Tuesday: Someone needs a dopeslap

So, James Clyburn has correctly identified the problem behind the resistance to solving the impending budget crisis.  The Republicans have taken a “no new taxes” pledge, like they always do, and have decided that closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and multinational business community is equivalent to new taxes.

Congress and the White House could reach a budget deal if only Republicans would relent on their pledges to not raise taxes, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Tuesday on MSNBC.

Speaking on “Morning Joe,” the third-ranking House Democrat said talk of the GOP being open to closing some tax loopholes may be a non-starter among Republicans who have signed no-tax pledges.

“If you consider closing loopholes raising taxes, that keeps us from having a good conversation about where to go from here,” Clyburn said. “And that’s the problem.”

Ok, great, now we’re getting somewhere.  The bastards are never going to budge from their “starve the beast” theology.  Their whole goal in life is to make sure that they NEVER have to pay for some slacker working dude, no matter how hard that person works.  “Who the F%^& do these working people think they are anyway?  Pensions, health care, social security, where does it stop?  Oh, sure, they deferred their compensation for their future retirements but that’s because they’re suckers.  It’s not our fault they were stupid enough to think we were really going to give it to them.  They’re LOSERS in life.  If they can’t figure out how to eat what they kill, is that OUR fault?”

It’s a good thing that Clyburn is on the case.  I’m sure he will protect the interests of the working class (that’s anyone who doesn’t live on their interests).  By golly, he’s going to hold firm.  He’s not going to yield an inch.

If lawmakers don’t raise the debt ceiling before the Aug 2. deadline, the federal government will default on its obligations. Should that happen or even come close to happening, creditors have warned, the nation’s credit rating could plummet.

Clyburn said Congress may resort to a short-term deal to avoid default “if we can’t get a longer term deal.”

Noooooooo!

No short term deals.  That’s just what they want.  You need to hold the line, throw down the gauntlet, take no prisoners.  You need to say there must be shared sacrifice or there will be no deal and then, get them to vote on their share of the sacrifice *first*.

Can we get some new players here?  Is there no one here who knows how to play this game?

Jeez.

 

Obama’s “post-racial” presidential campaign starting early

Corrente has the links to James Clyburn’s accusation that criticism of Obama’s performance is driven by racism.  Actually, he’s saying something completely different.  He’s saying that the president’s problems are due to his skin color.  I assume he is referring to the question about Obama’s future electoral prospects.  You be the judge:

QUESTION: What do you think of Obama’s election prospects?

CLYBURN: I think they’re improving every day. I think the president has been a good president, a great commander in chief. I think when people allow themselves to — you know, I’m 70 years old. And I can tell you; people don’t like to deal with it, but the fact of the matter is, the president’s problems are in large measure because of his skin color. All you got to do is look at all the signs they’re carrying out there and look at the mail that I get. As I said, I’m 70 years old, I been going through this kind of stuff all my life. I know what kind of mail I get, I know what kind of phone calls I get, I know what people are saying who call the office.

I’m sure he didn’t mean what is underlined. It would be really bad if he was saying that Obama needs a four year handicap because he’s African American.  THAT would be a very racist, unfair, demeaning and untrue thing for Clyburn to say.

It also doesn’t speak well of Obama’s character if his feelings are hurt by the mail Obama is getting.  If it’s racist, it should go directly to the spam filter.  There’s no reason to read it or give it a second thought.  As I have told female bloggers over and over again, trollish comments are only little black pixels on your display.  They cannot hurt you.   They’re meant to make you feel bad for no other reason than to make you feel bad.  Why the hell is Obama reading them??  So, someone out there doesn’t like you.  You’re the fricking president and leader of the free world.  Are you going to let some asshole in Mississippi ruin your day because he doesn’t like your skin color?  It’s such an absurd idea I’m surprised a man like Clyburn would even bring it up.

Lambert also links to a post from Sean Wilentz in April 2008 about the outrageous accusations of racism directed at the Clintons and anyone who did not enthusiastically endorse Obama as the second coming of Jesus.  Many of us do not need to be reminded of one of the most disgusting aspects of the 2008 campaign season.  That was the year we became ugly, kkk grand poobah sheet wearing, knuckle dragging, racists even if we were young enough to grow up in an integrated society, in schools that were racially diverse and were brought up to judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.  It was beyond insulting.  My parents did not raise me to be a racist.  Not only did Obama’s droogs smear us, they smeared our parents.

Some Democrats took those insults seriously and didn’t want to be forced out of the tribe.  They capitulated so the Obama campaign would stop calling them dirty names.  Some of us would not be manipulated by false accusations to vote for a man whose political philosophy and accomplishments were vaporous and indistinct.  We judged Obama by what he did and said, not on any other factors.

And we’ll do it again in 2012.

Clyburn can go jump in the spam filter.

Palin and Clyburn add fuel to raging fire with “blood libel” and intellectual deficits

---

I’m just going to summarize what I said in the comments because I’m still on an iPad app and it’s not designed for mini novels.

Regarding Sarah Palin’s video this morning, she was defiant. I found it decidedly unhelpful.

I was waiting for her to acknowledge that conservatives may have gone too far. I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear her acknowledge that the atmosphere in Arizona and other states had made liberals afraid for their safety even before Giffords’ shooting. Nope, right wing pundits were just being spirited, not incendiary.

I don’t like the constant references to god or the amnesia that the country lost its mind after 9/11 with the help of right wingers to the point that we started an unnecessary war with Iraq or the fact that America’s Enduring Strength was completely undermined by lies about weapons of mass destruction. Nope, Republicans and their media lackeys had nothing to do with that. It just happened.

BTW, what is her definition of an innocent victim? Would Giffords fit that category? She was not very specific.

I will stick up for Sarah’s right to be treated with respect and not demonized. The left has been relentless in using her as a whipping girl for the past two years and the behavior of Jeralyn and Digby and just about every other lefty blogger has made us at The Confluence very angry with the behavior of what should be our side. We have always condemned the demonization and dehumanization of Sarah Palin because it undermines our moral authority and it is wrong.

But I am very disappointed that her message wasn’t more like Bill Clinton’s, who condemned, unambiguously, the demonization of those you disagree with. To Sarah, it’s all just very spirited. Yes, let’s just continue this level of spirit!

How about we let all of the political spectrum have equal access to spirited debate? The fairness doctrine would ensure free speech for everyone. Who could possibly be against that?

Sarah? Do you have something to say in support of the fairness doctrine? Sarah? Sarah?

She’s not a demon. But I disapprove of he company she keeps. She doesn’t meet my WWHD standard. In fact, this speech may have done more harm than good by giving the wingers an excuse to pick up where they left off.

In fact, it’s worse than that. My heart stopped when she used the words “blood libel”. You know as well as I do, myiq, that blood libel is a term that Christians foisted on Jews as collective guilt for the death of Jesus. It gave Christians an excuse to ghettoize Jews in the medieval centuries and lead to pogroms and persecution. So, in essence, she is equating criticism of right wing political speech as going on a pogrom against conservatives and not just any conservatives. Way to go. Enhance that persecution complex of the conservative Christians out there in Glenn Beckistan. In this part of her speech, she is specifically talking to religious conservatives who feel is is their mission to protect the country of Israel because the Jews must be converted before Armageddon.

That’s not intellectually stupid at all. That’s knowing her audience. I’ve always said she is a skillful politician and democrats would be wise to take her threat more seriously. But Clyburn and others are the stupid ones when they continue to insult her and by extension her fans. But what can we expect from Clyburn, who bludgeoned Hillary Clinton and her supported as being racists. Talk about stupidity, look no further than yourself, James. In America, it’s not only unacceptable to be a liberal, according to Republicans, it’s doubly unacceptable to be a liberal who prefers a capable woman over an inexperienced and ruthless man. That makes you a racist liberal. And they say only Republicans can come up with this stuff.

He should have done what bill Clinton did yesterday and condemned demonization against anyone, Sarah could have no come back to that. But now, blood libel, will be the word du jour and every right wing religious fox news viewer will know exactly what she means and will be eating right out of her hand.

So, Sarah has just added kerosene to this fire. Well done

Sarah – 1; Clyburn – 0

---

Breaking the Obama Enigma Code

Rep. James Clyburn has been very vocal in the past couple of days about Bill Clinton’s remarks about Obama playing the race card.  Clyburn works up to a righteous indignation:

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-South Carolina, told CNN Friday that Bill Clinton’s comments on the “race card” before Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary upset him.

Clinton’s tone in a phone interview, said Clyburn, “caused people to say things to me [about Clinton] that I never thought I would hear.”

In that interview the former president said, among other things, that the Obama campaign “played the race card on me.”

After the phone interview but before he hung up, Clinton was recorded saying: “I don’t think I should take any s*** from anybody on that, do you?”…

Clyburn said he’s already noticing diminishing enthusiasm among younger voters, citing a difference in a visit to a college campus in January and a recent one.

“We have young people — African-Americans that are as enthusiastic about this party as they’ve been in the last 40 years, and we cannot tamp down that enthusiasm or we will not be successful in November if we do,” he said.

My Goodness!  He certainly sounds sincere.

A lot of us were sort of expecting this.  Yep, it’s a little less than 2 weeks before the next primary in a state with a large African-American population, North Carolina.  No use rolling it out before PA.  African-Americans don’t have the critical mass to put Obama over the top there.  In this case, it almost seems unnecessary because African-Americans have been consistently voting their race throughout the campaign season.  What makes Obama think he needs to poison the atmosphere between them and the Clintons now?  Maybe Clinton is just too effective on the stump and some of the weaker members just start to drift away from Obama.  Better to get their knickers in a twist over some alleged slur.  And there will be monitors from Obama’s campaign, carefully checking Clinton surrogates for phrases that can be tortured into sounding like a racist remark.

It’s a pattern, one that didn’t even take an ULTRA to solve.  But patterns can be deadly to those practicing the art of war.