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As I told the Speaker this summer, I’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long-term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors. That’s the Best Possible President once again cutting off power to the Third Rail. Enthusiastic . . . → Read More: Annoying tics among supporters of not the worst so hence the best possible president I have been lazy about referring the two of you to other blogs. I keep forgetting that it’s perfectly legitimate in this business to just quote stuff and then say I wrote something, which makes me feel better about not having written anything. Here are some things that people I like have found other people to be fantastically wrong about. Jack Crow on the threat to traditional marriage:
Continue reading Blogs on Parade: “They’re Wrong About Everything” edition I didn’t get around to reading the State of the Union speech until this morning because the idiot White House didn’t post a transcript on their web site before I went to bed last night, and be damned if I’m going to subject myself to the audiovisual torment of a major political speech ever again. So I apologize to both of you for not responding immediately, as I hear that some malevolent homunculus from my former home state, Indiana, did. The speech can be divided into two parts: the part that recognized and cashed in on all the pressure toward economic justice that Occupy created* during the past four months, and the part that didn’t. Now that Newt Gingrich has won the first round in the Confederate States primary contests—and O! what a victory it was; America’s demons are on the prowl and Newt is their advance man—it’s time to look at the various possible fates of the Soul of America depending upon who wins the battle for it. A quick word (two, really) for liberals incensed that other liberals and leftists are attracted to the anti-imperialist, anti-authoritarian soundings of Ron Paul: fuck off. If you don’t like that people are praising a guy they would otherwise regard as just another demented freak filling out the field of demented freaks (and the one . . . → Read More: Why panicked liberals hate Ron Paul A blogger in Philadelphia catches what nobody else has: Barack Obama finally, finally owned up to being a Socialist.
I know I missed it, and I’m attuned to these things. I guess I can relax now: the general election more than ever looks like Obama’s to lose, as the Republicans variously gnaw upon one another’s nether regions or collapse weeping by the roadside, so come January 21 of 2013, the workers paradise awaits us all. Meanwhile, what can you say about Mitch McConnell? The latest scam spam in my inbox is a letter from a high-ranking official of the International Monetary Fund telling me to deal only with him in recovering my money from Nigeria. What is it with Nigeria? Okay, so the war in Iraq is over, according to Obama. This is because the Iraqis rejected his energetic pleas to let him keep some troops in the country—”Okay, not 30,000. How about 10,000? 5? 3500? Okay, fine, we’re leaving, but don’t blame me if we have to come back in with guns a-blazing …”—rather than observing the exit plan humorously agreed upon by the Bush administration. But even with that we’re not leaving, not if you count the 16,000-strong crowd manning the murder holes in the State Department’s gigantic downtown Baghdad bunker. By way of comparison, that’s almost as many people as staff every other US embassy in the world combined, minus Afghanistan. I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink … A few weeks ago I signed up for emails from several candidates in the GOP presidential primary freak show. Nobody is bringing any noteworthy crazy in their private notes to their strongest backers, like me, so I’m reduced instead to reporting on the humanity of it all. Newt Gingrich, for instance, is in far deeper trouble than anyone knew. He’s picking fights not with the Washington Post or the New York Times or even whatever newspaper is still standing in San Francisco, but with Mother Jones Magazine. We have to think Mother Jones was previously unknown to most of his supporters, as it is unknown to most people in the country—no offense intended, just saying the numbers aren’t huge—but now they’ll be slinging the name around with knowledgeable contempt. In recent years, both the civilian government and the military leadership have made a serious effort to elevate the cultural station of military personnel from that of citizen soldiers to the loftier and more separatist “warrior.” They’re all warriors now, and heroes. The end result is that both soldiers and civilians increasingly view the former as a breed apart. That’s not a good thing. For obvious democratic reasons, one wants the military to identify and empathize with the populations whence they spring. Identifying common experiences is one way to do that, and one experience a lot of military personnel have in common with a lot of civilians is that they’re making crap money and the people signing their paychecks don’t seem to care much about them. Another is that if they lose their jobs, they’re in deep trouble almost instantly. I ran across a couple of items yesterday that suggest an avenue for amplifying the Occupy protests within the U.S. by involving military personnel. One was a comment by my pal Schmutzie over at his place about a plan announced by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain to inflict some serious Bad upon veterans benefits, and the other was the first truly useful Twitter message I’ve received during my limited relationship with the service. There is always a certain amount of tension in a democratic society between the right of citizens to know what their governments are doing and the need for governments to preserve vital secrets. The Obama administration, in pursuit of its announced intention to become the most open administration ever, has announced prospective new rules seeking to advance the free flow of information. |
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