Socialized Medicine

Which Democrat is going to stand up to the "socialized medicine" crap and point out that with hospitals required to provide emergency care that we already have the most bastardised ineffective possible socialized medicine? Effectively, bankrupted and uninsured consumers of health care are covered by the costs of the Federal programs and private insurance - all laid directly on taxpayers. There is no point in telling the teabaggery crowd anything. The rest of America? Well, one can hope.

Country First, Remember?

The Hill:

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

So something has changed? Oh, I know - McMaverick POWy Country First, anybody want to puke?

This Is What You're Up Against

One of the more coherent and less threatening comments at "FreeRepublic.com." (No, I won't link them - doubt it - go find it)

I know exactly what you mean. After the vote went down, I went outside and looked at the sky. I had the thought this this wasn’t a sky over America anymore, and there is no America now, and it felt like America just disappeared into the night’s sky, and now I was standing on someone else’s land, someone else’s home, and I could never go home again.

I will forever look at others as strangers, wondering, “Whose side were you on the night it all disappeared?”

This is the night that Ben Franklin feared when he replied to the question as to what they, the founders had given us, “A republic, if you can hold it.” We failed. We failed to stop the media from destroying George Bush to the point that America thirsted for Democrat rule. The media started the Reichstag fire, and we stood by without even lunging for a water hose.



48 posted on Sunday, March 21, 2010 8:29:06 PM by chilltherats (First, kill all the lawyers (now that they ARE the tyrants).......)

Here's the deal:
You know I didn't like the Senate Bill and I don't even think all that much of the Reconciliation. But... The status quo going forward years and years is not acceptable and what the GOP would be willing to actually do (who the hell knows?) would be so damn plutocratic and FYIGM that it would be worse than the status quo.

OK, the Freepers are loons, trolls like to call me a Leftard - I look real mild next to that bunch - but the Orange One (Boehner) already called out their strategy from the House floor. You cannot defend the Bill, you have to go on the offense and SELL it. It is hopeless to try to defend the thing in an election; with enough bad in it they've had to lie their asses off already in opposition. There is enough good in the Bill to win by campaigning on it. How many Democratic Congressmen will do so is open to question - political nerve is always in short supply.

***BTW, Ben Franklin would've called this putz a Tory and tried to get him tarred and feathered***

Stupack And The Nuns

The Catholic Nuns sent Rep Bart Stupack a letter stating that he should vote to pass the health insurance bill, his reaction was, 'so what?" He told Matthews on Hardball that they didn't count because they haven't been working like the Bishops. Hmmm.

So the nuns don't count because they're not the politically active Bishops.
The nuns don't count because they don't agree with Stupack.
The nuns don't count because they have vaginas (unused?)

Lets get to some of the crunch on this, nuns aren't being accused of molesting choir boys - that appears to be those vagina-less characters. The politically active Bishops, on the other hand, come from the ranks of those who are and have been molesting choir boys and who acted to cover it up and let it continue. Now in Bart's mind that bunch has the credibility. OK...

Well, no Bishop will ever get pregnant.

The Stupidly Intransigent Left

Since Rep Kucinich switched to yea what is there to be done with this metric? The evil villain of leftyism who held out is now whipping his colleagues after visiting the President on Air Force One so...
A) the CiC threatened to drop Dennis out the door at 35K feet
B) promised not to sell pics of Dennis and his wife
C) persuaded Dennis that this was as good as it was going to get and showed him why
D) whatever ???

I've tried to make this point to my more "moderate" friends, the left always folds to the Democratic "middle." It makes no difference how often the left is later proven correct on issues and the "middle" shown to be asses, the middle will have its way and call the left idiots.

Kucinich has stood fast calling this bill out as corporatist crap, which it is. Only a segment of that middle doesn't acknowledge how crappy the bill is but it seemed all screamed about the traitorous left all the while they were pushing at Reps to pass a bill they're not fond of. The left was pushing for results Reps weren't fond of but that is somehow different. The claim is that what the left wants may be good policy but just isn't possible.

Here's news flash for you, it isn't possible because you keep deciding it isn't possible. The Democratic Party drift into the party of 70s GOP isn't an accidental occurrence; it is that so - called middle always getting its way despite how right it wanders.

Idiocy Of Split The Difference

One of the real stupid ideas in circulation lately is that if there are two radically different approaches - say Liz Cheney and the ACLU - that half way in between is where sensible people land. This asininity assumes that there is equal stupidity or looniness in each position and that the middle isn't. The real big problem is that assumption which says that one idea is equal to the other; stating that the moon is green cheese and stating that it is rock are two radically different assertions but the moon isn't broccoli because that seems to be a middle.

Dick and Liz Cheney may have an emotional appeal to the fear ridden, and terrorists do terror for the sake of creating fear. Are we really supposed to buy into the idea that arresting and indefinitely detaining people for uncommitted crimes is a sensible middle? I don't often link Glenn Greenwald because he usually uses an awful lot of words to make his point; and I'm already guilty of that. In this case there simply are not enough words written on this, so Glenn is doing what should be done by a lot more people than just himself and a couple bloggers.

Some things are just plain awful.

Ben Westlund, OR Treasurer

I first met Ben shortly after he changed his Party affiliation from GOP to Democratic Party. His stated reasons, and I have good reason to believe them, were that the OR GOP's intransigence, hobby horse riding, and general wankery did not reflect the needs of the State. This from a State Senator from a strongly GOP district. He started a run for Governor against Ted Kulongoski (D) and quickly withdrew and stumped for Ted. I got a chance to spend some time talking to Ben while he worked Baker Co with Ted in the Governor's race. I was impressed with both his personal integrity and his dedication to Oregon's citizenry.

Two years ago Ben ran for State Treasurer and I spent the day with him, riding him in one of our parades in the Chevy SSR with the top down, at lunch, and walking our largest park meeting and greeting constituents. There were quite a few stops with people Ben knew, he was a rancher and we have ranchers. These folks were Republicans for the most part and adamant in their support of Ben as a Democrat. Ben, his campaign staff, and I spent a long day together which gave me the opportunity to get well acquainted with him. Please understand that in my role in DPO I didn't say bad things about our Democrats, but I gave real support to those I liked and I like Ben a lot. Ben and his staff stayed in contact after his win, asking if I had ideas or concerns - and to say hello.

Not too long after Ben's win, my son died and one of the first phone calls I got was from Ben. He was genuinely distressed and spent very nearly an hour on the phone trying to make words work. Words are a politician's tools, they are his life and Ben tried really hard. Any of you who have sustained such a loss knows that words are inadequate because nothing is adequate, but the expression of caring and desire to help does help.

Ben's death last week was a personal blow to me. He was someone I liked and held in high regard, as an individual and as someone who tried to look out for his fellows. Oregon is a poorer place now with his passing and so is political life. I have saved this so that it will reach his family and friends a bit later, when the real sense of how much has been lost hits after the initial storm of grief. I know I have no words to fix anything, but I do want them to know that their loss is not only shared, but how broadly it is shared.

I am so sorry for their loss and our loss,
Thank You Ben

NRO, Some Places You Don't Go

If you purport to be a Democrat there are some places you don't go to in an effort to make your case. Rush Limbaugh might be one such place, another very sure to make the list outfit is National Review. NRO isn't a kind of middle right sort of place, it is full out wingnut land full of Randian stupidities and neo-con chest beating. Maybe Bart Stupack is at home there - for some indefinable reason, since he is nominally a Democrat. Residence in The Family's "C" St home and close association with Catholic Bishops might explain such a brain fart as going to NRO, but clearly there is something amiss in Stupack land.

If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party. “It would be very, very hard for someone who is a right-to-life Democrat to run for office,” he says. “I won’t leave the party. I’m more comfortable here and still believe in a role within it for the right-to-life cause, but this bill will make being a pro-life Democrat much more difficult. They don’t even want to debate this issue. We’ll probably have to wait until the Republicans take back the majority to fix this.”

So this Democrat figures the Republicans are his only ally? Whoa... Maybe there's a problem with his reasoning. Since the Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of Federal monies for abortion there must be a bit more to it. Stupack's idea is that the problem is that paying for an abortion rider out of pocket doesn't avoid the Federal money that got into a subsidy. There is some logic to this, but taken to Stupack's stupidity level you have to understand that those Catholic Bishops he's taking his orders from are just pedophiles since those collection plate tithes paid for priests to abuse boys and from there paid those pedophilia Bishopric salaries. Oh, they didn't do the dirty deed of sex with boys? Same money there pal, in fact with this close association to "C" St that would mean money makes Stupack an adulterous pedophiliac Nigerian gay executioner. Some of us are fairly clear on who his allies are...

“They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online.

I've lived in Northern Michigan and the UP of Michigan and I have to tell you that beyond my parents, there are a lot of nice people there that aren't anything like Bart... I really wish we all could ignore Bart.

Break The System - Vote GOP ?

Along with the "qualified" endorsement of the Senate HCR bill came a question - doesn't passing these kinds of band aides and electing so-what Democrats just extend the mess we're in? That wouldn't electing good solid GOP majorities advance the systemic crash and teach people a lesson? This is the school that says without real pain real change won't happen.

I do agree that the FYIGM* school rules a lot more widely than is generally acknowledged and that unless that "I got mine" lose it real change won't happen. FYIGM is more commonly applied to the Libertarians than the public at large, a mistake - it is just the Randroids ruling philosophy versus the more general and less "principled" neglect of the public. The difference with me is that I don't believe that the pain has to be due to utter disaster.

The Right likes to claim that we've become a soft nation, maybe we have ... or maybe we've come to expect more of our governments' competence. I don't believe it takes complete disaster and wide spread suffering and death to create real change in this country. We were in the beginning of the worst recession since the Great Depression when the last election occurred. The worst is an economic term, rather than a social one, the actual social damage was quite muted thanks to extensive safety nets and the plowing of vast Federal resources into the problem. (I don't claim there wasn't real pain) In the face of that limited damage, discomfort as opposed to disaster, Barack Obama was elected President. Looking at the social aspects of that election should be instructive; a young black man with a funny sounding name and a non-Christian descent with limited national service was elected in competition with an old white 3rd generation Annapolis POW media darling "maverick" with a "Mc" prefix. If you consider that I am simply middle-aged and can remember watching on TV as civil rights workers were dug out of a dike you might understand the real social magnitude of that election. There was no disaster and yet a social change of shattering magnitude occurred.

Electing Republicans might well accelerate a number of failures, some, but would bring with them a lot of gratuitous collateral damage - theocracy and widespread scapegoating along with unnecessary wars are just a start. Most of the failures, plutocratism and dislocation of wealth, vanishing jobs, disintegrating health care, and crashing general income levels are inevitable considering the course charted over the last three and half decades. That crash will happen but the course to it and its size need not be disastrous to have effect. Discomfort amongst enough of those who vote will do the deal. The uninsured in this country today are not politically significant, you get junk like the Senate bill because the pain has not spread far enough into consistent voters and donors. FYIGM will fall apart when the middle's employers come to them and say, nope can't afford it and they can't afford it and keep a house. That crunch will happen pretty quickly and won't just whack the bottom of the scale and nothing in this bill will put that off to a significant degree.

There's no reason to believe that giving the keys to the Huns will result in Reformation. History shows something different in the face of disaster - Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots are the general result, not FDRs. This was a dangerous world when Hitler came to power, it is logarithmically more dangerous today. NO, electing half-assed Democrats (or even today's middle Democrats) will not stave off the bus going in the ditch, but it may well mitigate the pain.

Cassandra says the walls will be breached, but in this case the place need not burn to the ground. This 21st Century GOP needs a stake driven through its heart but giving them control to get there is crazy.

* (F^^k You I Got Mine)

Make Or Break Health Insurance Bill

If you think this blog is going to get used to call the Senate's pile of steaming crap something good, you need a box of rocks to improve your IQ. It reeks of stupidity and short-sightedness and corporate greed. If health insurance and more largely the health care industry is a vehicle running on four flats this thing amount to airing the tires back up, part way, and maybe patching one. At some point we're going to be back on the rims and grinding them off with the owners of air compressors refusing to let any more air get used. Yes it stinks - yes it needs to be passed.

The reason, and laugh at the we'll fix it rhetoric, is that the alternative is to leave the status quo in place until the wheels fall off and the suffering is sufficient to force the corporate hacks in Congress to do something. That would mean that somewhere approaching half the nation was dying or being bankrupted because only the rich and near rich could afford insurance. That might not be enough...really.

Even the reeking garbage that the Senate passed won't take effect immediately, it sits out there in the future. If you wait out the crash, those already screwed will suffer longer and their numbers will swell and there still is no guarantee. The mess this Congress has been capable of producing will have some palliative effect and guarantees its eventual failure but should demonstrate quite effectively what failure looks like without the long delay. Yes, the enriched groups will have more money for influence but their credence in the argument should be completely undercut.

The Senate is not going to cough up with much to fix the real problems. Some of the egregious junk like the Nelson vote buying will probably get some kind of repair but there is no real will in either the House or the Senate for methods that would affect the spiraling costs and monopolistic practices. Pass this thing because it is all you're going to get and because its built in flaws will force real correction - sometime real late in the game.

I won't bother calling my Rep because Greg Walden (R -OR 02) is as plutocratic and screw the regular guy as it gets... Yours might be a bit more amenable.

Israel to US - F*** You

While the Middle East veers around the edges of disaster our "friend" in the region counts on its lobby to keep a direct blow to Palestinian desires and US ideas of peace process from having any outcome. Israel is putting 1,600 new Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, land taken and occupied after the 1976 war.

There is no doubt that every nation has its own interests and will hew to them rather than another's in most cases. It is entirely reasonable and congruent with national sovereignty for a nation to look out for its own interests. Those interests can get pretty complicated when the region you live in is as unstable and possibly hazardous as the Middle East. It is a region of theocracy and military chest beating and a confusing and tangled history. Adding to all the nonsense of the area is the issue of being a virtual client state of the US.

For pretty serious economic and strategic reasons the US would like to see the area both stable and prosperous (somewhat more than a few "sultans"). The collision here would seem to be Israeli insistence that they should be free to claim land, on the simple basis of "we can." Such behavior runs directly counter to US efforts to get a peace process going and moving to some end that Palestinians can reasonably be held to. US interests in the Middle East are not Jewish - or should not be - but rather the fostering of forms of government we can exist with in some form of comfort. Judaism is not the interest of the US government, it is entirely meaningless in the construct of government in this country - but not politically. Given the politics of strengthening the hands of the mullahs in Iran knocking the snot out of peace between Israel and Palestinians ought to count for something.

In a part of the world where the primary support of a nation comes from outside non-Islamic white nations the default setting becomes Iran crazy if those other nations are not fair brokers. Whatever emotional connection Likud may have to East Jerusalem, it is conquered territory and conquered in recent memory. If the assertion is that due to force of arms Israel is permitted to behave in any manner it chooses, then the corollary must also be true - that countering force of arms is also as acceptable. This would mean that lacking, due to force of arms, a military that non-military tactics of force will be and must be utilized. To be sure, it is horrid to have buses full of civilians blown up, cafes shattered, or any of the other means taken by those with no military to fly bombs, shoot artillery, field infantry, and generally acceptably kill people and that is what you get.

We help fund the behavior of Israel, considerably fund that behavior. Our interests in the region are not served by that behavior. This would indicate that our money is being thrown away. It certainly is time to rethink the funding of behavior directly counter to US interests. It also will not happen. Theocracy is scarcely a dying business in the US.

No, announcing it during VP Joe Biden's visit will have no effect.

Media Jihad

Glenn Greenwald reviews the CNN "coverage" of Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol's attacks on the DOJ lawyers who were hired after representing Gitmo detainees. Somehow the lunatic rantings of the nepotism enhanced daughter of an ex-Vice President not only get national news attention but repeated as actual news.

It seems to be beyond some people's comprehension that it is the job of lawyers to represent clients, whether they are popular or not. It seems beyond some people's comprehension that accusations are not the same thing as guilt - whether the accusations involve shoplifting or terrorism. It seems that once the bogeyman of terror is involved - or maybe the 50's shades of Communism - reason is abandoned. It doesn't take a majority to engage in it, just a tipping point of numbers to enable lame weak idiots to repeat without cost garbage.

We seem to be there. Sad.

How Many Days?

How many days did it take to put together the Bail Out of Bankers?

How many days since without some sort of Financial Reform?

Who OWNS the Senate?

So Long, Jon Swift

"B List Blogger" friend and excellent satirist Jon Swift has died. For about a year the last post has been a link to my own sad post "So Long My Boy" and the comments section was used by his mother to announce his death. Tom Watson adds some details.

Jon (Al) tossed this blog kudos from time to time and his approval meant a lot to me. I am sorry to lose this fellow blogger and I add my voice to the ones his family will hear - Thank you for giving us this man.


If this means something to you, please go over to Jon Swift and let his family know.

Health Care...Redux

I have to say that I'm glad I'm not a Democrat trying to fluff the Senate Bill, but I'm much happier I'm not a Republican trying not to look like a plutocrat while doing their shilling. You'd think, in a world where voters count, that Democrats could figure out that a Public Option polling at 60% and over versus the crappy numbers for the Senate Bill means something. That it doesn't, does mean something.

Yes, watching Rep Wiener call Republicans a "wholly owned subsidiary of the Insurance Companies" was gratifying, but the net was cast a bit narrowly since it missed a whacking big chunk of the Democratic Senate Caucus. Nope, you're not supposed to shiv your fellow Party elected officials and that is part of the problem. We do have the best health care in the world that big money can buy and we do have the best Government big money can buy. You do understand that if wealth were suffering under the health care we have that it would have been fixed long ago.

Wow This Thing Smokes

The new laptop arrived today and I'm getting to play with it a bit. This is a Dell Vostro 1720 with Win 7 Ultimate & Office Pro. Intel Core 2 Duo P7570 @ 2.26, 2.27 GHz w/4 GB RAM & 64 Bit OS & 218 GB HD. It is responding really nicely to the Qwest Broadband. The last laptop was getting a bit tired and my daughter in law needs something for school. It can do more than she needs running Vista Ultimate w/2004 Office Pro. I put a lot of time on it and it has been a pretty good machine, but it was more reasonable for me to get a new one rather than try to buy a cheap one for her.

The 17" screen is a nice change and the finish on it is less reflective than the old one and has a brighter picture. The keys are nicer and the whole thing seems more solid than the old Aspire.

I think I'll keep it, as if I had a choice...

Yoo, Bybee, Bradbury - Torturers Walk

The USDOJ Friday decided that being the enablers of torture isn't even negligent, it's just, well, being silly or something. Yes, there is a pot full of legislation, treaties, and precedence that contradicts the stuff they wrote and signed off on.

A bit different from Neuremberg. I guess things have changed...or something.

Let's Not Be Stupid

A whole lot of us aren't remotely happy with what has become of the so-called Health Care Reform bill in the Senate or the House, especially considering the time and effort spent on it. We can easily point at the Republicans as the villains for total obstruction but that isn't real satisfying - somebody had to have failed. Here is where the hunt starts for the incompetent hack on our side.

I mentioned the left bashing previously as one incarnation of that, lately it seems Rahm Emmanuel is a target. A lot of people on the left or even progressive side heartily dislike Rahm for his disdain for anything not DLC. Some don't like him for being rude or raucous. No, I don't like his version of Democratic politics. Rahm Emmanuel is Chief of Staff to the POTUS - he has a BOSS. Even more than that, the executive branch does not run Congress.

Real frankly, I don't think there is anyone in particular to blame. I think the failures have been on the part of darn near every Federal elected Democrat. Taking a run at passing health care legislation has proved damn near impossible at the Federal level and this Party went at it like a collection of monkeys trying to do the deed to a football. Not one of the pieces is exempt from this, not the White House, not the House, not the Senate, and for good measure throw in Governors and the higher regarded State legislators and the damn Party organizations.

The first damn thing you have to do when you have a bunch of disparate views and competing interests is to get the confounded public on your side. When you are not going to win the big money powerhouse interests your lever is public opinion. You create a situation where the voters are going to remember who screwed the pooch where their interests were concerned. Considering that the ability to connect with the public is President Obama's great strength, this lack is mind boggling.

I'm not going to address the Congress, I don't want spit all over my monitor. In very short terms, knowing the votes, knowing the negotiators, knowing the honesty, and keeping some sort of discipline and consequences in place did not happen. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are not dictators, that part is up to their Caucuses but getting blind-sided by Nelson, Baucus, LIEberman, and the House wankers is inexcusable.

The pols who are close to their voters geographically are strong voices and frequently more popular and well regarded than the Federal legislators - crickets chirping. Where was the vaunted OFA and the DNC? How in the world did we have the spectacle of Cabinet officials being all over the map? Whose opinion on what was supposed to be important?

I'm not sure it makes squat difference now in regard to the end product or that it can be passed. What I am sure of is that if Democrats want to get anything at all done from here on out, they'd better figure this one out. All I can say to the rank and file is that if you want to throw rocks at anyone responsible, you'd better get a lot of them.

Bipartisan Politics

Engaging "wayback machine" this is Jan22,2007

Here's a phrase that seems to be getting big play, it started shortly after the '06 election results and has gained ground ever since. It has a nice ring, bipartisan, it sort of rolls off the tongue with lovely strong syllable breaks and an element of cadence. I'll bet it would sound good if you did it with a mouth full of marbles and it looks nice in print - bipartisan - hey even in italics - bipartisan. It seems such a long time time since it had any currency.

You may be familiar with the name Frank Luntz, he of the Republican dictionary, well now he's decided to tell the Democrats how to use Words that Work over at HuffPo. The idea is to bury the hatchet...not in the Republican's heads, but actually bury it. He's on to the spirit of bipartisanship (-ship kind of spoils the cadence) and even notes, "Democracy is at its best when its practitioners use language to unite and explain rather than divide and attack." I also think it works pretty well when "Clean Air" doesn't mean pollution and estate tax means that and not "Death Tax" which means you get charged for not living anymore, um, dying. It would be pretty crass to charge for the dubious privilege of being dead. He just doesn't think being vindictive will work out for the Democrat Party (sure he knows better, he just can't help himself), that the Party should figure out how to work with the Republicans. He's actually right, the Democrats cannot afford to be perceived as vindictive. What I find odd, though, is the idea that it's the Democrats who are supposed to be bipartisan. Maybe it's the bi- piece of the word that's throwing me. All the way through Webster's 9th Collegiate (again) bi- has two involved, I think the part about "both sides" (2) may just be what's up with the word. Well, anyhow, thanks Frank.

I have a little different take on this Congress deal, nobody on that side wants to get along, what they want is a chance to score points for '08 and make Democrats look bad. When you reach across that aisle, if you get your hand back, you better count your fingers. What Democrats can do (listen up Hillary) is come up with good policies, make sure everybody knows they're good, ram them through, be seen ramming them through, and make sure the Republicans get the blame for their failure to happen. The President says he can do as he pleases, well now, that's an idea, but hauling them up before investigative committees makes that a bit tougher and when the dirt falls out impeachment really ties you up. Jail can give you time to reflect on hubris.

You already know that the Republicans would like very much to undo the 06 damage and hang onto the Presidency, since they're the minority their only hope is to be obstacles and then blame Democrats as "do nothings." You can thank Mr Luntz for showing you the genesis of how it will be played, "We were reasonable but all they wanted to do was keep hitting us with a bat." Just make sure that it's obvious that the Republicans stopped the game by stealing the balls, the bases, and the scoreboard. Then whack 'em with that bat again.

That's not being vindictive, it's culling the herd.

Teabaggery T&A

Given that this is the Teabaggery bunch, maybe the WaPo is taking it seriously enough :

Sarah Palin watch: She looks trim, fit -- and brimming with energy and plans
By Ann Gerhart

It had been a while since we had seen Sarah Palin live and in person. And then she popped onto stage Saturday night at the National Tea Party convention in Nashville, and we made these observations:

1) She's lost a lot of weight, perhaps 15 pounds. She looked trim and firm, like she's hoisting the barbells or maybe chopping wood. (...)
2) She wore a fitted black suit, black hose and high black platform heels. (...)
3) She was animated and full of energy, so much so that she kept knocking her microphone with her hand as she made her points. (...)

I didn't take it that seriously...

Kick The Left

Lately in some places it has been a real popular passtime to kick the left; mostly over its reaction to the Senate HCR bill. A lot of this fervor was generated by Jane Hamsher over at Fire Dog Lake (no i won't link her) for making a campaign against Rahm Emmanuel and hooking up with Grover Norquist - a swear word on the left. Now equating Jane to the Democratic Left is a lot like calling the Weather Undergound part of the Democrats. Where it gets hilarious is when the left gets blamed for disliking the Senate bill and yelling about it. Sounds a lot like GOP mindless lockstep to me.

There are two aspects that are really irritating, those folks are always 1-6 years late finding out that the left was correct (I wanted to say "right") and they figure it out when the stuff hits the fan. The other part is that the left is the reliable turnout, the door knockers, the donors, the callers and always the bride's maids. Nobody gets less, even lip service, and always folds for the "middle" no matter how far right those "responsible" people drift.

Senate Democrats would have you know that they were helpless in the face of the Mighty Joe. Those earmark things Johnny McPOW so hates; I'd bet over 50 Democratic Senators could figure out how a strike out works. In fact there seems to be an actual supply of ball bats over at the Senate with seats, chairs, earmarks, office spaces, and funding floating around in the hands of at least 51 Democrats. Since the Mighty Ho is holding hearings about the panty bomber it is pretty obvious nothing but wiffs happened in the club. I'm sure the left had something to do with that beyond hating him.



You can pull apart the entire course of the bill until now and see no damage from the left. It may have had an effect on approval, but versus the spectacle in the Senate, that would be pretty small. It has gotten to be real fun to compare the Democratic Left to the riechwing loons and particularly the Teabaggery bunch. The problem with that idea is that the so-called Democratic middle goes along with the stupidity propagated by the Republicans despite the pull back of the Left. Think I'm exaggerating? Fine, see who voted for and supported the AUMF in regard to Iraq, check out who voted for BushCo tax cuts, Patriot Act, Foreign Combatants, and on and on. You will not find the Left there. Why exactly members of the Administration are insulting the Left as though they were responsible for the failures of the Democratic Agenda is beyond me.

There are aspects of the Left that are silly to me, calling Obama Bushlite is one. The continuation of some BushCo policies in regard to terrorism is disappointing and, frankly, wrong but scarcely Bushian overall. Some of the Left shares with some of Democratic middle stupidity regarding the Second Amendment, but this is not remotely a feature of the Left versus that so-called middle. You'll find plenty of that middle tossing rocks as though owning guns is rightwing loonyism. As an example, in Communistic Oregon the Lefty organization Democratic Party of Oregon has as its second largest Caucus the Gun Owners Caucus.

There is extremism in any political stripe, stances that go beyond reasonable inspection into pure faith. Teabaggery is one example, but you would be hard pressed to find much of a percentage on the Left, despite the detractors. In point of fact, as the detractors scoffed at the Left for pushing the Congress over the "Health Care Reform" bill in the face of a lack of votes, they now are engaging in exactly the same behavior in favor of the Senate bill in the face of exactly the same problem - lack of votes. Somehow the Left is stupid and destructive for doing the same thing.

You could wonder why I find it difficult to support with work and money the Party that insults and ignores me ... you could, I suppose. But then, I never supported or applauded or voted for St Ronnie Reagan, either. If you understand or appreciate Reagan Democrats - you and I have nothing in common and you'll find this whole exercise insulting. I could care less.

I Thought You Quit

I did. The problem is that it is winter and money is tight which means distractions are bit difficult to come by and the level of stupidity is way past ignoring. I tried not seeing the political news. The problem is that any local venues contain it and my intellect is simply incapable of tuning out egregious stupidity committed by power. Once that's happened I'm simply incompetent at keeping quiet about it.

The handful of you who give enough of a rat's patoot to click on this thing will be gratified and those who might benefit a bit will continue to provide fodder for my outrage in blissful ignorance of its existence.

Senate Democrats Held Hostage By Shelby

The US Senate has rules intended to slow legislative rushes prevent egregious nominations, all well and fine. Richard (Jefferson Davis) Shelby (R-Airbus, Toyota) has put a hold on 70 Federal nominations because French Airbus isn't guaranteed a Federal Contract and the Alabama FBI office didn't get a bomb research wing. What we're talking about here is massive Federal spending in Alabama that this Confederate Party of Republicanism Senator might not get. Do try to remember that this is the same guy from the same Party that decries taxes and federal expansion as their beloved Confederate State suck money out of the evil Blue States.

Now there ought to be something approaching a lesson in this particular temper tantrum but count on Democrats to not get it. Earmarks. Yes, Sen McPOW and Teabaggers demon the earmark is sitting right there in front of Senate Democrats screaming for attention and in the spirit of the Club will be ignored as a hammer. How hard is it to figure out that stiking every Alabama earmark in the face of this behavior can be done? Will Alabama suffer? Certainly not according to their political will as demonstrated by their idiotology and Senator. Will such a thing happen? Give me a break, in face of Democratic Senate inability to keep liars like LIEberman in order you might as well believe in the Easter Bunny.

Teabaggers, Welcome To The Monkeyhouse

Anyone who has ever been to the zoo has watched the monkeys throw poop and play with themselves. If you were a child you probably had your parents trying to stand between you and the display. There are no parents in Teabaggery and no particular evidence of evolution above monkeydom, either.

To start somewhere near the beginning, there was no Teabaggery as GWB trashed something like deficit recovery under Clinton (surplus my ass) with tax cuts for the wealthy. Not a whisper as the on paper budget exploded deficits and no whimpering as off the record war financing tore a hole in finances. No Teabaggery accompanied the Federal subsidization of Halliburton (Cheney's failure as CEO), not quite as blatant as the GM bailout, but not in the least inconsiderable. No Teabaggery happened as Patriot Act and FISA work-arounds were instituted. No Teabaggery rock throwing at Jack Abromoff, as opposed to say the Soros meme. Teabaggery would have you believe that Barack Obama instituted the Bankers Bailout. Teabaggery would have you ignore six years of Republican House, Senate, and Presidency and the results there of, this mess is due to the Socialist Democrats and the nigger in chief.

The media can't get enough of this bunch and treats them as something other than delusional freaks. They lose their minds if the Obama DOJ acts as though the Constitution and rule of law need to be respected by treating terrorists as law breakers instead of military units and scream about the Constitution being abrogated. The media doesn't bother to do more than transcribe their rants, it cannot be bothered with things like simple facts. Six hundred people paid over $500 to get massive media attention, a Star Trek convention in the same town would shoot itself over a turn out like that, virtually any convention would hang its head in shame. The Portland Gun Show would be done for (yes, Communist Portland Oregon) if it had this attendance and yet the national media will go on and on about idiots with no facts and a loser grasp on reality. People who have employment because the Fed stepped into GM will cheer these idjits on as they scream socialism without taking a single look at the Halliburtons or the wealthy.

Rather than point and laugh as Tancredo, Palin, and assorted ... loons throw their poop and masturbate the Republican right fringe the media acts as though something happened. The ex-Gov of the biggest Federal welfare state who bought the affection of her in state electorate with the socialism of direct payments from industry actually is taken seriously as she talks about tax cuts and socialism. The Federal welfare states of the South get taken seriously as they bankroll foreign auto manufacturers to compete with the US industry, national tax dollars are used to make up the tax short fall - you know? Nobody in the media mentions it. Tancredo seriously talks about the racist poll tests as though his audience could pass one and the media doesn't scoff?

The political dialogue in this country has descended into the muck because the liars and distorters don't get called for it, they get a media megaphone instead. Teabaggery gets to call liberal bias as the liberally biased media gives them free play. Try to find one major media market that calls out the rampant bullshit slung by this bunch. It isn't as though the facts are even that hard to find, 5 minutes research by any reader of this would be sufficient to debunk any given Teabaggery rant, but the media can't be bothered. I don't propose partisanship, just some damn facts to go along with the monkeyshines.

What To Do, Now ?

Here's the deal, folks, I have neither seen nor heard national political news for a week nor have I followed it with any attention online. I also feel better for it. Not surprisingly that leaves very little subject matter for political blogging.

I know a lot of folks think the SOTU is an important event. I think it is political posturing of no import unless some bald-faced lie is promoted (think GWB uranium). I'm sorry if you think the President is a knight in shining armor, he isn't he's a politician and he is a politician with a plate full of problems. Some of those bigger ones are inherited and some are self-inflicted. I care to go into neither, but the SOTU is a political exercise in dealing with this and I gave it a miss.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this thing - a dozen of you give a damn. For the time being I'm taking a break. I may get interested again, or not. I'm tired of stupid attacks being made for little or no reason.

Corporatist, The New Honorific for Massa

If you've been around this blog long enough you'll remember that I've warned my friends in campaign finance reform that banning money and placing limits on who and where was a dangerous strategy and the SCOTUS unhappily proved me right yesterday. Cripes no, I do not confuse statuatory fictional personhood with people and I never have. My objection was that the concept of personhood was not tightly defined and limited. The absolute hell of it is that we're liable to find that the pieces that are left of McCain-Feingold are probably the ones with the worst unintended consequences.

In the realm of some things a bit more immediate than a Constitutional Amendment there may be some ways to mitigate the effects of the Supreme corporate whores' decision. Forget trying to ban or stop the money. Try to not have it pay off.

If the attribution of political ads had to occupy,say, 1/3 of the display space it certainly wouldn't bother campaigns themselves since name recognition is most of what it is about. It might be a little less appealing to Haliburton and probably at least annoying to the veiwer. It would take clever lawyers working with ad men to make it work.

Since corporations already operate under a tax regimen that is different it shouldn't be too difficult to find a way to tax the snot out of the removal of the funds from the revenue stream. This idea is akin to the machine gun tax, it doesn't prohibit or restrict speech itself, simple makes it expensive to engage in such a pilfering of assets. That is again the bailiwick of lawyers and this time really good accountants.

I know it is tempting to run around with hair afire, but an issue like this will have some very good minds working on it. It would be very difficult to plan ahead without knowledge of the language of the decision. I think this would also be a very good time for some smart lawyer to sue on behalf of a nice liberal corporation for a vote. I don't know that there'd be much point in having a prosecutor bring charges for corporate acts that would be crimes if a human did them to another human, like murder for buying out another corporation or bigamy for mergers, but it sure would be fun to watch.

I won't go into my emotional response to this court, it would be illegal and unwise to do. But that does get me to this point, those assholes were picked by...Republicans and had some Democratic votes for approval behind a flood of GOPers. Despite current appearances it does matter who the President is and (I hate to use really rude words like this) Congress is run by. OK, mismanaged by. Just for god's sake do better than Ho LIEberman.

Turning Off The News

I had a modicum of interest in the news this morning, a real part of it was to see if the theme would be as stupid as I expected. My expectations have not been disappointed.

The Republican approach was never in any doubt and the media has given a near meaningless Party a soapbox considerably larger than their representation. Senate rules do mean that a Party with 41 members can do damage, that 41% representation in the body means nothing can be done if they don't approve. If that is taken by the media to mean that they are the new ruling class the media's head is stuck in its butt. House Republicans might as well be Martians for all their real impact.

The media keeps making Brown a representation of national sentiment. This was a MA election in the first place and in the second place there was Coakley. I am quite sure that HCR has done damage, for pete's sake how could this mess not do that? The right Republicans were not going to approve of anything they didn't write and jam down Obama's throat - that gets you an automatic 27% and about the time you alienate another 20+% who are Democrats by writing a Republican bill you've achieved a real problem.

The media is hard on the scent of Obama failure and I do agree there have been some short comings. But Congress is the outfit that writes the legislation, despite other opinions. HCR is supposed to be dead. I can't think of a larger load of horse poop. People have been running around acting as though the House would fix the Senate version and LIEberman would vote for it. That is exactly laughable and since we've seen him and Nelson in operation already and there's a question?

The media is again on the scent of excessive liberalism treating the 27% party as though it had really high approval ratings and was a majority of some sort. There is no actual center in American politics, it veers all over the place depending on whose ox is getting gored at any particular moment. The fact that Republicans love to talk about a center-right nation doesn't make it so. Taking a look at the make up of the House ought to be instructive and it hasn't been. The idea that reality might be featured in the political news is apparently vain. The fact that 58%-41% (if you think I'll count Joe Ho you're crazy) representation in the Senate may mean the New Republican Dominance to FauxNews really ought to be given a miss by actual news organizations ... guess again.

Now that I've subjected myself to stupidity in excess of my tolerance level; I'll turn the news off.

The Coakley Massacre

One would suppose there are lessons to be learned from something as ... interesting as the MA special election results. Not having a bunch of faith, I suppose Democrats will mostly learn the wrong ones.

Here's a newsflash for you - you're supposed to run as though winning means something to you. Little things - like not taking a vacation in the middle of a six week elections cycle. Things a novice might miss like showing up at campaign events. It might even occur to you that a political campaign involves the novel idea of giving people a reason to like you and to believe that you care they exist. Those might be something to do. Even if the seat has been held by a Democratic legend for a really long time.

While the lesson might be to behave as though you're in an election, my bet is that the losing Party is going to decide that they've completely over-played to an ungrateful left and need to shift right. Nearly 40 years ago I had the State hang a (D) after my name because my alternatives were either lunatics or no party at all. Now all these years later I find my alternative to be well to the right of the lunatics of the time. I suppose I'm the ungrateful left since I can't recognize Democratic handiwork in the health care bill.

There's been a lot of wailing about the loss of the 60th Democratic seat in the Senate. I'd contest that it ever existed unless you'd like to rename the Party LIEbercrats (or hell Nelsonites). I dislike purity tests, but I'd like to see legislation that is recognizably Democratic come out of a Democratic Caucus. I know all about "it's what we could do" but then I wonder about votes for the Patriot Act and other civil liberties abortions and who made them. Once I've hit that damn iceberg I start wondering about Iraq War authorization, and then - well hell - about 30 years of political history...and the ship goes down.

You probably haven't noticed that this site is stripped of all references to my involvement in the Democratic Party and that is because as an officer it wasn't in my job description to throw rocks at Democrats; and I had boulders in hand; so I resigned. Don't start thinking that anyone in the DPO mistreated me, quite the contrary the organization is full of friends and valued colleagues.

You'd think that the Congress is composed of a handful of progressives rather than very nearly half of each house being of that description. That is one of the features of holding such large majorities, but the Senate rules mean a handful of Neanderthals can make legislation into something the majority elected don't want to do. Chances of ever getting Democrats to agree on everything are always small, but the usage of procedural rules against your own Caucus ought to be political poison - nope.

After the Democratic Caucus finds out the Snowe or Collins is more reasonable and honest than Hoe LIEberman maybe they'll shit can that asshole. Don't hold your breath.

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: