Thursday Open Thread
Welcome to the Thursday edition of your open thread. I guess this is a repeat of Tuesday’s open thread (eh, A1?). Anyway, the floor is yours. Please use your platform for good and not evil.
Update on the AK-Sen race: Miller still leads Murkowski by 1700 votes with all precincts counted. There are 7,600 absentee ballots to count (not all in the Republican primary) so Murkowski still has a mathematically possible, though not probable, chance to win. We’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to have the official results.
All I can say is I agree with Paul Krugman 100%: “Fire Alan Simpson.”
I’ve also had my eye on Alan Simpson, the supposedly grown-up Republican co-chair, who has been talking nonsense about Social Security from the get-go.
At this point, though, Obama is on the spot: he has to fire Simpson, or turn the whole thing into a combination of farce and tragedy — the farce being the nature of the co-chair, the tragedy being that Democrats are so afraid of Republicans that nothing, absolutely nothing, will get them sanctioned.
When you have a commission dedicated to the common good, and the co-chair dismisses Social Security as a “milk cow with 310 million tits,” you either have to get rid of him or admit that you’re completely, um, cowed by the right wing, that IOKIYAR rules completely.
And no, an apology won’t suffice. Simpson was completely in character here; it was perfectly consistent with everything else he’s said, and with his previous behavior. He has to go.
Simpson has already apologized to OWL but I think he owes the rest of us an apology. President Obama has accepted his apology and Simpson is staying. I just don’t see how this commission has any credibility anymore. Is anyone going to be surprised when they cut the deficit by stealing our social security and leaving the huge military budget and Bush-era tax cuts in place?
Can we stop photoshopping away women’s curves? Christina Hendricks loses a significant portion of her hips in a photoshop job by London Fog.
The probable GOP nominee from Alaska is very, very far right.
Among Miller’s views: He wants to eliminate the Department of Education, believes the government shouldn’t pay for unemployment insurance and says of climate change on his campaign site that it “may not even exist.” Among the more mainstream GOP positions he’s taken: Miller would cut welfare; eliminate health care for the poor by scrapping Medicaid; and the Anchorage Daily News reported that he has has called for sweeping cuts to Medicare and Social Security with a goal of phasing them out entirely in favor of total privatization.
…
Democrats would say that Murkowski is a far cry from staunchly pro-choice (she has a 14% rating from NARAL), but that’s how she was portrayed during the campaign. Miller is backed by the Family Research Council and opposes abortion even in the cases of rape and incest, a view far to the right of the mainstream of the GOP. (Operatives have cited her lack of negative campaigning to respond to Miller’s charges as a reason for her surprising poor showing.)
I think he could get along great with Christine O’Donnell! The GOP has a lot of fringe candidates this year and I think the next 2 years will be characterized by complete and utter gridlock (enough to make you long for the days of President Snowe and President Nelson).
Tags: Open Thread
Glen Urquhart’s SEXIST RADIO AD:
A radio ad currently running on WGMD downstate attacks Michele Rollins for her age and waning looks. Michele Rollins is a former beauty queen. She is an older woman now. In the Urquhart ad there is a character who represents Rollins. That character says, “I used to be a fox, but now I’m not…a fox.”
This is blatant sexism. The type of semi-veiled attack that would never be directed at a man. If this is the kind of campaign Glen Urquhart is going to run, I’d say he’s already lost.
Phil: Are you sure it wasn’t a parody by the on-air people?
heard it a couple times within two hours.
More on the guy who attacked the NYC cab driver:
Such a sad, scary story.
“heard it a couple times within two hours.”
Maybe those troglodytes are proud of it. I guess the test will be if it runs on other stations.
voice over at the end “i’m glen urquhart, and i approved this message”
“i’m glen urquhart, and i approved this message”
If that’s true, it’s the second political suicide of the day.
think123 is on a tear again over at DelawarePolitics. I just wanted to give props someplace where he will actually be read:
and on HCR:
More good stuff if you click the link and read the whole comment.
Pan, i thought that guy was a left wing double-agent who was trying to make “good americans” look bad…
I just don’t see how this commission has any credibility anymore. Is anyone going to be surprised when they cut the deficit by stealing our social security and leaving the huge military budget and Bush-era tax cuts in place?
It is no accident this is nicknamed the “Catfood Commission.”
On the other hand, it would be a good thing if the commission’s real purpose is just to lay down some political cover for adding a means test to Social Security.
McConnell even let slip something about a means test, but I think when Republicans think of a “means test” they want to cut benefits from seniors who work as Walmart greeters.
I would have no problem with a 100% benefit cut for people like Mike Castle or John McCain (which one of his houses do they send the check to?)
I would like to believe that is the goal of the commission and nothing more. But I have given up on hoping for eleven-dimensional chess.
I also heard the Urquhart commercial yesterday, 2 minutes after a Rollins commercial. Of course, if you call up Curly and ask about it, he’ll probably laugh and then go into some diatribe about how G-Dless liberals are driving this country down.
Sad thing is, Glennie’s commercial plays well in Western Sussex.
MJ or Phil, can you get a recording of this commercial? I’ll look for it on Urquhart’s site if I can find it. Would it be in a podcast? (please don’t make me listen to that)
the only one with more support in western Sussex then Urquhart is….drumroll
CHRISTINE O”DONNELL
of course Glen didn’t try to pave THEIR paradise and put up a parking lot either… but he will
UI – I’ll see if I can find it. The podcasts from WGOP usually cut out the commercials.