Moron Politics

Sorry – that joke just never ceases to amuse me. I’m easily entertained.

MORE on politics...

A bunch of great New York Times editorials:

Cheney as a role model for VP:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04sat1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Palin’s Alternate Universe:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04herbert.html?em

Interesting Linguistic Analysis of Palin in the debate:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04pinker.html?em

Pallin' Around
I’m sure by now you’ve all heard that Obama “pals around with terrorists” - sheesh. There is a conservative blog post about the economy that blames the democrats called “Do Facts Matter?” and I guess we know the answer to that one. (btw, if you haven’t heard the accusation – CNN’s “Truth Squad” calls it False, as does everyone else who has a clue, but in our current climate of anyone with a brain being “elitist,” all you have to do is to make the accusation to start a firestorm)

The GOP’s STRONGEST arguments for it are so weak, it practically rebuts its own charges:
http://www.gop.com/News/NewsRead.aspx?Guid=768aa784-72f3-4b43-acb6-c5fe81d901cd
Wow – they served on two academic panels together, one in 1997 and one in 2001, really? Obama said nice things about Ayers’ book, "A Kind And Just Parent: The Children Of Juvenile Court”? My that’s incriminating. That book sounds un-American, for sure.
Ayers is a school reformer who spoke to Humboldt State’s Credential Candidates recently, among others.

This guy isn’t a terrorist, idiots. He’s a college professor and on the board of charitable school reform organizations. Any “ties” Obama has with Ayers are as a reformer, not as the violent anti-war activist Ayers was in the 60’s, when Obama was 8. So even if there were “ties” -and they are extremely loose associations at best, not strong connections, but even if they WERE strong, what the guy is NOW is nothing to be ashamed of associating with. What happened to Palin’s debate tactic of claiming Obama’s campaign is always “lookin’ at the past and not the future”? Yeah, right. I certainly see Obama as much more forward thinking, much more representative of the future ~I~ would like to see than McCain (aka, McSame) is. I see McCain as the past, Obama as the future. And Palin as a court jester along the way.

Mavericks
Who’re you callin’ a Maverick? The REAL Mavericks speak out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/weekinreview/05schwartz.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

Techies for Obama!
http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=362

The second presidential debate is tomorrow... Less than 30 days to the election... Not sure if I can stand it.

VP Debate analyses, Palin, and, oh yeah, McCain and Obama!

I just realized today that I’m a little bit thankful for Sarah Palin – she’s provided so much comic relief in this election... But I’ll be even more relieved if that “relief” ends after the election!!

Of course, if you missed Saturday Night Live, you have to see Tina Fey as Sarah Palin in the debate (she’s perfect!):
http://www.hulu.com/watch/37730/saturday-night-live-vp-debate-open-palin--biden

Here is Carl Bernstein’s take on the debate:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/03/what-the-palin-biden-debate-really-told-us/

Roger Ebert’s take on the theatrical nature of the debate – this is pretty good, insightful, and is in his area of expertise:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/10/you_didnt_ask_me_about_the_deb.html

The “Pit Bull” is back (thank goodness, but she’s still wrong for America):
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/rosen.debate/index.html

Why Some Women Hate Palin:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1846832,00.html
This is a funny article, but I think there are more and better reasons to loathe Palin, such as, oh, science that doesn't go beyond “The Flintstones,” her being against reproductive freedom paired with the whole rape kit thing, abstinence only education paired with pregnant teen daughter and not seeing how totally ridiculously stupid that makes you and more importantly, your position about it, look, foreign policy “expertise” based on “keepin’ an eye on Putin when he rears his head,” the apparent desire to ban books, the firing of people who disagree with her – oh I could go on and on, but I think I don’t have to. Then again, maybe I just hate her because she’s too pretty. Yeah, that’s it. Sarah “don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” Palin, the biatch!

And a “lovely” song about Sarah Palin:
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2008/10/03/hey-sarah-palin/
(warning: maybe NSFW – has the F word in it twice, but otherwise quite pretty :)
(to the tune of “Hey There Delilah” if you recognize it but can’t think of it and it’s driving you crazy!)


And, back to the actual main candidates (maybe Palin is just to make everyone not focus on McCain...):

Republican Charles Krauthammer analyzes why Obama will win:
“he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/02/AR2008100203043_pf.html
He also criticizes him and raises questions and doubts, but explains why McCain is losing: one too many “Hail Mary passes.”
He uses party-line comments like the idea that Obama, after his “mocking retort that presidential candidates should be able to do "more than one thing at once," that “McCain might have pointed out that while he was trying to do two things, Obama was sitting on the sidelines doing one thing only: campaigning.” These people ignore the fact that we have telecommunications. Oh, yeah, that’s probably because McCain doesn’t know how to use email (I’ve heard he has an elaborate system of cans and strings, though).

All in all, coming from a staunch Republican, it’s encouraging!

Three Alarming Facts about John McCain Every Voter Should Know:
http://www.johnmccainrecord.com/
You can just scroll through to see all the sets of three (there are three facts each about Economy, Education, Energy & Environment, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Homeland Security, Iraq, Jobs, Lobbyists, Rural Issues, Seniors & Social Security, Taxes, and Women)

For those of you with grandparents in Florida (you know who you are) - if you aren’t going to take the Great Schlep as Sarah Silverman suggests, at least show this video to Nana and Buby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2VFRt5W4FM
(Israelis for Obama – it’s well made and inspiring – and a strong reminder that the world is watching, and most of the world is hoping for Obama to win: http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/ )


Let’s keep helping that electoral map turn blue!
http://my.barackobama.com/

This is Going to Be Fun! (I hope)

The VP debate – wow. So, on Twitter, lots of people had drinking games going on during the debate – like lehrershot, which was every time Jim Lehrer had to say “Senator, Senator, time...” or just different buzzwords. It sure made the debate more interesting watching it with the peanut gallery of Twitter comments floating in in real time in the background! I think a good drinking game (if you wanted to get really drunk, and seriously, who wouldn’t while watching Palin, right?) would be to take a drink any time a candidate ends a gerund (-ing word) with an “n” instead of a “g.” As in, “America needs fixin’!”

Now, here’s another way to make the next debate interactive: Let’s play Palin Bingo!!
http://gedblog.com/2008/09/29/lets-play-palin-vp-bingo/

Here’s some Fact Checking in advance:

Fact Checking Sarah Palin – from Rolling Stone:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23140513/the_truth_about_sarah_palin/

And a cool way to help fact check the debate tonight – npr.org's Vox Politics blog is using Twitter (I get a LOT of my links from the people I follow on there) and getting the Twitterverse to help them fact check:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/politics/2008/10/help_us_factcheck_tonights_deb.html

A couple of one-liners:

Palindrones (n.pl.) A politician's run-on pronouncements, making almost as little sense forward as they would if repeated backward.

Palintology (n.) the study of dinosaur and human co-existence on the 6,000 year old planet earth.


Are we too cruel? Nah...

After watching all these painful “high cringe factor” videos of her clearly being out of her league, it’s easy to start to feel sorry for her, but don’t. She is a savvy politician, a governor of a state, and she knew what she was getting into – or at least she should have known that she didn’t know enough (as evidenced by her saying she didn’t really know what the VP did all day):
Stop the Palin Pity Party!
http://thanksbutnothanks.com/informed/the-sarah-palin-pity-party.shtml

It was nice to see Clinton out actually campaigning for Obama, and telling it like it is about the VP – this time, it’s more important than ever, since the president will be busy at home dealing with the economic crisis, for the VP to have a good solid understanding and experience with foreign policy, and Joe Biden is that person.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/bill_clinton_lays_out_strong_c.php

I leave you with an image of Putin rearing his head over Alaska – then we might value Palin’s foreign policy experience as the Pitbull (with lipstick) watchdog of America’s northern borders!
http://www.michaelberube.com/images/uploads/zzzputin.jpg


And... Okay, I was just kidding about “leaving you” - here’s a whole lot more besides the VP debate:

The other debate:

Roger Ebert crosses McCain off his dinner party list:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080928/COMMENTARY/809289997
(I don’t think I’d want to go to a dinner party with Roger Ebert, anyway, but he makes some good points!)


The Economy:
Dilbert, from 2002 – deja vu all over again?
http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2002-07-24/

How to ask for $700 billion:
http://wondermark.blogspot.com/2008/09/447-wrong-way-to-ask-for-700-billion.html

Pelosi’s speech and at least one honest Republican:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/220911.php

Here’s what George Soros says about it:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d68e10cc-8f45-11dd-946c-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

And Warren Buffet calls this an “economic Pearl Harbor” - I wonder who we bomb this time?
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/02/warren-buffett-on-the-bailout-plan-and-our-future/


Maggie’s random thoughts and opinions on the economy:
(Full disclosure: I have no idea what I’m talking about. But I’m not alone in that.)

This whole thing is very unsettling – I’m mostly pure liberal, but have enough of a Libertarian sympathizer side (yeah, I read Ayn Rand – so what? Ha) to hate the idea of too much government intervention, but I’m also enough of a realist to believe that we do need regulation and can’t “let the fox watch the henhouse” as the saying goes. I think a completely free market is way too idealistic, and the idea that we have a “free market economy” is as much a myth as the agrarian ideal or suburban utopia – we have a capitalist economy, which is different.

Here’s an interesting perspective I found in a forum from September 10th after the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac thing (the author is British history professor and author, John Simkin):

“Karl Marx argued that the inherent contradictions in free-market capitalism would eventually result in a collapse in the economic system and would be replaced with a more rational system of socialism.

In the late 1920s the economist John Maynard Keynes pointed out that Marx’s predictions would not come true as the inherent contradictions in capitalism could be dealt with by sensible government intervention in the economy.

In the 1930s two very different politicians dealt with the economic depression by the use of Keynes’ economic ideas: Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hitler was rightly described as a fascist whose main intention was to save the capitalist system. Roosevelt was incorrectly called a socialist. In fact, he did more than anyone to save capitalism from socialism.”

So maybe now, we have to figure out what is “sensible” in order to "save capitalism from socialism" (and our economy from the crapper, I might add).

Here is a really interesting discussion about it started by the same author:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13510&st=0&p=155337&#entry155337

He states, at the end of his post:

“The current crisis in the US does not mean the end of capitalism. However, it is the end of one type of capitalism, the financial laissez-faire system developed by right-wing forces in the western world. What we are seeing at the moment in the US is an attempt to move towards a government interventionist capitalism. This is a difficult process when you have to rely on ideologically driven politicians who do not have a basic understanding of how the economic system works.

The new super-power will be China. It has developed a state capitalist model that overcomes the economic contradictions highlighted by Karl Marx. This state capitalist model will survive for many years. In time, the western world will try to adopt this model. However, it is unlikely to be successful because of the resistance of its people. It will be the resistance of the masses in China and those in its empire that will finally bring down the state capitalist model. Then, hopefully, we will progress to a fully democratic socialist economic system.”

This is all very thought-provoking stuff! With systems so large and complex, it is very difficult to operate from ideology, as we are seeing with the sudden surge of Republicans now for regulation instead of against it on principle.

Personally, I think I like the idea of social democracy (oops, my “libertarian side” just died, I think - ha)... [NOTE: that is ME, not Obama, talking - Obama's plan is basic, traditional, progressive taxation, NOT socialism in any way, shape or form, so shut up any right wing nut-jobs that might read something into this on my personal opinion blog!]

So, what do YOU think? (Does anyone who isn’t paid to do so actually have the time to think about something this complex? I mean, even the people who ARE getting paid to think about it seem to resort to sound bites like “Wall Street Fat Cats” to talk about it.)

Have fun watchin’ the debates about fixin’ America!

Maggie