Stories to Watch: 10/5/11
Damn it’s beautiful today. Seriously. Now here’s the news…
Any residual reason for the media to give a damn about Sarah Palin dies, as she announces she won’t run for president. Try not to let it get you too down.
Meg at Cognitive Dissonance finds a good piece; Michelle Malkin claims that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are “99%” white — because that’s just such an oh-so clever thing to say. FoxNation.com gets all excited about the observation, runs it as a piece on their site, and chooses a photo that proves Shelly wrong to accompany it. How stupid do you have to be to believe the crap at FoxNation.com? If this is any indication, pretty goddam stupid.
99-percenters have a friend in Russ Feingold. There’s also some support coming from elected dems, but none of the names are extremely surprising.
Chicago traders are assholes.
Senate dems rewrite Obama’s jobs bill, adding a “millionaires’ tax” to embarrass Republicans who vote against it.
Lamest hit job ever: RedState attacks the reporter who started Rick Perry’s “Niggerhead” scandal by revealing “public criminal records in multiple states stretching across 4 time zones.” This crime spree consists in its entirety of bouncing a check, failing to obey a highway sign, and two counts of speeding. That ought to make that whole racism story go away right pronto!
You know how people are always saying that America’s won’t do the jobs migrant workers do? Turns out that’s pretty much on the money.
Finally, is it just me or is Michele Bachmann just slightly more incoherent than normal?
News Roundup for 10/3/11
Noted anti-prejudice expert, Herman Cain
-Headline of the Day-
“Herman Cain faces backlash for ‘playing race card’ against Rick Perry.”
Just a heads up before we get started here, this is a story without any good guys, like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
By now you’ve probably heard of Rick Perry’s association with a hunting camp and the use of a word that’s so offensive that many mainstream news outlets have been reduced to pointless censorship by referring to it as “N*ggerhead.” Seriously, that’s not avoiding anything other than spelling it right.
Anyhoo, Herman Cain got wind of the story and told Fox News Sunday that for Perry to “leave [a rock with the word ‘Niggerhead’ painted on it] there as long as he did, before I hear that they finally painted over it, is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country.”
At this point, I’m going to chime in a remind everyone that Herman Cain is a bigot himself. In other words, prejudice sucks when it’s directed Herman Cain’s way, but if you want to hate everyone else, knock yourself out.
But Herman’s problem here isn’t the obvious hypocrisy. Herman’s problem lies where conservatives’ problems with the base always lie; in embracing reality. Because Herman Cain complaining about racism is the worst thing ever!
“Daily Intel rounds up numerous conservatives on Twitter lambasting Cain for ‘smearing a good man.’ The Daily Caller calls Cain ‘at worst, highly irresponsible.’ The mostly subliterate RedState commenters have convinced themselves that Cain is the real racist for going after Perry,” reports Alex Pareene. And, of course, Erick-Erick joins in on the fun, because you can always count on him to be an idiot.
The problem is that Rick Perry is a Tea Party type. Of course, so’s Herman Cain. But when someone accuses a Tea Party type of racism, that means the accuser is a commie. Automatically. They’re just trying to discredit a movement that marches around with pictures of Barack Obama with a bone through his nose. You know what’s racist? Calling the Tea Party racist, that’s what!
“Herman Cain is going to very quickly learn that the modern conservative movement only wants to hear good, happy stories about how they successfully eradicated all white racism many years ago,” Pareene predicts.
Normally, I’m against political predictions, but I’d bet money on that one. (Salon)
-Good news/bad news-
Click to embiggen
Forget gay marriage, how do we explain species-suicide to our kids? (McClatchy)
-Bonus HotD-
“Half of Republicans Don’t Know What ‘G.O.P.’ Means.”
A recent poll shows that nearly half of Republican voters don’t know that “GOP” stands for “Grand Old Party.” Best guesses among the wrong were “Government of the People,” “Grumpy Old People,” “God’s Own Party,” and “Gauntlet of Power.”
No foolin’. (Wonkette)
Stories to Watch: 7/24/11
Having pancakes for dinner — again. It’s been too hot to use the oven, so I’m stuck with two choices; find some way to use sourdough starter when I feed it or throw a cup of the stuff down the drain. Waste not, want not, so bring on the sourdough pancake brinner. Now here’s the news…
Apparently, Boehner and Obama are back at the negotiating table. It’s not exactly good news, however, since ABC News reports that any deal would likely “face strong opposition for House Republicans opposed to increasing taxes and Democrats opposes to entitlement cuts.”
ThinkProgress looks at the way the right jumped on the “IT’S MUSLIMS!” train in the Norwegian terrorist attacks. Not surprisingly, they all look even stupider than normal. Breitbart’s idiocy shines out especially brightly for me.
Things get worse for possibly unstable Oregon Democratic Rep. David Wu, with allegations of sexual assault.
It’s Wedding Day in New York. Congratulations.
Norwegian police are investigating a possible second gunman in the terrorist attack.
Is America in danger of a Norway-type attack? We’ve got the same kind of nuts, so judge for yourself — Exhibit A.
Finally, RedState’s and CNN’s Erick Erickson declares Jews to be extremely likely to become terrorists. It wasn’t the argument he was trying to make, but Erick-Erick’s a ridiculous boob and his logic is always flawed, so you wind up with collateral damage. Seriously, this guy is just awful at spin.
Yes, the Public Would Blame Republicans for a Default
In the debt ceiling debate, there are no political winners. That’s one message you could take away from a new CBS News poll showing that, of all the players in the debt negotiations, a majority of Americans approve of none. On this issue, it’s disapprovals across the board.
But another message you could take away would be that, of all the political losers in this fight, the Republicans are the biggest — by a wide margin. From the polling report itself (pdf):
More Americans disapprove than approve of how President Barack Obama is handling the negotiations with members of Congress about raising the debt ceiling, but Democrats and Republicans in Congress fare even worse. 43% approve of how the President is handling the talks, and 48% disapprove. Approval drops to 31% for the Democrats in Congress. Just 21% approve of the Republicans’ handling of the negotiations, while 71% disapprove.
In fact, the report tells us, “Even half of Republicans, 51%, disapprove of how members of their party in Congress are handling the negotiations. Far fewer Democrats disapprove of how their own party (32%) or President Obama (22%) is handling the talks.”
The biggest winner, by virtue of being the least loser, is President Obama — the man to who Republicans have furiously been trying to shift any blame. Clearly this isn’t working — at least, not working as well as they’d hoped. Or as well as some of their crazier supporters had predicted.
Erick Erickson, RedState:
Now is a time for choosing. Now is your time for choosing. As I pointed out to John Boehner yesterday, despite what the pundits in Washington are telling you, it is you and not Obama who hold most of the cards. Obama has a legacy to worry about. Should the United States lose its bond rating, it will be called the “Obama Depression.” Congress does not get pinned with this stuff.
“Of course Erick Erickson’s analysis of the debt ceiling situation is simplistic, incorrect, and stupid,” wrote Alex Pareene in one of my favorite quotes from last week. “Erick Erickson wrote it. He’s a clown.”
But he’s not a lonely clown. There are no shortage of rightwing radio nuts calling for default. And worse than Erick-Erick’s sloppy wishful thinking is default denialism; a Tea Party delusion that a damaging default as a result of failure to raise the debt limit is an alarmist position. Count Rep. Alan West, Rep. Michele Bachmann and many others among those. See, if liberals worry about something, then it’s nothing you should worry about — like global warming. It’s what being a reactionary robot is all about.
So, of course, the crazier conservatives will ignore the CBS Poll, just as they ignore all evidence that doesn’t support their position. They’ll wander around with their heads in the clouds, completely certain that their arguments — presented without evidence — are 100% correct.
To their credit, GOP leadership is trying to get these nuts to see reality. I have my doubts as to whether this is even possible. This is the generation that Republicans have trained, through rightwing media, to ignore facts in favor of talking points. Now these crazies have talking points of their own.
-Wisco
