Monday Reads: Let’s get Political

Good Morning!

I’m still not puzzled by the lack of the hopey changey stuff because,as you know, I was never completely convinced of it all from the get-go.  However, I am confused by how Republicans are ruled by the shrillest of their shrill base and the Democratic Party–and its leaders–could care less about theirs.  I still feel I have no place to go. So, let’s look at a few political headlines this morning and see if we can come up with some place other than an island of our own.

I guess no one takes you seriously unless you can endlessly fund some one’s political career. Voting for a republican is not even a rational choice any more because it’s the party of enslaving women. Voting for a third party candidate is a gesture signifying a lot but creating nothing.  Voting democrat is just damned depressing.  There is a real messed up set of people in charge of things these days.

First, a very good question is why the electorate soundly rejects right wing policies but we still have right-wingers running America. Here’s a discussion of that from  Salon and Amitai Etzioni as reprinted by Alternet.

There is more than may appear in President Obama’s plan to cut the social safety net in his  new budget proposal. The offer, on the face of it, reflects a significant violation of a major liberal creed, discarding the strongest liberal political card and Obama’s peculiar negotiation style of making major concessions at the opening of a give-and-take session. But it also reflects the sad but true fact that the dynamics of American politics cannot be understood in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans. Party labels aside, the nation is still being ruled by what I call a majority “conservative party.”

If Democrats and Republicans were the true divide, the meager gun control measures recently introduced in the Senate would have the majority needed to pass. After all, there are 53 Democratic Senators (and two Independents who generally side with them). Moreover, this time, the threat of a GOP filibuster is not to blame. Yet the Democratic majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, removed the assault weapons ban from the draft bill because some 15 Democratic senators, in effect, supported the conservative pro-gun position, making up — with the Republican senators — that majority “conservative party.” Thanks to this party, the same legislative defeat is about to befall liberal proposals to curtail high-capacity magazines. This leaves only better background checks on the table, but these, too, will inevitably be rendered ineffective by the conservatives via the underhanded gutting of enforcement (more about this shortly).

Social security and gun safety are but a couple of the numerous issues on which conservatives in Washington get their way and the minority liberal party loses out. Most recently, every Republican and 33 Democratic conservatives came together to repeal a tax on medical devices, a major source of funding for Obamacare. And on Dec 28, the conservative party — 42 Republicans, 30 Democrats and 1 Independent senator — voted to extend the foreign intelligence law known as FISA, opposed by civil libertarians. We should further expect that the conservative party will keep winning on many fronts, from greatly limiting all new investments in education to unduly slashing social spending.

We still have a president that gives the right an extremely good deal right off the top and it does nothing more than piss them off while they ignore him to run a full scale war on every one that’s not a straight white christian male in this country.  The nation turns its lonely eyes to a future President Hillary Clinton.  Some times you just have to spend your week end shaking your tired old head.  I can’t imagine that right wing republicans will treat a woman any better than a black man. Here’s how the Brits at the Sunday Times see it. BTW, the Times is a Murdoch Publication.  So, be very concerned.

A TOP Democratic fundraiser and confidant of Bill and Hillary Clinton for more than two decades is advising a new group laying the foundations for a possible 2016 presidential bid by the former secretary of state.

Clinton has a 61% approval rating — 10% higher than Obama’s, making her the most popular politician in the US. A McClatchy-Marist poll released last week found she would defeat any Republican opponent. She is also far ahead of the vice-president, Joe Biden, her nearest Democratic rival.

A recent National Journal poll of senior Democratic insiders found that 81% believed Clinton would be their 2016 nominee. “Just the perception she may run has already cleared the field,” said one.

Even MoDo has something to say about that.

Hillary jokes that people regard her hair as totemic, and just so, her new haircut sends a signal of shimmering intention: she has ditched the skinned-back bun that gave her the air of a K.G.B. villainess in a Bond movie and has a sleek new layered cut that looks modern and glamorous.

In a hot pink jacket and black slacks, she leaned in for a 2016 manifesto, telling the blissed-out crowd of women that America cannot truly lead in the world until women here at home are full partners with equal pay and benefits, careers in math and science, and “no limit” on how big girls can dream.

“This truly is the unfinished business of the 21st century,” she said. But everyone knew the truly “unfinished business” Hillary was referring to: herself.

“She’s gone to hell and back trying to be president,” Carville said. “She’s paid her dues, to say the least. The old cliché is that Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. But now Republicans want a lot of people to run and they want to fall in love. And Democrats don’t want to fight; they just want to get behind Hillary and go on from there.”

I thought MoDO was only capable of bromance? At this point, the entire political establishment is ignoring voters so why will the pundits eventually behave differently?

Oh, well, there are still those men that really are beside themselves thinking of the good old days when women were at their beck and call.  Consider the case of Fat Tony Scalia who makes decisions upon which all of our lives and rights depend.  BB sent me this one and I nearly dropped my phone when I read this quote.

Here’s what he says when describing a class picture:

“The teacher standing in the back—that was a lady named Consuela Goins, and she was a wonderful teacher. Every cloud has a silver lining, and one of the benefits of the exclusion of women from most professions was that we had wonderful teachers, especially the women who today would probably be CEOs.”

In a single sentence, Scalia manages to imply that wonderful teachers are a thing of the past — and that being a business leader automatically makes somebody an excellent teacher.

Then, there’s those guys that insist they’re on the side of women, but you know … we really just need to get a sense of humor, or perspective or something … Tom Matlack is once again telling women they have feminism all wrong because, well you know, father knows best.  It’s another whining boy!  The girls just don’t understand his sensibilities!

Just today, Matlack published another whiny post that basically equates to “Why me? WHY. (Me)” opining, yet again, feminist “attacks” on men, cloaked in this “I really care about women’s liberation, but women are doing it wrong” thing he’s become so fond of.

When a commenter says the following:

If feminists were truly concerned about equality they would not be seeking superiority. There are more challenges that we as men are facing today that females are not. Frankly society is not stepping up to the plate to bat for us. “They just don’t care.”

Tom responds saying he “couldn’t agree more.” These aren’t the words of an ally. This is MRA stuff, plain and simple.

So here’s the thing, Tom. Feminism doesn’t want you. The last thing we need is some rich, white dude explaining to us how REAL liberation should happen. You’ve proven yourself over and over again to be a sexist douche who thinks feminists are bashing all men simply because they call YOU out on your bullshit. YOU are part of the problem. And anyone with two brain cells can see that a man who goes around calling feminists crazy isn’t of any help to the feminist movement.

So here’s my suggestion: Stop talking about feminism. Stop talking about equality. Stop pretending to be on women’s side. You aren’t. You’re on your side. Your opinion on our movement is irrelevant and we keep telling you as much, yet you continue trying to force your opinions about women and “equality” onto the world and then get all butthurt when we tell you, once again, that you aren’t helping. What do you need from us? You’re already making more money than any of us evil feminist bloggers. Do you need attention? Kind of like a spoiled child? LOOK AT ME. ME. ME. Why not just come out, once and for all, as just another MRA who can’t put together a coherent argument to save his life?

Yes, yes yes … men have “special challenges” like trying to figure out which higher paying job to take.  Sheesh.  Just think of how rough the new leader of North Korea has it … it’s just tough out there being a manly man …

A South Korean newspaper is reporting that North Korean troops are scurrying around the site where it tested a nuclear bomb on February 12, its third ever. All signs point to a fourth, and the timing couldn’t be worse. “There are recent active movements of manpower and vehicles at the southern tunnel at Punggye-ri,” says the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo. “We are monitoring because the situation is similar to behavior seen prior to the third nuclear test.” Meanwhile, South Korean officials say that they expect North Korea to test another missile this week, probably on Wednesday.

Well, this isn’t good. The tense situation between the North Korea and, well, pretty much everyone on Earth has been escalating in the weeks since that third test and has become increasingly severe since last week, when supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s top brass promised a “merciless” attack on the United States. South Korea is more or less preparing for a war, while the United States has threatened a swift and decisive response it there is an attack. Even though President Obama’s senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer played down the threat of violence — he said this is just “a pattern of behavior we’ve seen from the North Koreans many times — the U.S. military’s been drawing up a plan in case it does. Accordingly, the U.S. commander in South Korea canceled a pre-planned trip to Washington, just in case something does go down this week.

This all puts the U.S. in a really awkward position. On one hand, it needs to be prepared for the worst, hence the planning. However, it doesn’t want to overdo it, since that might scare the North Koreans into a launching a preemptive attack. At the same time, the U.S. is working hard to keep South Korea calm, because if they get too anxious and launch their own attack or even appear to be preparing one, North Korea could try to hit them first. That would be bad. On the other hand, the government really doesn’t want to scare the bejesus out American citizens.

Cannonfire argues that this may be a show while lil Kim sends us a smaller package in a shipping container. Could NK have a portable nuke?

All the news coming out of North Korea indicates war. The only thing that does not indicate war is the simple, obdurate fact that Kim’s situation is hopeless. He cannot win. I doubt that he could keep the fight going for longer than a day. If he strikes, he dies, along with many of his countrymen (presuming he cares about them).So the question comes down to this: Does Kim Jong-Un want to fulfill his sick, violent fantasies more than he wants to live?Suddenly, I’m flashing on Adam Lanza…

Paging Dennis Rodman (via SNL).

So, speaking of neanderthals, let’s end with the US idiot who supports weapons of mass destruction.  Here’s what Connecticut governor said about the NRA’s Wayne La Pierre yesterday.

Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy had some harsh words for NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday, comparing the gun lobby chief to “clowns at the circus.”
Appearing on CNN‘s “State of the Union” with Candy Crowley, Malloy hit back at LaPierre over his dismissal of Connecticut’s strict new gun laws.

“Wayne reminds me of the clowns at the circus. They get the most attention,” Malloy said.

“And that’s what he’s paid to do. But the reality is is that the gun that was used to kill 26 people on Dec. 14 was legally purchased in the state of Connecticut, even though we had an Assault Weapons Ban. But there were loopholes in it that you could drive a truck through.”

Malloy also noted poll after poll that show around 90 percent of Americans supporting a federal expansion of universal background checks.

“This guy is so out of whack, it’s unbelievable — 92 percent of the American people want universal background checks. I can’t get on a plane as the Governor of the state of Connecticut without somebody running a background check on me.

“Why should you be able to buy a gun? Or buy armor-piercing munitions? It doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t make any sense. Thus, my reference to the circus.”

What’s on you reading and blogging list today?