Don't Calm the Waters

Maxine Waters is beautiful when she's angry, and if you've ever seen the black Democratic congresswoman from California get angry, you know that's no male chauvinist remark.

Waters, speaking at a job fair in Atlanta this past week, complained the President Obama has not not enough about unemployment among America's black population, and she said it was time that President Obama finally and address the issues facing poor and minority Americans, and get tough with Republicans who stand in his way - and not back down like he did over the debt ceiling.

Oh yeah, and as far as the Tea Party is concerned, Waters said at a town hall meeting back in her district that the Tea Partiers "can go straight to hell."

Ha ha, the Tea Party doesn't have to, Maxine's giving them hell! :-D

To which I say, right on. Democratic leaders in Congress have to ratchet up the rhetoric to go one on one with their Guardians of Privilege (GOP) counterparts. I hope Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer don't try to go to Waters and cool the bubbling volcano in her that's ready to blow.

Drunk On Tea

House Speaker John Boehner can't get enough votes from Tea Party Republicans that will slash spending in return for a debt ceiling increase. That's the good news. The bad news is that the Senate proposal from Harry Reid remains the only alternative, and that's almost as bad as the Boehner bill. President Obama had better -no, had best - be prepared to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment to keep the country from going into default. The Tea Party is so intoxicated with their power to hold up everything, it may be the only thing anyone can do.

Obama might be a hero in the end if he can stave off cuts to the social safety net. But right now everyone in Washington is a goat.

Train Wreck

President Obama and congressional Democrats have acquiesced to all sorts of demands from House Republicans to cut spending, but Speaker John Boehner has kept moving the line in an attempt to placate the Tea Party. And the Tea Party's demands have gone beyond just cutting short-term spending on a few programs. Some zealots, like the horrible Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) has vowed to allow the government if there is no rider on the budget bill zeroing out Planned Parenthood funding to stop government funding of abortion - even though Planned Parenthood funding does not go to abortion procedures because Planned Parenthood deliberately keeps those services separate from birth control and gynecological exams.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan continues to promote his Medicare "reform" plan and his budget proposals in general, insisting that the debt will be paid off by 2050, with government spending as 14 percent of the gross domestic spending by then and corporate tax rates reduced to 25 percent - all with 2.8 percent unemployment as early as 2017! No one believes any of this, least of all Ryan's employment projections, and what Ryan wants to accomplish is based on cuts affecting programs that benefit the middle and lower classes.

Oh yeah, that $4.4 trillion figure refers not to cuts over ten years - that number is $5.8 trillion - but to the tax cuts Ryan would preserve for the wealthy.

You know, I'm dizzy from following all of these numbers . . ..

Also: Senate Republicans successfully blocked efforts by the previous, Democratic-controlled Congress to pass a budget by refusing to go along with a budget that didn't have the spending cuts they wanted. When Harry Reid tried to compromise with them, they moved the line and forced the budget to be brought up by a new Republican House and a Senate with a larger Republican minority. That doesn't sound fair, but Republicans were never about fairness. :-0

Barbarians In The Halls

Newly elected Republican members of Congress descend upon Washington this week like so many Visigoths, ready to shove their own version of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - their own - down our throats. They have this fantastic vision of cutting the deficit and getting spending under control that involves cutting or eliminating social welfare programs, repealing the health care law, and giving more tax breaks to wealthy people who don't need it. And although the Tea Party activists have been characterized as being mainly concerned with budgetary issues, no one in the mainstream media has bothered to point out that, by the way, they also want to criminalize abortion and they think climate change is a hoax.

I never thought I'd say this while Obama was President, but the United States has become even more of the sort of place any decent, intelligent, and sane person would want to leave more than it was under Bush. The nation's agenda is being set by gangs of bigoted, self-interested thugs who have blocked or attempted to block any initiative that would benefit someone other than themselves.

Adding to this sense of disgust are the people voters happily chose to send to Washington as a reflection of their values. Voters in Arizona's Third Congressional District cheerfully sent Ben Quayle to the House, determined to ignore his links to a pornographic Web site ("I was raised right") and an ad full of so many incoherent non sequiturs he made his father sound like Aristotle. In Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District, Michele Bachmann's constituents endorsed her for another term in office and rejected the much saner Tarryl Clark, while voters in Florida's Eighth Congressional District sent Alan Grayson packing in favor of Daniel Webster, a conservative Republican whose only commonality with the nineteenth-century legislator of the same name promises to be just that - his name. Down in the state's 22nd Congressional District, retired Lieutenant Colonel Allen West - an Iraq War veteran who famously shot a bullet past a prisoner's head to make him talk - has been chosen to be that district's voice and conscience.

The Senate has produced an even worse freshman class, possibly the worst in thirty years. It includes Kentucky's Rand Paul, an eye doctor who can't see the forest for the trees; Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey, whose idea of reviving the economy is to maximize profits and minimize production; Ron Johnson, Mr. Johnson of Wisconsin, who blamed climate change on "sunspots;" and, Rob Portman, elected by the voters of Ohio to provide remedies for an ailing industrial economy he helped ruin as Bush's trade representative.

I blame my fellow Americans for this. Only two-fifths of eligible voters voted, many young and minority voters who could have stopped this nightmare stayed home, and 46 percent of all Americans were, as of the middle of November, unaware that Republicans took over the House. Many Americans, rather than pay attention to the debate over the direction of the country, chose to go to the mall and max out their credit cards. Those who did get involved in the political discourse mainly listened to Glenn Beck. But who cares about Congress when another season of "American Idol" is coming? Why vote in the election when you can vote for a bunch of vapid hack entertainers for the People's Choice Awards and watch some hip-hop chick from New Jersey announce the results on the same day a perpetually tanned fellow from Ohio will likely announce his plan to abolish health care reform?

Again, I paint with a broad brush. Again, you get to watch me not care. I'm too ticked off to do so. Because I'm too outraged to be more even-handed. And how can I be anything but angry at a country that presents to the world a barbaric, horrific culture - what James Howard Kunstler calls a "clown civilization" - such as this one?

Lisa and Blanche

I never thought I'd be in this position, and I never thought I'd actually say this, but I'm glad a Republican female senator won her bid for another term and I'm equally glad that a Democratic female senator lost.

The winning Republican would be Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's senior senator, elected to a second full term as a write-in candidate, the first Senate candidate to stage a successful write-in campaign in over fifty years. Murkowski had to overcome the loss of her party's nomination to noted lumberjack impersonator Joe Miller, the power of the Tea Party, and her own mildly unwieldy Polish surname to win, but she did. And I'm extremely grateful for her victory.

In no way am I endorsing Murkowski's views or agenda. After all, this is a woman notable for trying to weaken environmental regulations, for example. Yet Murkowski is a serious, diligent legislator who represents the interests of Alaska and recognizes the importance of federal money for her state that the Tea Party program would obviously cut off. And Miller was prepared to tow the Tea Party line. Murkowski is more of a realist than many of the Senate candidates the Tea Party put forward, and her victory means that, while the next Senate will include meatheads like Ron Johnson and the horrible Pat Toomey, it will not include Joe Miller.

Oh yeah, even if all the write-in ballots Miller is challenging over their legibility and proper spelling are thrown out, he still can't win. He's currently trying to sue his way into the Senate.

Even more pleasing is that this is a blow for Sarah Palin as she prepares for a possible presidential run. Palin has long been at odds with Murkowski and her father, former Alaska governor (and senator) Frank Murkowski, having defeated him in the state Republican primary in 2006 when he ran for a second term as Alaska's governor. Palin's attempt to score another point in a blood feud with the Murkowski family by supporting Miller makes her look all the more foolish, now that he's lost. And Lisa Murkowski, unlike nationwide Republicans and other Republicans in Alaska, has come right out and said that Palin is unqualified to be President and lacks both the desire and the intellectual curiosity to govern. That makes her simpatico with her state's top Democrat, fellow senator Mark Begich.

The other welcome result in the Senate elections is the defeat of Blanche Lambert Lincoln in Arkansas. An opponent of the public health insurance option in the health care law and a supporter of business-friendly domestic policies, Lincoln defeated a more liberal candidate, Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, in the Democratic primary only to lose to Republican John Boozman in the general election. And even though Lincoln's loss means it will be that much harder for the Democrats (who are probably finished as a party anyway) to hold onto the Senate in 2012, no one is shedding any tears for this corporate Democrat. At least with Boozman, progressives will know their enemy. Good riddance.

More Questions

Today's my birthday, and I was going to refrain from writing anything on my blog today in recognition of that personal landmark, but I have some serious questions to ask regarding the aftermath of Tuesday's elections. Here they are:

Why is Nancy Pelosi being scapegoated for the Democrats's loss of the House? Nancy Pelosi, who has announced that she will run for the position of House Democratic leader in the new Congress, is being blamed for the fix the Democrats in Washington find themselves in, and many moderate House Democrats - what few there are left - are pressuring her to take herself out of contention for a leadership position. Last time I checked, the Democrats were punished at the polls based on the perception that nothing got done. Outgoing Speaker Pelosi passed in the House over four hundred bills that would have improved the lives of many people (if not for the fact that they couldn't get through the Senate). She was more instrumental than Harry Reid in passing health care reform legislation, which Reid could only pass without some of Pelosi's reforms once it became apparent that Massachusetts would replace Ted Kennedy with a Republican. This bill actually will improve the lives of many people - ask Andy Griffith. Yet Reid will still be the Senate majority leader, so why does Pelosi have to be the sacrifical lamb? Because she's a woman? Because she's from San Francisco, a place even blue-collar liberals hate? Because there are certain parts of this country where they look down on anyone with a vowel at the end of his or her name? Actually, it's probably all of the above.

Why is Mitch McConnell acting like the Senate Majority Leader? Democrats had a bright spot in the midterm elections - they kept the Senate. And, they lost fewer seats than they were expected to. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania and Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois came close to winning their respective Senate races and minimizing the party's losses even further. And, Senate Democratic incumbents Michael Bennet and Patty Murray have just been declared the winners in their respective elections in Colorado and Washington State. And Senate Democrats add a strong, tough player to their ranks in the form of Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, known for his effectiveness as a fighter for ordinary people in his role as Connecticut Attorney General. But listening to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, you'd think he's the new boss of the Senate. He certainly thinks so. But how can he control a chamber in which his side is outnumbered? Also, how can he control a Republican Senate caucus with rambunctious Tea Party stalwarts such as Florida's Marco Rubio and Tea Party godfather Jim DeMint of South Carolina? McConnell can't even control Rand Paul!

Why are the successes of Democratic gubernatorial candidates being ignored? It is true that the Democrats lost governorships in states where it's crucial to preserve Democratic advantages in redistricting for the 2012 elections. But they won back the governorship of California and held the governorship of New York. And in President Obama's home state of Illinois, Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, held onto his job. California, New York and Illinois are among the most populous states in the Union. That has to count for something.

Why is the Tea Party being heralded for their "success" at the polls? Remember - 61 percent of Tea Party candidates who ran in the 2010 elections lost. Wow, some big success!

Finally, why is the White House willing to make concessions over tax cuts or the rich? The Democrats could present sound, solid arguments that tax cuts for the top 2 percent of Americans eviscerate the economy and create few jobs, as they would have solid facts to back them up. And, they could make their case in terms that anyone, even the most minimally intelligent Fox News viewer or commentator could understand. So why is the President caving on this issue in the name of compromising with a congressional Republican leadership that is in no mood to compromise? Especially when the polls show that most Americans agree that more tax cuts for the rich are just plain wrong?

These are very relevant questions (they're not moot!). But I have no answers for any of them.

Pauline Perils

It's hard to figure out who is the most offensive of the Republican new faces that will appear in Washington in January, but right now I would guess Rand Paul by a wide margin. He's not named for Ayn Rand - his name is actually short for Randal - but he shares the selfishness-oriented and self-centered socioeconomic philosophy of Alan Greenspan's former mentor. He's actually been quoted as saying the rich should be "left alone" in any tax policy that the 112th Congress devises, and we depend on the wealthy to maintain a prosperous society. And remember, Paul has come out against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a point of fact that would have likely brought out enough black voters elsewhere but not in Kentucky, one of the whitest states south of the Ohio River.

Runners-up in the new Senate for loathsomeness Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey, who has forwarded arguments against helping to rebuild his state's beleaguered steel industry; Ohio's Rob Portman, who was George Walker Bush's trade representative and is therefore in part responsible for Ohio's current industrial malaise; and Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, who says global warming is caused by "sunspots" and has refused to answer questions on specific issues, like veterans' affairs.

But we can take comfort that Carly Fiorina, Linda McMahon, Christine O'Donnell, and the spectacularly insufferable Sharron Angle - without question the scariest ladies' auxiliary in Republican politics in recent memory (although Sarah Palin is scarier than all of them put together) - won't be in that august chamber.

The House is less august, and so that chamber can take a few crackpots. The only problem is that those crackpots - including the incoherent and personally horrible Ben Quayle - are part of the new Republican majority.

Oh, and though the mainstream media aren't likely to make a big deal out of it, only 31 percent of Republican candidates for Congress associated with the Tea Party won on Tuesday.

As for Rand Paul, who now has the power to stop legislation by himself, he can now follow the Randian (as in Ayn) philosophy of one individual against the collective body.

Led in part by Mitch McConnell.

I don't know how President Obama is going to react, but I was anything but re-assured by his lame press conference yesterday.

No Way To Treat a Lady

Eighteen months ago, I watched with horror as CNN reporter Susan Roesgen was roughed up by demonstrators at a Tea Party rally in downtown Chicago while trying to get legitimate answers to legitimate questions about their views. Almost as soon as that report aired on CNN, conservative groups complained about her conduct and demeanor as a journalist, challenging her professionalism.

CNN, hoping to avoid trouble with the Tea Party, announced in July 2009 that Roesgen's contract with the news channel would not be renewed. Apparently plenty of people found Roesgen's questions rather objectionable. Me? I find their objections highly questionable.

Well, it turns out that the pushing and shoving Susan Roesgen faced in Chicago was hardly an isolated incident but in fact the first attack against anyone the Tea Party finds intimidating ,be it a reporter or a political opponent. How else could you explain a supporter of Sharron Angle in Nevada punching a female Harry Reid supporter? Or Alaska U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller having security officers detaining a journalist for nearly half an hour for . . . asking tough questions!

Now Tea Partiers in Kentucky supporting U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul have taken the violence beyond the pale. A MoveOn.org volunteer named Lauren Valle hoped to walk up to near Rand Paul was standing and hold up a placard from a mock corporation thanking Paul for everything he's done to help companies over people. Valle was accosted by Paul supporters, who promptly wrestled her to the ground and stomped on her head. The attacker, Timothy Profitt, was fired by the Paul campaign. The candidate himself, however, issued a mealy-mouthed press release stating regret about the incident and implying that activists on both sides (but especially MoveOn.org) are responsible for the increasingly violent climate in the election campaigns, and that activists shouldn't encourage violent behavior.

In other words, Lauren Valle was asking for trouble. So was Susan Roesgen. So is any woman who stirs things up against the Tea Party.

Sure - blame the victim!

This is the Tea Party at its truest, folks. These are the angry, intolerant people who hope to take over this country. In one week, they could do just that. Unless those of us bullied by these extremists stand up to them.

Oh yeah, I'd like to add an endorsement, for U.S. Senate from Kentucky: This blog endorses Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway. If you have to ask why, you haven't been paying attention.

Mike Castled

In a stunning upset in Delaware, Mike Castle lost his bid for the nomination to run for Vice President Biden's old Senate seat to Palinette Christine O'Donnell, a high-wired far-right Tea Partier with a history of running for office in that state and never getting anywhere. O'Donnell - who is not related to anyone at MSNBC - has proven that you don't have to be an experienced, professional politician who knows what you're doing - like Mike Castle, Delaware's lone congressman for nearly twenty years. You just have to make a lot of noise to attract attention from fellow nutjobs. (O'Donnell ran against Biden in 2008, but lost. She allegedly used some of her campaign funds for personal expenses, leading her campaign manager to back Castle in this special election.)

The Democrats suddenly have a chance to keep the Senate. O'Donnell - whose biggest claim to fame is as a sexual abstinence activist in the nineties - will face Democrat Chris Coons in November. Some people have suggested that Coons may have an uphill battle because of strong Tea Party support in rural Kent and Sussex counties that may not be offset enough by voters in urban New Castle County, which includes Wilmington. Except that only 31 percent of Delaware voters think O'Donnell is electable, and even Dick Armey wouldn't endorse her.

Meanwhile, Tea Party supporter Joe Miller, having defeated Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska U.S. Senate primary with the blessing and support of Sarah Palin - who has made her dislike for the Murkowski family clear - is talking about privatizing Social Security (I think I heard right!) - has given his Democratic opponent a fighting chance in this very Republican state. Don't count out Scott McAdams, that Democrat opposing Miller. Bear in mind that Mark Begich became the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Alaska since 1974 only two years ago. His Republican opponent, the late and venerable Ted Stevens, was only hindered by corruption charges. Miller may be an even bigger nutjob than Christine O'Donnell!

Sandbagging From Teabaggers

It finally happened. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People finally demanded that the Tea Party movement address the growing racism among its ranks, though the NAACP wouldn't accuse the Tea Party movement itself of being racist.

This of course, is exactly what the Tea Partiers said the civil rights group did. Sarah Palin - no stranger to overreacting - took a page out of Rush Limbaugh's playbook in insisting that supporters of her ideology are average people concerned about the country. The Tea Partiers, she said, are normal, everyday folks who work hard, raise families, and support smaller government. She completely overlooked the butchers, doctors, and insurance salesmen who carry around sings depicting President Obama as Hitler and spit on black congressmen. Palin also added that the Tea Party is a "DY-verse" group.

And it is. Ask Rick Santelli - it happens to include a few Italians!

And at least one South Asian.

No, I'm not saying Nikki Haley is racist. Of course she doesn't have anything against white people! Sorry, I couldn't resist. No, seriously, I don't think she's bigoted toward blacks, but as a woman of South Asian decent - and as someone who was on the receiving end of a racial slur during the gubernatorial primary in South Carolina - she should be among those to take the first step to condemn the bigotry in the movement that helped get her the Republican gubernatorial nomination in her state. If she has Palin's personal contact information, she should call Alaska's most famous book-banning wolf killer and tell her to do the same.

Nikki, don't lose that number.

The Mark On the Beast

It's official: Sarah Palin is the Madonna of politics. Just when I think the former Alaska governor has done everything possible to make my jaw drop, I find it on the floor again.

Palin made a speech to the tea party convention in Nashville that hit new lows in snarkiness and churlishness. Her ridicule of President Obama's supporters, delivered whole addressing them in the second person, said it all: "How's that hopey, changey stuff working out for ya?"

Her lowest point was when she chided Obama for being little more than a charismatic speaker who knows how to use a TelePrompter. So, what were those marks on her hand?

Apparently Sarah Palin - whose name, remember, is an anagram for "a plain rash" - had something on her skin that turned out to be more than an a case of eczema. She wrote crib notes on the palm of her left hand to remind her of her talking points. They were: "Energy," "Tax Cuts" (originally "Budget Cuts," but changed to "Tax"with the word "Budget" crossed out) and "Lift America's Spirits." She's so dumb, she can't even remember the bedrock principles Republicans have chanted like a mantra for thirty years. I could compare this to Ronald Reagan's handlers positioning him by marking places for him to stand with taped squares, but Reagan at least not only knew how to articulate his beliefs, but, more importantly, he knew what his beliefs were.

Even worse was how obvious it was. I mean, photographers actually got a shot of Palin's palm while she was at the lectern, and afterwards, as she took questions while seated on what appeared to be a throne, she proceeded to read her palm . . .

. . . literally!

Yeah, yeah, I know, was that even her own handwriting? :-D

Why would we want to elect as President someone nearly forty-six years old (her birthday is Thursday) who still uses something you could get detention for in third grade if you used it there?

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an imposturous politician.

(Imposturous? ;-) )