Are you a Democrat or Republican? That’s easy, do you prefer google or fox?
Okay, it’s not quite that easy, but this is interesting…take a look.
The GOP doesn’t have a lot to offer us. Except for things to write about…
Good Old Newt Gingrich has some suggestions for our economic times,
Should Republicans takes the House, Gingrich urges them, in the “very first week,” to pass a ‘no tax increase on any American during the recession’ bill and send it to the president in January.
I’d rather not get into an argument about tax-me, tax-you, with Newt. But he seemed to have missed some important lessons he should have learned by the time he became Speaker of the House, those good old elections of sixteen years ago. Instead, he leaves even rational fiscal conservatives saying,
My sense, and it is a deeply depressing one, is that the Republicans have absolutely no intention of proposing, let alone making, any serious cuts in entitlement or defense spending if they gain control of the House or Senate, that they will try to stop any increase in taxes for those earning over $250,000 a year, and that their goal will be to destroy Obama personally and politically as they tried with Clinton. They have no constructive agenda. they have no interest in actually tackling the debt – just using it as a political ammunition. Listen to this rhetoric:
“Maybe the liberals felt this way about Nixon during Watergate, but I have never seen this level of conservative anger at somebody, the way [they’re angry] with the president.” “Radical elites are in such denial about reality right now, whether it’s the president, Speaker Pelosi, or Senate Majority Leader Reid,” Gingrich says. The frustration with Democrats, he says, is “bigger and deeper than in 1994.”
And will his subsequent over-reach be just as deep?
And will his subsequent over-reach be just as deep?
From the facebook of the esteemed friend, and actress, Deborah Geffner:
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below.She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes wes…t longitude.”She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be an Obama Democrat.””I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?””Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly,” she sneered, “You’ve not been much help to me.” The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Republican.””I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?””Well,” said the man, “You don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”
Too little, too late. My apologies, I began this as a draft and never finished commenting on all the incriminating comments in this article on Yoo and Bybee.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27133902/OPR-Report-On-Torture-Memos
On page 2 (page 2 being page number just below redacted title):
“Because the acts inflicting torture are extreme, there is sufficient range of acts that though they might constitute cruel, degrading, or inhuman treatment or punishment fail to rise to the level of torture.”
In response: Constitution, Amendment VIII, “…nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Now, do the recipients of torture at various black sites fall under the auspices of Amendment VIII. I don’t know. There is no definition in the constitution for who can, or cannot, receive cruel and unusual punishments; it can be assumed by the way it is written that nobody – citizen or non-citizen – can receive cruel and unusual punishment. Or, maybe that law applies only to the president, and everyone else is subject to excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment if it seems like a good idea? There is no definition in the constitution for who can, or cannot, receive excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment.
I’d also wanted to comment on …
Page 8:.
The Combined Techniques Memo concluded that the combined effects of those EITs (Enhanced Interrogation Techniques) would not render a prisoner unusually susceptible to severe physical or mental pain or suffering and thus would not violate the torture statute.the New York Times reported that President Bush had signed an executive order allowing the CIA to use interrogation techniques not authorized for use by the United States military,· and that the Department of Justice had determined that those techniques did not violate the Geneva Conventions.
page 11:
Based on the results of our investigation, we concluded that former Deputy AAG John Yoocommitted intentional professional misconduct when he violated his duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective, and candid legal advice.
We concluded that former AAG Jay Bybee committed professional misconduct when he acted in reckless disregard ofhis duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective, and candid legal advice….
page 19:
Poor judgment differs from professional misconduct in that an attorney may act inappropriately and thus exhibit poor judgment even though he or she may not have violated or acted in reckless disregard of a clear obligation or standard.
page 25:
We thus determined that Department attorneys considering the possible abrogation or derogation of a jus cogens norm such as the prohibition against torture must be held to the highest standards of professional conduct.
Conservatism is both a political and non-political philosophy. I want to concentrate for a moment on political conservatism – and I’m not talking about Tea Party stuff. Tea Partyers are mostly [in my opinion] nutjobs that think solutions are immediate and easy (build a wall! bomb the suckers! no taxes, no healthcare, but leave my medicare alone!), but there’s a sane conservatism. The eloquent modern British conservative Michael Oakeshott says it well:
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. Familiar relationships and loyalties will be preferred to the allure of more profitable attachments; to acquire and to enlarge will be less important than to keep, to cultivate and to enjoy; the grief of loss will be more acute than the excitement of novelty or promise. It is to be equal to one’s own fortune, to live at the level of one’s own means, to be content with the want of greater perfection which belongs alike to oneself and one’s circumstances. With some people this is itself a choice; in others it is a disposition which appears, frequently or less frequently, in their preferences and aversions, and is onto itself chosen or specifically cultivated.
I’ve pointed out before that while I’m not a political conservative as America would currently define it, this sort of conservatism is rational, eloquent, and appealing. I imagine you can see easily see how this conservatism sometimes appeals to you – the desire to maintain what you have, rather than risk change. There are times, frequent times, in my life that I am more inclined to keep things the way they are, because I do not know the outcome of a possible change. Think for a moment of relationships, finances, jobs; all of these you might be more inclined at some level to maintain than to change, for fear of the unknown. That’s what rational conservatism is.
Or, as Andrew Sullivan, another modern (more modern) British conservative – living in America – says,
Times change. Conservatism is defined by an ability to change prudently with them, and respond to emergent social problems with pragmatic, if cautious, reform. It is not defined by rigid ideology (no tax hikes ever) or denial of reality (climate change is a hoax; freedom is on the march in Iraq; deficits don’t matter).
That’s rational conservatism.
The people who came to Hec Edmundson Pavilion today seemed to be there because they wanted to demonstrate their loyalty and their appreciation to the young and charismatic orator they elected two years ago, as well as to Senator Patty Murray, who has never forgotten that being entrusted with great power also means being entrusted with great responsibility.
Our charismatic young orator knows how to rouse a crowd. It’s an unfortunate reality that the story “President Spreads Hope and Chance of Change” won’t fly as a headline. But boy, can he inspire. I wish I was there. There’s no enthusiasm gap among these sentient Democrats.
I was forming this thought a couple of night ago in bed, after I had turned off my computer. Anderson Cooper just reminded me of my thoughts. I’m a political science major and I spend my day engrossed in politics. Despite that, thre’s a lot about politics I don’t know, or I don’t get right – mostly little things like actual percentages and numbers in billions – although I have the general idea down.
So I’m just thinking that most people in a profession experience the same thing; they don’t have all the facts of their chosen topic down. Most have it close; usually we can remember most general ideas most of the time. But I’d bet you that Obama doesn’t know everything all the time. That’s why he has advisers, and they’re constantly studying things and trying desperately to get the facts right too.
I’ll be you scientists don’t always get all their facts right. Or mathematicians. Or businessmen. Or teachers. Or candidates:
“I’m sure most of us get confused about which amendment is which, I certainly do,” Cooper said. “But most of us aren’t running for Senate, and most of us don’t claim to be constitutional experts, as Christine O’Donnell has certainly come close to doing just that.”
I don’t have much to say here except GO TEA PARTY. Um, yeah. I’ll let quotes do most of the rest of the work. From Mother Jones:
[Shai] Pritz also owns UniqueLists, a data management company that sells the contact information harvested through the online ads.
The companies are part of the Internet advertising industry known as affiliate marketing, which, like MLM, has a reputation for relying on unscrupulous practices. In 2009, the Federal Trade Commission sued several affiliate marketers for hosting web sites designed to appear like they belonged to official federal entities, which offered “government grants” after last year’s stimulus bill passage. Visitors who signed up to receive grant information for a few dollars allege that they later found their credit cards charged monthly for memberships and services they didn’t ask for. (A federal judge shut down several of the sites, and more charges were added in April. The case is ongoing.) The industry is plagued with allegations that affiliate marketers are infecting consumers’ computers with spyware and adware to surreptitiously boost click revenues.
So what does that have to do with the Tea Party? You’ll have to read more, but I’m not done… For one thing,
There’s no evidence that TPP is selling its contact lists. But the Tea Party Patriots’ own privacy policy indicates that it has the option. It says, “TPP may use Individual Information to advertise, directly or indirectly, to individuals using direct mail marketing or telemarketing using telephones and cell phones and such contact shall be deemed to be with the permission of individuals covered by this Privacy Policy.”
and the most important part,
The parallels between the Tea Party Patriots and a multilevel marketing company don’t surprise FitzPatrick, the pyramid scheme expert, who says that tea party rhetoric is similar to that of MLM companies. MLM operations and pyramid schemes, he says, “aren’t just about money. They are about how you are part of an elite group of people who are enlightened.” He says that in their recruiting, the top leaders of these types of companies often give a false narrative about eminent economic collapse, how Social Security won’t be there to save you in old age, and how the government keeps the average guy from getting ahead. And when the companies draw scrutiny from regulators, they often invoke the same kind of language as the tea party about “jack-booted thugs” and oppressive regulation. The tea party and multilevel marketers, he says, are a perfect fit in many ways: “MLMs claim to represent freedom-lovers. They are an economic match to the Tea Party’s political message.”
Nonetheless, the Tea Party Patriots is “moving to the next level,” as they say at Herbalife. In late September, its top organizers met with a secretive group of far-right movers and shakers to make a fundraising pitch for the group’s multi-million-dollar “40-year-plan” to change the country. The group, the Council for National Policy, is funded heavily by the DeVos family, the owners of Amway, one of the largest MLM companies in the country. According to the TPP fundraising memo, the money would fund more rallies, to recruit more activists, to fund more rallies, to recruit more activists, to fund more rallies.
I write a lot about politics. In my world-view, that’s frequently the topic to write about on this blog over social commentary. Most topics begin with or return to politics, and so it’s not a surprise. I’m not sorry, exactly, that politics is frequently the topic; it is my life, and, as I say, most things begin with or return to politics. I don’t mean to write about politics exclusively, but once again, here I go writing about politics.
I get to talk to a lot of you, my friends. Some of you see me as the political Buddha; I often advocate patience and calmness and reason. And once again, I’m talking about patience and political moderation, although my desire is that things improve much more quickly than what I advocate as reasonable and likely.
In September, 2010, 34.6% of adults were Democrats, and 33.1% were Republicans, according to Rasmussen data. That’s fairly fairly consistent with past yearly averages, and leaves room for 30% who say they belong to neither party (at this point, a solid amount of that 30% are Tea Party folk). My point is this: there’s always a third of America that belongs to neither party, and since Democrat is ‘left’ and Republican is ‘right’, a lot of America is ‘centrist.’ As B. Barber writes in basic summary – or maybe I’m just tired:
[There’s a] broad spectrum of attitudes we have about government, from total individualist enmity to any and all government to total collectivist affinity for the most corporatist forms of government. The spectrum reads, from pure liberty to pure statism as follows: anarchism, libertarianism, constitutional republicanism, liberal democracy, welfare state democracy, social democracy, socialism, communism (Marxism) and corporatism.
…America has been defined by this centrist debate about how to reconcile individual liberty and democratic egalitarianism, both being seen as valuable. Socialism has never been an American option and certainly is not one today. If anything, the center of the debate has moved slighted to the right.
And he writes of the cries of ‘socialist!’ and ‘Communist!’ and everything else being leveled against our government,
President Obama is a market-leaning liberal democrat. Nancy Pelosi is a vigorous advocate of the welfare state and of the social safety net, and she wants to regulate the runaway banks. But that’s not communism, folks, that’s liberal democracy, and reflects a less egalitarian agenda than the ones pushed by LBJ or FDR.
I’m given the feeling that I’m preaching to the choir here. Or you’ll read this and say ‘BDOLE, Obama’s a socialist, how can you not see it?’ We (all of us, I would hazard a guess) tend to have some capability to see more than one point of view at the same time, even if our certainty in our own view creates tunnel-vision certainty, which means that we are all progressive, conservative, and centrist at the same time. Centrist being in the middle of the other views, even if political views are circular and not linear, many of us can see a centrist view, which, Barber is trying to point out, is the usual outcome of politics.
As one final thought, I’d like to add that I’m not suggesting that the Tea Party is by nature centrist. It is, however, neither Democrat nor Republican.
Let’s return to the topic of campaign politics. You might have noticed some of it; it’s October 19th, and early voting for the November 2nd election in several states. Here’s a thought, from the esteemed Howard Fineman:
At this point in any election cycle, it is mandatory to wonder aloud whether even the American voter — as habituated to TV as he or she is — hasn’t reached the saturation point, making the ads somehow counterproductive. “It’s overkill, absolutely,” says Rep. Bob Brady, a savvy but proudly old-school politician who runs the Democrats’ still-formidable Democratic machine in Philadelphia. “A lot of the money being spent is wasted, totally wasted.”
But every cycle it is just as traditional for consultants to offer the same answer: they need to spend more than ever, especially as Election Day nears, to reach the small number of undecided voters — who must be living in caves with no cable — and to shore up turnout among the already committed. It’s like watering a flower pot with a fire hose, but consultants and the television industry love it, and the donors, secret and public (ands who don’t know a precinct list from a pinot noir) have been convinced that this kind of spending is a best practice.
I’m given the impression – I’ve talked to quite a few people – that people are sick of the political ads. I’ve heard a lot of people say they are tired of the ads; I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say they want more. Frankly, I think it pushes away, and turns off, voters. I make calls all day long to encourage people to vote, and I think that’s a somewhat more effective, and less intrusive, method to encourage political participation. I would also guess that phone calls to some ‘undecided’ (?) voters would push them away from one party, toward another. I understand and appreciate the idea that a representative needs to be seen on television – good – but I think there’s a point of too much, of inundation, where we are soaking flower pots with fire hoses.
Do you get anything more than anger out of the TV ads?
The Dole Blog 