Iowa Liberal

But only for a brief moment:

Since there is no George W. Bush Economic Miracle to point to it’s taken as a matter of pure faith or natural law that nudging tax rates back to where they were during the Clinton boom years will result in disaster. There will be a disaster but it will be political and not fiscal. The travesty that they fear will take place is a reduced deficit which will kick the ladder out from under the deficit peacocks. When budget numbers begin to improve they will then be left with the unsavory task of telling voters that it’s in their best interest to do what Goldman Sachs says or else run the risk of their fury and retribution. Republicans are good at believing their own bullshit but I don’t think even the most foolish Tea Partier is going to buy into that rationale.

-mg

Ezra Klein gets to the heart of the difficulty in passing good environmental legislation:

If you wanted to design a threat that our political system couldn’t address, here’s what you’d do: You’d make the pain of doing nothing come much later, but the pain of doing something begin right now. You’d concentrate the costs of failure in poor countries, while the costs of a policy solution would be concentrated in certain regions of America. You’d make it hard to solve without the imposition of a new tax. You’d make sure that some of the largest and richest industries in the world had an enormous amount to fear from that tax.

Well, that settles it, I guess. Here goes our grand experiment in seeing what happens when you have over 400 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere…soon to be 500;)

Future’s so bright…all we can be thankful for is that oil is depleting quickly enough to force alternative efforts. Hurrah to the Chevy Volt…and here’s hoping Dana Pico learns what an early adopter is! It’s somewhat expensive now, but the economies of scale are amazing things, aren’t they? One year’s $600 iPhone 2G is today’s $200 iphone 4.

And Dana can hope the petroleum lasts forever, but it won’t be because “little toy electric cars simply are not us.” Our oil supplies will not remain cheap and economical because it we need to drive manly beast cars. We are not able to endlessly pollute the earth’s atmosphere simply because we can’t be bothered to charge a car. Desire is going to run right up against possibility and lose that battle. Unfortunately, climate change legislation faces certain political impossibilities because the GOP continues to drop the ball on our future and our grandchildren’s future for the sake of present greed.

-hw

DISCLOSE loses 58-40. Mind you, the 58 voted for it.

It’s Senate math, of course. A minority of Senators representing a smaller minority of the country, in service to an even smaller ruling class that wants to influence politics behind the scenes can stop the people.

I’m sure the Tea Party will get right on top of that and remind their GOP representatives that they represent THE PEOPLE and must stop the filibuster.

-hw

From the NYT:

In recent days, fiscal conservatives like Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Evan Bayh of Indiana expressed support for extending the tax cuts at all income levels, at least temporarily.

“Fiscal conservatives,” were it to mean people who were actually fiscally conservative, would not support giving rich people more of the tax cut that already helped propel us into deficit spending.

The veil has been lifted on this sham. When it comes to the poor and middle class, every dollar in assistance is fought for tooth and nail, in the name of the deficit. But when it comes to the rich, no expense is too much. All reason flies out the window, because the rich is who Republicans and too many idiot Democrats serve. A billion to billionaires is money well spent, while a billion that would help thousands avoid devastation is fraudulent waste.

Yes, these clowns would perpetuate the tax cuts for the lower and middle class, but that’s just the lube to help the screwing, a trinket for the dirty masses that calms them down while the rich claim the real prize. Obama always said he only wanted to keep the tax cuts for most Americans, and that hasn’t calmed “fiscal conservatives” at all.

I wish the librul NYT would just stop making up these terms for Republicans and like-minded Democrats. Bill Clinton had the most fiscally conservative administration in decades and none of them cared.

Part of being fiscally conservative is being willing to pay your bills. The Bush tax cuts were a fantasy that yielded nothing and, along with the other Republican fantasy of deregulation, led us straight into our current quagmire.

But as we learned about the NYT, it always knows when to defer to power and instill Newspeak when necessary. Torture wasn’t torture when Bush did it, and now continuing the policies of the most fiscally irresponsible President in history (who else could we possibly say compared?) is “fiscally conservative.” They know who they serve.

-he

Ann Coulter on Afghanistan: “Who cares about the Afghans? This is a typical Democrat war!”

Whew. Well, they became fiscal hawks the second Bush left, and now they don’t give a damn about nation building in the Middle East. Of course, Obama put more chips on Afghanistan, but if Bush had done the same we would be FIGHTING TO WIN!

Coulter wants to hang Afghanistan on Obama’s neck with all her malformed heart. Democrats already hate the war, and she knows that turning the GOP against it will mean more political bleeding.

At the same time, Republicans want to keep a few cards up their sleeves for when Obama pulls out so they can call him weak. So I see them letting Coulter vent and drain public confidence, but waiting to pounce anyway.

Like Coulter, they really don’t care what happens there. Like every other issue, they have no interest in the outcome, except for what can benefit Republicans.

-he

More right-wing violence:

Yesterday, 45-year-old parolee Byron Williams opened fire on Highway Patrol officers in Oakland, California. After a brief shootout, Williams, who was wearing body armor, was shot and is currently in an emergency room in stable condition at a local hospital.

In an interview with the local news, Williams explained that her son was unemployed, angry at “left-wing politicians,” and upset about Congress “railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.” Williams went on to say that she kept guns in her house which her son stole. She also warned of a coming “revolution”

Where’s Eric Cantor to explain that the librulz are responsible for putting the patrol officers in danger?

Or, as HuffPo puts it, “Warren vs. Geithner.”

The key weakness of Obama’s presidency so far has been that he chose Geithner and sided with his philosophy throughout. Whenever there was a chance to do something that would seriously reform Wall St., Geithner stood opposed, while Elizabeth Warren spoke out for those who had nobody to speak out for them.

And what did Obama get for it? “Anti-business!” After eight years of, “Hey, why don’t you guys write your own regulations?”-style Bush oversight, who could expect business to be satisfied? It should have been axiomatic that Wall St. would be against change, because Wall St. started out on top and finished on top.

When Volcker and Warren are louder voices in the administration than Geithner and Summers, Obama will have a more effective administration and a whole hell of a lot more trust from the people.

In other news, some stuff called “financial reform” passed today, the product of whatever it took to override yet another Republican filibuster. There are a few positives, but I’ll believe it changes something when I see it.

-hw

Brown, Collins, and Snowe. Maybe Grassley.

Brown won concessions in the bill and said Monday that the legislation “is a better bill than it was when this whole process started.”

“While it isn’t perfect, I expect to support the bill when it comes up for a vote,” he said in a statement. “It includes safeguards to help prevent another financial meltdown, ensures that consumers are protected, and it is paid for without new taxes.”

Apparently the other 37 immobile Republican Senators believe everything is working just fine on Wall Street, no fix needed.

At this point, I’m pretty sure that if Obama and the Democrats were trying to get a kitten out of a tree the Republicans would shoot it.

-hw

Maybe fire the Bush hacks who were screwing up things before?

In keeping the Bush Interior Department managers and policies in place, Ruch said, Obama appointees have “turned a blind eye toward federal court rulings that said Bush-era lease reviews were environmentally deficient, as well as a GAO report documenting how agency scientists were routinely stifled and ignored.”

It’s important that President Obama give scientific integrity more than lip-service. I’ll grant that the man has too many plates spinning at the moment to deal with some minutae, and Obama is still trying to get scores of appointees through the obstructionist Senate, but it shouldn’t take more than a single conversation to set this problem straight. Fire the old hacks, let scientists work unimpeded by political concerns, enjoy the results.

-hw

Obama frames the 2010 election as “Those who caused the problem vs. those trying to fix the problem.” I’d say, “Do you really want to hand the wheel back to the drunks?” but it’s the same idea. Obama and the Democrats came into office with a massive sweep, and the only Republican response was to double and triple down, take use of what they had, the 40 lock-step goons who call themselves Senators, and abuse it like heroin. Obstruction without construction. Scream in fear at simple, common-sense ideas and many smart ones, babble about Hitler and fascism, and completely step out of the process of fixing anything.

The GOP reign of the 00′s was a disaster for this country. Taxes were lowered, deregulation was the order of the day, but business collapsed and needed a taxpayer bailout. The entire economic philosophy of the right was laid bare, fundamentally condemned by harsh reality.

The new meme is “Obama is anti-business.” As Paul Krugman deftly lays bare, this is simply usual for business. They’ve made out handsomely the past two years, but their always against taxes that shave a few millions off their bonuses, and they’re always against regulations. Curiously, they’re always for a bailout too.

After all, they aren’t hurting after the largest economic collapse since the Depression. Everything went awesomely for the country’s richest, so why change anything? Republicans can try running for office on the promise that they’ll give us MORE deregulation and MORE tax cuts for the wealthiest, but not too many people can really be fooled by that, because it’s so obviously more of the same. More of what ruined us.

The election is a no-brainer. The GOP has already hamstrung the Democrats too often, resulting in a stimulus too weak to juice the economy as much as the experts who saw this coming predicted was necessary, a health care plan that won’t be able to save taxpayers over a hundred billion with a public option, and slow growth on the green economy. Infrastructure is still crumbling. Teachers, cops, and firefighters are facing budget cuts. Libraries are open less. People for whom no job even exists are told they’re lazy and lose unemployment benefits. Forget welfare to work, it’s just no welfare and no work.

Great vision, Republicans.

Really, we’re going to hand the drunks the keys again?

Really?

-hw

Ruh-roh! Teh gay is outside your door, wanting…to marry another gay!

-hw

It’s only normal to gain a great deal of satisfaction from Ann Coulter kicking Bill Kristol in the nuts. Bill Kristol has been wrong about everything his entire career. So has Ann Coulter, of course, but she’s got way bigger balls that Kristol.

I think Coulter is starting to sniff out a Republican critique of Obama as a war president. She’d like to be able to attack Obama for being in Afghanistan and elect a Republican who will promise to “fight the war right!” Pull a Nixon on Johnson, say. They’ve got to find some angle on 2012, anyway. But still, seeing her pick a fight with Kristol is a sweet reward. Some actual infighting on the right is welcome respite for our country. Years of lockstep monkey-see/monkey-do politics in the right-o-sphere has left us with a Borg collective gripping our democracy. It’s time for them to do some questioning of basic assumptions, so as to relieve this nation from the pressure of their stupidity.

-hw

When the chairman of the RNC slips up and admits Afghanistan is a foolish mission, don’t sound like a Republican peddling old excuses for Bush. Support him, say he’s got the right idea. Observe who he pissed off most: neocons.

Obama has set things up so that he won’t be held to a course until he makes a choice. Yes, it’s supposed to be July 2011, but if he wants to stay, he will. If he wants to roll into the election owning the Afghanistan war, that shit won’t fly. The “I’m against dumb wars” guy will be coming back to us with a dumb war on our hands.

Meanwhile, “sober” expectations of Pentagon cuts range around 30 billion in a few years. 30 billion? It’s better than nothing, but it’s hardly a dent in the spending problem. We need to scale down the war and military spending, and every voice helps, because it needs to be a bipartisan consensus to ever happen.

-hw

Sometimes I just have to go over to CPST and knock’em around a little bit. Real wingers can only handle a few exchanges of actual point-counterpoint debate before they descend into some noisy attacks and declare, “I’m outta here!”

Deceit is their inspiration, deception is their intention, presumption is their method, and fabrication is their first resort. Previously, I thought it was a reading comprehension problem, but that’s not it. Than I concluded it might be the result of a modern public school education. But that’s only part of the problem. Now, I see it’s just plain dishonesty masquerading as stupidity. Technically, they may not actually be all that stupid, but they wear the fool’s mask in order to cover their dissimulations. I’m largely through playing straight man with liars and posers. My patience is running thin, my time here may not be long, and I’ve got other fish to fry.

That’s the sweet sound of winger surrender. They literally cannot admit defeat, so when they’re out of answers, they run out the door calling names. From the ISCA bbs to newsgroups to blogs, the trend remains the same. I stand there, a rock that they break against, with the last post of real substance. Of course, they scream and claim they are great and I am terrible, etc., but without the goods it lands like baby punches. They tickle me.

Oh, for bonus points I toyed with a 9/11 truther, blubonnet. My habit of not suffering fools lightly does tend to result in a lot of skewered righties, but I’ll eat a truther for breakfast any day!

-hw

Rightwingers, plug your ears! (tip: Sullivan)

Plenty of European countries have markets about as free as those in the land of the free. Look at the ratings provided by the annual Economic Freedom of the World report, co-published by the Cato Institute. On four broad categories of economic freedom — legal structure and security of property rights; access to sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation — the United States was slightly “freer” than Sweden, the United Kingdom, Austria, Finland, and Switzerland. Meanwhile, Ireland, the Netherlands and, by a wide margin, Denmark were found to have freer markets. Note that the two highest scorers have two of the biggest welfare states in the world — which just goes to show that blurring issues of regulation and redistribution, as Brooks tries to do, leads to intellectual confusion.

Co-published by the Cato Institute? And they didn’t automatically plug America into the #1 spot? Traitors!!!

This is good too:

A 2001paper, “Why Doesn’t the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?” by economists Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser, and Bruce Sacerdote, provides powerful evidence that race is at the center of the story. There’s a strong negative relationship between a country’s racial heterogeneity and its levels of social spending, and within the U.S., states with larger black populations spend less on welfare programs. “Americans think of the poor as members of some different group than themselves, while Europeans think of the poor as members of their group,” the paper concludes.

Two words: Welfare queens. The GOP is still convinced that there’s lazy darkies out there getting all their tax money; it’s one of their animating beliefs. Whether aid has positive benefits or not, whether it’s good for the country or not, the (white) identity politics prevail.

-hw

A self-sufficient home:

On a typical summer day, the solar panels drink in and convert sunlight to about 90 kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to Strizki. He consumes about 10 kilowatt-hours daily to run the family’s appliances, including a 50-inch plasma television, along with his three computers and stereo equipment, among other modern conveniences.

The remaining 80 kilowatt-hours recharge the batteries—which provide electricity for the house at night—and power the electrolyzer, which splits the molecules of purified tap water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is vented and the hydrogen goes into the tanks where it is stored for use in the cold, dark winter months. From November to March or so Strizki runs the stored hydrogen through the fuel cell stacks outside his garage or in his car to power his entire house—and the only waste product is water, which can be pumped right back into the system.

“I can make fuel out of sunlight and water—and I don’t even use the water,” he notes. “If it’s raining, it’s fuel. If it’s sunny, it’s fuel. It’s all fuel.”

Now, granted, the set-up cost half a million dollars. But as a pilot-project, this is a superb effort. The trick of solar is always about spreading the power surplus around to the hours that the sun isn’t shining. As always, hydrogen is price-prohibitive, but being tech mass production and refinement may yield long-term results.

-hw

Harry Reid spotted in the seats at UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin. Woot!

BTW, that was perhaps the greatest heavyweight fight ever. My jaw dropped when I saw Lesnar and Carwin face to face, and Carwin matched Lesnar in sheer size. This was like the Hulk vs. the Abomination.

-hw

If Republicans declare the sun to be the moon, the NYT will step right out of the middle of that controversy!

-hw

UPDATE: More here, on how 12 million people losing their unemployment benefits doesn’t rate as big news. Hey, Republicans are for it, so who’s to say?

“Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.”

-Lindsey Graham

Lifelong Republican hack Lindsey Graham is kind of shocked to discover that he’s no longer in the KKK (kool kidz klub), but the definition of a Republican is shrinking so quickly nowadays that anybody is suspect. Whether it’s Lindsey, Bob Bennet, or the pro-Palin conservative bloggers who were a bit steamed for getting ejected for live-blogging a Palin speech, the GOP is going all-margin, all the time.

-hw

Sullivan (whole post worth reading):

David Brooks writes the following sentence today:

The most interesting part of my job is that I get to observe powerful people at close quarters.

Like David, I am privileged in many ways to be able to meet and talk to a lot of powerful figures. David and I have been at many functions of this sort together, but I have to say I disagree. These interactions are the least interesting part of my job, and often the most misleading. Every now and then, you discover a nugget that adds something. But in general, you get the schtick and spin, larded with a few anecdotes to make you feel flattered to be included in the salons of power. And what still amazes me is how deferent most of even the A-list journos are (with a few glorious exceptions). In fact, the definition of an A-list journalist in Washington is the person who is chummiest and closest to the people they cover. They have risen to the top in part because they know what questions the powerful really don’t want to answer – and decide not to ask them.

As Chomsky said, there’s really no need for a conspiracy. It’s just a simple question of incentives and human nature. Those with power almost by definition don’t want the press to be too inquisitive or challenging, because doing so undermines that power. That’s the precise point of journalism, to be a check on power. So what do those in power have to challenge the press? In fascist societies they can simply jail or kill those who ask too many questions, but in our society the powerful simply mete out what they have: power. Access. The illusion of hot insider info, which usually turns out to be planned leaks or superficial. In a free society, our leaders simply don’t have to invite in a challenging journalist when they can invite over a “bigger” journalist who will be nicer.

The least amazing thing about a powerful person should be that they’re charismatic and dynamic. Outside of societies where power is decreed by bloodline, such will ever be the case. Odds are that no matter how horrible a leader somebody in America is, they’re likely pretty easy to get along with in person, because they’re politicians, and that applies to high-ranking military as well. I’m sure George W. Bush would shake my hand and give me a pat on the back, and we could throw some small talk around, and I’d probably enjoy the actual encounter itself. At the same time, he was one of the worst presidents in our nation’s history and we will spend decades cleaning up the damage he did to both our land and our government.

A journalist’s job is to look past the charm and get to the facts, the things that actually matter to us as a country, as citizens who want to keep their leaders in-bounds. I don’t care if there’s a gang of rude assholes in D.C. as long as they’re doing the right thing.

-hw

I mean, it’s not exactly working wonders for Sarah Palin, so why are other Republican politicians like Mark Kirk, Rand Paul and Sharron Angle attempting to mimic the technique?

Yes, the base will love you as long as you appear on Fox News and rightwing talk radio, fawned over and studiously shielded from anything resembling an actual question (though after that O’Reilly interview last week even Palin isn’t finding that strategy foolproof, and certainly anything she attempts must be foolproof to work…). Maybe it can work for Republicans in super-red territory, since the GOP base relies exclusively on bubble-bred shnews-fests from the usual propaganda outlets, but how does one hope to crack the mainstream that way?

Some Americans simply have lost all respect for anything resembling rigor or scrutiny. Of course, the fact that the GOP has been led by Rush Limbaugh for 20+ years, a man who is morbidly afraid of appearing in any situation where he can be questioned without the ability to cut the mic. This sick bastard is their hero, and thus they have become sick. Increasingly few of their leaders can withstand any cross-examination. Yes, we can point out they’re chickenshits, but the bubble is so thick on the right that anybody outside it is automatically dismissed. What I say simply doesn’t matter. Not because it isn’t true, sure it is. But I’m a liberal. So what I say simply doesn’t matter…to these folks, anyway. Yet neither does the analysis of those who would be able to claim a somewhat more independent label, because by not actively promoting the rightwinger agenda, one becomes a liberal anyway. And so by critiquing them, one automatically becomes irrelevant in their eyes. It’s all purity and purges nowadays, folks.

It’s sad that so many Americans have chosen to let their better faculties degrade so egregiously. I heard my physical therapist (the excruciating back pain thing…) commenting with a tone that suggested weary wisdom that he’d been watching Huckabee on Fox and “the politicians are going to try to use this oil thing to get a global warming bill passed. It’s all politics!” Oh, of course, because the gulf turning into an oily wasteland in front of our eyes wouldn’t actually suggest that we look for clean renewable energy. Obviously there’s no connection, right? It’s just a lil’ nothing that we crazy liberals are all pumping up in order to fulfill a political agenda. Because the right is obviously so dedicated to scientific principles and not toeing the corporate line that happens to coincide with their massive election contributions…

p.s. Gotta love rightwingers complaining about Obama strong-arming BP out of one corner of their mouth while pointing out that he received a lot of BP dollars during his campaign. Gee, he took their donations and yet didn’t act like their servant? Yes, this seems wrong to Republicans, but they can’t really explain why without making explicit the fact what corporate stooges they are. You’re supposed to take your money and do like you’re told!!!

Of course, this all means we must elect more Republicans in ’10. The only sensible thing for the country, really…

-hw

Rahm Emanuel, approaching usefulness:

Obama sped right past the Republicans on this one. They’re worried about BP’s bottom line, while the Obama administration just got BP to voluntarily cough up $20 billion to cover the clean-up, with more on the way. The “tea” party was just the Republican party, and they’re here to save America’s corporations from stifling regulations over things like safety and accountability, while Obama scored a victory without a single executive order.

Of course, the GOP leadership is out there trying to do their damage control, and I think they deserve some credit for realizing Joe Barton just about sank the GOP’s chances for big gains in the fall. Mitch McConnell is out there doing his diligent duties, but the problem is, as Rahm Emanuel nails, this is what Republicans really believe.

-hw

John Cole:

“Those penguins pelicans coated with oil and shrimp that taste like wd-40? You stupid motherfuckers can expect more of that until you stop voting for assholes who oppose alternative energy sources and any move away from fossil fuels. Until then, I hear dental floss works ok removing tarballs from your teeth, you dumbasses. Also, this response IS big government, you teabagging shitheels.”

Really, as long as Obama keeps trying to handle this logistical nightmare as competently as possible, all the more incompetent our press reveals itself to be. They just seriously can’t handle the idea that we’ve fucked ourselves so hard that we can’t immediately walk straight again, mainly because we’re still getting fucked. The oil spill is spraying our faces like a neverending German scheisse video. And what is our press up to? Writing some goddamned D.C. Beltway soap opera where the nation languishes because Obama isn’t cheering us up. Never is it fully grokked that there’s nothing much to be cheered up by. Instead of a press, we have a frightened four-year old clamoring for Daddy President to make the bad go away with a smile and wave of the hands.

I won’t even link to Maureen Dowd’s piece of shit column yesterday, whining about how the Obama WH doesn’t respect the media’s dedication to reporting real news instead of gossipy snipey bullshit like Maureen Dowd’s columns. ZOMG YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HE DOESN’T SPEND TIME WITH US ON THE PLANE! WHERE IS PRESIDENT MCCAIN???

A lot of ink was devoted to the Beltway’s pathetic slobbering adulation at Joe Biden’s swim party. Yet can you blame Biden, or Obama for delegating the job of wooing the press to his VP (preferable to letting your VP do your actual job, ala Bush/Cheney)? They’re like idiot babes, if you don’t toss them some happy scraps they’ll throw tantrums and derail your good causes. The Beltway media doesn’t care if a president shreds the Constitution and plunges the country into economic despair, they care about parties and barbecues and being best buddies with the people they’re supposed to keep a check on. Inversely, the press will gleefully trash any good plan Obama has and do their best to write history against Obama if he doesn’t satisfy their endless neuroses. So screw it, throw reporters some Twizzlers and ask them about their kids. If that’s all it takes to get your agenda a victory in press wars, why not? You can’t buy somebody who isn’t for sale.

-hw

Sullivan in fine form:

The Bush-Cheney presidency was, in some respects, the perfect pseudo-conservative administration. They waged war based on loathing of the experts (damned knowledgeable elites!); they slashed taxes and boosted spending for their constituencies, while pretending to be fiscally responsible; they tore up the most ancient taboos – against torture – with a bravado that will one day seem obscene; and they left the country in far worse shape than they found it.

Throughout all this, the Tea Partiers supported them. So how do they manage the cognitive dissonance that two failed wars, a financial collapse and a debt crisis have brought? How do they deal with the fact that their beloved president was manifestly the most incompetent and disastrous in modern times? They blame it on the next guy.

Yes, they are doing all they can to avoid facing the fact that they did all of this … to themselves. And sometimes, the truly, deeply humiliated can only carry on through blind rage.

And now they’ve got a bunch of weak candidates and November isn’t too enticing for them. Of course, the fact that they’ll pick up any seats whatsoever is simply a disgrace, given their abysmal track record in the aftermath of the mess Republicans made of the country. And now they pretend electing Republicans again is somehow a wise idea. It’s almost too absurd to believe, but by God you can bet they’ll try making it happen. Because the health of the country was never the point, it was always about the power. Granted, a few too many Democrats are after that power too, but we’ve got an awfully large number of good ones and just need a president capable of twisting some arms. Re-balancing this country means counteracting the past thirty years of rightward swing and truly resetting the priorities of our institutions, a process barely begun.

Let’s not give up before we’ve really implemented our plans.

-hw

Why bother listening? He’ll make sense, but Republicans will filibuster whatever he plans and chickenshit Democrats like Blanche Lincoln will actually threaten to join the filibuster.

I heard it said pretty well on the Norman Goldman show today. The second a Democrat threatened to join a Republican filibuster on an issue central to the Democratic platform, Obama should have dragged that person into the WH and said, “I’m going to put everything I’ve got behind your primary opponent if you don’t vote yes.”

Obama didn’t do that and Goldman concludes that that was a hobbling moment for Obama’s presidency.

Okay, Obama wants to do something about clean energy. Democrats can run against the oil spill in the fall with a clean energy plan. Dirty energy Republicans will be left parsing their words or talking about the HITLERFASCIST solar/wind bills. They are so damn vulnerable anybody could beat them.

But just enough Democrats will chicken out. And they’ll do so knowing Obama will still stand behind them later. And they will feel no remorse, nor flash of regard for the feelings of the vast millions of Democrats who passionately disagree with them. So why get excited? It will be like everything else we’ve gotten from this gang of Democrats: watered down half-measures nearly killed to appease the radical right.
All because of some fear that an idiot like Palin or Limbaugh or Beck will say mean things about them.

We’re just going to keep sucking on our own fumes a bit longer. This country isn’t really ready to move forward yet. We’re too busy trying to bang Kate Winslet on the Titanic.

-hw

Sorry, but anybody who’s ever studied drama just has to giggle. Barack Obama is elected to repair the damage that Bush and Cheney did to the country after eight years in the WH and after 12 years of a Republican Congress. Unregulated oil drilling springs a leak, seven years after Dick Cheney let the oil companies write the rules, and yet…

…we’re sitting around wishing Obama would make us feel better.

Hey, America…this situation is fucking grim. Try not falling for the protestations of those who just a few years ago chanted, “Drill, Baby, Drill!” It’ll work out better for you. You’ll feel cleaner, morally upright, etc. Good stuff.

Time and time again, the same story plays out. The only rational criticism of Obama is from the left. Over, and over, and over again. But that criticism never counts in the eyes of the national media. Torture prosecutions? Media’s against them. Military tribunals? Media’s for them. Public option? Media didn’t want it. Too big to fail? Media didn’t mind. Believing BP’s version of the story? Media woulda done the same.

So over and over again, the media stands directly between Obama’s typical extensively compromised initial volley and whatever insane batshit twaddle idiots like Limbaugh, Beck, or Palin and dream up. Or stalwart criminals like Dick Cheney, or the abomination Liz Cheney. The sole standard is, are they willing to go there? Because if they are, our media will lay down like a bunch of chickenshits.

And they’re always willing to go there.

Democrats need to grow a spine and Americans need to grow the hell up. We’re still fixing the goddamned mess. Let’s propose solutions that actually solve something. Let’s point directly at those sucking on corporate dollars, those who always bend away from justice, away from the right thing, away from the divine path.

It’s really sad when one thinks of what could have been built upon the Clinton years and the prosperity we were generating. Democrats were screaming like mad during the Bush years as one fiscal restraint after another was peeled back. We’d finally become a fiscally conservative nation, and there Bush was, going nuts on his daddy’s credit card like a man who’d never had to worry about money his whole life. And there the Republicans were, cheering him all along and passing every spending bill.

No, it’s time to kick out the last of the Bush apologists and elect only those who are willing to rebuild America, instead of a bunch of whiny titty babies crying about their taxes. Grow up, you little sissies. I have to pay quite a bit each month to handle the debts I accrued during my younger, reckless years. Why shouldn’t I expect the same of my country?

And why should I listen to a bunch of racially unenlightened Republicans who want nothing more than to reactivate their wrecking balls and keep up the same old Bush/Cheney policies that ruined this country in the first place?

The only criticism of Barack Obama that makes sense is from the left. It must be understood. Democrats have to unite in that understanding. We know he isn’t the model of a liberal president. We need him to actually take liberal democrats seriously instead of sneering at us. There’s a war to be fought in the nation’s primaries, and Blanche Lincoln’s victory didn’t mean the end of anything. But in any general election contest, Americans should be absolutely aghast at the thought of letting Republicans get back behind the wheel with some phony story about how they suddenly became fiscally conservative.

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But it’s a boy.

Gonna call him Fletcher.

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Holy. Smokes.

Personally, I couldn’t finish the first 1:30 interview, and made it 56 seconds into the second one. See if you or your friends can survive the challenge without clawing out your eyeballs!

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p.s. Obviously, there’s shenanigans going on somewhere here…

Sarah Palin resigned halfway through her first term as governor of a mostly empty state with fewer people than Iowa under a dark cloud of numerous ethics violations.

In reality, that’s called a stunning failure. We don’t elect politicians to make us feel warm and cozy inside, we elect them to do not just a good job, but a superlative one.

You know, I actually understand that I wouldn’t make a good president. I mean, I’d have my highlights, and I’d be wading into the place with a massive bullshit detector and an acute understanding of our nation’s fundamental problems and how to fix them. In other words, I could do a better job than Sarah Palin. Yet I still realize I shouldn’t be the president. Do the “real American” moms out there who see a little bit of themselves in Sarah Palin believe they themselves could also be president if they felt like it? If you’re not qualified, then why are you trying to put into office somebody because they’re similar to you?

Really, the Republican base is narcissistic. They love to look at themselves in the mirror and proclaim what they see as the only true model for a genuine American.

Real Americans start employing some standards for their leaders or else they better get used to sucking on the world’s tailpipe when our empire comes crashing down. After Bush, the biggest lesson that Republicans could have learned was, “Stop electing idiot screw-ups!” Alas, they just can’t help themselves deifying the next one.

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I say Rahm Emanuel because he is almost certainly the “anonymous WH official” who decided to insult the Democrats in Arkansas for daring to have a primary against Blanche Lincoln for killing the public option. So, Rahm, go fuck yourself, because even if you didn’t say it, you agree with it.

The public option mattered, and its exclusion will only hurt HCR in the long run. Barack Obama ran on it and won partly because of it (a public option was assumed in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, a condition of even being able to enter the debate).
Losing it was a steep price for something fundamental liberals wanted, a government plan committed to getting as many people covered as possible.

So, yeah, White House, try not to kick sand in our goddamned faces after the fact, okay? We may have to occasionally support Democratic candidates to keep godawful Republican candidates from winning, but don’t disparage our right to vote in primaries to put people who actually represent us in office.

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It’s only insulting to call a woman a Barbie doll piece of ass with no brains if that doesn’t actually describe her. I suppose I’m supposed to fill up with some “Real American” pride that capitalism allowed Sarah Palin to get plastic surgery to look more like the porn actress who portrayed her in the withering satire Who’s Naylin’ Paylin. But I don’t.

It’s virtually a truism that Sarah Palin’s looks are a huge part of her appeal, since she’s rarely ever said anything of value that wasn’t written for her. Just because the GOP can produce endless volumes of defense mechanism whining if you call one of their stupid candidates stupid doesn’t mean they aren’t still really, undeniably, incurably stupid. “Call me…”??? Really? Why on earth would Obama call Sarah Palin, other than to learn how to quit his job and cash in? Maybe get some tips on how to accumulate a critical mass of ethics violations?

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A historical story, that of the 19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli:

Although born of Jewish parents, Disraeli was baptised in the Christian faith at the age of thirteen, and remained an observant Anglican for the rest of his life.[69] At the same time, he was ethnically Jewish and believed the two positions to be compatible, as well as seeing no conflict of interest in using British power to support Jewish interests (such as supporting the tolerant Ottoman Empire above the anti-semitic Tsarist Empire). Adam Kirsch, in his biography of Disraeli, states that his Jewishness was “both the greatest obstacle to his ambition and its greatest engine.”[70] Much of the criticism of his policies was couched in anti-Semitic terms. He was depicted in some antisemitic political cartoons with a big nose and curly black hair, called “Shylock” and “abominable Jew,” and portrayed in the act of ritually murdering the infant Britannia.

Some things never change. It’s really hard to imagine such vitriol could really be reserved for a Jewish politician in today’s era, not the way it is so freely conjured for Obama among Republicans. Nowadays we have to settle for Helen Thomas advising Israelis to move back to countries like Germany, Poland, and THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!! Nothing has quite the ring of hatred like, “Hey, Bibi, move next door to me where it’s safe!” (Note: of course, the Germany/Poland line was pretty boneheaded, but following it with “America” should have defused any explosive fury.)

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After all that hand-wringing and public weeping over the slow takeover of the US by liberal fascists, Glenn Beck speaks favorably of an actual, honest-to-god supporter of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Does the ADL have anything to say about this or is the Left Behind crowd so important to “Israel” that they get a free pass? I ask rhetorically because the answer is obvious; ADL rage is reserved exclusively for those that are critical of Israeli state policy. Even more so if the person happens to be Jewish. They then receive the title “self-hating Jew”. Refuse to rescind your criticism and they’ll set out to ruin you.

A cool million convinces him to sing for Rush Limbaugh’s fourth wedding.

Words fail.

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Eric Martin tries to make sense of the senseless:

So Bush kept us safe by waterboarding three detainees way back when, but continuing the use of torture wouldn’t yield any valuable intel now (it didn’t back then either, but that’s another story). Nevertheless, Obama’s refusal to continue waterboarding detainees* (even though Bush stopped too) is making us less safe.

Here’s the litany rightwingers repeat to themselves nowadays to create the feeling of danger:

June 1, 2009 army recruiting base murder, 2009 Christmas Day undie bomber, November 13, 2009 Ft. Hood, and the May 1, 2010 Times Square bomber.

Wow, that’s an impressive list of things Obama made happen because he’s continued to not waterboard prisoners. Some deranged lone wolves, two of whom were incompetents, lashing out or attempting to and getting caught. Gee, has any nation ever faced such peril??? Ft. Hood? Shit, shooting up a bunch of innocent people is practically an American past-time, but wingers just can’t help themselves. This was A Successful Terrorist Attack On U.S. Soil and all must treat it as if 9/11 happened all over again.

Amazingly, wingers can always do this while obeying the prime directive: Always remember to forget that George W. Bush was on watch on 9/11 and ignored the warnings.

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Dammit, I’m going to make the point! This is a little dose of Republican-style repetition. People need to acknowledge it.

And people need to explain to me exactly what they think humans will be running their cars on in a thousand years. Ten thousand? How can you claim any pride in your species, humans, if ye will not attempt to compete with the reign of the dinosaurs? They held the earth’s surface for hundreds of millions of years. This was just Dinosaur Planet for UFOs in the vicinity to gander upon and giggle at. Endless equilibrium.

We’ll be but a speck, albeit an extremely bright one, if we can’t start behaving sustainably.

The oil will never run out because it will be inefficient first. The effort to retrieve it will continue to grow, and the energy payoff in return will steadily depreciate.

This isn’t even a long-ranged notion. This is an event that is likely to occur within my lifetime. If I manage to die while there is still some oil left, surely my children will not manage the same feat.

One simply cannot begin this debate without acknowledging this plain feature of reality and modifying one’s arguments accordingly. Whatever the case of ANWR, any attempt to drill there would in time generate another depleted oil well. What then?

The BP oil spill upends the notion that humans can’t do great damage to the planet. We’ve been mauling the planet for resources and we’ve gashed some parts out of existence. Fishing stocks are set course to collapse within the next fifty years. Holes have been made in the ozone layer. Trash is forming its own landmass in our oceans. Six billion and growing creates unbelievable demand for nature’s remaining resources.

Oil is a blip. Buy the headstone and plot. “Oil, you made it all possible!” Say whatever you want about the Golden Age of cheap energy. Humanity requires a real age to rank with the Jurassic era. If you ain’t got a plan that thinks at least ten million years ahead, you ain’t got jack shit.

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UPDATE: For those concerned about my lackadaisical attitude towards humanity, every moment is precious and every person is amazing (albeit in ways that are often mysteries to other people, e.g. charmless chronic liar Karl Rove).

Limbaugh says it, Krauthammer tries to put an intellectual sheen on it, and Palin dutifully repeats it. What is it? The idea that somehow the Sierra Club, by trying to prevent environmental damage on land somehow “pushed” the oil companies out to sea. Thus, who should we blame for ruining the environment? The environmentalists, of course!

Naturally, this morsel is too irresistible for the rightwingers because it’s the classic trope of telling a Big Lie to turn the person trying to fix the problem into the culprit, when you are the actual culprit. Wingers need cover for relentlessly promoting hateful and destructively policies. The first ones they have to brainwash, however, is themselves.

It’s difficult work, however, and it sometimes requires, in a symbiotic way, somebody with no intellectual honesty whatsoever, Rush Limbaugh in this case, to give the unthinkable words, and suddenly fake intellectuals like Krauthammer become instantly afflicted with amnesia regarding one inescapable fact:

The environmentalists don’t want deep sea drilling either.

That was the idiot Republicans chanting, “Drill, Baby, Drill!” like zombies in August 2009. The Sierra Club and other environmentalists have, without a doubt, advocated for and endorsed a future where most of our energy comes from clean, renewable resources.

I’m under no illusion that this is really a unique point to be made. This is all so bleeding obvious and beyond debate that I feel stupid simply for spending time over such visible and tangible realities. This is like blogging on the earth being round.

Yet there these people are, the various brokers of power in the GOP following the lead of their party’s true leader for the past twenty years: Rush Limbaugh. People with power are saying this dreck. People who want power are saying it. People who want to vote for them believe it and repeat it. Yet there it is, such an imposing fact that none can survive against! We want solar, we want wind, we want tide generators, we even want safe nuclear power.

But I guess in this deranged world view, those concerned about the environment were supposed to approve of drilling in Alaska in order to prevent offshore drilling.

The other inescapable obstacle that a fraudulent blatherer like Krauthammer ignores is that oil is finite. The oil corporations and the GOP are going to be for drilling absolutely anything and everything they can, until the earth contains not a drop left. They aren’t out in the oceans drilling at unsafe depths because the environmentalists forced them out there, they’re there because there’s oil in them thar depths. No other reason whatsoever.

If these Republicans can’t understand these basic facts, how can they suggest to the public that they’re in any position to help solve the problems afflicting this nation? Problems which are the product of years of GOP/corporate collaboration?

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I dunno, but the soundest explanation I’ve heard is that Israel just really doesn’t give a shit anymore and is just going to keep kicking ass until the Palestinians decide to move out. And we all know when that will be.

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There’s some hope but this is a giant mess that may take longer to sort out than we may have patience for.

Of course, nothing like this will ever happen again. As long as we only have a spill like this every couple hundred years, the ocean will bounce back just fine.

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Some people thought electing Barack Obama would allow them to go home thinking, “Well, work’s done!” Who exactly said to themselves, “If there’s any problems we’ll just hand control back to the Republicans…”? The only lesson of the past year and a half is that forty Republican Senators is about fifteen too many. A solid Democrat majority who could actually pass the kind of laws necessary to rebuild the country is long past the point where it would be the sensible thing to do. Now it’s mandatory. The GOP is drunk on the same concoction of Limbaugh stew. They’ve responded to the collapse of Republican governing in the last decade by doubling down and chowing down more crazy nuggets.

But I am continually amazed at the staggering madness of which humans are capable. If we were rational creatures we wouldn’t be so wrought with misery.

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Excruciating back injury last weekend, been spending my spare time on my back in a Percoset fog. I’m getting better, was even able to play Wii frisbee golf yesterday (some booze helped numb my senses a bit), but still limping around like an old bastard, which I’d really like to avoid becoming at 36…

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I’m grateful I had the impulse to watch Easy Rider for the first time ever just two weeks ago. Dennis Hopper’s cancer hadn’t even occurred to me, it just stood out as a classic film I’d missed, so I watched it and marveled at what a genuinely great film it was. Hopper was one of those talents who never had to try to be great.

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Help out one of my favorite bookstores.

The first thing surviving members of the oil rig crew were treated to? Being locked in a room with a bunch of corporate lawyers and not allowed to leave or contact anybody until they signed affidavits saying they weren’t hurt. The lawyers for Transocean were kind enough to write the statements for them.

I wonder…given the negligible punishment of those behind the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo (George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, etc.), is corporate power trying to test out a power grab here?

After all, according to our new libertarian saviors, corporations just need us to leave them alone so they can complete their Project to Make Life Better for Everyone (which masquerades under the guise of a profit-mongering amoral gang of bloodsuckers). Imprisoning workers until they sign the necessary documents to protect that corporation in court is simple self-interest. The only thing is, if you’re a libertarian, that statement is a defense, not a condemnation.

I’ve always considered myself more of a libertarian than most purported libertarians, because I’m against government and corporate tyranny. They always drop the ball and surrender to the faceless transnational immortals who have sunk their fingers so deeply into the gears of power that even a Democratic administration and Congress with an outraged public cannot jar them loose.

Perhaps now liberal worries about mercenary corporations like Blackwater/Xe will seem more urgent? Can you imagine some global corporation licensed to perform raids in American homes similar to police drug raids?

The libertarian has a massive blindspot, so focused is he/she on their elusive principles, a null zone wide enough to fit through all the evils of the world, as long as they bear a trademark symbol instead of a flag.

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Raw footage from the Katie Couric interview:

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Ever notice how liberal whackos call you a bigot for referring to Islam as a 7th century death cult coughed up by a psychotic pedophile instead of actually engaging in honest debate?

This guy is in charge of consumer regulatory reform.

“I’ve never used an ATM, so I don’t know what the fees are,” Nelson said, adding that he gets his cash from bank tellers, just not automatic ones. “It’s true, I don’t know how to use one.” “But I could learn how to do it just like I’ve…I swipe to get my own gas, buy groceries. I know about the holograms.”

Seriously, I don’t know why some of these guys don’t still wear top hats and monocles.

It was awful nice of Arlen Specter to give Democrats that 60th vote on HCR in hopes of getting support from the party in his re-election bid, and it was good looking-out for Obama and the gang to give Arlen the backing that was part of the original deal.

That’s all great, but the primaries are where voters get to have their input. And the real Democrat, Joe Sestak, won. No hard feelings, Arlen, except for the 28 years you spent being a Republican. Certainly nobody can blame you for jumping ship, as the GOP was leaving all non-radicals behind. You did everything right, but that doesn’t mean Democrats have to keep electing you.

And in Arkansas, public-option killing Blanche Lincoln, who didn’t act out of conviction but out of cowardice, is facing a run-off (and already behind) against Bill Halter. Hating on the public option didn’t gain her a single vote, and had she supported it she would have faced her Republican opponent with full party support.

Unlike the Republicans, who are seeking to replace anybody sane with jabbering idiots like Rand Paul, the Democrats are simply asking that their representatives actually be Democrats with some semblance of genuine conviction. Triangulating cowards provide a few votes but always bend and break as soon as something important to Democrats comes along, immediately flocking to the Republican aisle as soon as the rightwingers act outraged about something (tip: they’re always “outraged,” yet shockingly easy to take down in argument if you don’t get scared off).

Democrats enjoy a platform that is ridiculously middle-of-the-road and uncontroversial, very much targeted at things voters like. They enjoy opponents who have fallen so far off their rockers they’ve crushed themselves underneath, babbling cynics who say words like “people” and “Constitution” but who in reality sell nothing more than partisan obstruction and the hopeful return of the same broken policies and misplaced priorities that put America in the ditch in the first place.

Any Democrat running this November should be secretly grinning at the prospect of taking on a Republican. They also shouldn’t be looking for Obama to inject some artificial stimulants into their race, they should be looking to campaign for Obama, selling the strengths of his first two years instead of running scared from Republican blathering about “socialism.” Obama, of course, hasn’t been the liberal dream president, but he’s been a pretty damn effective center-left guy who’s built a good case for any general election showdown against Republicans. Even when Obama doesn’t bring down the hammer on Wall Street hard enough, you’ve still got Republicans diving on grenades for Wall Street like the loyal elite servants they are.

Here’s hoping Halter wins, and then he and Sestak and a horde of other Democrats fuckin’ take it to the Republicans with a vengeance this fall. There is no other way.

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