Susan, Scott and Stealth

About 13 Months ago, an ex News anchor and board member of the Seattle based Discovery Institute lost an election For King County Executive, home of the Liberal city of Seattle.
About 13 days ago, a onetime Nude model and Lieutenant Colonel in the Army National Guard took a seat in the US Senate that was held by the Liberal Lion Ted Kennedy for over 40 years.
As noted by Ms. Tarico at Huffington Post, Susan Hutchison and Scott Brown were part of the not so new Republican strategy called the stealth campaign:

As the Right Wing base sinks to new levels of insanity taking the Republican brand with it, “going stealth” has become the campaign strategy of choice in districts where an all-out, Teabagger Town Hall, Palin-Beck, froth-mouthed feeding frenzy would just turn stomachs. The Right’s agenda isn’t evolving, just its tactics…

They still want to drown government in a bathtub…They still think that some hubba hubba god made women “separate but equal"—men with brains and biceps, women with vaginas…They still think we can teach creationism in schools and…They still think we can end drug use by jailing addicts. They still think that guns don’t kill people..They still think the problem with their marriage is my brother. And they still think that you can give the free market absolute power without it corrupting absolutely.

But in some of the best run Republican and Religious Right (Rebiblican) campaigns in the country, you’d never know it.

Scott Brown and his counterpart in Virginia Bob McDonnell succeeded. Susan Hutchison and TEA Bagger extraordinaire Doug Hoffman went down in Flames. And the Main Stream Media (with the exception of McClatchy Newspapers) stuck to its script (AKA Republican Talking Points):

Brown said his win in a solidly-Democratic state, along with the interest in the Q&A session President Obama and House Republicans had on Friday, is proof that voters want more transparency and less backroom dealing.

"What it means is that now there will be full and fair debate," Brown said of his 41st Republican vote in the Senate that erased a Democratic supermajority. "And there will be no more behind-closed-doors actions."

Transparency? Yeah right. Ms. Hutchison and Mr. Hoffman received a lot of transparency, but it sure as hell was not from Gods Own Party (the blog, yes. The GOP, not so much) or the media lapdogs. Again from Ms. Tarico:

What’s interesting is that the same stealth strategy failed miserably in Washington State. Palin-wannabe Susan Hutchison was defeated by fourteen points after being ahead in the polls just weeks ago.

What happened? It’s very simple: Word got out about who she is, and it made King County’s voters a bit queasy... By November 3, the voting public knew who Susan Palin Hutchison is, and for a stealth campaign, that’s lethal…When Rebiblicans pose as moderates and change agents, they have just exposed soft tissue.

But can those of us who dream of a more progressive society cut the rotting tissue away? With Less then 11 months to go before the midterm elections of 2010, I will not give up hope, but I will equally not succumb to self-delusion: the Corporate Bastard's funding the GOP/TEA Party/Anti Health care ads have won big bidness a number of victory's.

The Supremos have handed the Corporates the ability to buy any Candidate of their choice (Chief Justice Johnny the Robber is a lying corporate hypocrite shill. Strip search Sammy is the same; and with his behavior at the SOTU he is now a political (rather than judicial) hero to Republicans and a political enemy of Democrats [hammer on the nail Mr. Greenwald]).

And finally we have the greatest asset toward a GOP sweep in November, a 24 hour News Channel that has dropped all attempts at impartiality and is now a fundraising Political Action Committee of the Republican Party.

The D's are running scared, the R's are crowing, and it's 1994 all over again (at least according to my local paper). Meanwhile, those of us in the reality based community are pissed off that my Democratic Party has the power, but is afraid to use it. Stinks.

A conversation about Race relations

Spoke to my sister yesterday, and we had an interesting conversation about Race relations in America. As I recall, the whole thing started when I mentioned that her oldest son was going to be 18 in a few years, and if he was considering his future after High school. She said that while R**** had considered going into the military, he would not do so while President Obama was in office. I pressed her on this, did she feel it was political, or was it because of the "O" man's skin color? She said she did not know, but if it was about politics then she was surprised, her son never seemed to have any political thoughts.

This eventually led to our discussion on race. Like my 2 brothers, my sister is born again and hard right, so conversations with her can be similar to those I had with my father before he passed away. We talked about Rodney King, and the New Haven Firefighters, and how my Sister believed that the Firefighters were "victims of reverse discrimination because the were white". She was disturbed because I disagreed, and that I sounded like a ?Racist? or someone who was ashamed of being white because I supported Affirmative Action. She quoted Martin Luther King, and judging people by the "Content of their Character". And when I tried to explain about segregation de facto rather then de jure, she did not get it.

Anyone who has read any of my previous post's on women's rights, civil rights and voting rights knows where I stand on these issues. The New Haven decision became a rallying cry for the followers of the Southern Strategy, but an article in Slate.com shows that when Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected the New Haven firefighters' claim she was following established precedent:

...the city (New Haven) rejected the firefighter exam because the test violated Title VII..Title VII requires employers to consider the racial impact of their hiring and promotion procedures in order to prevent discrimination that's inadvertent as well as intentional. Ricci's claim is that the city's effort to comply with Title VII is itself race discrimination...

An employer can also discriminate by using a selection process that has a disparate impact—in other words, that screens out a particular group for no good reason...Eight black, 25 white, and eight Hispanic firefighters took New Haven's test for promotion to captain; three black, 16 white, and three Hispanic candidates passed. Nineteen black, 43 white, and 15 Hispanic firefighters took the test to become lieutenant; six black, 25 white, and three Hispanic candidates passed. This result counts as discriminatory under the rules of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. New Haven was right to worry about the possibility of a lawsuit from black firefighters if it accepted the results of the tests.

The city was also in a bind because its agreement with the firefighters union required that the exam count for 60 percent of the decision about whether to promote each candidate and because a city charter rule required that every promotion go to one of the three top-scoring candidates. These rules magnified the disparate racial impact of the exam—no black candidate and only one Hispanic candidate was eligible for promotion, even though several of them passed the test. More reason for the city to worry about a lawsuit by the African-Americans who were to be passed over.

Like his previous ruling against the Seattle school District, Johnny the Robber is determine to dismantle 40 years worth of Civil Rights protection under the guise of "reverse discrimination". Reading her descenting opinion from the bench, Justice Ruth Ginsberg stated the obvious:

The white firefighters who scored high on New Haven’s promotional exams...attract this Court’s sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them. New Haven maintains that it refused to certify the test results because it believed...it would be vulnerable to a Title VII disparate-impact suit if it relied on those results.

By order of this Court, New Haven, a city in which African-Americans and Hispanics account for nearly 60 percent of the population, must today be served—as it was in the days of undisguised discrimination—by a fire department in which members of racial and ethnic minorities are rarely seen in command positions.

A 60% minority population, and yet they have only one African American captain and no battalion chiefs.

But he is a Conservative Activist Judge, so it is okay...

The O man nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice "Silent" Souter on the Supremo's. As predicted, the RWNM is in full rant mode (Great Stuff Joe), with the lead attack centering around that most favorite phrase of Movement Conservatives: Judicial Activism (oh the horror).

As typical, the lazy members of the news media cheerfully spread this manure without: "explain(ing) what that means, give any examples, or explain why it would be a bad thing".

An excellent article by Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker on The Chief Justice of the Supremo's Johnny the Robber Roberts shows that being a Judicial Activist is acceptable; as long as your a Conservative Activist:

(Chief Justice ) Roberts said at the time. “Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules...His jurisprudence as Chief Justice, Roberts said, would be characterized by “modesty and humility.” After four years on the Court, however, Roberts’s record is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative... In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party (emphasis mine).

The majority on the Court who are affiliated with The Modern Republican Party not only believe in Judicial activism, they consistently practice it.

It is the activism that allows a Corporation to pay a women less money as long as she does not find out about it within 180 days of the offense (never mind what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has previously ruled).

It is the activism that will ensure that non white students will continue to remain in the substandard schools as a matter of fact if not law (Brown Vs. Board of Education was so 1950's).

It is the Ultimate in Judicial Activism that allows the Majority Conservative members of the Court rather then the Majority of Voters to decide who will be the next President of the United States; in an unsigned one page opinion that must never be used as precedent.

With Spector flipping to the D's, the Republic Party is left with on 40 seats in the Senate and 178 in the House. Any attempt to block the nomination of Judge Sotomayor as only two outcomes (slim and none), so the R's are not even going to make the attempt.

What they will do is continue to ram home the talking points and make sure that they are constantly regurgitated by a media that does not do analysis, only Stenography. They are thinking long term (Elections of 2010, 2012 and 2016) and believe this may rally the base.

Unfortunately it may also rally the growing Hispanic Community in the United States.

Let Them Eat Bonuses

So the pheasants seem to be in revolt. Who could have predicted?

Bonus Outrage: AIG Employees Are Living In Fear
JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN March 20, 2009 05:22 PM EST

FAIRFIELD, Conn. — Pillars of the community are now pariahs fearing for their safety in a ritzy area of Connecticut home to many executives at American International Group Inc., hit with a backlash over bonuses it paid to top brass even as it accepted federal bailout money.

AIG Employees Worried That They'll Be Killed
Henry BlodgetMar. 19, 2009, 12:08 PM

FAIRFIELD, Conn. — Remaining employees in AIG's financial products group are worried that the angry America mob will tear them limb from limb.

Inside AIG-FP, Feeling the Public's Wrath
By Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 19, 2009; Page C01

They watched quietly as members of Congress referred to them as greedy and incompetent. They heard more than one demand that their names be released to the seething American public. They heard the chairman of American International Group, Edward M. Liddy, tell lawmakers that people, in e-mails sent to AIG-FP, suggested that the firm's leaders "should be executed with piano wire around their necks."

Your old Sarge has a day job working security at a local military post. Most of my coworkers are right of center, and exist on a steady diet of right wing talk radio. The vast majority buy into the talking points that have permeated American Society for the last 29 years, starting with Saint Ronnie.

It has been this constant flow of propaganda, coupled with a News media that has been bought and paid for by the corparates that has always insulated the 1/100th from any negative consequences of their actions. No act of theft, no matter how brazen or outrageous could get people to stop paying attention to the next American idol.

Thus it comes as somewhat of a shock to the New American Royalty that ordinary Americans might start to reject “bidness as usual”:

And the idea that the system might possibly be rigged so that those on top got their money not by being the most productive, but simply because they were the most successful at gaming the system.

While not quiet as long as the first one 100 years ago, the 2nd gilded age enjoyed a remarkable run in the face of one scandal or another that resulted in the Screwing of the Average Man (Read the book if you can find a copy).

Its time, however, may be past.

Good News in Iraq. Who knew?

Read the most recent article by Chucky:

Iraq: Good News Is No News
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 13, 2009; Page A17

Preoccupied as it was poring over Tom Daschle's tax returns, Washington hardly noticed a near-miracle abroad. Iraq held provincial elections. There was no Election Day violence. Security was handled by Iraqi forces with little U.S. involvement. A fabulous bazaar of 14,400 candidates representing 400 parties participated, yielding results highly favorable to both Iraq and the United States.

Krauthammer is right about one thing, there was no election day violence. Instead, we just have the ordinary every day violence:

Suicide bomber kills 23 in Iraq
By Jim Heintz, Associated Press Writer

An explosives-strapped man slipped into a luncheon gathering at a tribal leader's home and blew himself up yesterday, killing at least 23 people and wounding dozens.

Suicide car bomber kills five policemen in Iraq

A suicide bomber drove a car loaded with explosives into a police checkpoint northwest of Baghdad Saturday, killing at least five policemen a week before provincial elections, police said.

Suicide bomber kills 4 U.S. soldiers in Iraq
By Tina Susman February 10, 2009

Reporting from Baghdad -- A suicide bomber detonated his car bomb near a U.S. Army patrol Monday in the northern city of Mosul, killing four soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter.
They are the first American military deaths blamed on hostile action in the country since Jan. 18. An Iraqi interpreter also dies in the attack in Mosul, a city that remains a trouble spot.

Iraq suicide bomber kills 8 near Karbala shrine
Associated Press
February 13, 2009

Baghdad -- A suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt packed with nails among Shiite Muslim worshipers Thursday in Karbala, killing eight pilgrims and wounding 52, police and hospital officials said.The blast was about 200 yards from the Imam Hussein shrine, the focal point of ceremonies that culminate Monday and draw hundreds of thousands of worshipers.

Iraqi police: Female suicide bomber kills 40
By HAMID AHMED, Associated Press Writer
Fri Feb 13, 10:18 am ET

BAGHDAD – A female suicide bomber attacked a tent filled with women and children resting from a pilgrimage to a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad on Friday, killing 40 people and injuring 60 others, said officials. It was the deadliest attack in Iraq this year and the third straight day of bombings against Shiite pilgrims.

My God Krauthammer is such an idiot.

A Community Organizer

It's been over 24 hour's since the "O" man crushed Johnny the Mac, surprising your humble Commander by the scope of his decisive 53%-46% victory.

Reviewing the campaign of 2008, I have concluded that the #1 reason for his success was his ability to get out the vote:

In North Carolina Obama has a whopping 45 field offices. McCain claims 40, but these are simply local Republican Party offices, which have to handle local and congressional races as well.

Obama's offices are his own. Each one is typically led by a paid staffer, but nearly all the work is done by the 17,000 volunteers Obama has recruited in the state. (The Republicans won't say how many volunteers they have.)

Some of Obama's volunteers sign up the old-fashioned way, in person. Others volunteer online. In their local corner of the Obama Web site, they can meet other Obamaphiles and arrange to knock on specific doors in their neighborhood.

They can download information about who lives in each house, which party they belong to and what they told the last phone canvasser. They can update this information each time they meet a voter. They can also spend hours on the Web site chatting with like-minded people, watching the candidate's speeches and uploading their own Barack-related videos.

This of course brings to mind what probably was the stupidest thing ever said by any candidate during the campaign (how stupid no one realized at the time):

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.
And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.

Are you and the Malkin still mocking Obamas efforts as a "Community Organizer"? Still think it's a joke? Not so funny when you perfect tactics to organize a neighborhood and use them to successfully organize a National Campaign.

Alice, tell me again about this Rabbit Hole?

Yeah, after 2 months away from this thing, I know what the Wonderland Lady feels like. In less then three months, our lily white male lock on the Highest office in America will be ended. Jefferson Davis and Honest Abe should only have lived long enough to see this.

Erik Frank Russel(or the Chinese) certainly got it right, these times are way interesting. I will spare the political analysis of the Obama and McCain campaigns, Ms. Digby does a far better job and I am not in her league. Instead I want to speak of what happens if, the Universe forbid:

1. The whore media convince enough people that Saint Johnny Mac is the second reincarnation of Regan and he wins the election.
   
2. He dies shortly after being sworn in and a 1st term Governor with little or no experience is our new Madame President.

I go even on step further. Anybody who has not drunk the Koolaid knows that Governor Palin was chosen, in the words of dday "as a wet kiss to the religious right". The power behind the GOP, the ultra secret Council for National Policy, would never throw its support for Johnny without this choice for VP. A VP with all of George Bushes messianic zeal but not as stupid.

So President Palin now has the power to run the joint, and she tells the white male power brokers like Cheney, Rove and Dobson to go and &!%$@# themselves. She does not turn into a secret liberal like Justice Souter, but neither is she a mindless conserva-clone like Justice Thomas. Instead she chooses the third way like Justice O'Connor?

If this scenario, which may be far fetch, actually happens, then it will be a testament to another alleged Chinese curse.

Update - My apologies for thinking that Governor Palin was not as stupid as Commander Codpiece. Like Saint Johnny's minions, I failed to vet the Candidate before writing about her. Seems like "Hack n' Sack Sarah" (Good one Mr. Schmeltzer) is just as much an inept leader as the Flight Suit in Chief.