Friday Morning Reads
Posted: September 2, 2011 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, abortion rights, Barack Obama, commercial banking, Domestic terrorism, Economy, Elections, fetus fetishists, financial institutions, House of Representatives, morning reads, Planned Parenthood, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics | Tags: FED, fiscal stimulus, Goldman Sachs investigation, James Carville, Litton, Obama Polls, Obama speech schedule, Stonehenge, Subprime mortgages 24 Comments
Well, it looks like I’m in a tropical storm warning right now. I’m just hoping the electricity stays on as TD 13 becomes TS Lee when it drifts around and comes on shore some time on Saturday. I’m also hoping Hurricane Katia stays a fish storm but that’s looking less likely at the moment. Lot’s of us may get flooded yet again. I’m just hoping we can go get NJ Governor Chris Christie to go beat up Eric Cantor in the interim. Poor Vermont looks like it needs a lot of help right now! We’re expected to get rain that may fall at 2-3 inches an hour. I’m not sure if our pumps can handle that; especially the crappy ones the Corps bought from Jeb Bush that have been problematic since they were installed.
So, it’s nice to see that the FED has decided that Goldman Sachs is now under its jurisdiction and is ordering it to review its foreclosure practices of a former subsidiary. So many heads should roll over the subprime mortgage market mess and so few have to date. The Fed’s a pretty aggressive regulator when it feels some institution is in its charter. It’s good to see the charter is extending beyond commercial banks and thrifts now that the cheap lending has been extended to other financial institutions too. They take the truth-in-lending laws very seriously.
The Federal Reserve ordered Goldman Sachs Group Inc to hire a consultant to review practices of a former mortgage subsidiary on Thursday and said it plans to assess a monetary penalty for wrongful foreclosures.
The Fed’s crackdown sent Goldman shares down 3.5 percent on Thursday, even as the bank announced that it had completed the sale of Litton Loan Servicing LP, the mortgage-servicing business at the heart of its foreclosure problems.
Litton’s regulatory troubles stem largely from the practice of “robosigning,” in which bank employees signed foreclosure documents without reviewing case files as required by law.
Many large banks, including Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup Inc, have been targets of probes by state and federal regulators over the same issue, in the clean-up after a world financial crisis triggered in large part by bad mortgages in the United States and bonds backed by those loans.
The Fed cited “a pattern of misconduct and negligence” at Litton in announcing its enforcement action against Goldman.
The Economist has been having a reader debate on the necessity of Fiscal stimulus for the US. The Hell, Yes! vote appears to have it. The comments are about as interesting as the two economists debating the motion.
The American economy has remained extremely weak since officially leaving recession in mid-2009. The unemployment rate has barely fallen. Recent figures suggest GDP grew at less than a 1% annualised rate through the first half of the year and the odds of a return to recession have risen. The headwinds facing the economy are considerable: the private sector is still trying to reduce the burden of debt it is carrying from the pre-crisis boom years. House prices are still in the doldrums and mortgage credit is hard to get. State and local governments, which are required to balance their budgets, have been forced to cut spending, workers and hours to cope with falling tax collections. Many argue that in such a situation, the federal government is the only entity left that can provide a boost to overall demand and keep the economy from slipping back into recession or prolonged stagnation. At present, however, federal fiscal policy is scheduled to do the opposite: at the end of this year, a temporary payroll tax cut and enhanced jobless benefits expire.
“I do think this is a really big debate and I think the White House was out of bounds…in trying to schedule a speech during a debate,” Carville said on “GMA.”
This will be Gov. Rick Perry’s first debate, and as Carville said this morning the stakes are high.
“Given a choice between watching a debate and the speech I would have watched the debate and I’m not even a Republican or even close to being a Republican,” he said, adding it will be a “barn burner.”
The administration agreed to move the speech to Thursday- possibly competing with the kick off of the NFL season instead. The White House has been touting this jobs plan telling ABC News that he will propose tax relief, infrastructure investment and assistance for the long term unemployed.
Obama has received advice from both sides with some arguing for an ambitious proposal and others recommending finding middle ground.
Carville, an ABC News consultant, told me it doesn’t matter what Obama proposes, it won’t get through Congress.
For the first time this year, Texas Governor Rick Perry leads President Obama in a national Election 2012 survey. Other Republican candidates trail the president by single digits.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows Perry picking up 44% of the vote while the president earns support from 41%. Given the margin of sampling error (+/- 3 percentage points) and the fact that the election is more than a year away, the race between the two men is effectively a toss-up. Just over a week ago, the president held a three-point advantage over Perry. (To see question wording, click here.)
Perry leads by nine among men but trails by five among women. Among voters under 30, the president leads while Perry has the edge among those over 30. The president leads Perry by 16 percentage points among union members while Perry leads among those who do not belong to a union.
I’d vote for a dead dog before I’d vote for Rick Perry, just in case you’re wondering where I stand. A Quinnipiac University poll also shows the President’s approval on handling of unemployment and the economy is still bleak.
President Barack Obama’s overall job approval rating has sunk to an all-time low, as American voters disapprove 52 – 42 percent, compared to 47 – 46 percent approval in July, and among whites and men his approval has dropped into the 30s, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Congressional leaders rate even lower in the public eye. Voters nationwide are more pessimistic about the economy, saying 49 – 11 percent that it is getting worse rather than improving, a precipitous drop from a July 14 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University, in which voters said 32 – 23 percent the economy was worsening and January 18, when voters said 36 – 20 percent it was improving. The economy is in a recession, 76 percent of voters say, and is not beginning to recover, voters say 68 – 28 percent. Voters trust Obama more than congressional Republicans to handle the economy 44 – 41 percent, but they say 46 – 42 percent that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would do a better job than Obama. They are split 43 – 41 percent on whether Obama or GOP candidate Rick Perry would be better on the economy.
This should be an interesting political season. My guess is that it’s going to get very ugly.
There’s some good news from NPR about the Obama Justice Department. It seems they have made a priority of keeping abortion providers and women seeking abortions safe from violence and protestor harassment.
The Obama Justice Department has been taking a more aggressive approach against people who block access to abortion clinics, using a 1994 law to bring cases in greater numbers than its predecessor.
The numbers are most stark when it comes to civil lawsuits, which seek to create buffer zones around clinic entrances for people who have blocked access in the past. Under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, the Justice Department’s civil rights division has filed eight civil cases since the start of the Obama administration. That’s a big increase over the George W. Bush years, when one case was filed in eight years.
“There’s been a substantial difference between this administration and the one immediately prior,” says Ellen Gertzog, director of security for Planned Parenthood. “From where we sit, there’s currently much greater willingness to carefully assess incidents when they occur and to proceed with legal action when appropriate.”
Over the past two years, the Justice Department and FBI have been meeting with abortion-rights groups and medical providers all over the country to explain their work and talk about a federal task force designed to prevent violence against doctors and women seeking abortions.
The National Abortion Federation, which tracks violent incidents, says major violence is down since the 2009 murder of abortion doctor George Tiller. The man who killed Tiller has been convicted, and a federal grand jury is investigating the conduct of his alleged accomplices.
But Sharon Levin, a vice president at the National Abortion Federation, says there are still some signs of trouble, including two incidents this summer involving Molotov cocktails and the arrest of a man who told police he wanted to shoot two abortion doctors in Wisconsin.
So I admit to being totally fascinated by Stonehenge. I wanted to share this Tomb find in the place where the famous stones were most likely quarried.
The tomb for the original builders of Stonehenge could have been unearthed by an excavation at a site in Wales.
The Carn Menyn site in the Preseli Hills is where the bluestones used to construct the first stone phase of the henge were quarried in 2300BC.
Organic material from the site will be radiocarbon dated, but it is thought any remains have already been removed.
Archaeologists believe this could prove a conclusive link between the site and Stonehenge.
The remains of a ceremonial monument were found with a bank that appears to have a pair of standing stones embedded in it.
The bluestones at the earliest phase of Stonehenge – also set in pairs – give a direct architectural link from the iconic site to this newly discovered henge-like monument in Wales.
The central site had already been disturbed so archaeologists chose to excavate around the edges
The tomb, which is a passage cairn – a style typical of Neolithic burial monument – was placed over this henge.
How cool is that?
So, that’s my contribution for the day. Hopefully, I’ll be on line through the weekend but if you don’t see me, you’ll know what happened!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads
Posted: May 30, 2011 Filed under: Afghanistan, Elections, Foreign Affairs, Medicare, morning reads, Republican politics | Tags: Afghanistan, casualities, Memorial Day, NATO, Tornado relief, war 13 Comments
Happy Memorial Day!
While this is the usual time to remember America’s war dead from past wars, it’s good to remember that we still have two wars going on today. As the saying goes, War is Hell. The BBC reports that Afghan leaders have put NATO on warning for recent ‘collateral damage’.
The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville said villagers brought their dead children to the governor’s office shouting: “See they aren’t Taliban”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has forcefully condemned the killing of 14 civilians in the south-west of the country in a suspected Nato air strike.
Mr Karzai said his government had repeatedly asked the US to stop raids which end up killing Afghan civilians and this was his “last warning”.
A Nato spokesman said a team had been sent to Helmand province to investigate the attack carried out on Saturday.
Afghan officials say all those killed were women and children.
The strike took place in Nawzad district after a US Marines base came under attack.
The air strike, targeted at insurgents, struck two civilian homes, killing two women and 12 children, reports say.
“The president called this incident a great mistake and the murdering of Afghanistan’s children and women, and on behalf of the Afghan people gives his last warning to the US troops and US officials in this regard,” his office said.
The White House said it shared Mr Karzai’s concerns and took them “very seriously”.
A group from Sera Cala village travelled to Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah, bringing with them the bodies of eight dead children, some as young as two years old, says the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul.
“See, they aren’t Taliban,” they chanted as the carried the corpses to local journalists and the governor’s mansion.
While insurgents are responsible for most civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the killings of Afghans by foreign soldiers is a source of deepening anger, our correspondent adds.
In other Afghan war news, a Nato commander was injured in Taliban suicide attack in Afghanistan. This is from the UK Guardian.
A Taliban suicide bomber attacked a provincial governor’s compound in Takhar, killing the police chief of northern Afghanistan and seriously injuring a top Nato commander. Two other Afghan officials were also reported to have died in the attack. Several international servicemen were reported injured by eyewitnesses.
German officials confirmed to Spiegel magazine Major General Markus Kneip, who commands NATO forces in the north Afghanistan, had received wounds that were “severe” but not life-threatening.
A Nato spokesman in Kabul confirmed western casualties but was unable to provide details.
The Taliban, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the attack and pledged that “killing high ranking officials will continue.”
Mujeebullah Rahman, the deputy director of the local council in Takhar province, said the attack took place at about 4pm when a meeting to discuss local security operations was ending.
“The bomber was waiting in the corridor, wearing the uniform of an Afghan policeman,” Rahman said.
The attack capped a bloody 48 hours in which seven Americans, two British and two other Nato servicemen were killed by roadside bombs or by insurgents in the south of the country. So far 44 Nato soldiers have been killed this month, and .nearly 200 have died in the year.
While we continue to fund these wars, Republicans are demanding that any relief to tornado-wrecked Joplin Missouri must be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. Congressman Eric Cantor–house majority leader–has joined in the call first sent out by Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week. Talk about kicking people when they’re down!
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) continued to stress Sunday that disaster relief funds for tornado-ravaged Missouri would have to be offset in the federal budget with cuts elsewhere.
The House majority leader added on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that there was a certainly a federal role in helping to rebuild Joplin, Mo., and that Congress would move after getting a request from President Obama.
But, he said, the government needs to act in this case like a family who faces an unforeseen expense and has to cut elsewhere.
“Because families don’t have unlimited money,” Cantor said. “And, really, neither does the federal government.”
Cantor began calling for offsets last Monday, the day after the tornado that has killed well over 100 struck Joplin. On Tuesday, a House appropriations subcommittee found a $1.5 billion offset to help finance an aid package.
Somebody needs to remind these guys that the government can raise revenues via taxes for legitimate expenditures. That’s something families don’t have the ability to do. There’s also printing money and borrowing money at nearly zero interest via Treasury Auctions. Cantor was honest enough to admit that Medicare played an “undeniable” role in the recent election in NY 2 6.
“It’s undeniable that it played some role in the election. Any time you have one side demagoguing and frankly, accusing the other side in a way that’s not factual of trying to reform the program, certainly that’s going to influence the electorate,” Cantor said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “As far as Medicare is concerned, there’s a simple choice here – either we’re going to save the program or let it go bankrupt.”
Wasserman Schultz, who appeared just after Cantor said, “Coming from the majority leader,” who was one of the “architects” of a 2010 midterm congressional election victory “focused on scaring seniors about what Democrats were doing with Medicare, he would know.”
“What we’re doing is making sure we can prevent Republicans from ending Medicare as we know it,” she said. “That’s what Kathy Hochul ran on leading up to her victory this Tuesday in New York 26.”
Voters were making it clear that they didn’t support the GOP’s budget plan, Wasserman Schultz asserted.
So, I thought I’d offer up some history of Memorial Day for you. One of the things that I learned moving down here was that much of the south does not really celebrate the holiday and refer to it as a Yankee holiday even though it was supposed to be in remembrance of all civil war dead. Many southern cities actually claim to have started the holiday. I guess Mississippi sees things a little different. The holiday originated after the Civil War as “Decoration Day”. It didn’t become a federal holiday until 1971.
Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day because it was a time set aside to honor the nation’s Civil War dead by decorating their graves. It was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, to honor the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers, by proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former sailors and soldiers. On May 5, 1868, Logan declared in General Order No. 11 that:
The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
During the first celebration of Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery.
This 1868 celebration was inspired by local observances of the day in several towns throughout America that had taken place in the three years since the Civil War. In fact, several Northern and Southern cities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day, including Columbus, Miss.; Macon, Ga.; Richmond, Va.; Boalsburg, Pa.; and Carbondale, Ill.
So, it’s not all about mattresses and sales tax holidays!!! My mother used to tell me that all the relatives would go clean up the family cemeteries on memorial day in Missouri and Kansas. They would all have huge picnics along with trimming the overgrown bushes or flowers. We used to continue the tradition when I was very young until most of the cemeteries started using huge mowers and removed all bushes and flowers. As I recall, we had an ongoing battle in one cemetery with massive and profuse peony bushes.
So, that’s my offering for the day! Have a really wonderful holiday! What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Aftermath: The Torture Apologist tour and other Un-pleasantries
Posted: May 3, 2011 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Central Intelligence Agency, Civil Liberties, Democratic Politics, Diplomacy Nightmares, Domestic Policy, Elections | Tags: Osama Bin Laden death, Torture 55 Comments
I talked to Bostonboomer last night about the time John King–sober this time–was on the air. Piers Morgan is a cup of tea that I don’t want to know exists, but I did go back to look for a pattern during the Anderson Cooper show. I even checked out Fox News a bit. There it was. The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld torture policy apologist tour. It was inevitable that a few Bushies would show up to offer the ‘balance’ to the Osama story. I’m not sure if Dubya wants to be able to visit the South of France without fear of being arrested for crimes against humanity or it’s just a bunch of guilty consciences trying to find equilibrium, I just see the meme and it’s appalling.
The Bushies have jumped on the Bin Laden courier narrative as a way to justify their treatment of Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees from the War on Terror. I must’ve not been the only one that saw this unfolding because today’s RealClearPolitics has a pretty good set of videos up with both the meme mongers–like NY’s Congressional Ninny Peter King— and the ones that say this isn’t so. I’d say John Brennan’s word on the matter is a pretty authoritative one. SOS Clinton speaks on this too. Brennan was on Morning Joe this morning try to kill the meme among other things.
Here’s a taste from TPM on what I sensed during last night’s news cycle.
Like so many memes that persist in politics, this one started on the Internet. The morning after President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan, conservatives started crowing that credit should be given to President George W. Bush — specifically, for having the foresight and courage to torture the people who provided the initial scraps of intel that ultimately led the CIA to a giant compound just north of Islamabad.
The most prominent of these conservatives was Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who took to Twitter to ask sardonically, “Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?
About two hours later, the Associated Press published a brief story claiming that the CIA obtained the initial intelligence it needed to find bin Laden from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the so-called mastermind of 9/11 — and his successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi at CIA black sites in Poland and Romania.
Those secret prisons, which the Obama administration contends to have abandoned, were the facilities where Mohammed and al-Libi were waterboarded. There, the detainees supposedly identified by nom de guerre a courier who would years later be located by American intelligence officials, and lead them to bin Laden’s compound.
“The news is sure to reignite debate over whether the now-closed interrogation and detention program was successful,” the AP wrote. “Former president George W. Bush authorized the CIA to use the harshest interrogation tactics in U.S. history. President Barack Obama closed the prison system.”
There’s just one problem. The key bit of intel wasn’t acquired via torture, according to a more fleshed out version of the same report.
The morning after the day after the ghoulish Booyah Death celebrations just reminds me that there are parts of being an American that really dismay me because there are things about American Society that are just over the top. It’s our inability to separate our modern reality from spaghetti westerns and other Hollywood genres. This entire thing is unfolding like a series of badly written, thinly plotted Hollywood movies. Don’t even get me started on the actors.
I’d like to think that we could take this time to reflect on the last ten years of blowback rather than join a mosh pit of grave dancers. We now have trillions of dollars sunk in two seemingly endless wars. Many Americans and others have died as a result. This adds to the already too high death toll of the Cole and the World Trade Centers. We got a second Bush term because of all this. We have made flying commercial airlines a complete exercise in fascist humiliation right down to bullies in uniform doing unspeakable things to the elderly and young. Bin Laden’s death gives us reason to recheck our reactions and values, not create a set of worse ones.
First, before we go any further down Conspiracy Lane, the President will release the graphic photos of the dead Osama Bin Laden. I suppose that my hope is that we don’t see this abused to the point that it puts people serving in countries with religionists that are offended by this sort of thing in danger. This will probably set off a series of extremist sites debunking the photo but if this puts some people’s minds at rest, so be it. Maybe Donald Trump will get another poll boost by calling for more evidence than is rationally necessary. Part of the problem with the photos release seems to be that Bin Laden’s skull was blown apart which makes this a particularly gruesome set of photos. They’re not sure what reaction folks will have to it.
I suppose it’s got to be released eventually, but count me lucky that I’m going to be sitting in my house for awhile and not traveling about or serving anywhere dangerous. This is not me being an Obama apologist either, this is me being a realist. Pope Dark Ages just canonized a barely dead pope who supposedly did miracles. We’ve seen martyr’s funerals turn into all kinds of unpleasant things recently. We can’t even get a bunch of nuts from Kansas to stop harassing people at funerals and one nut in particular to quit grandstanding by burning Qurans. Rational behavior is not exactly a hallmark of religion. We’ve seen the nuttiness from humanity BC forward. It’s not going to stop, unfortunately.
A second question will come from the Wag-the-Dog plot. Will the poll bounce that Obama has gotten from this be enough to get people’s minds away from the myriad of problems that are not solved? Again, I think that depends on the size of those lesser, shallow spaghetti western angels that comprise our society. Torture, wars, Gitmo, and the TSA can only bring on so much false sense of security. I think we’ve learned some of that over the past decade. Hopefully, I’m not just being optimistic. Most of us know that Osama Bin Laden’s death will not get us out of Afghanistan and Iraq any quicker. It will not solve our unemployment problem and it’s not going to stop the finance sector from draining every penny it can out of businesses and households. It certainly is not going to solve our problem with Pakistan or hopefully, define our policy on the nations undergoing the Arab Spring.
You can gleefully dance on a watery grave for only so long before you have to go back to chopping wood, carrying water, and cooking dinner. Eventually, you have to come back from the adrenaline rush and face the problems that are not dead. Osama Bin Laden has been one very small problem recently. It’s nice he’s out of the way, still …
The Corps of Engineers is blowing up a levee on the Mississippi River as we speak. It will flood parts of Missouri. You remember those guys, they are the ones that brought us the Katrina aftermath. Canada just had an election with some astounding results. The UK is considering completely changing the way they vote and achieve majorities. They’re not getting a consensus on governance any more than we’ve been able to find bi-partisanship. What does this mean for democracy? Their parliamentary system is at the root of as many governments as our republic. Governments are being overthrown in a part of the world where we get most of our oil. When will that impact Saudi Arabia? Is Japan’s nuclear reactor any closer to safe? Are you eating Gulf seafood yet? Does it bother you that two ecosystems have been utterly destroyed by the energy industry with a year? What have we learned about these things over the last two days?
Unfortunately, the public forum to work out all these issues is going to be our very corporate, very broken media and the nether reaches of the internet where hopefully some less-captured voices prevail. I think we all have the duty to get beyond the hooplah and search out the facts because these things have a tendency to shape policy as well as conversations. I’m concerned that our two second attention span–which fixates on personalities and symbolic events–will take our eyes away from the real deal. Does it matter if Bin Laden is dead or alive? What problem does that really solve?
They ALL Suck
Posted: April 19, 2011 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Elections, John Birch Society in Charge, Populism, Republican presidential politics, Surreality, Team Obama, The Bonus Class, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance, We are so F'd | Tags: poltical campaigns, Presidential campaign, presidential polls 23 Comments
We have gone through the Mirror to a new perverse American Wonderland.
The true lessons from the last two elections have been pretty clear. Voting for “throwing the bums out” just brings worse bums into play. Also, voting for relative unknowns hoping that will change the direction of the country because of their ‘outsider’ status doesn’t work either. Sooner or later, they all become part of the problem. The current crop of new faces is a pretty good indication that voters should be using better criteria than change, hope, not part of the DC establishment, and talks a good talk. I wake up feeling like Alice who went through the looking glass into some perverse alternate reality. The problem is that there really seems like there’s no way back.
The displeasure is obvious in the polls. For the last two elections, folks voted for ‘outsiders’ and got even more dysfunctional government. This latest crop of newbie politicians seems to come in with a ready-made interest group on their coattails. The interest of the general populace isn’t even in the equation any more. We’re worried about unemployment, paying for expensive basics like food, health care, and gas at the pump while the current crop of elected officials just keep inventing surreal crises that simply feed their base’s interests and their donor’s pockets.
Right now, the majority of voters are screaming none of the above. Congress and the White House are hopelessly out of touch with the priorities of the electorate. When the public says its concerned about the economy, it doesn’t mean they are obsessed with the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US debt instruments. I told you that after they got their tax cuts for billionaires through, raters would do that during the debt ceiling fight, right?
The Tea Party and the White House seemed to be in cahoots–despite seemingly being at odds with each other– to funnel what’s left of US wealth into the Wall Street Gambling Casino by either giving tax breaks to businesses who flee the country for higher stakes or rich people that buy ‘financial innovations’ that create risk and volatility in markets . This all happens along with funneling federal projects straight to them through no-bid government contracts and privatization schemes. These things also enrich market parasites like brokerage firms and insurance companies. I don’t get why people don’t connect these charades with the dismal economy and vote their interests. Maybe it’s because there’s really no one to vote FOR any more. There are only folks to vote against. Angry people do not make good decisions as a general rule.
President Obama has gotten no bounce from his reelection campaign announcement, with his job approval rating dropping by 7 percentage points since January, his personal popularity at a career low and 57 percent of Americans disapproving of his handling of the economy. Yet he leads the potential GOP field.
There are chances for the Republicans in next year’s elections, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, in particular, nipping close to Obama in the latest ABC News-Washington Post poll. Economic pessimism, its highest in two years amid soaring gas prices, raises serious political peril for the president. But he benefits from two factors: personal approval that, while down, still exceeds his job rating, and substantial doubts about the opposing party’s lineup.
Forty-three percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they’re satisfied with the choice of candidates for the GOP nomination for president next year, compared with 65 percent satisfaction with the field at exactly this point four years ago. Nearly as many leaning-Republicans are dissatisfied with the field as are satisfied, and far more have no opinion of their potential candidates: 17 percent now vs. 3 percent at this point in 2007.
If those three are my choices, I’d rather opt out of the election and the country. This is dismal! No one is really satisfied with the presidential line-up. I don’t know about you but my choices at the local level have been abysmal for years. If there’s one candidate that really looks like they could actually make a change, a group of anti-abortion nuts, businesses, or other niche interest group comes out of the woodwork to tank them. Our political system is like the proverbial septic tank letting the worst float to the top.
Obviously, money drives races any more. It’s unlikely we can get that changed unless every state starts a ballot initiative for some kind of campaign finance reform. Politicians are like crack addicts that are unlikely to go to rehab and more likely to sound like Charlie Sheen and his ‘winning’ chimera. The problem is that now we have narrow interests funneling money into advertisements–ala swiftboating–that look like the message come from grass roots movements but are they really are the same old, same old that bring the same old, same old to Washington. It’s only a new face. It is not a new person or an agenda of real change.
I’m still amazed to find any one that doesn’t see the astroturf in the Tea Party with the now obvious funding of the Koch Brothers and the like. I’m sure that the investigation into all those ‘little’ donors to OFA will turn out finding yet another, perverse form of bundling. As Caro from Make Them Accountable believes, it’ll probably show that a bunch of Goldman Sachs people bought prepaid debit cards and had a hey-day. The media is so corporate any more that they won’t focus on the jobs crisis, they’re running with the political pack to funnel more public assets to their stockholders. Only the farthest reaches of Internatlandia appear to still be on the good side of the New American Looking Glass.
What a mess! I’m beginning to think we’re just on the verge of the collapse of the empire and there’s not much we can do about. The last ten years have been all about the wrong things. Just today, the UK Guardian released information on the relationship between big Oil and the Blair government’s decision to invade Iraq. I’m just assuming that there’s a Dubya/Cheney set of meetings and memos there too. More proof to support our well-founded skepticism of any motive but obscene profit-seeking from the already powerful and wealthy. We know that entire Iraq debacle was as contrived as ignoring the policies that would create jobs and growth and actually do something about the federal debt and deficit. The emphasis recently on tax cuts has simply exacerbated all the problems but is still held up as the panacea. The arm waving and speeches are just distractions from the real agenda. Sadly, some folks still want to believe that those fresh faces really are more than just masks.
It’s like we’ve all gone through the mirror to some evil wonderland. Help, we’ve fallen through and we can’t get up or out!
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