Here’s a little Bollywood for your open thread.
Archives for December 2011
More Than Meets the Eye
Rick Perry now opposes abortion in the case of rape and incest:
Responding to a question about the change in position, Perry said, “You’re seeing a transformation.”
Perry says his unprecedented and heartfelt transformation came after watching Mike Huckabee’s new documentary, “The Gift of Life”, which premiered in Des Moines. In related news, the latest PPP Iowa poll has some interesting internals:
Santorum actually has the best favorability numbers of any of the candidates at +27 (56/29). He’s also the most frequent second choice of voters at 14%. Whether he can translate any of this into a top 3 finish remains to be seen, but he’s someone who would seem to have the potential to grow his support in the final week.
They might as well rename the “Iowa Republican Caucus” to the “Abortion and Gay-Hating Referendum” and be done with the charade that there’s anything else going on in that state.
President Obama Plays The GOP Yet Again
Republicans are preparing to go into full OUTRAGE MODE over the Obama Administration’s request to the Treasury to raise the debt ceiling another $1.2 trillion. The debt ceiling deal worked out earlier this year gives the Republicans a chance to pass a resolution of disapproval, but the President would have to sign the resolution after it somehow passed a Democratically-controlled Senate in order to stop the debt ceiling hike. In other words, there’s nothing the Republicans can really do other than complain loudly.
Except President Obama has outfoxed the elephants once again: the GOP may not even get the chance to do that much, because they’re on winter break until January 17. Brian Beutler explains:
The key issue is the 15-day deadline Congress has to vote on a resolution of disapproval of the President’s request to raise the debt ceiling. The timing of the administration’s planned certification implies that the 15 days would be up before Congress returns in January from its holiday recess. Whether this was an accident or not, we’re told that the calendar issue created a behind-the-scenes mess — with Republicans threatening to return early from recess — and that the administration is trying to figure out a way to keep it from spilling out into the public.
I’ve reached out to the administration for further guidance on both questions. It’s still unclear whether this was a hardball political move, a dumb mistake, or just a misunderstanding — or what, if anything, can be done to avoid a public clash with the GOP over the timing.
The size of the debt hike — easily getting the country through 2012 without having to bring it up during the election — and the timing seems to indicate to me that A) this was done on purpose, B) it was done to pants the GOP, and C) most importantly the Obama administration understands full well that raising the debt ceiling was going to be portrayed by the GOP as an impeachable offense no matter what the President actually did about it. So the White House is looking to get this out of the way.
Pretty sure this was the plan all along, and the GOP is now facing having to blow their vacation or miss their big chance at portraying the President as the most vile of all villains when of course previous Presidents jacked up the debt limit all the time, including Dubya’s seven times and Reagan’s 18 times. Your move, Republicans. You already lost that fight once.
If you ask me, President Obama’s got them by the short hairs. Again.
Willard Romney, Class Warrior
Your morning dose of righteous indignation, via Mr. Charles P. Pierce at Esquire:
… Comes now this pure piece of manufactured product, this vacant replicant of American plutocracy, to lecture a country in the middle of a fragile recovery from an economic disaster brought on by the other soulless replicants on the topics of our vanishing work ethic, and the great moral cleansing power of onrushing poverty. And, because he cares less about the country he’s planning to lead than he does about the next nickel he can squeeze out of it, he’s doing so with rhetoric that owes more to George Wallace than it does to George Romney, who was a decent Republican in the days before greasy-beaked vultures like his spalpeen hijacked the party. (Which is pretty much what E.J. Dionne was saying recently.) Willard is working the old poor-people-are-robbing-you-blind melodeon again while his real targets are anyone who receives any kind of federal government assistance of any kind whatsoever. And don’t fall for the old “states do it better” dodge. Willard knows full good and well that the states can’t carry this kind of load, either, and that the costs will just get passed down to lower and lower levels of government until nobody can pay for anything, and the programs that he’d like to see eliminated because it will help him get elected simply disappear…
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He is really the only true class warrior in the race. He’s counting on prejudice and ignorance because he is running in the Republican primaries and that’s the coin of the realm. But he’s also counting on the desperate dreams of desperate people who want to believe that there is a big bag of money out there that’s going to the Wrong People, and that, if someone would only re-direct it, their lives would be better. Well, there is a big bag of money out there, and it is indeed going to the Wrong People, and those would be the people in whose company Willard Romney has spent his entire, cosseted, entitled existence. He has embarked on a divisive campaign of misdirection, hoping against hope that nobody notices that he mortgaged himself to his ambition on an adjustable rate, and that he’s underwater on his soul.
Keep reminding your low-information-voter relations and acquaintances:
When you vote for a modern Republican, you are voting for a bad person.
Santorum – Mired
A little leftover from before the holiday weekend — I think it would have gotten more media traction if Santorum’s campaign looked to be anything more than a trivia question. Also, there’s the terminology problem; I don’t think it’s quite “simony”, which only applies to the sale of religious office, and it’s only “barratry” if the secular office at issue can be successfully purchased. But whatever the technical term, this doesn’t sound like the sort of behavior that DFH Jesus would endorse. Via Laura Clawson at Daily Kos:
A bit of froth has been mixed up over what exactly Rick Santorum promised in exchange for the endorsement of Family Leader President Bob Vander Plaats. The Family Leader itself declined to endorse any candidate, but Vander Plaats came out for Santorum immediately after that non-endorsement was announced.
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Now there are claims that Vander Plaats essentially sold his endorsement—maybe for as much as a million dollars—and Santorum can’t keep his story straight as he tries to respond…
Further from ABC’s The Note, “Iowa Conservative Leader Mired in Controversy“:
… Though Santorum did not specify the dollar amount he and Vander Plaats discussed, multiple sources said he was soliciting as much as $1 million from Santorum and other candidates.
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In an interview with the Des Moines Register this week, Vander Plaats said that it was his “ethical responsibility” to essentially put some money where his mouth is…
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ABC News has learned that Vander Plaats tried to solicit money for his endorsement during the last presidential cycle too. A former staffer for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential bid who is currently unaffiliated with a campaign said Vander Plaats came to them seeking money for his backing if he supported the former Massachusetts governor.
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“He wanted to be paid,” the former staffer said. “He was clearly looking for a paycheck. There was a conversation about him getting a title, but being a paid consultant was much more important.”…
It Ain’t No ‘Dalliance’, They Like the Crazy Ones
… being as they — the modrun GOP — is more than a little crazy itself. Frank Rich on “The Molotov Party“:
In the standard analysis of the race, which the embattled GOP Establishment is eager to believe, the rapid ascent and implosion of each wacky presidential contender is seen mainly as a passing judgment on Mitt Romney, the android who just can’t close the deal and improve his unyielding 25 percent average in polls of the Republican electorate. The Old Guard professes to have no worries. That steady 25 percent has been good enough to induce much of the press to portray Romney as the “presumed” (if not the “commanding”) front-runner ever since Beltway handicappers like Mark Halperin of Time and Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post labeled him as such early in 2010. One day or another Romney will surely make good on that bet. He has money, organization, and the looks of a president (or perhaps an audio-animatronic facsimile of one). Eventually primary voters will exhaust all conceivable alternatives and accept that no Chris Christie will descend from the heavens as a deus ex machina. Then they will come home to the 25 percent leader of the pack, because that’s what well-mannered Republicans always do…
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But this narrative is built on a patently illogical assumption: that a 25 percent minority is the trunk wagging the Republican elephant. What makes anyone seriously assume that the 75 percent will accommodate itself to that etiolated 25 percent rather than force the reverse? That lopsided majority of the GOP is so angry at the status quo that it has been driven to embrace, however fleetingly, some of the most manifestly unqualified, not to mention flakiest, presidential contenders in American history. The 75 percent is determined to take a walk on the wild side. This is less about rejecting Mitt—who’s just too bland a figure to inspire much extreme emotion con or pro—than it is about fervently wanting something else. While the 75 percent has been splintered among the non-Romney candidates, it is largely unified in its passionate convictions. Just because Trump and Cain have folded their tents doesn’t mean those convictions have fled with them, or that financial underwriters like David Koch (a major Cain enthusiast) have closed their checkbooks.
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The 75 percent’s passions are hot because their GOP is a party of revolution….
Hyperbole aside, I’m getting the impression that while Romney is still the most probable nominee (because, once they’ve had their happy funtime screaming imprecations and waving badly-spelt signs, “falling in line” is indeed what Republicans do, textbook little authoritarians that they are), Willard’s going to be forced to choose one of the bomb-throwers as his VP offering. The good news is, I can’t see Newton Leroy Gingrich accepting the underticket. The bad news is, that leaves Bachmann, Cain, Paul, Perry, or Santorum… each one more appalling than the last. Is Dr. Ron too prickly to settle for second-best? Would the combined unctousness of a Romney/Santorum platform cause even the unchoosy low-information voter to recoil? (Heck, will the Swollen Amphibian find a way to sabotage the whole party out of spite, even if it means sacrificing valuable shelf space at the Wingnut Welfare Wurlitzer Walmart?)
It Ain’t No ‘Dalliance’, They <em>Like</em> the Crazy OnesPost + Comments (122)
Open Thread
How is everyone tonight? I spent the day getting the house in order, so was away from the intertubes. It always seems like the week between Christmas and NYE is a news void, so I figured this was as good a time as any to pick up all the things I’ve been ignoring (the basement and garage were train wrecks).
Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the Pets of Balloon Juice 2012 Calendar, and remember, all proceeds go to help needy animals.