Month: August 2014

The girl with kaleidoscope eyes #MaureenDowd

by digby

I’m going to guess that Maureen Dowd brought some of that high powered Bubba Kush back from Colorado with her and took another one of little “pot trips” while she was writing this. There’s really no other explanation for it:

So when I think of [Robin] Williams, I think of [Michael] Kelly. And when I think of Kelly, I think of Hillary, because Michael was the first American reporter to die in the Iraq invasion, and Hillary Clinton was one of the 29 Democratic senators who voted to authorize that baloney war.

I realize it’s hard sometimes to find ways to segue into a good Hillary and “Barry” bash. But this is about as strained as it gets.

She’s been promoted by the way. She’s going to be the “narrative journalist” for the New York Times magazine. I have a feeling I’m going to have to lay in a supply of the Kush in order to survive it.

Just for fun, here’s a little reminder of Dowd’s perspicacity from 2006:

The Democrats will never win the White House as long as they’re stuck in Bleak House. They’re slipping and sliding in the same crust-upon-crust of mud and caboose-creeping fog and soft black drizzle and flakes of soot that blacken the chamber of law in the opening of the terrific Dickens novel (now an irresistible PBS series).

The lumbering pace of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce will pale compared with the time it will take the cowed and colicky Democrats to yank back power from Republicans skilled at abusing it.

The party simply seems incapable of getting the muscular message and riveting messenger needed to dispel the mud, fog, drizzle and soot emanating from Karl Rove’s rag-and-bone shop on Pennsylvania Avenue.

As the White House drives its truckload of lies around the country, it becomes ever clearer that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Al Gore are just not the right people to respond to the administration’s national security scare-a-thon.

I literally just picked that excerpt at random.

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Gaslighting American women

by digby

Are there a lot of delusional psychiatrists out there? I honestly don’t know, maybe there are. I do know that this one is:

Dr. Keith Ablow, a member of something called the Fox News Medical A-Team, doesn’t think First Lady Michelle Obama has any business promoting childhood nutrition.

“And how well can she be eating? She needs to drop a few,” Ablow said during Tuesday’s episode of “Outnumbered.”

The comment drew a collective cringe from the same four female panelists who had called the first lady “annoying” for her health initiatives only seconds earlier.

Despite the ridicule from his fellow panelists, the show’s “one lucky guy” dug in.

“Well, no, let’s be honest. There’s no french fries happening? That’s all kale and carrots? I don’t buy it,” Ablow said, adding that he would welcome nutrition advice from President Obama.

Yes, he’s primarily just a right wing asshole, so that accounts for most of that puerile obnoxiousness. But he’s also delusional:

She is simply not fat. In fact, she’s an incredibly fit 50 year old woman.

This is gaslighting of the worst kind. This cretin is typical of certain men who go out of their way to make women feel insecure about themselves by claiming they look different than they do. I recall some of the stuff I heard about Clinton during the 2008 campaign that similarly made me see red. I was shocked that people thought they could get away with it in these supposedly more enlightened times. Live and learn.

More importantly, there’s nothing wrong with being fat and there’s also nothing wrong with pushing healthy eating for children, whether you are fat or thin. Mothers of all body types have been telling kids to eat their vegetables and go outside and play since time began.  This has only become controversial since a fit, African American first lady said it.

The right wing maternal role model seems to be Sarah Palin, a svelte woman who tells American children to eat as many cookies as they want and says drinking gallons of sugar water is just fine because “it’s just paahp!”

And to think these conservatives have spent years condemning liberals for saying “if it feels good do it.”

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Iraq Is Also Clinton’s War

by tristero

Lest we forget:

Hillary Clinton was one of the 29 Democratic senators who voted to authorize that baloney [Iraq] war.

It seemed very clear to me at the time that Clinton was going to vote for it not because she personally agreed with it; she probably thought it was a bad idea, privately. Rather, it seemed that she had determined that, politically, the war was unstoppable, that Bush had enormous popular support, and therefore there was no reason to fight a battle that could only be lost, no matter how obviously nutty Bush’s plans were to most of the world.

I was so freaked out that I did something I hadn’t done since college: I joined a protest outside Clinton’s Manhattan office. No dice. Then, I emailed every single person I knew to send me a letter opposing the war. I printed them all out and overnight fedexed them to Clinton’s office in DC.

In addition, Michael Moore circulated a petition that read in part:

We call on the Democrats in Congress to oppose a war on Iraq, to vote “No” to Bush’s war cries. We pledge to never again vote for any Democratic member of Congress who supports George W. Bush’s war against Iraq. To the Democrats in Congress, we give you fair warning: You are either with us, or you are fired.

I signed this petition without hesitation. But nothing I, nor anyone else could do, could get her to change her mind. After the vote, in response to my letter-writing campaign, I received a form letter filled with gobbledygook and some of the most twisted rationalizations I have ever read.

And the war came.

I should state the obvious. Clinton is clearly brilliant and a master politician, both assets for an American president. Also, I am under no illusions that politicians as ambitious as the Clintons think like me, i.e. in terms of principles rather than opportunities to obtain power. No one who is in serious contention for the presidency thinks otherwise.

That said, there are limits. By voting for the Bush/Iraq war resolution – and only in the most technical sense was that not a blank check approval of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Whole Sick Crew’s war plans – Clinton supported what is obviously – and was so at the time – one of the most dangerously stupid policy decisions any American president ever made.

I did not support Clinton in 2008 for the presidency. As for 2016, unless there is a serious chance that a Republican would beat her, I will honor my signature on Moore’s petition.

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Reconfirmed: the rich run the whole show in American politics

by David Atkins

We’ve seen studies like it before, but this one is a thorough reconfirmation that the rich get what they want in American politics, the rest of us be damned:

A shattering new study by two political science professors has found that ordinary Americans have virtually no impact whatsoever on the making of national policy in our country. The analysts found that rich individuals and business-controlled interest groups largely shape policy outcomes in the United States.

This study should be a loud wake-up call to the vast majority of Americans who are bypassed by their government. To reclaim the promise of American democracy, ordinary citizens must act positively to change the relationship between the people and our government.

The new study, with the jaw-clenching title of “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” is forthcoming in the fall 2014 edition of Perspectives on Politics. Its authors, Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, examined survey data on 1,779 national policy issues for which they could gauge the preferences of average citizens, economic elites, mass-based interest groups and business-dominated interest groups. They used statistical methods to determine the influence of each of these four groups on policy outcomes, including both policies that are adopted and rejected.

The analysts found that when controlling for the power of economic elites and organized interest groups, the influence of ordinary Americans registers at a “non-significant, near-zero level.” The analysts further discovered that rich individuals and business-dominated interest groups dominate the policymaking process. The mass-based interest groups had minimal influence compared to the business-based interest groups.

I don’t even know how we fix this at a certain point. The biggest problem by far is the ability of corporations to buy elections, and we would need either constitutional amendments or wholesale reversals by the Supreme Court to deal with that.

Many people point to the civil rights era as a demonstration of the way forward, but I don’t think so. The fight to bring justice and equality to specific disenfranchised groups is very different from the broader rich-versus-the-rest-of-us inequality fight. The former are in many ways easier than the latter.

Sure, we can nibble at the edges with fixes like the Affordable Care Act. But the big things that need doing just aren’t going to happen at the federal level. I’m still convinced that making state-by-state fixes is the most promising way to go. Institute single-payer health care and similar policies in a few big blue states, and the rest of the country will slowly follow–or disband.

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“Put your lips together and blow”

by digby

What a dame.

Everyone probably knows this, but just in case:

Howard Hawks complained about her high nasal voice so she spent two weeks training her voice. When she reported back to work two weeks later, she now had a deep husky voice.

And it was awesome.

RIP.

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Because it’s important to remain human even when everything sucks

by digby

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – On a day where we’ve seen just how strained the relationship between one police department and its community has become,some neighbors in Kansas City wanted to show the connections being built on their streets.

Take a look at Officer Krebs of East Patrol having a bit of a dance off with some neighborhood kids. Onlookers sent the fun video in to the department who posted it on their YouTube channel on Monday.

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Rush on Robin Williams

by digby

What a piece of work. If you can figure out what in the hell this ridiculous gasbag is going on about you’re a better person than I am:

RUSH: So our last caller from Des Plaines, Illinois, wanted to know, “What is the politics in the coverage of the suicide of Robin Williams?” Well, I believe there is some. But I don’t think that the politics is driving it. I think there was, on the part of media and Hollywood, genuine affection for the guy that is driving it, but there is politics. If you notice the coverage is focused on how much he had, but it wasn’t enough.

“He had everything, everything that you would think would make you happy. But it didn’t.” Now, what is the left’s worldview in general? What is it? If you had to attach not a philosophy but an attitude to a leftist worldview, it’s one of pessimism and darkness, sadness. They’re never happy, are they? They’re always angry about something. No matter what they get, they’re always angry.

They are animated in large part by the false promises of America, because the promises of America are not for everyone, as we see each and every day. I mean, right here there’s a story Fox News website. Do you know, it says right here, that the real reasons that Robin Williams killed himself are he was embarrassed at having to take television roles after a sterling movie career.

He had to take movie roles that were beneath him, sequels and so forth, and he finally had to do television just to get a paycheck because he was in so much financial distress. He’d had some divorces that ripped up his net worth, and he had a big ranch in Napa that he couldn’t afford any longer and had to put up for sale, and a house in Tiburon that he couldn’t afford anymore. This is all what’s in the Fox News story.

He had it all, but he had nothing. He made everybody else laugh but was miserable inside. I mean, it fits a certain picture, or a certain image that the left has. Talk about low expectations and general unhappiness and so forth.
[…]
Well, that is a constant measurement that is made by political leftists in judging the country. It’s outcome-based education: 2 + 2 = 5. “That’s fine until the student learns it’s 4. We’re not gonna humiliate the student by pointing out that he’s wrong. If he figures it out, cool. We’re gonna take the fast learners and we’re gonna slow them down so that they don’t humiliate the kids that don’t learn as fast as they do. It’s just not fair.”

So the bottom line here is it’s reported that he died, which is true, but he actually committed suicide. I just really hope that this coverage does not spawn copycats, because the coverage is fawning and glorious, and positive. You have so many people on social media who so desperately want fame. You know it and I know it.

People are voluntarily telling everybody every detail about themselves, casting every aspect of their privacy aside just because they want fame. They want to be noticed. They all want to be on TV. There’s a lot of fame and the media’s doing every story about this is a story of greatness — unparalleled, unequaled, unique greatness.

I mean, everybody would love to be spoken of the way the media’s speaking of Robin Williams today and last night, and I really hope — ’cause there’s some very fragile people out there — people don’t try to emulate or get this kind of notoriety for themselves by doing the same thing.

He’s either been taking Palin lessons, popping little blue babies again or he doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s talking about. To make Williams’ depression and death about leftist perfidy is a bigger reach than even he can accomplish.

I do love the idea that he gives a damn about the poor “fragile people” who will be compelled to kill themselves. He’s very sensitive …

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From the “if you build it they will use it” file: Ferguson


by digby

Look at all this military gear in a small town police force

The good news is that when they’re done with the protesters they can immediately deploy to Kurdistan to fight the other enemy.

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Look who might be supporting the Great “Centrist” Hope

by digby

My piece in Salon today is about an unexpected alliance to elect the former Obama official who’s running against Congressman Mike Honda:

Just last week I wrote about a fine fellow named Sal Russo, a GOP “operative” from California who’s been ripping off veterans for fun and profit by appealing to conservative rubes who’ll believe anything they read in an email. I also mentioned that he’s the head of a major Tea Party group called the Tea Party Express, which has also been ripping off conservative rubes who’ll believe anything they read in an email. And since one of the complaints against Russo is that his organizations are illegally sharing email lists, that means many of the poor deluded right-wingers are getting ripped off twice.

However, it’s fair to guess that no rip-off, not even one that hurts veterans, will shake these true believers from their reflexive desire to give money to con men. Well, maybe this: Sal Russo may now be in the business of helping … Democrats. Even worse, a Democrat who used to work for the Usurper Obama himself.

Read on …

Patriots just blowing off steam

by digby

Yep:

Let’s really try not to torture anyone anymore.

Unless it’s really necessary.

And even if it isn’t, let’s not forget that the patriots who might do such things in the future are scared and under a lot of pressure.

Hmmm. Why does that sound so familiar? Oh right …

You know, these people are being fired at every day. I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of a need to blow some steam off?

Yes, that was Rush Limbaugh defending the Abu Ghraib torturers. In fairness, the president didn’t say the patriotic torturers he’s defending enjoyed it. (On the other hand, they knew it wasn’t gathering any useful information so you have to wonder why they did it anyway.)

I’m fairly sure Rush agrees with this statement wholeheartedly:

“It is important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job those folks had. A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.”

Steam …

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