Where Are All The Crusading Newspaper Editors?

I haven’t blogged since Saturday for a reason. I wanted to track both sides of the story (“What Well-Fed Bulls Are Full Of“) as we watch a brand spanking new, bouncing baby astroturf organization being formed to launder campaign money. Note to lawyers: I do not use “money laundering” in the legal sense, nor the IRS code sense, but in the actual, LITERAL sense:

A Prophecy Nearly Fulfilled

Or, What Lawrence O’Donnell (et al) needs to hear.

http://hisvorpal.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/the-better-angels-of-our-nature/

This was what I wrote on November 17, 2008, and began in October 2008 BEFORE the outcome of the election was known:

No: it is the Democratic Congress that I worry about, and about which make my unease known here.

and:

Shouting names at one another, or throwing a hissy-fit because our priorities are not shared by all is a luxury we can ill afford.

You really need to read this, and think, wouldn’t it be nice if none of this came to pass?

What Well-Fed Bulls Are Full Of

[Note: Sept. 26. This post is featured on The Moderate Voice's "Around the Sphere" this AM. Thanks, Joe!]

Let’s see if those “insider” Rolodexes at Politico and MSNBC decide to call up Jason Miller, shall we? Who’s Jason Miller? Good question.

According to their filing Concerned Taxpayers of America was “kosher” with the Federal Elections Commission on September 1, 2010, according to the FEC website.

They have made one reported contribution this election cycle [emphasis added]:

What The F*

The Founding Father (GOP Version)

This was not meant to be a trilogy.* But the Republicans have released their 21-page “A Pledge to America” (Contract on America, Mark II).

[* The "What" Trilogy, I guess:

• • What Republicans Really Mean By Minority Rights
  • What The Founding Fathers Hated Most
  • What the F* ]

I present the important section of the “Pledge To America”, with commentary:

What The Founding Fathers Hated Most

Gadsden Flags — borrowed from cable access TV shows?

The “tea partiers” love to invoke them some Founding Fathers (and wear tricorner hats and fly the Gadsden Flag, formerly the favorite crank flag on public access community cable television for someone extolling lost liberties and Ayn Rand selfishness notions). Aside from an almost complete lack of understanding of the Boston Tea Party (after whom they self-congratulatory-wise style themselves), it’s fascinating that they have NO IDEA what the Founding Fathers hated the MOST about King George III.

You wanna know WHAT the Founding Fathers hated MORE than ANY OTHER THING THAT TYRANT GEORGE DID? What they considered his Number One transgression against the American colonists?

What Republicans Really Mean By Minority Rights

Republicans lined up to show their party support

[UPDATE below. This post was featured on Crooks and Liars on September 22.]

Maine Senator Susan Collins tells CNN that she is foursquare in favor of minority rights.

This is so astonishing that it speaks for itself.

From CNN:

Tea With George Kaplan

Arrrgh, matey!

If you have seen Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, read further. If not, there are inevitable spoilers here and you should probably wait for another blog posting.

You’ve been warned, ye swabs!*

The Christian Science Merrimac and the Christian Science Monitor

In the end, the Narrative held sway over all.  Edgar Allen Poenot:

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Narrative. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the talking heads in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the Gay. And the flames of the internets expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Narrative held illimitable dominion over all.

The Narrative?

Well, let the Christian Science Monitor decorate the stage of our fatal revels:

Kerfluffing The Daily Kerfuffle

Delaware’s GOP Votes

The big Political Nooz of the day is that the “tea party” candidate in Delaware beat the Old Party Stalwart by less than 4,000 votes in a low turnout election. Seems weird that so many dropped jaws and gaping pronunciamentos about The Future of American Politics could generate hysterically in an election marked by its apathy.

A Tweet of Two Bushes

This is NOT the moral courage of Edmund G. Ross of Kansas, who voted to acquit a man he hated, knowing that his political career and his social standing at home AFTER he became unemployed was on the line — Edmund G. Ross of Kansas, who voted to acquit Andrew Johnson because it was the right thing to do even when it was clearly against his personal interests and desires on virtually every level: that’s pure moral courage. This isn’t that.

No: but it is an act of moral courage, or at least a start.

Pardon Our Dust

I’m about to return to the subject of Foster Friess, but there is a huge dollop of data that just plopped in my lap. Tempus fugit, of course, but there will be a short delay over the next week or so.

So, pardon our dust as the metaphorical drywall goes up before the parable paint goes on.

Thanks.

The Management

Courage.