Multi Medium

Were You Aware Of It?

Apparently all Protestants are rich white guys.

Who knew?

Add comment March 11th, 2010 at 09:54pm Posted by Eli

Gang Of 14: Yer Doin It Wrong

Lindsey seems a little unclear on the concept:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wants to revive the bipartisan Gang of 14 — this time for health care reform, not judicial nominees.

But most of his moderate Democratic colleagues aren’t rushing to R.S.V.P.

Graham said Tuesday that a coalition of Republican and Democratic senators could rescue the Senate from an institutional disaster brought on by the use of the parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation to finish the health care bill.

“Many Republicans who were ready to pull the trigger on the nuclear option on judges are now glad they didn’t,” Graham said. “This place would have ceased to function as we know it. If they do health care through reconciliation, it will be the same consequence. So if you are a moderate Democrat out there looking for a way to deliver health care reforms and not pull the nuclear trigger, there is a model to look at.”

I wouldn’t mind seeing something like the original Gang Of 14 compromise, where the majority agreed not to eliminate the filibuster in exchange for the minority agreeing not to use it.  But this is more like the minority party agreeing not to use it in exchange for the majority party not making them want to.

What both “compromises” have in common, of course, is that the Democrats cede power to let the Republicans get their way.

Add comment March 11th, 2010 at 07:20am Posted by Eli

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Messrs. Barry Friedman and Andrew Martin have A Cunning Plan to overcome the Republican filibuster:

[T]he Democrats need to take three steps: First, they should announce the order in which they will take up their legislative agenda. Next, they should declare that they will no longer be using dual tracking, so that the Senate will hear just one issue at a time. Finally, Democrats should require those who want to filibuster legislation or appointments to actually do so, by holding the floor, talking the issue to death and bringing everything to a halt.

The new-school filibuster would preserve minority rights in the Senate, while imposing significant costs on obstructionist members, changing the calculus that causes today’s logjam. Stuck on the Senate floor, filibustering senators couldn’t meet with lobbyists or attend campaign fund-raising events; they couldn’t do much of anything, really, until their filibuster ended.

Getting rid of dual-tracking would require the minority to make careful choices about what to obstruct, and when to obstruct it. As Senator Bunning’s unsuccessful solo stand against jobless benefits showed, even Republicans have limited tolerance when it comes to stalling legislation for reasons that lack popular support.

After all, filibusters historically broke when public opinion went against the Senate minority. If the Democratic leadership eliminated the dual-track system, serial, single-issue filibusters would give us an opportunity to see where the country actually stands on issues like health care reform and financial regulation — and where the Senate should stand.

First of all, my understanding was that the rules change that lowered the filibuster threshold from 67 to 60 votes also eliminated the requirement for the minority party to actually perform the full-blown cots-and-phonebooks Mr. Smith-style filibuster.  But even if it hadn’t, this strategy sounds a lot like handing your kidnapper a gun and hoping he shoots himself with it.

The Republicans have absolutely no compunction about obstructing everything, the media has no particular interest in accurately reporting what’s going on, and consequently the public backlash Friedman and Martin are counting on would simply never happen.  Either that or the Republican spin (Healthcare reform is a socialist government takeover!  Financial reform/tax increases/environmental regulation will take away your jobs!) will triumph and make their obstructionism look like a heroic effort to Save America.

I would much rather find ways to neutralize the Republicans, not further empower them in hopes that they will commit suicide by overreach.  It took six years for that to work the last time, and the damage was incalculable.  Why would we want to do it again?

Add comment March 10th, 2010 at 07:46pm Posted by Eli

Massa:Beck::Al Capone’s Vault:Rivera?

Poor Glenn Beck.  Massa was serving up all kinds of juicy tidbits about groping and tickling and naked browbeating, but because he wouldn’t come out and say that Rahm or Obama did horrible corrupt illegal conspiracy things to force him out of office, the whole interview was a waste of time.

1 comment March 10th, 2010 at 11:36am Posted by Eli

…And?

Oh yeah, this seems like a real effective argument against financial regulation:

Alex Castellanos, a Republican consultant, pointed to another edge: with Americans most anxious about unemployment, calling for stricter regulation of Wall Street is “not a growth argument, it’s a punishment argument.”

Aside from being dishonest in the extreme, is it even relevant to anything?  Wall Street’s growth has done little if anything to enrich anyone outside of Wall Street, so it’s a little difficult to see what the harm in curbing it to sustainable levels of non-recklessness would be.

2 comments March 9th, 2010 at 11:23am Posted by Eli

Epic Win

This. Is. Awesome.

Republicans like a politician who stands up for what he believes — even if he believes the Republican Party is populated by a bunch of “knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.”

The candidate leading the Florida GOP primary to determine who will take on Rep. Alan Grayson, the Democrat who represents the Orlando-based district, is none other than Grayson himself, according to a poll paid for by his campaign. Grayson is a freshman congressman who has drawn scorn from the GOP and has quickly built a nationwide following of progressives.

The poll has Grayson leading the 13 Republicans — among Republicans — with 27.8 percent of the vote. The congressman who mocked the GOP health care plan by saying that it amounts to telling people not to get sick and if they do, to die quickly, received more support than all of the Republican candidates combined.

No GOP candidate scored above 3.7 percent; 57.7 percent said they were undecided.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  Oh yeah, he’s really in Desperate Electoral Peril all right.

I know it’s his own poll, but if the numbers are even close to right it’s hugely embarrassing for the Republicans.  It’s also some pretty brilliant and creative campaign messaging.

1 comment March 5th, 2010 at 11:24am Posted by Eli

Epic Optics Fail

Sure, that’s a great idea to publicly embrace a company whose reputation is so corrupt and bloody that it had to CHANGE ITS NAME.  How could that possibly backfire?

The Republican National Committee plans to hold an April fundraiser at a Moyock, N.C. compound owned by the military contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater, Politico reports.

According to an RNC fundraising document uncovered on Wednesday, RNC “Young Eagles” — party major donors under 40 — will meet at the facility in the spring.

(…)

It was recently reported that Blackwater employees took hundreds of firearms from both the U.S. Mmilitary and Afghan police forces using the South Park alias “Eric Cartman.”

Brilliant!  Hey, maybe KBR can handle the lighting.

Add comment March 4th, 2010 at 08:30pm Posted by Eli

Republican Witch Hunt Of The Day

Well, this is thoroughly inappropriate and disgusting:

A day after a conservative group released a video condemning the Justice Department for refusing to identify seven lawyers who previously represented or advocated for terror suspects, Fox News has uncovered the identities of the seven lawyers.

(…)

The video by the group Keep America Safe, which dubbed the seven lawyers “The Al Qaeda 7,” is the latest salvo in a lengthty political battle.

For several months, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has led an effort to uncover politically-appointed lawyers within the Justice Department who have advocated for Guantanamo Bay detainees or other terror suspects.

“The administration has made many highly questionable decisions when it comes to national security, ” Grassley said in a recent statement. “[Americans] have a right to know who advises the Attorney General and the President on these critical matters.”

(…)

Before joining the Justice Department, Jonathan Cedarbaum, now an official with the Office of Legal Counsel, was part of a “firm-wide effort” to represent six Bosnian-Algerian detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, according to the web site of the firm WilmerHale.

That effort brought the case Boumediene v. Bush to the Supreme Court, which reaffirmed the right of detainees to challenge their detention.

So as far as the right is concerned, detainees may have the right to counsel, but attorneys don’t have the right to provide it.  Awesome.

Add comment March 4th, 2010 at 11:40am Posted by Eli

Whatever Happened To The Cheney Doctrine?

Peter Daou takes on the climate change deniers – I found this passage particularly compelling:

Another conservative writer goes on about “unsettled science,” as though we were engaging in a hypothetical legal exercise about the merits of reasonable doubt. In fact, this is our only planet. It’s the only place we can survive. We can’t afford to take chances. We can’t afford to do anything less than everything in our power to rectify the problem. We have no choice but to be alarmists — there’s no second chance. We get it wrong and we’ve doomed our children and their children. For what? Because we don’t want to recycle? Because we don’t want to stop polluting? Because we don’t want to bother making sacrifices? Because we don’t want some eager young kid who cares about the earth to dictate to us? Because we don’t like Al Gore? How profoundly selfish can someone be, to deny what they see with their own eyes: car fumes, bus fumes, truck fumes, factory fumes, chemical waste, human waste, toxins coursing through our waterways, in our food, filth we create in immense quantities turning our planet into a garbage dump.

If anything, we should be outdoing one another trying to address the issue, not smugly questioning the need for action under the guise that the science is imperfect. Reversing the damage we’re doing to the earth should be a priority for every citizen. Instead, environmentalism is treated like an annoyance that the media will occasionally poll about and that we bring to the fore once every April.

The right’s willingness to take the hugest of chances that global warming is junk science or some elaborate Al Gore hoax is particularly striking when you consider the Cheney Doctrine that they’re so enamored of:

Cheney defined it: “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis … It’s about our response.” Suskind writes, “So, now spoken, it stood: a standard of action that would frame events and responses from the Administration for years to come.”‘

Why such a heavy bias towards action on an improbable threat, and such a heavy bias against action on a much more probable and truly existential one?  Republicans embrace a 1% Doctrine on terrorism, yet it’s more like 99.9% when the fate of the entire planet is at stake.

If I didn’t know any better, I might almost think that their policy prescriptions aren’t really about protecting us from harm.

Add comment March 3rd, 2010 at 11:29am Posted by Eli

Juxtaposition Of The Day

Today’s NYT Op-Ed page:

It is not unusual for members of Congress to arrange group rentals in Washington to share housing costs…. What is highly unusual, and unjustifiable, is the tax-exempt status as a religious institution enjoyed by a boarding house called the C Street Center that caters to conservative Christian lawmakers.

The $1.8 million townhouse came to public notice last year when three recent tenants — Senator John Ensign; Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor and former congressman; and former Representative Charles Pickering Jr. — were embroiled in marital infidelity scandals. Mr. Pickering was accused by his estranged wife of entertaining a mistress at the house.

The center soon lost most of its city tax exemption, after District of Columbia officials decided it was a residence, not a church. And now a coalition of mainline Christian ministers is demanding that the Internal Revenue Service end the center’s federal tax exemption and its shield of nontransparency. The coalition is rightly concerned that the center is exploiting, and thereby cheapening, the constitutional protections guaranteed legitimate religious institutions.

The Week profile of Joseph Stack:

Why was Stack so furious at the IRS?
He was apparently busted in the 1980s for claiming his home was a church to avoid taxation — a protest scheme he says cost him “$40,000+” and “10 years of my life.”

Not that I’m trying to compare conservative Republicans to a crazy man who hated taxes so much that he flew his plane into an IRS building, of course.  That would be uncivil.

Add comment March 1st, 2010 at 06:57pm Posted by Eli

Republican Hilarity

Republicans certainly do have a unique and fascinating worldview.  Too bad it’s so completely at odds with reality.  First, Orrin Hatch:

But one thing Hatch won’t do, he said, is vote against Obama appointees for partisan reasons. He said he won’t stoop to the tactics he claims Democrats used against President George W. Bush’s appointees.

A-HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  Right, that totally isn’t happening, I’m sure he had Excellent Totally Valid Nonpartisan Reasons for voting against Sotomayor.  And Democrats totally only voted against Dubya’s appointees out of sheer partisanism and spite, and not because they were unqualified ideological hacks.  Which must be why Dubya couldn’t get hardly anyone confirmed by the end of his first year in office.

And Mitch McConnell:

McConnell said Thursday that he preferred a “right of center” solution, and he urged Obama to become more of a centrist.“President Obama needs to have an epiphany,” he said. “The way to make progress is in the political middle.”

I was kinda confused for a few seconds there, but then I realized that McConnell was talking about the socialist Bizarro Obama that Republicans are always complaining will ruin the country with his far-left madness.  Although just between you and me, I kinda wish we could have that Obama in the White House right now.

Add comment February 19th, 2010 at 11:35am Posted by Eli

Hysterical Right-Wing Wanker Of The Day

According to Ken Blackwell, Dawn Johnsen’s (still disgracefully languishing) nomination to head OLC is exactly like Stalin exterminating millions of Russian Jews.

President Obama is big on civility. He talks a very good game. But his nominee for a top slot at the Department of Justice–Dawn Johnsen–is a leading exponent of incivility. Johnsen worked with the ACLU for years. And she joined ARM–the so-called Abortion Rights Mobilization–to strip the Catholic Church of its tax-exempt status because of its pro-life advocacy. The Catholic Church eventually won that case–but not until it had spent years and millions of dollars defending itself. The Catholic Church was just the biggest ARM target. If they had succeeded against the Catholics, they surely would have come after the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, and The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

If Mr. Obama is serious about civility he needs to withdraw Dawn Johnsen’s nomination. If she is confirmed, we will see a radical anti-Catholic, pro-abortion zealot influencing policy thoughout the Justice Department—but also policy throughout the entire federal government.

What we are witnessing right now is an anti-Christian programmatic pogrom. What is a “pogrom” it’s the word that describes anti-Jewish raids by Cossacks and others in czarist Russia, but a programmatic pogrom best describes what is happening right now. These are not isolated attacks. And while we no longer have Cossacks to threaten, we now have left-wing bloggers who actually call themselves Kossacks (after the Daily Kos).

Those poor beleaguered Christians.  It’s a wonder they’ve survived this long with all the adversity and persecution they must face as a tiny disempowered minority.

Add comment February 18th, 2010 at 07:22am Posted by Eli

Texas School Board: Mission Accomplished!

Looks like all that hard work on shaping textbook content is really paying off:

Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

(…)

• 38 percent said human beings developed over millions of years with God guiding the process and another 12 percent said that development happened without God having any part of the process. Another 38 percent agreed with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago.”

• Asked about the origin and development of life on earth without injecting humans into the discussion, and 53 percent said it evolved over time, “with a guiding hand from God.” They were joined by 15 percent who agreed on the evolution part, but “with no guidance from God.” About a fifth — 22 percent — said life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.

• Most of the Texans in the survey — 51 percent — disagree with the statement, “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” Thirty-five percent agreed with that statement, and 15 percent said they don’t know.

• Did humans live at the same time as the dinosaurs? Three in ten Texas voters agree with that statement; 41 percent disagree, and 30 percent don’t know.

That’ll do, Texas School Board.  That’ll do.

(h/t WT)

2 comments February 17th, 2010 at 09:29pm Posted by Eli

Small Government = Bridge Collapses

This is what happens when you view taxes and government spending as the enemy:

Two years ago, a bridge inspector who had stopped for lunch in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood happened to glance up at a viaduct that carries Interstate 95 over the neighborhood. He noticed a 6-foot crack in a 15-foot column that was supporting the highway. His sandwich was quickly forgotten. Two miles of the highway had to be closed for three days for emergency repairs to prevent a catastrophe from occurring.

These kinds of problems are not peculiar to Pennsylvania. New Orleans was lost for want of an adequate system of levees and floodwalls. Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, tells us that 75 percent of America’s public schools have structural deficiencies. The nation’s ports, inland waterways, drinking water and wastewater systems — you name it — are hurting to one degree or another.

Ignoring these problems imperils public safety, diminishes our economic competitiveness, is penny-wise and pound-foolish, and results in tremendous missed opportunities to create new jobs on a vast scale.

Competitors are leaving us behind when it comes to infrastructure investment. China is building a network of 42 high-speed rail lines, while the U.S. has yet to build its first. Other nations are well ahead of us in the deployment of broadband service and green energy technology. We spend scandalous amounts of time sitting in traffic jams or enduring the endless horrors of airline travel. Low-cost, high-speed Internet access is a science-fiction fantasy in many parts of the United States.

Even if the magic of the free market were somehow to address this, it’s hard to imagine that rural areas would get a whole lot of help, as they just wouldn’t be profitable enough to be worth the trouble.

1 comment February 16th, 2010 at 11:28am Posted by Eli

Fierce Advocacy: Ur Doin It Wrong

Well, Dick Cheney is now to the left of Obama and the Democrats on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Great job, guys.

As Joe noted below, former vice President, and arch-conservative nemesis of the Obama administration, Dick Cheney said today that he thinks the ban on gays serving in the US military will be lifted, and he thinks it’s time. That means the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress now having Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mullen covering their backside on this issue. So what do they do? Do they push for a repeal now, strike when the iron is hot, take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime momentum that has developed around this issue in the past two weeks?

No.

After two weeks of no direction whatsoever from the White House as to whether we even should proceed with the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell this year, more unnamed administration officials are telling AP that they won’t touch the repeal for years to come. (Apparently, according to AP, they want to give the troops time to “get used” to the idea, gentle souls that they are.)

(…)

We now have Colin Powell (Republican), SecDef Gates (Republican appointee), Chairman Mullen (Republican appointee), Dick Cheney (Republican), Ted Olson (Republican), and the torture twins (Republicans), better than the Democratic party on this paramount gay civil rights issue. For years, we’ve been able to laugh in the face of gay Republicans who claimed the GOP was a viable alternative for gay Americans seeking their civil rights. No one is laughing any more. The Democratic party needs to wake up and realize that its political homophobia is losing it a constituency.

Fantastic.  Apparently we’ve reached a point where gays’ best chance for equality is to either vote Republican or hope that one of Obama’s daughters comes out.

Add comment February 14th, 2010 at 01:21pm Posted by Eli

And Now, Your Moment Of Zen. And Insanity.

Yes, Pam actually says this while arguing with Ron Reagan Jr. about which one of them knew his father better:

He’s nothing like the father! He doesn’t share the epistemology of the father.

Awesome.  Ron’s response is pretty excellent too:

Is Pam still blathering about me and my father? Oh, you are. You still haven’t met him, though, right? You still didn’t know him, so you’re just sort of making things up as you go along, right?

*happy sigh*

1 comment February 12th, 2010 at 07:06am Posted by Eli

Inflation:Bernanke::Bush:Terrorism

Is it just me, or does it seem a bit strange that a scholar of the Depression era would think that inflation is the greatest threat our economy faces?

Add comment February 11th, 2010 at 07:15am Posted by Eli

Common Ground

It’s ironic, really.  Both the tea party and Democratic party rank-and-files are completely disgusted by the degree to which our government has been captured into the service of corporate interests, but their leadership is totally on board with it.

Their leadership is reflecting and representing their interests just about as well as ours is; we’re just further along on realizing it.

Add comment February 10th, 2010 at 08:24pm Posted by Eli

The New Litmus Test

It looks like Republicans and conservative Democrats have settled on a new litmus test to decide which nominees are acceptable: They have to be chosen by a Republican president.

Not sure how Obama’s going to get around that one…

Add comment February 10th, 2010 at 07:27am Posted by Eli

Remind Me Who The Kill-Grandma Party Is Again?

I mean, after months and months of “death panels” and NOOOO THEY BE TAKIN YOUR MEDICARES, it’s pretty funny that the Republicans are already trying to kill Medicare again so soon.

Not that I’m surprised, of course.   The whole time they’re ranting about how those evil Democrats want to kill Granny, they’re easing her wheelchair over to the top of the stairs.

Add comment February 9th, 2010 at 11:40am Posted by Eli

Great Moments In Rationalization

Obama using a teleprompter?  Proof that he’s a lightweight.  Sarah Palin using notes scrawled on her hand?  Still more evidence of her down-to-earth humanity, and possibly even A Spot Of Brilliant Gamesmanship!

Chuck Todd:

“Daily Rundown” co-host Chuck Todd attempted to defend Palin, saying, “We’ve all done notes.”

Umm, sure.  When you’re the one giving the interview, or providing news or analysis.

But that’s mild compared to the Fox & Friends propagandists:

CARLSON: I think she did it on purpose. I think she did it on purpose, yeah. Because it’s an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter with a script written for you with every word in a sentence and here’s she’s just taking crib notes on her hand. It makes her look like she can just talk off the cuff and she just jotted down a few couple notes before she went out to give a big long speech.

DOOCY: I think she did it because she probably does it a lot. I do that all the time. [...]

KILMEADE: But to sit there and look at, and do the interview and look down at her hand, I think that is — like you said before, Gretchen — folksy, absolutely, down-to-earth, I can identify. But if you’re going to write on your hand, why not just say, ’staffer, hand me a card.’ And then it would be okay.

CARLSON: Nah, like I said, I think it was on purpose. But anyway, we we may never know.

Ah, I see.  She deliberately made herself look like a clueless boob in order to draw attention to what a clueless boob Obama is.  It was, like, satire – but at the same time totally demonstrated her bond with all the other good ol’ red-blooded American cheaters out there.  Genius!

5 comments February 8th, 2010 at 08:41pm Posted by Eli

When Lupicas Attack!

I don’t think Mike is very impressed by Ex-Semi-Governor Palin:

Now there are many, many ways Sarah Palin could help this country. Running for President will never be one of them. You listen to her long enough and actually feel yourself getting dimmer by the minute, like a dying light bulb.

If her vision and grasp of even the most basic issues – with or without cribnotes – were any lighter, you would have to tie a rock to her to keep her from floating away.

….When she doesn’t like Rahm Emanuel, the President’s chief of staff, using the word “retards” to describe liberal groups, she says Emanuel should be fired.

Then her buddy Rush Limbaugh comes out and says, “Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards.”

Chris Wallace asked her about that Sunday, and Palin practically wrestled herself to the ground so she didn’t make Limbaugh – who seems to take her seriously – mad at her. What Palin tried looked trickier than some yoga positions.

Palin: “Rush Limbaugh was using satire.”

No, he wasn’t. If Palin believes that, she really is more limited, and bubble-headed, than Paris Hilton. If not, she is simply a transparent phony.

(…)

The very best news of the weekend? It’s now official that she can fit her entire political philosophy in the palm of her hand.She thinks she is some kind of dream candidate for her party when the truth is that Palin is only a dream candidate for the other party.

All her friends on the right, the ones who treat her like a hot version of Margaret Thatcher, are afraid to say that. Or call her out for being the lightweight that she is, same as she was afraid to call out Limbaugh. So they all deserve one another.

Awesome.  It seems like there is literally nothing that will make the Republican base realize what a lightweight scam artist she is.

1 comment February 8th, 2010 at 07:13am Posted by Eli

Dick Shelby’s Dick Move

This seems… excessive:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

“While holds are frequent,” CongressDaily’s Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), “Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal.”

(…)

According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama’s nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track….

(…)

A San Diego State University professor and Congressional expert told the Mobile paper “he knew of no previous use of a blanket hold” in recent history.

This is really just another example of Republicans shamelessly abusing the rules of the Senate to block everything, just like their transformation of the filibuster from an extraordinary measure to a routine procedure.  In the past a sense of courtesy, decorum, and mutual respect prevented Senators of either party from turning the legislative process into a mockery, but those are traits the Republican caucus is completely devoid of now.

Which is what makes Orrin Hatch’s threat that they would get nasty if the Democrats used reconciliation to fix the healthcare reform bill so ridiculous – they’re already in full-blown, do-anything, legislative Lord Of The Flies mode, and that’s why the Democrats are talking about reconciliation.

I don’t see any easy way to fix this, unfortunately.  The Democrats no longer have 60 votes to short-circuit Republican shenanigans, and they didn’t show much appetite for (or ability to) use them when they did.  A procedural overhaul would be massive and would probably have unforeseen consequences (eliminating the filibuster would probably fix a lot of it, though).  And there’s certainly less than zero chance that the Republicans will ever stop being obstructionist assholes.

Add comment February 5th, 2010 at 07:25am Posted by Eli

Republicans Trying To Level The Midterm Playing Field

I can only assume that the GOP is worried that it might regain control of the House…

House Republicans don’t have an official budget yet. But they have what amounts to a first draft. The official budget will be released in March or April and will be authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee in consultation with the other Republicans on the Committee. But Ryan has released a budget he’d like. And it’s actually fairly detailed. And if you read it, which we have, you start to wonder why Democrats aren’t making a bigger deal out of it.

What’s in it? A few interesting things.

First, it calls for big cuts in Social Security benefits for everyone currently under 55 years of age. On top of the cuts it also calls for privatizing Social Security.

Basically the exact plan President Bush tried in 2005. Next, it calls for the full privatization and phasing out of Medicare. It’ll be replaced by a system of vouchers in which instead of getting Medicare you get a voucher to buy un-reformed private insurance.

Weirdly, with all that, the draft GOP budget doesn’t get the federal budget into surplus until sometime after 2060, which seems like a pretty long time. But isn’t this sort of a big deal? House Republicans are poised to run in 2010 on slashing or abolishing the two most popular federal government programs — Social Security and Medicare.

Yes, right in the middle of a prolonged recession and right after a stock market crash is a great time to sell Americans on privatizing Social Security.  And 60+% support for the healthcare public option must mean that everyone hates Medicare and wants it destroyed.  And releasing a plan that takes 50 years to eliminate the deficit is especially brilliant when you’ve spent the last year demagoguing about how it’s murdering our grandchildren.

If the Democrats can’t make hay with “Here’s what the Republicans/my opponent wants to do to your retirement if they get elected” messaging in November, they deserve to lose.

P.S. I can’t believe Serious People are still spouting this ridiculous point-missing zombie lie.

Add comment February 4th, 2010 at 07:58pm Posted by Eli

Just What California Needs

Remember what happened the last time Americans elected a failed CEO?  If a candidate is promising to apply their business and leadership skills to public office, that’s not such a great thing if they don’t have any.

Add comment February 4th, 2010 at 11:28am Posted by Eli

Welcome To Bathtub America

So what does it look like when government is shrunken down to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub?  It looks like this:

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.  Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

The article goes on:

Colorado Springs is slashing its budget for public safety, essential services, transportation and parks and recreation.  Community centers and public pools will be closed.

Land-use planning?  Gone.  Zoning?  Who cares!  Building inspection …  They don’t need that!

Amazingly enough, it turns out that governments actually do a lot of useful stuff, and private enterprise doesn’t step in to fill the gap when it shuts down.  Who knew?

Enjoy your libertarian utopia, folks, and think about how much more awesome it would be if the federal government shut down too.

Add comment February 2nd, 2010 at 07:17am Posted by Eli

Frank Luntz Advises Republicans To Double Down On Democratic Corruption

How else to explain this approach to killing financial reform?

Luntz continued: “Ordinarily, calling for a new government program ‘to protect consumers’ would be extraordinary popular. But these are not ordinary times. The American people are not just saying ‘no.’ They are saying ‘hell no’ to more government agencies, more bureaucrats, and more legislation crafted by special interests.”

(…)

“The American people are tired of add-ons, earmarks, and backroom deals – but they are mad as hell at ‘lobbyist loopholes,’” Luntz wrote. “You must put proponents of the legislation on the defense, forcing them to attempt to justify the ‘lobbyist loopholes’ and exemptions placed in the bill… Highlight the exemptions. Broadcast them. Remind them, ‘The legislation is filled with lobbyist loopholes that exclude certain wealthy, powerful industries from regulations.’”

This seems like a very risky messaging strategy unless you are supremely, totally confident that the Democrats won’t simply remove all the loopholes you’re pretending to be outraged about and then call your bluff.  “Okay, we’ve listened to your critique about this bill, and in true bipartisan fashion we have decided to remove all the lobbyist loopholes you find so objectionable.  So you’ll all vote for it now, right?”

Sadly, I think Luntz’s gamble is probably going to be work, since Democrats (Senate Democrats in particular) continue to show every sign that they care more about their corporate donors than even getting re-elected.  Which is a shame, because I sure would like to hear the Republicans struggle to explain why they can’t vote for financial reform without loopholes – both now, and again in November.

Add comment February 1st, 2010 at 06:55pm Posted by Eli

This Can Only Be Good For John McCain

To me, what’s most striking about these poll numbers is not that McCain’s overall approval rating in AZ is at 40%, but that the story offers up his 52% approval rating among AZ Republicans as its “but it’s not all bad news for McCain” graf.

Add comment January 29th, 2010 at 09:10pm Posted by Eli

Great Moments In Spin

Newt Gingrich explains that the Citizens United ruling is a huge win for ordinary citizens because rich people and corporations will give you millions of dollars of campaign support to oppose them. Fascinating.

BLOCK: You’re saying that this ruling affects the average citizen expressing his or her voice, as opposed to corporations being allowed to spend freely.

Mr. GINGRICH: Im saying that it allows you to have a middle-class candidate go out and find allies and supporters who are able to help them match the rich. And able to help them match the incumbent. Remember, incumbents run with millions of dollars in congressional staff, congressional franking, congressional travel. And they have all the advantages of being able to issue statements from their incumbent office. And the challenger – the person out there who’s the citizen who’s rebelling, who wants to change things – is at an enormous disadvantage in taking on incumbents.

This will, in fact, level the playing field and allow middle-class candidates to begin to have an opportunity to raise the resources to take on the powerful and the rich.

Is there a Hall Of Fame for spin?

Add comment January 23rd, 2010 at 01:26pm Posted by Eli

Republican Strategy In A Nutshell

Hey, can you hold this flaming bag of shit for me?

Don’t worry, I’ll take it back and refill it when you’re done.

H/T J-Ro.

Add comment January 22nd, 2010 at 11:35am Posted by Eli