Sunday, February 28, 2010

A final word for the ever quotable Muhammad Ali

apropos of Black History Month:

"It's not bragging if you can back it up."



Doesn't seem like much, but it is an aphorism I often repeat to myself.

Friday, February 26, 2010

There is something faintly disgusting about

Scot Lehigh's faith in Mitt Romney's craven opportunism as evidenced in today's Boston Globe column wherein the local pundit expresses a bizarre hope that the Former Viceroy will somehow morph back into his beloved Moderate Republican of 2002.
Of all the absolute rubbish to go spreading all over the public prints, this is the limit mah frenz.

But then this is Scot Lehigh we are talking about well into the summer of 2005, despite the Viceoy's oft voiced contempt for his home state, Scot went on and on trying to convince the Globe's readership of the Myth of Mitt's Moderation.
It was disgusting then, and it seems purely pathological now.
And there is something hypocritical about depending on Mitt's skeezy shamelessness to save the cause of Moderate Republicanism in the Commonwealth. He'd never let a democrat get away with such changeability, Lehigh would call it "indecisiveness" and go howling onto the streets brandishing his tomahawk.
Don't forget not seven months ago Scot poured scorn on the notional candidacy of Former US Representative Joseph Kennedy for his late uncle's vacant senate seat...A shopworn bill of particulars that didn't add up to a mere quarter of Mitt Romney's sins as a public figure.
Ah but this IS Scot Lehigh we are talking about just because he is god-damned dupe doesn't mean he stops being an insolent hypocrite.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Somewhere in the life after this one...

Out on a perfect stretch of ocean seemingly off Cape Cod, a boat races thru the waters and Teddy Kennedy laughs.
Because waaa-ay down below, the late Senator's "successor", Scott Brown just found out people are really watching him and are gonna hold his bony ass accountable.
This is a slap in the face of our new Junior Senator who like Mitt Romney believes politics was easy, no one was watching and that populism is a convenient pose with which to fool the marks at election time.
And Scott wonders why Romney was never elected President....
***
Be that as it may, this "Scott Brown Republican" rubbish won't last til July, not with Mitch McConnell cracking the whip, between the pressure from below and the pressure from above look for Brown to assume the dimensions of a pancake before Labor Day.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The new paradigm

The Boston Globe will fall over in a gleeful faint everytime Senator Scott Brown does something right.

Well this comes as no surprise, the Globe always seems to attach a profound significance to the least success on the part of the GOP both local and national.
For some strange reason Morrissey Blvd seems to live in perpetual terror of some almight witchburning conservative backlash.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Monday Thought...

Liberals want power in a democratic context, so that they may govern liberally and for the good of the people and nation. If successful they'll take credit, that is pretty much the goals and intentions of most liberals I know.
To be sure, conservative want to govern conservatively and reap credit if success crowns their efforts, so far as that goes they do not differ from liberals in any way.
But...They also have this "destroy liberalism, destroy liberals" fetish as a concurrent ideological goal. Any one of a number of serious name conservatives out there truly believe that movement conservatism can only set up it's Utopia once liberalism has been somehow wiped out.
Now this is a childish notion on the face of it, it is shocking to think grown men believe such rubbish.
Nevertheless front talk radio to the Potomac Think Tanks up to the Halls of Congress, they all writhe in their chairs with sick ecstasy at the thought of doing any sort of damage to the cause of liberalism even if it costs them politically as conservatives.
It is appallingly self destructive to believe you can accomplish such a wholesale ideological expropriation and colonization and still live in a democracy.
But movement conservatives in the US go on believing it all the same.
So in a weird way, we are faced not with one opponent but two, with mere conservatives there can be dialogue but this anti-liberal jihadism thing cannot be negotiated with in any way. Thus we are handicapped in that when we debat we only face half of our opponents, the rest have go to ground to stoke up their resentments anew.
Think about that as we segue into a new round of debate regarding healthcare...

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Confirmed, Al Haig is deceasedwise...

Ah but Al was an original, pathetically ambitious and as devious as a Renaissance Cardinal, only the army could contain and channel a spirit like that, in any other line of work he'd a blown himself sky high from the git-go.
In fact looking back, Al fell to pieces as soon as he put on civies.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that the Former Secretary of State's achievements fall into four categories:

1.) He successfully managed the unprecedented transition from Richard Nixon to Gerald Ford without any unpleasantness. There were about a hundred different ways that situation could have gone wrong and Al managed to avoid them all. No less a Solon than Tip O' Neill paid tribute to Haig's subtle political skills.
2.) It is likely that Al Haig spoke the worst political english since the imperial high noon of Warren Gameliel Harding,  "caveat" as a verb for example.  The mind truly boggles what marvels he would have inflicted on the Washington lexicon if he had become President.
3.) For all his political acumen, he stumbled badly when Reagan was shot and he suddenly proclaimed all was well, "The Constitution" authorized him to act until the Vice President returned to DC. The relevant law was the 1947 Presidential Succession Act that left the Secretary of State nowhere near the action by statute. In one fell swoop he did the near impossible took a near Presidential assassination and exacerbated the situation tenfold by making the US Public nervous about the legitimacy of the presidential succession with his immortal cry "I'm in charge here!"
Truly it was the civies that did him in, if he'd stayed in full dragoon regalia he'd a never have indulged such undignified behavior.
4.) No one wants to admit it, but Al Haig was the first real practitioner of Bush Hatred in public life, he all but called Forty One a wimp to his face during the GOP Presidential debates in 1988. The Former NATO CinC exuded an air of a man who'd happily forego the US Presidency if he could just smack George Bush Sr in the nose with a role of quarters.
Sheer bipartisan prophesy on his part sez Humble Elias.

Friday, February 19, 2010

According to Senator Scott Brown

when a bunch of Saudi Extremists seize some jetliners and perform kamikaze attacks up and down the Eastern Seaboard, that is terrorism.
When some cracker blows his stack at the government, crashes his private plane into an IRS office and kills three people, that is old fashioned voter frustration.
Below is the transcript of Brown's appearance on Neil Cavuto last night in which he discusses yesterday's kamikaze attack on the Austin TX branch of the IRS.

Well it's certainly tragic and I feel for the families obviously being affected by it.
"And I don't know if it's related, but I can just sense not only in my election, but since being here in Washington, people are frustrated. They want transparency, they want their elected officials to be accountable and open and talk about the things that are affecting their daily lives. So I'm not sure that there's a connection, I certainly hope not. But we need to do things better.
Cavuto: Um, you know invariably people are going to look at this and say, well, that's where some of this populist rage gets you. Isn't that a bit extreme?
Brown: Well, yeah, of course it's extreme."

I don't necessarily mind Brown's almighty narcissism, but his blockheadedness and dangerous naivete' is an affront to the Commonwealth.
Here is a link to the video.
Honestly, right now, CPAC is hard at work clapping so hard for this dumbass porch climber that they will literally weaponize his ego in one fell swoop.

Last week...

The Boston Phoenix reported that Mitt Romney was cautiously moving to the center, this week the Former Viceroy removed all doubt of that little fancy by groveling incontinently before a roomful of vengeful falangists.
Ah but this was to be expected, the Viceroy came of age in the Reagan era where nothing was too right wing save outright Nazi style antisemitism, it was a foregone conclusion he'd try and recast himself once again as a true blue witchburning movement conservative.
Of course it did him no good, one local attendee at CPAC had this to say about Romney:
“I don’t think he understands the phi losophy of freedom that motivates the tea parties,’’said Sean Ryan, a 29-year-old Boston Latin School teacher. “I haven’t really heard Romney speak eloquently about freedom and liberty.’’
Well that is no surprise all Romney really knows about is order, profits & opportunity, personal opportunity the kind that makes a rich man powerful.
Meanwhile down the column a bit, another teabagger had this to say about all that freedom and liberty palaver:
“We have several bars that are infested with liberals in St. Louis,’’ said Dana Loesch, with the St. Louis Tea Party. “Go there, take them over. Say how much you love the Constitution! Say it loud! Make them feel uncomfortable. Have no mercy, take no prisoners, suffer no fools. Don’t let them have a sanctuary.’’

No sanctuary?
Wow, freedom and liberty as long as this bunch of bought & paid for yaps has power, the power to police what the rest of us think and say.
That is teabagging in a nutshell mah frenz.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Once again...

It is The End Of The World As We Know It per Joanie Vennochi.

Every time some republican succeeds in doing the unexpected, Joanie hauls ass to her keyboard and composes another one of her 'death of liberals, The End of the Democrats" columns. By my count she has written some ten of these in the past five years, a conservative republican has but to squeak in as Dog Catcher in Norfolk County before Joanie starts snarking about the end of the two party system.
Doesn't anyone else down at the Globe notice that this is a regular even repetitive part of her repertoire?
My guess is no, the Globe's Op Ed page is a collection of maudering neocon mediocrities the editors don't even seem to read it anymore, honestly why should I?
There are dead fish lying in state atop heaps of ice chips in the Haymarket that would regard it as the final insult to be wrapped in the Boston Globe's Op-Ed page.

"Reform"

Breathes Charlie "Ziplips" Baker in today's Globe as he details how he'd close the current budget gap.
Baker goes on to brag that he could talk about "reform" for hours.
Well shee-it, Mitt Romney talked about reform for four solid years with precious little to show for his effort. If elected Governor Ziplips will likely double the carbon footprint of the Commonwealth simply by chanting "reform" at ever opportunity and accomplish about as much as the former Viceroy.
Now on the other hand, Governor Patrick has reformed law enforcement, transportation and as of last month education in the Commonwealth, not a bad platform all told for just four years in office considering the array of interests at stake.
So yes that word supposedly beaten to death by Romney, "reform" has risen from the ashes as Ziplips main rhetorical weapon in campaign 2010.
Where was this reforming zeal when Baker and Weld and Cellucci went behind closed doors to cook the books on the Big Dig?
By your works shall you know them, thus Baker is worst sort of political phony in the Salingerian sense of the word.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury

I ask you, in all honesty, who among us has not wanted to pummel Mitt Romney now and again?
For his craven opportunism, his blatant insincerity, his toadyish tendencies, his unreliability, his mawkishness, his hopeless amateurism and his almighty bluster?
But taking a swing at him in First Class?
Mah frenz dat goes too damn far!
Well here I think at least we have reached a real "teachable moment" with Mitt, this may be the first issue on his life wherein Willard can finally connect with the common man.
By that I mean "air rage" and the somewhat barbaric conditions under which air travel is undertaken in this country, both passeneger and crew!
I mean, think about it Mitt, if someone can blow their stack in First Class (and if you aren't flying your wife first class then it's time to hustling for phat cashola again) imagine the Mad Maxian conditions that prevail in coach!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Joan Vennochi was on

"The Jeff Santos Show" today bemoaning the political eclipse of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Meanwhile, from out the shadows Ms. Clinton had this to say about Iran...
This is a worrisome pronouncement, absent verbal mishap, the US Secretary of State rarely uses the word "coup" in a diplomatically tinged sentence unless something bad was cooking.
Of course the situation in Iran does have some loose historic parallels, recall please that Argentine President Hypolito Yrigoyen was deposed in a coup in 1930 engineered by the disaffected right and supported by the usual suspects in the military.
Some ten years later with the country in dissaray the Army decided it didn't need the conservative right to rule Argentina and so the rightists were swept out and the stage was set for the star of Broadway and the movies, Juan Peron.
I wonder if something akin to that might be happening in Iran among their Revolutionary Guards contingents.
Just thinking out loud y' unnerstan'.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Another Idle conjuration...

If Governor Patrick was looking to make a different sort of campaign appearance, with the intent perhaps to get up close and personal with some of Scott Brown's voters, he could do worse than to drop by the Raynham Flea Market on some Sunday going forward.
The demographics are enticing, young working class families, low-status retailers, elderly retirees seeking to stretch a buck and of course, collectors of all stripes.
Mind you this is a South Shore cadre with strong Brown leanings but if the Governor wants to cultivate a rep for taking on all comers, the Raynham Flea Market would be a good start, the crowds there are big every Sunday.
He will get an earful to be sure and some of it might get heated, but the Governor seems to be a cool customer and he'll get points just for making an honest effort to reach out and explain his platform to all and  sundry.
Or at least he can enjoy a nice soft pretzel and some mustard....

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Irony

The GOP is given full leave to wreck the US economy over the course of two (stolen) presidential terms.
And with financial collapse within and our national prestige at an all time low abroad, the democrats are given barely a year to fix all this before the political classes all go running back to the embrace of the very crooks, sky grifters and falangists who got the USA in this fix to begin with.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Caucus Day in Menotomy

and as usual, the Spartans rose to the occasion by sending a full delegation to the democratic state convention in Worcester, seemed like a reliably pro-Patrick slate as well.
I saw State Senator Donnelly who seems to be holding up well after the untimely death of his mother last month, helluva thing all told. 
I signed nomination papers for a good dozen or so democrats seeking office of one type or another, including State Representative Sean Garballey who seems to have lost weight and was otherwise wearing an appalling argyle patterned sleeveless sweater to mark the occasion.

Friday, February 12, 2010

There is something plainly...

Funny about a man who allegedly succumbs to an apocalypic worldview and starts stocking up on arms, ammunition and canned spaghetti only to be jacked by the A.T.F. and dragged off to the slams on a weapons charge.
I mean didn't boy-o acculmulate all that firepower to avoid being sent to U.S. equivalent of Rura Penthe? I mean whats the point of a paranoid and violent world view if all that ammo etc just brings the Federales down on you?
Well it's self forfilling prophesy I guess, the imprisonment part not the fantasy of armed resistance from a lawfully elected government that you've suddenly decided you despise.
This is otherwise a good object lesson in why all that survivalist jive is rubbish, your stash if properly set up will likely get you arrested long before the Anti Christ's picked stormtroopers start handing out the tattoos.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Per the Boston Herald

Governor Patrick is to blame even when the snow doesn't fall as predicted.

It must be an election year in Massachusetts, cuz the Herald is using the words Moonbat and Hack on the front page nigh every damn day.
I mean this is pretty god-damned silly even for One Herald Square of the "Nuclear Blast Kills Thousands" fame.
No doubt as we drawe closer to election day even louder more insolent outrages will be promulgated by the Herald, they've found their constituency at last...the whole tea-bag phenom. Oh well the Herald never argues with whatever insanity allows them to meet payroll next week...

Scot Lehigh wistfully

and somewhat halfheartedly tries to rebrand Scott Brown as a moderate. However as of his appearance on the Jeff Santos show yesterday, even Scott Lehigh sounded unconvinced that Senator Brown would anything else except Mitch McConnell's bitch.
In truth, any attempt to coax Brown to the center is doomed to failure, the only thing that movement conservatives hate more than liberals is GOP moderates, a great deal of time, money and rhetorical blood was spent under Presidents Bush to hunt that species into extinction. These days a few of them hang on in a state of groveling terror playing little more than the parts of cheap political whores in the halls of the US Congress.
Did so much as one "GOP Moderate" speak up when Senator Shelby tried to hold the government hostage last week all in the name of a bigger ransom for his state?
No.
So why would Scott Brown want to enter such degraded and impotent ranks?
Otherwise, I'm thinking more and more that Scott Brown's 2010 campaign will be remembered as a perfect example of the sort of instant insurgent candidacy normally favored by the likes of Alan Khazei and Mike Capuano.
"Instant Candidates" like this, will all play the fist pumping outsider and prosper to a certain extent as long as they can get a good internet presence going for fundraising purposes.  All Brown really did was enact the sort of populist campaign that Alan Khazei longed to run.
Truly we will see more Scott Brown type candidacies in both parties going forward....The problem though is, that the electorate is sometimes being asked to "vote first and find out what your populist of choice stands for after the election".

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Oh and a hearty shout out to

Lynn Lupien of "Left in Lowell" fame, she was quoted to good effect in yesterday's Boston Globe article detailing the Governor's initial re-election efforts.
Of course, the Globe will quote Humble Elias on the day that the women's figure skating quarter finals are broadcast from the tenth circle of Hades...but I quibble. Kudos to Lynne she has class and her blog is shining example of the medium's potential, all bloggers left-right or whatnot should take note as to how Lynne does it.

Once a war-whooper, always a war-whooper

Jeff  Jacoby, that stern military patriot, howls for War with Iran, which apparently is supposed to resolve the conflicts sired by our war with Iraq and our neglected and bungled efforts in Afghanistan.
Whew...Is there any country on the map Jeff doesn't want to attack?
I guess not, but war whoopery isn't about about the interests and safety of the United States of America it's about redressing the insecurities of the whooper and also giving them a priceless lexicon by which to question the manhood of their political opponents.
To put it bluntly, Jeff was wrong about Iraq (he'll never admit it but he was about the wrongest person on this topic north of Washington DC), five years of fighting there gave Al Queda a priceless opportunity to spread their trainees out all over the world, build up new cells and a propaganda coup worthy of the salad days of Joseph Goebbels. Now all that will be fixed if we just nuke Iran...Well I feel it incumbent upon myself to start athwart the process and cry "STOP!"
Jeff was wrong then and his is wrong now, his military premise is built on what is good for him as a movement conservative, not what is best for America.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Charlie "Ziplips" Baker hasn't quite become a

"hot mess" yet, but he seems to be working at it assiduously.

Consider that he can't decide if human beings are the core cause of global warming, he apparently did not read the State's books at the time of the handover of power from Romney to Patrick and his on-line adverts make him look silly....Oh and his "jobs program", little more than faith healing and inept faith healing at that.
For a guy that ought to be cashing in bigtime on Scott Brown's victory in the special election, Charlie looks baffled by the process, he ought to be marching in a Roman Triumph thru the streets of Woburn and other suburbs, instead he is content to rake in big bucks from HMO CEO's and sitting on his lead.
Honestly, if I was Crazy Christy Mihos I'd be telling myself "I can beat this stiff like a red headed stepchild". Baker seems to be running like Martha Coakley at the moment, content with polling results that may evaporate at any moment given the volatility of the electorate, therein lies Mihos' chance.
Of course Christy would have to resolve some of his campaign organization issues, get his fundraising squared away, master the art of the indoor voice and hit Worcester County with a strong authentic "outsider" type message....In short he'd have to completely change up his "run wild, run free" type approach.
I'd pay good money to have some GOP prankster ask Charlie live on camera his views on Darwin's theory of natural selection or even the ever popular repeal of the income tax...His responses would make an interesting Youtube video indeed.
But nonetheless, right now, 2-9-2010, 1:11pm EST, it is still Baker's race to lose and he has made just a few steps in that direction, time will tell if anyone let along Crazy Christy can exploit this situation fully.

Monday, February 08, 2010

CNN is still all worked up over

Rahm Emanuel's use of the word "retarded" to describe some liberal democrats.
Hell, I hear the word all the time on talk radio and CNN doesn't seem to mind. For that fact, Howie Carr seems to live to work the epithet "moonbat" into each and every paragraph of his column over at the Herald.
They used it on the front page last Friday.
Me?
I'm fond of such terms of derogation as:
Lackey
Slave
Wowser
Lackwit
Snitch
Bully
Yap
Dingbat
Porch climber
Wretch
Book worshipper
Falangist
Fantasist
Dipsomaniac
Chronic masturbator
creep
Power worshipper
Deadbeat
and of course...
Corruptard

***
So if we wanna have a legit debate about the uses and abuses of abusive language, then hey I'm all over that, Humble Elias is an expert. However if all we are gonna do is the usual phony-ass "discussion" with the usual media freaks as referees then count me out...Or at least add "media freak" to the above list.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Of the four enduring myths that comprise

modern day "conservatism", three of them lie in partial or complete ruins, the fourth, the myth of grievance, seems to prospering about as well as can be expected.
Of course, making Sarah Palin your poster-child is a questionable decision from public relations perspective, but you go with whut you got I guess.
Ah Palin she is a phenom isn't she?
Last year she was clearly in it for money when she wasn't swanning about in a fugue state and resigning her governorship on a whim.
This year I guess she has resolved to become Huey Long to President Obama's FDR. 
Well what other role can an angry lightweight with a pronounced authoritarian personality play in national life?
Humble Elias is not one to dismiss Governor Palinm not after what happened with Scott Brown...But then again, Huey Long had brains and agenda and was ruthless. 
Sarah Palin on the other hand, is simply angry and sarcastic, don't overestimate it but don't write off either, hard times maketh monsters.

Friday, February 05, 2010

In other words...

"A Scott Brown Republican" (nice narcissism there, Scottie, imagine the shit storm if Obama said something like it) is a conservative.
By that I mean someone with enough wingnut bona fides to earn the support of Michael Steele's famously orthodox RNC.
This makes Scott a believer however fervent in exclusionary Christian Politics, the myths of Rugged Individualism and Small Government along with the almighty public psychology of Grievance.
Never mind that small government and rugged individualism both lie in ruins, Scott will go on making sacrifice to them and the GOP God of Thunder and Fundraising.
Meanwhile, the tremors continue thru the Massachusetts GOP, suddenly Charlie "Ziplips" Baker is feeling weak in the knees and chilled by a strong starboard gale...Suddenly he has gone soft on Global Warming...Who's a thunk it?

Given the strength of that gale, no doubt Charlie will be running all out as a Falangist by July.
Watch for it...

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Scott just can't wait to get sworn in

suddenly he has moved up the date to today...Anxious to get down to Washington DC and start saying No to everything. Clearly he craves those pats on the head from Mitch McConnell.
Truth be told though, based on his record as a State Senator, there isn't much more one can expect from Senator Brown other than being a very reliable No Vote on anything that truly serves the needs of the American People.
Lets see how well that wears over time.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

All I can say is....

"RUN SCOTT RUN!!"
Run away from the Commonwealth...please.
Run and join the ranks of Presidents Dukakis, Tsongas and Romney.
If for no other reason that running for President will give you and opportunity to say thanks to all those stalwart New Hampshire natives who drove south and swelled the ranks of your rallies and make them look oh so well attended.

Imagine a 2012 GOP Presidential mash up between The Former Viceory, Beefcake Brown, Sarah Palin and (dare I say it) Newt Gingrich?
The debates would make the screaming matches of the WWE look like Brahmin wake!
T'is a consummation devoutly to be wished in every way.
Honestly Scott, the attributes of a good US Senator are the very things that are of the least utility to a Presidential prospect, why d'ya think Obama bailed so quickly? Languishing in the US Senate is poisonous to the truly ambitious, keep in mind for every Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy we can pile up three Chris Dodds and raise you a Dick Lugar.
RUN SCOTT RUN!!

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Here is a question for...

for Citizen Charlie "Ziplips" Baker, GOP candidate for Governor, can he pass the RNC's "purity test" for republican aspirants for higher office?
Right now, the motion simply demands fealty to the GOP platform...Of course there are a lot of things in the platform most people don't know about, the fagbashing for example, the weird fixation on "tradition family roles" (as defined by your average "Father Knows Best" script), the giveaways to Wall Street...the List goeth on and on.
My thinking is, Charlie couldn't pass it if he tried, not an keep a hold on those precious independents he covets.
Scot Brown on the other hand is a walking talking breathing conservative litmus test in tight blue jeans...Whether or not he prospers in that role is another thing.

At the moment GOP litmus tests don't count for myuch up here in Gubernatorial politics, but in the General Election if things get tight and presumptive nominee Charlie Baker needs a quick infusion of cash, the whole matter could come back to haunt him.

Monday, February 01, 2010

The things we find out just...

seventeen days after a statewide election eh?

Well, I'd like to express astonishment at Scott Brown's popularity with the financier class, but honestly is anyone out there surprised to discover that our new Junior Senator is really Wall Street's bitch?
Revelations like this do cut into his bona fides as an independent though.
This does raise questions though, Scott Brown the nominal independent for what? More corporate and financial malfeasance?
Independent of what, common sense?
***
Never forget that money confers two votes on the citizen whose interests dictate that they contribute and contribute lavishly to a particular candidate. However the money vote is always accorded greater respect and deference by today's candidate for office all of whom are taught practically from political infancy to fear and respect the power of capital.
So in today's revelation we can see pretty clearly the very limited scope of Scott Brown's so called "independence", he certainly won't be all that independent of Wall Street's agenda will he?