fighting for your political life

I know I write about Michael Steele a lot but he’s just so damn funny I can’t help it. It could also be that my black encrusted heart is thumping with glee over his monumental struggle to lead the RNC. If there was any example I could pull out of my hat to illustrate the unwavering cluelessness of the Republican Party, electing a self serving boob like Steele would always be my first choice.

This morning, Steele participated in a debate along with other wannabe candidates for the RNC chairmanship. His tenure is up and he’s holding on with tether hooks to his position. It was his time to lay it all on the line. It was his chance to defend the decisions he’s made and make nice with the upper echelon of the party so that he can keep his job. How did he do?

Well, after a lot of sucking up to the base, (reaffirming homophobia, anti-choice, and the right to stockpile a lot of guns without paying too much in taxes), he seemed to do fine. He reiterated the need for the Republican party to reach out and improve communications with the rank and file. He also pointed out the importance of expanding the tent by actively recruiting more minorities. He sounded far more reasonable than the members of the Hard Right Brigade sitting with him. That was until he decided to quote from one of his favorite books, “War and Peace”. Except, the quote was actually from Charles Dickens. Lawd Jesus.

It’s not just once gaffe that draws giggles and exasperation, it’s the entire collection of gaffes, miscues, off color comments, and general buffoonery that Steele has engaged in for the past two years. There’s no way he’s going to be re-elected because despite the fact that he has foot in the mouth disease, his real crime was financial mismanagement. In other words, he messed with other people’s money and that ain’t gonna fly. I guess I’m still wondering if the RNC expected Steele to be their own little right leaning version of Obama. Steele obviously thought he was in the same league as PBO, but those with sense knew he wasn’t.

Looks like the other side has seen it too.

i could but i won’t

Go over the whole Shirley Sherrod fiasco. It was probably the most ridiculous and shameful political display this year. I was hoping that the media would find some more foolishness to latch onto, but nooooo. They have to wring out the last bit of crap like water from a dirty ass rag. Just stop already.

1. We know racism still exists. (Duh!)
2. We know that both The Right and The Left like to stir up the deepest fears of the masses in order to get votes.     The Right : Black People; The Left: Black people who don’t do what they want.
3. Fox News is a propaganda channel. They wouldn’t know real journalism if it came up and kicked them in the  crack of their ass.
4. Somebody’s going to get paid some big bucks from all of this. My guess is Sherrod. “Next on Lifetime, The Shirley Sherrod Story: Slander and Guilt and How I Made it Over!”
5. We’ve got other things to worry about.

So don’t fear. I will not be pontificating about Andrew Breitbart’s assholery. I don’t want to dirty up my blog with that. I’m so over it. I prefer some real outrage over some that’s manufactured.

*drops mic and walks away*

dummy of the day

Poor Mark Williams. In his attempt to defend the Tea Party Movement against charges of racism from the NAACP, he writes what he claims is a satirical letter on his blog that is nothing short of racist. As a result, the Tea Party Federation expelled Williams today calling the letter, “offensive”.

Williams isn’t new to controversy. He once called President Obama a , “Muslim Welfare Thug”. He also called said that Muslims worship a , “Monkey God”. However, instead of embracing his inner racist, Williams would rationalize it and claim that his critics were overly sensitive or racists themselves.

Looks like Williams just rationalized himself out of a job now. The thing is, while Williams was the tone deaf and  culturally insensitive public face of the Tea Party, there are many more Mark Williams’ behind the scenes and in the ranks. We’ve seen the signs. We’ve heard the comments. We’ve seen the pictures. It says a lot about the organization that claimed it wasn’t racist by having this man speak on their behalf time and time again.

His ousting is just symbolic and way too late. Although it took the NAACP months to finally criticize the Tea Party, anyone who’s been paying attention to politics knew long before what exactly the Tea Party is all about. Better late than never? Not a chance.

Scary Black Men

I know I should be incredibly offended by the faux New Black Panther Party Scandal trumped-up by The Right and Fox News. I just can’t though. It’s so utterly ridiculous to think that videotape of a cuckoo-ball at a polling station wielding a club and screaming cuckoo-ball stuff was going to topple the Obama Presidency. As fas as I could see, no one seemed intimidated. They just avoided homeboy and gave him some serious side-eyes. If you are a regular Fox News watcher though, this guy was the Scary Black Man made of nightmares. The jack boot wearing, revolutionary spouting boogeyman whose mission in life was frighten the poo out of good ol’ Americans.

Gimme a break, will you? The New Black Panther Party is a joke. They get no love. In fact the only time anyone pays attention to them is when one of them goes on Fox News. But we’re supposed to believe they are in cahoots with the Obama Administration to suppress voting rights? I know this requires a bit of attention, but the NBPP doesn’t care for Obama too much either. Actually they don’t care for anyone who doesn’t adhere to their separatist ideology.  That pretty much includes about 99.9% of the Black population in this country. But to The Right, it doesn’t matter. They fit right nicely into the Scary Black Man meme. Unfortunately, folks were eating it up.

Until the facts came out. See, it was the Bush administration that chose not to pursue Voter intimidation and suppression charges against the NBPP. In fact, they banned them from appearing at polling places until 2012. They were quite satisfied with the response of the local authorities who escorted the members from the polling place and took away their big stick. No muss, no fuss. No need to worry about a big, black, beret wearing Negro jumping behind a voter and screaming, “Boo!” before the lever is pulled.

Too bad the Faux pundits got their knickers all in a twist about it. Poor Megyn Kelly blew a gasket at the mere mention that all this was much ado about nothing. “It’s not about race!”, she cried. “It’s about the law!”. Uh, okay. I don’t remember her being that upset when the Bush led Department of Justice sought to destroy ACORN and purged members from the department when they didn’t cooperate. I know, they weren’t Scary and Black though.

Good thing that all the baiting will probably lead to nothing. Fox News will have to find another Scary Negro to prop up in front of its viewers because Scary Negro Number 1, President Obama just isn’t doing the trick anymore.

Stay tuned.

In name only

Well it happened. Michael Steele, the beleaguered Chairman of the Republican National Committee managed to REALLY piss off the bigwigs of the party. Calls are now pouring in for him to resign and they are expressing their displeasure in every media outlet possible. Looks like Chairman Steele really said the wrong thing when he opined over America’s war with Afghanistan. He laid our involvement at the feet of President Obama (totally wrong), and said that we had no business being there (totally right).

Once again, Steele forgot what party he represented and who’s writing the checks. Modern Republicanism LOVES war. It really loves war in foreign countries with our soldiers battling enemies against the American Way of Life. WAR means big contracts, WAR means looking tough in the face of our critics and foes. WAR means money for congressmen, lobbyists, private contractors. Steele spoke against the WAR. That was the wrong thing to do, even though it was the right sentiment.

We have no business in Afghanistan, just like we had no business invading Iraq. Both wars have dragged the economy and our collective morale into the gutter. Thousands of lives have been lost. Those that have survived are dealing with life altering injuries and mental problems. But that’s not what you are supposed to say and think when you are trying to pry money from the chickenhawks. Poor, blundering, Mike.

So now the word is he’s an island unto himself. The RNC runs itself without his direct knowledge or consent. He’s become a figurehead-dare I say, a token. Steele won’t be fired because the Republicans know that it will make them look bad. He probably won’t resign because he’s too stubborn and short-sighted to see that it would benefit him in the long run to walk away. From what Steele has taught us though, it’s better to be the HNIC in name only than to be nothing at all.

a not so fresh pick

President Barack Obama announced his SCOTUS pick (24 hours after it had been leaked by the media) in a press conference this morning. After weeks of accurate speculation, Solicitor General Elena Kagan was introduced. Like clockwork, those on the Left tried to find something right with it, while those on the Right tried to find something wrong with it. Those in middle were relegated to quibbling about her Beltway ties and her sexual orientation. All very tedious but expected.

Whatever hopes had about Kagan being in lockstep with Justice Stevens were misplaced. The days of a Liberal majority in the Supreme Court are long gone. The Middle and The Right have yet to get over the sweeping social and economic changes of the ’60′s and ’70′s, and the members of those camps have made it their life’s work to make sure they don’t happen again. Liberal is a dirty word that no one wants to be called. Liberals don’t even like to be called Liberals. The term is “Progressive” now-and don’t you frigging forget it. Thanks to a major propaganda campaign, Liberal is synonymous with Socialism, government hand-outs, and a hatred of freedom.

It’s utterly ridiculous but incredibly effective. The President knows this. He’s no Liberal. He also doesn’t want a huge fight with the Republicans, so he chose a candidate who isn’t a Liberal. This is something that Liberals Progressives will have to deal with. There’s no way in hell that a vengeful Republican party is going to allow the Supreme Court to veer to the Dark-Liberally-Side. They aren’t even interested in participating in a smooth nomination process. The stakes are too high and there’s still a lot of work to do to erase the memory of Roe vs. Wade & etc from the annals of judicial history.

I don’t know that much about Kagan right now and I refuse to watch any coverage. I’ll wait until the hearings start. Unlike others, I prefer to hear from Kagan herself about what kind of Justice she will be. What I do know already is that she will be prepared to stay right in the middle of any issue presented to her.

As expected.

7.5 hours of what?

The President met with Congressional Republicans at the Blair House this morning to talk about Healthcare. You couldn’t call it a meeting of the minds or an effort to compromise. The Republicans have no intention of seeing this through and everyone knows it. So basically the public watched over 7 hours of Republicans regurgitating the same old talking points while President Obama swatted them away like tsetse flies. At times it was fascinating. Even after watching PBO speak at various events for the past 3 years, I still marvel at his utter command of information. I still have to pinch myself as reminder that we now have a smart President.

Like I said, some of it was engrossing. Most of it was snoozeworthy. The question was whether or not anything actually got accomplished. Well, the Democrats still seemed really squeamish about the use of reconciliation and the Republicans were content to poo poo everything. So I would say no. Interesting political theater but useless nonetheless.

Now that the pundits feel like they’ve actually earned their checks, can the rest of us get a health care bill passed?

hopey mcchange >>>dopey mcsame

If you haven’t heard, the ex-governor of Alaska spoke to Tea Party masses at their 1st ever convention. For $100,000 they were given standard GOP talking points with a lil’ dash of Libertarianism on the side. I guess the pressure was a bit too much for her because she was caught cribbing notes during the Q&A session after the speech.

Huh, making fun of the President for using a teleprompter while putting a black Sharpie to good use on your hand is pretty stupid. But then again, this is Palin we’re talking about here. A politician who will never be in life associated with intellect. But who am I to quibble? If the  Right Wing of the GOP  Tea Party folks like it, I love it.

Give me more of that Hopey McChange. They can keep Dopey McSame and her crib notes.

picture via HuffingtonPost

the worst…

Political ad in the history of creation made its debut to universal derision. Carly Fiorina, the former head and destroyer of Hewlitt-Packard is running for Senate in California. Last year, her campaign website sought to rename the state ”CARLYFIORNA”  which made the world chuckle and mock her in the midst of the recession. Now she’s paid for an attack ad in which a dude crawls around in a sheep costume trying to make her opponent look like..well, no one actually knows.

It is, I repeat: THE WORST POLITICAL AD EVER. Of course this means it has become THE twitter trend topic of the day. And those in the political know are including “demonsheep” in their water cooler discussions. It’s so bad, that her Republican opponent has set up his own website in order to raise money to help thwart the spread of demon sheep.

How can anyone take Fiorina seriously when she’s responsible for such appalling foolishness? Of course this is good news for Barbara Boxer,unless she decides to make an ad featuring angelic Chihuahuas.

The ad:

I’m still scratching my head, and checking the lawn for demon sheep.

righteous and real anger

We had been warned beforehand.  Representative Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota had hit the button on the siren and called the Tea Party Folks to descend upon Capitol Hill to confront her fellow Congressmen and women. They were to declare that they didn’t want their health care taken away. They didn’t want Nancy Pelosi and Co. to spend all of their hard earned taxes. They didn’t want any part of Socialism! Come they did, about 4,000 in number. Some were arrested but most were content to work themselves in a lather on the steps of the Capitol building, spurned on by Bachmann, Boehner, Cantor, Foxx, and a few other fools responsible for the spread of the blatant misinformation about health care reform.

They came with offensive signs, they screamed, and they yelled. They had John Voight drive another spike into their fear filled hearts (Angie, come get your Daddy, please). They were led in a bungled recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. They were given a mucked up civics lesson by John Boehner. One of these days he’ll actually read something, maybe like the Constitution, or the Republican health care bill. They rallied as if they were part of some kind of new revolution. A Republican red, 99% white, and blue collar revolution.

Well, wave a flag and shed a tear folks. As for me, I’m completely nonplussed at the situational patriotism that was displayed. Had it been the other side protesting, they would have been called traitors or even worse. Only middle American, Obama hating, native-born people can love this country. Yeah, I get it. Now get on your buses paid for by Insurance lobbyist funded Astroturf organizations and go on home. We’ve been through this righteous anger all summer. The shit is tired.

We were warned but we weren’t ready for a horrific display of real anger that was shown today. It didn’t happen in the rotunda in Washington, but on an army base in Texas. Shortly after 1:00, an Army major and two or possibly three accomplices shot and killed 12 people and wounded 30 more. While the bobbleheads on The Right were dealing in manufactured fear on the Hill, the residents of Ft. Hood were facing the real thing. Fellow soldiers who stood alongside them and took the oath to protect the country from enemies, turned their guns on them and cut them down ruthlessly. Details are sketchy right now. A name and picture was released and stories are floating out that one of the men was to be deployed to Iraq at the end of this month. Surely within in the next few days a clearer picture will be drawn of the men and the circumstances that caused so much terror and death. But like I said, we were warned. Our military men and women have been stretched to the breaking point with the weight of two wars and a lack of mental health services available. Soldiers who have seen the worst acts of human nature imaginable abroad are being sent on tour after tour with no time to decompress or heal. Suicide rates were skyrocketing. The divorce rate of military service people have shot through the roof. The break was coming. We were warned.

So let’s all direct our prayers to the victims and their friends and family at Ft. Hood. Let’s give our sympathy and attention to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice; not to those with an entitled sense of anger and only want to further spread hate.