Why We Never Get Through

POSTED BY JHW22

So many times I have great discussions with other Democrats and inevitably someone says something to the effect of "Republican women won't stand for that" or "Republican voters are sick of this". But when we step back and think about it, we are applying Democratic values, perceptions and priorities to their thinking.

For example, Democrats were sure that Republican women would be offended by the war on women being waged over the past year by their own party. But why? Why would we think that? Republican women don't think like Democratic women. It's not that they love their kids less or that they are heartless bitches. But, really, Republican women have different views than we do. So why would we expect a Republican woman to see the contraception debate the way a Democratic woman would? We see it as an assault on our rights. They see it as an assault on their rights. But we each have a focus on different sets of rights.

Then take Ron Paul. Democrats were convinced his newsletters would be the end of his campaign. Why? Why would we think that Republicans would see the newsletters the way we see them as opposed to the way Paul sees them? Do we think they'll all of a sudden think like us because it's such a big deal issue? No. Republicans aren't going to drastically change their life experiences and conclusions taken from them just because WE as Democrats are offended by something. There's no sensible basis to expect it. So why do we?

Today Democrats are outraged by Rush Limbaugh and his vile comments about a college girl who stood up for a woman's right to have access to birth control. He implied she is paid for sex, is a slut and apparently he wants to watch sex tapes with her in them. Democrats are appalled for good reason. But here's the deal, I don't know any Republican who listen to Rush who will say "that crossed a line". The people who listen to Rush have crossed that line plenty of times before and don't care. They do not care. So, as offended as I am by this, I wish Democrats would stop pretending we'll get through to a certain voting block by assuming they can possibly see it our way just because we think it's a big fucking deal.

Folks, if these people could see things our way, they'd be Democrats.

Welfare Drug Queens?

POSTED BY JHW22

I am just shocked when I hear, read, speak to people I consider compassionate liberals who support drug-testing for welfare recipients. Shocked. To me, it spits in the face of what we stand for as liberals. And worse, it means liberals have fallen for the Conservative trap of believing in a false frame. Suckers. Damn it.

For those of you who agree with the welfare recipient drug testing, my beefs are that the premise is based on a lot of false assumptions: falsehood that there is an overwhelming number of people on drugs getting welfare, cost-saving fallacies, and a misunderstanding of how much money these people actually get each month.

So far, in Florida, the testing is a waste of time, money and energy all at the expense of some people's dignity. It's hard enough to need welfare assistance. It's another thing to have a big chunk of your fellow Americans believe the lie that you're some druggie taking advantage of the system. Anyone who supports the drug testing, has believed one part of the big lie meant to convince you this is a good idea. And it just simply isn't. It's all a political agenda to make you focus on the people who have less of an effect on our economic woes than the people who actually DO affect our financial health in this country. As we humiliate drug-free welfare recipients, we allow multimillionaires to pay a lower tax rate than their cleaning ladies. And yet people like ME are accused of declaring a class warfare.

Seriously, think about who has the greatest effect on our country's fiscal health. It's NOT the 2% of drug-using welfare recipients.

Framing the Debate: Why Does the GOP Hate the Middle Class?

We find ourselves in the middle of an economic crossroads, arguably the hardest financial crisis the country has had to face since its founding. 3.6 million jobs have been lost since December 2007 and half of those were in the last three months alone, which means the problem is accelerating. Basically, we are facing another Great Depression if nothing is done to try and stem the tide.

And yet for the last three weeks, while debating an economic recovery bill that will attempt to create jobs, give tax breaks to middle and lower income workers and try to kick start the economy with some consumer spending, there has been nothing but resistance from the Republican Party. I really don't understand that. Are the Republican leaders in Washington so isolated that they think doing nothing and letting this economic storm run its course is the way to go? Are they so obtuse that they think corporate tax cuts, the same type of cuts that we experienced for the last eight years, are the solution to losing 600,000 jobs a month?

For all those three weeks, I personally heard nothing from GOP leaders except whining and moaning about how much this bill was going to cost our children and our grandchildren. I heard about how it was so full of pork, it wasn't really a stimulus bill. I heard about how the real way to get the economy going again was a round of tax cuts for businesses one minute and then crying that there were too many giveaways for the "corporate high rollers" the next, thank you very much, Senator John "The Fundamentals of Our Economy Are Still Strong" McCain.

And the news outlets and cable news talking heads and pundits were all too eager to frame the narrative in the same fashion, repeating GOP talking points about money for "grass on the National mall" and criticizing Medicaid family planning money as "$200 million for contraception." And after all the grousing, and President Obama acquiescing because he knew that the sooner we could get this bill passed, the sooner we could make our way back on the road to economic recovery and the better off we would all be, he still got absolutely zero support from his supposedly distinguished colleagues across the aisle.

Well, the bill passed anyway and out of all the Republican members of Congress, the bill only received three Republican votes. Three. So now it is our turn to frame the narrative. Every Democratic Congressman and Senator should be shouting this from the mountaintops:

The GOP just voted against the biggest middle class tax cuts in history!

Why does the Republican Party hate the middle class? Why are cuts for businesses and the wealthiest Americans not a problem for the GOP to vote for, but they can't bear the thought of giving a break to middle and lower income earners, the people who need it most? Keep repeating until it becomes second nature and you say it in your sleep. It's time to take over the narrative.

(H/T Bob Cesca)

Adding...

And I'm tired of hearing wingnuts complain that there wasn't time to read the bill that was written behind closed doors. Are you telling me that Senators and Congressmen don't have enough interns or staff to take the 400 or so pages that were amended and break it down into 40 page sections to get through it in an hour? They wasted their time on the news outlets crying and moaning about the "spending" in a stimulus bill instead of reading the fucking thing. They certainly seem to have time to make up lies about what's in the bill or sling mud at the Speaker of the House. Studying field mice? A Pelosi vacation trip to Europe?

Stop wasting time making shit up and start using your time constructively and do some fucking work. Sorry, I'm not going to take the "no time to read the bill" crap as an excuse when they have plenty of time to make shit up out of whole cloth, and can spare a staffer to run to the pet store for a furry cat toy play mouse to use as a prop on the House floor.

These rats are circling the drain. Next stop: November 2010.

Obama Fights Back - Washington Post Editorial

This is something we're not used to seeing from Presidents. I can't remember if President Bush wrote anything, speeches, editorials, a book report on "My Pet Goat"?

President Barack Obama took his pen to paper and wrote an editorial regarding the economic struggle that we find ourselves in and the urgency of passing the Economic Recovery Bill currently in the Senate in the Washington Post today.

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Now, some will say that this is beneath the President. Why is he writing editorials in the Washington Post? The answer is because he can. I don't know if it's my perception or if the media is following Obama with a fine tooth comb, but I don't ever recall any President having or maybe wanting this much media access to bring his message directly to the American people. There he was on all the nightly newscasts answering for the Daschle withdrawal. Have you ever seen anything like it? With this President the words, "The buck stops here," isn't just a funny little catchphrase. He actually means it.

Some will suggest that the editorial sounds like fearmongering. I vehemently disagree. The President's editorial isn't fearmongering if there is truth to it. There are no false qualifiers here, no deception, no lies to persuade. We are in deep, deep trouble and every day we wait it gets worse. There is no falsehood to that. There's a difference between laying out the dire circumstances for all to see and fearmonging to scare up votes by saying something like, "...if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." See the difference?

I also disagree with those who think that President Obama didn't have to send this message. So far, this recovery bill has been based on the framing of the argument. The Republicans have framed the debate on this bill as "pork laden." Rush Limbaugh calls it "porkulus" in front of 14 million weekly listeners. (And he certainly know something about porkulus.) The GOP has capitalized and zeroed in on a fraction of one percent of the recovery bill for their political advantage and framed the entire bill it as a pork laden wish list. They public thinks it looks like pork because the Democrats are sitting back while the Republicans, with the blatant or inadvertent help of the media, are framing it as wasteful spending. And if the public gets that perception, then that's what they'll believe because the media is never wrong. Where is the rebuttal from Democratic leaders explaining why these measures are in the bill?

$200 million for Medicaid on contraception will save $60 billion in government medical costs in the future. Sounds like a good investment. $21 million for the National Mall will put arguably thousands to work to repair the crumbling foundations of our national monuments. But the GOP calls this "$21 million for grass." The list goes on and on, and instead of the Democratic leaders rebutting these ridiculous pork notions, they are either nervously wringing their hands in silence or aren't getting the air time to rebut. The only Congressman I saw defending contraception was Robert Wexler (D-FL), who explained it rationally and logically on Hardball with Chris Matthews. And when he was done, he still got a "I don't understand what you're talking about," from an obtuse Phil Gingrey, the same Congressman who's apologized to Rush Limbaugh for his brief moment of clarity.

Maybe the President did make one mistake. In the interest of bipartisanship, President Obama compromised too much; he backed off to a fault with initial GOP resistance and it was perceived as a validation of Republican complaints. But what happened? After he accommodated them, House Republicans rejected the bill anyway. And the more it went on, the more we saw the political endgame that they would have rejected it no matter what the President did just to send a message.

Well, now it's the President's turn to send a message. It's the Democratic leaders' turn to send a message and make the obstructionists decide that if they really want to fight this thing, they're going to have to filibuster for it. No pansy ass cloture votes. Make them filibuster.

The only mistake the President made regarding the Washington Post editorial was not going far enough. This was a statement that needed to be made on prime time television in front of a national audience.

The McCain-Obama Faith Faceoff

[Updated below.]

Barack Obama and John McCain met in Saddleback last Saturday evening at the behest of Dr. Rick Warren, an evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church in California to discuss faith. I really didn't give this forum too much thought. Why should I? Separation of church and state and all that. Besides the fact that Obama was sitting in front of a religious, conservative crowd (not his base, shall we say) and McCain was the odds on favorite to do well (or at least it would be perceived that way regardless) I wasn't really interested in this forum. In my mind, religion is religion and politics are politics and never the twain shall meet.

But now that the "reviews" are out and giving McCain the "victory" in the forum, many have reported that there were anomalies in the situation. For example, the McCain campaign is up in arms over the allegation that they had overheard the questions being asked of Obama which would put McCain at an advantage. That allegation was brought up by Andrea Mitchell, who accurately reported that McCain "may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama." And as the McCain campaign itself admits, McCain wasn't even in the holding location for the first segment of the forum while Obama was answering questions.

Whether that crap is true or not is completely irrelevant, in my opinion. What was important however, were the questions that were asked and how they were framed. As John Perr reports:

...there is no dispute. Despite CNN’s assurances to the contrary, Rick Warren simply asked Barack Obama and John McCain different questions.
From the very first question, Warren treated McCain with biblical kid gloves, editing out scriptural references that might have proven uncomfortable for the religiously reticent Republican:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: These first set of questions deal with your personal life as a leader and I’m not going to do this with any other segment, but as pastor I’ve got some verses that have to do with leadership. The first issue is the area of listening. There is a verse in Proverbs that says fools think they need no advice but the wise listen to other people. Who are the wisest three people you know in your life and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: This first question deals with leadership and the personal life of leadership. First question, who were the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?

...Given the very different framing of the question Warren posed, it’s no surprise that Barack Obama and John McCain produced strikingly different responses in both substance and style. Obama took Warren’s personal question personally, and cited his wife and grandmother as both “wise and honest” before moving on to a litany of political figures on both sides of the aisle... For his part, McCain responded to Warren’s political question and pointed to General David Petraeus, Obama supporter Congressman John Lewis and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

...And so it went all night. Thanks in no small part to Pastor Warren’s biblical guidance, Barack Obama spoke in a personal, conversational style, making a point throughout to refer to the principles of his Christian faith in the misguided attempt to please an audience indifferent to him at best, downright hostile at worst. So while Barack Obama talked of “trying to do God’s work,” John McCain did the work of his campaign advisers. Despite Warren’s feeble requests not to do so, McCain just repackaged his stump speech and made purely political appeals. In so doing, John McCain probably had the best night of the campaign.

UPDATE (9:55pm): The Rude Pundit has more on the subject - Riding Rick Warren's Saddleback

And an e-mailer sent this to Bob Cesca regarding McCain's answer to the "greatest moral failing" question:

How is it that McCain gets to answer the good pastor Warren as to his greatest moral failing with "the failure of his first marriage"? Marriages sometimes fail, and for a variety of reasons, but the failure of a marriage is, in and of itself, NOT a moral failing, let alone a personal one inasmuch as there were two people in the marriage.

This answer is just a shuck and jive of his real moral failure, which was his disloyalty and infidelity WITHIN that marriage, purportedly while his first wife was particularly vulnerable and in need of support of various stripes, none of which included perfidy or ostensible turpitude, nor by implication including her in the moral failure because she was his wife and that marriage failed!

He obviously is incapable of taking ANY responsibility with this answer. ...This guy McCain is a mess, war hero or not.