Is Modern American Conservatism Reaching Its Sell-By Date?

I am beginning to think that the End Is Nigh for far right conservatism, the Tea Party "ethos" and "philosophy". Here's why: the economy is improving and they're still being depressing demagogues. Also, their all-out war on women is starting to grate, their hostility toward gays has backfired - big time.

For instance, with all the damage and tragedy of Moore, Oklahoma, you'd think the Oklahoma state legislature would work on measures to address that. But instead they worked to defund Planned Parenthood. A tactic that's starting to backfire because it's literally the only place where women can get affordable health care in many places. People might not like abortion, but for a lot of women, if that's the only place they can get advice and help - forcing that facility to close isn't a good move. Note that nothing is moving into the areas where there used to be a Planned Parenthood facility - the profit margins aren't there.

The anti-gay sentiment is wearying; people have long associated the Westboro' Baptists with this movement, and the needle is moving toward keeping the government out of private lives (finally!). And while there's still a lot of antipathy toward gay people, never mind gay marriage, it's proving to be more generational than entrenched. (The hostility toward trans-folk is still there, but I remain hopeful on that.) People are, I think, getting annoyed with the doomsday prophecies about gay folk getting married; it worked for awhile, but now the twin points that rights aren't to be voted upon and the shrillness of the condemnation are moving public sentiment if not to support but more toward apathy. I'll take that!

With the improving economy, the Federal deficit is falling; state coffers are also returning to normal. The only thing holding the economy back right now is the Gang of Three (Darrell Issa, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor - all House Republicans). If the Tea Party actually was serious about the long term economy, they'd start addressing it seriously. But they're not - they're still stuck on discredited arguments. They've painted themselves into a corner and, quite frankly, aren't intelligent enough to either realize that or figure a way out of it. If the Gang of Three weren't so power-hungry/mad, they'd start to push their colleagues toward middle-of-the-road conservative economic ideas, but as that is where President Obama's economic ideas and actions actually are, I doubt very much that they're going to do that.

But I think the biggest tell that the modern American conservative movement is failing is that they're not in the news in the same way. Their message of doom is at odds with what the economy is doing, their depressing shouting has worn out its welcome, and they are increasingly using electoral trickery to get their men into position for elections. The whole anti-minority voting efforts are either being rolled back or neglected (what a stupid, stupid!, black eye that was for Republicans!) and even the anti-Obamacare rhetoric is being toned down as people start to realize its good points. The "scandals" are still a sticking point, but considering that no one can tell you what the Benghazi scandal is about, it's pretty much lost steam. The IRS scandal is likely to last awhile, but I doubt it will go anywhere (as I predicted a few days ago, there isn't much enthusiasm for a special prosecutor, and even less from the man who would lead that charge - Darrell Issa. Mostly because he made a fundamental strategic mistake and didn't exploit the scandal when he first knew about it). The DoJ/journalist one will probably claim Eric Holder, but the Republicans aren't going to be too enthusiastic about that - Harry Reid will go nuclear with whomever is the next nominee (the White House should be thinking about who will be next) and the Republicans will, thanks to another stupid strategic mistake (blanket opposition), look like bumbling idiots wailing from the sidelines.

In normal circumstances, it would be interesting and pertinent to ask how come no one realized that a basic strategy of blanket obstruction, obstreperous nitpicking and depressing proclamations was a winning one. But we're dealing with the remnants of a GOP that Newt Gingrich created, Karl Rove molded and Roger Ailes controlled. At the end of the day, even the rabidly partizan hate to think they've been bought. And ooh boy, was the Tea Party ever purchased? It was on sale at Walmart.

Carolyn Ann

The market is reliable, huh?

“The market is a much more reliable determiner of the true cost of capital than a bunch of us sitting around taking a guess,” said Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

So the very future of the United States, its ability to educate its young men and women, its vaunted and celebrated ability to nurture new ideas and talent is to beholden to - the market? The ability of young Americans to prepare for their future at the start of a time where an advanced education will be absolutely essential is to be mortgaged to the market? The confidence that a student will know how much an education will cost will be determined by a fickle and uncaring market?

The same market that has benefited from what Rep Kline and his fellow Republicans want to end? The same market that is so reliable and efficient at determining the cost of capital it sent the global economy into a tailspin? That market? Does he mean that market?

Carolyn Ann

Amusing Microsoft

One for Stace: An amusing commercial from Microsoft, and sour grapes from MacWorld. :-)

The sour grapes:

Also, the iPad is certainly a lot more useful than Microsoft’s portrayal suggests, and it starts at $500, not the $699 mentioned in the ad. The 64GB version is $699, however, and that's how much storage the Asus tablet shown in the clip packs in.

[...] 

Microsoft may lose points on originality since this ad is a spoof, but the company’s latest run of commercials is impressive for a firm that has a terrible track record when it comes to marketing.

A lot of Apple Fanbois have a very selective sense of humor...

 :-)

Carolyn Ann

Senator Ron asks, Eric will deliver (something else entirely)

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has asked the DoJ to investigate oil price fixing in the US, in response to the EU's investigation.

I fully expect two things to happen: the revelation that Senator Ron was also investigated as a by-product of some journalist being investigated and Eric Holder totally ignoring the Senator.

(Oh, and a third thing: I expect the conservative media to start rallying around the oil companies. Much of the Tea Party is actually funded by them*, after all.)

Carolyn Ann

*Generalized, sweeping and unsubstantiated but "It must be true, I mean, just look!" statement of the sort preferred by actual conservatives and Tea Partiers.

People think it's entertaining the hell-bent conservatives

Dana Milbank, in the WaPo, writes:

Liberals may not be particularly bothered because the targeted journalist works for Fox News. Conservatives may not be concerned because of their antipathy toward the news media generally. And the general public certainly doesn’t have much patience for journalists’ whining.

I totally disagree. I think people aren't concerned because it's Fox News, a journalist, etc - they're not concerned because Fox News has spent so much time and effort on fake controversies that when a real one comes along, people have "scandal/controversy fatigue". They don't believe it's real, or they believe that it's just another hysteria-laden partizan machination, intended to placate and entertain a hell-bent conservative minority.

Carolyn Ann

PS This is also called "Crying wolf!"

Press freedom? What press freedom?

This whole press freedom thing is starting to get out of hand! The DoJ going after a reporter? That's definitely not kosher.

Somehow I don't think it's Obama at the wheel of all this - it's Eric Holder. But his boss is definitely going to feel the heat. I wouldn't be surprised if a Special Investigator was requested to look into Holder's involvement. That would not be good for anyone (it would have the side "benefit" of reducing Obama's ability to get anything done - something the Republicans are no longer shy about admitting is their strategy).

So while the Republicans go bananas over the made-up "scandal" of Benghazi, and Darrell Issa pretends to be ignorant of what the IRS "scandal" is about, there's a real one involving the press actually happening.

If the House Republicans are dozy enough to demand a special investigation, I suspect they'll not like the blow-back that they'll catch. They, after all, demanded that the leaks be pursued.

Carolyn Ann

I guessed right about that...

Last night I tweeted:

Tea Party after Hurricane Sandy: Sorry, no money. You'll have to recover on your own. After Oklahoma: We're all in this, together, America!
— Carolyn Ann (@_carolynann) May 22, 2013

Aaaand this morning I read:

“Finding some way to offset is not the priority,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of Senate GOP leadership who opposed the $50.5 billion Sandy aid package at the beginning of the year. “Meeting the known and immediate needs as quickly as possible is the priority.”

The worst of it? I took a guess, an informed one to be sure but still a guess, about the conservative position on aid to a reliably conservative state.

(The default for conservatives, in Congress and elsewhere, is to offset emergency aid with spending cuts elsewhere. This was ably demonstrated by the shoddy and callous voting on Hurricane Sandy aid. So they hold true to their principles, except when it comes to reliably conservative states.)

Carolyn Ann

Bobby stops saying that...

Bobby Jindal has stopped saying Republicans need to stop being "the stupid party". In preparation for his 2016 run, he's now saying "Rock that judgmental arrogance, folks!"

He's also hoping for endorsements from EW Jackson and Mark Sanford.

Carolyn Ann

You own that

I've been arguing this for years.

(Helen has been arguing it for longer.)

In a nutshell: if you're trans, whether it's transgender or transsexual, you get to choose how you deal with it. As Helen notes, life dealt you a bad hand, but you're in charge of your life, no one else. You get to decide how to respond.

And yeah, I know being trans is a rough deal. I've been there - a few times. At times it felt it owned me, but it never did - I wasn't equipped to own it (for a variety of reasons). That did change and I needed help to change it. And yes, it's difficult to "own" something like that if you don't know how. But none of that says that you are not responsible for your own life, because you are.

Carolyn Ann

Star Trek: Into The Meh

I had misgivings when JJ Abrams, on Jon Stewart, couldn't articulate the differences between Star Trek and Star Wars. The story was highly derivative, the dialog was mostly stilted and the villain wasn't "An Event". Ricardo Montelban, as Khan, was An Event. This one? You hardly noticed him. The story didn't hang together, being more a series of vignettes than a coherent story line. The plot was... There, somewhere. But it ran and hid whenever it might have been noticed. About half way through the movie, I was wondering which would be more desirable: the movie getting better or ending. Lots of special affects, but even they weren't that interesting.

Zachary Quinto was more noticeable, Chris Pine was better and Zoe Saldana was pretty good. And that's about it.

I was glad we went to see the discount show.

Carolyn Ann

Congressional ineptitude on full display?

Congress is disturbed that a law they, if memory serves, passed in haste has been misconstrued to read what it, apparently, says.

Yep, you read that right. Congress hastily passed The War Powers Act after 9/11. It allows the President to start and maintain a small-scale war anywhere he or she wants, as long as al-Qaida can be associated with it in some way. I'm not sure if this little fact proves that when Congress acts, it has an astonishing ability to screw up (Patriot Act, anyone?) or that we shouldn't be surprised to learn that when Congress passes a law, it, as a body, might not understand what its actually doing. (The other possibility: that most Senators, etc, don't read the laws they vote on isn't a surprise and is, as far as I can tell, normal legislative behavior.)

Now we sit back and wait for Fox News to go ballistic [sic] about Obama's overreach, executive arrogance, etc.

Carolyn Ann

The Thumping Chicken...

I  wish Chicken would stop doing that...

Yet again, she leaped from the deck fence, and landed with a thud just outside my office window. It's really disconcerting to have this feathery blur, followed by a "thump!" happen just over the top of the laptop screen!

Critters! :-)

Carolyn Ann

Harley riders in China

Neat. Harley riders in China! :-)

(I'm not generally a fan of Harley's, but in this case I am!)

Some of those folk look like the Village People gone slightly askew, but that last picture is Just Awesome. :-)

Carolyn Ann

A Twitter IPO? Don't make me laugh!

A Twitter IPO? That doesn't even make sense!

Here's the gossip: there's an article over on The Street about how Twitter, when it makes its eventual and almost inevitable IPO, should think long and hard and probably pick someone other than Morgan Stanley to manage the offer. Yes, Morgan Stanley has tech-industry depth, as Merrill Lynch did in the late 90's into the early 2000's. (Then they decided that wasn't toxic enough and decided to see if they could help destroy the American economy.) But here's the thing: Twitter doesn't need to go public just yet.

As far as I can find out (they are quite secretive about their financials), it's not approaching SEC limits where it will have to go public, but it has some big name investors who value it between $9B and $10B. Apparently it's also making a profit, even with 900 employees and a massive investment in infrastructure. Those sorts of costs should decline in the near future. But even so, it's difficult to see how Twitter can be a juggernaught like Google.

Comparing Twitter's financials with Google's is delusional. But apparently that's not stopping anyone.online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…
— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers) February 26, 2013

The biggest problem is that it is still difficult for anyone to see how Twitter can turn its platform into a profit generator. Put up ads and it might make a few million here or there, a bit like Facebook (let's hope their efforts are better than FB's!), but that's not a $10B business. A billion or two, perhaps, but ten? No way. I can see the big guns of the tech world buying it - then it would probably get bid up to about $15B, perhaps $20B if Apple and Google go at it. (To be honest, I'd not be surprised if that's what investors like Black Rock are thinking.)

The rumor is that Twitter will go public this year. Somehow, I just don't see it. And pricing it will be very difficult (that's where the Morgan Stanley/Facebook debacle comes in). After the silly Facebook evaluation ($38? Really?), investors will be shy; there's no tech bubble to boost prices, for instance. Yes, there are some over-inflated prices, and we might be at the start of a bubble (I kinda hope so!), but in general people are going to be leery of a platform that doesn't have any discernible revenue prospects. As with so much from the tech world, just because something has become part of the fabric of our lives doesn't mean it has any profit potential. Twitter will need more capital, probably sooner than they'd like, but whether the market feels the same way as society remains to be seen.

Carolyn Ann