Download | Play    Download | Play

According to this CNN report yesterday, Barack Obama is looking to woo Republican support for his economic plans. Indeed, Obama is sitting down with some of the GOP leadership on Monday.

But the Village View is pronounced herein by the Politico's Ken Vogel:

As long as Obama is appearing not to be catering to the Left base of the Democratic Party, and is making at least to involve Republicans and not alienate them, I believe he will be able to claim that he is taking a post-partisan approach.

I don't know if that's the actual thinking within the Obama camp, but that's clearly the view of Beltway Insiders who are hoping beyond hope that their whole prefabricated version of reality does not crumble about their ankles entirely: If you just keep the stinking dirty hippies out of the picture and kiss conservative ass, everything will be cool. (That, after all, is their worldview.)

Of course, the reality is that Mitch McConnell has already put the brakes by intimating he'll get out the filibuster on Obama's plan. They'll pay lip service to "bipartisanship" when they meet with Obama, but will do everything in their power to screw him over every step of the way and make sure nothing gets done.

After all, that's what's in their best interest -- otherwise they have little hope of winning in 2010 and none in 2012. And as we've witnessed over the past eight years, the national interest comes in a distant last place for Republicans in that competition.

So it will be interesting to watch this play out over the next weeks and months. We've known all along that Obama is a reach-out-to-your-enemy kind of guy; it's a big part of what made him so electable.

But the experience of the past eight years has made clear that the Republican idea of bipartisanship involves hot pokers and nether regions. When you reach out to them, usually all you have left to show for it is a hand gnawed down to the bone.

If you want a classic example of it, take a gander at the Sean Hannity Forum discussion of Obama's Republican outreach. It includes the following gems:

Nothing is new about Obama, nothing, his lying bs has been around since the Garden of Eden. He is a snake and I recommend the Republicans tell him, do not call me, I will call you
___

It will most likely be the same old story....bipartisan means Conservatives have to cross over to the liberal side and never the other way around. I hope the conservatives can stick to thier guns (before they get outlawed)
___

Obama lied.

Obama cheated.

Obama stole.

Obama helped slaughter living, breathing, helpless babies.

Obama is nothing but a cheap moldy old Hippie Leftover pile of human **** with the same integrity and moral capacity for basic human intelligence I'd look for in a pack of rabid hyenas.

He's going DOWN as fast as I can pray him into the hell he so richly deserves because of the sheer hell he's helped dump on too many American heads.

Right along with the rest of the Greedy Moral Degenerates who helped but that immoral piece of walking human filth into power.

Boss Tweed would vomit over the crimes of the current Democratic Swine Lords of Infinite Greed and Corruption.

Continue reading »

December 30, 2008 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show

The Deciderer, according to the Three Amigos

There's a lot of fluff about bi-partisan agreement, withdrawing to leave a democratic Iraq and the "successes" of the last two years in an op-ed by John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham in the Washington Post today. But there's only one important bit.

Gen. Odierno was the operational architect of the surge in 2007, when he served as deputy to Gen. Petraeus, as well as of the tribal engagement strategy that persuaded Sunnis to abandon the insurgency and join our side. Gen. Odierno -- as the current commander on the ground -- is the person whose judgment should matter most in determining how fast and how deep a drawdown can be ordered responsibly.

This is the same General Odierno who recently forgot his place in the chain of command, saying that he had no intention of sticking to the U.S. agreement with Iraq which says all U.S. troops must be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by the summer. He also hinted that the 2011 final withdrawal date might be ignorable, saying "Three years is a very long time."

The Maliki government was quick to respond that it expected the letter of the status of forces agreement to be adhered to. But Bush administration loyalist Odierno, by indicating that the U.S. would continue to try to bend treaties and deals all out of shape instead of sticking to its word, has badly damaged Obama's political capital abroad before the President Elect has even taken office. It's off a piece with other military statements, as Gareth Porter reported on Thursday:

Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative withdrawal plan rejecting that timeline, as the New York Times reported Thursday. That plan was communicated to Obama in general terms by Secretary of Defence Robert M.Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen when he met with his national security team in Chicago on Dec. 15, according to the Times.

Continue reading »

Found in the comments of the Washington Post:

We have been hearing since the election that Republicans want to re-brand their image. During the debate on the auto bailout, we have seen their new ideas on two important areas affecting the public – the economy and health care. For the economy, their mantra has become 'If you have a good paying job, you are paid too much. If you have a pension, it should be reduced.' In regards to health care, their position has changed from blocking universal health care to wanting to reduce health care for those who already have health insurance.

Will these platforms help them win elections? I think not. To gain seats in Washington, they will either have to change their beliefs, or hide their agenda with political slogans and hope most voters have not learned that a person should be judged by what they do, not what they say.

Of course, Republicans might pick up votes if they could prove they believe what they say. This could be done by 1) forgoing their government health care plan, and 2) reducing their salaries to that of non-union auto workers (which is what they asked Detroit's auto workers to do) and scale back on their pensions. If they do that, I might vote for them. After all, taxpayers are funding Congressmen and Senators, why shouldn't the same standards be applied to our elected officials as they want to apply to the auto industry?

Download | Play    Download | Play

Rachel Maddow agrees with Dick Cheney:

Given what just happened to the emergency loan that didn't get made to the Big 3 auto makers, I owe a debt of thanks to Dick Cheney, not kidding for reminding us all why it is so important to keep Hoover in mind right now.

[snip]

And how does Hooverism or neo-Hooverism apply to us on this big full moon Friday night in 2008? Well last night Senate Republicans who spent the last eight years setting huge piles of taxpayer money on fire for nothing in return with two ill-advised endless wars they decided that they were the party of reduced spending and fiscal responsibility.

Hell, high water? Feh! Last night, with both hell and high water all around, Senate Republicans killed $14 billion of emergency loans to save GM, Ford and Chrysler. Why? Because they've apparently looked back at the Great Depression and decided that Hoover is their role model. Of course the government shouldn't spend money to shore up its economy and save jobs in a downturn! That might make economic sense. Couldn't do that!

The Senate Republicans are counting on our economic and historical ignorance to win short-term political points for refusing to spend government money on something that it hurts to spend money on. Nobody wants to bail anybody out. But sometimes, you have to. And frankly they are seizing the ideological opportunity to crusade against the unions and against the very idea of Americans making good wages at their jobs.

[snip]

So we're facing a looming three million job economic sink hole. Even if you don't care about those specific workers, those specific American lives, those specific American companies, those specific jobs. Even if you don't care about that everyone fears that a three million job sink hole could suck the world into a depression. Not just us. And in the face of that the Senate Republican caucus decided to block the rescue plan to make a principled point about how much they want to be like Hoover in the Great Depression. And how much they want to lower American wages.

From The Young Turks Cenk gives his thoughts on the real reasons the Republicans killed the auto bailout.

A little more background on the Senate Republicans who sandbagged the auto industry bailout - and why:

The fiercest opposition to the loan proposal -- and nearly a third of the 35 votes against ending debate on the deal -- came from Southern Republicans, and the ringleaders of the opposition all come from states with a major foreign auto presence. Not coincidentally, nearly all of those states -- except Kentucky -- are also "right-to-work" states, which means no union contracts for most of the employees at the foreign plants. The Detroit bailout fell victim to a nasty confluence of home-state economic interests and anti-union sentiment among Republicans.

This week Southern Republicans had a chance to go to bat for foreign automakers while simultaneously busting a union. At a hearing last week, Corker explained that his constituents "have a tough time thinking about us loaning money to companies that are paying way, way above industry standard to workers." Which may explain why his proposed alternative to the loan agreement between Congress and the White House would have required the United Auto Workers to agree to significant wage cuts next year, based on a spurious claim that union workers earn significantly more than non-union workers.

Even George W. Bush's White House didn't push to crush the UAW the way Corker and his buddies did, say Democrats involved in the negotiations with the administration. "It was all about the unions," one senior Democratic aide said. "This is political payback for lots of things, and probably even more to come." Labor officials expect Republicans to keep taking shots at unions whenever they can. "This cynical stance they took last night -- they're willing to jeopardize 3 million jobs so they could gain some advantage in their war against unions -- is appalling," said Bill Samuel, the chief lobbyist for the AFL-CIO.

As the Republican Party consolidates in the South, the fight this week could turn out to be a preview of many battles to come over Barack Obama's economic plans. If those plans involve the domestic auto industry, the GOP pushback will come from somewhere down I-65, the new auto corridor that runs from Kentucky south to Alabama. Expect to hear more not just from the very vocal Bob Corker, but from the rest of a core group of Southern senators whose bread is buttered by the Japanese, Germans and Koreans.

Go read the rest. You'll want to know the players in the years ahead.

Download | Play    Download | Play

In an impassioned press conference today, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger upped the ante in the auto bailout fight as he urged the White House and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to help prevent the "imminent collapse" of the auto industry by using TARP funds.

He spelled out a last-minute negotiating process in which he says the Senate GOP caucus blew up a compromise agreement hammered out by the White House and Sen. Bob Corker.

The UAW chief said they knew going in that negotiating with an individual senator was a difficult challenge - that Corker "really didn't have a knowledge of the industry."

"And then the other thing was, quite frankly, we wondered if we were just being set up," he told reporters. (Looks like there's something to that theory: Corker is now blaming the UAW, claiming the union refused to strike a deal because the White House made it clear they'd get the money, anyway.)

Who to believe? Hmm.

Continue reading »

Download | Play    Download | Play

Sarah Palin reminds me, for some reason, of the late Helen Chenoweth -- the congresswoman from Idaho's 1st District from 1992 to 2000. Well, I actually can think of a lot of reasons: Maybe it's the slightly stilted, doll-like delivery in a red business suit. Or the beauty-queen smile. Or the absurd right-wingnuttery she sells with a distinctly populist style. Watch and judge for yourself.

Chenoweth was perhaps best known for being an avid promoter of the militia movement in Congress (though towards the end of her tenure shee made headlines for her extramarital affairs. Indeed, the above video is one I made from a video sold by the Militia of Montana as part of its New World Order conspiracy promotion, titled "America In Peril." It features Chenoweth speaking before an obviously preselected audience, prior to her election to Congress in 1992, as a "Natural Resources Consultant."

This snippet (the video is nearly an hour long) is from the first five minutes or so, and features Chenoweth holding forth on the causes of global warming:

What is some of the programs that the environmentalists are engaging in? Well, some of the programs are programs of fear -- fear that is so broad and so expansive that you and I can do nothing about it.

What about the idea that the earth is warming? You know, we hear that every day -- that the earth is warming. But when we look back, where are temperatures taken? Well, they’re taken from airports. Weather balloons go up from airports, where heat rises from miles and miles of concrete.

And you see, the satellites that are recording data around the globe will tell us that today, the earth is not warming. But you see, what the pseudoscientists -- who have turned into political scientists and lobbying scientists -- are saying is that these issues are so huge that you and I can do nothing about it.

You can almost envision Sarah Palin sitting at the back of the room taking notes. Indeed, as you can see, the camera irregularly pans to the nodding audience members, and one of these happens to bear a striking resemblance to Palin (she's at about the 5:40 mark of the video; you can see a still here). Not that this actually is Palin, but let's just say the imagery is complete.

Continue reading »

Download | Play    Download | Play

Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina gives the party line on the virtues of letting the Big Three go bankrupt to MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell:

Sanford: We have examples before where businesses have gone into Chapter 11 and have come out stronger as a result. If you look at United Airlines back in 2002, it went into Chapter 11 and yet people got on planes every day and, quote, risked their lives if they took a United flight. And it worked out -- United is still up and going.

If you look just recently, Circuit City filed Chapter 11, people are still going in during the holiday season and shopping for cameras and videos and all the other things that one shops for. Circ -- I mean, Chapter 11 is simply a way to reorganize a business, and to make decisions that you oftentimes cannot make without those bankruptcy law protections.

So what I would humbly suggest to the Big Three is, given the fact that certain things are clearly not in order with regard to their finances, use that tool as opposed to taxpayers, which is the easier course for them, but the much harder course for the rest of us as taxpayers, as the bailout mechanism.

Notice anything missing? What Sanford conveniently neglects to tell the MSNBC audience is what some of those "decisions you cannot make without those bankruptcy law protections" include, to wit:

-- The company can tear up any existing union contract it likes. Say goodbye, UAW.

-- It can wipe out all its existing pension plans.

Sanford touts the United Airlines example, but neglects to mention that one of the really pernicious effects of that bankruptcy was how it utterly destroyed the company's pension system. There was a huge human toll paid, with 9/11 widows among the victims.

There will be a similarly monstrous human toll paid if we follow Sanford's plan. But then, for Republicans like him, that's a negligible cost to begin with.

[Derek Black, right, and his dad Don Black, January 10, 2007, "Values Voters" Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.]

White supremacists have been trying to reinsert themselves back into the mainstream (where once upon a time they were common) for a long time now. One of the chief avenues for this effort has for years been the Republican Party in the South, particularly in places like Louisiana, where David Duke operates, and Mississippi, where the Council of Conservative Citizens has a friend in Gov. Haley Barbour. It's all part of the legacy of the Southern Strategy.

In Florida, Republicans are now being confronted with the legacy of the Southern Strategy in the person of Derek Black:

Derek Black says "of course" he will attend a meeting Wednesday for new members of Palm Beach County's Republican Executive Committee. Never mind that the party chairman says Black's "white supremacist" associations are not welcome and he will not be seated.

"I was elected," Black, 19, says.

Sporting a black hat, the son of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Don Black was seated last week in a restaurant off Southern Boulevard. Sitting next to him was one of his supporters: David Duke, former Louisiana state legislator and another former KKK grand wizard.

"We're going to fight," Duke said. "I know Derek Black is going to fight for his constitutional liberties. That's why I'm here, because I want to assist Derek."

Sorry, says county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein. In the qualifying period in June, Black didn't sign a loyalty oath pledging he would not do anything injurious to the party. And that's not the only problem.

"He participates in white supremacist activities," Dinerstein said. "We're the party of Lincoln. We're the party that says we don't judge anybody by the color of their skin."

There's a familial connection between David Duke and Derek Black: Derek's mother, Chloe Black, was previously married to Duke, and their son is Derek's half-brother. But there's also a strategic connection, in that Duke did the same thing himself in the 1980's and '90s in Louisiana, largely taking advantage of the Republicans' Southern Strategy.

In his book on the Southern Strategy, Joseph Aistrup describes this (cited here):

Continue reading »

They really don't come much scummier than Freedom's Watch, the wretched excuses for human beings who smeared Democratic candidates this past campaign with lying robo-calls. The DCCC's anti-FW site has the goods on their deep GOP ties.

Supposedly they're about to go out of business. But evidently -- like the dying sting of a scorpion -- they're taking one last stab.

Now they're running truly vicious ads attacking Jim Martin, the Democratic challenger to Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia currently facing a runoff election:

Yesterday, the struggling Freedom’s Watch released an attack ad against Georgia’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Martin, saying that he “failed to look out for Georgia’s families.” “First he actually helped block stiffer penalties for drunk drivers,” warns the voice in the ad, which echoes previous GOP ads. “And then, Martin voted against tougher sentences for domestic abuse.”

As it happens, Martin built much of his political reputation as an effective advocate for protecting children from criminals -- no doubt a product of having his then-8-year-old daughter kidnapped. So he made an ad responding to the Freedom's Watch ad by pointing this out. As you can see, it's incredibly effective.

Of course, this is all too reminiscent of the way Chambliss won in 2002 -- with Republican operatives assailing the patriotism of Max Cleland, a decorated war veteran who left limbs on the battlefield.

It may have worked in 2002. In 2008, though, the national mood is different. Recall what happened to Elizabeth Dole when she tried pulling similarly nasty tactics near the end of her campaign against Kay Hagan in North Carolina -- she was spanked by an even wider margin than polls had indicated.

Most people are tired of this nonsense -- they want serious people who will go to work to solve the nation's problems. Hopefully, the voters of Georgia will be thinking likewise.

Download | Play    Download | Play

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council was out repeating the nonsensical yet much-repeated "America is a center-right country" meme for CNN's Lou Dobbs program Wednesday, and he added something of a new twist:

I think there is a strategy that's going to be going forward for the conservative movement. I think many in the conservative movement, if you will, believe that the Republican Party took over the conservative movement and kind of ran it off the road. And, uh, conservatives are ready to take back control of the conservative movement, and if the Republican Party wants to be a governing party, as it has been in the past, then it's going to have to return to those conservative principles.

I think most people -- Republicans like Kathleen Parker included -- see it the other way around: the Republican Party was taken over by the conservative movement. One upon a time, the GOP actually was home to genuine moderates like Lowell Weicker and John Chafee; but ever since Ronald Reagan's ascension in the late 1970s, it gradually become a wholly owned subsidiary of the conservative movement.

Certainly, nearly every step taken by George W. Bush during his tenure had the movement's ardent support -- until, that is, it became self-evident to everyone but the 20-percenter kool-aid drinkers that his presidency was an unmitigated disaster for the nation. Now they want to blame that disaster on everyone but the misbegotten philosophy that caused it.

As Digby put it some time ago:

George W. Bush will not achieve a place in the Republican pantheon. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (And a conservative can only fail because he is too liberal.)

Now, part of what makes movement conservatives the lovable wingnuts they are is that they are nothing if not spectacularly un-self-aware. They're like people who wear their underwear on their heads and then are puzzled when everyone points and laughs.

So Tony Perkins goes on, while repeating the right's favorite meme, and even admits that Republican governance has been a fiasco:

Look, America is a center-right nation. Barack Obama and the policies he reflects are not reflective of the nation. I think he offered, you know, what he called change, and Americans were ready for change. You know, Republicans have not governed well, and America was looking for a new path, and Barack Obama offered that. Now, his success is going to depend on whether or not he can govern as a moderate, as he campaigned, or whether he is going to be a liberal, as his record would indicate.

Continue reading »

Download | Play    Download | Play [H/t Heather]

I guess Lou Dobbs and Co. are giving up their populist "we're for the working class" pose, because yesterday Republican Rep. Darrell Issa appeared on the Dobbs program (with Kitty Pilgrim sitting in) to pile on after Mitt Romney's NYT op-ed telling Detroit to Suck. On. This.

ISSA: I think Mitt's right on. And you know, being the son of a man who turned Rambler/AMC around, he knows how hard it is to reinvent a company from one that isn't making good cars and not making competitive cars to one that can, in fact, survive.

Sure. Maybe that would explain why, as Jon Perr points out, Mitt Romney was all for doing whatever it takes to save Detroit back when he was running against John McCain in the Republican primary:

"I want to bring Michigan back. I am not willing to sit back and say 'too bad for Michigan, too bad for the car industry, too bad for the people who lost their jobs, they are gone forever.' I will not rest when I am president of the United States until Michigan is brought back."

He also told Michiganders:

"This state needs someone who cares about this state more than one day a year."

And as Perr points out:

Not once does Romney quantify the impact of his recommendation that "without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself." There is no estimate of the devastating job losses Big Three bankruptcies would produce or the estimated $200 billion impact in unemployment insurance and other government safety net payments which would result from the collapse of GM alone. And Romney is silent on the national security implications as the builders of Abrams battle tanks, Humvees and armored fighting vehicles face halting production during wartime.

No, as John Amato has been saying, when Republicans talk about "restructuring" the auto industry, they're not talking about reordering the corporate order of things, where CEOs and other executives reel in massive salaries and even more massive bonuses in spite of their shockingly lousy performances, while shipping thousands of U.S. jobs overseas.

They're talking about destroying the autoworkers' unions. Bankrupting the corporations would nullify all the existing union contracts. Whoever bought the companies (likely the Chinese) would be free to negotiate with whoever they like -- or, potentially, simply set up shop with no unions at all.

The auto industry is in dire need of a makeover. But allowing it to collapse isn't going to achieve that. That's like trying to put lipstick on a corpse.

From the Mankato Free Press, the wit and wisdom of a fellw named Paul Bade, "a Mankato resident and self-employed electronics repairman" "who has been active in GOP politics since he was 10 years old":

Bade considers Obama’s rise to be similar to that of Adolph Hitler’s in the 1930s, and he believes there’s an outside chance that America is headed for a dictatorship. More likely is a slide to socialism or, perhaps, just an inept presidency, he said.

“I’m almost expecting the Obama administration to make a botch of things,” Bade said. “They’re too ideologically socialist, and a lot of their ideas are impractical. They just don’t add up.”

When you hear right-wing pundits and politicians proclaim this garbage, you have to at least partially chalk it up to their desire to garner bigger ratings and attention by "pushing the envelope" -- it seems more cynical than sincere.

But the long-term effect is that gullible right-wing footsoldiers soak this shit up and internalize it. They really do believe it.

[Via BlueStemPrairie.]