Added bonus:
• Arlen Specter's party switch and subsequent fallToo funny, no?
Comments?
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
• Arlen Specter's party switch and subsequent fallToo funny, no?
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
30 comments:
And in Pennsylvania, a real Democrat ousted Faux-Democrat Arlen Specter in Senate Primary. [Specter had the support of President Obama.]
In other interesting results, this from the Washington Post:
Elsewhere, Democrats held the seat of the late congressman John P. Murtha (D) in a special House election.... Republicans had hoped to pick off the culturally conservative district to demonstrate their momentum this year. But Democrat Mark Critz, a former aide to Murtha, defeated Republican businessman Tim Burns with relative ease.
In Arkansas, Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, another embattled incumbent who had Obama's support, fell short in her bid to win renomination outright and now faces Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in a potentially perilous June 8 runoff.
Sen. Lincoln is another Blue Dog Democrat now in trouble. She campaigned this time as a Friend of Labor who claimed her solid support for the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce illustrated her pro-labor committment. Her opponent is a liberal Democrat. She now faces a primary fight to keep her job.
I know the Tea Party crowd would like to create the impression that incumbents are in trouble for being too liberal, but there is just as much evidence out there that establishment incumbents on the Democratic side are in trouble for being too conservative.
Going to be an interesting election year.
"[Specter had the support of President Obama.]"
That and a couple of bucks will get you a latte at most snobby cafe-shoppes these days.
Somehow, candidates who are endorsed by
Obama aren't doing so hot these days.
Rudi:
And the Republican who lost to Critz in Ohio had Sarah Palin and John Boehner campaigning for him. And this wasn't a primary. It was an election. And the Republican who lost to Ron Paul's kid was hand-picked by Mitch McConnel. From which we can conclude that it doesn't pay to have Rightwing Republican leaders campaign for you in this election?
I wouldn't draw too many general conclusions yet. Evidence running in both directions amid the general theme of anti-incumbency.
As I said, it's going to be an interesting election year.
There are many in the Utah GOP, Curm, who believe Mitch McConnel is a RINO.
Interesting times indeed, Curm.
Specter loses in PA, while Paul gets boost from Tea Party in KY
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new
virulent strain of this old disease. The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim.
It's pronounced "Gonna re-elect 'em," and it is a terrible obamanation.
The disease is contracted through dangerous and high risk behavior
involving putting your cranium up your rectum. Many victims contracted it in
2008 . . . but now most people, after having been infected for the past 1-2
years, are starting to realize how destructive this sickness is.
It's sad because Gonorrhea Lectim is easily cured with a new drug
just coming on the market called Votemout. You take the first dose in 2010
and the second dose in 2012 and simply don't engage in such behavior again;
otherwise, it could become permanent and eventually wipe out all life as we
know it.
Several states are already on top of this, like Virginia and New
Jersey, and apparently now Massachusetts, with many more seeing the
writing on the wall.
What Tuesday Really Meant
Sorry everyone but Obama and the senior Democrates almost always stand behind the incubent unless they have ethics, fraud or treson investigations. Now you will see the Democrates not loose as many seats this time around as the Republicians and Tea Party followers have predicted.
Jobs are up, economy is growing even slowly and the Republician scare tactics aren't working. The party of "NO" seems to be in trouble. It called compromise and as long as they keep saying no, it shows the voters who really cares about this country.
To answer the question in this article's subtitle:
The Republican Party since Reagan has basically been an alliance between the religious right and those who want to help the rich get richer. The agenda of the first group is to force everyone to say they worship the same god and prevent people from enjoying drugs and sex. The agenda of the second group is to cut taxes for the rich and to eliminate restrictions on unscrupulous business practices. (The second group also tends to advocate foreign wars to protect the interests of American corporations abroad.) The alliance has been held together by the Republican establishment, who are mostly members of the second group but are happy to give the religious folks what they want, and by rank-and-file conservative moderates who are somewhat sympathetic to both groups.
The Tea Party is made up of the more extreme elements of both groups, aside from the racial bigots who can't stand the fact that a black guy lives in the White House. So you have your Sarah Palin worshippers (religious right extremists), and your Libertarians (against taxes and regulation and "entitlements"). It's a pretty tenuous alliance, because most of the Libertarians have no problem with abortion or gay marriage, while most of the religious extremists would rather keep their Social Security and Medicare and unemployment checks even if it means raising taxes on the rich.
The Tea Party has a lot of energy now because they're united against a common enemy (Obama). It's easy to be against someone, as long as you don't have to say who or what you're for. But just wait until the Republicans have to nominate a candidate for President. If they nominate Palin, the religious right will be delirious but the Libertarians will be seriously pissed. If they nominate Paul, it's the other way around. If they nominate Romney, neither group is happy. So I predict that the Tea Party will unravel by the time the nomination is decided. And if I'm wrong, and the Tea Partiers somehow agree on a candidate and get that candidate elected, the Tea Party will still unravel because they'll have lost their common enemy and you can't actually govern a country just by being against everything.
Pundit:
Nice. TY.
I also forgot to add that our current military has been hijack by right wing evangelicals. If you don't go to church you are detailed into unpleasent chores. They are building the largest chapel in Texas at Ft Hood I believe that costs millions of tax dollars, just like the mega churches they attend.
Look at the psalms imprinted on Army rifle sights until they were exposed. Almost a crusade against Americian ideals of all created equal.
Pundit
Interesting observations on the tea party. You seem to have a pretty good insight into the dynamics of the movement.
But, do you really think any one or any movement would be bat shit crazy enough to actually nominate Palin as a Presidential candidate? She really does seem to be as empty of intellect as any politician in memory - except of course for our own legislative leadership (so called).
One of the things that made it difficult for Ron Paul pere to be accepted as a serious candidate was his unfortunate and frequent associations with racist groups earlier in his career --- groups which liked his states-rights message. I had hoped his son, now that he's decided to become politically active, would have avoided appearing to side with the southern racist whites who abandoned the Democratic Party over the Civil Rights movement. Looks like my hopes will not be realized. Paul says he'd have opposed the civil rights bill, and thought [and thinks] it wrong for the government to ban segregation in private businesses like restaurants and lunch counters. Link here..
NYTimes has a longer story on Mr. Paul's views on segregation and the Civil Rights Act in which he now claims he was misquoted. Link here.
Then there's the leader of one of the three major Tea Party organizing groups, who wants the US to bomb and occupy Mecca because Moslems are opening a mosque in Manhattan. Excerpts from his rant can be found here. His original post is pass-word protected, but can be found here if you want to register on his site.
However happy you might be as a GOPer to see the GOP establishment shaken up by the Tea Party set, Rudi, much of that movement seems to be led by, and to attract, dangerous extremists. Bomb Mecca because Moslems are opening a mosque in Manhattan? Jesus.
LOL, Curm! Please let us know when you're ready to quit hyperventilating. Even those of us to the right of Attilla the Hun will be happy too provide a respirator.
The times' they be a'changin'
Cool it man. The free citizens of the USA will ultimately work it all out.
Dr. O:
Not hyperventilating. Simply noting what a lot of others have noted: the Tea Party group has some extremists not only among the followers, but the leaders. If you're comfortable with one of the major organizers of the nation-wide TP movement calling for the bombing Mecca and its occupation by the US, so be it. I wouldn't be if one of the key leaders of a movement I was supporting did.
And if you're completely confident that "the movement" can and will be able to control its extreme elements, fine. I think underestimating extremists in any political movement is a generally risky idea. Not always easy to figure out how to dismount from tiger once you're riding it.
And I notice you didn't reply to the substance of either link.
HEY DEMOCRAT BOY: TAKE A DEEP BREATH! FIND A LAMAZE CLASS IN YOUR AREA!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Dr O:
Once again, I notice you didn't reply to the substance of either link.
Actually, from a Yellow Dog Democrat's POV, I enjoy watching Republicans eat their own. When TP ranter goes after another Republican incumbent, or suggests the US should invade Saudi Arabia, I'm all for popping some popcorn, opening a beer and settling in for the fun.
Really, does anyone even remember the John Birch Society? Pat Buchanan?
They ranted, they failed, they used states-rights as a shield to defend their fear-based prejudice, they got a foot note in the history books; most of the under-thirtysomethings who vote find the beliefs of the McCarthy Era leaders to be repulsive to the extreme.
And rightly so.
And now Mr. Paul has announced the President Obama is "un-American" [that's Mr. Paul's term] for criticizing BP for the Gulf Oil spill. Link here.
And he goes on to suggest how unfair it is to criticize coal companies for coal mine disasters, because "accidents happen." Mr. Paul doesn't understand, he says, why after such disasters people, and government, starts trying to discover who was responsible.
Like many ideologues, Dr. Paul demonstrates a tendency to resort to ivory tower libertarian principles, rather than to discuss issues from a pragmatic perspective, Curm. Check out this Rachel Maddow interview, where Ms. Maddow skillfully backs him into a corner on the issue of racial discrimination in private venues:
RAND PAUL vs RACHEL MADDOW
Paul continues to demonstrate that he's a political novice; and it's clear, I think, that he'll have to clean up his interview skills, if he expects to get real traction with the general Kentucky electorate.
With due allowance for his novice status, I'm not sure what the fix is for someone who thinks it's "unAmerican" for elected officials to criticize private businesses. Would more interview skills allow Paul to hide what he thinks? Or convince him to substitute for what he thinks with meaningless blather? Neither would be an improvement, I'm thinking.
The problem is not his interview skills. The problem is, as you note, he is a libertarian ideologue who truly thinks criticizing BP for the oil spill or looking to tighten up gulf oil manditory safety procedures is "un-American" and who evidently thinks government has no role, and should have no role, in workplace safety matters like mine safety requirements and inspections. Seems to me, his vision for the future is [with respect to business and labor matters at least] a return to the laissez-faire days of the Guilded Age before such [for him] government abuses as the Pure Food and Drug Act or the Federal Meat Inspection Act or wage-and-hours legislation and perhaps even the ban on child labor went into place. It was a time when ten and 12 hours shifts, six days a week, 52 weeks a year, were common, and when owner negligence that led to crippling workplace injuries was considered by the courts a "cost of doing business" laborers freely accepted when they took a job.
Ideologues of any stripe in public office make me very nervous since they're immune to real-world evidence that their ideologies are flawed and immune to drawing reasoned conclusions from the consequences of putting their ideologies into place as policy and law. As you note, Mr. Paul seems to be just such an ideologue.
"Ideologues of any stripe in public office make me very nervous..."
Me too Curm. It'll be interesting to see whether Ron Paul's kid is able to adapt to the realities of the U.S. political marketplace.
This race will definitely remain in the national spotlight, notwithstanding the fact that we're only talking about a relative political backwater (Kentucky) here, in this instance.
(Gawd Does Your Blogmeister ever love politics!)
Rudi:
Did you see the Wall Street Journal story in which Mr. Paul demands a balanced budget and massive reductions in federal spending... except for Medicare payments to doctors. He's absolutely opposed to cutting them, he says, noting that half his patients are on Medicare.
So, are we to conclude that radical libertarian ideologue Paul favors socialized medicine [aka Medicare], just so long as it funnels patients and payments to him? Seems so....
"Did you see the Wall Street Journal story in which Mr. Paul demands a balanced budget and massive reductions in federal spending... except for Medicare payments to doctors. He's absolutely opposed to cutting them, he says, noting that half his patients are on Medicare."
No I haven't seen it. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to link it, rather than just "rattle" about it.
We await your soon-to-be posted link with abated breath.
"Rand Paul is starting to soak up a lot of Sarah Palin's media bandwidth."
"Rand Paul is starting to soak up a lot of Sarah Palin's media bandwidth."
So let me ax ya's, Nate:
Assuming you're correct about this, is this good or bad?
Oh, Blogmeister, your wish is my command, for I live but to serve. The link to the WSJ story describing Mr. Paul's love of government spending on Medicare for his patients [half his practice] is here.
"Ouch," Curm. Seems you Demo progressives and GOP neoCONS will have him thoroughly compromised and skewered even before he leaves the Kentucky Senate Race Starting Block.
Rudi:
Hey, wasn't liberals doing the skewering. This one came from the Wall Street Journal. Hard to pass it off as just another ax job by the liberal media... [grin].
neoCONS, Curm. The Wall Street Journal, which hasn't been much of a finacial newspaper for the past few years, is now owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch.
Ever hear of the neoCON Faux News Network?
Same neoCON ownership, old buddy.
Try to keep up.
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