Open Thread - Politics Plus

Afraid I don't know who Buckley and Galbraith are.

Also adrift is our current understanding of when humans arrived in the Arctic. In a new paper published today in Science, a team of Russian researchers made the case that humans occupied the region as early as 45,000 years ago, several millennia earlier than archaeologists had previously believed.

I saw one Mike Nichols/Elaine May skit. So good I'm tempted to track down more.

GOPer Dave Brat Attacks Obama For Citing Bible, Says Right 'Owns The Tradition' Of Christian Love
SUBMITTED BY Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 1/12/2016 2:50 pm
President Obama can never seem to win with Republicans, who seem to attack him for not talking about the Bible enough and then attack him even harder when he does.

Take, for example, American Family Radio host Sandy Rios’ interview yesterday with Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., in which Brat expressed his anger that Obama cited Christian teachings when he criticized Republicans for their attempts to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S.


The president, Brat said, “is using the Christian tradition and trying to bring about compassion by bonking Republicans over the head with the Bible. It’s almost a comedy routine on what compassion and love is. He’s mocking his enemies in order to compel a larger federal state using the tradition of love.”

He said that the conservative movement “needs to reeducate its people that we own the entire tradition” of Christian love, because liberal professors “have rejected natural law” and religious ideas.

"We're going to go out on a limb here and say his suggestion that somehow conservative Republicans have the market cornered on being Christlike toward the Syrian refugees is maybe just a tad questionable."

Get a load of this amazing display of smarmy hypocrisy from a hardcore member of the Christian Right:

Quote:

“New York politics are different than they are in Arkansas, but it’s not my duty to explain them,” he said. “Look, if you want to talk about candidates who’ve switched positions, you’ve got a bunch of them out there who’ve changed on the Trans Pacific Partnership, and on ethanol, and on foreign policy. Donald Trump’s positions, if they’ve changed, have changed over the last 15 years. Not the last 15 minutes.”

Wow. We're talking gays and abortion here, Huck. Your wheelhouse ...

That's just fascinating to me. It occurs to me that while it's been obvious to me that this wacky race may end up mortally wounding the GOP. It hadn't occurred to me until just now that it might wreck the Christian Right as well.

It will be interesting to see if Cruz's hit on Trump works. Nothing else has.

Like two zen masters facing off in a martial arts classic or perhaps two wizards doing battle in The Lord of the Rings, we have an epic confrontation between two masters who have trained for decades in the arts of assholery and bullying. But their powers equally matched, it is a stand off."

The Cruz camp seemed to realize that that exchange was highly damaging. In part it was damaging on the substance. 9/11 is the pulsing 50 million volt wire at the center of the gas-filled early 21st century GOP worldview. Once it's invoked, everyone has to run for cover, bow down, run, clap. There's no fighting it. And here Cruz walked right into it, totally unaware of what was coming. It was Cruz at his nastiest, smarmiest, callowest best. And BAM! He didn't know what hit him.

But there's another element to this beyond getting angled into insulting the city that endured the brunt of the 9/11 attacks. Always in Republican politics but especially in this cycle, much of the meta-messaging of the campaign is about dominating and being dominated. It is the central theme of Trump's whole message and he has used his competitors as the canvas on which he paints the picture. Trump didn't just catch Cruz out with 9/11, he crushed him. He dominated him. Completely. If you watch the video below, you can see Cruz's face start subtly to wilt as he sees what's happening and is helpless to defend himself. And not half way into Trump's assault Cruz starts clapping. Cheering the man who is in the midst of eviscerating him. That kind of weakness can't go unanswered in the battle to be the nominee the Republican base is looking for. That's why Cruz is running around so stung today.

My cousins might be, but I'm not going to ask from afar.