I very seriously hope I am not the only one going on an Arrested Development binge to make sure I am ready for the new episodes.
Archives for May 2013
The Mass Senate Race: “Mini-Mitt”, Major Bro-hole
Via Dave Weigel, Real Clear Politics just lurves the GOP’s new bro-mancer:
WATERTOWN, Mass. — Behind in the polls in a solidly Democratic state, heavily underfunded against a formidable opponent, and suffering from a barrage of attacks over a questionable tax break he once received, Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez nonetheless brims with a preternatural confidence — the kind found only in a candidate whose political career is just three months old.
After cruising to a surprisingly easy win over better-funded opponents in the Massachusetts GOP primary, Gomez has since been left to wonder whether the cavalry will ever arrive in the form of an investment by the National Republican Senatorial Committee….
Translated from the weaselspeak: After kneecapping the two professional GOP politicians, Gomez’s puppeteers still haven’t quite convinced the Permanent Party (GOP wing) to buy a piece of this risky prospect. It’d be so much nicer to persuade the “Independent” Repub-in-all-but-registration Massholes that Gomez isn’t a wholly-owned subsidiary of MegaSuperGlobalPACs, LLC.
… In part because he has positioned himself as a non-ideological, problem-solving “new Republican” — which happens to be the only kind of Republican that can win a statewide race in Massachusetts — Gomez purports to being unconcerned about monetary support from the national GOP…
But with six weeks to go until the June 25 special election, Gomez could use more than the lip service provided thus far by national Republicans. And, according to a source familiar with the NRSC’s thinking, he is about to get that investment. After initially viewing his chances of winning with more than a little skepticism, party officials in Washington have been convinced by a slew of public and internal polls to put their financial weight behind Gomez…
Weaselspeak: We have Karl Rove’s “The Math”! We’d show ya, but then we’d have to kill ya, hahahaha!
… Since his primary victory, Democrats have been eager to portray Gomez as a “mini Mitt” — a clone of the former governor who, like Gomez, is a Ken Doll-handsome product of Harvard Business School. In addition, both men made their fortunes in the rarefied world of private investment.
Five of Gomez’s top advisers are veterans of Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, and the Senate aspirant has been boosted by radio ads funded by a super PAC helmed by Romney’s longtime confidant Eric Fehrnstrom….
Weaselspeak: Okaaay, the formula didn’t work so good last November, but Ed Markey is no Barack Obama, and the media spotlight’s not so glaring in a six-week Senate runoff.
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NAACP Chairman: The Tea Party is our Taliban
Scandal Fever has hit Capital Hill and the investigation into the IRS unfairly targeting Tea Party groups is one of the hottest. Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus of the NAACP had some very cold words on the matter:
I mean, here are a group of people who are admittedly racist, who are overtly political, who tried as best they can to harm President Obama in every way they can, … They are the Taliban wing of American politics and we all ought to be a little worried about them.” – Julian Bond
“Truth hurts,” according to Bond.
While Bond doesn’t feel that the there was any wrong doing by the IRS, it will be up investigators to discover the truth. Only time will tell if this is the big moment before President Obama reveals that this whole time he was a patriot-shaming, constitution-hating, African-born-socialist.
Today on #TWiBRadio #TeamBlackness discussed The NAACP’s Julian Bond dismissing parallels between the IRS targeting the Tea Party, the New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition dry snitching on fakes among their ranks, and ironically doing goodwill for the homeless. Listen here:
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And on #amTWiB, political strategist L. Joy Williams and the morning crew discuss lowering the blood alcohol level for DUIs, yoga guru Bikram Choudhury accused of rape and human trafficking, and Uni-Ball’s controversial new ad.
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NAACP Chairman: The Tea Party is our TalibanPost + Comments (101)
Good Service is So Nice
Big maintenance week here in the Cole household. Replacing the gutters, which have been here basically since the house was built, and had to rebuild the front porch roof and some soffits and fascias, and it sure is nice crossing the worry that my decrepit gutters were destroying the roof. It’s just nice having that taken care of and off the list of my mental phobias.
Also, my sink clogged on Sunday and shot water all out the bottom of the sink everywhere, and that had to be replaced. It was the old metal shit that had been here forever and was a constant problem, so the plumber came and fixed it and replaced it all in an hour. I called him last night, he was here today, and it cost, for an hour’s work and parts, 100 bucks. That is it. ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Every time I call a plumber or electrician my mental judgment is to start at $500 and wait and see. But he was here in 24 hours, got it done, and I was so elated I gave him a twenty dollar tip. Not sure if that is customary, but it was worth it, felt good, and I know he will come back at the drop of the hat the next time.
Good service is so nice, particularly when most of the time these days when you think of the service industry, you think of poor, underpaid folks who basically hate their lives and their jobs and pretty much spend most of the time you interact with them scowling. Can you imagine how nice life would be if everyone was able to make a real living doing their respective trade, and good service was a norm, not an outlier?
Open Thread: Couldn’t Find It on A Map
(Mike Thompson via GoComics.com)
Why I love Mr. Charles P. Pierce — “The Greatest. Poll. Ever“:
I am going to print out this poll and, perhaps, put it on my wall in a gilded frame. I hope every cable teevee haircut who plans to ride the Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI! train to riches and fame and glory does the same thing because this is the best result in a poll in the history of results from polls. Forty-one percent of Republicans polled believe that this is the biggest political scandal in American history. (And roasting on adjoining spits in hell, John Mitchell, Harry Daugherty, and the members of the Whiskey Ring have a collective sad.) But that’s not the truly golden part. That would be this, as PPP shows a gift for deadpan comedy I had not anticipated.
One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don’t actually know where it is. 10% think it’s in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.
Am I a bad liberal if I assume that some considerable percentage of these people couldn’t find New York or San Francisco on a map, either?
Or their own arses, even with their heads stuck up them?
Bet You’d Live Here If You Could, and Be One of Us
Reading through Zandar and DougJ’s posts about this town, DC, brought this song to mind, and this little spat:
It has become a well-documented and nationally recognized sugary turf war over ice cream sales in a city of 15,000.
Sno Kone Joe’s operators, Amanda Scott and Joshua Malatino, were arrested earlier this month on stalking and harassment charges for allegedly tailgating a Mr. Ding-A-Ling truck around Gloversville, blaring their jingles and trying to pry away Mr. Ding-A-Ling customers by offering free ice cream.
As was recounted in court Tuesday, Malatino has been accused of shouting to the Mr. Ding-A-Ling driver: “I own this town!” and his competition “doesn’t stand a chance!” and “will never make it here!”
Discuss whether it’s a make you town, or a break you town, or anything else, in this open thread..
Bet You’d Live Here If You Could, and Be One of UsPost + Comments (152)
Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Here’s the map after Minnesota became the 12th state to allow gay marriage. I’m sure it’s going to get a little more blue, but in the end there’s going to be a hell of a lot of red on it. Two guys, or two women, aren’t getting married in Alabama or Kentucky in the next 50 years without some kind of federal intervention. The same was true about civil rights, and the same was true of abortion. So, while I acknowledge that she’s forgotten more about women’s rights and the law than I’ll ever know, I don’t agree with Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the politics of Roe.
The sweep and detail of the opinion stimulated the mobilization of a right-to-life movement and an attendant reaction reaction in Congress and state legislatures. In place of the trend ‘toward liberalization of abortion statutes’ noted in Roe, legislatures adopted measures aimed at minimizing the impact of the 1973 rulings, including notification and consent requirements, prescriptions for the protection of fetal life, and bans on public expenditures for poor women’s abortions.
What this misses is, for some of those states, there is no “momentum […] on the side of change” as Ginsberg argues. As long as some federal entity does something to change their beloved backwater stasis, that entity is going to be the target of hate, resentment and back-door nullification efforts. The Court or Congress should just repeal DOMA and get on with the next 50 years of seething hatred from a vocal minority. While they’re pissing and moaning, blacks will be voting, women will be controlling their own bodies, and same-sex married partners will be enjoying the same federal rights as other married couples.