Saturday, April 15, 2006

The Stupids

I understand that September 11 drove a lot of people a bit nuts, but I really don't understand why they're still stuck in stupidville, or why Joe Lieberman Weekly publishes them.

A Bad Leak

The Times editorial board tells the Post editorial board to kiss its ass.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Wanker of the Day

If it's Saturday, it must be Debbie Howell.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Freak

C&L has a clip of Robert Stacy McCain chatting with Alan Colmes.

Supporting the Ego

I really do wonder what it takes to support your own unwarranted arrogance when it confronts a reality completely at odds with it. I doubt I'm alone in having occasional nontrivial anxiety bouts over some fairly screwup early in life which had relatively trivial consequences for me or those around me. I honestly can't imagine living with the responsibility for what goes on in Iraq day after day without either having some severe psychotic break or simply curling up under the bed in the fetal position.

These people are wired up differently than me.

Afternoon Thread

Shorts weather has arrived.

Bye Silvio

I wonder when he'll finally realize it's over.


And, thank you, Canadians of Italian descent for getting rid of the wanker.

The votes of 40,000 Canadian citizens who qualify as "Italians abroad," some of whom have never set foot in Italy and many of whom don't speak Italian, played a pivotal role in the defeat of billionaire Silvio Berlusconi in Italy's election yesterday, according to poll results released late last night.

For the first time in history, a country's political fate appears to have been determined by citizens of other countries, after Mr. Berlusconi introduced a scheme in 2002 that defines eligible Italian voters by blood lines rather than residency.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Late Night

Try not to shoot anybody in the face.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Just a Typical Embassy

AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq's turbulent future.


...

The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report — is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified "Green Zone," just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein's, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial.

14 Months

Tommy Franks accidentally speaks the truth.

Censure

I don't think there's a perfectly correct way to ask the question - I think any particular construct can be criticized - but we do have a plurality agreeing that the president should be censured.

Reality

Greenwald on the attacks on the Generals:

Every possibility is in play except for an acknowledgment that they might have been wrong about something. It is a resolute fantasy world that they cling to for dear life, because everything that matters to them resides in that world. And the most significant aspect of all is that the person most afflicted with this fact-immune syndrome is the person who resides in the White House and controls our Government, and will for the next 2 1/2 years. There are few situations more destructive and dangerous than for a volatile situation to be controlled by people for whom faith in one's own rightness is infinitely more persuasive, and more sacred, than facts and reality.

Chirp

There sure are some happy birds in Iraq.

Fear and Loathing in the Nuttosphere

From kevin k. I'll post an excerpt, but go read the whole thing:

didn’t really follow the explosion of bedwetting blogs post-9/11 because I was too busy languishing in my pre-9/11 NYC liberal mindset, but apparently the blogosphere was flush with dorks in crouched-down, defensive positions who pecked away at something they called "warblogs." These, ahem, "warbloggers" (must … stop … tittering) thought they were at war and no amount of fear of Blogger’s registration process and/or HTML interface was going to get in their way to fight the good fight. They were G.I. Jonesin’ for some seriously manly cutting ‘n’ pasting as they bravely stormed the frontlines of HyperText Transfer Protocol. And some of them, primarily "9/11 Republicans" and alleged libertarians, were so addicted to the notion that "everything changed after 9/11" that they discarded large, important chunks of their belief systems because they figured the "everything changed" doctrine applied to their very beings as well. A few of them have circled back to reality and well-earned rounds of raspberries, but a substantial number still cling to what are becoming increasingly razor-thin threads of dignity, and generally when you take it that far, you never come back because, let’s face it, it’s really, really embarrassing to do so. The Roger L. Simons and Charles Johnsons of today are the ex-lefty David Horowitzes and Michael Savages of tomorrow, except, as Pantload Media has proved, we don’t ever have to worry about Rog and Chucky being anywhere near as popular, successful or influential. Or handsome.

It’s been funny watching nutter bloggers cheer on Iraqis for standing up to terrorists when it’s quite evident that guys like John Hinderaker and Hugh Hewitt clearly wouldn’t have the balls to do the same in a similar situation. If you put Hinderaker in a scenario where white supremacists had taken over his perfectly-named hometown of Apple Valley, Minnesota and were setting up IEDs around town and blowing up shit at random, a teary-eyed John would be the first one out of his house waving a white dress shirt and bellowing in desperation, "I’m on your team!" before collapsing on his well-manicured lawn in a puddle of urine. Hewitt, for cripes sake, has to be heavily sedated and diapered before he enters the Empire State Building, which he seems to believe is a bullet-strewn frontline in the war on terror (like Sadr City, but taller!), with its spine-tingling Skyride and elevators stuffed with fanny-packed tourists in ESPN Zone t-shirts. I mean, for all of the chest-thumping-and-puffery these proud patriots do you can’t help but notice through their squeals of store-bought muscular bravado that a majority of them are pinched-up, picked-last-in-dodgeball mega-dweebs. We’re talking central casting material for the remake of Revenge of the Nerds, except in this version they just read Drudge and Instapundit all day and curl into a ball every time they get within 20 yards of an Arab or one of the Satellite Sisters.

Truth

This is really the basic conclusion that anyone who doesn't have a wee cranial-rectal inversion problem has figured out by now:

They should never again be allowed anywhere near the instruments and agencies of the American government.


That's from John Farmer, the New Jersey Star-Ledger's political correspondent. Go read the whole thing, as they say.

(via First Draft)

Wanker of the Day

Joe Klein.

Here's Alterman's response:

Klein may or may not be right about his use of “left” vs. “liberal,” though I showed the item before it ran to someone who was sitting at his table, and received a note about it from another attendee who was sitting at my table and nobody noticed any inaccuracies. This may be because it was accurate, or it may be because Klein is playing cutesy by making a distinction without a difference that nobody but him noticed. In case he really does not know why this is the case, I’ll clarify it for him: “Michael Moore and many writers at The Nation” are not a “wing” of the Democratic Party: They are not even in the Democratic Party, as far as I know. (I also don’t accept that they “hate America,” well, except Alexander Cockburn.) I know Moore was a vocal supporter of Ralph Nader in 2000 as were the people at The Nation to whom—I assume—Klein refers. When one speaks of the “left wing” of the party—that is, people who are running for office which was the clear context of the discussion—one is clearly referring to the likes of Ted Kennedy, Russell Feingold, Barney Frank, and the late Paul Wellstone. Those are the people whom everyone at the assembled breakfast understood Klein to be smearing, as he has done repeatedly in Time and elsewhere. Go to my column here and Media Matters here for more examples.

Rummy

Rumsfeld of course should go, and it's really somewhat surprising that aside from Bill Kristol there haven't been many on the Right who have echoed this line.

After the whole Blackhawk Down affair the calls to oust Les Aspin were pretty incessant.

But, let's not kid ourselves and imagine replacing Rumsfeld will achieve much. Bush is unlikely to let anyone come aboard who will puncture his little fantasy bubble. The policy will stay the same - we stay in Iraq, because leaving=losing in Bushworld.


...Bush released statement just now: Rumsfeld has his full support and is "exactly what is needed an this critical period."

Please Don't Help

I imagine poor Box Turtle Ben is wishing Limbaugh would just STFU.

Start Wearing Purple

All smart Philadelphians will be heading over to the Troc to see Gogol Bordello this evening. Zox is opening.

Watch the video.

Two Terms

Kay Bailey Hutchison is violating her often repeated pledge to only serve two terms.

Nuts

They really are just nuts.

And Away They Go!

It appears that the long-predicted but never-quite happening bond yield surge might finally be here.

That's Not Very Subtle

New album from Neil Young, includes song called "Impeach the President."

50 State Canvass

The DNC is organizing a 50 state canvass. You can create events, sign up for events, etc. Resources will be provided.

So, you fucking hippies, get your asses out there.

CT Senate Race Heats Up

Link:

Derby Mayor Alan Schlesinger will enter the U.S. Senate race Monday, seeking the Republican nomination and setting the stage for a potential battle against incumbent U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in November.

Schlesinger will vie for the ballot slot at the GOP convention on May 20 against Paul F. Streitz of Darien and possibly Jack Orchulli, the former fashion entrepreneur who lost against Sen. Christopher J. Dodd in the 2004 Senate race.


Schlesinger, who won six elections for the state legislature and two for mayor, predicted Thursday that Democratic challenger Ned Lamont would defeat Lieberman in a Democratic primary in August, setting up a possible three-way race in November. The reason for the prediction, Schlesinger said, is "history" - meaning that Democrats in Connecticut have traditionally chosen the more liberal candidate in primaries.


...

"He's been the bulldozer of Connecticut politics," Gallo said of Lieberman. "He has rolled over everybody, but 2006 is going to be an interesting year for the senator. If Lieberman wins the primary, he's still going to have a race on his hands. This primary is going to force him back to his left. That creates an opportunity for us."

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Fixing the Internets

Sadly, No! has found a new calling, which will keep them infinitely busy.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Holy Crap

Rumor floating around is that Santorum raised $11.5 million. In one quarter.
I misunderstood. Rumor floating around is that he has $11.5 cash on hand. Okay, still a lot but not as frightening.

I'd wondered if people were going to eye the polls and decide it wasn't worth bothering with. I guess not.

Anyway, Santorum hasn't released the official numbers yet, but Casey came in with $2.2 million.... and has $4.5 cash on hand.

Gotta Go

Rumsfeld really has to go.

Phonies or Radicals

Sargent's got Klein's basic approach down.

#1

We have our first official Democratic contender for president.

Mike Gravel.

Leadership

It's time for the self-styled National Security Democrats to start showing some of that leadership on the Iran issue.

Or, instead, they could talk about how Democrats need to show leadership because, you know, that always impresses people.

Bill Scher has some advice.

Daily Chicks

Remember, Christopher Hitchens called them "fucking fat slags."


Fucking fat slags:




Hitchens:



Listen to the song.


Watch the video.

Buy the CD.

Vermin

Wow, Savage is a bigot and a coward. Typical.

The Constant Whine

Another day, another article from Joe Lieberman Weekly about how Howard Dean isn't sucking up to rich people enough. DAMN DIRTY HIPPIES!

Last year, a major Democratic donor from the 2004 presidential campaign received a call from some operatives at Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee (DNC). Dean was coming to town in a few days, they told him, and they wanted to schedule a meeting. Political fund-raisers normally make such calls a month in advance, and so the seat-of-the-pants approach didn't go over well. "You can't call me the week before and say, 'Hey ... we'll be there Monday, want to hang out?'" says the donor. "They had all these fucking hippies.... These are people that are great to raise a few $500 checks, plan a party at a nightclub. But they're not the folks you need to give you [the resources] to do the things you want to do."



...more from Stoller.

Wanker of the Day

Fred Hiatt.

And the City Paper is a must read on this. Make sure to click through the graphic at the bottom.

There's no accountability in the hallowed halls of elite punditry, no sense of responsibility. The editors of our elite newspapers failed us, as they did in the 90s and again in the 2000 election.

The Ultimate Wanker

Joe Klein is probably the most hideous contemporary contributor to our mainstream political discourse, and only in part because he wears a "liberal" hat.

And that's why it's so disturbing that some Kerry campaign insiders, who by accounts are actually close to Joe Klein, dished on the campaign to him for his new book.

I've got nothing against insiders dishing on the Kerry campaign, but the idea that they would dish to Klein to support whatever pernicious and destructive narrative he'll be concocting about how we all hate America demonstrates a tremendous lack of judgment.

Miserable Failure

Will Bunch returns us to that awful day of 9/11, when brave brave sir Bush bravely ran away, leaving no one in charge, as the nightmare was descending. On that day there was a colossal failure of leadership and a colossal failure by NORAD to respond to the unfolding threats.

He seems to have edited it out, but last night when I read it Bunch asked why bloggers weren't so interested in the subject. Bunch wonders why there's little blogosphere commentary on the subject. I guess in a way we're all a bit like Michael Moore who started off making a movie about 9/11 and then ended up making one about Iraq. The media's general refusal to confront the reality of 9/11 rather than the myths they helped create is impossible to puncture, and at this point is largely dwarfed by subsequent clusterfucks. It was long ago decided that Bush's tremendous ability to stand on a grave site and mumble incoherently through a bullhorn was a display of "tremendous leadership" which trumped the miserable failure of the previous days, and even now it's like farting in church to suggest otherwise. One goes against such ironclad conventional wisdom at one's peril, and there are more current failures to deal with...

Shorter Lord Weisberg

From BTC News:

The short version of this nauseating elegy? “For now, my hero is pandering to the yokels. But as soon as the primaries are over, he’ll lose those cretins and start pandering to his real base: journalists! Lawd, lawd, get me that seat on the Straight Talk Express …” We can expect two more years of this crap, and worse, if McCain runs.

Jack

The Taibbi biography of Abramoff.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Murphy!

As I said (roughly) in a brief speech to the Penn Dems last week:

Before I finish I'd like to address something that all of us can do this year, something of tremendous importance. As you may or not be aware there is in fact a severe shortage of people named Murphy serving in the House of Representatives. It's vital that Murphy-Americans, as I call them, are properly represented in the corridors of power, and I would like to suggest that if historically we had elected more Murphy-Americans to Congress then we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years.


Over at Young Philly Politics DanielUA discusses Patrick Murphy. I've met Patrick a bunch of times, from the early days of his campaign until just recently. He's evolving nicely as a politician, but he's still a guy who will shoot from the hip. He doesn't waffle or mince words on women's rights, Iraq, Don't Ask Don't Tell, etc... He seems to have figured out pretty quickly that whatever you stand for, the smart thing to do is be clear and upfront about it instead of trying to serve up mushy obfuscation.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Flathead

Ed Leamer (.pdf) has some fun reviewing Friedman's tripe for the Journal of Economic Literature. It's long and veers between snark and substance, so pick and choose the bits you like...

(via DeLong)

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Bush's Bitch

Hitchens on Powell.

...or maybe it's that Armitage is Powell's bitch. Who can tell, Hitchens was blotto...

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Why Are We In Iraq?

Apparently Evan Thomas of Newsweek thinks he knows. On Hardball:
Thomas: I don't think the Wmd... I've never thought the WMD was the reason we went to war. They went to war for other reasons. It was an excuse to go to war, it was a convenient excuse - they sorta believed it - but it really wasn't the reason they did it. [drunk hitchens and tweety babbling] Thomas: After 9/11 they felt they had to teach "The Arabs" a lesson. It was a demonstration of American force. We wanted to show the world - particularly the Arabs - how tough we were. I think that's why we went to war. Tweety: It had to be a big bang in response to 9/11. Thomas: Afghanistan was not a big enough bang.



Well, there you go.

Anti-American

Anyone who has linked dissent with treason or somehow being pro-terroist over the last few years should be called what they are: people who truly hate this country.

The Chicks

Watch the video.

Buy the CD.

...and while we're watching video, the new one from the Red Hot Chili Peppers is pretty good.

Gotta Go

It really is unfathomable that Rumsfeld is still there.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recently retired two-star general who just a year ago commanded a U.S. Army division in Iraq on Wednesday joined a small but growing list of former senior officers to call on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign.

"I believe we need a fresh start in the Pentagon. We need a leader who understands teamwork, a leader who knows how to build teams, a leader that does it without intimidation," Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the Germany-based 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, said in an interview on CNN.

In recent weeks, retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni all spoke out against Rumsfeld. This comes as opinion polls show eroding public support for the 3-year-old war in which about 2,360 U.S. troops have died.

"You know, it speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the Department of Defense," Batiste said.

"But when decisions are made without taking into account sound military recommendations, sound military decision making, sound planning, then we're bound to make mistakes."

Wanker of the Day

Bruce Tinsley.

Poor Little Ricky

He's stupid and he's ugly and nobody likes him:

In the course of a one-minute speech delivered recently at the Abington Township Rockledge Boro Republican Organization Annual Dinner this past Friday, Renee Amoore, co-chair of the state GOP committee, stated:
"...Regarding Santorum, I know some of you may want to just hold your noses, but please vote for him anyway!"
Shouldn't the Montgomery County Republican Committee be united in the most important election of 2006?

Popularity

I hate beating up on David Shuster because he's one of the better ones, but here's yet another example of how deeply the press internalized the notion that impeachment/Monica madness caused a drop in Clinton's popularity. His popularity soared during this period, something the Washington press could never quite get themselves to understand.

Clinton was unpopular in 1994, that was basically it. Right before Monica madness hit, Gallup polled Clinton at 59. Subsequently, the poll never fell below 58 (hitting that number once) throught the entire impeachment saga. His lowest job approval rating throughout his entire second term was 53, and his highest disapproval was 42.

Iran Has Nukes

In its pants!


Gonna be a fun ride.

So Sorry

So very sorry.

Scam

What Roy says. The conservatarian dominated discourse of the "warblogger" era of blogging was deserving of nothing other than scorn and contempt. The fact that seemingly smart people didn't see that at the time was one of the reasons I started blogging...


For some examples of the blubbering lunacy which passed for smarts check out Instapundit's old Psywar site.

Perplexed?

He's stupid, and ugly, and nobody likes himi and they're deathly afraid he'll sing.

VANCOUVER -- With only 100 tickets sold in advance, Washington State University Vancouver officials are hoping for a large walk-up audience tonight for a speech by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Combining advance sales, discount tickets to 100 local high school students and giveaways to WSU students and others in the community, about 500 people are expected in the 1,100-seat auditorium at Skyview High School.

...

All tickets had been claimed before last year's speech by former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. In the weeks leading to his appearance, Dean's name was in the news because of his selection as Democratic National Committee chairman.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Iraq'd

Is it just me or has CNN just stopped talking about Iraq? There's talk about the politics of Iraq, but no actual news of what's going on there. Including, you know, more dead soldiers.

CarShare

Good article about PhillyCarShare, which I highly recommended.

For all of Philadelphia's cultural amenities, architectural richness and historical importance, the place can just stink if you like owning a car.

Ask any urban dweller-driver and you'll likely get an earful about sky-high insurance, expensive or inconvenient parking, and, of course, break-ins.

Which might explain the success of car-borrowing nonprofit group PhillyCarShare, and the mounting interest in Philadelphia of bigger, corporate car-sharing firms that operate in other cities.


...

For now, PhillyCarShare has customers such as Philadelphia resident Stephen Playo and his wife, Nickolette Phillips, to itself.

Playo said they saved $3,000 or more a year using PhillyCarShare instead of owning a car.

"Anyone who lives here realizes how bad it is cost-wise," said Playo, an engineer who lives in Center City. "All that time the car is parked... people are paying upward of $60 a day."

For heavy car-share users, Playo said, "it might be $60 a week." For one plan, users pay $15 a month, plus $5.90 an hour and 9 cents a mile to cover fuel, insurance, maintenance and parking.

Busby

Well, she managed near 44%. Chris says it's good news, though I think the turnout's pretty crappy on our team. But, we get to do it all over in June...

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The Biggest Sand Toilets In The World

Not that we didn't know it was bullshit, but now we know they knew it was bullshit too:

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.

Busby

Good chance I'll be asleep before the results even start rolling in, but you can get them:

here

and


here

Crack Media

Nice job, CNN!:

The House bill, pushed by Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Democrat, also calls for building 700 miles of security fence along the Mexican border and would make assisting illegal immigrants a felony, as well.



Does this man look like a Democrat?



Tex Sensenbrenner is a Republican.

(thanks to reader af)

On TV

Pour yourself a stiff drink then read Billmon.

Boos

Jeebus Effing Keerist. Is it impossible for the Post to report the truth?

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

BUSBYMANIA

Chris promises to stay up through the results, though I doubt I'll even bother to try.

We're really due for the dice throw to go our way for once.

The Democratic Industrial Complex

Sirota on the insider protection racket.

Rubber Stamp Republicans

Matt Soller pays a visit to Arlen Specter.

Boooooooooo

Everybody hates Dick.

Prodi

Berlusconi seems to be out in Italy, though the question remains as to whether he'll walk out or have to be dragged out...

Eschaton Assignment Desk

The DNC wrote a letter to Ken Mehlman regarding the phone jamming scandal's connection to the White House. Here's one bit:

The AP story also stated that virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number (202-456-6173) which currently rings inside the political affairs office. Although the White House declined today to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002, you may be able to shed some light on the subject, as you were the White House Political Director during that time.



I'm sure there are any number of journalists who could check their records and tell us who 202-456-6173 was assigned to in 2002.

Mary Rosh Sues Levitt

The wingnut welfare must be drying up.

Wankers of the Day

The editors of Time Magazine:

That is right up until the very last moment when, after someone brought up the question of the whether the Democrats will be able to present an effective alternative to Bush in the next election, Joe Klein shouted out, “Well they won’t if their message is that they hate America—which is what has been the message of the liberal wing of the part for the past twenty years.”

Excuse me, but I think this is worth some attention. It’s not about Klein per se, who after all, is best known to most Americans as the guy who lost his job at both Newsweek and CBS News for purposely misleading editors, readers and viewers in order to increase his own personal profit as the allegedly “anonymous” author of “Primary Colors.” (He also [classily] attacked the reputation of the linguist who figured out his identity in New York Magazine.) What is important, however, is the fact that Time is America’s highest circulation newsweekly. And since it fired Margaret Carlson, Joe Klein, believe it or not, is its most liberal columnist. That’s right. The most liberal columnist at the America’s largest weekly newsmagazine pretends that the message of liberals for the past twenty years has been that they “hate America,” just as if he were reading from talking points issued by Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. (Don’t get me started.)

Once again I am forced to say, “What the hell is going on here?” How about a little noise in the blogosophere politely asking Time to hire a genuinely liberal columnist? (Newsweek has three Jon Alter, Eleanor Clift and Anna Quindlen.) My nomination would be Josh Marshall, but that’s not important. What matters is that the magazine has four million readers and sets the agenda for much of the media, globally. And it not only won’t allow any liberals in the door, it continuously slanders them, both in its cover stories and in its columns. Forty-seven percent of Americans strongly oppose George Bush. Twenty nine percent say he deserves to be impeached. And yet these many tens of millions of people are treated with complete contempt by the pundits who are invited to determine the course of the political discourse. Why do we have to take this lying down? The address for letters to the editor is letters@time.com.

Unpopular President

I don't know why every Democrat doesn't casually utter that phrase every chance they get.


While we generally focus on the approval number, 60% disapproval is huge.

Clinton's highest dispproval rating in any poll was 53, and that was in 1994.

Senator Tweety

It's too late for Tweety to jump into the Senate race, except as an independent, and the next election won't be until 2010, so I'm not sure this makes any sense.

Appeasing Muslamonazi Terrorizers

The 101st lose another valiant warrior.

Rally

PoliticsTV has some coverage of yesterday's rally.

Kennedy Remarks Yesterday

Link:

Thank you, Jaime Contreras for that warm introduction.

Buenos tardes! Gracias por darme la oportunidad de estar en este evento. Y gracias por demandar justicia para todos los inmigrantes.

I look across this historic gathering and I see the future of America. As President Kennedy proclaimed a half century ago, we are a Nation of Immigrants. And today, we stand together as brothers and sisters to shape America's destiny -- old Americans, new Americans, future Americans -- all joined together for the common good.

Let me ask you some questions. Are you ready? (Estas listo?)

Do you have a job? (Tienes trabajo?)

Do you love your family? (Amas a su familia?)

Do you love your community? (Amas a su comunidad?)

Do you love America? (Amas a America?)

You are what this debate is about. It is about good people who come to America to work, to raise their families, to contribute to their communities, and to reach for the American dream.

This debate goes to the heart of who we are as Americans. It will determine who can earn the privilege of citizenship.

It will determine our strength in separating those who would harm us from those who contribute to our values.

It will determine our future progress as a nation and our future economic growth.

Some in Congress want to turn America away from its true spirit. They believe immigrants are criminals. That's false.

They believe any of us who help immigrants -- even our priests -- are criminals, too. That's false.

They say you should report to deport. I say report to become American citizens.

More than four decades ago, near this place, Martin Luther King called on the nation to let freedom ring. Freedom did ring -- and freedom can ring again.

It is time for Americans to lift their voices now -- in pride for our immigrant past and in pride for our immigrant future.

We stand for the future. (Nosotros apoyamos el futuro.)

We stand for our families. (Nosotros apoyamos nuestras familias.)

We stand for our faith. (Nosotros apoyamos nuestra fe.)

I stand with you. And you and you and you and you.

Are you with me? (Estan conmigo?)

John McCain and I have a plan. It is a strong plan. It is a fair plan. It is a plan for America's future.

And today we are making that future happen.

Will you support us? (Me apoyan?)

Will you support us? (Me apoyan?)

Will you support us? (Me apoyan?)

Well, I'm here today to say that we will support you, too. (Nosotros vamos a apoyar a ustedes tambien.)

We will never give up. We will never give in.

Hasta la Victoria!

Si se puede!

Busbymania

I hope all good residents of Socal are, if they are able, pitching in to help out Busby today.

Precious Bodily Fluids

Carol Darr is worried that if we don't regulate the internets something like the Swift Boats could happen.

You can't make this stuff up.

Bizarre

There were about a million ways the Republicans could've handled the immigration issue and made it a winning issue for them. Praise Jeebus for their incomptence.

A Cunning Plan

Rich Lowry has a plan to save the Bush presidency. It's hilarous.


Aside from the obvious, does Lowry not know why Bush doesn't have the ability to give speeches denouncing eminent domain abuse?

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Waas

Nice to see some Murray Waas get some kudos, but it's long overdue. Waas, , Lyons, Conason, and Lars-Erik Nelson (deceased, sadly) were about the only people who bothered to really look into what was going on in the 90s. Tasty treats from Starr's OIC and punditry by Ann Coulter were all the rage then.

Not much has changed.

More Photos

Didn't bump into him at the rally, but Albert has a real camera and knows how to use it.

Win One for the Gayborhood

Protests cause Santorum-supporting part-owner of the 12th Street Gym to sell his stake.

Meanwhile

Gwyneth Paltrow has a baby boy named Moses.

Because we all needed to know.

Elections

Don't any elections on this planet end cleanly anymore? Stupid Italy.

I'm sure I'll be in bed before the Busby results tomorrow because of that stupid Pacific time zone thingy.

...for the moment, the left wins the equivalent of the House and the right wins the equivalent of the Senate. The president appoints the Prime Minister, and then there will be gridlock until the next election, as divided government isn't something they're used to.

Beatdown

From La Queen Sucia, arguing with ditto monkey mail:

MICHAEL SAYS: 3. They do not register for selective service and do not serve in the military - forcing legal Americans to defend them.

ALISA SAYS: Sigh. According the U.S. government, all male immigrants – legal and otherwise – are required by U.S. law to register for selective service.

According to the National Center for Immigration Law, one in ten U.S. soliders who have DIED in Iraq have been immigrants. Five percent of those serving in our military are illegal immigrants.

The first soldier to die for the United States in the current war in Iraq was Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.

He died for you.

You are not in Iraq fighting for anyone. You are home, sending lie-riddled missives to strangers at 3 a.m. on your computer.

Enough said.


(tip from dave)

Dean Statement

From email:

"Today, all around the country, hundreds of thousands of people of every race, color and ethnicity are marching peacefully for immigration reform that is tough and smart, comprehensive and compassionate. Democrats are proud to join these marches. Democrats in the Senate have led the fight for immigration reform that reflects our values, but neither President Bush nor Bill Frist were willing to stand up to the far right wing of the Republican Party to move it forward.

"Today's peaceful marchers put a human face on this important issue. Immigration reform is about strengthening our borders, but it's also about families. Unfortunately, it's the American people who will have to deal with the consequences of the Republican Party's failed leadership. Republicans are not just alienating Latinos with their surrender to the far right, they're alienating Americans of every background who know that scapegoating any group of people is wrong. And they're alienating every American who knows we need real solutions to strengthen our borders, protect U.S. workers and their wages, and make it possible for immigrants who earn it the opportunity to apply for U.S. citizenship. Together, America can do better."

Onward to Iranistan

It's a familiar drumbeat, a similar gameplan. There are already rumblings in certain parts of the liberal Hawkosphere along the lines of "well, sure, that Iraq thing wasn't such a good idea but... Iran! Now there's a war worth having..."

Soon enough I suppose we'll find out if Bush is indeed insane, and whether or not the American people have finally had enough.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Murder

Wingnut host advocates murdering people who cross the border.

The Rude Pundit Has a Question

It's a good one.

Idiot in Chief

oy.

Immigration Rally

Stopped by the immigration rally here in Philly. Love Park was getting a wee bit overcrowded so I left, but here are some quick pics:









Pretty Girls Make Graves

I'm quite enjoying the new CD (released tomorrow) by Pretty Girls Make Graves, so much so that I obtained (legally) their other stuff.. You can get the tracks The Nocturnal House (.mp3) and Pyrite Pedestal (.mp3) and listen to a couple more tunes on their Myspace page.

Nedrenaline!

You can watch Ned Lamont on Face the State.

Name the Post's "liberal" Blogger

My money's on Josh Trevino, Chris Nolan, or Jeff Jarvis.

Families

Missing in the TV coverage of the immigration rallies I've seen so far is the primary issues that's motivating people to attend them: families. I've written this before but it deserves repeating. Plenty of people here perfectly legally have parents, siblings, spouses (contrary to popular perception marrying a foreigner and jumping through the appropriate legal hoops is actually quite difficult), and even children who are undocumented.

Demands to deport millions of people are demands to break up families and send people to back to a "home" they may have never known.

Italy

For Italy's sake I hope they chuck out Berlusconi. Trust me, Italians, the last thing you want is an incompetent arrogant asshole who interprets a narrow re-election victory as a mandate...

According to BBC radio, the center-left has a narrow win in exit polling...

38

New Low in ABC/WaPo poll:

April 10, 2006 — President Bush's job approval rating is at a career low in this latest ABC News/Washington Post poll amid continued broad public skepticism about the Iraq war.

Just 38 percent of Americans now approve of Bush's overall performance in office; it's the lowest mark of his presidency, albeit by a single point. Sixty percent disapprove of how he's handling his job, matching the highest disapproval of his tenure.

One of the primary drags on the president's job approval rating has been the public's negative assessment of the war in Iraq, and in this poll 58 percent say the war was not worth fighting, a majority sentiment for the past 16 months.

The president's overall job numbers are little changed from a month ago and are about what they were last fall, before they briefly improved following the December parliamentary elections in Iraq. Also similar to his ratings in the fall, a striking feature of the president's predicament is the intensity of sentiment against him.

Today, just 20 percent of Americans "strongly" approve of his work in office, while more than twice as many, 47 percent, strongly disapprove. At the start of Bush's second term, he had the same number of strong supporters and strong opponents.


Everybody hates the president except a few whackjobs.

No Surprise

The pentagon may have loads of fun exciting propaganda ops directed at actual Iraqis, but the stuff we hear about has long been directed at us and the gullible bobbleheads in the media:

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

...

The military's propaganda program largely has been aimed at Iraqis, but seems to have spilled over into the U.S. media. One briefing slide about U.S. "strategic communications" in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the "home audience" as one of six major targets of the American side of the war.

Immigration Rallies

You can join one in your city.

Spreading Glennocide

Glennocidal wingnuttery is sadly infectious.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Maybe I Lack a Sense of Humor

The consensus over at the Post's blog seems to be that today's editorial was simply a clever parody.

Would be the most rational explanation.

The Bushie Post

Josh Marshall:

For whatever reason, the Post has chosen to throw in its lot with the flurry of mendacious rhetoric and the white-washed investigations, all of which amount to a grand pen and paper and word game truss barely holding together the body of official lies that is still barely governing the capital.

They've made their deal with power. They should justify it on those grounds rather than choosing to mislead their readers.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Soft-White Homonculi

Hilarious.

Anyway, I figure it's a good time to pull up quotes from Robert Stacy McCain's days as a freepi, before all his posts were deleted. He's BurkeCalhounDabney:

Posted by BurkeCalhounDabney to thegreatbeast
On News/Activism 11/29/2002 11:35 PM PST #7 of 12


Harvard's president, Lawrence H. Summers, issued a statement calling the episode "extremely disturbing" and "part of a past that we have rightly
left behind." "Whatever attitudes may have been prevalent then," Mr. Summers said, "persecuting individuals on the basis of sexual orientation is
abhorrent and an affront to the values of the university."


Wimp! Speaking of someone who should be persecuted and run out of town ....

...


I am disturbed however, by Jackson's idea that "breaking white folks' rules" was somehow inherently just. Did not the white folks of DeKalb, Miss., also have laws against murder, rape, robbery? If rules were to be broken merely because they were work of white folks, then hasn't Jackson gone a long way toward explaining the explosion of black criminality that began in the 1960s?

This shows how the civil rights movement, to a great extent, represented a direct assault on tradition and law. It is all well and good for the liberal to say, "Well, some laws and traditions are unjust." But who is to say which laws are unjust? Was it not true that the civil rights revolution was an exercise in pure political power, and that every measure from Brown v. Board to the 1965 Voting Rights Act was merely a function of the national majority imposing its will? If a bare majority is sufficient to strike down the laws of 15 states, and this be called justice, why then should we complain when, in 1973, a 7-2 majority of the Supreme Court declared void the laws of 49 states restricting or prohibiting abortion?

...

[W]hatever happened in that grocery store, it was something more than Till merely "whistling at a white woman." Please note that the store was also the home of Bryant's family.

Now, I have been repeatedly accused of "minimizing" or "justifying" Till's death, which was not at all my purpose. I was complaining -- go back to Post and look -- about the way the Post article was minimizing, if I may use the word, what transpired between Till and Carolyn Bryant. The Saturday article, echoing the liberal myth of Emmett Till, suggested that all he had done was "whistle at a white woman." But he had done substantially more than that. He had gone into the Bryants' place of business -- into their family home, no less -- and insulted the wife of the proprietor, had made "lewd advances," as Carolyn Bryant testified under oath, and then boasted about this to all his friends.

Roy Bryant's response to this provocation was brutal and criminal, certainly. Whatever the opposite of "railroaded" might be, that would be a fair description of the acquittal of Bryant and Milam. But in what sense can Emmett Till's mother justify describing her son as "a sacrifical lamb"? And, in the larger view, how has Emmett Till come to be a demigod in the civil rights pantheon? What perverted sort of "social justice" includes the right to enter a man's home and insult his wife?

If you would stop pointing fingers and calling names long enough to think seriously about these questions, perhaps you could understand what I'm trying to say.


-------------------

I am not justifying anything. I was trying to make two major points:

1. Till was not killed merely for "whistling at a white woman." That phrase has attached itself to Till's name, suggesting that he was killed as the result of some casual encounter on the street -- which is simply not true.

2. Till's killers were the husband and brother-in-law of the woman whom Till insulted. It wasn't the Klan. It wasn't a racist mob. It wasn't some evil redneck sheriff. This was a personal crime, rather than a public crime.

To repeat what I have said in earlier posts: Emmett Till was not killed at random for the crime of being black. He was not hanged on the public square for advocating nonviolent social change. He was kidnapped and murdered by two men who felt that he had personally wronged them.

The point here is not to provide a "justification" for this crime. Rather, the point is to say that the meaning of Till's death has been distorted by propagandists who wish to use Emmett Till as a symbol of civil rights. I am saying that the facts of the case simply do not support that interpretation. While the acquittal of Till's killers said something about the unfairness of the criminal justice system in Mississippi, Till's death itself did not exemplify the values which some have attributed to it.

Was Emmett Till wrongly murdered? Of course. But thousands of Americans are murdered every year. Being a victim of murder, however, does not qualify one for sainthood.

Till's mother said her son was a "sacrificial lamb." But this construction wrongly imputes innocence and religious purpose to the victim. Till was not innocent. He was not merely walking down the street one day, selected at random, and killed simply because he was black. Till in fact was killed in response to his own action, by two men whose interest in him was specific and personal. Emmett Till was not killed while sitting in at a Woolworth's lunch counter or marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge or engaged in any other act of civil disobedience. Emmett Till was not killed as the result of his quest for civil rights, unless you consider insulting women to be a civil right.

The horrific nature of Emmett Till's death -- kidnapped at gunpoint rom his relative's home in the dark of night, tortured and murdered -- is not at issue. What is at issue is whether Till was a hero or martyr. Given the circumstances, I find it impossible to consider him such, and question whether any other rational person could do so.


------------------

Was Till's killing racially motivated? Certainly, at least in part -- just as Till's initial action toward Carolyn Bryant was racially motivated. Till thought he could impress his relatives and friends by defying the customs of rural Mississippi. He succeeded too well. Roy Bryant returned home to find that Till's insulting behavior toward his wife was the talk of the community. Not merely was this a challenge to Bryant's personal honor, but to the peculiar community standards of that place and time. Roy Bryant either had to do something about Till, or become a pariah and/or a laughingstock in his community.

Now, it is likely that no would wish to return to the community standards and customs that apertained in rural Mississippi in 1955, when the Bryant brothers could kill Emmett Till and be judged not guilty by a jury of their peers. But Emmett Till's insult to Carolyn Bryant was a personal wrong, and the murder of Emmett Till was a very personal murder. He was not a martyr for "civil rights," unless you consider it a civil right to insult women.

Wanker of the Day

Fred Hiatt.

Pink and the Indigo Girls

Check out their song.

All About Joe

Lieberman won't rule out an independent run.

There are special circumstances where the Party implicitly supporting an independent, such as in the case of Bernie Sanders, makes sense. But Joe's basically telling the primary voters of Connecticut - Democrats - that he doesn't respect them.

All this is rather strange as IIRC getting on the ballot in CT as an independent would be just about impossible for Lieberman to do...

Moral Agency

Scott Lemieux is right:

Shorter Joyner: It's so unfair to compare American pro-lifers to ones in El Salvador--I swear, we're completely unprincipled hacks who don't take the only legitimate rationale for abortion criminalization seriously, and don't think women are moral agents! It never ceases to amaze me that American pro-lifers think that the illogical construction and aribtrary enforcement of abortion statutes is an argument in their favor.


This is regarding American anti-choicers being unwilling to propose criminal penalties for women who get abortions. In addition to being moral gobbledygook, it's actually decidedly more anti-woman than the opposite would be. It says that women are not responsible for their actions.

It's time for anti-choicers to have some moral and ethical consistency in their arguments and it's time for our media to comprehend that that the anti-choice movement (as something somewhat distinct from all who consider themselves to be "pro-life") is anti-woman, anti-contraception, anti-sex, and anti-equality.

Selective Leaks



Christy takes on the selective leak issue.

There are a couple of details which are somewhat missing from the narrative. First is that some of what they were leaking were "facts" which were not true.

In addition to that, Scooter was flat out lying to Miller about what was in the classified NIE, claiming, according to her, that "the assessments of the classified estimate were even stronger than those in the unclassified version." The opposite was true, as the unclassified version basically left out all of the doubts and conflicting arguments.

So, not only where they selectively leaking classified information, they were doing so in a deceptive and dishonest fashion.

Fred Hiatt's World

In which he manufactures reality.

The tendency of our elite conventional wisdom generators to cling to the official story, no matter how full of bullshit it is, is startling.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Pro-Choice for Me

It's been my long-held belief that this country is much more "pro-choice" than opinion polls show but there's been a failure to educate people about what this really means. Lots of people think abortion is icky, but still imagine that it'll be an option for them when they want it. They know, of course, that they'll have a "good" abortion while lots of other people have "bad" abortions and the trick is to make them understand that when they're in that situation the choice is between letting them, personally, decide whether their abortion is "good" or whether they need to ring up Bill Frist and get his opinion.

I'm not so surprised by this article about the apparent popularity of the movement to overturn the South Dakota abortion ban. Certainly the percentage of legislators who voted for the ban is greater than that of those in that state who describe themselves as pro-life. Most people in this country really don't want to turn it into El Salvador on this issue.

STURGIS, S.D. — Volunteers pushing to overturn the nation's most far-reaching abortion ban are surprised and delighted by the response as they circulate petitions to put the law up for a public vote.

Even in the most conservative corners of this conservative state, both Republicans and Democrats — including some voters who say they oppose abortion — are eagerly signing the petition. In two weeks, volunteers have collected a third of the signatures they need to get a November referendum on the ban.


My favorite is this guy.

"I don't believe in abortion. It's just an excuse to get wild," said Daniel Perea, 28. "Guys think, 'Oh well, if you end up pregnant, all we have to do is come up with $300 and we can go across the state and get an abortion.' It's very dangerous to let people choose that."

Perea said he spoke from experience: He helped three former girlfriends obtain abortions. He believes God punished him with a childless marriage and his recent divorce; he wants to make sure other young couples don't make the same mistake. "We have to put our foot down," he said.


Elsewhere in the article you get the key lesson national Democrats should take from the South Dakota case: most voters don't think Republicans are serious about banning abortion. Well, they are, and most people don't like that very much. If this gets on the ballot in November, and the voters of that state vote to nullify the law, I hope people finally understand that choice is, in fact, a winning issue.