HorsesAss.Org

The Seattle Times reports today that the US Chamber of Commerce is lying on Dave Reichert’s behalf in radio ads that falsely accuse Darcy Burner of supporting “higher taxes on families with children.”  Imagine that.

The radio spot, which started airing Friday in local markets, is part of a $20 million national ad buy with which the U.S. Chamber is supporting some House and Senate candidates.

And that’s on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars the Chamber has spent over the past half decade or so, backing conservative, pro-business candidates in local judicial, executive and legislative races nationwide.  We’re talking maybe half a billion dollars from the US Chamber alone.

One of the criticisms I’ve heard of Darcy’s 2006 campaign was her failure to effectively fight back against the many lies that were told by Reichert and his surrogates, but the 2008 campaign seems much more responsive.  In fact, they’ve already cut a new radio ad that will start running tonight on both KOMO and KIRO:

[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/burner_special_interest_friends_v2.mp3]

It’ll take of lot of work for Darcy to win in November, but job one is refuting the lies before they have time to take hold.

So now that NBC has caved by demoting Keith Olbermann, once again we have to recognize the Orwellian quality of the American media landscape. Glenn Greenwald notes:

That’s because the Right has created a reality where anyone who isn’t explicitly Rush Limbaugh is deemed to be a “liberal” (hence, Donaldson likely qualifies) and no actual liberal ever needs to be included. That’s how we have a “liberal media” where the principal rule is that actual liberals are systematically excluded, and it’s why the ascent of Olbermann (who is, in fact, far more of a Bush critic than a doctrinaire liberal) has created such turmoil — because it violates that central rule prohibiting liberals from appearing in the Liberal Media.

This is standard operating procedure for conservative candidates and supporters up and down the ticket. If a Republican candidate for say, the Legislature is caught telling bald-faced lies, they simply blame “the liberal media” and their unthinking supporters simply don’t have to deal with the fact their chosen candidate is a flat-out liar. (And by lies, let’s be clear: every politician puts spin on things. I’m talking about just making stuff up, like fake statistics and credentials or saying one opposed a spending project when one supported it. Just for example. And no, it’s not the same as the parliamentary games Republicans are so fond of playing, where cheap procedural stunts are used with an eye to future political attacks.)

One can argue that the telling of bald-faced lies while daring anyone to call them on it is now the raison d’etre of the Republican Party. I mean, the whole “lower taxes and less spending” thing isn’t exactly working out for them, given wars and economic scandals. The more libertarian wing is just as disgusted with them as we are.

Since Democratic candidates will rarely resort to actually calling their opponents liars, as it is still somehow considered bad manners, the GOP tactic of bald-faced lies works to engage and enrage the GOP base, cow some media outlets, and neuter Democrats. The Republicans learned a savage and twisted lesson from Watergate: you can’t get away with criminality and corruption if there is an objective press. The ability to lie and get away with it is fundamental to the GOP approach.

When confronted with their lies, Republicans start screaming and hyper-ventilating about “elitism” or “bias” or whatever their baloney of the moment happens to be, whether it’s Freedom Fries or Brain Dead Women Who Smile. And far too often, the suits who hire journalists retreat into reflexive “both sides do it” excuse-making.

I know, I know. Telling the truth isn’t enough, as George Lakoff argues. But I’m not a social scientist nor am I clever enough to be framing things all the time. All I know is that in a world of two second sound bytes complex discussions stand little chance. Thus the Republicans’ moronic chanting of “drill, drill drill” as if energy policy were a football game. It’s the triumph of the Know Nothings paired with a soupçon of two minute hate.

It’s no secret that American journalism is in a bad way, and at a (perhaps final) crossroads. The GOP is daring journalists to expose the lies or STFU. It’s worth noting that there will continue to be individual journalists who rise to the challenge, but overall the traditional media has yet to recover from the yellow journalism it engaged in during the lie-up to war. But hey, first they came for the journalists and I’m not a journalist and all that.

Don’t get me wrong. When Democrats lie, obfuscate or otherwise engage in bad actions, they should be called on it. If they had been held more accountable maybe some of the outrages of the last seven years might have been mitigated a wee bit.

Sadly, General-Electric-NBC has made its position clear. Repeat the zombie lie enough and they will give in.

You have to wonder how many other outlets will do the same.

There is a remarkable guest column in the Seattle P-I from the Colorado state trooper charged with driving Gov. Chris Gregoire around Denver during the Democratic National Convention… a first person evaluation of the Governor from a self-described Republican.  While he doesn’t necessarily agree with Gov. Gregoire on every issue, he was impressed with her both as a person and a politician:

Gregoire may be a strong advocate for her party, but she is not a “partisan” in the way the term has recently become defined.

[…] I’ve spent much of my 28 years in law enforcement as an investigator, interacting with thousands of people and making judgments on their truthfulness and character.

My conclusions after spending time as a “fly on the wall” with Gregoire is that she is a person of integrity who has the interest of her state at heart and puts that interest above her own.

I too have had the opportunity for a little face time with Gov. Gregoire, and I too don’t agree with her on all the issues (particularly tax issues, where she has failed to take the lead on moving toward a more progressive and sustainable tax structure).  And I have drawn the exact same conclusions.

Indeed, my biggest criticism of the Governor and the way she has run both her office and her campaign is that she has not been partisan enough. At times it feels as if she thinks that she is above politics, reluctant to dirty her hands in what at times can be a very dirty business… a reluctance that can be a terrible liability when facing an opponent who clearly has no compunction about about wallowing in the mud.

This is why it makes sense to give tax cuts to the rich – because they know how to put their dollars to good use…

In completely unrelated news, two Washington State medical marijuana patients have court dates tomorrow (both out on the peninsula). The Cannabis Defense Coalition has both listings in their event calendar. I don’t have details on either case just yet, but I’ll be following up with whatever happens.

Nine days ago in this space, I took a lot of heat for pronouncing John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as politically “brilliant.”

My assumption, of course, was that McCain had actually seriously vetted the most important decision of his campaign (I was wrong), but, scandals and ugliness in Palin’s past notwithstanding, that judgment is looking pretty sound. I praised the selection as giving McCain his best, perhaps only, shot at winning in November, and after this week’s convention and media coverage, the McCain strategy has become pretty clear: make November a referendum on personalities, not issues or records. Over the next eight weeks we’ll hear lots from the Republican camp about McCain’s war heroism and Palin’s ability to gut a moose, and virtually nothing about how they would actually govern — because to talk honestly about that would guarantee the White House to Obama.

So is that strategy — and Palin’s selection — working as planned? Judge for yourself. This weekend, from the Sunday chat shows to the daily newspapers to the blogosphere, it’s all about Palin. Meanwhile, an administration that has perfected the art of quietly letting slip bad news in the slow news cycles of the weekend let slip Friday night the worst news of the year — maybe of the decade (and yes, 9-11 was this decade). And thanks to Sarah, it is going all but unremarked:

The Treasury Department is expected to announce as early as this weekend a plan to bail out and recapitalize collapsing home mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in one of the biggest government rescues in U.S. history. […]

According to media reports citing unnamed sources close to the negotiations, the government is expected to take at least temporary control of Fannie Mae … and place the troubled firms under the umbrella of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. […]

Fannie and Freddie hold roughly $1.5 trillion in direct debt, guarantees on what could be as large as $5 trillion and possibly off-balance sheet obligations that could reach $3 trillion, according to recent estimates from Ladenburg Thalmann & Co.

This is a disaster of epic proportions. In the best case scenario, we’re looking at a federal bailout that will make the savings and loan bailouts of 20 years ago (remember the Keating Five?) look like an ordinary earmark for Wasilla. At worst, the federal government just bought itself a major depression:

Today, we are back to the 1930s with large financial institutions reaping huge profits and paying obscene salaries to their CEOs in good times and with government bailing them out with public money when things turn sour.

And that’s not even the worst part. The takeover was reportedly forced by the foreign central banks that own much of America’s debt, particularly the Chinese.

Remember when red-meat conservatives used to rail (rightly) about the “red menace” of China? Well, while John McCain was crowing about his empty (and illusory) “victory” in Iraq Thursday night, his party’s government was capitulating completely to a far more serious global adversary on an issue that will likely spell ruin for tens of millions of Americans. And it was all made possible by economic policies McCain has enthusiastically signed off on, and a deregulatory law (the Commodity Futures Modernization Act) pushed through Congress by McCain head financial advisor and campaign co-chair Phil “Nation of Whiners” Gramm.

So much for “Country First.”

In any educated country, this news would drive a stake through the heart of the McCain campaign (as well as earning Bush unassailable honors as the Worst President Ever). But most Americans don’t even know what a “secondary mortgage market” is, let alone why it’s important, let alone why this news is so devastating. Our media certainly doesn’t help: instead of explaining it to us, we’re being inundated this weekend with moose drool. Which, absent the particulars, was (along with firing up the conservative base, and perhaps snagging a few credulous Hillary supporters) the entire logic behind the Palin pick: bad for the country, but good for McCain and friends.

That shouldn’t surprise us: it’s how Republicans govern. Cronyism and “America Last” is the overriding theme throughout the entire, ruinous eight-year Bush kleptocracy. And now taxpayers will be bailing out all the (well-heeled) decision-makers who exploited banking deregulation, kept all the fabulous profits, and now are sticking us with the inevitably staggering losses — in a course of action forced on the United States by a foreign adversary.

The American Empire may just have been permanently buried (though we may expect what Dick Cheney might call the “last throes” for some time to come). Thanks in large part to Sarah Palin, with a big assist from a lazy, celebrity-based media culture, the American people mostly aren’t even noticing. But when the economy subsequently tanks — and it will — we’ll notice in a big way. Republicans are simply hoping that will be some time after November 4.

The Seahawks kick off the season today in Buffalo against the Bills. Earlier this year, Bills owner Ralph Wilson signed an agreement to play 8 games in Toronto over the next 5 years. Concerned that Buffalo may be losing it’s team, Democratic Buffalo Congressman Brian Higgins asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to allow more franchises to be community-owned or at least partially community-owned. The only community-owned team right now is in Green Bay, which set up the Packers as a publicly-owned entity before the rule went in place.

So if Sarah Palin is so awesomely great and fantastical, as our deluded friends on the far right proclaim, why isn’t she going on any of the Sunday bobble-head shows? They can’t even risk putting her on Fox Noise Sunday yet. That’s just sad.

If she can’t stand up to Chris Wallace, how can she stand up to all the officially designated Hitlers of The Month?

What if we’re attacked by Ahmed Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il and Whoopi Goldberg? Is she going to rely on Elizabeth Hasselbeck?

See, this is why I’m cautiously optimistic about Obama’s chances in November.

Not because Joe Biden is damn good.  (And he is.)  And not because it looks like we finally have a Democratic presidential campaign that’s willing to fight back hard.  (And it looks like we do.)  But in this election, all the issues are on our side, and it looks like this is one campaign cycle where the electorate actually cares about the issues.

With unemployment topping six percent and the misery index at a 17-year high… with the home equity piggybank that fueled our economy for much of the past eight years smashed on the hard rocks of reality… with stagnant wages unable to keep up with skyrocketing costs of food and fuel, let alone college tuition… with record high budget deficits, a record low dollar and a depleted military diminishing our power and influence abroad… with tens of millions of Americans struggling to maintain access to health care while tens of millions more have no access at all… I just think that voters are looking for a bit more of a substantive debate than they have the past couple cycles.

Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe enough voters will once again fall for the Republicans’ relentless efforts to brand themselves as The Party of God.  Maybe there are enough swing voters out there who think John McCain should be given the Oval Office as compensation for the years he spent in a Vietnamese prison.  Maybe an irrational fear of terrorism is enough to hand our nation over to yet another warmongering administration.

But outside of the South… I don’t think so.

UPDATE:
The McCain campaign now says that they meant to show their nominee standing in front of Walter Reed Middle School.   Yeah. Right.  TPM cogently explains why this explanation is total bullshit.

Ruh-roh.

The government has formulated a plan to put troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under federal control, dismiss their top executives, and use government funds to prop them up, government officials told the two companies yesterday, according to sources familiar with the conversations.

See, here’s the thing. Republicans campaign on the evils of government regulation, then reap the benefits when the government has to step in to avert a complete meltdown. While touting the majesty of rugged individualism, the corporate wing of the GOP regularly counts on the Treasury to bail it out. There’s an economic term for this situation: moral hazard.

Regulation of markets is like porridge. It has to be just right. Too much is bad, but too little is bad and sometimes far worse. You don’t need a degree in economics to understand the basic cycles of panic and depression over the course of American history. When charlatans, monopolists, criminals and greedheads take over the system, the results are utterly predictable.

How many times in our lives do we have to bail out the financial industry? The Savings and Loans scandal apparently taught us nothing.

Personal responsibility is apparently for chumps, the little people and those worth less than $5 million.

Over on Blue Oregon, Carla says what a lot of folks have been afraid to say out loud:

Its not as if I don’t understand what its like to have a wonderful and beloved job in politics. I’ve had that. But when my teenagers (who were not actually in any trouble or crisis) began to show signs of needing their mother’s guidance and presence in a more profound way, I gave up that job to do what I knew was right for them.

Isn’t that what “family values” is supposed to be all about? Or is being a secular progressive a “family-values” nonstarter in the eyes of conservatives, no matter what? And does being an anti-choice, book-banning, global-climate-change denier mean otherwise, no matter what?

Sarah Palin either deliberately placed her pregnant, 17-year old daughter directly into this ridiculous media scrutiny–putting her in the position of being eaten alive by the rabid tabloid press–or she didn’t know that her child was 5 months pregnant. Neither of those scenarios speaks especially well of Ms. Palin as a “family-values” candidate, in my view.

Read the whole thing.  Really.  Then pass it around.