The County Blowhard

If you want a sampling of what a tyrannical public official with little self confidence is, read this article from Tuesday's Plain Dealer.

Geesh, so much for trying to protect taxpayer dollars and foster unfettered intellectual discourse on County programs. You can imagine how hard it is to exact budget cuts from discretionary County programs when any critique invokes the wrath of hot-headed people in power.

I will post some ideas on the much touted path to County reform shortly.

Far Right Hucksters

A Democrat is president again which means political lunacy is back in vogue.  Just like the cicadas swarm in great numbers every seventeen years reactionary fools converge to the local sports bars to plan the latest peoples' uprising when a liberal leaning president is elected.

A clip of one of one of the meetings is making rounds on the internet.  Local readers will be proud to notice the Copley High School memorabilia in the background.  I'm assuming this was the local gathering of the Glenn Beck 912 viewing party in Fairlawn.

Today's flavor of movement conservatism is a collection of two-bit t-shirt salesman.  Relegated to a series of depraved cottage industries built around a culture of fear and loathing

Here's what they're selling;

• The Tea Party movement is like the new Tupperware party fad. Find the house party nearest to you and show up with a bad attitude about government and a DIY sign. The sale of merchandise is the real pay off. Let's face it these posers will all end up paying their taxes on time.
  

• Your local gun store owner can't hear you over the din of that cash register ringing up sales. A guns and ammo boom is building via the persistent story of a looming federal gun ban. Of course rational people who actually read know that there is no serious move on a gun ban being considered at the national level. At the State level, well just look at what Ohio has done to see the right to bear lots of guns is in no way threatened.
  

• Anything that capitalizes on the fear that Obama is a socialist, communist or the second coming of Hitler is the other growth industry. A hallmark of the loony right is to label anyone diametrically opposed to their world view as a Nazi or Hitler-like. Check out the coverage of the from last week of the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot in Kentucky. to see the latest product line in Obama-is-a-fascist gear.
  

The purveyors of this fringe accoutrement know their prospective buyers can't help themselves. 

There is an entire class of consumers that need to accessorize their paranoia with shirts, books and specialty weapons.  Just marketing the product around buzzwords like collectivism, re-education, brainwashing and sleeper candidate gets the cash registers ringing up sales like it was 1995 all over again.  

I actually yearn for the black helicopter days of yore.  There's a fringe movement you can believe in.

Obama Avoids First Base

The right wing has been doing their best to read sinister meaning into President Obama's bow to Saudi King Abdullah.    

It was more likely a slip of decorum or protocol as result of being green around foreign leaders.  Or it could be as some righty prognosticators have suggested a sign of submission to our Saudi overlords.  Would there have been a controversy if he bowed a Japanese head of state?

How quickly memories fade.  It wasn't that long ago that our leaders expressed their admiration to our Saudi friends in an entirely different manner.

I hear the King has sweaty palms.  Maybe that's why Obama opted out of the hand holding.

Please Pass The Ketchup

The side yard looks like a rice paddy and the warm hints of spring from this weekend have been washed away.

We're bored out of minds here. I guess I could knock off some of the posts I have stored in my mental catalog. For now I leave you with this chestnut from Daffy Duck:

Oh, when they say I'm nutsy

It sure gives me a pain!

Please pass the ketchup.

I think it's going to rain!

Reminds me of the GOP's current working philosophy.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Rebutting the Buttheads

The official response to the passage of the stimulus bill given by Sen. Murkowski highlights the GOP 's detachment from any semblance of rational thought:

Democrats, it seems, settled on a random dollar amount in the neighborhood of $1 trillion and then set out to fill the bucket. Republicans, on the other hand, thought that we should figure out what was at the root of the problem, and then see how much it would cost to fix.”

Let's review. The objective of the stimulus plan was to fill in the projected GDP output gap. That gap is expected to be $2.9 trillion in the next three years. Okay, here's the hard part Senator. Divide 2.9 by three and you get a number close to one (trillion).

Furthermore we know what the root of the problem is. The economy is in a recession. No need to investigate that point anymore.

The Las Vegas Browns

Each year around this time we have to ask ourselves the question, does Northeast Ohio really need an NFL team?

Come on man you know it's true. This return of the Cleveland Browns thing that started in 1999 is a failed experiment. The team has been burning through coaches, quarterbacks, money and respect at an unsustainable rate. There's no end in sight to this misery and bringing in another coach won't make a difference. Bill Cowher left the league on top of his game. Why would he want risk his legacy by coming this "coaching graveyard", the Diamond Shoals of the AFC North?

Our massive investment in public dollars and human capital has not yielded a return on investment worthy of continuing the tradition of Cleveland football. It doesn't take Roldo writing the same article thirty-seven times to get that point across. There must be some large metro area drooling over the prospect of having an NFL team. They can have ours if the price is right. The agreement between the City and the Browns would have to be changed and the outstanding debt on the stadium would have to be retired.

It will not be easy letting go but the decision will give us all a clean break and the gift of starting over. There will be no team here but the Cleveland Browns diaspora has always been robust in all parts of the country so it doesn't really matter where they end up. What we'll be left with is the world's largest Browns Backers Club.

Maybe we can lure the Columbus Crew to our city. We'll have a natural turf stadium available.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Ohio's Election Disconnect

The 2008 election is in the history books but Ohio's election troubles are not. Let's just say it's a blessing in more than one way that the presidential race was not close.

Dennis Willard calls out the politically motivated Ohio Supreme Court as well as the Republican leadership in the General Assembly. He aptly labels the never partisan interference as Ohio's insane season (worse than silly season)and offers a blunt remedy:

Then, everyone involved should put down their crayons and read Election Law for Dummies before attempting to fix the many flaws in Ohio's election law.

Step 1: Set aside vanity mirror and remove such silly technicalities as you must sign and print your name or your provisional ballot doesn't count.

Finally, for once in your political careers, heed your own rhetoric and place the needs of the voter and citizenry first.

What I can't figure out is why GOP legislators and jurists turn a blind eye to the fact that election insanity hurts voters of all political stripes. None of this critique even factors in the buffoonery on display by the Ohio Republican Party (Bennett, et al) every election cycle.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Those Aren't Memes We Can Believe In

Enough on the polling and on to some lighter material. These are my two favorite ridiculous memes that have been proliferating amongst the cable pundits and the internets. Interestingly enough they are all also favorites of Joe "Morning Joe" Scarborough.

The first really cuts to the core of how this election has come to manifest itself as a runaway Obama victory. You see according to the lore, Rick Davis was running a brilliant campaign for McCain. The whole thing went south when the crisis in the financial markets took hold of the American attention span. People were no longer able to pay attention to McCain's superior national security credentials because they were losing there ass in the stock market. You got that? The McCain campaign was doing fine until the economic crisis, I mean reality intervened. If only we could have avoided any lapses into unpleasant reality, things would be much different. Maybe the current economic crisis is just another spin on the old national security concern that has multiple facets.

Then we have the consummate favorite, Palin in 2012. This one championed by righty cable talkers that have boatloads of chutzpah and a major woody for Sarah Palin. Other than that I fail to grasp why Morning Joe, Pat Buchanan (who I like) and Bil Kristol think a Palin candidacy is either plausible or likely in 2012. Other that the folksy vernacular peppered speeches and the one liners, what else did she bring to the table? Since when is hockey mommery included in the skill set to be the commander in chief. No, I think much more has been done to illustrate why she should never enter the national political stage as a contender again. The unending lying covered in exquisite detail by Andrew Sullivan is just one reason that this cannot happen. I think people like Romney, Pawlenty, Jindal, Huckabee and others would agree with this point.

Powered by ScribeFire.

49 Nifty United States

Sarah Palin has completely degenerated into self parody at this point in the race.  Could it be any more obvious that she serves no other purpose than to rile up the base at those creepy-ass rallies?  By now the media cycle has been permeated with this one liner:

"This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America..."

We sadly know the rest by now.  I wouldn't expect the MSM not to pick up this meme and repeat it,that's what they do.  What sticks in my craw is that I have yet to see one outlet at least come back and mention Saracuda's association with the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party.  When she says " the way you and I see America", does she mean one with only forty nine states?  Could at least one crummy news publication or cable show at least bring this up, just once? 

Powered by ScribeFire.

Charlie Gibson for a Day

The much awaited unveiling of Sarah Palin to the news media will begin tonight in a multi-part interview with Charlie Gibson. Now that the time of her confinement is over we can expect candidate Palin to offer up her real views on the most pressing policy questions of this election.

Is there anyone out there that doesn't think this won't be more than a " Meet the Palins" type affair? Fox News already ran one of these specials and CNN is planning to release one soon. The Associated Press has a story that touches on how ABC will package and commodify the Gibson interview into bite size ratings friendly pieces.

Gibson is having three separate interviews with Palin, ABC said. Parts of the interviews will be spread around other ABC news programs, including "Nightline" and "Good Morning America."

I'm not holding out for a hard hitting Russertesque scrubbing of her record but I can still dream. If ABC News sent the Bizarro Charlie Gibson to Alaska to interview Bizarro Hillary he would do the opposite of the real Gibson and ask hard questions that aren't about hockey or lipstick. Here are some of the questions in backwards order and quasi-Bizarro speak:

7. Will you try to have minutes of top secret Cheney Energy Task Force meetings released to the public? Why do you hate polar bears?

6. What should U.S. military do to reclaim control of Afghanistan? What is capital of Afghanistan?

5. Me want to know what contributions or edits you made to Op-ed piece on the GSE bailout that was in Wall Street Journal? Do you want to correct your statements about them being tax payer funded?

4. Me want to see if you know what the Fourth amendment (of U.S Constitution) says in regards to warrantless wiretapping. Would you ask a President McCain to revisit the FISA Reauthorization of 2008?

3. How many signing statements is too many? 800? 900?

2. How soon after December 2008 do Iraq have provincial elections? Me want to know if you think a referrendum on the status of the city of Kirkuk should be included in elections? Do you even know what that means?

1. Do you think me sexy?

Update: Andrew Sullivan links to a list of 20 questions formulated by the editors of Foreign Policy magazine. Add these to the no way in hell list.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Finally a Foothold for Obama

The McCain house party has hit the news cycle and this should be seen as manna from heaven by the Obama campaign. With the polls looking tighter and the negative adds taking there toll on Obama the momentum was on McCain's side. Being able to counter the typical GOP attacks of 'Obama's an elitist" depends on taking advantage of the statements like those made by McCain this week. Being rich is one thing. Being so rich that you have houses laying around like dirty underwear just seems out of touch with average people. That's the theme that has to be replayed over and over in order to have an impact on voter perceptions.

Of course team McCain had to hit back and they came back swinging. Unfortunately for McCain they hit like a girl (not PC, I know) and appear to be desperate for any comeback. The latest counter attack goes for the old reliable Obama - Rezko association and all that stuff. It's kind of a curious move because the Rezko material is not easy to grasp and not in your face like actually not knowing how many homes one owns. And it won't be hard for Obama to see that Rezko and raise McCain one Charles Keating. Funny how years of inside the beltway dealings leave a residue on the Senator from AZ.

Anyway Obama needs to hold on to this foothold like grim death. Let the 24 hour news cycle work for us for once and drill this one into the popular lexicon. In fact why not carry the theme of an out of touch McCain right into the convention next week?

Visiting Iraq Has Made McCain Stupid

What will Obama prove by visiting Iraq at this point in time? McCain has been using Obama's lack of taxpayer funded campaign stops to Iraq as a critique on his readiness to be president. The McCain camp is trying to make the case that Obama hasn't been to see the mess we've created in Iraq firsthand so he isn't prepared to deal with the situation. McCain even went as far as to offer an invitation to his likely opponent to join him on a visit to Iraq and referred to Obama's subsequent rejection as "fundamental misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq". Obama was also criticized for not sitting down with General Petraeus in that same McCain harangue.

McCain as we recall has been to Iraq recently. In fact the more he goes the less he seems to know about the situation or its complexities. His last trip ended up looking like a taxpayer funded campaign photo op. It of course was highlighted with McCain repeatedly confusing the nature of Sunni Al Queda and Shia Iran to the dismay of Joe Lieberman. Just today McCain misstated the troop levels in Iraq as being at pre-surge levels when they are clearly not. Further devaluing McCain's Iraq wisdom was his insistence a couple of days ago that Mosul was very calm the very same day that a suicide bombing was carried out, in Mosul. I'm not even going to go into details on last year's staged Baghdad market place theatrics. Maybe McCain should just remain stateside and get briefed on Iraq by his campaign advisers or Lindsey Graham. They could start by learning him the difference between Sunni and Shia factions in Iraq. God knows the current president would have done himself and everyone a favor by figuring that out before invading Iraq. Better yet McCain could go to the internets and read a good Iraq related blog like Informed Comment.

Now the Obama campaign is signaling that a trip to Iraq is in the works. Obama doesn't need to go to Iraq right now or sit down with a politically slanted General to prove his mettle on Iraq. What he does need to do is keep Iraq in the spotlight during the campaign and continue being smart and informed on the subject. It will also be prudent to keep the pressure on McCain and jump on him whenever he makes one of his frequent gaffes or crazy statements on Iraq like the one offered up today.

Is Joe Lieberman a Maoist?

Obama is not a Marxist. I couldn't say if Joe is or isn't a Maoist. It's certainly something that could be looked into further. I mean Marxism and Maoism are equally prevalent in today's society aren't they?

Joe's good friend John McCain is certainly not a Marxist. He just proposed relinquishing even more fiscal responsibility through more tax cuts. This time its the federal gasoline tax that is holding us back. How about we triple the gas tax and use the money to pay for your pet project in Iraq?