Good Night... and Thomas Newman

Oct 5th, 2010

A short day at the Hand today. We are still working on our Rahm piece. Our apologies on it's lack of completion but, one more time, can you please wait for the actual endorsement before you start arguing with me? I received three e-mails condemning my position already.

We have something special in the works. An interview with a local young man who was discharged from the military under DADT. The wrinkle is that he is straight. He has agreed to go on the record. Our first conversation was a portrait into the literal absurdity of the policy. The first installment will be Monday.

Today, aside from petitioning, politicking, researching and continuing to shake our heads in disbelief generally, we managed to post some things. We noted a great essay by Peter Beinart. The Tennessee fire debacle continued to be, well, inflamed. Joe Miller joined Sharron Angle in the realm of utter hypocrisy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce continued to appear more like a domestic enemy than an economic advocacy organization. Rush Limbaugh lived up to our usual expectations. Lastly, we made the mistake of reading the latest on Carl Paladino before eating.

We end with Thomas Newman's score from "Road to Perdition."

Carl Paladino Trusts... Carl Paladino

Oct. 5th, 2010


The New York Gubernatorial candidate who promises to "take out" people who bother him turns out to be an incredible efficient businessman. He knows just who to hire with his campaign funds.

Himself.








From The New York Daily News:

"Paladino's campaign manager, Michael Caputo, said Paladino's companies charged market rate, although it's difficult to verify since they're all privately held.

The single largest recipient of Paladino's spending is the newly created Ellicott Advertising Co. That firm has received $1.8 million from Paladino since May 7, campaign's filings to the state Board of Elections show.

Caputo said Paladino formed the ad firm after receiving what he deemed "exorbitant" bids from other companies."

There He Goes Again

Oct 5th, 2010


Over in Limbaugh Land, there was an interesting moment today. He used the announcement by 3M that it intends to scale back or do away with a variety of retiree health benefits to again criticize health care reform. 

His words: 
"3M has decided they will no longer be able to afford to provide health insurance under Obamacare."


What I find interesting is that, to attack the democrat's agenda, Rush will seemingly endorse the kinds of benefits he has described elsewhere as "insane" and "crazy compensation for retirees."


If it seems inconsistent, that's because it is.

Foreign Governments Funding Republicans?

Oct 5th, 2010


It is against the law for money from outside the U.S. to be used in American election campaigns on any level. Period. 

That said, it is being alleged that The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling millions from nations like Bahrain to mostly republican candidates. 




Apparently, the same organization that thought taxpayers should pay for the cleanup of the Gulf instead of BP also thinks that ammunition for the republican advertising money gun is a-okay coming from repressive and totalitarian regimes.


The facts: 
"The Chamber’s spending has dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending. A ThinkProgress investigation has found that the Chamber funds its political attack campaign out of its general account, which solicits foreign funding. And while the Chamber will likely assert it has internal controls, foreign money is fungible, permitting the Chamber to run its unprecedented attack campaign."

Tea Party Candidate Entitlements

Oct. 5th, 2010

Yesterday, Alaskan Tea Party favorite, Joe Miller, said that unemployment insurance is not constitutional. To declare a government activity to be such is the penultimate indictment. It is to imply that any participation in the activity is fundamentally antithetical to the principles of the American Republic.

Today, it was reported that Miller's wife, Kathleen, received unemployment benefits after leaving her last job... working for Joe Miller.



This comes closely on the heels of the revelation that Sharron Angle and her husband receive government run healthcare (see here, here and here) in spite of her own party calling government run healthcare a "march to socialism."

It is beginning to look like a pattern. These Tea Party insurgents think entitlements are crushingly destructive. That is, when they are parceled out to the people who actually need them.

To paraphrase a bit from the great war room scene in Dr. Strangelove, apparently the Tea Party simply refuses to have anything to do with liberal stooges... only conservative stooges.

Rand Paul's Dream World?

Oct. 5th, 2010


In rural unincorporated Tennessee, residents apparently have to pay an extra $75 per year in order to receive fire department protection. One such homeowner, having failed to do so, pleaded with firefighters to help save his burning house. They refused.The house burned to the ground. Here's the kicker:

"The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late." Italics mine.








This seems the perfect exemplar of the contemporary Libertarian outlook. Welcome to the "it sucks to be you" vision for America.

Quote of The Day

Oct. 5th, 2010


Peter Beinart brings the gloom:


"When voters are determined to punish anyone associated with political power, hailing from the political, and even social, fringe, isn't a liability; it’s an asset."


The piece is somewhat more nuanced than the quote would suggest. Highly recommended.

Good Night... Remember to Hold Your Head Up

Oct 4th, 2010

We're closing it down for the evening. The piece on Rahm for Mayor is put off until tomorrow. Hint: I am actually for him. No, really. Save the rebuttals until you read it, please.

We opened the day with a great quote. Rand Paul made clear that it's the kids who will have to bear the burden. Disney met Beck. Fox dissed Spanish. Ahmed Chalabi made our skin crawl... again. Joe Miller continued to pine for a yesteryear that almost destroyed us. James O'Keefe remained a horrible person. There was a little fire in Robert Reich's belly. We read around and recommended some stuff. And, lastly, we noted the nutty naiveté of the Tea Party.

It's been a long one but we did our best. So, we go into the evening holding our heads up.

It's Not The Candidate... It's The Caucus

Oct 4th, 2010


by F. Grey Parker


We are now inside the final 30 day sprint to the election. In ordinary cycles, this is when candidates tend to race to the center. It being an abnormal year, there is a great deal more anti-establishment chatter to contend with. There are also a lot of candidates that in most previous elections would have been dismissed as lunatics. If the last 12 months in American politics have proven anything, it is that fear as a motivator still works. A generally disappointed and anti-incumbent mood has been exploited in ways not seen here since the 1950s.


It feels good to yell "throw the bums out!" It's also a dangerous motivator, as I have said before. There is the very real possibility that we are going to witness a sweep by the hard fringe of the right. These are the folks who have fought the hardest for 80 years against most of the positives America has achieved in that time.


All this "I'm not-an-insider!" nonsense obscures the fact that these candidates will have to caucus with their party. In the event of Tea Party ascension, the more radical of their proposals become less of a direct threat in themselves. Rather, they serve as a tool for establishment leaders to frame existing fringe philosophies as not so extreme. Rest assured, though, these insurgents will fall in line or be relegated to the bench. That's the way it works.


Not so, says Joe Miller, the republican senatorial nominee from Alaska. From an interview with ABC, "We aren't going there to play ball, we're going to make sure things get done." 


Sure, Joe. You say that you are different. Well, one militia-loving, 10th Amendment worshiper and gun nut is not going to fundamentally alter the fabric of legislative Washington. Miller and those like him are truly the right's useful idiots.

Reading Around

Oct. 2nd, 2010


by F. Grey Parker


As a person of passionate convictions, I have been said to occasionally speak too passionately. That is putting it politely. Imagine my amusement as I read this particular horoscope this morning: 

"You need to edit yourself before speaking today, even if that means you stammer and stutter and look a bit less confident than you really are. That actually works out for the best for you today! "




With that in mind, let's see what's else is going on today.


Christine O'Donnell continues to entertain. The Sharron Angle surreptitious tape is blowing up. The rats are allegedly leaving a sinking ship. DeMint keeps getting uglier. The Economist chimes in on our red ink and the elections. Pavement's reunion popped up in The New Yorker. The National Review gave Paul Ryan a journalistic hummer. There's a very interesting critique of The Social Network over at Jezebel. 


So much to read... so little time.

Reich Bites Back

Oct 4th, 2010


Robert Reich is not amused by those who seek to expand employment through a weaker dollar. From today's HuffPo:

"It's no big accomplishment to create jobs by getting poorer. You want to know how to cut unemployment by half tomorrow? Get rid of the minimum wage and unemployment insurance, and make everyone who needs a job work for a dollar a day."

James O'Keefe and the Politics of Association

Oct 4th, 2010

by F. Grey Parker

James O'Keefe has finally gone too far. His attempt to "punk" a female journalist from CNN by luring her to a secluded location, sexually harassing her and trying to make her cry was exposed last week. 


You can't make this up. Unlike the way O'Keefe has targeted his ideological enemies, we don't have to invent controversy.

Why this story shouldn't go away goes beyond his actions alone. His previous tactics have been consistently ignored or even excused by his sponsors. The lionization of his so-called "citizen journalism" deserves greater scrutiny now.

Joe Miller - Yesterday's Candidate Today!

Oct. 4th, 2010


From Tea Party candidate Joe Miller of Alaska's interview with ABC:


"So there should not be a federal minimum wage?"

"There should not be," 


Miller answered. "That is not within the scope of the powers that are given to the federal government."




Miller stood by his previous statement that federal unemployment insurance is also not authorized by the Constitution and that the decision on whether or not to provide unemployment benefits should be up to the states, as should virtually all federal regulations that don't relate to interstate commerce."


Miller has the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and all of it's amendments over the years in his sights. To read this document and find it somehow untoward, is to pine for a definition of America that embraces the exploitation of children, unsafe workplaces, no overtime compensation, the reestablishment of "factory towns" and myriad other abuses that we, as a people, long ago did away with.

Chalabi... Again

Oct 4th, 2010


Ahmed Chalabi is news again. Discussing the run up to our Invasion of Iraq in 2003:

From Global Security Newswire:
"The weapons of mass destruction was to our view a marginal issue."










As Max Fisher notes in the Atlantic, "His many critics accuse him of misleading the U.S. into war by providing intelligence that Saddam Hussein's Iraq aided al-Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction, both central rationales for the invasion for which evidence has never materialized." 


I go further than Max. These weren't "central" rationales. They were the only rationales. There were no other issues that could have garnered widespread American public support for the war. This not an arguable point. The deeply corrupt Chalabi was a darling of far right groups groups like the American Enterprise Institute, as evidenced in this defense.


Examples of his impacts are here, here and here. 


If the allegations that he was working for the Iranians all along are true, that may point to the the real triumph of our Iraq invasion and occupation: We are crippled strategically and our economy is in collapse. One has to admit that that's a success... for the Iranians.

¿Qué Pasa?

Oct 4th, 2010

FOX and Friends Brian Kilmeade sneeringly questions why any of the California gubernatorial debate was in Spanish. "Isn't this America?" he asks.

Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck

Oct 4th, 2010

This Disney/ Glenn Beck mashup just hit my desk. It sums the current environment up quite well.

Securing the "I Got Mine" Vote

Oct 4th, 2010


Kentucky Senatorial combatants Rand Paul and Jack Conway squared off with FOXNews Chris Wallace yesterday. There were some tough questions from Wallace on how to limit spending. Conway's proposals were realistic and focused including giving Medicare the power to bulk purchase meds in much the way the VA does to reduce costs dramatically.

Paul 's cynical response appealed to both the fear and the greed of the retired electorate. As older voters turn out so reliably, candidates like Paul are coding the message that they don't have anything to worry about... the right just plans to screw their children.






from HuffPo:
"Paul said he wouldn't change Medicare or Social Security at all for anyone who is currently receiving benefits from the programs. When Wallace asked whether he would support raising the retirement age, Paul replied, "There may have to be for younger people, yes." He also said there would also likely be higher deductibles and premiums for younger workers."

Quote Of The Day.

Oct. 4th, 2010


An interesting Christian writer explodes the contemporary language of anti-gay Christian activists. Taken aback at the shift from the ridiculous (trying to "cure" homosexually) to the flat out repressive (demanding chastity), John Shore pushes back. 


Here is the choice quote:


"...insisting on putting homosexuality into the same category as every other sin is like gluing wings on a pig, and insisting it belongs in the category of “bird.” It doesn’t. It can’t. It won’t. Ever."


The argument that the gay community should deny themselves love is as offensive to Shore as it is to us.


We highly recommend reading the full post.

Banana Phone

Oct 3rd, 2010

Happy Sunday everyone. This is one of those Banana Phone kinda days for me. If you don't understand, then you must watch the link below.

Blow Me

Oct. 3rd, 2010


Charles M. Blow has written a stunningly elitist (even for the New York Times) piece on the challenges facing democrats this fall.

"The unpleasant fact that these liberals rarely mention, and may not know, is that large swaths of the Democratic base, groups they need to vote in droves next month — blacks, Hispanics and young people — are far less civically literate than their conservative counterparts."




Not only is Blow so smug as to suggest that minorities are too ill-informed to understand the processes of American government, he goes further by declaring that liberal analysts who don't agree with him simply don't "know."