processes with a selective consideration of only confirmatory input."
++While the Obamacare roll out for the uninsured has been a technological mess, Democracy Corps has found that a majority of Americans know believe you should just fix it and not repeal it or even defund it.
++Shivers went down my spine when I realized that the budget conference between the Senate and the House meant debates over the Ryan budget. However,there were good signs. Harry Reid blasted the idea of social security cuts for increased defense spending and appointed Bernie Sanders to the Senate group of negotiators. By this morning,the budget team of both the House and the Senate said that there would be no Grand Bargain and that they were aiming at building confidence measures rather than going for an over-arching long-term fix to the debt.
++On Monday,New Jersey becomes the 14th state to recognize same-sex marriage.
++In Virginia, usually the Governorship is on by the party not the Presidents. This year could be historic. T-Mac has been winning all the polls over the Cooch since July and got three more polls this week. However, the Cooch has managed to conduct a voter purge ,which the Federal Court upheld today,all the way until the election.
++Real bettors are now waging that the Democrats will win the House. I'll wait until the dust dies down.
++Paul Krugman, who actually knows more than I do about the economy,agrees with me that without the shutdown and the January obstruction,the economy would show a 6% unemployment based on macroeconomics. If you added anything positive like the Jobs Bill,we would be back at normal. Remember that in the months ahead. All of this slowness in the recovery is entirely politically made.
++The GOP has a new spin that even Karl Rove is circulating. President Obama wanted this shutdown and he and Valerie Jarrett plotted the strategy to make Republicans look bad. Rove says this is to split the GOP and make the Party weak for 2014. Amazing! Then how does Rove explain the letter signed by 80 tea baggers to Boehner demanding a shutdown over Obamacare.
++The Teabaggers now vow to block Immigration Reform because this is another Obama plot to annihilate the GOP.
++While Senator Cruz would not rule out another shutdown, Mitch McConnell said that in no way is this going to happen and that the debt ceiling would not be held up. But that didn't work out last time.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Read My Lips--No New Texans
++Rick Perry was on the campaign trail in Iowa attacking Mitt Romney's record for job creation. But his own record is getting plenty of scrutiny from the likes of Paul Krugman who challenges his numbers and points to states in the Northeast actually doing better. Perry also declared that Social Security was a Ponzi-scheme, the teabagger line, and was unconstitutional even though it was a Republican dominated Supreme Court in 1937, which upheld it. Perry also declined to say whether he was carrying a concealed weapon while campaigning. Bill Clinton loved Rick Perry's announcement and commented he looked handsome but his views on government are scary.
++Rick Perry also slammed President Obama, saying "I think you want a President who is passionate about America--that's in love with America." So in love, they threaten to secede. That's pretty patriotic.
++The Wall Street Journal worried today about the entire Republican field, especially with Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann gaining popularity. On Romney, they raised doubts about Mitt as a weak front-runner who has money and campaign experience and looks Presidential. "But he gives little evidence that he has convictions beyond faith in his own technocratic experience.." They opined that maybe another candidate will enter the field. Well, Rudy still says he might enter the fray.
++Karl Rove appeared on Fox to say," You don't want these candidates moving so right in the Republican primary that it becomes impossible for them to win the general election, because it will become a self-defeating message." He didn't single any particular person out but is he abit nervous that the teabaggers have slipped the leash?
++With President Obama's approval rating in Gallup dipping to 39% for the first time in his Presidency,it's useful to read Steve Singiser's piece in www.dailykos.com on what the 50 state Gallup poll means for the 2012 elections. It's alot of fun if you are a political junky. He points out that both Harry Truman and George W. Bush won re-election with approvals below 50%. But he's more interesting in terms of his views on swing states and puts a few new states in the mix. He points to Georgia and Arizona as possible pick-ups for Obama, while Obama loses some of his past gains. He has results for a Obama win and an Obama loss with the possible states.
++I read another interesting blog today about a Democratic Party gathering in North Dakota. The blogger was shocked to find that Organizing for America, Obama's campaign group, have set up shop there and in South Dakota. Apparently, this is happening in other states as well that didn't go for Obama last time.
++The Debt Ceiling Debate scared American corporations and they have personally been reaching out to President Obama to find ways that taxes can be raised on the super-rich. Warren Buffett in a NYTimes op-ed repeated his position that his tax rate is far below--now over 20 of his employees--before it was just his poor secretary. He calls for an increase of taxes on the top .5%. President Obama also has met with leading corporations about job creation in the next few months.
++President Obama let loose on the campaign trail today. While he started with his rambling answers at a Townhall meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, he did zero in on the Republican field. He made special reference to all Republican candidates not endorsing a debt deal which would have 10 cuts for every $1 in revenue raised. He also emphasized the McColm position that Social Security has nothing to do with the national debt. He rejected my position of saving Social Security until 2175, saying that 75 years is enough for planning. He referred back to the Reagan-Foley deal that saved Social Security for 75 years. That entailed raising the FICA tax and raising the retirement age by a year or two in incremental steps. He did emphasize that Social Security is not an entitlement plan, you paid for it. Bravo!
++President Obama also outlined how the United States got into the debt situation we did--two wars and a prescription drug plan and tax cuts we didn't pay for. He also emphasized that the Iraq War was the first in American history that we made no provisions to cover its cost. Touche.
++He said that our national debt was manageable and that we can stimulate the economy in the short-run while cutting our debt in the long-term.
++Since Rick Perry wants to make Washington irrevelant to your life, President Obama wants us not to confuse government with politics. He insisted they are two different things. The government is our military fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FEMA folks who show up at natural disasters,Social Security,teachers, firefighters and policemen, the people who keep our drinking water clean and the people in the ranger's hats at our national parks. He said that government protects us, built the interstate highway system,put a man on the Moon, and invests in new technologies and medical breakthroughs.
++He also answered a question about what would happen to the Affordable Health Care Act if the individuial mandate was repealed. While he fudged on the competing courts' decisions, he mentioned all the aspects of the Act--from no more caps, insurance for your child to 26, no pre-conditions, etc., which would stay in place.
++President Obama went geek also. He emphasized his rural broadband and wireless initiative that got funding in the Recovery Act, something I wrote at the time was the equivalent of the Rural Electrification Act of FDR's time. He also underscored how he capitalized more small and moderate farms through the Recovery Act and is looking to do more. And he went on his riff about alternative energy sources. I love this stuff the best but I thought it got him off message.
++There are a couple of wonky pieces today that show the Affordable Healthcare Act actually lowered Medicare costs this past year. No one could quite explain the drop of a 9% rise in costs to suddenly a 4% increase this year. Apparently, it is the result of health providers trying to implement certain features of the Healthcare bill early. If you will recall, it was asserted by President Obama that the bill would cut $1 trillion in healthcare costs over 10 years. Maybe it would.
++The Pentagon is gearing up for new budget cuts with the outline of a proposal to reform military pensions and healthcare benefits. If you recall, if the Supercommission can't not reach a debt deal, two triggers would start--cuts in military spending and Medicare cuts. In anticipating this, the military is acting early.
++Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann have discovered the wonders of campaigning without alot of media scrutiny. CNN is basically creaming itself on the Perry campaign. After all isn't all politics about who wins and who loses? Michelle Bachmann has turned a leaf in her book by simply ignoring anything she said in the past. The most obvious issue is about gays, where she has a lifetime of condemning gays but now claims she is not running for judge. Mitt Romney himself has been almost invisible,leading Haley Barbour to say it's time for him to suit up and hit the field.
++Ann Coulter has agreed to be the Queen of Fabulousness by becoming the honorary chair of GOProud.
++There is a rumble about whether David Plouffe and Bill Daley want President Obama to be confrontational with the Republicans or conciliatory. The idea is for President Obama to solidify his gains among independents by remaining the reasonable one. Others have argued that President Obama should roll out his job creation ideas whether they would win congressional approval or not. No one seems to get a handle on what Plouffe and Daley said. I say go for the American Infrastructure Bank even if it fails. One, you then own a good idea. Secondly, you play to those who most benefit from the idea. And let congressional Republicans knock it down.
++For the many of you who voiced concerns about Tim Pawlenty, his staff looks like they will be joining Jon Huntsman team, which is headed by John Weaver. TPaw himself sort of dismissed his willingness about being vice-president, saying he was down that road before, alluding to John McCain's interest in him. But he did say he was interested in the Minnesota Senate race.
++Rick Perry also slammed President Obama, saying "I think you want a President who is passionate about America--that's in love with America." So in love, they threaten to secede. That's pretty patriotic.
++The Wall Street Journal worried today about the entire Republican field, especially with Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann gaining popularity. On Romney, they raised doubts about Mitt as a weak front-runner who has money and campaign experience and looks Presidential. "But he gives little evidence that he has convictions beyond faith in his own technocratic experience.." They opined that maybe another candidate will enter the field. Well, Rudy still says he might enter the fray.
++Karl Rove appeared on Fox to say," You don't want these candidates moving so right in the Republican primary that it becomes impossible for them to win the general election, because it will become a self-defeating message." He didn't single any particular person out but is he abit nervous that the teabaggers have slipped the leash?
++With President Obama's approval rating in Gallup dipping to 39% for the first time in his Presidency,it's useful to read Steve Singiser's piece in www.dailykos.com on what the 50 state Gallup poll means for the 2012 elections. It's alot of fun if you are a political junky. He points out that both Harry Truman and George W. Bush won re-election with approvals below 50%. But he's more interesting in terms of his views on swing states and puts a few new states in the mix. He points to Georgia and Arizona as possible pick-ups for Obama, while Obama loses some of his past gains. He has results for a Obama win and an Obama loss with the possible states.
++I read another interesting blog today about a Democratic Party gathering in North Dakota. The blogger was shocked to find that Organizing for America, Obama's campaign group, have set up shop there and in South Dakota. Apparently, this is happening in other states as well that didn't go for Obama last time.
++The Debt Ceiling Debate scared American corporations and they have personally been reaching out to President Obama to find ways that taxes can be raised on the super-rich. Warren Buffett in a NYTimes op-ed repeated his position that his tax rate is far below--now over 20 of his employees--before it was just his poor secretary. He calls for an increase of taxes on the top .5%. President Obama also has met with leading corporations about job creation in the next few months.
++President Obama let loose on the campaign trail today. While he started with his rambling answers at a Townhall meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, he did zero in on the Republican field. He made special reference to all Republican candidates not endorsing a debt deal which would have 10 cuts for every $1 in revenue raised. He also emphasized the McColm position that Social Security has nothing to do with the national debt. He rejected my position of saving Social Security until 2175, saying that 75 years is enough for planning. He referred back to the Reagan-Foley deal that saved Social Security for 75 years. That entailed raising the FICA tax and raising the retirement age by a year or two in incremental steps. He did emphasize that Social Security is not an entitlement plan, you paid for it. Bravo!
++President Obama also outlined how the United States got into the debt situation we did--two wars and a prescription drug plan and tax cuts we didn't pay for. He also emphasized that the Iraq War was the first in American history that we made no provisions to cover its cost. Touche.
++He said that our national debt was manageable and that we can stimulate the economy in the short-run while cutting our debt in the long-term.
++Since Rick Perry wants to make Washington irrevelant to your life, President Obama wants us not to confuse government with politics. He insisted they are two different things. The government is our military fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FEMA folks who show up at natural disasters,Social Security,teachers, firefighters and policemen, the people who keep our drinking water clean and the people in the ranger's hats at our national parks. He said that government protects us, built the interstate highway system,put a man on the Moon, and invests in new technologies and medical breakthroughs.
++He also answered a question about what would happen to the Affordable Health Care Act if the individuial mandate was repealed. While he fudged on the competing courts' decisions, he mentioned all the aspects of the Act--from no more caps, insurance for your child to 26, no pre-conditions, etc., which would stay in place.
++President Obama went geek also. He emphasized his rural broadband and wireless initiative that got funding in the Recovery Act, something I wrote at the time was the equivalent of the Rural Electrification Act of FDR's time. He also underscored how he capitalized more small and moderate farms through the Recovery Act and is looking to do more. And he went on his riff about alternative energy sources. I love this stuff the best but I thought it got him off message.
++There are a couple of wonky pieces today that show the Affordable Healthcare Act actually lowered Medicare costs this past year. No one could quite explain the drop of a 9% rise in costs to suddenly a 4% increase this year. Apparently, it is the result of health providers trying to implement certain features of the Healthcare bill early. If you will recall, it was asserted by President Obama that the bill would cut $1 trillion in healthcare costs over 10 years. Maybe it would.
++The Pentagon is gearing up for new budget cuts with the outline of a proposal to reform military pensions and healthcare benefits. If you recall, if the Supercommission can't not reach a debt deal, two triggers would start--cuts in military spending and Medicare cuts. In anticipating this, the military is acting early.
++Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann have discovered the wonders of campaigning without alot of media scrutiny. CNN is basically creaming itself on the Perry campaign. After all isn't all politics about who wins and who loses? Michelle Bachmann has turned a leaf in her book by simply ignoring anything she said in the past. The most obvious issue is about gays, where she has a lifetime of condemning gays but now claims she is not running for judge. Mitt Romney himself has been almost invisible,leading Haley Barbour to say it's time for him to suit up and hit the field.
++Ann Coulter has agreed to be the Queen of Fabulousness by becoming the honorary chair of GOProud.
++There is a rumble about whether David Plouffe and Bill Daley want President Obama to be confrontational with the Republicans or conciliatory. The idea is for President Obama to solidify his gains among independents by remaining the reasonable one. Others have argued that President Obama should roll out his job creation ideas whether they would win congressional approval or not. No one seems to get a handle on what Plouffe and Daley said. I say go for the American Infrastructure Bank even if it fails. One, you then own a good idea. Secondly, you play to those who most benefit from the idea. And let congressional Republicans knock it down.
++For the many of you who voiced concerns about Tim Pawlenty, his staff looks like they will be joining Jon Huntsman team, which is headed by John Weaver. TPaw himself sort of dismissed his willingness about being vice-president, saying he was down that road before, alluding to John McCain's interest in him. But he did say he was interested in the Minnesota Senate race.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Memorial Day Recess*
*Except when it's not.
**The Senate is gone but remains in session. The reason is that GOP Senators fear President Obama will make a recess appointment of a singularly dangerous person, a genuine threat to the nation and our well-being. The previous week this person was called a liar by House Republicans. The person, of course, is my Sweetheart of the Rodeo--America's Own Heroine and Decent Person--the great Elizabeth Warren.
Literally the GOP is so scared of Elizabeth Warren that they keep the Senate in session to prevent her appointment. 44 Republican Senators have actually signed a letter that they would not confirmed her as head of the new Consumer Protection Agency.
In my opinion, if you wanted only one person to be given a post--any post--in Washington, it would be Elizabeth Warren. She has been one of the most articulate spokespersons for the interests of the Middle Class in the country. She has been pioneering in her work on credit card and mortgage issues facing the country. Even her initial critics--the small town banks--have now openly urged her appointment and sing her praises. She talks to any audience and will answer any question of her.
Her basic problem is that she's not corrupt. In olden days, that was the type of person you wanted as the head of an agency to protect consumers. But not now.
I hoped that there would have been a large television audience for the way the House treated Elizabeth Warren the other day. Not to wish it on anyone, but the sharp contrast between her and her inquisitors would have made everything perfectly clear about what the stakes are in today's debate.
** In case, you've have forgotten some of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories, you should be reminded that the most powerful man in America is Cass Sunstein, also known as the husband of Samantha Powers. Now the House GOP wants to investigate Cass Sustein--not that he's done anything wrong. It's just that he's in charge of Obama's efforts to reform regulations. Previous to being smeared by being associated with President Obama, Republicans used to think highly of him believing he was a pseudo-libertarian. But now ,according to Beck, he is a raving socialist.
**Steve Benen over at Washington Monthly wants you to know that Tan Man Boehner's excuses over the House eliminating Medicare are lame. Boehner argues that the Democrats cut $500 billion from Medicare (the old GOP ads in 2010) and the GOP is saving it. Benen is right, of course, but I'm not so sure that the GOP can't pull that line off. Paul Ryan picked up this new line when he argued that his budget restored the Obama cuts. Absolutely, utterly false. but repeated enough, people might buy it.
**Karl Rove just thinks the killing off Medicare issue is really just a messaging problem. He suggests creating a little "college" where newly elected Republicans can learn how to explain it. What about, we killed it, Karl. Or Americans love clipping coupons. Call it Coupon Care. or Better yet something like Kevorkian Care.
**I deeply regret Goodwin Liu withdrawing his name as the nominee to fill the vacancy on the 9th Circuit Court. He was obviously forced to because Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans filibustered his nomination. He has only been hanging around for about two years to be confirmed. He would have been the first Asian-American on the 9th Circuit Court. He received the highest ABA rating and even netted the endorsement of people like Ken Starr. But, some Republicans from the Deep South felt that he was too "sympathetic to Red China." Whatever that means. Basically, he was blackballed because of racism and that he was the most liberal nominee put forth by the Obama Administration. Of course, there was no relationship with Communist China.
**To celebrate Mariano Rivera's record-breaking 1,000 appearance as a Yankee Pitcher, Rudy Guiliani has taken the lead in the CNN poll for the Republican nomination ( yes, a 2011 poll). Rudy gains 16%, Romney 15%, Palin 13%, Ron Paul 12%, Cain 10%, Gingrich 8%, Bachmann 7%.
Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!
**Newt, who opposed Coupon Care because it was radical social engineering, now wants your donation so he can support the Paul Ryan Plan.
**Pizza Man Herman Cain thinks the GOP should stop hiding and called their Medicare idea a "voucher program." Instead, it's like a frequent flyer promo--"Premium Plus".
**Sister Sarah is in town today with the Rolling Thunder motorcycle parade for the MIA. She will be taking her Magic Bus throughout the East. Observers say this a preclude for her run for the Gold.
**Karl Rove did get something right. He said that Sister Sarah doesn't believe the rules apply to her. That's true. He was referring to her lack of organization in Iowa and South Carolina and her lack of recent fundraising activities. Her supporters believe--and I tend to agree--that if the minute she runs, she absorbs all the attention and that the Palinbots will desert other candidates and that she can win both Iowa and South Carolina without too much effort.
**Frothy Mix Santorum will be declaring next week, making Dan Savage proud. He's supposed to do it in the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania--no jokes please about chutes or other things.
**Rick Perry, the secessionist Governor of Texas,believes he's under the Gaydar so he is thinking about running for President--despite his pledge when he ran for an unprecedented third term for Governor.
** 25% of Minnesota citizens think Michelle Bachmann is qualified to be President. Well, that seems enough for her to travel to Iowa to make her announcement. She warned people that she and Palin are not interchangeable.
**Mitt Romney will announce formally this coming week. I guess the first time didn't take on Youtube.
**I know Tim Pawlenty is running because he said he wasn't like President Obama on a pub crawl. Also, Tim is running on his foreign policy expertise. He thinks the United States is occupying Iran.
**This is something you won't read about in the news. President Obama will make an official Presidential visit to Puerto Rico. He will only be the second President to ever do so. The first was John F. Kennedy. Stranger yet--his task force on the status of Puerto Rico has completed its work and President Obama wants to resolve the island's status before the 2012 elections. That won't happen. But the proposal from his task force is interesting. First, Puerto Rico must determined whether it wants to be part of the United States or independent. Second, if they decide to be part of the United States, then they vote on whether to become a state or remain a commonwealth.
** Another thing you won't read in the newspapers. President Abbas of Palestine is actually trying to get his fusion government to make a proposal on the peace talks which will be in line with the Quartet's requirements. Both Hamas and Fatah would accept the right of Israel to exist and pledge to a non-violent solution. This would take away Bibi's resistance to negotiate with the Palestinians. Abbas also said that the Palestinians had no intent to isolate Israel.
** The G-8 backed the Quartet's plan for the Middle East peace talks but the Canadian Prime Minister insisted that the language about the 1967 borders be dropped from the text. fromer American envoy George Mitchell told liberal Israelis that President Obama was trying to avoid a train wreck this September. Mitchell said that a UN vote would not be good for Israel, not be good for the United States and not be good for the peace process.
**War crimes are forever. Ratko Mladic was finally arrested. Now he will be extradited for trial at the Hague.
**Louisiana and Tennesse actually did outlaw abortion this week. Luckily, both states struck down prison sentences for the women who have them but doctors will face upwards to ten years in prison.
**The Senate is gone but remains in session. The reason is that GOP Senators fear President Obama will make a recess appointment of a singularly dangerous person, a genuine threat to the nation and our well-being. The previous week this person was called a liar by House Republicans. The person, of course, is my Sweetheart of the Rodeo--America's Own Heroine and Decent Person--the great Elizabeth Warren.
Literally the GOP is so scared of Elizabeth Warren that they keep the Senate in session to prevent her appointment. 44 Republican Senators have actually signed a letter that they would not confirmed her as head of the new Consumer Protection Agency.
In my opinion, if you wanted only one person to be given a post--any post--in Washington, it would be Elizabeth Warren. She has been one of the most articulate spokespersons for the interests of the Middle Class in the country. She has been pioneering in her work on credit card and mortgage issues facing the country. Even her initial critics--the small town banks--have now openly urged her appointment and sing her praises. She talks to any audience and will answer any question of her.
Her basic problem is that she's not corrupt. In olden days, that was the type of person you wanted as the head of an agency to protect consumers. But not now.
I hoped that there would have been a large television audience for the way the House treated Elizabeth Warren the other day. Not to wish it on anyone, but the sharp contrast between her and her inquisitors would have made everything perfectly clear about what the stakes are in today's debate.
** In case, you've have forgotten some of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories, you should be reminded that the most powerful man in America is Cass Sunstein, also known as the husband of Samantha Powers. Now the House GOP wants to investigate Cass Sustein--not that he's done anything wrong. It's just that he's in charge of Obama's efforts to reform regulations. Previous to being smeared by being associated with President Obama, Republicans used to think highly of him believing he was a pseudo-libertarian. But now ,according to Beck, he is a raving socialist.
**Steve Benen over at Washington Monthly wants you to know that Tan Man Boehner's excuses over the House eliminating Medicare are lame. Boehner argues that the Democrats cut $500 billion from Medicare (the old GOP ads in 2010) and the GOP is saving it. Benen is right, of course, but I'm not so sure that the GOP can't pull that line off. Paul Ryan picked up this new line when he argued that his budget restored the Obama cuts. Absolutely, utterly false. but repeated enough, people might buy it.
**Karl Rove just thinks the killing off Medicare issue is really just a messaging problem. He suggests creating a little "college" where newly elected Republicans can learn how to explain it. What about, we killed it, Karl. Or Americans love clipping coupons. Call it Coupon Care. or Better yet something like Kevorkian Care.
**I deeply regret Goodwin Liu withdrawing his name as the nominee to fill the vacancy on the 9th Circuit Court. He was obviously forced to because Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans filibustered his nomination. He has only been hanging around for about two years to be confirmed. He would have been the first Asian-American on the 9th Circuit Court. He received the highest ABA rating and even netted the endorsement of people like Ken Starr. But, some Republicans from the Deep South felt that he was too "sympathetic to Red China." Whatever that means. Basically, he was blackballed because of racism and that he was the most liberal nominee put forth by the Obama Administration. Of course, there was no relationship with Communist China.
**To celebrate Mariano Rivera's record-breaking 1,000 appearance as a Yankee Pitcher, Rudy Guiliani has taken the lead in the CNN poll for the Republican nomination ( yes, a 2011 poll). Rudy gains 16%, Romney 15%, Palin 13%, Ron Paul 12%, Cain 10%, Gingrich 8%, Bachmann 7%.
Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!
**Newt, who opposed Coupon Care because it was radical social engineering, now wants your donation so he can support the Paul Ryan Plan.
**Pizza Man Herman Cain thinks the GOP should stop hiding and called their Medicare idea a "voucher program." Instead, it's like a frequent flyer promo--"Premium Plus".
**Sister Sarah is in town today with the Rolling Thunder motorcycle parade for the MIA. She will be taking her Magic Bus throughout the East. Observers say this a preclude for her run for the Gold.
**Karl Rove did get something right. He said that Sister Sarah doesn't believe the rules apply to her. That's true. He was referring to her lack of organization in Iowa and South Carolina and her lack of recent fundraising activities. Her supporters believe--and I tend to agree--that if the minute she runs, she absorbs all the attention and that the Palinbots will desert other candidates and that she can win both Iowa and South Carolina without too much effort.
**Frothy Mix Santorum will be declaring next week, making Dan Savage proud. He's supposed to do it in the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania--no jokes please about chutes or other things.
**Rick Perry, the secessionist Governor of Texas,believes he's under the Gaydar so he is thinking about running for President--despite his pledge when he ran for an unprecedented third term for Governor.
** 25% of Minnesota citizens think Michelle Bachmann is qualified to be President. Well, that seems enough for her to travel to Iowa to make her announcement. She warned people that she and Palin are not interchangeable.
**Mitt Romney will announce formally this coming week. I guess the first time didn't take on Youtube.
**I know Tim Pawlenty is running because he said he wasn't like President Obama on a pub crawl. Also, Tim is running on his foreign policy expertise. He thinks the United States is occupying Iran.
**This is something you won't read about in the news. President Obama will make an official Presidential visit to Puerto Rico. He will only be the second President to ever do so. The first was John F. Kennedy. Stranger yet--his task force on the status of Puerto Rico has completed its work and President Obama wants to resolve the island's status before the 2012 elections. That won't happen. But the proposal from his task force is interesting. First, Puerto Rico must determined whether it wants to be part of the United States or independent. Second, if they decide to be part of the United States, then they vote on whether to become a state or remain a commonwealth.
** Another thing you won't read in the newspapers. President Abbas of Palestine is actually trying to get his fusion government to make a proposal on the peace talks which will be in line with the Quartet's requirements. Both Hamas and Fatah would accept the right of Israel to exist and pledge to a non-violent solution. This would take away Bibi's resistance to negotiate with the Palestinians. Abbas also said that the Palestinians had no intent to isolate Israel.
** The G-8 backed the Quartet's plan for the Middle East peace talks but the Canadian Prime Minister insisted that the language about the 1967 borders be dropped from the text. fromer American envoy George Mitchell told liberal Israelis that President Obama was trying to avoid a train wreck this September. Mitchell said that a UN vote would not be good for Israel, not be good for the United States and not be good for the peace process.
**War crimes are forever. Ratko Mladic was finally arrested. Now he will be extradited for trial at the Hague.
**Louisiana and Tennesse actually did outlaw abortion this week. Luckily, both states struck down prison sentences for the women who have them but doctors will face upwards to ten years in prison.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
President Obama at AIPAC
Before the adults take the stage, let's hear from Karl Rove, who criticized President Obama for using the "language of the Left" in characterizing Israel as "occupying the West Bank" and using the language of "those who hate Israel."
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly countered with this quote from Ariel Sharon, who said in 2003,"You can not like the word, but what is happening is an occupation--to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation."
Newt Gingrich called President Obama's comments on Thursday "disasterous", saying that God never wanted Israel divided.
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch said he might have to support a pro-Israel Republican if there is one who doesn't adopt austerity economics.
The head of the Zionist Organizations of America demanded that AIPAC rescind the invitation to the President to speak today.
Andrea Mitchell is picking up on the distaste Americans felt about Bibi Netanyahu "lecturing the President like a schoolboy."
People should be reminded that it's not a great idea to be scheduled to speak after President Obama. Bibi Netanyahu will have to wait until tomorrow. I wouldn't like to bet that he will be better received than President Obama was today at AIPAC.
President Obama gave a strong, eloquent defense of his position on Israel and the urgent need to advance the peace process. It was one of his most coherent, lengthy addresses in a while since he only had to focus on a single issue. Despite all the critics and the manufactured tension, the AIPAC audience frequently interrupted the speech with strong applause. The President did not back away from his statements concerning the 1967 borders but elaborated on its meaning and how this was the template for negotiations since the Clinton Administration.
President Obama built the speech by first outlining the strategic importance of Israel to the United States and then to our moral commitment to the state of Israel and the common values that bind both nations. This was giving the audience the red meat.
President Obama reiterated America's commitment to Israel's security and our commitment to the survival of Israel as a strong,secure homeland of the Jewish people. And here he inserted specific steps the Administration has done, which his critics have conveniently or deliberately ignored. He has increased the cooperation between the two militaries--the U.S. and Isreal--and provided Israel with our most advance technologies. He increased the foreign military financing to record levels. And he mentioned how the United States and Israel developed the Iron Dome anti-rocket system that has already thwarted missile attacks on Israel. You might remember this from the whole Star Wars flap when neo-cons claimed Obama had abandoned missile defense systems both for Israel and Europe. Which of course he didn't. He pledged that the United States would always help Israel maintain its qualitative edge in military technology.
He outlined how the Administration has created the strongest sanctions against Iran and how he was absolutely committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. (It should be noted that Israel has an estimateed 250 nuclear devices and Iran zero at this point.) And he talked about efforts to stem Iran's support for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.
He committed the United States to oppose any attempts at the United Nations to de-legitimize the state of Israel. He said that the United States would stand up against efforts to single out Israel at the United Nations.
He recognized that Israel has a problem with negotiating with an entity that includes a "terrorist" group and said that the United States will insist Hamas accept the basic responsibility of peace --recognize Israel's right to exist, reject violence, adhere to existing agreements and release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
But the status quo is unsustainable. He cited three basic facts, which indicate that peace must be obtained soon.
First, the number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Second, Technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself in the absence of genuine peace.
Third, which I found most compelling, a new generation of Arabs are reshaping the region so that a just and lasting peace can no longer be forged with one or two Arab leaders alone. This generation of Arabs must see peace obtained so that it can be maintained in the future.
He pointed out that the Palestinians are pursuing United Nations recognition because of the world's impatience to see peace achieved. He did note that the Administration would hold the Palestinians accountable for their rhetoric.
He brought up the whole issue of the 1967 borders and said that they would have to include land-swaps and the borders would have to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians.
"We can not wait another decade, or another two decades, or three decades, to achieve peace. The world is moving too fast. The extraordinary challenges facing Israel would only grow. Delay will only undermine Israel's security and the peace that the Israeli people deserve."
Good luck, Bibi, in trying to top that.
The speech would hardly qualify in the words of Mitt Romney as throwing "Israel under the bus." In fact, I could not think of a stronger defense of Israel than the President gave and still be responsible to the issue of Israel's real security. I would like to hear from the Israeli Prime Minister, on how specifically he is enhancing the security of his own country since everything his government does seems to undermine it.
Be interesting to see how the Wild Things react to the speech and how his words can be misconstrued. The whole speech is worth accessing on line.
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly countered with this quote from Ariel Sharon, who said in 2003,"You can not like the word, but what is happening is an occupation--to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation."
Newt Gingrich called President Obama's comments on Thursday "disasterous", saying that God never wanted Israel divided.
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch said he might have to support a pro-Israel Republican if there is one who doesn't adopt austerity economics.
The head of the Zionist Organizations of America demanded that AIPAC rescind the invitation to the President to speak today.
Andrea Mitchell is picking up on the distaste Americans felt about Bibi Netanyahu "lecturing the President like a schoolboy."
People should be reminded that it's not a great idea to be scheduled to speak after President Obama. Bibi Netanyahu will have to wait until tomorrow. I wouldn't like to bet that he will be better received than President Obama was today at AIPAC.
President Obama gave a strong, eloquent defense of his position on Israel and the urgent need to advance the peace process. It was one of his most coherent, lengthy addresses in a while since he only had to focus on a single issue. Despite all the critics and the manufactured tension, the AIPAC audience frequently interrupted the speech with strong applause. The President did not back away from his statements concerning the 1967 borders but elaborated on its meaning and how this was the template for negotiations since the Clinton Administration.
President Obama built the speech by first outlining the strategic importance of Israel to the United States and then to our moral commitment to the state of Israel and the common values that bind both nations. This was giving the audience the red meat.
President Obama reiterated America's commitment to Israel's security and our commitment to the survival of Israel as a strong,secure homeland of the Jewish people. And here he inserted specific steps the Administration has done, which his critics have conveniently or deliberately ignored. He has increased the cooperation between the two militaries--the U.S. and Isreal--and provided Israel with our most advance technologies. He increased the foreign military financing to record levels. And he mentioned how the United States and Israel developed the Iron Dome anti-rocket system that has already thwarted missile attacks on Israel. You might remember this from the whole Star Wars flap when neo-cons claimed Obama had abandoned missile defense systems both for Israel and Europe. Which of course he didn't. He pledged that the United States would always help Israel maintain its qualitative edge in military technology.
He outlined how the Administration has created the strongest sanctions against Iran and how he was absolutely committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. (It should be noted that Israel has an estimateed 250 nuclear devices and Iran zero at this point.) And he talked about efforts to stem Iran's support for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.
He committed the United States to oppose any attempts at the United Nations to de-legitimize the state of Israel. He said that the United States would stand up against efforts to single out Israel at the United Nations.
He recognized that Israel has a problem with negotiating with an entity that includes a "terrorist" group and said that the United States will insist Hamas accept the basic responsibility of peace --recognize Israel's right to exist, reject violence, adhere to existing agreements and release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
But the status quo is unsustainable. He cited three basic facts, which indicate that peace must be obtained soon.
First, the number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Second, Technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself in the absence of genuine peace.
Third, which I found most compelling, a new generation of Arabs are reshaping the region so that a just and lasting peace can no longer be forged with one or two Arab leaders alone. This generation of Arabs must see peace obtained so that it can be maintained in the future.
He pointed out that the Palestinians are pursuing United Nations recognition because of the world's impatience to see peace achieved. He did note that the Administration would hold the Palestinians accountable for their rhetoric.
He brought up the whole issue of the 1967 borders and said that they would have to include land-swaps and the borders would have to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians.
"We can not wait another decade, or another two decades, or three decades, to achieve peace. The world is moving too fast. The extraordinary challenges facing Israel would only grow. Delay will only undermine Israel's security and the peace that the Israeli people deserve."
Good luck, Bibi, in trying to top that.
The speech would hardly qualify in the words of Mitt Romney as throwing "Israel under the bus." In fact, I could not think of a stronger defense of Israel than the President gave and still be responsible to the issue of Israel's real security. I would like to hear from the Israeli Prime Minister, on how specifically he is enhancing the security of his own country since everything his government does seems to undermine it.
Be interesting to see how the Wild Things react to the speech and how his words can be misconstrued. The whole speech is worth accessing on line.
Monday, May 2, 2011
No,Torture Does Not Work and It Did Not Get bin Laden
I should also point out that George W. Bush had all the time from 9/11 until leaving office to capture bin Laden. He didn't and one can't give him credit for something he did not do and that took place almost two and a half years after he left office.
Dick Cheney was cute, saying he could help by wonder whether the techniques that were put in place didn't assist in getting bin Laden. He knows damn well they didn't.
Even Don Rumsfeld told Newsmax that waterboarding had nothing to do with getting bin Laden.
Heritage Foundation, the group who did the math of Paul Ryan's budget, out out a paper,"Detainee Interrogation Key To Killing Osama bin Laden."
John Yoo, who believes the President of the United States can crush the testicles of a boy to make a detainee speak but can not force a contractor to reveal his political donations, said that "Without the tough decisions taken by President Bush and his national security team, the United States could not have found and killed bin Laden."
Karl Rove told Fox and Friends that 'rendition, enhanced interrogation, obviously served (Bush's) succesor well."
Until past American officials are brought to justice for torture, we are going to repeat this nonsense until I am senile and in a nursing home. Point number 1: the compound was unknown to anyone at Gitmo because it had not been built yet. Point number 2: the pseudonym of the trusted courier--not his real name--was discovered in 2005 ot 2006--years after the torture program at Gitmo was shut down. The courier's name was not gotten from KSM during his waterboarding sessions.
The historical fact of the matter is that the Bush Administration failed to protect the United States against the 9/11 attacks after having been briefed on the imminent threast posed by Al Qaeda to the mainland of the country. The Bush Administration failed dramatically to capture bin Laden and his cohorts at Tora Bora. For a good explanation of this, watch PBS' "Bush's War", which explains how the bureaucracies fought over Afghanistan. The Bush Administration quickly downgraded the hunt for bin Laden and discontinued the unit that was in charge of this mission in 2006.
So, the Bush Administration in my view deserves no credit--even an afterthought--for the murder of bin Laden. None of the great torture techniques produced any usable intelligence for this recent mission.
Dick Cheney was cute, saying he could help by wonder whether the techniques that were put in place didn't assist in getting bin Laden. He knows damn well they didn't.
Even Don Rumsfeld told Newsmax that waterboarding had nothing to do with getting bin Laden.
Heritage Foundation, the group who did the math of Paul Ryan's budget, out out a paper,"Detainee Interrogation Key To Killing Osama bin Laden."
John Yoo, who believes the President of the United States can crush the testicles of a boy to make a detainee speak but can not force a contractor to reveal his political donations, said that "Without the tough decisions taken by President Bush and his national security team, the United States could not have found and killed bin Laden."
Karl Rove told Fox and Friends that 'rendition, enhanced interrogation, obviously served (Bush's) succesor well."
Until past American officials are brought to justice for torture, we are going to repeat this nonsense until I am senile and in a nursing home. Point number 1: the compound was unknown to anyone at Gitmo because it had not been built yet. Point number 2: the pseudonym of the trusted courier--not his real name--was discovered in 2005 ot 2006--years after the torture program at Gitmo was shut down. The courier's name was not gotten from KSM during his waterboarding sessions.
The historical fact of the matter is that the Bush Administration failed to protect the United States against the 9/11 attacks after having been briefed on the imminent threast posed by Al Qaeda to the mainland of the country. The Bush Administration failed dramatically to capture bin Laden and his cohorts at Tora Bora. For a good explanation of this, watch PBS' "Bush's War", which explains how the bureaucracies fought over Afghanistan. The Bush Administration quickly downgraded the hunt for bin Laden and discontinued the unit that was in charge of this mission in 2006.
So, the Bush Administration in my view deserves no credit--even an afterthought--for the murder of bin Laden. None of the great torture techniques produced any usable intelligence for this recent mission.
Friday, April 29, 2011
America The Exceptional--Kochistan
Steve Benen at Washington Monthy justed noted that Mitt Romney, who has refused to be on the stage with other Republican contenders so far, has agreed to kiss the Koch Brothers' ring at the Presidential Summit on Spending and Job Creation, which is funded by the crime family. Steve notes that the Romney family has received Koch funding before. Mitt should remember what happened to the first Mormon who wanted to run for President in 1848. The sect's founder Joseph Smith ended up shot in an Illinois jell cell. He may be lured to New Hampshire by Koch assassins. Joining the Mitt will be Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann.
Remember I wrote it first that Glenn Beck was the stalking horse of the Mormon candidacy of Mitt Romney. Beck has recently attacked Mike Huckabee as a "progressive" Republican or "someone like John McCain" who increases the size of government and has increased taxes while Governor of Arkansas. This odd spat got played out with Huckabee blasting back but the tenor of it was so odd as to reveal Beck's other agenda.
Meanwhile Newt and his lovely Bride Calixto or Calista will appear in their new film "American Exceptionalism", which will be a call to arms to reassert America's special nature--being owned by the Koch Brothers. Newt keeps cancelling appearances at candidate fora because he can't quite wrap up his business empire. He still has too many trinkets to sell.
Tim Pawlenty is really on a roll. After declaring that Planned Parenthood practices euthanasia because they operate in areas serving the poor, He burst on the scene at the NRA to declare that President Obama doesn't understand America and that we are an exceptional country. Wayne LaPierre told his fanatically member that the presidential election will be determined by states with Big Guns and hunting and that Obama will lose. (Of course, Obama never did confiscate the guns as conservatives promised.)
This will be the theme for the foreign policy section of the Republicans in 2012. Charles Krauthammer put teeth in this today with op-ed in the Washington Post by blasting President Obama's lead from behind strategy. He argues that Obama lacks a doctrine--Gee, we have already benefited from so many doctrines--has bowed to the inevitable emergence of China as the world leader and acts quietly because Obama believes the world hates us. As Charles pounds his chest, the world has always hated us and the Chinese are just a regional power. Watch this become a major thread in the arguments leading up to 2012.
Karl Rove is hurt saying that President Obama is waging a dirty campaign for re-election. I guess unlike Karl's genteel Swift Boater effort against John Kerry. No one yet has mentioned that , despite Rove's contention then that the Swift Boaters were not linked to the Bush campaign, that all those who bankrolled the effort were the first donors to underwrite Rove's mysterious Crossroads (Crosshairs) America. Rove said that it was Obama's fault that birtherism took over the Republican party, that the President had played rope-a-dope and made the GOP seem wacky. Of course, Rove says this was all to distract everyone from the serious problems the country has. Which is the perfect inverse of what President Obama said that his release of his birth certificate can allow us to get back to those issues. It looks like Rove is making a comeback. Here I agree with the Donald that Rove should retire.
Conservative Human Events is reporting what I have been noting that Mike Huckabee, the frontrunner for 2012, is sending signals he will not run. He has been avoiding all the candidate fora and telling former supporters to find other candidates. But I'm not sure that he will be allowed to cop out because if Romney is wounded by Romneycare, then if Huckabee doesn't run, Charles Koch will force David to come out and say he's been Born-Again. The Billionaire Club must secured the allegiance of the Religious Right if their plan for the final conquest of America is to succeed.
Inside the Beltway strategists are now talking up a Romney-Petraeus ticket. The one spoilsport to this seems to be Marc Thiessen who says that Petraeus is soft on torture--i.e. he prohibits torture. The problem with this scenario is that no one else in America believes the Iraq was worthwhile. It's not like Ike defeating Hitler. But I was at a Republican event last week and they really still believe in the Iraq war. It was stunning. They glowed when they talked about it. So Petraeus is their hero. What happens when they find out he's a self-described Rockefeller Republican?
We have only about two weeks to go until the world ends so we should expect alot of our religious friends to be "raptured", which would do wonders for our political system.
Remember I wrote it first that Glenn Beck was the stalking horse of the Mormon candidacy of Mitt Romney. Beck has recently attacked Mike Huckabee as a "progressive" Republican or "someone like John McCain" who increases the size of government and has increased taxes while Governor of Arkansas. This odd spat got played out with Huckabee blasting back but the tenor of it was so odd as to reveal Beck's other agenda.
Meanwhile Newt and his lovely Bride Calixto or Calista will appear in their new film "American Exceptionalism", which will be a call to arms to reassert America's special nature--being owned by the Koch Brothers. Newt keeps cancelling appearances at candidate fora because he can't quite wrap up his business empire. He still has too many trinkets to sell.
Tim Pawlenty is really on a roll. After declaring that Planned Parenthood practices euthanasia because they operate in areas serving the poor, He burst on the scene at the NRA to declare that President Obama doesn't understand America and that we are an exceptional country. Wayne LaPierre told his fanatically member that the presidential election will be determined by states with Big Guns and hunting and that Obama will lose. (Of course, Obama never did confiscate the guns as conservatives promised.)
This will be the theme for the foreign policy section of the Republicans in 2012. Charles Krauthammer put teeth in this today with op-ed in the Washington Post by blasting President Obama's lead from behind strategy. He argues that Obama lacks a doctrine--Gee, we have already benefited from so many doctrines--has bowed to the inevitable emergence of China as the world leader and acts quietly because Obama believes the world hates us. As Charles pounds his chest, the world has always hated us and the Chinese are just a regional power. Watch this become a major thread in the arguments leading up to 2012.
Karl Rove is hurt saying that President Obama is waging a dirty campaign for re-election. I guess unlike Karl's genteel Swift Boater effort against John Kerry. No one yet has mentioned that , despite Rove's contention then that the Swift Boaters were not linked to the Bush campaign, that all those who bankrolled the effort were the first donors to underwrite Rove's mysterious Crossroads (Crosshairs) America. Rove said that it was Obama's fault that birtherism took over the Republican party, that the President had played rope-a-dope and made the GOP seem wacky. Of course, Rove says this was all to distract everyone from the serious problems the country has. Which is the perfect inverse of what President Obama said that his release of his birth certificate can allow us to get back to those issues. It looks like Rove is making a comeback. Here I agree with the Donald that Rove should retire.
Conservative Human Events is reporting what I have been noting that Mike Huckabee, the frontrunner for 2012, is sending signals he will not run. He has been avoiding all the candidate fora and telling former supporters to find other candidates. But I'm not sure that he will be allowed to cop out because if Romney is wounded by Romneycare, then if Huckabee doesn't run, Charles Koch will force David to come out and say he's been Born-Again. The Billionaire Club must secured the allegiance of the Religious Right if their plan for the final conquest of America is to succeed.
Inside the Beltway strategists are now talking up a Romney-Petraeus ticket. The one spoilsport to this seems to be Marc Thiessen who says that Petraeus is soft on torture--i.e. he prohibits torture. The problem with this scenario is that no one else in America believes the Iraq was worthwhile. It's not like Ike defeating Hitler. But I was at a Republican event last week and they really still believe in the Iraq war. It was stunning. They glowed when they talked about it. So Petraeus is their hero. What happens when they find out he's a self-described Rockefeller Republican?
We have only about two weeks to go until the world ends so we should expect alot of our religious friends to be "raptured", which would do wonders for our political system.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
More Musings on Libya
(Mysteriously my old dashboard for this blog surfaced so hopefully I can make this more readable.)
Rachel Maddow did a good piece last night on how Obama is trying to change the narrative on our interventions. She reminded us that since Reagan every President has addressed the nation from the Oval Office to announce the commencement of military actions. If you like the authoritarian male declaring America is about to save the world again ,then you might not like having the leader of the G-8 and G-20,French President Sarkozy announce when bombing begins.
Ann Applebaum wrote a good column about why President Obama should keep a low profile on the Libyan intervention because frequent and loud denunciations of Mu'ammar Qaddafi would raise expectations which we are unlikely to meet.
The usual suspects on the right are denouncing President Obama's actions. John Bolton says that we should have acted unilaterally. Mitt Romney backs the action but disagrees with President Obama's attitude because we're exceptional or something like that. I can't understand what Mitt says anymore because he seems to be imitating a hologram with programmed answers. Karl Rove topped them all by saying W would have been tougher with Qaddafi and acted quicker. Since W didn't act quickly on anything, that's unlikely. But Karl didn't tell his Fox audience that W granted a presidential amnesty to Qaddafi for his role in the Lockerbie terrorist bombing of an airliner, one of the worst terrorist acts until 9/11. He even sent Condi over to Libya to strike up the new alliance against terrorism. So I wouldn't believe Karl.
Steve Clemons, who is still skeptical, pointed out on Rachel Maddow that this is all President Obama's initiative. He was aided by Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Powers but he directed the whole process. Obama faced with Qaddafi's refusal to back off turned on a dime and went to a military option. He also pointed out that the diplomatic alliance was put together in a record three days compared to the year or two years to achieve the same results for the humanitarian interventions of the Clinton years.
In fact, the Libyan intervention, even with the military strikes, might be seen as an example more of soft power than military power. The object of diplomacy is to persuade people to your own view as if it is in their best interests also. The shaky support of the Arab League is an example of this. Algeria, Syria and Yemen didn't sign on. Algeria because it is neighbor to Libya and is not sure how this will all come out. Syria because they have their own extensive opposition now. And Yemen because it is close to a civil war or coup itself. The fact that a UN Security Council Resolution of this magnitude got passed so fast is actually good news for America's standing in the world. We probably didn't have to bribe as many people or the bribes weren't that costly.
Richard Engel indirectly raised the some of the problems on the ground. Yes, we saved a massacre from happening in Benghazi. But the rebels on the ground do not comprehend what a No Fly Zone actually means. They tend to think we'll take care of all obstacles to their success. But the rebels are not professional soldiers. They started as a non-violent uprising and only resorted to military actions when Qaddafi unleashed his military. They have no training,they come from a variety of professions, and they lack any military strategic sense. Engel pointed out that the defectors from Qaddafi's army are no help because they are settling into the backlines. Even the defecting officers are going AWOL, even saying they are going on vacation and taking a few days off. Today, there is more news that Qaddafi's forces are gunning anyone that moves in areas they control.
As for all the nonsense that Obama didn't properly notify Congress or have the constitutional right to engage in this action, it's sad to point out that the last time Congress declared war was for WWII. All the talk about impeachment would have to apply retroactively to every President since FDR. The list of American military interventions around the world since then is endless. The noise in Washington about this is humorous since the Senate passed a resolution urging the creation of a No Fly Zone three weeks ago. Now Dennis Kucinich, who believes Obama can be impeached, is working on a law that no funds should be spent on the Libyan intervention. All of this would interesting and call for honest debate. But we have let the President of the United States do this for almost 70 years because Congress and the American People like it that way.
Our problem as a nation is that there are no effective checks on our military power. Neither party wants to make the President or the military accountable. Without a draft, we no longer have the type of stake in our interventions that we used to. And as to costs,neither party wants to restrict our military spending even though it is bankrupting us. When you read the blizzard of comments--wise and foolish--on the Libyan intervention,it is sobering to know that none of them matter. Public opinion doesn't matter. You could be debating Obama's bracket choices and it has the same value. We are the spectators. In the most extreme cases like the Iraq War, millions of Americans demonstrated,numbers that dwarfed the teaparty gatherings, and yet as Dick Cheney said, "So What?" Our military interventions are not influenced by the American citizenry anymore. In the words of W, you might as well go shopping.
So now it comes down to whether President Obama does war right. Bill Kristol wrote the other day that we don't invade Muslim countries, we liberate them. And that may be the difference here. I don't have the inclination to unpack that nonsense. But we should be somewhat assured that President Obama's body language shows he has an inherent reluctance to immediately go to the military option and that in deeds he wants others to share the sacrifice. His critics lament his nuance and the sophistication of his approach to problems. I view these as strengths. That he should deliberate on something is a positive trait, not a negative. We've run off to war many times without asking questions only to find years of nightmares and arguments that we can't stop or it will weaken our position in the world.
A leftwing blogger said that we could blame almost all current problems we have on the past administration but now Obama has created one of his own. Yes, but I have a confidence in him that we will not make a commitment for a decade to pacifying Libya in the name of democracy.
Rachel Maddow did a good piece last night on how Obama is trying to change the narrative on our interventions. She reminded us that since Reagan every President has addressed the nation from the Oval Office to announce the commencement of military actions. If you like the authoritarian male declaring America is about to save the world again ,then you might not like having the leader of the G-8 and G-20,French President Sarkozy announce when bombing begins.
Ann Applebaum wrote a good column about why President Obama should keep a low profile on the Libyan intervention because frequent and loud denunciations of Mu'ammar Qaddafi would raise expectations which we are unlikely to meet.
The usual suspects on the right are denouncing President Obama's actions. John Bolton says that we should have acted unilaterally. Mitt Romney backs the action but disagrees with President Obama's attitude because we're exceptional or something like that. I can't understand what Mitt says anymore because he seems to be imitating a hologram with programmed answers. Karl Rove topped them all by saying W would have been tougher with Qaddafi and acted quicker. Since W didn't act quickly on anything, that's unlikely. But Karl didn't tell his Fox audience that W granted a presidential amnesty to Qaddafi for his role in the Lockerbie terrorist bombing of an airliner, one of the worst terrorist acts until 9/11. He even sent Condi over to Libya to strike up the new alliance against terrorism. So I wouldn't believe Karl.
Steve Clemons, who is still skeptical, pointed out on Rachel Maddow that this is all President Obama's initiative. He was aided by Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Powers but he directed the whole process. Obama faced with Qaddafi's refusal to back off turned on a dime and went to a military option. He also pointed out that the diplomatic alliance was put together in a record three days compared to the year or two years to achieve the same results for the humanitarian interventions of the Clinton years.
In fact, the Libyan intervention, even with the military strikes, might be seen as an example more of soft power than military power. The object of diplomacy is to persuade people to your own view as if it is in their best interests also. The shaky support of the Arab League is an example of this. Algeria, Syria and Yemen didn't sign on. Algeria because it is neighbor to Libya and is not sure how this will all come out. Syria because they have their own extensive opposition now. And Yemen because it is close to a civil war or coup itself. The fact that a UN Security Council Resolution of this magnitude got passed so fast is actually good news for America's standing in the world. We probably didn't have to bribe as many people or the bribes weren't that costly.
Richard Engel indirectly raised the some of the problems on the ground. Yes, we saved a massacre from happening in Benghazi. But the rebels on the ground do not comprehend what a No Fly Zone actually means. They tend to think we'll take care of all obstacles to their success. But the rebels are not professional soldiers. They started as a non-violent uprising and only resorted to military actions when Qaddafi unleashed his military. They have no training,they come from a variety of professions, and they lack any military strategic sense. Engel pointed out that the defectors from Qaddafi's army are no help because they are settling into the backlines. Even the defecting officers are going AWOL, even saying they are going on vacation and taking a few days off. Today, there is more news that Qaddafi's forces are gunning anyone that moves in areas they control.
As for all the nonsense that Obama didn't properly notify Congress or have the constitutional right to engage in this action, it's sad to point out that the last time Congress declared war was for WWII. All the talk about impeachment would have to apply retroactively to every President since FDR. The list of American military interventions around the world since then is endless. The noise in Washington about this is humorous since the Senate passed a resolution urging the creation of a No Fly Zone three weeks ago. Now Dennis Kucinich, who believes Obama can be impeached, is working on a law that no funds should be spent on the Libyan intervention. All of this would interesting and call for honest debate. But we have let the President of the United States do this for almost 70 years because Congress and the American People like it that way.
Our problem as a nation is that there are no effective checks on our military power. Neither party wants to make the President or the military accountable. Without a draft, we no longer have the type of stake in our interventions that we used to. And as to costs,neither party wants to restrict our military spending even though it is bankrupting us. When you read the blizzard of comments--wise and foolish--on the Libyan intervention,it is sobering to know that none of them matter. Public opinion doesn't matter. You could be debating Obama's bracket choices and it has the same value. We are the spectators. In the most extreme cases like the Iraq War, millions of Americans demonstrated,numbers that dwarfed the teaparty gatherings, and yet as Dick Cheney said, "So What?" Our military interventions are not influenced by the American citizenry anymore. In the words of W, you might as well go shopping.
So now it comes down to whether President Obama does war right. Bill Kristol wrote the other day that we don't invade Muslim countries, we liberate them. And that may be the difference here. I don't have the inclination to unpack that nonsense. But we should be somewhat assured that President Obama's body language shows he has an inherent reluctance to immediately go to the military option and that in deeds he wants others to share the sacrifice. His critics lament his nuance and the sophistication of his approach to problems. I view these as strengths. That he should deliberate on something is a positive trait, not a negative. We've run off to war many times without asking questions only to find years of nightmares and arguments that we can't stop or it will weaken our position in the world.
A leftwing blogger said that we could blame almost all current problems we have on the past administration but now Obama has created one of his own. Yes, but I have a confidence in him that we will not make a commitment for a decade to pacifying Libya in the name of democracy.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Stewart/Colbert Crush Beck
Estimating yesterday's crowd size, Stephen Colbert said,"Six billion". spoofing the Beckites' claim of 1 million for their Restore Honor rally. Colbert returned to the scene of his first crime, testifying on immigration on the Hill. If Washington pundits legitimize the teabaggers, they absolutely, totally don't have a clue at what went on at yesterday's rally, which CBS estimates drew 250,000 but probably much more than that. Politics USA wrote yesterday that the John Stewart/ Colbert Show drew twice or as many as three times Glenn Beck's crowd. And from what I could observe it outdrew the One Nation rally.
The National Park Service offered the idea that the rally surpassed 300,000. From the capitol building to the Washington Monument is impressive. The two previous rallies around the Lincoln Memorial had to contend with the reflecting pool and it's clear from the photos that this was more massive.
When I expressed my doubts to my son that many people would show up, he said that friends of his were coming from Ohio for this. He said that all his fellow college students get their news from John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. In fact, a whole generation turned in to see John Stewart's interview with Barack Obama before the rally. A fact that escaped everyone in Washington.D.C.
Depending on your age and taste, the rally had something for everyone. An aging baby-boomer wrote that seeing Tony Bennett made his day. For fans of the Captain and the L.A. Lakers, Stephen Colbert's attack of Muslims brought the reposte by John Stewart that all Muslims aren't bad. "How about this guy?" And on walks Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The array of signs brought home the goof on the teabagger crowd--posters of Colbert as Hitler, a smiley face with a Hitler moustache, an aging hippie with a sign,"No Socialists Here", a Muslim woman with a sign,"I'm Muslim but I also fear terrorists", and a slew of takes on the idea of sane politics.
In the next few days, you will read more drivel about the rally than you can imagine. This morning's post had an op-ed ,which said that one can hope for civility but that doesn't mean one accepts the liberal politics of the DNC. We were assured that the intrepid reporter interviewed many at the rally who were liberals. Days before Washington pundits begged John Stewart to cancel the rally because these were serious times and the political decisions to be made were heavy. What was interesting is to see how narcissistic all the commentators were, trying to somehow outsmart John Stewart. Perhaps, one of the more honest comments was from Howard Kurtz who tweeted that he had no idea how all these people got here and what they were doing. Andy Borowitz upped the tweet by posting, "Fox News estimates crowd size at 7."
Remember Washington does not do irony, sarcasm or humor very well. Gloria Bolger at CNN sniffed,"Do these people even vote?" What people will avoid in the next few days is that the rally just destroyed the whole image of the Glenn Beck pretense of wrapping patriotism around a fundamentalist religious concept. The Beck follies were termed "historic" by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the other right-wing talk shows. They just got owned by two comedians, who did it all much better with wit.
Frank Rich's column today in the New York Times is about how the teabaggers are going to get owned by the Republican party. Rich reviews the actual strength of the teabaggers--about 2% of the population--and the findings of the Washington Post, which found that of the several thousand chapters the average take was $800. for this year's elections. He points out that the real Teabag operation,as well knew, was engineered by the Koch Brothers and Dick Armey. None of the Republicans who used the teabaggers have any intention of letting these people interfere with their agenda of tax cuts for the wealthy and the elimination of regulations demanded by their corporate masters. Rich remarks how repulsive Republicans like Mitch McConnell find Jim DeMint's demand the U.S. adopt biblical law. They were a good show that propelled the necessary media narrative that the Republicans were not the same people who crashed the economy and ran up $12 trillion in debt. To this degree, Republicans have been masterful in changing the storyline.
A Bloomberg poll reports that the vast majority of Americans really believe that Barack Obama raised their taxes, despite the real world fact that 90% of Americans really got a tax break. The majority also believe that it was Barack Obama that created the TARP program, not George W. Bush, and also believe that the program didn't pay back the money. The absolute confusion of the American voter on economic reality is staggering and ,unfortunately, will aid the Republicans.
The torrent of ads by Karl Rove and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually pedal the myth that Obama's policies are killing jobs, even though Obama has surpassed Rove's boss's record in job creation in only 20 months. The propaganda against the stimulus program has been astonishing and ,unfortunately, the administration has not kept up its educational effort on this front. A few months ago, they had launched a tour by Joe Biden and statistics by leading economists about the number of jobs saved and created, the millions of children who received health care, and the strengthening of state governments. All that has clearly not withstood the assault by the anonymous private and foreign donors.
Dana Milbank writes today about where are the adults in the Republican Party. Even right-winger Barry Goldwater said that essence of holding a post in Congress was compromise. The House Republicans have already ruled out any compromise with the Obama Administration. Even veteran Republicans like Judd Gregg said that repealing the healthreform bill was folly but he has been loudly shouted down. Mitch McConnell has clearly said that the whole purpose of Republicans in Congress was to make Barack Obama a one-term President. So much for the nation.
David Broder today pontificated how Barack Obama is clearly the brightest bulb in the political frimament and he stands heads of shoulders above any potential Republican candidates. This is actually an astonishing admission from Broder. But he warns that really nothing can be done about the economy since the markets move in their own time. He says that there will not be a strong enough recovery to propel Obama into a second term. But He says there is one way President Obama can recover--Go to War with Iran. Beam me up, Scottie.
Meanwhile in a new episode of Northern Exposure, the Republicans are jumping ship over Joe Miller and are now pouring resources into the Lisa Murkowski write-in campaign because America's Hero , Scott McAdams, stands a chance of winning. The Alaskan judges are trying to get on board by ruling that people can have assistance in filing out the write-in ballots. Apparently, Joe Miller has stepped into it big time. When he was a federal magistrate, he was obligated by law to list all his assets or face jail-time. It turns out that not only did he omit the 40 acres and a the two-story house he owned on his FEC filing , but also on the form he submitted when he was a judge. Big Problem.
In Nevada, it is wild and woolly. John Ralston writes in the Las Vegas Sun that virtually everything is running against Harry Reid this year. But he expects Harry to pull it out. He recites Harry's loss in the Senate race in the 1970s, his loss for mayor, and his slim margins of victory ever since. Ralston claims that Reid needs to keep Angle's lead among independents to single digit (something he is not doing right now) but that his ground game is outstanding this year and that he leads in the early voting.
In California, Barbara Boxer is performing just as she has done historically. Slow start, often behind, and gradually over the period of the campaign open enough of a lead to win. It's nice to know something is working normally this year.
Charles Cook yesterday wrote that Republicans have zero chance on taking the Senate this year. He has flipped some of his toss-up states over to the Democrats. He's now sayng that Republicans now might pick up between 6 to 8 seats in the Senate.
Not to be deterred Campaigner Barack Obama returned to the Midway Pleasance, where I used to live, and addressed over 30,000 people in Chicago. (I just love the name, which comes from the old Chicago World's Fair.) He was trying to whip up the crowd to vote for the Governor and the Senate. He had stopped in Philadelphia also but just for a meeting with organizers. And he should hit Ohio today.
The Republicans are banking on taking the governorship of Ohio so as to lay the groundwork for 2012. It looks like Karl Rove will have to return to the scene of his crime. He was served with court papers for a trial on rackeetering, which will look into his activities in the 2004 election and answer questions about his donors in this election. After all the attempts at a Citizens' Arrest by Move-On and other anti-war activist, it took the skill of an elections lawyer to nail him. Unfortunately, for the case, the key witness on fraud in 2004 was a Republican computer hacker, who died in a mysterious plane crash and the hard drive to his computer was never found.
President Obama has spent alot of political capital in Ohio for Governor Strickland. But what may destroy John Kasich is the issue of gun rights. The local NRA will not endorse Kasich because when in congress he received an "F" on gun rights. Ohio gunowners are coming out for Strickland, who they say is far better. This would be one of the few times that the gun issue actually bit a Republican. This may account for Strickland inching ahead in the late polls.
In Florida, Alex Sink , the Democrat, has moved out ahead of Rick Scott. From a simple law and order point of view, it's necessary for her to win.
NPR has been running alot of roundtables on what Washington will look like after the election. A good many of the commentators really do not get the fact that Republicans are serious about not cooperating at all with the Administration. In fact, people are commenting that at least Newt Gingrich learned to cooperate with Bill Clinton, but that there is no one even like Newt around now. One of the first showdowns will be when Congress must raise the debt ceiling of the country. The strong odds are that Republicans will oppose since they have become fiscal conservatives. This will shut the government down to just essential services. Social Security checks will not be paid, government and military pensions will not be paid, Medicare will not be paid and even the larger military budget will not be paid. The question will be how long can the Republicans keep the shutdown going.
Senator Tom Coburn wants Republicans to keep submitting bills to repeal the healthcare bill even though he has publically said they don't have a chance of passing. (P.S. Howard Dean is of the opinion that the healthcare bill can survive without the individual mandate, which conservatives are suing about. On this, Howard is pretty clever but I have no idea what he has in mind.)
The one area people seem to think may produce a solution is on the infrastructure. As of last week, President Obama raised in his weekly address that hope of bipartisan cooperation and specifically mentioned the need to improve our infrastructure so we can compete in the world. The six-year infrastructure program is expiring, which means that our Highway Fund is depleted. The Administration wants to raise the gas tax to fund this but John Boehner claims he has never voted for a tax increase and won't on this occasion. But his master Tom Donoghue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says he has all the information that this has to be done or else we will fall behind in global competition. People expect corporations will twist Boehner's arm. Rep. Mica, the lead Republican on this issue, voiced his opinion that infrastructure spending will be a top priority. Even the Chamber knows this will be a massive job creator and Donoghue has said openly that the economy desparately needs it. But it means spending money. So watch this play out.
What I would like to see is that in the lame duck session that the Republicans filibuster the tax proposals of President Obama for the tax cuts for the wealthy and that the White House doesn't compromise and all tax cuts expire. And President Obama use the White House bully pulpit to call out the Republicans and their masters. Quite frankly it would make fiscal sense. Since no one believes he cut taxes in the first place, why would they give the President credit with keeping middle-class tax cuts?
Remember to Get Out the Vote!
The National Park Service offered the idea that the rally surpassed 300,000. From the capitol building to the Washington Monument is impressive. The two previous rallies around the Lincoln Memorial had to contend with the reflecting pool and it's clear from the photos that this was more massive.
When I expressed my doubts to my son that many people would show up, he said that friends of his were coming from Ohio for this. He said that all his fellow college students get their news from John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. In fact, a whole generation turned in to see John Stewart's interview with Barack Obama before the rally. A fact that escaped everyone in Washington.D.C.
Depending on your age and taste, the rally had something for everyone. An aging baby-boomer wrote that seeing Tony Bennett made his day. For fans of the Captain and the L.A. Lakers, Stephen Colbert's attack of Muslims brought the reposte by John Stewart that all Muslims aren't bad. "How about this guy?" And on walks Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The array of signs brought home the goof on the teabagger crowd--posters of Colbert as Hitler, a smiley face with a Hitler moustache, an aging hippie with a sign,"No Socialists Here", a Muslim woman with a sign,"I'm Muslim but I also fear terrorists", and a slew of takes on the idea of sane politics.
In the next few days, you will read more drivel about the rally than you can imagine. This morning's post had an op-ed ,which said that one can hope for civility but that doesn't mean one accepts the liberal politics of the DNC. We were assured that the intrepid reporter interviewed many at the rally who were liberals. Days before Washington pundits begged John Stewart to cancel the rally because these were serious times and the political decisions to be made were heavy. What was interesting is to see how narcissistic all the commentators were, trying to somehow outsmart John Stewart. Perhaps, one of the more honest comments was from Howard Kurtz who tweeted that he had no idea how all these people got here and what they were doing. Andy Borowitz upped the tweet by posting, "Fox News estimates crowd size at 7."
Remember Washington does not do irony, sarcasm or humor very well. Gloria Bolger at CNN sniffed,"Do these people even vote?" What people will avoid in the next few days is that the rally just destroyed the whole image of the Glenn Beck pretense of wrapping patriotism around a fundamentalist religious concept. The Beck follies were termed "historic" by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the other right-wing talk shows. They just got owned by two comedians, who did it all much better with wit.
Frank Rich's column today in the New York Times is about how the teabaggers are going to get owned by the Republican party. Rich reviews the actual strength of the teabaggers--about 2% of the population--and the findings of the Washington Post, which found that of the several thousand chapters the average take was $800. for this year's elections. He points out that the real Teabag operation,as well knew, was engineered by the Koch Brothers and Dick Armey. None of the Republicans who used the teabaggers have any intention of letting these people interfere with their agenda of tax cuts for the wealthy and the elimination of regulations demanded by their corporate masters. Rich remarks how repulsive Republicans like Mitch McConnell find Jim DeMint's demand the U.S. adopt biblical law. They were a good show that propelled the necessary media narrative that the Republicans were not the same people who crashed the economy and ran up $12 trillion in debt. To this degree, Republicans have been masterful in changing the storyline.
A Bloomberg poll reports that the vast majority of Americans really believe that Barack Obama raised their taxes, despite the real world fact that 90% of Americans really got a tax break. The majority also believe that it was Barack Obama that created the TARP program, not George W. Bush, and also believe that the program didn't pay back the money. The absolute confusion of the American voter on economic reality is staggering and ,unfortunately, will aid the Republicans.
The torrent of ads by Karl Rove and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually pedal the myth that Obama's policies are killing jobs, even though Obama has surpassed Rove's boss's record in job creation in only 20 months. The propaganda against the stimulus program has been astonishing and ,unfortunately, the administration has not kept up its educational effort on this front. A few months ago, they had launched a tour by Joe Biden and statistics by leading economists about the number of jobs saved and created, the millions of children who received health care, and the strengthening of state governments. All that has clearly not withstood the assault by the anonymous private and foreign donors.
Dana Milbank writes today about where are the adults in the Republican Party. Even right-winger Barry Goldwater said that essence of holding a post in Congress was compromise. The House Republicans have already ruled out any compromise with the Obama Administration. Even veteran Republicans like Judd Gregg said that repealing the healthreform bill was folly but he has been loudly shouted down. Mitch McConnell has clearly said that the whole purpose of Republicans in Congress was to make Barack Obama a one-term President. So much for the nation.
David Broder today pontificated how Barack Obama is clearly the brightest bulb in the political frimament and he stands heads of shoulders above any potential Republican candidates. This is actually an astonishing admission from Broder. But he warns that really nothing can be done about the economy since the markets move in their own time. He says that there will not be a strong enough recovery to propel Obama into a second term. But He says there is one way President Obama can recover--Go to War with Iran. Beam me up, Scottie.
Meanwhile in a new episode of Northern Exposure, the Republicans are jumping ship over Joe Miller and are now pouring resources into the Lisa Murkowski write-in campaign because America's Hero , Scott McAdams, stands a chance of winning. The Alaskan judges are trying to get on board by ruling that people can have assistance in filing out the write-in ballots. Apparently, Joe Miller has stepped into it big time. When he was a federal magistrate, he was obligated by law to list all his assets or face jail-time. It turns out that not only did he omit the 40 acres and a the two-story house he owned on his FEC filing , but also on the form he submitted when he was a judge. Big Problem.
In Nevada, it is wild and woolly. John Ralston writes in the Las Vegas Sun that virtually everything is running against Harry Reid this year. But he expects Harry to pull it out. He recites Harry's loss in the Senate race in the 1970s, his loss for mayor, and his slim margins of victory ever since. Ralston claims that Reid needs to keep Angle's lead among independents to single digit (something he is not doing right now) but that his ground game is outstanding this year and that he leads in the early voting.
In California, Barbara Boxer is performing just as she has done historically. Slow start, often behind, and gradually over the period of the campaign open enough of a lead to win. It's nice to know something is working normally this year.
Charles Cook yesterday wrote that Republicans have zero chance on taking the Senate this year. He has flipped some of his toss-up states over to the Democrats. He's now sayng that Republicans now might pick up between 6 to 8 seats in the Senate.
Not to be deterred Campaigner Barack Obama returned to the Midway Pleasance, where I used to live, and addressed over 30,000 people in Chicago. (I just love the name, which comes from the old Chicago World's Fair.) He was trying to whip up the crowd to vote for the Governor and the Senate. He had stopped in Philadelphia also but just for a meeting with organizers. And he should hit Ohio today.
The Republicans are banking on taking the governorship of Ohio so as to lay the groundwork for 2012. It looks like Karl Rove will have to return to the scene of his crime. He was served with court papers for a trial on rackeetering, which will look into his activities in the 2004 election and answer questions about his donors in this election. After all the attempts at a Citizens' Arrest by Move-On and other anti-war activist, it took the skill of an elections lawyer to nail him. Unfortunately, for the case, the key witness on fraud in 2004 was a Republican computer hacker, who died in a mysterious plane crash and the hard drive to his computer was never found.
President Obama has spent alot of political capital in Ohio for Governor Strickland. But what may destroy John Kasich is the issue of gun rights. The local NRA will not endorse Kasich because when in congress he received an "F" on gun rights. Ohio gunowners are coming out for Strickland, who they say is far better. This would be one of the few times that the gun issue actually bit a Republican. This may account for Strickland inching ahead in the late polls.
In Florida, Alex Sink , the Democrat, has moved out ahead of Rick Scott. From a simple law and order point of view, it's necessary for her to win.
NPR has been running alot of roundtables on what Washington will look like after the election. A good many of the commentators really do not get the fact that Republicans are serious about not cooperating at all with the Administration. In fact, people are commenting that at least Newt Gingrich learned to cooperate with Bill Clinton, but that there is no one even like Newt around now. One of the first showdowns will be when Congress must raise the debt ceiling of the country. The strong odds are that Republicans will oppose since they have become fiscal conservatives. This will shut the government down to just essential services. Social Security checks will not be paid, government and military pensions will not be paid, Medicare will not be paid and even the larger military budget will not be paid. The question will be how long can the Republicans keep the shutdown going.
Senator Tom Coburn wants Republicans to keep submitting bills to repeal the healthcare bill even though he has publically said they don't have a chance of passing. (P.S. Howard Dean is of the opinion that the healthcare bill can survive without the individual mandate, which conservatives are suing about. On this, Howard is pretty clever but I have no idea what he has in mind.)
The one area people seem to think may produce a solution is on the infrastructure. As of last week, President Obama raised in his weekly address that hope of bipartisan cooperation and specifically mentioned the need to improve our infrastructure so we can compete in the world. The six-year infrastructure program is expiring, which means that our Highway Fund is depleted. The Administration wants to raise the gas tax to fund this but John Boehner claims he has never voted for a tax increase and won't on this occasion. But his master Tom Donoghue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says he has all the information that this has to be done or else we will fall behind in global competition. People expect corporations will twist Boehner's arm. Rep. Mica, the lead Republican on this issue, voiced his opinion that infrastructure spending will be a top priority. Even the Chamber knows this will be a massive job creator and Donoghue has said openly that the economy desparately needs it. But it means spending money. So watch this play out.
What I would like to see is that in the lame duck session that the Republicans filibuster the tax proposals of President Obama for the tax cuts for the wealthy and that the White House doesn't compromise and all tax cuts expire. And President Obama use the White House bully pulpit to call out the Republicans and their masters. Quite frankly it would make fiscal sense. Since no one believes he cut taxes in the first place, why would they give the President credit with keeping middle-class tax cuts?
Remember to Get Out the Vote!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
19 Days to Go--My How Times Flies!
So Electoral-Politics.com has today's polling at 50 Senate seats for the Democrats, 47 for Republicans and now 3 tied. For the first time, Republicans have a 203-202 lead over the Democrats with 30 seats tied.
Nate the Great lowered his percentage for Republicans taking the Senate to 18%. Personally, I have the Democrats winning between 52 and 56 seats right now. The Senate looks secure. Remember the Democrats started this cycle by basically ceding Arkansas, North Dakota and Indiana. So they start out at 55 seats. My high estimate is a fantasy of Democrats either taking Kentucky or another Democratic seat and holding all the rest.
Is the American voter acting rationally? For the past year with all the hype about the Tea Party and the full reign of insanity shown on the conservative websites and Fox News, one begins to wonder. The media narrative is that we are facing an enormous Republican tidal wave because Obama has govern from the Left. Since we are supposed to be a conservative country, Americans are so outraged that you could run an empty suit or pantsuit with an R by his or her name and get elected.
At this moment--prior to the final money frenzy--is there any evidence of this? One reassuring phenomenon is that there is a great deal of difference in many states between the governor races and the Senate and--to a lesser degree-the House races. For instance, Ohio ,which is a really strange state the more I travel in it, shows that the race between Gov. Strickland and John Kasich is neck and neck, while the Senate race shows Rob Portman (R) walking away with it. Portman is Bush's former OMB director but is running as a normal Republican in a state that votes this way. He would be replacing Voinovich, a moderate conservative who has strongly condemned the influence of the South on the GOP.
Once the avalanche of Chamber ads hit Washington State, Patty Murray started opening the gap against Republican Dino Rossi. The Chamber ads only reinforced the view that Rossi is a crooked businessmen.
In Connecticut, Linda McMahon was a woman issue. Women voters can't stand her. This was what brought down Sarah Palin. Women in Connecticut report being repulsed by seeing her ads everyday.
Another positive sign is that general election voters are beginning to turn off on the teabaggers. In Maine Tom LePage had a 15 percentage lead for Governor, opening his mouth a few times more and he only has a 1% lead. By election day, it will be the third parties who will determine whether Le Page will squeak to victory. But the momentum is now on the Democrat's side.
Alaska's Senate race could become the surprise of election night. Joe Miller is disintegrating. His former boss, a Republican, finally made a statement about what he knows about Miller's seven years part-time work as an attorney for the small borough. Miller used the public computers of government employees to try and rig the election for the Republican party chair by submitting proxy votes in these peoples' names. It was a serious violation of the town's ethical policy and was a firing offense. But the city manager intervened and wanted Miller around to complete one last project, having to do with the taxing of the gasoline project. Then he left his job. This was one of the issues Miller kept hiding. Before this, the more he spoke the more his approval ratings fell and he had a 1 pt. lead over Lisa Murkowski. Again it comes down to a three way race.
Unfortunately, in Colorado, voters have on occasion sent madmen to the Senate. Senator Hank Brown was a straight libertarian, who wanted to cut off all USAID funding and end the entire National Endowment for Democracy because we had won the Cold War and all this was unnecessary. Their own party chairman Bruce Benson sought the governorship and would have won if his physically violent fights weren't recorded and aired on television. So, it is conceivable that someone like Ken Buck, who wants to eliminate the Department of Education, privatize Social Security, and have women who have been raped bear the child, could get elected. However, his own ethics issues are surfacing and his failure to prosecute a rapist, because the victim previously had an abortion, is beginning to draw a reaction. This comes down to voter turnout.
Would Florida voters really vote Rick Scott, a man whom many Republicans have publicly said should be in prison? Now that Alex Sink is focusing on Scott's record, she has moved out in front and the momentum is going her way.
So the gubernatorial races will be a mixed bag on election day and the Senate will simply reflect the usual attrition for the President's party. So far, this doesn't appear to be Mark Halperin's scenario that "Obama is in the Jaws of Death."
But we still have no clue as to the House. The reason control of the House this year is vital is because Republicans intend not to fund the Healthcare and Wall Street Reform bills. They know they can't repeal it. Also, they want to conduct a series of prolonged investigations into the imaginary crimes of the Obama Administration. They know at this point they can't impeach because of the Democratic majority in the Senate. Also, the Republicans are still clueless about the economy. John Boehner released a new plan last week to create jobs but economic think-tanks have studied his proposal and said it would cause another 1.1 million jobs to be lost. Also, the continuation of the tax cuts for the wealthy would only cost another $80 billion for two years and if permanent at least $750 billion.
We know Boy Genius Karl Rove has thrown in the towel on the Senate because he announced a new push on House seats. This is also in coordination with the Chamber of Commerce. People who have been canvassing the districts have been reporting dread and fear about the deluge of ads coming. Some of the expenditures on House districts are over $10 million. With most Americans in wobbly financial shape, won't this ostentatious flaunting of wealth back-fire? 47% of Americans say that they are less likely to vote for a candidate who is aided by anonymous donors. Only 7% were more likely to vote for such a person. And if you really believe everyone is a Glenn Beck he made it publically clear he has donated $10,000 to the Chamber today.
We simply have never seen such media bombardment of the electorate in such a short time. To get some idea about the magnitude of the problem, Karl Rove's Crossroads America--the American Chamber of Commerce and the anonymous conservative front groups--will spend more than the entire DNC and all their election committees and the RNC and all its commitees combined. That is stunning and potentially destabilizing to the American political system. What you now have is a gigantic Third Force, with no transparency and accountability, trying to directly determine the outcome of the election.
Now the next problem with this is that the ads both Rove and the Chamber are running are false in their accusations against candidates. Many local news stations and the media are pointing this out. In Pennsylvania, some of the ads had to be pulled because they were so inaccurate. But oftentimes the damage is done. This takes Willy Horton to the next level. In many states, where some of Rove's ads have run, people note the fear-mongering aspect and the deliberate distortion of the candidate's record or ,many times, total non-record on the issue.
While we are used to this with the Swiftboaters and Willy Horton. Candidates could fight back--even though Kerry didn't--against the other party and the deliberate smears. Now we have anonymous assassins, who can smear politicians without consequence. One of the Republican candidates ,who has been endorsed by the Chamber, is getting nervous about this and called for the FEC to audit the Chamber on the source of its funds.
Shareholders in Fox and other corporations are demanding answers about the directors' use of funds for political purposes. But this will not affect anything for another two years and it may be too late.
The interesting aftermath of this anonymous money was brought home by Howard Fineman, now writing for Huffingtonpost.com. Fineman claims that this opens a bag of worms for the Republican presidential primaries. You will have all these secret front-groups launching ads against various candidates and saying anything they please. There will be utterly no accountability and no one will know who is backing whom. This is a recipe for total chaos. Fineman speculates on a Mormon-Harvard-Bain frontgroup to get behind Romney. But remember the teabaggers like Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and Joe Miller will have scads of money left-over, which can be funneled into the presidential primary. In this case, Barack Obama will be the prime beneficiary. The odds this money will produce a real extreme rightwing Republican candidate.
For a different opinion, Karl Rove claims that the Center for American Progress, which released their investigations into the Chamber, doesn't release its own donors and is run by John Podesta, who was on the transition team of Barack Obama, who knows Bill Ayers, who blew up the Pentagon's toilets. Unfortunately for Karl and the Chamber, Think Progress continued its investigation and found even more foreign funders for the Chamber, despite their assurances they received only $100,000 from abroad.
There is one other thing about the media narrative. How do we get to a massive republican landslide with one party significantly lower in approval than the current party in power? Also, why is it a great things for billionaires and businesses and banks to secretly fund campaigns when this class of people have significantly less respect than politicians. It's like the slime leading the slime.
Hopefully, in the words of Woody Guthrie "You fascists will lose."
Nate the Great lowered his percentage for Republicans taking the Senate to 18%. Personally, I have the Democrats winning between 52 and 56 seats right now. The Senate looks secure. Remember the Democrats started this cycle by basically ceding Arkansas, North Dakota and Indiana. So they start out at 55 seats. My high estimate is a fantasy of Democrats either taking Kentucky or another Democratic seat and holding all the rest.
Is the American voter acting rationally? For the past year with all the hype about the Tea Party and the full reign of insanity shown on the conservative websites and Fox News, one begins to wonder. The media narrative is that we are facing an enormous Republican tidal wave because Obama has govern from the Left. Since we are supposed to be a conservative country, Americans are so outraged that you could run an empty suit or pantsuit with an R by his or her name and get elected.
At this moment--prior to the final money frenzy--is there any evidence of this? One reassuring phenomenon is that there is a great deal of difference in many states between the governor races and the Senate and--to a lesser degree-the House races. For instance, Ohio ,which is a really strange state the more I travel in it, shows that the race between Gov. Strickland and John Kasich is neck and neck, while the Senate race shows Rob Portman (R) walking away with it. Portman is Bush's former OMB director but is running as a normal Republican in a state that votes this way. He would be replacing Voinovich, a moderate conservative who has strongly condemned the influence of the South on the GOP.
Once the avalanche of Chamber ads hit Washington State, Patty Murray started opening the gap against Republican Dino Rossi. The Chamber ads only reinforced the view that Rossi is a crooked businessmen.
In Connecticut, Linda McMahon was a woman issue. Women voters can't stand her. This was what brought down Sarah Palin. Women in Connecticut report being repulsed by seeing her ads everyday.
Another positive sign is that general election voters are beginning to turn off on the teabaggers. In Maine Tom LePage had a 15 percentage lead for Governor, opening his mouth a few times more and he only has a 1% lead. By election day, it will be the third parties who will determine whether Le Page will squeak to victory. But the momentum is now on the Democrat's side.
Alaska's Senate race could become the surprise of election night. Joe Miller is disintegrating. His former boss, a Republican, finally made a statement about what he knows about Miller's seven years part-time work as an attorney for the small borough. Miller used the public computers of government employees to try and rig the election for the Republican party chair by submitting proxy votes in these peoples' names. It was a serious violation of the town's ethical policy and was a firing offense. But the city manager intervened and wanted Miller around to complete one last project, having to do with the taxing of the gasoline project. Then he left his job. This was one of the issues Miller kept hiding. Before this, the more he spoke the more his approval ratings fell and he had a 1 pt. lead over Lisa Murkowski. Again it comes down to a three way race.
Unfortunately, in Colorado, voters have on occasion sent madmen to the Senate. Senator Hank Brown was a straight libertarian, who wanted to cut off all USAID funding and end the entire National Endowment for Democracy because we had won the Cold War and all this was unnecessary. Their own party chairman Bruce Benson sought the governorship and would have won if his physically violent fights weren't recorded and aired on television. So, it is conceivable that someone like Ken Buck, who wants to eliminate the Department of Education, privatize Social Security, and have women who have been raped bear the child, could get elected. However, his own ethics issues are surfacing and his failure to prosecute a rapist, because the victim previously had an abortion, is beginning to draw a reaction. This comes down to voter turnout.
Would Florida voters really vote Rick Scott, a man whom many Republicans have publicly said should be in prison? Now that Alex Sink is focusing on Scott's record, she has moved out in front and the momentum is going her way.
So the gubernatorial races will be a mixed bag on election day and the Senate will simply reflect the usual attrition for the President's party. So far, this doesn't appear to be Mark Halperin's scenario that "Obama is in the Jaws of Death."
But we still have no clue as to the House. The reason control of the House this year is vital is because Republicans intend not to fund the Healthcare and Wall Street Reform bills. They know they can't repeal it. Also, they want to conduct a series of prolonged investigations into the imaginary crimes of the Obama Administration. They know at this point they can't impeach because of the Democratic majority in the Senate. Also, the Republicans are still clueless about the economy. John Boehner released a new plan last week to create jobs but economic think-tanks have studied his proposal and said it would cause another 1.1 million jobs to be lost. Also, the continuation of the tax cuts for the wealthy would only cost another $80 billion for two years and if permanent at least $750 billion.
We know Boy Genius Karl Rove has thrown in the towel on the Senate because he announced a new push on House seats. This is also in coordination with the Chamber of Commerce. People who have been canvassing the districts have been reporting dread and fear about the deluge of ads coming. Some of the expenditures on House districts are over $10 million. With most Americans in wobbly financial shape, won't this ostentatious flaunting of wealth back-fire? 47% of Americans say that they are less likely to vote for a candidate who is aided by anonymous donors. Only 7% were more likely to vote for such a person. And if you really believe everyone is a Glenn Beck he made it publically clear he has donated $10,000 to the Chamber today.
We simply have never seen such media bombardment of the electorate in such a short time. To get some idea about the magnitude of the problem, Karl Rove's Crossroads America--the American Chamber of Commerce and the anonymous conservative front groups--will spend more than the entire DNC and all their election committees and the RNC and all its commitees combined. That is stunning and potentially destabilizing to the American political system. What you now have is a gigantic Third Force, with no transparency and accountability, trying to directly determine the outcome of the election.
Now the next problem with this is that the ads both Rove and the Chamber are running are false in their accusations against candidates. Many local news stations and the media are pointing this out. In Pennsylvania, some of the ads had to be pulled because they were so inaccurate. But oftentimes the damage is done. This takes Willy Horton to the next level. In many states, where some of Rove's ads have run, people note the fear-mongering aspect and the deliberate distortion of the candidate's record or ,many times, total non-record on the issue.
While we are used to this with the Swiftboaters and Willy Horton. Candidates could fight back--even though Kerry didn't--against the other party and the deliberate smears. Now we have anonymous assassins, who can smear politicians without consequence. One of the Republican candidates ,who has been endorsed by the Chamber, is getting nervous about this and called for the FEC to audit the Chamber on the source of its funds.
Shareholders in Fox and other corporations are demanding answers about the directors' use of funds for political purposes. But this will not affect anything for another two years and it may be too late.
The interesting aftermath of this anonymous money was brought home by Howard Fineman, now writing for Huffingtonpost.com. Fineman claims that this opens a bag of worms for the Republican presidential primaries. You will have all these secret front-groups launching ads against various candidates and saying anything they please. There will be utterly no accountability and no one will know who is backing whom. This is a recipe for total chaos. Fineman speculates on a Mormon-Harvard-Bain frontgroup to get behind Romney. But remember the teabaggers like Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and Joe Miller will have scads of money left-over, which can be funneled into the presidential primary. In this case, Barack Obama will be the prime beneficiary. The odds this money will produce a real extreme rightwing Republican candidate.
For a different opinion, Karl Rove claims that the Center for American Progress, which released their investigations into the Chamber, doesn't release its own donors and is run by John Podesta, who was on the transition team of Barack Obama, who knows Bill Ayers, who blew up the Pentagon's toilets. Unfortunately for Karl and the Chamber, Think Progress continued its investigation and found even more foreign funders for the Chamber, despite their assurances they received only $100,000 from abroad.
There is one other thing about the media narrative. How do we get to a massive republican landslide with one party significantly lower in approval than the current party in power? Also, why is it a great things for billionaires and businesses and banks to secretly fund campaigns when this class of people have significantly less respect than politicians. It's like the slime leading the slime.
Hopefully, in the words of Woody Guthrie "You fascists will lose."
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
30 Days To Go
So here we are a month out. This morning it was 51-49 Dems in the Senate, 202-201 Dems in the House and the rest tied. The Dailykos pollster again put Dems back to 51 Senate seats.
Today, American banks have $1.8 trillion in cash and American corporations $1.7 trillion in cash. The DOW is above 11,000. Yet Depression stalks the land. Now if you want to go back to the time America was losing 750,000 jobs a month, be my guest and support the candidates supported by the American Chamber of Commerce and the intelligence services of Russia, India, China and Saudi Arabia.
I don't know why some group doesn't run ads in the election: "the American Chamber of Commerce wants us to go back to the days when we we're losing 750,000 jobs a month. Their funders do. We don't." And list the top 18 companies who are members.And keep playing it around the country.
Barack Obama's first forays into the mid-term campaign was his stock speech about how Republicans got us in the ditch and now we got the car back on the road they want the keys back. Delivered with fun it was a good speech but did not make the visceral impact to translate into the campaign. Obama also made the point that Republicans were doubling down on Bush policies. I also thought this was not alarmist enough.
So how do you make this theme kick in? Enter Boy Genius Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, the masterminds of the George W. Republican Party, with their anonymous billionaire's club. This are the very guys who ran the car into the ditch and they are coordinating their campaign with the Chamber. Beltway punditry says that Democrats are making too much over nothing here. The Chamber sends out a PR notice that none of their money comes from abroad. Don't believe them. But as Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who is pretty straight, said on Rachel Maddow last night the polling on this issue is a big score for Democrats. Voters are starting to focus as we run down the stretch and they are beginning to connect the dots--Bush cronies versus America.
Y0u wonder why I think Karl Rove is a net plus for Democrats. Yes, he can rig elections in Alabama and mobilize voter suppression in Ohio, but he lost the 2000 election, he barely won 2004 with a sitting war-time President and lost both the Senate and the House in 2006. The Bush people basically had a covert economic and foreign policy. If you want to influence elections quietly, why would you brag to the Washington Post and New York Times you are meeting at your home with wealthy people to plot strategy in this year's elections? You have to be so egotistical or totally clueless or both. And if you are an anonymous billionaire donor, why would you like to see Rove and Gillepsie all over the television screens? I know much of this is psychological, but now that the fat is in the fire, why would you brag as Ed Gillespie did to the New York Times that an anonymous donor just gave you a million dollars yesterday?
Then the Chamber of Commerce, now convinced it neutralized Democrats' attacks on its ad campaign, vowed to increase its expenditure in defiance. If I were a legitimate business, I would run from these guys. Remember the Chamber spent billions upon billions to stop healthcare reform, wall street reform, credit card reform and the reform of the student loan programs. AND THEY LOST. Now they figure the expenditure of a few million around the country will literally buy them the Congress they need. This really should be a Democratic ad, "the Chamber fought reform with billions paid to lobbyists, now they want to buy Congress for a few million. Tell them No."
As Celinda Lake pointed out, not only is the anonymous aspect of this gigantic ad campaign an issue in the campaign but voters are connecting this to the issue of outsourcing in the key Midwestern states. I never thought "outsourcing" could have become a viable issue since it has been going on for over a decade. But the Chamber has made it so by their heavy-handed campaign and ensured that the more conservative blue-collar voter will stay in the Democratic column.
Tantrums by George Will and other conservative columnists that unions are doing the same may get the Republican base enthused but no one else believes this stuff with the Chamber spending three times Labor will be on the election.
What is strange in all this is that the psychological dynamic has changed. Democrats, who control the Presidency and the Congress, are now perceived not as incumbents but as underdogs. Congratulations, Karl Rove. Notice how seamless the faux populist Tea Baggers has melded into the GOP and how Karl Rove and the Chamber are funnelling millions to their campaigns. Since this alliance has become so overt, even the teabaggers like Art Johnson in his debate with Russ Feingold had to admit he couldn't stop these anonymous ads and had no influence over these groups. That's pretty damaging that you can't even control your own campaign.
These tea baggers are beginning to look like the carpetbaggers of old. Rand Paul kicks off his campaign in New York City for a run for the Senate in Kentucky. Joe Miller commutes from Alaska to fund-raise among corporate donors in D.C. Sharron Angle receives mega-millions from anymous donors. So the great popular uprising against Barack Obama is kaput. The teabaggers are just the astro-turf corporate fronts their critics always said they were.
Notice how quiet the media is now about the great populist Tea Party movement? Yes, there are stories about the fun and crazy aspects of these candidates. But is anyone really writing that they are serious as a group or movement?
I've written many times that Barack Obama changed our political language and that his language will be the dominant vocabulary for the next period of our political history as Ronald Reagan controlled the terms of the debate for a generation. I still maintain this. The optics--everyone loves the word "optics"--have changed back to his agenda and he and the Democrats are again portrayed as the underdogs and the insurgents. The GOP tried 20 months of this imitation of what they think is the Left and simply exposed themselves as shameless defenders of large corporations and the very, very wealthy.
The GOP strategy could only work in this mid-term. This is the last chance for white males to dominate the electorate for the foreseeable future. By 2012, we will be back with millenials, gays, women, African-Americans, Hispanics and Muslim-Americans. The GOP electoral strategy for the last several election cycles is to suppress turnout, narrow the electoral pool. Right now the GOP only dominates the oldest demographic, which will continue to die off. This is the last chance they have before they must change their ways.
If only a small percent of Obama's surge voters come out in the mid-term, the GOP advance will be neutralized. Do the Democrats have enough time to achieve this? I don't know. The biggest financial assaults on the electorate are soon to come. But we know from polls in California that the barrage of Meg Whitman ads turned the voter off. We know from the last election that the GOP's robocalls against Obama in Maine created a backlash. We are seeing some this happening now in races in lower population states.
Of course, if you rent a candidate, strange things can happen. Carl Paladino's anti-gay remarks only sparked a Daily News article how he owns Cobalt and Buddies, two gay clubs in Buffalo. Sharron Angle warns about the threat of sharia law citing a town in Texas that doesn't even exist anymore-it's just a cemetary and a few houses incorporated into Dallas. Joe Miller can't seem to explain how he's earned a living since graduating from Yale Law School. Republican Iott, the Nazi re-enactor, can't explain what he does for a living except to claim he's a local businessman. But his Ohio records show he claims to be a soldier. These people are self-destructing.
Or you can shoot your self in the head like Rand Paul. Barely escaping from his social security and Medicare snafus, he came out yesterday for replacing the income tax with a flat tax. Apparently, Rand doesn't keep abreast with what happened to teabaggers Ken Buck in Colorado who proposed the same thing. He was slammed with an endless series of ads showing how everything you purchased would cost more by 35%. He since reneged on this position. But Rand marches bravely forward.
Local polls are emerging in specific races showing gains for Democrats in both the Senate and gubernatorial races. Early voting apparently has benefited Democrats. The Republican take-over of all the Midwest governors' mansions now seems shaky. The race in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio are now toss-ups, when they were leaning Republican. Democrats will pick up the governorships in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Hawaii,and probably California and Florida. And, as I've written for over a year, Texas is open. Rick Perry just stepped into another scandal yesterday of giving away millions in state funds to his contributors.
The Senate races in Washington and West Virginia are breaking into the open. Dino Rossi in Washington looked competitive until the barrage of Chamber ads reminded voters of Rossi's own dubious business background. Who knows what RFK, Jr.'s endorsement of Charlie Crist will do in Florida? That race is looking more like Rubio.
In Alaska, Teabagger Joe Miller is now close to 35% to Lisa Murkowski's 33%. That's almost a 15-point drop in a week.
The interesting question I have is whether this year's polls will get more accurate as move to election day or less accurate. Some of the local polls in Washington state and Nevada appear to me to be giving a more accurate picture of most national polls.
The other question I have is where will the money go that Sharron Angle, Joe Miller and Christine O'Donnell have accumulated after the election? Any bets on a little theft by the Grifters?
Remember the October 30th Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert rally in Washington,D.C. Musical guests are Mavis Staples and Wilco's own Jeff Tweedy. So it's worth going to if you are nearby. KEEP FEAR ALIVE!
Finally, Meg Whitman has tossed another $20 million into her campaign to buy California, bringing her over $140 million. She makes the Chamber of Commerce look like pikers.
Today, American banks have $1.8 trillion in cash and American corporations $1.7 trillion in cash. The DOW is above 11,000. Yet Depression stalks the land. Now if you want to go back to the time America was losing 750,000 jobs a month, be my guest and support the candidates supported by the American Chamber of Commerce and the intelligence services of Russia, India, China and Saudi Arabia.
I don't know why some group doesn't run ads in the election: "the American Chamber of Commerce wants us to go back to the days when we we're losing 750,000 jobs a month. Their funders do. We don't." And list the top 18 companies who are members.And keep playing it around the country.
Barack Obama's first forays into the mid-term campaign was his stock speech about how Republicans got us in the ditch and now we got the car back on the road they want the keys back. Delivered with fun it was a good speech but did not make the visceral impact to translate into the campaign. Obama also made the point that Republicans were doubling down on Bush policies. I also thought this was not alarmist enough.
So how do you make this theme kick in? Enter Boy Genius Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, the masterminds of the George W. Republican Party, with their anonymous billionaire's club. This are the very guys who ran the car into the ditch and they are coordinating their campaign with the Chamber. Beltway punditry says that Democrats are making too much over nothing here. The Chamber sends out a PR notice that none of their money comes from abroad. Don't believe them. But as Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who is pretty straight, said on Rachel Maddow last night the polling on this issue is a big score for Democrats. Voters are starting to focus as we run down the stretch and they are beginning to connect the dots--Bush cronies versus America.
Y0u wonder why I think Karl Rove is a net plus for Democrats. Yes, he can rig elections in Alabama and mobilize voter suppression in Ohio, but he lost the 2000 election, he barely won 2004 with a sitting war-time President and lost both the Senate and the House in 2006. The Bush people basically had a covert economic and foreign policy. If you want to influence elections quietly, why would you brag to the Washington Post and New York Times you are meeting at your home with wealthy people to plot strategy in this year's elections? You have to be so egotistical or totally clueless or both. And if you are an anonymous billionaire donor, why would you like to see Rove and Gillepsie all over the television screens? I know much of this is psychological, but now that the fat is in the fire, why would you brag as Ed Gillespie did to the New York Times that an anonymous donor just gave you a million dollars yesterday?
Then the Chamber of Commerce, now convinced it neutralized Democrats' attacks on its ad campaign, vowed to increase its expenditure in defiance. If I were a legitimate business, I would run from these guys. Remember the Chamber spent billions upon billions to stop healthcare reform, wall street reform, credit card reform and the reform of the student loan programs. AND THEY LOST. Now they figure the expenditure of a few million around the country will literally buy them the Congress they need. This really should be a Democratic ad, "the Chamber fought reform with billions paid to lobbyists, now they want to buy Congress for a few million. Tell them No."
As Celinda Lake pointed out, not only is the anonymous aspect of this gigantic ad campaign an issue in the campaign but voters are connecting this to the issue of outsourcing in the key Midwestern states. I never thought "outsourcing" could have become a viable issue since it has been going on for over a decade. But the Chamber has made it so by their heavy-handed campaign and ensured that the more conservative blue-collar voter will stay in the Democratic column.
Tantrums by George Will and other conservative columnists that unions are doing the same may get the Republican base enthused but no one else believes this stuff with the Chamber spending three times Labor will be on the election.
What is strange in all this is that the psychological dynamic has changed. Democrats, who control the Presidency and the Congress, are now perceived not as incumbents but as underdogs. Congratulations, Karl Rove. Notice how seamless the faux populist Tea Baggers has melded into the GOP and how Karl Rove and the Chamber are funnelling millions to their campaigns. Since this alliance has become so overt, even the teabaggers like Art Johnson in his debate with Russ Feingold had to admit he couldn't stop these anonymous ads and had no influence over these groups. That's pretty damaging that you can't even control your own campaign.
These tea baggers are beginning to look like the carpetbaggers of old. Rand Paul kicks off his campaign in New York City for a run for the Senate in Kentucky. Joe Miller commutes from Alaska to fund-raise among corporate donors in D.C. Sharron Angle receives mega-millions from anymous donors. So the great popular uprising against Barack Obama is kaput. The teabaggers are just the astro-turf corporate fronts their critics always said they were.
Notice how quiet the media is now about the great populist Tea Party movement? Yes, there are stories about the fun and crazy aspects of these candidates. But is anyone really writing that they are serious as a group or movement?
I've written many times that Barack Obama changed our political language and that his language will be the dominant vocabulary for the next period of our political history as Ronald Reagan controlled the terms of the debate for a generation. I still maintain this. The optics--everyone loves the word "optics"--have changed back to his agenda and he and the Democrats are again portrayed as the underdogs and the insurgents. The GOP tried 20 months of this imitation of what they think is the Left and simply exposed themselves as shameless defenders of large corporations and the very, very wealthy.
The GOP strategy could only work in this mid-term. This is the last chance for white males to dominate the electorate for the foreseeable future. By 2012, we will be back with millenials, gays, women, African-Americans, Hispanics and Muslim-Americans. The GOP electoral strategy for the last several election cycles is to suppress turnout, narrow the electoral pool. Right now the GOP only dominates the oldest demographic, which will continue to die off. This is the last chance they have before they must change their ways.
If only a small percent of Obama's surge voters come out in the mid-term, the GOP advance will be neutralized. Do the Democrats have enough time to achieve this? I don't know. The biggest financial assaults on the electorate are soon to come. But we know from polls in California that the barrage of Meg Whitman ads turned the voter off. We know from the last election that the GOP's robocalls against Obama in Maine created a backlash. We are seeing some this happening now in races in lower population states.
Of course, if you rent a candidate, strange things can happen. Carl Paladino's anti-gay remarks only sparked a Daily News article how he owns Cobalt and Buddies, two gay clubs in Buffalo. Sharron Angle warns about the threat of sharia law citing a town in Texas that doesn't even exist anymore-it's just a cemetary and a few houses incorporated into Dallas. Joe Miller can't seem to explain how he's earned a living since graduating from Yale Law School. Republican Iott, the Nazi re-enactor, can't explain what he does for a living except to claim he's a local businessman. But his Ohio records show he claims to be a soldier. These people are self-destructing.
Or you can shoot your self in the head like Rand Paul. Barely escaping from his social security and Medicare snafus, he came out yesterday for replacing the income tax with a flat tax. Apparently, Rand doesn't keep abreast with what happened to teabaggers Ken Buck in Colorado who proposed the same thing. He was slammed with an endless series of ads showing how everything you purchased would cost more by 35%. He since reneged on this position. But Rand marches bravely forward.
Local polls are emerging in specific races showing gains for Democrats in both the Senate and gubernatorial races. Early voting apparently has benefited Democrats. The Republican take-over of all the Midwest governors' mansions now seems shaky. The race in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio are now toss-ups, when they were leaning Republican. Democrats will pick up the governorships in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Hawaii,and probably California and Florida. And, as I've written for over a year, Texas is open. Rick Perry just stepped into another scandal yesterday of giving away millions in state funds to his contributors.
The Senate races in Washington and West Virginia are breaking into the open. Dino Rossi in Washington looked competitive until the barrage of Chamber ads reminded voters of Rossi's own dubious business background. Who knows what RFK, Jr.'s endorsement of Charlie Crist will do in Florida? That race is looking more like Rubio.
In Alaska, Teabagger Joe Miller is now close to 35% to Lisa Murkowski's 33%. That's almost a 15-point drop in a week.
The interesting question I have is whether this year's polls will get more accurate as move to election day or less accurate. Some of the local polls in Washington state and Nevada appear to me to be giving a more accurate picture of most national polls.
The other question I have is where will the money go that Sharron Angle, Joe Miller and Christine O'Donnell have accumulated after the election? Any bets on a little theft by the Grifters?
Remember the October 30th Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert rally in Washington,D.C. Musical guests are Mavis Staples and Wilco's own Jeff Tweedy. So it's worth going to if you are nearby. KEEP FEAR ALIVE!
Finally, Meg Whitman has tossed another $20 million into her campaign to buy California, bringing her over $140 million. She makes the Chamber of Commerce look like pikers.
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