Blind Spot or Wilfull Disbelief?

I'm apparently the only pundit in the whole country who thinks that Sarah Palin is running for president this year - but I'm sorry, Sarah Palin keeps really acting like she is running. --- Rachel Maddow, 8/11/11

I don't get this. Is it feasible that a pundit could think Sarah Palin is going to eventually jump into the 2012 presidential race? Yes. I suppose that is possible. However, what I find entirely inconsistent with Ms. Maddow's logic is that she was the same pundit who spent the winter asserting that Newt Gingrich was "faking it" when he was indicating that he was going to run... that he was essentially only trying to seem to be a potential candidate so that he could continue to get high profile Sunday morning news show guest spots and, more importantly, so he could monetize his seeming relevance (i.e. so he could scam the gullible out of their money).

If you ask me, that is EXACTLY what Sarah Palin is doing! And yet Ms. Maddow doesn't see it? I don't get it.

Sarah Palin is not hiring significant staff. She is not raising a significant amount of money. All she is doing (with, for example, her trek to the Iowa State Fair this weekend) is trying to protect her "brand" without doing any actual hard work.

It is, by all accounts, a serious pain-in-the-ass to credibily run for President. That is more work than Sarah Palin is willing to do right now.

Rachel Maddow should know that.

Social Animal Fail

As I have mentioned in at least one previous post, there has been a new (or rather a modified) Emergency Financial Manager law put into effect here in Michigan. I have - I'm sure much to the chagrin of our liberal audience (were to actually have an audience here at the Furriners blog) - advocated a "wait-and-see" approach rather than the "hair on fire" rhetoric of Rachel Maddow.

That said, Rachel does make very good points and I especially appreciated this analysis:

What's new here is that this state has decided that local elections, locally elected officials are a problem that has to be done away with, that democracy is in the way of fixing problems in the United States now, of making things more efficient, particularly in poor places. Not that democracy IS the way we fix problems but that democracy IS the problem and it therefore needs to be side-stepped for efficiency's sake, for our own good. Governor knows best.

Good point. An argument that one would think would appeal to Americans of all ideologies. Whether you're liberal or conservative, we do all tend to share a common belief in our right to choose our leaders.

And, beyond that, the actual impetus for doing a post on this subject was from watching Fareed Zakaria GPS over last weekend; Fareed's guests included conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks to discuss his latest book, The Social Animal.

The book is about how humans interact with another and how the ability to relate to people is a determining factor in how one does in life. The relevant part to the EFM for Benton Harbor story was when Mr. Brooks said his research indicates:

Groups are smarter than individuals (and) groups that meet face-to-face are a lot smarter than groups that meet electronically.

Hmmm... that would certainly lead one to conclude that putting one individual in charge of "fixing" Benton Harbor (or any other troubled city, municipality, organization, etc) would not be an ideal solution.

Of course, that is science. And we know how how most conservatives feel about science.

Lawrence O'Donnell Has Kids To Feed

As President Obama hastily called a press conference yesterday to try to tap down the liberal backlash against his "compromise", I shared an e-mail with my father predicting that primetime MSNBC hosts would have their pitchforks out. That is exactly what happened:

Olbermann CRUSHES Obama in Special Comment

Maddow argues Obama is on road to irrelevance

However, it turned out I was not entirely correct. Lawrence O'Donnell was a dissenting voice who thinks Obama made the best deal at the right time. He took a stance that it would be Armageddon to let tax rates go back to the Clinton rates on January 1st.

Am I the only one who thinks that O'Donnell just got a new primetime hosting gig (probably with a nice fat pay raise) and now he is looking out for the pocketbook of Lawrence O'Donnell?

And I was especially perturbed by his Rewrite segment where he slammed our least favorite pelican enemy, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La). O'Donnell said:

(Landrieu) was one of the few Democrats in the senate who voted for the Bush tax cuts that set the Treasury on the road to ruin.

Okay, so in O'Donnell's analysis, the Bush tax cuts set the country on the road to ruin? His solution: extend the Bush tax cuts. Good call, Larry. Good call.

Clarence Thomas Is Not For Sale

I don't really get this.

Rachel Maddow did a segment on Ginni Thomas this week. The theme of the segment was basically that there could be (well, is) a conflict of interest with Ginni Thomas being a conservative activist while her husband is a sitting Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

While I understand (and agree with) the principle, my issue is that Clarence Thomas is already comically conservative. I do not have concerns with him being swayed to move to the right because he might feel an inkling to look kindly on the concerns of donors to his wife's organization.

So I titled this post Clarence Thomas is Not for Sale after almost titling it Clarence Thomas is Bought and Paid For. However, I felt that was too perjorative because it obviously would (if only cheekily) imply that Clarence Thomas was corrupt and I truly do not believe that is the case. He seems completely genuine in his very narrow and strict interpretation of the Constitution. So, while he may be nuts*, I have no reason to believe he is not an honest kook.



* Jeffrey Toobin quoting Antonin Scalia on the difference between himself and Clarence Thomas:

I'm a conservative, I'm a textualist, I'm an originalist, but I'm not a nut.

Thank You!

We tend to be a sarcastic group around here but if our readers(?) do not mind I'd like to have a moment of sincerity.

Thank you, Nancy Pelosi!

I, for one, truly appreciate your efforts during your tenure as Speaker Of The House. I am glad you have "no regrets" because I do not believe you should. You are a true progressive voice who successfully herded cats (i.e. the Blue Dog Pussies) to have what some historians are calling one of the most legislatively productive sessions of Congress in the past century.

I'll be honest. I was pretty down on Tuesday night and yesterday and, well, I still am to some extent but I feel better thinking that eventually there will be some payoff to the efforts of the health care bill. I think it will have a positive impact and hopefully the Democrats will earn some political capital from it.

Depressed Democrats/Liberals/Progressives might be slightly uplifted from watching this clip from The Rachel Maddow Show on Election Eve:

POLITICAL CAPITAL

Ratigan: Venezuala of BS?

I feel confident saying that Rachel Maddow is unanimously liked and respected by all two Furriners bloggers. My colleague may have decided that watching America's Biggest Loser or The Real Fat Housewives of New Jersey Surviving In The Wild is better use of his time than watching The Rachel Maddow Show but, you know, to each his own. It is certainly less embarrassing than his love for Justin Beiber.

Anyway, the respect for Ms. Maddow is not shared for Dylan Ratigan. I am the only one who takes him at all seriously. What can I say? He can be fun to blog about because, at times, he gets so over the top. I will say that as long as the airwaves have the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, & Rick Sutcliffe, he may not be the "Saudi Arabia of Bullshit"... but he seems to be a lot closer than he thinks.

For example, I consider the following to be a striking contradiction in rhetoric. To be fair, there can be a nuanced interpretation where he does not seem like a hypocrite but to paraphrase Anderson Cooper: I'll report, you decide.

First quote is from his introduction of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La) on June 22nd where he calls out the Obama administration for the deep water drilling moratorium:

As it stands, it seems insane to prevent anybody from being able to work that lives there.

Then, on June 29th, Ratigan says this:

"If nothing, it (the BP oil spill) teaches us that relying on off-shore drilling, relying on traditional fossil fuel as it stands right now is simply not sustainable and works to the direct potential future diminishment if not meaning destruction to portions of our country. Not only is it grossly inefficient and expensive, as we saw on April 20th, it's deadly."

Is that not somewhat bi-polar?

And consider the phrasing on that first quote: "insane to prevent anybody...". Insane?!!? Is that not too forceful an adjective for what is admittedly a very difficult issue? And prevent anybody? Let's be clear, we are talking about less than 33 rigs out of the approximately 3,500 rigs operating in the Gulf. Does this sound like "prevent anybody" is the appropriate terminology for this situation?

I guess my argument is that, unlike the Rhodes Scholar (Dr. Maddow), Ratigan has yet to develop a coherent (or at least a consistently coherent) ideology for what is the role of government in today's society.

I suppose if I could stomach Glenn Beck, I would have tons of bullshit to blog about. That said, Saudi Arabia is one step too far for me.

Invest In That Doom Bunker

It may be doom bunker time because I think John Boehner has a point and Rachel Maddow is wrong.

Recently, Boehner garnered some headlines when he said this:

We're all livin' a lot longer than anybody ever expected and I think raising the retirement age - going out twenty years so you're not affecting anyone close to retirement - and eventually getting the retirement age to 70 is a step that needs to be taken.

Rachel Maddow commented on this with this sarcastic commentary:

Attention all sixty-year olds! Attention all fifty-somethings! John Boehner wants you to know that Republicans are going to raise the retirement age on social security. Okay, everybody good? Don't forget to vote in November you demographic that always votes. Every single election. Every single time.

Ummmm... I think it's perfectly fine to have a difference on the policy proposal but I was annoyed by Rachel ignoring the clear phrase "going out twenty years so you're not affecting anyone close to retirement." That is not exactly a vague phrasing that Mr. Boehner used. Come on, Rachel! You're better than that!

As for my opinion on the proposal. Personally, I appreciate that it's an actual idea - and a potentially politically unpopular one at that - rather than what we typically get from Republicans (generic talking points about lower taxes, less regulation, and support for free markets). What is not clear to me without doing additional research is the imperative for the idea. I hear all sorts of comments on the solvency/sustainability of the social security system. I believe I saw John Ralston say in his interview with Nevada GOP senate candidate Sharron Angle that the system is projected to be solvent until 2037. That sounds promising. But perhaps we should try to do better? Raising the retirement age, raising the tax rate, cutting benefits, and some sort of means testing are all options. I encourage the conversation to happen before it is forced upon us.

I'm Back, Baby!

It's been a couple weeks since I have contributed to this blog. Real life kind of got in the way for a bit. I really wanted to comment on the NBA Draft where I was almost entirely correct (only missing in that Patrick Patterson snuck in at the very end of the lottery at #14 - still 8 picks behind Epke Udoh). See here for my previous posts with predictions.

I've taken notes on several other MSNBC moments that I wanted to comment on but may not take the opportunity now. But maybe I will (even if they are no longer necessarily timely). Let me start with this which I believe is maybe already over a week old:

There are many things that annoy us here at Furriners. Very prominent on the list is Republican politicians using the phrase "the American people want..." or, of course, "the American people don't want..." whatever it is. Often they use that phrase to describe simple platitudes that are agreeable enough and are often meant to insinuate that Democratic policies are keeping the people from the laudible end (example: "the American people want to be kept safe"); sometimes they use it in a way that is vague and open to interpretation (example: "the American people don't want Big Government". Perhaps not... but, obviously, we all have our own threshold for what constitutes "big" government. And even in that example, these people who don't want Big Government are, nevertheless, typically the same people who want government to decide how every pregnancy should conclude (i.e. with a live birth) regardless of the woman's preference).

Sometimes a Democrat will also presume to speak for the American people. Such was the case on The Rachel Maddow Show on June 24 when Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said this:

What this oil disaster - if you can find a silver lining at all - has resulted in is the American people coalescing and beginning to recognize that we have to ween ourselves off our dependence on oil - not just foreign oil - but oil. And pass legislation that will help us invest in renewable energy sources... that is the key to our long-term energy needs.

Are there poll numbers that support this? I mean, I'm sure if you ask some generic question of the masses, they'll agree we should reduce our dependency on oil... but I don't know of any evidence that the American people are willing to make any sort of sacrifice to make this happen! Is there some swelling of grassroots support for a carbon-tax that I don't know about?

If I recall correctly, Thomas Friedman considers it a given that they only way you're going to get Americans to embrace alternative forms of energy is to make it cheap and easy to do so. Thus, unless there is a game-changing technological breakthrough in the near future, the only way it will become cheap and easy (and "cheap", in this case, I mean only as a relative term because, of course, energy will actually cost more than it currently does) we're probably looking at both putting a price on carbon and the need for the federal government to massively invest in infrastructure (modernizing the energy grid and, yes, perhaps building many more nuclear plants). Do tax raises and increased government spending seem like something the American people want? Unlike John Boehner, I don't like to speak for the American people, but I will say that I don't see it.

Have They Watched The Interview?

There has been a national debate over the "Papers Please" Law in Arizona. It has become a cliched talking point amongst conservatives to query "have you actually read the law?" as if the reading of the law would it seem perfectly reasonable to those of us with concerns. They are, of course, banking on the fact that people actually will NOT read it. And, admittedly, I have no intention of doing so.

I was thinking of that in relation to the conservatives like Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin who have come to the defense of GOP senate candidate Rand Paul (KY) for his recent comments regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on NPR and on The Rachel Maddow Show (as well as other media outlets). Moreover, he was expressing identical ideology as far back as 2002 with regards to the Fair Housing Act.

If you watched the interview, it really wasn't that complicated to see where Dr. Paul was coming from. There is now some backtracking being done and he claims he would have voted for the Civil Rights Act in 1964. This is all spin (in the Maddow interview, he waxed not very poetically about how it's a tough call whether you should vote for something when you object to certain aspects of it... yeah, no shit! Health Care Bill anyone?). It is very clear if you watch the interview that Dr. Paul believes that private businesses should have the right to deny service to anyone they see fit (outlawed in Title II of the Civil Rights Act). This does not make him a racist or a bad human being. It is my contention only that it makes him out of step with mainstream America about what is the appropriate role of government.

So if we had any conservative readers here at Furriners, I would urge them to watch the interview with the realization that they probably never would. But at least maybe we could make "have you watched the interview?" as much of a cliche as "have you read the law?"

P.S. Rachel's next day follow up is also very much worth a view.

Eliot Spitzer Buries Summers and Geithner

"Some of us have been saying for a long time that (Larry) Summers and (Timothy) Geithner come straight out of Wall Street, straight out of the trading side. They were very comfortable with taxpayer subsidized investment banks that got the upside, not the downside. I've never believed these guys were genuine capitalists. Somebody used the metaphor...they're like teenagers... the moment they're in trouble they come running to mommy and daddy. They scream when you impose limits on them. And they want you to believe that the rules don't apply to them. It simply isn't capitalism. They're socialists, not capitalists. Capitalists take real risk with their own money... they know how to win and lose and that's why me and many others have utter scorn for these guys." -- Eliot Spitzer on The Dylan Ratigan Show (5/24/10)

"Utter scorn"?!? Wow... that is harsh! It's no secret that the Furriners offices are fans of Mr. Spitzer and we pay special attention to what he has to say.

Between this rant, a rather unsympathetic portrayal of Mr. Summers (in particular) in Simon Johnson's "13 Bankers" (regarding Mr. Summers lead role along with Robert Rubin in convincing President Clinton of the benefits of deregulation), and reports that Summers and Geithner are leading the executive branch opposition to tougher financial regulatory reform including the Brown-Kaufman Amendment, the derivatives language offered by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, and the Merkley-Levin Amendment (essentially the Volcker Rule) which didn't even get a vote! Well, let's just say I am frustrated by more than the mere presence of Joseph Lieberman in the Senate. I have about had it with these two guys.

The details of the vote for/against the Brown-Kaufman Amendment can be found here. This is the vote that I will not forget... you know how a lot of people are angry about TARP (particularly Tea Partiers and other conservative factions)? Well, this should be the mirrored image on the left... those who voted 'Nay' on Brown-Kaufman have, in my opinion, betrayed the values of the Democratic Party.

And another thing while I am worked up about this... where the fuck was Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow in getting the word out about Brown-Kaufman? That was the real chance to end "Too Big To Fail" and neither show was covering it? It is just a big, big letdown.

Rachel Does Not Know Rush

If you're reading this blog, you probably think that Rush Limbaugh is a huge tool. (Actually, statistically speaking, if you're reading this blog, you're probably related to me because, truthfully, we're not yet competitive with The Huffington Post or DailyKos or even FireDogLake - despite their conspicuous lack of Derek Anderson coverage).

What you may not know is that Rush Limbaugh is worse than the worst. I was watching The Rachel Maddow Show last night and she did a segment on the lasting environmental damage expected in the gulf from last month's oil spill. She said this:

"Even the worst apologists for this disaster admit that once that delicate fecund land has been sludged, there's not much to say about the future of that land in any of our lifetimes."

She was, in part, basing that conclusion on these articles:

CBC News: Exxon Valdez Oil Still Found in Alaskan Ducks
and
AP: Gulf Spill Prompts Alaskans to Revisit Exxon Valdez Days

A sobering assessment from Dr. Maddow.

Or you could believe Rush Limbaugh who said this on April 29:

"The ocean will take care of this on it's own...it's natural...even places that have been devestated by oil slicks like, uh,... Prince William Sound. The place in pristine now."

We believe his assessment came from a joint report from Exxon, Palin, and HisOwnFatAss.

Oil Slick In The Gulf

I was watching The Rachel Maddow Show yesterday and Rachel while discussing the ongoing environmental disaster off the coast of Louisiana, Rachel actually said this:

The slick is now 100 miles by 45 miles, making it roughly the size of Ohio

Ummmm... has she been to Ohio? Or even looked at a map? Actually, I know Rachel loves maps... it is an endearingly geeky feature of Ms. Maddow. But it should be obvious to everyone that Ohio is a helluva lot bigger than that!

Don't worry, Ohio, they say bad things come in threes and consider this:

1. The Browns released Derek Anderson.
2. The Browns waste a 3rd round pick on Colt McCoy.
3. Rachel Maddow states you are a fraction of the size of Vermont.

That is three... so I think LeBron re-signs with the Cavs this summer. Does that make up for losing DA? Of course not! But you guys will have to make do.

Don't Piss On My Leg, Maddow! (And Tell Me It's Raining)

Recently, Rachel Maddow has been breathlessly reporting on members of congress who've lived at C-Street and have been paying ridiculously low rental rates for their housing. Maddow is indicating, with considerable justification in the opinion of the Furriners editorial department, that their rent is being subsidized and is therefore a violation of the rules against members of congress accepting gifts and not reporting it on financial disclosure forms.

The problem, as I see it, is the committees that investigate congressional ethics accusations have the same authority on ethics violations as Tiger Woods has on marital fidelity.

I mean - and I know this doesn't fall under the purview of the congressional ethics committees - Dick Cheney goes out on TV advocating war crimes and nothing happens. Unless you count his standing ovation at the 2010 CPAC Convention.

Or what about Ted Stevens? That old fuckin' curmudgeon (and internet expert) was accepting gifts from oil company executives and merely suffered the indignity of a standing ovation from his congressional colleagues upon completing his final term in the Senate. My research can not confirm that he ever faced any discipline for the Senate Ethics Committee. (And I know you might say "but Furriners... the Stevens conviction was overturned!" And I would respond... "yeah, and O.J. was innocent too!")

So, anyway, Rachel... keep up the good work... but my bold prediction... nothing is going to come of these accusations. You can't punish someone for farting when they are surrounded by shit.