++Mark Levin said that Trump's remarks about Ted Cruz' father being next to Lee Harvey Oswald should alarm Republican voters. We're going to get creamed he said.
++Rush Limbaugh said Trump will crush Hillary Clinton in a landslide.
++Charlie Cook said that Trump's nomination puts down ballot races in play. Predicts the Democrats will take the Senate and look to gain 20 seats in the House.
++Trump's victory in Indiana is widely attributed to his anti-immigrant positions. The Southern Poverty organization said that the Trump affect is leading to greater anxiety among minorities and immigrant families and an increase in bullying.
++ Washington monthly has an article on why the GOP is still blocking Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court. It is all aimed at voter mobilization. The GOP, even with Trump as the nominee,wants the social conservatives to believe reproductive rights will be eliminated with the next Supreme Court nomination. But they note that Red State is urging a vote on Garland because they believe Hillary Clinton will nominate a more liberal, younger justice. Red State is officially of the view that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency because of Trump.
++E-mails to me from abroad express deep fear,no terror,at the notion that Donald Trump could win the nomination of a major American party. On the one hand,they mourn that this is the ultimate dumbing down of America,the acceptance of totally ignorant points of view and diminish the country in the world's eyes. The reaction is many time more negative than when Ronald Reagan win the nomination in 1980.
++On the other hand they are frightened to death of his total ignorance of foreign affairs and his statements not only against Muslims,African-Americans,and Hispanics but also his frequent statements against the Geneva Convention,already negotiated arms deals and other accepted agreements with our own allies.
++Max Fischer at VOX did an analysis of Trump's foreign policy by analyzing his statements to David Sanger of the New York Times. Fischer concluded that in effect Donald Trump wanted the United States to become the number one Rogue Nation in the world. He does not even have a rudimentary understanding of how our alliances provide us with security and stabilize the world. It is American exceptionalism on steroids without any historical understanding. Fischer delving into his various statements has come to believe that Trump has literally no understanding or sympathy of the Post-WWII world.
++Roger Stone,Trump's operative, sort of let the cat out of the bag when he talked about the Taft-Eisenhower convention where Ike got Taft's delegations from Louisiana and Texas thrown out and replaced by his own. There is a real fight between isolationists and internationalists in the Republican party. Ike beat down the Taft "American Firsters" and allowed internationalism to flourish. Ronald Reagan made internationalism acceptable to the conservative movement, an aberrant branch of which became neoconservatism. But as Michael Bloomberg noted,Trump is using language that harks back to American Firsters.
++This should split the Republican Party. Robert Kagan has supported Hillary Clinton and Mark Salter also has supported Clinton on the strength of her experience as Secretary of State and her internationalism.
++Donald Trump also upended the economic discussion of the GOP. In this he may run to the Left of Hillary Clinton trying to gain support of white working class people in the Mid-west and in states like Pennsylvania where middle class Americans have not gotten a raise in thirty years and where death rates for white males around 55 are skyrocketing due to the lack of opportunity. The 1% now live 14 years more than the 99%. Trump uses the loss of manufacturing jobs abroad as his weapon. These are people who are now reacting to the collapse of the global economy in 2008 and find their social and cultural world turned upside down.
++Van Jones warns Democrats that Trump can win the presidency. He says that he doesn't need states where there are significant Hispanic minorities and he only has to convince 3 out of 20 blacks to support him and he is president.
++Tom Hartmann said that the dominant issues for this election will be the economy and the trade deals. He says that Trump is already going after Bill Clinton ala Ross Perot on the "worst trade deal in history"--NAFTA. At this stage the pros and cons of NAFTA are no longer known but the myth that trade deals are bad has taken hold.
++Trump is also going after the modern Republican protection of hedge fund managers but will get away with his truly horrible tax policy that gives the richest even more tax breaks. But he is not of the trickle down economic school.
++What Trump found was that the "real base" of the Republican party is not so much conservative as it is nationalistic and susceptible to nativism. His nouveau riche style violates the etiquette of the country club Republicans. My father-in-law is absolutely baffled by the man and how he could capture the Republican nomination.
++Van Jones, whom I think overhyped the threat of Trump, said that FDR mastered radio,JFK mastered television as well as Reagan, Obama mastered the internet and on-line videos, while Trump mastered the social media like twitter. He said that the dynamics of politics has changed that the villain wins in Reality television and that Trump brought politics into reality television as opposed to climbing the wall into politics.
++From a political scientist point of view, the school of the Party determines is over,Trump won as an outsider even though he is very much an economic insider. By doing so,the party structure of Republicans has imploded. Additionally,the three prong stool, Karl Rove has preached, national security,economic opportunity and social conservatism has collapsed.
++The failure of the GOP to develop policy during the Obama years has hurt it and Trump is the product of a policy-free party.
++It is very sad to see but inevitable when you ignore your own serious structural problems. Red State commentators last night were saying that the GOP kept making promises to their base they never intended to keep and now they are reaping what they sowed.
++You can't promise to uproot Obamacare and not do it for five years. You can promise to block the Iranian nuclear deal and simply not do it. You can't promise when you took over the Senate you are prepared to govern and be the least productive Senate in history. You can;t campaign that Democrats never pass a budget and then when it's your chance, you can't.
++The myth of the free market got destroyed with Donald Trump, who is against all trade deals and wants tariffs. We haven't had this economic reasoning since the 19th century, which was Republican orthodoxy.
++One of the most interesting developments has been the absence of the Koch Brothers in the presidential race. Trump is anathema to them and their economic ideology.
++Larry Sabato said in an interview with a British documentarian that we have to acknowledge that the Trump candidacy destroyed the Republican Party. The resistance of the party to his nomination has pretty much vanished. They were routed and maybe a new party will be born.
++Sadly the Republican still control Congress and the state house. But in the near future what will this party believe?
Showing posts with label Rush Limbaugh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rush Limbaugh. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
The Donald Is A Left-Wing Agent
++The National Review printed yesterday an article saying the Donald was a left-wing agent meant to disrupt the Republican primaries and ruin the GOP brand. First the piece said that his remarks about immigrants were meant to offend everyone . But also that they hide that he is a progressive. The Donald was inserted into the GOP to spread discord. The National Review quotes Glenn Beck as the authoritative source.
++Business Insider notes that the Suffolk poll that showed the Donald in second means that The Donald is the anti-Bush.
++Jon Stewart walked off the show last night when he heard that the Donald hadn't filed his papers with the FEC. He was only kidding because the Donald really did file.
++Rush Limbaugh says that the "Left's" campaign against the flag of the confederacy is just the first step because "the Left" aims to ban the American flag.
++The Hill writes that Nikki Haley's decision about the Confederate flag makes her prime Vice Presidential material. Just think Jindal-Haley--a Hindu and Sikh.
++Ann Coulter says that Haley is an immigrant and doesn't understand history. I guess like the South lost the war.
++A protestor outside the Charleston capitol said that taking down the confederate flag means that communism is coming. He said "The South is the only free place in the United States."
++Mitch McConnell actually asked that the statue of Jefferson Davis be removed from the Kentucky state house. I thought that was somewhat gratuitous.
++Josh Marshall has a piece up on Talkingpoints about the confederate flag being "the White Man's" flag.
++Today's the big day for Jindal. Is it because IBM refuses to attend the groundbreaking at their new Louisiana plant because of his anti-gay law? He had nothing better to do.
++Ed Kilgore has an interesting piece about President obama and the politics of change. He quotes relevant passages of two interviews the President has done,including his garage interview that gave the media a stroke with his use of the "N" word. Kilgore's piece raises interesting perspectives about the limits of change by a President.
++Business Insider thinks it will be 6-3 for same-sex marriage. Bill in Portland pleads with Pastor Scarborough not to set himself on fire.
++The Southern Baptist Convention claims now is the "Bonhoffer Moment". This puzzles me because Dietrich Bonhoffer was offended by America's treatment of blacks when he was at Union and travelled to the South. He blasted American evangelicals and fundamentalists for doing nothing about this. Now on same-sex marriage, the religion of the slave-holding south wants to do what? Bonhoffer joined the Abwehr with the intent to topple Adolf Hitler. Are the Baptists going to "assassinate" anyone? Are they going to secede from the union? Or are they going to set themselves on fire like Pastor Rick Scarborough plans?
++I think we are heading back to teabag times with the rhetoric from the Right.
++Business Insider notes that the Suffolk poll that showed the Donald in second means that The Donald is the anti-Bush.
++Jon Stewart walked off the show last night when he heard that the Donald hadn't filed his papers with the FEC. He was only kidding because the Donald really did file.
++Rush Limbaugh says that the "Left's" campaign against the flag of the confederacy is just the first step because "the Left" aims to ban the American flag.
++The Hill writes that Nikki Haley's decision about the Confederate flag makes her prime Vice Presidential material. Just think Jindal-Haley--a Hindu and Sikh.
++Ann Coulter says that Haley is an immigrant and doesn't understand history. I guess like the South lost the war.
++A protestor outside the Charleston capitol said that taking down the confederate flag means that communism is coming. He said "The South is the only free place in the United States."
++Mitch McConnell actually asked that the statue of Jefferson Davis be removed from the Kentucky state house. I thought that was somewhat gratuitous.
++Josh Marshall has a piece up on Talkingpoints about the confederate flag being "the White Man's" flag.
++Today's the big day for Jindal. Is it because IBM refuses to attend the groundbreaking at their new Louisiana plant because of his anti-gay law? He had nothing better to do.
++Ed Kilgore has an interesting piece about President obama and the politics of change. He quotes relevant passages of two interviews the President has done,including his garage interview that gave the media a stroke with his use of the "N" word. Kilgore's piece raises interesting perspectives about the limits of change by a President.
++Business Insider thinks it will be 6-3 for same-sex marriage. Bill in Portland pleads with Pastor Scarborough not to set himself on fire.
++The Southern Baptist Convention claims now is the "Bonhoffer Moment". This puzzles me because Dietrich Bonhoffer was offended by America's treatment of blacks when he was at Union and travelled to the South. He blasted American evangelicals and fundamentalists for doing nothing about this. Now on same-sex marriage, the religion of the slave-holding south wants to do what? Bonhoffer joined the Abwehr with the intent to topple Adolf Hitler. Are the Baptists going to "assassinate" anyone? Are they going to secede from the union? Or are they going to set themselves on fire like Pastor Rick Scarborough plans?
++I think we are heading back to teabag times with the rhetoric from the Right.
Friday, May 25, 2012
The Crumbling Conservative Infrastructure
Over the past three years we have seen people like Bruce Bartlett, David Frum and now Michael Fumento abandon the conservative movement because of its increasing anti-science, anti-intellectual and anti-rational approach to political affairs.
Ryan Cooper writes today in Talking Points Memo of the crumbling conservative infrastructure--its institutions have taken a hit these days.
He points to the abandonment of Rush Limbaugh by dozens and dozens of sponsors over the Sandra Fluke affair. El Rushbo is not likely to go under but his program has been downgraded in certain key markets like the Philadelphia and New York area. He has been put on a station in Camden, New Jersey after losing his Philly affiliation out right. And he has been wounded by the exodus of listeners on WABC New York. The ditto heads now are a demographic of white males over 60. Rush is not attracting the desired demographic.
We have the Ari Fleischer failed coup at the Komen Foundation and its attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood. This almost put Komen under.
ALEC, the Koch-founded legislative group responsible for conservative state legislation including the Stand Your Ground Law, has been shedding sponsors like crazy after an activist campaign started targeting companies who back them. Just today Wendy Gramm has come out of hiding to defend ALEC.
Heartland Institute, who paid for the billboard using the UNABOMBER as an advocate of global warming, is being gutted as its corporate sponsors are abandoning ship in the wake of the controversy. Heartland had to close down its DC operation and let its staff go. Its president posted a notice on their webpage announcing no symposia until further notice.
The Koch Brothers are in a shareholder suit over the CATO Institute, one of the few remaining credible right-wing leaning organizations in Washington.
And then everyone has commented on Norm Ornstein at AEI blasting the Republican Congress for its obstructionism. Norm has been a respectable Republican scholar of government for years.
This all may be a cyclical thing but a lot of the problem was the so-called conservative movement "marketing" itself and simply becoming propaganda organs for corporations and the very wealthy. Once this was done in such large numbers they were subject to the reverse pressures brought by consumers who disagreed or were offended by their positions and statements.
Ryan Cooper writes today in Talking Points Memo of the crumbling conservative infrastructure--its institutions have taken a hit these days.
He points to the abandonment of Rush Limbaugh by dozens and dozens of sponsors over the Sandra Fluke affair. El Rushbo is not likely to go under but his program has been downgraded in certain key markets like the Philadelphia and New York area. He has been put on a station in Camden, New Jersey after losing his Philly affiliation out right. And he has been wounded by the exodus of listeners on WABC New York. The ditto heads now are a demographic of white males over 60. Rush is not attracting the desired demographic.
We have the Ari Fleischer failed coup at the Komen Foundation and its attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood. This almost put Komen under.
ALEC, the Koch-founded legislative group responsible for conservative state legislation including the Stand Your Ground Law, has been shedding sponsors like crazy after an activist campaign started targeting companies who back them. Just today Wendy Gramm has come out of hiding to defend ALEC.
Heartland Institute, who paid for the billboard using the UNABOMBER as an advocate of global warming, is being gutted as its corporate sponsors are abandoning ship in the wake of the controversy. Heartland had to close down its DC operation and let its staff go. Its president posted a notice on their webpage announcing no symposia until further notice.
The Koch Brothers are in a shareholder suit over the CATO Institute, one of the few remaining credible right-wing leaning organizations in Washington.
And then everyone has commented on Norm Ornstein at AEI blasting the Republican Congress for its obstructionism. Norm has been a respectable Republican scholar of government for years.
This all may be a cyclical thing but a lot of the problem was the so-called conservative movement "marketing" itself and simply becoming propaganda organs for corporations and the very wealthy. Once this was done in such large numbers they were subject to the reverse pressures brought by consumers who disagreed or were offended by their positions and statements.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Happy V-D Day--Day 2 of the Ron Paul Love Revolution
Civility is breaking out all over. That's what the C in CPAC stands for. Rush Limbaugh is bitter that conservative principles are up for sale and that Mitch Daniels called on Republilcans to appeal to more than the Dittoheads. Glenn Beck warned conservatives about being infiltrated by communists and Islamists.
Pamela Geller agreed with Beck and David Horowitz that the conservative movement is infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Is she related to Uri Geller? Can she bend spoons with her nose?
The Young Americans for Freedom expelled Ron Paul--not for his age but for his positions on war.
General Boykin told Glenn Beck that he is asked every day about when we should take up arms against Barack Obama. The General previously said that the healthcare bill was meant to create a brownshirt militia for Obama.
John Boehner said that he thinks Obama is a Christian but he wouldn't comment on the whole birther conspiracy. But at the National Prayer Breakfast, Tom Coburn leaped to his feet to declare to the audience that Obama was "his brother in Christ." Tom probably has been expelled from the conservative movement this week.
Ten states have taken up the call for birther legislation. If passed, I can't run for President because I don't have a long-form borth certificate from New Jersey.
It's National Condom Day so don't get any on you.
Barack Obama announced that his new budget would bring domestic spending down to a percentage of government spending equal to Dwight David Eisenhower's day. Was this a slap at the GOP who has abandoned Ike? A little problem with the budget, however, the defense budget is the largest since WWII. That's without the raises the GOP wants to add.
Paul Krugman has an excellent summation of the GOP's budget proposals dubbing it "Killing the Future." Others called it "Killing Elmo" since PBS is under the axe. Does Juan Williams want to be identified with killing Sesame Street?
The teabaggers are saying that shutting down the government is just a "liberal bugaboo". Steve King wants to call Obama's bluff by shutting down government unless Obama withdraws health care.
The Shia in Bahrain are protesting even though the royal family has given out checks for $3,000 to everyone.
Both American and French officials have urged the Algerian government not to crack down and suppress demonstrations there.
The Palestinians cabinet has resigned and Abbas promises elections soon.
The King of Kings, Muammar Qaddafhi has urged all Palestinians to line up around the borders of Israel to demand a state.
The Iranian government has jailed the titular leaders of the Green Revolution and started to repress demonstrators using rubber bullets and teargas. The United States Government openly called for Tehran to allow the demonstrations to proceed since the Iranian Government hailed the Egyptian Revolution. the U.S. Government is tweeting in Farsi as the demonstrations proceed.
A reform movement is beginning to organize in Saudi Arabia. What happens to Fox News when saudi Arabia falls? Their number 2 owner is a Saudi prince. Do they juet light up half the set when his wealth is seized?
The Latest rumor is that Hosni Mubarak is in a coma. This raises the question of how anyone could believe that Mubarak had any role to play in a transition when he is terminally ill. The New York Times ran a piece saying that Secretary of state Clinton and Joe Biden urged such a stance on Obama but Obama refused. Apparently, President Obama was as furious as I was when Ambassador Wisner went on Fox and apologized for Mubarak. Luckily, President Obama didn't listen to the old guard.
But Niall Ferguson feels different in this issue of Newsweek. The neo-imperalist Brit, who has made his recent living travelling to Aspen and Davos selling the dangers of the fall of the American empire, writes that Egypt was a rookie mistake by the "most inexperienced President in foreign affairs" and has created an enormous power vaccuum. Niall thought George W was great even though he had only been to Mexico and once to China prior to assuming the Presidency.
Israel is breathing easier once the Egyptian military said that all treaties would be honored. Now Israel's Defense Minister has gone on the record saying that the Egyptian revolution was far different from the Iranian Revolution. But some of the Israeli press lament that the change in government in Egypt means that an attack on Iran is off. As Wikileaks showed Mubarak was one of the most energetic booster for war with Iran until the last American.
Speaking of treaties, Don Rumsfeld said that he thought it was not advisable for other governments to prosecute George W. Bush for torture because it would admit to the idea of "universal jurisdiction". Curiously enough the Torture Convention ,which we are a signatory to, calls for the "universal jurisdiction" of prosecution to anyone indicted for torture. And the United States under George W actually accepted this when they tried Charles Taylor's son for torture in Florida.
Love is in the air. Italians are demonstrating to bring Sylvio Berlusconi down because of his sex scandals. He said he always made "women feel special". A real candidate for the Love Revolution!
Former Luv Gov Sanford appeared on the beach with his bikini'ed Argentinian journalist. But now he's been replaced with another Luv Gov, the teabagger favorite Ms. Haley, who it seems is still embroiled in the sex controversy that started during the primary. I'm glad South Carolina is keeping up the tradition.
Virginia is no longer for Lovers. The Cooch has decided he wants an immigration law like Arizona.
Pamela Geller agreed with Beck and David Horowitz that the conservative movement is infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Is she related to Uri Geller? Can she bend spoons with her nose?
The Young Americans for Freedom expelled Ron Paul--not for his age but for his positions on war.
General Boykin told Glenn Beck that he is asked every day about when we should take up arms against Barack Obama. The General previously said that the healthcare bill was meant to create a brownshirt militia for Obama.
John Boehner said that he thinks Obama is a Christian but he wouldn't comment on the whole birther conspiracy. But at the National Prayer Breakfast, Tom Coburn leaped to his feet to declare to the audience that Obama was "his brother in Christ." Tom probably has been expelled from the conservative movement this week.
Ten states have taken up the call for birther legislation. If passed, I can't run for President because I don't have a long-form borth certificate from New Jersey.
It's National Condom Day so don't get any on you.
Barack Obama announced that his new budget would bring domestic spending down to a percentage of government spending equal to Dwight David Eisenhower's day. Was this a slap at the GOP who has abandoned Ike? A little problem with the budget, however, the defense budget is the largest since WWII. That's without the raises the GOP wants to add.
Paul Krugman has an excellent summation of the GOP's budget proposals dubbing it "Killing the Future." Others called it "Killing Elmo" since PBS is under the axe. Does Juan Williams want to be identified with killing Sesame Street?
The teabaggers are saying that shutting down the government is just a "liberal bugaboo". Steve King wants to call Obama's bluff by shutting down government unless Obama withdraws health care.
The Shia in Bahrain are protesting even though the royal family has given out checks for $3,000 to everyone.
Both American and French officials have urged the Algerian government not to crack down and suppress demonstrations there.
The Palestinians cabinet has resigned and Abbas promises elections soon.
The King of Kings, Muammar Qaddafhi has urged all Palestinians to line up around the borders of Israel to demand a state.
The Iranian government has jailed the titular leaders of the Green Revolution and started to repress demonstrators using rubber bullets and teargas. The United States Government openly called for Tehran to allow the demonstrations to proceed since the Iranian Government hailed the Egyptian Revolution. the U.S. Government is tweeting in Farsi as the demonstrations proceed.
A reform movement is beginning to organize in Saudi Arabia. What happens to Fox News when saudi Arabia falls? Their number 2 owner is a Saudi prince. Do they juet light up half the set when his wealth is seized?
The Latest rumor is that Hosni Mubarak is in a coma. This raises the question of how anyone could believe that Mubarak had any role to play in a transition when he is terminally ill. The New York Times ran a piece saying that Secretary of state Clinton and Joe Biden urged such a stance on Obama but Obama refused. Apparently, President Obama was as furious as I was when Ambassador Wisner went on Fox and apologized for Mubarak. Luckily, President Obama didn't listen to the old guard.
But Niall Ferguson feels different in this issue of Newsweek. The neo-imperalist Brit, who has made his recent living travelling to Aspen and Davos selling the dangers of the fall of the American empire, writes that Egypt was a rookie mistake by the "most inexperienced President in foreign affairs" and has created an enormous power vaccuum. Niall thought George W was great even though he had only been to Mexico and once to China prior to assuming the Presidency.
Israel is breathing easier once the Egyptian military said that all treaties would be honored. Now Israel's Defense Minister has gone on the record saying that the Egyptian revolution was far different from the Iranian Revolution. But some of the Israeli press lament that the change in government in Egypt means that an attack on Iran is off. As Wikileaks showed Mubarak was one of the most energetic booster for war with Iran until the last American.
Speaking of treaties, Don Rumsfeld said that he thought it was not advisable for other governments to prosecute George W. Bush for torture because it would admit to the idea of "universal jurisdiction". Curiously enough the Torture Convention ,which we are a signatory to, calls for the "universal jurisdiction" of prosecution to anyone indicted for torture. And the United States under George W actually accepted this when they tried Charles Taylor's son for torture in Florida.
Love is in the air. Italians are demonstrating to bring Sylvio Berlusconi down because of his sex scandals. He said he always made "women feel special". A real candidate for the Love Revolution!
Former Luv Gov Sanford appeared on the beach with his bikini'ed Argentinian journalist. But now he's been replaced with another Luv Gov, the teabagger favorite Ms. Haley, who it seems is still embroiled in the sex controversy that started during the primary. I'm glad South Carolina is keeping up the tradition.
Virginia is no longer for Lovers. The Cooch has decided he wants an immigration law like Arizona.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Before The Truce Fails
Tim Pawlenty says that the "elites" should stop criticizing Sarah Palin. It seems to me if you are a governor and a half-governor and someone who makes $15 million a year, you are a member of the elite. Maybe it's not deserved but you are. So what "elites" is Pawlenty talking about?
At least one is Howard Stern, who used his talents to blast Palin as a fake and several expletive deletes. Howard then said that whatever you think about Barack Obama you had to be proud of the man when he spoke in Tucson.
MSNBC had coverage that conservatives have finally accepted Barack Obama as President. I don't know how I feel about this. It's only been two years and the man handily beat John McCain, while the conservative hero George W. Bush won by one vote of the Supreme Court. But this whole theme only shows that conservatives feel entitled to political power and the presidency.
Since he failed to browbeat the Tucson Sheriff, Rushbo is now trying to intimidate the Fox news panel which praised the President's speech. Meanwhile, Clear Channel is going to take down Rush's "Straight Shooter" billboard.
No House Republicans would even comment on Palin's speech before the House's prayers for the victims. David Weigel says the whole party is embarrassed. But it seems to me the party never shut down the extreme rhetoric of the tea baggers so they are stuck with her.
Knowing she made a gaffe, Sarah Palin has consented to sit down for an interview with ace reporter--no, make that commentator Sean Hannity on Fox News. Talk about a tin ear, Palin has scheduled talking about the shooting on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.
Peggy Noonan, who has spent the last two years complaining Obama doesn't understand America, finally admitted his speech was more than excellent and significant.
The people of Tucson are miffed that the rest of us thought the memorial service was too much like a pep rally. People down there comment that they wanted a joyous occassion, somthing to celebrate, and were joyous the President came down. Who's to criticize?
Give credit to Rachel Maddow for using her show to probe both the mental illness aspects of the shooting and last night the issue of gun control. Whistling in the wind but it is important to frame the issue with the two subjects that loom large after the slaughter and actually have solutions.
The surgeons have done a superb job of briefing the media on the condition of the victims and the progress made by Gaby Giffords but what they say makes me uneasy. They always start at the top with the good news, which is a good technique, but if you listen long enough the true horror of the wounds and what the victims face in recovery become clear.
One leftwing blogger wrote that while the speech may have been Obama's best,she felt that Clinton delivered a better speech. I disagree. I think Clinton now is a better explainer than Obama of policies, but I found him to be boring back then. I also disagree that this was the best speech Obama has delivered. I still love his speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church about the Walls of Jericho delivered in the campaign. Others favor his Race speech.
Former Bush speechwriter Gerson writes today in the Washington Post that the shake-up in Obama's immediate staff will give him a second chance. I remind people this--the man has already achieved in domestic policy more than both Clinton and Carter combined. He also has outperformed in two years George W in his whole eight years. I love these arrogant pricks.
Oh, and yes, he has already created more private sector jobs than all 8 years of W. and by 2012 he will have surpassed the job creation of both Bush's combined--beat 12 years with his four. As Yogi said, you can look it up.
Have you noticed that the Right may have finally lost the moral high-ground? For years, it has tried to have the monopoly on national security, economics and family values. But you get a sense that they know with Tucson they lost it. While Obama's speech purposefully avoided assigning blame, the Right has been scrambling since Saturday's shooting to obfuscate the issue of their own vitriolic rhetoric. They have acted desparate, knowing they have lost big-time. This by the way happened after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The conservative talk show people were eclipsed for about a year or two.
Billy Graham's wayward son, Rev. Franklin Graham felt compelled to defend Sister Sarah because he had sponsored her trip to Haiti. You are missing the main narrative thrust of Palin if you do not see the Christian Right, especially the Dominionist, look at her as Esther. She is anointed and her line about "blood libel" signals that she will be persecuted. I'm not going to go into the eschatology of this. But it is scary.
When is Joe McGinness's book coming out on Sister Sarah? It would be useful for someone to penetrate behind her electronic wall and reveal her grifter lifestyle. I think we all need this as a public service.
The shooting and the Memorial broke the momentum of the new Republican House. Everything has been put on hold. Tuesday the House Republicans will start the vote to repeal the health reform bill. This was the bill for which Gaby Giffords was targeted by the Right. The GOP claims they will try to do this at a lower decibel.
President Obama has the wind at his back and he needs his State of the Union to be boffo box. He had lift in Tucson. He really needs political lift with his State of the Union Address. While he will talk about the tone of political debate, he really needs to reassure Americans that the country is not going down the tubes. He has to emphasize the Sputnik Moment as he and Secretary Chu talk about the challenges from China on clean energy and high-speed rails. He also has to reiterate the government's commitment to education. But here as in Tucson it will be the tone that will give him and us lift.
About all I see coming from this coming Congress is additional spending on infrastructure but nothing else. With the recent poll showing 71% of Americans opposing raising the debt ceiling, this rather mundane fact will be an unnecessary controversy. A right-winger e-mailed me about blocking the rise in the debt ceiling. I asked him why he never said anything the ten times it was done under George W.
At least one is Howard Stern, who used his talents to blast Palin as a fake and several expletive deletes. Howard then said that whatever you think about Barack Obama you had to be proud of the man when he spoke in Tucson.
MSNBC had coverage that conservatives have finally accepted Barack Obama as President. I don't know how I feel about this. It's only been two years and the man handily beat John McCain, while the conservative hero George W. Bush won by one vote of the Supreme Court. But this whole theme only shows that conservatives feel entitled to political power and the presidency.
Since he failed to browbeat the Tucson Sheriff, Rushbo is now trying to intimidate the Fox news panel which praised the President's speech. Meanwhile, Clear Channel is going to take down Rush's "Straight Shooter" billboard.
No House Republicans would even comment on Palin's speech before the House's prayers for the victims. David Weigel says the whole party is embarrassed. But it seems to me the party never shut down the extreme rhetoric of the tea baggers so they are stuck with her.
Knowing she made a gaffe, Sarah Palin has consented to sit down for an interview with ace reporter--no, make that commentator Sean Hannity on Fox News. Talk about a tin ear, Palin has scheduled talking about the shooting on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.
Peggy Noonan, who has spent the last two years complaining Obama doesn't understand America, finally admitted his speech was more than excellent and significant.
The people of Tucson are miffed that the rest of us thought the memorial service was too much like a pep rally. People down there comment that they wanted a joyous occassion, somthing to celebrate, and were joyous the President came down. Who's to criticize?
Give credit to Rachel Maddow for using her show to probe both the mental illness aspects of the shooting and last night the issue of gun control. Whistling in the wind but it is important to frame the issue with the two subjects that loom large after the slaughter and actually have solutions.
The surgeons have done a superb job of briefing the media on the condition of the victims and the progress made by Gaby Giffords but what they say makes me uneasy. They always start at the top with the good news, which is a good technique, but if you listen long enough the true horror of the wounds and what the victims face in recovery become clear.
One leftwing blogger wrote that while the speech may have been Obama's best,she felt that Clinton delivered a better speech. I disagree. I think Clinton now is a better explainer than Obama of policies, but I found him to be boring back then. I also disagree that this was the best speech Obama has delivered. I still love his speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church about the Walls of Jericho delivered in the campaign. Others favor his Race speech.
Former Bush speechwriter Gerson writes today in the Washington Post that the shake-up in Obama's immediate staff will give him a second chance. I remind people this--the man has already achieved in domestic policy more than both Clinton and Carter combined. He also has outperformed in two years George W in his whole eight years. I love these arrogant pricks.
Oh, and yes, he has already created more private sector jobs than all 8 years of W. and by 2012 he will have surpassed the job creation of both Bush's combined--beat 12 years with his four. As Yogi said, you can look it up.
Have you noticed that the Right may have finally lost the moral high-ground? For years, it has tried to have the monopoly on national security, economics and family values. But you get a sense that they know with Tucson they lost it. While Obama's speech purposefully avoided assigning blame, the Right has been scrambling since Saturday's shooting to obfuscate the issue of their own vitriolic rhetoric. They have acted desparate, knowing they have lost big-time. This by the way happened after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The conservative talk show people were eclipsed for about a year or two.
Billy Graham's wayward son, Rev. Franklin Graham felt compelled to defend Sister Sarah because he had sponsored her trip to Haiti. You are missing the main narrative thrust of Palin if you do not see the Christian Right, especially the Dominionist, look at her as Esther. She is anointed and her line about "blood libel" signals that she will be persecuted. I'm not going to go into the eschatology of this. But it is scary.
When is Joe McGinness's book coming out on Sister Sarah? It would be useful for someone to penetrate behind her electronic wall and reveal her grifter lifestyle. I think we all need this as a public service.
The shooting and the Memorial broke the momentum of the new Republican House. Everything has been put on hold. Tuesday the House Republicans will start the vote to repeal the health reform bill. This was the bill for which Gaby Giffords was targeted by the Right. The GOP claims they will try to do this at a lower decibel.
President Obama has the wind at his back and he needs his State of the Union to be boffo box. He had lift in Tucson. He really needs political lift with his State of the Union Address. While he will talk about the tone of political debate, he really needs to reassure Americans that the country is not going down the tubes. He has to emphasize the Sputnik Moment as he and Secretary Chu talk about the challenges from China on clean energy and high-speed rails. He also has to reiterate the government's commitment to education. But here as in Tucson it will be the tone that will give him and us lift.
About all I see coming from this coming Congress is additional spending on infrastructure but nothing else. With the recent poll showing 71% of Americans opposing raising the debt ceiling, this rather mundane fact will be an unnecessary controversy. A right-winger e-mailed me about blocking the rise in the debt ceiling. I asked him why he never said anything the ten times it was done under George W.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Yesterday
Late Tuesday, we were treated to the Rushbo saying that the whole Democratic Party was behind the assassin and that Sheriff Dupnik wanted Jared Laughner out of jail. You see, the 75-year old sheriff didn't mince any words about the talk show hosts who get paid millions to stir hate up and mentioned Limbaugh by name. Rushbo didn't realize he can't huff and puff like he does with GOP members who don't toe the line.Someone 75 tends to speak their mind no matter how rich his accuser is.
By early morning the Rusbo asserted that the Left did have a hit list, which was composed of everyone who had been a success under capitalism.
Sharron Angle came out to defend herself, the teabaggers and Sarah Palin against attacks they fomented the environment that led to the slaughter.
4 Republicans from the 20th legislative district in Arizona resigned for fear of violence from the Tucson Tea Party branch.
A man in Washngton state was arrested for threatening the life of Democrat Jim McDermott.
Then Yesterday began with the strange spectacle of Sarah Palin addressing the nation on Facebook. She made sure the comment section had been disabled for the speech. It was clear that she wanted to lead the news cycle for the day meant for the mourning of the victims in Tucson. From a media point of view, she wanted to set the agenda for the day. Speaking in front of an empty fireplace and the American flag hung crookedly, she claimed that the media suggested that the Right made Matzo ball soup of their enemies or something like that. She claimed that further attacks on the Right would lead to violence. She said that she and the Right would not back down and would argue their point vigorously as was their right and because American was exceptional. Reflected in her glasses was the hated teleprompter she always mocks when Obama uses it. Throughouther speech were a string of innuendos and code words attacking President Obama.
Well, she got her wish for attention. Her use of the line "blood libel" triggered a reaction from everyJewish group in the country and beyond, even the Yukon. Alan Dershowitz tried to assure television audiences Palin wasn't anti-semitic. The Republican Jewish Coalition said the words were "unfortunate". Others claimed she did't really know what "blood libel" meant and that she picked it up from other right-wing columnists. The phrase only triggered pogroms and massacres of Jews through the ages. The belief that Jews used the flesh of Christian children to make matzos is still circulated in the Middle East. It was popularized by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. Not helping was Pat Buchanan's endorsement of the phrase since he has just come off his stint as the author of a book saying that Hitler wasn't to blame for WWII.
Josh Marshall nailed it when he said that on the day when the nation was scheduled to mourn the victims of Tucson, Sarah Palin decided she was one of them. Andrea Mtchell, who sometimes doesn't have her head on straight, said Palin looked presidential. Joan Walsh wrote a piece about the whole episode in Salon saying that "The stunning narcissism and inability to even fake empathy show why she'll never lead the nation."
Palin got a break when attention moved to the ceremonies on the Hill where Boehner and Pelosi led tributes to the fallen and wounded. Instead of the repeal of healthcare, the House passed a resolution in honor of the Tucson tragedy and the victims who included Giffords aides, one slain and two wounded.
With the news cycle moving away,Palin's
aide tried to recapture the momentum by telling the press that threats against Palin have increased exponentially.This was matched on liberal blogs by the reproduction of the news articles who quoted Secret Service agents claiming that death threats against President Obama reached an unprecedented level after Palin's attacks on him during 2008 and 2009.
With the event in Tucson, John Boehner thought he had done his duty and decided to skip the ride down on Air Force One and host a cocktail party for his candidate for the RNC chair. The gossip about how he can't miss a drink finally forced an aide to issue a press release that Speaker Boehner would stop his speak at the cocktail party when President Obama spoke. Read Matt Tiabbi's piece in this week's Rolling Stone on John Boehner. It's catty but wise.
So now the table is set for President Obama's speech. We were told earlier that it would make or break his presidency. Why? We were also told he would have to surpass Reagan's Challenger Speech, Bill Clinton's Oklahoma Bombing Speech and George W at Ground Zero. The pressure was on. Clearly, Palin's aide and speechwriters thought Obama would let rip on the Right. I never know where these people get these ideas.
There were over 28,000 people at the speech--about 17,000 in the arena, the rest outside. This would make it equivalent to the audience President Obama addressed in his 2008 campaign in Oregon. The acoustics in the arena were made for basketball and are deafening. Television commentators like Dave Gergen thought the response to Obama's entrance and the speeches were inappropriate. Others commented on how disconcerting the joyous, celebratory mood was. It was in marked contrast to a sober and subdued President.
The situation the speech was meant to address was quite tricky.You have a community ostracised as a violent political place. The sheriff had even referred to Arizona as "the Mecca for prejusice and bigotry". You have the target of the assassination attempt still struggling to recover from a shot through her brain,six dead and 14 people still recovering. On top of that you have a flood of commentary and vicious debate over the political rhetoric that may or may not have trigger the angry young man. Somehow you have to weave through all this and come out the other end with both a reassuring and inspiring message.
The speakers rose to the occasion, even Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was gracious and made sure everyone knew that the President was welcomed to the state. I found Eric Holder's reading of the passage from II Corinthians odd because of its heavy Christological content. Janet Napolitano, the former Governor, read from Isaiah.
And then President Obama. Intending to speak for 17-18 minutes, he spoke over 34 minutes, largely because of the constant applause. The speech was political only in the largest sense. It was more a personal speech and you got the impression he dug deep into his own personal life and losses. It was the most direct speech he has given in his presidency. It was eloquent both in terms of its content but also its rhetorical flourishes.
He used the occasion to eulogize the slain through vignettes of their lives and captured the various acts of heroism committed that day. The entire focus was off the violence and on the people involved. He cited various heroes in the audience from the big, young intern Daniel Hernandez, who saved Congresswoman Giffords' life to the woman who grabbed the magazine from Jared Loughner. The unscripted part of the speech about Gabby Guffords opening her eyes for the first time was his sequeto the rousing last half of his speech. When he talked about the interns and aides, you could almost see the Obama who talked to his campaign staff after a primary loss.
Then he made his larger points over the death of Christina Green, the 9-year old who had been born on 9-11. He recounted how she was going to see Congresswoman Giffords because she was interested in politics and thought the Congresswoman would be a good role model. But Obama's point was that Green had not grown cynical as the adults about our democracy and thought it was good. This reminded me of President Obama's speech to the House Democrats encouraging them to vote for healthcare reform, when he reminded them of why they first got into politics. President Obama called for creating a country as good as Christina Green thought it was. He also talked about civility but only as far as it helps us address the broader issues facing the country. In his Reagan moment, he cited the inscription from the 9/11 book commemorating children born on that day saying ,"May you skip in Rainbow puddles." He said that if there were rainbow puddles in heaven, Christina would skipping them.
The early reaction to the speech is overwhelming comparing it to the Gettysburg Address, which FYI was panned at the time. Others said it surpassed the Challenger speech. David Gergen grouched that it didn't meet Clinton's address in Oklahoma. But from conservative to liberal, people were wowed.
What I found interesting was that conservatives, who really didn't want to stay in the crackpot corner,fully embraced it. Of course, they suggested Obama's refusal to say that the political environment triggeredhe event was a slap at the Left. I didn't take it that way, rather President Obama wanted to move it beyond politics,which he did. Charles Krauthammer said it was the moment that President Obama became head of state--that is the symbolic leader of all Americans. This is the real conservative's point about Reagan--he was the constitutional monarch who transcended nitty-gritty politics. Last night President Obama satisfied the conservative pundits he was such a man. Even the Washington Post's chief torture advocate Marc Thiessen called the speech "elegant and eloquent".
I just got the sense these people wanted President Obama to say something they could embrace so they could get out of the swamp, away from the Palins, Limbaughs and Glenn Becks. And he gave it to them. The entire Fox News crowd thought it was President Obama's best speech of his presidency.
Robert Alter, who wrote a bio of President Obama, had complained that Obama took Mario Cuomo's maxim too seriously--"You campaign in poetry but you govern in prose." Previous to the speech, he said it was necessary for Obama to use poetry on this occassion. Apparently, his conservative critics thought he did.
By early morning the Rusbo asserted that the Left did have a hit list, which was composed of everyone who had been a success under capitalism.
Sharron Angle came out to defend herself, the teabaggers and Sarah Palin against attacks they fomented the environment that led to the slaughter.
4 Republicans from the 20th legislative district in Arizona resigned for fear of violence from the Tucson Tea Party branch.
A man in Washngton state was arrested for threatening the life of Democrat Jim McDermott.
Then Yesterday began with the strange spectacle of Sarah Palin addressing the nation on Facebook. She made sure the comment section had been disabled for the speech. It was clear that she wanted to lead the news cycle for the day meant for the mourning of the victims in Tucson. From a media point of view, she wanted to set the agenda for the day. Speaking in front of an empty fireplace and the American flag hung crookedly, she claimed that the media suggested that the Right made Matzo ball soup of their enemies or something like that. She claimed that further attacks on the Right would lead to violence. She said that she and the Right would not back down and would argue their point vigorously as was their right and because American was exceptional. Reflected in her glasses was the hated teleprompter she always mocks when Obama uses it. Throughouther speech were a string of innuendos and code words attacking President Obama.
Well, she got her wish for attention. Her use of the line "blood libel" triggered a reaction from everyJewish group in the country and beyond, even the Yukon. Alan Dershowitz tried to assure television audiences Palin wasn't anti-semitic. The Republican Jewish Coalition said the words were "unfortunate". Others claimed she did't really know what "blood libel" meant and that she picked it up from other right-wing columnists. The phrase only triggered pogroms and massacres of Jews through the ages. The belief that Jews used the flesh of Christian children to make matzos is still circulated in the Middle East. It was popularized by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. Not helping was Pat Buchanan's endorsement of the phrase since he has just come off his stint as the author of a book saying that Hitler wasn't to blame for WWII.
Josh Marshall nailed it when he said that on the day when the nation was scheduled to mourn the victims of Tucson, Sarah Palin decided she was one of them. Andrea Mtchell, who sometimes doesn't have her head on straight, said Palin looked presidential. Joan Walsh wrote a piece about the whole episode in Salon saying that "The stunning narcissism and inability to even fake empathy show why she'll never lead the nation."
Palin got a break when attention moved to the ceremonies on the Hill where Boehner and Pelosi led tributes to the fallen and wounded. Instead of the repeal of healthcare, the House passed a resolution in honor of the Tucson tragedy and the victims who included Giffords aides, one slain and two wounded.
With the news cycle moving away,Palin's
aide tried to recapture the momentum by telling the press that threats against Palin have increased exponentially.This was matched on liberal blogs by the reproduction of the news articles who quoted Secret Service agents claiming that death threats against President Obama reached an unprecedented level after Palin's attacks on him during 2008 and 2009.
With the event in Tucson, John Boehner thought he had done his duty and decided to skip the ride down on Air Force One and host a cocktail party for his candidate for the RNC chair. The gossip about how he can't miss a drink finally forced an aide to issue a press release that Speaker Boehner would stop his speak at the cocktail party when President Obama spoke. Read Matt Tiabbi's piece in this week's Rolling Stone on John Boehner. It's catty but wise.
So now the table is set for President Obama's speech. We were told earlier that it would make or break his presidency. Why? We were also told he would have to surpass Reagan's Challenger Speech, Bill Clinton's Oklahoma Bombing Speech and George W at Ground Zero. The pressure was on. Clearly, Palin's aide and speechwriters thought Obama would let rip on the Right. I never know where these people get these ideas.
There were over 28,000 people at the speech--about 17,000 in the arena, the rest outside. This would make it equivalent to the audience President Obama addressed in his 2008 campaign in Oregon. The acoustics in the arena were made for basketball and are deafening. Television commentators like Dave Gergen thought the response to Obama's entrance and the speeches were inappropriate. Others commented on how disconcerting the joyous, celebratory mood was. It was in marked contrast to a sober and subdued President.
The situation the speech was meant to address was quite tricky.You have a community ostracised as a violent political place. The sheriff had even referred to Arizona as "the Mecca for prejusice and bigotry". You have the target of the assassination attempt still struggling to recover from a shot through her brain,six dead and 14 people still recovering. On top of that you have a flood of commentary and vicious debate over the political rhetoric that may or may not have trigger the angry young man. Somehow you have to weave through all this and come out the other end with both a reassuring and inspiring message.
The speakers rose to the occasion, even Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was gracious and made sure everyone knew that the President was welcomed to the state. I found Eric Holder's reading of the passage from II Corinthians odd because of its heavy Christological content. Janet Napolitano, the former Governor, read from Isaiah.
And then President Obama. Intending to speak for 17-18 minutes, he spoke over 34 minutes, largely because of the constant applause. The speech was political only in the largest sense. It was more a personal speech and you got the impression he dug deep into his own personal life and losses. It was the most direct speech he has given in his presidency. It was eloquent both in terms of its content but also its rhetorical flourishes.
He used the occasion to eulogize the slain through vignettes of their lives and captured the various acts of heroism committed that day. The entire focus was off the violence and on the people involved. He cited various heroes in the audience from the big, young intern Daniel Hernandez, who saved Congresswoman Giffords' life to the woman who grabbed the magazine from Jared Loughner. The unscripted part of the speech about Gabby Guffords opening her eyes for the first time was his sequeto the rousing last half of his speech. When he talked about the interns and aides, you could almost see the Obama who talked to his campaign staff after a primary loss.
Then he made his larger points over the death of Christina Green, the 9-year old who had been born on 9-11. He recounted how she was going to see Congresswoman Giffords because she was interested in politics and thought the Congresswoman would be a good role model. But Obama's point was that Green had not grown cynical as the adults about our democracy and thought it was good. This reminded me of President Obama's speech to the House Democrats encouraging them to vote for healthcare reform, when he reminded them of why they first got into politics. President Obama called for creating a country as good as Christina Green thought it was. He also talked about civility but only as far as it helps us address the broader issues facing the country. In his Reagan moment, he cited the inscription from the 9/11 book commemorating children born on that day saying ,"May you skip in Rainbow puddles." He said that if there were rainbow puddles in heaven, Christina would skipping them.
The early reaction to the speech is overwhelming comparing it to the Gettysburg Address, which FYI was panned at the time. Others said it surpassed the Challenger speech. David Gergen grouched that it didn't meet Clinton's address in Oklahoma. But from conservative to liberal, people were wowed.
What I found interesting was that conservatives, who really didn't want to stay in the crackpot corner,fully embraced it. Of course, they suggested Obama's refusal to say that the political environment triggeredhe event was a slap at the Left. I didn't take it that way, rather President Obama wanted to move it beyond politics,which he did. Charles Krauthammer said it was the moment that President Obama became head of state--that is the symbolic leader of all Americans. This is the real conservative's point about Reagan--he was the constitutional monarch who transcended nitty-gritty politics. Last night President Obama satisfied the conservative pundits he was such a man. Even the Washington Post's chief torture advocate Marc Thiessen called the speech "elegant and eloquent".
I just got the sense these people wanted President Obama to say something they could embrace so they could get out of the swamp, away from the Palins, Limbaughs and Glenn Becks. And he gave it to them. The entire Fox News crowd thought it was President Obama's best speech of his presidency.
Robert Alter, who wrote a bio of President Obama, had complained that Obama took Mario Cuomo's maxim too seriously--"You campaign in poetry but you govern in prose." Previous to the speech, he said it was necessary for Obama to use poetry on this occassion. Apparently, his conservative critics thought he did.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Projectionists
(Correction--In my last post, the John Birchers must have struck through their moles at Google. There is no Milton Eisenhower Foundation. It should have read a New York City-based foundation, which supports eugenics...I was trying to insert Milton in the tag so he would be immortalized as the Communist control agent of his brother.)
So Drudge tries to gin up outrage over Levin's grilling of Goldman Sachs officials over their mortgage fraud deals by citing Levin's use of s..t. So I thought I would look what else may be happening. Seems a Fox New anchorman used the "c" word at the same time.
Wesley Pruden weighs in on Obama's video to the OFA, blathering that it was an attack on white people. I guess no one has ever thought to actually listen to the man or know that YouTube exists. Wes says that now it is alright to use the race card for conservatives since the President did it--Not. Ok, Wes, let's play the Race Card--how about Koreans who think they are messiahs and own the Washington Times. Sounds pretty suspicious to me.
Rush Limbaugh received his talking points from Karl Rove this morning because he, too, accuses Obama of being a racist and he lists, accurately for a change, the people Obama was addressing. "Why doesn't he try to reach white males?" Poor babies.
"Tan Man" Boehner this afternoon has come up with Gold--"The Democrats have a credibility problem. They promise one thing and do another." Can you give us an example? "Tan Man" this year has raised over $3 million from Wall Street, almost double the amount of the nearest industrial group that supports him.
Great news for Wes Pruden. The national director of the Aryan Nation, Charles Juba is opening a nightclub for the under 21 crowd outside of Kansas City. The avowed anti-semite and white supremacist thinks his Black Flag Club could fill in the need for young people, who need a place to go. I guess you'll have to be a skinhead or a Goth. Or say a white male senior citizen, who can share tales of George Lincoln Rockwell.
Mexico has weighed in on the Arizona law. It said,"We don't need some stinkin' papers". President Calderon condemned the law and issued a travel advisory for Arizona. He emphasized that the law would damage bilateral relations with the United States.
Adolf Hitler has made a comeback after being banned from YouTube for his parodies. Now the Great Dictator is seen in a different scene from the same movie with a mashup with Lady Gaga. This might actually fall under the fair use clause.
Mitt Romney has come out denouncing the populism against the banks and the hedge funds, having run one himself, I guess. The Republicans might just come out and designate Romney as Corporate Overseer of the Country and Vice President Petraeus to run the Military/ Terrorist complex. And you wonder why Obama talks to blacks, Ladino and women. These honkies can get pretty scary.
The ace conservative journalist Andrew Breibart has posted a video of Obama's budget director saying there will be rationed health care in the future. Of course, no conservative wants to admit we have rationed health care now. I just hope they put the death panels back in.
I am thinking of creating a new feature--The Comparative Survey of Freedom in American States. This is derived from the Freedom House Survey of Freedom in the World.This idea has been kicking around for over a decade since my colleagues and I were thinking of getting into anti-corruption projects. Our states, including my native New Jersey, my wife's Illinois and others, were perfect for studying political corruption. Then during the last campaign, I noticed that in 45 Democratic primaries, there were serious, even fatal errors in the election administration in 27 states. If you remember, former President Jimmy Carter turned down an invitation to monitor American elections because of these structural problems, saying he and his Center could never say American elections were "free and fair." And now under the Obama Administration, we have a bonanza of state violations of political rights and civil liberties. Arizona is just the latest.
Missouri has announced it wants to copy Arizona's law. Missouri has been at the forefront of insanity for the last two years. Like Utah, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Idaho, they have aimed at restricting a women's right to choose by all sorts of subterfuges. With the resurrection of militia groups, we have more reason to examine their old haunts such as Michigan and Idaho. And good old Virginia, with Confederate month and the anti-gay rulings, has entered the sweepstakes.
After the Earth Day festival here in D.C., John Legend decided to visit friends in Federicksberg. He took two members of his band--both black--and ended up lost because his friend lived in a new subdivision. He stopped to get direction and two rednecks told him he wasn't welcome in the neighborhood because this was "confederate country".
Judge Brandeis said "Our states are the laboratories of democracy." Conversely , they look like they may want to be laboratories for American-style fascism. With the internet, we now can get a greater feel for the politics in our states, which was lacking in past decades. There are , of course, nice examples like Vermont, where they passed this past week a public option for healthcare because they felt the Obama plan didn't go far enough. Also, they have same-sex marriage. Or even Montana, which passed laws to allow for the manufacture of their own ammunition,but was the first state to establish the "health exchanges" Obamacare promised by 2014.
The Comparative Survey feature will be occur as I pile up enough information on a particular state. We could have had a load on Illinois last year. You never know whose going to be next. You never can go wrong betting on Louisiana.
I am going to avoid the brouhaha over the next cloture vote. A major American national problem can not even be discussed or debated. Gee, I'm glad we're not in any wars--right. we are.
So Drudge tries to gin up outrage over Levin's grilling of Goldman Sachs officials over their mortgage fraud deals by citing Levin's use of s..t. So I thought I would look what else may be happening. Seems a Fox New anchorman used the "c" word at the same time.
Wesley Pruden weighs in on Obama's video to the OFA, blathering that it was an attack on white people. I guess no one has ever thought to actually listen to the man or know that YouTube exists. Wes says that now it is alright to use the race card for conservatives since the President did it--Not. Ok, Wes, let's play the Race Card--how about Koreans who think they are messiahs and own the Washington Times. Sounds pretty suspicious to me.
Rush Limbaugh received his talking points from Karl Rove this morning because he, too, accuses Obama of being a racist and he lists, accurately for a change, the people Obama was addressing. "Why doesn't he try to reach white males?" Poor babies.
"Tan Man" Boehner this afternoon has come up with Gold--"The Democrats have a credibility problem. They promise one thing and do another." Can you give us an example? "Tan Man" this year has raised over $3 million from Wall Street, almost double the amount of the nearest industrial group that supports him.
Great news for Wes Pruden. The national director of the Aryan Nation, Charles Juba is opening a nightclub for the under 21 crowd outside of Kansas City. The avowed anti-semite and white supremacist thinks his Black Flag Club could fill in the need for young people, who need a place to go. I guess you'll have to be a skinhead or a Goth. Or say a white male senior citizen, who can share tales of George Lincoln Rockwell.
Mexico has weighed in on the Arizona law. It said,"We don't need some stinkin' papers". President Calderon condemned the law and issued a travel advisory for Arizona. He emphasized that the law would damage bilateral relations with the United States.
Adolf Hitler has made a comeback after being banned from YouTube for his parodies. Now the Great Dictator is seen in a different scene from the same movie with a mashup with Lady Gaga. This might actually fall under the fair use clause.
Mitt Romney has come out denouncing the populism against the banks and the hedge funds, having run one himself, I guess. The Republicans might just come out and designate Romney as Corporate Overseer of the Country and Vice President Petraeus to run the Military/ Terrorist complex. And you wonder why Obama talks to blacks, Ladino and women. These honkies can get pretty scary.
The ace conservative journalist Andrew Breibart has posted a video of Obama's budget director saying there will be rationed health care in the future. Of course, no conservative wants to admit we have rationed health care now. I just hope they put the death panels back in.
I am thinking of creating a new feature--The Comparative Survey of Freedom in American States. This is derived from the Freedom House Survey of Freedom in the World.This idea has been kicking around for over a decade since my colleagues and I were thinking of getting into anti-corruption projects. Our states, including my native New Jersey, my wife's Illinois and others, were perfect for studying political corruption. Then during the last campaign, I noticed that in 45 Democratic primaries, there were serious, even fatal errors in the election administration in 27 states. If you remember, former President Jimmy Carter turned down an invitation to monitor American elections because of these structural problems, saying he and his Center could never say American elections were "free and fair." And now under the Obama Administration, we have a bonanza of state violations of political rights and civil liberties. Arizona is just the latest.
Missouri has announced it wants to copy Arizona's law. Missouri has been at the forefront of insanity for the last two years. Like Utah, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Idaho, they have aimed at restricting a women's right to choose by all sorts of subterfuges. With the resurrection of militia groups, we have more reason to examine their old haunts such as Michigan and Idaho. And good old Virginia, with Confederate month and the anti-gay rulings, has entered the sweepstakes.
After the Earth Day festival here in D.C., John Legend decided to visit friends in Federicksberg. He took two members of his band--both black--and ended up lost because his friend lived in a new subdivision. He stopped to get direction and two rednecks told him he wasn't welcome in the neighborhood because this was "confederate country".
Judge Brandeis said "Our states are the laboratories of democracy." Conversely , they look like they may want to be laboratories for American-style fascism. With the internet, we now can get a greater feel for the politics in our states, which was lacking in past decades. There are , of course, nice examples like Vermont, where they passed this past week a public option for healthcare because they felt the Obama plan didn't go far enough. Also, they have same-sex marriage. Or even Montana, which passed laws to allow for the manufacture of their own ammunition,but was the first state to establish the "health exchanges" Obamacare promised by 2014.
The Comparative Survey feature will be occur as I pile up enough information on a particular state. We could have had a load on Illinois last year. You never know whose going to be next. You never can go wrong betting on Louisiana.
I am going to avoid the brouhaha over the next cloture vote. A major American national problem can not even be discussed or debated. Gee, I'm glad we're not in any wars--right. we are.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Hear My Train A Comin'
Still great and Hendrix does a cover of Sunshine of Your Love, which makes one lament the wrong guitarist died. Let't not go there.
The frequency of the posts is due to my procrastination in doing my taxes. As Douglas Adams, another great procrastinator, said,"I love deadlines. I love to hear them "whoosh" when they go by."
An important message to all Americans from the Right Wing: Obama is going to outlaw fishing everywhere in the United States and off the coasts. This is as good as Sean Hannity's Fox show in California where he discovered that President Obama was denying the citizens of California water because he was saving an endangered snail.
Great news from Rasmussen again, President Obama has dropped to 43% approval rating--the lowest of all time. Remember my 9% rule for Rasmussen's polls. The AP poll has Obama approval rating steady for the last two months at 53%, which is the same as the Daily Kos RS2000 poll. President Obama has gained ground on national security issues, especially the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. On the economy and health care, he still retains support from half the population.
But Congress does not fare so well. Approval of Congress has fallen to about 20%. Still, only 30% approve of how Republican congresscritters are going, compared to 36% for Democrats. Interestingly, on who should control Congress, it's 44% Democrats and 38% Republicans.
A new twist in my view is that a majority believe their congresscritter should not be re-elected. Usually, Congress' approval can fall into mud but usually when the question is asked about your representative a majority want their guy or gal re-elected.
The AP found that 56% believe America is headed in the wrong direction. This is usually the bellwether question for politics. But remember at the start of the Obama Administration only 18% felt America was heading in the right direction. As jobs start being produced, I expect the right way-wrong way numbers will shift.
Nate "The Great" Silver over at www.fivethirtyeight.com has recovered from the Olympics to make his Senate predictions for 2010. Nate was only 1 or 2 medals off in his Olympic medal predictions. He says the Democrats retain control of the Senate with 54.7 seats. Harry Reid is defeated and Dick Durbin or Charles Schumer becomes majority leader. For the Republicans to take control of the Senate, Nate says they have to run the circuit. He says they can't. On the other hand, Karl Rove says the Republicans will regain the Senate. He's wrong. Bet on Nate.
Our socialist President seems to be saving capitalism, despite itself. Mike Dorning writing in Bloomberg News reports that US stocks, which hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, have risen more than 68%, and the the Standard & Poor's 500 Index is up 41% since Obama took office. He quotes one chief economic strategist as saying," If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the President."
The chief analyst for Morgan Stanley predicts the U.S. will add 300,000 jobs in March,the most in four years. Another analyst points to productivity growing 6.9% in the fourth quarter, which was the biggest one-year gain since 2002. Commodities prices are up 32% since Obama took office. The bottom-line in the article is that everyone, including a slightly grumpy former assistant Treasury Secretary for George W., agrees that none of this would have happened without President Obama's policies.
Peace is breaking out! Todd Palin's snowmobile for the 2010 Iron Dog race is being sponsored by CITGO. That's right Hugo Chavez's CITGO. The Right again meets the Left.
Our Chief of the Supreme Court, Judge Roberts, got his feelings hurt at the State of the Union address. He told students in Alabama--seems he can't speak in a union state--that it was "troubling" that the President criticized the Supreme Court. And he doesn't know why the Supreme Court justices have to go because it's just a political pep rally. Sniff,sniff. The White House responded that what was troubling was the Court's Citizens United decision that allowed American and foreign corporations to make unlimited campaign contributions. You know the decision was bad when there is actually a real bipartisan effort to pass legislation to stop its worst effects.
Larry King asked Eric Massa whether he was gay. Y.M.C.A.
One of the problems conservatives have with social networking is that people might respond to them. Our homophobic attorney-general Ken Cuccinelli has a Facebook page and he has been inundated by protesting citizens against his decree to universities not to protect gays. More than 3,000 university students joined a Facebook page to end discrimination of gays at Virginia's Universities and another 1,000 organized their own Facebook protest at William & Mary. VCU is having a rally for gay rights with about 1,000 people. And Christopher Newport University is hosting a meeting led by both Republican and Democratic student leaders to plan next steps to pressure the state government. Virtually all the administrations of the unievsrities and colleges in the state have protested vehemently. And unfortunately for the state Republicans this has made the national news via the Washington Post.
But the Washington Post are great ones to talk. When gay and lesbian couples got their marriage licenses, the paper printed a photo of happy lesbians, but only posted a picture of gay males kissing on their website. A follow-up story about the first weddings did the same thing.
Bob Barr and former Attorney General Mukasey have weighed in against Liz Cheney. Bob Barr is a fascinating character. One of the prime movers of the case for impeachment against Bill Clinton, Barr had an abrupt change of positions during the George W. Bush administration. Barr even beat the ACLU to the punch organizing people to oppose the Patriot Act. His stance on the Cheney episode is much more constitutionally based than the other critics. He thinks all those charged with terrorism should have defense lawyers and be tried in civilian courts.
When I ran the Republican Institute, the Germans were bothered by what they perceived as growing isolationism in the United States. They saw this coming from our right-wing, which by nature are isolationists. They co-sponsored with me two days of seminars on American foreign policy but they demanded I have a real isolationist. I called Bob Barr. Even though he served as a CIA agent, Barr was vocal in his isolationism. He graciously accepted and his remarks left the German guests stunned. They had never heard anyone articulate the case for isolationism before.
After seeing Marc Thiessen on John Stewart, you might want to embrace isolationism. I don't think he should be given any forum even if it's to debate or lampoon his positions. We've produced a culture where you succeed by failing upward.
At some point, I will try to cobble together a post on the latest terrorist arrests in the United States and the two court trials in New York City, which seem to have escaped media notice. It seems the Obama Administration wants to try 9/11 conspirators in civilian courts except for Khalid Sheik Muhammed. That is the latest compromise with the Republicans. I don't like it.
The Eric Massa thing did not work out so well for conservatives. This morning's e-mails brought me complaints that Bart Stupak, an anti-abortion Democrat, is being bribed by the White House to support health care reform. We do know he is being primaried now. But we must get up and arms against the "corruption" of the Obama Administration.
Glenn Beck on his Massa disaster tried to get the former congressmen to talk about corruption. To his credit, Massa just said nothing is going to change unless we have campaign finance reform. He went on to say that the lobbyists and special interests were to blame. This Beck did not want to hear. I guess no progressives were mentioned.
I'm sorry to report Rush Limbaugh says he's not moving to Costa Rica. Apparently, he heard too many comments that it had universal health care. But, never fear, Rushbo and Ann Coulter are waging war on sea turtles, who are migrating to Palm Beach to lay their eggs. This should keep them occupied for awhile.
Watch for some further explosions on Glenn Beck's proposed rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech. It seems military personnel are upset that military charities are acting as co-sponsors for this event and raising funds for it. The backlash is not only because they see worthwhile charities abusing their non-profit status but that they object to the theme of "Restore Our Honor". The serving military complaints about this is that Beck sounds like an anti-Vietnam war protester with this stuff and what honor do we have to restore. Between the Jesuits and the American military, he knows how to pick enemies.
The frequency of the posts is due to my procrastination in doing my taxes. As Douglas Adams, another great procrastinator, said,"I love deadlines. I love to hear them "whoosh" when they go by."
An important message to all Americans from the Right Wing: Obama is going to outlaw fishing everywhere in the United States and off the coasts. This is as good as Sean Hannity's Fox show in California where he discovered that President Obama was denying the citizens of California water because he was saving an endangered snail.
Great news from Rasmussen again, President Obama has dropped to 43% approval rating--the lowest of all time. Remember my 9% rule for Rasmussen's polls. The AP poll has Obama approval rating steady for the last two months at 53%, which is the same as the Daily Kos RS2000 poll. President Obama has gained ground on national security issues, especially the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. On the economy and health care, he still retains support from half the population.
But Congress does not fare so well. Approval of Congress has fallen to about 20%. Still, only 30% approve of how Republican congresscritters are going, compared to 36% for Democrats. Interestingly, on who should control Congress, it's 44% Democrats and 38% Republicans.
A new twist in my view is that a majority believe their congresscritter should not be re-elected. Usually, Congress' approval can fall into mud but usually when the question is asked about your representative a majority want their guy or gal re-elected.
The AP found that 56% believe America is headed in the wrong direction. This is usually the bellwether question for politics. But remember at the start of the Obama Administration only 18% felt America was heading in the right direction. As jobs start being produced, I expect the right way-wrong way numbers will shift.
Nate "The Great" Silver over at www.fivethirtyeight.com has recovered from the Olympics to make his Senate predictions for 2010. Nate was only 1 or 2 medals off in his Olympic medal predictions. He says the Democrats retain control of the Senate with 54.7 seats. Harry Reid is defeated and Dick Durbin or Charles Schumer becomes majority leader. For the Republicans to take control of the Senate, Nate says they have to run the circuit. He says they can't. On the other hand, Karl Rove says the Republicans will regain the Senate. He's wrong. Bet on Nate.
Our socialist President seems to be saving capitalism, despite itself. Mike Dorning writing in Bloomberg News reports that US stocks, which hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, have risen more than 68%, and the the Standard & Poor's 500 Index is up 41% since Obama took office. He quotes one chief economic strategist as saying," If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the President."
The chief analyst for Morgan Stanley predicts the U.S. will add 300,000 jobs in March,the most in four years. Another analyst points to productivity growing 6.9% in the fourth quarter, which was the biggest one-year gain since 2002. Commodities prices are up 32% since Obama took office. The bottom-line in the article is that everyone, including a slightly grumpy former assistant Treasury Secretary for George W., agrees that none of this would have happened without President Obama's policies.
Peace is breaking out! Todd Palin's snowmobile for the 2010 Iron Dog race is being sponsored by CITGO. That's right Hugo Chavez's CITGO. The Right again meets the Left.
Our Chief of the Supreme Court, Judge Roberts, got his feelings hurt at the State of the Union address. He told students in Alabama--seems he can't speak in a union state--that it was "troubling" that the President criticized the Supreme Court. And he doesn't know why the Supreme Court justices have to go because it's just a political pep rally. Sniff,sniff. The White House responded that what was troubling was the Court's Citizens United decision that allowed American and foreign corporations to make unlimited campaign contributions. You know the decision was bad when there is actually a real bipartisan effort to pass legislation to stop its worst effects.
Larry King asked Eric Massa whether he was gay. Y.M.C.A.
One of the problems conservatives have with social networking is that people might respond to them. Our homophobic attorney-general Ken Cuccinelli has a Facebook page and he has been inundated by protesting citizens against his decree to universities not to protect gays. More than 3,000 university students joined a Facebook page to end discrimination of gays at Virginia's Universities and another 1,000 organized their own Facebook protest at William & Mary. VCU is having a rally for gay rights with about 1,000 people. And Christopher Newport University is hosting a meeting led by both Republican and Democratic student leaders to plan next steps to pressure the state government. Virtually all the administrations of the unievsrities and colleges in the state have protested vehemently. And unfortunately for the state Republicans this has made the national news via the Washington Post.
But the Washington Post are great ones to talk. When gay and lesbian couples got their marriage licenses, the paper printed a photo of happy lesbians, but only posted a picture of gay males kissing on their website. A follow-up story about the first weddings did the same thing.
Bob Barr and former Attorney General Mukasey have weighed in against Liz Cheney. Bob Barr is a fascinating character. One of the prime movers of the case for impeachment against Bill Clinton, Barr had an abrupt change of positions during the George W. Bush administration. Barr even beat the ACLU to the punch organizing people to oppose the Patriot Act. His stance on the Cheney episode is much more constitutionally based than the other critics. He thinks all those charged with terrorism should have defense lawyers and be tried in civilian courts.
When I ran the Republican Institute, the Germans were bothered by what they perceived as growing isolationism in the United States. They saw this coming from our right-wing, which by nature are isolationists. They co-sponsored with me two days of seminars on American foreign policy but they demanded I have a real isolationist. I called Bob Barr. Even though he served as a CIA agent, Barr was vocal in his isolationism. He graciously accepted and his remarks left the German guests stunned. They had never heard anyone articulate the case for isolationism before.
After seeing Marc Thiessen on John Stewart, you might want to embrace isolationism. I don't think he should be given any forum even if it's to debate or lampoon his positions. We've produced a culture where you succeed by failing upward.
At some point, I will try to cobble together a post on the latest terrorist arrests in the United States and the two court trials in New York City, which seem to have escaped media notice. It seems the Obama Administration wants to try 9/11 conspirators in civilian courts except for Khalid Sheik Muhammed. That is the latest compromise with the Republicans. I don't like it.
The Eric Massa thing did not work out so well for conservatives. This morning's e-mails brought me complaints that Bart Stupak, an anti-abortion Democrat, is being bribed by the White House to support health care reform. We do know he is being primaried now. But we must get up and arms against the "corruption" of the Obama Administration.
Glenn Beck on his Massa disaster tried to get the former congressmen to talk about corruption. To his credit, Massa just said nothing is going to change unless we have campaign finance reform. He went on to say that the lobbyists and special interests were to blame. This Beck did not want to hear. I guess no progressives were mentioned.
I'm sorry to report Rush Limbaugh says he's not moving to Costa Rica. Apparently, he heard too many comments that it had universal health care. But, never fear, Rushbo and Ann Coulter are waging war on sea turtles, who are migrating to Palm Beach to lay their eggs. This should keep them occupied for awhile.
Watch for some further explosions on Glenn Beck's proposed rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech. It seems military personnel are upset that military charities are acting as co-sponsors for this event and raising funds for it. The backlash is not only because they see worthwhile charities abusing their non-profit status but that they object to the theme of "Restore Our Honor". The serving military complaints about this is that Beck sounds like an anti-Vietnam war protester with this stuff and what honor do we have to restore. Between the Jesuits and the American military, he knows how to pick enemies.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
No One ever expects the Spanish Inquisition, not even Glenn Beck
Morning--Glenn Beck tells his listeners to confront priests and pastors about the "social gospel" since this is a code word Communism and Nazism. Then they should leave the church. Early afternoon, news of this is posted on Huffington Post. By late afternoon the Office of the Inquisition arrives in the form of Jesuit James Martin, the cultural editor of America magazine. Martin blasts Beck in an op-ed on Huffington Post titled "Glenn Beck tells Jesus-Drop Dead". Martin then lectures Catholics that Beck is asking them to leave the Mother Church and he recites a litany of papal encyclicals starting with Pope Leo in the mid-19th century that articulate the social gospel and its centrality to Catholic teaching. And for non-Catholic Christians he recalls the teachings of Jesus about helping the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged. I would take this as a less than coded message to Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly to stay away from Beck for the sake of their eternal well-being. You don't want to make Jesuits your enemy and their appearance on such matters indicates Mr. Beck has caught the attention of the Cathoic Church. Next I expect the appearance of Max Von Sydow as the Exorcist. Don't think the Catholic Church is going to drop this now that they have officially taken a shot at Glenn Beck. This may be entertainment for Beck but this is serious stuff to the church hierarchy.
The last public appearance of a Jesuit in writing was the editor of America writing in the Washington Post defending Nortre Dame giving Barack Obama an honorary doctorate, pointing out that the Catholic Church recognizes that Obama's social and economic policies were closely aligned with the Vatican's teachings and that there was room to have a dialogue about abortion. You'll remember the fuss of people like Alan Keyes with his SpongeBob Square Pants stroller with a doll, which was supposed to represent a dead fetus.
Good news, Rush Limbaugh has declared he will be moving out of the country if the healthcare bill passes. He has put his departure date at 5 years--contract obligations and all. He will be moving to Costa Rica, which has universal healthcare. Rush previously benefited from Hawaii's universal health care system. This seems to be a conservative trait lately. Sarah Palin telling Canadians her family used to cross the border for health care. Too bad we can't have it here.
If you want to get a sense of why and how the Bush Administration sent me around the bend, just watch the Liz Cheney-Bill Kristol cartoon show for Keep America Scared. Yesterday,Bill Kristol brushed off criticism of the Al Qaeda 7--now 9--ad saying that only "establishment lawyers will object. After all lawyers don't liked to be criticized." By afternoon, people like Ted Olson and Ken Starr not only gave out little sound-bites but produced a letter signed by dozens of lawyers and Bush Administration officials blasting the attacks on the DOJ lawyers. When Ken Starr appears and is allowed to appear on the Keith Olberman show, you know something serious has happened. Starr pointed out that the lawyers defending the detainees were serving the justice system and that in future terrorist cases there will be the need for a vigorous defense. After all he said the Department of Justice was not called the Department of Law Enforcement for nothing. And, of course, he mentioned John Adams defense of British soldiers accused of committing massacres in Boston. Starr also pointed out that the American military called some of these people up on weekends to ask for their help.
By the time this all winds down, I am sure we will surpass Joe McCarthy's numbers of those accused of having "jihadist" leanings in the Justice Department. But the more I watch this I recall the genuine incompetence of the Bush people. A war presidency, where the only one in the loop with war experience was Don Rumsfeld. Colin Powell was kept out of the loop even though he had been the head of the Joint Chief of Staff. Dick Cheney, who had been pushed aside during decision-making times during the Gulf War, assumed pivotal control. Virtually all the lawyers involved knew nothing about war, terrorism, national security law and I would argue the constitution itself. The top leaders only appointed ideologues beneath them and not people with any competence. So you get the lunacy of a Monica Goodling at DOJ. All the military lawyers, FBI interrogators and permanent CIA personnel were cast aside for the whole debate on torture. Amateur psychologists were hired to develop the torture program with absolutely no empirical proof that these techniques would produce any actionable intelligence, while plunging the country into a period of committing war crimes. As we learned yesterday Liz Cheney acted to deflect State Department personnel from developing a broad coalition government in Iraq.
Dick Cheney used to say, "We're a Superpower so we make our own reality." Well, you have to know how to manage that reality. Hiring a freelance journalist at the Pentagon to review the case against Saddam Hussein and linking him to Al Qaeda and 9/11. That reality didn't last too long. Dissolving the entire Iraq army because Paul Wolfowitz said they were all Nazis, that was brilliant. I generally don't like the State Department but I don't consider it the enemy. I think they have recovered somewhat from the days of Alger Hiss. But remember you had Marc Thiessen, former aide to Jesse Helms, as presidential speechwriter and Helms called State "the Kremlin on the Potomac". Marc , who also has no experience in war, terrorism, law or democracy, is now the expert on how torture saved the country. Believe me, if there is a next time it will be worse.
Bill Kristol is the father of big government conservatism as readers of the Weekly Standard, which called for a coalition of social conservatives, economic conservatives and neo-conservatives molding public policy to their ideological ends. Bill has not an ounce of political sense when it comes to domestic politics as witnessed by his embrace of Sarah Palin and his calls for war against Iran. Ideology first, last and foremost. If conservatives want power as we have witnessed for the past ten years, they will also need to develop competence because policy isn't just about diktats from the nomenklatura.
I expect to see some new assaults on neoconservatives by traditional conservatives. Bob Tyrrell, the editor-in-chief of the American Spectator, is about to publish his book on the future of conservative entitled After The Hangover. He is supposed to call for the return of Goldwater-Reagan principles and jettisoning the neoconservatives. Personally, I believe their day is done and over with. Bob was always puzzled by the behavior of the Bush White House. Privately, he thought it could be attributed to W being a recovering alcoholic. That's a warm endorsement.
In recent months we have seen conservatives throw the following under the bus--lawyers, scientists and teachers. Next will be doctors if the AMA again supportsObama's plan to reform Healthcare. It's a dangerous war against expertise.
The last public appearance of a Jesuit in writing was the editor of America writing in the Washington Post defending Nortre Dame giving Barack Obama an honorary doctorate, pointing out that the Catholic Church recognizes that Obama's social and economic policies were closely aligned with the Vatican's teachings and that there was room to have a dialogue about abortion. You'll remember the fuss of people like Alan Keyes with his SpongeBob Square Pants stroller with a doll, which was supposed to represent a dead fetus.
Good news, Rush Limbaugh has declared he will be moving out of the country if the healthcare bill passes. He has put his departure date at 5 years--contract obligations and all. He will be moving to Costa Rica, which has universal healthcare. Rush previously benefited from Hawaii's universal health care system. This seems to be a conservative trait lately. Sarah Palin telling Canadians her family used to cross the border for health care. Too bad we can't have it here.
If you want to get a sense of why and how the Bush Administration sent me around the bend, just watch the Liz Cheney-Bill Kristol cartoon show for Keep America Scared. Yesterday,Bill Kristol brushed off criticism of the Al Qaeda 7--now 9--ad saying that only "establishment lawyers will object. After all lawyers don't liked to be criticized." By afternoon, people like Ted Olson and Ken Starr not only gave out little sound-bites but produced a letter signed by dozens of lawyers and Bush Administration officials blasting the attacks on the DOJ lawyers. When Ken Starr appears and is allowed to appear on the Keith Olberman show, you know something serious has happened. Starr pointed out that the lawyers defending the detainees were serving the justice system and that in future terrorist cases there will be the need for a vigorous defense. After all he said the Department of Justice was not called the Department of Law Enforcement for nothing. And, of course, he mentioned John Adams defense of British soldiers accused of committing massacres in Boston. Starr also pointed out that the American military called some of these people up on weekends to ask for their help.
By the time this all winds down, I am sure we will surpass Joe McCarthy's numbers of those accused of having "jihadist" leanings in the Justice Department. But the more I watch this I recall the genuine incompetence of the Bush people. A war presidency, where the only one in the loop with war experience was Don Rumsfeld. Colin Powell was kept out of the loop even though he had been the head of the Joint Chief of Staff. Dick Cheney, who had been pushed aside during decision-making times during the Gulf War, assumed pivotal control. Virtually all the lawyers involved knew nothing about war, terrorism, national security law and I would argue the constitution itself. The top leaders only appointed ideologues beneath them and not people with any competence. So you get the lunacy of a Monica Goodling at DOJ. All the military lawyers, FBI interrogators and permanent CIA personnel were cast aside for the whole debate on torture. Amateur psychologists were hired to develop the torture program with absolutely no empirical proof that these techniques would produce any actionable intelligence, while plunging the country into a period of committing war crimes. As we learned yesterday Liz Cheney acted to deflect State Department personnel from developing a broad coalition government in Iraq.
Dick Cheney used to say, "We're a Superpower so we make our own reality." Well, you have to know how to manage that reality. Hiring a freelance journalist at the Pentagon to review the case against Saddam Hussein and linking him to Al Qaeda and 9/11. That reality didn't last too long. Dissolving the entire Iraq army because Paul Wolfowitz said they were all Nazis, that was brilliant. I generally don't like the State Department but I don't consider it the enemy. I think they have recovered somewhat from the days of Alger Hiss. But remember you had Marc Thiessen, former aide to Jesse Helms, as presidential speechwriter and Helms called State "the Kremlin on the Potomac". Marc , who also has no experience in war, terrorism, law or democracy, is now the expert on how torture saved the country. Believe me, if there is a next time it will be worse.
Bill Kristol is the father of big government conservatism as readers of the Weekly Standard, which called for a coalition of social conservatives, economic conservatives and neo-conservatives molding public policy to their ideological ends. Bill has not an ounce of political sense when it comes to domestic politics as witnessed by his embrace of Sarah Palin and his calls for war against Iran. Ideology first, last and foremost. If conservatives want power as we have witnessed for the past ten years, they will also need to develop competence because policy isn't just about diktats from the nomenklatura.
I expect to see some new assaults on neoconservatives by traditional conservatives. Bob Tyrrell, the editor-in-chief of the American Spectator, is about to publish his book on the future of conservative entitled After The Hangover. He is supposed to call for the return of Goldwater-Reagan principles and jettisoning the neoconservatives. Personally, I believe their day is done and over with. Bob was always puzzled by the behavior of the Bush White House. Privately, he thought it could be attributed to W being a recovering alcoholic. That's a warm endorsement.
In recent months we have seen conservatives throw the following under the bus--lawyers, scientists and teachers. Next will be doctors if the AMA again supportsObama's plan to reform Healthcare. It's a dangerous war against expertise.
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Conservative Crack-Up
While in Ethiopia, I received an e-mail with a large Black Face with Red Lips crying ,"It's all Bush's fault" from one of the many conservatives I know. This was a cartoon with commentary on the president's State of the Union address. My response was that Obama basically took and owns the entire Republican vocabulary on tax cuts for small businesses and the middle class, while leaving the Republicans to defend the banks, the rich and propose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Throw in torture, Gitmo and endless wars and I'm not so sure I would want to defend the Republican positions on anything. While on-line in Addis, I watched as Obama slaughtered the Republican House members at their retreat in Baltimore. But none of my right-wing correspondents will acknowledge this, even cherry-picking a response where they thought one representative got the better of Obama (in the full context the guy looked like a fool.) I've concluded long ago that Republicans, conservatives and their tea bag allies have never listened to a single Obama speech or policy proposal. The President is deluding himself when he just invited the Republicans to debate health care at the White House this month.
While at the African Union heads of state meeting in Ethiopia, I noticed their agenda consisted of the topics of peace and security; maintaining constitutional government; and the role of IT in development. Having dealt with these issues for decades I thought I would find them just the same old same old. But today I find them refreshing. Whoever the African leaders might be and how little political will they may possess to implement what they discussed, the fact of the matter is that their discussion was rational and modern, a bracing change from the insanity of our own political discussions in the United States.
Yes, terrorism is a problem for them as they showed concern about developments in Somalia but it was discussed without the hysteria we now find in the United States. I found it amusing that the plane from Germany had a stop-over in Yemen, where a considerable number of German tourists were heading for just that--tourism.
Reviewing television news coverage of global events while in Africa it dawned on me that the United States was not that much of a story or even a factor political pundits even discussed. While this would seem parochial in the past, it comes across now that the United States is not "the indispensable country" Charles Krauthammer argued in 2000. Developments in alternative energy sources and new methods of manufacturing were covered by examining the role of Asian and European countries. In the dozens of shows I watched nothing innovative shown was of American origin. At most we received a tangential reference as a country warring here and there. The coverage of political causes around the world showed hundreds of voices from a variety of non-governmental organizations, few of whom had support from America.
The tone I picked up at the African Union was a fond remembrance of America as it existed decades ago and a certain support for Barack Obama, a son of Africa but more importantly as a leader of a developing country. The delegations at the African Union dealt with their own agenda as dictated by their own needs. A healthy development after all these years but somewhat disconcerting to an American, who now really stands outside their development priorities.
This all brings me back to the collapse of conservative thought in the United States and the shards of right-wing protests and rage. Since Woodrow Wilson, American exceptionalism had an intellectual content and policy implications. Now with the implosion of conservatives, it has taken a darker, some would say, sinister tone. The European and Asian communities still look toward the United States for leadership on a host of issues, particularly on the global financial crisis. They assume a fairly pragmatic leadership aimed at stabilizing the world's economy and putting in place a regulatory regime to prevent another fiscal meltdown. In return, they afford us forebearance on the issue of Afghanistan and perhaps even Iran. They have welcomed a new Administration, which is not prone to act unilaterally on issues and to bully former allies into compliance. But all that would change if the radical right ever see power in the United States.
Upon my return I was treated to the Teabag Convention in Nashville, which drew a whopping 600 members. For an historical footnote, the Unitarian Universalist Church held a convention in the same place in the late 1990s with over 1,500 delegates from different churches. the UUs are a very minor religion in the United States. They did not receive wall-to-wall coverage by our networks. The same will apply to the netroots convention in Las vegas later this year, which will outdraw even the UUs but will receive no media attention.
The Teabag Convention brought to a national audience Tom Tancredo, a second generation Italian-American, who raged against immigrants, called for literacy tests for voting and criticized voters who didn't speak English. He even called for all non-Christians to be expelled from the country. The entrepeneur Joseph Farah of World Net Daily spent a good amount of his address on the issue of whether Barack Obama was born in the United States, although anyone reading this blog knows this is irrelevant to anything other than to denounce the "other". The Queen of the Birthers Orly Taitz was there to drum up more funding for her futile attempts to make Obama's birth certificate a legal issue. When was the last time an American President was ever asked for his birth certificate?
The star of the show was Sarah Palin, who received a speaking fee of $100,000 for the gig. Deliberately eschewing a teleprompter in a criticism of Obama's eloquence, she fumbled through notecards and delivered a speech in her imitation hillbilly voice. She wore a US-Israeli flag pin since her religious beliefs call for the return of Jesus to Israel after a global war and the resurrection of the believers in "rapture". For this to occur, Jews must return to Israel and Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands must be extended if there is to be enough room. Of course, in the end days the Jews all get exterminated. Why Israel plays with these people is still beyond me.
One could dismiss this all if the polls of Republicans demonstrated any rationality. The Reseaarch 2000 poll of 2,000 Republicans showed that 65% believe Obama is a socialist; a plurality believe he should be impeached, about a half either believe he wasn't born in the United States or have doubts, and a majority believe Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be President. That's not a serious party.
The conservative paradigm has failed and the religious right is filling it. One of the discussions at the Teabag Conventions was encouraging the end of the separation between Church and State. What we see now is that cultural conservatives are deliberating dividing the middle class, playing on the old wedge issues of abortion, gays and guns. The fact that many of these teabaggers actually share critics of government and the economy not unlike the Democrats is being diverted by all these peripheral issues.
The economic Republicans are no longer for the middle class or small businesses. They are in full tilt support of large corporations and the wealthiest of us. This is simply no sympathy for the vanishing Middle Class. The Middle Class is supposed to be kept in line by cultural conservatives, especially the religious right.
Neoconservatives have been trying to make a comeback through critiques of Obama's foreign policy, which in private they can not find much to disagree with. However, married to whatever emerges in Republican circles they will just be reduced to a position of bellicosity in the Middle East, which will satisfy the Religious Right.
But I noticed another e-mail from a former colleague who is running for the House as a Republican in Michigan. He is running against the stimulus package, for smaller government, for constitutional government, against closing Gitmo and giving terrorists Miranda rights. I have not had the heart to ask him whether smaller government means dismantling the $1 trillion military-terrorist complex. But when you look at all the anti-government proposals and spending cut rhetoric you have an argument to dismantle the entire social welfare system in the United States. The House Republican budget plan of privatizing Social Security and ending Medicare only flag the return of the 1920s economic theories of the Republicans.
Today, 30% of Americans are now in poverty--which these people would like to believe are the black underclass and Hispanics but the vast majority are white. The Middle Class in the United States has lost income steadily for twenty years and its quality of life is vanishing. In many ways, the teabaggers are a delayed reaction to the economic disaster of the Bush-Cheney years. That also explains why corporate interests are heavily funding parts of their organizations so that they can channel this anger at the Obama Administration. A few teabaggers did recoil at the Supreme Court's ruling on corporate giving to political campaigns but not the majority of their spokespeople.
The political answer for these people is a pugnacious nationalism based on the perceived grievances of the white middle-class. If you are not white,Christian and heterosexual, you are the "other" that is bringing the country down. We see this in the arguments of the anti-gay lawyers for Prop 8, arguing from books and studies written in the 1950s, wishing that Ozzie and Harriet were the model parental unit. The scree by Tom Tancredo brings back the anti-immigrant rhetoric found in many populist movements but also the longing to return to an America pre-civil rights.
No sober assessment will come from the conservative circles--they have become a conservative nomenklatura--the conservative foundation welfare queens. These people who control talk radio, Fox News and a myriad of think-tanks in Washington and elsewhere simply can not think questions anew. They are stuck in the Old Think. They still believe after a generation of Reagan that they are the minority pitted against the liberal media and secular culture of America. They fervantly believe despite their six-figure salaries they are the intellectually oppressed, who face ridicule for their beliefs.
This is also a theme being picked up by the Religious Right--somehow their freedom of religion is being jeopardized as their control over certain segments of the society slip away. We have seen that in the health reform debate when Catholics and evangelicals protested over the ability for women to choose. We see this in the whole anti-gay debate that gay marriage would be an imposition on the churches and their religious teaching. And we see this everyday in the attacks on science at the school board levels.
Personally, I resent like hell that the Religious Right dominates the parameters of the whole discussion on religion in this society. I have just come back from a society who has practiced Christianity since 330 and in every diocese of their church is an administrative unit that deals with poverty because they believe that is essential to Christianity. Across the street from the major Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Addis is Lucy, our primitive ancestor, along with other examples of pre-Homo Sapiens. There are no religious protestors here. There are no attacks on evolution or the insistance on creationism in what is still and underdeveloped country. Just a week away from our own neurosis allows one to get a perspective on how far down a wrong path we have gone.
The pattern emerging is the bleeding of radical extremes from white and Christian nationalism into the discourse of conservatives. There is a deliberate and frontal assault on the separation of church and state. There is the age-old recurrence of anti-immigration rhetoric we know from the Know-Nothings. In a situation where we seem to have lost control, there is a desire for law and order as well as social control. Because we Americans really believe we may win the lottery or get rich someday, these people do not want to tax the wealthy, large corporations or the banks because they have been conditioned to believe that they or their children might luck out.
Certainly, there is some reason to believe this. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are college dropouts who make over $50 million each and Sarah Palin has become a millionaire, despite quitting as elected Governor of Alaska and needing four colleges and five years to get a B.A. This has coarsened our debate.
But it has also led to a more dangerous situation--the denigration of education or anyone who is educated. What is fascinating to me is that neoconservatives prided themselves in the beginning on their elitism and their education. Irving Kristol was an accomplished social scientist, who believed that rational analysis would support policy arguments. Instead, now we have corporate funded think-tanks attacking everything from climate change to evolution. During the beginning of the Iraq War, the Pentagon hired a free-lance journalist to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, while all the people with linguistic skills, regional expertise and religious understanding who concluded the opposite were cast aside. It will take a few more years of the Obama Administration before we can unravel the nonsense of the past in our fight against terrorism.
I believe the pattern of the right represents a incipient fascism. But let's say this does not fully mature. If these people return to power, what major power in the world will deal with the United States. The current climate on the right makes George W. Bush look like a moderate. No responsible economic power in the world could deal with a Palin or a Huckabee. The only ally the United States would have is Israel and only as long as the Likud and the far-right parties are in power. No one in their right mind would buy US Treasuries. We would automatically cease to be a major country on the world stage. This would indeed be American exceptionalism but not for the good.
And what about the "common good"--will there exist such a thing. Our own constitutional government is deeply threatened not only from the radical right but by the Supreme Court itself. The discovery by the Right of our Constitution goes back to the Christian Nationalist movement and their belief in full citizens and those after the civil war. Imagine having a woman married to a secessionist (Sarah Plain) extolling the virtues of the 14th amendment? You could not have made that up a few years ago without getting a laugh.
As I have written before, America's economic fate might be grim but it is essential that the idea of America be kept alive because even when we are dead people around the world can take solace and draw strength on the idea of America. Let's not be the instrument to kill the idea.
While at the African Union heads of state meeting in Ethiopia, I noticed their agenda consisted of the topics of peace and security; maintaining constitutional government; and the role of IT in development. Having dealt with these issues for decades I thought I would find them just the same old same old. But today I find them refreshing. Whoever the African leaders might be and how little political will they may possess to implement what they discussed, the fact of the matter is that their discussion was rational and modern, a bracing change from the insanity of our own political discussions in the United States.
Yes, terrorism is a problem for them as they showed concern about developments in Somalia but it was discussed without the hysteria we now find in the United States. I found it amusing that the plane from Germany had a stop-over in Yemen, where a considerable number of German tourists were heading for just that--tourism.
Reviewing television news coverage of global events while in Africa it dawned on me that the United States was not that much of a story or even a factor political pundits even discussed. While this would seem parochial in the past, it comes across now that the United States is not "the indispensable country" Charles Krauthammer argued in 2000. Developments in alternative energy sources and new methods of manufacturing were covered by examining the role of Asian and European countries. In the dozens of shows I watched nothing innovative shown was of American origin. At most we received a tangential reference as a country warring here and there. The coverage of political causes around the world showed hundreds of voices from a variety of non-governmental organizations, few of whom had support from America.
The tone I picked up at the African Union was a fond remembrance of America as it existed decades ago and a certain support for Barack Obama, a son of Africa but more importantly as a leader of a developing country. The delegations at the African Union dealt with their own agenda as dictated by their own needs. A healthy development after all these years but somewhat disconcerting to an American, who now really stands outside their development priorities.
This all brings me back to the collapse of conservative thought in the United States and the shards of right-wing protests and rage. Since Woodrow Wilson, American exceptionalism had an intellectual content and policy implications. Now with the implosion of conservatives, it has taken a darker, some would say, sinister tone. The European and Asian communities still look toward the United States for leadership on a host of issues, particularly on the global financial crisis. They assume a fairly pragmatic leadership aimed at stabilizing the world's economy and putting in place a regulatory regime to prevent another fiscal meltdown. In return, they afford us forebearance on the issue of Afghanistan and perhaps even Iran. They have welcomed a new Administration, which is not prone to act unilaterally on issues and to bully former allies into compliance. But all that would change if the radical right ever see power in the United States.
Upon my return I was treated to the Teabag Convention in Nashville, which drew a whopping 600 members. For an historical footnote, the Unitarian Universalist Church held a convention in the same place in the late 1990s with over 1,500 delegates from different churches. the UUs are a very minor religion in the United States. They did not receive wall-to-wall coverage by our networks. The same will apply to the netroots convention in Las vegas later this year, which will outdraw even the UUs but will receive no media attention.
The Teabag Convention brought to a national audience Tom Tancredo, a second generation Italian-American, who raged against immigrants, called for literacy tests for voting and criticized voters who didn't speak English. He even called for all non-Christians to be expelled from the country. The entrepeneur Joseph Farah of World Net Daily spent a good amount of his address on the issue of whether Barack Obama was born in the United States, although anyone reading this blog knows this is irrelevant to anything other than to denounce the "other". The Queen of the Birthers Orly Taitz was there to drum up more funding for her futile attempts to make Obama's birth certificate a legal issue. When was the last time an American President was ever asked for his birth certificate?
The star of the show was Sarah Palin, who received a speaking fee of $100,000 for the gig. Deliberately eschewing a teleprompter in a criticism of Obama's eloquence, she fumbled through notecards and delivered a speech in her imitation hillbilly voice. She wore a US-Israeli flag pin since her religious beliefs call for the return of Jesus to Israel after a global war and the resurrection of the believers in "rapture". For this to occur, Jews must return to Israel and Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands must be extended if there is to be enough room. Of course, in the end days the Jews all get exterminated. Why Israel plays with these people is still beyond me.
One could dismiss this all if the polls of Republicans demonstrated any rationality. The Reseaarch 2000 poll of 2,000 Republicans showed that 65% believe Obama is a socialist; a plurality believe he should be impeached, about a half either believe he wasn't born in the United States or have doubts, and a majority believe Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be President. That's not a serious party.
The conservative paradigm has failed and the religious right is filling it. One of the discussions at the Teabag Conventions was encouraging the end of the separation between Church and State. What we see now is that cultural conservatives are deliberating dividing the middle class, playing on the old wedge issues of abortion, gays and guns. The fact that many of these teabaggers actually share critics of government and the economy not unlike the Democrats is being diverted by all these peripheral issues.
The economic Republicans are no longer for the middle class or small businesses. They are in full tilt support of large corporations and the wealthiest of us. This is simply no sympathy for the vanishing Middle Class. The Middle Class is supposed to be kept in line by cultural conservatives, especially the religious right.
Neoconservatives have been trying to make a comeback through critiques of Obama's foreign policy, which in private they can not find much to disagree with. However, married to whatever emerges in Republican circles they will just be reduced to a position of bellicosity in the Middle East, which will satisfy the Religious Right.
But I noticed another e-mail from a former colleague who is running for the House as a Republican in Michigan. He is running against the stimulus package, for smaller government, for constitutional government, against closing Gitmo and giving terrorists Miranda rights. I have not had the heart to ask him whether smaller government means dismantling the $1 trillion military-terrorist complex. But when you look at all the anti-government proposals and spending cut rhetoric you have an argument to dismantle the entire social welfare system in the United States. The House Republican budget plan of privatizing Social Security and ending Medicare only flag the return of the 1920s economic theories of the Republicans.
Today, 30% of Americans are now in poverty--which these people would like to believe are the black underclass and Hispanics but the vast majority are white. The Middle Class in the United States has lost income steadily for twenty years and its quality of life is vanishing. In many ways, the teabaggers are a delayed reaction to the economic disaster of the Bush-Cheney years. That also explains why corporate interests are heavily funding parts of their organizations so that they can channel this anger at the Obama Administration. A few teabaggers did recoil at the Supreme Court's ruling on corporate giving to political campaigns but not the majority of their spokespeople.
The political answer for these people is a pugnacious nationalism based on the perceived grievances of the white middle-class. If you are not white,Christian and heterosexual, you are the "other" that is bringing the country down. We see this in the arguments of the anti-gay lawyers for Prop 8, arguing from books and studies written in the 1950s, wishing that Ozzie and Harriet were the model parental unit. The scree by Tom Tancredo brings back the anti-immigrant rhetoric found in many populist movements but also the longing to return to an America pre-civil rights.
No sober assessment will come from the conservative circles--they have become a conservative nomenklatura--the conservative foundation welfare queens. These people who control talk radio, Fox News and a myriad of think-tanks in Washington and elsewhere simply can not think questions anew. They are stuck in the Old Think. They still believe after a generation of Reagan that they are the minority pitted against the liberal media and secular culture of America. They fervantly believe despite their six-figure salaries they are the intellectually oppressed, who face ridicule for their beliefs.
This is also a theme being picked up by the Religious Right--somehow their freedom of religion is being jeopardized as their control over certain segments of the society slip away. We have seen that in the health reform debate when Catholics and evangelicals protested over the ability for women to choose. We see this in the whole anti-gay debate that gay marriage would be an imposition on the churches and their religious teaching. And we see this everyday in the attacks on science at the school board levels.
Personally, I resent like hell that the Religious Right dominates the parameters of the whole discussion on religion in this society. I have just come back from a society who has practiced Christianity since 330 and in every diocese of their church is an administrative unit that deals with poverty because they believe that is essential to Christianity. Across the street from the major Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Addis is Lucy, our primitive ancestor, along with other examples of pre-Homo Sapiens. There are no religious protestors here. There are no attacks on evolution or the insistance on creationism in what is still and underdeveloped country. Just a week away from our own neurosis allows one to get a perspective on how far down a wrong path we have gone.
The pattern emerging is the bleeding of radical extremes from white and Christian nationalism into the discourse of conservatives. There is a deliberate and frontal assault on the separation of church and state. There is the age-old recurrence of anti-immigration rhetoric we know from the Know-Nothings. In a situation where we seem to have lost control, there is a desire for law and order as well as social control. Because we Americans really believe we may win the lottery or get rich someday, these people do not want to tax the wealthy, large corporations or the banks because they have been conditioned to believe that they or their children might luck out.
Certainly, there is some reason to believe this. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are college dropouts who make over $50 million each and Sarah Palin has become a millionaire, despite quitting as elected Governor of Alaska and needing four colleges and five years to get a B.A. This has coarsened our debate.
But it has also led to a more dangerous situation--the denigration of education or anyone who is educated. What is fascinating to me is that neoconservatives prided themselves in the beginning on their elitism and their education. Irving Kristol was an accomplished social scientist, who believed that rational analysis would support policy arguments. Instead, now we have corporate funded think-tanks attacking everything from climate change to evolution. During the beginning of the Iraq War, the Pentagon hired a free-lance journalist to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, while all the people with linguistic skills, regional expertise and religious understanding who concluded the opposite were cast aside. It will take a few more years of the Obama Administration before we can unravel the nonsense of the past in our fight against terrorism.
I believe the pattern of the right represents a incipient fascism. But let's say this does not fully mature. If these people return to power, what major power in the world will deal with the United States. The current climate on the right makes George W. Bush look like a moderate. No responsible economic power in the world could deal with a Palin or a Huckabee. The only ally the United States would have is Israel and only as long as the Likud and the far-right parties are in power. No one in their right mind would buy US Treasuries. We would automatically cease to be a major country on the world stage. This would indeed be American exceptionalism but not for the good.
And what about the "common good"--will there exist such a thing. Our own constitutional government is deeply threatened not only from the radical right but by the Supreme Court itself. The discovery by the Right of our Constitution goes back to the Christian Nationalist movement and their belief in full citizens and those after the civil war. Imagine having a woman married to a secessionist (Sarah Plain) extolling the virtues of the 14th amendment? You could not have made that up a few years ago without getting a laugh.
As I have written before, America's economic fate might be grim but it is essential that the idea of America be kept alive because even when we are dead people around the world can take solace and draw strength on the idea of America. Let's not be the instrument to kill the idea.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Saturday Afternoon--Shards of Summer
President Obama pushed Gibbs out of the way and gave his own Friday press briefing recapping the progress toward Health Care reform and promises that his plan will not affect the deficit. he seems to have some fire over from his trip to New Jersey and the NAACP speech. Luckily for him the new Congressional Budget Office report backs him up and supports the House bill. Blue Dog Democrats wanting to postpone the health reform are going to be disappointed.
Senator DeMint of South Carolina declares this "Obama's Waterloo" and if health care reform is stopped, it will break his presidency. Which would lead 3 1/2 years left. And then what wait for the Republicans to conjure up some ideas? The awe-inspiring lack of any consideration for the public good still amazes me about the Obama-era Republicans.
Meanwhile Dick Lugar was the first Republican to announce his support for Sotomayor--Mel Martinez and Olympia Snowe were soon to follow. So, it's 63 so far and at least 1 Republican has to vote for her on the Judiciary to get the nomination to the floor. I think Grassley and Hatch will go for her. I am tired of hearing how the Republican strategy was to set the markers for the next nominee, not Sotomayor, who I insist is a moderate. I am more convinced than ever Obama should invite a donnybrook for the next nominee and name Laurence Tribe--with both men recognizing it might be a losing struggle. At least we might have hearing where constitutional issues might be openly debated--and it would be worth it. Tribe would probably not be long on the court but I would pay to hear a debate between him and Sessions.
The Obama era has not been kind to the Free Republic. Several bloggers have made the news--the Holocaust Museum killer, the Pittsburgh cop killer and the killer of Dr. Tiller. A few comments had brought the Secret Service around. Sarah Palin quits--despite the false bravado on the website about what a righteous move this was. Mitt Romney supporters purged and the quest to exterminate the RINOS continues. Now Jim Robinson has called for a revolution and armed resistance if----health care reform is passed. A curious thing since both he and his wife are wheelchair bound. Medicaid, Tricare --they must have something that the rest of don't have. For years I have been a lurker at the site and lament this descent into a certain lunacy. Before other sites covered certain topics on the right they did without the heightened religious content and now the vitriol over Obama.
Birthers are now being covered on television as sort of the Moon landing deniers and 9/11 truthers. The Young Turks this week covered the great Obama birth certificate flap with their sense of humor--they even showed a tape of the original certificate--creased with all the appropriate seals and signatures. They even quoted the harassed Hawaiian government officials about "how many times do we have to say it is authentic and he was born in Hawaii". Birthers made it on the Worse Persons of the World for encouraging serving military men to join in their suits to avoid service in Afghanistan. Another federal judge had to rule against an Army Reserve Major who protested his impending call-up--he volunteered after signing on as a plaintiff to this case--alleging Obama was not eligible to be Commander-in-Chief. After declaring a victory of sorts, when the case went against him and his lawyer and the military withdrew his call-up, CENTCOM had to make announcement calling their calls ridiculous.
Not to be outdone by Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh seems to be stirring the racial war pot himself. Frankly, I haven't seen blacks getting much advantage from the Obama Administration and especially during this depression. I'm wondering where the great grievances of Rich White Men are coming from. Even with a surtax for health reform, both men will be earning in a month more than the average American couple earns in a year or two. I think it's unseemly for the very wealthy to be bitter and angry. As the Bible says, From those who have received much, much is expected.
The gnostic cult here in D.C., the Family seems to be breeding more adulterers by the minute. Former Republican Congressman Pickering of Missippi apparently joins the list with Sanford and Ensign of those with Family connections who seemed to have gone soft on some of the 10 Commandments. His wife is suing the mistress for causing "alienation of affection"--I like that. Apparently, Pickering actually conducted the affair in the "C" Street house itself. It's cool to be one of God's Chosen--the rules don't apply. Meanwhile Gov Sanford seems to have misused state funds to facilitate his love affair--he at least fell in love.
Obama needs to go for the gold on health care reform right now or it will slip,slide away and , for get the political consequences, the economic effects will be devastating. With unemployment rising, those without health insurance increases, personal bankruptcy increases and the impact on the national deficit increases. The only other domestic reform Obama will be able to get out of Congress will be Immigration Reform. The Republicans know that health care reform, immigration reform and their opposition to Sotomayor and they are doomed. That's why Republicans are fighting tooth and nail over these things. Party uber alles--country last.
Senator DeMint of South Carolina declares this "Obama's Waterloo" and if health care reform is stopped, it will break his presidency. Which would lead 3 1/2 years left. And then what wait for the Republicans to conjure up some ideas? The awe-inspiring lack of any consideration for the public good still amazes me about the Obama-era Republicans.
Meanwhile Dick Lugar was the first Republican to announce his support for Sotomayor--Mel Martinez and Olympia Snowe were soon to follow. So, it's 63 so far and at least 1 Republican has to vote for her on the Judiciary to get the nomination to the floor. I think Grassley and Hatch will go for her. I am tired of hearing how the Republican strategy was to set the markers for the next nominee, not Sotomayor, who I insist is a moderate. I am more convinced than ever Obama should invite a donnybrook for the next nominee and name Laurence Tribe--with both men recognizing it might be a losing struggle. At least we might have hearing where constitutional issues might be openly debated--and it would be worth it. Tribe would probably not be long on the court but I would pay to hear a debate between him and Sessions.
The Obama era has not been kind to the Free Republic. Several bloggers have made the news--the Holocaust Museum killer, the Pittsburgh cop killer and the killer of Dr. Tiller. A few comments had brought the Secret Service around. Sarah Palin quits--despite the false bravado on the website about what a righteous move this was. Mitt Romney supporters purged and the quest to exterminate the RINOS continues. Now Jim Robinson has called for a revolution and armed resistance if----health care reform is passed. A curious thing since both he and his wife are wheelchair bound. Medicaid, Tricare --they must have something that the rest of don't have. For years I have been a lurker at the site and lament this descent into a certain lunacy. Before other sites covered certain topics on the right they did without the heightened religious content and now the vitriol over Obama.
Birthers are now being covered on television as sort of the Moon landing deniers and 9/11 truthers. The Young Turks this week covered the great Obama birth certificate flap with their sense of humor--they even showed a tape of the original certificate--creased with all the appropriate seals and signatures. They even quoted the harassed Hawaiian government officials about "how many times do we have to say it is authentic and he was born in Hawaii". Birthers made it on the Worse Persons of the World for encouraging serving military men to join in their suits to avoid service in Afghanistan. Another federal judge had to rule against an Army Reserve Major who protested his impending call-up--he volunteered after signing on as a plaintiff to this case--alleging Obama was not eligible to be Commander-in-Chief. After declaring a victory of sorts, when the case went against him and his lawyer and the military withdrew his call-up, CENTCOM had to make announcement calling their calls ridiculous.
Not to be outdone by Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh seems to be stirring the racial war pot himself. Frankly, I haven't seen blacks getting much advantage from the Obama Administration and especially during this depression. I'm wondering where the great grievances of Rich White Men are coming from. Even with a surtax for health reform, both men will be earning in a month more than the average American couple earns in a year or two. I think it's unseemly for the very wealthy to be bitter and angry. As the Bible says, From those who have received much, much is expected.
The gnostic cult here in D.C., the Family seems to be breeding more adulterers by the minute. Former Republican Congressman Pickering of Missippi apparently joins the list with Sanford and Ensign of those with Family connections who seemed to have gone soft on some of the 10 Commandments. His wife is suing the mistress for causing "alienation of affection"--I like that. Apparently, Pickering actually conducted the affair in the "C" Street house itself. It's cool to be one of God's Chosen--the rules don't apply. Meanwhile Gov Sanford seems to have misused state funds to facilitate his love affair--he at least fell in love.
Obama needs to go for the gold on health care reform right now or it will slip,slide away and , for get the political consequences, the economic effects will be devastating. With unemployment rising, those without health insurance increases, personal bankruptcy increases and the impact on the national deficit increases. The only other domestic reform Obama will be able to get out of Congress will be Immigration Reform. The Republicans know that health care reform, immigration reform and their opposition to Sotomayor and they are doomed. That's why Republicans are fighting tooth and nail over these things. Party uber alles--country last.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Hits Just Keep Coming
Having just walked through the reconstructed crematoria in Auschwitz, Newt Gingrich tweeted "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw. New racism is no better than old racism." And so the presumptive 2012 GOP nominee has signalled his opposition to Sotomayor. Classy act.
David Kurtz, writing in the National Review, calls Sotomayor "unnatural in English". Fellow NRer Ramesh Ponnuru likens Sotomayor to Harriet Miers and calls her an "intellectual lightweight". Compared to--pick a name--Clarence Thomas. Glenn Beck in his usual effusive manner said,"Hey,Hispanic Chick Lady! You're empathetic...You're in! He went on to bring up Sotomayor's diabetes, wondering if "the Messiah" (Obama) will cure her.
Bush strategist Mark McKinnon, writing in The Daily Beast, warns the Republicans must pick their fights carefully and two are fights the party doesn't need: Sonia Sotomayor and Colin Powell. He calls Sotomayor a "political trifecta. Woman. hispanic. Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from George H.W. Bush." As for Colin Powell--the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state under a Republican president, attacking him as "not Republican enough" doesn't send a good message for independent and swing voters. He suggests weeks or months of hysterics about alleged "judicial activism" will make Republicans "look bitter, mean, tone deaf and out of touch".
But,Mark, you haven't checked in for awhile. Alex Castellanos, another Republican strategist,claims otherwise. "Now President Obama is playing hardball identity politics. The old Democratic Party is making a big comeback--that's the party of huge reckless irresponsible spending and identity politics." So he claims with alot of races in Colorado, Arkansas, Ohio and North Carolina, that Republicans are going to make these the two top issues. Hear the whistling by the graveyard.
In yesterday's New York Times conservative law professor Gerard Magliocca wrote about his experience working with Sotomayor and watching her on the bench. She is known to have a "hot bench" meaning a courtroom where the judges asks alot of questions. He is highly complimentary about his management style compared with the nameless hit piece in The New Republic. He goes on to detail her work in trademark law but mentions that she strapped on a bullet-proof vest and took part in police raids on gang warehouses filled with counterfeit merchandise. he says that many judges are knowledgeable about labor law, but few have faced a labor decision as intense as her ruling in favor of the players that ended the 1995 Major League Baseball strike.
Focus on the Family and other social conservatives are taking a wait-and-see attitude to Sotomayor because they like me discovered the not pro-choice decisions and her rulings against the First Amendment. Other groups are already airing commercials highlighting her comment about Latina women making better decisions than white men.
Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa seems flummoxed by everything when asked about the confirmation process. After realizing he once voted against her but not remembering why, he said that she was qualified and a good candidate. He however cited antagonism to Bork and Thomas as caveats to the whole process, saying these things can occur, despite the person's legal qualifications. However, when pushed, he said she would be confirmed and that he thought an August or Labor Day time frame was doable.
And then we end today with Rush Limbaugh's lament that he is an oppressed minority but he doesn't think or act like one. He wasn't really speaking about Sotomayor but for conservatives, who are the oppressed minority. This is one of the first acknowledgements from the right that the country really isn't center-right as everyone at Fox News has maintained for the last several years and why Obama can't push for certain elements of his program. Limbaugh called Washington ,the Old South for the Republican Party, which kowtows to the ruling class just to get along. This follows a time where Limbaugh has been criticized by Republicans for driving the party further to the right. This statement today came only a few days after Limbaugh voluntarily "retired" as the head of the GOP.
David Kurtz, writing in the National Review, calls Sotomayor "unnatural in English". Fellow NRer Ramesh Ponnuru likens Sotomayor to Harriet Miers and calls her an "intellectual lightweight". Compared to--pick a name--Clarence Thomas. Glenn Beck in his usual effusive manner said,"Hey,Hispanic Chick Lady! You're empathetic...You're in! He went on to bring up Sotomayor's diabetes, wondering if "the Messiah" (Obama) will cure her.
Bush strategist Mark McKinnon, writing in The Daily Beast, warns the Republicans must pick their fights carefully and two are fights the party doesn't need: Sonia Sotomayor and Colin Powell. He calls Sotomayor a "political trifecta. Woman. hispanic. Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from George H.W. Bush." As for Colin Powell--the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state under a Republican president, attacking him as "not Republican enough" doesn't send a good message for independent and swing voters. He suggests weeks or months of hysterics about alleged "judicial activism" will make Republicans "look bitter, mean, tone deaf and out of touch".
But,Mark, you haven't checked in for awhile. Alex Castellanos, another Republican strategist,claims otherwise. "Now President Obama is playing hardball identity politics. The old Democratic Party is making a big comeback--that's the party of huge reckless irresponsible spending and identity politics." So he claims with alot of races in Colorado, Arkansas, Ohio and North Carolina, that Republicans are going to make these the two top issues. Hear the whistling by the graveyard.
In yesterday's New York Times conservative law professor Gerard Magliocca wrote about his experience working with Sotomayor and watching her on the bench. She is known to have a "hot bench" meaning a courtroom where the judges asks alot of questions. He is highly complimentary about his management style compared with the nameless hit piece in The New Republic. He goes on to detail her work in trademark law but mentions that she strapped on a bullet-proof vest and took part in police raids on gang warehouses filled with counterfeit merchandise. he says that many judges are knowledgeable about labor law, but few have faced a labor decision as intense as her ruling in favor of the players that ended the 1995 Major League Baseball strike.
Focus on the Family and other social conservatives are taking a wait-and-see attitude to Sotomayor because they like me discovered the not pro-choice decisions and her rulings against the First Amendment. Other groups are already airing commercials highlighting her comment about Latina women making better decisions than white men.
Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa seems flummoxed by everything when asked about the confirmation process. After realizing he once voted against her but not remembering why, he said that she was qualified and a good candidate. He however cited antagonism to Bork and Thomas as caveats to the whole process, saying these things can occur, despite the person's legal qualifications. However, when pushed, he said she would be confirmed and that he thought an August or Labor Day time frame was doable.
And then we end today with Rush Limbaugh's lament that he is an oppressed minority but he doesn't think or act like one. He wasn't really speaking about Sotomayor but for conservatives, who are the oppressed minority. This is one of the first acknowledgements from the right that the country really isn't center-right as everyone at Fox News has maintained for the last several years and why Obama can't push for certain elements of his program. Limbaugh called Washington ,the Old South for the Republican Party, which kowtows to the ruling class just to get along. This follows a time where Limbaugh has been criticized by Republicans for driving the party further to the right. This statement today came only a few days after Limbaugh voluntarily "retired" as the head of the GOP.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Party of Fat,Ugly,Rich White Men
Rush Limbaugh has weighed in that Sotomayor is a reverse racist as is President Obama. Naturally, he says he hopes she will fail, too as he assures his audience that Obama is going to fail. Charles Krauthammer has already penned a column that the choice is identity politics. And the newest Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, honorary whiteman John Yoo, the infamous author of the torture memo and supporter of the unitary theory of the executive branch of radical constitutional thinking, slammed the nomination because of the empathy issue and the fact that Sotomayor doesn't have the liberal firepower to initiate a change in the court revolution begun under Reagan. He may be right about the latter case,which is why I supported the one-legged lesbian law professor.
First, the empathy issue--which Orrin Hatch said was a codeword for an activist judge. If you lack empathy, you are likely to fall under the psychiatric classification of psychotic. The idea that empathy in a judge is a vice shows you how Orwellian our political debate has become. Hopefully, at some point, the fight will break into the open on this and the whole "activist" myth. Does the conservative theology of the Supreme Court still hold sway among the population at large? The cost has been enormous. Currently, the United States holds more of its citizens in prison that the whole combined as prisoners. A frightening reality for the Shining City on the Hill.
If you want our institutions to look more like America, then is appointing people of color identity politics or to avoid this must you appoint people who disown their background? I can't tell. 50% of the legal profession now are women. From the list created for Obama's choices, there are many extraordinarily talented women capable of being Supreme Court justices. Will the next woman be considered identity politics?
Or is the real identity politics here being that Sotomayor came from poverty? Only two other modern Supreme Court justices came from poverty--Clarence Thomas and William Douglas.
The conservative noise machine is likely to rabble rouse on this decision for the simple reason it needs to raise money. But the last weeks have been instructive in demonstrating that nothing President Obama does will not encounter the strongest resistance from the entrenched interests and the defeated conservative establishment. What is almost universal is that Obama's conservative critics, for the most part, are seriously overweight, ugly and very wealthy. The visuals have been unpleasant with Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, and Rush Limbaugh dominating the screen. Do you really want to belong to these guys?
First, the empathy issue--which Orrin Hatch said was a codeword for an activist judge. If you lack empathy, you are likely to fall under the psychiatric classification of psychotic. The idea that empathy in a judge is a vice shows you how Orwellian our political debate has become. Hopefully, at some point, the fight will break into the open on this and the whole "activist" myth. Does the conservative theology of the Supreme Court still hold sway among the population at large? The cost has been enormous. Currently, the United States holds more of its citizens in prison that the whole combined as prisoners. A frightening reality for the Shining City on the Hill.
If you want our institutions to look more like America, then is appointing people of color identity politics or to avoid this must you appoint people who disown their background? I can't tell. 50% of the legal profession now are women. From the list created for Obama's choices, there are many extraordinarily talented women capable of being Supreme Court justices. Will the next woman be considered identity politics?
Or is the real identity politics here being that Sotomayor came from poverty? Only two other modern Supreme Court justices came from poverty--Clarence Thomas and William Douglas.
The conservative noise machine is likely to rabble rouse on this decision for the simple reason it needs to raise money. But the last weeks have been instructive in demonstrating that nothing President Obama does will not encounter the strongest resistance from the entrenched interests and the defeated conservative establishment. What is almost universal is that Obama's conservative critics, for the most part, are seriously overweight, ugly and very wealthy. The visuals have been unpleasant with Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, and Rush Limbaugh dominating the screen. Do you really want to belong to these guys?
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Whither The Republicans?
A recent Gallup poll has the nation's party breakdown as 40% self-proclaimed Democrats, 35% independent, and 25% Republicans. I remember the time in the 1990s that the Republicans actually had a plurality, the only time in my life. Now if you have fallen 15% behind the other party, don't you think you should become introspective?
It takes a Canadian David Frum to take on Rush Limbaugh and the whole idea that Limbaugh should represent the party. Naturally for Fox News and other conservatives, this was really a controversy generated by Barack Obama, who has an enemies list that is as extensive as say... Richard Nixon. While this flap has had its entertaining moments,it has become quite clear that party officials have kowtowed to Limbaugh.
One has to admit that Obama gave Republicans an opening by letting the interim budget go on without modification. This is either very clever politics or a mistake. The Obama Administration is gunning for their own budget fight, which will handle a host of issues such as health reform, where all political capital is needed.
But the interim budget until the end of September,one written under the previous Administration, has allowed the Republicans another moment to make their stand. What is their proposal--a freeze on government spending? Even Doug Brooks who momentarily went wobbly over Obama's budget, says even this is insane. The last time a Republican proposed a freeze on government funding during the beginning of a Depression was Herbert Hoover and that didn't work out.
In the endless parade of Republicans on the Sunday talk shows, all of them said,"As American families are tightening their budgets, we in government must do the same." Well, Americans are not only tightening their budgets, they are losing their houses, jobs, pensions and savings--which seem to require something more from Government. There is a massive disconnect between Republicans now and reality as we know it.
Republicans are choosing some very strange fights. First is the McCain obsession on earmarks. The irony is that his Arizona counterpart Jon Kyle must be acting in tandem with McCain. McCain denounces earmarks but makes sure Kyl gets the ones for Arizona. No Republicans I have ever known has ever cared about earmarks except for McCain. Even Lindsey Graham said on televsion that he voted having all earmarks removed from the budget bill but would work to get his re-inserted.
This charade is meant to point out that Obama campaigned to get earmarks out of the budget and he didn't fulfill his promise. Although Obama deserves credit for no earmarks in the stimulus bill and probably few in his own budget.
The other idea we get is that Obama is aiming to raise taxes--only on 2% of Americans in 2011. But this mantra is repeated ad nauseaum by Republicans and their surrogates on television. The next is that this is Obama's recession and really only hit since his election. All of this is aimed to bring Obama's approval ratings more down to earth, although we do not see a rise in Republican approval ratings.
55% of Americans blame Bush and the Republicans for our current economic situation and almost statistical fluke blames Obama. Republican congressional approval ratings are below that of Dick Cheney, which would make one really pause if you are the minority.
Do Republicans want Obama to fail? Yes, they do because with the passage of his 2010 budget, he will have effectively ended the assumptions about governance that existed since Reagan's time. The Republicans instinctively know this. That's why all this talk about Obama being a socialist--that is, he believes government can play a positive force for the public good, something Republicans no longer believe.
The other issue is that the Republicans have reflexively gone back to their FDR time instincts about defending the rich at all costs. Heavy duty financiers are bank-rolling the war against health care reform and encouraging the tax revolt tea parties ,which are actually against tax cuts. These financiers are the high-rollers for funding the Republican party.
Ironically, in the 1990s, the Republican Party became the party of small donors with millions giving a $100 or less. Now it is almost exclusively for the special interests with intense interests in lobbying to block key economic reforms. This leads to Republicans tolerating such things as birthers,neo-secessionists, Christianists, and the recent reemergence of John Birchers in their base.
It is like the odd tightrope the Republicans walked during the heydays of McCarthyism--toleration of the most extreme right-wing elements and cultivation of the wealthiest. Ironically, they have deliberately excluded real small businesses and the middle class from any attempt to extend their reach.
The question I think is worth asking is whether Republicans agreed with the Bush policy under the global economy of making the US simply the gendarme of the world, while devolving into a third world country with extremes of wealth and a further deterioration of living standards? That was the logical extension of these policies as even the elder Bush must have known. Is this what Republicans really wanted to do? If not, then before they get sober again, they have to confront that reality.
It takes a Canadian David Frum to take on Rush Limbaugh and the whole idea that Limbaugh should represent the party. Naturally for Fox News and other conservatives, this was really a controversy generated by Barack Obama, who has an enemies list that is as extensive as say... Richard Nixon. While this flap has had its entertaining moments,it has become quite clear that party officials have kowtowed to Limbaugh.
One has to admit that Obama gave Republicans an opening by letting the interim budget go on without modification. This is either very clever politics or a mistake. The Obama Administration is gunning for their own budget fight, which will handle a host of issues such as health reform, where all political capital is needed.
But the interim budget until the end of September,one written under the previous Administration, has allowed the Republicans another moment to make their stand. What is their proposal--a freeze on government spending? Even Doug Brooks who momentarily went wobbly over Obama's budget, says even this is insane. The last time a Republican proposed a freeze on government funding during the beginning of a Depression was Herbert Hoover and that didn't work out.
In the endless parade of Republicans on the Sunday talk shows, all of them said,"As American families are tightening their budgets, we in government must do the same." Well, Americans are not only tightening their budgets, they are losing their houses, jobs, pensions and savings--which seem to require something more from Government. There is a massive disconnect between Republicans now and reality as we know it.
Republicans are choosing some very strange fights. First is the McCain obsession on earmarks. The irony is that his Arizona counterpart Jon Kyle must be acting in tandem with McCain. McCain denounces earmarks but makes sure Kyl gets the ones for Arizona. No Republicans I have ever known has ever cared about earmarks except for McCain. Even Lindsey Graham said on televsion that he voted having all earmarks removed from the budget bill but would work to get his re-inserted.
This charade is meant to point out that Obama campaigned to get earmarks out of the budget and he didn't fulfill his promise. Although Obama deserves credit for no earmarks in the stimulus bill and probably few in his own budget.
The other idea we get is that Obama is aiming to raise taxes--only on 2% of Americans in 2011. But this mantra is repeated ad nauseaum by Republicans and their surrogates on television. The next is that this is Obama's recession and really only hit since his election. All of this is aimed to bring Obama's approval ratings more down to earth, although we do not see a rise in Republican approval ratings.
55% of Americans blame Bush and the Republicans for our current economic situation and almost statistical fluke blames Obama. Republican congressional approval ratings are below that of Dick Cheney, which would make one really pause if you are the minority.
Do Republicans want Obama to fail? Yes, they do because with the passage of his 2010 budget, he will have effectively ended the assumptions about governance that existed since Reagan's time. The Republicans instinctively know this. That's why all this talk about Obama being a socialist--that is, he believes government can play a positive force for the public good, something Republicans no longer believe.
The other issue is that the Republicans have reflexively gone back to their FDR time instincts about defending the rich at all costs. Heavy duty financiers are bank-rolling the war against health care reform and encouraging the tax revolt tea parties ,which are actually against tax cuts. These financiers are the high-rollers for funding the Republican party.
Ironically, in the 1990s, the Republican Party became the party of small donors with millions giving a $100 or less. Now it is almost exclusively for the special interests with intense interests in lobbying to block key economic reforms. This leads to Republicans tolerating such things as birthers,neo-secessionists, Christianists, and the recent reemergence of John Birchers in their base.
It is like the odd tightrope the Republicans walked during the heydays of McCarthyism--toleration of the most extreme right-wing elements and cultivation of the wealthiest. Ironically, they have deliberately excluded real small businesses and the middle class from any attempt to extend their reach.
The question I think is worth asking is whether Republicans agreed with the Bush policy under the global economy of making the US simply the gendarme of the world, while devolving into a third world country with extremes of wealth and a further deterioration of living standards? That was the logical extension of these policies as even the elder Bush must have known. Is this what Republicans really wanted to do? If not, then before they get sober again, they have to confront that reality.
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