Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Marginalization; video may autoplay at third link] More student action is taking place and yielding consequences on college campuses across the US: Mary Spellman, the Dean of Students at Claremont McKenna College, resigned yesterday, following "student protests at the college, where many demanded more inclusive programs for what they call marginalized students, which include students of color, LGBT students, disabled students and low-income students." And at Georgetown, students "announced at a solidarity demonstration on Thursday, Nov. 12 that they are to begin a sit-in outside University President John DeGioia’s office on Friday morning to continue until administrators change the name of Mulledy Hall," which was "named for a former university president who sold 272 slaves to Louisiana in 1838 in order to raise money to pay off university debts." And at Virginia Commonwealth University, "student activists marched into the school president's office Thursday morning to demand the university increase the number of black professors and offer more cultural training on campus."
Meanwhile, a bunch of shitlords furiously pen hot takes about the left's intolerance and student's fragility, because they can't deal with evidence of emergent resistance to the status quo serving as the foundation on which their ivory towers are built.
Also: Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, now president of Purdue University, continues to be a fucking nightmare.
[CN: War on agency] In other campus news: "A University of Missouri doctoral student is defying an anti-choice legislator by continuing her research on the effects of the state's newly enacted 72-hour forced waiting period for abortions. The student, Lindsay Ruhr, told Al Jazeera that she stands by her research. 'I feel that my research is objective, and that the whole point of my research is to understand how this policy affects women. Whether this policy is having a harmful or beneficial effect, we don't know,' Ruhr said. ...The controversy surrounding Ruhr's research started last month, when state Sen. Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) sent an October 30 letter to the university's chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, saying that Ruhr's research seemed like a 'marketing aid for Planned Parenthood.'" For fuck's sake.
[CN: Class warfare; worker exploitation; food insecurity] And from another front in the revolution: "Tired of being left to rely on the charity of others to feed their families, Walmart workers around the country are launching two weeks of fasting in the run-up to Thanksgiving to demand livable wages and full-time schedules. 'I've had to forgo meals so my boys would have enough to eat,' Walmart associate Jasmine Dixon said Thursday on a press call organized by OUR Walmart. 'If it wasn't for food stamps I don't know what I would do.' ...'My mother grew up during the Depression and she passed along lessons on how to get through hard times. They're lessons I use today while working at Walmart,' [Walmart associate Nancy Reynolds] told reporters Thursday. 'A lot of times I've had to get chicken nuggets because that's all the money I had,' Reynolds said. She described splitting an order of nuggets in the break room at Walmart 'because my coworkers were hungry.'"
I would really love to hear Walmart executives explain how the company can justify six members of the Walton family holding as much wealth as the entire bottom thirty percent of the US population, while it pays its employees so little that they can't afford to eat.
Welp: "In new shock poll, Sanders has landslides over both Trump and Bush: In a new McClatchy-Marist poll, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leads Republican candidate Donald Trump by a landslide margin of 12 percentage points, 53 to 41. In the McClatchy poll, Sanders also leads former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) by a landslide margin of 10 points, 51 to 41." That's not a "shock" to me. Trump and Bush are terrible fucking candidates.
[CN: Nukes] Whoooooooops: "The Kremlin says secret plans for a Russian long-range nuclear torpedo—called 'Status-6'—should not have appeared on Russian TV news. The leak happened during a report on state-run Channel One about President Vladimir Putin meeting military chiefs in the city of Sochi. One general was seen studying a diagram of the 'devastating' torpedo system. Launched by a submarine, it would create 'wide areas of radioactive contamination,' the document says. ...'In future we will undoubtedly take preventive measures so this does not happen again,' said Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov."
[CN: Death; references to self-harm] This is an amazing story recounting Salvador Alvarenga's 14 months lost at sea, the loss of his shipmate, his eventual rescue, and his survival.
[CN: Racism] "Organizers seat woman behind Trump 'because she's black'—so she silently protests by reading her book." This woman is terrific, the white couple who scolded her are assholes, and Donald Trump is the worst.
Neat! "Pulsar spotted outside the Milky Way is one of the most energetic ever seen: Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, which create pulsed emissions as their magnetic fields sweep across the line of sight with Earth. Generally, these are detected as radio wavelengths. But in rare cases, the environment around the pulsar is energetic enough to create gamma rays. Now, researchers have used these gamma rays to spot the first one of these seen outside our own galaxy. The pulsar is the most luminous ever seen at these wavelengths, with each pulse outputting 1036 ergs—a bit over 1015 megatons."
Big news, fellow haggis-heads! "Traditional haggis could soon be back on US menus amid rethink of lamb imports."
And finally! Thank you to each and every person who sent me the story about Otto the Skateboarding Bulldog, who marked Guinness World Records Day 2015 by setting "the record for longest human tunnel travelled through by a skateboarding dog." Congratulations, Otto! You should also get some kind of award for canine patience with human silliness! And for MAXIMUM CUTENESS!
In the News
News from the Conservative Legislation Lab
[Content Note: Class warfare.]
As I've said many times before, if you want to know what garbage policies are coming down the conservative pipeline, look no further than Indiana, where we are used as guinea pigs to test out the latest and greatest in Republican governance theory.
This time, however, I'm not bringing you news of what's to come, but instead a follow-up on how one of these cool theories panned out for us.
As you may recall, our former Republican Governor Mitch Daniels, who is a genius, decided to privatize the toll road in Northwest Indiana, which connects us to Chicago. This was a bad idea, despite the fact Daniels routinely touted it as a huge success.
(In fact, many of Daniels' cutting-edge conservative policies were loudly touted as successes—by Daniels, by other members of his party, and by prominent members of the media—in spite of their having proven to be abject failures for Hoosiers.)
This is what Daniels' huge toll road privatization success looks like now: On Sunday, the company that operates the Indiana Toll Road, ITR Commission Co., a venture of the Spanish-Australian company Cintra-Macquarie, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The General Assembly narrowly voted for the lease, allowing then-Gov. Mitch Daniels to sign a contract with the company in 2006 to exchange a lump-sum payment of $3.8 billion for a 75-year lease of the road that runs between the Illinois and Ohio state lines.In fact, what Daniels said at the time was that the privatization plan would "trigger tremendous job growth using in large part a very handy tool: Other people's money." Ho ho ho. Because Northwest Indiana, which is part of suburban Chicago, is treated as if we are not part of the state of Indiana, but instead an ATM from which to draw funds to spend in the rest of the (more politically conservative) state.
But the toll revenue failed to meet the company's expectations, as traffic volume fell short of predictions.
Indiana Finance Authority Director Kendra York said in a statement ITR Commission Co. will continue to manage the Toll Road through the bankruptcy process. The Finance Authority must also approve any potential sale of the lease.
...Back in 2006, Daniels touted the deal as a win for Indiana, comparing the lease to selling Manhattan for beads.
He said Indiana gets to pocket $3.8 billion, but could take back the Toll Road if the operator failed to meet demands.
Daniels absurdly claimed that "the increased tolls on the road would be mostly paid for by out-of-state motorists," even though the road is mostly used by people who drive to and from Chicago every day for work, because, once the mills collapsed, Hoosiers in NWI were left with precious few local jobs offering a livable wage.
We protested the privatization of the toll road. And we were ignored. And we started paying three times the tolls, at shitty automated booths from which operators were fired, on an increasingly poorly maintained road, while our governor went around declaring the scheme a success.
Now, we've no idea what's to come.
"This is a valuable asset that was really, really sold off at a discount when you consider the value the Toll Road could have had by gradually raising tolls," Shaw Friedman, an attorney in LaPorte County, said. "The problem is the $3.8 billion was gone in the first six or seven years. What do we do with the remaining 70 years?"Yes, yes privatization ought to be questioned. And it ought to be deemed a colossal failure. And yet Republicans in the state are still continuing to defend it.
Politicians who opposed the lease in 2006 spoke out Monday.
"This is our worst fear come to fruition," said state Sen. John Broden, who voted against the lease.
..."A new investor will come in to make money, and how they make money is doing business as inexpensively as they can," [State Rep. David Niezgodski, D-South Bend] said.
Joe Bock, who is running against [Republican U.S. Representative from Indiana's 2nd district Jackie Walorski], held a news conference Monday afternoon, and warned against the privatization of public assets.
Development of infrastructure is the "fundamental role of government," Bock said. "The idea to turn that over to a private consortium is one that ought to be questioned."
Walorski's deputy campaign manager made a statement yesterday that the Congresswoman stands by the lease and the decision to privatize, incredibly insisting that "the toll road will continue to operate normally, tolls will not increase, and drivers will not be impacted," and breathtakingly asserting it's "important to remember the state of Indiana specifically provided many safeguards into the lease to protect the interest of Hoosier taxpayers," even though it's Hoosier taxpayers who have been paying the increased tolls and repairs to cars damaged by a road in a state of disrepair through several horrendous winters.
Everything about this idea was a catastrophic failure. And these assholes are still trying to claim it's a success.
Whoooops Your Citations, Mitch Daniels!
Hey, remember that time when Mitch Daniels tried to save academic freedom by destroying it? When he claimed that Howard Zinn "falsified" his history and that God-fearing Americans Indiana students should not get credit for courses that include A People's History of the United States? When he threw around all of these critiques from other historians that allegedly proved that Howard Zinn was a witch lying Commie?
Welp! According to John K. Wilson of the Academe Blog, some of the historians Mitch referenced are not too thrilled about his citation. And not just because Mitch hasn't mastered Turabian:
Academe Blog posted Michael Kazin’s response last night, in which Kazin wrote that Daniels “should be roundly condemned for his attempts to stop students from reading Zinn’s big book and for calling Zinn a liar…” Kazin wrote about Zinn’s book, “chapters of it can be quite useful if contrasted with alternative interpretations.”Sam Wineburg took to Twitter to respond to Daniels, writing: “Mitch Daniels uses my work to defend his shameless attempts to censor free speech. Shame!” Wineburg noted, “I have criticized Zinn but will defend to my death the right to teach him. Shame on Mitch Daniels.” He explained, “Mr. Daniels, free societies openly teach ideas we disagree with. We do not censor objectionable speech. Study your Orwell.” As Wineburg put it, “How could I possibly agree that ‘banning Zinn’ makes sense when I assign him in my own classes?”
Michael Kammen disagreed with Daniels’ belief that Zinn “intentionally falsified” his work. While Kammen might not recommend the use of Zinn’s book in schools today, it is “only because it was written 35 years ago and there are now more balanced and judicious treatments of the US survey.” Kammen also rejected Daniels’ view about banning Zinn’s work from professional development classes for teachers: “I think that some teachers might need to know about its emphases because when Zinn wrote the US history textbooks omitted a great deal. Although it is not a great book, it remains a kind of historiographical landmark. Teachers should at least be aware of it.” And Kammen emphatically opposed the idea of politicians deciding what books should be used in schools rather than historians and teachers: “Absolutely not!”
Whoooooooops!
See, this is the thing, Mitch. I, like most historians, can critique a work of history largely because historiography has moved on. This is not the same as "interntionally falsified." Historians aren't Doctor Who; we aren't able to travel forward in time and see what new materials are uncovered that may make our interpretations less viable. In the future.
And I'm also capable of disagreeing with other historians' interpretations without calling their works a pack of lies. Historians disagree about how to weigh one piece of evidence against another all the time. We have entire schools of thought that disagree with each other! This does not equal calling another historian a liar.
Nor does it mean banning their work from classrooms. Would you believe it, I *intentionally* assign opposing viewpoints on history in my classes, because I think students benefit from seeing that debate! To date, I haven't had any students morph into Marxist Red Anti-American Transformers just because they learned that historians disagree with each other. YMMV.
(And yeah, historians are sometimes petty. They sometimes trash work because they don't like each others' politics or just think someone is an obnoxious asshole at conferences. But you know what? That bad behavior does not give you license to imitate it.)
Make no mistake: there are historians who do falsify data or intentionally misrepresent their evidence. Sometimes for the sake of politics. There are those who are incompetent and unintentionally mess up what thye're trying to do. And these bad historians (mostly) get called out for it. But that is not what you are doing, at all.
You are intentionally twisting other people's critiques to fit your agenda. And frankly, you look like an uninformed ass doing it.
Historical arguments are supposed to be about the careful and honest use of evidence. You might try that sometime.
Dueling Mitch Daniels
Yesterday, Liss reminded us that Mitch Daniels is still a nightmare.
But in case you missed it, let me contextualize just HOW BIG a nightmare.
Mitch Daniels, president of Purdue University, January 2013:
"Diversity is prized except in the most important realm of all, diversity of thought. The academies that, through the unique system of tenure, once enshrined freedom of opinion and inquiry now frequently are home to the narrowest sort of closed-mindedness and the worst repression of dissident ideas."
Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana and Total Historical Genius, 2010 (in emails obtained by the AP this week):
“This terrible anti-American academic [Howard Zinn]has finally passed away,” Daniels wrote. “The obits and commentaries mentioned his book, ‘A People’s History of the United States,’ is the ‘textbook of choice in high schools and colleges around the country.’ It is a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page. “Can someone assure me that it is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history?”
Whooooops your repression of dissident ideas, Mitch!
Of course, Mitch (Historical Genius degree,Glenn Beck University) is doubling down in defense of his censorship:
On Tuesday, Daniels stood by his demand that Zinn be excluded from Indiana classrooms but said his request was limited to K-12 schools, where the state has control of the curriculum. “We must not falsely teach American history in our schools,” he said in the email. “We have a law requiring state textbook oversight to guard against frauds like Zinn, and it was encouraging to find that no Hoosier school district had inflicted his book on its students.”
Sure Mitch! That in no way makes you sound like a deeply uninformed bigot on a McCarthy-esque hunt for thoughtcrime! Or as the former head of the American Association of University Professors put it:
“It is astonishing and shocking that such a person is now the head of a major research university, making decisions about the curriculum, that one painfully suspects embodies the same ignorance and racism these comments embody,” Nelson said.
Gosh, Mitch! I think your secret identity as Garbage Nightmare Bigot, masquerading as Intellectual Diversity Champion, might have been uncovered!
There are no words for my cavernous contempt for conservatives like Daniels and their naked attempts to smear and suppress the research that is inconvenient for their propaganda. Nor my disdain for their demands to be taken seriously as defenders of "intellectual diversity." So, here is a rendition of Dueling Banjoes on musical Tesla Coils:
More News from the Conservative Legislation Lab
Indiana's Republican Garbage Governor Mitch Daniels is leaving office, which, given the colossal nightmare that his tenure has been, you'd think would be good news. But his successor is Republican Mike Pence, who has made a national name for himself while serving in the US House of Representatives by being an extremist dirtbag who supports wars but not abortion and says things like "A nation that will not stand for life will not stand for long" without a trace of irony.
What this means is that Indiana, my state, will continue to serve as a conservative legislation lab for the rest of the nation. We have been out front on privatization of infrastructure (like our toll road, the tolls on which are now triple what they used to be), on voter ID laws, on school vouchers, on disallowing public employees from collectively bargaining with the state, on defunding Planned Parenthood, and a host of other conservative policies that use Hoosiers as guinea pigs before being rolled out across the nation.
So, if you want to know what's coming down the pipeline, keep your eyes on Indiana.
All of which is a preface to the extraordinary news that the Indiana State Board of Education voted 9-2 yesterday "to change Indiana's teacher licensing rules by creating a new 'adjunct teacher permit,' allowing any bachelor's degree holder with a 3.0 grade point average — and who can pass a subject test — to immediately teach that subject in an Indiana classroom."
Got a bachelor's degree? Get good grades in college? Congratulations, you're now eligible to teach in an Indiana middle or high school — no special teacher training, student teaching or experience necessary.Well, that sounds GREAT! Who needs to deal with superfluous crap like "child development" when working with kids? Way to cut through the bureaucratic bullshit, Indiana!
...The adjunct permit creates a different route to the classroom than the traditional "practitioner" license, which requires training in child development, child psychology and how to run a classroom — along with student teaching and additional in-school internship requirements.
Two of my oldest friends, who are both public school teachers in Indiana, reacted with what I can only describe as totally valid and understandable horror at this news last night. A, who is a special education teacher, observed: "ALL the classes I took in college prepared me for my job." He was someone who worked with adults with psychological disabilities before going back to school to become a special educator, and, despite his background, he wasn't ready to walk into a classroom as a special education teacher without specialized training.
He is an amazing teacher, whose students adore him, and without taking anything away from his innate talents, part of his success is certainly due to his training.
Students deserve to have qualified and well-trained teachers. But this state doesn't think so.
In fact, the Republican-controlled state legislature doesn't give a tiny infinitesimal fuck about students. All it cares about is justifying its previous garbage policies around defunding education, driving down teaching salaries, union-busting, and school vouchers. The quicker they can hasten the demise of public education, while blaming it on the teachers' union and resistance to privatization, the better to usher in ever more extreme policies.
This is the end-game of Republicans who love to hate the Department of Education—consigning public education to the dustbin of history and turning even the most rudimentary education into a privilege.
Question of the Day
What is your least favorite thing about where you live?
I am rather distinctly unfond of how I lose electricity every single time we get a storm.
I can't wait until rural electrification comes to Indiana!
Mitch Daniels Will Ruin Everything, Eventually
In which I substitute an email conversation with Aphra_Behn (with her permission) for an actual post...
Aphra: Did you see this piece of news about Mitch Daniels? "Mitch Daniels Likely to Be Next President of Purdue." Barrrrrrrrf. The Boilermakers have my condolences.
Liss: I have. A bunch of people have sent it to me, but I don't know what to say about it. "Now that he's ruined the state, he's on to the state university system!" LOL. Daniels' fiefdoms of ruination keep getting smaller and smaller. First it was the White House, then the Indiana Statehouse, now Purdue... I expect him to show up on my doorstep with a plan to personally destroy my life any day now.
Aphra: Worst. Life coach. Ever!!!! But I am sure he will make a grrrrreat university president! He's a combative asshole with no PhD, no academic experience, no interest in deep, complicated thinking, and a profound contempt for students and teachers. Perfect!
Quote of the Day
"We're not really believing that we've done anything but improve the lot of Indiana public employees."—Republican Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, unintentionally admitting that his administration and his party exist in a fantasy world where facts do not matter.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) criticized public-sector unions on Sunday, saying they should be eliminated entirely.Emphasis mine.
"There's, I think, a fundamental problem with government becoming its own special interest group," he told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "Ultimately, there is not really bargaining in those situations because government sits on both sides of the table."
Wallace then asked whether Daniels would like to see public-sector unions disappear entirely.
"I think government works better without them, I really do," Daniels replied.
...Daniels' appearance -- less than a week after fellow Republican Gov. Scott Walker survived a recall election in Wisconsin -- focused on unions and government spending. Daniels supported Walker's move to end collective bargaining rights for most public-sector employees, which led to outrage in the Badger State.
Indiana already has similar policies in place, such as a 2005 executive order, signed by Daniels immediately upon taking office, that eliminated collective bargaining rights for government workers.
When Wallace cited figures that showed public-sector workers in the state now receive lower salaries and must pay higher health care costs, Daniels said he had seen no such numbers.
"We're not really believing that we've done anything but improve the lot of Indiana public employees," he said.
"We're not really believing anything other than what we want to believe." Perfect. It's so much easier to ruin people's lives when you simply ignore all evidence of the consequences of having done so.
LOL FOREVER
I really dislike my governor, but I am thoroughly enjoying his increasingly contemptuous commentary on the possibility of serving as Mitt Romney's running mate:
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, frequently mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate, is the latest Republican leader to unambiguously state that he will not be Mitt Romney's running mate.LOL!!! Wait, wait—it gets better.
"If I thought that call was coming, I would disconnect the phone," Daniels said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.
When asked if the Romney campaign had contacted him during its vetting process, Daniels responded, "of course not," and added that it's "not an office I want to hold, expect to hold, have any plans to hold.""Fuck all y'all!"—Mitch Daniels.
Brilliant.
Primarily Horrendo
GOOD MORNING! (Or whatever!) That image is also not a Photoshop: It's just a straight-up image of a program for the Franklin County Lincoln Day Dinner in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, which has images of its namesake Abraham Lincoln on the cover and its featured speaker Mitt Romney on the back. PERFECT. Forget all that bookends crap—the real heir to Honest Abe is Lying-Ass Mitt.
True Fact: If Mitt Romney grew a beard and made a stovepipe hat his signature fashion item, he would definitely lose this election even harder.
Speaking of Mitt Romney losing—
—the AP reports that President Barack Obama is doing well in the swing states: "The improving economy is swinging the pendulum in [Obama's] favor in the 14 states where the presidential election will likely be decided. Recent polls have shown Obama gaining an edge over his likely Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, in several so-called swing states—those that are considered up for grabs."
Also: Obama continues to lead by a wide margin in their favorability ratings, despite the fact that Mitt Romney gets more than twice as much positive coverage as President Obama. Whooooooops no one likes you, Mitt Romney!
Eliza Dushku USED to like you, but she don't no more! And you know what they say: As goes Dushku, so goes America!
In veep news, my garbage governor, Mitch Daniels, really doesn't want to be Mitt's running mate lulz: If asked to join the ticket, "I think I would demand reconsideration and send Mr. Romney a list of people I think could suit better." (Actual quote.)
Naturally, my top secret inside sources managed to get me a copy of Mitch Daniels' notebook, so we could see who's on his list:
Speaking of Senator Rob Portman, that's who Mitt Romney should select as his running mate if he wants to win Ohio, according to "an informal survey of more than half of the Republican State Chairmen and national committee people at this weekend's State Chairman meeting at a resort" in Scottsdale, Arizona.
"From those assholes' mouths to Mitt Romney's ears!"—Rob Portman.
And finally! Jon Huntsman (remember him?!) says that his party is garbage. (I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.) Yeah, Huntsman. We are aware.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Quote of the Day
"Well, it must be a slow news day if this has made the air, Brian, but for what it's worth, I did send a congratulatory note to Governor Romney the other day, offered to do anything I could to help him, and here I am. ... He's already won our nomination. He earned it. He's proven himself the best nominee we could put forward, and I'm just happy to sign on and help him."—Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, endorsing Mitt Romney rather hilariously on Fox News this morning. If you can, watch the video for the full effect of his endorsement and what I will charitably describe as its cavernous lack of enthusiasm.
Primarily Dreadful
Today is Primary Day in Hawaii, Alabama, and Mississippi—or, as Republicans think of it, Primary Day in Alabama and Mississippi—so Mitt Romney, aka Mr. South, is bringing out the BIG GUNS, i.e. Jeff Foxworthy, i.e. another famous rich privileged dude whose job it is to convince poor white bigots that he is JUST LIKE THEM so they should definitely like him and, more importantly, GIVE HIM MONEY.
All of Mitt Romney's losing to Barack Obama aspirations rest on winning Alabama and Mississippi, which is the only way he can definitively prove that being a wealthy Yankee Mormon corporate raider is no impediment to appealing to impoverished, protestant, Southern white straight men who are looking for scapegoats on whom to blame the undelivered promises of a kyriarchy that assured them American Dominion was their birthright.
It's pretty AMAZING that Mitt Romney, who is a TERRIBLE campaigner and would make a DISASTROUS president but is truly a PERFECT flesh-and-blood symbol of everything that should rightly be held accountable for the ruination of the working and middle classes and for turning "the American Dream" into a punchline, is now inches away from becoming the Republican nominee, thus inviting poor white Southerners to vote more explicitly than ever before for an emblem of their own destruction. NEAT! What a neat party the Republicans are!
I hope in the next election, the Republican ticket is just a tattered safety net and a holographic bootstrap.
The Goat|Paperclip ticket is going to have a run for its money!
ANYWAY! Back to the 2012 election... Did you know that Rick Santorum won the Kansas caucuses on Saturday? Well he did! BY A LOT! He is very popular in Kansas with Republican primary voters! Whooooooops Kansas! Your Republican primary voters are very fond of Rick Santorum! Yuck!
In good news, Mitch Daniels is not your governor! So there's that.
What else? Blah blah Romney needs to seal the deal in Dixie. (Everything about that sentence is gross.) But Newt Gingrich might steal the deal! Oh noes! That would be so sad for Mitt Romney, but obviously SO GREAT FOR US since it would make this interminable primary EVEN LONGER!!!
Rick Santorum understands basic math. Mitt Romney is unpopular and also a liar. Newt Gingrich is still a human being running for president in the USA. And something something Ron Paul.
Also! President Obama's approval rating is falling. But he's also recapturing demographic groups won by the GOP in the 2010 midterm election. WHICH IS IT? Who cares. If Obama wanted to win in a landslide, he should have tried governing in a way that wildly distinguished him from the other party. OH WELL TOO LATE NOW!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Primarily Horrendo
[Thanks to Shaker Lysis for the inspiration.]
If there's one thing I hope in this world, it's that everyone is maintaining MAXIMUM ENTHUSIASM for the Republican Primary! G-O-P! G-O-P! Chant it with me, everyone! Give me a G! Give me an O! Give me a P! What's that spell?! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOPS FOR AMERICA!
Today's Big News is MONEY. I'm talking about cash money—dollar bills, y'all! (HA HA that song should definitely be the theme song of the Republican Party! Because it's about how money corrupts! That song is VERY MISUSED in LOTS OF COMMERCIALS!) Thanks to the awesome Supreme Court and their awesome decision in the awesome case of Citizens United, there is SO MUCH MONEY in this election! Which is GREAT, because if there's one thing I've always said is missing from the US Democracy, it's that the presidency should go to the highest bidder. It's only fair. FREE SPEECH!
Look at all this FREE SPEECH!
New York Times—GOP Campaigns Grow More Dependent on 'Super PAC' Aid: "Weeks of intense campaigning in the early nominating states have left the leading Republican presidential candidates increasingly dependent on millions of dollars spent on their behalf by outside 'super PACs,' reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday showed. ... The spending reports revealed the breadth and power of super PACs as the campaign hits a critical and perhaps decisive period, with outside groups poised to pick up a growing share of political spending during the costly primary battle that lies ahead."
Politico—Pro-Rick Santorum PAC Picks Up Another Mega-Donor: "The super PAC supporting Rick Santorum's presidential campaign pulled in $2.1 million in January—half of which came from a relatively low-profile Louisiana energy executive, according to a report filed Monday evening with the Federal Election Commission. The Red, White and Blue Fund super PAC spent $1.4 million boosting Santorum's cash-strapped campaign last month, and was credited with helping him win the Iowa caucuses."
Forbes—Billionaire Sheldon Adelson Says He Might Give $100M To Newt Gingrich Or Other Republican:
Sheldon Adelson plays as stubbornly in politics as he does in business. So the criticisms that he's trying to personally buy the presidential election for Newt Gingrich are met with a roll of the eyes. "Those people are either jealous or professional critics," Adelson tells me during his first interview since he and his wife began funneling $11 million, with another $10 million injection widely expected, into the former speaker's super PAC, Winning Our Future. "They like to trash other people. It's unfair that I've been treated unfair—but it doesn't stop me. I might give $10 million or $100 million to Gingrich."HA HA GREAT!
Adelson, the 78-year-old CEO of casino giant Las Vegas Sands, certainly can afford to: With a net worth of roughly $25 billion, that $11 million, which jolted Gingrich's flatlining presidential bid back to life, equates to 0.044% of his fortune. For someone with a $1 million net worth, the equivalent would be $440, or a two-night stay at Adelson's Venetian casino. Adelson could personally fund an entire presidential campaign—say, $1 billion or so—and not even notice.
ABC News has all the fundraising info you can shake a comically oversized check at!
Perfection.
Newt Gingrich is still in the race! He has not dropped out yet! See above.
Something something Ron Paul, who likes his jackets like he likes his novelty checks: Comically oversized and paid for with GOLD!
Mitt Romney is still ceding ground to Rick Santorum, but he's just going to keep doing what he's doing—hanging around not being everyone else—until Santorum eventually implodes because he does things like compare President Obama to Hitler. Whooooooops your completely offensive and ALSO historically inaccurate metaphor!
In other news, my garbage governor Mitch Daniels still refuses to run for president. Don't worry, everyone—he'll run next time! FINGERS CROSSED!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
More News from the Conservative Legislation Lab
It was another banner week in Indiana under the governance of Mitch Daniels last week, as my state passed its gross right-to-work bill, the state senate passed a measure that would allow public schools to teach creationism, and our Republican Secretary of State was convicted of six felonies: Three counts of voter fraud, two counts of perjury, and one count of theft.
Ha ha don't worry! The judge will probably reduce them to misdemeanors so he can keep his job!
"Halp! Ha ha! Halp us! Halllllllllllp!"—Indiana progressives.
Photo of the Day
More Scenes from the Conservative Legislation Lab: Last month, I wrote about the Orwellian-named "right to work" bill in the Indiana state legislature, a piece of gross, anti-worker legislation which Governor Mitch Daniels (R-Ancid) has said "is at the top of the state's agenda."
And by "the state," naturally he means the Republican legislature and definitely not the people of Indiana, nor any of their Democratic representatives, even though there are millions of us who do not support this legislation, or the way it's being rammed through the legislature.
You will not, however, hear about this on the news, because Mitch Daniels is a hero and Indiana is his Fortress of Fuckitude.
Do not let the media silence fool you: Hoosiers are making noise.
[Photo via @ThinkProgress.]
So the President Gave a Speech Last Night...
And I really hoped you watched it, because, if you didn't, you sure missed some exciting stuff! Like Speaker of the House John Boehner projectile vomiting chunks of half-digested star-spangled bald eagle at the OUTRAGEOUS suggestion that "shared responsibility" is an American Value. It was quite an alarming night.
Ha ha just kidding. It was a very routine evening of our Democratic president sounding more encouragingly populist than he'll ever actually be, Republicans being stony-faced monuments of contempt at the mere mention of raising taxes or federal spending to generate jobs for the working classes, and heaps of despair slowly engulfing every vaguely progressive viewer at the thought that even the President's discouragingly milquetoast proposals will be obstructed by the Republicans.
Yay for America!
The text of the President's address is here, and the text of my garbage governor's rebuttal address is here. Below are my Executive Summaries.
President Barack Obama: I killed Osama bin Laden! The American Dream is so dead, but I'm going to spend a long time now pretending with a straight face that I can revive it, if only the Republicans will behave like grown-ups and cooperate, because the one dream that ISN'T dead is my pipe-dream about radically changing the way our profoundly broken government works by scolding Congressional Republicans as if they have any shame, integrity, or decency. Taxes. Outsourcing. We'll stop outsourcing with MORE CORPORATE TAX CUTS! We'll fix unemployment with MORE EDUCATION, because the problem is definitely a lack of education and not that jobs which paid livable wages have been decimated by outsourcing, deregulation, the erosion of workers' rights to enable exploitation of skeleton staffs, and Wal-Mart running out of towns all over the nation any employer in manufacturing, production, distribution, or retail that prioritized community sustainability over ginormous profits. Teachers, amirite? Boots on the border! Clean energy. Let's do some nation-building at home. No more irresponsible homeowners! Oh, and irresponsible lenders, but DEFINITELY irresponsible homeowners. Freedom. I killed Osama bin Laden! Jesus.
Executive Notes: Barack Obama is definitely running for president! He also definitely does not think that a record number of restrictions on reproductive rights affecting more than half the nation's population is worthy of mention in a STATE OF THE UNION address. Does President Obama know that women are part of the union? I'm pretty sure he does, because I distinctly remember him noting that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is "a woman who ran against me for President." (GOOD DESCRIPTION!) See also: End Summary.
Governor Mitch Daniels: Welp, at least President Obama hasn't abandoned his wife and kids! I'm racist! President Obama is divisive! I am such a liar! "The plain truth" is something I would not recognize if knocked on my door begging to be privatized. Everything President Obama does is stupid, and I am obviously a genius because JUST LOOK AT INDIANA. President Obama stinks the end. Jesus.
Executive Notes: Mitch Daniels is a jerk.
I think Herman Cain also gave a rebuttal? On behalf of the Tea Party? Ha ha they are not a real party. And unlike CNN et. al., I'm not going to pretend like they are.
In Summation: It is very obvious, and disappointing, that the President still has not learned that Republicans cannot be reasoned with and convinced to do what is right for the country; he still believes they care about the quality of life of this nation's people (men) and just have good faith differences of opinion about how to achieve that goal. This is not the case. They exist only in service to profit-making corporations, and the nation's people (men) only matter insofar as they can be exploited to do the work from which their employers can reap profit.
A memo from the last election was revealed this week, in which Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod wrote of then-opponent Hillary Clinton: "She embodies trench warfare vs Republicans, and is consumed with beating them rather than unifying the country and building consensus to get things done. She prides herself on working the system, not changing it."
That was, of course, meant as A Terrible Thing, rather than evidence of her understanding a reality about the US government that its current president still has yet to embrace three years into his first term.
I don't know if Hillary Clinton would have been a better president than Barack Obama is, but, in some alternate universe where she is, it's probably because she is "consumed with beating them" instead of being consumed with a consensus that will never, ever, be built.
I can't be funny about this: If President Barack Obama is reelected, he has to give up the ghost of bipartisan dreams. He must instead consume himself with beating them, because this country, the people of this country, need him desperately to stop negotiating and start winning.
State of the Union Open Thread
![US President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign event at the Apollo Theatre in New York on January 19, 2012. [Getty Images]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/shakespeares_sister/shakes3/610x-46.jpg)
The President's State of the Union address will begin shortly, so here's an Open Thread for all your SOTU-discussin' needs. I'll probably be live-tweeting it, by which I mean my usual commentary of snark peppered with the occasional serious policy analysis disguised as more snark.
You can watch it online here.
By way of reminder, if and when you watch my garbage governor, Mitch Daniels, deliver the GOP's rebuttal, which I don't advise, please bear in mind that he is an asshole.
[Photo via.]
Primarily Horrendo
![Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich yawns as he leaves the stage after taking part in The Republican Presidential Debate at University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, January 23, 2012. Florida will hold its Republican primary on January 31, 2012. [Getty Images]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/shakespeares_sister/shakes3/610x-44.jpg "Did this picture make you yawn? It totally made me yawn.")
I know how you feel, brother.
So, the Four Horsemen of the Crapocalypse had another debate last night, because "debates" where a bunch of dudes with essentially the same policies stand behind star-spangled podiums screaming nonsense at each other is very good for democracy or whatever. I didn't watch it, because who fucking cares. But my pal Richard Adams has a great play-by-play here, if you want to feel like you were there, in the company of a witty Englishman.
Otherwise, here's my Executive Summary: Taxes, disgrace, Freddie Mac, lobbying, K Street, taxes, Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher, hey remember the 80s?!, Terry Schiavo (whut), taxes, Jesus, amen.
Everyone was on the attack against frontrunner (again) Newt Gingrich, which really forced Gingrich into doing what he does best: Shamelessly lying with a contemptuous sneer that effectively reads to dildobrainz who don't pay attention to facts that he is being honest, because who would lie that brazenly? (Newt Gingrich, that's who!) It's that utter confidence in the uninformed voter and irresponsible media that makes Gingrich dangerous. He's Teflon, baby.
And he's now leading in Florida, site of the next primary.
Meanwhile, every establishment Republican who's been whining incessantly about the likelihood of Mitt Romney getting the nomination is now shitting their sensible trousers at the possibility of a Gingrich candidacy. Whooooooooooooops we never thought THAT would happen!
To that end, Russ Douthat, still inexplicably being given page-space by the New York Times, is Calling Mitch Daniels. Ha ha you can have him! Take my governor—please!
Not for nothing, but the reason that "various capable Republicans [have decided] to forgo a presidential run this year" is because there's no point to running against President Obama, unless you're a Rick Santorum who thinks blastocysts are more important than the national economy or a Ron Paul who thinks US foreign policy is a garbage disaster (it is!) and imagine you can single-handedly reverse sixty years of industrial-military momentum in creating a perpetual war machine.
If you're just some douche in a suit who only cares about social issues insofar as they can be used as wedge issues to elicit votes from bigots and rubes, and your primary concerns are corporate cockwanking, privatization, and decimating the social safety net via austerity policy, you could hardly do better than Barack Obama.
Sure, he's no Newt Gingrich—he's more Bob Dole; Republican retro!—but giving him eight years to move the Democrats' economic platform even further to the right only accelerates the corporatocratic coup Big Business has been engineering with Republicans' assistance for the last forty years. So, why would any self-respecting Mitch Daniels or Jeb Bush run in this election and risk losing for no good reason?
And that, my friends, is why the Republican field now currently consists of a Santorum, a Ron Paul, and two egomaniacal opportunists who will do and say anything to get elected, including telling the absurd lie that President Barack Obama is a radical socialist lefty—a deceit so incredibly, laughably mendacious that Mitch Daniels and Jeb Bush couldn't even choke it out of their throats with a straight face.
In other news, blah blah Mitt Romney's taxes, Rick Santorum is still a jackass, SuperPACs are such a great idea and Newt Gingrich's is about to get a $5 million donation from one person, and something something Ron Paul.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
News I Don't Want to Write About
Here is the news I don't want to write about today!
There is the interview with Marianne Gingrich, ex-wife of Newt Gingrich, which I did mention in today's Primarily Speaking piece, but is VERY BIG NEWS all over the internetz, where many people are fervently discussing how Newt is a marriage hypocrite for wanting an "open marriage," even though, as others have noted, retroactively asking permission to fuck someone on the side after you've been fucking them on the side for years isn't technically asking for an open marriage as much as it is asking the horse to go back in the barn and please kindly close the barn door after itself.
So, yeah, this is VERY BIG NEWS today, oh boy, but I don't personally feel like there's anything smart or interesting I can say about it, because this is how it looks inside my brain:
Marianne Gingrich: My ex-husband is a garbage nightmare with rotten walnuts where his decency should be.
Me: No doy.
In related news I don't want to write about, Rick Perry—who definitely dropped out today and I hope you are not too sad!—is endorsing Newt Gingrich. Great. Who cares.
There is various news about the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise liner, including the captain's claim that "he was unable to lead the evacuation because he slipped and tripped into a lifeboat while helping passengers leave the stricken vessel." This whole situation makes me sad and infuriated. I hate the news coverage, I hate most of the responses I'm reading to what happened, and I hate that it happened at all.
There is the news that President Obama has "rejected a bid to expand the controversial Keystone oil sands pipeline." I only don't want to write about this news because I frankly don't know enough about it. It's good news, though, I think? You tell me!
There is this gross article in Slate, about whether small boobs are making a comeback. Ha ha. This is an especially fun conversation for a fat lady with giant boobs, because the "big boobs" that were supposedly more fashionable than small boobs are not actually "big" (but "medium") on any boob spectrum that encompasses a truly representative breadth of natural (and/or unnatural) diversity. It's just that he's writing about "sexy boobs," not the unacceptably large and always unfashionable boobs like I've got.
"Eww!"—Dudes who say they love big natural boobs, when they actually see big natural boobs.
There is the hawt news that my nightmare of a governor Mitch Daniels will deliver the Republican response to the President's upcoming State of the Union address. I'm so happy for you! It's so not fair that we Hoosiers get him all to ourselves! Now you can enjoy him, too! (P.S. Watch the veep slot!)
And finally, there is the report that American Idol is getting terrible ratings. Huh. Well, maybe it's the fact that the once-unique(ish) show now has a billion competitors, or maybe it's Steven Tyler being a lecherous creepazoid, or maybe it's the fact that "America" decided to draw the line under Scotty McCreery, because Jumps Sharko.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
News from the Conservative Legislation Lab
When I was a kid growing up in Northwest Indiana in the 1980s, there were two things I was really scared off: Nuclear war and my dad being laid off. The first was an incessantly-evoked threat which hung over our heads like the specter of terrorism does now. When adults would talk about "the bombs" being dropped, they would give a mirthless laugh and say things like at least we'll be first to go because we lived at the feet of steel giants. The Communists would take out the steel mills first, and we'd go with them.
The second was scary to me because, even as the steel mills remained a supposed target for "the bombs," they were collapsing, leaving the most popular occupation among my friends' fathers "laid off." There were a lot of dads at home when I was a kid, some of whom were angry and smelled like booze in the morning, and some of whom were friendly and hopeful and talked about "getting back on the job" someday, and some of whom just looked empty and hollow as they stared into the distance of an uncertain future.
I was scared my dad might become one of those dads, because I didn't understand that my fear was unfounded. My dad didn't work at the mill; my dad was a teacher, a unionized worker employed by the state, whose job was secure.
Northwest Indiana has never recovered from the decimation of its steel industry, and now the Republicans of the state legislature want to erode what remaining security there is for the dwindling number of unionized workers with "a so-called right to work (RTW) bill that Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) says is at the top of the state's agenda."
The AFL-CIO has a fact sheet on right to work laws here, which weaken collective bargaining and eventually erode both workers' rights and compensation: "The average worker in a right to work state makes about $5,333 a year less than workers in other states." And here's even more from the Economic Policy Institute, which also looks at what the real effects of a RTW law have been in Oklahoma:
In the 10 years since the law was passed, the number of new companies coming into the state has decreased by one-third (Oklahoma Department of Commerce 2011).Indiana will be the first state in more than a decade to enact right-to-work legislation if the Republicans in the state legislature ram it through this week.
...In the 10 years since Oklahoma adopted its right-to-work law, the number of manufacturing jobs in the state has fallen by one-third (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2011).
As you may recall, Indiana state Democrats walked out last year to protest this same Republican foolery; in the interim, the Republican majority established a new rule that fines them $1,000 a day for conscientious absenteeism.
Although this is happening in Indiana, it should be of grave concern to all USians, especially those in purple-leaning-red and red states—because Indiana has, over the past couple of years under the garbage leadership of Mitch Daniels, turned into a conservative legislation lab, which is why we now lead the nation in anti-abortion restrictions, and why Indiana is the new front on eroding workers' rights.
What's happened in Indiana is that the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-funded entity leading the corporatocratic charge to steal control of the nation from its people, has 17 of its task force members seated in the Indiana House of Representatives and 5 of its task force members seated in the Indiana Senate. In fact, Senator Jim Buck from IN-21 is a member of ALEC's Board of Directors.
Indiana is "now playing a central role in ALEC's agenda."
This model of corporate takeover will be rolled out state-by-state if successful in Indiana. If that sounds like some kind of tinfoil conspiracy, well, it's not. It's all being done right out in the open, where nobody's paying any attention.
What can you do? Well, if you live in Indiana, you can sign this petition in support of Indiana workers. If you don't live in Indiana, please consider donating here or here to support the Indiana House Democrats and/or here to support the Indiana State AFL-CIO in their fight against this heinous legislation and similar bids to erode workers' rights.
They're not going to stop with Indiana. They just started here, because we already lack the resources and progressive infrastructure to effectively fight. Help.
