House votes to send impeachment proceedings

Okay, by the by, there’s a lot of people saying the impeachment will gain no traction.ell you all can cram it, the machinations are in motion, as the House voted to send the resolution the House Judiciary Committee. Overwhelmingly.

24 Republicans voted for it.

24.

Republicans.

Everyday Elitism, or The Church of Jesus H. Christ of Latte-Duh Saints

In a truly pathetic display of irony, the discussion of “elitism” in this country has become incredibly stupid. Elitism can be a valid topic, since the rather massive class disparity in our culture has resulted in the “haves” being utterly out of touch with the “have much lesses.” When you’re well off enough to not have to worry about paying utility bills or buying food, it’s easy to have a different perspective of life from people who live paycheck to paycheck and credit card charge to credit card charge. Unfortunately, the concept of elitism has become yet another right-wing smear for anybody who dares to take a nuanced look at the economy, drive a hybrid vehicle, recycle, or drink coffee with milk.

The newest buzzword-for-a-buzzword is “latte liberal,” an exceedingly obnoxious term for a liberal who lives in a city with a population larger than 5,000. The term is designed to evoke the image of a snooty, out-of-touch snob who drinks strange beverages with funny names in other languages. Like most right-wing smear terms, it means absolutely nothing.

A latte is, fundamentally, coffee with milk. Traditionally, it’s made with steamed milk that is whisked to produce a foam, but at heart it’s simply coffee with milk. You can get them at any Dunkin Donuts for less than a dollar more than a regular coffee. You can make them yourself with a small saucepan, a whisk, and a coffee maker. If you don’t prepare the milk any special way and simply mix it with the coffee, it’s still technically a latte (or, at least, a cafe au lait). It’s not some scary, mysterious drink you can only get from Starbucks or Europe. Hell, it’s not even cappuccino.

Starbucks’ lattes tend to be a bit pricey, but you can get around that by making Starbucks “ghetto lattes.” Just order a plain coffee and add the milk yourself at the bar. Technically, it’s still a latte, and you paid half as much.

If you’re scared of lattes because they might make you liberal, then you should be afraid of all coffee because it might make you Muslim. The word coffee comes from the Turkish word kahve, which itself comes from the Arabic word qahwa. It only came to Italy and the rest of Europe after a several hundred year journey starting in Ethiopia and winding through Yemen, Turkey, Persia, and Egypt. It was popular in the Muslim world years before anyone in Europe even heard of the drink.

Of course, this sort of Bizarro snobbery is utterly ridiculous. Lattes don’t make you elitist, coffee doesn’t make you Muslim, and no beverage makes you more “in touch” with America than anybody else. If you’d like to disagree, I’m open to any frank discussion on the subject. Feel free to meet me at the Applebee’s salad bar.

- Will

Obama v McCain on taxes

It goes without saying that “republicans are better for your wallet”. I say it goes without saying not because it’s right, but because it’s such a piece of “common knowledge” that everyone seems to believe it.

Taking a look at Obama and McCain’s contrasting tax policies and their respective effects on taxpayers’ wallets offers some interesting insight. Here’s the table:

	MCCAIN	OBAMA
Income	Avg. tax bill	Avg. tax bill
Over $2.9M	-$269,364	+$701,885
$603K and up	-$45,361	+$115,974
$227K-$603K	-$7,871	+$12
$161K-$227K	-$4,380	-$2,789
$112K-$161K	-$2,614	-$2,204
$66K-$112K	-$1,009	-$1,290
$38K-$66K	-$319	-$1,042
$19K-$38K	-$113	-$892
Under $19K	-$19	-$567

.

Now, taking a look at the ol’ Wikipedia, because the US Census Bureau has some damn impenetrable archives, we can take a look-see at income distribution in the United States as of 2005. What should pop out at you is that only 1.5% of the population is above $250,000 a year, and it isn’t until you get to that threshold that taxes increase under Obama. Furthermore, Obama’s plan is better for everyone earning under $112,000, which is somewhere around the lower 85%.

The only people actually getting the short end of the stick under Obama is the top 1%, which is, not coincidentally, the group that benefits by far the most under McCain is the top 1% of American households.

But remember, the GOP is the party of the people. The one that cares about the blue-collar workers, middle America.

John? Iraq isn’t post-war Japan or Germany.

I think I finally understand John McCain’s attitude towards the Iraq war. I also understand why it’s completely wrong.

This morning, McCain appeared on The Today Show, where he was asked about Iraq. TPM picked out a rather telling snippet of the interview:

Lauer: If [the surge] is working, Senator, do you have a better estimate of when the troops can come home from Iraq?

McCain: No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany, that’s all fine.

It’s tempting to jump on McCain’s “that’s not too important” statement, but I’m much more interested in the parallels he draws with Japan, Germany, and South Korea. We indeed have forces in those three countries. Unfortunately, comparing them to Iraq is about as fair as comparing them to the International Space Station. They are completely different situations.

Japan, Germany, and South Korea are all fully industrialized nations with functioning infrastructures and widely accepted governments that welcome the presence of the U.S. military. We accept the full sovereignty of all three nations, and generally don’t touch their domestic policies. In the case of two of those countries, we defeated their leadership and forced them to surrender, which the general populace of both countries accepted.

Our occupation of Iraq, on the other hand, is a completely different animal. Its infrastructure was poor at best even before the invasion, which further shattered access to electricity and water. After ousting Saddam Hussein, we attempted to fill the power vacuum with a government barely recognized outside of Baghdad, while several warring factions vied to take control of different regions of the country. Japan, Germany, and South Korea had no equivalent of Sunni, Shi’ite, or Kurd ethnicities, and never had to deal with a civil war sparked by the sudden removal of the only force that was preventing it. We continue to run roughshod over the very government we installed, further undermining it in the face of a populace that barely accepts its legitimacy to begin with. We dictate the Iraqi government’s policies wholesale, and parcel out the country’s natural resources to our own companies.

John McCain wants to see Iraq become the next Germany, or Japan, or North Korea. I’d love to see it happen. I’d love to see Iraq develop a stable, secular government that sees us as an ally, with a population that accepts the government’s legitimacy and sees our presence as a boon and not an occupation. Unfortunately, despite McCain’s optimism, that just isn’t in the cards. Between a weak figurehead government, an utter lack of sovereignty, warring factions vying for political control, and third world infrastructure, the only way Iraq can become a shining beacon of democracy is if the hand of God reaches down into Baghdad and installs a puppy-launching rainbow generator on the roof of our ridiculously large “embassy.”

John McCain doesn’t even understand the difference between Sunni and Shi’a, and he thinks through sheer force of will (and the constant shoveling of money and bodies into the pit of failure that is Iraq), it will magically become a democratic paradise.

I thought George W. Bush couldn’t run for a third term.

- Will

Hm.

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog had this to say about Kucinich’s impeachment resolution (with bonus formatting by Hanlon):

I’m sorry, but this is all so six minutes ago. As you may know, last night Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich filed 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. And yes, George Bush and Dick Cheney deserve to be impeached. But the country isn’t in the mood for it, so unless you convince them to be in the mood for it, all it is is a big distraction that makes us all look silly. Unfortunately in life, it’s not enough to be right. In a democracy, you have to convince 51% of everybody else that you’re right too.

Kucinich isn’t doing that. He’s just looking silly, albeit in a wildly popular populist way. He’s making us look silly in a year in which we need to very much look not silly. The republicans pretty much made impeachment a non-starter for at least another decade. The public just doesn’t want to go there again. So, I’m sorry, but while I agree with Kucinich that Bush and Cheney surely deserve to be impeached, I’m not going to jump on a bandwagon that’s either heading nowhere, or worse, off a cliff. The voters think it’s a kooky idea. And Kucinich being the guy spearheading the effort only helps to reinforce that impression.

Until someone convinces the public that it’s not kooky, introducing articles of impeachment will simply piss the voters off, convince them not to vote for us in the fal, and then there definitely won’t be any impeaching or anything else if all of our supporters lose their jobs. I said it before during the Alito filibuster, and I’ll say it again. High-profile public relations stunts, that have no chance of success, are not well organized, and which the public doesn’t support, serve no purpose other than to trick you guys into seeing hope where there is none. I really don’t like publicity stunts posing as policy.

I’m going to respond with a comment I read elsewhere, plus a little embellishing on my part.

Although this resolution may fail, our children will know that in our darkest hour, someone had the courage to make a stand. While others shrunk away, citing political reasons, afraid of “looking kooky”, someone stood up for the right thing for no other reason than it was right. In 20 years when everyone asks why no one did anything, some will be able to say that they did.