Is Hot Bag of Air That Is Grover Norquist Finally Floating Away?

According to a lot of press lately, which was even accompanied by some minor scolding from his own party, it seems as if Grover Norquist might be losing his kung-fu grip on the balls of the republican party when it comes to anything and everything involving his favorite four letter word... tax. But in the harsh light in the post-election morning, GOP politicians are beginning to realize that the napoleonic GOP tax emperor has no clothes. Or more realistically considering the climate and how the Republicans are polling against the President on the so-called fiscal cliff, they realize that threat of Mr. Norquist holding (most of) their previous anti-tax pledges against them in a future primary battle is rather hollow in the face of refusing to let the Bush tax cuts expire against the highest two tax brackets (I am not even going to get hysterically started on how the Bush tax cuts were ALWAYS supposed to sunset after 10 years). The majority of people support the raising of the wealthiest and most will also blame the GOP if a deal gets done. The bet being made many is that it is a lot more dangerous to the electoral prospects of those involved to obey Grover rather than to ignore him.

The party has not put Grover in the corner yet, however. He is now trying to use the debt ceiling to get what he, and many far-right conservatives in the House as well (to be fair), wants on the fiscal cliff. Boehner has now even stated that "everything has a price" as an barely implicit threat to use the debt ceiling despite the fact that it threatens the full faith and credit of the US, led to a downgrade of the US' credit rating last year and 60% of Americans support raising taxes on the top 2% of Americans (oh, and that little 332 and 51% election win by POTUS).

Due to that last bit, and because the majority of Americans will blame the Republican Party for a failure to avert the fiscal cliff, the President is refusing to back down from either his promise to raise taxes on the top 2% OR his conviction to take the debt ceiling off the table for the future so it can no longer be used as a threat nuclear option bargaining chip by the GOP. As President Obama still appears to have a massive chip stack in front of him, it strikes me as the right play. Not only is the raising of taxes on the wealthiest something he ran hard on and won on this fall, but the debt ceiling argument last year cast a black cloud over the United States last year. The President did not get overly blamed on that, but it still caused many to doubt the sanity of the political process. These negotiations during this lame duck session may be an important step to illustrate that this past election was the first sign that sanity is starting to creep back into our Congressional halls.

Here's to hoping, because the world is still watching. Maybe only with one eye because they have their own shit going on over in the EU and China, but watching nonetheless.

IMAGE: Mediaite via Google Images

An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President:

In all honesty, I have no idea how to start one of these things. Do I go fawning and describe how I was an insta-supporter after the 2004 DNC and that the support only strengthened throughout your eventual Presidential campaign/election? Do I mention my recent disappointment, not Andrew Sullivan-like but there nonetheless, at the first debate and the related tightening of the polls? I guess I go lazy and lead with those questions (what hackery!). I was not, however, one of those was most angered by your seeming malaise in the debate but was rather incensed at how easily Mitt Romney lied, obfuscated and changed tack throughout. I suppose he should have been called out, but the shamelessness of it all was almost unbelievable. Even sadder, the American people bought it and, at the very least, Mr. Romney is basically tied with you in the national polls and is right on the bumper in many swing state polls. Some say you should be as pugnacious as Vice President Smokin' Joe Biden, but I, for whatever that is worth, would pledge caution. Call Mr. Romney out, certainly, but do so calmly and civilly. This should not be your concentration, however, as the real reason Americans fell for Mr. Romney's schtick is because they believed it as a viable new course for America that would set them back on the path to prosperity (despite the fact that that path was actually lined with heaps and heaps of cow patties).

With that in mind, why not reframe the debate and bring your own vision for the future to the fore. For instance, the 47% Mr. Romney so easily dismissed are not too lazy or too downtrodden to find work that they must rely on the government dole, many jobs they would have been taking no longer exist because of productivity gains or because corporations looking to pad their already overstuffed earnings have shifted them abroad. Instead of counting them out or writing them off, let's empower them. They do not need redistributive "handouts," they need training for the post-recession new normal. How about we redistribute the money that we have, for far too long, pledged in corporate welfare? Oil companies making billions do not need billions more in subsidies and favorable tax treatment. The banks that have been the beneficiaries of the public's largess derived from our tax dollars are sitting on that money rather than making loans or lowering mortgage rates. They say they are in the business of making profits, not public welfare; I say the American public is no longer in the business of helping them do so. Mr. President, any Wall Street money you were getting is probably already in so there's no holding back now. Mitt Romney is the ultimate plutocrat, so why no embrace the populist within you? Instead of practicing corporate welfare, that money is going to be "earmarked" (let's take that word back too!) for education. And not just improving education in pre-K and kindergarten, areas where it is proven to have the most impact, but also job training to help those out of work land more highly skilled jobs. Lets create more of these jobs by encouraging the modernization of our grid and the retrofitting of buildings that will not only lead to more jobs but will have the added benefit of eliminating wasted in providing heating and electricity for our homes. It even has a tailor-made tagline: "It's not about welfare for people suckling at the public teat, it is removing the already fattened corporations from the teat so our middle class can start the American comeback." Or something. I'm sure your election team can work on that...

Once you've laid that out, ask Mr. Romney was his plan is. Specifically. Ask him how those that have been looking but cannot find a job are going to be helped by the Romney/Ryan plan. Ask him if we are REALLY just hoping for the magic tax cut bean to spur growth once again? How are the policies currently espoused any different from the previous Bush plan? Shouldn't the fact that R.Glenn Hubbard, main Conservative tax cut cheerleader for decades, is the chief economist and seeming architect of economic plans belie the fact that a Romney administration will just be repeating recent history rather than learning from it?

And if Mr. Romney brings up a plan to privatize social security, whooo boy! It could not be easier to point out that the only benefit such a plan would bring would be to Mitt's buddies on Wall Street who would be chomping at the bit to get their hands on that money. They could then charge hundreds of millions of dollars of management fees for the possibility to mismanage the American public's money as bad as the banks did before the Great Depression. Doesn't that sound great?!?

How about immigration? If it doesn't get brought up, bring it up. I think the vast majority of people who are against the DREAM Act were probably not voting for your re-election anyway Mr. President. Ask Mr. Romney where he stands and, if he changes his tune, why he is standing to the left of the spot he stood two months ago. Stress the importance of the need to keep highly educated and highly immigrants, especially those who came to this country for that education, in the country. These are the drivers of innovation and growth that we so desperately need.

I cannot even be bothered to go into the social issues as I've already run too long and I think almost everyone knows where Romney/Ryan stand on that anyway (aside from abortion; where do they stand on that? Okay, maybe bring up abortion after Ryan's VP debate performance). Do not run on the past, except where you need to emphasize that Romney/Ryan will be repeating past mistakes. President Bill Clinton already made the case for you record, it is time for you to make the case for why you are the man to look to for the next 4 years. The refrain from the DNC and from numerous commercials has been about "moving forward," so how about you show the American people where you will be driving us. Many of your supporters are already in the tank and are confident you are to lead us on the right path. It is high time to show the rest of America. You rode into office on the inspirational wave of the change you would bring and you need to inspire Americans to their better natures again.

Thank you for your time Mr. President. The American people are counting on you.

With the utmost sincerity,


NoMas Paine

The REAL Mittens Showed Up... Or Did He?

Ever since Mother Jones' fateful unveiling of Mitt Romney's 47/53 opinion from a private fund raiser, there has been much talk across the journobloggingtalkinghead-o-sphere about whether we've FINALLY seen the real Mitt Romney. Depending on who you were reading, these opinions have taking both good and bad connotations. Personally, in your humble bloggers opinion (IYHBO?), I agree that it is impossible to pin down the REAL Mitt Romney politically and still think that this WAS the real Willard.

Wah, wah, wwwaahhhhh, you say? Well, I do not necessarily believe that the talk revealed much of anything about his political beliefs and that he would be anything to anyone to get elected POTUS. At the same time, from my long experience having dealings with self-entitled douchers, it fits a pattern where, at each turn, Romney peels a layer to further reveal his self-entitled doucher core. The first instance of this was revealed when it came out that he was the ring leader of a group that harassed a fellow student by pinning him down and cutting his hair. Many cried homophobe when this was revealed, but it sort of just seemed like the seedling of a self-entitled prep school doucher (of course, the most common of all douchers). This trend has continued with his absolute refusal to release any tax returns outside of the two years he already has, despite requiring his VP candidates to give him 10 years of tax returns, essentially telling the American public to just trust him on this. Self-entitled douchers who think their deserved presidency is an essential fait accompli do NOT show the general public anything more than what they want to. Facts. In his mind it is probably unfathomable that he would not be President considering that the markets would rise upon his election.

The truly indicative phrase in Governor Romney's talk at the fundraiser, however, was not about the 47% of the electorate who will never vote for him. Do no misunderstand me. That little tidbit was certainly damaging and the coup de grace of calling them too lazy to rise up was horrible. But to really get into the mind of Mitt Romney (the self-entitled doucher) look no further than these words:

By the way, both my dad and Ann's dad did quite well in their life, but when they came to the end of their lives, and, and passed along inheritances to Ann and to me, we both decided to give it all away. So, I had inherited nothing. Everything that Ann and I have we earned the old-fashioned way, and that's by hard work and…[applause] I see that—

I say that because there's the percent that's, "Oh, you were born with a silver spoon," you know, "You never had to earn anything," and so forth. And, and frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you could have, which is to get born in America. I'll tell ya, there is—95 percent of life is set up for you if you're born in this country.  

These are the words on a man who was born on third base but continues to suffer from the misperception that he hit a triple. Or, to be fair to a man who did work hard to get where he is but still had a TON of help and advantages along the way, the words of a man who hit a blooper for a single and then got to third thanks to a series of unforced errors. Though it IS fantastic that he did very well for himself in private equity and gave away any money left to his family from both sets of parents, he still does not recognize that he was still born with a silver spoon and all the built-in advantages that infers. This idea was further reflected in Ann Romney's admittedly great RNC speech where she talks about their struggles living in Boston while Mitt pursued his graduate degrees while leaving out the fact that they were living off of a vast, and bequeathed, stock portfolio that most people couldn't dream of.

Though clearly not the same level of megalomaniac, Romney's self-perception reminds me of figures like James Dolan or Woody Johnson (sorry about the NY sports team references but they are the only examples I can bring to mind of this phenomenon, since they are the co-banes of my existence; pun not intended) who go about doing whatever they want, infuriating their fan base, because they think they deserve it.

Anyway, long story short, Governor Romney probably does not hold disdain for 47% of the voting public. I doubt that he really thinks about 90% of the voting public at all. He's just a self-entitled giant doucher, surrounded by people of his ilk, who felt comfortable to let out his dawgs contained douchiness. I think his own self-entitlement matter a lot more in that talk than any other entitlement that he addressed.


IMAGE: Mittens goes for the full Boehner at the Univision Forum from miamiherald.com

An RNC Mystery Speaker... OOOOooooOOOOO

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Republican National Convention has scheduled a speaker in the televised prime time spot just before Sen. Marco Rubio speaks. As most big name Republicans are already scheduled to speak, and since both former President George W. Bush and former veep Dick Cheney have said they will not be attending, some are very intrigued by who it could be. Donald Trump triumphantly mounting the stage (sexually) in a "I haven't been asked to speak" fakeout? Sarah Palin "Mama Grizzlying" her way back into the GOPs hearts and bestowing her many blessings upon Willard? General Petraeus finding politics and setting the stage for a possible 2016 primary run against his body type opposite in Chris Christie?

Nope. They are all wrong. The only possible explanation is Ronald Reagan's hologram. You've lived up to your name and started a revolution Tupac. Makavelli lives on and he's bringing his eff'n GOP homeys.

IMAGE: Ebony.com