...will he ever win?

Donklephant: Al Franken’s a senator now - but is he a bigger laugh than Burris?

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:16:37 +0000

It’s O-fficial. At least until it isn’t again.

Al Franken will be standing - in a puddle of some controversy - along with appointed Illinois would-be Senator Roland Burris at the gates of that exclusive DC institutional club filled with a mixture of brilliant public servants and besotted stiffs (sometimes in the same person.)

Which one will actually get in the Senate door and which one won’t? Members-only seating on the underground Capitol Hill railway and exclusive elevator use are at stake here.

Mr. Burris arrives with the fingerprints of felonious intent on his back from the Blagojevich hands that pushed him toward the seat. That’s like starting your first day at a new job just as your primary resume reference gets busted for lying. It doesn’t make you a bad guy, but why do it? Because you can get away with it?

I’ve never been part of the Rod Blagojevich lynch mob - he’s the most interesting political counterpoint going to the slightly slowing Barack Obama bandwagon. And how hilarious that the governor’s response to his indictment is to throw this messy curveball at all those people who want him removed? It’s in some territory beyond cynicism.

What about Roland Burris, though? What’s his motivation? Why go through such a festering birth canal to get to the US Senate? I’d think he’d have the taste of sulfur on his tongue for quite some time. It would make many strong points to show up as the only black sitting US Senator. But in our supposedly Obamian post-racial world, is that the reason to be associated with (allegedly) crooks?

On the other hand, Mr. Franken’s declared victory in the seemingly endless Minnesota senate battle has generated some cheering, for sure, but surprisingly little laughing or hilarity. And what a shame that is. We need the laughs now more than ever. What happened to the comedian who cracked us up as Stuart Smalley? Now is not the time, sir, to dispense with satire and goofy skits in the name of politics.

Some years ago I was at a dinner party in Los Angeles where the most committed of SoCal political liberals were weeping over the state of the world: George Bush was President. Fox News dominated the media. They felt they were living in Hell. In the room were people (Norman Lear, for instance) whose cultural sensibilities and creativity had touched millions of people over many years. So how, I asked them, could they miss the point, here? Any message is better heard by an audience that’s engaged. You’re not being very engaging. You just need to be funnier than you are right now… more entertaining than Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. Why let your opponents and their audiences have all the kicks while you’re trying to sell your programs?

Al Franken, purely coincidentally, came out as an active Democrat/comedian some time thereafter. I’m sure that was a relief to all those progressives whose laugh boxes had dried up. After all, he was that SNL guy who was now wrapping dogma in laughs. What a great way to get people’s attention.

Then he started getting serious. Not only serious but downright agitated. His speeches still got chuckles from audiences but he seemed to spend more and more time on an angry soapbox than he did with humorous riffs assaulting the other side. Gone was the scalpel; out came the bludgeon. He began to remind me a little of Lenny Bruce after his SF obscenity trial, when his stand-up performances were all about reading from the court transcripts that weren’t that funny, and about his own outrage, instead of being outrageously funny for his audience.

At a Commonwealth Club event I moderated a few years ago, Mr. Franken, otherwise very nice, cornered me beforehand and asked me to read a transcript of a Bill O’Reilly TV show to establish that O’Reilly was lying about something. In front of the audience, he pressed me to confirm that he was right and Bill O’Reilly wasn’t. Like that could never happen.

Now that you’re almost in, lighten up, Al. For your sake and ours. Make your colleagues laugh a little while you wrangle their support for your issues. If not, we can only hope that Senator Burris knows a joke or two.

For more, read Bronstein at Large.

Crooks and Liars: Republican Policies Spread Results Worldwide

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:30 +0000

Remember when they explained to us we needed to have the Republicans in charge "because they're good with money"? Remember how excited the Villagers were about having a Harvard MBA president? Ah, good times!

The deep river of private money that helped knit together the global economy has abruptly dried up, new government figures show.

As the global financial crisis grew more severe this summer, foreigners sold almost $90 billion of U.S. securities — the greatest quarterly fire sale by overseas investors since the government began keeping track in 1960. U.S. investors also are retrenching; they unloaded about $85 billion worth of foreign holdings in the quarter, says the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

"We've had a global panic. Everyone is pulling their money home," says economist Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute in Washington, D.C.

That's bad for economic growth in the U.S. because it threatens to starve capital-hungry companies and entrepreneurs. But it's especially serious for emerging-market countries that rely heavily on outside financing. Capital flows into countries such as South Korea, Turkey and Brazil were evaporating even before the mid-September Lehman Bros. bankruptcy made things worse.

The reversal of private capital flows signals an abrupt end to a nearly two-decades-long era of financial globalization, says economist Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations. Private flows into and out of the U.S. for purchases of stocks, corporate bonds and federal agency bonds have dropped from around 18% of economic output to near zero "in a remarkably short period of time," Setser says.

Sadly, No!: Shorter John Hawkins

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:13:51 +0000

Above: Juggs Magazine subscriber since 1994.

The 7th Annual “20 Most Annoying Liberals of 2008″

Annoying jackass, muslim, hypocrite, fag [LOOK AT THOSE TITTIES], gay homo fag, loudmouth dyke moonbat, fag-loving negro, [MORE TITS] godless commie, fag [BODACIOUS TATAS], fag shitter, bitchslutwhore, [NICE RACK] ginormous homotron robofag monster.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Open Left: New Yorkers Saying No to Aristocracy As Sole Qualifier In a Democracy

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:04:10 +0000

As billionaire Republican Michael Bloomberg dispatches his thuggish aides to presumptuously berate Democratic Gov. David Paterson for daring to consider appointing anyone other than Caroline Kennedy to the New York Senate seat, a new poll shows New Yorkers are incredibly uncomfortable with the idea:

44% of the state's voters now say they have a lesser opinion of Kennedy than they did before she started vying for the position. 33% say it's made no difference, and 23% report now having a more favorable opinion of her. A plurality of Democrats, Republicans, and independents all say that her efforts have caused them to view her less favorably.
When it comes to whether they would prefer to see Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo appointed, 58% now prefer Cuomo to 27% for Kennedy. Cuomo is favored by 65% of Republicans, 59% of independents, and 54% of Democrats.

I know what you're thinking - Cuomo is a version of political aristocracy, right? Well, sure - but the point here is not that aristocracy is automatically horrible - it's not, and I never said it was. There are terrific leaders with ties to political aristocracy, from Ted Kennedy to Ned Lamont. The point here is that political aristocracy* ALONE should not be the sole or even most important determining factor in American politics - and most especially in appointments.
Kennedy has never run for office and hasn't strongly delineated her positions on most issues. The most we really know about her is that she campaigned for Barack Obama and is the daughter of John F. Kennedy. By contrast, you can say what you will about Cuomo, but the guy has run in statewide elections, and won one, meaning he has clearly elucidated many public positions on key issues, and has had experience representing constituents.

Of course, IMHO, aristocracy shouldn't be the sole or even most important determining factor in elections either, but as evidenced by the electoral success of do-nothings like Evan Bayh, clearly it is. But at least in that case, the citizenry makes the choice. That's democracy, baby - you live by it and you die by it.

That's different than an appointment - which is, by definition, undemocratic. I would argue that in appointments, governors should actually prioritize putting people in office who have very deep experience representing as many of the people they will be representing in the new office as possible. Why? Because in a democracy, it seems appropriate to try to limit autocracy (ie. representation without election) as much as possible - even in an undemocratic process like an appointment, where one person gets to select the representative of millions of people. In that case, the way to mitigate the inherently undemocratic nature of the situation is for a governor to at least try to put someone in office who constituents have a prior representational relationship with. After all, the U.S. Senate may be the House of Lords, but officially, senators are still supposed to be representatives, no?

This is why I - and many other Coloradoans - are so incensed about Gov. Bill Ritter's selection of Michael Bennet to replace Ken Salazar (and most of the criticism deserves to be directed not at Bennet, but at Ritter for making the inexplicable selection). Bennet has barely lived in state for a decade**, hasn't ever run for or won elected office, and has no record - or even public positions - on most key issues before the U.S. Senate. Indeed, at the press conference announcing his appointment, Bennet smugly shrugged off questions about where he stands on the issues - as if that's less important than the fact that he's already launched a 2010 election campaign website. Evidently, getting elected to a seat he was given by virtue of his connections to the Beltway Establishment and Colorado corporate community is more important than telling us how he will cast his Senate votes in our name.

If even one of these factors weren't undeniably true, there might be some shred of meritocratic legitimacy to the Bennet appointment, even in the face of other far more qualified candidates. But there isn't - and the problem with that is obvious. To be "represented" in the Senate by someone like this - regardless of how he ends up voting as a Senator (and I sure hope he casts progressive votes) - isn't to really be "represented" at all, because Coloradoans have not only had no say in that representation, we have no idea what we are really being represented BY.

The forces of money and power in New York are trying to replicate what their counterparts engineered here in Colorado. And I'm guessing that what this new poll really shows is that New Yorkers have caught onto the shenanigans and are disgusted. That's not a surprise. New Yorkers - like most Americans - probably don't like the idea of someone getting to represent them who has never represented anyone, and who would get the office almost solely on her last name. We may be a culture organized around celebrity, and at times that cultural organization seems intent on creating a quasi-royalty out of our congressional representatives, but perhaps there are limits to that kind of thing. Even as we celebritize the presidency and politicians, perhaps there are still certain lines that the mass public doesn't want crossed - the line separating hype-created quasi-royalty from actual, real hereditary royalty.

* Previously defined loosely as insider connections, ties to money/privilege, power derived from genetic lineage, etc

**By the way, I've only lived in state for about 2 years...but before you say its hypocrisy to question Bennet's tenure living here, remember: I'm not running for, or asking to be appointed to, the U.S. Senate to represent this state.

Crooks and Liars: Barack Obama highlights quick action and Oversight for his new stimulus package

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:02:40 +0000

Download | Play Download | Play The economy is very sick," Obama said before meeting with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. "The situation is getting worse. ... We have to act and act now to break the momentum of this recession." "The reason we are here today is because the people's business cannot wait," "Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment and the American dream slipping further and further out of reach... "This is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem at this stage. It is an American problem and we're going to all have to chip in and do what the American people expect." In Obama's "bi-partisan Congressional" presser today, he called the economy "sick" and stressed the need for accountability on how the money from his massive stimulus package will be spent. As we've seen with TARP, and with no real oversight in place, you can't trust CEO's to do the right thing. The AP contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings? What's the plan for the rest?None of the banks provided specific answers and most refused to explain why they are keeping the information secret. Obama is stepping into an economic situation that is eerily similar to FDR and he's hitting the right notes when he says transparency and accountability are a high priority for him. That is going to be paramount if his new economic package is going to move forward. In FDR's time, just the fact that "change" was happening in America that didn't have the name "Hoover" attached to it gave FDR a huge boost to his agenda and to the American psyche that helped him get through his first 100 days. Hope and change do matter to the American public and Obama is using it wisely so far. Obama is in a similar position to FDR, but what will Conservatives do? Will they try to block his policies that he wants to sign into law as soon as his first 100 days begin or will they become part of the solution? I think we know where Mitch McConnell's head will go. They want to appear to be relevant, but it was their control that has put us in this position to begin with. I hope Obama's love affair with bipartisanship will come to an end very soon. Not because I don't think it's a good idea to have both sides working together, but because Conservatives are incapable of doing just that. They do not want Obama to succeed because it will weaken their grip on American politics for years to come at the expense of average Americans just trying to get by. It's about ideology for them and not about the healing that our country is in desperate need of. I think Obama will soon feel their un-partisan wrath sooner rather than later and hopefully it will snap him out of any thought he had that he could work with Conservatives, no matter how "centrist" he goes. So here's the question. How fast will Obama get fed up with Conservative obstructionism? Will it be in his first 100 days or shortly after? I do know they filibuster Franken (who has just declared victory) and Holder as soon as Conservatives can. Will that be the beginning of the end to this bipartisan nightmare? If Conservatives did join in then at least Obama would be able to start healing the country, but don't expect any help from them.

Donklephant: CIA Director - Leon Panetta

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:27:27 +0000

In one of the more, forgive me, torturous staffing processes, it looks like Barack Obama has finally settled on the last major appointment he had left to make, that of CIA director. Given that the Bush administration has done so much long-term, institutional damage to our intelligence superstructure, basic tenets of human rights and the rule of law, and the really nearly impossible to overstate damage done to the very idea of America itself, and almost all of that has fallen under the scope of the CIA at one point or another, bloggers like Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Sullivan, and other leading voices in the fight for not buying into the false choice of security over freedom, have been keeping a very close, very wary eye on what Obama was going to do here.

Remember that Obama’s first floated choice for CIA Director, John Brennan, had to withdraw his name from consideration due to a mostly blogosphere-induced backlash against his previous advocacy of Bush positions on wiretapping, torture, and the like. While it remains unclear how complicit Brennan actually was in any of that (probably not very, in truth), those of us hoping for a clear indication of new direction were happy to see him go.

But that left Obama in a difficult bind. For CIA director, you kind of need somebody who has been working at a high level in the intelligence community. But, given that that would have been under Bush’s tenure, that also would be someone who almost certainly, on some level, had a hand in the aforementioned abuses.

Obama appears to have squared this circle by bypassing it entirely, nominating instead a man with not one iota of intelligence experience–former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta.

NBC News has confirmed that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA.

Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public.

Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California.

If you have to make a quick trip to wikipedia, I don’t blame you.

However, despite the fact that he has no intelligence background, I find myself a bit optimistic about his appointment.

For one, it indicates that Obama is very serious about changing direction–he was responsive to the Brennan criticism, and in response he has gone out of his way to choose an outsider. A way, way outsider. As Andrew Sullivan notes, Panetta is clearly “significantly, detached from the torture regime and its apparatus in a way that anyone involved in the CIA in the last eight years would not be.” And as Glenn Greenwald adds, “it does seem clear that the Obama team was serious about avoiding anyone who had any connection at all to the Bush torture, surveillance and detention programs.”

For another, Panetta does have some thoughts on the germane issues of the post. Atrios uncovers a March op-ed by Panetta (and here’s a related one in the Washington Monthly) in which he more or less unequivocally condemns torture, wiretapping, and in general using fear as a justification for legality. It’s a thin record, to be sure, but at least it’s in the right direction.

And finally, what I think is thus far being missed, is the decision to choose not a spook, but a manager for the post. Panetta’s history is that of a human resources guy, a liason problem-solver. To that end, the smartest early take I’ve read yet on his appointment comes from Marc Ambinder. Panetta is there to clean house and, like much of what Obama does, to provide competent, pragmatic, and not-particular-ideologically driven leadership. In other words, like Obama himself, the hope seems to be that Panetta is being appointed to be the adult in the room at Langley, with the considerable added benefit of not having any particular baggage or loyalties himself.

Since nobody knows much about Panetta (at least not of the bloggers I read) and this is an entirely new role for him, it remains to be seen if he’ll prove effective or not; we can really only make generalized guesses. But as somebody who’s been watching this one decision closely, I’m cautiously optimistic.

Crooks and Liars: Obama taps Leon Panetta for CIA Director

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:00:55 +0000

Download | Play Download | Play Today President-elect Obama threw the political world a curveball and chose former California Congressman Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Although Mr. Panetta brings with him little experience in intelligence affairs, the pick signals that Obama recognizes the dangers of politicizing the CIA like Bush has. Expect Panetta to play the role of "public face" while he allows the real intelligence experts to do their jobs. We should all welcome that after eight years of crap like this. MSNBC: Two Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA. Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public. Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California. He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war. We should probably also expect some unhappiness among the Village set.

Sadly, No!: lolz

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:41:30 +0000

I cannot stop laughing about this graphic:

RedState has officially passed over whatever glory years it ever had and has prematurely entered the “Smell the Glove” phase of its career. Brandon Friedman at VoteVets remarks:

Like many chickenhawks who struggle with what it means to be a man in the modern era, Erickson and the “soldiers” in his budding “Strike Force” have again tried to imitate serving in the military without actually having to don a uniform, pick up a weapon, or sacrifice much of anything at all. However, by creating this make-believe world in which RedState activists are members of a military-like “Strike Force,” they’re actually quite a lot like the ~~Dungeons and Dragons fans~~ LARPers in the video below pretending to be wizards, basilisks, and gorgons.

So not only has RedState designed a military unit crest, but they’ve now painted themselves as hopeless dorks, lunging clumsily for political relevance with a ham-handed attempt at jumpstarting a field organization.

I concur with this analysis, although I’d say it’s a bit unfair to the LARPers, who actually do get some form of real exercise running around in the woods and who do have some experience in weapons training, even if it’s only with foam swords and spell packets. Put it to you like this: you give me the choice of going into a fight with an average LARPer or Dan Riehl, you bet your ass I’m taking the LARPer.

[Thanks to whichever commenter pointed this out to me in the comments a while back.]

Open Left: New Year's Resolutions for Progressives, 2009

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:26:31 +0000

Drinking Liberally Shot of Truth

Last year, Rachel Maddow, Lee Camp and others offered their resolutions for 2008. Below are a round-up of this year's progressive goals from friends in progressive media, progressive organizing, and...well...just friends.

What are your resolutions? Here are a few of ours.

Fred Gooltz, Advomatic:
A few days ago I saw Holiday Inn which reminded me how it takes an audience's protest to move hate from the mainstream. This armchair activist resolves to make a point of telling friends and family exactly why I refuse to watch movies riddled with cheap bigot jokes. For homophobia to go the way of blackface minstrel routines, the actors and producers responsible for the homophobia need to hear that we think they are shameful embarrassments who spread hate for money.

John Javna, 50 Ways To Fight The Right:
Number one on my list is to reuse stuff more instead of buying new things. Finding ways to reuse household consumer goods, for example, saves me money and also cuts back on the production/packaging/ transport etc of stuff. Freecycle is a great site for this. Another approach is just finding ways to reuse items for other purposes, e.g. an old shoebox helps me organize my closet. For me, this will also include shopping more at consignment and second hand shops to update my wardrobe. I've gotten addicted to online shopping, so this is gonna be a good challenge.

Negin Farsad, Laughing Liberally/Nerdcore Rising:
Mentor a young woman! If your field is anything like mine - standup comedy, film & tv production - you're surrounded by a veritable and exhausting sausage fest. Only 15% of directors, producers and editors are women which seems downright medieval. The figure among professional standup comics is equally abysmal. So if you're a VIP in whatever field, mentor a young woman. Yes we can... shift those numbers!
Sam Seder, Air America Radio:
Never let your friends, family or neighbors forget that it was conservative "governance" that dug this massive hole our country finds itself in.

Seth D. Michaels, Coordinator, Working Families Vote 2008:
Eat less meat, and remember that being a consumer is a political act - whether you intend it to be or not - so be an aware shopper.

Buy from locally-owned stores. Not only does this shift income (slightly) lower on the income distribution, it also has the potential to be a huge stimulus, given that the owners of these stores are more likely to patronize other stores in your area--and if you go to a store like Fleet Feet, where Phil Fenty is going to spend his profits at other locally-owned stores, the multiplier is just huge. Also, get off Verizon. AT&T, or even better, CREDO, does not spend its energy attempting to destroy the American workforce. Verizon does.

Amanda Mittlestadt, The Liberal Card:
Become a card-carrying liberal. It'll give you a chance to show your liberal pride, help support Living Liberally, and support and sustain liberal businesses with the
liberal discounts you'll receive.

Matt Browner-Hamlin, SEIU:
The power of the liberal blogosphere is only as great as the willingness of bloggers, commenters, and readers to take action when called upon by our peers. When we work together, we can compel Congress to hear us. In my experience this is best done with direct phone calls and visits to the offices of our Congressional representatives. So here's my resolution: when I see the bloggers I read and trust make a call to action, asking me to pick up the phone, I'll do it. Not just on the issues I care the most about, but on the ones that you all care about. Solidarity means we can get more done and solidarity ensures that our movement can bring more change to our country every day. So I'll stand in solidarity with all of you in the New Year...I hope you'll join me.

Matt Filiopwicz, HeadzUp:
Make your local Democratic Party more liberal by showing up. Go to local meetings of the party and speak that sweet progressive mind of yours. Especially if you live in a conservative area. You can help steer your Democrats in the right direction. Which is the left direction.

Mike Connery, Future Majority:
The Obama Presidency - through wireside chats on YouTube, calls for ideas on Change.Gov, and house parties across the country - offers us the first real chance to be more than spectators in our democracy, grading politicians at the polls once every four years. My resolution is to take full advantage of these new opportunities - to contribute ideas when I have them, support Obama when he advances progressive causes, and raise a ruckus when I think he's making the wrong decisions.

Jamie Kilstein, Laughing Liberally:
- Not to become complacent after electing the cool black guy. Racism is not over. American imperialism is not over. We have a lot of work to do. There are corporate lobbyists working everyday to move Obama to the right. That is their job. If we are not there to counter, if we don't make countering our job, it doesn't matter how good a guy Obama is, we will lose.

Erin Hofteig, Media Matters For America:
Changing the world happens in small, personal steps and large institutional (or revolutionary) leaps. Something as small as bringing your own bags to the grocery store ensures less trees are cut down and less petroleum is needed to make new plastic bags. Not buying products manufactured in countries that use child labor, don't abide by environmental standards or health standards helps everyone. These small steps make a real difference. Support the organizations that are fighting for the values you hold dear. Take actions and let those in power know what you think, and give money. The flagging economy is going to make it extremely difficult for these groups to operate effectively and ten dollars from you will help them remain relevant. Most importantly, stay informed. The policy debates coming on energy, health care and other important issues are going to be twisted with half truths and spin. Only an informed and engaged electorate will give legislators the backing, or the push, they need to stand up against the special interests.

Josh Bolotsky:
I want to say the same thing I said last year.

Crooks and Liars: Norm Coleman Watch: It's time to pack it in...

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:00:47 +0000

It's time for Norm Coleman to move back to Brooklyn.

The Minnesota Supreme Court today rejected a bid by Republican Norm Coleman to have hundreds of rejected absentee ballots considered in the U.S. Senate recount, apparently clearing the way for a state board to certify election results showing Democrat Al Franken on top — and also opening the door to a post-recount lawsuit that the Coleman campaign said "is now inevitable."

The state Canvassing Board is scheduled to meet this afternoon to review recount results. Heading into the meeting, Franken holds an unofficial 225-vote lead.

We will then be able to witness the ritual of a "Bill O'Reilly head explosion" at every mention of Franken's name on his show.

Harry Reid called Coleman and told him to concede.

I believe that tomorrow the bipartisan state canvassing board will certify Al Franken the winner. After all, early on Senator Coleman criticized Al Franken for wanting a recount and wasting taxpayer money. I would hope now that it is clear he lost, that Senator Coleman follow his own advice and not subject the people of Minnesota to a costly legal battle.

I don't think it helps Reid's cause not to seat Burris at this time. Blags played everyone, even Fitz. Legally speaking, how can Reid block his appointment?

Conservatives try to paint themselves as the law-and-order folks. Yeah, it's a funny concept, I know, but at this point it's time for the Coleman camp to think about "America" and concede. Instead they are talking about filibustering the seating of Franken, so we're in for another round of Conservative whining.

Malkin writes a title to a post that could describe the Republicans in Congress since 1994: "A real clown takes a Senate seat". It's always a scream when Conservatives whine about the recount process. Oh, how they forget.

Donklephant: Bob Barr On Gay Marriage

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:29:37 +0000

“In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, “Decisions about marriage should be left to the states.” He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.”
- Bob Barr today arguing against the Defense of Marriage Act in an LA Times editorial

Open Left: Monday, Monday, Monday!

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:13:27 +0000

So, the day after I break my left arm, Open Left crashes. Great. At least I'm getting all of 2009's bad luck out of the way early. Here are some items for Monday:

Tim Kaine will be the new DNC chair. Kaine is pretty conservative, but I will have only one question for him: will he revive the fifty-state strategy?
On a more positive appointment note, Glenn Greenwald praises Dawn Johnson, the new head of the Office of Legal Consul. Commenting on some fantastic articles by Johnson, Greenwald writes:
Beyond these articles, I don't know all that much about her, but anyone who can write this, in this unapologetic, euphemism-free and even impolitic tone, warning that the problem isn't merely John Yoo but Bush himself, repeatedly demanding "outrage," criticizing the Democratic Congress for legalizing Bush's surveillance program, arguing that we cannot merely "move on" if we are to restore our national honor, stating the OLC's "core job description" is to "say 'no' to the President," all while emphasizing that the danger is unchecked power not just for the Bush administration but "for years and administrations to come" -- and to do so in the middle of an election year when she knows she has a good chance to be appointed to a high-level position if the Democratic candidate won and yet nonetheless eschewed standard, obfuscating Beltway politesse about these matters -- is someone whose appointment to such an important post is almost certainly a positive sign. No praise is due Obama until he actually does things that merit praise, but it's hard not to consider this encouraging.
Also, Leon Panetta to head the CIA. First reaction: much better than the other names being floated.
On December, Democrats extended their lead on Republicans in partisan self-identification to 8.7%, according to Rasmussen. That is our biggest lead since June, and bigger than any lead Democrats have held outside of the extended Clinton vs. Obama primary contest.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has rejected a key lawsuit from Norm Coleman, denying him his last chance to win. Franken will be declared the winner later today, but it still may take a while to get him into the Senate.
New Yorkers no longer want Caroline Kennedy to be their Senator, and now prefer Andrew Cuomo, according to a new poll from PPP. Not that polls matter in a process as undemocratic as Senate appointments. We need a Constitutional amendment for special elections for Senate vacancies.
Tax cuts are being piled onto the stimulus in order to win Republican support. These cuts are now larger than Bush's, and are not just of the middle-class variety. Not good. We don't need Republican support, but Obama is seeking it anyway. My best guess is that this is a repeat of the Democratic leadership's strategy on the bailout. This way, Republicans won't be able to be able to say "I told you so" if it doesn't work, or if it becomes unpopular. Bad idea if you ask me, since we will be blamed if the country doesn't turn around, no matter what.
Or, maybe Obama considers bipartisanship good for its own sake, which would be sad.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus releases a detailed trillion dollar stimulus plan. It looks pretty great, but we are still not at 18 progressive votes in the House, and talks on the stimulus seem pretty well advanced at this point. Still, at least producing these plans, and winning over 100 votes for them, is progress. The Nation has more on this.

I'll be back later today with a look at how different election forecasting methods performed in 2008. This is an open thread.

Crooks and Liars: Darth Cheney's Revisionist History on the Invasion of Iraq

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:00:10 +0000

Download | Play Download | Play You Tube Dick Cheney on Face the Nation doing his last bit of spin on Iraq and Saddam Hussein before we finally get these criminals out of office. Cheney seems to think that Iraq is better off now than before the invasion and occupation. Somehow I think that the over a million dead and millions more displaced there would tend to disagree with him but hey, what do I know. Maybe they love living in a country poisoned by DU, with filthy conditions where they're separated from their friends and family that they have left and wondering if they'll have clean water, food or electricity to look forward to in the next day, week or month. I'm sure other than that all those Iraqis are eternally grateful to Dick Cheney and the Bush administration and all of those in the United States Congress that allowed themselves to be bullied or scared into approving us invading their country for helping to have "liberated" them. Bravo. Mission accomplished. The rest of the world just loves us now, right? But of course, as far as Cheney is concerned, they can just go **** themselves, those ingrates. I really don't know why he even bothers with the Bush history revision. Everyone knows he could care less what anyone thinks of him or the U.S. or the Bush administration and the damage that's been done while he and Bush have been in office.

Donklephant: Roland Burris Rejected By Senate

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:24:51 +0000

I’m still not sure why this guy is trying to force his way into the Senate on the back of Blago, but he had to see this one coming.

From CNN:

Robert Baxter says Erickson rejected Burris’ appointment because it does not conform with Rule 2 of the Standing rules of the Senate, which specifically says that the secretary of state must sign the certificate of election along with the governor. The Illinois secretary of state has not signed Burris’ certificate of appointment — only Blagojevich has.

CNN’s Susan Roesgen reports that Burris has filed a motion, a “writ of mandamus,” with the Illinois Supreme Court to force the Illinois secretary of state to sign the certificate. There court has not yet issued a ruling on the issue.

Again, I return to the logic of this. It only hurts Burris and helps Blago. Why would Burris do this?

More as it develops…

Donklephant: The Grand Old Dogma

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:21:40 +0000

Me, elsewhere:

Over the last few months, there has been much finger-pointing as to which particular sect of the old GOP coalition is to blame for the policy failures of the last 8 years and the electoral failures of the last 2 years…..I think these accusations are deeply misplaced - the problems have not been caused by religious conservatives or adherence to free market beliefs, but instead by a sort of “talk radio” dogmatism in which any given issue becomes a litmus test for whether one is a “true” conservative or Republican.

This dogmatism has become terribly pervasive, dominating the party infrastructure and including many of the most prominent faces of conservatism both online and on the air. It is a dogmatism that is in some ways pushed by a wide variety of conservatives - free market conservatives and libertarians, religious conservatives, and defense conservatives. And yet it is also a dogmatism with which large elements of each of those groups take significant umbrage.

In and of itself, though, a little dogmatism is not necessarily a unique hindrance to a political party or movement’s electability or even its legislative agenda - political dogma has existed for at least as long as political parties have existed, and without some of it political parties cannot distinguish themselves from their competitors.

Instead, the problem with this particular form of dogma is its all-around meanness. Under this dogmatism, dissenters of any stripe are treated as the enemy, regardless of whether the dissenter’s general viewpoint could be described as “conservative,” and regardless of the dissenter’s political affiliation. Wide nets are cast to stereotype anyone who may be adversely affected by implementation of one of the dogma’s tenets. Where a particular tenet relies on a particular fact, and a suggestion is made that the fact is inaccurate, the personal loyalties of the questioner are called into question - even if the fact is demonstrably wrong.

What’s important here isn’t that GOP dogmatism (or political dogmatism more generally) is overly ideological - quite the opposite, actually. Instead, the problem is that it doesn’t recognize its lack of a firm ideological basis, turning the individual policy preferences of whichever strain of conservatism is most passionate about a given issue into a litmus test for some imagined “master conservatism.” Because this dogmatism represents the conclusions of numerous different philosophies, though, it cannot rely on the ideological arguments that gave rise to the policy preference in the first place. For instance, relying on principled libertarian arguments for a particular economic policy is not possible when you take a position on social policy that is inherently at odds with those arguments; similarly it is not possible to rely on principled religious conservative arguments for social policy when you take a position on economic policy that is directly at odds with those arguments. In short, the problem with dogmatism isn’t that it elevates principle over the common good - it’s that it is almost completely devoid of principle in the first place, a fact which Conor Friedersdorf seems to get. The result is that this imagined “master conservatism” is forced to rely on arguments that rely on a sense of fear and an “us against them” mentality.

This is not to say that this type of dogmatism is without value - it’s useful as a means of creating party unity and “getting out the base.” Nor is it particularly the province of conservatives - liberals and Democrats most certainly have their own type of fear-based, “us against them” dogmatism. Instead, the problem here is that the dogmatism has become far too pervasive, both in terms of those who insist on this dogmatism and - as importantly - in terms of the number of issues to which it extends (even extending to issues that have no inherent connection to policy preferences, such as whether Iraq had WMD’s, whether global warming is real or imagined, or whether AirTran was morally correct in its refusal to permit a Muslim family to reboard a flight after they were cleared by the FBI).

For instance, it’s one thing for talk-show hosts to rant and rave about “Defeatocrats,” the “homosexual mafia,” etc., since their purpose is not to persuade but is instead almost exclusively to rally the people who are already predisposed to agree with them. It’s a far different thing, however, when that attitude extends to campaign tactics, and/or a huge percentage of “talking heads,” whose purpose is at least nominally to persuade people to either vote Republican or to support a particular policy position.

Similarly, it’s one thing to rant and rave against a particular group as a means of motivating your “base” and maybe to scare the bejesus out of some fence-sitters into supporting your position. It is a far different thing, though, to do this on virtually every issue. So while Muslims, for instance, may be a tiny minority group whose support on any given issue is not worth being concerned about losing, the combination of Muslims, gays, social safety net beneficiaries, Latino immigrants, war opponents, etc. is a pretty large group.

By relying on rhetorical arguments that demonize so many groups and by making those arguments through so many different mediums, this form of dogma dramatically reduces the “pie” to whom conservatives may appeal - both for voting purposes and for purposes of winning support on policies that have nothing to do with the issue on which that group has been demonized. As Rod Dreher points out: “…if you build your political movement around constantly pointing out that it’s Us vs. Them, pretty soon you’ll find that there aren’t too many of Us left.”

But again - this problem is not one that is uniquely the province of conservatism or the Republican Party. Instead, it is a problem that will inevitably arise as any particular political coalition becomes ever-larger and attains a certain level of political success on issues where there is near-uniform intra-coalition agreement; in order to maintain the successful coalition, the party needs to manufacture loyalty on issues where there is less intra-coalition agreement. This is, however, an unsustainable strategy due to the way in which it “shrinks the pie” by demonizing policy opponents, even if they happen to be in the same political party. Eventually, the pie becomes small enough that the party can again find a coherent set of positive principles around which to build, and the cycle will begin anew.

The extremes of this cycle are just exacerbated today due to the way in which modern technology allows politics to pervade so much of everyday life. Eventually, the Dems will face similar problems as a result of their own successes, even as the GOP rebuilds around some as-yet unknown set of principles with a relatively broad appeal.

(Cross-posted at Publius Endures).

Sadly, No!: How the Internets will transform us all into Nazis

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:20:44 +0000

In the grand tradition of Lee Siegel, it seems that Andrew Keen has discovered that the absolute worstest thing evar in the world is to let the Little People express their opinions by sending them over the Intert00bz. Indeed, giving people an online forum to share their views is the most certain way to bring about the return of the Nazis. No, that’s what he really thinks:

The Internet Is Bad For You

by Andrew Keen

On December 6, Barack Obama announced his intention to fund a massive public works program of somewhere between $400 and $700 billion which will create enough jobs to avert the economic catastrophe of the 1930s. But I fear that one element in Obama’s well-intentioned infrastructure plan—his goal of providing all Americans with broadband Internet access—might one day be seen as inadvertently laying the foundations for a return to fascism, the political catastrophe of the 1930’s.

In the Europe of the 1930s, representative democracy’s abject failure to confront the rage of mass unemployment and dislocation led to the rise of fascist organizations such as the Spanish Falangists, the German National Socialists, and the Romanian Iron Guard. What the interwar fascists provided—with their messianic leaders, their torchlight parades, their xenophobic propaganda—was a placebo to the hopelessness that had enveloped ordinary people’s lives.

The 1930s fascists were expert at using all the most technologically sophisticated communications technologies—the cinema, radio, newspapers, advertising—to spew their destructive, hate-filled message. What they excelled at was removing the the traditional middlemen like religion, media, and politics, and using these modern technologies of mass communications to speak with reassuring familiarity to the disorientated masses.

Imagine if today’s radically unregulated Internet, with its absence of fact checkers and editorial gatekeepers, had existed back then. Imagine that universal broadband had been available to enable the unemployed to read the latest conspiracy theories about the Great Crash on the blogosphere. Imagine the FDR-baiting, Hitler-loving Father Charles Coughlin, equipped with his “personalized” YouTube channel, able, at a click of a button, to distribute his racist message to the suffering masses. Or imagine a marketing genius like the Nazi chief propagandist Josef Goebbels managing a viral social network of anti-Semites which could coordinate local meet-ups to assault Jews and Communists.

The idea here is pretty basic: the Little People are far too dim to think on their own and reach their own conclusions, and they will inevitably turn into Nazis unless a class of Enlightened Beings oversees the information that they are allowed to consume.

Now, I don’t buy into the Ole Perfesser’s “Army of Davids” theory that we can replace the traditional media with the bed-wetting loonies who read his blog, but I also don’t think that people such as Keen should be allowed to appoint themselves the Grand Overseers of Our Enlightened Discourse, as he so obviously proposes doing. Some balance is needed, my friends. Continuing:

Now fast forward to the digital world of 2008 and what even the normally cheerful Economist has predicted will be a “long and deep recession”. Like in the 30s, we are faced with a systemic crisis not only to free market capitalism but also possibly to representative democracy. The 2008 economic meltdown is beginning to rival the 1929 Great Crash for its catastrophic impact on the lives of ordinary people. The United Nations has described today’s world economy as the “weakest since the ‘30s”. And 2009 promises to be worse, much much worse, with the U.N. predicting that the entire world economy will actually contract for the first time since those bygone days, and Princeton’s Nobel prizewinning economist Paul Krugman forecasting that American unemployment may rise to the “double digits”.

In the Thirties, mass unemployment lead to the catastrophe of fascism; in today’s crisis, I fear that it will lead to digital fascism.

And what would this dread face of digital fascism look like, you ask? Behold:

Even before the October crash, Americans had become ever-increasingly suspicious to all institutional forms of authority—from traditional political parties to mainstream media organizations to Wall Street executives, educators, and lawyers. As Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership reported late last month, 80 percent of Americans believe there is a leadership crisis in the country. And that research was conducted in the fall—before AIG, before Lehmann Brothers, before the public humiliation of Detroit’s elites.

Gee whiz. I cannot imagine how the events of the past year could have made anyone skeptical of our nation’s governing and business elite. They’ve done such a bang-up job, after all.

The question is: In our democratized world of individual empowerment, how will the newly unemployed millions, the victims of the meltdown, react to their economic disempowerment? In a culture that prioritizes the personal, how will the masses vent their rage against a system that no longer personally works for them?

Even today, the Internet’s unholy synthesis of immediacy, intimacy and anonymity has created an online culture of insult and vulgarity.

No fuckin’ way! I didn’t know people would dare use profanity on the Internets!

Silicon Valley utopians argue that blaming the Internet for online hatred is like blaming Johannes Gutenberg, the 15th century inventor of the moveable type printing press, for Mein Kampf. And that’s true, of course.

You’ve just admitted that your original thesis has no basis in fact. Why, then, are you still trying to support it?

Yet given the way in which we know that the unfiltered Internet spreads corrosive lies and inflames prejudice, why would we want to give all Americans universal broadband access at the very moment when millions of them will be unemployed, disorientated and angry? Rather than spending billions of dollars in telecom technology, wouldn’t it be better to invest that money in local libraries and librarians, where their education could be supervised by accountable human beings.

This is truly unbelievable.

I sometimes roll my eyes when libertarians whine about “nannystate” rules, as if being barred from lighting up a cigar in a children’s hospital is the most grueling form of oppression known to man. But what Keen advocates here is a literal nannystate mentality: he thinks of people as children who must be guided by “responsible” elites to think and behave a certain way. The “responsible” way of thinking and behaving, not coincidentally, involves showing reverence and deference toward the enlightened elites. Call me crazy, but this sounds a lot more fascistic than some guy call another guy a n00b after getting his ass handed to him in a War Craft tournament.

For another sneak preview of digital fascism, it’s worth looking at South Korea, another country with universal broadband infrastructure. In April, the new democratically elected South Korean President, Lee Myung Bak lifted a ban on imported American beef. This resulted in an eruption of anger on the Internet—first amongst teenage girls, then on the popular online portal Daum, and finally through teenage “citizen journalists” on blogs, videocasts, and social networks. The rumor spread that all the American beef was tainted with mad cow disease and an online petition for Lee’s impeachment got 1.3 million signatures in a week. And for an even more real-time example of digital fascism, take a look at the way in which this week’s raging anti government violence in Greece by the young and unemployed (already at over 9% in the Greek economy) has been coordinated by Facebook, Twitter and other viral digital networks.

Without the Internets, people would apparently be happy to be chronically unemployed.

Get outta here, ya maniac!!!

Donklephant: US Foreign Policy Circa 2000

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:15:35 +0000

A little clip from way back shows us how different the George Bush of then is from the George Bush of now.

Question: what if Obama had this foreign policy view? Wouldn’t he be viewed as a wimpy liberal dove?

I’m just saying…

Crooks and Liars: Brit Hume on Roland Burris: 'Why is it that he's thought to be under a taint?'

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:00:03 +0000

Download | Play Download | Play [H/t Heather] Conservatives have a gift for pretending the obvious isn't there. Take Brit Hume yesterday for example. He gets all worked up -- even angry-seeming -- over the terrible injustice being done to Rod Blagojevich and Roland Burris. Why? Because the prosecutor is Patrick Fitzgerald. Seems Hume harbors a grudge from one of Fitzgerald's previous prosecutions ... It's all wrapped up in defense of Blago's selection of Burris to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat: Hume: Why is it that he's thought to be under a taint? He's thought to be under a taint because an accusation has been made against him, not yet an indictment, by a prosecutor -- [Crosstalk] Hume: -- Against Blagojevich, not against him -- by a prosecutor who for all of his success in court, has a propensity, as we saw in the Scooter Libby case, to say things in news conferences that he ultimately chooses or is unable to prove in court. That is all we have. We have his say-so. Someone was saying on the air the other day, 'Well, we have the tapes.' No, we don't have the tapes. All we have is quotations from the tapes by the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, and it's not at all clear when we'll see them, what they'll show, what the context was or anything. This man is innocent until proven guilty. That's all a stirring and noble defense of Blago, but Hume doesn't seem to realize that the breadth and depth of the case against the Illinois governor involves a great deal more than just those tapes and just the Obama Senate seat matter. And really, do we need to spell out that any selection in which there is an appearance of impropriety in the process is tainted, especially when it involves the sale of the selection? But I gather that if you live in RightWingLand, it's difficult to imagine why anyone would consider the selection of Roland Burris tainted. After all, criminal complaints laying out a politician's desire to corruptly sell off federal appointments -- hey, that's ordinary. Routine! Everyone does that! Is it something in the water that conservatives drink, or what?

The Fix: MN-Senate: Franken Claims Victory

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:05:00 +0000

UPDATED, 5:00 p.m. ET: Al Franken declared himself the winner of the Minnesota Senate race moments ago just hours after the state's canvassing board certified a final vote tally that put him 225 votes ahead of Sen. Norm Coleman. "After...

Crooks and Liars: Obama Plan Includes Massive Tax Cuts

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:00:25 +0000

I'd guess that bipartisan cooperation on this will be slim to non-existent (see Mitch McConnell's quotes in this article), but you never know:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses in his economic recovery program, advisers said Sunday, as his team seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending.

The legislation Mr. Obama is developing with Congressional Democrats will devote about 40 percent of the cost to tax cuts, including his centerpiece campaign promise to provide credits up to $500 for most workers, costing roughly $150 billion. The package will also include more than $100 billion in tax incentives for businesses to create jobs and invest in equipment or factories.

The overall economic package, of $675 billion to $775 billion, is taking shape as Mr. Obama arrived in Washington and planned to begin trying to build support in Congress and among the broader public for his approach to stimulating the economy. Mr. Obama, who flew to the capital on Sunday to join his family in a hotel suite while awaiting his inauguration, planned to meet with Congressional leaders on Monday and deliver a speech on Thursday laying the ground for his emerging economic program.

Although some tax cuts were always expected to be included in Mr. Obama’s economic package, his team disclosed the scope and some details of the plans on Sunday at a time when Republicans have begun voicing criticism of what they describe as an open-checkbook approach to spending. By focusing more attention on the tax cuts in the plan, Obama aides hope to frame it as a balanced, pragmatic approach.

Donklephant: Quote Of The Day

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:56:18 +0000

“Israel has a special place in each of our hearts. But we recognize that neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a monopoly on right or wrong. While there is nothing “right” in raining rockets on Israeli families or dispatching suicide bombers, there is nothing “right” in punishing a million and a half already-suffering Gazans for the actions of the extremists among them.”
- J Street’s statement on the Gaza conflict.

For those of you who don’t know, J Street is a new organization dedicated to finding a two-state solution in the Middle East.

Here’s more…

J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region.

J Street represents Americans, primarily but not exclusively Jewish, who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland, as well as the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state of their own - two states living side-by-side in peace and security. We believe ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians, and the region as a whole.

J Street supports diplomatic solutions over military ones, including in Iran; multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution; and dialogue over confrontation with a wide range of countries and actors when conflicts do arise.

Like it or not, it’s up to Israel to be the bigger party in all of this. And they’re going to have to give up some of the land they’ve taken over the years. There’s really no other solution at this point.

Donklephant: Franken To Be Declared The Winner

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:47:48 +0000

Coleman will challenge this in the courts, but it appears as if Al will become the Senator from Minnesota.

From CNN:

The canvassing board on Monday will say a recount determined Franken won by 225 votes, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told CNN.

However, Coleman’s campaign, which contends the recount should have included about 650 absentee ballots it says were improperly rejected in the initial count, has indicated it will challenge the certification.

Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said his team believes the recount process was broken and that “the numbers being reported will not be accurate or valid.”

“The effort by the Franken campaign, supported by the secretary of state, to exclude improperly rejected absentee ballots is indefensible and disenfranchises hundreds of Minnesota voters,” Sheehan said.

After the results are certified, Coleman’s campaign will have seven days to file a challenge.

Honestly, this feels like a tie to me and I wish they’d just do a runoff election. That seems to be the only truly fair way to determine who is actually the winner in this one. And if I were Franken, I’d request something like this because he could be seen as an illegitimate winner. Hardly what you want if you’re a junior/celebrity Senator.

Donklephant: 500+ Palestinians Dead In Gaza

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:38:13 +0000

The fighting is growing more intense as Israel has started their ground offensive. And if Israel doesn’t realize that they’ve overreached here and are losing sympathy around the world, then they better wake up and realize it soon. You can’t kill this many women and children and not get a ton of backlash.

From CNN:

“Every couple of minutes we hear an explosion,” Safa Joudeh, a Gaza City resident, told CNN early Monday. “We can see tanks coming closer and closer into Gaza.”

She said most residents are confined to their homes, without electricity and running out of food and water.

Palestinian medical sources say Israeli forces have killed 37 Palestinians — both civilians and militants — since moving into the territory Saturday night.

With those deaths, at least 507 Palestinians, including about 100 women and children, have been killed since Israeli airstrikes began December 27, and 2,600 Palestinians have been injured, most of them civilians, sources said.

The question now: what will Obama say? He’s being put between a rock and a hard place because of the whole “there aren’t two presidents” thing, but would it be better for him to say something sooner rather than later?

Sadly, No!: The secret to future conservative success

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:10:08 +0000

Oh deary. It seems that Michelle Malkin is (shock) outraged again because some nasty people have been saying that right-wing bloggers produce nothing but crazy-assed bullshit. When pressed for counterexamples, she gives us this:

Who says conservative bloggers don’t do reporting?

[...]

Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee/Pajamas Media published several original reports and scoops — including the op-ed the NYTimes refused to run and an interview with FBI informant/Weather Underground insider Larry Grathwohl, and early in the year, the results of a massive FOIA request related to the Beauchamp controversy.

Robert Stacy McCain, a two-decade newspaper reporter/editor-turned-blogger, provided campaign reporting on the road from Hillary in Harrisburg, Pa., and in Shepherdstown, W.Va., to the Libertarian convention in Denver, to John McCain in Pennsylvania, back to Denver for the DNC, and in Ohio and Pennsylvania for Sarah Palin.

Internet journalist/blogger and Little Green Footballs regular Zombie (not “conservative” per se, but rather anti-sharia/anti-jihad/anti-anti-American/anti-extremist Left) did extraordinary work digging up documents related to Barack Obama and left-wing terrorist Bill Ayer’s relationship — most notably, unearthing the Weather Underground manifesto Prairie Fire and Obama’s review of Ayer’s book on the juvenile court system.

See, yeah.

The insane, paranoid rantings of the Gun-Counter Gomer, racist ex-Moonie Times reporters, and some anonymous dude at LGF do not constitute “reporting” in the sense that we’ve typically come to define the term. No, I don’t care how many times you’ve kerned Obama’s birth certificate to prove that he’s Chuck D’s love child, or whether you’ve written a 50,000-word manifesto analyzing the linguistic similarities between Obama’s DNC speech and NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton.” Everything you guys write is tainted by the simple fact that you’re crazy assholes. If you’d like your work to be taken seriously by anyone who isn’t on your own personal LISTSERVs and Twitter accounts, the first step is to stop being crazy assholes. If you enjoy being crazy assholes and don’t want to give up the habit, that’s cool, but don’t expect to earn much respect from normal people. Make sense?

Crooks and Liars: Chris Wallace Gives GOP Terminology For Employee Free Choice Act

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:00:36 +0000

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather) We've known for some time that Fox News is merely the propaganda arm for the GOP. However, they usually couch their partisanship with claims of being "fair and balanced" and token ineffectual Democrats. But Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace was perhaps a little unintentionally forthright about where his loyalties lay in Sunday's interview with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Congress's priority to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. WALLACE: Big Labor’s top priority is what’s called “union card check” and that would be eliminating the right to a secret ballot in determining whether or not you’re going to organize, unionize a working place. [laughs] I love the way you’re smiling already. Are you going to move on that in the first month? HOYER: I’m smiling because of the way you phrased it. It’s the Free Choice Act, of course, and what it does is … WALLACE: Well, “union card check”, Free Choice, both sides have their euphemisms. HOYER: Of course, and you use one side. That’s why I was smiling…[laughs] WALLACE: And you used the other. Sadly, Wallace obviously has access to the GOP talking points soundbytes that the Democrats are never savvy enough to replicate. Nice, neat, and sound sensible if a little weak on facts. "Union card check" sounds like something a Dem-voting life-long union member would be leery of. But Hoyer never retorts in a way that eliminates this fear. The Employee Free Choice Act simply gives the employees the right to decide whether to unionize, rather than the company. It's easy to understand and say, right? But instead, Hoyer gives this mush-mouthed reply: HOYER: Well, okay, my point being that we believe that one of the problems that has existed in America is that working people have had a very, very difficult time in getting represented by unions in the work place. Work place has resisted that. The NLRB has not been very vigorous in assuring the lack of unfair labor practices. We believe that the employees…if over 50% of them sign and say that we want to be represented by a union, they ought to be able to be represented by a union. Let me say that many, many employers currently, under existing law, recognize such signatures right now and start to bargain and have a union representative. C'mon, guys, it's bad enough that you go on Fox, can't you do a little prep work to be able to respond to the Republican framing first? Transcripts below the fold: WALLACE: Let’s talk about the rest of your agenda. There’s talk that you want to move quickly on what’s called “low hanging fruit,” to pass the measures that could get bipartisan support and move through Congress quickly. Expansion of the State Children’s Health Program, or S-CHIP. HOYER: We’re looking at…we passed that bill as you know, through the House handily. It passed through the Senate with two-thirds majority and it was vetoed by the President. We think it’s critical to move quickly on ensuring that children in this country have availability of health care. So yes, that’s going to be an early bill for us. I’m not going to put a time frame on it, but I expect to see that bill early. There’s some other things that we have to do. We’re going to complete the ‘08/’09 appropriations process, that needs to be done early. We’re going to address the Lily Ledbetter and the pay equity issues… WALLACE: That’s to give women more time to sue for pay equity. HOYER: That’s correct. So that women are not precluded, or others are not precluded from recovering damages simply because they don’t know what their fellow employees are making, and that they’re being discriminated against. When they find out, they ought to be able to have the opportunity to get redress of that grievance. WALLACE: Big Labor’s top priority is what’s called “union card check” and that would be eliminating the right to a secret ballot in determining whether or not you’re going to organize, unionize a working place. [laughs] I love

The Progressive: Man Can FLY If you watch one video in 2009, be it this.

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:49:44 +0000

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Donklephant: Stimulus Bill May Be Later Rather Than Sooner

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:32:06 +0000

Not necessarily the worst thing in the world, especially considering the noises Republicans have been making recently about accounting for every single dollar.

From NY Times:

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, expressed doubt on Sunday that the Jan. 20 goal set by some for getting a stimulus package before the new president could be met.

“It’s going to be difficult to get the package together that early,” he said. Instead, he told “Fox News Sunday,” lawmakers hoped to have it to the new president by mid-February. [...]

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, agreed with Hoyer that the Jan. 20 goal was impractical.

Mr. McConnell also expressed reservations about the ideas of extending unemployment benefits to part-time workers or expanding government-assisted health care insurance. “Those are very big systemic changes,” he told ABC’s “This Week,” and so warranted public hearings and deliberate bipartisan discussions.

McConnell and the Republicans could also fight the notion that 20% of Obama’s jobs would come from the government…

And he raised a caution about the notion that as many as 20 percent of the jobs to be created by a stimulus plan might be in the public sector. “Is that a good idea?” he asked.

Let’s face it…the private sector hasn’t been doing such a hot job of holding onto jobs lately and if the government puts people to work for the time being, is that necessarily the worst thing in the world?

To put it another way, would McConnell rather have these folks collect unemployment or go to work?

One last thing…looks like their could be bipartisan agreement on a middle class tax cut…

He also urged Obama to support an immediate middle-class tax cut — possibly lowering the 25-percent rate to 15 percent — saying, “This is the sort of thing we could have bipartisan agreement on.”

More as it develops…

Crooks and Liars: Mike's Blog Roundup

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:00:00 +0000

The Public Record: FBI email says Bush authorized abuse of Iraqi detainees. Which brings us to the Orwell du Jour and the 'morality' of conservatism.

No More Mister Nice Blog: You know, if I'm a hillbilly heroin dealer, and suddenly the Secret Service is hanging around because my son has impregnated the daughter of a VP candidate ... er, I might think of trying to find a new way to earn money. But hey, that's just me.

Open Left: Hegemony On Steroids, Part One, and Part 2

Prometheus 6: It's a really bad crisis that forces this much truth on the newspaper of record

Sic Semper Tyrannis: And now for something completely different

HOLY CRAP: That Darn God...This pretty much confirms it...Pheripheral Damage...One Nation Under Elvis...Rapturoos...2008's Top Ten Church-State stories...Clean and unclean...Nut on nut violence...The Bible tells me, uh, something else...WTF, the Pope smokes?...Dear Galileo...Lying for faith...Now How Much Would you Pay?...Bible Class Bombs...The doll that screams Jihad...Obama listening to liberal faith groups...Baptist editor wants state funds to win converts...Vatican claims contraception harms environment... Jefferson’s Jan. 1 letter to the Danbury Baptists...God hates shrimp...'God will punish Rick Warren'

The Fix: Tim Kaine and the Future of Obama For America

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:56:48 +0000

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. (Photo by Linda Davidson of the Washington Post) Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's installation at the head of the Democratic National Committee sends a strong signal...

Donklephant: I Shot A Rocket Into The Air…

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:13:50 +0000

Donklephant: Tax Cuts Still Part of Obama’s Plan

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:00:38 +0000

In case you thought Barack Obama was only interested in spending billions to stimulate the economy, the incoming administration announced yesterday that billions in tax cuts are also planned.

The economic package under consideration by the president-elect and his Congressional allies would commit $675 billion to $775 billion over two years. If the tax cuts represent 40 percent of that, as Mr. Obama’s advisers said Sunday, that would mean about $270 billion to $310 billion.

About half of that would go to workers under what Mr. Obama during his campaign called the Making Work Pay credit, worth up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for families. The Obama campaign estimated that about 150 million Americans making less than $200,000 would qualify, including those who make too little to pay federal income taxes but would receive a check that would offset Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes.

Obama’s plan also includes over $100 billion in tax incentives for businesses, most geared towards job creation and investment in new equipment.

While tax cuts will certainly be welcome during these hard economic times, there will need to be debate as to whether the Making Work Pay credit is really the most efficient and wise method of cutting taxes. After all, if we’re going to refund payroll taxes, we have to make sure we’re not defunding Social Security and Medicare in the process.

That said, I imagine Obama will have enough political capital early on to pass most aspects of his stimulus plan.

Crooks and Liars: Sen. Al Franken ... Has a nice, drive-the-wingnuts keerazy ring to it, don't it?

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:00:17 +0000

Oh, how the wingnuts writhe and hiss at the prospect of Sen. Al Franken ... especially now that it's about to come true: A state election board on Monday will announce Democrat Al Franken has defeated Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, state officials told CNN Sunday. The canvassing board on Monday will say a recount determined Franken won by 225 votes, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told CNN. However, Coleman's campaign, which contends the recount should have included about 650 absentee ballots it says were improperly rejected in the initial count, has indicated it will challenge the certification. It's all going to wind up in the courts before it gets settled, but there's little doubt Franken has the upper hand. I suppose it would be wicked to savor the knowledge that the wingnuts are going crazy at the thought of Sen. Al Franken, and are sharpening their shivs as we speak. BillO in particular, given his history with Franken. Likewise with Ann Coulter. My weekly e-mail from the Brownshirt Barbie this week featured her shrieking about Franken: Dear Fellow Conservative, Last night, I had a horrible dream... and no, this isn't the famous "I Had a Dream" speech. Frankly, I think that one could use a rest. No, in my dream it was 12 noon, so naturally I tuned in for my daily dose of conservative news and commentary from the greatest political talk show host in the history of radio. As I imagined one half of a giant brain being tied behind a familiar back, just to make it fair, the familiar bass notes from "My City Was Gone" throbbed, and the announcer's voice boomed... "Ladies and gentleman... in accordance with Fairness Doctrine broadcasting regulations... here's AL FRANKEN!" I woke up screaming. But then I realized it was just a bad dream. Or was it? Actually, the whole schtick is just a pitch for yet another one of Coulter's imagined liberal plots -- that largely nonexistent scheme to revive the Fairness Doctrine. Coulter's been on a real tear lately in terms of pulling crap out of thin air. But it's worth noting that Al Franken has the ability to make her extra-nutty-kookoo with sprinkles on top. One can only imagine what they'll be dreaming up for him as a senator.

The Fix: FixCam Week in Preview: Obama Heads to the Hill

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:40:32 +0000

President-elect Barack Obama heads to Capitol Hill to sell his economic stimulus plan, Public Enemy and the Fix's favorite Christmas gift....

Crooks and Liars: This Week: Mitch McConnell's Newly Found Concern for Bi-Partisanship

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:30:50 +0000

Download | Play Download | Play You Tube I love how these guys suddenly care about bi-partisanship when they're in the minority and spending when it's for something besides dropping bombs on someone's head. STEPHANOPOULOS: And now I have, here in the studio, the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell. You heard Senator Durbin, there. Have your concerns been calmed down? MCCONNELL: Look, I think everyone knows that half the American public is represented by a Republican senator. And all we're suggesting, here, is that we be a part of the process. The president has said he wants to create 3 million new jobs, presumably as a result of this economic stimulus package. We want to make sure it's not just a trillion-dollar spending bill, but something that actually can reach the goal that he has suggested. STEPHANOPOULOS: So how do you do that? MCCONNELL: Well, let me make some suggestions. First of all, the president, incoming president, has said he would like for 80 percent of the jobs created to be in the private sector. Well, do we really want to create 20 percent of the jobs in the public sector? That would be 600,000 new government jobs. That's about the size of the post office workforce. Is that a good idea? That's something that strikes us that we ought to take a look at. STEPHANOPOULOS: You don't think it is? MCCONNELL: Well, it may not be, but I think, at least, hearings, and some kind of bipartisan considerations would be helpful. There is a bill, ready to go right now, George, that would spend $400 billion. That's the nine appropriation bills from last year that have already been vetted, been looked at by both Democrats and Republicans, could pass, on a largely bipartisan basis, very quickly. We could pass that bill. Much of that spending is related to the kinds of items that may well end up in the trillion-dollar spending package. So that's a place to start. Another example of something that I think ought to be considered: We could do a middle-class tax cut immediately. Right now, the middle-class tax rate is about 25 percent. STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, President-elect Obama says he does want to do that, a $500 tax credit. MCCONNELL: Yes, right. This is the sort of thing we could -- we could have bipartisan agreement on. But Republican, by and large, think tax relief is a great way to get money to people immediately. A possibility would be to take a look at the 25 percent rate currently applied to the middle class, lower it to 15 percent. And with regard to the money to the states, one item -- one approach that I think we ought to take a look at, that I have a feeling won't be in the recommendation of the administration, is to make this money for states alone, rather than a grant. You know, the way we're operating, under the TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the money that's being lent to financial institutions is at 5 percent over five years. And if it's beyond five years, the rate is 9 percent. There are some states that are in good shape. In fact, I can think of at least two who have said publicly they don't want any of the money. So why should we automatically provide funds to states... STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, there are several states struggling... MCCONNELL: ... that don't want it. STEPHANOPOULOS: ... as well. Is that a red line for you? If these are grants to the states, you're not going to support it? MCCONNELL: No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying we want to be a part of the process. And it might make sense to lend the money to the states. It will make them spend it more wisely. I think nobody thinks we ought to be spending this money on things like Mob museums and waterslides. And if the money were lent rather than just granted, states would I think spend it wisely, and the states that didn't need it at all wouldn't take any. STEPHANOPOULOS: Two other ideas the Democrats are discussing on Capitol Hill right now are extending unemployment benefits to part- time workers and expanding hea

Sadly, No!: Shorter John Bolton

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:44:20 +0000

The Three-State Option

OK, so, like, get this, man. Y’know how the Israelis have been having, like, these problems with these alleged “people” called the Palestinians for all these years because they’ve been occupying their land? Well check it, daddy-o, I’ve got the perfect solution: let’s hand the West Bank and Gaza over to Jordan and Egypt and make *them* deal with the mess! This shit is so brilliant, I can’t believe it took me 12 hits of chronic to come up with it!

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Yeah, I should be back blogging again soon, btw. Wingnuttery reached a critical mass during the 2008 presidential election and I haven’t been able to bring myself to read much more of it ever since.

UPDATE: Oh joyous day! I just discovered that Bolton now has another op-ed published today, this one in the New York Times! Let’s do it justice and shorten it:

Restore the Senate’s Treaty Power

Hey, remember when me and my buddies used to argue for giving the president unlimited power to do anything he wanted? Welp, we’re starting to rethink that now that Surrendercrat Barack HUSSEIN Osama is in charge.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Donklephant: Reid to Burris on Blagojemess: Maybe we can talk

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:09:29 +0000

Harry Reid and Could-Be Senator Roland Burris

As Rod “I am the Governor” Blagojevich’s pick to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat, Roland Burris, vowed to fight for the office, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic Whip Dick Durbin went on Sunday talk shows and declared again that they have the authority to refuse to seat Burris and still plan to exclude him.

After drawing a line in the sand, however, Reid immediately invited Burris to ignore it, indicating that while the appointment by Blagojevich was tainted, Burris was a fine fellow and Reid might be willing to negotiate a solution to the problem. Reid is now scheduled to meet with Burris on Wednesday.

Of course, Reid may be just acting polite to avoid giving the bum’s rush to an African-American about whom no one seems to have anything bad to say. Black ministers and community leaders in Chicago are rallying behind Burris, and he’s also getting some key editorial support. And although Reid denies it, he’s clearly been embarrassed by a claim from the Blago camp that he urged the Governor not to appoint any of several leading Black Illinois elected officials, supposedly because they wouldn’t be able to hold the seat for the Democrats in 2010. Perhaps most significantly, there seems to be a growing consensus of opinion, cutting across partisan and ideological lines, that the Senate lacks the authority to exclude Burris and would be unwise or unfair to try to do so.

Reid is working to buy time. When Burris shows up on Tuesday, he’ll likely be given some acknowledgement — perhaps even accepted as a “Senator-elect” — with the issue of his credentials referred to the Rules Committee for study. With a little luck, the Illinois Legislature will impeach Blagojevich and remove him from office as early as next week before the Committee completes its “study.”

Trouble is that even a quick impeachment wouldn’t change the question of whether the Senate must recognize Burris’s appointment by Blago when he was still Governor. One way out would be to persuade Lt. Governor Pat Quinn to appoint Burris again after taking over as Governor, thus saving face for Reid, making no concession on the Senate’s ultimate authority, and dodging a potentially ugly race-tinged fight. For his part, Burris might be persuaded to agree not to run for a full Senate term in 2010.

It’s hard to see a “compromise” like this flying. After putting himself out on a limb by accepting Blago’s appointment, why should Burris agree to give up the office in two years, when his legal case is probably a winner. Why should Pat Quinn appoint him anyway? Why would all the other Illinois pols who want the appointment for themselves fall in line? And how can anyone be confident that Blago will be out of office anytime soon?

Nope. The Blagojemess is just going to continue to get messier.

(Visit me at The Purple Center)

...will he ever win?

Donklephant: Al Franken’s a senator now - but is he a bigger laugh than Burris?

Crooks and Liars: Republican Policies Spread Results Worldwide

Sadly, No!: Shorter John Hawkins

Open Left: New Yorkers Saying No to Aristocracy As Sole Qualifier In a Democracy

Crooks and Liars: Barack Obama highlights quick action and Oversight for his new stimulus package

Donklephant: CIA Director - Leon Panetta

Crooks and Liars: Obama taps Leon Panetta for CIA Director

Sadly, No!: lolz

Open Left: New Year's Resolutions for Progressives, 2009

Crooks and Liars: Norm Coleman Watch: It's time to pack it in...

Donklephant: Bob Barr On Gay Marriage

Open Left: Monday, Monday, Monday!

Crooks and Liars: Darth Cheney's Revisionist History on the Invasion of Iraq

Donklephant: Roland Burris Rejected By Senate

Donklephant: The Grand Old Dogma

Sadly, No!: How the Internets will transform us all into Nazis

Donklephant: US Foreign Policy Circa 2000

Crooks and Liars: Brit Hume on Roland Burris: 'Why is it that he's thought to be under a taint?'

The Fix: MN-Senate: Franken Claims Victory

Crooks and Liars: Obama Plan Includes Massive Tax Cuts

Donklephant: Quote Of The Day

Donklephant: Franken To Be Declared The Winner

Donklephant: 500+ Palestinians Dead In Gaza

Sadly, No!: The secret to future conservative success

Crooks and Liars: Chris Wallace Gives GOP Terminology For Employee Free Choice Act

The Progressive: Man Can **FLY** If you watch one video in 2009, be it this.

Donklephant: Stimulus Bill May Be Later Rather Than Sooner

Crooks and Liars: Mike's Blog Roundup

The Fix: Tim Kaine and the Future of Obama For America

Donklephant: I Shot A Rocket Into The Air…

Donklephant: Tax Cuts Still Part of Obama’s Plan

Crooks and Liars: Sen. Al Franken ... Has a nice, drive-the-wingnuts keerazy ring to it, don't it?

The Fix: FixCam Week in Preview: Obama Heads to the Hill

Crooks and Liars: This Week: Mitch McConnell's Newly Found Concern for Bi-Partisanship

Sadly, No!: Shorter John Bolton

Donklephant: Reid to Burris on Blagojemess: Maybe we can talk

The Progressive: Man Can FLY If you watch one video in 2009, be it this.