Mark Morford is the guy, who in 2008 called Obama the Lightbringer or Lightworker, I forget which. His Magnum Opus for the 2014 midterm election disaster for the left.
It appears we have consensus!
Not that anyone cares, what with all the Democratic moaning and the Republican leering, liberals across American once again licking their wounds in a sort of dumbfounded, how-could-this-happen disbelief, as Republicans grab gobs of dumb power on waves of nothing but contempt, hostility and a derisive lack of a single fresh idea. Out of ideas as opposed to every loopy idea the left's febrile imagination can conceive. Sometimes enough is enough.
Nevertheless, everyone seems to agree: Democrats were destroyed, once again, by the party's own infamous, downright astonishing ineptitude at executing (mostly) very good ideas. Sez you...
To be fair, he's right about them being inept -- at least in achieving what they promised, as opposed to what they intended. But that's a different question.
A failure of nerve. A lack of ideological spine. A toothless mismanagement of a largely admirable agenda that, despite some terrific successes, never fully made it off the runway. All I heard from the left in the final days before the election is how conservatives were going to stop wimmins from having sex and re-institute slavery. If that's your idea of an admirable agenda, well, look at what the electorate concluded... It was the Democrats of Laficornia that voted to regulate wimmins sex on campus, not us troglodyte conservatives...
Call it what you will. But the president certainly didn't help, with his weird tone of detached apathy, his failure to grow some serious backbone to push back against GOP obstructionism and trumpet the party's successes from day one, all combined with a sort of pathetic lack of follow-through on maintaining the wild, youth-led enthusiasm he so rightfully earned in the beginning, and again in 2012. Say it, I know you can: Your Lightbringer is a lazy slob of a leftist, along with his wife and his staff. And the "youth-led enthusiasm" was that the left cheated outright in many venues nationwide, both in 2008 and 2012; the only way he could win.
And Republicans? Simple. They won (again) because of their utter mastery at hurling empty propaganda, and their utter hatred of President Obama. Hate the sin, not the sinner. Though we don't have to be too fond of the latter, either...
Let us emphasize this point fully and clear: Hate won. Ideas lost. I sat here and watched for eight years as leftist media attacked conservatives, repeatedly bringing false and outrageous charges of racism. It was ideas that lost, true, but it was the left's hate that placed the left themselves in the first place of the Republican's targeting queue, where they belonged. I witnessed as the left for six solid years used the offices of the government to attack conservatives and suppress free speech. If that is your idea of an idea, then, I'll take hate every time. F*cker.
Don't take my word for it. Republicans admit as much themselves. They widely acknowledge they forwarded not a single new idea, promised not a single fresh approach to governing. Far from it. Since we believe that the good old ideas -- prosperity, tolerance, low taxes, less government, freedom, individual responsibility -- are the right ideas, we didn't need to conjure up new ideas...
In nearly every race in the country, Republicans ran on one campaign slogan and one slogan only: Obama is horrible. Obama is horrible.
And it worked. It worked shockingly well. You mean the Stupid Party finally executed a plan? Wowsers!
As with every mid-term, turnout was abysmal, young (liberal) voters stayed away, and those who did turn out were the Republican's most favorite chattel of all: older, fear-addled white conservatives who lack much in the way of critical thinking skills. Bingo! See using the government to attack free speech as "critical thinking skills". I am white, older, albeit not fear addled, but I know a huckster and a confidence game when I see it. Doesn't take much in the way of "critical thinking skills" to know you are being cheated, but it does take tremendous "critical thinking skills' to operate a confidence game. Just as it takes a personal moral deficit to operate the con game and then complain when you are caught.
Can you pity, for a moment, the poor Democratic party? For the horribly ironic bind it finds itself in, over and over again? I don't pity the left; I stopped pitying those bastards years ago. They got what's coming and in the same massive amounts they dished it out.
See, the party's most fatal flaw is also its most appealing trait: It lacks the murderous cruelty and savage bloodlust of the Republicans. See the above statement and compare it to Wendy Davis and the Gosnell murders. I have yet to hear a Republican pol, media personality or blogger come forth with eliminationist rhetoric in this election cycle. But the catalog of Democratic pols, media folk and blogger who did so would consume a few bazillion pixels.
Whereas the GOP has zero qualms about flinging outright lies (birthers, science deniers, creationists, et al) to get what it wants, not to mention an ever-present air of racism, sexism and a dark mistrust/hatred of everyone from Muslims to the entire African continent, Dems have no such arsenal, and no skill to use it if they did. Actually this crop of Republicans is far less religious than before, but I do agree with the author that much of the opposition, supposedly conservatives are every bit an intergalactic freakshow as the left trots out on a daily basis.
Republicans will say and do anything to win, and are utterly ruthless about how they go about it; enacting a smart, fair policy agenda is almost nowhere on their priority list. Dems are the exact opposite: terrific agenda, lots of policy, but morally unwilling to play dirty, to murder their own grandmother in cold blood and blame it on the GOP, to make it go. Wow.
Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, President Obama's personal advisor on bioethics for the ACA, thinks our writer should commit suicide at age 75 so as not to burden his descendants with images of him in his final, mortifying decline. It could be argued that his side pushing suicide isn't exactly murder...in the early stage of the thing, at least.
This is why there is no Democratic equivalent of Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, no endless drumbeat of hate speech pounding across the flyover states 24/7, no incessant wails of fear, racism, hatred of Other. Liberal ideology prohibits such harsh machinery. The Dems are the party of the smart, the city, the college-educated, the critical thinker. Nearly every major metropolis votes blue, and every significant college town, and scientist, and artist, and creative entrepreneur. Holy hell. Does he really mean that there is no "Democratic equivalent of Fox News"? When 90 percent of the electronic media are leftist and pro democrat to begin with, how is their "drumbeat" different? As for Rush, I listen to Limbaugh regularly, and I have yet to hear anything that can be considered "hate speech". Bullsh*t, true, but not "hate speech". The man is pathologically careful when to comes to "hate speech".
"The party of the smart"? The man is too cute for words.
The general truism remains: The smarter, more compassionate and more attuned you get, the more liberal you become. The more fearful, suspicious and egocentric you get, the more conservative you become. It's the obverse.
Clearly he hasn't caught up with the latest research on the subject. Ah well, some are only trainable, not educable.
He's right: the Dems don't get Fox News, instead they get MSNBC. I think we conservatives got the better of that exchange...
So then, consensus: Extremism and odium won; intelligence and compromise lost.
For now, anyway. Some say this is just a typical mid-cycle backlash, a blip, part of an all-too-common Democratic surge/crash cycle that Obama had hoped to mollify, and failed. Badly. First part of the article: OMG HATE SPEECH!!!! Next part: No big deal. It is almost an admission to a Big Lie.
Some say wait until Hillary takes over in 2016. Which is amusing given how, aside from her gender, Hillary brings the exact same gnarly set of political baggage as those who came before. President Hillary Clinton, the Vagina Warrior. I can hardly wait.
Still others say that, despite this red surge, the country is still turning leftward overall, as demographics shift, women and minorities become more dominant, and older white males gasp their last. What with a lousy voter turnout and most of that from older whites from the red states, this election is a very poor indicator of overall direction. Soooo, all that was said before is wrong. No big deal, right? Guess again, Mark: Pubs won the Asian vote. They won the white women vote. They made significant inroads in the unmarried white women vote. They made inroads in the black vote. They just about won the young vote. And they won the white male vote, as usual, and by a bigger margin this time.
There IS NO progressive coalition. There was an Obama coalition in 2008 which you and your fellow travelers mistook for a progressive coalition. But when Champ isn't on the ballot, there is no coalition on your side.
One thing is certain: It's going to be a very ugly couple of years. Fumes of Bush, off-gassing of Cheney, sour fragrance of Rove permeates the air. Obama just got much grayer, though all is not necessarily lost. Well, at least I won't have ugly leftist wimmin lecturing me on what a bastard I am. I can self assess just fine, thankyewverymuch.
Want a silver lining? A bright beacon of hope? I can think of two:
One (echoing John Judis' excellent point at New Republic): if voter turnout this election had been what it was in 2008 or 2012, Dems would have done much better. Women, minorities and young people, who generally lean more liberal, barely showed up. Which means potentially good news for 2016. If the Dems don't screw it up. Yeah, that's it. If you only had time to tweak the message. As the Rooshuns say: Good king, bad Boyars.
My niece, a college freshman minoring in wymyns studies, complained last week that absolutely everyone she knows has turned against the president they all used to adore together. It may already be too late for the Dems to not screw it up two years from now.
And two? Well, that would be right here at home, California.
This state, the 8th largest economy in the world, is sort of a marvel. Governor Brown, who is 76 years old, just won again, in a landslide. Democrats have near-total control. And with the exception of a brutal drought, under Gov. Brown and just a handful of years after our state was the butt of a debt-ridden, downward-spiraling, Schwarzenegger-sized joke, the state is largely flourishing.
For a given value of flourishing that completely ignores unfunded debts and pensions and such that the states and the fed were uninterested in covering not long ago.
Brown is frugal, deeply intelligent, compassionate. The state legislature, increasingly un-gridlocked and free of trying to combat Republican cruelty and obstructionism, moves with a rare sort of ideological ease. Here, ideas can actually become reality. Agenda items evolve. Some surprisingly progressive proposals make it through. It ain't perfect and we have our own pile of issues, but considering this state's mammoth budget, stupefying economy and wildly complicated demographics, its ongoing success is nothing short of miraculous. Until the pensions crash...
Is California a bright model of progressivism, wonderfully imperfect proof of what Dems can do when acidic conservativism and obstructionism aren't a factor? Just might be. One thing is certain: At this particular moment, as Mitch McConnell's flying monkeys swarm into D.C., cackling and smashing the furniture and ruining everyone's day, our calm, liberal bubble has never looked better. Heh.
#4
And with the exception of a brutal drought, under Gov. Brown and just a handful of years after our state was the butt of a debt-ridden, downward-spiraling, Schwarzenegger-sized joke, the state is largely flourishing.
Apparently the writer has not stepped outside his enclave in a while. I wonder if Mr. Morford can answer questions about the number of families in San Francisco, and how many African-Americans there are living there.
I wonder if Mr. Morford has gone into the once-productive agricultural areas south of the Bay area.
I wonder if he's visited the towns of the Inland Empire, and cities like San Bernardino, Fontana, and Stockton.
I wonder if he knows the demographics of those leaving the state, and the demographics of those who are supposedly replacing them.
I wonder if he can provide the answer as to why Democratic politicians get a pass by their fellow legislators when it comes to violating the law.
But most of all, I wonder if he actually put any active thought into writing this dog's spew of a blog entry.
Even her name is media friendly. Mia Love instantly became the darling of the Republican Party on Wednesday, after being elected as its first black female member of Congress -- and she is a Mormon to boot.
She has also rapidly drawn comparisons with Barack Obama, not least since she wowed her party's 2012 national convention with a tale of rags-to-political-riches, much like the young Senator Obama did in 2004.
One big difference is this woman seems to have something meaningful to say.
As I recall, her fave economist is Bastiat.
Comparing her to Obama is an insult. Love is smart, disciplined, caring and principled.
"Many of the naysayers out there said that Utah would never elect a black Republican LDS woman to Congress," she said at her victory rally, referring to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons.
"Not only did we do it, we were the first to do it," said the 38-year-old, who was previously mayor of Saratoga Springs, a city 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City.
Born Ludmya Bourdeau in Brooklyn to Haitian-American parents, Love catapulted herself into Washington's political spotlight by winning the Mormon-dominated western US state's Fourth Congressional District.
Yahoo hits the Mormon theme pretty hard...
Love's parents came from Haiti in the mid-1970s, and she recalls in interviews how her father at times took second jobs cleaning toilets to pay for school for their three children.
She graduated from the University of Hartford, Connecticut with a degree in Fine Arts. A Catholic by upbringing, she found the Mormon faith before finding her white Mormon husband Jason Love. Love is a minority in both her state and church: barely one percent of Utahans are black or African American, while only an estimated three percent of Mormons are. Mormons make up about 60 percent of Utah's population.
- 'Poster child' for GOP diversity -
She is fond of recalling what her father told her on her day of college orientation: "Mia, your mother and I never took a handout. You will not be a burden to society. You will give back," she notes on her own website.
Love made headlines when she took the stage at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida -- which nominated Mitt Romney, also a Mormon, as its presidential nominee.
And then there is Harry Reid, on the Democratic side. Don't let's let the MSM paint the Republicans as the fringe religion party.
"My parents immigrated to the US with 10 dollars in their pocket, believing that the America they had heard about really did exist," she told the crowd. "When times got tough they didn't look to Washington, they looked within."
Damon Cann, politics professor at Utah State University, said Love is bound for greater things in Washington.
"Since the election of Barack Obama, the Republicans have been more serious about trying to showcase the diversity within the Republican Party," he told the Salt Lake Tribune.
"And Mia Love is potentially the poster child for diversity in the party," he added.
Despite proclaiming her first-black-Republican-congresswoman credentials in her victory speech Tuesday night, Love was keen Wednesday to downplay suggestions that her race or gender won the election.
"I wasn't elected because of the color of my skin, I wasn't elected because of my gender," she told CNN in an interview. "Understand that Utahans have made a statement that they're not interested in dividing Americans based on race or gender, that they want to make sure that they are electing people who are honest and who have integrity.
"That's really what made history here. Race, gender had nothing to do with it."
Commentators agreed that Love is a real asset for the Republicans. She "is poised to become an important symbol for the GOP as the party seeks to broaden its appeal among blacks and other minorities, who typically vote overwhelmingly Democratic," noted the Christian Science Monitor.
The Washington Post added: "A party threatened with electoral extinction among African Americans and immigrants now has someone to brag about in Washington.
"Love's compelling personal story is an oasis.
Rare and alone in an ocean of sand? Nasty metaphor, WaPost. Not accurate, either, but y'all have a narrative to push.
She's not just a black face in what's often described as a party full of angry old white men. She's a path forward," it said.
She is the opposite of Obama - no affirmative action, no red diaper commie mommie and spoiled upbringing. No being handed everything because of her skin color.
She did it the old fashioned way - she earned it. Lost the last time, but regrouped and won this time.
#2
The media will be on her like they did Palin. No attractive articulate successful non-feminist can achieve political success. It destroys the leftist playbook and talking points.
#3
Anything or anyone which disproves The Narrative must be destroyed.
See Douglas Adams story about the planet Krikkit for a summary.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
11/06/2014 7:26 Comments ||
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#4
The left will try to do a character assassination on her, but all the women and minorities that won with an "R" next to their name. Too dangerous to the Narrative to allow them to be seen as they are by the public. It would destroy the donks with minorities.
#7
You can tell by the photo that they despise her, and will Palinize her. Can't wait till the CBC tells her she's not black enough to join their racist club. They really do hate when one of their field hands wanders off the plantation.
Posted by: regular joe ||
11/06/2014 11:51 Comments ||
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#8
She should go for the long game. Serve time in the House. Serve time in the Senate. Serve time as CO governor. Have a solid track record before anyone talks about the big job.
We shouldn't even talk about someone being President material until they have a decent resume. The experience of Obama should have taught us that.
#9
FYI, she is in Utah. And Senators usually suck because of how the Senate works, versus how you actually need to govern and lead. Look at John McCain for instance. Sleaze bag deals are part of his routine.
I believe that Governors make better presidents. They actually have to govern - deal with a budget, deal with multiple departments, deal with bigger policy questions, etc. Look at how that shaped Ronald Reagan compared to Bob Dole. Or even Bill Clinton compared to Obama. Certainly better than a green Senator who hadn't even completed a term in the Senate.
#11
Like a lot of other videos, that the Obama Administration doesn't want you to see, it has apparently been taken down from CNN (the site where it was originally posted) as well as other sites that link to it.
If you can't see the video above you should be able to view it at the link below:
#13
Of course the Progressive/Socialist Media has quashed all the reporting on Love's victory; it is CNN - the Ted Turner Communist News Network, former shadow editor Jane Fonda
[Pak Daily Times] Jihadist terror has struck again, claiming 60 innocent lives at the Wagah border near Lahore. While Jundallah and Jamaatul Ahrar -- two reincarnations or splinter groups of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) -- were quick to claim credit for the heinous act, there was a third entity blaming the assault squarely on India. The former director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence ...the Pak military intelligence agency that controls the military -- heads of ISI typically get promoted into the Chief of Army Staff position. It serves as a general command center for favored turban groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, tries to influence the politix of neighboring countries, and carries out a (usually) low-level war against India in Kashmir... (ISI), General Hamid Gul The nutty former head of Pakistain's ISI, now Godfather to Mullah Omar's Talibs and good buddy and consultant to al-Qaeda's high command... , who is practically a fixture at religio-jihadist parties' gatherings, was on television pointing a finger at India and its intelligence agency, RAW. The former general obviously did not produce a shred of evidence supporting his assertion but was successful in dividing public opinion at a critical juncture when unity in opposing and condemning jihadist terrorism was badly needed. Whether it is the massacre of Christians at the All Saints Church in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
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Posted by: Fred ||
11/06/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] The attacks in Jerusalem, which receive Abbas' blessing, illustrate the need for Israel to separate the two populations in the capital, and give up the pretence of happy cohabitation between Jews and Arabs.
Wednesday's two hit-and-run terrorist attacks were carried out in the framework of efforts by Paleostinian Islamist elements to affect a change in their favor in the status quo on the Temple Mount, and to prevent the Judaization of Jerusalem.
Unlike in the previous intifadas, however, the violence this time doesn't appear to be orchestrated by the terror organizations; instead, the mood that is being stirred up in the streets is offering religious inspiration to individuals acting on their own â so-called local initiatives.
Continued on Page 49
#2
you dismiss the possibility that these actions are expressions of the frustration of Hamas supporters with the disastrous results of Hamas' actions in Gaza. Most residents of Gaza are angry with Hamas,and are controlled only by force. Could all this be an attempt to find some cause for Hamas to lead that might appeal to Palestinians?
[IsraelTimes] Jerusalemites who lived through the Second Intifada remember those years, from 2000 to 2003, all too well. Simply being out on the streets was a gamble.
Almost every month, sometimes every week, suicide kabooms hit the city, and destroyed any sense of security here. Jerusalem was worst hit, but it was not unique: The jacket wallahs targeted almost every Israeli city.
The attacks in Jerusalem of recent weeks have marked the return of the suicide kaboomers. There are differences this time. These are not attackers wearing belts laden with explosives or driving cars carrying bombs. They are âmerelyâ using their cars and tractors as weapons. And they are overwhelmingly concentrated in Jerusalem.
Another difference is that the suicide attacks of the Second Intifada were orchestrated in large part by a Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, terror infrastructure. This time, it appears that general instructions from the Hamas leadership, without an organized military infrastructure, are sufficient to prompt a wave of attacks, and again to destroy Jerusalemites' sense of security.
Israel's security forces tried often during the Second Intifada to put together a profile of the "typical" suicide bomber, the better to thwart the attacks. And they couldn't. Sometimes the bombers were young males. Sometimes they were youths. Sometimes they were married women, sometimes divorcees, sometimes widows. In short, there was no typical bomber. The notion that suicide kabooms were overwhelmingly the work of young, single, impoverished men was disproved time and again.
The same is true now, as well. It is hard to point to common denominators among the perpetrators of the recent attacks, including the attempted liquidation last Wednesday night of Yehudah Glick, except, that is, that they identify with Islamist organizations, especially Hamas.
Wednesday's terrorist on Route One in Jerusalem, Ibrahim al-Akary, was a 48-year-old father of five, from a family closely identified with Hamas. Not your "typical" terrorist. Last Wednesday's would-be assassin Mu'taz Hijazi was much younger, as were the perpetrators of the two previous attacks in which Jerusalem pedestrians were targeted by suicide drivers, in August and October.
What is common to the 2014 hard boyz and those from the Second Intifada is that they set out expecting that they will not return; their motivation to kill Israelis prevails over their desire to live.
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch may well be right to say that this is not a new intifada. Indeed, it does not resemble the widespread uprising of the First Intifada (from 1987-1993), and nor does it mirror the Second Intifada. But it cannot be denied that a new phenomenon is bloodying Jerusalem, which may require a new name. Perhaps not an Intifada. Perhaps not an "uprising," or an "kaboom of violence." But, rather, a name that reflects the combination of suicide attackers driving cars and tractors, and relatively low-level street riots. At present, the riots in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem are drawing dozens, sometimes hundreds, but not the masses that confronted Israeli security forces in Gazoo and the West Bank in the early days of the two intifadas.
This new mix refuses to disappear. Weeks pass, and the violence in Jerusalem continues. Sometimes it ebbs for a few days, but then it returns.
Israel's decision-makers tend, almost instinctively, to point the finger of blame at Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... , and to assert that he is responsible for this violence. It is evidently more convenient for them to play down both the significant support among East Jerusalemites for the violence and Hamas's central responsibility for it -- ideologically if not always practically.
It is Hamas that is encouraging the terrorist attacks and the riots. And that means the Israeli government needs to deal with those who are responsible -- that is, the Hamas leadership in Gazoo. But nobody in Israel -- or in Hamas's Gazoo leadership for that matter -- wants another escalation of violence there.
Another factor that is more convenient to ignore is Israel's role in the current deterioration. The government has not done enough to reign in far-right organizations that, it sometimes seems, are working just like Hamas to detonate the ticking bomb that is the Temple Mount and al-Aqsa Mosque.
In the absence of any substantive diplomatic process with Abbas, it is hard to imagine that the new form of Jerusalem violence is going to end anytime soon. Whether or not it is a third intifada, it shows every sign of continuing to batter Jerusalem.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Hamid Gul
