Tuesday Reads

Posted: November 15, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads, Republican politics, Surreality, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 48 Comments

Good Morning!! It is just me, or is the news getting weirder with each passing day?

Last night Jerry Sandusky who, with a little help from his friends, has destroyed the reputation of a large university and created the worst scandal in sports history, appeared on the new NBC show Rock Center. Sandusky told Bob Costas he didn’t sexually abuse little boys–he just “horsed around” with them in the showers.

When asked by Costas, “Are you a pedophile,” Sandusky responded “No.”

Joe Paterno’s one time defensive coordinator was charged earlier this month with 40 counts of sexually abusing eight boys. He is currently free on a $100,000 bond and has denied any wrongdoing. The allegations date back to 1994, according to a grand jury report. A grand jury report detailed claims of alleged sexual encounters with young boys in Sandusky’s home, hotels and Penn State locker rooms.

“I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact,” said Sandusky.

When pressed by Costas about what Sandusky was willing to concede that he’d done was wrong, Sandusky said, “I shouldn’t have showered with those kids.”

He touched their legs? Talk about a non sequitur. Sandusky’s lawyer should have told him not to talk to the media.

NPR’s Morning Edition is running a three-part series on Ayn Rand’s influence on U.S. politics. The first episode was on yesterday. They reported on an interview that Mike Wallace did with Rand in 1959.

Wallace is in a chair, on a stark set, holding his notes and a cigarette. Across from him sits Rand, a native Russian, small and sharp and a little nervous. Wallace asks her to outline the idea she calls “objectivism.”

It is, she says, a system of morality “not based on faith” or emotion, “but on reason.”

Rand wholly rejected religion. She called it a weakness, even a parasite — one that convinces people their purpose is to work for the betterment of others. In fact, she says, for man, the truth is just the opposite.

“His highest moral purpose is the achievement of his own happiness,” she says.

Wallace asks Rand about politics and about government programs and regulations that have improved many people’s lives.

“I feel that it is terrible that you see destruction all around you, and that you are moving toward disaster until and unless all those welfare state conceptions have been reversed and rejected,” Rand answers.

These programs are destroying individual liberties, Rand says, especially the freedom of producers, entrepreneurs, businessmen. The government has no right to take their property, she says….

“I am opposed to all forms of control. I am for an absolute, laissez-faire, free, unregulated economy.”

I still don’t understand how Republicans can buy into Rand’s philosophy and then claim the right to control women’s lives based on their fundamentalist nonsensical religious beliefs. If you really think about it, what they’ve done is taken Rand’s gospel of selfishness and pretended that was Jesus’ message too.

Yesterday, President Obama went golfing with a friend who was recently caught in a prostitution sting.

“The president’s fourball at the Mamala Bay Golf Course includes his long-time friend Robert “Bobby” Titcomb who was arrested and plead no contest in May to soliciting a prostitute, Marvin Nicholson, and White House advance man Pete Selfridge,” the report read.

In April, Titcomb was arrested in Honolulu and charged with a misdemeanor for soliciting a prostitute after he approached an undercover police officer. Titcomb’s attorney, William Harrison, said at the time that Titcomb did not fully agree with the facts of the case, but plead no contest because he wanted to take responsibility.

He was fined $500 and the conviction was expunged from his record in October, following six months without further incident.

Obama and Titcomb have been friends since attending the Punahou School together in Honolulu, according to Hawaii News Now.

That should give the Republican candidates something to be outraged about in the next debate. Why are there so many of those debates, anyway?

King Abdullah II of Jordan has called on Syria’s President Bashar Assad to resign.

Syrian President Bashar Assad faced heightened economic and political pressures Monday, as Europe imposed a new round of financial sanctions and King Abdullah II of Jordan called on the embattled autocrat to step down.

Meanwhile, the Arab League, which on Saturday moved to suspend Syria because of its failure to implement a league-brokered peace deal, said it was preparing to send a delegation of up to 500 observers into Syria. Details were still being worked out with Damascus, the league’s secretary-general, Nabil Elaraby, told reporters in Cairo.

Syria has said it would welcome Arab League observers, but the Assad regime has remained defiant in the face of Arab demands that it halt violence against civilian protesters.

[….]

The Syrian uprising began in March near the Jordanian border in the southwestern provincial city of Dara. Opposition activists reported that at least 28 people were killed Monday in that area, some in clashes between armed rebels and security forces at the city’s northern entrance. The official government news agency said at least two law enforcement officers were killed and an unspecified number wounded in clashes with a “terrorist group” in the vicinity of Dara.

The opposition reported at least 50 killed nationwide Monday. The death toll could not be independently confirmed.

Herman Cain had a serious case of brain freeze yesterday when he was asked if he agreed with President Obama’s position on Libya. From the NY Daily News:

The GOP presidential hopeful looked hungry for a cheat sheet when the editorial board of the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel asked him if he supported Obama’s backing of the revolution that toppled Moammar Khadafy.

“Okay … Libya,” Cain responded haltingly, according to a video of the interview.

He stared at the ceiling, fiddled with his blazer, blinked a bunch of times and pushed his water bottle away from him on the table.

Eleven seconds later, he spoke:

“President Obama supported the uprising, correct?” said the normally chatty former head of the Godfather’s Pizza chain.

“President Obama called for the removal of Khadafy — just wanted to make sure we are talking about the same thing,” he added, as if trying to goad his interviewers into confirming what he said was true.

More staring at the ceiling. “Nope, that’s a different one,” he blurted out, waving his hand, adjusting his chair and crossing his legs.

And so on. There’s lots more. Watch it:

What a dope!!

That’s it for me. What are you reading and blogging about today?

Sexual Harassers, Adulterers, Animal Abusers, and Crooks! OH MY!

Posted: November 14, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Republican politics | 9 Comments

The party of Culture Warriors sure knows how to pick them!  It seems that all you have to do is say that you’ll sign into law things that the American Taliban demands and leave your own morality at the door, and you’re on top for the race for the world’s number one leader!

IMMorality Play Refresher:

Herman Cain:  Serial Sexual Harraser

A doctor who once dated Herman Cain accuser Sharon Bialek came forward today to say that he remembered Bialek telling him in 1997 that Cain had “touched her in an inappropriate manner,” and that he was the one who urged her to contact lawyer Gloria Allred and go public with her accusation.

Dr. Victor Zuckerman of Shreveport, Louisiana, who appeared at a Monday afternoon press conference with attorney Gloria Allred, said he had decided to go public himself in order to rebut Herman Cain’s public statement that he had no idea who Sharon Bialek was and couldn’t recall ever meeting her. “I’m here to shed light on whether or not Herman Cain knows Sharon Bialek.” Zuckerman also admitted that he, like his ex-girlfriend, had experienced financial difficulties, but said he was not coming forward in order to profit.

Four different women have accused the Republican presidential frontrunner of sexually harassing them while they worked at the National Restaurant Association. Karen Kraushaar and a second woman filed internal complaints with the trade group and received financial settlements. A third woman told the Associated Press she had considered filing a complaint against Cain but decided against it because a coworker had already filed.

Newt Gingrich:  Crook,   Serial Adulterer, and  Cad

Leaves Speaker position because of numerous ethics violations

Gingrich and foundations he was associated with were under investigation for numerous ethics violations, primarily concerning using tax exempt status for organizations designed to further his political goals and making misleading statements to congress. In December 1998 he paid $300,000 of his own money to settle the last of these charges.

Cheats on two wives

But the most notorious of them all is undoubtedly Gingrich, who ran for Congress in 1978 on the slogan, “Let Our Family Represent Your Family.” (He was reportedly cheating on his first wife at the time). In 1995, an alleged mistress from that period, Anne Manning, told Vanity Fair’s Gail Sheehy: “We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, ‘I never slept with her.'” Gingrich obtained his first divorce in 1981, after forcing his wife, who had helped put him through graduate school, to haggle over the terms while in the hospital, as she recovered from uterine cancer surgery. In 1999, he was disgraced again, having been caught in an affair with a 33-year-old congressional aide while spearheading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

Serves wife #1 divorce papers while she’s in hospital for cancer surgery while having affair with future ex wife number 2

Here’s how Mother Jones recounted Newt’s hospital visit with Jackie, who was her husband’s former high school math teacher:

Jackie had undergone surgery for cancer of the uterus during the 1978 campaign, a fact Gingrich was not loath to use in conversations or speeches that year. After the separation in 1980, she had to be operated on again, to remove another tumor While she was still in the hospital, according to Howell, “Newt came up there with his yellow legal pad, and he had a list of things on how the divorce was going to be handled. He wanted her to sign it. She was still recovering from surgery, still sort of out of it, and he comes in with a yellow sheet of paper, handwritten, and wants her to sign it.

The source was Lee Howell, a former Gingrich campaign press secretary who had been the editor of the student newspaper at West Georgia College, where Gingrich was a history professor. As Osborne told me this week: “Most Gingrich staff people felt burned by the time they left. Howell was one of those people. But I also got [the story] from Jackie.”

Says ‘Passion for the country’ made him do it

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich gave an interview to the Christian Broadcasting Network to speak about his past indiscretions, the coming presidential race and what he calls the threat to “Judeo-Christian society.”

“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,” said Gingrich during an interview with CBN’s David Brody. “What I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them,” he continued, going on to say that he had sought “God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness.”

Mitt Romney: Animal Abuser,     Positions on things = f(target voters)

Thinks it’s just fine to tool down the highway with his pet dog caged on the roof

The reporter intended the anecdote that opened part four of the Boston Globe’s profile of Mitt Romney to illustrate, as the story said, “emotion-free crisis management”: Father deals with minor — but gross — incident during a 1983 family vacation, and saves the day. But the details of the event are more than unseemly — they may, in fact, be illegal.

The incident: dog excrement found on the roof and windows of the Romney station wagon. How it got there: Romney strapped a dog carrier — with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it — to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus’s rather visceral protest.

Massachusetts’s animal cruelty laws specifically prohibit anyone from carrying an animal “in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon.” An officer for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals responded to a description of the situation saying “it’s definitely something I’d want to check out.” The officer, Nadia Branca, declined to give a definitive opinion on whether Romney broke the law but did note that it’s against state law to have a dog in an open bed of a pick-up truck, and “if the dog was being carried in a way that endangers it, that would be illegal.” And while it appears that the statute of limitations has probably passed, Stacey Wolf, attorney and legislative director for the ASPCA, said “even if it turns out to not be against the law at the time, in the district, we’d hope that people would use common sense…Any manner of transporting a dog that places the animal in serious danger is something that we’d think is inappropriate…I can’t speak to the accuracy of the case, but it raises concerns about the judgment used in this particular situation.”

Seems to have political positions that depend on where he’s running for office.

He’s been the constant in an otherwise shifting Republican landscape, the steady leader or co-leader of the field, the standout choice in ratings of electability — yet with weaknesses in core GOP groups, shortfalls in views of his personal attributes and no apparent momentum.

And then there’s that little matter of the Massachusetts health care law.

It all adds up to a conundrum of a candidacy. In a year when the Democratic incumbent clearly is vulnerable, 33 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents pick Romney as the GOP candidate most likely to defeat Barack Obama in the 2012 election, a dozen points above his closest competitor. Yet fewer, 24 percent, support him for the nomination, basically steady the past three months, and slightly down from his peak support, 30 percent, in July.

The question for Romney, who’s scheduled to visit Iowa today, is whether electability is enough. Compared with his rating on beating Obama, just half as many leaned Republicans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll, 17 percent, see Romney as the most honest and trustworthy; 22 percent instead pick Herman Cain. On best reflecting core Republican values, 20 percent choose Romney, but essentially as many, 19 percent, go for Newt Gingrich.

Way to go American Taliban!  Please!  Some one make me a a double gin and tonic with a lime slice so I can forget about 2012!

Super Pac Founded by Karl Rove Targets Elizabeth Warren with Attack Ads

Posted: November 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: #Occupy and We are the 99 percent!, Republican politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (GPS), an organization that Karl Rove founded with Ed Gillespie, is spending nearly $600,000 on ads targeting Massachusetts Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren over her support for the Occupy Movement. From the Boston Herald:

“Fourteen million out of work, but instead of focusing on jobs, Elizabeth Warren sides with extreme left protests,” a voiceover says in the ad as text identifies Warren as “professor.”

The 30-second ad released by the conservative group Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies comes after League of Conservation Voters launched their own television campaign blasting Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown for backing “big oil.”

The ad blasts the conditions surrounding the Occupy movement’s protests.

“At Occupy Wall Street protestors attack police, do drugs and trash public parks. They support radical redistribution of wealth and violence,” the voiceover says. “But Warren boasts, ‘I created much on the intellectual foundation for what they do.’ ”

The ad ends stating, “We need jobs not intellectual theories and radical protests.”

Here is what Elizabeth Warren actually said in an interview with The Daily Beast last month:

TDB: I’m curious: Is there something that is keeping you away from this movement? Is there a reason why you haven’t embraced it?

EW: Look, everybody has to follow the law. That’s the starting point. I’ve been fighting this fight for years and years now. As I see it, this is about two central points: one, this is about the lack of accountability. That Wall Street has not been held accountable for how they broke the economy. The second is a values question, a fundamental fairness around the way that markets have been distorted and families have been hurt. I’m still fighting that fight. I’m just fighting it from this angle. I’m fighting it from … I want to fight it from the floor of the United States Senate. I think that is a place to make this difference.

TDB: Is showing solidarity with them going to get in the way of that?

EW: It’s not a question of solidarity. I just don’t think that’s the right way to say it. I support what they do. I want to say this in a way that doesn’t sound puffy. I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do. That’s the right thing. There has to be multiple ways for people to get involved and take back our country. The fight that I’m fighting now is one that is directed towards the United State Senate. That’s just how I see it.

I found out about the huge ad buy in an e-mail from Warren’s new campaign manager Mindy Meyers.

A former chief of staff to Sen. [Sheldon] Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Myers managed Whitehouse’s first campaign, as well as successful 2010 campaign of Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). She also worked for President Bill Clinton’s administration and advised Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.

“Mindy’s leadership, political savvy and strong organizing skills, along with her experience winning tough races, makes her the perfect choice to lead this campaign,” Warren said in a statement.

All I have to say is, Go, Elizabeth, Go!!

Thursday Reads

Posted: November 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 43 Comments

Good Morning!! There was another Republican debate last night. It was on CNBC, but I just couldn’t stand to watch. Luckily, Andrew Sullivan live blogged it at the Daily Beast. Sullivan isn’t too happy with the Republican choices:

9.51 pm. At this point, I have begun to really lose it watching this crew. There are only two faintly plausible, credible presidents up there, both Mormons. The rest is beyond an embarrassment, and at this moment in history, the sheer paucity of that talent is alarming. Did anyone up there give you confidence he or she could actually lead the world countering this metastasizing debt and unemployment crisis? At best, there were noises about removing burdensome regulation on businesses and a simpler tax code. But who up there could actually bring that about?

Two other things: Romney’s claim that Democrats hate profitable companies. It’s an absurd statement on its face, but as a comment on reality, it’s surreal. Profits are at record levels. If lack of profits is the reason for our employment crisis, there would be no crisis. Second: the boos for questioning a man in power who is credibly accused of sexual harassment and has settled such cases in the past is a sign of real contempt for women in such a situation. Both reveal to me a party hat has completely lost its way.

I’m beginning to wonder if these debates are helping Obama more than his own primary debates did in 2007 and 2008. Next to these doofuses, he seems reassuring. The losers of this debate: Perry and Cain. The winners? Gingrich and Obama.

Earlier, Sullivan wrote Rick Perry’s epitaph:

9.18 pm. Perry collapses. Cannot remember a list of three federal government departments he wants to abolish past the first two. Seriously. And then he says “oops.” He has all but disappeared inside his suit in this debate and is now basically done. And notice the casualness with which he intends to abolish whole government departments. Has he thought through the consequences? Or is he just a bad performance artist?

Watch it:

I’m so glad I didn’t watch!

Actually, I really don’t watch much TV, so I totally missed out on the new nationwide emergency alert test at 2PM yesterday. The Washington Post is very concerned that people like me will miss a real alert if one ever happens. They want an emergency alert system for the internet and phones.

FEMA launched a national alert system for phones in May, called PLAN, that reaches some smartphones on some national providers. The program sends out free text messages about emergency situations. However, only about 50 percent of Americans own smartphones and the program has not fully been adopted across the country.

As for Internet alerts, they work mainly on an opt-in basis. FEMA has an iPad and Android app and Twitter and Facebook accounts. However, this system of requiring Americans to actively seek out FEMA differs dramatically from the PLAN system or the Emergency Alert System. The alert system pushes messages out to Americans whether they want them or not. FEMA works with cable providers to get the word out.

It would be interesting to see the agency undertaking something similar in partnerships with major Internet companies. Could it be possible for the Google logo to turn into an alert message? Or for Twitter’s promoted ads — which appear in user timelines — to be a message from FEMA?

It may not be that long in the future for a truly integrated nationwide alert system. FEMA is working on an Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) that will employ all communication devices.

Ugh. I’d almost rather miss the warning of a nuclear attack or whatever FEMA wants to alert me to. I doubt if I’d be able to do anything to get out of the way of a nuke or a terrorist attack.

We’re hearing more about the Super Committee as the days tick down to the deadline. Supposedly, they’re supposed to figure out $1.2 trillion in cuts by Thanksgiving. Reuters has a gossipy piece on the committee’s secret inner workings: Inside Room 200, home of the “super committee”

Deep beneath the Capitol is a red-carpeted room that recently reverberated to the sound of Democrats and Republicans singing together, and then to their angry exchanges over how to fix the U.S. budget.

Welcome to Congress’s “super committee” room….

“At this point, the most serious adult conversations going in Congress are at the super committee,” a senior aide said.

“Members are driven by a sense that this is a very precarious time in U.S. history that beckons a solution,” the aide said. “But at the same time, members wrestle with political loyalties that they can’t divorce themselves from.”

Democrats are pushing to cut the deficit by up to $3 trillion over 10 years, much higher than the super committee’s target, with a mix of spending cuts and new tax revenues. But Republicans deeply oppose raising taxes, warning of job losses and damage to an already fragile economic recovery.

Read the article if you’re interested in which committee members are making friends and hanging out together. {shudder}

Whiny old Mitch McConnell claims the White House wants the super committee to fail.

After leaving the Republicans’ weekly policy luncheon, McConnell was asked about Senator Charles Schumer’s prediction yesterday that the Super Committee would likely fail to strike an agreement on a plan to cut $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years “because our Republican colleagues have said no net revenues.”

Responding today, McConnell said Schumer (D-NY), the Democrats’ primary messenger, is indicative of how Democrats and the White House want this committee to fail.

“It’s pretty clear when Chuck Schumer speaks, he’s speaking from the most partisan Democratic position,” McConnell said today. “And it does raise your suspicion that the folks down at the White House are pulling for failure. Because you see, if the Joint Committee succeeds, it steps on the story line that they’ve been peddling, which is that you can’t do anything with the Republicans in Congress.”

McConnell said the six Republicans on the 12-member committee from the House and Senate want an outcome and “do not believe failure is an option.”

Because of course McConnell and his pals aren’t the least bit partisan, and all they want is what is best for the country. /snark

Meanwhile, President Obama is getting the hell out of Dodge and leaving Congress to its own devices.

The so-called super committee will be busy with final negotiations while President Obama travels to Hawaii, Australia and Indonesia and the White House says President Obama will be getting updates on what is happening.

He likely won’t be receiving extra briefings, but the latest on the super committee meetings will be a part of his regular updates he gets while he is traveling.

Obama is going to Hawaii first for the APEC summit, then Australia for a re-scheduled trip from last year, and then Bali, Indonesia for the East Asia Summit. He leaves Friday for the week-long trip that will have a heavy emphasis on jobs and national security, which the White house says fits right into the president’s number priority – jobs.

The NYT has an op-ed by John Quiggin called Euro Crisis’s Enabler: The Central Bank. Quiggin blames ECB policies for the Eurocrisis.

Far from struggling to manage a “one size fits all” monetary policy, the bank has pursued a “one size fits nobody” policy of monetary contraction, at a time when no European economy is growing strongly. With great reluctance, the bank has agreed to support the markets for European sovereign debt through purchases of government bonds. But, unlike the policy of quantitative easing pursued by the Federal Reserve — in which the United States’ central bank amassed Treasury securities to push down long-term interest rates — the European Central Bank has insisted on “sterilizing,” or neutralizing, its purchases of government bonds by selling the securities to private-sector banks. Such a policy cannot be sustained on a scale sufficient to stabilize financial markets.

This is part of a broader problem: the European Central Bank’s conception of its own role. The bank was established in 1998, at a time when memories of the inflationary surge of the 1970s and 1980s were still fresh. It was therefore given a mandate that focused primarily on inflation, and has interpreted that mandate very narrowly.

Unlike any previous central bank in history, the bank has disclaimed any responsibility for the European financial system it effectively controls, or even for the viability of the euro as a currency. Instead, it has focused almost entirely on the formal objective of keeping inflation rates to a 2 percent target.

Quggin says that the new head of the ECB, Mario Draghi must

announce that the central bank will stand behind the sovereign debt of euro zone members, if necessary at the expense of the 2 percent inflation target. This would give governments the financial resources they needed to recapitalize banks. Since the crisis is largely one of confidence, it is likely that bond markets would stabilize without the need for large-scale bond purchases, once there was a credible commitment to intervene where necessary.

Coach Joe Paterno and President Graham B. Spanier are gone from Penn State.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Graham B. Spanier, one of the longest-serving and highest-paid university presidents in the nation, who has helped raise the academic profile of Penn State during his tenure, stepped down Wednesday night in the wake of a sexual-abuse scandal involving a prominent former assistant football coach and the university’s failure to act to halt further harm.

Spanier’s departure came as the university’s Board of Trustees also ended the 84-year-old Joe Paterno’s career, denying him his wish to finish out the season, his 46th as the head football coach and his 62nd over all at the school.

The defensive coordinator Tom Bradley will take over as interim head coach.

The university’s most senior officials were clearly seeking to halt the humiliating damage caused by the arrest last Saturday of the former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, a man who had been a key part of a legendary football program, but who prosecutors have said was a serial pedophile, one who was allowed to add victims over the years in part because the university he had served was either unable or unwilling to stop him.

Here’s a piece by addiction expert Stanton Peele about the link between “disregard for societal constraints and college sports.” Reacting to the Penn State scandal, Peele writes:

Do I really mean college sports teams encourage sexual abuse of children? Not exactly. What I mean is, college sports are so dominant at American universities that even the most heinous sex crimes will be covered over rather than being allowed to disturb the giant university-sports complex. This is perhaps especially evident at Penn State, where 84-year-old Paterno has side-stepped all criticisms during his career, and proceeded to rack up the all-time leading victory total for a major college football coach. This has “established him,” according to the Times, “as one of the nation’s most revered leaders.”

This same man declined to report Sandusky directly to police and thus permitted him—as did other university officials—to continue to use the school facilities for “chicken-hawking” (a technical term for seducing children) for 15 years! Pennsylvania officals were disbelieving that their great university could allow such a state of affairs for so long. In the words of the Times, these officials felt that while Paterno may not have committed a crime, he “might well have failed a moral test for what to do when confronted with such a disturbing allegation involving a child not even in his teens. No one at the university alerted the police or pursued the matter to determine the well-being of the child involved.”

Ahh, but the greater glory of Penn State sports was preserved!

That’s it for me. What are you reading and blogging about today?

Looking for President Goodbar

Posted: November 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics | Tags: , | 21 Comments

It’s hard not to be depressed these days when a manic Texas Governor can still get applause for giving a speech while sounding like he’s on something and an entire group of voters puts a serial sexual harasser that has no idea that China has had nukes for decades as the leader of a pack of serious bunch of no nothings. An NBC poll shows exactly how out of alignment the political class is with the American people.   The current political races shows how unable our current two party system is when it comes to actually delivering worthwhile candidates.  While the country needs jobs and economic growth, a committee of congressional power brokers looks to be as connected to both political donors and ideological fundamentalists as any of its predecessors.  What this country needs is a leader.  There appears to be none in sight.  Do we really have to embrace more of the same?

Heading into 2012, America is looking for a populist. According to the poll, a whopping 76% agree with the statement that the current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country. However, another 53% of respondents agree with the statement that the national debt must be cut significantly by reducing spending and the size of government. By the way, nearly 40% of all those surveyed agree with BOTH statements about the unfairness of the economic system and the size of government issue. Also, half of all respondents in the poll identify with either the Occupy Wall Street movement or the Tea Party (and 4% of all respondents identify with both). There’s an angry electorate out there, ideologically spread across the political spectrum. If the major party nominees are Obama and Romney, can either be seen as a convincing populist that will fill this void? Or are we headed for a multi-candidate field with 3rd and 4th party candidates for the general?

My guess is that both parties feel they can continue to eek out elections by positioning their people to independents as the lesser of evils or as change from the current evil.  Is that a real choice?  How about these confusing results from the party faithful that provide idiots to general elections including their last one that is arguably one of the worst presidents ever.

Beyond the big headlines from our new NBC/WSJ poll (the public’s pessimism, President Obama’s upside-down approval rating, Romney and Cain leading the GOP race and the president’s surprising leads over his potential GOP foes given the pessimistic views of his presidency), there are three important storylines you shouldn’t miss. The first: Rick Perry’s candidacy is in serious trouble and he might not be able to recover. In our first survey after the sexual-harassment allegations against Herman Cain surfaced, it’s Perry that actually lost ground in the Republican horserace (from 16% in October to 10% now) — while Mitt Romney (from 23% to 28%) and Newt Gingrich (from 8% to 13%) gained ground, and Cain actually stayed steady (from 27% to 27%). In addition, in a hypothetical two-way GOP race, Romney leads Perry by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, 62%-33%. (By comparison, Romney runs neck-and-neck against Cain in a similar two-way race, 49%-48%.) And Perry’s fav/unfav among REPUBLICAN primary voters is a pedestrian 33%-23%, versus Cain’s 52%-19% and Romney’s 46%-17%. Re-read those last set of numbers: Perry has HIGHER negative ratings than either Cain or Romney (at least before yesterday’s new Cain allegation).

It’s hard to feel sorry for Republicans whose southern strategy brought racists, religious whackos, and old style plantation economics supporters into their fold.  I’m just waiting for a pro-slavery plank to come out of their next platform at the convention.  But, it’s hard to see a good side of this craziness in a democracy that relies on two parties.   The policy of divide and conquer must be working for the parties some how; even if it’s not working for the American people.  Identity politics still can move an election and we won’t change anything until that changes.

While some Beltway chatter and commentary has suggested that the president is losing support with these voters, our NBC/WSJ poll — which included an oversample of 400 black respondents — paints a very different picture. According to the survey, 91% of them approve of Obama’s job (versus 44% among all poll respondents); 49% of them believe the country is headed in the right direction (versus 19% of all respondents); 92% would vote for Obama over Romney (versus 49%); 93% would vote for Obama over Cain (versus 53%); and 59% of them say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting in 2012. If Obama wins re-election next year, he can thank this support from African Americans and (to a lesser extent) Latino voters. By the way, the president doesn’t lose any African-American support even in the hypothetical three-way matchups with Ron Paul or Michael Bloomberg. The president does NOT have a problem with African-Americans; folks should stop wasting news ink and bandwidth on that topic. Beyond one or two grumpy members of the Congressional Black Caucus, there’s no ACTUAL evidence in the community at-large.

It seems that Rick Perry’s God really didn’t send his wife that message after all and the black community is going to stand by their man despite record unemployment, foreclosure rates, and numerous state-based voter suppression activities.   So, it’s looking more and more like will have a yawn inducing presidential race between Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama.  These are two men that couldn’t find a side of an issue they couldn’t support at one time or another if it helped them with the right demographic.  Both are clearly not the populists the American populace seeks.

Frankly, I’ll stay home and miss my first presidential election ever over that choice.  I will however, go out and vote for Obama if the Republicans do manage to send their whackiest of the whackies to the big show.  Isn’t this just ducky?  The economy is still waffling, the Iranians are working on weaponized nukes and the Israelis have a trigger finger itchy PM, the Eurozone is in crisis, and the best we can come up with is Obama and Perry?  Well, at least I’ll get my nap on,  come the debate season.  It’s at least a change from the evil clown horror show that’s been the Republican Presidential Primary.

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