The Commentariat -- Nov. 14, 2012
CW: re: a discussion contributor Diane & I had yesterday, Byron Tau of Politico reports today, "Massachusetts leaders say there are no discussions about a change the state's Senate succession laws in the event that President Obama nominates Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) to his cabinet."
Jon Stewart on the inevitable fallout from the election results:
... AND he has some advice for Greedy Bastards:
Sam Stein & Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "President Barack Obama will enter high-stakes budget negotiations firmly committed to seeing the tax rates for high-income earners rise to pre-George W. Bush levels, he assured a gathering of progressive and labor leaders on Tuesday.... 'It was a very, very positive meeting,' said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka." ...
... Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "Progressive activists are now preparing to turn the firepower they marshaled to reelect the president against him if he looks like he’s backing down on his mandate, as they see it, to preserve the social safety net and raise taxes on the wealthy."
Actor-comedian Rob Delaney proves a person need not be an expert to have good ideas. In a Salon opinion piece, he writes, "President Obama should junk the Race to the Top plan immediately. It is a deeply flawed reworking of George W. Bush's test-based, pro-charter school No Child Left Behind Act. Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan should change course dramatically and publicly admit Race to the Top doesn't and can't work and then craft a new plan that doesn't treat education like an industry and coerce teachers to 'teach to the test,' while marching toward education privatization."
Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "The Kaiser Family Foundation polled Americans last week, right after the election, asking what they want to see happen next with the health-care law. Most notably, they saw support for repeal plummet to an all-time low.... This isn't exactly Americans gravitating toward the health-care law: Support for expanding the law or keeping it as is held steady at 49 percent. Those who no longer support repeal seem to have drifted into the 'don't know' category, about what should happen next."
The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave the big margin to win this race. -- Paul Ryan, explaining GOP election losses
We did everything we could to discourage the blah people from voting. We never thought those lazy takers would stand up against us makers. -- CW translation ...
Too many black people voted. -- Neetzan Zimmerman (of Gawker) translation
... Michael Shear & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times write that it isn't just urban (read minority) voters who rejected the Republican ticket. ...
... ** Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly: "... this habit of thinking of 'the urban vote' as being a policy-indifferent mob that is simply turned out to neutralize the 'big choices' being made by civic-minded folk, making the election results meaningless in terms of the direction of the country, certainly bears the pungent whisky-and-brimstone aroma of Old Dixie politics. Ryan would be well advised not to use this sort of terminology to support the no-mandate-election spin of his party." ...
... Paul Krugman: "Asians and Jewish households are much more Democratic than you might expect given their relatively high incomes, presumably because they see the GOP as believing fundamentally in a white Christian nation from which they will forever be outsiders." Krugman wonders if "over time Southern whites will finally become culturally assimilated, and start voting like the rest of their fellow citizens." ...
... Ryan Takes a Stand: Ideology before Party. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The House's Republican leaders would dearly like to elevate Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington to lead the House Republican Conference, putting a female face into the pantheon of the white male Republican leaders. But standing in their way is Representative Tom Price of Georgia, one of the most conservative members of the House, who has lined up some big guns in his quest for the fourth-ranking post in the House Republican conference. The most important of those guns, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin..., showed no sign of retreat Tuesday in a letter sent to colleagues endorsing Mr. Price." ...
... The People Have Spoken. So We'll Do It My Way. John Parkinson of ABC News: "Despite a devastating loss last week, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan rejected Democratic claims of a mandate to raise tax rates on the wealthy. Asked whether President Obama has a mandate on taxes, Ryan told ABC News' senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl that the House Republican majority is proof that the president does not." CW: see my remarks in today's Comments section. ...
... NEW. Dan Amira of New York explains Ryan's Rules of Mandates: "If Ryan wins, it's a mandate. If Obama wins, his party also needs to control the House of Representatives -- otherwise, no mandate. What if Ryan and Romney won, but the Democrats still gained two seats in the Senate? Unclear, but we're guessing it's a mandate." CW: I'd file Ryan's Rules of Mandates as a subcategory under Sociopaths' Rules for Living.
NEW. Patrick Keefe in the New Yorker: "the Electronic Communications Privacy Act..., originally passed in 1986..., considers any e-mail that is over a hundred and eighty days old to be 'abandoned,' meaning that the author of the e-mail no longer has any reasonable expectation that it would remain private. So to obtain access to this e-mail, the F.B.I. doesn't need a court order; it just needs to ask your e-mail provider."
... Sari Horwitz, et al., of the Washington Post: "The FBI is making a new push to determine how ... Paula Broadwell obtained classified files, part of an expanding series of investigations in a scandal that also threatens the career of the United States' top military commander in Afghanistan. Senior law enforcement officials said that a late-night seizure on Monday of boxes of material from the North Carolina home of Paula Broadwell ... marks a renewed focus by investigators on sensitive material found in her possession.... The surprise move by the FBI follows assertions by U.S. officials that the investigation had turned up no evidence of a security breach -- a factor that was cited as a reason the Justice Department did not notify the White House before last week that the CIA director had been ensnared in an e-mail inquiry."
... Maureen Dowd: David Petraeus's "fall started as Sophocles and turned sophomoric.... It features toned arms, slinky outfits, a cat fight, titillating e-mails, a military more consumed with sex than violence, a plot with more inconceivable twists than 'Homeland,' and a Twitter's-delight lexicon: an 'embedded' mistress named Broadwell, a biography called 'All In,' an other-other woman of Middle East ancestry who was a 'social liaison' to the military, a shirtless F.B.I. agent crushing on the losing-her-shirt-to-debt Tampa socialite, a pair of generals helping the socialite's twin sister with a custody case, and lawyers and crisis-management experts linked to Monica Lewinsky, John Edwards and the ABC show 'Scandal.'” Dowd blames Petraeus for "So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians ... killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That's the real scandal." ...
... Vernon Loeb, who covers the Defense Department for the Washington Post & wrote All In with Paula Broadwell, writes in the Post that he had no clue about her affair with David Petraeus. ...
... Massimo Calabresi of Time argues that the Justice Department had a duty to tell the President or the investigation into Gen. Petraeus' affair with Broadwell. CW: I would argue that Gen. Petraeus himself had a duty to tell the President when he found out about the investigation. He didn't. Or so we are led to believe. ...
... The Family Khawam. Christina Ng, et al., of ABC News: "Jill Kelley, 37, is a Tampa socialite who ... forged tight friendships with top brass. Her sister, Natalie Khawam, also became friendly with major players, including both Gen. Petraeus and Gen. John Allen.... A U.S. official described Kelley as a 'nice, bored, rich socialite' who drops 'honorary' from her title and tells people she is an ambassador. ... Kelley and her husband Scott ... have been sued at least nine times. Court records indicate that the Kelleys owe more than $2 million on an office building and face foreclosure.... Natalie Khawam, who now lives with her sister and brother-in-law in Tampa, is deeply in debt and filed for bankruptcy in Florida in April 2012.... Khawam has also been embroiled in a child custody battle.... In November 2011, the D.C. Superior Court ruled that Khawam's husband would get sole legal and primary custody of the child. The judge wrote that Khawam 'has exhibited an utter disregard for the child's interest' in maintaining a meaningful relationship with his father, that she 'has extreme personal deficits in the areas of honesty and integrity,' and that she has exhibited a 'willingness to say anything, even under oath, to advance her own personal interests at the expense' of her husband, the child, and others.'" ...
... Jason Cherkis & Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post: "... Jill Kelley ... founded a questionable charity for cancer patients with her surgeon husband, Scott Kelley.... While the origins of the seed money used to start the charity in 2007 are unclear, financial records reviewed by The Huffington Post reveal that the group spent all of its money not on research, but on parties, entertainment, travel and attorney fees. By the end of 2007, the charity had gone bankrupt, having conveniently spent exactly the same amount of money, $157,284, as it started with...." ...
... Adam Estes of The Atlantic: "Frustrated by the media attention, Jill Kelley's taken to calling 911 multiple times a day. On one of these calls a couple of days ago, the socialite told the dispatcher..., 'You know, I don't know if by any chance, because I'm an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability, so they should not be able to cross my property,' she said. 'I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well.' ... Jill Kelley is an honorary consul of South Korea. (Who knew?) A diplomatic official confirmed her status to Foreign Policy.... He went on to clarify, however, that it's nothing more than a symbolic title and comes with no special treatment or protection. 'She does not work as a real consul,' the official said." ...
... Here's a screengrab from an ABC News Denver affiliates story on the Petraeus Affair, via John Aravosis of AmericaBlog:
... The station later ran an apology, which read, in part, "... when the 7NEWS reporter went on the Internet to get an image of the book cover, the reporter mistakenly grabbed a Photoshopped image that said, 'All Up In My Snatch.' 'It was a mistake,' said KMGH-TV News Director Jeff Harris." Via Crooks & Liars. ...
... CW: the other day I mentioned in the Comments section a mindblowing flow chart created for Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Gen. Petraeus's predecessor in Afghanistan, whose career was also brought low by a little too much public exposure. Now it seems certain media outlets are creating "Pentagon of Love" flowcharts to try to get a handle on the complicated interrelationships in the Petraeus Affair. Joe Coscarelli of New York magazine has one here. Here's another from Max Read of Gawker:
Local News
Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who has pushed aggressively for cutting and capping taxes in New Jersey during his three years in office, said Tuesday that people who lived in towns destroyed by Hurricane Sandy were likely to pay higher taxes to help rebuild.... Mr. Christie said he expected the federal government to do as much as it had done for victims of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast to help rebuild New Jersey. And he said that municipalities would be allowed to raise property taxes more than the 2 percent limit that he signed into law in 2010 to cover costs brought on by the storm."
Right Wing World
Dominique Mosbergen of the Huffington Post: "A petition for Texas secession has qualified to receive a White House response. As of Tuesday evening, the petition -- which asks for the peaceful withdrawal of the state of Texas from the union -- had racked up more than 81,000 signatures. (Only 25,000 are needed to elicit an official response from the Obama administration.) ... Residents in more than 40 states have filed secession petitions to the Obama administration's 'We the People' program, which is featured on the White House website, in the last few days." ...
... Kevin Robillard of Politico: "
Gov. Rick Perry, who famously mused about secession in 2009, doesn't support an effort by some Texas residents who are petitioning to leave the United States. 'Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it,' Perry spokesman Catherine Frazier told the Dallas Morning News. 'But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government.'" ...
... The Houston Chronicle rebuts a popular misconception about Texas's "right" to secede (thanks to historian/genius Rick Perry for popularizing that one) -- and related facts/fictions. ...
NEW. You know your party is in trouble when -- Erick Erickson is the voice of reason: "We here at RedState are American citizens. We have no plans to secede from the union.... Too many people have spent the past four years obsessed with birth certificates. Now they are obsessed with voter fraud conspiracies, talk of secession, and supposed election changing news stories if only we had known."
News Ledes
New York Times: New York state "Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman's office has issued subpoenas to the Long Island Power Authority and Consolidated Edison as part of an investigation into whether the utilities violated state laws in their response to Hurricane Sandy.... [New York] Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Tuesday that he had named a commission with subpoena power to investigate the handling of the disaster by utility companies."
New York Times: "Congressional investigators took aim on Wednesday at a former colleague, Jon S. Corzine, blaming the onetime senator's risk-taking at MF Global for accelerating the brokerage firm's demise."
Washington Post: "Surprising virtually no one, Sen.-elect Angus King (I-Maine) said Wednesday that he plans to caucus with Senate Democrats, because 'affiliating with the majority makes the most sense.' King won a decisive election last week to succeed retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and throughout his year-long campaign refused to say with which party he would caucus once he arrived in Washington."
Guardian: "Hamas's military commander has been killed in an Israeli air strike in a move likely to herald a dramatic rise in violence in Gaza. Ahmed al-Jaabari, the head of the Islamist organisation's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, died when his car was struck in Gaza City by a missile after Israel warned it may step up targeted assassinations, having endured almost a week of intense rocket fire from Gaza. Reports suggested three other Palestinians were also killed."
The Hill: "Former CIA Director David Petraeus will voluntarily testify before congressional panels investigating the September terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said.... The precise timing of Petraeus's visit to Capitol Hill hasn't been finalized, Feinstein said, though his appearance could be as early as Friday."
New York Times: "Syrian authorities ordered airstrikes for a third consecutive day close to the tense Turkish border on Wednesday, and said a French decision to recognize and consider arming a newly formed Syrian rebel coalition was an 'immoral' act 'encouraging the destruction of Syria.'"
Politico: "The president is scheduled to do his first press conference in months on Wednesday, at 1:30 p.m. EST in the East Room." ...
... New York Times Update: "President Obama on Wednesday declared that he would not extend tax cuts at upper income levels but that Congress should quickly do so for the middle class, and he praised David H. Petraeus's record while saying that national security had not been compromised during the intelligence official's affair with his biographer." The transcript is here.
Politico: "At a 10 a.m. news conference, [House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi] will answer ... whether she'll remain minority leader through 2014 -- or release her 10-year, ironclad grip on the Democratic Caucus." C-SPAN will no doubt carry the presser live, but I'm not sure exactly where.
... Update: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will remain in charge of the Democratic Caucus for the 113th Congress, the California Democrat announced on Wednesday morning. Pelosi revealed her decision before a room full of cheering Democrats, many of whom had privately lobbied her in recent days to stay put." CW: um, I thought the caucus had to vote on their leadership. I didn't realize they could crown themselves, a la Napoleon.
AP: "Pakistan freed several Taliban prisoners at the request of the Afghan government Wednesday, a move meant to facilitate the process of striking a peace deal with the militant group in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. The release of the prisoners -- described as mid- and low-level fighters -- is the most encouraging sign yet that Pakistan may be willing to help jumpstart peace talks that have mostly gone nowhere, hobbled by distrust among the major players involved, including the United States."
Reuters: "The United States announced an extra $30 million in aid to those affected by the war in Syria on Wednesday and called the formation of a new opposition coalition an important step that would help Washington better target its help. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement after talks in Perth..., [Australia]."
AP: "President Hu Jintao stepped aside as ruling party leader Wednesday to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take China's helm as part of only the second orderly transfer of power in 63 years of Communist rule.In a possible break from tradition, Hu may also be giving up his post as head of the commission that oversees the military, which would give Xi greater leeway to consolidate his authority when he takes over."
AP: "With rampant unemployment spreading misery in southern Europe and companies shutting factories across the continent, workers around the European Union sought to unite in a string of strikes and demonstrations on Wednesday."
AP: "The chief operating officer of a utility company heavily criticized for its response to Superstorm Sandy is stepping down. The Long Island Power Authority announced Tuesday that Michael Hervey had tendered his resignation, effective at the end of the year.... LIPA has come under withering criticism since Sandy knocked out power to more than a million of its customers on Oct. 29, both for how long it was taking to get power restored and for poor communication with customers."
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Reader Comments (24)
I think it's interesting how pundits, especially on the right, have been complaining about overt triumphalism (boo-hoo, liberals are making fun of us!) on the part of Obama supporters in the wake of the near total failure of the Republican Party in this past election (keeping the House wasn't a big deal, It was a huge long shot for Democrats to pick up enough seats to chloroform conservative control in that chamber).
So now there's a call for Democrats to compromise, be nice, be politic and acknowledge that the president really doesn't have a mandate, that the fact that Republicans still control the house means voters have decided that conservative policies are still what they want.
Now I'm not at all down on compromise. Politics often is a game of compromise. There are times when you need to stand your ground and times when you can give a little to get a little. But for Republicans, whose mantra for the last 30 years has been "Never give an inch", to be whining about compromise, now that they've lost another presidential election, sets my teeth on edge. The guys who made it their mission not to go along on a single issue with Democrats over the last four years specifically to slit the president's throat now are demanding that he play nice and act like an adult.
Sure. We'll compromise. We can even set a date for it. And we won't make you wait 30 years either.
How about 20 years? 2032. How's that? No, wait. 2030. A nice round number. See? We saved you a couple of years by being "adult" about it.
So, okay, I know Democrats will never be the kind of intransigent, hard core traitors that Republicans are, but the idea is kind of fun.
We aren't that stupid either. Not compromising during the election, by observing at least the spirit of the Voting Rights Act pretty much guaranteed that the Rat would have plenty of time to ride up and down in that car elevator and fly to the Caymans to count his money. (That wouldn't have been an actual compromise, it would have been obeying the fucking law, but Republicans would call any observance of a law they didn't like a big compromise for them.)
And this bit about the president not having a mandate? I think scumbags like Herr Krauthammer have already decided that marijuana must be legal because he's been smoking like a volcano if he believes Obama has no mandate. In 2000 when little Bushie didn't even win the popular vote, he ruled like he was King of Bongo Bong and guys like Krauthammer cheered him on. In this election Obama beat Krauthammer's guy like a rented mule.
I'd say, in the real world, that's a mandate. (Plus you just KNOW that these guys screwed the pooch in a big way when you hear Bill Kristol making reasonable noises. When does that ever happen??)
And if the president doesn't particularly feel like compromising on certain things, given that mandate, then he can tell those whiners to sit on it and rotate.
@Akhilleus. I agree. The other thing that everyone is completely discounting is the fact that the House has the GOP majority it has only because of the wild gerrymandering that the 2010 election made possible. More people voted for Democratic members of the House than for GOP candidates. (That # is somewhat skewed by the fact that in California, some Democrats ran against other Democrats, so Republican wasn't a choice.)
But if life were fair, which it ain't, the House would be about evenly divided now between the two parties instead of 233-195 as it stands as of today. (A few races are still undecided.)
Add to that the fact that the Senate is ALWAYS skewed Republican because red states are on average populous than blue, yet of course they get the same # of Senators.
Those "cartographs" I linked a few days (thanks to a tip from Lisa) ago give a better picture of how much bluer the country is than looking at a regular map, where Utah appears as a huge red box & Connecticut is a tiny little blue box.
Conservatives are always boasting that something like twice as many Americans consider themselves conservative as call themselves liberals. But, funny thing, in a presidential election year, Democrats usually get about the same # -- or more -- votes than Republicans.
It's discouraging to be a liberal in a country where Fox "News" is the most popular cable channel & Rush Limbaugh has the biggest radio audience, but in fact there are probably more of "us" than there are of "them."
Marie
After seeing those very informative maps of actual votes cast, I started thinking along the same lines. I think it was Frank Rich that Marie linked a few weeks ago declaring the inevitable triumph of the Tea Party. I didn't accept his thesis then and even less so now. The demographic shift is clearly leaning left and the GOP will have to reform its rotten racist soul in order to open up its base to future non-white adherents.
However, this move is highly unlikely in a modern neo-con Repug party which has lost all sense of compromising on their shallow ideals. They'll never compromise with the Democrats, this we've seen. But neither will they consider compromise among themselves. We see this already with almost every influential Repuglican denying any sort of reconsideration of ideals, instead preferring to stick to conspiracy theories to explain their shellacking.
Add to this creamy combination of nauseous self-righteousness the Tea Baggers. Any (semi)reasonable Repug that has attempted to steer their party back to sanity has received a direct teabaggery slap of slimy scrotum directly in the face, never to be seen again. Scrotum slaps have become the modern day GOP's Scarlet Letter (seems really fitting for this group of aging misogynist, homophobes). For fear of the slime, all others either fall in place or embrace this new dynamic. Turtle man slimes his face for fun and wears it in public, it's sickening.
The conservatives are only going farther right for the time being, thanks in large part to the Tea Bags. No compromise will be had. That's not the direction the electorate is heading these days. The extremists voices will get louder but who's actually listening?
I once wrote to Cathy McMorris Rogers giving her a wag of my finger for spouting some nonsense coupled with a big whooper about the AFC in a speech somewhere that was aired on CSpan.She was usually the only female standing behind the Republican young gun cabal when they'd trot out for a press shot. She usually looked tired, but had that satisfied puss on her as if she were one of those pivotal parts in that throng of gunslingers.
I have a question: If the people close to Petraeus––even those that guarded him––were shocked that he and Paula had been having an affair where and how did these two conduct this lustful liaison? Could it have been during their "long runs"––a quickie between a rock and a hard place? But surely they would have had others with them, no? I have not as yet read Maureen Dowd on all this, but I imagine she'll have fun with a Shakespearian connection––dress it up a bit–-in a literary way. But as we learn more about the details it looks to me more like a case of Mickey Spillane ––broads, big brass, booze, egos and all that goes into that rich stew.
The upper class " camp followers " Broadwell and Kelly remind me of a song I heard the late Joe Williams do at Carnagie Hall back in the '60s.
" She's mine, she's yours, she's sombody elses too.
She makes me feel so good, I don't care who she do. "
Re: My take on the cake; If you could view the MIC as a wedding cake (try; weird,but try) What we are seeing in the Tampa scandal is the crumbs on the plate. Drones and socialites mixed together. PD says "stew" I say "cake."
Re: Interesting exchange between Marie and James. I have always been fascinated by behavior in the Animalia Kingdom, (do dogs have emotions like ours?) especially our own species of Homo Sapiens. My curiosity knows no bounds. As a little girl I would go underneath the female dummies in department stores, lift up their skirts searching for something––that old truth that was always lurking behind the tailor's dummy. I was brought up in an era where the seamy side of life along with the sexy side remained hidden from children like me. People's motivations, foibles, loves, hates, have been catnip for me for as long as I can remember. I even got a Master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, but after I completed said degree realized I was more social worker than therapist, missed teaching and returned to the classroom. My point here is that I understand Jame's view, but am simpatico with Marie who was lucky to have gotten an answer from an obituary. I still struggle with an affair I ended that leaves me in the dark.
There have been articles all over the place on how the Republicans are going to change their story to attract women and minorities. Of course none of these articles notes that the Republicans plan to change their policies or beliefs. In other words, the plan is the same as trying to convince people that a Big Mac (w/ cheese and bacon) is good for your health. Or another way of putting it is trying to find another way to lie and get away with it. The good news is the lies didn't work the last time.
P.S. Can someone tell me where I can go to sign the petition supporting the secession of Texas?
@Marvin Schwalb. Yes, the White House page for the Texas secession petition is here. Two seconds ago, the number of signatories was at 95,995.
I see that Alabama now also has passed the minimum requirement for a White House response.
So long, y'all.
Marie
Out of hiding comes the great GOP budget expert and statesman, Paul Ryan.
All of a sudden he's everywhere. Giving interviews, declaring his party the winner of an election in which he was slammed repeatedly, swing state after swing state, like a screen door in a hurricane.
His party, the guys who, after realizing that his charade as a dress-up economist and all around toxic pretender, posing for pictures in Time magazine, a dumbbell with dumbbells, had put him on the not ready for big time list and quarantined him to the teabaggingest of red state campaign stops, now refer to him once again as one of their best and brightest, a "policy wonk", as Cheeto Man Boehner described him the other day.
As if the last three months never happened. As if pretty much any non kool-aid slurping voter with a brain had not seen this slick snake oil salesman unveiled as the intellectual fraud he has been all along.
A guy who can't add pretending to be an economic genius.
Now he's being touted once again as the Man with the Plan. What fucking plan? If it was so great, why couldn't either he or his rodent partner explain it? All they could do was wink and nod their empty heads, trying for the old flim-flam once again. "Trust us. The Ryan Plan is da bomb". It was a bomb alright. And it still is.
But so it goes in right-wing world. We lost? We got KILLED? People HATED our ideas? What should we do? Should we re-examine our basic principles? Should we stop all the demagoguery, lying, voter suppression, demonizing of minorities and women and come up with a conservative vision for 21st century Americans?
Fuck no.
The answer? Pretend it never happened. Pretend that Obama didn't just boot our sorry butts down a thousand foot red state well full of old teabags and Vote Romney buttons.
Pretend and pretend some more. Wish upon a star, put on red high heels and click your feet together and say "There's no one smarter Paul Ryan." Do that every day for the next four years and I'm sure you'll get an excellent result.
The Modern GOP. Disgraceful pack of liars.
Alabama seceding?
Great! When does Shelby pack up his shit and leave?
Wait, does this mean we need passports to visit the Redneck Riviera?
Oh, one other thing about Ryan's latest round of pretense and ignorance.
His claim, and that of plenty of other way below average right-wing intellects, that the GOP actually "won" the election, at least as far as being able to claim the only mandate on the shelf, is that Republicans still control the house.
This is numerically true, but votes for representatives are usually cast to express a different set of concerns than the national issues being decided when casting votes for a president or senator. Many people want to throw the bums out, just not my bum, at least until that bum does something extra stupid. Besides, house members don't carry the same weight that senators and a presidential administration does in terms of developing longterm goals for the country. This current house is a perfect example. One of the most do-nothing houses in the history of the country, their only goal, and Ryan's goal, has been to obstruct anything the president wanted to do.
This is treason, not representation.
So any further pretense that the makeup of the GOP controlled house is some kind of proof positive for a mandate can be tossed down that same well.
Oh, and JJG, thanks a lot for putting that MIC cake image in my head. I can't get rid of it now and it's causing some synapses to misfire. Thanks a bunch.
On another subject,
In today’s print version of NYT, was this ity bity piece of news
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/support-wavers-for-anti-tax-pledge/?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-thecaucus
“Support Wavers for Anti-Tax ‘Pledge”
“It is known simply as “the pledge.” And if you are a Republican member of Congress, it has been considered heresy to do anything short of fully devoting yourself to its low-tax principles.”
Is this a trial balloon for repugs? Or maybe a crack in the ranks.
I would love to know the hold he has on our supposed elected officials.
Maybe he knows where the bodies are buried.
Is he middle aged, or aged? Aw never mind.
The horrors of the political world seem live forever.
mae finch
Akhilleus is talking about the GOP as a pack of liars. If you think the GOP has long had a mantle of religious certitude about itself and its dealings, then the end of attainment of power justifies the means of lying to get that power. Think Dick Cheney.
A couple years ago I was in River Falls Wisconsin at the UW branch up there and talked to a couple undergrads about Scott Walker. I was struck by how completely disconnected facts were from decision making for these young people. In this moment, I can see that those developing brains of the undergrads are the same ripe instruments the religions have long force-fed doctrine from the earliest of ages. Hence, the GOP and their christian business partners in power have no qualms about lying to their own children. Unless you believe in the Bible literally. I don't.
Additionally, at the heart of the GOP liars angle is that the best approach is direct and confrontational. Think gay marriage advocates. They spent years in the wind, just like Jim Crow blacks, waiting. Now is the time to confront the GOP about its congenital lies and fake facts. If this crowd of antediluvians in charge of the GOP is backed into a corner after this re-election of Barry O, then the Democrats need to push them even more. The GOP leadership, as has been the case the last four years, will show their fangs and shortcomings even more distinctly to the colorful palette of Americans under 65 years of age who vote. Demographics will kill the GOP simultaneous to them shooting themselves in the foot.
Luke Russert. They stopped short when they made him work out, get a decent haircut and a facial in order to stick him in front of a camera. Can't cure stoopid and entitled, ask Lord SB. Pelosi said "Bam, back up baby asswipe". I saw the replay and his colleague Dana Bash was sitting next to him at the Pelosi presser. She stared straight ahead and pretended she was somewhere else. You know she's going to find another seat next time.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/14/1161570/-Nancy-Pelosi-swats-down-Luke-Russert-s-offensive-question-with-a-lesson-on-earning-your-job
Diane,
Whoa...is there a more insufferable, privileged, idiot celebrity spawn than Baby Lukie?
Look, many of us grew up in a time when when the statement "Never trust anyone over 30" was pretty common. But that was agit-prop. And we knew it. Most of us, anyway. But most of us also knew plenty of people over 30 whose experience, savvy, and ass-kicking smarts we revered unreservedly. I would have keeled over, when I was 12, if someone had told me that I might be half as smart as my dad one day.
There are areas in life where youth beats experience: models for Baby Gap ads, for instance. But politics ain't always one of them. Seriously? Nancy Pelosi should step aside for some 27 year old just as brainless as Russert? (Although I'm sure there are plenty of sharp 27 year olds who boast much finer intellects than this piece 'o shit poster boy for nepotism).
This isn't to say that politically savvy young people don't bring a fresh point of view. In fact, it's absolutely essential to all of us that young people get their poli-sci on, and figure out how it all works and how they can bring new ideas to the table. But to simply say "get out of the way, bitch, because you're old" is more than just offensive. It smacks of weak minded, drooling stupidity and privileged solipsism.
I think Nancy Pelosi was too nice to this smirking piece of shit. Had this little prick been just some kid from the block, based on the smarts, political acumen, and general intellect he routinely displays, he'd be lucky to be an assistant manager at a McDonalds in some low rent mall. But because he's Tim Russert's kid, he believes, like Dubya did, that he was born on third base and deserves to be sliding into home plate to the adoring cheers of millions, rather than sitting in the bleachers with everyone else, having to rely in his own native intelligence and perspicacity to survive and thrive.
Oh, what I would give to have heard Hillary Clinton's response to that question.
The pile of smoking carbon molecules left on the chair wouldn't be worth taking a match to.
Isn't NBC the least bit embarrassed that this little twerp represents them on the national stage? The least they could do is insist he change his diaper before going into a serious press conference. He always has that poopy diaper smell.
A word or two (more) on the febrile little minds overtaken by secession frenzy.
In both 2000 and 2004, when a few liberals let out with plangent "I'm going to Canada" moans, Republicans dubbed these people traitors for even suggesting that they would leave the greatest country in the history of blah, blah, blah.
As far as I can recall, these requests for directions to points north were from distraught individuals, not any organized movement, and no one called for out and out secession. Again, as far as I can recall.
But if right-wingers scream about moving to Canada and seceding from the United States of America, it somehow demonstrates their bona fides as American patriots.
Umm.....okay.
My very favorite part of the President's presser: when he whacked those misogynistic (racist?) phonies John McCain & Lindsey Graham upside the head for bullying UN Ambassador Susan Rice.
Marie
Marie,
In addition to stating outright that Susan Rice was an incompetent (this from the guy who placed Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from supreme power), McCain went on, earlier, to compare whatever happened in Benghazi to Iran Contra.
He's pretty much all the war around the bend.
I guess since Lieberman won't be around to lick his boots anymore, that only left McCain with his faithful bitch, Lindsay Graham, to threaten Susan Rice. I hope Rice won't be too terrified of that pomaded Pomeranian from South Carolina.
Another self aggrandizing bottom of the barrel ex important person on MSNBC - Ex-Gov Rendell advising that Obama shouldn't "waste" his political capitol on Susan Rice. I guess McCain and his personal valet Lindsey Graham aren't the only ones consumed by the green monster over Obama.
Makes you feel pretty darn good to be a Democrat what with all the bitch slappin' finally going in the right direction today.
I thought the President shut down the Petreaus et al circus pretty well too. Little heavy on the career with distinction part but never-the-less.
Some good news from my neck of the Congressional Districts- CA 7th ( newly drawn) Bera vs Lungren. Worked on the Bera campaign. As of yesterday, Bera is ahead by 3800+ votes up from an initial 180 vote lead (230+k votes). Sixty percent vote by mail - still many thousands to go, but looking positive. Lungren longtime Congressman from both Sth and Nrth CA as well as CA Att Gen. Daddy Lungren was Nixon's personal physician.
This from David Letterman last night. Sotheby's sold a 76 carat diamond yesterday for a record setting $41 million. The buyer wished to remain anonymous . However, rumors are circulating that the buyer was David Patraeus buying it for his wife.
@citizen625, in church Sunday, the liturgist read from Mark--it was a passage which, if written today, would be condemning the corporate sector of our plutocracy, and with a vehemence that would make Keith Olbermann blush. Please, please don't stoke the meme that religion is a training ground for future Republicans. My atheist Dad was a Republican--his Presbyterian son is a hyper-left Democrat. The GOP neither knows, nor gives a hoot about, Jesus' teachings. They use the Bible, not as a roadmap (to quote the famous country gospel number) but as a tool for propaganda. Unfortunately, plenty of otherwise decent "literal" Christians are bedazzled by rigid (but smooth) male authority and want to believe in the good intentions of any example thereof.
We lefties, of course, don't share that fault. For instance, at this very moment, we're not shocked, shocked, shocked by the behavior of certain powerful males we happen to admire.
Hope I'm not being rude (I'm a newbie, after all), but I think religion is far too great a generalization (and abstraction) to function as we want it to. Religion, politics, books, the media--all statements about them have to be qualified to make sense, imo.
I'm a "honorary consul general." Nice try.
For reasons too convoluted to go into, I was made a Kentucky Colonel. The payoff: No trouble getting a table in a WDC restaurant any Friday night.