Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? – William O. Douglas
There are a few talking points at the crest of the current political cycle. So many of them are worthy of jaw dropping or eye rolling. Christine O’Donnell’s and GOP Senate candidate in Colorado Ken Buck’s ignorance about the 1st amendment and its history of interpretation that goes back to 1801. Wisconsin Republican senatorial candidate Ron Johnson thinks not being familiar with the constitution is grist for comedy, but swears he’ll get the United States of America back on Constitutional track if elected. That ignorance of the legal foundation of our democracy is certainly awful and dangerous, but it rises the kinds of issues which are easy to see and easy to debunk. Maybe because this careless attitude about what the Constitution is so obvious, it has distracted attention away from one of the Right’s worse hypocrisies. Johnson is claiming his business experience gives him the knowledge to create jobs. Mega-Medicare fraudster down in Florida is making the same claim. They and other conservatives are certainly talking about business, TARP and the Recovery Act(the stimulus). Yet they are also in denial about how far in the tank the economy would have been without those programs and that TARP was started at the urging of G.W. Bush and Hank Paulson. Then passed by a pretty much bi-partisan coalition of Republicans and Democrats. The newer than new conservatives are swearing they had nothing to do with the economy crashing. At the same time running yet again on anti-regulation platforms. Like audience members at a magic show we’re all supposed to believe these same conservative office seekers and their supporters have not been voting for anti-regulation far right Republican platforms for as long as they have been eligible to vote. In 2008 there was an earthquake which finally opened the cave door and they enter the political arena without the taint of responsibility for wrecking the economy. Which they now have the secret answers to fix. How are they going to fix the economy and keep the country from having another meltdown? By repealing as much of the modest financial reforms enacted by Obama and Democrats that provide some less than perfect safeguards, but are certainly better than no new protections for consumers, homeowners, small business and investors. In the sense this crop of conservatives cannot see the connections between their policies and those of conservatives in 2000 or 2004, they and voters who support them are not the three-cornered hat revolutionaries they would have us believe. They are more the loyalists who want to return to the glory days of King George.The crony capitalism that runs on bald tires and a promise trust me are the dreams of conservatives, past and future. If we’d all just leave them alone to do their thing will work out. We tried that. It gave us the Reagan recession and the collapse of the savings and loans and the Bush Recession. Through some awesome powers of denial – worthy of a comic book super villain Captain Denial – we inch ahead a few steps and Republicans regather their super powers of denial and drive us full speed in reverse to try again. Enough of the American people seem to enjoy the pain enough to give conservatives, who either stole or pissed away trillions of the nation’s wealth, a second chance they would not give a guy that once stole a melon from a corner market. It is a spectacle that would be awesome to behold if so many lives were not trashed in the process. Former half term governor Sarah Palin gives the perfect example:
“Obama points backwards and blames everyone else, and yet he has perpetuated the problem in these last two years,” Palin said.
Palin laying out the ground rules for blame, responsibility and looking back as she endorses a John Raese. A guy who once said he earned his money the old fashioned way, he inherit it. The same Palin that used her elected office to carry out a grudge match against a former in-law. Imagine someone stole your car or your identity. Some months go by. Are you now responsible for all the wrecks the car thief got into or all the bills the identity thief rung up. Of course not, and Palin, along with her fellow tea baggers would never make that claim. They are pleased as responsibility avoiding brats to avoid responsibility for their part in enabling of the Bush recession. Obama will never be responsible for the Bush recession. The economy Bush and a Congress completely controlled by Republicans for six years will always be responsible. Just as any thief who stole something from you will always be responsible for that theft. We are living in, paying for and will be paying for the conservative Republican recession for at least a generation. It took until the end of Clinton’s second term to pay for all the bills Ronald Reagan piled up. If Republicans are so great at creating jobs were they holding back or keeping that special knowledge a secret for eight years. Remember they told us the Bush tax cuts would create an economic paradise for generations.
“It’s working! It’s working. The economy is strong and getting stronger,” said Bush on the campaign trail this year, amid chants of “Four more years.” (August 2004)
Republcans have worse record of job creation
We ‘re not witnessing any rat cages attached to people’s faces but otherwise we are living in the doublespeak world of 1984. The same sound bites are repeating over and over which helps propel the denial that the calamitous approach to governing which we all just experienced a couple of years ago will work with a minor tweak here or there. Just elect a Nevada weirdo who thinks the government should force rape victims to carry pregnancies produced from that rape, just elect one of the biggest thieves in American history for governor of Florida or a Wisconsin business man who will defend known child molesters against victims. What is important is these people are against the financial reform package passed primarily by Democrats.
Most of us are probably looking forward to the end of this election cycle because we’re burned out on the political ads regardless of party. I don’t think my region is the exception in having more political ads than ever. Television advertising is expensive and as bad as most of the ads are – repeated incessantly – they do have an effect. Where is the money coming from. Florida Woman Buying Elections in the Northeast
New York and New Hampshire residents probably think they’ve never heard of Parker Collier, but in reality, they see her almost every time they turn on the TV. An investigation by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has revealed that Ms. Collier (who lives in Naples, Florida) is the primary donor to a group called “Revere America,” which is spending almost $2.3 million on ads in the two states. The group’s chairman is former New York Governor George Pataki, whose former political strategist Art Finkelstein has been deeply involved in the campaigns of candidates supported by the Colliers, including that of former Republican Senate candidate Bill Binnie during the primary this year.
“It’s unlikely residents in either state have any idea a wealthy Florida resident is trying to impact their votes,” said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. “If Ms. Collier doesn’t like a candidate, let her come out and say it. Creating and hiding behind this shady group is an affront to our democracy, and an insult to voters. Yet thanks to the Supreme Court and the disastrous Citizens United decision, this is the world we live in.
That makes two conservative legacies we’ll be living with – and not for the better – for years, Citizens United and the Republican Recession.
Not to be mean, but if Sarah Palin doesn’t represent the triumph of the dumb and lazy, then I don’t know what does. Her latest tweet:
Happy B’Day Ahmadinejad wish sent by US Govt. Mind boggling foreign policy: kowtow & coddle enemies; snub allies. Obama Doctrine is nonsense
The birthday wish to Ahmadinejad that got her angry? These tweets from a State Department spokesperson:
Happy birthday President Ahmadinejad. Celebrate by sending Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer home. What a gift that would be…. Your 54th year was full of lost opportunities. Hope in your 55th year you will open Iran to a different relationship with the world.
She couldn’t even read past the first sentence, providing yet more evidence that Sarah Palin should stick to analyzing the Bush Doctrine.
I disagree with that blogger’s take on Palin. I think she read the entire thing, and based on her best mental efforts at understanding what President Obama said, gave what she really felt was a thoughtful reply. Based on this display of reading comprehension, who wants to give her the authority to launch a nuclear attack.
Decadent governments often spawn a decadent citizenry. A 22-year-old Nebraska resident was arrested yesterday for waterboarding his girlfriend as she was tied to a couch, because he wanted to know if she was cheating on him with another man; I wonder where he learned that? There are less dramatic though no less nauseating examples of this dynamic. In The Chicago Tribune today, there is an Op-Ed from Jonah Goldberg — the supreme, living embodiment of a cowardly war cheerleader — headlined: “Why is Assange still alive?” It begins this way:
I’d like to ask a simple question: Why isn’t Julian Assange dead? . . . WikiLeaks is easily among the most significant and well-publicized breaches of American national security since the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the bomb. . . .
So again, I ask: Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?
It’s a serious question.
He ultimately concludes that “it wouldn’t do any good to kill him, given the nature of the Web” — whatever that means — and reluctantly acknowledges: “That’s fine. And it’s the law. I don’t expect the U.S. government to kill Assange, but I do expect them to try to stop him.” What he wants the Government to do to “stop” Assange is left unsaid — tough-guy neocons love to beat their chest and demand action without having the courage to specify what they mean — but his question (“Why isn’t Julian Assange dead?”) was published in multiple newspapers around the country today.
Joining the hacktacular Goldberg in singing the praises of murder and world dictatorish powers were former Bush speech writer and torture fan Marc Thiessen and former Bush State Department official Christian Whiton. The worse violence any of these right-wing tough guy wannabees have ever faced is a food fight in a high school cafeteria.
The Long Goodbye 