Showing posts with label GOP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GOP. Show all posts
Goodbye, good luck, and good riddance:
"Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the longest-serving GOP senator in U.S. history, is retiring at the end of his term."
Laugh while ye may
You know your drunk buddy who always says what he’d do if he was president? Turns out he is actually running this time!
GOP to raise standards for office holders.
The Republicans are worried that having too many candidates in the race for president will confuse voters. The party had planned to use the low standing in the polls of some contenders to exclude them from the debates. But polls, especially at such an early stage in a campaign, are notoriously inaccurate yardsticks.
Something more precise was needed.
Since there is no way to gauge hypocrisy, two other widely used and accepted methods of gauging suitability are being proposed: all candidates must submit to drug and IQ tests. Only contestants with IQs over 70 and measurable amounts of cannabis in their blood streams will be permitted to compete. In the event that none of the current aspirants can meet these standards -- not likely in the case of cannabis, the GOP will have time to recruit replacements.
Since all the candidates have supported the use of such determinations by employers, there is little doubt that they won't welcome the application of the same standards to their own jobs. If some do object, perhaps that can be considered as the missing hypocrisy test.
Something more precise was needed.
Since there is no way to gauge hypocrisy, two other widely used and accepted methods of gauging suitability are being proposed: all candidates must submit to drug and IQ tests. Only contestants with IQs over 70 and measurable amounts of cannabis in their blood streams will be permitted to compete. In the event that none of the current aspirants can meet these standards -- not likely in the case of cannabis, the GOP will have time to recruit replacements.
Since all the candidates have supported the use of such determinations by employers, there is little doubt that they won't welcome the application of the same standards to their own jobs. If some do object, perhaps that can be considered as the missing hypocrisy test.
Finding the needle in the GOP haystack.
Republicans are worried that having too many candidates in the race for president will confuse voters. So the party is planning to use the low standing in the polls of some contenders to exclude them from the debates.
But polls, especially at such an early stage in a campaign, are notoriously inaccurate yardsticks. Something more precise is needed.
Since there is no way to gauge hypocrisy, two widely used and accepted methods of assessing suitability are being proposed: all candidates must submit to drug and IQ tests. Only contestants with IQs over 70 and measurable amounts of cannabis in their blood streams will be permitted to compete.
In the event that none of the current aspirants can meet these standards -- not likely in the case of cannabis, the GOP will have time to recruit replacements. Since all the candidates have supported the use of such determinations by employers, they will welcome the application of these standards to their own jobs.
If some do object, perhaps that can be added as the missing hypocrisy test.
2012: Will voters "throw the bums out"?
I'm taken to task for having the temerity to suggest that Barack Obama may be held accountable for the nation's problems -- in the instance, for the decline in average American's income and net worth, and that there may be some justice in his impending political demise: "It's not Obama's fault. It's the policies, peoples." As if, I guess, it is John Boehner who is running the country.
It's true, though, that these "policies" are not Obama's alone. They have been been pursued through six administrations and a couple of dozen congresses controlled, it should not be forgotten, more often by Democrats than by Republicans. There is a lot of convenient buck passing in the nation's capital: the Republicans blame the Democrats for lack of "progress" on social issues; the Democrat's accuse the GOP of holding
economic reforms "hostage;" meanwhile, the oligarchs dictate the outcome of the legislative process, and the two parties get to go back to the electorate every couple of years with the same unresolved set of issues (we forget that the GOP agitates its base with "lesser of two evils" rhetoric familiar to us from Democratic propaganda).
It was Democrat Bill Clinton, at the end of the day, who passed the stalled pro-corporate agenda -- banking "reform," telecom "reform," welfare "reform," trade "reform," NAFTA, etc. -- beyond the reach of Republican George Bush the Elder. It is Obama who has doubled-down on militarism and security abuses. As Bush the Younger did with al Queda, Obama inflated the GOP and the Blue Dogs for his own purposes, empowering them, attempting to partner with them instead of closing ranks with congressional liberals (and thus losing the House, just as Clinton did, and for the same reason: why vote for Democrats if they are going govern on behalf the corporate elite instead of the majority?), and blaming the conservatives as he caved on issue after issue without a fight.
If BHO was a liberal warrior in the mold of FDR, HST and LBJ, he would not be in danger of getting the boot in November, as he probably will. But the real victory this fall will not go to the Democrats or the Republicans; whether it is Obama or Mitt Romney who takes the oath of office in January, the true winners will be the militarists and the masters of the security state. Obama? Romney?: the victims of the shredded social contract, the unemployed and underemployed, the homeless, the graduates without prospects drowning in debt, the hundreds of thousands of youth whose futures are being sacrificed to the war on drugs, the young men and women who will die in exotic locales of interest only to war profiteers, the innocent victims of American guns and bombs and gameboy war toys, none of these will know the difference.
----
Return of the Body Count: Dissecting Obama's Standard on Drone Strike Deaths by Justin Elliott (ProPublica 2012-06-05)
Democratic Website Publishes List of Obama Accomplishments, Half of Them Are the Names of People He's Killed (Reason 2012-06-12)
Most voters favor slashing foreign economic & military aid; few would cut domestic programs like Social Security, education and health care (Good).
It's true, though, that these "policies" are not Obama's alone. They have been been pursued through six administrations and a couple of dozen congresses controlled, it should not be forgotten, more often by Democrats than by Republicans. There is a lot of convenient buck passing in the nation's capital: the Republicans blame the Democrats for lack of "progress" on social issues; the Democrat's accuse the GOP of holding
economic reforms "hostage;" meanwhile, the oligarchs dictate the outcome of the legislative process, and the two parties get to go back to the electorate every couple of years with the same unresolved set of issues (we forget that the GOP agitates its base with "lesser of two evils" rhetoric familiar to us from Democratic propaganda).It was Democrat Bill Clinton, at the end of the day, who passed the stalled pro-corporate agenda -- banking "reform," telecom "reform," welfare "reform," trade "reform," NAFTA, etc. -- beyond the reach of Republican George Bush the Elder. It is Obama who has doubled-down on militarism and security abuses. As Bush the Younger did with al Queda, Obama inflated the GOP and the Blue Dogs for his own purposes, empowering them, attempting to partner with them instead of closing ranks with congressional liberals (and thus losing the House, just as Clinton did, and for the same reason: why vote for Democrats if they are going govern on behalf the corporate elite instead of the majority?), and blaming the conservatives as he caved on issue after issue without a fight.
If BHO was a liberal warrior in the mold of FDR, HST and LBJ, he would not be in danger of getting the boot in November, as he probably will. But the real victory this fall will not go to the Democrats or the Republicans; whether it is Obama or Mitt Romney who takes the oath of office in January, the true winners will be the militarists and the masters of the security state. Obama? Romney?: the victims of the shredded social contract, the unemployed and underemployed, the homeless, the graduates without prospects drowning in debt, the hundreds of thousands of youth whose futures are being sacrificed to the war on drugs, the young men and women who will die in exotic locales of interest only to war profiteers, the innocent victims of American guns and bombs and gameboy war toys, none of these will know the difference.
----
Return of the Body Count: Dissecting Obama's Standard on Drone Strike Deaths by Justin Elliott (ProPublica 2012-06-05)
Democratic Website Publishes List of Obama Accomplishments, Half of Them Are the Names of People He's Killed (Reason 2012-06-12)
Most voters favor slashing foreign economic & military aid; few would cut domestic programs like Social Security, education and health care (Good).
Visual aid: The economy flatlined under Bush
Going into the general election, the Democrats had better remind voters that by any rational measure the economic performance of the administration of George W. Bush was the worst of any president at least since Herbert Hoover, maybe ever,
and that those'll be the good old days compared to what Speaker Boehner and President Gingrich (or whoever) have in store for us. (Source: Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers by Neil Irwin; Washington Post 2010-01-02).
and that those'll be the good old days compared to what Speaker Boehner and President Gingrich (or whoever) have in store for us. (Source: Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers by Neil Irwin; Washington Post 2010-01-02).
Politics: Those Wacky Republicans - a series
"Saturday Catchup" is still on vacation. The whackos in the GOP, on the other hand, never sleep.
See, also: In Search of the Craziest GOP Policy Proposal by Seyward Darby (The New Republic 2010-07-08).
See, also: In Search of the Craziest GOP Policy Proposal by Seyward Darby (The New Republic 2010-07-08).
Politics: Those Wacky Republicans - a series
Although it looks like wealthy businessman William Binnie will unload a ton of his own money into his bid for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, the state's attorney general, Kelly Ayotte, still seems a safe bet to eke out a win. One thing she probably doesn't need to worry about, though, is this guy:
Politics: The long-term prospects of the two major parties
A new study -- “Demographic Change and the Future of the Parties” -- argues that, in the long term, electoral advantage belongs to the Democrats. The country is becoming more diverse, the author says -- younger and more educated and less religious, and these trends are all ominous for the GOP. The underlying assumption, though, seems to be that the Democratic Party trolling the waters of the new demographics will be one with an "ambitious agenda in areas such as health care, financial reform, education, energy, and global relations," in other words, one resembling the party of FDR and LBJ. It's hard to imagine, on the other hand, that the party of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, representing, as it does, Wall Street and international capitalism and the Pentagon, will hold any special appeal to the emerging majority of minorities and Millennials. “Demographic Change and the Future of the Parties” by Ruy Teixeira (The Center for American Progress Action Fund
Read the full report (pdf)
Download the executive summary (pdf)
Read the full report (pdf)
Download the executive summary (pdf)
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