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Thursday, July 9, 2009
Repeal DADT Bill. Do Tell!
Congressman Patrick Murphy (D - PA-8) gets Gordon's Alternate Brain Good Guy Of The Week Award.
Nightmare scenarios ...
Jill has a question:
The sphincter tightens thinking about it.
Can you imagine if the Republicans had the White House, the House of Representatives, and a 60-vote majority in the Senate?
The sphincter tightens thinking about it.
Sarah who?
No longer the darling of most of the GOP (but still going strong with the spank-your-monkey faction - "Ooh, I love rubber!"), her only career from here out will be as a fishwife (Rush Lintball's fishwife):
The Rethugs might be losers, but they sure don't want to be linked to a quitter.
New Jersey GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie's campaign has no interest in help from Sarah Palin after the former vice presidential candidate stepped down as governor of Alaska, in part to help Republican candidates across the country.
...
Palin is getting a lukewarm response in Virginia, the other high-profile governor's race this year. Republican candidate Bob McDonnell said Tuesday his campaign had conversations with the Palin camp, but stopped short of saying whether he wanted her help.
...
The Rethugs might be losers, but they sure don't want to be linked to a quitter.
Great thanks to our pal Maru for the link.
Yeah, good thing ...
Hillary Clinton was never viciously persecuted like Sarah Palin:
Is that all Republicans do? Whine?
...
Has Palin been accused of murder? Have the charges been conclusively proven false by three separate special prosecutors to the tune of many millions of taxpayer dollars in investigations that last for years and personally cost her millions of dollars in legal fees? No? Then I think she needs to rethink her claims.
...
Is that all Republicans do? Whine?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Conyers Proposes, Rove Deposes
Raw Story
As long as we hear what he said used against him and others in court, I'll be happy.
Cheney's runnin' out the clock. He knows he'll die before any of the details of his crimes are used against him. Later this afternoon would be fine.
Former Bush White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was deposed by lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) said in an interview Tuesday.
Rove’s deposition took place over a period of some eight and a half hours, beginning at 10 a.m. and ending around 6:30 p.m, ET — and the lawyers took several breaks, Conyers said.
Conyers wouldn’t say what Rove told investigators or whether Rove would appear before his committee again.
As long as we hear what he said used against him and others in court, I'll be happy.
Blogger Emptywheel, noted for her reporting on all things related to Plamegate, remarks, “Supposedly, there will be transcripts produced, Harriet and Karl will review them, and then we’ll all get our greedy little hands on them. Given that it’s summertime in our nation’s capital, it’ll take at least a few weeks for all that to transpire.”
“But we might get a Karl transcript before we get a Cheney interview,” Wheeler adds.
Cheney's runnin' out the clock. He knows he'll die before any of the details of his crimes are used against him. Later this afternoon would be fine.
Pro-marijuana ad pushes pot as Calif. budget fix
AP. You can see the ad here. Caution: It's not at F** Noise, but it's their video.
We're payin' 'em anyway. Might as well be for something good.
Speaking as a product of, and booster for, vocational education - hear! hear!
An ad at the bottom of that article led me to this:
Other than being the most expensive bongs I ever heard of, what do you think of that?
We've come a long way from a Prince Albert can full of weed for $10, I think.
Folks can say whatever they want about how us Californians have fucked ourselves over financially with Prop 13 and our supermajority law and our demand for services all for utopian free and yada-yada, but if we get legalized marijuana, we won't even notice the blathering. Heh. The most serious problem will be the empty Sara Lee counter at the market.
A pro-marijuana group is launching another television bid to legalize pot in California — this time with the pitch that legalizing and taxing the drug could help solve the state's massive budget deficit.
The 30-second spot, airing Wednesday and paid for by the Marijuana Policy Project, features a retired 58-year-old state worker who says state leaders "are ignoring millions of Californians who want to pay taxes."
We're payin' 'em anyway. Might as well be for something good.
In a phone interview, Herndon said that before filming the ad, she had not told very many people about her marijuana use. But she said her concern over the state's fiscal crisis and her support of medical marijuana led her to go public.
"I came out of the closet with this ad," she said.
...
She said she was approached to star in the ad while her husband was taking classes at Oaksterdam University, an Oakland trade school that trains students to grow medical marijuana.
Speaking as a product of, and booster for, vocational education - hear! hear!
An ad at the bottom of that article led me to this:
Vaporize Your Herb
Other than being the most expensive bongs I ever heard of, what do you think of that?
We've come a long way from a Prince Albert can full of weed for $10, I think.
Folks can say whatever they want about how us Californians have fucked ourselves over financially with Prop 13 and our supermajority law and our demand for services all for utopian free and yada-yada, but if we get legalized marijuana, we won't even notice the blathering. Heh. The most serious problem will be the empty Sara Lee counter at the market.
Why newspapers are dying
Professor Smartass in reaction to WaPo's hurriedly-backed-off-of-since-it-got-out offer of access to public officials for money, just one of the reasons we seldom like to link any more to the Neocon Post:
Obviously, being part of the ruling elite doesn't make you smart, only greedy.
It's not just newspapers. The 'financial/ruling elite' may be more dangerous than ever now that they've seen threats of a loss of power, however slight, with Obama and the Dems in the majority. They've circled the wagons and are doubling their efforts against us.
From a post by Thom Hartmann on a completely different aspect of the far right's war on us:
We will be fighting against this forever. We must.
Weymouth's hard-to-believe apology as well as the original idea for the event itself shows why newspapers and our democratic process are dying: the public is fed platitudes and PR spin to herd them toward pre-approved opinions while the real debate is going on behind closed doors between those who have the money to buy the outcome they want.
The original article shows one part of the problem is nepotism. Weymouth got her job not because she is the crème de la crème of journalists but because she is the grand-daughter of famed owner Katherine Graham. Owning the press no more makes you a competent publisher than being the first president Bush's son makes you a competent president.
Obviously, being part of the ruling elite doesn't make you smart, only greedy.
We need a new model of press, perhaps like the Guardian in the UK that is run like PBS & NPR here (but the Guardian doesn't have to beg for corporate donations). We should also fully fund PBS & NPR, so they aren't beholden to corporations and the foundations of the wealthy to stay in business.
If the presidency of George W. Bush, the Enron collapse, the theft of countless pensions, the attempted theft through privatization of Social Security, the banking crisis, our health insurance system that puts profits ahead of saving lives, and our on-going wars for oil and pipeline routes in the Middle East were not evidence enough, Katherine Weymouth provides further proof that the financial elite in this country is as morally and intellectually crippled as George W. Bush--and just as dangerous when their hands are on the levers of power.
It's not just newspapers. The 'financial/ruling elite' may be more dangerous than ever now that they've seen threats of a loss of power, however slight, with Obama and the Dems in the majority. They've circled the wagons and are doubling their efforts against us.
From a post by Thom Hartmann on a completely different aspect of the far right's war on us:
As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
Get ready.
We will be fighting against this forever. We must.
Lessons learned from Vietnam? None.
Bob Herbert on the Devil calling McNamara home:
Made sense then, makes no sense 7 years on. In the end, probably to no gain except profit. Two more parallels to Vietnam. Nice goin', George.
It's not lost on me, but Herbert is right. The only significance of his death is to bring this shit up again. Not that anybody except us old farts care.
Long after the horror of Vietnam was over, McNamara would concede, in remarks that were like salt in the still festering wounds of the loved ones of those who had died, that he had been “wrong, terribly wrong” about the war. I felt nothing but utter contempt for his concession.
McNamara, it turns out, had realized early on that Vietnam was a lost cause, but he kept that crucial information close to his chest, like a gambler trying to bluff his way through a bad hand, as America continued to send tens of thousands to their doom. How in God’s name did he ever look at himself in a mirror?
Lessons learned from Vietnam? None.
More than 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam and some 2 million to 3 million Vietnamese. More than 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq, and no one knows how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Even as I was writing this, reports were coming in of seven more American G.I.’s killed in Afghanistan — a war that made sense in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, but makes very little sense now.
Made sense then, makes no sense 7 years on. In the end, probably to no gain except profit. Two more parallels to Vietnam. Nice goin', George.
None of these wars had clearly articulated goals or endgames. None were pursued with the kind of intensity and sense of common purpose and shared sacrifice that marked World War II. Wars are now mostly background noise, distant events overshadowed by celebrity deaths and the antics of Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford and the like.
The obscenity of war is lost on most Americans, and that drains the death of Robert McNamara of any real significance.
It's not lost on me, but Herbert is right. The only significance of his death is to bring this shit up again. Not that anybody except us old farts care.
Dear Mayor Villaraigosa,
Stop whining about this ...
... And send the remainder of the bill to the Jackson family. The taxpayers didn't ask to have this classless spectacle foisted on them and shouldn't be forced to absorb the costs of security for it. With all the records MJ sold since he died, a cool mil should be pocket change.
And by the way, can we put him to rest now and get on with real news? I am so fucking sick of this shit.
Regards,
Fixer
...
Jackson’s memorial service comes at a tough financial time for the California City. Last month when the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA Championships, the city was unable to scrounge up enough cash to hold a traditional victory parade, instead opting for a celebration at the Forum. Half of that $2 million tab was reportedly paid for by AEG Live.
...
... And send the remainder of the bill to the Jackson family. The taxpayers didn't ask to have this classless spectacle foisted on them and shouldn't be forced to absorb the costs of security for it. With all the records MJ sold since he died, a cool mil should be pocket change.
And by the way, can we put him to rest now and get on with real news? I am so fucking sick of this shit.
Regards,
Fixer
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Froomkin Hired By HuffPo
Does he get privileges with MFBTGR*? Good news from Glenn Greenwald:
The split is to the right, Dan. If it was in the center it wouldn't be a problem. The right wing would never be mentioned in the same sentence as 'truth'.
Huffington says that it is Froomkin's views on the media that, for her, is his primary appeal. The key to vibrant, successful journalism, she said, is "getting away from the notion that truth is found by splitting the difference between the two sides, that there is always truth to both sides." Huffington argues that establishment journalism is failing due to "the idea that good journalism is about presenting both sides without a voice -- without any passion." The outlets that continue to adhere to that "obsolete" model "are paying a price." Froomkin -- who has written extensively about how passion-free, "both-sides-are-equally-valid" journalism is the primary affliction of the profession -- echoes that view: "The key challenge is to present an alternative to the 'splitting the difference' culture that has infested traditional media."
The split is to the right, Dan. If it was in the center it wouldn't be a problem. The right wing would never be mentioned in the same sentence as 'truth'.
*My Favorite Big Titted Greek Redhead
Palin Not Fade Away
El Rude-o on Palin:
Thanks a great steaming pile for that reference, Rude One. Yeesh. Can't they just bury the poor bastard? Yeah, under the center ring at B&B.
Ever so much more...
Hell, even if she had said, "Governoring is boring and I'm sick of people buggin' me for stuff. I'm headin' to L.A. to make shitloads of money, fuckers," it would have been more honest.
At this point, though, Michael Jackson's funeral has more dignity.
Thanks a great steaming pile for that reference, Rude One. Yeesh. Can't they just bury the poor bastard? Yeah, under the center ring at B&B.
[...] Reading Kristol's pathetic whine of a column is like taking pleasure in watching a man eat a shit sandwich and pretending it's fine ham.
In the Washington Times, Tony Blankley, a man who looks like he just ate a whole meatball sub, writes, "And though many a conventional politician might be seen as a quitter if he resigned from office -- I have a very strong hunch Mrs. Palin is constitutionally incapable of being seen as a quitter. Because she is not. She is constantly taking on the biggest challenge on her horizon." You got that logic? If anyone else quit, they'd be a quitter. But if Palin quits, she's not. Thus Tony Blankley finally achieved his goal of licking his own asshole.
Over on MSNBC's Morning Starbucks, Mika Brzezinski, who always looks like she's just aching for a spanking, said yesterday that if Palin were a man, we wouldn't be judging her so harshly for resigning. She's wrong on that account, but she's right that we'd treat a man differently. We'd call him a "pussy." (Bonus points: Brzezinski declared that she's not a feminist.)
Ever so much more...
Aw, shit...
After I read this article,
I sent this e-mail:
Not that it will do any good. I don't have $1.4M a day to spend. It just made me feel better.
The 'beer run' reference is from here.
Update:
I know the Repugs are not solely responsible. They have a lot of help from the Dems in holding us back from the correct path. I didn't mention that in my e-mail because I didn't want to further Obama's delusions about non-existent bipartisanship for any other reason than to keep the lobbyists' money flowing in like seawater into New Orleans.
Update II:
BuzzFlash headline:
Rahm's trying for the 'trigger' option. It won't work. Period. The big insurers will just co-opt it and nothing will change.
Note to Obama: Bitch slap that little fucker and get him pointed in the right direction. I like Emanuel, but not this time.
Rahm Emanuel Signals White House Is Willing To Compromise On Public Plan
I sent this e-mail:
Dear President Obama,
My wife and I voted for you and like you and want you to succeed, but...
If you do not get a 'public option', you have not 'reformed' health care and your Presidency will be a failure for the rest of your term. Period.
Pardon me for putting it this way, but screw the health 'insurance' industry and its Republican politicians. They're the ones who got us into this mess and they're not the ones who will get us out of it.
The time for 'health care for profit' is over. Unlike the dinosaurs of old, these dinosaurs see the end coming and are fighting it tooth and nail. The American people must win this one and enter the 21st century with health care for all like the civilized nations have.
Health care should be like a beer run: everybody kicks in, everybody gets it, nobody gets rich.
Please do the right thing.
Gordon
Not that it will do any good. I don't have $1.4M a day to spend. It just made me feel better.
The 'beer run' reference is from here.
Update:
I know the Repugs are not solely responsible. They have a lot of help from the Dems in holding us back from the correct path. I didn't mention that in my e-mail because I didn't want to further Obama's delusions about non-existent bipartisanship for any other reason than to keep the lobbyists' money flowing in like seawater into New Orleans.
Update II:
BuzzFlash headline:
President Obama Offers Weak Reassurance that He Will Back Government Option in the End.
Rahm's trying for the 'trigger' option. It won't work. Period. The big insurers will just co-opt it and nothing will change.
Note to Obama: Bitch slap that little fucker and get him pointed in the right direction. I like Emanuel, but not this time.
Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure
[Welcome to Crooks and Liars readers!]
Joseph L. Galloway at McClatchy
Please read the rest. Mr. Galloway reminds us of David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest which was an insight into the flawed thought processes that got us into "McNamara's War".
If you don't think the Vietnam War is still important, kindly remember that, coming on the heels of Civil Rights and being the main cause of social upheaval when many people saw the light and many didn't, it brought us Richard Nixon and the Reagan/Bush era. We have had one President and one president who were Vietnam-era draft dodgers, but the country is still too afraid of crazed Vietnam Vets to have one of them for Prez and we probably won't. The wounds are below the surface now, but they're still festering.
Those of us who came of age during those days will never, I say again never, forget it for all our days on this Earth. It still matters.
There's also a description of a bizarre event involving McNamara and the Martha's Vineyard ferry. The moral of the story is: Eat your Wheaties so you can throw rather than push.
One down, one to go:
Joseph L. Galloway at McClatchy
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." —Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)
Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.
McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.
Please read the rest. Mr. Galloway reminds us of David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest which was an insight into the flawed thought processes that got us into "McNamara's War".
If you don't think the Vietnam War is still important, kindly remember that, coming on the heels of Civil Rights and being the main cause of social upheaval when many people saw the light and many didn't, it brought us Richard Nixon and the Reagan/Bush era. We have had one President and one president who were Vietnam-era draft dodgers, but the country is still too afraid of crazed Vietnam Vets to have one of them for Prez and we probably won't. The wounds are below the surface now, but they're still festering.
Those of us who came of age during those days will never, I say again never, forget it for all our days on this Earth. It still matters.
There's also a description of a bizarre event involving McNamara and the Martha's Vineyard ferry. The moral of the story is: Eat your Wheaties so you can throw rather than push.
One down, one to go:
Click it
Социализированная медицина ...
According to Krugman and the CBO*, it works:
We can afford 'socialized medicine', and no, I don't have a problem with the name:
The only thing standing in the way of a comprehensive health care overhaul are those in the pockets of Big HMO.
...
But last week the budget office scored the full proposed legislation from the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). And the news — which got far less play in the media than the downbeat earlier analysis — was very, very good. Yes, we can reform health care.
Let me start by pointing out something serious health economists have known all along: on general principles, universal health insurance should be eminently affordable.
...
We can afford 'socialized medicine', and no, I don't have a problem with the name:
...
After all, every other advanced country offers universal coverage, while spending much less on health care than we do. For example, the French health care system covers everyone, offers excellent care and costs barely more than half as much per person as our system.
And even if we didn’t have this international evidence to reassure us, a look at the U.S. numbers makes it clear that insuring the uninsured shouldn’t cost all that much, for two reasons.
...
The only thing standing in the way of a comprehensive health care overhaul are those in the pockets of Big HMO.
*Link thanks to Mr. Aravosis.
Monday, July 6, 2009
"...hotter than Satan's taint"
The Rude Pundit goes to a teabagging party, with pictures. His closing thoughts:
Some things never change. Ya can't fix stupid.
No, instead you sigh, thinking that it's too hot a day. You debate in your mind whether or not this is a real movement or just a bunch of people who too readily believe all the goddamn lies they're fed. You get a free sno-cone (sour apple flavor). You listen to the costumed kids sing, "God Bless America." You leave when the band starts to cover Lee Greenwood's fucking song. You go to see fireworks downtown after the local symphony plays. You hear that people around here don't put pro-choice or pro-Obama stickers on their cars because they'll get keyed. You know this is America, too, yes, and, unlike the tea partygoers, you recognize it because, even as they celebrate a so-called "revolution" and hope for another, some things never change.
Some things never change. Ya can't fix stupid.
What's wrong with this picture?
From a photo gallery of Operation Khanjar ("Strike of the Sword").
If this dumbass Jarhead thinks those bullets are diggin' into the base of his skull now, wait 'til an enemy bullet hits one of 'em.
Note to dumbass Jarhead: Flip the belts over so the hurty things are pointin' away from yer apparently unused brain housing group.
He probably hangs his grenades by their safety pins too. Yeesh. Dibs on his iPod. If we can find it.
Note to the Commandant: I know where you can get an Old Corps Marine as a highly paid civilian consultant who can explain very simple things to today's young Marines in terms they can understand. Things like if they're gonna do stupid shit, at least don't get photographed doing them. I'll bring my own 2x4. At cost plus, of course.
If this dumbass Jarhead thinks those bullets are diggin' into the base of his skull now, wait 'til an enemy bullet hits one of 'em.
Note to dumbass Jarhead: Flip the belts over so the hurty things are pointin' away from yer apparently unused brain housing group.
He probably hangs his grenades by their safety pins too. Yeesh. Dibs on his iPod. If we can find it.
Note to the Commandant: I know where you can get an Old Corps Marine as a highly paid civilian consultant who can explain very simple things to today's young Marines in terms they can understand. Things like if they're gonna do stupid shit, at least don't get photographed doing them. I'll bring my own 2x4. At cost plus, of course.
Robert McNamara, 1916-2009 -- and America's tragic memory loss
Attytood, links at site.
It wouldn't have. The Vietnam War started as a response to supposed communist expansion during The Cold War, then lost its purpose and dragged on and on to no good end.
Bush's War was about ideological and personal selfishness, arrogance, and ego.
The big constants between them were corporate profits and hundreds of thousands of deaths to no good end.
So long, Mac. I hope you fuckin' fry for eternity.
Robert McNamara died today at age 93. As Secretary of Defense for Presidents John F. Kennedy and more notably Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s, it was McNamara who oversaw America's tragic military buildup in Vietnam. That made McNamara -- right up until today's news -- a vivid anti-icon to those Baby Boomers who opposed the war -- and I think you can make the case that his death is that of the most historical significance of the slew of recent "celebrity" passings, no matter how many millions of people are gathering outside the Staples Center to remember the Gloved One.
Bob McNamara was not a great man. He was a man with great intelligence that didn't prevent him from executing a plan that led to the unnecessary slaughter -- for reasons that remain hard to fully comprehend -- of tens of thousands of Americans and many more Vietnamese. [...]
The life of Robert McNamara was a personal tragedy, but it was also an American tragedy, our tragedy -- because even after McNamara spelled out everything that went so horribly wrong in Vietnam, he lived long enough to see a new generation of the self-appointed "best and brightest" in Washington pay absolutely no mind to the lessons of our recent past.
In Iraq, as in Vietnam, our policy-makers knew nothing or cared little about the long history and convoluted ethnic and religious politics of Mesopotamia's Fertile Crescent. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no plan for the proper military follow-up to a period of "shock and awe" bombing. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, we totally misjudged the "nationalism" of the people who lived there and how they would react to a long American occupation. And perhaps most importantly, In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no real "public debate" as we marched headlong and foolishly into the 2003 -- with way too many "unexamined assumptions," "unasked questions," and "readily dismissed alternatives."
I actually spoke, very briefly, on the phone with McNamara in early 2003 in an effort to interview him for the Daily News. Like a few other journalists in that critical hour, I was hoping some of his tragically acquired wisdom might infuse the tepid pre-war discussions, and like all other reporters in those pre-war months, he told me he was holding off on commenting (as noted in the link above, he had a lot to say in 2006 when it was too late). That was a damned shame -- even though I can't imagine it would have tipped the rigged scales.
It wouldn't have. The Vietnam War started as a response to supposed communist expansion during The Cold War, then lost its purpose and dragged on and on to no good end.
Bush's War was about ideological and personal selfishness, arrogance, and ego.
The big constants between them were corporate profits and hundreds of thousands of deaths to no good end.
So long, Mac. I hope you fuckin' fry for eternity.
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
IRAQ: U.S. OCCUPIERS FINALLY DRIVEN OUT
Search begins for exiled tyrant Bush.
Percentage of Americans Covered by Private Health Insurance at 50-Year Low
But thank God we don’t have socialized medicine.
Many States on Brink of Financial Collapse
Residents of neighboring states advised to purchase firearms.
FBI: Saddam Told Interrogators He Bluffed Having WMD to Scare Off Iran
Worked like a charm.
Not again ...
The tea baggers are back.
Pics of Stupid Republican Tricks at the link. I'm running late this morning. Hope you all survived the 4th.
The Republican Party of Duval County is backing away from their promotion of an event that featured numerous controversial comparisons of President Barack Obama with German Dictator Adolf Hitler. The event, a Tea Party held at the Jacksonville Landing on July 2, was organized by the First Coast Tea Party. However, the Duval County Republican Party promoted the event with e-mails that stated "Paid by Republican Party of Duval County" ...
Pics of Stupid Republican Tricks at the link. I'm running late this morning. Hope you all survived the 4th.
Great thanks to Digby for the link.
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