Wait and see ...

As Gordon said below, it was a good speech. Greg Sargent looks at it, especially the part that struck me:

...

Finally, Obama placed tax hikes for the rich at the very center of the debate, arguing that the “worst” thing about the GOP vision is this: “Even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.”

There’s no ignoring the fact that such stirring rhetoric jars against Obama’s recent deal with Republicans to continue the tax cuts for the rich, and some will be understandably wary of his stated moral conviction about them. But the President did draw a sharp line — one that will be hard to climb down from — on the coming fight over whether to let them expire: “I refuse to renew them again.”

On entitlements, it’s true that Obama repeated the formulation — disliked on the left — that we will reform entitlements without “slashing” benefits for future generations, which leaves the door open to mere “cuts.” But Obama did draw a hard line on defending Medicare’s core mission, and crucially, he did so while reiterating the speech’s larger message, which was that the Democratic version of the social contract is inviolable.

...

It was a great speech but, after seeing so many of Obama's promises left on the side of the campaign trail, after seeing him cave to the right on more than one occasion (whether from lack of a spine or by design), I'm taking a wait and see attitude. I'll be thrilled if he comes through and actually holds this high ground (as opposed to bargaining it away as soon as the Orange Boner opens his pie hole) but I'm not expecting miracles.

I quote my dear friend once again: "Talk, however, is cheap."

"She was lucky ..."

One of the reasons* I believe we should burn all the "holy books" and the "holy men" who use them to control their congregations.

A 15-year-old rape victim was forced to stand terrified before her entire Baptist congregation in New Hampshire to confess her “sin” of having become pregnant.

What Tina Anderson wasn’t allowed to tell the congregation was that she had become pregnant after she was raped by a church deacon, a man twice her age.

...

Power-mad, sadistic bastards. And it ain't confined to the so-called Christians. Even the rabbis are ratfucking each other in NYC:

It is certainly one of the more unusual cases coming out of the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.

And one that now raises questions about one recent child molestation case.

"Imagine what happens when someone is motivated by greed and causes false or exagerated claims to be made about such terrible abuse," said DA Hynes.

...

Nobody knows whether the original molestation charge is bogus or not (of course that doesn't matter to the DA), but it gets better:

...

"Kellner then hatched a plot to make a profit out of this terrible situation by offering a second young man money to falsely claim that Libovits had molested him as a child," adds Hynes.

Kellner is accused of trying to pay him $10,000. Rabbi Libovits went to trial last year on child molestation charges and strangely at the time, even his attorney questioned one of the alleged victims.

But Kellner, the District Attorney accuses, carries his alleged plot even further.

...

Another power-mad "religious man" using an awful situation to get ahead, then making it worse by witness tampering, maybe even allowing a rapist to go free.

As you know, I'm for freedom to worship, or not, but it really kills me that a decent percentage of Americans want to basically ban Islam (they ain't no better than the others) because they're scared of the terrorist bogeyman, yet willingly bring their children to places, on a regular basis, that seem to be breeding grounds for pedophiles, molesters, and rapists.

What am I missing?

Update:

It's too early. I knew I wanted to add another link to this post and my friend WK reminded me in comments. Another who should be burned in a 55gal. drum with a stack of bibles used for kindling is the Catholic League's Bill Donowhore:

It would serve Bill Donohue and the Catholic League well if they went through some basic public relations training. Their latest attempt at bomb-throwing is a full page ad in the New York Times that blames the sexual abuse crisis on an overzealous media, scam artists, and, of course, "the gays."

...

Another apologist for rapists and pedophiles. If there was the god all these holy assholes claim there is, these fuckers would all have been smited by now.

*Great thanks to Ol' Fez for the link.

Paul Ryan Has Balls

Dangling from his chin. Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone:

Paul Ryan, the Republican Party’s latest entrant in the seemingly endless series of young, prickish, over-coiffed, anal-retentive deficit Robespierres they’ve sent to the political center stage in the last decade or so, has come out with his new budget plan. All of these smug little jerks look alike to me – from Ralph Reed to Eric Cantor to Jeb Hensarling to Rand Paul and now to Ryan, they all look like overgrown kids who got nipple-twisted in the halls in high school, worked as Applebee’s shift managers in college, and are now taking revenge on the world as grownups by defunding hospice care and student loans and Sesame Street. They all look like they sleep with their ties on, and keep their feet in dress socks when doing their bi-monthly duty with their wives.

Every few years or so, the Republicans trot out one of these little whippersnappers, who offer proposals to hack away at the federal budget. Each successive whippersnapper inevitably tries, rhetorically, to out-mean the previous one, and their proposals are inevitably couched as the boldest and most ambitious deficit-reduction plans ever seen. Each time, we are told that these plans mark the end of the budgetary reign of terror long ago imposed by the entitlement system begun by FDR and furthered by LBJ.

The absurd thing is that Ryan’s act isn’t even politically courageous. It’s canny calculation, but courage it is not. It would be courageous if Ryan were, say, the president of the United States, and leaning on that budget with his full might. But Ryan is proposing a budget he knows would have no chance of passing in the Senate. He is simply playing out a part, a non-candidate for the presidency pushing a rhetorical flank for an out-of-power party leading into a presidential campaign year. If the budget is a hit with the public, the 2012 Republican candidate can run on it. If it isn’t, the Republican candidate can triangulate Ryan’s ass back into the obscurity from whence it came, and be done with him.

No matter what, Ryan’s gambit, ultimately, is all about trying to get middle-class voters to swallow paying for tax cuts for rich people. It takes chutzpah to try such a thing, but having a lot of balls is not the same as having courage.

The worst part of this is that the President is going to address the budget in a few minutes and I fear he will give up any leverage he has in his speech. The Repugs know they have him buffaloed, so they swing for the fence knowing he will meet them halfway before serious talks even begin. Then they can bluff him with threats and he'll cave even farther to the right.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'll bet I'm not.

Update:

Well, he didn't give away the store and he pretty much told Ryan NO on undoing 75 years of progress of the New Deal and Great Society, but when all is said and done, I'm afraid more will have been said than done. As usual. We will see.

It was a good speech, but all his speeches are good. Talk, however, is cheap.

Smells like Utah, tastes like Holland

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford. He rambles a little today. You'll see. I think his title is a clever play on something not very nice that isn't true anyway.

And then it came to pass that they almost shut down the entire U.S. government over -- what was it again? -- condoms and pap smears and those ever-horrifying, omnivorous vaginas? Right.

Ah, abortion, the single issue no one in America save for fringe religious fanatics cared to have regurgitated in the public debate, a fact that didn't stop the GOP, which saw an opportunity to create wedge and hate and gain evermore power, as women across the nation felt an all-too familiar icy shudder pass through their ovaries, the same bolt of cold misogyny they've felt ever since the first church elder put quill to parchment declaring them all whores and temptresses and repositories of unclean menstrual blood. Except for the virgins. Who were, of course, even scarier.

But let us not get caught up in the savage and unsolvable abortion debate right now, because there are far more fascinating and demonic energies afoot; why, just over here we find that, in the latest example of our insatiable appetites for cheap energy no matter what the cost to land, life, beauty, or anything of value beyond powering the bleak engines of capitalism, a Canadian company is now fast proposing to start strip-mining huge and pristine swaths of Utah.

Fear of hoo-hah to stripmining hordes of commuters in Utrecht to organic everything. It's a mixed bag today.

Scared shitless ...

This is what we've come to as a nation:

NEW ORLEANS -- Some civil rights advocates are outraged after a 6-year-old girl received an intense pat-down at Armstrong International Airport security on April 5.

Someone caught the pat-down on video [At link - F.], and it's making its way around the Internet.

It has many asking, are the intense security screenings really necessary, especially for a little girl?

...

I tell ya what. Why don't we all just hide under our beds and never come out? It's amazing how we talk so big, yet we're so scared that we're reduced to frisking a 6 year old girl. What, did they think her mother shoved a bomb up her ass? Do they think the kid joined a terrorist cell all by herself? What everybody calls "security" is nothing more than feel-good theatrics for public consumption and a welfare program for Homeland Security-related corporations.

"The sane wing ...

Of the GOP."

I'd posit to my friend Michael, that there's no such thing anymore, at least not amongst those who aspire to, or wish to retain, political office:

...

Back to Romney, though. He's evidently trying to capture the "sane" wing of the GOP, positioning his apparent sanity (non-Birther) against the insanity of so much of the rest of the party (including Trump and the Birthers). Will that get him anywhere? Not with his RomneyCare record, not with his flip-flopping over the years, and not with the general lack of credibility he has with the hardcore conservatives/extremists who make up the Republican grassroots and who, in a year without a leading establishment candidate (e.g., Dole, Bush II, McCain), will very likely determine the winner. (Pawlenty is trying to be the establishment candidate, but he has a lot to overcome, not least his lack of broad national appeal. The establishment, such as there is one anymore, is so desperate that the party could end up with an embarrassingly unelectable nominee like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann that draft-X campaigns are springing up around potential "sane" candidates like Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush.)

...

Personally, I'd be more afraid of Romney appealing to supposedly "sane" Democrats if he won the nom, but there's too much loony in the Crazy Old Party for that to happen.

Austerity ...

Well, so much for the prepaid envelope that used to come along with my New York State Vehicle Inspector license renewal paperwork. At least the price of the renewal hasn't gone up. I'll betcha next time I have to do it (2014), it won't be anywhere near $15 anymore.

Listen up ...

Russell Simmons, for whom I have the greatest respect as a businessman and community activist, and have been a fan of since Def Comedy Jam, writes a letter to his friend, President Obama:

...

The rich are already at the table, as are the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party and the unions, the business interests and the moneyed interests. The poor can’t afford for you to forget about them, and you cannot afford it either. Of all Americans, the poor are not just the real victims of this recession; they are the victims of a thirty year campaign of smear and neglect, to strengthen the rich on the backs of the rest of America in the dim and ultimately futile fantasy that the rich getting richer will somehow "trickle down."

Well, it hasn’t trickled down. While middle class wages have declined in the face of unparalleled wealth and technology creation since the 1980′s, the poverty rate in our country is the highest it has been in 51 years. That takes us to the early 1960′s. Shame on all of us who otherwise take pride in the achievements of this rich and powerful nation.

If you don’t put the poor at the heart of your policies for the next two years, with the interests aligned in favor of the rich, too many of the middle class will join them in their suffering. That is the "trickle up" of poverty that has impoverished nations with unfair concentrations of wealth at the top. That is what destroys great nations.

...

Damn straight.

Thanks to Susie for the link.

"I want to buy a house ...

From Barack Obama".

Our President is getting quite a rep ... as a patsy.

Hey, pal ...

This is New York City. Parking's at a premium so quit hoggin' the spot.



Usually this happens on the street outside the airport, shortly followed by "City Tow, what's yer problem?" Heh ...

150 Years Later, Tea Partiers Still Aren’t Over The Civil War

Every time I go back to Think Progress, there's something new. A diligent bunch! Links at site.

Today is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginning, when secessionists fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. According to a new poll from CNN, the Civil War’s legacy remains unresolved. The poll finds that Republicans and Tea Party supporters are more likely to support the Confederacy and confederate leaders than Democrats or Independents.

According to the poll, nearly one in four Americans sympathize with the Confederacy more than with the Union. That number grows to nearly four-in-ten among white Southerners. Among Tea Party members, 26 percent sympathize with the Confederacy more than the Union, and that number grows to 28 percent among Republicans.

There's that Dead End Quarter again.

Meanwhile, while respondents overall viewed slavery as the main reason for the war by a 54-42 margin, Tea Partiers and Republicans held different views. Fifty-two percent of Republicans believed slavery was not the main reason, and that number rose to 54 percent among Tea Partiers.

Yeah, it wasn't over slavery, it was over the "states' rights" that permitted slavery. Yeesh.

Even though these battles are radical and out of the mainstream, it isn’t that shocking that these Republicans are attempting to refight them. According to these poll numbers, that’s exactly what large segments of their base want them to do.

Fine. The sane people kicked their ass once and apparently they've recovered enough that they need it kicked again.

Note to Confederacysymps: Just secede already. The United States will pay a high price in the loss of a lot of fine people but I can accept it if it makes you STFU. Maybe a sound wall around you would work. A thick one.

Why doesn't this surprise me?

Think Progress

Michele Bachmann Calls For Stripping Judges’ Power To Enforce Parts Of The Constitution She Doesn’t Like

Well of course she does. Tell the Founding Fathers where they fucked up, Michele. They couldn't possibly have foreseen that one quarter of the populace was gonna go batcrap crazy, but I'm sure they would have allowed for that had they known. Or maybe they did.

Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

Chris Hedges

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.

Well under way according to plan, thank you. And your point is...?

Why the Right-Wing Bullies Will Hold The Nation Hostage Again and Again

Robert Reich discovered long ago a truism that President Obama needs to figure out right quick. If he's capable of it.

When I was a small boy I was bullied more than most, mainly because I was a foot shorter than than everyone else. They demanded the cupcake my mother had packed in my lunchbox, or, they said, they’d beat me up. After a close call in the boy’s room, I paid up. Weeks later, they demanded half my sandwich as well. I gave in to that one, too. But I could see what was coming next. They’d demand everything else. Somewhere along the line I decided I’d have a take a stand. The fight wasn’t pleasant. But the bullies stopped their bullying.

I hope the President decides he has to take a stand, and the sooner the better. Last December he caved in to Republican demands that the Bush tax cut be extended to wealthier Americans for two more years, at a cost of more than $60 billion. That was only the beginning — the equivalent of my cupcake.

It is impossible to fight bullies merely by saying they’re going too far.

You have to turn them black and blue and red and make them afraid to fuck with you. Simple. If you don't, the bullying will never stop.

Too Much Information Headline of the Day

Iceland's penis museum finally gets human specimen

Boy, there's a dream vacation...

Criminal Probe Heading Scott Walker’s Way

Ya put a shiny nickel where he'll see it and when he bends over...ya probe him!

PoliticusUSA

This morning, a criminal complaint filed in circuit court alleges that William Gardner, the president and CEO of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad Co., skirted campaign donation laws by soliciting employees to give to Scott Walker’s campaign and then reimbursing them, in what amounts to two felony counts. It has also come out that Walker’s campaign then reimbursed Gardner and seven additional railroad employees to the tune of $43,800, which indicates a criminal probe is imminent of Walker’s campaign.

The state might be trying to get William Gardner to testify against Walker with the two felony counts. If this is legitimate, the people of Wisconsin have more than enough reason to oust Walker. If it’s unclear how serious this is, think Tom DeLay (my em).

A pattern of systemic corruption within the Wisconsin Republican Party is being established by recent events. What we have here is a pattern of reckless disregard for the law, which I deeply suspect will eventually rear its head in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race as well, though we don’t know exactly how yet. But the Walker administration and the Republicans in the state Senate and House have established a pattern of violating the law, now topped off by allegations against a donor of violations of campaign laws.

Systemic corruption? Repugs? Yep, from coast to coast. If they didn't break laws wholesale they'd never get elected. Finances, vote tampering, lying, cheating, the works.

But it's OK. God told them to, and besides, it's the American way. Yeesh.

Let's hope this pans out.

Easy targets ...

Stewart and Bonds. Our friend Comrade Misfit makes a good observation:

... the Barry Bonds case and the multi-years' long efforts of the Federal prosecutors to put Bonds away for being an arrogant dickhead.

... The Feds also went after Martha Stewart for some of the same reasons, both the legal reasons and the unofficial ones.

...

But I can't help think this: The Feds have, to all appearances, not put forth any effort to go after any of the banksters, other than the schmucks who were running obvious pyramid schemes. There has not been, as far as I know, any sustained series of perp-walks for the banksters who violated their fiduciary duties to their clients.

...

High profile names the feds can point to in order to show the public they're "doing their jobs". For whatever reason (the bankers have Obama's balls in a vise or we just don't want to take on tough jobs anymore - except when it comes to killing "Little Brown Bastids"), America has become the "Land of the Mediocre".

"Investing in the Future"

They bandy that phrase around a lot nowadays. Thing is, all we're doing is investing in the past. Via C&L, compare the subsidies we give Big Oil next to what we give to the solar industry (you know, the future) and wonder in which direction the country's headed. If there was ever a time for leadership, it is now. Sadly, all we have are pretenders.

The Rumsfeltagon Papers

TPM just got a load of documentation from DOD under a FOIA request. Amazing to see what a sociopathic scumbag Rumsfeld is.

...

But he's also kept hundred of documents secret, and we used the FOIA to find them--we got everything that the Pentagon handed over to Rumsfeld, so we know what what he got and can see what he declined to publish. We received a few hundred pages in February, and just got another 1,300 pages, including memos urging President Bush to start toppling regimes in the Middle East just days after 9/11, suggesting that he thought Gen. Tommy Franks was lying to him, and chastising his generals for being too concerned about civilian casualties.

...

After reading this, it's obvious (as if Iraq and Afghanistan aren't proof enough) the man was inept and incompetent as a leader of men (and women) at war. He and his suck-buddy Wolfowitz should both have been up against the wall (or twisting at the end of a rope) by now.

Relating ...

A toon at Susie's.