Dino Rossi

[tvashtarkatena]

OK, now I can say it.

 

Dino, do us all a favor, kindly STFU, and try paying off your massive debts, you fucking typical-can't-live-within-your-means Republican tool.

 

Or waste a shitload of money donated by your dumber that shit fan club and lose a 4th time.

 

I'm good with either one.

[Choada_Boy]

Na Na Na Na

Na Na Na Na

Hey Hey

Goodbye

 

 

[Jim]

I just didn't want a Senator named after a cartoon dionsaur.

[olyclimber]

[video:youtube]xWIoOzrGnOU

[tvashtarkatena]

All those hungry palms that will have to go un-greased. The Humanity!

[Jim]

There's no reason the Republicans will play the next two years any differently than they have the past two. Obstruction has worked pretty well for them. Hard to be optimistic that anything is going to get done other than political theater.

[olyclimber]

Prediction: we'll see him again for the next governors race.

 

 

[prole]

 

Best lamestream analysis yet...

 

It's The Political System, Stupid

 

Voters don't seem to care who wins the election -- as long as there's a backlash

By David Sirota

 

Death panels. Witchcraft. Birthers. Islamophobes. Tea Partiers. Obama text messages. Palin robo-calls. TV commercial after TV commercial after TV commercial. And now, at the end of this $4 billion We-Didn't-Start-the-Fire-worthy vaudeville known as the 2010 election, what do we have to show for it? That's right, a new House speaker with the politics of Newt Gingrich and the skin complexion of a Syracuse mascot.

 

If after this soul-crushing extravaganza you find yourself shell-shocked, that's understandable. If you are confused, that's understandable, too, considering the contradictions.

 

A president who helped corporate interests gut the very proposals he was elected on -- healthcare reform, Wall Street regulation and economic stimulus -- was suddenly berated for being anti-business and for overreaching. An anti-Establishment/anti-corporate/anti-NAFTA/anti-government Tea Party ended up electing to the Senate a congressman's son (Rand Paul), a pharmaceutical lobbyist (Dan Coats), a Bush trade representative (Rob Portman) and a corporate chieftain whose business was propped up by government grants (Ron Johnson). Meanwhile, a country that twice rejected Bush Republicans in favor of Democrats suddenly returned those same Republicans to power.

 

Yet, as perplexing, demoralizing and insane as all this seems, a clear pattern does exist in the madness.

 

As I documented in my 2006 book, "Hostile Takeover," our political system has been swallowed whole by moneyed interests -- and whichever party is in power inevitably legislates that reality. Americans have come to fully understand this situation -- and despise it. Thus, as I showed in my 2008 follow-up book, "The Uprising," we are now reflexively drawn to whichever minority party candidates promise the swiftest backlash. Whether the challengers happen to be anti-Bush Democrats or anti-Obama Republicans, America is drawn to these faux rebels even though we implicitly know they will almost certainly become part of the problem once elected.

 

It's kabuki theater ad absurdum -- and it explains a lot.

 

For instance, with Democrats embodying the Hostile Takeover right now, the binary dynamic accounts for the recent resurrection of the old conservative populism first pioneered during the 1980s (this, by the way, is the subject of my spring 2011 book, "Back to Our Future").

 

The Uprising-versus-Hostile Takeover cycle also explains not the end of any particular era -- but the end of political eras as a whole. Whereas clear differences between the parties once created epochal congressional majorities and intractably red and blue states, we now rapidly vacillate between two similarly money-dominated parties in a spastic search for an insurrection that will bring something different.

 

That, of course, gives us a unified theory of the last three elections. In an America straitjacketed by a two-party system, these contests have been all about voters trying to support any available uprising, irrespective of party labels or even ideology.

 

Ending this tail-chasing exercise and constructing a truly transformational and results-oriented politics is essential -- but won't be easy because powerful forces are invested in the charade.

 

Partisan media outlets generate ratings by pretending their respective party's uprising won't be tomorrow's hostile takeover. The political consulting class makes big money from commercials that do the same thing. And a hyper-partisan population divorced from genuine social movements is addicted to believing that if only we wait for the next election, one of the parties -- however corrupt or compromised -- will supposedly bring about "real change."

 

In that sense, biennial election hype is the opiate of the masses -- an opiate made particularly potent because it preys on the psychology of hope. We desperately want to believe that we can mount a successful uprising. And it's true, we can. But not until we realize that both parties are now part of the hostile takeover we seek to confront.

--from here.

[tvashtarkatena]

Prediction: we'll see him again for the next governors race.

 

 

I don't think so. The GOP had to convince him to run this time...i think even the dimmest bulb, and Rossi certainly is in that category considering the, um, 'complexity' of his well thought out proposals, gets the hint after so much rejection. He's gotta be burned out by now...and heavily in debt.

[rob]

these elections are such a waste of money.

[tvashtarkatena]

That's one of the few sectors of the economy that's actually growing.

 

In addition to medical billing and pet insurance.

[olyclimber]

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

 

Well one thing is clear is that the US is full of people who want it all, but they don't want to pay for it. This is outside of any discussion of social services such as heath care. This is bridges, roads, and shit like that. I suppose the conservative solution is to privatize all this stuff. Private roads, private bridges. Toll booths everywhere.

 

I think there are great examples of building a great national resource/infrastructure in the private sector and have it happen in a fantastically efficient way. The Internet is such an example. But the Internet really hasn't been run in a true "private" way. However, it looks like it soon may:

 

http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/03/technology/net_neutrality_election/index.htm?section=money_latest

 

Having our country become a mesh of toll booths and private enclaves doesn't sound that good to me.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Worship of private sector 'efficiency' baffles me - 80% of new businesses implode within 2 years. It's mostly a sea of fail. Much of the rest of it is a sea of fraud. It's rare, very rare, when the private sector delivers what it says its going to.

 

Most of us work in the private sector and can attest personally to its inherent idiocy.

 

These comments do not constitute worship of the public sector - just a just recognition that there is no inherent, observed reason why one is better than the other.

 

For critical functions in a democracy, the private sector is a complete fail - an obvious conflict of interest without public accountability. I present you our worldwide joke of a health care system.

[olyclimber]

Well failures in the private sector are not a good way to judge if it is working or not. I think they are a way to gauge a particular business *is* working or not. There are plenty of examples of successful private enterprises.

If you aren't profitable, you die. End of story. Survival of the fittest. The liberal argument would be that such a "dog eat dog" world isn't very humanistic. It is profits before people. But then neither has the evolutionary process that got us to this point either (if you believe in that sort of thing).

[olyclimber]

Have yall seen this? I got a chuckle out of it.

Sarah Palin PAC ad "Together" @ Yahoo! Video

[tvashtarkatena]

Conservatives don't acknowledge the private sector's painfully obvious fuckedupedness because stupidity is relative. You have to be relatively smarter than the problem to see it. Its no secret that the GOP attracts left half of that bell curve.

 

But modern conservatism isn't really about analysis and problem solving, its about emotional stroking and affirmation. It's hate and fear based - blacks, libruls, gays, women, poor people, damn, the list is endless - so it attracts those with that dysfunctional mental set. As such, it's also the party of envy - those with such a train wreck for a psyche tend to be inherently dissatisfied, hence the focused eye on what's on other people's plates and fetish for material wealth and property - but not the well being of others. Essentially, its the philosophy of a two year old.

 

That's why conservatives ALWAYS stick with the amorphous grand themes - 'freedom', 'patriotism', whatev - details to follow? Don't hold your breath. It's a tribal thing. That's why you can cook the conservative agenda down to 3 or four soundbite sized maxims - free market, etc. Gotta keep that shit simple, cuz complex and real world just isn't the end of the playing field where that constituency plays.

 

There are, of course, a healthy supply of less 'principled' conservatives who are whip smart and just couldn't give less of a shit about anyone but themselves. Health of the nation as a whole? FUCK THAT. Darwinism, bitch.

[Hugh Conway]

Having our country become a mesh of toll booths and private enclaves doesn't sound that good to me.

 

Southern California is awesome.

[Peter_Puget]

 

Hold on there Mr Tvash! Clearly you are a superior individual. Why waste your time with these losers? Come help run my campaign for minority leader! Your country calls!

[tvashtarkatena]

 

Hold on there Mr Tvash! Clearly you are a superior individual. Why waste your time with these losers? Come help run my campaign for minority leader! Your country calls!

 

Definitely superior to you, anyway, but that's like shooting fish in a barrel.

[ivan]

these elections are such a waste of money.

we could save alot by just using my gov class mock elections - my 3 classes reproduced the EXACT percentages for 5 of the 8 ballot measures/referendum, and predicted the winners of 2 of the others - shockingly, they didn't give a shit about the tax on bottled water in order to pay for schools one, perhaps b/c half their classes are in trailers packed to the gills for several years now

 

they also overwhelmingly voted for dino, though many confessed it was just b/c he had a cool name (heck won for similiar reasons no doubt)

[Peter_Puget]

Definitely superior to you, anyway, but that's like shooting fish in a barrel.

You're just like Barak baby!

 

White House adviser and longtime friend Valerie Jarrett: “I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is. ... He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability — the extraordinary, uncanny ability — to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. ... So, what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. ... He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”

Link on p3

[Jim]

Interesting how the press is so interested in the "..is the smart guy too smart?" angle when no one seemed to ask "how did such a dumb shite actually get to be president?" during the reign of the Idiot. sheesh.

[Peter_Puget]

What's amazing is a guy like Saul link has found ways to be intellectually challenged. Think how much smarter Obama must be to have never been challenged intellectually!

[tvashtarkatena]

Peter, where would we be without those freshettes of enlightenment that are you links? I never bother to click on them, but I know that others here are occasionally riveted by the jewels you've managed to mine from your apparent wealth of compelling bookmarks. If it were not for you and Billcoe, well...I don't even want to think about it.

[Fairweather]

 

Hold on there Mr Tvash! Clearly you are a superior individual. Why waste your time with these losers? Come help run my campaign for minority leader! Your country calls!