Obama’s Rolling Stone Interview, the Warren Esquire interview, the Powell end0rsement, words don’t mean things, Paul Ryan’s poverty speech, campaign of the damned, Romney’s Supreme Court, Texas causes an international incident, Golden Dawn, Wen’s Wealth, another CEO behaving badly, and Jerome Corsi: first up against the wall.
Welcome to the Daily Sausage.
First up: President Obama’s interview with Rolling Stone, by Doug Brinkley.
The offense-driven, Yes-We-Can candidate of 2008 has become the No-You-Won’t defensive champion of 2012. Obama has less a grand plan to get America working than a NO TRESPASSING sign to prevent 100 years of progressive accomplishments from being swept away, courtesy of Team Romney, in a Katrina-like deluge of anti-regulatory measures.
And that’s what this election is about. It’s not just about moving forward, it’s about holding the line. It’s making sure that a century of progress isn’t rolled back by modern Robber Barons and their allies.
Next up, Elizabeth Warren talks to Charles P. Pierce. I have to go change my pants.
CPP: I just remember watching this thing on NBC’s evening news one night and the guy saying the entire United States financial system is on the brink, and I say, What?
EW: Yeah. Exactly.
CPP: But if what you’re saying is true, the crisis just exploded on the general public and then it was explained in gobbledygook.
EW: And then it was explained in gobbledygook, which is a way of saying: Be helpless. Leave it to a handful of insiders to solve the problem. We’ll take care of this, you know, and the rest of you relax. Just give us seven hundred billion dollars. But that was the point — that was the battle of whether it’s gonna be all about the experts and they’re going to go behind closed doors. I mean that metaphorically, but that’s really what was happening. How much crazy language and it makes no sense and it’s gobbledygook — that’s a way of telling everybody else: Be helpless.. And that means no accountability. Nobody’s accountable, you know? And then the metaphors, you know: This is like a big hurricane.
HNNGH.
And Charles P. Pierce follows up.
Doghouse Riley makes an appearance, in probably his best piece yet: “Words Don’t Mean Things. And Allow Me To Explain”.
Fer cryin’ out loud. Moudock’s moral principles, or excuses, are irrelevant to the argument. We’re talking about a Constitutionally-protected right; at minimum your side has to admit that is the case before there can be any discussion, civil or no. I’ll just wait here. In the meantime, the past forty years has driven the extremist religious maniacs of your party above ground, and they have no concept of discourse on this issue. Nor of internal consistency. Those of you in the business of milking them for votes have tried to keep ’em quiet about it, or at least on message, but the message was always ill-considered, illogical, and emotional. When George W. Bush was riding high in 2004, this element decided it could show itself as anti-abortion in all cases, and anti-contraception into the bargain. If you wanna talk about principle, there’s where the principle lies. And you know that forcing rape victims to carry fetuses to term, let alone banning rubbers, is a huge electoral loser. A coalition breaker, in fact. That’s who has really responded to this summer’s White Male rape defenders. (Sorry for the incivility.) That’s what you think is unfair.
You want civility, Ms Charen, civility defined as a continued free ride for the religiously mazed on the issue, unfettered by the rules of logic. What you emphatically do not wish is discourse.
So uncivil. And awesome.
Paul Ryan gave a speech about poverty in which he called the poors a bunch of lazy freeloaders. Of course, Paul Ryan calls EVERYONE a bunch of lazy freeloaders, so no real big shock there. The bigger shock is that so far he’s the only candidate that’s talked about poverty at all.
Republicans are right to talk about the 46 million people living in poverty. Dead wrong about why, and dangerously wrong about the solutions, but at the very least, they’re bringing up the topic. They make a capital mistake in simply using the issue by shoehorning it into their rigid ideology — because poverty is also about health care costs, about environmental regulations, and, yes, about birth control, and because poverty is a national problem requiring us to work through our national government — but they’re talking about it, out loud and in public. To paraphrase Walter Sobchak, say what you want about zombie-eyed granny-starving, at least it’s an ethos.
Ed from Gin and Tacos gifts us with some surrealist humor in “Campaign of the Damned”.
10/23/2012
ROMNEY RESPONDS TO A QUESTION ABOUT LIBYA BY PROJECTING A RAINBOW COLORED PARABOLIC ARC OF VOMIT ACROSS THE DESK AND INTO BOB SCHIEFFER’S WAITING MAW. THE FOCUS GROUP LINES JERK UPWARD IN APPROVAL. HE APOLOGIZES IN A CHORUS OF FIVE DISTINCT VOICES EMANATING FROM THE SAME MOUTH. “I ATE RAFALCA,” HE SAYS BY WAY OF EXPLANATION. THIS IS THE KIND OF DIMENSIONLESS WRAITH YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A BEER WITH.10/16/2012
CARL, A SOYBEAN DEHULLER FROM UTICA, ASKS ABOUT TAX CUTS FOR WORKING MOMS. MITT ROMNEY OPENS A PORTAL TO ANOTHER DIMENSION ONSTAGE. HIS RAMBLING, FOUR MINUTE ANSWER USES THE WORD “FISTULA” 12 TIMES. HE NEVER EXPLAINS THE PORTAL.9/24/2012
MITT ROMNEY REFERS TO THE POOR AS “GENETIC DETRITUS” ONSTAGE. THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN RECEIVES THE TEXT MESSAGE THEY HAVE LONG DREADED: “CREATE DIVERSION.” A TOPLESS BAY BUCHANAN UNICYCLES ACROSS THE STAGE; JOHN SUNUNU REACHES INTO A DUFFEL BAG AND WITHDRAWS THE SEVERED HEAD OF DARIUS RUCKER; PAUL RYAN EMERGES IN BLACKFACE AND BEGINS A MINSTREL SHOW. THE CROWD QUIETLY ENVIES THE DEAD.
I am literally crying.
Speaking of things that make me cry, Conservative legal scholars are betting that Romney’s nominees to the Supreme Court would start taking big swings at the last hundred years or so of human progress in the United States.
And really, this is the stakes of the election. The next President could nominate four new Justices (Breyer, Ginsburg, Scalia, Kennedy are all over 70), who could serve for the next twenty years. Mitt Romney would nominate four Antonin Scalia’s. Barack Obama would nominate four Kagan’s or Sotomayor’s.
Texas, having caused an international incident when they executed a Mexican national without following proper diplomatic protocol, is once again in the news for causing an international incident. This time, they’re threatening observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who monitor elections around the world in an effort to develop best practices for developing nations.
If Texas is going to keep causing international incidents, I say it’s long past time we cut them loose and let them do it on their own terms.
The Guardian has a fantastic article on the rise of Greece’s Golden Dawn political party. How is it that in the 21st century, a bunch of Neo-Nazis can come to power in the cradle of democracy? Oh yeah, it’s because a bunch of bankers are trying to squeeze blood from a stone and forcing tremendous austerity and human suffering on people that had really nothing to do with the problem.
The Guardian also has an excellent article on the acquisition of wealth by member’s of Chinese Premiere Wen Jiabao’s family, in excess of $2 billion USD, and China’s blocking of the New York Times for reporting on it.
Another CEO has gone wild, threatening his employees with “personal consequences” if Romney loses, via ThinkProgress. I’m sure that when the Supreme Court decided to open the Citizens United floodgates, this is exactly what they had in mind.
And finally, via Wonkette, Jerome Corsi has wandered off the reservation again and stated that in honor of Free Speech Week, we should be executing journalists.
Corsi states that the press has become treasonous and seditious.
Welp, let’s define Treason.
From Article III, Section 3:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
Unfortunately, the definition of Treason doesn’t really fit for Mr. Corsi’s case.
Let’s turn to sedition! In this case, the law of the land is the Smith Act, also known as the Alien Registration Act of 1940.
In this case, the Smith Act sets federal criminal penalties including fines and imprisonment for up to twenty years for:
…intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or…organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof.
Unfortunately for Mr. Corsi, that’s basically the entire Right-Wing blogosphere, which includes his website.
Fortunately for Mr. Corsi, us liberals are a progressive bunch, and as much as we’d like to, we’re not about to haul him, Eric Erikson, Roger Ailes, Andrew Breitbart’s corpse, James O’Keefe, and every other “right-wing journalist” in front of a judge and try them for sedition to destabilize the government of the United States by willfully printing and displaying misinformation and propaganda, followed by subpoenaing their commenter records and round up all the internet tough guys talking about their gun collections and putting a bullet between the eyes of Obama supporters.
No, we wouldn’t do that. The guys in the black helicopters might though.
