Has to go to the poster boy for retroactive abortions. Jonah Goldberg himself in his new book, Liberal Fascisim: Though I wouldn't know a Fascist if he bit me on the ass:
"Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams write in The Pink Swastika that 'the National Socialist revolution and the Nazi party were animated and dominated by militaristic homosexuals, pederasts, pornographers, and sadomasochists.'
Have you looked at the Republican Party lately, you load?
Now that 2007 is slithering out under the door, where was all this good shit the Democratic Congress we busted our butts to get elected was supposed to do for us? There are still a hundred thousand some odd troops in Iraq and the Chimp is getting everything he wants ... except recess appointments. Good job, guys.
Hope 2008 is better but I doubt it. I'll betcha Huckabee gets elected President.
The Mrs. and I are getting all hedonistic like we do every New Year. If I post some incoherency later, you'll know why.
All the best in the New Year to our readers, commenters, and staff. Be safe, be happy, and celebrate. Don't waste your time making resolutions. Don't do anything I'd do. Trust me ...
All for nothing. If there is a kind and benevolent God, I hope he takes a break from that shit and damns Bush and all his warmongering accomplices to an eternity of suffering for the evil they've done. Today would be fine.
A lot of these lists go around this time of year. Most can be safely ignored, but here's one at Buffalo Beast that's entertaining. I think the guy's a little off base occasionally, but he's entitled to his opinion. Liquid alert.
35. Tim Russert
Charges: Mountainously inert, he explained his failure to verify the Bush administration's prewar claims with other government officials by lamenting, "I wish my phone had rung." Smirks defiantly at his own humorlessness. Has held the most visible and secure seat in political media for over 15 years without once mustering the courage to call his guests liars. Impossible to watch him interview any woman on "Meet the Press" without fearing he'll suddenly waggle his sinewy tongue, Jabba-like, and beslobber her.
Exhibit A: Self-mythologizing non sequiturs such as "Look, I'm a blue-collar guy from Buffalo. I know who my sources are."
Sentence: Life as an actual blue-collar guy from Buffalo, i.e. a call center drone in North Carolina.
25. Mormon Jesus
Charges: Least plausible Jesus. We heard his brother is the devil -- OMG! Won't even let his flock have a cup of coffee in the morning -- what a jerk. As with any celebrity comeback, lacks the oomph of the glory years. Won't stop baptizing dead people from other religions, which they generally don't appreciate as much as he thinks.
Exhibit A: Loves Mitt Romney, Harry Reid, and Glenn Beck. And magic long johns.
Sentence: Interrupted during the game by Mormon missionaries.
16. Chris Matthews
Charges: Calling his show "Hardball" is like rechristening ping-pong "Thermonuclear Warfare." Displays the slurred, unmodulated speech and unfocused antagonism of an aggrieved middle-management drunk. Can read a scurrilous political attack into any paragraph at twenty paces. Continues honing his pointless questions as his guests attempt to answer, cutting them off with an affected imperial weariness when their responses are insufficiently inane. Apparently ignorant of the implications of satellite technology, Matthews shouts louder at geographically more distant guests. Has repeatedly called Ann Coulter "brilliant." Referred to Gerald Ford's yuletide demise as the former president's "Christmas card to the country." Unable to laugh like a normal human, Matthews compensates by simply shouting "ha!"
Exhibit A: "This country is based on generalizations!"
Sentence: Hillary's White House Press Secretary and personal toilet steward.
9. You (Well, I said he was a little off occasionally - G)
Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears' children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you're going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques." You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can't spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don't want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy's doing well. You're an idiot.
Exhibit A: You couldn't get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.
Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn't cover. You deserve it, chump.
5. Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid
Charges: Graduates of the Neville Chamberlain school of appeasement, the Democratic leadership continues to ignore the constitution-and the American people-by keeping impeachment "off the table" and refusing to defund the war. True pushovers, they're too stupid, cowardly, weak and outmatched politically to accomplish anything substantive, their "strategy" essentially boiling down to whining a lot while handing Bush whatever the hell he wants. There is just no way that appearing this weak and ineffectual could be any better for them politically than impeachment. Everything that the White House gets away with, it gets away with because congress allows it.
Exhibit A: Failure to woo the two thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto is moot: They could defund the war with a 41-senator budgetary filibuster. But that would take guts and conviction.
Sentence: 2 cups anthrax bisque.
2. Dick Cheney
Charges: Worst president ever. So openly horrible, he now makes jokes about being Darth Vader. Unashamedly advocating for executive abuse of power and corporate theft. In and out of public office since his congressional internship during the Nixon Administration. Didn't care about the quagmire he foresaw in '94, because since then he'd deftly maneuvered to profit from it. Polling lower than HPV.
Exhibit A: His Halliburton stock options rose 3000% in value from 2004-2005. No joke.
Punishment: Raped by the sun.
There are some things even the Sun won't do...
And No. 1 Most Loathesome Person of 2007? Take a wild guess...
Here's a coupla snippets from some of the others:
Sentence: Sealed neck-high in the outhouse foundation of a popular Mexican Spring Break destination. Jaws propped open.
Bush Administration Finally Develops Immigration Policy That Works It’s called “recession.”
Study: Brains of Liberals, Conservatives Work Differently To put it nicely.
Heh. A well-maintained, smoothly running engine "works differently" than one that has been run out of oil and flang a rod out the side, too. To put it nicely.
Queen Debuts Own YouTube Page Most popular videos: Prince Charles hit in groin with cricket bat; Prince Philip starts fire after lighting fart.
There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.
It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.
The editorial then lists but a few abuses, and closes with:
These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.
Operative words are 'we can only hope'.
I like the 'vampire' reference - as long as this administration is sucking the life's blood out of our nation's ideals and the Constitution, there is no reflection in the mirror at all.
By the time they get to New York, it'll be all wrapped up. I'll support whoever the Dems nominate. Let me just say, there's no one who I'd actively campaign for. The only one who rises up a little (in my book) is Chris Dodd, and that's because of his principled stands on some issues.
I don't believe any of them will bring the troops home from Iraq anytime soon. I don't believe any of them are really going to do something about the proliferation of lobbyists in Washington and I don't think we'll get an movement on a good national health care program. Something about Barack Obama worries me and I can't put my finger on it (no, it's not his blackness, or lack thereof). Something about Hillary bugs me too but I know what that is. It's the fact she's too cozy with the money people. Bill Richardson would be a good cabinet secretary or vice president. Edwards ain't bad but I don't think he's got what it takes to stand up to a strong Congress. Joe Biden, for the same reasons Hillary bugs me.
I don't really like any of 'em but Hillary is probably the most qualified. We'll see. Any of 'em are better than the Chimp and his band of criminals.
Via Maru, the 5th Annual World Stupidity Awards have been presented. Of course, our President didn't fail to disappoint:
...
Bush, a perennial winner at the awards, was almost shut out this year, although the White House did take the category of Stupidity Award for Reckless Endangerment of the Planet for its opposition to the world on climate change.
The 2nd worst part about vacation. That and saying goodbye to family, especially the older folks. We're finally home after an hour and a half delay getting out of Frankfurt. Shayna's home too and our little family is back together. We're beat so you'll see me tomorrow.
I just wanted to add that we like to fly Singapore Air whenever possible. Even though this was one of the worst times of the year to fly, the Singapore Girls (and boys, but I don't notice them. Heh ...) make it bearable. Their service and professionalism is, by far and we travel a lot, better than any we've experienced. Once again, they went above and beyond.
And just a thought I had this morning (Sunday): Over all the trips we've taken, I never mentioned the people who allow us to leave in good conscience and have no worries upon our return. Those would be the good folks at the Glen Animal Hospital in Sea Cliff, NY.
Dr. Melinda Grove (who has been Shayna's vet since pupitude) and her vet staff, along with the kennel and office personnel, allow us to have a good time with peace of mind. With Shayna's little medical problems, we wouldn't be able to take more than day trips were it not for them. They are truly the best.
Krugman, about Pakistan, to our tub o' candidates:
To all the presidential campaigns trying to claim that the atrocity in Pakistan somehow proves that they have the right candidate — please stop.
This isn’t about you; in fact, as far as I can tell, it isn’t about America. It’s about the fact that Pakistan is a very messed-up place. This has very bad consequences for us, but it’s hard to see what, if anything, it says about US policy.
If you’re a tough guy (or gal) who believes in exerting US power — never mind, there are just too many heavily armed people in Pakistan for anyone but Norman Podhoretz to believe that we could throw our weight around. If you believe you can bring new understanding to the world through your enlightened outlook — sorry, there are too many people in Pakistan who don’t want to be enlightened. If you believe that we’d have more influence in the world if we hadn’t squandered our resources and good will in Iraq (which I do) — well, sorry, that influence wouldn’t extend to being able to bring peace and light to Pakistan.
Bush's failed policies in Pakistan, a nuclear power that al-Qaida still uses to plot against the West, threatens U.S. security more than Iraq ever did.
In order to get through this crisis, Bush must insist that the Pakistani Supreme Court, summarily dismissed and placed under house arrest by Musharraf, be reinstated. The PPP must be allowed to elect a successor to Ms. Bhutto without the interference of the military. Early elections must be held, and the country must return to civilian rule. Pakistan's population is, contrary to the impression of many pundits in the United States, mostly moderate and uninterested in the Taliban form of Islam. But if the United States and "democracy" become associated in their minds with military dictatorship, arbitrary dismissal of judges, and political instability, they may turn to other kinds of politics, far less favorable to the United States. Musharraf may hope that the Pakistani military will stand with him even if the vast majority of people turn against him. It is a forlorn hope, and a dangerous one, as the shah of Iran discovered in 1978-79.
Please read the rest.
We have exactly the wrong people in power to deal with everything they're trying to deal with. They are steering our country onto the rocks and blaming the rocks for not moving out of the way like they told them to.
I’m furious because the Bush administration and its ideological allies have shredded the Constitution at every turn, destroying the institutional gift of those they pretend to revere (but only when it’s convenient to upholding their own depredations). This president, who has gotten virtually everything he has ever wanted throughout his life and his presidency, once privately exclaimed in frustration at not getting something he wanted when he wanted it, “It’s just a goddam piece of paper!”, and that is precisely how he has treated America’s founding document. His signing statements – probably over a thousand in count now – completely obliterate the checks and balances principle of the Constitution, its most central idea. His admitted spying on Americans without warrant smashes the Fourth Amendment. His fiasco in Guantánamo and beyond mocks due process and habeas corpus guarantees. His invasion of Iraq against the international law codified in the UN Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, violates the Constitutional requirement to hold such treaties as the highest law of the land. Altogether, Americans have never seen a presidency with such imperial ambitions, and anyone who cares about the Constitution should be furious. A year from now, it is quite possible that Hillary Clinton will be president of the United States (ugh). Would our conservative friends silently countenance, let alone viciously support, such a monarchy in the White House if it belonged to Queen Hillary rather than King George? I think not.
We could go on and on from here. This administration and the movement it fronts at least gets high marks for consistency. Everything they touch turns to stone. There’s Pat Tillman and Terri Schiavo. There’s the politicization of the US Attorneys and the corruption of DeLay and Abramoff. There’s North Korea, Pakistan and the Middle East. There’s the shame of torture and rendition. There’s the wrecking of the American military and of the country’s reputation abroad. There’s Afghanistan and the failure to capture bin Laden. And much, much more. But above all, and driving all, there’s the kleptocracy – the doing of everything in every way to facilitate the looting of the national fisc.
What an unbelievable record of deceit, destruction, hypocrisy, incompetence, treason and greed. What a tragic tale of debt, lost wars, stolen elections, environmental crises, Constitution shredding, national shame and diminished security.
All done by the very most pious amongst us, of course. Merry Christmas, eh? I guess those are our presents, all carefully wrapped in spin, contempt, and preemptive attacks on any of us impertinent enough to say “No thanks, Santa”.
So, yeah, you’re goddam right I’m angry about what’s been done to my country, and what’s been done by my country in my name.
How could anyone who claims to care about America not be?
Sometimes a guy just has to howl at the Moon to keep from goin' nuckin' futs. Plenty more.
Under no circumstances should you miss this piece by Greg Palast. It will make you feel good, I think.
Correa is one of the first dark-skinned men to win election to this Quechua and mixed-race nation. Certainly, one of the first from the streets. He'd won a surprise victory over the richest man in Ecuador, the owner of the biggest banana plantation.
Doctor Correa, I should say, with a Ph.D in economics earned in Europe. Professor Correa as he is officially called - who, until not long ago, taught at the University of Illinois.
And Professor Doctor Correa is one tough character. He told George Bush to take the US military base and stick it where the equatorial sun don't shine. He told the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which held Ecuador's finances by the throat, to go to hell. He ripped up the "agreements" which his predecessors had signed at financial gun point. He told the Miami bond vultures that were charging Ecuador usurious interest, to eat their bonds. He said ‘We are not going to pay off this debt with the hunger of our people. " Food first, interest later. Much later. And he meant it.
Correa's not unique. He's the latest of a new breed in Latin America. Lula, President of Brazil, Evo Morales, the first Indian ever elected President of Bolivia, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. All "Leftists," as the press tells us. But all have something else in common: they are dark-skinned working-class or poor kids who found themselves leaders of nations of dark-skinned people who had forever been ruled by an elite of bouffant blonds.
When I was in Venezuela, the leaders of the old order liked to refer to Chavez as, "the monkey." Chavez told me proudly, "I am negro e indio" - Black and Indian, like most Venezuelans. Chavez, as a kid rising in the ranks of the blond-controlled armed forces, undoubtedly had to endure many jeers of "monkey." Now, all over Latin America, the "monkeys" are in charge.
And they are unlocking the economic cages.
It does my heart good to see folks standing up to bullies. It makes me sad that the bullies is us.
Some gifts from Kris Kringle are better kept wrapped.
A man in a Santa hat was arrested Sunday night for investigation of drunken driving after he was spotted outside Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood wearing a wig, a red lace camisole and a purple G-string, police said.
"We are pretty sure this is not the Santa Claus," Deputy Chief Ken Garner said.
Ya can't make this shit up. Sure woulda liked a photo...
Concerns about high oil prices have met Middle Eastern politics as Iraq warned Korea that it will suspend crude oil exports next month if Korean companies continue an exploration project under an agreement with the Kurdish regional government in the fractious country. Iraq accounts for about 5 percent of Korea’s crude imports.
The Iraqi government is warning Korea? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Note to the Iraqi government: If you don't like the U.S. occupying your country and only 'tolerate' it because a) they're proppin' your flimsy ass up, and b) you can't do anything about it anyway, you REALLY aren't gonna like a Korean occupation! They're not nice like we are. Best not to get in a pissin' contest with 'em.
I watched three Korean Marines clean about twenty American Marines out of a barracks once. The Koreans were small, wiry men, didn't speak very good English, and kept to themselves. The Americans had been teasing them and they got tired of it. Those were the hardest cats I ever saw. They didn't change expression or break a sweat. I think I saw them smile at one another a little whilst viewing the pile of Marines they had built. They didn't really hurt 'em, but they damn sure taught a bunch of arrogant kids a lesson about courtesy. Also about what 'tough' is. Hint: it ain't in the talkin'.
To be fair about it, the KMCs (Korean Marine Corps) were old salts and practical masters of various martial arts. They were all Gunnies or the equivalent with fifteen or twenty years in, including service in the Korean War, and as a reward for outstanding service were granted the great privilege of attending U.S. Marine boot camp. Our guys never stood a chance.
They never kidded the KMCs again, either. Kinda looked at 'em with awe after that.
They had lived all their adult lives under a terrible threat, once acted upon, from North Korea, and were professional soldiers who gave no quarter and asked none. I think the KMC and the ROK Army are like that yet.
So if you Iraqis get in a dust-up with the Koreans, let us know how it goes..if there's enough of you left to tell the tale.
A nine-second session gaveled in and out by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., prevented Bush from appointing as an assistant attorney general a nominee roundly rejected by majority Democrats. Without the pro forma session, the Senate would be technically adjourned, allowing the president to install officials without Senate confirmation. […]
Democrats wanted to block one such recess appointment in particular: Steven Bradbury, acting chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Counsel. Bush nominated Bradbury for the job and asked the Senate to remove the “acting” in his title.
Democrats would have none of it, complaining Bradbury had signed two secret memos in 2005 saying it was OK for the CIA to use harsh interrogation techniques — some call it torture — on terrorism detainees.
Bush wants an appointment, and Harry Reid is preventing that appointment of Steven Bradbury. Bradbury is the architect of the legal justifications for many of the scandalous Bush Administration policies, including denying habeas corpus and justifying waterboarding. Bush loves his torture guy Bradbury, and wants to put him into a recess appointment job Bradbury is already holding illegally.
The Bush Administration has been breaking the law for a while now. According to the 1998 Vacancies Reform Act, they cannot keep a non-Senate-confirmed in an “Acting” role for longer than 210 days without being confirmed. [...]
Bush appointed Bradbury as 'acting' whatever in 2005. Just another Bushie whiney got caught in another crime deal. Ho-hum. Nothing will happen, accountability- or prosecution-wise, of course. It is good to be King.
"Osama Bin Laden is safe in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto was not. Osama Bin Laden is alive and free in Pakistan. Daniel Pearl is not. Neither Iran nor Iraq have nuclear weapons. But Pakistan does." This is the bitter harvest of the bungling, Bush/Cheney backing of a dictatorship that harbors the same Islamic fundamentalists who pulled off 9/11.
When she returned to Pakistan a few weeks ago, I kept asking myself, "Why?"
She certainly knew she would most likely be killed.
I knew she would most likely be killed.
This morning, as I heard the news of her assassination, the answer struck me, and it came with a bitter twist of irony.
Every time you ask yourself why US political leaders will not stand up to the Bush-Cheney regime, why impeachment is off the table, why the betrayal of US secret agent Valerie Plame's covert identity goes unavenged, why those who looked the other way while 9/11 went down, then lied us into war with Iraq and attempted to lie us into war with Iran, continue to occupy positions of power and privilege, why violations of FISA, FOIA, the Geneva Accords, the Bill of Rights, etc. have gone on unchecked, why no one is under criminal investigation for obstruction of justice in the firing of the US attorneys or the theft of elections in 2000, 2002 and 2004; remember the beautiful face, passionate heart and eloquent tongue of Benazir Bhutto, remember too Yitzhak Rabin, and Jack and Bobby Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Omar Torrijos, and Anwar Sadat, and the answer will come to you.
They do not stand up because they are afraid.
She was not afraid.
It certainly came as no surprise that Ms. Bhutto was assassinated.
It also came as no surprise that the assassin was able to sneak past Pakistani 'security' metal detectors wearing a bomb and carrying a pistol.
The fix was in on her murder, of that we can be certain. Her brand of politics could not be allowed to catch on in Pakistan at this time. The outcome was simply a matter of time, and time was up.
But she was not afraid, or perhaps she was and overcame it. She went headfirst against vastly overwhelming power arrayed against her.
I hope someone picks up where she left off.
It's too bad we don't have anybody like her in this country. If we did, I'm sure this administration wouldn't be above a little murder. Bush doesn't have the balls, but Cheney sure does.
Paul Krugman was on Charlie Rose last night (watch it), and today I find it pretty much word-for-word in Slate, although on Rose he went more into racism as a Repug get-out-the-vote tactic. As usual, I think Mr. Krugman's right on the money.
Here's a thought for progressives: Bush isn't the problem. And the next president should not try to be the anti-Bush.
No, I haven't lost my mind. I'm not saying that we should look kindly on the Worst President Ever; we'll all breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves office 405 days, 2 hours, and 46 minutes from now. (Yes, a friend gave me one of those Bush countdown clocks.) Nor am I suggesting that we should forgive and forget; I very much hope that the next president will open the records and let the full story of the Bush era's outrages be told.
Note to prison administrators and judges: One door closes, another one opens. Even with fairer crack cocaine sentencing guidelines, we can still fill all those prisons, this time with white Repug politicians and Bush cronies. Win-win!
But Bush will soon be gone. What progressives should be focused on now is taking on the political movement that brought Bush to power. In short, what we need right now isn't Bush bashing - what we need is partisanship.
OK, before I get there, a word about terms - specifically, liberal vs. progressive. Everyone seems to have their own definitions; mine involves the distinction between values and action. If you think every American should be guaranteed health insurance, you're a liberal; if you're trying to make universal health care happen, you're a progressive.
And here's the thing: Progressives have an opportunity, because American public opinion has become a lot more liberal.
He goes on to 'splain this. Go read.
The question, however, is whether Democrats will take advantage of America's new liberalism. To do that, they have to be ready to forcefully make the case that progressive goals are right and conservatives are wrong. They also need to be ready to fight some very nasty political battles.
And that's where the continuing focus of many people on Bush, rather than the movement he represents, has become a problem.
Well, you have to cut off the snake's head before you can safely make dinner and a hatband out of the rest of him, but I get his point.
But any attempt to change America's direction, to implement a real progressive agenda, will necessarily be highly polarizing. Proposals for universal health care, in particular, are sure to face a firestorm of partisan opposition. And fundamental change can't be accomplished by a politician who shuns partisanship.
I like to remind people who long for bipartisanship that FDR's drive to create Social Security was as divisive as Bush's attempt to dismantle it. And we got Social Security because FDR wasn't afraid of division. In his great Madison Square Garden speech, he declared of the forces of "organized money": "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred."
So, here's my worry: Democrats, with the encouragement of people in the news media who seek bipartisanship for its own sake, may fall into the trap of trying to be anti-Bushes — of trying to transcend partisanship, seeking some middle ground between the parties.
That middle ground doesn't exist—and if Democrats try to find it, they'll squander a huge opportunity. Right now, the stars are aligned for a major change in America's direction. If the Democrats play nice, that opportunity may soon be gone.
I'll be for bipartisanship as soon as we get politicians from 'our' side who are willing to stomp the Repugs into the ground. And I mean that literally if need be. Once they are beaten, broken, exposed, jailed, crushed, cowed, and powerless, let the bipartisanship begin!
Quite frankly, I doubt if the present Democrats are capable of that. There are some outstanding individual ones of course, but as a group, a well-motivated Girl Scout troop trying to sell cookies in a seedy neighborhood is ten times braver.
There's two things you have to understand if you are going to get into a fight:
1) There is going to be blood shed. Yours and theirs. Ya gotta bring some to get some.
2) You must not think of what your opponent might do to you, only what you are going to do to him.
Corollary a) If the stakes are high enough and the matter important enough, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an unannounced ax handle to the back of your opponent's head, AKA 'ambush'. This comes in particularly handy if you are outnumbered or outgunned. Cuts the odds down.
I'll add a third: You can be as afraid as you want. Just don't let your opponent know. That's the rub - the Dems are very afraid, for what reason I do not know, and everybody knows it.
Being we're leaving very early Saturday morning (Friday night to you guys in the western hemisphere), I figured I'd throw up some more random pics now. I doubt I'll have enough time once I start packing later on. Just looking at what I have to bring home, it seems daunting.
Well, Christmas is over with and we had a great time. Good food, good people, and a good time all around.
My cousin Birgit and her husband Peter bought me a book called Hauenstein against Hitler that I didn't know existed, but I'm happy to have. It's the story of how the people in our little town resisted Hitler during the war. Good god, after listening to me for 4 years, do you still think all Germans of the time were Nazis?
Pics from our Christmas Eve celebration here, here, here, and here.
Even though it's so fucking cold (I told my family this is the last time I'm coming in the winter unless one of them drops dead), I'm glad we came.
Christmas too is subject to extremes. Remember the war on Christmas? While there's no formal truce -- to save face, Bill O' Reilly still fires off a round or two at night -- it's essentially over. On its behalf, let it be said it was the shortest of the Bush wars and the one with the fewest casualties.
Christmas enfolds many traditions, not all Christian, or even civilized. As Christianity conquered the Roman Empire it absorbed its religions, adapting their deities and festivals. The first recorded observance of Christmas wasn't until 354 A.D., about the time the Roman God Janus took early retirement.
Christmas co-opted the solstice rituals it displaced, including their music, greenery, lights, drinking and carousing. (The office Christmas party is a lineal descendant.) Christians who wax proprietary about the day should tread carefully; one day the pagans may want their wreaths back and who knows what else.
Oliver Cromwell thought Christmas so debauched he banned it. So did Massachusetts Puritans; from 1659 to 1681 you couldn't cook a Christmas goose in Boston. It wasn't till the 19th century that Christmas took on the trappings we know, owing much to the publication in 1823 of Clement Moore's "A Visit from Saint Nicolas" and in 1843 of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."
Some leaders of religions and even some politicians think the task of separating out the sheep from the goats falls to them. I'm no theologian but I remember the endless parables of love and inclusion, wherein prostitutes, lepers, Samaritans and tax collectors were all let in and loved without condition. He never once said judge thy neighbor.
Can there be any greater folly than a war fought over religion? Is it so much easier to fight for our principles than to live by them? According to a wise priest I know, "Jesus didn't ask to be worshipped; He asked to be followed, which is harder." We search for signs of winter and Christmas, and settle for what we find until at last we look within.
By all means, look within, but keep one eye peeled for the religious and right wing forces of darkness who will not be happy until you are forced to live by their whacko beliefs.
I came up with the idea that the Human Genome Project may be the key to Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men. As soon as they find the "greed" and "lust for power" and "everybody who's different from me is bad and needs to be fixed or killed" genes and eliminate them.
If you get a lump of coal in your stocking, enjoy it. Energy prices are up.
"14-year-old Laura Montero of Albion, Ill., who was in excruciating pain after her appendix burst last week while she and her mother were on a cruise ship to Mexico. The captain of the Dawn Princess had put out a distress call while the ship was about 250 miles from the Mexican port of Cabo San Lucas. Luckily, the USS Ronald Reagan happened to be in the nautical neighborhood . . ."
I was wonderin' what kind of inspirational Christmas message I could put here. I was trying to think one up that covered all the bases, from the Prince Of Peace and Goodwill Toward Men to spirituality over commercialism, which I don't think is going very well anyway, to the winter solstice meaning the Sun's coming back, without sounding trite.
Couldn't do it, but I found one with a slightly different approach at Hoffmania, in toto:
Music is a powerful touchstone, so while you’re reading this, put on “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”. Let it play in the background.
So this is Christmas once again, the air filled with tinsel and anticipation. Houses all aglow in glittering lights and frosted windowpanes, whether from the can or Mother Nature. It is the one time everyone enjoys feeling cold or pretending it is cold and the one time a year when the inner child in all of us runs free.
In the great American living room stands the Douglas Fir or maybe a Blue Spruce. The odor of pine needles circles the walls and crawls across the carpet with cheery dreams. Huddled around the bottom of the Christmas tree like a small herd of happy wishes, are the presents dressed in their finest gift-wrap and holiday splendor.
They are the gifts a President gives his country; his legacy and promise for the future, his servitude to “We the People” and his vision of America.
So here under the tree, dazzling and glossy in sateen bows and velvet ribbons are the gifts of this President:
Sparkle laden paper wrapped around a box of Fear. The plastic paranoia sealed package contains all the colors of Fear from brown to yellow to pink and purple. A small booklet of instructions is included on how to apply Fear to every situation and person that is not “one of us,” and how to brush on racism, homophobia and bigotry with the mascara of mendacity.
A flag covered box of brightly painted brittle toy soldiers and game board, plus interchangeable body parts for when they get broken from too much rough play. Each toy soldier is hand-painted, un-numbered and anatomically neutered to withstand everything but real war. Families not included.
There is the whirring and buzzing latest techno must have self-injectable Micro-Thought Chip. A gift from your government to monitor your thoughts and ideas and provide auto electro-pulse correction should you waver from acceptable mind processes. A gift certificate is included for all your left-thinking friends. Let them embrace the light.
A small gossamer covered box with one of those glass globes you shake to create a snow flurry – only this one encases “Democracy” and when you shake it, a crystal storm of red, white and blue flakes spin madly about until “Democracy” disappears.
And the last gift is a huge box with a thousand ribbons and bows and soft crinkle tissue paper taped and mangled together as though made by a child but when you get it all unwrapped – it’s empty. Or so you think. It is a box of sadness. A place for broken dreams of what has been lost. A place to store the faded Polaroid postcards of the America that once was. An empty box big enough to hold a heart full of holes from nearly 4000 troops killed by the lies that cradle the deceit and treachery that sold a war for the benefit of the few who line their pockets with the lives of our loved ones. It’s a big empty box that can hold the despair of 126 veterans who commit suicide every week in this country. Room enough for the 20-30% of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. But not big enough for a mother or father to crawl inside and rummage around for the touch and smell of their child killed or maimed in this war.
And then you spot it. The small package under the back branches of the tree, strings of tinsel dripping down and nearly covering the box. So tiny and forlorn. Not the same as the others. It looks so fragile, so precious. And you open it carefully, not ripping or tearing the paper while gingerly pulling the ribbon bows and lift the top off and then wide-eyed you smile. It’s stunning. It makes you giggle and tremble at the same time. You search for the card, but there is none.
And while no one is paying attention you scoot behind the tree, into the corner of the room and lift it out of the box and feel its warmth while your stomach shivers with that excited chill as you carefully set it down in front of you and watch.
The song Happy Christmas (War Is Over) ends. But you can’t help but think how nice it would be to sing Celebrate Me Home as the troops run across the tarmac and scoop up their loved ones. Or how good it would be to celebrate America once again.
You can both go fuck yourselves. When you say it will take 7 - 10 days to ship a package here and guarantee it will be here before Christmas, make sure it happens. I shipped two packages here the week before I left and was assured (I paid $150 for the privilege) they'd be here by now. They're not. Now, tonight, I have to explain to the children why I don't have presents for them.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
Fixer
PS: I can't do anything about the Germans, but god help the postmaster where I mailed the stuff when I get home.
Food for thought for this holiday season. Phil Ochs was one of, if not the, best, one of the most perceptive and one of the most vibrant of the 60s protest singers. Virtually all of his lyrics still ring true today. He committed suicide in 1976 in part because he was "no longer relevant." What a tragic misconception. Phil Ochs is probably more relevant today than ever. To wit:
Phil Ochs - The Power And The Glory
Come and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land
Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand
Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains
Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain
Here is a land full of power and glory
Beauty that words cannot recall
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
As most of the Brain's regular readers know, I'm a godless, heathen, atheist, infidel bastid, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the magic of Christmas, especially here, in the land that gave us the fairy tale. There's nothing like seeing the look of surprise in a child's eyes when they open their presents, or just the joy of being with people that you love dearly.
Last night, I got to watch a Jewish girl from Levittown experience that magic for the first time as she helped my cousin decorate their Christbaum. It's the little things that make the season wonderful.
And I also celebrate Jesus Christ, not the myth but the man, who lived humbly and preached respect for others. If today's religious leaders would be more like the man himself, the world would be a lot better place. Jesus would puke and then crucify himself if he could see what has been done in his name over the centuries.
And at this time, those who aren't as fortunate as I am are on my mind as well. When I sit back and think about how blessed I am, to have such a great family, to be married to a wonderful woman, to be pretty well off, and to live in a land that hasn't known war and unrest as many have, I feel for those whose lives are spent in poverty and oppression.
Yes, ladies and germs, whatever your religion and circumstances, I wish you a very Merry Christmas, and please take it in the spirit it is intended. And all I want for Christmas is true "peace on Earth and goodwill to all". I leave you with Sir Bob and the gang because what they sang in 1985 is just as relevant today, maybe more so.
Merry Christmas, everybody. Or, as they say here:
Frohe Weihnachten und ein herzliches, gluckliches, Neues Jahr!
1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog. 2. Share Christmas facts about yourself. 3. Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs. 4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Welcome to the Christmas edition of "Getting to Know Your Friends."
1. Wrapping or gift bags? Wrapping.
2. Real or artificial tree? Normally no tree, this year, real.
3. When do you put up the tree? This year, last night (see link in post above)
4. When do you take the tree down? Normally, since I don't put one up (re:godless, atheist, heathen, infidel bastid in the post above), I don't have to take it down. Here it's done on 6 Jan.
5. Do you like egg nog? Ick. I will take a shot of Jack Daniels' if it's offered though. Heh ...
6. Favorite gift received as a child? My Flexible Flyer sled, which I still have, from 1966.
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Not hardly.
8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Orders to SAC in 1984.
9. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail.
10. Favorite Christmas Movie? None, they're all too sappy for me.
11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? We shop all year round. When we see something someone will like we get it and put it away for Christmas.
12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Anything that doesn't bite me first.
13. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear.
14. Favorite Christmas song(s)? None, and you can thank the fact they start playing them in the stores just after Halloween. By the time Christmas rolls around I'm sick of 'em all.
15. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home except for this year.
16. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? You gotta be shittin' me.
17. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.
18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning? Christmas Eve.
19. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The commercialism and the crowds.
20. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color? No.
21. What do you leave for Santa? Fuck Santa, he's got more money than I do.
22. Least favorite holiday song? All of 'em. (See #14)
23. Favorite ornament? Don't do a tree, don't got no ornaments.
24. Family tradition? Mrs F and I usually spend the day eating and drinking. Normally we're at my sister-in-law's for an Italian fish-a-thon.
25. Ever been to Midnight Mass or late-night Christmas Eve services? More times than I'd like to admit but one of my aunts sings in the church choir back home and I go to hear her.
Rove’s Book Sold for Half of What He Expected - And Buyer Was Mary Matalin
From 'comments':
Now, this would actually be funny,if it wasn’t so pathetic. It’s bizarre how none of the “real” publishing houses want to touch this with a 100-foot pole. Maybe they think they’ll be somehow complicit in the lies and high crimes and felonies if they publish it. Matalan is such a stupid dope that she’s probably thinking she’s doing the world a favor. Blechhhhh, may they all rot in hell.
Maybe Mary Matalin is a shrew(d) businesswoman who expects book sales to soar when Rove hits death row.
Say, under some sort of community property rules, doesn’t that mean that half of the advance came out of the wallet of that staunch Liberal, James Carville?
Isn't there a 'Son of Sam' law that prevents criminals from cashin' in on their crimes? Doesn't look like there's gonna be much profit on this one in any case.
Note to Turdblossom: I'd like to see your life story of lies published posthumously by the Charmin folks so I could wipe my ass with it. Next week would be OK, but I'll wait until ya get the Texas needle as a reward for everything you've done to this country.
Andrew Sullivan in the Times (UK) on the CIA/Bush torture tape cover-up in the particular case of Zubaydah:
And that is where the story becomes interesting. The Bush administration denies any illegality at all, insists it does not “torture” but refuses to say whether it believes waterboarding is torture or not. But hundreds of hours of videotape were recorded of Zubaydah’s incarceration and torture. That evidence would settle the dispute over the extremely serious question of whether the president of the United States authorised war crimes.
And now we have found out that all the tapes have been destroyed.
But this case is more ominous for the administration because it presents a core example of what seems to be a cover-up, obstruction of justice and a direct connection between torture and the president, the vice-president and their closest aides.
What are the odds that a legal effective interrogation of a key Al-Qaeda operative would have led many highly respected professionals in the US intelligence community to risk their careers by leaking top-secret details to the press?
What are the odds that the CIA would have sought to destroy tapes that could prove it had legally prevented serious and dangerous attacks against innocent civilians? What are the odds that a president who had never authorised waterboarding would be unable to say whether such waterboarding was torture?
What are the odds that, under congressional grilling, the new attorney-general would also refuse to say whether he believed waterboarding was illegal, if there was any doubt that the president had authorised it? The odds are beyond minimal.
Any reasonable person examining all the evidence we have - without any bias - would conclude that the overwhelming likelihood is that the president of the United States authorised illegal torture of a prisoner and that the evidence of the crime was subsequently illegally destroyed.
Congresswoman Jane Harman, the respected top Democrat on the House intelligence committee in 2003-06, put it as simply as she could: “I am worried. It smells like the cover-up of the cover-up.”
It’s a potential Watergate. But this time the crime is not a two-bit domestic burglary. It’s a war crime that reaches into the very heart of the Oval Office.
Knowing Bush is a war criminal is one thing. I know it. Proving it is another thing entirely. I pray, yes, pray, to whatever gods may be listening that something surfaces that can prove it forever and ever, for once and for all, clearly and unequivocally so that he can't parse and weasel out of it any longer, and send that son of a bitch to prison where he belongs. And the horse he rode in on AKA Cheney.
At least, those of you in the western hemisphere, I was out having my morning cigarette and I couldn't help taking a pic of the beautiful winter scene.
When announcing Japan's surrender in 1945, Emperor Hirohito famously explained his decision as follows: "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."
There was a definite Hirohito feel to the explanation Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, gave this week for the Fed's locking-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-is-gone decision to modestly strengthen regulation of the mortgage industry: "Market discipline has in some cases broken down, and the incentives to follow prudent lending procedures have, at times, eroded."
That's quite an understatement. In fact, the explosion of "innovative" home lending that took place in the middle years of this decade was an unmitigated disaster.
In a 1963 essay for Ms. Rand's newsletter, Mr. Greenspan dismissed as a "collectivist" myth the idea that businessmen, left to their own devices, "would attempt to sell unsafe food and drugs, fraudulent securities, and shoddy buildings." On the contrary, he declared, "it is in the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest dealings and a quality product."
It's no wonder, then, that he brushed off warnings about deceptive lending practices, including those of Edward M. Gramlich, a member of the Federal Reserve board. In Mr. Greenspan's world, predatory lending - like attempts to sell consumers poison toys and tainted seafood - just doesn't happen.
Yeah, they're all little angels. Not.
Of course, now that it has all gone bad, people with ties to the financial industry are rethinking their belief in the perfection of free markets. Mr. Greenspan has come out in favor of, yes, a government bailout. "Cash is available," he says - meaning taxpayer money - "and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this."
Given the role of conservative ideology in the mortgage disaster, it's puzzling that Democrats haven't been more aggressive about making the disaster an issue for the 2008 election. They should be: It's hard to imagine a more graphic demonstration of what's wrong with their opponents' economic beliefs.
Shorter: The Repugs have been, are, and ever shall be just plain wrong about everything. Not only are they wrong, they insist the rest of us go down with their ship, which they can no longer deny is sinking, all the while blaming everyone else for their expensive failures..
They gotta go.
So do I. I'll catch up with ya from Arroyo Grande.
... Charlie Wilson and the CIA funneled 3.1 billion dollars to Afghani resistance fighters in the hopes of defeating the Soviets. The thing is, a good chunk of this money went to a fellow named Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, a rabid anti-American who, with the help of his pal Osama bin Laden, used the money to establish a string of terrorist training camps across Afghanistan and Pakistan. At these camps, a group of yahoos got it into their heads that flying planes into the World Trade Center would be a good idea ...
They're still on the payroll, ladies and germs. Let's hope Tom Hanks goes broke on this one.
The most brilliant trick the rich ever pulled over the poor was when they reinforced fractures between the serving class. The rich have always encouraged the poor to think of themselves tribally. Irish, Italian, Black, Blue-Collar, White-Collar, Asian, Indian, Arab, Christian, Muslim, Man, Woman, Child, Elderly, Northerner, Southerner, West Coast, East Coast. After all, when the poor squabble among themselves, they can't really unite and...ya' know...set fire to the plantation.
One of our all-time favorite bloggers, the Rude One:
... For Bush and Cheney and many Republicans and some Democrats, democracy is like being told you can jack off in the corner while this big-dicked stud fucks your wife ...
Yes, I'm a posting fool this morning because the Mrs. and my cousin are out shopping, professionals both, and I have some free time to get caught up on the blog world. Greenwald's post from yesterday is most enlightening:
...
As Benen notes, the GOP has used the filibuster as a common tool on virtually every piece of significant legislation, all part of what Trent Lott described as their strategy: "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail . . . and so far it's working for us."
But this extraordinary obstructionist behavior has hardly been highlighted at all by most journalists covering Congress. Part of the reason for that is the fault of Senate Democrats, who have, in essence, allowed Republicans to filibuster without forcing them actually to filibuster, thus removing the theatrical display of the obstructionism. But the obstructionism is the same, and it ought to be reported as such. But it isn't.
...
I think the Dem leadership needs a remedial class in Civics 101.
...
Whereas filibusters were previously used as an extraordinary tool to preserve minority rights in the Senate, and were routinely depicted as "obstructionist" by the press when wielded by Democrats, they have now become the standard course for Republicans. Yet [Washington Post reporter Paul] Kane, and most other Congressional reporters, simply refuse to point that objective fact out -- that Republicans are using this obstructionist tool on virtually every issue at a record rate -- because to point that out would be to violate the Sacred Law of Balance, even though it is true. [my ems]
...
You can thank Josef Goebbels Rupert Murdoch and his gang of propagandists at Fox Noise for giving the term 'fair and balanced' the aberrant, bastardized meaning it has today. Most of the Washington press corpse wouldn't know either 'fair' or 'balanced' if it bit them in the ass.
Generally I've learned, over 45 years of life, that people who hold the lives of animals in disregard, or are actively cruel to them, are horrible human beings.
We didn't stray too far from home yesterday. We visited an old Jewish cemetery I never knew existed and a castle I used to grovel around in when I was a kid. . Note:
If you've missed anything and want to get caught up on the trip so far, just go here and scroll down. I set it up so everything will stay on the main page for the duration.
We got another foot of snow overnight, so I was out bright and early this morning participating in the Sierra Nevada Homeowner Winter Pentathlon, which consists of:
1. Snow shovelling 2. Ice scraping 3. Snowthrowing, with sub-event a. Trying to keep the dog's nose out of the augur 4. Stand under a pine tree when it unloads its snow (aced this one! It's all in the timing...) 5. Try to not fall on your ass
I learned something (again) and I'll pass it on: empty the snow out of your hoodie before you put it on your head.
Anyway, after all that exertion, which is good for you, I was taking off my snow boots and felt the dreaded sproinggg! in my lower back. Uh-oh. I basically just got Mrs. G's truck out and had lots more snow to move. I can do it in pain (lotsa practice) but it's no fun.
Mrs. G called and I told her about it. She said, "Gee, it's too bad we don't have one of those Shiatsu massaging cushions."
At this point, the lights came on in my head and I went and (gently) unwrapped her Christmas present.
Fifteen minutes with that thing and three ibuprofens and I'm rarin' to go! If you have need of a back massage, I recommend one of these gadgets. It's a lot cheaper than the alternative, the Japanese massage lady who walks on yer back. Unless she doesn't eat and can sleep standing up in the closet next to the vacuum cleaner, of course.
Did I mention that the storm passed by and the Sun is brightly shining and it's a beautiful day? See ya.
Update:
Yes, I remembered to re-wrap Mrs. G's present. Loosely, just in case...
A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.
The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.
The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website (Be patient - no bandwidth, lotta traffic - G).
The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.
Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said.
"This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said.
"It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," said Means.
Note to Russ: Best wishes for you in this endeavor. Let us know how this 'free and independent' shit works out. Might start a trend...
America Under FDR was able to defeat the Nazis, Imperial Japan, and Mussolini in less time, but then he wasn't an imbecile like junior and a megalo-maniac like Cheney, both chickenhawks to boot.
Of course, in those days, war profiteering was merely a side effect of the war, not the main reason for it.
Andrew Tilghman in Washington Monthly. Lengthy, but worth a read if you give a shit about what has been done to our military and how and why mid-level officers and NCOs are making career choices with their feet.
Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving
But the greatest concern is how the exodus of the best and brightest will affect the Army's long-term capacity to win wars, counter threats, and keep the peace. Today's lieutenants and captains are the pool from which three- and four-star generals will be chosen twenty years from now. If the sharpest minds aren't in that pool, we could wind up — to put it bluntly — with a senior leadership of dimwits.
Scary. Imagine an Army run by unqualified officers, not that there's ever been any lack of those, just like the present Commander-in-Chief...
What’s a Teacher to Do? 'No teacher wants to tell her students that their president is a liar and a criminal. And yet, our president is a liar and a criminal. As a teacher, should I tell children the truth, and act to uphold our Constitution and Bill of Rights? I am charged to do just that through the legally binding state and local professional educator standard, requiring me to model the democratic ideal. My failure to do so could be grounds for my dismissal. But here’s the catch: doing so could also be grounds for my dismissal!'
Much more.
I feel for this lady and others like her. I'm damn glad I'm not in her position. I've been fired for telling the truth and was damn glad to be out of a place where that could happen, but there was always another gig down the road a ways.
The truth has a liberal bias, and is therefore not to be taught to the impressionable children who will be paying for this administration's lies for the rest of their lives.
As part of my ongoing effort to save my own soul and avoid repeatedly stabbing myself in the eye with a fork in screaming frustration, and also because it's Beltway politics and watching it too closely is akin to having your cerebral cortex raped by encephalitic trolls, I've only paid cursory attention to the massive, landmark energy bill that's right now passing like a painful gallstone through Congress and getting snagged here and gutted there and stripped of key provisions over here, all so Dubya won't veto it, given how it might be just too mean to his fat, piggish pals in Big Energy.
Besides, it's an energy bill. It's Congress. It's like saying "altar boys" and "the Vatican." What are the odds of something good coming of it?
It's so brutally hypocritical as to be actually rather insane: We're on track to spend $2 trillion on a failed Iraq war that's tied directly to our appalling oil dependency, and yet we can't even allocate the governmental equivalent of pocket change toward encouraging people to install a solar panel on the condo? What kind of nation are we, really?
Well, the Dems tried. And they failed. They failed because they're not smart enough and they don't play dirty enough and they're completely terrified of Dubya's shiny newfound veto pen, which he apparently just found under his box of Osama finger puppets and private stash of gay stem cells. They failed because, despite their hairbreadth control of Congress, the oil-sucking GOP henchmen are still deeply entrenched and are clinging to their corporate cronyism like a Kentucky teen clings to his meth pipe. Hence, one of the most impressive pieces of legislation in 10 years gets choked to death like a pit bull at Michael Vick's house. What, too harsh? Not even close.
Mrs. G came up with the reason for the fire yesterday in the Cheney area of the Eisenhower office building - all the extra shredding in the effort to keep some of the higher-ups out of jail overloaded the electrical circuits.
*If you don't get that reference, ask your grandparents.
I was out early, having my morning cigarette (have I mentioned it's fucking cold here?), watching the dawn break, when Mrs. F joined me. She commented how beautiful it was in this valley. I said that I always expect to hear Grieg's Morning playing whenever I step outside.
That thought brought me back to a story my mother used to tell me.
It was near the end of WW2, late '44 or early '45, and my mother was home for a bit of leave before going back to the field hospital where she was a nurse. The Americans had an artillery battery set up a few miles away on the other side of this mountain.
She said they would lob shells into the town on a regular basis, forcing the residents to seek shelter in their basements. A few miles away, on the other side of town, there was a German anti-air battery set up.
One day, an American fighter plane came in low, from this direction. She thought he was either looking for German supply convoys or was going to line up to do a ground assault on the local train station.
As she watched (from the spot I took these pics), she heard the German AAA open up and they caught him, the plane crashing in a fireball on the mountain in the first pic. Being a nurse, mom didn't think twice, stuffing a bag with supplies and running to the scene. All she found when she got there were the scorched remains of a fighter plane and the pilot's right hand with a wedding ring on the finger.
60 years later, it's almost impossible to believe this place was once a war zone. As I stand here in disbelief, trying to comprehend the inhumanity that took place here, I think of the people in Iraq, also once at peace and, through no doing of their own, are now feeling the effects of the horror we've wrought upon them. This little town, this little slice of heaven on God's Front Porch, knew only horror and death for years thanks to a man named Hitler. The Iraqis know the same horror and death (for it's all the same to the innocent) thanks to a man named Bush.
Hopefully the Iraqis can move on from what we've done to them but I don't think it will happen anytime soon. It is imperative we right the wrongs we've done, just as the Germans did so many years ago. The Iraqis must have their Morning and it's up to us to give it to them.
As always, click on the pics to embiggen. I'm going upstairs to breakfast now, but after thinking about this and my mother's war, I don't think I have an appetite.
Ex-Mormon Cartoonist Says Romney Not Telling Truth
Heh. I well understand the feeling Mr. Benson must have about being described as an "Ex-Mormon Cartoonist". I myself have been described in newspaper articles as an "Unemployed Motorcyclist". Praise of the highest order! But I digress...
As an ex-Mormon, Arizona Republic editorial cartoonist Steve Benson has strong opinions about current Mormon Mitt Romney. He said the Republican candidate's recent speech on religion should not be trusted by media people and other Americans.
He told E&P that, in his view, a Mormon believer is required by church doctrine (as dictated by the church's "living prophet") to "obey God's commands" over anything else. He said "Romney, like all 'temple Mormons,' made his secret vows using Masonic-derived handshakes, passwords, and symbolic death oaths that he promised in the temple never to reveal to the outside world" -- and that Romney also secretly vowed to devote his "time, talents" and more "to the building of the Mormon religion on earth."
"When Mitt says he belongs to a church that doesn't tell him what to do, that's false; it's a 24/7, do-what-you're-told-to-do church," asserted Benson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1993.
That was the year Benson left what he calls the "Mormon cult." [...]
Romney "needs to face an informed member of the media with 'cojones' who has a working and perhaps personal experience with Mormonism," said Benson. "It would be harder for Romney to do his well-practiced duck and dodge."
An informed member of the media with 'cojones'? Fat chance, white boy.
Benson predicted that Romney will not win the Republican presidential nomination. If Romney is nominated, added the cartoonist, he will not defeat his Democratic opponent.
Voters, said Benson, "are not ready for someone in the Oval Office who has committed to absolute obedience to a religion they feel is extremely odd and not in the American mainstream. I trust the rational U.S. electorate, not the weird Mormon God."
I got a sneakin' hunch that the Repug candidate is gonna be None Of The Above, but one thing's fer sure - we damn sure don't need any more Jesus freaks, Godsquadders, or weird racist cultists such as Saints and neocons, in the White House. We got a pretty representative combo of all that right now and it's like to wrecked the joint
Last month, Iraq war vet Jordan Fox revealed that some wounded soldiers were being asked by the Pentagon to return part of their enlistment bonuses. Today, the House passed the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act to ensure that future soldiers aren’t treated like Fox. The legislation will ensure that members of the armed services who are discharged as a result of combat-related wounds receive the full compensation to which they are entitled by the Department of Defense. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA), one of the bill’s primary sponsors, spoke on the floor this morning. Watch it:
Thank you, Congressman, but if it gets through the Senate, Bush will probably veto it as being too expensive under his "no pull trigger, no get food" policy for Veterans.
Two conservative Time magazine columnists are on their way out the door: Neither William Kristol nor longtime contributor Charles Krauthammer will be on contract with the magazine starting next month. [...]
The exact reasons for the departures of Mr. Krauthammer and Mr. Kristol, both high-profile backers of the Iraq war, are not entirely clear.
Gee, ya don't think it could possibly be because these two warmongering neocon bastards are high-profile backers of the criminal Iraq war, do ya?
The Time spokeswoman would not detail the reasons for ending the contract of Mr. Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, but said that the decision was mutual. Mr. Kristol did not return a call for comment.
Lemme tell ya what 'mutual' means from my experience over five decades of being a mechanic - it means "You're fired", "Fuck you. You can't fire me! I quit!". Mutual. It's the reason toolboxes have wheels.
It took me years to figure out to just let 'em fire me without saying "I quit" so I could get unemployment insurance...
Note to Time: Canning those assholes is a step in the right direction, but that guy Ponuunuunnuuu or whatever that you're considering sounds like you're just replacing two neocon extremists with a garden variety right wing extremist. Watch it.
MFBTGR* has a 'must read' post that will bring a smile to your face.
So why is the Republican establishment suddenly in a state of near-apoplexy about Mike Huckabee? Shouldn't they be happy? They've been cultivating evangelicals and fundamentalists for 30 years. Now they finally have a candidate who's truly part of the movement. So what's the problem?
Actually, that is the problem. The evangelical crowd was fine when it was just a resource to be cynically exploited every few years in demagogic anti-gay get-out-the-vote campaigns. But now the holy-rolling monster the GOP's Dr. Frankensteins have created has thrown off the shackles, fled the lab, and is currently leading in Iowa. And the party doesn't know what to do.
It's actually fun to watch the consternation. Ross Douthat has dubbed this feeling "Huckenfreude," which he defines as "pleasure derived from the outrage of prominent conservative pundits over the rising poll numbers of Mike Huckabee."
Please, please, please go read the rest!
Perhaps it's not Hucklomatic to admit to great Huckenfreude watching the Repugs commit Huckocide, but hey, just Huckin' Huck 'em.
Just so you all know, I found I can't send email here. I'm looking into it but I'll be coming home in 10 days so it isn't a great priority. So to all those folks who've written (I can receive fine), I'm not ignoring you and I'll respond as soon as I get back Stateside.
“I’ve been asked, what’s the first thing I’d do as president in the year 2009, and January 20th. And I’m going to give you back your Constitution, because this administration has gone out of it’s way to do just the opposite and the Constitution does not belong to a political party or a candidate and they’ve been trampling all over it.”
By the way, thanks to Bush, there are a lot of pissed off Germans here and people aren't shy about telling me what a buncha assholes we've become.
Update:
And let me just add, these are people I've known for more than 40 years. People who thought Jack Kennedy was the greatest thing since sliced bread and whose dream it was to come to America. People who used to ask me to send them anything (t-shirts, stuffed animals, posters) with an American flag on it. As far as they're concerned now, we can shove it all up our collective ass. Being they have experience and all ...
[It wouldn't be funny if it wasn't so true!! Julie Andrews turned 69. To commemorate her 69th birthday, the famous actress/vocalist made a special appearance at Manhattan 's Radio City Music Hall for the benefit of the AARP. One of the musical numbers she performed was "My Favorite Things" from the legendary movie "The Sound Of Music." with a few minor changes to the lyrics....
Here are the actual lyrics she used:
Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting, Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings, Bundles of magazines tied up in string, These are a few of my favorite things.
Cadillacs and cataracts, and hearing aids andglasses, Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses; Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings. These are a few of my favorite things.
When the pipes leak, When the bones creak, When the knees go bad, I simply remember my favorite things, And then I don't feel so bad.
Hot tea and crumpets and corn pads for bunions, No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions, Bathrobes and heating pads and hot meals they bring, These are a few of my favorite things.
Back pains, confused brains, and no need forsinnin', Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin', And we won't mention our short, shrunken frames, When we remember our favorite things.
When the joints ache, When the hips break, When the eyes grow dim, Then I remember the great life I've had, And then I don't feel so bad.
(Ms. Andrews received a standing ovation from the crowd that lasted over four minutes and repeated encores.) Please share Ms. Andrews' clever wit and humor with others who would appreciate it.]
Update:
I passed this on, as directed, to some of my over-60 crowd. Alert as ever, my pal Barb got back to me almost instantly. Turns out it apparently ain't true. It's funny anyway.
As promised, we took a trip across the border into the Alsace. First to the town of Betschdorf and then on to Soufflenheim. I posted a few pics from Betschdorf (here) and more from Soufflenheim (here and here).
Former President Bill Clinton said Monday that the first thing his wife Hillary will do when she reaches the White House is dispatch him and his predecessor, President George H.W. Bush, on an around-the-world mission to repair the damage done to America's reputation by the current president — Bush's son, George W. Bush.
I hope it causes G.H.W. Bush chest pains every time he realizes this whole thing could have been prevented if he'da not been so horny he didn't want to stop at the drugstore that day in '46...
From the Senate floor, Ted Kennedy just cut through all the crap:
The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retro-active immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.
A few pics from the old cemetery and church in our little town. We're heading into Alsace-Lorraine (the French border is 10 minutes from here) for, why else, so Mrs. F can shop. Soufflenheim, the town we're going to, is known for its handmade pottery and ceramics.
"The few, the powerful, the well-financed, they now control the government," John Edwards told a tight crowd of about 350 last week. "They've taken over your democracy. And it affects everything that happens in this country."
"Everything," he emphasized.
At 54, Edwards has jettisoned the polite and unthreatening populism of his 2004 presidential campaign for a sharper edge. The beaming smile, the bluejeans and the open-collar shirt are still a constant. But the "Two Americas" message has been replaced by one America, and it's time, he says, to take that America back.
"I know some people suggest we'll be able to sit at the table with drug companies and oil companies and think they can get their power away. Right," Edwards said dismissively, indirectly referring to the approaches he says Obama and Clinton would take.
"I'll tell you when they'll [corporations] lose their power: when we take it away from them," he told a cheering crowd at the Grinnell Eagles Club.
Finally, someone's tellin' it like it is. Fuck bein' nice to the Repugs and corporate elite. They take, take, take from us and we have to TAKE our country back from them.
They're not going to give up all the money and power without a fight. There might be a few bloody noses along the way, but ya gotta bring some to get some.
I watched the Lord Of The Rings movie "Return Of The King" for the first time last night. Almost a perfect metaphor for what's goin' on in America, and for what needs to be done to correct it. It's no accident that about the meekest guy ever was tasked with destroying the evil ring of all power. Everybody else fought like the blazes to give Frodo the time and space to get 'er done and he came through like a champ in the end.
The Democrats lately have demonstrated that they're about as meek as they come, but I hope they can find as much balls as the Hobbits to do what needs to be done. Edwards ain't exactly Frodo, but perhaps he'll do.
Nearly 1,300 words into Sunday's New York Timesarticle revealing new details of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, the lawyer for an AT&T engineer alleges that "within two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans’ phone usage.”
"9/11 changed everything" my ass. It sure was a good excuse to let them do what they were doing anyway, though, wasn't it?
And everything else Bush wanted to do as well that he was already planning to do, from expanding presidential power to starting his criminal Oil War. Makes ya kinda wonder...
Even President Bush weighed in: "My hope is that this report is a part of putting the steroid era of baseball behind us." That's his administration and all Republicans in a nutshell. Whether it's a phony war, real torture, or spying on U.S. citizens, Jeez, don't put it in FRONT of anyone. Are you crazy?
Went to a Christmas market yesterday evening by train in a beautiful little town called Deidesheim. It was really cold but we had a good time. Shit, anytime Mrs. F can shop is a good time.
Me 'n Mrs. G just wrapped up what little Christmas shopping that we do, and while we were out I saw some fun stuff I thought I'd share.
At Joby's Music, which also does a fair imitation of a head shop in this day and age, where we got a record and some peace sign earrings for Mrs. G:
"Marilize Legauana"
On some holiday napkins at the best one-stop shopping spot in our little town, distinguished by the smell of fryin' plastic, this ditty which sums up the spirit of the season quite well, I think:
"On Dasher On Dancer On Master and Visa"
And at the candy store where we got a white chocolate truffle each to celebrate being over and done with the commercial end of Xmas for another year:
On Friday, Editor and Publisher of the American Bar Association Journal Edward Adams released a statement saying that fallen Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, previously named "Lawyer of the Year," will now be known as "Newsmaker of the Year."
"We appreciate the feedback we've received," says Adams, "and we're acting on it."
Heh. That's a nice way of saying "we got our ass handed to us over it".
A more apt award for Gonzales might be "Un-Indicted Co-Conspirator of the Year".
Moyers was interested in Olbermann’s “Special Comments,” which the MSNBC Countdown host says “became necessary” after former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld equated war opponents with Nazi appeasers.
“I [read] this ridiculous remark and I waited to see somebody respond to it,” he said. “And no one did. I’m thinking, well, you know, somebody with a platform ought to be talking about this. Somebody with a– with an avenue to respond should be– oh, yeah, I have a platform.”
As much as I enjoyed that show, i don't think these gentlemen should appear together very often. One well-placed round could wipe out the two most honest journalists in America, and we can't afford to take that chance.
Daddy Frank sounds off on Romney's cult, "The O Show", and the hugely undersung matter of race in the coming election. A 'recommended read'.
THIS campaign season has been in desperate need of its own reincarnation of Howard Beale from “Network”: a TV talking head who would get mad as hell and not take it anymore. Last weekend that prayer was answered when Lawrence O’Donnell, an excitable Democratic analyst, seized a YouTube moment (go see O'Donnell go off on the Mormon cult! - G) while appearing on one of the Beltway’s more repellent Sunday bloviathons, “The McLaughlin Group.”
I love 'The McLaughlin Group'! I call 'em 'The Shouters'. Usually it's Eleanor Clift (be still, my heart!) as the Voice of Sanity against the Forces of Darkness Buchanan and Blankley, moderated, if that's the right word, by curmudgeonly ex-priest McLaughlin. I've been missing it lately since both the PBS stations I get are kinda in a perma pledge drive and shine on this little show in favor of old rerun music from my youth. But I digress...
Pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. O’Donnell branded the speech “the worst” of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion, shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist faith.”
That claim just happens to be true. [...]
The answer is simple. Mr. Romney didn’t fight his church’s institutionalized apartheid, whatever his private misgivings, because that’s his character. Though he is trying to sell himself as a leader, he is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue.
On to The big O:
But Washington is nothing if not consistent in misreading this election. Even as pundits overstated the significance of “Faith in America,” so they misunderstood and trivialized the other faith-based political show unfolding this holiday season, “Oprahpalooza.” And with the same faulty logic.
“Church free” is the key. This country has had its fill of often hypocritical family-values politicians dictating what is and is not acceptable religious and moral practice. Instead of handing down tablets of what constitutes faith in America, Romney-style, the Oprah-Obama movement practices an American form of ecumenicalism. It preaches a bit of heaven on earth in the form of a unified, live-and-let-live democracy that is greater than the sum of its countless disparate denominations. The pitch — or, to those who are not fans, the shtick — may be corny. “The audacity of hope” is corny too. But corn is preferable to holier-than-thou, and not just in Iowa.
No shit.
For those Americans looking for the most unambiguous way to repudiate politicians who are trying to divide the country by faith, ethnicity, sexuality and race, Mr. Obama is nothing if not the most direct shot. After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of “Faith in America,” some Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself.
My goodness! That was damn near an endorsement!
As much as I like Bill Richardson, it doesn't look like he's getting much traction. He might be better doing something else anyway. or veep.
I'm startin' to lean toward Edwards. Hillary wants business as usual with Big Corpora, Obama wants to chat pleasantly with them as if that'll work to change the role of Big Money in our country, but so far only Edwards wants to take them on for the evil they are and do by standing in the way of progress for Americans on a wide range of profit-generating issues.
Edwards is a lot nicer about it than I am. When I'm Benign Emperor Of All That's Good, I'd start with an air strike on K Street, followed by an infantry assault and a roundup of lobbyists, CEOs, etc., who would be treated to an unusual (for them) and well-deserved expenditure of taxpayers' money - plane rides to exotic places followed by motivational chats of my own devising which would be fully legal under present administration guidelines.
Here and unpacked. Going to bed now and I'm not waking up until morning to try and sleep off this jetlag. More from me tomorrow. My outstanding nephew set up a wireless connection in the house so blogging will be regular. Yay!!!
None of the GOP presidential hopefuls are supported above a level of about 23 percent according to polls released by New York Times and CBS News. Mitt Romney's dilemma typifies the party's dilemma. Romney, a Mormon, must get the religious extremist vote to get the nomination. If he gets it, he risks losing the White House. The GOP is now paying for having made a Faustian pact with religious right and other extremists.
Having accused the GOP of mass insanity on numerous occasions, I would venture that the GOP is down to its base of some 23 percent: nut cases, religious fanatics, and other right wing extremists, a GOP base that is 180 degrees out of phase with the rest of the populuation, the principles of our founding, common sense, decency. The fanatics represent the party's hard core which finds in George Bush's failures, his only successes. I am increasingly confident that sane folk will call them what they truly are. Abysmal, miserable failures.
The GOP will lose against any Democratic candidate because it is unprepared to condemn what Bush has done to the nation. No GOP candidate is prepared to tell the truth: George W. Bush is a traitor to the US and its Constitution. Nevertheless, this miserable excuse for a party should pay the price for having supported the overthrow of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and our every international obligation since George Washington.
There ought to be a price to be paid for having been criminal, stupid, and arrogant! Fuck the GOP!
Substantially Inconveniencing the U.S. Government?
Happening over in Portland (Oregon) . . . while protesting some time ago at a military recruiter office, this unlikely small group of protesters left their hand prints, red hand prints on the outside window (tempera paint). The case was tried in Multnomah County court.
Four grandmothers and a grandfather handcuffed by police and jailed for leaving red hand prints on the window of a military recruiting center have been acquitted of criminal mischief charges. A Multnomah County jury deliberated for just 30 minutes Thursday after a two-day trial before acquitting the four grandmothers and one grandfather of criminal mischief with the intent to substantially inconvenience the U.S. government.
The defendants, all in their 60s and 70s, are part of a local protest movement called the Seriously Pissed Off Grannies.
A couple of observations:
1 .) What a fucking idiot of a a prosecutor this ' Deputy District Attorney Seth Steward' is for attempting to paint these 'Seriously Pissed Off Grannies' as analogous with suicide bombers.
2.) Which may very be why some of the jurors reportedly thought the trial and all was "waste of time & public resources" taking 30 minutes to come up with the verdict - 28 of those 30 minutes spent discussing the asinineness of the prosecutor.
Since I'll be on an autobahn somewhere between Frankfurt and the French border tomorrow morning, I figured I'd post my weekly chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta at The Practical Press today.
And I just wanted to add this I saw while cruising Blogtopia (y!sctp!) earlier. For all you folks who think Huckabee has the market cornered on 'moral values'.
"If not for Mike Huckabee, Wayne Dumond would've been in prison, and Carol Sue would've been with us this year for Christmas."
We're leaving for Germany tomorrow so I got a buncha shit to do between now and then. Hopefully, I'll be posting when I get over there and you'll meet my crazy family. As always, Gord's got the keys until I get back. Don't give the old man any shit. Heh ...
Swell. Now what? Those fuckers'll just shine it on like they do everything involving sanity or rule of law.
Note to Senate Judiciary Committee: You want these assholes to respect what you say? Bench warrants, U.S. Marshals, handcuffs, orange clothes. And don't forget the TV cameras.
Also, give thanks that women don't have to put on that many layers of clothing anymore and we don't have to talk them out of them in the back seat of an old Olds...
RIP Ike, and as for Anna Mae, you betta sing these songs the way I tell you to sing 'em, you betta sing this shit like yo' mothafuckin' LIFE depended on it...
Kucinich's campaign said today he has been excluded because "his Iowa field director operates from a home office rather than a rented storefront." The campaign quoted newspaper editor Carolyn Washburn as saying, "It was our determination that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa."
'Home offices' are absolutely legitimate. I think the real reason the Register is excluding Denny is a TV time thing.
The campaign also notes that Kucinich is the top-ranked candidate in online polls conducted by Democracy For America and Progressive Democrats of America and both groups plan to advertise for him.
What do you think? Should Kucinich get an invitation? Should Mike Gravel get an invitation? Was it right to include Keyes in today's debate? We welcome your (polite, civil and thoughtful) comments.
Hell yes, Kucinich and Gravel should be invited! They're not going to win anything - they're too liberal and too smart and too honest - but they add a little common sense to the main panderpalooza of 30-second sound bites that are being called 'debates'.
Keyes? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sure, the more of those Repug clowns on stage, the better. I get this visual of all the candidates arriving together and climbing out of a Yugo. Mr. Keyes exits last and leaves his chauffeur's cap on the seat...
Dr.J on Romney's "freedom is religion" mis-speech:
I have been a skier for close to 50 years. For the first 30 of those I skied in the Northeast, where I live. For the last 20 or so, I have been lucky enough to be able to ski in the Colorado Rockies, mainly at Breckenridge. I am occasionally asked if I have ever skied in Utah (which does have excellent skiing, so I am told). "No," I reply, hoping to be jocular, "I don't ski in theocracies." Well, now I know that I wasn't being funny.
The true intent of Romney's speech was not to deal with religious freedom, which in the American tradition is as much about the freedom from religion as about freedom of religion. For Romney, it is now quite clear, what he oddly calls "freedom" requires religious belief, that in his terms in turn requires belief in something he calls "God." He also makes it quite clear that if you don't believe in a Goddist form of "religion" as he defines it (no Buddhists allowed, apparently), you are not entitled to freedom.
This philosophy is the essence of theocracy: the melding of government and religion. It happens that it has always turned out that theocracy means government under a particular religion, with the formulation of that government's rules determined by what that particular religion says they should be. Contemporary examples are Islamic theocratic states such as (oh my, talk about irony) Iran and Saudi Arabia, with no "freedom" in the traditional American sense. Although this statement of Romney's surprises some, we should not be surprised. The most important thing about him, the element of him that in my view totally disqualifies him to be President of the United States, is that he grew up in a theocracy and obviously thinks that form of government and governing is the most natural thing in the world. Unusually for this classic flip-flopper on so many issues, on this one he is being entirely consistent. So why the spelling of his nickname above with only one "T?" Why on the belt buckle of every Nazi Wehrmacht soldier was the slogan: "Gott mit Uns."
The United States is not a theocracy, and it had better not become one as long as I am capable of pulling a trigger. If the Saints and the fundies want a religious war, they just need to keep going the way they're going.
You look into former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's eyes and those fuckers are spinning. Fast. Exactly how insane Huckabee may be has been the subject of discussion before, most notably in Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stonearticle on the Republican candidate and through his isolate-the-AIDS-plague-victims remarks and his "I ain't a primate" talk, but there's levels of bugfuckery in Huckabee that are so damn scary that Jesus must be wanting to make a special appearance just to say, "Whoa, whoa, don't let this nutsy fucker represent for me."
Here's a few insane tidbits:
No shit!
But here's some bottom line shit: Mike Huckabee was a low rent televangelist in Arkansas during the Reagan/Bush I era. You think in Texarkana in 1989 that the Southern Baptists would embrace anything less than a completely nutzoid preacherman? Motherfucker used to do tent revivals, was the President of the Arkansas Baptist Convention, and no less than one of the chiefest deranged Christians, Rick Scarborough, says, "I suggest that God may be sending us a lifeline. Who better to lead a nation nearing moral collapse and perhaps World War III than a president who is also a pastor with 10 years of senior executive experience as a governor?" And that should give us all the night sweats and explosive shits. When we finally see or read Huckabee's sermons from those early years, it's gonna be some hellfire and damnation.
Hell, though, Republicans, go ahead and nominate an apocalyptic sounding prick, one who believes we are in World War III, who is supported by Mr. Left Behind himself, who says of our current conflicts, "This is not like most wars and battles, which are fought over property or prosperity or personalities or even politics. At the heart of this is religion. But a perversion of religion. Islamic fascism is real, and the jihadists that have declared a war against us must be understood in the theological context in which this war is being waged." Religious war, man. Enjoy it all the way through the American Rapture.
I have nothing to add to this. Well, one thing - we may find out yet what "batshit crazy" really means if the Repugs are nuts enough to nominate this clown, let alone 'elect' him, and it will not be funny.
Gonzales named lawyer of the year by American Bar Association
"Think about Time magazine's Person of the Year," Adams said in an interview. "In years past they've named people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin. So we're not suggesting by these awards that these are the best lawyers in any sense of the word. We are saying they are the most newsworthy -- and perhaps also the best."
Other high-profile lawyers that were nominated for the distinction included Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House who quit in April amid the political firestorm; I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the leaked identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson; and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the top prosecutor in Chicago who won the case against Libby.
The Bush Administration was under court order not to discard evidence of detainee torture and abuse months before the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some of its harshest tactics. A White House spokesman yesterday said, "I can't live with myself anymore! I have to tell the truth! The official who insisted on destroying the all tapes was ---." The spokesman suddenly grabbed his neck, removed a poisoned dart from an African blowgun, and collapsed to the ground.
My theme so far today seems to be about religion. Our pal Shakey's Sis is going on about it as well. And, oh yeah, she's as pissed off as I am about the way it's stinkin' up our otherwise flawless (pukes on keyboard) political tomfoolery.
I mean, this is to what our national political dialogue has been reduced by these idiots. Rather than teasing out the flaws in Romney's policy platform, Huckabee instead impugns his character merely by accusing him of believing Jesus and Satan are brothers, because everyone knows that's way wackier than believing that Jesus is God's son but Satan is just a fallen angel!
Are you fucking kidding me?
So it doesn't really matter a fig to me whether Romney believes Jesus and Satan are brothers; I still know he's a disingenuous, opportunistic, integrity-challenged dodo. That Huckabee is trying to make it an issue only confirms that he is a brainless, ethically-impaired gobshite, hiding behind his religion because he's got nothing else to offer.
She goes on at length and you should go read.
In her 'comments':
Why aren't you writing in a major magazine?
I use the f word. Also: I have a vagina.
I use the f word too. I wonder if I could write as well as she does if I had a...but I digress, and just in time too!
You just keep doin' whatcher doin', sweetheart, and they'll bleep one out and bronze the other for the Hall of Fame.
They just can't help themselves, can they ? The Christmas spirit and religious bigotry, both eternal, are forever at odds but today's religious right dominated Republican Party seems to have gotten one confused for the other. That's not surprising, however, because the religious right of their day, the Puritans, started the Christian war on Christmas to advance the Puritan values of stinginess and religious bigotry, and the contemporary American GOP is sliding right back into that traditional groove. Somebody better call Bill O'Reilly - the war on Christmas has spread to the GOP. Or, maybe it started there.
At this point, Mr. Troutfishing goes into some detail on the Puritans, who, by the way, are with us yet.
After years of screwing up managing the US Federal Government and starting a disastrous and costly war, the GOP has, for once, gotten something right, sort of ;
The original American Christmas spirit was hatred of what we now know as Christmas, and by exemplifying the original, stingy and mean Puritan hatred of Christmas and the Christmas spirit the GOP's new House Resolution may represent a bold new front in the war, against Christmas, which has been languishing since the Puritans took off their hats and drab clothes, got off their hard wooden pews, and learned to enjoy life a little.
Maybe, for his next stunning act, Steve King can introduce a House Resolution calling for non-Christians to be pressed to death with rocks, children stoned to death for talking back to their parents, or dogs tried for witchcraft.
What's Christmas without a little gratuitous meanness ?
The whole "war on Christmas" deal is silly, but religious intolerance is not. I'm very tolerant of other people's beliefs, except of course Repuglicans, unless they're in my face about it or trying to pass laws to make me see things their way.
Note to religionists: practice any rituals you like short of molesting children. Just do it in private. Say anything you like in the public square about injustice and helping your fellow man, but STFU about politics or start paying taxes.
the sound you hear was skippy's ira going down the toilet. today the dow jones dropped almost 300 points after the federal reserve lowered interest rates by a mere 25 points (a quarter of one percent).
...
Hold on to your hats. It'll get worse in the new year.
Run, don't walk to buy Craig Unger's brilliant new book The Fall of the House of Bush. Forget about the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. Unger's subject is the war that really matters: the one between Islamic, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalists on one side, and the scientific (reality-based!) post-Enlightenment world that some of us still prefer to inhabit.
Yes, some of us still do.
From the interview:
BuzzFlash: In essence, what I'm saying is, why the Middle East? Is there another issue other than oil?
Craig Unger: There are two powerful reasons there. It has to do with oil and Israel.
So they saw Iraq as a beachhead from which the US could go after the crown jewel of the Middle East -- Iran. That way, Israel would be secure, and the US would have cozy oil deals with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran all in the Western camp. This was never about democratizing the Middle East -- if that were the case the neocons would have been screaming to overthrow the Saudis. It was about winning strategic dominance for the US throughout the entire region, with Israeli security and oil being the two great prizes.
Much more. All the usual suspects come under scrutiny. They're all guilty as well.
Interesting little article in The Nation about a chance encounter in a Boston hotel between the writer, 'Slam Dunk', and Gore Vidal as a result of a false fire alarm. A good quick read. He leaves us with a point to ponder:
[...] He told me it was a faulty smoke detector on the third floor. It had mistaken simple dust for smoke.
It's often that way with intelligence, confusing dust with smoke, and for the rest of us, not knowing when to heed the alarm and when to ignore it, a question that resonates well beyond the Charles Hotel. After so many false alarms, the system itself becomes suspect, and even after the "all clear," there really is no going back.
Obviously a metaphor for this administration, but to 'dust and smoke' he should have added 'mirrors'.
To this I add my own metaphor: there's always those sickos who pull the fire alarm just to see the pretty red fire engines come, and who get off on all the confusion and excitement, never caring that the firefighters might be called upon for a real emergency elsewhere. Just like Bush.
Progressive talk radio host Rachel Maddow “taped a pilot” recently for MSNBC, in which she teamed up with MSNBC prime time VP Bill Wolff. Maddow currently makes “irregular appearances on MSNBC.” According to TVNewser, there is “no word on if the pilot is being considered ready for take-off.”
Rachel has a doctorate in political science (she was a Rhodes Scholar) and a background in HIV/AIDS activism, prison reform, and other lefty rabblerousing.
She shakes a mean cocktail, drives a bright red pickup, hates Coldplay, loves arguing with conservatives, spends a lot of money on AMTRAK tickets, and dresses like a first-grader.
Let's hear it for lefty rabblerousing!
I didn't know she has a doctorate, but it doesn't surprise me. This gal is smart as a whip and extremely coherent and understandable when she speaks. I'm a huge fan.
MSNBC ain't stupid. They struck ratings gold with Keith Olbermann, and they moved Scarborough to the early morning hours where he can only do a minimum of damage, and replaced him with Dan Abrams who isn't doing too badly. Dr. Ms. Maddow will add another truth-teller to their lineup. I hope it works out.
Let's hope they can that Repug twit Carlson to make room for her.
Now the big question remains: What make of pickup does she drive? Enquiring minds want to know...
Not only are the 'contractors' robbing our treasury, they're raping their employees. This is what we've become:
So, apparently Halliburton isn't just pillaging the treasuries of Iraq and the US. Their mercenaries are allegedly raping their own female employees, with no repercussions ...
The closer I get to leaving, the more self-conscious I become about being an American and what that means to the rest of the world. I know I'm gonna get an earful when I get to Germany, deservedly so.
Distasteful as all the Bible thumping and ostentatious piety of the Republican presidential aspirants certainly are, the time may have come to address their religious pretensions directly, instead of turning away in mild disgust. For the truth is that no matter how often candidates like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee promise to uphold the Constitution and protect religious freedom, they are clearly seeking to impose the restrictive tests of faith that the nation's founders abhorred.
So if these two worthy gentlemen seek to exploit or extol their own faith, why should we bar ourselves from exploring the subject more deeply? They have invited a discussion of the sublime and the absurd in their religious doctrines, and of how those doctrines would influence them in office. We have already seen the destruction inflicted on America and the world by a dogmatic chief executive who believes that God urged him to wage war. (And let's not forget that Rudolph Giuliani, among others, has echoed the notion that President Bush was divinely chosen and inspired.)
At this point Mr. Conason explores the subject more deeply. Go see.
Phonies like Huckabee and Romney (my em) complain constantly about the supposed religious intolerance of secular liberals. But the truth is that liberals -- including agnostics and atheists -- have long been far more tolerant of religious believers in office than the other way around. They helped elect a Southern Baptist named Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1976, and today they support a Mormon named Harry Reid who is the Senate majority leader -- which makes him the highest-ranking Mormon officeholder in American history. Nobody in the Democratic Party has displayed the slightest prejudice about Reid's religion.
I'm not prejudiced against anybody's religion, but I am prejudiced against the way people speak and act. Out amongst us 'gentiles' they keep a lid on it pretty much, but on their home turf, AKA 'Utah', Mormons are arrogant insufferable pricks, at least the few I've come in contact with.
I will illustrate with a personal experience. Quite a few years ago, I went over to Delta UT to compete in the Cherry Creek Hare 'n Hound desert motorcycle race. It was held at the Little Sahara Recreation Area, and had the deepest sand I've ever seen. I got buried in it to the point I couldn't see my rear wheel, which actually came in handy as it put the carburetor at a more convenient height to strip it and clean the sand out of it which had stuck it at full throttle. Believe me, when you slam the throttle shut and the bike continues at full speed, that's pucker power! The sand got in my chain so bad that it effectively turned it into one piece and snapped one of the chain adjusters, cocking the rear wheel so it was pointed in a slightly different direction than the front one. At this point, my race was over and I limped back about twenty miles to the pit area.
I was whupped. I sat on the tailgate of my pickup and drank an ice cold beer which was really nice. At this point a person with a cowboy hat on, whom I can only assume was a Mormon, wandered by and commented disdainfully,
"Are ya drunk yet?"
I needed that like another itchy asshole and it has colored my view of Mormons ever since, for right or for wrong.
Liberals and progressives have no apologies to make, or at least no more than libertarians and conservatives do. Cherishing the freedoms protected by a secular society need not imply any disrespect for religion. But when candidates like Romney and Huckabee press the boundaries of the Constitution to promote themselves as candidates of faith, it is time to push back.
I don't care much about Romney. He's all flip-floppin' vinyl and hairspray. If it comes out that he made most of his money by asset-stripping and putting people out of work, it'll just be the frosting on the cake. He doesn't stand much of a chance of being nominated, let alone being president, and that's good.
Huckabee is a different story. His aw-shucks bullshit is appealing to fundies and a lot of gullible christians who aren't. I don't think he's got much of a chance of becoming president either, but I have to say that, with his Jesus-buried-the-dinosaurs-6000-years-ago beliefs, he's the most dangerous of all the Repug candidates. He's a true evangelical fundie. I was gonna ask for the Lord to call him home and save us all, but He doesn't need phonies like that either. Let's hope we don't get stuck with him, in the White House and up our butts both.
Excellent 'must read' Tomgram by Steve Fraser. Disquieting and heartening at the same time.
Will the presidential election of 2008 mark a turning point in American political history? Will it terminate with extreme prejudice the conservative ascendancy that has dominated the country for the last generation? No matter the haplessness of the Democratic opposition, the answer is yes.
Mr. Fraser describes a few teeny-tiny problems we are going to be living with for a while, thank you George and the Repugs. Iraq, the abtogation of the Constitution, the coming Depression, stuff like that.
All signs are ominous. The credibility and legitimacy of the old order operate now at a steep discount. Most telling and fatal perhaps is the paralysis spreading into the inner councils at the top. Faced with dire predicaments both at home and abroad, they essentially do nothing except rattle those sabers, captives of their own now-bankrupt ideology. Anything, many will decide, is better than this.
Or will they? What if the opposition is vacillating, incoherent, and weak-willed -- labels critics have reasonably pinned on the Democrats? Bad as that undoubtedly is, I don't think it will matter, not in the short run at least.
There's an old blues song about "been down so long, it looks like up to me". Up is the Dems. Scary, but anything is better than what's been going on under the Repugs. File that last sentence under "Famous Last Words" or "Watch This!".
Yet the New Deal followed. And not only the New Deal, but an era of social protest, including labor, racial, and farmer insurgencies, without which there would have been no New Deal or Great Society. May something analogous happen in the years ahead? No one can know. But a door is about to open.
If I could predict what is going to happen tomorrow I would be down at the Race & Sports book with my life savings. I can't, but I welcome whatever comes as long as the door slams shut on the criminal regime currently in power and its enablers.
Although as soon as we saw this, my wife looked at me the way a mother would when she knows her little kid is up to something. My response: "You know I wasn't in Philly this weekend." My parents woulda killed me. Heh ...
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Everything was relatively normal about the event until shortly before 11 a.m.. That's when authorities say an employee's child hit a button that said "don't hit button unless in an emergency". The button triggered the fire suppression system, filling the hanger [sic] with foam.
You know, it's past time we stopped giving people a pass for not criticizing this stuff from day one. We are rapidly approaching the day when this all will be counted out, and we will have to rebuild the world after the Bush years, and in that accounting, I don't really want to start handing out cookies for people who spoke up once it became clear there would be no real repercussions.
Because the minute we say it's okay to refrain, in the immediate aftermath of some terrible event, from speaking up, that's the minute we make another Bush era possible. It can't be okay, not even temporarily, not even when there will be those who call it treasonous, it can't be okay to ever look the other way while America tortures people in secret prisons. I don't care how "politically painful" it is for them. I don't care, because it's not like it wasn't blindingly obvious to everybody by like week two that every asshole with an R after his name was gonna use this to brand all Democrats as spineless pussies, it's not like we didn't know about the supposed political pain, that it was gonna come no matter what. [my em]
...
Indeed. The deal with 'doing the right thing' is to do it from jump street, not just when it's politically 'safe' or expedient.
Why we shouldn't march on the White House and the Capitol, drag 'em all out, string 'em up from the light poles, and start from scratch?
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
...
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
...
Avedon, from whom I stole the link, quotes our pal Lambert:
So, let's be clear: for eleven billion dollars more in domestic spending, House Democrats are willing to waste hundreds of billions more on the disastrous war in Iraq. Not to mention, you know- lives. Perhaps it should occur to them that there would be a helluva lot more for domestic spending if we weren't busily bankrupting ourselves in Iraq. Not to mention, you know- lives.
I'm sure it will come as great comfort to our troops, the families and friends of our troops, and the Iraqi people that we'll have more money for domestic spending. Certainly, their lives are worth it. Or something.
Fixer's got the right idea today with two excellent R&B numbers. I'll add a couple from one of my favorite genres, but first let's get the political news outta the way:
1. Bush is a lyin' sack o' crap
2. The Repugs are a buncha perverts, criminals, warmongers, and general all-around nogoodniks
Ho-hum, yawn, nothin' new. On to the good shit.
It should come as no surprise that I'm a fan of the Eagles. It was required for California citizenship a few (!!?) years back. Here's "How Long?" from their new album Long Road Out Of Eden, their first in 28 years. This song is nominated for a Grammy and is getting radio airplay. They have a video in rotation on some of the oddball TV programs I watch, but this is a performance at the Country Music Awards:
Frey and Henley can still write 'em and belt 'em out, Walsh can still pick 'em, Schmit's good on bass, and all of 'em make great harmony. 'Nuff said. Olde Fartes (lctp) Rule!
Since I seem to be in Eagles mode, here's a song the title of which is the best advice I can give you, "Take It Easy". Embedded in the tune is the second-best advice I can give you - "watch out for girls in flatbed Fords!". Seems like the guys forgot to color their hair gray for this one...
Later.
Update:
I tried to snag this one by The Derailers for you, but the embedding was disabled. Check it out.
Light blogging today. We got about a foot plus of snow overnight. I've already got about an hour in clearing it enough to get Mrs. G launched to work, and, of all days, I have a routine eye doc appointment in a coupla hours, so I got a whole 'nuther truck to uncover and another path to clear. Hey, some folks pay big money to come play in the snow, but it comes to me!
We really needed snow. There are thousands of ski area employees that until today have had nothing to do except hang out on the street corners wonderin' where they're gonna get rent money. Also, the weeping and wailing of the merchants, who have had no skiers and other winter visitors to fill their coffers, has been keeping me awake nights. And I'm a mile from the nearest one.
Late for work but I had to post this. I can't remember the last time I agreed with Andy Sullivan (mostly) so I had to post this:
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This administration commits war-crimes, hides the evidence from federal law officers and the 9/11 Commission and then destroys the evidence completely. Give that some time to sink in.
[A South Carolina farm wife called the local phone company to report her telephone failed to ring when her friends called--and that on the few occasions when it did ring, her dog always moaned right before the phone rang.
The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog and/or senile lady. He climbed a telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring right away, but then the dog moaned and the telephone began to ring.
Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found: 1. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground wire with a steel chain and collar. 2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose. 3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the number was called. 4. After a couple of jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate. 5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.
Which demonstrates that some problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning. Just Thought you'd like to know.]
President Bush changed the way he talked about Iran in August: He stopped making explicit assertions about the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Bush yesterday said he was only briefed about the new estimate last week.
But a close examination of his word choice over the past year suggests that he learned something around August that got him to stop making claims that were apparently no longer supported by American intelligence.
Instead of directly condemning Iranian leaders for pursuing nuclear weapons, he started more vaguely accusing them of seeking the knowledge necessary to make such a weapon.
As he did that, he and the vice president accelerated their rhetorical efforts to persuade the public that the nuclear threat posed by Iran was grave and urgent. Bush even went so far in late August and October as to warn of the potential for a nuclear holocaust.
Indeed, a careful parsing of Bush's words indicates that, while not saying anything that could later prove to be demonstrably false, Bush left his listeners with what he likely knew was a fundamentally false impression. And he did so in the pursuit of a more muscular and possibly even military approach to a Middle Eastern country.
It's an oddly familiar pattern of deception.
Blogger Josh Marshall examines Bush's wording at that press conference and notes: "It's no longer the need to prevent the Iranians from getting the bomb. Now it's the necessity of 'preventing them from hav[ing] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.'
"That's the tell.
"That change is no accident. He wants claims that will survive the eventual revelation of this new intelligence -- while also continuing to hype the imminence of the Iranian nuclear threat that his spy chiefs are telling him likely does not exist."
Much, much more. Please go read. Froomkin manages to nicely cram ten pounds of Bush's lies into a five-pound sack.
Arab-American paratrooper faces deportation after Afghan service
A highly decorated Arab-American sergeant in the US army, who is currently serving as a paratrooper in Afghanistan, faces deportation on his return to the United States because of an irregularity in his immigration papers.
Benkabbou came to the US from his native Morocco in 1987, and was granted permanent residency four years ago. But when he applied to become a naturalised US citizen in 2005 - by which time he was already serving in the army - immigration officials discovered that he had failed to register his first marriage and alleged that the ceremony had been arranged fraudulently to get him into the country.
The aggressive prosecution of the case has surprised immigration lawyers who point to a directive that advises officials against pressing to deport acting military personnel unless they have been involved in drug trafficking, crimes against children or violence, or unless they pose a danger to the public.
Benkabbou's irregularity over his marriage falls into no such categories.
His lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, Paul Ford, said the only explanation he could find was that his client was a Muslim, "which sets off all the buzzers. There is no question that Arab-Americans are given a totally different treatment."
Ford said that Benkabbou had been accused of being a terrorist by officials from the immigration enforcement agency, ICE. "In court, ICE lawyers called Morocco a terrorist country, which I found astonishing."
It seems Immigration can't do anything about the alleged 12,000,000 illegal immigrants in this country, but their eagle-eyed pencil-pushers seem to have plenty of time to fuck with a serving US Army Sergeant who has served honorably in a war zone over a little glitch in his papers. Ask him to explain? Nooooo - try him with an eye toward deportation. After all, an ARAB with a supposed anomaly in his paperwork FOR 20 YEARS must be a deep-plant terrorist. Also, I wouldn't doubt that a paratrooper might have knowledge of firearms and explosives. Yep, terrorist.
Those fucking morons.
I'll bet this gets ironed out before it goes to trial. The Immigration idiot who came up with this brain fart is picking the flyshit outta the pepper, but it's indicative of an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim mindset that needs to be dealt with. Maybe some national leadership would help. Yeah, like that'll happen any time soon.
Just as an aside, as I was preparing to do this post, I went to get a cup of coffee and I was gone long enough that my 'My Pictures' screensaver came on. When I got back to my set, there was my favorite paratrooper Lurch grinning at me. It was like "Death From Above" gave me a blessing.
Bonus: Check out Sergeant Benkabbou's Unit History.
A little girl with pigtails in a pink dress has an Israeli soldier standing spread-eagle against a wall as she frisks him for weapons.
Down the street, an Israeli soldier has stopped a donkey and is checking his ID.
Nearby, a large rat holding a slingshot looks as if he is prepared to launch a few stones at Israel's towering concrete wall separating Bethlehem from Israel.
Welcome to Santa's Ghetto, a new artistic/political collaboration led by the celebrated/infamous/mysterious British artist known as Banksy.
This year, Banksy returned with an artistic posse and decided to bring Santa's Ghetto to Bethlehem as a way to highlight the political situation.
Last Saturday Fixer posted the most viewed bad landing in history, with a little blurb on how Evel Knievel inspired him to do foolish things which, thankfully, Fixer survived. Newsweek expands on that a little, including a video of a jump that actually succeeded, like most of them did.
If you're a man of a certain age, then you spent a lot of Sunday afternoons building ramps and wearing capes and trying to be the first on the block to jump over your labrador retriever. Or maybe you spent some time in an emergency room because your banana seat bike--the one with the sparkly flag seat--almost made it from the roof of the garage to the cow pond. When it was all over and the stitches were in place and the arms set, your mom had one man to blame: Robert Craig Knievel, Jr., aka, "Evel Knievel," every 12-year-old boy's man crush, circa 1974.
I'm a little older than that, so I wasn't tempted to do crazy shit like that, but I sure enjoyed the shit out of Evel Knievel.
Evel is now considered the 'father' of extreme sports. One of the big deals these days is the mid-air loop-the-loop on a motorcycle. It takes a pair to do that, sure, but I'd love to see the kids try it on a 650 Triumph or a Harley-Davidson XR750 like Evel jumped. Heh...
Go watch a few minutes of the movie and the poor quality will inspire you to go rent it.
Perhaps we need to start asking ourselves not only why so many conservative Republicans are perverts and hypocrites, but why they are so drawn to politics as a profession? I had always thought that a good number of the pedophiles who joined the priesthood did because they knew it was safe. Who would ever suspect the moralistic and sexually conservative church? Is it possible that perverts and hypocrites are joining Republican politics for the same reason?
Digby documents yet another Rethug going to jail for molesting little kids. I tell ya, over the last few years I've lost count of how many of these guys have been busted. Hell, even the term "wide-stance" has made it into the blogger lexicon. WTF? Crooks, racists, and pedophiles; your Republican Party for the 21st Century. Why we haven't deemed the whole damn party a criminal organization by now is beyond me. The Mafia is jealous.
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And just an unrelated note: My blogging will be iffy from now until next week, I think. We're leaving for Germany next Friday and we're scrambling to tie up a buncha loose ends before we go. I'm almost certain I'll have a connection to the intarweb tubes over there (or I'll steal my nephew's computer) so I should be in contact when I get there. And if you all think I'm fucked up, wait until you meet my family. Heh ...
From a piece at Media Matters on the whining, moaning, bitching, complaining, snivelling, and blaming what passes for 'media' of wingnut bloggers about the presidential 'debates':
These GOP bloggers are so afraid of democracy that they spend their days and nights blaming the press for allowing it to take place.
Yeah, the wingnut pansies would get rid of it if they could. News flash: Try as they might, they're not going to pull it off. Period.
Folks, between the NIE deal and Rove's outrageous lies, this shit is just too easy. I'm having a great week and I hope you are too. I never thought it would be this much fun watching the whole Repug/neocon/war an' fearmongerin'/lyin' sack o' crap regime come apart at the seams! Heh.
Go ahead and click. Even if he throws that coat open, it won't be any bigger!
Wasn't there a New York Mafioso a few years ago who went around drooling and babbling so the law would think he was crazy and not fuck with him? It didn't work for him and it ain't gonna work for Turdblossom either.
Digby's got a good piece on the NIE and the neocons, sums up good in two quotes:
It's a very useful rule of thumb in foreign affairs to simply assume that the neocons are wrong no matter what, because they are always wrong about everything. [...]
The real question is why anyone ever takes them seriously about anything.
I think the answer to that one lies in the fact that they will call you a traitor if you don't agree with their insanity, and the press & pundits can't take it, so they give them moral equivalence to people whose views should actually count for something, and the attendant pulpit of air time to spread their shit. Cowards. A coupla schoolyard lessons the highly-paid gasbags apparently never learned are a) stand up for your principles (assuming you have any), and b) laugh at a bully and then hit him back harder than he hit you. When you go into a fight never ever worry about what might happen to you. Concentrate entirely on what you are going to do to prevail.
Update:
Scholars & Rogues on Giuliani adviser (proving once and for all that Rudy is out of his fuckin' mind) Podhoretz' views on the intel weenies in the wake of the NIE:
In essence, it seems to me that Mr. Podhoretz sought to lob a very large grenade at those responsible for the NIE. Unfortunately, like a certain cartoon coyote we all know, he seems to have lobbed the pin instead.
Heh. I can just see those huge white eyeballs with their little teeny pupils staring out forlornly from a blackened smoking neocon...
The Rude Pundit breaks out the 'tater squeezins fer the Chimp's press conference:
10:05: First question and it's right into the National Intelligence Estimate on how Iran ain't buildin' nukes. Bush says, "We know that they're still trying to learn how to enrich uranium, we know that enriching uranium is an important step in a country whose desire is to..." Holy Christ, we're down to Iran gaining knowledge as a way of defining their evil evilness? He views the report as a warning signal that they could "restart" the program. Man, he's got no enthusiasm for this Iran discussion. It's like he thrust his hard-on in Laura's face and she just slapped that Vienna sausage out of her way.
10:09: David Gregory is going for Bush's nutsack: Are you hyping the Iranian threat? "I was made aware of the NIE last week." Apparently, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell didn't tell Bush what the new information was, just that there was new information. What the fuck? Is he the goddamn President or the low girl on the text message circle about whether or not the new hot boy at school is gay?
10:11: Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge to make a weapon, he reiterates. What the fuck does that even mean? No, really, what the fuck?
10:12: George W. Bush giving advice on how the world can remain peaceful is not unlike a lion with gum disease telling an antelope to slow the fuck down so they can just talk.
10:22: If you're keeping your vodka in the freezer, a handy tip is to make sure that the cap is tight on the bottle. Otherwise, any odors in there will get into the taste. You could also keep your freezer clean.
10:24: Bush is talking about the old days of mortgages like everyone had the power to go to the bank to re-negotiate rates. Which was awesome if you were white and middle class in 1962.
10:28: Disturbing things you never want to hear your President say: "Here's why it's hard."
I gave up vodka a while back. Now I think I'm hooked on bleach...
10:36: Disturbing things you never want to hear your President say, part 2: On the campaign plane, "My friend Candy Crowley passed a virus around."
'Nuther slug o' Clorox...
Whoa, methinks he just stormed off. Angry that the reporters would dare think he's not been working to make sure their families are not nuked by non-existent Iranian weapons. Don't we get it? He's right. Everyone else in the world and in half of his administration and Congress is wrong. And if we can't see his innate rightness, then we can all go fuck ourselves.
Now, someone tell the Rude Pundit why anyone anywhere should trust this man?
Due to not enough bandwith in the Universe to answer that, I'll just assume it was a rhetorical question.
This was gonna happen. Thanks to the lying and obfuscating by this government, the insane Persian nitwit is crowing like a rooster at sunrise:
TEHRAN, Iran - A new U.S. intelligence review concluding Iran stopped developing an atomic weapons program in 2003 is a "declaration of victory" for Iran's nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday.
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What can we say? Yes, our President is a lying, war-mongering moron? True to form though, this administration pulls something out of its ass:
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[SECSTATE] Rice declined to respond to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remark, but told reporters in the Ethiopian capital that the public release of the National Intelligence Estimate showed the Bush administration was committed to transparent democracy, while Iran was not.
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Yup, gotta love that transparent democracy. When was the NIE supposed to be released? February?
It's a very useful rule of thumb in foreign affairs to simply assume that the neocons are wrong no matter what, because they are always wrong about everything.
...
Because now that the NIE is out, they're all screaming it's an anti-Bush plot by the CIA.
I think the pshrinks have a name for this. Paranoid-schizophrenia.
Here’s my best guess: facing open revolt from the Joint Chiefs of Staff against any offensive military move against Iran (because the military is already stretched to the breaking point), Bush found himself in a pickle. For months he’s been pushing the Iran bogeyman. How could he back out now? The NIE was his ticket out.
There are some links and 19 responses so far at the site. The following one is kinda what I was thinking:
Finally, someone was getting ready to leak the truth and the “Administration” had to beat them to the punch or have it look even worse than it does. He wouldn’t care about rebellion behind the scenes, it would just mean more people retiring to “have more family time”.
Their House of Lies is falling in on them and these cockroaches are running for cover.
We may never really know, but it's good that the NIE is out. There's no shame, embarrassment, or admission of mistakes or wrongdoing in this administration, so they'll just spin the shit out of this like they do everything else. Lies upon lies.
Perhaps their plans to deepen the hole they've got us into are slowed a little. Assuming (Ha!) they plan to leave office according to the Law (Ha!), we're playing for time now. Run, clock, run!
Democrats Responsible For Entire Disastrous Bush Administration Reign, Says Rove
Usually I try to post the best snarky shit on Mondays. So much for Plan A. From Opinions You Should Have:
Rove went on to say that if voters wanted a change from the disastrous Bush years, they'd have to vote Republican. "It's sad how these Democrats mishandled the Bush Presidency."
Rove also blamed Bill Clinton for having "come before" Bush. "It's just awful the way Clinton directly preceded him," said Rove.
Much more.
Note to Turdblossom: You got caught lyin' big time this time. Even your accomplices, truly accomplished professional liars all, are dumpin' on you. Go away now.
Update:
Note to Turdblossom deux: It dawns on me that you're just making these outrageous claims, AKA 'lies', to try to sell books. Well, boy-o, an awful lot of folks in this country hate you and would like to see you in jail just on general principles. They're not going to put any money in your pocket. The folks who think you're a great man won't buy them because they can't read. So what you can do with the unsold print run is, what won't fit up your ass will taste a lot better boiled, with some peppers, onions, and garlic, maybe a little ketchup. Eat hearty, asshole.
I've said it many times, most recently yesterday, businesses can't be trusted to regulate themselves. At least now the Dems are looking into the credit industry, something the Rethugs, who are beneficiaries of Big Bank, failed to do:
WASHINGTON - Some members of Congress are denouncing credit card industry practices that include raising interest rates for customers whose credit ratings decline, even if they make their card payments on time.
Industry critics say it's one more example of abusive, confusing practices that can push consumers deeper into debt.
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Of course they're confusing. It's what allows the industry to get away with so much. Most of the people charged with overseeing these clowns don't even understand how some of these 'creative vehicles' work.
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In March, the subcommittee focused on complex billing and interest-rate practices, such as charging interest on balances paid on time but not in full, and so-called double-cycle billing _ which eliminates the interest-free period of consumers who move from paying the full balance monthly to carrying a balance.
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I learned something a long time ago. In this day and age, a credit card is a requirement, there's so much you can't do unless you have one. That said, pay attention to the terms before you get one. If they send you one without you asking (you're preapproved!) don't take it. Getting a credit card shouldn't be a chance happening between you and the fourth-class mail. Shop for a card the same way you do with everything else. Read the fine print especially.
Don't have a million cards. It's not free money. Use Amex if you can; another rule of thumb I use is that if I can't pay the bill in full when it comes, I don't charge it (there are exceptions but it's a general rule). If you can only make the minimum payments, don't use the card unless it's an emergency, or keep it only for emergencies.
Maxing your cards out for Christmas presents when you can only afford to pay the minimums will keep you on the credit cycle, digging you a deeper and deeper hole. You won't have this year's 'Christmas Cheer' paid off by the time next Christmas rolls around and guess what? The cycle begins all over again but you're starting out in a hole the next time.
The credit industry is predatory and you're the prey. Use your credit with that in the forefront of your mind. In nature, the weak and infirm are the ones that don't survive and it's the same way with credit. The subprime mess should give you a clear picture of how the industry works. The card companies (just like the mortgage lenders) don't give a shit if you can afford the credit you're asking for. All they care about is getting you 'on the books'. It's up to you to determine what you can and can't afford. They might be happy to give you a card, or mortgage, but they're gonna crawl up your ass and stay there if you can't pay.
I know a buncha folks whose earnings fall in the six figure range and are hanging on by their fingernails because they're mortgaged, or use credit cards, to the hilt. People who should know better, people who should be aware of the pitfalls. Be careful out there when you navigate the credit jungle. It doesn't take much (sudden illness, loss of a job, divorce) to push you from the black into the red. Until there is some regulation of their business practices, the only one looking out for you will be you.
A new US intelligence report indicates that Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program four years ago -- but the White House on Monday nevertheless urged global powers to "turn up the pressure" on the country.
The new NIE represents a change from two years ago, when US intelligence agencies believed Tehran was determined to develop a nuclear capability and was continuing its weapons development program. A 2005 report stated that Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure."
"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," states the summary of the new NIE, according to AP.
Developing...
If you think this is going to deter or stop that mono-fuckin'-maniac Cheney from his plans to attack Iran, think again. It might slow him down a little at best, but time is running out for him to do it. Unless of course this administration thinks it has all the time it needs if there's no election in November.
This is one more of their lies coming to light from within their own administration. Impeach the bastards NOW.
It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies. -- Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth
1. "And Adam knew his wife; and she conceived." This is the first sexual intercourse mentioned in the Bible. 4:1
OK, it starts out a little slow. Read on. We're gettin' to some serious porn and real Repug moral values pretty soon.
14. Lot and his daughters camp out in a cave for a while. The daughters get their "just and righteous" father drunk, and have sexual intercourse with him, and each conceives and bears a son (wouldn't you know it!). Just another wholesome family values Bible story. 19:30-38
I think that biblical passage must be a particular favorite in the South...
19. Jacob is tricked by Laban, the father of Rachel and Leah. Jacob asks for Rachel so that he can "go in unto her." But Laban gives him Leah instead, and Jacob "went in unto her [Leah]" by mistake. Jacob was fooled until morning -- apparently he didn't know who he was going in unto. Finally they worked things out and Jacob got to "go in unto" Rachel, too. 29:21-30
21. Jacob finally gets to "go in unto" Rachel. He loved Rachel more than Leah. 29:30
32. Joseph swears by putting his hand under Jacob's thigh -- a euphemism for holding his testicles in his hand. 47:29
And that was just in Genesis!
Well, so far there's been a lot of homosexuality, incest, rape, homosexual incestuous rape, God-sex with old women (Whee! It's a miracle!), daisy chains and swinging, and not a whole lot of marital straight sex. Now I think I understand the Christian Right a little better. No wonder they think the Bible is literally true - that's their real life! AKA "The Truth That Dare Not Be Spoken". That "not speaking the truth" shit carries over into every facet of their oh-ever-so-much-more-moral-than-thou phony christian lives as well. Like Twain said, "Upward of a thousand lies".
Greg Palast, one of a very few REAL journalists, on the recent elections in Venezuela. A good read.
Bush: If it’s our oil, why do Venezuelans get to vote on it?
The Family Bush can fix Florida. They can fix Ohio. But it’s just driving them crazy that they can’t fix the vote in Venezuela.
Why is the Bush crew so bonkers about Hugo? Is it because Venezuela sits on the world’s largest reserve of coconuts?
Like Operation Iraqi Liberation (”OIL”) - it’s all about the crude, dude. And lots of it. The US Department of Energy documents I obtained indicate that the guys holding Bush’s dipstick figure that Venezuela is sitting on 1.36 trillion barrels of crude, five times the reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Chavez’ continuing tenure means that Venezuelans’ huge supply of oil will now be in the hands of … Venezuelans!
I guess I shoulda warned ya about the "holding Bush's dipstick" crack. Sorry about that. I'm recycling my bleach these days since I'm using so much of it to delete visuals what with the all the Repug scandals, but I'll let ya pour some of it in yer ear...
Big Oil has better ideas for Venezuela, best expressed in several Wall Street Journal articles attacking Chavez for spending his nation’s oil wealth on “social programs” rather than on more drilling platforms to better fill the SUVs of Texas.
Chavez has committed other crimes in Washington’s eyes. Not only has this uppity brown man spent Venezuela’s oil wealth in Venezuela, he withdrew $20 billion from the US Federal Reserve. Weirdly, Venezuela’s previous leaders, though the nation was dirt poor, lent billions to the US Treasury on crap terms. Chavez has said, Basta! to this game, and has called for keeping South America’s capital in … South America! Oh, no!
Oh, and did I mention that Chavez told Exxon it had to pay more than a 1% royalty to his nation on the heavy crude the company extracted?
And that’s why they have to kill him. In 2002, The New York Times sickeningly applauded the coup d’etat against Chavez. But that failed. Therefore, as the electorate of Venezuela is obstinately refusing to vote as Condi Rice tells them, there’s only one solution left for democracy-loving Bush-niks, the view express out loud by our President’s spiritual advisor, Pat Robertson:
“We have this enemy to our south controlling a huge pool of oil. Hugo Chavez thinks we’re trying to assassinate him. I think we ought to go ahead and do it. … … We don’t need another $200 billion war … It’s a whole lot easier to have some covert operatives do the job.”
But Hugo’s not my enemy. Indeed, he’s made a damn good offer to the American people: oil for $50 a barrel - nearly half of what it sells today. By locking in a long-term price, Venezuela loses its crazy Iraq war oil-price windfall. In return, we agree not to let oil prices fall through the floor (it dropped to $9 a barrel in 1998) and bankrupt his nation. But Saudi Arabia doesn’t like that deal. And Abdullah’s wish is George Bush’s command. (Interestingly, Chavez’ fellow no-term-limits dictator Bill Clinton endorsed the concept.)
I don’t agree with everything Chavez does. And I’ve found some of his opponents’ point well taken. But unlike Bush, I don’t think I should have a veto over the Venezuelan vote.
In Orwellian Bush-speak and Times-talk, Chavez’ referendum was portrayed before the vote as a trick, a kind of “Saddam goes Latin.” Maybe their real fear is that Chavez has brought a bit of economic justice through the ballot box, a trend that could spread northward. Think about it: Chavez is funding full health care for all Venezuelans. What if that happened here?
Single-payer health care for all and a modicum of social justice for the poorest amongst us at the expense of the rich? Cut out the greedy vultures of capitalism? Here? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Mr. Palast is always a hoot to read. He cuts through the shit and is fun to read at the same time.
I don't know if children should be allowed to watch the Republican presidential debates.
There's so much talk of violence and mayhem as the solution to our ills. The candidates seem so eager to flex their muscles and engage the nation in conflict: Let's continue the war in Iraq. Let's show them what we're made of in Iran. Let's round up those immigrants and ship 'em back where they came from.
It's like watching adolescent boys playing the ultimate video game, with no regard for the consequences. Rudy, the crime-fighter and terror maven, says he's tougher than Mitt, who actually had illegals working on his property. Mitt begs to differ and says he'd like to double the size of the Guantánamo prison.
Are we electing a president or a sheriff?
We've got the thunderclouds of a recession heading our way. We're in the midst of a housing foreclosure crisis that is tragic in its dimensions. We've got forty-some-million people without health coverage. And the city of New Orleans is still on its knees.
So you tune in to the G.O.P. debate on CNN to see what's what, and they're talking about - guns.
I'll concede that it's difficult to have a thoughtful exploration of complex issues in a format that allows a candidate just 90 seconds to answer. But the Republicans, far more than the Democrats, go out of their way to present themselves as 21st-century Rambos - a childish, cartoonish posture that solves nothing and can easily lead to tragedy in a world that is in fact quite dangerous.
The Republican Party has won a lot of elections in recent years. So maybe this crop of candidates knows something about American voters that many us would rather not acknowledge, that too many of them are small-minded, fearful, bigoted and too shallow to recognize policies that are against their own - and their country's - best interests.
Or maybe that's not the case at all. Maybe this lot of Republican presidential candidates is misreading the public, and placing its bet on the wrong side of history.
I hope it's the latter. Maybe voters in the early primaries will deliver the message that a more thoughtful, insightful, inclusive and constructive style of campaigning is desired.
As I see it, these 'debates' aren't debates at all, at best they are 'forums' (fora?), are sales pitches by snake oil salesman selling different brands of kool-aid. The Dem brand is weak, but the Repug brand will plunge those who partake into a sheeplike acceptance of moral darkness disguised as patriotism, which is about where we are now.
Bush's Oil War, the response to Katrina, and the present Recession are all serious symptoms of abuse of power, abrogations of public trust, and favoritism for the few at the expense of the many. In other words, lying, cheating, and stealing while professing to be doing God's work, AKA Republican policy.
I sincerely hope the Repug candidates are misreading the public. Heck, there's only a one letter difference from what they've been doing for years - 'misleading' the public. If the Repugs had done anything - anything at all - in the best interests of the American people during their absolute reign, I could see where the sheeple would stick with them. I like to think that some, a good percentage, hopefully most, never all, of the Repug faithful of recent years have pulled their heads out of their ass and awakened to what the Repugs are really up to and have the sense God gave a goose at last and won't keep very many of them in office come the election.
As far as the Repug presidential candidates go, this is the weakest bunch of morons I've ever seen, thank you Lord. If they think Americans want even more disastrous war, more domestic policy that steals from the poor and middle class to give to the rich, and more social injustice, well, let 'em think so.
The Repugs have been so wrong about everything else for many years now, they better be wrong about that too. For all our sakes.
How bad is it? Well, I’ve never seen financial insiders this spooked — not even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98, when economic dominoes seemed to be falling all around the world.
This time, market players seem truly horrified — because they’ve suddenly realized that they don’t understand the complex financial system they created.
...
See, I've always likened the markets to Las Vegas. It's gambling, but with other people's money. With all the different investment vehicles floating around, there are just as many games on the floor as there are at Harrah's.
...
“What we are witnessing,” says Bill Gross of the bond manager Pimco, “is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August.”
...
And you can blame this whole mess on the same thing that's keeping us in Iraq and stealing away our civil liberties.
...
Why was this allowed to happen? At a deep level, I believe that the problem was ideological: policy makers, committed to the view that the market is always right, simply ignored the warning signs. We know, in particular, that Alan Greenspan brushed aside warnings from Edward Gramlich, who was a member of the Federal Reserve Board, about a potential subprime crisis.
And free-market orthodoxy dies hard. Just a few weeks ago Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, admitted to Fortune magazine that financial innovation got ahead of regulation — but added, “I don’t think we’d want it the other way around.” Is that your final answer, Mr. Secretary? [my ems]
...
Look, I don't care what the fucking 'financial guys' say, business needs regulation. The mess in the air travel sector we're feeling now is directly related to the deregulation of airlines by St. Ronnie of Raygun in the '80s.
Big Business, be it airlines, banking and credit, pharmaceutical, or others, can't be allowed to police themselves because they always look to the bottom line, the environment, economy, and consumers be damned.
It's time to rein these businesses in, especially the credit markets. We're gonna have a bitter pill to swallow real soon and the sooner we accept reality, the sooner we can straighten this mess out.
This is exactly what could happen to money markets and banks as people realize this is their money everyone is talking about in the news. YOUR money. Find out where your money is, your parents' money, etc.. [em in orig]
Thank the God of your choice that this asshole doesn't stand a chance of becoming president. You can go read this pretty interesting article at AlterNet if you wish, but it sums up well with just the headline and last paragraph:
Tom Tancredo Hired Illegal Laborers to Renovate His McMansion
But there is one way the Republican candidates can never out-Tancredo Tancredo. The congressman lives in a “sanctuary mansion” built by the kind of people he has made a career out of demonizing. Tom Tancredo may have no hope of winning the Republican nomination, but in the cause of hypocrisy, he is the frontrunner.
Tancredo is the Perfect Repuglicant - Do As I Say And Not As I Do, in other words IOKIYAR to talk out of both sides of your mouth at the same time.
Normally, I wouldn't use Moonie's Washington Times to wrap fish in if I had to eat the fish, but they've got a section called 'Fishwrap' which I guess refers to what they think of the opinions therein. Like those of The Old Ay-rab on Rove's gig at Newspeak.
Columnist Helen Thomas brought down the house this morning in the White House briefing room.
Ms. Thomas, as the morning, off-camera gaggle wound down, asked White House press secretary Dana Perino what President Bush thinks of former advisor Karl Rove being given a regular column by Newsweek.
Mrs. Perino turned the question back on Ms. Thomas, and asked her what she thought.
"I think it's terrible," Ms. Thomas said.
That was the whole article. Further development was limited to a coupla Repuglitard comments.
Ms. Thomas, my invitation for a night out stands.
Update:
See more of the exchange between Ms. Thomas and 'Danial' Perino at Raw Story.
Just about everybody according to Daddy Frank. Heh. Today's 'must read'.
JUST 24 hours after Hillary Clinton mowed down a skeptical Katie Couric with her certitude that she would win the Democratic nomination — “It will be me!” — her husband showed exactly how she could lose it.
Election year isn’t even here yet, and already most of the first drafts penned by the political press have proved instantly disposable, from Fred Thompson’s irresistible Reaganesque star power to the Family Research Council’s ability to abort the rise of Rudy Giuliani. The biggest Beltway myth so far — that the Clinton campaign is “textbook perfect” and “tightly disciplined” — was surely buried for good by the undisciplined former president’s seemingly panic-driven blunder last week.
[...] Were Mr. Obama to best Mrs. Clinton for the Democratic nomination, he may prove harder for the Republicans to rally against and defeat than the all-powerful, battle-tested Clinton machine.
But much like the Clinton campaign itself, the Republicans have fallen into a trap by continuing to cling to the Hillary-is-inevitable trope. They have not allowed themselves to think the unthinkable — that they might need a Plan B to go up against a candidate who is not she. It’s far from clear that they would remotely know how to construct a Plan B to counter Mr. Obama. The repeated attempts to fan “rumors” that he is a madrassa-indoctrinated Muslim — whether on Fox News or in The Washington Post, where they resurfaced scurrilously on the front page on Thursday — are too demonstrably false to survive endless reruns even in the Swift-boating era.
Part of the Republicans’ difficulty in countering Mr. Obama, should they have to, is their own cynical racial politics. For the most part, race has been the dog that hasn’t barked in this campaign despite the (largely) white press’s endless fretting about whether the Illinois senator is too white for black voters and too black for white voters. Most Americans aren’t racist, most Republicans included. (Those who are won’t vote for the Democratic presidential candidate even if it’s not Mr. Obama.) But the G.O.P., by its own doing, is nonetheless saddled with a history that most recently includes “macaca” and Katrina, Mr. Bush’s appearance at Bob Jones University in 2000 and the nonexistent black population of its Congressional delegation.
Perhaps most striking is the case of Shelby Steele, the archconservative scholar who shares Mr. Obama’s mixed-race heritage. Though he has just written an entire book, “A Bound Man,” to argue (unpersuasively, in my view) that Mr. Obama “can’t win,” he can’t stop himself from admiring the guy throughout. Peggy Noonan wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek when she wondered in The Wall Street Journal last month whether Mr. Obama “understands the kind of quiet cheering he is beginning to garner from some Republicans.” In her view “they see him as a Democrat who could cure the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sickness.”
Or at least they do in the abstract. Should Mr. Obama upend the Beltway story line by taking Iowa, the Republicans will have every reason to be as fearful as the Clinton camp is now.
I couldn't begin to do Pop's piece justice with just those few quotes. Please go read the rest. Lotsa links, too.
If Senator Obama does nothing more than make the establishment candidates, on both sides, crap their britches, he will have done good.
If he really catches fire and actually wins this crippled-horse race, he better be prepared to really do good.
Because they want to get the most from the Republicans that they bought before said Republicans are toast in Nov '08. After all, one would have to be a miserable excuse for a human to think there is any reason for these rules changes.
Tim Hollis has at Chertoff's ridiculous move to have firefighters spy on Americans by looking for signs of 'discontent'.
Every bit as depraved, deranged and demented as he looks, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has enlisted firefighters and emergency responders as his eyes and ears in the fight against discontent in America. Not satisfied with demanding warning labels for satire, the Screaming Skull vowed to stamp out not only discontent, but metaphor, double entendre, innuendo, facetiousness, puns, sarcasm and anything smacking of witty repartee.
Man, this is getting personal! If there's anything we 'smack of' around here, it's discontent, metaphor, double entendre, innuendo, facetiousness, puns, sarcasm and witty repartee. It's on, motherfuckers.
Firefighters and emergency personnel are being grilled in the investigative arts of detecting subtle signs of subversive activity such as the possession of worthwhile books, posters proposing world peace, suspiciously intellectual phrenology and telltale signs of terrorist sympathies inferred from micro facial expressions. Don't let a careless impulse to laugh betray your evil seditious secrets.
That dust covered Cat Stevens album in the attic? You can count on just something like that to net a lengthy stay in Guantanamo or an overnight rendition to Syria. So, hop around like hell, today, scrubbing your environs of anything that could be deemed as seeding dissent by postal workers, librarians, delivery drivers, neighbors, friends or family (including, I shudder to say, in-laws). Thought you'd enjoy a morning cup o' joe while perusing the Buzzflash headlines? Huh. Just remember, if there's a fire, you're fucked.
Unlike Chertoff I'm concerned about not disrupting vital services or I'd suggest a date and time for those millions of us yearning for a functional society to turn ourselves in.
Now there's an idea! If we could get all the illegal Meskins to turn themselves in at the same time, we could bring this country to a screechin' halt! Lawns would run wild, kids' diapers would be full, rational thought would disappear, and those left on the outside would have to retreat, drooling and whining (which they do anyway), to deep dark caves. Or the recesses of their alleged minds which is about the same.
Firefighters should fight fires and aid those with emergencies, which is what they signed on to do and do supremely well.
Just as an aside, my little town relied on volunteer firefighters for many years. Their motto was "We haven't lost a foundation yet!"
I call on firefighters everywhere to tell Chertoff to go fuck himself.
NYC is full of 'em, 5, 6, 10 dogs at once, a mass of bark and fur coming down the sidewalk dragging a human. Except, when it's Judy Nathan(pre-Giuliani)'s dog, the walker is a New York City policeman.
If you're dumb enough to listen to these Jesus freak preachers, or just think you're young and invincible, and engage in unprotected sex with multiple partners or those whom you don't know their sexual history, you'll want to stop here and get an education.
It's World AIDS Day. Get informed and stay safe. I've seen too many bright, productive lives wasted to this horrible disease.
Like, DUH! The freeper trolls are already having at Hillary about yesterday's hostage situation, the bastards. At The Nation with links:
The vile Freeper commentary continues on and on, and grows progressively more revealing of the pathology of the Republican base. The tone of commenters over at Politico is no less despicable. But according to Joe Lieberman flack and Politico contributor Dan Gerstein, left-wing bloggers are the ones who need "some adult supervision."
I dare ya to come try and supervise me, asshole, not that you're an adult.
I feel for the poor tormented gent that did that hostage deal. When I was drinking, I felt like doing shit like that a time or two, and but for the grace of God might have. He didn't hurt anybody, and I hope he gets the help he needs.
Look on the bright side of the incident - he did it on the premises of a Democratic candidate. If he'da tried that at a Repug facility, they'da had him shot and killed for interfering with the process of their failing attempt to hang on to power.
CAIRO, Egypt — Yes, Iran has medium-range ballistic missiles that could reach American air and naval bases in the Persian Gulf and possibly hit Israel or southern Europe.
The Iranians may have some longer-range missiles. Or maybe their arsenal contains little more than faulty North Korean, Russian and Chinese knockoffs, some of which are descendants of Germany's World War II V-2.
News Flash: Every missile on the planet is a descendant of the V-2. Captured German rocket scientists were a war prize for both us and the Soviets and both sides' first missiles looked suspiciously like the V-2 these guys already knew how to build. With a different paint scheme, of course.
President Bush repeatedly has pointed to an Iranian ballistic missile threat as the main reason for building a billion-dollar missile-defense system in Eastern Europe to protect Europe and the United States.
Ah, bullshit. The real reason is to line the defense industry's pockets with yet still more of our money. And to make an inadequate little twerp feel like a big man, of course.
Here's the money shot:
Critics of the U.S. proposal to build a ballistic missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic describe the project as, in Coyle's words, "a system that doesn't work for a threat that doesn't exist." They say the shield would stop only an "unsophisticated threat," meaning one or two missiles that were launched without decoys.
"Do you think Iran would attack Europe or the United States with just one missile and sit back and see what happens?" Coyle said.
They know damn well what would happen to them. "Gee, let's lob a rock at the giant sitting over there on that big pile of rocks and make him run away!". I don't think so.
The Bush administration's fixation on Iran also worries Western officials eager to avoid the embarrassment of another Iraq-style preemptive strike based on incomplete or bogus intelligence, some of it from exile groups with obvious agendas.
With absolutely no sense of history himself, and a brain full of holes instead of a memory, Bush probably thinks no one will remember.
"Nobody is going to believe that hogwash about WMDs, not anymore, not after Iraq," the senior Egyptian diplomat continued, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss Iran publicly. "The U.S. would be alone on this one. Nobody can afford another such dangerous adventure."
Got news for ya, Egypt Man - we couldn't afford the first one, either. We'll be paying off on this subprime president for generations.
He was the guy who inspired me to do stupid shit with motor vehicles. I owe him a lot for the fun I've had over the years. We'll hoist one when I get there, Evel.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty God!
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! - Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.
"Because it's on, motherfuckers!" - David Rees of mnftiu.
"The right is nothing, if not filled with liars and hypocrites." - The Rude Pundit.
"You gotta stop thinking with the alternate brain, Sarge." - Col. William 'Stonewall' Bryant to Sgt. Fixer after freeing him from the custody of the London Metropolitan Police.
... That's US here at the Brain! Sittin' all alone out in the cold, thanklessly freezin' our beboops off, lookin' for a chance to lob a few at the enemy and praying for a secondary explosion, wonderin' if it's all worth it or if it will make any difference in the scheme of things ...
- Gordon
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