;)
The Commentariat -- January 14, 2016
David Hendee of the Omaha World-Herald: "In his first full-fledged visit as president to Nebraska, President Barack Obama called on America to reject the politics of doom and gloom and work together to build a stronger and better nation and world":
... Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "President Barack Obama threw a few more punches at Donald Trump and the rest of the GOP field on Wednesday, condemning hateful language on the campaign trail that feeds Americans' 'worst impulses.' Speaking at the University of Nebraska Omaha, Obama gave a more casual, joke-laced version of his State of the Union address from Tuesday night, warning about the dangers of offensive rhetoric." ...
... Josh Planos of KETV Omaha: "Before his speech at Baxter Arena, President Barack Obama stopped at a Papillion home to speak with a mother who wrote him a letter last year." With video.
... Greg Sargent: "Paul Ryan attacks Barack Obama for agreeing with Paul Ryan."
There's no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide [between Democrats & Republicans], and I guarantee I'll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office. -- President Obama, in his SOTU address ...
... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Obama's wrong. Dead wrong. There's absolutely no reason to believe that either man would have convinced the two parties to sit together around a campfire and sing 'Kumbaya.' Nor, for that matter, is there any reason to think it would have been desirable for Lincoln or Roosevelt to prioritize partisan unity. Indeed, the reason we now remember them as two of our greatest presidents is entirely because they were not afraid to push a bold agenda even though that agenda outraged many entrenched political groups."
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Obama will roll out a bold set of executive actions during his final year in office, his top adviser said Wednesday. 'We'll do audacious executive action throughout the course of the rest of the year, I am confident of that,' White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast."
Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "The United States will increase the number of refugees it admits to allow in more people fleeing violence in Central America, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Wednesday. In a speech at the National Defense University, Kerry said the expansion of the Refugee Admissions Program will be directed toward people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, to 'offer them a safe and legal alternative to the dangerous journey many are currently tempted to begin, making them easy prey for human smugglers who have no interest but their own profits.'... The admission of more refugees from Central American countries comes amid an immigration crackdown in which women and children from the region were rounded up and deported after they were denied asylum." ...
... Jerry Markon & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "The escalating tensions between Democrats and the Obama administration over its deportation raids targeting Central American immigrants burst into public view on Tuesday, with more than 140 House members blasting the round ups and the White House dispatching a top official to Capitol Hill in a vain effort to quell the furor." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
James Downie of the Washington Post: Gov. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.), in her response to the State of the Union address, fueled the fear she & anger she pretended to abhor: "Be afraid. That fear and the anger from the GOP establishment's apparent complacency are the reasons behind the strength of Trump, Cruz and others. Platitudes from Nikki Haley and others won't stop that fear as long as they keep feeding it." ...
... Eun Kim of NBC's "Today": "South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley defended her response to Tuesday's State of the Union, confirming to 'Today''s Matt Lauer she was referring to Donald Trump as one of the 'angriest voices' she mentioned. 'Mr. Trump has definitely contributed to what I think is just irresponsible talk,' she told Matt in an interview Wednesday." ...
... Eliza Collins of Politico: "Nikki Haley said late Wednesday that she had misspoken when she said that Marco Rubio was for 'amnesty' and that Jeb Bush had passed Common Core, the controversial educational standards." CW: Maybe because (a) her claims weren't true, & (b) "misspeaking" about your party's presidential candidates is not going to help your veepstakes chances.
Ezra Klein: Democratic & Republican voters are different: Democrats care about personal issues which the hope the government can help solve; Republicans say they are concerned about abstract issues, like the Constitution. CW: Really? The Constitution? Let's give them a test to see if these concerned citizens know what it says. A 2014 Annenberg survey found that "While little more than a third of respondents (36 percent) could name all three branches of the U.S. government, just as many (35 percent) could not name a single one." I do believe "the Constitution" answer is a smokescreen for darker views.
David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "A crisis over the seizing of two American patrol boats in the Persian Gulf was averted Wednesday when Iran returned the craft and released their crews as Pentagon officials struggled to explain how the boats had ended up near a major Iranian naval base. Their quick release was hailed by the Obama administration as an unintended benefit of the new diplomatic relationship with Iran established by the nuclear accord negotiated between Tehran and the United States and five other nations in July. The accord is expected to go into effect next week, ending the oil and financial sanctions imposed on Iran over the past decade, and giving it access to around $100 billion in frozen funds." ...
... Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Intense U.S.-Iranian diplomacy led to the release early Wednesday of 10 American sailors captured by Iran after they strayed into its territorial waters, a smooth resolution to a potentially fraught incident that the Obama administration attributed to communications channels established during negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. 'We can all imagine how a similar situation might have played out three or four years ago,' Secretary of State John F. Kerry said. He thanked Iranian authorities for their 'cooperation and quick response'..." ...
... CW: And think about how this would have gone down if U.S. Republicans & Bibi Netanyahu had had their way on the Iran nuke deal. Sharon Kavenaugh of Vocativ: "Republican lawmakers and presidential hopefuls quickly seized on Tuesday's incident, claiming it represented yet another humiliation of the United States by Iran. They placed the blame squarely on [President] Obama.... 'This is the latest manifestation of the weakness of Barack Obama, that every bad actor ... views Obama as a laughingstock,' said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.... Jeb Bush tweeted: 'No more bargaining. Obama's humiliatingly weak Iran policy is exposed again.' If I'm not mistaken, all the GOP presidential candidates have promised to revoke the Iran nuclear deal. Diplomacy matters. While you're looking for bad actors, Ted, get a mirror. ...
... Also, too, it's important to bear in mind that the Navy vessels were in Iran's territorial waters. If Iran floated its boats off the coast of Cape Cod, would the U.S. ignore them? ...
... ** Bryan Bender of Politico: "Wednesday's release of 10 American sailors from Iranian custody put a swift end to the latest confrontation between the U.S. and Tehran -- but not before a chorus of Republicans jumped in to warn that the United States was facing a new hostage crisis.... The immediate political response to the episode, even as details were still trickling in, underscored deep opposition to the Obama administration's nuclear pact with Iran and its broader diplomatic detente with Tehran -- and also cast in stark relief how much national security is imprisoned by partisanship." ...
... Paul Waldman: "Candidates can live in their fantasy world, where they're constantly causing dramatic showdowns they always win because of their steely glare. But fortunately for us (and for those 10 sailors), none of them had the chance to test their theory. At least not this time." CW: Don't miss Waldman's opening grafs. ...
... Daniel Drezner of the Washington Post: "So now that U.S. sailors and ships have been safely returned in a relatively prompt manner, remember who flew off the handle and who kept their cool."
Louise Story of the New York Times: "Concerned about illicit money flowing into luxury real estate, the Treasury Department said Wednesday that it would begin identifying and tracking secret buyers of high-end properties. The initiative will start in two of the nation's major destinations for global wealth: Manhattan and Miami-Dade County. It will shine a light on the darkest corner of the real estate market: all-cash purchases made by shell companies that often shield purchasers' identities." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Faced with the prospect of definitively resolving the status of Puerto Rico, the Supreme Court on Wednesday explored ways in which to render a narrow decision. But a lawyer for the Obama administration was adamant that the court's decision should be based on the fundamental ground that the commonwealth is a territory of the United States without independent sovereignty.... The question in Wednesday's case, Puerto Rico v. Sánchez Valle, No. 15-108, was whether Puerto Rico was also a separate sovereign and therefore able to pursue a subsequent prosecution for the same crime after a federal conviction. Whether Puerto Rico is a separate sovereign is a deeply contested matter of politics and pride."
John Koblin of the New York Times: "The cable news channel Al Jazeera America, which debuted in 2013 to great fanfare when it promised to cover American news soberly and seriously, will be shutting down by the end of April. The move was announced at a companywide meeting on Wednesday."
Presidential Race
Gail Collins on the relatives of the candidates.
Here's the conversation between MSNBC's Benjy Sarlin & Alex Seitz-Wald, which Ezra Klein referred to in the post linked above. Sarlin & Seitz-Wald switched sides last week; Sarlin had been covering the GOP candidates & Seitz-Wald had covered the Democrats.
The Nation endorses Bernie Sanders. CW: It's a good editorial, worth reading: "Sanders alone proposes to break up the too-big-to-fail banks; to invest in public education, from universal pre-K to tuition-free public college.... He alone proposes to empower workers with a living wage. He alone stands ready to put Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and to confront climate change by making the United States a leader in renewable energy. His audacious agenda proves that money in politics doesn't widen debate; rather, it narrows the range of possibility. While Sanders understands this, we fear that his chief rival for the Democratic nomination does not." ...
... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton's new barrage against Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential primary opponent she has all but ignored through most of her campaign, is having an effect -- ... Sanders's underdog campaign said it is seeing a surge of contributions as a direct result..., with money coming in at a clip nearly four times the average daily rate reported in the last quarter of 2015.... 'Thanks, Team Clinton,' Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said Wednesday afternoon." ...
... CW: There's nothing wrong with Clinton's attacking Sanders on the real differences between them -- tho I don't know how well the gun thing will go down in Iowa & rural New Hampshire -- but her claim that Sanders has proposed to turn healthcare over to the states, specifically to Republican governors, is, as far as a can tell, a baldfaced lie. The best thing that can be said for her is that she's as honest & trustworthy as any GOP presidential candidate, except maybe Kasich. ...
... Pat Garofalo of US News has more on Clinton's "bizarre" & "dishonest" attacks on Sanders' single-payer proposal: "... she's sliming Sanders with the accusation that he wants to take health insurance away from people. It's a garbage attack, and makes even less sense considering that she's going to need Sanders' supporters come November when she (as is still very likely) becomes the Democratic nominee. (Democrats, incidentally, really like single-payer, as do independents.)" ...
... Ryan Cooper of the Week: "... it's obvious what's happening here. Clinton has been flagging in the polls of late, and as usual she's turned to fighting dirty."
... Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: Sanders strikes back against Clinton's "Karl Rove tactics." ...
... Jim Newell of Slate: "Welcome to the campaign trail, Chelsea Clinton. Got anything on your mind? 'Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance,' she said in New Hampshire on Tuesday. 'I worry if we give Republicans Democratic permission to do that, we'll go back to an era -- before we had the Affordable Care Act -- that would strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance.'... The arguments [Hillary Clinton's] campaign is using against single-payer health care are earning plenty of griping from progressives, who see this as proof that Clinton will only play nice with them until the precise second that turning on them becomes politically advantageous." Sanders should release his plan now. ...
... Liz Kruetz of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton [Tuesday] defended her daughter's attacks against her Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders' single-payer health care plan, despite criticism the remark was inaccurate." With video. ...
... CW P.S. Chelsea Clinton is a chip off the old blocks. I can't stomach her, either.
Margaret Hartmann of New York previews tonight's GOP debate. ...
Jonathan Swan of the Hill: "Major GOP donors and fundraisers are wondering whether they're wasting their money on super-PACs. They say they're not ready to abandon the super-PACs, but they're starting to look for ways to make them more effective during a presidential cycle that has challenged conventions about how to spend political donations."
Nick Gass of Politico: Donald Trump "on Wednesday hit back at both [President] Obama and at South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who also warned about the dangers of Trump's rhetoric during her GOP response, though also not by name.... Trump, calling in to 'Fox and Friends,' denounced Obama's speech as the words of a man 'living in a fantasy land.'... Trump, a master of the counterpunch, let loose on Haley Wednesday morning. He attacked her as being 'very weak on illegal immigration' and surmised that if he were not running for president, she would be asking him for campaign cash. 'But she's weak on illegal immigration, and she certainly has no trouble asking me for campaign contributions, 'cause over the years she's asked me for a hell of a lot of money in campaign contributions...,' he said on 'Fox and Friends.' As far as the prospect of a Trump-Haley ticket? Don't count on it, Trump said. 'Well considering I'm leading in the polls by a lot, I wouldn't say she's off to a good start based on what she has just said,' he said...."
Mike McIntire of the New York Times: When Ted Cruz ran for the Senate in 2012, he & his wife Heidi obtained loans for as much as $750,000 to finance the campaign. One loan came from her employer Goldman Sachs & another from Citibank. The loans are not illegal, but Ted failed to report them to the Federal Election Commission, & that is illegal. Ted has falsely claimed that he & Heidi financed the campaign by liquidating their own assets: "A review of personal financial disclosures that Mr. Cruz filed later with the Senate does not find a liquidation of assets that would have accounted for all the money he spent on his campaign.... All told, the value of their cash and securities in 2012 saw a net increase of as much as $400,000 -- even as the Cruzes were supposedly liquidating everything to finance Mr. Cruz's Senate campaign." His presidential campaign describes his failure to report the large loans as "inadvertent." Very convenient. "... a disclosure might have conveyed the wrong impression for his candidacy. Mr. Cruz ... was campaigning as a populist firebrand who criticized Wall Street bailouts and the influence of big banks in Washington. It is a theme he has carried into his bid for the Republican nomination for president." ...
... Jennifer Rubin, the WashPo's winger blogger, explains why this revelation is "a nightmare" for Cruz, especially at this point in the race. Here are some of her reasons: 1. He is still indebted to Goldman.... 2. He didn't simply 'forget' to file the disclosure; he made up a self-reverential story to go with it.... 3. He is going on stage tonight in a debate against several highly skilled candidates who don't like him to begin with.... 4. Trump is going to have a field day with this one, which is certainly a more solid reason than his birther hooey on which to disqualify Cruz. Cruz has been accusing Trump of embodying 'New York values' -- whatever those are. But if hiding a big loan from a Wall Street firm tied to the housing crisis isn't the essence of 'New York values,' I am not sure what is. 5. Cruz's campaign is built on the populist, anti-establishment narrative.... 6. It is hard to say this is an oversight.... 7. This is precisely the sort of slick, dishonest conduct he accuses professional politicians of undertaking."
... "I Forgot." Katie Zezima of the Washington Post & Patrick Svitek of the Texas Tribune: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) downplayed a report late Wednesday that he had not listed personal loans he and his wife received before donating roughly the same amount to his 2012 Senate campaign, calling the matter an 'inadvertent filing question.'" ...
... Not a parody. But a classic. Also, could be the first time a presidential candidate was pictured in blackface:
Beyond the Beltway -- Elections Matter
(1) Amy Goodnough of the New York Times: "There is no longer any question that Gov. Matt Bevin [RTP] of Kentucky plans to shut down the health insurance exchange his state built to enroll residents for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Now that he has notified the Obama administration of his intention to do so, the question is, will it change the law's substantial impact there? It is hard to predict, partly because what Mr. Bevin is doing is without precedent. While a few states have been forced to largely rely on the federally run exchange after their own versions failed, Kentucky will be the first to abandon a homegrown exchange that functions well.... A far bigger threat is Mr. Bevin's plan, still vague, to overhaul Kentucky's expansion of Medicaid...."
(2) Elizabeth Cohen & Katherine Grise of CNN: "The state of Florida is putting thousands of children with heart defects at risk, a group of cardiac doctors say, because of a change in policy that came after Tenet Healthcare contributed $200,000 to Florida Republicans. In a widely publicized investigation in June, CNN revealed that a program at a Tenet hospital in Florida had failed to live up to state quality standards for children's heart surgery. Less than two months later, the state decided to get rid of those standards. That decision came after the giant for-profit hospital chain made contributions to Republican Gov. Rick Scott and his party that dwarfed those the company made to candidates or parties in other states.... Doctors from around the state say the decision came right from the governor's office."
(3) Mark Guarino of the Washington Post: "Responding to calls that his administration has not done enough to help this city and its lead-poisoned water supply, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) dispatched his state's National Guard on Tuesday to help distribute clean water. More than 30 National Guard troops are expected to be on the ground by Friday, where they will go door to door to hand out water bottles, filters and testing kits to residents in this city of nearly 100,000." (Snyder's administration is responsible for forcing the city to provide contaminated water & for covering up evidence the water contained high levels of lead & other contaminants.)
*****
Rebecca Ruiz of the New York Times: "Top officials running the sport of track and field have for years abused their positions and possibly engaged in criminal behavior, blackmailing athletes who doped and failing to discipline them in a timely fashion, according to a report released on Thursday by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The 89-page report was the result of an investigation by a task force that spent the last year examining allegations of widespread doping and corruption. It raised questions about past leaders of the sport who were already under criminal investigation as well as the sport's celebrated current leader, Sebastian Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who was in charge of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London."
John Sepuvado & Amanda Peacher of Oregon Public Broadcasting: "Among the militant members who have accessed government computers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, one is an Islamic State sympathizer and Adolph Hitler acolyte. While militant leader Ammon Bundy has repeatedly denied government computers were being used by militants, OPB has again confirmed that Department of Interior computers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are being accessed, and in this instance, being used to make a website for the occupation. One of the militants occupying the refuge posted video of himself using the computer."
Comedians A. J. Foster & Larry O'Grady re-enact the Whitesboro, New York, town seal. I'd say it's lucky for Foster no Whitesboro cops came upon this scene. Undaunted by the photo & national notoriety, the town voted to keep the "White" in Whitesboro the seal. (The village is 97.69 percent white.) See also yesterday's Commentariat. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link:
Photo by A. J. Foster.
Amanda Holpuch of the Guardian: "A Minnesota archbishop who was forced to resign when his diocese faced criminal and civil charges related to sexual abuse by clergy has been appointed assistant priest at a church in Michigan."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Explosions and gunfire rocked the center of the Indonesian capital on Thursday in what the police called a terrorist attack. At least four people were killed, the police said, along with three of the assailants. The Indonesian National Police said in a statement on Facebook that four other attackers had been arrested." ...
... Washington Post Update: "Militants staged suicide bombings and opened fire in Indonesia's capital on Thursday in possible attempts by Islamic State followers to stage a Paris-style rampage through the teeming streets of Jakarta. Five attackers were among the seven dead." ...
... Reuters Update: "Islamic State said it was behind an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of Jakarta on Thursday, the first time the radical group has targeted the world's most populous Muslim nation."
New York Times: "At least three winning tickets were sold in Wednesday night's record $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot."
Guardian: "The World Health Organisation has declared the end of the Ebola epidemic in west Africa, with all known chains of transmission of the virus stopped."
New York Times: "Alan Rickman, the British actor who brought an erudite dignity to film roles like Hans Gruber, the nefarious mastermind of 'Die Hard,' and Severus Snape, the dour master of potions in the 'Harry Potter' series, died on Thursday. He was 69."
Washington Post: "For the first time since 1978, a named tropical weather system has formed in the Atlantic Ocean in January. At 4 p.m. today, the National Hurricane Center announced Subtropical Storm Alex had developed over the eastern Atlantic Ocean."
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Reader Comments (12)
"CW P.S. Chelsea Clinton is a chip off the old blocks. I can't stomach her, either."
How very strange, Marie, that we see Clinton-world the same way. Must be our experience at our alma mater, University of Wisconsin--hotbed of socialism! (-:
We already knew this, but it's a good, well supported exposition:
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/10/donald_trump_talks_at_a_fourth_grade_level_maybe_thats_why_the_fox_news_audience_loves_him/
Goes well beyond Le Donald to address virulent anti-intellectualism in so much of American culture.
I was traveling yesterday, so this comment is a bit late. In the SOTU, President Obama said:
"There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.
But, my fellow Americans, this cannot be my task — or any President’s — alone."
He went on to talk about district drawing and fund raising. He let Ryan and McConnell off the hook. He didn't point out that Ryan was at the 2009 inauguration night dinner where the assembled Republicans vowed to oppose everything that Obama supported. He didn't remind people that McConnell stated that his top priority was to insure Obama was a one-term president.
Since Obama was trying to help the nation, that means they were very directly working against the interests of the American People.
There is no bridging of the divide when one side of that divide is made of quicksand -- quicksand as far as the eye can see and as deep as the molten core of the earth.
The president is still making nice with these assholes. And it still won't work. I think this called for a reverse "You Lie!" moment. Perhaps an appearance by Luther, the anger translator, to say: "F*ck y'all! F*ck All y'all!"
Ah. Didn't see the Millhiser link before I posted.
"Ted Cruz’s stump speech seems reverse-engineered after a careful study of the conservative base. It’s a clever format, inviting his audience to imagine the opening hours and days of a Cruz administration as he ticks through a right-wing wish-list of actions. But it loses some of its magic when you see it more than once, since he delivers it exactly the same – intonation, jokes, pauses and all – at stop after stop. Every politician has a stump, but this is different." (Alex Seltz-Wald)
Yes, different because it's memorized down to the pauses and the points. Cruz studied acting in his youth and intended to go into that field , hence, delivers an actor's rendition of a presidential candidate. The video with his family members strike a similar unreal sense–-I would have liked to watch that confrontation with the guy in the garage––sounds as if that was real. Gail Collins' piece about relatives spoke about Ted"s father, but left out the bit about both parents being alcoholics and the father leaving the family when Ted was quite young, returning after many years after he "found Jesus." Lawrence Tribe telling us that when he had Ted as a student, Ted proceeded to argue almost every point Tribe was making. These are significant pieces of information to keep in mind, but I doubt Cruz's followers are privy to them.
The Donald makes us gnash our teeth but I fear Cruz could make us lose so much more if he manages to become the prime piece of meat. However, there is a chance he won't be eligible. Another constitutional scholar has come out saying just that.
Someone was on their toes in the White House. The visit Obama paid to the woman who wrote that marvelous letter was pure political perfection. Wonder if Fox will feature it.
Marie picks a bone with one particular conclusion (rather more an observation, I suppose) in the Ezra Klein piece on the Republican/Democrat divide (linked above). I have a couple more to pick.
The MSNBC reporter covering Confederate races, quoted in the article, was stunned (stunned, I tells ya) to discover that Democrats are so concerned with specific and personal issues like jobs and healthcare as opposed to Republicans who seem to be much more concerned with elevated abstractions like Constitutional law.
First, I take issue with the idea that any voter on either side is somehow divorced from personal issues. Confederates, aside from any supposed phantom "concern" for the Constitution (Marie has covered that one already, thank you very much), take it very personally that a black man is in their White House. Gun rights may be a large issue but we constantly hear about their needing to defend their families against the infamous and ubiquitous "bad guys with guns", run of the mill intruders, and Mooslims trying to break in and steal their freedoms. Their jobs are being taken by dirty Mexicans and their tax money is being siphoned off to even dirtier moochers. None of these concerns are personal?
Second, and one more word about that Constitutional business, I think the difficulty here is more of a category error. A big difference between Democrats and Confederates is the way they view the world. Okay, that's not news, but I think what gets overlooked is the reliance of Confederates on metaphorical substructures that conform their worldviews in ways unavailable to (or largely unused by) liberals, mostly because liberals don't have the same kind of unified symbolism and terminology that allow for a more orderly, rigid, and tightly woven vision.
So, we have words like "freedom", "liberty", "constitution", "rights", "birtherism", "Trumpism", "Socialism", and terms like "global warming" and "Jihad". These are shibboleths, concepts whose true definitions have become reworked to limn a Confederate aspect. Although, I feel, many Confederates would have a hard time giving a decent explanation of these terms and ideas, they all "know" what they mean. They all get it. They all understand implicitly how such concepts, redefined to suit--and to frame--their view of the world, establish the terms of what it means to be a part of that tribe.
So it doesn't really matter a shit if some teabagging jamoke couldn't explain the Fourteenth Amendment (or the First or Second for that matter) in an open book test. The word "Constitution" means something completely different to them than I believe the MSNBC reporter quoted in this article thinks it does. Aside from the hilarity of the thought of barely literate 'baggers ("Get a brain, Moran!") sitting around parsing the inside baseball of Constitutional law, attempts at these kinds of distinctions (Democrat/Confederate) need to be made with slightly more acuity than will be available by cursory examinations of the difference in book covers.
And speaking of hilarity, I found somewhat risible the claim that Confederates have little to do with interest groups. How about the Southern Baptist Convention? How about the NRA? How about dark money groups like those founded by the Kochs? How about Wall Street? I suppose in fairness such entities are too big to be called interest groups in ways recognizable to Democrats. After all, Greenpeace and Planned Parenthood do not exactly have the same overarching control over Democratic affairs as fundamentalist Christianity and the gun lobby has over Confederates.
Digging into what divides the parties is a useful exercise, but let's not get too caught up in simplistic constructs like "Democrats are worried about jobs but Republicans are concerned with the Constitution".
Shibboleths are found on both sides, but only on one side do they harness such abiding, binding power.
I watched that Cruz Commander video.
Ugh. Is this really what we've come to? A guy looking to be leader of the free world kowtowing to some knucklehead in camo giving off with duck calls? Understand, I'm not saying a presidential candidate is--or should be--too good to hang out with "regular" people. But this guy is not "regular". He's a far-right extremist demagogue whose views are abhorrent to anyone who is not a Kool-Aid chugging fundie fanatic.
But the most disturbing part of the video is how obsequious and submissive Cruz seems to Duck Dynasty's Big Bigot. He positively glows with hero worship, like a 12 year old kid out with his uncle, the legendary great white hunter, for the first time. Not to mention the fact that most of the video is taken up with allowing Robertson to give out his qualifications for president of the United States. Most important? Will he kill a duck, put it in a pot and make him some gumbo? Oh....Ted Cruz will!
Okay, so I get that might be funny, but what's not funny is Cruz's fawning over this bigoted douchebag.
Robertson is right about one thing though, Cruz IS one of them. A fundamentalist, Old Testament spouting bigot.
That's fifty-six seconds I'll never get back.
I am somewhat puzzled that the GOP shows draw so many viewers. One possible explanation: Why do people watch Three Stooges movies? To marvel at their wisdom? Or to see what the damn fools do next?
I hope that's at least some of the reason. The alternatives are too depressing to contemplate. Gonna skip it myself. Reading a new bio of Groucho Marx. Much more interesting and intellectually stimulating (no kidding, I recommend it).
'Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence' by Lee Siegel
One recent post of mine included a list of Confederate Incroyables whose transgressions against basic humanity expose the fundamentally invalid claims of Republicans to be anything other than shills for anti-democratic oligarchs, anti-American fundamentalist zealots, and a corrupt, inhuman ideology.
One particularly ripe asshole I neglected to include is a guy who has been poisoning children for money. That isn't even a little bit of an exaggeration. Rick (Poison in the Baby Bottles) Snyder, in order to bolster his credentials as an "Austerity for thee, but not for me" Republican governor, switched the water supply for residents of Flint, MI in order to demonstrate how tough he can be with black, largely Democratic moochers.
Instead, he has created one of the great public health disasters in living memory that will end up costing taxpayers millions and damaging the health of god knows how many poor residents who had n escape from the Confederate wiles of their anti-democratic "leader". Way to go, Confederates! How to show us all how its done by the experts!
But to listen to this snotty pig, you'd be hard pressed to realize that he had anything at all to do with this catastrophe:
“We need to focus on improving Flint for the longer term,” Snyder said. “This committee, made up of experts from government and the Flint community, will set a course of action to remedy the water situation and resulting health issues, and carry on long after the emergency declaration expires.”
A message from Rick (Brain Damage Man) Snyder on his michigan.gov website.
So now he's the hero, eh? He's sending the National Guard around to residents of Flint with a bottle of water for each household and lecturing on the need for clean water. Just outrageous. I'll give it to Republicans. They have more brass than you'd find in all the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt.
Handing out bottles of water to residents to keep them from having to resort to a water supply you personally have poisoned is like Mrs. O'Leary and her cow going door to door in Chicago asking if anyone could use a fire extinguisher and pretending she had no idea how the damn fire started in the first place.
Here's another knee slapper from Neurotoxin Rick:
"I have a degree of responsibility". A degree? A DEGREE? That's like saying carbon dioxide plays a small role in global warming. Or that Dick Cheney had a tiny bit of responsibility for the Iraq disasters. How is it that so many horrible fiascos are the willful creations--entirely avoidable--of Republicans? Could it be they suck at governing? At everything? And why is it that these guys who preach responsibility for everyone else claim little to no responsibility for the calamities they concoct?
So what now? What's the Republican solution to this humanitarian crisis of their own device?
Big Guv'mint! Natch.
Yup. When they fuck up, they come running to daddy for money and help, and most importantly, cover. And this from the guy who, when Detroit was hurting, haughtily sniffed that government bailouts were the wrong way to go. I guess that same advice doesn't apply to this bag of doucheness though, does it? No. It never does.
Could these fuckers be any more reprehensible. I know I shouldn't wonder that because the answer to that is a big YES and probably right around the corner.
Pigs.
@AK,
"Sending in the National Guard" as you wrote, or "Activating the National Guard" as others have written, gives the impression of a swarm of camo-dressed folks hitting the ground running and distributing aid pronto. It's even worse.
As of yesterday, mlive.com reported that the first seven soldiers were on the ground in Flint, and by tomorrow a whopping 32 soldiers are going to be visiting all the residents of Flint.
It's the equivalent of: "You're gonna clean this entire barracks with a toothbrush!" except that in this case, the barracks is getting punished. And the barracks is living breathing people who in no way deserve this.
Let's see. A hundred thousand residents divided by 32 water
carriers. I think that's about 3,125 bottles of water for each
of those 32 carriers. Water is heavy. And it's about 20 degrees
out. Run faster! The first 100 thirsty people you got to are out
of water again. What a jerk (not what I wanted to say, but
this is a family channel).
Forrest,
Dude, you're among friends. Let 'er rip. It's not like this creep doesn't merit caustic phraseology or contemptuous calumny.