The scary revolutionary nerd
by digby
So this is some of the shocking video that the ring wingers have been breathlessly teasing about for weeks (and which many of them claim Andrew Breitbart was murdered for?)It features a mad revolutionary Barack Obama in 1991 … blandly talking about diversity.
Oh my God. Hide the women and children! (Full shocking story here.)
Via twitter, I understand that some Breitbart followers are claiming the video’s been edited. Apparently, without irony.
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“She’s having o much sex, it’s amazing she can still walk”
by digby
Obsession? You be the judge:
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Centrist Prom King
by digby
I don’t know if Chellie Pingree is right about this, but it is a sad comment if she is:
Pingree, after looking closely at her chances, determined that entering the race could pose too great a risk to Dem chances of holding the Senate, the Democrat familiar with her thinking tells me. Pingree did see a path to winning, and passing on the race cut against her competitive nature. But the entry of independent former governor Angus King would have meant they’d compete for many of the same voters, making a Republican victory more likely — a risk she was not prepared to take, the Democrat says.
“From the data we’e seen, there is a big correlation between people who are likely to support Angus King and her base of support,” the Democrat says. A Public Policy Polling survey found that King would beat Pingree and Republican Charlie Summers in a three way race, and notably, 51 percent of King’s supporters would want him to caucus with Dems, versus only 25 percent who would want him to caucus with the GOP.
“They tend to attract the same kind of voters,” the Dem says. “Making Mitch McConnell the majority leader could have an impact on which Supreme Court nominees could get confirmed. This was not something she was willing to put her personal ambition ahead of.”
Angus King? If you’re expecting a Bernie Sanders “Independent”, think again:
BRANCACCIO: You yourself were a politician, and one of the goals as a politician is to win, so you can have some effect on policy. It seems to work to take an extreme position.
ANGUS KING: Well, it’s not good for the country, David, not only on the presidential level, but on the Congressional level. We’re locked up. We can’t deal with the really difficult, important issues. Nobody wants to tell the public what we’ve gotta do to get ready to meet China and India, to deal with the Baby Boomers. I mean, Social Security and Medicare are financial disasters. Everybody knows it’s coming and instead of preparing for it, saving, putting money aside, we’re building up enormous deficits and doing things like fighting wars that we’re not paying for. You know, they talk about the greatest generation?
BRANCACCIO: Of course, World War II.
ANGUS KING: Greatest generation– Depression, World War II. Our generation’s gonna be the lousiest generation. Our grandchildren are gonna look back on us and say, “Those people were nuts. What were they thinking of.” They’re gonna think we’re crazy.
BRANCACCIO: But, you think a politician could find an effective political strategy that would win votes from the center, so that you could enlighten the public to these important issues?
ANGUS KING: Maybe. I don’t know. I think that’s a really interesting question.
I, the other day, was thinking about the military and the situation that we have, and in the back of my mind I thought I remembered that Washington’s farewell address spoke to the dangers of a standing army.
I Googled Washington’s farewell address and read it. I was thunderstruck. It is an extraordinary document. And, he talks about the danger of public debt. He talks about– oh, the bulk of it is the danger of party and faction, and division in the country. I mean, it’s so prescient and powerful, everybody in America should read it.
We gotta get back to that point where it’s, you know, you say I’m a moderate. I consider myself a pragmatist. I’m for what works. I think there is a path there not only to political success, but to trying to solve some problems.
BRANCACCIO: There’s a famous political scientist out at Stanford, Morris Fiorina. He’s written about the myth of a polarized America. He has some data that suggests this. But then he quotes Steeler’s Wheel from 1973, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.” That’s–
ANGUS KING: That’s not a bad line.
BRANCACCIO: Yeah.
ANGUS KING: Well– we got a political system that’s, you know, struggling with Terry Shiavo and stem cell research and all that kind of thing. Meanwhile, gas prices are at $3 a gallon.
The public doesn’t care whether it’s a Democratic solution or a Republican solution. They want the roads fixed. They want the schools to work. They want reasonable gas prices. And, if called upon, they understand the necessity of sacrifice. I think we have become somewhat soft and self-centered. But, I think if called up and led, people will do the right thing. The American people always have.
BRANCACCIO: All right, Angus. Thank you very, very much.
I’m not sure why they haven’t tapped him for whatever the Unity-12 ticket is called this time, but he’d be perfect.
He might be a little bit better than Snowe on some things, but I’d guess he’ll be the perfect patsy for the wingnuts most of the time. The beauty of it for the Republicans is that he’ll be put into office by Democrats which makes it all the sweeter when he betrays them. That’s really half the fun.
Update: Dday has more analysis which shows that if King didn’t insist on getting in, Pingree probably would have won:
Public Policy Polling did extensive polling of this race after King announced, and it showed that Pingree had a big edge in a Democratic primary and would win handily in a head-to-head matchup against all Republicans likely to run. However, in a three-way race with King, he wins 36-31-28 over Pingree and the best-polling Republican. However, check out PPP’s Dean Debham’s analysis of the race:
“Angus King and Chellie Pingree look like the early favorites in Maine,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “King will have a hard time holding onto his early Democratic support without a pledge to caucus with the party if he’s elected to the Senate.”
According to that analysis, as King faded, Pingree would benefit, and she only started out five points behind with King at the height of his announcement bounce. Pingree appears to have been scared off by the experience of 2010, where a Democrat and independent candidate similar on the issues gave away the race to Paul LePage, a Tea Party Republican. But the electorate will look far different in Maine in 2012.
It’s really too bad.
Like I said, possibly better than Snowe. But a real missed opportunity for progressives and I’m not sure why I’m supposed to be happy about that. King should have backed Pingree if he wants to have more “moderation” in the Senate. It needs liberal ballast, not more centrism.
Update II: Also too, I tend to think it would be a good thing to have more than 16% of the elected US legislators be women. Call me wacky. Why is it always the woman who has to step aside?
Pingree said she talked to King several times, but she could not persuade him to not to run.
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Doobious Strategy
by digby
Over at Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson has a good piece about the Obama administration’s sudden about-face on medical marijuana. Initially they made soothing noises and announced that they wouldn’t target pot dispensaries that complied with state law. Then, last year, everything changed:
The reversal began at the Drug Enforcement Agency with Michele Leonhart, a holdover from the Bush administration who was renominated by Obama to head the DEA…Almost immediately, federal prosecutors went on the attack. Their first target: the city of Oakland, where local officials had moved to raise millions in taxes by licensing high-tech indoor facilities for growing medical marijuana…Two months later, federal prosecutors in Washington state went even further…In isolation, such moves might be seen as the work of overzealous U.S. attorneys, who operate with considerable autonomy. But last June, the Justice Department effectively declared that it was returning to the Bush administration’s hard-line stance on medical marijuana.
Kevin posits a number of possible reasons for this from a rogue DEA to genuine administration nervousness about people using marijuana. (My personal belief is that they have decided to run as law and order Republicans in the same way they are positioning themselves as tough guys on immigration and national security.) Nobody really knows the answer.
But over at Obsidian Wings, Sebastian wonders if this isn’t one of those perfect issues to leave to the states. That’s really what’s happening anyway, with the Feds just inserting themselves where they aren’t wanted. And it sounds good to use federalism to advance this goal, since the Federal Government can’t seem to let go of its desire to stop marijuana use for whatever reason. And that’s probably better than nothing, certainly for someone like me who lives in California and would be able to access what I needed fairly easily if I got ill.
But I just don’t agree with this way of doing things. Federalism is a recipe for inequality. We are supposed to be one country and “American” is a national identity (which ironically conservatives usually wear with special pride. So why should it be ok for rights to be apportioned according to arbitrary boundaries that were established over centuries of territorial expansion? I get that they make sense for some things. Local government exists everywhere. But we fetishize the independence of the states as a direct throwback to colonial America in a way that no longer makes any sense.
Last night I saw Rick Perry on Fox blathering on for quite some time about the 10th Amendment as if it had come down from Mt Sinai. He’s so far into tentherism that he now presents himself as a Texan first and an American second. That’s his privilege,of course, but it’s awfully convenient. (You know he’ll be the first to wrap himself in the American flag when it suits his purpose.) This is becoming more common among the far right and it’s starting to sound a little bit, dare I say it, unpatriotic.
While I certainly don’t care about the right’s temporary abandonment of their martial chauvanism (that’s probably a good thing) I do think this resurgence of states’ rights is a blight. I can see its utility in advancing my own causes. But as a matter of principle it always makes me uncomfortable. I think cancer patients in Oklahoma should have the same right to access medicine as cancer patients in Colorado. It seems to me that that’s the “American way.”
I don’t want the Federal Government to just stop enforcing its laws against medical marijuana in states that have legalized it. I want the Federal Government to legalize it for the whole country. I assume that’s the goal of the various organizations working on this as well. But I’m not convinced that the “laboratories of democracy” will necessarily make that happen sooner. History shows more examples of the states obstructing forward progress than enabling it.
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Romney the Bizarrely Anti-Base Candidate
by David Atkins
So Mitt Romney squeaked out 6 of 10 states in a not-so-super Tuesday last night, including a very narrow win in Ohio. Kucinich lost to Marcy Kaptur, who will easily crush GOP nominee Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher in November. Yes, it was that kind of night.
But in a sea of commentary, I’d like to focus everyone’s eyes on this: check out the map of Ohio counties won by President Obama over John McCain. Now check out the Ohio map of counties won by Romney over Santorum. Eerily similar, no?
It’s not just that Romney can’t seem to earn clear victories in states that aren’t coastal/northeastern bastions or heavily Mormon. The same dynamic occurs at a county level within states as well. The Republican base simply does not like the guy at all.
And no, that’s not a particularly profound or novel statement at this point. But I would postulate the following question: what if there were a Democratic primary for president, and the likely nominee being pushed by the Party Establishment could only notch clear wins in the Deep South and the Bible Belt? What if that same likely Democratic frontrunner barely eked out victories in swing states, and even then performed terribly in areas won by the previous Democratic nominee, and only did well in Republican areas.
Methinks progressives would be furious. Raging mad. And methinks they would be coming out in droves to stop this hypothetical conservadem nominee. Democrats were certainly engaged and motivated during the Obama-Clinton wars.
And yet, turnout in this GOP clown car primary has been abysmally, comically low. A simple Google News search for low turnout brings up story after story in the local presses about weak voter turnout in this Super Tuesday election.
As much as the Democratic and progressive base feels betrayed by the establishment on a variety of issues–and rightly so–there’s little precedent for the sort of deliberate smack in the face the GOP base is experiencing right now from its establishment in the form of Mitt Romney. But they appear to be lying down and taking it rather than really fighting back, allowing Mittens to limp, battered and bruised yet still undaunted, toward the finish line.
It’s a sorry spectacle, and I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes right now.
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Loving the state
by digby
We know why religious fundamentalists hate feminism. We know why misogynist creeps like Rush Limbaugh hate feminism. But why do conservative intellectuals hate feminism (assuming they aren’t also twisted creeps like Limbaugh?)
Here’s Mark Steyn to explain it to you:
The hatred of Big Government is not just about taxes then is it?
Once again, here’s Corey Robin to explain Mark Steyn:
The priority of conservative political argument has been the maintenance of private regimes of power—even at the cost of the strength and integrity of the state. We see this political arithmetic at work in the ruling of a Federalist court in Massachusetts that a Loyalist woman who fled the Revolution was the adjutant of her husband, and thus not be held responsible for fleeing and should not have her property confiscated by the state; in the refusal of Southern slaveholders to yield their slaves to the Confederate cause; and the more recent insistence of the Supreme Court that women could not be legally obliged to sit on juries because they are “still regarded as the center of home and family life” with their “own special responsibilities.”
Conservatism, then, is not a commitment to limited government and liberty—or a wariness of change, a belief in evolutionary reform, or a politics of virtue. These may be the byproducts of conservatism, one or more of its historically specific and ever-changing modes of expression. But they are not its animating purpose. Neither is conservatism a makeshift fusion of capitalists, Christians, and warriors, for that fusion is impelled by a more elemental force—the opposition to the liberation of men and women from the fetters of their superiors, particularly in the private sphere.
There you have it. That’s what this is about.
h/t to Jack Shafer
All there is to say on Limbaugh
by David Atkins
It’s remarkable how eerily similar the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and progressive bloggers were in their takes on Limbaugh:
The Daily Show:
And Colbert:
The responses to Limbaugh are similar not because they’re scripted by the same people, but because it’s really obvious how horribly wrong he and his co-ideologues are on this issue. The stupidity and misogyny are pretty cut and dried.
That the Republican candidates for President refuse to condemn not only Limbaugh’s words but his argument speaks volumes but isn’t terribly surprising.
More interesting, however, would be to get every Republican congressional and even legislative and non-partisan races in the country to clarify their feelings about whether contraceptives are bad for society. Limbaugh is their Dear Leader, they count on him to inflame to base to draw out their voters, and their presidential candidates stand by Limbaugh’s arguments, if not his words.
They should be forced to stand right alongside him and see how their potential constituents feel about that. Find your local state and national Republican legislators and candidates for those offices, try to get them on the record, and share that information with local progressive groups and county committees.
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Wage slaves and prostitutes
by digby
This post at RH reality check addresses something that’s been driving a lot of people nuts, including me. Namely, this ridiculous notion that somehow women (aka “sluts”) are asking the government to pay for their birth control. I don’t know where this comes from, but the ruling was for insurance companies to offer contraception at no cost, like any number of other preventive care practices. How they have seen that as asking the government to pay I don’t know.
But it gets to a bigger issue, which is that employer paid health insurance is a form of compensation, not some perk like free coffee in the break room:
Health insurance is part of earned income. When a woman takes a job, she is offered a health insurance package in addition to her paycheck as compensation for her work. Do I hear you saying that’s “entitled”? How droll. A workman is worthy of his hire, isn’t he (1 Timothy 5:18, for those who like references)? Why isn’t a working woman worthy of receiving the fruits of her labor?
It’s part of a worker’s wages and unless one agrees that an employer’s “conscience” allows it to withhold part of its employees’ salary if the employees do something with that money it doesn’t approve of, this entire argument is more than just an assault on women — it’s an assault on workers in general.
In America, employers don’t have the right to tell their employers what they can spend their earnings on. At least not yet.
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Blue America welcomes Montana state rep Franke Wilmer
by digby
When I first met Montana state Rep. Franke Wilmer, I walked away thinking how great it would be to have a woman in Congress who is so much like Barbara Ehrenreich. I’ve gotten to know her a lot better now– and I’m more impressed than ever. Her legislative role models tend to run more in the direction of Jeannette Rankin, a Montanan who was also the first woman elected to Congress (from anywhere), and populist lion Pat Williams. Digby, John and I are very enthusiastic about welcoming Franke today as our newest Blue America endorsee. Please be sure to join us at Crooks and Liars at 11am (PT), noon in Montana, to meet Franke for a live-blogging session. If she impresses you the way she has me, please consider contributing to her campaign at the Blue America ActBlue page here.
Please click over to Down With Tyranny to read more about Franke and then join us at C&L at 11.
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Today’s dispatch from Gilead
by digby
The LA Times catches up with a Doctor who tried to replace Dr Tiller in Kansas. It’s not pretty:
Posters circulated with her picture on one side scrawled with the words “child abuser”; the other side urged protesters to “reach out” to her at her home and office.
A letter arrived from an antiabortion activist who befriended Scott Roeder, the man convicted of killing Tiller, after he went to prison. That letter, now in federal hands, warned Means to check under her yellow Mini Cooper for explosives before turning the key.
“I anticipated the normal protest, but I didn’t anticipate the intensity of those in the movement to keep Wichita abortion-free. They saw Dr. Tiller’s murder as a victory,” Means said.
Roeder has said killing Tiller was justified to protect unborn babies.
Cheryl Sullenger of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue denied finding triumph in Tiller’s death but acknowledged starting the protest against Means. “The people of Wichita don’t want abortion in our community,” she said.
The pressure on Means was unrelenting. Her business manager quit, patients fled. A feminist group offered her a bulletproof vest. Law enforcement officials briefed her staff on how to spot a bomb.
Her landlord slapped her with a nuisance lawsuit, saying the protests disrupted other tenants. When Means tried to find another office, she said, no one would rent to her. She stayed put, settling the lawsuit with a promise not to perform abortions at that location, all the while quietly working toward creating a nonprofit organization so she could buy her own building.
Nice little constitutional right you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it. Nice little life you have there. Be a shame if you lost it.
Meanwhile, Kansas government has gone all in:
In spring 2011, some of the most sweeping antiabortion measures in the nation became Kansas law, including the defunding of Planned Parenthood and the imposition of building specifications and medical equipment requirements — both of which Means said would put abortion providers out of business. Both laws were stayed pending court challenges.
Now, with abortion-related laws being debated in several states, eyes again turn to Kansas. In February, Kansas lawmakers introduced new antiabortion measures that Republican Gov. Sam Brownback has promised to sign, including a bill to stop tax deductions for abortion-related expenses. Other provisions would require that patients hear the fetal heartbeat and shield doctors against lawsuits if they do not inform patients of problems in pregnancies.
That last is nearly unbelievable to me. They are telling doctors basically that it’s ok to lie to their patients about risky pregnancies. Indeed, it’s preferable.
They truly want women to die and for babies with incurable congenital diseases to suffer. My God these people are cruel.
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