Does Eric Cantor Lie? Bears. Woods. He Wrote This In WaPo.

   When you write an OpEd in the Washington Post it is generally a good idea to remember that people with a couple live brain cells might read it, especially since it's liable to show up in other sources.  Well, Eric Cantor decided he'd write something and now that some of the heat has gone out of the Shutdown Showdown I thought maybe I'd go ahead and work over his "bi-partisan" nonsense.

   The opening paragraph talks about how this has been building up for three years (I'd quibble a bit about the duration) and then tosses this out:

President Obama has led us here by continually thwarting the will of Congress and dismissing its role in our constitutional republic.

   There are a couple problems with this statement.  You'd think a Representative could figure out that the Congress is composed of two Chambers - the House and the Senate.  Eric Cantor's GOP dominated House is not Congress, it is one half of it.  The Senate has thought the House has sucked since the GOP won it.  Maybe Eric would like to point at the Presidential?  You know, since the President has "dissed" the Congress.

President Obama refuses to even sit at the same table as Republicans and work to solve the “debt problem”

   A person could point at the GOP refusal on twenty some occasions since March to meet with the Senate in Conference over the Senate passed Budget... It is passingly odd for one of the architects of refusal to point at someone else and it isn't the President's job to meet with the House to iron out the difference between the House and Senate while it is Eric Cantor's job as House Majority Whip to get the votes for that Conference with the Senate from his Party.  Somebody wasn't doing their job.

     Eric would like to talk about recess appointments, while he manages to ignore blanket blocks by the GOP, hamstringing government in a manner never before practiced.  He talks about waivers to circumvent "No Child Left Behind" while the truth is that they are allowed for exactly the purpose they were granted.  He goes in to some blather about violating the LAW around religious liberty after the Supreme Court certified ACA and work requirements for welfare waivers that allowed the States to actually implement the law within their budgets and economic conditions - exacerbated, I'd say, by the GOP.

Mr. President, let’s sit down and talk. Let’s reach consensus and end the “my way or the highway” attitude once and for all.

   I'm sorry, but when you've taken the Federal Government and the Full Faith and Credit of the USA hostage you really don't get to talk about "my way or the highway," without choking.  Well, or your keyboard exploding...

   Just so we're clear here, this is the number two guy in the GOP House Caucus leadership, he voted against staying out of default.  He is the guy who spent two years sharpening the knife to slip into Boehner's ribs.  The knife got stuck in and now they've got their results and oddly, Boehner is in better position in his Caucus - as though anybody else would want that job now.

   It would be too bad if something nasty happened to Cantor's re-election in Virginia's 7th like a personal responsibility price being exacted.  Don't hold your breath on that one; these people are real big on saying those words right up until they might get involved in it - especially the voters since the pols know better.

 

The GOP And Their VAWA Suicide Pact

If you've looked around your Party and noticed that certain blocks of the citizenry are voting for the other side you might want to do something like...
Well, tell women that certain women need to just put up with being beaten.  Those women in particular would be Native American and immigrant (of the illegal variety).  The Violence Against Women Act added in some provisions to cover areas where real problems were showing their ugly faces and the GOP House's response was, "Take that, bitch."

I just don't know what it says about this country that we've managed to make these people important.  It is easy enough to talk about gerrymandering and tribalism in regard to voting, but goddamit this kind of thing ought to cause some real revulsion even in the face of those issues.  If you're a woman or a man who cares at all about women...

Oh fer cryin' out loud, WHAT?

What in the hell does it take?

So, when you tell me you vote Republican do you really want the first question to cross my mind to be, "So just how often do you smack the old lady around?"  

Ummm, so do you do it daily or just once in awhile?

Hurricane Sandy

Do you suppose it might concentrate some minds in the GOPer House to point out to them that unlike the Confederate Hurricanes this one happened at the start of winter and winter in the goddam Northeast isn't The Season like it is down by the Gulf?  You know, sub-freezing and snow and shit like that?

That bunch would be good for comic relief except... well, suffering.

Disaster Relief - Really?

I'm going to use Business Insider for this quote so nobody can call me unfair:

"Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction," Romney told debate moderator John King. "And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?” When John King interrupted to clarify, "Including disaster relief?" Romney continued, "We cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all."

Now what I'd like to ask Gov Christie and the rest of the complaining GOPers is just exactly who was it they backed in the last election?  I know they think we're idiots with the attention span of a Mayfly but dayyyammm. 

I'm done linking but maybe some of the screaming GOPers would like to wind the timeline back a bit more to where their fellow GOPers were in the House talking about how disaster aid for the suffering should get done just as soon as they figure out who else to make suffer and they never mentioned the outfit in the business of making people suffer and breaking things... Defense.

I just got done listening to whiz kid Mad Money Kramer state that discretionary spending was at 70yr low and about all we do is Defense, SS, Medicare and then say that though we've got the oldest limits in the advanced countries that, well - SS etc is where you go.  Defense got mentioned in where we spend money but that was it.

I hate to say this, but the olds and poor will get the shit kicked out of them way before Defense loses a cent and the People will swallow this as the cost of getting business done.  Yeah, there will be a handful like me jumping around screaming, "foul," and that will be it and we'll get pointed at and laughed at.

Cripes, and now we've got the nonsense that Gov Christie is a fricking reasonable GOPer.  In that Party today, such a thing does not exist.  PERIOD.

Now We've Got A "New" Congress

So I just watched the House stand up and applaud the election of The Orange Man to be Speaker of the Ass-ylum.  Well there you go, he got there by about 3 votes from a bunch who is so impressed with him that the non-Representative loon Allen West got a couple votes.  So if you've been engaging in any welcome of a "new" Congress you should understand just what kind of gauntlet was thrown down today.

The Vandals just gave Speaker Boehner a shot across the bow.  If he bothers to act as though the business of the people means getting some things done; his neck is already in the noose and the trap trigger is set.  The tax bill was passed with twice as many of his Party voting against it, they've told him today that they're not kidding even if nobody else wants the job right now. 

There are some big important votes coming up and their lack of action could be a sledgehammer to the economy's head.  Sure, the Debt Limit vote ought to be nothing more than affirming a joke, but that joke has become a mean practical joke on the citizenry.  I'm not sure how many people would think it reasonable to not pay the house mortgage because the carpet is dirty - but there is a sizable portion of GOPers (demonstrated today) that do think it is reasonable.  Allen goddam West is about as up-front a "fuck you" as it gets.

I'm about real tired of hearing optimistic bullshit about what the '12 election means.  What that election means is that Congress is still in the hands of the Vandals.  In a Party with a modicum of sanity they'd just be the fringe that you have to put up with getting on the TV machine and saying stupid stuff.  This GOP is not that Party.  It does not mean squat to these people and, in the final run, their Party that the President and the Senate are Democratic and that most people think they're full of shit.  If you think things are going to be better over the next two years... 

Since This Jerk Is My Governor... Michigan's Anyhow

Thanks to some mis-firing brain cells and a certain actually good reason I moved to Michigan, Rick Snyder's Michigan.  It seems that there is some buyers' remorse setting in.  Gov Rick is polling underwater at 56% sucks to 37% approve.  I guess I have a couple thoughts... and they're not exactly complimentary to my "fellow" Michiganders.

Which one of you assholes who is sorry now failed to notice the goddam (R) after his name?

Which one of you sorry idjits couldn't be bothered to notice that the (R) designation means "hate unions" among hate other things?

Is it any consolation for you sorry bastards that a whole bunch of those who share your "sucks" sentiment didn't vote for him and get to live with the stupidity of your vote?

Hey, union brothers and sisters who voted for this guy... you really suck bad and I hope you're really, really satisfied with yourselves.  Tell that butthead next to you just how pleased you are he isn't paying dues along side you.  Yeah buddy, that'll teach them Unions to be nice to gays and browns.

There are enough assholes anywhere without you adding to the quota of stupid ones.

You don't like that kind of talk?  Kiss My Ass, I was smart enough to live in Oregon when you elected this twit and his fellow traveler twits.  Yeah, they've tried this crap there... nope.

National Review Gets Sued, Finally Some Good News?

Once, in the dark ages before Blogs, I took a six month subscription to The National Review with the idea that maybe something Buckley had a hand in wouldn't be intolerably stupid.  The writing was childish (you get better here, if that's saying anything) and Buckley's only contributions were some sort of "Emeritus Letters" that clearly showed the man was well past whatever prime he had.  The subscription ran out... thankfully since that meant that I didn't need to read the waste of my money.  It isn't so much that I disagreed with them (I do, pretty much unequivocably) but that I don't care to pay for and read HS Freshman thinking and writing.  At NRO the ability to string words together has improved somewhat, but the logic and thinking still approximates the three year old's, "I want this now, don't tell me about facts!" screaming.  (I've had kids and I know they don't talk like that)

Now Michael Mann, a Penn State climatologist,  is suing NR for libel and defamation of character.

filed in District of Columbia Superior Court, Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, claimed that a July 15 article not only falsely accused him of misconduct, but crossed a line by comparing him to Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football assistant coach convicted of child molestation. He also sued the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that ran a piece about Mann on its staff blog, OpenMarket.org.  

This place right here doesn't worry about calling somebody like Rick Santorum names or even saying Mittens is a liar.  Some of that has to do with the fact that they deserve it, but I'm sure I can get away with it because they're quite public enough in their assholery for me to be shielded.  I'm afraid that Mann has been enough of a public face on his own hook that NR could pretty much call him any damn thing they pleased, and just claim satire.  The part about accusing him of fraud may cause them a bunch of difficulty.

It seems it has:

As many of you know, National Review is not a non-profit — we are just not profitable. A lawsuit is not something we can fund with money we don’t have.

You may not know much about NR but I'm pretty sure you do know that they are great whacking bangers of the "Free Market" drum.  They are not a news magazine any more than this site is so they don't have the excuse of running a large information gathering staff eating their income.  What they have are opinion writers that the market doesn't value highly enough for them to earn a profit.  That market would be the right-wing grifting machine that has given us Newt and his plastic wife earning a fine lifestyle and Dick Morris not looking at all as if he's missing meals.  You could run down a pretty fair list of right-wing noise makers (Rush?) that don't seem to be poor, though begging is big with all of them.  Somebody/s are being over-paid, there is that little matter of deficit spending or even the Right To Work For Less.

To be sure, the profit their investors are looking for isn't from $$$$s generated under that "Masthead" but from the benefits of keeping the marks in line and on script so "not profitable" works for them.  It doesn't have a damn thing to do with the "Market" they're always on about - it has everthing to do with manipulating politics to subsidize their betters - the antithesis of their individuality fetish.  NR is essentially paid advertising for all the rest of the RW grifting and their plutocratic overlords.  They're not pointless, that machine managed to get a Mitt Romney sort of close.  You only have to think about that in relation to everything else going on for about a minute to be very frightened... or at least a bit ill.

Anyhow, it is an early Xmas gift. 

Patriot And Hacks - Guess Which Is Susan Rice

This is what a patriot looks like...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

and this is what camera hogging partisan hacks look like.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As for the media... piss on that bunch of weasles.

Mississippi On The Great Lakes

Many of you (a few) know that until mid-Oct I lived in Northeast Oregon, and then moved to Northern Michigan - Petoskey, to be exact.  For those of you not from here and know something about geography the title N MI may confuse you with that big old chunk of Michigan north of here also known as the UP - Upper Peninsula.  OK, so here's the deal - this place is socio-economically... divided is a polite word.  The Mitten (you get that, right?) is split up into the urban South, the farmlandish central and the lake splattered wooded cooler north of tourism/summer residency.  You can get to the UP from the rest of Michigan by boat or The Bridge.  The UP was timber and mining, now more toursim but it is sparcely populated and heavily wooded.  Frankly it is a socio/economic-geopolitical nightmare.  My political pals from Oregon will recognize a bit of this stuff, but here it is really a mess and you can drill even deeper down by noting that the western part is... conservative/farmland.

As you might guess, the more rural the area the more GOPer infested it is.  I know my friends from E OR would consider the area I'm in something other than rural considering how many people there are here per square mile but there simply are a bunch of quite small towns.  Petoskey is the big town in the area with a population of about 6300 (year around - triple in "the season").

I'm enough of a foreigner that I can't do real specific political analysis, but frankly the urban part of the state is pretty fractured politically.  This state was hit hard in a socio-economic sense by urban flight and a bit after that the collapse of manufacturing.  The Michigan that was such a driver in Unionism and progressive policies hasn't existed for some time. Charlie Pierce has taken to referring to this place as Michissippi, which I'd have used in the title other than not liking to do complete rip-offs.

I could go into the post-WWII influx of southerners and particularly the rise in black employment as some of the drivers of  what is going on here.  If you're not particularly aware, while the Unions were  busy being a part of the vanguard of social progressivism a good sized chunk of the rank and file were busy voting GOPer dogwhistling, fag bashing, and hippie kicking... and fleeing to the suburbs.  Yup, in a lot of ways this place is a lot more Mississippi than it is what you've thought of as Michigan.  If you gave me a choice between living here and shit on a stick I'm afraid I'd opt for the stick but for a pretty good reason I'm stuck here.  It looks as though the only path to some sort of peace of mind is to learn to ignore the doings of my betters and just not care.

yeah, right.

How To Cure GOP Demographic Blues

If you read this maybe you could explain to me why it is that the GOP has  Them Old Time Demographic Blues.

“I see that the way we will get the Hispanics and the other groups, the Asians, as part of the Republican Coalition is to get them first part of the great American Coalition. Make them think of themselves, not make but, persuade them to think of themselves primarily as Americans. Restore the overarching, all-encompassing concept of an American identity, which we used to have, which we knew how to bring about and which in the last 20 or 30 years very largely as a result of the democrats wanting to emphasize ethnicity rather than American-ness. We have lost that and frankly one of the reasons we have not regained it and doing very badly at the moment is because the Republicans have neither had the imagination nor the courage to think how they could appeal to these other ethnic groups as Americans and craft an appeal that won them over. They have got to do that.”

I think they may be onto something (or maybe on something).  You really don't expect me to comment on this... do you?

GOP And Taxes

Just to get people to think about just how damn difficult this tax and budget business is going to get, I'd like to propose this:
Getting the GOP to agree to tax increases on the rich and not gutting social security and medicaid/medicare is like trying to get a Fundamentalist Christian to acknowledge Evolution or one of you to become an entirely different religion.

You are not dealing with facts and numbers here, you're dealing with a religion.  You can't go so far as to call it an ideology because of the faith backed nature of it.  Listen up, the Earth was not created six thousand years ago and supply side economics does not work.  Neither of them works because they ignore reality and facts in favor of faith.  Now why in the hell supply side has become a religion is way beyond me, but then Creationism is also.  Now I suppose that since there have been a couple books around for thousands of years that talked about the Garden there is some damned excuse for Creationism still being around, but for Cripes Sake this supply side nonsense only has St Ronnie, not God on its side.

None of that matters because it still is a religion and pushing the GOPers out of it is going to take a hell of a lot more than being nice to them.  What it is going to take is a choice between damnation and survival - most of them are way too big of cowards to chose martyrdom.  Now, you figure out what that is going to take.  Mr President and fellow Dems?

How To Ruin The Job Creators

The President-elect ran a campaign determined to mine enthusiasm for raising the top marginal tax rate from 35% to 39%.  The GOP has assured us that such behavior will mean economic Armageddon through the ruination of the people who "create" jobs.  Some sort of magic occurs at 35%.

I do not and no one I know hires a fourth person to do three people's work, that is just stupid.  Everyone I know of that hires people hires someone because three people can't do four people's work, which means that there is that much demand for the product.  If you're going to follow along on this "job creators" theme you're either telling people that rich people having some more money means they will gratuitously hire or that they spend enough money in the market place to drive that kind of demand.  I think we've dealt with the gratuitous hiring part but the demand part is ought to be as easy, 2% of the taxpayers do not buy all that much of anything (well, most yachts).

So what is the real impact?  Let's start with what marginal rate means - anything above an amount.  So, $250,000, after deductions, is taxed at the previous rates and anything above gets hit.  This would mean that of $260,000 after deductions $10,000 would be taxed at 39%.  Follow along, 10,000 x 0.39 is 3,900 and 10,000 x 0.35 is 3500 which is a grand total of another $400.  Holy shit, your taxes on Adjusted Gross Income of $260,000 will go up $400 and with that you will buy... what?  OK, sure we all know this is more about millionaires than than that 250K bunch so here's that number (assuming - ridiculously - that you somehow have $1M in ordinary income) $750,000.  Alrighty, more simple damn math: 750,000 x 0.39 is 292,500 and 750,000 x 0.35 is 262,500 so your 750K costs you $30,000 more.  That will buy one car that these people won't be seen driving or at the Federal Minimum Wage of $7.25 earning you $1580 at 40 hours for 52 weeks a whole $15,080, just less than two jobs washing the cars they actually would buy.  (no, we're not talking take-home pay)  Why does that millionaire need two additional minimum workers?  Nobody will tell you, they just squeal "job creators."

If people don't have goddam money they don't spend it on products and services.  Those people are called consumers and they produce jobs by consuming.  If 80% of the consumers are competing for 7% of the wealth there isn't going to be a lot of consuming going on out of that share.  What is actually the case is that the "job creators" are destroying jobs by sucking every last cent out of the economy.  It isn't the conservatives' bug-a-boo government that is sucking the life out of the economy, it is their protected class that is doing it.  It is real damn simple - the money is not moving around in the economy.

You can feel free to call it socialism, communism, or "punishing success" to advocate using the one tool the governement has at hand to change economic behavior, taxation, to address this concentration of wealth - but real simply, capitalism can't survive under the current conditions.  Most of the country can do pretty well under capitalism, those who can't can be addressed with an adequate safety-net, but we have today the Reaganism version of capitalism to live with and it ain't working.  Welcome to The Gilded Age aka Robber Baron Era.

People have serious doubts that the President can stick to his 39% rate which will do spit to address the problem and are worried about the safety-net...  Christ on a pogo stick.  Liberals seem to think this recent election did more than stave off absolute disaster.  Can this nation get any stupider about its plutocrat enabling?

The short answer, of course, is - Yes.

How To Become A GOP Foreign Policy Leader

If you want to lead a Party on foreign policy there seem to be some pretty specialized qualifications, not easily obtained by just anybody.   You should start out by being an Admiral's son, then you can learn to crash jet airplanes without ratting out your fellow prisoners.  If that seems a bit threadbare and only suited to making you famous, there is actually more.  You need to throw bar-b-ques for reporters and spend lots of time talking to them... about not much of anything, until you get a reputation as a reasonable guy in the face of what you actually propose and vote on.  If you've managed that, run for President with a particularly noxious version of know-nothing Alaskan and lose that rather badly.  Part of the bona-fides for running to have that office should include assertions that the invasion of Iraq will be easy and that we'll be welcomed as liberators and while campaigning singing about bombing Iran or ... well various things as silly as announcing that we're all Georgians now (not the one with Atlanta) or maybe the other Rice, Condi...  If all that worked out pretty good you'd be named Sen. John McPOW McCain.

If you'd like to waste time looking back into foreign policy and security difficulties for this nation you will find McPOW on the wrong and stupidly wrong side (short of torturing our prisoners) in damn near every instance.  I don't mean wrong morally or some such, just plain old factually wrong.

Since the Senator is going to term limit out of the one important committee he sits on it might help if he could get a Watergate type special committee going to sit on, though the Sunday morning talk shows can't seem to get enough of him, now.  It is puzzling how Susan Rice (no, the other Rice) became such a lightning rod other than the obvious - female, black, Pres. Obama...  She's been the UN Ambassador for some time now and they're not pointing at what she did in that job, but repeating the intelligence (loosely applied) agencies' talking points.  I guess it is enough that she has been out in public to make a good coathook for McPOW.  Don't get me started on Lindsey Graham and Kelly (who???) Ayotte - 2012 NH O/R 52/46 might say... publicity is important.  Of course, Lindsey (uh-huh) may be having primary problems.

I don't hold any brief for Susan Rice for any office or appointment, if the President wants her for something I figure he has good reasons and ought to get his way unless there's something outrageously bad lurking.  If there was something, I'm pretty damn sure he'd avoid her like the plague - he knows how to do that.  If this doesn't demolish the credibility of these three, well... this is the US and we're Exceptional(ly stupid).     

Governor Chris Christie Fer Christ's Sake

Gov. Christie is running for re-election to be Governor of New Jersey - that would be Republican Governor of that Blue State of New Jersey.  That would mean that he will have to run for that re-election as a Republican governor of a blue state with policies designed to win in a blue state, a northeastern blue state.  There has been talk about Gov. Christie running in 2016 for the GOP Presidential election.

Uh...

The GOP Primary voters really didn't like Mitt Romney, you know - the Blue State Republican Governor - but he did manage to money bomb and campaign competence bomb his rivals into extinction after his 180 on being a Republican Blue State Governor - barely (see Santorum).  Consider that damn near anybody breathing polled higher than Mittens for awhile.  The GOP ran a fairly democratic Primary this last time and the results were... disappointing for the GOP.

I'm sure the GOP can manage to jury rig the Primary process to get something closer to their desires but I'm not sure they can tilt the field enough to get the Confederate Party of Republicanism to swallow Christie, even as abrasive as he can be.  Tough talk isn't going to cover the realities of being a blue state governor - especially not in The Old Confederacy (and The New Confederacy).  Well, the Media needs something to talk about...

there's always Jeb BUSH

ahahahahaha, please do that.

Why The GOP Lost, So They Say

A couple things about GOP loss excusing were pretty obvious years ago and so were included today to nobody's surprise featuring the oldie goldie:

Conservatism cannot fail, only be failed...
ie: Mitt sucked at being conservative

But for real gold you had to mine fine minds like Hannity and O'Reilly,  Bill O' started his evening off with a mantra I later learned is the new GOP talking point - the election was bought by O'Bama (heh, couldn't resist) from the over 50% that want their gubbmint free stuff.  This was the center piece of his little peroration that went from the opening theme to the pre-commercial announcement of his guests which induced uncontrolled gagging on my part and a quick click to the XBox that was idling for just such an eventuality.  There were some other bits surrounding the lazy no good takers part that I won't credit Bill with since what I remember may be confused with some other GOPer stuff.  He sure didn't like the demographics, St Ronnie hadn't had that problem.

I returned from the fictional XBox endeavors to the alternate reality of Hannity who also opened with a title screen to first commercial sermon, and to my less than great surprise its center piece was the failing of the gubbmint teat sucking Americans to act in a moral way and elect the rMoney guy.  This one also brought in an oblique "more later" reference to the Librul Media efforts on behalf of that not Irish Obama and some extensive going on about the dirty campaign run by "that guy."  The words lying, sliming, and defaming in regard to Mittens' self were in emphatic usage as was the qualifier "the most... in memory"  I'm happy to point out that Hannity has a very short memory and extremely selective attention span.  In Hannity's case I was willing to stick around for the after commercial first guest Ann Coulter, despite what better sense told me.

The first order of business was to get Ann to agree that the moral failings of the teat suckers had to be corrected in order to... hmmm, it gets a bit sticky here... achieve happiness through self-reliance and return the Hannity version of Conservatism to power... or something like that.  Ann's short, "I agree," sentiment seemed to contain a bit of annoyance at having Hannity put words in her mouth while using up her on air time.  Ann managed to sort of apologize for drifting off reservation with her Christie/Romney/we loose jabber earlier on.  She'd thought - well after some fourth grader political analysis - that (do you have any idea how difficult it is to sort of repeat Ann Coulter and be sure you're making any kind of sense in what you're relating?)... anyhow, that incumbents are hard to beat and O'Bama (ooops, wrong show) Obama is popular and so was Christie and, aw geeze, free stuff and lies and rMoney was really a good candidate and Sandy screwed the works and...crap,  the hell with it.

Both BillO and Hannity were pretty much in agreement that there is no problem with GOP right wingery and both seemed to wax philosophical about how America would come running to them to right the insults to Americanism of the O'Bama crowd and seemed to think '14 should do pretty well as a time line and their crowd had best not despair...  ayup, conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.  Oddly enough a day later and they were still holding fire on rMoney although O'Reilly had some fairly harsh criticism of the staff for not making their point strongly enough and surging back after Sandy and he did want Axelrod.

So, what we've got here is that with the help of the compliant liberal media the sinning suckers were bought with cheap trinkets and lies about the fine fellow Mitt who was let down by his shitty staff while being ambushed by a hurricane named Sandy to the point where the non-traditional electorate of loser types would fail the conservatism that would come roaring back to save them when through the ministrations of some undetermined agency they would return to their senses after the Democrat Party failed them and we go bankrupt while being killed by the foreign boogeymen and what did O'Bama know and when did he know it...

Or - in short - most Americans are shitty people who failed a shitty campaign and both failed Conservatism but not to worry, it's coming back... soon.

Really, in a sad sick way they were damn near as funny as the Comedy News guy John Stewart.  Well, there is the part where he is deliberately being funny...  and he's waiting for the laughter when he says really stupid stuff.

Have I mentioned that watching people talk about the GOPers re-assessing and returning to reason leaves me ROTFLMAO?

A New GOP?

The media seems all a-flutter with the theme of a GOP civil war and how the GOP is going to address the President running the table on the so-called swing states and a pretty clear majority vote.  The first things to look at are the numbers in Congress.  The Senate gains by Democrats were unexpected by most a year ago but it falls far short of stopping filibusters and the House is still... well, I can't think of a polite adjective - Republican.  Then there is the electorate, that infamous 27% number makes up over half of the GOP and if this election cycle didn't make their point of view clear, I'm unsure just how big a hammer it takes to get your attention.

Regarding the Senate elections, the Democrats picked up seats (sort of - considering who some of them are) thanks mostly to the GOP Primary results.  If you think there is a lesson for them in that, I'd like to point you back two years and the results of GOP Primary voting that time and the balance in the Senate.  New Senate rules could have some effect on pure obstructionism, but don't hold your breath on that happening.

At one time the Senate was the much more stable entity and the House the volatile one, thanks to gerrymandering that is no longer true with Senators facing a state wide popular vote threshold that includes sufficient mixes of Party loyalties and other sensibilities to elect something other than lunacy in enough states and the House candidates getting their predetermined mixes.  When people like Bachmann are able to hang on for cycle after cycle you know that something is seriously amiss.  The House GOP lunatic caucus has proven safe and whatever sort of pragmatism John Boehner might like to practice, they'll have no more part of that this time around than they did the last two years and their numbers are not inconsiderable for Boehner.  I don't like Boehner and I think his politics stink but they're less egregious assholery than his colleagues' idiotology but he has essentially no levers to move them with and is scared spitless of them.  Any House GOPer to the left of wingnuttery knows their wing will Primary them into extinction if the break rank.

It may be a fact that if the GOP wants to win statewide and national elections outside the Confederacy and Confederate sympathisers it has to change directions, but that does not mean there is any Primary impetus to do so.  That 27% is not subject to the reasoned discourse that involves something outside their ideology and compromise means doing that and winning those big elections means doing it.  They do not want to win at the cost of betraying that hard core ideology and believe in their hearts that they'll start winning by sticking to it and even going harder in that direction.  Their Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.  While all the long term developements look for the GOP just about like they did for the Confederacy versus the Union that war didn't end before the almost utter destruction of their ability to function, either.  Faith is a peculiar thing and not particularly subject to reality's intrusions.

UPDATE
This also includes the idea of making the GOP something other than the Confederate Party of Republicanism ie: Racism.

All this is a pretty long way of looking at this GOP civil war idea and saying, "Please pick my laughing my ass off self off the floor." 

Saving President Mitt

Well now, the GOPer punditocracy has been a bit rough on r-Money for about a week and change continuing on this week.  The stuff got to be enough that Mrs r-Money was reduced to snapping, "Stop it!"  The difficulty for Team Mitt is that, "Stop it," didn't do the job and it continues on.  Ayn Ryan complained that Conservative Pundits (GOPers) do that, complain about imperfections.  A late poll shows a bunch of swing states with the President at 50+/-% and r-Money at mid-forties which might qualify as a real imperfection.

I've heard all kinds of prescriptions for Team R/R, from unleashing Ayn, to R/R "Going Rogue," to not pretending to be human and going with the CEO persona and even to putting out detailed plans. (OMG, Mitt just referred to himself as St Ronnie)  All the 'scripts seem to revolve around salesmanship by either the professionals or the candidates.  It doesn't seem to dawn on the GOPer Punditry that maybe, just goddam maybe the problem isn't so much with which version of r-Moneybot they tool up it won't sell their shit to people who've just stopped buying or never did.  It isn't that the GOP has been a big secret, the secret has been just how much they believed their stuff.  They don't have to worry about the votes of the Obama-haters but the ones who aren't exactly satisfied with Obama want some place to go and batshit crazy doesn't exactly appeal to them.  (It does begin to look as though a big chunk of r-Money support dislikes Obama but doesn't like r-Money)

How about this, you want to save the election for Mitt maybe you ought to let him run on something other than the GOP Ticket.  Maybe the whole problem is the GOP.  God knows r-Money has all the charisma of a paper bag but even St Ronnie wasn't trying to peddle this crap while he was dog-whistling his way to Sainthood.  The Sainted RR was actually bringing something new to the table and now it is old and worn and... failed.  We've had the ongoing efforts of building on Reaganism and the outcomes so they're starting much farther along than St Ronnie talked about (despite where he wanted to go) and St Ronnie never asserted that his version of looting would end in the 07/8 debacle. (S&L lays there... rotting stinking corpse of a warning)

I suppose the r-Moneybot V 0.(whatever) that ran for Gov MA might have a chance, but if he could run as a GOPer that would probably mean we would have a President he's running against that does actual progressive things... ummm, back to the actual nation.

See ya around

Anne, STOP IT

CBS News reports on Anne Romney's Iowa radio comments:

Amid ongoing criticism over the management of her husband's presidential campaign, Ann Romney on Thursday responded to the critics in an interview on Radio Iowa: "Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring," she said. "This is hard and, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now and it's an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country," Romney said.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this Anne, but this ain't your damned Country Club or the Office where Mittens is the undisputed king and all around dictator. People who are on your team or putatively on your team get to tell you you're doing it wrong.

 Now I do disagree with, oh say, Peggy Noonan that the problem is the campaign because they're working with what they've got - and that is the candidate and the message. r-Money's personality disorder isn't something that is easily addressed in a short term campaign, this mess goes waaaayyyy back and everybody that has anything to do with him (he has inflicted himself on all of us) is just plain stuck with it.

The message is the legacy of the GOP, it just is what the GOP wants for the nation. I don't know just exactly how that gets prettied up, much. The election of 2010 certainly encouraged the GOPers to "go for it." The mistake they've made is conflating a low turnout midterm with cowardly incumbents for a national election for President, even in a sucky economy. Unlike Peggy, I don't have any winning advice for that campaign - other than maybe quit being GOPers...

Anne, it is always hard to run for major office and I don't think anybody who pays any attention is unaware of it. In point of fact, most of those people wouldn't do it on a large bet just because it does suck to do. What does seem to be pretty clear is that people in general are under-whelmed by their luck in having Mitt's qualities aimed at the Presidency. I don't mean he won't get plenty of votes but those are beginning to look much more like anti-Obama than pro-Mitt.

Anne, your guy sucks - he just sucks a little less than Santorum or Ron Paul and had a lot more money. Your package bought this chance and he just plain sucks at what he bought and folks on that side don't much like it.   Oh well...

Mitt's Advance Excuse

Mitt seems to now have made his pre-excuse for the debates.

“I think the challenge that I’ll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren’t true,” Romney said. “I’ve looked at prior debates. And in that kind of case, it’s difficult to say, ‘Well, am I going to spend my time correcting things that aren’t quite accurate? Or am I going to spend my time talking about the things I want to talk about?”

I think the last sentence is the real meat.  This is where he gets us ready for him to do a 'Palin' in the debates.  This is the assertion that nothing of substance will be put forward by the President so r-Money can just go to his talking points without addressing anything on topic.  What is missing and I'm pretty sure will get made up for is the theme of "liberal media bias" and in the Obama tank media and, by extension, moderators putting Mittens in the position of not even having to marginally address the moderator's questions.

The other aspect about truth is just flak to cover r-Money's own deficits in the ever saying something true category.  It isn't as though there has been a seldom occurrence of a miscure by the R/R campaign or a couple outside organizations bending the truth; we've gotten to the point where "the lie of the month" has had to be supplanted by the "lie of the week" and coming up as a too long a period for that campaign.

If you're expecting something of substance or an actual debate from Mittens, I've got a bridge in NY to sell you...

Really Mr Rather? Paul Ryan Isn't Who You Thought He Was?

I watched with a certain amount of disbelief as Dan Rather blurted out something I considered rather unobservant on Rachel Maddow's 9/10 Show... words to the effect that he was astonished that Paul Ryan has done so poorly in television and other interviews.  Rachel in a rather nice way tuned Dan up.  She pointed out to him some of what I'm about to go off on.

Paul Ryan is exactly as much of an intellect as you could expect from someone who takes Ayn Rand seriously once out of puberty... or high school, anyhow.  This ought to be a starting point for anyone talking about Ryan's abilities.  Ayn Rand's writings are about stoking the testosterone fueled imaginings of superiority over 'the other' - the ones who don't run things and just do.  You are aware of 'just do' - they cook your food, they build your house, they clean your house or others houses, they don't get the big bucks and they don't get their pictures in the 'nice' magazines.  Worker bees.  Not one goddam cent the Ayn Rand Superiors have is generated by their own sweat and blood - some pissant worker bee makes the things and gets them their income and those folks are disposable, they are "the takers."  They're takers because they make the shit and buy the shit and want to get paid something for it and they're not grateful to the great men who'd as soon they starved while they work.  If they don't work thanks to the decisions of their betters then they can just starve, or if they can't work because they got dealt a real shitty hand - they should have found a better dealer - like running mate Mitt did.  It is a simplistic world where force and influence are all that matters and where the only consequences are when the truly great are inconvenienced - only a very limited intellect would be impressed.  That is for starters.

Paul Ryan has "shone" within the simplified world of the conservative media and amongst his similarly minded and within a pissant CD in the same state where Michelle Bachman has prospered in a similar venue.  Results are quite understandably different when the surroundings aren't composed of his friends and sycophants and include people who are willing to look at a record and analyze talking points policy.  Wanting something to be so does not make a four hour plus marathon into a sub-three hour one and it does not make the fevered imaginings of Ayn into workable policy and it doesn't make ideology into goddam mathematics.  The real rules of the world say that you can't make money in to match money out without actually doing it - ideology be damned.  The real world says that you can't make rape into several other things without really pissing off anyone who gives a damn about women and after you've tried to do it you don't get to claim it is all a misunderstanding.  Some people pay attention to these things and will question it outside Janesville WI and the GOP House Caucus. 

Why the hell Dan Rather is surprised that a pip-squeak ideologue doesn't do well when challenged on his bullshit is way beyond me.  Paul Ryan's ideas have been in full view for some time and they've not been misrepresented and they stink in practical terms.  To put it simply - they are in practice stupid, if ideologically sound.  Paul Ryan has to deny that a vote for Sequestration was a vote for Sequestration and do it in front of people who say, "What the hell?"  This is from the Party that accused John Kerry of flip-flopping for voting differently on two different variations of a Bill.  Paul says he did it to force a better deal... he voted for what he voted for outcomes be damned and wants to pass that off as principled action.  Yes, he thought he was playing hostage taker just as those GOPers thought the rest of their Debt Ceiling hostage taking was a good idea - real world outcomes be damned.

The unexplainable doesn't get explained by Paul Ryan and Dan Rather is surprised.  When you try to do things that make no damned sense at all it is real hard to make it sensible, or even make sensible responses to questions about them.  The measure of an intellect is not the ability to parrot stupidity and pass it off as policy, the measure of intellect is an ability to face reality and do a somewhat good job of matching your desires to it and working within its constraints.  Buying the idiotic punditry that making stupid policy involves nerve and out-of-the-box-thinking is asking to be disappointed or astonished that its object can't live up to its billing.  An actual intellect knows how to adapt and innovate and improvise in the face of conditions, not hew to wishful thinking that things will just work because it wants them to.

Paul Ryan is a chimera of the right and the teabaggers, not anything more and his resolute stupidity is going to cost the GOPers for uplifting it into something is doesn't in the least resemble.  And yes, they deserve anything they get for it... and if the electorate buys into it, well hell, then we'll get what we as a nation deserve and too bad for those who knew better...