Al Franken Beats David Axelrod with an Ashtray

If you watched Jon Stewart's The Daily Show take on blogospheric sensationalism last night, you might find yourself taking a Politico headline with a grain of salt. After all, Stewart showed headlines that -- if taken literally -- would make himself and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow violent hotheads at best and serial killers at worst. Making a slam dunk sort of logical argument becomes "destroying" or "eviscerating" or "bitch slapping," when the arguments in question are just calm reasoning.

So, after seeing more solid reasoning on the unreasonable nature of blog headlines, you might be a little leery of "Al Franken lays into David Axelrod over health care bill."

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.

The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.

The other "angry Democrat in the room" was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders -- who isn't actually a Democrat, he's an Independent (an honest-to-god Socialist, actually). But he caucuses with the Democrats, so close enough, really. To find out that little bit of well-guarded info, you have to go to Sam Stein at the Huffington Post.

"My message is that the current strategy is failing and we have to stop being on the defensive," Sanders' told Stein in a statement. "We also need to realize we're not going to get 60 votes for anything, so we have to look at a very broad, omnibus-like reconciliation bill -- including health care and jobs -- that will pass the Senate with 51 votes."

So how true is the "Franken lays into Axelrod" part of the story? As it turns out, very. On his twitter page, Franken himself links to Stein's article, which pretty much tells the same story as Politico's.

Of course, Sanders and Franken are right here. The Obama administration started off seeking bipartisanship on healthcare reform. Then they continued to pursue it after it had become clear to everyone else that there was no such thing in Washington. And they're still talking about it. Here's the thing; you can't change Washington without changing the modus operandi of the Republican Party. And they don't want to change. You tried, it didn't work, move on.

In continuing to try to change how Washington works, what's happening is that Washington isn't working at all. Republican obstructionism has reached absurd levels, with a record number of filibusters last year. According to US News' Robert Schlesinger, filibusters have gone "from 8 percent -- pretty infrequently -- to 70 percent, or rule of the day."

This is a story that the Obama administration and Democrats need to get out more; while they're trying to bail out the economy, to bail out workers, to bail out families, Republicans keep throwing cinderblocks in the boat. Government can't possibly work this way, yet this is what's happening as we try to recover from the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.

And let's be clear, healthcare reform is part of the solution to our economic problems. Healthcare costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US and the costs of insuring workers makes US companies less competitive with foreign rivals who operate under more efficient healthcare systems.

So, if Franken got hot with Axelrod (and I've heard him get hot on his radio show, I know he's capable of it), then it's because Axelrod and the rest of the Obama administration deserves it. What can be said to the Republicans can also be said to them -- there may be a time to do this sort of thing, but it is most definitely not now. If Republican obstructionism has shut down government at this most crucial moment, then so has the administration's snipe hunt for reason among Republicans. This is so obviously not working.

They may find it distasteful, it may go against the bipartisan grain of the White House, but the president's got to find the keys to the steamroller. Democrats have the second largest majority in the Senate in more than thirty years. It's time to use that to roll over Republicans. I want to see the headline, "Democrats Shatter Republican Obstruction."

And I don't want that to be hyperbolic.

-Wisco


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A Man of Few Principles

Repealing "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) is a big problem, because it's hugely controversial and Americans are completely divided on the issue... Right?

Wrong. In June, a Gallup poll on the issue showed that majorities in every demographic thought that gays serving openly in the military was a good idea. Among Democrats it was 86% in favor, Independents scored 67%, and Republicans went 58%. 64% of men over all were in favor, along with 73% of women. People in the east; 77%. The midwest; 76%. The west; 71%. The south; 57%. By age group, by church attendance -- all the same. Majorities in every, single demographic. In all, 69% support allowing gays to serve openly in the military. That's a rise of 6 points since 2004, with the largest gain -- 12 points -- being among self-described conservatives. The second largest leap for a demographic during that period was 11 points, among weekly churchgoers.

In other words, if this were put up for a vote, repealing DADT would win in a landslide. Among voters, this isn't a huge raging controversy.





However, it's not voters who'll decide. It's Washington. And if there's one thing that people in all demographics can agree on -- other than repealing DADT --  it's that institutional Washington is mostly populated by people who are either stupid, incompetent, or insane.

Which of course brings us to the 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Elected as a member of the House of Representatives in 1981, he went on to win his Senate seat in 1986. With 29 years under his belt, John Sidney McCain III is pretty damned institutional. And it shows.

Christopher Beam, Slate:

In late 2006, John McCain told a live audience that he supported "don't ask, don't tell," the policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexuality a secret. "But the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it, because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to."

That day came on Tuesday, and McCain did not budge -- just one reason a full repeal of the DADT policy may be further off than you think.

Beam argues that repealing DADT is years away -- an argument I'm not sure I agree with. But he captures McCain's foolishness completely. After Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen testified before the Senate that the policy was something he was "troubled by" and that it was his personal belief that it should be changed, McCain took the low road.

"I'm deeply disappointed in your statement," McCain told Mullen. He said that congress had dealt with the issue in 1993. They reached a compromise between "the desires of a minority and the interests of a volunteer force."

"I'm eager to hear from our distinguished witnesses what has changed," he said. You mean other than public opinion, the calendar, the expulsion from the military of Arab-language translators at a time when we're supposed to be fighting Islamic extremism, the opinions of top military brass, and going on ten years of experience showing your little "compromise" wasn't a very good idea? Other than all that, John?

Nothing.

Nothing has changed. It just turns out you were wrong back then. It happens. In fact, it happens a lot in DC. You've been around long enough to know this John, so why does this come as a big revelation to you?

Oddly, McCain's defense of this idiotic policy has always been that he's just listening to military leadership -- that is, until now that this leadership disagrees with him. In the same June that Gallup's study came out, McCain cited Colin Powell as his reason for standing by DADT:

My opinion is shaped by the view of the leaders of the military. The reason why I supported the policy to start with is because General Colin Powell, who was then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the one that strongly recommended we adopt this policy in the Clinton administration. I have not heard General Powell or any of the other military leaders reverse their position, just like when on other issues, that people are expert and knowledgeable of, I rely on their opinion. But this is unique. These military leaders are responsible for the very lives of the men and women under their command, and that’s why I am especially guided, to a large degree, by their views.

Yeah, turns out that Colin Powell has reversed his position. Will McCain, recognizing that the people he's so disappointed in "are responsible for the very lives of the men and women under their command," change his tune and be "guided, to a large degree, by their views?"

What do you think?

The truth is that McCain stopped being the "maverick" he and Sarah Palin claimed he was a long time ago. At this moment in time -- and for a long time prior -- McCain has become the typical "finger in the wind" type, carefully choosing his positions to line up with the positions of those who can help him most. The man whose motto was "Country first" puts John McCain first at every opportunity, canceling out any arguments he'd made previously and selling out positions he's held in the past.

"I thought that after 2008 we wouldn't get more chances to see McCain betraying all the principles and positions he claims to stand for," writes Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall. "But the primary challenge in Arizona seems to be providing many more opportunities."

And Marshall's right -- this is what it's all about. McCain is in a tough primary race against a teabagger nutjob named J.D. Hayworth. Hayworth is a one-time congress critter who's gone on to become a talk radio fool. So McCain is trying match him, crazy for crazy.

Since he's the incumbent, McCain has the backing of his party. But these days, that doesn't count for much. This means that McCain has to win over the people who'd vote for Hayworth. So, when he told us that he'd let the policy be "shaped by the view of the leaders of the military," it was because he didn't see this coming. Now he'll let the policy be shaped by the crackpots who'd vote for his opponent. He's willing to sell out his earlier position, so long as it's he himself who casts the vote against it.

Country first? Not on your life. It's McCain first all the way.

-Wisco


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Being Terrified is No Way to Fight Terrorism

When it comes to terrorism, the right has a narrative. Barack Obama is terrible at fighting it. If he were more like George W. Bush -- the president who saw the world's most deadly terrorist attack happen under his watch -- then he'd be doing things right. Never mind that, by their own arguments, Obama has been wildly successful in fighting terrorism. The rightwing line in defense of Bush's crimes of torture and wiretapping has always been that we haven't been attacked since 9/11 (which isn't at all true, by the way). Ignore the worst intelligence failure in the history of America -- Bush supposedly did a good job after that. I guess you get a do-over or something when you're a new president -- and a Republican.

But Obama's record is already better than Bush's. He hasn't needed that do-over. The big catastrophic attack we were warned about during the campaign still hasn't happened, meaning that President Obama has already beat Bush's record. Every day after 9/11/09 without a huge, flaming disaster is one more day that this president has kept us safe longer than the previous president managed. But those are facts and logic. We've already established that facts and logic don't fly in rightwing world.

Some, like the perpetually boobish Rep. Pete Hoekstra, argue that a failed attempt at terrorism under Obama counts as a bona fide "terrorist attack." This is proof that Obama's a huge failure. But these same people won't count failed attacks under Bush, which means Bush was a huge success. Yeah, it makes my head hurt too. I think I might be allergic to either stupid or ridiculous. It's hard to pin down which it is, since Bush apologists tend to give you both at once.





But the big proof for the right of President Obama's complete cluelessness about all things terrorist is that the failed underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was read his rights -- after which he clammed up.

Weekly Standard:

The Associated Press has a fascinating blow-by-blow account of the interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab that adds several new details to previous reports on his handling. Overall, however, this news does not change the disturbing picture of the reflexive, law-enforcement-first approach the Obama administration took with the al Qaeda operative. And with the new details come new troubling questions.

The story tells us that Abdulmutallab was Mirandized approximately 10 hours after he was taken into custody. Before then, he received medical attention and was interrogated twice. The first interrogation was conducted by local FBI agents and included a Customs and Border Protection official and an agent from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The first interview lasted 50 minutes, and Abdulmutallab reportedly talked freely. The second interview, five hours later, the FBI used a "clean team" that included elements of local joint terrorism task force.  The second interrogation yielded nothing.  When Abdulmutallab was Mirandized, he stopped cooperating altogether.

You know what else is fascinating? The AP got it wrong.

L.A. Times:

The decision to advise the accused Christmas Day attacker of his right to remain silent was made after teleconferences involving at least four government agencies -- and only after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had stopped talking to authorities, according to knowledgeable law enforcement officials.

Among those involved in the hastily called teleconferences were representatives from the Justice Department and the FBI, along with officials from the State Department and the CIA.

So the "terrorist mirandized, terrorist shuts up" scenario is exactly bass ackward. In retrospect, this should've been obvious. I don't care where you're from, if TV exists there, you can recite your Miranda rights verbatim. No one's ever told that, in America, they have the right to remain silent and answers with, "I didn't know that."

But now that he's shut down, we have to torture him, right? That's also a rightwing meme -- it's the only way you can get a terrorist to talk, because they aren't criminals. If you treat them like criminals, you'll fail. These people are magic and torture is like crosses to vampires to them. You have to torture them or they'll never cooperate.

New YorkTimes:

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit on Dec. 25, started talking to investigators after two of his family members arrived in the United States and helped earn his cooperation, a senior administration official said Tuesday evening.

According to the paper, which spoke to officials in the case, Abdulmutallab "began speaking to FBI agents last week in Detroit and has not stopped."

"With the family, the FBI approached the suspect," said one official. "He has been cooperating for days."

Look at all the torture we didn't do. And look at all the success we had. And what else have we accomplished here?

Well, we've treated him like a common criminal. If you ask most people on the right, this is supposedly a terrible mistake. But this means he's not some hero to extremists, he's not a soldier in a "war on terror," he's just a nut. He's a failed murderer, not a captured soldier. In short, we've cut his propaganda value down considerably. He's not some monster we all have to be terrified of, he is what he is -- some would-be killer who's no better or worse than a common street thug. He's not the honorable enemy in a time of war, he's just the same sort of scum who kills people in a drive-by shooting.

And we've gotten him legally -- without torture. Someone needs to remind the world that we're the good guys here. It's a lot harder to do that when you're strapping people to boards and drowning them. That doesn't actually look like a good guy thing to do. Mostly because it's so obviously evil.

Don't expect the facts to sway anyone though. There will still be calls to try him in military court and, among the most sadistic and stupid, calls to torture him just for the hell of it. But the facts of the case show that the system of law that has protected this nation for more than two centuries miraculously manages to still protect it now. Imagine that.

Keep that in mind the next time some panicked moron argues we have to crap our pants, drop everything we've always believed in and stood for, and give up on the law because some cultists say they want to kill people. There are a lot of reasons why those people are wrong, not the least of which is their shameful cowardice.

-Wisco


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Republicans Just as Dumb/Crazy as You Think

It's time once again for fun with polling. This time around, the polling isn't exactly official, but sort of preliminary numbers and highlights from an upcoming poll. Apparently, the report isn't completely written, but some of the numbers have been released early:

Talking Points Memo:

A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, conducted among 2,000 self-identified Republican respondents nationwide, gives an interesting peek into the psyche of the minority party's base.

Kos has not yet released the full numbers, but here's some early info on the poll that he has posted on his Twitter account...

What follows is a snapshot of wingnut lunacy, gullibility, and just plain foolishness among Republican voters. With the election of Barack Obama, the right has snapped. They live in a world where opinion is fact and actual fact is a completely foreign concept. Apparently, they come to conclusions based not on proof, but in a strange and intoxicating mixture of wishful thinking and total panic.





The good news here is that on only a few issues are the majority of Republican voters completely goofy. But the minorities in all questions are substantial. And even on those issues where the majority agrees, the belief can only be described as either shockingly poorly informed or just insane.

For example, 63% of all respondents believe President Obama is a socialist. From the rhetoric I've heard, I'm not sure these people know the difference between a socialist and a communist (or a fascist, for that matter). It might pay to point out that Obama wrote a book that made him a millionaire -- if he's a commie, he really sucks at it.

Of course, some nuts believe Obama didn't write the book -- which means he hired someone to write it for him and make him a millionaire. Call it the "Sarah Palin approach to authorship." Either way, he's obviously a capitalist.

Another majority belief among Republican voters is that the President is an illegal alien. According to the report, "Only 42% believe Obama was born in the United States." This is a case of there being no proof good enough ever. This is the same mindset that gets you creationists and global warming deniers. In fact, birtherism is worse, since there are still facts to be discovered in evolution and climate -- birthers, on the other hand, literally have all the proof that exists in the world and it's still not good enough. Creationists and climate flatearthers at least have a thin reed of an argument to hide behind. Birthers have nothing. All they have is an unfounded certainty and pigheaded dedication to preserving their ignorance.

This also explains another number -- 53% believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president that Obama. If you believe that Obama's not a citizen, then this would make sense. What gets me about Palin though is that she's basically just Bush. She's an idiot someone dug up from Redstatistan, branded as the next big thing, and put out there for sale. It's not addressed in the numbers I have, but personal experience tells me that even the farthest right agree now that Bush sucked. That they can't see that Sarah Palin is just George W. Bush with eyeliner amazes me. Only on the bank bailout is any position Palin holds any different from positions Bush held. Everything that failed so spectacularly under Bush would fail just as spectacularly under Sarah Palin -- she's not magic. If you want proof that Republican voters are astoundingly dumb, that should be all you need.

And there's always the hate and bigotry. What would the Republican voting block be without that? TPM reports, "73% think gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools. This position puts the GOP base well to the right of none other than Ronald Reagan, who helped defeat the Briggs Initiative, a 1978 referendum in California that would have forbidden gays or people who advocated gay rights from teaching in public schools."

Other fun numbers:

39% of Republicans want President Obama to be impeached (I'm not sure what he'd be impeached for, but I really doubt they care much)

21% think ACORN stole the 2008 election (55% say they aren't sure)

23% want to secede from the United States

31% want contraception to be outlawed

I think the point I'm trying to make here is that when I say that Republicans are lunatics, it's not hyperbole. Looking at the size of these percentages, you could grab a random Republican and find out that they believe some completely insane pile of crap most of the time. The majority of Republicans are squirrelly.

But those are numbers and math is truth, so I point you to creationism and climate and birtherism. They may be goofy, but there's no way you'd ever convince them of that.

-Wisco


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'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' on its Way Out

The next big fight in Washington is looking to be the 2011 budget. Liberals aren't happy with the spending freeze idea and Republicans are against everything, because they believe obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism is good politics.

But other fights also loom and those will pit crazy people against sane ones. These are the cultural issues, where right wing lunatics believe they get their marching orders from Jesus. Of course, their Jesus is the Republican Jesus, who is a nutjob. And we're rushing toward a fight between the religious crazies and everyone else.

New York Times:

President Obama and top Pentagon officials met repeatedly over the past year about repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the law that bans openly gay members of the military.

But it was in Oval Office strategy sessions to review court cases challenging the ban — ones that could reach the Supreme Court — that Mr. Obama faced the fact that if he did not change the policy, his administration would be forced to defend publicly the constitutionality of a law he had long opposed.

Already, the right is breaking out the stupid. "In the middle of two wars and in the middle of this giant security threat," House minority leader John Boehner said this weekend on Meet the Press, "why would we want to get into this debate?"

Golly John, maybe it's because we're in those two wars you mentioned -- maybe we can't afford to let homophobic squeamishness keep potential soldiers out of the field. This seems to me to be the prime example of a stupid question. The question that would be better asked would be, "Why would you even have a debate over this?" It's idiotic. Other nations allow gays to serve openly; go find the military where this has become a huge problem. You won't have any luck.

But the US is home to Christian religious fanaticism. Afghanistan has their Taliban and we have ours. Reality doesn't have anything to do with opposition to repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Most of you know I'm an atheist by now, so it shouldn't surprise you to learn that I'm convinced that Christianity is just a bunch of stuff somebody made up. But even if you do believe, you have to admit that the God the religious right worships has nothing to do with the biblical Jesus. They've made up their own Jesus, then pasted it over the one in the Bible.

Republican Jesus is a bigot. Republican Jesus loves the wealthy and hates the poor. Republican Jesus wouldn't have chased the moneychangers from the temple, he would've set up shop himself. And, apparently, Republican Jesus would round up gays, put them in prison, and try to brainwash them using a technique that's been completely debunked by the medical profession.

Bryan Fischer, American Family Association:

It might be worth noting that what I actually suggested is that we impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse, since both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. I'd be curious to know what you think should be done with IV drug abusers, because whatever it is, I think the same response should be made to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.

For the record, "reparative therapy" is a bunch of snake oil BS. In fact, it's just harmful. And we won't even go into all the ways this would be illegal. Let's just leave it at "Bryan Fischer is 100% wrong." There isn't a single argument he makes that's right or even possible. Put bluntly, Fischer is a lunatic, a bigot, and a religious fanatic.

Of course, Fischer, like everyone else in his movement, is completely sure that he's right. Remember, this is the same crowd who believe that magic is a better explanation than evolution. All of their reasoning power goes toward rationalizing reality to agree with their beliefs. They don't care about truth, they don't care about anyone's health, they just have to prove that every belief held by bronze age nomads is 100% true. And even those beliefs they manage to misunderstand.

"Remember folks, the Christianist right is not about hatred and bigotry," writes Joe Jervis of the blog Joe. My. God. "It's about the gentle redemptive love of Jesus, forced upon you at the barrel of a gun in prison as they beat the gay out of you."

Polling shows that the majority of Americans are not on the side of the anti-gay crazies. In all, 55% of Americans favor repeal, as opposed to 35% against it. As is usually the case, Republicans are outside the mainstream on the issue -- 53% oppose repealing DADT. 73% of Democrats and 58% of independents support repeal. In total, only 11% of respondents believed that the policy made the military stronger.

But, of course, those are facts -- which means the religious right has no use for them. If they're willing to put people at risk of suicide, then they're certainly willing to ignore numbers that show them as the cranks.

The big question for the GOP is how far they're willing to push this going into an election year. If we've learned one thing from recent elections, it's that relying on the religious crackpots to win doesn't work anymore. Can Republicans, who think they're riding high now, really afford to revert back to their culture warrior stance and risk it turning off voters? Alternately, can they afford to ignore the issue and risk turning off the fanatics who still make up a good chunk of their base?

Or will the media bother to report on any of it? There are a lot of big headlines out there and it just might be that this fight gets buried under other stories.

If I were a Republican, that's what I'd hope for.

-Wisco


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