- The economy adds an anemic 80,000 jobs in June.
- Romney and the RNC raise $100 million for the month, an all-time record for Republicans.
- He’s preparing one of the those big summer foreign tours.
- What gives (or rather doesn’t) with potential Democratic super PAC donors.
- “Interesting” campaigns are the exception.
- Will the U.S. regret unleashing Stuxnet?
- And Morgan Freeman says Obama isn’t America’s first black president, which at first I thought was a Deep Impact joke, but, no, he actually doesn’t think Obama is black.
98 comments
Psychologists tell us that 4% of the population are sociopaths, totally self-focused individuals without any conscience, and that a full 64% are followers, those led around by the manipulations of others, which leaves only 32% as self-thinking, conscience driven individuals, divided among all the possible biases. When realizing that it then becomes rather easy to understand how “the money” can feel so cocky confident in their ability to spend their mega-millions to successfully con the people and manipulate public opinion. Since the supreme court has ruled to allow “the money” to spend all they want, it is now only possible to compete by spending as much as they do - and “the money” is laughing all the way to the elections.
Is there any REAL American here who would vote for a guy who would
choose not to serve our country during a time of war based on religious
grounds, but would hold up a picket sign and march to demand that others
had to in his stead?
Just how well do you know your Presidential candidate, the Recycled Republicrap Reject from 2008? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
Hmmm.
Looks like paulejb is up and about trying to do what he does every day:
Try to take over the world!
"Obama in 2004 Criticized Job Growth Under Bush"
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po...
Someone, I forget who, said yesterday that Obama would "eat his dog" for those Bush numbers.
The liberal totalitarian impulse simply can not be suppressed. It breaks out at the oddest moments.
"LaHood: Golly, I envy the Chinese government"
http://hotair.com/archives/201...
This attitude is nothing new. I wrote about it last year.
You teabaggers are losing it sport. Calling renowned conservatives like Roberts, and now LaHood, as liberals is as kooky as it gets. What next, Limbaugh as a feminist advocate??
Except that LaHood is a Republican and certainly not a liberal of any sort. Your disingenuousness and stupidity are first rate, PJ. Lying seems to be the only thing you do well.
Diecash1,
Stop. Ray LaHood is a card carrying member of the DC culture disguised as a Republican. He fits right in with Barack Obama's big government storm troopers.
Damn! Obama is turning into Jimmy Carter right before our eyes.
'Obama: Most People "Would Acknowledge That I've Tried Real Hard" '
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Now he is just pathetic.
"Out of College, Out of Work: Number of College Grads With Jobs Dropped 406,000 in June"
http://cnsnews.com/news/articl...
Barack Obama's policies are not favorable to college grads and other living things.
LOL, even your graph shows the situation was dire in '09 but is improving.
Yes, recovery has been slow but Ritt plans to go straight to the policies which led to the 2007-8 recession.
Trickle down economics doesn't work. Although I assume, you are too clueless to grasp that fact.
Steve0T,
Tell that to the 25,000,000 Americans who are unemployed, underemployed or too discouraged to even seek employment.
Barack Hussein Obama's policies = EPIC FAIL!
The Obama War on Everybody continues apace.
"Disability Ranks Outpace New Jobs In Obama Recovery"
"More workers joined the federal government's disability program in June than got new jobs, according to two new government reports, a clear indicator of how bleak the nation's jobs picture is after three full years of economic recovery."
The Obama War on Women continues apace.
"780,000 More Women Unemployed Today Than When Obama Took Office"
jmac, I have heard this stuff since I was a teenager. We are each related to a million people who lived in the past. And we are all mixed. It's been proven over and over. I laugh at this or I'd go crazy.
outsider, Great post. And there's millions like pap who would like to go back to those "bad ole days". Get offa my lawn unless you're mowing it.
THIS is good news:
Grover Norquist Pledge Against Taxes Attracts Fewer Republican Candidates.
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Scott Rigell's (R-Va.) message for up-and-coming
Republicans would have been considered political heresy just two years
ago: You don't have to bow to Grover Norquist to win.
"My advice and counsel to 'Young Guns' would be to not sign the
Americans for Tax Reform pledge," the Virginia Republican told The
Huffington Post. The anti-tax oath authored by conservative activist
Norquist had, until recently, been signed by almost every Republican in
Congress or aspirant.
This election season is different. Rigell is one of dozens of GOP
challengers and incumbents who have declined, so far, to take the
Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Their objections range from personal to
political. But underneath is the belief that being locked into a pledge
to never support new revenues in a debt-reduction deal is unpalatable.
Just 45 of 83 of the Republican National Congressional Committee's
current crop of so-called Young Guns have signed the no-tax pledge this
election season, according to a Huffington Post analysis of pledge
signatures. During the 2010 midterm elections, 81 of 92 of that Young
Guns group signed the pledge. The Young Guns program was founded by GOP
leaders to promote and finance up-and-coming congressional candidates.
This was pretty interesting:
Mark Twain invented Mitt
Healthcare, race, the Tea Party, the right
size of government: "Huck Finn" practically predicted the 2012 campaign.
On one side, a childhood bully with more money “than a body could
tell what to do with,” the product of religious fundamentalists, and an
individualist resentful toward bureaucracy and fearful of government. On
the other, the improbable hero of his own story, the son of an absentee
father, a born storyteller with a once-troubled youth. To see this
rivalry played out, you could go to any number of news sources. Or you
could go to one book. Because I’m not talking about Mitt Romney or
Barack Obama. I’m talking about a single character, a 13 - year - old boy
invented almost 130 years ago by Mark Twain.
Published in 1885
during Reconstruction, but set before the Civil War, “The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn” might be the most nuanced and intelligent account of
the dual instincts of the American mind our literature has to offer. In
the voice of one unforgettable narrator — a confused but insightful,
unlawful but moral adolescent — Twain’s novel shows us more about our
complex and contradictory ideals about government, race, economics and
politics than just about any blog or radio show you’re likely to
encounter.
Concerned with the size and role of government? Start with this intoxicated, anti - federalist rant from Huck’s “pap”
“Call
this a govment!” he exclaims. “The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up
and helps him to keep me out o’ my property. A man can’t get his
rights in a govment like this”
It’s a sentiment we’ve heard
before from the Tea Party in arguments about tax reform, economic
inequality and corporate bailouts. Consider Glenn Beck, for example, in
2009 : “There is a coup going on. There is a stealing of America, and the
way it is done, it has been done through the guise of an election”
Then,
like some irate radio call-in guest, pap’s rant turns quickly racist:
“There was a free nig ger [in town] from Ohio; a mulater, most as white
as a white man, ” who, according to pap, has deprived him of wealth
—“there ain’t a man in that town that’s got as fine clothes as what he
had” — education and employment — “they said he was a p’ fessor in a
college” — and an electoral voice — “when they told me there was a State
in this country where they’d let that nig ger vote, I drawed out.”
We’ve
heard this before, too — the fear of a culture and government that
elevate a black man above his “station.” Remember Rush Limbaugh’s claim:
“If Obama weren’t black he’d be a tour guide in Honolulu”? Or Arizona
Secretary of State Ken Bennett’s recent demand that Hawaii disclose
Obama’s birth certificate before he strikes his name from the fall
ballot?
The
difference, though, is that Twain sends pap spilling over a tub of salt
pork immediately after his speech, making sure pap ultimately figures
as a comic character in the novel. Pap might take himself seriously, but
no careful reader can endorse his politics after seeing him take his
anger out on a dinner drum.
Even so, Twain is unwilling to let the
matter be resolved swiftly. Elsewhere, the novel criticizes government
authority and excess in earnest, even in the plot itself. The novel is,
after all, the story of an escaped slave and a poor orphan coming to
terms with their humanity in the absence of civil constraint. Their
friendship is enabled precisely by Huck’s disregard for the law. In as
much as we’re rooting for Huck and Jim to get away, we’re also rooting
for the arm of the law not to intervene.
In another
passage, Jim himself raises concerns over government’s reach. To pass
the time, Huck is telling Jim stories about “kings, and dukes, and
earls, and such.” But when Huck gets to the story of King Solomon, Jim
stops him short to explain how he missed the point. The moral, according
to Jim, isn’t about a good mother and a bad one. It’s about the limits
of power. In short, it’s a libertarian parable. A man in possession of
only a couple of children, he explains, “know how to value ‘em,” but a
king overseeing “five million chillen runnin’ roun’ de house, en it’s
diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat.” The
implication being that matters of private life shouldn’t be left to
large government bodies.
Huck later comes around to Jim’s point of view. “Sometimes,” he says, “I wish we could hear of a country that’s out of kings.”
But
for all Huck’s speechifying, he actually trusts and respects authority.
In order to hide money from his thieving father, Huck entrusts all his
riches to Judge Thatcher, who then establishes a kind of CD that pays a
respectable dollar a day in dividends. Because Huck neither trusts his
father nor himself with the money, the novel’s chief figure of authority
— indeed the book’s only government official — must intervene where the
individual has failed. He protects those who can’t protect themselves.
He assumes financial responsibility for the poor. And we come to regard
Judge Thatcher and his office as a necessary indemnity against financial
ruin. He figures as both a regulatory committee and a kind of safety
net — perhaps the role Chief Justice John Roberts claimed for himself as
the deciding vote in the Supreme Court’s healthcare decision.
What
about the economy? Well, there’s plenty of that, too. In addition to
pap’s fears about government largess, his screed about the freed slave
from Ohio suggests an innate fear of social and economic displacement.
Like some anti-immigration hard-liners, he feels disenfranchised by the
emancipation of others and believes another man’s financial
opportunities (a non-white’s, that is) are detrimental to his livelihood
(never mind the fact that the man in question holds a position pap
could never achieve). His nativist tirade could be pulled straight from
the pages of NumbersUSA, or a Lou Dobbs broadcast. Remember Dobbs
saying, “The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of
many Americans”? It’s hard not to picture pap first in line to hear that
quip.
Interesting:
Mark Twain invented Mitt
Healthcare, race, the Tea Party, the right
size of government: "Huck Finn" practically predicted the 2012 campaign.
On one side, a childhood bully with more money “than a body could
tell what to do with,” the product of religious fundamentalists, and an
individualist resentful toward bureaucracy and fearful of government. On
the other, the improbable hero of his own story, the son of an absentee
father, a born storyteller with a once-troubled youth. To see this
rivalry played out, you could go to any number of news sources. Or you
could go to one book. Because I’m not talking about Mitt Romney or
Barack Obama. I’m talking about a single character, a 13-year-old boy
invented almost 130 years ago by Mark Twain.
Published in 1885
during Reconstruction, but set before the Civil War, “The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn” might be the most nuanced and intelligent account of
the dual instincts of the American mind our literature has to offer. In
the voice of one unforgettable narrator — a confused but insightful,
unlawful but moral adolescent — Twain’s novel shows us more about our
complex and contradictory ideals about government, race, economics and
politics than just about any blog or radio show you’re likely to
encounter.
Concerned with the size and role of government? Start with this intoxicated, anti-federalist rant from Huck’s “pap.”
“Call
this a govment!” he exclaims. “The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up
and helps him to keep me out o’ my property … A man can’t get his
rights in a govment like this.”
It’s a sentiment we’ve heard
before from the Tea Party in arguments about tax reform, economic
inequality and corporate bailouts. Consider Glenn Beck, for example, in
2009: “There is a coup going on. There is a stealing of America, and the
way it is done, it has been done through … the guise of an election.”
Then,
like some irate radio call-in guest, pap’s rant turns quickly racist:
“There was a free ni gger [in town] from Ohio; a mulater, most as white
as a white man,” who, according to pap, has deprived him of wealth
—“there ain’t a man in that town that’s got as fine clothes as what he
had” — education and employment — “they said he was a p’fessor in a
college” — and an electoral voice — “when they told me there was a State
in this country where they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out.”
We’ve
heard this before, too — the fear of a culture and government that
elevate a black man above his “station.” Remember Rush Limbaugh’s claim:
“If Obama weren’t black he’d be a tour guide in Honolulu”? Or Arizona
Secretary of State Ken Bennett’s recent demand that Hawaii disclose
Obama’s birth certificate before he strikes his name from the fall
ballot?
The difference, though, is that Twain sends pap spilling over a tub
of salt pork immediately after his speech, making sure pap ultimately
figures as a comic character in the novel. Pap might take himself
seriously, but no careful reader can endorse his politics after seeing
him take his anger out on a dinner drum.
Even so, Twain is
unwilling to let the matter be resolved swiftly. Elsewhere, the novel
criticizes government authority and excess in earnest, even in the plot
itself. The novel is, after all, the story of an escaped slave and a
poor orphan coming to terms with their humanity in the absence of civil
constraint. Their friendship is enabled precisely by Huck’s disregard
for the law. In as much as we’re rooting for Huck and Jim to get away,
we’re also rooting for the arm of the law not to intervene.
In
another passage, Jim himself raises concerns over government’s reach.
To pass the time, Huck is telling Jim stories about “kings, and dukes,
and earls, and such.” But when Huck gets to the story of King Solomon,
Jim stops him short to explain how he missed the point. The moral,
according to Jim, isn’t about a good mother and a bad one. It’s about
the limits of power. In short, it’s a libertarian parable. A man in
possession of only a couple of children, he explains, “know how to value
‘em,” but a king overseeing “five million chillen runnin’ roun’ de
house, en it’s diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a
cat.” The implication being that matters of private life shouldn’t be
left to large government bodies.
Huck later comes around to Jim’s point of view. “Sometimes,” he says, “I wish we could hear of a country that’s out of kings.”
But
for all Huck’s speechifying, he actually trusts and respects authority.
In order to hide money from his thieving father, Huck entrusts all his
riches to Judge Thatcher, who then establishes a kind of CD that pays a
respectable dollar a day in dividends. Because Huck neither trusts his
father nor himself with the money, the novel’s chief figure of authority
— indeed the book’s only government official — must intervene where the
individual has failed. He protects those who can’t protect themselves.
He assumes financial responsibility for the poor. And we come to regard
Judge Thatcher and his office as a necessary indemnity against financial
ruin. He figures as both a regulatory committee and a kind of safety
net — perhaps the role Chief Justice John Roberts claimed for himself as
the deciding vote in the Supreme Court’s healthcare decision.
What
about the economy? Well, there’s plenty of that, too. In addition to
pap’s fears about government largess, his screed about the freed slave
from Ohio suggests an innate fear of social and economic displacement.
Like some anti-immigration hard-liners, he feels disenfranchised by the
emancipation of others and believes another man’s financial
opportunities (a non-white’s, that is) are detrimental to his livelihood
(never mind the fact that the man in question holds a position pap
could never achieve). His nativist tirade could be pulled straight from
the pages of NumbersUSA, or a Lou Dobbs broadcast. Remember Dobbs
saying, “The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of
many Americans”? It’s hard not to picture pap first in line to hear that
quip.
Re: Freeman. I guess technically he is right but it's kind of missing the broader point of he is a brown skinned people. That's really where prejudice lies. Not in lineage.
Obama isn't American's first black president, says the adorable, freckled-faced Morgan Freeman, who's obviously not black. Wonder if Michelle Obama would qualify as the first black president? How far back should we go? But ideologically he could make a point - both LBJ and Clinton would qualify as nearer to black than Obama.
jmac,
Cut it out, jmac. Everyone who's paying attention knows that William Jefferson Clinton was the first black president. We know because Toni Morrison told us so.
"Author Toni Morrison was the person who anointed Clinton FBP, saying, white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president, blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."
No, you just use non-sequitor statements to pursue your own demented agenda.
I blame your home-schooling for this flawed sense of reasoning.
paulejb- - With pride, I didn't vote with Democrats when the entire south was Democratic. They were a bunch of racist. It's the same reason I don't vote with the South today. You make me proud NOT to vote with the likes of you. Some of us care what kinds of fleas we get when we lay down with a dog.
jmac,
Rather lie down with dogs than a liberal. At least the dog won't try to pick my pocket.
So now you are listening to Toni Morrison for cultural advice. He he.
Next you'll be asking Limbaugh for women's issues.
You're hoot and a half.
Steve0T,
I always pay attention to liberal idiocies. You can never tell when they might be useful in destroying left winger's arguments.
In defense of Morgan Freeman, President Obama is not the descendant of slaves and given his extraordinary background and a different and unique viewpoint. That said, I don't think it is about racial purity. Afterall, unless your parents arrived off the boat from Africa, no African American is "pure".
This is why I refer to 'black Americans' instead of 'African Americans'. My brother in law has worked for years charting the history of my wife's family and he's only gotten back to North Carolina in 1818.
My favorite headline on this particular story of Republican idiocy.
Republican Horrified to Discover that Christianity is Not the Only Religion
http://jezebel.com/5923898/rep...
Righties for you, low on legislation high on stupidity. Government is just another teet to suckle on while pretending they're doing gods work by dismantling government one stone after another.
But to reiterate what I wrote the other day - it's the voter stupid! She's not there because she knows how to make dead people vote - she's there because there are enough idiots that gave her the opportunity.
I'll kick in with the majority here.
I think you've just been voted off the intellectual island, 3x...
"As usual a really stupid comment."
I agree, 3x, she's a very foolish woman.
And thanks for contributing. You always add so much to the conversation. If it wasn't for you telling us we're all wrong all the time, we'd have to rely on facts.
Don't stress Mo. He's just having a fit cause his boy is going down in flames.
I didn't think BO was doing enough, but as the weeks go by, Romney keeps getting hit with more stuff.
Granted the SC wasn't exactly part of the BO plan - but Romney waiting a week to respond did help.
Which is why he tries to say nothing at all.
But he Nov is a long ways away to just keep your yap shut.
3x knows that. Hence his lashing out angrily.
3xfire3,
When are you going to learn that while most Conservatives are not stupid, most stupid people are conservative. (Present company definitely excluded)
3xfire3,
"Definitely brainwashed".
That must explain why 44% of people in Mississippi believe Obama is a Muslim.
If a true Marxist from the past could teleport to 2012 he would think he was in a cartoon and die laughing at all the Kenyan-born Marxist-in-Chief nonsense.
