Giving Up The Game Quote of the Day

"The difference between Trump and his cohort is that he shouts his party’s ugliest views at the top of his lungs and without apology rather than sugarcoating them in Frank Luntz–tested euphemisms and code words. What the GOP Establishment wants is Trumpism — and Trump supporters — without the embarrassing spectacle of Trump himself. Now he has called their bluff and is holding the entire Republican Party hostage. The Establishment would like to blow him up so that he’ll stop giving up the game by calling attention to the extremist views and constituents in the GOP base, but every attempt to sideline him has backfired."--  (emphasis added) Frank Rich, writing in New York Magazine.

The only quibble with Rich's comment is that the infection has spread beyond "the GOP base" and afflicts the entire, dysfunctional party from top to bottom.

Monday Morning Reading - Of Fox and Rich Men

You might call this the "get out of your crouch, progressives!" morning reading:

-- Frank Rich has a long, provocative piece on why liberals should see Fox "News" as roadkill, and that, "Rather than waste time bemoaning Fox's bogus journalism, liberals should encourage it."  We must admit, noting the constant crazy coming from Fox is like catnip to us.  But rather than reacting to every Fox dropping, Rich makes the point that we should be focused on promoting bread- and- butter economic issues where we have the wind at our back (i.e., raising the minimum wage, income inequality, job creation).

-- Speaking of economic issues, Paul Krugman writes about the paranoia of the plutocrats, and why progressives should see it as a sign we're doing something right.

BONUS:  Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has a bracing rejoinder to the Rich article.

Shutdown Quote of the Day

"Let’s be clear what this is about: the refusal of a defeated political party to accept the legitimacy of the democratic process when it didn’t get its way. The focus on Obamacare as a means to delegitimize a twice-elected president is just the latest pretext after previous pretexts failed, from the president’s supposedly fake birth certificate to the “Fast and Furious” scandal to Benghazi and all the other would-be impeachable offenses investigated by the House’s Inspector Clouseau, Representative Darrell Issa of California."  -- Frank Rich, writing in New York Magazine, about the Rethuglican shutdown of the Government.  Bonus points for the Inspector Clouseau link to Rep. Darrell "Grand Theft Auto" Issa.  Heh heh.

BONUS QUOTE:
"Why would House Democrats give away what the Supreme Court and the 2012 electorate didn’t?," [Washington Democratic Rep. Jim] McDermott said. 'You can’t say, OK, you get half of Obamacare—this isn’t a Solomonic decision. So we sit here until they figure out they f*ck*n’ lost.” 

Monday Reading

The indispensable Frank Rich on why the Obama campaign needs to take a lesson from the LBJ-era anti-Goldwater "Daisy" ad (and other successful "negative" political campaigns) and drop the bomb on weird Willard "I Like to Fire People" Romney:

"The serious questions raised by the early Obama ads are not whether they were too much but too little: Was waiting until May behind the curve? Are the ads vicious enough to inflict lasting damage? Is there a nuclear option in Obama’s advertising arsenal that can blow Romney out of the water as LBJ’s immortal mushroom-cloud 'Daisy' ad did Barry Goldwater on Labor Day in 1964? Given the anemic employment numbers and the pack of billionaire GOP sugar daddies smelling blood after their Wisconsin victory, a reboot of hope and change would truly be the reelection campaign’s most self-destructive option. Obama is embarking on one of the roughest political races in memory, not a nostalgia tour. He is facing an opponent with a proven record of successful carpet-bombing attacks, as Gingrich and Rick Santorum can attest. Just because that proposed super-PAC stink bomb branding Obama as a 'metrosexual' disciple of a frothing-at-the-mouth Reverend Jeremiah Wright was aborted doesn’t mean that more of the same and uglier aren’t on the way. The premise of Romney’s entire campaign amounts to one long complaint against Obama, and shadowy donors whose names you’ll never learn can do the dirty work under PAC cover while Romney claims his hands are clean."

It's a richly (pun-intended) detailed article that's worth reading in its entirety (pay attention Axelrod and Plouffe!). Being on the receiving end of the equivalent of a political H-bomb is one thing to which the smug Willard is entitled.

Quote of the Day

"[Billionaires] Bob Perry, Foster Friess, David Koch. . .got what they paid for, a big defeat for organized labor, a symbolic defeat for Democrats, and a victory for a world view in which unions, government regulation, and taxation are all nuisances that should be stamped out so that Ayn Rand vulture capitalism can triumph unimpeded." -- Frank Rich in his on-line column in New York Magazine.

Let's be clear: when Koch Industries manager / Wisconsin Gov. Scott "Divide and Conquer" Walker attacked state employee unions, he wasn't just after their pensions or the amounts they pay for their health care to balance the state budget. He was going after a main source of Dem financial support and volunteers. They want a one-party state and Nation ultimately, one in which they rule like the robber barons of the 1800s.

Rich on the Occupy Movement and "Class Warfare"

Frank Rich has a long, intriguing essay in New York Magazine on the anger being expressed at the "overclass" (i.e., the 1 %) that transcends ideology and has deep roots in American politics. The essay is worth a read; here's an excerpt:

"Elections are supposed to resolve conflicts in a great democracy, but our next one will not. The elites will face off against the elites to a standoff, and the issues animating the class war in both parties won’t even be on the table. The structural crises in our economy, our government, and our culture defy any of the glib solutions proposed by current Democrats or Republicans; the quixotic third-party movements being hatched by well-heeled do-gooders are vanity productions. The two powerful forces that extricated America from the Great Depression—the courageous leadership and reformist zeal of Roosevelt, the mobilization for World War II—are not on offer this time. Our class war will rage on without winners indefinitely, with all sides stewing in their own juices, until—when? No one knows. The reckoning with capitalism’s failures over the past three decades, both in America and the globe beyond, may well be on hold until the top one percent becomes persuaded that its own economic fate is tied to the other 99 percent’s. Which is to say things may have to get worse before they get better."

Quote of the Day

"What haunts the Obama administration is what still haunts the country: the stunning lack of accountability for the greed and misdeeds that brought America to its gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression. There has been no legal, moral, or financial reckoning for the most powerful wrongdoers. Nor have there been meaningful reforms that might prevent a repeat catastrophe. Time may heal most wounds, but not these. Chronic unemployment remains a constant, painful reminder of the havoc inflicted on the bust’s innocent victims." - the incomparable Frank Rich, writing in New York Magazine about our new gilded age elites, who escaped accountability from the financial collapse, and the President's failure to address it. It's worth reading, as always.

Quote of the Day

"That’s not to say there is no fiscal mission in the right’s agenda, both nationally and locally — only that the mission has nothing to do with deficit reduction. The real goal is to reward the G.O.P.’s wealthiest patrons by crippling what remains of organized labor, by wrecking the government agencies charged with regulating and policing corporations, and, as always, by rewarding the wealthiest with more tax breaks. The bankrupt moral equation codified in the Bush era — that tax cuts tilted to the highest bracket were a higher priority even than paying for two wars — is now a given. The once-bedrock American values of shared sacrifice and equal economic opportunity have been overrun."-- Frank Rich, in today's New York Times, commenting on the far right's goals beyond paying lip service to "fiscal responsibility."

Sunday With Frank Rich

Today's column by Frank Rich in the New York Times captures the dilemma of the Rethugs: how to keep their wingnut base fired up without appearing absolutely insane to the rest of America. Their most demagogic leaders, Boo Hoo Beck and Mama Fizzly Palin, are losing ratings and appeal. They are devoid of any solutions but cutting taxes and cutting programs for the middle class.

Some of Rich's best writing is when he's skewering Rethug pols, in this case when Messrs. Santorum and Romney groveled before the Crackpot Political Action Committee several days ago:

"Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator who lost his 2006 re-election bid by a landslide of 17 percentage points, believes he can be president despite being best known for having likened homosexuality to 'man on dog' sex. Even less conversant in foreign affairs than canine coitus, he attacked Obama for deserting Hosni Mubarak, questioning the message it sent to America’s 'friends'. . . Romney, on the other hand, is the closest thing the G.O.P. has to a front-runner, and he is even more hollow than Santorum. Indeed, his appearance at CPAC on the morning of Friday, Feb. 11, was entirely consistent with his public image as an otherworldly visitor from an Aqua Velva commercial circa 1985."

Snap! No one dishes it better than Frank Rich.

Sunday Morning With Frank Rich

The New York Times' columnist Frank Rich reflects today on the simmering violence in our political arena. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords foreshadowed the violent act done to her back in March 2010, referring to the now infamous "crosshair" symbols, saying "they've got to realize there's consequences to that action." As Rich notes, no one listened to her at the time. He says:

"This isn’t about angry blog posts or verbal fisticuffs. Since Obama’s ascension, we’ve seen repeated incidents of political violence. Just a short list would include the 2009 killing of three Pittsburgh police officers by a neo-Nazi Obama-hater; last year’s murder-suicide kamikaze attack on an I.R.S. office in Austin, Tex.; and the California police shootout with an assailant plotting to attack an obscure liberal foundation obsessively vilified by Beck.

Obama said, correctly, on Wednesday that 'a simple lack of civility' didn’t cause the Tucson tragedy. It didn’t cause these other incidents either. What did inform the earlier violence — including the vandalism at Giffords’s office — was an antigovernment radicalism as rabid on the right now as it was on the left in the late 1960s."

Keep in mind that, leading up to the 2010 elections, the rage on the right was focused on defeating Obama's legislative proposals and individual members of Congress. Now, as they gear up for the 2012 Presidential election, it will be on the man they've vilified and depicted as a usurper, as the emblem of everything they despise -- culturally, politically and racially. So if you think they'll "tone it down," think again.

Sunday Morning With Frank Rich

This morning, Frank Rich discusses Obama held hostage by the terrorists (Rethugs). Sadly, Obama doesn't seem to want the progressive S.W.A.T. team to rescue him.

Quote of the Day

"Few cared when The Boston Globe reported last fall that the Secret Service was overwhelmed by death threats against the president as well as a rise in racist hate groups and antigovernment fervor. It’s no better now. In a cover article last month, Barton Gellman wrote in Time that the magazine’s six-month investigation found that 'the threat level against the president and other government targets' is at its highest since the antigovernment frenzy that preceded Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995." -- Frank Rich in today's New York Times. Read it for a fuller picture of the rage on the right and its consequences.

Sunday Morning With Frank Rich

Our Sunday pal, Frank Rich, on Obama, the middle class, special interests, and getting his FDR groove on.

"Invisible Hands" and the Teabaggers

Our Sunday go-to guy, Frank Rich, tells us about the bankrollers of the "grassroots" tea bag/ affluent lily-white conservative "civil rights" movement and their loathsome, radical views. Not surprisingly, irony abounds.

Another Frank Rich Sunday

This is becoming a routine: read Frank Rich in the New York Times, and marvel at his ability to destroy the latest right-wing canard. Today is no exception, where he goes after what he calls the "Rupert Murdoch axis of demagoguery" on the proposed Islamic center in the vicinity of "ground zero." Key quote:

"The ginned-up rage over the “ground zero mosque” was not motivated by a serious desire to protect America from the real threat of terrorists lurking at home and abroad — a threat this furor has in all likelihood exacerbated — but by the potential short-term rewards of winning votes by pandering to fear during an election season."

He also points up Murdoch's NewsCorp's shameless hypocrisy in fanning an anti-Muslim backlash in America, while pushing for nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan ostensibly to help their Muslim populations, all while having a significant share of their company owned by a Saudi royal prince. SOBs.

Sunday Morning With Frank Rich

It almost wouldn't be Sunday without a laser-directed salvo from the NY Times' Frank Rich. This morning, he discusses the political landscape for Democrats, their banking on the "bash Bush" strategy, and their lack of a strong plan and message for addressing continuing economic troubles. Weak knees, lack of conviction, and other forms of political malpractice will get you every time.

Quote of the Day

"While the greatest environmental disaster in our history is a trying juncture for Obama, it also provides him with a nearly unparalleled opening to make his and government’s case. The spill’s sole positive benefit has been to unambiguously expose the hard right, for all its populist pandering to the Tea Partiers, as a stalking horse for its most rapacious corporate patrons. If this president can speak lucidly of race to America, he can certainly explain how the antigovernment crusaders are often the paid toadies of bad actors like BP. Such big corporations are only too glad to replace big government with governance of their own, by their own, and for their own profit — while the “small people” are left to eat cake at their tea parties." -- Frank Rich, in today's New York Times. Always on target.

Frank Rich Hits It On The Head - Again

It wouldn't be Sunday without a superb analysis by the NY Times' Frank Rich. This week, he sums up the past 2-plus years of right wing hysteria, its antecedents and its prospects. Must read.

History Upside Down

Again, Frank Rich delivers a must-read column in this morning's New York Times, this time on the deceitful attempts to rewrite history by Karl "Turdblossom" Rove and Liz "Lizard" Cheney. Sadly, the revisionism is not getting sufficient pushback from either the Obama Administration or the "librul" media, which mostly was swallowing the propaganda whole during the selling of the war with Iraq by the Bushit crew. As Rich notes:

"If we are really to keep America safe, it’s essential we remember exactly which American politicians empowered Iran, Al Qaeda and the Taliban from 2001 to 2008, and why. History will be repeated not only if we forget it, but also if we let it be rewritten by those whose ideological zealotry and boneheaded decisions have made America less safe to this day."

The Sunday Read

Frank Rich's column in the Sunday New York Times is becoming must-reading these days. Today's column is about the far-right's resurgence and mainstreaming in the Tea Party "movement". He has the Joseph Stack murder/suicide in Austin and teabaggers in mind when he writes:

"Two days before Stack’s suicide mission, The Times published David Barstow’s chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. Anyone who was cognizant during the McVeigh firestorm would recognize the old warning signs re-emerging from the mists of history. The Patriot movement. “The New World Order,” with its shadowy conspiracies hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Sandpoint, Idaho. White supremacists. Militias.

His whole column is worth a read, and is chilling.