One of the worst problems in American politics is that once a wingnut myth takes off, it never dies, no matter how much evidence you can marshal against it. There are people who will go to their graves believing that there was a good reason to think that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMDs as part of his plot to re-blow-up the World Trade Center after he personally crashed a plane into it the first time. Or, as a less hyperbolic but still baffling example, my dentist told me a couple of weeks ago that she still, in the year 2008, has to talk down patients who are in a full blown panic about fluoridated drinking water.
Which is why the second I heard the words “pregnancy pact” on the TV, I realized two things at once: a) there was no fucking way and b) no matter how much evidence you marshaled to prove that there was no fucking way, wingnuts would believe that gangs of teenage girls are roaming the countryside, sucking up sperm from hapless men with their succubi cunts of doom in order to get their hands on that diamond-jewelry-buying welfare cash. The fact that the movie “Juno” was blamed was just an added bonus, and evidence that teaching women such as screenwriter Diablo Cody to read and write was the first step on the road to teenage sluttitude hell.
Well, here’s the no fucking way part: Turns out the principal, in his desperation to prove the nay-sayers that suggest that making contraception available to teenagers might help them contracept, made up the pregnancy pact. His main source was, contrary to his initial claims, not the school nurses’ office, but the gossip in the school hallways, which as we all recall has an accuracy rate nearing utter perfection.
Moloney starts off by breathlessly recounting stories of succubi teenagers, before hastily admitting and then dismissing the fact that the entire premise of his outraged article (the pregnancy pact) is bullshit.
Via Think Progress, this is the kind of bullsh*t being fed to the sheeple watching Fox News. Neo-con Bill Kristol shares a peek inside his crystal ball to clue viewers in on not only who McSame is going to pick for VP, but that this person’s selection will somehow miraculously lower prices at the pump. Bonus points for the breathless anchorette’s introduction of Kristol:
KRISTOL: First, I think she would help him get elected, which would be a good thing if you want gas prices to come down. Then she’ll persuade him that we have to drill in ANWR and have an aggressive drilling program across the board.
Kristol, floated that out there with no evidence or data to support his conclusion other than the smoke blowing out of his posterior. Think Progress noted:
One major flaw in Kristol and Fox’s claim that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve would lower prices immediately is the fact that it would take 10 years for the oil to hit the market, and even then, the reserve is estimated to have only enough oil to satisfy six months demand.
In other short-list VP news on the McSame front, Louisiana Governor Bobby “Exorcist” Jindal continues to try to completely derail his chances by uttering something beyond absurd. It’s below the fold.
The Washington Post did a hit job on Findlay in its Monday edition. The story, “In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying,” holds up this city and in particular, a few older residents of College Street, as prototypes of the sort of ultra-conservative, racist ignorance that Sen. Barack Obama is sadly forced to battle in his quest for the White House.The Post article by Eli Saslow shows the local people he interviewed as white, working-class, flag-waving patriotic, xenophobic — and utterly opposed to change.
Saslow even catches a little (inadvertent, we suspect) support from Mayor Pete Sehnert, who said, “People in Findlay are kind of funny about change. They always want things the way they were, and any kind of development is always viewed as making things worse, a bad thing.”
Of course, Sehnert was likely talking about new business and residential developments like RiverPlace. But the Post just lets that quote dangle; “development” also means “advancement,” and while most Findlay people would understand what Sehnert meant, the rest of the country would just presume that the mayor was saying that his constituents are against progress — including and especially social progress.
Findlay: a place where we always understand what you’re obliquely referring to. Gotta figure out a way to shorten that for a placard.
Just in case you’re wondering, Saslow tells you “the truth” early on in his story: “Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service.” That’s certainly the line that the Democratic Party would like everyone to believe. But Obama’s record is more complex than that.
Let us again state unequivocally that while he has Muslim roots, Obama has declared himself a Christian and deserves to be believed. And until we read this story, we’d never even heard the “gay” rumor (give us a break, the guy has a bright, attractive wife and two children).
Let us state unequivocally that while we believe everything those e-mails say, Obama has said something different and we are more than willing to accept that he did that. Also, we shit flag pins and piss patriotism, and ask Barack Obama politely to clean our toilets.
As in other recent campaigns, lawyers account for the biggest chunk of Democratic donations. They have donated about $18 million to Obama, compared with about $5 million to John McCain, according to data released on June 2 and available at OpenSecrets.org.
People who work at securities and investment companies have given Obama about $8 million, compared with $4.5 for McCain. People who work in communications and electronics have given Obama about $10 million, compared with $2 million for McCain. Professors and other people who work in education have given Obama roughly $7 million, compared with $700,000 for McCain.
Real estate professionals have given Obama $5 million, compared with $4 million for McCain. Medical professionals have given Obama $7 million, compared with $3 million for McCain. Commercial bankers have given Obama $1.6 million, compared with $1.2 million for McCain. Hedge fund and private equity managers have given Obama about $1.6 million, compared with $850,000 for McCain.
When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer. The Goldman Sachs geniuses are followed by employees of the University of California, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, National Amusements, Lehman Brothers, Harvard and Google. At many of these workplaces, Obama has a three- or four-to-one fund-raising advantage over McCain.
Brooks’ main point here is that Obama and McCain are involved in some sort of Brooks Brothers culture war, with two large camps of elites warring with each other over who eventually gets to make policy, with Obama’s likely-in-charge camp preparing to rebel against the old-guard Republicans by selling out the Democratic agenda:
If the Democrats are elected, this highly educated class will have much more say over policy than during the campaign. Undecided voters sway campaigns, but in government, elites generally run things. Once the Republicans are vanquished, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that capital gains tax hike or serious measures to expand unionization.
Over the past few years, people from Goldman Sachs have assumed control over large parts of the federal government. Over the next few they might just take over the whole darn thing.
There’s only one problem with David Brooks’ argument, something that was nagging at me as I read it: the whole thing.
One of the worst problems in American politics is that once a wingnut myth takes off, it never dies, no matter how much evidence you can marshal against it. There are people who will go to their graves believing that there was a good reason to think that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMDs as part of his plot to re-blow-up the World Trade Center after he personally crashed a plane into it the first time. Or, as a less hyperbolic but still baffling example, my dentist told me a couple of weeks ago that she still, in the year 2008, has to talk down patients who are in a full blown panic about fluoridated drinking water. 