Nastiness multiplied

Courtesy of Slate.com, here is some of the merchandise that was on sale outside the Republican national convention this week. Reportedly, the vendors were doing a brisk business. (Click on the photo to enlarge it for easier reading.)

Summing up the Benghazi (Get Clinton) hearing

Hillary the Riveter. Hat tip to Daily Kos for the image.

Bring on the stupid

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act this week along with the government shutdown orchestrated by the tea party Republicans has surely brought out some of the most world class stupid reactions recently seen on our political stage. When you consider all the vast stupidity that has occurred in the political arena in recent years, you begin to get a true idea of just how insane this week's actors on the stage have shown themselves to be.

I think the one who tops my own personal list - and, admittedly, he has lots of competition - is Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R. - Texas, of course!) berating a park ranger at the World War II Memorial and telling her that she should be ashamed of herself because the memorial was closed. As if she personally had made the decision to close the memorial when, in fact, it was Neugebauer and his fellow tea party posse members who locked those gates. Neugebauer and other tea partiers, like Michele Bachmann, who showed up to have their pictures taken with World War II veterans who had traveled to the city specifically to see that memorial were shocked, shocked that anyone would dare to close it to the public.

Of course, their outrage was purely for the cameras and it certainly did not extend to all those pregnant women, infants, and children who are not getting their supplemental food this week or all those Head Start kids who have been kicked out of their classes because of the tea party's actions. No, their photo-op outrage only extends to old white guys in wheel chairs.

Another day and another stupid statement from a Texan. This time from our dear leader, Rick Perry. In a campaign appearance in New Jersey this week, Perry opined that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act was a "criminal act." He said, in part, " If this health care law is forced upon this country, the young men and women in this audience are the ones who are really going to pay the price. And that, I suggest to you, reaches the point of being a felony toward them and their future." Perhaps Ricky could benefit from a brief review of the history of  the law.

The Affordable Care Act was passed by the House of Representatives and then by the Senate, after which it was signed into law by the president. It was then reviewed by the Supreme Court and found to be constitutional. After all that, there was this little thing called an election last year in which the candidate for the Republican Party promised that on his first day in office he would repeal the law. The Democratic candidate, President Obama, promised to implement it. The Republican candidate was defeated, rather resoundingly. So, Ricky, I really do not think that word "felony" means what you think it means.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined the stupid hit parade by remarking that the president was perfectly willing to negotiate with the Iranians but not with Republicans in Congress. Well, that could be because the Iranians are more reasonable than Republicans in Congress.

And McConnell's teammate, Rand Paul (R-KY) chimed in that so far there had been no debate about Obamacare! Randy, you might want to read two paragraphs back, the paragraph beginning with "The Affordable Care Act was passed..." In fact, the ACA was debated extensively for eighteen months before it was passed and it has been vetted through every branch of the United States government and found to be viable and legitimate.

Finally, the last word in stupid comes from Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) who said, "People are probably going to realize they can live with a lot less government than what they thought they needed."

Yep, forget about NASA or NOAA or the National Institutes of Health with their totally unnecessary attempts to find cures for diseases like cancer or the Food and Drug Administration with all those food and drug inspectors. We don't need no stinkin' researchers or inspectors or scientists! At least not in tea party world.

And so, until such time as Speaker John Boehner finds the courage to stand up to the tea partiers and allow a vote on a bill to continue funding the government - a bill that would certainly pass with bipartisan support - the government shutdown and the uncertainty that it brings to our standing in the world will continue. Sad. And so, so stupid.

*~*~*~*

UPDATE: Another take on the gross stupidity of the moment.

The paternalists continue their attack

Most revealing tweet of the day: 

Bills regulating women's bodies in 2013 alone: 624.  Bills regulating men's bodies since the dawn of time: 0— @AuthorKimberley

A Republican party dominated by middle-aged and elderly white men continues its attacks on women and women's rights. This week alone Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Ohio all passed and/or implemented new restrictions on abortions. All of these laws were passed by Republican legislatures (again mostly white men) and signed by Republican governors (ALL white men). And all of the laws were based on false premises and unscientific "facts" such as that an abortion puts women at high risk for breast cancer or makes them infertile and unable to bear a child later in life.

Most, if not all, of these laws require doctors and abortion providers to lie to their patients about the effects of abortion on the fetus and on the woman. The laws require medically unnecessary ultrasounds, in most cases invasive vaginal ultrasounds. Just try to imagine for a moment what it would be like if a medical treatment needed by a man was required to be preceeded by an unnecessary, invasive, and sometimes painful procedure or if doctors were required by the state to give obviously false information to the man about his treatment.

Moreover, many of these new laws require additional waiting periods for a woman seeking an abortion. Thus the hypocrites who claim to be appalled by late term abortions are forcing women to wait longer and longer into the pregnancy to have the abortion performed, assuring later term abortions.

If you ask a Republican, he will tell you that all of these restrictive and draconian laws are simply meant to "protect" the poor little incompetent woman and make it possible for her to make an "informed choice." You see, in Republican World, women don't really understand what pregnancy is all about. It's doubtful that they even know how it happened! And if they can just be made to stop and think about the consequences of their actions, they will be willing and eager to continue the pregnancy regardless of whether or not they can afford it, even if it was started by rape or incest, regardless of how many other children they may already have, regardless of how it may disrupt their plans for their life.

As for making these laws, well, women shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about that. Men know what is best for "the ladies." As Rick Perry helpfully explained a few days ago, "The louder they scream, the more we know that we are getting something done."

Perry made unbelievably condescending, insulting, and vile personal remarks about Texas State Senator Wendy Davis who became a national political star with her filibuster against Texas' proposed paternalistic restriction on women's rights to control their bodies. (Except it wasn't really unbelievable because this is Rick Perry we're talking about.) Most ironically, he made his remarks at a National Right to Life(!) conference where he opined that "Texans value life." His remarks came on the same day that his administration executed a 52-year-old woman, the 500th person the state has executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

Yes, Texans like Perry, that is to say paternalistic Republicans, "value life" as long as it's in a woman's womb. Once it's born, they couldn't care less about it. Especially if it's female.

There is a cure for all this condescension and paternalistic government. It is called women voters. Women make up more than one-half of the electorate and we do vote. Now if only women will vote their interests, we will finally see an end to paternalism. Yes, even in Texas.

This must drive Darrell Issa crazy!

The trifecta of so-called scandals currently being hyped by the inside the beltway press corps in Washington seem to have had the perverse effect of elevating President Obama's popularity with the great mass of Americans who live outside the beltway, outside the bubble. The results of the first polls since the stories broke show that his approval ratings have actually increased. His approval now stands at 53 percent.

I'm sure this has left Republicans scratching their heads, trying to understand why the American people are not responding to their faux outrage over Benghazi, the IRS, and the AP. The public, at first glance, seem to have sussed out just what that "outrage" is: A political attempt to damage and weaken a popular president.

We've all been down this road before, not so many years ago. We remember the Clinton era and Gingrich et al's attempt at impeachment. Now Republicans are tossing around the word impeachment once again. It seems almost certain that they will attempt it with this president as well. Because that's what their crazy base wants and expects. They are not into governing the country. They are into mischief-making and gumming up the works of government as much as possible.

When they do get around to attempting impeachment, they will find eager partners in the slavering Washington press corps who like nothing better than a ginned up phony controversy. With such stories to obsess about, they don't actually have to get out and work to dig out the real news that affects people's lives.

In the Republicans' continuing campaign to bring down the Obama presidency, there is no more eager soldier than Darrell Issa, the California representative who has dedicated himself to destroying President Obama and has enlisted the committee he heads as his instrument. And what has been the net result of all of his "investigations"? Well, as noted, Obama's popularity has increased while the disapproval ratings of Republicans are at their highest level since CNN started polling the question in 1992. This must drive Darrell Issa crazy!

You would think that it might also cause the Republicans to stop and reconsider their policy of obstruction. They might gain more sympathy and support from Americans if they actually showed some attempts to assist in solving the nation's real problems - of which there are many - rather than simply being the party of "no." But, frankly, these guys seem incapable of such reflection and so I suspect their tantrums will continue and so will their attempts to bring down the president and the country be damned.

When they get around to impeaching Obama, I imagine his approval ratings will skyrocket - 90 percent seems imminently possible.

This is "rebranding"? Sounds a lot like the old brand to me

The Republican National Committee is in its "spring meeting" the avowed purpose of which is to further the party's efforts at rebranding itself and reaching out to Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, women, and young people. So, what was the first thing they did?

The Republican National Committee voted unanimously Friday to reaffirm the party’s commitment to upholding the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, upending party efforts to grow support among younger voters. 

A resolution introduced Wednesday by Michigan committeeman Dave Agema, who came under fire last month for posting an article describing gays as “filthy” on his Facebook page, passed the full RNC by a voice vote and without debate. A second resolution reaffirming “core values” of the party — including opposition to same-sex marriage — was also passed.

This just reaffirms the party's wildly successful platform from last year's presidential campaign. In coming days, we can expect them to pass resolutions to outlaw abortion, regardless of its reason; to deny any path to citizenship for immigrants who are in the country illegally, regardless of how they came to be here; outlawing any kind of affirmative action for underrepresented minorities; abolishing any government assistance for educational loans; oh, and just for good measure, mandating vaginal ultrasounds for any woman who tries to vote, because these guys just love mandatory vaginal ultrasounds for any reason.

That's some rebranding they've got there!

What about the needs of everybody else's children?

With mounting anger, I read the report of Republican senator Rob Portman's "coming out" in favor of allowing same-sex marriage because he learned that his son was gay. While he was receiving plaudits and pats on the back from many liberals for his willingness to change his views when it became convenient for him and his family, I just couldn't join in the praise. 

He was fine with discriminating against homosexuals as long as he thought it didn't affect him, but when he learned that it actually did affect him, he about-faced and announced he would support the rights of two gays to marry because his son was gay. My first thought was, "What about all those other people's children, Rob? Don't they count? What about their rights?"

I mean, after all, Rob is an elected representative of the state of Ohio, where, I feel reasonably sure there are a few gay sons and daughters of his constituents, but he wasn't concerned about representing or protecting the rights of "THOSE PEOPLE." It was only when the issue hit home that it became important to him. And to whom did he turn for advice? That other totally self-serving advocate for same-sex marriage, Dick Cheney, who saw the light on the subject because his own daughter is a lesbian.

By the time I reached the end of the article about Portman's "brave" decision and his attempts to absolve himself of any guilt through references to his "deep religious belief," I was just about ready to throw up. Instead, I turned to Paul Krugman's blog, where I found, as he often does, he had already expressed my feelings more eloquently than I could. So, let me just borrow (steal) a few of his words.

...Sen. Rob Portman has made headlines by declaring his support for gay marriage after learning that his own son is gay, and apparently we’re supposed to praise him for his new enlightenment. But while enlightenment is good, wouldn’t it have been a lot more praiseworthy if he had shown some flexibility on the issue before he knew that his own family would benefit?

I’ve noticed this thing quite a lot in American life lately — this sort of cramped vision of altruism in which it’s considered perfectly acceptable to support only those causes that are directly good for you and yours. We even have a tendency to view it as “inauthentic” when people support policies that aren’t in their self-interest — when a rich man supports higher taxes on the rich, he’s somehow seen as strange, and probably a hypocrite.

Needless to say, this is all wrong. Political virtue consists in standing for what’s right, even — or indeed especially — when it doesn’t redound to your own benefit. Someone should ask Portman why he didn’t take a stand for, you know, other people’s children. 

Yeah, what he said.

Portman's reasoning and his actions are just the perfect example of the typical thinking of today's Republican Party. Issues are only important if they affect them and theirs. Those things which matter to the rest of us are worth less than zero.

As someone (I forget who or I would give him/her credit) noted, if only some Republican's son or daughter would come out "poor," perhaps the poorest among us might begin to get some Republican love.

Or, here's a thought, Portman has a daughter, too. What if, through some horrible turn of fate, she should need to get an abortion? Would that give him, a professed forced-birther, pause for thought and reflection about the role of government in ordering women's lives?  

 

They keep digging it up to kill it again

Remember ACORN? The late and lamented (by some of us) organization known as the Alliance of Community Organizations for Reform Now was a strong advocate for the poor and disenfranchised. It worked to organize those people and to get them out to vote in elections so that they would make their voices heard. 

But there are powers that be that do not want such voices heard and after years of constantly fighting the organization, in 2009, they set out to utterly destroy it. And they succeeded. In 2010, the organization disbanded.

It had been accused by conservatives of various crimes and misdemeanors and the final straw was a set of highly selectively edited videos by conservative provocateur James O'Keefe appearing to show employees of the organization offering advice on tax avoidance related to prostitution and child smuggling. It was all blatantly untrue, but that didn't matter to ACORN's attackers who smelled blood in the water.

All the charges against the organization were investigated as reported in a story in The Huffington Post today:

Independent investigations by the California attorney general, the Massachusetts attorney general and the Brooklyn, N.Y. district attorney would later clear ACORN of criminal wrongdoing, and an investigation by the Government Accountability Office would clear ACORN of charges that it mishandled federal funds.

But the damage to ACORN's reputation had already been done. By November of 2009, Congress had defunded the organization, using broad language that applied to "any organization" that had been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. The funding ban also extended to any employees, contractors or others affiliated with any group charged with any of those things.

The Big Lie had done its work and the advocate for the poor and downtrodden was destroyed. But that's not enough for some people.

Today, Republicans in the House introduced a short-term budget bill. Section 510 of that bill, introduced by House Appropriations Chair Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), reads: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be distributed to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries or successors." Really. That's what it says.

The bill also explicitly bars the use of the funds it appropriates for computer networks that do not block the viewing and exchange of pornography, and it bans the transportation of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to facilities in the United States, even though the Obama administration has not transferred any detainees from Guantanamo since 2009 and has announced no plans to do so.

This country has enormous problems that need to be addressed by this Congress, but these clowns are screwing around, trying to defund organizations that no longer exist and attempting to tie the Obama Administration's hands when it comes to dealing with Guantanamo detainees. Truly, they live in their own little fantasy bubble world and they are unable to deal with reality.

"Soul searching" requires a soul

After the recent election, there were many reports in the media about how the Republican Party was completely gobsmacked, blind-sided by the election results. They really believed they were going to win and win big and couldn't understand how they didn't. So, there began a period of "soul searching." They were going to analyze why they lost and fix the problem.

They lost because they were only able to appeal to one demographic - old white people. (Full disclosure: I am one, but I'm an exception - and there are plenty of us old liberals. They didn't appeal to us.) They lost every other demographic in the country. Their base is angry old white men and there are fewer and fewer of them. If the Republicans cannot expand their appeal, their party will die along with its base, not unlike the Whigs before them.

Some Republicans have sort of acknowledged this and have made half-hearted statements about how their party needs to embrace immigration reform and soft-petal all that talk about banning abortion and contraception and how women should be grateful for their rape babies. They give lip service to the idea that they need more diversity in their leadership. Then they actually choose their leaders and this is what we get:

These are the faces of the nineteen chairmen of committees in the House of Representatives chosen by Speaker John Boehner. There are two more committee chairmen that have not yet been selected, but the faces of the only candidates look just like the ones above. So, in the Republican controlled House of Representatives (234 Republicans to 201 Democrats), all of the chairmen of committees will be middle-aged to old white men, many of whom, quite frankly, are batshit crazy.

So much for diversity.

And so much for soul searching. Of course, soul searching first requires a soul.

'Nuff said.

UPDATE: Well that ought to solve the problem! Not.

Summing up: On to November!

So the Republicans' and Democrats' quadrennial celebrations of themselves are over, and now it's time to get serious about the election. Less than two months left until that fateful date. Did I hear you say, "Thank God!"?

I didn't watch any of the Republican convention in real time. I only read and watched some of the news reports afterward and I did look at the platform which they adopted. From such a perspective, one could only be struck by what a hate-filled, angry, pessimistic, narrow-minded, misogynistic, and downright unpatriotic congregation it appeared to be. The theme seemed to be, "I've got mine, Jack, and f**k you!" A perusal of the faces of the delegates, mostly white and white-haired, seemed to confirm that impression. I truly don't mean to be unkind or unfair to them, but that is just the way they seemed to me. Perhaps if I had watched more of the actual convention, I might have had a somewhat more sympathetic view of the group, but somehow I doubt it. The performance art of that angry and rudely profane old man Clint Eastwood and his empty chair seemed the perfect metaphor for the convention.  

The Democratic convention was an entirely different kettle of fish. I did watch sections of it, switching between convention coverage and my baseball game of the night. The first and most obvious difference that struck me full in the face was the audience of delegates. As the cameras panned over the crowd, one saw every hue in the human rainbow of colors. Moreover, based on their distinctive dress, one could identify Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs, and who knows how many other faiths were represented there? I suspect there may have even been a few fundamentalist Christians. In short, it looked like the diverse group of people that you would find in any gathering in downtown Houston or any other big city around the country. It looked like America.

But the real difference was in the tone of the speeches. Sure they derided the Republicans, but they didn't seem to hate them or even be angry at them personally. They were more bemused and appalled. They, of course, made a great effort to point out their differences in support of women's rights and gay rights and especially their support and appreciation of the military, something which was incredibly and unaccountably missing from the Republicans' rhetoric last week. They made jokes - some at their own expense - and they really seemed to be enjoying themselves. There wasn't a pinched face in the house! Maybe that was partly because they were entertained by some real barnburning speeches. I watched at least parts of the major ones.

*~*~*~*

Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio gave the keynote speech. It was full of youthful energy and enthusiasm and optimism for the future. Castro represents the very best that Texas has to offer and he gives us liberals hope that the rising brown tide of voters in this state may some day help us to wash away the backward-looking, anti-science, anti-woman, anti-critical-thinking, bought-and-sold-by-the-oil-companies clique that controls the state today. Plus, his speech brought one of the sweetest moments of the convention as the cameras found his watching family and focused on his three-year-old daughter as she discovered her image on the big screen.



I loved it.

*~*~*~*

I watched perhaps half of First Lady Michelle Obama's speech and she made me proud. Her speech was filled with heart and soul and love of family. She took care to emphasize one of the causes she has championed along with Jill Biden, that of being an advocate for those who serve the country in the military and especially for their families who also serve.

I loved it.

*~*~*~*

On Wednesday night came the speechmaker everyone had been waiting for - Bill Clinton. I missed the first ten to fifteen minutes while watching the Astros and Pirates, but not to worry: There was still plenty of speech left! He took up each of the arguments that the Republicans have made against President Obama and his record of the past three-and-a-half years, and, as usual, the loquacious former president went off script as he sought to explain in great wonkish detail, but in an utterly understandable way, just why each of those arguments was specious. And he did it all with a smile. He made a blazing defense of the Obama record to the utter dismay of all those pundits who had been eagerly anticipating a half-hearted effort.

After his speech, the next day, the picture of his wife, Hillary, who was in East Timor at the time, watching video of the speech went viral on the Internet, as everything that she does seems to these days.

I loved it.

*~*~*~*

Finally, on the last night of the convention, we heard from the candidates themselves. First, Joe Biden extolled the courage and the hard work and the care and concern for the American people of the man with whom he serves and he got to utter that phrase that he has made famous over the last several months: "Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!" And finally, it was time for the president himself.

I watched all of the president's speech. I thought it was sober and reflective. It did contain a litany of his accomplishments, but it also made clear that he knows that the country is not yet out of the ditch that it was driven into and that there is still much to do to get us where we need to be. I was especially struck by his invocation of the responsibilities of citizenship, by his assertion that we are not just individuals whose only role is to look out for ourselves but that we must look out for our fellow citizens because we are all in this together. We must look to the right and the left, behind and ahead, and help lift those who have fallen. As the Marines pride themselves on the slogan "no Marine left behind," the president was invoking the slogan for the whole country, much as his wife had said in her speech, paraphrasing,  that when we walk through the door of success, we don't slam it shut behind us. We prop it open for those who follow. It was a very different philosophy from what we had heard from Republicans.

I loved it!

*~*~*~*

I thought it was a very effective, successful convention for the Democrats. There was only one tiny blip on their screen and that involved two words that were omitted from their platform: God and Jerusalem. Fox News and the Republicans went crazy! How dare the Democrats not mention God or say that the capital of Israel is Jerusalem??? (And what the hell is Tel Aviv?) At which point the president himself apparently directed the convention to insert the wording. It was sloppily done, really the only sloppily done moment of the week. But I do understand what the president was doing. If those words had not been in the platform, Fox News and its minions who are running for president and vice-president would have beat that straw issue all the way to election day. It would have been a distraction that the Democrats don't need. They need to focus on the true issues facing the country. They need to focus on the truth, because when they do that, they win. It's that well-known liberal bias that the truth has.

On to November!

The speechifiers

I haven't watched or listened to any of the Republican (Tea Party) National Convention this week. Frankly, you couldn't pay me to - it would just be too painful. But I have followed the convention, faithfully reading the reports in the news outlets that I follow daily and listening to summaries on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. My overall impression of the event is that I cannot remember any convention in my lifetime or any presidential campaign in my lifetime that has been so clearly and profoundly built on lies. The candidates themselves seem unable to open their mouths without uttering bald-faced lies.

As for the speakers at the convention, they have been, to put it as kindly as I can, a bit irony-challenged.

*~*~*~*

Let's consider Ann Romney, for example. She spoke on "Women's Night," which is a totally ironic concept in itself for this anti-woman party. Her challenge was to make her listeners love Mitt Romney and to convince women that the Republican Party really does understand them and really does take their concerns seriously. So, how did she go about doing that? Here is just part of what she said, but I think it is fairly representative of her speech. (The emphases are mine.)

And if you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. It's how it is, isn't it?

It's the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right.

It's the moms of this nation—single, married, widowed—who really hold this country together.

We're the mothers, we're the wives, we're the grandmothers, we're the big sisters, we're the little sisters, we're the daughters.

You know it's true, don't you?

You're the ones who always have to do a little more.

You know what it's like to work a little harder during the day to earn the respect you deserve at work and then come home to help with that book report, which just has to be done. 

You know what those late night phone calls with an elderly parent are like and the long weekend drives just to see how they're doing.

You know the fastest route to the local emergency room and which doctors actually answer the phone when you call at night.

And on it goes. What she is saying is that sexism exists. She is acknowledging, among other things, that women must work harder for less pay and less respect. And she's saying that that's just the way it is, ladies. Nothing we can do about it.

I guess when you've got a billion dollars in your bank account, fighting against injustice doesn't seem quite as urgent as when you are a single mother trying to raise a child while working minimum wage jobs.

This is supposed to make women want to vote for Romney?

*~*~*~*

Another woman who spoke at the convention this week was Condoleeza Rice. She was there to lecture the Obama Administration on foreign policy and to tout Romney/Ryan's expertise in that arena. Irony, indeed, thy name is Condoleeza!

This is the woman, who as a national security adviser, totally ignored warnings that Osama bin Laden was preparing an attack on the United States in the summer of 2001. She is also the woman who supported an unnecessary war against a country that had done nothing to harm us, thereby being complicit in the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Americans. She is the woman who carried the water for the disastrous foreign policies of the Bush Administration around the world. And she has the chutzpah to lecture anybody on foreign policy???

In fact, as an article in Slate.com rightly points out, the Obama Administration has been very successful in its foreign policy initiatives and is respected by countries around the world. 

According to a recent survey by the Poll Research Center, 53 percent of British citizens had a favorable view of the United States in 2008, the last year of Bush’s presidency. Today the figure is 60 percent. In France, the figure rose from 42 percent to 69 percent; the Czech Republic, from 45 to 54 percent; Germany, from 31 to 52 percent; Japan, from 50 to 72 percent; Mexico, from 47 to 56 percent. Only in the Arab countries (Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan) has the rating declined (and do the Republicans really care much about that?).

Another Pew Poll, released just this week, about global attitudes toward President Obama as a leader makes Rice’s concerns seem ridiculous. As summarized by CNN, 87 percent of the Germans, 86 percent of the French, 80 percent of the British, and 74 percent of the Japanese have confidence in Obama—in each case, more confidence than they have in their own leaders. More striking still, 92 percent of the French, 89 percent of the Germans, 73 percent of the British, and 66 percent of the Japanese want Obama re-elected.

President Obama, who Rice excoriates, is the one who got Osama bin Laden and who has decimated al-Qaida, actions which she and her beloved George W. failed to do in their eight years in office. But I guess she forgot that.

*~*~*~*

Lastly, we have the Paul Ryan speech which, as far as I can tell, was nothing but a tissue of lies from beginning to end. Salon.com did some fact-checking on the speech. Here's what they found:

• GM plant —  Ryan: blamed Obama for the closing of GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis. Truth: One of the biggest whoppers of the night; the plant closed before Obama was even sworn into office. His position also contradicts the Republicans’ position of opposing President Obama’s auto rescue.

• Stimulus — Ryan: “The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal.” Truth: The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the stimulus created 3.3 million jobs. Four out of five economists agree. Ryan himself wrote letters requesting stimulus money, then lied about it.

• Medicare — Ryan: “Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.” Truth: As we’vepointed out many times, Obamacare doesn’t raid Medicare and Ryan’s plan would do a lot more to ruin Medicare. One of the biggest lies of the campaign.

• Obamacare — Ryan: “You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover…” Truth: Politifact called the “government takeover” of healthcare meme their “lie of the year” in 2010.

• Jobs — Ryan: “We have a plan for a stronger middle class, with the goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the next four years.” Truth: An almost impossible goal.

• Debt — Ryan: “The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government.” Truth: A false choice. There is no evidence suggesting that decreasing the size of government would grow the economy; in fact, it may hurt by killing government and contractor jobs. And much of the debt is due to Bush policies that Ryan voted for, like the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Simpson-Bowles commission — Ryan: “He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” Truth: Ryan sat on that commission, and, as chairman of the Budget Committee was a leader on it. He voted against the commission’s recommendations, bringing all the other Republicans along with him.

• Credit downgrade — Ryan: Obama “began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.” When Standard & Poors downgraded the country’s sovereign debt rating in 2011, they said that it was becauseRepublican lawmakers had taken the nation’s debt ceiling hostage (something Ryan supported doing) and because “the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues” (another position Ryan maintains).

• Poor — Ryan: “We have responsibilities, one to another — we do not each face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.” Truth: About two-thirds of the cuts in Ryan’s budget proposal come from programs the benefit poor people, such as food stamps. Meanwhile, he calls for tax cuts for the wealthy.

As I said at the beginning, there may have been a more dishonest campaign somewhere along the way, but I don't remember it.

*~*~*~*

Finally, I can't end my wrap-up of the convention without including this from The Daily Show - correspondent Samantha Bee's interviews with actual Republicans at the convention.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Irony-challenged doesn't even begin to cover it. These people truly don't have a clue.

He's not an outlier; he's the mainstream

But for crying out loud, what the hell is happening to our country? We now have a party with elected leaders who think child labor laws are unconstitutional (Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah), who would repeal the Civil Rights Act (Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky), who think climate change is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” (Republican Sen. James Inhofe).  

 - Sally Kohn, writing in Salon.com today 

Some wag once said that a political gaffe is when a politician says what he really thinks. By that definition, Todd Akin's statement about the female reproductive system having some kind of magical barrier that keeps it from getting pregnant when it is "legitimately raped" certainly qualifies as a gaffe, because there is not a single iota of doubt that this is what the man really thinks. Moreover, it is not just Akin that thinks this way. He's right in line with the base of his party, probably the majority of his party. He is not an outlier; he is swimming in the sludgy mainstream of today's radically extremist Republican Tea Party.

As soon as the fateful words were out of Akin's mouth, his party started going bananas. It's all well and good for them to think like this, but they are not supposed to say it out loud. They are not supposed to give away the game or give more ammunition to those who claim the party is waging a war on women. (Where in the world would we get such an idea?)

Soon members of his party started calling for him to get out of the Senate race. Super-PACs and other committees were announcing that they would pull their financing from the campaign in an effort to force him out. His buddy Paul Ryan, with whom he has repeatedly introduced legislation in the House that would deny women access to abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest, called him up and suggested that he might want to get out of the race for the good of the party, i.e., for his and Romney's good. After thinking it over for 24 hours and testing the winds of public opinion, Mitt Romney decided that he was "offended" by Akin's remarks and that a Romney Administration would have provisions to allow for access to abortions for women who are raped!!! (This, of course, is a complete flip-flop from his previous position that a fertilized egg - any fertilized egg - should have the same rights as a human being and that there should be a constitutional amendment to that effect.)

And today, in a dazzling display of poor timing and disingenuousness, if not downright hypocrisy, the Republican platform committee approved a plank for the party's platform on a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion with no exceptions of any kind. As The New York Times reported:

Even as the Republican establishment continued to call for Representative Todd Akin of Missouri to drop out of his Senate race because of his comments on rape and abortion, Republicans approved platform language on Tuesday calling for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion with no explicit exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

In other words, they are codifying in their platform exactly what Akin said. They are advocating the "personhood" amendment which would give the fertilized egg the same rights as a human being. Actually, the egg would have more rights than a human female in this twisted way of thinking, because the life of the egg would be protected at all costs whereas the life of the woman would not. If there is a choice to be made between the life of the egg and the life of the woman, the egg wins every time and the woman is sacrificed.

This is exactly the Akin/Ryan bill that passed in the Republican-controlled House and that Mitt Romney told Mike Huckabee he would sign if he were president, even though he NOW says he would allow an exception for women who are raped. What will he say tomorrow after the Akin brouhaha blows over, as it certainly will?

This, in fact, is just what the country has to look forward to should Republicans win complete control of the government, as they might. This is a profoundly anti-science, anti-women's rights, anti-minority's rights of any kind, anti-21st century party, and Todd Akin is the face of it. He has actually shown more intellectual honesty than those hypocrites in his party who are running away from him after he accidentally blurted out what he really thinks.    

UPDATE: Maureen Dowd pretty well nailed it today.

Women and caterpillars, unite!

Last week, Reince Priebus, the Republican National Campaign Committee Chairman, was interviewed on Bloomberg Television by Al Hunt and was asked about all the anti-women initiatives that his party has sponsored right across the country over the past fifteen months. Priebus rejected the idea that Republicans are waging a war on women and then he made the following jaw-dropping statement:

“If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars. It’s a fiction.”  

So, let me get this straight. It's all the Democrats' and the mainstream media's fault that Republicans are being accused of a war on women. It has nothing to do with mandating unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds, limiting access to birth control, rescinding equal pay laws, writing bills that would charge women who have miscarriages with murder, forcing women to produce written statements to their employers about the reason they need contraceptives in order for their group insurance to cover those contraceptives, legislation that would define a woman as pregnant two weeks before conception  - all of these are actual bills introduced by Republican legislators in recent months, all aimed at controlling women's wombs and their lives. But none of that represents a Republican war on women, according to Mr. Priebus. No, it's all those mean ol' Democrats' and journalists' fault.

As the wonderful Bug Girl points out in her blog today, in fact, the Republicans have been almost equally relentless in their war against caterpillars as well. They have repeatedly introduced legislation that would strip the E.P.A. of powers to regulate poisons being released into the environment, including actual pesticides that are used against caterpillars. I think it is quite clear that Republicans are pursuing their war on two fronts, both against women and against caterpillars, so I say, it's time for those of us on the receiving end of their constant artillery barrage to get together and present a united front. Women and caterpillars, unite!

   It's you and me, kid!

Lousy choices

Yesterday was the primary day in Illinois and Mitt Romney won the Republican presidential primary going away. Last night I listened to his victory speech and Rick Santorum's non-victory speech after the race was called. My reaction to both speeches can be summed up in two words: How lame.

Admittedly, this is the first time I have really listened to a speech from either of the candidates all the way through from beginning to end, so I don't know if this is typical of their message to voters, but from what I gather from previous snippets that I've heard and from reading about the campaigns, I suspect the speeches were typical. They seemed to carry all of the themes that I have heard about in past coverage. Their watchword, of course, is "freedom."

Yes, this generation of Republicans really, really believes in freedom.

- Freedom of corporations to rape the land and sea and pollute the atmosphere and continue to heat up the earth until it is unlivable.

- Freedom of the rich to do virtually whatever they want without restrictions and to not pay any taxes whatsoever even though they profit more than anyone else from the taxes that the rest of us pay.

- Freedom of the states to decide who will be allowed to vote in their elections, even if it means, in practice, denying the right to vote to large populations of citizens who would otherwise be eligible.

- Freedom to deny workers the right to organize and try to improve their working conditions through collective bargaining.

- Freedom of people who can't afford medical services or insurance to cover medical services to die early deaths and get out of the way.

- Freedom to build a 20 foot tall electrified fence between the United States and Mexico that will instantly kill anyone from south of the border who touches it.

- Freedom to impose Christianity and their own warped interpretation of that religion ("Blessed are the rich...") as the state religion. No other religions need apply.

- Freedom to distort the teaching of science to their children to conform to their own prejudices rather than to the truths revealed by actual unbiased research.

Yes, these Republicans are all for freedom. Freedom for everyone to believe exactly what they believe and behave exactly as they behave.

There's one freedom that you will never hear them mention though. That, of course, is the freedom of women to control their own lives and bodies. No, in this - as, in fact, in a lot of things - these Republicans are very much aligned with the Taliban. They really should change the name of their party to the American Taliban Party.

Poor Republican voters. What lousy choices they have in this primary season. Romney or Santorum. Each is equally unpresidential.

Oh, please! Just shut up and/or go away!

"To say that people of faith have no role in the public square?  You bet that makes you throw up.  What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up and it should make every American…Now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square. " - Rick Santorum to George Stephanopoulus on Sunday television show This Week    

"I'm for separation of church and state. The state has no business telling the church what to do."
- Rick Santorum in Michigan today

Taking these two quotes from Rick Santorum together, one can see that he doesn't believe that the state should have any control over religion. On the other hand, he obviously does believe that the church should be able to tell the state what to do, no matter how much he may deny it now that he has started to receive flak because of his ignorant statement to Stephanopoulus on Sunday..

Rick Santorum, I remember Jack Kennedy's speech back when he was running for president. Rick Santorum, you are no Jack Kennedy.

Of course, Kennedy, the first and so far only Catholic president this country has had, never said anything close to what Santorum accused him of saying, as Joan Walsh carefully delineated in her excellent blog post on Salon.com entitled "Santorum's JFK story makes me want to throw up" in which she quotes extensively from JFK's speech. But Santorum, like many other Republicans, is in no way bound by the truth. They seem to believe that if they can say it, it somehow magically becomes true. This entire year of vying for the Republican presidential nomination could justly be called "The Year of Magical Thinking."

What is particularly troubling is that Walsh is one of the few journalists on the scene today who is willing to point to such statements as Santorum has made and call a lie a lie. This is true even though the lie is easily debunked with only a brief internet search to call up the Kennedy speech and read it.

And so we continue to get lies such as Gingrich's statement that Senator Obama voted in favor of infanticide or Romney's insistence that the economy is in worse shape today than when President Obama took office. And we continue to hear the lie that Barack Obama was not born in this country or that he is not a Christian but a Muslim. There seems to be no depth that the perfidy and dishonesty of these people will not plumb in their desperate attempt to remove from the White House a black president whom they despise and disrespect.

I am so sick of all of these puny little unworthy men running for the Republican Party's nomination for president that I just want them all to go away - the sooner the better. They are an embarrassment to a once proud party and to this country. The thought that any of them could stand a snowball's chance in hell of becoming president of the country is enough to make me throw up.

                                                                               

From "must-win" to "can't win"

After weeks of seemingly taking for granted that he would win in Michigan, Mitt Romney is now playing down the state, trying to lower expectations. I guess he's been reading the polls which have shown Rick Santorum leading him by a substantial margin.

Actually, in polls released today, there seems to be a swing back toward Romney, but Santorum still leads. Significantly, though Romney likes to claim Michigan as one of his "home states," the people there don't buy it. Two-thirds of those who participated in the poll did not consider him a Michigander.

In fact, Republican voters across the country don't seem to be buying much of what Romney is selling these days. Even if he manages to eke out a win in Michigan now, voters really, really don't seem to like him and are not ready to get behind him in a big way. But do they like Santorum any better? Well, women don't, and for good reason since he seems intent on denying them basic rights to health care. Not that Romney, or any of the other Republicans for that matter, are any better on women's issues.

At this point, it seems to me that Romney just can't win in Michigan. The only way he could be considered a winner would be if he racked up a huge margin over Santorum. But that seems more and more unlikely.

Poor Mitt

Poor, poor Mitt Romney. He just can't get any respect from his own party. And if he can't get them to fall in line, how will he ever win a general election?

By now, it was supposed to be all over but the shouting. He was supposed to be able to show his strength in these February primaries and caucuses and put to rest any doubts about his ability to appeal to the base. Instead, he has lost a majority of the contests to Rick Santorum (!) and barely scraped by on others. True, he did win Florida by a good margin, but that's looking less and less impressive.

I think the problem with Mitt is that no one really knows who he is. He's afraid to show them who he is for fear they will turn against him. In fact, if he could just once take a real authentic stand on...anything, really, it might actually turn things around for him. But he doesn't trust himself to do that. Maybe he's switched sides so many times and tied himself into so many knots trying to make himself attractive to all sides of the issues - which in Republican politics means the conservative side, the really conservative side, and the bat-shit crazy wingnut side - that he no longer really knows what he believes or where he stands. I have a sneaking suspicion that the only thing he believes any more is that he should be president, no matter what the cost in money or in sacrificing principles.

In fact, does the man even have principles? Well, he doesn't worry about poor people, he believes that corporations are people, and that the poor downtrodden banks are "hurting" and "scared." These core values lead him to the conclusion that the interests of the 1% must at all costs be protected and never mind the 99%.

Oh, yes, and he thinks it might be a good idea to start yet another war in the Middle East - this time with Iran.

You would think that all those "principles" would be like catnip to the Republican faithful, and yet still they just can't fall in love with him. They don't believe that he believes what he is saying. Poor Mitt. He just can't close the deal. Maybe he never will.

Newt-tron bomb

It has been fascinating on many levels to watch the progress of the Republican presidential nominating process. For awhile, it was fun to speculate about who would be the new front runner of the week as they struggled to find someone - anyone - who was not Romney and who might have a possibility of destroying the hated Obama in the fall election. Now that the field has been winnowed down to, essentially, two more or less viable candidates, the whole thing has become a little less exciting and more predictable.

Still, one thing continues to fascinate and amaze and that is the level of support which Newt Gingrich has garnered among the righteously evangelical voters. This was, of course, particularly on display in South Carolina, where those who said that "family values" and social conservatism were the determining factors in their votes actually voted for a womanizing serial philanderer who has betrayed the marriage vows he made to at least two women. As for that third marriage that was contracted with Callista after several years of her serving as his mistress, has he been faithful to those vows? I wouldn't want to bet the farm on it.

In addition to being a serial philanderer and breaker of marriage vows, Gingrich is a serial hypocrite. The most famous example of his hypocrisy is his railing against Bill Clinton for carrying on an affair while he was in the White House. Gingrich thought he deserved impeachment for that, but during the time that he was trying to destroy Clinton, he was carrying on his affair with Callista (and possibly others) while he was married to his second wife. Whom he had married after having an affair with her while married to his first wife.  All the while he was righteously spouting about preserving and protecting "family values."

Newt thinks he's a very smart man, smarter than everybody else, and that he should not be held to the same standards as ordinary people. But what would lead self-proclaimed evangelical Christians, who surely would frown on such a sexual history if it belonged to a Democrat, to enthusiastically support this man? Probably because he serves up red meat hatred and racism which, frankly, seems to appeal to this particular style of Christian.

One sees and hears political pundits refusing to pin the label of racist on Newt. They will say that he's just engaging in dog-whistle politics to fire up his base. Well, I grew up in the South as Newt did, and I can tell you that if it talks like a racist, acts like a racist, and advocates policies that are on their face racist, it is a racist.

The latest polls from Florida seem to indicate that Newt's schtick isn't playing quite as well there as it did in South Carolina. In fact, it seems that he may lose badly in tomorrow's primary. If so, the Republican nominating process will certainly have lost some of its color and entertainment value, although I feel sure that Ron Paul will soldier on to the end and do his best to continue to provide interest. Once the Newt-tron bomb has exploded though, it may be hard to continue to focus on these essentially colorless and boring candidates.

Weak tea

The Republicans really, really don't like Mitt Romney. The tea party Republicans positively despise him.

If the tea partiers had a single candidate, they could swamp Romney and chase him out of the race, but they don't. They are fragmented, squabbling among themselves over which candidate offers them a chance to win. So far they have tried out Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum, but they haven't fallen in love with any of them - at least not for more than a few weeks. Meantime, the inevitable Mitt Romney rolls on and looks to be unstoppable. Will they finally, grudgingly, get behind Mitt?

Well, if there is one man they despise more than Mitt, it is Barack Obama. For these people, he will always be the illegitimate, Kenyan, socialist, Muslim, privileged, elite, black man who usurped the White House. The fact that the truth is that he is none of those things - except a half African-American, half white man which makes him black in the eyes of the world - matters not a whit. When they look at him they see a black face, and nothing else really matters to them. They can't see past the color of his skin to recognize that, in fact, his is a very traditional Republican presidency. He has more in common with Dwight Eisenhower than with Bill Clinton, for example.

Their hatred of Obama is so strong that my guess is they will swallow their distaste for Romney and get behind Mr. Inevitable when he claims the nomination. Their support, though, may be a brew of very weak tea indeed. There doesn't seem to be the heat that would make it stronger.  

Sex and the Republicans

The Republicans running for president this year are really, really obsessed with sex. Not only their own sex lives but everybody else's. They want to proscribe what you can do and with whom you can do it and they especially want to control women's bodies and their ability to make decisions about their bodies. As I noted yesterday, they would like to take us back to a time when women had no rights, when they were chattel at the mercy of their lords and masters. In Republican thought, this is the way the world was intended to operate. Intended by God, of course.

The surging Rick Santorum, the latest not-Romney, is particularly pernicious and strait-laced in the way he views sex. First of all, in Rick's world, there would be no contraceptives of any kind allowed. Sex would only happen within marriage and only for the purposes of procreation. I can see a few problems with that idea.

For example, what about post-menopausal women? Are they just supposed to give up sex once they no longer have the possibility of conceiving? What about men married to post-menopausal women? No sex for them either, I suppose.

What about married couples who, for whatever reason, are infertile? Is their relationship to be chaste with no sex allowed?

I'm not sure Rick has thought this all the way through to its logical conclusion.

To what can we attribute this Republican obsession with matters sexual? Based on news stories about members of the party in recent years, it is obvious that they often do not live up to the standards they would impose upon the rest of us. Still, these proponents of "small government" are eager to send government snoopers into our bedrooms and to monitor the monthly menstrual cycles of every woman of child-bearing age to ensure that if one of them conceives, she is forced to carry that fetus full-time regardless of the circumstances or consequences for the woman or the child or the family.

There is no government more intrusive than one which attempts to regulate one of the most pleasurable and intimate activities in which its citizens can engage and this is exactly the kind of government these guys would give us if they could. Let's make sure they can't.