Ever Wonder How the GOP Manages To Hold on to So Much Power?

Image from source, Rolling Stone

If you're going to use tricks and schemes to cling to as much power as you possibly can, it's best to have a good cover story. And when it comes to the GOP keeping a majority in the US Congress, they've had several good ones as cover for things like Voter ID and other changes to voter laws. They've used redistricting in ways that both sides do, and in extra, law-bending ways. And though their party is shrinking, due to demographics (and the general dickishness and batshittery of the Tea Party) they still manage to hold the US House of Representatives by a wide margin.

Like I said, they have good cover stories. But they're not perfect. Sometimes they slip and admit what they're up to. And sometimes, good reporting can piece it all together. The excerpted piece below, from Rolling Stone is a must-read, even if you're a conservative who hasn't been paying attention.

[Excerpt]

How Republicans Rig the Game
 
As the nation recovers from the Republican shutdown of government, the question Americans should be asking is not "Why did the GOP do that to us?" but "Why were they even relevant in the first place?" So dramatically have the demographic and electoral tides in this country turned against the Republican Party that, in a representative democracy worthy of the designation, the Grand Old Party should be watching from the sidelines and licking its wounds. Not only did Barack Obama win a second term in an electoral landslide in 2012, but he is also just the fourth president in a century to have won two elections with more than 50 percent of the popular vote. What's more, the party controls 55 seats in the Senate, and Democratic candidates for the House received well over a million more votes than their Republican counterparts in the election last year. And yet, John Boehner still wields the gavel in the House and Republican resistance remains a defining force in the Senate, frustrating Obama's ambitious agenda. . .

Read more at: Rolling Stone

Faux Outrage from FOX "News" Over Boston Bomber in Rolling Stone

Image from source, NewsCorpse

Okay, let me see if I can wrap my brain around this "scandal." Rolling Stone--long a blend of pop culture, rock 'n' roll and political journalism--has a picture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Bomber--on their cover. The picture is totes adorbs as the kids say, with DT all fluffy-haired and scruffy and cute. He looks a bit like one of my nephews. And because Rolling Stone is seen as a liberal magazine, this is seen as. . .glamorizing a killer? Okay, I can see that raising the ire of some, maybe even causing a bit of a flurry at newsstands (as much as there still are such things).

But since FOX "News" has turned this into their latest 24/7 outrage, it must be another left/right divide kind of story, and because FOX "News" is the chief antagonist, it must also have a bit of a bullshit quotient to it. Thanks to Mark, the blogger at NewsCorpse for once again saving me from having to do any actual research. Of COURSE there's a bullshit quotient. In fact, FOX Nation--the ugly, nasty internet brother of the cable channel has used the exact same photo, as far back as April 19. Surprise!

In Rolling Stone's defense, the blurb calls him a monster. And artistically, the juxtaposition of a harmless looking teenager against the story of what he really is, works. It's only the context of being "On the cover of the Rolling Stone!" that you can call this a glamorization, to my way of thinking. And I guess we'd just have to comb through their past covers before squawking about this one. But that's just me.

[Excerpt]

OUTRAGE! Fox News ‘Glamorized’ Boston Bomber Three Months Before Rolling Stone

For a network that perpetually displays an “Alert” graphic regardless of whether they are reporting on a car bombing in Afghanistan or the opening of a Hooters in Tacoma, it is not surprising that Fox News’ hair-trigger Outrage Detector is stuck on “Apocalypse Now.” The standard facial expression of a Fox anchor at any given moment is an eye-bulging, jaw-dropping, sweat-dripping, fright mask of horror. . .

Read more at: NewsCorpse

Quote of the Day: James Carville on Marcus Bachmann

Image from Gawker

"For Democrats, the good news is, we won the election. And for people who like to be entertained, the really good news is that Marcus Bachmann is coming back as a congressional spouse."

Source: Rolling Stone 

In Case You Missed It: Rolling Stone Exposes Mitt Romney's Bailout

Yeah, buddy, I'm not sure you should be smiling.
Image from source, Rolling Stone.

This article should probably be getting a little more attention. . .

[Excerpt]

The Federal Bailout That Saved Mitt Romney

. . .According to the candidate's mythology, Romney took leave of his duties at the private equity firm Bain Capital in 1990 and rode in on a white horse to lead a swift restructuring of Bain & Company, preventing the collapse of the consulting firm where his career began. When The Boston Globe reported on the rescue at the time of his Senate run against Ted Kennedy, campaign aides spun Romney as the wizard behind a "long-shot miracle," bragging that he had "saved bank depositors all over the country $30 million when he saved Bain & Company."
In fact, government documents on the bailout obtained by Rolling Stone show that the legend crafted by Romney is basically a lie. . .

Read more: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone Profiles Rachel Maddow

I know that the blog is a little top-heavy lately with a couple of subjects, namely stuff that happened on The Stephanie Miller Show, or alternatively, on The Rachel Maddow Show. Why such fascination with witty lesbians? I know, I know. Summer blogging is something of a slog, and my topics can get boiled down and reduced to the basics. But indulge me on this one post.

See, I really like Maddow. But often, when I read anything about her, I don't recognize the person they're talking about. Particularly if the story is from a right-leaning writer (or if they have appeared in abundance in the comments section). Commentators will make one of a very few stale jokes (she looks like a dude, something about lesbians, or just Mad Cow), and writers will use adjectives that don't fit, like shrew, brittle, shrill or angry. She is rarely any of those things. The Rolling Stone article below actually captures the real Maddow. I haven't entered the comments section though.


[Excerpt]


Rachel Maddow's Quiet War

. . .From the start, Maddow's brand is not so much out lesbian or angry liberal, but full-on nerd: the chunky black glasses, the flailing limbs. She doesn't seem to care much about the question that Olbermann has fixed on: So just who is Sarah Palin? "We don't know very much about Governor Palin," Maddow says, when Olbermann finally gives her a chance to speak. "She's basically been a human-interest story in terms of the political press in this country thus far." Then she moves on to what really interests her: not politics as personality but politics as mechanism, not who is winning power but what is being done with it. . .

Read more: Rolling Stone

Andrew Breitbart Eulogized by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi

This guy was only 43? Image from source, Rolling Stone.

This is perhaps the most honest, forthright appraisal of Andrew Breitbart you'll read anywhere. And since it's by one of my favorite writers, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, I had to share.

(And, please, read the article before jumping on me too hard.)

[Excerpt]

Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche


So Andrew Breitbart is dead. Here’s what I have to say to that, and I’m sure Breitbart himself would have respected this reaction: Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.  I say this in the nicest possible way. . .

Read more (it's really good) at: Rolling Stone

Adam Levine to Fox "News": Stop Playing My Music

Too sexy to be conservative. Adam Levine,
from source, Rolling Stone.

Who can blame him? Anyway, why would FOX "News" be using music from anyone other than Ted Nugent or, I don't know, Herman Cain?

[Excerpt]

Adam Levine to Fox News: Stop Playing My Music

Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine went on Twitter earlier this afternoon to demand that Fox News stop playing his band's music. "Dear Fox News, don't play our music on your evil fucking channel ever again. Thank you," he wrote. It is unclear what exactly prompted this public outburst. When reached by Rolling Stone, Levine's representative declined to comment. . . 

Read more at: Rolling Stone

The Republican War on Voting

Image from source, Rolling Stone

I've said before in this space that Republicans are excellent at coming up with reasonable sounding reasons for extreme positions. In the case of voting rights, Republican-led states all over the country have introduced legislation to restrict them. The "good reason" they've used is that it prevents "voter fraud," an alleged crime that happens about as often as Dick Cheney's heartbeat. That is to say, it almost doesn't exist. So, what is the real purpose for all of these laws? In almost every case, the tightened restrictions will prevent mostly Democrats from voting. Because statistically, if voters turn out in very large numbers, Democrats tend to win. Cut down on the number of eligible Democrats, and you reduce that chance. It's pure math, it's purely evil, and it's dressed up to look legit by claiming that it reduces "voter fraud." Bullshit. I can't think of much that is more anti-American than trying to prevent eligible people from voting.

[Excerpt]


The GOP War on Voting

In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year. . .

. . . "What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century,". . .

Read more at: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi on "Batshit Crazy" Michele Bachmann

Matt Taibbi and Crazy Eyes

There are few journalists I remember by name, but few journalists are like Matt Taibbi. First, since he works at Rolling Stone magazine, he gets to write really in-depth articles, and he gets to swear.  But he knows precisely when to do it, and his articles are always entertaining, even when they scare you to death. He's also telegenic, so MSNBC should worry about Keith Olbermann nabbing him for a show on Current TV.

What Matt says about Michele Bachmann is something important to keep in mind: she's endlessly fun to make fun of; but she shouldn't be underestimated. Or maybe I should say misunderestimated, if you catch my drift. Sarah Palin is a similar character, but not nearly as driven. I get no sense that Palin actually really has much of an ideology, only snappy--and often wrong--things to say to increase her popularity. There is no depth to Palin. Bachmann either believes what she says--equally often wrong--or faked sincerity so long that it's the same difference. Bachmann is bonkers, but she's crafty bonkers. Of course, I worried about both Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee for their scary-but-sellable message, and they washed out. I hope Bachmann does too.  Because the truth is, Bachmann is only well known because of her gaffes and howlers. I've got to believe there's a difference between notoriety and popularity.

[Excerpt]

Michele Bachmann's Holy War

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and, as you consider the career and future presidential prospects of an incredible American phenomenon named Michele Bachmann, do one more thing. Don't laugh. . .

Read more at: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone Chronicles Roger Ailes and FOX "News"

Image from excerpt source, Rolling Stone

And it ain't pretty. A week or so after New York Magazine delved into the genesis of FOX "News," and the main man behind it--Roger Ailes, not owner, Rupert Murdoch--Rolling Stone has an in-depth piece that is bound to tick you off. If you have a built-in revulsion for FOX "News" and/or Ailes, this article will give you even more (many more) tangible reasons to feel that way. And if you're a tea baggin', Sarah Palin lovin', Rush listenin' FOX fan, you'll be pissed for one of two reasons: 1) you've been had, or 2) you'll think the author, Tim Dickinson is a dirty, stinkin' socialist Obamabot!!11!1!!

But this article is thorough. Unlike the NYMag piece, this one names names. It has more sources. It has more detail of Ailes' past (past Ailes projects include the Nixon campaign stagecraft, The Maury Povich Show, The Rush Limbaugh Show on TV, A Current Affair, and the Willie Horton racist ploy). It points out that FOX "News" was born as a right-wing infused news channel, in fact was bred to be one.  It was in fact Ailes' second go at that sort of thing. Both even had "fair and balanced" as their motto. With FOX, he just managed to keep the bias--somehow--halfway under wraps. Like details about Ailes' late friend Liberace, there are things people know, that for some reason aren't openly discussed.

There is no doubt that the author of this piece has no love for Ailes or his tactics. I'm not sure that it would be possible, if you were discovering all of this stuff fresh and never heard of Ailes or FOX "News." It's pretty contemptible stuff. It's basically turning news into propaganda--on purpose--to strongly influence elections and policy, for the enrichment of corporate elites. It's an ends-justify-the-means story, where the ends are just as morally dubious as the means. It shows the man behind the curtain to be every bit as vile as you think he is. It explains what Karl Rove is doing at FOX "News." And the few FOX fans who will actually read this thing will likely not recognize this. They'll read the list of things that Fox watchers erroneously believe, and will have already been preconditioned to think those things are correct.

When the history of this era of America is written, I have a feeling that Roger Ailes will figure into the narrative, along with the Citizens United Supreme Court decision as a time when America changed direction drastically, from a democracy to a corporatocracy. Or, more hopefully, when it almost did.

[Excerpt]

How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory

. . .The key to decoding Fox News isn’t Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity. It isn’t even News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch. To understand what drives Fox News, and what its true purpose is, you must first understand Chairman Ailes. “He is Fox News,” says Jane Hall, a decade-long Fox commentator who defected over Ailes’ embrace of the fear-mongering Glenn Beck. “It’s his vision. It’s a reflection of him. . .”

Read (much) more at: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi's Take on House Speaker John Boehner

Image from source, Rolling Stone

He goes by many names. The Weeping Orange Boner, Oompa Loompa, Agent Orange. But we all have to accept that John Boehner is now the Speaker of the House; third in line for the White House.  It's a bit baffling, frankly, that such a clownish fellow has ascended to such heights. He's got a facial twitch that no one seems to notice, maybe because he has a facial hue that is very distracting. He often gets overtly emotional to the point of tears over unlikely topics. He even often seems somewhat drunk while speaking on the house floor. So what, it was just his turn or something. This is the best you've got, GOP? Really?

Matt Taibbi, a reporter at The Rolling Stone (and a fantastic one at that) has done the legwork to get the facts behind some of my more subjective opinions. As always, it is great reading, but will leave you deflated and depressed. Read on anyway, you've gotta know this stuff.

[Excerpt]

Matt Taibbi: The Crying Shame of John Boehner

John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich. The biographer who somewhere down the line tackles the question of Boehner's legacy will do well to simply throw out any references to party affiliation, because the thing that has made Boehner who he is — the thing that has finally lifted him to the apex of legislative power in America — has almost nothing to do with his being a Republican. . .

Read (much) more at: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and His Take on the Tea Party

Image from source, Rolling Stone

This article is quite a read, and validates my own impression of the Tea Party phenomenon. Ordinarily, I like to write my own take on any article I'm excerpting, but it would pale in comparison. Just read.

[Excerpt]

Matt Taibbi on the Tea Party

It's taken three trips to Kentucky, but I'm finally getting my Tea Party epiphany exactly where you'd expect: at a Sarah Palin rally. The red-hot mama of American exceptionalism has flown in to speak at something called the National Quartet Convention in Louisville, a gospel-music hoedown in a giant convention center filled with thousands of elderly white Southerners. Palin — who earlier this morning held a closed-door fundraiser for Rand Paul, the Tea Party champion running for the U.S. Senate — is railing against a GOP establishment that has just seen Tea Partiers oust entrenched Republican hacks in Delaware and New York. The dingbat revolution, it seems, is nigh. . .

Read more at: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi Rips a Bad Journalist

Image from source, Rolling Stone

Remember that story in Rolling Stone that ended General McChrystal's career? Matt Taibbi is a different reporter at RS, a darn good one, and he has a great piece up taking a journalist to task for saying that the magazine should've sat on that big juicy story.  It's good stuff.

[Excerpt]


Lara Logan, You Suck


Lara Logan, come on down! You're the next guest on Hysterical Backstabbing Jealous Hackfest 2010!


I thought I'd seen everything when I read David Brooks saying out loud in a New York Times column that reporters should sit on damaging comments to save their sources from their own idiocy. But now we get CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan slamming our own Michael Hastings on CNN's "Reliable Sources" program, agreeing that the Rolling Stone reporter violated an "unspoken agreement" that journalists are not supposed to "embarrass [the troops] by reporting insults and banter. . ."

Read more at: Rolling Stone

World Exclusive: American Idol's Adam Lambert Gay!

Image from source, LA Times

Other Earth-shaking scoops I plan to reveal:

- Sean Hannity is really not all that bright.

- Professional wrestling may not be 100% spontaneous.

- Reality television is mostly crap.

- American Idol is itself mostly crap. Especially the results show.

Seriously, what was all that coyness about? Americans are stupid, but you've got to give them a little credit!

[Excerpt]

The Rolling Stone cover: Adam Lambert bares all

Yes, that's Adam Lambert striking a come-hither pose on the cover of the new Rolling Stone -- is it just me, or judging from his outfit, do we detect a major 1980s-era Prince influence? . . .

Read more at: Los Angeles Times

Bill Maher's New Rules, May 8, 2009

Last night's Real Time with Bill Maher was one of the best episodes of the season, or last several seasons. The guests were Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi (one of my favorite journalists), Naomi Klein (one of my favorite writers), and Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane (one of my plain-old favorites). Bill also interviewed James Carville--who I can take or leave--but it was an entertaining interview.

New Rules was again kind of breezy until Bill got to the final one, which is pretty great. Take a look.

Michelle Bachman is So Crazy. . . (How Crazy is She?)

The headline is meant to evoke the old Match Game running gag, and Rolling Stone magazine's Matt Taibbi supplies the answer it a spectacular way: ". . .I saw a guy huffing glue out of a paper bag, and he was making more sense than Michelle Bachmann." (at 1:50) And he gets another good dig in after that too. Enjoy.

Matt Taibbi's Scary Piece on the Financial Meltdown

Photo from Media Bistro

If you've been mostly "going with the flow" during this financial crisis, just hoping it will all work out, you probably don't want to read this piece. Matt Taibbi, one of my favorite journalists, has a handle on the whole thing, but it isn't a pretty read. Hold on to your hat (and your wallet).

[Excerpt]

The Big Takeover

It's over — we're officially, royally f**ked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire. . .

Read more at: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone Article Lands Man in Gitmo

Image from source, Raw Story

Remember back in the bad-old-days during the Bush Administration, when liberals like me worried that Bush's powers had grown too strong? That he was superseding the Constitution, and could pick up anybody--you, me, anybody--for any reason he saw fit, and ship them off to Guantanamo Bay?

Right-wingers said we were tinfoil hat wearing moonbats. We all had "Bush Derangement Syndrome." Curiously, these self-same people now have Obama Derangement Syndrome, and after only three weeks! But guess what, everybody? We were right. Well, we're left, but we were correct.

This guy's big crime was apparently reading a Rolling Stone article whilst being other than Caucasian. And he's still in Gitmo.

[Excerpt]

CIA made Rolling Stone satire into dirty bomb plot: report

A British citizen held at Guantanamo Bay who the Pentagon accused of plotting to build a dirty bomb had actually been reading a satirical article re-posted from Rolling Stone, according to a British newspaper report. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Block the Vote: GOP's Attempts to Prevent Democrats from Voting

Image from ACSLaw

I've heard people say that a black person in America has to work twice as hard to get half as far as a white person. The idea has been around as long as I can remember. And while things may not be all that bad anymore, Barack Obama may be facing a similar situation. But it may not have anything to do with race.

Democrats in this country currently outnumber Republicans by fairly large numbers. I've said here before that to win this election, all we Democrats need to do is show up. I still think that's true. But we've got to hope that margin exceeds the number of Democrats who are not allowed to vote, or whose votes are thrown out.

Does that sound paranoid? Then read this article, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and get paranoid right along with me.

[Excerpt]

Block the Vote
Will the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president?

. . .In state after state, Republican operatives — the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states. . ."

Read more at: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi's Palin Rant

Photo from Mother Jones

In theory, I'd be about as willing to write blog posts about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan or Nicole Ritchie as I would be to write about Sarah Palin. That is to say, in a normal world, I wouldn't. But Paris and the other celebutards have no affect on my life. They're less than periphery.

But Sarah Palin has the--thankfully, diminishing--possibility of affecting my life greatly, and in a very negative way. Her entire worldview--which I suppose you could call "The Palin Doctrine"--is the opposite of what I believe. What makes her scary to me, is that she's completely unqualified, and yet absolutely certain of herself. That scary combination was present in George W. Bush, and I think we can all agree, that didn't work out so well.

Fortunately, Palin is almost impossibly easy to criticize, easy to lampoon, and very entertaining to pick apart. But I've done that in this space already, and have been leery of beating it to death.

So, I was glad to find a fantastic article by a writer that is much more up to the job than I am. Matt Taibi writes for Rolling Stone magazine, but I confess that I became familiar with him from his appearances on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. He's an incredibly sharp, witty writer, and his take on Sarah Palin is devastating. Check it out.

[Excerpt]

Mad Dog Palin

. . .Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be j**ked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation. . .

Read more at: Rolling Stone