Tag Archives: GOP

War On Terror Rant

I am annoyed at the current state of thing in this ‘war on terror.’
First off I have never liked the idea of a war on a common noun. You can’t win that kind of war because the common noun will always be around. The wars on poverty and drugs are wonderful examples of that sort of stupidity. I am all for war on a named enemy, say Al Qaeda and it’s allies. You know when you’ve won that war. With they give up or cease to exit.
Besides that point I’m really fed-up with the stupid and pointless political crap that gotten in the way of pursuing our enemies.    The current state of affairs seems to be that on one side of argument you have to be for torture and going all Jack Bauer on their stupid medieval skulls, and the only other option is go full court ACLU with Miranda and layers of lawyers.
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Tomorrow’s Special Election

Tomorrow voters go to the polls to elect a senator to represent Massachusetts in the United States Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward Kennedy and currently filled by an interim appointed Senator.

This is I think a critical election. The Democrats currently hold 60 seats and by the current pansy-assed rules for filibusters need all 60 to get their legislation through. (Filibusters have not been non-stop dramatic speeches on the floor of the Senate as seen in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington for years and years. They are now gentlemen’s’ agreements to require 60 votes, something very different.)

If the Democrats lose this 60th vote Health Care Reform is almost certainly dead.

Frankly if I was forced to place a bet tonight it would be that the Democrats will lose this election. The wind is at the Republicans’ back and even in this bluest of blue states victory is within their grasp. Unlike the special election in NY which was primary a local election, this is state-wide and with broad and clear national implications. A defeat here is a defeat for the liberal agenda and could possibly herald a voter wave that might crash against the party in power in November. (Though November is a long way off electorially speaking.)  Maybe even with enough anger and luck the Republicans can take control of the House of Representatives again.

If that happened it would not be the end of the world and the Republicans would have a chance to show that perhaps they have learned some lessons. (I harbor doubts on that front but would be delighted to be wrong.)

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Asinine Political Writing

From One Jonah Goldberg

Let me say up front, I don’t think President Obama is to blame for the Fort Hood shootings, and I don’t think it’s fair to say otherwise.

But (you knew there had to be a “but”) that doesn’t mean Obama won’t pay a political price for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage.

At first blush, it seems distasteful to take a political yardstick to the pain suffered at Fort Hood. But if we are to consider this incident part of the bloody tapestry of the larger war on terror, there’s no way to separate it from politics. After all, the war on terror has been driving politics in America for the better part of a decade now.

And that might offer insight into why so many are eager to make the massacre a story about the psychological breakdown of a man who just happened to be a Muslim. . . .

For instance, it seems likely that Obama has already suffered a rhetorical defeat. Whatever his faults, President Bush got to say one thing that the American people always appreciated: After 9/11, he kept us safe from a terrorist attack on the homeland. If Hasan acted as a jihadist terrorist and not a disgruntled psychiatrist, Obama can’t even make the same claim about his first year in office.

There is so much that is wrong with what was written by Mr. Goldberg in the above excerpt.  To bring up an opponent’s possible political cost from such a horrendous crime is the kind of tack left to propagandist and not any form of serious thinker or writer.

If this was an example of Islamic terrorism  since 9-11, then you can’t really say that Bush 43 kept us safe and prevented all attacks on US soil after 9-11 either. John A, Muhammad, the DC sniper from 2002, was convicted and recently put to death for acts of terrorism within the united States.

All seven justices agreed that Mr. Muhammad’s conviction under a previously untested terrorism law was appropriate. The law dispenses with the triggerman requirement in cases where the killing was “pursuant to the direction or order” of someone engaged in an act of terrorism. (NY Times April 23 2005)


What takes this sentiment of Mr. Goldberg’s into lunacy is that reflect on the Obama administration. As though Major Hasan would not have snapped in the same way had John McCain and the Goddess been elected in 2008. (There is no ideology save Conservatism and Palin is it profit. Blessed is her flirt and may peace be upon her.) In all likelihood this would have happened exactly the same way and then of course there would be silence from Mr. Goldberg about how this reflected poorly on the president.

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The recent off-cycle elections

First point to make: everyone spins there losses as not being pertinent to the situation and everyone conversely spins their victories as great and meaningful. So a lot of the spin going on from on high and punditry in general is meaningless. Were the results of any particular result reversed, the sides would smoothly flip to saying the exact opposite.

Not too long ago prominent Republicans were telling us that “deficits do not matter.” Now they are a matter of life and death and when power switches hands again in Washington — and it will boys and girls it’s only a matter of when — then they will once again feel that deficits do not matter.

All that said I think the NY-23 district was an interesting race. The forces of Conservative Populism (A term I picked up from Nate Silver) chased the Republican candidate from the field and delivered the district to the democrats. So far the CP movement has delivered two seats to the Democratic party. (Sen. Arlen Specter and now NY-23) There are those who think this is a good thing. That the Republican Party needs to be more Conservative and there is an argument for that. It’s hard to win if you are trying to be the opposition-lite. However, in our two party, winner take all system, to win you need your base and you need the middles. Whoever does that wins. Making your base more extreme at the cost of the middle doesn’t strike me as a winning strategy. (This would matter less if we had proportional representation, then we’d have more parties and the parties could be more ideologically defined. That’s not our system so a drive for purity yields losses.)

I will not extrapolate these results into predictions for 2010 and hell no for 2012., There’s way too much time and way too many events between here and there.

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Follow-up on Sarah Palin

When Sarah Palin announced on the 4th of July that she was quitting as Governor of Alaska I had some conjectures as to why she did it.

Here’s one of them:

3) She’s gotten a better offer. Some sort of TV show or other major media spotlight that pays better and flatters her ego better. This is credible if that’s what she really wants. To be the conservative Oprah would be a gig she is well suited for — but then again I don;t a high opinion of Oprah as a thinker either. If this is the case we’ll hear about it soon, otherwise why quite now?

Now we’re near the release of her book, Going Rogue. (I assume it’s not a not to play thieves book for D&D Gamers.) This book is reported going to be released with 1.5 millions copies on the first printing.

This along with nice speaking fees for closed to the press speeches I think nicely demonstrates that Sarah Palin quite for the money.

The surprising thing is that she is still respected by many as a future leader of the Republican Party. A quitter.

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Birthers and Truthers

In case you were unaware there are fantastic sets of conspiracy believers running about in American politics right now. (Okay there are a lot more than two, but I’m only going talk about these two at the moment.)

Truthers – who believe that the US Government, and usually G.W. Bush specifically, was behind the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11th 2001. That the whole idea that it was perpetrated bye arab terrorists is a lie created to justify war.

and

Birthers – people who think that Barrack Obama was born in Nigeria and not in the United States and therefore is ineligible to be president of the United States.

On the web I caught a bit of a argument between some on the right and some on the left as to whose conspiracy nuts were nuttier. Frankly this sort of argument is meaningless. It has all the validity of arguing who would win in a fight between the USS Enterprise and The Battlestar Galatica.

However I did find it amusing to see that the two sets on conspiracies meshed with the political philosophies of their believers.

People on the Left tend to think that government is an efficient capable  entity, able to solve all manner of problems with speed and practicality. (And there are many things that government should do and some that government does better than the private sector.) The Truthers, generally on the left, believe that the government is capable of such a grand conspiracy . It would be an amazing military operation to pull off such an attack and not leave clear fingers prints.

People on the right tend to think that private businesses and individuals are more capable and better problem solvers than government. It’s natural that their conspiracy – and Birthers tend to be on the right — would emphasize the power and forethought of the individual. That Obama’s parents certain that there baby would be president someday would take such diverse steps as faking a birth certificate and planting birth notices in local papers to cover baby Barrak’s true birth is simply amazing work that could only be performed by gifted individuals and never by a committee of paper-pushers.

What you believe also reveals more about yourself and your worldview than you expect it to.

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9-11 2001

No, I will not be using any picture taken that clear, awful, morning eight years ago today. We have the images burned into our brains, the horror is scarred into our retinas. The world changed and we need no mementos to remind us.

The impact of that terrible attack has been vast, terrible, and the final effects are unknown. We are as blind to the final effect of that act as anyone in 1914 trying to foresee the effect of their terrible terrorist action the assiassination of the Arch-Ducke.

In the years that have passed since 2001 a lot of people have passed a lot of words tryning to assign blame for the three thousand murdered in New York and Washington D.C. that morning.

Clinton and his administration have been blamed, Bush and his administration has been blamed. Mistakes were made by all sides, but it is unseemly to seek to find Americans to blame for that particulart horror.

The blame rests solely and forever on the murderous fantaics who planned and carried out the attacks.

PERIOD

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The Sharpest Shiv

Back after the 2004 election President Bush famously announced he had earned some political capital adn he was going to spend it.
he wanted to overhaul out social security and retirement system.
I think the system is in need to reformation and expect without intervention we’re going to have some rough seas ahead. (that”s not to say I endorsed any particular Plan of Bush’s, just that I agree with the need.)
The Democratic party fought Bush tooth and nail on the plan and managed to kill it by pulling out the sharpest shiv in the cell block known as American Politics, Scare The Seniors.
Once they had scared the seniors, the Democrats had won their war.

Now it’s 2009 and President Obama is trying to reform the Health Care system in this country. Again I agree it needs to be done with agreeing to any particular plan out there right now.

The Republicans are now the ones fighting tooth and nail and they have taken the weapon sharpened by the Democratic party and used it to their own ends. It’s another round of Scare the Seniors.

Neither party is made of principles and both parties are more interested in killing the others legislation than in really solving the problems we face.

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Good Bye Sarah

Palin QuitterSo yesterday was Sarah Palin’s last day as Governor of Alaska. I, for one, will not miss her and I feel she has now, happily, taken herself out of any serious running for President in 2012 and hopefully beyond.
I listened to her interviews. I listen to her speeches and I have come to the conclusion that she does not have the intellectual chops for higher office. This is all besides and beyond personal issues I have with the woman and her election methods and style.
I realize that there are readers of this blog who are and remain Palin supporters. That is a choice you are free to make and I would defend against all attackers your right to make that decision.

h/t to The Daily Show for the wonderful photomanip for her send-off.

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