There’s a new “Bobby Jindal for President” ad out that misquotes a great many newspersons without their permission. Cenk Uygur caught himself pimping for Jindal in the ad, which is pretty remarkable, since the original of his broadcast was calling Jindal stark raving insane.
It had something to do with believing that little exorcism he took part in cured a woman’s cancer. Right.
Or, how it suddenly became all Obama’s fault. Everything that happened is Obama’s fault, from daily fluctuations in the stock market (but only when they are in the downward direction), to the market and economic slide that began long before the election, to continued participation in two wars of highly dubious origin that he has not yet been able to extract us from.
There was a bombing in Iraq yesterday and people died! Impeach him for war crimes!
Any of the deregulation that the Republicans fought so hard for was actually Barney Frank’s or Ted Kennedy’s or Harry Reid’s or Nancy Pelosi’s fault. The administration that rammed though endless such policies with full Republican support and Democratic acquiescence (can you say “bi-partisanship”?) actually played no role, and was forced against its will to do all these things. That’s why Bush wrote all those signing statements that he was actually going to ignore deregulation and continue to enforce the laws as they previously stood, right?
No, wait! It was Bill, Clinton’s fault, Jimmy Carter’s fault! It was all FDR’s fault!
The banks were manipulated by poor people who forced them to make loans without asking for their income or verifying it! And now those poor people have lost their jobs and and want to collect unemployment, how dare they try to get something for nothing! Get off their lazy butts and find a job, there’s plenty of work for everybody who wants it!
And of course, my favorite: We don’t need to have regulations enforced, because anybody who would permit themselves to be ripped off deserved it!
Ahem.
Bush didn’t have anything to do with any of the disaster! And he’s not really a conservative anyway! He was actually a puppet, a President who sat helpless as the minority party around him controlled him like a puppet!
It has gone beyond “sore loser” into irrationality with a good dose of mental illness thrown in. Watch Glenn Beck cry on television sometime and tell me he doesn’t recall Howard Beale, the mentally ill newscaster in the movie Network being manipulated for news ratings.
Some amazing psychological delusions are taking place around us, not just on the right, of course. After reposting yesterday’s blog entry on how Rasmussen is perceiving the true political divide to be between not Republicans and Democrats, nor liberals and conservatives, but rather between two groups they term “Populists” and “the Political Class”, my diary there was filled with snarky comments from people who didn’t even read it or the links. They ignored the point, which was nothing more than “This is really interesting. It could mean something. We should keep an eye on it” and wrote comments on how polls actually don’t mean anything if they don’t agree with you, and Rasmussen polls are worthless.
There then followed a long diary complaining that those on the left should stop criticizing Obama’s choice of Geithner, because (a little sketchy here) it doesn’t matter who is Secretary of the Treasury or whether they have the confidence of the American people or their unpopularity is dragging down the entire administration. It doesn’t matter what the policy of the Treasury or the administration is. And besides, we couldn’t possibly understand what those people do. They are much smarter than us. Blah, blah, blah. And that Paul Krugner is an idiot, something only a moran, thought processes paralyzed with self-delusion, could say with a straight face.
But getting back to the “It’s all Obama’s fault” delusion, these people are finally recognizing what a mess the country is in. They voted for that guy twice, they supported him fully, they viciously attacked everybody who didn’t support him fully. He did exactly what he said he was going to do. They got what they asked for, what they were told to demand, and it didn’t work. It was not a disaster, not even a catastrophe, but a cataclysm. As Jon Stewart said, “He broke the world.” So now they need a way to absolve themselves from the shame of their collusion.
For 8 years he was their man. It is weighting them down like a ton of bricks, and truth and reconciliation can only come from within, and not from the voices on the radio.
The stages of grief:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
I was rather disappointed to hear that the administration has decided that zombie banks should be saved so that the people that ran them into the ground can enjoy continuity of employment, even though there is no evidence that they will start lending anytime soon.
It hasn’t worked yet, so we need to keep throwing money at them. Sooner or later the economy will suddenly snap back where it was before the crash.
The administration is pretty gung-ho on this. Even Christine Romer said that they want banks to lend like crazy, which any sane outsider would probably say is part of what got us in this mess in the first place.
Me? I read some of these articles, shake my head, and say, “Yeah…”
Here‘s a little story for you on J.P. Morgan’s upcoming purchase of two luxury jets and construction of an $18 million state of the art hangar.
Two quotes from the article:
“It’s a remarkably boneheaded decision,” said corporate watchdog Nell Minnow, the editor and founder of The Corporate Library, a group that provides independent corporate governance research and analysis. “It’s completely tone deaf.”
Alright. We all get that one.
But this one…
But on March 11, the chairman of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, said he could not understand why corporate America has such a bad image.
“When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said.
Dimon, whose 2008 compensation package, according to SEC documents, was worth more than $19 million in salary, stock and options, declined to speak with ABC News about the proposed plans.
Hello? A sure sign that he thinks he is a member of the Financial Wizards class, basically different from you and me.
Finally, a Rasmussen poll has been released showing that overall 24% of Americans have a favorable opinion on how Geithner has been doing his job, and 44% have an unfavorable opinion.
What is especially telling is that of what Rasmussen deems the “Political Class” (“Financial Wizards” and wannabes, according to my terminology), 76% are favorable, while among Populists, 12% have a favorable opinion on him. The divide is not between Democrats and Republicans, it is between those who are well-connected and those who see them as out of touch with reality.
Finally, another article from Rasmussen, this one on their concept of “Political Class” and “Populist”. Very interesting. The Populists are the great majority, unrelated to party lines. A smart political strategist might be able to do something with this.
I posted this on the DailyKos, where I got a lot of snark from people who are opposed to the fact that everybody doesn’t agree with them. Hardly anybody even read the Rasmussen article, and they apparently didn’t need to do that to tell me that scientific polling means nothing if the results do not agree with your own opinion.
Disregard polling at your own risk.
Now for a little lecture on the psychology of cheating. It’s a little long, but it’s extremely engaging and very topical.
With the added pressure of a shattered economy, more and more angry men are loadin’ up the guns and goin’ on a rampage. They’re shooting their families, their neighbors, their former co-workers, and a whole bunch of strangers who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They’re targeting women, minorities, and liberals.
The demagogues on hate radio and television like to think of themselves as being at the forefront of a glorious movement, where gun nuts armed to the teeth will seize power with a few deft and well-coordinated maneuvers and return it to “Real Americans”, whatever they are, and have the country run by a paramilitary fascist force.
The unfortunate fact is that the people with the guns are not tactical military geniuses. They are desperate, close to insolvency and homelessness. They blame everyone but the politicians whose policies are responsible for their misery. For all the endless posting on unmoderated right-wing sites and repeated calls and emails to their Congresspeople, they are small in number, and it is impossible for them to maintain the delusion of ubiquity without seeing an occasional crack in the facade.
Nor are the hate-mongers who are trying to encourage their supporters to arm themselves for the coming insurrection geniuses, although they certainly see themselves as just that. (Hint: If you think you are the only sane person in the country, you are neither.)
Many of the armed warriors believe that the Rapture is imminent. Like Sarah Palin, they may believe that we are in a cosmic struggle between good and evil, between witches and demons on one side and angels on the other, and apparently those angels are carrying semi-automatic weapons.
People like this are literally on a crusade.
Rather than forming “well-regulated militias”, these people will crack one at a time, taking out whoever they can shoot before they are cornered and kill themselves.
I see no difference between this and a guy in Iraq who straps on a bomb, walks down to the market and blows up himself and a dozen others for a political cause and a fast forward into heaven.
Bush and his Legacy Triage Team™ have been hitting The Bush Legacy™ really hard lately. The crack Historical Revision Writing Team™ has been hard at work rewriting history, what else? Sorry guys, you can’t have it both ways. Of course history will judge him somewhat differently, at least partly based on what we’re going to find when the whole, filthy, corrupt, venial facts come out. The Bush Legacy Triage Project™ attempt to control debate right now is necessary because any unbiased review of the events of the past eight years makes him look worse. The assumption that somehow people will forgive, forget, or somehow discount as unimportant the criminal things that the current administration has been responsible for is laughable wishful thinking.
Put another way, demanding that we reserve judgment on the effectiveness of the Failed Bush Presidency™ while insisting that we declare the escalation surge a success right now, before the escalation surge and/or war is over and certainly before we can see if it had any effect on a lasting peace in the country… The notion is absurd.
Getting real now, here’s a little story from last week based on a friendly little interview of Dick Cheney in a Wyoming newspaper, where he claimed 1.) he never pays attention to polls and 2.) he doesn’t understand why people hate him.
Now the fact that 2.) would indicate he really does know what the polls are saying, meaning 1.) is a lie. Yeah, we’re all flabbergasted, but go ahead and enjoy the article.
The Huffington Post is a great place to look for the sort of news of interest to the left which is ignored by mainstream media. They cover general interest stories, as well as all kinds of political details about Obama appointments that would only interest the most politically-oriented leftists.
They also print blog entries. I’m not sure what it takes to be a blogger there, but there is definitely some kind of screening and approval process that goes on. A lot of them are interesting, but unlike the Daily Kos (where it’s okay to admit you’re a poor, struggling radical), there seem to be quite a few who are…how to put it…self-consciously upper-middle class. Sometimes I wonder how people like that get approved in the first place.
I recall reading one a while back where the author, a woman, blathered on about how any woman who considers herself a feminist should support the $150,000 shopping spree that Sarah Palin helped herself to, because it’s unfair that men’s clothes cost more than women’s (true) and that women are expected to have a larger wardrobe than men (also true), or else they may be savaged by the press. But $150,000? That’s worth twice the value of my house. They could have clothed her for a quarter of that money, and should have, considering how many people are doing without necessities in this economic downturn. Besides, $20,000 was the budget she was given in the first place.
And the writer started in on how Palin had every right to take her kids with her on political junkets they had not been invited to and charge it to the state, and women should support her on this…
Let’s just say that there were no supportive comments and the entry disappeared within a few hours.
But onward. There’s a blog entry by a woman who is reciting her life history as reflected in the Black Friday sales she has attended, and how she is marshaling on despite loss of family members and the depressing economic outlook. Um, brava?
I have to admit that I am prejudiced here. I am, in fact, so un-American that I have never viewed recreational shopping as a virtue, nor shopping like a crazy person when you hate to shop for stuff you don’t need.
But anyway…
There was a post yesterday by Beth Broderick, Poor…it’s the new rich that just totally had me shaking my head. The gist of the article is that upper-middle class people have all these obligations, like mortgages and tuition at pricey exclusive colleges, and their investments have fallen in value. But we’ll do whatever it takes to get by, and by golly, we will make it!
But poor people, they are not weighted down by possessions, they have their spirit, and they have each other, so no matter what happens they are far richer than ‘us’.
Like, excuse me, so if poor people have each other but neither heat nor food, they’ll still be fine? Talk about self-serving, it made me want to puke. Actually, it reminded me of this old Onion article.
It looks like the keystone kops running the election process in the state of Alaska stole it.
Now, after the results of the last election (clearly tampered with in several states) and the Republican voter suppression in the process of happening, I am not firmly convinced that there was not a “Diebold Effect” that Obama had to overcome by performing even better than predicted. But considering that the group that was most underrepresented in the polls—younger voters—is also his strongest supporter, this was possible.
The issue is that in order to steal an election so that it stays stolen, you have to make the results appear plausible. Irregularities stick out like a sore thumb. In the last two elections, there were widespread irregularities in Ohio, where Democratic precincts “voted” 100% (or even higher) Republican and Florida had to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of minority voters in order to get the results they wanted. These are just examples. The issue is that the losing candidates and their party (the Democratic party) decided not to make a stink, to be “conciliatory”, and the mainstream media decided to suppress it, although it was a fascinating read.
By tampering with the programs of voting machines or optical scanners, you can shave enough votes to have an effect in a close election, and it’s hard for anybody to be the wiser.
But in this election, the polls pretty much agreed with the results. So if that happened, it wasn’t enough to affect the result, and as yet we do not see irregularities.
Except in Alaska, where numerous precincts voted more than 100%, vote totals are way down from the previous election, even thought there was lots of enthusiasm for all races in the state, and the convicted felon Ted Stevens who looked like he was going lose big instead won big.
It was part of the plan for Stevens to win, then resign. Palin would run for his seat in the Senate. But that wouldn’t work out if his opponent failed.
How many Wasilla Faith Warriors (people from Palin’s apocalyptic cult—which has declared its intention of infiltrating the government and taking control from the godless) are managing local elections? Remember, these are people with such an intense faith in the Bible that they don’t see anything else as important. How else could she have no knowledge that Africa is not a country? She has tried to blame the release of this information by claiming that the people who said it are “small-minded and bitter”. Yes, bitter at having to work with her and her nasty personality. But she did not deny that she believed Africa was a country. She thought the question was unfair.
Context: When South Africa came up in discussion, she thought they were talking about the southern part of the country of Africa…
And in case you missed it, she has no understanding of science, either. She believes that dinosaurs walked the earth with humans 6000 years ago.
But getting back to the Alaska “election results”, it is incompetent people like her that would pull such a blatantly transparent election theft, people she has undoubtedly appointed at all levels, also those who have been working to get themselves elected locally. They think God wants them to win by any means. No laws apply to them. The only thing that matters is not getting caught.
They just couldn’t figure out how to make it look like it was a fair election. They didn’t think it mattered, because these are people who do not see this country as you and I do, to steal a quote from Sarah. And they just can’t imagine how people like us think.
Yeah, she’s accusing her opponent of being an atheist, which she’s not, of course. But neither of them is giving us any indication that they have a clue that it’s not only legal to be an atheist, but it’s also not legally an impediment to public service.
Now clearly the public has been bamboozled into believing that the vast majority of us are “God-believers” who all agree on just about every religious, economic, and political issue (“Hey, that’s ME!” you’re supposed to say at this point.). “The Others” are Muslims, atheists, satanists, demon-worshippers, witches, and who knows what else, and for some of these fanatics, all at the same time. They believe that those who do not belong to a church aligned with theirs are evil amoral people who are out to get you.
But that is an issue for another post. Right here and now, you can watch the little video I put together to show what I find truly scary about Liddy Dole.
Gosh, I forgot to hit publish, and what do you know? I found this:
Kudos to Keith Olberman for digging up the facts. Who’d have thought that only a couple of months ago Palin herself was bragging about making Alaska a bastion of socialism, from sharing the wealth of big oil companies with the public, to taking pride in the fact that the state’s resources were owned by the public. She even used the word “Socialist”.
Ever wondered how she did it, got that delivery perfectly programmed? This simple flowchart breaks it down into a series of steps that even Sarah was able to follow.
By the way, it now appears she’s going around blaming Katie Couric for being too hard on her, actually expecting her to answer, uh, questions that anybody else would have been expected to answer as well.
