Big Ag's Boy Saxby Chambliss Likes Bu$h Math

Georgia's Jim Martin delivers an instant classic. "Sugar" was likely more frat boy than scholar while partying at UGA while real men like Jim Martin and Max Cleland were serving during the Vietnam War. If in fact the GOP is manning the barricades with Saxby I'd think this ad ought to at least give them some sleepless night. John Gunn

From "The Onion" plus Bill Maher's "Religulous"

McCain’s Economic Plan For Nation: "Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress"

Rural American is still leaning right!

Reuters reports McCain leads Obama 51-41 in rural contests: poll and while I'm glad John Mc$ame is down some compared to Bu$hCo in 2004 the fact is that my team is still losing. I'll need to ponder on this one for a while yet expect it comes down to tribalism, a poor message from the Democratic Party, domination of the talk radio scene in more rural areas by the right wingers, religion, lack of education, ... Any other ideas? As for the map, I can't vouch for it yet I do note how the Godless Liberals on the coast and in more urban areas are making bank compared to the Bubbas and Bubbettes that so often vote for the GOP. John Gunn

Plural as to "reactionaries"? Mainstream? Or BS?

Quoting Democrat State Board of Education member Mary Jane Caylor offering that Charter schools aren't a "panacea", the Mobile Press-Register, doing their obligatory assault on public education at least once per month, opines Reactionaries ruling education in Alabama. Since only Dr. Paul Hubbert of AEA, who is hardly a favorite of Captain Plaid, is mentioned beyond Ms. Caylor, I'll suppose her claim makes her a "reactionary".

The Mobile P-R truly works hard at their efforts to shill right wing talking points on the failures of public education yet to suggest there is "a rough consensus on some reform proposals, including charter schools and merit pay for teachers" is perfectly flawed. To now seem to sympathize with Senator Obama's idea of floating some sort of merit pay that is based on peer reviews, achievement beyond test scores, etc. is equally frustrating. There's a ton of difference between Huggy Bear's ideas and that of Senator Obama.

The Mobile P-R asks "(Dr Paul Hubbert) views merit pay as a threat — to what? Mediocrity and incompetence in the classroom?" Actually, he might be worried that merit pay based merely on test results don't measure effectiveness. Y'all actually wrote an Editorial recently that lamented our impoverished schools! Like John McCain with health care, y'all also recently argues higher education would be healed with "competition". I'm so confused!

As to charter schools, I'm sorry to tell the Mobile P-R they remain "public". Charter schools do get excused from NCLB foolishness and other top down requirements that are often flowing from the serious business model oriented ideas that have dominated education these last few decades but they are hardly private. The research on charter schools' effectiveness is still not clear. Here and here and ... tell the story.

I know the right wing has spent tons to try to convince people that "markets" and "choice" will cure all that ails our society. The "school choice" lies are certainly very important to many right wing funders and thus foundations. But they've not yet pushed their flawed ideas to the point that this thinking is mainstream. Y'all can pretend and write accordingly of course. But I'll stick with Dr. Caylor in that charter schools aren't a panacea. That's enough. And hardly reactionary. John Gunn

Professor Stephen Balch is earning his keep

Heck of a job Stevie? The NYT's Patricia Cohen reports Conservatives Try New Tack on Campuses. It is nice to see it admitted that the right wingers have been spending millions in their efforts. And this is just on the college campuses! Since their war against the nasty liberals is largely a paranoid fantasy, they are naturally not making a dent. Their new strategy ... "They are finding like-minded tenured professors and helping them establish academic beachheads for their ideas." Stephen Balch of The National Association of Scholars is pictured above getting his National Humanities Medals for 2007. Having Victor Davis Hanson and Richard Pipes on the same list of recipients shows how right this administration leans. 1-20-09 can't come too soon. John Gunn

Alabama's own Lilly Ledbetter in Obama Ad

Here's some liberal values for you Alabama. A tip of the tam to ReddHedd for the link. Restoring the Supreme Court to a less radical bent is of course at stake in this election and Miss Lilly helps prove that point rather nicely. Perhaps Lilly should have filed her EEOC complaint earlier yet the manner in which her case was decided still strikes me as perfectly poor form. John Gunn

If I were buying into "Big Shitpile" I'd want ...

Robert Reich is right to suggest What Wall Street Should Do To Get Its Blank Check. Of course Duncan Black first labeled this mess "Big Shitpile" and I'm afraid he's nailed the trouble. Professor Reich is right, as always, or at least damn close to "always", to say that saying "Yes" is of course required. Still, to put some conditions on this deal is more than reasonable. If the Democratic Party leadership can't handle this one then I say we need some new leaders. John Gunn

Not that many Red Staters watch SNL but ...

"Godless liberals from NYC show their determination to help the Anti-Christ win in 2008" might read the titles on various right wing sites but it has to help the Obama effort to have your campaign reduced to parody. John Gunn

Echoes of Rick Bragg from Sandy Williams

I'm a huge Rick Bragg fan. That he got his start at The Anniston Star and came from the hill country of East Alabama makes him all the more appreciated. A short story from Sandy Williams from up at Crossville appears in the B'ham News titled American farmer's scars run deep. This was a short but incredibly haunting piece that had me immediately thinking of Rick Bragg's works that I've read.I thought of how so many challenges have faced the people of the poor rural South through the years and yet also how reliably Republicans carry these areas. The contradictions are frustrating. I also thought of Edwin Markham's "The Man with a Hoe" which follows:

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

I'll hope to read more from Sandy Williams in the future. John Gunn

UPDATE ~ And Rick Foster's writing 'aint bad either. A philosophy professor from AU features in the Gray Lady and good writing in the B'ham News makes me wonder if the stars have aligned oddly for Alabama today.

NYT's coverage of Auburn University's Kelly Jolley

Coming after Auburn's loss to LSU last night (The call to not try to get that first down in the second half and instead try to throw deep will haunt me for days!) it is nice to see some positive coverage of AU. It has been twenty years since I took a philosophy course at Auburn and I'm admittedly weak in that field. Perhaps I ought to take a survey course from Professor Kelly Jolley to remedy that deficiency? Jonathan Mahler's NYT Magazine piece titled The Thinker was a good read and to have him describe Haley Center as "a dreary-looking, 10-story building that would have been right at home in Communist East Berlin" was clever and all too correct. War Eagle! John Gunn

The Goldman Sachs Tower or The White House?

I mentioned Robert Rubin earlier today. He came out of Goldman Sachs. As did current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. I'll admit some affinity for Hank's eccentric brand of environmentalism yet that matters not for the nation. He's barking up the wrong tree however for wanting $2300 from this soldier, Baby Plaid, the bride, etc. to hand over to other Wall Street swells. This is especially so with absolutely no oversight! They can't be serious can they? Then again, Bu$hCo let Big Pharma and Big Insurance write the new prescription drug legislation so why should I be shocked that Big Banking writes their own bailout. John Gunn

Another reason I'll seldom if ever darken the door

Jill posts XXXtian Babes: Behind the counter at an Evangelical bookstore near you at Feministe. Richard Land provides BAPTISTS, THE BIBLE & WOMEN: There is no "Palin predicament" for Southern Baptists or Evangelicals that shows the "reasoning" at work here. This rascal wanted Sarah Palin and St. John gave in to him and other Dobsonites. That he was "ecstatic" over her pick confirms much for this recovering Southern Baptist. John Gunn

It's Robert Rubin's fault! And also ...

I always get tickled when I hear or read claims that Bill Clinton was a "liberal" as he was a DLC Centrist at best. I've posted on my own preference for Reich over Rubin in "The Battle of the Roberts" in the first Clinton administration. And let s not forget how Uncle Alan Greenspan influenced The Clenis. To read Paul Barrett's What brought down Wall Street?: Financial crisis arose from bad choices, greed, failure to learn from mistakes makes me feel even more confident I have it right with my choice of Roberts. This Steve Weissman TruthOut piece titled How Much Change Does Robert Rubin Believe In? likewise makes me feel more certain. The question remains as to how a President Obama might govern. Perhaps this time the Reich approach will finally get a chance? With the further budget constraints of bailing out the fat cats who privatize profits yet socialize risks I'm not so certain he will have a whole lot of tools at his disposal yet hope springs eternal. John Gunn

John Mc$ame & Sarah Palin ~ The Defiant Ones?

Contrary to Robert Barnes' excuse filled piece titled Republicans Compose a New Way of Campaigning in the WaPo I'll go with the accuracy of Gail Collins' opinion labeled The Alpha Dogs Bark. She writes, "The Republicans have discovered that McCain can’t draw a crowd without Palin, and the dangers of letting her float off by herself are apparent. So the two are manacled together these days like Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in that old escape-from-a-chain-gang movie."

Ms. Collins, in writing of the financial collapses that I'd submit must be placed squarely on Conservatives' love of "the market" and "free enterprise", leaves off the fact that Senator Obama certainly has much criticism for Conservatism, Bu$hCo's crony capitalism, and St. John, yet she also provides the following:

Down in Florida, Barack Obama was also endorsing a bipartisan approach to the rescue. For good measure, he also tacked on a call on both parties to join together in backing “an emergency economic plan” crafted out of a whole bunch of things that the Republicans are never going to support in a million years.

"Fixes are for Libs Silly Democrat!" Is Senator Obama wrong to try to lead them from their foolish beliefs? That the vast majority of Republican are wrapped around their flawed philosophy is no secret yet what other options do we have but to call on them to abandon their doctrine?

As for Huggy Bear, Ms. Collins right to show he's fully in angry mode as he, or at least his handlers, know outrage and defiance if nothing else. I think that style comes somewhat naturally for St. John to boot. That he lashes out with blame while also calling for bipartisan solutions is nothing new.

Certainly Fannie and Freddie have been doling out dollars, with Senators Dodd and Obama at the top of the list, yet I notices they've generally been bipartisan in their donations. I see Alabama's Spencer Bachus and Richard Shelby for instance near the top yet given their committee assignments wouldn't expect anything different. And I'm certainly not defending any fat cats that have pocketed big bucks from their role as one of the insiders. Pointing out any connections they might have with the Obama campaign is fair game as long as Team McCain gets the same attention. Between the two, I'd trade this sort of stuff all day long.

However, my bottom line is Obama/Biden are the only two candidates remotely ready to provide the leadership necessary to craft solutions to the trouble. John Mc$ame, as demonstrated by his Bad Week, doesn't know squat about the basics, much less the complexities, of the modern economy. SnowJob SquareGlasses is perhaps ready for a right wing talk show host role yet hardly ready to be The Veep. Yup, he should have gone with The Mittster! John Gunn

John Mc$ame is against "the old boys' network''?

Given the debacle at Lehman Brothers that is hitting high notes today, perhaps Huggy could have chosen his words and setting more carefully? The Miami Herald's Mary Ellen Klas and Beth Reinhard report, "Sitting behind McCain was former Gov. Jeb Bush, who was hired a year ago by Lehman Brothers as a financial consultant. As governor, Bush served on the three-member State Board of Administration that agreed to let the state's retirement fund buy a series of mortgage-backed securities from Lehman Brothers that turned out to be troubled." Then again, St. John's relationship with Phill Gramm would cause anyone paying attention to ponder his hubris. I've been paying attention. Finally, Team Mc$ame is finally backing off lies that Governor Palin is anti-earmark and is now forced to campaign, although botching the facts and figures, on merely a "she's reduced them" theme. Team Obama and a marginally effective press forced their retreat from those lies. Additionally, for Obama/Biden to directly take on the flaws of conservatism is another postive sign. Score on for the good guys! John Gunn

UPDATE ~ Sarah Palin and her surrogates haven't stopped lying or at least stretching however.

Why stop with churches on 501(c)(3) abuse?

It turns out that I can get wireless out here in Yakima for a reasonable fee. I can't promise I'll blog and yet if I can carve out some time I just might. I think I've mentioned The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations before yet today's Montgomery Advertiser "'Pulpit Initiative' distorts reality" set me to thinking on the subject once again. Also, I found an older piece from Time that I'd previously missed. The Advertiser correctly tells us the following:

The federal tax code is quite clear on this; a tax-exempt entity may not "participate in, or intervene in ... any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."

Amen! Yet what about the tax exempt status of outfits like the Alabama Policy Institute? They, like some churches on various sides of the political divide, certainly have an agenda. And theirs is even more explicitly political! They not only provide "wingnut welfare" for young folks like Tiffany Bradley (a George Mason Mercatus alumni) plus more seasoned soldiers like Dr. Lawrence Lovik. He's actually willing to list "Wal-Mart Fellow" on his CV? He is associated with the Association of Private Enterprise Education (I can't resist sharing this link to Texas A&M's Private Enterprise Research Center as an example of how the "free enterprise" set has managed to at least get a foothold at a fair number of campuses as well) also. Dr. Lovik has also done some studying with Hillsdale College to boot.

I'm all for a fair debate and yet those supporting the "free enterprise" set that often rail against taxation are getting a write off to support "research" and "advocacy" that advance their interests! The poor and simple regular folks have a natural disadvantage here. I'm not necessarily suggesting we modify the Infernal Revenue Code but I'd at least like to think the average Bubba and Bubbette in Alabama and beyond understand the irony in how the wealthy talk one game and then walk another. John Gunn

I'll soon be crossing Snoqualmie Pass to Yakima

Tina Fey provides a perfect Palin! She'll have lots of material this cycle and God forbid if Mc$ame pulls this one off.

Finally, I'll be out of pocket until this next weekend as we'll be in Yakima. Instead of hanging out a Stryker I'll be driving a HMMWV back and forth this time. And I'll not be doing much if any training this time as "I'm a Chairborne Ranger." At least I'll likely not have to sleep in the field. Then again, I doubt I'll get any good pictures of those big vistas with my hands on the wheel.

I'll be news deprived this next week yet perhaps that will let me get a grip. These last week or ten days of seeing the GOP work their magic has shaken this Scot. John Gunn

WaPo's great graph on respective revenue plans

The WaPo, using work from the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, examines the Obama and McCain Tax Proposals. The McCain plan either is fantasy or disaster. Neither of what drives McCain's "policies" are in the best interest of this nation or the vast, vast majority of its citizenry. Nuff said? John Gunn

The Anniston Star ~ Calls BS on API's Ed "study"

John Hill is pictured to the left. Scripted answers: Twisted look at state's schools is a gem from The Anniston Star. The Huntsville Times pretty much fell for the Alabama Policy Institute's foolishness and even claimed "Hill and the Alabama Policy Institute have done the public a major service by bringing up issues others haven't been discussing." Although they are the least right of the "East Cost elites" Newhouse Triad the HT is surely right wing in orientation. After taking on the many flaws and admittedly "skewed" results, The Star however asks "So, why would the API use a model for its study that it knows will produce "skewed" results? Could it be because the results are "skewed" in the direction that the API wanted the results to go?

Yup! The Alabama Policy Institute is "in the tank". They are on Wingnut Welfare! Their Michael Ciamarra is. Bob McKee does his part. Gary Palmer surely is. And John Hill Ph. D. is as well. I can't find his qualifications yet The Google has this "John Hill is Director of Research for the Alabama Policy Institute, which he joined in 1995. He holds bachelors' degrees in Broadcasting and Bible from ..." before sending me to API's Newsletter page on their site.

Follow the money and you'll see these rascals are bought and paid for. Dobsonites that are tied to Regenry Publishing, API is openly hostile to real science yet will bend and twist statistics to suit their Corporatist and/or Christianist agendas. They have no shame. That they apparently make a living doing this on donations that are likely tax write offs makes it all the worse. John Gunn

Working hard has me Sleepless South of Seattle

I can recall my Old Daddy waking up really early as he aged even though he worked hard and was surely tired. I surely hope that's not my lot in life. I'm beat! I've been putting in twelve to fifteen hour days regularly these last few weeks trying to get our "Training Room" squared away. As one of The Chairborne, a Keyboard Commando of sorts, I'm surely stressed and yet I'm also worried about the future. Surely we need changes in the direction of this country and our world.

While I'm rather certain Obama/Biden would govern as a centrist set at best as they face a long hard slog in trying to salvage all the Bu$hCo and the last thirty years of increasingly conservative governing has wrought, I am perfectly terrified of what McCain/Palin might bring us. I'm also concerned that adding Palin to the ticket might help reduce gains in Congress although I'm still confident we'll pick up some seats. Those down ticket races are critical in running up some numbers that would make it easier to govern in the face of oppositional politics that the Republicans are masters of and the fact that Democrats are hardly as disciplined as those from the right.

Yet I'm mostly worried about how the McCain/Plain team might govern. Certainly Huggy Bear has gone right and picked up "talent" from Bu$hCo for some time. Palin's prep team is built on bedrock Bu$hies! St. John's temper, age, capacity, .. have been noted multiple times here. Yet choosing Governor Palin for his running mate says pretty much all that needs to be said. Bob Herbert is right that She's Not Ready. He writes

Ms. Palin’s problem is not that she was mayor of a small town or has only been in the Alaska governor’s office a short while. Her problem (and now ours) is that she is not well versed on the critical matters confronting the country at one of the most crucial turning points in its history.

The NYT's Editorial Pages also share Gov. Palin’s Worldview where I'll share much of what they opined.

It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness.

What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications. ...

But that is not what troubled us most about her remarks — and, remember, if they were scripted, that just means that they reflect Mr. McCain’s views all the more closely. Rather, it was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home.

Ms. Palin talked repeatedly about never blinking. When Mr. McCain asked her to run for vice president? “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission,” she said, that “you can’t blink.”

Fighting terrorism? “We must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.”

Her answers about why she had told her church that President Bush’s failed policy in Iraq was “God’s plan” did nothing to dispel our concerns about her confusion between faith and policy. Her claim that she was quoting a completely unrelated comment by Lincoln was absurd.

This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis.

In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation.

Via FireDogLake, Ian Welsh shares The United States Can’t Afford 4 More Years of Ignorance and here's just a portion:

Now the standard response to this is to scream "elitist". Screw that. When did it become fashionable in the United States to be incompetent, unable to speak in a complete sentences and not just ignorant of how the world works but proud of it? This isn't an "education" issue in the sense of credentials. Heck, I personally don't even have a bachelors degree. I don't hold lack of formal education against anyone.

But I do hold not being willing to learn how to do their damn job against them. This isn't mostly about Bush (he's running out of time to bungle the job further). It isn't mostly about Palin (though she's only a very old heartbeat away from the Presidency). It's about John McCain. This is a man who touts his foreign policy expertise as his strongest point. He says he knows how to win wars. But the number one requirement for winning wars is understanding the enemy and, as noted, John McCain doesn't even understand the difference between a Sunni and Shia. Just doesn't know. Can't learn even after being publicly humiliated by not knowing. The US has been at war in a country where there is a huge amount of violence between religious groups, and he doesn't know anything about it? How can he credibly get up on stage and say he's the better candidate on foreign policy?

Can anyone imagine Barack Obama making this mistake? Not knowing? Of course they can't. Say what you will about Obama, but he's curious, he's knowledgeable and if he needs to learn something so he can do his bloody job, he goes out and learns it.

And that's what it's about, being able to do the job. Being responsible for the economy (which McCain admits he doesn't understand) as well as foreign affairs, in which McCain is also clearly out of his depth.

He's ignorant. And if he wanted to learn, if he was willing to learn, well in the five bloody years the US has been at war in Iraq, he'd have managed to pick up the difference between a Shia and a Sunni.

Bill Clinton was famous for staying up all night reading not just the entire report (ie. not only the "executive summary", which should be labelled "for lazy idiots who don't care enough to do their job right") but also the appendices. Strangely enough, the US economy did well under him, the US was mostly at peace, and the one war he chose to fight he won with zero losses.

Can you imagine McCain or Palin doing all that work to understand exactly what was going on? Not just handing things off to advisers, but actually learning about what is happening? Actually taking the time to understand then making their own decisions? Playing different advisers with different opinions off against each other, then making the final call, not just on their gut, but because they actually understands the situation well enough that they could write the report now if they had to?

What makes this all the worse is that Team McCain/Palin will continue the Bu$hCo tradition of making shit up. Michael Cooper and Jim Rutenberg of the NYTs file McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions that sums up the latest coverage of the fact that Huggy's handlers are lying liars.

As Ian hinted above, cries of "elitist" are a standards response from today's Republican Party. Add in "liberal media" allegations pushed back by the message machine of the right, willing to bend, twist, distract even via the pages of the allegedly liberal press such as demonstrated by this morning's WaPo puff piece from Michael Abramowitz titled Many Versions of 'Bush Doctrine': Palin's Confusion in Interview Understandable, Experts Say. Relying on Condi's buddy Philip Zelikow and other conservatives to bolster his claims the closest Abramowitz came to finding a Lefty was Zbigniew Brzezinski and he's hardly a DFH. And what did Big Zig have to say? Here's the exact writing from the WaPo:

... he thought there was no "single piece of paper" that represents the Bush doctrine, but said several ideas collectively make up the doctrine, including the endorsement of preventive war and the idea that there is such a thing as a "war on terror."

It seems rather clear that pre-emptive war is the foundation doesn't it? The right can count on Charles Krauthammer coming to the rescue but it isn't like Michael Abramowitz hasn't "erred" on the side of the neo-conservatives before. Returning to Charlie K, a "psychiatrist-turned-award-winning-pundit" that is himself a neoconservative intellectual, he writes

In doing so, he (Charlie Gibson) captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

While the right often gets away with having the establishment attack the establishment, I do tire of the claims. I've covered the so called liberal media angle before, for instance how conservative columnists dominate the field, yet I'd missed Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media. It's on my wish list now however. "Corporate media" is I'd argue more accurate. Or "lapdogs" perhaps?

I'm still cautiously optimistic for Obama/Biden yet some swing states are tightening and while the GOP can't govern worth a damn they surely can campaign. If in fact Obama/Biden will push back, fight when attacked wrongly, take the initiative rather than play defense, ... but mostly embrace Progressivism/Populism then they can close the deal. Otherwise, I fear I'll have many more sleepness nights. John Gunn

UPDATE ~ Late evening of the 13th - Reading this NYT's piece on Sarah Palin will likely have me sleepless again this evening. I'm almost thinking she's Bu$h 2.0 given the reports of her governing style up in Alaska.

UPDATE ~ Early morning of the 14th - MoDo's fretting too. She closes with, "Like W., Sarah has the power of positive unthinking. But now we may want to think about where ignorance and pride and no self-doubt has gotten us. Being quick on the trigger might be good in moose hunting, but in dealing with Putin, a little knowledge might come in handy."