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Thursday, February 02, 2012

Old memes never die, they just get burned into the public consciousness
Posted by Jill | 5:45 AM
Of all the things Ronald Reagan did to bring us to our current state, perhaps his most egregious offense was the manufacture the meme of the welfare queen in the Cadillac.

Here's how Reagan described her (NYT link to abstract, PDF linked from there:
She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.

This particular "welfare queen", a figment of Reagan's colorful imagination, was apparently based on one Linda Taylor, who was convicted in 1974 of using an alias to collect about eight thousand dollars in fraudulent payments.

But the myth of someone getting what they don't deserve persists. It's the same mindset that says it's better to disenfranchise millions than risk one person voting who shouldn't. It's the same mindset that says it's better to risk the lives of tens of thousands of women every year than to risk just one having a late-term abortion for a reason other than health. It's the same mindset that says it's better to let a million children go without health care than to risk just one getting Medicaid whose parents make one dollar over the limit. As the middle class gets screwed ever more, the clinging to the idea that the poor are somehow getting away with something persists.

When Newt Gingrich talks about Barack Obama being the food stamp president, he's hearkening back to Ronald Reagan's mythical welfare recipients who dine on foie gras and prime steaks and live in luxury apartment penthouses on the public dole. He probably never even saw the movie, but he's thinking of Mo'nique's devastating portrayal of just such a Republican stereotype in Precious. So I question whether ultimately, Mitt Romney's blithe dismissal of the poor yesterday is going to hurt him all that much with people who would vote for a quarter-billionaire in the first place.

I work in an industry that pays quite well, for those of us fortunate enough to still have jobs in an industry that's rapidly consolidating. Most of my colleagues have some sort of advanced degree, and most are fairly liberal, or at least tolerant of views regarded as liberal. And yet when people talk about public assistance, particularly those who came to the US from other countries, they have this idea that an average food stamp budget buys the same kinds and quantities of food that they purchase from their local Whole Foods; and that Section 8 housing features the requisite granite-and-stainless in safe suburban neighborhoods. The myth dies hard.

Last night Rachel Maddow showed just how Mitt Romney would "fix" the safety net, as he said after he got caught sounding like the preposterously, wealthy out-of-touch, craven panderer that he is:



And yet, the American public is curiously selective about who it regards as "deserving" and "getting something for nothing." Here are Lawrence O'Donnell and David Cay Johnston on how Mittens has been able to pass along $100 million of his money to his children without being subject to the limits for gift taxation that the rest of us are.



I guess if you're lucky enough to be born to a quarter-billionaire, you're entitled to money you didn't earn in a way that those who, due to lack of access to quality education, lack of nutrition, and lack of opportunity aren't.

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Thursday, September 01, 2011

Well, I guess Boehner "put him in his place"
Posted by Jill | 5:40 AM
Check out this screencap, from the front page of Rush Limbaugh's web site (red box added by me, for emphasis):



Yesterday Randi Rhodes played the clip of Limbaugh screeching about how John Boehner has to "put the guy in his place" about the timing of his speech on jobs. When you talk about putting someone in his place, and the person you're talking about is black, it is a racial remark, no matter how red faced and sputtering Limbaugh may be in denial of that fact. But if you still don't believe it, look at the graphic. Look at the photograph, which deliberately depicts the black President of the United States supplicating himself before a white (well, ok, orange) man.

So what does this president do when faced with a lying, hatemongering right-wing radio host demanding that the Speaker "put him in his place"?

He caves, of course (NYT link, emphasis mine):
In a surreal volley of letters, each released to the news media as soon as it was sent, Mr. Boehner rejected a request from the president to address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday at 8 p.m. — the same night that a Republican presidential debate is scheduled.

In an extraordinary turn, the House speaker fired back his own letter to the president saying, in a word, no. Might the president be able to reschedule for the following night, Sept. 8?

For several hours, the day turned into a very public game of chicken.

By late Wednesday night, though, the White House issued a statement saying that because Mr. Obama “is focused on the urgent need to create jobs and grow our economy,” he “welcomes the opportunity to address a joint session of Congress on Thursday, Sept. 8.”

The president had sent in the first volley with his request for a speech next Wednesday night, when Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is scheduled to debate his fellow would-be Republican presidential nominees for the first time.

“No, of course not,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, replied when a reporter asked if the timing of the president’s speech had been meant to play havoc with the Republican debate plans. He said that “one debate of many was no reason not to have a speech when we wanted to have it.”

Mr. Boehner was not budging.

“As the majority leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, Sept. 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening,” the speaker wrote. “With the significant amount of time, typically more than three hours, that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.”

Mr. Boehner did not specify what votes were scheduled for 6:30 that evening that could not be moved. The House calendar shows that members are expected to vote on the “suspension calendar,” generally minor bills like naming a post office.

Congressional historians said Mr. Boehner’s move was unprecedented.

“The Senate Historical Office knows of no instance in which Congress refused the president permission to speak before a joint session of Congress,” Betty K. Koed, associate historian with the Senate, said in an e-mail.

But then, we've never had a black president before, never mind one who has demonstrated over and over and over and over again that there is NO fight with Republicans from which he won't shy away.

Meanwhile, certain corners of the sizable Democratic base that this Administration threw under the bus very early in this presidency have stopped rumbling that perhaps it might stay home in 2012 and like Pavlov's dogs, are already falling for the same "We Suck But He's Crazy" card that Democrats have been playing for two decades:

Perry panic has spread from the conference rooms of Washington, D.C., to the coffee shops of Brooklyn, with the realization that the conservative Texan could conceivably become the 45th president of the United States, a wave of alarm centering around Perry’s drawling, small-town affect and stands on core cultural issues such as women’s rights, gun control, the death penalty, and the separation of church and state.

“His entry in the race is a signal and a wake-up call,” the Rev. Al Sharpton told POLITICO.

Perry, Sharpton said, “is looking to go to the O.K. Corral and start shooting. … Rather than the left get caught sleeping, we better load up, because he is bringing it.”

For Democrats, the pre-Perry GOP primary process was hardly for the faint of heart, as the other candidates have jockeyed to show who dislikes Obama the most. But even as the primary is fought on conservative turf, liberal leaders say they and their constituents see Perry as far worse than your average, hated Republican, and indeed as bad — if not worse — than his hated predecessor in Austin, George W. Bush. And progressives who might have had a hard time getting worked up about Mitt Romney find themselves struggling for superlatives with which to express their fear of a President Perry.

Oh, get real, people. Seriously. Does anyone actually see Barack Obama as some kind of bulwark against the kind of oligarchical theocracy that Rick Perry represents? The entire Republican Party has decided that an oligarchical theocracy is what it wants, and this president can't even stick to his guns about his own Constitutional right to call together a joint session of Congress? And people are looking to him to stop this relentless march backwards to the 13th century that Republicans now represent?

Idiots. They don't even realize that it's already a done deal. The only issue remaining is what the Obama Administration is going to say to try to tell us that massive tax increases on the poor and mandatory conversion to the teachings of R.J. Rushdoony are a GOOD thing.

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Monday, August 01, 2011

Monday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: Dispatch From Under The Bus Edition
Posted by Jill | 9:36 PM
Today's honoree: Who else but Matt Taibbi, who needs no introduction.

Money quote (one of many):
So the debt deal has finally been reached. As expected, the agreement arrives in a form that right-thinking people everywhere can feel terrible about with great confidence.

The general consensus is that for the second time in three years, a gang of financial terrorists has successfully extorted the congress and the White House, threatening to blow up the planet if they didn't get what they wanted.

Back in 2008, the congress and George Bush rewarded Hank Paulson and Wall Street for pulling the Cleavon-Little-"the-next-man-makes-a-move-the-n---er-gets-it" routine by tossing trillions of bailout dollars at the same people who had wrecked the economy.

Now, Barack Obama has surrendered control of the budget to the Tea Party, whose operatives in congress used the same suicide-bomber tactic, threatening a catastrophic default unless the Democrats committed to a regime of steep spending cuts without any tax increases on the wealthy.

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