Staring into the Void of Mitt Romney

(Flickr/davelawrence8)

One of the things we?ll learn this presidential election is whether the Republican Party can survive itself. As we?ve seen in the ten days since Governor Mitt Romney picked Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, and most acutely in the last 72 hours since the fiasco involving Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin broke, the party is reaching what may be the most critical moment of its quarter-century-long identity crisis. In the way that Franklin Roosevelt did for Democrats during the 1930s, by sheer force of personality and eloquence Ronald Reagan in the 1980s resolved tensions that had riven the party for years. He could incarnate the party so fully as to invite and absolve fellow travelers who might be suspiciously less than true believers. After Reagan, no one else could do this; even as what now constitutes the conservative wing of the party invokes Reagan?s name with a sobriety that borders on the biblical, that wing has moved considerably to the right of him.

Now the party hastens to control the damage from the Akin episode. This is complicated because, as the record of the last decade makes clear, particularly among Republicans in the House of Representatives, this past weekend Akin expressed, as accurately as he did unartfully, the party?s grim view of women, with its overt implication that rape is the result of women making cavalier and surely sordid choices about their sexuality and its consequences, the conclusion being that a woman who gets pregnant by definition hasn?t been raped. Notwithstanding protests that Akin is an ?aberration,? anyone who pays even the most distracted attention knows that what he said reflects not only legislation co-sponsored by Congressman Ryan, not only evangelicals who are closing ranks behind Akin, not only ?personhood? amendments on state ballots across the country declaring an embryo a human being with full civil rights, but also the platform that the Republican Party will present to its national convention in five days, with language that replicates language from the platform four years ago and the platform four years before that. Akin is despised by the Republican establishment because his numbskullery has to do not with his convictions, which are entirely in line with the party?s, but with the guileless whim that gave them voice, rather than leaving them shrewdly relegated to less boisterous fine print in a platform that the establishment hopes will appease the party?s base while no one else notices. Whether that comes to pass next week, when the position for which Akin is being chastised this week is codified on the convention floor in Tampa, remains to be seen.

Even as the Akin position on abortion and rape has become more ruthless since the Republican convention that first nominated Reagan more than 30 years ago, the party has gotten away with it because it?s always been able to nullify the position politically. Abortion wasn?t demonstrably a factor in President George W. Bush?s narrow 2004 re-election, and it wasn?t a factor in Senator John McCain?s seven-point loss in 2008. Subterfuge will be more difficult this year. In part this is because of the Akin furor, of course; in part it?s because the furor exists in a context dramatically more difficult to disguise, following similar positions on abortion stated by other candidates who ran for the Republican nomination and the aspersions cast on a female law student by radio goon Rush Limbaugh some months back. In part it?s because the Akin position is held by the party?s prospective nominee for the second highest office in the land. Mostly, however, it?s because the party?s prospective nominee for the first highest office in the land is so spectacularly a political and ethical fraud that no one bothers arguing about it anymore. The base distrusted the party?s nominee four years ago not because it didn?t know what Senator McCain believed but because it did. It knew what he believed about torture as an American policy of war. It knew what he believed about immigration reform. It knew what he believed about campaign-finance reform.

Actually, by now the base knows what Governor Romney believes, too. By now we all know what Governor Romney believes; by now his beliefs are more manifest and less mysterious than that of any candidate who?s ever run. Governor Romney believes nothing. Politically speaking, Governor Romney is nothing. Mustering up outrage over this nothingness makes as much sense as mustering up outrage over a galactic black hole. What?s happening in and to the Republican Party this past week isn?t an aberration; it?s happening because of what the party has become and whom it?s nominating, which is someone caught between the base that he so rapaciously rushed to appease with the Ryan nomination and the other 65 percent of the country that looks at a Rorschach inkblot without seeing a splattered fetus. One of the great modern political organizations of the last century and a half, the party of not only Reagan but Dwight Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt and the greatest president the country ever had, is in the grip of a collective psychosis. Like its nominee, the party itself is caught between two political irreconcilables: its own super-conscience, with its barbaric view of human nature that calls itself moral and its hostile regard of empirical fact that calls itself spiritual; and the 2012 model of its embodiment, the nominee who has no view?of fact or humanity or anything else?that doesn?t serve the ends of his own success. When a party is as deeply stricken as the Republicans in terms of who they are, such a nominee can only be the void that stares back.             

Mitt RomneyRepublican PartyRonald ReaganPolitical positions of Mitt RomneyGovernorship of Mitt RomneyPolitics

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http://prospect.org/article/staring-void-mitt-romney

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Mitt's Nothing We Can Believe In

One of the things we?ll learn this presidential election is whether the Republican Party can survive itself. As we?ve seen in the ten days since Governor Mitt Romney picked Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, and most acutely in the last 72 hours since the fiasco involving Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin broke, the party is reaching what may be the most critical moment of its quarter-century-long identity crisis. In the way that Franklin Roosevelt did for Democrats during the 1930s, by sheer force of personality and eloquence Ronald Reagan in the 1980s resolved tensions that had riven the party for years. He could incarnate the party so fully as to invite and absolve fellow travelers who might be suspiciously less than true believers. After Reagan, no one else could do this; even as what now constitutes the conservative wing of the party invokes Reagan?s name with a sobriety that borders on the biblical, that wing has moved considerably to the right of him.

Now the party hastens to control the damage from the Akin episode. This is complicated because, as the record of the last decade makes clear, particularly among Republicans in the House of Representatives, this past weekend Akin expressed, as accurately as he did unartfully, the party?s grim view of women, with its overt implication that rape is the result of women making cavalier and surely sordid choices about their sexuality and its consequences, the conclusion being that a woman who gets pregnant by definition hasn?t been raped. Notwithstanding protests that Akin is an ?aberration,? anyone who pays even the most distracted attention knows that what he said reflects not only legislation co-sponsored by Congressman Ryan, not only evangelicals who are closing ranks behind Akin, not only ?personhood? amendments on state ballots across the country declaring an embryo a human being with full civil rights, but also the platform that the Republican Party will present to its national convention in five days, with language that replicates language from the platform four years ago and the platform four years before that. Akin is despised by the Republican establishment because his numbskullery has to do not with his convictions, which are entirely in line with the party?s, but with the guileless whim that gave them voice, rather than leaving them shrewdly relegated to less boisterous fine print in a platform that the establishment hopes will appease the party?s base while no one else notices. Whether that comes to pass next week, when the position for which Akin is being chastised this week is codified on the convention floor in Tampa, remains to be seen.

Even as the Akin position on abortion and rape has become more ruthless since the Republican convention that first nominated Reagan more than 30 years ago, the party has gotten away with it because it?s always been able to nullify the position politically. Abortion wasn?t demonstrably a factor in President George W. Bush?s narrow 2004 re-election, and it wasn?t a factor in Senator John McCain?s seven-point loss in 2008. Subterfuge will be more difficult this year. In part this is because of the Akin furor, of course; in part it?s because the furor exists in a context dramatically more difficult to disguise, following similar positions on abortion stated by other candidates who ran for the Republican nomination and the aspersions cast on a female law student by radio goon Rush Limbaugh some months back. In part it?s because the Akin position is held by the party?s prospective nominee for the second highest office in the land. Mostly, however, it?s because the party?s prospective nominee for the first highest office in the land is so spectacularly a political and ethical fraud that no one bothers arguing about it anymore. The base distrusted the party?s nominee four years ago not because it didn?t know what Senator McCain believed but because it did. It knew what he believed about torture as an American policy of war. It knew what he believed about immigration reform. It knew what he believed about campaign-finance reform.

Actually, by now the base knows what Governor Romney believes, too. By now we all know what Governor Romney believes; by now his beliefs are more manifest and less mysterious than that of any candidate who?s ever run. Governor Romney believes nothing. Politically speaking, Governor Romney is nothing. Mustering up outrage over this nothingness makes as much sense as mustering up outrage over a galactic black hole. What?s happening in and to the Republican Party this past week isn?t an aberration; it?s happening because of what the party has become and whom it?s nominating, which is someone caught between the base that he so rapaciously rushed to appease with the Ryan nomination and the other 65 percent of the country that looks at a Rorschach inkblot without seeing a splattered fetus. One of the great modern political organizations of the last century and a half, the party of not only Reagan but Dwight Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt and the greatest president the country ever had, is in the grip of a collective psychosis. Like its nominee, the party itself is caught between two political irreconcilables: its own super-conscience, with its barbaric view of human nature that calls itself moral and its hostile regard of empirical fact that calls itself spiritual; and the 2012 model of its embodiment, the nominee who has no view?of fact or humanity or anything else?that doesn?t serve the ends of his own success. When a party is as deeply stricken as the Republicans in terms of who they are, such a nominee can only be the void that stares back.             

United StatesMitt RomneyRonald ReaganRepublican PartyJohn McCainJohn McCain presidential campaignMitt Romney presidential campaignPolitics

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/mitts-nothing-we-can-believe

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CBO: Fiscal Cliff Would Cause Recession, But
Punting Fiscal Cliff Would Lead to Stagnant Economy, Too

The Congressional Budget Office released an update to their fiscal projections for 2012 to 2022. And it shows that the US will carry a $1.1 trillion budget deficit this year, down from their earlier projection of $1.2 trillion. But CBO also shows that if[...]

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Linda Lingle, Akin condemner, denied emergency
contraception to rape victims

Linda LingleRepublican Linda Lingle, running for the open senate seat in deep blue Hawaii, has been trying to portray herself as a moderate, going so far as to publish a photo of her all buddy-buddy with President Obama. So, of course, she fell all over herself running away from Todd Akin and his comments about rape and abortion.

Unfortunately for Lingle, she's got a record from her tenure as governor, and her record on rape and abortion is extreme.

When she was Governor of Hawaii, Lingle vetoed a bill that would have required hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims who wanted it, citing hospitals with religious objections. She even boasts about the veto on her website.

At the time, there was only one Catholic hospital system in the state, St. Francis Medical Center, which would probably not have received any rape victims anyway, since it did not host an OB-GYN program.

She does indeed boast about the veto on her website, here:

With the stroke of a pen, Lingle potentially denied critical health care to raped women, potentially forcing them to become pregnant by their rapists. That's just as extreme as Todd Akin, or Paul Ryan, or any other Republican.

It provides a very clear contrast in this race with Democrat Mazie Hirono, the candidate who would truly represent Hawaii, not to mention all of mainstream America, in the Senate.

Please donate $3 to Mazie Hirono on ActBlue.

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/RruDqNIondU/-Linda-Lingle-Akin-con
demner-denied-emergency-contraception-to-rape-victims

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Editor Admits That Josh Treviño Just Hired To
Fill Tasteless Fascist Void

Right wing writer Josh Treviño landed a contributor job at The Guardian, but when dozens of readers complained about his hackery, the management responded that they needed someone who understood the right wing mind. Really.[...]

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Texas Judge Warns Of 'Civil War, Maybe' If Obama
Wins

Texas Judge Tom Head is worried about what might happen if President Obama wins reelection in November. There could be riots, unrest or a "civil war, maybe," he told a local television station this week.

Because of that, the Lubbock County judge has decided the only way to prepare is to increase taxes to help beef up local law enforcement.

"I'm thinking worst case scenario now," Head said during an appearance on FOX 34 in Lubbock. "Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war, maybe. And we're not talking just a few riots here and demonstrations, we're talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy."

The judge spun the elaborate conspiracy theory while calling for a 1.7 cent hike per $100 on property taxes in Lubbock County, a measure being considered by the commission there. He said he feared Obama would hand over sovereignty of the United States to the United Nations and the unrest would naturally follow.

Under Head's theory, the United Nations would then send in peacekeeping troops to try to quell the violence and that's where he would draw the line. He vowed to stand in front of the county's armored vehicle and stare down the U.N. troops if that happens.

"And the sheriff, I've already asked him, I said, 'You gonna back me?'" the judge said. "He said, 'Yeah, I'll back you.' Well, I don't want a bunch of rookies back there. I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me."

Watch the interview from FOX 34:

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Report: GOP's Rivera Ran Democratic Primary
Shadow Campaign

Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) helped run a shadow campaign for a primary challenger for his Democratic opponent using $43,000 in secret money, the Miami Herald reports.

Campaign vendors said that Rivera helped orchestrate a mail campaign on behalf of Justin Lamar Sternad, who was campaigning against Democratic candidate Joe Garcia. From the Herald:

Interviews with campaign sources, invoices, campaign records and other documents show that Rivera personally and frequently called Rapid Mail about Sternad's mailers. During one call, Rivera directed an employee to walk outside, check the office mailbox for an envelope containing payment for one mailer, the sources said.

The envelope was stuffed with cash -- $7,800.

According to the Miami New Times, Sternard's campaign was run by Ana Alliegro, a GOP operative connected to Rivera.

Rivera's office issued a statement saying that he "has never met or spoken to Mr. Sternad and knows absolutely nothing about him or his campaign." A separate state investigation into Rivera's business dealings wrapped up earlier this year.

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ra_ran_shadow_campai.php

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Grand Jury Indicts Floyd Lee Corkins In Family
Research Council Shooting

Floyd Lee Corkins, ?the man who allegedly shot a man at the Family Research Council in D.C. last week, was indicted by a grand jury on both federal and local charges on Wednesday.

Corkins, 28, has been charged with the federal offense of interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition and a local charge of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a violent crime. The federal charge carries a maximum of 10 years, while the local charges both carry a mandatory mimimum of five years.

The suspect was not, however, charged under a D.C. hate crimes law, which offers additional penalties for crimes motivated by political bias. Corkins allegedly said words along the lines of "I don't like your politics" before the shooting.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, which opposes hate crimes on principle, has blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center's designation of the FRC as a "hate group" for giving Corkins a "license to shoot."

Corkins volunteered at a gay community center in the U Street area of D.C. and was carrying 15 sandwiches from Chick-fil-A when he entered FRC headquarters. His parents allegedly told FBI agents that Corkins "has strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner."

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l_shooting_floyd_corkins.php

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Amazing

House Republican helped finance and run a phony primary campaign against his Democratic opponent. [...]

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The Right’s Econ Guru: ‘We Need To
Combat The Idea That The Defense Dept Is A Jobs Program’

Grover Norquist

Conservative tax and spend guru Grover Norquist threw cold water on the popular claim made by those trying to preserve the Pentagon’s bloated budget that cutting military spending is a big job killer. In advancing apocalyptic warnings about the looming military spending sequestration, Republicans — led by House Armed Services Committee chairman and leading recipient of defense industry contributions Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) — have abandoned their “government spending doesn’t create jobs” mantra, saying that the Pentagon cuts will ruin the economy.

But in an interview the libertarian CATO Institute released yesterday, Norquist, to his credit, stood by the popular conservative dogma, across the board:

NORQUIST: We also need to combat the idea that the Defense Department is a jobs program. Some people who call themselves conservatives who are actually Keynesian, make work, FDR guys. They laugh at that when we see an $800 billion stimulus package. We know that’s garbage. We know that money is wasted. We know those aren’t real jobs. You haven’t created jobs. It’s just government spending that makes this country weaker. The same is true for any dollar wasted in the name of national defense. It doesn’t create jobs. It takes money out of the real economy and puts it into the government sector

Watch the interview (the highlighted portion begins at 11:00):

To be fair to the truth, Norquist is wrong that the stimulus money was “wasted.” The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said it created or saved upwards of 1.6 million jobs. And yes, Defense spending has created a job or two but the Pentagon budget is a security program not, as Norquist noted, “a jobs program,” a claim that many Republicans are now arguing.

Many experts doubt that the military spending sequester will mean massive defense industry lay-offs and have noted that, in fact, government spending in non-defense sectors of the economy creates more jobs. And CAP’s Lawrence Korb, Alex Rothman and Robert Ward pointed out that “after ten years of exponential growth in profits,” the defense industry will easily weather military budget cuts. And while the automatic $500 billion in cuts over the next 10 years is probably not the best way to reduce military spending, it’s clear that these hyperbolic warnings that they will “devastate” the military or the economy are wildly exaggerated.

But if the GOP’s go-to guy on economic issues says the right-wing argument that military spending cuts as job killer is bunk, it’s probably going to be a tough sell. (HT: AOL Defense)

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/08/22/728761/grover-dod-jobs-program/

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