Man: I listen to Meet the Press and I think a lot of people in the room, we end up turning it off, because during the election season, you’re letting politicians get away with softball answers and you’re not really forcing the conversations.
David Gregory: Sir, sir, you know what, with all due respect, I don’t know which program you’re watching because every week—I’m not going to get in a debate with you—I ask about taxes, I ask about how you pay for taxes, […] And by the way sir, I’ve also dedicated the program to talking about education and about reform as well.
Man: [but, but, but]
David Gregory: No, sir, I get the last word here, you asked the question. Just because people don’t listen or don’t take action behind it is not something I can directly control.
Man: I like the fact that you ask them [these questions], but you know, when we hear the answers they seem to be soundbite answers.
David Gregory: You know what sir, you know where your recourse is—Election Day.
Delusion, Failure, Recrimination
Jonathan Chait ably describes the Republican cycle:
The loop begins with Republicans gaining power on the basis of promising to cut unspecified programs, or perhaps programs accounting for a tiny proportion of the federal budget. That is the stage of the cycle we are currently in. Then Republicans obtain power and have to confront the fact that most spending programs are popular, and so they must choose between destroying their own popularity by taking on programs like Medicare, or failing to materially cut spending. So they settle on tax cuts instead of spending cuts. Then eventually their supporters conclude that they have been betrayed by their leaders, and cast about for new leaders with the willpower to really cut spending this time.
I’d add that even if they zeroed the entire non-defense discretionary budget they’d still be less than halfway to balance. And that’s before they formalize the permanent status of the Bush tax cuts and inevitably start adding in new tax cuts, which, of course, never have to be budgeted or paid for.
That the previous paragraph is news to most Americans is why the Democrats fail. And, just to name one, the elimination of the NIH and NSF through this zero budgeting process would basically doom the United States to second or third tier status in science, research, and development for decades, if not forever. So there’s that.
But let’s not talk details.
Disconnect the Dots
NYT/CBS News Poll: 78 percent of [likely voters] said they believed Republicans in Congress should compromise some of their positions to get things done and 15 percent said they should stick to their positions even if it means getting less done.
House Minority Leader John Boehner: This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles [if and when we gain the majority].
A Discontinuous Discussion
Mike Lee, (likely: R, Utah): Our current debt is a little shy of $14 trillion. And I don’t want it to increase 1 cent above the current debt limit and I will vote against that. [A Government shutdown is] an inconvenience, it would be frustrating to many, many people and it’s not a great thing, and yet at the same time, it’s not something that we can rule out. It may be absolutely necessary.
Alex Seitz-Wald (ThinkProgress): [Disgraced] Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s government shutdown in 1995 was disastrous; it ended up costing taxpayers over $800 million in losses for salaries paid to furloughed employees, delayed access to Medicare and Social Security, and caused a ‘[m]ajor curtailment in services,’ including health services, to veterans.
Eric Cantor (R, VA, Minority Whip): No. I don’t think the country needs or wants a shutdown. [We in the GOP] have to be careful [pursuing our agenda such that we’re not] seen as a bunch of yahoos.”
Lemkin: I wouldn’t worry about that, Cantor; that hasn’t cost you a thing yet and presupposes a MSM that, you know, gives a shit about objective reality. Mark it: government will be shut down early 2011.
Going Biblical
“With Islam, you have a religion that says kill the Jews, kill the infidels. It bothers me when a religion says kill the infidels. It bothers me a lot more when I am the infidel.”
Exodus 22:18: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” If Islam “says kill the jews, kill the infidels” then Christianity says “Kill Christine O’Donnell”.
Yep. But let me just revise and extend the remarks of the distinguished gentleman with the following suggestions:
James 1:19-20
19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
Ephesians 4:31-32
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Ephesians 4:25-26
25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath
And, while we’re on the subject, Might I suggest we open our Bibles to Mat. 23:23-28 (or: the Passion of Glenn Beck):
23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
In which Lord Jesus warns against slavish observance of the more ceremonial and other outward aspects of religion (and its practice) to the detriment of the spirit of the thing: social justice, mercy, and faith. What a concept. The clear difficulty lies in proving Beck ever actually swallowed a camel. And, rest assured, that will come up and serve as primary defense.
25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
in which Lord Jesus warns against self righteous (and self proclaimed) paragons and proclaimers of religious faith who are, themselves, hollowed out by the same crimes against which they are railing…a particularly trenchant concept which is also hit upon in the nexcerpt (oh yes I did):
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Here endeth The Tea Klan, King James edition. Any politician in the Democratic party currently unable or unwilling to fight back by quoting one or more of these (or other) verses needs to go ahead and get out of politics, right now. Feel free to come on back at a brighter moment in the history of the country. Sorry, it’s just the way it is.
Your Liberal Media
Democrats Retain Edge in Campaign Spending
The Democrat’s Paragraph (emphasis added):
Even with a recent surge in fund-raising for Republican candidates, Democratic candidates have outraised their opponents over all by more than 30 percent in the 109 House races The New York Times has identified as in play. And Democratic candidates have significantly outspent their Republican counterparts over the last few months in those contests, $119 million to $79 million.
The Kicker (emphasis added):
Republican-leaning third-party groups, however, many of them financed by large, unrestricted donations that are not publicly disclosed, have swarmed into the breach, pouring more than $60 million into competitive races since July, about 80 percent more than the Democratic-leaning groups have reported spending.
See what they did there? By making a false equivalency, we can say the Democrat is wildly outspending the GOP when judged by individual candidate spending. But, of course, if you count in all the outside group spending, well, then, that uh, that tells a slightly different story. In fact, assuming these numbers are correct, the GOP is outspending The Democrat. One might even headline it:
GOP and Their Shadowy Enablers Outspend Democrats by Wide Margin
But that’s not important. Move along. Move along. Keep walking.
Come On, Myerson, $303 Ain’t Bad
Since 1980, it’s been a very different story. The economy has continued to grow handsomely, but for the bottom 90 percent of Americans, it’s been a time of stagnation and loss. Since 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent has declined from 65 percent to 52 percent. In actual dollars, the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent flat-lined – going from the $30,941 of 1980 to $31,244 in 2008.
In short, the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich – the super-rich in particular – have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America’s wealthiest 1 percent rose from 9 percent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 percent in 2007.
Looking at these numbers, it would be reasonable to infer that when the Tea Partyers say that they want to take the country back, they mean back to the period between 1950 and 1980, when the vast majority of Americans encountered more opportunity and security in their economic lives than they had before or since. Reasonable, but wrong. As the right sees it, America’s woes are traceable to the New Deal order that Franklin Roosevelt, working in the shadow of the even more sinister Woodrow Wilson, imposed on an unsuspecting people.
In fact, the New Deal order produced the only three decades in American history – the ‘50s, ’60s and ’70s – when economic security and opportunity were widely shared. It was the only period in the American chronicle when unions were big and powerful enough to ensure that corporate revenue actually trickled down to workers. It marked the only time in American history when, courtesy originally of the GI Bill, the number of Americans going to college surged. It was the only time when taxes on the rich were really significantly higher than taxes on the rest of us. It was the only time that the minimum wage kept pace (almost) with the cost of living. And it was the only time when most Americans felt confident enough about their economic prospects, and those of their nation, to support the taxes that built the postwar American infrastructure.
I lied about accessing all of the computers. I then admitted about accessing the computers, but lied about what I was doing. Finally, I admitted what I did
Joe Miller, Tea Klan nominee for Senate. This certainly speaks to his bona fides for high office; it’s always a three-stage cycle: lie, lie about the details of said lie, admit the first lie (and declare it old news). The article also details the fact that he’s a tried and true ratfucker in the Rovian style:
Miller went on three of his co-workers’ computers to vote in an online poll, apparently connected with his failed effort to oust Randy Ruedrich as state Republican Party chair. Miller then cleared his colleagues’ computer caches to erase his tracks, in the process clearing out their passwords and saved websites.
But why no whisper campaign about Ruedrich’s sexuality? Amateur hour.
I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I would like for her to apologize to me to be honest with you.
Tim Profitt, former Rand Paul volunteer and MoveOn head-stomper
Six Things
All of which the Tea Klan have declared unconstitutional (bulletized for your enjoyments; click through for detail):
1) Social Security
2) Medicare
3) Minimum Wage
4) US participation in the United Nations
5) Unemployment Benefits
6) The Civil Rights Act
With the possible exception of the UN, these all poll in the ridiculously favorable range, so: Would it kill the DCCC or other national messaging group to make a 30 or 60 second commercial detailing this? Apparently it would.
Lemkin 