Job, Jobs, Jobs

These days one hears stories from all over about devastating cuts to government programs, and about the capricious and destructive mass firings of government employees.  

Having been on the receiving end of no less that three savage and incompletely conceived and executed firings from which I never recovered, my initial impulse was to sympathize with the newly unemployed.  And having spent nearly two decades in workforce development in one role or another, I am also keenly aware of the terrible ripple effect that mass layoffs can have on a family, a community and a country.   

But when a higher authority tells me I'm stupid and wrong about all of this, well, I guess I need to be humble enough to have a seat and learn a lesson.  Because all these layoffs were of government employees, and no less of an authority than the now-former head of the Republican party (pre-Trump) is on record as saying that government jobs aren't real jobs.  

Shocking, I know, but I'm just a nobody blogger typing away from wat out in the middle of Middle America, and this received wisdom came directly from the man running one America's two major political parties.  And he didn't mutter it into the dirty microphone of some podcaster no one had ever heard of: he said it on one of the Sunday Showz, back when people actually watched the Sunday Showz.

Only private sector jobs are real jobs, ergo, ipso facto, QED something something government jobs aren't real jobs and therefor don't count.  

Period. 

I wrote a whole long thing about it back when this was the official policy of the Republican party (pre-Trump), which I will link below, but you know me.   Maybe I was drunk.  Maybe I made the whole thing up on a lark.  Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Liberal bloggers?  So let's turn to PolitiFact to see if I'm lying.

Michael Steele stated on January 31, 2009 in a speech to House Republicans:  "You and I know that in the history of mankind and womankind, government — federal, state, local, or otherwise — has never created one job."

Steele says government has never created a job.

Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland, recently won a contest to lead the Republican National Committee. He also made history as the first African-American to lead the party. 

One of Steele's first appearances was before a retreat for House Republicans on Jan. 31, 2009.  Steele praised the House Republicans for voting as a block against the stimulus package promoted by Democrats and President Barack Obama. Then he said that the stimulus was pointless, because government can't create jobs.

A week after talking to the House Republicans, Steele appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos showed Steele video of Republican Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida praising the stimulus bill. Steele didn't seem to back off the spirit of his previous comment.

Steele: "Well, no — you know, with all due respect to the governor, I understand where he's coming from. Having been a state official, I know what it means to get those dollars when you're in tight times. But you've got to look at the entire package. You've got to look at what's going to create sustainable jobs. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work."

Stephanopoulos: "But that's a job."

Steele: "No, it's not a job. A job is something that a business owner creates. It's going to be long term." 

Stephanopoulos: "So a job doesn't count if it's a government job?"

Steele: "Hold on. No, let me finish. That is a contract. It ends at a certain point, George. You know that. These road projects that we're talking about have an end point. As a small-business owner, I'm looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It's a whole different perspective on how you create a job versus how you create work."

I thought all video of this event had been lost or scrubbed, but digging around in my archives I found that, in addition to my long, angry post about it, I had actually made my very own video record of it, with a little twist at the end.  

I guess I figured I  might have another use for it someday.

(Not Work Safe)

Turns out, Steele is a very handy fella to have around, because he will say anything his employer pays him to say, no matter how obviously ludicrous it is.  

When Democrats elected the first black man as president, the deeply racist Republican party had a sudden, urgent need to have a black face out front swearing that they weren't racist at all.  And Michael Steele answer the call!

When Republicans needed a black man to explain that, sure, the GOP used to be racist, but all the bigots scampered back to the Democratic party in 1992, Steel was only too happy to do that job too.

...Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, 'Bubba' went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton."

After he was deposed as party chair, Steele would go on to explain how, despite driving all the racists out of the party during his tenure as party chair, the racists had all, somehow, mysteriously reappeared after he had been voted out.  So mysterious!

Sometime during Trump's first term, Steele began gradually making appearances on MSNBC, decrying what had happened to his party...over the previous three or four or five years.  You will have no doubt noticed long ago that has always been the time horizon for almost all Never Trumpers:  the party was doing great until they ran me out.  Then, suddenly, with no warning...

And over time, Steele successfully completed the MSNBC Republican Reputation Rehabilitation program -- 

Former RNC Chair Michael Steele Erupts On-Air: To Hell With Republicans!

-- to the point where he began showing up as a substitute host here and there,  began the rounds of the A-list political podcasts, and was given 1/3 of his own show on Saturday morning.

Then, last week, after MSNBC completed it racist purge of on-air talent, like the RNC back in 2009, MSNBC needed a familiar black face out front, reassuring the public that everything was okily dokily.

And so...

Joy Reid’s MSNBC Show Canceled in Major Shake-Up

Ms. Reid’s 7 p.m. program will be replaced by a panel show co-hosted by Symone Sanders Townsend, Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele.  

I Am The Liberal Media

Mitt's Not Here Man

Ronna McDaniel spent years as a sycophant bending the knee to Donald Trump.

Did that matter to the puppet master?

Of course not - he just fired her.

Wow.

— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeemjeffries) February 7, 2024

Burn The Lifeboats

"Priebus" Is Greek For "Chum"

Chum.  noun

1.  a close or intimate companion:
2.  cut or ground bait dumped into the water to attract fish to the area where one is fishing.

Gather ye 'round while I lean hard on my sketchy knowledge of Greek mythology to clarify just exactly what we are all witnessing as Conservative pundits and  thought-leaders line up to take a bite out of Reince Priebus' ass.

Once upon a time there was a young prince named Absyrtus, who was the son of king Aeetes and brother of Medea.  Medea, the daughter of  Aeetes, helped Jason (of Argonaut fame) steal the legendary Golden Fleece from her father.  In one telling of the story, as Medea, Jason and Absyrtus fled by boat from king Aeetes, Medea stabbed her brother to death and then dropped pieces of him into the sea so that her horrified father would be forced to stop and pick them up, thus giving Medea and Jason enough time to escape with their loot.

Maybe you see where this is going.

Now that the Administration of President Stupid has come out of the gate in a state of complete chaos and collapse, there is one standing order among the members of the Conservative Brain Caste who built entire careers feeding a Beast which they are now frantically trying to disown and disavow:  to survive the shit-storm they created they need to scope out the closest exit and haul ass as they leave the Republican Party and...

Move

Far

Away.

You know, just like they the last time they put a gang of halfwits, plutocrats and lying, authoritarian-minded monsters in charge of the country!

The most public and hilarious sample of this hurryupquick rush to relocate the blame for the rise of President Stupid as faaaaaar away from themselves as possible is probably Joey Joe Joe Junior Scarborough who, in the space of less than a year and a half, has gone from using his MSNBC teevee show to give Donald Trump unlimited free publicity and foot massages...

...to running in circles screaming that Trump is really a Dimmocrat, and anyway, now that Joey Joe Joe Junior Scarborough is an "independent", obviously none of the responsibility for this stank is on him (and if you did not see that Tea Party Two-Step coming from a mile away, deduct 30% from your overall score.)

But on this particular morning, the funniest example is to be found buried about a third of the way into this article in which Republican insanity enabler Charlie Sykes and wingnut madness enabler Michael Steele carve up the remains of Reince Priebus' career and drop it over the side of the boat in the hopes of making their getaway.

From The Atlantic:

The Final Humiliation of Reince Priebus 

Like his party, the former White House chief of staff swallowed his principles in the name of power. He was repaid in savage indignity. 

OK, before moving on, I'll bet some of you clever dogs have already spotted the flaw in the predicating assumption underpinning Ms. Molly Ball's entire article.  Namely, that Reince Priebus nor his party had to "swallow" a damn thing, because long before the Rise of Trump none of them showed any signed of having any principles at all. 

Which is exactly how we got into this dark and terrible place.

Ms. Ball continues...

...

It has been a long, strange trip for Priebus, who came to Washington as GOP chairman in 2011 on a promise to reform a party in disarray. His story, in a way, is the story of the Republican Party itself: His initial wariness of Trump gave way to capitulation and then enabling. He swallowed his private qualms for the sake of the team, until his turn to be the victim of Trump’s pageant of dominance finally came—publicly disgraced, dismissed in a tweet.

“I see him as kind of a tragic figure,” said Charlie Sykes, a former conservative radio host in Milwaukee who has known Priebus for many years. “What began as a matter of duty on his part—the decision to go all-in on Trump—ended with this scorchingly obscene humiliation.”

Sykes’s pity for his friend was limited, however. “It’s sad, but it’s the result of choices he made,” said Sykes, a Never Trumper who is now an MSNBC commentator. “It’s not like he wasn’t warned.”

Ironically, Priebus’s own career in national politics began with an act of disloyalty. In 2011, he won the RNC chair by running against his own boss, then-chairman Michael Steele. Despite big wins in the 2010 midterm elections, party activists had become dissatisfied with what they viewed as Steele’s mismanagement and penchant for gaffes. Steele knew he would have challengers when he sought another term as chairman—but he didn’t expect a challenge from Priebus, his general counsel, whom he considered a teammate.

“This is the bed Reince has been making for himself since he was my general counsel,” Steele told me. “He’s a guy who’s always positioning himself for the next thing. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?”...

And here we have a near-mint specimen of the utterly dysfunctional relationship that Republicans have with their own Past.  You see, the Republican Party, from top to bottom, is now so far through the looking glass hole that it would collapse tomorrow without a steady diet of ever-more crude and ridiculous lies (from Paul Krugman in The New York Times):

But looking back, it’s easy to see the rot spreading. Compared with Donald Trump, the elder Bush looks like a paragon — but his administration lied relentlessly about rising inequality. His son’s administration lied consistently about its tax cuts, pretending that they were targeted on the middle class, and — in case you’ve forgotten — took us to war on false pretenses.

And almost the entire G.O.P. either endorsed or refused to condemn the “death panels” slander against Obamacare.

Given this history, the Republican health care disaster was entirely predictable. You can’t expect good or even coherent policy proposals from a party that has spent decades embracing politically useful lies and denigrating expertise.

And let’s be clear: we’re talking about Republicans here, not the “political system."...

Because of their long record of shameless lying, without a meek and compliant Beltway Media to cover their backs, there is simply no way for any Republican to open the book on the past to find an alibi for some shit that happened today without shaking loose some bit of long-suppressed history from yesterday that incriminates them even further.

And so when I read Michael Steele taking a little trip down Memory Lane so that he can smirk about Karma being "a bitch" because Reince now has to sleep in the bed he "has been making for himself" for years --

“This is the bed Reince has been making for himself since he was my general counsel,” Steele told me. “He’s a guy who’s always positioning himself for the next thing. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?”...

-- I could not help but juice up the throttle control on Mr. Steele's touring sedan and extend our trip down Memory Lane just a little further so that we might also recall Mr. Steele's own well-documented record of buffoonery, lying and, of course, "positioning himself for the next thing" by appeasing degenerate monsters.

From Politico, March 2, 2009:

Steele to Rush: I'm sorry

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.”

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”... 

For his sins, Mr. Steele is now a Respected MSNBC Contributor and has his own radio show on Sirius XM.

Where he endlessly extols the virtues of Both Siderism.

Karma could not be reached for comment.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Reince Priebus Is Very Nearly Ready for the 2016 Republican National Convention

This morning, Reince Priebus found a card in the pocket of the big-boy suit that he borrows for public events.

It was a prompting-card that someone had tucked in there a year ago to remind Reince what sort of tone he should adopt when talking to the public about Donald J. Trump.

On that card was printed the word "Apoplectic".

"Dang it," Reince cussed testily, monetarily startling his staff of mini-Reinces. "All this time I've been thinking 'Apologetic'!  Why didn't any of you correct me?"

From (sorry) Mediaite:

Reince Priebus Is Reportedly ‘Apoplectic’ Over Trump’s Refusal to Support Ryan, McCain

The chairman of the Republican National Committee is reportedly furious with his own party’s nominee today.

Reince Preibus is “apoplectic” over Donald Trump‘s refusal to commit to an endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan and former party nominee John McCain in their upcoming primary races. Both Ryan and McCain face stiff competition, and yesterday Trump told The Washington Post that he’s, “not quite there yet” with a Ryan endorsement, using strikingly similar language to that which Ryan used months ago regarding Trump’s troublesome candidacy.

...

But his staff of mini-Reinces had already lost interest and gone back to grooming each other and chasing Pokemons.  

Because honestly, who gives the tiniest fuck what Reince Priebus has to say about anything anymore.

Not Since Hapless Idiot Homer Simpson Went To Work For Billionaire Megalomaniac Supervillain Hank Scorpio

Has there been an employee/employer bromance as exciting and filled with harrowing possibilities as that of hapless idiot Reince Priebus and billionaire megalomaniac supervillain Donald Trump.

Sure to outsiders their relationship may look troubled.  Even massively dysfunctional to the point of insanity...

Trump’s relationship with RNC sours

Tensions flare as the party hires a fired Trump aide and uses vendors linked to #NeverTrump, while fundraising flags.

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Eli Stokols and Alex Isenstadt

06/15/16 10:27 PM EDT

Donald Trump is relying heavily on the Republican Party to bolster his skeletal operation, but his campaign’s relationship with the Republican National Committee is increasingly plagued by distrust, power struggles and strategic differences, according to sources in both camps.

In recent days, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has privately grumbled that his advice doesn’t seem welcome with Trump, according to one RNC insider. Other party officials have expressed frustration that Trump’s campaign is trying to take too much control over a pair of fundraising committees with the party while adding little to the effort, according to campaign and party officials familiar with the relationship.

While Trump had promised Priebus that he would call two dozen top GOP donors, when RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh recently presented Trump with a list of more than 20 donors, he called only three before stopping, according to two sources familiar with the situation. It’s unclear whether he resumed the donor calls later.

Meanwhile, there’s deep skepticism on Trump’s campaign about the RNC’s commitment to the presumptive GOP nominee, with some campaign officials questioning how hard the RNC is working to help Trump and to raise money for his campaign’s joint committees with the party.

Indeed, faced with suggestions that party leaders are unhappy with Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about the Orlando shooting and the judge presiding over a lawsuit against the candidate and his Trump University, campaign insiders scoffed.

“I don’t think we are going to take a lot of political advice from Priebus,” a campaign official said...

But what Reince and Donald share is special and beautiful and no god damn outsider can possibly understand!

Flying to Dallas now with @realDonaldTrump...Reports of discord are pure fiction. Great events lined up all over Texas. Rs will win in Nov!

— Reince Priebus (@Reince) June 16, 2016

For more on this story, we join Crooks & Liars asking the musical question, "Whatever happened to "art of the deal," Donald?"

Future Former RNC Chair Reveals He Is Black

Tomorrow's headlines...today. (Much of the prose below has been clipped, abused and repurposed from Marc Ambinder's article here.)

Dateline Washington D.C., August 22, 2012.

Former RNC Chair Michael "Mikey" Steele today revealed what many Washington insiders have long known: He is Black.

Steele arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for "civil rights" and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in the Republican Party's descent from the Party of Lincoln into a cesspit of racism, xenophobia and ferocious ignorance in pursuit of votes and teevee ratings.

"It was the money," said Steele. "After Obama flipped the script on 'em, the Republican Party paid me a fucking assload of cash to basically stand out of front of the Little White Tent like a fucking Lawn Jockey to let the bigoted old shits who write the checks get their plantation owner ya-yas out."

Steel said that now that his private life is public, he would like to lead on so-called "civil rights issues".

"It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," said Steele, now Fox News' cheerful "Uncle Ruckus" weatherman in Biloxi, Mississippi. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I had done years ago."

Steele's leadership positions in the GOP came at a time when the party was stepping up its racist dogwhistle activities. Steele said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Rush Limbaugh, the undisputed Boss of All Bosses of the Conservative Movement, had been working with Republicans to make sure that racist hysteria would feature prominently in the drive to take back the House and Senate in 2010.

Steele acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his melaninity sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing its destructive, bigoted memes.

"It's a legitimate question and one I understand," Steele said. "I can't change the fact that I wasn't in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally." He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: "If they can't offer support, at least offer understanding."

Because his tenure as RNC chairman and his time at the center of the Wingnut Hate Machine coincided with the Republican Party's attempts to exploit prejudice and cement the allegiance of social conservatives, his declaration to the world is at once a personal act and an act of political speech.

"I wish I was where I am today 20 years ago. The process of not being able to say who I am in public life was very difficult. No one else knew this except me. My family didn't know. My friends didn't know. Anyone who watched me knew I was a guy who was clearly uncomfortable with the topic," he said.

Someone once said that there are only two kinds of Republicans; millionaires and chumps.

But there is a third kind: self-loathing minority group outliers who will sell their own people to the howling wingnut mob in exchange for 30 pieces of silver and a pat on the head from toads who loathe them.

Fuck you, Mehlman.
Fuck you, Steele.

Blazing Straddles

Hoping the rest of the world wouldn't notice, today RNC Chair Mikey Steele hooked up with Rightwad Crazies in the political Men’s Room for a brief, degrading “Tory Hole” assignation.

Oops.

Tea partiers get audience with RNC chairman but not a shared public stage

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele treated tea party leaders like an ugly date Tuesday afternoon: They were good enough to take upstairs, but not good enough to be seen with in public.

Steele invited leaders of the conservative movement over to the GOP's Capitol Hill headquarters (to the adjacent National Republican Club, technically) for a private meeting on the third floor. But Republican leaders, probably wary of TV footage showing a tea party takeover of RNC headquarters, denied the activists' request to use the facility for the news conference they had planned for afterward.
…

The Money Quote:

…
The moment encapsulated well the Republican Party's dilemma as it tries to harness the considerable energy of the tea party movement. Steele's task is essentially to co-opt its leaders, keeping them from electoral challenges that could hurt the GOP's chances. Yet at the same time, he can't appear to the rest of the country to be embracing a movement known for extremist words and deeds.
…

Even as he roasts in the depths of Hell, at this moment Lee Atwater is laughing hard enough to lactate bile.