A good response to Obama’s Republican’t critics – by FDR

This is the well known “Fala” speech.

They’re melting, they’re melting…

Bill Maher has a good piece in the LA Times on the GOP meltdown.

It’s been a week now, and I still don’t know what those “tea bag” protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who’s going to win “American Idol.” But it wasn’t tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that’s when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because … well, nobody knows. They’re mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore. Even though they’re not quite sure what “it” is. But they know they’re fed up with “it,” and that “it” has got to stop.

Yep.  The party of  “not Obama.”

Paying the piper

Are progressives finally getting serious about fundraising for blue dogs?  It made sense to put party first when Democrats were in the minority, but with a solid majority the time has come to look for quality.

Chris Bowers opines:

If we keep sending the Blue Dogs millions of dollars in small, online donations every year, then there is no incentive for Blue Dogs to ever change their behavior, or for Democratic candidates to not seek out membership in the Blue Dog coalition. Currently, being a member, or prospective member, of the Blue Dog coalition provides you access to a network of Hill staff, corproate lobbyists and their PACs, large donor fundraisers, and press releases back home to talk about how you aren’t like those other, dirty liberal Democrats. If we want to change Democratic behavior in Congress, we have stop adding even more incentives for Democrats to become Blue Dogs. Instead, we must offer strong disincentives for them to become Blue Dogs, such as a significantly reduced access to online, small donor fundraising.

Unfortunately, in Scott Murphy’s case, small online donors raised over $300,000 for him even after Murphy had stated he was applying to join the Blue Dogs. That has to stop. Before we raise money for other congressional candidates in 2009-2010, we have to extract promises from those candidates that they won’t join either the Blue Dogs (for House candidates) or Evan Bayh’s groups (for Senate candidates).

No more money for the Blue Dogs. We can’t continue to ratify their efforts to push the Democratic Party to the right. There are plenty of candidates and organizations working to push the party in the opposite direction to whom we small online donors should give our money.

Held hostage by a volcano

Alaska’s senator speaks up in favor of volcano monitoring.

Yet, she voted against volcano monitoring when it came up in the stimulus package.

But hey, what are the needs of her constituents when there are political points to be scored?

Recognizing the limitations

Yglesias on why a progressive majority will always be transitory:

I would go stronger than that, actually, and posit that American politics in the future will mostly be dominated by a center-right political coalition just as it always has. This is just how things work. A political coalition grounded in the social mores of the ethno-sectarian majority and the ideas of the business class has overwhelming intrinsic advantages against contrary movements grounded in the complaints of minority groups and the economic claims of the lower orders. It’s a little bit hard to even know what a permanent progressive governing majority would mean, and harder to know how you would sustain it.

Empty bipartisanship

MyDD asks some hard questions about what’s up with the Gregg nomination.

Feeling blue

Are there only five red states left as Nate Silver would suggest?

That’s right: just five states, collectively containing about 2 percent of the American population, have statistically significant pluralities of adults identifying themselves as Republicans. These are the “Mormon Belt” states of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, plus Nebraska, plus Alaska. By contrast, 35 states are plurality Democratic, and 10 states are too close to call.

Overstates the case somewhat, but by less than you’d expect.  How much of it is real and how much of it is the bitter aftertaste of Bush in one’s mouth?  Time will tell.

Blast from the past

FDR’s first inauguration address

Clever democrats?

When did that happen, and why can’t it happen more often?  Wonkette has the goods:

AMAZING! Acting in a clandestine pact, the 49 Democrats in Tennessee’s House shocked Nashville just one hour ago by nominating and then voting en masse for Kent Williams (a moderate Republican from Elizabethton in Carter County) for Speaker to lead the 99-member chamber. The official Republican nominee, Jason Mumpower (a wingnut from Bristol in Sullivan County) was left speechless, clutching the family bible that he had brought in preparation for taking the Speaker’s oath of office.

This is HUGE! The R’s had promised bans on gay adoption and fostering, new concealed weapons laws, new constitutional limits on abortion, new anti-immigrant legislation, and mandating the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools. Because the Tennessee House operates under a strict committee system and the Speaker appoints all committee chairs, though, it is unclear whether Republicans will be able to get any of these measures to the floor of the House. In addition, the re-election prospects for the long-serving and widely-respected Comptroller and Treasurer (both Democrats) is now much more promising; the General Assembly votes for these constitutional offices tomorrow.

THIS is bipartisanship you can believe in.

Update:

Hat tip to John Cole for this video:

Idiots of 2008?

Buffalo Beast lists some candidates for the 50 most loathsome people of 2008.  Some interesting, even surprising selections.

Political predictions

What’s going to happen in 2009 politically?  Perhaps I should get my head examined, because Carville is making sense to me.

Divine rights

I’m sure Caroline Kennedy is a good person with talents and abilities.  But she’s lived a deliberately private life outside of politics.  How that qualifies her for office over those who have busted their asses for the length of their professional careers I’m not certain.

Atrios:

I find the whole unfolding Caroline Kennedy saga to be rather depressing. Not just that she’s being considered (in the press if not elsewhere), but that she’s running a public campaign which involves reaching out to elites. The whole thing is just weird and feeds into the politics as personality soap opera that the press loves to focus on.

Kos:

It’s clear that a significant contingent on this site believes that Caroline Kennedy should be senator because her last name is “Kennedy”, and because they “like her”. It is unseemly that she’s being considered for the seat simply because of her family lineage and her ability to pick up the phone and ring the governor, but pointing that out is “bashing Caroline”. It’s all ridiculous, and yes, depressing.

Because as much as people on this site and others fight for a more small “d” democratic political system, one that isn’t so tilted in favor of the rich, famous, and connected, there will always be a significant majority that is desperate for an American monarchy and will discard notions of meritocracy to reward their favorite political dynasty.

Indeed.  It should probably be pointed out that there’s nothing in the Constitution that actually requires a Kennedy in government at all times.

Forrest Gump on the bailouts

From a friend:

Forrest Gump might size-up the current fiscal crisis this way:

• Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates.
• Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds.
• Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to hungry investors who, without even tasting them, repacked them and sold them again and again and again.
• Eventually, somebody got hungry bit into a turd and discovered that his box of chocolates was filled them. Suddenly, nobody trusted American chocolates anymore worldwide.
• Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal or until the price of fertilizer goes up.
• Meanwhile, Hank’s buddies (the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates) are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.
• Mama always said: “Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest.”

The bailout, a different perspective: Back in 1990, the government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion. As required by law, the government tried to run it. The government failed and the ranch was closed. So, remind me again why we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nitwits who couldn’t get drunks laid in a whore house?

Bye bye base

The GOP Base, that is.

The blueing of America

Not that Utah’s electoral votes were ever in question, but it’s still amazing that Salt Lake County voted for Obama.

Salt Lake County just turned a shade bluer. After completing the final canvass of votes cast in the general election Nov. 4, President-elect Barack Obama can claim another battleground victory — he out-polled Sen. John McCain in Salt Lake County by a margin of 296 votes.

Fifty state strategy anyone?