Wednesday Reads
Posted: July 16, 2014 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Dick Cheney, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Jon Stewart 41 Comments
The Striped Towel, Marie Fox
Good Morning!!
I’m finally back home in Greater Boston. Last night at around 5PM, I almost teared up when I saw the sign reading “Massachusetts Welcomes You,” with the little chickadee on it. I’m so torn, because I love Indiana too; but I’ve lived in Boston since 1967–47 years–and I love it here too!
Here I am, 66 years old, and I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life. Should I move back to Indiana where my mother lives or should I stay here where I’ve lived for most of my life? And will I even have a choice? I can’t stay where I’m living indefinitely, and there’s no way I can afford an apartment in the Boston area unless I manage to get into subsidized elderly housing. It would be much cheaper to to live in Indiana.
I have no idea what will happen, and I’m not sure how much control I’ll have over it anyway. I guess I just have to keep on truckin’ and try not to agonize too much about the future.
Anyway, the new continues onward no matter where I am. Here are some stories that caught my attention today.
Hillary on The Daily Show
On last night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart tried to cajole Hillary Clinton into saying whether or not she’ll run for president in 2016. According to The Week,
At the beginning of Tuesday night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart states (almost) unequivocally that his guest, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is declaring her candidacy for president in 2016 on his show. (Spoiler: She doesn’t.) But Clinton all but agrees with Stewart when he declares her candidacy for her, even knowingly answering all the right questions on his career aptitude test. If Clinton’s candidacy is supposed to be a long tease, maybe we’re approaching the denouement.
Clinton laughs a lot in the interview, and it’s clearly a friendly audience, but Stewart actually asks some interesting, tough questions. He also playfully tells her that nobody cares about her book, Tough Choices, and calls her out when she darts around his barbs. In fact, for somebody supposed to be a “terrible politician,” she fields the questions and turns around the criticism pretty skillfully.
Really? A “terrible politician?” That must be why she was elected to the Senate twice and why she won more primary votes than Barack Obama in 2008 (Yes, Virginian, Obama was nominated only with help from Superdelegate votes and Michigan Votes taken from Hillary and handed over to him by the Rules Committee.) In fact, she’s such a “terrible politician” than her former rival nominated her as his Secretary of State.
Sigh . . . Why don’t people actually watch and listen to Hillary herself instead of buying into the propaganda from her obsessed critics? Here is the Daily Show video from You Tube (I hope it doesn’t get taken down):
And BTW, “progressives,” getting Elizabeth Warren to run against Hillary for the nomination is a good recipe for electing Mitt Romney in 2016. From HuffPo: Ready For Warren Campaign Launches To Convince Elizabeth Warren To Run For President
WASHINGTON — An enthusiastic band of activists has launched a campaign to slow the momentum of Hillary Clinton and convince Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that she should run for president in 2016.
“I think there’s an opportunity for us to convince her if we’re really able to make the case as to why we think she’s the right person,” said Erica Sagrans, who has signed on as the Ready For Warren campaign manager.
The group already has a Facebook page, Twitter account and a new website with a petition encouraging Warren to run.
Sagrans, who worked on President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, will be joined by political activist Billy Wimsatt, who previously founded the League of Young Voters and is going to be a senior adviser to the new group.
Reached for comment, Lacey Rose, Warren’s press secretary, told HuffPost, “No, Senator Warren does not support this effort.”
I love Liz, but she had no political experience before running for the Senate two years ago, she is approximately the same age as Hillary, and she doesn’t have the connections to raise the necessary money. Please grow up or shut the fuck up, assholes.
Old Fogies of the GOP
At Vox, Matthew Yglesias asks, “How long can the GOP last as the cranky oldster party?”
You can tell it’s the dog days of summer because some of Washington’s finest minds are spending their time debating the inherently unknowable question of whether today’s teenagers will grow up to be Republicans. Jon Chait says no way, but Harry Enten and John Sides and David Leonhardt say maybe….
More interesting than asking whether people born in the 1990s will be voting GOP in the 2020s, I think, is asking what kind of a GOP it would have to be for them to vote for it. As an older member of the left-leaning youth cohort, I was really struck by something John Boehner said four summers ago. He complained that the Democratic majority that existed that summer, paired with Barack Obama, was “snuffing out the America that I grew up in.”
Boehner was born in 1949 and presumably isn’t nostalgic for the sky-high income tax rates (or strong labor unions) of his youth. So what was so great about it? The racial and gender discrimination? In practice, he probably didn’t have anything at all in mind — he’s just mixing up disagreement with aspects of the Democratic agenda (the specific issue under discussion was the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill) with a generalized nostalgia for his youth. That probably resonates with a lot of older Americans, but while today’s teenagers might well turn against some of the failings of Obama-era liberalism, they’re unlikely to be pining for a return to Mad Men social norms….
There’s something very oldsterish about contemporary conservative politics. The constant bickering about Ronald Reagan is very odd to anyone too young to have any particular recollection of the Reagan years. Calling a group of people “Beyoncé Voters” as an insult is weird. Some of this oldsterism is just tics, but some of it has policy implications. The sort of budgetary priorities that call for huge cuts in all domestic spending, except no cuts at all for anyone born before 1959 is kind of weird. The huge freakout over New York City starting a bicycle program last summer was bizarre. It’s easy to imagine a political party that’s broadly favorable to low taxes and light regulation without sharing this particular set of tics. And then there was the time George Will wrote a column-length rant against blue jeans.
Not to mention Will’s wildly out-dated views on rape. Frankly, I think a lot of powerful Democrats are aging badly too. I’d like to see some of them move on and make room for some new blood. But let’s begin with the Republicans.
Beach Recliner, Candace Lovely
Speaking of cranky old folks, Dick Cheney has been all over the media lately, and I’ve had it up to here (point to neck).
From Politico: Cheney family sounds off after Iraq protests.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday defended the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, calling it “absolutely the right thing to do.”
“I believed in it then, I look back on it now, it was absolutely the right thing to do,” the Wyoming Republican said with regard to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Cheney made his comments at a POLITICO Playbook lunch conversation with his wife, Lynne, and daughter Liz at Washington’s Mayflower Renaissance Hotel, a lively event that featured jokes, a standing-room-only crowd and a few interruptions — protesters delayed the event twice, screaming at the former vice president for being a “war criminal.”
Notice the quotes around “war criminal,” as if that were hyperbole. I’m afraid not, Politico.
Mike Allen, POLITICO’s chief White House correspondent, began the event by asking Dick Cheney about his decision to lambaste the Obama administration over its foreign policy, particularly in contrast to former President George W. Bush, who has declined to criticize the president since he left office.
Citing a decades-long precedent of former presidents refusing to criticize their successors, Cheney said: “I’m not bound by those strictures.”
Of course not. Cheney has never been bound by any “strictures,” even as a young man when he managed to obtain five draft deferments while others his age were fight and dying in another pointless war he supported.
Solitude, Woman at the Beach, Rita C. Ford
Fortunately, we have Charles Pierce: THINGS IN POLITICO THAT MAKE ME WANT TO MAINLINE ANTIFREEZE, PART THE INFINITY.
Its puerilty has finally crossed over into indecency. Its triviality has finally crossed over into obscenity. The comical political starfcking that is its primary raison d’erp has finally crossed over into $10 meth-whoring on the Singapore docks. Once a mere surface irritation, Tiger Beat On The Potomac has finally crossed over into being a thickly pustulating chancre on the craft of journalism. It has demonstrated its essential worthlessness. It has demonstrated that it has the moral character of a sea-slug and the professional conscience of theTreponema pallidum spirochete. Trust me. Stephen Glass never sunk this low. Mike (Payola) Allen has accomplished the impossible. He’s made Jayson Blair look like Ernie Pyle.
It’s not just that TBOTP invited the Manson Family of American geopolitics to come together for an exercise in ensemble prevarication. It’s not just that the account of said exercise is written in the kind of cacophonous cutesy-poo necessary to drown out the screams of the innocent dead, and to distract the assembled crowd from the blood that has dripped from the wallet of the celebrity war-criminal leading the public display. And it’s not as though this was a mere interview—a “get” that could help you “win the morning (!).” In that, it might have been marginally excusable. No, this was one of Mike Allen’s little grift-o-rama special events—a “Playbook lunch,” sponsored by that noted mortgage fraud concern Bank Of America. There’s an upcoming TBOTP “event” in L.A. that is sponsored by J.P. Morgan. I know what Mike Allen is, but I am so goddamn tired of haggling about the price. Here’s how TBOTP‘s own account of the event begins.
Sing it with us: “Here’s the story of a man named Cheney …” Dick, Lynne and Liz Cheney had a message they wanted to send with their appearance at POLITICO’s Playbook lunch on Monday: We’re a family, we’re happy together, we joke together, and we’re beating the drum for an aggressive foreign policy together. It’s almost as if the Cheneys were the Brady Bunch—if the Brady Bunch had started a hawkish think tank and were warning the country about the failures of President Barack Obama’s leadership around the world.
Yes, and if Mike were an authoritarian greed-monkey with a borrowed heart that he declined to employ in any meaningful sense, if Carol were a lifelong scold and nuisance pretending to be a historian, and if Marcia were a talentless clown who, if it weren’t for the largesse of Mike’s friends and their foundations, would be selling phony subprime packages to the blind from a strip-mall in Kannapolis. Also, whatever editor it was who passed on the tone of this account should be sent back to the oyster cannery where they found him.
Please go over to Esquire and read the whole thing. It’s highly therapeutic. And here’s another counterpoint from The New York Daily News: Dick Cheney interview drowned out by hecklers Monday in D.C.
Cheney also told Jake Tapper than he doesn’t think Republicans should try to impeach President Obama, even though he is “the worst president of my lifetime.” How magnanimous of dear old Dick!
Other News . . .
MSNBC, Obama admin to join voting rights cases in Ohio and Wisconsin.
Bob Cesca, Protesters Carrying Firearms March Against Immigrant Children in Michigan.
The Arizona Republic, Arizona politician mistakes ‘Y’ campers for migrant children.
Huffington Post, Americans Are Too Stupid For GMO Labeling, Congressional Panel Says.
Jonthan Chait, Diane Ravitch: Campbell Brown Shouldn’t Worry Her Pretty Little Head About Education Policy.
peej
Carissa
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
On a personal note, my brother John MacGibbon was nominated for another Emmy yesterday for his promo for the Frontline show League of Denial. The information on it is at the bottom of the page. I’m so proud of him!
Congratulations!
Congrats to your brother, BB. I bet your mom is really proud, too.
I thought he might be. That was a really compelling ad for the program. The music choice was so spot on too.
That’s wonderful, bb. You must be so proud. It’s an awesome promo. Congrats to him. Wow.
Congrats! What a great pair of siblings! And credit to your mother.
Thanks, Everyone! My mom is thrilled. John is her youngest, and she adores him.
That is wonderful news BB!
Thanks for this post, BB, great info with your always on the money insights!
Thank you! What’s your reaction to all these calls for Elizabeth Warren to run against Hillary?
I’ll interject my opinion that it’s just a front for some of the anti-Hillary crowd. People who never take time to consider what exactly Hillary writes, says, and the actions she carries out.
That’s so true.
BB, glad to hear you made it back to MA in one piece! Did you “honk” when you sped by Splfd?
Hillary is going to need all the help she can get if she runs in 2016 and pushing Warren to challenge her will not do it for her. It will divide the party by rushing another inexperienced politician and it would doom the chances to gain back the majority in both houses.
Hillary will face a “boatload of clowns” and it is far more important to focus on her then to have what promises to be a divided primary if Warren decides to get in which I doubt she will.
Otherwise we may be “saluting” President Rand Paul. God forbid.
Thanks, Pat. I didn’t honk when I passed Springfield, but I definitely was thinking of you. I’d be afraid of road rage if I honked! Fortunately the traffic wasn’t too bad yesterday; I didn’t get stuck in any bumper-to-bumper traffic on the approach to the Mass. Pike.
I think Elizabeth Warren is too sensible to get caught up in emoprog fantasies. I hope I’m right.
Thanks BB……….nice to see you back home. It’s tough to move to another location after 47 years. The first couple of years was a hard adjustment for me, but you have a mother and relations there, that makes it different.
I watched the video, and yes she is the Heart & Soul of America, and we need to believe in ourselves first, people do look to us for all sorts of reasons. Hillary has to always be the one to walk the tightrope but she does it with a wonderful smile, laughter, and looks forward to the challenge. She is spot on when she talks about the young people, and how poverty and lack of jobs is worse, and how congress has inflicted more suffering on them, than need be. She understands where the problems lie, and she is so much more sensitive than the current politicians.
I agree with you BB, Elizabeth Warren does not have the experience that Hillary does, and people in our party want to tear us apart like the Republicans have done to themselves. I am sick of that crap. Elizabeth Warren does have a part play, and that’s an important part. Hillary will not leave her in the dust, she will have a number of people, like Elizabeth who will help in our Country’s goal to “helping people” and those who are trying hard to make a living for their families. The family unit has changed, and a new light must be shed on those changes for a healthier America. I also see Michelle Obama playing a good part in our future. She done a great job with kids and nutrition for families. If we don’t get it right, we are doomed.
Good lord, I am not for “saluting” Rand Paul. It will be more of the same.
If you pull up roots BB, I think you will get a deal being near family. Congrats to your brother, puts a smile on my face too.
Thanks for your wise words, Fannie.
I see absolutely no reason for Hillary to announce that she’s running before the last possible moment: it’s not like she lacks name recognition, but the attacks will intensify once she makes it official. It would be especially bad if she makes the announcement before 2014 midterms, because then somehow any contest GOP wins will become a “referendum on Hillary Clinton”.
P.S. I’d prefer Elizabeth Warren as president, honestly, but I don’t want her to run against Hillary, because Hillary is the one with by far the best shot for the office.
Hillary has by far more experience. I want Hillary in 2016; it’s going to be incredibly tough to fix the mess we’re in. OK, Elizabeth Warren can be VP. Yet Warren is also needed in her present seat.
I’d rather have Warren as Treasury Secretary or head Federal Reserve than as Senator or VP.
Yeah, VP is mostly a token role and a waste of her expertise. Warren would be ideal for either of the other spots.
I’m not sure Warren is qualified to be Treasury Secretary. Her degrees are in speech pathology and bankruptcy law. Dak would know, but my guess is there are much more qualified women available.
She couldn’t head the Federal Reserve, because the appointment is for a specific term. Janet Yellen is highly qualified and a woman. Why wouldn’t you want Warren in the Senate. She will push a liberal agenda–both on other Senators an on Hillary. I think it would be disastrous to lose another Democratic Senator. If the Republicans take over the Senate, we are fucked.
Hmm, good points, BB. Yellen should stay at the Fed for quite a while longer. I hadn’t looked much into Warren’s background other than to see she was a reasonable Dem. I’m not from her area of representation as a Senator, but I should look further back into someone’s history before I stand on an opinion for them in an appointment to the Fed or a Cabinet post.
One more thing: if Cheney is not bound by strictures on criticizing Obama, why is Obama still bound by strictures against letting the Hague court prosecute Americans for war crimes?
Good question.
Because he lets himself be. Obama didn’t even back impeachment proceedings against Bush, and said in July 2007 that impeachment should be reserved for “grave, grave breaches.” Yes, I guess war crimes, lying to Congress, the American people, and the UN, while causing thousands of US military and tens or hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths isn’t grave enough. Surprised me back in 2007-early 2008 when I was researching the candidates’ histories before deciding who to support. I used to refer to this Obama speech frequently back during 2008, as so many Obots thought Obama was the real deal as an anti-Iraq War candidate. (Never seemed to make an impression on the ‘bots, of course.)
I no longer had that source bookmarked, and had to search for it thru a few pages of “impeach Obama” headlines. What a commentary on current events.
Interestingly, the Hague has opened a war crimes investigation into possible British war crimes in Iraq:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10828393/Hague-probe-into-British-war-crimes-in-Iraq.html
Hopefully, it won’t be limited to Brits. I’d really like some of the American Iraq war instigators to stand trial there eventually, if even just for the precedent.
Me too, but I’m not holding my breath.
WTF?
Gotta luv the outreach efforts. /snark
Yeah, were they trying to get the kids brainwashed early? I hope this outreach will backfire on them.
Some good news!
Still time to comment, if you haven’t yet, at openinternet@fcc.gov
I wish I could put my thoughts together and say something….
I think most any way you tell the FCC to get tough on Big Telecom will get the point across.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/navy-nurse-force-feed-gitmo-detainees.html
Speaking of ongoing evil because of Cheney/Rumsfeld/W
Now that is a good reason to use a conscience clause! “Enteral feeding” = nasogastric tube through the nostril, down the throat, the esophagus, and into the stomach.
Although it does annoy me that the journalist felt the need to say “male nurse” instead of just nurse. Way back centuries ago the first nurses were male knights.
Just stopping to say this was a great post BB. I actually read it this morning on the way to one of Jake’s dr appointments. Things are crazy. Today he had a BG reading of 163 and then 30 min later it dropped to 50. He was not even active…so glad you are back at home base.
Thanks, JJ. I hope you can get Jake stabilized. I don’t know anything about those numbers, but they sound like they’re fluctuating wildly. Take care.
JJ, you take some time to take care of yourself as well as Jake. 163 isn’t bad depending on how long ago he had something to eat. 50, OTOH, is getting low enough he could feel weak. Endocrinology is not my specialty, but has there been consideration of the pros and cons of an insulin pump? Though I can sure see not rushing to that intervention too soon.
They can’t put him on a pump for at least 4 to 6 months .
Ah. so possible option, but not in near future.