A right-wing columnist at the Journal, Daniel Henninger, had the temerity to use that headline in his screed. In his usual way, he bashes lefties, Obama and every President in the last century (he does not exclude Reagan).
The left-wing critics are right: The rage is not about health care. They are also right that similar complaints about big government were heard during the New Deal and the Great Society, and the sky didn't fall. But what if this time the sky is falling—on them. What if after more than a century of growth in the national government, starting with the Progressive Era, the American people are starting to push back. Not just the tea partiers or the 13 state attorneys general seeking protection under the 10th Amendment and the Commerce Clause. But something bigger than that.
The rage is a tempest in a teapot that Republicans are trying to ride, to control, and to use as a substitute for a party platform that includes more than the word NO. Fringe and marginal people are organizing themselves into mobs and rabble that hold signs equating the President with Hitler, scream Socialism, dress up as Colinials in a Hollywood depiction of 1776, and have the temerity to hold flags that say Don't tread on me. These yahoos can manage to equate themselves with Colonials rebelling against taxation without representation. They are disaffected, lost, clueless, and otherwise idiotic. And Henninger throws in his two cents worth of lunacy.
Who are the American people that he so shamelessly assumes he can quote? Ten percent of the population? Twenty five? What about the rest of us?
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Attorneys General who sued the federal government are, save one, all Republicans. All of them would love to get enough publicity to ride a wave of popularity to higher office.
The American people can and do change the nation's collective mind on the ordering of our political system. The civil rights years of the 1960s is the most well-known modern example. (The idea that resistance to Mr. Obama's health plan is rooted in racist resentment of equal rights is beyond the pale, even by current standards of political punditry.)
He uses the civil rights struggle to legitimize his extremism, shamelessly. He is completely wrong. That struggle was fought by individuals banded together in a movement to end overt racism, legitimate and legal discrimination, and a century of racial animus sanctified by law. His tea parties are not close to being in the same league.
Faced with corporate writedowns in response to the reality of Congress's new health plan, an apoplectic Congressman Henry Waxman commanded his economic vassals to appear before him in Washington.
These corporate writedowns priovided Henninger and his crowd of prevaricators and liers an opportunity to again twist fatcs for their own purpose. A story has some of the details: The legislation prevents companies from deducting tax-free subsidies they receive from the government for providing prescription-drug benefits to retirees. The charges are noncash, meaning companies won't have to write a check, but ultimately their tax bills will be higher without a change in tax treatment of the drug-benefit subsidy, assuming their benefits don't change. The health-care overhaul doesn't eliminate the subsidy, but starting in 2013, companies can no longer deduct the part of the benefit that is paid for by the subsidies.
A non-cash charge, or an acounting entry, is all. And what is being changed is: companies were given a subsidy, and allowed to deduct that subsidy from their taxes. That was unfair, and is being ended.
Faced with a challenge to his vision last week, President Obama laughingly replied to these people: "Go for it." They will. As to the condescension and sniffing left-wing elitism this opposition seems to bring forth from Manhattan media castles, one must say it does recall another, earlier ancien regime.
Wonder if the Manhattan media castles he sniffes against include News Corp's?
Showing posts with label RightWing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RightWing. Show all posts
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
GOP seizes on terror issue
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Health care got done. Birthers are gone. Tea parties, ditto. Republicans need an issue. They think they got one.
Today's headlines in the Post: Great Balls of Fire; and the News: Pants on fire. Guess that Murdoch's boys aren't so fussy about wording.
Republicans have wasted no time in attacking Democrats on intelligence and screening failures leading up to the failed Christmas Day bombing of Flight 253 — a significant departure from the calibrated, less partisan responses that have followed other recent terrorist activity.
The strategy — coming as the Republican leadership seeks to exploit Democratic weaknesses heading into the 2010 midterms — is in many ways a natural for a party that views protecting the U.S. homeland as its ideological raison d’etre and electoral franchise.
Anything that sticks will be fine with the right.
“In the past six weeks, you’ve had the Fort Hood attack, the D.C. Five and now the attempted attack on the plane in Detroit … and they all underscored the clear philosophical difference between the administration and us,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.
This is the party that allowed 9/11 to occur, that botched the war in Afghanistan.
“I think Secretary Napolitano and the rest of the Obama administration view their role as law enforcement, first responders dealing with the aftermath of an attack,” Hoekstra told POLITICO. “And we believe in a forward-looking approach to stopping these attacks before they happen.”
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) went even further, telling FOX News that the Christmas attack proved President Obama’s talk-to-your-enemies approach might actually be encouraging terrorists.
DeMint is blocking a vote on the TSA nominee. Brilliant. His reason?
DeMint says he’s blocking Southers because the top cop at Los Angeles International Airport hasn’t vowed to block TSA unionization. And spokesman Wes Denton said the agency is better off headless than with big labor running the nation’s airports.
Anti-unionism interfering with national security, and this bozo is beefing?
Today's headlines in the Post: Great Balls of Fire; and the News: Pants on fire. Guess that Murdoch's boys aren't so fussy about wording.
Republicans have wasted no time in attacking Democrats on intelligence and screening failures leading up to the failed Christmas Day bombing of Flight 253 — a significant departure from the calibrated, less partisan responses that have followed other recent terrorist activity.
The strategy — coming as the Republican leadership seeks to exploit Democratic weaknesses heading into the 2010 midterms — is in many ways a natural for a party that views protecting the U.S. homeland as its ideological raison d’etre and electoral franchise.
Anything that sticks will be fine with the right.
“In the past six weeks, you’ve had the Fort Hood attack, the D.C. Five and now the attempted attack on the plane in Detroit … and they all underscored the clear philosophical difference between the administration and us,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.
This is the party that allowed 9/11 to occur, that botched the war in Afghanistan.
“I think Secretary Napolitano and the rest of the Obama administration view their role as law enforcement, first responders dealing with the aftermath of an attack,” Hoekstra told POLITICO. “And we believe in a forward-looking approach to stopping these attacks before they happen.”
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) went even further, telling FOX News that the Christmas attack proved President Obama’s talk-to-your-enemies approach might actually be encouraging terrorists.
DeMint is blocking a vote on the TSA nominee. Brilliant. His reason?
DeMint says he’s blocking Southers because the top cop at Los Angeles International Airport hasn’t vowed to block TSA unionization. And spokesman Wes Denton said the agency is better off headless than with big labor running the nation’s airports.
Anti-unionism interfering with national security, and this bozo is beefing?
Monday, December 14, 2009
Under Murdoch, tilting rightward
Rupert Murdoch, a lifelong conservative, addressing the newsroom at The Wall Street Journal two years ago, when he took over.
Not that the Wall Street Journal was a leftists rag and needed a push to the right; if anything, they were a perfect match.
Glenn R. Simpson, who left the newspaper back in March, is not a fan of the newsier, less analytical Journal.
“Murdoch didn’t ruin The Wall Street Journal; he just rendered it into a much more ordinary paper,” he said.
But there are growing indications that Mr. Murdoch, a lifelong conservative, doesn’t just want to cover politics, he wants to play them as well.
He has always played politics. Perhaps he is becoming less covert, but the change is of style, not substance.
According to several former members of the Washington bureau and two current ones, the two men have had a big impact on the paper’s Washington coverage, adopting a more conservative tone, and editing and headlining articles to reflect a chronic skepticism of the current administration. And given that the paper’s circulation continues to grow, albeit helped along by some discounts, there’s nothing to suggest that The Journal’s readers don’t approve.
More conservative? I don't notice the change; the paper was always conservative. And subscribing to the paper does not equate to approving of its politics.
In response to questions about bias in the newspaper, a Journal spokesman sent along the following statement: “The Journal has always provided its readers with unique, objective news reporting from our Washington Bureau.”
Oy. Fair and balanced?
Tension between Washington bureaus and headquarters is a common feature of newspapers, and none of the people I spoke to suggested that either Mr. Thomson or Mr. Baker lacked savvy as journalists or leaders — only that ideology was baked into the coverage through headlines, assignments and editing in a way that had never occurred in the past.
Not that the Wall Street Journal was a leftists rag and needed a push to the right; if anything, they were a perfect match.
Glenn R. Simpson, who left the newspaper back in March, is not a fan of the newsier, less analytical Journal.
“Murdoch didn’t ruin The Wall Street Journal; he just rendered it into a much more ordinary paper,” he said.
But there are growing indications that Mr. Murdoch, a lifelong conservative, doesn’t just want to cover politics, he wants to play them as well.
He has always played politics. Perhaps he is becoming less covert, but the change is of style, not substance.
According to several former members of the Washington bureau and two current ones, the two men have had a big impact on the paper’s Washington coverage, adopting a more conservative tone, and editing and headlining articles to reflect a chronic skepticism of the current administration. And given that the paper’s circulation continues to grow, albeit helped along by some discounts, there’s nothing to suggest that The Journal’s readers don’t approve.
More conservative? I don't notice the change; the paper was always conservative. And subscribing to the paper does not equate to approving of its politics.
In response to questions about bias in the newspaper, a Journal spokesman sent along the following statement: “The Journal has always provided its readers with unique, objective news reporting from our Washington Bureau.”
Oy. Fair and balanced?
Tension between Washington bureaus and headquarters is a common feature of newspapers, and none of the people I spoke to suggested that either Mr. Thomson or Mr. Baker lacked savvy as journalists or leaders — only that ideology was baked into the coverage through headlines, assignments and editing in a way that had never occurred in the past.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Dooffus
Lou Dobbs, speaking with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News.
Doofus: dimwit.
People take this jerk seriously?
A spokesman for Mr. Dobbs said he was seriously considering a race in 2012 against Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, above, as “an intermediary step.”
Intermediary? Another dim bulb. Intermediary is a go-between; surely the spokes-jerk meant intermediate. Spare us, Yahweh.
he told a Washington radio station, “For the first time, I’m actually listening to some people about politics,” adding: “I think that being in the public arena means you’ve got to be part of the solution.”
Really? there are scads of people in the public arena who are nothing more than part of the problem.
Doofus: dimwit.
People take this jerk seriously?
A spokesman for Mr. Dobbs said he was seriously considering a race in 2012 against Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, above, as “an intermediary step.”
Intermediary? Another dim bulb. Intermediary is a go-between; surely the spokes-jerk meant intermediate. Spare us, Yahweh.
he told a Washington radio station, “For the first time, I’m actually listening to some people about politics,” adding: “I think that being in the public arena means you’ve got to be part of the solution.”
Really? there are scads of people in the public arena who are nothing more than part of the problem.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Steele Rebukes Palin, Pawlenty
Will he be in charge of the GOP in 2010? Maybe. 2012? Not a chance.
Rogue warfare, perhaps? RNC Chairman Michael Steele issued a stern rebuke to conservatives like Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty, who immersed themselves in Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman’s losing House campaign. “If you don't live in the district, you don't vote there, your opinion doesn't matter very much,” Steele said. "It serves as an important lesson on how we manage an opportunity to win a seat. And how not to mismanage by putting in a botched process.” Steele went on, “I don't see a victory in losing seats. I'm in the business of multiplication and addition. I want more Republicans. I don't buy that we somehow find victory in defeat.”
Beck and Palin didn't help or win
Douglas L. Hoffman, a previously unknown accountant from Lake Placid, ran as a Conservative, and drew the backing of social and fiscal conservatives like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck
Democrats won a special election in New York State’s northernmost Congressional district Tuesday, a setback for national conservatives who heavily promoted a third candidate in what became an intense debate over the direction of the Republican Party.
One can only hope that the right wingers continue their unabashed push to the extreme.
The battle became one of the most closely followed races in the nation, drawing in some of the biggest forces in politics in both parties. Republicans who viewed the race as a test of the party’s most deeply held conservative principles — including Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska; Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a presidential hopeful; and grass-roots groups that have forcefully opposed Democratic economic and health care policies — rallied behind Mr. Hoffman.
And they failed.
The finger pointing among Republicans started on Wednesday morning. Some conservatives were blaming the Republican Party for the loss, saying that if they had supported a more conservative candidate all along, the seat could have been won.
Victory has many parents, defeat is an orphan.
“I think Doug Hoffman likely would have won if he had been the Republican candidate from the get-go,” said Mike Huckabee, the former Republican presidential contender. “It wasn’t a spike in the end zone for the Democrats. They got that seat not because Democrats were brilliant, but because Republicans were stupid.”
Stupid? Par for the course.
Many conservatives attempted to frame Mr. Hoffman’s defeat as a victory, saying that despite Mr. Hoffman’s loss, conservatives prevailed because the moderate Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, was forced out of the race.
Spin, spin, spin.
“Our number one goal was to make clear that the Republican Party cannot take someone as liberal as Dede Scozzafava and thrust her out on the voters and expect the voters just to accept it,” said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, which worked to defeat Ms. Scozzafava, the Republican candidate who faced a challenge from Mr. Hoffman.
I rest my case. Still, pray tell, what is this NOM? Their website states opposition to same-sex marriage.
Leading conservative voices — including The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and The Weekly Standard and the talk show personalities Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck — took on the Republican nominee, Assemblywoman Scozzafava, who supports gay rights and abortion rights and had embraced some Democratic economic policies like the federal stimulus package. They labeled her as too liberal.
A veritable who's who of the hard right.
But the race was perhaps most notable for the fissures it opened in the Republican Party. Ms. Scozzafava, who was selected as the Republican nominee by the 11 leaders of the county committees that comprise this vast district along the Canadian border, was excoriated by Washington’s conservative establishment almost as soon as she was nominated.
County leaders chose a candidate that met with disapproval from the conservative establishment, much of which is Washington-based, or otherwise elite.
Democrats won a special election in New York State’s northernmost Congressional district Tuesday, a setback for national conservatives who heavily promoted a third candidate in what became an intense debate over the direction of the Republican Party.
One can only hope that the right wingers continue their unabashed push to the extreme.
The battle became one of the most closely followed races in the nation, drawing in some of the biggest forces in politics in both parties. Republicans who viewed the race as a test of the party’s most deeply held conservative principles — including Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska; Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a presidential hopeful; and grass-roots groups that have forcefully opposed Democratic economic and health care policies — rallied behind Mr. Hoffman.
And they failed.
The finger pointing among Republicans started on Wednesday morning. Some conservatives were blaming the Republican Party for the loss, saying that if they had supported a more conservative candidate all along, the seat could have been won.
Victory has many parents, defeat is an orphan.
“I think Doug Hoffman likely would have won if he had been the Republican candidate from the get-go,” said Mike Huckabee, the former Republican presidential contender. “It wasn’t a spike in the end zone for the Democrats. They got that seat not because Democrats were brilliant, but because Republicans were stupid.”
Stupid? Par for the course.
Many conservatives attempted to frame Mr. Hoffman’s defeat as a victory, saying that despite Mr. Hoffman’s loss, conservatives prevailed because the moderate Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, was forced out of the race.
Spin, spin, spin.
“Our number one goal was to make clear that the Republican Party cannot take someone as liberal as Dede Scozzafava and thrust her out on the voters and expect the voters just to accept it,” said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, which worked to defeat Ms. Scozzafava, the Republican candidate who faced a challenge from Mr. Hoffman.
I rest my case. Still, pray tell, what is this NOM? Their website states opposition to same-sex marriage.
Leading conservative voices — including The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and The Weekly Standard and the talk show personalities Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck — took on the Republican nominee, Assemblywoman Scozzafava, who supports gay rights and abortion rights and had embraced some Democratic economic policies like the federal stimulus package. They labeled her as too liberal.
A veritable who's who of the hard right.
But the race was perhaps most notable for the fissures it opened in the Republican Party. Ms. Scozzafava, who was selected as the Republican nominee by the 11 leaders of the county committees that comprise this vast district along the Canadian border, was excoriated by Washington’s conservative establishment almost as soon as she was nominated.
County leaders chose a candidate that met with disapproval from the conservative establishment, much of which is Washington-based, or otherwise elite.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Republicans Flip Out Over Nobel
>Has Obama’s peace prize set off a war at home? Conservatives are lining up to blast the prize: Bill Kristol compares Obama to Gorbachev, writing “Let’s hope …that, beginning in 2012, Obama will have lots of free time to spend hobnobbing with Gorbachev on the international celebrity circuit.” Erik Erickson at Powerline said, “I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it.” And Rush Limbaugh said, “They love a weakened, neutered U.S. and this is their way of promoting that concept.” The DNC, meanwhile, hit back hard, saying “The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists—the Taliban and Hamas this morning—in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.”
House Votes to Expand Hate Crimes Definition
The measure was named in part for Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student murdered in 1998.
The House voted Thursday to expand the definition of violent federal hate crimes to those committed because of a victim’s sexual orientation, a step that would extend new protection to lesbian, gay and transgender people.
Democrats hailed the vote of 281 to 146, which brought the measure to the brink of becoming law, as the culmination of a long push to curb violent expressions of bias like the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student.
Representative John A. Boehner, the House Republican leader, voiced opposition to the measure.
Republicans criticized the legislation, saying violent attacks were already illegal regardless of motive. They said the measure was an effort to create a class of “thought crimes” whose prosecution would require ascribing motivation to the attacker.
Thought? Aren't all crimes that are outlawed as hate crimes the same? How does anybody know that a crime was perpetrated against a black person because the person is black and not another reason? Because the victim was black and the crime seems to have been committed precisely for that reason. Same with gays. Republicans, most, anyway, do not want to vote for anything connected with gay, to stay on the good side of the extreme right-wingers who demand such behavior.
Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, called the legislation radical social policy. “The idea that we’re going to pass a law that’s going to add further charges to someone based on what they may have been thinking, I think is wrong,” Mr. Boehner said.
Another enlightened view of Mr. Suntan.
Republicans were also furious that the measure was attached to an essential $681 billion military policy bill, and accused Democrats of legislative blackmail. Even some Republican members of the usually collegial House Armed Services Committee who helped write the broader legislation, which authorizes military pay, weapons programs and other necessities for the armed forces, opposed the bill in the end, solely because of the hate crimes provision.
“We believe this is a poison pill, poisonous enough that we refuse to be blackmailed into voting for a piece of social agenda that has no place in this bill,” said Representative Todd Akin of Missouri, a senior Republican member of the committee.
The military bill has yet to be approved by the Senate. But the hate crimes provision has solid support there, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the overall bill outweighed his own objections to including the hate crimes measure.
Mr. Obama supports the hate crimes provision, though the White House has raised objections to elements of the bill related to military acquisitions. If signed into law, the hate crimes legislation would reflect the ability of Democrats to enact difficult measures with their increased majorities in Congress and a Democrat in the White House.
“Elections have consequences,” Mr. McCain said.
McCain can speak clearly.
Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 House Republican, said the measure could inhibit freedom of speech and deter religious leaders from discussing their views on homosexuality for fear that those publicly expressed views might be linked to later assaults.
“It is just simply wrong,” Mr. Pence said, “to use a bill designed to support our troops to reverse the very freedoms for which they fight.”
Democrats, however, noted that the bill would specifically bar prosecution based on an individual’s expression of “racial, religious, political or other beliefs.” It also states that nothing in the measure should be “construed to diminish any rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.”
Amazing how two sides can see the same thing so differently.
The House voted Thursday to expand the definition of violent federal hate crimes to those committed because of a victim’s sexual orientation, a step that would extend new protection to lesbian, gay and transgender people.
Democrats hailed the vote of 281 to 146, which brought the measure to the brink of becoming law, as the culmination of a long push to curb violent expressions of bias like the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student.
Representative John A. Boehner, the House Republican leader, voiced opposition to the measure.
Republicans criticized the legislation, saying violent attacks were already illegal regardless of motive. They said the measure was an effort to create a class of “thought crimes” whose prosecution would require ascribing motivation to the attacker.
Thought? Aren't all crimes that are outlawed as hate crimes the same? How does anybody know that a crime was perpetrated against a black person because the person is black and not another reason? Because the victim was black and the crime seems to have been committed precisely for that reason. Same with gays. Republicans, most, anyway, do not want to vote for anything connected with gay, to stay on the good side of the extreme right-wingers who demand such behavior.
Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, called the legislation radical social policy. “The idea that we’re going to pass a law that’s going to add further charges to someone based on what they may have been thinking, I think is wrong,” Mr. Boehner said.
Another enlightened view of Mr. Suntan.
Republicans were also furious that the measure was attached to an essential $681 billion military policy bill, and accused Democrats of legislative blackmail. Even some Republican members of the usually collegial House Armed Services Committee who helped write the broader legislation, which authorizes military pay, weapons programs and other necessities for the armed forces, opposed the bill in the end, solely because of the hate crimes provision.
“We believe this is a poison pill, poisonous enough that we refuse to be blackmailed into voting for a piece of social agenda that has no place in this bill,” said Representative Todd Akin of Missouri, a senior Republican member of the committee.
The military bill has yet to be approved by the Senate. But the hate crimes provision has solid support there, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the overall bill outweighed his own objections to including the hate crimes measure.
Mr. Obama supports the hate crimes provision, though the White House has raised objections to elements of the bill related to military acquisitions. If signed into law, the hate crimes legislation would reflect the ability of Democrats to enact difficult measures with their increased majorities in Congress and a Democrat in the White House.
“Elections have consequences,” Mr. McCain said.
McCain can speak clearly.
Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 House Republican, said the measure could inhibit freedom of speech and deter religious leaders from discussing their views on homosexuality for fear that those publicly expressed views might be linked to later assaults.
“It is just simply wrong,” Mr. Pence said, “to use a bill designed to support our troops to reverse the very freedoms for which they fight.”
Democrats, however, noted that the bill would specifically bar prosecution based on an individual’s expression of “racial, religious, political or other beliefs.” It also states that nothing in the measure should be “construed to diminish any rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.”
Amazing how two sides can see the same thing so differently.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
A blithering idiot
No Buyers for Palin's Speeches
If need be, she could always downgrade to the bar mitzvah circuit: The New York Post reports that the Washington Speakers Bureau—which also represents George W. Bush, Laura Bush, and Condoleezza Rice—is having a hard time convincing potential clients to book Sarah Palin for $100,000 a pop. One industry expert tells the Post: “The big lecture buyers in the U.S. are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot.” Palin is believed to have quit her job as governor of Alaska early, in part, to earn more money. According to the source, many big lecture circuits are subscription series, and bookers are afraid of ticking off subscribers by putting her on the roster.
Sarah's lectures a tough sell (from NY Post)
Sarah Palinis said to have pocketed a $7 million advance for the 400-page memoir she turned in four months early, but she might not have such an easy time on the lecture circuit. After quitting as governor of Alaska in July, Palin signed with the top-notch Washington Speakers Bureau, which also reps George W. Bush, Laura Bush,
Condoleezza Rice, hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger, LA Dodgers manager Joe Torre and magician David Blaine.
Palin's bookers are said to be asking for $100,000 per speech, but an industry expert tells Page Six: "The big lecture buyers in the US are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot."
Many big lecture venues are subscription series, "and they don't want to tick people off," said our source. "Palin is polarizing, and some subscribers might cancel if she's on the lineup." Other lecture buyers are universities, which have a leftist slant, and corporations, which dislike controversy.
"Palin is so uninteresting to so many groups -- unless they are interested in moose hunting," said our insider. "What does she have to say? She can't even describe what she reads."
Palin likely quit as governor just months after losing the election as John McCain's vice-presidential running mate because of money. "She knew that if she waited until her term ended in 2010, these opportunities would be gone," said a source. "She would have lost millions by staying in office."
Palin's "Going Rogue: An American Life" is described by Harper publisher John Burnhamas "her words, her life, and it's all there in full and fascinating detail." Harper wouldn't discuss what Palin was paid.
Lynn Vincent, Palin's collaborator, wrote the book so fast, publication has been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17.
How much can there be t say?
If need be, she could always downgrade to the bar mitzvah circuit: The New York Post reports that the Washington Speakers Bureau—which also represents George W. Bush, Laura Bush, and Condoleezza Rice—is having a hard time convincing potential clients to book Sarah Palin for $100,000 a pop. One industry expert tells the Post: “The big lecture buyers in the U.S. are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot.” Palin is believed to have quit her job as governor of Alaska early, in part, to earn more money. According to the source, many big lecture circuits are subscription series, and bookers are afraid of ticking off subscribers by putting her on the roster.
Sarah's lectures a tough sell (from NY Post)
Sarah Palinis said to have pocketed a $7 million advance for the 400-page memoir she turned in four months early, but she might not have such an easy time on the lecture circuit. After quitting as governor of Alaska in July, Palin signed with the top-notch Washington Speakers Bureau, which also reps George W. Bush, Laura Bush,
Condoleezza Rice, hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger, LA Dodgers manager Joe Torre and magician David Blaine.
Palin's bookers are said to be asking for $100,000 per speech, but an industry expert tells Page Six: "The big lecture buyers in the US are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot."
Many big lecture venues are subscription series, "and they don't want to tick people off," said our source. "Palin is polarizing, and some subscribers might cancel if she's on the lineup." Other lecture buyers are universities, which have a leftist slant, and corporations, which dislike controversy.
"Palin is so uninteresting to so many groups -- unless they are interested in moose hunting," said our insider. "What does she have to say? She can't even describe what she reads."
Palin likely quit as governor just months after losing the election as John McCain's vice-presidential running mate because of money. "She knew that if she waited until her term ended in 2010, these opportunities would be gone," said a source. "She would have lost millions by staying in office."
Palin's "Going Rogue: An American Life" is described by Harper publisher John Burnhamas "her words, her life, and it's all there in full and fascinating detail." Harper wouldn't discuss what Palin was paid.
Lynn Vincent, Palin's collaborator, wrote the book so fast, publication has been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17.
How much can there be t say?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Who are we?
There has been a lot of criticism of President Obama. Many people do not like his policies, or his governing philosophy. Many see him as a big-government liberal who will raise taxes, slam the middle class, give the undeserving, such as illegal immigrants, undeserved rights, and move the country in a direction they do not approve of.Yet there appears to be a fringe element that takes it further.
A burly Pennsylvania correction officer named David McElwee held up a poster of Obama photoshopped as a half-naked African native in a hut with a grass skirt and a bone in his nose. That was Obamacare, “voodoo” health care, McElwee said.
When Ronald Reagan's economic policies were labeled as "voodoo economics" (by his own Vice-President, George Bush, when they were rivals for the Republican presidential nomination), no one, as I remember, used images of darkies as a criticism. Voodoo was understood to be mysterious magic, 'dark' magic, as it were. Reagan's policies were criticized, but his nationality, ethnicity or heritage weren't.
This wasn’t politics, exactly, or at least it didn’t start as politics. It came from deeper down, from a stirring pot of disaffection and resentment that made the president a kind of fantasy villain. They dreamt about him. Obama was, quite literally, their nightmare. “They conjure up all these blood-and-soil feelings about Obama as a stranger, that’s what’s nasty about it,” says David Bromwich, a Yale scholar of literature and political thought.
By July, the town halls had begun, with demonstrations against the president’s health-care-reform initiative, and the far right felt its power. “You can’t put this genie back in the bottle, it doesn’t matter what the corporate media say,” said World Net Daily’s Joseph Farah. At their rallies, this ragtag army exuded confidence that they would plague this president for years, just as Clinton and Bush had been defined by their haters. The liberal media finally began to label the Obama loonies as racist in mid-September, but where had they been all summer?
Afraid to use the term, that's where they were. President Carter finally said it, and liberals rushed to denounce him. So did Stanley Crouch, who is not a liberal, at least by his definition.
And where was Obama himself—as the separate reality grew like a second head on the American polity? He was being restrained and professorial, following the conventional wisdom that the crazies would drive moderates into his arms and leave the Republican Party in the wilderness for decades.
Decades? Who believed that?
Democratic operatives still argue this is the case, but the noise on the right has had an effect. The haters, amplified by cable news, had made him seem weak, a stunning achievement by the opposition. Maybe the pragmatism and absence of drama read as passive, and America abhors passive, needing drama. Obama had promised that reason and civility, once reintroduced in Washington, would win the day. But was that another elitist conceit?
If he had gone toe-to-toe, what would he have been labeled?
A conversation about tactics ensued. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed the town-hall madness as the “silly season,” but as it dawned on many Democrats that craziness was not necessarily a disqualifier for participating in the country’s political conversation, it raised private concerns about the limits of Obama’s political gifts. Some wished he had more of LBJ in him. “He’s never been a leader,” said one Democrat. Or, for that matter, more of Richard Nixon. “If I could get one message to David Axelrod, it’s that he should start talking about the silent majority,” said another Democrat.
Who is that concerned? It is only September, and he's been president for eight months. In two months, after a health bill is passed, things will look different.
This is the fringe. I mean, these are loonies, wackos, marginals. Guns, Nazis?
Meanwhile, tea partyers were putting themselves forward as America’s last hope. PRAY FOR TIME, said Margie Souder’s sign in Scranton. What did that mean? It’s a prayer that the movement will not go away before the country is lost to Obama’s godlessness, she said. Well, he prays, too, doesn’t he? “To Allah. Or somebody,” she said, and on the stage, Deborah Johns, one of the movement’s more prominent figures, said, “I do not want a president that bows to the king of Saudi Arabia.”
As opposed to George W. Bush, who holds hands with the king of Saudi Arabia.
The birther question has been pressed by about a dozen imaginative activists over the last year... Each built large, and apparently lucrative, followings on the web, and the Republican Party needed the birthers too much to throw them under the bus. Republican identification was near historic lows, 21 percent, and of that number, a goodly percentage were only too willing to accept the worst claims about the president.
They had nothing else, and loonie tunes are their specialty, anyway. I can see Russia from my front porch, for example, as foreign policy credentials.
“This is nothing new,” says Michael Lind, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, pointing out that “folk conservatism” has been a force in American politics at least since Andrew Jackson.
True. See the Know-Nothings, for example.
Few were willing to contradict the birthers. The party simply didn’t have any other engine. At the September 12 rally in Washington, South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, clad in flannel, said he was more comfortable with the people in the crowd than he was with his fellow senators. He stood not far from signs with swastikas, and DON’T TREAD ON ME signs with coiled rattlesnakes.
A real intellectual heavyweight, the Senator.
The questions about Obama’s legitimacy exploded this July after angry people at town halls held up their own birth certificates and challenged Obama to produce his own, and Lou Dobbs, who runs a strongly anti-immigration show on CNN, picked up the claim. The birthers were born. But the thread has been with us over a year. Back in spring 2008, nascent Obama haters found Obama too exotic to believe, and began looking around for anything they could get against him. One rumor went that his real middle name was Muhammad.
Well, maybe not the prophet's name, but Hussein, grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and son of Caliph Ali ibn abu Talib.
And do these mental midgets know anything much about the Bush money, the Bush heritage?
Not that it made much difference. Where was the vault copy of the birth certificate showing mother and father’s names? What about the height and weight of the baby? “A video of Obama being born in Honolulu with Don Ho playing ukulele in the background would not dispel a thing with these people,” says John Berryhill, an Obama supporter who fights the smears online. “Any additional statement or clarification is a ‘contradiction’ or leaves ‘unanswered questions.’ These are very concrete thinkers who are so fixated on a conclusion that you might as well try to figure out a strategy for converting the pope to Islam. It’s just not going to happen.”
Amen.
The Philadelphia lawyer is an Obot, the name that Obama haters have given to the Obama supporters who jump into their chat rooms with contradictory evidence. Oddly, a good number of the Obama haters were Pumas—Party Unity My Ass Democrats, who were angered that Hillary had lost the nomination. By the time of Obama’s nomination in Denver, a former Hillary supporter, a Philadelphia attorney named Phil Berg urged on by a Texas investigator who goes by Linda Starr, sued Democratic officials, saying they had a duty to determine whether Obama was a natural-born citizen, or NBC. Berg saw “overwhelming” evidence that Obama was born in Kenya and has accused Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi of “aiding and abetting an enemy.”
They loved Hillary despite Bubba, and now think OBama is a Muslim? C'mon.
The fact that the administration and much of the media ignored them just confirmed the Obama haters’ belief that Obama and his allies are out-of-touch, big-government elitists. The tea partyers sought a return to deep tradition and personal liberty. They were against the czars and all the Ivy League résumés, they blamed Obama for replacing their sampler America with a multicultural new world order. Glenn Beck constantly quoted Founding Fathers in his campaign to “take our country back.” Back where? A sign at the Scranton tea party said, the answer to 2009 is 1776. Nearby, Margie Souder said that Martha Washington reached for the Bible every morning to navigate her life.
As if GW, Jefferson, Jay, Hamilton, Madison and their cohorts were not elitists?
A birther has some facts mixed up, but, what the hell.
“We have Russian subs right off the East Coast right now. This undermines his authority. The Politburo is going to say, ‘Who are you? You’re not a legitimate president.’ ”
Politburo? About 20 years off.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Jerk
Rush: 'We Need Segregated Buses'
Rush Limbaugh has, predictably, gone there: After the right ran wild with a story about an attack by a black student on a white student on a school bus—an attack that the police denied was racially motivated—Rush Limbaugh said, “We need segregated buses. … [I]n Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering 'yeah, right on, right on, right on.’” He went on to defend racism—or attack homosexuality, we’re not sure—by offering this gem: “If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?”
About time
Birthers Laughed Out of Court
Is the birther craze finally ending? An Army captain's lawsuit—claiming she could not "in good conscience" deploy to Iraq under the command of a foreign-born president—was thrown out of court Wednesday, and U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land pulled no punches in his critique of the “frivolous” lawsuit. “Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, simply saying something is so does not make it so,” Land said. He warned the officer’s lawyer, birther demagogue Orly Taitz, that she would face sanctions if she filed any more birther suits. Land held that Capt. Connie Rhodes had presented no credible evidence "that President Obama is ineligible to serve as president… Instead, she uses her complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the president is ‘an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.’” Turning the knife, Land finally noted that even a middle school student would notice the irony in “abandoning fundamental principles upon which our country was founded in order to purtportedly ‘protect and preserve’ those very principles” by treating the president so poorly.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Proposed Honor Stirs Up a Firebrand’s Hometown
On a recent stroll downtown, Bud Norris, the mayor of Mount Vernon, Wash., received several hugs and handshakes. Later, a woman held a placard: “Norris and Beck, Dumb and Dumber.”
Everybody is entitled to an opinion, of course, and not everybody is a liberal, alas, but Beck is a blowhard. He accuses the President ("this guy") of being a racist, and expounds on how Rockefeller Center contains communist symbols. I would not want to be associated with him, were I to have any connection. I abhor his approach to political commentary, and oppose everything about him.
the question many residents here are asking is whether giving Mr. Beck the key — a decision made unilaterally by Mount Vernon’s mayor, Bud Norris — is the right thing to do. It is far from clear that the people of Mount Vernon, where the demographics have shifted since Mr. Beck left as a teenager in the 1970s, are still all in it together.
“Why him?” many people wonder. “Why now?”
“It’s probably at least 60 to 40 against,” said Fred Lee, a barber on First Street who has trimmed prominent heads in Mount Vernon for more than 30 years. “That’s just a straw vote of people who come in here. It’s leaning that he probably shouldn’t come, mostly because of the controversial nature of the person.”
The talk show host Glenn Beck grew up in Mount Vernon, Wash.
The mayor said he had known Mr. Beck’s family in the 1970s, when Mr. Beck’s father, Bill Beck, ran City Bakery, a popular spot on First Street, a block from the river. The space is now used by a social service agency.
And how does Beck feel about that? Social service agency is another way of saying communist front.
Mr. Norris, above, decided to honor him.
Everybody is entitled to an opinion, of course, and not everybody is a liberal, alas, but Beck is a blowhard. He accuses the President ("this guy") of being a racist, and expounds on how Rockefeller Center contains communist symbols. I would not want to be associated with him, were I to have any connection. I abhor his approach to political commentary, and oppose everything about him.
the question many residents here are asking is whether giving Mr. Beck the key — a decision made unilaterally by Mount Vernon’s mayor, Bud Norris — is the right thing to do. It is far from clear that the people of Mount Vernon, where the demographics have shifted since Mr. Beck left as a teenager in the 1970s, are still all in it together.
“Why him?” many people wonder. “Why now?”
“It’s probably at least 60 to 40 against,” said Fred Lee, a barber on First Street who has trimmed prominent heads in Mount Vernon for more than 30 years. “That’s just a straw vote of people who come in here. It’s leaning that he probably shouldn’t come, mostly because of the controversial nature of the person.”
The talk show host Glenn Beck grew up in Mount Vernon, Wash.
The mayor said he had known Mr. Beck’s family in the 1970s, when Mr. Beck’s father, Bill Beck, ran City Bakery, a popular spot on First Street, a block from the river. The space is now used by a social service agency.
And how does Beck feel about that? Social service agency is another way of saying communist front.
Mr. Norris, above, decided to honor him.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
How are news reported?
President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (right) hold a discussion with 9th graders at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.
After the right wing raised a brouhaha over President Obama's speech to school kids, and after the White House dropped a phrase the right wing objected to (same phrase used by President HW Bush, about kids helping "the President"), the speech was reported on by all the various media outlets. The Wall Street Journal took its usual slant: Speech to Students Puts Politics Aside is the title of the article. The blurb on page one has it: the speech steered clear of politicking critics had warned about.
Well, it was never about politics, but about education. The critics had criticized something they did not know anything about; they would criticize anything, and everything, the President says and does.
slideshow
Text of Speech
After the right wing raised a brouhaha over President Obama's speech to school kids, and after the White House dropped a phrase the right wing objected to (same phrase used by President HW Bush, about kids helping "the President"), the speech was reported on by all the various media outlets. The Wall Street Journal took its usual slant: Speech to Students Puts Politics Aside is the title of the article. The blurb on page one has it: the speech steered clear of politicking critics had warned about.
Well, it was never about politics, but about education. The critics had criticized something they did not know anything about; they would criticize anything, and everything, the President says and does.
slideshow
Text of Speech
Friday, September 4, 2009
Scary stuff
Seems simple enough: the President will speak to school kids, and give them the tough love needed: work hard, stay in school, be a success. It ain't that simple. Opponents are injecting fear and racism into everythng the President does.
Educators take heat over Obama school speech
By Alan Silverleib - CNN
Call it a lesson in contemporary political discourse. Educators across America found themselves at the center of a political storm this week as conservatives exploded in anger over President Obama's plans to give a speech to the country's schoolchildren.
Conservatives oppose everything Obama.
A stunned White House insisted the address, planned for Tuesday, and accompanying suggested lesson plans are meant simply to encourage students to study hard and stay in school.
But some parents said they aren't buying it. They said they're convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds.
Some parents? Just what is that? Can that be quantified?
"Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me," a suburban Colorado mother, Shanneen Barron, told CNN affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver. "I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now."
Text: We're Americans. Subtext: He's black, and not an American. Very scared? About what?
School administrators are caught in the middle of the controversy. Some have decided to show the president's speech, while others will not. Many are deciding on a class-by-class basis, leaving the decision in the hands of individual teachers.
GOP leaders have not shied away from the debate. Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer released a statement Monday accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to "indoctrinate" children. "As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology," Greer said.
Here it is: socialist ideology.
"The idea that schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans ... is not only infuriating but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."
Justify his plans? How the hell does he know that?
Nonsense, the White House replied. "The goal of the speech and the lesson plans is to challenge students to work hard, stay in school and dramatically reduce the dropout rate," an administration spokesman said. "This isn't a policy speech. It's a speech designed to encourage kids to stay in school."
White House officials said that Obama's speech, the text of which will be available on the Web on Monday, is not unprecedented.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush delivered a nationally televised speech to students from a Washington school, encouraging them to say no to drugs and work hard.
Spreading what ideology then?
Charles Saylors, president of the National Parent Teacher Association, said the uproar over the speech is sad. "The president of the United States, regardless of political affiliation, should be able to have a presentation and have a pep talk, if you will, to America's students," Saylors said.
Exactly.
Some of the controversy surrounding Obama's speech stems from a proposed lesson plan by the U.S. Education Department to accompany the address. An initial version of the plan recommended that students draft letters to themselves discussing "what they can do to help the president."
The letters "would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals," the plan said.
Under pressure from conservatives, the White House agreed the plan was not artfully worded and distributed a revised version encouraging students to write letters about how they can "achieve their short-term and long-term education goals."
The controversy is the latest example of how sharply polarized political debate has become.
The White House is not doing well: in trying to be too accommodating, they have lost the initiative and given the right wing every opportunity to scream socialism. They should simply press on, and damn the opposition.
polling director. "Ninety percent of Americans who identify with the president's party approve of him, but 85 percent of those who belong to the opposition party disapprove," said Keating Holland, CNN's"In that kind of environment, almost nothing Obama does is immune from politics."
Educators take heat over Obama school speech
By Alan Silverleib - CNN
Call it a lesson in contemporary political discourse. Educators across America found themselves at the center of a political storm this week as conservatives exploded in anger over President Obama's plans to give a speech to the country's schoolchildren.
Conservatives oppose everything Obama.
A stunned White House insisted the address, planned for Tuesday, and accompanying suggested lesson plans are meant simply to encourage students to study hard and stay in school.
But some parents said they aren't buying it. They said they're convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds.
Some parents? Just what is that? Can that be quantified?
"Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me," a suburban Colorado mother, Shanneen Barron, told CNN affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver. "I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now."
Text: We're Americans. Subtext: He's black, and not an American. Very scared? About what?
School administrators are caught in the middle of the controversy. Some have decided to show the president's speech, while others will not. Many are deciding on a class-by-class basis, leaving the decision in the hands of individual teachers.
GOP leaders have not shied away from the debate. Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer released a statement Monday accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to "indoctrinate" children. "As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology," Greer said.
Here it is: socialist ideology.
"The idea that schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans ... is not only infuriating but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."
Justify his plans? How the hell does he know that?
Nonsense, the White House replied. "The goal of the speech and the lesson plans is to challenge students to work hard, stay in school and dramatically reduce the dropout rate," an administration spokesman said. "This isn't a policy speech. It's a speech designed to encourage kids to stay in school."
White House officials said that Obama's speech, the text of which will be available on the Web on Monday, is not unprecedented.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush delivered a nationally televised speech to students from a Washington school, encouraging them to say no to drugs and work hard.
Spreading what ideology then?
Charles Saylors, president of the National Parent Teacher Association, said the uproar over the speech is sad. "The president of the United States, regardless of political affiliation, should be able to have a presentation and have a pep talk, if you will, to America's students," Saylors said.
Exactly.
Some of the controversy surrounding Obama's speech stems from a proposed lesson plan by the U.S. Education Department to accompany the address. An initial version of the plan recommended that students draft letters to themselves discussing "what they can do to help the president."
The letters "would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals," the plan said.
Under pressure from conservatives, the White House agreed the plan was not artfully worded and distributed a revised version encouraging students to write letters about how they can "achieve their short-term and long-term education goals."
The controversy is the latest example of how sharply polarized political debate has become.
The White House is not doing well: in trying to be too accommodating, they have lost the initiative and given the right wing every opportunity to scream socialism. They should simply press on, and damn the opposition.
polling director. "Ninety percent of Americans who identify with the president's party approve of him, but 85 percent of those who belong to the opposition party disapprove," said Keating Holland, CNN's"In that kind of environment, almost nothing Obama does is immune from politics."
Friday, August 14, 2009
From Hookers to Health Care
Sen. David Vitter seemed finished after his brush with the D.C. Madam, but his new ploy to provoke the Obama-hating town-hall mobs just might get him re-elected.
Socialism? Can anybody spell Medicare? Social Security?
ObamaCare? Legislation is being crafted in Congress, not by the black guy (well, not openly, anyway, something those placard-holders may have trouble grasping.)
While Democratic members of Congress confront indignant town-hall crowds opposed to President Barack Obama’s health-care policies, Republican Sen. David Vitter is enjoying a Louisiana love fest. Vitter is barnstorming through the Bayou backwoods, hosting town-halls meetings before packed houses of ferociously anti-Obama audiences. They come to praise rather than shout. Billed as public forums to discuss Obama’s health-care proposals, or what Vitter has derisively referred to as “Obamacare,” the pre-screened events appear to be functioning effectively as surrogate campaign rallies for the scandal-scarred senator’s 2010 reelection bid.
Black health care, is perhaps what the Senator and his supporters are discussing.
"Please know that this and any other angry mob is welcome at my town-hall meetings whenever you want to come,” Vitter declared, bringing the audience to its feet with a raucous ovation. In the back of the chapel, an elderly woman waved a placard reading, “Send Obama & congress back to USSR.”
Whip up the natives. The USSR? Perhaps the news has not yet reached the Louisiana backwoods, but the Soviet Empire is no more.
Many of those attending Vitter’s town halls have been shepherded to the events by local chapters of TeaPartyPatriots.org, a supposedly grassroots network of national activists that happens to “partner” with the health-care and insurance industry-funded lobbying firm Freedom Works, which has directed angry mobs to Democratic events. At a town-hall meeting on August 10 in Jefferson Parish, many local constituents were reportedly turned away while Tea Party activists were allowed to enter. When the event concluded, Vitter rushed out of the back door and away from the press and his constituents, guarded by a phalanx of police officers.
Why didn't he invite the mob over to his place for some iced tea?
Vitter has good reason to fear public scrutiny. Had he not pre-screened his audiences, some wily constituent might have asked the senator to address his affair with Wendy Cortez, a high-priced New Orleans escort, or asked how his name showed up on the client list of Jeanne Palfrey, the so-called DC Madam, who killed herself in May 2008 after being convicted of money laundering. The constituent could have framed the question in terms of the health-care debate by asking Vitter why he reportedly wore a condom when he visited Cortez but subsequently tried to introduce an amendment barring health-care providers that offer free STD testing and contraception from receiving federal funds.
Well, he is white, at least.
Socialism? Can anybody spell Medicare? Social Security?
ObamaCare? Legislation is being crafted in Congress, not by the black guy (well, not openly, anyway, something those placard-holders may have trouble grasping.)
While Democratic members of Congress confront indignant town-hall crowds opposed to President Barack Obama’s health-care policies, Republican Sen. David Vitter is enjoying a Louisiana love fest. Vitter is barnstorming through the Bayou backwoods, hosting town-halls meetings before packed houses of ferociously anti-Obama audiences. They come to praise rather than shout. Billed as public forums to discuss Obama’s health-care proposals, or what Vitter has derisively referred to as “Obamacare,” the pre-screened events appear to be functioning effectively as surrogate campaign rallies for the scandal-scarred senator’s 2010 reelection bid.
Black health care, is perhaps what the Senator and his supporters are discussing.
"Please know that this and any other angry mob is welcome at my town-hall meetings whenever you want to come,” Vitter declared, bringing the audience to its feet with a raucous ovation. In the back of the chapel, an elderly woman waved a placard reading, “Send Obama & congress back to USSR.”
Whip up the natives. The USSR? Perhaps the news has not yet reached the Louisiana backwoods, but the Soviet Empire is no more.
Many of those attending Vitter’s town halls have been shepherded to the events by local chapters of TeaPartyPatriots.org, a supposedly grassroots network of national activists that happens to “partner” with the health-care and insurance industry-funded lobbying firm Freedom Works, which has directed angry mobs to Democratic events. At a town-hall meeting on August 10 in Jefferson Parish, many local constituents were reportedly turned away while Tea Party activists were allowed to enter. When the event concluded, Vitter rushed out of the back door and away from the press and his constituents, guarded by a phalanx of police officers.
Why didn't he invite the mob over to his place for some iced tea?
Vitter has good reason to fear public scrutiny. Had he not pre-screened his audiences, some wily constituent might have asked the senator to address his affair with Wendy Cortez, a high-priced New Orleans escort, or asked how his name showed up on the client list of Jeanne Palfrey, the so-called DC Madam, who killed herself in May 2008 after being convicted of money laundering. The constituent could have framed the question in terms of the health-care debate by asking Vitter why he reportedly wore a condom when he visited Cortez but subsequently tried to introduce an amendment barring health-care providers that offer free STD testing and contraception from receiving federal funds.
Well, he is white, at least.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The GOP Freak Show
Conservative radio talk-show host John Batchelor says the whack jobs disrupting health-care town halls confirm the Republican Party has become a cruise ship to the seventh grade.The sad-eyed Townhall Turfers now follow the saucer-eyed Birthers and the cranky Tea-Baggers as the latest political fad that the weakling Republicans not only cannot get away from but also cannot get enough of, like chocolate sauce on anything.
The Turfers are freakish, passionate, half-baked, dignified, defiant, rude, anarchistic, but they are not Republicans.
Well, they sure as hell aren't Democrats. Nor liberal. What does that leave?
Would that the Republicans were capable of such a vast right-wing conspiracy to rally and deploy growling scene-stealers with signage that is indifferent to paradox, “Stop Obama,” “Stop Socialism,” “Stop Fascism.” Those who have discovered these shadowy links of the nonsensically named “Conservatives for Patient Rights” to the infamous Swift Boaters’ latest awkward fantasy, “Tea Party Patriots Health Care Reform Committee,” serve less to enliven their suspicions than they do to prop up the spirits of the deracinated Republicans. Democrats are imagining a Republicanism that is ambulatory, omnipotent like the fabled days of the Brooks Brothers Brigade storming Dade County in the stolen election of 2000.
In the battles of spin, perceptions count more than reality. And to have these yahoos associated with anti-Obamaism and anti-reform helps the liberal side.
And what does the Republican Party provide the generally despairing and alienated American citizens who come out to the town halls? It answers shouts for help with teasing and cooing, the behavior of groupies with the language of quitters.
The GOP seems to have no strategy other than saying no and being disruptive.
With Boehner and Steele cheering like gamblers at a cockfight, with the tempestuous DNC joining in the food fight with both hands, the shabby, timid GOP is left exposed to the predations of the demagogues of talk. The usual cynics are outperforming in fear-mongering and self-promotion. Limbaugh swerved all over the road to combine the Turfers with his imagination of the younger chief executive ... Lou Dobbs is toothless in comparison to the Limbaugh bite, but Dobbs can gush like Bruno.
That's today's Republican Party: Michael Steele, who'll get dumped next year; Boehner, with his tan and yellow ties; and two broadcast demagogues. O, and the cheating Senator from Nevada and the cheating Governor of South Carolina. And ex-Governor Palin, who gives credence to the absurdity that the health care reform bills now in Congress
John McCain couldn't do it, for he had to solidify his right-wing support.
Friday, August 7, 2009
The angry mob
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, has compared the scenes at health care town halls to the “Brooks Brothers riot” in 2000 — the demonstration that disrupted the vote count in Miami and arguably helped send George W. Bush to the White House. Portrayed at the time as local protesters, many of the rioters were actually G.O.P. staffers flown in from Washington.
But Mr. Gibbs is probably only half right. Yes, well-heeled interest groups are helping to organize the town hall mobs. Key organizers include two Astroturf (fake grass-roots) organizations: FreedomWorks, run by the former House majority leader Dick Armey, and a new organization called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights.
The latter group, by the way, is run by Rick Scott, the former head of Columbia/HCA, a for-profit hospital chain. Mr. Scott was forced out of that job amid a fraud investigation; the company eventually pleaded guilty to charges of overbilling state and federal health plans, paying $1.7 billion — yes, that’s “billion” — in fines. You can’t make this stuff up.
These people have a vested interest in health care reform failing.
But while the organizers are as crass as they come, I haven’t seen any evidence that the people disrupting those town halls are Florida-style rent-a-mobs. For the most part, the protesters appear to be genuinely angry. The question is, what are they angry about?
About creeping socialism, many say. Limbaugh and Beck have called Obama's programs Mazi; fat Limbaugh compared the symbols of Obama's program to the Nazi symbol. Beck has called Obama a racist who hates "white culture" -- without defining what white culture is, leaving it for yahoos to translate white culture to whatever they want.
No one of those right wing zealots point out that Medicare, Medicais, Social Security and unemployment insurance are government-run programs (as are subsidies and tax deductions for home mortgages).
Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they’re probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.
Fears are being stoked by demagogues.
That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don’t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s a substantial fraction.
Same mentality.
Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.
Not just working-calss whites have racial fears.
Many people hoped that last year’s election would mark the end of the “angry white voter” era in America. Indeed, voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate.
But right now Mr. Obama’s backers seem to lack all conviction, perhaps because the prosaic reality of his administration isn’t living up to their dreams of transformation. Meanwhile, the angry right is filled with a passionate intensity.
And if Mr. Obama can’t recapture some of the passion of 2008, can’t inspire his supporters to stand up and be heard, health care reform may well fail.
Sadly.
But Mr. Gibbs is probably only half right. Yes, well-heeled interest groups are helping to organize the town hall mobs. Key organizers include two Astroturf (fake grass-roots) organizations: FreedomWorks, run by the former House majority leader Dick Armey, and a new organization called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights.
The latter group, by the way, is run by Rick Scott, the former head of Columbia/HCA, a for-profit hospital chain. Mr. Scott was forced out of that job amid a fraud investigation; the company eventually pleaded guilty to charges of overbilling state and federal health plans, paying $1.7 billion — yes, that’s “billion” — in fines. You can’t make this stuff up.
These people have a vested interest in health care reform failing.
But while the organizers are as crass as they come, I haven’t seen any evidence that the people disrupting those town halls are Florida-style rent-a-mobs. For the most part, the protesters appear to be genuinely angry. The question is, what are they angry about?
About creeping socialism, many say. Limbaugh and Beck have called Obama's programs Mazi; fat Limbaugh compared the symbols of Obama's program to the Nazi symbol. Beck has called Obama a racist who hates "white culture" -- without defining what white culture is, leaving it for yahoos to translate white culture to whatever they want.
No one of those right wing zealots point out that Medicare, Medicais, Social Security and unemployment insurance are government-run programs (as are subsidies and tax deductions for home mortgages).
Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they’re probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.
Fears are being stoked by demagogues.
That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don’t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s a substantial fraction.
Same mentality.
Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.
Not just working-calss whites have racial fears.
Many people hoped that last year’s election would mark the end of the “angry white voter” era in America. Indeed, voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate.
But right now Mr. Obama’s backers seem to lack all conviction, perhaps because the prosaic reality of his administration isn’t living up to their dreams of transformation. Meanwhile, the angry right is filled with a passionate intensity.
And if Mr. Obama can’t recapture some of the passion of 2008, can’t inspire his supporters to stand up and be heard, health care reform may well fail.
Sadly.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Apropos of post below
The writer mentions an interesting website: http://www.freerepublic.com
Their logo is simple and straightforward.
Today it has this beauty:
The enthusiasm of Palin faithful will not pale at past pork.
Just look at the crowd she drew to the April right-to-life dinner in Evansville. Watch the video of Republican National Chairman Michael Steele reduced to a warm-up act. Read the reactions afterward -- "Awesome!" "Amazing!" "Absolutely beautiful!" -- on the freerepublic.com Web site.
It is a doozy.Welcome to Free Republic!
Free Republic is the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!
Their logo is simple and straightforward.
Today it has this beauty:
-
Officers Run Background Check On Obama; Placed On Leave
Two DeKalb County police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an investigation revealed they ran a background check on President Barack Obama. A representative for the DeKalb County CEO’s office identified the officers as Ryan White and C.M. Route. Officials said Obama’s name was typed into a computer inside a DeKalb County police car on July 20 and ran through the National Crime Information Center. The secret service was immediately notified and contacted the DeKalb County Police Department. A representative said both officers have been with the department less than five years. A representative said one of...
Thursday, July 30, 2009
More beer
One more take on the Sargeant, the Professore and the President. Stanley Crouch is honet, smart, and blunt.
Nothing brings out more American madness than race and nothing is more available for exaggeration than the “plight” of black people, especially black men, most especially those now behind bars. They are the most authentic because real black men always run afoul of the law or are forced by poverty to murder, rape, and brutalize other black people when not selling them drugs. Authentic black men are not academic milquetoasts. They wake up angry, they go to bed angry, and they sleep in anger.
But if one listens to conservative race-baiters like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh — professionals who are loons on demand and for pay — one notices that they also live inside of shared toxic exaggerations. Or at least spout them. As they speak of Barack Obama’s supposed hatred of white people, the red seems to grow from their necks and rise under the skin on the backs of their heads until continuing to their faces which then take on the kind of purple white people call “wine stain.” I doubt a brew will calm them down. Nor will a pain killer.
This is a weird moment.
All three beer drinkers have Irish blood in their ancestry.
This moment of ethnic trivia made molten by our media but also unavoidably high profile by Obama’s choosing to answer an inappropriate question about the arrest at the end of a press conference on health care! His choice showed the President to be far more vulnerable to lack of discipline than at nearly any moment during his long, long march to election.
The public confessions of “me and my gal on the side” made by Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign have pulled us closer to a formerly secret Washington, D.C., prayer group on C Street. The Christian group is called, like Charles Manson’s followers, The Family. It has an ominous philosophy that transcends morality with a small first letter in favor of a heavenly Morality out of which God chooses men for the execution of power rather than to act by the standards used to assess men with lesser positions of authority. According to Malcolm X in his Autobiography, this was the explanation Elijah Muhammad gave him to explain having impregnated a few of his young secretaries. As it was once said in the streets, “Either it is what it is, or it ain’t what it ain’t.”
Sgt. Crowley will have been happy every second that he was there. Arresting a Negro doesn’t always get you to the White House.
Both Sanford and Ensign pray—or some would say prey—with those men who gather on C Street. They have been counseled by the group in matters of the spirit and the booty—I mean the body.
Ishmael Reed’s extended diatribe in Counter Punch lays out all of the black complaints most often made about Gates behind his back. Like most academics, the black ones are distinguished more by their cowardice than any dedication to intellectual rigor. Gates has long been under attack for being trendish, for selling out to feminists, to homosexual liberation, and to whatever point of view comes up if aligning himself with it will guarantee his further success. A disreputable brother, mostly because he makes so much goddamn money and is on television more than his mediocre colleagues.
Where Reed’s logic veers into ethnic solidarity rather than substantial ideas or opinions is very obvious, but his charges are much more common than those reading about the Gates arrest would assume because he is so often referred to as “America’s top black intellectual.” Reed correctly asks just who might be the most prominent white intellectual. Hmm. No answer. Silent night.
Now, there we go, a very good point. Who is the smartest white guy? George Will? By Yahweh, no!
Nothing brings out more American madness than race and nothing is more available for exaggeration than the “plight” of black people, especially black men, most especially those now behind bars. They are the most authentic because real black men always run afoul of the law or are forced by poverty to murder, rape, and brutalize other black people when not selling them drugs. Authentic black men are not academic milquetoasts. They wake up angry, they go to bed angry, and they sleep in anger.
But if one listens to conservative race-baiters like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh — professionals who are loons on demand and for pay — one notices that they also live inside of shared toxic exaggerations. Or at least spout them. As they speak of Barack Obama’s supposed hatred of white people, the red seems to grow from their necks and rise under the skin on the backs of their heads until continuing to their faces which then take on the kind of purple white people call “wine stain.” I doubt a brew will calm them down. Nor will a pain killer.
This is a weird moment.
All three beer drinkers have Irish blood in their ancestry.
This moment of ethnic trivia made molten by our media but also unavoidably high profile by Obama’s choosing to answer an inappropriate question about the arrest at the end of a press conference on health care! His choice showed the President to be far more vulnerable to lack of discipline than at nearly any moment during his long, long march to election.
The public confessions of “me and my gal on the side” made by Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign have pulled us closer to a formerly secret Washington, D.C., prayer group on C Street. The Christian group is called, like Charles Manson’s followers, The Family. It has an ominous philosophy that transcends morality with a small first letter in favor of a heavenly Morality out of which God chooses men for the execution of power rather than to act by the standards used to assess men with lesser positions of authority. According to Malcolm X in his Autobiography, this was the explanation Elijah Muhammad gave him to explain having impregnated a few of his young secretaries. As it was once said in the streets, “Either it is what it is, or it ain’t what it ain’t.”
Sgt. Crowley will have been happy every second that he was there. Arresting a Negro doesn’t always get you to the White House.
Both Sanford and Ensign pray—or some would say prey—with those men who gather on C Street. They have been counseled by the group in matters of the spirit and the booty—I mean the body.
Ishmael Reed’s extended diatribe in Counter Punch lays out all of the black complaints most often made about Gates behind his back. Like most academics, the black ones are distinguished more by their cowardice than any dedication to intellectual rigor. Gates has long been under attack for being trendish, for selling out to feminists, to homosexual liberation, and to whatever point of view comes up if aligning himself with it will guarantee his further success. A disreputable brother, mostly because he makes so much goddamn money and is on television more than his mediocre colleagues.
Where Reed’s logic veers into ethnic solidarity rather than substantial ideas or opinions is very obvious, but his charges are much more common than those reading about the Gates arrest would assume because he is so often referred to as “America’s top black intellectual.” Reed correctly asks just who might be the most prominent white intellectual. Hmm. No answer. Silent night.
Now, there we go, a very good point. Who is the smartest white guy? George Will? By Yahweh, no!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)