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A Multi-Tasking Machine Of Spinelessness

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Did anybody read the title and not think that this post was going to be about Obama?

I’ve reached the end of my rope with this president. The tax cut deal was the straw that broke bitchy’s back.

I’ve been of the belief that one of Obama’s problems is that he lacks conviction. I’ve graduated from “belief” to “certainty. He’s not passionate about anything to fight for it, or to even hold his ground.

I honestly thought I voted for a born leader when I cast my vote for him. Turns out that what I got is a middle manager with no real future. He tries to stay under the radar by capitulating to everyone in perpetuity; the quintessential middle manager.

The only belief that he seems to hold firm to, is that there’s always a middle ground to be found. Sadly, he defines “middle” as being slightly less than republicans are demanding, but far more than they ever expected to get.

Just four short weeks ago, all of the republican leaders were sending very strong signals that they would sign a tax bill that excluded the stinking rich if that was all they could get. Did Obama miss that? Was he busy creating a new playlist on his iPod to watch CNN that week? Seriously, what the fuck? Boehner couldn’t have been more clear about his willingness to cave. Don’t believe me? Watch!

And yet Obama still caves by giving them two more years of billionaire tax cuts, thereby increasing our deficit by another 140 billion dollars.

Here’s a fascinating breakdown of the relationship between the top marginal tax rate and the unemployment rate. This graph tells us that there’s an excellent chance that the unemployment rate in this most precarious of times, is very likely to stay high as a result of prolonging these tax cuts.

Can anyone guess what republicans are going to run on in 2012? Could it be the fucking deficit and the unemployment rate?

And what do you think Lloyd Blankfein is going to do with all of the extra cash in his savings account? Is he going to hire people, or is he going to use the money to bitch slap Obama in the 2012 elections by contributing to whoever his republican opponent is?

On the upside, Obama is figuring how to let republicans do three times as much damage with one single kick in the testicles. This saves them a lot of effort. While I admire his deference to Mitch McConnell, in making sure that he (McConnell) doesn’t tire himself out by having to expend more energy than necessary to turn Obama into a eunuch, I wish he would find just a little deference for the people that voted for him and the platform he ran on.

This latest buckling was like so many before it, unnecessary and damaging to us all. You see, we’re having to borrow more money from China so that Jamie Dimon doesn’t have to pay 3.5% more in taxes (as if his accountant can’t find loopholes to cover that).

This s bad for all Americans, but Obama is particularly bad for democrats. Each time he caves into republicans, the thing that he caved in on becomes the thing that Obama owns. These tax cuts for the rich will no longer be referred to as the “Bush tax cuts”. No, they’re the Obama tax cuts now.

Make no mistake – extending these tax cuts is the worst possible thing that can happen to our economy.

And no, this didn’t have to happen (something I hear from democrats all the time). Obama didn’t have to cave. 76% of Americans don’t want these tax cuts extended. He could have leveraged that political capital to stop a compromise from happening. He should have held a prime time press conference to spell out what republicans are trying to do to us, and named names in the process. He should have done this on the day that republicans blocked the tax cut vote on Saturday. He instead made a half assed effort to make his case.

Either he sucks at politics, or he wanted to extend these tax cuts all along.

Democrats already have a serious messaging problem. Having a leader that is willing to shit all over the basic tenets of the democratic party isn’t helping.

I’m worried that Obama is going to irreparably damage the party if he caves in on cutting social security. NO ONE wants for social security to be cut. Well, no one except the people that made out like fucking bandits on these tax cuts anyway. 76% of Americans (republicans and democrats combined) feel adamantly that social security should not be touched. If Obama does so much as raise the retirement age, democrats will forever be the party that cut social security.

Obama’s capitulation has escalated beyond the point of just being frustrating to the democratic base; it’s reckless and dangerous for the country and it will decimate the democratic party.

I’m well past the irritated with this president stage. I’m scared shitless of him in a way that I haven’t been scared by a president in my lifetime. If

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Only 51 Days Left For Obama’s Testicles To Drop

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That’s right, if Obama doesn’t grow a set in the next 51 days, he will undoubtedly be roadkill for the 730 days that follow. 51 days is now long he has until the 112th congress, laden with republicans takes over.

Let’s be honest, he’s been a giant pussy for the past twenty two months. Personally, I don’t think that he has it in him to be an ass kicker. I believe that he’s fundamentally a professor, not a leader. He’s conciliatory by nature which is fine, but a leader knows when to pull out the sticks because the carrots aren’t getting the job done. And once he set that “door mat” precedent, everybody started stomping on head (and agenda). Blue dog democrats and republicans all started acting like they were elected to lead the country because they knew that Obama would fold every time.

Obama has one last chance to turn this around, but he has to do it during the lame duck session. He’s lucky in that, he has more than a chance – he has a golden opportunity. He can do something bold that will cost him no political capital at all. And more importantly, it won’t cost him one thin dime in political contributions to him, or increase political contributions to republicans because corporations and wall street don’t have a dog in this race.

I know, at this point you’re wondering what brought on this hallucination and how is it that I can type in my current state. But I assure you that I haven’t lost it. The issue is simple.

President Obama must sign an executive order to repeal DADT (don’t ask don’t tell). There is no reason on the planet why he shouldn’t do it. The majority of Americans are for repealing it. Depending on which poll you look at anywhere between 59% and 79% of Americans are for repeal. Neither percentage can be achieved with republicans and independents supporting repeal. Military leaders under the age of 70 are for repeal. The only segment of the population that are against repeal are serving as republican representatives, or are geriatric veterans who were around to oppose blacks serving in the military. Repealing DADT doesn’t cost corporations or Wall Street anything, so they haven’t put any money into opposing the idea.

Obama has nothing to lose here, and everything to gain. Repealing by executive order will seem strong. It’s a complete no-brainer. If he seems strong now, the public is likely to get more excited about him again. And the opposition, whether it’s vultures in his own party, or the newly empowered republicans who have been steam rolling over him for nearly two years will think twice about blatantly dissing him.

If Obama expects to get anything done in the next two years, he has to single handedly repeal DADT. He has to set a new tone, or he’s toast. And let me be clear what I mean by toast. He’ll be legislatively dead in the water. I still stand behind my prediction that he will get a second term, but that will just mean four more years of not doing anything meaningful.

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Speaker Boehner, Darrell Issa, And Obama’s 2nd Term

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These things are intertwined in a significant way beyond just causing some Americans grief. I am finally ready to accept that republicans are going to take the house on Tuesday. Their strategy of demonizing Obama has worked in getting their whack job base of 25% of Americans fired up to vote. Their strategy of stalling every fucking piece of legislation that could hasten our recovery has succeeded in making independents apathetic. And Obama’s lack of courage has succeeded in demoralizing his base. The two ugliest words in the English language “Speaker Boehner”, are about to become a reality. And yes, I did just vomit in my mouth a little as I typed that.

I believe that this victory is going to set off a chain of events that will virtually guarantee that Obama secures a second term.

The first thing that will happen is that republicans will finally share the blame for anything that happens (or doesn’t) over the next two years. They can keep killing job creation programs, but they will take some of the blame for the lack of jobs.

The next thing that will happen is that republicans are going to start a procedural witch hunt against Obama. Congressman Darrell Issa, a republican back bencher from southern California is the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He has promised us that he will subpoena the shit out of the administration in an effort to crucify them.

A little background on Darrell Issa; he’s not a back bencher by design. He’s a back bencher because he’s an incompetent joker. Seriously, follow his tweets – they’re comical. He’s the guy that orchestrated the recall of Governor Gray Davis in 2003. His plan was to swoop in and steal the Governorship of California for himself. But moron didn’t count on the Terminator coming in and trumping Issa’s fortune with fame. So Issa has been a back bench sitting schmuck that has been trying (unsuccessfully) to force himself in the game for years. I don’t believe that he’s fundamentally a whack job, but he’s been playing it up for the crazies for the past few years. He didn’t even bother to try and put together a run for governor this year, so he has to, on some level, know that he’s never going to get further than where he is right now.

Darrell Issa is an attention starved political hack who will most definitely deliver on his promise to subpoena the shit out of Obama, just to grab some attention for himself and try and elevate himself in his party. And as with everything Darell Issa touches, this will turn to shit for the republicans.

Right now, most Americans don’t know why the unemployment rate is high. They’re clueless about the republican strategy to stall and block every goddamned thing on Obama’s agenda. All they know is that the economy isn’t getting better. Issa’s strategy will shine a light on what’s going on in our political system because nothing gets people’s attention like presidential subpoenas.

You wanna know what else is going to happen? Americans are going to rally behind Obama, because no one likes a bully. That’s not an opinion. We have historical precedent from the Clinton years. During the impeachment proceedings, Bill Clinton’s approval jumped ten points to 73%, the highest approval rating of his presidency.

Read me now and quote me later; a congressional witch hunt of President Obama will make him one of the most wildly popular presidents in history.

Why am I so confident? I have two reasons; Obama is generally very likable as a person and, he hasn’t actually done anything offensive. Because he has an easy going and friendly demeanor, people want to like him. He’s just a naturally charismatic person. He would have to do something pretty offensive in order to reverse peoples natural predisposition to liking him. He hasn’t done that, and he won’t because he’s so measured and cautious. At worst, Obama is utterly ineffective. He’s nowhere near offensive. Sure, he hasn’t made a whole lot of things happen that he could have, but he also hasn’t precipitated our problems. He’s just kind of weak.

Polls consistently show that Americans still blame W for our current troubles. This is not going to change. It definitely won’t change if Americans have to watch him being bullied by congressional republicans.

Right now, the biggest threat to Obama’s reelection is Mike Bloomberg. He’s going to run as a third party candidate. My bet is that Bloomberg will claim more votes than any other third party candidate ever has. He’s going to blow Ross Perot’s 18.9% of the vote out of the water. I believe that he will get a significant chunk of the independent vote, as well as siphoning off both republican and democratic voters. I’m pretty sure that he will take more democrats than republicans, given his recent stance on gay marriage.

But when the bullying factor is taken into account, I believe that democrats and independents will rally around Obama, ineffective or not.

This strategy that republicans have employed for the past two years is going to explode in their faces in 2012. And they’re too stupid to realize it.

They have bullies for sixteen long years now. During that time, they’ve whittled their supporters down further and further. The remaining 25% of diehards will be all they have left soon enough.

The sunny optimist in me hopes that becoming a regional southern party will eventually force republicans to change their strategy, and actually try to govern. I know, I know…I’m living in a fantasy world.

On a positive note, we definitely won’t be living with the second most ugly words in the English language, “Majority Leader McConnell”. Republicans will not be taking the senate. There really is a bright spot in every black cloud, if you just look hard enough!

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I Whine Because You Blow

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In the past week, Joe Biden has joined the white house administration chorus in crapping on the democratic base. Here, watch;

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Buck up? That sounds familiar. Hmmm…where have I heard that before? Oh right I heard it from Obama here. I’ve heard this enough from the administration to now be able to decisively say that these aren’t gaffes. This is a mystifying strategy. I don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish, but I can tell you that the result is a division in the democratic party.

This happened on MSNBC yesterday:

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I wasn’t watching it because I wasn’t home, but I was checking twitter from my iPhone. My twitter feed exploded with anti-Cenk tweets. I had no idea what was going on, so I had to wait until I got home to catch up. I watched the clip and agreed with most of what Cenk said (although a less red-faced delivery might have been more appealing). I listened to Cenk’s show later (The Young Turks) and heard him say that he thought all of those tweets were a concerted effort to astroturf (sometimes right wing media outlets will tell their fans to pile on a specific left wing pundit on a specific day) him. They weren’t. They were tweeted by members of the democratic base that I follow.

These people are active democrats that buy into the idea that the health reform bill was “historic”. They buy into the white houses’ narrative that the administration has delivered on “70% of the promises made in the campaign, in twenty short months”. I suppose that’s one way to look at it, but you have to overlook a whole lot in order to maintain that point of view.

Was the health reform bill historic? No. Was the fact that something happened with health care legislation historic? Yes, but only in that, the last time we reformed health care was fourteen years ago. When something occurs that infrequently, it’s not unreasonable to refer to it as “historic”.

I don’t believe it was historic because it didn’t fundamentally change the system. We all still have to buy our health insurance from private companies, and there is still nothing place to prevent them from gauging us with obscene rate increases every year. I’m not saying it didn’t help some people out. I know that it did. I see comments and blogs from people that have been able to obtain health coverage for the first time in years, every single day. I thoroughly appreciate the difference this reform has made, for the small number of people that it’s helped.

But let’s be honest, this bill wasn’t much more than adequate. It was the bare minimum that could have been passed, and still labeled a “win” for Obama. As lacking as this bill is, there would still have been one way that I would have been satisfied with it – if the administration had actually fought to get the best thing they could, I could have championed this bill. But they clearly didn’t. Does anyone remember President Obama’s moving speech, strongly advocating for a public option? Yeah, me neither. Does anyone remember President Obama strongly advocating for a medicare buy in? Yeah, me neither. Does anyone remember seeing a single republican standing on the senate floor, reading the phone book in an effort to filibuster the passage of the bill? Yeah, me neither.

I could have accepted this crapfest of a health reform bill if you had tried and failed. You didn’t. Don’t tell me to buck up. Fuck you.

Same thing with financial reform. This administration didn’t do a goddamned thing to regulate the derivatives market, which is the thing that every economist agrees, is the root of our financial instability. They didn’t even try.

I will buck up when, and only when you don’t fuck up. And I’m not a whiner, a retard, or a vicious part of the professional left that is trying to undermine you. I’m trying to make you better. If you wanted an uninformed, sycophantic base, you should have run as a republican. Oh yeah, and fuck you!

Even with this split between democrats that need to believe, and democrats that need to think critically, I’m positive that one thing will happen – we will all collectively show up to vote. Active democrats don’t sit out elections, any more than active republicans do. You know who’s not going to show up? Everyone else. The people that turned out en masse to vote for change in 2008 will not be there for you this time. And if you don’t start to deliver meaningful change in the next two years, they’re not going to show up for you in 2012 either.

The sycophants in the democratic party will show up because they feel that you’ve given them enough change that they can stay on board. Disgruntled democrats will show up because we realize that you suck less than republicans. You’re wasting your time crapping on your base. We’re going to be there for you one way or another, but no one else will. You’ve disenfranchised and demoralized everyone else with your half assed legislative “victories”.

This administration sucks at politics if they can’t figure that out. Pointing at your base and saying, “A HA! This is your fault!” when you lose in November is stupid, and it won’t help you get your shit together for 2012. This strategy makes Obama a lot like Bush in that, both love pointing the finger at someone else when they fuck up.

I whine, because you blow. And my whining is not the root of your problems. You blowing is.


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We Suck Less!

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In two short years, “Yes we can!” has devolved into “We suck less!”. The democratic party and liberal pundits seem to be overjoyed by this sorry state of affairs.


In case you hadn’t noticed, a whole slew of nutjob teabaggers won primaries on Tuesday, which means that everybody lost. Republicans lost because teabaggers can’t win general elections. Democrats lost because their only shot at avoiding an avalanche of lost congressional and senatorial seats, was to run against future occupants of Belleview. Americans lost because our options are between sucky and crazy. And most of all, Sharon Angle lost because she is no longer the biggest whackadoo running in the general election.

Everybody is talking about the Christine O’Donnell win in Delaware. In case you’re not up to speed on Christine O’Donnell, she’s running on an anti-masturbation platform. Yes, she believes that self-love is a sin of lust. And the most effective way for Christine O’Donnell to stop masturbation all across the country, is to make sure that we’re all within earshot of her voice at all times. Who can possibly feel lust through that kind of experience? Just to summarize; O’Donnell vehemently supports your right to pump a few rounds into someone for trying to steal your jacket, but pumping a load into a sock is crossing the line into immorality.

Democrats are beside themselves with joy over this “victory”. Victory? Really? This is a seat that Joe Biden held for thirty years, and the only thing that ensures that democrats won’t lose it, is running against a woman who is obsessed with America’s masturbatory habits? Wow, that is something to celebrate!

Personally, I would put down the champagne and begin an assessment of how this happened because not doing so has proven to be very dangerous in the past.

This is the road that republicans took. When you keep setting the bar lower and lower, you eventually find yourself defending your village idiot of a president as he’s taking your fundamental rights by seizing the power to warrantlessly wiretap anyone he wants. It doesn’t start off that grand. It starts slowly, by rejoicing a presidential victory while pretending that you didn’t just put a complete moron in the position of vice president. Then, your fervor for your party, combined with your plummeting expectations move you to elect a bigger idiot to the top job, despite the fact that he’s incapable of naming any world leaders. Never mind the fact that he’d failed at every business venture he ever engaged in. He’s leading your party, and you have low standards! By this point, you’ve supported two dumbfucks, given up your rights to privacy, support rendition of American citizens, revoked the fundamental right of habeas corpus, and are geared up to take away miranda rights. But you’re somehow still a believer in small government. The pump is now primed for you to vote for a 72 year old man with a history of cancer, whose running mate isn’t a fluent English speaker, despite the fact that she’d never set foot outside of the United States.

Oh yes, settling for something that merely sucks less has already proven to be a very bad choice. But it’s one that despite historical outcome, registered democrats are now happy to make. Keep celebrating that Harry Reid sucks less than Sharon Angle, and that whoever the fucking democratic senatorial candidate in Delaware is, he sucks less than Christine O’Donnell. See where that gets you. By the next election, democrats will only have a shot at winning if they’re running against anti-prenatal care candidates.

I’m going to hold my nose and vote in November, and I can explain why in two words:

Speaker Boehner.

Yes democrats, you suck less. Congrats on this honorable achievement.


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The Power Of Obtuse

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I’m watching one tea party nutbag after another, kick the GOPs asses in primary races across the country, and I can’t help but wonder what’s wrong with my progressive brethren? How is it possible that the most obtuse members of our society are having an impact on our elections, when no one else is?

It’s true that these teabag candidates are very likely to get crushed in the general elections, but they’re moving the republican party to dizzying heights of nutbaggery in the process. They’re forcing republican candidates to traverse into a landscape of crazy that they would never otherwise foray into. Look at what John McCain turned into as a result of having to run against JD Hayworth. He went from co-sponsoring a fairly rational immigration reform bill, to “build the dang fence”! The teabaggers are fracturing republicans, but moving them crazy right in the process.

Teabaggers have probably broken the republican party irrepably. Democrats will likely take every seat in which they’re running against a teabagger. But is that any reason to rejoice? YAY, we’re getting another worthless corporatist democrat instead of a batchit crazy teabagger that wants to change the fourteenth amendment! Bust out the champagne!

Why isn’t there a progressive movement fracturing the democratic party? Is it that progressives don’t think that the democratic party needs fracturing? That can’t be the case. If it were, there would be more voter enthusiasm by registered democrats this year.

No, we’re not happy with the party. We’re not happy with the anemic health insurance reform, the anemic financial reform, and the never ending Afghanistan situation so we’re just not bothering to show up to vote. But it didn’t have to be this way.

If only we would take a page from the teabagger’s book, we’d have some candidates on the ballot to get excited about. Sure, we came close to primarying out Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, but we failed. And, that was the only one! Where is the widespread movement? Where is the Dennis Kucinich faction of the democratic party? Why aren’t we pushing democrats back to the left, or even left of center?

Why is it that progressives can’t accomplish what the abject morons in the tea party are accomplishing? Let’s be honest here – we’ve all seen the signs and the videos from tea party rallies. These people are fucking idiots! They don’t know shit about shit. If you put a gun to any of their heads, they wouldn’t be able to tell you how many articles there are in the constitution. I’m certain of this, because they seem to be under the impression that the constitution is a document that empowers the people. It’s not. There are seven articles in the constitution, and each article enumerates powers for different factions of the government. The peoples’ rights aren’t addressed until the amendments. There are twenty-seven of those, in case you were wondering teabaggers! They are the most obtuse among us and yet, I have to give them some props for getting shit done.

I will admit that mocking the “youth in Asia will kill your grandmother” and “don’t take my rights, I’m still useing them” signs is all sorts of fun. It’s fun until you realize that the embarrassment doesn’t lie with the dumbfuck holding the sign, it lies with us. That dumbfuck is doing more to shape politics in America than the rest of us are (well, not me – I’m trying to shame you into action with this blog!), and that should embarrass you. It embarrasses me.

We need to stop underestimating the power that a group of the most obtuse Americans have garnered, and learn from them. Yes, you read that right. I said learn from the dumbfucks.

Don’t write off the obtuse. They’re proving to be a powerful force in America.

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Banking On Dumber

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That’s what leaders in both the republican and democratic parties are counting on. They’re counting on the other party being even dumber than they are, in order to pick up some seats.

Republicans spent the better part of last year touting the virtues of the tea party, only to discover that they’re a giant liability to republicans. Republican leaders didn’t have to foresight to realize that aligning themselves with extremist whack-a-doos was eventually going to bite them in the ass. Good luck turning Sharon Angle into something palatable to the general public, Mitch McConnel! Thanks to your shortsightedness, you lost the unlose-able seat. And thanks to your stupidity, I’m stuck with six more years of Harry Reid in the role of majority leader (because you’re not taking back the senate this time around). Thanks a lot, dumbasses! I was perfectly willing to lose that seat to get a real leader in the senate.

And speaking of dumbasses, there is no shortage of them in the Obama administration. Let’s review;

  • Robert Gibbs (white house press secretary) went off on “the professional left” (of which I’m not a member because you people are too damned cheap to donate!), stating that they wouldn’t be happy until “…we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the pentagon”.
  • After the Arkansas primary when Blanche Lincoln (the corporatist incumbent) barely squeezed out a victory against her more liberal, union backed opponent (Bill Halter), an unnamed (it was obviously Rahm) white house source said, “Organized labor just flushed $10M down the toilet”.
  • Earlier this year, Rahm Emanuel referred to liberal activists as “fucking retarded”.

I think we’re all pretty clear on how this administration feels about liberals. Personally, I would like to let the geniuses at the white house know that crapping on your base is no way to win a midterm election. In fact, it’s a great way to ensure that your candidate is going to have to whore himself out to corporate America with the enthusiasm of a rent boy, to make up for the money that your base won’t be contributing to him in the next presidential election. Here’s a news flash for the brilliant Rahm Emanuel; nothing slams my wallet shut tighter than being referred to as a retard.

Rahm and Gibbsy are counting on the notion that liberals have nowhere to go, so we have to show up for them. They think that republicans are so distasteful to us, that we’re just going to suck it up and support any trash they serve up. Wow, your parents must be so proud of you, what with you sucking less than the other guy. Way to lead democrats, way to lead!

Guess what? I’m not going to show up for you. I’m not going to donate to any DNC candidates, and I’m not going to vote for any DNC candidates. And if that means ceding seats to republicans, then sobeit. If losing control to republicans again is what needs to happen in order for democrats to reassess their policy positions, then that’s what’s going to happen. I have no emotional attachment to the democratic party, so I have absolutely no preference for democrats fucking me over republicans fucking me. If your platform doesn’t line up with mine, then I’m outta here! Republicans allowed their party to turn into a giant crapfest because they chose to stand by their man like battered wives, taking back their abusive husbands in perpetuity. I’m not planning on making that same mistake. I refuse to aid and abet the devolution of my party by buying into the false narrative that I have no other choice.

I can choose to sit back and let you get your asses handed to you. And I will, because that’s preferable to letting democrats hand my ass to me with my vote and with my money.

So congrats to democrats on saving the Harry Reid seat that should have been lost to a republican. And by “saving”, I mean sitting back while dipshit republicans let an unelectable whack job like Sharon Angle win the primary.

And congrats to republicans for winning the senatorial seat in Arkansas. And by “winning” I mean, sitting back while dumbass democrats poured a shitload of money to ensure that Blanche Lincoln (who no progressive will come out to vote for) won the primary.

I have to hand it to the “strategists” for both the democratic and republican re-election committees. Waiting for your opponent to be dumber than you are is a most innovative strategy that I could never conceived of.

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Maxine, Maxine, Maxine

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DISAPPOINTED!

Maxine Waters was supposed to be one of the good ones. Truth be told, I still think she is, but she needs to receive the appropriate sanctions for her ethics violations. And while we’re at it, Charlie Rangel must step down.

Don’t kid yourselves, democratic party loyalists, these charges are true. There hasn’t been a “misunderstanding”, and no one is going to be cleared here. I know this because Nancy Pelosi and the ethics committee would not be raising these charges months before an election if there weren’t solid cases here, which brings me to the real story in all of this.

I’m going to go out on a limb here to say that you won’t be hearing the real story from the main stream media. These charges of ethics violations are being brought against democrats, in a democratically controlled congress, months before an election. That is an enormously positive change in the way congress is being run. When republicans controlled congress, crooked republicans were the beneficiaries of cover ups, obfuscation, and delay (also DeLay) from their party leaders. Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Tom DeLay, and many, many more didn’t go before the ethics committee until republicans’ backs were up against a wall. We had Denny Hastert covering for Mark Foley, Jon Cornyn covering for John Ensign, The list is almost endless. And they certainly didn’t allow themselves to be subjected to scrutiny during election season.

Nancy Pelosi is running a clean ship. Well, as clean a ship as a politician can run. Make no mistake, she could have delayed these charges until after the election, just like republicans did. I know this, because I don’t believe that republicans have magical powers. They didn’t pull shady maneuvers that aren’t available to Nancy.

This whole situation will be spun as evidence of an epidemic of corruption in the democratic party. Let’s be honest, politicians are dirty. They have been dirty since about ten minutes after the first politician took office. And please don’t get me wrong, I’m not excusing dirty politicians, I’m just saying that I’m not naive enough to be shocked when a politician turns out to be corrupt.

In fact, I’m damned near flabbergasted when one turns out to be clean, not because I’m a pessimist about politics, but because our system is designed to virtually guarantee the corruption of a politician. Here are some interesting facts about American politics;

  • In 2008, 93% of all seats won in the house were won by the candidate that spent the most amount of money
  • In 2008, 94% of all senate seats went to the candidate that spent the most amount of money
  • The average cost of a winning house seat in 2008 was 1.1 million dollars
  • The average cost of a winning senate seat in 2008 was 6.5 million dollars

What this means, is that we have a system designed to attract or create amoral whores into our politics. You can’t raise the kind of money that it takes to be elected in America by being honest. It’s just not very realistic to assume that your representative is “one of the good guys”. You wanna know how to tell if he/she is one of the good guys or not? If they’re your representative, they’re not one of the good guys. They had to whore, beg, borrow, and steal the money to represent you.

But I digress, back to Nancy. She is turning out to be the change that we wanted when we voted for Obama. She is the transformative figure in our politics today. And in my opinion, she’s an unsung hero.

As with the Shirley Sherrod tale, the story that we’re about to be told is  the polar opposite of what’s actually happening here. This story is not about an “epidemic” (there are two) of dirty democrats. This story is about how much better democrats are at stomping out corruption within their ranks, than republicans are.

But you’re not going to hear that from most anybody on your TV because the people on your TV are spokesmodels and lemmings.

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You’ve Already Lost

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Meg, Meg, Meg. 81 million dollars out of your own pocket, just so that you can click the “buy now” button on the governorship of California. That’s only the beginning. That 81 million is just what she had to sink into the primary. I’m fairly certain that she’s going to be pulling out her credit card at least 80 million more times before the general election.

Guess what Meg? Even if you pull off buying the governorship, you’ve already lost. You conceded to being an inferior candidate the minute you dipped into your personal fortune to buy the primary. You couldn’t even get your stinking rich robber baron friends from Goldman Sachs to pony up enough cash to make you attractive to California republicans. They apparently don’t feel that you’re a good enough investment. I’m sure they know that you’ll give them a lot of bang, but you simply cost too many bucks. You’re a loser Meg. The really pathetic part of this whole thing is that you were born really fucking rich, which means that you were given every advantage in life. You were a guaranteed winner. And now you’re a loser of monumental proportions. You may well win the governorship of California, but you and I know that you’re a loser and we always will.

Speaking of losers, how bout that Jim DeMint?

Before I get to Mr. DeMint, let me give you a little background on the South Carolina senatorial race. The winner of the democratic primary in that race was a totally unknown man named Alvin Greene. Alvin didn’t campaign at all. He didn’t run a commercial, he didn’t put up a single lawn sign. He’s piss poor and yet, he somehow managed to cough up the $10,440 filing fee to register his candidacy. Alvin was arrested on an obscenity charge back in November. Since he can’t afford an attorney, he filed the necessary paperwork in order to obtain a public defender. And we have some allegations (not yet confirmed) that republican operatives helped Mr. Greene. There are also some allegations of voter tampering, but we don’t yet know if that’s the case or if Mr. Greene simply won because his name was first on the ballot.

The whole situation smells bad. Something fishy is going on here. I’m sure that democratic party in South Carolina will get to the bottom of where the $10,440 came from. I’m fairly certain that the trail will lead back to South Carolina republicans, which brings me back to Jim DeMint.

LOSER. You’re a loser senator DeMint. We don’t know yet if he was involved in this whole Alvin Greene sleaziness or if republicans in South Carolina acted without his knowledge but either way, someone doesn’t think that Jim DeMint can win this election without cheating. That’s pretty pathetic when you consider that incumbent senators have won 78% of their elections since 1914. When add that kind of advantage to the fact that you’re a republican in a state that generally doesn’t vote for democrats, your victory should be a slam dunk.

And yet someone had to create an Alvin Greene situation in order to secure your victory. You’re a loser. And the worst part is that you’re a loser that has no respect for the people you “represent”. Whether the election was tampered with, or an assumption was correctly made that South Carolina voters would ignorantly vote for the first name on the ballot, the contempt for South Carolinians is clear.

These people are fucking losers.  We all know it, and they know it. And yet, we’re going to have to tolerate their insufferable superiority and joy when they “win” their elections.

Americans need to wise up to these losers if for no other reason, than to spare me the indignity of having to witness their smugness. If you’re not going to vote in the best interest of your own community, please vote in your own self interest. Trust me, you don’t want to experience the dizzying heights of bitchiness that I will reach of I have to watch a Whitman or DeMint “victory” speech!


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The Little Apologist That Could

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I am SO over apologists, I can’t even tell you. Corporate apologists, political apologists, national apologists, I’m fed up with all of them.

People need to understand that apologizing for their “team” necessitates more apologizing. You’re not doing your ideology any favors by making apologies and excuses. You’re just compounding the problem. And you’re insuring a lifetime of apologizing.

People often accuse me of being too hard on Obama. I firmly believe that there’s no such thing as being too hard on something that you support or supported. If supporters don’t speak out against the thing they support when they fuck up, they just guarantee that more fucking up is coming. We should demand more from the people that we support. Why would anyone actively set the bar low?

Our country is in financial ruin. Our middle east policy is an unmitigated disaster. Our money would be virtually worthless if it weren’t for the fact that our financial “big wigs” were greedy enough to ship our fiscal malfeasance all around the world. Our kids are getting dumber and dumber every year, as we drop further down the world rankings for education. Our military is on the brink of collapsing. And it’s all happening because of apologists.

We all watched Bush (2.0) get away with murder for eight long years. That didn’t happen because there wasn’t a strong opposition. It happened because his supporters were willing to go along with every single bit of bullshit he served up to them. He didn’t care about the opposition because they were irrelevant. They were never going to support him. He was going to be just fine as long as he didn’t lose his supporters.

And to make matters worse, liberals and democrats (they’re not the same thing) were so busy hating him that they weren’t paying attention to what democrats in the senate were doing when they finally regained power. Nothing changed in the senate when democrats took over. The house improved nominally, but not nearly the way it should have. The “emergency” supplementals  that were putting our country in financial ruin continued. Troops levels in both the war and the occupation didn’t go down. Deregulation of fucking everything kept humming along. Nothing changed because democrats weren’t paying attention to how Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and about a half dozen other democrats in the senate were helping Bush ruin this country. They were all too busy screaming at Bush.

Supporters need to be more vigilant and critical when it comes to their own side.

We’re seeing this at play with Obama right now with the gulf oil spill. Although the damned thing is still gushing uncontrollably down there, we now know that there are engineers from all around the world working on it. We have engineers from Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Russia working on this finally. Three weeks ago, we seemed to have only BP working on this. We didn’t see much action until the public outrage over Obama’s handling of the situation began. It didn’t look like he was going to spring into action until we made him. Now I don’t know of we’re just getting better communication from the white house or if we’re getting more resources working on the problem. But either way, we’re getting more than we were before the outrage.

Refusing to accept either the half assed communication, or the half assed efforts at fixing the problem got us some results. We need to keep it up. We, the supporters of Obama are ultimately responsible for what we do or don’t get our of him.

This isn’t just relevant to Obama. This is extremely relevant to the situation in Israel at the moment.

People who are apologizing for Israel today will never be done apologizing for Israel. Jewish apologists in particular will find their children and their children’s children apologizing for Israel. The Israeli government is spiraling out of control in much the same way that the German government spiraled out of control under Hitler’s rule. I don’t believe that Hitler apologists from 1925 ever imagined, in their wildest dreams, that their great grand children would be apologizing for what happened there.

Israeli apologists, particularly in the US have the power to stop this before it goes any further. I’ve been reading far more criticism for what Netanyahu is doing in Israeli newspapers than I am in the American press. Haaretz is doing a fairly good job of presenting both sides of the story. There are even a few even handed articles in the op ed section of the Jerusalem Post, which is surprising. But the main stream American press has almost unanimously taken a pro-Israel stance on this issue.

I don’t believe that apologizing for what Israel is doing in Gaza is ultimately good for Israel. And I believe that apologists apologize for Israel at Israel’s peril. You don’t support a people by allowing them to do anything they want, regardless of international law or sentiment. You support them by forcing them to correct course when they’re driving off a cliff. Aiding and abetting criminal action is not love, it’s enabling.

I criticize because I love.

We need to stop this epidemic of apology.

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