Just too easy to not get a job

Shorter Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Indiana,: Democrats are enabling those damned Lucky Unemployed Duckies.

"[Democrats] seem to have surrendered to a new normal of high unemployment. Instead of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with out-of-work Americans, they’re focused on making it easier to live without a job. They’re focused on bigger government and less opportunity. More debt and fewer jobs," he said.

The savior of the GOP

Well, that crazy Hoosier nails it again.

Look, don't get me wrong; I've lived through the political popularity of Ronald Reagan and Mitch Daniels, and at least three resurrections of Richard Nixon. I know anything's possible. I also know that Marco Rubio can take all the soundings he wants, train his crew 18 hours a day, and buy the best admiral's hat he can find, and his boat will still be on the rocks, and the scuppers overflow'd, and the only functioning lifeboat will already contain the Koch brothers, Rush Limbaugh, and two or three anti-abortion activists waving Bushmasters. I look forward to his finessing that for the next three years.

[...]

The Republican party is frickin' insane, to the point that Insanity is the party's signature principle. The current Republican message isn't "smaller government" (and perhaps the party would be better off if they'd been called on that little fiction thirty years ago); it's "feces-hurling psychosis". The proper venue for that message is "Post-war apocalyptic hellscape." Marco Rubio's not ready for his closeup, but his party ain't ready for even small adjustments, and small adjustments ain't gonna get the job done.

It's kinda weird.  I start sweating getting out of bed this morning, so I felt profound empathy as I watched the tell-tale twitch that indicated Rubio was feeling the beads of sweat were tickling his temples.  And for the next 10 minutes Madame Cura and I couldn't help ourselves from just sympathetically talking over his remarks, as we considered  this remarkable performance that only reminded everyone of Jindal and Ryan's similar deer in the headlights moment.  So we, just like pretty much every other American watching, didn't hear his worn out, loopy, fun-house description of the socialist tyranny of the Obama administration and his rote recital of Republican tropes that are proven failures.

"This is how we treat animals"

Via Sullivan, CNN doesn't want this to become "a story." 

Tampa, Florida (CNN) – Two people were removed from the Republican National Convention Tuesday after they threw nuts at an African-American CNN camera operator and said, “This is how we feed animals.”

When Republicans gather together their collective Id is unrestrained.

The GOP doesn't just hate women, they hate caterpillars too

"If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we'd have problems with caterpillars," Reince Priebus told Bloomberg Television, in response to a question about the party's supposed "war on women." "It's a fiction." 

Except, in both cases, it's not a fiction.

Yes, Virginia, there are racists

Newt Gingrich is not employing a dog whistle, he's using an air raid siren.

Ta-Nehisi Coates provides the appropriate response.

When a professor of history calls Barack Obama a "Food Stamp President," it isn't a mistake to be remedied through clarification; it is a statement of aggresion [sic]. And when a crowd of his admirers cheer him on, they are neither deluded, nor in need of forgiveness, nor absolution, nor acting against their interest. Racism is their interest. They are not your misguided friends. They are your fully intelligent adversaries, sporting the broad range of virtue and vice we see in humankind. If you are a praying person, you should pray for their electoral destruction in November. Surely they are praying for yours:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office 

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. 

May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. 

May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. 

May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.

Newt Gingrich coined "The Moment" on Martin Luther King's birthday.  Real racists do real things.

 

These people are scum.  They have been for decades.  It doesn't matter if it's Joe Wilson's "you lie" howl at the State of the Union address, Romney's waxing poetic for an era before women and brown people had rights, or Newt's sneering "food stamp president."*  And if we are truly honest with ourselves, we will see that so too are the people to whom they pander, whether the panderer is George Wallace, Ronald Reagan, or Newt Leroy Gingrich.  If that doesn't matter to you, then believe that Ron Paul is a greater believer in civil liberties than is Barack Obama or that a dime's difference between the two parties is a reason not to register and vote.

* With the trifecta of attacking the working poor, African Americans, and the current POTUS, all in one "intellectual" phrase.  If he could have beaten up made fun of a gay veteran on stage, he'd be the GOP nominee already.

Voting rights

Jeffrey Toobin praises Eric Holder's defense of the right to vote for all Americans, including non-Republicans.

This is a chance for Holder to define his legacy as Attorney General—as something more than the guy who tried, and failed, to have Guantánamo Bay detainees tried in federal court in New York. There is a purity, a simplicity, about the voting-rights fight that is sadly absent from many modern civil-rights battles. This is not about special privileges, or quotas, or even complex mathematical formulae. It’s about a basic right of American citizenship, which is being taken from large numbers of people for the most cynical of reasons. The laws are, quite literally, indefensible—so Holder ought to make the states that have them try to defend them. That would be a legacy that would make any Attorney General, and any American, proud.

Read, as they say on the Intubes, the whole thing.

Charlie Savage contracts a case of journamalism

I generally admire Charlie Savage's reporting, but this is a classic -- and egregious -- example of "he said/she said" false equivalency.

This year, more than a dozen states enacted new voting restrictions. For example, eight — Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin — imposed new laws requiring voters to present state-issued photo identification cards. Previously voters were able to use other forms of identification, like bank statements, utility bills and Social Security cards.

Proponents of such restrictions — mostly Republicans — say they are necessary to prevent voter fraud that could cancel out the choices of legitimate participants. Opponents — mostly Democrats — say there is no evidence of meaningful levels of fraud and contend that the measures are a veiled effort to suppress participation by hundreds of thousands of eligible voters who lack a driver’s license.

My emphasis.

Really, Charlie.  You couldn't have done a little bit of reporting to see whose claims are actually borne out by the evidence.  Perhaps you could have looked to your own newspaper for some help on this.

Transforming the health care system = screwing seniors and the disabled

The only thing "bold" about Paul Ryan's "plan" is the type size of the fawning headlines:

House Republican aides said the budget blueprint to be issued by the chairman of the Budget Committee, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, would slice more than $5 trillion from projected federal spending in the coming decade. Health care accounts for much of the savings.

But while saving large sums for the federal government, the proposals on Medicaid and Medicare could shift some costs to beneficiaries and to the states.

Under the proposal, Medicaid would be transformed into a block grant, with a lump sum of federal money given to the states to care for low-income people. States would be given more discretion over use of the money than they have under the current federal-state partnership.

As Ezra Klein notes, it's not as if the states have these brilliant plans to fundamentally lower health care costs -- innovations that the iron fist of the federal government has prevented them from putting in place.

Medicaid is cheap. Too cheap, as many health care providers simply won't accept Medicaid patients because the reimbursement isn't worth it.

I suppose it would be too much to ask for Democrats -- in particular the president -- to point out that this does nothing to solve long term deficits other than to put more of the responsibility for addressing it on the backs of those least able to do so.

Exotic backgrounds -- the Senate vs. the House

According to Charlie Cook, how big a problem a candidate's "exotic background is depends on whether the candidate is running for the Senate or the House.

These are not "social issues"

Steve Benen points out that when John McCain says that he opposes amendments to defense appropriations bills he is either lying or senile.

Fair enough, but before he gets there, Steve writes,

Noting, for example, that the bill includes a repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and may ultimately include the Dream Act, McCain says the problem has nothing to do with his animosity towards gays and immigrants. Rather, McCain says it's "reprehensible" to "use the defense bill ... to pursue a social agenda."

At first blush, this might seem half-way reasonable. Putting aside the fact that troop eligibility has quite a bit to do with the Pentagon, it does seem awkward to add extraneous provisions to spending bills that deal with unrelated subjects. Last year, for example, Democrats added the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to the defense authorization bill, though hate crimes and military spending don't seem related.

No.

It isn't "half-way reasonable." As Steve himself points out both issues are very much about troop strength.

McCain has zigzagged so much the "Straight Talk Express" should be pulled over for DUI, but repeal of DADT and passing the Dream Act are "national security" issues. One punishes our fighting men and women while they serve, the other fails to reward them after they served.

Joe Barton would like to apologize

Just keep refreshing the page.

The old enemies and white populism

Today's Krugmaniad.

So what President Obama and his party now face isn’t just, or even mainly, an opposition grounded in right-wing populism. For grass-roots anger is being channeled and exploited by corporate interests, which will be the big winners if the G.O.P. does well in November.

If this sounds familiar, it should: it’s the same formula the right has been using for a generation. Use identity politics to whip up the base; then, when the election is over, give priority to the concerns of your corporate donors. Run as the candidate of “real Americans,” not those soft-on-terror East coast liberals; then, once you’ve won, declare that you have a mandate to privatize Social Security. It comes as no surprise to learn that American Crossroads, a new organization whose goal is to deploy large amounts of corporate cash on behalf of Republican candidates, is the brainchild of none other than Karl Rove.

But won’t the grass-roots rebel at being used? Don’t count on it. Last week Rand Paul, the Tea Party darling who is now the Republican nominee for senator from Kentucky, declared that the president’s criticism of BP over the disastrous oil spill in the gulf is “un-American,” that “sometimes accidents happen.” The mood on the right may be populist, but it’s a kind of populism that’s remarkably sympathetic to big corporations.

So where does that leave the president and his party? Mr. Obama wanted to transcend partisanship. Instead, however, he finds himself very much in the position Franklin Roosevelt described in a famous 1936 speech, struggling with “the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.”

It was interesting that Rand Paul accused the president of being "un-American" for saying we need to put the "boot heel" to BP's neck. The president didn't say that. Ken Salazar did. But we all know why Rand Paul would come to the conclusion that the president is "un-American."

Ben Domenech is into diapers and baby powder

Or so I've heard.

Make no mistake, this is not just an effort to humiliate a potential Supreme Court nominee, it's also a calculated -- if rather pathetic -- attempt to infuse social conservative emotion into the process. That emotion has been lacking lately; "reverse racism" wasn't the powerful punch creeps like Gingrich thought it would be in opposing Sotomayor. But maybe the intersection of "activist judge" and "gay marriage in the courts" will gain more traction among the religious base of the Republican party.

I thought it was "The War of Yankee Aggression"

Treason in defense of slavery month.

Whiter shade of shit

Shorter Daniel Henninger: To say that the Teaparties are racists because they show Obama dressed as a witch doctor is absurd and an affront to those great average Americans."

To which Mr. Riley responds,

Okay, so maybe "beyond the pale" (Wagner, Max!) isn't Freudian, but restricting oneself to the "modern" in order to select "the civil rights years" as the shining template of your little hate movement is at least suggestive, especially coming from someone who wonders aloud what the 3/5 Compromise Framers would have thought of Obamacare. The obvious "modern" choice would be the New Deal, which I suppose is out of the question on grounds that doing so in the WSJ would legitimize it as an actual reordering of our political system, rather than the disastrous power grab of that class-traitor Roosevelt. (And thanks, by the way, for all the years the Anti-Fluoridationist Right has endured that without once stooping to unfair criticism.) In fact I'm not exactly sure how the "civil rights years" reordered our political system, exactly (and, yet again, note how these guys invariably place that Movement they so admire in their belovéd "Sixties", either through a complete lack of familiarity with the actual struggle for Civil Rights, or the habitual demonization of that Decade that Ruined Everything); the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts merely enforced the Reconstruction Amendments, after a brief hundred-year oversight. The Fair Housing Act proscribed certain behaviors, which US legislators have been doing since the Articles of Confederation. The Civil Rights Commission (it was created in 1957, Danny-boy) addressed the glaring discrepancies between the sort of things the sort of people who insist on name-checking The Founders said, and the sorts of things they did.

What I do know is this: one party has consistently tried to roll those back, and it's yours, Mr. Henninger. I know which party enacted the Southern Strategy, and which is still home to the Dixiecrats; I know which one worships above all a man who began his umpteenth and finally successful Presidential campaign with a States' Right speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi; I know who made Willie Horton a campaign issue and Barack Obama a Magic Negro. Not to mention the history of code words and end runs and shock, shock! that someone would still be rubbing your nose in it. This is the "modern example" of your party, sir. I'll be happy to discuss what is or isn't beyond the pale--maybe not with you--after you people cut the shit.

And, you know, I'm a little sick of these guys complaining about whatever East Coast elitist media outlet they're not currently speaking from.

True colors

It is surely a sign of how off the tracks Greater Wingnuttia has become when a "teaparty favorite" doesn't dare denounce someone who just called him a spic.

You know, we just got through (electing) a politician who can run his mouth at Mach 1, a black one, and now we have a Hispanic who can run his mouth at Mach 1. You look at their track records and they’re both pretty gritty.”

Colonel Day continued, making clear that he didn’t think much of either man for their fast-talking or use of teleprompters. “You’ve got the black one with the reading thing,” he said. “He can go as fast as the speed of light and has no idea what he’s saying. I put Rubio in that same category.”

[...]

“Col. Bud Day is an American war hero, and we’re grateful for his service to our nation,” said Alex Burgos, a Rubio spokesman, in an e-mail message. “We hope this race will be focused on the real issues of importance to Florida voters, namely which candidate can be trusted to go to Washington, take on the Obama agenda and offer a clear alternative. We’re not holding our breath, but we hope Charlie Crist will eventually realize this.”

Personally, I'm just proud to be an American.

More good news for Republicans -- the Civil Rights disaster

On the Sunday Idiot Shows, Newt Gingrich helpfully pointed out that passage of comprehensive health care reform is the worst political disaster for Democrats since passage of Civil Rights legislation under LBJ.

Former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama and the Democrats will regret their decision to push for comprehensive reform. Calling the bill “the most radical social experiment . . . in modern times,” Gingrich said: “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Quickly called on that -- that overcoming decades of apartheid and doing the morally correct thing was probably worth the price (that LBJ himself recognized), Gingrich quickly backs away.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was quoted Sunday as saying that President Obama and the Democrats, by passing comprehensive health care legislation, "will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years" with the passage of civil rights legislation.

The article went on to note how Johnson's support for civil rights legislation broke apart the North-South coalition in the old Democratic Party and led to the realignment of the South into solid Republican territory.

Gingrich responded with several emails saying that the context misrepresented his views by implying that he believed Johnson was wrong to sign the major civil rights legislation of the 1960s. To the contrary, he said, the civil rights revolution of 1956-1965 was "morally absolutely necessary" for the country and Johnson was correct in pushing for the legislation. Other Johnson actions, he said, inflicted more damage to the Democratic coalition.

Not only is this guy unfit to be president, he's unfit to teach history. He was absolutely correct, in the first case, to note that Civil Rights legislation did in fact rupture the Democratic Party. Yes, the war would prove LBJ's undoing, but it was Civil Rights that broke the South from the Democratic Party. And good riddance, even if it did result in Nixon, Wallace, and Reagan (and, alas, Gingrich).

That southern arm of the Party no longer exists in any real sense. The correlation couldn't be farther from the truth. What is true is that, yes, many Democrats are going to face tough odds in November, but tackling one of the most intractable problems of our times and doing something that is morally upstanding seems worth what will be a tough price to pay for individual politicians and a brief one for the Party, but will stand as nearly as great an achievement as was Civil Rights was nearly 50 years ago.

Keep digging

With Jim Bunning fast becoming the face of the GOP's cruelty, callousness, and clueless self-regard, you'd think his colleagues in the caucus would steer clear of him.

You'd think wrong.

GOP JUST DOESN'T LIKE THE UNEMPLOYED.... Last week, Rep. Dean Heller (R) of Nevada expressed concern that the government is "creating hobos" by extending unemployment benefits. Around the same time, Rep. Steve King, a right-wing Republican from Iowa, explained his opposition to extended unemployment benefits: "We shouldn't turn the 'safety net' into a hammock."

And yesterday, we heard similar rhetoric from the Senate's #2 Republican.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working."

Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.

Now, Kyl's never been the sharpest crayon in the box, and his passive indifference to those suffering the effects of a brutal recession is consistent with his character. But as Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), not exactly a bold liberal, reminded his far-right colleague, unemployment benefits are actually a very effective stimulus: "He cited a Congressional Budget Office analysis that said the Gross Domestic Product grew $1.90 for every dollar the federal government paid out."

To summarize, perhaps we should permit Mr. Wu to draw us a diagram.

Pulling back the curtain

Dems could have been...well, Dems...and quietly allowed Bunning to place his "objection" to the bill extending jobless benefits that will run out on Sunday. We would have seen the usual stories about how "Democrats fail to pass a jobless bill" -- in fact, early stories took just that lede. But they didn't. They stayed in session and forced Bunning to repeat his objection deep into the night. The result was putting a face on the Senate GOP's constant obstruction, and on a bill that everyone, everyone, knows simply has to be passed.

Democrats have been under pressure from their allies to be more aggressive and public in challenging Republican procedural tactics and to not quietly accept the fact that they have to consume days and produce 60 votes to move ahead on most subjects. Why not force all-night sessions? How about old-fashioned filibusters?

Despite ample frustrations, Democrats have been reluctant to embrace such ideas. From a practical standpoint, lawmakers have busy schedules, and forcing Republicans to stay around means Democrats must stay as well. They said the filibuster had been idealized in a Jimmy Stewart, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” fashion, when the rules make it easy for Republicans to sustain one without a single individual holding the floor for hours.

Then there is the fact that many senators are advanced in years and not eager to pull all-nighters.

But Democrats said they were finding that pulling back the Senate curtain a bit had its benefits. A few weeks ago, the leadership disclosed that Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, had placed holds preventing Senate votes on dozens of administration nominations to gain leverage for some home-state projects. The revelation generated significant media buzz, and Mr. Shelby backed off in a matter of days.

The situation with Mr. Bunning has yet to be resolved, but the showdown has already gotten plenty of attention. As they mixed it up on the Senate floor, Democrats said they found the airing of their grievances with Mr. Bunning cathartic and beneficial to the Senate.

“When Senator Bunning decided to do this, it came with a risk,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri. “And the risk was that there were going to be senators who were going to speak out about it.” She said that both parties had been at fault in the Senate, “but that it is time we try to make this place work better.”

“I think the Senate would be a healthier place if we did it more often,” she said.

About time. Bunning is generally despicable, but this is beyond the pale.

"Coppertone Poltics"

Kareem Abdul Jabbar:

It's really interesting how the conservative movement has jumped on Harry Reid's racial observations regarding Barack Obama's candidacy. They feel that Reid made some type of faux pas. Senator Reid was making a candid observation about racial attitudes in America. For many Americans, dark skin and the Negro dialect are a definite negative when considering a political candidate. Those attributes are associated with all of the negative stereo types of blacks that have become part of America's history.

The conservatives are trying to say that those statements by Reid are the equivalent to Trent Lott's praise for the racist segregationist presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond. There is no rational way that speaking about racial attitudes that have been in play since the beginning of our nation is the equivalent of endorsing a racist presidential candidate. But the conservatives insist it's a match. Go figure. I hope Mr. Reid continues to lead the Dems successfully. The conservatives will continue to live in their fantasy world.

In retrospect, what is striking, though not surprising, about the hours spent jabbering about Reid's use of the word "negro" or "dialect (we're not really sure, no one would say what was offensive about Reid's comments)," was there was virtually no discussion of what Reid's comments were describing in American politics and the problem of institutionalized racism.