Don't they have a law ...

Against consorting with "known terrorist organizations", let alone taking money from them?

Former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton (D) and former CENTCOM Commander Anthony Zinni told the Inter Press Service that they were paid to appear at recent events supporting the MEK, an Iranian opposition group currently considered a terrorist organization by the State Department.

...

Or is it that some "terrorist organizations" are less terrorist-y than others? Or is it that "terrorism" is okay if they're terrorizing somebody you don't like? Or is it that these guys are big shots and this is America and big shots can do anything they damn well please?

I'm going for "all of the above".

"Shared sacrifice"...

Benen:

...

Here's the roll call on the vote. A total of 236 Republicans voted, and all of them opposed the effort to end public subsidies for oil companies.

...

Also note, ending the subsidies would save the federal government tens of billions of dollars, making a significant dent in the deficit-reduction campaign that Republicans pretend to care about. It's a reminder that the GOP's commitment to fiscal responsibility is shaped in large part by who'll suffer as a result of the cuts -- working families can feel the brunt of the budget ax, under the GOP vision, but ExxonMobil can't.

...

Not one House Rethug voted to kill the subsidies to oil companies ($53 billion worth), but those lazy, BMW-driving union teachers are driving us to bankruptcy. Realizing, of course, that the money taken from the oil companies would go a long way to satisfying the Rethug/Teabagger demand for cuts to the budget (that's assuming they're actually worried about the deficit).

As anyone with half a brain knows by now, the Rethug plan has nothing to do with "deficit-reduction" or "spending cuts". It's all about breaking the middle class, period.

So ...

What don't our elected representatives understand?

Pic from here.

Quote of the Day

Michelle Kraus:

... You know listening to him [Charlie Sheen] was like listening to ranting of the crazy uncle who spent a bit too much time alone in the attic drinking lighter fluid, and diddling himself ...

Heh ...

Two words ...

Bristol Palin:

In a radio appearance on Monday, Mike Huckabee attacked actress Natalie Portman for having a child "out of wedlock." Huckabee said that it's "troubling" to see people like "Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, 'Hey look, you know, we're having children, we're not married, but we're having these children, and they're doing just fine.'" Huckabee added that "it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock."

...

But I guess the collective memory has forgotten about that already.

Quote of the Day

Susie:

... I am so used to authoritarian cops who don't give a damn about anyone else's rights that I'm deeply impressed by the Wisconsin cops who are refusing to allow themselves to be used against the governor's political opponents ...

George Will Is Confused...

What's new about that, you may well ask. Given that being confused about things he knows nothing about but being an expert on everything anyway is his stock in trade, this is something new he's an expert on but knows nothing about. HuffPo:

One way of looking at high-speed rail systems is that they are a means by which distant communities get connected, economic development and jobs are fostered, and workers with a diverse array of marketable skills can improve their mobility and thus their employment prospects. But another way of looking at high-speed rail is that it's some nonsense that came to a bunch of hippies as they tripped balls at a Canned Heat concert. That's my takeaway with George Will's latest grapple-with-the-real-world session, in which he attempts to figure out "Why liberals love trains." It's "Matrix" deep, yo:

Actually it's not. It's "falling off a log" simple, yo: Will doesn't know jack shit about anything other than a narrow (minded) right-wing agenda, and he's not real clear on that.

Time was, the progressive cry was "Workers of the world unite!" or "Power to the people!" Now it is less resonant: "All aboard!"

Yes. Because Karl Marx invented mass transit.

Much more.

I like trains for a lot of reasons. I like the idea of loading my pickup with all my travellin' junk in it on a flatcar so I have it when I get wherever I'm going and pay for the railroad's wear and tear instead of my own. I hear this is big in the Back East I-95 corridor.

Also, I like the 'street art' on the sound walls in the cities. Railroad tracks always go through the oldest part of towns because they were laid a long time ago. Think 'inner city' and 'spray paint'. Some of it's gorgeous.

You see beautiful things you'd never see from a car even if you're not driving. You see the backs of things as well - ya think the front of an oil refinery is ugly? And stuff that's not so pretty, like f'rinstance all the discarded tires lining the shore of the nether regions of Frisco Bay. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all out there.

You can meet and chat with people. You can get something to eat. You can sleep and read. You don't have to pull off the road to go to the can. You can just look out the window. Your destination will be just the same when you get there.

Air travel is faster, of course, but it's turned into such a pain in the ass that most folks use it but don't like it any more. I'd rather take the train than fly, always have, time permitting. It just needs to be more dog- and car-friendly.

George Will is too elite in his thinking to realize the value of rail. He's an ass.

NBC/WSJ Poll Finds Americans Wary of GOP Agenda

From Slate, links at site:

The latest survey of American attitudes toward the budget contains what could be some alarming news for Republicans. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that Americans are more worried about job creation and economic growth than the federal deficit. And while they "find some budget cuts acceptable, they are adamantly opposed to cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and K-12 education." A GOP pollster who helped conduct the survey called the results "a huge flashing yellow sign to Republicans" and pointed out that the people "most concerned about spending cuts are core Republicans and Tea Party supporters, not independents and swing voters." Steve Benen seconds that: "the party's agenda is appealing to its far-right base, not the American mainstream," he says. "The public isn't buying what the GOP is selling." Kevin Drum agrees. "The tea party is still a pretty small part of America no matter how loudly they yell or how much attention the media pays to them," he says. "Out in real America, people want to tax the rich, cut stupid weapons programs, and stop subsidizing prosperous oil companies. They don't want to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, or education." That means Democrats "most likely hold all the cards in a budget showdown," if they can "manage to agree on a halfway coherent message."

Democrats? Coherent message? When we are dodging excreta from flying porcines.

It is easier to get the attention of a mule by hitting him upside the head with a 2x4 than it is to get Americans to wake up to the people who are trying to flush this country down the shitter. Our national attention span being what it is, this too may pass.

Brauereisterben

Of interest to beer aficionados:

Germans, famously, coin neologisms when a crisis hits or the culture reels in a new direction. Take die bad bank (toxic lender), kreditklemme (credit crunch), or twittern (sending a message via Twitter). Because Germany's brewing industry has fallen on hard times, especially since the mid-1990s, you'll now hear brauereisterben (literally, "brewery death") muttered across the land as well. That may sound a little ridiculous, but in a country practically synonymous with beer and brewing — buxom servers in dirndls and overflowing steins, the biergarten echoing with song — the possibility of a downturn is a major buzz kill.

I like buxom servers in overflowing dirndls!

Verrrrry interesting. You vill go. You vill enyoy.

Headline of the Day with video

The Idiot's Guide to Foreign Wars (Iraq Edition)

...that offered pidgin Arabic phrases and lists of things not to do in Arab societies, a sort of Cliff's Notes for befuddled infantrymen.

Speaking as a former befuddled infantryman (sort of), gee, thanks.

Thanks to MotherJonesVideo,

As basic and simplified as this info sounds, it's more than Bush knew about Arabs and Muslims before his bully ego sent us to an unnecessary criminal war. It's only taken 8 years and 100,000 or so deaths.

The way it is

I heard this on TRMS yesterday. It's so simple, even I could remember it:

There are 12 cookies in front of a CEO, a Tea Party guy, and a union man.

The CEO takes 11 of them and then points at the union man and tells the teabagger, "he wants yours".

There it is.

Some news for teabaggers ...

From Athenae:

...

Do you think it'll help?

That you were on their side, I mean. That you did their dirty work. That you ran around with signs and your little "Don't Tread on Me" flags and all the other stupid shit you carry, in support of an agenda that has not a whit to do with you. Do you think that will protect you when it all goes down?

Do you think your corporate masters will hate you less? Do you think you'll be rewarded for not rocking the boat? Do you think you'll get bonus points because you cheered their speeches and railed against their enemies? Do you think they'll remember you, what a good boy you were, and say hey, while I'm raining down eternal hellfire on these other damned souls, let's give that one an umbrella?

Do you think they'll even remember your name? You goddamn fool.

...

Like lemmings to the sea. They've been sold an "American Dream" that is supposed to be served on a silver platter once the US becomes ideologically pure. Instead they're gonna get a shit sandwich like the rest of us. Goebbels sold Germany that line of shit too.

Indeed!

NYT notices the "we're broke" narrative the Republicans are pushing is bullshit:

...

It’s all obfuscating nonsense, of course, a scare tactic employed for political ends. A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more “broke” than a family with a mortgage or a college loan. And states have to balance their budgets. Though it may disappoint many conservatives, there will be no federal or state bankruptcies.

...

No shit. More Shock Doctrine "disaster capitalism".

...

The federal deficit is too large for comfort, and most states are struggling to balance their books. Some of that is because of excessive spending, and much is because the recession has driven down tax revenues. But a substantial part was caused by deliberate decisions by state and federal lawmakers to drain government of resources by handing out huge tax cuts, mostly to the rich. As governments begin to stagger from the self-induced hemorrhaging, Republican politicians like Mr. Boehner and Mr. Walker cry poverty and use it as an excuse to break unions and kill programs they never liked in flush years. [my em]

...

I have a small glimmer of hope that part of the "Dead End Quarter"* might open their eyes now. Hopefully, the so-called independents have.

*The 25 - 30% of the population who refuse to think for themselves and take the Republican bullshit as gospel.

Not news ...

That Bobo is a smarmy, sleazy, POS and butt boy for the rich conservatives. Reading his latest propaganda column so pissed me off I wanted to punch the monitor. I was gonna rant and rave about it but this is far more articulate than I could ever be:

"We're going to be doing a lot of deficit cutting over the next several years," David Brooks announced, plurally, in their column in today's New York Times. Little-known fact: the byline "David Brooks" is produced by five guys named "David Brook." They all get together and agree on stuff!

...

Heh.

...

What happens when there is no money to give to the people who have no money? That is the moral question. It's fine to say that the old people should have saved more, they should have worked an extra job, they should have done without cable TV, they should have invested more wisely. Saying that doesn't change the fact that there will be old people who do not have money. These old people will believe that they need food and shelter and medical care.

Will they get it? At the arch-plutocrats' end of things, the Koch brothers' end, the end occupied by the most devout worshippers of Ayn Rand, the answer is: no. That's the goal. It's long since time for the sloppy, implicit, badly supported social contract to go away. Rich people have been trimming their contribution to the general revenue for decades now. They are not interested in paying the premium that keeps old people and ailing people or just backward people out of the streets. If the day comes that they have to travel to and from their various compounds in armored helicopters, they can afford the helicopters. It's not their problem.

...

As Gordon says, "a lot more between the quotes".

Reminds me of a concept Isaac Asimov used as a prop in one of his books. People running out of resources reasoned out (read:people like Bobo) that once someone reaches 60, they are a waste of time and resources and should be done away with. Like the movie Logan's Run and an episode of Star Trek: TNG, they made the end into a ceremony, something the oldsters looked forward to instead of something to dread.

That's where they're going in this country. If the Rethugs/Corporatists thought the teabaggers and Fox 'News' would buy into it, they'd be pushing it now.

Thanks to Jill for the link.

Get 'em out!

The recall effort in Wisconsin is getting into full swing:

Last month, ThinkProgress reported that Wisconsin law allows any elected official who has served at least one year of their current term to be recalled from office. Today, a group of Wisconsin voters took the first step towards invoking this recall process. According to a Wisconsin Democratic Party e-mail that was obtained by ThinkProgress:

...

From what the article says, these criminals Rethug senators won their seats by very slim margins and, in the prevailing climate, are susceptible to recall:

... Senator Randy Hopper won his last election by just 184 votes. And Alberta Darling won her last race by only 1,007 ..

.

Hopefully, there are sphincters tightening in the State House.

Link via DU.

Winning hearts and minds ...

Not this way:

1,000 More Volunteers for the Taliban

Or at least that many Afghans who might have been disposed to help the government and the NATO soldiers, but will now look the other way when the Taliban is about.

...

It's long past time to go.

Whose line is it anyway?

Guardian UK

Charlie Sheen v Muammar Gaddafi:

The US actor and the Libyan leader have produced some choice lines recently. Can you distinguish between them?

There are 10. Sample:

#5. I am like the Queen of England

() Sheen
() Gaddafi

Hafta see 'em wave to know for sure.

Go try this. It's harder than ya think. Demented people talk the same everywhere. On dope, on the natch, mox nix. Heh.

Bienvenidos a Juarez, Tejas!

From Guanabee: Spicy Coverage For Latinos.

You know that stereotype of Texans being big, dumb idiots? Well, Texas Governor Rick Perry is doing his best to keep that image alive. During a press conference yesterday, while admonishing the current administration for its failure to secure our border with Mexico, he asked, "“How many more American citizens are going to have to die?” Continuing, he said, “There have been 34,000 Mexicans killed directly attributable to the drug wars. It is a very dangerous place. Juarez is reported to be the most dangerous city in America.”

Shhh...if no one tells him it's Mexico, maybe they'll actually do something to help the Mexican people.

Dream on. He won't do anything for Americans. Other than his rich friends, that is.

Also on that page is a very strange, and probably unsettling to a lotta gabachos, Vodka ad. I always thought Meskins liked Presidente brandy.



Heh. Maybe Portland is now the most dangerous border town in Mexico.

Hucka Sucka Mothaf**ka

Media Matters

Speaking on WOR's The Steve Malzberg Show, Huckabee -- a Fox News host and potential presidential candidate -- said that "one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American ... his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British are a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

Well, the Brits were a bunch of imperialists, and they did arrest his grandfather.

CSM

The executive director of Huckabee's political action committee said the former governor misspoke.

"When the governor mentioned he wanted to know more about the president, he wasn't talking about the president's place of birth — the governor believes the president was born in Hawaii," Hogan Gidley said. "The governor would, however, like to know more about where President Obama's liberal policies come from and what else the president plans to do to this country — as do most Americans."

Gidley said Huckabee meant to reference Obama's childhood in Indonesia, where he lived from the ages of 5 to 10. Gidley didn't explain the connection to the Mau Mau uprising.

I wonder why? Heh.

I guess "misspoke" is the Repug word for "lied his ass off to pander to fools" when they get caught at it which is every time.

Keep it up, Huck-Man. Let's see if you can be elected President with 20% of the vote. With all the other wingnutjobs running, I bet you're not even right-wing-whacko enough to win the primary.

Headline of the Day

Fox Buses In Footage From Sacramento To Make Union Protesters Look Violent (VIDEO)

Notice the B-roll footage in the background at the end of the clip, complete with the calming backdrop of palm trees and....wait there are palm trees in Madison, Wisconsin?

Update:

From Think Progress:

Digby asked of the video, “What’s wrong with this picture?” adding, “If you guessed the snowless ground and palm trees in Wisconsin you win a big prize. Your sanity.”

I've been hoping to win that back...