Jon Stewart on Glenn Beck, terror, mosques and Fox funding the GOP

The GOP's silly season of no-ideas governance hopes

Welcome to August, the political silly season. The media-fueled silly season, when Congress is not in session and matters of grave national importance occupy our attention. Town hall protests, Danny Almonte, Elian Gonzalez, shark attacks making Jaws our #1 national enemy. I don't know how the November elections will turn out, but this issue will clarify as we get out of the traditional silly season of August.

The GOP theme is "anger towards Obama over the lack of jobs". Let's look at how Republicans are addressing what they're presenting as their main theme: jobs, jobs, jobs.

What's their position? It certainly has little to do with jobs. In fact, their ONLY solution to the jobs issue is to give more money away to the wealthiest 1% through a full extension of the Bush tax cuts. That's it. That may play with the wingnut base who have been opposed to Obama since before Day One, but I'm not sure how a moderate electorate will respond to that canard.

The "Kenyan messiah", "give me back my 'Merica" bashing started before Obama even took the oath of office. Which brings us to the sub-theme, directed at the Tea Party portion of the base: "Obama taking away OUR America". The GOP has thus far had a fairly successful time conflating the two issues. They say "jobs, jobs, jobs" but spend the majority of the time cranking up the xenophobia machine. The Republican plan for fixing the economy is apparently trying to convince Americans that foreigners are bad. They've got lots of things to say about immigration (mostly fabrications) and terror babies and Muslims (mostly outright lies), but not a word about the economy.

The question is, how is this going to play with swing voters once we get out of the silly season? If your rallying cry is "jobs", then you'd best have some proposals, and the GOP has none.

How's THAT gonna play with swing voters? The GOP needs to be sure that their plans, or lack thereof, are going to get a full screening in the light of day. When it counts. Which is not August.

On one hand you have a president who is winding down an unpopular war in Iraq that he didn't start. He kept his word and passed comprehensive health care AND Wall Street reform in 18 months - a remarkable record. His economic policies might not have produced jobs in the numbers we wanted, but they certainly saved them. Look at the graphic to the right, because it sets up the economic choices that Americans will have to make this fall. On one hand, you have a President who made the difficult choices over the clanging of GOP obstructionism and pulled the economy back from the brink of depression.

He also did it while fighting an established trend of GOP "NO" votes and obstructionism along the way. Trust me, those ads are going to be run down your throat. You know, the ones where Boehner and McConnell demonize families who are still out of work, those "99ers". The ones of whom Glenn Beck says "Some of these people, I bet you'd be ashamed to call them Americans.".

Do they really want to run on Boehner's comment comparing the economic and unemployment problems to an "ant"?

Yeah, we've got obstructionist sound bites.

Ultimately though, there's this schizophrenic dichotomy where on one hand, they want to stop unemployment "hand outs". So they yell "get a job". But the jobs are not there and they've done everything in their power to stop the President from enacting reform or providing relief.

Stop government spending, they scream, except when it's the Bush tax cuts which, at full extension, will balloon the deficit only to put money in the hands of the ultra-wealthy.

Small government, they scream. Except when they want to demonize Muslims over a community center in New York City as some sort of terrorist plot to dishonor the victims and responders of 9/11 by training new terrorists on hallowed ground. Then government should intervene in any way possible.

They want to have their cake, and eat it too. In the end, they have no agenda other than an anti-Obama agenda.

If these criticisms came from a source that gave Obama a legitimate shot and THEN decided they didn't like his policies (some of which many progressives disagree with), I'd be worried. But it comes from a group of bitter white men that started this "Kenyan messiah" nonsense before he was even sworn in.

And think about this: 2012 is going to require that the GOP turn around states they lost in 2008. They need to pick up 99 electoral votes from 2008. Look at the electoral map and tell me how, with the MASSIVE demonization of Hispanics that they've engaged in, how they're going to win?

If the Republicans can take back MT, MD, CO, VA, NC, FL, OH, IN and you've got a squeaker of a win, picking up 101 votes. What are the odds of that? in addition to that miracle, the GOP had better be able to hold on to AZ, NM and TX, all of whom, along with Florida have rising Hispanic populations whom the GOP has entirely tossed away this summer. To accomplish this, they'd best have ideas beyond, "foreigners are bad and give more money to the wealthy". As of now they have neither those ideas, or a credible candidate to push them.

Palin? Never, her numbers are in the tank, with favorable ratings in the low 30's. Gingrich? Right, read this month's Esquire. Huckabee and the jump-for-Jesus wing? Never. Mitt Romney and the Eternal Suntan of the Thoughtless Mind? Sure....

So rejoice in your spot polling, but remember: Reagan was in worse shape than this in 1982 and we all know how that lead to President Mondale.

The mosque? Sure, I'll get the water too.

So much has been said, so I'll leave it to two brilliant voices. First, Keith Olbermann's Special Comment, which might be among his finest ever. And Jon Stewart and John Oliver, who are devastatingly awesome.

Eulogy for my dad: we never know when the last time comes

Good morning.

I know that – somewhere - dad is probably embarrassed, and at least annoyed -slash- bothered -slash- slightly upset that I’m doing this. Dad was a plain man, not given to flowery pronouncements or to frippery… which also means he wouldn’t use a word like frippery. In his own… subtle way….he’d probably equate my giving his eulogy to a healthy amount of the product of the back end of a large Texas steer.

Over the years, he and I have been in this church many hundreds of times, helping other families say goodbye to their loved ones. Today, we – and you – are here for him.

It’s said that in times like these, you find out who your friends really are. We have a lot, and they are wonderful. For my family, I can only offer a very overwhelmed “thank you”.

My brother Michael and I spent a very deep and profound night on Friday. It’s a night that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life. The aneurysm that happened so suddenly on Thursday stole his mind and thoughts and speech and all the things that made him him. He wasn’t really Frank anymore, he was just Frank’s shell. He was no longer there in any real sense. Mike and I stayed in the room in hospice all night as dad lay dying. We started talking about memories. But what we kept coming back to was the lessons we’d learned.

My dad was, first and foremost, a teacher, and not just in a classroom or on a basketball court. Real teaching is a quiet pursuit. The greatest lessons are the quiet lessons, the ones we don’t even realize we’ve learned until later. Mike and I discovered a wealth of quiet lessons as we sat holding our dying dad.

Let me share one with you:

My dad and I have exchanged books and texts and novels since I was 12. One of our favorites is “The Journeyer”, about Marco Polo and his travels across the Silk Road and through Asia. Marco’s mentor and friend dies suddenly in the night, and he’s buried under a stone that reads “But we never know when the last time comes”. I have always loved that quote, but it’s taken the events of the last few days for me to really understand it.

The last time I saw my dad before the aneurysm that stole first his cognitive function, and then his life, was last Tuesday afternoon. We were standing across the street on the porch of the funeral home, talking about nothing particularly important, with no idea that a week later, I’d be there at his wake. He was my dad and he knew I loved him but I'm still a little worse off now for not having him anymore. We lived with mortality on a regular basis and I always knew I’d lose him someday, but the hole is bigger than I thought it would be. There are always so many things left to say, and now I can’t say them.

And in that lies the lesson. “We never know when the last time comes”.

We are more than the sum of a listing of our successes and setbacks, we are more than our moments of incredible grace and more than the moments when we fell short of the glory. Michael, who is brilliant and profound well beyond his 22 years, said in the early hours of Saturday morning, ‘if you can sum up your relationship with another person with one word, then you’re doing it wrong, unless that word is “complicated”’.

Like so many men of his generation, my dad wasn’t comfortable expressing emotion. Not that he didn’t feel it, he just didn’t know how to show it. He was quiet about it. I can’t tell you the number of people that he’s buried for nothing or next to nothing, taking it out of his own pocket because he thought they deserved a decent burial. He didn’t do it for recognition, but because it was right. There’s an infant named Jonathan at Mother of Sorrows Cemetery, buried in a lone grave that my dad bought. Jonathan’s circumstances broke dad’s heart. He took care of Jonathan, buried him and visited his grave, alone, for years.

With the exception of my mom, there is no one alive who knows my dad better than I do. In the last few months, we’d developed a very honest relationship where we could discuss anything, and so there are certain things that I can tell you because he told them to me. I don’t have to guess. And I know he would want me to tell you, to make sure that you know, now that his last time has come, how much he loved you. Even if he didn’t quite know how to share it or show it. He loved his friends, he loved his brother, he loved his kids, and he loved his wife.

So when you think about dad, remember him, but remember too how quickly he was taken away. Say the things you need to say to those you love. Share a hug. Tell them what they mean to you. Tell them that you love them. Because we never know when the last time comes.

If you do that, you’ll not only give more meaning to your own life, but more meaning to his. He won’t be just a memory, he’ll still be teaching. He’ll still be present in this world in a meaningful way, long after he’s left it.

And I do think that would make the teacher in him very happy.

I love you Dad. Thank you. Rest easy and travel well.

My dad

My dad had an accident. I found him on the floor of his room on Thursday, he had been there for a while. The hospital ER did a CAT scan and said "Catastrophic, and fatal". His brain had swollen, and continued to bleed, and it erased everything that made him 'him'.

We took him off the ventilator on Friday and he continued to struggle for breath on his own. Saturday, the watchspring in him started to unwind.

He died at 9:52 on Saturday night. He was only 63. The picture below is only 4 months old.

We had a complicated relationship, as do a lot of fathers and sons, but he was my dad and I loved him and I'm a little worse off now for not having him anymore.

The hole is bigger than I thought it would be.

Gay marriage, tyranny, activist judges, family values and Prop 8

The overturning of Prop 8 has brought out the best in the right wing.

From slamming an "activist judge" who was appointed by Reagan and opposed by Pelosi to decrying the "abuse" of the courts to overturn an unconstitutional ballot measure while praising the Attorney General of Virginia for using the court system to try to overturn health care legislation.

From the moans about the destruction of family values from the party of David Vitter, John Ensign and Larry Craig to the willingness to go after any group that doesn't look or think like them, hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Some excellent comments via Twitter:




However, my favorite comment might just be the simplest:

Stewart shreds Congress on denying health care funds to 9/11 responders

A response to those advocating violent Tea Party revolution

Bob Owens, who blogs as Confederate Yankee, posted the following on Sunday, titled A Nation on the Edge of Revolt. It's stunning in that he admits what many progressives have long felt, that the Tea Party and it's affiliated movements are not peaceful, but in fact are threatening violence. the reasons are irrelevant - they are threatening violence and bloodshed.

I'll lay it out bluntly for you; either the American people—not extremists, but good and decent patriots like your neighbors and yourselves—will revolt and destroy the ruling class and reform our government based upon first principles, or the United States we know as our forefather conceived it is dead. (...)

We can dispose of this government, and restore the Constitution that has served us and the rest of the world so well for so long. (...)

Revolution is a brutish, nasty business. Innocents will fall along with patriots and the corrupt, and success is not assured. (...)

The question for you, my fellow Americans, is simple.

Will you fight, or will you surrender your liberties?

I pray for peace.

But I prepare for war.

Prepare for war. Gather your armies. He's not the only one. Media Matters notes other instances, including "Sarah Palin telling the Tea Party convention that 'America is ready for another revolution and you are a part of this' and Glenn Beck asserting that 'the second American revolution is being played out right now.'"

Predictably, the progressive side didn't take Owens' encouragement of sedition lightly. Media Matters, for one, chose to shed some light.

Owens responded with a threat:

I hope they do feel threatened. Attempts at peaceable protests have been met at turns by feigned ignorance, then mockery, then attacks on the character and motives of those would not sit quietly by. Perhaps it will take a serious review of our capacity for violence to get them to realize we shall not surrender our individual liberties to their lust for power.

Here is where I realize that we are two different countries. Why these people oppose Obama is almost irrelevant at this point. I will submit that it's because of race, but mostly it's because of fear. These are the growing pains associated with the change that most people of these people so fear. I also know, from working with kids, that very few of them share this fear that their parents so obviously suffer from. As we move into a multi-racial society, people like Owens will simply die off and become discredited by history, much as the beliefs on race held by many middle aged whites in the 1950's have died away.

But... the hate and fear of change that these people feel for Obama has so warped their world-view that they see violence and bloodshed as the answer. "Innocents will fall along with patriots and the corrupt" .

Their views are not rooted in reality. Ask a Tea Partier how Obama has subverted the Constitution and you won't get a coherent answer. They might cite the health care act, which was passed through an act of a dually-elected Congress as specified in the Constitution. They might cite "activist judges" that he's appointed. Never mind that he has every right to appoint judges, as every president has as specified by the Constitution. The answers you do get will be speculative and without any real proof other than the feelings of the Tea Partier: "he's taking away gun rights", "he's taking away OUR America", "he's not a citizen". No real proof, but it's enough for them to threaten violence.

Americans lost real rights under the Bush Administration, but the Tea Party was nowhere to be heard. Start with thew ultimate act of an activist court, the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision which took the election out of the hands of the people and put it in the hands of the court. The Patriot Act, which allowed the government to spy on its own citizens without a warrant. The repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, which was enacted after the Civil War to prevent the federal government from using troops as law enforcement. The 2001 act that allowed NSA monitoring of domestic phone and internet traffic. Allowing the government to monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity. Secret detentions of hundreds of people without charges. Government encouragement of bureaucrats to resist public records questions. The seizure of papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation. American citizens jailed indefinitely without a trial, without being charged, or being able to confront witnesses against them.

Those are real rights infringements. But not a peep out of the Tea Party. They never lifted a finger until a black Democrat came to power.

When this paranoia takes the form of fomenting revolution, something has broken. They have the ability to change government without revolution, through the Constitutionally mandated electoral process. But that's not good enough for them, because that process produced the election of Barack Obama. The group that claims to love the Constitution wishes to overthrow the free, fair and Constitutional election of a president, since they lost the last 2 elections by running on their principles.

Apparently loving the Constitution means subverting the Constitution.

This isn't even about views anymore, because to Owens and his ilk, progressives are "statists", who want more government. Never mind that we share many of the same views, that we are disgusted by the politics of Washington as well. Never mind that we don't want more government, just better government, that cares for the rights of all of its citizens, even you. When you advocate criminal activities to get what you want, we have a break. I cannot work with you. In fact, I want the government to protect me by arresting you and charging you with the crimes you've just committed.

Owens and his crowd obviously do not understand history. They cite the Sons of Liberty and the Founders, but fail to understand the differences in situations.

The founders revolted over a litany of minor taxes because those taxes were placed by a government over which they had no say. It wasn't the taxes, it was that they had no say in those taxes. There is a HUGE difference here: as English citizens, they were used to paying taxes. The growing problem was a lack of say in the government that placed those taxes.

Further, it was frustruation that those taxes were going to pay for England's wars in Europe that were accomplishing nothing good here. These wars were sucking us in to conflicts (The French and Indian War) that had nothing to do with this continent. They were wrecking our economy and we didn't think we should be obligated to fund them.

But it was also about many events besides taxes. It was the feeling that, after almost 170 years here we had earned the right to self-determination (as Thomas Paine said "It was absurd for an island to rule a continent"). It was about alienation from Britain and a feeling that we were really no longer English. Any ties we had were residual.

It was about mercantilism, that England was using us as a cash-generating ATM. They told us who we could buy from and who we could sell to and at what prices. Mercantilism and the Navigation Acts, over which we had no electoral say, caused a lot of law-abiding families to have to resort to criminal smuggling.

The American Revolution was about a lack of representation in Parliament. The Boston Massacre and the propaganda created by Paul Revere, silversmith and member of the Sons, was the spark that blew the powderkeg.

Argue the merits of the Revolution all day, but there is no tax or law on the books in America that has not been lawfully passed by your representatives in Congress and signed by the President as proscribed by the Constitution.

They might not like the laws. But that doesn't mean I get to cry "unfair! illegal!". They have representation in Congress that they are allowed to petition for redress of any perceived grievances.

This situation of "I don't like the laws, so they must be illegal and therefore I can take up weapons against those with whom I disagree" is so different from the complaints of the Sons of Liberty. The American colonists literally had no representation in Parliament. Not representation that they disagree with. They literally had no representation.

I wonder, then, since they're willing to take illegal extra-Constitutional means to get what they want, then what next? How can we trust a group that would usurp the Constitution to overturn a free election and restore power to themselves to then follow that document once they've regained the power they crave? So what next? Executions of anyone who doesn't subscribe to their point of view? Jails for progressives and liberals and immigrants? Re-education for faggots and union members? Elimination of inferior races?

As one of the commenters on Owens's site noted:

You're openly supporting violent takeover because you don't like how the majority of people in the country voted a couple years back. What gives you the moral standing to say that your preference is more valid than theirs, or to forcibly replace it? Absolutely sickening. I'm ashamed to share a country with you.

As I quoted earlier, Owens is upset that their "attempts at peaceable protests have been met at turns by feigned ignorance, then mockery, then attacks on the character and motives".

How can you not be met by mockery and questioning of your motives? You are advocating criminal sedition and usurpation of Constitutional law in order to enforce your vision of what you think it says. You indict Obama for violating the rule of law and yet advocate violating that same rule because you supposedly know better; because you haven't been able to persuade the majority of Americans to agree with you at the ballot box.

Isn't THAT how tyrants operate?

Dear progressives, why do we fight on their terms?

Here's my question for liberals/progressives.... why do we play into Republican Tea Party games by discussing issues on their terms? We're "debating" a group that has no qualms about playing fast and loose with the facts, and will sink to childish levels to insult the targets of their derision. Don't forget, we're "the Democrat Party", because they don't like our association with Democracy when clearly we're all Marxist/Leninist socialists.

More to my point, why do we discuss the Bush tax cuts, when we should be discussing the Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthiest 2%?

It's subtle, sure, but as a group we do a horrible, horrible job of framing arguments.

Picture this, a middle-class family who doesn't really pay attention to the news. They hold no real opinion on Obama. Maybe they voted for him, but don't have any particular allegiance to him. they're flipping through the news and hear the following: "President Obama is trying to repeal the Bush tax cuts"?

How are they likely to react?

You know how they're going to react.

Now, the same family is watching the same news and hears the debate where the progressive frames it as: "The President is trying to repeal the the Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthiest 2%"?

Do you think the reaction would be different?

I know it would.

We don't have a Frank Luntz on our side to frame these arguments. However, my fear is that if we did, we don't have the unity or discipline within the party to toe the line on these distinctions. However, the core issue remains: we do not frame our arguments well.

"the bailout"

"health care"

"the stimulus"

You know damn well that if those were GOP ideas, they'd be branded differently. "the Saving America's Economy Act", "A Healthy Future for American Families", "The Getting America Back To Work Plan". In the age of filibusters, it's not enough to have the GOP and the ConservaDems oppose those ideas, you have to be able to hold their feet to the fire come election time. Ask Ben Nelson to oppose putting Americans Back to Work. Ask Blanche Lincoln why she opposes healthy American families. Ask john Boehner why he doesn't want to save America's economy.

And for Zeus' sake, ask the Republicans why they want to give money away to the wealthiest 2% while there is such rampant joblessness.

But at least in the blogging community, we need to start framing our arguments better, and that begins with not discussing them in the terms that Republicans have branded them as, but as what they really are.

And that starts with the Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy.

Why exactly is defense spending sacrosanct? 'Cause it keeps hookers employed.

CBS

The former CEO of a body armor company supplying troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is on trail for fraud, insider trading and embezzlement to the tune of nearly $200 million - $6 million in reckless spending on a company expense account and $190 million in stock fraud.

David H. Brooks, who led armor company DHB until 2006, allegedly used company money for luxury cars, extravagant parties, "university textbooks for his daughter, pornographic videos for his son, plastic surgery for his wife, a burial plot for his mother, prostitutes for his employees, and, for him, a $100,000 American-flag belt buckle encrusted with rubies, sapphires and diamonds," according to the New York Times.

Wow! Fox lets this guy on? Napolitano SLAMS AZ immigration law on Constitutional grounds

John Boehner and anti-intellectualism: ‘I Don’t Need To See Numbers Or Listen To Economists’

In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, John Boehner (R-Dipshit) argued against further stimulus and in favor of extending the Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy.

When Wallace showed Boehner GDP numbers indicating that the economic recovery is shrinking and stated that many economists were calling for more federal stimulus (the effects of which Boehner still waffles about), Boehner became blustery. When pressed by Wallace about the contradiction between the giant hole that an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy would blow in the deficit and Boehner's self-described deficit hawk status, Boehner decided that facts are inconvenient things:

"Well, I don’t need to see GDP numbers or to listen to economists. All I need to do is listen to the American people, because they’ve been asking the question now for 18 months, “where are the jobs?”

(Later, to Wallace)
Chris, you’ve been in Washington too long because that’s all a bunch of Washington talk... This is the whole Washington mindset, all these CBO numbers,”

John Boehner

He then went on to add: "Yes, those pesky NUMBERS. Those are LIBERAL NUMBERS, bent on making us a socialist nation. As Republicans, we don't trust those Democrat numbers. Numbers lie. We go from the gut, we listen to the American people. Maybe in Washington they care about numbers, but in real America, we know that numbers lie. Stop being so naive, Chris."

OK, maybe he didn't say that, but he should have. Because it's what he meant.

Now he's going to try to hang the lack of jobs that his party has filibustered on Obama. and they're going to hang the economy, which is losing momentum for lack of further stimulus, on Obama despite the fact that it's the GOP who won't listen to numbers and facts and do the right thing. Cesca (h/t) points out: The Republicans have filibustered the jobs. And they've proposed solutions, like renewing the Bush tax cuts and cutting spending, that will sabotage economic growth.

Now Boehner is asking "Where are the jobs that we've done our damned best to kill in order to make the Kenyan Messiah a one-termer?"

Quoting ThinkProgress, this is "blind ideology". He'll oppose whatever Obama stands for. He no more cares about the direction of the country than he cares about the long-term effects of over-tanning.

By the way, can we all at least agree that the real pronunciation of his last name is actually "Boner"?