Paging Bob Hoskins

By J. Thomas Duffy

Boy, if the PartyofNoicans think this is their idea of a tough guy, no wonder they are so clueless. 

House Republicans Psyche Themselves Up By Watching Ben Affleck Prepare To Beat Some Guys Up 

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the party’s vote counter, began his talk by showing a clip from the movie, “The Town”, trying to forge a sense of unity among the independent-minded caucus.

One character asks his friend: “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later.”

“Whose car are we gonna take,” the character says.

After showing the clip, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), one of the most outspoken critics of leadership among the 87 freshmen, stood up to speak, according to GOP aides.

“I’m ready to drive the car,” West replied, surprising many Republicans by giving his full -throated support for the plan.

The actual line from the scene is “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. We’re gonna hurt some people.”

I mean, he's an okay actor, and they're referring to his role in The Town, but he's probably more defined by Jersey Girl than being a tough guy.

If you want a real tough guy, someone to put the fear of Jesus into you, then you gotta go with Bob Hoskins in the very underrated 1979 gem The Long Good Friday (whose cast also included the great, and gorgeous, Helen Mirren). 
"The mafia? I've shit 'em!" - Long Good Friday final scene


Note, at the very end, the unknown rookie Pierce Bronson playing a heavy. 

Actually, it might do us all better if Obama effected a little Hoskins: 

"I'll tell you something... I'm glad I found out in time just what a partnership with a pair of wankers like you would have been... A sleeping partner is one thing, but you're in a fucking coma..." 

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Bruce Springsteen's Top 10 has absolutely nothing to do with the debt ceiling

By Richard K. Barry and Michael J.W. Stickings

RKB:

For some reason, my mind is in New Jersey today, which is, by the way, a very beautiful, though sometimes maligned, state. I grew up in New York on the Jersey border, and sometimes made it down to the Jersey Shore, so I guess I'm allowed.

Partly, I just can't think about the debt ceiling for another second without driving myself crazy, so I'm surfing today.

While looking for something entirely different, I came across a website that purports to be able to rank Bruce Springsteen's top 10 hits. The site is called ...ology. They appear to cover off a lot of topics, so their sports page is called "sportsology," and the music page "musicology," etc. You get it.

If for some reason you didn't know that Springsteen was from New Jersey, I should make that clear. Hey, I guess some people wouldn't know.

I like Springsteen, though I'm not a huge fan only because I never really turned my attention to him in any systematic way. It's great rock 'n' roll, make no mistake.

But any website that not only has an opinion on his top 10 but goes to the trouble of posting a YouTube clip for every last one gets my attention.

If you have nothing better to do with your time, as we try to outlast this nasty hot summer, and want to enjoy some great videos, the link is here.

Here's their list:

1. Jungleland

2. Thunder Road

3. Born to Run

4. Hungry Heart

5. Dancing in the Dark

6. Atlantic City

7. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

8. Racing in the Street

9. The Rising

10. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Final note: I have no skin in this game of ranking hits by The Boss. If you do, by all means, tell us how the folks at ...ology got it wrong (or right).

And not a word about the debt ceiling, please.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

**********

MJWS:

Not a word about the debt ceiling here. Of course you're welcome to comment on our many debt ceiling posts.

(But it's good to take a break from it! Political paralysis and possible economic catastrophe -- not so fun.)

Now, I actually lived in New Jersey for several years as a teenager, graduating from West Morris Mendham High School before heading up to Tufts for college. The state has a reputation for being "the armpit of the nation," but that's really only true of parts of the state, the industrial parts across the river from NYC. It's an ugly, smelly part of the country, but probably no worse than many other parts. And much of the rest of the state, including Mendham, in Morris County, in the north-central part of the state, is extremely beautiful, far removed from the reputation.

I lived there but wasn't of there. It's not that I didn't like my time there -- I really did -- but I have more of an affinity for Boston than I do for New Jersey. (Not Boston's sports teams, mind you, just the whole Boston area, a fantastic place to spend four collegiate years.) I don't like Bon Jovi, for example, and don't you have to to be an honest-to-goodness New Jerseyan/Jerseyite? And you probably have to love The Sopranos as well. Me? I never watched it.

As for Springsteen, well, sure, fine. "Born to Run," "Jersey Girl" -- these are songs you just can't avoid there. They are New Jersey. If you're from there, they're part of you. I'd call myself a casual fan. I respect him and admire him as an artist, and he's done a lot that I like, but I can't say I've ever made a point of seeking out his music, beyond a few songs here and there.

Well, okay, I do have the 3-CD Live/1975-85 album with the E Street Band. So maybe I'm more of a fan than I think I am.

For what it's worth, my picks... my Top 20:

1. Streets of Philadelphia
2. Tunnel of Love
3. Secret Garden
4. Brilliant Disguise
5. Human Touch
6. Born in the U.S.A.
7. My Hometown
8. The Rising
9. Born to Run
10. I'm on Fire
11. Atlantic City
12. Devils & Dust
13. Darkness on the Edge of Town
14. Thunder Road
15. Jungleland
16. The River
17. Racing in the Street
18. Dancing in the Dark
19. Badlands
20. Glory Days (a song I occasionally loathe, I admit, but I should tack it on here at the end)

No huge surprises there, I'm sure.

Purists, or rather fans of the more raw Boss of the early years, might object to "Streets of Philadelphia" and "Secret Garden" being so high, or listed at all, but they're wonderful songs. And I suppose I like his 1984-92 period more than the older classics, which is why songs like "Tunnel of Love," "Human Touch," and "Brilliant Disguise" are higher than, say, "Born to Run." And while I have a few more recent songs on here, like "Devils & Dust" and "The Rising," I'm not as familiar with his recent work as I am with the songs I grew up with.

How ironic, though, that in my opinion his best song is about Philadelphia, which, while right across the river from New Jersey, isn't New Jersey. But, then, his art, not to mention his appeal, extends well beyond The Garden State, as much a part of it as he remains.

Gov. Christie, still unpopular in his home state

By Richard K. Barry

Just because I like to point to anything that counts as bad news for that pompous bully governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, I note a recent Public Policy Polling survey on how Christie would fair against Obama head-to-head in the state. The results were 56 percent for the president, 39 percent for the pompous bully.

It is true that Obama won New Jersey by 15 points in 2008, and the state hasn't gone Republican since 1988, as Daily Kos points out, but isn't Christie supposed to be a cut above?

His current approval rating? 43 percent approve of the job he's doing and 53 disapprove, so maybe not.

I know that a lot of people think Christie could win the White House for the GOP if he would only run, but if the guy can't even come close to carrying his own state, that might be an overly optimistic assessment.

For the record, Obama beats all comers in "The Garden State" with the following breakdown: Romney (53-39); Bachmann (55-35); Pawlenty (54-32); Cain (55-29); and Palin (59-33).

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Can This Guy Run Here, Please?

By Carl

 

Norway's response to the terrible tragedy over the weekend that stripped the innocence of the nation from terror attacks and mass murder?

 

Intelligence

Norway's prime minister said Wednesday that the response to twin attacks that have rocked his country will be "more democracy."

Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday that Norwegians will defend themselves by showing they are not afraid of violence.

The vicious attack in the normally placid country has left Norwegians appalled and shaky, but determined to move forward. Some government workers were planning to return to work in their offices in the buildings where the bomb blasts blew out most windows.

Contrast this with "WANTED: Dead Or Alive," paranoia, patting down grandmas, "You're with us, or with the terrists," Islamophobia so bad that ten years later the first instinct for the cowardly was to blame Al Qaeda for a bombing and killings that a) didn't even fit their modality and b) were in a country that hadn't even blipped on the radar in bin Laden's statements.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a meditation on 9/11 that goes into great depth about the fears inherent in living in what was an open society which I invite you to read at your leisure. I will not repeat it here, except this excerpt:

I will never be afraid again of this world that has been created around me by naked greed and hideous envy, for I am stronger than any of you who would see me buckle and bend to your hatred. I will be true to my soul, and true to my heart, and will fight you with every breath in my body and with every fibre of my being.

And long after you have gone to dust, long after I go to dust, the monument to truth and peace and freedom that I have added a few miserable pebbles to will stand tall and firm as a bulwark against the dark you attempt to bring to the world.

Call it a Nordic trait, I suppose: the Prime Minister of Norway got it a lot faster than I did. Note that those words are not only directed at those who would attack me, my home, my people, but also to those who would twist events to their own warped ends.

Those people, the greedy cowards who stick their fingers into pies simply to prevent anyone else from savoring them because they fear the loss of one pie to someone else means no pie for themselves, they are as to blame for the events in Norway as Anders Breivik himself. Moreso, since they saw first hand the devastation of terror and still incited more anger and more fear.

Truth. Peace. Freedom. The tripod of enlightened society, the true wealth of nations.

Jens Stoltenberg, you have my gratitude.

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

 

Little green apples

By Distributorcap

It took 30 years and 204 days, but on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 the fruits of the Reagan Tree of Life will finally have reached its peak when the over-ripened, low-hanging, worm-filled Reagapples will begin to pound the ground, not with sweetened blossoms, but with a dead thud. Thirty years and 204 days of belittling and ignoring the American education system, calling ketchup a vegetable, telling us trees cause pollution, cutting taxes to create trickled-down imaginary jobs (okay, there are a few more maids and gardeners), and teaching Americans that they could have everything they want and it will cost nothing -- the Teadras-educated Republican Party is willing to take the ultimate bet and tell the piper (or croupier) this time to shove it.

The U.S. Congress has spent the better part of the past month arguing over whether the credit limit on the Visa card should be raised in order to pay their bills -- bills they have committed and signed to pay. If this game of cold-war brinkmanship weren't so dangerous on so many levels, it would actually be comical to watch. Watching the children of the right storm out of a meeting (Eric Cantor, who probably has the distinction of having had the most spit balls thrown at him during 7th-grade lunch) and then say no, no, no as the opposition capitulates to nearly every one of their demands is nothing short of having Macbeth playing in a Kabuki theater.

The 80 or so Teabaggers who sandbagged their way into Congress last November promising to stop those eternal welfare queens from driving Cadillacs and finally ridding the country of the leeches who live off their hard-earned (over)taxed dollars, are about to allow the real grand experiment to go forward -- let the U.S. default on its payments for the first time in history, and default by choice. You know the world's strongest economy is going to look like it is managed even worse than Greece.

I used to think the only item on the Republican platform (aka Our American Mein Kampf) was the personal destruction of Barack Obama (or any Democratic president), but now I realize there is actually a second principle enshrined in the GOP's manifesto. Not only do the Teabaggers and their enablers want to see Obama fail, they also want to prove that the ripened fruit of the Reagan revolution ("something for nothing") is actually a sweet treat, that the U.S. defaulting on its bills will have absolutely no consequences.

After all, American exceptionalism is American exceptionalism. Chicken Little is really just Donkey Little, a completely made-up scenario just to allow those pesky liberals to abscond with more money from hedge-fund billionaires and private jet owners to pay for BMWs for those food-stamp queens and unemployed kings. Unlike Bill Clinton, Barack Obama has not given the goose-stepping lunatics in the GOP any stained dresses to use as evidence of a grand socialist conspiracy. Short of the 21st-century version of Fanne Foxe showing up in next few days, the Teabaggers will have to resort to their only other weapon, actually pushing the nuclear trigger. In other words, in order to save the country, they have to vaporize the country. Three hundred million Americans will just have to hope the dice on 8/2/11 are boxcars or snake eyes and not a craps. Good luck with that when one die is all threes and the other is all fours. 

Obama has made this so easy for the Republicans. He has caved so many times to the right on so many issues even the more "reasonable" Republicans (an oxymoron if there ever was one) realize they can play the blinking game knowing their odds of winning are about as good as Secretariat's was at the 1973 Belmont. His obvious weakness as a leader and his hesitancy to confront a group of people bent on his destruction has made the Republican work of making a mountain out of a molehill as easy as selling worthless credit default swaps to a bunch of insurance companies. Compromise requires compromise, not rolling over time after time. Obama has rolled over so many times John Boehner finally figured out that those 80 or so Teabaggers in Congress must really be onto something.

What the Teabaggers and their enablers (actually, they are all a bunch of Teabaggers) fail to realize is that if the sky does fall on August 2nd (and it will), it will be more than repossessed Cadillacs. While those teabagging Congressmen will barely suffer the loss of a nickel in salary, benefits, and pensions (and plenty of them have more than enough money to cushion the potential blow), I would think they have relatives who will suffer, and suffer badly, from a default. And what about the millions who actually voted for the Teabaggers thinking these really smart guys would save them from the leeches on society, only to see now that a government that cannot pay its bills means no Social Security checks mailed, no medicare payments, soaring interest rates on their variable mortgages, a collapsed housing market, more bridges and roads crumbling, weakened airport security, soldiers in Afghanistan watching their checks bounce, and finally a lot of very angry Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Brazilians, Australians, Saudis, and Swiss, people who help fund the elite of Wall Street?

And what about those private companies the Teabaggers just love so much? You know, the ones that actually employ thousands of teabagging voters, the ones that receive a big chunk of their revenue from government contracts? Do you think Boeing and Lockheed Martin are going to keep pay a lot of private employees sitting around the lunchroom while they wait for Tim Geithner to sign the checks? What about the diners, dry cleaners, auto mechanics, waiters, coffee trucks, baby sitters, and hundreds of thousands of other private businesses that exist because of companies employing thousands of workers based on government contracts? And those free parks the Teabaggers love to take their kids to on vacation -- gonna get awfully expensive at $50 a head to get into Yellowstone. This is the real trickle-down economy, people who really do earn a living because other people are getting a paycheck, no matter where that paycheck originates, not from so-called job creators who just take their tax breaks and buy more Prada or stash the money in the Cayman Islands.

So old people, government contractors, ancillary businesses, soldiers, medical professionals that help the elderly -- it is time for you to sacrifice in the name of proving the Teabag Gambit. The road to Teabag nirvana is filled with collateral damage. We may suffer, we may default, we may see rising interest rates, we may start opening Hoovervilles, but those fine Republicans in the House, the ones that were sent to ensure an orderly country -- well, they will just be right.

Maybe we can form a new union of people to pick up those little green Reagapples.

Quote of the day

By Mustang Bobby

Pat Buchanan, frequent guest on MSNBC, defending accused mass murderer Anders Breivik:

As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right.

And MSNBC dropped Cenk Uygur because they didn't like his "tone"?

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Are American conservatives to blame for the Oslo massacre?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I haven't yet commented on the Oslo massacre, mainly because I think it's pretty clear what it was all about -- why it happened -- once you strip away the despicable knee-jerk efforts of conservatives to pin the blame on Islamic jihadism (placing it squarely in their anti-Muslim narrative).

Events like this don't happen in a vacuum. This was not some random outburst but rather an act of right-wing Christian terrorism directed at "the left" and based largely on anti-Muslim bigotry and hate generally. And we must turn our attention not just to the accused but to that which created him. As Scott Shane writes at The New York Times:

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. 

Yes, we need to turn our attention to anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States as a major contributor to the "culture" that created this killer. But we're not just talking about a "subculture" of "bloggers" and "activists," we're talking about elected officials and major media figures, specifically about the Republican Party and the conservatism that sustains it.

The subculture is there, yes, but it's not really that "sub." It's pretty much in the mainstream these days. Expressions of anti-Muslim bigotry can be heard all over Fox News and right-wing talk radio. They can be heard from the likes of Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Peter King, and Allen West, among many others. Muslims, including Muslim-Americans are being treated as the new Other, as a threat to the very fabric of American life. Fearmongering in full swing, they are being vilified and scapegoated, lumped together as fundamentally anti-American. We are told that they wish to impose Sharia law on America, that their mosques and community centers are training grounds for terrorism, that they want to take our freedom away, that if we're not vigilant, that if we don't fight back, our whole way of life is doomed.

Is it really any wonder there is violence? Is it any wonder the Oslo massacre happened?

Yes, it takes someone unhinged to do such a thing, but that's exactly the problem. No one expects, say, Newt Gingrich to go on a shooting spree, to act out his anti-Muslim bigotry in violent ways. But what happens when someone unhinged gets hold of what Gingrich says, of what others say, when their message gets through? And when the "culture" basically tells this person that violence not just okay but, given the threat, even makes sense and may even be the only way to preserve our freedom?

All it takes is one Anders Behring Breivik.

So are American conservatives to blame? Not entirely, of course, but yes. Many of them, those who feed the culture of hate, those who target Muslims. And it's not always with explicit rhetoric either. You don't have to say you hate Muslims, or that Muslims are evil, just that they shouldn't be able to worship in your community, that they're "foreign" and not like you, that they're "different" and "alien," that they're trying to take over. That's the sort of thing that is all-too-common among American conservatives these days, including from high-profile figures in the media and the Republican Party.

Oh, they'll try to deflect attention and say they deserve no blame, lashing out at their critics, just as they did with the Oklahoma City bombing and more recently with the Tucson shooting and just as they do whenever there's an act of right-wing terrorism, which is more frequent than you might think from the way it's not at all covered in the media.

We just mustn't let them get away with it.

Taking the 14th

By Capt. Fogg

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

14th Amendment, U.S. Constitution
____________

Now, I'm no lawyer, which means that I generally take such statements at face value and have no knowledge of what pretzels they've been twisted into by various courts in various cases, but it seems to me that if congress can't question the validity of our public debt, then congress can't refuse to pay it or more importantly say it's only valid under a certain amount authorized by Congress after they've already deemed it legal. What do you think?

I hate to bring up the Constitution at a time when the Tea Bag Patriots are pretending to worship it while claiming that those who would like to actually conform to it are "shredding it," but the situation is getting serious.

Of course, this whole controversy is about "taking down" the president we elected by a good margin and replacing him with a Tea Party Republican of their choice hell bent not on reducing the debt, but killing Social Security, Medicare, all forms of welfare, and any protection for the public against the health insurance cartel -- and all to make sure people like me can put an extra tank of fuel into the yacht every now and then thus creating jobs in the Bahamas and Taiwan.

After all, they raised the debt ceiling every year a Republican was in office since the beginning of the Reagan administration and authorized Bush's massive debt explosion like a well-disciplined private army. Remember when "debt doesn't matter" was the slogan? No? Well I do.

Obama would be impeached if he blocked debt payments,

says Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and he'd also be impeached if he invalidated the debt ceiling based on the 14th Amendment, says Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) Talk about a poker player with a "tell." Might as well lay the cards on the table.

It's all about impeachment and all about finding some flimsy excuse for forcing the president into a position where they will impeach him if he does and impeach him if he doesn't. No more revolting, I guess, than impeaching one for asking his secretary not to tell his wife he was having an affair. Talk about insurrection and rebellion! No sooner did we lose the Cold War gravy train then we embarked on the Cold Secession.

President Clinton told us recently he wouldn't hesitate to use the 14th to raise the debt ceiling and "force the courts to stop me." You'll remember the attempts to impeach him on any pretext and how the talk of the "failure of the Clinton presidency" preceded the Clinton presidency and how he would certainly be a one-term president and how his tax policies would bankrupt the economy. They hope you won't remember, of course, because we're hearing the same damned bullshit again.

I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy,

said Bill Clinton to The National Memo last week. No wonder slimy things like the Newt are challenging the Constitutional basis for even having a Supreme Court.

Meanwhile that extra 3% tax cut I get on anything I earn over $250,000 is going to prompt me to create jobs for those struggling people now paying for the longest, most expensive wars in American history while losing their houses, jobs, and medical insurance, waiting for the voodoo to kick in and save us all -- and all will be fine just in time for a Tea Party president. I can feel it in my bones.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Mike Lee

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Think Progress:

In an interview on MSNBC's Hardball yesterday evening, tenther Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) admitted that he is using the threat of a catastrophic default to extort the nation into rewriting the Constitution to force a permanent era of conservative governance:

Chris Matthews: How many days do you think we have, on the outside, to get this debt ceiling through before we have a problem? How many days?

Lee: I don't know, maybe ten days.

Matthews: Okay, in ten days you want to change the United States Constitution by two-thirds vote in both houses? That's what you're demanding.

Lee: Yes. If possible we can't change the Constitution just in Congress but we can submit it to the states. Let the states fight it out.

Matthews: And you think you're being reasonable by saying you want a two-thirds vote in the House, which is Republican, and in the Senate which is Democrat. You want the Democratic Senate, by a two-thirds vote, to pass a constitutional amendment or you want the house to come down?

Lee: Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying and I've been saying this for six months.

This guy's crazy stupid and crazy ignorant, but another word for this is treason.

(photo)

Hix nix Palin trix

By J. Thomas Duffy

(For more on the failure of Palin's The Undefeated, see my post at The Huffington Post, cross-posted from here. -- MJWS)

Well, maybe they can re-title it as The Defeated.

Palin doc headed for PPV as ticket sales plummet 

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap) - With its Sarah Palin documentary "The Undefeated" increasing its playdates by 40 percent this weekend, only to watch box office revenue decline by more than 63 percent, distributor Arc Entertainment announced Sunday that the film will soon be available on pay per view.

The movie played in 14 Tea Party-friendly locations this weekend -- up from the 10 in which it opened last week -- but grossed just $24,000.

Starting September 1, subscribers to DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner can see the true Horatio Alger story of an Alaska woman's rise from self-described "hockey mom" to gubernatorial dropout to conservative cable news bastion talking head, all in the comfort of their own home.

In addition, the film will launch on DVD October 4 with a shipment of 250,000 units.

Hard to say "ticket sales plummeted," when on opening night, in red-as-you-can-get Orange County, California, the theater was empty -- nobody showed up.

Why on earth didn't some Right Wing Flying Monkeys, or her own Mommy Moose PAC, buy up all the movie tickets, just like they did for her book, to make it a runaway success?

To tweak LBJ, if the Wasilla Whiz Kid has lost the Teabaggers, she's lost the country.

And so much for the juggernaut.

Highlights heading into the 2012 campaign are now a cancelled pre-campaign victory bus tour and a Susan-Alexander-Kanesque film that goes bust.

If Tina Fey has some smarts, she'll quickly punch out a Doppelganger spoof of The Undeafeated, with an opening night to eclipse all the revenue of the ex-governor with lipstick's box office.

Bonus Riffs

Andy Kroll:  New Sarah Palin Hagiography: Springboard for 2012 Presidential Run?

John Cole:  So Much Awesome In One Place

Ben Child:  Sarah Palin likened to Joan of Arc in two-hour documentary film

TBogg:  Sarah Palin Is The Culmination Of All Human Endeavors and Wars And Probably Evolution

David Weigel:  Palin's Coming Attractions - What the new Sarah Palin documentary gets right, and wrong, about her politics.

Alyssa Rosenberg: Sarah Palin Taken Aback by Hollywood’s Reaction To Her

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Boehner's flaccid proposition

By Carl 

Well, this is not kicking the can down the road, this is pushing the penny across the table: 

According to a GOP aide familiar with the emerging House bill, it would provide for an immediate $1 trillion increase in the government's $14.3 trillion debt limit in exchange for $1.2 trillion in cuts in federal spending.

The measure also envisions Congress approving a second round of spending cuts of $1.8 trillion or more in 2012, passage of which would trigger an additional $1.6 trillion in increased borrowing authority.

While the bill marked a retreat from legislation that conservatives muscled through the House last week, the two-step approach runs afoul of Obama's insistence that lawmakers solve the current crisis in a way that avoids a politically charged rerun next year in the middle of the 2012 election campaign. 

This is probably a premature enactment on the part of the GOP. Pushing this issue into the middle of next year's election cycle will create a far bigger headache for them than it does for Obama.

Boehner is mollycoddling his radical right wing with this proposal, and basically throwing his hands up and saying "Basta!" Placing this issue in the middle of the election cycle is going to lose him the House, and any chance at the Senate. I see the warped logic the GOP is using, so let me analyze it a little for you.

Of tangential import, this will be the first major issue in the post-Murdochian-meltdown of FOX News, so Boener loses his most effective propaganda tool.

The gamble Boehner is making is that in the next six months to one year, he can marshal public opinion in his favor. Right now, the nation seems pretty divided over who is to blame for the debt ceiling crisis, with the slight benefit of the doubt given to President Obama.

What I believe he is misreading, what Obama can rely heavily on, is that the nation is pretty unified over the idea that the problem demands a long-term solution and now. All those months of stroking to whip up a froth of "you can't spend more than you make" has left the wrong impression of the Republicans in this constituency. It's not about cutting spending deeply, it's about making more money for them. The American people understand that there will be sacrifices, but they remember the Great Depression and World War II when everyone sacrificed. We're all in agreement spending should be cut, and while we may disagree in detail, in the long, broad strokes we get it.

Cutting Grandma's blood pressure medicine won't do it. Cutting ExxonMobil's taxes sure as hell won't do it. The American people want a solution that they can examine, agree with, and then conveniently ignore, secure in the knowledge the problem is wll in hand, and not rising again in six months' time. We, like the markets, prefer certainty, not a "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" buyoff.

Which leads me to point number two that I think Boehner is misreading: Apart from Ryan's universally panned $6 trillion debt-cutting plan, President Obama's proposals are the only ones on the table (not even Reid's match his numbers) that will permanently cut the debt, mount revenues while shedding risky behavior like farm subsidies and plug other corporate loopholes.

If the GOP is successful in kicking the can down the road, Obama can simply run the tape of these past few weeks where he has been stiff in his resolve to seek a permanent solution to the problem. "See? I told you so!" would be a mantra that he could run on.

Meanwhile, in the intervening six months, the GOP has to winnow down the seven dwarves, err, twelve monkeys to a viable field in the primaries. If you think that the debt ceiling isn't going to be a major topic of conversation that the GOP will be arguing back and forth, up and down, in and out until the cows come home, thus softening the impact of any media campaign the GOP leadership might roll out, you'd have to be an idiot, Mr. Weaker Boehner.

We don't have much of an attention span, we Americans, but over and over again, we've shown the distinct ability to sniff out garbage, which is precisely what you offer.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

The politics of the debt ceiling crisis: Tea Party says no to Boehner, Republicans snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Things were looking good for Republicans. More or less. They might not have been able to turn the tables on Obama and the Democrats, which was the plan, but by continuing to hold the country (and, more specifically, the Democrats) hostage on the debt ceiling, they were testing the Democrats' resolve -- and it didn't look like they had much resolve left.

A two-step plan. That's what the Republicans were proposing -- not because it's a good idea but because it's pretty much the only way for them to keep the party from fragmenting, the only way to win the issue politically. Show a bit of seriousness, maybe win back public support, give both the GOP's financial establishment and the Tea Party something to like, hope Obama and the Democrats take the blame. Simple enough.

And, indeed, it was looking like Republicans were poised for a huge win:

John Boehner is proposing a deal with about $1 trillion in spending cuts and a short-term increase in the debt ceiling and a bipartisan congressional committee charged with developing a large deficit reduction package that would be immune to amendments and filibusters and would be the price of the next increase in the debt ceiling. Harry Reid is developing a package of spending cuts that Democrats could accept and would reach Boehner's $2.4 trillion mark.

If you take the Republicans' goals as avoiding a deal in which they have to vote for tax increases and denying Obama a political victory, it looks like they have succeeded. That success has come with costs -- they've done themselves political damage, are risking a crisis that could do the economy tremendous harm, and have left the Bush tax cuts unresolved, which means they might end up watching taxes rise much higher than if they'd taken Obama's offer -- but it's still been a success. 

Basically, Boehner would get a short-term debt increase, appeasing the GOP's corporate-finance base, as well as spending cuts not offset by any revenue increases. Obama would have gotten his increase, but not a political win. And the issue, and the crisis, would have been largely put on hold until 2012, with Republicans dishonestly hammering Obama for supposedly not being serious enough about making a deal. Yes, the costs could turn out to be enormous for the Republicans, but they probably hope they could win the spin.

But no.

Aside from the fact that Boehner is almost certainly wrong about this -- the public is against the GOP on the debt ceiling and Obama has proven successful at using the bully pulpit to shift public opinon -- opposition to his plan has come not so much from the Democrats, who oppose a short-term increase but who might have given in, but from his own party:

The chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee wasted little time announcing his opposition to the House GOP leadership's two-step plan to raise the debt ceiling.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who stood — visibly uncomfortable — next to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) during Monday's announcement of the plan, released a statement saying he would vote "no" on the measure.

As well as from the Tea Party:

A coalition of Tea Party chapters and conservative lawmakers on Monday rejected the debt proposal put forward by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), despite his efforts to sweeten the deal with provisions favored by his conservative base.

The Cut, Cap, Balance Coalition, which boasts hundreds of Tea Party groups and more than 100 GOP lawmakers in its membership, is citing two provisions in Boehner's proposal that amount to deal-breakers: its call for creating a Congressional Commission and its inclusion of a balanced budget amendment that, according to the group, is only for show.

Yes, even when faced with an historic victory, Republicans don't think it's quite good enough, demanding more and more and refusing to give up their ideological absolutism for anything smelling of compromise -- even a pro-GOP compromise with an almost full-scale Democratic sellout.

So why is anyone even listening to Boehner anymore? He clearly doesn't control his caucus and can't even come up with a viable plan. Maybe that's not his fault. He's dealing with extremists, after all, and with them refusing to budge, there isn't really much he can do. Forget the policy, he can't even win the politics, which means the Republicans won't win the spin.

On the other side, Harry Reid actually does have a plan, one Obama seems to like. It's hardly an ideal plan from a progressive perspective, a $2.7 trillion debt ceiling increase with $2.7 million in spending cuts (mostly from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), but it's got some potential:

[W]hile Reid's plan doesn't raise taxes, it also doesn't take tax increases off the table. Currently, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in 2012. If Reid's all-cuts plan passes, that still leaves the door open to significant revenue increases. Now that doesn't mean this is brilliant 11-dimensional chess. The Reid Plan is consistent with substantial revenues coming online in 2012, but that will only happen if President Obama and Senate Democrats stand firm and play hardball on the tax issue. Back in December 2010, they utterly failed to do so. 

True, it's hard to have much confidence in Obama and the Democrats. But this could be a way for them to "win" the issue politically, as it shows once more that they're serious about getting something done, even if nothing actually gets done, while the Republicans continue to splinter and look desperate and pethetic, and ever more extremist.

But... enough.

We're spending so much time on the politics of the debt ceiling crisis. What about actually raising it? Is that going to happen? If so, how?

Economic catastrophe is at hand. Isn't preventing that from happening a more pressing priority than scoring the most political points?

Maybe Jonathan Chait is right and Obama, in his speech last night, was "positioning himself for failure." And maybe there's just no avoiding it now.

If so, if there is failure, then it is American democracy that has failed. And if it has, it is the Republicans who are to blame, for they have embraced right-wing radicalism, descended into madness, and pulled the country into the abyss.

I used to think America was better than that. I was wrong. And now, I am at a loss. What is there left to do?

(photo)

This day in history - July 25, 1956: The ocean liner Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm

By Richard K. Barry

On this day in 1956, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collided with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog, killing 46. The collision took place 45 miles south of Nantucket Island. The next day, the Andrea Doria sunk.

The incident was heavily covered by the media at the time. It is generally recognized that the design of the ship, which allowed it to stay afloat for 11 hours after impact, good behavior of the crew, improvements in communications, and the quick response of other ships averted a disaster on the scale of the Titanic in 1912.

The Andrea Doria was the last major transatlantic passenger vessel to sink before air travel became the preferred method of crossing the ocean.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Mommy for President!

By Nicholas Wilbur

There are a million ridiculous factors by which we judge a presidential candidate's ability to run the country: charisma, attractiveness, faith, height, weight, hair color.

This is why a Rush Limbaugh or some other angry, ugly, fanatical, short, fat, and bald man would never succeed in a national race for public office. It's why even the coiffed Newt Gingrich struggles to maintain a staff for his presidential campaign. It's why Dick Cheney had to play the role of Number Two in Junior's administration.

To a lesser extent, legislative records matter, too, as do experience and vision, passion and ­(depending on party affiliation) eloquence.

You know what doesn't matter? Child-bearing abilities.

For almost a quarter of a millennium, the wise voters of this great country have elected presidents without a single thought to that man's ability to squeeze cone-headed offspring from his loins.

Even in 2008, when Hilary Rodham Clinton nearly captured the Democratic presidential nomination, there wasn't a word about her child-rearing skills. She exercised those skills only once, mind you, but that's one more than half the adult population is capable of doing. Clinton's campaign simply didn't consider popping out a kid a qualifier for the presidency.

Neither should presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, although it's completely understandable why she does.

In order to induce that patriotic metamorphosis in the apathetic and apolitical masses and turn the American public into the American electorate, prospective constituents must experience that "intimate, personal connection" with their candidates.

When it comes to electability, the "warm and fuzzy," or "the connect," as Joe Biden calls it, is no less crucial than a candidate's citizenship. And while it's a necessary part of the campaign, it's also probably the easiest part. Politicians love to anoint themselves with the oil of Narcissus, and no time is an inopportune time for a self-aggrandizing testimonial.

For Bachmann, being a five-time babymaker and foster parent to 23 more kids is about the only personal quality the American public can appreciate. If presidential campaigns were reproduction contests, she'd be a shoe-in. Unfortunately, her creationist dogma and evangelical beliefs – particularly the idea that women ought to be submissive to their husbands – aren't exactly mainstream values. On top of that, she's a former tax lawyer, perhaps the most loathed profession in the U.S.A., who became a congresswoman, the second-most loathed profession in the U.S.A. And she can't even do that job well. She doesn't head any committees (or sub-committees), she's drafted no legislation, and she's passed no laws.

She's got Christianity and kids. Pretty broad. Not exactly a bottomless cache of domestic and foreign policy ideas that can be woven into a national platform of mass appeal.

But what the hell. Flaunt it if you've got it, especially if it's all you've got.

God may have told Bachmann to run for president, but for all of those southern conservative Christians who feel a twinge of obligation to support the evangelical candidate, He never told Bachmann she was going to win. For all we know, God wasn't even talking about president of the United States. Maybe he meant she should run for president of the local orphanage.

Bachmann is out of her league. Even Sarah Palin had more to offer than mere parenthood (although not much more).

If faith and stretch marks were the only prerequisites for running the country, Rush Limbaugh would have been president decades ago. 

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Elephant Dung #36: The Bachmann-Pawlenty spat

Tracking the GOP Civil War 

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.) 

Sorry, haven't done one of these in ages...

Not that there haven't been many, many instances of Republicans attacking fellow Republicans...

For example, as you may have heard, Tim Pawlenty, running well back in the GOP presidential race (and seeming more and more desperate), recently used the news of Michele Bachmann's migraine problem to suggest that the Minnesota congresswoman might not be up to the job of president. It was a cheap shot.

Bachmann quickly put concerns about her health to rest -- yes, I'll take her at her (and her doctor's word), and migraines, even serious ones, shouldn't be a disqualifier -- and, to her credit (even if one disagrees with her views), has fought back, slamming Pawlenty's record as governor of their state (criticizing him from the extreme right). She just wasn't going to take his shit lying down.

Now, I'd take Pawlenty over Bachmann any day. As her statement suggests, he's not nearly the right-wing conservative he's been trying to make himself out to be, while she's the real deal, a bona fide nut. And he's fighting back as well, with a spokesman noting that while he was "scoring conservative victories" as governor she was "giving speeches and offering failed amendments, all while struggling mightily to hold onto the most Republican house seat in the state." Ouch.

Pawlenty is so far back at this point that this hardly seems like a meaningful fight. Bachmann has emerged as the clear #2 behind Romney while Pawlenty has failed to generate much support at all. I suppose he still has a shot at emerging as the compromise candidate between Romney and Bachmann, but there may yet be Perry to contend with, and, thus far, he has done nothing to suggest that he could actually pull off a victory.

Still, with most of the Republican candidates falling all over themselves to prove their conservative bona fides and casually trying to outdo one another in their extremism, all while remaining mostly civil and directing their fire at President Obama, this little Bachmann-Pawlenty spat is about as interesting as it gets.