Via Leo in the comments, here’s a thread at Hannity.com:
This cannot be parodied.
by DougJ| 180 Comments
This post is in: Clown Shoes, I Read These Morons So You Don't Have To
Via Leo in the comments, here’s a thread at Hannity.com:
This cannot be parodied.
by John Cole| 87 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Clown Shoes
Daniel Larison once again points out the obvious:
It seems to me that conservatives and Republicans have assumed the GOP is the natural governing party, at least regarding the Presidency and to some extent as it relates to Congress since ‘94, which is why so many have continued to insist that America is a “center-right nation” in face of mounting evidence that it is not and hasn’t been for a while. Symbolic gimmickry does stem in part from a lack of confidence, but it is more the product of a movement and party that have ceased to understand, much less address, most of the pressing concerns of working- and middle-class Americans. The party assumes that all it needs to do is show up, push the right pseudo-populist buttons and reap the rewards, and for the most part the movement cheers. See Palin, Sarah.
The GOP settles for offering “symbolic, substance-free BS” because enough conservatives are already persuaded that Republican policies obviously benefit the middle class, so there is no pressure to make Republican policy actually serve the interests of Republican constituents. It is taken for granted that this is already happening, but voters have been showing for several cycles that many of them do not believe this. Politically Democrats have been gaining ground in such unlikely places as Ohio and Indiana, which would be inexplicable if the GOP obviously and reliably represented working- and middle-class Americans. Of course, lately these voters don’t see it that way, but instead see the right’s pseudo-populists denounce workers for being overpaid, reject measures that would direct some spending to American industries that their free trade zeal has helped gut and even talk about a spending freeze in the middle of a severe recession.
Republicans are having trouble getting middle class votes because Republican policies have not only hurt, but eroded the size of the middle class. He continues:
As we all know, income stagnation is something that most conservatives and Republicans have spent years pretending was not happening, because it did not fit in with the assumption that working- and middle-class Americans were thriving as part of the “greatest story never told.” It is the failure to acknowledge and address all of these things along with the preference for using symbolic gimmickry that begin to account for the lamentable states of conservatism and the GOP. There is also the war, but movement and party have become so invested in it that I have my doubts whether they can ever recognize its role in discrediting both with the public.
I honestly think that is the first time I have ever seen anyone right of center admit to wage and income stagnation. Seriously. But you know what will fix that? Capital gains tax cuts! You betcha!
Meanwhile, what is the conservative brain trust doing at CPAC? Watch and see:
With all the world melting down around them, in between posing with life size cut-outs of Sarah Palin and attending Joe the Plumber book signings, speakers at CPAC are spending their time suggesting that Obama is a communist and is not an American.
The irony of all of this is what we are actually seeing is not the meltdown of the Republican party, but something bigger than that. The Grover Norquist troglodyte right is drowning themselves in the bathtub before our very eyes. It is truly a sight to see.
by DougJ| 129 Comments
This post is in: Media, I Read These Morons So You Don't Have To
A few days ago, Washington Post reporter Shailagh Murray suggested — on the basis of nothing — that there should be a revote in Minnesota. Apparently, that’s what Coleman is shooting for now:
But five weeks into the election contest trial, the court has repeatedly issued rulings that narrow Coleman’s chances of either collecting enough newly counted ballots or throwing out already counted ballots — or some combination of the two. So in recent days, the Coleman legal team has become increasingly shrill in its attacks not just on the court but on the entire electoral process in Minnesota, getting closer every day to outright calling for the Nov. 4 election be declared null and void and a whole new election be held between Coleman and Franken. And now Coleman himself has suggested that a do-over election may be necessary.
Washington Post reporters do seem to like the idea in general for some reason (from today’s chat):
Paul Kane: As for a do-over election, there is precedent for it. 1974, New Hampshire Senate race. The US Senate ultimately decided it could not seat anyone, it was unable to determine the winner, therefore a do-over election in the fall of ’75 was held.
[…..]
N.H. Senate Race 1974: That race was much closer than the Franken/Coleman race — at some points in the process less than ten votes. There were a couple of recounts, and the leader changed back and forth in each recount. So finally a new election was held. The Minnesota gap is much wider and Coleman hasn’t come close to getting back in the lead since he lost it. No basis for following the NH example.
Paul Kane: I remember emailing a bunch of coworkers at almost 4 am election night, er, morning. With a subject line of: Franken is trailing by 75 — YES, SEVENTY-FIVE — votes out of nearly 3 million cast.
Sorry, but this race has been incredibly close, and the lead has switched. The New Hampshire example does apply, get over it.
Shorter Paul Kane: I wrote an email about how close the Minnesota race was, therefore there should be a revote.
These guys are nothing if not self-absorbed.
They try to make them do a revote, I say no, no, noPost + Comments (129)
This post is in: Politics
Yesterday, in a snarky post about Matt Welch (and again, someone I genuinely enjoy reading), I asked the following:
“Do our libertarian friends at Reason feel the same way about those receiving welfare?”
In my email this morning, I found a link to this Jesse Walker piece:
“What gets people upset, and rightfully so,” President Barack Obama declared last week, “is executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.” Pounding his fist, he announced that the flood of federal money into corporate hands would cease, effective immediately.
Ha! No, of course he didn’t say that. He announced that henceforth, when taxpayers subsidize a failing Wall Street firm, the company will have to cap the boss’s pay at $500,000 a year.
It was merely the latest effort to expand the bailouts into a behavior modification program. When Democrats proposed a subsidy package for Detroit last year, for example, the plan included another set of limits on executive pay. Not to be outdone, the Republicans countered with a requirement that union workers agree to wage cuts. But for the most part, the idea of using the taxpayers’ money as a Trojan horse for new controls has been a Democratic enthusiasm, not a Republican one.
***Are there differences between old-fashioned workfare and corporate workfare? Sure. At least some of the original workfare plans were devised to make the dole less attractive, for example, whereas Washington seems intent on bailing out even those banks who claim they don’t want the money. But the most important difference is simply one of scale. Put together, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children rarely rose above 4 percent of the federal budget. If only that were true of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Say what you will about AFDC, but there never was a risk that it would saddle the Treasury with enormous, unpayable debts. That put a different spin on the old workfare debates: Whatever trade-offs you made between extravagance and intrusiveness, the larger social impact would be limited.
That isn’t true of the bailouts, and that leaves policy makers in a double bind. It is absurd to give out trillions of dollars without demanding some sort of behavior in return. And when we’re directly subsidizing CEOs’ lifestyles, every misspent penny is going to spark a new wave of resentment. When the chiefs of the Big 3 came to Washington in private jets, they might as well have pulled up in welfare cadillacs.
***There’s a reasonable case to be made that CEO pay is often inflated, a result of the sort of self-dealing that’s possible when the people who control the company are not fully answerable to the people who own it. The least sensible way to address this is by moving decision-making power even further from shareholders and into the arms of the government. You might as well try to teach a mother personal responsibility by institutionalizing her in a group home.
Now, I have excerpted this, so read the whole thing. But tell me if you aren’t in the same bind as me by the time you get to the end of it- “What is he actually proposing?”
Is he proposing we simply stop propping up the financial system? That would be a fair argument that some have made. Some on the right propose just letting them all fail, others on the left propose nationalizing. If we just let them fail, then what? Do the libertarians have a plan for the coming dark decade? If so, is it more than just capital gains tax cuts to combat the widespread and inevitable poverty?
Is he proposing that we continue to prop them up, but do nothing to regulate how they spend the money and pay no attention to excessive CEO pay and what not? Is the libertarian position that once you have violated the first order principle of giving money to these banks, then you do nothing lest you violate the principle of non-interference of private industries? And if so, does that deal with the reality that these no longer are really “private” businesses now that they continue to exist solely because of government support?
Is he proposing we just end welfare? If so, does he honestly think that is tenable? Is he proposing that we limit the regulations we impose on recipients of welfare?
Or maybe the piece was just a documentation of what has happened, and not an attempt to propose anything. If that is the case, then how do libertarians ever expect to have their ideas advanced when they simply refuse to move from the land of the ethereal to to the real world, where a course of action is required? I know I am not the sharpest tack, but I have read that three times and can not figure out what, if I were to vote for Jesse Walker, he would do.
And I don’t mean to pick on either Matt or Jesse, both of whom are people I read and like. It is just that when I read libertarian economic critiques these days, I get to the end of them, am mad as hell and just as mad as the authors, but then I calm down and ask what they wanted to do, and at that point things get thin. Compare that to their decisive, clear, and unwavering positions on issues like marijuana laws, no-knock raids, police abuses, and so forth. Does anyone have any confusion about what the folks at Reason would do in regards to no-knock raids? I don’t.
Go read the piece. What do you think they are proposing?
Why Libertarianism Can Sometimes Drive You InsanePost + Comments (108)
by John Cole| 65 Comments
This post is in: Politics
The NY Times with a preview of the budget:
President Obama’s budget proposal for 2010 projects a stunning deficit of $1.75 trillion for the current fiscal year, which began five months ago, reflecting a shortfall of more than $1 trillion as the fiscal year began, plus the costs of bank bailouts, the first wave of spending from the newly enacted stimulus plan and the continuing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The administration, as it had announced, will try to cut that amount sharply by 2013, when Mr. Obama’s first term ends, to $533 billion, even as it escalates spending on crucial priorities.
“There are times when you can afford to redecorate your house,” Mr. Obama said on Thursday morning, “and there are times when you have to focus on rebuilding its foundation.”
His administration will attempt to close the large fiscal gap even while starting a major health-care initiative meant to substantially extend coverage; to do so, it foresees increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans and using revenues from a new program: selling carbon credits to manufacturers as part of a cap-and-trade plan meant to slow climate change.
I remember when a 1.75 trillion dollar budget was massive, let alone a 1.75 trillion dollar deficit (and yes, I am fully aware this number is bigger than it would be under older budget rules). Oddly enough, I think the bitterest fight in this budget will not be over health care, but cap and trade (even though the two are connected, as one is allegedly paying for the other). I just sense the public has shifted on health care, and the old forces that aligned to fight it back in the Clinton years are exhausted and spent, while the public mood (in part because no one has job security anymore, and in part because the cost of health care keeps jacking up) has changed.
And while we are talking about spending, what is up with this:
The House on Wednesday passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill packed with pet projects requested by Democrats and Republicans alike.
The 245-to-178 vote came just a week after President Obama signed one of the largest spending bills in the nation’s history, a $787 billion measure meant to rejuvenate a sluggish economy.
The new bill, a reflection of Democratic priorities, increases spending on domestic programs by an average of 8 percent in the current fiscal year, which began in October.
I don’t really need to point out how tone deaf it would be to trumpet the stimulus bill as earmark free then turn around and pass a spending bill filled to the brim with earmarks, do I (and in the comments, someone has suggested that 40% of the earmarks are from Republicans)? The PR war on this has already begun, and I am betting the Dems will lose this PR battle. Obama and Rahm better get this under control, and quickly.
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Clown Shoes
Allahpundit responds to Rush telling them all to STFU about Jindal’s hideous performance:
Sounds like Ace and I are now Republican personas non grata. As are an awful lot of commenters in last night’s megathread, I might add.
That’s okay. One of these days Andy Levy and I are going to start a secular, hawkish, (mostly) libertarian third party. You’re all welcome to join.
No one could have predicted that would happen. Or maybe someone did:
And this is why Henke is so very right, and the purity police have it so wrong. The Republican party is a train wreck. These short term power struggles and attempts to “re-brand” the GOP are doomed to fail, even though they will be a source of endless entertainment for me. Elevating Cantor and Pence means more of the same from the Republicans.
What the GOP needs to do is cool their heels. The frenetic nonsense of the last few years has gotten them nowhere, and talking about principles is pointless when you have none. The party of limited government talks a good game, but owns the $500 billion dollar deficit this year and $5 trillion in debt from the past two administrations. You don’t get to pretend you are the party of limited government when your crowning achievement of the last eight years is the Schiavo legislation. I suspect the only principles they honestly have left are the ones they know are so repellent to the public at large that they refuse to voice them. Every now and then they act on them, and the public swats them on the nose. See Frost, Graeme.
If they were smart, they would regroup, and decide what they stand for and present it to the American people. Instead, I suspect we will get several more months of infighting over tactics and appearances, and more purges of those who wish to engage in a debate over the party’s direction. It isn’t just that many of the folks leading the purge disagree with George Will and Peggy Noonan and Daniel Larison and Sullivan and Ron Paul about the direction of the future GOP- they want them destroyed for suggesting there needs to be a debate. That is how dead the party is, and Henke is right. They need some time in the wilderness, to figure out who they are and what they believe in and why and how it will be better for the country.
Instead, I suspect we will see Palin pom poms and purity purges, which is all the more humorous given the defections from prominent conservatives to Obama, they are already whittled down to the true belivers. It would be funny if our nation’s currrent two-party system did not require a competent opposition party.
Whoever wrote that was pretty smart. At any rate, while Allah and company were not “outcast” for debating policy, but for stating the obvious about Jindal’s stink bomb, the point remains the same. Something to think about in between rounds of the favorite chorus of old: “The GOP IS A BIG TENT PARTY, THE GOP IS A BIG TENT PARTY!”
And while the GOP has allegedly gotten the message about tactics v. strategy, it is probably worth noting that the purges aren’t over yet:
Pennsylvania Republican Committee Chairman Robert Gleason Jr. said in an interview today that the state party may not support Sen. Arlen Specter in the Republican primary next year — a day after his national counterpart suggested that GOP supporters of the economic stimulus bill could take a hit in upcoming elections.
The new party chairman hinted as much the other day in regards to all three of the “appeasers” who voted with the Democrats.
Cut deeper wingnuts! Keep cutting off the insufficiently faithful! Keep cutting till you get it down to the distilled essence of conservative! And when you finally kick all the unbelievers out and have the party whittled down to Joe the Plumber and Rush Limbaugh, be proud of yourself. You just helped kill a major American political party.
by DougJ| 177 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Burkean bells are going off everywhere! Sully….Ross what’s his name…Joe Klein.
They all talk about him like we’re supposed to know who he is, so I’m guessing this isn’t new. But just to be sure, I’d like to know: has it always been like this or is this like when the New Yorker suddenly decided it was time to start talking about Rem Koolhaas and the guy who wrote A Man Without Qualities?
Who was Edmund Burke anyway? I don’t have time to read his wiki entry let alone his books. Why do conservatives love him so much? Did he courageously oppose something important? Did Luna or Rush ever do any songs about his philosophy? How is he connected with Oakeshott and Hayek (I don’t know who they are either) and Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss?
Update: Kristol gets his Burke on:
In the short term, Republicans need to show a tactical agility and political toughness far greater than their predecessors did in the 1960s and the 1930s. “Else they will fall,” to quote the great conservative Edmund Burke, “an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle,” reduced to the unpleasant role of bystanders or the unattractive status of complainers, as Barack Obama makes history.
In this same post, Kristol claims:
Conservatism is more sophisticated than it was back then (in the 30s and 60s).
Could that possibly be true? Was there some 30s and 60s equivalent of an even dumber Joe the Plumber?
There were bells on the hill, but I never heard them ringingPost + Comments (177)