Can't Buy Me Love*

While I was over at Atrios tryin' to figure out what "Big Shitpile" in Fixer's post refers to, I ran across this:

Call me cynical, but I'll be very surprised if the White House doesn't spend a few days telling the country everyone's gonna get an $800 check and then demand some bullshit in the bill which the Dems, frightened, will cave on...

Why $800? Is that the $300 from last time adjusted for inflation?

I believe the part about the Dems, frightened, cavin' in too.

Note to the Chimp: You can't buy my love with money**, asshole. There are some things even an ol' whore like me won't do. The exception would be if you give me back my portion of the $Trillion you've wasted on your criminal war, bring back the million or so dead, and reset the time to early November 2000, leave everybody's memory intact, and give everybody a do-over so they won't 'elect' your sorry ass in the first place and thus avoid all the ruinous shit you've pulled.

I still won't love you, or even like you, but I'll at least think maybe you're almost human. You can't do this thing, but yer buddy God can. Talk to Him. That Fucker owes us one if He told you to do the things you've done like you said He did.

*Apologies to Lennon and McCartney

**Apologies to Linda and Dusty too. I'm on a roll...

Quote of the Day - Zwei

D at LGM:

...

That's right. Jonah Goldberg is so goddamned dumb that he makes Michael "Throw a Country Against a Wall for Democracy's Sake" Ledeen seem like a reasonably bright person.

Head in the sand ...

An addendum to Gord's post below, C & L has this bit from the Today show. Matt Lauer interviewed Jim Cramer (the investment nut) and basically asked him why he didn't lie about the strength of the economy to his viewers:

...

In other words, STFU! Yea Matt, forget about the truth. Hell, it worked so well in the run up to the war in Iraq, didn’t it? Logic in Lying—stick your head in the sand. I hate to break it to Matt, but these NAFTA lovers lie on teevee day in and day out about the economy ...

We watch ABC News in the mornings from 4-5. Every day they have a 'business report' featuring some talking head from BusinessWeek or one of the big investment houses. Not a one of them over the past year (as all the writing was appearing on the wall saying a recession was imminent) voiced any worry about the subprime mess and the ramifications of it on broader markets, many actively cheering the real estate market as the enormity of the ARM readjustment fiasco was becoming apparent.

Big Shitpile (© Atrios) is the 800lb. gorilla in the room that everybody wanted to ignore. Many are still trying, but when you understand what's all involved, it's impossible to deny.

This 'economic stimulus package', once the lobbyists get done twisting arms, won't save us either (Remember the $300 you got in 2001-2? Remember what you did with it? Yeah, me neither). At this point, after years of denial, the only way to get it over with is to take our poison and hope we live through it.

Quote of the Day

Jon Carroll on the economy, among other things:

It's like when the Bush administration issues news releases saying how the economy is really doing a lot better than people think it is. "Whom are you going to believe, your president or the guy foreclosing on your house?"

Yeah, who ya gonna believe - me, or yer lyin' eyes?

We're makin' progress ...

Turning Iraq into Afghanistan, which is also a dismal failure:

The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a living through growing traditional crops.

Afghan with experience in planting poppies have been helping farmers switch to producing opium in fertile parts of Diyala province, once famous for its oranges and pomegranates, north- east of Baghdad.

...

Spreadin' our freedom and democracy far and wide, about 3 feet deep.

Great thanks to Maru for the link.

This is why ...

[A big Brain welcome to Shakes' readers.]

The Rethugs can win elections. A good part of the electorate thinks like this:

...

I once heard a caller on Rush say he only made $30,000 a year, but he was glad to see his wealthy boss get a big tax cut because it meant the company might do better and then he might get a raise. The 250 million dollar man told him he was brilliant for understanding how the economy is supposed to work. That's some brainwashing.

...

They've been brainwashing folks for the last 40 years to believe giving money to the rich will eventually reach them. For those who don't get it, the rich invest their money and get richer off it. Your money.

Quote of the Day

From a much longer Tomgram:

But folks, let's face it, despite the cosmetic acts of the President and his undertakers, America's Iraq is still a corpse.

Stinks to high heaven, too.

How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative

AlterNet

Allen Raymond worked inside Republican election circles for years, until he was convicted of illegally jamming telephone lines to Democratic Party offices on Election Day in 2002. After serving five months in jail, he and co-author Ian Spiegelman wrote How to Rig An Election, Confessions of a Republican Operative. The book details Raymond's rise in GOP campaign circles; the attitude, tactics and strategies used to win; and how the RNC asked his firm to jam Democratic phone lines, but would not defend him in court after Democrats fought back and pressed court charges. AlterNet's Steven Rosenfeld interviewed Raymond about his political education, GOP tactics and his take on the current presidential field.

ALTERNET: The title of your book is How to Rig an Election. Can elections be rigged?

RAYMOND:Sure. [...]

Enjoy.

No shit...

Non Sequitur

Click to embiggen

George of Arabia

Greg Palast with today's 'must read':

Bend over, pull out your wallet and kiss your Abe ‘goodbye.’ The Lincolns have got to go - and so do the Hamiltons and Jacksons.

Those bills in your billfold aren’t yours anymore. The landlords of our currency - Citibank, the national treasury of China and the House of Saud - are foreclosing and evicting all Americans from the US economy.

Let’s begin by stating why Bush is not in Saudi Arabia. Bush ain’t there to promote ‘Democracy’ nor peace in Palestine, nor even war in Iran. And, despite what some pinhead from CNN stated, he sure as hell didn’t go to Riyadh to tell the Saudis to cut the price of oil.

What’s really behind Bush’s hajj to Riyadh is that America is in hock up to our knickers. The sub-prime mortgage market implosion, hitting a dozen banks with over $100 billion in losses, is just the tip of the debt-berg.

Bush needs the Saudis to charge us big bucks for oil. The Saudis can’t lend the US Treasury and Citibank hundreds of billions of US dollars unless they first get these US dollars from the US. The high price of oil is, in effect, a tax levied by Bush but collected by the oil industry and the Gulf kingdoms to fund our multi-trillion dollar governmental and private debt-load.

Bush is there to assure Abdullah that, unlike Dubai’s ports purchase debacle, there will be no political impediment to the Saudi’s buying up Citibank nor the isle of Manhattan.

It has been reported that the President’s Secret Service men traveling with him seemed embarrassed by the eye-popping loads of diamond and gold gifts which they have to carry back for President Bush. They need not feel they have taken too much from their hosts: Bush has assured Abdullah that the King can suck it back out through our gas tanks.

I have nothing to add other than Bush has sold our country down the river. And yes, that was a slavery reference.

Added twofer:

The last part of a Robert Scheer column on G ibn Bush:

With Bush’s imperial fantasy fading into dismal reality, our nation saddled with record debt, an immense trade gap and an American public that has seen through his “What, me worry?” con, the president has bizarrely sought validation through visiting the scene of his foreign policy crimes. [...]

[...] As an editorial in the Arab News, a Saudi English-language newspaper, put it on the occasion of Bush’s visit: “ ... no Palestinian, no Arab believes, he will, or can, deliver. ... Everything he touches turns to dust and ashes. Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe now even Iran.”

There they go again, worrying only about themselves. Didn’t Bush also touch New Orleans? What about Enron? Things have gotten so tough here that even Halliburton’s CEO moved his headquarters to Dubai. The bad news for the Saudis is that Bush broke the United States—but they own it.

Quote du Jour from Le Monde:

On n'impose pas sa loi à son créancier.

Well, OK, the translation is the last sentence in the editorial content at the bottom of this page.

Looks like the Saudis own Europe as well.

Former Congressman (R) Accused Of Helping Fund Terrorists

WaPo

A former Republican congressman from Michigan who has dedicated himself to building ties between Christians and Muslims was indicted in federal court yesterday for alleged ties to an Islamic charity that sent money to suspected terrorists.

Mark D. Siljander, who served more than two terms in the House in the 1980s and later ran as a Republican candidate for the House from Northern Virginia, was charged with money laundering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

The indictment alleges that he lied to the FBI about his work on behalf of the Islamic American Relief Agency, which the Treasury Department designated as a terrorist organization in 2004.

After his first House election in 1981, Siljander said he thought he won because he often wore a "Jesus First" button and because "God wanted me in."

The charity, which was based in Columbia, Mo., allegedly paid Siljander $50,000 in March 2004 to lobby the Senate Finance Committee in an attempt to be kept off a list of terrorist organizations. Senate records indicate that Siljander has not been registered as a lobbyist since 1998.

According to the indictment, the money was stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Siljander lied to federal agents about his role.

Siljander's role in the case is more limited. He is not charged with a terrorism crime. Instead, the indictment alleges, Siljander worked with the group's leaders to conceal the source of stolen international aid money, which was transferred to accounts he controlled.

Just like a good christian Repug - in on the money end and to hell with where it came from or what they're up to as long as he gets paid.

Bush set the standard for this kind of behavior in aiding and abetting terrorists with his relationship with the Saudis. Terrorists the world over have done quite well during his regime.

Nuke the whales

In their neverending quest to fuck up everything they touch as they fight the 'War on Terra', they're gonna let the Navy ping the whales into submission.

Running late, see yas in the afternoon ...

...an' fried chicken an' watermelon, too! Yowzah!

Click to engorge this worm

I'm surprised he didn't get in few more stereotypes for his racist bastard party. Like "tight pussy, loose shoes, an' a warm place to shit!" or "you kin always trust one o' them to steal more chain than he can swim with!". Those racist motherfuckers woulda loved it.

From Coffins to Coffers

Here's the last paragraph of a 'recommended read' by James Wolcott:

Which may explain the final sentences in the epilogue to Draper’s Dead Certain, where the author says that Bush had no intention of marking time until the last tick of his presidency. He’s going to go out with a bang. Once the “surge” strategy in Iraq pays off, “that big ball would be back in his hands again, and he would heave it long.” In Beltway gridiron lingo, this might be interpreted as signifying that Bush is going to drop back in the fourth quarter and hurl a long bomb downfield at Iran. If Bush feels he’s achieved a winning groove, what the hell, why not run up the score, despite the National Intelligence Estimate? Perhaps Bush’s post-presidential memoir should be titled From Coffins to Coffers, since he’s helped fill so many of both.

In an article about Suharto of Indonesia, a point was made that applies to Bush as well:

One Small Man Leaves a Million Corpses

And he's doing it in our name, damn him.

More Huckwit*

Pharyngula expands on Fixer's post:

Huckabee is a raving lunatic

Whoa.

We have a candidate who openly wants to make the US a religious state, and he's the frontrunner on the Republican side. There are a large number of people who want this demented fuckwit to run the country. And the pundits of the news media are sucking their thumbs and watching; here's what one commentator had to say:

Geist further noted of Huckabee that if "someone without his charm," said that, "he'd be dismissed as a crackpot, but he's Mike Huckabee and he's basically the front-runner."

Popularity excuses all affronts, I guess. Did your mother ever ask you, "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?"

I'm feeling a bit like I'm watching a whole country merrily running towards that cliff right now.

Note to lemmings: Flying's fun, and the fall won't hurt you. It's the sudden stop at the end, such as if we get this as-bad-as-the-half-wit-we-got-now-only-different clown as the next resident of the White House. .

*With a name like Huckabee, it's almost too easy. Thank you, Lord.

That explains it...

Raw Story

Huckabee spoke to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough from Columbia, SC, saying enthusiastically, "South Carolina's a great place for me. I mean, I know how to eat grits and speak the language. We even know how to talk about eating fried squirrel and stuff like that, so we're on the same wavelength."

"Mika, I bet you never did this," Huckabee went on, addressing Mika Brzezinski. "When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper, because that was the only thing they would let us use in the dorm, and we would fry squirrels in a popcorn popper in the dorm room."

"Ewwww," responded Scarborough, wincing. "Too much information!"

Visuals of exploding squirrels notwithstanding, Scarborough's sure a squeamish fuck. He missed the larger issue: Are Huckabee's End Times delusions caused by Mad Squirrel Disease?

Two Kentucky doctors last month reported a possible link between eating squirrel brains and the rare and deadly human variety of mad-cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, thought to strike one person in 1 million, produces holes in the brain. Symptoms include loss of muscle control and dementia. It may take years, even decades, for symptoms to appear.

Ol' Huck's 'one in a million', that's for sure.

Quote of the Day

Tony Peyser

Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary. To celebrate, he handed out air fresheners to laid off auto workers living in their cars.

Very thoughtful of him. This time of year, you gotta keep the windows rolled up.

Ooh! It's a three-way!

David Sirota

For those of you who think the Democratic presidential nomination fight is just a two-way race between Obama and Clinton, check out this brand new poll from the Reno Gazette-Journal. Yup, that's right - it shows the Nevada caucus race a three-way, dead heat with John Edwards right in the mix.

The question we should ask is what the hostility and media blackout is really all about? I'd say the media's behavior is motivated by the same impulses that moves lobbyists to whine and cry to Reuters and self-important bloviators like O'Donnell to publicly burst a blood vessel on the Huffington Post - the people who have gotten used to the status quo are truly terrified by any candidates who they really believe will change things and threaten their power and status. Edwards is just such a candidate - one who threatens to muck up what the media and political elite want to be a race between two "nonthreatening," Wall Street-approved candidates. Obviously, it's a three-way race at this very moment - whether the Establishment likes that or not.

Let me conclude by saying I have no idea if the Gazette-Journal poll is accurate and/or whether Edwards will win Nevada (or any other state). Unlike most reporters, I don't spend my time covering the horse race, nor judging the candidates' viability only on the grounds of how much corporate cash they've been able to vacuum in. I spend my time trying to figure out which of these candidates represent the most fundamental form of change. One of the ways to judge that is to see who these candidates make uncomfortable. And by that measure, here's what I know: Edwards is generating hostility from precisely the kinds of people who are likely to be most averse to real, systemic change. And that speaks very well for the former senator from North Carolina.

Yes, it does.

The Reno Gazette-Urinal is usually a mouthpiece for the major casino interests that run Nevada.

The reason why ...

Huckabee should scare you:

The United States Constitution never uses the word "God" or makes mention of any religion, drawing its sole authority from "We the People." However, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks it's time to put an end to that.

...

Because Jesus rode up on his dinosaur and gave him the word:

...

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

...

We've had seven years with a moron in the White House. Do we really want to replace him with this nut? Not that McCain or The Mittster are any better. McCain left the best part of himself (his honor) in Hanoi and Mitt never took a stand he couldn't weasel out of (he never knew the meaning of the word 'honor'), but Huck really believes his own bullshit.

And an addendum, Ted has a really good post up about how religion is getting in the way of democracy:

...

Can't we just let them all do a one-time, 30-second public display of how much they love and are devoted to their God and be done with it? Once that spectacle was over we could move on to the actual issues that face the human race. Things like nuclear proliferation, global warming, the mortgage crisis, the rapidly approaching feudal state that's being created by the perfect storm of decimating the social safety net while cutting the taxes of the rich.

...

I don't give a shit about your religion unless, like Huck, your goal is to make it the State Religion. I also have a problem with people, like Huck, who are obviously batshit crazy having the ability to 'push the button'.

Ya damn kids ...

Grumpy old men.