Truly a campaign based on ideas. Never fear, though: We have the facts on our side…
Tag: 2012
Christie to cancel the region’s most crucial infrastructure project; refusing $3B in fed money, cutting 6,000 potential new jobs
When you’re still stuck on a train stalled on the tracks in New Jersey twenty years from now, blame this grandstanding fatass.
How, though? Democrats, as currently figured, inevitably claim they are only interested in “looking forward.” This stance means that, in 20 years when the bill comes due, the Democrat sitting in the corner office trying to unwind the mess he/she inherited will take the blame for problems created long ago by policies that the GOP will still be pitching (and winning elections with) and a voter-at-large who remains utterly uninformed but sure likes the sound of all those never-ending tax cuts.
The only solution is careful messaging, right across the board, for decades, that informs the public, slowly but surely, about each of these decisions and their inevitable consequences. But, when handed somebody’s house burning down for lack of a $75 annual fee to use fire services, we are instead greeted by the sounds of Democratic silence. When a bridge collapses: sounds of silence. When people get sick because food is production isn’t being inspected and is thus contaminated: sounds of silence. When people die in the streets of the richest nation in the world because they can’t afford food anymore or caught a (fucking) cold: sounds of silence.
This is why they fail.
The Narrative Is the Narrative
Assuming big Republican gains this November, the media narrative will claim Democrats overreached and governed too liberally. Yet actual progressive policies polled well and continue to poll well. If anything, it’s been failure to act on popular legislation that helped put them in this hole.
–Markos “The Orange Menace” Moulitsas
Not sure how many times we’re going to have to cover this one, but let’s have at it again:
- GOP landslide, Senate and House change hands: Democrats overreached and governed too liberally. The only solution is a far-right governing philosophy. Obama is a seat-warmer for the next GOP president, nothing more, nothing less. He is not even entitled to his Constitutionally mandated veto power and the GOP exhibits this by shutting down the government every time he uses it and investigating the composting patterns of the WH garden when he’s not.
- GOP gains, Senate Democratic, House barely or even marginally GOP-held: Democrats overreached and governed too liberally. The only solution is a far-right governing philosophy. Obama is a seat-warmer for the next GOP president, nothing more, nothing less. He is not even entitled to his Constitutionally mandated veto power; Democratic Senate pressured to cooperate with whatever inane policy the GOP House wants in name of “bipartisanship,” this pressure is then extended against Obama: “why won’t he work across the aisle??!?!” Obama vetoes said bill: The Democrat just can’t govern/circular firing squad! Signs it: Another Democrat failure that is destroying the country. This, by the way, would be the best possible outcome for the GOP (as it is currently figured) heading into 2012. Just sayin’.
- GOP nets some gains, but The Democrat holds House and Senate: Democrats overreached and governed too liberally. Their gradually diminishing majority clearly shows that the only solution is a far-right governing philosophy. Obama is a seat-warmer for the next GOP president, nothing more, nothing less. He is not even entitled to his Constitutionally mandated veto power; clearly the fact that the Democrat held historic majorities and has essentially “won” the last four Congressional elections (in terms of the majority either switching or staying) is beside the point. America demands a far-right governing philosophy and will get it just as soon as ACORN stops stealing elections.
- Democrats win every seat, hotly contested or otherwise: Democrats overreached and governed too liberally. The only solution is a far-right governing philosophy. Obama is a seat-warmer for the next GOP president, nothing more, nothing less. He is not even entitled to his Constitutionally mandated veto power. The rise of the Tea Klan proves this; it just hasn’t shown up at the electoral polls yet, so we should ignore the electorate and govern far-right. Likewise the failure of the TARP, which I’m pretty sure was a dismal failure, right? Also: Hitler.
Obama’s secret assassination program against US citizens
At this point, I didn’t believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki’s father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That’s not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what’s most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is “state secrets”: in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are “state secrets,” and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.
I never thought I could seriously type the title above. It sounds crazy right? The President running an assassination program where he can, without judicial or legislative oversight, kill any US citizen. If Greenwald didn’t link to the legal document above, I wouldn’t have believed it. Nothing can be done so long as the court sees it as a “state secret” so the only recourse is to elect another President in 2012.
Except that “electing another President” won’t help either. Implicit in the election of Obama (or any Democrat who ran in 2008, for that matter) was the notion that, leaving aside every other possible policy decision that might come up in their term, said Democrat would be working to reverse the worst excesses of the Bush/Cheney “Security State.” That this has not happened is an understatement. From what I can see, the Obama administration has largely embraced and extended the Bush/Cheney security state.
Electing “another President” won’t help either. Your choices come 2012 are going to be a) Obama (again, forgetting everything else that has happened by 2012: on the essential freedoms that were formerly implicit to citizenship he is a failure thus far and shows no sign of changing) or b) Palin/Romney/Pawlenty/whoever. Do you really think anyone the GOP runs is going to be to the left of Obama on basic freedoms and the rights of a citizen? I, for one, do not. Because, honestly, there is no way they let any Democrat seize the security state thing from them. It won’t even come up if they think they can’t get sufficiently far to the right of him.
One can only conclude that these policies are then, for all intents and purposes, permanent. You get one chance to roll them back: when the next person comes in. And Obama’s administration has decided they like them just fine. It would be one thing to charge and try Awlaki in absentia, and then issue the orders as something along the lines of “look, he’s a convicted criminal in a war zone; we’re bringing him to justice; he may well die in that effort, but we hope to bring him to face his sentence.” There are very few people who would argue with such a truly conservative approach. Instead: no charges, no trial, everything made a “state secret,” and not even a passing effort made at even implying that there’s a real, legal case that even can be made against this guy. He’s delivered some strident sermons. That’s the full case against him in five words. On those grounds, the future GOP-in-charge could choose to round up Jeremiah Wright. Is that a country we want to live in?
And yet the Tea Klan screams tyranny because they are still going to buy their health insurance from a private company come 2014 and the top marginal rates might rise slightly. Indeed they have their fingers on the pulse of The Founders’ deepest wishes.
On our last national poll 49% of respondents said the economy had gotten worse since Barack Obama became President.
The folks who thought the economy had gotten worse who had already decided how to vote in November are going Republican by a 92-8 margin.
Public Policy Polling
But, then again, the real problem come November will have been that the “professional left” failed to quit whining and buck up.
But, then again, the real problem come November will have been that the “professional left” failed to quit whining and buck up.
Blood Oath
[Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)] said the problem in 1995 wasn’t the government shutdown under President Bill Clinton – which occurred after Republicans attached Medicare cuts and other items to spending bills – it was that Republicans blinked when they feared the polls were turning against them.
“We must not blink,” he said, noting that money cannot be spent without the House voting to pass it. “If the House says no, it’s no.”
Their new tea party backers won’t tolerate anything less than a full repeal of the health care law, he said.
“They will leave us if we go wobbly,” he said. “I am worried about that, but that’s why I think it’s got to be a blood oath.”
First off, what form of whistle-speak is this whole “not blinking” or “you can’t blink” thing? It comes up with alarming regularity and has the unmistakable ring of that ever popular, not-actually-in-the-Bible-but-definitely-coming-soon The Rapture (what, you think the Tea Klan’s most sophisticated eschatologists have actually read the Bible? Or know who Cotton Mather was? They haven’t, don’t, and won’t).
Secondly, and much more importantly, government shutdown will be Job One of any new GOP majority in the House. Carve it in stone. This will be immediately followed by repeated articles of impeachment (regardless of what the Senate does with said articles, should the Senate remain Democratic, of course), based on said shutdown: e.g., the GOP will shut the government down, then blame Obama for said shutdown’s effects, and then accuse him of “high crimes and misdemeanors” relating to the ontogeny of said shutdown (he made us do it, more in sadness than in anger! We are the Patriots here! And we mustn’t blink. Ever. No blinking.). Watch and see. Preferably without any blinking.
[Steve King quote courtesy of the Washington Monthly]
I happen to think that liberals should be open to Social Security cuts as part of a balanced package of deficit reduction.
Jonathan Chait, spewing the purest form of horseshit possible.
Social Security is not in crisis. All our problems should be like Social Security. Social Security is a rounding error in comparison to the demands of Medicare and Medicaid going forward.
Rest assured, though, The Democrat will engage this issue on the inevitable “savagely cut programs, don’t touch the tax tables or military spending” terms that the GOP demands (and will get) and will thereby set the Overton Window such that the leftmost possible position is that of merely not eliminating the social safety net completely. And wonder why all of us on drugs out here abandon them come 2012.
Social Security is not in crisis. All our problems should be like Social Security. Social Security is a rounding error in comparison to the demands of Medicare and Medicaid going forward.
Rest assured, though, The Democrat will engage this issue on the inevitable “savagely cut programs, don’t touch the tax tables or military spending” terms that the GOP demands (and will get) and will thereby set the Overton Window such that the leftmost possible position is that of merely not eliminating the social safety net completely. And wonder why all of us on drugs out here abandon them come 2012.
No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. [It’s] about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience.
Paul Krugman summarizing in 50 words or less exactly why all of us on drugs out here are dispirited.
The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.
Edward M. Kennedy, in an undelivered paragraph written for his RFK eulogy. Print out and post in the White House if you please because we are not on drugs. We have judged the evidence and find you timid and fearful in the face of old ideas and positively cowering in the face of anything like a new idea.
We were not deceived by the idiotic rhetoric of the far right. We knew you were a centrist and a pragmatist from the get-go. We are inherently sympathetic to the cause and appreciate the moments of progress, no matter how diminished or incremental they may be, when those moments have stumbled and sputtered into being. Unlike the people you classify as not on drugs, we actually give you credit for them. And but so we’re getting awfully tired of being portrayed as a villain by the same group that treats FOXnews as a thoroughly impartial and purely journalistic concern.
As was noted on the crazed liberal outlet msnbc the other night, right now in China people are commuting on a spanking-new ~200mph MagLev train. In America, we’re un-paving roads because we can’t afford them anymore. Precisely where in that sentence can you find the “great enterprises of American Society,” Mr. Gibbs? That’s what makes us uneasy. That’s why we’re crying out for some leadership, especially if it’s just tilting at windmills. Because that’s a part of leading: taking up an important cause, no matter how unpopular or unheralded, and fighting for it, whatever may come. Yes: even if you lose.
And, not coincidentally, that is precisely what we have never seen out of this administration. Must be all the drugs.
We were not deceived by the idiotic rhetoric of the far right. We knew you were a centrist and a pragmatist from the get-go. We are inherently sympathetic to the cause and appreciate the moments of progress, no matter how diminished or incremental they may be, when those moments have stumbled and sputtered into being. Unlike the people you classify as not on drugs, we actually give you credit for them. And but so we’re getting awfully tired of being portrayed as a villain by the same group that treats FOXnews as a thoroughly impartial and purely journalistic concern.
As was noted on the crazed liberal outlet msnbc the other night, right now in China people are commuting on a spanking-new ~200mph MagLev train. In America, we’re un-paving roads because we can’t afford them anymore. Precisely where in that sentence can you find the “great enterprises of American Society,” Mr. Gibbs? That’s what makes us uneasy. That’s why we’re crying out for some leadership, especially if it’s just tilting at windmills. Because that’s a part of leading: taking up an important cause, no matter how unpopular or unheralded, and fighting for it, whatever may come. Yes: even if you lose.
And, not coincidentally, that is precisely what we have never seen out of this administration. Must be all the drugs.
In that spirit, let me end by saying I don’t pretend to have all the answers to the challenges we face, and I look forward to periodic conversations with all of you in the months and years to come. I trust that you will continue to let me and other Democrats know when you believe we are screwing up. And I, in turn, will always try and show you the respect and candor one owes his friends and allies.
Barack Obama sounding oh so 2005 on the Great Orange Devil, and apparently Gibbs would agree: that was all a bunch of meaningless horseshit aimed primarily at the center-right that is so desperately underserved by American “politics.”
Abandon those that put you there and then blame them when you’re not there anymore. That’s change we can believe in, all right.
Abandon those that put you there and then blame them when you’re not there anymore. That’s change we can believe in, all right.
Lemkin 