Or so I hope. I haven’t heard from Maria Chappelle-Nadal’s lawyer since Monday, and I haven’t been served with any papers this week. Prior to the primary, I received several more e-mails imploring me to retract my statements before it was too late, but I’ve received nothing since. I’m assuming that Chappelle-Nadal, having now won the state senate seat, has wisely decided to back away from pressing her lawsuit against me.
It’s probably a really good decision, considering that she already won her race, she wouldn’t win the lawsuit (truth is an absolute defense), and she would only draw further attention to her lie. In fact, I wondered why she would even bother to lie or threaten a lawsuit in the first place, given that she was very confident in her victory at the polls, and the target of her lie trailed her badly in her estimation at the time and in the final tally.
In any event, we won’t shrink from calling people liars, even if they have good progressive voting records. A lie is a lie, no matter who tells it. I fear that Maria Chappelle-Nadal may learned that lying won’t cost her a victory, but I hope that in the future she will know not to threaten people who disagree with her or call her out on her behavior. And it is my earnest hope that Maria Chappelle-Nadal grows up a little in the Senate and manages to accomplish something for the residents of her district.
Apropos of the Republican obstructionism which is on the verge of driving the economy into a double-dip recession, Matt Iglesias writes:
… the way the American political system works, the minority party that prevented the majority from addressing the crisis will accrue massive political benefits as a result of the collapse.
Conservatives won’t admit it today, but what we’re looking at is a major breakdown of the logic of the American political system.
What he is talking about is the fact that Republicans, who during the Bush years drove the economy pell-mell off a cliff, have, as an electoral strategy, steadfastly worked to ensure that Rush Limbaugh gets his wish that the President fail – and if that sinks the economy for the next decade, well, the devil take the hindmost. They have fought everything that we know, based on historical precedent, to be sound economic policy, and they succeeded in hobbling the initial stimulus by paring it to half of what it should have been.
The main GOP tool for wreaking self-righteous havoc: like the liar screaming fire in a crowded theater, they rampage through the media screaming something to the effect that the deficit is coming and it’s going to eat your children – after running up record deficits under every Republican president since Reagan. They’ve managed to bamboozle economically ignorant Americans who actually believe cable news sound-bites offering simple formulas that distort the complex relationship between short-term stimulative spending and long-term debt.
Nor are GOPers one-trick ponies; they have one more especially potent tool: go on the offensive and lie like a dog. Deny the demonstrable fact that even a weak stimulus moved us toward recovery – which might mean that a bigger stimulus could spur a bigger recovery. Deny that the growth of the national debt, as Ezra Kleiln points out, reflects “a massive drop in revenues, not $4 trillion in spending over the past two years… .”
You want an example? I give you Roy Blunt trotting out, rather lackadaisically, I admit, the GOP two-pronged tool box, the lazy pol’s substitute for a campaign strategy, but one that he clearly expects reward him with a Senate seat:
Paul Krugman tells us that our political culture is sick:
… a culture that rewards hypocrisy and irresponsibility rather than serious efforts to solve America’s problems. And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable, if they choose – and they have so chosen.
My question: why would anyone want to send one more irresponsible hypocrite like Roy Blunt to the senate where he gets to help wield the filibuster for the benefit of the cronies and campaign contributors whose welfare kept him so busy in the House? Why should we reward him for failure in the past just because he promises to do the same thing in the future?
The chair of the Johnson County, Missouri Democratic Central Committee went to the Warrensburg post office to check the committee’s post office box for mail today.
In the mail was a a plain envelope with the address of the committee and no return address. There was a 37 cent Ronald Reagan stamp and a 10 cent stamp for postage.
Contained in the envelope were two bumper stickers:
What passes for subtle racism from right wingnuttia in post-racial America.
The second bumper sticker, as described by the chair, had an image with “BP” and an oil slick on the left, Obama’s image on the right, and the legend, “Slickest and Blackest Disaster in U.S. History” in the center.
The chair turned over the envelope and the second bumper sticker to a post office employee at the counter who told her he would turn the materials over to the local postmaster. She retained the first bumper sticker.
….There is nothing wrong with tracking — Media Matters regularly sends trackers to conservative events — but if you are going to track, perhaps it would be a good idea to come prepared with more than a single question based on a false premise. And when you are confronted with your own questions, have a better answer than rubbing your nose and mumbling.
Media Matters: Nope.
Tracker: Then who do you work for?
Media Matters: I work for Media Matters for America.
Tracker: Funded by?
Media Matters: Not by George Soros.
Tracker: Really, then who?
Media Matters: You can look on our web site, read our 990’s like any other organization.
Tracker: Really. [crosstalk] Okay, and you have, you guys have no funding from George Soros. That what you’re saying?
Media Matters: I’m saying my salary isn’t paid by George Soros. That was your question.
Tracker: Well, is Me, Me, Media Matters funded in any way by.
Media Matters: You can look at our publicly available forms and, you know, you can [crosstalk]…
Tracker: Well, I thought, as you worked there I thought I could get a better answer from you.
Media Matters: I’ve, I’ve never met George Soros. I don’t know George Soros. I’ve never seen George Soros. So.
Zach Wyatt, the Republican candidate facing two-term Democratic incumbent Rebecca McClanahan in the 2nd House District appears to have hired Emmy winning writer Aaron Sorkin. Either that, or, Wyatt has copied and pasted text into his campaign website from one of the more famous monologues by Martin Sheen’s character, President Jed Bartlet, from Sorkin’s television series The West Wing.
In the episode “20 Hours In America” Bartlet, speaking about a bombing at a university, remarks:
“…securing peace in a time of global conflict, sustaining hope in this winter of anxiety and fear. More than any time in recent history, America’s destiny is not of our own choosing.We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people’s strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arive.“
Wyatt strikes a similar tone in a section of his campaign website dedicated to veterans issues:
“Veterans, more than ever, need to be thanked and showed the utmost respect. They have secured peace at the time of global conflict, and hope during winters of anxiety and fear. I know that more than any time in recent history, American’s history has a destiny of its own choosing. We as a nation did not seek, nor did we provoke an assault on our freedoms and our way of life. We did not expect nor invite a confrontation with evil. Yet our country’s true strength was shown when we rose to master the moment when it arrived. Military members and families have given the ultimate sacrifice any human can give to our country. They need to be honored through any means possible.”
To date, Wyatt’s campaign finance reports do not show any expenditures made to Sorkin or any license fees for the republishing of Sorkin’s work.
Zach Wyatt (R), the Republican candidate facing two term Democract incumbent Rebecca McClanahan in the 2nd House District appears to have either hired Emmy winning TV writer Aaron Sorkin. Either that or Wyatt has ripped off one of the more famous monologues by Martin Sheen’s character President Jed Bartlett in Sorkin’s television series The West Wing.
In the episode “20 Hours In America” Bartlett, speaking about a bombing at university remarks:
“…restoring abundance amid an economic shortfall, securing peace in a time of global conflict, sustaining hope in this winter of anxiety and fear. More than any time in recent history, America’s destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil.”
Wyatt stikes a similar tone in a section of his campaign website dedicated to veterans issues:
“Veterans, more than ever, need to be thanked and showed the utmost respect. They have secured peace at the time of global conflict, and hope during winters of anxiety and fear. I know that more than any time in recent history, American’s history has a destiny of its own choosing. We as a nation did not seek, nor did we provoke an assault on our freedoms and our way of life. We did not expect nor invite a confrontation with evil. Yet our country’s true strength was shown when we rose to master the moment when it arrived. Military members and families have given the ultimate sacrifice any human can give to our country. They need to be honored through any means possible.”
Published: Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John Pérez have asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to open an investigation into a tiny Missouri nonprofit organization that has pumped nearly $500,000 into a voter initiative to suspend the state’s landmark climate change law.
In a letter to Holder on Tuesday, Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Pérez, D-Los Angeles, asked the Justice Department to determine whether the Adam Smith Foundation is illegally funneling campaign contributions from third parties to support the rollback measure, Proposition 23….
Our good friends at Fired Up have even more detail.
Our question in April:
Where did that $498,000 that the Adam Smith Foundation contributed come from? Just asking.
There’s got to be a really interesting answer somewhere.
Only candidates who want to lose the general election take a break after the primary. There’s an old adage in politics – you can print more palm cards, you can enlist more volunteers, you can raise more money, but what you can’t do is get more time. The clock is ticking.
Courtney Cole, the Democratic Party candidate in the 121st Legislative District, did not have a primary opponent (and neither did the republican incumbent), but she has not been standing still. There’s too much work to be done.
The yard signs started going up after Tuesday’s primary election.
This evening a jovial group of volunteers converged to accomplish some of the many mundane campaign tasks which have to be done in order to make it a little easier for the candidate to get her message to the voters. There will be many more evenings like this leading up to the November general election. Because those things have to be done and you can’t get more time.
Courtney Cole at her campaign computer while volunteers work in a room next door.
An editorial in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch quite sensibly observed that Proposition C was a very poor tool for amplifying the anti-Obamacare message nationally:
The megaphone is muffled when the message is “One in every six registered Missouri voters (71 percent of the 23 percent who turned out) sent a message to Washington.”
…a light turnout made clear what the vote wasn’t: a sweeping referendum on health reform. An electorate seriously riled up about an issue sends more than roughly a fourth of registered voters to the polls.
The silliness of all the conservative celebratory braying is recognized even outside the state. Ezra Klein of the Washington Postput the matter very succinctly:
I’m really not sure why conservatives are so excited that an electorate primarily made of Republican primary voters passed an anti-individual mandate ballot initiative in Missouri. I don’t even understand why conservatives would be excited if it passed during a normal election. For one thing, states can’t invalidate federal laws. … . Moreover the focus on the individual mandate speaks to how weak the conservative case against the bill is. The individual mandate can be replaced. That wouldn’t be a good thing, but you could substitute automatic enrollment, or some form of lock-out..
All very rational – however, if we were living in a rational political world, there would never have been a proposition C. If you want to gauge the effect of Proposition C in our current political Bizarro World, look no further than the first page of today’s Post Dispatch.
Despite the excellent editorial, the cover story on Proposition C gave State Senator and Proposition C cheerleader, Jane Cunningham (R-Dist.7), full bragging rights. The reporter evidently felt that bringing up real, verifiable facts like the small turnout was not necessary when he could manufacture a story about how Missouri voters “overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance.” I am afraid that this reporting path will prove to be that most traveled before this is all over.
Nor do we have to wait too long to see just how an orgy of Proposition C triumphalism is going to encourage the crazies to go even further. FiredUp!reported yesterday that State Senator Jim Lembke (R-Dist. 1) is so emboldened by the Prop C victory that he proclaimed his support for having Missouri defy the federal mandate that requires emergency rooms to treat the uninsured – which does, at least, have the virtue that it tells anyone who is interested just how mean-minded Proposition C-loving GOP fringers really are.
