Of course, another chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.
And, as a bonus, more from the house remodel.
As always pimp what's near and dear to you, or stuff we should know, in comments.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Quote of the Day Zwei
"On my left and right feet, I actually wear two different shoe sizes - a '9', and an '11'." - Rudy Giuliani
Jimmy Carter forgives Cheney; promises to build him a wood jail cell
"The real Christian thing would be to nail that fucker to the cross. (Talk about lust in my heart.)"Thanks, Don.
1932 Redux
The Regressive Antidote has a message of hope in today's 'must read'. Alert: this guy doesn't think very highly of the Clintons, but has an 'any port in a storm' sensibility about her/them. Rightly so. I think.
Heh. I think a lot of Repugs like that 'rump' idea...
For now, I'm just be glad for them to stand against the Repugs. If only...
Hell, they could do better than the current assholes by not showing up!
This is a very entertaining read. Go get entertained.
Welcome to 1932, redux. Almost all the elements are there, fortunately. And not a moment too soon.
In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt and a dire national emergency combined to wrestle the republic away from the death-grip in which the Republican oligarchy of the time was holding it, and in doing so dramatically expanded outward the envelope of progressive government in America, as well as establishing a progressive governing coalition that lasted four decades and more.
[...] In my judgement, it is truly not too much to imagine this being the beginning of the end for the GOP, or perhaps a period in which it exists merely as a rump party in Mississippi, Utah, and other equally progressive outposts. [...]
Heh. I think a lot of Repugs like that 'rump' idea...
[...] We should make no mistake but that nobody actually votes for Democrats these days. Instead, they either vote for the Republicans, or against them. How else could it be since you’d need a microscope to find what it is Democrats stand for.
For now, I'm just be glad for them to stand against the Repugs. If only...
It ain’t everything I’d want, but honestly, it ain’t bad either, and I mean that even without resorting to a slam-dunk comparison against the present nightmare (anybody can do better than these guys, just by showing up).
Hell, they could do better than the current assholes by not showing up!
This is a very entertaining read. Go get entertained.
'Perfecting' zee Chews
Du vill click, ja?
Thom Hartmann:
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) called on media to stop inviting Ann Coulter as a guest commentator and strongly condemned her comments that Jews should be “perfected” by accepting the New Testament and that America would be better off if Judaism were “thrown away” and all Americans were Christian.
“While Ann Coulter has freedom of speech, news outlets should exercise their freedom to use better judgment,” said NJDC Executive Director Ira N. Forman. “Just as media outlets don’t invite those who believe that Martians walk the earth to frequently comment on science stories, it’s time they stop inviting Ann Coulter to comment on politics.”
It's tempting to think that the Coultergeist could be 'perfected', but it's illegal to do what would be necessary. You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit anyway. A prefrontal lobotomy with ski poles would be an improvement though.
Similarly, Justice Antonin Scalia turned history on its head several years ago when he attended an Orthodox synagogue in New York and claimed that the Founders intended for their Christianity to play a part in government. Scalia then went so far as to suggest that the reason Hitler was able to initiate the Holocaust was because of German separation of church and state.
Justice Scalia and Ann Coulter may well benefit from looking back at the photographs that came out of Germany that were all over the newspapers and news magazines at war’s end. The photos that can be seen, for instance, at www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm of the Catholic Bishops giving the collective Nazi salute. The annual April 20th celebration, declared by Pope Pius XII, of Hitler’s birthday. The belt buckles of the German army, which declared “Gott Mit Uns” (”God is with us”). The pictures of the 1933 investiture of Bishop Ludwig Müller, the official Bishop of the 1000-Years-Of-Peace Nazi Reich. That last photo should be the most problematic for Ann Coulter and Justice Scalia, because Hitler had done exactly what Scalia is recommending - he merged church and state.
Which brings up one of the main reasons - almost always overlooked by modern-day commentators, both left and right - that the Founders and Framers were so careful to separate church and state: They didn’t want religion to be corrupted by government.
Well, that's a new angle, to me anyway. It seems a little ass-backwards, but I think I get his point: 'tis better for them to be corrupt separately, for corrupt both government and religion surely are. It's when they mingle and combine their corruptedness that truly bad things happen.
Mr. Hartmann goes on with a buncha historical stuff involving famous figures going on about separation or combination of church and state. Interesting stuff.
In some distant place, Adolf Hitler and Bishop Müller must be smiling at Ann Coulter and Justice Scalia’s encouragement of the growing conflation of church and state in America. It’s exactly what they worked so hard to achieve, and what helped make their horrors possible.
And Thomas Jefferson and James Madison must have tears in their eyes.
On the plus side, the Founders and Framers are spinning so fast in their graves it may help solve our energy problems.
Especially when Coulter and Scalia get their ovens fired up.
Update:
Go see this.
Quote of the Day
“There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight,” retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told a convention of military journalists on Friday.
Thanks for telling us now.
I told ya ...
9/11 was just an excuse:
...
And now that we can be totally sure that Iraq was for oil—even in the absence of the suppressed records of the Cheney energy task force—and we know that massive warrantless surveillance was the order of the day immediately after Bush took office, it looks like what “changed” after 9/11 wasn’t “everything,” but just the catapult Bush used for the propaganda. Eh?
...
Friday, October 12, 2007
It’s the Oil
Good read in the London Review of Books:
Three things that Cheney knows about and Bush thinks he does are oil, power, and politics. Profit, to the detriment of everybody and everything else, is their specialty.
Yes, we need oil for the foreseeable future, but we should not be invading and conquering nations to get it. Our oil companies are perfectly capable of swindling them out of it without military intervention and countless needless deaths.
Iraq is ‘unwinnable’, a ‘quagmire’, a ‘fiasco’: so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be ‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’.
Was the strategy of invading Iraq to take control of its oil resources actually hammered out by Cheney’s 2001 energy task force? One can’t know for sure, since the deliberations of that task force, made up largely of oil and energy company executives, have been kept secret by the administration on the grounds of ‘executive privilege’. One can’t say for certain that oil supplied the prime motive. But the hypothesis is quite powerful when it comes to explaining what has actually happened in Iraq. The occupation may seem horribly botched on the face of it, but the Bush administration’s cavalier attitude towards ‘nation-building’ has all but ensured that Iraq will end up as an American protectorate for the next few decades – a necessary condition for the extraction of its oil wealth. If the US had managed to create a strong, democratic government in an Iraq effectively secured by its own army and police force, and had then departed, what would have stopped that government from taking control of its own oil, like every other regime in the Middle East? On the assumption that the Bush-Cheney strategy is oil-centred, the tactics – dissolving the army, de-Baathification, a final ‘surge’ that has hastened internal migration – could scarcely have been more effective. The costs – a few billion dollars a month plus a few dozen American fatalities (a figure which will probably diminish, and which is in any case comparable to the number of US motorcyclists killed because of repealed helmet laws) – are negligible compared to $30 trillion in oil wealth, assured American geopolitical supremacy and cheap gas for voters. In terms of realpolitik, the invasion of Iraq is not a fiasco; it is a resounding success.
Still, there is reason to be sceptical of the picture I have drawn: it implies that a secret and highly ambitious plan turned out just the way its devisers foresaw, and that almost never happens.
Three things that Cheney knows about and Bush thinks he does are oil, power, and politics. Profit, to the detriment of everybody and everything else, is their specialty.
Yes, we need oil for the foreseeable future, but we should not be invading and conquering nations to get it. Our oil companies are perfectly capable of swindling them out of it without military intervention and countless needless deaths.
When is a twelve-year-old boy with brain damage a threat? When you're a Repuglicant and losing.
Joe Brewer weighs in on the RS3M* campaign against Graeme Frost.
Apparently, Michelle Ramalamadingdong feels you should pay rent to a landlord, work as a wage slave, spend all your money on health insurance to the enrichment of Big Med, and thus live small and be in thrall to the Ruling Overlord Class all your life if you wish your children to get medical help when they need it if you're not rich. Or poor. That's not exactly the American Dream. What would Malkin know about that? She got hers by conning tiny-brained people. That's her and the Repugs' version of the American Way.
They can kiss my ass. Pardon me, young Graeme, but this shit 'Frosts' my balls.
E.J. Dionne and Paul Krugman also comment on this despicable Repug bullshit. They're smart and speak truth, but they're way too nice about it. Worth a read.
*Repuglicant Spin, Slime, and Smear Machine
When is a twelve-year-old boy with brain damage a threat? When he exemplifies the good a government program can do when it provides health security to middle-class Americans.
Conservatives want the popular and successful State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to fail. They fear that if the government helps sick children, more people will start to believe it can ensure health security for everyone. Here's a newsflash: Government can ensure health security for everyone. Governments do exactly that in every other wealthy nation in the world. We just have the bizarre misfortune of living in a country where profit motives stand in the way of adequate care. (The Rockridge Institute will soon launch its Health Care Security Campaign to thoroughly explore these issues, and you can sign up to be notified when it begins.)
You can see the conservative argument clearly in the way they attack young Graeme Frost. In its essence, it is this:
Health care is a privilege that must be earned. If you earn enough to provide for your family but are denied insurance, you must give up all comfort and security to pay for medical treatment. Sell your house. Let insurance companies snatch your savings. Only when you are destitute will it be appropriate for our government to help.
This is how it is presented on the web site of conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, the most prominent flame thrower on this issue:
"But Mark Tapscott's point remains: [P]eople make choices and it's clear the Frosts have made the choice to invest in property and a business, but not in private health insurance. The Maryland-administered version of the federal SCHIP program, by the way, does not impose an asset test on applicants."
There is great practical irony in the conservative position. People of modest means must choose between "investing" in either health care or a home and business. In their world, the parent who goes for a home and business (which provide the child with those other things you need to live like food and shelter) over health care and then goes bankrupt when their child gets sick deserves it because they are bad parents for not providing the health care. The idea that a family should be shackled to an insurance premium instead of being able to better their lives by buying their own home and starting a business is perfectly OK to them.
Apparently, Michelle Ramalamadingdong feels you should pay rent to a landlord, work as a wage slave, spend all your money on health insurance to the enrichment of Big Med, and thus live small and be in thrall to the Ruling Overlord Class all your life if you wish your children to get medical help when they need it if you're not rich. Or poor. That's not exactly the American Dream. What would Malkin know about that? She got hers by conning tiny-brained people. That's her and the Repugs' version of the American Way.
They can kiss my ass. Pardon me, young Graeme, but this shit 'Frosts' my balls.
E.J. Dionne and Paul Krugman also comment on this despicable Repug bullshit. They're smart and speak truth, but they're way too nice about it. Worth a read.
*Repuglicant Spin, Slime, and Smear Machine
The Hag's Fightin' Side
Joe Klein's been comin' around to a better way of thinkin' lately. Yeah, yeah, so sue me. Today's 'must read' is about his recent visit with Merle Haggard.
Please read the rest.
The Hag's on the same fightin' side as the rest of us now. That's a good thing.
If the Repugs have lost Merle Haggard, they've lost a hell of a lot of other folks as well. Period. I was gonna say "they've lost America", but that's too close to what they've actually done.
Gratuitous video of Hag singin' Bluegrass here.
Merle Haggard has always had his guitar hardwired to the gutbucket pulse of Middle America. Back in the Vietnam era, he seemed the essence of a historic political migration: white males fleeing the feminized, antiwar, politically correct Democratic Party. He was your basic Reagan Democrat, fully loaded with a resonant, iron-edged voice and the ability to write razor lyrics that stuck in the mind and the craw. His brilliant anthem—Okie from Muskogee ("A place where even dead men have a ball" - G)—became a rallying cry for those who were disgusted by the "hippies out in San Francisco" smoking marijuana and burning draft cards. His next patriotic volley had this chorus: "When they're runnin' down my country, man, you're walkin' on the fightin' side of me." And so when I heard that Haggard had written a song endorsing Hillary Clinton for President, which you can hear him sing on TIME.com, I was more than curious about the motivation for his apparent left turn. And Merle let me know that he was more than happy to talk politics, given that he has a new album, The Bluegrass Sessions, which seems a political and musical return to his family's Okie and New Deal Democratic roots.
But Haggard's greatest complaint is a matter of pride—and pride, in his hardscrabble past and his country, has always been his favorite song. "The thing that gets under my skin most about George W. is his intention to install fear in people," he said, after walking me down a hallway lined with gold and platinum records. "This is America. We're proud. We're not afraid of a bunch of terrorists. But this government is all about terror alerts and scaring us at airports. We're changing the Constitution out of fear. We spend all our time looking up each other's dresses. Fear's the only issue the Republican Party has. Vote for them, or the terrorists will win. That's not what Reagan was about. I hate to think about our soldiers over in Iraq fighting for a country that's slipping away."
Please read the rest.
The Hag's on the same fightin' side as the rest of us now. That's a good thing.
If the Repugs have lost Merle Haggard, they've lost a hell of a lot of other folks as well. Period. I was gonna say "they've lost America", but that's too close to what they've actually done.
Gratuitous video of Hag singin' Bluegrass here.
Enemies of the State
That would be you and me. Naomi Wolf has an excellent post up at FDL.
Go read what I didn't steal.
...
More times than I can count, courageous and confident men and women who are telling me about speaking up, but who are risking what they see as the possible loss of job, home or the ability to pay for grown kids’ schooling, start to choke up. Yesterday a woman in one gathering started to cry simply while talking about the degradation of her beloved country.
And always the questions: what do we do?
It is clear from this inundation of personal stories of abuse and retribution against ordinary Americans that a network of criminal behavior and intention is catching up more and more mainstream citizens in its grasp. It is clear that this is not democracy as usual — or even the corruption of democracy as usual. It is clear that we will need more drastic action than emails to Congress.
...
It is clear yet that violent retribution, torture or maybe worse, seems to go right up this chain of command? Is it clear yet that these people are capable of anything? Is it obvious yet that criminals are at the helm of the nation and need to be not only ousted but held accountable for their crimes?
Is it treason yet?
...
In Germany, according to historian Richard Evans, in 1931-1932, if enough Germans of conscience had begun to say No — history would have had an entirely different outcome. If we go any further down this road the tears will be those of conservatives as well as progressives. They will be American tears.
...
Go read what I didn't steal.
Leaders ...
We don't have any. Our buddy Lambert:
Because all the Rethugs and a good portion of Dems look at us just like Nancy does. We're the 'Great Unwashed' who couldn't possibly know anything about what really goes on in Washington. We should just shut up and vote, and let them all do what they do.
The people who do know what goes on are the campaign contributors with big bucks and the means to hold fundraising parties. They always seem to get the politicians' ear, don't they? The rest of us should just shut up and be happy with what we get. Right, Nance?
...
And the last thing I remember Pelosi “leading” was the stampede of Democrats heading back to the district on vacation after they’d betrayed the Fourth Amendment, at midnight, when Harry Reid managed to pass the Republican bill gutting FISA.
...
Because all the Rethugs and a good portion of Dems look at us just like Nancy does. We're the 'Great Unwashed' who couldn't possibly know anything about what really goes on in Washington. We should just shut up and vote, and let them all do what they do.
The people who do know what goes on are the campaign contributors with big bucks and the means to hold fundraising parties. They always seem to get the politicians' ear, don't they? The rest of us should just shut up and be happy with what we get. Right, Nance?
Congrats ...
Couldn't happen to a better man:
And just an addendum for all those folks who are pressuring him to run for the Presidency. I'd love it if he ran; probably get my vote, but I want someone who wants the job. Leave him alone and let him do what he wants.
OSLO, Norway - Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures needed to counteract it.
...
And just an addendum for all those folks who are pressuring him to run for the Presidency. I'd love it if he ran; probably get my vote, but I want someone who wants the job. Leave him alone and let him do what he wants.
My last post ...
About Rethugs beating up on little kids. As I thought, Malkin doesn't have the brainpower to think something like this up all on her own. Seems she got a shove in that direction:
Surprised? Not me. It's a good rule of thumb to believe that any 'scandal' the right wing bloggers scream about is usually instigated by the Republican party itself. Do you think Ann Coulter's 'Jews perfected' bullshit was her own doing?
It's all just shiny shit to take the Dems' eye off the ball. Unfortunately it works most of the time.
...
ThinkProgress has obtained an email that congressional sources tell us was sent to reporters by Sen. McConnell’s communications director Don Stewart.
...
Surprised? Not me. It's a good rule of thumb to believe that any 'scandal' the right wing bloggers scream about is usually instigated by the Republican party itself. Do you think Ann Coulter's 'Jews perfected' bullshit was her own doing?
It's all just shiny shit to take the Dems' eye off the ball. Unfortunately it works most of the time.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
On 'discourse' ...
A great post at Shakes' place by Jeff Fecke:
Indeed. There is only a line when someone asks hard questions of a Republican.
...
Mitch was right: there is no line anymore, at least for the right. Everyone is "fair game." If they can advance a political point by attacking someone's child, they will do it. If they can take a political shot by staking out the home and business of an average American family that dares to have an opinion, they will do it. If they can attack a woman using her own ultrasound records for the sin of being both pro-choice and an excited expectant mother, they will do it.
...
Indeed. There is only a line when someone asks hard questions of a Republican.
Quote of the Day
Stolen unabashedly from BooMan:
"When the government awards a billion dollars in sweetheart mercenary contracts to a wealthy Republican family in Michigan, that's "private enterprise." But when the government helps a struggling middle-class family in Maryland send its children to the doctor, that's creeping socialism." -Joe Conason
Commemorations ...
One of my favorite smart guys learns we're gonna have one of those 'weeks'. You know, we got a 'week' for everything. National Sphincter Awareness Week, National Massage Someone's Breasts Week*, National Genital Wart Appreciation Week, that sort of thing. I'll let him explain:
30% of us will be observing. I'd rather be aware of my sphincter. In fact, I'd rather have genital warts and appreciate them.
David Horowitz (you all remember him, right? Deranged anti-intellectual wanker?) He has declared 22-26 October to be Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, to be represented with talks by such towering intellects as Rick Santorum, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity.
...
30% of us will be observing. I'd rather be aware of my sphincter. In fact, I'd rather have genital warts and appreciate them.
*And before I come home from work to find my front lawn filled with ladies carrying torches, pitchforks, and a noose, I do not mean to disparage National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a serious illness we should always be aware of. It was meant with lecherous thoughts in mind and the sheer joy of appreciating and playing with a nice set of female breasts for a week ... straight.
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