Hullabaloo

Thursday, August 12, 2010

 
Overt Muslim bashing eight years late

by digby


In case anyone's wondering, the neocon and theocon nutballs aren't the only one's speaking out on the matter of the Cordoba House:

More than 40 prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders and religion scholars issued a statement today condemning the "xenophobia and religious bigotry" fueling the increasingly strident opposition to a proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero. These leaders from New York City and across the country are specifically challenging the divisive rhetoric of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who have strongly opposed a center that will promote interfaith relations, combat extremism, and offer community programs for Americans of all religious backgrounds.

"It's simply wrong for Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, public figures who frequently reference their Christian values, to malign all Muslims by comparing this cultural center and mosque with a radical ideology that led to the horrific attacks of 9-11," said Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby. "We fail to honor those killed by terrorists when we betray the bedrock principle of religious freedom that has guided our democracy for centuries."

Newt Gingrich recently claimed that the Cordoba House "... is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way." Palin called plans for the center a "provocation" that "stabs at the heart."

Faithful America - an online community of more than 100,000 people of faith - is also standing up for the American Muslim community and interfaith cooperation today in response to anti-Muslim sentiment and fierce opposition to proposed mosques in communities across the country. Faithful America members are signing a petition to honor the "many contributions of American Muslims toward global peace" and denounce bigotry and limits on religious freedom as a betrayal of American values.

"Christians who believe in the values of religious freedom and interfaith cooperation welcome plans for Cordoba House, a center of culture and dialogue that will honor our nation's highest ideals," said the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, President of the National Council of Churches. "We are deeply saddened by those who denigrate a religion which in so many ways is a religion of compassion and peace by associating all Muslims with violent extremism. That's like equating all Christians to Timothy McVeigh's actions. This center will reflect not only the best of Islam, but the enduring hope that Christians, Jews and Muslims can together find common ground in addressing the most urgent challenges of our time."

"Back in the fall of 2001, when President George W. Bush assured the American people that the War on Terror was not a war against Islam, it would have been hard to imagine a more picture perfect example of Muslim Americans exercising their civic responsibilities than by building a thirteen-story YMCA-style community center," said Rev. Chloe Breyer, Executive Director of the Interfaith Center of New York. "Cordoba House is exactly the kind of initiative that we need here in New York - it will serve people of all faith traditions and enrich the city, cultivating a society that lives up to our highest ideals, not our worse fears."

There's more at the link.

I think the thing that's most jarring about this controversy --- and the similar protests around the country --- is that it's happening eight years after the fact. It would have made far more sense in the immediate aftermath, but the nation managed to resist this by and large (with some very notable exceptions.) My assumption is that this was because the president and the Republicans kept a leash on their neanderthals, which they are clearly failing to do now. Indeed, they have joined them.

And obviously, this has something to do with it. (Whether they are projecting their bigotry against African Americans on to Muslims or their bigotry against Muslims onto African Americans remains an open question. Not that it really matters.)

But a large majority of the country don't think this cultural center project should happen, and people all over the country are protesting the building of mosques in their neighborhoods suddenly, so it isn't just wingnuts letting their most outlandish freaks' flags fly in NYC. Has this know-nothing hostility been out there all along and was just held back by the GOP establishment or is it just plain old racism and xenophobia come to the surface in an environment which welcomes it?



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digby 8/12/2010 02:00:00 PM |

 
Bye Bye Bai

by digby


I wish I knew what it was about Paul Ryan in person that makes so many DC insiders all gooey inside. (Maybe it's those blue, blue eyes of his.) Today's Matt Bai encomium is a perfect case in point. Evidently Ryan is so charismatic and intelligent that Bai doesn't even feel the need to bother discussing Ryan's actual beliefs or goals since what matters is his alleged gift for impressing Democrats with charisma and intelligence. (I suppose there might be some truth to that, sadly, but Bai seems to think that a reporter should settle for the same thing.) Ryan's a nice looking guy and he doesn't sound like James Inhofe, but really, all these paeans to his his sharp intelligence and excellent temperament must be a result of something you can only see in person because what he actually says and believes is as radical as it comes. Not to mention kind of ... well ... dumb.

For instance, how can anyone who Glenn Beck loves be considered reasonable. Just this alone should be enough to make anyone take a step back:

GLENN BECK: Nice to meet you, sir. Tell me, tell me your thoughts on progressivism.

PAUL RYAN: Right. What I have been trying to do, and if you read the entire Oklahoma speech or read my speech to Hillsdale College that they put in there on Primus Magazine, you can get them on my Facebook page, what I've been trying to do is indict the entire vision of progressivism because I see progressivism as the source, the intellectual source for the big government problems that are plaguing us today and so to me it's really important to flush progressives out into the field of open debate.

GLENN: I love you.

PAUL RYAN: So people can actually see what this ideology means and where it's going to lead us and how it attacks the American idea.

GLENN: Okay. Hang on just a second. I ‑‑ did you see my speech at CPAC?

PAUL RYAN: I've read it. I didn't see it. I've read it, a transcript of it.

GLENN: And I think we're saying the same thing. I call it ‑‑

PAUL RYAN: We are saying the same thing.

GLENN: It's a cancer.

PAUL RYAN: Exactly. Look, I come from ‑‑ I'm calling you from Janesville, Wisconsin where I'm born and raised.

GLENN: Holy cow.

PAUL RYAN: Where we raise our family, 35 miles from Madison. I grew up hearing about this stuff. This stuff came from these German intellectuals to Madison‑University of Wisconsin and sort of out there from the beginning of the last century. So this is something we are familiar with where I come from. It never sat right with me. And as I grew up, I learned more about the founders and reading the Austrians and others that this is really a cancer because it basically takes the notion that our rights come from God and nature and turns it on its head and says, no, no, no, no, no, they come from government, and we here in government are here to give you your rights and therefore ration, redistribute and regulate your rights. It's a complete affront of the whole idea of this country and that is to me what we as conservatives, or classical liberals if you want to get technical.

GLENN: Thank you.

I reminds me of early arguments I had on Usenet with libertarians. After a while you realize that it's like playing chess with a four year old. He gets a very intent look on his face and moves the pieces around the board with authority. But he isn't really playing the game.

And look, it isn't necessary to carefully parse his language or try to decipher his philosophy. There's a perfectly adequate shorthand available that can tell you everything you need to know. First, He is still an Ayn Rand acolyte at the age of 40, which means that he is emotionally and intellectually stunted. Second, there's this:

Ryan said his vote for the bailout was influenced by Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, a popular book among conservatives that argues that Nazism and other fascist movements were actually left wing in origin, and his belief that a second Depression would threaten capitalism—and rescue Obama's presidency.

"I'm a limited-government, free-enterprise guy, but TARP... represented a moment where we had no good options and we were about to fall into a deflationary spiral," he said. "I believe Obama would not only have won, but would have been able to sweep through a huge statist agenda very quickly because there would have been no support for the free-market system."

This is the guy who supposedly understand liberalism as no other Republican politician.

But if that quote is true, he's a liar, or he's stupid. I'm fairly well convinced he's both since only a card carrying moron would think that swill is believable. His argument, such as it is, is especially cheap and idiotic since it's based on the idea that the government had to pump more than a trillion dollars into the financial system in order to prevent it from collapsing. That's quite an endorsement of the Galtian principle.

Ryan is obviously this year's Newtie, another rightwing "intellectual" who enthralled the media for years with his pop conservatism despite the fact that half of what he said was New Age claptrap and the other half was warmed over McCarthyism. Ryan's the new Randian fashion so he's cloaked in a different mantle, but it's the same thing. There seems to be a hunger among the cognoscenti for a conservative they can relate to and apparently Ryan fits the bill at the moment.

Bai characterizes him as the Republican Obama --- cool, cerebral and abstract. (I guess the chattering class is still enthralled by the idea of a college professor to lead us out of the darkness.) But Ryan is a radical right winger with a soft voice and a degree from Atlas Shrugged University who doesn't deserve to be taken seriously as a man of ideas. He's a slick propagandist who's working for the usual wealthy interests, as his silly rationalizations about the TARP demonstrate. Why anyone thinks he's an honest broker is beyond me.

But then, I never got why the Village was so intent on believing John McCain and Lindsay Graham were good faith negotiators either, when their histories are littered with perfidy and betrayal. I guess it's just something those of us who aren't privileged to be in their charismatic physical presences can't see.


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digby 8/12/2010 11:00:00 AM |

 
Deficit Politics Then and Now

by digby


Here's is something you almost never see, an informative article about a contentious issue that doesn't resort to he said/she said:

1. For almost two decades we’ve been told that when you’re looking for signs of what Wall Street wants Washington to do about the federal budget, the bond market is the place to watch. What’s the bond market saying today?

The bond market is being as unequivocal today as it was when Bob Rubin used what it was saying in 1993 to convince Bill Clinton that he had to push to reduce the deficit. The only difference is that, instead of demanding deficit reduction, the bond market today is exhibiting no worries about the deficit or federal borrowing at all In fact it’s indicating that Washington should do more to stimulate the economy.

Although there are also a number of technical reasons why the demand for federal debt is strong and interest rates have remained low, the bond market’s interest in Treasury securities has been high no matter what the maturity. This demonstrates that, contrary to what deficit hawks and demagogues have been insisting, there is little or no concern on Wall Street about the government’s borrowing, either short- or long-term.

2. Why are Congress and the White House ignoring the bond market now after feeling the need to follow it so closely before?

In 1993, the bond market was threatening higher interest rates if the deficit wasn’t reduced, something elected officials could ignore at their own political peril. By contrast, the only threat the bond market can make now is to lower interest rates further, and that isn’t as fearsome to politicians.

In addition, the bond market in 1993 had a former bond trader -- Bob Rubin -- as a high-level advisor to the president and, therefore, in a position to communicate and validate what it was saying to Washington.

Most important, however, what the bond market is saying today is different from what deficit hawks and GOP critics of the Obama White House want to hear. As a result, the echo chamber that amplified and repeated the bond market’s message almost two decades ago doesn’t exist today.

3. What makes 2010 so different from 1993 for the bond market when it comes to the deficit?

It’s simple: The economic situation today is the opposite of what existed at the start of the Clinton administration. In 1993, the bond market was worried about excess demand and soaring inflation, which would have eroded the value of bonds. Having the federal government spend less and tax more -- that is, do things that would reduce the deficit -- meant that the economy would cool rather than overheat, and therefore that the demand for goods, services, and workers would be reduced. This would keep inflation in check and allow federal bonds to maintain their value.

The big concern today is about deflation and slow growth rather than inflation and overheating. With unemployment high and capacity utilization low, the bond market not only isn’t worried about the excessive economic growth, it actually would welcome the additional activity that would be generated by higher spending and lower taxes.

There are three more questions and answers at the link addressing the politics of this. (The short answer is that regardless of the merits, deficits are used as a weapon by politicians on behalf of wealthy people who don't want to have to pay even a minimally decent amount of taxes to support the country that has made them so wealthy in the first place.)

Even many smart people don't understand the politics of deficits. And almost nobody seems to grasp that deficits automatically go down when everyone's working. If you are really concerned about debt, then, you should be doing everything possible to put people back to work at good wages as soon as possible.

Oddly enough, the bond market actually does seem to get this. Go figure.




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digby 8/12/2010 08:30:00 AM |

 
BP Cheated Out Of $10,000!

by tristero

Listening to the Beeb this morning, I learned, much to my utter shock and amazement, that not everyone applying for compensation in the wake of the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico caused by BP and pals is entirely honest. Hard to believe, but out of the $300,000,000 BP's paid out so far, one slimeball went so far as to claim $10,000 in damages which he didn't deserve.

This is an outrage. Do you have any idea how much BP can do with that $10,000? Look, MMS or no MMS, mid-level bureaucrats at the Department of Energy still have to be entertained properly and 10 grand goes a very long way towards the purchase of second-class hookers and mediocre coke.

All I can say is thank God for the BBC and the rest of the mainstream media for focusing not on what BP did but instead on what is being done to them. It's much more important that we know that this helpless company is being cheated out of thousands of dollars than that we understand the full extent of the multiple billions of dollars worth of damage inflicted by BP and friends on the world. I'm not kidding, people. Let me explain:

BP and the others were surely neglectful, but were they criminally neglectful? Some say yes, some no, but the jury, figuratively speaking, is still out on that. On the other hand, there is no question that genuinely criminal fraud is being committed against BP. People are stealing from them - they are losing money - and that is clearly against the law. After all, it is written in stone that thou shalt not steal but where in the Bible does it say, "Thou shalt not coat thy neighbors' pelicans with oil from the sea?"

When looked at this way, the BBC's interest becomes entirely understandable, indeed laudable. After all, which is more important to report, mere neglect or indisputably criminal activity? The answer is obvious, dear friends.

The mainstream media: You can count on them. Yes! The mainstream media will report a story with courageous courageousness wherever it leads - even if it means portraying a ruthless corporate polluter as the hapless victim of penny ante thievery.

UPDATE: The article at the Beeb doesn't mention no 10 g ripoff; it was in the report I heard, tho.

tristero 8/12/2010 08:03:00 AM |

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

 
Heir Head

by digby

It looks like Sarah Palin has some competition for most arrogant dimwit in the Republican party. And he comes from very noble, dimwit stock:



Meanwhile, back on planet earth:

"Since the beginning (DirtyScottsdale.com) three years ago, I have gotten the same question from the DIRTY ARMY from all over the world: 'Who is Brock from the Dirty Celeb Brock's Chick?'" he wrote, referring to a recurring feature on the site. "I have kept it a secret until right now... the mystery man is Ben Quayle aka Brock Landers, the son of Vice President Dan Quayle. If you are a DIRTY ARMY Republican, vote for Ben Quayle because he was one of the original creators of DirtyScottsdale.com which evolved into TheDirty.com."

That came after the braintrust tried to pass offtwo unrelated kids his two nieces as his own.

So often the successive generations in political dynasties are pale imitations of the original patriarch. In Quayle's case that would make him so dim he's nearly in a state of suspended animation. If that creepy ad is any indication, that's pretty much the case.


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digby 8/11/2010 10:00:00 PM |

 
Common Ground

by digby


New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion


I thought the panel gave a very well balanced view didn't you? See? Common ground can be found even on the most contentious issues.


h/t to LGM

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digby 8/11/2010 06:09:00 PM |

 
The Man Called Petraeus Rides Again

by digby

Dday:

The military has put together a game plan, set up their strategy and deployed their troops into the field. They are ready to storm with full-spectrum pressure to achieve their objective.

I’m not talking about winning the war in Afghanistan, whatever that means these days. I’m talking about winning the war on the end of the war in Afghanistan.

And who do you think is leading the charge to extend the war? You guess it, The Man Called Petraeus:

With the administration unable yet to point to much tangible evidence of progress, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who assumed command in Afghanistan last month from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is taking several steps to emphasize hopeful signs on the ground that, he will argue, would make a rapid withdrawal unwise.

Now who could have ever predicted that the military would want more time? Or that naming Petraeus would make that approval inevitable? (We all remember what happens when you disagree with TMCP, don't we?)

Replacing McCrystal with Petraeus was a brilliant political move by Obama if he wanted a way out of his timetable. Petraeus is the General Jesus (as opposed to Jesus' General) and there will be no withdrawal until he's good and ready to do it. No one would dare cross him. I suspect the Obama administration understood that very well.



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digby 8/11/2010 04:30:00 PM |

 
Welcome To The Recovery

by digby

The Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Thirty thousand people showed up to receive Section 8 housing applications in East Point Wednesday, suffering through hours in the hot sun, angry flare-ups in the crowd and lots of frustration and confusion for a chance to receive a government-subsidized apartment.

The massive event sometimes descended into a chaotic mob scene filled with anger and impatience. Some 62 people needed medical attention and 20 of them were transported to a hospital, authorities said. A baby went into a seizure in the heat and was stabilized at a hospital. People were removed on stretchers and when a throng of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said.

Still, officials of East Point declared the day a success. Nobody was arrested and nobody was seriously injured, they said. It was an assessment roundly challenged by many of the people who had to go through it.

This was just to receive the paperwork. They have to go back and go through the same thing to submit it on Friday.

Many of these were African Americans. Seeing as the black male unemployment rate is nearly 20% you can see why they would be in need.


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digby 8/11/2010 02:52:00 PM |

 
Your Daily Grayson

by digby

Oh my Goodness. It looks like Alan Grayson has ruffled the Politico's feathers:

Dear Friend,

The media follows the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.

With that in mind, let's ask a question. What do Boeing, AT&T;, America's Natural Gas Alliance, CTIA, McDonald's, and Goldman Sachs have in common?

They are all advertisers in Friday's issue of the Politico, the insider political magazine that controls much of the dialogue in Washington, DC. And that's just one day's issue. In fact, for the last year, the back page of the Politico has been occupied by a full-page Goldman Sachs advertisement. That's a direct revenue flow of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs to the magazine most politicians in DC rely on for political gossip.

Interestingly enough, here are the last six headlines from the Politico on me.

Dems accused of tea party tampering
GOP foe sues Grayson over DVD
Kelly: Grayson may want troops to die
Who's not on the DCCC list
The Age of Rage
No repeat blockbuster for Grayson

Every single headline is meant to damage me, to gin up pseudo-scandals or keep them going. We recognize this. It's what the media did to Bill Clinton, to Barack Obama, to Al Gore, to Michael Moore, and really, to anyone who is either a Democrat or puts forward the concept that America should be run for the benefit of the people and not the corporations.

On August 23, we're going to show them what people power can do -- my campaign is launching a moneybomb, and I need you to be a part of it.

Please contribute $25 or more now for the moneybomb.

Truth,

Alan Grayson

They aren't pleased.

I don't know if Politico is working on behalf of its advertisers, but it certainly works on behalf of the Village, which lives on corporate largess and always loathes anyone who comes in and "trashes the place."

Update: Grayson was just on MSNBC and ripped into Robert Gibbs for being a lousy spokesman, failing to properly convey the accomplishments of the Democratic congress and then blaming the left for the failure. He has a point. Gibbs has never been my favorite administration spokesman. I always prefer Axelrod, who conveys a sense of idealism and purpose, while Gibbs has always seemed a little bit too glib and clever for these times.

From the sound of Gibbs's comments this morning, I'm fairly sure he wasn't speaking out of school yesterday. They're working the refs. I would guess they see some evidence of creeping Maddowism among the Village cognoscenti and the big liberal donors. I would also guess that it's going to have some effect, at least in the short term. Certainly people like Ruth Marcus will be well rewarded for drawing the proper lines.


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digby 8/11/2010 12:30:00 PM |

 
It's Always Something

by digby

I'm beginning to miss George W. Bush. No, not because I think he was better than Obama, but because he was able to keep his lunatic fringe somewhat in line when it came to Muslim bashing.

Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.

[...]

Because of this subversive ideology, Muslims cannot claim religious freedom protections under the First Amendment

There you go. That makes me yearn for the day when they were only saying that people with a different skin color than "ours" want to govern themselves too.

Turns out that a big majority of Americans agree with them, at least as it pertains to the Manhattan cultural center. I wouldn't be surprised if they could muster a majority to say that Islam shouldn't be allowed in America before long. This country is just itching to have a fight.

Half of Americans think we should repeal the 14th amendment too, although once they find out that it's open to reinterpretation, then I suppose they'll be fine with keeping it just as long as we don't let the pregnant animals "swim across the river" and "drop" their young on our pristine shores.

So we have 60+ percent of Americans thinking that it's a good idea to ban a Muslim center near ground Zero and nearly half thinking we should deny babies born in the US an automatic right to citizensship. It would seem that our exceptionalism isn't all that exceptional. These are the same policies that have gotten "old Europe" into trouble -- not to mention civilizations going all the way to the beginning of civilizations -- so we're following a well worn path. But it's a shame. America is fucked up for a million reasons, but the idea that citizenship had nothing to do with your parentage was always one of the nicer ideals, however erratically it was practiced.

Normally I would think we could ride out this latest wave of nativism and racism, but there are two factors that make it more dangerous than usual. The first, of course, is the economy which looks like it's not going to recover smartly thus giving this impulse more oxygen than it might otherwise have. The second is that the right wing demagogues have an entire industry now devoted to creating and nurturing these wedge issues for political and financial gain. The culture warriors have just shifted their strategy away from "family values" to their other stand-by, "stop the boogeyman." It's all part of the same throwback tapestry, but different times require difference emphasis. We're officially in the "the foreigners and blacks are ruining everything" portion of the show.


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digby 8/11/2010 11:00:00 AM |

 
Beat Boehner Day 2

by digby


Big Ed says that this is the best ad of the season. And Joan Walsh agrees that the Democrats should fund it nationally. Check it out:

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

Blue America and our partners at Americans for America are on our own with this. The DCCC had no intention of helping Justin Coussoule run a campaign against John Boehner and as far as I can tell no intention of taking any message national. So, if we want to keep this ad on the air we're going to have to pay for it ourselves.

If you'd like to contribute to the effort you can click here. I can tell you one thing --- Boehner hates it and the local press loves it. That's win-win in my book.


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digby 8/11/2010 07:02:00 AM |

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

 
Mythbusting 101

by digby


Bill in Portland Maine compiled a very useful list of myths --- and links that bust them. Suitable for bookmarking:

> Tea Party'ers are not more likely to have racist tendencies than other conservatives.
(Except they are.)

> Democrats are scheming to hit 94 percent of small business owners with tax increases.
(Except they aren't.)

> Bloody violence is out of control along the Mexican border, and illegal immigrants are streaming into America at record levels.
(Except it's not and they're not.)

> Obamacare will send Medicare spiraling out of control.
(Except it won't.)

> Marriage is a religious union that's all about procreation.
(Except it isn’t.)

> Voters say cutting the deficit is more important than creating jobs.
(Except they don't.)

> Social Security is going broke, it adds to the deficit, and we have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
(Except it's not, it doesn't and we don't.)

> The earth is getting cooler.
(Except it's really really not.)

Good to know.


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digby 8/10/2010 06:00:00 PM |

 
Extolling The Old School

by digby

For the Ted Stevens story on Hardball, Chuck Todd called in Andrea Mitchell for some affectionate reminiscences:

Chuck Todd: They (Stevens and Inouye) developed those two states. Using the federal government, using their powers in the Senate and teaming up together one Democrat and one Republican money went to those two states because of these two men.

Mitchell: And you didn't want to be on the wrong side of those two men but that's true of anyone who's ever been the head of appropriations. They are feared, they are loved, they deliver.

He was a larger figure than people might caricature him as being. And he did go through an ethics trial and he was found guilty of ethics violation for taking gifts and services from contractors for a vacation home in Alaska. And then Eric Holder from the Obama administration exonerated him and vacated the charges because of prosecutorial misconduct. But he lost his reelection clearly because of those charges.


Todd: Exactly. But one could argue that Ted Stevens was guilty of practicing accepted politics of the 60s 70s and 80s. That doesn't make it right, but that does seem to be what happened and in the 21st century you can't get away with that stuff.

Mitchell: But you also can't get away with convicting someone if the prosecutor hid evidence that could have exonerated you.

Todd: Exactly. This cozy relationship with lobbyists that is what happens with appropriations --- we're seeing it with Charlie Rangel --- is this sort of idea there was, quote unquote old school way of doing it. And you had guys that saw others do it and thought, gee, it's been allowed.

Mitchell: In defense of the old school which is -- I'm not defending ethics violations by anybody alleged or not alleged --- in defense of the old school, the old school was also the fact that Danny Inouye and Ted Stevens would work across party lines. Inouye campaigned in Alaska for Ted Stevens. And Stevens campaigned in Hawaii for Inouye. And the two party caucuses had to ignore the fact that they were crossing every rule of the political playbook.

"In defense of the old school," they worked across party lines to strong arm anyone in their way to bring home the bacon. Sure, there was graft and corruption but it was bipartisan, which is the only thing that matters. Why back in the day you could go to a dinner party and we'd all sit together and laugh at all the silly, little people who take this politics thing seriously. Those were the best of times --- when nobody in Washington had to care about anything. It's so tedious now with the "professional left" and the "professional right" all interfering in court business.


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digby 8/10/2010 04:00:00 PM |

 
Wrong Turn

by digby


I do hope the Democrats are paying close attention to this because it might just save their bacon if they play their cards right. Here's the lugubrious GOP star Mike Pence on the passage of the emergency state teacher, cop and firefighter funding:

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) picked up on that theme today on ABC’s Top Line, calling it a “massive state bailout.” When host Z. Byron Wolf asked what the GOP plan would be to help teachers who are about to lose their jobs — particularly the 3,600 in Indiana, Pence didn’t have much to offer:

PENCE: Well, look I’m married to a school teacher. My wife spent more than a decade in a public school classroom. So I love teachers! Teachers, firefighters, policemen are all Americans and they all know that the economic policies of bailouts and handouts have failed to create jobs.

Can you spot the fear and dissonance there? I knew that you could.

I'm telling you, this is where the vulnerable underbelly of their "just say no" campaign is. They are voting against nice, white, suburban middle class Americans this time (along with nice brown and black suburban middle class Americans) with this crusade. And going after teachers, cops and firefighters is a very, very dangerous thing to do. And as I wrote before, the Democrats should throw it right in their face.

In 2005, Arnold Schwarzenegger called a special election to dramatically cut funding for teachers, firefighters and nurses. He campaigned by calling them "special interests."

They fought back hard with a series of ads that reminded Americans that he was talking about them and their neighbors. He tanked in the polls, his initiatives were soundly defeated and at the time people wondered if he could win reelection.

Here's one of them:

"They aren't fighting the special interests. They're fighting us."


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digby 8/10/2010 02:30:00 PM |

 
Welcome Their Hatred

by digby

What with all the hoopla over Robert Gibbs' comments today it pays to simply remember that everyone in Washington hates liberals. It's a fact of life and until something happens to change the dynamic in which Democratic politicians are afraid to even mutter the words liberal, much less boldly and persuasively make a case for liberalism, I expect this will be the case. (The irony, of course, is that the liberals who do so have been proven right on the politics and the substance far more often than those who bet with the conservatives.)

Kevin Drum says that Democrats do this because only 20% of the country identifies as liberal so they are making a play for the center. I think he's right that they think this way, but one could easily make the case that they'd do better by demonizing the 30% that calls themselves conservatives instead of their own voters. The center, by definition, doesn't identify with them any more than the liberals, right?

There is also a case to be made that the Democratic establishment should be concerned about enthusiasm --- that the activist base needs to be handled with a little bit more respect because they are the ones who knock on doors and make the calls. There's something to that, of course, particularly in the mid-terms which depend so heavily on getting the base out.

But what's dangerously myopic about going ballistic as Gibbs did in his statements is that just 10 years ago we had a little event in which only a tiny portion of the base went with a third party bid from the left --- and the consequences were catastrophic. Democrats, of all people, should remember that every vote matters.

It's embarrassing to have David Frum point out the obvious --- that the Republicans fear their base and the Democrats hate theirs, but it has been so since I was a kid --- a long time ago. At some point they are going to realize that their demanding activist base is the way it is and that they need to figure out a way to deal with it rather than rail against it. You cannot browbeat people into loving you and you can't argue them into being enthusiastic. Certainly characterizing them in cartoon terms by saying "they want to eliminate the Pentagon", they are on drugs and --- worst of all --- suggesting they are not part of America --- isn't going to get you there.

On the other hand, if they just want to use them as doormat as a way to appeal to "the center" then they take their chances that their activists won't turn out to volunteer --- or worse. Sometimes all it takes to lose is a quixotic third party bid, 535 disputed votes in Florida and Antonin Scalia. Why would they ask for that kind of trouble?



Update: It appears that Gibbs was specifically referring to cable commentators, one of whom apparently is Dylan Ratigan, who isn't a lefty at all. But I've got a cure for his problem. Watch Fox instead. It puts things right into perspective.

But let's not be so precious about this. Gibbs was referring to criticism from the left in general, not just cable commentators. And that means you and me and Paul Krugman and gay rights groups and the ACLU anyone else who is frustrated by the administration's political strategy and ideological/policy failure. They aren't alone.

And why shouldn't activist liberals be as angst ridden as anyone else in the country anyway? I realize we aren't considered Real Americans by the Villagers, but the truth is that our lives are just as fucked up as the tea baggers'. The clap louder routine doesn't work with 10% official unemployment, an escalation of an unwinnable war and a lot of talk about cutting the safety net to balance the books. We are not immune to the same stresses that affect everyone else in the country. Perhaps we are the canaries in the liberal coal mine and they should be a little bit more mindful.

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digby 8/10/2010 12:30:00 PM |

 
Don't Waste Your Time Arguing

by tristero

Insane:

Some liberal politicians have extrapolated the theory of relativity to metaphorically justify their own political agendas. For example, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama helped publish an article by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe to apply the relativistic concept of "curvature of space" to promote a broad legal right to abortion.[45] As of June 2008, over 170 law review articles have cited this liberal application of the theory of relativity to legal arguments.[46] Applications of the theory of relativity to change morality have also been common.[47] Moreover, there is an unmistakable effort to censor or ostracize criticism of relativity.[48]

Insane:

The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.[1]

And, in case you were wondering what the reference is for this assertion, here it is:

↑ See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold.

The entry goes on:

Here is a list of 24 counterexamples any one of them shows that the theory [of relativity] is incorrect...

9. The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54.

I know, I know. It really is very funny but I can't laugh at this.

Why? Because some of you, right now, are starting to waste the little time you have here on earth by marshalling reasoned arguments and accurate facts to refute Conservapedia's lies. And so are others. And that is terribly sad.

Worse, it is counterproductive, because every moment you spend engaging right wing lunatics over tired, out-of-date, and utterly nonsensical argument over science they think is too liberal, is a moment taken away from encountering the truly exciting discoveries being announced almost hourly (here's one: a crocodile with the teeth of a mammal!). And if you are so busy refighting the past that you can't keep up with the present, then it becomes all that harder to understand what science is doing, and to support it. I'm not talking, say, a Palin/McCain/Jindal level of ignorance, of course. But if you truly think that it is vitally important to engage people who question Einstein's theory of relativity, it becomes that much harder to muster the cultural courage to fund research that takes relativity for granted. After all, even if I "believe in relativity" wouldn't it be better to fund research that proves relativity beyond a shadow of a doubt than stuff that assumes it's true?*

But wait! you protest. We can't let that garbage hang out there uncontested. Besides, people will learn a great deal about physics if we address the arguments in a clear, accessible fashion, and teach reality.

Yes, sure, I'll agree that's all true. So what?

Sure, we can contest them. But if we completely ignore their utterly ridiculous lies, distortions, and antiquated disputes, then we, not they, get to set the terms of the discourse. That is one reason why great scientists won't bother to lower themselves to engage folks like the bozos behind Conservapedia (doing so also elevates the bozos). I see no reason why anyone, scientist or layperson, should enter an argument over the relativism of relativity. On the other hand, I do think we need to expose right wing ignoramuses as often as possible. In order to ridicule them. And to sneer. But argue over whether E=MC squared makes Jesus' miracles impossible? That's a waste of time. Ok, go ahead if you want to. Whatever. But if want to do some real good, you'll laugh at them instead.

As for learning a great deal about physics through debunking lies...well, yeah, that'll work. But I think you could learn much more physics by exploring truth. And that requires honest discussion which, almost by definition, cannot take place with people who insist on an enagagement over lies and distortions.

Please people, laugh all you want at these clowns. Mock them. Denounce them, rail against them. Just don't make the mistake of arguing with them. Don't waste your time, and ours.*** We can't afford it now. We never could.

h/t Megan Charpentier at TPM, who inadvertently overlooked one of the most important, and ugliest, aspects of Conservapedia's assault on Einstein: its blatant anti-semitism.


---
* I'm obviously not talking about recent challenges within physics to Einstein's theories. I'm talking about ideological challenges that object to relativity because they think it's too...relativistic, and therefore immoral, and therefore can't possibly be right and therefore will seek out every little niggling question then hype those questions as if they're somehow proof that the theory is a liberal canard.

** I'm sure somebody will accuse me of being narrow-minded, unwilling to challenge conventionality, and so on, so on, so on. Zzzzzz.....

Being open-minded is not the same as being born yesterday. I can be quite intellectually curious yet refuse to consider seriously the notion that a UFO was hidden in the tail of the Hale Bopp comet. Likewise, a refusal to take seriously rightwing attacks on evolution and physics says absolutely nothing about my willingness to entertain unusual, interesting, and often very unconventional ideas.

All it means is that Mama Tristero raised no fools.

tristero 8/10/2010 11:00:00 AM |

 
From The "What Do They Have To Do, Kill Medgar Evers?" File

by digby

Think Progress:

Although instances of racist sentiment at Tea Party rallies can be easily found, defenders of the movement argue they are aberrations, if not part of a liberal conspiracy to smear tea partiers.

[...]
National surveys of the Tea Party have found that explicit racist sentiment is a strong component of the tea-party make up, in addition to economic conservatism and strong Republican partisanship. The April, 2010 New York Times/CBS News national survey of Tea Party supporters found that they are:

– More than twice as likely as the general public (25% vs 11%) to believe that “the policies of the Obama administration favor blacks over whites.”

– Half as likely as the general public (16% to 31%) to believe that “white people have a better chance of getting ahead in today’s society.”

– Almost twice as likely as the general public (52% to 28%) to believe that “too much has been made of the problems facing black people” in recent years.

In a broad study of adults in Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and California conducted between February and March, the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Sexuality (WISER) asked a number of questions about “racial resentment” — such as whether blacks don’t try hard enough or have gotten more than they deserve. Conservatives are 23 percent more likely to be racially resentful, and Republicans 15 percent more likely than Democrats. However, the institute found that this racial sentiment isn’t simply a byproduct of white conservativism:

[E]ven as we account for conservatism and partisanship, support for the Tea Party remains a valid predictor of racial resentment.

It is untrue, as political commentator Dave Weigel argues, that racism in the Tea Party is merely reflective of its conservatism. The WISER study found that compared to other conservatives, Tea Party supporters are:

– 25 percent more likely to have racial resentment.

– 27 percent more likely to support racial profiling.

– 28 percent more likely to support indefinite detention without charges.

They also believe that blacks and Latinos are far less hard working, intelligent and trustworthy than other people.

All of this could be some sort of coincidence or statistical static but I doubt it. It's true that these attitudes are a common feature of conservatism, but they are a prominent motivating feature of the far right, which is what the Tea Party represents. Anyone who has a sense of how modern racism works can see that this movement is comprised of a large number of people who hold these beliefs. It's not hidden. But these polling numbers give some objective data to back up the heuristic assessments, so perhaps we can start to deal with this honestly.


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digby 8/10/2010 09:00:00 AM |

 
Birdie!

by digby

Ed Schultz was very excited about our Boehner campaign yesterday and opened his show with a long segment on the subject. He's absolutely right about John Boehner being the poster boy for the out of touch Republicans who are offering up nothing but non-sequitors as the answer to our problems.

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

(You'll notice that Ed said to send him a email if you want to see the ad every day on his show. You can do that here.)

However, as Sam Stein at HuffPo noted yesterday:

The ad is not some cheeky effort for additional media recognition. It will be airing in Butler County on CNN, MSNBC, Fox (though not the Glenn Beck program) and Comedy Central and will be bolstered by a fundraising drive to keep it on air.

If you like to help us keep the pressure on, you can donate to help us keep the ad on the air here.

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digby 8/10/2010 07:00:00 AM |