The GOP Now Stands for Nothing

According to the Dallas Morning News anyway.

What does it mean to be a Republican?

For generations, the answer had been clear: A belief in individual liberty. Free markets. Strong national defense.

But what does it mean to be a Republican today? With Donald Trump as the party's new standard-bearer, it's impossible to say.

Yes, the Republicans are on their way to losing Texas. Not this year, but soon they will start presidential elections without the electoral votes of NY, California, Florida and Texas. 

Brownback For President?

Probably not anymore.

Brownback, a former U.S. senator who briefly sought the presidency in 2007, isn’t ruling out another run for the White House.

Since he left the nation’s capital to become Kansas’ 46th governor in 2011, Brownback has gone largely unnoticed by the national media. His quiet yet ambitious work in Kansas has proceeded without major controversies of the sort that have helped define Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who fought a pitched battle with public-sector unions, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was a magnet for viral controversies even before the recent allegations of misconduct surrounding the closure of George Washington Bridge lanes.

Just bankrupting the state of Kansas wasn't enough. 

A federal grand jury is looking into loans made to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's re-election campaign and has ordered the state's ethics chief to testify next week as part of its investigation, according to a subpoena obtained by The Associated Press.

It's cold here in northern NY and Andrew Cuomo is a dick, but at least I don't live among a bunch of right-wing loons who would knowingly send this guy back to the governor's mansion. It was already apparent before the election that following Laffernomics was leading the state to bankruptcy. The only person in this country whose opinion might be less valuable than Laffer's is William Kristol. 

Kansas Democrats, if you exist, run an out and out populist next time. What have you got to lose?

Random Thoughts on the Election

I'll start with this from Salon. Otherwise, I may just come back and add to this post.

On MSNBC, Chris Hayes argued that Democratic candidates erred in running away from Obama. So did an indignant Al Sharpton and even Republican Joe Scarborough. Many liberal pundits had urged Democrats to stand by their man. Paul Krugman recently called Obama “one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history.”

My feelings exactly. I sent a message to my candidate, Aaron Woolf, telling him not to run away from ACA after he told a reporter he wouldn't give a hypothetical answer to whether he'd have voted yes on it. I told him the answer I 'd have liked to see was, "I would have voted yes on it. If I'd been in the Congress way back, I'd have voted yes on Social Security and Medicare, too. And you know what, Republicans are still trying to get rid of all three."

This was in the news today:

(T)he country churned out 214,000 net new jobs last month.

That kept alive a nine-month streak over the 200,000 benchmark, and a record 56 months straight of growth in the US jobs market.

"With today's report, the unemployment rate is falling as fast as at any point in the last thirty years, and the economy is on pace for its best year of job growth since the late 1990s," said Jason Furman, Obama's top economic advisor.

The data suggested even more strength than that: the numbers for the previous two months were revised upward, and showed that the economy is smoothly absorbing more entrants and returnees into the jobs market.

And yes, the article did say that wage gains were not what they could be. But, as much as I think Matt Funiciello is an arrogant jerk bastard, it would be nice to see a Dem or two with the same spirit. It wouldn't surprise me if the Dems in the district actually do give him a veto on their candidate in 2016.Here's a little something for his supporters:


Obama’s failings are those of a generation of Democrats whose flaw is not how they campaign but how they govern. The only problem with their ‘message’ is that they often don’t mean it. They’re no more apt to change than the donors and consultants who hold their reigns are apt to let them. Since they’re too afraid to emancipate themselves others will have to do it for them, if necessary by primary.

Those possible ‘others’ are mighty disaffected. Do they still think the Democratic Party worth the time and effort that it takes to write a new agenda, build a new movement and challenge old leadership? I don’t know that they do. I only know that I’ve spent my life in that party and that nothing short of its utter transformation can save it now.

Also from Salon (yes, I use this blog to bookmark shit):

Amid this week’s disastrous Democratic drubbing, Connecticut emerged as one of the few bright spots for Democrats. Facing a formidable challenge from wealthy investor Tom Foley, whom he defeated by less than one percentage point in 2010, Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy secured another term, fending off Foley 51 to 48 percent. For Democrats seeking a way forward after Tuesday’s rout, Malloy’s victory is instructive: when Democrats build a record of progressive achievements — and run campaigns based on that record — they can win.

Running against a multimillionaire opponent who paid only $673 in federal taxes in 2013, Malloy naturally lobbed plenty of populist rhetorical barbs at Foley. But Malloy also boasted something many Democrats who lost Tuesday night did not — an actual track record of economic populist accomplishments. Malloy could point to specific policies he’d signed into law — most notably, mandatory paid sick leave and the nation’s first-ever state-level minimum wage increase to $10.10 an hour — that benefited Connecticut families but would be jeopardized if Foley, who opposed those policies, won the governorship.

My italics, also something for Funiciello supporters, point the bullshit that there's no difference between Dems and Reps. Matt would be attacking Malloy for not getting them $15 an hour.


“The core economic issues – such as the minimum wage increase and paid sick days – really drew a contrast between Malloy and Foley, partly because they are issues that really resonate with everybody,” Farrell said. “Everybody has a sense that everybody who works should be paid a decent wage and people who get sick shouldn’t have to choose between their health and losing their job or losing their pay.”

But, Farrell noted, Malloy signed both paid sick leave and the minimum wage increase into law despite encountering opposition among more moderate Democrats in the state legislature, particularly on the former.

“When we passed paid sick days, when we passed the minimum wage increase, it wasn’t easy,” she said. “We had a lot of opposition from more moderate Democrats. In Connecticut, there are strong Democratic majorities in both chambers, but you get a lot of opposition from moderate, corporate Democrats. So if they had won the day on those issues, we’d probably be preparing for Gov. Foley right now, because Malloy would have been without these strong economic justice issues to run a campaign on.”

Yes, there are ball-less Dems in Connecticut. The moral here is to be more progressive. Change has to come to the Democratic Party, though. Unless you believe in magic.

Well, do ya? Then vote Green!

Bubble Boys

The Romney campaign seems to be illustrating the dangers of believing your own propagandists.

It may just be that (Romney) and those around him don’t grasp how the politics of foreign policy have changed in the Obama era – that the rhetoric Republicans routinely deployed against Democrats for the last decade doesn’t resonate anymore. There’s also the profound disconnect between the Obama caricature that the right has embraced – a weak, constantly vacillating leader who travels the world apologizing to other countries on America’s behalf – and the leader that the rest of the country sees. As Jonathan Chait theorized on Wednesday:

The miscalculation at work here is that Romney believed his “Apology Tour” method would neatly fit the events at hand — take an event that sort of vaguely resembled an Obama apology to Muslims who don’t like us, twist it around, and call it a day. But Romney had grown accustomed to spinning fantasies cobbled together from months-old Obama speeches and nurtured into legend by extensive repetition and exaggeration in the conservative subculture. What he failed to realize from the outset was that the embassy attack was an immediate, high-profile event that he could not hope to rewrite so brazenly.

Keep listening to Rush there Willard.

What if Ayman al-Zawahiri and other al-Qaida leaders gave up Osama Bin Laden for the express purpose of making Obama look good? Giving Obama stature, political capital. Obama got Osama! I mean really, do you think al-Qaida depends on Osama Bin Laden any more, like it did?… So they give him him, they give away his location. We go in, SEAL Team 6, Obama puffs up… Keep him in power, furthers the cause… Do you think the militant Islamists will be as hopeful of getting rid of Israel with a Republican president or with a Democrat president? Just throwing it out there.

The Republicans need to be beaten so badly that they come to their senses. It would be great to live in a country with two sane political parties.

Bloomberg Refudiates Palin

In a welcome display of Republican sanity, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has told Sarah Palin to piss off.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg "could not disagree more" with Sarah Palin's criticisms of the Ground Zero mosque, he said Monday.

Bloomberg said the $100 million mosque and community center is " a great message for the world that, unlike in other places where they might actually ban people from wearing burquas or building a building, that's not what America was founded on nor is it what America should become."

It’s alright Sarah, even Shakespeare in his prime had detractors. If those slings and arrows ever bug you and you’re wondering whether to be or not to be, please come down on the side of the latter.

Mark Williams chimed in with bits of insanity which can only be interpreted as attempts to make Palin look reasonable.

In other Ground Zero mosque news, Mark Williams, a Tea Party leader who called Borough President Stringer a "Jewish Uncle Tom" for supporting the project, has been kicked out of the National Tea Party Federation for making separate racially charged comments.

The Tea Party Federation also booted Williams’ Tea Party Express group after Williams wrote a mock letter from "the Colored People" to President Lincoln saying emancipation was a mistake.

Williams wrote an anti-mosque blog post in May saying that Muslims worship a "monkey god."

More Bloombergs, Fewer Palins!

Happy 4th to the Left from Johnny Pod

No, I’m just kidding! BTW,  the column is called “Patriotic Opposition.” Just trying to remember if John would have called any dissent against George Bush, “patriotic opposition.”

How are those of us who stand in opposition to the domestic agenda and foreign-policy views of President Obama and his administration to think about this country in 2010 as we approach the nation's birthday on Sunday?

Or, to put it another way: How should a self-described patriot think, act and talk about the United States if that self-described patriot believes the elected leadership of the United States has led the country into a ditch that threatens to expand into a bottomless chasm?

You could just STFU. I believe that was the message to all who disagreed with the marvelous adventure in Mesopotamia.

Does the fault lie with the president and his party, or does it reside in the electorate that installed them? If it resides in the electorate, what does that say about the condition of the United States?

The third option, of course, is that it lies within you and the other idiots whom the GOP has yet to see fit to send to a desert island somewhere.

Conveniently, this kind of focus on Obama personally exempts the rest of the country from any blame, except for being so foolish as to fall for Obama's patter: The fault lies not in ourselves but in our leaders.

But for those who are unsatisfied with this, the blame attaches not to Obama himself -- after all, he really did tell us what he intended to do, by telling Joe the Plumber he wanted to redistribute wealth.

Rather, the blame attaches to the electorate for its foolishness in believing the hype, or for falling for the siren song of the European social democracy that Obama is eager to impose. So the root question here is: Have the American people changed?

So, we the American people are to blame for Obama? Even if his premise is correct and we are suffering buyer’s remorse, he never mentions John McCain in this column. Obama wasn’t elected in a vacuum. Maybe Pod thinks we should have all written in Joe the Plumber.

The body politic is not panicking, even though the news is dire -- because it knows, somehow, that this too shall pass. America has faced worse times and weathered them. Even within our memory, it has had other leaders who also misunderstood their mandates and offered solutions to the nation's problems that only exacerbated them.

The body politic learns from its mistakes and uses its power to correct them. Taken as a whole, this bunch of rubes and dupes and boobs shows a remarkably commonsensical approach to these things by saying, in essence:

Nothing is irreversible. Change is possible.

Once again, this requires that the right actually put up a candidate that a majority of the United States citizenry will vote for. Don’t see that right now.

Thank You, Mr. President

The Tea Party folks aren’t going to do it, so I will. Thank you Barack Obama for cutting my taxes. I could afford to pay more, but who really wants to if they don’t have to. The Tea Party folks think they are paying more, but they are quite possibly cretin idiots.

"In all, we passed 25 different tax cuts last year. And one thing we haven't done is raise income taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year -- another promise that we kept," he told supporters at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. "So I've been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes. You would think they would be saying thank you."

The president argued that America is on the road to recovery and headed in the right direction -- something an overwhelming number of Tea Partiers disagree with.

The Tea Partiers don’t want to see us on the road to recovery. Fuck them and their willful ignorance.

Seeking a Fat, Boring, Albino Adulterer

The Republican Party having decided they hate everything about Barack Obama has gone in search of his antithesis.

Southern Republicans wrapped up a three-day meeting in New Orleans on Saturday unified in fervent opposition to President Barack Obama, but wide open at this early stage about whom they want to challenge him in 2012.

They have yet to find a candidate who combines all the qualities they feel will be needed to successfully challenge his Obamaship in 2012.

But they also readily volunteered objections to the same names: Gingrich has personal baggage, Palin's too inexperienced, Romney pushed Obama-like health care while governor of Massachusetts and Pawlenty lacks charisma.

If only they could find someone who combines the serial adultery of Gingrich with the tedium of Pawlenty and the pasty whiteness of Romney along with that deer in the headlights vacuousness of Sarah Palin.

I’m going to go out on a limb and give a big thumb up and Hometown boost to Haley Barbour. He’s white enough, he’s sleazy enough, he’s boring enough and with the endorsement of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s incredibly tone deaf proclamation: he’s proved he’s stupid enough to be the Republican nominee.

This is not Haley Barbour:

Accept no imitations!

 

And yes, carrying the concept out, I realize they would be looking for a fat, boring, albino, adulterous, woman since Obama is a man. But, this is not a serious blog. Please see LGM, Balloon Juice, Duck of Minerva or elsewhere for serious discussions. It’s seat of the pants all the way here.

Happy Days Are Here Again…

Well we can hope anyway. And it’s hard to write that as I sit looking at the rain come down. Recessions make us pessimistic and always doubtful that the end will come. And of course are particularly hard on those who are out of work. But, they do end.

The American economy appears to be in a cyclical recovery that is gaining strength. Firms have begun to hire and consumer spending seems to be accelerating.

That is what usually happens after particularly sharp recessions, so it is surprising that many commentators, whether economists or politicians, seem to doubt that such a thing could possibly be happening.

If I had the time to waste I’d go over to AmPow and see how the polymath from Long Beach College is applying his great knowledge of economics to this to determine that it is bad news for Obama.

it is normal for recessions to make people pessimistic. “Go back and read what people were saying in 1982 or 1975,” said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG. “Nobody was saying, ‘Deep recession, big recovery.’ It is quite normal to expect an abnormally weak recovery. It is also normal for that expectation to be wrong.”

I’m perfectly happy to hear the wingers keep saying we’re on the road to ruin. They can keep saying it right through the next few elections and look even more foolish.

In 1982, Democrats scoffed at a surging stock market and thought a severe recession would last for a very long time. They were confident that the economy would doom Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984. All they had to do was make clear they offered a stark alternative to the failing policies of the incumbent

Change a few words (Reagan to Obama, Democrats to Republicans, 1984 to 2012) and you have an accurate description of the current political climate. Could the Republicans be as wrong now as the Democrats were then?

That’s the secret, get the recession out of the way early in your presidency. Dubya fucked up. He had one early and one at the end.

But Can They See Russia From Their Porch?

President Hussein goes with the opinion of a couple of unseasoned rookies over the firsthand experience of a woman who has been on the front lines of the post-Cold War.

President Barack Obama on Thursday made clear he was not going to take advice from Republican Sarah Palin when it comes to decisions about the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

"What I would say to them is, is that if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are comfortable with it, I'm probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin."

Mmmm, authentic frontier gibberish!