I mean, really – I know you hate the guy, but this is ridiculous.  If you scream about everything – if the sky is falling about everything – at what point do you think I shut you off?

You had valid concerns about health care – then you started with the “Death Panels” crap.

You may very well have some points about his policies – but you use lunatics to deny Obama’s citzenship to take the lead.

I agree that the trip to Copenhagen was ill-advised, and a waste of Presidential Pixie dust – but cheering America losing is pathetic.

And now this – the guy wins a pretty cool award, and it’s time to whiz all over it.

Glenn Beck wants to give it to members of the Tea Party?   I dunno – maybe if there’s some sort of lesser version of the prize – like the kind they hand out at T-ball where everybody gets a medal.  Otherwise, probably not.

And the sad part is – the minute you saw this in the news, you knew how it was going to turn.  Conservatives moaning about it, talking about how it’s undeserved, like – I suppose from their point of view – his Presidency.

I know I’m preaching to the deaf here – but every time I cock an eyebrow about something Obama is doing — and trust me, I do — the GOP leadership and their partners in the media remind me why anything Obama does is probably going to be the lesser of two evils.

So keep it up, guys.  You are your own worst enemy.

As low as Obama is, the GOP is lower.  From John Amato over at Crooks and Liars:

We constantly are seeing polling down from the major news services that follow President Obama’s approval ratings and it is an important stat to keep track of, but can you tell me what the media is not covering? How low the Republicans have been polling ever since they became the party of “Waterloo.”

The Democratic leaders do have terrible polling numbers, Nancy Pelosi has a 34% approval rating in DKOS’s new poll and Harry Reid has a 31% approval rating, but let’s take a look at the Republican leadership, shall we?

Mitch McConnell is polling at an 18% approval rating. That’s eighteen percent. John Boehner is polling at 12% approval rating. Just think about that one. And it doesn’t take much to make him cry. Mitch and Boehner are viewed less favorably than Dick Cheney was during the dark days of the Bush administration. Why don’t we hear about that on teevee?

The overall approval ratings of Congressional Republicans is 17% as a party! The Dems are taking their lumps over this chaotic time, but nowhere near the kinds of wounds the GOP are suffering. The media make it appear that all these teabaggers are rallying around the RNC and the country just loves the Beltway elites’ favorite party, but that’s not true at all.

Let’s see if we hear any of this on the Sunday talk Shows. But I won’t hold my breath.

It’s an incredibly valid point.

Couple it with the numbers that Letterman pulled from Obama’s recent visit.  7.2 million.    Think about that – 7.2 million people stayed up past their bed time to hear what the President had to say about health care, and mostly, remind themselves as to why they voted for him in the first place.  The “I was black before the election” line was both hilarious and courageous.

So, what to do with this?  Well:

1. If you’re the GOP, you might want to look inward, my sons.  Sarah Palin’s ridiculous behavior in Asia, John Boehner’s orange-faced arrogance, Eric Cantor’s snickering, Joe Wilson’s recreational racist outburst,  All of this nonsense, coupled by Beck and Hannity and Limbaugh going unchecked by the mainstream Republicans in the party.  They might be able to tick some of Obama’s numbers down, but they are burying their own to do it.
2. If you’re a Dem, you’re not thrilled, but this is something to take heart over.   Elections are graded on a curve.  You don’t need to have a certain amount of votes to get an “A,” the highest number wins.  And if you look at the polling, there’s nothing in there for the GOP be doing an endzone dance about.

Look – Pelosi and Reid suck – and if they had any kind of political acumen at all, they would be kicking the crap out of their opponents. 22% still think the GOP is doing a good job?  My Spidey-sense says that’s the evangelical vote, and those hard cores aren’t going anywhere.  They will always either vote conservative, or stay home.

My take away?  It means the Dems should stick to the core message.  Even if it’s less popular than it was months ago, it’s still — according to the numbers – the best looking girl at the dance.

The debate might be grinding into a less civil paste with every news cycle, but it’s grinding everybody in the same direction.  And at the bottom of that grind, is the GOP.

You might not have known that.

Now you do.

From HUFFPO

At first, it seemed like a joke. Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto opined on Monday that — if the 2012 election were to turn to national security — “it’s hard to think of a better candidate… than Richard B. Cheney.”

But while his headline — “Cheney for President” — provoked guffaws in some quarters, several of the party’s most well-regarded strategists and pollsters are actually taking the idea deadly seriously.

“The Republican Party needs to move forward and build on its past, not return to it,” Alex Castellanos, a frequent CNN analyst and GOP messaging guru, told the Huffington Post via email. “But if the agenda turns to security, Obama is mired in a no-win mess in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration hasn’t created a single job in four years after indebting the nation for generations, maybe Dick Cheney could run on a theme of ‘Change’.”

Asked whether it would be “rich” for a former vice president with four decades of service in D.C. to run on a change platform, Castellanos replied. “Republicans running on a change platform, after Obama, would not be rich. Change might mean ‘responsibility and real growth’.”

Longtime pollster and GOP operative John McLaughlin also said he sees an opening for a Cheney candidacy premised on a hypothetical national security failure from the current White House.

A Cheney nomination “would be a serious consideration because he really has been a defender of policies that the majority of people now think are successful,” McLaughlin told the Huffington Post. “Although right now a lot of people are focused on the economy, if there ever was some sort of foreign policy crisis people will look to Dick Cheney and say he had it right.”

Pointing to Cheney’s strong favorability rating among Republicans (66 percent in a May 2009 poll compared to Colin Powell’s 64 percent), McLaughlin also noted that the former vice president has a strong political platform from which to test the electoral waters.

Yes.  Oh, dear God, yes.

I hope, I pray that this guy ends up being the sneering face of the opposition in 2012.  Hell, bring Sarah Palin along for the ride while you’re at it.

If the Republicans want to remind America who they voted for in 2008 or, more importantly, who they voted against – the best way is to nominate Darth Vader for President.

Republicans are so used to the sound of their own screams – the volume of their own dissent in the bubble that they are within – that this is entirely possible… to take one of the least likable, least ethical, oiliest politicians since…

…hell, I don’t even have a reference…

…and say “he’s our hood ornament.”

Cheney 2012!  Come for the comedy.  Stay for Obama’s second term.

OTTAWA, Kan. – A freshman Kansas congresswoman said Thursday that her remark about fellow Republicans seeking a “great white hope” was not a reference to someone who could challenge President Barack Obama or his political agenda.

Rep. Lynn Jenkins said she was instead making a comment about GOP leaders in the House and was trying to reassure Republicans that the party has bright leaders there. She used the phrase during an Aug. 19 forum in Hiawatha and someone in the crowd recorded it and gave the video to the Kansas Democratic Party.

Both she and an aide apologized Thursday if the comment offended anyone. But when she was asked about the remark after a town hall meeting in Ottawa, Jenkins also suggested it had been taken out of context.

“Let’s remember the context of this situation,” she said. “I don’t know how the president got injected into this debate.”

Patrick Leopold, Jenkins’ chief of staff, said her office in Pittsburgreceived a death threat Thursday, but he didn’t know whether it was connected to any specific issue. He said the matter was being turned over to police.

The phrase “great white hope” often is associated with pre-civil rights-era racism and is widely believed to have entered usage in the U.S. when boxer Jack Johnson, who was black, captured the heavyweight title in the early 20th century. Many whites reacted to Johnson’s achievement by trying to find white fighters — or a “great white hope” — who could beat him. The boxer’s story inspired a play, then a movie, with that title, both starring James Earl Jones.

The Democratic National Committee in Washington declined to comment on Jenkins’ remarks. Officials at the Washington offices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People did not respond to a request for comment.

“I saw that report,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said at a briefing on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, where Obama is vacationing. “I also saw that her spokesperson backpeddaled and said that was a poor choice of words. We obviously give congressman Jenkins the benefit of the doubt.”

Look.  So, a poor choice of words?  Sure.

An incredible lack of context?  Absolutely.

But as dim as the statement was – nobody in their right mind can possibly believe that this Conservative House (of representatives) Frau was actually making a race-based statement using early 1900’s boxing history.  It’s just not possible.

It would be both too historically and culturally cognizant, and too politically dumb, to actually happen.

Yes, the Republican hope will be white in 2012, but there’s no way in hell anybody’s going to actually say that out loud.

This is nothing more than accidental stupidity.  Tip your hat nicely to it – because in a era where people are intentionally spreading bile and inciting people to violence, there’s something very Pepperidge Farm about this.

GREENVILLE, S.C. – WYFF News 4 has received exclusive information from sources who say they have information about Gov. Mark Sanford’s whereabouts during a mysterious absence over the past several days.

Sanford’s wife Jenny said she last talked to him on Thursday, and though she didn’t know where he is, she said she wasn’t concerned. She said he had left to have time to write.

Joel Sawyer, communications director for the governor’s office, then said the governor had been on the Appalachian Trail. Sawyer said staffers heard from Sanford on Tuesday morning and the governor plans to return Wednesday.

Sawyer said the governor is surprised by all the attention.

On Tuesday, sources told News 4’s Nigel Robertson that a state vehicle is missing and was tracked down, not to the Appalachian Trail, but to the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta.

Sources told Robertson that a federal agent spotted Sanford in the airport boarding a plane. Robertson was told that the governor was not accompanied by security detail.

Sawyer has emphasized that the governor was hiking on the Appalachian Trail and that it wasn’t something the staff or Jenny Sanford were concerned about.

But sources told WYFF News 4 that the federal agent who spotted Sanford saw him at the Atlanta airport, which is about 80 miles from the start of the trail.

WYFF News 4 has not yet confirmed where the plane was going or how the governor got to the airport, but it is clear there are two very different stories.

News 4 called the governor’s office, and was told again by staffers that they stand by their original statement that the governor is hiking the Appalachian Trail. They did not want to comment on this story.

             Sanford has been out of reach for more than four days, including Father’s Day.

What better way to get your head together than to tell the kids to piss off on Father’s Day?

Holy crap – could the GOP self-destruct a little bit more this month?  The guy who demanded Clinton resign for his affair gets nailed for one, and now another dude who was clearly angling for the GOP nomination for President in 2012 goes off the ranch - literally.

I’m not saying there’s a John Edwards angle to this thing but – honestly – if it had been Bill Clinton, wouldn’t you all have been trying to track him down the Appalachians by opened “Trojan” boxes and torn metal rappers?

At best, this is just lunatic arrogance.  The same guy who felt his principles were more important than the good that would have been done with the stimulus money.

At the middle – it’s stupid.  South Carolina is still sort of a state – which means it sort of needs a chief executive who can be sort of reached in case of a sort of crisis.

But at worst – here’s a guy trying to lie and mislead to “get away.”  A guy who ditched his wife and kids over Father’s Day – for what?  The guy could have taken a vacation – said “Hey, I’m going away for a few days” – and nobody would have cared.  He could have left Monday, and not gotten awarded his “OJ Simpson lousy father” badge.  And seriously – take a few days to write?  While he hiked?  Is he writing on the back of a Sherpa?

Something about this stinks, a lot, and I’m guessing it’s not the last we’ll hear of this.

Oh, arrogance and perceived invulnerability… is there NO politician you can’t knee-cap?

In this, like in all cases, if the right could just sit down, relax, and not desperately flail around for “the killing blow” that will get people to look their way again, the left might have actually started picking this choice apart for the littlest and dumbest reasons.

Luckily, for a party that likes to blather on about virtues… they don’t have a lot of patience.

Even as we speak, forces are aligning to paint this woman as the worst thing to happen to justice since… I can’t even think of the metaphor.  Will she be the Katrina of the Supreme Court?  The 9/11 of Scotus?   Is she Darth Justice?

Or will she simply be used to rally the base and bore the rest of us with BS?  Gonna go with that one.  That’s the reflex.

What I find amusing is, there are things about this nominee that – if placed out in the sun for a few days – might not have passed the super left smell test.  Of all the stuff I read, here’s the one that I think stuck out the most:

• Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush, 2002 Wrote a decision spurning a challenge to Bush administration policy barring federal funding for foreign non-governmental organizations that perform abortions. Sotomayor said for the majority, “The government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds.”

Do you see that?

Can you read it?

She BACKED THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION on an abortion issue.

Now look – I know, in a perfect world, the angry white southern senators who will line up to have an issue with this – the ones who have clearly gotten the cue cards and are parroting the talking points over and over again – they would have preferred another Scalia.  Or a Roberts.

As though Obama, sipping one too many Michelob Ultras – would drunkenly nominate a conservative and then wake up the next morning all “What did I do?  Where am I?  Who’s pants are these?”

What Obama did – what he usually does – is find someone that has plusses and minuses for both the center left and center right.  He picked somebody he liked that was, for lack of a better number, a 90%-er for the people that support him.

It’s the same mentality that nominates GOP governor Huntsman to be Ambassador to China.

He nominated a liberal thinker who will be no more an activist than the conservative ones Bush and Bush and Reagan nominated.

Still – here we go:  ACTIVIST!  AGENDA!  ONLY PICKED BECAUSE SHE’S A WOMAN!

Uh… first of all, remember this lightweight?

You gonna tell me she got the shot because of her brains instead of her plumbing?   And how is a woman who takes money from the oil company and passes it out to her constituents not a socialist?

In fact, Sotomayor is so qualified that ten years ago, Senator Jeff Sessions (doosh!) tried to block her getting a job because he feared she would end up on the Supreme Court.  There is something really gross about that.  Clearly, he was right about her qualifications and her career path. He saw her brains and her potential.

And he wanted to do something about it.  Today, he says:

Again –  10 years ago, he tried to stop this woman’s career.   Limit her opportunity.  And now, he’s at it again.

Nicely done, Dick Whitman.  The ’50s called – your afternoon gimlet is waiting for you, and it’s been set down right next to the architectural digest that tells you the best way to install your glass ceiling.

So, here is Obama, once again – out maneuvering his enemies with a smart, qualified person who just so happens to be a woman, and just so happens to be hispanic, and just so happens to already have had to push past the old boys club to even get this far.

And that’s gonna resonate with a lot of open minded people, both to the left and right of center.

The average confirmation takes 73 days.  That’s a lot of days for people like Sessions to dig an even deeper grave for the GOP with two major demographics that they should really be trying to play patty cake with.

But that’s not possible.  There’s too much grandstanding to be done.  

So, enjoy your shovel, boys.  

Lord knows, I will be.

I don’t really have an opinion on this.  I like this piece a lot, and wanted to share.  Worthy discussion… and more than certainly, something to be afraid of.

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 24, 2009 in the NY Times
California, it has long been claimed, is where the future happens first. But is that still true? If it is, God help America.

The recession has hit the Golden State hard. The housing bubble was bigger there than almost anywhere else, and the bust has been bigger too. California’s unemployment rate, at 11 percent, is the fifth-highest in the nation. And the state’s revenues have suffered accordingly.

What’s really alarming about California, however, is the political system’s inability to rise to the occasion.

Despite the economic slump, despite irresponsible policies that have doubled the state’s debt burden since Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor, California has immense human and financial resources. It should not be in fiscal crisis; it should not be on the verge of cutting essential public services and denying health coverage to almost a million children. But it is — and you have to wonder if California’s political paralysis foreshadows the future of the nation as a whole.

The seeds of California’s current crisis were planted more than 30 years ago, when voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 13, a ballot measure that placed the state’s budget in a straitjacket. Property tax rates were capped, and homeowners were shielded from increases in their tax assessments even as the value of their homes rose.

The result was a tax system that is both inequitable and unstable. It’s inequitable because older homeowners often pay far less property tax than their younger neighbors. It’s unstable because limits on property taxation have forced California to rely more heavily than other states on income taxes, which fall steeply during recessions.

Even more important, however, Proposition 13 made it extremely hard to raise taxes, even in emergencies: no state tax rate may be increased without a two-thirds majority in both houses of the State Legislature. And this provision has interacted disastrously with state political trends.

For California, where the Republicans began their transformation from the party of Eisenhower to the party of Reagan, is also the place where they began their next transformation, into the party of Rush Limbaugh. As the political tide has turned against California Republicans, the party’s remaining members have become ever more extreme, ever less interested in the actual business of governing.

And while the party’s growing extremism condemns it to seemingly permanent minority status — Mr. Schwarzenegger was and is sui generis — the Republican rump retains enough seats in the Legislature to block any responsible action in the face of the fiscal crisis.

Will the same thing happen to the nation as a whole?

Last week Bill Gross of Pimco, the giant bond fund, warned that the U.S. government may lose its AAA debt rating in a few years, thanks to the trillions it’s spending to rescue the economy and the banks. Is that a real possibility?

Well, in a rational world Mr. Gross’s warning would make no sense. America’s projected deficits may sound large, yet it would take only a modest tax increase to cover the expected rise in interest payments — and right now American taxes are well below those in most other wealthy countries. The fiscal consequences of the current crisis, in other words, should be manageable.

But that presumes that we’ll be able, as a political matter, to act responsibly. The example of California shows that this is by no means guaranteed. And the political problems that have plagued California for years are now increasingly apparent at a national level.

To be blunt: recent events suggest that the Republican Party has been driven mad by lack of power. The few remaining moderates have been defeated, have fled, or are being driven out. What’s left is a party whose national committee has just passed a resolution solemnly declaring that Democrats are “dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals,” and released a video comparing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Pussy Galore.

And that party still has 40 senators.

So will America follow California into ungovernability? Well, California has some special weaknesses that aren’t shared by the federal government. In particular, tax increases at the federal level don’t require a two-thirds majority, and can in some cases bypass the filibuster. So acting responsibly should be easier in Washington than in Sacramento.

But the California precedent still has me rattled. Who would have thought that America’s largest state, a state whose economy is larger than that of all but a few nations, could so easily become a banana republic?

On the other hand, the problems that plague California politics apply at the national level too.

It’s a good piece.

Fixing California – Fixing the country – takes courage.  Takes big moves.  Takes more than “Cut taxes on the rich” (GOP) or “Pay for everything” (The left).

It’s going to take line-item attention to things that work, and don’t work.

I doubt the current crop of politicians we have (COUGH: PELOSI!  COUGH COUGH:BOEHNER!) has the courage to do what’s right instead of what’s expedient.

*sigh*

That being said, it’s a sunny day.  It’s in the high 70s.  A lot of what ails California seems so much less troublesome on a day where 25,000 people run in a marathon and it’s not so blazingly hot you can feel yourself breathe.

I’m going back into that.

So, maybe the idea that they lost, and because they lost, they’re gonna have to stop being petulant little whine-bags is starting to seep in.  At least, it has in one group of Republicans… and that’s a good first step.

Yummy Yummy Yummy I got calm in my tummy!

Shocking news from the New York Times.

Somebody got the memo.

You can tell I’m talking – I’m clucking.

FROM HUFFINGTON POST:

Rep. Eric Cantor led a much-publicized GOP listening tour this past weekend — or so we all thought.
And so it was on Wednesday morning, when Eric Cantor appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, that he cleared the matter up. “You know, Joe, really, this is not a listening tour.”
“What we’re trying to do here today is kick off a series of town hall forums so that we can get back to listening to the people,” Cantor told CNN on Sunday morning as he kicked off the rebranding effort.
“Listening to people can make a difference,” declared Mitt Romney while sitting on stage with Cantor during the first event. “That’s what we’re talking about here, we’re listening to people.”
Fellow GOP luminary Jeb Bush sounded like an echo: “I’m actually optimistic [about the future], if we have the humility to start listening and learning…”
But then Rush Limbaugh spoke up. “We do not need a listening tour,” the conservative radio king made clear on Monday. “We need a teaching tour. That is what the Republican Party, or, slash, the conservative movement needs to focus on. Listening tour ain’t it.”

FROM ME:

You know, for a party that likes to scream a lot about tyranny and despotism – about socialism and fascism – they certainly seem to have a knack for collapsing behind one leader because he has too much power and they’re too afraid to stand up to him.

Seriously, guys – you’re all showing the spine of a four year old girl about to be mugged in a dark alley.  Although, to be honest, at least that girl might know to put scream for help at least once before handing over her Barbie Dream Wallet.

So on Monday, you were optimistic about starting to listen.

And on Wednesday you were back to telling people they’re the ones who should shut up and listen.

Which means you started monday “Rebranding,” and then by Wednesday, you were “re-Re-branding.”

You know what?  I really want the GOP to be a viable voice of dissent.  Not a bunch of teabag tossing whiners – but a moderate party that stops and goes “Uh… maybe there’s a better way to do that.”

But you can’t be that… you WON’T be that… unless you have a spine and can speak for more than the – AND THIS IS THE REAL STATISTIC HERE – 20% of Americans who don’t mind being tarred and feathered with your “brand.”

Whenever there’s pressure from Captain Big Bones, you fold like deck chairs.  Is that somebody that I want to listen to?  Respect?  Trust?   Where all it takes is a little big of grief from the Staypuft Marshmallow Conservative for you to turn off the proton pack and go screaming for Mommy?

You can guys can do better.  You guys SHOULD do better.  But if you’re not going to do better, the least you can do is stop pretending you’re the tough guys, the strong guys, the people who are going to stand up to your “enemies.”

For God’s sake, you can’t even stand up to your friends.

John Oxendine: GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Joins Perry States’ Rights Stance

For the second time in as many weeks, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in the South is lamenting the spending priorities of the Obama administration and stressing the need to reaffirm states’ rights in light of the “oppressive” growth of the federal government.

The latest salvo comes from John Oxendine, Georgia’s Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner and leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, who, “like Texas Governor Rick Perry,” declared his belief that “our federal government has become oppressive in its size… and its interference into the affairs of the states.”

I join Governor Perry in his call and offer my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Like Governor Perry, I believe we need to follow the letter and original intent of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the essential 10th Amendment.
I support Texas Resolution 50 which states that the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more. This means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states. Over the course of time, the states have been treated as agents of the federal government; many federal laws are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

<B>Uh, guys?

Your pre-civil war is showing.

Memo to GOP:  Get a handle on this, or enjoy the thrashing in 2010.