It’s About More Than Money August 29, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Politics.Tags: culture wars, debt, deficit, economy, entitlements, Romney, Santorum
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I’ve been pondering all morning how to respond to “Jonathan Chait Is A Dope“. I need to respond. That’s the whole point of LRC. We debate the issues from opposing perspectives, one liberal and one conservative. But sometimes I’m at a loss for words. Sometimes it seems that we’re speaking two different languages derived from two different parallel universes.
The Repbulicans talk about “entitlements”. The very word is spoken with distaste. But they avoid the basic issue of: Are we entitled? Are we entitled to health care? Are we entitled to a secure retirement? I’d say we are entitled to those things, and it’s the government’s task to find a way to provide them. The Republican response is that we can’t have those things because we don’t have any money to pay for them. It’s because of the debt or the deficit, terms which are used interchangably, but are actually different things. It’s all creative accounting, but the Republicans basically say that we’re near broke and that if we want to even survive, there will have to be sacrifices made. But it’s awfully hard to take that argument seriously when their plan involves cutting taxes on the wealthiest among us, increasing taxes on the middle-class they are so fond of, and gutting services for the neediest souls at the bottom of the ladder. Someone’s going to have to pay down the deficit, something the Republicans weren’t the least bit concerned about when it was growing steadily in the Bush years, but it sure as hell isn’t going to be guys like Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, or the Koch brothers.
Moderate Republicans, the last sighting of whom was in concert with recent reports of Big Foot in northern Michigan, like to look the other way when it comes to the culture wars, the focus on abortion and birth control and gay rights. When presented with overwhelming evidence of racism, both subliminal and outright, in their rhetoric, campaign strategy, and worldview, they are apt to ignore it, accuse the accuser of being the racist, or write it off as pragmatic politics…whatever it takes to win. The delusional hope is that once Romney is in office, it will be all about righting the economy and regaining employment…that the far fringe nonsense of Santorum and his ilk will be relegated to backwaters of shelved ideas.
The fact of the matter is that there is no guarantee that the Ryan version of budget nirvana is going to have the intended effect of righting a listing economy, and by the calculations of lots of economists, there’s a significant chance that it will make things worse, although not for the super-wealthy, who will pull even further from the pack. And there is every indication that if the Republicans manage to capture not only the executive branch, but both chambers of Congress, the social agenda will be first on their to-do list. So-called moderates are willing to sacrifice their principles on the altar of a new American theocracy if it buys them the holy grail of deficit reduction.
Be careful what you wish for.
Robert Borsage: The Hard Truth About Romney’s Republican Party
BW
Caution: Longterm Usage May Result In Excess Santorum May 17, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in News Of The Weird, Politics.Tags: buttplugs, Epler, Google, NYU, republicans, Santorum
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This is so tasteless and brilliant I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself: In what can only be described as the most nuanced employment of euphemism since the designation of “sanitation engineers”, NYU grad student Matthew Epler has invented a unique and visually illustrative method for showing “data visualization of voter approval rates amongst registered Republicans for each of the GOP candidates”. He’s dubbed it the “Grand Old Party” and coincidentally
it’s a set of buttplugs. The width of each object is proportional to the candidate’s popularity and the length is proportional to the time he’s been in the race. No mention of what sort of assholes would vote for these guys…
BW
The Inevitable Next Step: Anyone Not See This Coming? March 19, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Politics.Tags: choice, contraception, john mccain, obama, porn, pornography, Santorum, women, women's vote
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Rick Santorum, who if he wins in Illinois tomorrow, says he will be the Republican nominee. He loaths abortion and says birth control goes against the natural order of things. I, for one, was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I didn’t have to wait long. On Friday, his campaign website posted a declaration of war on pornography if Santorum is elected president…which, if you give it a moment’s consideration, is pretty much a roundabout way of declaring a war on masturbation, which Santorum undoubtedly views as another mortal sin, life beginning at ejaculation and all that. Just in case anyone thought that they misread his position or intent, he doubled down on the Sunday morning talk shows, saying that Obama “favors pornographers over families and children”. This stuff just baffles me. Sure, there’s a segment of the population who think everything would be alright in America if we could just return to the moral rigidity of the early part of the twentieth century, but they’ve got to be a rather small minority. The rest of us would like to get our jobs back, get the economy rolling, and basically let people live their lives in privacy and peace.
Santorum, Gingrich, and Romney begin to make you long for the good old days of John McCain, who just might have pulled out that election in 2008 if he’d stuck to saying the things he’d said for forty years and ignored his handlers, who clearly made him toe the party line. With another election on the horizon, it looks as if he’s finally discovered where the GOP was holding his gonads hostage and is beginning to speak his mind again. He said on yesterday’s talk shows that the new Arizona anti-contraception law was wrong and should be vetoed:
“I think we have to fix that,” he said. “There’s a perception out there because of the way that this whole contraception issue played out … We need to get off of that issue. In my view, I think we ought to respect the right of women to make choices in their lives and make that clear and to get back onto what the American people really care about — jobs and the economy.”
Maybe the Republicans ought to think about giving McCain another shot. Even with a little incipient senility he’s got more sense than the current college of clowns put together.
BW
Reality Check March 7, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Health Care, Politics.Tags: birth control, cost, cruise missile, Gingrich, Grenada, iran, mitt romney, oral contraceptives, prohibition, re-election, Santorum, sex, Yaz
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My blogmate may know patients who are taking $10 generic oral contraceptives, but many women I know are on rather more pricey medications. Back before my daughter-in-law began her career as a human baby factory, she was on the popular birth control pill, Yaz. I looked it up on a Canadian pharmacy site, where prices are generally as little as half of American retail (a topic for a whole other debate) and Yaz goes for $75/mo or $900/yr. That might be insignificant for some, but is a huge expense for others. Aside from that, it’s not really about the cost, as my blogmate correctly notes. Contraception is either a reasonable medical expense or it isn’t. The Republican stance is that contraception is an illicit drug for an illicit activity…SEX. Fine, that’s a political position, and if that’s the one they want to stick with, good luck. These are the same folks who pushed prohibition back in 1919, and we all know how well that worked out. Go ahead and try to ban something that basically everyone enjoys. If that’s how the Republicans think they can win an election, go for it.
Speaking of reality checks, if you want to talk about some really delusional Republicans who are clearly living outside physical reality, you need go no further than FOX News. Yesterday on “The Five” host Eric Bolling and four other commentators suggested that the whole Rush Limbaugh scandal was personally cooked up by Barack Obama to distract attention from the economy. I’m not making this up. In their parallel universe, Obama carefully selected the obviously provocative Sandra Fluke incite an isssue and then presumably used Kenyan voodoo mind control to force Rush Limbaugh to call her a slut and prostitute. If Barack Obama really is that devious and powerful, Mitt Romney ought to just concede right now and go home to his multiple Cadillacs and Nascar owner friends.
On that note, the three ring clusterfuck over in clown car city just goes on and on. Romney can’t close the deal, Santorum hangs around like a recurrent case of herpes, and Gingrich is already dead but the message hasn’t gotten from his brain to his body yet. Meanwhile, the lot of them keep beating the war drums on Iran as if sending a few cruise missiles to Tehran is going to be as easy as taking over Grenada, while Obama continues to act as the only grown-up in the room. The longer this goes on, the better Obama’s chances for re-election look. And by the way, no one with half a brain is actually buying the Republican contention that the price of gas is Obama’s fault, or that if he’d just ok’ed the pipeline we’d all be swimming in two dollar unleaded by now. It’s unadulterated nonsense.
BW
The GOP Litmus Test/Another Day, Another Primary February 28, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Politics, religion.Tags: christian, constitution, gop, litmus test, muslim, religious test, Santorum
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I’ve written a great deal in the last months about the GOP’s swing into religious fanatacism, and the push for a new American theocracy. I think I was personally on this story as early as anyone in the blogosphere, and now the rest of the world is catching up. Today from Michael Smerconish on Huffington Post: The Unfaithful Candidate in which he chastises Mitt Romney for failing to take the opportunity to challenge his opponents on a faith based litmus test. The op-ed pieces on this topic are all over the place. But I modestly proclaim that no one has said it any better than I did on February 21 in “The New Republican Litmus Test“: It’s not enough to be Christian…You have to be Christian enough. When Santorum and Gingrich and Limbaugh and Hannity whisper code words and oblique references about Obama being a closet Muslim, they are again preaching to their choir of evangelical wingnuts, but it makes you wonder if a single one of them has ever actually read the Constitution they claim to honor. From Article VI of the US Constitution:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
That’s all well and good in theory. In practice, John F. Kennedy is the only Catholic ever to hold the office of the presidency, and there’s never been a Jew. There’s never even been a Jewish vice president. Joe Lieberman was the first to even be a candidate for VP, and you can see how well that went. I’ve said before that the chances of an atheist being elected president in this country are less than hitting the lottery with your kid’s birthday. So much for enlightenment.
So we move on to Michigan and Arizona and the polls have Romney and Santorum neck and neck. One can’t but hope for Santorum, on the theory that there’s no way in a universe governed by physical laws for him to actually be elected president. But as I’ve said before, be careful what you wish for:
Robert Reich: As Romney And Santorum Battle For The Loony Right, The Rest Of Us Should Not Gloat
Even if the Republican Party really does take leave of its collective senses and nominates Santorum, and even if he spirals into a Dukkakian defeat, these guys aren’t going away, and they’ve already shown what kind of havoc they could reak even with the White House and both branches of Congress held by Democrats. And worst case scenario…he could win. It’s almost enough to make me find god and start praying.
BW
The Pool Of Guano Insanity Grows Deeper, Wider, And Ever More Pungent February 22, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Politics, religion, Uncategorized.Tags: Anne Frank, baptize, batshit crazy, Beelzebub, guano, Mormon, Santorum, satan, WMD
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The very idea of a guy like Rick Santorum making it this far in the presidential selection process is by definition batshit crazy, but the fact that Santorum embraces his own lunacy, doubles down on it, and challenges anyone who doubts it to literally “go to hell”, elevates the batshit craziness to a previously undreamt-of level, something like googolplexshit crazy. Is it relevant that Santorum four years ago said aloud in a speech that Satan was targeting the US? Damned right it’s relevant. This is the guy who says the US “always needs a Jesus candidate”, who thinks contraception and prenatal testing “go against the natural order of things”, and who is asking the voters to hand over care of the nuclear trigger to his tender mercies. We’ve already had one president who consulted directly with Jesus before launching a war to liberate phantom WMD’s. What if we elect one who’s convinced that Beelzebub is hiding out in a Manhattan disco? Or who has a vision in a dream and wakes up with the revelation that Alec Baldwin is the Anti-Christ? Seriously. Satan was huge back in the eighteenth century, but I don’t recall a single instance of Washington or Jefferson or Adams invoking “the Evil One” in their essays or speeches…even if he was quite the celebrity back in Salem in 1692, which is what guys like Santorum refer to as “the good old days”.
In other news in “the war on religion” (which I’m beginning to think isn’t such a bad idea), it was recently reported that a Mormon church in the Dominican Republic has posthumously baptized Anne Frank. If you’re a Jew, you’re appalled. If you’re a Mormon (Mitt Romney), you’re reassured. If you’re a real Christian (Rick Santorum) or a phony Christian/closet Muslim (Barack Obama), you’re unconcerned because you’re secure in the knowledge that the young Ms. Frank is being eternally and unspeakably tortured for her sin of non-belief. If you’re a rational human being, you know it’s all ridiculous because Anne Frank is simply dead.
Careful, don’t slip on the guano.
BW
Glove Up, There’s Some Santorum On The Counter January 7, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Entertainment, Politics.Tags: fashion, Google, humor, Santorum
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A dozen hilarious reasons why Rick Santorum is on the fast track to becoming yet another footnote. [Mega thanks to friend-of-the-blog Marcey for this brilliant heads-up.]
BW
Republican Lunacy: This Stuff Will Make Your Eyes Bleed January 6, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Politics.Tags: far right, food stamps, Gingrich, income taxes, Jesus Candidate, paul begala, republican, Romney, Santorum, taxes
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Ok, let me lead you through this. Try to bear with me and just follow along.
Mitt Romney, the “moderate” in this crowd, has proposed his own new tax plan, which isn’t nearly so radical or laughable as Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 or Gingrich’s and Perry’s flat taxes, and in its defense, isn’t quite as off the wall as Ron Paul, who thinks income taxes are unconstitutional. Here’s what Romney’s plan would accomplish: IT WOULD RAISE TAXES ON PEOPLE MAKING LESS THAN $20,000/YEAR BY 60% AND LOWER TAXES ON PEOPLE MAKING MORE THAN $1,000,000/YEAR BY 15%.
Newt Gingrich, widely acclaimed as the “intellectual” among the GOP candidates, has challenged the NAACP to invite him to speak at their convention so he can tell them to their faces that “African-Americans should be demanding pay checks, not food stamps.”
The new surging darling of the right, knight templar of family values, scourge of perverts and deviants, Rick Santorum, when asked whether the country needs “an economic candidate”, replied that the country “ALWAYS NEEDS A JESUS CANDIDATE”.
So my eyes are bleeding, my gut is twisting, and pinkish-grey smoke is streaming out of my ears. These guys are totally off the rails, totally out of any connection with what is actually going on in the country they propose to govern, and so totally off-the-scale-pinned-in-the-red-zone radically to the right that they’ve managed to marginalize about two thirds of the electorate. Their homophobic social policies exclude what Kinsey would tell us is about 11% of adult voters. Their attitude toward blacks and Hispanics ought to turn off another good 30-40% of the populace. And unless you happen to be a CEO of a major bank or brokerage, their tax plans ought to piss off the other 99.9%. Not to mention that if you happen to have ever even lightly skimmed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, or if your forebears happened to have arrived via Ellis Island instead of Plymouth Rock, or if you are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic, atheist, or breathing, you ought to be appalled when someone who aspires to be the leader of all 317 million Americans says that we always need a Jesus candidate.
I’ve been saying that the GOP has managed to snatch almost certain defeat from the jaws of victory by charging so far to the right that the only people they’re exciting are a very loud and vocal core of batshit crazies. It’s why more sober and sane Republicans like Indiana’s Mitch Daniels and New Jersey’s Chris Christie declined to even get involved. In an essay in this week’s Newsweek, Paul Begala sums it up brilliantly:
The GOP’s Suicidal Tendency
By tacking ever further to the right, Republicans are blowing their best hope of beating Obama.
by Paul Begala | January 1, 2012 10:00 AM EST
Despite president Obama’s rising poll numbers, the tough economy suggests that the 2012 Republican nominee should be an even-money bet to be the next president. Why, then, the paucity of talent seeking the nomination? Why is the roster of Republicans who took a pass so much more impressive than the list of those who took the plunge? This is not just the usual grass-is-greener humbug. Yes, each candidate is outstanding in his or her own way. But that’s like saying each Supreme Court justice is sexy in his or her own way.
My suspicion is, the reason the cream of the GOP crop is sitting out 2012 is not because they’re worried they can’t beat Obama straight up. It’s because they’re worried that their base is so crazy they’ll be dragged so far to the right in the primaries that Obama will capture the center in the general election and make it impossible for them to win.
The story of the Republican Party in the last half century is a nearly unbroken march to the right. Nixon was more conservative than Eisenhower. Goldwater was more conservative than Nixon. Reagan was more conservative than Goldwater. Gingrich was more conservative than Reagan. And George W. Bush was more conservative than Newt.
Today’s GOP? Heck, there is nothing—nothing—that’s too conservative for them. Don’t just analyze whether government regulations confer benefits that outweigh their costs; stop all federal regulations. That’s what Texas Gov. Rick Perry has proposed. All of them—like those that protect the air we breathe or the water we drink or the toys our children play with or the nursing homes our grandmothers live in. Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out.
Don’t just reassess whether the new rules of the road for Wall Street are working; repeal them, all of them, right now. That’s what Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich propose. Don’t just pledge to outlaw a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion; push to ban all funding for contraception because, as Sen. Rick Santorum says, “It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
Don’t applaud Obama for putting more boots on the Mexican border than any president since Woodrow Wilson; decry any effort to recognize the families who have come here, to educate the children who have been raised here, and embrace the Arizona immigration law—among the most extreme in the nation. That’s what Mitt Romney has done.
It doesn’t take any imagination to see what would happen to Eisenhower in today’s GOP. Ike would be booed off the stage. And Nixon? Well, Tricky Dick created the Environmental Protection Agency, which today’s Republicans want to abolish. Barry Goldwater wouldn’t have a chance; he strongly supported gay rights. Honestly, the Gipper couldn’t survive nowadays. After all, he signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act in California in 1967, and put his signature on what at the time were the largest tax increases in California history as governor and the biggest peacetime tax increase in American history as president. The rightward lurch has only accelerated during the Obama presidency.
So if you were a successful Republican with eyes on the White House—one who actually believes the scientific consensus that carbon pollution harms the planet, or that contraception prevents abortion, or that gay Americans don’t have cooties—you would figure out pretty quickly that you could not survive in today’s GOP. My old boss Bill Clinton challenged his party. He supported welfare reform and free trade and tough crime legislation. But his party nominated him anyway. Democrats wanted to win more than they wanted one more purist to carve onto Mount Losemore.
I don’t see that kind of reformation in the Republican Party of 2012. Before you start feeling sorry for the country-club moderates being overwhelmed by the pitchfork populists, keep this in mind: the GOP elite created this monster. They were more than happy to have extremists willing to impeach Bill Clinton or loonies carrying signs comparing Obama to Hitler—so long as it helped them turn out the vote and win elections. But now the lunatics have taken over the asylum. And the price of winning the votes of the new, ultra-right GOP may make the party’s presidential nomination a prize not worth winning.
BW
Santorum: Not A New Brand Of Condom January 5, 2012
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Politics, Scandals.Tags: definition, Google, problem, Santorum
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Back in 1975, when both my blogmate and I were still in med school, if someone had told me I had “a google problem”, my first and best hope would have been that it was treatable with penicillin. But this is a new century and google problems are not only real, but in some cases roll-on-the-floor-funny. So go ahead, add to Rick Santorum’s “google problem” by entering “santorum” in the google search window. It says something about the know-how of his IT people that they’ve managed to move his campaign website to the number one hit…and this entry down to (appropriately) number two:
