Horrifying. This is what we get when the far right gets a free pass from the mainstream media. How about nightly fact checks on the evening news programs? These people are dangerous (the so-called journalists on the far right) when they inflame potential domestic terrorists so they can drive up ratings with their "info-taiment" shock talk, and then run from the responsibility when one of these nut jobs actually takes everything they've been saying as fact and starts building bombs or firing off shots.
Do they have the right to say the things they do? Well, I suppose they do. But the mainstream media, more so, has the responsibility of challenging what they say, from Fox News to Glenn Beck and beyond. Instead, they ignore it, or even worse, take it seriously and start reporting on the same "stories" these dangerous anti-journalists are fabricating without any real reporting to clarify fact and to separate truth from fiction.
When, not if, but when we have the next OKC, I'll be blaming the major mainstream news outlets as much as I'll be blaming the right wing "info-tainment" outlets. Perhaps even more so, because they truly are dropping the journalism ball where Beck and folks make it very clear that they are pandering to their viewers and listeners for the sake of the holy dollar and have little real interest in actually being journalists.
A lot of these folks cite the Bible for their political philosophies, well here's one for them:
Romans 13 (NSV): 1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.
Monday, November 25, 2013
When does it become too much? Some tea partiers are now calling for Obama’s “legal” assassination
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Shutdown Blues & The Promise of Reform in 2014
Yes, it’s been quiet here, as I warned it would be after the election. There may be another post on that later.
Shutdown. Blah, blah… All the stuff from the webs. Been posting a ton of stuff on the Facebook page about this…
But this is where we may see some change in the future. Maybe things needed to get this bad in D.C. before real change in Congress was possible.
First, a little about how this happened, in my eyes, at least.
The Tea Partiers who are pushing this are concerned about jobs, this is a job retention strategy. Their jobs, yes, self-preservation, yes, but that’s what it is.
The districts that elected them want to see some action against Obama and Obama care is about the only real policy / legislation they can find true fault with. If they don’t do what they are doing, a lot of these radicals will be voted out and replaced with another round of amateurs who will flounder in futility as badly as the current crop of self proclaimed patriots.
Now, yes. Anger against the GOP over this fiasco may cost some Republicans from more balanced, moderate districts their jobs in 2014, but it won’t be the far, far right minority.
This may be enough to toss the House back to the Dems, which may actually lead to a functioning Congress for a while.
But it doesn’t fix the problem. The real problem is the procedural rules in both houses. These arcane and, often, insane rules emerged over decades as one party or the other struggled against the domination of the other.
A silver lining to come out of all of this may be that rules reform could be a real winning campaign issue in 2014. Usually, when the minority party comes into power, they, for many reasons, leave this stuff.
However, I think candidate that campaign on reform could really do well in 2014, which may or may not lead to reform actually happening, but let’s cross one bridge at a time here. For the GOP, this may be a critical strategy. Yeah, my party broke the country, but I want to fix it. Depending on how bad things get, this may be the only strategy they have.
If this comes to pass, then this current fiasco may lead to some really positive change down the road. And it really will take a disaster to make such change possible. But maybe it will be worth it, in the long run.
For there to be any hope of reform, though, things are going to have to get a lot worse first. If this stalemate is resolved soon, and if we end up not defaulting on our debts, then the electorate will have forgotten these events 13 months from now. Sad but true.
And make no mistake, this is exactly why this is happening right now.
I am not rooting for disaster. But, if it comes, then this will be my happy thought as I rummage through the dumpsters trying to keep the boys fed.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
GOP: Selling the American Dream and Winning Elections
This morning on OPB, the local NPR radio station, they had a brief clip from the president of the Portland State University Republicans...
Her main argument for the GOP and Romney, her main attraction to the GOP, was her perception that the Republicans’ primary ethic was success through hard work. She said that this fit well with her family's worldview, since her parents were immigrants who achieved "the American Dream." She also felt the Republicans were more pro-American, more patriotic.
So, through all of the noise and clatter, what she is taking from the campaigns so far is that the idea of working really hard to achieve success is a Republican ethic. I suppose, for the Democrats’ ethics, she probably shares Romney’s stated view on 47% of America, though, to be fair, she did not mention the Democrats at all.
This is how the GOP gets so many to vote for them, to vote against their best interests. The message is to work hard, keep doing what you are doing, and we’ll get the government to quit supporting those who aren’t working as hard and to remove those who are standing in your way on the path to success.
I would spend the morning collecting stats and historical trends from Republican Congresses and Presidencies, but lets face it… For voters like this young woman, those stats mean nothing. They had her at "work brings freedom."
To be fair, this sounded like the ideas of someone very young who has not really had any real world experience. I don’t know, but it’s what she sounded like to me.
Now, I have no problem with people who are Republicans because they feel that the specific policies and platforms, economic plans, etc. are right for America. I usually disagree with them, but they have their vote and I have mine.
What bothered me here was that she did not talk about economic plans or specific ideas on solving real issues our country was facing, she spoke only of vague generalities and meaningless, emotional slogans. And, to her, the GOP is the party supporting the American Dream.
Of course, this young woman’s vote was probably never up for grabs this year. Her reasons for being a Republican may be silly, but she is one and it is unlikely that she ever considered voting for Obama this year. Party faithful tend to look for reasons to continue to support their candidate, even through disaterous campaigns, rather than looking for reasons to switch their vote to the other guy.
But this clip still tells me a lot about how this election is going, and how recent elections have gone down.
To me, this is a really clear example of how the two parties different ideas distill down to many people, dripping down through incompetent or biased media sources, through tea party / extremist sloganeering, to arrive, stripped of any meaning or sense, to wash and water the preconceived biases of the ordinary voter who does not spend hours, not even every day, but every election, picking their party and candidate…
This election will be decided by 5% of the voters in five or so states. If they have not made up their mind yet, they are probably relying on semi-hysterical and mostly meaningless sound bites on the evening and morning news shows, vague notions bantered about by late night comics, Facebook graphics, and water cooler talking points for their information.
What is distilling down to these people is important. It will decide this election. It is easy to laugh and dismiss people who sound like this student sounded this morning, and that is a huge mistake because whichever candidate does the best job at targeting voters like her, albeit ones who have not made up their minds, will win every time.
Historically, the Republicans have the process down. The Democrats are slowly catching up, but still tend to fall into the trap that they can win on the intelligence and strength of their ideas and that sound bites are petty and worthless. No, they can’t win this way.
It is why so many Democrats were baffled by Romney’s “defeat” of Obama in the first debate. Obama brought the facts, Romney brought the persona, and Romney “won.”
As much as I hate to say it, to win, the Democrats must become masters of the very broken, very evil, sound bite and slogan driven PR machine that removes all thought and depth from their arguments and promises everyone success and happiness and ponies as a reward for voting Democrat.
Unfortunately, for the last twelve years or more, the Democrats seem incapable of actually winning elections. The only times they actually win, including the mid-term congressional elections as well as the presidency, is when the GOP screws up so bad that the voters come crawling back to give the Dems one more chance.
Before the first debate, the widening lead in the polls was not due to the strength of the Democrats’ arguments, but due to the ineptness of the Romney campaign. He seems silly, I am not voting for him! Tax codes? Health care? Foreign policy? Nope. Mitt looked silly. Now that Mitt doesn’t seem so silly, these voters are torn again.
This election will be decided by Leno and Letterman and the like, not even by Fox News or The Daily Show, whose viewers were never really in play to start with. The candidate who wins will be the one who provides the least fuel for the jokes, not by the campaign that offers the best, or, at least, the most coherent, ideas for the future of our country. It is sad and it is why, I can’t see for a long time, calling this blog anything but Democracy In Distress.
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Sunday, October 07, 2012
Christian persecution in America?
This has always frustrated me. We can talk about the death of spiritual principals and how those who do try to follow a spiritual way of life, whether or not I agree with them, are probably falling into a minority in this country, but to claim you are persecuted for being a Christian in the USA? That just makes me want to puke.
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Monday, March 05, 2012
Putin, Clinton, & Bush… Oh my! The current, dynastic period of American history
Observers Detail Flaws in Russian Election - NYTimes.com:
Mr. Putin, who has already served eight years as president and four years as prime minister, won a new six-year term on Sunday with an official tally of 63.75 percent of the vote. He has already suggested that he might run again in 2018, potentially extending his tenure as Russia’s pre-eminent leader to 24 years, on a par with Brezhnev and Stalin.
Before we get all shocked about Putin and say, "It could never happen here!" think about this:
A likely list of US Presidents in a future text book...
1989 - 2021 or 2025 (32-34 years):
-Bush
-Clinton
-Bush
-Obama (almost Clinton & prominently featuring Clinton family members and former Clinton officials in the cabinet/administration)
-(Clinton or Bush likely)
Hillary and Jeb have to be considered the initial front runners in 2016.
I am starting to think of our current period as the Dynastic Period in American history.
Of course, there have been a few more shenanigans in the Russian elections than the American elections. 2000 not withstanding, though, Americans are clearly choosing their leaders from these prominent families.
Recently, I read an article saying that Jeb may even jump in this year to save the GOP from their circular firing squad. And I think there is little doubt that Hillary will take a shot at 2016. It wouldn’t even be the most shocking event ever if she ends up being on the 2012 ticket as VP.
In 2008, one of the main reasons why I supported Obama in the primaries was that I felt having a 20 year stretch with only the last names Bush or Clinton residing in the White House was bad for America and bad for our democracy, even if we liked the people in office (or some of them).
Continuing this trend for another four to eight years? Having the potential for the Presidency to be passed back and forth between two families, if Hillary was elected twice, for nearly thirty years?
That is dangerous, I believe, for any democracy.
I suspect, though, that we may not be done with Presidents named Bush and Clinton.
I would be very surprised not to see either Hillary or Jeb picking up a nomination in the future, and 2016 may even end up being Bush v. Clinton in the general.
And they are young enough that both may eventually end up in the White House.
Picture this:
Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Bush, Clinton
If everyone gets two terms, that would be 44 years of dynastic presidencies with one, minor exception. Almost half a century.
Age may limit these far reaching possibilities.
Hillary will be 81 in 2028 and 86 in 2033 (end of the latest possible second term in this scenario).
Jeb will be 76 in 2028 and 80 in 2033.
In comparison, Ronald Reagan, our oldest president so far, was almost 70 when he was first inaugurated in 1981 and served until two weeks before his 78th birthday. He lived to age 93, but was crippled by Alzheimer's for, at least, the last 10 years of his life.
This article drifts a little towards the unsteady conspiracy theories from time to time, but it also makes plenty of solid points.
The Jeb Scenario: Can You Say “President Bush” Again? | Snip.it:
The Bushes are nothing if not resilient. George W. Bush, he of so few qualifications but with his own distinctive Bush personality and formidable charisma, came out of the dust of his father’s re-election defeat in 1992, stronger than his father ever was politically. And though W. is now persona non grata to many, his brother would come back as a significantly different brand. He’s widely regarded as more capable, much more focused, much better at delivering points. He’s able to pull off a kind of sober, reasonable persona, more stable than a Santorum or a Gingrich or most of the other contenders. Rich but not entitled. A kind of Romney—without the Romney.
And yet….And yet he is still a Bush. That means a great deal, because, putting aside all the stylistic differences, this is a clan with a mission. It’s a mission they’ll never talk about, beyond vague statements about a sense within the family of Duty to Nation. No, the Bush clan is the ultimate representative of the game plan of the one percent of the one percent. What they stand for in private is much, much more troubling than most Americans know. What I learned in the five years I spent investigating them—as they were going out of power the last time—shook me to my core.
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Sunday, February 19, 2012
Code Speak: Politics, bigotry, & the problem with Santorum
Before the Florida primary, I mistakenly believed that Rick Santorum was done.
Can’t we just be done with him? Please?
The Anyone But Romney camp has got them selves into a pickle… They have to decide between the walking contradiction of Newt Gingrich and Santorum, whose issues as a general election candidate may be just as awkward, but in a very different way...
Republicans and the Culture Wars: Why It Won't Work This Year - The Daily Beast:
Then there’s Rick Santorum, who, by all rights, should dominate the values battlefield. He’s got the loving wife, the passel of kids, the goofy-dad vibe. And, let’s face it, the man has never met a policy issue he didn’t see through the prism of family values. Tax reform? Regulatory reform? Deficit spending? As Rick tells it, the first step toward addressing any of these problems is to reinstate the ban on sodomy.
On pure piety points, no one can beat Rick. We’re talking here about a guy who has said he would use the presidential bully pulpit to warn of how contraception tempts even married couples to get busy in ways contrary to God’s will. This, of course, is part of the problem. Opposing abortion is one thing. Opposing contraception even among married folks doesn’t make Rick seem like a paragon of moral virtue so much as a refugee from the 16th century.
This excerpt touches on the real problem with Santorum without actually landing on it. It is not Santorum’s beliefs that are necessarily troubling to the far right, it is the way he communicates them. He either has made a decision at some point in his career to ignore the generally accepted code speak of the conservative social agenda, or he just doesn’t understand it.
If the former, then this is, perhaps, a bold though politically difficult approach to campaigning for him. If the latter, then he may be too stupid to be president. Not that that has stopped voters before.
What do I mean by code speak? Well, on gay rights, instead of calling them “special rights,” he focuses instead on the idea that homosexuality is a sin. Sure, a lot of non-politicians focus on the Biblical rather than the political points of this issue, but usually those are not people running in statewide elections, let alone wanting to run in a national general election.
Likewise, the new contraception debate (really, have we drifted that far to the right?)…
Instead of talking about the economics of health care, or even the questionable argument about religious freedom for faith-based organizations, Santorum, in the past, hit a straight moral line drive with the argument that contraception was bad for families. Of course, this was before the debate raised like an oily sludge to the surface of the election cycle, and at the time he said that he was not in favor of legislating this brand of morality, but times and political climates can and do change…
This sort of right wing code speak becomes very troubling to me when the President is being discussed. I know the issues that most on the right have with Obama have nothing to do with his race, but… All the claims about the President being a Muslim, a non-native citizen, and even a socialist… In a different day and age, how many of the people making so much noise about these non-issues wouldn’t bother? Instead, thirty plus years ago, they would just be making noise about getting the black man out of the White House.
Not everyone, don’t get me wrong. But I am sure that some percentage of those making these sorts of arguments about the President are just using these non-issues as code speak about his race.
While I disagree with Santorum at a fundamental level on just about every issue and take exception to almost every word that comes out of his mouth, at least he is not that kind of slime. I have no doubt that his issues with Obama have a lot more to do with wanting his job than with the color of the President’s skin.
The bigoted, racist kind of slime out there who do have that problem should be worried, though, because Santorum does not play their game and, in the unlikely event that he secures the GOP nomination, his inability to use proper conservative code speak will slay any chances at victory in November.
Only by using code speak to portray religious and moral beliefs as legitimate political issues can one who seems to believe that birth control is a refuge for loose women with low morals succeed in gaining acceptance outside of the far right conservative primaries.
Of course, Santorum’s failure to grasp the necessity of right wing code speak is not his only problem, beyond failing to understand how to discuss social issues, he really doesn’t seem to understand which aspects of these issues really engage people in the first place:
But it’s not just that the senator’s positions are out of touch with the mainstream electorate (a mere 8 percent of Americans think birth control is immoral; 84 percent of U.S. Catholics think you can use it and still be a good Catholic). It’s that the guy is simultaneously too pious and too pathetic.
Take his views on gay rights. Plenty of people object to gay marriage, but Santorum has long come across as a bit of a clown on the entire subject of homosexuality. It’s some combination of his whiny manner and his slightly-too-colorful blatherings about how “sodomy” is kinda like polygamy or incest but not quite so bad as man-on-dog action. With that kind of commentary, small wonder Dan Savage decided to execute his devastating lexical takedown of the senator.
Perhaps saddest of all, when things get uncomfortable, Santorum crumbles. Pressed recently about a section of his 2005 book, It Takes a Family, that laments “radical feminists” undermining the family by pushing women to work outside the home, the senator pleaded ignorance and claimed the bit had been written by his wife.
To be sure, this whole Serious Candidate business is new to Santorum.
Here’s to crumbling and blaming it on your wife. That sells really well in the heartland.
The problem the rest of us will have if Santorum became president should resolve itself any time now. I am just surprised he’s made it this far.
But not really. I still am not convinced that the GOP can bring itself to nominate a Mormon, er… I mean someone who flip flops on all the issues they hold dear while being responsible for the rough draft of the “anti-American” and “Socialist” Obama death panel plan.
Unfortunately, the only other sane choice they had this year was another, lesser known Mormon, er… I mean someone who endorsed the President’s anti-Amercian, Nazi Communist agenda by actually working for the guy. Ambassador to China or closet communist?
Huntsman's failure to launch and the Anyone But Romney crusade, it surely couldn’t have anything to do with faith, could it? I am sure that for most primary voters, the politics do come first. Unfortunately, I am sure that there are a few out there who obscure their true feelings with political code phrases.
A skill Santorum seems to lack.
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Sunday, February 12, 2012
Conservative voters: Poorly informed with low IQs & voting against their own best interests?
I was just going to throw this link up onto Snip.it & Pinterest, but I really felt some words were necessary here.
First of all, I have known some very intelligent people who have conservative political views. Not only are they smart, but their political views are smart as well. Their arguments are usually well developed, informed, and are very intelligent, based on legitimate facts, figures and historical interpretations.
Quite often I disagree with them, but this is because we subscribe to some different historical and philosophical interpretations. However, when we debate, I hope both of us walk away better informed than when we started.
These debates usually change no minds, but they can actually make each of our arguments stronger, because through a well-informed conversation on an issue, we both learn some new facts and figures, holes are punched in our weaker arguments, and we have to find support for fuzzy truths we may have thrown out in haste or drop those imperfect arguments from our repertoire. In the end, each side can make a better informed decision on the point being discussed and, hopefully, takes away stronger arguments in defense of our views.
But what about right and wrong? What about winning? Well, in intelligent debates, we are usually arguing sane problems and issues that have multiple, legitimate, intelligent solutions. There usually is not a right answer or a wrong answer. Or they are very complex problems that require the best ideas from both the right and the left to be adequately resolved.
Of course, I am not talking about racism, prejudice, discrimination, or science. I usually find that intelligent conservatives and I pretty much share the same views here. Because we are not stupid or ignorant.
Which brings us to this…
Conservatism Thrives on Low Intelligence and Poor Information | | AlterNet:
…Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact.
It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others – particularly "different" others – requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.
But, drawing on a sample size of several thousand, correcting for both education and socioeconomic status, the new study looks embarrassingly robust. Importantly, it shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low intelligence are drawn. Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to "rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasise the maintenance of the status quo".
Pausing for a second… I do not equate conservative ideology with intolerance, necessarily. Social conservatism, perhaps, but not conservatism in general.
It seems as if a narrow path is being walked here, almost but not quite defining conservatism as racist and intolerant. That may be problematic. Further, if these sorts are drawn to the conservative ideology, does that mean conservative ideology is intolerant? Or does it become intolerant because of the influx of these intolerant people with low IQs? In the end, does it matter even matter where the causes and effects lay? Or has it become a self-perpetuating cycle with the chickens shitting all over the eggs they are laying, beyond any identification of cause and effect?
Blah. From here the article climbs up onto more solid ground… The problem lies not with a lack of intelligent conservatives, but with the way the intelligent conservatives have been pandering to their side’s “basest, stupidest impulses.”
This is not to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. There are some very clever people in government, advising politicians, running thinktanks and writing for newspapers, who have acquired power and influence by promoting rightwing ideologies.
But what we now see among their parties – however intelligent their guiding spirits may be – is the abandonment of any pretence of high-minded conservatism. On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that there is no pool so shallow that several million people won't drown in it. Whether they are promoting the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the US, that man-made climate change is an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy, or that the deficit results from the greed of the poor, they now appeal to the basest, stupidest impulses, and find that it does them no harm in the polls.
…
…"the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital centre today". The Republican party, with its "prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science" is appealing to what he calls the "low-information voter", or the "misinformation voter". While most office holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base".
This is troubling in so many ways. But this is why so many poor Americans are fervent Republicans while many of the policies and practices of the GOP act against their own best interests at worst, or have little to do with any issues really effecting the poor at best.
Even more troubling:
In the UK, “the Guardian reported that recipients of disability benefits, scapegoated by the government as scroungers, blamed for the deficit, now find themselves subject to a new level of hostility and threats from other people.”
And even worse, and heading towards my real point here:
These are the perfect conditions for a billionaires' feeding frenzy. Any party elected by misinformed, suggestible voters becomes a vehicle for undisclosed interests. A tax break for the 1% is dressed up as freedom for the 99%. The regulation that prevents big banks and corporations exploiting us becomes an assault on the working man and woman. Those of us who discuss man-made climate change are cast as elitists by people who happily embrace the claims of Lord Monckton, Lord Lawson or thinktanks funded by ExxonMobil or the Koch brothers: now the authentic voices of the working class.
Many of the policies that benefit corporations are acutely harmful to the poor. Tax policy? Maybe, maybe not, but the minimum wage? Expensive workplace safety regulations? Even more costly environmental protection regulations?
The people arguing for deregulation will never live where the water supply has been poisoned by carcinogens, so why should they worry? Guess who gets to live there? The people voting for the conservative candidates who argue that such regulations kill jobs.
The real issue is not the IQ of the voters. I know for a fact that many of the loudest voices on the left should be locked in small rooms and only allowed to talk to rocks. Both sides have these people.
But what is so disturbing to me is how so many on the right so callously prey upon the ignorance of many in their voting base.
Perhaps this is my own prejudice, but what I see so often is the left saying, vote for us and we’ll keep the plant next door to your house from killing you while the right says, vote for us, and we’ll keep the left from putting job killing regulations on the plant next door to you and who really believes in all that science stuff, anyway, that says arsenic is bad for you? Jobs and superbabies! You can have it all!
I used the photo of the class warfare sign at the top of this post because I feel that this really is class warfare. It is an act of class warfare for the right to use these tactics on their own supporters.
The right says we cannot have a discussion about income inequality, because that is class warfare and an attack on the capitalist principles of the American Dream. Those on the right who would actually benefit from having this discussion, those who desperately feel the worsening ache of the dying American Dream every day, turn angry, fearful eyes towards those on the left who are fighting for them, away from those on the right who are actually stealing access to the American Dream from the vast majority of the country’s citizens in the first place.
And that, beyond being reprehensible, is just plain frightening.
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Sunday, November 27, 2011
A dysfunctional system goes Super… And fails.
 |
| From 2011-11 (Nov) |
On Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources this morning, Kurtz was asking if the media was over-hyping and over-blowing the consequences of the “Super Committee's” failure to come up with a debt reduction plan.
He asks if all these “terrible things” that may happen as a result of this failure are “just media hype?”
In these teasers for the segment, it seemed to me that he was missing the real punch line here, but after a weak panel discussion on the topic, he did get to the point I feel needs to be made.
The real story here is how the failure of the “Super Committee,” which was set up to actually succeed without a lot of the procedural chains that bind the rest of Congress, brings into sharp relief the fact that, in Kurtz’s words, “nobody seems to be able to get anything done in Washington.”
He points out how this failure “highlight[s] the utter dysfunction of Washington.”
To me, this is the real story here. Of course Congress will find a way to avert the “disaster” of across the board budget cuts, of course tax codes will remain ridiculously full of loop holes for the richest individuals and corporations… Of course the traditional and non-traditional media will make a lot of noise about small political maneuvers that distract everyone from the real issues and problems facing our country and binding our system…
Nothing much will change. Few real problems will be solved (or even mentioned), problems manufactured for use as political weapons will be howled about…
And nothing much will change.
This is the story that is not being covered.
I saw this quote earlier, from Andrew Sullivan, explaining the Occupation and Tea Party movements…
"The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control."
The system has become nearly impossible to change. The far right’s reaction is to just break it. The left wallows in ineptitude. The center rolls its eyes and simmers in a weak broth of futility.
For awhile, I’ve been thinking that if I ever took a sign to an Occupation event, it would be this:
The Status-Quo is
working for someone.
Is it working for you?
What is the solution? Well, there are no big universal fixes. But this is the conversation that we need to be having.
Finally, I loved this quote from Kurtz this morning: “miillions and millions unemployed and that is becoming an old story and that does bother me.”
Exactly. It should bother everyone.
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Thursday, April 28, 2011
Ugly politics: What we are learning from Obama's birth certificate and Trump's possible racism
'Face the Nation' Host: Trump's a Racist! (4/27/2011 8:30 PM PDT by TMZ Staff)
Schieffer said, "That's just code for saying he got into law school because he's black. This is an ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing."
A new era of accusation and innuendo (Jonathan Martin, John F. Harris – Thu Apr 28, 5:47 am ET)
...
It’s hard to imagine Bill Clinton coming out to the White House briefing room to present evidence showing why people who thought he helped plot the murder of aide Vincent Foster— never mind official rulings of suicide — were wrong. George W. Bush, likewise, was never tempted to take to the Rose Garden to deny allegations from voices on the liberal fringe who believed that he knew about the Sept. 11 attacks ahead of time and chose to let them happen.
Obama did something like the equivalent of this, by releasing complete documentation from his Hawaii birth, then making a sober West Wing appearance to explain himself.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Live blogging the Texas Debate...
Okay, so I've got the CNN up on the computer. I've got the peppermint mocha ready for consumption.I am ready to fill up the screen with a hundred typos and dangling participles...
The word is the Hillary is going to go hard and ugly on Obama. The sense is that this could backfire, that she should leave this to McCain, who seems more than willing to blast away at him, and to primarily focus on being likable, on being competent, and on fleshing out her policy issues.
Obama really just needs to hang in there. He needs to look presidential and not look like an idiot. This is his to lose. This is not the time for him to try and focus on policy and to try to look like a hard core policy wonk, Hillary will crush him if he tries this.
Instead, he needs to look pretty, have a couple sharp comebacks ready to fire of if needed, and just look confident.
This one should be a beauty contest, and if it is, it will be boring. They both need boring here. If it is interesting, someone is in trouble. Probably both of them dragging each other down.
My two-cents.
5:07-
Hil. Talking. Talking. Sometimes when she talks, I feel like I am one if the kids in a Peanuts cartoon listening to a grown-up…
At least she did not talk about the three months she lived in Austin. Yesterday she said that, it sounded weak, desperate and awful. She did point out the work she was doing here at the time, which is much better.
5:11-
Obama throws out the real life stories, showing that he is in touch with the common folks problems. I hate this tactic. Bill Clinton was the master at this. Everyone since looks like they are trying to be Bill Clinton.
5:12-
Obama - "Washington is a place where good ideas go to die" because of the lobbyists. Take that McCain.
5:14-
Clinton will "stand ready to work with" with the new president of Cuba, if they refocus on democracy... Kind of dodged the sit down with the new president question. Well, on challenge, she said no, not right away.
Obama would meet "without preconditions," but there must be "preparation," including the release of political prisoners. So, is this really... Well, Hillary is "No, until..." Obama is "Yes, but..." They are really pretty much trying to tow a similar line but trying to sound a little different as they outline it.
Hillary agrees absolutely with negotiations with anyone, but she is pointing out that she differs with Obama on when presidential level meetings should happen, especially with nations we do not currently have diplomatic relations with.
She actually is clarifying Obama's words for him. Nice touch, Hil. And throwing in some nice bashing of Bush foreign policy too. I've got the "real-time reaction" graph running and she was up in the 80s for this, the highest so far of the evening.
5:23-
Let's talk about the "recession..."
Obama- the economy is in trouble. People know this, he says. Restore fairness and balance to the economy, stop the tax breaks for companies outsourcing American jobs, and killing the Bush tax cuts. Killing the Bush tax cuts got him up into the 80s for the first time tonight.
Notice how to get the positive reaction? Don't talk about yourself. Bash Bush.
He's talking about economic hope, staying in the 70s.
Clinton- Agrees alot with what Obama just said. Get the tax code adjusted to be fair for middle class. Bash Bush. 80s, briefly.
We need to enforce trade agreements. Enfoce safety standards. Foreclosures: crack down on abusive practices of lenders. Throwing statistics and real life stories around fast and furious. 90 day moratorium on foreclosures. Five year freeze on interest rates. 70s. Clean green jobs. Invest in infrastructure. rebuild america and put people to work. End Bush's war on science. Spike into 80s. We need to be the innovation Nation. That was a great School House Rock song, wasn't it?
Immigration Issues:
Clinton- Deportation is against American values and an admission of defeat of current policies. Hovering just below 70. Need to help Mexico create more jobs. Would introduce path to legalization in first 100 days.
Obama- Has worked on this in the past, but it was "used as a political football" and "died in the house." Agrees with Clinton, but adds that "we need to tone down the rhetoric." Calls for comprehensive reform, cracking down on abusive employers without discriminating against legal citizens. Pay back taxes, pay fine on the way to legalization. Need to fix legal immigration as well as work on illegal immigration, making it easier to immigrate legally. I like. Hovering around 70, just like Hillary. Need to work with Mexico, echoing Hil, calling for investment in Mexican economy, creating jobs there. Bashing Bush policies, calling Iraq the distraction, but he didn't break 70 here.
Finishing the border fence:
Clinton- "there is a smart way to protect our borders and there is a dumb way to protect our borders," examples of absurd actions of current administration. Wants to review the need for physical barrier and where they are appropriate, saying that the Bush administration has "gone off the deep end" on this issure. Near 80.
Technology and "smart fencing"? "Deploying more technology and personel" Clinton won't defend her past voting on this issue.
Obama- Says that he "almost entirely agrees" with Hillary. Echo. Echo. "people want fairness, want justice..." Deporting everyone is "ridiculous..." we need "order in the process" Getting people out of shadows. He is trying to say the same thing, but trying to use pretty words.
5:45 - What I am noticing here, it is not good when he follows Hillary for him. He does sound like he is saying me to with prettier words. It's also not great when she follows him, she crams 14 policy points in per breath and doesn't even break a sweat. He needs to stay out of these debates with this woman.
He does come across as the pretty talker, but it almost feels like he is struggling to make his pretty words fit the situation where Hillary has, like I said, 14 policy points to match each situation.
I need a smoke. BRB (How modern of me!)
5:50-
I came back in and the screen was dark? Did Hil jump up and chair Obama? No. Just a commercial. I guess I didn't miss much.
Its being pointed out that they are being much more polite together than when they are talking about each other seperately. They have been very polite. John King is trying to get them going.
Hillary is not taking the bait, and turning it against Bush, pointing out they her and Obama both have a lot in common. Exactly. She is trying to find differences, but honestly, very few are coming out tonight. She is talking about offering soultions, but if Obama is not offering solutions, but is essentially offering the same ideas as she is, does this mean that she is not offering solutions either?
She is saying it really is about experience and record and resume. Small spike around 65.
Obama - Pointing out some of his record, some his work in the Senate. He's "engaged not just in talk, but in action." Fundamental difference between them in how they want to bring change about. Pretty flat, no spikes. Pointing out that he has been endorsed by every major paper in Texas. He's going for the idea that his approach will be less confrontational and will be more likely to actually bring about change. Flat. Flat. Hillary is smirking. Can she see the line too? Small bump up to 70 at the end.
Campbell Brown is bringing up the Obama plagairism accusations.
Pointing out that the line was given to him. This is an example of "the silly season in politics." People want issues, not distractions, he is saying. Patting himself on the back for making good speeches, people like the joke.
I still say it was a silly mistake on his part that he didn't throw a few sylables into that speech attributing the line, no biggie. Either way. He is turning away from the question and throwing out a few policy points.
Clinton - "If your campaign is going to be about words then they should be your own words." A good line about Xeroxing... Plunging approval, down towards 30. Boos in the live audience. Turns towards health care, and attacking him on the gaps in his plan, not covering everyone. She is saying that he, essentially, does not have the imagination to go the distance with his plans to do what really needs to be done. She even threw in a bit where she claimed that even Bush could see what he couldn't see.
These are the lines we'll be seeing for a week. Hillary looked like a bitch and may have gone a bit too far on the attack. You know she has been dying to say it. She shouldn't have, at least not like this. She was pulling it off. She may have just lost it. Everything. Those 30 seconds may have just cost her the presidency.
Obama is talking- I agree. Health care stuff I was writing about. People do not have insurance because they do not want it, but because they cannot afford it. Trying to point out that he is more in tune with the people than she is. Patting her on the back for her old plan as first lady in 93. Saying she went about it in the wrong way, behind closed doors, and alienated her party, congress, and everyone. Really, that old debacle is one of her weak points, and I am surprised that it does not come up among the Democrats more often, though the Republicans act as though it is the only thing she has ever done. Probably why.
6:11-
Back from commercial. Back from my smoke...
Univision guy bringing up Hil's comments that Obama is not ready for CinC job, she drags it back to health care, upset that she did not have a chance to respond. She feels that there are substatitive differences in their plans. Swinging John Edwards words at him, saying that they have real differences. Pretty flat. Campbell Brown trying to move it on, Hil's breaking the rules, so is Obama in responding. He's pointing out that she is going to force people to buy insurance, comparing it to Mass. where people are fined, so they not only lack health insurance, but also are saddled with fines. An evil plan. I do not know if she has the same details in her plan. Hil won't let go, small bumps over 50 when Obama was talking, long droop down into the 40s when Hil started. Pointing out that she wants real Universal Health Care, up into the mid-50s.
That was a bad sign for her. When she started talking, the approval line dropped. When she said the magic words that all of us liberal types love, the words got the approval, not her.
Again, back to Obama not being ready to lead the country in the world, lacking the foreign policy experience.
Hillary is rattling off her experience and a couple of the current foreign policy issues (Cuba, Kosovo, Embassy riot in Serbia, etc...) Rapid fire of points showing her ease with and grasp of the issues, line hovering a little over 50. Drops a little when she is talking about being ready for the job.
Obama starts talking, it rises before he says anything real. Up near 70. Dropping back down a bit. Talking about overextension of US forces. Hitting Hillary on the old war vote. Afghanastan versus Iraq. I like him here, he is right. One is the war we need to win, the other is the war we never needed to fight. "Who is going to show the judgment to lead?" Awsome way for him to rephrase this debate, being the least experienced in the ring. Judgment versus experience.
John King is taking us on a little tour of Iraq- "Is Iraq today better off ... because of the surge?"
Interesting, it used to be if America was better off today than we were four years ago, not it is if Iraq is better off than it was four years ago.
Hillary- Formulate plan to start drawing down troops within 60 day, one to two brigades a month, probably. Approval up near 70.
Obama- Violence has been reduced in Iraq, and this is due to the efforts of our soldier and "we honor their service" Pointing out the surge is a fix to "a huge strategic blunder." Saying that we'll pound McCain on the war. Approval hovering up near 70. He is moving on into the economic cost of the war, and pointing out that Iran has benefitted from the war more than any other nation. Again, "the incredible burden placed on the American people," not doing right by our veterans , over 70 on the line.
Point to Obama. He is getting the better response on the war, because he is making it an issue about American, not about Iraq. Remember this.
Commercial break. Smoke break... Strange sounds coming out of the dark and into my earphones... Back in a moment.
More coffee, no smoke, Obama is talking about "Google for Government" to help track government budgets, etc. Arguing for more transperancy, more disclosure. Projects funded through earmarks are not inherantly bad, but that there needs to be transparancy.
I was distracted by email. Hil was saying something that got her spiked up to 70, staying pretty high. Tax cuts for the middle class. Ah. It's a good thing. Some Bush bashing too. Give people money, bash Bush, that approval line stays high.
I love it, she is ready to fight McCain on "the fisical irresponsibility of the Republican Party." I love it.
Talk about super delegates. Approval for unified party moving into the general. Hillary threw out some pretty words and got the approval spike, Obama is over talking this and hovering around 60, significantly lower than Hillary here.
Final question-
Describe when your judgment was tested under the pressure of a crisis?
Obama- My personal life was a trainwreck in my youth. Learning responsibility for his actions and how to work with others. Choosing to work for principles over cash in law. Giving the people "a government worthy of their decency and generosity."
Hil - Veiled nod towards her past public turmoils (spike in approval). Her challenges have been nothing compared to the challenges faced by so many regular American folk these days... Good. Nicely done. But it does kind of indicate that Obama remembers what it was like out there, she may not. But I like her humility here. This is one of the area she needed to work on tonight, humility, and this is a great moment for her here, and her approval line is way up towards 80. She is "absolutely honored to be here with Barak Obama... What ever happens we'll be fine." Big hand shake for Obama. Standing ovation.
She closed huge, if this is it. Thanks, thanks, standing clapping... I am smoking.
Stick a fork in it, it's done.
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