I realize I should just accept that Generalisimo Jeebus Galt — who wants to starve the poor, punish retailers who don’t celebrate his birthday loudly enough, invade random countries, and hate teh gay — has nothing in common with the hippie Jesus described in the New Testament. But I still find this kind of thing funny and sad (via Far East Cynic):
Archives for December 2010
Why Do You Keep Trying to Read That Word? You a Fag?
So Demint has now admitted that his demand that the Omnibus bill reading is simply obstructionism.
That’s all well and good, because most of us already knew that, but even though I should probably know better by now, I suppose I am still a little shocked that over the past couple of years one of the enduring and re-occurring criticisms from wingnuts is basically that bills have “too many words.” When I was in grade school, we looked at people who made statements like that when assigned to read Huck Finn or something else and just thought they were idiots, but the Republicans have been saying essentially that for several years, and their base has responded favorably, and the media says nothing and pretends like it is a valid criticism. It’s really crazy when you think about it.
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I’m Still Wondering How They’ll Pull Away The Football
This seems like good news:
ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports:
Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown today voiced his support for a stand-alone repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, bringing the bill one vote over the 60-vote threshold that it will need to reach if and when the Senate votes on the measure in the coming weeks.
“Sen. Brown accepts the Pentagon’s recommendation to repeal the policy after proper preparations have been completed. If and when a clean repeal bill comes up for a vote, he will support it,” said Brown spokesperson Gail Gitcho.
Brown’s backing means that – on paper – supporters of the repeal have 61 senators in favor of the bill. On Wednesday Republicans Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lisa Murkowski both announced their support for the stand-alone repeal. The House passed the clean repeal on Wednesday and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to bring it to a vote in the Senate before the end of the year.
That reminds me. I need to call the clowns in Manchin’s office and ask them if he has had enough time to figure out what West Virginians think about the repeal.
*** Update ***
Just got off the phone with them and “while Joe thinks it should be repealed, he doesn’t want to do it with our troops on the front line.” In other words, he is still playing games.
I basically then went into five minute spiel about how I’m pro-choice, Joe is pro-life, but I supported him anyway, that I know he is going to vote the wrong way on anything related to energy or coal because this is West Virginia, and I supported him in the election anyway, and that I know he is going to vote a lot of times in ways that upset me. But this, I told him, is a bridge to far, and that Manchin needs to stop playing games, act like an adult, and support the repeal. I then told him that it was absolutely absurd that he needed more time to hear what West Virginians think, since he has lived in West Virginia his whole life.
The guy was very nice despite my speech.
I’m Still Wondering How They’ll Pull Away The FootballPost + Comments (186)
The Fighter
Has anyone seen this yet? The Mickey Ward/Arturo Gatti fights were, in my opinion, the greatest series of fights in my lifetime, and I’d never seen anything like them before or since.
Plus, I’m a big fan of both Wahlberg and Bale, and will watch anything they are in (including big brother Donnie).
Which reminds me. I am still angry at NBC for cancelling Boomtown. Assholes. I will never forgive them for that. It could have been a ten year franchise like Hill Street Blues. It was that good.
Speaking of- I always thought the Hill Street Blues was awesome:
I still get excited when I hear it because I liked that show so much. I guess I should mention St. Elsewhere, too. I identified with Dr. Mark Craig (whose role in Blind Date, another awesome underrated classic comedy, was excellent). And did you see how many actors from St. Elsewhere went on to become major stars?
/streamofconsciousness
Open Thread
Robbing Paul to pay Peter
Will Wilkinson has a smart, if libertarian-tinged, take on Peter Orszag’s Citimoney, that I haven’t seen it anywhere else:
We are constantly exploited by the tools meant to foil our exploitation. For a progressive to acknowledge as much is tantamount to abandoning progressivism. So it’s no surprise that progressives would rather worry over trivialities such as campaign finance reform than dwell on the paradoxes of political power. But it really isn’t the Citizens United decision that’s about to make Peter Orszag a minor Midas. It’s the vast power of a handful of Washington players, with whom Mr Orszag has become relatively intimate, to make or destroy great fortunes more or less at whim. Well-connected wonks can get rich on Wall Street only because Washington power is now so unconstrained. Washington is so unconstrained in no small part because progressives and New Dealers and Keynesians and neo-cons and neo-liberals for various good and bad reasons wanted it that way. So, what is to be done? Summon a self-bottling genie-bottling genie?
[….]The classically liberal answer is to make government less powerful.
[…..]So what is to be done about the structural injustice spotlighted by Peter Orszag’s passage through the revolving golden door? How exactly do we tweak the unjust structure? If the system is rigged, how exactly do we unrig it? In which direction can we muddle without making matters worse?
This goes straight to the heart of a matter, but I also think this is far too reductionist. First off, given Orszag’s talents, his actual work may well be worth a lot of money to Citi — he ran a fantastic OMB. Harold Ford is a much more troubling case — he sure as shit wasn’t getting a million Ameros a year to oversee the crunching of numbers.
Nevertheless, the appearance of de facto bribery here is extremely troubling. Even more troubling is the fact that by making all political elites wealthy, the corporatocracy can ensure that political leaders will identify with the rich.
But the most important thing is whether or not the bribee did the bidding of his bribers while he was working for the federal government. I don’t see evidence that Orszag did (his recent columns are another story), I do see evidence that Harold Ford did (bankruptcy bill). That is part of why I would never vote for Harold Ford for anything, not even in a general election (I’d rather see Orszag stay away from government work too, at this point). And that’s how democracy is supposed to work — we don’t vote for people if we don’t like their record.
As much as the post-government pay-outs disturb me, Citizens United bothers me more, because it directly affects our ability to have real elections. Government officials will always be bribed, in an any system, and while every effort should be made to prevent and condemn this bribery, I don’t think throwing up your hands and saying “this is why the government shouldn’t have any power” is the solution. Remember: corporatocrats can bribe each other too.
Assange Update
The judge in the Assange extradition case just rejected an appeal and released him on bail. Assange is going to post $375,000 bail and have his movements tracked as he awaits extradition to be questioned by a Swedish prosecutor.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is trying to build a conspiracy case against Assange by showing that he “encouraged” Bradley Manning to leak documents. As far as I can tell, the encouragement Assange provided was on the level of source confirmation, something every journalist does when they receive leaked information.
This kind of prosecution would set a pretty awful precedent for our press, yet the only protest I’ve seen from the US media is a letter from some journalism professors. Contrast this with Australia, where representatives from major media outlets sent a protest to their prime minister.