Dick Armey’s attempt to take control of FreedomWorks is being portrayed as a failed coup attempt, but, personally, if I could get someone to pay me $400,000.00 a year to just stay away, I’d consider myself a success.
Still, we on the left can take some satisfaction in knowing that so much of that right wing money disappears into the pockets of the grifters.
It is a curious fact that it is often the case that the headlines or article titles in the New London Day are skewed rightward, even when the content is not. I believe it’s the case that the articles are titled locally, even when they come from other sources. The latest, and one of the most egregious examples, appears this morning. The NRA, as all the world knows, proposed turning our schools into armed camps. We were not told, by the way, if armed guards should also be posted in every movie theatre and fast food joint in the land, but let that pass. The proposal was ludicrous and inane. Only a Fox News pundit could think otherwise. But the Day’s editor chose to give the proposal a cloak of respectability. The web headline is an unobjectionable, if understated “NRA calls for armed police officer in every school”, but the print edition wraps the crazy in a cloak of rationality: “NRA calls for boost in school security.”
This is a case in which even the Murdoch owned New York Post got it right. The Post is right wing, but it has to temper the insanity a bit, since it is selling itself to New Yorkers, not Alabamans. Under the circumstances, it’s headline does indeed qualify as fair and balanced:
The Daily News follows suit:
Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.
There are those who feel that, the 21st having arrived, we are safe, and the Mayan prediction has proven false. However, the 21st is still here, and the end may still approacheth.
So, I don’t want to defer this a moment longer,and I can’t wait until tonight. All in all this seems more appropriate than Skeeter Davis.
Sometimes, surprising signs of hope from the most unlikely places.
The Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) voted in favor of two policy amendments proposed by outgoing president Thomas Robichaux at last night’s December meeting at McDonogh 35 College Preparatory High School.
Robichaux’s updates included adding “zero tolerance,” among other discipline actions, to its “bullying, intimidation, harassment and hazing” policy,“ and ensuring creationism, intelligent design and “revisionist history” are left out of textbooks. Read more about the policy changes in Gambit.
The textbook selection update says “No history textbook shall be approved which has been adjusted in accordance with the State of Texas revisionist guidelines nor shall any science textbook be approved which presents creationism or intelligent design as science or scientific theories.”
It also applies to teachers: “No teacher of any discipline of science shall teach any aspect of religious faith as science or in a science class. No teacher of any discipline of science shall teach creationism or intelligent design in classes designated as science classes.”
Zack Kopplin, who campaigned to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act (which City Council called to repeal in May 2011), was the only speaker on the textbook policy: “Creationism certainly is not science,” he said, warning that students not only will not meet higher education standards, but they “won’t find New Orleans jobs in the Bio District.”
(via Blog of New Orleans)
Not enough to change my mind about expelling the South from the Union, but impressive nonetheless.
In the past I’ve observed that, politics being a dirty game. When one has one’s opponent on the ground, the thing to do is stomp on his head, especially in this political clime, and especially if you are a Democrat, since you know that you’d get even worse treatment if you were down.
Obama had a different idea in 2009, which led directly to the massive defeat of 2010. Apparently, he remains convinced that he has a better way. He had Boehner backed into a corner. The entire non-crazy portion of the country (and it is still a larger number than the whackjobs)had pre-blamed the Republicans were we to tumble off the non-existent “fiscal cliff”. The Republicans were floundering for a way to please their base and not alienate the rest of the country, an almost impossible task. But Obama has apparently stepped up and saved their bacon, offering cruel, unnecessary and wildly unpopular social security cuts in exchange for..well, in exchange for less than he could have gotten by walking over the fiscal curb.
An economic case can be made for the “chained CPI” he has offered, but it’s unlikely Obama will hold out for the required protections. But even the best case that can be made yields rather trivial returns, particularly since there are perfectly effective ways to “fix” social security, something that should be deferred, in any event, until the Democrats (I know I’m fantasizing here) lay some groundwork for rational solutions, like raising the cap on the payroll tax.
But the political implications are even worse, particularly since it’s Obama that initially openly (it’s been under the national radar until now) suggested this benefit cut. Sure, the Republicans want it, and more, but they are always careful to put themselves into a position where they can implausibly argue (and implausible arguments work perfectly well for them) that it was the Democrats that did it. They did that with Medicare, and they would have done it again had the Democrats fallen for the push to raise the Medicare eligibility age. They’ll do it again in 2014 on Social Security.
Bad policy and bad politics. It’s a recurring theme in the Obama administration. What is really frustrating is that they so often verbalize awareness that they should not do something; and then they do it.
There is a lot of talk out there that this time will be different; that this time something really will be done about guns. The optimism extends even to those sections of the blogosphere where realism normally reigns. I’d love to believe it, but I think Tom Tomorrow has it absolutely right. The only real difference this time is that the NRA has to keep its head a little farther down for a few days, but they’ll be coming out from under their rocks pretty soon and all those politicians making squeaky little rational noises will find religion once again.
In case you missed it on last night’s Colbert, Sean Lennon, Mavis Staples, Jeff Tweedy and the Harlem Gospel Choir singing “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”. Sean is, I imagine, almost as old as his dad was when he died. You can certainly see that he’s a mix of both John and Yoko.
The tragedy in Newtown is very much on our minds. Already the usual suspects are trotting out their right wing memes to divert attention from our lax gun laws. Rational people can only grieve, and those of us who are parents can imagine, even if we can’t truly feel, the unbearable anguish of the parents of all those dead children.
There are some behind the scenes, “bi-partisan” negotiations about filibuster reform going on in the Senate, featuring the usual suspects:
“I think we’re having hopeful discussions,” Sen. John McCain told TPM. “We’re doing everything we can, but I don’t know if we’ll succeed. … I can’t tell you the back and forth but we are having discussions.”
Asked if negotiators have made any progress, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) quipped, “I’m sure they have — I just don’t know about it.” And is he aware of any concessions Democrats have been willing to make to avoid using the Constitutional option? “No.”
(via TPMDC)
Several years ago the bi-partisan-niks effectively removed the filibuster as a tool the minority Democrats could use. The basic deal was that the filibuster would not be ruled unconstitutional by the Republicans as long as the Democrats did not use it. It was a true bi-partisan solution, meaning that it gave the Republicans everything they wanted, including carte blanche to use the filibuster without restraint once they were in the minority, which, of course they have done, and they and the compliant media have forgotten all about the constitutional argument they advanced.
If this present group makes a deal it’s safe to say that the result will be a deal in which the Republicans agree to a set of restrictions that they will either ignore, or which will, in fact, not restrict them. That past deal worked because there were six Democrats perfectly willing to sell out their party and stick to a deal not to filibuster, guaranteeing the Republicans the 60 votes needed to end any filibuster. There is not a single Republican in the Senate who could be trusted not to violate a pledge of that sort.
