Month: September 2010

Chatting With Grijalva

by digby

Blue America chat with congressman Raul Grijalva over at C&L at 10:30 pst.

Today a bunch of Blue Dogs signed a letter demanding that the American people continue to subsidize the wealthy upper one percent — the only people who are currently thriving in this dead economy — by extending their criminally low tax rates beyond their expiration date. The reasons for this are obscure — one can only assume some rich donors are putting pressure on them because no other reason makes any logical sense for people who call themselves “fiscally responsible.” Luckily there is some strong pushback on this from the Progressive leaders in the House, led by Grijalva, Grayson and Kilroy, who sent this letter to Speaker Pelosi:

Dear Madam Speaker:

Last decade, President Bush rammed through Congress a multi-billion dollar give-away for the wealthiest Americans on the backs of our nation’s middle-class. In the process, the aforementioned Bush tax cuts eviscerated an unprecedented budget surplus and weakened our nation’s fiscal health. As the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, we respectfully urge you to bring to the floor, before Congress adjourns in October, a vote on President Obama’s recently proposed tax plan: permanent tax cuts for the middle-class while allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans to expire, using any additional revenue to close our budget deficit.

We must show the American people that our Democratic Majority stands for them– people who have worked hard, played by the rules and depend on these tax breaks to make ends meet. We also need to get serious about cutting our budget deficit by allowing the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire.

Some have argued that the Bush tax cuts help to stimulate the economy, or that allowing these cuts to expire would hurt our nation’s small businesses. This is flat out wrong. According to a recent report by the Center for American Progress, the economy boasted 132 million jobs in June 2001, the month that the first of the Bush tax cuts was signed into law. By June 2004, there were just 131.4 million jobs– a decrease of 600,000 jobs. Furthermore, a recent report from the Tax Policy Center states that, “Roughly 97 percent of small businesses would not be affected at all by increases in the top two tax rates.”

Rather, extending the Bush tax cuts will result in an $830 billion give-away for the nation’s wealthiest Americans, significantly increasing government debt, the interest on which will be paid by our nation’s middle-class for years to come. This astronomical sum could instead be used to close our budget deficit.

It is critical that we pass the Obama middle-class tax cuts– not providing an even greater lift for the wealthiest Americans who don’t need it.

I don’t know how anyone can call him or herself a Democrat and not agree with that letter. But there are at least 30 of them in the House, many of whom are being given large sums of money by the Democratic Party to keep working against its own — and the country’s — interest.

Thank goodness for leaders like Grijalva or I’d start to get depressed. Please come over to C&L at 10:30 pst to chat with him about this and anything else that’s on your mind.

Update: Chat postponed. Congressman Grijalva called to the floor for a vote.
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Just Like Snookie

by digby

Here’s your Left Jab video of the day:

Pass it on …

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Brilliant

by digby

Colbert, last night:

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word – Mutually Assured Coercion
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Irrelevant aside: Most of you won’t remember this, but in the early days of this blog, which was begun during those strange days in the march to war in Iraq, Strangelove, not Network, was my theme. Here’s a blurry capture from the Wayback machine: My tag line was “I don’t think it’s fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up.”

The Ad That Never Ran

by digby

Too shrill?

Luckily young Haley Barbour, bless his peapickin’ little heart, was fighting alongside all the other Southern Republicans to enact the color blind 1964 Mississippi GOP Platform which said:

“We feel segregation of the races is absolutely essential to harmonious racial relations and the continued progress of both races in the State of Mississippi.”

That must be what inspired Haley to become the civil rights hero he dreams he was at Ole Miss.

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Counting On Sanity

by digby

Ed Kilgore has a smart post up today about the meaning of the Republican hard right turn. Among other interesting things he says this:

The role of the Tea Party movement in this rightward shift was significant, but it was not ubiquitous. And if, like me, you think the Tea Partiers are simply a mobilized bloc of conservative Republican voters, focusing on their role as if it were some sort of independent force is a chimera. What we have actually witnessed this year is the final victory in a Fifty Year War waged by the conservative movement for control of the Republican Party. The timing of this rightward lurch is remarkable, given that the usual practice of parties which have recently lost multiple elections is to “move to the center.” And, barring some miracle, an electoral triumph for this newly hard-right Republican Party will almost certainly render the transformation semi-permanent, confirming, as it will, the longstanding belief held by “movement conservatives” that excessive moderation—usually defined as any moderation—hurts Republicans politically.

I think that’s right. And it couldn’t happen at a worse time for the country since we are in a great period of transition and change and the economic and national security policies we adopt now will have profound repercussions well into the future. The policies these people believe in are wrong headed and dangerous. And their culture warriors are starting to exert themselves in new and unexpected ways as well, and in a stressful era like this one, very unpredictable things can happen.

Kilgore thinks the real proof will be in the post election pudding:

In the long run, though, the real test of this year’s conservative triumph will occur immediately after November 2. Whether it’s a matter of Republicans in Congress being forced to write a budget or of Republican presidential candidates having to come up with a positive message and agenda, they will not long enjoy the luxury of moving to the right without consequences. If they take control of the House and begin investigations and maybe impeachment proceedings against the president, their craziness will be apparent. And in 2012, they will face a very different electorate than the old-white-voter–skewed midterm crowd of 2010.

Perhaps. Let’s hope so. But because of the way the Democrats inevitably react to these hard right turns, the political center of gravity will be moved right once again. Indeed, I believe that one of the conservative movement’s greatest strengths is its consistent ability to pull the country rightward even when they are out of power. I think this is because of their willingness to push the envelope and stick with it long enough for the public and the village to get used to it. They never stop pushing and over time, through wins and losses both, their agenda and their worldview is advanced.

But this time could actually be worse. In my view, the combination of economic stress, a fully operational grassroots and astroturf movement and a very efficient propaganda machine could bring about a severe lurch rather than a strong pull to the right. These aren’t ordinary times. Without the Democrats exerting a steady counter balance, anything could happen.

Kilgore points out that the Democrats are playing a different game, appealing to moderation and successfully keeping its left flank under wraps. Under normal circumstances that might seem to be the smart move. But I wouldn’t be so sanguine about that. In a time of crisis, when one of the parties in a two party system is a radical, destructive force whose main claim to power is that it will stop anything the majority wants to do (thus proving that government can’t do anything)being a moderate, non-confrontational alternative may not be enough to fight them off.

In any case, I agree with Kilgore that we are coming to the destination of the wingnuts’ Long March. If they are able to throw off stalwart hit men like Karl Rove, it’s hard to imagine they are going to be stopped by a bunch of squishy Democrats trying hard to split the difference. But it looks like we’re going to find out.

Update: Tonight on the Newshour I heard Democratic strategist Steve McMahon, GOP strategist Kevin Madden and Tea Party strategist Matt Kibbe all agreeing that the electorate is gathering around the very popular issues of small government and low taxes and eliminating the deficit. All of them.

Kevin Madden explained that the Tea Party is the great middle of the American political spectrum and warned that Democrats derided them and their philosophy at their peril. McMahon agreed.

See how that works?

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All In “Good Fun”

by digby

The Tea Party candidate for Governor of New York sent these lovely images (via WNYMedia) around to friends:

When one of his correspondents was offended that Youtube (which is featured on white supremacist web sites) Tea Party candidate Paladino responded with this:

It’s a fairly common refrain. I’ve heard it a million times. He doesn’t believe he’s a racist. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t one. Depicting President Obama and his wife as a pimp and prostitute, using the word “ni**er” and portraying the president as a primitive tribesman rather than the Harvard educated lawyer he is isn’t even the (no less immoral)unconscious racism that so often defines these tea partiers. This is just flat out blatantly racist.

Now that he is the official GOP nominee I wonder if the Tea Partiers and other conservative Republicans who voted for him, all of whom swear up and down that they don’t have a racist bone in their bodies, will admit it?

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Cheesy In A Good Way

by digby

… Russ Feingold’s “Cheddarbomb”, that is:

Yes, another rich nutball has bought himself a Republican nomination, this time in Wisconsin, and he’s threatening to take down Russ Feingold, the most true blue civil libertarian in the Senate. The race is neck and neck.

Glenn Greenwald has a new interview with Russ posted at Salon which he introduces like this:

Even for those who are disillusioned and angry with the Democratic Party, or even apathetic about the outcome generally of the 2010 elections, Russ Feingold is one of the very few candidates whose re-election is genuinely worth caring about. No matter how bad Democrats generally become, Feingold’s presence in the Senate provides unique and real value. I spoke with him for 15 minutes late last week about a variety of topics, including Obama’s civil liberties record. The discussion can be heard by clicking PLAY on the player below. But before you listen, I’d like to review just some of the reasons for my view that Feingold’s re-election is compelling and important, and why I strongly encourage donating to his campaign as part of his “Money Bomb” today — here — as he tries, within the confines of his self-imposed campaign finance limits, to defeat an extremist, multi-millionaire, right-wing candidate who will be as radically awful on civil liberties, secrecy and war issues as Feingold is great.

Before the president took office in 2009, Feingold wrote this:

Our founding fathers laid down a basic principle — that we are a nation of laws and that no one, including the president, is above the law. From Guantanamo Bay and warrantless wiretapping to torture and excessive secrecy, the Bush administration has turned this principle on its head. The Constitution states that it and the laws of the United States are “the supreme Law of the Land.” Yet, the current administration has claimed unprecedented powers as it has ignored or willfully misinterpreted the laws on the books.

While Americans’ decisive call for change this election was a clear repudiation of the Bush administration’s conduct, failing to act swiftly to reverse the damage could essentially legitimize that conduct and the extreme legal theories on which it was based. That is why it is critically important for President-elect Obama to unequivocally renounce President Bush’s extreme claims of executive authority.

I don’t think we’ve seen the president unequivocally renounce Bush’s claims of executive authority and there is little doubt that he has essentially legitimized much of the Bush administration’s conduct. (Hard lessons learned by civil libertarians once again — they never give back power once its taken.)

Today, Feingold is one of the very, very few senators willing to take to the floor of the Senate and go on the record with the truth about the excesses of the National Security State, no matter which party is in power. It’s a role that doesn’t earn him a lot of friends among his peers who really seem to believe that it’s politically smart and morally sound for America to be a rogue superpower. But it’s vitally important for the health of our constitution and the future of our democracy to have Russ Feingold in there reminding his brethren that it isn’t.

Feingold’s opponent is filthy rich. And he’s ready to spend however much it takes to win. In this environment, I think we know just how possible it is for any kind of rightwing nut to win, but one who has unlimited funds is especially formidable.

You can donate to his moneybomb here. If Russ Feingold goes down in this environment I shudder to think whatlessons will be taken from it.

Update: Chat live with Feingold at C&L.

The Professor Has An Epiphany

by digby

The other day I wrote that it wouldn’t matter if the traditional conservative intelligentsia rejected Dinesh D’Souza’s insane, racist “Obama is an African revolutionary” thesis because the far right has it’s own “professor” Glenn Beck and if he endorsed it, it would gain traction. Well, he’s almost foaming at the mouth he’s so excited about it.

Media Matters culled the following quotes from his show today:

D’Souza: Obama “did not set foot” on the mainland until he was 17; He’s “unknown” and not an “all-American” guy

Beck: D’Souza’s article on Obama isn’t “theory,” “it’s just fact”
Beck adds, “You don’t reject the name Barry and go for Barack as a way to embrace the culture that you’re in. That’s not embracing America”

D’Souza: Obama has sold to the American people a “foreign, strange ideology” from his “Luo tribesman” father

D’Souza: Obama’s “rage” is rooted in his “personal history” and comparable to “the guy in the Schwarzenegger movie” who wants revenge

I had a feeling that this Angry African nonsense was going to appeal to Beck. (I’m sure Limbaugh will be on it as well, as soon as he’s done wanking himself unconscious over Christine O’Donnell.) It’s a beautiful dogwhistle, containing all their primitive fear and loathing toward blacks without ever having to evoke the unpleasantness over American slavery and Jim Crow. D’Souza has delivered.

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The Craziest Catch

by digby

Last night the teabaggers nominated an anti-masturbation woman for the senate in one state and a pro-bestiality man for governor in another. Talk about a Big Tent…

It’s tempting to assume that the electorate in November will be shocked and appalled by such fringe candidates but I think that’s short sighted. The number of people I know personally who don’t have a clue about how radical the teabaggers are is astonishing. I have to think most people are averting their eyes from this ugliness we currently call politics and simply don’t know how crazy they are. After all, they’re mostly just a bunch of middle aged white people wearing silly t-shirts, right?

Wrong. These extremists are so far out that even Karl Rove isn’t pure enough for them. So, as a public service, Blue America has reteamed with our friends at America for Americans, (who produced our John Boehner “Priceless” ad) to do a little public education. We’re calling this project “Left Jab.” Every day from now until the election we are going to release a new video exposing the corrupt kooks who now represent one of the two political parties in the most powerful country in the world.

Today we bring you “The Craziest Catch”:

With the help of the awesome Alaskan blogosphere, we’re hoping to get this one on cable up north. If you can help, donate here.

And be sure to spread this around to your friends. We want as many people as possible to see what lunatics and crooks the GOP and the teabaggers is inflicting on this country
at the worst possible time.

And come back tomorrow to see our new “Left Jab”

Donate to get Craziest Catch on TV here.

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GOP Catfight

by digby

Oooh. Daddy Karl and Uncle Sean had quite the spat tonight. How long before they drum Rove out of the party?

Sorry Karl, you and your friends birthed this hideous monster and now it’s turning on you. Did you think you would be immune?

Update: Reader ST reminds me that for all his tut-tutting in that segment, O’Donnell learned her gay baiting from Rove himself — he’s the one who beat Ann Richards with a lesbian whisper campaign. (Not to mention decades of Republican innuendo about Democrats’ manhood.) She was a little crude about it, but she was following a well used GOP playbook. They just don’t usually use it on each other.

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