5/20/2013
Obama's Words Magically Make IRS Agents Investigate Teabaggers:
So we've reached the point where the narrative on the IRS "scandal" is crystallizing into something completely impervious to proof. If you think about it, it's really pretty damn impressive, considering how Obama-hating conservatives were burned by the Benghazi Email That Wasn't There. Now, from right-wingers fringe and mainstream, they've created a way to blame Barack Obama for the IRS's overworked, underfunded agents' asking some Tea Party groups for extra information before bestowing tax exempt status on them that can't be disproved. Call it the Conspiracy of the Wink.
Apparently, in addition to his Kenyan hoodoo magic and his radical Muslim America-hating agenda, Barack Obama can order low-level government workers to stretch the law by merely implying that it's something that would please him. Yes, yes, like potentates of old, Obama's minions act on their interpretation of his whims in order to please him and get in his good graces. Or something. Who the fuck can tell at this point. Either way, Obama is evil, don't you know?
Starting low on the food chain, nutzoid blog American Thinker lays out a base of cow dung to fertilize the new landscape. Obama spoke in public about how, post-Citizens United, groups were popping up whose donors were, by law, kept secret. The most basic kind of attack politics is to imply that secrets are bad and nefarious, except, of course, when Barack Obama does it. Then he's nefariously bad. Quoting a Wall Street Journal piece on the issue, Obama said, according to AT, "All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation." (In that speech, Obama then said, "You don't know if it's a big oil company or a big bank. You don't know if it's a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it's good for their bottom line, even if it's not good for the American people.")
For the ironically-named American Thinker, what Obama was doing was ordering the IRS into action. Investigate these new organizations, goddamnit, and do so by using your mighty forms of doom. AT adds that another way that Obama signaled his displeasure with Tea Partyers was that he "spoke of Tea Party supporters using an obscene term referring to a homosexual act, as 'tea baggers.'" Now, the Rude Pundit is pretty much positive that teabagging, like anal and oral sex, is not an exclusively "homosexual" act. But apparently, IRS agents heard Obama say, "Teabagger," and then, it being code for gay ball play, understood it to mean, "Probe deeper. Deeper. Good god, even deeper."
But the idea that Obama used the power of his brainwaves to hypnotize IRS officials into action isn't limited to the bug fuck blog scribblers. As mentioned, the Wall Street Journal is in on the action. Kimberly Strassel says, flat out, that Obama "did in fact send [the IRS] orders," despite the, you know, fact that he didn't, which Strassel said just a paragraph earlier: "Short of directly asking federal agencies to investigate these groups, this is as close as it gets." It might be close, but it ain't an order.
On Meet the Press with David Gregory's Bowl Cut, sour pickle and former lie-writer for Reagan and Bush the Not-As-Dumb, Peggy Noonan, called Obama's words a "dog whistle" to the his followers to press the IRS into action. Her proof is that Obama, get this, spoke. In public. About things.
No, no, this had nothing to do with the IRS being tossed into the post-Citizens United tsunami of shitty, inbred PACs trying to get their money for nothing. And, no, no, Congress providing absolutely no guidance at all for a massive change in tax law had no effect at all. But Obama's invisible wink while saying, "Teabagger"? That is the mountaintop on which the palace of scandal is built. And once it's done, no amount of "fact" is going to knock it down.
One more thing: There's a debate on whether Obama has become "Nixonian" in his seeming paranoia about his "enemies." In a post titled "Richard Milhous Obama," Real Clear Politics blogger Carl Cannon explores how much he thinks Obama is obviously just like Nixon. At one point, he compares how Nixon privately talked about how much he hated the press with how Obama officials have decried Fox "news." Cannon writes, "In so doing, Obama has actually gone places in public Nixon only dared go in private."
You want to know if Obama is like Nixon? You pretty much have your answer right there.
So we've reached the point where the narrative on the IRS "scandal" is crystallizing into something completely impervious to proof. If you think about it, it's really pretty damn impressive, considering how Obama-hating conservatives were burned by the Benghazi Email That Wasn't There. Now, from right-wingers fringe and mainstream, they've created a way to blame Barack Obama for the IRS's overworked, underfunded agents' asking some Tea Party groups for extra information before bestowing tax exempt status on them that can't be disproved. Call it the Conspiracy of the Wink.
Apparently, in addition to his Kenyan hoodoo magic and his radical Muslim America-hating agenda, Barack Obama can order low-level government workers to stretch the law by merely implying that it's something that would please him. Yes, yes, like potentates of old, Obama's minions act on their interpretation of his whims in order to please him and get in his good graces. Or something. Who the fuck can tell at this point. Either way, Obama is evil, don't you know?
Starting low on the food chain, nutzoid blog American Thinker lays out a base of cow dung to fertilize the new landscape. Obama spoke in public about how, post-Citizens United, groups were popping up whose donors were, by law, kept secret. The most basic kind of attack politics is to imply that secrets are bad and nefarious, except, of course, when Barack Obama does it. Then he's nefariously bad. Quoting a Wall Street Journal piece on the issue, Obama said, according to AT, "All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation." (In that speech, Obama then said, "You don't know if it's a big oil company or a big bank. You don't know if it's a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it's good for their bottom line, even if it's not good for the American people.")
For the ironically-named American Thinker, what Obama was doing was ordering the IRS into action. Investigate these new organizations, goddamnit, and do so by using your mighty forms of doom. AT adds that another way that Obama signaled his displeasure with Tea Partyers was that he "spoke of Tea Party supporters using an obscene term referring to a homosexual act, as 'tea baggers.'" Now, the Rude Pundit is pretty much positive that teabagging, like anal and oral sex, is not an exclusively "homosexual" act. But apparently, IRS agents heard Obama say, "Teabagger," and then, it being code for gay ball play, understood it to mean, "Probe deeper. Deeper. Good god, even deeper."
But the idea that Obama used the power of his brainwaves to hypnotize IRS officials into action isn't limited to the bug fuck blog scribblers. As mentioned, the Wall Street Journal is in on the action. Kimberly Strassel says, flat out, that Obama "did in fact send [the IRS] orders," despite the, you know, fact that he didn't, which Strassel said just a paragraph earlier: "Short of directly asking federal agencies to investigate these groups, this is as close as it gets." It might be close, but it ain't an order.
On Meet the Press with David Gregory's Bowl Cut, sour pickle and former lie-writer for Reagan and Bush the Not-As-Dumb, Peggy Noonan, called Obama's words a "dog whistle" to the his followers to press the IRS into action. Her proof is that Obama, get this, spoke. In public. About things.
No, no, this had nothing to do with the IRS being tossed into the post-Citizens United tsunami of shitty, inbred PACs trying to get their money for nothing. And, no, no, Congress providing absolutely no guidance at all for a massive change in tax law had no effect at all. But Obama's invisible wink while saying, "Teabagger"? That is the mountaintop on which the palace of scandal is built. And once it's done, no amount of "fact" is going to knock it down.
One more thing: There's a debate on whether Obama has become "Nixonian" in his seeming paranoia about his "enemies." In a post titled "Richard Milhous Obama," Real Clear Politics blogger Carl Cannon explores how much he thinks Obama is obviously just like Nixon. At one point, he compares how Nixon privately talked about how much he hated the press with how Obama officials have decried Fox "news." Cannon writes, "In so doing, Obama has actually gone places in public Nixon only dared go in private."
You want to know if Obama is like Nixon? You pretty much have your answer right there.
5/17/2013
Another Day, Another Asian Garment Factory Disaster:
Today's Asian garment factory disaster is brought to you by Cambodia. The place made shoes for Asics, Japan's largest sporting goods company (and the shoes are available in the U.S.). While only three people died from the collapse of the mezzanine floor of the building, it's not even clear that the owner had a permit to build the factory in the first place, let alone built it to anything close to code.
Of course, this brings to mind the horrific sweatshop building collapse in Bangladesh last month. They stopped looking for bodies there, with the total dead at over 1100. In that country alone, we are assured, there are "hundreds of buildings" like the one that caused the scores of deaths, places where even having clean drinking water is a regulation that is ignored.
These hellhole factories, which assure the United States a steady stream of cheap garments (and garments with amazing mark-ups, like at The Gap), are also, for the female sweatshop workers, seen as "the greatest opportunity that these women could ever have imagined." Seamstresses in the Cambodian factory sewed 450 pairs pairs of sneakers a day. The starting salary was $75 a month, and that's after three strikes that saw wages go up for most workers.
By the way, The Daily Beast has to win some kind of prize for sensitivity and class for this headline in its fashion section:
Wait, were Julianne Moore's toes squashed by the collapse of the Cambodian shoe factory? Shit just got real.
Today's Asian garment factory disaster is brought to you by Cambodia. The place made shoes for Asics, Japan's largest sporting goods company (and the shoes are available in the U.S.). While only three people died from the collapse of the mezzanine floor of the building, it's not even clear that the owner had a permit to build the factory in the first place, let alone built it to anything close to code.
Of course, this brings to mind the horrific sweatshop building collapse in Bangladesh last month. They stopped looking for bodies there, with the total dead at over 1100. In that country alone, we are assured, there are "hundreds of buildings" like the one that caused the scores of deaths, places where even having clean drinking water is a regulation that is ignored.
These hellhole factories, which assure the United States a steady stream of cheap garments (and garments with amazing mark-ups, like at The Gap), are also, for the female sweatshop workers, seen as "the greatest opportunity that these women could ever have imagined." Seamstresses in the Cambodian factory sewed 450 pairs pairs of sneakers a day. The starting salary was $75 a month, and that's after three strikes that saw wages go up for most workers.
By the way, The Daily Beast has to win some kind of prize for sensitivity and class for this headline in its fashion section:
Wait, were Julianne Moore's toes squashed by the collapse of the Cambodian shoe factory? Shit just got real.
5/16/2013
Appreciate the Little Things: Eric Holder Pushes Louie Gohmert Into a Crazy Idiot Rage:
In this degrading time of overhyped wannabe scandals and fictional impeachable offenses, you gotta learn to appreciate the little things when they come along. So, yes, angry as many on the left are at Attorney General Eric Holder for the Justice Department's way-too-broad subpoena of AP reporters' phone records, a seemingly and disturbingly legal action, it was gratifying to see him bitch slap arrogant numbnuts Rep. Darrell Issa at yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing. But one other confrontation from the bizarro hearing, which covered everything from pot legalization to Kermit Gosnell's crimes, will give you a little warmth on this cold fish of a week.
So it was that Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, a shitkicker from one of the shitkickingest districts in Texas, started to question Holder. In case you are unaware of what a hilarious public figure he is, Gohmert looks like Jim Nabors' inbred cousin and sounds like Foghorn Leghorn trying to cough up a stray pubic hair. He also is one of the craziest sumbitches in the crazy-ass House Republican caucus, ready to believe anything Glenn Beck vomits into his brain.
Gohmert opened by saying that Holder never gave Congress records on a particular closed case, as Gohmert had requested. Gohmert went as far as to threaten a subpoena of the documents. Holder responded, "[W]hat my people tell me is that we never heard from your staff to make those arrangements. We'll promise to make them available to you. What I would just ask is to have your staff contact mine and--" At which point, looking like an incompetent boob, Gohmert cut him off.
Then he moved on to his main issue: that he thinks the FBI is a bunch of fuck-ups who "blew the opportunity" to stop Tamerlan Tsarnaev from bombing Boston because the FBI didn't fully investigate the information Russia was giving it. Holder demurred on much of what he was asked because it is an ongoing investigation. Gohmert insisted that he knew all about the FBI's refusal to go after Tsarnaev and then he played to his base of evangelical dumb fucks when he said to Holder, "Look, the FBI got a heads-up from Russia that you have a radicalized terrorist on your hands. They should not have had to give anything else whatsoever. That should have been enough. But because of political correctness, there was not a thorough enough examination of Tamerlan to determine this kid had been radicalized. And that is the concern I have. On the one hand, we go after Christian groups like Billy Graham's group. We go after Franklin Graham's group. But then we're hands off when it comes to possibly offending someone who has been radicalized as a terrorist." Having tickled Franklin Graham's prostate but good, Gohmert's time expired.
Holder started to speak to say that Gohmert was wrong when, his blood all het up by gettin' backsassed by a Negro, Gohmert jumped in, "You point out one thing that I pointed -- that I said that was not true." Gohmert had to have his cross-burning ass smacked down by committee chair Bob Goodlatte (which is just the most awesome name for a Republican), who told Gohmert to shut the fuck up and let Holder answer.
And then Holder pantsed Gohmert in front of everyone and pointed out what a tiny little dick and balls the Texan has: "The only observation I was going to make is that you state as a matter of fact what the FBI did and did not do. And unless somebody has done something inappropriate, you don't have access to the FBI files. You don't know what the FBI did. You don't know what the FBI's interaction was with the Russians. You don't know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that. And you have characterized the FBI as being not thorough or taking exception to my characterization of them as being thorough. I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That's all."
What followed can best be described as Gohmert going into an insulted idiot rage, screaming and slapping himself, crying that the Negro had gotten so uppity as to tell him he's wrong, while the other Republicans, including Issa, realized they had let him out of the cellar for too long and tried desperately to shut him up and get him back into the basement to sit in his rocker next to the radio that plays Rush Limbaugh's show. Holder's look of barely contained amusement is pretty fuckin' sweet. It climaxed with Gohmert saying, and this is as clear as can be in the video, "The attorney general will not cast aspersions on my asparagus." No, really. And so, his asparagus defended, he was done.
Then Holder kicked Gohmert in the stalk, stating for the record that Louie Gohmert is not nearly as important as Louie Gohmert thinks he is: "He could not know the answer -- he could not know -- there couldn't be a basis for the assertions he's making, not the questions, but the assertions that he made unless he was provided information, and I would say inappropriately, from members of the FBI or people who were involved in the very things that he questioned me about. And I do not think that that happened."
The punchline? Gohmert has posted the exchange on the front of his House website. He's proud of what he did. And you can bet his constituents are, too.
In this degrading time of overhyped wannabe scandals and fictional impeachable offenses, you gotta learn to appreciate the little things when they come along. So, yes, angry as many on the left are at Attorney General Eric Holder for the Justice Department's way-too-broad subpoena of AP reporters' phone records, a seemingly and disturbingly legal action, it was gratifying to see him bitch slap arrogant numbnuts Rep. Darrell Issa at yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing. But one other confrontation from the bizarro hearing, which covered everything from pot legalization to Kermit Gosnell's crimes, will give you a little warmth on this cold fish of a week.
So it was that Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, a shitkicker from one of the shitkickingest districts in Texas, started to question Holder. In case you are unaware of what a hilarious public figure he is, Gohmert looks like Jim Nabors' inbred cousin and sounds like Foghorn Leghorn trying to cough up a stray pubic hair. He also is one of the craziest sumbitches in the crazy-ass House Republican caucus, ready to believe anything Glenn Beck vomits into his brain.
Gohmert opened by saying that Holder never gave Congress records on a particular closed case, as Gohmert had requested. Gohmert went as far as to threaten a subpoena of the documents. Holder responded, "[W]hat my people tell me is that we never heard from your staff to make those arrangements. We'll promise to make them available to you. What I would just ask is to have your staff contact mine and--" At which point, looking like an incompetent boob, Gohmert cut him off.
Then he moved on to his main issue: that he thinks the FBI is a bunch of fuck-ups who "blew the opportunity" to stop Tamerlan Tsarnaev from bombing Boston because the FBI didn't fully investigate the information Russia was giving it. Holder demurred on much of what he was asked because it is an ongoing investigation. Gohmert insisted that he knew all about the FBI's refusal to go after Tsarnaev and then he played to his base of evangelical dumb fucks when he said to Holder, "Look, the FBI got a heads-up from Russia that you have a radicalized terrorist on your hands. They should not have had to give anything else whatsoever. That should have been enough. But because of political correctness, there was not a thorough enough examination of Tamerlan to determine this kid had been radicalized. And that is the concern I have. On the one hand, we go after Christian groups like Billy Graham's group. We go after Franklin Graham's group. But then we're hands off when it comes to possibly offending someone who has been radicalized as a terrorist." Having tickled Franklin Graham's prostate but good, Gohmert's time expired.
Holder started to speak to say that Gohmert was wrong when, his blood all het up by gettin' backsassed by a Negro, Gohmert jumped in, "You point out one thing that I pointed -- that I said that was not true." Gohmert had to have his cross-burning ass smacked down by committee chair Bob Goodlatte (which is just the most awesome name for a Republican), who told Gohmert to shut the fuck up and let Holder answer.
And then Holder pantsed Gohmert in front of everyone and pointed out what a tiny little dick and balls the Texan has: "The only observation I was going to make is that you state as a matter of fact what the FBI did and did not do. And unless somebody has done something inappropriate, you don't have access to the FBI files. You don't know what the FBI did. You don't know what the FBI's interaction was with the Russians. You don't know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that. And you have characterized the FBI as being not thorough or taking exception to my characterization of them as being thorough. I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That's all."
What followed can best be described as Gohmert going into an insulted idiot rage, screaming and slapping himself, crying that the Negro had gotten so uppity as to tell him he's wrong, while the other Republicans, including Issa, realized they had let him out of the cellar for too long and tried desperately to shut him up and get him back into the basement to sit in his rocker next to the radio that plays Rush Limbaugh's show. Holder's look of barely contained amusement is pretty fuckin' sweet. It climaxed with Gohmert saying, and this is as clear as can be in the video, "The attorney general will not cast aspersions on my asparagus." No, really. And so, his asparagus defended, he was done.
Then Holder kicked Gohmert in the stalk, stating for the record that Louie Gohmert is not nearly as important as Louie Gohmert thinks he is: "He could not know the answer -- he could not know -- there couldn't be a basis for the assertions he's making, not the questions, but the assertions that he made unless he was provided information, and I would say inappropriately, from members of the FBI or people who were involved in the very things that he questioned me about. And I do not think that that happened."
The punchline? Gohmert has posted the exchange on the front of his House website. He's proud of what he did. And you can bet his constituents are, too.
5/15/2013
In Brief: It's All About 2014 Now:
The biggest waste of time in Left Blogsylvania, if not all over Left Mediaville, is reacting to the multiple "crises" in the Obama administration with the pathetic cry of "But George W. Bush was worse." So? It's like telling the dude in the prison shower about to penetrate your ass that rape is wrong. Do you really think that a guy nicknamed Rapey Jake hasn't already considered the legal and moral ramifications of his actions?
Of course, Republicans barely peeped when there were dozens of embassy, consulate, and diplomatic outpost attacks during the reign of Bush the Dumber, when the Bush administration sicced the IRS on liberal churches and groups, or when the Patriot Act was proposed, which is what led us to the government having the ability to secretly get phone records on AP reporters. Great. We know it. How's your asshole feel?
If you believe that a single GOP player in this upcoming clusterfuck of investigations is going to pause and think, "Huh. You're right. I didn't care when George W. Bush did the same or worse. I should end this hypocrisy," you are as delusional as the most extreme Benghazi conspiracy theorists, the ones who think that the IRS thing is Obama's way to distract from the far, far worse Benghazi "scandal." (No, really, Rush Limbaugh believes this.)
Your argument is noted, good liberals who still smart from the lack of prosecution of anyone for the crimes and excesses of the Bush administration. Indeed, it was laughable when today John Boehner asked regarding the IRS asking conservative groups extra questions, "Who's going to jail over this scandal?" Your first instinct might be to say, "Oh, shut the fuck up, Annoying Orange."
There is only one thing that'll end this madness: End the madness of GOP control in the House and prevent them from gaining control of the Senate. All effort on the left needs to be focused on the congressional midterms in 2014. On Morning Starbucks with Joe today, Rep. Charlie Rangel said as much while still saying that he wanted answers regarding the investigation of the AP. As the Rude Pundit said yesterday, that's the difference between the GOP and Democrats: Democrats will actually hold hearings about Democratic presidents. But at least the government will function and this insane impeachment talk will be off the table.
Give up on the Bush comparisons. It will only raise your blood pressure and make you incapable of seeing clearly the path of the next few months. It's time to ask if Americans want a government that gets bogged down in (mostly) meaningless hearings or do they want one that is working on jobs.
If the Rude Pundit was writing an ad for Democrats for the 2014 midterms, he'd ask, "Remember what happened the last time Republicans persecuted a Democratic president and forced him to respond to endless inquiries instead of letting him lead and defend the country?" And then show George W. Bush's face and film of the Twin Towers collapsing.
The biggest waste of time in Left Blogsylvania, if not all over Left Mediaville, is reacting to the multiple "crises" in the Obama administration with the pathetic cry of "But George W. Bush was worse." So? It's like telling the dude in the prison shower about to penetrate your ass that rape is wrong. Do you really think that a guy nicknamed Rapey Jake hasn't already considered the legal and moral ramifications of his actions?
Of course, Republicans barely peeped when there were dozens of embassy, consulate, and diplomatic outpost attacks during the reign of Bush the Dumber, when the Bush administration sicced the IRS on liberal churches and groups, or when the Patriot Act was proposed, which is what led us to the government having the ability to secretly get phone records on AP reporters. Great. We know it. How's your asshole feel?
If you believe that a single GOP player in this upcoming clusterfuck of investigations is going to pause and think, "Huh. You're right. I didn't care when George W. Bush did the same or worse. I should end this hypocrisy," you are as delusional as the most extreme Benghazi conspiracy theorists, the ones who think that the IRS thing is Obama's way to distract from the far, far worse Benghazi "scandal." (No, really, Rush Limbaugh believes this.)
Your argument is noted, good liberals who still smart from the lack of prosecution of anyone for the crimes and excesses of the Bush administration. Indeed, it was laughable when today John Boehner asked regarding the IRS asking conservative groups extra questions, "Who's going to jail over this scandal?" Your first instinct might be to say, "Oh, shut the fuck up, Annoying Orange."
There is only one thing that'll end this madness: End the madness of GOP control in the House and prevent them from gaining control of the Senate. All effort on the left needs to be focused on the congressional midterms in 2014. On Morning Starbucks with Joe today, Rep. Charlie Rangel said as much while still saying that he wanted answers regarding the investigation of the AP. As the Rude Pundit said yesterday, that's the difference between the GOP and Democrats: Democrats will actually hold hearings about Democratic presidents. But at least the government will function and this insane impeachment talk will be off the table.
Give up on the Bush comparisons. It will only raise your blood pressure and make you incapable of seeing clearly the path of the next few months. It's time to ask if Americans want a government that gets bogged down in (mostly) meaningless hearings or do they want one that is working on jobs.
If the Rude Pundit was writing an ad for Democrats for the 2014 midterms, he'd ask, "Remember what happened the last time Republicans persecuted a Democratic president and forced him to respond to endless inquiries instead of letting him lead and defend the country?" And then show George W. Bush's face and film of the Twin Towers collapsing.
Late Post Today:
Super-Skrull is fucking up the city's day. Time to flame on and take care of business.
Back later with more impeccable rudeness.
Super-Skrull is fucking up the city's day. Time to flame on and take care of business.
Back later with more impeccable rudeness.
5/14/2013
Then We Came to the End (A Preemptive Eulogy for the Obama Presidency):
So it was a fun dream while it lasted, this election of the first black president, the man who would make us heal in the wake of the destruction wrought by the administration of George W. Bush, our complicity in that disaster notwithstanding. You remember those hopeful few weeks, post-2008 election, pre-inauguration? You remember how we were gearing up for greatness, for transformation of our national identity, of our politics, of ourselves? Even those of us who don't believe in divine things had an inkling of what it was like to be born again.
But we knew, those of us who were adults in the 1990s, we knew that there was also an entire industry devoted to crushing dreamers into stark realists, a machine whose sole purpose is to shred your hope and make you feel foolish for ever having believed that change was possible. That machine was ready to go the moment that Obama was elected. And too many of us were allowing our optimism to get the better of us, too many of us believed that, based on the prima facie evidence, Republicans would want to put the presidency of George W. Bush behind them and work to unify the nation. This blog maintained its steady stream of cynicism, but even as he waved his hands and said, "They're coming," the Rude Pundit allowed the soothing heat of hope to be pumped into the femoral artery of his political thinking. He thought there was a chance to evolve. He just bet on the wrong horse.
We needed someone who would lay waste to the political enemies of progress, not try to bring them into the fold. We can't say whether Hillary Clinton would have reached out her hand so much, no matter how many times it was bitten and slapped. We don't know if that would have been her approach, but we know that it was Barack Obama's, and we know that it failed and we know that he stuck to it for too long.
You feel it, don't you? This week marked the end of the Obama presidency. No, he won't be forced out of office, but he will be forced to make do with whatever he can accomplish alone, which, at this point, is extraordinarily little. The Benghazi investigation was worthless to anyone not on Rand Paul's mailing list. But the IRS's questioning of Tea Party groups is mildly disconcerting, even if it doesn't rise to full-blown "scandal" proportions, and the Justice Department's subpoena of the phone records of AP reporters is genuinely scary, perhaps because chances are that it was perfectly legal. Still, what is true, what is legal, and what is real don't matter anymore at this point.
The reason why the Rude Pundit is declaring the Obama presidency done is not merely because the IRS story confirms everything that paranoid right-wingers believe about Obama, as The Daily Show discussed last night. No, it's done because the AP story confirms everything that liberals and libertarians feared about Obama's embrace and expansion of the surveillance state established under Bush and Cheney and his immensely troubling silencing of whistleblowers. The press is gleefully, grotesquely feeding on the outrage.
One of the stark differences between Republicans and Democrats is that, no matter what, Republicans, on the whole, will stand by a Republican president. They will prevent investigations (like they tried to do with 9/11). They will dismiss any allegations. They will go down with the ship. Democrats will turn on a Democratic president, especially when that president is weak. They will demand investigations. They will be outraged. They will run away like rats (like keeping Bill Clinton sidelined during the 2000 election). Neither approach is honorable, but at least the Democratic way is a bit more, you know, democratic.
Now that Democrats are joining Republicans in demanding investigations into the AP and IRS stories, now that writers on the left are calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, just like writers on the right did during the fake Fast and Furious nonsense, we know what's going to go down: Committee hearings that play out like trials, the White House being tied in knots over testifying, demands for more and more information, showdowns with Congress over access, blah, blah, blah. And every speech, every call for compassion, everything Obama does now will be overshadowed, will be tainted, every effort will be stymied by suspicion. This is not to mention the effect of the Senate minority's traitorous war on the functioning of government.
The sad aspect is that it never had to be this way. Obama could have...well, hell, there's all kinds of things he could have done. The sadder aspect is that of course it had to be this way. Republicans were going to have their way no matter what. The saddest aspect is that Obama should have walked away from the forest Republicans created. Instead, he fell right into their trap. They won. Again.
Yes, yes, there will be many things in the next three plus years that we will support Obama on. He's still the president, after all. There will be many times when we will attack at the GOP. And when the increasingly inevitable impeachment hearings happen, we will shout and rend our garments in anger. But we know that the end is in sight.
Hope dies the death of a thousand cuts.
(Note: The Rude Pundit hopes he's wrong and that he can take this whole thing back at some point soon.)
So it was a fun dream while it lasted, this election of the first black president, the man who would make us heal in the wake of the destruction wrought by the administration of George W. Bush, our complicity in that disaster notwithstanding. You remember those hopeful few weeks, post-2008 election, pre-inauguration? You remember how we were gearing up for greatness, for transformation of our national identity, of our politics, of ourselves? Even those of us who don't believe in divine things had an inkling of what it was like to be born again.
But we knew, those of us who were adults in the 1990s, we knew that there was also an entire industry devoted to crushing dreamers into stark realists, a machine whose sole purpose is to shred your hope and make you feel foolish for ever having believed that change was possible. That machine was ready to go the moment that Obama was elected. And too many of us were allowing our optimism to get the better of us, too many of us believed that, based on the prima facie evidence, Republicans would want to put the presidency of George W. Bush behind them and work to unify the nation. This blog maintained its steady stream of cynicism, but even as he waved his hands and said, "They're coming," the Rude Pundit allowed the soothing heat of hope to be pumped into the femoral artery of his political thinking. He thought there was a chance to evolve. He just bet on the wrong horse.
We needed someone who would lay waste to the political enemies of progress, not try to bring them into the fold. We can't say whether Hillary Clinton would have reached out her hand so much, no matter how many times it was bitten and slapped. We don't know if that would have been her approach, but we know that it was Barack Obama's, and we know that it failed and we know that he stuck to it for too long.
You feel it, don't you? This week marked the end of the Obama presidency. No, he won't be forced out of office, but he will be forced to make do with whatever he can accomplish alone, which, at this point, is extraordinarily little. The Benghazi investigation was worthless to anyone not on Rand Paul's mailing list. But the IRS's questioning of Tea Party groups is mildly disconcerting, even if it doesn't rise to full-blown "scandal" proportions, and the Justice Department's subpoena of the phone records of AP reporters is genuinely scary, perhaps because chances are that it was perfectly legal. Still, what is true, what is legal, and what is real don't matter anymore at this point.
The reason why the Rude Pundit is declaring the Obama presidency done is not merely because the IRS story confirms everything that paranoid right-wingers believe about Obama, as The Daily Show discussed last night. No, it's done because the AP story confirms everything that liberals and libertarians feared about Obama's embrace and expansion of the surveillance state established under Bush and Cheney and his immensely troubling silencing of whistleblowers. The press is gleefully, grotesquely feeding on the outrage.
One of the stark differences between Republicans and Democrats is that, no matter what, Republicans, on the whole, will stand by a Republican president. They will prevent investigations (like they tried to do with 9/11). They will dismiss any allegations. They will go down with the ship. Democrats will turn on a Democratic president, especially when that president is weak. They will demand investigations. They will be outraged. They will run away like rats (like keeping Bill Clinton sidelined during the 2000 election). Neither approach is honorable, but at least the Democratic way is a bit more, you know, democratic.
Now that Democrats are joining Republicans in demanding investigations into the AP and IRS stories, now that writers on the left are calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, just like writers on the right did during the fake Fast and Furious nonsense, we know what's going to go down: Committee hearings that play out like trials, the White House being tied in knots over testifying, demands for more and more information, showdowns with Congress over access, blah, blah, blah. And every speech, every call for compassion, everything Obama does now will be overshadowed, will be tainted, every effort will be stymied by suspicion. This is not to mention the effect of the Senate minority's traitorous war on the functioning of government.
The sad aspect is that it never had to be this way. Obama could have...well, hell, there's all kinds of things he could have done. The sadder aspect is that of course it had to be this way. Republicans were going to have their way no matter what. The saddest aspect is that Obama should have walked away from the forest Republicans created. Instead, he fell right into their trap. They won. Again.
Yes, yes, there will be many things in the next three plus years that we will support Obama on. He's still the president, after all. There will be many times when we will attack at the GOP. And when the increasingly inevitable impeachment hearings happen, we will shout and rend our garments in anger. But we know that the end is in sight.
Hope dies the death of a thousand cuts.
(Note: The Rude Pundit hopes he's wrong and that he can take this whole thing back at some point soon.)
5/13/2013
The IRS "Scandal" Isn't a Scandal, But It Will Get Annoying:
Look, we know how this went down: Post-Citizens United, the Internal Revenue Service was flooded with applications for tax-exempt status for whatever organization a couple of fucksacks with a tricorner hat wanted to start. "Social welfare" groups, they were called, and they could not be involved with specific political candidates or advocacy (although, you know, c'mon). So the IRS told its low-level drones who had to look at all the fucksack applications to flag ones that looked hinky. So the low-level drones, who are overworked to begin with because Congress won't give the IRS the funding it needs to do its fucking job, used some search terms.
It's 2010 and who are the fucksacks who are everywhere? The "Tea Party" groups. So, sure, fine, let's fuckin' search that. Low-level drone 1 tells low-level drone 2 (and for god's sake, they live in the dull, dull, boring, dull city of Cincinnati, so give 'em a little break), "Hey, just use 'Patriot' as a search term and you'll get your job done faster because if there's one thing we know, it's that a whole bunch of these applications are from crazed fucksacks applying for tax-exempt status because they hate them that black guy in office." Low-level drone 2 might have said, "Oh, shit, that'll get us in trouble." But low-level drone 1 had a convincing argument by saying, "You wanna get to the bar sooner?" By the way, chances are that LLD 1 and LLD 2 have been LLDs forever, under at least one GOP president.
Does this narrative need to be completed? Sure, fine: Am id-level IRS drone discovers what's happening and says, "Whoa, whoa, you can't just go after the costumed fucksacks. You gotta look at everyone." At which point at least one LLD contemplated suicide, surely. So MLD went to the higher-ups, like Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations, who said, "Aw, fuck, don't you know that the fucksacks are gonna cause a ruckus over this shit? Change it up." And then the IRS started to look at any group that criticized "how the country was run." Then, because that stunk of Tea Party bullshit (even though it encompassed many groups), the standard was then changed to "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement." And then, a year ago, that was changed to "organizations with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention."
No group was denied anything because of the extra scrutiny. And as soon as someone higher than a low-level drone found out about what the LLDs were doing, it was addressed and changed. To say that Barack Obama had something to do with that is to say that Rupert Murdoch should be arrested every time Sean Hannity lies on the air.
If you want to call the IRS thing a scandal, well, shit, in this dumbed-down post-Clinton blow job era, the definition of "scandal" is meaningless, so why the fuck not? At least it looks like someone did something knowingly wrong, unlike Benghazi, which is a lonely penis looking for a hole to penetrate.
Hell, the Washington Post went all nutzoid on it, proving its street-cred to keep up the subscription rate among Republican readers: "One line of questioning should focus on how the IRS’s procedures failed to catch this 'shortcut' before its employees began using it. Another should center on how this misguided practice came to light, and on what the IRS planned and plans to do about it." Umm, the IRS caught it shortly after it was used. And did something about it. Isn't that the end of the story?
But, no, really, there should be an investigation. Go the fuck ahead, GOP (and, yeah, Democrats who wanna show that they can be all mightily outraged at a black man, too). Call witnesses. Have mighty inquiries where you can preen for the base. It's not like you're gonna do anything better with your time. At this point, you've cried, "Wolf!" so many times that even the wolves are bored.
Look, we know how this went down: Post-Citizens United, the Internal Revenue Service was flooded with applications for tax-exempt status for whatever organization a couple of fucksacks with a tricorner hat wanted to start. "Social welfare" groups, they were called, and they could not be involved with specific political candidates or advocacy (although, you know, c'mon). So the IRS told its low-level drones who had to look at all the fucksack applications to flag ones that looked hinky. So the low-level drones, who are overworked to begin with because Congress won't give the IRS the funding it needs to do its fucking job, used some search terms.
It's 2010 and who are the fucksacks who are everywhere? The "Tea Party" groups. So, sure, fine, let's fuckin' search that. Low-level drone 1 tells low-level drone 2 (and for god's sake, they live in the dull, dull, boring, dull city of Cincinnati, so give 'em a little break), "Hey, just use 'Patriot' as a search term and you'll get your job done faster because if there's one thing we know, it's that a whole bunch of these applications are from crazed fucksacks applying for tax-exempt status because they hate them that black guy in office." Low-level drone 2 might have said, "Oh, shit, that'll get us in trouble." But low-level drone 1 had a convincing argument by saying, "You wanna get to the bar sooner?" By the way, chances are that LLD 1 and LLD 2 have been LLDs forever, under at least one GOP president.
Does this narrative need to be completed? Sure, fine: Am id-level IRS drone discovers what's happening and says, "Whoa, whoa, you can't just go after the costumed fucksacks. You gotta look at everyone." At which point at least one LLD contemplated suicide, surely. So MLD went to the higher-ups, like Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations, who said, "Aw, fuck, don't you know that the fucksacks are gonna cause a ruckus over this shit? Change it up." And then the IRS started to look at any group that criticized "how the country was run." Then, because that stunk of Tea Party bullshit (even though it encompassed many groups), the standard was then changed to "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement." And then, a year ago, that was changed to "organizations with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention."
No group was denied anything because of the extra scrutiny. And as soon as someone higher than a low-level drone found out about what the LLDs were doing, it was addressed and changed. To say that Barack Obama had something to do with that is to say that Rupert Murdoch should be arrested every time Sean Hannity lies on the air.
If you want to call the IRS thing a scandal, well, shit, in this dumbed-down post-Clinton blow job era, the definition of "scandal" is meaningless, so why the fuck not? At least it looks like someone did something knowingly wrong, unlike Benghazi, which is a lonely penis looking for a hole to penetrate.
Hell, the Washington Post went all nutzoid on it, proving its street-cred to keep up the subscription rate among Republican readers: "One line of questioning should focus on how the IRS’s procedures failed to catch this 'shortcut' before its employees began using it. Another should center on how this misguided practice came to light, and on what the IRS planned and plans to do about it." Umm, the IRS caught it shortly after it was used. And did something about it. Isn't that the end of the story?
But, no, really, there should be an investigation. Go the fuck ahead, GOP (and, yeah, Democrats who wanna show that they can be all mightily outraged at a black man, too). Call witnesses. Have mighty inquiries where you can preen for the base. It's not like you're gonna do anything better with your time. At this point, you've cried, "Wolf!" so many times that even the wolves are bored.
5/10/2013
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Eat Magic Mushrooms By the Ohio River:
That's a mighty pretty landscape you've got there, southern Illinois. Too bad you're selling it out to natural gas companies so they can hydrofrack the shit out of it. Said one local old bastard who should be chased out of town like a mad dog, "I don't care whether I get (a well) or not. I got my $60,000." He leased his land to a natural gas company for $50 an acre because capitalism.
There are so many beautiful areas in the most unexpected places in this nation (ever been to the Hocking Hills in southeast Ohio? Crazy lovely, especially in autumn). And, one by one, we're gonna ruin them to squeeze just a little more filthy fuel out of the rocks, just crack 'em open like rotten eggs.
So get out this weekend, Illinois, and take it in. Because, soon, you'll get to see (and smell and taste) this instead (from fracking sites in Pennsylvania):
If you give a damn, there are local organizations trying to fight the destruction of their state's environment.
That's a mighty pretty landscape you've got there, southern Illinois. Too bad you're selling it out to natural gas companies so they can hydrofrack the shit out of it. Said one local old bastard who should be chased out of town like a mad dog, "I don't care whether I get (a well) or not. I got my $60,000." He leased his land to a natural gas company for $50 an acre because capitalism.
There are so many beautiful areas in the most unexpected places in this nation (ever been to the Hocking Hills in southeast Ohio? Crazy lovely, especially in autumn). And, one by one, we're gonna ruin them to squeeze just a little more filthy fuel out of the rocks, just crack 'em open like rotten eggs.
So get out this weekend, Illinois, and take it in. Because, soon, you'll get to see (and smell and taste) this instead (from fracking sites in Pennsylvania):
If you give a damn, there are local organizations trying to fight the destruction of their state's environment.
