Monday Reads: It’s all about the Meme, ’bout that Meme, ’bout that Meme, no troubleS

Hello Monday!

Presidential Wannabes are lining up in the nation’s backwaters states that host the earliest primaries to tout their wares.  Well, all of them except the Jebster who is fundraising on the West Coast.  He’s coming off aTed-Cruz-books very bad, terrible week where he proves yet again, that the Bush Boyz had wasted yet stellar educations.  I’d thought just about every one learned the lessons of the foreign policy wreck that was the Iraq invasion and occupation.  I guess if you really have no skin in the game and your investments are all lined up in defense industries, you can afford to ignore lessons that cost the rest of us lives, naivety and money.

So, let me start out with Hillary and then go the GOP clown car.  There’s a big feature on Clinton in USN&R today that’s worth a look. It characterizes Hillary as a “trail blazer” who is trying to establish her identity outside of her husband.  Silly me!  I thought she did that when she became a U.S. Senator and successful Secretary of State.

Hillary Clinton is taking some important steps to establish her own identity as she stakes out positions that are separate and distinct from her two celebrity predecessors, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

It’s part of her strategy to set the framework of the 2016 general election very early and in ways that enhance her electability. “She can shape the general election message from Day One,” says political scientist Bill Galston, a former White House adviser to President Bill Clinton. “We know who she is, but not what she stands for. She gets to answer that question on her own terms, which is unprecedented in modern presidential politics.” Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination, at this point without serious opposition, and will have many months in which to refine her message. A big part of that will be explaining how Hillary differs from Bill and Barack, as she tries to show she is a leader of the future, not a politician from the past.

The process has already begun. Clinton has distanced herself from her husband’s policies by saying that the crime-fighting agenda endorsed by Bill Clinton two decades ago, such as mandatory minimum sentences and other tough anti-crime policies, resulted in too much incarceration of African-American men. She says these policies have not done much to reduce serious crime but have kept young black men away from their families for long periods of time, damaged their ability to be productive citizens, and harmed the social structure of many African-American communities.

Trump-4-21-11-colorI’m really not sure why the media seems to think she’s never been her own person and only reflects the accomplishments and views of her old boss and her husband. This strikes me as supremely patronizing and a level of assholiness that I can’t really comprehend.

Headlines today show my assholy, hot mess Governor Jindal putting together a presidential committee and praying to his angry sky god for guidance.  Like he hasn’t been running for the Republican nomination for at least the last three years.  The dude should resign the governorship. He hasn’t been the least bit interested in the state, its people, or even being here for at least that long.  Tiger Beat on the Potomac has a few money quotes.

Jindal has also suffered from low approval ratings at home — sitting in the high 20s-low 30s — and Louisiana Republicans have criticized him for the state’s budget deficit. In February, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s — two of the top three U.S. credit rating agencies — downgraded the state’s outlook from “stable” to “negative,” citing Louisiana’s $1.6 billion shortfall and declining oil prices. The budget gap has increased pressure on the governor to raise taxes, which would be a nonstarter with anti-tax advocates such as Grover Norquist and a liability in a Republican primary. Jindal has blamed much of the budget issues on the drop in oil prices.

He has so far been overshadowed in a large and growing Republican presidential field, registering at one percent in the latest polls among national Republicans and those in Iowa and New Hampshire. Early-state activists say he will likely have trouble breaking through in a field that features many social conservative favorites — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; the past two Iowa caucus winners, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; tea party icon Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; former Texas. Gov Rick Perry and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, among others.

The Jebster has written off Iowa altogether or not.  It rather depends on who you’re listening to from his campaign.

Between his low standing in state polls, the socially conservative bent of the Iowa GOP base and his decision to skip the state’s straw poll in August, Bush has lots of incentives to give up on Iowa next year. Republicans here know it, which is why the former Florida governor spent his weekend reassuring them he hasn’t already written off the state as a lost cause.

“I’m going to be here. I’m here right now!” Bush told reporters Saturday after appearing at a fundraiser in Iowa City for Sen. Chuck Grassley. “Why would I be here if I wasn’t going to compete in Iowa?”

From Dubuque to Iowa City to the state GOP’s Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines on Saturday night, Bush threw everything he had into the effort to convince Iowans that he doesn’t plan to blow off the state. His intensely private wife, Columba, and his son Jeb Jr., both accompanied him to Dubuque, where he held an hourlong town hall. He took 11 questions from the crowd there, and then a few dozen “selfies” with attendees before leaving. He met privately with several top donors, county chairs and elected officials — some of whom have been alarmed by Bush’s laissez-faire approach thus far to Iowa — prior to his speech at the Republican Party dinner; when it was over, he greeted a long receiving line of supporters in his hospitality suite

Pearl Clutcher Lady Lindsey has announced he’s running because “the world is falling apart”. Quick!  Some one get an interior designer!  This is a radically new situation and we need a make over!and1204112

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday that he will announce his decision about whether to run for president on June 1 in his hometown of Central, South Carolina, but left little doubt about his intentions by saying “I’m running.”

“I’m running because of what you see on television; I’m running because I think the world is falling apart; I’ve been more right than wrong on foreign policy,” he said on “CBS This Morning,” when asked if he was running because he was unimpressed with the rest of the field (and appearing to dispense with the pretense that he hasn’t decided whether to jump in). “It’s not the fault of others, or their lack of this or that that makes me want to run; it’s my ability in my own mind to be a good commander in chief and to make Washington work.”

So, back to Jebster and the good ol’ days of Lord & Master marriages. 

Bush told the Christian Broadcasting Network that “traditional marriage” was necessary to rescue children from poverty and achieve success in society.

“If we want to create a right to rise society, where people — particularly children born in poverty, if we want to have them have a chance — we have to restore committed, loving family life with a mom and dad loving their children with their heart and soul,” he said.

Bush, who has said he personally opposes gay couples adopting children, said he did not support a constitutional amendment for same-sex marriage, adding that gay rights have “accelerated at a warp pace.”

“Irrespective of the Supreme Court ruling because they are going to decide whatever they decide, I don’t know what they are going to do, we need to be stalwart supporters of traditional marriage,” he said.

The former governor said that his position on the matter was informed by his Catholicism.

“Talking about being formed by one’s faith, it’s at the core of the Catholic faith,” he said. “And to imagine how we are going to succeed in our country unless we have committed family life, a child-centered family system, is hard to imagine.”

What a clusterfuck the Republican party has become.

What’s on your blogging and reading list today?


30 Comments on “Monday Reads: It’s all about the Meme, ’bout that Meme, ’bout that Meme, no troubleS”

  1. janicen's avatar janicen says:

    “What a clusterfuck the Republican party has become.”

    Yes, and it’s been by their own design. Republican elected officials on every level from national to local governments take pride in the fact that they enact no legislation that helps this country or its economy but rather push an agenda which would deny rights of citizens and dismantle the very government in which they were hired to work. Who the hell would vote for these people? Only ignorant zealots bent on misguided social engineering. America might be slow to respond, but there are increasing signs that people are waking up.

    • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:

      That fits with the rest of his rabid personality.

      • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:

        What a wacko.

        McPhilmy began dating a Nassau County police detective after the separation, and Gawker reported that O’Reilly called in a favor after raising money for the department and got an internal affairs investigation launched against the new boyfriend….

        O’Reilly tried to have his former wife excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 2013, according to another Gawker report.

  2. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:

    Our media, and the idiots on the right and left, who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the simple fact that Hillary Clinton is and has been a fully actualized person in her own right are about to drive me over a cliff. God what a bunch of misogynist dumb asses!

    • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:

      Heh, I posted the same sentiment downthread without reading yours!

      I think most of the voters have and will be able to figure out Hillary is her own person.

  3. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:

    Paul Krugman on Iraq. Fuck yeah!

    NYTL Errors and Lies


    On top of these personal motives, our news media in general have a hard time coping with policy dishonesty. Reporters are reluctant to call politicians on their lies, even when these involve mundane issues like budget numbers, for fear of seeming partisan. In fact, the bigger the lie, the clearer it is that major political figures are engaged in outright fraud, the more hesitant the reporting. And it doesn’t get much bigger — indeed, more or less criminal — than lying America into war.

    But truth matters, and not just because those who refuse to learn from history are doomed in some general sense to repeat it. The campaign of lies that took us into Iraq was recent enough that it’s still important to hold the guilty individuals accountable. Never mind Jeb Bush’s verbal stumbles. Think, instead, about his foreign-policy team, led by people who were directly involved in concocting a false case for war.

    So let’s get the Iraq story right. Yes, from a national point of view the invasion was a mistake. But (with apologies to Talleyrand) it was worse than a mistake, it was a crime.

  4. List of X's avatar List of X says:

    I think FEC should take a look at Jeb’s “Why would I be here if I wasn’t going to compete in Iowa?” As far as I know, he hasn’t officially announced a campaign or even an intent to campaign, which subjects him to more relaxed rules of fundraising. But if he says things like that, it’s clear he is, for all intents and purposes, campaigning for president.

  5. NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:

    So infuriating that the MSM and the Beltway punditry can’t see that Hillary is indeed her own person and has her own policies. Even Jeb Bush isn’t considered a clone of his brother. But then, he’s a male Republican, so he gets a break.

  6. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:

    Jeb!’s reasoning is crazy, Are we sure he’s really running?

    Raw Story: Jeb Bush: A ‘tolerant country’ should allow discrimination based upon ‘religious beliefs’

    • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:

      “Crazy” and “running” are definitely not contradictory for the Republicans!

      It’s not just that people of faith can have their views, it’s that they need the space to act on their conscience.

      No, you don’t get to intrude on others with your alleged “need” for faith-based space.

      • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:

        Considering current polling on those issues, he’s completely out of touch. Of course, that’s what happens when you live in a nice comfortable bubble all your life.

  7. NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:

    …I’ve been more right than wrong on foreign policy…

    Hahaha! That’s a lukewarm recommendation if I’ve ever heard one. Makes me think he’s been right about 51% of the time. The other 49%? Meh. No need for us to worry, I guess.

    • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:

      Graham screams and runs to hide under his bed at the first sign of any danger. The sky is falling! Whack-a-loon!

  8. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:

    Kind of the opposite of Jade Helm 15 and this plot was real.

    Raw Story: Failed congressional candidate pleads guilty in plot to massacre Muslims: ‘We will be cruel to them’

  9. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:

    President Obama got his own twitter account today and here’s one great response…