Month: August 2010

Simpson’s Veterans Benefits: Die Quickly

by digby
Good news everybody. We don’t have to let those Bush tax cuts for millionaires expire after all. Alan Simpson has found the money for it:

The system that automatically awards disability benefits to some veterans because of concerns about Agent Orange seems contrary to efforts to control federal spending, the Republican co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s deficit commission said Tuesday.

Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson’s comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes.

“The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has also allowed Vietnam veterans to get money for ailments such as lung cancer and prostate cancer, and the agency finalized a proposal Tuesday to grant payments for heart disease — the nation’s leading cause of death.

All those Iraq war vets had better shape up or ship out too. We can’t afford to keep supporting people with brain injuries and lost limbs forever. Get a job or be a man and relieve us of the burden of your care. (Oh right, there are no jobs. Well then I guess the decision’s been made, hasn’t it?)

Seriously, if poor, old, and sick people across the board would just do the right thing and die, we could reform the hell out all the “entitlements.” Their selfishness is really brings down the country.

The good news is that the pumpkin hued future Speaker has a plan to cut billions of dollars out of the veterans’ budget so if these so-called “wounded warriors” persist in sucking from the public tit, so if they refuse to “do the right thing” they’re going to have a rude awakening.

Their country is calling them once again to sacrifice their lives. And this time they mean it.

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Bjorn Again Epiphany

by digby

Oh my goodness. It looks like the dreamy lead singer of the boy band called “Global Warming Deniers” has left the band.

I think John Stossel’s going to have to stock up on Dreyer’s slow churned (no Ben and Jerry’s for him) and take to his bed to catch up on that overdue Netflicks collection of Penn and Teller’s “Bullshit.” It’s a sad day for the fanboys.

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Tennessee Burning

by digby

Josh Marshall reports that the Tennessee mosque had been receiving threats before it was hit with arson and quotes a local college professor:

Sbenaty expressed shock over the atmosphere in a town he’s lived in for 30 years. For most of that time, he said, the community has been extremely supportive and welcoming. Even after Sept. 11, 2001, he said, neighbors came up to him and said, “Please do not feel scared. We know your religion has nothing to do with this.”

“It’s a wide shift, and a shock,” he told TPM. “It’s just mind-boggling.”

Can someone explain to me what the Muslim community has done since 9/11 to suddenly engender this hostility? The only thing that points in this direction is that we elected a Democratic African American president who these people all think is a closet Muslim.

But let’s unpack this a little bit. Until recently these people had no problems with Muslims in their community. And there hasn’t been a new terrorist attack to inspire new fear and anger. So, that means it’s not about Islam at all. It’s about the African American Democrat.

Now I would be the last one to say that just being a Democrat isn’t enough to make any right winger go nuts. They simply don’t believe that a Democrat can legitimately be president. But their need to turn Obama into a Muslim, despite the purely nonsensical nature of the charge, stems from a need to rationalize their baser motives for hating him. America’s loathed enemy of 9/11 is the only group they feel free to hate openly in the way that fully expresses their feelings. Therefore, Obama became a Muslim.

In the 1960s they burned black churches. Now it’s mosques. But it comes from exactly the same impulse.

* Check out the comment section to the article from a local Tennessee paper I just linked about the Mosque burning. It will surprise you. Of course, there are quite a few of these, but it’s not monolithic:

I find this editorial to be offensive since it shows a clear lack of understanding of the real issue at hand. The ugly attempts to turn the tables and replot the players is a horrible tactic. The DNJ is trying to make the aggressors and terrorists sound like the victims and make the victims sound like the aggressors and terrorists. To compare someone attempting to protect themselves from being attacked as a member of the KKK is so sad. Is the DNJ also calling George W. a member of the KKK? Has every one forgotten the reason that we launched a war against Islam? It was for two reasons, number one was in defense of war being declared on us by Islam (defensive, not KKK) and the second reason was to root out the atrocities and inhumane actions of the Islam people. What this commentary fails to recognize is that the issue is NOT about religion, but rather it is about a civil war that has been brought into our country be our aggressors who are attacking us from within.

Most of the commenters take quite a different view, which is heartening.

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Searching For Meaning And Unleashing The Beast

by digby

Sam Sedar did some interviews at the Beck Rally on Saturday. This one is particularly interesting because of the conflation of Obama being a Muslim and his adherence to Jeremiah Wright’s ideology. I suppose there might be something other than race that informs her conclusions, but it’s hard to see what it is.

She’s a likable person actually, easy smile and laugh, and I’m sure she is. As with so many of the tea partiers, the impression I get is that they are inspired and energized by the solidarity they feel with others there as much as anything else. They are searching for fellowship and meaning beyond the normal religious and political realm. (In some ways they remind me of the fervent Obama followers of the summer of 2008.) And let’s face it, what she says about the two party’s failing and political corruption could have been said by any one of us. The problem is that the ties that bind her to her fellows are toxic know-nothingism and reflexive tribal identity based upon race, religion and fear and loathing of those who would stake an equal claim to America. It’s a dark vision, although I’m sure they don’t see it that way — their lack of self-awareness, as that woman showed in that video, is intellectually incapacitating. And their willingness to listen to demagogues hypnotically reinforcing their insular worldview is apparently limitless. (You’d think they’d get bored at some point.)

I know people like that lady. In every respect but the political they are often good people. But this movement is giving voice to her demons, the bad place in her psyche that mistrusts anyone who is different, the fearful place that feels like she is losing her natural born position in the world, that lonely place where she feels as if she’s on her own while others less deserving are getting all the attention. And these billionaire tea party financiers and opportunistic hucksters are manipulating her dark side, giving it permission to take over, releasing the beast that resides in all of us but which civilization, morality and reason usually keeps in check.

But like Obamamania (which made the opposite pitch — “hope and change”) these fleeting political obsessions in American life can’t live up to the huge expectations that are poured into them. This woman is going to be very disillusioned. Her idols are plastic action figures manufactured by millionaires. They can’t do this job either. In fact, politics isn’t really the proper arena for any of this yearning, something which Glenn Beck may have come to finally understand, as so many demagogues have before him.

She has agency, so I don’t feel particularly sorry for her. She is an adult, with the freedom to travel and the capacity to figure out what’s wrong with the picture before her. It’s not as if there aren’t choices. But I understand what she’s looking for. America is a soulless place these days, over-ridden with consumerism, greed and shallow entertainment values. Her religion has failed her by fueling the flock with hate instead of the affirmation of life it advertises. She yearns for meaning and Rupert Murdoch and Glenn Beck and the tea party are giving it to her in a nice recognizable package. But it’s empty.

And once the human beast is unleashed there’s no telling what it will do. These billionaires and their hired demagogues are playing with fire, assuming that they can control all this — the anger, the fear, the ultimate disillusionment. But what if they can’t?

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“Bloodbath” Is Just About Right

by tristero

This is exactly what happens when top Democrats, including the president, are obsessed with appeasing Republicans – who can’t be appeased – and take liberal support for granted. As Krugman says:

, [With Republicans in charge of the House, i]t will be an ugly scene, and it will be dangerous, too. The 1990s were a time of peace and prosperity; this is a time of neither. In particular, we’re still suffering the after-effects of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and we can’t afford to have a federal government paralyzed by an opposition with no interest in helping the president govern. But that’s what we’re likely to get.

If I were President Obama, I’d be doing all I could to head off this prospect, offering some major new initiatives on the economic front in particular, if only to shake up the political dynamic. But my guess is that the president will continue to play it safe, all the way into catastrophe.

I don’t believe that’s hyperpole. Republicans have, according to Jane Mayer’s essential New Yorker article on the Koch brothers, convinced 55% of all Americans that Obama is a socialist. They’ve been working on that meme, hammering at it day after day, since the 2008 campaign, if not long before. Saving America from socialism is a holy cause for the extreme right. They will do whatever it takes to thwart and destroy him.

And remember, Krugman’s talking only about a House takeover. With, possibly, the Senate in the hands of the far right, well… it will get very, very ugly indeed.

h/t, Duncan

UPDATE: What Digby says. While I’m not in a frenzy, nor am I drooling and quivering (I save drooling and quivering for sightings of this), I am very, very worried about what this country will look like a year hence, because I see not a single hint that any major Democrat will heed Digby’s or Krugman’s (or little old me’s) advice.

Caption Contest

by digby

h/t to @pourmecoffee

WWJD

by digby

Somehow I don’t think he’d think this was ok:

As kids head back to school, conservative Christian media ministry Focus on the Family perceives a bully on the playground: national gay-advocacy groups.

School officials allow these outside groups to introduce policies, curriculum and library books under the guise of diversity, safety or bullying-prevention initiatives, said Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman.

“We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled,” Cushman said.

Public schools increasingly convey that homosexuality is normal and should be accepted, Cushman said, while opposing viewpoints by conservative Christians are portrayed as bigotry.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the national Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, agrees with a big part of that statement.

“Yes, we want LGBT students afforded full respect,” she said.

GLSEN says its agenda is to ensure safe schools and acceptance for all students, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, race, national origin or ability.

That’s nice. But why should homos get even more “special rights” even if they are just kids?

About 30 percent of American sixth-to- 10th-graders report being involved in bullying — either as a victim or bully, according to a 2008 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It’s three times more common if you’re gay, Byard said. GLSEN’s 2007 National School Climate Survey found that almost nine out of 10 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender students experienced harassment. Almost 61 percent felt unsafe in school. And 22 percent reported being physically assaulted in schools.

But then, they deserve it. If they’d follow God’s word this wouldn’t happen.

“The word ‘faggot’ is not part of any religious creed,” Byard said.

Don’t be too sure about that …

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Dealing With The Devil Redux

by digby

That’s that:

Tommy Christopher: Thanks, Robert. I have three quick questions. First, does the President have any reaction to renewed calls for Alan Simpson to be removed from the deficit commission, based on an email that he sent to the president of the OWL, comparing America to a –

MR. GIBBS: Senator Simpson sent an email that he’s now apologized for. We regret that he sent that email. We don’t condone those comments. But Senator Simpson has and will continue to serve on the commission.

It’s fairly clear they will keep Simpson on the panel. The question is why. I think it’s a pretty good guess that he’s a guy they can “do business” with. And if you pay attention to what he’s saying that’s fairly alarming.

I just want to say to all the young people who read this blog that I’m really sorry about all this. I’m old and I’ll probably get most of my social security. You, on the other hand, are going to face a vastly more insecure old age if this happens. Right now you don’t think much about it. You figure you’ll make a lot of money someday or you’ll at least be well compensated enough to be self-sufficient. And it all seems so far away that you can’t even relate it to yourself at all. I remember. It seems like only yesterday I was arguing with my Dad about how I knew SS wasn’t going to be there for me so I wasn’t planning on it anyway.

The thing is that you just don’t know what might happen. If you’re lucky and work hard you’ll probably live a long and prosperous life. But life throws you curve balls. You might not have your dreams work out the way you planned. Social Security is one of those things you don’t think about until you get to be about my age and you’re staring into the abyss, a decade or two away and you suddenly wake up knowing that you aren’t likely to be wealthy in your old age no matter how hard you work between now and then. You’ve watched your parents become geriatric. Your own health is getting a bit compromised. You’re beginning to feel what being old is going to be like. And you realize then that you’re going to need that money.

I hope for your sake that when you get to that point you’ve made your millions. If the Democrats fail this time to protect the safety net and the Teabaggers take over the government you’re going to need them. They’re just getting started. And I’m sorry about that. You can’t expect young people to understand how important this is for all the reasons I just stated. It’s our job to leave the next generation at least as well off as we were and I’m not at all confident that we’re going to do it.

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Fight or Die

by digby

The whole Village is working itself into a frenzy, drooling and quivering over this new Gallup poll:

The GOP now holds a 10-point lead on Gallup’s generic ballot, the largest advantage the party has sported in the poll in a midterm election year since Gallup began tracking the question in 1942.

GOPers lead Dems, 51% to 41%, among registered voters interviewed Aug. 23-29 as part of Gallup’s daily tracking poll. This is the fifth consecutive week the GOP has led the generic ballot, and the wide gap points to “significant gains” this Nov. for the party, according to Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport.

Just last week, Dems had cut the GOP lead to 3 points. That was down from leads of 7 and 6 points the previous two weeks, respectively.

GOPers are also more excited about voting this year, with 50% describing themselves as “very enthusiastic.” Just 25% of Dems say they’re “very enthusiastic,” and only 28% of indies match that excitement level.

Oh gosh. What to do?

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that if you want to get people enthusiastic you might want to pick a big old fight right about now instead of trying desperately to avoid controversy (also known as “kerfuffles“.) In case the Democrats don’t realize it, Republicans and right leaning Independents aren’t going to vote for them no matter what they do. Even if they open up those FEMA camps and start rounding up every Muslim and Mexican looking person they see, it won’t work. Neither will rolling over and playing dead.

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Bedding Down With Billionaires and Pitchforks

by digby

Don’t miss this must read post by Adele Stan at Alternet about the billionaires funding the tea parties.

This conclusion just breaks my heart though, since it shows how badly the Democrats have fumbled the populist moment:

If there were any missteps made in the execution of the billionaires’ weekend events, it may have been the appearance of Koch himself at his Americans For Prosperity Foundation banquet and the selection of George Will to receive the organization’s George Washington award.

As I composed a blog post in the hotel lobby after the event, I overheard an attendee talking to her friends. “Michele Bachmann, now she’s real,” the woman said, speaking with a Southern accent. “You would never know that she’s an attorney. But George Will and that other guy — these people have never had real jobs. They don’t know what it’s like to sit in a broken office chair because your job can’t afford for you to put in for a new one.”

She seemed unaware that “that other guy” was the one who was going to get her to the big rally, and rake in a windfall — likely at her expense — if the agenda she signed onto through her activism ever came to pass.

Of course she was unaware. Nobody bothered to tell her.

This is, of course, the natural outgrowth of continued DLC influence in Democratic politics, as Howie devastatingly lays out here. They made their pact with the devil and don’t know how to do anything else. So, there’s no one left to tell the people.

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