August 10, 2010 archive

On Monday The Bloguero Slept Late

Well, sorta.  I’m not Harry Kemelman and this isn’t Barnard’s Crossing.    And it’s not 1964, though on some levels it feels like it.  I mean: there are a zillion right wing nutjobs trying to repeal the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution and deport 15 million people, and somehow those terrible ideas aren’t even being greeted with even the vituperation Barry Goldwater got when he suggested carpet bombing Vietnam back into the stone age (as if that were possible without killing everyone on Earth).  On the vituperate scale, Barry G got a 6.  The current mischagas gets about a 4.  Or less.  What I’m talking about is a country gone insane.  Just like 1964.

I know.  It’s hot.  Very hot.  When it’s August, all of the psychiatrists go to Martha’s Vineyard for the month, leaving behind voicemails that tell their distraught clientele to go to the emergency room if they need to.  If I were having cocktails right now in Chilmark, and I hasten to say that I’m not, I’d probably think that such a message was a good idea too.  But it’s not.  It doesn’t take into consideration the overwhelming, gigantic epidemic of mental disease and delusion now festering in America in the form of amnesiac tea baggers, Glenn Beck devotees,  birthers, racists, kooks of all stripes,  dittoheads and a Republican Congress that for all its orange skin and blow dried hair should have its own chapter in the DSM IV.  Yes, I know.  These loons don’t have shrinks who are on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard.  Correct.  The people whose shrinks are in Martha’s Vineyard, people like me, living in New York and Boston, are in far worse condition: they’re sweltering in an apartment that cannot make it cooler than 80 degrees, the air is awful, and the only thing on the tube is the constant, annoying blathering of people so deranged that they throw even those like me, those with minor, urban, post information age neuroses into serious crisis.  You could take me for an example.

Let’s look at one thing, ok?  I heard today that the oil from the BP spill is all but disappeared and that soon Louisiana fisherman are going to start fishing and shrimping again.  Because, allegedly, that’s now safe and we all believe the Government and the pants-on-fire team at BP about that.  It’s safe?  I’ll believe it when I see BP’s executives eating oysters off the halfshell. Till then,  I’m sorry,  I can’t accept that.  Oil and all that Corexit, all gone now?  Nonsense.  In fact, these stories enrage me.  They are, to me, like tickling dynamite with a blowtorch.  If I had a shrink, I’d be speed dialing already.  “Help me,” I’d whimper, grasping the Blackberry in icy, flinching hands, “The most violent, greedy, despicable inmates have taken over the asylum.  And I need your help to deal with it.”

I know Obama and the Democrats were supposed to be able to play 11-dimensional chess when they took over.  Right now, I’m wondering whether they can even play checkers.  It’s too hot to be charitable, and the neighbors, that is, the other occupants of this country, are becoming louder and more deranged every day.  The summer heat is making the country even more insane.

Maybe what I need is a cocktail and a new outgoing message.




simulposted at The Dream Antilles and dailyKos

Monday Humor: Over Hill, Over Dale, As We Hit the RustBelt Trail

The highly esteemed chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tim Kaine, gives The Hill and the Democratic Congressional candidates a pep talk before the August recess, and was allegedly sighted on the NBC’s Today Show with Matt Lauer this morning.  


http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-…

“If you distance yourself from the president, you can pour cold water on the excitement about what he is doing,” said Kaine, who alluded to Democrat Creigh Deeds’s problems

“What is the alternative?” he said. “When the – when the Republicans were in control during the Lost Decade, Americans lost 8 million jobs. We gained 700,000 private-sector jobs this year. We’re growing again.”

{Historical footnote for Kaine’s spotty memory.  Creigh Deeds ran for the Governor of the state of Virginia.  Creigh Deeds actually was against the Public Option in the health insurance bail out bill, just like President Barack Obama turned out to be.  He lost.  

I believe the saying is, re Blue Dogs trying to be relabeled Republican Lites,  if you are presented with the choice of an imitation or an original, if they cost the same, voters will pick the original every time. }

From the transcript of the Today Show Mon Aug 9, 2010


http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/…

Matt Lauer NBC:

so the president is out there campaigning for some candidates. others don’t want anything to do with him. i want to take you back to election night 2008 in that scenic grant park when the president walked out onto that stage. i mean, you had to hope — democrats had to hope — this was going to be a president who was going to open up new political territory for the party. and here you’ve got a president and some candidates don’t want to be seen with him. what happened?

Tim Kaine, DNC Chairman:

well, i think the candidates who are worried about it are making a mistake because i think this president still is doing the great work that the americans expect of him. the president and i met a month after that in grant park , and we talked about the fact that midterms will be very tough because they always are. since teddy roosevelt was president, the average midterm involves the party in power losing 28 house seats, losing 4 senate seats. and look, it’s a tough time economically, and that means it’s volatile. but the democrats have been doing the work necessary to get the nation going again. as the president says, the car was in the ditch. we’re getting it out of the ditch with job creation , with a new energy strategy, with infrastructure investments.

Matt Lauer:

here’s what frank rich wrote in the paper over the weekend concerning the democrats’ prospects for the midterm elections . he said, quote, they are doomed to fall short if they don’t address the cancer in the american heart , and that’s joblessness. we saw the latest figures come out. 9.5% unemployment as of friday. even if there is a series of small miracles between now and the midterm elections , governor, you know that number is going to be unacceptably high when people go to the polls. so why shouldn’t they hold democrats accountable?

Tim Kaine:

because, matt, what is the alternative?

/snip

well, i think, matt, what they mostly want to hear is the record of accomplishment. and so whether it’s health reform that helps the middle class with medical bills, credit reform, wall street reform or recovery that’s investing in green energy and made in america jobs, we always lead with the things we’ve done.

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