When I handed him the Haggadah, President Obama, who famously stages his own seders at the White House (which is a very nice philo-Semitic thing to do, IMHO), spent a moment leafing through it and making approving noises. Then he said (as I told the Times): "Does this mean we can't use the Maxwell House Haggadah anymore?"
George W. Bush was, in his own way, a philo-Semite, but he never would have made such an M.O.T. kind of joke (see the end of this post if you're not sure what M.O.T. means). Once again, Barack Obama was riffing off the cosmic joke that he is somehow anti-Semitic, when in fact, as many people understand, he is the most Jewish president we've ever had (except for Rutherford B. Hayes). No president, not even Bill Clinton, has traveled so widely in Jewish circles, been taught by so many Jewish law professors, and had so many Jewish mentors, colleagues, and friends, and advisers as Barack Obama (though it is true that every so often he appoints a gentile to serve as White House chief of staff). And so no president, I'm guessing, would know that the Maxwell House Haggadah -- the flimsy, wine-stained, rote, anti-intellectual Haggadah you get when you buy a can of coffee at Shoprite) -- is the target, alternatively, of great derision and veneration among American Jews (at least, I'm told there are people who venerate it).
Liberals tend to underestimate the importance of public discourse and its effect on the brains of our citizens. All thought is physical. You think with your brain. You have no alternative. Brain circuitry strengthens with repeated activation. And language, far from being neutral, activates complex brain circuitry that is rooted in conservative and liberal moral systems. Conservative language, even when argued against, activates and strengthens conservative brain circuitry. This is extremely important for so-called "independents," who actually have both conservative and liberal moral systems in their brains and can shift back and forth. The more they hear conservative language over the next eight months, the more their conservative brain circuitry will be strengthened.
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The radical conservative discourse of the Republican presidential race has the same purpose, and conservative Republicans are luring Democrats into making the same mistakes. Santorum, the purest radical conservative, is the best example. From the perspective of conservative moral values, he is making sense and arguing logically, making his moral values clear and coming across as straightforward and authentic, as Reagan did.
Lakoff goes on to describe the differences between the Progressive moral worldview and the Conservative one. It's very much worth reading as a whole, particularly when he shows how the Democrats may be missing the point and, even if they win the Presidency this year, may lose other office elections and the overall, long-term war. And he lays out the Conservative "logic" that leads to the decimation of critical governmental programs and safeguards that actually help Americans:
It's war. On who is a great question -- because it isn't just women, no matter how much they are the target at the moment. If these GOoPers get in, kiss all the advances from the Affordable Care Act goodbye.Here's how that logic goes.
- The strict father determines what happens in the family, including reproduction. Thus reproduction is the province of male authority.
- The strict father does not condone moral weakness and self-indulgence without moral consequences. Sex without reproductive consequences is thus seen as immoral.
- If the nation supports birth control for unmarried women, then the nation supports immoral behavior.
- The conservative stress on individual responsibility means that you and no one else should have to pay for your birth control -- not your employer, your HMO, or the taxpayers.
- Having to pay for your birth control also has a metaphorical religious value -- paying for your sins.
- This is a classical slippery slope narrative. If no one else should have to pay for your birth control, the next step is that no one else should have to pay for any of your health care.
- And the step after that is that no one else should be forced to pay for anyone else. This is, everything should be privatized -- no public education, safety nets, parks, or any public institutions or services.
It's shaping up to be the most pivotal election of our era.
So it is fitting, in a way, that after two big losses in the latest Republican primaries on Tuesday night, the main pitch for Romney's campaign is now, basically, mathematical probability. The former Massachusetts governor finished third in Mississippi, behind Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, with 30 percent of the vote. And he was headed for a third-place finish in Alabama, with 29 percent of the vote.
The double-barreled setback was unexpected in Mississippi, reflecting neither polling numbers nor the expectations that Romney's campaign was setting in the days leading up to the vote. And in the aftermath, Romney's aides were left with unemotional appeals for why the primary remained very much his alone.
"Mathematically we are fast approaching the point where it is going to be a virtual impossibility" for opponents to win enough delegates, Romney's top spokesman Eric Ferhnstrom told CNN.
Giraud created the powerful "Moebius" handle for the loose, satirical work he had done for the magazine Hara-Kiri in the early to mid-1960s. He simply liked the name, and didn't even know if it referred to a person with whom he might have to share the appellation. In 1975 he resuscitated the name for the new group he co-founded Les Humanoides Associes and their magazine Metal Hurlant. Described by Giraud as a natural reaction to a groundswell of storytelling from comics-makers that had no natural place to put this material -- you can see precedents in some of the short stories Giraud did for Pilote just proceeding these newer comics -- and therefore needed to create a new press to do so, all in the tradition of the French avant garde. That magazine would become the home of two of Giraud's best-remembered series, Arzach and The Airtight Garage. Giraud would later describe the revolution driven by his work and others as one of creative choice rather than content, that the feeling of the artist inhabiting the work was more important than the kind of work being done. He drew a connection to the undergrounds and cartoonists like Robert Crumb, although he felt that the work of he and his peers existed in an entirely different cultural context.
"There has never been anything like it in our history," said Princeton historian Sean Wilentz. "'God's Own Party' now really is just that."
....The American Faith Party is a doctrinally schizophrenic coalition bound by faith in the power of biblical values to create a better country; by fear of federal power, especially that of the federal courts and President Barack Obama and his administration; and by fear of rising Islamic political power around the world.The AFP unites Catholic traditionalists who especially revere the papal hierarchy; evangelical, fundamentalist and charismatic Protestants; some strands of Judaism, including those ultra-orthodox on social issues and Jews for whom an Israel with biblical borders and a capital in Jerusalem is a spiritual imperative, not just a matter of diplomatic balance in the Middle East; and Mormons, who ironically aren't regarded as Christians by most other members of the coalition. Romney, a devout Mormon, is their man.
The four still-standing Republican presidential candidates are all AFP members in good standing on most of the party's key agenda items. The GOP platform is sure to feature all of them, including opposition to abortion and gay marriage; measures to counter what Republicans regard as attacks on religious liberty; expressions of fear about the extent of federal power, especially from the courts, on social and medical issues; libertarian economic policies that limit regulation and taxes (for religious conservatives and economic libertarians share a common enemy: government); denunciations of Islamic political power; and support for Israel. (Ron Paul is a dissenter on the last two points.)
All the candidates, including Paul, adhere to the AFP's central operational tenet: that professing your own faith -- once verboten in American politics -- is a necessary precondition to being taken seriously.
The Republican Party in a small, conservative South Carolina county expects its candidates to lower taxes. They also expect them to not watch porn, be faithful to their spouses and not have sex outside of marriage.
The Laurens County Republican Party originally decided that anyone who wanted to run for office with the GOP’s blessing would have to sign a pledge and be approved by party leaders. They backed off that idea after the state party told them it was illegal and the pledge received international attention, becoming another cultural issues nightmare for Republicans.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may have had the best performance on the debate stage in Arizona last night, but Thursday morning wasn't as great -- Romney dropped to 39 percent in Rasmussen's nightly tracking poll of a potential matchup between him and President Obama nationally. Obama got 49 percent, giving him a ten point lead.How's that electability argument going, Willard?
Financial reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Romney's campaign spent $19 million in January -- nearly three times as much as it raised -- as the former Massachusetts governor defeated Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire, lost to him in South Carolina and then topped him in Florida.
Restore Our Future, meanwhile, raised $6.6 million and spent $13.5 million, mostly on ads attacking Gingrich that helped Romney win the Florida primary. By the end of January, Romney's campaign had $7.7 million on hand and the pro-Romney PAC had $16.3 million.
And it's not even close to General Election time yet. The Obama campaign must be loving this.
Why the need to spend so much? It's not the brilliant competitive field -- it's the candidate. Over the past few days this video, of Romney speaking at a campaign event in Michigan, has become the emblem of the flailing candidate, utterly adrift, unable to summon authenticity, speaking in what appears to be a panic:
The trees are the right height...not just the Great Lakes but the inland lakes...I love car, I love American cars...WTF, Willard?
If you want to do some local pandering, you need to be prepped with the names of local restaurants, local products, local anything specific. Normally there's front people to do this but the better candidates don't fake it, they actually know. The fact is, Romney hasn't lived in Michigan for more than half a century, but he's trying to rely on biography yet again to score points...total disconnect from any kind of reality -- or vision.
Look, at a human level, I might feel sorry for Mitt that he has to actually compete and could quite possibly still lose his so-called "home state" to Rick the Theocrat. But I just can't feel sorry for a candidate who has consistently lied through his teeth in smearing President Obama ever since his campaign began.
He's a wealthy man, so no pity there, and he's smart enough (on paper) that he should know better. He should have studied up on Presidential leadership, not rightwing talking points. He should have taken a chance by leading on issues his party might not be in sync with him on, and shown real intelligence and grit.
Instead, he reaps the whirlwind. Just keep spending, Mitt. Your combined $32.5 million spend in January did more to boost the economy than anything your GOP Congressional party-mates have done in four years.
Three Democrats walked out of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on religious liberty and the birth control rule on Thursday to protest Chairman Darrell Issa's (R-Calif.) refusal to allow a progressive woman to testify in favor of the Obama administration's contraception rule. The morning panel at the hearing consisted exclusively of men from conservative religious organizations.
"What I want to know is, where are the women?" Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked Issa before walking out of the hearing after the first panel. "I look at this panel, and I don't see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventative health care services, including family planning. Where are the women?"
If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.
