A Fairly Simple Concept

I've been wondering pretty hard about how to articulate the basic shoot-yourself-in-the-foot strategy the GOP is trying to make work when it comes to winning elections and being able to "govern"*.

It just doesn't make any sense to alienate up to 95% of any given (eg: black) demographic if you expect to win - unless of course if you have a solid handle on ways to keep a sizable portion of those demographics from voting in the first place.  And that's what all the Voter Suppression - I mean Election Integrity efforts were all about - fucking duh.  (How many times do we have to hear about it from Maddow and every commentator left of Fred Barnes before we get it?).

Anyway, the GOP's real problem is this:


(hat tip = Balloon Juice)

...and the real real problem is that yes, actually it is indeed possible to fool some of the people all of the time.  But we can hope that the "some of the people" demographic is finally starting to shrink a bit.

*is it really "governing" if you're elected by a self-selecting minority?  I think there's a different word for that.

Yikes

David Frum was kind of ousted and shunned by the "conservatives" a while back - because it seems he re-activated his gag reflex, and still just can't go along with all the junk being peddled by the "Conservative Entertainment Complex".

Give a listen (via Crooks & Liars):

Dear Friends

To all those good folks who made all the phone calls and did all the canvassing and donated a bunch of the money and turned out to vote - all for the Repubs - and all for the privilege of seeing a great big bunch of your candidates get their butts kicked (after having been practically promised that they were all going to win by big margins) - I have to wonder: How much longer do we have to point out that you're being misled and lied to before you get the message?

Charles Krauthammer was wrong
Karl Rove was wrong
Rush Limbaugh was wrong
Larry Kudlow was wrong
George Will was wrong
Dick Morris was wrong
Mike Huckabee was wrong
Ann Coulter was wrong
Tony Perkins was wrong
Newt Gingrich was wrong
Sean Hannity was wrong
and on and on and on

All of them told you Romney would win - not 'could', but 'would'.  Some were a little less enthusiastic than others - they all strayed a little, and Coulter actually ran away for a few days, but every one of them came home and said it eventually; some as late as Nov 5 (even in light of very solid polling to the contrary), and some of them told you Romney would crush Obama in a landslide reminiscent of Reagan vs Carter in 1980.

If you guys are depressed and sullen and feeling lousy in general about losing so big, ya gotta start looking at how you keep letting yourselves in for this kinda shit.

God Love Daily Caller

A facebook friend posted a bit from The Daily Caller about the evil Obama spending way too much of our tax money on "official travel" blah blah blah.

And guess what popped up in the comments?

It was up for a good 15 minutes before somebody probably flagged it and it got taken down; and I don't presume to know that it wasn't conveniently "planted" by some dirty rotten Democrat just to make the noble TeaBaggers look bad.  And I suppose the 14 'Likes' could've been the result of an email tree (or whatever) so a bunch of other dirty rotten Dems could rush over and hit the 'Like' button to make it seem like there's a lot of racist assholes posting comments at The Daily Caller.  Yeah, OK.  But y'know, sometimes it is what it looks like.

A Day Late

I wanted to post something that connected the recent murder sprees with the quasi-investigation of Right Wing Extremism from a few years ago, but of course, better bloggers beat me to it.

The Agonist

Crooks and Liars

You probably remember the earsplitting wingnut screeching that greeted this man's analysis of the threat posed to the country by right-wing extremism - a report, incidentally, commissioned by the Bush administration. (Dave Neiwert was, of course, on the case.) If only our politicians had enough spine to stand up to the predictable rantings of the armchair experts, Daryl Johnson's important work would have continued and maybe even expanded to the point where the Wisconsin shooting could have been prevented.

Even The Daily Beast is on it.

The report triggered a political firestorm. “The piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives,” thundered right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin. Rep. Peter King, a past and current chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in Congress, demanded an investigation. Another congressman, Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida, pronounced himself “very offended and really disturbed that they would even say our military veterans, our returning war heroes would be capable of committing any terrorist acts.”

--and--

“Since Obama took office, there have been nearly 20 extremist right-wing attacks and plots, including the killing of almost a dozen police officers in six separate attacks,” Johnson said in an interview last year. Among them was an attempt in 2011—foiled at the last minute—to plant a homemade backpack bomb at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march in Spokane, Wash. The suspect in that case, Kevin Harpham, is an Army veteran trained in artillery.

I don't like the idea that DHS would get beefed up and start looking like a National Police Force, because eventually they'll get used as just another internal political weapon - and start acting like The Stasi or some damned thing.  And it REALLY gripes my ass when it seems like I'm lining up with the GOP on anything.  So I'm not really - I just want an honest assessment of real and potential threats.

Unfortunately, until we figure out how to free our dysfunctional Press Poodles from their choke chains so they can keep an eye out for the shit politicians love to shovel over us, we're not gonna get anything but more of the same and/or worse.

And BTW (at the risk of perpetuating the evil of centrism and false equivalence): Politicians only bitch about "the power" when they're not the ones who own the power.

Straight From The Horse's Mouth

James Fallows is no Libtard.

One thing this means is that we could reduce our Oil Consumption dramatically, which means we could reduce political tensions in the world dramatically.

The 8.2 million barrels of oil (per day) we're currently burning as gasoline in light duty autos becomes 2.9 million.  Please don't try to tell me we wouldn't benefit greatly from that kind of change in the status quo.

And please don't try to tell me there's nobody working overtime to keep that kind of change from happening.

Wingnuts

Gotta love 'em.

Because They're Stupid

Holy crap

Stay with it - the interview (at about 6:20) is a killer.

"A village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot"