Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.20

Roman Polanski birthday cards. $5 or give 'em some champagne and quaaludes and see if you can get it for free.

Matt Taibbi pauses from pointing out financial reform vote buying and various Senate charades surrounding credit card reform to point out a new study from Maplight.org on contributions to our elected betters from our corporate masters during the financial reform process. The final tally: 38 Senators who opposed the bill received an average of $103,266 in campaign contributions from commercial banks, the 60 Senators who were yea votes took an average of $76,759. The amount of people surprised by this revelation: near zero.

In case you were wondering what exactly it was the Republicans planned to do if they got back in power this November, they held a meeting with corporate businesses, trade groups, lobbyists, and other black robed figures to hash it all out. Let me blow your mind here: they want more deregulation, strip out everything that was done over the past few years, lower taxes for rich people and corporations, cut capital gains taxes, no inheritance taxes, and they probably want to name something after Reagan. Whew, I was worried they might want to pause from repeating the same list of shit they've wanted for the last 5 decades to actually look at the state of the country and start addressing that. No? Same shit you always say no matter what the state of the country? OK.

What is the driving force behind our electoral process? I mean besides rage, bullshit stagecraft replacing any discussion of meaningful issues, and the misguided notion that we have two functioning political parties. Sports sports sports sports SPOOOOOOOOOOORTS! According to the National Academy of Science, Division I College Football wins within a week of an election can swing incumbents extra support. Other interesting facts reveal that windmill dunks are likely to increase support for more strict zoning and land use permits and Dan Marino refused to win a championship because he was afraid that it would lead to Floridians supporting development of endangered marshlands. The man did love himself some swamp fan-boating.

While you were out getting melted by the sun, science rendered a verdict on that whole Climategate thing. You know, when a bunch of right wing blowhards and oil shills accused a guy of fabricating climate data, thus proving climate change wrong once and for all? Turns out the guy didn't do anything wrong, it was a bullshit story pushed by dishonest brokers, and was a giant nothing story. Except for the part where it helped anti-science fruitcakes and industry bagmen push a fraudulent meme which the media ate up, helped misinformed people, and helped damage climate legislation. Surprisingly they don't seem to be eating up this "it was all bullshit" thing. Ah, who cares? I'm sure everyone will come around about a decade after it's too late to do anything.

Explaining our stupid elections

In recent months we've seen the debut of new election campaign strategies. Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle is taking a page out of Sarah Palin's book by not appearing on any network or allowing any media access to a journalist that will ask a hard question or not allow her to nakedly fund-raise on air. Ran Paul learned the lesson of allowing media access when the discovered that when he stated his positions near any type of recording device, they tended to make people angry. He has since remedied that situation with a media blackout.

Soon our elections will be conducted with voters only allowed to know the name and party of a candidate, with only a headshot providing the remaining information we're allowed to know. We'll make our decision on whether or not the name is cool and whether we think the person is properly dressed and has a good enough haircut in the photo. Like the founding fathers intended.

Much in this same line is Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who yesterday took to the airwaves and responding forcefully to the suggestion that Republicans should be forced to articulate some actual policy ideas instead of "Democrats want it? No."

KING: So, It’s a combination of being against what Obama is for, and also giving certain specifics of what we are for. Having said that, I don’t think we have to lay out a complete agenda, from top to bottom, because then we would have the national mainstream media jumping on every point trying to make that a campaign issue.

That's right, the GOP can't release a policy platform or series of proposals for what they'd do if they win the upcoming election, otherwise the jerkoff media might go and make the proposed governing of this country a campaign issue. You know instead of what the GOP thinks an election is supposed to be about: bland statements about how things are going to be different, hoping no one remembers the fact that their policies, governing, and obstruction put the country in the deep hole that we're struggling to get out of now, finding an ethnic, socio-economic, or political group and blaming them for all the ills of the world, REPEAL EVERYTHING~!, and never articulating a thought that could be criticized once people understood what it would do to the country.

Great. Ah well, it's not like the coverage of those imaginary issues was going to be intelligent or enlightening anyway. Onward to voting on names, looks, and party affiliation. Whoo! America!

That just about sums up the past year plus

As the election season starts to ramp up, so does the whoring for political money season. Not that prostituting yourself out for big business' nickels is ever out of season, it's just that most candidate's internal whoring meter switches from "barely concealing the obviousness with which they sell out the average American voter" to "openly exchanging votes for a large burlap sack with a dollar sign on it, handed to them by a man with a monocle and spats on."

But what happens to a political party when they've spent the better part of a year trying to maybe kind of rein in the parties responsible for causing the global financial crisis? Plus maybe telling insurance companies that they shouldn't be such complete money grubbing shits and attempting to hold an oil company responsible for a massive environmental catastrophe? Sure, all of these attempts were half-assed, concession filled, compromise riddled, and willing bent over and inserted loopholes for the very industries they were attempting to regulate, but Democrats had the audacity to maybe question their corporate masters.

How did this go over with their moneyed betters? Not well, according to the Washington Post. With the Democratic campaign committees flagging behind their GOP brethren in the "raising money from the Monopoly guy's buddies" category.

Now normally, this would be time for Democrats to asses the situation, see how they're being openly criticized by unpopular industries and business leaders, see how close said unpopular business are to the GOP, and decide to make a stand on "standing up for the little guy against the evil excesses of the business world" no matter how dishonest that statement is. But no, this is Washington 2010 and these are Democrats.

In a Thursday interview, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argued that rather than recoiling against Obama, business leaders should be grateful for his support on at least a half-dozen counts...
...
But, in the White House view, some business leaders listen only to Obama speeches being tough on BP or on the excesses of Wall Street and assume Obama is hostile to business across the board. “Rather than respond to atmospherics, they should look at policies where we have been supportive,” Emanuel said.
...
Obama administration officials also are quick to point out that Corporate America hasn’t done so badly under Obama -- according to the most recent data, corporate profits are up 34 percent from first quarter 2009 to first quarter 2010.

That's how you lick some boot. Why position yourself as some sort of champion of the people, fighting against the excesses of big business... of which there a a litany of examples with massively negative consequences? That actually might be popular and helpful. Good thing you didn't do that then, Rahm.

It explains so much.

God I love the Teabaggers

Anyone want to guess what state he's running for Congress in? Sorry Texas, you lose this round: it's Alabama. Tyrannical government! IRS! The Census! Oppression! Evils... being perpetrated! Gather.... your... armies.

Funny side note, if you actually read the Constitution you'll find that in the treason/impeachment section under high crimes and misdemeanors, "being a black President" is listed as the #1 offense. James Madison had in bolded and underlined. So I think he has a case.

Our awful elections

It's no secret that our elections are a comic horrorshow of stupidity unrivaled by any country in the world. We tend to have perfected the art of not making the process of electing our political betters about anything substantial; letting nearly every contest devolve into the cheap theatre of name calling, flag eating, and pretending to get offended at the low rent name calling.

And among the dumbest of the races in this especially dumb election year is the Senate race in California. Incumbent Barbara Boxer seems barely aware that she's going to have to contest this race, but I'm sure someone will tap her on the shoulder to remind her to put her name on the re-election form so she can waltz to victory. But in the GOP primary has been the typical shitshow of "You are insufficiently in love with tax cuts" "No, you are insufficiently in love with tax cuts and I deride your level of hatred for Mexicans and love levels of Reagan" "How dare you" and so on and so on. Perhaps you remember presumed frontrunner Carly Fiorina's "demon sheep" ad?

Well Carly is in trouble and may not even make it out of the primary. So, I assume, in an attempt to completely squash her and waste some of the money they have piled around, the DSCC and the California Democratic Party have decided to hoist her on her own demon sheep petard.



May I remind you that this is for a powerful seat in one of the most powerful institutions in one of the most powerful of China's subsidiary countries.... and there were so many mutton based puns that I gave up counting them halfway through after I killed myself.

So take pride America, on of the most important issues in one our largest Senate races is sheep and demon based mockery and mockery of previous crazy commercials. I'd weep, but that places the California Senate race as one of the most serious races in the country. It's actually about an issue that's not completely made up or distorted beyond all recognition. And the production values are top notch. I'm not pulling the wool over your eyes on that one.

/kills self again