There are, as everyone knows by now, two Joe Bidens.
There is the generally competent and affable, if long-winded, vice president we actually have.
And there is Onion Joe, creation of the satirical newspaper the Onion, who has been banned from every Dave & Busters and likes to wash his Trans Am in the White House driveway.
The only trouble is that occasionally Onion Joe intrudes into the actual world. Take the already widely circulated clip from Danville, Va., of Vice President Biden telling voters (the town, the L.A. Times notes, is about 50 percent black) that the Republicans are “going to put y’all back in chains.” …
This is, quite frankly, not the sort of thing a Serious Person could ever say and hope for anything less than a public pillorying… .
Can he hear himself? you wonder. You cannot help feeling that if he could hear himself he would stop at once.
That is the trouble with Joe.
He inspires the sort of discomfort one feels upon introducing one’s fiance to Grandpa after he has had a scotch too many.…
It is not that Tipsy Grandpa has any sinister intent. It is just that his list of Acceptable Ways To Phrase Things has not been updated since 1943 or so. Routinely, in the company of the family, he makes Pole jokes and everyone laughs politely. Sometimes, when the spirit moves him, he recites limericks that imply his opinion of the Irish is low… .
I am not saying this to excuse Onion Joe’s periodically alarming outbursts. And sometimes he is completely right. But my instinctive response is to wince apologetically at his cringe-inducing gaffes, not denounce the man. He inspires less anger than embarrassment.
“All right,” you say, after he finishes. “Well, that was — very — informative, Joe. Who wants dessert?”
Except he’s the vice president.… Sure, the veep may have no real authority, but the position does at least mean one thing: People are listening. Your words matter.
So except for occasionally presiding over the Senate and possibly running a duplicitous shadow government, the main requirement of the job is simple: Shut up. Don’t make wild, flailing statements that will do no one any good. Better to keep silent and be thought a gaffe-prone Onion parody than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Obama campaign petitioned IRS to investigate conservative groups
Well, well! Lookie here!
Obama’s use of the IRS to bully his enemies started before he even became the President. In 2008, during his first Presidential campaign, his campaign wrote letters to the IRS demanding that they investigate Obama’s political opponents.
from Wall Street Journal:
On Aug. 21, 2008, the conservative American Issues Project ran an ad highlighting ties between candidate Obama and Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground. The Obama campaign and supporters were furious, and they pressured TV stations to pull the ad—a common-enough tactic in such ad spats.
What came next was not common. Bob Bauer, general counsel for the campaign (and later general counsel for the White House), on the same day wrote to the criminal division of the Justice Department, demanding an investigation into AIP, “its officers and directors,” and its “anonymous donors.” Mr. Bauer claimed that the nonprofit, as a 501(c)(4), was committing a “knowing and willful violation” of election law, and wanted “action to enforce against criminal violations.”
AIP gave Justice a full explanation as to why it was not in violation. It said that it operated exactly as liberal groups like Naral Pro-Choice did. It noted that it had disclosed its donor, Texas businessman Harold Simmons. Mr. Bauer’s response was a second letter to Justice calling for the prosecution of Mr. Simmons. He sent a third letter on Sept. 8, again smearing the “sham” AIP’s “illegal electoral purpose.”
Also on Sept. 8, Mr. Bauer complained to the Federal Election Commission about AIP and Mr. Simmons. He demanded that AIP turn over certain tax documents to his campaign (his right under IRS law), then sent a letter to AIP further hounding it for confidential information (to which he had no legal right).
The Bauer onslaught was a big part of a new liberal strategy to thwart the rise of conservative groups. In early August 2008, the New York Times trumpeted the creation of a left-wing group (a 501(c)4) called Accountable America. Founded by Obama supporter and liberal activist Tom Mattzie, the group—as the story explained—would start by sending “warning” letters to 10,000 GOP donors, “hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.” The letters would alert “right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.” As Mr. Mattzie told Mother Jones: “We’re going to put them at risk.”
The Wall Street Journal describes Obama as the “pioneer” of using the IRS to bully political opponents. And somehow we’re supposed to believe that the IRS targeting didn’t start with Obama himself?
We know for a fact that Obama met with the head of the Treasury Employees Union in the White House the day before the IRS targeting started in the Exempt Organizations branch. Now we can see that was just a continuation of a deliberate strategy that Obama set out using in the campaign.
It’s time for a special prosecutor. It’s time to subpoena all communications between the White House and the IRS. And it’s time to start deposing everybody who worked at the White House and Obama’s campaign since day one.
IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 2012 election
Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said organizations that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status were singled out for additional reviews.
Shocking news! This NEVER, EVER happens!
</sarcasm>
Tea Party Test Case
Republicans win when they stay true to conservative principles, conservatives claim after every Republican defeat. (examples here, here, and here ). As Texas Gov. Rick Perry said at this year’s CPAC, “”You need to nominate conservatives if you’re going to win elections. You can’t do it with moderates or even moderate conservatives. Americans want the real thing.”
We’ll soon see. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the real thing: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
Cuccinelli not only disputes climate change. He has challenged the EPA’s endangerment finding in court and hounded climatologist Michael Mann over emails.
Cuccinelli not only opposes gay marriage, he considers homosexuality “intrinsically wrong.”
He not only opposes tax hikes, he has challenged Virginia’s new transporation funding plan, which was championed by the state’s Republican governor, Bob McDonnell.
He not only opposes abortion, he equates it with slavery. He not only dislikes Obamacare, he was the first AG to file suit against it.
And the tea party movement treats him like a rock star.
In short, you can’t get much more purely orthodox than Cuccinelli on the big conservative hot-button issues. There is not the slightest chance that he will risk losing by moving too far to the center. So, as political analyst Robert Holsworth told the Washington Post, that makes him “almost a test case of the argument that Republicans win when they don’t trim their beliefs.”
The only flaw in the experiment may be Cuccinelli’s opponent: Democrat Terry McAuliffe. In Virginia’s last gubernatorial election, McAuliffe came in a distant second in the Democratic primary. He is not, to put it gently, the most formidable candidate the Democrats could field. So if Cuccinelli wins, he may owe part of his victory not to his strong views but to his weak opponent.
The Miketopus
“Nobody on the left really believes what they always say about campaign contributions and spending,” contends former FEC chairman Bradley Smith. “… It turns out that the ‘reformers’ do not believe money is corrupting. Rather, they believe that their political opponents are corrupt.”
Smith was writing about President Obama’s decision to support Super PACs. But a year later, he could point to another salient example: Michael Bloomberg.
New York’s mayor spent $2 million from his Super PAC earlier this year to sway the outcome of a Democratic congressional primary in Chicago. It worked: Robin Kelly beat Debbie Halvorson. As one political writer noted before the election, “the Bloomberg ad buys are a powerful lure for inattentive voters in this low-energy, off-cycle special primary election.”
Now Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns is spending $12 million to buy advertising around the country. The ads in support of background checks are targeting specific lawmakers for special pressure.
This is precisely the sort of “issue advocacy” that so-called campaign-finance reformers find anathema when it is produced by conservatives — just as they condemn Karl Rove’s PAC, Crossroads GPS, for meddling in elections.
When conservatives engage in this sort of behavior, they are condemned as “outside groups” that are undermining the democratic process. Bloomberg, on the other hand, seems largely to have escaped such censure.
Indeed, the big-money influence of the Koch Brothers routinely is denounced as “the Kochtopus,” and groups that Koch money funds, such as Americans for Prosperity, are derided as “astroturf” — that is, fake grassroots.
Yet when Bloomberg engages in similar behavior, progressives say (seemingly with straight faces) that “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) launched a national grassroots campaign today… “
Bradley Smith is right. Progressives do not really object to the injection of big money into politics. They object to the injection of big money by the other side.
GOP Using Tricks to Cover Its Extremist Hide
“When I am weaker than you,” wrote science-fiction author Frank Herbert, “I ask for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.” The words would make a fine monument in Virginia’s Capitol Square.
At the moment, Virginia Republicans are stronger than Democrats — and doing everything they can to get stronger still. Last week they rammed a redistricting measure through the Senate. The plan packs minority voters even more tightly into certain districts and, political cartographers believe, would give the GOP several more seats in the chamber… .
Republicans also have been working tirelessly to impose more stringent voter-ID measures. Democrats have overstated the effect of those measures, but to say they have done less harm than they could is not to say they have done no harm at all. And any harm they do is amplified by the fact that the measures are needless: Evidence of voter impersonation at the polls is about as common as unicorn droppings. In fact, the most recent case of electoral fraud in Virginia involves a GOP operative. In October, Colin Small was charged with 13 felony and misdemeanor counts after voter-registration applications were found in the trash behind a store in Harrisonburg.
Conservatives in the GOP also managed something of a putsch some months back when the state central committee changed the party nomination method from a primary to a convention. The shift, which benefits a small cadre of purists, led Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling to withdraw from this year’s gubernatorial contest.
Politics is a blood sport, not patty-cake, and nobody should cry too many tears for those who let themselves get outmaneuvered through what political scientist William H. Riker called “the art of political manipulation.” All the same, the Virginia GOP’s moves look tactically smart — but strategically self-destructive.
Instead of seeking to broaden the party’s appeal, Republicans have narrowed it by driving a hard-right social agenda on issues such as gay rights and abortion. Now they are trying to insulate themselves from public disapproval of policy by manipulating procedure. In so doing, they are making the same mistake Virginia Democrats once did — when they relied on partisan gerrymandering to hold a majority of seats long after they had lost a majority of the popular vote.
We all know how well that worked out for them in the long run.
Sometimes it seems like my Twitter feed has achieved technological singularity and is now passing judgments via juxtaposition.
Obamacare summed up in one sentence. (A very LONG sentence….)
Virginia Lt. Gov. Race Gets More Crowded
Enter Susan Stimpson, the Republican chairwoman of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors:
“Name the last tax cut that Richmond made. I believe that the reason that Stafford County is enjoying such prosperity is that we believe in the model of limited government, which includes lowering taxes, less of an a government administration, prioritizing funding, and economic development and letting the market flourish,” said Stimpson.
Big-Government Ratchet Turns Another Click
The government takeover of health care continues apace. Starting in 2014, the Affordable Care Act — i.e., Obamacare — will make you buy health insurance. Soon, Obamacare II could limit how much you spend on health care, too… .
According to The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus, “23 responsible Democrats — some of the left’s leading thinkers in the health-care field — have just come up with a set of answers.” And like a boozer who tries to drink himself sober, their answer is … wait for it … more government.
The group, Marcus writes, believes that “no matter how hard federal officials work to slow the rising trajectory of federal spending, their efforts will fail if overall health-care costs continue to rise. ‘Health costs throughout the system drive federal health spending,’ they write … ‘The only sustainable solution is to control overall growth in health costs.’ “
Translation: Set a nationwide cap on all health spending, including private spending. This is the brilliant fix being offered by “responsible … leading thinkers” such as the Center for American Progress’ John Podesta and former Obama health-care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel. (Just imagine what the irresponsible, second-rate thinkers would come up with.) …
“Sweeping” is a woefully inadequate word to describe such policies, whose terminus is all too clear: If health-care spending hits the government-dictated ceiling, then even if you’re willing to pay a doctor out of pocket for a consultation, the government won’t let you.
The Dangers of an Unreliable Narrator
When you write something like this, you gotta be prepared for the fact that some folks — like the one who called up to point out that I’m “one ugly son of a b****” — are going to read it too literally. (I didn’t get the chance to tell him I dress funny, too.)
The past several weeks have made one thing crystal-clear: Our country faces unmitigated disaster if the Other Side wins.
No reasonably intelligent person can deny this. All you have to do is look at the way the Other Side has been running its campaign. Instead of focusing on the big issues that are important to the American People, it has fired a relentlessly negative barrage of distortions, misrepresentations and flat-out lies… .
I will admit the candidates for My Side do make occasional blunders. These usually happen at the end of exhausting 19-hour days and are perfectly understandable. Our leaders are only human, after all. Nevertheless, the Other Side inevitably makes a big fat deal out of these trivial gaffes, while completely ignoring its own candidates’ incredibly thoughtless and stupid remarks — remarks that reveal the Other Side’s true nature, which is genuinely frightening… .
Don’t take my word for it, though. I recently read about an analysis by an independent, nonpartisan organization that supports My Side. It proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that everything I have been saying about the Other Side was true all along. Of course, the Other Side refuses to acknowledge any of this. It is too busy cranking out so-called studies by so-called experts who are actually nothing but partisan hacks. This just shows you that the Other Side lives in its own little echo chamber and refuses to listen to anyone who has not already drunk its Kool-Aid.
Let’s face it: The Other Side is held hostage by a radical, failed ideology. I have been doing some research on the Internet, and I have learned this ideology was developed by a very obscure but nonetheless profoundly influential writer with a strange-sounding name who enjoyed brief celebrity several decades ago. If you look carefully, you can trace nearly all the Other Side’s policies for the past half-century back to the writings of this one person… .
The other day I saw a YouTube video in which My Side sent an investigator and a cameraman to a rally being held by the Other Side, where the investigator proceeded to ask some real zingers. It was hilarious! First off, the people at the rally wore T-shirts with all kinds of lame messages that they actually thought were really clever. Plus, many of the people who were interviewed were overweight, sweaty, flushed and generally not very attractive. But what was really funny was how stupid they were. There is no way anyone could watch that video and not come away convinced the people on My Side are smarter, and that My Side is therefore right about everything… .
The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win
The past several weeks have made one thing crystal-clear: Our country faces unmitigated disaster if the Other Side wins.
No reasonably intelligent person can deny this. All you have to do is look at the way the Other Side has been running its campaign. Instead of focusing on the big issues that are important to the American People, it has fired a relentlessly negative barrage of distortions, misrepresentations and flat-out lies.
Just look at the Other Side’s latest commercial, which take a perfectly reasonable statement by the candidate for My Side completely out of context to make it seem as if he is saying something nefarious. This just shows you how desperate the Other Side is and how willing it is to mislead the American People… .
Let’s face it: The Other Side is held hostage by a radical, failed ideology. I have been doing some research on the Internet, and I have learned this ideology was developed by a very obscure but nonetheless profoundly influential writer with a strange-sounding name who enjoyed brief celebrity several decades ago. If you look carefully, you can trace nearly all the Other Side’s policies for the past half-century back to the writings of this one person.
To be sure, the Other Side also has been influenced by its powerful supporters. These include a reclusive billionaire who has funded a number of organizations far outside the political mainstream; several politicians who have said outrageous things over the years; and an alarmingly large number of completely clueless ordinary Americans who are being used as tools and don’t even know it.
These people are really pathetic, too. The other day I saw a YouTube video in which My Side sent an investigator and a cameraman to a rally being held by the Other Side, where the investigator proceeded to ask some real zingers. It was hilarious! First off, the people at the rally wore T-shirts with all kinds of lame messages that they actually thought were really clever. Plus, many of the people who were interviewed were overweight, sweaty, flushed and generally not very attractive. But what was really funny was how stupid they were. There is no way anyone could watch that video and not come away convinced the people on My Side are smarter, and that My Side is therefore right about everything… .
You Expected Maybe Quiet Reflection?
Democrats quick to criticize Romney’s choice of Ryan for running mate, CNN reports.
Because that’s what political parties DO.
It’s not like they would have said, “Interesting choice. Let us get back to you” if he’d picked somebody else… .
