The Radical Moderate

Two Republicans are the front runners for their party's candidate to challenge Barbara Boxer next year. She's a very liberal Senator and one of the two people to make me vote for a Third Party candidate for the first time. When she first ran for the Senate, she ran against an equally extreme Republican and I couldn't vote for either. Many folks in both parties had that problem.

It seems that, a while back, she was on a Committee that was questioning some military leaders. Usually, Senators are addressed with their title, as in "Senator Boxer". Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh decided she wasn't important enough to do so. He'd never call a male Senator "Mr." or "Sir", but referred to Boxer as "Ma'am". She corrected him and requested he address her properly.

No surprise, the Republicans think that was wrong. How dare a woman be treated equally to a man?

The most hypocritical part of the escapade is who one of the Republicans is: Carly Fiorina. She's the former CEO of HP. She left in disgrace after making enormous mistakes and using some questionable ethics. As head of HP, she made no bones about making it clear that she earned her place at the head of one of the largest companies in technology.

As the AP points out, Fiorina has decided that's it's wrong of Boxer to expect that people grant her the same respect that they grant male Senators. Fiorina has created a Web site dedicated to hassling Boxer.

I'm hoping that California's electorate hurts her for that, though it might help her in the primary. She's preaching to the choir, and the Republican choir sits on the far right of the church these days. However, the main body of Californians are closer to the center than Boxer or Fiorina's intended audience. Boxer makes no apology for who she is, she doesn't fake it and doesn't pander as much as many Senators (all do, even her...). As much as I might disagree with some of her stands, she's moved a little to the center since coming to the Senate while the Republican Party has moved further right.

If something weird happened and I moved to California before the next election, I don't think I've be voting Libertarian this time. It'd probably be for Boxer.

As I said from the Republican convention through the election, choices define the candidates' skills. One picked Biden and another picked Palin.

Last night's Daily Show had an interview with Joe Biden. Agree with him or disagree with him, it's your choice. However, there's just no way that anyone with working synapses could imagine Palin given that intelligent and level-headed an interview. Her fanaticism wouldn't allow it.

He had facts at hand and used them to back up his claims. He was self deprecating. He managed to get digs in at the other party, which you'd expect from anyone, in a polite and light way.

I'm a pundit, even if only read by five or six people. He's a leader. He has to speak in a manner that suits leadership. Palin doesn't seem to comprehend that. While positioning herself for a run at the Presidency and the destruction of the Republican party, she's speaking as a pundit. However, she's speaking as a cable television pundit, where punditry means opinions take over from facts. Death panels is only one example. An AP article describes a number of factual problems with the book.

Every book has some errors, from proofing to missed facts or inconsistent logic. However, her errors go straight to the claims she makes about herself and her party. She is disingenuous at best and presents a warped and hallucinatory view of reality.

It was bad enough that McCain flipped on his most important issues from 2000 in order to win the 2008 nomination. His nomination of Palin was the nail in the coffin. It's not her inexperience that mattered, that can be overcome with intelligence and an open mind. There are indications she's intelligent, but the closed and fanatical mind are problems that both hide the intelligence and outweigh what's there. Palin is a negative issue not just in her own political life but in that of the Republican party. They continue to make bad choices.

Republicans are crowing that winning to State's races for Governor is somehow a referendum on Obama. Most headlines are focused on them. So, is it true? Not really.

Both losers were incumbents who had problems before last fall's election, and the elections could be seen as a continuation of 2008, when incumbents on both sides lost due to a strong urge for change.

Last night's election that really matters was also not about Obama, it was about the Republican party. In upstate New York, Democrat Bill Owens became the first person from his party to win a Congressional seat in his district for many, many years. The Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, is a moderate. Being a mid-term election, the nuts from either extreme are always more to the front than moderates, and in the Republican party the nuts took over the loony bin. They excoriated her and supported a third party nut job that met their needs. Scozzafava pulled out of the race last week and threw her support to Owens. Owens won.

Again, this wasn't about Obama. It was about the Republican party being taken over by fascist, reactionary punks, people who think woman should be barefoot and pregnant while gays should be burned at the stake. It's about them eating their young and killing their party.

The question for 2010 will be: which half of the Republican party will leave. Either the moderates will leave or the extremists will. The moderates could join the Democrats, but the odds are more likely that they might create their own party or remain independent. If the goose-stepping right leaves, they will form their own party.

My guess is that it will be slower than that. I think that next year will see a lot more moderate Republicans voting for Democrats and leaving their party, most likely registering as independents. The big breakup will come in 2012, when they try to field candidates to challenge and Obama second term. I think the schism will happen at that point.

Senator Baucus has had his committee release the bill they propose for health care reform. It doesn't mention a government option, but creates a private, consumer owned co-op. He made many other changes to appeal both to moderates and even to extremist idiots on the Right.

No surprise, he couldn't get a single R on board. You see, they're view of bipartisanship is "give me exactly what I want or there's no compromise!" The question is: Are they really such idiots as to believe that hypocritical BS, or are they just so entrenched in their deluded faith that it doesn't matter to them. My vote's on the later.

Van Jones has been forced to resign from his post in the Obama Administration. Why? It seems he both signed a letter in 2004 that suggested Shrub may have knowingly allowed 9/11 to happen and had said mean things about Republicans.

Let's deal with the second first. Mean things? Goshens! The entire Repukelican policy of the last year has been nothing positive, only to shout, yell and scream invective at those evil Democrats. What hypocrisy it is to complain that one guy on the other side did what the entire R party does on a regular basis.

Then there's the letter. 2004. Now let's review. The Administration is reviewing CIA involvement in torture that happened more recently than 2004. What's the Republican response? "Why are you looking in the past? Get over it! We got away with it then and you shouldn't spend time reviewing it now!" Posssible violations of our Constitution by a major government agency aren't worth looking at, but the stupidity of one idiot is?

I couldn't care less that he insulted Republicans. They need to be insulted. If he did sign that letter, that alone is sufficient to ask for his resignation. I agree with the Republicans on that. However, if that's right, than reviewing what the Shrub Administration did consistently for years is certainly right.

However, you won't see any Republicans admitting to consistency, honor, morality or ethics.

Wall Street execs have handed out billions in taxpayer bailout money to unconscionable "bonuses" for a year in which they finally destroyed the economy. Rather than show they understand the meaning of "contrite" and understand they failed, they've remained in the "me!" mindset.

Obama and Biden have both come out with strongly worded statements against the bonuses. Goshen! Words! How exciting.

I don't care about the words. The Republicans and Democrats talk about differences in social issues; but when it comes to helping business they're clones. Obama talks about change, but that's all it is, talk. Let's see some actions. Unless Obama withholds bailout money from any company that gave bonuses, he's just another politician in the 1.5 party system.

The Senate killed the auto bailout because they felt the unions weren't making necessary concessions. On the surface, that looks correct. Senators wanted more accountability for both management and the workers if the $14 billion was to go to them.

I remember the mid-70s, when auto companies offered early retirement and retraining so they could downsize and adapt. The unions said no. The current industry problems have blame to spread among everyone, owners, management, the unions and, of course, the government that's refused to require higher mileage standards, improved safety and other changes.

However, lets put the auto industry in context, something I always demand people do. The load was $14 billion for a major industry employing millions of people. It produces something sold in the US and abroad. To what can we compare that?

How about $700 billion given to the financial giants? There were almost no restrictions put on that money. So far, there's been no trickle-down, as the execs are keeping the money for their bonuses and stockholder dividends, not to help the massive amount of Americans damaged by financial industry practices.

Why is it ok to hand enormous amounts of money, without serious oversight, to a few people who caused a problem, while refusing to bailout companies with a much bigger impact on Americans? Simple, wealth. The people who will be affected by the auto industry crisis don't donate as much money to Republican causes as the people in the financial industry did.

They didn't pay for their bailout...

Why isn't there regular and heavy coverage of Republicans removing voters from rolls in order to steal another election?

I just watched a documentary segment on a European news station. Two segments say enough. First, in New Mexico, where Republicans "won" in 2004 by less than 5,000 votes, the poor are regularly being moved off. In their zeal, it's not just ending there. The interviewer went to Las Vegas, NM, and interviewed the local registrar. When he went to vote in his caucus this year, he found his name was removed from the rolls. Then there's David Iglesias, a Republican appointed Attorney General who researched more than 100 Republican claims of Democratic voter fraud. He couldn't find one that was valid. He was fired.

Then there's Michigan, where a Republican leader is on record as saying they'll be at polls to prevent people whose houses are on foreclosure lists from voting. The interesting thing was the interview with a couple who were fighting an eviction. They mentioned the eviction company Trott & Trott. The interviewer went to talk with them.

In the window of the office was a McCain poster. It seems the company's office is where the McCain campaign headquarters are located.

The people who are most affected by the current financial crisis typically vote Democratic. Therefore, Republicans are escalating their normal tactic of preventing people from voting.

They shout "9/11!" whenever possible and talk about the safety of the nation. They talk about how dangerous Iran is.

However, it seems that Senate Republicans put national safety much lower than stopping Obama's divestment bill from going through the Senate. After all, what's national safety if all it will do is show that Obama is active?

A JPost article and another in Haaretz say that US Jews have been push polled (called and asked leading questions to influence them) and then asked if they'd heard things such as Obama meeting with Hamas and donating money to the PLO.

Just as the lied about Kerry's Vietnam service, they are blatantly lying about another candidate. Why? Because they don't have sufficient positive things to say about their own choice.

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Shrub had a decades long history of drinking and drug abuse. As governor, he signed Texas’ toughest law against first time drug offenders. When asked about his past, he said that was off limits, that was just “youthful indiscretion." When asked about his daughters using fake id’s, he claimed that was off limits.

Cheney said very nasty things about homosexuals. He was then asked if those words also applied to his daughter. He claimed that was wrong to ask and his family was off limits. I guess all those other homosexuals just don't have families, 'eh?

In the latest news, it seems that Palin has a 17 year old daughter who's pregnant out of wedlock. The problem isn’t with a 17 year old getting pregnant. Palin’s a right wing nut who say abstinence is the only choice before marriage, that folks who have sex should be married, and children should live in a heterosexual, two-parent family. The question, then, is not about a 17-year old, it’s about how Palin compares her stated beliefs with her own family. How is it that her daughter and her sexual partner aren't already married, and that such marriage was only spoken of once Palin became a candidate? That is valid to ask. However, Palin and the rest of the Republicans automatically scream that her family should be off limits.

It's another example of the "family values" crown claiming we should do as they say and not as they do. More importantly, that, somehow, we don't even have a right to discuss their hypocrisy.

Here's another thought. How about a campaign slogan: Choose the woman who will take choice from you!

I just caught the top of the hour news. France 24 started with N. Korea's continuing dishonesty about its nuclear program and then went to a clip about problems in Malaysia. It's third story was what the BBC began with: The shocking news that Michelle Obama supports her husband's candidacy!

That isn't news, and should be covered, if at all, at the end of the news segment. Both party's conventions are purely for show, as the candidates are already chosen. At most, they should be entertainment news, especially the wife supporting the husband.

At least the French bumped it down to #3.