Tuesday Mashup Part Two (7/27/10)

(Part One is here.)

Atrios says that this is how empires fall (and he’s right).

I would add that this doesn’t exactly help either (this happened primarily under the watch of Dubya and the congressional Repugs – I truly can’t imagine the gall that they can now “rebrand” themselves after this as the supposed party of fiscal prudence).

Also, I don’t have anything particularly brilliant to add about the WikiLeaks controversy related to the war in Afghanistan– I know the administration has claimed that the information pertains mainly to 2004 to 2009, which I think is basically a dodge. I’m on the side of John Kerry; you can question how this information was released, but regardless, it raises some basic questions about what the $#@! we’re supposedly trying to accomplish and when we’re going to “wise up” at long last and get the hell out.

The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11, though they provided aid and comfort to the ones who did. And there isn’t enough of an al Qaeda presence to justify our troop strength.

And yes, I know this is a recording.

Also, John Harwood told us the following recently in the New York Times (here)…

But Mr. Obama lacks a key strategic advantage that his Democratic predecessor in the Oval Office enjoyed. Mr. Clinton’s small initiatives came as a relief to voters exhausted by the aggressive conservatism of a Republican Congress led by Newt Gingrich, then the House speaker.

Since Democrats control the White House and Congress alike, “Obama doesn’t have anybody to contrast with,” Mr. Reed said. “He doesn’t really have a boogeyman right now.”

Oh, I’m not sure I would agree with that based on this (and as noted here, “Bush’s Brain” has no trouble trying to step into that void either).

Also, according to David Carr of the Times here, did you know that the Dems “(pick) up their talking points from Rachel Maddow”?

Gee, I wonder, then, how that would explain this?

Further (trying not to keep saying Also), this Hill post from Repug Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska tells us that he voted against extending unemployment benefits because (like a true Repug) he believes it should have been “paid for” (of course, Heaven forbid that Johanns or anyone else become possessed by a sense of fiscal prudence over the wars or Dubya’s ruinous tax cuts).

This really isn’t too surprising I know, given Johanns’ almost invisible progressive rating here (and as noted here, he also voted against extending benefits in May 2009).

Oh, and according to this, did you know that Johanns flip-flopped on the “stim”…

GOP Senator Mike Johanns of Nebraska told the Grand Island, Neb., Independent newspaper that “it would be hard for me to imagine that we are going to be creating many jobs here.”

That did not, however, stop him from sending a letter to Vilsack requesting funds. “The proposed project would create 38 new jobs and bring broadband to eight hospitals, five colleges, 16 libraries and 161 K-12 schools,” Mr. Johanns wrote.

I’ll be honest – I wouldn’t like Johanns even if his record were decent on the economy because he introduced that ridiculous (and illegal, as it turned out) anti-ACORN Amendment, noted here (and speaking of the economy, I couldn’t find any statement from Johanns about the Vise Grip plant in DeWitt, NE moving to China when he was running against Scott Kleeb for the U.S. Senate…at least Kleeb brought it up in a debate in ’08, which was better than nothing).

Update 7/29/10: Here is something else Johanns and his Repug pals attacking the "stim" should consider if they were fair-minded (which we know they aren't, of course).

Finally, J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times has been busy with his own peculiar form of wingnuttery lately; he concocted the following Sunday (here, typically taking pot shots at Rep. Patrick Murphy and the "Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act," targeted to reduce about $50 billion a year in Medicaid fraud)…

According to the AP, President Obama said: "Every dollar wasted should be going toward helping people afford college, providing benefits to the military and many other legitimate uses of tax money."

Which means the wasteful government will cut government waste to pay for - more government.

You can truly cut the stoo-pid here with a knife, people (and as we all know, based on this, Medicare/Medicaid fraud is no big deal…riiiight).

And as we also know (based on this), J.D. doesn’t think attending college is a big deal either, so that automatically makes it a “big gumint” plot (he has written extensively on this subject, though he would have been better off avoiding the topic).

Not to be outdone, though, he tells us the following today (here)…

In 2006, I was on Independence Mall in Philadelphia to meet Cindy Sheehan, the war protest mom. Across the street, there were a handful of Bush counter-demonstrators. The president's soaring popularity had sunk to low levels. A mid-term election approached.

"The momentum in this country is shifting," Sheehan said, as we were surrounded by throngs of her well-wishers, and she was whisked to her next antiwar protest in another city.

You may see these descriptions as troubling or unflattering. But, long ago, I concluded that such public demonstrations are a safety valve for the masses to blow off steam, to vent frustration.

It's the same spectacle seen with the tea partiers who, for a year, have vented in public at congressional representatives, and protested in Washington, D.C., albeit without leather whips and masks.

Maybe not, but I haven’t seen any anti-war protestors showing up with guns either, to say nothing of signs threatening violence against those with whom they disagree, as you can see…





And it’s kind of funny in a way that, for someone who is actually a good “beat” reporter, Mullane is lazy when it comes to getting the details on the individuals he dislikes (he could try actually interviewing these people and learning about them, but I realize that that would thoroughly disrupt his narratives about “hippy dudes” and the like).

In a way, I suppose, his column today is a companion piece to the item I posed about here not quite five years ago, which touched on a similar theme of ridiculing anti-war protestors. And at the time (perhaps in a fit of pique, I’ll admit), I refereed to him as “a charter member of the right-wing fourth-estate freak show, posing as the journalistic equivalent of the dog-faced boy.”

And believe me when I tell you that absolutely nothing has changed since (and by the way, I don't recall any racism in war protests, further noted here).