Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Katrina + Republicants + Larry "The Hut" Summers + Obamaites = Disconnect!

Actual registered voters

First, I see this little gem of a poll taken in Louisiana:
A large number of Louisiana Republicans think President Barack Obama is to blame for the federal government's poor response to Hurricane Katrina, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday -- despite the fact that the storm occurred three years before he took office.
The Democratic-leaning polling firm, which provided its results to Talking Points Memo, found that 29 percent of Louisiana Republicans said Obama was responsible for the Katrina response. Twenty-eight percent put the blame on President George W. Bush, whose administration did in fact oversee the federal response to Katrina. Nearly half (44 percent) of the Louisiana Republicans polled didn't know who to blame.

Fill in your own joke there. Do they dare take a poll on Pearl Harbor? Wonder how many votes Obama would get for that!? Lennon was right: "Living is easy with eyes closed misunderstanding all you see." Unfortunately, living ain't easy living with people with eyes closed. In the end, it's a fatal mistake.

What's interesting, though, with these types of ignorant people is that you can meet them in real life and have a perfectly pleasant conversation with them and sometimes even come to the conclusion this is a person who'd give you the shirt off his back. Then out of the blue they let a pearl like this drop: "But can you believe we got us a President not even born in the country? That sure is fouled up. Just look what he did with Katrina if ya wanna know!"

I don't even try to argue. People see things are worsening and they need a bogeyman to blame they see as being nothing like them. But I always do wonder: Would this person who seems so friendly and gentle be that same way with his eyes open? How would he react to find the world is not a place he can believe in? Would he be violent? At the end of the day, I mostly steer clear of these types even if they are so disarmingly without malice aforethought.


And then we do have malice aforethought:
The Obama administration's push to get Larry Summers as Federal Reserve Board Chair is moving into overdrive as opposition based on Summers' record seems to be growing. Last week they gave the public the story of Larry Summers as a prescient but frustrated regulator. Summers saw the problems in the subprime housing market way back in 2000, but couldn't get anything through an obstructionist Republican Congress.
...If this story doesn't sound quite right, that's because it isn't. The one thing about Larry Summers on which his supporters and his opponents agree is that he is not timid. If Summers had been seriously pushing for increased regulation in the subprime market back in 2000, we can be sure that his efforts would have gotten considerable attention, even if they didn't succeed. People who follow the issue would remember Summers as a champion for the cause. They don't, and that's because he was on the other side.
...Contrary to the line being pitched by the Obama administration, Summers was not a lone voice in the wilderness arguing for a crackdown on bad lending practices. He was trying to put a break on efforts by consumer groups and their allies in Congress to rein in these practices.
...This effort to rewrite history, turning Summers into a leading proponent of mortgage regulation, is a sign of the White House's increasingly desperate attempts to appease those within the Democratic Party who oppose his appointment. That is a tough job.
The opponents of Summers appointment recognize him for who he is, one of the leading architects of the bubble driven growth that has given the country the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Larry The Hut with his defender

After the holocaust with thousands of orphaned Jewish children, splintered families and horrific memories scarred forever into the survivors someone had to deal with the fate of the Jews. I do believe if Obama had been in charge he would have picked Himmler - the architect of their destruction - no doubt due to Himmler having so much experience dealing with Jews! I don't even have a word for reasoning such as that.

"When somebody's worked hard for me and worked hard on behalf of the American people ... and I see them getting slapped around in the press for no reason before they've even been nominated for anything, then I want to make sure that somebody is standing up for [Summers]," [Obama] said. "I tend to defend folks who I think have done a god job and don't deserve attacks."

Hey, Larry (#wallstreetslut), don't be working so hard for us! We can't survive it! Dear Leader goes on to say Larry The Hut is a "highly qualified candidate" - qualified by all his economic wrecking experience, no doubt! Un-fucking-believable. I've said it before I'll say it again: the word for the 21st century is Disconnect.

Don't like the facts? Just make them up! Conveniently parse out the truth as you see fit. Who cares about the consequences? Reality is for those who get stuck with the bill. We're all morons, we all lie to ourselves to some degree. But some things just go beyond the pale and this world is reaching a tipping point no one wants to admit. One thing I know for sure: no one's going to like where this ends up.


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