Gettin' It Done - 8

Personally, I kinda like having an economy that works; even one that's not great, but still manages to limp along at a 1 or 2% growth rate, in spite of all the best efforts of a certain opposition party in Washington.

8. Recapitalized Banks: In the midst of financial crisis, approved controversial Treasury Department plan to lure private capital into the country’s largest banks via “stress tests” of their balance sheets and a public-private fund to buy their “toxic” assets. Got banks back on their feet at essentially zero cost to the government.

One of the biggest problems we have right now is that Obama hasn't gone after many of the worst offenders - the banksters (et al) who helped blow up the mortgage bubble that blew up the financial system.

It would be monument-worthy badass if the Prez took on Wall Street and beat 'em into submission - ala JFK in '61 against Big Steel, and again in '62 when he actually put a few Big Utilities execs in jail on charges of collusion and price-fixing.

It's a much different time now, of course, so Obama has to do things in a way that doesn't feed the anti-gubmint mindset of the rubes.  Here's hopin'.

Today's Pix

Gettin' It Done - 9

It may well be impossible to create the "perfect union", but our founding documents require us to keep trying.  And until we all have the full compliment of rights and privileges due us under the law, we're all 2nd class citizens in one way or another.  

9. Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: Ended 1990s-era restriction and formalized new policy allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

In Bed With Willard

Bill Maher makes the point about electing a lot more than just Mitt Romney.  Put this guy in the White House, and every bumpkin with a bus ticket and a bad idea will be headed back to Washington to collect on what he thinks Willard owes him for turning out the Radical Right Voters.  Do you really want Grover Norquist, Bryan Fisher and Sheldon Adelson picking a replacement for Ruth Bader-Ginsberg?

Tweets Are The New Bumper Sticker

...or graffiti or t-shirts or whatever.

It's The Horse Race, Stupid

Pro-Life My Ass

hat tip = Democratic Underground

This Takes Guts

A post at Balloon Juice:

The Romney Campaign and the entire modern Conservative movement is very easy to understand. It is all about race. Full stop. For these people, every election is an attempt to use fear, anger and even hate of brown folks to inspire white folks to vote against their self-interest and support their Galtian overlords.

I'm really hoping this isn't to be taken at face value.  I'm hoping there're people in the GOP who hate this kinda shit as much as the rest of us.  But I'm really concerned that the ghost of Lee Atwater is setting the strategy, and because it works, that it'll continue apace.

I'm also hoping this isn't simply a knee-jerk reaction from "the left"; that it's not just sitting and taking shots; sniping from the bushes.  I don't like it, but I can't just ignore it either.

Gettin' It Done - 10

Kinda continuing with the theme from yesterday's post (Gettin' It Done - 11).

This one really seems to stick in Willard's craw - or more accurately, in WIllard's advisors' craw, cuz that guy seriously has no tho'ts of his own on Foreign Policy.  Anyway, they first tried to slam Obama for "leading from behind", but then they found out nobody supported direct US involvement.  Next, they tried to slam him for "following the French", but then they found out that all that "French-ified leadership" was depending on American-supplied intel (which everybody called indispensable), and without which, (eg) they'd still be talking about the Slaughter in Benghazi.  And on and on and on.

10. Toppled Moammar Gaddafi: In March 2011, joined a coalition of European and Arab governments in military action, including air power and naval blockade, against Gaddafi regime to defend Libyan civilians and support rebel troops. Gaddafi’s forty-two-year rule ended when the dictator was overthrown and killed by rebels on October 20, 2011. No American lives were lost.

You can argue that last bit: "no American lives were lost", and connect it to the 4 dead Americans in Benghazi last month, and then try to score a few points about how Obama's policies are unravelling and blah blah blah.  But when Condi Rice comes out and defends Clinton's State Dept, saying in effect that foreign service is some dangerous shit and you don't conduct proper diplomacy by hiding in a bunker - well I have to think the translation is something like, "You really don't know what the fuck yer talkin' about, Willard".

One of the things we never hear is that Qaddafi was aware of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie - at least aware of it, if not very closely involved.  Ya gotta know that if Willard was in charge when Libya went down, they'd be naming buildings and parks and high schools after the prick for his "stalwart efforts to bring the Islamofascists to justice!"

So lemme see, when Sadam has nothing to do with 9/11, we pretend he did so we get ourselves into a supremely stoopid war that goes on for 8 years and gets more Americans killed than actually died on 9/11, and costs us a trillion dollars.  But when Qaddafi actually does have something to do with hundreds of dead Americans and he finally gets what he deserves for it, then we just shrug - meh - and make like it's no big deal; plus we get to listen to Repubs piss and moan about how Obama didn't do it right, or some other fuckin' nonsense.

These people have no soul and no honor.

Serious Wonkette

I've been in some FaceBook fights over the last year or so with some "friends" who have ended up calling me "the enemy".  Some of these guys are standard-issue wingnuts and they're pretty wacky and kookie and I tend to see them as little more than a fringe-y and colorful thing that serves as a distraction for the Press Poodles, but doesn't represent anything of substance.

I really hope that's the case, but when Wonkette has a hard time smiling about it, there may be real cause for worry.

A man advocating executing journalists for treason in honor of Free Speech Week for being too supportive of the American president just described other people as “Orwellian.”

This week marks the 50th anniversary of The Cuban Missile Crisis.  I bring that up because in the middle of all the shit, JFK managed to remember history, and specifically recalled the warnings from The Guns of August. ie: everybody has a plan; everybody follows their plan; and the whole thing becomes a matter of an If/Then Algorithm that always ends in a shooting war.  Having been burned once (Bay of Pigs), Kennedy broke with tradition, refusing to allow "the plan" to take precedence over actual in-the-moment reasoning.

With all the banter and bickering over Red Team vs Blue Team that's gone on for as long as there's been places on the internet to go and engage in the fiercest flame wars you can imagine, we've gotten to a place (I think) where the fight will no longer be confined to cyberspace.  Each "side" knows most of what the other side has to say; and each side recognizes the style and substance of the other side's rhetoric; so it becomes "if Attack 238, then Counter Attack G; unless Attack 238 is combined with Straw Man Gamma, in which case, deploy Parry & Riposte Yellow yada yada yada".

Unfortunately, there's always a very dark and dangerous aspect of things like Populism and Partisanship and Regional Chauvinism etc.  There's always somebody hangin' out in the bar (or the park or wherever) just itchin' for a fight to break out.  Doesn't matter what the fight's about, they're just looking to mix it up with somebody, and all they need is a decent-sounding excuse.

Now consider the sheer numbers of combat veterans we've been minting lately, and put that together with the fact that we have as many guns in this country as we have humans; plus the widening of permissive gun laws; and then take a long look at the style of recreation favored by a very important slice of the American Male Demographic: Video War Gaming, Paintball, Combat-style Shooting Sports (with real guns and live ammo).

Step by step; in small degrees; inching forward; If. Then. Boom.

Doesn't have to be that way.  It just happens to be the trend.

Obama Ad

Lena Dunham is the creative genius behind a series on HBO called Girls.  (One of my new faves)



And of course, "conservatives" are freaking out about it - I think mostly because the GOP's Cool Factor number is making a serious attempt at dipping below absolute zero.

Gettin' It Done - 11

In the last "debate", Willard said something like "we don't dictate to the world, Mr President, we help people overthrow the dictators", it was an Etch-A-Sketch moment for the ages.  He said it with great confidence and authority, as if he believed in his heart of hearts that the noble GOP still somehow held a clear advantage on Foreign Policy issues.  And he said it as if he really expected all of us to have forgotten completely that Obama helped out in Tunisia; and had knocked over Qaddafi; and is still applying constant pressure on Saleh; and is pushing Assad, and...

11. Told Mubarak to Go: On February 1, 2011, publicly called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to accept reform or step down, thus weakening the dictator’s position and putting America on the right side of the Arab Spring. Mubarak ended thirty-year rule when overthrown on February 11.

Whatever sounds good for his argument right now is what Willard says.  The heat of the moment is all that matters.  If he can move you just a little with a snappy 10-word bumper sticker - that's all he seems to care about.  And if it goes against easily verifiable events of history (like something that happened last year, or several months ago, or fucking yesterday), well - whatever - it's not like the idiots he's talking to actually know anything; not about history anyway.  And as long as he's got that solid 25% who never venture outside The Bubble, WIllard can say whatever he wants and let DumFux News do the rest.

Important Rape Advisory Update

Hat tip(s) = BlueGal and Daily Kos

People

Lizz and Sarah tell us what it is.

Today's Pix

You don't have much of a war if nobody shows up to fight