dajafi wrote:Watching McConnell on the Christiane Amanpour show might have been the most depressing/disgusting thing I've seen this year. Short version: Amanpour says, "Your governing plan has no specifics and seems indistinguishable from what you guys did before. McConnell answers: "But we're going to win." Amanpour asks if McConnell agrees that Angle and O'Donnell have made somewhat extreme statements and if he thinks they merit inclusion in the Senate. McConnell: "But we're going to win!" And so on.

Since the people primarily involved treat our politics as nothing more than spectacle--because they're all pretty well educated, reasonably to very wealthy and generally not in need of anything from government other than local responsibilities like trash collection, roadway maintenance and uniformed services--maybe the rest of us should too. Maybe we are; the test might be if Paladino wins the governorship here.

I agree though I note that O'Donnell is kinda the opposite in that she is dirt poor and not very well educated. What she is, is essentially a reality show participant whose reality show is running for Senate. Win or lose, however, she will cash in because she has made such a spectacle of herself.

Squire wrote:I agree though I note that O'Donnell is kinda the opposite in that she is dirt poor and not very well educated. What she is, is essentially a reality show participant whose reality show is running for Senate. Win or lose, however, she will cash in because she has made such a spectacle of herself.

But the fact that O'Donnell even got nominated proves my point: we don't take our own governance seriously. She's kind of the perfect candidate for these times--your reality-show comp is dead on--because she's entertaining and easy to look down our collective nose at.

And if we did take our democracy seriously, she wouldn't have gotten within a time zone of where she is. I don't know what the turnout was in that primary, but I'm guessing it was pretty low. The larger the sample of Delaware Republicans one takes, the bigger Castle's margin would have been--but we don't even bother enough to make our voting practices easy to accommodate democratic preferences. This might well also be true with the Nevada and Alaska primary results.

Remember the high school election scenario in which a big group decides to nominate the stoner or the tramp or the delinquent as class president, and s/he wins because everybody knows the office is a joke anyway? That's how you get Christine O'Donnell as a major party nominee for the "world's greatest deliberative body."

dajafi wrote:

Squire wrote:I agree though I note that O'Donnell is kinda the opposite in that she is dirt poor and not very well educated. What she is, is essentially a reality show participant whose reality show is running for Senate. Win or lose, however, she will cash in because she has made such a spectacle of herself.

But the fact that O'Donnell even got nominated proves my point: we don't take our own governance seriously. She's kind of the perfect candidate for these times--your reality-show comp is dead on--because she's entertaining and easy to look down our collective nose at.

And if we did take our democracy seriously, she wouldn't have gotten within a time zone of where she is. I don't know what the turnout was in that primary, but I'm guessing it was pretty low. The larger the sample of Delaware Republicans one takes, the bigger Castle's margin would have been--but we don't even bother enough to make our voting practices easy to accommodate democratic preferences. This might well also be true with the Nevada and Alaska primary results.

Remember the high school election scenario in which a big group decides to nominate the stoner or the tramp or the delinquent as class president, and s/he wins because everybody knows the office is a joke anyway? That's how you get Christine O'Donnell as a major party nominee for the "world's greatest deliberative body."

Mark Penn's not all that good book Microtrends notes that non-elites take issues far more seriously than elites. That's one of those "not really surprising if you think about it but still seems counterintuitive" findings.

Back in the 50s, elites used ideology. Since I think ideological thinking about politics leads to serious mistakes, I have no problem seeing personality as the new ideology.

drsmooth wrote:

Werthless wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Huh? Do you think raising taxes on the top 2% or whatever 200k for singles, 250k for joint filers works out to, will cause an increase in jobs? Have no effect on jobs?

If you mean in real terms, almost none. Jobs data is quite possibly the least reliable, most politicized stuff on the planet. It's crap. Spongy, loosey-goosey, fudged every which way. Ask a noted liberal like Barrons' Gene Epstein what he thinks of its quality.

If you mean can your favored flavor of politicians make whiny noises about such practical impacts, masking the naked greed of their masters' demand to be relieved of financial burdens of the society that permits their station in the first place, oh sure - but not based on anything like incontrovertible facts.

You're usually better than that at dodging.

Dodging what? You actually believe that nipping incomes over 250k is going to cost a number of jobs that's detectable? You really have to get out of the library & out to where real people actually live & work & do stuff.

I'm the cold theorist in the library when you're the one claiming that the jobs lost will not be "detectable" in nationwide statistics? I'm learning a lot from you!

Monkeyboy wrote:I'm waiting for Christine O'Donnell bukakke video to surface. You just know there's one out there.

Guarantee Kyle Kendrick isn't one of the participants considering it would've required rudimentary aim and some semblance of accuracy.

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Your Patriot Act at work:

COLEEN ROWLEY: Well, I can’t really detail all of the legal factors that have changed since 9/11, but there simply has been a sea change. For instance, when I taught constitutional rights in the FBI, one of the main top priorities was First Amendment rights. And while this is not the first time that you’ve seen this Orwellian turn of the war on terror onto domestic peace groups and social justice groups—actually, we had that begin very quickly after 9/11, and there were legal opinions, Office of Legal Counsel opinions, that said the First Amendment no longer controls the war on terror—but even so, this is shocking and alarming that at this point we have the, you know, humanitarian advocacy now being treated as somehow material support to terrorists.
We’ve also just seen, ironically, four days before this national raid, we saw the Department of Justice Inspector General issue a report that soundly criticized the FBI for four years of targeting domestic groups such as Greenpeace, the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, different antiwar rallies, even involving a finding that the FBI director had given them a falsehood to Congress as to the justification for the FBI to monitor a peace group.

AMY GOODMAN: What about what’s happened in Iowa, Coleen Rowley?

COLEEN ROWLEY: Well, that’s another instance. And that one is actually after the scope of the IG investigation. The IG investigation only went to 2006. There have been requests for that IG to go further. Obviously there’s been four more years. And in 2008, we found out through a Freedom of Information request that there’s 300 pages of—I think it was four or five, six agents trailing a group of students in Iowa City to parks, libraries, bars, restaurants. They even went through their trash. So, this is another reason why peace groups, and certainly law professors, have to be very concerned now about this misinterpretation that says advocacy for human-rights—I just have to mention, we have a famous Minnesotan who wrote Three Cups of Tea. And he obviously sets up schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His name is Greg Mortenson. Obviously, people like him and Jimmy Carter are even at peril, given this wide discretion now to say that anyone who works in a foreign country, even for peace or humanitarian, anti-torture purposes, could somehow run afoul of the PATRIOT Act.

Catastrophic Terrorism by Zelikow and others

1998 article by the chief author of the 911 Report -- P Zelikow


interview discussion here

"Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Truth Movement" with researcher, Tod Fletcher. We discuss David Ray Griffin's newest book, Cognitive Infiltration, which is a deconstruction and debunking of Obama appointee, Cass Sunstein's, paper, "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures", in which Sunstein proposes a new government COINTELPRO type infiltration of groups which research and promote ideas and explanations that run contrary to US government narratives, most specifically about the events of September 11th.


"...Here we suggest two concrete ideas for government officials attempting to fashion a response to such theories. First, responding to more rather than fewer conspiracy theories has a kind of synergy benefit: it reduces the legitimating effect of responding to any one of them, because it dilutes the contrast with unrebutted theories. Second, we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.

Sunstein & Vermeule, “Conspiracy Theories” 1-15-08, pg. 15
..."

For those skeptics, take a listen to the discussion and interview and get back to me. Tell me, regardless of whether or not you feel that there are groundless conspiracy theories at work -- and a bunch of misguided stooges and nut jobs -- tell me if these policies by Obama's man Cass is the country of liberty, freedom and democracy you think or want to be living in??

With the SC loaded up with the likes of Thomas and Roberts -- it's a very dark dark time.

Fletcher in the interview makes clear, why Cass and others (Zelikow too) wouldn't DARE debate on national TV, for fear of opening the box in ways that could unravel the policies they worked so hard to put in place. So that dissension soon will be virtually impossible. The First Amendment irrelevant and vacuous, and to distrub and destroy enough lives as to scare the rest of good minded folk with a valid question or concern for fear of being unable to "fly" or worse... like the raid on these legit protestors of the RNC convention 2 years ago.

This is not what I want any of my tax dollars on, or my FBI and other agencies focusing on.

Disgrace. Scary.

Government doesn't exist to do this. Or does it? For who's benefit? Who benefits from these policies? Who benefits from the Patriot Act. Who benefits from going after every single group or person who is at odds with any govt policy and questions anything about the legitimacy of what they do, and say?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvB-mHXcWzg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

I really hope you lose, you epic douchebag. Then you can find your true calling as a host on MSDNC.

If he was a republican youd say this was a genius ad and already have licked his boots

It's exceptionally dishonest editing even by my own amoral standards

Edit: And even if the Webster video clips weren't taken hilariously out of context, the ending of the ad with "Taliban Dan Webster" would offend me as a political ad fan because there's no way labeling your opponent that is helpful to your campaign's chance of winning. If nothing else it sets Webster, whose campaign is broke, up as a cause celebre for the right. It isn't going to move swing voters. Jeez you can run an ad with that sort of material and ding someone without making yourself look like a fringe lunatic asshole.

Right-wing Upsurge in U.S.: Less than Meets the Eye?


Mark Weisbrot
The Guardian Unlimited, September 22, 2010

Is America in the grip of a right-wing backlash that will hit the November elections like a hurricane? This narrative is gathering steam. It is fed not only by the minority partisan right-wing media but also its majority “liberal” counterpart, which loves a horse race and is fascinated with the Tea Party, even if it isn’t so eager for the Republicans to take Congress. Regardless of the outcome, 90-plus percent of the pundits and press will cheese up the same, tired, old cliché in their post-election analysis: The Democrats were punished (they will inevitably lose at least some seats in Congress) because they tried to go too far, too fast and too left for the inherently conservative American masses. And this junk will be consumed for years, adding another layer of fat to the lazy couch potato that is American journalism’s “conventional wisdom.”

How about another narrative that makes more sense? Let’s start with the economic issues, since the economy was the number one issue for likely voters in the latest New York Times/CBS poll. Our worst and longest recession since the Great Depression was caused by a real estate bubble that accumulated and burst before Obama was elected. The Democrats passed a stimulus package that was much too small to compensate for the resulting loss of private spending. As my colleague Dean Baker has pointed out, the collapse of this bubble would be expected to knock about $1.2 trillion annually off of private demand. This is about eight times the size of government stimulus spending when we subtract the budget cuts and tax increases of state and local governments (special thanks to the Republicans for cutting $100 billion from the stimulus bill that would have gone straight to municipal governments to prevent some of this).

Now how does this get presented in the media? First, we have a debate about whether the stimulus helped or hurt the economy, or whether it created or saved any jobs at all. This is somewhat ridiculous, from the standpoint of national income accounting. It is reminiscent of the “debates” that carried on in the media for many years (they continue in some quarters), long after the question was settled in the scientific community, as to whether global warming was taking place. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that between 1.4 and 3.3 million more people were employed by mid-2010, as a result of the stimulus. There is a wide range of uncertainty about the size of the effect, but there’s hardly any doubt that the stimulus helped save jobs and output.

Then the horror movie scenes began about the dreaded budget deficit, which over the next decade is almost entirely attributable to two non-stimulus-related items: Iraq and Afghanistan war spending and the Bush tax cuts. In spite of this well-financed campaign against the scourge of red ink, only 3 percent of voters see the deficit as the most important issue facing the country, as compared with 32 percent who chose the economy and 28 percent for jobs. But somehow the deficit got to be so alarming to somebody that it became politically impossible for Congress to even talk about another stimulus for the economy. So very predictably, the recovery lost steam and the Democrats felt just “powerless” to do anything to boost the economy and employment before the election. This guaranteed big losses for their party in the election.

It didn’t help that the Obama Administration failed to create a distinction for voters between the $700 billion bailout for the banks, which was widely hated for obvious reasons, and their stimulus package. Most Americans still don’t see a difference. This was a huge public relations failure.

But all this adds up to something different from a “right-wing backlash.” Indeed, the New York Times/CBS poll shows a 20 percent approval rating for Congressional Republicans (the same as for the Tea Party) as opposed to 30 percent for Democrats.

But 55 percent of voters – a record for the past 20 years – say it is time to give a new person a chance to represent their district.

The conclusion is obvious: Voters are angry – not the anger of the rich who believe, as John D. Rockefeller famously said, that “God gave me my money.” It is a populist rage that will drive some independent or swing voters to vote against incumbents and the incumbent party. Even if it means voting for people who they don’t particularly like, trust, or agree with on the issues.

the rest

Jeff Van Drew looks to bring the Wild West to New Jersey:

http://www.examiner.com/essex-county-co ... -carry-law


Essentially, State Senator Drew wants to loosen gun laws to make it easier for people to carry in public. It would require a background check (duh), courses in gun safety, proven proficiency in the weapon carried and a $500 fee. The fee would be split up between local authorities but the lion's share ($400) would go into the State's slush, I mean, General Fund.

Politico about 8 hours behind me on the Grayson ad analysis. Tomorrow's Beltway conventional wisdom today, with jerseyhoya.

Factcheck hates him haha - Rep. Grayson Lowers the Bar

Very sad that politicians stoop to such levels to win an election. To me, and I think this is part of your point, a dirty ad like that says a whole lot more about the guy paying for the ad than it does the guy they are trying to smear.

More Rand Paul crazyassery

If there's any swing back to the Democrats, I bet he loses.

dajafi wrote:More Rand Paul crazyassery

If there's any swing back to the Democrats, I bet he loses.

If nothing else, reading that convinced me to look closely at any official "positions" of the professional organizations I am considering joining.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN7ZQDqzaOg[/youtube]

In thirty seconds, why Charlie Crist never had a chance as an independent.

jerseyhoya wrote:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN7ZQDqzaOg[/youtube]

In thirty seconds, why Charlie Crist never had a chance as an independent.

Funny you post this because I was just having a discussion with my wife last night that was basically what a disgrace it is to see politicians like Crist and Spector change parties just because they are having their asses handed to them in their original party elections.

Of course, I really can't stand political commercials like the one shown because all that did was tell me why I shouldn't vote for Charlie Crist. I am the kind of voter that would like to know why I SHOULD vote for Kendrick Meek.