GOP Stupid Rolls On

In case you'd wondered where idiots like "Anonymous" get their drivel, here's Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller's Tara Walls being stupid while being black.

White Democrats are doing stuff for black people it’s okay to stereotype black them? Would that have been acceptable for Trent Lott, assuming he didn’t do anything for black people (whatever that is supposed to mean)? This is especially paramount since it was Reid, who in 2002, called then Senate leader Trent Lott’s controversial birthday comments to Strom Thurmond “repugnant.” Republicans have only asked for the same standard by which Lott was judged,

It is one thing for some white cracker to be this egregiously stupidly ignorant, it is another for any black person to descend to this level in search of some idiotic political talking point. If Tara would like to have the GOP do some winning on the issue of race it would be far more useful to reform the twits than ask that they be held to the same standard as Democrats. It should say something to her that this crap will only succeed with pig ignorant crackers and GOP check writers. Which do you suppose is more important in her "world?"

The larger point is that the GOP certainly does not want to be held to the same standard as Democrats, not in the least. If that were the case there would not be the occasional twit of color shilling for them - you'd have to go to Stormfront to find their constituency. I'm not sure any political party can do enough for the issue of race relations, not while it is a political football driven by cultural imperatives rather than sense, but it sure isn't someplace the GOP wants to try throwing rocks and especially not in regard to Trent Lott. If I were a GOP shill I'd do my level best to let Trent Lott be buried in the sands of American electorate short-term memory loss. That they would dredge him up only points at their desperation and stupidity in this area.

GOPer Lickspittle Drivel

You get warned twice on this site not to be stupid, this can't be allowed to just lie in the Comments - it deserves much better.

Anonymous said...
Nice to see another leftard with a double standard. Figure it out, Lott's comment wasn't about race but state's rights. Reid's words are purely racist, and most leftards think this way.
1/14/2010 06:50:00 PM

I'm gonna type real slow in hopes you can get this. Look here you knuckle dragging Rushbo buttlicking Confederate Party of Republicanism goober, back in 1865 after getting tens of thousands of you folks who they wouldn't even let on the porch killed; the aristocrats were handed an ass-kicking of historic proportions by the Yanks and this should have been sorted out. A hundred years later after you'd lynched enough people and buried enough kids in dikes; the federal troops had to show up again to make it clear to you that, yes, the niggers get to vote, the niggers get to own guns, and the niggers get to go to your schools and live in your neighborhoods.

The fact that you can be distracted by shiny objects like "states rights", "tax fairness", "gay marriage", and "illegal alien" bashing only speaks to your limitations and ability to be manipulated. You screech about tax fairness in your red state holes as you wallow in the highest rates of divorce, incest, illiteracy, and poverty and you're subsidized by the immoral blue states and you subsidize the wealthy - the same ones who wouldn't let you on their porch. They wave their theocracy at you while they do as they please and spit on the actual words of Christ. The pols you vote for to whack them illegal aliens are paid for by the people who hire illegals to squash your shit wages in your shit job and when they can't bust a union they send the jobs overseas to be done by other people of colors you don't like. They call you brave tea bagger patriots while doing the terrorists jobs for them by being whining mewling cowards and convincing you to give up what America is and support doing things that would have gotten you sent back to George III in tar and feathers.

While the left does its goddamedest to keep you from lying in the dirt with a foot on your neck you call them leftards in support of theocracy and racism. The only mystery about you is that you can afford access to a keyboard and manage the motor skills to operate one. You step outside your circle of stupidity to publicly repeat the idiocy that support for a segregationist's Presidential campaign by a half-stepping KKKer is some how in the same league with a politician supporting the campaign of a black man for President while noting the existence of racism in the electorate? It would take all of five minutes for you to find out that your Confederate Party of Repubicanism massas is lying to you ... again.

Put the limp noodle down and back away slowly, 'cause I'm packin' a damn hand cannon.

Dumbass.

Failed Cultures

The ongoing misery in Haiti just got an exclamation point added with a 7.0 earthquake. A shattered Port Au Prince is all over the news media. The devastation points up both the power of a quake of this sort and the crummy building techniques utilized. Once again Haiti is in the news for also being the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Politics can't help but be a part of the discussion - and along with politics, culture.

It is pretty plain that some behaviors are more conducive to stability and economic comfort. When behaviors become widespread enough they get called culture and if they are instituted by establishment the culture warriors will back them. Frequently blindly, as Brooks demonstrated. The Confederate Party of Republicanism touts its culture meme and whacks the rest of the nation over its immoral head with it, all the while ignoring that poverty, incest, and divorce rates are highest in its own backyard. This is the crap that Brooks is spewing under cover of the "I'm a nice reasonable guy" cloak of bullshit.

The Brooksian (CPoR) view seems to hold that culture forms in some kind of vacuum, that there are not good reasons behaviors are practiced. To them it is simply some sort of moral failing rather than failing coping mechanisms. Why certainly Mr Brooks and Rushbo and assorted asswipes - these people are in a state of horrid poverty because they ... well hell, have the wrong religion rather than no available jobs paying anything. Voodoo certainly encourages its followers to starve. If the majority of a population is poverty stricken it must be something they're doing wrong. Like what? It's a pretty good bet reducing births would help - but Catholicism hates birth control pills - remember? How about seeing that what wealth the country has whether natural resources or other got spread around a bit - managed capitalism (soshalizm per CPoR).

The cultural failure these idjits talk about is at the top, as per most paternalistic societies - just as they'd have the US go. Authoritarianism is good for the little folks - just 'cause they say so. Who the hell runs the money and power in the country? Must be the poor since it's their fault they're poor...

How about the first question is who is rich and how did they get that way?

Haiti And David Brooks' Senility

David Brooks is, for some reason inscrutable to me, a respected columnist. President Obama said that the US would not forget Haiti and would have a continuing commitment to the nation. This led Brooks to tell us about aid and culture and ... well, China. Apparently Brooks doesn't like Haiti's religion:

As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

Voodoo. OK, David, how about Catholicism? Did you bother to notice the correlation between Catholicism and poverty in the world? Well, no that wouldn't fit his frame that a nice religion promotes policies that damn near guarantee poverty.

Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

Huh? David Brooks can't tell what is different between Haiti and China? Well maybe, it isn't what you'd think.

Fourth, it’s time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.

Broken down into its basic components what we've got is the actual metric of a Brooks. Paternalism composed of his approved religions and the unregulated form of business in China. A plutocrat's wet dream.

Harold Ford Running For NY US Senate Seat?

Harold Ford has expressed interest in running against Gillibrand for the NY US Senate seat ... and has been taken seriously enough for the NYT to interview him on the subject. Some people not from NY might wonder what could possibly interest New Yorkers in a Tennessean former Congressman who lost for that Senate seat to a Republican distinguishable only by his skin color.

Maybe being a Bank of America vice-chair making about $1 Million per year while being Morning Joe Scarborough's talking point pal is it. It isn't like BoA doesn't deserve a Senator from someplace with an actual population and certainly being near wingnut Joe's yes man proves cross aisle appeal. Somehow four years out of Tennessee politics has turned him into a pro-choice, pro gay marriage type of guy despite his Tennessee policies. I hear tell NYC is a tough place.

He tells the NYT and anybody else who cares that Harry Reid and other leaders won't tell him how to vote. Boy, that's something in short supply in Democratic Senators, Joe Lieberman needs some more pals. Ford is pretty proud of being a capitalist, I'm not sure what that involves at BoA considering the amount of time spent on his TV career.

I guess if New Yorkers vote him in they deserve him, but I'm not sure the rest of the nation's Democrats deserve a Senate Caucus that much more of a mess. What BoA deserves I'll leave to those with a more impolite vocabulary.

If I Were A GOPer Troublemaker

Today, under a fair amount of media pressure Sen Mitch McConnell refused to partake of the Harry Reid bashing other GOPers have indulged in. Mitch was careful in his phrasing, Harry Reid is a matter for the Democratic Caucus. That isn't walking the bullshit back, it is just staying out of it.

If I'm a GOPer; trying to make problems for Democrats is a pretty good idea. The (D)s have the reins of power (sort of) and can be made to pay for that. What I don't want to do (apparently Mitch also) is engage in a gun fight armed with a wet spaghetti noodle. Nobody with two working brain cells thinks the GOP matches the Democrats in race relations. Trying to make that look illusionary involves the GOP in making Trent Lott the equivalent of Harry Reid and going there is really stupid. Take that as a measure of the level of intelligence of the GOP in general.

Not As Bad

Lately I've heard the expression, "not as bad as Republicans," pretty frequently regarding the Democrats - in particular, the Senate. Considering what Democrats in the Senate have managed to do with health care, that margin is pretty narrow. Now certainly in their search for partisan blame the GOP will not vote for any Democratic health care initiative and that provokes some thinking. Now, I have no illusion that the GOP is better than or the same as the Democrats, but there is a real problem with the metric, "not as bad."

The GOP is...well hell, the Confederate Party of Republicanism, but on some issues they can make appeal across a bit wider range than that. Whatever reality is regarding Democrats in general on guns, the GOPers own it for most concerned with it. Despite overall reality the GOPers are perceived as stronger on national security. While it is entirely ludicrous, the GOP is fairer on taxes. The list is longer than Democrats would like to admit, and whether that list is full of nonsense or not does not matter. It does not matter because experts and political addicts aren't most of the voters, people with everyday concerns are and they don't dig deeply into issues. If you're not clearly superior you've got problems overcoming this list and "not as bad," has nothing to do with clearly superior.

I can't do shit to educate most people about narrow differences between Democratic outcomes and GOP outcomes, it is hard enough when it is very clear. Here's the deal, I don't care to that either. Calling what has come out of the Senate health care reform is a goddam joke, expansion might be accurate and I'd even give elimination of pre-existing conditions as some sort of reform but to label the thing as reform - nah. Now you're going to go to voters with this mess and expect them to swallow it? What kind of Republican mess will come out as financial reform with no (R) votes and a Democratic label? In the face of Republican legislation of 15 years ago with a (D) label how is one to persuade voters how far over a cliff the GOP has gone?

Evidently there are enough Senate Democrats who don't get this to put all of the Democrats under the gun. We're all Liebercrats now won't fly - well, good luck with that one.

Game Change Assholery

Media Matters details how the authors of Game Change went about their "research" with their contacts. Maybe you can find a way this doesn't look odd.

While I understand the need for people who are whistle blowing misbehavior in government or business to keep their identities covered, I am generally not a fan of anonymous sources. Frankly I don't care if the person suffering is Harry Reid or Sarah Palin or...particularly when what is brought forward is little more than gossip or immaterial awkwardness. Some things matter and some are just not relevant.

What Harry Reid said is not material and the McCain campaign's difficulties prepping Sarah Palin aren't material. That Harry Reid uses "inartful language" from time to time isn't news nor are his political policy positions. That Sarah Palin was not a well informed VP candidate is not news. The little gossipy details of either or the other released information regarding others simply aren't worthy of the title journalism. What is truly telling is that the media unrelated to this exercise in gossip has made this crap a part of journalism as they practice it. It makes plenty of sense for the publishers to whang the publicity drum, but not for the media to be played.

I don't give a damn about this book and I certainly won't buy it. Anyone can be made to look stupid by taking their quotes out of context and using them with that agenda. I'd also like to note that the people who talked to these "authors" under their ground rules apparently didn't give much thought to what they were participating in - or did and should be considered in that light. The uses some put this steaming pile to should also tell you something about them, whoever the target is.

(you will note that as fiercely as this site mocks Sarah Palin, nothing appears from this thing)

Lott And Reid - Oh Yeah, Sure...

The NRSC, Cornyn(R) and Michael Steele are on the same page when it comes to Harry Reid (D), accusing him of being somehow the equivalent of Trent Lott(R) when it comes to racism. Now what Lott had to say about Sen Thurman (R) and his segregationist run for President is this:

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

If that were the extent of it, you could probably write some of it off to excessive niceness to a Centarian Republican. If that were it and as The Nation noted, scarcely:

In 1978, after his election to the US House, Lott led a successful campaign to have the US citizenship of Jefferson Davis restored.

Or:

During the 1980 campaign, after Thurmond spoke at a Mississippi rally for Ronald Reagan, Lott said of the old Dixiecrat: "You know, if we had elected that man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today."

Then there's

preserve the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University -- the notorious South Carolina college that was under fire for prohibiting interracial dating -- Lott insisted that, "Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy."

But gee-whiz

Lott gave the keynote address at a 1992 national executive board meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a successor organization to the old white Citizens Councils, segregation-era groups the Southern Poverty Law Center refers to as "the white-collar Ku Klux Klan. The C of CC may have changed its name, but it remains a passionate "white racialist" group that condemns intermarriage, integration and immigration by non-whites.

Oh hell, go read the article and be ready to puke - Reid for crying-out-loud...

The Confederate Party of Republicanism will rise again. The deal is, it isn't just about making Democrats uncomfortable - these pricks just have no clue what ails them.

Non-predictions - Ain't Gonna Happen

My friends over at Blue Oregon have more nerve than I do - they've predicted things happening for the year and decade. I'm a bit less self-assured, you get my version of no way in hell:


The GOP will drop the politics of fear.

Congressional Democratic Majorities will result in liberal/progressive laws.

Somebody/anybody will do something about the increasing disparity of wealth in the US.

Labor will regain respectability as a vocation.

The US won't be at war with some third-rate nation.

Religion will cease to divide this country and stop trying to control it.

Race and gender will cease to be political footballs.

The GOP will take on responsible governance as its actual policy.

I'm gonna get rich and have lots of readers....

hahhahahhahahahahahha

Religion Trumps Health

Boy, don't get yourself into a Terri Schiavo position in a Catholic Hospital. You may think you've covered the ground with an Advanced Directive but...

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
58. In principle, there is an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally. This obligation extends to patients in chronic and presumably irreversible conditions (e.g., the “persistent vegetative state”) who can reasonably be expected to live indefinitely if given such care.40

If you're bothered by this and particularly if your only hospital is a Catholic one then you might want to check Compassion and Choice. Those of you in urban areas might be surprised by being told that sometimes the only hospital is Catholic, well guess what.

Fauxy Sarah

The NYT report that Sarah Palin is joining "News" Corp as a contributor isn't much of a surprise. What surprises me is that it took this long. I'm sure she'll fit right in, tits and stupid works, the question is if she'll finish her multi-year contract any better than the one she had with Alaskans. If that seems unfair, to make that accusation one would need to point at the other qualifications...

Since I don't care what Faux News gets up to, other than claiming to be news, what I find to be gold is the comments. A large portion of them are of the liberals laughing variety (me too), but the gold is the Sarah fans. The most common thread is how right on she is for regular Americans but the best is how afraid of her libruls are. I've noticed that some libruls have expressed a fear of a government run by someone like Palin, or her, but the most common fear is that level of incompetence getting anywhere politically. The more nuanced view liberals seem to have is fear that Palin reflects a large minority and are offended that it exists. Palin herself seems to be considered laughable by liberals, which is quite different from fear. It's kind of like seeing someone in clown garb and make-up and being scared by it becoming a fashion statement...

One thing I find appealing is that somebody at Faux has to be her boss ... Karmic justice.

Reid's Big Mouth

So, there's a media and Confederate Party of Republicanism feeding frenzy around Sen Harry Reid's private remarks regarding Barack Obama. The target is statements about then candidate Obama being a fairly light skinned black and not using dialect unless he chose and his appeal as a Presidential candidate not being hurt.

There are such things as realities and politicians ignore them at their peril. Making note of a candidate's skin tone as a black man and his manner of speech during a conversation about a candidate's chances in an election would be suicidally stupid to do from a stage and yet be an accurate assessment. Who the hell is it that thinks American politics is about polite conventions? It might be infuriating that such metrics exist in this country, but it is scarcely racism to note them in a private conversation.

What I find particularly funny is GOPers practicing dog whistle racism and even less subtle forms and losing their minds in service to political correctness - that PC they laugh at and castigate the media for. The media being stupid is simply a feature of that enterprise. I look for no improvements in either.

BIg And Little

Gus and Brayden
***Click for full size***


Gus is eight years in February and Brayden is nine months. Gus at 150 pounds and Brayden at 20 pounds. Gus lies around a lot, Brayden crawls a lot and walks if he can hang onto something.

Fox's Iranian Moment***And Doubles Down

I don't care a bit about golf, not even a little bit. My abilities at that sport consist of of smacking hell out of the ball to get on the green in a couple and then - 20 putting or some such. I'd as soon watch paint dry as watch somebody chase a little white ball around a big grassy space. If you like the game, well, you do and I don't.

I understand stars and I even understand them thanking their god for the opportunity to compete. What I don't understand is a so-called news network shilling for a religion - any religion. Fox News claims to be a serious news organization and other non-Murdochian media have jumped to their defense when they've been challenged on their shit. You can tell this bunch from the Iranians exactly how?

If you watch something like CBN you know what you're doing and mean to do it and I could care less about them - they're right up front with their stuff. They make no pretense to be something other than what they are. There is the dishonesty of Fox being a wing of the RNC without disclosing it and then there is this. This ought to clue you in as to what Republicanism stands for - another theocracy to plague the world.

I could waste hours of your time quoting Brit Hume and counter-posing those quotes to those of Jesus Christ to make him look ridiculous. Whatever good there is in Christianity is not what these profiteers of looniness spread. What flat evades me is how the behavior of their heroes doesn't clue their viewers in. Family values my ass...
****Updated****
No kidding, now the dumbass has doubled down-with.

Sure Billo, Colson's conversion was real - as opposed to...WJC? Or maybe the Sanford, Vitter, or Ensign family values you so espouse - or maybe your loofah? Did it convert? It's got one of them furrin names...surely it's staying away from telephones? You've got to be brain dead or a practicing hypocrite to take these people seriously. I'm sorry - but if you engage in this level of stupidity you are an asshole and should take up watching film of waves rolling on the beach for information. No, nobody was picking on any religion...

Is Hume on drugs, have a stroke, or just got a mouth full of baby Jesus dolls?

Poke me in the eye with a dull stick if I ever act this asinine.

Seriously, Oregon Is Better Than This

I post BlogNetNews Oregon Influence rankings on the sideboard of this blog. I have no quarrel with their ranking system or their service. This week, this no-account barely read blog gets itself an eleven. You have got to be kidding me, eleventh? If you take a look at some of the high finishers you'll understand why this POS is even ranked.

This guy is number four:


Utter stupidity like this will rank you #2.

If they can’t keep the uninvited out of state dinners, they probably aren’t serious about keeping terrorists from entering Detroit!

Actual lying will get you into the #1 slot.

Then, of course, we had the Christmas crotch-bomber, who rudely disrupted the GA's sunny vacation. As he was vacationing, Janet Napalitono went live with the reassurance that "the system worked", though she quickly backpedalled after that was hooted down; her subsequent claim was that the remark had been "taken out of context".

There's some pretty good stuff above and below "Chuck for ..." and I suppose some slack should be cut the GOPers considering what they've got to work with but holy shit... For cry-yie-outloud, if you can think, write a bit, and have some time; start a blog because Oregon sure deserves better than this in a Most Influential Blogs Ratings.

(parenthetically, heh, I suppose these half wits will be unhappy and can probably manage to snag a couple words out of a sentence to make me look stupid -as is their wont)

((note that I did no such thing - teh stupid is all theirs))

***comments on this post ought to be chock full of win***

We're All Gonna Die - Oh Noes

Do any of the bedwetters pay any attention to anything other than scaring the public spitless? Look here, I haven't heard a word from these cretins about my job and I'm more likely to get killed by my job than if I flew on a commercial airliner every damn day. Where's my news conference and GOP diaper peeing? I won't get one because that's not success for the terrorists.

If nothing else should demonstrate it, this should - it doesn't matter if the terrorists succeed in knocking a plane down or not - we'll go berserko nuts. The GOPers tell the world the President is a pussy and we're too lame to deal with pouring water out of a boot - while looking at the sole. Grown men who were elected to represent the interests of America act like little girls spooked by a spider.

Goddam, somebody is going to try to do this sort of thing. Period. No ellipses. They may or may not be Muslims or foreigners, as Eric Rudolph shows there is a white 'Christian' terrorist bloc in this country. Fifty dollars or so of junk in a guy's pants will cost this nation umpteen millions of dollars and inconveniences. I scarcely think we should throw our hands up and give up on trying to keep bad things from happening, but this squealing is stupid.

The President's speech seemed to me to hit the right keys without smacking hell out of the FEAR drum. Don't expect a lower volume level from the screechers. Assholes.

Sally Quinn And Resignation - WaPo Birdcage Liner

Sally Quinn from the WaPo is all over the White House about getting people to resign. Sullivan and Rogers have to go, somebody around Napolitano has to fall on a sword. I plowed through 17 pages of Google with "Sally Quinn Bush official resign" and what managed to get was this regarding Mark Sanford.

"I really do think the bottom line is toughing it out -- you have to absolutely have the thickest skin there ever was -- and you just have to say, 'Sorry, I'm not leaving,' " she said.

"You can try to win back the people if you want, but the only way you can do that is to keep your mouth shut and work really hard to do your job."

The was some crap about her speculating that Cheney would resign in favor of Fred (Droopy) Thompson or at least that some GOPers wanted him to. There were some forced resignations in the BushCo but finding her calling for them is fruitless. In the BushCo you really had to have your dick in a vice to have to resign, none of this PartyCrasher shit would do without a dead boy in some guy's bed to go along with it.

There was a male prostitute posing as a White House press correspondent tossing softballs to THE PRESIDENT with White House logs showing him entering and not leaving and for Sally Quinn ... crickets. This kind of crap is why I dropped my subscription to the WaPo. This link wouldn't even be here if she weren't all over the media screeching.

Now, I'll admit that I do think there are a pretty fair number of BushCos that belong in orange jumpsuits and manacles for provable crimes ... but I write a no-rate (not even third-rate) blog as a nail banger...

American Iran

I find it humorous, in the dark sense, that the people who lose their minds over Iran and are most in favor of, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," are the very same ones who use it as a model for where the US needs to go. I know, they hate on the Islam and the brown folks practicing it and ... well after all Christianity is different. No, you complete and absolute idjits, it is not different in any remarkable fashion. Sure, the names are different and many of the prophets are different, but in reality they are remarkably similar.

It isn't just the theology that is similar, the abuses are congruent. When an Iranian claims to belong to a Muslim country is he different than the Christian calling this a Christian nation? Does he mean something different? Spain was a Christian nation as it persecuted the heretics and the Crusaders were all of Christian nations. The obliteration of the American Indian was justified by Christianity versus the heathens. If you take Christian nation seriously as an appellation for governments then Christ was a murderous torturing rapist bastard. I'm not the least sorry if you find that blasphemous, I never seriously made such a reference as to the Christianity of a government. Oddly enough the Christ of his own words was personally about as anti-establishment as it gets. He got hung up on that cross for a reason.

There are no politics in Christ's words, there is a whole lot about personal ethics and personal morality. He did not oppose the Jewish establishment as a matter of politics, he opposed it as a religious practice. The religious right and much of the Republican Party would stand that on its head, they would replace politics with religion and in so doing grant that religion the kind of power that Christ himself opposed. They would take the spirituality and personal morality of the religion and turn it into the brute force of government.

There abides in this nation the delusion that the law is moral. The most tangled and obscure arguments are brought forth to uphold this idea. Somehow the idea that social order and morality are the same thing has taken hold. The most simplistic argument devolves into equating the badness or immorality of murder and theft with laws against such behavior. It is as though Biblical morality having a congruence with public order and not being the same thing is beyond such people. They cannot wrap their heads around the idea that laws against theft make it unnecessary for me to track you down and blow your head off for taking my stuff - the government will take care of the issue for me in a much more controlled fashion. There are behaviors that make it impossible for us to live with each other and those behaviors need to be controlled.

If the Christian right ruled this country in the manner they call for the only way you could tell this place from Iran would be the call to prayer. That includes the current upheaval in that nation. There seems to be some idea floating around that what is going on there is something other than a religious dispute. It isn't something else. These protests aren't about doing away with the Islamic State, they're about the version of it that will run the place. It isn't a hell of a lot different than the Presbyterians going up against the Evangelicals - and yes it is about the same book in each case.

This rant isn't about religion, it is about theocracy. It is about organizations like the C Street creepy sex club and the rest of the Christian nation crowd. It is about the fundamental misunderstanding of the role of religion in America and its absolutely personal role. Every time one of these cretins sticks his head up it is time to ask them exactly why they want us to live in Iran.

Oh, yeah,Iran today.

The Dick-itude Of It All

You may have noted that ex-VP Cheney regularly crawls out of whatever undisclosed cave he resides in now to opine on how messed up President Obama is. I offer you the entire December 30,2009 statement he gave to Politico:

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.


“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

There are a couple accurate pieces in this mess, we do have a President named Obama who is a Democrat, some terrorists will be tried in criminal court, and the Christmas failure is being criminally charged. From there we are apparently stuck with what Dick wants to be true.

Politico has taken some heat over this and other of their stenographering of GOP talking points and while the entire first page is either a prelude to the Cheneyism or quotes of other GOPers like Rep King the second page does a bit of debunking. I don't think much of Politico despite the MSM's fascination with it but trashing them for what the NYT and WaPo do on a regular basis and leaving them off the hook is silly. Playing stenographer for any political party is horse shit for anyone who makes a pretense at being a news organization. It also is the order of the day.

Politicians have campaign publications where they can spout whatever nonsense crosses their minds and their allies in the blogs, etc. If this is the function of news organizations we could entirely do away with all the associated reporters, copy editors, etc and just hand the pols tape recorders.

if you'd like to know what complete Dick-heads the GOP is, play back the run up to the Iraq War and any critic of BushCo...

Religion And Me

Since I've made a couple posts slamming theocratic impulses lately; I thought I ought to give some kind of back story so the color of my views is clear. I do not practice any religion, though I was raised in a fairly liberal version of Christianity. I have read the Bible cover to cover several times, Old and New Testament. I have read some of the history and teaching of several other religions. I don't practice them because I find their exclusivity and narrow rules contradictory to the idea of a Creator Of Universes. Real frankly, I don't find the faith of atheism that there is no god any more appealing than the faith that god writes the rules these religions adhere to.

I understand the difference between faith and reason and I have no problem with the practice of either or their melding. What I do have a problem with is the application of faith to others not concerned with it. I will not pretend to tell you anything about your faith or lack of it. I am quite willing to state that the words that are written down may contradict your version if you make it an issue with me. Since some sort of Christianity is the most common religion in this country its practice gets the lion's share of my criticism - that and it is the one I'm most familiar with.

Despite the radicalism and theocratic impulses of some people, religion has benefited a whole lot of people; they live better lives for it. One can take the excesses of any religion and the warfare and destruction waged under its cloak as definitive of that religion. That's scarcely honest. The fact that Catholicism participated in the Inquisition doesn't speak to Catholicism, it speaks to the misuse of religious power as it does with Islam or any other. The very fact of faith makes religion an extremely potent force and any time there is power available someone will go for it. That is about some people not the thing itself.

I don't find myself the least constrained in criticizing the spreaders of hate and the advocates of theocracy - whatever their religion or lack there of. If you do that I will cut you wide and deep. Brit Hume would be an asshole and jerk if he were an agnostic but when he tries to cover his jerk-itude with something as respectable as religion he's given me a huge green light to mock him unmercifully - right along with his employers.

My respect for you doesn't depend on your religious views, it depends on your behavior.

Fundamentalism And Violence As Government

The NYT reports on Iranian unrest. What stands out is not so much the political clash as the religious aspects of it. The Iranian government bases its legitimacy on religion, a sort of theocracy based on a sort of Islamic Republic. Their problem is religion and its versions as government. There doesn't seem to be any real force in favor of doing away with theocracy, rather the version of it.

History has some rather general lessons regarding theocracies and the one that stares at Iran regards fundamentalism. Theocracies that liberalize tend to be overwhelmed and degenerated into secularism by the forces of secular concerns of the populace and the political concerns of the rulers. The spiritual tends to be overwhelmed by pocketbook and social issues and the maneuvering of rulers to address those concerns which fly in the face of concern with a distant Paradise. In the distant past such a progression was gradual with communication being the limiter. Things have changed.

Fundamentalism offers a stop gap. The concerns of daily living can be submerged by the hardcore adherence to a dedication to achieving Paradise and the rules that determine its achievement. There is a tricky balance required here, people will exist who are independent thinkers that will not adhere blindly and will act as a voice for those frustrated by economic and social failures or weaknesses. Adherents will shake loose if their own particular foible gets stepped on. Fundamentalism depends on strict rules and nasty consequences and this presents several opportunities for perceived over interference in people's lives. Fundamentalism only seems that way if it addresses social issues as they emerge and keeps a lid on existing ones which means more and more rules - nastily enforced. The flip side is that as the populace is exposed to the outside norms the intolerance begins to seem dated or capricious.

Iran's government has bet on fundamentalism. This means they are being pushed in the direction of violent reaction. This isn't to downplay the violence already occurring, it is to point out that the levels will increase. Once fundamentalism is chosen as a route there is no backing down, the opposition must be demonized and persecuted - there can be no deals with demons. What is left is to smash them and people don't like being smashed and push back. There is your cycle.

New Year's Day "Oh No"

We got over a foot of snow on New Year's Eve day with temperatures in the high 20s. Now today it is about 39F and starting to rain. This is going to make a real mess and the streets that weren't much of an issue to deal with are now going to be horrid.

Like I've said, the common theme of winter here is that you can complain about it...

The Last Year In Pictures At Chuckfor...

In years past I've put up the pictures from the last year as a post. I started that direction again and was surprised to find that use of a cell phone camera exploded the number of photos. So, I'll just let it go with a link to the photos catagory and only include two iconic ones.

My pal Gus:


My fun machine:

How We End 2009

Not that this is exactly unusual.

***Click for full size***

Yes, it is December 31, 2009 in Baker City, OR and yes, it is snowing its butt off. As I've noted, if you think you know what the winter will bring around here - you haven't been paying attention. I've seen everything from shirt sleeve temperatures with bare ground to to double digit below 0F and snow feet deep. Today is high 20s and probably about average weather.

I'm over 21 years clean and sober; and I have a cold - so I'm not up for much in the line of celebration. I hope you all have a fun and safe New Year's Eve, with special emphasis on the safe part.

This Is Your GOP TSA

As the GOPers are losing their collective minds over the Undibomber it pays to stop and think about their reasoning. Since Sen DeMint has a hold on the TSA chief, there isn't any new regime going on - this is the BushCo TSA. Unless you want to figure the semantics of replacing the words "war on terror" as some terror enhancing feature, we're on the same track. Well, there is the little matter of treating the rest of the world as if it counts as something more than a map filler.

What you have to assume from their collective freak out is that the GOP TSA is a piece of crap and Obama hasn't fixed it quickly enough. You do understand that many people won't stop to think that the Obama Admin has scarcely made a bunch of replacements in the personel doing day to day operations. It doesn't seem there is a paper from the BushCo floating around stating, "Undibomber determined to strike." The changes made are pretty obvious, Democratic Administration.

Evidently with the lack of any domestic or foreign policy initiatives the GOP is simply back to the politics of scaring the public. They wore that rut pretty deep.

Imagine Saying This With A Functioning Brain

Kevin Madden was the Mittster's pimp during the GOP Presidential Primaries and afterwards. I'm not sure if contact with the ultimate position flipper causes neural congestion or something but here you go.

Now put yourself with a functioning brain in this position. You are going to tell Americans that since Obama didn't have a rubble pile to climb on and he vacationed in Hawaii, a foreign place, as opposed to the manly state of Tex-ass (you know, where men are men and sheep are nervous) that he's ... I don't know ... a pussy.

A fake ranch (I live where there are real ones) and some brush clearing seem to be ... defining ... of something. I don't know, a guy who chokes on pretzels and parades in a flight suit is ever so manly versus a guy who shoots 3 pointers in a pretty physical unpadded game. I give up, people will pay attention to this and buy it - along with the rest of the diaper wetters stupidity.

But seriously - for a moment, in the face of this - think about what it takes for someone of even average intelligence to be stuck with these kinds of lines as something other than a comedy routine. What self-regard could you have? I'm not going for the silly about fire dangers of neurons struggling with such, I do mean honestly - what would you think about while doing such a thing? I know it's asking a lot of my readers since they've shown no signs of doing such, but really. I'm lost on this one and it isn't as though Madden is the only GOP shill playing at it. I won't bring up Darth Cheney because his disconnects are legendary.

(it seems I didn't quit after yesterday...)

Too Much Practice At Giving A Damn

Since I now have no more connection to politics than the (D) on my voter registration card I should be be much more relaxed. I'm not. I suppose that's a consequence of too much practice at giving a damn. I shouldn't, really. I live in a nation whose political orientation I don't understand and can't do a damn thing about. If you think I exaggerate consider this.

RM Nixon may be political ancient history but he was by the standards of the time a pretty conservative Republican. You'd be hard put to place the current Democratic accomplishments to the left of RMN. Watergate was not the be-all, end-all of RMN. He was a prick and he was if not paranoid, damn close to it. He also was alright with a health care reform considerably more progressive/liberal than the current version. As for wars...well he had one - that did sort of keep spreading around. One. He kept enemies lists, yes, but he didn't indefinitely detain people and as for his spying on Americans - well shit. It pays to remember that his DOJ did send people to prison for a stupid burglary - not serious stuff like torturing people. There were people well to the right of Dick, and they were generally dismissed as mostly crazy. The left hated him with a burning fire. When Dick is thought of; it's Watergate or maybe China and just barely Vietnam.

The Sainted Ronnie is a figure of myth today, the reality bears no resemblance to the memory. The guy was an actor who was good at repeating his lines, virtually nothing he put his hand to worked out - other than the myth. He raised taxes, including FICA - the most regressive of all. He killed entry level blue collar wages with the amnesty of illegal aliens and opened the doors to today's crisis level problem. He elevated the voodoo economics of trickle down supply side economics to policy level and promoted the idea of government as the problem. All it seems it took was a pretty delivery. It would take too many pages to put reality next to myth and he's a hero.

In today's world things that would have resulted in Republican revolution under RMN or RR are serious Republican politics in the name of National Security. What four years ago done by a fringe lefty would have resulted in cries of traitorous are staples of elected federal Republican officials. A Senate bill that six years ago could as well have been written by the Republican majority is unanimously defied by their minority and called socialism as the left hates it. As we wind down a war in support of the most corrupt functioning government in the world we escalate one in support of one of the most corrupt non-functioning governments in the world and we don't have money to do squat for our nation. Two years after the bankers crashed the world's economy the same pricks are making fortunes doing the same things and regulation is a matter of speculation and the President is very careful not to hurt their feelings.

The stupid ass, DeMint, that is crying about how the Administration doesn't take 'terror' seriously and misquotes the DHS head about the TSA has a hold on the appointment of the head of the TSA...and the media ignores it. Me and my ilk are more likely to get killed at work than if we flew on commercial airliners every day and the whining mewling pissants can't stop - maybe if their lives presented a larger threat than a paper cut... The media that tanked for GWB and McCain now cannot get enough of the Republican opposition and is loath to correct any statement they care to make. John McCain gets almost as much media face time now as loser as he did as a candidate. People who got things mostly right about BushCo are ignored and their pimps get major media slots despite getting almost everything wrong. In the corporate media world mild liberals like Olberman and Maddow are the equivalent of Limbaugh, Beck, and etc. as though there is a comparison. Tabloid mogul Murdoch runs an entire network as an extension of the right Republican fringe and is aped by one media business after the other and taken seriously by a sizable portion of the public.

The very outer reaches of the Republican Party are now its mainstream and the Democrats fall all over themselves trying to become the old Republican establishment - and a meaningless handful notice and complain. People like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson are the arbiters of Democratic legislation and most of that Party are willing to go along. The Democratic Party, yes the Democrats, are busy passing a purchase mandate of 4-9% of income on the bottom of the effective economic scale and quarreling over a pittance of a tax on everyone above in order to accomplish the biggest corporate give away in goddam history. The thing they're busy mandating on the economic loser worker bees will bankrupt them if they use it. It effectively protects the providers not the insurance purchasers from harm. This is the legislative victory as determined by the Lieberman/Nelson fringe.

This is how far we've progressed from Richard goddam Nixon...

I don't know why I continue to opine for a literal handful of readers and read the one blog that amuses me more than it pisses me off. I have no idea why I give a good goddam and can't seem to break the habit. Compare the stupidity and intransigence of American politics to the competitions I engage in, from drag racing to shooting where the competitors are nearly universally gracious, considerate and helpful and I keep playing at this?

Throwing rocks at the moon makes about as much difference as me paying attention - masochism I suppose...

Is this my swan song? I don't know - it sure should be.

Terror Pimps Peeing Their Pants

Along with very nearly everyone in our nation; I'd prefer not to be in an airplane that explodes or gets driven into something or be where one is crashed. I suppose that seems like stating the obvious, but there are other pieces of the obvious that are entirely left out of this NW Airlines bombing attempt. Let's start out with the most distressing, if enough people try, sooner or later somebody is going to manage it, even if everyone has to fly in the nude. That is just a matter of people being ingenious. Somebody will manage to break out of jail this year, out of a group of somebodies who all the authorities rightly suspect of being motivated to do it. That doesn't mean you throw your hands in the air and give up, but it does mean being smart and also not bothering to try to scare the public spitless like, say, Rep Peter King.

"I would say, right now, we do need the full-body scan, especially when you have countries like Nigeria, which have inadequate security to begin with; then you have passengers transiting in Amsterdam and coming here," King said. "I think we have to face up to this reality, that we live in a dangerous world where Islamic terrorists want to kill us. And, yes, there is some brief violation of privacy with a full body scan. But on the other hand, if we can save thousands of lives, to me, we have to make that decision and we have to come down on the side of saving thousands of lives."

Why not take a look at Nate Silver and see just how likely you are to get scattered across some landscape. Not very damn likely.

Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

I'm actually subject to this analogy since I work outdoors and frequently in higher places using tools that are grounded; in effect making any of us lightning rods. If we hear thunder we start reducing the chances, but the reality is that lightning can happen before you hear any thunder or even see a reason to worry. And so?

The terror pimps got their real start with 9/11, the political and media impacts weren't missed by these opportunists. In the face of pretty obvious stupidity and incompetence BushCo managed to get re-elected in 2004, mostly on the back of fear mongering. A segment of the electorate in the 2008 election was worked over on the concept that the now President was a Muslim and "palled around with terrorists." Now the collective media and Republicans are pissing their pants because a guy set his pants on fire.

How far is this going to go in the search for the unattainable? What other or more "brief violation of privacy" will satisfy Rep King when whatever more steps are taken and avoided by a terrorist? What exactly is it that the President of the United States is supposed to say on TV that would make them feel better? Let's get to the nut of this, nothing that can be said or done is going to make for absolute security - and that's the game they're playing and you're their suckers.

A White Christmas From NE OR

Just for you missing such a thing (certainly not the Midwest) I give you what has to pass for a White Christmas here.

It is 27F at 3PM PST and it has been a pretty wild December here ending with some cold temps and actual snow on the ground. The temperature has been all over the place. I got a Harley ride in on Solstice at nearly 50F which followed a week of highs in the teens preceded by over a foot of snow. December in Baker City is never predictable, shirtsleeve weather one year and sub-zero the next, drought to rain to snow up to a giraffe's butt. We take what we get, and complain about whatever it is.

That is one of the constants of NE OR, you certainly can complain about winter. The saving grace is that we get little of the ice problems others have.

Best of Holidays to all.

Merry Christmas Or Happy Holidays

Whatever this year has brought to you, we are still here and we have things to be grateful for. Hang onto that and those you care for, life is transient and best enjoyed while upright and breathing.

Have warm and sweet holidays, your host is thinking of you.

View From My Couch

John Cole over at Balloon Juice created a post title that I've stolen and used for the same reason.

Not my couch, my Lazyboy recliner and Gus would like to have one of the Ritz crackers I'm eating. The camera is set on wide lense, I'm as far back as I get it, that is my knee, and - yes - the damn dog is bigger than me.

A Must Pass Bill

I've been told that the Senate Health Care Reform bill is very important. The insurance mandates are not an evil and advance the health of Americans. I've watched and listened with a certain amount of fury mixed with amusement.

If there are any actual teeth in the regulations proposed about health insurance practices, the owners of policies may see some improvements. May see some improvements, so far I don't really see where it isn't about you hiring a lawyer.

I was under the impression that the mandates were about the health of Americans. If nothing gets Americans into doctors' offices rather than hospitals that would seem to be a chimera. Health is about staying the hell out of hospitals, that is a place for real serious problems and most real serious problems can be short circuited by primary care.

The Senate seems to think that uninsured Americans can cough up with a month wages to buy an insurance policy that will ... well what will it do? Real basic health insurance has high deductibles and low limits and lots of co-pays. Once you've stripped out a month wage from people on the very edge; what do they have left for co-pays and etc? What do they have to pay the deductibles with? You've just gotten into the hospital and have a $5000 bill that insurance won't cover and you can do what with that?

I suppose the rationale left for mandates is that the medium big hospital bills won't get passed on to everyone else. You've left me as to where that benefits Americans health. I do see some pretty good things happening for private insurance companies.

Democratic Political Disaster

Health Care Reform would be extremely hard under the best circumstances and none of those have been laid into place before this thing hit the fan. It should have been known in the Democratic Caucus what could fly. It should have been clear what the President was willing to sign. Consequences for Caucus obstruction should have been laid out clearly and absolutely. The vote should have been known.

The blame for this is all over the board, from President Obama to Freshman Senator.

Here's what that responsibility is going to entail. Voter turnout is always down in midterms and the most fickle voting groups are: 1) The Poor, 2) The Young, 3) Minorities. Those most impacted by what the current health care reform looks like are those folks and whether they will turn out depends on their enthusiasm, real enthusiasm. I think the most optimistic measure would be, "I don't care," and I think that is fairy tale land. Those Obama/Democratic demographics you were so proud of, bye-bye.

That in itself is horrid, but what about the activist wing? You know them, more left than mainstream out in the electorate trenches Democrats. Since the end of the Vietnam War the left has been almost endlessly faithful and forgiving of Democrats. There is noise and nose holding, but they do the part campaigns can't pay people to do. I do not know how that is going to go. I do know that in the face of the current mess it is going to be difficult to make arguments to them to bring in money and effort for Democratic majorities. We aren't as bad as the GOP isn't a real recipe for enthusiasm, true as it may be. You can try to make the case that the outrage around the apparent current Senate version of health care reform is limited to noisy bloggers and loon pundits. Um, polls are showing something different going on. If something is passed and signed, you still have to sell it as some kind of product. Much of this political year has been devoted to this mess and that means Democrats are stuck with having to sell it. Good luck with that one.

Older white voters do vote and that 25%+/- total loss Republican loon portion will also vote. That part of the demographic pretty much loathes Obama and anything they think he stands for. This puts you starting somewhat behind in the turn out game. You really need the activists out getting voters and you need them to carry a message that will get people out to the polls. The latest I've heard for a message is, George W Bush.

A Bad Bill Is Not Victory, Liebercrats

Let's get some things out of the way right up front. I did not vote for Joe Lieberman as President. I did not vote for Joe Lieberman for Senate Chair positions or anything. I also did not vote for President Obama as a "transformative" progressive. I knew whom I was voting for. Rather, I thought I was voting for a Democrat.

I don't care about the regulations Health Care Reform is supposed to have, they are at worst a paint job on a whorehouse and at best some force for reform of practices. There is no real harm done and even a possibility of progress, slim but there. My prognosis is that the insurance companies will do as they please with these reforms and the consumer be damned. That much is crystal ball stuff.

What I can tell you with no doubt whatever is that mandates with no options will force American consumers to take whatever crap is offered by the sharks that have set this course. Not only will it force Americans screwed by their system to buy the junk, it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for it. The States with the worst insurance systems will suck hell out of the public teat. Understand, the worst outcomes will be rewarded with the most money from taxpayers. All you have to do is look at the highest rates of uninsured in states and their version of health insurance to understand where the money will go and who will get it. That much is assured.

Right behind that inevitability is this, the sharks who already benefit from a monopolistic system will have the reward of federal dollars and enforced consumer expenditures to swell their influence and income. If you think the Senate outcomes in this debate were owned by these people wait and see how that plays once they aren't just taking advantage of their existing power, but have it multiplied.

I've been told how important mandates are to insure those excluded by decision or economics and (for some reason) start forcing the system in a positive direction. There is no doubt that the uninsured drive insurance costs up when their failures are spread back out into the system. I've been talking about this for years. What nobody has shown or is even willing to try to show is that HealthInc is the least responsive to market desires or in any way attempts to serve consumers. What has been demonstrated is that they use whatever means they can to avoid paying or to pay as little as they can. That is not immaterial.

Does somebody want to argue about whether the health insurance system in this country is a disaster? If exploding costs, denials, etc in the face of federal tax rewards is not a disaster, well - OK. Now the Senate is poised to reward that failure with federal money and the involuntary servitude of the public. I may be forced to buy auto insurance if I choose to own vehicles, but I do have a "choice" about owning one and I do have a hell of a lot of insurance companies to pick my mandated coverage from and those companies have varying reputations but certainly better than HealthInc. I will point out that people are actually not in a position of choice about owning a body and virtually no choice regarding health insurance providers.

I will not support mandates without choice and I will not support people who make this happen. I will repeat the words Halliburton and Blackwater, anybody notice these failures being removed from the system or their continuation as necessary - in the face of their behavior? I will not support a Party that goes there and I will not support a President who lies to my face about it. I don't in the least care what Ron Wyden or Jeff Merkley say about health care reform, if those mandates stay in without choice they are Liebercrats. It should be obvious to anybody that if one or two Democratic Senators stood up and said no choice/no mandates or no cloture that the mandates would go away. That isn't going to happen and they will pat themselves on their backs for not pulling a Lieberman and enabling Lieberman. They can try that in public and I (at least) will be standing right there calling Bullshit - in public. It is unfortunate that the House is going to suffer right along with Senators since they provided some version of choice, but they're going to get hammered. The goddam Senators seem to have forgotten that the House is part of Congress and the President gets to sign or not whatever crap comes out of Congress and the suffering for their bullshit gets spread around.

The Senate has proved how it will handle as important an issue as health care reform, still to come are issues around climate warming, jobs, banking regulation, and the rest of 30 years of fallout of Republican junk. I suppose you have optimism... Howard Dean versus Joe Lieberman? Ahahahaha...

Senator Tom Harker just got done lying on MSNBC by implying that Dean's support was predicated on single payer - odd since he's played booster right up until choice was removed... Damn, that crap sounds familiar.

The Latest Democratic Stupidity

This morning out of some masocistic impulse I got to watch Joe Scarborough smirk about how Joe Lieberman dragged the Democrats back from disaster and how Howard Dean was a leftist idiot deserving the White House ire while they're fine with Joe Ho. The people praising you should be some indication of where you've gotten yourself. Joe goddam Scarborough.

So now you know, Joe Ho is what a Democrat should be and Howard Dean is a rat bastard and that's where this White House is. Well, I thought I was a Democrat and I thought I was a realist and I thought I was pretty much in line with the majority of House and Senate Democrats. Turns out I was...um...wrong. The President of the United States, the head of the Party, has made it clear that I was wrong. I'll accept that measure of wrongness in definition. How about you?

The biggest corporate giveaway program by the Federal Government is supposed to be some sort of Democratic Victory. You can tell these people from the Republicans exactly how? Wasn't there a song...

Say hello to the new master
Same as the old master
lalalalalalala or something.

The Democratic Senatorial Corporate Shills

It is a whole lot of fun to bash hell out of the (L) Party member Lieberman and some of his co-conspirators like Nelson and Baucus and in some ways it is accurate enough. There is a bit more to it than that, well a lot more to it.

The Democratic Senate Caucus has enough votes to essentially end the career of any member of the Caucus. It is a real bad practice to do this to the opposition Party's membership, it encourages payback when majorities shift. It is a bad practice regarding floor votes because politicians need to be allowed their convictions and their constituency's interests. It is a whole 'nother kettle of fish where a procedural vote like cloture is involved. This is the Caucus' business and if it is important enough to the Caucus to bring the matter to the floor for a vote then they need to make sure it happens.

It is not that important to the Democratic Caucus. It is not a matter of sufficient import to that Caucus that minus any options other than the rapists of HealthInc a mandate to buy insurance remains. This is even more Halliburtonizaton of the public good. This is the Federal government adding more to the coffers of the same bunch that has driven this national fiasco, by fiat. This is BushCo's corporate welfare taken to extremes, it makes them pikers in that game.

You will buy their insurance and the taxpayers will make up the difference for some. You will get a handful of regulations that the industry will find ways to shit on. If you don't like what they do to you with your policy you will do what? Hire a lawyer? There is nobody and nothing to take your back, just you and your lawyer up against the richest corporations in the nation. There is nothing that will contain or control costs and no reason for the corporate rapists to act as though their rate payers mean spit next to their business models. They will "compete" with a couple of their fellows with exactly the same ends in mind and they aren't yours.

The Democratic Senators give exactly the damn you've seen them give, nothing. If you find a difference between what those Senators tell you and what is happening and what Joe Lieberman looks like - maybe you should listen to Lieberman. It is just this simple, Joe Lieberman is the Democratic Senate Caucus in operation. If that Senator of yours protests that this is too harsh; you're allowed to laugh in his face and ask just exactly what the results were and who allowed this. I will tell you flatly that there is not a majority in the Democratic Senate Caucus who give a damn about the difference or this would not be the result.

The Caucus knows what it can do to Lieberman and the other couple jerks, those jerks know what the Caucus could do; and they also know that they won't do it. They can act just exactly as they please on a procedural vote and there will be no repercussions. Not one damn thing.

The mandate should be a deal breaker for any Democrat as this mess stands. The rest of it is political window dressing and matters not the least other than as propaganda. If you think it means something and want to support it, then do so - minus that mandate. The mandate means that this is worse than the status quo, that BushCo still runs this country for the sole benefit of the plutocrats and your lot just got worse. Once HealthInc is sucking at the public tit in this manner they will never be removed from it and their influence in government will be multiplied by an exponential factor.

Yep, and you just got the President of the USA on your TV telling you that, "...not everybody will get what everybody wants..." and the only people who got what they wanted is Joe the Ho and his HealthInc buddies. You get talk. Yes, you good guy Senators, I am talking to YOU and about YOU. Go ahead and ask me and a bunch of people just like me for something again... Our name isn't Aetna - or Halliburton or Inc anything. I really figure the effort to fill in a space on a ballot is asking too goddam much. Show me I'm wrong - I ain't holding my breath, though.

Health Care, Or What (6/23/09 repost)

If you've followed this blog at all you know that I'm a supporter of the concept of single payer health care. I have no doubt that big health care insurance companies would take a hit but it would scarcely be fatal. Single payer would not be a 'gold plated' offering, it would no doubt have some limits on what would be covered and for how long.

This piece of limits would cause some serious hand wringing from the Right, as though no such things exist today. We have really stupid costs built into the system now, we spend incredible amounts on end of life measures, not creating comfort at that point but fighting futilely against death. A tiny minority of doctors are responsible for the vast majority of malpractice claims. The uninsured and under insured drive medical costs for everyone up drastically. Emergency rooms get used as doctor's offices and simple procedures get avoided until they are major. Insurance companies deny treatments until they fall onto the public dime.

Democrats and Republicans have completely different views of health care and who should survive - ie people or insurance companies' profits. Well, a bit more accurately most Democrats and some Democrats and Republicans have different views. You can certainly understand that campaign contributions from insurance companies (surrogates) go to those sympathetic to insurance companies and that doesn't quite reach bribery, but expecting something different is silly. The question that occurs is exactly why some Democrats are so damned sympathetic to insurance companies. It is important to realize that your premiums don't go to pay claims, they go to ... wait for it ... investment in investment banks. Remember the villains in the crash? Add them to this crapfest.

Real frankly what you'll get for your trouble in electing these folks is squat. There are some Democrats working real hard to look out for the public and they deserve kudos and support but if all Democrats were there - the deal would be done already. The Republicans have already shown where they stand - you're on your own - and considering them in the debate is simply childish approval seeking.

I don't have a lot of hope that Pres Obama would veto a junk bill since it is what he could get on his biggest issue. I wonder how I'll find myself dealing with how health care shakes out, I may lose my sense of humor. I'm closing in on the end of my leash, and my friends I break leashes.

*** Update 12/15/09 ***

So now what have you got? What you really have is a Senate who will make you buy insurance from the rapists who drove the system into this national fiasco and kind of limit, maybe, some of their really bad practices. You just had the President get on national TV and say, "...everybody won't get what everybody wants..." as though that had some kind of meaning. Single payer never made the gate so those folks got nothing, a public option wasn't good, but those folks got nothing, a Medicare buy in wasn't real good, but it's gone. Essentially the HealthInc got richer by Senate fiat as long as some toothless new regulations are kind of observed. You bet somebody got what they wanted and it sure the hell had nothing to do with any sizable percentage of the population, but the President just put up the strawman of "everybody." Joe Hoe Lieberman got what he wanted and HealthInc execs got what they wanted - the rest of you go suck eggs. No the teabaggers didn't, because some piece of crap with a (D) after it will actually pass and that's way too much for them, but essentially that exercise in stupidity gets what they wanted.

Me? I got a begging note from Organize For America. I get them from DSCC as well, and DNC and... I don't think so, I think they can stick it where the sun doesn't shine. As long as Joe Lieberman is a member of the Democratic Caucus and Max Baucus holds a Chair talking to me about helping is going to be real damn difficult. If you think either of those are going to change anytime soon, I suggest not holding your breath.

Water, A Town, The Fed, Stupidity Ensues

About 140 years ago a road was carved into the mountains outside Baker City. The purpose of this road was to cut a ditch to provide water to mines. A pipeline was laid in the ditch and this pipeline provides almost all of the water Baker City, population 10,000, uses. High quality water derived from a watershed now within the Wallowa Whitman National Forest. The water has some chlorine added to it to protect it from the city's own pipelines, otherwise the wet stuff is capable of winning water competitions nationally.

While it doesn't affect the quality of the water, there is a problem, the pipeline leaks. Baker City still gets its water but this is a waste of a resource. The city would like to repair the pipeline which lies under a road everyone agrees belongs to Baker City even though much of its 17 miles runs through the national forest. What is proposed, fairly straight forwardly, is to dig up the pipe, fix it, and cover it back up - all things Baker City is free to do with its road through the Wallowa Whitmans. The issue is getting the pipe carrying trucks to the dig, there are curves.

In fact, everyone involved agrees about the road and its ownership and control of it, unfortunately also that no one knows how wide it is. So Baker City is suing the Federal Government.

This stupid result is because were Baker City to exceed its unknown right of way a $100,000 Environmental Study taking a year would be required. This isn't a matter of the city wishing to create a highway of some sort into the forest, it is a matter of digging up a pipeline underneath the existing road and getting pipe to it. The crux of the matter is just how wide the right of way is and no one knows, not the city and not the federal government and so this will land on a Federal Judge's docket to sort out a matter of some feet. Lawyers and court time costs everybody money and cities of 10K don't need to throw money away in court. (if anybody does)

Something To Say About Joe Lieberman

Joe is ... well darn, I ran right out of polite adjectives and adverbs. How do you like that?

Knock yourselves out, something I won't have to censor.

Gus 'n Brayden

Gus at 150 pounds, Brayden at 19 pounds. Having the grandson and daughter in law living here is different ... nice.

Randi told me she used to laugh at her brothers and friends for playing video games, right this moment she's playing Fallout 3 and jumping at surprises and yelling at the characters. Hmmm.

If you've never played the damn thing, don't be too quick to jump to conclusions.

The New GOP

I'm sorry, I can't help myself - here's the New GOP.

Not safe for work or children or well, the humor impared (R).

H/T Balloon Juice.

US Slavery

Yes, it does exist and yes right here in the good ole US of A. Kansas City dot Com can depress the hell out of you.

More Misery In Africa, Thank GWB And The Christianists

Africa has had plenty of problems from the time Europeans began to meddle in it. That would be centuries of miseries mostly attributable to whites. This is scarcely to minimize African abilities in misery making, something not missing. Sometimes what could loosely be termed as good intentions go seriously awry.

McClatchy reports on a baby boom swamping Africans and pushing families into poverty. The culprit? BushCo and his Christianist allies insistence that birth control be uncoupled from US aid.

Under President George W. Bush, the United States withdrew from its decades-long role as a global leader in supporting family planning, driven by a conservative ideology that favored abstinence and shied away from providing contraceptive devices in developing countries, even to married women.

Bush's mammoth global anti-AIDS initiative, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, poured billions of dollars into Africa but prohibited groups from spending any of it on family planning services or counseling programs, whose budgets flat-lined.

If you ever wonder why theocracy makes me grit my teeth, read the entire article and think about the legacy of BushCo.

Lieberman Still Crapping In The Democratic Bed

I understand that most levers the Senate Democratic Caucus has to use on other "Democrats" lose effect if they are public. That would mean that there is a lot I don't know. I sure do know a couple things.

The Senate health care reform bill proposals have consistently neutered the neutered House version. This process is still ongoing. This process is ongoing because some so-called Democrats are threatening to block cloture if the bill is at all meaningful. If the Caucus was taking itself in hand this would not be the case. There are more than enough votes to pass real reform once cloture happens. Democrats don't need to play GOP purity games on the vote, but cloture is another issue all together.

I'm beginning to lose all respect for this body and considering their 6 year terms that loss of respect can easily mean I'll just quit playing. Democrats have asked a lot over the years and now they've finally been delivered a theoretical filibuster proof majority and the Presidency and are demonstrating an entire inability to get cloture on signature legislation. You folks want my support for what? Are you going to ask me to help get an 80 seat majority? I know you're asking for help to maintain seats, as things stand - I think not.

Somebody will probably accuse me of playing purity games. Nah. I'm well left of any candidate that has run for national or state office in my memory and I've been useful anyhow. I'm not expecting the kind of health care reform I'd really like without an entire melt-down of the system. I'm a realist, but now I'm offended. I'd like to point out to Democratic elected officials that I'm a lot more patient and pragmatic than a hell of a lot of people you count on. I know you do realistically discount our vote numbers, but our numbers do include a lot of money and ground troop effort you count on.

Sitting on your hands and blaming Lieberman, or Nelson, or etc is entire horseshit. You have the numbers to cripple any of these Senators for the rest of their terms and effectively shut down their re-election. If you cannot get your own damn Caucus past cloture because you are unwilling to do so I am to understand that you are better alternative to the GOP exactly why? This effectively means that electing you guys does not mean any progress but rather being frozen in the morass of BushCo. That being the case I'd rather let real Republicans trash the place sufficiently to get the idea across. Yes, opposed to watching your pointless flailing I'd back the Confederate Party of Republicanism so we can have some real failure since BushCo wasn't obvious enough.

Do you think I wouldn't send them money and shoot you in the foot every time you offer one up in search of that end? Yes, I'd back the Confederate Party of Republicanism in their plutocratic racist theocracy ends and all their warmongering just so Americans can see what they actually are. I'd say we've now been allowed to see what you guys are and that is an exercise in paralysis.

*** Updare ***
Profile has been modified because I am no longer comfortable with speaking from any place reflecting a political Party's official views. For the time being I'm done.

Republican Foreign Policy Spite Serves Whom?

Six months ago the Honduran military arrested the President, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, and sent him out of the country in a sort of coup. Since that time the new government, unrecognized and ostracized by the Obama Administration, has courted Republicans. GOP Congressmen have traveled to Honduras to show solidarity with the coup and stick their fingers in the Obama eye.

It might have paid them to pay attention to exactly what kind of people they were climbing into bed with. Per McCalatchy, this kind of people:

As Zelaya approaches his sixth month of banishment, human-rights organizations here and abroad say Honduras has experienced a serious deterioration of civil rights in a country where death squads and extrajudicial killings already were commonplace.

Resistance members say they have been subjected to a campaign by police, the military and paramilitaries to execute their leaders and members. Human-rights activists have documented the deaths of 26 members who have been stabbed or shot across the country.

Activists say more than 3,000 people have been illegally detained, 450 beaten, and 114 now are political prisoners since the June coup.

Sen Jim DeMint is the kind of guy it isn't too surprising to see in this sort of company. The words ethics and politics don't get too close to each other in this guy's world. If you wonder what kind of USA he's thinking of, looking at who he supports might be instructive.

Assholes.

Lieberman Is A Democratic Chair?

Here's a question for the Democratic Senate Caucus, exactly what is it you're keeping Ole Joe Ho around for? What Democratic bill is it you think he's going to vote for if is isn't warfare or Corporate Welfare? Or is that stuff on your agenda?

I'm real curious as to the agenda that keeps a plutocratic warmongering Republican wannabe as a member of the Caucus. If you want to convince Democrats that you're not idiots, how about an explanation? Hell, do it on TV but do it...

Finance Regulation Happening?

It kind of looks as though the House has passed something resembling reform of regulation of financial institutions, investment institutions. I'm quite sure there is plently lacking from the left perspective, I am insulted by the exclusion of cram down that would allow morttgage term restructuring on primary residences while allowing it on luxuries like second homes and yachts - who is that designed to benefit?

It seems to have a lot going for it, regardless. Now we get to see what the Corporate Investment Whoredom known as the US Senate will make of it. Be ready to puke, despite the last couple years.

Robust Legal Systems Have Reasons For Existing

A McClatchy report once again points up the reason the US built a legal system with such robust protections for the accused.

A day after the emir of Kuwait sent his royal jet to fetch a citizen from Guantanamo, the Pentagon has dropped war crimes charges against the Kuwaiti Airways executive who has long claimed he was a victim of mistaken identity.

Susan Crawford, a Pentagon appointee, who has overseen military commissions since the Bush administration, on Thursday dismissed the terror charges against Fouad Rabia, 50, "without prejudice."

"Without prejudice" means charges could be refiled. I have no idea if the man did or did not do what he was held for. What I do know is that he has been held for years without coming to trial for what is a criminal matter.

What the authoritarians forget is that the reason the US system requires the government to jump through so many hoops is this - the accused faces the full might and capabilities of the most powerful entity in the world. The deck is scarcely tilted in a defendant's favor. The idea that Americans' concept of justice can be served by removing protections is ludicrous. The same whiny diaper wetters that scream about 'terrism' also make pronouncements about limited government - is there a disconnect? Isn't there always one?

Health Care (ahem) Reform

It begins to look as though the Senate version of health care reform will be composed of letting some older Americans "buy" into some sort of "Medicare" and piling some more customers into the HealthInc rapists' paths (on the public dime). There are some pretty good guys in the Senate Democratic Caucus, the operative word being some. Maybe it isn't fair to call the US Senate a wholly owned subsidiary of the Corporate World and HealthInc, but it is sufficiently so to make the lack of that absolute immaterial.

I'll wait awhile to absolutely lose my mind. While it is true that the longer legislation spends in Congress the generally less representative of the public good it is, it is also true that it generally changes. It might actually make some difference to Senatorial Hacks that nearly 60% of the voters want HealthInc to be forced to compete with an entity that actually holds the public's welfare in some esteem. It might not.

Er, probably not...

Bad For The Nation, Bad For Parties

You've no doubt noticed over the past few months that the Right of the GOP has been become more influential and reaching for considerably more power. Sen Jim DeMint is probably as whacked on the right as any politician in somewhat recent history, he has pursued foreign adventures that under BushCo Congress would have resulted in accusations of treason. He had a chat with the Christian Broadcasting Network and laid out his desires and opinion of the Republican "leadership."

"The problem in the Republican Party is that the leadership has gone to the left," he said. "I need some new Republicans."

I'm pretty hard pressed to find that leftward tilt he seems to be referencing. Would that be the lockstep opposition to Democratic legislation?

"[We need] people who believe in constitutional government, a balanced budget and liberty and so I'm out across the country recruiting new republicans who I think if they get here will not only challenge the institutions of government but be willing to even challenge the Republican Party and our leadership if they feel like we're going in the wrong direction," DeMint said. "I think just a handful of new Republicans in the Senate could help change the direction."

Now go ahead and neglect the fact that none of the issues he's have had shit to do with Republican legislation, who is it that he's talking about here? It certainly has nothing to do with DeMint personally in political legislation. Not even remotely to do with his politics on religion, civil liberties, taxes and spending, or - well - essentially anything.

Jim DeMint may actually be operating under the delusion that some broad swath of Americans support his lunacy. This view would ignore the Democratic voters and a large portion of the non-affiliated and it would ignore some remaining segment of the Republicans. This sort of thinking leads to a Party in the low 20% and nationally irrelevant. Responsible opposition Parties are important to the process, not all ideas of any Party are so good that they cannot be improved with some input from a different perspective. In function today that is largely missing and going farther in that direction leads to even less input.

This crap drives Republicans out of their party and encourages the growth of Republican thinking in the Democratic Party. As a Democrat I find that offensive and destructive to my Party. You could see today's Senate for an example of where that gets you. The Democratic Party cannot hold all points of view other than the lunatic, it simply ceases to be a political party and becomes every thing other than lunacy and that is not a political point of view. I don't know what Republicans have to actually stand for, their rhetoric does not match their actions.

I could actually understand a drive toward smaller less intrusive government but they actually drive toward no such thing, their intrusions are not lesser, they are simply different. I really could care less what they land on, just that it be reflective of sufficient of the populace to have some kind of political impact. The problem is that Sen DeMint's nonsense doesn't address the dearth of political vision, it simply moves that lack in a more stupid direction.

Ah well, hold your breath and all that...

Go Ahead And Think On This

While you're considering the shitheels in the US Senate, some of the Democratic label and an entire Republican Caucus there is sometimes something like this. Ah well.

How Stupid Is Sen Ben Nelson ?

Sen Benb Nelson has introduced legislation to help fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with War Bonds. This was in apparent reaction to the idea of some legislators to pay for the wars with a surtax. Either Nelson is as ignorant and stupid about finance as he is about health insurance or he's a political tool dedictated to nothing in the public interest. Does anybody not know that that whatever the label, bonds are debt? Calling the financing War Bonds makes it not an iota different from the Treasury Bonds China is already buying.

A tax is income, a bond is borrowing. I'm sure Sen Joe Lieberman also approves - he of the debt scare filibuster threats. These guys may have a lower opinion of the average intelligence of the American voter than I do - I wonder who is right. Yessiree, it's just fine to stack up crippling debt to kill people and break things but heaven forbid it sace people's lives.

I must be a masochist to keep giving a damn about this.