by noting that he was a tax-raising debt-exploding terrorist-arming amnesty-giving race-baiting homophobia-indulging liar.
Forever and ever, amen.
Category: Politics Page 3 of 73
Alex Parnee starts it off:
[ . . . ] 28 years later, it’s hard to imagine even a deeply Republican Congress opposing a holiday dedicated to Dr. King — in part because some contemporary conservatives like to pretend the civil rights activist was or would be a Republican, but mostly because conservatives have spent years pretending to be a persecuted minority group.
That’s why something like Sarah Palin claiming to be a victim of “blood libel” doesn’t raise an eyebrow among the true believers. It’s the myth that keeps the checks rolling in for most right-wingers. The liberals are all-powerful and they oppress us.
It’s become a core part of the Republican/conservative identity, it seems, to claim to be a horribly oppressed group (that just happens to have the upper hand in most of society’s levers). Â I’ve got zero patience for this bullshit, and I urge others to adopt the same stance. Â Aren’t these the same people always going on about civility and the importance of responsibility? Â Well, if that’s so important, why can’t they be honest about the actual state of things?
*And truly, I mean that in the most offensive way possible. Â Pat Buchanan, feeling like he’s got a lynch mob after him? Â Seriously, Pat, go to hell.
Still not much useful to say about the sad events of this past weekend. Â My one venture into it (elsewhere) has been to argue that we just don’t know enough about the shooter to start ascribing causes. Â While much of this country appears not to recognize any line between crazy and political, I’m still willing to draw one. Â But the larger conversation has already started about violent political rhetoric, and I’m seeing far too much of this “both sides need to tone it down” approach.
Bullshit.
Violent political rhetoric comes overwhelmingly from the right in America these days, and it’s echoed well up into the Republican ranks. Â While I’m certain you can find instances of calls for violence on the left, you’ll be digging in website comments for it or pointing to some kid at a World Bank protest. Â Paul Krugman explains the difference:
And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.
Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous†without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.
And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.
The Republican party likes to harp on about responsibility. Â It should familiarize itself with the concept and actually take some. Â Not that I expect it will happen. Â Instead of behaving like adults who have a stake in society, we’re just going to get more whining attempts at turning themselves into victims. Â It’s what they do.
TechDirt notes that the House is willing to bring back the Judiciary Committee’s IP Subcommittee – which was closed two years ago – Â now that a Hollywood-friendly Representative will be chairing it:
[N]ow that the Republicans have retaken control over the House, and after [Virginia Rep.] Rick Boucher lost his re-election campaign, suddenly, magically, the Judiciary Committee has decided to bring the IP subcommittee back to life.
Why? Â Well, Rick Boucher has been one of the very few voices in Congress representing the public’s interest in reforming our ridiculous copyright laws, and most of Congress couldn’t be bothered to do anything besides nod in agreement while taking checks from the MPAA and RIAA. Â They simply didn’t want to jeopardize such an easy flow of money:
The timing of all this makes the reasoning pretty clear. The IP subcommittee was around for ages, when it was under the control of those who represented the industry. When a reformer is finally in position to be put in charge, the subcommittee is killed and its duties are handed over to the larger committee (controlled by someone who represents the industry). Then, as soon as the reformer is out, the subcommittee comes back? Congress at it’s most shameful: a pretty clear indication that Congressional decisions on intellectual property are driven by the industry. This is how regulatory capture works.
Neither the Republican nor Democratic Party can be trusted to represent the public on IP matters. But coming together in service of Hollywood and the BigPharma? That’s bipartisanship they can believe in.
The vegetables are coming, my friends. Green, gassy, fibrous vegetables. They aren’t buttered. Or salted. And this time, they mean business.
Last week, flush with his victory in a lawsuit challenging the president’s health care initiative, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced gravely that “if we cross this line with health care now—this unconstitutional line—where the government can force us to buy a private product and say it’s for our own good, then we’ll have given the government the power to force us to buy other products: cars, gym memberships, asparagus. The list goes on.” Broccoli? Belgian endive? The list indeed goes on.
And it’s not just crazy Ken Cuccinelli being crazy Ken Cuccinelli, you know. Â Dahlia Lithwick goes on, illustrating the fear spreading across the entire conservative spectrum:
Using the same logic, columnist George Will conjured the dread specter of the state brandishing broccoli when he wrote at the start of this month that if congressional power to regulate interstate commerce “is infinitely elastic, Congress can do anything—eat your broccoli, or else—and America no longer has a limited government.” Don’t think there’s anything that sinister about broccoli, friends? Think again. That broccoli is just a front for the New World Order.
Think about it. If the asparagus and broccoli are really coming to knock down our doors and kidnap our children, can helicopters loaded with cauliflower really be that far behind? And what of the eggplant in night-vision goggles? If we’re soon to be governed by a totalitarian taxonomy of toxic greens, who—one wonders—will sound the warning against the tyrannical field peas?
I, for one, welcome our fresh green overlords.
Ten years ago, I was sitting in the Worldport Terminal at JFK, on my way home. Â I’d just picked up some Burger King french fries, waiting for a connecting flight back to DCA, while I watched the news. Â And it was there that I heard the result of Bush v. Gore. Â I can still tell you exactly where I was sitting. Â And then I saw the opinion read out on the television. Â And I was shocked.
Stupified. Â Confounded. Â Stunned.
The five justices in the majority helped complete my legal education in a way that I – at the time – truly didn’t think was possible.
The idealism of youth, I suppose. Â Or something like that.
To review, the majority applied a principle that they’d never cared about in a way that they’d never done before to a specific set of circumstances they said should never be considered in the future.
~
I have very little interest in talking about Bush v. Gore. Â There’s nothing to say about it, from a legal standpoint. Â Sure, it’s a little useful as a basic honesty test, but those that defend it almost always reveal themselves as charlatans well before you ever get to the case itself. Â But I do hope that it’s taken as a lesson by new generations.
So long as the Republican party that produced the 5-4 result exists, it’s important that everyone involved in politics understands what happened.
To hell with them (and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin).
Adam Serwer (correctly) calls bullshit:
The $900 billion deal to extend all of the Bush tax cuts represents a substantial retreat for the president on a major campaign promise, a major victory for the Republican Party, and, let’s face it, complete obliteration of the notion that the deficit matters politically as anything other than a blunt instrument to wield against the welfare state. The deficit is an absolute emergency when it comes to making sure all Americans have health care, but an afterthought when it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
Updated: Of course he is. I have now concluded my obvious-answers-to-obvious-questions exercise.
In all honesty, the Wikileaks event has turned me into a net consumer of media in the past week. I’ve got a lot to say (shocker), but I keep wanting more of it before I’m certain about what I want to say. I’m a longtime resident of the Transparency Camp, and this doc dump tests a lot of the principles required for residency.
But then we get to a day like today, and I’m glad that I’ve mostly shut up. Between idiocy like this and this and this? I might permanently sink my chances of being welcome in polite society.