South Pol

"Most of the tea partyers I’ve talked to aren’t just Randian selfish autobots or racists who want to..."

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:05:31 -0500

“Most of the tea partyers I’ve talked to aren’t just Randian selfish autobots or racists who want to see the President’s birth certificate. They’re people who see the same problems as most progressives do — their economic futures being ruined, the destructive feelings of a government that is unaccountable, the increasing tension between different geographical parts of the country — and they feel like they need to do something about it. The problem, in my view, is that the solutions to all of these problems just about any of us can see are being presented by lunatics (Glenn Beck and his radio host crowd) and cynics at the helm of corporate vehicles (Dick Armey and similar raiders come to mind) who are looking to exploit the feelings of desperation and helplessness of these people for their own means. The reason the tea party movement has arisen is because the far right has managed to convince people that it isn’t the corporate lobbyists who’ve engineered the economic policies of the last 35 years who are responsible for the state of our economy — it’s those evil lefty bureaucrats and their allies in those all-powerful poorly paid community organizer outfits like ACORN. And the fact that people like Armey and Beck have managed to commandeer such a movement isn’t just about their evilness or the ignorance of tea party demonstrators — it’s also about the failure of those of us who are progressives to engage these people and bring them into a real populist economic movement against the right targets. Rather than mocking the largely white, southern demographic that makes up this movement, we should be trying to engage with it — no matter how difficult that is — to enlist it on our side. Because if there’s anything creeps like Beck and Armey are afraid of, it’s the people they’ve been duping all along pulling the curtain aside and realizing their predicament.”

- Zaid Jilani (via azspot)

"Asked by Fred Thompson (who knows something about being misled into believing that you’re a viable..."

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:14:22 -0500

“

Asked by Fred Thompson (who knows something about being misled into believing that you’re a viable presidential candidate) whether he might run, Lou Dobbs replied:

“Yes, is the answer. I’m gonna be talking some more with some folks who want me to listen to them in the next few weeks.”

”

- Lou Dobbs says he’s weighing a 2012 presidental run (The Plum Line)(via brooklynmutt)

Robert Reich: Harry Reid, and What Happened to the Public Option?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:47:26 -0500

Robert Reich: Harry Reid, and What Happened to the Public Option?:

But what more can possibly be compromised? Take away the word “public?” Make it available to only twelve people?

"The legislation, a variety of economists say, is helping an economy in free fall a year ago to grow..."

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0500

“The legislation, a variety of economists say, is helping an economy in free fall a year ago to grow again and shed fewer jobs than it otherwise would. Mr. Obama’s promise to “save or create” about 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 is roughly on track, though far more jobs are being saved than created, especially among states and cities using their money to avoid cutting teachers, police officers and other workers.”

- New Consensus Views Stimulus as Worthy Step

Glad that’s settled, then.

"If there was any kind of consensus support for Palin inside the beltway, the criticism of her, bet..."

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:55:58 -0500

“If there was any kind of consensus support for Palin inside the beltway, the criticism of her, bet on it, would be almost totally confined to chortling east coast smartasses like me and Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan. What the people who are flipping out about the treatment of Palin should be asking themselves is what it means when it’s not just jerks like us but everybody piling on against Palin. For those of you who can’t connect the dots, I’ll tell you what it means. It means she’s been cut loose. It means that all five of the families have given the okay to this hit job, including even the mainstream Republican leaders.”

- Matt Taibbi, “Yes, Sarah, There is a Media Conspiracy” (via thesmarttart)

Obama's poll numbers dip

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:53:00 -0500

Obama's poll numbers dip:

alcaniglia:

Obama’s approval numbers (in some polls) have dipped below the 50% threshhold for the first time in his presidency. Many people are reading this as the beginning of the end. I think the situation is less dire than it seems.

You know how after a convention, a major speech, or an appearance on The Colber Report, a politician gets a “bump” in their poll numbers? I think that Obama is experiencing the opposite of a bump. People like him, but so far, he hasn’t been able to get the shit done that he promised he would get done, YET. His numbers are “dipping” because of the lack of progress.

Events have not been exactly favorable, and Obama certainly hasn’t been perfect. But I’m not sure there is genuine significance to this story.

Jonathan Bernstein:

Obama is the first president for whom Gallup is running a daily tracking poll. Over time, Gallup has gradually accelerated its readings from once a month or fewer to today’s daily track. So we don’t really know whether Reagan, Carter, or even Nixon might have had a reading below 50% if they had been tracked daily. At the same time, we’ll see whether Obama stays below 50% for a while, but it’s certainly possible that today’s reading will turn out to be a low — a low that might never have been recorded if Gallup was polling once a month or so.

thedailywhat: America, I Am Disappoint of the Day: Sarah Palin...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:47:36 -0500

thedailywhat:

America, I Am Disappoint of the Day: Sarah Palin supporters, gathered outside a Going Rogue book signing event in Columbus, Ohio, are presented with basic questions about her policy positions.

Vacularity ensues.

[via.]

“Compromise is for people who are wrong.”

Low Tea Party moment symbolic of muddy week

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:58:00 -0500

Low Tea Party moment symbolic of muddy week:

This is a heartwarming tale of Tea Partiers openly ridiculing a grieving family because they support health care reform.

Everybody's a community organizer these days

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:01:00 -0500

Glenn Beck’s Master (100 Year) Plan

“We need to think like China,” he said at the rally today. Also, while his note hints at it, Peter Schorsch writes, “Beck is essentially calling for the end of 2 party system.”

Part two reveals, of course, the plan for “The Plan: The Book” – which will likely mean a plan for another New York Times #1 bestseller. And the third part discusses the event “at the feet of Abraham Lincoln” (of course) happening in August. There will also be “conventions” held throughout the year. Also – “If you care about your children, you will watch Fox News,” Schorsch writes that Beck said today.

All this at a “campaign-style” event in a retirement community in Central Florida, which where he discussed the plan, “short on specifics and long on self-promotion, as well as the populist, anti-government, self-help rhetoric that has become Beck’s trademark.”

New York Times piece.

The Iraq War = $125 billon per year. Senate's Health Care plan = $85 billion per year.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:07:22 -0500

The Iraq War = $125 billon per year. Senate's Health Care plan = $85 billion per year.:

One of these things gets saddled with its 10-20 year cost when it gets debated. The other… not so much.

Not saying using distant horizons isn’t useful or necessary. But it sure makes the selling of the enterprise much harder.

More Conservatives Line Up Behind Holder.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:01:37 -0500

TAPPED:

Following somewhat in the footsteps of the Constitution Project and former State Department official John Bellinger, former Bush Department of Justice officials Jack Goldsmith and Jim Comey have backed Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 conspirators in civilian court. Goldsmith famously withdrew the administration’s torture memos, and Comey backed then Attorney General John Ashcroft’s decision not to certify the NSA wiretapping program.

Since I’ve been grousing about Republicans playing politics with this issue, I should acknowledge that certainly not everybody’s doing that.

"The total 2009 deficit is $1.587 trillion. If we entirely eliminated discretionary spending—no..."

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:47:05 -0500

“The total 2009 deficit is $1.587 trillion. If we entirely eliminated discretionary spending—no electricity in the White House, no military, no FBI, no national parks, no nothing—we’d still have a $346 billion deficit.”

- Matthew Yglesias

absurdlakefront: apsies: Bob Englehart I needed this.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:05:56 -0500

absurdlakefront:

apsies:

Bob Englehart

I needed this.

Apocalypse fatigue: Losing the public on climate change

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:01:47 -0500

Apocalypse fatigue: Losing the public on climate change:

azspot:

Dr. John Jost, a leading political psychologist at New York University, recently demonstrated that much of the partisan divide on global warming can be explained by system justification theory. Calls for economic sacrifice, major changes to our lifestyles, and the immorality of continuing “business as usual” — such as going on about the business of our daily lives in the face of looming ecological catastrophe — are almost tailor-made to trigger system justification among a substantial number of Americans.

Combine these two psychological phenomena — a low sense of imminent threat (what psychologists call low-threat salience) and system justification — and what you get is public opinion that is highly resistant to education or persuasion. Most Americans aren’t alarmed enough to pay much attention,

Americans typically give less credit to expert opinion than do the educated elites.

and efforts to raise the volume simply trigger system-justifying responses. The lesson of recent years would appear to be that apocalyptic threats — when their impacts are relatively far off in the future, difficult to imagine or visualize, and emanate from everyday activities, not an external and hostile source — are not easily acknowledged and are unlikely to become priority concerns for most people. In fact, the louder and more alarmed climate advocates become in these efforts, the more they polarize the issue, driving away a conservative or moderate for every liberal they recruit to the cause.

It always seemed to me that the only rational justification for Al Gore’s Nobel prize was that he had done more than anybody to penetrate the fog of system justification and to render less abstract the temporally distant threats. He was mocked for “thinking he was saving the world with a powerpoint,” but precipitating a tipping point on these obstacles to action on climate change in the U.S. is a big deal.

Jury’s still out, I guess, but it looks like that was some wishful thinking. There’s a lot of work to do.

Who’s Afraid Of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:36:10 -0500

ATTACKERMAN »

For me, the prospect of KSM grandstanding at his trial falls into I-wish-a-motherfucker-would territory. I want to hear how KSM builds a case against America, because everyone will hear how laughably conspiratorial and clownish it is. Think of what a cathartic moment it will be when America sees the face of the man considered to be UBL’s most efficient henchman and he delivers a pitiful harangue to a bank of cameras. No one will be emboldened to do anything but laugh. The only downside will be his inevitable discussion of how CIA operatives tortured him.

My hope for the KSM trial is that it does more than all this. It should forever shatter the pernicious myth that al-Qaeda is composed of supermen — supermen against whom America has no choice but to alter its character and most precious laws in order to confront.

Fred Thompson: Afghan war 'has been lost'

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:06:00 -0500

Ben Smith reports:

Former Sen. Fred Thompson today intensified his party’s criticism of President Obama’s long deliberation over policy in Afghanistan, announcing that Obama’s delay signals that “the war has been lost” and that nothing the president now does will “make any difference.”

Luckily, there’s the voice of reason, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky:

“I can’t begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear.”

Oh wait. That was just what he said, among a chorus from the right, when Harry Reid said that about Iraq. Where’s that chorus now?

"The Democratic Party already has an opposition party arguing against it positions. It’s called the..."

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:35:07 -0500

“The Democratic Party already has an opposition party arguing against it positions. It’s called the Democratic Party.”

- durangodave in response to Joe Klein’s “Republican-not” (via apsies)

Glenn Beck 'perfectly fine' being remembered as 'a complete nutjob'

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:33:00 -0500

Glenn Beck 'perfectly fine' being remembered as 'a complete nutjob':

Crooks and Liars:

Glenn Beck, yesterday on his Fox News show:

Beck: I’m sure that’s fine. Teaching Saul Alinsky, that’s fine. It’s all academia — you know, he doesn’t agree with that. Good!

Then all the things I talked about are nonsense and I’ll go down in the history books as a complete nutjob that was totally wrong. And I’m perfectly fine — perfectly fine being remembered by that in history. I hope to be wrong.

Considering that this comes amid a rant in which he falsely claims that John Holdren wants “forced abortions” and that Obama was secretly teaching Alinsky to his students, and then rants:

They need to fear you — and oh, they will soon.

Well, one can only conclude he’s already there.

Only scary in that Tom Cruise in Magnolia kinda way.

"I don’t think we are a delicate country. And I don’t think we’re a fragile..."

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:56:00 -0500

“I don’t think we are a delicate country. And I don’t think we’re a fragile country….The people who continually tell me how much they love this country and I don’t also say how little this country can accomplish to overcome the problems that all countries face.”

- Jon Stewart, talking to Lou Dobbs. Part 2. Part 3:

Dobbs:

We have a country that is fragile. That it is being governed as if it had unlimited resources. That we had every reason, because we are a superpower, to squander wealth and lives and blood…

We have a responsibility not to push this country farther than it can bear…

It is a time in which we have a nation that is extraordinarily delicate, extraordinarily vulnerable. And it’s time to start rethinking some of the orthodoxies, whether one is a liberal, a conservative, a Republican, or a Democrat.

Stewart:

I don’t think we are a delicate country. And I don’t think we’re a fragile country. I think that we’re an incredibly tenacious [one]. The whole fabric of this country was born of people who came from a place they didn’t want to be to a place they wanted to be, to do whatever they had to do to make that. And that ethos still lives in this country.

The idea that trying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York will destroy us, or trying to bring universal health care to people will destroy us, or trying to solve the problem of global warming will destroy us is trumped up fear that’s being used as a wedge to flatter people into voting for them. And it is absolutely not a part of our national character. The people who continually tell me how much they love this country and I don’t… also say how little this country can accomplish to overcome the problems that all countries face.

It might be worth remembering Jon Stewart saying this to Lou Dobbs’ face.

brooklynmutt: MS. Gov. Haley Barbour refuses to say Sarah...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:38:00 -0500

brooklynmutt:

MS. Gov. Haley Barbour refuses to say Sarah Palin’s qualified to be president, pauses and stumbles when questioned about it.

Today on MSNBC, Chris Matthews repeatedly asked Barbour if he thought Palin was qualified to be president. In response, Barbour would stop, stumble, and muster out weak statements like, “Constitutionally, she sure is” or “I don’t know anything that disqualifies her from being president”

Think Progress

“I was a Republican in Mississippi in 1968, Chris. I’m not unaccustomed to being in the minority.”