06-30-2009
Senator Franken
We couldn’t go the entire day without noting today’s good news about the imminent seating of Senator Al Franken. Just about everything to be said about this has been said, except this: Why Not Me is one of the funniest books you will ever read, although to some degree you have to read it in the context in which it was written, 1999.
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06-30-2009
Vanity Fair Article on Sarah Palin
Today’s must read, just completely fascinating. One worthwhile, if not particularly juicy insight, is the attribution to President Obama himself the view that Palin would not be able to adjust to national politics in the short time that she had during the campaign, which was probably why the Obama campaign made the decision to refrain from attacking her and generating any backlash stories. With 20/20 hindsight, we wish we were that savvy.
UPDATE: From Josh Marshall:
I have little doubt and some direct knowledge that we’ll be hearing new shocking details of who this woman is for months, perhaps years, to come.
For someone who loves politics, and perhaps also finds people with personality disorders straight out of the DSM-IV equally fascinating, this is very good stuff, way better than the drama surrounding Jon & Kate plus 8 minus Jon.
Josh, don’t hold back on us! Bring it!
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06-30-2009
The Anti-American Oklahoma State Legislature
Perhaps you’ve had a chance to review the proclamation of the Oklahoma state legislature that the financial crisis can be chalked up to American debauchery. This kind of broad brush blame America first accusation is oddly familiar and reminds of the old Soviet bloc habit of blaming all that was wrong in the world on the decadence of American capitalism. Like we were saying, when do we get to call them the anti-American right?
Perhaps that’s unfair, the individuals behind this resolution seem to love America, they just hate the majority of people in it who don’t share their theocratic worldview. Here’s the money “whereas” quote:
WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion,
pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery; and . . .
Perhaps you are curious where Oklahoma falls among the states in rankings on divorce rates, on-line porn subscriptions, and teenage pregnancy? According to Charles Blow’s NY Times op-ed, 4th, 5th, and 10th respectively. 25 out of 28 states that voted for President Obama had better measures than Oklahoma on all three metrics. You would think that before imposing their theocratic worldview on the rest of the country they’d get it working better in Oklahoma.
Too bad they didn’t include in their resolution that quote from the Bible about casting the first stone . . .
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06-29-2009
The Health Insurance Market
Thanks for checking in with us after a long hiatus. The must-read today are these two posts at TalkingPointsMemo on the competitiveness (or lack thereof) of the health insurance market. Its a critical angle on what is going on with sky-rocketing costs and the vested interests against reform.
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06-10-2009
Michael Steele’s Republican Party
I think most comedy writers would be challenged to match the unintentional hilarity that has so often ensued:
According to those present [at the College Republican National Convention], in his speech, RNC Chairman Michael Steele singled out the one black woman in the room for special recognition.
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06-10-2009
The Anti-American Right
For decades now, anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan has had to bear the slings of “anti-American” as if anything other than devotion to conservative orthodoxy means secret sympathy for Jane Fonda’s trip to Hanoi and the bombing campaign of the Weather Underground.
But can we take stock of some of the news in the past couple of days? The right’s spiritual leader, Rush Limbaugh, having previously stated in public that he hopes the current President will fail, has now called for a boycott of America’s leading car company, for the express purpose of causing its failure at the expense of American taxpayers. The Republican Governor of Texas, the U.S.’s second biggest state has publicly flirted with secession. Now Republican Congressman Mark Kirk, a leading contender for the GOP Senate nomination in Illinois, has bragged about telling China, both a major rival to the U.S. as well as a major creditor, that we have been lying in our budget numbers.
When do we get to call them the anti-American right?
Posted by genblue in General | 1 Comment »
06-08-2009
Racism
Many conservatives often argue that the country has moved beyond its history of racial discrimination and should therefore move on in light of the election of Barack Obama. Many mainstream voters might reject this but believe that, at a minimum, the country has moved beyond the type of mainstream, overt racial discrimination and segregation that characterized the civil rights battles decades ago. Its understandable that they may think so, but reading this piece in the NY Times Magazine section about segregated proms in the rural South demonstrates that, painfully, its just not true. Its really worth your time to check it out.
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06-08-2009
Paging Marshall McLuhan
Does anyone else find it interesting that Republicans are convinced that their path back to power lies in a medium that involves the broadcasting (i.e. twittering) of one’s views 140 characters at a time? Just by point of contrast, Madison and Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers.
Also, to be clear, “the medium is the message” is basically the only thing we know about Marshall McLuhan. Well, that, and crucially for any New Yorker, this.
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06-04-2009
Why That’s Very Graceful of You . . .
“We need to accept the role of the loyal opposition much more gracefully than our opponents did. If you haven’t noticed, the meanest people in politics are on the American left.”
– Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), showing that wanting to act more gracefully may also require some sense of irony.
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06-04-2009
Twenty Years Later
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06-03-2009
I frankly haven’t had the opportunity to study her record
The full quote from Jeff Sessions is:
Sessions was asked if he queried Sotomayor on the “wise Latina” remark. “No,” he responded. “We talked about the idea and the concept of personal feelings, to some degree, you know, how that influences a decision and how it should not … we talked about it briefly and did not go into that in a lot of detail. I did tell her that, You know, i do think that we may well talk again. So we might get into more specific details. But I frankly haven’t had the opportunity to study her record enough to fairly ask a lot.”
Question: If someone who is likely to become a Supreme Court justice for the next couple of decades were coming for a private meeting with you in your office, in all likelihood just the one time, and you had about a week’s notice and a large staff, how much time would you find to study their record and ask them some questions? Maybe plow through some of their key decisions, speeches and articles, read some critiques? Call John Turly see why he thinks what he thinks?
Usually, the problem with Republicans is that they have a nihilistic ideology aimed at wrecking the modern institutions that protect us. So when they are bad at governing, some say, they can’t be good at governing if they don’t believe in government. But this Sessions quote makes us wonder if they are just lousy at their jobs, full stop. Perhaps we should check in with Michael Steele on that one.
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06-02-2009
Nate Silver’s Senate Rankings . . .
are revised for June and up on his site, worth a look.
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05-27-2009
Note to Critics of Sotomayor’s “Intellectual Heft”
We’re very happy about the decision to choose Judge Sotomayor, someone we thought was one of the best options for the job. Law Professor Jonathan Turley disagrees, and calls into question her intellectual heft.
He’s entitled to his opinion, but if you are going to post a blog entry on someone’s lack of “intellectual depth” (particularly a graduate of Yale Law and a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals), its particularly important that the post not be rife with typos, including at least three misspellings of the nominee’s last name. Maybe that’s just us and we’re being unfair. We realize it doesn’t take intellectual depth to proofread your accusations of someone else lacking it, but still . . . class it up, Turly.
Posted by genblue in General | 1 Comment »
05-21-2009
Time for REAL Health Care Reform
After decades of obstruction and delay, it is finally time to bring CHANGE to America so our country is no longer the only industrialized Democracy in the world without guaranteed health insurance for all its citizens.
President Obama has announced three bedrock requirements for real health care reform:
- Reduce Costs — Rising health care costs are crushing the budgets of governments, businesses, individuals and families and they must be brought under control
- Guarantee Choice — Americans must have the freedom to keep whatever doctor and health care plan they have, or to select a new doctor or health care plan if they choose
- Ensure Affordable Care for All — All Americans must have quality and affordable health care
However, the only way to ultimately meet these bedrock requirements is to ensure that Americans have a public health insurance plan option. Only a public health insurance plan option will give private health insurers the competition in the marketplace necessary to cause them to reduce costs, guarantee choice and ensure universal affordable care.
Unlike private health insurance companies, a public health insurance plan would not be based on maximizing profits at the expense of patients, doctors and hospitals. This will allow the public health insurance plan to offer increased insurance coverage for a lower cost, thereby forcing private health insurance companies to find innovative ways to compete or risk losing customers to the public health insurance plan.
The forces against real health care reform are well aware of this reality, which is why they - namely:
- private health insurance companies (who fear real competition);
- drug companies (who fear they will be forced to lower prescription drug costs);
- conservative think tanks (who naturally side with big business over consumers, workers, and in this case, patients); and
- Republican lawmakers (who just introduced their own health care “reform” plan that does not include a public health insurance plan option)
are already attacking the idea of a public health insurance plan option and trying to scare the American people about real health care reform. This is a good article that discusses their strategy: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/montcalm/2009/05/a-blunt-instrument-the-languag.php?ref=reccafe
We need to stand together against these forces of greed and the status quo, which is why I urge everyone to sign the below petition, and to talk to friends, family and colleagues about the importance of ensuring that any so-called health care “reform” includes a public health insurance plan option.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION
Thank you.
P.S. Feel free to forward the content of this post and/or use aspects of it in your own communications to people about this issue. That’s part of the idea of posts like this - to help spread the word.
Posted by genblue in General | No Comments »
05-20-2009
Waiting for Franken
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has a good piece on the pressure building on Minnesota Governor Tom Pawlenty to put an end to the saga.
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05-18-2009
Joe Biden, Maureen Dowd, and Josh Marshall
This story is of no public policy or political importance, but its pretty juicy. You probably haven’t read about it, so its best to start from the beginning.
In 1987, Joe Biden was a leading contender for the Democratic nomination for President. As part of his stump speech, he liked to quote Neil Kinnock, then the leader of the opposition British Labor Party. Only in one of his speeches, he used the quote and forgot to attribute it to Kinnock. The journalist who pounced was Maureen Dowd, generating a plagiarism scandal that eventually forced Biden out of the race before the first votes were cast.
Flash forward 22 years. Josh Marshall, of Talking Points Memo, writing about the torture scandal, writes:
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Shortly thereafter, the following quote shows up in Dowd’s column:
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Virtually identical. A commenter on Marshall’s blog, TPM, called Dowd on it, and Dowd, in an e-mail to the Huffington Post, acknowledged it.
But here’s the weird part, rather than simply admit she cut and pasted it as part of her research and forgot to attribute the quote to Marshall, she explained that she had NOT read the blog post, but simply rehashed what a friend had said to her, and the friend must have read TPM. Leaving aside the fact that Dowd’s cover story involves her lifting her anonymous friend’s quote word for word, anyone who played the game “telephone” in elementary school might have trouble understanding how the wording from Marshall’s blog, all forty two words of it, made it, with near perfect identity, into Dowd’s column via the word of mouth of a friend to Dowd, in casual conversation.
We have a few takeaway thoughts and questions from this story:
1) Joe Biden had a very good day yesterday, he might incur a schadenfreude injury from skipping around the Naval Observatory.
2) Despite showing remarkable restraint in not commenting on the story, on or off his site, Josh Marshall is probably having a pretty good day too. Its notable because he has often complained about the mainstream media lifting general scoops from his site without attribution.
3) How messed up is it that we were torturing people to cover up administration hawks who couldn’t substantiate their claims about Iraq?
4) Why is Dowd pushing this ridiculous explanation? If she had simply said she cut and pasted the Marshall quote into her notes and forgot to attribute it, who would really care? But this explanation is pretty insulting. If she gets burned for this, it will be because of this ham-handed cover story, not the underlying act. It seems like Dowd would be the first person to point this out if she wasn’t the subject of the story.
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05-15-2009
Wrapping Up the Week
Our pet policy initiative, scrap and trade, is actually back on the table as cash for clunkers.
Also, Arlen Spector claims that he and Tom Harkin are nearing a deal to enable passage of EFCA. Maybe now that Kim Hendren has demonstrated his appeal as Blanche Lincoln’s Republican opponent, she’ll feel safe enough to sign on and help working people win back the right to organize and bargain collectively.
Finally, in light of our recent discussion on Sonia Sotomayor, check out this SCOTUS blog review of her appellate opinions.
UPDATE: and how could we forget the quote of the week, from Jon Stewart, on the recent dismissal of yet another gay arabic linguist from the Army:
So it was okay to waterboard a guy 80 times but God forbid the guy who could understand what that prick was saying has a boyfriend? Waterboarding may make a prisoner talk, but it ain’t gonna make him talk English.
Posted by genblue in General | No Comments »
05-14-2009
“That Jew . . .”
is how Arkansas State Senator and Republican Minority Leader Kim Hendren, likely GOP opponent to U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln, referred to Senator Chuck Schumer, while explaining that Schumer does not subscribe to the same traditional values as Hendren, like the ones viewed on the Andy Griffith Show. This, of course, is pretty ironic, since Andy Griffith and Opie (aka Ron Howard) did a funnyordie video last year for Barack Obama and would be pretty appalled by the whole thing. Their partner in that video was that Jew, the Fonz (aka Henry Winkler).
Hendren has since apologized, explaining that he doesn’t always use a teleprompter. Because, as you probably know, all that stands between most of us and offensive ephitets is a teleprompter. Whenever we speak to people we usually at least keep a cue card with us or something that says: “don’t use that ethnic slur, don’t do it!”
He later explained to the AP:
“I ought not to have referred to it at all,” Hendren told the AP. “When I referred to him as Jewish, it wasn’t because I don’t like Jewish people.”
Hendren said he made the reference as he talked about comments the senior senator made criticizing some elements of the Republican Party.
“I shouldn’t have gotten into this Jewish business because it distracts from the issue,” Hendren said.
Of course he didn’t refer to “that Jew” not sharing “our values” because he doesn’t like Jewish people. What he really meant to say was, “that Jew doesn’t share our traditional values, unlike all those other Jews, who I really like, who are totally traditional, and keep shabbos and don’t eat pork and all that, not like on the Andy Griffith Show, but you know, just as good.” But of course, it all got garbled in the Arkansas to NY Jew translation, and the larger point got lost. Poor guy has so much important to say, but can’t catch a break with the Jew-dominated media media.
Stay classy, Hendren. Nice party you’ve got there GOP.
UPDATE: The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait says it shorter and better:
Translation: I meant to slur Schumer using well-understood code words, but accidentily lapsed into the plain English meaning of those terms.
Posted by genblue in General | No Comments »
05-13-2009
Conservatives Never Had Chicago . . .
but they always had the Chicago School. Now, apparently, not so much. Conservatives getting repudiated by Richard Posner is kind of like liberals getting repudiated by Ted Kennedy and John Rawls in a jointly held press conference. In the long run, this might be a much more serious blow to the Republican Party than the loss of Arlen Spector.
Posted by genblue in General | No Comments »
05-13-2009
A Parliamentary System
Its not necessarily outrageous for an opposition party opposing everything in lockstep, including nominations to be the no. 2 guy in the Interior Department, but to date it hasn’t been our system. Rather, its a parliamentary system, where its common enough for the opposition parties to force the ruling party to govern on their own without any help from opposition votes. A lot of people will say the Republicans are being cynical and outrageous, and maybe they are being cynical, but in the scheme of western democracies, they’re not necessarily being outrageous.
But the thing with parliamentary systems is, the majority party gets to rule. There are no legislative vetoes that can be sustained by 40% of a chambers votes, representing an even small minority of the population. So if the Republicans want things to run this way, maybe that should be fine with Democrats, just as long as we do it right and do away with the filibuster for everything but lifetime appointments.
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