In the space of about a week, Obama smacked around the Republican party on health care and on recess appointments, slapped the Prime Minister of Israel upside his head on settlements, and brought the President of Russia to heel on nuclear arms. Then he said it was his best week in a long damn time and flew off to Camp David for Miller Time and basketball. Clearly the experiment with being the go-with-the-flow touchy-feely nice guy is over.
I think Obama has hit his Gettysburg moment.
As we know, Obama reads his Lincoln. For the first two years of the Civil War, Lincoln, a novice in military affairs, listened to his incompetent generals and let them run the war their own way, until their incompetence and sheer laziness became so obvious that he had to fire four or five of them in a row – McClellan, Pope, Hooker etc, some of whom would have been okay with negotiating a peace rather than winning. Lincoln finally lost his shit when Meade won the pivotal battle of Gettysburg and then halted his army’s advance, pompously informing Lincoln that he had managed to drive the enemy from “our soil”. Lincoln went ballistic and pointed out that it was ALL our soil, the North, the South, everything: that was the entire point of the war. So Lincoln said he wanted Grant brought in from the western theatre to lead the fight, and when staffers complained about Grant’s occasionally scary casualty rates, Lincoln wasn’t interested: we’re going to free the slaves, we’re going for victory and not a negotiated peace, Grant is going to kill people, he’s going to win the war, and we can all go home.
Obama is in the same frame of mind. Everyone told him to take it easy, go with the flow, give the Republicans what they want, let Harry Reid take the lead, ignore the liberals in favour of tacking toward the center, and be Mister Nice Guy absent-minded professor dude. He tried Mister Rogers and it didn’t work.
This isn’t just about health care anymore. Now Obama’s pissed off.
As tough-guy wannabes around the world have learned – the Somali pirates, Putin, Netanyahu, Mitch McConnell – Obama is big trouble when he’s pissed off.
Now Obama is going to dedicate the next seven years to destroying Republicans at every level, and making the entire Republican party extinct for the next thousand years.
The Republicans could have gotten almost anything they wanted from Mister Nice Guy. And they blew it.
Everybody sing!
“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape…”
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Palin ridicules knowledge of the Constitution. Seriously.
Sarah Palin eggs on the tea-partiers a week ago:
“In these volatile times when we are a nation at war, now more than ever is when we need a commander-in-chief, not a constitutional law professor lecturing us from a lectern.”
Let’s set aside the fact that Obama has done superbly as commander in chief – clearly better than his criminally incompetent predecessor. And the fact that Obama has by no means been beating us to death on Constitutional issues – if he wanted to give us a series of lectures ripping apart the Republicans for their endless perversions of the Constitution, he could have made a whole summer of it.
Let’s focus on the truly appalling aspect of this.
For a decade now, we have indeed seen the Republicans express open contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law…bringing the entire Congress screeching to a halt, blocking nominations so the executive branch can’t do its job, lying to Congress, blackmailing Congress, ignoring the laws passed by Congress, using the Justice Department to persecute political enemies, using the Pentagon for propaganda, trying to stop the votes from being counted in a presidential election, turning the Vice Presidency into an unaccountable fourth branch of government, defying court orders, illegal spying, illegal detentions, illegal prisons, illegal torture….
But this is the first time they have said it so openly. Now they are actually ridiculing knowledge of the Constitution and the law.
We don’t need a president who knows the law – we need a man who can blow shit up like Bush! Yee haw!
That’s the new GOP platform. Expressed by their frontrunner for the Presidency.
And these are the same people who keep screeching that it’s Obama who’s the terrible danger to the Constitution! One day they love the Constitution so much they’d rather kill Congressmen than endanger it – the next day the Constitution is one big joke.
Perhaps Palin is still smarting from the embarrassment of flunking out of one tiny cow college after another, before finally scraping by with a journalism degree in Idaho. This, while Obama graduated magna from some little Podunk school called Harvard Law. I cain’t understand the Constitution, so of course it cain’t be important!!
ADDENDUM -- ...and round about the same time, Obama went to a town hall, and a member of the audience asked him about health care and finance. Obama gave a very long but very well-reasoned answer addressing health reform, the tax structure, the works. And what did the Washington Post do? Ridiculed him for the length of his answer. We expect that sort of Philistine grammar-school beat-up-the-smart-kid nonsense from Fox and Rush...but the Post?
“In these volatile times when we are a nation at war, now more than ever is when we need a commander-in-chief, not a constitutional law professor lecturing us from a lectern.”
Let’s set aside the fact that Obama has done superbly as commander in chief – clearly better than his criminally incompetent predecessor. And the fact that Obama has by no means been beating us to death on Constitutional issues – if he wanted to give us a series of lectures ripping apart the Republicans for their endless perversions of the Constitution, he could have made a whole summer of it.
Let’s focus on the truly appalling aspect of this.
For a decade now, we have indeed seen the Republicans express open contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law…bringing the entire Congress screeching to a halt, blocking nominations so the executive branch can’t do its job, lying to Congress, blackmailing Congress, ignoring the laws passed by Congress, using the Justice Department to persecute political enemies, using the Pentagon for propaganda, trying to stop the votes from being counted in a presidential election, turning the Vice Presidency into an unaccountable fourth branch of government, defying court orders, illegal spying, illegal detentions, illegal prisons, illegal torture….
But this is the first time they have said it so openly. Now they are actually ridiculing knowledge of the Constitution and the law.
We don’t need a president who knows the law – we need a man who can blow shit up like Bush! Yee haw!
That’s the new GOP platform. Expressed by their frontrunner for the Presidency.
And these are the same people who keep screeching that it’s Obama who’s the terrible danger to the Constitution! One day they love the Constitution so much they’d rather kill Congressmen than endanger it – the next day the Constitution is one big joke.
Perhaps Palin is still smarting from the embarrassment of flunking out of one tiny cow college after another, before finally scraping by with a journalism degree in Idaho. This, while Obama graduated magna from some little Podunk school called Harvard Law. I cain’t understand the Constitution, so of course it cain’t be important!!
ADDENDUM -- ...and round about the same time, Obama went to a town hall, and a member of the audience asked him about health care and finance. Obama gave a very long but very well-reasoned answer addressing health reform, the tax structure, the works. And what did the Washington Post do? Ridiculed him for the length of his answer. We expect that sort of Philistine grammar-school beat-up-the-smart-kid nonsense from Fox and Rush...but the Post?
Palin-Thune 2012?
I am beginning to wonder if Obama is even smarter than we thought.
Until recently, Mitt Romney would have been considered the frontrunner for the 2012 GOP nomination: he consistently wins straw polls among Republicans, he has the money to run, and he does okay against Obama in head-to-head polling (although Obama still leads).
But by winning passage of health care reform, Obama has seriously damaged Mitt Romney’s chances -- by drawing attention to the fact that the Democrats will soon give America a health care plan which is very similar to the plan that Romney enacted as governor. Which means that Romney will have a tough time campaigning against Obama’s signature legislative achievement, and that the other Republicans will rip Romney apart in the primaries, because they have been likening Obamacare to some sort of Stalinist apocalypse.
According to Intrade, the following candidates are reasonable bets to compete seriously for the Republican nomination in 2012.
Romney, the favorite at 26 percent. But his problems are mounting: the teabag core of the party dislikes him, he is a notorious flipflopper, and they will dislike him even more once they realize that the Obamacare plan is very similar to Romneycare. So his prospects have indeed taken a serious hit.
Palin, with a 23 percent chance. Outside the party base, she is seen as an unqualified buffoon, but those party loyalists who vote in the primaries worship her. Once Romney’s shortcomings catch up to him, she could be top dog again.
Thune, 18 percent. The fact that he is a factor at all shows how weak the big-name candidates are. He is a little-known hard-core evangelical with antediluvian beliefs on abortion and gays, and his only real claim to fame is pushing a law which offers billions to his former railroad clients from his days as a lobbyist. And he has pretty John-Edwards hair. He’s essentially Dan Quayle, but a little smarter and a lot more crooked. He is probably measuring himself for a VP nomination already, like Pawlenty and Jindal were in 2008.
Pawlenty, 10 percent. His stock dropped like a rock once the teabaggers realized he wasn’t one of them, and in part because Al Franken ended up getting certified as Senator.
Huckabee, 5 percent. Dropped way down, in part because some of the prisoners who sentences he commuted turned out to be seriously bad seeds.
Some tie-breakers:
1. Only Palin and Romney can really depend on finding or raising money (and perhaps Newt or Barbour).
2. Only Palin can guarantee a big crowd wherever she goes.
3. Only Romney and Huckabee poll within single digits of Obama, head to head.
4. Only Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Gingrich have the support of a majority of their own party.
5. And only those four are solid national names.
On that last point: the Republicans don’t gamble on relative unknowns like the Democrats did with McGovern, Carter, Dukakis and Clinton, because unknowns often get their butts kicked. The Republicans generally play it safe, and nominate people who not only have a national reputation, but have also paid their party dues. Dewey was famous for conquering the mob; Ike, for conquering Europe; Nixon, Senator and then Vice President; Ford, President; Reagan, presidential contender in 1976; Bush 41, presidential contender and Vice President; Dole, VP contender; McCain, presidential contender. Reagan, Bush 41, Dole and McCain were rewarded for politely waiting their turn, as Romney, Huckabee and Palin have waited.
The only two times the Republicans strayed from that philosophy was when they let Goldwater split the party in two, whereupon he led the party to disaster by losing; and Bush 43, who led the whole nation to disaster by winning. So they probably have little interest in gambling on an unknown for 2012.
This is why I don’t consider people like Jeb Bush or Scott Brown to be true “national names”. Or Jindal.
And this is why handicapping the race isn’t so crazy in early 2010: in the Republican party particularly, we shouldn’t expect to see a lot of violent change in the political outlook, or an out-of-nowhere nominee like Obama was.
Desperation may force the Republicans to broaden their standards if not lowering them entirely – with Palin in the mix it’s really impossible to lower the bar anymore – but I don’t think the party leadership really understands just how damaged the GOP brand is, so expect them to choose a known quantity.
The other guys who got 3-4 points on Intrade: Jindal, who was rated much higher until his disastrous national speech exposed him as a fool; Jeb Bush and Scott Brown who have a little visibility; Paul, Daniels, Ryan and Pence who are relative unknowns; and Newt who is seen by two-thirds of the country as the Prince of Darkness.
Palin qualifies on four of the five tie-breakers noted above, and the one she doesn’t have – doing well in a head-to-head poll against Obama – may not matter to the GOP primary voters, whose present undercurrents of messianic, apocalyptic insanity may overcome whatever pragmatic political sense they might have had.
The GOP voters could be persuaded to set their emotions aside and make a more pragmatic choice than Palin, if the national Republican party had responsible, courageous leadership to guide them in that direction. But they don’t: they have Steele, who has no credibility and is terrified of the far right, and a bunch of other guys who also take their marching orders from Rush, Fox and the teabaggers. And the far-right sets the bar very high, crazy-wise – they have already decreed that even Newt is too liberal for them. They will push the nomination toward the most conservative in the pack, and given the eerily liberal records of Romney and Huckabee as governors, that makes me think Palin could grab the nomination.
Palin-Thune 2012?
Until recently, Mitt Romney would have been considered the frontrunner for the 2012 GOP nomination: he consistently wins straw polls among Republicans, he has the money to run, and he does okay against Obama in head-to-head polling (although Obama still leads).
But by winning passage of health care reform, Obama has seriously damaged Mitt Romney’s chances -- by drawing attention to the fact that the Democrats will soon give America a health care plan which is very similar to the plan that Romney enacted as governor. Which means that Romney will have a tough time campaigning against Obama’s signature legislative achievement, and that the other Republicans will rip Romney apart in the primaries, because they have been likening Obamacare to some sort of Stalinist apocalypse.
According to Intrade, the following candidates are reasonable bets to compete seriously for the Republican nomination in 2012.
Romney, the favorite at 26 percent. But his problems are mounting: the teabag core of the party dislikes him, he is a notorious flipflopper, and they will dislike him even more once they realize that the Obamacare plan is very similar to Romneycare. So his prospects have indeed taken a serious hit.
Palin, with a 23 percent chance. Outside the party base, she is seen as an unqualified buffoon, but those party loyalists who vote in the primaries worship her. Once Romney’s shortcomings catch up to him, she could be top dog again.
Thune, 18 percent. The fact that he is a factor at all shows how weak the big-name candidates are. He is a little-known hard-core evangelical with antediluvian beliefs on abortion and gays, and his only real claim to fame is pushing a law which offers billions to his former railroad clients from his days as a lobbyist. And he has pretty John-Edwards hair. He’s essentially Dan Quayle, but a little smarter and a lot more crooked. He is probably measuring himself for a VP nomination already, like Pawlenty and Jindal were in 2008.
Pawlenty, 10 percent. His stock dropped like a rock once the teabaggers realized he wasn’t one of them, and in part because Al Franken ended up getting certified as Senator.
Huckabee, 5 percent. Dropped way down, in part because some of the prisoners who sentences he commuted turned out to be seriously bad seeds.
Some tie-breakers:
1. Only Palin and Romney can really depend on finding or raising money (and perhaps Newt or Barbour).
2. Only Palin can guarantee a big crowd wherever she goes.
3. Only Romney and Huckabee poll within single digits of Obama, head to head.
4. Only Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Gingrich have the support of a majority of their own party.
5. And only those four are solid national names.
On that last point: the Republicans don’t gamble on relative unknowns like the Democrats did with McGovern, Carter, Dukakis and Clinton, because unknowns often get their butts kicked. The Republicans generally play it safe, and nominate people who not only have a national reputation, but have also paid their party dues. Dewey was famous for conquering the mob; Ike, for conquering Europe; Nixon, Senator and then Vice President; Ford, President; Reagan, presidential contender in 1976; Bush 41, presidential contender and Vice President; Dole, VP contender; McCain, presidential contender. Reagan, Bush 41, Dole and McCain were rewarded for politely waiting their turn, as Romney, Huckabee and Palin have waited.
The only two times the Republicans strayed from that philosophy was when they let Goldwater split the party in two, whereupon he led the party to disaster by losing; and Bush 43, who led the whole nation to disaster by winning. So they probably have little interest in gambling on an unknown for 2012.
This is why I don’t consider people like Jeb Bush or Scott Brown to be true “national names”. Or Jindal.
And this is why handicapping the race isn’t so crazy in early 2010: in the Republican party particularly, we shouldn’t expect to see a lot of violent change in the political outlook, or an out-of-nowhere nominee like Obama was.
Desperation may force the Republicans to broaden their standards if not lowering them entirely – with Palin in the mix it’s really impossible to lower the bar anymore – but I don’t think the party leadership really understands just how damaged the GOP brand is, so expect them to choose a known quantity.
The other guys who got 3-4 points on Intrade: Jindal, who was rated much higher until his disastrous national speech exposed him as a fool; Jeb Bush and Scott Brown who have a little visibility; Paul, Daniels, Ryan and Pence who are relative unknowns; and Newt who is seen by two-thirds of the country as the Prince of Darkness.
Palin qualifies on four of the five tie-breakers noted above, and the one she doesn’t have – doing well in a head-to-head poll against Obama – may not matter to the GOP primary voters, whose present undercurrents of messianic, apocalyptic insanity may overcome whatever pragmatic political sense they might have had.
The GOP voters could be persuaded to set their emotions aside and make a more pragmatic choice than Palin, if the national Republican party had responsible, courageous leadership to guide them in that direction. But they don’t: they have Steele, who has no credibility and is terrified of the far right, and a bunch of other guys who also take their marching orders from Rush, Fox and the teabaggers. And the far-right sets the bar very high, crazy-wise – they have already decreed that even Newt is too liberal for them. They will push the nomination toward the most conservative in the pack, and given the eerily liberal records of Romney and Huckabee as governors, that makes me think Palin could grab the nomination.
Palin-Thune 2012?
The GOP loses control of the wingnuts
Now that health reform has passed, the roar of the conservative wingnuts is just beginning to reach full blast. The feds arrested the Hutaree for plotting to kill police and their families, Daniel Cowart pleaded guilty for planning a killing spree aimed against blacks, windows were smashed at Democratic headquarters in Alaska, and – something the mainstream media seems to be underplaying for some reason – Leboon the Loon threatened not only Cantor but also Obama, Pelosi and Reid. Another loon was arrested for threatening to kill Senator Murray for her health care vote; another loon was arrested for threatening violence at an abortion clinic. Palin is once again throwing gasoline on the fire by urging people to “stop” cars with Obama stickers, right after one wingnut “stopped” such a car by ramming it in a fit of road rage, even though there was a little girl in the car.
And of course the wingnuts are planning not one but two riots in Washington, one on the 15th and one – for which participants are specifically urged to bring weapons – on the 19th. That is the anniversary of the wingnut attack that killed more than one hundred people in Oklahoma.
Republican leaders are beginning to realize that they overdid it, in egging these people on. But when they try to step away from the bloodthirsty rhetoric of the wingnuts, the wingnuts threaten retaliation – the grownups and the lunatics are battling for control of the party and the conservative movement.
The few Republicans who say it’s time to at least talk to Democrats on issues such as finance reform are being slammed by the wingnuts for their “betrayal”.
The 19 April march is so clearly a potential danger that even teabaggers and gun-rights activists are warning the hard-core wingnuts that this could backfire badly – but the wingnuts are ignoring them.
The Republican grownups (this of course being a relative term) are trying to warn Michelle Bachmann that if she keeps telling the wingnuts to boycott the census, it could cost the GOP Congressional seats in places like Texas. But the wingnuts don’t want to listen – caution is for sissies and traitors!
Governors are saying that lawsuits against the health care bill are a stupid waste of money that they need to try to balance their shaky state budgets. But the wingnuts are screaming “no quarter, war to the knife!!” They are even trying to impeach one attorney general for refusing to file a lawsuit.
Some party leaders are advising their 2010 candidates to start backing away from their rhetoric threatening to try to repeal the health bill. But the Club For Growth, which has already succeeded in destroying Republicans who were considered insufficiently wingnutty – have warned Republican candidates against trying to back away from the repeal idea.
Now, think back to around 1968. Lyndon Johnson had just won a landslide election in 1964 and passed a number of landmark bills in Congress, and people were wondering if the Republican party was going to sink into permanent irrelevance. But in the late sixties, Middle America saw the demonstrations and riots by hippies and blacks, and they were frightened. They were so frightened that they began migrating over to the GOP, and soon the Republicans were in the ascendant again.
Something like that could be happening now: for several months, the American people have turned on their televisions and seen crazy people screaming about Obama, shrieking racial slurs, spitting on people, bringing guns to public events, throwing bricks, plotting murder…and it is only a matter of time before the American people recoil in horror against these people, and turn to the Democrats to protect them against the crazy Republicans.
The smarter Republicans see the danger: that is why Cantor and the gang were out there screaming “the other side does it too!”
A number of crazy rightwing lone wolves have already gone violent -- the shootings in Pennsylvania, and the nut who crashed the plane into the IRS building, the nut who killed the abortion doctor, and of course the guys who were stopped before they could act, like Hutaree. Eventually there will be one lone wolf attack too many, and the American people will finally realize that the Republicans are no longer a political party – they are a front group for terrorists.
This is not to say that the Democrats don’t have some campaigning to do. Amazingly, a recent poll shows that some Americans blame the Democrats for the recent violence, because they used that nasty reconciliation tactic that the Republicans used many times themselves. And they think this because the media allowed the Republicans to spew lies about the health care bill for several months without slapping the crap out of them. But if the media won’t fix the problem, the Democrats will, when the 2010 campaign begins in earnest. The Democrats can win this PR battle easily – but not if they refuse to fight, month after month.
And of course the wingnuts are planning not one but two riots in Washington, one on the 15th and one – for which participants are specifically urged to bring weapons – on the 19th. That is the anniversary of the wingnut attack that killed more than one hundred people in Oklahoma.
Republican leaders are beginning to realize that they overdid it, in egging these people on. But when they try to step away from the bloodthirsty rhetoric of the wingnuts, the wingnuts threaten retaliation – the grownups and the lunatics are battling for control of the party and the conservative movement.
The few Republicans who say it’s time to at least talk to Democrats on issues such as finance reform are being slammed by the wingnuts for their “betrayal”.
The 19 April march is so clearly a potential danger that even teabaggers and gun-rights activists are warning the hard-core wingnuts that this could backfire badly – but the wingnuts are ignoring them.
The Republican grownups (this of course being a relative term) are trying to warn Michelle Bachmann that if she keeps telling the wingnuts to boycott the census, it could cost the GOP Congressional seats in places like Texas. But the wingnuts don’t want to listen – caution is for sissies and traitors!
Governors are saying that lawsuits against the health care bill are a stupid waste of money that they need to try to balance their shaky state budgets. But the wingnuts are screaming “no quarter, war to the knife!!” They are even trying to impeach one attorney general for refusing to file a lawsuit.
Some party leaders are advising their 2010 candidates to start backing away from their rhetoric threatening to try to repeal the health bill. But the Club For Growth, which has already succeeded in destroying Republicans who were considered insufficiently wingnutty – have warned Republican candidates against trying to back away from the repeal idea.
Now, think back to around 1968. Lyndon Johnson had just won a landslide election in 1964 and passed a number of landmark bills in Congress, and people were wondering if the Republican party was going to sink into permanent irrelevance. But in the late sixties, Middle America saw the demonstrations and riots by hippies and blacks, and they were frightened. They were so frightened that they began migrating over to the GOP, and soon the Republicans were in the ascendant again.
Something like that could be happening now: for several months, the American people have turned on their televisions and seen crazy people screaming about Obama, shrieking racial slurs, spitting on people, bringing guns to public events, throwing bricks, plotting murder…and it is only a matter of time before the American people recoil in horror against these people, and turn to the Democrats to protect them against the crazy Republicans.
The smarter Republicans see the danger: that is why Cantor and the gang were out there screaming “the other side does it too!”
A number of crazy rightwing lone wolves have already gone violent -- the shootings in Pennsylvania, and the nut who crashed the plane into the IRS building, the nut who killed the abortion doctor, and of course the guys who were stopped before they could act, like Hutaree. Eventually there will be one lone wolf attack too many, and the American people will finally realize that the Republicans are no longer a political party – they are a front group for terrorists.
This is not to say that the Democrats don’t have some campaigning to do. Amazingly, a recent poll shows that some Americans blame the Democrats for the recent violence, because they used that nasty reconciliation tactic that the Republicans used many times themselves. And they think this because the media allowed the Republicans to spew lies about the health care bill for several months without slapping the crap out of them. But if the media won’t fix the problem, the Democrats will, when the 2010 campaign begins in earnest. The Democrats can win this PR battle easily – but not if they refuse to fight, month after month.
How to avoid a repeat of 1994
First of all, this is not 1994. There are a great many differences.
One key difference is Republican leadership. In 1994 the GOP had Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and of course Haley Barbour, who was arguably the most effective Republican party chairman ever. Now those three positions are held by John Boehner, who is not taken very seriously as a potential Speaker; Mitch McConnell who is a master tactician but lacks the sheer nastiness that Dole brought to the game; and Michael Steele, the nonstop gaffe machine: the Voyeur club, the committee member’s daughter getting thousands of dollars, the phone number to the sex line, and so forth.
On the Democratic side, in 1994 Clinton, aided weakly by his nebbish-like Congressional allies, was reeling from his failures on health reform, gays in the military, and energy policy. Obama in 2010, however, has health reform, the stimulus package, saving the auto industry, turning around the jobs market and the stock market, cutting taxes, cutting the deficit, taking better care of our troops, turning things around in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing the pirates, the Russian nuclear treaty, and a little thing called the Nobel Prize. As Humphrey Bogart intimated in The Maltese Falcon, you could quibble with one or two of these, but look at the number of them. And that is a very abbreviated list of Obama’s achievements.
Also, in 1994 Clinton still dreamed that bipartisanship was possible. After eight years of Bush, Cheney and their open contempt for Congressional Democrats, and then eight months of Republican obstruction, lies and teabaggers, Obama knows better, as his recess appointments indicate. He’s ready to fight this fall.
And Obama has Pelosi, which Clinton didn’t have.
Another thing to look at is timing. The tide changes quickly in congressional elections. In 2006, for example, the GOP lost the House partly because the Mark Foley bombshell exploded in late September, only weeks before the voting, and the fire raged all through October.
So let’s compare 1994 and 2010. In 1994, Clinton signed a controversial crime/gun bill in mid-September, just before the election. The NRA, which was already targeting Clinton because of the 1993 Brady bill, whipped their troops up into a fury. Of the 54 House seats lost by the Democrats, Bill Clinton believes the NRA were responsible for grabbing 15 of them, and without those 15 the GOP could not have taken the House. This time, however, the teabaggers may have peaked too early: their biggest explosion of anger came more than a year before the election, and their second major explosion, in March 2010, backfired as the media focused on the associated violence.
Also, America is a different country now. Between 1992 and 1994 there was a huge shift in support from the Democrats to the Republicans, led by older, white, southern and Christian voters; the GOP targeted those people, and the Perot voters, and the centrists, with their Contract With America. People bought it: they still believed in the Reagan dream. This time is different in a number of ways: America saw what the “Contract” meant during eight years of Bush: recession, Iraq fiascos, a war on gays, and an endless series of crimes and follies. Voters don’t want to go back there again. The Republicans, challenged to come up with a new plan, are essentially offering an empty folder and promises of more obstruction, as they showed us on health care, the kind of Republican do-nothing attitude that Truman exploited during his 1948 victory. And the GOP can’t make gains this time by rounding up the old white southern Christian vote because they already have that voting bloc. In fact it’s pretty much all they have.
Fundraising has also changed in 16 years. In 2008 the Obama team taught the Democrats how to raise money more effectively than ever, although the ardor of the donors may have faded since 2008, particularly in light of Obama’s tilt away from liberalism and toward centrism. The Republicans, meanwhile, have serious problems: the national committee and its two congressional party committees are running behind their Democrat counterparts in fundraising, particularly with respect to the House where the Democrats have three times as much money in the bank.
The Republicans have two other challenges. First, the teabagger movement which they helped create is aiming a lot of their energy and money at teabagger candidates instead of Republicans. A number of mainstream Republican candidates are seen by the wingnuts as insufficiently wingnutty. Second, Steele’s problems have become so acute that top donors are actually telling people not to donate to the RNC, right in the middle of a midterm election. Even Palin is distancing herself from the RNC, and she is arguably the party’s biggest gun for fundraising. So right now the party itself has alienated both its deep-pocket donors and its most fanatic rank-and-file ground troops, the two groups they need to win.
A few things for Obama to do:
It’s a war, you have to fight. The time for reaching out the hand of bipartisan friendship is over, and it’s been over for months. Pound on the Republicans for their lies and attacks, and pound on the media for not reporting the lies and attacks. You can serve up Republican ideas like offshore drilling to throw them off-balance, but don’t beg for their approval.
Sell the truth about the health bill, particularly with respect to all the baseless warnings about death panels etc, coming from the same Republican crapmongers who promised that the Clinton budget of 1993 would cause disaster and the Bush tax cuts would cause a boom: wrong both times.
Focus the health care provisions originally championed by guys like Romney, who now admits that the new plan is similar to his plan. You already have the Republicans cornered on the issue of repealing the bill: don’t let them off the hook.
Also, the truth about the reconciliation process, if people are still steamed about it, although the people who matter most, the non-crazy voters, might just forget. This is a vivid reminder of what happens when the other team has message discipline and you don’t: if they tell the same lie over and over, using the same words, people will believe it, if you’re not fighting back with the same discipline.
Also remind voters of the truth about all the other things Obama has done: people forget quickly.
You need something to fire up the base that put Obama in the White House in the first place. Offshore drilling ain’t it. Although it’s fun watching the GOP try to criticize the drilling after demanding it.
Write a popular bill and dare the Republicans to filibuster it in the fall. A jobs bill, or the bank bill, which the GOP is already fighting….Currently the efforts to help the flood victims in the northeast are being held up by Republican obstruction too, but will people remember in November?
Win the scandal battle: more troubles for them, less for us. Keep Biden on a script, too. Especially in October: everybody watch your step!
Remind voters why they turned away from the GOP in the first place, particularly Bush’s damage to the economy.
One key difference is Republican leadership. In 1994 the GOP had Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and of course Haley Barbour, who was arguably the most effective Republican party chairman ever. Now those three positions are held by John Boehner, who is not taken very seriously as a potential Speaker; Mitch McConnell who is a master tactician but lacks the sheer nastiness that Dole brought to the game; and Michael Steele, the nonstop gaffe machine: the Voyeur club, the committee member’s daughter getting thousands of dollars, the phone number to the sex line, and so forth.
On the Democratic side, in 1994 Clinton, aided weakly by his nebbish-like Congressional allies, was reeling from his failures on health reform, gays in the military, and energy policy. Obama in 2010, however, has health reform, the stimulus package, saving the auto industry, turning around the jobs market and the stock market, cutting taxes, cutting the deficit, taking better care of our troops, turning things around in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing the pirates, the Russian nuclear treaty, and a little thing called the Nobel Prize. As Humphrey Bogart intimated in The Maltese Falcon, you could quibble with one or two of these, but look at the number of them. And that is a very abbreviated list of Obama’s achievements.
Also, in 1994 Clinton still dreamed that bipartisanship was possible. After eight years of Bush, Cheney and their open contempt for Congressional Democrats, and then eight months of Republican obstruction, lies and teabaggers, Obama knows better, as his recess appointments indicate. He’s ready to fight this fall.
And Obama has Pelosi, which Clinton didn’t have.
Another thing to look at is timing. The tide changes quickly in congressional elections. In 2006, for example, the GOP lost the House partly because the Mark Foley bombshell exploded in late September, only weeks before the voting, and the fire raged all through October.
So let’s compare 1994 and 2010. In 1994, Clinton signed a controversial crime/gun bill in mid-September, just before the election. The NRA, which was already targeting Clinton because of the 1993 Brady bill, whipped their troops up into a fury. Of the 54 House seats lost by the Democrats, Bill Clinton believes the NRA were responsible for grabbing 15 of them, and without those 15 the GOP could not have taken the House. This time, however, the teabaggers may have peaked too early: their biggest explosion of anger came more than a year before the election, and their second major explosion, in March 2010, backfired as the media focused on the associated violence.
Also, America is a different country now. Between 1992 and 1994 there was a huge shift in support from the Democrats to the Republicans, led by older, white, southern and Christian voters; the GOP targeted those people, and the Perot voters, and the centrists, with their Contract With America. People bought it: they still believed in the Reagan dream. This time is different in a number of ways: America saw what the “Contract” meant during eight years of Bush: recession, Iraq fiascos, a war on gays, and an endless series of crimes and follies. Voters don’t want to go back there again. The Republicans, challenged to come up with a new plan, are essentially offering an empty folder and promises of more obstruction, as they showed us on health care, the kind of Republican do-nothing attitude that Truman exploited during his 1948 victory. And the GOP can’t make gains this time by rounding up the old white southern Christian vote because they already have that voting bloc. In fact it’s pretty much all they have.
Fundraising has also changed in 16 years. In 2008 the Obama team taught the Democrats how to raise money more effectively than ever, although the ardor of the donors may have faded since 2008, particularly in light of Obama’s tilt away from liberalism and toward centrism. The Republicans, meanwhile, have serious problems: the national committee and its two congressional party committees are running behind their Democrat counterparts in fundraising, particularly with respect to the House where the Democrats have three times as much money in the bank.
The Republicans have two other challenges. First, the teabagger movement which they helped create is aiming a lot of their energy and money at teabagger candidates instead of Republicans. A number of mainstream Republican candidates are seen by the wingnuts as insufficiently wingnutty. Second, Steele’s problems have become so acute that top donors are actually telling people not to donate to the RNC, right in the middle of a midterm election. Even Palin is distancing herself from the RNC, and she is arguably the party’s biggest gun for fundraising. So right now the party itself has alienated both its deep-pocket donors and its most fanatic rank-and-file ground troops, the two groups they need to win.
A few things for Obama to do:
It’s a war, you have to fight. The time for reaching out the hand of bipartisan friendship is over, and it’s been over for months. Pound on the Republicans for their lies and attacks, and pound on the media for not reporting the lies and attacks. You can serve up Republican ideas like offshore drilling to throw them off-balance, but don’t beg for their approval.
Sell the truth about the health bill, particularly with respect to all the baseless warnings about death panels etc, coming from the same Republican crapmongers who promised that the Clinton budget of 1993 would cause disaster and the Bush tax cuts would cause a boom: wrong both times.
Focus the health care provisions originally championed by guys like Romney, who now admits that the new plan is similar to his plan. You already have the Republicans cornered on the issue of repealing the bill: don’t let them off the hook.
Also, the truth about the reconciliation process, if people are still steamed about it, although the people who matter most, the non-crazy voters, might just forget. This is a vivid reminder of what happens when the other team has message discipline and you don’t: if they tell the same lie over and over, using the same words, people will believe it, if you’re not fighting back with the same discipline.
Also remind voters of the truth about all the other things Obama has done: people forget quickly.
You need something to fire up the base that put Obama in the White House in the first place. Offshore drilling ain’t it. Although it’s fun watching the GOP try to criticize the drilling after demanding it.
Write a popular bill and dare the Republicans to filibuster it in the fall. A jobs bill, or the bank bill, which the GOP is already fighting….Currently the efforts to help the flood victims in the northeast are being held up by Republican obstruction too, but will people remember in November?
Win the scandal battle: more troubles for them, less for us. Keep Biden on a script, too. Especially in October: everybody watch your step!
Remind voters why they turned away from the GOP in the first place, particularly Bush’s damage to the economy.
Palin in 2012: Republican or third party, or...?
Something to watch for: Palin's movements over the summer. When someone plans to run for president, they build up a stack of chits they can cash in later, by helping party candidates across the country, with campaign visits and particularly with fundraising. That's how Nixon rose from the dead in 1968.
So if you see Palin out there raising money for normal, sane Republicans, then she is taking conventional route to a presidential nomination.
If, however, she decides to embrace the teabaggers instead of the mainstream candidates supported by the national party, then that means she has chosen not to lead the party in the conventional sense in 2012. She has chosen instead to lead the teabaggers -- and neither she nor the teabaggers really knows where that leads.
Which means that things could get really weird in 2012: she could lead the teabaggers to conquer the Republican party like Goldwater overthrew Rockefeller in 1964. Or they could run Palin as a third-party candidate for president, which means that the Republican nominee in 2012 could actually come in third like Taft did when Teddy Roosevelt split the GOP in two in 1912.
The good thing is that almost all of these alternative-universe outcomes lead to the same ending, a gigantic Obama victory.
Something else to watch for: what to the teabaggers think of Palin.
So if you see Palin out there raising money for normal, sane Republicans, then she is taking conventional route to a presidential nomination.
If, however, she decides to embrace the teabaggers instead of the mainstream candidates supported by the national party, then that means she has chosen not to lead the party in the conventional sense in 2012. She has chosen instead to lead the teabaggers -- and neither she nor the teabaggers really knows where that leads.
Which means that things could get really weird in 2012: she could lead the teabaggers to conquer the Republican party like Goldwater overthrew Rockefeller in 1964. Or they could run Palin as a third-party candidate for president, which means that the Republican nominee in 2012 could actually come in third like Taft did when Teddy Roosevelt split the GOP in two in 1912.
The good thing is that almost all of these alternative-universe outcomes lead to the same ending, a gigantic Obama victory.
Something else to watch for: what to the teabaggers think of Palin.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Romney, Mormons, and blacks
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/01/03/romney_will_hit_key_primary_states_on_book_tour/
They just announced that Mitt Romney is launching a book tour. Guess where he’s going to flack the book and speak out? Iowa.
So, to the shock of nobody, he’s running again in 2012.
Romney is no mere dabbler in Mormonism. He used a ministerial deferment to dodge the draft, spent two and a half years as a Mormon missionary, and got his bachelor’s at Brigham Young.
So, Mormonism.
Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, came from quite humble beginnings, born to farmers in a New York community that dabbled in mysticism, visions, and folk magic. The folk magic included a semi-mystical New England practice known as “treasure-digging”, sometimes using magic stones to hunt for treasure and lost items. One of these adventures, an alleged gold expedition, led to Smith’s conviction for fraud. At the ripe old age of 18 he was allegedly visited by an angel named, swear to God, Moroni. The angel allegedly led Smith to a site where ancient Egyptians, who had somehow wandered into upstate New York (wrong turn at Albuquerque?), had buried the Book of Mormon conveniently near Smith’s house.
The “sacred” texts were carved on metal plates in “reformed Egyptian”, a language unknown outside the world of the Mormons, but known somehow to Smith, despite the fact that he was a young farmer with no education, who of course had never been on the same side of the planet as Egypt. Smith convinced someone to write down the “Books of Mormon” as Smith dictated them from the “magic plates” hidden on the other side a blanket, like Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night”; the scribe was warned that if he tried to see the magic plates he would be struck dead. At other times Smith claimed he was reading the texts using magic glasses, or by looking at magic stones inside his hat. Then the plates were “magically” assumed into heaven. Thus, the “holy” book of Mormon was given to the world.
On the strength of this book, the Mormons insist that the church established by Jesus, Christianity, has fallen into spiritual chaos, changing Jesus’ laws and teachings, and following doctrines that are wrong, as Paul had allegedly foretold; as a result, God considers the modern Christian churches to be an abomination. The Mormons claim they are the ones who have restored Christianity to its proper form. Thus, the Mormon view of Christians.
Smith claimed that blacks, African-Americans, were descended from creatures who had refused to take a side in the battle between god and Lucifer; Smith referred to blacks as cursed and inferior. Brigham Young believed that blacks were lacking in intelligence, and that anyone who had sex with an African-American would die on the spot. Until 1978 the Mormons banned black men from the clergy.
Mormons also believe that native Americans are actually part of the lost tribes of Israel (I’m thinking BYU is a little shaky on anthropology and geography). They oppose gay marriage and equal rights for women.
They just announced that Mitt Romney is launching a book tour. Guess where he’s going to flack the book and speak out? Iowa.
So, to the shock of nobody, he’s running again in 2012.
Romney is no mere dabbler in Mormonism. He used a ministerial deferment to dodge the draft, spent two and a half years as a Mormon missionary, and got his bachelor’s at Brigham Young.
So, Mormonism.
Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, came from quite humble beginnings, born to farmers in a New York community that dabbled in mysticism, visions, and folk magic. The folk magic included a semi-mystical New England practice known as “treasure-digging”, sometimes using magic stones to hunt for treasure and lost items. One of these adventures, an alleged gold expedition, led to Smith’s conviction for fraud. At the ripe old age of 18 he was allegedly visited by an angel named, swear to God, Moroni. The angel allegedly led Smith to a site where ancient Egyptians, who had somehow wandered into upstate New York (wrong turn at Albuquerque?), had buried the Book of Mormon conveniently near Smith’s house.
The “sacred” texts were carved on metal plates in “reformed Egyptian”, a language unknown outside the world of the Mormons, but known somehow to Smith, despite the fact that he was a young farmer with no education, who of course had never been on the same side of the planet as Egypt. Smith convinced someone to write down the “Books of Mormon” as Smith dictated them from the “magic plates” hidden on the other side a blanket, like Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night”; the scribe was warned that if he tried to see the magic plates he would be struck dead. At other times Smith claimed he was reading the texts using magic glasses, or by looking at magic stones inside his hat. Then the plates were “magically” assumed into heaven. Thus, the “holy” book of Mormon was given to the world.
On the strength of this book, the Mormons insist that the church established by Jesus, Christianity, has fallen into spiritual chaos, changing Jesus’ laws and teachings, and following doctrines that are wrong, as Paul had allegedly foretold; as a result, God considers the modern Christian churches to be an abomination. The Mormons claim they are the ones who have restored Christianity to its proper form. Thus, the Mormon view of Christians.
Smith claimed that blacks, African-Americans, were descended from creatures who had refused to take a side in the battle between god and Lucifer; Smith referred to blacks as cursed and inferior. Brigham Young believed that blacks were lacking in intelligence, and that anyone who had sex with an African-American would die on the spot. Until 1978 the Mormons banned black men from the clergy.
Mormons also believe that native Americans are actually part of the lost tribes of Israel (I’m thinking BYU is a little shaky on anthropology and geography). They oppose gay marriage and equal rights for women.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Obama's numbers go UP after Detroit bomb scare
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/polls-show-no-political-backlash-against-obama-after-flight-253----even-a-possible-improvement.php?ref=fpa
More GOP smear attacks fail.
More GOP smear attacks fail.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Obama still most popular despite a year of smear attacks
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-29-admire-gallup-poll_N.htm
A solid year of unprecedented smear attacks against Obama, and he is still, by a mile, the most popular man in America. All the crap about birth certificates, death panels, government takeovers, improper choice of mustard...All ignored by the 80 percent of the country that is not insane.
And Hillary, not Sarah Palin, is the most popular woman.
All that GOP effort bashing Team Blue, to no avail.
A solid year of unprecedented smear attacks against Obama, and he is still, by a mile, the most popular man in America. All the crap about birth certificates, death panels, government takeovers, improper choice of mustard...All ignored by the 80 percent of the country that is not insane.
And Hillary, not Sarah Palin, is the most popular woman.
All that GOP effort bashing Team Blue, to no avail.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Guest contributor reports on health reform opponents who fudge the figures on cancer
Cancer Treatment and Health Care Reform
One argument you may hear against health care reform concerns cancer survival rates. The United States has higher cancer survivor rates than countries with national health care systems, we’re told. Doesn’t this mean we should keep what we’ve got and not change it?
Certainly cancer survival rates are a critical issue for people suffering from the deadly lung mesothelioma cancer. So let’s look at this claim and see if there is any substance to it.
First, it’s important to understand that “cancer survival rate” doesn’t mean the rate of people who are cured of a cancer. The cancer survival rate is the percentage of people who survive a certain type of cancer for a specific amount of time, usually five years after diagnosis.
For example, according to the Mayo Clinic, the survivor rate of prostate cancer in the United States is 98 percent. This means that 98 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer are still alive five years later. However, this statistic does not tell us whether the men who have survived for five years still have cancer or what number of them may die from it eventually.
Misunderstanding of the term “survivor rate” sometimes is exploited to make misleading claims. For example, in 2007 a pharmaceutical company promoting a drug used to treat colon cancer released statistics showing superior survival rates for its drug over other treatments. Some journalists who used this data in their reporting assumed it meant that the people who survived were cured of cancer, and they wrote that the drug “saved lives.” The drug did extend the lives of of patients, on average by a few months. However, the mortality rate for people who used this drug — meaning the rate of patients who died of the disease — was not improved.
But bloggers and editorial writers who oppose health care reform seized these stories about “saving lives,” noting that this wondrous drug was available in the United States for at least a year before it was in use in Great Britain. Further, Britain has lower cancer survival rates than the U.S. This proved, they said, the superiority of U.S. health care over “socialist” countries.
This is one way propagandists use data to argue that health care in the United States is superior to countries with government-funded health care systems. They selectively compare the most favorable data from the United States with data from the nations least successful at treating cancer. A favorite “comparison” country is Great Britain, whose underfunded National Health Service is struggling.
It is true that the United States compares very well in the area of cancer survival rates, but other countries with national health care systems have similar results.
For example, in 2008 the British medical journal Lancet Oncology published a widely hailed study comparing cancer survival rates in 31 countries. Called the CONCORD study, the researchers found that United States has the highest survival rates for breast and prostate cancer. However, Japan has the highest survival for colon and rectal cancers in men, and France has the highest survival for colon and rectal cancers in women. Canada and Australia also ranked relatively high for most cancers. The differences in the survival data for these “best” countries is very small, and is possibly caused by discrepancies in reporting of data and not the treatment result itself.
And it should be noted that Japan, France, Canada and Australia all have government-funded national health care systems. So, there is no reason to assume that changing the way health care is funded in the U.S. would reduce the quality of cancer care.
— Barbara O’Brien
www.maacenter.org
One argument you may hear against health care reform concerns cancer survival rates. The United States has higher cancer survivor rates than countries with national health care systems, we’re told. Doesn’t this mean we should keep what we’ve got and not change it?
Certainly cancer survival rates are a critical issue for people suffering from the deadly lung mesothelioma cancer. So let’s look at this claim and see if there is any substance to it.
First, it’s important to understand that “cancer survival rate” doesn’t mean the rate of people who are cured of a cancer. The cancer survival rate is the percentage of people who survive a certain type of cancer for a specific amount of time, usually five years after diagnosis.
For example, according to the Mayo Clinic, the survivor rate of prostate cancer in the United States is 98 percent. This means that 98 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer are still alive five years later. However, this statistic does not tell us whether the men who have survived for five years still have cancer or what number of them may die from it eventually.
Misunderstanding of the term “survivor rate” sometimes is exploited to make misleading claims. For example, in 2007 a pharmaceutical company promoting a drug used to treat colon cancer released statistics showing superior survival rates for its drug over other treatments. Some journalists who used this data in their reporting assumed it meant that the people who survived were cured of cancer, and they wrote that the drug “saved lives.” The drug did extend the lives of of patients, on average by a few months. However, the mortality rate for people who used this drug — meaning the rate of patients who died of the disease — was not improved.
But bloggers and editorial writers who oppose health care reform seized these stories about “saving lives,” noting that this wondrous drug was available in the United States for at least a year before it was in use in Great Britain. Further, Britain has lower cancer survival rates than the U.S. This proved, they said, the superiority of U.S. health care over “socialist” countries.
This is one way propagandists use data to argue that health care in the United States is superior to countries with government-funded health care systems. They selectively compare the most favorable data from the United States with data from the nations least successful at treating cancer. A favorite “comparison” country is Great Britain, whose underfunded National Health Service is struggling.
It is true that the United States compares very well in the area of cancer survival rates, but other countries with national health care systems have similar results.
For example, in 2008 the British medical journal Lancet Oncology published a widely hailed study comparing cancer survival rates in 31 countries. Called the CONCORD study, the researchers found that United States has the highest survival rates for breast and prostate cancer. However, Japan has the highest survival for colon and rectal cancers in men, and France has the highest survival for colon and rectal cancers in women. Canada and Australia also ranked relatively high for most cancers. The differences in the survival data for these “best” countries is very small, and is possibly caused by discrepancies in reporting of data and not the treatment result itself.
And it should be noted that Japan, France, Canada and Australia all have government-funded national health care systems. So, there is no reason to assume that changing the way health care is funded in the U.S. would reduce the quality of cancer care.
— Barbara O’Brien
www.maacenter.org
Monday, 28 December 2009
GOP blocking choice for TSA chief -- the airport security guy...?
Months ago, the GOP was screeching about Obama's handling of the swine flu crisis -- neatly ignoring the fact that they were holding up the nominations of the top Health and Human Services officials who would have handled the mess.
Now they're hollering about Obama's handling of the Detroit airplane scare -- all while they're blocking the appointment of the TSA chief. They have also been blocking the approval for TSA money.
Now they're hollering about Obama's handling of the Detroit airplane scare -- all while they're blocking the appointment of the TSA chief. They have also been blocking the approval for TSA money.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Birth of the women's movement, 463 BC
The great causes in the progress of mankind – freedom, justice, democracy, the abolition of slavery -- often have deep roots, lost in the mists of the ancient world. But the cause of female empowerment, I think, can be given a pretty firm birth-date: 463 BC.
The ancient world was an inhospitable place for women. For more than a thousand years, the lives of women in ancient China were described as “unbearable”, and they were likely to have, not names, but numbers, i.e. “Daughter Number Two”. In theory women of ancient Egypt had legal rights but in practice they were seen as second-class citizens and child-bearers only. Greek women had little control over their own lives, virtually no property of their own, and virtually no rights.
Misogyny in Greece extended to the arts. The Greeks didn’t want women writing plays, performing plays, or even seeing plays in the audience – according to some accounts, “proper” women would never dare see a show, and only the prostitutes and female slaves would show up.
Enter Aeschylus. In 463 BC, women suddenly had a new voice, or at least an advocate. Aeschylus’s play The Suppliants told of the daughters of Danaus, who were fleeing for their lives to avoid arranged marriages. Five years later he told the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra: Agamemnon agreed to slaughter his own daughter in order to appease the gods and win favour on the battlefield, whereupon his wife (the girl’s mother) killed him and was killed in turn by her son and daughter.
A few years later, Sophocles followed with Antigone, about a woman who defies the death penalty in order to give her dead brother a decent burial.
And then the big one, Euripedes.
Euripedes was a trailblazer, a destroyer of conventions, and like most such men he paid a price for it. In an age in which playwrights were creating characters, kings and gods, who were impossibly grand and noble, Euripedes was truly the first realistic artist, showing humanity in all its folly, warts and all. Sophocles admitted that he portrayed characters as they ought to be, whereas Euripedes portrayed people as they really are.
In a civilization which treated women with contempt, Euripedes put women downstage center to tell the story of life and war from their point of view. To Euripedes, women mattered.
Euripides, starting in 438 BC, gave us plays which said a lot about female sacrifice. First, the play Alcestis, about a wife who agrees to die in place of her husband; Medea, about the Mother Of All Nasty Divorces; Hippolytus, about a woman who dies for love; Heracles’ Children, about a girl agreeing to be sacrificed to appease the gods.
Euripedes’ women, on stage, began to grow in power. Next he wrote Andromache, a woman who saves herself and her child from death; Hecuba, who avenges her child’s murder; Ion, about rape and infanticide; The Trojan Women, about war’s impact on women; Electra and Orestes, retelling the Agamemnon story; the Iphigenia plays, about a woman who agrees to die for her country and is later rescued; Helen, who finds and reconciles with her husband and escapes a horny king who wants to marry her; and The Phoenician Woman, about women trapped in the middle of a war.
Even more striking for a man of the ancient world, Euripedes despised war and said so in his plays: he wrote “Trojan Women” just as the Athenians were mulling over the prospect of invading Sicily, a notion which repelled Euripides. But speaking out for women and against war, of course, cost Euripedes a lot: in the annual drama contests Euripedes was regularly defeated by lesser men, partly because he refused to kowtow to the judges, and he was constantly ridiculed by the more successful Aristophanes. In the end, of course, Euripedes was proved right: just after “Trojan Women” was staged, Athens invaded Sicily despite the objections of wiser men, the operation was a disaster, Athens’ enemies in Sparta and Persia formed an alliance, and within eleven years Athens itself was destroyed. Euripedes may have been comparatively lucky, however: a few years after the fall of Athens another iconoclast, Socrates, was executed.
Neatly enough, though, Euripedes seems to have shaken the will of his opponents. After Euripedes condemned war in script after script, his enemy Aristophanes wrote his own anti-war story, Lysistrata, about women forcing their men to end an endless war, by denying them sex. And like Euripedes, Aristophanes shows kings and generals as realistic, all too human, and he focuses on the women. Of course, Aristophanes being Aristophanes, his version is a lot funnier. But once again, women were downstage center, taking charge of the story.
Euripedes and Aristophanes both endure to this day because they appeal to all audiences: whether you favor or oppose the war of your own age, everyone can agree about the terrible toll which war takes not only on the men who fight but also their families. Homer endures for the same reason: his first book, “The Iliad”, tells us a lot about the folly of both men and gods, but his sequel, “The Odyssey”, shows vividly how even the victors suffered terribly.
Oh, and a footnote about Berthe Morisot. She was a painter of a century ago, who not only managed to shove her way into the ultra-male Paris art world, but also defied the existing traditions of all the male artists painting Hercules and Napoleon killing people. Instead she focused on depicting women and girls simply living their lives: reading a book, picking cherries, playing with their children. Women and girls mattered to Morisot, as they did to Euripedes. Of course by painting women and children she also made life easier for her husband, who was worried about her spending long hours painting male models. So, as often in the world of women, multiple motives were at work.
And she also painted a portrait that is a dead ringer for my two daughters.
The ancient world was an inhospitable place for women. For more than a thousand years, the lives of women in ancient China were described as “unbearable”, and they were likely to have, not names, but numbers, i.e. “Daughter Number Two”. In theory women of ancient Egypt had legal rights but in practice they were seen as second-class citizens and child-bearers only. Greek women had little control over their own lives, virtually no property of their own, and virtually no rights.
Misogyny in Greece extended to the arts. The Greeks didn’t want women writing plays, performing plays, or even seeing plays in the audience – according to some accounts, “proper” women would never dare see a show, and only the prostitutes and female slaves would show up.
Enter Aeschylus. In 463 BC, women suddenly had a new voice, or at least an advocate. Aeschylus’s play The Suppliants told of the daughters of Danaus, who were fleeing for their lives to avoid arranged marriages. Five years later he told the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra: Agamemnon agreed to slaughter his own daughter in order to appease the gods and win favour on the battlefield, whereupon his wife (the girl’s mother) killed him and was killed in turn by her son and daughter.
A few years later, Sophocles followed with Antigone, about a woman who defies the death penalty in order to give her dead brother a decent burial.
And then the big one, Euripedes.
Euripedes was a trailblazer, a destroyer of conventions, and like most such men he paid a price for it. In an age in which playwrights were creating characters, kings and gods, who were impossibly grand and noble, Euripedes was truly the first realistic artist, showing humanity in all its folly, warts and all. Sophocles admitted that he portrayed characters as they ought to be, whereas Euripedes portrayed people as they really are.
In a civilization which treated women with contempt, Euripedes put women downstage center to tell the story of life and war from their point of view. To Euripedes, women mattered.
Euripides, starting in 438 BC, gave us plays which said a lot about female sacrifice. First, the play Alcestis, about a wife who agrees to die in place of her husband; Medea, about the Mother Of All Nasty Divorces; Hippolytus, about a woman who dies for love; Heracles’ Children, about a girl agreeing to be sacrificed to appease the gods.
Euripedes’ women, on stage, began to grow in power. Next he wrote Andromache, a woman who saves herself and her child from death; Hecuba, who avenges her child’s murder; Ion, about rape and infanticide; The Trojan Women, about war’s impact on women; Electra and Orestes, retelling the Agamemnon story; the Iphigenia plays, about a woman who agrees to die for her country and is later rescued; Helen, who finds and reconciles with her husband and escapes a horny king who wants to marry her; and The Phoenician Woman, about women trapped in the middle of a war.
Even more striking for a man of the ancient world, Euripedes despised war and said so in his plays: he wrote “Trojan Women” just as the Athenians were mulling over the prospect of invading Sicily, a notion which repelled Euripides. But speaking out for women and against war, of course, cost Euripedes a lot: in the annual drama contests Euripedes was regularly defeated by lesser men, partly because he refused to kowtow to the judges, and he was constantly ridiculed by the more successful Aristophanes. In the end, of course, Euripedes was proved right: just after “Trojan Women” was staged, Athens invaded Sicily despite the objections of wiser men, the operation was a disaster, Athens’ enemies in Sparta and Persia formed an alliance, and within eleven years Athens itself was destroyed. Euripedes may have been comparatively lucky, however: a few years after the fall of Athens another iconoclast, Socrates, was executed.
Neatly enough, though, Euripedes seems to have shaken the will of his opponents. After Euripedes condemned war in script after script, his enemy Aristophanes wrote his own anti-war story, Lysistrata, about women forcing their men to end an endless war, by denying them sex. And like Euripedes, Aristophanes shows kings and generals as realistic, all too human, and he focuses on the women. Of course, Aristophanes being Aristophanes, his version is a lot funnier. But once again, women were downstage center, taking charge of the story.
Euripedes and Aristophanes both endure to this day because they appeal to all audiences: whether you favor or oppose the war of your own age, everyone can agree about the terrible toll which war takes not only on the men who fight but also their families. Homer endures for the same reason: his first book, “The Iliad”, tells us a lot about the folly of both men and gods, but his sequel, “The Odyssey”, shows vividly how even the victors suffered terribly.
Oh, and a footnote about Berthe Morisot. She was a painter of a century ago, who not only managed to shove her way into the ultra-male Paris art world, but also defied the existing traditions of all the male artists painting Hercules and Napoleon killing people. Instead she focused on depicting women and girls simply living their lives: reading a book, picking cherries, playing with their children. Women and girls mattered to Morisot, as they did to Euripedes. Of course by painting women and children she also made life easier for her husband, who was worried about her spending long hours painting male models. So, as often in the world of women, multiple motives were at work.
And she also painted a portrait that is a dead ringer for my two daughters.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
a party for dead people
Tonight was a meeting of people who shouldn't be alive.
My youngest daughter was abandoned to die, at birth, in the woods; she has overcome almost total blindness, allergy to sunlight, and infectious disease that drove her temperature to 106. My wife was so sickly at birth that her family was told she would never be born alive, and she has a long laundry list of medical conditions. I was born under similar circumstances, and I’ve come within inches of death several times, in addition to foreign folks having a price on my head years ago (plus cancer). My oldest daughter was born in a Siberian prison, abused, and abandoned; along the way she survived a head injury and two bouts of pneumonia.
By all the laws of probability, there is no way the four of us should all be alive, and together this Christmas.
Tonight I learned that the four of us are a bunch of sissies.
Tonight the four of us met another member of the club. This was a friend of a friend, a woman from Tanzania, an albino like my daughter. She spent most of her time being fed soup by our friends, because she has no arms. Hired thugs working for African witch doctors hacked off her arms and left her to die of blood loss or infection – the body parts of albinos are believed to have magical powers in eastern Africa. She miraculously survived, and managed to get all the way to America to get prosthetics, which she hasn’t received yet. When she was done eating, she sat, serene, and sang quite happy African songs. If you had to pick the trauma victim out of all the people in that room, you never would have guessed it was her – she had the kind of calm that Buddha would envy. She didn’t even flinch at coming from a boiling equatorial country to below-freezing weather. The women who had hosted the party were crying like babies, but this woman never even blinked.
For a minute I thought the five us should go to the 711 and buy a lottery ticket for Christmas, because clearly the laws of probability don’t apply to us. On the other hand, maybe we’ve used up all our good luck.
But we’re all having a merrier Christmas than we really should be having.
Incidentally, my blind daughter. While we were with the woman from Tanzania, she was in the other room with the other children. First she destroyed all of them at chess, even though she could hardly see the chess pieces. Then she destroyed all of them at air hockey, even though she could hardly see the puck.
Air hockey.
The season of miracles indeed.
My youngest daughter was abandoned to die, at birth, in the woods; she has overcome almost total blindness, allergy to sunlight, and infectious disease that drove her temperature to 106. My wife was so sickly at birth that her family was told she would never be born alive, and she has a long laundry list of medical conditions. I was born under similar circumstances, and I’ve come within inches of death several times, in addition to foreign folks having a price on my head years ago (plus cancer). My oldest daughter was born in a Siberian prison, abused, and abandoned; along the way she survived a head injury and two bouts of pneumonia.
By all the laws of probability, there is no way the four of us should all be alive, and together this Christmas.
Tonight I learned that the four of us are a bunch of sissies.
Tonight the four of us met another member of the club. This was a friend of a friend, a woman from Tanzania, an albino like my daughter. She spent most of her time being fed soup by our friends, because she has no arms. Hired thugs working for African witch doctors hacked off her arms and left her to die of blood loss or infection – the body parts of albinos are believed to have magical powers in eastern Africa. She miraculously survived, and managed to get all the way to America to get prosthetics, which she hasn’t received yet. When she was done eating, she sat, serene, and sang quite happy African songs. If you had to pick the trauma victim out of all the people in that room, you never would have guessed it was her – she had the kind of calm that Buddha would envy. She didn’t even flinch at coming from a boiling equatorial country to below-freezing weather. The women who had hosted the party were crying like babies, but this woman never even blinked.
For a minute I thought the five us should go to the 711 and buy a lottery ticket for Christmas, because clearly the laws of probability don’t apply to us. On the other hand, maybe we’ve used up all our good luck.
But we’re all having a merrier Christmas than we really should be having.
Incidentally, my blind daughter. While we were with the woman from Tanzania, she was in the other room with the other children. First she destroyed all of them at chess, even though she could hardly see the chess pieces. Then she destroyed all of them at air hockey, even though she could hardly see the puck.
Air hockey.
The season of miracles indeed.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Glenn Beck inspires more wingnuts to challenge GOP candidates in primaries
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/02/beck-primary/
Monday, 30 November 2009
Huckabee's 2012 hopes go up in flames
Recently, Iowa Republicans were turning away from Sarah Palin and toward Mike Huckabee as the conservative choice for the all-important Iowa primary in 2012. But now the SS Huckabee has taken another torpedo in the side. A second Huckabee commutee, Maurice Clemmons, seems to have murdered four policemen. Huckabee also commuted the sentence of Wayne Dumond, who raped and murdered two women, one of them pregnant.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
The menace from Fredonia
Let’s play a parlor trick on the Republicans.
Let’s send Robert Gibbs out to announce to the White House press corps that America faces an imminent attack from terrorists based in Fredonia.
And then wait for the insanity to begin.
Glenn Beck: (weeping) OMG the humanity! All the women and little children at risk of being MURDERED IN THEIR BEDS by these Fredonians!
Michael Steele: We’re imposing a new litmus test. Anyone Republican doesn’t take a hard line on Fredonians will be drummed out of the party.
Dick Cheney: We warned the Obama people about this Fredonia threat, but they just don’t care about endangering every American man, woman and child.
Sarah Palin: All ya gotta do is look at the dang map, and see the border between Fredonia and Ruritania, and the threat is so obvious that everybody but Obama can see it!
Joe Lieberman: Clearly Obama was remiss in not nuking Fredonia because of the obvious threat to Israel …
Orly Taitz: If Obama was a real American, he would have wiped out the Fredonians months ago!
Mitch McConnell: We’re introducing an amendment that will block all health care reform unless the Fredonian menace is met with military conquest – and all abortions and gay marriages are banned in conquered Fredonia.
Chris Matthews: back in my day, Lyndon Johnson was a real man, he never would have let this Fredonia thing spin out of control!
David Broder: If only Obama had the good sense to listen to the establishment and the moderates in his own party on Fredonia, we wouldn’t be in such terrible danger!
David Gregory: I’ve been to Fredonia many times, and I just can’t understand how the Obama administration lost control of this issue.
Boehner: …and those Fredonians have that creepy brown skin too. Gives me the willies.
Chuck Todd: In an overnight poll, two-thirds of Americans are afraid of Fredonia and think Obama isn’t doing enough to fight them.
McCain: My advisers told me to attack Obama last year for his naïve policy on Fredonia, but I don’t believe in going negative.
George Stephanopoulos: Bill Clinton would have reached a deal with these Fredonians before things got out of hand. Where is Obama on this??
Teabaggers: NUKE FRENODIA! NUKE FRENODIA!
Then we’ll explain to them that Fredonia is a fictional country invented by Groucho Marx.
And they STILL won’t back down. Because they never back down when they’re busted on their lies – they invariably double down on their bets, in the hope that America has more stupid people than smart people.
"I am Captain Spalding, the African explorer..."
Let’s send Robert Gibbs out to announce to the White House press corps that America faces an imminent attack from terrorists based in Fredonia.
And then wait for the insanity to begin.
Glenn Beck: (weeping) OMG the humanity! All the women and little children at risk of being MURDERED IN THEIR BEDS by these Fredonians!
Michael Steele: We’re imposing a new litmus test. Anyone Republican doesn’t take a hard line on Fredonians will be drummed out of the party.
Dick Cheney: We warned the Obama people about this Fredonia threat, but they just don’t care about endangering every American man, woman and child.
Sarah Palin: All ya gotta do is look at the dang map, and see the border between Fredonia and Ruritania, and the threat is so obvious that everybody but Obama can see it!
Joe Lieberman: Clearly Obama was remiss in not nuking Fredonia because of the obvious threat to Israel …
Orly Taitz: If Obama was a real American, he would have wiped out the Fredonians months ago!
Mitch McConnell: We’re introducing an amendment that will block all health care reform unless the Fredonian menace is met with military conquest – and all abortions and gay marriages are banned in conquered Fredonia.
Chris Matthews: back in my day, Lyndon Johnson was a real man, he never would have let this Fredonia thing spin out of control!
David Broder: If only Obama had the good sense to listen to the establishment and the moderates in his own party on Fredonia, we wouldn’t be in such terrible danger!
David Gregory: I’ve been to Fredonia many times, and I just can’t understand how the Obama administration lost control of this issue.
Boehner: …and those Fredonians have that creepy brown skin too. Gives me the willies.
Chuck Todd: In an overnight poll, two-thirds of Americans are afraid of Fredonia and think Obama isn’t doing enough to fight them.
McCain: My advisers told me to attack Obama last year for his naïve policy on Fredonia, but I don’t believe in going negative.
George Stephanopoulos: Bill Clinton would have reached a deal with these Fredonians before things got out of hand. Where is Obama on this??
Teabaggers: NUKE FRENODIA! NUKE FRENODIA!
Then we’ll explain to them that Fredonia is a fictional country invented by Groucho Marx.
And they STILL won’t back down. Because they never back down when they’re busted on their lies – they invariably double down on their bets, in the hope that America has more stupid people than smart people.
"I am Captain Spalding, the African explorer..."
OMG, Obama's Asia trip was a failure!
The media is still relentless in bashing Obama, even in defiance of the facts.
Such as: Obama has extracted concessions from China on climate change and on Iran, both of which are huge advances.
But you'll never hear the media admit it.
Such as: Obama has extracted concessions from China on climate change and on Iran, both of which are huge advances.
But you'll never hear the media admit it.
Friday, 27 November 2009
A trigger option that doesn't suck?
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/27/trigger-urban-institute/
Early discussion of Olympia Snowe's trigger option faded away because Democrats feared the trigger would never be pulled, and Republicans didn't want to do anything at all. But Obama and Reid are looking for a way out of the current impasse.
Now there is a new trigger proposal that links the trigger, not to local affordability of coverage, but to national rates in the growth of health spending. The former is a trigger which probably would never be pulled, but the latter, if it's written correctly, would be much more likely to be triggered. And it could lead to a robust public option, not just the negotiated/out-out option Reid offered as a sop to moderates. It would probably make Snowe happy, and therefore win the support of the Blue Dogs Democrats and Obama. And it wouldn't need reconciliation, probably.
Early discussion of Olympia Snowe's trigger option faded away because Democrats feared the trigger would never be pulled, and Republicans didn't want to do anything at all. But Obama and Reid are looking for a way out of the current impasse.
Now there is a new trigger proposal that links the trigger, not to local affordability of coverage, but to national rates in the growth of health spending. The former is a trigger which probably would never be pulled, but the latter, if it's written correctly, would be much more likely to be triggered. And it could lead to a robust public option, not just the negotiated/out-out option Reid offered as a sop to moderates. It would probably make Snowe happy, and therefore win the support of the Blue Dogs Democrats and Obama. And it wouldn't need reconciliation, probably.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Tea Party convention in February
The National Tea Party convention will be held at Nashville’s Opryland Hotel this February; tickets are $549. 500 dollar tickets to the Opry, way to reach out beyond old white voters! Palin and Bachmann will speak; the media will be cordoned off in the lobby, banned from the convention itelf, and definitely banned from the Palin event (if Palin shows up).
So the wingnuts are taking giant strides toward organizing a movement which will not only rival the GOP but split it in two.
So the wingnuts are taking giant strides toward organizing a movement which will not only rival the GOP but split it in two.
Economists confirm: stimulus saved a million jobs
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/business/economy/21stimulus.html?_r=1
GDP and employment would have been much worse without the stimulus. “There are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus."
Another GOP talking point goes up in smoke.
GDP and employment would have been much worse without the stimulus. “There are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus."
Another GOP talking point goes up in smoke.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Huckabee acknowledges that Rush is the true party leader
Mike Huckabee is arguably the strongest GOP presidential candidate for 2012; he has a legitimate claim to being the top leader of the party.
But wait! I'm wrong! The real party leader is...
COURIC: Were you referring to anyone in particular or anyone specific because I know Rush Limbaugh had criticized the day before you made that statement.
HUCKABEE: No one in particular. I wasn’t criticizing Rush. He’s got a bigger megaphone and microphone than I do and I’m not going to get into a war with him. It wasn’t about Rush Limbaugh; it was about the general tenor.
But wait! I'm wrong! The real party leader is...
COURIC: Were you referring to anyone in particular or anyone specific because I know Rush Limbaugh had criticized the day before you made that statement.
HUCKABEE: No one in particular. I wasn’t criticizing Rush. He’s got a bigger megaphone and microphone than I do and I’m not going to get into a war with him. It wasn’t about Rush Limbaugh; it was about the general tenor.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Palin and Romney in Iowa
Although the Republican wingnuts nationally are turning away from Palin and toward Huckabee, in Iowa she is at least as popular as Huckabee is, according to the latest polling in Iowa. Both of them poll better than Romney in Iowa, but in the Iowa caucuses Palin and Huckabee will be competing for the same wingnut votes.
So while we know Palin is still alive as a presidential candidate, despite her sinking national numbers, perhaps the guy to take a good look at is Romney. In 2008 the score was: Huckabee 34, Romney 25, Thompson 13, McCain 13, Ron Paul 10. Assuming that the votes for Huckabee, Thompson and Paul were from the wingnut side, while Romney and McCain were votes from supporters of the party establishment, the wingnut-establishment split was about 57-38. If Romney gets most of that 38, while Huckleberry and Palin split the 57, Romney could pull an upset in Iowa and then take New Hampshire without breaking a sweat.
Recently I pointed out that with the winner-take-all system used in a lot of Republican primaries, someone like Palin could rack up some early wins and then run the table the way McCain did last year. But Romney could be the run-the-table guy too.
So while we know Palin is still alive as a presidential candidate, despite her sinking national numbers, perhaps the guy to take a good look at is Romney. In 2008 the score was: Huckabee 34, Romney 25, Thompson 13, McCain 13, Ron Paul 10. Assuming that the votes for Huckabee, Thompson and Paul were from the wingnut side, while Romney and McCain were votes from supporters of the party establishment, the wingnut-establishment split was about 57-38. If Romney gets most of that 38, while Huckleberry and Palin split the 57, Romney could pull an upset in Iowa and then take New Hampshire without breaking a sweat.
Recently I pointed out that with the winner-take-all system used in a lot of Republican primaries, someone like Palin could rack up some early wins and then run the table the way McCain did last year. But Romney could be the run-the-table guy too.
Fox is going off the air!
Last week Fox was caught lying yet again, this time by faking the size of the turnout at a Palin book-signing. But this time they actually admitted the error and imposed a zero-tolerance policy for errors: people who put factual errors on the air face punishment. “Jobs are on the line here”!
So obviously Fox will go off the air in a matter of weeks, because none of their on-air talent can restrain themselves from lies, smears and other nonsense. Glenn Beck can scarcely clear his throat at the top of his broadcast without spewing lies – he’ll be gone in days.
So obviously Fox will go off the air in a matter of weeks, because none of their on-air talent can restrain themselves from lies, smears and other nonsense. Glenn Beck can scarcely clear his throat at the top of his broadcast without spewing lies – he’ll be gone in days.
Gay-bashing epidemic
That silly old hate crimes bill was compleeeeeetely unnecessary, right?
The FBI disclosed today that the number of anti-gay hate crimes last year was almost 2000.
Two thousand.
Five times a day, crazed wingnuts attack some gay guy, or some gay girl.
Five times a day.
And that's just the stuff that's reported as a crime, not to mention the thousand times a day a gay student is rammed into his locker, or hollered at in the hallway, and doesn't bother to complain.
"Because beatin on them fags is fuuuuuuun! Yee haw!"
Welcome to our world.
The FBI disclosed today that the number of anti-gay hate crimes last year was almost 2000.
Two thousand.
Five times a day, crazed wingnuts attack some gay guy, or some gay girl.
Five times a day.
And that's just the stuff that's reported as a crime, not to mention the thousand times a day a gay student is rammed into his locker, or hollered at in the hallway, and doesn't bother to complain.
"Because beatin on them fags is fuuuuuuun! Yee haw!"
Welcome to our world.
The wingnuts increase their grip on the GOP
The Republican National Committee is working on a “purity test” for its candidates. All candidates must oppose Obama’s stimulus bill, oppose Obama’s health reform, oppose health care rationing (which no one is proposing) and federal funding of abortion, oppose Obama’s cap-and-trade plan, oppose gay marriage, oppose card check, oppose immigrant amnesty, support troop surges, support the containment of the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, and oppose all gun control. If the party even believes that you deviate from the party line on more than two of these issues, you will get no support or money from the party.
Sieg heil! All apostates and counterrevolutionaries to the tumbrels!
Meanwhile Wingnut senator Jim DeMint has gained power by being the go-to guy to give the wingnut seal of approval to conservative candidates. He is backing a rightwing challenger to California candidate Carly Fiorina, who has now tacked to the right and flipflopped on the stimulus package. Moderate Republicans are sucking up to him, trying to get his approval so they don’t get primaried to death from the right, or cut off from GOP money (DeMint’s PAC has more than a million bucks for 2010). The party is terrified of him – he could push the GOP’s 2010 candidate slate way to the right and into the Loss column. Even John Cornyn, a rock-ribbed conservative, is irritated, and Coburn and Inhofe are also unconvinced.
But how to stop him? Even Michael Steele is starting to sound like Robespierre.
Sieg heil! All apostates and counterrevolutionaries to the tumbrels!
Meanwhile Wingnut senator Jim DeMint has gained power by being the go-to guy to give the wingnut seal of approval to conservative candidates. He is backing a rightwing challenger to California candidate Carly Fiorina, who has now tacked to the right and flipflopped on the stimulus package. Moderate Republicans are sucking up to him, trying to get his approval so they don’t get primaried to death from the right, or cut off from GOP money (DeMint’s PAC has more than a million bucks for 2010). The party is terrified of him – he could push the GOP’s 2010 candidate slate way to the right and into the Loss column. Even John Cornyn, a rock-ribbed conservative, is irritated, and Coburn and Inhofe are also unconvinced.
But how to stop him? Even Michael Steele is starting to sound like Robespierre.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Following Mao is evil! Unless you're Glenn Beck.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/22/beck-100-year-plan/
BECK: I’ve done a lot of reading on history in the last few years and I was amazed to find that what we’re experiencing now is really a ticking time bomb that they designed about 100 years ago, beginning in the progressive movement. And they thought, “you know what, if we just do this and this and this and this, over time if we do it in both the Republican and Democratic parties, we will have our socialist utopia.” Well, I say again, two can play at that game. I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand. … We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I’m developing a 100 year plan for America. A 100 year plan. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.
BECK: I’ve done a lot of reading on history in the last few years and I was amazed to find that what we’re experiencing now is really a ticking time bomb that they designed about 100 years ago, beginning in the progressive movement. And they thought, “you know what, if we just do this and this and this and this, over time if we do it in both the Republican and Democratic parties, we will have our socialist utopia.” Well, I say again, two can play at that game. I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand. … We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I’m developing a 100 year plan for America. A 100 year plan. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Here's Inhofe counting his chickens before they...um...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/20/inhofe-to-boxer-we-won-yo_n_365465.html
Here's wingnut Senator Inhofe celebrating that he managed to delay the climate change bill until January, sneering at Barbara Boxer -- "We won, you lost, get a life."
Remember Leon Lett in the Super Bowl years ago, doing his touchdown dance before he even got to the end zone, and then getting the ball knocked out of his hands? That's Inhofe come Valentine's Day.
Here's wingnut Senator Inhofe celebrating that he managed to delay the climate change bill until January, sneering at Barbara Boxer -- "We won, you lost, get a life."
Remember Leon Lett in the Super Bowl years ago, doing his touchdown dance before he even got to the end zone, and then getting the ball knocked out of his hands? That's Inhofe come Valentine's Day.
Next target for the wingnuts: McCain
The latest polling shows that J.D. Hayworth, a far-right anti-immigrant radio host and Tea Party activist, is in a virtual tie with John McCain for the Republican nomination for McCain’s Senate seat. Hayworth has said he’s interested in running but he hasn’t committed.
This is perfectly fitting, because McCain helped throw gasoline on the fire all across Planet Wingnut, when he surrendered to the wingnuts and unleashed Palin on the world. He helped created this mass-insanity movement.
This is perfectly fitting, because McCain helped throw gasoline on the fire all across Planet Wingnut, when he surrendered to the wingnuts and unleashed Palin on the world. He helped created this mass-insanity movement.
Bush wanted terrorists tried in U.S.
"I believe they ought to be tried in courts here in the United States." —Bush on terror suspects at Guantanamo, 2006
Good catch from Cesca.
Good catch from Cesca.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 election
According to the latest PPP poll, Republicans believe, 52 to 27, that ACORN stole the election for Obama. They really believe that ACORN altered the outcome of the election to the tune of 10 million votes. The wingnuts really, sincerely believe that Obama is an illegitimate president, independent of the whole birther thing.
So the lunacy of the teabagger movement becomes easier to understand.
But they're still, um, insane.
So the lunacy of the teabagger movement becomes easier to understand.
But they're still, um, insane.
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
2012: Obama would crush Pawlenty even in his home state
According to a new poll, Obama would beat Pawlenty by 9 points – in Minnesota. Even in his home state, he would be crushed even worse than Obama crushed McCain nationally.
Wingnut merchandising campaign: pray for Obama's death
The wingnuts have a new slogan: Pray for Obama, Psalm 109.
“Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”
It’s on bumper stickers, T-shirts, everything, even toys.
Gotta get all that cool stuff in the stores for Christmas!
Even a former evangelical leader was appalled: “Really, this is trawling for assassins….It only takes one…This bumper sticker simply says to them “It’s open season”….This is the American version of the Taliban….And what surprises me is that responsible, if you can put it that way, Republican leadership and the editors of some of these Christian magazines, etc. etc., do not stand up in holy horror and denounce this.”
They are publicly expressing their hope that God, or some armed wingnut, will cut Obama down.
And teaching their kids to pray for the same thing.
They are praying for the death of the man who brought ethics back into government. He ordered all federal agencies to find spending cuts and promote transparency, he reduced the secrecy in executive records, he restored full adherence to the Freedom of Information Act, he increased press conferences and town halls, he blocked lobbyists from accessing the White House or hiring its staffers, and he limited White House salaries.
They are praying for the death of the man who saved our economy in the nick of time. He saved or created a million direct or indirect jobs with the stimulus program, he saved the auto industry, the financial industry and the housing market, he got banks to pay back big buckets of bailout money, he got the markets up 50 percent in a matter of months, he turned the corner on monthly unemployment rates, he stopped the slide in GDP, and he trimmed the budget deficit by 200 billion a year.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who helped the man on the street to survive the recession. He gave food and support and health coverage to the unemployed, he helped people to save their mortgages, he expanded student loans and loan refinancing, he expanded loans to small businesses, he established the homeowners credit, and regardless of all the lies spewed by his enemies, he cut our taxes. Along the way he fixed up neglected roads, bridges and power plants, and funded school construction and internet access.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who helped round up the crooks who got us into all this economic trouble. He ended tax breaks for firms that outsource our jobs; he prevented tax cheats from hiding their money overseas and finally persuaded Swiss bankers to expose crooked depositors; he reformed the credit card industry, he ended protection of predatory credit card firms, and he signed the anti-fraud bill.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who made America Number One again. He won a Nobel Prize for getting the world back on track, on arms proliferation, the Middle East peace process, relations with the Muslim world, climate change, war crimes, torture, and diplomacy. He reengaged with world leaders and the international community, he improved America’s image internationally, he repaired bilateral relations with dozens of countries, he persuaded Pakistan to go after the Taliban, he improved our Cuba policy, and he freed prisoners in North Korea and Myanmar.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who showed his balls by putting more troops in Afghanistan and improving Afghanistan policy; he killed the Somali pirates, freed the American captain, and put the Navy in Somali waters.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who, unlike his predecessor, actually supported the troops. He pulled troops out of Iraq and stopped the stop-loss system, he got body armor for our troops, he increased pay, benefits, medical care and housing for troops and veterans, he hired more military spouses; he improved conditions at military hospitals, he stopped the media blackout on war casualties and on the arrival of the coffins at Dover AFB, and he paid to bring families of soldiers to Dover when the coffins arrived.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who made our troops proud to wear the uniform again: he stopped the torture, and he directed the closure of Guantanamo and the secret prisons in Europe.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who cleaned up his predecessor’s blank-check defense spending: he overhauled military procurement, he blocked no-bid defense contracts, and he phased out unnecessary military programs like the F22 and missile defense.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who, even with all the partisan obstruction, still made progress on health care. He expanded health care for 4 million children, expanded vaccination programs, cut drug costs for seniors, saved hundreds of millions by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, led the fight against the swine flu, and stopped pharmacists from cutting women off from birth control.
Surely, the Republican leadership will denounce such puritanical thuggery, right?
“Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”
It’s on bumper stickers, T-shirts, everything, even toys.
Gotta get all that cool stuff in the stores for Christmas!
Even a former evangelical leader was appalled: “Really, this is trawling for assassins….It only takes one…This bumper sticker simply says to them “It’s open season”….This is the American version of the Taliban….And what surprises me is that responsible, if you can put it that way, Republican leadership and the editors of some of these Christian magazines, etc. etc., do not stand up in holy horror and denounce this.”
They are publicly expressing their hope that God, or some armed wingnut, will cut Obama down.
And teaching their kids to pray for the same thing.
They are praying for the death of the man who brought ethics back into government. He ordered all federal agencies to find spending cuts and promote transparency, he reduced the secrecy in executive records, he restored full adherence to the Freedom of Information Act, he increased press conferences and town halls, he blocked lobbyists from accessing the White House or hiring its staffers, and he limited White House salaries.
They are praying for the death of the man who saved our economy in the nick of time. He saved or created a million direct or indirect jobs with the stimulus program, he saved the auto industry, the financial industry and the housing market, he got banks to pay back big buckets of bailout money, he got the markets up 50 percent in a matter of months, he turned the corner on monthly unemployment rates, he stopped the slide in GDP, and he trimmed the budget deficit by 200 billion a year.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who helped the man on the street to survive the recession. He gave food and support and health coverage to the unemployed, he helped people to save their mortgages, he expanded student loans and loan refinancing, he expanded loans to small businesses, he established the homeowners credit, and regardless of all the lies spewed by his enemies, he cut our taxes. Along the way he fixed up neglected roads, bridges and power plants, and funded school construction and internet access.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who helped round up the crooks who got us into all this economic trouble. He ended tax breaks for firms that outsource our jobs; he prevented tax cheats from hiding their money overseas and finally persuaded Swiss bankers to expose crooked depositors; he reformed the credit card industry, he ended protection of predatory credit card firms, and he signed the anti-fraud bill.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who made America Number One again. He won a Nobel Prize for getting the world back on track, on arms proliferation, the Middle East peace process, relations with the Muslim world, climate change, war crimes, torture, and diplomacy. He reengaged with world leaders and the international community, he improved America’s image internationally, he repaired bilateral relations with dozens of countries, he persuaded Pakistan to go after the Taliban, he improved our Cuba policy, and he freed prisoners in North Korea and Myanmar.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who showed his balls by putting more troops in Afghanistan and improving Afghanistan policy; he killed the Somali pirates, freed the American captain, and put the Navy in Somali waters.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who, unlike his predecessor, actually supported the troops. He pulled troops out of Iraq and stopped the stop-loss system, he got body armor for our troops, he increased pay, benefits, medical care and housing for troops and veterans, he hired more military spouses; he improved conditions at military hospitals, he stopped the media blackout on war casualties and on the arrival of the coffins at Dover AFB, and he paid to bring families of soldiers to Dover when the coffins arrived.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who made our troops proud to wear the uniform again: he stopped the torture, and he directed the closure of Guantanamo and the secret prisons in Europe.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who cleaned up his predecessor’s blank-check defense spending: he overhauled military procurement, he blocked no-bid defense contracts, and he phased out unnecessary military programs like the F22 and missile defense.
They are begging for a “patriot” to murder the man who, even with all the partisan obstruction, still made progress on health care. He expanded health care for 4 million children, expanded vaccination programs, cut drug costs for seniors, saved hundreds of millions by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, led the fight against the swine flu, and stopped pharmacists from cutting women off from birth control.
Surely, the Republican leadership will denounce such puritanical thuggery, right?
Reid openly threatens Blue Dogs with reconciliation
Reid warned the Blue Dogs that if they join the Republicans at any stage in the process, he can still use reconciliation.
Ben Nelson is hinting that he will at least allow debate on the bill to begin. “Why would you stop senators from doing the job they're elected to do--debate, consider amendments, and take action on an issue affecting every American?” Actually he is motivated not by love of the democratic process but by fear: he acknowledged that if anyone blocked the bill, Reid would go with reconciliation and the bill would be even more liberal than it would be otherwise.
Landrieu says she will read the bill but says also that “we’re moving in the right direction”. She wants to improve it on the floor. The things she says she wants are doable – low cost, preventing the destruction of private insurance etc. So she is probably a "yes" vote at least for opening the debate.
Lieberman will probably allow the debate, at least. Still waiting to hear from Lincoln.
Ben Nelson is hinting that he will at least allow debate on the bill to begin. “Why would you stop senators from doing the job they're elected to do--debate, consider amendments, and take action on an issue affecting every American?” Actually he is motivated not by love of the democratic process but by fear: he acknowledged that if anyone blocked the bill, Reid would go with reconciliation and the bill would be even more liberal than it would be otherwise.
Landrieu says she will read the bill but says also that “we’re moving in the right direction”. She wants to improve it on the floor. The things she says she wants are doable – low cost, preventing the destruction of private insurance etc. So she is probably a "yes" vote at least for opening the debate.
Lieberman will probably allow the debate, at least. Still waiting to hear from Lincoln.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
chaos and opportunity in the GOP
The GOP brand gets weaker every day. Only 22 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans now, way behind both the Democrats and the Independents; among other things, this means the GOP would need a huge majority of independents to reject Obama, just to get a tie in 2012. Also the latest ABC poll shows that 72 percent of Americans support the kind of limited public option offered in the Senate bill.
The GOP isn’t helping itself with its seemingly endless series of embarrassments. GOP screeching about Obama’s bow to the Japanese emperor blew up in their faces when the media posted images of Bush kissing the king of Saudi Arabia and holding hands with him, and Nixon bowing to Mao. More and more conservatives are ridiculing the GOP whining and yammering about trying terror suspects in criminal courts. Beck made conservatives look even more ridiculous by equating Obama with a rapist: "We're the young girl saying 'no, no, help me,' and the government is Roman Polanski." And the RNC had to admit a week ago that their employee health plan covers…abortion.
The newspaper of record for the wingnut movement, the Washington Times, is collapsing – the Op-Ed editor is now complaining to the EEOC (!) on grounds of religious discrimination. Meanwhile the Tea Party Express and the Tea Party Patriots are locked in a nasty, spitting, hair-pulling brawl, complete with expulsions and expensive lawsuits, over the direction of the wingnut movement; among other things, the TPP people think the TPE people are too subservient to the GOP – some wingnuts really do consider the GOP as the enemy worth rebelling against and attacking at election time -- and accusations of shoddy business practices are filling the air. One teabagger announced he would rejoin the GOP only if the national party met a lengthy list of demands, particularly declaring war on all Democrats and anyone who votes for health reform. The splintering of the wingnut movement into an alphabet-soup of competing movements like the TPP and TPE calls to mind Monty Python’s satire of the dozens of Palestinian terror movements in “Life of Brian”.
But establishment Republicans still kowtow to the rightwing loons. Pawlenty, terrified of the wingnuts, is tacking to the right, flipflopping on climate change, and veering wildly to starboard on ACORN, death panels and the 10th Amendment. And Palin, for all her airheadedness, still seems to be a major player in the conservative movement, simply because everyone is terrified of her and her wingnut followers. Mark Kirk, GOP Senate candidate in Illinois, who originally ridiculed the selection of Palin as vice presidential candidate, is now sucking up to get her endorsement. No dice. Palin also launched the death panel insanity and the intra-GOP lynching of Scozzafava – like it or not, everybody pays attention when she has another one of these grand mal seizures of wingnuttery.
Also, Politics Daily points out that because a number of Republican presidential primaries are winner-take-all, in 2012 Palin could rack up a bunch of early victories in places like wingnut-rich Iowa and South Carolina, and wrap up the nomination quickly the way McCain did last time. One spoiler could be Huckabee, who also has wingnut cred and is now more popular with the party faithful (or perhaps Romney who has more money than God). The party could change the rules, or try to unite behind an anti-Palin candidate, but that would require a unity of leadership which the party doesn’t seem to have right now.
The current chaotic, leaderless state of the GOP could provide the kind of power vacuum that Palin could exploit, whereas in normal times no credible political party would ever nominate her.
The Democrats smell blood: they know the wingnuts have overstayed their welcome within the non-crazy 80 percent of America. Robert Reich is joining the chorus of Democrats calling for Reid to ignore the Blue Dogs and get going on reconciliation. Tom Harkin is among those planning to counter GOP obstruction efforts by forcing Republican Senators to stay on the Senate floor 24/7 to make their obstructive tactics stick.
The GOP isn’t helping itself with its seemingly endless series of embarrassments. GOP screeching about Obama’s bow to the Japanese emperor blew up in their faces when the media posted images of Bush kissing the king of Saudi Arabia and holding hands with him, and Nixon bowing to Mao. More and more conservatives are ridiculing the GOP whining and yammering about trying terror suspects in criminal courts. Beck made conservatives look even more ridiculous by equating Obama with a rapist: "We're the young girl saying 'no, no, help me,' and the government is Roman Polanski." And the RNC had to admit a week ago that their employee health plan covers…abortion.
The newspaper of record for the wingnut movement, the Washington Times, is collapsing – the Op-Ed editor is now complaining to the EEOC (!) on grounds of religious discrimination. Meanwhile the Tea Party Express and the Tea Party Patriots are locked in a nasty, spitting, hair-pulling brawl, complete with expulsions and expensive lawsuits, over the direction of the wingnut movement; among other things, the TPP people think the TPE people are too subservient to the GOP – some wingnuts really do consider the GOP as the enemy worth rebelling against and attacking at election time -- and accusations of shoddy business practices are filling the air. One teabagger announced he would rejoin the GOP only if the national party met a lengthy list of demands, particularly declaring war on all Democrats and anyone who votes for health reform. The splintering of the wingnut movement into an alphabet-soup of competing movements like the TPP and TPE calls to mind Monty Python’s satire of the dozens of Palestinian terror movements in “Life of Brian”.
But establishment Republicans still kowtow to the rightwing loons. Pawlenty, terrified of the wingnuts, is tacking to the right, flipflopping on climate change, and veering wildly to starboard on ACORN, death panels and the 10th Amendment. And Palin, for all her airheadedness, still seems to be a major player in the conservative movement, simply because everyone is terrified of her and her wingnut followers. Mark Kirk, GOP Senate candidate in Illinois, who originally ridiculed the selection of Palin as vice presidential candidate, is now sucking up to get her endorsement. No dice. Palin also launched the death panel insanity and the intra-GOP lynching of Scozzafava – like it or not, everybody pays attention when she has another one of these grand mal seizures of wingnuttery.
Also, Politics Daily points out that because a number of Republican presidential primaries are winner-take-all, in 2012 Palin could rack up a bunch of early victories in places like wingnut-rich Iowa and South Carolina, and wrap up the nomination quickly the way McCain did last time. One spoiler could be Huckabee, who also has wingnut cred and is now more popular with the party faithful (or perhaps Romney who has more money than God). The party could change the rules, or try to unite behind an anti-Palin candidate, but that would require a unity of leadership which the party doesn’t seem to have right now.
The current chaotic, leaderless state of the GOP could provide the kind of power vacuum that Palin could exploit, whereas in normal times no credible political party would ever nominate her.
The Democrats smell blood: they know the wingnuts have overstayed their welcome within the non-crazy 80 percent of America. Robert Reich is joining the chorus of Democrats calling for Reid to ignore the Blue Dogs and get going on reconciliation. Tom Harkin is among those planning to counter GOP obstruction efforts by forcing Republican Senators to stay on the Senate floor 24/7 to make their obstructive tactics stick.
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