Thursday, May 31, 2012

Abolish polling

I'm increasingly convinced the media obsession with daily polling is at the root of our failed political discourse. They waste endless time and money on the polling, and then waste oceans of bandwidth analyzing the results. It's all meaningless. Elections don't rest on the past in this country. They're decided in the last days, more often than not, on some unpredictable seminal event.

We need to look no further back than the polls of 2008 showing McCain leading at various times right up to the economic meltdown. The people who spent their time telling us what it all means, were almost all wrong. These are the same people who are telling us what the 2012 polls mean. They're still wrong. They mean nothing. Even less nothing now that there's so many damn pollsters out there who daily come up with wildly varying results. Polls are easily manipulated. The results inevitably rest on who's paying to conduct them.

There are days I think we should just make them illegal. They do nothing to inform and much to harm the electoral process.

Addendum: And here pops up Sabato's Crystal Ball, who points out pollsters have only correctly predicted the outcome twice in the last eight elections. As he says, might as well just flip a coin.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Time to kick Fox out of the White House Press Corps

I'm serious. They kicked Helen Thomas out for less. Fox spewed four minutes of pure GOP propaganda into the airwaves yesterday morning. I would love for someone to explain to me why they should still have a seat in the front row after doing this:
With Mitt Romney now officially President Obama's opponent, it truly appears to be game on at the Fox News channel -- at least, if this morning's "Fox & Friends" is any indication.

Today's version of the morning show featured an anti-Obama video that resembled propaganda films from 1930's Europe more than it did responsible TV politics of today.

And the remarkable thing was the witless crew on the couch that serves as hosts for this show had the audacity to present it as journalism and congratulate the producer who put it together.
Fox claims Roger Ailes had no idea such a shamelessly partisan hit piece was in the works. If you believe that, I have some ocean front property in Arizona I can sell you at a bargain rate. Nothing happens at Fox and Friends that Roger doesn't know about. They didn't say anything he would find objectionable.

They will get away with making some junior associate producer the scapegoat. Maybe he'll even get fired instead of merely enduring a sternly worded reprimand. But that's not enough. The video can't be unseen. It has already done its damage to responsible journalism and the integrity of the electoral process. And as Oliver points out this Fox hit job is worth 100K of in-kind political contribution. Possibly more, since they aired the video twice.

Of course, the WHPC isn't going to be making a big deal about their "sister network" effectively acting as a media contractor for Mitt Romney's campaign. No one will even think of kicking Fox out of the front row, ironically a seat they only "won" after they all decided Helen Thomas committed a mortal sin by making one intemperate remark at a private event. A remark that only became public because somebody put a video on the internet and then Helen's "brothers and sisters" in the media joined in collective outrage and broadcast it all over creation. Hardly rises to the level of deliberately airing a virtual campaign ad, filled with false innuendo, to millions of viewers on an national TV.

So far, the worst thing that's going to Fox appears to be the junior producer lost a job offer at CNN. [More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Sick leave

Sorry I disappeared. Just realized it's been days since I've posted a thing anywhere. Been on the disabled list. Somehow managed to put my back out while I was sleeping. Been in intense pain for days. I'm not stoic about being in pain. I whimper and mope and feel sorry for myself. Interferes with the writing thing.

I have been reading the news and saving links, but haven't been able to focus my thoughts to comment on anything. However, I seem to have taken enough drugs at this point to at least type without screaming in pain, so I'm going to try to clean up a few old links this afternoon. Posts to follow.
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Monday, May 28, 2012

We don't need another hero

Inadvertently got caught up in the periphery of an internet outrage last night. Didn't have a clue what was going on, but after seeing five references in the first ten tweets in my timeline to some big pile on against Chris Hayes, I instinctively tweeted my support, just on general principle. I've been following him for long enough to know he would never do anything deliberately hurtful or insulting.

Discovered a fair number of insults from strangers in my mentions this morning criticizing my tweet. Then I got the skinny on what Chris actually said, and I was right. Chris merely made a nuanced remark about war heroes:
“I feel… uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”
Hero is such a loaded word. One might think of our fallen military troops as victims and still appreciate the sacrifice of life in service to their country. Indeed, Chris made that point too.
Hayes did acknowledge the other side of the argument, namely that there is no mandatory conscription and service is purely voluntary, therefore all those who choose to sign up and take heavy risks are heroes in their own right.
Chris raises a valid question. It's useful to ponder if the glorification of war contributes to mankind's proclivity to resolve differences with violence and all too often unnecessary death. And frankly it's always bothered me that we never really pay proper tribute to military troops who die long after they come home from the battlefront. A widely circulated statistic on the internet this week reminds us that more veterans of our most recent wars have died of suicide than combat. Yet no one proclaims them as heroes even though their deaths are equally attributable to their service.

I'm a life long pacifist. To me the best way to honor our war dead is to stop having wars. Granted not a realistic goal, but my preferred solution nonetheless. Which brings to mind this song, from whence I took the post title.



[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Hey Mambo

Wish there was actual footage of her performance for this one but the recording is so good, I'm posting it anyway. Not quite PC I guess, but for reasons I no longer remember this was one of my favorite songs as a child. The song was covered by many. I vaguely remember Dean Martin doing it. But no one did it like Rosemary.



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Saturday, May 26, 2012

Jumping on The Choomwagon

I wasn't even going to read this, but after I saw about a million references to The Choom Gang on the twitter, I did. And I'm passing it on to you because I love you all and want you to be aware of all internet traditions.

It seems our President smoked a lot of pot in his youth. As did I. We had similar silly rituals around the process. And we both rode around in a friend's red and white VW bus. In fact, I was often the designated driver of Tim's bus because everyone else was too trashed to drive. Our bus actually didn't look this good. And we didn't call it the Choomwagon.



I also had my own car that my gang dubbed The Spacemobile. That wasn't so much because we drove around smoking pot in it. We didn't, though I certainly ferried around a lot of stoned hippies in that car. Mainly it was because of the dashboard. It really did look just like a spaceship, especially with the push button tranny. I really loved this car.



Meanwhile, didn't read any of their posts, but judging from the headers, the usual wingnuts seem to think this is a damaging revelation. But I don't see how the fact that the president basically had the same childhood as nearly everyone I know over the age of fifty is a problem. We all grew up to be responsible, sober adults despite the teenage experimentation. If anything it humanizes him and underlines his common man creds.

The only possible reason this might hurt Obama is that his administration's drug war policy has been dismal, particularly on marijuana. More specifically medical marijuana. Busting dispensaries and whatnot in states where it's been legalized, especially when he promised not to, hasn't won him any friends in the drug reform community. It's not so small a voting bloc that it should be thrown away lightly. In a close election, it could make the difference between losing and winning.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Why I won't give one penny to the DNC: Part 10,987

Actually this is why I won't give a cent to any of the national Democratic election committees. Exhibit One: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, current idiot in chief, who is apparently responsible for the DNC's almost total disinterest in the Wisconsin recall elections:
“I think, honestly, there aren’t going to be any repercussions,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in a broad-ranging interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers.”

“It’s an election that’s based in Wisconsin. It’s an election that I think is important nationally because Scott Walker is an example of how extreme the tea party has been when it comes to the policies that they have pushed the Republicans to adopt,” Wasserman Schultz said. “But I think it’ll be, at the end of the day, a Wisconsin-based election, and like I said, across the rest of the country and including in Wisconsin, President Obama is ahead.”
Charlie Pierce has already written the definitive rebuttal to that idiocy:
Make no mistake. Recalling Scott Walker is a big honking deal. America is full these days of Republican governors who overrreached, and whose political support is trembly at best, whether it's Snyder in Michigan, or Kasich in Ohio, or Bat Boy down in Florida, whose chief-of-staff just resigned in a hail of conflicts of interest — or, as Governor Bat Boy calls it, "Monday." Bringing down Walker would bring more heat on all these guys, to say nothing of energizing labor for the campaigns ahead. Anybody who doesn't recognize the Wisconsin recall as a national event hasn't been paying attention. Certainly, the Republicans recognize it as such; Walker's been in Wisconsin less than Ryan Braun has in the past few months.
This is why Republicans win. The GOP, via various channels, including of course superPAC front groups and the Koch brothers who have a proprietary interest in the state, have been pouring millions into the recall. Republicans have been able to outspend Democrats by something like 20-1 in advertising. All the Democrats asked the DNC for was a paltry 500K to finance the GOTV ground work. As far as I know the DNC still hasn't contributed jack to the effort, because Debbie is not worried about the national implications.

This is a close race. That few hundred thousand would make a difference and a win would energize the Democrats' activist base. But the DNC doesn't really want to empower the activists. They hate it when activists insist the party paltform should reflect traditional Democratic values and fight for socially progressive policy. The only tradition DNC wants to fight for is the old guard's hold on party power.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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If he's a socialist, he's a lousy one

I'm not a fan of Bill Maher. Believe I watched his TV show exactly twice. Generally find him irritating and inclined to make stupid jokes, but once in while he says something so right, he deserves some applause. Like this segment where he asks, Why are conservatives so angry about Obama?

It's a Mediaite clip which are so slow to load that I'm not going to embed it, but it's worth five minutes of your time on a holiday weekend to watch. Like the man says, if Obama is so freaking leftist and radical, how come us liberals aren't happy? Good Lord, Obama is so centrist, 20 years ago they would have called him a Republican.

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Thursday, May 24, 2012

So it's come to this

Resistance is futile. Everything happens on the twitter.



Far as I know, this was spontaneous in that it wasn't announced long ahead of time. You know it's Obama tweeting personally when the tweet is signed: bo.

Also noticed when I looked at an old WaPo link today that they're running a tweetmeter on the bottom of at least some posts. It gave a tally on twitter mentions. Obama is winning that right now.

Which means exactly nothing, but the Villagers are suddenly bowled over by the power of the the twitters and they now care about the metrics, (she said with perverse amusement).

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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With Obama you get Clooney

With Romney, you get dinner with The Donald...

Seriously, send in the paramedics because I might die from laughing so hard. Taking a cue from President Obama's "dinner with" fundraisers, Willard is offering up the chance of a lifetime:
"I want you: Dine with the Donald," a campaign flier proclaims, along with a drawing of Trump.

The campaign offers: "Airport transportation in the Trump vehicle; Stay at the Trump International Hotel & Tower New York; Tour the Celebrity Apprentice Boardroom; Dine with Donald Trump and Mitt Romney."
And what an enticing poster it is:



But it gets better. Joining this dynamic duo on the campaign trail will be none other than the GOP's own historian, the Newtster. Or as I will forever think of them from now on, The Three Stooges. I guess this means birtherism is the new true conservatism.

Lordy, they make The Three Amigos of 2008 (McCain, Graham and Lieberman) look brilliant in comparison.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Guess who is coming around on health care

File this under things I never expected to see:
This isn't capitalism. It's rentier theft, using the power that doctors and hospitals have over patients to rip them off. And when the result of that is a massive distortion of the economy and a bankrupting of the federal government, it seems to me that government should step in. I'm beginning to wonder if, in the case of healthcare, the only way to advance fiscal conservatism is through a much more socialized medical system. When I first entered this debate, single-payer seemed the worst option to me. But the more I have understood, the saner it appears. If the free market cannot work in healthcare - and it has failed spectacularly in this country to provide even a semblance of value-for-money - then it may be time to grasp the nettle. ~Andrew Sullivan
If only he had come around to this ephiphany back when health care reform was being debated...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Fighting for women

With the "women's vote" becoming the new holy grail of this election, much attention is being paid to "women's issues." A lot of posturing going on, but this Equal Pay Act is a solid move for women's rights being undertaken by Democratic women Senators:
Five female Democratic senators talked up the bill Wednesday afternoon during a Capitol briefing — and made clear they intend to hammer Republicans as anti-women if they stand in its way. “As I look at the record of Republicans on women, it is not good,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). “Personally I say it’s a war on women, and the more they protest it the more I say it. Because I really, truly believe it. They filibustered the Paycheck Fairness Act before. They left millions of women out of the Violence Against Women Act. They launched repeated attacks on women’s health including denying affordable access to birth control. They want to criminalize a woman’s right to choose. And they tried to repeal health reform, which prohibits discrimination because of gender — not to mention, makes investments in prevention.”
All kinds of stats being floated around the internets about equal pay today. Most striking being the disparity in pay for equal work over a woman's lifetime is enough to feed a family of four for 37 years or something like that.

Contrast that to the Republican women in the House, who put together a video featuring all 24 GOP Congresswoman this week, for the express purpose of countering the claims that Republicans are waging a War on Women's Rights.

This is to mark the formation of GOP Women’s Policy Committee and no, I'm not linking to the video, you can watch it at the embedded link, but it's hardly worth the time. They offer no policy prescriptions, only the usual tired platitudes:
“As mothers, grandmothers, daughters, wives and sister, women often see things in a different context,” said the caucus’s chairwoman, Mary Bono Mack of California. “As Republican women, we have some really unique ideas for moving our nation forward, and we’re excited about working together to find solutions.”
It ends with Crazy Eyes Bachmann telling us that GOP women are mothers, small businesswoman and important politicians, who know how to balance a household budget and collectively have a deep concern for women's rights. They all have a burning desire to “make America great again.” Conspicuously missing is a tally of their votes on the bills addressing women's rights that have come before them so far. If memory serves, they have almost unanimously voted against every bill that would protect or advance them. Would have been helpful if someone mentioned that in the coverage of the video launch. But if anyone did, I didn't see it.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies

Well, campaign season just officially opened for me. Failed presidental contender and sporadic co-blogger Congressman Thad McCotter is posting to my blog. And when I say my blog, I mean the blog I virtually built at Detroit News, but don't own in any way. Nonetheless, when I started eight years ago, it was the only blog on the site and at this point -- I've been there much longer than most of the people who are now in charge. But I digress...

Thad posted about his Codel to Taiwan. An interesting and well written post actually, but nonetheless, irritated me because his long history of deficit alarmism is still ringing in my ears. So I commented:
I'm wondering why an in person meeting was necessary. This is 2012. Video teleconferencing is widely available. What with the Congressman's great concern about our deficit, would love to know how much this little junket cost the taxpayers.
Not expecting an answer. Half expecting to get deleted for daring to ask the question.

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I don't want to, talk about it

To be clear, I haven't seen it, but judging from the description, Hustler's rancid photoshop of S.E. Cupp, and apparently various other woman celebrities, is disgraceful, debasing and they deserve to be sued for using the women's photos without their permission. The disclaimer doesn't excuse it:
Cupp is part of a new Hustler graphic on celebrities. In the feature, they place a penis in the woman’s mouth. They’re calling it “Celebrity Fantasy.”

There is a “disclaimer” saying that “no such picture actually exists.” Still, Cupp is hopping mad and told Beck as much this morning when he interviewed her. They discussed how it would stick with her and affect her future (kids, etc…) and how it will make its way around the internet.
How it might make its way around the internet is what won't really be frankly discussed. I assume Cupp and Beck were anticipating evil liberals would be behind any viral dissemination. Already, the usual suspects in the wingnut wurlitzer are screaming about an attack on her Cupp's conservative values. But I don't think that's true.

What nobody wants to acknowledge is Hustler is pitching to a specific audience. And it's not lefties. I didn't see a single left winger in my corner of the intertubz who was applauding this hideous series or passing on the photo. But I'm guessing I will eventually get it in my email. From the far right wing list I'm on.

That's the dirty secret that no one wants to say out loud. The wingers on that list are not bad people, but some of the guys on it have barely evolved from Neanderthal when it comes to wimmen. I would bet good money that at least half of Ms. Cupp's male fan base has fantasized that very scenario.

Hustler doesn't care about politics. They care about selling magazines. As does every other publication in their genre. In case you haven't heard, print media is struggling to make money right now. With the added publicity, pretty sure Hustler will sell a lot of that issue. But what no one wants to talk about is -- a lot of the buyers will be Ms. Cupp's fans.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Life's little milestones

Not one who likes to boast, but I've been toiling away in varying degrees of total obscurity at this blogging thing for nine years and counting now. And I'm still not so jaded that a link in an establishment news site doesn't still give a me a little thrill. Discovered quite by accident yesterday that an old Detroit News post of mine was linked in both the WaPo and the WSJ.

No name check, just a bare link, but still it's encouraging to see my work spread even just a little beyond my usual venues. Jamelle, sitting in for Greg at The Plum Line linked me in at this sentence:
Instead, Gingrich argued in a news conference in January, Romney was a “vulture capitalist” who did more to extract wealth than create it:
Then that post was quoted in this WSJ blog along with the link. Pretty sure I've never been linked in either before so thanks Jamelle, fun to get two firsts in one day. Encourages me to keep this little hobby going.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Hey big spender

Perhaps the greatest success of the GOP smear machine, and the best illustration of our failed media experiment, is the fully entrenched Obama is a big spender lie. As Nutting points out here, even the occasional Democrat buys into that one.
But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.
After adjusting for inflation, spending under Obama is falling at a 1.4% annual pace — the first decline in real spending since the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon was retreating from the quagmire in Vietnam.

In per-capita terms, real spending will drop by nearly 5% from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (measured in 2009 dollars).
Yet you have every major GOPer from the Romneybot to McConnell to Boehner pounding the podium, wailing about "the prairie fire of spending" since Obama took office which our stenographic media dutifully reports verbatim without ever once mentioning it's the freaking lie of the century. Hell, we're lucky Politifact has never decided to check that one. After a diligent search, they're bound to find a misplaced comma somewhere in the analysis and declare it mostly true.

This is how GOPers keep getting elected and why they don't bother at all to hide their lies. Why would they? Not only do they pay no price, they get rewarded for it. [via]

[Thanks to Michael J.W. Stickings filling in at Mike's Blog Round Up for kindly linking in. And you're not reading him every day at The Reaction where once I co-blogged myself, you're missing out on some of the best analysis on the interwebs]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Monday, May 21, 2012

Find the cost of freedom

I've been in major burnout for the last couple of weeks. Still read the news every single day for hours though and do have some number of saved links to the few items that seemed worth talking about. This one struck me as significant. It appears our financial overlords are noticing climate change might be bad for business after all.
An example? “Global warming is relevant to the risk of catastrophic floods,” said Lehmann. “It is relevant to crop losses from drought, and we see scientific consensus as suggesting those concerns must be taken seriously as we evaluate federal subsidies for flood insurance and crop insurance.”
To which Anne Laurie adds:
[My emphases.] Shorter R Street: Look, denying reality was fine as long as our funders were paying us more than we’d lose when the digestive byproduct hit the fan. But we can’t afford to base insurance calculations on wishful thinking—we’re operating as libertarians, for pete’s sake!
In other words, the cost effectiveness of denialism is diminishing. That may be the only thing that could save this planet. Adding, Tom Toles forgive me for stealing this cartoon; it's just too perfect not to archive.

Which reminded me of this song. "Mother Earth will swallow you, Lay your body down." She always wins in the end.

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You'll never see them on TV again

When last we saw Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, they were explaining why Republicans are to blame for Congressional gridlock. The piece was widely disseminated and well received by all but the usual partisan whiners, which of course made both of these guys persona non grata on the bobblehead circuit.

Almost missed their recent follow up on how to repair Congressional gridlock. Worth reading in full but their best points were a balanced-budget amendment can not fix the economy and possible solutions would be to restore majority rule in the Senate and make voting mandatory. Especially like the proposal to issue small fines for failing to vote and create a lottery for those who do, with the jackpot coming out of the fine pool. As they point out, people are willing to wait hours in lines for big lottery wins, and the odds would be somewhat better for a voters lottery. [via]

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Ring of fire

Well I was really sad not to be in viewing range of the solar eclipse yesterday. It was a good one. These were the best two photos I saw of it.

[original photo]

[original photo]

This was the best video timelapse that crossed my radar.

Last solar event I witnessed was in 1970. That was a magical one. I was hiking in a birch forest with deep snow drifts. It was spring I guess because there was a crust of corn snow. They looked like jewels in your hand. Guess I'll have to wait for 2017 to try to recreate that moment. My luck, I'll be stuck on the wrong coast again.

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Thursday, May 17, 2012

A bad case of the Ricketts

So the big buzz today was about this really stupid plan, apparently underwritten by wingnut billionaire Joe Ricketts, to resurrect the Rev. Jeremiah Wright smear against President Obama. The secret plan was leaked this morning and suddenly, these guys are all "what plan?" Ricketts denies having anything to do with it ignoring the fact his name is all over the imbecilic documents.

Romney and Grandpa McCain both made statements this afternoon condemning the effort but Romney has a tiny problem in the repudiation department. It seems it was only three months ago Mitt brought up the good Reverend Wright himself while pandering to the crazy base on Sean Hannity's show. So how did the Great White Hope of the GOP handle a press query about this today?
ROMNEY: I’m actually gonna — I’m not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was. I’ll go back and take a look at what was said there.
Yep. It's this kind of smooth, think on your feet statesmanship that's going to keep our foreign relations on a positive track. But to be fair, he is still very much in please the base mode, and it's good enough for the rubes.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Young bloodsucker

This ungrateful parasite pisses me off. Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook, renounced his US citizenship last week. He's moving to Singapore.
Saverin, who owns a roughly four percent stake of Facebook, announced that he was expatriating last week, just in time to avoid paying a federal capital gains tax on the fortune heading his way when the social site files its IPO.
Forbes Magazine, calls him an American hero for skipping out on contributing his fair share to our public commons. Then they throw up the old John Galt threat:
Saverin’s departure is also a reminder to politicians that while they can obnoxiously decree what percentage of our income we’ll hand them in taxes, what they vote for won’t necessarily reflect reality. Indeed, as evidenced by Saverin’s renunciation, tax rates and collection of monies on those rates are two different things. Assuming nosebleed rates of taxation were a driver of Saverin’s decision, politicians will hopefully see that if too greedy about collecting the money of others, they’ll eventually collect nothing.
Greedy? Forbes has the gall to call the government greedy for expecting this kid to contribute a relative pittance towards upkeep of the infrastructure which allowed him to make his obscene fortune? It's no stretch to say Saverin would be nothing without US government support that allowed Facebook to flourish and further allowed Saverin to cash in when his partners tried to cut him out. Indeed, it's possible he wouldn't be alive if not for his move to the US in the first place.

This little leech was lucky. He hit it big and now skips out on the tab he rightfully owes in return. He's no hero. He's the poster boy for the unbridled greed that, even now, is shredding the social fabric of America. [graphic via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Monday, May 14, 2012

Obama takes aim at Bain

New ad from Team Obama takes a crack at Romney's alleged business cred:



Companion site to the ad, is romneyeconomics.com with a longer version of the ad and other details. I assume they'll be adding to the site as the campaign goes on.

Also related, don't often pay attention to MoveOn anymore, but this Reich explains Bain video is really well done:



Meanwhile, the wingnut forces are aswoon over a misleading headline that says a former Obama aide criticized Obama's ad. They might want to watch the video before they get too excited about passing it on. It actually reinforces the point of Obama's Bain ad:
“Mitt Romney made a mistake ever talking about the fact that he created 100,000 jobs,” Rattner said. “Bain Capital’s responsibility was never to create 100,000 jobs, or some other number, it was to make profits for its investors.” Rattner — who spent his career at Lehman Brothers and other Wall Street firms — made it clear that he thinks the ad is “unfair” only because it assumes that companies should care about their employees.
Rattner video at the link. Similarly Team Romney's pushback is also muddled, using a bizarre analogy between Bain and the auto bailout that not only isn't a valid comparison, but also underscores the stark difference between Romney's "free market can do no wrong" platform and Obama's free market can't be trusted to be a fair market without oversight approach.

Not complaining. Team Romney's incompetency is a plus in my book. Sometimes wonder if he even really wants to win anymore. It's possible he's realized by now that if he does, he'll go down in history as a mere puppet of the crazed base and quite possibly become known as the worst president in the history of the U.S. That would be worse than just losing the race.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Sunday, May 13, 2012

Happy Mother's Day



Been tied up doing family stuff this weekend. Having a laid back day myself. Slept in this morning. I'll be going out for an early Mom's Day dinner since those the only reservations we could get, so no blogging until this evening.

Hope you're all having a great day if you have a reason to celebrate. And if it's a painful day for you, hope you find comfort and peace of mind. [original photo]
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Friday, May 11, 2012

Mother's milk

I've been reading reaction to this provocative Time magazine cover today. It reminds me that I've long thought the root of much of what ails America is sexual repression, or at least discomfort with sexuality. None of which had anything to do with breastfeeding of course, but because our society is so obsessed with sexual taboos, much of the commentary I've seen about the cover has been sexualized.

Thinking the extreme reaction to the cover is based simply on our general societial discomfort with an unclothed human body. In many other countries, including most of Europe, people wouldn't find the image disturbing. Nor would they be appalled that a three year was still breast feeding. There is nothing unnatural about breastfeeding a toddler. Just because he's old enough to drink cow's milk from a glass doesn't mean he shouldn't be allowed to wean in his own time.

Which is not to say I didn't find the staging of this cover somewhat exploitive. The mother doesn't actually nurse this way. I agree with many who say it probably didn't do much to advance the cause of normalizing breastfeeding.

This was done for shock value and to drive traffic. However, like the mom in question said I understand why they did it. It did start a public conversation. Sadly, much of it wasn't constructive. But these days that's true of most of our public conversations.

All that being said, mother's milk is the healthiest option for child nourishment. There is absolutely nothing wrong with keeping a child on the breast until the mother and child decide for themselves it's time to stop. Ain't nobody's business when they do.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Lost day

Been a helluva day. My downstairs neighbor died suddenly last night, so I've been in this PTSD thing, reliving the day my Dad suddenly died. Then I had computer issues that only just resolved. And I have a dinner date in a couple of hours and I haven't even showered because the mechanic was three hours late in returning my car. Trying to catch up now, but it's likely to be late night blogging for me.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Thursday, May 10, 2012

The cons must be crazy

Actually, I should have titled this, the cons are most assuredly crazy. This is no dog whistle. It's a full volume air raid siren purposefully false and recklessly breeding paranoia and encouraging violence.


As Charlie explains:
Which leads us to Senator Aqua Buddha's latest effort on behalf of FREEEEEEEDOOOOOMMM: endorsing a campaign in which a rifle appears to be aimed at the president's head. That's bad enough, but what really takes this beyond the event horizon of wingnuttery is that this while Million Gun Campaign is a complete fantasy. It is not going to happen. There is nobody seeking to make it happen. This is a pure con, aimed at a bunch of suckers in storm cellars listening to the shortwave, or to the fillings in their teeth. And a United States senator, a member of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body, is working as the carny shill for this peculiar piece of bunco.
Adding, the target demographic for this pitch is people who have the spent the last three years stockpiling firearms and ammo. Including black guns, often referred to as assault rifles. Like the guns the military uses to mow down the enemy. And the implied target is the President of the United States.

The Dixie Chicks were mercilessly pilloried merely for saying they were ashamed of George Bush. MoveOn was widely excoriated for daring to mildly criticize General Petreaus. So why isn't anyone calling this treason? It appears to fit the actual definition of the term. [Graphic via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Kindness of strangers

Sometimes you're the recipient. Sometimes you're the bestower.

So upon my return to the Little City, I'm in line at the grocery store and the tiny little old lady behind me engages me in a long conversation about the box of Cool Whip she was buying. I saw her counting out the exact amount of the purchase in her hand. On a whim, when I got to the cashier, I asked if I could buy it for her. Of course she protested but I told her my religion required me to do something nice for a stranger and I was way behind on my tithe. She hugged me before she left.

Thought at first the cashier was pissed that I paid for a black woman. But guess she was just stunned. She said to me, "You're a rare breed."

I said, "Just paying it forward."

[Original graphic]

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False Christians - Updated

Help me. I live in a state overrun by bible thumping sociopaths. I mean the odious Amendment One passed by a 60% margin? So depressing.

I'm sure these God fearin' bullies are feeling very righteous this morning. Freaking hypocrites. I guess they missed the part in their Bible that said, "Judge not, lest you be judged." Not to mention the greatest commandment, "Love thy neighbor as thee love thyself."

Pretty sure they're not going to be raptured into heaven for this meddlesome crap.

Update: Such upstanding Christians. Looks like the proponents cheated to win. Guess they missed the do not lie or steal commandments too. [More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Indiana goes to extremes

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to your "new" Republican party. The Fox/Koch addled GOP voters kicked out Richard Lugar for being too moderate.
With 99 percent of the vote in, Lugar trailed Mourdock 60 percent to 40 percent. The 80-year-old senator congratulated Mourdock in brief remarks to supporters Tuesday night and said he hoped his primary rival would win in November, though he later released a critical statement hammering Mourdock's "unrelenting partisan mindset." [...] In his remarks Tuesday evening, Lugar said he believes "our political system still can work." "I believe that people of goodwill, regardless of party, can work together for the benefit of our country," he added.
Sadly, Mr. Lugar, your party no longer has any people of goodwill. What's left of the rank and file conservative Republicans are petty little proudly ignorant sociopaths who care more about punishing the objects of their scorn than they do about the good of our country. They're bumper sticker voters, who don't don't give a flying leap about the effects of policy. Their one burning desire is to oust that blackety black black usurper from their White House.

And here's the guy they think can take that illegimate blackety black man down.
The 60-year-old Mourdock, who told the New York Times it is "time for confrontation" as opposed to collegiality, also criticized Lugar for supporting the financial bailout, President Obama's Supreme Court nominees and raising the debt limit. His message was amplified by the Tea Party-aligned FreedomWorks, which held "activist training" sessions and made phone calls on Mourdock's behalf, and the super PAC Club for Growth, which spent more than $1.4 million on the race. (Lugar's campaign, which had spent $6.7 million on the race as of April, did significantly outspend Mourdock's, which had spent $2 million as of April.)
In other words, these useful fools voted for gridlock and destruction of good governance. DSCC type Democrats are smelling a toss up race, but at what price? Their chosen candidate is no prize.
Donnelly, a conservative Democrat, supports gun rights and the Keystone pipeline and opposes abortion rights and climate change legislation.
So, just another Blue Dog, who might as well be a GOPer with those positions. DSCC, and DCCC are just as much part of the problem as the damn Republicans. Our country's health is at stake here. Our children and grandchildren's future depend on a working government and these guys are playing numbers games.

I'm not shedding any tears about seeing Lugar go. We need to get rid of all these old plutocrats. Doesn't matter which party they purport to represent. In the end, they're all only serving themselves and their corporate masters. I only wish all these progressives that spend all all day long bitching about being sold out by the Dems would figure out a way to actually run some candidates that represent our interests instead.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Monday, May 07, 2012

Ron Paul under the radar

Well, Ron Paul gets no respect from the media, but while they're busy ignoring him in favor of badgering White House PressSec Jay Carney for an exposive quote on gay marriage, Ron Paul is quietly carrying out his stealth plan to take over the Republican party.

Paul is winning delegates to the GOP convention: "Over the weekend, Ron Paul won Maine and Nevada, gaining 20 of 24 delegates in Maine, and 22 of 25 in Nevada."

Sure, it doesn't mean he has a prayer of actually winning the nomination but his rowdy supporters could surely throw a spannard into the works. It would make for quite a show and considering Romney's proclivity for hamhanded handling of difficult moments, well, it could at least make it a lot more entertaining and quite possibly derail his campaign in some dangerous way.

But that's just the convention. Ron Paul apparently has a long range plan to reshape the party:
SPARKS - In a show of anti-establishment political power at Saturday's Nevada Republican Convention, GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul's supporters ousted two Mitt Romney backers from the Republican National Committee.
That doesn't kick in until after the convention but these people have actual power over the long term. Yes, I know only two members aren't really going to change the GOP's world, but it seems somewhat significant that it happened in Nevada. With the heavy Mormom presence there, that should be solid Romney territory. Odd that Paul supporters could pull it off there.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Heard it through the pipeline

So it's been a long day. I'm too wiped out for much commentary, but some stuff worth looking at if you haven't seen it yet.

Charlie has a riveting first person account about the TransCanada and the XL Pipeline. It's not the first time I've read about a hard core Republican who finally gets that he's being screwed by the guys he's been voting in office but this one is the best I've seen yet. Their eminent domain scam in taking land for the cursed thing is actually rather frightening. Wonder where all the glibertarians and conservatives who were bitching about Kelo are?

Love Newt's "endorsement" for Romney. Or maybe I should say honest advice?

And speaking of Mitt's mendacity, Steve Benen is still doing yeoman's work on chronicling Mitt's lies. He'll be able to turn that into an ebook by the end of the stupid season. It will probably be longer than War and Peace.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Gentlemen, start your engines

So I see the campaign season has been declared officially opened. President Obama came out of the gate with some tough populist type talk and the punderati are appalled, appalled I tell you, that he's actually trying to win by pointing out stuff he's done. Like killing bin Laden. Because it's unseemly to boast or something like that. Which is not to be confused with our former President Codpiece strutting around in a flight suit under a Mission Accomplished banner when the mission was, you know, not really accomplished. I mean we're talking about a party that elevated a blowhard know nothing into a viable candidate for Congress on the basis of being Not a Plumber. So, not a problem.

Charlie Pierce, as always, has something interesting to say about it, though he's a bit pessimistic about Obama's chances.
The time to talk honestly and ferociously about the abject failure of the Avignon Presidency was in 2009. The time to demonstrate that failure by investigating the incredible panoply of crimes and blunders that were committed by the previous administration on almost every possible issue was shortly after he took office, when he still had at least theoretically congressional majorities and, in any case, could have, by executive order, released documents detailing at least some of what went on. The time to talk about the sheer sociopathic disregard for political norms illustrated by the new Republican majority elected to the House in 2010 was in 2009, when that disregard was on display at rallies, and in the disruption of town hall meetings, and when the manic energy that has forced the Republican party to abandon reason was at its highest levels. The time to talk — nay, holler — about the disinclination of the opposition to do the business of the people was every damn time they refused to do it. The time to do all of this effectively, alas, has passed.

There was too much conciliation, too much presumed good faith, a continuation of the haughty disdain for what raw, bloody partisan politics can achieve that we saw in the last campaign. There was too much reaching out, too much pre-emptive compromise, too much thumb-sucking about the "shellacking" in 2010, and not enough of grasping the American people by the shoulders and shaking them, saying, "Do you see what you've done? Allen Fking West?" ...
You know the drill, read the rest of it at the link. I think he's being too gloomy myself. He's right that it's coming too late and Obama should have been flogging the GOPers from the start and put some damn banksters in jail right away. But times have changed. The electorate's attention span has become shorter than a hyperactive two year old since the Carter years. They're not even really paying any attention yet. They care more about who's winning Dancing with the Stars. This election will be decided in the last three weeks or so and it damn sure won't be decided by issues. It's all about optics now.

All I know for sure is if the GOPers manage to bamboozle the public into making them King of the Hill again, I'm going to find religion and pray like hell that the Mayans are right. Annihilation will be a whole lot less painful than living with the results of that.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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If it wasn't for bad luck

Craziest week ever. Couldn't find an internet connection yesterday either. I suppose I'll never catch up with what I missed. Trying to pick up the thread of what's going from here right now. From what I've seen so far, not a whole lot has happened while I was so rudely disconnected from the grid.

I'll be back if I find something to talk about.
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Sunday, May 06, 2012

48 hours

Disappeared because I went 36 hours without an internet connection, so feeling way out of the loop. The connection here is rather dicey and I'm in a simply horrible hotel room so no posting this morning either. Getting out of here as soon as I can. Connection here is so slow anyway, I'm hoping this posts before it times out. And the saddest news is my GPS just up and died yesterday. We've been together so long I named her. RIP Mary Mary.

Been a tough 48 hours. Can't wait to get home. Hoping to be able to do a bit of catch up and post tonight.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Thursday, May 03, 2012

You can never surrender

Meant to get to this sooner. It drives me crazy when Democrats cave into Wingnuttian hysteria. Like the EPA guy who resigned after the trumped up fauxrage over his cruxifiction analogy. Charlie Pierce put it well:
Consider what happened here. This guy said these things two years ago. Nobody said anything, not even the local reporter covering the story. But a career whackaloon like James Inhofe opens his yap and lets the bats fly forth, Fox picks up the stupidity, and the guy resigns. My question is why did Lisa Jackson even care? Why couldn't she simply have said, "Look, goober, we don't have to pay attention every time you decide to gin up the rubes who watch your network, and we don't have to care what Inhofe says, either, because his brain was used as a placemat at Golden Corral 10 years ago. Go sit over there on the Group W bench with the birthers and the UFO guy. We'll get to you some time in 2017." What is the political price to be paid here? Nobody who gets his urethra in a knot over something like this ever is going to support the president anyway. I don't understand it and I never will.
That's the thing. Democrats don't need to surrender to this lunacy. They win nothing by giving it legitimacy with shows of unneccessary remorse. In fact, they lose credibility with their own base by spinelessly cowering in the face of false outrage. Makes no sense.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Romney camp courts the wingnuts

Forget about any moves to the center. Apparently having realized there's no going back once you've pledged to the cracked, Romney reached out to the far right media and a bevy of select wingnut bloggers in a secret, off the record meeting a few days ago. All the big names of Nutopia were there and the lesser players were allowed in by phone. The Mittster left no rock unturned in this sad search for support, from the Zombie Breitbart clones to the Powerslimers, all the way down to the every voice howling in the would be pirate's Ace of Spades head.

Not that Williard Mitty has a choice. These guys need to feel very important. Over-inflated egos must be fed.
"It was mostly enemy territory for [Romney], until recently," a participant said. "He may not win us over, we may even fight some things if he's elected. But reaching out is the best thing he could have done under the circumstances."
Of course, all these playahs are small curds compared to to the big cheese. Major homage must be paid to the King of the Cons:
Mitt Romney and many other top Republican officals have quietly met with Fox News chief Roger Ailes, Politico reports today. Both House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have privately met with Ailes — McConnell speaks with Ailes “regularly” and the two are “confidant[s] of more than two decades” — while Romney and Ailes have “mutual respect for one another,” a spokesperson said.
Debasing for the base is a Republican tradition that's worked for them for a long time. But with the demands of the base becoming ever more extreme with every win, time will tell if that one trick pony can still carry them to victory.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Romney fundraising in style

Since I'm apparently doing fashion critiques tonight, this Romney fundraiser caught my eye today.
At a private fundraiser at the home of pizza giant John Schnatter last month, Mitt Romney is seen on a cell phone video offering his candid thoughts on how Democrats and Republicans view wealth.

“Who would have imagined pizza could build this, you know that?” said Romney. “This is really something. Don’t you love this country?”

“What a home this is, what grounds these are, the pool, the golf course, you know if a Democrat were here he’d look around and say no one should live like this,” said Romney, as the crowd began to laugh. “Republicans come here and say everyone should live like this, all right. This is a really tribute to America, to entrepreneurship.”
The joke evokes shades of George Bush and his "have mores" base but I was struck by Willard's change of wardrobe for the event.



Quite a change from Willard's usual costume of jeans and rolled up shirt sleeves. The elite class casual dress code. Indeed, these are Mitt's people, yet he still doesn't look comfortable. Maybe because Schnatter has almost as much money as him and actually a much grander estate in addition to $23 million worth of condo in Deer Valley, Utah.

In this crowd, the guy with the most toys wins. Has to be more than a little weird to be begging them for money.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Anne Romney doesn't have a stylist

Good Lord, somebody get her one. I don't like to deal in bullshit trivia but Ann needs some help here. I have no problem with Mrs. Romney paying almost a cool grand for only one shirt. Fashion designers need to make a living too, but paying that much for this shirt is a crime.


Worse yet, she had to put some thought into what she was wearing for a morning show interview. I figure she went with the eagle motif to relate to the patriotic proletariat likely to be watching, but it didn't work on any level. This is a shirt that might look good on a skinny, 20 something hipster. Definitely not meant for a 60 something aspiring FLOTUS.

And no, it's not just that it looks bad in the still. It's just as awful in the video of the Romneys awkward interview. Come to think of it, if they really wanted to convince the public that Mitt is actually wild and crazy underneath that stiff demeanor, maybe he should have worn it. Thinking it would have looked better on him.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Politics is weird

Truer words perhaps have never been spoken on the air. Shep Smith reacting to Romney reacting to Newt's farewell speech.



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Once upon a time

The twitterati regularly trash Facebook, but I like them both for different reasons. Different content and content is my life. Found this in my timeline. It's true. Wonder if they even still have that luxury tax in the game any more?


[original photo] [More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Prey away the gay

Is there anything Team Romney can't screw up? When he hired this guy, the media narrative was all, hey look! The Mittster is pivoting away from the icky social conservatives and throwing this appointment in their face. Now, only two weeks later, it's pretty clear the social cons own Romney's sorry ass:
Richard Grenell, the openly-gay conservative foreign policy spokesperson hired by Mitt Romney, has resigned from the campaign following right-wing pressure, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin reports. “[M]y ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign,” Grenell said in a statement, which came less than two weeks after he was hired. Conservative groups like the American Family Foundation painted Grenell as a “homosexual activist” and condemned Romney for bringing him on board.
Team Romney is trying to put a brave face on this fiasco. They claim they begged him not to resign and they're very disappointed he decided to leave the team for "personal reasons." But all that happened behind closed doors. They didn't exactly deploy a vigorous public defense. They can't risk getting between the SocCons and their prey this early in the game. And it's difficult not to notice they hired the guy as a spokesman, but they never let Grennell speak.
Ari Fleischer, a former Bush administration official and one of Grenell’s most vocal defenders, raised that question in a telephone interview moments ago.

“Why wasn’t Rick the spokesman in the last couple of days, when foreign policy was paramount? That’s the piece I don’t understand,” Fleischer said. “I don’t know why he wasn’t the spokesman on foreign policy for the last several days. It’s something that nobody understands.”
Meanwhile, teh gay Republicans of the Log Cabin, blame both sides. And sure, the left immediately jumped on the guy for his long history of bizarre misogynistic tweets and such, but since when is pissing off hippies a problem with the base? Grenell scrubbed his timelines to fix that little problem.

No, this victory belongs to the social cons and anybody who thinks Willard is going to be able to "move to the center" before the convention is dreaming.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Meaningless gestures

Under the heading things of little import, but mildly amusing and barely less meaningless than the actual news, a few things that caught my eye today.

Usually find these over-rated and annoying, but the 7 best gifs of Jonah "Pantsload" Goldberg are actually hilarious.

Hard to believe Willard and Rudy survived these few moments of menial labor without collapsing, but fortunately they could drop that load onto the hired help before they suffered any permanent muscle strain.

Never understood why the media keeps calling this guy handsome. Only Charlie Pierce captures his true essence with "zombie eyed granny starver Paul Ryan." Poster isn't all that funny, but it does capture his soulless gaze really well.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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