Christine Krissoff’s husband and sons, wrapped in prayers and armed with swords and scalpels, have served our nation with valor. So has she. So long as our nation produces families like the Krissoffs, America will remain not only the greatest nation on earth, but also the most noble in history.
Emphasis added.
The most noble in history.
You know, good for the Krissoff’s and all, but Rove’s final line, so typical for a Republican, stumbles directly into a very, very good bit by Ta-Nehisi Coates last week, responding to an almost identical statement by Liz Cheney - which suggests that this is the official new Republican line:
The best nation that ever existed in history. No conservative skepticism. No Niebuhrian humility. Now consider the resonance between that statement and this one from George Wallace which I flagged a few weeks ago:
In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.
Now, per the bold type, the equation isn’t with the racism, but with the unbridled nationalism. The worst part of Wallace’s statement isn’t the segregation part, it’s the myth, the candy that he’s feeding his audience–the greatest people that have ever trod this earth. (One could wrap the arrogance of the Lost Cause in here too, if you were so inclined.)
What you have, in both cases, is a hustle, a bait and switch, in which one claims to be hawking patriotism, but in fact, is selling jingoism. If patriotism is love of country, then much of the unquestioning GOP rhetoric fails on the rudiments. Is love of kin, love of siblings, love of spouse, telling your beloved, that they are the best person that’s ever existed in history? Or is that sycophancy, fast talk proffered by loose friends, who in your darkest hours, appeal to your worst self.
The religious right isn’t what’s wrong with the GOP. It’s the pervasive, unthinking, unreflective nationalism.
Just why is there so much debt in the Anglo-Saxon world? Bankers and regulators know well that it is in nobody’s long-term interests to have allowed borrowing to escalate to a position where the US now owes far more, as a multiple of the economy, than at the start of the Great Depression.
The answer is capitalism’s dirty little secret: excessive lending was the only way to maintain the living standards of the vast bulk of the population at a time when wealth was being concentrated in the hands of an elite.
The amount by which the elite has benefited is startling, and illustrates the problem with lightly regulated free markets: the rich get much richer while the rest do not get richer at all.
But they do get no-money down loans for homes they can’t afford, which makes them feel richer.
Put simply, the benefits of economic growth have gone into the pockets of plutocrats rather than the bulk of the population. So why has there been no revolution? Because there was a solution: debt. If you couldn’t earn it, you could borrow it.
And we did. But who ever thought this could lead to problems!
Zipper trouble for the GOP class of ‘94, “Contract With America”-types who rode into office on a wave of OUTRAGE:
In the 14 years since that star-crossed class arrived in Washington espousing an agenda that placed family values at its core, no less than a dozen of its members have been caught up in affairs, sex scandals or in messy separations and divorces from their spouses that, in more than a few instances, led to their political downfalls.
Anyone who thinks Republicans actually behave more “morally” than Democrats has spent a little too much time wandering the Appalachian Trail.
As many as one in five U.S. hotel loans may default through 2010 as the recession means companies are spending less on travel and perks, according to University of California economist Kenneth Rosen.
The value of hotel properties in default or foreclosure almost doubled to $17.3 billion in the second quarter through June 24 from $9 billion at the end of the first quarter, data compiled by Real Capital Analytics Inc. show. The New York-based research firm, which began tracking distressed commercial property in November, expects hotel defaults to increase by as much as $2 billion this quarter, said analyst Jessica Ruderman.
“Hotels without question will have the highest foreclosure rate of any commercial real estate sector,” said Rosen, who runs a real estate hedge fund with $310 million in assets and is chairman of the University of California’s Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics in Berkeley.
Hotel owners are defaulting as room rates and property values tumble and the securitized mortgage market that fueled an 88 percent gain in U.S. commercial prices from 2001 to late 2008 is dormant.
First reaction is going to be about the new downtown Marriott. But in fact hotels are going up all over the place in Lancaster County - six in East Lampeter Township alone.
But catch the tail end of this - Osama must come save America with a bomb that blows lots and lots of us up, because only that will teach America that we need to go kill more Muslims. Then Beck follows with: Which is why, if I were [bin Laden], that would be the last thing I would do.”
There’s a certain perverse logic to his idiocy, I suppose. If Osama bin Laden decides not to bomb America - that’s a bad thing.
What I make of it is that the selection of Sarah Palin was one of the most absurd, nutty, cynical and incompetent decisions in the modern history of American campaigning. And the Republican party, far from trying to understand how they made such a reckless decision, remains in total denial. Kristol and Barnes chief among them. The in-fighting is a function of both the chaotic management style of John McCain, the psycotic nature of Palin and the toujours l’audace mentality of the Kristol brigade. They all deserved each other - and the party and political tradition they have collectively destroyed.
Well, Palin was the culmination of that political tradition, or the recent political tradition. All style, agonizingly little substance. Calucluated to appeal to suburban moms and lascivious balding white men, to the GOP base. What did she know? She didn’t have to know a damned thing. She was a marketing ploy. And still is.
You know Donald Trump, I want to talk to this guy. When he was on the show just a few minutes ago I was thinking how can you not be laughing at us? How can the world not be laughing at us? We have all these resources. Why did we buy Alaska in the 1950s? We bought Alaska for the resources. And now we say no!
That’s - wait for it - Glenn Beck.
On - wait for it - Fox & Friends.
ThinkProgress attempts to correct Teh Stupid:
For clarification, Alaska was purchased in 1867 for $7.2 million and soon became known as “Seward’s Folly,” named for Secretary of State William H. Seward, because at the time it was widely regarded as foolish to spend so much money on remote tundra. (Perhaps Beck was thinking of Alaska becoming the 49th state in 1959.) The resources the U.S. was after in 1867 weren’t oil, but fish, furs, and the prospect of closer proximity to Russia from the North American continent.
Look dude, don’t waste your time. Facts don’t matter to Beck and his ilk, all that matters is they feel whatever it is to be true in their guts, so in fact it is true, so far as they are concerned, and your attempt to set the record straight is merely an insult, which they resent.
It is of no use attempting to argue with or debate this. You have facts. Beck has what he “knows” to be true. Which is going to trump the actualy truth, every time.
Linked a version of Matt Taibbi’s article on Goldman Sachs over the weekend; here’s Taibbi responding to some of the criticism he’s received - including Goldman Sachs itself - and he concludes with a few lines that I think will probably resonate on this board:
I’m aware that some people feel that it’s a journalist’s responsibility to “give both sides of the story” and be “even-handed” and “objective.” A person who believes that will naturally find serious flaws with any article like the one I wrote about Goldman. I personally don’t subscribe to that point of view. My feeling is that companies like Goldman Sachs have a virtual monopoly on mainstream-news public relations; for every one reporter like me, or like far more knowledgeable critics like Tyler Durden, there are a thousand hacks out there willing to pimp Goldman’s viewpoint on things in the front pages and ledes of the major news organizations. And there are probably another thousand poor working stiffs who are nudged into pushing the Goldman party line by their editors and superiors (how many political reporters with no experience reporting on financial issues have swallowed whole the news cliche about Goldman being the “smart guys” on Wall Street? A lot, for sure).
Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it. Given all of this, I personally think it’s absurd to talk about the need for “balance” in every single magazine and news article. I understand that some people feel differently, but that’s my take on things.
As the White House readies its plan for finding “common ground” on reproductive health issues and reducing the need for abortion, a major debate has emerged over how to package the plan’s two major components: preventing unwanted pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion.
Many abortion rights advocates and some Democrats who want to dial down the culture wars want the White House to package the two parts of the plan together, as a single piece of legislation. The plan would seek to reduce unwanted pregnancies by funding comprehensive sex education and contraception and to reduce the need for abortion by bolstering federal support for pregnant women.
Supporters of the approach say it would force senators and members of Congress on both sides of the abortion battle to compromise their traditional positions, creating true common ground that mirrors what President Obama has called for.
But more conservative religious groups working with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships say they would be forced to oppose such a plan—even though they support the abortion reduction part—because they oppose federal dollars for contraception and comprehensive sex education. This camp, which includes such formidable organizations as the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, is pressuring the White House to decouple the two parts of the plan into separate bills.
Emphasis added.
And it is indeed proof that many of the most stalwart opponents of abortions are also the most stalwart opponents of contraception - the bottom line being, they are stalwart opponents of sexual freedom, period (or “unapproved *%$$#@*, as Atrios says).
I think there is middle ground amongst reasonable people on this debate, but if these conservative groups really try to scuttle legislation that might actually reduce the number of abortions in this country, it does show that their overriding objection is not to abortion per se - but the behavior that precipitates it.
Veddy veddy interesting post over at TPMMuckraker about the unfolding health-care debate, and a report issued in May by the reform group Health Care for America Now, which - using American Medical Association data - determined that:
94 percent of the country’s insurance markets are defined as “highly concentrated,” according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that’s led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.
The state’s two largest health insurers, Highmark and Independence Blue Cross control 72 percent of Pennsylvania’s market for commercial health insurance.
Well, monopolies are usually profitable, aren’t they?
As noted by TPM, it’s important to keep this in mind as the debate plows forward, and we hear all about how the “public option” means the public won’t benefit from the competition amongst health insurers that prompts innovation and drives down prices.
The realtiy is, there is no competition. The public opion - under a different name, with less of a profit motive - may merely continue what the insurance companies themselves have already instituted.
You just live in it. From Matt Taibbi, who may be the best journalist working in America today - long, long read. Take the time:
The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They’ve been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s - and now they’re preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet.
If you want to understand how we got into this financial crisis, you have to first understand where all the money went - and in order to understand that, you need to understand what Goldman has already gotten away with. It is a history exactly five bubbles long - including last year’s strange and seemingly inexplicable spike in the price of oil. There were a lot of losers in each of those bubbles, and in the bailout that followed. But Goldman wasn’t one of them.
’bout had it with the Michael Jackson business, but this is one song that’s been going through my head ever since Thursday night. Great late-’70s funk.
