Friday, August 21, 2009
This Is A 'How,' Not 'What' Poll..
OK, we return to our self-described role as Context Maven. A little 'Focus' music, maestro...7 comments
Cook Report: Dems Have Lost Control Of The Debate | TPMDC
All day, week-end, week and month, you'll be hearing, "The Dems are gonna get skunked in 2010; the Dems have lost control."
All of this is true, for the time being. What you''re not gonna hear anywhere, alas, is why.
The MSM will portray this as the plan was too big; the White House overreached; they bit off more than the American people could handle. The American people were just not ready for Barack Obama, and what he wanted to achieve.
Bullshit, in fact, is the word you're groping for there.
Context: these falling numbers are due to the American people's astonishment at the paucity of cojones on the part of the Democratic leadership and Mr. Obama.
We wanted CHANGE, in CAPITAL LETTERS.
Non-GOP fringe America is angry at Obama and the Dems right now. But not for doing too much. Rather, we're furious at them for not doing enough!!
The numbers for the Republican voters have not changed since November, nor will they ever change. There is no groundswell for rampaging hordes of mindless rabble taking us back to the 17th Century.
This clearly is the Left and the Middle who elected these guys screaming as one, "WTF????!?!?!?!?!"
Both the Left and the Middle wanted to cast the disgust of the Shrub Bush years from their mouths. Govern us again properly, we pleaded. But alas, if anything, we've become even more Beltway-bound. If that were even possible.
Maybe Obama did, but we didn't want bipartisanship. We wanted to kick some very well deserved corrupt, un-American booty. We wanted action. We got dither. We wanted leadership, since even fourth graders knew early on, Congressional Republicans had neither the votes nor the inclination to press forward. We all knew they'd kick up a ruckus and that'd be about it.
But we had the votes to say to the GOP, "you want in, we'll take you along, but if not, well, we'll see you all in four years."
We watched as you put together a Cabinet and staff of advisers who were all House- & Senate-savvy, most likely to wage the tough battles and arm-twisting that was going to be needed to pass the agenda America wanted.
But on the morning of your term, you took great pains to insist that the GOP were all well meaning Americans who had the interests of the nation at heart, and would bargain in good faith all down the line in order to get the best bills for the American people.
Every American knew that was a load of crap.
And, Mr. President, respectfully sir, they've been pissing on your shoes ever since.
The poll numbers you are seeing now are the direct result of the disaffection of many on the Left and in the Middle thinking, Hey! These aren't the guys I worked to elect!! And they're not getting it done!! Who the hell cares what the GOP thinks?!?!?
THAT is the background you see playing out in these poll numbers. Not the swill FOX and by extension CNN and NBC and all the rest will be spewing tonight and this weekend.
This is a LEFT/MIDDLE poll. The 30% on the Right still hates his Black guts, simply put. This will never change. So, if Obama was at 65% and is now down to 50+%, this means he still doesn't have the Right, he has softened in but still has the Middle, and has lost about half of the Left.
Now, all due respect to Charlie Cook and his famous political Report, all Obama needs to turn these numbers around is to finally pass the Healthcare Reform Bill WITH the Public Option, and his numbers among the Left and within the Middle shoot back up through the roof.
If Obama and Rahm (wasn't he supposed to be the roughest, toughest SOB to ever work in the West Wing???) the Milquetoast can get it together to salvage their self-esteem long enough to pass this bill all will be well.
If not, the Left and the Middle will start looking about for a new Democrat to fight the good fight.
posted by Gotham 7:57 PM
NYU = EVIL
0 commentsNYU Destroys Again
Renowned Corporati farm New York University clearly works under the negotiating theory of, "Oops!"
They'll tell you anything you want to hear during negotiations, just to wrap up talks. Then, once the settlement is being implemented, they simply rely on a subtle, well placed elbow against the Ming vase, "Oops!" to re-establish what they wanted all along, and to destroy what you worked so hard to preserve in your talks.
This time, it's the beloved Provincetown Playhouse of Eugene O'Neill fame. "Sure, folks, we'll save it. At the very least, we'll save the façade for you. NO problem. Oops, we broke the façade, damn. Gotta tear it all down now."
This extends to the lesson they deliver to their well heeled student body: "Give 'em whatever they want; get them to shut up. We'll just break whatever it is later."
"Oops! Sorry we broke your building/town/country/company."
So, never negotiate with someone out of NYU. Just go for the kill. It's what they've been trained to do. Either up front—or, preferably, on the back end.
posted by Gotham 7:01 PM
Where's Mike's 8-Point Plan Now?
0 commentsIf, like most NYers who haven't been paying close attention to the NYC mayoralty race—since there's only one "oh-so-announced" announced candidate running, you may have missed the flurry of campaign ads that Mayor Mike Wallet, NYC's richest man, ran last Spring.
He loudly trumpeted: "I have an 8-point plan to create jobs in New York City!!"
OK. Kinda wondered where some of those points were during his eight (8) years already spent in office, but we'll walk with him for a moment on this one.
But, then we see this:
New York City jobless rate hits 9.6%—a 12-yr. high
Hmmmm, hasn't been this high since the end of Rudy's first term.
And we realize ol' Mayor Mike hasn't said anything about job creation in a very long time. Hmmm. Probably, because he can't.
I assume this is due to Bloomberg News simply not being able to accommodate any more staff.
Mike's going to simply have to buy sections of New Jersey in order to find new places for NYers to work.
posted by Gotham 6:03 PM
Democrats to Hoyer:
"We'll Have To See" About Re-election
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Hoyer Counters Pelosi: "We'll Have To See" About A Public Option | TPMDC
Steny Hoyer, if you can come home with a solid Healthcare Reform bill with a Public Option in your overnight bag, fine. We're here with open arms.
If not, don't bother coming home, we won't be here.
Best wishes,
Your fellow Democrats
posted by Gotham 5:17 PM
Bang! You're foreclosed!
0 commentsJesus!
The GOP chairman of Boise County, Idaho, Charles McAffee, who is also a tea-party activist and a member of the Idaho GOP Central Committee, pulled a loaded .357 Magnum on some guy while moonlighting on behalf of Wells Fargo bank. This cowboy must think he's guarding the strongbox on the Wells Fargo stagecoach.
Let's repeat that:
The GOP chairman of Boise County, Idaho, Charles McAffee, who is also a tea-party activist and a member of the Idaho GOP Central Committee, pulled a loaded .357 Magnum on some guy while moonlighting on behalf of Wells Fargo BANK.
Homeowner, 51, falls behind some on his mortgage. Looks out, sees a guy, McAffee, 33, clicking pics of his house. As you or I would, he asks McAffee just what the hell he's doing. McAffee blows him off. Homeowner gets angry; they get into an argument. McAffee pulls out a concealed .357 Magnum, points it at the homeowner. Homeowner thinks he's about to die.
GOP County Chair McAffee is reported to have thought that pulling a loaded monster killer weapon on this schmuck would "de-escalate the conflict."
Your modern Republican Party at work.
These people are going to start "de-escalating" folks to the morgue the way they are going. Then, they'll blame the victims for needing killing.
I've looked down the barrel of a handgun and, trust me, you will never focus in your life the way you do in those precious moments. It does get your attention.
This has officially gotten scary. At this rate, someone is going to get killed unless the police and FBI step in. A small army of mentally unbalanced loons on the right are now armed to the teeth and ready to defend "their America" from a whole array of psychosis-induced enemies.
This is the single greatest threat we face to the security of the United States of America. Armed insurrection by a few thousand armed crazies will turn the U.S. into an updated Night of the Living Dead, where no one is safe.
This cadre of maniacs has, at the least, the tacit approval of our corporate leaders—local and national.
So, the banking industry and your friendly neighborhood Republican Party have now joined forces to invite you to "Make. My. Day!"
posted by Gotham 3:04 PM
Thursday, August 20, 2009
"You Can Fool Some Of The People...
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...All of the time."
This should now—and forevermore—be known as The Favre Rule.
NY Times: Brett Favre’s Arm Takes Sales for Vikings FartherThe Vikings sold more than 3,200 season tickets in the first 24 hours after news broke Tuesday that Brett Favre was going to Minnesota.
I rest my case.
posted by Gotham 4:15 PM
It's THEM!
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These are the very people who will have the biggest say in your not getting decent, affordable healthcare any time soon.
There's three of them. No, not the Republicans in the Gang of Six. There's three people in this town that Mike Enzi represents. A typical Wyoming town. If you drive to Wyoming, try to find a person. Go ahead. Find a living, breathing human being. Damned hard to do. Just how did all those horses and cows gain statehood?
Mike Enzi (R-WY) represents less people than any other Senator, maybe eight people and a few horses in all of Wyoming, but he gets to be a major player in the Gang of Six on the Senate Finance Committee that's in the process of drowning your chance at viable health coverage in the tub.
Hell, we've got as many people in our apartment as these folks have in their whole TOWN!
I don't know who they're burying in this photo, but you can rest assured that whoever it was, was 57% of Enzi's vote total last election.
So much for representative government.
Are we seeing something like, "Representation without Population!"
posted by Gotham 3:51 PM
"...In Case Something Went Wrong"
Something like this.0 comments
In this tightly knit, scary little world of Dick Cheney and his minions, public exposure is much more to be feared than any covert loss to one of their precious multitudes of enemies.
So, Cheney and the CIA lost their illegal assassination program. OK, they say, we'll lay low, then we'll go back-channel and get a black op company to do it. We'll put it in the contract that they take the fall if it fucks up.
See? Thinkin', always thinkin'.
posted by Gotham 1:27 PM
Meyerson Goes Behind The Red Curtain
Nicely done op-ed piece by Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post today.0 commentsRepublican ideology has shrunk alongside its geography and demographics. Where once its view of the role of government ran the gamut from Rockefeller activism to Goldwater libertarianism, today the party largely adheres to the religiosity and the anti-statism of the white South. (In its ideological uniformity, today's GOP looks—O, the irony—more like a classic European party than an American one.)
In short, the Republican Party with which Democrats could make deals no longer exists. The GOP is too narrow; the gap between the parties, too wide. Our politics are not those of the mid-20th century, when bipartisanship was fairly common. If anything, they're more like those of the mid-19th century, before the Civil War, when North and South combined only to make a house divided against itself—a conflict resolved not by compromise, but, as Lincoln predicted, by a nation then half-slave and half-free becoming "all one thing or all the other."
Lincoln's prophecy still holds. Our current conflicts may be resolved only as the South becomes traditionally less Southern and more diverse—home to more Northern transplants and immigrants. That process was already at work in the 2008 elections, when [Barack] Obama carried Virginia, North Carolina and Florida on the strength of those demographic shifts. As that process continues—perhaps only as it continues—the course of reform in America may run more smoothly.
This White European screaming does, in fact, look ever more like the death throes of a dying culture, yowling as it succumbs to the tar pits.
If these White Europeans are to survive as the politically dominant segment of the population and the drivers of the culture, their mission is difficult and complex indeed: Just however do you turn a melting pot stew into a clear broth?
posted by Gotham 12:30 PM
Grassley Makes Believe He Works For A Living
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That Grampa Chuck Grassley, he's such a kidder. I love it at Thanksgiving, when he pulls black bags of corporate cash from behind the ears of all the young kids in the room.
WAPO: Grassley Urges Scaling Back on Health-Care Reform Plan, Citing Town Hall Anger
That, of course, would be the Anger expressed by all those Red-Tie corporate types who are afraid of not getting a bonus this year, and all those truly wretched people they've duped and ginned up to scream and yell about something they have absolutely no clue about.
The hard-knuckle ancestors of these Red-Tie types used to get this rabble drunker than skunks before carting them to the polls, or stuffed cash in their pockets while telling them which lever to pull. Chuck may just be old enough to remember those days...
Maybe..., Grampa Chuck should be the first granny those "Death Panels" pull the plug on.
posted by Gotham 12:01 PM
Dealing With The Dining Room Tables
Just in case you missed Barney Frank's riposte from the other night...1 comments
Ranking right up there with "Ask not what your country can do for you..." (JFK) and "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" (FDR):"It is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated." (Rep. Barney Frank—MA)
Thank you, Congressman Frank.
However, dear reader, I urge you to go back and look at the clip again.
Take a good look at the young woman at the mic. She's not your standard poor crone, broke, terrified, beaten by events, whipped into a frenzy by the lies of the Corporati. This woman gives every appearance of BEING the Corporati. Part of The Beltway Mob.
This version of the clip cuts off her long preamble as she sets up calmly and wisely (she assumes) her thesis that Obama = Hitler, and you of course could never support that, right? She's seems intelligent, level-headed and educated. She gives every appearance of being decidedly (upper?) middle-class. She looks for all the world exactly like every recent hire by UnitedHealthCare, Cigna, Pfizer, Blue Cross or any of the army of corporations hired by them as PR firms, lobbying outfits or influence peddlers—i.e., firms that shill (lie) for their clients for a hefty fee to influence legislators like Barney Frank to give their clients perks or better standing in upcoming bills at the expense of you, the taxpayer/consumer.
You easily can picture this young woman in a conference room with her note pad, right? So can I. Looks a bit like Ashley Judd. Very sharp visage. A go-getter; on her way up. She may have been sorting out airline and hotel reservations for her boss for the company golf outing/retreat just before heading up to Massachusetts, don't you think?
Yes, for all the world, she looks like a shill.
And yes, Congressman Frank was correct to not engage further with this young woman—since she gives every indication of being paid to stand there and combat whatever Frank says, in order to gain extra camera time and to disrupt Frank's meeting. For as long as she possibly can. Nothing personal; just business.
The Dining Room Tables will never listen, Frank is correct about that. The professional Dining Room Tables are paid to not listen. So, it's better not to waste time talking to them. Their aim is not to win, but to make you look bad. So, don't bother.
Simply pass your bill and the amateur Dining Room Tables will wind up enjoying the fruits of whatever it is you pass—as long as it's a good bill.
Then, the Professional Tables will simply be forced back to their golf games.
posted by Gotham 9:25 AM
The Healthcare Corporati Eat Their Own
Wow. Who knew those Red-Tie corporate-operative types from the corporate towers of NYC & The Beltway Mob in DC could find so many t-shirts and plaid shirts to wear to these town hall-type meetings?0 comments
Stunning, really. They must have scoured every 99-Cent Store on the East Coast. Plus, I assume they've simply wiped out L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer.
Today's quiz: Find The Montana Resident In This Video! (Aside from Max Baucus, of course.)
Poor Max. After carrying their water on this for so long, THIS is how they repay him? By making him look like David Letterman with a really bad guest? If he's this inarticulate, and fumbles so as he speaks, however DID he get elected Senator? (Just askin'...)"... agitators, whose sole goal was to intimidate, disrupt and not let any meaningful conversation go on."
Well said, Senator.
It'd like near to turn you into a Democrat!
posted by Gotham 8:55 AM
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Corrupting With The Stars!
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This is classic Tom DeLay. I know, every Tom DeLay is classic Tom DeLay, but this really is classic Tom DeLay.
Corporatist Supreme DeLay, who created the K Street system of lobbying, then elevated it to an integral part of DC governance, had a friend. A friend on Dancing With The Stars—country music star, Sara Evans.
Back in 2006, months after he'd resigned from Congress, DeLay sent out an e-mail to his supporter list, calling on them to vote in that current season of Dancing for country singer Sara Evans, who is a vocal supporter of the Republican Party, and whose husband was a GOP fundraiser and had been an unsuccessful candidate for Congress. DeLay framed this cause as part of the culture war—targeting that nasty liberal contestant Jerry Springer ...
OK. So far we have Tom DeLay being Tom DeLay.
Here's the part I love:Evans ended up quitting the show due to a messy divorce, citing frequent adultery by her husband. (GN emphasis)Well, THAT should win ya a GOP primary, boy. Especially in Texas. This all goes to show that you don't have to have a government job already to be a Republican Who Fucks Around. It's really quite simple. You can become a RWFA just by being friends with Republicans who have/had government jobs. Or just by trying to get a government job. Or by being married to someone who's trying to get a government job.
Of course, the GOP NEVER DISCRIMINATES! A RWFA can be a male Republican or a female Republican. There's no rules governing RWFAs. The only minimum standard applied is that you agree to be cheesy beyond human endurance, and be willing to make a complete, utter joke of yourself in public media while you're grasping for a sliver of that GOP political domination and an insider's cut of all that cold, hard, lobbying cash that's sloshing about in DC and out in the "Homeland." In the GOP's Big Tent, Republican women are certainly entitled to debase themselves in equal measure to anyone in the male contingent.
posted by Gotham 12:39 AM
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Mayor Updates His Intentions
Term limits, schmerm limits. That was just a piffle. It's so yesterday.0 comments
Mayor Wallet's Freudian slip is showing once again.
The Supreme Owner of All Things Five-Borough-ish let slip in a WOR Radio interview with John Gambling that this year's mayoralty race is really intended to be an election for Mayor-for-Life.
New York, New York, it's a helluva town. And Mike Bloomberg lets us live here! How very kind of him.
Ahhh, the joys of noblesse oblige!"For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." Luke 12:48 Bible KJV
Wouldn't it be nice if, instead of Mike wasting all that money simply on a campaign he most likely would win anyway, he simply started spending it on the people of NYC, whom he claims to care so much about?
Mike is the richest man in NYC—a difficult mantle to achieve, no doubt. We plebeians can attest to that. We can also assume that it must be a bear to maintain. Mike's single, with no family. If he started a crusade on a 24/7 schedule to spend ALL of his money, he'd be hard-pressed to do so in his lifetime.
So, Mike may want to think in terms of Bill Gates, who's currently trying to shed all that extra cash he and his wife have that's clogging up the garage and basement.
We suggest to you, Mike, that instead of simply allowing those of us of the serf classes to remain on your property here as urban sharecroppers, toiling away for your greater glory and wealth, you take a real shot at buffing up your name in the history books and start spreading that cash out over the citizenry in any of a dizzying array of creative means—through major public projects, by hiring all of Brooklyn at Bloomberg News, by paying for a new school system, or, hell, just go for it—direct cash payments to every citizen. I mean, you're buying City Hall anyway, why not just go ahead and do it directly?
The rites of the class you worked so hard to enter demand it.
posted by Gotham 12:56 PM
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Well, The Going's Gotten Crazy, So...
... The crazies are now getting going!0 comments
Fascism is afoot in the land.
The lunatic authoritarian White Right now looms as the greatest law and order threat to the security of the United States.
Anti-Health Care Reform Protester Encourages Physical Violence, Use Of Firearms
You now face a greater threat from some self-styled "g.i. joe" nut in your town then you do from al Qaeda. Al Qaeda doesn't have the means necessarily to cross the ocean. But this nut is already here, armed to the teeth and braying at the moon.
The basis of their tenet: If the strength of their idea isn't enough to sway you, then they'll just have to shoot you.
That's what they mean when you hear them sob, "This isn't MY AMERICA!"
During Vietnam, these are the folks who espoused the concept of "Kill for Peace" with no sense of irony.
posted by Gotham 6:57 PM
