Dan of Steel ...

Steely Dan - Babylon Sister

Have a good evening!

Dear Mexico,

Would you like Texas back? We'll even pay to move the fence.

Regards,

Fixer

Go back, Jack ...

Do it again. D-cap to President Obama:

...

In reality, despite the incredible heat you will take - your best alternative is to call for a mulligan. Throw in the towel and start again sometime down the road, with a better, simpler, more organized and consistent plan. Anyone with half a brain knows that anything passed after this debacle will simply be a piece of legislation to allow you to save face. It will be watered down, ineffective, half-assed and probably end up doing more harm than good. You have always stuck me as a man who can admit mistakes and move on. Now is your chance to admit this was a very big one and begin again. You called the Gates-Crowley mess a learning experience, now lets learn something from the Death Panel/Keep Your Hands off Medicare disaster. [my em]

...

The next time, do it without the fucking Republicans.

Quote of the Day

The real war is not between the left and the right. It is between the average American and the ruling class. If we come together on this single issue, everything else will resolve itself. It's time we took back our government from those who would make us their slaves.

Go see who said this. Also see Henry Kissinger's description of us.

Goin' ridin'. See yas later.

Hello, McFly ...

It was the best $3 billion ever spent in the last decade and we're gonna discontinue it. What a country! We should throw another $2 billion at the program instead of cutting it off.

...

The “Cash for Clunkers” program has also met a similar fate, with the government announcing the plan would end on Monday after dealers reported that the plan had exceeded their wildest expectations ...

And a word to the whiny, bitchy car dealers:

... Dealers had also been grousing that they hadn’t been paid by the government for the $4,500 outlays they’d made on about 80 percent of the cars. (A company pissed off because IT has to wait for a rebate… The irony is so thick, it’s delicious.) ...

Dickheads, the U.S. government pays every ninety days. As the son of a man who made his money as a defense contractor during the Vietnam war, I learned this when I was 3. Shut up, your money will get there. Got a problem with cash flow? Get a short term loan on your sales for the past 6 weeks. Good God, I gotta explain everything?

Friday Night Neo-Classical Music Blogging ...

Haven't posted one from the Bond Girls in a long time. Enjoy.

Bond - Allegretto

Convictions ...

How come former Bush administration members only develop a conscience long after it would be meaningful? If you're gonna get in touch with your convictions, you can't wait until it's politically comfortable.

...

So we have Powell, Ashcroft and Ridge all understanding the lawlessness of the Bush-Cheney Administration but choosing to wait until after the 2004 election to announce their resignations, when they were simply replaced with more "trusted" Bush insiders. Had these three individuals resigned before the election and disclosed their differences with the criminal policy that was being carried out, it's hard to imagine how Bush could have been re-elected.

...

Hope you can sleep well at night, fellas. I wonder if you all realize how much blood is on your hands. If you do, a loaded revolver would settle things. Ask the Japanese how that works.

Update:

The Rude One says it plainly:

...

So it wasn't important enough for Tom Ridge to tell Americans that the White House was going to scare them into doubling down on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. No, that didn't matter, like it didn't matter to Colin Powell or any of dozens of craven cunts who polluted the nation. It didn't matter to Tom Ridge that he could have ended the presidency of someone who actually wanted to lie to us that we were on the verge of attack in order to maintain power. That's actual evil, motherfuckers. Ridge didn't resign until February 2005, distant enough from the election so that the Bush administration could fully consolidate its power (until God, tired of waiting for an honorable person to turn on the White House, decided to fuck that up in August of that year*).

...

*That would be Hurricane Katrina, for those with short memories.

Update Zwei:

Walt:

...

But, as Burke opined, "The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," and such was the case. Robert* [Richard] Clarke notified the President and others in the national security apparatus that Osama bina Badboy was planning on striking us, but it was blown off in exchange for fantasies about how bad Saddam Hussein was.

With predictable results.

...

*Unbeknownst to Walt, Robert Clarke is a character in my novels (the President of the United States); also a former player for the Philadelphia Flyers enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Richard Clarke was the guy "running around with his hair on fire" in August of 2001.

Past The Point Of Rescue

This goes out to President Obama and the rapidly slipping away wraith of Health Care Reform.

Mary Black & Hal Ketchum ~ Past The Point Of Rescue

Thanks to Sportymike, Eire.

Obama’s Trust Problem

Paul Krugman hits the nail right on the head. A 'must read'.

According to news reports, the Obama administration — which seemed, over the weekend, to be backing away from the “public option” for health insurance — is shocked and surprised at the furious reaction from progressives.

Well, I’m shocked and surprised at their shock and surprise.

A backlash in the progressive base — which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory — has been building for months. The fight over the public option involves real policy substance, but it’s also a proxy for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall approach.

And let’s be clear: the supposed alternative, nonprofit co-ops, is a sham. [...]

Meanwhile, on such fraught questions as torture and indefinite detention, the president has dismayed progressives with his reluctance to challenge or change Bush administration policy.

And then there’s the matter of the banks.

So there’s a growing sense among progressives that they have, as my colleague Frank Rich suggests, been punked. And that’s why the mixed signals on the public option created such an uproar.

But there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. [...]

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable.

So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back.

Can he do it? I think so, but he'd better get hot on it. We will see.

Right-wingers are the same everywhere

Fact-free and fucked up. From The Rude One:

That's President Barack Obama there, made to look like Yasser Arafat, thus demonstrating that Photoshop is available to any right wing tool anywhere, in this case Israel, don't you know, from a Monday protest. Man, between Hitler and Arafat, that Obama must be licking his chops to get the gold in Rahm Emanuel's teeth.

The teensy-weensiest hint that there might some day be a little bit of criticism of right-wing Israeli human rights abuses is enough to set these crackpots off. They're just like our wingtards. Some things are universal. What a comforting thought. Oy.

Steele commits gaffe, offers good advice

Think Progress

Yesterday, RNC Chairman Michael Steele attended a roundtable discussion on health care in Little Rock, AR. Mustering as much bravado as he could, Steele dared President Obama and Democrats to pass health care reform through budget reconciliation. “Get it to the floor — up or down, baby,” Steele said as he pounded the desk. “Put it on the table.”

Steele then denied that Republicans have been an obstacle to passing health reform:

Don’t come up in my face talking about, I’m an obstacle, and we’re blocking this process. You got the votes, Mr. President. Pass the bill!

I wonder if he'll claim the credit for the Repugs if a good bill passes and is successful?

Quote of the Day

Maru (in toto):

Criminal scumbag Tom DeLay wants to see Prez Obama's birth certificate.

Furious blogger wants to see Tom DeLay in prison. 'Dancing' with a huge-ass lib inmate.

Late for work ...

The Fringe ...

Remember when everything we (bloggers, people with their eyes open) said was supposed to be crazy talk? Going into Iraq? The fact Bush/Cheney manipulated the 'terror alerts' for their own political benefit? You know, all the things about which we were proven correct? Yeah, well, we're still crazy people.

...

But that is how our political culture works. Throughout the Bush years, those who said demonstrably true things were continuously dismissed as fringe, conspiracy-driven leftist-losers: those who questioned whether Saddam really had WMDs; those who argued that the invasion of Iraq would lead to long-term military bases in that country; those who worried that warrantless eavesdropping and Patriot Act powers would lead to abuses; those who opposed the war in Afghanistan on the ground that it would be drag on for years with no resolution, etc. etc.

Having been proven right about all of those things hasn't changed perceptions any at all. As Ambinder's comments today reflect, the paramount unchangeable Beltway Truth is that those who distrust government claims are unSerious Fringe Leftist Losers. Even when they turn out to be right, they're still that. And no matter how many times journalists like Ambinder are proven wrong in "giv[ing] the government the benefit of some doubt, even having learned lessons about giving the government that benefit," they still continue to do it and believe it is the right and responsible thing to do.

...

You know, in a proper world, those of us who saw reality through the tons of manure shoveled on us during the Bush years would be lauded as prophets or sages at the very least, and our collective opinion would be sought out when considering matters of import to the nation. In this world, they're still ready to fit us for straitjackets. I'm wondering what we have to do to change that; stand on our heads and make sparks shoot out our collective ass, perhaps?

You know ...

If you believe what conservatives teabaggers insurance shills those people say about 'socialized medicine', people must be dropping like flies in England, and Canada, and Germany, and France, and Holland, and ... what? They're not?

What If Liberals Packed Heat At A Tea Party?

Why, we'd be arrested or have to use them in self-defense, of course. Shit, the Repugs had people arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts for fuck's sake.

Air America with video.

But why would citizens exercise this somewhat outmoded Constitutional right to carry loaded guns (or unloaded guns) at a political event these days? We say it's plain old bully behavior using dogma as a stick.

That's it in a nutshell. Repugs are fucking bullies. Period.

You know that assclown who started this 'strapped' shit in New Hampshire? The guy was a fuckin' idiot. First, he had his firearm in a rig straight out of some special ops/tactical cop catalog that was so far down his leg he might have had to bend down to unholster it, and second, he was carrying his stupid-ass "tree of liberty" sign in his gun hand!

I could have had that pistol up his ass before he could have even touched it. Or broken his wrist and let him try. Probly would have been arrested for showing a phony 'patriot' what a fool he was being, too.

"Open carry" guns are visible and known. You can keep your eyes on those people and be ready for them. "Concealed carry" weapons are far more dangerous simply because their presence goes undetected until it's time to shoot someone.

This alarming trend toward carrying firearms to political events is just a stupid wingtard statement. I think the statement is "I brought my gun so Libruls wouldn't laugh at my funny little wingtard dick".

Note to the pencil-dick Repug fake pistoleros: It didn't work. My sides hurt...

Where News Stories Meet

The Political Carnival

Levi Johnston's mom cops plea: addiction blamed on no health insurance

Sherry Johnston pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of possession with intent to deliver the painkiller OxyContin. Five other felony counts were dropped.

Sherry Johnston has two pain pumps implanted in her body to deliver medication because she suffers a rare condition involving scurvy and chronic pelvic pain from prior medical surgeries, Butler said. She was receiving professional pain relief treatment but the problems arose when her insurer refused to pay for the medication, Butler said.

I'm sorry, what? Her insurer wouldn't pay for prescribed medication that her own doctor ordered for her? So they got between her and her physician? Isn't that called "rationing"? Was Ms. Johnston held hostage by her insurance company?

Would, say-y-y...a public option have helped prevent her drug abuse problems?

Nah, a government run program have just gotten in the way of her privately uninsured addiction, what with the Feds sticking their medical noses where they didn't belong and all.

Yeah, better to force someone to resort to committing felonies than to allow proper care.

Well, the Prison Industry Complex needs clients too. Gotta keep that taxpayer money rollin' in...

"People want to think she was just a drug addict," he said. "She made a poor judgment choice. But what do you do?"

Why, you run a lying, corporate smear campaign to prevent Americans from getting the care they need, that's what! Silly question.

There ya go.

Health care mobs = Swift Boat Vets. And the press plays dumb, again

Media Matters

During August's summer daze, right-wing mini-mobs (egged on by corporate interests) have run wild at town hall meetings, propagating all kinds of smears and misinformation in an effort to derail an important Democratic campaign. Yet the mini-mob members have been treated as deeply important newsmakers by the press during a slow summer news month.

Sound familiar? Recall August 2004, when the right-wing Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (egged on by corporate interests) stole a month's worth of campaign headlines by propagating all kinds of smears and misinformation in an attempt to derail an important Democratic campaign. Yet they were treated as deeply important newsmakers by the press during a slow summer news month.

Honestly, the only thing missing this time around is a crackpot, best-selling book.
...

(The Swifties' right-wing publisher must be kicking itself over the missed marketing opportunity.)

But what has been perfectly consistent is the way the press has, again, fallen for a right-wing smear campaign and dressed it up as news. Just as with the Swifties, the press has turned over its summer coverage to a band of agitators spreading misinformation. Five summers ago, the Swift Boat Vets helped hijack the election. They lied about documents, they lied about eyewitness, and they lied about their partisan affiliations and connections. For several crucial weeks during the campaign, journalists turned away from the pile-up of Swift Boat falsehoods and contradictions, rarely daring to call the Swift Boat attack out for what it really was -- a hoax. Too spooked by the GOP Noise Machine and its charge of liberal media bias, the press propped up the Vets as serious men and showered them with attention.

[...] It turns out journalists are petrified of calling out right-wing activists as liars, and the other side knows it.

"Journalists" are scared shitless. Dems are scared shitless. Of what? Telling the truth? Losing their jobs and money? That the ruling elites are gonna come out from under their beds at night and say 'boo'?

I swear, corporate America, the Repug pols, K Street,and the wingtard loonies need to have a dungaree liberty held on 'em. Let the Dems and journos watch so they'll know the bigwigs they're so scared of are just plain old bullies (Repug policy) made of flesh and blood just like them. Lotsa blood, I hope.

I looked for a good definition of "dungaree liberty" but didn't find one, so here goes:

When Marines or Sailors from a base or ship get fucked with in town by gangs, merchants, bar girls, whomever, and get tired of it, their C.O.s have been known to call a dungaree liberty wherein they put on their working clothes, 'dungarees', arm themselves with clubs, rack ends, entrenching tools, belaying pins, etc. and go into the places they've been fucked with and clean house.

I did find this:

...mid 1950's I recall scuttlebutt about Chesty declaring war on Mexico, a Mexican gang, the Pachukos were fvcking Marines up in Tijuana and he supposedly turned the 1st MarDiv loose on the gangs down there. Dungaree Liberty.

The way I heard that one was that they went down there as units, combat load-out, in Marine Corps six-bys. Armed to the teeth and loaded for bear, many of them just back from the Korean War. It may be an apocryphal legend.

I'm gettin' more and more up for a little 'nightstick boogie' on these 'tard assholes.

"Blue Dogs and Republicans (on behalf of the industries that own them) must get what they want "

Glenn Greenwald on the White House v Progressives on the 'public option'. Today's 'must read'. Links at site.

Over the past decade, the Democratic Party has specialized in offering up one excuse after the next for its collective failures. During the early Bush years, the excuse was that they endorsed Bush policies because his popularity and post-9/11 hysteria made it politically unwise to oppose him. In later Bush years when his popularity plummeted, the excuse was that Democrats were in the minority and could do nothing. After 2006 when they won a Congressional majority, the excuse was that Bush still controlled the White House and had veto power. After 2008 when a Democrat won the White House, the excuse was that Republicans could filibuster.

Now that they have a filibuster-proof majority, a huge margin in the House and the White House, the excuses continue unabated, as Democrats are now on the verge of jettisoning one of the most significant attractions for progressives to the Obama campaign -- active government involvement in the health insurance market. [...]

When progressives refuse to toe the White House line, they get threatened. Contrast that with what the White House does with Blue Dogs and "centrists" who are allegedly uncooperative on health care -- they protect them:

The attempt to attract GOP support was the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill. But -- given the impossibility of achieving that goal -- isn't it fairly obvious that a desire for GOP support wasn't really the reason the Democrats were constantly watering down their own bill? Given the White House's central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama's clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm's protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists "centrists," it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the "public option" jettisoned, because that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.

The Washington Post today quotes an "anonymous White House official" excoriating what he condescendingly calls "the left of the left" for petulantly demanding a "public option." That article notes that the Obama White House is surprised by the intensity of progressives' insistence that the bill include a "public option," and who can blame them for being surprised? Ordinarily, progressives are told that they cannot have what they want because Blue Dogs and Republicans (on behalf of the industries that own them) must get what they want, and progressives meekly accept that because it's "better than nothing" (don't let the Perfect be the Enemy of the Good, they are lectured). More than anything else, it's vital that this dynamic change. Such a change -- a shift in Beltway power dynamics -- would be far more consequential even than the specific health care policy issues at stake in this debate.

He says some nice things about Jane Hamsher's efforts to goad Progressives into action on this.

The shorter version is all about 2010 and getting industry support by giving them what they want and fuck real Democrats like always. Business as usual. Yeesh. Go read.

Update:

Go read Our Gal Jane on this. Today's second 'must read', dovetails well with Greenwald.

We started this whip count effort on June 23 because it became clear that in the course of making their deals with stakeholders, the Baucus Caucus (who were negotiating on behalf of the White House, with the participation of the White House) had very likely already dealt the public plan away.

The goal of keeping stakeholders at the table was threefold:

1. Keep them from advertising against the White House plan
2. Keep them from torpedoing vulnerable Democrats in 2010 so there isn't a repeat of 1994
3. Keep their money out of GOP coffers

You can see the fingerprints in the deals that they made: the $150 million PhRMA was spending on ads for health care reform, the $2.5 million they spent helping vulnerable freshmen, and the total fury that Boehner has unleashed on PhRMA and other stakeholders for making deals with the White House.

People make a mistake when they think the battle for health care reform is about ideology, because it's not. It's about who controls K Street and the cash that flows from it, which could fund a 2010 GOP resurgenece -- or not.

A word about Jane - we've been big fans of hers since she started Firedoglake several years ago. Right in amongst being a Liberal firebrand, she took time out to survive breast cancer and barely missed a step. She's an American hero.

Update II:

Jane again:

Matt Taibbi says that Rahm Emanuel's health care debacle could be to the Obama administration what the Iraq war was to George Bush.

He's right.

Oh fucking swell.

What if ...

The Dems did health care the way the Rethugs did Iraq? Via Maru, the incomparably talented Tom Tomorrow.

Piling on ...

Yeah, I know everybody's got this up, but maybe if enough of us post it, the President might take a lesson from it. Barney Frank at his best:

I happened to steal this one from Creature.