High Pitched Rick Santorum, Member in Good Standing of the "Future Tyrants of the USA", took three GOP primaries yesterday without really trying at all.
Y'know the conventional wisdom out there, is to attribute "volatility" to the GOP Presidential Race...but if the race is "volatile" it is of a cartoonish variety.
By this I mean, every time, it looks like Mitt Romney is about to seal the deal for good, some GOP primary electorate sucker punches his credulous self and sends The Former Viceroy reeling back to Square One.
The whole thing has become as predictable as a "Tom & Jerry" cartoon.
If this keeps up, Mitt Romney might be the first GOP Nominee with no real "base" in the Republican "Base".
Of course I suspect that Santorum's sudden surge might have a little bit to do with the President's dabbling in social issue of a kind provocative to christian conservative (ergo Santorum's peeps).
HA!
Thus for now, thanks to natural selection culling the GOP Presidential Herd, Santorum gets the benefit, but who knows by the time Michigan lights up it might be Gingrich's turn again?
After all there is no one more cartoonish than Newt Gingrich
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Since 1968
the name of the game in US Politics has been "Divide and Conquer".
So initially, I was wondering why in an election year, the President was so ardent about compelling Catholic Hospitals to issue contraception.
I mean, its sorta divisive if'n yuh think on it.
Then I remembered the Catholic College I attended and counted up all the young women I knew who used Birth Control in seeming defiance of church doctrine.
Now the President's game seems clear...put a little crack in the Catholic Vote and force the GOP to yammer on and on about Birth Control (a topic they ought to avoid like a vampire shuns the sun) and possibly just maybe hand Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich an issue by which to force Mitt Romney into a corner.
Mitt is doing well in the GOP Primaries now, but he cannot debate sensibly on any topic dear to the tea partei, nor has he any sustained powers of resistance to a "right hook" even now.
So likely by this weekend he'll be wavering on female sufferage.
Meanwhile the President goes on, talking about jobs.
Hmmm.
Speculation?
Yes.
But yuh never know
So initially, I was wondering why in an election year, the President was so ardent about compelling Catholic Hospitals to issue contraception.
I mean, its sorta divisive if'n yuh think on it.
Then I remembered the Catholic College I attended and counted up all the young women I knew who used Birth Control in seeming defiance of church doctrine.
Now the President's game seems clear...put a little crack in the Catholic Vote and force the GOP to yammer on and on about Birth Control (a topic they ought to avoid like a vampire shuns the sun) and possibly just maybe hand Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich an issue by which to force Mitt Romney into a corner.
Mitt is doing well in the GOP Primaries now, but he cannot debate sensibly on any topic dear to the tea partei, nor has he any sustained powers of resistance to a "right hook" even now.
So likely by this weekend he'll be wavering on female sufferage.
Meanwhile the President goes on, talking about jobs.
Hmmm.
Speculation?
Yes.
But yuh never know
Monday, February 06, 2012
I do not think
that the so called "People's Pledge" will be honored for long in the current Massachusetts' senate race. We have too few restrains on the power of money in politics as it is with too much riding on the outcome to prevent an eventual abrogation of said agreement.
What enforces said Pledge?
Nothing, and we should count on nothing going forward.
And anyway, we as liberals and democrats are "doing business with religious sonsabitches"(expl. Karl Rove), and when that is the case you need to get it in writing, cuz their word ain't worth shit not with the Good Lord telling them how to screw us on a deal.
In a larger sense though, thanks to the Supreme Court's "Citzen's United" decision, the very Hobbesian war of all against all has been imported into US Elections. Money is a form of free speech so the SC sez.
Or from a purely Jeffersonian perspective, Money has the Right to Free Speech...and therefore a right to the franchise and therefore the right to organize the government if elections are dulty won in it's name.
Where does this all end?
Not in a good place I do think.
The Founding Fathers, almost to a man, feared the concentration of power as being fatal to the survival of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson, if he was alive today, would take one look at "Citizen's United" and immediately come to the conclusion that money is not a form of free speech, but is in fact, power in word & deed.
And power, is a thing that must be constrained in the Jeffersonian view.
So as this election goes forward, we need to look at the big picture...that is to say in a purely Jeffersonian context, are we now locked in a zero sum contest between the Power of Money and the "Rights of Man"?
Start there, tell me what you end up with.
What enforces said Pledge?
Nothing, and we should count on nothing going forward.
And anyway, we as liberals and democrats are "doing business with religious sonsabitches"(expl. Karl Rove), and when that is the case you need to get it in writing, cuz their word ain't worth shit not with the Good Lord telling them how to screw us on a deal.
In a larger sense though, thanks to the Supreme Court's "Citzen's United" decision, the very Hobbesian war of all against all has been imported into US Elections. Money is a form of free speech so the SC sez.
Or from a purely Jeffersonian perspective, Money has the Right to Free Speech...and therefore a right to the franchise and therefore the right to organize the government if elections are dulty won in it's name.
Where does this all end?
Not in a good place I do think.
The Founding Fathers, almost to a man, feared the concentration of power as being fatal to the survival of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson, if he was alive today, would take one look at "Citizen's United" and immediately come to the conclusion that money is not a form of free speech, but is in fact, power in word & deed.
And power, is a thing that must be constrained in the Jeffersonian view.
So as this election goes forward, we need to look at the big picture...that is to say in a purely Jeffersonian context, are we now locked in a zero sum contest between the Power of Money and the "Rights of Man"?
Start there, tell me what you end up with.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Superbowl Halftime Notes
Ghod Bless Madonna, thirty years plus in show biz doing an act uncontaminated by originality. She was made for the Superbowl, say what you like Madonna has the courage of her restrictions. An AARP member slowly running her routines like it's Monday morning Jazzercise in the salt water pool in Fort Myers Beach...that is Madonna at age fifty seven, basically a slower surgically preserved version of the performer she was in 1983.
In short she has always been an imposter, except now she is imitating her own act, and none too well. From the Evita mainstream actress period thru her preposterous Finishing School accent and now back to doing "Like a Prayer"...with a drumline no less!
In short she has always been an imposter, except now she is imitating her own act, and none too well. From the Evita mainstream actress period thru her preposterous Finishing School accent and now back to doing "Like a Prayer"...with a drumline no less!
Friday, February 03, 2012
Collecting the endorsement of Donald Trump
And collecting that endorsement in Trump's own Las Vegas Casino??
Honestly who is making these crazy decisions in the Romney campaign???
I am beginning to think that Mitt Romney thinks he is Ayn Rand's John Galt, barnstorming the nation in the name of oligarchy and wealth worshipping counter revolution.
What else accounts for this sort of dismal scene?
What next, an endorsement from Heliogabalus?
Thursday, February 02, 2012
The Governor signs a two book deal...
(Mighod do any our homegrown pols lack a book deal at this point? There is something in the water here in Massachusetts that seemingly compels politicians to write...)
Governor Patrick's deal though, seems to be stimulating speculation on his post 2014 plans, there is a lot of Potomac talk in there, both the White House and more realistically, John Kerry's seat should the Senior Senator opt to retire or take another job in the Executive Department.
Well as far as the Presidency is concerned (I'll approach all this bluntly) I urge the Governor not to inhale those vapors. Who wants to join the ranks of Teddy Kennedy, Mike Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, John Kerry and now Mitt Romney all Bay State pols who wanted the Big Job and fell short.
Lets face it, there is something about the Commonwealth that the rest of the Federal Republic just doesn't like...Nothing in Patrick's backstory suggests he can overcome such a weird intangible attitude.
On the other hand, the Senate, that is an interesting idea, although its entirely contingent on the political plans of our Senior Senator...and at the moment he ain't talkin'.
Governor Patrick's deal though, seems to be stimulating speculation on his post 2014 plans, there is a lot of Potomac talk in there, both the White House and more realistically, John Kerry's seat should the Senior Senator opt to retire or take another job in the Executive Department.
Well as far as the Presidency is concerned (I'll approach all this bluntly) I urge the Governor not to inhale those vapors. Who wants to join the ranks of Teddy Kennedy, Mike Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, John Kerry and now Mitt Romney all Bay State pols who wanted the Big Job and fell short.
Lets face it, there is something about the Commonwealth that the rest of the Federal Republic just doesn't like...Nothing in Patrick's backstory suggests he can overcome such a weird intangible attitude.
On the other hand, the Senate, that is an interesting idea, although its entirely contingent on the political plans of our Senior Senator...and at the moment he ain't talkin'.
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Kevin White, RIP
Elias Nugator Senior used to run into Da Mayor down around City Hall back in the day, as my old man was once of those instantly recognizable civil servants (black eye patch doncha know) he always got a glad hand from hizzoner.
There are two things in my mind that are memorable about Kevin White, his thwarted ambitions to be Governor, to be Vice President to be a playa on the National Stage in the early 1970's. In retrospect, given the specific nature of his gifts perhaps it is best he never made the transition....
The other is that the man had a moral compass, it was well buried as it is with some pols, but when Justice asked for hard decisions, The Mayor did not flinch.
He got little credit for it...but his moral compass swung true nonetheless.
Rest in Peace, Your Honor.
There are two things in my mind that are memorable about Kevin White, his thwarted ambitions to be Governor, to be Vice President to be a playa on the National Stage in the early 1970's. In retrospect, given the specific nature of his gifts perhaps it is best he never made the transition....
The other is that the man had a moral compass, it was well buried as it is with some pols, but when Justice asked for hard decisions, The Mayor did not flinch.
He got little credit for it...but his moral compass swung true nonetheless.
Rest in Peace, Your Honor.
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