Pat Robertson, Voice Of Reason And Compassion?

Rick Santorum's view of a San Francisco family... 

 I know.  It's disturbing.

The Sweater Vest of the Blessed Virgin is off again.

Shortly after telling Puerto Ricans that they needed to learn English in order to become a state (Hey, Rick, they've voted frequently on the issue of statehood.  They don't really want it.), he decides to double down on the dumb.

The SVotBV has declared a war on pornography.  I am sure that a war on pornography will be just as successful as the War on Alcohol (1918-1933), the War on Drugs (1972-present) and the War on Terra (2001-the end of time).

Of course, there is this chart that suggests the real problem.  The chart shows that in rock-ribbed Red states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas you have more internet searches for "free gay porn" than for "God".  Although to be fair, who uses the internet to find God?  That's what peyote is for.

Santorum's moral busybodiness has perhaps reached its apex.  Declaring war on porn is like declaring war on bad weather.  Hopefully for him, however, the reflexive hypocrisy of the average GOP voter will allow them to cheer on Santorum's anti-porn jihad, vote for him, then go home and look up "free gay porn" on Google.

How weird is it getting out there?  We're fighting about the morality of freaking contraception?  About the legality of porn?

But it gets weirder still.

Here is Pat Robertson saying we should decriminalize marijuana.

And here is Pat Robertson saying oral sex is OK within the confines of marriage.

Bong hits and BJs for Jesus!

Here's A New Song, Same As The Old Song

Boehner's taking hostages again.

When I say that John Boehner is the worst Speaker in the history of the House, I don't want you to think that I'm simply engaging in partisan name calling.  I think there is some objective truth to this.

Let's look at the latest Boehnerian train wreck.

Last August - as we all remember - the House and the White House finally worked their way out of the blind alley that the Teatards had led the country during the debt ceiling debacle.  They worked out a deal to put off further nastiness until after the 2012 election.

Now, the House GOP leadership is going to break that deal.

Speakers in the past exercised great control over their parties.  "Czar" Reed - the powerful Gilded Age Speaker - did not get that name because he was descended from the Romanovs.  Henry Clay rose to prominence as Speaker.  So did James K. Polk.  Recently, Tip O'Neill was the ultimate power broker in DC.  Newt Gingrich - despite his penchant for delusions of grandeur and staff-banging - was quite powerful for a while there.  Pelosi shepherded through an historic amount of legislation.  And while Hastert was kind of an empty suit, he at least kept his party in line.

Some of Boehner's problems can be directly attributed to the rise of the Tea Party and the takeover of the GOP by the old John Birch Society.  As a result, he is presiding over a caucus of civic illiterates and bomb throwing reactionaries.  Henry Clay couldn't find a compromise with these yahoos.

But other parts are simply the fact that he's an incredibly weak leader.  He has tolerated a level of insubordination and back-stabbing from Cantor that any previous Speaker would have dealt with using a lead pipe, duct tape and a tub of quick hardening cement.  Cantor has simply been a rank opportunist, vis a vis the Teatards, but that doesn't excuse his incredible disloyalty to the Speaker.

This is the crack-up of the Reagan Coalition in real time.

But what it means for all of us is another potential government shutdown.  If that happens, it could potentially derail the economic recovery, just as it's picking up steam.  Then, we would have to wait and see if the electorate will step up and punish those people who tanked the economy again.

That's a bit of a frightening proposition.

Mitt's The Reasonable One?

Mitt Romney came out today saying he wanted to shut down Planned Parenthood.

If anyone is saying, "Mitt's the sane candidate."  Just let that one sink in.  He wants to end a program that brings a ton of health services to low income women - not just birth control.  Ask the good people at Komen how Planned Parenthood spends its money.

The counterargument will undoubtedly be, "Well, he just has to say that to get elected."

Bullshit.  He doesn't get off that easy.  I know "all politicians lie" is a trope.  But some of that lying is really just the reality of campaigning versus the reality of governing.  I don't think Obama lied when he said he would close Gitmo.  I think he tried, and 99 Senators said, "Bah!  Scary terrorists!"  And that was that.

Romney probably IS lying in that he doesn't really WANT to close down Planned Parenthood.

But that doesn't mean he won't try like hell to do it should he get elected.  Because if Romney has taught us anything about himself it is that he is perfectly willing to throw over whatever principles he may have had if it means increasing his vote share amongst the GOP base.

So let's say the unthinkable happens.  Romney wins and the GOP wins the House and Senate.  The House and Senate pass a law outlawing Planned Parenthood or something similarly ridiculous.

Are you telling me that the invertebrate that is Willard Romney is going to veto that thing?

Please.

Your Moment In Keynes

The chart you are looking at compares changes in government spending under Reagan and Obama in their first terms in office.

Both men inherited soft economies that went south.  But Reagan's soft economy was caused by extraordinarily high interest rates as Volcker and the Fed were crushing the inflation of the late '70s.  The prime rate was over 20% at times during that crisis.

Still, but the third quarter of '82, Reagan was in the process of benefitting from a massive uptick in governmental spending.  Most historically and economically literate people know that World War II ended the Depression.  And what Reagan did was a massive military build-up (that had begun under Carter).  That's Keynesian spending, folks.

And as the Fed relaxed interest rates, so to did the influx of government spending lead to the Reagan Boom.

Meanwhile, Obama has inherited a much uglier economic picture.  Financial panics are nasty things with ugly fallout.  The Federal Reserve has, I think, behaved brilliantly in this crisis and kept the economy from entering free fall.

But overall, government spending - that is to say planned deficit spending during a recession to stimulate demand is declining.  It's worse in Europe, which is why Greece, Italy and Spain are in such trouble.  But it's bad here, too.  It's almost entirely the fault of the "Fifty Little Hoovers" in the statehouses around the country.

If it wasn't for the evisceration of government spending, we would be in a full bore recovery and unemployment would likely be around 7%.

It makes you wonder if that isn't perhaps the point.

Tonight's Clown Car Rest Stop

I know right.

The Clown Car stops in Missibama tonight.

In some ways, this is redundant.  Philosophically, the GOP campaign has never been out of Missibama.

Best result for Dems?  Santorum wins both, Gingrich finishes third in both.  Tough for the Salamander to survive that.

UPDATE 1: Alabama, 27.3% reporting: Santorum 34.7%, Newt, 29.6%, Mittens 28%.
Mississippi 58.4% reporting Santorum 32.8%, Newt 31.7%, Mittens, Romney 30.1%.

In Mississippi, Rick Perry has 1,152 votes, Bachmann 833 and Hunstman 353.

Hunstman?

UPDATE 2: The Sweater Vest of the Blessed Virgin has won Alabama according to NBC.  Mississippi too close to call still.

UPDATE 3: Hawaii also has a primary tonight, but as someone said, "For all the GOP cares, Hawaii could be in Africa."

UPDATE 4: I'm betting on Mississippi for the Sweater Vest of the Blessed Virgin.  (Fox calls it for Santo)

UPDATE 5: On to Missouri.  Santorum romped in the beauty pageant primary there, but it was non-binding.  These two wins should help him.

The Doonesbury Cartoons You Won't Be Seeing In The Paper

http://twitter.com/#!/tbogg/status/179634783738019840/photo/1/large

Can We Come Home Now?

After the shooting rampage in Afghanistan a lot of people are legitimately saying, "Why the hell are we still in Afghanistan?"

This particular incident lacked the sheer volume of, say, My Lai, but let's just agree that when you start comparing the actions of American soldiers to My Lai, it's time to question why you are comparing them to My Lai.

In the past month, we have reports of American soldiers urinating on dead Afghans, burning Qurans and killing civilians.  Meanwhile, Afghan soldiers - the ones who we're supposed to be training - have started shooting at us.

Other commentators have noted that this sort of horror is an inevitable by-product of warfare. The shooter apparently suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury in Iraq but was recycled back into active duty because wars need bodies.

By coincidence, I was speaking to a parent of one of the kids on the Things' soccer team.  He works with people with TBI.  I asked him if he was seeing more veterans, and he said for years veterans basically stuck to the VA for this sort of thing.  But that now the state agency was starting to see more veterans.  He also said that in the past, TBI was lumped into PTSD.  The sort of rage problems that we associate with PTSD could just as easily be caused by TBI.  We also are hearing that the military is pressuring its own medical personnel to avoid giving TBI/PTSD diagnoses.  So, basically, veterans are abandoning the VA because the VA is having trouble coping with the new flood of TBI/PTSD issues it has to wrestle with.

The dead Afghan children are the fruits of this policy.

There is so much wrong with these wars that it's difficult to calculate.  Afghanistan was an unpleasant necessity, but it was botched and shorted in favor of a war of choice in Iraq.  Rather than fight one war competently, we fought two incompetently.  Now we have no way of 'winning' in Afghanistan, if there ever was a way to win in that benighted country.

These wars - fought without real calls of sacrifice from the nation as a whole - are low points in our nation's history.  We asked a thin slice of Americans to bear unbearable burdens for the rest of us.  Now those people are injured in ways that we cannot see superficially.  They are wounded in mind, body and spirit.

These - America's longest wars - won't be over, even if the President embraces sanity and speeds up the withdrawal.  We will have numerous scars as a country to try and heal over the next two decades.

God help the men who started this.  From the terrorists who started it in Afghanistan to the Neo-cons who took us into Iraq.  They have the pain and suffering of millions on their heads.

UPDATE:  This would be funny if it weren't sad.

Your 2012 GOP

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/ppp-poll-gop-voters-in-al-ms-think-obama-is-muslim-unsure-about-interracial-marriage.php?ref=fpblg

A plurality (45%) of self-identified GOP voters in Alabama believe Obama is a Muslim.  In Mississippi, we get a majority (52%).

BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!

Again among GOP voters in Alabama, 21% think interracial marriage should be illegal.  In Mississippi that number is 29%.

Roughly two thirds in both states do not believe in evolution, or to put it another way: modern science.

I think this is also a good take:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/03/12/the-masquerade-is-over-2/

If you vote for the GOP, you are probably either lying to yourself or you secretly believe things which you can't admit in public.

The GOP is not about small government.  It's about punishing poor people and minorities and funneling money to the richest Americans.

The GOP is not about freedom and liberty.  It's about the ability of one group of people to tell another group of people how to conduct their sex lives.

The GOP is not the party of Lincoln.  It's the party of racism.

And you don't get to al a carte this crap either.  You don't get to say, "Well, I don't agree with Rush Limbaugh."  Because when you vote for the GOP, you are voting for people who will bend over backwards not to offend Rush Limbaugh.  You are voting for state legislators who will try to mandate forced penetration of a woman - state mandated rape.  You are voting for a GOP House who has held innumerable votes to defund Planned Parenthood but hasn't addressed the unemployment situation accept as a bargaining chip to get tax cuts for rich people.  You are voting for a party that wants to bomb Iran yesterday.

Just because you don't like ACA or think Obama shouldn't use executive power like Bush did doesn't mean that voting for the GOP or not voting at all absolves you from the freak show that is the modern GOP.

UPDATE: Mas loco.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/how-romney-overcame-his-sanity-to-win.html

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Spent my first morning on real vacation (no school work, no kids) doing chore stuff.  Primed the front hallway to finally cover over some water stains from the previous winter.  Fixed the wheel barrow.  Turned a tequila bottle into a lamp.  Submitted Flex Plan reimbursements.  Cut some more firewood from the downed limbs from the October blizzard.

Of course that last bit is the chore that never ends, because I have a battery operated chainsaw and I can only make a few cuts before the batteries die.  Still, last night I got to sit outside at the firepit we stole found and read David Foster Wallace by a crackling fire.

Frankly, politics has become boring at the moment so until someone in the GOP says something stupid or outrageous, I'm out until they do.

Probably about a half an hour or so.

Walking Dead Reax

So long, Shane.  Thanks for making things... interesting.

A few things from the graphic novels coming to pass.  First there is Shane's death, which happened early on in the graphic novels.  They made a smart choice dragging it out, but with Dale dead, in some ways Shane becomes superfluous.

Also, we learn what Dr. Jenner must have whispered in Rick's ear at the end of Season one: Everyone is infected.  When you die, you come back, whether bitten or not.

Looks like our hardy band will be hitting the road after next week's episode, which might be the season finally.

Next stop?  Probably a prison.

What A Load Of Garbage

TPM bring us the winners of the Architectural Wank-A-Thon 2012 Skyscraper Competition.  Most of these things look really cool and completely impossible.  They are similar to the sort of "plans" Thing One comes up with for his dream tree house.

Still this one is really cool.  It's a vertical landfill whose towering presence is to remind people about the waste they produce while simultaneously creating renewable energy.

I also liked this one.  It's designed to be a recycling plant in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

On the other hand, this one...

What's The Matter With Kansas?

Santorum rolls to a full sweep.

Kind of hope that propels him to a win in Mississippi.  Alabama looks safely Newtified.

I would really like a Romneybot vs. Sweater Vest of the Blessed Virgin cage match.

Vacation, And The Endless Depression Of Sports

Play baaaaarrgh.

I finally ended my winter term work, although I have 23 research papers to read at some point.  They don't have to be read for a few weeks, so I can relax for a few days, do chores, read for pleasure, maybe catch a movie.

Politics seem to be entering a bizarre feedback loop.  The GOP primaries are inconclusive.  Then some GOP mouthpiece or state legislator does or says something mind-bogglingly stupid.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is also the great dry season for sports.  OK, there is March Madness, but I really can't motivate myself to get interested in it.  I'll watch some games, but my interest is transitory.

In baseball, we have spring training, which from a Braves fan's point of view is simply an opportunity to relive the horror of last September.  Every loss (and their record is something like 1-8) means that the decision to stand pat and not blow up the team relegates the Braves to the status of the Astros or Pirates.  Every tweak, every time a regular sits with "stiffness" becomes a season ending injury.  Usually, spring training is a time of hope.  For Braves (and Red Sox fans, too, I imagine) it's a time of dread.

In football, we at least have the pleasing diversion of the Saints imploding.  But again, given the way the Falcons' season ended, the lack of real progress towards fixing the holes apparent from last year is maddening.  And without a first round draft pick, you can't even look forward to the draft.

Meanwhile, the Things play indoor soccer, and though Thing One is quite talented and Thing Two works like a demon to keep up with the older players, the fact is... well, they lose a lot.

I've grown up as a sports fan.  I no longer freak out (so much) when things go poorly for the athletic team of my choosing.  Sports add unscripted drama.  They can be heroic or cathartic or tragic.

And sometimes they can just sit there, like a 300 lb sumo wrestler in a bad mood.

So, About The Electoral Gaps

As has been noted below, the GOP electorate in 2012 is much paler and grayer and penisier than their electorate in 2008. Voter turnout, despite a competitive (I guess that's the word) primary, there are fewer people headed to the polls to hold their nose and vote for the candidate who upsets them least.

Part of that is simply the fact that the GOP is basically carrying on a conversation from 1980 with itself.  I mean, they are even trying to call Obama "the Black Jimmy Carter".  They are so desperate for another Reagan moment, that they are forcing the old playbook on the current world.

First, they are demagoguing Social Security and Medicare.  And that's not fair.  Only Democrats should be allowed to do that.  But this goes back to the basic trope from the ACA fight and the Tea Party's rise: "Keep the government out of my Medicare!"

To today's seniors, Medicare and Social Security are something they earned during their lifetimes.  They put this money away, and now they deserve it.  The problem is that's not true.  That's not how these programs work.  My Social Security and Medicare taxes go to my parents and their friends.  My kids' taxes will go to me.  These are not saving accounts that sit in a dusty vault in DC somewhere.  They are an intergenerational transfer of wealth.

And that's OK.  But to accept that is to accept the basic premise of a welfare state, and that would create too much cognitive dissonance in their gray and wrinkly heads.  They cannot understand that THEY are the beneficiaries of the welfare state.

But the current rhetoric of the GOP is trying to whip up fear in the Granny Set that Obama will come and steal that money from them.  Of course,the money that isn't there, it's coming out of my paycheck.   To help with this, ACA set up a reasonable way to control costs within Medicare. Republicans are trotting out the "death panel" nonsense again, as if changing the way we pay for procedures is exactly the same as getting off the train at Auschwitz.

More broadly, the debate about "my money" going to "those people" is at play here, too.  Mitt Romney's response to a college student: "Don't ask the government to help you with your student loans." is not, as Professor Krugman suggests, really about ignorance.  It's about "my money" going to "those people".

And to the old, white Republican, college is increasingly a liberal plot to force evolution and condoms down their throat. (Ew.  Sorry about that last one.)  So I don't want "my money" going to help "those people" get a college education.  Even though college educations are increasingly important.  And even though we ALL pay for things we don't want.  I'm not happy that we went to war in Iraq and are still in Afghanistan.  But I still pony up my share.

What's remarkable is that "those people" are traditionally imbued with greater melanin.  When Reagan talked about "welfare queens", he was not referring to that moocher Elizabeth II.  He was talking blackedy black black black.  And "immigration" is not a reference to your great grandfather Patrick O'Toole.  It's about brownedy brown brown brown.

This assault on the college aged - both rhetorically by Romney and Santorum, through the hatred of OWS and the efforts to disenfranchise college aged voters - is remarkable because "those people" look a lot like your kids and grandkids, people.  The need for more and more "those people" has now brought their own children and their crippling college debt into the firing line.

And you know who else is "those people"?  Pre-menopausal women.  But I think the last two or three weeks has well established this last point, so I won't belabor it.

The changing demographics of the electorate have been a big topic for a few years.  It certainly figured into Obama's election.  But in their fervor to appeal to the rump of the GOP, the presidential contenders have embraced a set of positions that is just bizarre to anyone under 55 or who doesn't get sunburned falling asleep under a reasonably powered lamp.  Whether it's Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare, Romney's drop dead to that college student, Santorum calling on an end to any public funding of contraception, all of their positions are designed to appeal to old, white people.

It is difficult to see how this creates a winning coalition in November.  Indeed, it would suggest a Democratic takeover of the House.

I guess we shall wait and see on this, and inevitably there will be a pivot to the center once Mitt finally wraps up his triumphal campaign against two guys whose national campaign offices are the back booth at a Denny's somewhere.

We are in cloud cuckoo land right now.

Yeah, This Will Be A Problem For Them

The ultimate teaser.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/09/1072522/-Republican-primary-voters-older-over-90-white?via=blog_1

My favorite part is how the GOP wants to protect Social Security and Medicare for the old farts on it now, but gut it for those under 50.  Meanwhile, Mitt Romney tells a kid, "Screw your college ambitions!"

I'll follow up at length when I'm finished with me comments.

Consider this a teaser post.