Obama’s Osawatomie offensive – PostPartisan – The Washington Post

“The true friend of property, the true conservative,” he declared, “is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.”

Obama’s Osawatomie offensive – PostPartisan – The Washington Post

That’s Teddy Roosevelt, a progressive who could not win any Republican vote today. Re-read that quote, substituting “corporations” for “property.” In fact, he was quite explicit about the threat corporation pose:

Obama’s Osawatomie offensive – PostPartisan – The Washington Post

TR, it’s fair to say, would be appalled by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which opened the way for corporations to spend vast sums in the political arena. In 1910, he declared: There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.

Obama’s Osawatomie offensive – PostPartisan – The Washington Post

I recommend you read the whole column by e.j. dionne.

My Man Newt – NYTimes.com

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: November 29, 2011

Franker than ever as he announced plans to retire from Congress, Barney Frank told Abby Goodnough in The Times that Gingrich was “the single biggest factor” in destroying a Washington culture where the two parties respected each other’s differing views yet still worked together.

Newt is the progenitor of the modern politics of personal destruction.

“He got to Congress in ’78 and said, ‘We the Republicans are not going to be able to take over unless we demonize the Democrats,’ ” Frank said. …

The Republican also weaves an alternative history of his own life, where he is saving civilization rather than ripping up the fabric of Congress, where he improves the moral climate of America rather than pollutes it.

… Gingrich is a megalomaniacal opportunist who brazenly indulges in the same sins that he rails about to tear down political rivals.

Republicans have a far greater talent for hypocrisy than easily cowed Democrats do — and no doubt appreciate that in a leader. …

Maybe the ideal man to fix Washington’s dysfunction is the one who made it dysfunctional. He broke it so he should own it.

My Man Newt – NYTimes.com

I agree with NewMexiKen’s headline for this photo: There Have Always Been Brutal Bastards. However, thugs and goons distract us from those who can afford to ignore all of this and all problems of any kind.

Photo taken at UC Davis.

If you think this is new, you’ve forgotten DUHbya’s Reign of Error, which gave us Free Speech Zones (cages out of sight). You’ve forgotten our own thug, Darren White, saying “let me at them” about citizens speaking out against a war we never should have entered. You’ve forgotten our police gassing those protestors.

Is this acceptable to you?

At Occupy Berkeley, Beat Poets Has New Meaning – NYTimes.com

at that moment the deputies in the cordon surged forward and, using their clubs as battering rams, began to hammer at the bodies of the line of students. It was stunning to see. They swung hard into their chests and bellies. Particularly shocking to me — it must be a generational reaction — was that they assaulted both the young men and the young women with the same indiscriminate force. If the students turned away, they pounded their ribs. If they turned further away to escape, they hit them on their spines. …

On Thursday afternoon when I returned toward sundown to the steps to see how the students had responded, the air was full of balloons, helium balloons to which tents had been attached, and attached to the tents was kite string. And they hovered over the plaza, large and awkward, almost lyrical, occupying the air.

At Occupy Berkeley, Beat Poets Has New Meaning – NYTimes.com

Conservatives’ mindless opposition – The Washington Post 

By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: November 13

[T]hat’s the problem for conservatives. Their movement has been overtaken by a quite literally mindless opposition to government. Perry, correctly, thought he had a winning sound bite, had he managed to blurt it out, because if you just say you want to scrap government departments (and three is a nice, round number), many conservatives will cheer without asking questions. … At their best, conservatives forced us to think harder. Now, many in the ranks seem to have decided that hard and nuanced thinking is a telltale sign of liberalism….

To paraphrase Bennett from another context, where’s the outrage about a conservatism that is losing both its intellectual moorings and its moral compass?

Conservatives’ mindless opposition – The Washington Post

Rick Perry makes light of gaffe, vows not to quit – Election 2012 – The Washington Post [hat tip to dangerousmeta]

Perry also made that point in an interview Thursday morning with the Associated Press. “Oh, shoot, no,” he replied when asked about getting out of the race. “This ain’t a day for quitting nothing.” [mjh: That’s Texlish / Texican, a dialect of ‘Murican.]

Rick Perry makes light of gaffe, vows not to quit – Election 2012 – The Washington Post

Perry’s prominence proves education has failed in Texas. That anyone thinks twice about the fool proves education has failed the nation.

Kudos to Udall, et al.. We must rein in the influence of money on elections.

Cleaning up our campaign finance system | NMPolitics.net

How we got here, By Tom Udall • 11/03/11

Over the past 10 years, the influence of corporations and special interests in political campaigns has exploded. Each time a regulation is put in place, special interests circumvent the rules through legal loopholes or use the courts to strike down the law. The problem isn’t one particular law or judicial decision; it’s the fact that Congress can no longer effectively regulate the flow of money into campaigns. The only sure fix is a constitutional amendment that gives Congress the authority to reform the campaign finance system.

We didn’t get here over night. The Supreme Court has issued a series of bad decisions that have crowded and distorted our elections with a flood of corporate and special-interest money that can swing an election one way or the other. In 1976 the Supreme Court laid the groundwork for a broken system in the Buckley v. Valeo decision. In that case, the Court incorrectly decided that imposing modest restrictions on campaign expenditures violates the First Amendment right to free speech. This established the flawed precedent that money and speech are the same thing – something I strongly disagree with.

More recently the Supreme Court issued an even worse decision in Citizens United v. FEC. In this case, they granted the same free-speech rights to corporations and other special interests that the Constitution guarantees to individuals. With Buckley v. Valeo equating money to speech, and now Citizens United giving Free Speech rights to large corporations and interest groups, the political system is becoming evermore unbalanced.

While the average American only has one vote and limited resources to contribute to political candidates, these organizations can now pour vast sums of money into advertising that influences the outcome of our elections. As a result, in the elections of 2010, New Mexicans and all Americans saw a new breed of attack ads from out-of-state interests. The vast majority were negative. These new organizations raised and spent unlimited funds for the first time since before there was television. In the upcoming 2012 election, you can certainly count on even more.

Cleaning up our campaign finance system | NMPolitics.net

I believe most people in government are decent public servants. I’m very reluctant to believe a large number of members of Congress take out-right bribes: “Give me $$$ for my vote.” However, it is clear that the cost of elections is corrupting everyone at every level, down to the local TV stations selling ads. Either there should be no political advertising (Free speech! Yeah, right.) or it should be free (x hours per candidate; no ads for causes; if you want to promote your cause, run for office).

Did You Hear the One About the Bankers? – NYTimes.com by Paul Krugman [hat tip to Pat Lyford]

[W]hat happened to us? Our financial industry has grown so large and rich it has corrupted our real institutions through political donations. As Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, bluntly said in a 2009 radio interview, despite having caused this crisis, these same financial firms “are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place.”

Our Congress today is a forum for legalized bribery. One consumer group using information from Opensecrets.org calculates that the financial services industry, including real estate, spent $2.3 billion on federal campaign contributions from 1990 to 2010, which was more than the health care, energy, defense, agriculture and transportation industries combined. Why are there 61 members on the House Committee on Financial Services? So many congressmen want to be in a position to sell votes to Wall Street.

We can’t afford this any longer.

Did You Hear the One About the Bankers? – NYTimes.com