The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Scott Ott And The #40Dollars

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Ott serves up the news on the #40Dollars hash tag, and Iowa, where he has a dry, dry, dry jape about idolatry. Also a great Perry riff. Nicely played.

Look at this pathetic noise. The entire dextrosphere should post on what an outburst of non-thinking this is:

Category: humor

E-Mail From Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 13 Comments

Years ago, I clicked a box on some Democrat web site and they’re still sending me e-mails like this one:

Democrats

Friend:
If you follow political news like I do, you may remember this year for its GOP horse race: who was up, who was down, who had an “oops” moment. But that’s not how I’ll remember it.
I’ll remember it as a pretty incredible year for Democrats. Here’s why:
Just in the last week, we’ve seen solid evidence that health care reform is working: 2.5 million Americans are now insured thanks to a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows young adults to stay on their parent’s health insurance, more than double the number previously estimated.
And with the last troops leaving this past Sunday,  the war in Iraq has come to a responsible end. Because of the veterans  provisions of the American Jobs Act and the Hiring Heroes Act, which provide tax  incentives to businesses who hire veterans in need of work, our troops coming home and all our veterans know that they can get the help they need in finding work and supporting their families.
These are the kinds of fights Democrats are waging — and winning. They’re crucial victories, but they don’t happen without you.
Next year, the stakes will be even higher. That’s why I’m asking you to step up right now and say you’re ready for the fights  ahead:

Chip in $3  more for 2012.

Next year’s election will be huge,  that’s for sure — but the work we did in 2011 shows just what a grassroots  campaign can do. Across the country this year, Democrats worked together and  fought critical statewide battles on the ground.
In Mississippi, folks worked tirelessly to protect a woman’s right to choose and soundly defeated the Personhood amendment, which would’ve made abortion illegal, including in cases of rape or incest, and even banned some forms of birth control.
Up in Maine, statewide Democratic groups worked together to overturn the state legislature’s recent ban on allowing people to register and vote on the same day — a nearly 40-year tradition that’s helped the state have some of the highest voter turnout rates in the country.
And in the bellwether state of Ohio, the state Democratic party and progressive allies collected more than 300,000 signatures to stop a law that would greatly reduce how and when Ohioans can early vote — and put it up for a statewide vote next year. Thanks in part to thousands who were able to cast their ballots early, Ohio voters in November successfully repealed a collective bargaining law that would’ve stripped away the rights of teachers and firefighters to negotiate for important benefits and working conditions.
We have a ways to go to get the economy working for everyone, and there’s much more work to be done.
But we have a lot to feel good about. We’ve worked together at the national level to make change that’s going to affect millions of lives every day, like repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and we’ve banded together in our states and communities to stand for our party’s principles.
It’s what Democrats do.
But don’t doubt that for every victory we’ve had this year, the GOP is ready and waiting to reverse it. Repealing health care reform, reinstating “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” restricting voting rights, and putting Personhood amendments on the ballot in other states are all things the other side has promised to do if given the chance.
That’s why we need to be ready to fight for the change we’ve made — and make certain we’ll get to keep pushing for more.

It can’t  happen without you. Show you’re ready for 2012 by giving $3 or more today:

http://my.democrats.org/Ready-for-2012

Thanks,

Debbie

Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Chair, Democratic National Committee

Notice that they’re asking for a meager $3 as a minimum. Why? Well, if you’ve got a mailing list of a million names, and your average return rate is 10% on a fundraising e-mail like that, you get a $300,000 payoff, even if every donor gives only $3. Of course, the return rate is a lot lower than 10%, but most of the people who contribute are going to give $10 or more.

By setting a low threshold in the e-mail, the Democrats are telling recipients, “Hey, every dollar counts. You don’t have to be a big money fat cat to make a difference.” And every person who gives even $3 has signalled a willingness to give. The Democrats will put that person’s e-mail address into a special database and target them with further solicitations, e.g., “Hey, [name], thanks for giving [dollar amount]. It’s people like you who really count. If you could just give us another $10 today . . .”

It’s the “shotgun and rifle” approach: You “shotgun” a solicitation to a big list, and then target the respondents with “rifle” solicitations aimed at them personally. There is an actual science to doing this kind of thing well, and building a big list of small donors is vital to success in politics, because you can hit up these donors again and again, whereas big donors who “max out” early in a campaign are unable to give more.

And while conservatives may scoff at the partisan propaganda message in Debbie’s e-mail, there are many thousands of Democratic Party donors who buy into every word of it.

Update (Smitty): Linked at American Glob.

Category: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democrats

The Deadly Menace of Fake Boobs

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 20 Comments

Some critics have dismissed my oft-stated preference for natural breasts as mere ignorant bigotry against artficial enhancement, but now at last I’ve been vindicated by science:

Thousands of women ‘should’
have breast implants removed
Around 45,000 British women are known to have had Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) implants, which have since been found to have contained industrial silicone and have not passed medical regulations.
Authorities in France are expected to call in all women there who have been given PIP implants in order to have them removed and replaced.
British experts said that women here should consider having them removed for ‘peace of mind’ as they have a high risk of leaking.
Investigations have been conducted after some suspicious cases of cancer were found in women with the implants . . .

Thanks to Dan Collins for the e-mail tip. There should be no need to remind readers that Dr. Collins and I are co-founders of The Collins-McCain Institute for Therapeutic Breast Staring, and are available to assist or advise America’s women in all matters breast-related.

THE COLLINS-McCAIN INSTITUTE
We’re Here for You.  Because We Care.™

Category: Science

The Weird Turn Pro

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 19 Comments

“Some people claim that the ancient Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world in 2012. While I am generally skeptical toward such doomsday prophecies, recent events have undermined my habitual skepticism and filled me with foreboding premonitions. If 2012 doesn’t bring the end of the entire cosmos, there are those who say it is likely to destroy the Republican Party as we know it, and the first cataclysmic event is now less than two weeks away. . . .
“Pundits were thrown into a full-blown schizophrenic frenzy by the prospect that Texas Rep. Ron Paul might win the Iowa caucuses. Since late November, no poll has shown Paul worse than third place in Iowa. Two polls this week have Paul first, with Gingrich slipping to third behind Romney in one poll, and all the way to fourth place in another. According to some conservatives, a Paul victory in the Hawkeye State would be the worst thing to happen to the Republican Party since Lincoln’s assassination. It might even be a sign of the final apocalypse foretold by the ancient Mayan calendar.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Hawkeye Fever,” The American Spectator

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

Apocalyptic prophecies are a dime a dozen these days and, thanks to Ben Bernanke’s inflationary policies at the Fed, a dime ain’t what it used to be. But we at least see the fulfillment of Thompson’s prophecy: The going in Iowa has become genuinely weird, and who is more prepared for that weirdness than a pro like me?

Five days from now — Dec. 26, the day after Christmas — I’ll fly into Cedar Rapids to try to get a handle on the campaign madness that is now, according to pundits, turning Iowa into a vast Midwestern insane asylum.

Here are some of the latest Hawkeye State headlines:

‘I’m for income inequality,’ Santorum says
— Des Moines Register

Vote 2012: Ron Paul Takes Lead
in KCRG/Gazette/ISU Poll
— KCRG-TV, Cedar Rapids

Perry Dismisses Gingrich’s
Complaint of ‘Negative’ Campaigning
— New York Times

Santorum showing signs of life in Iowa
— The Hill

Newt Gingrich to gay Iowan: Vote for Obama
— Des Moines Register

Newt’s Campaign Comes Down To Earth As
Iowan Calls Him ‘F—king A—hole’ To His Face
— Talking Points Memo

Lots of Republicans have been calling Newt Gingrich that for years, but only in Iowa does an ordinary citizen get a chance to say it to his face.

Fear and loathing are rampaging out of control in the American Heartland, you see, and I’m just five days away from being right in the thick of it, thanks to readers who have contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund the past three days. Thanks are owed today to tip-jar hitters including Chris in South Dakota, Paolo in St. Petersburg, Buffy in Peachtree City, Michael in Texas, Peter in Spring Hill, Richard in New Jersey, Bill in Falls Church, Mike in El Segundo and my blog-buddy Jimmie Bise Jr.

Be assured of my gratitude, and my commitment to make this the best road-trip ever. And I’m sure some of you may wonder, “Can Stacy handle all that savage weirdness erupting in the Hawkeye State?” Read more

Category: Election 2012, Fear and Loathing in Iowa, Iowa, Shoe Leather Fund

Robert Reich: Tea Party Strawman Flaming, Not The Greenwich Village Way

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

The right is currently in a struggle to determine whether it will nominate a Ruling Class Overlord who says sufficiently conservative sounding things to take the nomination, the veers to the center to win the election. Alternatively, somebody with both high moral and conservative track records, e.g. Perry, Santorum or Bachmann, could be selected both to run and govern in a way that will reduce that thumping sound from the Founders’ graves.

Recalling that Riech is doing a convincing impression of a buffoon, his Huffington Post column becomes hilarious.

Some describe the underlying conflict as Tea Partiers versus the Republican establishment. But this just begs the question of who the Tea Partiers really are and where they came from.

The underlying conflict lies deep into the nature and structure of the Republican Party. And its roots are very old.

As Michael Lind has noted, today’s Tea Party is less an ideological movement than the latest incarnation of an angry white minority — predominantly Southern, and mainly rural — that has repeatedly attacked American democracy in order to get its way.

It’s no mere coincidence that the states responsible for putting the most Tea Party representatives in the House are all former members of the Confederacy. Of the Tea Party caucus, twelve hail from Texas, seven from Florida, five from Louisiana, and five from Georgia, and three each from South Carolina, Tennessee, and border-state Missouri.

Others are from border states with significant Southern populations and Southern ties. The four Californians in the caucus are from the inland part of the state or Orange County, whose political culture has was shaped by Oklahomans and Southerners who migrated there during the Great Depression.

This isn’t to say all Tea Partiers are white, Southern or rural Republicans — only that these characteristics define the epicenter of Tea Party Land.

Read the whole thing, if you need a belly laugh. If you have history, pound history; if you have economics, pound economics; if you have neither, pound some strawmen.

The crucial point for all of the Left is that there is never a substantial economic argument to refute the Tea Party’s disdain for living in Reich’s blend of 1984 and Atlas Shrugged. Reich could at least refute Will’s devastating point that the Baby Boomer households have sucked up the wealth, to the detriment of anyone younger. Coming up with an argument would be like work, or something. Why not just point a finger?

Supreme Field Marshall of the Endless Strawman Horde, General Leopold von Stubble, said of Reich:

We do not fear Reich, for we produce strawmen at a rate even more prodigious than his destruction rate. What we fear is that the minds of his readers become tainted with facts. If people realize what a colossal joke Reich has become, they’ll quit listening. People attending to Reich’s endless stream of flatus is crucial for us to manage our high strawman production rate without flooding the market. Fortunately, with the election year coming up, we can expect President Obama to do his part to eliminate strawmen, so the pressure is off of Reich’s readers, at least through November 2012.

Category: Economics, Huffington Post

Games People Play: You Take It Or You Leave It

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

Via Proof Positive, we have the Alyssa Rosenberg at Squaking Points Memo giving a belly laugh over the new Rainbow Six game which apparently has the player ventilating #OccupyWallStreet protesters.

I would love to see the mic check that goes into getting consensus for this kind of nonsense. But as much as I’d just love to knock this impulse, I’m also dead sure that while most of Hollywood will blame one-off Ponzi schemers for much of the recession, conservative artists will try to help cement a narrative that the 99 percent movement and advocates of financial system reform are inherently anti-capitalist and violent.

While not really coming out in defense of violent video games, not spending time/money on them myself, it would be helpful if Rosenberg would go back and apply the same concern troll affection to Obama vs. Tea Party.

I doubt Rosenberg has the intellectual honesty to admit that:

  • The Left went there first, louder, and longer, going so far as to have then-Speaker of the House Pelosi connect Tea Partiers with Nazis.
  • Occupy protesters do have a well-documented history of thuggery.

Get bent, Rosenberg.

Category: Progressivism

#OccupyDC Nativity Scene

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

I found the cluttered thinking of the woman who stated she’s Jewish to be most interesting. The notion that if you’re going to represent one religion, you should represent all religions is fantastically silly. If a religion is a spiritual course to steer, then you should drive all directions at once? That’s a formula for going nowhere, I should think.

via American Glob

Category: #Occupy, Video

Britannia, Rule the Waves!

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 17 Comments

And damn the Argies!

A South American trading bloc has agreed to close its ports to ships flying the Falkland Islands flag.
Mercosur, which includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, came to the decision at a summit in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.
But Uruguayan President Jose Mujica said British-flagged civilian ships that may supply the islands would still be allowed to use its ports.
The [British] Foreign Office said there was “no justification” for the action.
The Falklands flag is flown by 25 boats, mostly fishing vessels operated in joint ventures with Spanish companies.
The Mercosur decision is the latest in a series by Latin American regional bodies designed to show solidarity with Argentina which has long claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which it calls Las Malvinas.
Britain has held them since the 1830s and says their future is not negotiable. The two countries fought a brief but bloody war over the islands in 1982.

That’s reported by the BBC. Biased BBC is struck by the fact that the national network chose, in a caption on its Web site, to highlight this: “Argentina has long claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which lie 400 miles from its coast.” Never mind the British claim, eh?

As for the BBC’s description of a “bloody war” in 1982, the death toll in the Falklands War of both sides combined was less than 1,000. By comparison, during World War II, the British lost more than 1,000 troops killed on D-Day alone — a single day. During the three-month Battle of Britain, when the island kingdom stood alone against the vengeance of the Luftwaffe, the RAF lost nearly 2,700 men.

The BBC exaggeration of the trifling Falklands affair into a “bloody war” is of a piece with their horror of empire expressed by the implication that Argentina has a legitimate claim to the islands “400 miles from its coast.”

FACT: Cuba is just 90 miles from Key West, Florida.

My son-in-law is Argentine. Fine people, the Argentines, and I cheer their soccer team in the World Cup, but I also enjoy mocking their silliness about “Las Malvinas.” No Thanksgiving dinner at our house would be complete without my annual toast to Margaret Thatcher and a rousing chorus of “Rule, Britannia.”

When Britain first, at heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main . . .
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the wave!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!

UPDATE: It is an amazing fact of history how England, an island nation the size of Alabama, has spread its influence across the globe. The population of the United Kingdom today is 62 million. Add together the United States (300 million), Canada (34 million), Australia (22 million) and New Zealand (4 million), and the rest of the English-speaking world is at least six times larger than the nation that “arose from out the azure main.”

Category: Argentina, Great Britain
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