I survived NaNo....Meyerson notes the Democrats' three great governing opportunities/challenges of the last century. The first was in 1933, when FDR and a Democratic Congress delivered on a New Deal. The second was in 1965, when LBJ and a Democratic Congress advanced the Great Society. The third is right now. And while the first two saw a flurry of legislative successes that came to define a generation, 2009 isn't working out the same way -- partly because Republicans have embraced obstructionism on an unprecedented scale, partly because some Democrats are conservatives who are comfortable with failure, and partly because of legislative procedural hurdles that FDR and LBJ didn't have to worry about.
Facing extraordinary crises and challenges, the United States has a legislative branch that is barely able to legislate at all. The system can see the problems, but is struggling badly to address them. The first step in changing the way Congress operates is creating the demand -- most of the public has no idea that the Senate no longer operates by majority rule. Public frustration can lead to proposals, which can lead to debate, which can lead to solutions.WAKE UP PEOPLE.
The official candidate - Scozzafava - had been chosen by the local party figures to fill a vacancy caused by the 23rd's Republican Congressman getting tabbed by Obama to become Secretary of the Army. For a while there the campaign was going her way. But the Far Right conservatives took one look at her - Scozzafava was as solid a Moderate Republican you can find in the Northeastern states, pro-choice and pro-gay marriage - and became revolting (yes, I pun). They pushed a more hard-line Republican, Hoffman, to run for the district on the Conservative ticket (New York politics is damn close to unique: small region parties have the power to nominate shared candidates, for one thing; for another, those regional parties have enough oomph coming from a wealthy media-rich state to campaign rather effectively for these kinds of elections).In recent days, polls have indicated that my chances of winning this election are not as strong as we would like them to be. The reality that I’ve come to accept is that in today’s political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money—and as I’ve been outspent on both sides, I’ve been unable to effectively address many of the charges that have been made about my record. But as I’ve said from the start of this campaign, this election is not about me, it’s about the people of this District. And, as always, today I will do what I believe serves their interests best. It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so.
I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my Party will emerge stronger and our District and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for generations. On Election Day my name will appear on the ballot, but victory is unlikely. To those who support me – and to those who choose not to – I offer my sincerest thanks.
...No one knows what might happen now. For the insurgents, it means a scalp they will surely use to purge the GOP of any further dissidence. But the insurgents were also backed by the establishment, including Tim Pawlenty, who's supposed to be the reasonable center.
What we're seeing, I suspect, is an almost classic example of a political party becoming more ideological after its defeat at the polls. in order for that ideology to win, they will also have to portray the Obama administration as so far to the left that voters have no choice but to back the Poujadists waiting in the wings. And that, of course, is what they're doing. There is a method to the Ailes-Drudge-Cheney-Rove denialism. They create reality, remember?
From the mindset of an ideologically purist base - where a moderate Republican in New York state is a "radical leftist" - this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over. This blood in the water will bring on more and more and deadlier and deadlier sharks.
...Within the GOP whatever nerve anyone had to resist the imprimatur of Erickson, Malkin, RS McCain et al is surely gone now. If a moderate cannot survive even in up-state New York, it's over.
Moderate Voice (to be fair, the person posting this is NeoMugWump, so it may seem like I'm overlapping the postees which is not my intent):...Think that this one taste of blood will satisfy the birthers, supremacists and Christianist extremists who fuel the teabagging movement? Wingnut, my friends, has not yet begun to peak.
Before moving on to something else, take a moment to sympathize with coalition builders like Newt and David Frum, no doubt tearing their hair out at the runaway success of Sarah Starbursts’ insurgent crusade.
The sad thing is that Hoffman doesn’t even know or care about issues affecting the district he is supposed represent should he win. Scozzafava knew her district,but because of her so-called liberal stances on gay marriage and abortion she is being drummed out of the party (My EDIT: well, she's not out of the Republicans. It's just she's not going to represent like she hoped).
How Scozzafava was treated makes me wonder how long I will keep the moniker of Republican. I consider myself a pragmatic conservative and will remain one. But I am increasingly finding it hard to stay in a party that does not want me even though I agree with them on more issues than I disagree with them.
The party is headed towards destruction. I don’t know if I want to be there for the end...
The reason why I have the title of this blog "Night of the Undead Greedheads" is because I'm going to finish up with a rant against the Club for Greed, which about only 7 people will ever see. Anyway.
Here's where we are in 2009 for the Republican Party: they've just finished most of the Aught Decade (2000-2010) mostly in control of all three branches of the Federal government. They had the Gingrich/DeLay/Armey faction in charge of Congress from 1994 to 2006. They had Cheney/Bush in the White House between 2000-2008. They had a 5-4 advantage in the Supreme Court.
They spent - literally in most cases - most of their decade in power tossing money about like drunken teenagers with their parents' credit cards, racking up huge debt and deficits by adhering to a strict massive-tax-cut policy that crimped the government's ability to, you know, actually afford all Teh Crazy Sh-t they wanted to buy. Billions of dollars to the Big Pharma under the guise of Medicare reform! Billions upon billions for two wars and nation-building occupations that became quagmires far deeper and more unstable than Vietnam! Lax regulation of federal oversight of our financial institutions allowing for massive toxic funds to clog the economy! More and more Government revenue lost to such deep tax cuts that when the time came for the Feds to try and handle a massive economic collapse caused by said toxic funds there wasn't enough wriggle room to pull off anything to truly re-stabilize the nation's economy (oh, sure the banks are safe, but try telling the 27 million UNEMPLOYED that we're out of the Bush Recession).
And why was that? Why did the Republican Party, once in power, acted so irresponsible with fiscal and business policies during their rule?
Because of the likes of the Club for Growth Greed. They're not the only Far Right advocates of massive tax cuts, but they're the most noticeable. They're the ones who came up with the term RINO. They're the ones who highlight officials they call 'comrades' (ahh, that old SOCIALIST smear campaign crap) for attempting any policy or program that tries to provide public aid for people in need. They're the ones who back primary challenges against moderates or any Republican who yes raises taxes in attempts to balance the budgets and keep governments solvent, and they're the ones who prefer they LOSE the elections in order to ensure THEY remain in power among the GOP ranks, even as the Republican Party itself loses any actual voice, leadership, or effectiveness within the halls of Congress.
The Club for Greed is adamantly opposed to raising taxes, and tax hikes, ostensibly under the libertarian ideology that "government is the problem" and that people (read: Corporations) know better what to do with their hard-earned money than the government does. They're the ones who worship at the foot of the Laffer Curve: a simple Bell Curve claiming that the higher the tax rate, the less actual revenue it generates (without any actual numbers or stats to have backed it up) for the government. Of course, that Laffer Curve also demonstrated that the lower the tax rate, it also generates less revenue as well (in a perfect world according to the Laffer, the tax rate should be 50 percent!), but the Clubbers seem convinced that at the 30-35 percent tax rate we're basically at now, we're still on the HIGH end of that Curve (we're NOT).
The Club for Greed also opposed any government regulation of corporations, of the industries of high finance and banking at what not. Because, gosh, the United States always did so well when businesses were free of interference and oversight and allowed GREED to overrun our economies like in the 1920s and the 2000s. Yeah, I was in SARCASM mode that last sentence.
You would think, just getting out from under a massive economic collapse that even made Greenspan apologize, that the Club for Greed would have lost face, lost prestige, lost whatever access or connections to those in power granted them. We are right now living in a time where the Federal government is the one sure anchor we've got: 1/10 of the nation is unemployed, states are fighting to keep their budgets afloat, no one is hiring, people are on edge worried we're going to have another economic disaster around the corner because the banks and financial overlords responsible for last year's collapse are still around and getting more brazen with their tricks. This is, as any honest student of history will tell you, a time where Keynesiansim and not Randianism should be prevalent in economic/political thought. We simply can't afford to let the financial behemoths run ragged and smash everything again: We do need to raise revenue to be able to pay for the government programs that are needed to reset the engines of industry and business.
And yet, here's the tax-cutters claiming a RINO scalp that now gives the Democrats a respectable shot at securing yet another Congressional seat. The Greedhead Zombies rise from the dead.
In fact, the Club for Greed won't - CAN'T - die. For starters, they still have all the money: their deregulation/tax-cut advocacy still gets their coffers filled by those who profit literally from their defense of GREED. For another, there are enough foot soldiers within their ranks who are geniunely terrified of Socialism... despite the fact that such a threat is ludicrious (And also if they think FDR's New Deal was Socialist (they do) that shows how WRONG they are (The New Deal SAVED Capitalism: without it, the real Socialists or worse yet the Facsists would have taken over)). Such devoted, whacked-out devotees assures the Club for Greed won't fall until they themselves push their own destruction (it's called PRIDE, you GREEDHEADS, and it does come before a fall)...
So, this is what I learned a good long time ago. It's one of the reasons I gave up on the Republicans and left the Party that had already left me. It's why I still post comments on Sanders' NeoMugWump blog, wondering if he'll ever get the hint and find solace in independent voterhood.
It's also why I opened up this blog asking if anyone can help form a viable Third Party for true Moderates. Because I do geniunely think the Republicans are reflecting the path of self-destruction once mirrored by the Federalists and the Whigs. We're going to need another Party to fill the void when all the Club for Greed has left for their knee-capping efforts is 5 Senators and 29 Congressmen (no women) from Southern states... So let us now look to forming a Moderate Party, one dedicated to true political reform, sensible efforts to balance budgets including targeted tax hikes to afford needed government programs (like the military, natural disaster emergencies, public transit, effective interstate commerce, job safety, and funding of state-level programs such as education, law enforcement, and health care), and a respect for the Constitution (including recognizing the No Religious Test requirement as a means to ensure equal protection of ALL true faiths). All we really need is a Moderate with at least $300 million to spend... anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
...Are the nation’s fiscal, economic, military, political and social challenges
setting us up for a Military Coup? Will the U.S. Military Industrial Complex,
acting through our Joint Chiefs of Staff or some other high-level corps of U.S.
Military officers, and supported by a variety of angry business leaders and
extreme conservatives be so resentful of any changes to our national priorities
that they would encourage a complete removal of our elected civilian federal
government, save the Department of Defense?
If the President and Congress decided to actually reduce or freeze Military spending over the next 4 years in real dollars, eliminate some programs to build or acquire various types of military hardware, close more domestic and foreign bases and remove troops from Europe and Asia, and veto any escalation of and start deep reductions in our military presences in Afghanistan and Iraq, will the conservatives in our Military be outraged enough to take action? This consideration might make
President Obama a bit skittish about not following his generals’ current
recommendations to escalate our national and NATO presence in Afghanistan. His
decision on this matter and other domestic issues might be viewed as the
precipitating events for actions that could significantly alter the U.S. and
global history.
If a direct physical removal of civilian government by military force is not in the cards, perhaps some generals and strong military supporters could defeat President Obama and the Democrats in 2010 and 2012. This peaceful mechanism is constitutionally-protected and these political campaigns could be well-financed by the many large international arms manufacturers and other parts of President Eisenhower’s vast military-industrial complex...
Rush Limbaugh made an explicit comparison that he and the Far Right are on the same page as the Taliban. Um, you sure that's the right comparison to make there...?
For all the recognition of George W. Bush's unpopularity, it's easy to overlook the ways in which the international community was truly mortified by the U.S. leadership during the Bush era. The irreplaceable leading nation could no longer be trusted to do the right thing -- on use of force, torture, rule of law, international cooperation, democratic norms, even climate change. We'd reached a point at which much of the world was poised to simply give up on America's role as a global leader.
And, love him or hate him, President Obama changed this. I doubt anyone on the Nobel committee would admit it, but the Peace Prize is, to a certain extent, an implicit "thank you" to the United States for reclaiming its rightful place on the global stage.
It's indicative of a degree of relief. Much of the world has wanted America to take the lead again, and they're rightly encouraged to see the U.S. president stepping up in the ways they hoped he would. It's hard to overstate the significance, for example, of seeing a U.S. president chair a meeting of the United Nations Security Council and making strides on a nuclear deal.
This is not to say Obama was honored simply because he's not Bush. The president really has committed himself to promoting counter-proliferation, reversing policies on torture, embracing a new approach to international engagement, and recommitting the U.S. to the Middle East peace process. But charting a new course for American leadership, breaking with the recent past, no doubt played a role.
As outraged as American conservatives are this morning, notice the international reactions. Praise was not universal, but Mohamed Elbaradei, for example, said, "I cannot think of anyone today more deserving of this honor. In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself." Mandela, Tutu, and Gorbachev, among others, also praised the announcement.
The most angry international responses came from Hamas and the Taliban.
I was at the main library in downtown Ft. Lauderdale meeting with other librarians in the tech lab (computers) departments. The library was switching to a new email system (groupwise) and they wanted us to perform the in-house training. Meeting started at 9 am. One of my coworkers was late, coming in and saying there was news a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.
It was sad to hear, but we all knew the story about the Empire State building getting hit with a plane back in the 1940s, so we assumed it was a tragic pilot’s error or bad weather or something (it was a clear day that morning in Florida. I think it turned out the whole Atlantic seaboard had clear skies… it was going to be such a beautiful day…) So we settled in, going over the email system, what we should teach, what the handout materials should look like, etc. It took about an hour, just sitting there in the classroom lab unaware of what was happening outside.
When we finished the meeting, we left the classroom and walked out into the foyer area and up the escalator to the library’s main floor. They had dragged out a TV on a cart and was trying to get a signal. For some reason, TV reception was lousy in that building, and they didn’t have cable connection. I saw an old boss of mine who was also at the library for a meeting and approached her, asking what was going on.
“Oh my God,” she told me. “There was another plane hitting the other World Trade Center tower.”
It took a few seconds. It took a few seconds to realize that one plane was an accident. Two planes, one right after the other… hitting each tower…
I knew then it meant war.
The lobby TV was terrible, snow and static, and I went up the 8th floor to see if reception for a TV in the staff lounge was better up there. It wasn’t. They tried moving it into a meeting room closer to the windows to see if that could help. And barely. There was still a lot of static and snow, and some of the guys I was with didn’t agree with me when I swore one of the towers had collapsed.
By that time, reports of the Pentagon strike were all over the place, rumors about other buildings getting hit with car bombs, more planes in the air… The call went out from the county government: everyone close down and go home.
Every skyscraper in Ft. Lauderdale was closing (the odds of terrorists striking South Florida seemed ridiculous, but by then panic was unshakable). The parking lot for the library was actually a few blocks to the other side of the government center across the street. I walked across and met a young couple who were trying to enter the government building. The county center had already locked their doors. The couple didn’t know. I told them. “Terrorists are flying planes into buildings. They hit the Twin Towers. One of them’s gone, just flat out gone.”
By the time I got to my car and got the radio on – the first time I could clearly get news about what was happening – the second Tower fell.
I couldn’t go straight home: while the downtown buildings were closed, other library branches were still open and I had to report back to the NW Regional branch in Coral Springs. When I got there, the whole staff knew. I met with my tech lab workers and we all talked about what was happening in low hushed tones. There were probably 7 patrons in the whole building, just one in that lab. Just before lunch time, the word came down that all libraries were closed until further notice from the county.
That whole day ended up with me in a daze. I went home first, sitting with my two cats and watching CNN for hours. Reports on the last plane – Flight 93 – started coming in. By the afternoon, I felt restless, despairing. I decided to go donate blood. I had never done it before: I hate needles, was terrified of doing it, but that day… well I wasn’t the only one. The only blood bank anywhere in North Broward was crowded well out into the parking lot. I ended up standing there for three hours before it had gotten so dark that you couldn’t see the persons you were talking with (few parking lot lights). So I went home and went back to donate blood that Saturday.
They ended up not taking my blood. I tested positive for Hepatitis C and spent the whole month of October getting re-tested before they confirmed it was a false positive. They never told me what I did test positive for, though. But I digress.
