Author: lemkin

Texas, Our Texas

Obviously very early, but signs say that it could go for Obama in 2012…under certain circumstances:

Texas ought to stay safely in the GOP column for 2012 but with a weak nominee Obama would have a chance and these numbers are further confirmation that you’re probably talking about 400+ electoral votes for the President next year if his opponent is [redacted].

But unsaid, and what ought to scare the pants off the GOP in Texas: that any potential candidate would poll as losing Texas to Obama right now is, shall we say: interesting.

Not KBH’s Senate seat, not the 2012 cycle, but soon and for a long time: Texas will be blue. The demographic tontine that is the core of the modern GOP will make it ever more so. I think I’ll even live to see it be a fairly reliable blue. And that will be a big, big deal.

Texas, Our Texas

Agin it afore I was fer it. Now agin it. Agin.

McCain, 1999: Ethanol subsidies should be phased out…we don’t need ethanol subsidies. It doesn’t help anybody.
McCain, 2003: Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality.
McCain, 2008: I support ethanol and I think it is a vital, a vital alternative energy source not only because of our dependency on foreign oil but its greenhouse gas reduction effects
McCain, 2011: Ethanol is a joke [and government programs promoting the corn-derived fuel are wasting money].

Getting to “Citizen”

MR. GREGORY: There’s been a lot of talk about discourse, about how you all can get along a little bit better and do it a little bit more civilly. And I wonder, this is the leadership moment here, OK? There are elements of this country who question the president’s citizenship, who think that it–his birth certificate is inauthentic. Will you call that what it is, which is crazy talk?

REP. CANTOR: David, you know, I mean, a lot of that has been an, an issue sort of generated by not only the media, but others in the country. Most Americans really are beyond that, and they want us to focus…

MR. GREGORY: Right. Is somebody brings that up just engaging in crazy talk?

REP. CANTOR: Well, David, I, I don’t think it’s, it’s nice to call anyone crazy, OK?

MR. GREGORY: All right. Is it a legitimate or an illegitimate issue?

REP. CANTOR: And–so I don’t think it’s an issue that we need to address at all. I think we need to focus on…

MR. GREGORY: All right. His citizenship should never be questioned, in your judgment. Is that what you’re saying?

REP. CANTOR: It is, it is not an issue that even needs to be on the policy-making table right now whatsoever.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Because it’s illegitimate? I mean, why won’t you just call it what it is?

REP. CANTOR: I–because, again…

MR. GREGORY: I mean, I feel like there’s a lot of Republican leaders who don’t want to go as far as to criticize those folks.

REP. CANTOR: No. I think the president’s a citizen of the United States.

MR. GREGORY: Period.

REP. CANTOR: So what–yes. Why, why is it that you want me to go and engage in name-calling?

MR. GREGORY: No, I’m just…

REP. CANTOR: I think he’s a citizen of the United States.

MR. GREGORY: Because, because I think a lot of people, Leader, would say that a leader’s job is to shut some of this down. You know as well as I do, there are some elements on the right who believe two things about this president: He actively is trying to undermine the American way and wants to deny individuals their freedom. Do you reject those beliefs?

REP. CANTOR: I…

MR. GREGORY: As a leader in our Congress.

REP. CANTOR: Let me tell you, David, I believe this president wants what’s best for this country. It’s just how he feels we should get there, that there are honest policy differences.

MR. GREGORY: Fair enough.
Lemkin: Well, that was easy…what, it only took about 1500 words worth of exchange to admit the simple and well proven empirical reality that Obama was born in the United States. All of next month on MTP, presented without commercial interruption: we go to work on gravity and evolution. Two “theories” and 672 hours of unrelenting follow-up questions to establish Mr. Cantor’s entirely straightforward, no-nonsense positions. Only on NBC.

They don’t want civility. They want silence from the Republicans. And the sitting together being kissy-kissy is just another way to try to silence Republicans, and also to show – to keep the American people from seeing how few of them there are in the U.S. House now. Then when people stand up to – what the Democrats are going to be doing when Barack Obama spews out all his venom, then, um, if they’re scattered throughout all the Republicans, then it won’t be as noticeable as if we’re sitting apart. So it is a ruse and I’m not in favor of it and I’m talking about it and I hope other members of the Republican conference in the House will not take the bait.

Paul Broun (R, GA), truly reveling in the new era of civility. Spewing venom is a good thing in Georgia, right? Jus some ole time plain folk talk.
To the dirty fucking hippies in the audience: Broun’s onto you! Hide your stash! It’s a trap!

And this is precisely why the Senate should have no other business until the debt ceiling vote. Alright, who wants to vote against the liver? Anyone against the liver? Next, the kidney. One or a pair? How about one lung, one kidney? Can we agree on that civilly?

Jomentum Agonistes

Greenwald on the Joementum farewell tour:

Support for all those violent and illegal acts just isn’t something we hold against someone, and it’s certainly not going to preclude someone from being a “Democratic hero.” Indeed, even Lieberman’s false claim – repeated just yesterday – that we found evidence that Saddam was developing WMDs (while patronizingly calling Arianna Huffington “sweetheart” after she disagreed) won’t interfere at all in these admiration rituals, even (especially) in Beltway Democratic circles.

And that’s the paragraph that qualifies as “faint praise.” Read the whole thing.

Jomentum Agonistes

CBS almost reported Reagan was mentally unfit in 1986 | Raw Story

Good Lord:

CBS’ Leslie Stahl recalled in her 2000 book, “Reporting Live,” that she was instructed not to ask then-President Reagan any questions during a 1986 meeting.

“Reagan didn’t seem to know who I was. He gave me a distant look with those milky eyes and shook my hand weakly,” she wrote. “Oh, my, he’s gonzo, I thought. I have to go out on the lawn tonight and tell my countrymen that the president of the United States is a doddering space cadet. My heart began to hammer with the import…I was aware of the delicacy with which I would have to write my script. But I was quite sure of my diagnosis.”

[…]

“Because Reagan seemed to ‘recover’ – I decided I could not go out on the White House lawn and tell the public what his behavior meant,” she wrote. “Was it what I had assumed at first: senility? Was it an ‘act’ – a way to avoid answering my questions? Was it some form of dementia (maybe not Alzheimer’s)? I decided I couldn’t report on my observations at all that night.”

Nothing is ever quite as breathtaking as the list of things reporters knew, but then decided on their own that the public at large would be better off just not knowing about. Inevitably they dump it out 20 years after it could have ever mattered and then soberly assess how tough it was to abrogate their entire purpose for being on the basis of some asinine logical fallacy they usually invented ex post facto.
Honestly, Leslie, the President of the United States seems totally disoriented, but recovers enough to talk vaguely about screenwriting and you decide that’s just not interesting or important enough to mention? Even if he was faking, this is major fucking news.

Your Liberal Media. All hail the fourth estate: keeping us safe.

CBS almost reported Reagan was mentally unfit in 1986 | Raw Story

Obamacare as we know is the crown jewel of socialism. It is socialized medicine. The American people spoke soundly and clearly at the ballot box in November and they said to us, Mr. Speaker, in no uncertain terms, repeal this bill. So today, this body will cast a vote to repeal Obamacare and to those across the United States who think this may be a symbolic act, we have a message for them.
[…]
This is not symbolic, this is why we were sent here and we will not stop until we repeal a president and put a president in the position of the White House who will repeal this bill, until we repeal the current Senate, put in a Senate that will listen to the American people and repeal this bill.

Michelle Bachman (R, MN), seemingly pushing yet another Constitutional amendment, this time to “repeal” the Senate. Say what you will about her, but that’s some strict original intent right there.
The sentence containing “president in the position of the White House” is left as an exercise for the student.

Ezra Klein points out what should be obvious, that all the folks screaming about deficit implications and the Affordable Care Act are, in fact, screaming about positive deficit implications (see: PPACA and red column) and, even if we simply take it on costs alone (as separate from any deficit impact), the ACA amounts to a rounding error when compared to the GOP’s tax proposals.

But it is best not speak of any of this. Ever.