’67/’68:
(im)
Tag Archives: GOP
permanentrepublicanmajority.tar.gz
under media
It’s starting to seem like Obama understands very well how to disassemble the GOP’s famously disciplined “noise machine,” which amounted to little—maybe nothing—more than an ad-hoc monopoly on a speaking like a sovereign. Exhibit A: the Murdoch-owned NY Post (Hurt, “Prez Zings GOP Foe in a $timulating Talk,” 23 Jan ’09) tries to find its voice—that is, it reads like a third-rate college paper—in its writeup of Obama stepping on Rush Limbaugh. The blimp is a former product of GOP media consultant Roger Ailes, now the head of Fox News—and a Murdoch employee. As Murdoch recognizes that Obama gets this, we’ll see his empire’s “politics” do a 180.
See also: “From the archives,” “How to build your own noise machine at home.”
Male fantasies
Rush Limbaugh provides a vital comms link to the diving bell USGOP currently plumbing many of the same socio-psychic depths that Klaus Theweleit explored in his brilliant book Male Fantasies (Vol. 1). Spake the blimp: “We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black.” I’ve seen Atwaterian arguments that the GOP’s policies are masked mutations of the racism at the heart of the so-called Southern Strategy; that may be so, but social conservatives’ misogyny (think “Slick Willie”) is, shall we say, abysmal. Less interesting than who would win the fight between imaginary women and phantasmic blacks over who’s on top in the infernal imaginings of modern American conservatives is the fact that gender (i.e., women) and race (i.e., blacks) are conflated—and have been for a very long time, if you think about it.
(dkos)
Tories in waiting
under government, security, urban
The US as parliamentary democracy meme insight is catching on (WaMo, Hullabaloo).
But whatever happened to this (8 Aug ’08)?
SUMMARY: The National Park Service (NPS) is proposing to amend regulations governing viewing of the Inaugural parade by the public, demonstrators, and the Presidential Inaugural Committee. The proposed rule would extend the duration and extent of demonstrations and special events in Washington, DC, including the Inaugural, the Lighting of the National Christmas Tree and Christmas Pathway of Peace, the Cherry Blossom Festival, the Fourth of July Celebration, and the Festival of American Folklife.
The GOP, after all, are famously big fans of demonstrations and dedicated to shaping policies in ways that will benefit the incoming administration.
Electoral cleansing
under environment, government, trend
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the WP’s Dan Froomkin wrote (“Who’s in Charge? Karl Rove!”, 15 Sep ’05):
Rove’s leadership role suggests quite strikingly that any and all White House decisions and pronouncements regarding the recovery from the storm are being made with their political consequences as the primary consideration. More specifically: With an eye toward increasing the likelihood of Republican political victories in the future, pursuing long-cherished conservative goals, and bolstering Bush’s image.
Digby elaborated (“Katrina: Slow as Molasses,” 25 Aug ’07):
Louisiana has been a swing state for some time, in which Democrats were dependent on the black majority in the state’s largest city to win. It was not lost on Rove that all of those poor New Orleans African Americans—and their children—being dispersed throughout the nation could only be good for Republicans. As of now, only about 66% have returned, not enough to keep the state swinging (in more ways than one.) It looks very likely that the state will have a Republican Governor and two Republican Senators in 2008. Experts in the area estimate that the congressional delegation advantage for Republicans will be five to one by 2012. There is little doubt that the Katrina diaspora finally turned the state blood red.
Let’s see.
Below is a map from the NYT (5 Nov ’08) showing “Differences between support for the major parties between 2008” and 2004 (“Voting shifts” option), where the darkest blue indicates +~15% for Dems and the darkest red indicates +~15% for the GOP:
Rove’s strategy according to Froomkin’s and Digby’s analysis certainly seems like it could be correct. Below is a detail of Louisiana: at left Katrina damage (from the State Library of Louisiana), at right party shifts (+19% GOP):
New Republican
under government, trend
Jerry Sanders, the Mayor of San Diego, explains his change of heart:
He puts the lie to the stone-faced doom-mongering and martial mummery right-wing cowards are forever hiding behind.
Karl Rove: information “architect”
under government, network
According to Rebecca Abrahams (“White House Emails: The Missing Link?”, Huffington Post, 21 Oct ’08), Mike Connell,
the architect and cyber keymaster of George W. Bush election websites including GeorgeWBush.com and GWB43.com, the site Karl Rove used for 95-percent of his email communication...is also the CEO of Govtech Solutions, the company responsible for building and managing congressional email servers and firewalls. [emphasis added]
Rove’s “genius”: wiretapping Congress.
Different federal branches should use different IT vendors unless doing so is absolutely impossible—which, in itself, could be a sign that vendors should be broken up into independent competitive entities (e.g., RIM).
See also: “What do you mean ‘we’, kimosabe?”
What do you mean “we”, kimosabe? [updated]
under government, military
Did Rick Davis have his hooks in Dean’s operations in early ’04?
3EDC’s website as archived on 10 Jun ’04:
Who’s we?
So what was Rick Davis up to in early summer ’04?
3EDC’s website as archived almost three months earlier, on 18 Mar ’04, said: “Welcome nicco.trueserver.com to Your New Server!”
Who’s nicco?
How about Nicco A. Mele, former deanforamerica.com webmaster, who was hired by McCain’s chief political strategist John Weaver as of 23 Aug ’06 under the leadership of...Rick Davis (who ”helped to corral the current roster of talent”). His resignation from the McCain effort was reported on 30 Jan ’07.
Mele’s blog is here, his company is here, a 29 Jun ’07 Mother Jones interview here (“A small minority can always manipulate. Technology is relatively irrelevant”); Garance Franke-Ruta’s 28 Aug ’06 comment on the hire here.
If nicco.trueserver.com points at Mele, was he working with Davis’s 3EDC in March ’04—in the middle of Dean’s ’04 presidential run and two years before his 24 Aug ’06 statement in support of McCain?
So, again: what was Rick Davis up to in early summer ’04?
A bit more
3EDC’s website as archived on 2 Mar ’07 lists five “strategic partners.” Three are boring:
- Campaign Solutions (client list here, staff list here);
- Integrated Web Strategy (client list here); and
- New Media Communications (“staff” = Chief Political Strategist and CEO Mike Connell, co-founder of Connell Donatelli Inc., with Campaign Solutions [QED] Chairman R. Rebecca “Becki” Donatelli).
[Update: New Media Communications just got more interesting with Mike Connell’s subpoena for vote-tampering in 2004.]
But two might be more interesting in this context:
- Airnet (client list here; “recent news” [10 Jan ’03 – 1 Jun ’07] here includes a 22 Aug ’04 announcement that, through its subsidiary “SMARTech”, it hosted www.georgewbush.com, www.gop.com, and www.2004nycgop.com [registration now lapsed]); and
- Dynology Corp: Their heavily military client list in three parts is here; “a majority of our staff hold security clearances that allow access to Secret and Top Secret classified government information.” Their “Corp HQ and Dev Lab” at 8000 Towers Crescent Drive, Ste 1350, Vienna, VA, seems to be a maildrop, judging by the dozens of other tenants in the “suite”.
Down again; or whatever happened to Windy Smith?
under education, government, international, law, media, military, security
Martin Miller (“Is Campaigns’ Path to the Heart a Proper One?”, LAT [11 Aug ’00]), on Windy Smith’s cameo at the 2000 RNC:
“What the nation witnessed was the passing of the torch,” said JoAnn Simons, president of the Atlanta-based National Down Syndrome Congress. “Individuals with disabilities don’t necessarily need people to speak for them.”
More (“Tugging at Heartstrings is Political Fiddling,” LAT [14 Aug ’00]):
When Smith finished, the ovation for her rivalled the intensity of those given later for Dick Cheney and Bush. In the wake of Smith’s public talk, leading Down Syndrome advocates have also cheered her inclusion. The appearance culminates a decade of growing national exposure, largely over television, for people with Down Syndrome, who number 350,000 in the United States, advocates said.
Be careful what you wish for, as the old saw goes. That event seems to been the culmination (that is, end) of the growing exposure, and that exposure seems to have been limited to television—right when everyone switched to the net. Thus:
(Then again, anyone can write a Wikipedia entry.)
Dave Reynolds, (“Media Still Leaves Voices out,” Ragged Edge Online [May/June ’03]) spells out one way in which this exploitation operates:
Down with the Republicans
under government, media, trend
The first time it's a tragedy, the second time a farce:
The text of Windy's letter to Governor Shrub follows.
Read More
Onion headlines we’d like to see
Right-wing Noise Machine Breaks Down
Repair bill high: vast conspiracy mulls new hybrid
Alas.
Bang path
under digital, government, language, privacy
The Nexis search that DoJ White House liaisons ran on job candidates:
[first name of a candidate] and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!
This is a litany of “conservative” articles of faith, and a testament to the “movement’s” incoherence.
iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex!
Election ‘08: what if?
under government, idea
Cute:
The entire world drafted an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) today, asking him to drop out of the U.S. presidential race and concede the presidency to Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois).
Scenario: McCain drops out of the election late, Obama wins uncontested, right-wing noise machine revs up the theory that “He isn't really the president because he didn’t win in a real election”—thereby undermining Obama’s mandate and continuing by other means the project of delegitimizing elections.