Archives for Category "Federal Politics"
May 6, 2008
Random Update - Mostly TLG Stuff
Some free association, just so I don't feel like a totally lame weblogger -Election stuff? I keep wanting to just quote random things and write "That is such bullshit" about them. For example: the "controversy" about Obama's pastor? Bullshit. The lapel pin nonsense? Bullshit. Obama's attitude towards reproductive rights activists? Bullshit. Clinton's pandering? Bullshit. Clinton's anti-economist gas tax nonsense? Bullshit? Everything John McCain says? Total bullshit. Anyway, you get the point. I'm finding it all very boring. Assume, that with rare exceptions, my commentary on almost anything to do with this election would be "That is such bullshit."
The Nationals got off to a horrible start, but are doing much better now. Seriously, the radio guys who call the Nationals games are sometimes really hysterical. Even when they're losing. I expect TheLittleGuy to recognize Charlie Slowes' voice when he's born.
TheLittleGuy got a cute little Nationals outfit at one of the baby showers for him - I look forward to getting a picture of him in it. Speaking of, yes, we've now had three baby showers and we are starting to be well-stocked (at least for the newborn phase) I think. Lots and lots of blue things. And some completely fabulous handmade blankets from TLG's super-creative ~Aunties, grandmother, and great-grandmother. If there are any other blankies in progress for him out there, though, never fear - one can never have too many blankets! I'm hoping to make him a quilt, too, sometime in the first year. Pictures one of these days real soon now...
Most of my mental energy, when not muttering "That is total bullshit" after reading the newspaper, is consumed with trying to stay on top of crap at work and preparing for the impending tsunami of sleep-deprivation and infant care once TLG decides to make an appearance. I have told him that almost any time after this week would be fine - this week is a crazy week at work, though. There are no signs that he's ready to move out anytime soon, though. Oh, for those who missed it, TheLittleGuy has his own Twitter feed now.
There was an earthquake here in Virginia today. We felt it in our house. Wacky times.
<=> | Comments: 1 | in: Federal Politics / Journaling / Media Dysfunction
March 20, 2008
Oh, Never Mind
So I had this long post written about Obama's pastor, Clinton's campaign tactics, the media getting ready to turn like jackals on Obama, the super-delegates, and various other such primary-related things. But really, what's the point? I lamented to a friend of mine across the pond (in the UK) the other day: leave it to the Democrats to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It is just too annoying for words. Why waste the electrons?<=> | Comments: 1 | in: Democrats / Federal Politics
March 4, 2008
Just Read Digby
I'm somewhat bored with and not paying much attention to the primaries right now. Although, if I'm honest, I'm probably paying significantly more attention than the average person, given that I'm such a nerd. For all your important political commentary, though, as usual, Digby has been excellent. This post in particular sums up many things extremely well. It's long, but just read the whole thing.Ohhhh, fine. Here are a few pull-quotes of note:
The sexism has been obvious to anyone who can see and those who insist to me that it doesn't exist remind me of nothing so much as Bush supporters who repeatedly exhorted critics to believe Junior or believe their lyin' eyes. I wasn't crazy then and I'm not crazy now. I know what I see [...]The comment thread on this post is interesting too.
Everybody says they want a fighter. Regardless of who you vote for, the woman deserves respect for refusing to back down from that lizard brain sludge.
And I would warn that if unfair and biased press coverage is now a disqualification for elected office, then I think we'd better think long and hard about whether the Democrats are going to be viable as a political party. Bad press for Democrats is part of the package. ( I would also add that I think it was part of the Netroots job to help fight back media bias against all Democratic candidates, even if as individuals we were pulling for a particular one. That did not happen and I think the Netroots failed miserably in one of its primary missions this time out.) [Ed - it was the job of anyone who calls themself a liberal/progressive/Democrat to push back against this nonsense... whether you like the 'netroots' moniker or not..]
Aside from the big 527s we know will be out there impugning Obama's patriotism, there are countless small wingnut welfare operations that have been waiting on the sidelines for eight years for their chance to make big money sliming a new Democratic administration.[...]
There are many wealthy, powerful interests out there that do not want a liberal Democrat to have the power to withdraw from Iraq or renegotiate trade deals or create universal health care and they will not make it easy for Obama to win. Those interests also run the media and a fund a fully functional right wing infrastructure that works to guide the election narrative.
Perhaps it won't happen this time. It's possible that the era of GOP smears is over or that Obama has personal characteristics that render them impotent and useless. But considering the egregiously sexist Clinton coverage in this campaign and the history of terrible coverage for Democratic presidential candidates since 1988, I think the Democrats would be foolish to assume that. The Republicans are very good at feeding these narratives to the press and the press has always shown itself very eager to gobble them up.
<=> | Comments: 2 | in: Federal Politics / Media Dysfunction
February 11, 2008
Primary in Old Dominion Tomorrow
The presidential primary for Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. is tomorrow. (Some are calling it the "Potomac primary" and I've also seen the "Chesapeake primary.") I don't think I've ever voted in a primary where the nominee wasn't already "decided." And, just my luck, I'm truly undecided on this one. In a perfect world, I have serious reservations about both Clinton and Obama. In this world, they are both stellar candidates against anything the Republicans have to offer. I could still vote for Edwards, as I believe he's still on the ballot. Or, since I'm so torn, I could just not vote at all. Or, since Virgina has open primaries, I could go vote in the Republican primary - but that's not a particularly palatable option, either. I suspect either I won't go, or I'll decide while staring at the little touch screen.On, and just to wander into the political junkie weeds for a moment: on this whole super-delegate question -- yo, people, the rules are the rules. If anyone thought this was a horrible way for the party to determine its nominee, where was the big protest and screeching earlier? Besides, I truly don't think it'll come to that, but even if it does, I'm with Digby, and, heaven help me, Kevin Drum:
[Drum:] Who decides what the popular will is anyway? Is it number of pledged delegates from the state contests? Total popular vote? Total number of states won? What about uncommitted delegates from primary states? Or caucus states, in which there's no popular vote to consult and delegates are selected in a decidedly nondemocratic fashion to begin with? And what about all the independent and crossover voters? Personally, I'd just as soon they didn't have a say in selecting the nominee of my party at all, but the rules say otherwise. If I'm a superdelegate, do I count their votes, or do I pore over exit polls to try to tease out how Democratic Party voters voted? And how do I take into account the obviously disproportionate influence of Iowa and New Hampshire, two tiny states that have far more power than any truly democratic process would ever give them?This is related to another thing I find pretty puzzling -- all the anxiousness over the fact that the primary selection process is taking awhile and is actually competitive for more than 2 states' worth of voting. Why is this a bad thing? I know the media will do their usual "Dems in disarray" bullshit, but I truly fail to see the problem. I wish most primaries worked like this--remained competitive, that is--and I'm fairly amused at the fact that after a bunch of states jockeyed to move their primaries as early as possible, this thing might play out all the way into April (at least on the Dem side). It's not disarray, it's, as I overheard someone on the elevator at work say today, an overabundance of riches. Two strong candidates, an engaged and participating Democratic electorate--where's the bad, again? By the way, one of my sources in Maine says that my hometown's Democratic caucus turnout was huge this year - in 2004 something like a dozen people showed up; this time it was almost 200.
[... back to Digby:] I am all for insisting that the decision be based upon the will of the people. But the system is so weird that I don't think anyone can tell what that really will be if the party remains polarized.
So while I am certainly sympathetic to the notion that the elite fat cats shouldn't decide for us, I think somebody needs to set forth some detailed criteria about how they should go about determining a more democratic way to decide this thing if there is a tie.
<=> | Comments: 7 | in: Democrats / Federal Politics / Republicans / State & Local
January 10, 2008
Tom Toles, Yesterday
<=> | Comments: 11 | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Democrats / Federal Politics / Media Dysfunction
January 9, 2008
New Hampshire
I could have just been typing away all day here, as against all reason I've gotten sucked into reading and thinking about the Presidential primaries. It's getting interesting out there. But there are just two points I'll make and then I'll try to go back to ignoring it all here for a bit (wish me luck).First, for what I believe is the first time ever, a woman has won a major party's U.S. Presidential primary. This is significant and worthy of a salute. (And I send an entirely different kind of salute to the media and how they're treating this candidate, by the way.) [Update: Nope - that's wrong; Shirley Chisholm won New Jersey.]
Second, any of the Democratic candidates would be far, far superior to the crazies and fakes who are running for the Republican nomination. Looking at the respective party's turnouts in Iowa and New Hampshire so far, I am as optimistic as I ever get (which, admittedly, is not very) that most of the rest of the country understands this now. I know there'll always be that small core of wacky bitter-enders who still think their darlin' Dubya is the bee's knees and that the scawy Democrats are trying to steal their Bibles or something, but maybe as a nation we are recovering from the collective psychosis that's been exploited so well for so long. We'll see.
<=> | in: Federal Politics
January 3, 2008
Caucus
Sure, I could write up a little post about who I endorse in this year's primaries and why. I even have an anti-endorsement sort of half-baked in my head. But the thought of it all just makes me tired. The whole process is such a complete joke -- as though the Iowa caucuses should matter as much as the media (and the parties!) are making them out to. It's all just so terribly absurd. The media is even worse than last time around. The Republicans are a freakshow (again) and the Democrats are mostly insipid. The country lacks true leaders at almost every level and locale, as far as I can tell. I really can't bear to look. Somebody wake me up on January 20, 2009, k?<=> | Comments: 1 | in: Federal Politics
November 3, 2007
The Problem with "Illegal"
Dave over at Orcinus talks about the problem with the term "illegal" when referring to people who've immigrated to this country without proper documentation. He quotes Lawrence Downes from the NYT:Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.and then adds:
The biggest problem with insisting on labeling other people as "illegals" is that it utterly begs the question -- which, with 12 million people now fitting the description, becomes acute -- just how appropriate and workable are the laws that make them so in the first place.
<=> | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Federal Politics
August 18, 2007
Hate Must be Taught, After All
Hate must be taught, as the saying goes, and it's not just children who can be taught to hate. A little while ago Rick Perlstein wrote an all-too-familiar lament about his older relatives being fed a diet of viciousness and hate through avenues such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and being taught to hate ... people like him.She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.A little while ago I was sharing a related lament with one of my relatives and something occurred to me. Not only do we live in one of most prosperous nation-states in one of the most prosperous times that has ever been, with luxuries inconceivable just a century or two ago, we also live in a time where the most sophisticated and most effective propaganda machines ever to be constructed are at work every minute of every day. Most of the time these machines are aimed at reinforcing capitalist myths and emptying wallets, but a significant sliver of this newly-developed propaganda capacity is in the service of an ideology focused on fostering divisiveness and contempt for others. So, while I am appalled at the unthinking repetition of insidious wingnut memes that I hear all too often, I'm also sympathetic. It is very difficult to resist the propaganda even when it's transparent ("buy this beer and beautiful blonde women will have sex with you"), and much more so when it is meant to fly under the radar (see Frank Luntz's entire life's work, for example) and masked in a veneer of patriotism.
I'd look out of [my grandmother's] eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?
One evening's visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O'Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.
Sara over at Orcinus had more to say about the grandma-snatchers and a proposed solution:
Perlstein's article has prompted a flood of comments, here and elsewhere, from anguished progressives whose mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents once instilled them with their liberal values -- but are now estranged from their families and lost to the right-wing airwaves. It's as though, while we weren't looking, the body-snatchers snuck in through the pipe and made off with their votes, their brains, and (occasionally) their money.
[...] America's elderly have been frightened by media fearmongers for as long as there's been TV -- and possibly (for those familiar with Father Coughlin), for as long as there's been radio. This is a fine old tradition, the natural outcome when the elderly are left alone too many hours each day with only a box for company. But it's not inevitable. There are things we can do about it.
[...] Most of us are very cautious and circumspect about leaving our children's developing minds to the tender mercies of the media. Those of us who care about the elders in our families might be equally vigilant about their media diets as well. We do not have to take the political hijacking of our seniors lying down, or assume that's just the way it is. We just have to do what we do with our kids: make sure they've got consistent access to appealing, age-appropriate media that gives them hope, confidence, and truly balanced ways of seeing the world.
<=> | in: Federal Politics / General Musings / Media Dysfunction / Religion & Politics / Republicans / Technology
