Time for Mormons to Come to Terms with Church History
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Election-year scrutiny sheds light on disaffiliation, controversy.
59 minutes ago
Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
DeMint hates democracy- when voters annoy him, he lawyers up
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and his Senate Conservatives Fund, which funneled several million dollars to Tea Party-backed Senate candidates this cycle, is ready to help Joe Miller fight Sen. Lisa Murkowski's high-flying legal team in Alaska.
The political action committee is currently exploring exactly how it can assist Miller, the Republican nominee, on the fundraising front in what is expected to be a costly and drawn-out ballot-counting process.
Tweedledum
Mr. Bush writes about the failures to contain deteriorating security conditions in Iraq, continuing fights between the Pentagon and State Department, and his frustrations with Mr. Rumsfeld. But while he says that he had “planned to make a change at Defense as part of a new national security team” in 2004, he adds that he simply couldn’t come up with a replacement for Mr. Rumsfeld. He considered and rejected the ideas of putting Ms. Rice or Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the job, and was rebuffed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who “was enjoying his retirement.”
The situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate over the next two years with more and more soldiers and civilians getting killed and wounded, and in the spring of 2006 a group of retired generals spoke out against Mr. Rumsfeld. “While I was still considering a personnel change,” Mr. Bush writes, “there was no way I was going to let a group of retired officers bully me into pushing out the civilian secretary of defense. It would have looked like a military coup and would have set a disastrous precedent.”
And so Mr. Rumsfeld stayed on in the job until an old friend of Mr. Bush’s from high school and college (whom he had appointed to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board) suggested Robert M. Gates as a replacement. “Why hadn’t I thought of Bob?” Mr. Bush wonders.
Selling soap
So if the Tea Party is not a movement, what is it? Mostly a marketing tactic, and an attempt at rebranding. The term Tea Party is mainly a label for very conservative Republicans and conservative independents who always vote for the GOP, even when they shun the Republican label. It’s a way to set themselves apart from those they deem insufficiently conservative, like RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and ruling class elites.
During the presidency of George W. Bush the conservative brand became meaningless. Even the so-called conservative media used the label, completely unironically, to refer to politicians who supported increases in government spending (Bush), amnesty for illegal aliens (John McCain), government-sponsored universal health care (Mitt Romney), and abortion and gay marriage (Rudy Giuliani). When “conservatives” could embrace the core of the liberal agenda, what did the term mean?
Fox talking head thumps DeMint's Mini-Mes
At the Roll Call/CQ election analysis session at the Ronald Reagan Building this morning, Roll Call Executive Editor and Fox News contributor Mort Kondracke blamed Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint for Republicans' failure to capture the Senate.
“The people who got slapped the hardest in this election — besides Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama — are Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin,” he said. “Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin are responsible for the fact that the Senate did not go Republican. They’re the ones who are responsible for Christine O’Donnell. They’re the ones who are responsible for Joe Miller in Alaska. They’re the ones who are responsible for Ken Buck in Colorado. They’re the ones who are responsible for Sharron Angle in Nevada.”
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Graham's crackers
A new Civil War breaks out- in South Carolina.
Long-simmering tensions within the Republican Party spilled into public view Wednesday as the pragmatic and conservative wings of the GOP blamed each other in blunt terms for the party’s failure to capture the Senate.
With tea party-backed candidates going down in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, depriving Republicans of what would have been a 50-50 Senate, a bloc of prominent senators and operatives said party purists like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states.
Movement conservatives pointed the finger right back at the establishment, accusing the National Republican Senatorial Committee of squandering millions on a California race that wasn’t close at the expense of offering additional aid in places like Colorado, Nevada and Washington state, where Democratic Sen. Patty Murray holds a narrow lead as the votes continue to be counted.
The back-and-forth following an otherwise triumphant election amounted to a significant ratcheting up of the internecine battle that has been taking place within the GOP for the past year.
“Candidates matter,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “It was a good night for Republicans but it could have been a better one. We left some on the table.”
Referring to the debate within the right about whether the party was better off losing the Delaware seat than winning with a moderate Republican like Rep. Mike Castle, who lost the GOP primary to Christine O’Donnell, Graham was even more blunt.
“If you think what happened in Delaware is ‘a win’ for the Republican Party then we don’t have a snowball’s chance to win the White House,” he said. “If you think Delaware was a wake-up call for Republicans than we have shot at doing well for a long time.”
I say what I'm paid to
The bowtie boy railed against Joe Wilson's opponent for raising money out of state, even as his paymaster- and GOPers everywhere, did just that:
Most Bizarre Moment
There were a lot of weird concession speech moments last night. Heck, there was Carly Fiorina who didn't realize she even needed to give a concession speech ever after she lost. But probably the weirdest was Sharron Angle's speech where she boasted that more than 80% of her money came from out of state. Watch it.
I don't see them giving her another shot at a statewide run.
Thumb on the Scales
Fox News' fave pollster for a reason:
Silver vs Rasmussen
Ouch:
Rasmussen polls quite consistently turned out to overstate the standing of Republicans tonight. Of the roughly 100 polls released by Rasmussen or its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research in the final 21 days of the campaign, roughly 70 to 75 percent overestimated the performance of Republican candidates, and on average they were biased against Democrats by 3 to 4 points.That's why I remove them from any summary of the poll of polls. Rasmussen's response:
"I don't respond to comments from bloggers or others."
See ya next election!
The GOP's Gay Gap
An important caveat about the record number of openly gay public officials elected yesterday:
The Victory Fund’s endorsed Republican candidates for state legislative seats were not successful, meaning no openly LGBT Republicans will be serving as state lawmakers next year.And there are none in the US Congress. The GOP is a political party which is partly defined by exclusion of one minority group.
DeMint endorses witchcraft, promises broom for her fourth senate race
"Christine ran a strong campaign and offered voters a true choice. She was relentlessly attacked by many in the liberal media who feared the election of a conservative woman. No other candidate in the country was targeted and scrutinized more than Christine and yet she kept her head up and consistently fought for the principles of freedom that make America great. I was honored to be an early supporter of her campaign. She was the best candidate in this race and I hope we have not seen the last of her."
SCF invested $535,430 in this race and Senator DeMint transferred $250,000 from his re-election campaign to the Delaware GOP Victory committee.
SCF invested $535,430 in this race and Senator DeMint transferred $250,000 from his re-election campaign to the Delaware GOP Victory committee.
No more late night 3 hour calls
Spurned screwboy loses claimed power brokerage over SC governor's race, has to return to celebrity boobies to keep his- uh- numbers up.
Witch blames zombies
Republican Christine O'Donnell sounded a defiant tone the day after losing her Delaware Senate bid to Democrat Chris Coons, calling her loss a "symptom of Republican cannibalism."
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
"Sit! Roll Over!"
A perfect coda to the Nevada Senate race: In a radio interview this morning, Sharron Angle blamed the media for her campaign's decision to shut out reporters, slamming the press as "unprofessional" and adding that she thinks candidates should teach the media a "lesson" whenever they have the "opportunity."
Angle also described that recent episode where a reporter tried to ask her questions in an airport as "an ordeal."
Angle's comments came in a conversation with conservative talk show Heidi Harris, which you can listen to right here. Asked about the airport episode, in which local reporter Nathan Baca tried in vain to get her to answer basic questions about her issue positions, she griped about "the ordeal in the airport" and complained that it was "the wrong place for a press interview."
"Truly we should have had a better place to have a press conference than at the bottom of the escalator," Angle complained.
In reality, the reporter had said he'd repeatedly asked the campaign for interviews and for clarification of her positions, only to get nothing in return. He tracked her down at the airport as a last resort.
Angle also complained about the media's lack of professionalism, and blamed it for her campaign's decision to stiff-arm the media.
"We need to bring back the professionalism into reporting, and I think that when we have an opportunity to teach a lesson we should," she said.
"It iisn't that we don't want to talk to them," Angle added. "It is that we would like to have objective questioning and true professional reporting. That is really all we are asking from them."
In truth, throughout this race Angle never really viewed an adversarial press as playing any kind of legitimate role in the political process. She's boasted about her success in using friendly news outlets to raise campaign cash. And she has said that she wants the media to "ask the questions we want to answer, so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported."
Now we've come full circle: Angle is now denouncing the press as "unprofessional" for refusing to adopt the friendly, non-adversarial role she envisioned for it.
Now we've come full circle: Angle is now denouncing the press as "unprofessional" for refusing to adopt the friendly, non-adversarial role she envisioned for it.
It is SO NOT insane to do the same things over and over...
Jonathan Chait agrees with this prediction that the GOP will revert to its pay-to-play ways tomorrow morning.
And another old standby:
And another old standby:
Uncle Grumpy tries to remember where he votes.
Quote For The Day II
"We are going to kick Harry Reid out of his penthouse at the Ritz-Carlton and send him back to Searchlight!"- John "how-many-houses-do-I-have-again?" McCain.
"You don't know how hard it was to get my corner back."
Netanyahu's Offer
His determination to keep building West Bank settlements rather than enter final status peace talks with the Palestinians is nicely described by Nahum Barnea in his Yediot Ahronot column thus:
[It is] "as if Julia Roberts said to Richard Gere in 'Pretty Woman': when we marry I'll be yours for always, but until the wedding, I'll continue to work the street."
Sore winner
A top House Republican said Monday President Obama might try to force a government shutdown to hurt Republicans.
Still stewing over not being able to send in the chauffeur to mark her ballot paper
From a reader, a sign of the times:
My polling place on Rittenhouse Square was dead. In 2008, I waited an hour and drew extended hisses by chanting 'four more years' and wearing a mccain button. This year, just the same poll workers having trouble finding my name amidst scattered dunkin donuts boxes.
Virginia governor plans 150th anniversary Civil war re-enactment. He'll play Jeff Davis.
A headline from The Daily Caller:
A headline from The Hill:
November 2, 2010
A headline from The Hill:
Gov. McDonnell quietly building national network from Virginia
Onward
7:45 am, folks, time to move on to other things.
Talk among yourselves. Back- maybe- this evening, with some comments on the election follies.
Talk among yourselves. Back- maybe- this evening, with some comments on the election follies.
Eventually, the past has to become the past
Ted Sorensen, who died the other day, and his former colleague Arthur Schlesinger Jr were the principal hagiographers of the Kennedy for half a century. You couldn't find an article or program in which they weren't there to rehash their present-at-the-creation stories- and their own, increasingly-over-time important roles in them.
Both were, in their own ways, worthy public servants, but maybe with Sorensen's passing the Kennedy administration- elected fifty years ago- can finally take its proper place in history's archives.
Both were, in their own ways, worthy public servants, but maybe with Sorensen's passing the Kennedy administration- elected fifty years ago- can finally take its proper place in history's archives.
Somewhere, Ayn Rand is frowning
Back in July, Angle's campaign sent Team Reid a cease-and-desist letter for reposting her old, pre-primary campaign website, in which she took much stronger right-wing positions such as phasing out Social Security, to compare it to her post-primary site. Despite a threat of a lawsuit, the Reid campaign only briefly took down the site, made some slight modifications (such as removing some sign-up fields) and put it right back up again.
Angle then continued to threaten legal action, but nothing came of it. "Well your website is like you, it's your intellectual property. So they can't use something that's yours, intellectual property, unless they pay you for it or get your permission," she said at the time. It was an interesting sight: A candidate for office was trying to suppress the reproduction of her own past campaign literature, claiming that an opponent cannot use it without her permission in order to criticize her.
Now Hasbro is telling Mrs Angle to cease-and-desist from copying their Monopoly board in her campaign. She's the latest of a number of Republican candidates- including Jim DeMint's failed California Mini-Me, Chuck DeVore, who pay scant notice to intellectual property law.
He doesn't like gay Americans, either
Having plumped for the homophobic Mrs Angle on Fox last night, Mrs Palin has now hopped into bed with a racist.
From public intellectuals to pretend intellectuals
On the old Slate Books-o-Meter, Himself is being philosophical today.
Boy Douthat is trying to catch up to the Teabaggists and explain how they fit his intellectual terrain.
Douthat, btw, is to be remembered for this other bit of catch-up rationalization:
The reason that gay rights became a political issue in a way that various other frankly more important issues having to do with marriage and family life did not -- particularly issues about divorce and heterosexual divorce rates and single parenthood -- is that, clearly, it is easier to demonize gay people. And it is much more of an electoral winner...
The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation. Hence we have scads of people sitting around opposing same-sex marriage because of their professed belief in "Traditional Marriage" while their "third husbands" and multiple step-children and live-in girlfriends sit next to them on the couch.
Boy Douthat is trying to catch up to the Teabaggists and explain how they fit his intellectual terrain.
Douthat, btw, is to be remembered for this other bit of catch-up rationalization:
The reason that gay rights became a political issue in a way that various other frankly more important issues having to do with marriage and family life did not -- particularly issues about divorce and heterosexual divorce rates and single parenthood -- is that, clearly, it is easier to demonize gay people. And it is much more of an electoral winner...
The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation. Hence we have scads of people sitting around opposing same-sex marriage because of their professed belief in "Traditional Marriage" while their "third husbands" and multiple step-children and live-in girlfriends sit next to them on the couch.
Wrong
Actuals facts underline what a bunch of village idiots "instant analysts" on cable news show are. They didn't think the parcels were bombs, and they didn't think they were a dry run.
There's a reason such people are retired and the networks ought to return them to that status.
There's a reason such people are retired and the networks ought to return them to that status.
American intelligence officials in September intercepted several packages containing books, papers, CDs and other household items shipped to Chicago from Yemen and considered the possibility that the parcels might be a test run for a terrorist attack, two officials said Monday night.
Monday, November 1, 2010
"Under duress" must have a kinky meaning
Missing the notoriety, jilted screwboy plays the race card.
The real question for the media is this: how can you be forced to sign an affidavit "under duress" and give it to a group you then praise for opposing your old squeeze? After months of teasing what you've got in reserve to release voluntarily?
The real question for the media is this: how can you be forced to sign an affidavit "under duress" and give it to a group you then praise for opposing your old squeeze? After months of teasing what you've got in reserve to release voluntarily?
Somewhere, Blago is laughing
Even as Tom Delay's trial for congressional Republicans' last experiment in bullying corporations and lobbyists to pay to play get started, giddy GOP candidates are drawing up another little list.
Write your own headline
Now we know: Mrs Palin's news sources include Seinfeld re-runs:
Palin also mocked Politico’s use of anonymous sources, saying, “I suppose I could play their immature, unprofessional, waste-of-time game, too, by claiming these reporters and politicos are homophobe, child molesting, tax evading, anti-dentite, puppy-kicking, chain smoking porn producers…really, they are… I’ve seen it myself…but I’ll only give you the information off-the-record, on deep, deep background; attribute these ‘facts’ to an ‘anonymous source’ and I’ll give you more.”She's also blowing her perky little silent dog whistle for conservatives, tying gays and child molesters. For a woman who loves shooting animals from airplanes, her concern for puppy abuse is touching as well.
Imagination
A former president continues his Retirement of Magical Thinking:
Jimmy Carter says he was elected president in 1976 by many of the same elements that fuel the new tea party movement.
“I don’t have any criticism of the members of the tea party,” the former Democratic president said Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
Carter then claimed “a lot of those same people, 30 years ago, were the ones who put me in the White House.”And, apparently still addled by his experience as Reagan's biographer, Edmund Morris says the Teabaggists were on the loose in the 1910 elections.
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