Fact-esque

Steve Hildebrand Needs to STFU, Not Tell Us To

Jane Hamsher catches Obama deputy Steve Hildebrand telling liberals to stop questioning BO's Cabinet choices. (Via Avedon Carol)

This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren't progressive enough.... After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people - not just those on the left.

Steve, of course, has the sentence wrong. What Obama and his people need to remember - for a change - is that BO was elected by us to be president of all the people, not just those on the Right. We have been consistently more correct about the negative effects of conservative policies than either the Center or the Right-wing Washington establishment, let alone the far-Right whacko neocons who've had things their own way for almost a decade. We don't propose to be shuffled aside like obstreperous children by a president we elected just to see the same people we've been accurately critical of put back in place so they can continue the disruptive, unworkable policies that landed us in the soup in the first place.

Somebody needs to explain to Steve that if he's telling his own people they're not allowed to voice concerns about anything BO does, he ain't no fucking liberal. Liberals listen and then work things out. They DON'T say "My way or the highway", and they DON'T run political parties as if they were military units getting their marching orders from which there had better be no deviation or the guardhouse awaits. Conservatives do that. A lot. It's a conservative characteristic. So who's kidding who, Stevie?

Sarah's Hairdo: $54,600 More Expensive Than John Edwards'

I suppose you remember the to-do the media made over John Edwards' $400 haircut. Spose they'll make as much noise over the $55K the Republicans paid Sarah Palin's "fashion advisor"? That brings the total they paid out to make her presentable to GOP audiences a whopping $225,000.

That we know of....

Barney v Barack: For Once, Frank Is Wrong

Two of the basic concerns with Obama for me have been his unwillingness to commit to reversing Bush's "unitary president" excuse for assuming monachic powers, and the fact that "the structure of the movement Obama built for himself" gives him far more power than most presidents. It has suggested a level of comfort with autocracy that is chilling in an American president. But today Barney Frank is complaining that Obama isn't hands-on enough and that he ought to take a leadership role in solving the economic crisis we're facing.

Democrats are growing impatient with President-elect Barack Obama's refusal to inject himself in the major economic crises confronting the country. Obama has sidestepped some policy questions by saying there is only one president at a time. But the dodge is wearing thin.

"He's going to have to be more assertive than he's been," House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told consumer advocates Thursday.

Frank, who has been dealing with both the bailout of the financial industry and a proposed rescue of Detroit automakers, said Obama needs play a more significant role on economic issues.

"At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time," Frank said. "I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He's got to remedy that situation."

He's right, of course. We haven't had a president in eight years. We've had a quasi-dictator and wanna-be emperor who cared nothing for anyone not in what he considered his "class", but no president. He's also right that we need one.

But Obama is following the usual American tradition: with the months-long gap between election and inauguration, in order to avoid confusion and keep the lines of command clear presidents-elect do not make policy for the lame duck no matter how much they want to or the people want them to.

Palin & Bush: The Dream Team

If there's any single characteristic that sets wingnuts apart from normal people it's their ability to ignore an uncomfortable reality and fashion a new, more congenial one that only they live in. Today brings us the two stars of Wingnuttia pretending that the election didn't change all that much and they're still right about everything they've been hopelessly wrong about.

First up, George W Bush, whose every move, thought, policy and belief was jettisoned by a disgusted electorate less than 2 weeks ago. In an excess of exuberance unexplainable by modern science, the man-who-would-be-king has decided to lecture Europe (which held a massive sea-to-sea champagne party to celebrate the election of his successor) on how it should handle the economic crisis he created.

President George W. Bush asserted Thursday that the global financial crisis is "not a failure of the free market" and urged world leaders to adopt modest financial reforms that stop short of the tighter regulations Europeans favor.

"Our aim should not be more government. It should be smarter government," Bush said during a speech in New York, a day before about two dozen world leaders converge on Washington for a weekend summit he is hosting.

The first question is, why are world leaders going to a summit held by the man who is the root cause of their economic troubles and then listening to him when he has less credibility than religious right preacher trying to explain what he was doing at the prostitutes' swap shop? Is this for its entertainment value? Because it's hard to imagine what other value it could possibly have. His performance in office has been so dreadful he has established a new baseline for incompetence, stupidity, and blind denial that won't be bettered for generations (if we're lucky) and yet he talks as if he isn't currently the world's personal bete-noir and they didn't collapse in laughter and hoots of derision when he told them his "solution".

Palin, Petard Hoisted

As the right-wing begins in its own ininmitable fashion to deal with being told by the electorate in no uncertain terms that it ought to go live in an uninhabited wasteland somewhere far from civilization where it won't be in the way of the rest of us while we clean up the mess it made, there are naturally a number of ironies developing as the first step. Let's face it, the Right has been using nasty negative attacks as a communications device for so long it doesn't really know how to communicate any other way any more, and being faced with what it considers an unexplainable and near-total defeat, its first instinct is to find a scapegoat.

Now being offered up as the initial sacrifice, one Sarah Palin. Steve Schmidt, a demonstrably meaner Rovian that Karl himself, has decreed that Obama's win was the result of Palin's "going rogue" during the campaign and is seeking revenge by having his minions in the RWNM slip the stilletto into her back at every opportunity.

What's ironic isn't his using the same techniques on a woman he after all chose as McCain's "maverick" sidekick. That was to be expected. What's ironic is her rather unbelievable reaction. After spending her campaign telling lies and spreading gossip about Obama, none of which was, needless to say, true, and recently blaming the media for McC's loss because they weren't spreading her lies with enough gusto, now that she's been subjected to the same kind of slime she had so much fun feeding her fans, she actually has the nerve to be outraged.

Gov. Sarah Palin denounced anonymous criticisms leveled at her by former John McCain aides as lies, including allegations that Republican lawyers were traveling to Alaska to reclaim her high-priced wardrobe and that she didn't know Africa was a continent.

"Those accounts are not true," the former Republican vice presidential candidate said in her first public comments on the matter since the election Tuesday.

***

Palin denounced criticism from unidentified McCain campaign aides as "cowardly." She said she found it frustrating trying to respond to false allegations when she didn't know who was making them.

"It's ridiculous," she told reporters. "You guys report based on anonymous sources, so it's hard to have a defense."

No shit, Sherlock.

Of course it's only fair to note that not just Sarahcuda but none of the Right ever expected to have its dirty games turned on itself. In fact, one must remember that it has spent years developing its particular brand of blind, unquestioning acceptance and of and belief in wingnut innuendo. Skepticism of anything said inside the bubble isn't allowed. Andn then there is the cynical use of the media's right-wing bias to spread its false gospel without checking facts which Sarah finds so adorably unfair.

Maybe she'll rethink 2012 after all.

What Now? (Updated)

What does the election of Barack Obama mean? Not as much as you'd probably like it to but more than you might think in your darker moments.

I'll leave the speculation about the racism implications (are we past it?) to others. The fact is,l I don't know. As I read this election, Obama could have been a space alien or a cat toy. I've said this several times so I won't dwell on it: people were so sick of Republican greed, selfishness, and pigheadedness that the Democrat was going to win no matter who s/he was. Next to the fear generated by the GOP-sponsored collapse of the economy, racism played a very small role. Apart from the Dead End Kids - who have now been reduced to a paltry 20% - the slime-sucking McCain campaign's use of name-calling, invective, gossip-mongering, innuendo fostering, hysterical scare tactics, and race baiting fell as flat as a busted balloon tire.

Have we finally had it with the Atwood/Rove school of Dirty Pool? Did we look away in disgust when Sarah Palin got right down in the mud in her bikini and shotgunned shit in all directions? Or were we simply more afraid of what might happen if a John McCain got hold of the economy and tried to squeeze out the last few pennies for the banks and corpo's who backed him?

I don't know but whichever of the many possible explanations you pick, the point is that they and their policies, their lies, their slime, their childishness, their cluelessness, and their stubborn wrong-headedness have been soundly and convincingly repudiated. Unlike Bush's election where the squeaker of all squeakers was within days transformed into a mandate, Obama's win really is a mandate - a command from we the people to Stop the Madness.

But will he? Unfortunately, probably not. Not unless we get together and make him. The conservative DLC is already pushing its business-friendly right-wing agenda and warning BO that he'll be sorry in some unspecified way if he makes any lib/prog moves at all, by which is understood that they will hold him responsible if the Dems lose the off-year elections.

So Much for the Bradley Effect

There was a very brief moment last night when I thought McCain might have won. It was quarter til eleven and as I was passing a bar a group of young white girls emerged hollering, "Nobama, Nobama" and doing victory dances. There was more cheering and "Nobama" chanting coming from inside the bar and people were slapping each other on the back, shouting epithets at Obama and exclaiming "We did it!"

Could they have stolen another one? It would have to have been massive theft, blatant, all the way across a huge country. And for a moment - just a moment - my stomach did a curl and dove into my toes.

McCain. President. Four more years of corruption, torture, oil wars, a crashing economy that he would do his best to crash even further. It was an appalling thought.

But what really got to me was what a McCain victory would have said about us: that after enduring the Bush years, GOP lies and crackpot mythology, Constitution-shredding, and then the dirtiest presidential campaign on record, we had voted that we liked all that and wanted more. It was a depressing thought. What had happened to us during the Bush years would have had to go a lot deeper than fear, deeper than racism even. It would have meant that a majority of us were attracted/convinced by slimy campaign tactics to violate our own interests even though we knew this time that we were doing so. It was so depressing to contemplate the state of hatred and greed that we must have stooped to that I considered - for a few seconds - jumping off a bridge or, alternatively, moving to Canada. And I hate being cold.

If There's a Sinkhole We'll Step In It

Whoever wins (Obama) is going to have a helluva job on his hands. Agence France Press, the French AP, reports today that according to Moody's 30 out of 50 states are in recession already and 19 of the remaining 20 are on the edge. To recap for the stunned among us:

49 out of the 50 states in the US are in or near recession.

Moody's defined recession for the study as a decline in a state's gross domestic product (GDP) on average over a six-month period, compared with the prior six-month period.

According to the March-September study, 27 states were already in recession in August.

States with shrunken GDPs were concentrated in the eastern half of the United States -- the Midwest, the southeast and the northeast -- and the West (California, the largest state economy; Oregon; and Hawaii).

At-risk states were located in the center of the country and in the northeast, including New York state.

And the only state that isn't in danger of economic collapse? Hey, Saraaa-aaah!

Moody's said the only state that showed growth was Alaska, whose economy is dominated by the oil and gas industry.

Which I don't have to tell you is doin' fine, jus' fine.

Who Let the Dawgs Out?

TMiss wants to know how come the Big Shots let the economy go to hell before McCain was elected.

Could the Republicans be working any harder at gaming the economy in the hopes of pulling this one out? I’m just waiting to learn why the market crashed ahead of schedule. I suspect the global economy is so rotten, the big money pukes couldn’t wait until after November 5 to crash the market as scheduled.

Rotten people everywhere, and being rid of Bush won’t get rid of most of them.

That last bit is true but gratuitous liberal wingnut-baiting and we don't want to encourage that kind of thing. Much. The central point is, however, well taken. How did the timing get so screwed up? Obviously this paper-clip-and-rubber-banded economy was intended to be held together until the GOP could steal another 4 years.

Or was it?

If I Lived in Ohio I Could Vote Next Week

Yet another resounding dope-slap to the GOP for the shameless attempt to steal its third national election comes from Ohio. The Toledo Blade reported today that a Federal judge in Columbus ruled that homeless people can't be kept from voting because they're homeless.

A federal judge in Ohio has ruled that counties must allow homeless voters to list park benches and other locations that aren't buildings as their addresses.

(emphasis added)

The decision was part of a a settlement between the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who ran against Ken Blackwell after all that news came out about how the Ohio vote was stolen from Kerry in '04 and how Blackwell was instrumental in allowing ("helping" would be nearer the mark) it to be stolen.

During Blackwell ignominious tenure, the GOP had mounted a campaign to force the Sec of State into strict obedience to a very rigorous and non-discretionary Voter ID law that would almost certainly have resulted in thousands being deprived their right to vote. NOCH had filed a Constitutional challenge to the ID law which could have delayed the count on election day by weeks or months. Brunner avoided that with this settlement and Judge Edmund Sargus okayed it.

What a difference a Roosevelt Democrat makes, eh?