;)
Sunday
Aug192012
The Commentariat -- August 20, 2012
My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Brian McFadden's comic strip. The NYTX front page is here. ...
... Dean Baker has a great piece -- it's short -- on the New York Times as Paul Ryan cheerleader.
When $11,000 a Year is Too Rich. Carla Johnson & Kelli Kennedy of the AP: "Governors [of] five [Southern] states have said they'll reject the Medicaid expansion underpinning Obama's health law after the Supreme Court's decision gave states that option. Many of those hurt by the decision are working parents who are poor -- but not poor enough -- to qualify for Medicaid. Republican Mitt Romney's new running mate ... Paul Ryan, has a budget plan that would turn Medicaid over to the states and sharply limit federal dollars. Romney hasn't specifically said where he stands on Ryan's idea, but has expressed broad support for his vice presidential pick's proposals." ...
... CW: what NOBODY EVER SAYS is that Medicaid is pretty much a business subsidy. The working poor are poor because their employers don't pay them a living wage & don't provide health insurance. Our tax dollars go to Medicaid because many of the places we do business won't pay fair compensation. Ironically, the woman featured in the Johnson-Kennedy story works as a health aide. She's caring for people, but thanks to America's Worst Governor Rick Scott (RTP-Florida) won't be eligible for Medicaid. Thanks to contributor Dave S. for the link.
Larry Summers, who's right about some things, has an op-ed in today's Washington Post which responds to Paul Ryan, et al. idea of shrinking government: "For structural reasons, even preserving the amount of government functions that predated the financial crisis will require substantial increases in the share of the U.S. economy devoted to the public sector.
Presidential Race
Here's the latest Obama ad, this time appealing specifically to women, on reproductive rights:
Jane Mayer of the New Yorker: President Obama doesn't enjoy fundraising.
CW: haven't read it, by Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker has a long piece on what President Obama might do in his second term. I think I'll save it till after I find out if he has a second term.
This is quite sweet. Ralph Maxwell is a 92-year-old former Fargo, North Dakota, trial judge and World War II veteran. Watch it through. The text for Judge Maxwell's poem is here at the Blue Virginia site. Thanks to contributor Lisa for the links:
Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The nation’s painfully slow pace of growth is now the primary threat to Mr. Obama's bid for a second term, and some economists and political allies say the cautious response to the housing crisis was the administration's most significant mistake.... Peter P. Swire, Mr. Obama's special assistant for economic policy in 2009 and 2010, said both the administration's successes in repairing financial markets and its shortcomings in helping homeowners could be traced to the president's reliance on Mr. Geithner and Mr. Summers." CW: for what it's worth, I think those "economists & political allies" are exactly right. Besides, there are ways to help underwater homeowners at no cost to taxpayers -- like allowing them to refinance at a lower interest rate & not allowing the banks to charge refinancing fees.
Faking the Real Romney. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Working from makeshift offices at a hockey arena [in Tampa, Florida], a team of Romney advisers, producers and designers have been staging and scripting a program for the Republican National Convention that they say they hope will accomplish something a year of campaigning has failed to do: paint a full and revealing portrait of who Mitt Romney is."
CW: as long as you think it's okay to be an autocrat who thinks he personally speaks for Jesus, Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post has written a fairly glowing piece about Romney as a church leader. ...
... CW: speaking of crazy anti-abortion ideas, as we do in the Congressional Races section below & in today's Comments, this version of "Bishop Mitt Tries to Stop a Woman from Having a Life-Saving Abortion," by Erin Ryan of Jezebel & published last October, is a bit more specific than was the version in the New York Times. If Prof. Judith Dushku is telling the whole truth, then the story has even broader application. It tells us why Mitt will "say anything, do anything" to get elected -- it's a church-approved tactic.
Paul Krugman: "Ryanomics is and always has been a con game, although to be fair, it has become even more of a con since Mr. Ryan joined the ticket.... What Mr. Ryan actually offers, then, are specific proposals that would sharply increase the deficit, plus an assertion that he has secret tax and spending plans that he refuses to share with us, but which will turn his overall plan into deficit reduction. If this sounds like a joke, that's because it is. Yet Mr. Ryan's 'plan' has been treated with great respect in Washington." ...
... What Con Game? What Hypocrisy? Here's Paul Ryan in 2002, taking to the well of the House to argue in favor of deficit spending to stimulate the economy. Notice how he is as passionately for it as he is now passionately against it. Thanks to contributor "Nisky Guy" for the link:
... Robert Reich: Paul Ryan's "faux populism obscures the main point. A much smaller government still dominated by money would continue to do the bidding of billionaires like casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, energy moguls like the Koch bothers, military contractors, and other high rollers now actively trying to put Ryan and Romney into the White House. It just wouldn't do anything for the rest of us.
Worth reading: Amy Davidson's post from last week on the social safety net which was available to Paul Ryan when his father died young.
Congressional Races
Nate Silver: "Based on some loose historical precedents, the remarks that the Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin of Missouri made about pregnancy and rape could be enough to swing the polls to the incumbent, Claire McCaskill." ...
... What comments might those be? Rebecca Berg of the New York Times reports: "Comments by Representative Todd Akin, a Republican running against Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, are drawing condemnation after he asserted that victims of 'a legitimate rape' have biological mechanisms to prevent pregnancy. 'If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,' Mr. Akin told KTVI-TV of St. Louis in an interview that was broadcast on Sunday." CW Translation: "If the fetus remains viable, then you were asking for it, you slut." ...
... John Eligon & Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times elaborate. ...
... Apparently the anti-abortion crowd, which would appear to include whatever Roman Catholic hierarchy was -- at least once upon a time -- responsible for determining the school sex education curriculum, has long passed around the idea that women only get pregnant when they "want it." Several months ago, Anna North of BuzzFeed rounded up some remarks from other charter members of Todd Akin's Sex & Science Club. Considering that at least one of the club members is a Bush-appointed federal judge, are we amazed that (white) rapists often get away with the she-consented defense? ...
... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker has a good post on Akin's views, & she is among those who note that Paul Ryan's views are not a lot different from Akin's -- no matter what "statements" the R&R campaign put out.
Local News
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "In a state crucial to Mitt Romney's battle to replace President Obama, a law passed in 2011 by the Republican legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) has created an awesome wake of litigation. The law imposes more than 75 changes, including restrictions on who can register voters and limits on the time allowed for early voting.... Every Democratic lawmaker, called it a partisan ploy to suppress voters who traditionally favor Democrats."
News Ledes
President Obama holds a news conference:
New York Times: "President Obama on Monday threatened military action against Syria if there was evidence that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was moving its stocks of chemical or biological weapons. It was Mr. Obama's most direct warning of American intervention in Syria, where Mr. Assad's military is fighting an 18-month-old rebellion." CW: the full presser is above, & is worth listening to on several counts.
New York Times: On Monday, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "became one of the first two female members admitted to Augusta National Golf Club, the home of the Masters tournament, which has excluded women as members throughout its 80-year history. The other new member is Darla Moore, a South Carolina financier and philanthropist who was on the cover of Fortune in 1997 as 'The Toughest Babe in Business.'"
New York Times: "Phyllis Diller, whose sassy, screeching, rapid-fire stand-up comedy helped open the door for two generations of funny women, died on Monday at her home in Brentwood, Calif. She was 95."
Los Angeles Times: "The Los Angeles County coroner's office and Los Angeles Police Department were both investigating the death of filmmaker Tony Scott, including interviewing witnesses.... Los Angeles police first learned of the incident after 12:30 p.m. from a 911 caller who said that an unidentified man had leaped off the suspension bridge that connects San Pedro and Terminal Island. It's a 185-foot fall from the bridge roadway to the waters of L.A. Harbor."
New York Times: "A Chinese court on Monday handed Gu Kailai, the wife of a disgraced Communist Party leader, a suspended death sentence for killing a British business associate who she reportedly feared was plotting to harm her son. In the Chinese legal system, such a sentence is tantamount to life in prison."
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (24)
Bravo! Judge Maxwell!
States Rights!
http://news.yahoo.com/anti-medicaid-states-earning-11-000-too-much-143508666.html
If Obama plays Ralph Maxwell's poem as a campaign ad, that should take care of everything. And for a start he should be invited to speak at the Democratic convention. At 92 his brain functions better than most Americans. And the proof of that is Representative Todd Akin. Not because of what he said but because he has already won an election. Add Bachmann and Palin and that says it all. Duh.
The folks at Up with Chris Hayes have been doing their homework this week. My mother forwarded the following link with footage of Paul Ryan making a strong case for stimulus spending and crossing party lines for the good of the country. But only when a Republican is in the White House. February 14, 2002:
http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/19/13361928-video-paul-ryan-defended-stimulus-in-2002-when-george-w-bush-wanted-it?lite
This sort of fact-based report still gives me hope but, then again, I am a sucker for facts.
If Claire McCaskill loses to this dumb wingnut, Todd Akin, I think we must consider encouraging Missouri to secede.
A degree in engineering obviously does not include basic knowledge of female biology or understanding the psychology of empathy. What a misogynistic fuckhead!
From HuffPo:
..."A group of House Republicans were reprimanded last August for taking a late-night swim in Israel's Sea of Galilee that reportedly involved drinking and nudity.
As Politico reported Sunday night, a number of Republican lawmakers on a fact-finding trip to Israel were involved in the incident, including Reps. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.), Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) and Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.). Some spouses, family members, and staffers were also present. According to the report, Yoder took off his clothes before entering the reservoir, which the Bible cites as the place where Jesus walked on water."
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! Of course, Yoder apologized! Bennie Quayle--not so much. Think AIPAC will take notice?
As @Kate Madison is a mental health professional, I can only assume that "misogynistic fuckhead" is a medical term. That's good to know, as it means whatever your first thoughts were when reading Rep. Todd Akin's Science Lesson, they probably constituted something akin to a medically-accurate diagnosis.
"The Republican presidential ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan was quick to distance itself from Mr. Akin’s remarks.
“Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin’s statement,” the campaign said. “A Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”
And yet they have come out previously saying just the opposite––see video above. Let's add "Flim-Flam Fabricators" along with "misogynistic fuckheads" to our medical lexicon.
WARM ALL OVER
Propaganda gurus, hailing from the Broadway stage, TeeVee control rooms, and design studios have been hired to bring to the Republican Convention an open touchy-feelie folderol.
"Their craft is slick packaging and eye candy that audiences consume by the millions.
Their latest project? Selling the Mitt Romney story in prime time.
Working from makeshift offices at a hockey arena here, a team of Romney advisers, producers and designers have been staging and scripting a program for the Republican National Convention that they say they hope will accomplish something a year of campaigning has failed to do: paint a full and revealing portrait of who Mitt Romney is."
Read the whole article in the Time's front page. Desperation brings art work to a whole new level.
CW,
Noted on BBC, but not in our MSM.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19289230
"The 87-year-old doctor still charging patients $5 a visit".
Amazing!
Mae Finch
Re: I can do anything better than you. Giving birth is one thing man can't do that woman can. Instead of honoring and accepting that distinction man chooses instead to control and belittle it. When women gain total reproductive rights the world will be a better place. Men like Rep. Akins are no different than an Afghan tribesman or a Mormon fundie or the Pope. Someday the women of the world will have the sole rights to the expression; "Go fuck yourself."
NYT's headline: A Careful Effort Seeks to Reveal a Real Romney at Convention.
What are they going top do, dress a robot?
If a woman in Missouri can swim, can they legally burn her as a witch? Just asking.
@Patrick: they can legally burn her as a witch only if she gets pregnant after claiming she was "legitimately raped." The burning of course will take place after she gives birth. And, no, once the kid is born, nobody cares what happens to her/him.
Let's hear it for Timmy Geithner's mentor, Larry Summers! I guess he not-so-secretly supports RR, and we know for sure he is just another fucking misogynist! Oh yes, and WaPo loves him. Errk!
...." A political figure who was key to the destruction of 40 percent of the wealth owned by citizens in the country that signed his paycheck should be ignored or exiled.
Instead, just today, Larry Summers is given prime billing in The Washington Post to whip up fear of expanding social safety net costs. Instead of being ridiculed for helping to pave the way for the destruction of the Glass-Steagall act and for demanding regulators have no say in the creation of hundreds of trillions of dollars in unregulated derivatives, Summers is treated as if his opinion is still relevant.
This is what the Washington Post thinks of you; they think you deserve to hear the "expert opinion" one of the most influential failures of our time - a man who is personally responsible for much of the grinding economic torture so much of the population is still enduring."
Judge Maxwell, in a few simple stanzas, has done the work of the press for them. Spending precious time and column inches oohing and ahhing over Romney's wealth, his good looks, his wife's horse, or babbling about Ryan's biceps and seriousness, the vast majority of those paid to offer honest assessments of events of great moment, such as a presidential election fail to rise above the slippery grease of moneyed hackdom. It seems a daunting task for them to reach the higher than the top of the sump pump.
Judge Maxwell demonstrates how easy it is, with common sense and a taste for honesty, to illuminate the farce that is the Romney campaign.
But we'll be treated to another few months of "what serious guys" are R&R and more he said/he said, and "they both do it" tommyrot (thanks Judge M. for reminding me of that excellent word).
So bravo Judge Maxwell. Not only doesn't he bury the lede, he has a lede worth reading.
No doubt R&R will use him as evidence of why they have to get kill Medicare as quickly as possible. The sooner to rid themselves of those smart ass old people who have a knack for truth telling. Such a big no-no in right-wing swamps.
On PD's suggestion I read that front page article about the dog and pony they're readying in Tampa. Among the all the many nonsequiturs and oxymoronic turns in this Republican Campaign of flip-flops and shame, I find no small humor in the fact that the Machiavellian image machinations designed to make Romney appear human are taking place in a hockey arena.
In Florida.
Damn! Forgot the punchline:
An artificial setting for an artificial man.
@ Akhilleus:
L'esprit de l'escalier. Happens to me all the time!
So... Akin pissed on the third rail and it has electrified the whole campaign because it lights up an issue that even the MSM understands, although I expect he said/she said analyses of the event. I'm sure the internet is burning up right now as MSM reporters feverishly hunt for Teabillys to defend Akin. Meanwhile, maybe there should be a biology test requirement for seeking public office.
Should've added Croynin just yanked $5 mil support from Akin's campaign. Bet he wishes he'd gone skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee instead.
And while I'm considering the many oxymoronic--and just plain moronic--situations sluicing out of the industrial strength pestilence machine that is the modern GOP, I just discovered that Mr. Biology, Small Brained Jimmy Akin, sits on the the House Science, Space, and Technology committee. Akin sits next to a number of other fools taking up way too much oxygen on that committee, eg, the rotund mound of imbecility James Sensenbrenner (proof that Wisconsin really has gone to the dogs) who recently tried, unsuccessfully to cross his arms over his enormous belly while chuckling at what a fat butt Michelle Obama has. Really, where the fuck do these people come from!?
Oh and before I leave that esteemed body, check the site (created by GOP hacks)
http://science.house.gov/about/membership
on which they refer to non-Republican members as "Democrat" members. These assholes are like ignorant little brats who can't stop giggling about fart jokes.
The really sad thing is that so many people are painting Akin as an unenlightened birdbrain but they still think of Paul Ryan as genius material. Well folks, Ryan is right down there in the hole of ignorance with Akin. They buddied up to co-sponsor a bill making it illegal (with jail sentences to be named later) for women to receive abortions under any circumstances.
Think Savonarola Santorum was the only sanctimonious religious hater in this presidential season? (It's a trick question. They're ALL sanctimonious religious haters!
And while we're on the topic of "misogynistic fuckheads", what the he'll is "legitimate rape"????
Just one more example of the paranoia on the right where women and sex are concerned. Because most of the MFs stopped developing both socially AND sexually around the time they started thinking jokes about farts and gays were the snickering height of humor and intellectual prowess, they are scared out of their tighty whiteys by adults, especially by adult women who cannot be beaten into submission or otherwise controlled or humiliated by their frat boy misogyny so, like Ryan and Akin they take out their pubescent frustration by trying to paint women who won't willingly don the chains of patriarchy as sluts and threaten to pass (more) "laws" forcing them to bend to the demands of the Right Wing Masters.
Anyone considering any of these scared, evil little juvenile wankers as serious adults are either fellow MFs or suffering from brain damage.
Maybe both.
"Legitimate rape??" Are you fucking kidding me?
Remember Palin's Death Panels? There's a much greater chance that R&R will install Rape Panels to determine whether a woman who has been raped was legitimately assaulted or is just another scheming slut. Jumping Anaconda, do I hate these fucking people!!!!
So very much in today's news and so many wonderful comments. First, thank you to Marie -- and Lisa -- for the Ralph Maxwell video. I've sent it to everyone I can think of who has the smarts to get it. I *wish* I had his fitness of body and mind, and I'm only in my 60s. Wonderful man; wonderful message.
As for the Republican Apocalypse, I'm particularly sensitive to it this month, as August is birthday month in my family: both of my children, their father, a former son-in-law, my son's daughter-in-law, and now two great-grandchildren, one born on August 11 and the other due any day now. When I contemplate the disaster looming in the all-too-near future, I take comfort in the fact that I'm not likely to be around to experience the worst of it. But the phrase "hostages to fortune" becomes exquisitely painful when I consider that my youngest grandsons (ages 11 and 6) and the firstborns of the next generation will enter their prime as villeins or worse, if the theocratic fascists in this country (i.e. Republicans) have their way. At least the children so far are male, white -- even blond (although the family patriarch, my first husband, was a dead ringer for Ricky Ricardo!) -- but I despair should the next born be female. I have lived in and suffered from the society Romney/Ryan and their ilk wish to return us to, while my daughter benefited from the enlightened policies of the liberal Democrats. It's hard to watch the clock turned back and to think that her grandchild, if a daughter, could be subjected to the benighted policies that blighted my young life. At least I know both my kids (kids? -- late 40s, both of them!) will be voting Democratic in November.
Sorry for making this so personal, but it's hard not to, while I'm sitting here on tenterhooks, waiting for news of a successful birth and a healthy baby. It distills all the political brouhaha and nonsense down to the intensely personal and intimate, because that's how it affects each and every family in the country. How it can be that people don't understand that I...well, I can't understand.
Chris Hayes had an intelligent and articulate guest on his Sunday program who is in much the same situation as my son and his family: married with both parents working, going back to school for more training, another degree, working at a job that doesn't pay enough to get by because they can't get jobs commensurate with their skills and training, depending on food stamps and Medicaid to make it, and facing calamity if the Republicans get their way after November. ( http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/ Two segments with Tanya Wells. Wonderfully articulate young woman.)
How did we get to this point? What kind of country will we be? And how dare the Republicans imply that we seniors don't care about our children, and grandchildren, and theirs...and on down through the generations. We thought we had built a country where everyone would be secure in the knowledge that help would be available in old age, disability or natural disaster. Where people could take risks, knowing that if they failed they could regroup and try again, without fearing that their families would starve in the meantime. I'm finally on Medicare, after years of being uninsured, and I want it to be there for my kids and for *everyone's* kids in perpetuity -- and which, as people here know, can be fully funded if Congress would finally deal with out of control medical costs. The Republican agenda is to destroy all this. I do, however, get that people vote Republican because they're what's known euphemistically as "low information" voters, or, as Gene Wilder puts it, "morons."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txrikNFX-8E
My only comfort lies in knowing that the gated communities of the filthy rich won't save them when they've killed the planet. By then, though, it will already be too late for the 99%.
Re: the comfort of Rose; loved your heart-felt comments; maybe you can find comfort in the truth that the planet will protect itself even if we as humans can't understand the outcome.