Granby01033

There's nothing left to do but congratulate Scott Brown on a well-run campaign and well-earned earned victory. It's unlikely he'll make decisions I agree with, but give credit where it's due.
At this point, I'm more interested in the why's than anything else, and since I can't do anything to change the Republican Party, I'm focusing [...] Read more »

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The filibuster--the 60 vote requirement to shut off debate--isn't in the Constitution. It isn't in the Declaration of Independence. Or the Bill of Rights. It's a rule the Senate itself has adopted.  The filibuster rule allows some measure of power to the minority party in the Senate, allowing it to block appointments and legislation. It's [...] Read more »

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As much as I really, really disliked The Worst President Ever, I don't remember being hateful. Generally speaking, I'm not hateful. But my identity isn't so closely tied to my political beliefs that the inevitable threat to the latter endangers the former. Who I am is certainly reflected in my politics, but I don't freak [...] Read more »

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If you're old enough to remember the 1950s, you probably remember President Dwight Eisenhower. You may have even voted for him. Eisenhower was a Republican, but not right-winger. It's hard to imagine now, but once upon a time, the Far Right, the Goldwater wing, was only a small portion of the GOP.
By 1968, President Nixon had [...] Read more »

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"Right-wing pundits demonize scapegoated groups and individuals in our society, implying that it is urgent to stop them from wrecking the nation. Some angry people in the audience already believe conspiracy theories in which the same scapegoats are portrayed as subversive, destructive, or evil. Add in aggressive apocalyptic ideas that suggest time is running out [...] Read more »

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Think of the internet as a pipline for information to travel. The bigger the pipeline the faster that information can travel. If telecom companies have their way, they'll be able to narrow the pipes for some people or some types of data and applications.
When dial-up access was still popular, many companies competed to provide internet [...] Read more »

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"So many businessmen are afraid to be seen in public with us. We are so hated and so controversial on Beacon Hill. ... For 30 years, I ran around to these business groups, and they never join. They just take us for granted."
--Barbara Anderson
Proposition 2½ was one of the better mistakes Massachusetts ever made. The [...] Read more »

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It's even money whether Mr. Ulmer and Mr. Merwin are racists or just ignorant. I've noticed bigots and racists often attribute qualities they respect to the people they hate. Stereotypes about Jewish people may be part of the cultural water these guys drink. I wonder what they have to say about black folks and Spanish speaking immigrants.

There is [...] Read more »

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There will always be crazy people. There will alway be crazy people who band together. As long as they stay within the bounds of the law, they will always be free to hold crazy opinions and say crazy things. There's a price to their freedom and a price when they cross the line.
Since the candidacy [...] Read more »

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As you may recall, I've been doing a lot of reading about 20th century political history. The story of the last 45 years has been the rise of conservatism and the fall of liberalism. During the late 60s and early 70s, the American Left was every bit obnoxious as the American Right is today.
There are differences, however. [...] Read more »

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Who needs death panels when we have the GOP leadership? The Dayton Daily News reports that one of Sen. John Boehner's  (R-OH)  constituents died from complications due to the H1N1 flu. She lacked health insurance.

OXFORD — Friends say the Miami University graduate who died this week after reportedly suffering from swine flu delayed getting medical treatment [...] Read more »

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Who woulda thunk it?
In spite of the networks focusing on (in)civility in the governing bodies of other nations, it turns out that wingnut Congressman Joe Wilson , who called President Obama a liar at last week's joint session of Congress, actually broke Congressional rules.  According to WaPo,

While Senate rules on decorum do not prohibit personal [...] Read more »

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One difference between the Democrats and Republicans: the GOP listens to its base (crazy as it is). The Democrats wouldn't know any hard lefties if they stepped on them. Naomi Klein? Maybe if they read The New Yorker piece on her. Noam Chomsky? Maybe if they studied transformational grammar in a college linguistics class. What [...] Read more »

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"I'm not going to pray for his good, I'm going to pray he dies and goes to hell... I'd like him to die of natural causes. I don't want him to be a martyr; we don't need another holiday. I'd like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer."
--Rev. Steven Anderson, from his
sermon, [...] Read more »

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Remember all the GOP complaints about President Obama's stimulus package? Gov. Sarah Palin wanted to turn down the funds. South Carolina's Gov. Rick Sanford wanted to turn it down. Countless (actually counted, but I don't know the number) Republicans and conservative Democrats voted against the legislation.
The words may be the same, but they're now changing their [...] Read more »

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I've been reading Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, a best-selling history of the 1960s. President Richard Nixon is the focal point, but the book is more about the politics of the time than Tricky Dick.  I was just a tike in the second half of the 1960s, and though I was later familiar with a lot of [...] Read more »

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I wanna be like you
I wanna be like you,
I wanna walk like you,
talk like you, be like you.

--The Jungle Book

He Who Must Be Read is always good for a compelling idea. Yesterday, he provided an explanation for why people, in spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary, believe(d) that
Obama is a Kenyan-born Nazi Muslim planning to [...] Read more »

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"All opposition must be stamped into the ground"

I'm reading Nixonland right now. It's a long, detailed political history of the the 1960s. Having been born in 1964, most of what happened in the era of riots and protests passed me by while I was playing with blocks or watching Gilligan's Island.  My friend John Palmer remembers his [...] Read more »

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FromPolitical Animal:

A new Research 2000 poll conducted for Daily Kos asked respondents a rather straightforward question: "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?" Since the president was born in the U.S., ideally, the results would be around 100%.

Oh yeah, and a majority of Republicans either don't know [...] Read more »

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