Useful Idiots

I don't use the term in the pejorative.  I think anybody who gets on board with a political party or identifies strongly with a movement of any kind is a "Useful Idiot", so in this little experiment in self government, we're all Useful Idiots to some degree.  It's just that some are more useful and others are just idiots.

The Republican Tide

Well, maybe not so much.  In a previous post, I predicted the Repubs making gains in House and Senate races, but not taking majorities in either.  I'm no big deal political analyst; I just try to get a feel for these things

My main line of reasoning is that while some incumbent Dems have drawn opposition in their primaries (challenged from their left because they're seen as "not progressive enough", etc), they haven't lost - or at least they haven't lost many.  Blanch Lincoln in AR and Mike Bennett in CO both won their primaries, and both are likely winners in November.

But on the Repub side, it seems like the uber-freaks from way right are winning primaries all over the place.  Christine O'Donnell - DE, Sharron Angle - NV, Marco Rubio - FL, Carl Paladino - NY, Rand Paul - KY.

I could be wrong (it does happen from time to time).  Maybe it's possible that voters are pissed off enough to allow some yahoo to get out in front of 'em and pretend to be some kind of leader.  I'm just thinking we haven't reached critical mass yet, and that Dems have a shot at reminding voters that we need to be FOR something - that practically nothing the Tea Partiers are saying can actually be translated into policy that anybody with a living, thinking brain would agree with.

Hope springs eternal.

Out On The Limb

Maybe the Dems have finally kinda gotten part of their shit together, and maybe the Repubs are being exposed as a little too extreme; and maybe, even tho' the Press Poodles keep trying to convince us the big bad polling numbers must surely spell doom for incumbents, they're actually soft enough to melt on a cold day; I dunno.  I'm just not convinced that conventional wisdom holds true this time around.

Boehner kinda broke ranks with the standard Repub reaction of opposing everything Obama wants to do when he said he could support letting the Bush Tax Cuts expire for the top tier if it means we keep the middle class cuts in place.  Also, Karl Rove got into a bit of a spat with Hannity on the air when he (Rove) questioned the viability of Repub candidates like O'Donnell (DE) and Angle (NV).

I think the Dems keep both houses in congress.  They lose seats, but they maintain the majority.

Trouble In Repub Land

After a spring and summer filled with the non-sense of anti-Latino, anti-Obama, anti-Working Guy, anti-Government politics, we get to revel in the sheer awesomeness of the GOP faithful showing what seem to be their real colors - again.

There's been a lot of generalization regarding Muslims and the vocal political forces at work in American politics right now.  A big bunch of our Press Poodles write a lot about how the Tea Partiers and the Right Wingers are bigots, while a slightly smaller contingent of Press Poodles push back saying it's not fair to characterize all of them as biased assholes based on the signs some of the rubes carry at their rallies.  At any rate, the Repubs are trying pretty hard not to be too closely identified with the too-extreme elements of the Tea Party movement (even tho' the movement is largely funded on the sly by some very prominent Repub donors and directed by some longtime Repub operatives).

Since most of the pushback comes from pundits and other media types who are self-described conservatives &/or Repubs, plus what seems obviously an attempt either to launch  the Tea Party as a sub-brand of the Republicans (or at least to co-opt the Tea Party to make it part of the Repub stable) I think it's pretty safe to say that, politically, the GOP owns these wackos and owns whatever these wackos say and do.

No matter how hard the Repubs try to deny and dismiss, the simple fact remains that the assholes on display at the Tea Party parades won't be voting for any Democrats in November.

Just sayin'.

A Question For Newt

Dinesh D'Sousa wrote a slam on Obama, and Gingrich picked up on it, knowing he could capture a couple of news cycles by attacking what should be Obama's real strength - ie: his rise from humble beginnings to become POTUS.  That's pretty much Standard Operating Procedure for the Repubs over the last 20 years or so  - they let the opponent describe what his own strengths are; and then they attack those strengths by simply making shit up.

So anyway, Ol' Newt uses D'Sousa's fantasy about how Obama's all hung up on his dad's world view as a Kenyan, trying to make a coupla points.

First, the connection to Kenya.  This is brilliant because it reminds the rubes of the Birthers' crapola theories about Obama's legitimacy without having to say anything about it at all.

Second, it goes after Obama's real strengths. As I mentioned above, it strikes at the rags-to-riches narrative, but Gingrich adds an attack on Obama's persona as the cool intellectual with a passion for public service.

But here's my point: after the rhetorical fog has lifted, we're still a country founded by people who wanted to stop living under the rule of foreign kings and their appointed nobles.

In such a country, how is it a bad thing for the president to be "anti-colonialist"?

Just wonderin'.

I Heart Larry Wilkerson

From The Real News Network:

WILKERSON: Oh, au contraire, we don't have that choice anymore. We get two idiots to vote for every year, whose campaigns say all manner of things, but whose actual actions are not—I'll quote Ralph Nader here—virtually are not any different from Tom and Jerry. I mean, the two of them are going to do the same thing, because basically what we have today is a corporatocracy: we have the presidents and the Congress in the hands of big food, big pharmacy, big oil, finance, insurance, and real estate. Look at Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. They're quintessential representatives of those communities. And that's who runs this country now. The president doesn't run this country, the secretary of defense and the secretary of state don't run these people, and God help us, the American people don't run this country. Big money runs this country.

Snappy Comeback

Sunday Funnies

Modern Day Book Burning

Yesterday, I downloaded a copy of The Quran to my iPod and then angrily deleted it.

Cold Dead Fingers

Lotsa "conservatives", when talking about 2nd amendment rights and their notions of self-reliance and self-determination and whatever, like to argue that their gun is the great equalizer; that having the gun means it's less likely that anybody is going to push them around.  I call this position The Meyer Lansky.  To paraphrase Mr Lansky, "Everybody's more polite when everybody's got a gun".

I think we could all come up with a fairly simple rebuttal, but that's not what I'm thinking about right now.  I'm wondering why the people who try to make that point are usually the same people who seem to think the same philosophical outlook doesn't apply to nuclear weapons.

Just wonderin'.