IS THIS CRYPTO-ELIMINATIONISM?
A Republican in Arkansas says something much more inflammatory than "acted stupidly":
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Conrad Reynolds warned Wednesday that Americans need to speak out against what he described as domestic enemies.
"When I joined the military I took an oath to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic," Reynolds said. "I never thought it would be domestic, but in today's world I do believe we have enemies here. It's time for people to stand up. It's time for us to speak out."
Reynolds, 49, of Conway is a retired U.S. Army colonel, having served in South Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq, among other countries....
"We need to change if we want to stop the way America is going toward socialism," Reynolds said. "We need someone to stand up to Barack Obama and his policies. We must protect our culture, our Christian identity."
Dude, you were in the Army. You took an oath to defend the Constitution with a gun. I know you said people need to "speak out," but you also said they need to "stand up." Stand up and do what? What are you implying here?
Am I reading too much into this?
Afterward, Reynolds did a variant of the Liz Cheney Two-Step, trying to have it both ways with regard to the obvious target of his remarks:
Asked about his comment regarding domestic enemies, Reynolds declined to give specific examples. He said he was referring to "those people who are trying to sidetrack what we know to be Americanism and redefining it as socialism."
Reynolds said Obama's "policies are leading us to socialism," but doesn't consider Obama to be a domestic enemy.
Yeah, that's really ... internally consistent.
Reynolds also wants to avoid the kind of trouble a fellow Arkansas Republican has gotten into recently:
After his speech, Reynolds said before an interview that he would be careful with his answers.
"I don't want to do a Kim Hendren," Reynolds said.
Reynolds was referring to state Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette, who also has said he's running for the U.S. Senate. Hendren, in a speech to a Republican group, referred to a U.S. senator from New York as being Jewish and during a legislative meeting referred to a black federal judge as being the "new minority" judge.
Reynolds may not want to "do a Kim Hendren," but what does he think of Mr. Henderen himself? Let's go to Reynolds's Twitter feed:
Met Kim Hendren yestereday for a few moments........he is really a good man. His heart is in the right place.
Yeah, he sounds like a swell guy, Conrad. Just like you.
****
AND BY THE WAY: What's Conrad's employment history? Let's go to his campaign site:
Upon graduation from [the University of Conway in Arkansas] in 1982, Conrad was commissioned into the U.S. Army as a Second Lieutenant. He went onto to pursue a highly successful 29-year career as an intelligence officer, retiring as a full colonel on January 1, 2009....
Conrad currently owns and operates a consulting business in Conway, Arkansas and continues contributing to our nation’s defense as an independent contractor with the Department of Defense (DOD).
So he's never earned a dime as an adult that didn't come, directly or indirectly, from the government? And he's whining about "socialism"?
Thursday, July 23, 2009
ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS
I know the president's poll numbers are slipping these days, but really now:
(Click to enlarge.)
Ten points to the right of every other poll sampled by Real Clear Politics (which ain't exactly a liberal outfit)? Thirteen points to the right of the Fox poll?
Why does anyone with any sense believe any Rasmussen poll anymore?
I know the president's poll numbers are slipping these days, but really now:
(Click to enlarge.)
Ten points to the right of every other poll sampled by Real Clear Politics (which ain't exactly a liberal outfit)? Thirteen points to the right of the Fox poll?
Why does anyone with any sense believe any Rasmussen poll anymore?
A NOT PARTICULARLY DEEP THOUGHT
Barack Obama is struggling on health care because, while he wants Americans geared up for war, he won't try to get them truly angry at an enemy.
If you want people worked up, they need to envision, and despise, a foe. The filthy Huns. The dirty Japs. The Red menace. The Butcher of Baghdad. The Islamofascists. (Or, coming from the other side's propaganda works: the crusader infidel, or, earlier, the capitalist running dogs.)
As rage-inducing enemies go, "the status quo" ain't gonna cut it.
Obama saves a permanent place at the table for everyone he could possibly define as the enemy of progress, so he's got nothing left with which to rally the public. The public needs to be angry about what we have now. The public needs to be angry at someone. And he offers no one.
****
Or, as aimai says in the comments to my last post:
I can't believe anyone ever let him ramble on about the fiscal issues or the phrase "unsustainable." they are simply experience distant terms. He should have said up front "The american people are being nickeled and dimed to death by the same large corporations and vested interests that have just looted the treasury to the tune of trillions of dollars--and they now want to turn around and tell you that you and your neighbors can't afford to choose to come together and pay for a real, national, health care plan?" I would have wound up with "the american people are too big to be allowed to fail--and I won't allow it."
There's a way to take all that fiscal language and turn it to your advantage but you have to set yourself and your party as the saviors.
Yes -- and you have to remind people who and what they're being saved from. Not "the devil you know." The devil.
Barack Obama is struggling on health care because, while he wants Americans geared up for war, he won't try to get them truly angry at an enemy.
If you want people worked up, they need to envision, and despise, a foe. The filthy Huns. The dirty Japs. The Red menace. The Butcher of Baghdad. The Islamofascists. (Or, coming from the other side's propaganda works: the crusader infidel, or, earlier, the capitalist running dogs.)
As rage-inducing enemies go, "the status quo" ain't gonna cut it.
Obama saves a permanent place at the table for everyone he could possibly define as the enemy of progress, so he's got nothing left with which to rally the public. The public needs to be angry about what we have now. The public needs to be angry at someone. And he offers no one.
****
Or, as aimai says in the comments to my last post:
I can't believe anyone ever let him ramble on about the fiscal issues or the phrase "unsustainable." they are simply experience distant terms. He should have said up front "The american people are being nickeled and dimed to death by the same large corporations and vested interests that have just looted the treasury to the tune of trillions of dollars--and they now want to turn around and tell you that you and your neighbors can't afford to choose to come together and pay for a real, national, health care plan?" I would have wound up with "the american people are too big to be allowed to fail--and I won't allow it."
There's a way to take all that fiscal language and turn it to your advantage but you have to set yourself and your party as the saviors.
Yes -- and you have to remind people who and what they're being saved from. Not "the devil you know." The devil.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
HOW'D HE DO? BEATS THE HELL OUT OF ME
(update: never mind -- now I know)
(Scroll down to the asterisks for thoughts about Gates.)
I watched the press conference and stupidly didn't watch any pundits afterward, which means the c.w. is, presumably, already set in stone and I don't know what it is. I see from Pajamas Media's drunkblogger that "Juan Williams calls it 'a lost opportunity,'" but he would, wouldn't he? Larry Sabato tweets,
Least impressive of Obama's four prime-time pressers. Little passion until the last question about Prof. Gates. This didn't help O's plan.
I don't get that, or at least the first part of it. I thought the opening statement was strong and forceful, and made a good case for action that a lot of Americans haven't heard or absorbed yet. The president probably should have stopped there. In the Q&A his answers were long -- longer than they needed to be -- but at least for the first half he seemed to be doing fairly well. He does have a habit, regardless of the question, of backing up seven or eight steps and talking his way through the entire subject he's been asked about, then offering a response to the actual question as almost a coda. It's not the best approach for dealing with American attention spans. It was as if he wanted to go back and extend his speech. Well, maybe he should have done just that, and ditched the Q&A.
I think Obama biggest problem is whatI talked about a month ago -- that Americans tell pollsters they want health-care reform, but they're far less enthusiastic when it's actually presented to them -- and the last two presidents who tried to sell it, Clinton and Obama, did so with the gloom of recession hanging over Americans, and just after we'd learned that the government had failed to protect us from horribly expensive financial chicanery (the S&L crisis in the '90s, the financial meltdown now). Not the best time to sell an expanded government role in health care -- I'd say it couldn't be a worse time.
And there's this from Bob Somerby, who suspends his relentless bashing of Rachel Maddow long enough to make some sense:
Real progressives would work for years -- for decades -- to develop public understanding and anger about such complex affairs. It takes a long, aggressive struggle to develop progressive political frameworks. As Krugman explained, the other side has pimped its poll-tested narratives down through all those years. But our own denatured "liberal leaders" are too fat and happy to fight against that. When have you ever seen them fight to develop a winning politics about anything known to this earth?
Indeed -- the right has had a decades-long head start at framing this issue. Have we caught up? Not at all. Not even close.
*****
Oddly, I came away from the press conference thinking the right-wing noise machine was instantly going to jump on this:
President Obama said that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in arresting a prominent black Harvard professor last week after a confrontation at the man's home.
"I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played," Obama said Wednesday night while taking questions after a White House news conference....
"But I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3 ... that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."
Hell, I could write the script for a right-wing hissyfit about this. Bloggers and radio/Fox blowhards declare that Obama has "rushed to judgment" and slandered a decent, hard-working cop who loves his kids and his Mom; some local right-wing radio/right-wing tabloid Obama-hater gets an interview with the cop, who's hurt and offended. Obama is accused of "reverse racism" -- and this gets tied back to Sonia Sotomayor and the Ricci case.
It seems as if it would be too easy -- but maybe the wingers just want to concentrate on health care. Still, I'll be surprised if they'll let this go completely to waste. They never pass up an opportunity to get us fighting among ourselves, do they?
****
UPDATE: Never mind, it's percolating -- via Donald Douglas, I see Fox News has "Officer Who Arrested Harvard Scholar Not Sorry." The non-Murdoch but Murdoch-esque Boston Herald reports that the cop once tried to save a local sports hero:
The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtics superstar's life 16 years ago Monday.
"I wasn't working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn't working on a black man. I was working on another human being," Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward's fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer....
Oh, that's it -- Sean Hannity isn't going to need to worry about programming for a week. This is going to get ugly.
And as for the rest of the press conference, clearly this, from Politico's Ben Smith, is the etched-in-stone conventional wisdom, and we can all just stop talking about it:
The president's remarks on his chosen subject, health care, were cautious and choreographed, hemmed in on one side by the calculations of his professional wordsmiths, on the other by the delicacy of negotiations with two houses of Congress.
He never detailed his own plan, or named a single victim of America’s broken system, and he spoke largely in the abstractions of blue pills, red pills, and legislative processes. It's not easy to turn delivery system reform into a rallying cry for change, but at times, it was as if Obama wasn't even trying.
We're back where we've been my entire adult life, and I'm 50 years old -- with the GOP setting the terms of every debate and the most powerful Democrats incapable of getting traction. The New Democratic Era, which some thought would last 40 years, didn't even last 40 weeks.
****
UPDATE: Bingo -- the Reggie Lewis story hits the top of the blog charts. Sigh. This was a big, big gaffe.
(update: never mind -- now I know)
(Scroll down to the asterisks for thoughts about Gates.)
I watched the press conference and stupidly didn't watch any pundits afterward, which means the c.w. is, presumably, already set in stone and I don't know what it is. I see from Pajamas Media's drunkblogger that "Juan Williams calls it 'a lost opportunity,'" but he would, wouldn't he? Larry Sabato tweets,
Least impressive of Obama's four prime-time pressers. Little passion until the last question about Prof. Gates. This didn't help O's plan.
I don't get that, or at least the first part of it. I thought the opening statement was strong and forceful, and made a good case for action that a lot of Americans haven't heard or absorbed yet. The president probably should have stopped there. In the Q&A his answers were long -- longer than they needed to be -- but at least for the first half he seemed to be doing fairly well. He does have a habit, regardless of the question, of backing up seven or eight steps and talking his way through the entire subject he's been asked about, then offering a response to the actual question as almost a coda. It's not the best approach for dealing with American attention spans. It was as if he wanted to go back and extend his speech. Well, maybe he should have done just that, and ditched the Q&A.
I think Obama biggest problem is whatI talked about a month ago -- that Americans tell pollsters they want health-care reform, but they're far less enthusiastic when it's actually presented to them -- and the last two presidents who tried to sell it, Clinton and Obama, did so with the gloom of recession hanging over Americans, and just after we'd learned that the government had failed to protect us from horribly expensive financial chicanery (the S&L crisis in the '90s, the financial meltdown now). Not the best time to sell an expanded government role in health care -- I'd say it couldn't be a worse time.
And there's this from Bob Somerby, who suspends his relentless bashing of Rachel Maddow long enough to make some sense:
Real progressives would work for years -- for decades -- to develop public understanding and anger about such complex affairs. It takes a long, aggressive struggle to develop progressive political frameworks. As Krugman explained, the other side has pimped its poll-tested narratives down through all those years. But our own denatured "liberal leaders" are too fat and happy to fight against that. When have you ever seen them fight to develop a winning politics about anything known to this earth?
Indeed -- the right has had a decades-long head start at framing this issue. Have we caught up? Not at all. Not even close.
*****
Oddly, I came away from the press conference thinking the right-wing noise machine was instantly going to jump on this:
President Obama said that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in arresting a prominent black Harvard professor last week after a confrontation at the man's home.
"I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played," Obama said Wednesday night while taking questions after a White House news conference....
"But I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3 ... that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."
Hell, I could write the script for a right-wing hissyfit about this. Bloggers and radio/Fox blowhards declare that Obama has "rushed to judgment" and slandered a decent, hard-working cop who loves his kids and his Mom; some local right-wing radio/right-wing tabloid Obama-hater gets an interview with the cop, who's hurt and offended. Obama is accused of "reverse racism" -- and this gets tied back to Sonia Sotomayor and the Ricci case.
It seems as if it would be too easy -- but maybe the wingers just want to concentrate on health care. Still, I'll be surprised if they'll let this go completely to waste. They never pass up an opportunity to get us fighting among ourselves, do they?
****
UPDATE: Never mind, it's percolating -- via Donald Douglas, I see Fox News has "Officer Who Arrested Harvard Scholar Not Sorry." The non-Murdoch but Murdoch-esque Boston Herald reports that the cop once tried to save a local sports hero:
The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtics superstar's life 16 years ago Monday.
"I wasn't working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn't working on a black man. I was working on another human being," Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward's fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer....
Oh, that's it -- Sean Hannity isn't going to need to worry about programming for a week. This is going to get ugly.
And as for the rest of the press conference, clearly this, from Politico's Ben Smith, is the etched-in-stone conventional wisdom, and we can all just stop talking about it:
The president's remarks on his chosen subject, health care, were cautious and choreographed, hemmed in on one side by the calculations of his professional wordsmiths, on the other by the delicacy of negotiations with two houses of Congress.
He never detailed his own plan, or named a single victim of America’s broken system, and he spoke largely in the abstractions of blue pills, red pills, and legislative processes. It's not easy to turn delivery system reform into a rallying cry for change, but at times, it was as if Obama wasn't even trying.
We're back where we've been my entire adult life, and I'm 50 years old -- with the GOP setting the terms of every debate and the most powerful Democrats incapable of getting traction. The New Democratic Era, which some thought would last 40 years, didn't even last 40 weeks.
****
UPDATE: Bingo -- the Reggie Lewis story hits the top of the blog charts. Sigh. This was a big, big gaffe.
THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!
Found at Free Republic a little while ago, apparently from the site of L.A. talk-radio station KABC:
Mark Levin to broadcast real time mocking rebuttal to Obama healthcare speech 5pm PDT
As President Barack Obama, the man who continues to refuse to produce a real birth certificate for public inspection, gives his health care speech today, Mark Levin is ready to take him to task.
Levin will counter the speech as it is being delivered. It should be great, insightful (to the left, that's inciteful) talk radio at its very best.
Oh, terrific -- he's going to yell at the TV for an hour.
That's going to be some high-quality professional radio, isn't it?
I think he should go the whole nine yards and do it wearing a wifebeater, boxer shorts, and black socks, all while drinking Old Milwaukee from the can.
I imagine it's going to be kind of like this, except nastier, stupider, and not the least bit amusing:
(Video via Phil Nugent.)
Found at Free Republic a little while ago, apparently from the site of L.A. talk-radio station KABC:
Mark Levin to broadcast real time mocking rebuttal to Obama healthcare speech 5pm PDT
As President Barack Obama, the man who continues to refuse to produce a real birth certificate for public inspection, gives his health care speech today, Mark Levin is ready to take him to task.
Levin will counter the speech as it is being delivered. It should be great, insightful (to the left, that's inciteful) talk radio at its very best.
Oh, terrific -- he's going to yell at the TV for an hour.
That's going to be some high-quality professional radio, isn't it?
I think he should go the whole nine yards and do it wearing a wifebeater, boxer shorts, and black socks, all while drinking Old Milwaukee from the can.
I imagine it's going to be kind of like this, except nastier, stupider, and not the least bit amusing:
(Video via Phil Nugent.)
THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER SOLVES THE GOP'S BIRTHER PROBLEM
Last night I criticized the Beltway conventional wisdom about the Obama birthers -- namely, that they're starting to become a problem for the GOP. I wrote:
The Beltway always agrees not to hold the nutball theories of Republican voters against Republican pols -- presumably because they're seen as "heartland" theories, and it wouldn't do to talk trash about Joe Sixpack.
So, yeah, non-crazy Republicans will have to find a way to sidestep birther questions at town-hall meetings. But that's a problem they'll solve...
Now I see from Salon's Joan Walsh that Liz Cheney -- who is evil but not crazy -- has road-tested one method of solving precisely that problem:
... Tuesday night on CNN's "Larry King Live," rising GOP shill/star Liz Cheney refused to denounce the "Birthers" ... Instead, Cheney defended the Birthers by blaming Obama for their rage.
... After King showed video of the crazy birther who disrupted a meeting with poor GOP Rep. Mike Castle, ... King gave Cheney a chance to distance herself from them. But Cheney demurred, telling King the Birther movement exists because "People are uncomfortable with a president who is reluctant to defend the nation overseas."
... [James] Carville called her on it, accurately: "She refuses to say, 'This is ludicrous,' because she actually wants to encourage these people to believe this."
... Politico's Ben Smith [subsequently] asked Liz Cheney if she wanted to clarify her remarks. Cheney emailed this statement:
Cheney basically proved Carville right: By refusing to denounce the Birthers on CNN, then issuing a mealy-mouthed statement that she doesn't question Obama's right to be president, Cheney has it both ways: She curries favor with the Birthers and but affirms her basic sanity (if not integrity) to the Beltway media....
There it is. Simple, no? Make the birthers' complaints somehow reflect badly on Obama himself, to keep the base fired up, then issue a pro forma denial of the birther idea, to assuage the Village. It's the Liz Cheney Birther Two-Step! Any Republican can learn to do it! (Though most Republican officeholders will probably exercise caution and do the two parts one right after the other.)
For the foreseeable future, this, or some variation on it, is the tack every non-lunatic Republican is going to take if pressed on the issue, while more and more GOP crazies actually join the birther movement. This is only going to get worse -- but it's not going to be hung around any A-lister's neck.
Last night I criticized the Beltway conventional wisdom about the Obama birthers -- namely, that they're starting to become a problem for the GOP. I wrote:
The Beltway always agrees not to hold the nutball theories of Republican voters against Republican pols -- presumably because they're seen as "heartland" theories, and it wouldn't do to talk trash about Joe Sixpack.
So, yeah, non-crazy Republicans will have to find a way to sidestep birther questions at town-hall meetings. But that's a problem they'll solve...
Now I see from Salon's Joan Walsh that Liz Cheney -- who is evil but not crazy -- has road-tested one method of solving precisely that problem:
... Tuesday night on CNN's "Larry King Live," rising GOP shill/star Liz Cheney refused to denounce the "Birthers" ... Instead, Cheney defended the Birthers by blaming Obama for their rage.
... After King showed video of the crazy birther who disrupted a meeting with poor GOP Rep. Mike Castle, ... King gave Cheney a chance to distance herself from them. But Cheney demurred, telling King the Birther movement exists because "People are uncomfortable with a president who is reluctant to defend the nation overseas."
... [James] Carville called her on it, accurately: "She refuses to say, 'This is ludicrous,' because she actually wants to encourage these people to believe this."
... Politico's Ben Smith [subsequently] asked Liz Cheney if she wanted to clarify her remarks. Cheney emailed this statement:
I don't have any question about Barack Obama's right to be President of the United States.
My concern is with his policies. I am deeply troubled about the path he is taking this country down -- massively expanding the size of government, weakening our national defenses, increasing taxes on all Americans and nationalizing health care. These are dangerous policies for the nation.
Cheney basically proved Carville right: By refusing to denounce the Birthers on CNN, then issuing a mealy-mouthed statement that she doesn't question Obama's right to be president, Cheney has it both ways: She curries favor with the Birthers and but affirms her basic sanity (if not integrity) to the Beltway media....
There it is. Simple, no? Make the birthers' complaints somehow reflect badly on Obama himself, to keep the base fired up, then issue a pro forma denial of the birther idea, to assuage the Village. It's the Liz Cheney Birther Two-Step! Any Republican can learn to do it! (Though most Republican officeholders will probably exercise caution and do the two parts one right after the other.)
For the foreseeable future, this, or some variation on it, is the tack every non-lunatic Republican is going to take if pressed on the issue, while more and more GOP crazies actually join the birther movement. This is only going to get worse -- but it's not going to be hung around any A-lister's neck.
NEW PALIN "SCANDAL": ALAS, EVEN LESS OF AN "OTHER SHOE" THAN NATE SILVER THINKS
Is this big news? I doubt it:
An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts.
The report obtained by The Associated Press says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.
An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the "official" legal defense fund....
A while back, Nate Silver devised a test to assess the likely impact of a particular scandal on a pol's career, and, using that test, he concludes that this story won't hurt Palin much, because on three of his five test questions the answer is "no" or "probably not":
1. Can the scandal be reduced to a one-sentence soundbyte (but not easily refuted/denied with a one-sentence soundbyte)? ...
2. Does the scandal cut against a core element of the candidate's brand? ...
4. Can the scandal readily be employed by the opposition, without their looking hypocritical/petty/politically incorrect, risking retribution, or giving life to a damaging narrative? ...
Nate does think the story will "reify/reinforce/'prove' a core negative perception about the candidate" -- that's #3 -- and thinks it will get traction in the media -- that's #5. I agree about the former, but I'm not sure about the latter -- yes, this is Palin, and we're fascinated by her, but there's a lot of news out there right now, and this story is, well, murky.
How murky? Well, last night Rachel Maddow declared the story a big deal ... and then brought on Jill Burke, a reporter for NBC's Anchorage affiliate, who, without directly contradicting Maddow, poured cold water on Maddow's sense of the story's potential to damage Palin. (Video below.)
You see, Palin set up a legal defense fund that would be ethically OK in most states -- just not Alaska. The independent investigator says she violated the law -- but he also suggested that maybe the law should be changed. And she hasn't actually taken money from the fund yet -- which the investigator says would be an ethics violation unless she's a private citizen. Which, of course, she will be soon.
JILL BURKE: That's the discrepancy that this independent investigator highlighted. He pointed that out. He noted that the Alaska Fund Trust on its Web site likens itself to other federally set-up defense funds, but also states, in Alaska law, there's no framework by which to enact something like that, so he offers this remedy to kind of address the situation, which is to say, "Look, Palin, you know, reject the money from the fund, don't take it, dissolve the relationship to the fund, ask the state to reimburse you for those complaints which were dismissed, then maybe have the Alaska state legislature take a look at its ethics laws and rewrite them so officeholders aren't subject to having to pay for frivolous complaints out of their personal pockets."
When the guy who's supposed to be throwing the book at you actually tells you how to extricate yourself from legal jeopardy and criticizes the statute you've violated, you're not in big trouble.
So sorry, folks, this is not the big kahuna, enjoyable as that might have been.
****
UPDATE: I transcribed that excerpt from the Maddow show, but I see I could have just referred you to a more detailed version of the AP story quoted above:
The investigator, Thomas Daniel, sided with Palin in her frustration with having to defend herself against a barrage of ethics complaints. He suggested that Alaska lawmakers may need to create a law that reimburses public officials for legal expenses to defend complaints that end up being unfounded.
Hurt her? This is going to make her even more of a hero in her cult's eyes. PUMA blogger Riverdaughter sums up the moral of the story for Palinites:
People take advantage of Alaska law to make bogus, petty ethics complaints. Sarah Palin runs up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills defending herself from those complaints. Her supporters donate money to help pay those bills. Someone complains that that is unethical.
It’s Kafkaesque.
Hey, you folks up in Alaska? A word of advice? STOP FILING ETHICS COMPLAINTS AGAINST PALIN. They're nourishment to her. They inspire her and her crowd, who thrive on the feeling of persecution. If you have something serious, OK, fine. Otherwise, DROP IT. It's counterproductive.
Is this big news? I doubt it:
An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts.
The report obtained by The Associated Press says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.
An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the "official" legal defense fund....
A while back, Nate Silver devised a test to assess the likely impact of a particular scandal on a pol's career, and, using that test, he concludes that this story won't hurt Palin much, because on three of his five test questions the answer is "no" or "probably not":
1. Can the scandal be reduced to a one-sentence soundbyte (but not easily refuted/denied with a one-sentence soundbyte)? ...
2. Does the scandal cut against a core element of the candidate's brand? ...
4. Can the scandal readily be employed by the opposition, without their looking hypocritical/petty/politically incorrect, risking retribution, or giving life to a damaging narrative? ...
Nate does think the story will "reify/reinforce/'prove' a core negative perception about the candidate" -- that's #3 -- and thinks it will get traction in the media -- that's #5. I agree about the former, but I'm not sure about the latter -- yes, this is Palin, and we're fascinated by her, but there's a lot of news out there right now, and this story is, well, murky.
How murky? Well, last night Rachel Maddow declared the story a big deal ... and then brought on Jill Burke, a reporter for NBC's Anchorage affiliate, who, without directly contradicting Maddow, poured cold water on Maddow's sense of the story's potential to damage Palin. (Video below.)
You see, Palin set up a legal defense fund that would be ethically OK in most states -- just not Alaska. The independent investigator says she violated the law -- but he also suggested that maybe the law should be changed. And she hasn't actually taken money from the fund yet -- which the investigator says would be an ethics violation unless she's a private citizen. Which, of course, she will be soon.
JILL BURKE: That's the discrepancy that this independent investigator highlighted. He pointed that out. He noted that the Alaska Fund Trust on its Web site likens itself to other federally set-up defense funds, but also states, in Alaska law, there's no framework by which to enact something like that, so he offers this remedy to kind of address the situation, which is to say, "Look, Palin, you know, reject the money from the fund, don't take it, dissolve the relationship to the fund, ask the state to reimburse you for those complaints which were dismissed, then maybe have the Alaska state legislature take a look at its ethics laws and rewrite them so officeholders aren't subject to having to pay for frivolous complaints out of their personal pockets."
When the guy who's supposed to be throwing the book at you actually tells you how to extricate yourself from legal jeopardy and criticizes the statute you've violated, you're not in big trouble.
So sorry, folks, this is not the big kahuna, enjoyable as that might have been.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
****
UPDATE: I transcribed that excerpt from the Maddow show, but I see I could have just referred you to a more detailed version of the AP story quoted above:
The investigator, Thomas Daniel, sided with Palin in her frustration with having to defend herself against a barrage of ethics complaints. He suggested that Alaska lawmakers may need to create a law that reimburses public officials for legal expenses to defend complaints that end up being unfounded.
Hurt her? This is going to make her even more of a hero in her cult's eyes. PUMA blogger Riverdaughter sums up the moral of the story for Palinites:
People take advantage of Alaska law to make bogus, petty ethics complaints. Sarah Palin runs up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills defending herself from those complaints. Her supporters donate money to help pay those bills. Someone complains that that is unethical.
It’s Kafkaesque.
Hey, you folks up in Alaska? A word of advice? STOP FILING ETHICS COMPLAINTS AGAINST PALIN. They're nourishment to her. They inspire her and her crowd, who thrive on the feeling of persecution. If you have something serious, OK, fine. Otherwise, DROP IT. It's counterproductive.
THIS IS HOW YOU CIRCLE THE WAGONS
Remember that really, really embarrassing moment when Glenn Beck started shrieking in falsetto at a woman who challenged him on health care, then called her a "pinhead"? Remember how he became a big laughingstock?
Well, according to Fox, you have that all wrong. Beck has nothing to be ashamed of -- just the opposite. Fox is defining that moment as must-see TV ...
Here's the video, from Bill O'Reilly's show:
Remember that really, really embarrassing moment when Glenn Beck started shrieking in falsetto at a woman who challenged him on health care, then called her a "pinhead"? Remember how he became a big laughingstock?
Well, according to Fox, you have that all wrong. Beck has nothing to be ashamed of -- just the opposite. Fox is defining that moment as must-see TV ...
Here's the video, from Bill O'Reilly's show:
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
IN WHAT WAY IS THIS A PROBLEM?
Various Villagers watch the video off Delaware's Mike Castle being shouted down by an Obama birther (and a highly sympathetic crowd) -- see the clip below -- and think it's actually a problem for the GOP. MSNBC's First Read:
...the real story in all of this is that Republican Party has a HUGE problem with its base right now. That some Republicans believe a man who won last year's presidential contest by seven percentage points is not the legitimate president is a base problem much bigger than Cindy Sheehan anti-war protestors or black helicopter conspiracy theorists who flock to some Ron Paul events.
Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic:
... What's most notable, to me, at least, is not how scared Castle looked or how passionately the woman argued for Barack Obama's foreign birth. It was the reaction of the audience, a good portion of which erupted into cheers and youbetchas.
...What we don't know is how widespread the belief is among Republicans -- and even if the belief is confined to a narrow minority, whether the belief will spread as Republicans begin to pay closer attention to electoral politics in 2010 and 2012.... Republican presidential candidates need to figure out how to diffuse angry birthers who are bound to show up and demand their attention.... Republicans have to be extra careful. If they give credence to the birthers, they're (not only advancing ignorance but also) betraying the narrowness of their base. If they dismiss this growing movement, they might drive birthers to find more extreme candidates, which will fragment a Republican political coalition.
Excuse me: since when has it ever been a problem for the GOP that Republicans believe crazy stuff? Half the base -- and many prominent Republicans -- believed Bill Clinton was a murderer and a drug dealer. Did having Jerry Falwell peddling Clinton Chronicles tapes hurt Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in Congress? Did eight years of GOP rumor-mongering keep George W. Bush out of the White House? For that matter, it's hard to argue that belief in creationism and dismissal of the idea that humans contribute to climate change ever hurt Republicans at the ballot box until perhaps the last two election cycles, and even then the willful ignorance of science was a small part of what was hurting them.
The Beltway always agrees not to hold the nutball theories of Republican voters against Republican pols -- presumably because they're seen as "heartland" theories, and it wouldn't do to talk trash about Joe Sixpack.
So, yeah, non-crazy Republicans will have to find a way to sidestep birther questions at town-hall meetings. But that's a problem they'll solve -- and meanwhile, as long as the birthers in the base don't actively call for Obama's assassination, or a violent assault on the White House to drive him out by force, trust me, they'll just be allowed to slide.
Various Villagers watch the video off Delaware's Mike Castle being shouted down by an Obama birther (and a highly sympathetic crowd) -- see the clip below -- and think it's actually a problem for the GOP. MSNBC's First Read:
...the real story in all of this is that Republican Party has a HUGE problem with its base right now. That some Republicans believe a man who won last year's presidential contest by seven percentage points is not the legitimate president is a base problem much bigger than Cindy Sheehan anti-war protestors or black helicopter conspiracy theorists who flock to some Ron Paul events.
Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic:
... What's most notable, to me, at least, is not how scared Castle looked or how passionately the woman argued for Barack Obama's foreign birth. It was the reaction of the audience, a good portion of which erupted into cheers and youbetchas.
...What we don't know is how widespread the belief is among Republicans -- and even if the belief is confined to a narrow minority, whether the belief will spread as Republicans begin to pay closer attention to electoral politics in 2010 and 2012.... Republican presidential candidates need to figure out how to diffuse angry birthers who are bound to show up and demand their attention.... Republicans have to be extra careful. If they give credence to the birthers, they're (not only advancing ignorance but also) betraying the narrowness of their base. If they dismiss this growing movement, they might drive birthers to find more extreme candidates, which will fragment a Republican political coalition.
Excuse me: since when has it ever been a problem for the GOP that Republicans believe crazy stuff? Half the base -- and many prominent Republicans -- believed Bill Clinton was a murderer and a drug dealer. Did having Jerry Falwell peddling Clinton Chronicles tapes hurt Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in Congress? Did eight years of GOP rumor-mongering keep George W. Bush out of the White House? For that matter, it's hard to argue that belief in creationism and dismissal of the idea that humans contribute to climate change ever hurt Republicans at the ballot box until perhaps the last two election cycles, and even then the willful ignorance of science was a small part of what was hurting them.
The Beltway always agrees not to hold the nutball theories of Republican voters against Republican pols -- presumably because they're seen as "heartland" theories, and it wouldn't do to talk trash about Joe Sixpack.
So, yeah, non-crazy Republicans will have to find a way to sidestep birther questions at town-hall meetings. But that's a problem they'll solve -- and meanwhile, as long as the birthers in the base don't actively call for Obama's assassination, or a violent assault on the White House to drive him out by force, trust me, they'll just be allowed to slide.
STOCKHOLM AMERICANS
I'm going to skip over the bad news for Obama in the new Politico/Public Strategies poll, which is pretty much the same as the bad news in all the other recent polls, and go straight to the result I find the most disheartening:
Support for further regulation of American business has also dropped off markedly.
Just under half of those polled said regulation of corporations should be increased, down from 61 percent in March. In addition, a plurality of 40 percent of Americans fear the federal government will go too far in regulating financial institutions, up 9 percentage points from March, when voters were more worried that the government would not go far enough in regulating financial firms.
Well, that's what you get when even America's "liberal" party is unwilling to challenge what the political class considers the one "acceptable" narrative regarding the relationship between big business and the rest of America, namely the Reaganite narrative, in which fat cats are heroic at best and vengeful gods at worst, but either way we must do nothing to incur their wrath. Even with all we're going through, it's apparently still impossible for a Democratic president to say what FDR said easily, and what every blue-collar schlub understood instinctively until a few decades ago: that the interests of bosses and workers don't coincide. Now the only people who still understand that are crazy lefties -- and the fat cats themselves.
Regarding business, the other results in the Politico poll are an odd mix:
At the same time, nearly two-thirds of those polled fear the government will provide too much financial help to ailing companies, up from just over half of those polled in March.
As support for regulation has dropped, trust in American business has increased.
While 59 percent still do not trust corporations to do the right thing, the number who do has ticked up from 37 percent to 41 percent.
So America is saying: Don't regulate business or reward business. We don't trust it, but we trust it more than we did.
I find myself thinking that the Reaganite message isn't quite getting through in its pure form -- but instead of being angry at the fat cats, or at least skeptical, Americans are treating the fat cats the way the adults treat the omnipotent, tantrum-prone kid in the old Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life." Don't get the fat cats mad! Don't try to help them! Just stay quiet and leave them alone! You never know what will set them off!
One more poll result:
At the same time, despite lagging economic indicators, 53 percent of the poll's respondents believe American business is on the right track. In March, only 40 percent said the same.
Well, Goldman Sachs, say, is on the right track, isn't it? Even if we're not there with it?
I'm going to skip over the bad news for Obama in the new Politico/Public Strategies poll, which is pretty much the same as the bad news in all the other recent polls, and go straight to the result I find the most disheartening:
Support for further regulation of American business has also dropped off markedly.
Just under half of those polled said regulation of corporations should be increased, down from 61 percent in March. In addition, a plurality of 40 percent of Americans fear the federal government will go too far in regulating financial institutions, up 9 percentage points from March, when voters were more worried that the government would not go far enough in regulating financial firms.
Well, that's what you get when even America's "liberal" party is unwilling to challenge what the political class considers the one "acceptable" narrative regarding the relationship between big business and the rest of America, namely the Reaganite narrative, in which fat cats are heroic at best and vengeful gods at worst, but either way we must do nothing to incur their wrath. Even with all we're going through, it's apparently still impossible for a Democratic president to say what FDR said easily, and what every blue-collar schlub understood instinctively until a few decades ago: that the interests of bosses and workers don't coincide. Now the only people who still understand that are crazy lefties -- and the fat cats themselves.
Regarding business, the other results in the Politico poll are an odd mix:
At the same time, nearly two-thirds of those polled fear the government will provide too much financial help to ailing companies, up from just over half of those polled in March.
As support for regulation has dropped, trust in American business has increased.
While 59 percent still do not trust corporations to do the right thing, the number who do has ticked up from 37 percent to 41 percent.
So America is saying: Don't regulate business or reward business. We don't trust it, but we trust it more than we did.
I find myself thinking that the Reaganite message isn't quite getting through in its pure form -- but instead of being angry at the fat cats, or at least skeptical, Americans are treating the fat cats the way the adults treat the omnipotent, tantrum-prone kid in the old Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life." Don't get the fat cats mad! Don't try to help them! Just stay quiet and leave them alone! You never know what will set them off!
One more poll result:
At the same time, despite lagging economic indicators, 53 percent of the poll's respondents believe American business is on the right track. In March, only 40 percent said the same.
Well, Goldman Sachs, say, is on the right track, isn't it? Even if we're not there with it?
MORE MISTER NICE GUY
David Brooks today:
Machiavelli said a leader should be feared as well as loved. Obama is loved by the Democratic chairmen, but he is not feared. On health care, Obama has emphasized cost control. The chairmen flouted his priorities because they don't fear him. On cap and trade, Obama campaigned against giving away pollution offsets. The chairmen wrote their bill to do precisely that because they don’t fear him. On taxes, Obama promised that top tax rates would not go above Clinton-era levels. The chairmen flouted that promise because they don’t fear him.
I don't want to get into the specifics of this analysis, but really -- who was the last Democrat anywhere in America who was feared by anyone? I think it was Lyndon Johnson -- and it may have been Senator Lyndon Johnson. (That's an exaggeration. LBJ was feared early in his presidency, though certainly not by the end.)
Republicans do fear. They scare the public with talk of marauding hordes and they carry that siege mentality into their dealings with one another. (And they scare the crap out of Democrats, even now, although that's not a particularly difficult task.)
Democrats don't do fear -- certainly not among themselves -- and the principal result of this is that the ideas that are tough sells never emerge with the sheer authority that comes from unity. When a Ronald Reagan or Bush and Cheney ride into town, whatever cockamamie notion emerges from the White House instantly becomes the New Paradigm, the New Normal, not just in the GOP but in the media and the public, all because most Republicans are afraid to break ranks. Invade Iraq? Build a huge sci-fi shield against Russian missiles? Give huge tax breaks to rich people? Sounds ... er, reasonable, I guess. There certainly seemed to be a consensus that these ideas were normal.
The possibility exists that the public would still think invading Iraq was reasonable if the management of the war hadn't been so abysmal. The public certainly still thinks that the radical reordering of the economic order begun under Reagan was reasonable. That's what fear wins you -- a sense that your ideas must make sense because so few people are willing to say they don't.
David Brooks today:
Machiavelli said a leader should be feared as well as loved. Obama is loved by the Democratic chairmen, but he is not feared. On health care, Obama has emphasized cost control. The chairmen flouted his priorities because they don't fear him. On cap and trade, Obama campaigned against giving away pollution offsets. The chairmen wrote their bill to do precisely that because they don’t fear him. On taxes, Obama promised that top tax rates would not go above Clinton-era levels. The chairmen flouted that promise because they don’t fear him.
I don't want to get into the specifics of this analysis, but really -- who was the last Democrat anywhere in America who was feared by anyone? I think it was Lyndon Johnson -- and it may have been Senator Lyndon Johnson. (That's an exaggeration. LBJ was feared early in his presidency, though certainly not by the end.)
Republicans do fear. They scare the public with talk of marauding hordes and they carry that siege mentality into their dealings with one another. (And they scare the crap out of Democrats, even now, although that's not a particularly difficult task.)
Democrats don't do fear -- certainly not among themselves -- and the principal result of this is that the ideas that are tough sells never emerge with the sheer authority that comes from unity. When a Ronald Reagan or Bush and Cheney ride into town, whatever cockamamie notion emerges from the White House instantly becomes the New Paradigm, the New Normal, not just in the GOP but in the media and the public, all because most Republicans are afraid to break ranks. Invade Iraq? Build a huge sci-fi shield against Russian missiles? Give huge tax breaks to rich people? Sounds ... er, reasonable, I guess. There certainly seemed to be a consensus that these ideas were normal.
The possibility exists that the public would still think invading Iraq was reasonable if the management of the war hadn't been so abysmal. The public certainly still thinks that the radical reordering of the economic order begun under Reagan was reasonable. That's what fear wins you -- a sense that your ideas must make sense because so few people are willing to say they don't.
Monday, July 20, 2009
THE SOTOMAYOR HEARINGS: IS KATHLEEN PARKER ANGRIER THAN THE DEMOCRATS?
Just a year ago, right-wing pundit Kathleen Parker published an entire book devoted to the proposition that we as a society must "save the males." In a National Review interview at the time of the book's publication, she sneered at feminists:
During the last 30 years or so, as feminism has reached most of the goals of equality (except of course for that coveted membership in the Augusta National Golf Club), women have become hostile toward men and maleness in what seems to be a spirit of retributive justice. Our boys will now pay for all the sins committed by the worst men throughout history. That hardly seems fair -- and we know that feminism only aims to be fair, right? [Save the Males] aims to shine a light on all the ways our culture degrades and disrespects males and suggests that women might drop their torches and pitchforks for the sake of sanity and the little ones.
That was then. Here's Kathleen Parker in yesterday's Washington Post:
Followers of Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court confirmation hearings were witness to a now-familiar phenomenon. Women are treated differently than men in such settings.
To wit: Questions posed to Sotomayor about her temperament -- is she a bully? -- probably wouldn't be posed to a similarly qualified man.
Judicial temperament is a legitimate concern, of course. But watching Sotomayor take questions about her moods from the nearly all-male Senate Judiciary Committee, one couldn't help wondering how those same fellows would hold up under similar scrutiny while a roomful of women took aim at their ... fortitude. Obviously, we're talking about Republican chaps. Democrats were practically tossing raiment over puddles as they lobbed lovin
... Here's what women hear when men ask a female candidate about her temperament: "Are you really the bitch everybody says you are?" ...
Wow, that's a switch.
Oh, and Parker is also the columnist who, a little over a year ago, gave credence to a voter's claim that Barack Obama wasn't a "full-blooded American" and questioned whether Obama could be sufficiently patriotic, at least compared with "those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice." She wrote,
It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.
Now, in reference to Sotomayor, she writes,
Senators also hammered Sotomayor about her ethnic identification and whether she could rule fairly without undue influence from her gender or political preferences. Wait, let me guess, you're white guys! Are we to infer that men of European descent are never unduly influenced by their own ethnicity, gender or political preferences? Can anyone affirm this assertion with a straight face?
GOP senators: I know she rejected Sarah Palin a long time ago, but if you've lost Kathleen Parker on the issues of gender and ethnicity, you've got serious problems.
But am I wrong to wish a significant number of actual Democrats were talking like this? It seems to me that during the Alito hearings the GOP was pretty good at getting the base fired up:
Supporters of Judge Samuel Alito are condemning what they consider unfair attacks on the Supreme Court nominee -- attacks that distressed his wife to the point of tears on Wednesday.
"Having failed to distort Judge Alito's distinguished record on the bench, today Senator Kennedy tried to smear Sam Alito's character," Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said in a press release.
"Throughout his career, Samuel Alito has proven his commitment to the highest ethical principles and a fair and just America. This good man does not need a lecture from Ted Kennedy," Mehlman added....
Former Reagan administration Attorney General Ed Meese described the Democrats' attacks on Alito as "despicable" -- "a shameful performance."
In a podcast interview with Fidelis, a Catholic-based organization that defends and promote the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty, Meese singled out Sen. Ted Kennedy's repeated questions about Alito's failure to recuse himself in a Vanguard case.
"It is totally hypocritical and false for anybody like Senator Kennedy, of all people, to question anyone's ethics, in view of his own past background," Meese said, adding that the American Bar Association's rating of well-qualified "says it all about Alito." ...
And, of course:
The wife of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito left his confirmation hearings in tears Wednesday.
Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who had sat behind her husband for hours of questioning over several days, left as her husband was being questioned by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
"Are you really a closet bigot?" Graham asked Alito. The nominee said no, and Graham said, "No sir, you’re not."
...Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah suggested that she was upset with the questioning from Democrats. "She's sick and tired of the mistreatment of her husband," Hatch said...
Maybe the hearings themselves were enough, and there's no need to add to what people saw and pundits wrote. But it seems to me that Democrats are afraid to say that Republicans said or did anything outrageous. Why not? If Kathleen Parker can describe the GOP in these hearings as sexist and racist, why can't Democrats? Why can't Democratic pols try writing the narrative of a political event for a change, the way Republican pols wrote the narrative of the Alito hearings?
Just a year ago, right-wing pundit Kathleen Parker published an entire book devoted to the proposition that we as a society must "save the males." In a National Review interview at the time of the book's publication, she sneered at feminists:
During the last 30 years or so, as feminism has reached most of the goals of equality (except of course for that coveted membership in the Augusta National Golf Club), women have become hostile toward men and maleness in what seems to be a spirit of retributive justice. Our boys will now pay for all the sins committed by the worst men throughout history. That hardly seems fair -- and we know that feminism only aims to be fair, right? [Save the Males] aims to shine a light on all the ways our culture degrades and disrespects males and suggests that women might drop their torches and pitchforks for the sake of sanity and the little ones.
That was then. Here's Kathleen Parker in yesterday's Washington Post:
Followers of Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court confirmation hearings were witness to a now-familiar phenomenon. Women are treated differently than men in such settings.
To wit: Questions posed to Sotomayor about her temperament -- is she a bully? -- probably wouldn't be posed to a similarly qualified man.
Judicial temperament is a legitimate concern, of course. But watching Sotomayor take questions about her moods from the nearly all-male Senate Judiciary Committee, one couldn't help wondering how those same fellows would hold up under similar scrutiny while a roomful of women took aim at their ... fortitude. Obviously, we're talking about Republican chaps. Democrats were practically tossing raiment over puddles as they lobbed lovin
... Here's what women hear when men ask a female candidate about her temperament: "Are you really the bitch everybody says you are?" ...
Wow, that's a switch.
Oh, and Parker is also the columnist who, a little over a year ago, gave credence to a voter's claim that Barack Obama wasn't a "full-blooded American" and questioned whether Obama could be sufficiently patriotic, at least compared with "those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice." She wrote,
It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.
Now, in reference to Sotomayor, she writes,
Senators also hammered Sotomayor about her ethnic identification and whether she could rule fairly without undue influence from her gender or political preferences. Wait, let me guess, you're white guys! Are we to infer that men of European descent are never unduly influenced by their own ethnicity, gender or political preferences? Can anyone affirm this assertion with a straight face?
GOP senators: I know she rejected Sarah Palin a long time ago, but if you've lost Kathleen Parker on the issues of gender and ethnicity, you've got serious problems.
But am I wrong to wish a significant number of actual Democrats were talking like this? It seems to me that during the Alito hearings the GOP was pretty good at getting the base fired up:
Supporters of Judge Samuel Alito are condemning what they consider unfair attacks on the Supreme Court nominee -- attacks that distressed his wife to the point of tears on Wednesday.
"Having failed to distort Judge Alito's distinguished record on the bench, today Senator Kennedy tried to smear Sam Alito's character," Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said in a press release.
"Throughout his career, Samuel Alito has proven his commitment to the highest ethical principles and a fair and just America. This good man does not need a lecture from Ted Kennedy," Mehlman added....
Former Reagan administration Attorney General Ed Meese described the Democrats' attacks on Alito as "despicable" -- "a shameful performance."
In a podcast interview with Fidelis, a Catholic-based organization that defends and promote the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty, Meese singled out Sen. Ted Kennedy's repeated questions about Alito's failure to recuse himself in a Vanguard case.
"It is totally hypocritical and false for anybody like Senator Kennedy, of all people, to question anyone's ethics, in view of his own past background," Meese said, adding that the American Bar Association's rating of well-qualified "says it all about Alito." ...
And, of course:
The wife of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito left his confirmation hearings in tears Wednesday.
Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who had sat behind her husband for hours of questioning over several days, left as her husband was being questioned by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
"Are you really a closet bigot?" Graham asked Alito. The nominee said no, and Graham said, "No sir, you’re not."
...Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah suggested that she was upset with the questioning from Democrats. "She's sick and tired of the mistreatment of her husband," Hatch said...
Maybe the hearings themselves were enough, and there's no need to add to what people saw and pundits wrote. But it seems to me that Democrats are afraid to say that Republicans said or did anything outrageous. Why not? If Kathleen Parker can describe the GOP in these hearings as sexist and racist, why can't Democrats? Why can't Democratic pols try writing the narrative of a political event for a change, the way Republican pols wrote the narrative of the Alito hearings?
THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME TO REJECT PARTISANSHIP?
What's wrong with ths picture?
Heading into a critical period in the debate over health-care reform, public approval of President Obama's stewardship on the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll....
Since April, approval of Obama's handling of health care has dropped from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent. Obama still maintains a large advantage over congressional Republicans in terms of public trust on the issue....
That's right -- there's been some slippage, but he's still way ahead of Republicans on this and other issues, as the poll numbers make clear:
And yet he won't name names when trying to rebut criticism of his policies. He won't identify his primary critics as Republicans. There are vague references to the same tired, worn-out ideas, or however it is that Obama puts it, but he won't take advantage of the toxicity of the Republican brand.
By the way, when Bill Clinton was trying to reform health care, he didn't have anything resembling the solid advantage over the GOP Obama has. On a comparable question, he slipped below 50% by June of his first year, and he didn't get back above 50% until 1996:
I know, I know -- he engenders goodwill by not being partisan. Yeah, I guess -- but there's rarely been a better time to be partisan. And he's not taking advantage.
What's wrong with ths picture?
Heading into a critical period in the debate over health-care reform, public approval of President Obama's stewardship on the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll....
Since April, approval of Obama's handling of health care has dropped from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent. Obama still maintains a large advantage over congressional Republicans in terms of public trust on the issue....
That's right -- there's been some slippage, but he's still way ahead of Republicans on this and other issues, as the poll numbers make clear:
And yet he won't name names when trying to rebut criticism of his policies. He won't identify his primary critics as Republicans. There are vague references to the same tired, worn-out ideas, or however it is that Obama puts it, but he won't take advantage of the toxicity of the Republican brand.
By the way, when Bill Clinton was trying to reform health care, he didn't have anything resembling the solid advantage over the GOP Obama has. On a comparable question, he slipped below 50% by June of his first year, and he didn't get back above 50% until 1996:
I know, I know -- he engenders goodwill by not being partisan. Yeah, I guess -- but there's rarely been a better time to be partisan. And he's not taking advantage.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
WINGNUT PUNDIT THINKS MAYBE THE TALIBAN SHOULD KILL U.S. HOSTAGE
Private Bowe Berdahl has been seen in a Taliban propaganda video -- and blowhard Murdoch pundit Ralph Peters has told Fox News that maybe the Taliban should just kill him:
"Nobody in the military is defending this guy, he is an apparent deserter, reports are indeed that he abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post and walked off...On that video he is collaborating with the enemy.
"... if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime, I don't care how hard it sounds, as far as I'm concerned the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and a lot of legal bills."
Um, I know Peters was in the military for about 22 years, but did he ever see combat?
Peters really enjoys proclaiming that other people are pure evil and deserve to be the targets of violence -- a couple of months ago he called war correspondents "killers without guns" and argued that they also may deserve to be killed:
Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.
Here are an edited and (via the Jawa Report) the full video of Private Berdahl:
Private Bowe Berdahl has been seen in a Taliban propaganda video -- and blowhard Murdoch pundit Ralph Peters has told Fox News that maybe the Taliban should just kill him:
"Nobody in the military is defending this guy, he is an apparent deserter, reports are indeed that he abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post and walked off...On that video he is collaborating with the enemy.
"... if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime, I don't care how hard it sounds, as far as I'm concerned the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and a lot of legal bills."
Um, I know Peters was in the military for about 22 years, but did he ever see combat?
Peters really enjoys proclaiming that other people are pure evil and deserve to be the targets of violence -- a couple of months ago he called war correspondents "killers without guns" and argued that they also may deserve to be killed:
Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.
Here are an edited and (via the Jawa Report) the full video of Private Berdahl:
Saturday, July 18, 2009
THE RIGHT'S MYTHICAL TRIG FAULT LINE
I don't know anyone on the left who ever thinks about Trig Palin, but the right desperately wants us to despise him for existing -- and if we don't, the right will make up a trend of left-wing Trig-hating out of the flimsiest of evidence. Now I see that our old pal Gary Bauer (whom we actually do despise) has written a Politico piece on the subject with Daniel Allott:
Trig Palin has divided America
Reactions to Sarah Palin's decision to resign the governorship of Alaska have been a reminder of her unmatched ability to elicit strong emotions from friend and foe alike. We know some of the reasons why. It's her evangelical Christianity and her folksy manner. It's her small-town roots and her "new feminism."
(It's her narcissism, her pride in her own ignorance, and her McCarthyite hatred for those who disagree with her. But never mind.)
But there is something more. A year ago, Palin gave birth to her youngest son, Trig, who has Down syndrome. Since then, mother and son have become objects of the left’s unrelenting scorn and the right’s unflinching fidelity.
... At Talking Points Memo, an article sarcastically suggested that Palin resigned because "she wants to spread Down syndrome ... because Down syndrome is just too cute to be reserved for one in 800 births."
A Paliban Daily article titled "Sarah Palin’s Retarded Platform: More Trigs!" interpreted Palin's outspokenness on disability rights as a political ploy to win votes....
Those reactions echoed the hateful response that met Palin when she introduced Trig on the campaign trail last fall. Nicholas Provenzo of the libertarian Center for the Advancement of Capitalism discussed being "troubled" by Trig’s existence because "it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome." ...
Working backward, I'll start by saying it's news to me that "the libertarian Center for the Advancement of Capitalism" -- which "is dedicated to advancing individual rights and economic freedom through Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism" -- is part of "the left."
As for the Paliban Daily piece, I see that it was so representative of the depraved thinking of the left that the editors of the site responded a day after it was published by asking readers whether he should be fired, and a day after that he quit writing for the site. The TPM piece was written not by a regular TPM writer but by a diarist with no "followers" -- in other words, he's just a blogger who decided to create his blog at TPM (a blog with a whopping two posts since late June), and who's elicited very little response.
I know you righties really, really want this to be about Trig, just as you'd really like it if we lefties killed kittens for sport or engaged in similar heart-tugging acts of depravity. But listen to me: We don't care about Trig. Many of us, faced with a pregnancy in which Down's syndrome was evident, would make a choice very different from Palin's. But our response to Palin's choice is "Go with God" (or whatever the atheist or Flying Spaghetti Monster-worshipping equivalent of that might be). We don't like Palin and her followers using him as a prop, or a bloody shirt -- but her choice to bring Trig to term is something we simplty don't think about.
And if Palin does want to try to reduce the number of abortions in cases involving Down's syndrome fetuses, she might want to tell her fans to back the hell off, and she herself might want to stop talking about people who disagree with her (on this and other issues) as if we're unspeakably evil, which is precisely how she's talked from her 2008 convention speech on. You can catch more flies with honey than with hydrochloric acid.
I don't know anyone on the left who ever thinks about Trig Palin, but the right desperately wants us to despise him for existing -- and if we don't, the right will make up a trend of left-wing Trig-hating out of the flimsiest of evidence. Now I see that our old pal Gary Bauer (whom we actually do despise) has written a Politico piece on the subject with Daniel Allott:
Trig Palin has divided America
Reactions to Sarah Palin's decision to resign the governorship of Alaska have been a reminder of her unmatched ability to elicit strong emotions from friend and foe alike. We know some of the reasons why. It's her evangelical Christianity and her folksy manner. It's her small-town roots and her "new feminism."
(It's her narcissism, her pride in her own ignorance, and her McCarthyite hatred for those who disagree with her. But never mind.)
But there is something more. A year ago, Palin gave birth to her youngest son, Trig, who has Down syndrome. Since then, mother and son have become objects of the left’s unrelenting scorn and the right’s unflinching fidelity.
... At Talking Points Memo, an article sarcastically suggested that Palin resigned because "she wants to spread Down syndrome ... because Down syndrome is just too cute to be reserved for one in 800 births."
A Paliban Daily article titled "Sarah Palin’s Retarded Platform: More Trigs!" interpreted Palin's outspokenness on disability rights as a political ploy to win votes....
Those reactions echoed the hateful response that met Palin when she introduced Trig on the campaign trail last fall. Nicholas Provenzo of the libertarian Center for the Advancement of Capitalism discussed being "troubled" by Trig’s existence because "it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome." ...
Working backward, I'll start by saying it's news to me that "the libertarian Center for the Advancement of Capitalism" -- which "is dedicated to advancing individual rights and economic freedom through Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism" -- is part of "the left."
As for the Paliban Daily piece, I see that it was so representative of the depraved thinking of the left that the editors of the site responded a day after it was published by asking readers whether he should be fired, and a day after that he quit writing for the site. The TPM piece was written not by a regular TPM writer but by a diarist with no "followers" -- in other words, he's just a blogger who decided to create his blog at TPM (a blog with a whopping two posts since late June), and who's elicited very little response.
I know you righties really, really want this to be about Trig, just as you'd really like it if we lefties killed kittens for sport or engaged in similar heart-tugging acts of depravity. But listen to me: We don't care about Trig. Many of us, faced with a pregnancy in which Down's syndrome was evident, would make a choice very different from Palin's. But our response to Palin's choice is "Go with God" (or whatever the atheist or Flying Spaghetti Monster-worshipping equivalent of that might be). We don't like Palin and her followers using him as a prop, or a bloody shirt -- but her choice to bring Trig to term is something we simplty don't think about.
And if Palin does want to try to reduce the number of abortions in cases involving Down's syndrome fetuses, she might want to tell her fans to back the hell off, and she herself might want to stop talking about people who disagree with her (on this and other issues) as if we're unspeakably evil, which is precisely how she's talked from her 2008 convention speech on. You can catch more flies with honey than with hydrochloric acid.
Friday, July 17, 2009
THE NEXT RIGHT-WING FREAKOUT?
Oh, we're going to hear about this from Michelle Bachmann or Glenn Beck any minute now:
Health Care Bill Will Fund State Vaccine Teams to Conduct ‘Interventions’ in Private Homes
There is a knock at the front door. Peeking through the window, a mother sees a man and a woman, both in uniform. They are agents of health-care reform.
"Excuse me, ma'am," says the man. "Our records show that your eleven-year-old daughter has not been immunized for genital warts."
"And your four-year-old still needs the chicken-pox vaccine," says the woman.
"He will not be allowed to start kindergarten unless he gets that shot, you know," says the man -- smiling from ear to ear....
Is this a scene from the over-heated imagination of an addlepated conspiracy theorist? Or is it something akin to what is actually envisioned by the health-care reform bill approved this week by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.
The committee’s official summary of the bill says: "Authorizes a demonstration program to improve immunization coverage. Under this program, CDC will provide grants to states to improve immunization coverage of children, adolescents, and adults through the use of evidence-based interventions. States may use funds to implement interventions that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, such as reminders or recalls for patients or providers, or home visits."
Home visits? What exactly is the state going to do when it sends people to "implement interventions" in private homes designed "to improve immunization coverage of children"? ...
Um, I assume it would be something like what's already being done in the case of, say, tuberculosis by public health workers -- there's monitoring of patients to ensure that they don't abandon treatment programs midstream. Here in New York, for instance,
Directly Observed Therapy (DOT) is the standard of care for tuberculosis (TB) treatment. In directly observed therapy, a trained health care worker monitors the patient taking each dose of anti-tuberculosis medication. When TB patients receive all medications as prescribed under a program of DOT, both patients and community benefit....
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH ) provides DOT in its clinics, as well as in patients' homes and workplaces whenever necessary....
More than 90% of patients diagnosed with TB and treated in New York City since 1994 complete therapy, compared with fewer than 50% in the late 1980s, before DOT became the standard of care.
And I assume the program would be chronically underfunded, and subject to cutbacks at the first sign of an economic downturn (even if it can be shown to save money by decreasing spending on treatment of prevented diseases).
Is this appropriate for vaccines? Maybe, maybe not -- that's why I assume what's being authorized is a demonstration program. But in any case, it's not going to be done by people "in uniform," unless what you mean is a nurse's uniform, or a white lab coat.
Clearly, we've had this sort of thing for TB in New York City for more than a decade, and there's no evidence that anyone, even Giuliani, has ever set up concentration camps for non-compliers. And yet this is already freaking out Pammy Atlas, the Freepers, and other wingnut conspiracy junkies. Can Bachmann and Beck be far behind?
Oh, we're going to hear about this from Michelle Bachmann or Glenn Beck any minute now:
Health Care Bill Will Fund State Vaccine Teams to Conduct ‘Interventions’ in Private Homes
There is a knock at the front door. Peeking through the window, a mother sees a man and a woman, both in uniform. They are agents of health-care reform.
"Excuse me, ma'am," says the man. "Our records show that your eleven-year-old daughter has not been immunized for genital warts."
"And your four-year-old still needs the chicken-pox vaccine," says the woman.
"He will not be allowed to start kindergarten unless he gets that shot, you know," says the man -- smiling from ear to ear....
Is this a scene from the over-heated imagination of an addlepated conspiracy theorist? Or is it something akin to what is actually envisioned by the health-care reform bill approved this week by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.
The committee’s official summary of the bill says: "Authorizes a demonstration program to improve immunization coverage. Under this program, CDC will provide grants to states to improve immunization coverage of children, adolescents, and adults through the use of evidence-based interventions. States may use funds to implement interventions that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, such as reminders or recalls for patients or providers, or home visits."
Home visits? What exactly is the state going to do when it sends people to "implement interventions" in private homes designed "to improve immunization coverage of children"? ...
Um, I assume it would be something like what's already being done in the case of, say, tuberculosis by public health workers -- there's monitoring of patients to ensure that they don't abandon treatment programs midstream. Here in New York, for instance,
Directly Observed Therapy (DOT) is the standard of care for tuberculosis (TB) treatment. In directly observed therapy, a trained health care worker monitors the patient taking each dose of anti-tuberculosis medication. When TB patients receive all medications as prescribed under a program of DOT, both patients and community benefit....
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH ) provides DOT in its clinics, as well as in patients' homes and workplaces whenever necessary....
More than 90% of patients diagnosed with TB and treated in New York City since 1994 complete therapy, compared with fewer than 50% in the late 1980s, before DOT became the standard of care.
And I assume the program would be chronically underfunded, and subject to cutbacks at the first sign of an economic downturn (even if it can be shown to save money by decreasing spending on treatment of prevented diseases).
Is this appropriate for vaccines? Maybe, maybe not -- that's why I assume what's being authorized is a demonstration program. But in any case, it's not going to be done by people "in uniform," unless what you mean is a nurse's uniform, or a white lab coat.
Clearly, we've had this sort of thing for TB in New York City for more than a decade, and there's no evidence that anyone, even Giuliani, has ever set up concentration camps for non-compliers. And yet this is already freaking out Pammy Atlas, the Freepers, and other wingnut conspiracy junkies. Can Bachmann and Beck be far behind?
NOONAN PRINTS THE LEGEND AGAIN
Peggy Noonan phones it in this week -- today's column is a lazy collection of odds and sods. She leads with another ode to "steely-eyed rocket men" -- yes, she uses the phrase again, as she did six years ago in a praise-hymn to George W. Bush -- but this time she's talking about literal rocket men: the astronauts of the moon-landing era. Her point is that Americans today are too damn self-involved, not like those guys:
Something about the steely-eyed rocket men of the Mercury and Apollo programs: They weren't criers. Now, on TV every day as people remember some trauma or triumph, they stop as if on cue -- they know this is expected of them -- and weep. They think this shows sincerity and sensitivity. But they feel too much about their struggles.... The men who took the moon will be all over TV the next few days. I bet they don't cry as they remember "Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed." How moving their dry eyes will be.
Would it have been too much for Noonan to check her facts and determine that one of the best-known astronauts actually might cry on TV, or come close?
... Surprisingly, [Buzz] Aldrin's reservations about describing what it's like to kick up moon dust for an hour and a half, as he did on July 20, 1969, are in marked contrast to his willingness to discuss -- free of charge -- the dark side of his life: his struggles with depression and alcoholism, his two failed marriages, his difficult relationship with his father, and the tragedy of his mother (born Marion Moon), who killed herself shortly before the lunar mission because she did not think she could handle her son's imminent fame.
Yes, Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, is on a huge book tour for a memoir with the not-so-steely-eyed title Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon ("Buzz Aldrin relives the Magnificent Desolation of space, and the soul-sucking depression that awaited back home." --Vanity Fair). In the story I just quoted, he's testy when talking about Neil Armstrong, who got to walk on the moon first, and he says he doesn't want to talk about the moon landing anymore "unless I'm appropriately compensated." He may not cry, but it sure sounds as if he's a bundle of raw emotions.
But Noonan assumed her assertion was too good to check.
Oh, and then there's Edgar Mitchell:
Apollo 14's Mitchell was the biggest surprise of all. He stunned most people upon his return when he revealed that during the mission he had quietly conducted experiments in extrasensory perception with two friends back home -- trying to send them mental images from space. He later founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, Calif., to study what some refer to as the paranormal -- and what he insists is nothing of the kind. "Nothing is para once you know what's going on," he counters. "For some people, it's normal." Mitchell says it was his lunar journey that opened his eyes to something larger in the universe -- what he refers to as his "ah-ha experience."
Here's an interview with Mitchell, in which he talks about those ESP experiences, recounts his association with Uri Geller, and tells us this:
My biggest work is developing further the understanding of the quantum hologram and how it works in relation to the brain. The real enigma we don't have a handle on yet is the psychokinetic effect. It has to do with intentionality and the quantum hologram, but exactly how that functions physically is not obvious to us. The perception of non-local information like ESP is easy to explain through the quantum hologram; you are just picking up the information from another person. Telepathy is just information coming in; psychokinesis, just information going out. But the material deformation of things is a little more mysterious. It takes energy to bend a ring. We can understand healing; you are a sick person, and I give you the information and your body heals itself. But how to move a ring is a different problem.
Wow. Very steely-eyed.
Peggy Noonan phones it in this week -- today's column is a lazy collection of odds and sods. She leads with another ode to "steely-eyed rocket men" -- yes, she uses the phrase again, as she did six years ago in a praise-hymn to George W. Bush -- but this time she's talking about literal rocket men: the astronauts of the moon-landing era. Her point is that Americans today are too damn self-involved, not like those guys:
Something about the steely-eyed rocket men of the Mercury and Apollo programs: They weren't criers. Now, on TV every day as people remember some trauma or triumph, they stop as if on cue -- they know this is expected of them -- and weep. They think this shows sincerity and sensitivity. But they feel too much about their struggles.... The men who took the moon will be all over TV the next few days. I bet they don't cry as they remember "Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed." How moving their dry eyes will be.
Would it have been too much for Noonan to check her facts and determine that one of the best-known astronauts actually might cry on TV, or come close?
... Surprisingly, [Buzz] Aldrin's reservations about describing what it's like to kick up moon dust for an hour and a half, as he did on July 20, 1969, are in marked contrast to his willingness to discuss -- free of charge -- the dark side of his life: his struggles with depression and alcoholism, his two failed marriages, his difficult relationship with his father, and the tragedy of his mother (born Marion Moon), who killed herself shortly before the lunar mission because she did not think she could handle her son's imminent fame.
Yes, Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, is on a huge book tour for a memoir with the not-so-steely-eyed title Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon ("Buzz Aldrin relives the Magnificent Desolation of space, and the soul-sucking depression that awaited back home." --Vanity Fair). In the story I just quoted, he's testy when talking about Neil Armstrong, who got to walk on the moon first, and he says he doesn't want to talk about the moon landing anymore "unless I'm appropriately compensated." He may not cry, but it sure sounds as if he's a bundle of raw emotions.
But Noonan assumed her assertion was too good to check.
Oh, and then there's Edgar Mitchell:
Apollo 14's Mitchell was the biggest surprise of all. He stunned most people upon his return when he revealed that during the mission he had quietly conducted experiments in extrasensory perception with two friends back home -- trying to send them mental images from space. He later founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, Calif., to study what some refer to as the paranormal -- and what he insists is nothing of the kind. "Nothing is para once you know what's going on," he counters. "For some people, it's normal." Mitchell says it was his lunar journey that opened his eyes to something larger in the universe -- what he refers to as his "ah-ha experience."
Here's an interview with Mitchell, in which he talks about those ESP experiences, recounts his association with Uri Geller, and tells us this:
My biggest work is developing further the understanding of the quantum hologram and how it works in relation to the brain. The real enigma we don't have a handle on yet is the psychokinetic effect. It has to do with intentionality and the quantum hologram, but exactly how that functions physically is not obvious to us. The perception of non-local information like ESP is easy to explain through the quantum hologram; you are just picking up the information from another person. Telepathy is just information coming in; psychokinesis, just information going out. But the material deformation of things is a little more mysterious. It takes energy to bend a ring. We can understand healing; you are a sick person, and I give you the information and your body heals itself. But how to move a ring is a different problem.
Wow. Very steely-eyed.
BIDEN'S ALLEGED GAFFE
Joe Biden told an AARP town-hall meeting that if we maintain the current health-care system "[w]e're going to go bankrupt as a nation," then said,
"Now, people when I say that look at me and say, 'What are you talking about, Joe? You're telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?'" Biden said. "The answer is yes, that's what I'm telling you."
A lot of right-wingers think this is hilarious.
Um, this wouldn't be the same crowd that insists at every available opportunity that cutting taxes always increases tax revenues, would it?
So the statement that's paradoxical but true strikes them as a joke, but the one that's paradoxical and also utter nonsense doesn't?
Joe Biden told an AARP town-hall meeting that if we maintain the current health-care system "[w]e're going to go bankrupt as a nation," then said,
"Now, people when I say that look at me and say, 'What are you talking about, Joe? You're telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?'" Biden said. "The answer is yes, that's what I'm telling you."
A lot of right-wingers think this is hilarious.
Um, this wouldn't be the same crowd that insists at every available opportunity that cutting taxes always increases tax revenues, would it?
So the statement that's paradoxical but true strikes them as a joke, but the one that's paradoxical and also utter nonsense doesn't?
Thursday, July 16, 2009
VIRGINIA GOP LEGISLATIVE CANDIDATE IS AN ELIMINATIONIST CONSPIRACY NUT
Via ShortsandPants, Not Larry Sabato, and the Huffington Post, I see that the Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 99th District has just suggested that an armed overthrow of the U.S. government might be necessary:
... 'The war is inevitable -- let it come, sir. I repeat: let it come.' We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box. But that's the beauty of our Second Amendment right. I am glad for all of us who enjoy the use of firearms for hunting, but make no mistake: that was not the intent of the Founding Fathers. Our Second Amendment right was to guard against tyranny.
This came after she read a resolution passed at the Virginia GOP's 2009 convention:
Resolution in Recognition of the Tea Parties
WHEREAS, the citizens of the United States of America have begun to recognize the destructive nature of the Democrat administration and the Democrat Congress's taxing, spending, and borrowing policies,
WHEREAS, under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, citizens have taken upon themselves the task of organizing and attending the tea party protests,
WHEREAS, the ideals expressed in the Virginia Republican Creed reflect the ideals, goals and spirit of these tea parties,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican Party of Virginia welcomes those desiring to bring about a smaller and less intrusive government, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Republican Party of Virginia encourages those participating in and organizing the tea party demonstrations to continue to speak out against the over reaching arm of government.
I quote that in full in case you have any doubt about exactly what "tyrants" might be the target of her boxed bullets.
Crabill, by the way, is an Oklahoma City truther:
Crabill also told the convention that she had been "beaten, humiliated and ridiculed" by bloggers who discovered a 1995 newspaper article in which she blamed the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing on the federal government. At the time, Crabill lived in New Mexico.
The Washington Times quoted her as saying:
"'If any militia group is truly responsible for the murderous bombing in Oklahoma City, then I say, 'Hangin's too good for 'em,'" said Catherine Crabill of Aragon, N.M., who belongs to a group called New Mexico Citizens Action Association.
"But Mrs. Crabill said it's her belief 'this heinous act of violence was the work of our government,' which will 'use it as an excuse to aggressively attack the growing militia movement across the country.'"
Crabill denied making the 1995 statement, but, in a recent posting on her Web site, catherinecrabill.com, she said: "I did and do believe that our government was culpable in the [Oklahoma City] bombing. I am not ashamed of standing with my friends and neighbors in New Mexico from the domestic terrorists known as our own government."
(That post is here.)
Crabill also has some interesting theories about the UN. She once told Outside magazine
"That as a result of Presidential Executive Order, the Sec. of the Treasury holds all the power of the Executive Branch and answers to the globalist elite. That there is an agenda that is in our Public Law to surrender our country to the United Nations, and that we are on the verge of having our economy pulled out from under us by all of the above. I mean, it just goes on and on! And these globalists just love you greenies for helping their program along."
-- apparently after Outside (which was reporting on her as a militia member engaged in a "war for the West") characterized her beliefs thus:
Catherine believes, for example, that the State Department, at the UN's behest, is pushing through a "three-stage plan" to disarm the world for its own dark purposes.
Her Web site is about what you'd expect:
The Liberal Playbook to Destroy America...
Has Our Nation been usurped? None dare call it treason…
And this, of course:
Right now on her site she's responding to the outcry against her remarks:
This is a SPECIAL BULLETIN for those of you readers from the Huffington Post.
The speech I was reading was Patrick Henry's address from Richmond, March 23, 1775. The character assassins at Huff Po edited the tape to begin mid sentence where Patrick Henry said, "Our chains are forged! Their clanging may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable-and let it come!..."
From that they deliberately tried to insinuate that I was advocating war!
This type of editing and deliberate provocation is despicable. In the same speech, Patrick Henry said “Besides, sir, we have no election.” The point of my comments was that we do have an election, we do have the ability to take hold of our freedoms with the ballot box so we don't have to refer to the bullet box as our Founding Fathers did....
No, Catherine -- you said, "We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box" (emphasis mine). Armed insurrection is your Plan B.
She follows this up, naturally, with a denunciation of Barack Obama as a tool of Saul Alinsky .
In 2012, I think she'd make a great running mate for Sarah Palin.
Via ShortsandPants, Not Larry Sabato, and the Huffington Post, I see that the Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 99th District has just suggested that an armed overthrow of the U.S. government might be necessary:
... 'The war is inevitable -- let it come, sir. I repeat: let it come.' We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box. But that's the beauty of our Second Amendment right. I am glad for all of us who enjoy the use of firearms for hunting, but make no mistake: that was not the intent of the Founding Fathers. Our Second Amendment right was to guard against tyranny.
This came after she read a resolution passed at the Virginia GOP's 2009 convention:
Resolution in Recognition of the Tea Parties
WHEREAS, the citizens of the United States of America have begun to recognize the destructive nature of the Democrat administration and the Democrat Congress's taxing, spending, and borrowing policies,
WHEREAS, under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, citizens have taken upon themselves the task of organizing and attending the tea party protests,
WHEREAS, the ideals expressed in the Virginia Republican Creed reflect the ideals, goals and spirit of these tea parties,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican Party of Virginia welcomes those desiring to bring about a smaller and less intrusive government, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Republican Party of Virginia encourages those participating in and organizing the tea party demonstrations to continue to speak out against the over reaching arm of government.
I quote that in full in case you have any doubt about exactly what "tyrants" might be the target of her boxed bullets.
Crabill, by the way, is an Oklahoma City truther:
Crabill also told the convention that she had been "beaten, humiliated and ridiculed" by bloggers who discovered a 1995 newspaper article in which she blamed the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing on the federal government. At the time, Crabill lived in New Mexico.
The Washington Times quoted her as saying:
"'If any militia group is truly responsible for the murderous bombing in Oklahoma City, then I say, 'Hangin's too good for 'em,'" said Catherine Crabill of Aragon, N.M., who belongs to a group called New Mexico Citizens Action Association.
"But Mrs. Crabill said it's her belief 'this heinous act of violence was the work of our government,' which will 'use it as an excuse to aggressively attack the growing militia movement across the country.'"
Crabill denied making the 1995 statement, but, in a recent posting on her Web site, catherinecrabill.com, she said: "I did and do believe that our government was culpable in the [Oklahoma City] bombing. I am not ashamed of standing with my friends and neighbors in New Mexico from the domestic terrorists known as our own government."
(That post is here.)
Crabill also has some interesting theories about the UN. She once told Outside magazine
"That as a result of Presidential Executive Order, the Sec. of the Treasury holds all the power of the Executive Branch and answers to the globalist elite. That there is an agenda that is in our Public Law to surrender our country to the United Nations, and that we are on the verge of having our economy pulled out from under us by all of the above. I mean, it just goes on and on! And these globalists just love you greenies for helping their program along."
-- apparently after Outside (which was reporting on her as a militia member engaged in a "war for the West") characterized her beliefs thus:
Catherine believes, for example, that the State Department, at the UN's behest, is pushing through a "three-stage plan" to disarm the world for its own dark purposes.
Her Web site is about what you'd expect:
The Liberal Playbook to Destroy America...
Has Our Nation been usurped? None dare call it treason…
And this, of course:
Right now on her site she's responding to the outcry against her remarks:
This is a SPECIAL BULLETIN for those of you readers from the Huffington Post.
The speech I was reading was Patrick Henry's address from Richmond, March 23, 1775. The character assassins at Huff Po edited the tape to begin mid sentence where Patrick Henry said, "Our chains are forged! Their clanging may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable-and let it come!..."
From that they deliberately tried to insinuate that I was advocating war!
This type of editing and deliberate provocation is despicable. In the same speech, Patrick Henry said “Besides, sir, we have no election.” The point of my comments was that we do have an election, we do have the ability to take hold of our freedoms with the ballot box so we don't have to refer to the bullet box as our Founding Fathers did....
No, Catherine -- you said, "We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box" (emphasis mine). Armed insurrection is your Plan B.
She follows this up, naturally, with a denunciation of Barack Obama as a tool of Saul Alinsky .
In 2012, I think she'd make a great running mate for Sarah Palin.
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