If we stopped talking about abortion, we might have to talk about health care, and no one wants to do that

Good for him:

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) pushed back against conservative criticism of new White House rules which would require religious organizations to provide insurance coverage for birth control, calling the attacks “too much hyperventilating.”
“This is not about abortion,” said O’Malley during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “It’s about covering contraception as part of the healthcare coverage, mandatory basic coverage.”
The Health and Human Services Department said last month that insurance policies must cover contraception without charging a copay. The rule offers exemption to employers with a primarily religious mission or nature, such as churches. Critics however say that institutions like Catholic universities and hospitals are not covered by the exemption.
O’Malley, who said he was a Catholic, stressed that the decision was similar to rules already in place in much of the country. “28 states already require this and in Europe,” he added.
The governor said this was not a case of government dictating to religous organizations.
“Well there is an exemption for churches themselves,” he said. “An exemption does not necessarily extend to institutions like hospitals, to universities that employ people of all faiths.”

I can’t be the only woman in this country who is sick to death of how every discussion of women and health care, every single one, revolves exclusively around reproductive issues.

One really, really starts to wonder if we are capable of discussing health care in this country at all. Abortion, death panels, abortion, broccoli. People will know more about this exemption than they will about the whole rest of the regulatory framework that applies to large businesses.

It’s such a joy this noted conservative intellectual stayed in the race, isn’t it? He adds so much depth and nuance:

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has also attacked the decision, saying in a speech to supporters following Saturday’s Nevada caucuses that the Obama administration had “declared war on religious freedom in this country.”
“This is a decision so totally outrageous, an illustration of such radical secular ideology,” Gingrich said.

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Send the Panty Sniffing Squad to Inspect Mitt’s Magic Underoos

Now that Michelle Obama’s underwear is up for discussion at all the usual wingnut sites, can we start talking about Mitt Romney’s? After all, for a Mormon, it’s “the most sacred of all things in the world, next to their own virtue, next to their own purity of life”, so I’d think that it’s something that Romney should discuss. Or are there two sets of standards, one for Mrs. Obama, and one for Mitt Romney?

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To achieve a goal, you have to set a goal…

The first real primary where all the participants are members of the Republican Party base is done. Newt wins and the Mittens coronation tour is over. Trench warfare now begins.

Iowa and New Hampshire will let anybody in to play Republican-for-a-day and influence the results, but South Carolina is different and only the true faithful participate. South Carolina is to Wingnutopia what Mecca is to Islam. In this primary, the 27 percenters are a majority. South Carolina is a center of neo-Confederate thought and conspiracy theories about white victimhood at the hands of the Federal Government The Union are fed to the base from childhood.

Lee Atwater was from here and learned his political skills from Strom Thurmond who learned his trade from “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman who learned his world view as a Red Shirt night rider and a participant in the massacre of Freemen during the destruction of their settlement of Hamburg. From Tillman to DeMint there is a straight line of racism, white privileged and myths of white victimhood that informs the political DNA of South Carolina Republican Primary voters.

If you know that, then it cannot be a surprise at all that Newt Gingrich has surged in this state and that Romney and Santorum are viewed as Yankee copperhead carpetbaggers at best.

Newt knows how to talk the code and how to barely conceal his contempt for the Federal Government The Union and the descendants of people who were once property. He is especially good at code talking about President Obama and the Mainstream Yankee Press.

No surprise he is connecting with his tribe.

A week ago he was suppose to be a dead man walking, but he was able to claw back because he had a goal and a base that would get his back when he let out his Rebel yell. An aide described Newt’s goal to the WP:

“The goal is to get rid of Romney,” Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said. “Our goal is to remove Mitt Romney from the competitive ranks.”

Newt’s victory in South Carolina will go a long way towards meeting that goal. Yes, Romney has a lot of money and backing from the Party elites, but his doesn’t have the neo-Confederates and the 27 percenters who are the base of the Party—they belong to Newt. And if The Professor can mobilize them to his cause and raise some cash, Romney will stand as much of a chance against Gingrich as Mike Castle had against Christine O’Donnell.

Good luck with that November.

Cheers

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Rampaging Honey Badger Mars Sparsely Attended Pro-Walker Rally

WAUWATOSA, WI (January 21, 2012) – A giant, mutant honey badger disrupted a rally organized to show support for embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, charging into the small gathering and slightly injuring at least one attendee. The unusually large carnivore, estimated to weigh 15 tons, struck without warning, terrorizing the fives of Wisconsinites who had showed up to counter the Walker recall effort.

“Christ, it was a big fecker,” said one shaken witness, who commented under the condition of anonymity. “And yet it moved so quickly! I’m pretty sure it was sent by ACORN and SEIU thugs.”

Rally attendees regrouped in a booth at a nearby Denny’s. Many echoed the suspicion that Walker’s political opponents were behind the attack.

However, when reached for comment, University of Wisconsin zoology professor Welden Tinkelboom speculated that the badger mistook one rally attendee’s faux fur coat for a honey badger pelt and nipped the woman in retaliation for a slain relative.

“Contrary to popular belief, honey badgers DO give a shit,” said Tinkelboom.

[Please consider this an open thread.]

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Winning the 27% Primary…

A few weeks ago folks had written The Professor off as a dead man walking. And now look at him. Some polls have him pulling ahead of Mittens and Governor Oops has GTT and endorsed Newt on the way out the door.

Sure an ex-wife will be on a late night network news show to say that Newtie is a cad, a dick and a bad husband, but everybody already knows this. The interview will cause hyperventilation in the drawing rooms of Georgetown, but in South Carolina folks won’t care very much. Some will give the Professor a pass because he has found Jesus, but most will support him because he brings the crazy hate towards President Obama and fearlessly fights to win the White’s-Only-Primary of the old South. With Perry’s collapse, Newt is the last Confederate standing—and the Confederate Party is the new base of the Republican Party and the root of the 27% Crazification Factor.

Now they may be 27% of the general population, but in the Republican Party they are the tail that wags the dog. In a state like South Carolina, they are a majority of GOP Primary voters—that is why everybody is bringing the crazy to win their support. But no matter how hard Romney tries, his crazy—just like everything else he does—seems inauthentic. Santorum may say crazy shit, but like Romney he is also a Yankee and not fully trusted. Ron Paul should be a great fit with the 27% percent crowd, but his Libertarian views concerning civil liberties, drugs, war and torture have the base thinking he is a commie or something. That leaves Newt. And The Professor is a Ninja when it comes to tossing bombs and bringing the crazy—hell, he practically invented the modern era of partisan dysfunction.

The Professor is playing a weak hand extremely well. He knows crazy is gold in GOP politics and by that standard he is King Midas. Newt is showing the 27% crazy love and they are loving him back. Expect more of it tonight and don’t be surprised if a funny thing happens to Mittens on the way to his coronation.

But now I have to get ready for my drinking game and I’m afraid a hangover is in my future (I should never have committed to a shot every time Newt utters a racist dog whistle).

Cheers

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There’s that number again…

Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire has an item on a Fox News poll that asked Republican voters which candidate was running a nasty campaign. The Professor came in second after “Don’t know” to win the honors and Mittens was third. But it was the question about positive campaigning that brought out the magical number of the wingnut base:

In contrast, 27% say Mitt Romney has waged the most positive campaign among the GOP candidates.

Willard is running a campaign of dog-whistles, outright lies and smears that would make Lee Atwater blush. Somehow I’m not surprised that the crazification factor thinks that kind of campaign is “positive”.

And with that how about an Open Thread.

Cheers

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All About the Paul Newsletters

Stephen L. Taylor has a thorough round-up of the Paul newsletters, if you’re interested (and, judging from the comments in last night’s open thread, many of you still are).   His conclusion:

Really, the bottom line is this:  absent an especially comprehensive and satisfactory explanation, the newsletters utterly disqualify Paul from the nomination, let alone the White House.  Having spent a substantial amount of time researching, reading, writing, and arguing concerning this matter, I can reach no other conclusion.

Here’s the current status of notable Paul endorsers:

• Young Conor sorta-kinda withdrew his support on the 21st, but still felt the need to poop in the general direction of anyone wise enough to avoid endorsing Paul in the first place.

• EDK apologized to me and more-or-less withdrew his support on the 21st, though he still is looking at Paul as a protest candidate to win Iowa.

• Sully pretty much withdrew his support on the 24th.

The currently accepted position by these three seems to be that many of Paul’s ideas are OK, but he’s not qualified to be President. Now that Paul is a mainstream candidate, a new wave of press coverage is examining his next weakness:  his wacko positions on the gold standard, and his views that we’re on the edge of apocalypse.  I wonder how the still Paul-curious crew of commentators feels about that stuff.

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What are the odds of overtime play…

The Republicans Leadership of the House (well at least the Orange One) have decided to cave on their latest hostage taking excursion. That means that on Friday morning, Boehner will ask fellow Republican House members to support President Obama’s position on the payroll tax cut extension by unanimous consent. If all goes according to plan, then folks will not see their taxes increase, unemployment extensions end and medicare payments to doctors shrink on January 1st.

That is a pretty big “if”.

Afterall, we are talking about the Republican Party and the Tea Party mob that controls it. Just one House Member—seeking to become the new hero of the 27 percenters—could throw the entire game into overtime. All he or she would have to do is object to the motion for unanimous consent. That would extended any final resolution to some time next week when all members of the House would be forced to take a recorded vote on the two month extension.

Now, no sane person, party or movement would do that—but we are talking about the Tea Party—so I think the odds are slightly better than 50/50 that one of their wankers in the House will object and force another week of nonsense before the majority of the House overwhelming votes to support the President. And the person forcing a week of delay will become an instant hero to the wingnuts demanding the crazification of all politics. The base will love it.

And they’ll hate Boehner for his cave.

It is only a matter of time before Cantor and some of the boys surround John to stick in the knives.

So it goes.

Cheers

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Ron Paul Made Millions from Racist Newsletter

It’s probably all stored as Kruggerands in his mattress, to guard against the Amero conversion (via SLT at OTB):

Yet a subsequent report by Reason found that Ron Paul & Associates, the defunct company that published the newsletters and which counted Paul and his wife as officers, reported an income of nearly $1 million in 1993 alone. If this figure is reliable, Paul must have earned multiple millions of dollars over the two decades plus of the newsletters’ existence. It is incredible that he had less than an active interest in what was being printed as part of a subscription newsletter enterprise that earned him and his family millions of dollars. Ed Crane, the president of the Cato Institute, said Paul told him that “his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for the Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, anti-Semitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto.”

Both ED Kain and he-who-shall-not-be-named have endorsed Paul for President as a protest vote. Since I’m not a serious thinker, I’m free of the weighty obligation to endorse someone in the GOP primary. But for those serious folks, I have a simple question: how could you endorse a guy who published and profited from a newsletter that included AIDS conspiracy theories and called Martin Luther King Day “Hate Whitey Day”?

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No, No, No, Frothy Mixture. The Question Is: Does Natural Selection Believe in You?

Missed this yesterday, but via TPM, this,  from the candidate with the unfortunate Google problem:

Discussing controversial classroom subjects such as evolution and global warming, Santorum said he has suggested that“science should get out of politics” and he is opposed to teaching that provides a “politically correct perspective.”

(From the Des Moines Register.)

Well then, dude.  That settles it.  I guess the Santorum Administration…[pause to quell my alternating gusts of laughter and nausea]...will balance that damn budget by axing the NIH and the NSF, for starters.

I really have nothing else to add, except this:  I just hope (really—I mean this) that no member of the Santorum family ever gets infected with a religiously incorrrect MRSA bug.  Santorum may not believe in evolution, but our old friend staph?  Mr. aureus (et al.)  sure does…

 Image:  Henri Rousseau, Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) 1881

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Mr. Brooks: stalked by his youth…

The pundits/gasbags of Wingnutopia are focused on the The Professor. Some like Rushbo are moving towards a full embrace of Scarborough’s Gingrich meme:

“Who was the last person to actually cut government? Who was the last person who actually led a movement that balanced the federal budget? . . . The last time there was true welfare reform, the last time government was cut, Gingrich did it.”

The Wingnut potentate is telling his minions that the “establishment” (Left AND Republican) is out to silence Newt. It’s pretty close to an endorsement and it’s clear that The Professor is preferred over Mittens. Meanwhile, the establishment voices of Wingnutopia’s Beltway tribe are yelling at the base and telling them “NO, Stop, please don’t choose Newt”. All of this gives the Grifter from Georgia more street cred.

Will, Noonan, Douthat, Krauthammer, and a host of other members of the Conservative establishment are doing what they can to stop the base from embracing Newt. I think they will fail. It will be fun to see how each on them walks it back to proclaim The Professor a Conservative Hero and the best of all possible people to be President.

And then there is Bobo. I expect that his walk back and embrace of Gingrich may be the most tortured of them all. His column today was packed with all the regular hilarity, but there was a gem that really stood out (emphasis added): More »

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Magical thinking: a case study

Daniel Larison wrote a post explaining how The Professor’s understanding of foreign policy and the problems facing the world is an endless stream of dangerous bat-shit crazy thinking. It is spot on, but Newt’s world view is shared by pretty much every Republican running for office (and most of wingnutopia). Newt gets the attention because he is rising in the polls, but his views are not very different from any American Conservative. They all crave simple answers, simple villians and simple talking points and share Newt’s passion for replacing reality and critical thinking with nonsense.

Into this mix comes Andrew Sullivan. He cites a bit from Larson’s piece commenting on Newt’s idea that America lacks a “unified grand strategy for defeating radical Islamism”. It is more of the crazy talk one expects to hear from conservatives these days. It is all they know. Sullivan calls out Newt’s crazy talk, but does so with some deep magical thinking about the definition of “conservative”. I felt sorry for him as he tried to make the case that Gingrich’s world view is anti-conservative:

Which makes him the perfect antithesis of conservatism. Conservatism is concerned with reality, which it understands shifts with culture, history, region and all the immense complexities of human life. When a conservative approaches a problem like Jihadist violent Islam, he will seek first a grasp of its divisions, analyze the most effective way of defusing and disarming and fighting it, ensure that a strategy in one part of the world is not necessarily salient to another, grapple with unintended consequences, and so on. What Gingrich does is the opposite. What he always longs for is the absolute, eternal principle, the clarifying concept, the rhetorical rallying cry that speaks to the ideological gut rather than the reality-based frontal cortex. And Gingrich’s notion of foreign policy – making John Bolton his secretary of state – is essentially a policy of open hostility to the entire world, including allies who differ, and a maximalist military solution to most problems.

Saddest of all, was Sullivan clinging to the notion that “Conservatism is concerned with reality”. Perhaps that is how Conservatives think across the pond, but not here. In America, reality has a Liberal bias and any Conservative embracing reality is likely to face primary challenge. I think is is impossible to name a conservative of note in America who thinks about issues with an understanding of “shifts with culture, history, region and all the immense complexities of human life”. It just isn’t done. An occasional blogger may flirt with reality and a column here and there from a conservative pundit might brush against the real world for a turn of a phrase or two, but that’s about as close as it gets. When Newt is the nominee they will all fall in line—reality be damned.

Sullivan’s notion that his definition of “conservative” is shared by ANY self-described conservative in the Republican Party or the modern American Conservative movement is magical thinking. As Joe Scarborough showed yesterday the new meme is that Gingrich is the ONLY Republican hero since Reagan.

The term “Conservative” used to have meaning, but that is no longer the case in America. Here it is just a mask for grifters. And while I appreciate Sullivan’s effort to reclaim the term, it is a losing battle. American conservatives celebrate grifters, illusions and reward appeals to their fear. They celebrate Newt Gingrich as a hero. Sullivan’s hope that Wingnutopia will embrace his definition of “conservative” is just magical thinking, but I guess everybody needs a Grail.

Cheers

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Who’s Next? The race is on…

This Frederick Burr Opper cartoon from an old issue of Puck (The Onion/Daily Show of its day) seemed like a perfect image to describe the GOP race for the White House. It is just one pratfall after another.

Now, conventional wisdom tells us that it is only a matter of time until Newt takes a fresh pratfall. In fact, waiting for Newt to slip and crash seems to be Romney’s campaign strategy. And this might be a winning plan as Newt has done the “Pan-cake Drop” so many times that you could almost rename the move as the “Gingrich Drop”. OTOH, Newt has taken so many falls that it is hardly newsworthy. The Professor crashes to the ground so often that his supporters just brush it off. They expect him to do pratfalls and could care less when he does.

By contrast, Willard “Mitt” Romney fears the peel—and with good reason. His recent disaster of an interview on Fox News showed that whenever he leaves his Mitt-buble-of-protection he finds himself doing the “Dude Kick”, “Vanderbilt Slide” and “Langtry Twist” with ease. And yet, the Gingrich surge is forcing him to do just that. After almost two years, Willard “Mitt” Romney will finally go on one of the Sunday News shows. Sure it’s Fox News, but even Chris Wallace will be tossing banana peels at Mitt’s feet (and I’ve heard rumors that Willard might even feel forced to grant some non-Fox interviews and even take questions from the press). Also, too, the Des Moines Register debate on the 10th and another Fox News debate on the 15th will litter Willard’s pathway to January with pratfall peril.

The race is on to see which potential GOP candidate will crash and burn next. Newt is the odds on favorite for that roll. I expect that he will have regular slips and that his supporters will not care, but he could have a massive fall that takes him out. And then again, it could be Mittens who implodes. He really has not been tested in this cycle and has barely left his bubble. Newt needs a massive screw-up to get knocked out of the race while a much smaller fuck-up by Romney might take him out.

As for the rest of the field, I expect them to matter very little in the near term. Bachmann and Perry are comic relief. They fall with such regularity that that is all folks expected out of them. Ron Paul is good at avoiding implosion, but the GOP power brokers hate him so much that the only way he’ll be on the ballot in November is as a Libertarian. And that leaves Santorum and Huntsman who hope if they stay in the shadows long enough they’ll be the last two standing come March or April—and then their pratfalls will be noticed (until then, nobody really cares what they do).

The coming weeks should be quite entertaining.

Cheers

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Look who showed up

An earlier post:

Around two months ago I started getting calls from a person who works for the state Democratic Party. He told me they think my state representative has the potential to be vulnerable, because of some hazy rumors of scandal or general bad behavior or corruption that (apparently, allegedly) surround him. Pick one: scandal, general bad behavior or corruption. I’m not sure what the caller was alluding to. It’s an overwhelmingly conservative district, so the idea is to have a Democratic candidate on the ballot ready to exploit the possible implosion of the incumbent.

Today’s update:

Well, I gave up on finding a candidate, but another guy didn’t give up, and he found a candidate. I just called the candidate, and he told me why he’s a Democrat and why he’s running.

He’s a Steelworker. He’s been married 32 years and has 4 children. He spent 2 years in the military. He worked 2nd shift his whole life, and only became politically active with the Steelworkers in 2002 when he left the Republican Party because “trickle down wasn’t working”. That’s a direct quote. He’s running now because he thinks this is the “best time” for a Democrat to try, because he acted as a grass roots organizer during the Issue Two campaign and he wants to run on issues important to working people.

I think this is a going to be a lot of fun. Not for him, maybe, for him it’s going to be a lot of work, but certainly for local Democrats.

Because this turn of events is a nice lead-in, and because I was ranting incoherently about it in the comments to mistermix’s post yesterday and have now had some time to think about it, I wanted to address why I get so impatient with broad national theories or studies on politics. I find them reductive and ultimately, narrowing. Me. I do. Understand, I’m not speaking for some larger group here. I have no earthly idea whether this view is shared by anyone else. I suspect it is, but this is not a sweeping statement or a broad indictment.

When I look at “politics”, now or at any other time, I’m looking at what seems to me to a very complex, layered, shifting picture. Maybe I’m wrong about that, and it all can be reduced to a formula, but that isn’t how I see it or approach it. Honestly, if I did see it like that I don’t know that I would bother with it, because if I did see it like that I would eventually decide I probably can’t have any effect on it.

An example of the way I think or look at politics today, December 4, runs something like this: we’ll have President Obama at the top of the ticket, and Sherrod Brown, who ran in ’06 as Middle Class Man, and those two campaigns are going to coordinate, and we’ll have a credible challenger against Latta for the House race, all against the background of the just-completed Issue Two effort, and we’ll have this statehouse race, which could be a really great upset. Oh, and there’s been a steady drumbeat of good news about and around the auto industry coming out of Toledo, so I’m wondering if that helps Democrats running in Ohio. That’s what I think. Today. That’s how I look at it. Sort of a stream of consciousness, and it changes all the time. That’s what’s interesting to me. That’s what keeps me engaged.

So if I read or hear something reductive and final and national, like: “Kay? it’s ALL TRIBALISM”. Or, “Kay, no President since FDR has won the White House with 8.9% unemployment” how that comes across to me is “why bother?”. It sounds like shutting a door. How it sounds to me is that there’s no room to move, there’s no room for the unexpected or intervening events or the influence of a particular candidate or state or local political climate, and those things, the potential for changes at the margins, are the part of “politics” that interest me. The finality (or what I maybe mistakenly perceive as the finality) of sweeping theories or predictions drains all the juice and localness and (appealing!) flat-out weirdness and chaos and unpredictability out of this thing, which is why I find myself yelling “it’s more complicated than that!” in the comments. I want room to move.

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No surprise: the rubes embrace “The Professor” and his grift…

I’ve always thought that when the dust started to settle, Newt would be one of the strongest candidates in the Republican field. Even when folks tried to push him out of the clown car and write his obit earlier this year, I thought Newt would stay in the game for two main reasons.

The first is simple: Newt tells the rubes what they want to hear and makes them feel smart, smug and superior when they embrace his con. For decades, Ginrich has been an exceptional liar, grifter and hack—all qualities honored and celebrated by the modern CONsevative movement. Sure, he comes up with batshit crazy and contradictory ideas that would NEVER work, but these delusions are rhetorical crack for the gullible saps who make up the base of the Party. They love to be bamboozled and Newt is very good at giving them what they want.

The second reason is that Newt represents the last CONservative victory in the current rewrite of recent Wingnut history. It turns out the the years when Tom DeLay ran the Congress and George W. Bush controlled the White House produced a series of major fuck-ups that melted down the global economy, squandered a surplus, produced massive deficits and damaged America’s standing in the world from just about any angle. Once they purge the decade (1998 to 2008) of Republican misrule from their collective memory holes, Newt Gignrich is the last CONservative hero left standing. In their fevered imaginations, he is untainted by the Bush/DeLay years.

These twin delusions almost guaranteed that Newt would rise in the polls and always have a very decent chance of becoming the Republican nominee for President. And now with weeks to go until the voting starts, “The Professor” is on the move.

And I can’t think of a candidate who better represents the Modern Republican Party and Conservative movement. Newt is the corruption, idiocy and self-delusions of the Party, base and movement made flesh. I expect that they will embrace Gingrich with gusto and that poor old Mittens will not know what hit him.

Cheers

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