Memory and Irony

By Capt. Fogg

The jobless rate has declined to 8.3% according to the latest reports -- well below the Reagan rate and the lowest in three years after adding about a quarter million Jobs this January alone. That's a quarter of a million more in one month than were added under eight years of Republican flim-flam economics. The markets are booming, but we can be sure to hear nothing but sneer, snark, scoff and panicked pessimism from fact-free America and its electronic Svengali, Fox News.

I'm hesitant to make too much of it or to extrapolate too far, but unlike every Republican I talk to, I am willing to remember the Bush years when the air was full of nonsense about how Democrats were pessimists and Republicans were optimists and bullish on the economy. Of course it would be fun to mock the Fox News survey that gave "proof" that Liberals were trying to damage the vibrant economy with gloomy reports during the Bush years and of course the prophets of doom were quite right although not one of Fox's friends seems to remember, because after all, this is Obama's recession and Bush had nothing to do with it and the predictably dilatory nature of the trailing indicator -- the unemployment rate -- proves that it's all going to hell any time now.

A sense of irony would make fertile fields for all kinds of sardonic humor, since with the economy steadily improving, having already this year added more jobs than were added during the entire Bush administration (unless you want to count all the government jobs created by bloating the size and expense of our government,) they're still pretending the man who inherited this disaster caused it. But if there's any essence at all to American Conservatism, it must involve total blindness to the most glaring irony. They're still insisting that continuing what brought it on would end it quickly if only we'd have elected an empty headed beauty contest runner up and a doddering old man who couldn't remember his address but was sure the crash wasn't actually happening.

And while we're talking about irony, do we care to speculate about how many would have been lost if General Motors had disappeared and how many are working now that GM is again the worlds largest automaker? No, that investment is spending, while the massive expenses of Bush's prescription drug plan written by and for the drug companies increases as the population ages isn't even to be discussed -- and of course people are only getting older because of "that Obama's policies" hard as they are to discern. If I were a Republican you can damn well bet I'd be blind to the irony too as well as the outright dishonesty.

Things are looking at least a bit better of late and at a rate proportional to the improvement, the apocalyptic predictions increase. The Mayan end times, the Rapture, the death of the Dollar and the Zombie Apocalypse hold fewer horrors than are being predicted daily as the people who insist every time they hold the White House, that the government cannot create jobs and should not try, scream themselves hoarse nonetheless about jobs, jobs, jobs, dangling that elusive carrot in front of the desperate.

It's a hell of a thing to remember well, and that's why I'm sure amnesia, like ironic obtuseness is a necessary component of the conservative mind. It's a hell of a thing to be the only one to remember that "debt doesn't matter" was the keystone of Republican economics since Reagan and right up to the disaster of 2007 because tax breaks for the people who put all their windfalls into real estate, hedge funds and offshore accounts in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and the Caymans would boost the economy so much, the debt would wither away in Marxist style.

Jobs, jobs, jobs and debt, debt debt in the relentless Republican ostinato like drumbeats in some dark jungle night, as though debt did very much matter and matter more than the ability to pay it off -- as though paying Bush's bills and saving the financial structure of our country with a far smaller amount of money than the shill for Goldman Sachs Bush used for a treasury secretary were an invitation to disaster rather than fiscal responsibility -- as though a three trillion dollar war to be payed for by magic; massive bailout packages without accountability and unprecedented spending weren't things the Democrats were howling helplessly about for 8 years.

Increased military spending along with an amazing record of eliminating al Qaeda means Obama is "slashing the military." Allowing increased freedom to carry weapons means he's a "gun grabber." Arresting and deporting more illegal aliens than Bush means he's "pro-illegal." Giving most Americans a tax break means he raised taxes, and although every day I have to listen to some Republican blowhard telling me he hates "Obamas policies" not one has been able to come up with a policy that actually exists -- that glib trope having become nothing more than the password to the club they think every white man belongs to.

No, sure they don't remember nor do they see the irony. Like Janus, they look both forward and back to see the easiest way to slither away from accountability and as and if the economy slowly improves and the spectre of Depression recedes, they'll continue to boom and bellow and snicker and sneer without any memory of how they accused Democrats of "hating America" even though all those dire predictions we made for 8 years came true while none of theirs ever materialized.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Ashley Madison for Newt Gingrich

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ThinkProgress:

A website that promotes adultery has endorsed Newt Gingrich for president, and even erected a giant billboard in Pennsylvania to announce it. Next to a picture of Gingrich making a "shh" gesture, the billboard reads: "Faithful Republican, Unfaithful Husband." Ashleymadison.com, a dating website for people looking to cheat on their spouses, welcomes visitors with the tag line, "Life is short, Have an affair." Gingrich has admitted to cheating on his wives, and Noel Biderman, the founder of the cheaters website explained, "Now that Newt is the leading contender in the race for the GOP nomination, we felt compelled to make a point to illustrate how times have changed when a serial divorcee/adulterer is capturing the hearts of the American people."

I would just like to repeat -- again -- that the issue is not, or should not be, that Newt has been unfaithful. While we call his judgement and self-control into question, his past philandering is a private matter. Rather, the issue is that he has been an extraordinary hypocrite, and it's actually quite hilarious now that he claims to have changed, all the while continuing to be an aggressive right-wing moralizer.

I would further like to note that Newt is not "capturing the hearts of the American people." Even right-wing Iowa Republicans appear to have had enough of him.

Sperm donation, Republican-style

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm not sure this is what being fruitful and multiplying was supposed to be about:

A conservative Christian politician has a secret life as a sperm donor for lesbian couples -- even though he has campaigned against gay marriage.

American politician Bill Johnson has spent most of this year in Christchurch helping run the earthquake recovery, all the while using the online persona "chchbill" to meet women who want help to get pregnant.

Under that persona, he has discussed making donations to at least nine women without the knowledge of his family in the US.

Three of the women are now pregnant, and Johnson has assisted another three with donations in the past month. It is believed he has been in communication with at least another three women to discuss sperm donation.

Johnson, a Republican (of course), ran in the 2010 Republican primary for Alabama governor, finishing a distant fifth with just 1.7 percent of the vote. So he's hardly a major figure in the party, though he actually seems a bit less crazy, and a bit less ideological and partisan, than many of his right-wing ilk -- if certainly as smug and self-righteous, and certainly as much of an anti-gay bigot. (And his wife, Kathy, has worked to help children, seniors, and persons with disabilities, "seeking to motivate, inspire and bring hope to our vulnerable populations." There's undoubtedly a Christianist element to that work, but it's rather admirable nonetheless.)

As it says at his website:

Growing up in low-income families of 8 and 7 respectively, Bill and Kathy learned hard-work and contributing to family and community early in life. The lessons gained during their formative years have led to their passion for community service and a compassion for others. Both feel very fortunate to have risen to leadership positions -- not through family rights nor heritage -- but through hard-work and perseverance. 

Who knew that "contributing to family and community" meant egotistically spreading his seed far and wide -- and being such a fucking hypocrite?

Newt Gingrich loves monogamy, hates gays

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The headline at Think Progress says it all: "Gingrich Pledges Not To Commit Infidelity A Third Time, Reaffirms Opposition To Marriage Equality."

He may be faking his anti-gay bigotry to win right-wing votes, but it's his fidelity pledge that's particularly amusing:

I also pledge to uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.

It's not so much his past infidelity that matters, it's his massive hypocrisy. As Melissa McEwan puts it, also responding to the TP headline:

Which just underlines what bullshit the unholy marriage between political conservatives (small government! no taxes!) and social conservatives (big Jesus! no homo!) really is. There's nothing politically conservative about forcing people to sign pledges about private consensual sex acts, or about arguing that the government should be in the business of telling people they can't marry a consenting partner of legal age.

Gingrich doesn't give a flying flunderton about this horseshit, except insomuch as it will help him win the GOP nomination. (Or impeach a president.) He's got the sexual ethics of a Republican with no sexual ethics.

It's embarrassing to watch these sad, socially stunted failosaurs bray about getting Gingrich to sign their morality yearbooks as if it matters, as if he cares. What fools. 

Newt is playing them, to be sure. While he'll say he's found "God," or some such nonsense, what he's really found is how to sucker morons to give him money... and, he's hoping, their vote.