A Question for Potential Republican Voters

What if these guys don't know as much as they make out, and end up as clueless and inept at governing as Bush was?

Would it have been worth it to crash our economy so a few billionaires can have a lower tax rate?

Twisted Radicalism

Just recently someone near and dear to me called me a "twisted radical." Ever since then it has been eating at me, that label, and I thought I'd address it here.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized there's nothing twisted or radical about my beliefs, just their interpretation in the wider world and in the media. As a liberal progressive, I find this list to be pretty conclusive when it comes to my core beliefs, and I dare anyone to find the "twisted" or "radical" notions therein;

• As the greatest nation on the the earth, I find it incredible we are the only industrialized nation without a national healthcare system. Twisted!


• I'd like to take us back to Clinton-era tax rates, when we balanced the budget and everybody was rich as hell. Radical!


• I don't think ANY group in America should be ostracized or deprived of rights, and at this time, that means the right to marry. Gay folks ought to have every liberty any non-gay folks have, and I can't see any rationale otherwise that still maintains the American sense of justice we all grew up with. Twisted! Radical!


• Corporations are NOT people. The are faceless conglomerations of the hope of a lot of people to make money, not to go out and make a better nation/world. Investors rarely make the moral considerations of their dollars their top investment concern, whereas people regularly make moral choices that trump their potential for profit. One should be empowered, the other extricated from it's ruinous clutch on our national fortunes, and I leave it to my reader(s) to determine which group I'm referring do what. TWISTED!


• Religion is pleasant, but should still, as our Founders maintained, be kept well away from politics. As Frank Herbert wrote;

  "When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong - faster and faster and faster. they put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a bland rush until it's too late."



• Finally, some way must be found to get this tide of money out of politics, Citizens United cannot stand the test of time.

PS: Didn't even get into the Right's war on women's issues.

I guess I am a twisted radical after all, so be it.

New Rule for 2012

Thinking of a new rule for talking politics this year--in order to even begin you MUST be able to name three news sources you read/watch daily, and none of them can be a 24 hour news station.

Proviso: CSPAN (or any of its spawn) = on the allowed list.

Conservatives Need to Face Facts

Here's a few facts that are irrefutable, and the sooner the conservative political movement in America understands them, the better;

1. Woman are people, too.  Trying to bar contraceptive coverage while still covering Viagra, and using moral grounds to do so, just makes your misogyny plain for all the rest of us to see.

2. Gay people are people, also, and should have every right heterosexuals enjoy.  Too many states have passed laws legalizing same sex marriage to go back now.  Any holdouts are exposing themselves similarly as bigots and close minded assholes.

3. Rich people have to pay their fair share.  We collectively create America; it was not endowed on us by rich folks, nor did it trickle down.  It was built with the blood and sweat of rich and poor alike, and thus belongs to all of us, privileged or not.  To think those with wealth should get out of societal commitments like appropriate taxation is ludicrous.

4. Dumb people need to stay out of intelligent debates.  Face it, the future is here.  The time for the snake worshippers and astrologer types is fading.  Leave it to those who care, and have the capacity and will to learn the facts, to work governing.  Trying to govern has left the American Right looking like the bunch of money-hungry, judgmental, fact-deprived hypocrites they all seem to truly be.

5. Religion may be a way of life, guiding force, and all encompassing cop out for you, but for some, it just looks like a convenient way to justify wagging your finger is someone else's face and telling them how to live.  Try to remember that reason rules the day, now, for most of the rest of us, not any one particular god.  Praying doesn't turn on the lights, split the atom, or help us find the Higgs boson, so I don't see how it's going to affect anything else outside of wishful thinking for those who truly believe.  I get the same effect from being relentlessly cheerful, without the added benefit of religious guilt over "sins."

(Ok that last one was less a fact for some--though not for me--but still irrefutable, at least in the sense that supernatural powers have not been shown to have any effect on human endeavors.  Religions should stick to the realm of compassion and leave public policy to government, which is, for the most part, inclusive, as the average religious text was not a participatory document.)

Hey, Assholes

I was right.

Yikes.

I was watching the Right disembowel Newt on TPM when I heard a caller referenced there on CSPAN state that "Jesus wasn't a socialist."

Yikes.

Hint: Matthew Chapter 25, verses 42-45.  And that's from one of the most militant atheists you'll ever meet.

(I know their damned book better than they do, apparently.  Maybe I should start a new, revised version of Christianity, without the divine bullshit and concentrating on a life of service, following the ideas expressed by a possibly-fictional Christ.  More John Lennon, less Oral Roberts if you get me.)

Obama Recess Appoints Despite Lack of Recess

Ballsy, though the argument is made clear by the Senate's actions; by expecting supermajorities for everything and blocking routine government appointments (citing ideological problems with government itself) then holding bullshit pro-forma sessions with the explicit purpose of permanently depriving the President of a Consitutionally-endowed authority.  Via NY Times;

“The president has recess authority under the Constitution so he can continue to fulfill his constitutional function — which is to run the government — when the Senate is unavailable to fulfill its function,” Ms. Ruemmler said, “and it currently is unavailable despite the fact that it is in a ‘pro forma’ session’ for 30 seconds every three days.”

It never passed the smell test, to me, and since the Congress is essentially tied itself into fight-or-flight knots of bureaucratic tomfoolery to stop anything from happening, this kind of move is simply made likely by a completely hamstrung legislative branch.  Hopefully an aggressive Executive and a better-informed electorate can lead to an effort later to rebalance the scales.

The End of Private Insurers

The Obamacare "bomb" has gone off, unbeknownst to most of the public.

Here's the skinny, and why it is good for us as a nation (and from Forbes magazine, no less);

If you believe that the end of private, for-profit health insurance is some type of nefarious step towards a socialist society, then you might want to attend church this Sunday to mourn the loss of health insurers being able to worm out of covering the bills of a cancer patient because she forgot to write down on her application that she had skin acne for three months when she was a teenager.

Insurers must now pay 80% of their premiums into patient care by law, which will most likely lead to single-payer health care.

Medvedev Cites GOP for START Withdrawal Talk

Nice headline, eh?  Think I'm being hyperbolic?  Think again (h/t Political Animal);

Medvedev implied that the U.S. Congress was one of the primary obstacles in the negotiations, because some GOP senators are opposed to giving Russia any written assurances that could be seen as "limits" on U.S. missile defense and other GOP senators have called for the system to be directed at Russia.

"Rather than showing themselves willing to hear and understand our concerns over the European missile defense system at this stage, [U.S. officials] simply repeat that these plans are not directed against Russia and that there is no point for us to be concerned. That is the position of the executive authorities, but legislators in some countries openly state the whole system is against Russia," Medvedev said.

Congressional Republicans now suck so badly at governing that foreign nations are citing them as reasons to possibly withdraw from the new proposed START treaty.

First the debt, and now this. How much more can the "Tea Party" wave of GOP assholes fuck things up before we can all, as a nation, agree that they need to be kept at arm's reach from any real legislating?

UPDATE: I had to ask.

Republicans Simply Have No Idea

Great catch by the former Carpetbagger, noting todays' balance budget amendment conflicts with the earlier Ryan plan vote;

After going through the roll calls, there are 231 GOP House members who voted for the right-wing budget and voted for the constitutional amendment that would have been the right-wing budget impermissible.

In other words, these guys don't know what they're talking about, or, apparently, voting for.

Fairweather GOP

Hey Herman--ask Sarah Palin how it feels to be the favorite of the fickle GOP primary crowd.

I'm Against Formless Protests

I've thought and thought about how exactly to approach the Occupy Wall Street movement, from a philosophical/blog post perspective.  The recent emptying of Zuccotti Park, along with the string of news items about the movement in general really catalyzed me on one, firm point.

I'm against formless protests.

When OWS first started, the cottage industry became sharpening the points of a bunch of disparate interests in the mob, much as they had hyperventilated over what the now-vaporous Tea Party movement meant for all the brave, armed, flag-wearin' folk that marched around a couple of summers ago.  Then, of course, the media degenerated to picking out the freaks, as we are all wont to do when confronted with a mass of humanity.  It was all about the venereal disease, trash and infection, resistance to armed force, and occasional accidents/overdoses/deliberate suicides and on and on, until the mass of humanity camped out there were all just unwitting knots of data to be mined by a gluttonous pack of sycophantic news organizations, eager to please slavering TV audiences with new outrages.

So here's my point; how could this story have better furthered the causes which drove these folks to camp outside in the winter?

How about have a coherent, group point before going out there?

Think about it; the story became whatever the media wanted it to be, instead of what most of them wanted to say.  Sure we saw some truths out there, but really, is anyone confused about why folks marched from Selma to Montgomery, even if it had happened in today's 24-hour news culture?  No.  Their point was clear before they exposed themselves to the heat.

Had OWS formed and tried to use political power, or marched with a purpose, then perhaps the hole in their media flank would not have been so easy for the rampaging phalanx of the media to penetrate.  Instead of a policy prescription, it was just a generalized, "Hey, I'm Pissed!" and it left the world to watch the freak show, instead of truly contemplate a force to be reckoned with regarding the forming of society.

In the end, each generation waits, as the chairs occupied by the previous one (in this case, retiring baby boomers) are emptied, and the big game of musical chairs begins to see who'll be rich, who's the handsomest, who'll get the cute girls and who will run the show, forming real policy that will affect real people and make America a better place.  In the case of OWS, to use the previous metaphor, instead of trying to grab a chair, the general malaise of the movement was like a bunch of kids lying on the floor, too perplexed at their condition, or perhaps too coddled by a fattened corporate culture to truly protest with a bone-deep conviction.  Instead they mucked up the works, made other, more focused and committed lefty liberal-progressives like yours truly look like a condomless, unemployed, dirty freak trying to get laid with a fatty at the drum circle.

Here's the question, for those who read the above and are sputtering in outrage; has this movement advanced the conversation at all?  Are we talking more about income inequality, in a way that will lead to institutional change, or are we gawking at the guy with the tinfoil hat and laughing?

I say good riddance, if the law enforcement steps underway and the coming cold season drives the mobs from camping on public parks.  I'm all for protests, but if there is no conviction, it is as plainly obvious as when those convictions count more than life itself.


UPDATE: Or, as the Butcher said in Gangs of New York;

I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.

UPDATED AGAIN: Looks like people are starting to agree with me.

YET MORE UPDATES: Yup, I was right, the kick back against the protesters has consumed the "newshole;"

Last week, the U.S. economy was the No. 1 story at 22% of the newshole, with the majority of that coverage focused on the confrontations between protesters, law enforcement, and the city governments that preside over the public spaces that have become encampments. All totaled, the Occupy Wall Street story accounted for 13% of the overall newshole during the week of November 14-20... That coverage marked a major spike from the week before when media attention to the protests had dropped to just 1% of the newshole.

UPDATES, UPDATES, UPDATES;

So really, does anyone think leaving 30 tons of trash behind helped anyone think better about the goals of the movement?

SCOTUS to Rule on Affordable Care Act

Big news (via Daily Beast) the Supreme Court will be meeting to;

The Court will hold two hours of argument on the constitutionality of the requirement that virtually every American obtain health insurance by 2014, 90 minutes on whether some or all of the overall law must fail if the mandate is struck down, one hour on whether the Anti-Injunction Act bars some or all of the challenges to the insurance mandate, and one hour on the constitutionality of the expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.

The hearing will be in March, expect this to set the tone for the spring election hysteria. I, for one, will be glued to CSPAN, where of course you won't see one second of the process because the SCOTUS is so damned secretive.

Damn!

I guess I'll turn off the TV entirely, since it will be wall-to-wall with American Crossroads regurgitating donor cash into attack spots or whatever anyhow.

Class Warfare, Schmlass Schmarfare

A great article at Rolling Stone, just to remind those of you who might have forgotten how we ended up in this financial mess;

It's the kind of thinking that only money can buy. "It's a vicious circle," says Stiglitz. "The rich are using their money to secure tax provisions to let them get richer still. Rather than investing in new technology or R&D, the rich get a better return by investing in Washington."

Oh, and for future reference, I tend to provide my own emphasis in links, for those keeping track.

I also liked this, since it seems the country has mysteriously forgotten how many problems originated with the Reaganites;

It was the birth of what is now known as "Starve the Beast" – a conscious strategy by conservatives to force cuts in federal spending by bankrupting the country. As conceived by the right-wing intellectual Irving Kristol in 1980, the plan called for Republicans to create a "fiscal problem" by slashing taxes – and then foist the pain of reimposing fiscal discipline onto future Democratic administrations who, in Kristol's words, would be forced to "tidy up afterward."

Liberalism versus Conservatism

I like this bit;

"People on the right classify themselves as libertarians, neoconservatives, social conservatives, traditional conservatives, and the like, and spill oceans of ink defining, debating, and further subdividing these schools of thought. There is no parallel taxonomy on the left. Maybe, in part, it is because a central tenet of liberalism is that ideology should be eschewed in favor of the supposedly enlightened, pragmatic approach of making ad hoc judgments about issues."

Here here.

"Pulling a Perry"

Copyrighted by my wife just now. Substitute for any kind of brain defect.

FUCK

That guy.

Romney/Gingrich? Gingrich/Romney?

Either way, shudder.