Archive for Parties
Eddie Lives
Posted by: | CommentsIncluding November outcomes, a lot remains uncertain in this election season, and redistricting accounts for a lot of it: who is in, who is out, who can run, who can vote and vote where. Much of the rhetoric and legislation from the Republican side has a retrograde feel to it. In the wake of Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008, and the economic collapse in 2008, the Republican strategy seems to be one, enormous rearguard action to forestall the inevitable as demographic reality slowly seeps in, one last, desperate culture war counteroffensive before the end. Emblematic of that is the open reemergence of the Southern Strategy, in rhetoric, legislation and redistricting. There will be more on Republican redistricting to come, but first some observations about the flavor of the Republican primaries.
Those of us of a certain age remember an old TV sitcom, “Leave It To Beaver.” It was pretty saccharine fare, except for one particular character, a two-faced kid named Eddie Haskell.
Santorum Creams Romney
Posted by: | CommentsWhat a night for Rick Santorum, the conservative Catholic from Pennsylvania. He won three states and threw the GOP nominating battle up in the air in a way no one predicted in the wake of South Carolina and Florida. Even Dr. Ron Paul whooped Romney in Minnesota.
So what do you think, Hooligans. Where does it all go from here?
And It Shows
Posted by: | CommentsTimmeh!
“I am very suspect of early childhood education. I am very suspect of education in general.”Oh boy. Is that what you want to hear from a state legislator? More specifically, is that what you want to hear from a member of the House Select Committee on Early Childhood Education Improvement?
Rep. Tim Moffitt, a Republican and a management consultant from Asheville, said it during that committee’s meeting Thursday morning, people who were there say. We’ll hope he meant he’s frustrated with the state of education right now and fervently hopes to improve it. We left a message for him Friday afternoon to find out. Given the 20 percent cut Republicans inflicted on pre-K education last year, though, it appears most Republicans have an odd sense of what ‘improvement’ means.
Read more here.
Polling Supports Narrative: Economic Sabotage By GOP
Posted by: | CommentsFrom TPM: Polls Show Voters Believe GOP Intentionally Stalling Economic Recovery. Polls by Suffolk University, Washington Post/ABC News and PPP (commissioned by Daily Kos) show an economic sabotage narrative taking hold.
The new data suggests that about half the country, including a majority of self-identified independents, believe that congressional Republicans are using their political power to thwart Obama’s efforts to reduce unemployment, presenting Democrats an opportunity to make this argument more explicitly as the 2012 campaign moves forward — to undercut Republicans’ claims that Obama and the Dems bear full responsibility for the economy, and to make their pattern of obstruction a real liability for them.
Suffolk University polled registered voters in Florida and found that nearly half of voters, including large minorities of conservatives and Republicans, believed “Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jump-start the economy to insure that Barack Obama is not re-elected?”
From the people whose idea of a “jobs bill” is another tax cut for millionaires. Time for another Culture War distraction, I guess. David Atkins at Hullabaloo reminds readers: “Republicans are poised to take a stand this year against contraception, Medicare, and middle class tax cuts.”
I didn’t see “War Horse.” It wasn’t about Republican strategery, was it?
Boehner: The clearing of the market
Posted by: | CommentsAll the government’s efforts to help distressed homeowners stay in their homes have done, says Rep. John Boehner, is “delay the clearing of the market.”
I love that euphemism, “the clearing of the market.” As in throwing families out into the street. It’s like how the Pentagon described the secret carpet bombing of Cambodian villages as “counterinsurgency strikes.” Or how the FBI (same time period) testified about an investigation and used “a male individual residing in the adjoining domicile” to mean the next door neighbor. It’s so cold and clinical, so devoid of human emotion.
Euphemisms reveal what is most important to you by hiding what is not. “Clearing the market” reveals that boosting real estate values clearly takes priority over helping families stay in their homes. That’s the bottom line.
Having It Both Ways
Posted by: | CommentsRepublicans want to fall in line, the saying goes, and Ann Coulter is falling in line now that Gov. Mitt Romney is back as Republican front runner. She even likes his healthcare plan: Three cheers for Romneycare — “a massive triumph for conservative free-market principles.” After paragraphs gushing about the individual mandate’s conservative roots in the Heritage Foundation, Coulter goes “tenther” calling the 2,000-page Affordable Care Act, not bad policy, exactly, just an illegal one: “If Obamacare were a one-page bill that did nothing but mandate that every American buy health insurance, it would still be unconstitutional…”
Of course, Heritage didn’t think so when in response to the Clinton health proposal, prominent Republicans in the congress included many of its ideas in a couple of health care bills, including the “Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993” (18 Republican cosponsors and a breezy 579-page read) and the “Consumer Choice Health Security Act of 1993” with multiple sponsors in the House. Or when Mitt Romney used the Heritage model in Massachusetts. Only when the Obama White House adopted Romney’s template did Heritage and Republicans balk, as Think Progress reminded them:
– Heritage On Romney’s Individual Mandate: “Not an unreasonable position, and one that is clearly consistent with conservative values.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Individual Mandate: “Both unprecedented and unconstitutional.” [Heritage, 12/9/09]
– Heritage On Romney’s Insurance Exchange: An “innovative mechanism to promote real consumer choice.” [Heritage, 4/20/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Insurance Exchange: Creates a “de facto public option” by “grow[ing]” government control over healthcare.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]
– Heritage On Romney’s Medicaid Expansion: Reduced “the total cost to taxpayers” by taking people out of the “uncompensated care pool.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Medicaid Expansion: Expands a “broken entitlement program,” providing a “low-quality, poorly functioning program.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]
With Coulter singing his praises, once again it’s springtime for Mitt.
Exit Shuler
Posted by: | CommentsRep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) will not run for reelection after three terms in office.
“This was not an easy decision,” Shuler said. “However, I am confident that it is the right decision. It is a decision I have weighed heavily over the past few months. I have always said family comes first, and I never intended to be a career politician.”
Is Our Democratic Centrists Learning?
Posted by: | CommentsRemember when Minnesota’s Gov. Mark Dayton was branded “too liberal to win? That was then. This is now, from PPP:
January 27, 2012
Dayton sees strong approval in MinnesotaRaleigh, N.C. – Minnesota DFL Governor Mark Dayton holds a +19 job approval rating, with 53% of voters approving of his job performance as Governor and 34% disapproving. His support is fueled by near-unanimous approval among Democrats (85-5) and strong approval among Independents (51-33).
Also today from the Star Tribune, Dayton blasts GOP senators as ‘unfit to govern’ after they voted his appointee to the public utilities commission — a clean energy advocate:
Open political warfare erupted between Republicans in the Legislature and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton on Monday with the Senate’s decision to oust a top Dayton appointee from office.The Senate’s 37-29 party-line vote rejecting former state Sen. Ellen Anderson as chair of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) prompted a stern rebuke from Dayton, in which he reminded Senate Republicans of their “leadership scandals” and pronounced them “unfit to govern.”
[...]
A quietly furious Dayton said at a news conference after the vote that “a very good person, a very dedicated public servant and an excellent chair of the Public Utilities Commission was wrongly maligned and cruelly rejected today by Republican senators, who showed once again they are unfit to govern this state. You would think that after their leadership scandals, which caused them to replace all their leaders last month, they would behave themselves for at least a little while.”
Not bad for a liberal.
Rabbit Punch
Posted by: | CommentsWow! That’s terrific bunny …
New York Times : A Mortgage Investigation
The moment Obama mentioned a panel to investigate banks, I thought: “I hear you. Now show me.” The panel is to include New York AG Eric Schneiderman, a thorn in the side to an administration that seems keen on sweeping the whole thing under the rug. A attempt at co-opting him? The Times thinks so.
There is good reason to be skeptical. To date, federal civil suits over mortgage wrongdoing have been narrowly focused and, at best, ended with settlements and fines that are a fraction of the profits made during the bubble. There have been no criminal prosecutions against major players. Justice Department officials say that it reflects the difficulty of proving fraud — and not a lack of prosecutorial zeal. That is hard to swallow, given the scale of the crisis and the evidence of wrongdoing from private litigation, academic research and other sources.
Fiscal Times :
After the Layoff: Congrats on Your New, Worse Job
The good news is the unemployment rate is slowly ticking down – from 9 percent in October 2011 to 8.5 percent in December. Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 200,000 in December, and hiring was up in retail, hospitality, professional services and health care.Yet, for the majority of U.S. workers, average wages have remained stagnant for decades, and median household income dipped during the recession, declining 6.4 percent between 2007 and 2010. According to a study released in December by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, just 7 percent of those who were let go during the recession have matched previous income. A little over half reported taking a pay cut – and of those, 29 percent took a reduction in salary by 30 percent or higher. To top off the bad news, 30 percent of the reemployed percent took a reduction in benefits.
Digby: Zombies are eating election officials brains
Not that this will stop the wingnuts from their crusade but it should. Turns out that the South Carolina zombies weren’t zombies after all.
What Digby said.
The SC Republican Primary: Eyes Wide Shut
Posted by: | CommentsPrimary voters just gave former Speaker Newt Gingrich the win in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, “America’s most conservative state.” Reddest of the red. Buckle of the Bible Belt. CNN welcomed viewers to the Charleston debate this week with “Welcome to the South,” a place “where values matter.”
More there than anywhere else? What values mattered most to South Carolinians who gave Gingrich his win?
Not trust. Why should they trust Newt Gingrich? His three wives can’t.
Not “family values.” Gingrich is on his third marriage and committed adultery with his last two wives. In the soft-focused 1950s of conservative nostalgia, South Carolina Republicans would have dismissed Gingrich as a serial philanderer, and his third wife as a loose woman running for First Homewrecker. But not today. For the modern conservative, values compress to suit the flawed candidate most likely to win (with apologies to Cyril Northcote Parkinson).
