It’s funny watching last night’s KO, as John Nicols (who is not John Nichols, but I still highly recommend The New Mexico Trilogy) is telling us that the huge turnout could mean more than a three-seat pickup for the Wisconsin Democrats, and might mean a “wave.” Well, turns out not so much of a wave as a ripple. They didn’t even get the three. I’m pretty sure this vindicates Michele Bachmann in some way. And of course the Koch brothers and everybody’s favorite Koch sucker, Governor Scott “Dopey” Walker. Oh well, it’s not like I expect all that much these days.
President Obama is calling for the “ouster” of Syria’s President Assad. Obama is starting to remind me of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Not because of the “black” part, of course, but because no matter how many appendages are lopped off, the BK keeps insisting that he’s not fatally crippled and is still relevant. Obama keeps pretending that somebody gives a crap what he has to say.
We have the potential for the Minor League Baseball “Perfect Storm” brewing here in Central New York. You may recall (but probably not) that Syracuse is the AAA farm team of the Washington Nationals, and that last year’s pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg did a stint here on his way up to The Bigs (where he subsequently blew out his ulnar collateral ligament).
Also recovering from injury is a fella by the name of Alex Rodriguez (yes, yes – Yankees. No need to say you hate the Yankees. Everybody does), who had surgery for a torn meniscus. He’ll be working out the kinks with the Yankees farm team in Scranton (and perhaps working at Dunder Miflin on the side).
As it happens, Syracuse has a 4-day home stand against Scranton coming up from 8/12 – 8/15, which more or less corresponds to both guys’ rehab schedule (in A-Rod’s case, his injury rehab, not any cocaine and/or gambling rehab), so we may see Rodriguez vs. Strasburg right here.
Wouldn’t that be exciting?
No? Well, it doesn’t do all that much for me, either. But, hey, we have time to kill before football season.
Scranton v. Syracuse with A-Roid sounds like a Biden visit to me and a great opportunity for pj to see the miracle of modern scientific athletic engineering.
I tend to watch KO live since I don’t have any of those entrapment devices and I haven’t gotten it together to remember his re-run schedule so far. I saw the Nicols statements and was encouraged as I have been about this whole Wisconsin recall thing. Later I was watching Nicols again on MSNBC with Fat Heddie and after it slipped into the re-run of The Last Word. I grew tired of the lack of news and the smoke blowing so I went upstairs to listen to the baseball game. Schultz hitched himself to the recall star which I will say wasn’t a bad thing. However, he tended to lapse in typical Fat Heddie fashion too much into advocacy and boosterism for my taste. Now that it has become a partial victory of battles or defeat depending who’s spinning it. I will be interested to see how and if he carries it on or if MSNBC allows him.
The Wisconsin battle for me, if you can allow me one of Yogi Berra’s boo-boos was like deja vu all over again. The sights and sounds of large groups of demonstrators and activists in the streets perhaps raised my optimism to an unrealistic level. I remember how positive I used to feel during the 60s and early 70s at the demonstrations just to find out that the rest of the nation did not get it. I heard more than one repug referring to a ‘silent majority’ that would be part of the big Wisconsin turnout and it turned out in part that they were correct. I’m disappointed but not surprised. Of course, a lot of that ‘silent majority’ would be those noisy $$$s from our SCotUS empowered corporate ‘citizenry’.
I’m not sure what the takeaway is here. Is it that the Progressive and Labor were defeated and discredited and marginalized or is it that they almost made it in the face of unprecedented expenditures and perfidy (!) from the corporate plutocracy powers that be. You can also add those sights and sounds of people taking it to the streets in the Middle East and Greece and the UK for better or worse. Some people here probably think they are a good thing, some anarchy, some just criminality. Take the demonstrations that we have been seeing during the Arab Spring which the US and many nations used to justify diplomatic condemnation of several countries and plop one down anywhere in the US and how do you think it would be reported and handled here?
I think the takeaway is to never underestimate the stupidity of a very large percent of the human race.
They were supposedly heavily repug districts. It will be interesting how the Walker recall effort will go next year. I don’t think that these elections will deter that push and it will be statewide and not just local.
Sadly, it all seems to be about the money. I don’t know about state races, but, at least back in 2008, the candidate who spent the most money won nearly every time.
To me, this says that people are stupid enough to vote based on 30 second teevee commercials that spout phony campaign gibberish.
WI voted for Walker the first time around, and with all the Koch he’s sure to get, I’m sure he’ll be well funded.
Not that I feel superior here in NY. We had that dope Pataki for, like, 3 terms, and I’m not real proud of Mario’s boy, either.
Of course, who the Guv is, is usually a downstate decision (and our great Upstate savior was Carl Paladino, which is pretty embarrassing, though to be fair he’s really from Western NY, though he went to SU, which is pretty shameful).
That money corrupting politics came up in this segment of The Dylan Ratigan Show yesterday.
I’ve only got myself to blame for paying too much attention to the liberal media (such as it is) overstating the strength of our cause and allowing myself uncritically to think that surely the sheeple will come to their senses. I’ve been waiting for that since Reagan.
Maron’s interview with Richard Lewis referenced Rodney Dangerfield talking about humanity living mostly on the dark side.
That just about says it all. 👿
Something is not right or should I say too rightwing.
Recently I got an email from some teaparty group inviting me to a conference to change the constitution by having a constitutional convention. And, just moments ago, I received a recorded message from Mike Huckabee telling me the terrible atheists were trying to kick god from the public square and that we must keep god alive. (I guess they took that god is dead stuff in the 60’s seriously).
As for the liberal media, Dkos had a poll the day before the election which pretty much mirrored the results of yesterday. But, here’s an interesting fact. The anti labor legislation passed by only 2 votes (one Republican voted against it). So, Gov. Walker no longer has a given legislative majority. More than that, these Dems won in very Republican districts and even in the 4 districts in which the Rethugs won, the margins were a good deal smaller than they had been in 2010. So, it ain’t easy and it’s not a given, but there is a good chance to recall ol’ crosseyes himself. And, much as I enjoy putting my head in the sand lately, it’s probably the wrong way to go.