Tag Archives: Politics

A Meme Too Far

Just want to make a short observation about political reporting. For weeks, the “meme” (a sort of made up word I don’t particularly like, but which is serviceable for this purpose) has been that it’s an anti-incumbent year and that the Dems, being the incumbents, will have more than the normal share of problems for a White House in an off-year election. A Deepwater Horizon of digital ink has been spilled about this idea.

image-2803

Vintage RayBans

I respectfully dissent.

Look at last night’s election results without any coloring.

On the East Coast in So. Car., Mrs. Nikki Haley is cruising towards being elected the first woman governor of that state.

In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln fought off a stiff male challenge from the left (yes, I intended that).

In Nevada, Sue Lowden and Sharron Angles vied for the right to challenge Majority Leader Harry Reid.

In California, the Republican Party nominated Meg Whitman for Governor and Carley Fiorina to face incumbent U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

I’m not inclined to make too much of this, except to say I think too little has been made of an election in which so many women have played such a prominent role and been so successful at such a high level. I’ll also note that Oklahoma is very likely to have its first woman governor. With the exception of Sen. Lincoln, all those women are Republicans, which seems counterintuitive on several levels considering the policy stances of that party vis the Democratic Party.

Something is going on that has little to do with incumbency, it seems to me, but it also seems that it may be too difficult for political writers to think and write about.

I’m going to leave it there and let you guys draw your own conclusions.

Blogblah

December 12, 2009

I’ve had this cold and it’s kept me inside for several days. Yesterday, I had no choice but to leave the house briefly to make a deposit for a client as promised. I bravely went forth, bundled up and feeling good about my break from cabin fever after a couple of days indoors.

Bad move.

I didn’t have a choice, but I wasn’t as well as I thought. I got home and imploded.

Meanwhile, on the national politics front, that do-nothing Obama; what can I say? In one week, all he was able to accomplish was a Nobel Prize acceptance speech hailed by both right and left, passage by the House of Wall Street regulatory reform and passage by both houses of Congress of a $1.2 Trillion budget, all while the health care reform bill is being filibustered by the same Republicans that passed the biggest government intrusion into the health care field since Medicare on the back of a $1.2 Trillion unfunded deficit spending Part D Medicare drug program. Tea bag my ass.

Blogblah

October 1, 2009

Yesterday in the Senate Finance Committee, the GOP offered some of their 500 amendments to the Baucus bill, the passage of all of them, we learned from Sen. Minority Leader McConnell, will still not move a single Republican vote because the GOP is the party of “no” when it comes to health care reform.
Let me make that clear: there is no compromise, there is no reform of the health care system that will get bipartisan support.
Why even try to work with these guys?
Some of the amendments were silly. For example, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-UT, offered an amendment only applicable to states that have the first letter “U”.
Many of the amendments were about federal funding of abortion and that was a cluster fuck deluxe that prompted U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachman, R-MN, to vomit as above.
You see, the Dems were all about accepting abortion amendments from the GOP until the GOP reached a sticking place: the Republicans wanted to ban all insurance coverage, private or public, from all coverage of any abortion procedures for any woman including procedures in the case of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. Continue reading →

September 30, 2009

Blogblah

Blogblah

Those of you who read this blog, few as you may be, know that I’m interested in politics. Unfortunately, politics has become, to me, much less interesting of late.

This is true almost completely because there is no more intellectual contrast between the competing political forces.

There isn’t much interesting in hearing upset citizens calling the president names. I understand being upset with politics. However, calling President Obama (variously and in combination) a “socialist, communist, Marxist, Nazi, Hitler, fascist” is much less than interesting since none of those words apply if we use those words to mean what they have always meant. Oh, I know that it’s radical and communist and Nazi to believe that words have meaning, but still. What is interesting to me is that this name-calling started during the election when Sen. John McCain started calling then-Sen. Barack Obama a “socialist”. After that, his vice-presidential nominee, then-Gov. Sarah Palin, went to town and hasn’t let up. Now, this name calling has expanded to “liar” and has spread through the quarter of the country who still cling to the Republican Party brand out in the hustings. In fact, I’d say the Republican Party leadership in the guise of Mr. Steele the party chairman has joined in when he tries to compare Obama to Stalin and Kim Jong Il in a fundraising letter. Continue reading →

April 28, 2009

shut up, he explained

shut up, he explained


Just a thought … but what would happen tomorrow if President Obama came to the microphone and announced:
“My fellow Americans, I have come to my senses and I want to stand here and apologize to my Republican friends from the former administration for any implication there may have been from the White House that they were in any way wrong about using the CIA to torture people in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. I just don’t know what I was thinking, you know? OF COURSE I want the power to make people disappear and then hurt them until they say anything I want. Why wouldn’t a president want to be able to listen in to the conversations and read the email of, oh, I don’t know, political enemies who threaten the national security some how and all hush hush and state secrets and suspended habeas corpus and all that lawyer double talk? I mean, what president wouldn’t want to look across the table and be able to say “how would you like to visit Cuba? ‘Cause that’s where you’re going if you don’t sign off on this.”? I mean, it’s just too good. I mean, if you wanted a national show trial of, I don’t know, say, a former Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State or maybe even an elected official that isn’t really either judicial, legislative or executive, you know, I mean, it would be better if the show trial could include a nice videotaped confession, you know.
So, as to the press conference, the first amendment no longer applies to the president since we’re at war and all and you guys can buzz off and if you don’t like it, just remember Abu Grahib and Baghram have plenty of room for dissenters.
Good night, America. Sleep tight. I got it covered. Out.”

I don’t think the right wing realizes that they are, in essence, arguing that all presidents have the power that Bush arrogated to himself. Have they considered an Obama presidency with those powers and the willingness to use them that Dick Cheney displayed?

Do conservatives, or at least what passes for those that use that word, really want a president with that much power? I can’t believe iit. I can’t believe they don’t know what they are saying. I just can’t believe an American political party can be so far off the beam as to really be arguing in favor of a permanent despotic presidency.
blogblah

January 6, 2009

THE EYES OF TEXAS …

great football game!

great football game!

No matter what happens from here on out, it was good to be a Texas and/or Big 12 fan at the end of the Fiesta Bowl. It was by far the best bowl game of the season so far and one of the better games I’ve ever watched. Great football teams come from behind, they find a way to win, and Colt McCoy and Texas and Mack Brown passed the test against a quality Big 10 team.

BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!

BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!


Of course, this now means that no matter what happens on Thursday, both Texas and Utah are going to claim to be national champions AND Texas will continue to believe that Oklahoma “stole” the Big 12 Title and the chance to play Florida and actually BE national champs rather than just claim it. If Oklahoma loses to Florida, the hue and cry will be heard ’round the world. Horns will weep in the street and lynch mobs will be formed. There will be an attempt by a small group of Texans to secede from the union. For being so proud of their so-big state, they can cry like babies over football. Of course, Sooners are never, ever, ever crybabies and that 15-15 tie didn’t phase me a bit. We’re just cool. We have “Sooner Magic”, which means that we find a way to come back. Except when we don’t. Please Please Please Coach Stoops win this one, OK? I’ll get excited about college basketball around the time of the Big 12 tournament and maybe not until the sweet 16 in March. Oh! Before I forget, there’s also USC that thinks they have a claim to the title of national champions. They won the Pac 10 and beat Penn State in the Rose Bowl and really looked dominating.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Sometime during my marriage, my wife must have bought “my-fault” insurance.

WHAT? NO POLITICS?

The truth is that after the November elections, I’d been following politics closely for my whole life and started being interested in the presidential election in the fall of 2007 and built up to the point that I was honest to goodness reading political stuff on the internet from 8 to 12 hours every single day. I know that the story about Bill Richardson bowing out is important, as is the appointment of Leon Panetta to head CIA, but I just can’t get too excited about it. It’s not that I think anybody much cares about my political pronouncements, but I’ll talk and write about it again and more and to the distraction of some, but I’m just not feeling it right now.

BLOGGING BUDDIES

MCARP

MCARP


MCARP complained in a comment that my picture looked like it was out of GQ and that his looked like it was taken at St. Anthony’s ER. He must think this one is better because he says it’s the one he uses on MyFaceCrack. He admits, however, that the photo has received at least one unkind review. The guy is a Photoshop Ace, I can’t figure out why he just doesn’t make himself look like he wants to look. Maybe put his face on a golden Bhudda being embraced by the multi-armed Shiva in an Edwardian-style piece of the two in a punt on the Thames. “Forbidden Kiss”. Or maybe lengthen his for-real beard into chin piece and long mustache Chinese elder style. I wish I could do that Photoshop stuff. Maybe someday.

Flibbertigibbit

Flibbertigibbit


Over on Nina’s blog, she’s changed her avatar to the one here. I think it’s only fair if she’s going to be so difficult about it all and be on hiatus and mess with the minds clueless men, this absolutely should be her avatar so that we might get the hint. I will say that any man who sees that and goes for it is likely to be a very competitive fellow, the kind of guy who looks for a challenge. We’ll have to get her to recite: “What part of ‘NO!’ did you not understand?”. Go with it, Flibbi, I think it’ll work for you.

A cool cat with blue eyes. Call him Sinatra

A cool cat with blue eyes. Call him Sinatra


I’m miffed, Muffy. He’s supposed to sit at the window and let me in and out as I please and instead he put on hard shoes and a tie and left me outside all day where I couldn’t check every 15 minutes to see if he’d put out wet food. When he got home, I told him and showed him the food bowl several times and he ignored me. Tonight, when he’s asleep, I’m going to poo in his shoes. Time for a nap! Bye!