Sometimes our political discourse is so god damned stupid it just pains me some days to browse websites (since I have basically quit watching cable news except for a brief Maddow or Larry O’Donnell show), and this past two days has been one of those time periods. I simply have no idea what Booker is thinking, although since he is clearly paid in full, he’s just doing what he needs to service his paymasters. I don’t know if he is done politically, but I do know if he ever runs for anything nationally, he’ll not see one god damned penny from me. He’s proven he can’t be trusted.
But what bothers me the most is how the media idiots have all attached themselves to Booker’s POV. Look, if Team Obama were focusing on Romney’s Mormonism or other stuff, I could understand it. But this is where we are with Bain. Romney has spent the last couple years running away from his only record of governance and his horrid job creation record as Governor as well as Romneycare, and has focused entirely on his record as a “job creator.” He talks about it over and over and over again:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign misses few opportunities to promote his record creating jobs, including his role in taking Staples Inc. (SPLS) from a start-up to the world’s largest office-supply retailer.
“You’d have a president who has spent his life in business — small business, big business — and who knows something about how jobs are created and how we compete around the world,” he said at a campaign stop last month at Buddy Brew Coffee in Tampa, Florida.
You’d think, if someone is running on their record as a job creator at Bain, the opposition would be allowed to discuss that, right? But, no. This is Idiot America, and our national conversation goes something like this:
Mitt Romney- I’m a job creator and I should be President for my record of creating jobs at Bain.
Obama 2012 campaign- O…k…, then… Let’s look at that record of yours at Bain and all the jobs you “created.”
Cory Booker, our media whores, and assorted useful idiots (I’m now officially tired of waiting for Mataconis to pull his head out of his ass. He could be anal raped by Reince Priebus at the GOP convention, and the whole time he’d be biting a pillow whimpering “BOTH SIDES DO IT. BOTH SIDES DO IT.” Moron.)- NAUSEATING DISTRACTIONS. DIRTY POLITICS. SAME OLD SAME OLD. POLITICS AS USUAL.
It’s really insane. Romney wants to run on his record, but WE’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FUCKING TALK ABOUT IT, or David Broder’s maggot infested corpse will have a sad.
We’re really the stupidest country ever, and it’s just depressing watching David Gregory and the rest of the hacks blow wet kisses at Republicans as they drive us off a cliff.
Linda Featheringill
And your point is?
OldDave
Tip of the Hat for the Raising Arizona reference…
The Other Bob
It’s OK John. We will freak out, the media will continue to be dumbasses and OFA and the President will stay the course and play long game.
Keith
And remember, it was supposedly fair game to talk about John Kerry’s record in Vietnam.
Hill Dweller
The Obama campaign doubled down on the Bain stuff today. They released a new ad, and the President nicely destroyed the Willard narrative at the NATO press conference this afternoon.
Steve in DC
OFA and Obama care more about grand bargains (aka fuck over the new deal to be cool and historic) than fixing anything. Obama isn’t as bad as Romney, but that’s like saying the Japanese weren’t as bas as the Germans. It doesn’t make either your friend.
danielx
Bitter. Mustn’t be bitter.
Spaghetti Lee
I get the feeling Obama and his team don’t care about that nonsense, given that they went right back to work attacking Romney today. If they’re not worried about media backlash, then I’m sure as hell not.
beltane
It’s not Idiot America as much as it is Corrupted America. Our “journalists” are not idiots providing inferior coverage so much as they are master whores turning tricks, confusing and distracting us in the hopes we won’t realize Mitt & Co. have swiped our wallets until it’s too late.
Linnaeus
Look, if being “in business” is the best qualifier for public office, then why bother with democracy? Let’s just have businesses appoint our leaders and be done with it.*
*Yes, some would argue that they effectively do so already, I know.
Trentrunner
I dunno. Obama’s answer today about this at the NATO conference was such a beautiful justification not only for Bain being fair game, but a perfect template for taking the high road while addressing Bain and Romney’s political raison d’etre…
…I’d almost think B00ker did this to help Obama.
Hill Dweller
As I said on the other thread, this is the political equivalent of “Leave Brittney alone!”.
The Obama campaign will keep running the Bain ads with the actual victims of their vulture capitalism. Willard can try to refute their stories, but it’s going to stick.
Steve in DC
@beltane
Our media is nothing but ivy league educated rich fuckers, just like Obama and Romney, if you expect any sort of honesty from Harvard educated rich fucks you’re on crack.
Corner Stone
No, no, no. If B00kman is the D choice available then you will crawl over broken glass to vote for him.
Or did you want Godzilla to win? No, not the metaphor. The actual Godzilla will become the Governor of NJ if you don’t vote for B00k.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone:
Too late.
Steve in DC
@Linnaeus
You know it wasn’t that long ago we viewed military service, public service, and a hard background as true tests of leadership. Now it’s all about how much you made and where you went to school. That’s rather sad.
rikyrah
this is how I know the Bain focus is on point and striking shivs into Willard.
this is why I was thrilled by the President’s response this afternoon, saying what we’ve all said:
Willard says he’s qualified to be President cause he’s a rich, White man.
and, he got rich because of Bain.
so, BAIN IS FAIR GAME.
keep on it, Mr. President.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Steve in DC: Jesus. Could you just shut up for one minute about Obama, or maybe surprise us by saying something not quite so stupid? Not gonna respond to anything you say to this. I know it’s wrong, but going back to the hospital tomorrow, and just don’t need to engage in what that would take.
Steve in DC
I have nothing nice to say about DLC style corporate drones, of which Obama is one. I have nothing nice to say about those who support those fools either. If you’re supporting those who are selling us down the river and helping the bankers I don’t see how you are any less of a threat to me than Mittens.
I don’t give a pass to people because they have a D next to their name and are socially liberal. I base my views off who’s going to raise taxes and expand the social safety net.
What’s the difference between Dimon and an Obama supporter? Nothing.
jrg
@Steve in DC: Yep, no difference at all… Woo hoo! Party like it’s 1999!
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
When was that, exactly? Service-dodging rich boy George W. Bush? Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton? Son of a senator George HW Bush? Movie star Ronald Reagan?
The only modern president I can think of who fits your perfect paradigm above is Richard Nixon, which explains a whole lot about you.
jharp
Yep.
Thank you Fox News and Rush.
dedc79
John, when’s any government official from your great state going to speak out against big coal or mining? I think booker was wrong to say what he did, but expecting the mayor of a perennially impoverished city that is dependent for what little it has on the finance and insurance industries to go after those same industries is silly. Now maybe that’s a reason not to have him speak for the campaign, but that’s a strategic mistake.
Arm The Homeless
@Steve in DC: Eh, I think your emotions are getting the best of you. I mean, you’re not really stating that only those educated at state colleges are worthy to be given the benefit of the doubt, right?
Corey knows where his bread is buttered, and at which parties he can get the best buttering. That’s no different than any politician. What has to change is how Liberals build going forward. You want to know why right-wing narratives get play? Because even after 8 years of disaster, liberals can’t even be bothered to show up in off-year elections.
We either make it politically dangerous for Democrats to attack from the right in general election campaigns, or we will keep getting the detritus that the GOP has sloughed-off, re-branding themselves as “conservative Democrats”
Larkspur
I am confused. Cramps? WTF?
In re Rachel Maddow: did you watch tonight’s show, during which she interviewed Cory Booker? Am I an Idiot American because I perceived Booker to be a stand-up guy despite his MTP blunder?
Also, I ask again, WTF with them menstrual cramps? Yes, I am embarrassingly credulous – this could very well refer to a musical lyric with which I am unfamiliar – so let me rephrase the WTF to a more cooperative “What do you mean by this reference, if I may be so impertinent to ask?”
Lastly, if anyone is willing to translate the subtext into plain words that a simple country spinster girl like me might comprehend, I would be ever so grateful. Because otherwise, WTF.
rikyrah
Martin Bashir slays me when he is just looking into the camera talking about Willard. Nobody shivs Willard on practically a daily basis with so much gusto as Bashir.
Suffern ACE
@Corner Stone: Well I guess. But over Chris Christie? Heck, over Jon Corzine and Jim MCgreevy? It’s not like you get a lot of good options out here for that office. But what do I know. I kind of liked governor Patterson and would have voted for him if Cuomo and Co. Hadnt muscled him out.
daveNYC
@Mnemosyne: Bush Sr also served. For what it’s worth.
Ben Cisco
There, much better.
Also, what rikyrah said.
Devin
I agree, it’s depressing. But you did make me laugh remembering the opening scene of Raising Arizona. I’d totally forgotten that line.
Spaghetti Lee
@Arm The Homeless:
Especially given that the object of his detractions, Gov. Cuomo, got his law degree at SUNY-Albany.
David Koch
He’s thinking, “I need to raise tens of millions to run for the senate in 2014, so I need to fellate the big donors on Wall Street”.
David Koch
0
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: Jimmy Carter was in the Navy. Went to the Naval Academy if I recall. Something about exercising with coke bottles to overcome flat feet so he could pass the physical.
Todd
@Linnaeus:
I saw this movie – James Caan was the hero, John Houseman was the business villain who screwed up in the end.
Rollerball….
jharp
@Larkspur:
Interesting question.
The fact is he was clearly wrong. And can’t see how it was an accident. It ain’t like it just came up that morning. He had plenty of time to think about it and it is kinda sorta what he does for a living. And he got a boatload of cash from the the group he “just happened” to be wrong in favor of.
I’m leaning toward yes.
OzoneR
@Steve in DC:
aaaand this is why Democrats never fight, because half of their base will say “that’s over the top” and the other half will say “just words”
Odie Hugh Manatee
Now that’s the John Cole we all know and love to read.
Concerned Citizen
@Steve in DC: I took this guy’s comments seriously in another thread. It is clear to me now that he is a troll. My apologies all.
Clime Acts
@Corner Stone:
So, so very apt, CS.
The Other Bob
I just watched the video and noticed the double whammy Obama gave him. He said something like: Romney is running on his time at Bain, he sure isn’t running on his time in Mass. Long game.
The Other Bob
I just watched the video and noticed the double whammy Obama gave him. He said something like: Romney is running on his time at Bain, he sure isn’t running on his time in Mass. Long game.
Ron
@Steve in DC: yes, it would be much better to have a bunch of people with no education.
Spaghetti Lee
@Corner Stone:
Well, Godzilla would at least come down hard on Wall Street. And most of Manhattan island, for that matter.
Steve in DC
Democrats fight all the time, just on social issues. And to get those victories they cave on economic issues. We’ve won every social issue fight there was, at the cost of economic justice and the new deal.
Sorry but fuck that. I don’t see how that’s any better than what the right is offering. And I don’t see how those that agree with it and support it are any less of an enemy than the Koch brothers who support the same social and economic policies as so called progressives.
Spaghetti Lee
@Ron:
So, uh, people who didn’t go to the Ivy League are uneducated?
Ron
I am so fucking tired of people trying to say that Obama/Booker/whatever democrat is “NO DIFFERENT” than the republicans. Anyone who believes that is a fucking moron. that is all.
Chris
@Concerned Citizen:
Concurring.
And let me point out that in an age when America is less white and less socially conservative than it ever was before – a trend that’s going to continue rather than abate, if generational polling is to be believed – this fucking fetish for “economic populist but social conservative” is a COMPLETE mirage. It’s a relic of the 1950s. Any party that goes down that route is going to end up the 21st century version of the Dixiecrats, rejected by both the elites and the public all for the approval of a White/Christian/So-Con demographic that’s in no position to call the shots anymore and will be in less and less of one as the years tick by.
If the Democratic Party ever really wants to drive off that cliff, they’re welcome. Be sure and let me know so I can get out of the bus and wave at it as it goes down.
Anya
@Steve in DC: So, an Obama administration will pass zombie-eyed granny-starver’s plan, voter suppression bills, turn back women’s rights to the fifties, and let’s not forget union busting, and more wars? Contrary to all the bitching from you and other purist assholes, Obama is not a miracle worker, nor does he operate in a vacuum. Mayor Cory B is a clear example of what Obama is up against. And no matter how hard you wave that magic wand, change does not happen overnight and it does not depend on a single individual. But if you are blind to reality, and believe that Romney and Obama are the same, then you are waste of time and energy. So keep on your little hobby of knocking Obama for not reversing the fucked up policies of 30 years.
Nutella
Now, John. You know it’s totally unfair for the Obama campaign to talk about Romney’s career at Bain. No Republican campaign has ever said one single rude word about Obama’s career as a teacher, lawyer, and community organizer! It just wouldn’t be fair for the Obama campaign to even mention the actual professional history of a candidate for US president. Decent campaigns stick to vague platitudes.
If the Obama campaign gets away with this outrageous behavior political discourse in our fair country will be sadly cheapened.
TG Chicago
I never knew Cole had such patience. I got bored of Mataconis long ago. Honestly, I have no clue why anybody reads him.
Joyner is okay and Steven L. Taylor is quite good, but Mataconis has always been an incredibly lazy thinker.
Arm The Homeless
@The Other Bob: The horse-race must be fed. Obama and his team understand this. I can’t wait for more of these campaign commercials about Bain. Axelrod understands that what gave Bush the edge he needed in key swing states were campaigns tailored to those areas, with local media echoing the message.
I have no doubt there are lines of people fired from companies which Bain stripped, ready to twist the knife. Tears from DLC types are simply icing on the cake.
OzoneR
@Steve in DC:
you must be a straight white man.
TheMightyTrowel
come on guys, just pie him. Trolls be trolling, the least you can do is not feed the unfunny and annoying ones.
David Koch
0
bk
As an attorney myself, I am embarrassed by some of the blogs written by lawyers, Mataconis being one of them. Althouse, of course (how the hell do students keep a straight face in her classes?). And that “legal insurrection” jerk – the absolute worst.
litlebritdifrnt
Why has noone mentioned yet that Staples put millions of small business office suppliers out of business? I know of three in my town alone.
Steve in DC
@OzoneR
Prove it isn’t true. Gay marriage, we are fightnig that fight… with Goldman Sachs of all fucking people. Birth control, hell that got a fight. The middle class? Oh hells no, run run run. Our Wall Street donors might freak out. And you can’t piss them off, they are socially liberal.
You’re blind if you don’t see this.
Sorry but economics do matter. And the HRC is just as much my enemy now as Goldman Sachs since they became the same damn thing. The Democratic party is becoming more and more libertarian. And that’s great if you’re a rich man, but for the rest of us it’s not. And don’t come asking for my vote when you are screwing me over economically and then try and guilt trip me about abortion. I’m sick of it and so are others. Come get my vote on economics, don’t screw me over and then scream “vote for us or you hate women”, which is the DLC’s current strategy.
Fight the economic fight. But you cant’ be serious about it if the next thing you’re praising Goldman Sachs as a paragon of values due to their stance on gay rights and calling for a grand bargain on social security. That’s bullshit. And anybody but rich social liberals see’s straight fucking through it.
Suffern ACE
@OzoneR: I read somewhere today that the number of women who work in jobs offering paid maternity leave from declined from 30 percent down to 18 percent by 2008. Yes, clearly all of those social issues were won long ago.
Mnemosyne
@daveNYC:
Bush Sr. was not from a hard background (to say the least), so he fails Steve’s test.
@Suffern ACE:
Same thing here — Carter was from a nice, middle-class family, not a tough background like Nixon was.
As I said, the only modern president who meets all of Steve’s requirements — military service, public service, and a hard background — is Richard Nixon.
Arm The Homeless
@bk: How do they keep a straight face?
Easy, she is the good cop, her RAs, TAs, and other assorted hanger-ons are the ones who put the proverbial horse heads in beds.
Cliques built around academic personalities are generally the most cultish. You should see the pimply-faced entourage that a semi-retired prof. like SIR!! Harry Kroto gets around our campus.
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
I love Cory Booker.
Spaghetti Lee
@Chris:
Well, I should hope ‘economic populism’ isn’t limited to Dixiecrats, because it’s the last best chance for 95% of people in this country. Can I pick ‘socially liberal populist?’ Is that a choice?
I don’t wanna be ‘that guy’, but I sometimes think that the whole ‘social lib vs. populist! Pick a side!’ thing is an intentionally divisive ploy. What I think the big takeaway should be, for anyone who remembers the defund-planned-parenthood fight and all the attendant bullshit, at the very least, is that the two are connected. Theocrats having been using Randroid language to achieve their own goals, and vice versa, for years. Why can’t liberals? Why does there have to be this stupid oneupmanship?
jharp
@litlebritdifrnt:
“Why has noone mentioned yet that Staples put millions of small business office suppliers out of business?”
Millions? Seriously? All due to Staples?
Take another toke off the bong and try again.
Ron
@Spaghetti Lee: No, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with an Ivy League education. They are damn good schools.
satanicpanic
I’m pretty sure Obama is going to ignore the CW on talking about Bain. If Obama had listened to the CW he wouldn’t have run for prez at all.
Villago Delenda Est
The only downside I can think of should a piano drop on David Gregory is that the keys might get bloodstained.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
i wonder if this will be a fatal flaw, or just a flesh wound for the newark mayor. with this skeleton, he was never going to be an effective “surrogate”. it had to come out.
its disappointing. time will tell how much bookr is damaged, or if he can burnish his fundraising abilities. obama will need wall st money too.
joes527
@Mnemosyne: Skipped right over Carter did we?
Steve in DC
@jharp
Maybe he was being hyperbolic? Regardless, large national chains due ruin small business operations, see Walmart or Home Depot. This is tragic. Your local butcher or fish monger has a far better product than your supermarket. Odds are they are a fan of food as well! You can certainly get service with a smile. Thing is, it costs double or more.
Staples is like that. Better office supply stores do exist. I can get drafting supplies of far higher quality at the drafting store… at 4x the price. Staples is a race to the bottom.
Maybe millions is a bit much, but the impact is there. How many mom and pop places did Starbucks and their shitty coffee put out of business? I have no clue, because those places don’t exist now. But there is a Starbucks on every fucking corner here now full of macbook using hipsters just waiting for an asskicking.
Mark S.
@bk:
Tough to argue that, but Hindraker’s pretty horrible too.
Mnemosyne
@Spaghetti Lee:
Ya think? :-)
Maybe it’s because it’s being pushed by white libertarians like SteveinDC who still seem to be pissed off that black people are now allowed to get Social Security, despite what FDR and the New Deal Democrats originally created.
Gex
“I don’t give a pass to people because they have a D next to their name and are socially liberal.”
This is an extremely effective way for a self-proclaimed “liberal” to illustrate how he thinks his straight white self is better than other people. To wit, the people for whom socially liberal politics are EXTREMELY important. To him, these are just trifles.
JC
As I said before in another thread, the media is no help. Fools, knaves, and paid communication whores for the 1%.
Another example how money is all – Wisconsin. Walker’s people in Minneapolis are all in deep in trouble with the law.
We have Walker ON TAPE, admitting his ‘divide and conquer’ strategy, we have the LOSS of jobs in Wisconsin – and still – STILL – WALKER IS CURRENT AHEAD IN WISCONSIN.
That is the very definition of insanity. All this talk about ‘ground game’, doesn’t seem to do squat, when up against Koch negative ad carpet bombers.
There is NO WAY this lying, thieving, tool of the Koch’s and Rethuglicans, should be leading in Wisconsin. None.
And the media isn’t helping. They don’t care, or they get off on the drama, or they blame ‘the ugly partisanship’, on the protesters.
The lying – doesn’t seem to matter.
Walker staying one step ahead of justice in Minneapolis – doesn’t seem to matter.
The loss of jobs in Wisconsin – doesn’t seem to matter.
I’m quite cynical at this point, but I would like to be wrong.
Mnemosyne
@joes527:
Compare Carter’s childhood to Nixon’s sometime. The image of Carter as a backcountry hick is exaggerated, to say the least.
cat48
@satanicpanic:
Correct, he’s sticking with it. Each Monday morning, a new company destroyed by Bain & the people whose lives were destroyed. The MSM better suck it up! Appearing all Summer…….
FlipYrWhig
@Spaghetti Lee: Because it’s easy to back a social liberal who is also a populist. And it’s easy to hate the guy who is neither, like Evan Bayh. But sometimes you only get one of the two. Who do you vote for, Jon Corzine or Bart Stupak?
Steve in DC
@Ron
Actually I’d say there is, and my family has a long history with Harvard. These are schools by the 1% and for the 1% and they preach those policies. Wall Street is full of ivy league fuck heads, so are most of our political groups.
The current destructive economic policies are by far advocated by Ivy League schools, it’s rare that they object.
Our “elite” institutions are what creates bankers and neo-liberals. This isn’t a good thing. Maybe we need to rethink this.
Now not all of these schools are bad and create psychopaths, but a good portion of them do. We have an election between two Harvard grads who are bassically arguing how much free market and social security cutting we need while being backed by their peers who went to the same caliber of schools and now work on Wall Street. That’s the root of the damn problem.
Ron
@Steve in DC: So you’re an economic populist that wants people to pay 2-4x as much they have to for the product they need. As for Staples, they are generally overpriced from my experience. I don’t even have a “local butcher or fishmonger”. Yes, I’d prefer to buy organic meat from a local supplier (which do exist) but it sure as hell isn’t in our budget.
Ron
@Steve in DC: I’d say the root of your problem is that you’re a whiny bitch.
Another Bob
Maybe the conservative-leaning hacks like David Gregory are flailing to tamp down a devastating line of attack against Romney, and their own flailing is a sign that it’s working. Team Obama should keep shoving it down their goddam throats. The more they whine about how it’s unfair to talk about Bain, the more the voters are reminded about Bain.
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
Cory has a bright future in teh Republican party and in private equity.
Spaghetti Lee
@FlipYrWhig:
Personally, I’d take the economic populist/social conservative model. It’s my personal opinion that many social issues are becoming easier to fight for due to demographic changes, and those fights more often take place among regular people than in Congress. Economic populism, on the other hand, is something that has to be actively fought for and vigilantly guarded. The personal calculus of others may be different, which is fine. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me.
Steve in DC
@Mnemosyne
Actually advocating economic populism at the cost of social liberalism is the opposite of being a libertarian. But, I guess you missed the entire ethos of the libertarian party. Socially liberal and economically conservative is what libertarians are. I’m the exact opposite of that.
You’re also pulling the classic libertarian “but social issues, social issues” sort of logic. Tell me, do you enjoy sucking the bone marrow out of the poor under the bridge or not?
jharp
@Steve in DC:
Maybe he was being hyperbolic? Regardless, large national chains due ruin small business operations, see Walmart or Home Depot.
Mike
@Linnaeus: Rollerball!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtkvGfJbmQA&feature=related
BTW, They had a Bain ad on before the YouTube video, and I thought it was damn good!
Ron
@Steve in DC: If you are socially conservative, you aren’t a liberal, no matter how much you try to claim it’s all about economic populism.
Spaghetti Lee
@JC:
Well, if Walker’s annexed Minnesota, we really ARE in trouble.
I think the root of your problem is that things like Walker’s admitted ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy and his allegiance to the Koch Brothers are things that get reported on left-wing political blogs and nowhere else. Most people aren’t going to hear about it, even if they should. This leads to a sort of disconnect, in my opinion, where liberals bash voters for not voting the right way based on information they never even came across.
It bugs me that so many people talk about how that election is over and done with and it hasn’t even happened yet. If it weren’t for some Waukesha County-level shenanigans, the Dems absolutely would have flipped the Senate last year. And given the retirement of one GOP state senator, even if Walker wins, he’ll no longer have control of the senate.
Mark S.
@George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina:
I was wondering when you were going to show up.
Mike
@cat48: There are so many stories. You can pick a new Bain victim each week up until the election.
What amazes me is that Romney KNEW this was coming. He’s had decades to prepare for it, and they STILL don’t have a coherent answer to the Bain thing. That just blows my mind. It also confirms that the Bain stuff is really, really bad, since they can’t massage it away.
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
That’s precisely my point.
Social conservatism is becoming a political LOSER. You will not help the cause of economic populism by tying it to social issues that are becoming less and less popular. All you’ll do is taint it by association, and the taint is going to get harder to escape with each passing year.
The problem is how to get economic populism back into politics. On that, you, me and most of the people on this blog are agreed. But the idea that you can do that by hitching it to the sinking ship of social conservatism is a mirage. I’m no genius, I don’t pretend to know what the answer is, but I can tell you it’s not that.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
You have the libertarian philosophy of life that says that other people have to sacrifice what they need so you can have what you want. Your “economic populism” is completely selfish and you would give it up in a flash if it ever looked as though it was going to require you to give something up from your own life rather than pushing all of the sacrifice onto everyone else.
The Other Bob
@Arm The Homeless:
I think I will repeat that often: “The horse race must be fed.”
And Cory Booker can follow Jon Corzine straight to hell.
Mike
@Spaghetti Lee: I second that opinion. If it’s between Corzine and Stupak, I take Stupak hands down. Stupak had his issues with the abortion stuff as a result of his son’s death, but in everything else he was very liberal.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@JC:
I’m exactly where you are now. Politics has never felt more impenetrable and futile to me than it has this last year or so, and only feeling bleaker by the day.
OzoneR
@Suffern ACE:
did I say they were all won? That they aren’t is why we’re still fighting them.
That said, there’s an argument that progressive economic policies will mean shit without equality. The New Deal wasn’t great for everyone, meant little to black families in the South.
satanicpanic
@cat48: Romney is going to have exactly nothing to run on when Obama gets done with him besides “I’m not THAT ONE!”
Culture of Truth
Mitt Romney of Bain Capital® is the new George Tierney of Greenville®
OzoneR
@Steve in DC:
so you’re a conservative. Got it.
Culture of Truth
“When Romney come we et sand”
“You et sand?”
CW in LA
@Ron: Now that you mention it, isn’t “socially conservative/economic populist” Pat Buchanan’s deal, according to Pat Buchanan?
Nutella
@Mike:
Or maybe it’s just that Romney is a really, really bad politician. Or both.
Culture of Truth
Romney is a one-legged stool. and that leg is Bain.
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
Corey could become the first black Republican president.
Now, Allan West will be the first black Republican nominee when he sweeps to the nomination in 2016, harnessing the energy from biter backlash after yet another moderate Republican nominee loses, but he’ll get crushed by Hillary, if only because he rhetoric is to off putting, to say the least.
That said, Corey could be well positioned, with the help of his extensive Wall Street benefactors, to win in 2024.
Ash Can
Crap. I had high hopes for Cory B.
Anyhow, folks, don’t pack it in. I just spent my third consecutive Monday evening volunteering for my local Obama For America chapter. Here’s my takeaway: KEEP TALKING to your friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers about Obama, the Dems and the GOP, and just what it is that all Americans are up against with the current incarnation of the GOP. Stress to them that today’s GOP is not the GOP that they know. Tell them what’s at stake for them and their kids. Tell them how they’re benefiting from things like the ACA and other laws passed by the 111th (Dem) congress. Stress to them the difference between the 111th Congress and the schmucks running the House show now. Make them see the difference.
It’s all on you, guys. Get out there and do it.
Ron
@CW in LA: Mike Huckabee too. Look, I’m all for meaningful reforms of our economic system. The poor and middle class are being screwed. The idea that Obama hates the middle class is pretty ridiculous.
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
@Culture of Truth:
http://ak.buy.com/PI/0/500/225161375.jpg
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Also, I’m pretty sure that someone whose family has “a long history with Harvard” doesn’t get to demand to know why I hate the poor. I don’t even know anyone IRL who went to Harvard.
Anya
What offended me most about what Cory B. said was not his “leave vulture capitalists alone” but how he equated the Obama campaign’s Bain attack ads to the Rev. Wright attacks. That to me is unforgivable.
jharp
@Ash Can:
Me too. And Anthony Weiner. And Elliot Spitzer. And I also was a John Edwards supporter.
Sucks.
TG Chicago
Wow, I should have read the Mataconis post before talking about his lazy thinking. I would have pointed to the second comment to the post as evidence.
It’s always clear from reading his stuff that he starts off with his conclusion then works backward to come up with some reasoning for it. So weak.
Another Halocene Human
@litlebritdifrnt: They not only put stationers out of business, once they had cornered the market they cheapened the product. Good luck getting anything good in a Staples now. Specialty stuff isn’t even in the catalog any more. Mason and Charette ended up filling that gap in Boston when I lived there. What a flipping shame.
Steve in DC
@jharp
Cheap goods come at a cost, that we don’t admit. Computers became cheaper when we made them all in China. While that’s great for those buying them, it cost jobs. We are all going to have to deal with having a bit less for everybody to have a bit better life. Ditto with the Walmart issue.
Like it or not economic equality does equate to paying more for goods and services. Which is why it doesn’t sell with Democrats. Economic equality for college grads and lawyers, they are all for it. But heaven forbid they have to pay more for their meats and goods.
Computers and high end audio are the perfect example. You can buy them from union shops made in the US or Europe… if you’re willing to pay over 5k for a laptop and tens of thousands for speakers. Or you can get that cheap ass Sony or Bose shit that’s made in China.
Like it or not, we voted that situation into place with our dollars. Hiding behind “but it’s not affordable” doesn’t change the honest truth that it’s not affordable because people are paid properly to make it. We have to make do with less.
@Mnemosyne
My parents, sister, brother, and two cousins went there. Virtually all on scholarships (my sister had to be paid for as her grades weren’t up to par and she’s the princess of the group. None the less, I stand by my assumption that you hate the poor if you value social issues over economic ones, and I’ll fight that point to the death. Because issues like birth control wouldn’t be an issue if we were all paid enough to buy it. But rather than fight that battle, it’s got to be the social one. Because the democrats are full of libertarian traitors. And you are one of those.
Steve in DC
@jharp
Cheap goods come at a cost, that we don’t admit. Computers became cheaper when we made them all in China. While that’s great for those buying them, it cost jobs. We are all going to have to deal with having a bit less for everybody to have a bit better life. Ditto with the Walmart issue.
Like it or not economic equality does equate to paying more for goods and services. Which is why it doesn’t sell with Democrats. Economic equality for college grads and lawyers, they are all for it. But heaven forbid they have to pay more for their meats and goods.
Computers and high end audio are the perfect example. You can buy them from union shops made in the US or Europe… if you’re willing to pay over 5k for a laptop and tens of thousands for speakers. Or you can get that cheap ass Sony or Bose shit that’s made in China.
Like it or not, we voted that situation into place with our dollars. Hiding behind “but it’s not affordable” doesn’t change the honest truth that it’s not affordable because people are paid properly to make it. We have to make do with less.
@Mnemosyne
My parents, sister, brother, and two cousins went there. Virtually all on scholarships (my sister had to be paid for as her grades weren’t up to par and she’s the princess of the group. None the less, I stand by my assumption that you hate the poor if you value social issues over economic ones, and I’ll fight that point to the death. Because issues like birth control wouldn’t be an issue if we were all paid enough to buy it. But rather than fight that battle, it’s got to be the social one. Because the democrats are full of libertarian traitors. And you are one of those.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina:
Now is this really George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina? If so, is it the George Tierney Sr. of Greenville, South Carolina or is it the George Tierney Jr. of Greenville, South Carolina? Or is it someone impersonating either George Tierney Sr. of Greenville, South Carolina or George Tierney Jr. of Greenville, South Carolina by using the nonspecific nym of “George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina”?
If this is George Tierney Sr. of Greenville, South Carolina, why is your son an asshole towards women? Now if this is George Tierney Jr. of Greenville, South Carolina, why you are such an asshole towards women? If this is someone using the nym of “George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina” then all I have to say is carry on, “George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina”!
Another Halocene Human
@jharp:
I was never charmed by Edwards, but some of my friends were. I did have high hopes for Spitzer and Weiner. What a shame.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Steve in DC: You know what would be nice? If you would learn how to use the fucking “Reply” button.
OzoneR
@Steve in DC:
Dude, paying more for meats and goods hurts blue collar workers, not lawyers and college grads.
which do you think blue collar workers in West Virginia will buy and which do you think New York lawyers will buy?
You can’t be a troll, trolls aren’t this stupid.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
I don’t know a single person who went to Harvard. Even on “scholarship.”
I’m sorry that you are ashamed of your upper-class background and you’re spending your time slumming among the lessers like us trying to pretend you understand what it’s like, but everybody hates a tourist.
Easy to say when your family’s always had enough money to pay for necessities. When, exactly, did your mother have to decide between buying groceries or affording a pack of birth control pills so she wouldn’t end up with yet another mouth that she couldn’t afford to feed?
magurakurin
@Steve in DC:
This from the guy who thinks Buddy Roemer would be a great leader for the Democratic Party and Jim Web is more liberal and progressive than Barack Obama.
…I see a red door and I want to paint it black. Black black black I want to paint it black….
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Steve in DC: It’d be even more nice if you skipped the whole ‘liberal’ act and just went full Bernie Goldberg about how the party left your dainty white privileged ass.
gaz
@Steve in DC:
If you believe that one day there will be no poor people – or that somehow that is even possible, then I have a bridge to sell you. Specifically the one on the Star Trek USS Enterprise.
My god, you have no idea how the world works.
jharp
@Steve in DC:
You are a fucking idiot. I am sorry to have met you.
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
The most stunning part about Booker is how he refers to himself as an “Independent Democrat”.
It’s one thing if you’re in a deep red state, where people are hostile to Democrats to refer to yourself as an “Independent Democrat”, but New Jersey is a blue state. The Republicans haven’t won a senatorial election in New Jersey since 1972.
When you look at polling, (with the exception 2010) the Democrats have led the generic ballot since 2005.
There is no reason, locally or nationally, to distance yourself from the Democratic label.
And yet he brands himself with the squishy “Independent Democrat” label.
It’s nauseating, to borrow a recent term.
Mnemosyne
@OzoneR:
It is kind of fascinating how Steve can’t make the connection between increasing social equality and declining economic health. Almost as though he doesn’t realize that the white middle-class prosperity of the 1950s was built on making sure that only the “right” people had access to the good-paying jobs and everyone who wasn’t lucky enough to be born white, male, and Christian was shut out.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Party left me.” – Ronaldus Magnus.
Steve in DC
@ gaz
I could say the same about you. Thing is, like it or not I do know how the world works. I enlisted in the military, very uncommon for liberals in the area I grew up in, military service was something for conservatives and rednecks to go off and die doing. I work in global health and the majority of my work is in Africa, like it or not even our poor are the 1% to them.
I get it, far more than you and other social liberals ever will.
The truth is that most don’t want to pay for things. Clothes cost money when not made by Asian labor. Yet not a damn one of you would consider putting 25% of their yearly cost into clothes to properly support workers. And that’s just it. We are hiding the cost of shit. At the expense of the rest. Because honestly, you don’t care about them and you don’t care about economic issues till it bites you in the ass.
And that’s something you have to come to grips with, economic fairness means we all get less. Get with the program or get out. Socially liberal fuckheads who don’t want to deal with the pain themselves can go join the libertarian party and hang out with Norquist.
Actually I do. My family was slaughtered in the holocaust and built itself up from next to nothing. Military service and hard dice rolling were the key tricks. They have money now, but we were dirt poor for a while. Amazing I know.
If you really want to trying and hang enthic issues around me might as well say “Jew Jewy Jew Jew”, you’re doing it wrong as is. But then again, you aren’t the smartest.
FlipYrWhig
@Steve in DC: Do elite schools “preach those policies” to the students who major in, say, French, or sociology?
Mnemosyne
Also, too, I’m sure that Steve is convinced that he knows what hardship is like because he had to eat ramen a couple of times in college, but that’s not being poor. John Scalzi knows what it was like to be poor, and yet he never wastes his time on bullshit theories claiming that women and minorities just have to give up all of their rights and then our economic problems will be solved!
gaz
@Steve in DC: Wait… you joined the military, and the liberals you know did not, and so therefore there is a way to make it so that there are no poor people?
You are utterly incoherent at this point. I’d suggest you stop digging, but you are clearly too stupid to avoid making poor choices.
wobbly
And why did did you have to lead your brilliant screed with a “joke” about menstrual cramps, sexist asshole?
No wonder the only females who’ll come near you are dogs!
Spayed dogs!
The prophet Nostradumbass
@wobbly: ahem.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Here’s the world’s tiniest violin playing just for you.
Oh, and if your parents went to Harvard, you were never “dirt poor” in your life. Your grandparents may have been, but that’s not “we.” That’s “them.”
In other words, you want to take the civil rights advances that benefited your parents and pull the ladder up for everyone else because you’ve got yours and they can all go fuck themselves? And that makes you unlike libertarians … how, again?
Steve in DC
@ Mnemosyne
Assumptions again! I actually joined the military rather than go to school as the one of my generation to do it.
And I never said “give up their rights” just to stop selling off the new deal and social security to get Wall Street money for social liberalism. You stop selling the new deal off, I won’t have a problem with you. You keep doing it, you’re no better than Bush.
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
Glibertarian sez wut?
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Is it bad all I’m doing is sitting back laughing while Stevie Boy digs his own grave even deeper? And pulling the anti-Semite card pretty much shows he’s got nothin’.
gaz
@Steve in DC: I didn’t join the military because I would have been unfit for service, didn’t go to college because I was too busy working.
And I paid dearly for your military service through my tax dollars considering we as a nation get a return of only 0.65 cents for every tax dollar we spend on the MIC. Welfare OTOH is a net gain. While I never applied, I’d rather have subsidized your welfare benefits then your gulf war service (or whatever, as I don’t know your age).
The last war that was utterly worth a damn to us was WWII and even that is highly debatable.
I don’t mind you mooching like you did though really. But it’s offensive when you get all sanctimonious about it, particularly on the economic front. The return on investment just isn’t there.
OzoneR
@Steve in DC:
hmm, that’s special, my grandparents did both.
Steve in DC
I think Mnemosyne has proven she’s a fuck the poor social liberalism for all style person. She’s pretty much b00ker without the job. Which explains the obot side of her. It’s also what’s wrong with the Democratic party.
And there was no anti semite card, but if she’s going to try and call out my religion (I’m an athiest) I’m not technically a christian, and my family is/was Jewish. I know stereotypes are fun and all, but get your facts straight.
Also comical I get called out on social conservatism and economic populism and called a libertarian in the same sentence.
But you know, keep not making sense and all.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Yes, because the impoverished women who’ve been cut off from family planning services by Republicans in Texas, Ohio, Arizona, etc. have spent all of their time selling off the New Deal, so they don’t deserve health care. Good one.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Yes, when I point out that your disdain for “social issues” means that hundreds of thousands of poor and working-class women will have to go without healthcare, I’m the “fuck the poor” person here.
Steve in DC
@Mnemosyne
I was talking about Obama and Clinton, who have done that. But oh well, ignore that if you want. Shows what side of your bread is buttered.
How’s that soylent green tasting? You get off on people starving to death and losing their homes?
gaz
Steve in DC is like a petri dish full of stupid. Forgive me commentariat as I simply can’t resist poking at it.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mnemosyne: He seems to think that saying something over and over again will eventually make it true. Probably works on K Street.
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
Hmmm…economic populism and social conservatism…you wouldn’t also happen to be hyper-patriotic would you?
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
You mean the side where poor and working-class women don’t have to die needlessly because you think their healthcare is less important than white men having good jobs? Yep, you’ve got me there.
What’s next, telling me that I must be drinking shakes made of aborted babies ’cause I love abortion so much?
Though I do love how you just somehow accidentally skipped a president between Clinton and Obama. After all, it was Clinton and Obama’s policies of the previous 8 years that crashed the economy in 2008, right?
Cacti
My favorite Stevie stupidity of the day was when he said a POTUS using military force against a US citizen was without precedent.
Steve in DC
@The prophet
I work for a global health NGO off K street that deals in HIV/AIDs and maternal/infant mortality. However lobyists aren’t actually on K street. That’s a bit of a myth. Most of them are in VA and MD.
But I wouldn’t expect you to know that. Of course, you can join Mnemosyne screwing the poor and spouting crap all for social liberalism if you want. Far be it from me to stop you.
Steve in DC
Actually it WAS Clinton. He’s the one that repealed Glass Steagle, Bush didn’t do that. Clinton deregulated Wall Street.
But then again, you are that fucking stupid and partisan that you can’t see fault on your own side. Congrats.
gaz
@Cacti: He claimed he was “skater” in school, and I couldn’t help thinking that he’d make a great PSA for the dangers of not wearing a helmet.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Steve in DC:
“K Street” is a metaphor, not a literal claim about a physical location where someone works, but of course you know that.
You can keep trotting out that lie, but I doubt many people reading here will actually buy that crap.
Chris
@Cacti:
He also voted for Ron Paul in the VA primary, just for shits and giggles.
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: John Murtha
FlipYrWhig
@Steve in DC: Look, man, if you work in global public health you KNOW that social conservatives make your life extremely difficult. You know that when women are prevented from being able to control their own health, they become impoverished and abused. You know that LGBT people are bashed, demonized, and left to die. You know that all over the world so-called “social issues” have profound economic impact. I don’t see how any of this adds up, except that Ivy League = investment banking = social liberal = bad.
gaz
@Steve in DC: I’m guessing it was also clinton’s fault that the ratings agencies were giving gold stars to junk CDOs amirite?
or maybe that had something to do with the bush admin letting the SEC basically die on the vine
Under bush, the SEC was neutered.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
And, of course, you tell the organizations that work with you that women’s health is just a social issue and they really need to work on economic equality in their countries before you can help them, right? Or is it only women in the US who don’t deserve healthcare and birth control?
Yep, it was all Clinton’s fault. Not one policy that George W. Bush had in the 8 years he was president affected the mess we’re in at all. We were just in a holding pattern between the crappy policies of Clinton and the even worse policies of Obama.
Thanks for sharing.
ETA: Also — Steagall, dumbass.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
This is all about Steve being pissed off at his sister for being a snotty “social liberal” and wanting to hurt her. It’s kind of sad, really.
dollared
@Cacti: How do you get glibertarian from a guy who sez economic issues are paramount, and we have to make war on big business?
Steve in DC
@Chris
It was Paul or Romney, because nobody else bothered to get on the ballot! Or should I you know, not vote unless someone perfect is on the ballot? I vote, I consider it a good thing. I’d rather more people voted.
@FlipYrWhig
You coudn’t be MORE wrong if you tried. It was Bush the younger that signed off most of the AIDs funding, the church is also a great donor. In fact, most “social liberals” advocate economic neoliberalism and want a return on things, they also tend to be the Wall Street types to boot.
So no, they (social conservatives) aren’t all that much of a problem and certainly savage local communities a bit less than social liberals who tend to be the “investor” class and type.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
Yep, the last 16 years were dirty horndog Clinton, followed by secret Muslin homo-lover ni-CLANG Obama. Absolutely nothing came in between.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mnemosyne: Glass Steagle, Hoot-Smalley, whatever.
Suffern ACE
@Steve in DC: Wait. Which Clinton? Bill Clinton? While he was president? The guy who conspired with the Republicans to balance the budget while creating the negative income tax for the working poor? The pro death penalty, anti affirmative action, I stood up to the gay lobby, abortion is a vote of conscience Bill Clinton? I dont think there was an social issue he wasn’t willing to run away from.
Mike
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Beuller? Beuller?
Steve in DC
@dollard
In the VA primary there were two people, Paul and Mittens. I voted Paul largely because 1) I like fucking with Republicans, 2) he’s OK on drug/war/civil liberties and 3) Romney, seriously?
Thus “libertarian” but then again, I only had TWO options. And I tend to vote, I vote each chance. Dunno, Paul seemed like the general “fuck you” vote to the Republican leadership, had Santorum been an option I’d have voted him in hopes to screw over Mittens, but he wasn’t.
Though keep blaming me for only having two of the clown squad on the ballot here, even though Santorum and Gingrich live right here.
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
@Suffern ACE: Well he was progressive about sex. It never occurred to me to use a cigar to sodomize my girlfriend until Clinton showed the way.
Larkspur
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Thanks for the ahem about the Raising Arizona reference. I had a feeling it was a reference which I did not get, and I was right, and you ‘splained it for me. I appreciate it.
@jharp: I acknowledge that I may in fact be an Idiot American. Your reasoning is compelling. But did you see Booker on Rachel Maddow? If you did, and were unmoved, I will admit that the likelihood of me being an Idiot American would be bolstered, but if you did not, but subsequently did, would that change your opinion in any way?
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
The most stunning part about Booker is how he refers to himself as an “Independent Democrat”.
It’s one thing if you’re in a deep red state, where people are hostile to Democrats to refer to yourself as an “Independent Democrat”, but New Jersey is a blue state. The Republicans haven’t won a senatorial election in New Jersey since 1972.
It’s nauseating, to borrow a recent term.
TheMightyTrowel
popcorn, i eats it.
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
The most stunning part about cory is how he refers to himself as an “Independent Democrat”.
It’s one thing if you’re in a deep red state, where people are hostile to Democrats to refer to yourself as an “Independent Democrat”, but New Jersey is a blue state. The Republicans haven’t won a senatorial election in New Jersey since 1972.
It’s nauseating, to borrow a recent term.
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
Would that be the church whose current leader discouraged the use of condoms in his first trip to Africa?
Whataguy!
Cacti
@George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina:
I guess it’s nicer than saying rump swab for Chris Christie.
Steve in DC
Actually we’ve never had a problem with condoms and catholics. They stupilate you can’t spend money on it, but have no issues with the money going to other things. It’s all about asset allocation. Far better than the Wall Street types that love condoms but want to make damn sure they get a “return” on whatever help they get.
Again, social liberalism for the failure.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Because, really, who cares about “social issues” like condoms or women’s rights in countries where AIDS is rampant? It’s not like either of those two things could possibly affect the spread of AIDS.
Chris
@Steve in DC:
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I see. You voted for, as the saying goes, “the lesser of two evils?” Well, how very big of you! Has it ever occurred to you that the people on this website who vote Democrat because, you know, sexist homophobic crooks > crooks who support women’s rights and gay rights (which is a very BIG difference if you’re a woman or a gay person, with all due respect to your “both parties are exactly the same” bullshit), and there’s nobody PERFECT on the ballot – or are you just going to go on calling all of them traitors to your precious cause?
Seriously, anyone who thinks Democrats are the same as Republicans but there’s somehow a “lesser of two evils” between Romney and Paul – both of whom hold your precious Most-Important-Thing-EVAR economic populism in exactly equal contempt – needs to have their head examined something fierce.
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
So stipulating that no $$$ go to preventative measures is not a problem in your world?
You breathe some rarified air Stevie.
gaz
@Mnemosyne: I keep thinking of these socially “conservative” assjobs who support the death penalty for homosexuals in africa. Not harmful at all, unless of course you happen to be gay, or family or friends with gay people.
Of course social issues don’t matter amirite? I suppose they don’t as long as you are a straight white male of reasonable means in a wealthy nation with an advanced economy.
White Male Privilege is good shit. Those damned Ni-CLANGS should have thought about that before they decided to be black. And gay, or female, etc…
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mnemosyne: I think it’s really amusing that this clown is trying to claim, over and over, that being a “social liberal” automatically makes you some sort of economic plutocrat.
Steve in DC
@Mnemosyne
As always you don’t know what you are talking about. I’ll be blunt. Two classes of donors, those who just shove cash, and those show shove cash and want water and oil rights where you work. The latter group is socially liberal Wall Street DLC types. If you can’t figure out why this is bad you’re lost. The former type tends to stipulate dumb crap like “can’t use money on condoms” but you can work around that with funding from USAID to get that work done.
None the less, the first sign you’re about to fuck over an entire region is socially liberal, ivy league educated, fuck heads on Wall Street want in. And those are the donors Dems on the hill LOVE to shove our way.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Uh-huh. So when, say, the Koch brothers show up, they never, ever demand water or mineral rights? They’re always acting out of the goodness of their hearts? Or are the Koch brothers secret DLCers and you know this because only DLC types want economic gain from their charity work so therefore anyone who demands that must be a Democrat?
Chris
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Sort of like Matoko all over again, isn’t it? No, no, you don’t know what you believe, you silly person, I know what you believe, because I have you pigeonholed and labeled into this category which automatically equals this thing, and I demand that you fit my pre-existing conception of the label I’ve put on you, and if you don’t, I’m just going to go right on talking as if you do…
They do say nature abhors a vacuum.
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
And in Stevie’s world, stipulating that money can’t be spent on preventative measures is fine.
They can all be warehoused in a Mother Teresa-style house of suffering, where the holy mother church teaches them the redemptive power of dying from a horrible disease, and the monsignor will be jetted away to Cedars-Sinai should he come down with something catching.
Steve in DC
@Cacti
Actually no it’s not at all. USAID gives a huge amount of funding and that comes with no strings. We can use that to handle odd issues and things that people have gripes about. The real problem is neo-liberal style donors who want their pound of flesh out of the deal. IE, does this country have good water and oil? Do they have unions? Is their precious metals. Then they shower you with cash. But it’s always at a cost.
It’s no different that Goldman Sachs backing the HRC or the Gates Foundation (who is one of our largest donors) requiring privatisation of educational assets. That’s what they want and that’s why they are paying you. Sure it’s socially liberal as fuck from organizations that are true blue in the social area, but it comes at an insane economic price.
The IMF and World Bank are also problematic, but we have to work with them. But they also demand their pound of flesh. We made massive gains in female mutilation in one area, only to secure private rights to all their water resources. Tell me you can’t see how that will blow up in our faces down the road?
Like it or not you do need to pick, economics or social values?
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
Name: Stevie
Master of: The false dilemma
Steve in DC
@Cacti
Yeah I’m fine with it. Our contraceptive programs are covered via USAID funds through STATE. They are fully funded and we have extra. The church funds anti mutilation and maternal care programs post birth. Money they give us fore that is money we don’t have to get from USAID for contraceptives. So it does work.
Of course I’m not fine with other funding that usually comes with the catch of “we want water rights” and it’s always from Wall Street and it’s always for some grand social cause. You learn to distrust these fucks.
Steve in DC
@Cacti
Yeah I’m fine with it. Our contraceptive programs are covered via USAID funds through STATE. They are fully funded and we have extra. The church funds anti mutilation and maternal care programs post birth. Money they give us fore that is money we don’t have to get from USAID for contraceptives. So it does work.
Of course I’m not fine with other funding that usually comes with the catch of “we want water rights” and it’s always from Wall Street and it’s always for some grand social cause. You learn to distrust these fucks.
Steve in DC
@Cacti
Yeah I’m fine with it. Our contraceptive programs are covered via USAID funds through STATE. They are fully funded and we have extra. The church funds anti mutilation and maternal care programs post birth. Money they give us fore that is money we don’t have to get from USAID for contraceptives. So it does work.
Of course I’m not fine with other funding that usually comes with the catch of “we want water rights” and it’s always from Wall Street and it’s always for some grand social cause. You learn to distrust these fucks.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Uh, if they tell you that they’re “neo-liberals,” one thing they ain’t is liberals. They’re libertarians. That’s what “neo-liberal” means.
gaz
@Cacti: Cosigned.
Steve in DC appears to be conflating people who are concerned about social issues with people with too much money, as though every person who gives a damn about social issues is also a MOTU.
Even just considering people who can impact policy, in Steve in DC’s world, apparently people like Bernie Sanders and Jimmy Carter just don’t exist, for example.
In Steve in DC’s world, it’s not the love of money that is the root of evil, it’s giving a fuck about social issues.
I think Jesus had a few things to say about that. Things that even an avowed atheist would generally agree with. Then again, I can only speak about that on an anecdotal basis, as the overwhelming majority of atheists I know are not complete morons. * shrug *
Chris
@Steve in DC:
REALLY? USAID has never had a policy to, oh, for example, deny funding to any NGOs that perform or in any way support abortion? The kind of policy that, oh, for example, might have been implemented under Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, and rescinded under “we’re exactly like them” Clinton and Obama?
Steve in DC
@Mnemosyne
You just called Obama a libertarian, congrats.
Steve in DC
@Chris
We were funded under Bush for abortions under both the NGO’s I worked for in that period. Things aren’t as they seem. There was some dumbassery in the transitions, but it didn’t amount to much. But I can firmly name four NGOs that provided USAID funded abortions right through Bush. Try again.
Cacti
@gaz:
Pffft…I know what he means. Susan B. Anthony and MLK? Dumbasses.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Link to where Obama ever referred to himself as a “neo-liberal.” The only reference I can find on Google is from far-left websites that apparently don’t understand that “neo-liberal” is an actual thing and not just a fancy way of saying “liberal.”
Ronald Reagan was a neoliberal. So was Margaret Thatcher. But since you think that Obama is worse for the middle class that Bush II was, I’m guessing you’re not going to be able to puzzle out what your problem is here.
gaz
@Cacti: heh, indeedy =)
Cacti
@gaz:
Stevie’s an embarrassed God-botherer.
His masked dropped the other day when he shared his sneering disdain for “metrosexuals”.
Steve in DC
Reagan never called himself a neo-liberal either. So what’s your point other than being an obot?
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
So they were wasting taxpayer money on social issues like abortion when they could have been spending it on more important things? Why didn’t you immediately report to your congressman that your organizations were violating the Mexico City Policy and breaking the law?
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
Notice how Stevie managed to jack the entire thread, that was ostensibly about Romney trying to hide from his record of vampire capitalism at Bain, and turn it into an endless circle of “both sides do it, but liberals are actually worse, and liberal means whatever I say it does”.
Well trolled Stevie. You’re much better at it than Taco.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Only someone born in 1980 could think that Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan had the exact same economic policies. Jesus, your political ignorance just shines like a beacon every time you try to bring history into the conversation.
gaz
@Mnemosyne: He’s confusing neo-liberalism with “3rd wayism” – and arguably was practiced by Bill Clinton (see Nafta, and wall street dereg) – Obama has some 3rd way tendencies due to his attempt to placate the right wing congresscritters, but even then, he’s 3rd way lite at best (evidenced by the GM bailout, and his initial support of the public option, and calls to reregulate wall street). I attribute what 3rd wayism he has engaged in as an attempt to navigate a recalcitrant congress – a tactical mistake to be sure, but certainly seems more an attempt at pragmatism on his part rather than part of his core beliefs.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
Nah, we all knew what he was up to. It’s just that some of us are easily amused and love to watch him tie himself into knots insisting that abortion needs to be defunded in the US to bring economic prosperity but it’s A-OK overseas because argle-bargle Glass Steagal!
Mnemosyne
Also, too — bored now. Someone else is going to have to play with the troll while I get some sleep. Some of us have day jobs to get to in the morning.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve in DC:
Sorry, no evidence exists that you get it, at all.
gaz
@Cacti:
Nah, that’s just your standard small-dicked-straight-guy BS.
I find that shit hilarious – I always wonder who they are trying to impress – their fat bearded bar-mates or women?
Metros can generally land any woman they want. Guys that talk shit about them can land your average nascar male. no end of the lulz.
But not necessarily christian. Just insecure about their p3n1s
Chris
@Steve in DC:
That’s funny. A simple Google search reveals that not every NGO was that lucky (the examples given being for family planning groups in Kenya and Ethiopia).
Great for you if your NGOs happened to know a couple of loopholes, or knew a guy who knew a guy. But don’t bullshit me that the policy somehow had no impact.
bago
@Another Halocene Human: The Spitzer-Weiner conundrum is a new York legend.
Bethanyanne
@Chris:
So do my cats.
sharl
@Larkspur: Only because other commenters noted it do I know that the quote is from the movie Raising Arizona:
You-Tube (11 seconds) of scene here.
Death Panel Truck
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Just so you know: the other side’s counting on you to feel the way you do now. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
Death Panel Truck
@Steve in DC: Fucking “reply” button, how does it work?
Ron
@Death Panel Truck: That would require intelligence, of which Steve in DC has shown none.
Ron
@Mnemosyne: I was mostly amused at him completely refusing to address the fact that things like birth control were an economic issue. Okay, not exactly true. If somehow magically EVERYONE made lots of money then everyone could afford birth control (and also a lot of other stuff that he says we should buy that costs a ton of money because he loves the poor). Anyone who thinks that somehow you can avoid people being at the bottom of the economic scale doesn’t understand how things work.
FlipYrWhig
@Ron: How someone who has a job involving health in the developing world would refuse to accept that… I find that mindboggling.
Also, I have a feeling that Steve has been harping on the presence of “liberal” in “neoliberal” for too long to reverse it. The WTO Seattle 1999 protesters saw it a mite differently.
kay
@Steve in DC:
It’s just that your global theory doesn’t fit with reality. I’ve heard it before, but it doesn’t make sense. Just look at the Senate. Stabenow, Brown, Franken, Durbin, all social liberals and economic populists. How do you account for that?
You’ll get closer to the truth if you look at regional differences, economic interests in different regions, but no one wants to do that because then they can’t throw around terms like “neoliberal” and affect this sort of know-it-all cynic posture.
Cheap Jim
@Steve in DC: All of this is fine, but who’s your candidate for the Democratic Party for Gov. of NJ? Because right now we’re two years and a bit out from the election, and if you want someone, you better choose soon. Or you get the choice somebody else made, and get to gripe for another few years.
Alex S.
Obama is playing the long game. He’s repeating his version of the Bain story until it sticks. There are many months left to do this and Romney doesn’t have many other arguments to make to voters (Hell, even the Olympics are a bit too… cosmopolitan) Also, Obama is doing it now because his campaign wants to define Romney on their terms, during the summer. Romney has always been on defense so far. Ok, the right wing-sphere attacks Obama as well, but only within its echo chamber. Kerry lost his campaign in the summer, because Bush defined him as a weak flip-flopper etc… and every argument Kerry made was weaker because of this. If the Obama campaign succeeds, Romney’s economic arguments will be weakened as well, because he’ll be defined as a rich asshole.
Cory Booker still has a bright future – just look at Andrew Cuomo’s relations to Wall Street and his chances for 2016. They’re both huge.
PWL
Well, just remember: Democrats are never, ever, supposed to do the things Repubs get a free pass on. Repubs are allowed to play hard, and even dirty, but Dems must keep turning the other cheek and getting smashed in the face–because they’re supposed to be “civil.”
Yup, Dems are always supposed to bring a (rubber) knife to a gunfight. And then people wonder why they appear to be such loser wimps…