Oooooooh. Will the Michael Steele catfight finally expose the Republicans’ ugly racial underbelly?
January 4, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media The whole Michael Steele debacle — embodied in the RNC debate that took place earlier today — really underscores, to a large extent, the realities of the 2010 Election. To wit: Why should Republicans be eager to replace their leadership in a year where they made historic gains in the House? Shouldn’t they reward the mastermind of such success? Indeed, that’s a point Steele emphasizes in his defense. Indeed, he explicitly takes credit for the outcome in the House: “My record stands for itself. We won.” The answer, as everyone knows, is that Steele didn’t mastermind this election at all. He was at best an incidental figure in the outcome. The 2010 results were not the product of anything concocted or engendered by Michael Steele. All he really managed to do was blow a lot of fund-raising opportunities. So who WAS the mastermind of the 2010 Election? If anyone, it was Roger Ailes — a reality that hardly anyone seems to want to acknowledge, including Democrats. Indeed, this was the Fox Election in every respect. Nearly every candidate who won got major a push from Fox. The most energy came from a Tea Party “movement” almost wholly engendered by Fox’s relentless and unapologetic propagndization campaign. The GOP owes its House victories not to Michael Steele but to Fox News. That makes Steele utterly dispensable, especially after two years of gaffes and goofiness . So Steele is out there promising to go all-out to defend himself. In RepublicanSpeak, this means he’s going to viciously attack his opponents. Gee, wonder if he’ll bring up Saul Anuzis’ predilection for mentoring young neo-Nazis . Or if he’ll again claim he’s being held to different standard as a black man . Get out your popcorn! Meanwhile, in today’s debate, Steele did bring up a point not very popular with the Tea Party set: Calling the GOP “the party of Lincoln,” Steele stressed that Republicans must continue efforts to reach out to non-traditional constituencies, namely Hispanics and African-Americans. “This country is a lot bigger than we think it is sometimes,” Steele said. “We cannot be a party that sits back with a litmus test and excludes. The national chairman cannot go into a state and say, ‘You’re less Republican than we are, I will not talk to you.’” No wonder they want to get rid of him.
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What to make of conservatives Rudy Giuliani, Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend celebrating the officially designated terrorist organization Mujaheddin-e Khalq? Glenn Greenwald has some ideas. (More background here .) Glenn Greenwald on Salon:
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Well, you may have to wait a while, unless you’re among Goldman Sachs’ circle of elite customers who were given the investment opportunity on Sunday night—an indication of other possible big moves that Goldman and Facebook might make down the line. Those outside that rarefied group could get the chance if the social networking behemoth goes public in 2012 or beyond.
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There’s no nicer place in America, as demonstrated by this photo juxtaposition of the president signing the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill. Related Entries January 3, 2011 So Much for Bipartisanship January 3, 2011 Celebrating the New GOP Majority
Continue reading …On Sunday’s “Beat the Press,” David Gregory asked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) what he thought about the future of US forces in Afghanistan. Graham doesn’t see an end to US forces’ occupation of that country , rather he calls for an “enduring relationship… in perpetuity.” I think [a permanent US military presence] would be enormously beneficial to the region, as well as Afghanistan.
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We will report this story without the egregious use of maritime metaphors: The U.S. Navy is looking into a case involving one Capt. Owen Honors, commanding officer of the USS Enterprise, and the making of some videos showing sexualized encounters between sailors.
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A glance at The New York Times this morning (downloaded to my iPad in Rome) and it’s evident we’re already inhabiting a Matrix world. A threat by Julian Assange on Nov. 29 to “take down” a major American bank and reveal an “ecosystem of corruption” plucked from an unnamed executive’s hard drive, has set off a massive internal investigation by a team of five to 20 top Bank of America staffers who fear that the missing hard drive may be from one of their own. With its stock price falling, the bank has also hired consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton to join in the inquiry. Meanwhile, of course, the world’s media are still feeding off the hundreds of thousands of classified Pentagon and State Department documents, and new revelations continue each day. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal fortune may have doubled after a massive new investment of $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor that values Facebook at … $50 billion. Social buying site Groupon recently turned down a $6 billion takeover bid from Google. And e-book sales will surge to $1 billion in 2011, headed for $3 billion by 2015. As for traditional booksellers such as Borders, they’re shutting down brick and mortar stores in an attempt to survive. We’re on an IT roller coaster. And what lies beyond the next curve? Who knows? Who just five years ago could have predicted the mammoth presence of Facebook and WikiLeaks and Kindle? As this new year begins, you can either rail against it all—or hold on—and enjoy the ride. Barry M. Lando, a graduate of Harvard and Columbia, spent 25 years as an award-winning investigative producer with “60 Minutes.” He has produced numerous articles, a documentary and a book, “Web of Deceit,” about Iraq. Lando is finishing a novel, “The Shomer Dossier.” Related Entries January 3, 2011 So Much for Bipartisanship January 3, 2011 Celebrating the New GOP Majority
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Click here to view this media There were few fireworks during Monday’s debate between the candidates hoping to be the next Republican National Committee chair. One of the more cringe-worthy moments came when the candidates were asked to name their favorite book. Current RNC chair Michael Steele announced that his favorite book was War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. But the crowd erupted in uncomfortable laughter when Steele quoted Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities . “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he said.
Continue reading …New GOP House To Usurp The Power Of The Purse And Hand It To Wingnut Paul Ryan
January 3, 2011 No CommentAh, the return of voodoo economics! Steve Benen points out that, in addition to a new House rule that requires spending cuts in place of any new or expanded programs (a rule that doesn’t apply to tax cuts, of course), there’s another time bomb in there: And then there’s the other part of House Republicans’ new budget rules. A little-noticed detail in the new rules proposed by House GOP leaders would greatly increase the power of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee. As National Journal’s Katy O’Donnell reports, the new rules say that, for fiscal 2011, the chairman will set spending limits without needing a vote. If that sounds insane, that’s because it is. Under the proposed rules, Ryan would be empowered to single-handedly establish spending levels if the House and Senate struggle to agree on a budget resolution. Just as important, Ryan’s levels would be binding on the chamber, without even being subjected to a vote .The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained : This rule change … means that by voting to adopt the proposed new rules on January 5, a vote on which party discipline will be strictly enforced, the House could effectively be adopting a budget resolution and limits for appropriations bills that it has never even seen, much less debated and had an opportunity to amend . Once Rep. Ryan places in the Congressional Record discretionary funding limits set at the [2008] level, they will become binding on the House, and any attempt to provide funding levels that allow for less severe cuts will be out of order. In addition to inviting a crisis and almost-unavoidable government shutdown, Pat Garofalo reminds us , “The proposed change also seems to fly in the face of the GOP’s promise to end backroom deals and increase transparency, as with one vote, the GOP House may yoke itself to a budget that has never been made public. “Worse, the chamber would be forced to honor mandatory spending levels, established by one crackpot lawmaker, which the rest of Congress would never have even voted on. We’re starting to see some outrage from House Democrats on this, but the fix may be in.
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The GOP is mobilizing to make some big changes over the next two years, including but not limited to the following: taking down health care reform, cutting the budget and attempting to oust President Obama from the White House in 2012.
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