Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Voice of the Insane
Some 45% of Republicans don't think President Obama was born in The United States.
Sure, I want to hand the country over to a bunch of Birther idiots who think the Earth is 6,000 years old and who think the Confederacy was a great and noble idea. Really, who could object?
Sure, I want to hand the country over to a bunch of Birther idiots who think the Earth is 6,000 years old and who think the Confederacy was a great and noble idea. Really, who could object?
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Study These Charts, and Then Tell Me America Isn't in Trouble
The horrible evidence of the impact of conservative policies on America can be found here. Wealthy business interests have rigged America's economic system to benefit themselves and screw everyone else. A few examples: (You may need to click to enlarge them)
Oh, and by the way, don't let anyone snow you with the phony "rich people pay all the taxes lie". The lower income groups pay sales taxes, state income taxes, real estate taxes, excise taxes, you name it. And the share of taxes as a share of GDP is the lowest it's been in over 50 years.
This is what America is coming to. Just what do you intend to do about it?
Oh, and by the way, don't let anyone snow you with the phony "rich people pay all the taxes lie". The lower income groups pay sales taxes, state income taxes, real estate taxes, excise taxes, you name it. And the share of taxes as a share of GDP is the lowest it's been in over 50 years.
This is what America is coming to. Just what do you intend to do about it?
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Trace the Upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa
Right here,courtesy of Slate. Good animated map with a good chronology of the uprisings. Check it out.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Last Word on David Broder
It's right here. You owe it yourself to read all of it. Excerpt:
In fact, this fetish [of "balance" in political reporting] became so obsessive that, in the end, it became the great, tragic irony of David Broder's professional life. Because at last he simply could not bear to part with his fantasies about what he wished America to be and face the brutal realities of what America was actually becoming, David Broder -- this "Dean of the Washington press corps" -- totally missed out on covering the greatest story of his time; the utter collapse of the American news media and the mutation of the GOP from a political party into a dangerously fascistic cesspit of oligarchs, lunatics and rubes.
In fact, this fetish [of "balance" in political reporting] became so obsessive that, in the end, it became the great, tragic irony of David Broder's professional life. Because at last he simply could not bear to part with his fantasies about what he wished America to be and face the brutal realities of what America was actually becoming, David Broder -- this "Dean of the Washington press corps" -- totally missed out on covering the greatest story of his time; the utter collapse of the American news media and the mutation of the GOP from a political party into a dangerously fascistic cesspit of oligarchs, lunatics and rubes.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Enlarge This Chart. And Then Enlarge Your Understanding of How Things Actually Work in America
These are some of the proposals being pushed the hardest by the Republicans:
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Scott Walker: Dangerous, Radical Right Wing Fanatic
In addition to his war against working men and women, radical right-wing Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is backing a plan so extreme, so downright lunatic-right in its orientation, that it would shock a John Bircher. Highlights include:
1. ELIMINATING MEDICAID: The Budget Repair Bill includes a little-known provision that would put complete control of the state’s Medicaid program, known as BadgerCare, in the hands of the state’s ultra-conservative Health and Human Services Secretary Dennis Smith. Smith would have the authority to “to override state Medicaid laws as [he] sees fit and institute sweeping changes” including reducing benefits and limiting eligibility.
2. POWER PLANT PRIVATIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL NEGLECT: The same budget bill calls for a rapid no-bid “firesale” of all state-owned power plants. One progressive blogger called the proposal “a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism” and suggested that the provision will open the way for large, politically connected corporations to buy up the state’s power plants on the cheap.
3. DANGEROUS DRINKING WATER: Republican lawmakers have introduced bills in both the Senate and the House which would repeal a rule requiring municipal governments to disinfect their water.
4. DESTROYING WETLANDS: In January, Walker’s proposed regulatory reform bill exempted a parcel of wetland owned by a Republican donor from water quality standards.
5. FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY: Walker signed a bill this week requiring a 2/3 supermajority in the legislature to pass any tax increase. Republican lawmakers are now reportedly considering a constitutional amendment that would make the rule permanent. A similar constitutional amendment in California has been called the “source of misery” of that state’s crippling budget crisis and has forced lawmakers to “gut public education, slash social services and health care programs, close prisons, and lay off record numbers of public employees.”
6. DISENFRANCHISING VOTERS: This week, Republican lawmakers moved forward on a bill that would require voters to present a photo ID from the DMV at the polls, making it significantly more difficult for the elderly, the disabled, college students, and rural residents to participate in elections. While Republican lawmakers insist the bill is necessary to prevent voter fraud, there have been almost no documented cases of fraudulent voting in the state. Instead, the Wisconsin State Journal writes, the GOP bill is going “overboard in limiting ballot access in a state proud of its long history of high participation in elections.”
7. CUTTING JOBS, LOSING THE FUTURE: Last fall, Walker killed an $810 [million] federally funded high-speed rail project, forcing the Transportation Department to pull its funding. Walker’s decision killed 130,000 expected jobs and forced the Spanish company Talgo to close its Milwaukee factory and layoff its 40 person staff. A spokeswoman for the company told The Daily Reporter that “the state’s decision to back away from the high-speed rail project sends a terrible message to businesses considering locating in the state.”
8. STIFLING INNOVATION: In late January, Walker introduced a bill that would ban wind-powered energy from Wisconsin and exacerbate the state’s dependence on out-of-state coal. If passed, it’s estimated that the law would immediately eliminate $1.8 billion in new wind power investments and jeopardize eleven currently proposed wind projects. After a public outcry earlier this month, Walker’s bill is (for now) dead.
9. “NAKED POWER GRAB”: Earlier this month in a party-line vote, the legislature ceded “extraordinary control” of the state’s rule-making oversight process to the governor. Walker now has complete power to draft agency rules which the legislature must then either approve or reject. The law gives Walker the power to write rules for formerly independent state agencies like the state Departments of Justice and Education — and most ominously the Government Accountability Board, the state’s ethics watchdog.
Democrats, this is the kind of wretched garbage we get thrown in our faces WHEN WE DON'T VOTE. We let right-wing crooks and idiots like Scott Walker and his rich cronies set public policy. There is a recall movement underway in Wisconsin. Walker becomes eligible fore recall in January 2012. LET'S GET RID OF HIM and flush his right-wing clown circus out of power once and for all.
1. ELIMINATING MEDICAID: The Budget Repair Bill includes a little-known provision that would put complete control of the state’s Medicaid program, known as BadgerCare, in the hands of the state’s ultra-conservative Health and Human Services Secretary Dennis Smith. Smith would have the authority to “to override state Medicaid laws as [he] sees fit and institute sweeping changes” including reducing benefits and limiting eligibility.
2. POWER PLANT PRIVATIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL NEGLECT: The same budget bill calls for a rapid no-bid “firesale” of all state-owned power plants. One progressive blogger called the proposal “a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism” and suggested that the provision will open the way for large, politically connected corporations to buy up the state’s power plants on the cheap.
3. DANGEROUS DRINKING WATER: Republican lawmakers have introduced bills in both the Senate and the House which would repeal a rule requiring municipal governments to disinfect their water.
4. DESTROYING WETLANDS: In January, Walker’s proposed regulatory reform bill exempted a parcel of wetland owned by a Republican donor from water quality standards.
5. FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY: Walker signed a bill this week requiring a 2/3 supermajority in the legislature to pass any tax increase. Republican lawmakers are now reportedly considering a constitutional amendment that would make the rule permanent. A similar constitutional amendment in California has been called the “source of misery” of that state’s crippling budget crisis and has forced lawmakers to “gut public education, slash social services and health care programs, close prisons, and lay off record numbers of public employees.”
6. DISENFRANCHISING VOTERS: This week, Republican lawmakers moved forward on a bill that would require voters to present a photo ID from the DMV at the polls, making it significantly more difficult for the elderly, the disabled, college students, and rural residents to participate in elections. While Republican lawmakers insist the bill is necessary to prevent voter fraud, there have been almost no documented cases of fraudulent voting in the state. Instead, the Wisconsin State Journal writes, the GOP bill is going “overboard in limiting ballot access in a state proud of its long history of high participation in elections.”
7. CUTTING JOBS, LOSING THE FUTURE: Last fall, Walker killed an $810 [million] federally funded high-speed rail project, forcing the Transportation Department to pull its funding. Walker’s decision killed 130,000 expected jobs and forced the Spanish company Talgo to close its Milwaukee factory and layoff its 40 person staff. A spokeswoman for the company told The Daily Reporter that “the state’s decision to back away from the high-speed rail project sends a terrible message to businesses considering locating in the state.”
8. STIFLING INNOVATION: In late January, Walker introduced a bill that would ban wind-powered energy from Wisconsin and exacerbate the state’s dependence on out-of-state coal. If passed, it’s estimated that the law would immediately eliminate $1.8 billion in new wind power investments and jeopardize eleven currently proposed wind projects. After a public outcry earlier this month, Walker’s bill is (for now) dead.
9. “NAKED POWER GRAB”: Earlier this month in a party-line vote, the legislature ceded “extraordinary control” of the state’s rule-making oversight process to the governor. Walker now has complete power to draft agency rules which the legislature must then either approve or reject. The law gives Walker the power to write rules for formerly independent state agencies like the state Departments of Justice and Education — and most ominously the Government Accountability Board, the state’s ethics watchdog.
Democrats, this is the kind of wretched garbage we get thrown in our faces WHEN WE DON'T VOTE. We let right-wing crooks and idiots like Scott Walker and his rich cronies set public policy. There is a recall movement underway in Wisconsin. Walker becomes eligible fore recall in January 2012. LET'S GET RID OF HIM and flush his right-wing clown circus out of power once and for all.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Vile Racist Haley Barbour Refuses to Denounce KKK Co-Founder
The Confederate-loving governor of Mississippi, the disgusting Haley Barbour, has refused to denounce a proposal from the treason/traitor-loving group Sons of Confederate Veterans that Mississippi issue a license plate honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the worst humans in the history of this or any other country. Let's take a look at Forrest's horrifying record, from Dennis G. at Balloon Juice:
There are vile, violent and evil men populating the history of our Nation, but you have to look long and hard to find folks as immoral, dishonorable and deceitful as Nathan Bedford Forrest. He is a patron saint of white supremacy, racism and treason.
So naturally, he should be celebrated as a wingnutopia role model.
He was an entrepreneur and in the years leading up to the Civil War he made a fortune buying and selling people. He was the co-fonder of the “NegroMart” a wholesale mega store for slaves and when the war started he was filthy rich.
During the war he organized a gang of excessively violent and vengeful riders who were very skilled at the hit and run tactics of guerrilla fighting. He has been greatly mythologized over the years by the Church of The Lost Cause, but he was little more than a war criminal. Perhaps his most famous crime was the Massacre at Fort Pillow in 1864 where he ordered his troops to murder hundreds of surrendering troops. As Forrest himself put it in his first report of the killing field:
“The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty killed. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.”
One of the men under Forrest’s command wrote to his wife:
“the poor, deluded negroes would run up to our men, fall upon their knees, and with uplifted hand scream for mercy, but were ordered to their feet and then shot down.”
And historian Richard Fuchs, in his detailed study of the massacre described it as:
“...simply an orgy of death, a mass lynching to satisfy the basest of conduct – intentional murder – for the vilest of reasons – racism and personal enmity.”
When the war ended Forrest returned home but could not re-open his NegroMart, so he worked with other white supremacist to find new ways to steal the labor of the recently freed slaves. Over the years they used many tools but it all stated with terrorism and the theft of labor was maintained for a century with violence. When a fellow traitor told Forest about plans to form the Ku Klux Klan, Forrest told him:
“That’s a good thing; that’s a damn good thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place.”
Soon Forrest was the first Grand Wizard of the KKK and bragging that he had 500,000 men under his command. The result over the next century was a body count in the thousands and uncountable ruined and damaged lives.
And Forrest wasn't done inflicting suffering, oh no. Read on, again from the invaluable Dennis G:
Turns out that by the end of his life, Forrest was back in the slavery business and helped to create a model for stealing labor and keeping slavery alive under a different name. It was a very successful model that was replicated all over the South.
In the Mississippi River on the shores of Memphis sits President’s Island. Now it is an odd mix of industrial parks and wildlife areas.
Back in the 1870s Nathan Bedford Forrest saw it as an opportunity. During the Civil War the very fertile island became the home of escaping slaves and by 1865 a community of about 1,500 Freemen lived on the island. Like many other post war African American communities, it was a community that all but disappeared as white supremacists used terrorism and murder to in the words of NBF, “...keep the niggers in their place.” According to the history of President’s Island a 1947 article in the local Memphis paper explained that the former Freemen “were absorbed into the community”.
By the late 1860s, early 1870s Forrest had failed as a businessman running the Marion & Memphis Railroad into bankruptcy. As he failed in that business his involvement in the KKK gave him new opportunities. Somehow he managed to get control of the land on President’s Island and convert it into one of the South’s first prison work farms. Here, newly imprisoned Negros could be forced under the lash to grow corn and cotton. According to the President’s Island history, Forrest:
offered to pay the county 10 cents a day for each worker and to provide food, clothing and housing. His offer was accepted, and a five-year contract was signed.
Forrest was an entrepreneur who helped to create this model of buying and selling prisoners. His system for stealing labor kept slavery alive well into the next century (and some might fairly argue that the system of forced prison labor is still alive and well today—and there is a strong case for that POV).
Working conditions at Forrest’s prison slave camp were horrible. Illness was very common and in an act of karma or divine humor, some folks speculate that NBF died because a case of dysentery he acquired from drinking impure water at his slave camp interacted badly with his diabetes.
After his his death—and despite Grand Jury investigations into stories of abuse—his son continued to run the family’s neo-NegroMart/prison farm business for years. And his family continued to live off stolen labor just as it had before the Civil War.
And it is this piece of human filth--slave trader, war criminal, murderer, terrorist, slave master--that Haley Barbour just can't bring himself to say anything bad about. Remember, Barbour is the Confederate-loving son of a bitch who keeps Jefferson Davis's personal flag in his office.
HALEY BARBOUR, JIM DE MINT, AND ALL THE OTHER CONFEDERATE WORSHIPPING SCUM IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ARE NOT AMERICANS. THEY DESPISE AMERICA AND HATE EVERY IDEAL THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON. THEY ARE TREASON-LOVING CONFEDERATES. THEIR LOYALTY IS TO THE SO-CALLED "LOST CAUSE", NOT AMERICA.
Period.
There are vile, violent and evil men populating the history of our Nation, but you have to look long and hard to find folks as immoral, dishonorable and deceitful as Nathan Bedford Forrest. He is a patron saint of white supremacy, racism and treason.
So naturally, he should be celebrated as a wingnutopia role model.
He was an entrepreneur and in the years leading up to the Civil War he made a fortune buying and selling people. He was the co-fonder of the “NegroMart” a wholesale mega store for slaves and when the war started he was filthy rich.
During the war he organized a gang of excessively violent and vengeful riders who were very skilled at the hit and run tactics of guerrilla fighting. He has been greatly mythologized over the years by the Church of The Lost Cause, but he was little more than a war criminal. Perhaps his most famous crime was the Massacre at Fort Pillow in 1864 where he ordered his troops to murder hundreds of surrendering troops. As Forrest himself put it in his first report of the killing field:
“The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty killed. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.”
One of the men under Forrest’s command wrote to his wife:
“the poor, deluded negroes would run up to our men, fall upon their knees, and with uplifted hand scream for mercy, but were ordered to their feet and then shot down.”
And historian Richard Fuchs, in his detailed study of the massacre described it as:
“...simply an orgy of death, a mass lynching to satisfy the basest of conduct – intentional murder – for the vilest of reasons – racism and personal enmity.”
When the war ended Forrest returned home but could not re-open his NegroMart, so he worked with other white supremacist to find new ways to steal the labor of the recently freed slaves. Over the years they used many tools but it all stated with terrorism and the theft of labor was maintained for a century with violence. When a fellow traitor told Forest about plans to form the Ku Klux Klan, Forrest told him:
“That’s a good thing; that’s a damn good thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place.”
Soon Forrest was the first Grand Wizard of the KKK and bragging that he had 500,000 men under his command. The result over the next century was a body count in the thousands and uncountable ruined and damaged lives.
And Forrest wasn't done inflicting suffering, oh no. Read on, again from the invaluable Dennis G:
Turns out that by the end of his life, Forrest was back in the slavery business and helped to create a model for stealing labor and keeping slavery alive under a different name. It was a very successful model that was replicated all over the South.
In the Mississippi River on the shores of Memphis sits President’s Island. Now it is an odd mix of industrial parks and wildlife areas.
Back in the 1870s Nathan Bedford Forrest saw it as an opportunity. During the Civil War the very fertile island became the home of escaping slaves and by 1865 a community of about 1,500 Freemen lived on the island. Like many other post war African American communities, it was a community that all but disappeared as white supremacists used terrorism and murder to in the words of NBF, “...keep the niggers in their place.” According to the history of President’s Island a 1947 article in the local Memphis paper explained that the former Freemen “were absorbed into the community”.
By the late 1860s, early 1870s Forrest had failed as a businessman running the Marion & Memphis Railroad into bankruptcy. As he failed in that business his involvement in the KKK gave him new opportunities. Somehow he managed to get control of the land on President’s Island and convert it into one of the South’s first prison work farms. Here, newly imprisoned Negros could be forced under the lash to grow corn and cotton. According to the President’s Island history, Forrest:
offered to pay the county 10 cents a day for each worker and to provide food, clothing and housing. His offer was accepted, and a five-year contract was signed.
Forrest was an entrepreneur who helped to create this model of buying and selling prisoners. His system for stealing labor kept slavery alive well into the next century (and some might fairly argue that the system of forced prison labor is still alive and well today—and there is a strong case for that POV).
Working conditions at Forrest’s prison slave camp were horrible. Illness was very common and in an act of karma or divine humor, some folks speculate that NBF died because a case of dysentery he acquired from drinking impure water at his slave camp interacted badly with his diabetes.
After his his death—and despite Grand Jury investigations into stories of abuse—his son continued to run the family’s neo-NegroMart/prison farm business for years. And his family continued to live off stolen labor just as it had before the Civil War.
And it is this piece of human filth--slave trader, war criminal, murderer, terrorist, slave master--that Haley Barbour just can't bring himself to say anything bad about. Remember, Barbour is the Confederate-loving son of a bitch who keeps Jefferson Davis's personal flag in his office.
HALEY BARBOUR, JIM DE MINT, AND ALL THE OTHER CONFEDERATE WORSHIPPING SCUM IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ARE NOT AMERICANS. THEY DESPISE AMERICA AND HATE EVERY IDEAL THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON. THEY ARE TREASON-LOVING CONFEDERATES. THEIR LOYALTY IS TO THE SO-CALLED "LOST CAUSE", NOT AMERICA.
Period.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
One of the Many Reasons I Hate Patrick Buchanan
Want to know why this country is so screwed up, and why so many conservative politicians and pundits are so utterly vile and loathsome? Check out this memo sent to Richard (Traitor-Criminal-Psychopath) Nixon in 1971 by the contemptible Buchanan:
Nixon was coldly mixing and pouring volatile passions. Although he was careful to renounce the extreme fringe of Birchites and racists, his means to power eventually became the end. Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum—“A little raw for today,” he warned—that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading “Dividing the Democrats.” Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in “the Old Roosevelt Coalition,” it recommended that the White House “exacerbate the ideological division” between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon’s policies; highlight “the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party”; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare. Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. “Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country,” Buchanan wrote. “We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention.” Such gambits, he added, could “cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half.”
(From the New Yorker) [Emphasis added]
Yes folks, if you want to know where the Republicans have been getting their strategy for the past 40 years, here's the blueprint. Buchanan and his ilk, like Karl Rove, hate everything this country stands for, and are willing to plunge the nation into ceaseless conflict for their own benefit. Patrick Buchanan has been a cancer on this country his entire adult life--viciously racist, anti-Semitic (his chief "cause" for a while was defending the rights of Nazi mass murderers and giving moral support to Holocaust deniers), and willing to tell any lie and spread any ugly smear in order to gain advantage.
Lee Atwater said that after the 1950s, it was no longer possible for conservatives to yell "Nigger, Nigger, Nigger" in a campaign. But Patrick Buchanan's entire career was predicated on the assumption that you should yell it louder and more insistently. Because that's how conservatives win.
They appeal to everything that is worst in us.
Nixon was coldly mixing and pouring volatile passions. Although he was careful to renounce the extreme fringe of Birchites and racists, his means to power eventually became the end. Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum—“A little raw for today,” he warned—that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading “Dividing the Democrats.” Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in “the Old Roosevelt Coalition,” it recommended that the White House “exacerbate the ideological division” between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon’s policies; highlight “the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party”; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare. Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. “Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country,” Buchanan wrote. “We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention.” Such gambits, he added, could “cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half.”
(From the New Yorker) [Emphasis added]
Yes folks, if you want to know where the Republicans have been getting their strategy for the past 40 years, here's the blueprint. Buchanan and his ilk, like Karl Rove, hate everything this country stands for, and are willing to plunge the nation into ceaseless conflict for their own benefit. Patrick Buchanan has been a cancer on this country his entire adult life--viciously racist, anti-Semitic (his chief "cause" for a while was defending the rights of Nazi mass murderers and giving moral support to Holocaust deniers), and willing to tell any lie and spread any ugly smear in order to gain advantage.
Lee Atwater said that after the 1950s, it was no longer possible for conservatives to yell "Nigger, Nigger, Nigger" in a campaign. But Patrick Buchanan's entire career was predicated on the assumption that you should yell it louder and more insistently. Because that's how conservatives win.
They appeal to everything that is worst in us.
If You Want the Best Source for What's Happening in Egypt...
Try Aljazeera English. And no, I don't have any idea how things in Egypt are going to play out, and neither does anyone else.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
WTF??
Gregg Harper is a freshman Republican U.S. Representative from Mississippi. He was being asked softball-type questions in an interview. Here's one, with his response.
Q. What in the world does the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus do?
A. We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.
Ha ha, good one! Say it louder. Rep. Giffords might not have heard you from her hospital bed.
IF A DEMOCRAT HAD SAID THIS ABOUT REPUBLICANS, THERE WOULD BE A MEDIA UPROAR, AND YOU AND I BOTH KNOW IT.
This asshole Harper is a waste of skin. Period.
Q. What in the world does the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus do?
A. We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.
Ha ha, good one! Say it louder. Rep. Giffords might not have heard you from her hospital bed.
IF A DEMOCRAT HAD SAID THIS ABOUT REPUBLICANS, THERE WOULD BE A MEDIA UPROAR, AND YOU AND I BOTH KNOW IT.
This asshole Harper is a waste of skin. Period.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Goodbye and Good Riddance to Lieberman
Hi! I'm back! Glenn Greenwald absolutely eviscerates the loathsome Joe Lieberman right here, and the entire sick Beltway Washington Villager culture that lionizes him. Excerpts (you better put on something fireproof here):
But the blood on Joe Lieberman's hands is accounted for by far more than support for the Iraq War. He's long been one of Washington's most indiscriminate, toxic and deceitful supporters of aggressive war generally. Even as the two wars he cheered on were spiraling out of control, he was repeatedly urging new American attacks against Iran, Syria and, most recently, Yemen. Lieberman -- who, needless to say, never served in the military nor have any of his children -- devoted his entire career to attempting to send other Americans' children to fight war after war after war. In sum, as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch put it when examining the muddled history of Lieberman's opposition to the war in Vietnam: "the only war he ever opposed was the only war he might actually have had to fight in." But, of course, being a relentless warmonger while cowardly hiding yourself and your family far away from the wars you cheer on is not remotely inconsistent with being a Man of Decency and Conscience, as David Brooks and his many Beltway admirers will be the first to tell you.
Then there's Lieberman's vaunted "civility." He was not only one of the most vocal war supporters, but was responsible for some of the most toxic and McCarthyite efforts to stigmatize war opposition as illegitimate and even treasonous. In 2005, he infamously lectured Democratic war critics that "in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril," and in 2007 used the language of treason to pose leading questions to Gen. David Petraeus to induce the General's agreement that war opposition "would give the enemy some comfort." Worse, Lieberman often bolstered these smears with outright lies, such as when he claimed on Meet the Press that we were "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy we're fighting in Iraq today." Behold his grand civility.
And then there's the leading role Lieberman played in lending Democratic support to the whole litany of Bush/Cheney assaults on basic liberties. He defended the "Bush interrogation program" and even waterboarding, and was one of only two Democrats to vote against banning it. He led the way -- along with his close friends John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- in enacting the Military Commissions Act, which explicitly denied all detainees the right to contest their detention in a court of law: a measure so repressive that the Supreme Court in Boumediene struck it down as unconstitutional, citing Alexander Hamilton's warning that "the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, in all ages, is the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." Once the Court re-established the habeas right which Lieberman and his comrades snuffed out, it turned out, as federal courts found, that there was no credible evidence to justify the detention of a huge percentage of remaining detainees at Guantanamo: innocent people who would have been imprisoned indefinitely to this day -- without a shred of due process -- if Lieberman had his way.
Read the whole righteous denunciation. And realize what a blessing it will finally be to get that fraudulent, lying, back-stabbing SCHMUCK Lieberman out of the Senate once and for all.
But the blood on Joe Lieberman's hands is accounted for by far more than support for the Iraq War. He's long been one of Washington's most indiscriminate, toxic and deceitful supporters of aggressive war generally. Even as the two wars he cheered on were spiraling out of control, he was repeatedly urging new American attacks against Iran, Syria and, most recently, Yemen. Lieberman -- who, needless to say, never served in the military nor have any of his children -- devoted his entire career to attempting to send other Americans' children to fight war after war after war. In sum, as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch put it when examining the muddled history of Lieberman's opposition to the war in Vietnam: "the only war he ever opposed was the only war he might actually have had to fight in." But, of course, being a relentless warmonger while cowardly hiding yourself and your family far away from the wars you cheer on is not remotely inconsistent with being a Man of Decency and Conscience, as David Brooks and his many Beltway admirers will be the first to tell you.
Then there's Lieberman's vaunted "civility." He was not only one of the most vocal war supporters, but was responsible for some of the most toxic and McCarthyite efforts to stigmatize war opposition as illegitimate and even treasonous. In 2005, he infamously lectured Democratic war critics that "in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril," and in 2007 used the language of treason to pose leading questions to Gen. David Petraeus to induce the General's agreement that war opposition "would give the enemy some comfort." Worse, Lieberman often bolstered these smears with outright lies, such as when he claimed on Meet the Press that we were "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy we're fighting in Iraq today." Behold his grand civility.
And then there's the leading role Lieberman played in lending Democratic support to the whole litany of Bush/Cheney assaults on basic liberties. He defended the "Bush interrogation program" and even waterboarding, and was one of only two Democrats to vote against banning it. He led the way -- along with his close friends John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- in enacting the Military Commissions Act, which explicitly denied all detainees the right to contest their detention in a court of law: a measure so repressive that the Supreme Court in Boumediene struck it down as unconstitutional, citing Alexander Hamilton's warning that "the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, in all ages, is the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." Once the Court re-established the habeas right which Lieberman and his comrades snuffed out, it turned out, as federal courts found, that there was no credible evidence to justify the detention of a huge percentage of remaining detainees at Guantanamo: innocent people who would have been imprisoned indefinitely to this day -- without a shred of due process -- if Lieberman had his way.
Read the whole righteous denunciation. And realize what a blessing it will finally be to get that fraudulent, lying, back-stabbing SCHMUCK Lieberman out of the Senate once and for all.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
A Quote You Need to See
From George Packer in The New Yorker, shooting down the false equivalency lie that "both sides" are equally guilty of using violent and inflammatory rhetoric:
In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.
(The full article is here.)
I'm sorry, Mr. President. I know you've called for civility and restraint in our political discourse.
But I'm not unilaterally disarming. And I'm not just going to forgive and forget the people who have done nothing but pour out ranting hatred for thirty years.
In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.
(The full article is here.)
I'm sorry, Mr. President. I know you've called for civility and restraint in our political discourse.
But I'm not unilaterally disarming. And I'm not just going to forgive and forget the people who have done nothing but pour out ranting hatred for thirty years.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
President Obama's Speech in Tuscon This Evening
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