If you can see in your mind’s eye a picture of the future as you want it to be – then you’re steering the universe in that direction. Or something like that. It’s called “creative visualization”.
Athletes and salesmen have been using creative visualization for decades. Wikipedia defines creative visualization as “the practice of seeking to affect the outer world by changing one’s thoughts and expectations.”
So, let’s practice a little creative visualization by conjuring up a wonderful, satisfying vision for Election Night, Tuesday November 6, 2012.
Picture in your mind and heart the moment the television networks announce the shocking news – early in the evening — that President Obama has carried South Carolina. Not just North Carolina, but also the Cradle of the Confederacy. (The most recent poll gives Romney only a 6-point lead in South Carolina, down from double digits not long ago.) Visualize people, visualize!
Now, picture yourself on the couch with your loved one, Chardonnay in hand, as Barack Obama sweeps the swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin – and MSNBC (who else would you be watching?) projects that Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States.
But it gets even better, if that’s possible – because now comes the wailing and gnashing of teeth among the soundly defeated and thoroughly demoralized GOP/Tea Party. With their House majority lost, their Senate minority reduced – and the White House back in Democratic hands – Karl Rove is the first to appear on Fox News and stick a knife in Romney’s back. All the tens of millions that Rove raised from all those undisclosed Super-Pac donors couldn’t sell the Romney-Ryan ticket to the American people. And “Bush’s Brain” isn’t blaming himself.
Next in the pathetic parade of Republican ruin comes GOP Chairman Reince Priebus. With an angry Tea Party mob preparing the tar and feathers outside his barricaded doors, Priebus announces his resignation as GOP chair – and his immediate departure for the Cayman Islands, where he will go into hiding along with Mitt’s money.
Then, just before we hear from Mitt Romney, the nation’s TV cameras turn to Janesville, Wisconsin, where we double our fun – because not only has Paul Ryan lost the Vice Presidency – he’s also lost his Congressional seat! Pop some more popcorn! Uncork another bottle of Chardonnay! Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” are plummeting even as he speaks…
And now, it’s Romney’s turn to concede defeat. Socially, Mitt tried to drag us back into the 1950’s while economically trying to return us to the fiscal glory (make that “gory”) days of George W. Bush. America sent him packing – just like Mitt and the Bain Gang packed up so many American factories and sent those jobs overseas. Mitt announces that his wife Ann is turning him out to pasture along with her dressage horse, Refalca – both losers this year. (Ironically, Mitt didn’t even get 47 percent of the vote.)
This is exciting news. Not just because the author is a very dear friend of mine – but because I can’t think of a more apropos time since his Presidency ended in 1960 for us to look back on Ike’s two terms in the Oval Office.
My buddy Jim Newton is a veteran newspaperman who began his career at the New York Times. Since I’ve known him, he’s been an editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he’s now the editor-at-large. In 2006, Jim wrote a definitive biography of Chief Justice Earl Warren entitled, Justice for All.
Now, he’s focused his brilliance and talent on the man who put Earl Warren on the court.
Hold on. It was Republican who put the classic “activist judge” Earl Warren on the Supreme Court?
Indeed. And that’s just one of the reasons it’s a good time to revisit the Eisenhower Presidency.
More than a half-century after Dwight D. Eisenhower left office, his old campaign slogan “I like Ike” has become a cliché. But, in this era of Tea Party Republicans and Ronald Reagan worship, it’s nostalgic to recall a Republican President who would never have said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
That kind of simplistic, anti-government demagoguery would not have appealed to the complex man who built our interstate highway system and sent Federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce school desegregation.
In a move that would be anathema to today’s dogmatic GOP states’ rights defenders, Ike ordered units from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock on September 24, 1957. The next day, those soldiers escorted nine black students through the front door of Central High and into its formerly all-white classrooms. Of course, Ike had some previous experience with the paratroopers of the 101st. 13 years earlier in a little dustup called D-Day on June 6th, 1944. The Screaming Eagles followed Ike’s orders into their drop zones behind the beaches at Normandy – and into the hallways of a Little Rock high school.
But Jim’s book is not about General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander who led his forces to victory in World War Two. It’s about the Eisenhower, who, like George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant, went from the highest-ranking military leader in an epochal war to Commander in Chief as the thirty-fourth President of the United States.
I was born in 1958 during Ike’s second term, but John F. Kennedy was the first President that I was aware of – and my first clear memory of Kennedy was watching his funeral on TV.
During my boyhood, President Eisenhower was a distant figure: even more dimly remembered than General Eisenhower, the hero of D-Day and all those World War Two movies I loved and re-created in my backyard.
Comedians made jokes about Ike playing golf and how homely his wife Mamie was. After the glorious Jackie Kennedy enchanted The White House, dowdy Mamie didn’t have a chance.
By the time I was in high school, my sense was that Eisenhower’s Presidency, if I thought of it at all, didn’t amount to much. He was a dull President in a dull time. Thank goodness, 16-year old Paul didn’t write the book on Ike.
I certainly wasn’t alone in thinking of Eisenhower as little more than the Caretaker-in-Chief, hitting the links with Bob Hope and presiding over an easygoing, black & white, “Leave It To Beaver” American society. Long after I graduated from college in 1980 that was still the prevailing attitude about Ike’s time in the Oval Office. There was, however, residual gratitude on the Democratic Left for Eisenhower’s lukewarm endorsement of Vice President Dick Nixon in the 1960 race against Kennedy.
The laugh was on Dick. Dick got the last laugh.
Pressed by reporters to give an example of Nixon making a key contribution to his administration, Ike said, “Give me a week and I’ll think of one!” Priceless. Nixon went on to lose to Kennedy in one of the tightest Presidential races in American history. Nixon got the last laugh, though. Not only did Tricky Dick win the White House eight years later – that same year, 1968, Nixon’s daughter Julie won the hand of Ike’s grandson David in marriage.
But, looking back at Ike’s Presidency, it’s hard to imagine why, as a callow youth, I thought his time in office so inconsequential. Eisenhower was the second President to have an atomic bomb in his arsenal — and he refused to use it. He kept radical anti-Communist McCarthyism at arm’s length until it became, as he called it, “McCarthywasm.”
And, after lifting the nation out of its post World War Two debt, he was the last president until Democrat Bill Clinton to leave office with a budget surplus. The top marginal tax rate under Eisenhower was 91%. George W. Bush slashed that rate to 35%. Ike paid for WWII and built our highway system. George W. Bush built nothing and left us in debt to China.
For these, and many more reasons, this lifelong Democrat likes Ike. And I like Jim’s book. But you don’t have to depend upon my endorsement (which is so much more enthusiastic than Ike’s backing of Nixon) – you can just check out these amazing reviews…
“A truly great book, spirited, balanced, and not just the story of President Eisenhower but of an era.” Bob Woodward
“Jim Newton does a masterful job illustrating the forces that confronted Dwight Eisenhower during his years in the White House, from nuclear politics to race relations to the federal debt and deficit. He paints a vivid portrait of a president struggling to find middle ground—sometimes successfully, sometimes not — but always with the good of the country in mind.” Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator ”
“Newton’s contribution is as cogent an inventory of Eisenhower’s White House years as I’ve ever read… This is a book for all who are interested in a better understanding of how America and the World were shaped post–WWII and for those who aspire to lead: Read Newton’s book first.” Chuck Hagel, U.S. Senator (1997–2009)
“Ike’s wisdom, born of experience and intellect, is on display in this important book, which heightens appreciation for his leadership. Newton reveals, for instance, that after the Korean War, only one American soldier was killed in combat during Eisenhower’s presidency. This volume contributes to our understanding of an outstanding human being.” George P. Shultz, 60th U.S. Secretary of State
“Jim Newton’s ‘Eisenhower, The White House Years’, simply and eloquently, delivers the man, his Presidency and, if America is paying attention, the life lessons that are his legacy.” Norman Lear
“Jim Newton’s brilliant reassessment of Eisenhower’s presidency is long overdue, and his book makes it clear that Ike was indeed a great president. Ike’s insistence on always doing the right thing for the country despite party pressure and personal predilection serves as a valuable model for politicians in all three branches of government.” Former FBI Director, William S. Sessions.
Buy my friend Jim Newton’s book today — and learn what a principled, heroic Republican used to be. And, alas, you’ll know why bipartisanship is a thing of the past.
Tuesday, August 9th is a very special election day in Wisconsin. Today just might be the day that progressive populist grassroots action will stem the tide of the GOP’s pro-corporate, anti-union, neo-fascist agenda.
If Wisconsin voters can recall three Republican State Senators – despite a massive 40 million dollar flood of anonymous corporate cash spent on behalf of GOP incumbents – the balance of power in the Wisconsin Legislature will shift to the left, and frustrated working class voters in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere will know that they, too, can retake control of their political destiny.
Triggered by popular resistance to GOP-Tea Party Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union overreach, today’s vote in Wisconsin marks the nation’s largest ever recall election. A string of Democratic victories in six state senate districts, many of which have historically voted Republican, would send shock waves throughout the Midwest – and reverberate in the nation’s capitol.
It’s a referendum on Scott Walker’s conservative Tea-Party policies. And the conservative establishment is not giving up without a fight. The right wingers have played dirty tricks like passing voter ID laws to disenfranchise minorities and the elderly and mailing out fraudulent ballot information to Democratic voters – and they’ve spent $40 million dollars to support GOP incumbents and bash their Democratic challengers.
How much money is that? It’s twice as much as the Wisconsin record of $20 million set in the 2008 elections, spent on campaigns for half the state Senate and all the Assembly members.
As I write this, the results are too close to call. Nothing can be taken for granted. Wisconsin Democrats and working class citizens must get out and vote.
The whole nation is watching.
On, Wisconsin!
Here’s a little song to vote by, written and performed by Ripon, Wisconsin native, Steve Rashid.
President Obama & Vice President Biden share a moment of relief after the Debt Ceiling was lifted.
Now that the debt ceiling fight is over, the newspaper scribes in the Washington press corps and the pundits on television (“the dunderpates”, as my wife calls them) prattle on about the winners and losers in this sorry showdown.
President Obama is the loser because he caved to the Tea Party minority. Obama’s the winner because he showed Americans that the GOP is ruled by its radical Tea Party minority. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is the winner because he sidestepped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the final negotiations with The White House. Speaker John Boehner is the loser because he couldn’t control his caucus in the House. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Lost in all this claptrap is the biggest loser: the American people. It’s a sad commentary on our news media that the reporters and talking heads who dominate the public discourse are so insulated from normal working lives, so infatuated with politics-as-sport, that they cannot see outside their own sandbox.
However, if the media ever managed to crane their craven heads above the Beltway, they might be forced to tell a story too complicated and nuanced for front-page headlines and television sound bites. The American people, it appears, can actually sort through GOP bullshit – even if smug, self-satisfied hacks like David Gregory (Meet the Press) and paid flacks like Chris Wallace (Fox News Sunday) can’t or won’t. According to the latest CNN poll, a large plurality of the American electorate were not swayed by the GOP-Tea Party’s no-taxes, cuts-only Siren song.
Yet, somehow, despite the fact that 60% of Americans agree with President Obama about his oft-stated “balanced approach” to deficit reduction, the bullhorns in the mainstream media keep blaring the Big Story of Tea Party success. (We’ll keep FOX out of the discussion. It’s not a news organization: it’s a propaganda arm of the GOP.)
GOP Congressman Walsh was a big cheerleader for default. Turns out, he had already defaulted on his own kids.
The more nuanced story is that, while the Tea Party fanatics may have won a political victory by moving the debt ceiling deal far off to the right – it looks like they’ve lost the larger battle for American hearts and minds. And that could cost them dearly in the 2012 elections. Not to mention the wrench these Tea Party bomb-throwers and their enablers in the Republican Congressional leadership just threw into the works of the GOP’s normally cozy relationship with Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce. Something tells me you won’t see too many Tea Partiers backed by the Chamber in 2012.
Looking ahead to 2012, the Conventional Wisdom is that President Obama has been grievously wounded in the debt ceiling fight. And it’s clear that he took a hit to his approval rating and his reputation for political cool. Yet, according to the latest CNN poll, the American people have judged that Obama came out of the debt ceiling debacle well ahead of Congress – and far ahead of GOP Congressional leaders. In fact, nearly 70% of those polled disapprove of how GOP leaders behaved during the rancorous debt ceiling negotiations — a scathing indictment of Sen. McConnell, whom the Beltway intelligentsia has declared the winner in this fight.
Now, if you (like me) are a regular reader of left wing-Democratic-progressive websites like Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo and The Huffington Post (which isn’t all that progressive anymore) – you’d think that every Liberal is frustrated and angry — and that all Democrats are up in arms, feeling betrayed by Obama’s capitulation to Tea Party brinkmanship. Calls for a Democratic primary challenge to the President have gone out – and a general alarum has been sounded. However, the latest Gallup poll provides a very different perspective on how left-of-center folks feel about the debt ceiling agreement.
Shocking, huh? A plurality of Democrats and Liberals approve of the debt ceiling agreement — and Republicans and Conservatives (those the mainstream media claim were the victors in this battle royal) don’t like the deal at all.
Of course, this poll reflects something most of us already know: liberals and Democrats have a more positive and realistic attitude toward American government. (At least we don’t hate it.) But these poll results also signal peril for the Tea Baggers. Usually, when political leaders make a big deal their constituents don’t like, it’s a bad sign for them in the next election cycle.
We don’t hear much in the media about how this debt ceiling debacle has damaged the right-wingers. The Beltway Wise Men say it’s all doom and gloom for Obama and the Democrats. But at least at this moment, the American people aren’t buying that bullshit narrative.
Now, please forgive me. I’m going to use the F-word.
I suggest that there’s a larger political narrative in America that we (and the national media) should be focused on right now — something that David Gregory and Chris Wallace wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. I know it’s not nice to use the F-word in polite political discourse — but since Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, The United States has been creeping towards fascism. The post-9-11 environment and the cynical exploitation of misguided Tea Party populism has accelerated our fascist drift.
I know that intelligent, dignified and reasonable people shouldn’t throw the term “fascist” around lightly — and the “fascist” label has been seriously misused, mischaracterized and misunderstood.
After all, the Tea Party-GOP crowd has alternately lambasted President Obama as both a left-wing Socialist and a right-wing Fascist: mutually exclusive condemnations.
“As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer.
The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie.”
“Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture…The consequent burdening of manufacturers gave advantages to foreign firms wishing to export.”
“Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography…Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.”
Here’s a simpler definition…
Fascism: “The merging of state and corporate interests.”
Modern American Fascism is more subtle than the Mussolini version in the mid 20th Century. Corporate interests exert their control over the U.S. government in less overt ways than they did in Italy in the 30’s and 40’s. In today’s American strain of fascism, it’s not the U.S. Government that’s in charge. Instead, through campaign donations, lobbying and revolving door cronyism, Corporate Oligarchs exert their control over a Government that increasingly serves corporate interests.
The problem is bad and getting worse. Since the Scalia-Roberts-Thomas-Alito axis on the U.S. Supreme Court established corporate personhood and opened the sluice gates for billions of corrupting corporate dollars to flow anonymously into our electoral system, the slide toward oligarchy by U.S. CEOs and their Congressional minions has advanced with scant resistance by what passes for an American left. (Though we saw vigorous resistance to the fascist agenda in Wisconsin earlier this year.)
And what of this union-bashing, union-busting agenda that a cabal of GOP governors are pushing? What about all these bipartisan “Free Trade” deals that have benefitted the bottom lines of multi-national corporations while hollowing out our U.S. manufacturing base and driving our wages lower? This agenda is clearly not in the best interest of the American People, so who does it serve? Corporate fat cats. That’s who.
Just this week, the paychecks of thousands of airline employees, FAA employees, and construction workers on airport improvement projects were held hostage when the GOP-led House, at the behest of Delta Airlines, tried to attach an anti-union provision in the bill authorizing funding for the FAA. Delta wants to bust their employees’ labor unions and Delta’s toadies in the GOP House stood ready to do their bidding — even at the risk of thousands of American jobs in an already-bad economy: not to mention threatening the safety of the traveling public. Again. Who are John Boehner and Eric Cantor serving with this dangerous game of political chicken? Corporate Big Money. That’s who.
Maybe it’s time to call these guys what their actions reveal them to be: American Fascists.
Author and radio host Thom Hartmann has been concerned about creeping American Fascism for quite a while. In his article, The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: “It Can Happen Here”, Hartmann writes about the warnings of Vice President Henry Wallace, who served with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the early years of World War Two.
Here are some enlightening passages from Hartmann’s article. I urge you to read the whole thing:
In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?” Vice President Wallace’s answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. ”The really dangerous American fascists,” Wallace wrote, “are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”
In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word “fascist” – the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.) As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: “A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.” Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this.
V.P. Wallace and the great Pete Seeger.
“If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings,” Vice President Wallace wrote in his 1944 Times article, “then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. … They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.”
“American fascism will not be really dangerous,” Wallace added in the next paragraph, “until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information…”
“Still another danger,” Wallace continued, “is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.”
As Wallace wrote, some in big business “are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage.” He added, “Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise [companies]. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.”
Wallace continued: ”The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice.”
“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact,” Wallace wrote. “Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy.”
In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added, “They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”
For another view of Vice President Wallace, you can check out this link and draw your own conclusion.
When you pause to consider it, the Fascist agenda that Wallace warned about — as championed by most of the Republican Party (and too many conservative Blue Dog Democrats) — is making frightening progress. Let’s evaluate where we stand today against these clear warning signs…
Heck, this looks like the Unofficial Republican Party platform!
Are the Tea Party extremists fascists? Are today’s Congressional Republicans fascists? Are “Free Trade”-supporting Democrats fascists? Is President Obama a fascist? Do you think I’m completely off-the-wall for even raising the possibility of American Fascism? Can it really happen here? You decide. But, before you dismiss this article as the ravings of a Liberal loon – please do some research. You might be surprised by what you’ll learn.
We don't want these guys to get reinforcements, do we?
One thing to consider: the President elected in 2012 will probably have the opportunity to appoint two justices to the U.S. Supreme Court — and it’s likely they’re be replacing old liberals who have stood as a bulwark against the Fascist Faction on the court. Whatever else you want to say about him, President Obama’s two picks (Sotomayor and Kagan) have been reliable votes in opposition to Scalia and his gang of black-robed corporate shills.
I hate to use the F word again — but if we don’t turn out the progressive vote for President Obama and the Democratic Party in 2012 — our democracy will be in F-ing trouble.
Pete Seeger's buddy Woody Guthrie knew who America's enemy was. (Check out the sticker on his guitar.)
I’ve had enough. I’m tired of dealing with babies.
This whole Debt Ceiling “crisis” has made it clear to me that, with the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, we are dealing with political babies.
As a parent of three grown children, I know what a pain it is to deal with babies.
First of all, babies don’t know anything. All they know is what they want. And when they don’t get what they want, they cry.
Wahhhhh! Wahhhhh! Wahhhhh!
I will never understand why so many working class Midwestern Americans voted for these Tea Party-GOP babies in 2010 – but they did.
And now, political adults – both Democrats and Republicans – find they must contend with all these whiny, itty-bitty, small minded ultra-conservative babies in the U.S. House of Representatives who have no clue what it is to govern the greatest democracy in the western world.
As though they were simply playing with blocks in the safety of their padded playpens, these know-nothing GOP babies have no clear idea of the impact that their actions will have outside of their playpen.
I hope that the Government Adults – President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority Leader Mitch McChinless, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Speaker “Boo-Hoo” Boehner – are finally able to quiet the Tea Party babies and put them down for a long nap, just in time to raise the Debt Ceiling and move on with the grown-up business of government.
American patriot Thomas Paine served in George Washington’s army during the Revolutionary War as an aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene. In the desperate winter of ’76, the war was going badly — and Washington’s valiant, weary, and ill-equipped troops were in retreat.
The revolutionary cause was in dire jeopardy, when Paine took up his pen to rally his nascent nation’s flagging spirits.
Realizing that “it was necessary that the country should be strongly animated,” Paine wrote a series of popular pamphlets collectively titled The American Crisis. The first of these broadsides was published on December 23, 1776 – and General Washington found it so inspiring that he had it read to his soldiers at Valley Forge.
Today, as we suffer through this trumped-up Debt Ceiling crisis, it is once again “necessary that the country should be strongly animated.”
Therefore, with apologies to Thomas Paine…
These are the times that try Progressive’s souls. Some summer Liberals and sunshine Democrats will, in this crisis, shrink from their core values; but he that stands by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid now, deserves the love and thanks of every working man and woman in America.
The GOP-Tea Party, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. The Grand Debt Ceiling Bargain we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is Tax Fairness – with increases on the Wealthy, Big Business and Wall Street only — that gives Shared Sacrifice any real meaning.
Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon The Common Good; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as The Full Faith and Credit of The United States should not be highly rated by Standard & Poor’s. (Though such a Downgrade looks increasingly possible.)
The GOP, with Fox News to enforce its Bullshit, has declared that they have a right (not only NOT to TAX) but “to BIND all working people in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” to economic slavery, for so unlimited an economic power can belong only to George Bush’s God of Prosperity, the Koch Brothers, Republicans, Millionaires and Billionaires.
We have none to blame but ourselves, but no great deal is lost yet. All that Boehner, McConnell and Cantor have been doing for these past few months is rather a Ravage than a Conquest. They have over-reached and will be quickly repulsed by the voters. By 2012, with a little resolution on the part of working class Americans – resulting in a Democratic landslide — we will soon recover.
I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up the American People to Economic Destruction by Tea Party Fools and GOP Corporatist Greed, or leave President Obama and the Democrats to perish who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of Default by every decent method which wisdom could invent.
Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that The Almighty has relinquished the Government of The United States, and given us up to the madness of small-minded religious zealots like Michele Bachmann and Jim DeMint; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds McConnell, Boehner and Cantor can hold Americans over an economic barrel.
‘Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic (like this artificial Debt Ceiling Crisis) will sometimes run through a country. Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their peculiar advantage is that they are the touchstones of sincerity (Democrats) and hypocrisy (Republicans), and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. They sift out the hidden thoughts of Conservatives, and hold them up in public to the world.
I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our negotiations with the GOP; suffice it for the present to say, that the Democratic Party and President Obama, though greatly harassed and fatigued, bore these Debt Limit negotiations with a manly and bipartisan spirit. All their wishes centered in one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive the Republicans out come the Election of 2012.
I have been tender in raising the cry against the Tea Party radicals, and have used numberless arguments to show their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice our country either to their folly or their baseness. The Time of Decision is now arrived, in which either Tea Party Republicans or Democrats must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall.
And what is a Tea Party Republican? Good God! What is he? I should not be afraid to stand with a hundred brave, steadfast Democratic Union Men against a thousand Tea Partiers. Every GOP-Tea Party member is a dupe or a coward; for servile, slavish, and corporate-interested fear is the foundation of Tea Partyism; and a man under such misguided influence, though he may be selfish and confused, can never be brave.
But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between American Liberals and Conservatives, let us reason the matter together: FOX News is as much rejected by reality as the American cause is injured by FOX News. Rupert “Phone Hacker” Murdoch and his Corporate Paymasters expect you to take up arms and flock to their standard. Your opinions are of no use to The Right, unless you support them without thinking, for ’tis Zombies, and not Thinking Men, that they want.
I once felt that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Republicans. “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have prosperity.” But today, let every Progressive American awaken to his duty. For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to flare, the embers can never expire.
I call not upon a few, but upon all Progressives: not on this Blue State or that Purple State, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the heat of the summer of 2011, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.
If President Obama and the Congress cannot avoid the ignominy of National Default, it matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil will reach you all. The far and the near, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike.
The blood of Democratic children will curse their cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the Liberal that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little GOP minds to shrink; but the Progressive whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto Election Day.
Let them call me Liberal and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to GOP politicians who are stupid, stubborn, worthless and brutish — and fleeing with tax-cutting, budget-slashing terror from the orphan, the widow, and the unemployed of America.
There are cases that cannot be overdone by language, and there are persons who see not the full extent of the evil that threatens them. It is the madness of folly to expect statesmanship from Republicans who have refused to do political and social justice. The GOP’s first object is, partly by threats and partly by false promises, to fleece the American people before agreeing to pay their lawful debts.
I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it. The sign of fear has not been seen in our Liberal Camp. Our new Progressive Democratic Army is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the 2012 Campaign with tens of millions of voters, well educated and mobilized.
By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils — a ravaged country — crumbling cities — infrastructure without repair, and a shrinking Middle Class without hope — our homes turned into foreclosures, and our children to provide for, whose American Dream will be less than our own. Look on this picture and weep over it! And if there yet remains one thoughtless FOX viewer who believes it not, let him suffer the consequences unlamented.
Awake, Senate Democrats! Arise, President Obama! The GOP is mercifully inviting you to barbarous destruction (in a bipartisan fashion, of course), and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.
Let the Bush Tax Cuts expire! Cut the Pentagon’s bloated budget! Let Medicare negotiate deals with the Drug Companies! Collect a fair share of taxes from Corporations and Wall Street Financiers that have reaped such an ungodly percentage of our National Treasure! Leave Social Security and our National Health alone! Do these things, and the blessings of Prosperity will be upon our Nation once again.
As President Obama negotiates with Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders on the critical issues of raising the debt ceiling and reducing the Federal budget deficit, each breathless (and very sketchy) media report on the progress of those negotiations has been received in the Progressive Blogosphere with hand-wringing, whining, and melodramatic condemnations.
The President, it appears from all this premature carping, is ready to sell out Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, your home mortgage interest deduction, the public schools, and FDR’s White House portrait to appease the all-powerful, Tea Party/GOP who are willing to sacrifice the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government on Grover Norquist’s anti-tax altar.
With the debt ceiling deadline approaching in less than a month, it’s more doom and gloom for Democrats. Obama, we hear from disenchanted liberals, is just GOP-lite. We need to mount a primary challenge. Or vote Green Party in 2012. Or just stay home.
Because that worked so well for disappointed progressives in the 2010 mid-terms, right?
Because handing the House of Representatives over to Speaker John Boehner and the militant Tea Party jihadists sure showed those spineless Democrats a thing or two, didn’t it?
Aren’t you glad, you jaded bloggers on Daily Kos, TPM and The Huffington Post, that President Obama doesn’t have Nancy Pelosi to appease in these debt ceiling negotiations?
Oh, that’s right. If Nancy Pelosi were still the Speaker of the House – there wouldn’t even be negotiations over the debt ceiling.
It would be a pro forma vote of approval just like it’s always been.
Now, let’s get back to these White House negotiations over the debt limit. I’m pretty sure that, in order to avoid disaster, a Grand Bargain will be reached that will gore just about everyone’s ox to some degree.
But even if President Obama was not a man with liberal inclinations (and I think he’s shown that he is), he is a successful politician. He can see that an overwhelming majority of voters would rather see taxes raised on millionaires and billionaires than have their Social Security and Medicare benefits get cut.
And that’s true across party lines – especially among independents.
John Boehner can read those polls, too. But, even if Boehner wanted to strike a Bob Dole-like bargain with Obama to raise taxes on the rich (or what I like to call “restoring tax fairness”) in exchange for entitlement reforms that reduce waste and save money but don’t screw working people – he can’t do it. Because he’s got Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party Visigoths willing to wreak havoc on America’s credit rating in order to protect Exxon Mobil’s government subsidies and low tax rates on capital gains and other passive income for billionaires like the Koch Brothers. (Euphemistically referred to as “the job creators.”)
The Visigoths are shown here doing to Rome what the GOP is doing to the U.S. MIddle Class.
So, the Republicans have their backs to wall in these negotiations, too. And President Obama knows it.
Of course, if scoring political points were all our President cared about, he’d be taking a much harder line in public – and that would win him praise from progressive bloggers and pundits yearning for a hard-knuckle approach. But that’s what you do in an election campaign – not when you’re trying to govern. (Remember how well the tough guy, no compromise, jam it down their throats approach served the country when that nasty little bully George W. Bush was in charge?)
President Obama is serious about bipartisanship. He always has been. And, in this case, bipartisanship may just mean giving the GOP enough rope to hang themselves in 2012.
So, let’s just see how this debt ceiling brinksmanship plays out. It’s the best drama of the summer. And I’m sure it won’t have an entirely happy ending for anyone.
But, if Obama has to make some concessions you don’t like, please remember this…
Would you rather President Romney – who made his millions buying US companies and out-sourcing the jobs overseas — were presiding over such critical White House negotiations in the summer of 2013?
Would you like President Pawlenty choosing the next two Supreme Court justices?
Would you like President Bachmann…?
I’m sorry. I’ll just stop there. I don’t want to add any more crazy to this summer’s political hysteria.
Election Day 2010 was a dark day for many of us on the side of truth, justice, and the Progressive American Way — but it does no good to retreat into the shadows of negativity. We must continue to move toward the light. In my case, that means warming myself in every ray of sunlight that pokes through the storm clouds. No matter how slender that shaft of heavenly illumination is.
So, in no particular order, here are 10 Rays of Sunshine that are providing me with some light amid the gloom.
1. The Browns Beat New England
It’s one thing for my underdog Cleveland Browns to upset the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints – but for them to lay a 34-14 beat-down on coach Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots is even better.
Belichick was the Browns head coach from 1991-95: the guy who unceremoniously dumped hometown hero, Bernie Kosar, saying the star quarterback was suffering from “diminishing skills.” Belichik’s record with the Browns was a lackluster 36–44, and in his last season the Browns finished 5–11. That same year owner Art Modell announced he was moving the team to Baltimore. Belichick resigned soon after that. Cleveland was without an NFL team – and without room in our collective heart for the coach that presided over the Browns’ darkest days.
So, it was sweet, indeed, when Bill’s celebrated Patriots took a knee on their last play to end the slaughter at the hands of the resurgent Browns. It was heartwarming to see Bill Belichick literally brought to his knees. Ah! Redemption and revenge on the same Sunday afternoon.
2. The Giants Defeat Texas in the World Series
I’ll admit that I’ve never been a San Francisco Giants fan. Something about that catch Willie Mays made in the ’54 Series that crushed my Tribe’s hopes.
Okay, the Giants were still in New York then, but it’s still the same franchise, right?
I’ll also admit that I don’t really care that the Giants have just won the World Series for the first time since moving to San Francisco.
So what is it about the Giants’ MLB Championship that brings me joy? I have two good reasons to be happy about San Francisco whipping Texas this year.
A. I love the idea of San Francisco, home of the demonized Nancy Pelosi, gay marriage, and all things liberal kicking butt on the team from a right-leaning, Neanderthal state led by a secessionist governor
B. The Texas Rangers are George Bush’s team. Poppy Bush was on hand to watch his wretched son throw out the first pitch before Game 4: a game the Giants won 4-0. I’m delighted that the Bush crime family was denied a reason to celebrate – and Dubya got less publicity for his whitewashed, self-serving memoir.
3. Sharron Angle Loses in Nevada
Senator Harry Reid’s 50% to 44% reelection over Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle proves that there just aren’t enough Limbaugh lemmings, numbskulls and racists in Nevada to win statewide office.
Thus, our great nation was spared the danger and embarrassment of six years of Sharron Angle’s lunacy in the upper chamber of Congress.
4. Christine O’Donnell Loses in Delaware
She may not be a witch, but thanks to the sanity of voters in the first state to ratify the US Constitution, she’s not the junior Senator from Delaware, either.
5. Meg and Carly Lose in California
Meg Whitman spent over $140 million of her own money to buy the California Governor’s seat. Carly Fiorina spent a relatively paltry $5.5 million of her own cash in a losing effort to unseat our liberal California Senator Barbara Boxer. It was great to know that my adopted home state could not be bought. (Not this election cycle, at least.)
6. 151,000 Jobs Added in October
The U.S. Labor Department has just reported that 159,000 private sector jobs were added in October, 2010. Factoring in government job cuts — which totaled 8,000 last month — the economy added 151,000 jobs in October. It was the first increase in total payroll since April, and private companies have now added jobs for 10 straight months. We’re not out of the dark by any means, but there’s a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Unless incoming Speaker Boehner and the wrong-way economic drivers in the GOP House caucus find a way to wrestle the car keys from President Obama and run us back into the ditch.
7. Stock Market Above 11,000
Have you checked your 401K or pension accounts lately? Remember how they looked when Bush’s economic chickens came home to roost? Or when Bush’s economic goose was cooked?
Whatever the poultry metaphor, the stock market bulls have sprouted wings again.
8. McRib is Back
I can’t remember when the McRib went away – but now it’s back. I plan to have one soon, although I don’t know why. The last one I ate several years ago didn’t taste much like ribs, but the barbecue sauce was passable. (Let’s face it. I’ll eat an old shoe if it’s slathered with the right barbecue sauce.)
McRib debuted in ‘81 and went away in ’85. Then, in ’94, the McRib returned as a tie-in with the film, “The Flintstones”. McDonald’s announced in ‘05 that the McRib would be mothballed again following a “McRib Farewell Tour.” At the same time, McDonald’s promoted a “Save the McRib” campaign sponsored by the “Boneless Pig Farmers Association of America.” Very funny. Just not very tasty.
And now the McRib is back again! Somehow, for no earthly reason at all other than it confirms the basic, good-natured naiveté and eager enthusiasm of Americans, I’m glad to see this oddball sandwich back on the menu.
9. Marty Still Alive on “Survivor”
Forty-eight year old, Marty Piombo of Mill Valley, California is my favorite contestant on the current season of “Survivor” – my favorite TV show. This season the series was shot in Nicaragua featuring younger players against older players. So far, the youngsters have the upper hand – but craft, cunning, Machiavellian Marty is still alive – and thus, vicariously, so am I.
UPDATE: Alas, Marty’s flame was snuffed out on Wednesday 11/10 through the treachery of the lovely yet diabolical Brenda. Gotta root for Fabio now.
10. Cleveland Cavaliers Still Winning
Despite the much-ballyhooed loss of LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers have not collapsed. Led by coach Byron Scott, the 3-3 Cavs currently have a share of first place in the NBA’s Central Division.
If the Cavaliers reach the playoffs without LeBron, ex-Laker star Byron Scott should be NBA Coach of the Year.
So, those are the items in the news that are making me smile. What are YOUR rays of sunshine?
On Election Day 2010, while much of America was awash in rancid Tea and the GOP, one state was left standing as a progressive firewall: California.
The wise people of my adopted home state rejected millions of dollars of secretly-funded corporate attack ads and the self-funded, ego-driven campaigns of out-sourcing, out-of-touch CEO multi-millionaires. Californians bucked the national trend and elected Democrats to every statewide office — from U.S. Senator to Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Controller, Attorney General, Insurance Commissioner — and on down the ballot.
To celebrate California’s stand for political sanity, I rushed out to buy a series of postcards to send to the rest of America. With love, of course.And for our New York friends, who also came up big for the progressive cause…
With the continuing misadventures of the Tea Party candidates, Election Season 2010 has, despite the efforts of Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, entered the realm of Beyond Satire.
Radical policy positions that would have seemed extreme in any other election year – such as abolishing the Department of Education, ending Social Security, and requiring victims of rape and incest to give birth to their attackers’ progeny – are no longer confined to the far right wing of GOP politics. Given the Tea Party’s success in GOP primaries, it appears that anti-government dogma, anti-immigrant hysteria and Taliban-like anti-female and anti-gay social conservatism may become central planks in the mainstream Republican Party platform in 2012.
Of course, there’s also an undercurrent of creeping fascism — which is really creepy — but let’s stick with the outright crazy stuff for the moment. After all, even the more sane, sophisticated and relatively humorless right wing ideologues and corporate robber barons have to be stunned by the pageant of unskilled, unfettered, uneducated and unhinged campaigning on display in the run up to November 2, 2010.
In many states across the country, political aspirants with scant experience in public service who would have been considered fringe candidates in the past (if not the lunatic fringe) are now making national headlines on the campaign trail, in debates, and on the Sunday talk shows.
You’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.
Here, then, are some of the biggest jokes of the 2010 election. There have been so many wacky (actually quite scary) moments involving today’s kooky crop of candidates that it’s time to round up Mid-Term Madness: The Top Ten.
1. Aqua Buddha
Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul, a Republican darling of the Tea Party movement, had already raised eyebrows with many of his extreme anti-government positions, borne of his passion for novelist Ayn Rand’s everybody-for-themselves Objectivist philosophy. But if wanting to do away with public schools and Social Security didn’t brand Rand Paul a fringe candidate, what would Kentuckians make of accusations that, when he was in college, Rand Paul tied a woman up and forced her to bow down before the “Aqua Buddha”? (Which sounds, to me, a lot like some sort of exotic bong.)
The candidate’s still-anonymous accuser said he “took me out to this creek and made me worship Aqua Buddha.”
She added that the whole thing was so “weird” that she ended relations with Paul and his friends. But will Kentucky voters end their weird relationship with Rand Paul? In 2010, who can say?
2. “I’m Not A Witch”
Christine O’Donnell, Delaware’s Republican nominee and Sarah Palin’s endorsed Tea Party candidate for Joe Biden’s Senate seat, spent a lot of the 1990’s as a chirpy, sexy, conservative talking head on TV shows like Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect. As a result, Mr. Maher had a lot of video clips with which to torture O’Donnell’s candidacy, including her prudish crusade against masturbation and her startling admission that she “dabbled in witchcraft” while in high school.
The facts that O’Donnell has no real qualifications for high office, has lied about her education bona fides (no, she didn’t attend Cambridge) and can’t recall a single Supreme Court decision haven’t dampened her Tea Party support – but the witchcraft thing pricked the deaf ears of even the lowest-information Delaware voters.
As a result, O’Donnell had to spend good money on a statewide television ad to declare, “I’m not a witch.” (President Nixon must have been chuckling in his grave.) But the craziest part of the ad is when O’Donnell says, “I am you.” Oh really, Christine? I don’t think so.
3. The SS Candidate
How to win friends and influence people?
Well, for one thing, don’t go around proudly dressed as in a Nazi uniform.
That’s what Republican Congressional nominee Rich Iott, whose district lies in my home state of Ohio, should have known. But, then again, parading around as a Nazi is such a good time, right?
Mr. Iott is a military history and reenactment buff who likes to parade around in a German Waffen SS uniform. (That’s Rich Iott dressed in Nazi drag in the picture at left. He’s the guy second from right. Far right, that is.) Candidate Iott also likes to participate in Nazi re-enactments. So, what’s wrong with that?
After all, Iott says his interest in Nazi Germany is historical and he doesn’t subscribe to Nazism – and some on the right wing have defended him, arguing that Iott also attends Civil War re-enactments in a Union army uniform.
The problem is that the Waffen SS were a particularly evil bunch of murderous rat bastards.
Unlike the conscripted citizen soldiers of the regular German Army (or Wehrmacht), the Waffen SS were a volunteer arm of the Nazi Party that enthusiastically committed countless war crimes and atrocities, including their prominent role in the slaughter of Jews and other “undesirables.” That should make Rich Iott undesirable as a Congressman from my home state. But will it?
Above is a photo of Rich in his jaunty Nazi cap, third from the right (wing).
4. Mr. Green (Does Not) Go To Washington
No state can outdo South Carolina for crazy. But what happened in the 2010 Democratic primary was absolutely nuts. Somehow, an unemployed 32-year-old Army veteran named Alvin Greene with no campaign funds, no posters and no website defeated a well-funded former judge and state legislator, Vic Rawl, for the right to oppose the incumbent GOP Senator Jim DeMint, another Tea Party darling. The mainstream media ignored the possibility of electronic vote tampering and dirty tricks leading to Greene’s election – but they couldn’t ignore how spectacularly unsuited and unprepared Greene was to campaign for, much less hold, a high office.
And if it wasn’t strange enough that a guy with no political experience, unemployed for nine months, somehow paid a $10,400 filing fee and all his other campaign expenses from his own personal funds – the sad, self-defeating saga of Alvin Greene got more bizarre when a Richland County grand jury indicted him for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity (a felony) as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.
According to prosecutors, Greene approached a female student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her some obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room. When a reporter from a local TV station pressed Greene to elaborate on the indictment, the accidental candidate told the reporter to “leave [his] property” and “go away.” Unlike Jim DeMint, I wish this whole sorry example of political dysfunction (and dog whistle race baiting) would go away.
5. Headless Bodies in the Arizona Desert
Batty, blustering Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s erratic reelection campaign has earned her two spots on this list. Brewer’s relentless demagoguery on the immigration issue and her support for Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (the “show me your papers” law) have made her a darling of the right in that troubled border state, despite the fact that she’s several bricks shy of a load. In fact, in her zeal to portray the threat from illegal immigration in as dire a light as possible, Brewer finally lost her head.
As Dana Milbank wrote in the July 11th edition of The Washington Post, “The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. ‘Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded.’” She also mentioned “beheadings” on Fox News. (One can only imagine the cutting, incisive follow up questions from her Fox interlocutor.) Two months later, with no evidence of any headless bodies littering the Arizona desert, and no law enforcement officials willing to back her claims, Governor Brewer conceded she “misspoke” when she claimed that headless bodies were found in her state’s desert. But her half-hearted semi-apologia came only after her Democratic opponent decapitated Brewer over her headless nonsense in their gubernatorial debate. And how did she handle the issue with the press immediately after the debate? You gotta see it to believe it.
6. Jan Brewer’s (Very) Long Pause
Jan Brewers absolutely stunning (actually, stunned) opening statement in the Arizona Gubernatorial Debate on September 1st must also be seen to be believed.
Only in wacky, way-out Elections Season 2010 could a politician possibly survive turning in a performance like this on a televised debate.
7. Carl Paladino
The New York Republican Party had planned to run former U.S. Representative Rick Lazio to become the Republican candidate for New York governor in the race against Democrat Andrew Cuomo, the son of the revered former Governor Mario Cuomo. Instead, thanks to the Tea Party’s clout in the NY primary, they got little-known businessman Carl Paladino. According to Dick Brennan in The Queens Courier, “Paladino has been dubbed by some as ‘Crazy Carl,’ but the reality is that Paladino is crazy like a fox. Nobody can figure out his strategy, so why not just call him a nut? In fact, the multimillionaire from Buffalo is following a plan, and sticking to it with great discipline.It’s easy to see the first part of his program: hit and run politics, guerilla war, throw your bombs and run for cover. By bombs we mean politically incorrect statements, the more outrageous the better.”
Among the rhetorical bombs tossed by Paladino are his claims that students are being “brainwashed” into believing that the gay lifestyle is a valid option. (This from a guy whose son is the landlord for two gay bars.) Out of the blue, Paladino criticized the media for not asking completely unfounded questions about Cuomo’s marital fidelity. (Crazy Carl claimed to have evidence, but revealed none.) And then there’s Paladino’s penchant for off-color e-mails, like the video he sent to friends of Africans dancing in traditional dress that was titled “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal” – and the video he forwarded of a woman having sex with a horse. The Tea Party doesn’t seem to have the most vigorous vetting process, does it?
8. Sharron Angle
Did I mention that The Tea Party doesn’t seem to have the most vigorous vetting process?
Of all the Senate Democrats in trouble this election season, Harry Reid of Nevada looked like a soft target for the GOP this fall. Nevada’s economy has been devastated by the housing crisis and Harry Reid is, well, Harry Reid. A decent, stalwart, western Democrat – but not the most charismatic or inspirational politician one could hope for. (As a Californian, I see Harry as the Gray Davis of Nevada.) But, once again, The Tea Party insurgents blew up the GOP’s hope for an easy victory by nominating the most spectacularly unqualified, un-muzzled, and unbelievably obtuse candidate to contend against Reid: Sharron Angle, an ultra-right former member of the Nevada state legislature.
Daniel Kurtzman has listed “The 10 Most Ridiculous Sharron Angle Quotes (So Far)” at About.com (and you should check them all out.) They don’t even include her recent suggestion that many of the Hispanic high school kids she was speaking to looked Asian to her. But here’s just a few…
“People ask me, ‘What are you going to do to develop jobs in your state?’ Well, that’s not my job as a U.S. senator.”
“The Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. The Department of Education is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level.”
And she said this to explain why she opposes abortion — even in cases of rape or incest. “I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.” Only amid the madness of Mid-Terms 2010 could such a fringe nutcase become Nevada’s junior Senator.
9. Joe Miller or Joe Stalin?
Ah, Alaska! The state the just keeps giving to satirists, cynics and those awaiting signs that the end of the world is upon us. Now the Tea Party voters of Alaska, with the endorsement of no less an authority on wacko, vacuous, right wing politics than Sarah Palin, have given us Joe Miller: he of the permanent five o’clock shadow – and shadowy ideas about how to govern our country. But you’d think that a candidate representing the party of St. Ronald Reagan, who famously stood before the Berlin Wall and uttered the words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” would be loathe to show admiration for Joe Stalin’s infamous Cold War barrier to freedom. Alas, in 2010, any strange thing is possible.
In fact, at a town hall meeting, GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller praised East Germany as a model for how the U.S. might defend its borders. According to Joe (that’s Miller, not Stalin, though I can understand the confusion), “East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow,” of cross-border traffic. “Now, obviously, other things there were involved,” Miller conceded, but… “We have the capacity, as a great nation, obviously, to secure our border. If East Germany could, we could.”
Of course, awful visions of barbed wire, machine guns and Checkpoint Charlie aside, Joe Miller fails to understand that the Berlin Wall was built to keep East Germans in – not to keep illegal immigrants out.
Can being such a wacko keep Joe Miller out of the Senate?
Let’s hope so.
A guy like Miller almost makes me want to write in M..u..r..k..o..w..s..k..i. Then again, now that this is a three-way race, the Democrat, former Sitka mayor Scott McAdams, just might sneak in. Provided Joe doesn’t build that wall to keep him out.
10. Sarah Palin as Tea Party Kingmaker
That’s all you need to know about the lunacy of Election 2010. A know-nothing former pageant princess, ex-mayor of a tiny town, failed Governor, failed Vice Presidential candidate and a woman who quit her job working for the people of Alaska to line her pockets at Fox News, TLC and anywhere they’ll pay her big bucks to speak – is somehow a Tea Party kingmaker, capable up upsetting the mainstream GOP applecart. It’s actually fun to watch. Just imagine how the relationship between Mitch McConnell and John McCain is going lately.
Thanks, Senator McCain. If you hadn’t chosen Sarah Palin as your running mate, the GOP might have had a good chance of taking the Senate in 2010. So you could say all this mid-term madness started with McCain.
No nutty deed goes unpunished. Especially in this election season.
And now, the dream GOP/Teas Party ticket for 2012…
Now, that would be truly beyond satire. (Oh, but we’d have to try, wouldn’t we?)
Sometimes it helps to have a vision.
Picture in your mind and heart the moment the television networks announce the shocking news – early in the evening — that President Obama has carried South Carolina. Not just North Carolina, but also the Cradle of the Confederacy. (The most recent poll gives Romney only a 6-point lead in South Carolina, down from double digits not long ago.) Visualize people, visualize!
Now, picture yourself on the couch with your loved one, Chardonnay in hand, as Barack Obama sweeps the swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin – and MSNBC (who else would you be watching?) projects that Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States.
But it gets even better, if that’s possible – because now comes the wailing and gnashing of teeth among the soundly defeated and thoroughly demoralized GOP/Tea Party. With their House majority lost, their Senate minority reduced – and the White House back in Democratic hands – Karl Rove is the first to appear on Fox News and stick a knife in Romney’s back. All the tens of millions that Rove raised from all those undisclosed Super-Pac donors couldn’t sell the Romney-Ryan ticket to the American people. And “Bush’s Brain” isn’t blaming himself.
Next in the pathetic parade of Republican ruin comes GOP Chairman Reince Priebus. With an angry Tea Party mob preparing the tar and feathers outside his barricaded doors, Priebus announces his resignation as GOP chair – and his immediate departure for the Cayman Islands, where he will go into hiding along with Mitt’s money.
Then, just before we hear from Mitt Romney, the nation’s TV cameras turn to Janesville, Wisconsin, where we double our fun – because not only has Paul Ryan lost the Vice Presidency – he’s also lost his Congressional seat! Pop some more popcorn! Uncork another bottle of Chardonnay! Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” are plummeting even as he speaks…
And now, it’s Romney’s turn to concede defeat. Socially, Mitt tried to drag us back into the 1950’s while economically trying to return us to the fiscal glory (make that “gory”) days of George W. Bush. America sent him packing – just like Mitt and the Bain Gang packed up so many American factories and sent those jobs overseas. Mitt announces that his wife Ann is turning him out to pasture along with her dressage horse, Refalca – both losers this year. (Ironically, Mitt didn’t even get 47 percent of the vote.)
10 Rays of Sunshine…
So, in no particular order, here are 10 Rays of Sunshine that are providing me with some light amid the gloom.
1. The Browns Beat New England
So, it was sweet, indeed, when Bill’s celebrated Patriots took a knee on their last play to end the slaughter at the hands of the resurgent Browns. It was heartwarming to see Bill Belichick literally brought to his knees. Ah! Redemption and revenge on the same Sunday afternoon.
2. The Giants Defeat Texas in the World Series
Okay, the Giants were still in New York then, but it’s still the same franchise, right?
So what is it about the Giants’ MLB Championship that brings me joy? I have two good reasons to be happy about San Francisco whipping Texas this year.
A. I love the idea of San Francisco, home of the demonized Nancy Pelosi, gay marriage, and all things liberal kicking butt on the team from a right-leaning, Neanderthal state led by a secessionist governor
3. Sharron Angle Loses in Nevada
Thus, our great nation was spared the danger and embarrassment of six years of Sharron Angle’s lunacy in the upper chamber of Congress.
She may not be a witch, but thanks to the sanity of voters in the first state to ratify the US Constitution, she’s not the junior Senator from Delaware, either.
5. Meg and Carly Lose in California
6. 151,000 Jobs Added in October
7. Stock Market Above 11,000
Whatever the poultry metaphor, the stock market bulls have sprouted wings again.
8. McRib is Back
And now the McRib is back again! Somehow, for no earthly reason at all other than it confirms the basic, good-natured naiveté and eager enthusiasm of Americans, I’m glad to see this oddball sandwich back on the menu.
9. Marty Still Alive on “Survivor”
UPDATE: Alas, Marty’s flame was snuffed out on Wednesday 11/10 through the treachery of the lovely yet diabolical Brenda. Gotta root for Fabio now.
Despite the much-ballyhooed loss of LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers have not collapsed. Led by coach Byron Scott, the 3-3 Cavs currently have a share of first place in the NBA’s Central Division.
If the Cavaliers reach the playoffs without LeBron, ex-Laker star Byron Scott should be NBA Coach of the Year.
So, those are the items in the news that are making me smile. What are YOUR rays of sunshine?
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Tagged as Barbara Boxer, Bill Belichik, Byron Scott, Carly Fiorina, Cavaliers, Christine O'Donnell, Cleveland, Cleveland Browns, Giants, jobs, McRib, Meg Whitman, Patriots, Sharron Angle, stock market, Survivor, Tea Party, Texas Rangers, World Series