Palin: Could Run, But Prefers to Jog

Please, please, please

Crossing my fingers (and voting, of course) for my beloved senator Russ.

If things don't go well today, election-wise, at least we'll still have this

Boooooooo, Tim Pawlenty

I used to think that Minnesota's Governor Tim Pawlenty was a reasonably practical conservative, the kind who can go on Rachel Maddow's show and intelligently discuss important issues, but lately he's been proving himself to be a righty nut job. (How frightening is it that it's now considered necessary to be a nut job to be an electable Republican? That can't bode well for the GOP or the USA.) He's been trying to earn the Tea Party's love by turning down federal money for children's health care and sex ed (bonus Religious Right points on that one), and now he's gone on Fox News to say this to Neil Cavuto:

Instead of all just running around saying, “We’ll take the money because it’s free money,” let’s call it what it is: The federal government is basically a drug dealer trying to give out free samples, or give people a taste, get them further addicted. And I think we just say: “No, thanks, we’ve had enough, and get your own house in order, by the way, at the same time.”

That's right - accepting federal money = being a crackhead. Hope you're paying attention, elderly folks on Social Security, soldiers and veterans, companies with government contracts, and pretty much everyone else in America. Also, sorry kids, Tim Pawlenty's personal health care is just health care, but YOURS is rhetorically crack, and he demands that you get sick and die to prove his point.

We pay taxes to get services. But Tim thinks we should pay taxes and not get services. And that's the sort of position for passes for economic know-how in today's Republican Party.

Money Quotes

A Tea Partier Speaks:

“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”

NY Times

Sigh.

GOP: Better than Ever?

Look how far they've come . . .

Is the Republican party now courting the furry vote? I blame the teabaggers.

Thank you, Wonkette, for this horrible image.

Glenn Beck Outsourcing His Work to Americans

Glenn Beck, in between his alternating bouts of raving and crying, has apparently written a work of fiction. But since he claims the paranoid crap he spouts on air is real, we must assume that this book is actually non-fiction. Anyway, Glenn can't decide which of these covers to stick on his book, so he is outsourcing his tough decision-making work to Americans. Which of these terrible covers do you prefer? Pick one and vote.

Here are your choices:

Global Warming Eats the Flag

Totally Straight Guy from 300 Replaces Statue of Liberty

Shaftacular Monument Menage a Trois

Money Quotes

I like David Brooks. He is an old-fashioned, intellectual, non-crazy conservative, and I prefer to disagree - and occasionally agree - with people who know what they are talking about. (In other words, not rabid tea-partyers. Have you seen the "Teabonics" tumbler page?) His polite verbal sparring with EJ Dionne on NPR is a work-day pleasure of mine. In today's Times, Brooks has an encouraging op-ed in which he resists the recent conservative impulse to convince people that America is doomed, the better to drive them into the GOP's arms in fright and desperation. No, he writes - America is going to be better than fine.

This column is a great luscious orgy of optimism. Because the fact is, despite all the problems, America’s future is exceedingly bright.

Over the next 40 years, demographers estimate that the U.S. population will surge by an additional 100 million people, to 400 million over all. The population will be enterprising and relatively young. In 2050, only a quarter will be over 60, compared with 31 percent in China and 41 percent in Japan.

...

As the world gets richer, demand will rise for the sorts of products Americans are great at providing — emotional experiences. Educated Americans grow up in a culture of moral materialism; they have their sensibilities honed by complicated shows like “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” and “Mad Men,” and they go on to create companies like Apple, with identities coated in moral and psychological meaning, which affluent consumers crave.

As the rising generation leads an economic revival, it will also participate in a communal one. We are living in a global age of social entrepreneurship.

In 1964, there were 15,000 foundations in the U.S. By 2001, there were 61,000. In 2007, total private giving passed $300 billion. Participation in organizations like City Year, Teach for America, and College Summit surges every year. Suburbanization helps. For every 10 percent reduction in population density, the odds that people will join a local club rise by 15 percent. The culture of service is now entrenched and widespread.

In sum, the U.S. is on the verge of a demographic, economic and social revival, built on its historic strengths. The U.S. has always been good at disruptive change. It’s always excelled at decentralized community-building. It’s always had that moral materialism that creates meaning-rich products. Surely a country with this much going for it is not going to wait around passively and let a rotten political culture drag it down.

Hurray, David Brooks - thank you for not attempting to scare me into voting Republican, and also for not sneering at the word "community." The 2008 campaign's focus on Obama's service as a "community organizer" seems to have led an awful lot of Fox talking heads to treat "community" as a distasteful code word for socialism or something. Which bugs me about as much as Glenn Beck's treatment of "social justice" - the man told his viewers to leave their church if that phrase came up. Isn't that anti-Catholic? Maybe that Catholic League nut Donohue needs to put him on his enemies list.

Graphic Representations of Victory, from the Internets

John Boehner was so angry last night.

Is John Boehner's skin color found in nature? To quote the man himself, "Hell, no!"

Ladies and Gentlemen, Our President

Anyone who doubts that our president has serious balls should check out his Q+A at Friday's Republican Retreat. It was a take-all-comers intellectual ass-whupping, on live TV. We need more honest encounters like this - in which politicians from both sides call each other on their bullshit until they're having an actual conversation. We have so many problems to tackle right now, and spouting talking points at press conferences isn't going to get us anywhere.

Irony: Sometimes it manifests itself retroactively

The now-disgraced John Edwards, at the 2007 Father of the Year Awards.

Andre Bauer is Not Nice

In South Carolina, Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer's campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor is getting some unwanted attention from the media, after a speech in which he compared people receiving government assistance to stray animals.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better," he said.

His opponents have claimed that his remarks are un-Christian, but I think maybe Bauer has just been reading from the "Compassionate Conservative" version of the Bible. You know, the one where Jesus says, "I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; and I would like to thank you, because otherwise how would I have ever learned my lesson?"

See? Andre Bauer is trying to help people -- BY NOT HELPING THEM AT ALL.

Maybe I've just fed way too many stray cats in my life, but I think that Andre Bauer might be a terrible person.

Frank Rich on Michael Steele: "Clownish Like a Fox"

As Frank Rich points out in the NYTimes, conservatives like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Michael Steele are making serious money off of the "Tea Party" movement. Palin is reportedly being paid $120,000 to speak at the Tea Party convention, Beck uses his viewers' apocalyptic fears to sell them gold coins, and Steele is using his status as the Republican Party's appointed Obama-fighter to sell his book and "speaking skills" to the largely Obama-hating Tea Partiers. For Steele, this is another example of his taking advantage of his unique position as by far the most well-known African American in the Republican party. He's been calling out others for "displaying racism" and "playing the race card" while gleefully doing both himself. He offered Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal "slum love," claimed that he would use "fried chicken" to attract minority voters, and, my personal favorite, used the phrase "honest Injun" in a television interview.

Sarah + Bristol Palin: "We're Glad We Chose Life"

Chose being the operative word there, ladies. CHOSE. Please admit that it's important that you had a choice.

Come On . . . Windfall Tax!

Democrats need to implement some strategic populism if they want to escape the November 2010 anti-incumbent wave, and bashing big banks could be the solution. And there's reason to hope that they'll implement practical actions, rather than just rhetoric. The NY Times reports that President Obama will attempt to recoup as much as $120 billion of the $700 billion financial bailout. How he'll do it is uncertain, but a windfall tax on profits, such as the British are considering, could be just what taxpayers and voters need.

Hallelujah, Kinda

Schwarzenegger Seeks Shift From Prisons to Schools

Governor Schwarzenegger wants to shift California's money out of prisons and into schools, a move that could thrill those concerned with social justice. California spends $10.6 billion a year on its 33 prisons and 12 community correctional facilities. 30 years ago, 10 percent of the general fund went to higher education, and 3 percent to prisons. Now, 11 percent goes to prisons, and just 7.5 percent to higher education. Unfortunately, he wants to accomplish this liberal goal in a conservative way - by privatizing prisons. The system would be better served by releasing low-level offenders. The state's prison system is vastly overcrowded, and a panel of federal judges gave it two years to reduce its current number of 170,000 inmates to 130,000. But the governor has refused to allow prisoners to be released early, and the correction officers union is not cooperating.

Important Political Stances

Some prominent conservatives would like Americans to know where they stand - against the insanely popular movie Avatar. Also against the environment, certain religions, and hot human-on-humanoid sex. But for the Iraq war and clear-cutting. Read all about it!

Hey, Strange Men, Anyone Interested in Helping Meghan McCain Unclog Her Plumbing?

Meghan McCain's Twitter messages continue to entertain. She recently attempted to "be an adult" (her phrase, not mine) and unclog her very own bath tub drain, but sent out a number of panicked Tweets when the application of Drano failed to magically remove the clog.





Really? Just any old plumber will do? Meghan, I know you've complained that your dad's political career has been hell for your sex life, but I had no idea it was this bad.

He Who Must Be Obeyed?

Putative human being Senator Joe Lieberman has reportedly convinced Senate Dems to drop the public option and Medicare buy-in for those over age 55. Senators, if you give in every time he throws a tantrum, this is what you get. Never mind that he is going against his own previously stated positions on both Medicare buy-in and the filibuster. I am convinced that Lieberman pulls this shit out of pure cussedness.

What the hell, Joe? WHAT THE FREAKING HELL.