New Alan Partridge series in UK. "Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge". Trailer is amazing.
Friday, October 29, 2010
The Challenge Of Overcoming Ignorance
Public perceptions aren't even close to reality -- by a 52% to 19% margin, for example, likely voters think their federal tax burden has gone up over the last couple of years, even though it hasn't. Indeed, Democrats approved one of the largest middle-class tax cuts in American history, and the public has no idea that it even happened.
"I've long considered one of President Obama's better qualities is his reluctance to talk down to voters. But it's possible his assumptions about maturity and the public discourse are simply too generous -- leaders can't assume the electorate has the wisdom to ignore nonsense when the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming."
The Cult Of Beck
According to publicly available documents filed in federal court, a cousin of Charles Wilson -- a Washington man sentenced to prison last week for repeatedly threatening to kill Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) after she voted in favor of health care reform legislation -- said Wilson's "fears were grown and fostered by [Glenn] Beck's persuasive personality.
via mediamatters.org
Glenn Beck is a clown. A former morning zoo DJ. But when you spoon feed his propaganda to his mentally dim, "room-temperature IQ" base, clearly, bad things can happen.
Can We Handle The Truth?
SavingPaper
By a 2:1 margin, likely midterm voters believe taxes have increased, the economy has shrunk, and TARP lost money it’ll never recover. None is true.
Bill Schools Sarah
"She got a big laugh when she said, how’s that hopey changey thing working for you now? What I want you to think about is something way more important. How’s that trickle down thing working for you for a long time?"— Bill Clinton on Sarah Palin and Republican economics
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Everyone Gets A Piece
Of course, it's a simplification to see government as a big pool of money. Distributional conflict has many guises. The money in the pool has to come from somewhere, so the battle is waged just as much over who is forced to pay into the pool and under what circumstances.The middle class doesn't like to get welfare checks, so instead it gets tax credits and deductions for doing things middle-class people generally do anyway. It's six one way, half-a-dozen the other.
via economist.com
But welfare is so much easier to demonize. The "welfare queen driving a Cadillac" Reagan loved to lie about. No one seems to notice it's a '67 Cadillac rust bucket with no wheels.
Understatement Of The Day
“A majority of Tea Party members, I suspect, are not fans of Islam," - Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, when questioned about an email he sent to supporters urging them not to vote for Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) in part because he is Muslim.
"I suspect"? I suspect Judson knows a thing or two about identity politics.
The Republican Fear Campaign: Example #952
“Let me make sure I understand this. The ad’s contention is that seniors are going to be forced out of Medicare and into a ‘government-run health care’ program?”
| — | Steve Inskeep, on Morning Edition, discussing a campaign ad from Indiana GOP Senate candidate Dan Coats against Democrat Brad Ellsworth. Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact.com, ranted Coats’ ad “pants on fire.” |
Republican Talking Point DEAD
via brooklynmutt.com
“This is a president that we know less about than any other president in history.” - Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Obama: A Rare Breed - The Philospher President
Harvard historian James T. Kloppenberg on Obama:
“The reason, he explained, is his conclusion that President Obama is a true intellectual — a word that is frequently considered an epithet among populists with a robust suspicion of Ivy League elites.
In New York City last week to give a standing-room-only lecture about his forthcoming intellectual biography, “Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition,” Mr. Kloppenberg explained that he sees Mr. Obama as a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history.
“There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln and in the 20th century just Woodrow Wilson,” he said.
via nytimes.com
It gets hard when the opposition is a few major steps below the Cliff Notes version of intellectualism. A once-a-generation pragmatic President is met with the proud ignorance of Palin, Beck and O'Donnell.
This Is The World That Fox Has Created
One young man insisted that Holder is "the most anti-gun attorney general this nation has ever had." When Rachel asked how he arrived at this, he had absolutely no idea why he believes what he believes. He referenced Holder's "voting record beforehand," which made no sense, since Holder has never held elected office. Asked what it was, exactly, that Holder did on gun policy he didn't like, the Miller supporter -- who, remember, feels so strongly about this issue that he brought it up -- replied, "I, uh, I honestly, uh, I don't know enough about him to answer that truthfully."
So, Rachel moved to the next voter who's mad about Holder, and who also brought up the subject. "He's anti-gun," the woman said. Asked what he'd done that's anti-gun, the Miller support replied, "I don't have all the facts, but I know that he is."
Pining For The Good Ol' Days: Get Your Facts Right
"When the Tea Partyers get around to identifying how America has changed and to whose benefit, however, they get it almost all wrong. In the worldview of the American right -- and the polling shows conclusively that that's who the Tea Party is -- the nation, misled by President Obama, has gone down the path to socialism. In fact, far from venturing down that road, we've been stuck on the road to hyper-capitalism for three decades now.
The Tea Partyers are right to be wary of income redistribution, but if they had even the slightest openness to empiricism, they'd see that the redistribution of the past 30 years has all been upward -- radically upward. From 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- effectively, all but the rich -- increased from 64 percent to 65 percent, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, that means that the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent was growing, too -- from $17,719 in 1950 to $30,941 in 1980 -- a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.
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." -- Harold Meyerson
Middle Class voters struggle to tell friend from foe. From 1980 on, the Right has convinced them Government sending is bad, even though the Middle Class benefits the most.
"In short, for 30 years, people who struggling to keep their heads above water have been told not to trust life-preservers if they're paid for with public funds."
The Danger In Free Market Think Tanks
“Most of these bodies call themselves “free-market thinktanks”, but their trick – as (Astro)Turf Wars points out – is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty. Between them they have constructed the philosophy that informs the Tea Party movement: its members mobilise for freedom, unaware that the freedom they demand is freedom for corporations to trample them into the dirt. The thinktanks that the Kochs have funded devise the game and the rules by which it is played; Americans for Prosperity coaches and motivates the team.”
— George Monbiot
via tumblr.com
Tea Klanners want more freedom for corporations because they think Government is bad. You can vote for politicians, once corporations own the process, we're toast.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Big Picture With Thom Hartmann, Episode 9
Highly recommend this show if you have RT [Russia Today] on your cable network. See more here: http://rt.com/About_Us/Programmes/Big_Picture.html
“The Tea Party movement is a force to be reckoned with. Whether you buy into their rhetoric or not, their movement is changing the political landscape. In this show Tom discusses the potential dangers the Tea Party poses to Progressives, Moderate Republicans and the nation. Then God and Country appear to go hand in hand in King, North Carolina. A Christian flag flying on a public war memorial is creating a legal firestorm between city leaders and veterans groups. Tom talks to a Christian flag supporter who’s also making a profit selling flags in that town. Plus George W. Bush has re-emberged from his Texas ranch. In a rare public appearance in Chicago, Bush expressed that one of his biggest regrets in office was not reforming social security. Also see why polling experts are starting to question Gallup’s recent political projections. And California Republican Gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman needs a lesson in social media. In this show see her embarrassing tweet mistake that had supporters laughing.”
What The GOP Now Stands For
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," - Senator Mitch McConnell.
Rarely has the rank nihilism of the current Republican party been better or more accurately expressed.
It ain't gonna happen. Obama will crush any Republican nominee. Palin? Romney? The 2010 midterm is the last gasp of the far Right. Enjoy these results. The country is moving in another direction.
"Who Was The Last President To Give You A Balanced Budget?"
"I almost gag when I hear these Republicans lambasting the president and the Democrats in Congress, ‘Oh, they’re such big spenders, they’re just crazy, they’re quasi-socialist. I have a simple question: Who’s the last president to give you a balanced budget? I like all this enthusiasm, but frankly there are a few things about this election that have gotten me somewhere between disturbed and ticked off."
— President Bill Clinton
Democrats tax and spend.
Republicans borrow and spend more.
Clarence And Ginni
Clarence and Ginni Thomas. Ginni started Liberty Central, a pro-Tea Party conservative lobbying group. Clarence is a porn addict, accomplished womanizer, former booze hound, and corporate shill.
Never connected her name and face.
This is what a co-dependent relationship looks like.
Untitled
"God is the reason I am running."
— Christine O’Donnell
Then God will be the reason why you lose.
Keep Left. The Center Is For Pollsters
"Democrats think in terms of programs, policies, and particular pieces of legislation.... Republicans think in terms of simple ideas, themes, and movements.... Republicans are also more disciplined (ask yourself which party attracts authoritarian personalities and which attracts anti-authoritarians).... Republicans are cynical about politics.... Democrats are idealistic about politics.... Message to Obama: Whatever happens November 2, don’t move to the center." - Robert ReichIt's a tumblr.
There is no “center” to American politics. The “center” is merely what most people tell pollsters they think or want at any given time.
We need leadership.
Monday, October 25, 2010
What Libertarians Really Are
"there is no real argument for a libertarian set of beliefs, because all it is, really, is the act of taking personal selfishness and translating that into government policy. you don’t want others to have what you have. you think you are special. that you worked harder than they did, you deserve more. you think your personal assets are your personal liberties. you need capitalism because it reinforces your childlike belief in a hierarchal society. you need people to be beneath you. you don’t want everyone to be equal. and it’s not because you believe it’s unattainable. it’s because it would shatter everything you have ever been taught. if there were no poverty, you’d have to blame someone else, and that someone else would probably be you. and that scares you."
stfuteabaggers (via supersoygrrrl)
The political unicorn: banished from the GOP, the libertarian exists in an intellectual time machine set to 1963.
Afghan Leader Karzai Admits Cash From Iran. Bush Knew
President Hamid Karzai acknowledged Monday that his chief of staff had taken money from the Iranian government, confirming a report in The New York Times. He said the cash was used to pay for presidential expenses.
via nytimes.com
"Presidential expenses"? Hookers and blow in Kabul?
Then there is this prime nugget:
“This is transparent,” Mr. Karzai said, maintaining that the United States had long been well aware of the Iranian money. “This is something that I’ve even discussed while I was at Camp David with President Bush.”
Karzai received between $1 million and $2 million every other month from Iran and that the money, effectively a slush fund, was distributed to Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders and even Taliban commanders to secure their loyalty.
This is what Obama stepped in to.
Three Month Study On Tea Party = Useless Hot Air, But Loud
But a new Washington Post canvass of hundreds of local tea party groups reveals a different sort of organization, one that is not so much a movement as a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process.
The results come from a months-long effort by The Post to contact every tea party group in the nation, an unprecedented attempt to understand the network of individuals and organizations at the heart of the nascent movement.
Seventy percent of the grass-roots groups said they have not participated in any political campaigning this year. As a whole, they have no official candidate slates, have not rallied behind any particular national leader, have little money on hand, and remain ambivalent about their goals and the political process in general.
They are not into endorsing candidates or engaging in the political process, they are about "pushing a conservative idea".
That sentence sums it up. No answers or new policies, just a thirst for power. Throw in the coded "un-American" language are you're done.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
What Thomas Jefferson Really Meant
via tumblr.com
Revisionism is the GOP Gold Standard. They dream of the past because they can’t perform in the present.
Revisionism is the GOP Gold Standard. They dream of the past because they can’t perform in the present.
The Shameless Revisionism Marches On
"In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amid a real danger," George W. Bush in Chicago yesterday
via bobcesca.com
Except for the biggest, most destructive terrorist attack in America, EVER.
It's like Bush can look at your burned down house and say "At least I did not let your house burn down".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)