US Politics: Meet the New Right, same as the Old Right

[Shryke]

A Tale of Two Terrible Governors:

The Monster from Oklahoma:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/06/governor-people-of-oklahoma-do-not-have-blood-on-their-hands-from-botched-execution/

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said on Monday her state had “lawfully carried out a sentence of death” in a botched execution that has been widely criticized as cruel and inhumane.

“Justice was served,” Fallin, a Republican, wrote in a monthly column. “The people of Oklahoma do not have blood on their hands.”

Convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett, 38, died of an apparent heart attack on April 29 some 43 minutes after the lethal drugs was first administered.

An barbaric execution that happened despite the stay put on it by their own Supreme Court, because this fucker just had to be killed RIGHT NOW, even with undisclosed methods that resulted in a prolonged lack of death followed by a heart attack. Nice to see the true face of the death penalty movement though.

Speaking of murder, Chris Christie:

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/05/8544757/clock-ticking-hudson-crossings-amtrak-warns

The end may be near for the New York region's cross-harbor rail tunnels, with no good alternative in sight.

“I’m being told we got something less than 20 years before we have to shut one or two down,” said Amtrak C.E.O. Joseph Boardman at the Regional Plan Association’s conference last week at the Waldorf Astoria. “Something less than 20. I don’t know if that something less than 20 is seven, or some other number. But to build two new ones, you’re talking seven to nine years to deliver, if we all decided today that we could do it."

Tom Wright, the Regional Plan Association’s executive director, described Boardman’s remarks as “a big shock.”

“I’ve been hearing abstractly people at Amtrak and other people at New Jersey Transit say for years the tunnels are over 100 years old and we have to be worried about them,” he said. “To actually have Joe put something concrete on the table, less than 20 years … Within my office, there was a level of, ‘Wow, this is really serious.'”

New Jersey governor Chris Christie spiked plans to build two new rail tunnels under the Hudson, likely leaving the metropolitan region for the next quarter century with all of two rail tunnels to carry New Jersey commuters into Midtown Manhattan. Those two tunnels are more than a century old and carry more more than 160,000 passengers a day. Hurricane Sandy flooded them and caused a lot of damage. They are also a dangerously narrow chokepoint on the one of the busiest rail corridors in the world.

The state and federally financed project called Access to the Region’s Core would have doubled the number of cross-Hudson tubes and relieved that bottleneck. Construction had already begun when Christie pulled the plug, a putative cost-saving measure that was also meant to demonstrate his state's political independence, and rededicated some of its funding to repairing the Pulaski Skyway.

Senator Chuck Schumer last year called Christie’s decision "one of the worst decisions that any governmental leader has made in the 20th century, or the 21st century.”

I think Christie could justifiably fear for his safety when those tunnels go down if there's no alternatives. Angry commuters may well tear him apart.

[Horza]

Here's a good post on Piketty, Marx, and the America right's name-calling.

Actually, as this piece makes clear, Piketty has read, and is responding to a fair bit of Marx so his answer to Chotiner looks like a defensive genuflection to American political culture's inane and childish fear of reading or thinking about Marx.

[Frog Eater]

Shryke,

As a supporter of capital punishment, I have no sympathy for the rapist and murderer put to death in Oklahoma. Public hanging would have sufficed for him, but in this country many means of execution have been determined to be cruel and unusual, which is forbidden in the constitution. So he had to languish on the table with a drug cocktail that did not work.

I agree with the Governor, justice was served, but it should have been served in a more expedient way. hanging works.

[Shryke]

Shryke,

As a supporter of capital punishment, I have no sympathy for the rapist and murderer put to death in Oklahoma. Public hanging would have sufficed for him, but in this country many means of execution have been determined to be cruel and unusual, which is forbidden in the constitution. So he had to languish on the table with a drug cocktail that did not work.

I agree with the Governor, justice was served, but it should have been served in a more expedient way. hanging works.

No, I don't think when the SC says "How about you tell us how you are gonna kill him before you do it" and the Governor just ignores the authority of the judiciary and goes "LOL GOTTA STRING THE FUCKER UP NOW!!!" and then leaves the man dying horribly due to complications from your botched execution that 'justice has been served' in any sense of the word.

"Vengenace has been served"? Maybe. Justice? Laughable.

[BloodRider]

Here's a good post on Piketty, Marx, and the America right's name-calling.

You see it in this thread all the time. It is shorthand that right wingers use because they can't argue on the merits or demonstrated outcomes of their political worldview. So instead they find parallels between premises, and then attack the person who expressed those idea. As if that means that actions don't have consequences.

So in answer to the idea that without government intervention we would become a more racist society we get "I don't like Hobbs"

And in answer to the ideas and visible proof that capital tends to consolidate to the very few we get "You are a Marxist"

It's a Strawman combined with an appeal to authority. But its all a dance to avoid facing the real consequences of their bankrupt philosophies, or take responsibility for their actions. It is the logical equivalent of saying "I am not responsible for dropping that piano on that person. Newton was a crank."

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

BR,

The first thing anyone on the right of the political spectrum should admit, myself included, is that Marx's criticisms of capitalism are valid and should not be merely written off because Marx made the criticism.

[The Undead Martyr]

BR,

The first thing anyone on the right of the political spectrum should admit, myself included, is that Marx's criticisms of capitalism are valid and should not be merely written off because Marx made the criticism.

I find Marx to be an amazingly prescient and incisive sociologist but a lackluster and highly esoteric economist. His economics must also be seen in the spectrum of Adam Smith and Ricardo- the three shared the Labor Theory of Value and Marx clearly drew upon and wrote in reaction to previous works.

In other news, that Piketty link had an interesting "Marxist" analysis of the 1945-2000s economic cycle, which got good press from the Wall Street Journal even- I intend to read it over the summer, but the premise, according to a reviewer, is that capitalism tends towards overproduction, and when less developed nations start industrializing (Germany and Japan, then the Asian Tigers, now the BRICS) they squeeze previously developed nations' industries in the game of catch up.

[Commodore]

Trey Gowdy shaming the palace guard media

I could listen to him read the phone book.

[Suttree]

I could listen to him read the phone book.

It would have about the same relevance as his inane nattering here.

[TerraPrime]

He is the Kenneth Starr of this decade - set up by the GOP power to be the attack dog against the sitting president. Their strategy is going to be similar as well, if I have my guess.

[TrackerNeil]

He is the Kenneth Starr of this decade - set up by the GOP power to be the attack dog against the sitting president. Their strategy is going to be similar as well, if I have my guess.

I think he's going to just as successful, too. Fact it, the public does not care about Benghazi and never has. Although it's possible that this kangaroo court might gin up media interest, it should be noted that the wrongdoing the administration is accused of is, well, rather unclear. Iran-Contra was simple -- the president either knew his people were illegally selling weapons or he didn't -- but Benghazi is...what? That the administration didn't classify the attack as the work of militants quite as quickly as it might have? Americans really aren't going to be captivated by this non-story, and I think it's going to rev up only the Fox Noise set, all of whom are already voting Republican. So I say this ultimately won't matter.

[TerraPrime]

I think he's going to just as successful, too. Fact it, the public does not care about Benghazi and never has. Although it's possible that this kangaroo court might gin up media interest, it should be noted that the wrongdoing the administration is accused of is, well, rather unclear. Iran-Contra was simple -- the president either knew his people were illegally selling weapons or he didn't -- but Benghazi is...what? That the administration didn't classify the attack as the work of militants quite as quickly as it might have? Americans really aren't going to be captivated by this non-story, and I think it's going to rev up only the Fox Noise set, all of whom are already voting Republican. So I say this ultimately won't matter.

Well, Starr did find Lewinski, with the help from Linda Tripp. So that's probably their goal - cast a wide and big enough net to find something that can nail it to the President. If an investigation on possible cover-ups on the suicide of a White House counsel can lead to Paula Jones and then to Lwinsky, then surely, an investigation on possible cover-ups on Benghazi can lead to Emmanuel Rahm and then to the no-bid contract for mom-jeans by Obama?

[TrackerNeil]

Well, Starr did find Lewinski, with the help from Linda Tripp. So that's probably their goal - cast a wide and big enough net to find something that can nail it to the President.

That's plausible, although it's a hell of a risk. The Republicans actually had something they could hang on Clinton and they still wound up doing worse in the 1998 elections. If they fish around and find nothing they may suffer the same fate in 2014.

It's funny; back in 2010, when Republicans won the House, I privately predicted they'd impeach Obama sometime in his second term. I gave that up awhile ago, but now I wonder. The party has already engaged in shutdowns and near-defaults without seeming political consequence, so a part of me asks why wouldn't they be willing to do the same with impeachment, particularly if they take the Senate in November.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tracker,

I mean this in all sincerity, they'd be fools to try to impeach Pres. Obama over Bengazi. And, they really might be fools.

[TrackerNeil]

Tracker,

I mean this in all sincerity, they'd be fools to try to impeach Pres. Obama over Bengazi. And, they really might be fools.

That was my first thought, but then I also figured they'd be fools to shut down the government and, well, we all know what happened there.

[Maithanet]

It's funny; back in 2010, when Republicans won the House, I privately predicted they'd impeach Obama sometime in his second term. I gave that up awhile ago, but now I wonder. The party has already engaged in shutdowns and near-defaults without seeming political consequence, so a part of me asks why wouldn't they be willing to do the same with impeachment, particularly if they take the Senate in November.

I think there is definitely a portion of Republicans who really do think that Benghazi is a big deal, and that if people just paid attention to it, they would be equally outraged. I think they are totally wrong to think this - the more I have learned about Benghazi, the less outraged I've been.

However, I will say that the kind of Ken Star "go wherever there's wrongdoing" investigation is never a good thing for a politician. There's always dirt to be found. Very few regular citizens could withstand a private investigator with significant resources digging for any sort of malfeasance, and politicans have a lot more shady dealings than the average joe.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Maithanet,

Are you suggesting impropriety from a Chicago politician??

;)

[jarl the climber]

I think there is definitely a portion of Republicans who really do think that Benghazi is a big deal, and that if people just paid attention to it, they would be equally outraged. I think they are totally wrong to think this - the more I have learned about Benghazi, the less outraged I've been.

However, I will say that the kind of Ken Star "go wherever there's wrongdoing" investigation is never a good thing for a politician. There's always dirt to be found. Very few regular citizens could withstand a private investigator with significant resources digging for any sort of malfeasance, and politicans have a lot more shady dealings than the average joe.

It is a big deal within the insular Washington bueracrcy for reasons that outsiders(98% percent of the pop.) can not really fathom. There used to be a poster on here, Raidne, who approached it from that mindset and she saw it as a dispute between the CIA and State department as to who was to blame and that State was trying to throw it off on the CIA for political reasons but yeah it seems sort of silly to people outside of that world.

[BloodRider]

It is a big deal within the insular Washington bueracrcy for reasons that outsiders(98% percent of the pop.) can not really fathom. There used to be a poster on here, Raidne, who approached it from that mindset and she saw it as a dispute between the CIA and State department as to who was to blame and that State was trying to throw it off on the CIA for political reasons but yeah it seems sort of silly to people outside of that world.

Well seen from that perspective, I get that it is a big deal. And perhaps it would be worth it to examine this as a conflict between the CIA and the state department. I imagine there is no love lost there, and perhaps it needs to be repaired.

Still this is not what the GOP is calling the scandal or what they want to investigate.

Also Raidne is gone? :-(

[Maithanet]

It is a big deal within the insular Washington bueracrcy for reasons that outsiders(98% percent of the pop.) can not really fathom. There used to be a poster on here, Raidne, who approached it from that mindset and she saw it as a dispute between the CIA and State department as to who was to blame and that State was trying to throw it off on the CIA for political reasons but yeah it seems sort of silly to people outside of that world.

I remember those discussions, and (from what I remember) there was some buck passing between the White House, CIA and State. So what? Does this kind of squabbling ever not happen in politics?