Stickybuffalo.com

In the same “non-news” category as “oil still leaking,” “U.S. economic recovery still unconvincing,” and “corporate executives still douchebags,” let’s not forget to include “United States Senate still ‘unfit for purpose,’” as our British friends might express it.

I mean, mother FUCK, can I some day maybe not have to read headlines like “legislation defeated in Senate by MINUS SIXTEEN VOTE MARGIN?” Because it isn’t funny anymore. Not ironically, not as black humor. It’s just FUCKING RETARDED, and yes, I don’t care; it’s actually so appalling that I’m going to go ahead and use the word “retarded” because however bad it may be to do so, this is an order of magnitude WORSE.

But, of course, aside from the fact that some day I’ll be dead, long before then I’ll probably get a break from this farce… once Democrats are back in the minority in the Senate, and the filibuster goes back to being a purely hypothetical right that the GOP will threaten to take away should it ever be used, and that the Democrats will actually be chickenshit enough to forego, completely ignoring the fact that had they challenged the “nuclear option” threat back in, say, 2005, and actually put an end the fucking thing assuming that the GOP wasn’t just bluffing, then “my” party might have been able to actually PASS GODDAMN LEGISLATION during those few years when they had both the presidency and majorities in the House and Senate, and just might have been able to avoid the clobbering which is likely return the assholes to the majority party in the Senate in the first place and oh, fuck it.

i haven’t been paying enough attention to be able to make intelligent predictions about the results of today’s senate primaries, but i can confidently predict how they will be covered (i’d say ‘spun,’ but that phrasing implies the active manipulation of coverage by political operatives, as opposed to the much more depressing reality that the art of spin is more or less obsolete because beltway hack framing is already the operating system that the brains of political reporters run on).

if halter and/or sestak win, we’ll hear about how lincoln and specter are honorable ‘moderates’ who were hounded off the ticket by out-of-state liberal pressure groups & bloggers funding attack ads. this will be presented as the perfectly symmetrical equivalent to the purges and purity tests being carried out against moderate republicans. they will point to this exquisitely balanced rorshach inkblot of hyerpartisanship, and they will bemoan the loss of civility and the extreme ideological rancor as universal and uniform ills of our political discourse across the spectrum. the WH will have very little to say about it, but if pressed for comment they’ll say more or less the same thing.

if lincoln and/or specter win, it will be read as a move to the center as the democratic party recalibrates for the inevitable walloping in november, and a signal that the public is clamoring for their elected officials to work together toward bipartisan solutions. robert gibbs will shout it from the rooftops of pennsylvania avenue. (this will not stop the same commentators five months from now from repeating and implicitly validating GOP assertions to the effect that these moderate democrats are effectively — by virtue of the D after their names — liberals poised to reap the just anger of an electorate in the throes of anti-incumbent fever. it may or may not stop the WH from saying more or less the same thing either before or after the general election.)

just watch, it can only go one of two ways. smart reporters already have two versions ready to file for either contingency. tell me tomorrow whether i’m right.

So Chuck Grassley decided that he’s going honor his healthcare-industry campaign donations and, along with the “Quitta from Wasilla,” drum up fear instead of rational debate on the ever-shrinking healthcare reform we were promised last November. It’s not that I don’t think Senator Grassley is probably controlled by Republican handlers I’d find appalling, it’s just that he’s seemed somewhat rational in the past. His harping on the Sotomayor nomination, and now his “they’re going to pull the plug on grandma” show a decline in his previously-perceived-as-centrist speech. I feel like he’s marching, lock-step with the looniest of the loons. So much for Grassley attempting to curry favor from anyone but the hard-right. I suppose when you’re not worried about re-election, you cater to your base.

So, Senator Grassley, your remarks just got me to pony up money for your inevitable downfall. I really hope Tom Fiegen or Bob Krause pulls the plug on Grassley. Both campaigns (@tlfiegen & @krauseforiowa) managed to figure out that Twitter is worthwhile. Heck, I now know that Bob Krause will be on the Rachel Maddow Show, waiting for me on DVR, thanks to Twitter. Krause has an ActBlue fund raising page which you ex-Iowan’s might consider tossing money at. Maybe Grassley should consider following some of his own advice and taking the “Japanese-way out.”