“Colin Powell trashes Mitt Romney’s team of foreign policy advisers” – Jennifer Bendery (Huffington Post)
I basically zeroed out my respect level for Colin Powell after he went along with the criminal conspiracy known as the Bush Administration’s March To War.
However, quotes like this make me think there’s still a little Anakin Skywalker left in old Darth Vader:
“Look at the world. There is no pure competitor of the United States of America,” he said. “All the problems we talk about in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran … they count about 700 million people in a world of seven billion. What are the rest of them doing? They’re increasing their economies, they’re building wealth, they’re educating their kids, they’re building their infrastructure. That’s what we need to be doing.”
“Fear (and loathing) of Commitment” – Zandar (Balloon Juice)
It’s as if no one in politics has ever heard of Occam’s Razor. Or, for that matter, ever watched Sesame Street. Ta-Nehisi Coates agrees with me.
“The new, nasty Obama Campaign” – Molly Ball (The Atlantic)
This is about four years too late. As soon as Mitch McConnell got up and said “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one–term president.”, President Obama should have frozen the GOP out of the governing process. He should have said “Government relies on compromise to function. I have a majority in the House, and a supermajority in the Senate. If you’re not willing to work with me, then I’m gonna take my party and do whatever I want. And until such time as you’re willing to negotiate in good faith, you all can kiss the black half of my ass.”
That being said, I think an aggressive, nasty campaign is exactly what it’ll take to beat Mitt Romney. I think the President has to come out swinging. I think he’s gotta make Mitt Romney bleed his own blood and see how he responds. I think if the President has any plans of being an effective second term president and getting anything resembling a majority in Congress back, he’s gotta go into every house that voted GOP in 2008 and 2010, he’s gotta talk to those voters, and he’s gotta make them pay electorally for being Neo-Know Nothings.
“Marco Rubio’s Imaginary Republican Party is Fiscally Conservative” – Conor Friedersdorf (The Atlantic)
The idea that the GOP is “fiscally conservative” hasn’t been true since Reagan. As Conor mentions, the last true fiscal conservative was George Bush, who had the temerity to suggest that in order to balance the budget and lower the deficit, we’d have to raise taxes. He was summarily thrown out of office by Grover Norquist, who decided that the economic policy of the United States should be based on some idea he had when he was in high school.
The GOP exists today as a party of looters and cranks. “Fiscal” Republicans are only interested in using tax law to reduce their own taxes and direct as much money as possible from the lower and middle classes up the ladder to the wealthy and super wealthy. “Social” Republicans believe the United States was founded by Jesus and ordained by God and think the government should stay out of their lives, but should be actively involved in policing their neighbors for behaviors they don’t personally agree with.
Of course, Marco Rubio lives in a fantasyland, so this is not unexpected.
“An Obama spending spree? Hardly” – Sahil Kapur
It’s not about the numbers. It doesn’t matter what Obama has actually done. It’s about optics. It’s the mental image of the first black president being profligate with taxpayer money. It’s the idea of a black man taking someone else’s money and spending it on stuff they want. It’s Reagan talking about strapping young bucks buying T-bone steaks with food stamps and welfare queens with six-figure tax-free government-provided incomes. It’s the idea that the President is *this close* to announcing he’s starting his own clothing line, vodka brand, and record label, all funded by the American taxpayer.
“What happened to the Occupy movement?” – Arun Gupta (Al-Jazeera)
It evolved. The idea of holding a physical space indefinitely, especially in New York City (or anywhere else, for that matter) was always going to be impossible. The message being pushed by Occupy is the kryptonite of the organized, corporatized interest groups that backed the Tea Party.
The idea is to change the conversation. It’s giving a Democratic president the popular cover for taking on the moneyed interests that buy politicians and through them the laws they write. It’s about planting the seed in the minds of everyone that paid attention to the Occupy movement that there really is a Class War going on, and the Rich are kicking our asses. As the author noted, talk to me in ten years and ask me then who’s still a force in American politics: Occupy or the Tea Party.
“Is Mitt Romney a Unicorn? Arizona Secretary of State’s Birther Probe Ridiculed” – Nick R. Martin (TPM)
“The reaction has been largely negative since the story broke,” Roberts said. It “balanced out the thousands of people who advocated for Mr. Bennett to keep (Obama) off the ballot in the first place.”
Balanced is one term for it. Tipped the scales might be another. At least one progressive online network, Left Action, took up the cause this week under the theory that if 1,200 emails can convince Bennett to investigate one conspiracy theory, maybe they can cobble together enough support to get him to investigate anything.
As of Tuesday afternoon some 15,000 people and counting had already put their names on Left Action’s online petition asking Bennett to investigate whether Mitt Romney is really a unicorn. (Yes, a unicorn. The petition even has its own domain name: MittRomneyIsAUnicorn.com.) That’s more than 10 times the number of people who asked Bennett to investigate the president in the first place.
This needs to go national. I have not seen any evidence that Mitt Romney is not a unicorn, and is therefore eligible to be President of the United States.
