the birther era

... cliff notes version:

not the civil war they dreamt of

hostage-taking 101: time is not on your side! — especially when your confederates chase different goals, expect different ransoms, serve different masters and respond differently to stress. should the theatrics play out too long, hands at each others' throats may be your only reward ...

salon: appearing on MSNBC on friday, congressman peter king continued his epic verbal assault on ted cruz — and, to a lesser extent, rand paul — by describing the texas senator as a "RINO" (republican in name only) and a "fraud."

speaking with MSNBC's andrea mitchell, king called the ongoing government shutdown "the strategy of ted cruz" and wondered aloud "why more republicans around the country didn't join me in denouncing ted cruz" before the shutdown began. "we cannot allow our party to be taken over by the likes of ted cruz and rand paul," king continued, describing cruz and paul as "isolationists" and "RINOs" who "don't represent traditional republican principles."

"ted cruz, what he did here, was lead the party into a dead end with no strategy, somehow convincing a number of house republicans that we just sent this to through senate as far as defunding and closing down the government, he would manage to get harry reid and president obama to back down," said king. "he never had a plan. it was fraudulent from the start. and we have to cut this guy off now."

TPM: mccain's appearance on fox came shortly after sen. ted cruz (R-TX), the leader of the movement to defund the health care law, spoke at the values voter summit. maccallum asked mccain how he felt about cruz "representing" republicans at a meeting scheduled for friday at the white house.

"first of all, martha, please, he's not representing us there" ...

daily kos: [tex rep louis gohmert:] "when it comes to the shutdown that's going on, i heard just before i came some senator from arizona, uh, a guy that liked qaddafi before he wanted to bomb him, a guy that liked mubarak before he wanted him out, a guy that's been to syria and supported al qaeda and rebels, but he was saying today the shutdown has been a fool's errand. and i agree with him. the president and harry reid should not have shut this government down!"

TPM: tensions are flaring between house and senate republicans over how to defuse the crisis ahead of an oct. 17 debt ceiling deadline. house GOP members expressed concerns during a private saturday meeting that the senate GOP would undercut and jam them by striking a deal with president barack obama that conservatives dislike.

... "they're trying to cut the house out, and trying to jam us with the senate," a fired-up [WI rep. paul] ryan told reporters after the GOP meeting. "we're not going to roll over and take that."

breitbart: on his radio show on friday, fox news host sean hannity said house speaker john boehner (R-OH), along with the rest of the republican leadership in the house, had to be replaced.

"i do think leadership in the house needs to change," hannity said. "i don't think john boehner is equipped for the job. i don't think he has the stomach to negotiate. i don't think he has the ability to communicate the positive, solution-oriented vision for the country."

... he said the GOP has a "communications problem" that has been reflected in the party's bad poll numbers.

hannity also ripped republican leaders in washington for "alienating" the tea party. hannity named senators like john mccain (R-AZ) and bob corker (R-TN) for being the top offenders and said their "unwillingness to stand strong" and constant bashing of the tea party is "irritating every conservative i know."

AP: "we're not saying obama is right. we're saying what republicans are doing is wrong," said matt cox, a former executive director of ohio's cuyahoga county GOP.

TPM: erick erickson, prominent conservative blogger, said on his blog friday that he will be donating to the primary opponents of house speaker john boehner (R-OH) and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell (R-KY) because of the way both leaders are approaching negotiations on the continuing resolution and debt ceiling.

"republican leaders in washington, DC are signaling they will cave on the fight against obamacare," erickson wrote. "GOP leaders, by caving, are signaling they want us to primary them."

erickson blamed the GOP's sinking approval ratings on boehner and other republican leaders.

"[n]ow that john boehner and the orange man group of capitol hill are the faces of the GOP, obamacare's popularity is going back up and the GOP's popularity is going back down," erickson wrote.

redState: but john boehner, eric cantor, mitch mcconnell, and john cornyn will ensure that obamacare is fully funded and give the american public no delay like businesses have.

in doing so, they will sow the seeds of a real third party movement that will fully divide the republican party.

washington post: conservative groups that advocated for a standoff spoke openly about their motives. at a breakfast with reporters wednesday, michael needham, chief executive of the conservative group heritage action, freely admitted that he was "pretty optimistic" that we will soon see a crackup of the old republican order.

thinkProgress: as the government shutdown enters its eleventh day and the nation races towards a possible default, a growing number of republican lawmakers, leaders, and voters are publicly blaming congressional republicans for the budget impasse. ...

"it's time for someone to act like a grown-up in this process," former new hampshire gov. john sununu (R) told the associated press. michigan gov. rick snyder (R) agreed, remarking on monday that "this is not how we should operate. it shouldn't be about people fighting and yelling.' "the bottom line is we need that money in our economy to save rural hospitals and jobs in the rural areas," arizona gov. jan brewer (R) told the arizona daily star on thursday, criticizing the GOP'e effort to defund the affordable care act.

the criticism comes as an associated press-GfK poll released wednesday showed that "three-quarters of republicans nationally said their party in congress deserves a moderate degree or most of the blame for the shutdown" ...

in yet another sign of trouble for the GOP, business interests are also showing signs of discontent, signaling a possible rift with republicans ahead of the 2014 mid-term elections.

iowa republicans "are recruiting a pro-business republican to challenge six-term conservative rep. steve king (R), a leader in the push to defund the health care law," the associated press reports and party establishment leaders in michigan are threatening to recruit and fund challengers to rep. justin amash (R) and other tea party aligned candidates.

TNR: "the business community has got to stand up and say we are not going to back the most self-described conservative candidate. we are going to back the candidates that are the most rational," says john feehery, a former aide to delay and hastert who is now president of quinn gillespie & associates, a washington lobbying firm.

what washington business lobbyists say on-the-record about the house republicans and about tea party activists pales before what they are willing to say if their names aren't used. one former republican staffer says of the anti-establishment groups, "they want to go in and fuck shit up. these non-corporate non-establishmentarian guys — that is exactly what they are doing. and the problem with that is obvious. what next? what happens after you fuck shit up?"

conservatives went looking for fresh plunder from the administration in a raid that was supposed to pit republican vs. democrat — not GOP vs. GOP and certainly not along every conceivable fissure:

house vs. senate.

extreme vs. moderate.

upstart vs. established.

ideology vs. money.

anarchy vs. order.

none of them came prepared for a suddenly resolute president or a unified party behind him. no one expected to run into a veritable stone wall — against which the GOP, to its own horror, seem incapable of thwarting the urge to batter itself delirious, in what historians might one day call the "republican war into irrelevance".

what a difference a week makes

freeperville, oct 4:

lol. the plan is obama caves.

what don’t you understand?

we are on the verge of an historic CONSERVATIVE victory.

what’s not to like?

(by st_thomas_aquinas)

oct 11:

[texas congressman louis] gomert [sic] on beck’s show today, just before noon EST, saying that boehner is now in a meeting with obama, and is “giving up on 98-99% of obamacare, so they [RINOs] can say that they got something from obama.”

so yeah, the cave is in progress.

i guess the NBC/WSJ rush is talking about spooked them.

as beck says, it's time to defund the GOP. tea party candidates only. no collaborators need apply.

(by st_thomas_aquinas)

RINOs = "republicans in name only"

acme wingnuts

"better guilty than impotent"

sometimes there is no third option to use, you can't get out of a situation without making yourself look bad. so your best option is basically to take the lesser of two evils.

the catch is that the options that gives you the least problems is also the ones that makes you look like you had no idea what you are doing. so instead you make yourself look guilty in an effort to keep up your reputation.

named from the film version of the sum of all fears, where the russian president takes responsibility for a military strike done by a general acting without orders so it doesn't seem like he was incompetent.

"better guilty than impotent", tvtropes.org

this trope's been rattling around in my head since obama's chosen to vigorously defend the wholesale rifling of all domestic messages by the nsa. in "the sum of all fears" (2002), newly minted and wholly innocent russian president nemerov, after ordering the rogue generals responsible "disappeared", defiantly defends the atrocity as a legitimate response to "a nation of criminals" attacking innocent russians, in order to not appear not in control of his own military. the hero, cia analyst jack ryan, to the derision of washington's defense and intelligence chairs, correctly surmises that nemerov isn't the hardliner he pretends to be and didn't order the attack — ultimately helping both countries avoid being manipulated into global thermonuclear war.

it's difficult to reconcile a constitutional scholar and government transparency proponent defending, much less overseeing, a massive ongoing violation of the fourth amendment. but it's not hard to imagine the nsa (with profiteer booz allen) doing what they're paid to do, in secret, and in the name of the war on terror, simply deciding they could and would eavesdrop on everyone. these are not revelations of new ambitions. so we're left to scratch our heads and wonder if obama chose the lesser of two evils rather than plead ignorance and admit that our intelligence agencies are out of control. or maybe a movie is just a movie. perhaps we'll find out in fifty years or so after the papers are finally declassified (or even sooner if wikileaks or anonymous ever gets hold of them).

picture of the day

overheard election evening: "i'm sorry to have to ask you again, governor, but could you repeat that just one more time? and even louder? the folks over here are just a little bit excited tonight."

nov. 6, 2012: president obama talks on the phone with former massachusetts gov. mitt romney in the presidential suite at the fairmont chicago millennium park in chicago, ill. (via tpm)

"wolf!" they cried, this time with feeling

even as the benghazi gasbags crumple under their own morbidly obese weight, from the outset it was never possible to take republicans seriously on it. first, the point man just wants to throw his weight around in front of the cameras one last time before the next senate takes it away from him. second, four years ago the GOP proudly and loudly proclaimed that their number one priority was to make obama a one-term president. to win 2012 obama needed to fail. at everything. thus began a nonstop and ultimately futile campaign of single-minded obstruction, condemnation and sabotage of every act, nomination and proposal obama has attempted to make. that is now historical fact. the GOP came to raze him, then to bury him. in all of four years obama wrested from them but a single moment of respite — after disclosing the death of bin laden, where even the most rabid partisans could find no safe purchase from which to continue their attacks.

when a party adopts a nakedly self-serving program of categorical obstruction, they also loudly announce that the merits of any particular issue do. not. matter. one. whit. quite foolishly they surrendered all credibility on anything and everything they object to, since they were planning to object anyway. everything becomes a "crisis" and the critics become the old men that cried wolf. so despite their loud moral opprobrium at the deaths of four americans, does anyone believe, had benghazi never happened, that the GOP would not now be organizing some kind of "crucial" hearings about some other administration "scandal"? does anyone believe, had rice's name never been floated, that the GOP would not now be obstructing this nomination, as they have every other?

exit interview

enjoy your retirement, sam.

audio: detective calls comments about obama's death 'political hyperbole'

veteran JSO officer retires after confronted with perceived threat to president

the jacksonville sheriff's office has released audio of an internal affairs interview with a veteran detective accused of threatening the president and members of the democratic party the week of the election earlier this month.

that detective, sam koivisto, later retired from JSO.

in the interview, koivisto was asked if he knew why he was being questioned.

"my understanding is that, and all i can say, all there is to say, is any statements made are political hyperbole," he said. "such as when on tv, they go, 'hey, you know, the republicans want to, you know, take — put people on death lists and, you know, push them off the cliff or something.' i mean, that's all it is. it's just political hyperbole. i have not said it. i've not made any threats against anybody. i've not said anything other than to express a desire, not happy with the fact obama got elected. that's it."

an internal affairs investigator continued to prompt koivisto about the statements he made.

"the statement i made in the office was something of the nature — i think ms. field at some point said, 'you know, the poor people up north just got hit by one storm and now they're hit by another,'" koivisto said. "and i made the statement, 'well, you know, the whole northeast just generally has voted democratic, voted heavily obama, got him elected. and so i said something to the point, 'well, if a nuclear bomb exploded and killed them all, it wouldn't hurt my feelings any.' that's what i said. didn't make any statement about hurting anybody or anything of that nature."

the investigator, however, said the statement he wanted koivisto to speak on was one he made about a threat to kill the president.

"no. no. the only statement ever made about the president was, i said, 'you know, just like when they killed osama bin laden,' i said, 'if someone says, 'hey, he is the enemy of the state or whatever,' and they had to take him out, then i could be the guy to do it,'" koivisto said. "that's not, that's not a, that's not me saying i would kill the guy or anything of that nature. that's just to say that if the guy went away, it wouldn't hurt my feelings."

koivisto said he never told anybody he wanted to kill the president.

"it was a bad choice of words, perhaps," he said. "no intention with it whatsoever."

in koivisto's retirement letter, he requested to keep his badge and glock 27, and was allowed to.

sheriff john rutherford said his department learned the friday after the election of "threatening statements allegedly made by one of our detectives."

rutherford said in a preliminary interview with koivisto, he acknowledged making the statements, which "we found his comments to be unacceptable workplace conduct, as opposed to legitimate threats."

"it was never made, never a threat, never any, you know, ever going to ever take any action on it or anything of that nature," koivisto said. "it was just saying that, you know, i'm not real fond of the guy, and if he goes away it wouldn't hurt my feelings."

during the interrogation, he insisted it was all just talk.

"simply just saying that i'm not pleased with that whole situation of, of the country is in. period. that's it," koivisto said. "political hyperbole, nothing more, nothing less."

given the nature of the comments, JSO notified the united states secret service of koivisto's statements. the secret service said a decision on any possible charges would be up to the U.S. attorney's office.

rutherford said koivisto, who had 24 years with the department, elected to retire early.

the interviewer makes a keen observation the erstwhile detective so far is unwilling to acknowledge: "perception is reality. if they perceive that: hey you said that and you got the means to carry it out, you ARE a police officer ..."

koivisto wants to pretend otherwise but, unlike most random nutjobs off the street, the feds have no choice but to take his case seriously.

the interviewer's trying to tell him: someone believed you.

the sad trombone

via tumbler, scenes from the night republicans discovered that reality really does have a liberal bias:

four more years ...

not a fluke

a tale of two campaigns

and this is the way the debates end:

say what, governor?

booman tribune:

last night's debate was different for a lot or reasons. the president let himself get pushed around a little bit early on, but not without some resistance. and he eventually found the perfect moment to rope-a-dope Romney into the threshing blades with his comments on terrorism in benghazi. thereafter, obama was the undisputed alpha dog of the debate, which was capped by his good fortune in having the final say of the night. if it were a boxing match, romney was knocked down at least two times and the fight ended with mitt on the ropes taking a pummeling from the champion. the judges' cards were not close.

a tale of two campaigns

a tale of two campaigns

via twitter:

ari rabin-havt: clearly biden warmed up with some p90x tonight

oliver willis: fox calls ryan "the budget whiz." ffs.

jasons linkins: NOBODY BEATS THE WHIZ

a tale of two campaigns

let romney savor his moment.

he's worked his entire life for it.

the real october surprise

conservatives discover that their nemesis really is one baaad motherf—!

again.

romney unplugged

(original artwork by alex ross)

fox news:

bill o'reilly: i don't understand what the controversy is. i think mr. romney should campaign on this point. if i'm governor romney, i run with this all day long.

sean hannity: it is romney unplugged as the GOP presidential nominee delivers one of his sharpest critiques yet of president obama and the entitlement society that he enables.

stuart varney: i think this will be seen as a win for romney.

pollster nate silver @ fivethirtyeight:

after a secretly recorded videotape was released on sept. 17 showing mitt romney making unflattering comments about the "47 percent" of americans who he said had become dependent on government benefits, i suggested on twitter that the political impact of the comments could easily be overstated.

"ninety percent of 'game-changing' gaffes are less important in retrospect than they seem in the moment," i wrote.

... since then, however, mr. obama has gained further ground in the polls. as of thursday, he led in the popular vote by 5.7 percentage points in the "now-cast," a gain of 1.6 percentage points since mr. romney's remarks became known to the public.

it's hard to tell whether this recent gain for mr. obama reflects the effect of the "47 percent" comments specifically. but the most typical pattern after a party convention is that a candidate who gains ground in the polls cedes at least some of it back.

instead, the more pertinent question seems not whether mr. obama is losing ground, but whether he is still gaining it.

... what we can say with more confidence is that mr. romney is now in a rather poor position in the polls.

... the overall story line, however, is fairly clear: mr. romney is at best holding ground in the polls, and quite possibly losing some, at a time when he needs to be gaining it instead. further, it's increasingly implausible for mr. romney to attribute the numbers to temporary effects from the democratic convention. mr. obama's probability of winning the electoral college advanced to 83.9 percent in the nov. 6 forecast, up from 81.9 percent on wednesday.

romney-ryan: a post-mortem

so how did romney-ryan flub their campaign? plainly stated, they attempted to play the electorate for total fools. the fools, however, were not amused.

romney-ryan (and their moneyed backers) wanted to see just how far they could get away with outright lying as a central strategy, one that was dependent on the media playing along in its contemporary role as neutered stenographers. the stenographers, however, were not amused. the plan fell apart with romney's attacks on obama's welfare waiver; the press, not really enjoying serving romney as thankless eunuchs, chose their remaining credibility over complete irrelevance.

romney-ryan wanted to see just how far they could get away with running a campaign on nothing but glib generalities and baffling banalities. trust my wonk, romney assured us; everything makes sense in the details, which we'll happily bore you with ... after the election. however, a certain now-famous and doubtlessly pivotal tape revealed:

romney: if we win on november 6th there will be — a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. and we'll see capital come back and we'll see — without — without actually doing anything, we'll [chuckling] actually get a boost in the economy.

heh heh heh... surprise! no grand vision up my sleeve, no master plan beyond untethered hope, something conservatives invoking obama's 2008 campaign currently sneer at. meanwhile, the 47% were not amused.

so the romney-ryan bamboozlefest 2012 crashed and burned more than a month before the election, before even a single debate. in truth it never really got off the ground. perhaps they were doomed from the start. the republican brand has suffered nothing less than a total loss of credibility. with credibility goes a certain deference normally given, certainly by the press, to those cloaked in the authority of their reputations. they might have held onto a remnant of it by admitting their mistakes and cooperating in fixing them.

so who knows if it could have worked? perhaps if the team weren't so clearly incompetent, unable to turn either a scripted event, like their london tour or an unforseen one, like the libyan riots, to their advantage. one thing is clear, though: the electorate isn't nearly as idiotic as romney-ryan themselves turned out to be.

a tale of two campaigns

a tale of two campaigns