Good Lord. Some policemen in San Diego are under the impression that the U.S. is a fascist police state.

Here are a couple of stories from Talking Points Memo about an incident that I doubt will ever show up in the big time MSM.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a fundraiser for Francine Busby, who previously ran for the deeply-Republican Fiftieth District and came close to winning in the 2006 special election and subsequent regular election, was raided by sheriffs after an unnamed neighbor made a noise complaint. Busby now calls it a "phony" noise complaint, and the article says that multiple neighbors said there was no great noise at all.

Here's the twist: The fundraiser was hosted by a lesbian couple, and shortly before the sheriffs came a particular neighbor had shouted anti-gay slurs at the assembled crowd. "It was a quiet home reception, disrupted by a vulgar person shouting obscenities from behind the bushes," Busby says.

As one neighbor told the paper: "We didn't hear anything until the sheriff came, with eight patrol cars and a helicopter."
The sheriff's department claims that somebody kicked an officer. By the time it was over, multiple people were pepper-sprayed, one of the hostesses was arrested, and the whole neighborhood got to see quite a scene.

Eight patrol cars? Pepper spray?!? A HELICOPTER?!?! For a noisy party complaint? This seems it might warrant, at most, a warning for excess noise. And, although my little excerpt doesn’t say this, the gathering was made of up mostly middle age folks, you know, the kind of people who don't play Aerosmith at Extremely High Volumes and who really aren’t looking to get into a physical confrontation with armed police.

What the hell is up with the SDPD? Are the words “Democratic Fundraiser” so much of a warning signal that the police need to send out the riot squad, looking for trouble? And this person “behind the bushes” yelling sexual epithets and who is probably also the person who phoned in the noise compliant, what is his deal? Is he now proud of himself for disrupting a fundraiser for a Democrat, hosted by a lesbian couple? Does he feel he made a valuable contribution to society?

Stalin would have been proud. I now understand perfectly about how a monstrous government like the Soviet Union, along with their terrifying secret police, can come about. It’s because many people believe that they should behave like this. They enjoy causing pain, anguish and grief for people they deem as their enemies. I’ve said it again and again here. I have no idea how these people even live with themselves. They obviously have no idea of what democracy really means. None whatsoever. I hope several people lose their jobs over this one.

The Audacity of Dopes.

From the NYTimes:

“I disagree with the idea that this shows problems for the modern Republican Party,” said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that applauded Mr. Sanford’s attempt to refuse some federal stimulus funds earlier this year. In reference to the fiscally conservative philosophies of Mr. Ensign and Mr. Sanford, he joked, “I think instead it shows that sexual attractiveness of limited-government conservatism.”

Ah, I see! Conservatism is really, really sexy, so that is why all these Republicans keep getting caught with their pants around their ankles! Women just can’t help themselves when they get around one of those masculine, virile, limited-government he-men. Governor Sanford had no choice in the matter of his infidelity and his unexplained disappearance off the face of the Earth for six days, with his staff saying that he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” when he wasn’t even in the same hemisphere. Sure. That’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Well, not really. But it certainly is to Grover Norquist, he of the “government, meet bathtub” theory of governance, if you ask him about it (and even if you don’t).

Yes, yes… Images of Kathryn Jean Lopez fondling her George Bush In A Jumpsuit action figure come flooding, unbidden, into my mind. I may have to take some Alka Seltzer and go lay down for a while. “Sexual attractiveness” certainly contains subjective elements, like personal taste, state of mind and, in the case of K-Lo, being a complete and utter imbecile. But when Democrats get caught with THEIR pants down (and they do), that’s because Democrats have neither values nor ethics, are scumbags, cannot be trusted with anything and should resign from their positions immediately. Otherwise, Republicans must impeach them (ref: Clinton, William Jefferson). But REPUBLICANS, well, that’s a different kettle of fish altogether. Women (and possibly other men, if Larry Craig is any example) can’t help themselves and prostate themselves at the feet of limited-government conservatives, literally begging to be sexually ravaged. (This explanation seems to leave a little something out, such as why said conservatives (especially those of the married variety) can’t seem to refuse those offers of ravagement, in spite of continual claims that they, and they alone, are the protectors of all that is moral in America. It also kind of seems to be missing something in regard to David Vitter and his fondness for prostitutes. They threw themselves at his feet, begging for sex, for which he felt compelled to give them large quantities of money? But these things are apparently trivialities that can easily be dispensed with when necessary.)

It’s just another fine example of IOKIYAR (It’s O.K. if you are a Republican). What hypocrites. Just say anything; it doesn’t really matter what, to excuse yourself and your colleagues from any sort of blame whatsoever. It doesn’t even matter if it makes sense. Even if that really was a “joke”, as the story says, it was a poor one whose only possible purpose could be to deflect the issue by ridicule and make it into “no big deal.” Donald “Gosh, Who Knew That Iraq Had So Many Vases?” Rumsfeld perfected this tactic. Just say anything that comes to mind, and then you can claim victory and go back to bashing Democrats, liberals, gays, Mexicans, Hollywood, whoever, claiming that they destroying this country.

“I think instead it shows that sexual attractiveness of limited-government conservatism.” Ho-ll-ee cow. I am just in awe of that statement. Delusion, rationalization, deflection of blame, minimization of the real issue, pulling something/anything out of one’s ass… It’s all there, wrapped up in one nicely wrapped package, for all to behold in all its glory, not unlike Pigs in a Blanket at IHOP. One can only marvel at the audacity of anyone attempting an argument like that (hence, the title of this post).

UPDATE: More dope audacity. Rush Limbaugh blames Obama and the federal stimulus for Sanford's behavior. Unbelievable.

UPDATE II: And Michael Savage gets into the act, and actually goes even further than Rushbo. This is actually just one small part of Obama's grand plan to rid himself of his enemies. Obama somehow planted this "dear, dear friend" of Sanford's over eight years ago, so that Sanford would self-immolate NOW, just in time to jerk the rug out from underneath his presidential aspirations? My goodness, these people are either totally delusion or grasping at the very molecules that make up straw.

“Gov. Sanford Admits Affair with Argentinean Woman”

That’s the headline today at Talking Points Memo. TPM also outlines the history of this weird episode, from his gone “missing”, to his “hiking the Appalachian Trail”, to his being incommunicado with his staff and family DURING Father’s Day weekend and not telling his Lt. Governor about his absence, to his really being in Argentina after his staff had been saying that, oh sure, he’s just gone hiking, no worries there, to the admission that he has been having an affair…

This is, of course, very close on the heels of Senator Ensign’s admission of HIS affair with a staffer, which included bits of accused blackmail, putting the 19 year old son of his lover on the Republican Party payroll, etc. etc.

These guys are the ultimate “holier than thou” types. Ensign was all over Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinski, stating that Clinton should resign over it.

And this is just THIS year. Who could forget Tom Foley and his constant pursuit of young male teenage staffers? Or the “wide stance” airport restroom encounter of Senator Larry Craig and his subsequent arrest?

Does the Republican Party not realize they look like complete hypocrites, as well as raving lunatics? Why does ANYONE talk the Republican Party seriously these days? They gave us George Bush and Dick Cheney, and everything that entails. Their nomination for the presidency last year was a guy with reputedly a very terrible temper and a very short fuse (which is a bad combination for a President) and who sang “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” at a fundraiser, and whose VP nominee is a complete and utter ditz and who made her unwed, pregnant daughter into a showpiece for her campaign. I haven’t even mentioned Michael Steele.

It’s no wonder like more sane Republicans have either quit the party, left politics or have tried as much as they can to distance themselves from the lunatics that have taken control of the party. I have great respect for Republicans like Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar, even though I disagree with many of their political positions on real issues. I would profess some admiration for Colin Powell as well, except he squandered whatever admirable qualities he may possess for his role in the Iraq War, and for not saying anything about it publicly when he possibly could have made a difference. He let himself be used, and it is his eternal shame that he was a tool for someone who he knew was a liar and not acting with the best interests of this country in mind.

I hope that the next time one of these “family values” types tries to criticize Obama or Democrats again, that the entire country laughs in their face. “Hypocrite” doesn’t even begin to describe them.

I think the late, great George Carlin said it best. “Traditional American values: genocide, aggression, conformity, emotional repression, hypocrisy, and the worship of comfort and consumer goods.”

UPDATE: And, right on cue, Fox "News" labels Mark Sanford as a Democrat. This cannot be accidental. This is at least the third time they have done this. This time, I think at least twice during the Mark Foley story and I believe once when Larry Craig got caught in the MSP airport. Jeez. Do they really think that no one knows that these people are Republicans? Or is Fox required to do everything they can to piss off Democrats? That's my theory.

Do you get the sense that Republicans will howl in outrage about Obama’s actions, no matter what he does or does not do?

It’s the outrage that counts. It all about being able to be on television, casting as much criticism at President Obama as they can. That's all that matters.

John McCain criticizes Obama for not taking a stronger stand on the Iranian protests and in support of those demonstrators. The only problem is this is the guy who was singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” last year during the presidential campaign. McCain didn’t seem overly concerned about the Iranian people then. I guess it’s fine when WE kill innocent civilians of another country indiscriminately by dropping bombs on them, but we can’t let their own government abuse them! What an offense for not supporting them by… doing something! Dropping bombs on them, perhaps. Making as much noise as possible about how evil the Iranian government is, which would give said government all the ammunition it needs to make this into a U.S. vs. Iran confrontation.

To carry that point a little further, during the Iran/Iraq war, which side did the U.S. support? Why, Iraq, of course! That same country we pulverized into tiny little pieces just 10 years later! But who does the Iranian government blame for that war? The United States, of course! And who has been meddling in the politics of Iran since 1953? The U.S., when the CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected government whose actions we didn’t really care for! Does the Iranian government remember that? You get they do! And yet, John McCain, and a whole host of other nutjobs like Lindsey Graham, Charles Krauthammer, etc., are agitating and demanding that Obama “do more!”

These people are not even making sense anymore. They just seize on whatever they can in order to bash the President. There is no consideration about how stupid they are going to look. You really have zero credibility when you desire to drop bombs on a country on month and then are hugely concerned about that same country’s civilians the next.

But, of course, if Obama had taken a different approach on this issue than he has and come out really swinging, going all Macho Cowboy, doing his best impression of George Bush and threatening the Iranian regime with death and destruction, do you suppose these same Republicans would be supportive? No, not for one second to I believe that. They would be out there again, full of outrage that President Obama was meddling and making the situation worse.

There is "outrage" out there that a reporter from Huffington Post asked Obama a question at his press conference. How dare Obama plant a question! That's over the line! Of course, everyone has completely forgotten how Bush used to plant softball questions at his press conference. Has everyone forgotten Jeff Gannon?

You know, I knew when Obama was elected, the Right was going to go nuts. I actually looked forward to it. I thought watching their impotent rage would be rather amusing. And it was, for about a week. Now, these lunatics are just tiresome. Tiresome and ridiculous. To have any credibility at all, you cannot protest every single thing the President does, and be totally outraged every time. It looks like an act. No one takes you seriously, except for the extreme base of the Republican party who will swallow anything and everything, so long as it is critical of Obama and Democrats in general.

This is an old story now, but did you read about the “Christian” who was praying for God to kill Obama?

From Pandagon:

Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don’t like that, they need to talk to God,” Drake told syndicated talk-show host Alan Colmes. “God said it, I didn’t. I was just agreeing with God.”

Asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying “imprecatory prayer,” Drake hesitated before answering that there are several. ”The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama,“ he said.

Later in the interview, Colmes returned to Drake’s answer to make sure he heard him right.

“Are you praying for his death?” Colmes asked.

“Yes,” Drake replied.

”So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?”

“Yes.”

..."You would like for the president of the United States to die?” Colmes asked once more.

“If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”

This guy is totally innocent of anything, of course, because he is only “agreeing with God” via “imprecatory prayer.” There’s no problem with that at all, of course.

And these are the people who think they should be in charge of this country. You do anything they don’t like, God should kill you.

I really was not aware of how many lunatics were in this country who really don’t care about how insane they sound.

When you have a cold, sometimes your dreams look like this.

This country has lost part of its soul.

(Because blogging is international, I would like to make plain that the country I am referring to in the title is the United States of America. You can make your own judgments about your own country.)

I have no idea what our kids are really being taught in school these days. I do remember what I was taught when I was growing up. The U.S. was founded on very well defined principles, such as freedom, equality and justice. The system we had might not be perfect, but the ideals we tried to strive for were.

As with almost everything in life, what I was taught turned out not to be all that black and white. A lot of what we were taught about freedom, equality and justice was true, just as a lot of it was a combination of wishful thinking, self-delusion and propaganda. We really weren’t given the whole impact of having a large part of the nation’s economy based on slavery. We weren’t really told about the systematic extermination of Native Americans. Nor were we told about the interment of American citizens during WWII who had the misfortune of being of Japanese ancestry. The working class was treated as little more than trash during the Gilded Age. Intolerance and racism was not on the curriculum. Those things were kind of left out. There is, and always has been, a lot that is good about America. And there has always been a dark side that most of us would rather pretend didn’t exist.

Yet, given all that, it seems to me that our ideals still held true. Even after all those dark episodes, our better nature would ultimately rise back to the surface. Maybe I am just being naive. Maybe I have been so immersed in our idealized view of our country, I swallowed it, just like everyone else. I really believed that the U.S. was rather exceptional. Possibly, I was suckered.

Even given that uncertainty, it seems like to me the U.S. has changed. The principles we hold dear are worthy of slogans and sound bites, but are not things to be taken literally. Or perhaps the meaning of these words has morphed into something not included in their original definitions.

I would have never thought that our society would seriously be debating whether or not we should be torturing people, or that holding people indefinitely without being charged with a crime and not allowing them access to the legal system would not only be something we would ever consider, but would be held as a moral and patriotic imperative by some. There are some people in this country who would seriously try to make a case that Jesus would torture people, under the right circumstances.

Greed and the pursuit of more and more money override basic tenets of civilized behavior. I wrote the other day about insurance companies, to whom people have paid hefty premiums all their lives, that will drop coverage to people who are in desperate need of healthcare for the flimsiest of reasons. The whole Enron debacle showed us just how out of control people can be when groupthink sets in.

New behavior and attitudes that were once unthinkable have become normalized. Yelling and screaming at people who disagree with you is now commonplace. Attempting to steal elections is now just “part of the game” and the only sin is if you get caught. Blatant self-interest rules. The poor, the aged and the sick can just fend for themselves. It’s survival of the fittest (read: the wealthy and the powerful) taken to absurd extremes, to the detriment of everyone else. As a society, we aren’t even trying anymore to pretend to aspire to ideals. Our ideals have become nothing more than slogans to bash our opponents over the head with.

Like I said, maybe our country really was like this all the time and I was just taken in by very nice sounding propaganda. It’s always easy to believe the best about yourself. Maybe the symptoms just seem worse now because of the 24/7 wall-to-wall coverage of outrage.

Still, I can’t help believe that some fundamental change has occurred in this country. Torturing people is a good thing? How could that possibly be?

What I don’t know, nor does anyone, is whether or not the current attitudes in our country represent just a dip in the road, or is the start of a long, probably very painful, decline of our country as a power for good in this world. All civilizations, small, large, powerful and ineffectual, eventually come to their end.

Let’s hope we, as a society, can once again become what we like to believe about ourselves.

So you think our health care system is O.K. as it is?

This is from the Washington Monthly.

Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive. [...]

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.

The insurance companies are as bad as our financial institutions. They are full of greedy people who have absolutely no other interests other than making money. This is sick. How could a company actually do this? And how can this really be legal? It seems to me that the insurance companies are breaking their contacts with their policy holders. How can they do this?

Here’s more.

The insurance industry -- you know, the one conservative lawmakers and the AMA are so desperate to protect at all costs -- has this unpleasant habit called "rescission." Customers have insurance, and they pay their premiums, but once they get sick and require expensive medical treatment, the companies drop the coverage.

And in testifying before Congress, executives of these insurers not only confirmed the rescission practice, but said they had no plans to change the money-saving tactic.

One executive said rescission is about "stopping fraud and material misrepresentations that contribute to spiraling healthcare costs." So, for example, when a woman in Texas was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, her insurer dropped her coverage because the company found an instance in which she visited a dermatologist for acne, and didn't tell the insurance company about it. This, the insurer said, was an example of "fraud and material misrepresentation."

Yeah, “stopping fraud and material misrepresentation.” Uh huh. God, what assholes. And they really don't even care what Congress thinks about this. No shame. No sense of wrong doing. Nope. We don't care that people are dying because of our actions. Not our problem. And we will praise our employees for saving us money!

We need a public option for healthcare coverage for every single person in this country. Perhaps when these insurance companies actually have real competition will they stop these tactics. I don’t even have an adjective that fits right now. I don’t believe in the afterlife, but if I did, Hell would be much too nice a place for people like this.

This is some of what I was referring to in my last post. A society that really cared about its populace would never allow things like this to happen. I am really pissed.

Cynical Sunday morning thoughts.

I haven’t written much of substance on this blog for over a year now. I used to write some fairly lengthy posts that took some thought and research to put together. There are some posts that I have written that I am actually quite proud of. Now, I just express an opinion, usually a rather pissed off opinion, about what is going on in this country. I also break it up with some cheap laughs when I find the opportunity.

I just haven’t had the energy or enthusiasm lately, especially since we elected Barack Obama as the first black man to be President of the United States. I was so upset with criminal and unethical doings of the Bush administration, all I could see was getting a Democrat into the office. I held out hopes that things might change.

It is terribly evident that, even though Obama’s election does indicate that some steps are made (and that is no small step, for certain), things in this country are not going to get much better. We can and should continually try, but things are never going to change significantly. Those with money and power are not willing going to give up what they see as their God given right to run this country, either by having one of their representatives in office or by manipulation behind the scenes. We are never going to get rid of people who cannot get past their ignorance, fear, petty jealousies and hatred of anyone and anything that is different from them. We are never going to do anything about the preventable deaths by nuts with guns. We are never going to have a system, including healthcare, that works toward the benefit of all people, not just the rich. It seems that we, as a country and a species, are never going to get past the limitations of our reptilian brains. Yes, there are individuals, groups and companies that are striving to become what we really could be. But as a whole, the human species is too damn stupid to become something else.

We haven’t advanced any since the time of the Romans. We just have better technology, better medicine, “better” weapons… I can imagine some of the people I see spewing forth their hateful rhetoric saying the same exact same things in the 16th century. I can see people today who would think the Inquisition would be a grand thing if only our government would allow it. I see people today who would make great SS storm troopers. I see people today who would arrest Gallileo for pointing out that Earth is not the center of the universe. It’s the Dark Ages with blackberries, cable television and high speed internet access. That’s how I really feel about our society today.

If this blog had any real readership, I suppose I would be deluged with comments. Since I don’t, I guess this just counts as me screaming at a hurricane. It does just about as much good. I suspect that, as I move more toward the end of my working career and into retirement, I am going to turn into an angry, cynical recluse. I will concentrate more and more on the trivial hobbies and activities that I have going that, essentially, do nothing but focus my attention on something enjoyable to me and to waste time until my eventual death. That sounds really horrible, but that’s how I see it. I really, really dislike society and I am feeling more and more detached from it all the time. Every time I explore the internet and read what is going out there in the blogs, I get a really sick feeling in my stomach.

The human species, in my mind, has so much potential. We have already achieved some astounding results. We understand so much that humans never did before. I am just so in awe of what we now know about the universe. We have robots on Mars and have taken pictures and mapped the surfaces of all the planets in our solar system, with the exception of Pluto and that is coming in a few years, along with numerous moons surrounding those planets. What we now know is light years from what even our civilization knew 100 years ago.

But unfortunately, knowledge does not always translate to intelligence. We are a stupid species that knows a lot. Although I won’t be around when this finally occurs, I wouldn’t really shed many tears at the prospect that our species may become terribly diminished due to global climate change. We are slowly killing ourselves with our stupidity. Oh, I think the Earth will survive, in some form or another. It has been undergoing constant change throughout its lifetime. I expect that to continue. However, what the Earth changes into might not be terribly conducive to the survival of human society in its present form. Who knows? In order to survive, humans may need to revert to our roots as hunter/gatherers in order to survive.

If that happens, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving species.

And now for something completely different, radioactive wasp nests.

From the Seattle Times:

By The Associated Press

RICHLAND — Workers cleaning up the Hanford nuclear reservation are going after radioactive wasp nests.

The Tri-City Herald reports 6 to 12 inches of top soil are being dug up this month from 6 acres near the H Reactor. And, workers will dig up more individual mud dauber wasp nests over about 75 acres of the nuclear reservation in southeast Washington.

The contractor handling the clean-up, Washington Closure, says the nests were all built in 2003 when water was used to dampen dust during demolition of an H Reactor basin. That attracted the wasps that used the mud to make tube-shaped nests for eggs.

Spokesman Todd Nelson says the nests are "fairly highly contaminated."

Well, that’s all we need. I think I read something a couple of years ago about radioactive bats at Hanford. Now, we have a story about radioactive wasp nests. Fortunately, it’s only about the nests right now and not the wasps themselves. I can’t imagine having a giant radioactive dirt dauber settle down in my yard and start burrowing under the crawlspace. I’m telling you, one of these days, Mother Nature is going to come back gunning for us. Global climate change is probably too slow a method, as well as not being terribly reliable, to really get rid of human beings. She might pick a faster method one of these days. Giant radioactive dirt daubers are probably as good a method as any. (No, the AP story didn’t say anything about “giant.” But really, is there any possibility, at all, that there might be a highly radioactive insect that ISN’T a giant monster?)

The poster is of the film, Monster from Green Hell. For a great review of that film, check out the B Movie Graveyard.

It appears the elections in Iran were, shall we say, not quite on the up and up.

Here's a blog entry at Washington Monthly that gives an overview.

Isn't it odd, though, how everyone can really wring their hands about how unfair it is that the ruling party in the government of Iran manipulated election results and thereby subverted the will of its people, but everyone in THIS country seems to be quite happy to turn a blind eye to all the voting irregularities and the possibilities of unscrupulous people being able to change the vote tally in electronic voting machines?

There are a lot of people, all over the world and including in this country, who have absolutely no idea what "democracy" really means. I know one thing it isn't. Democracy isn't, "win an election by any means and then you get to do anything you want for the next four years."

Another recent example of conservative cognitive dissonance.

A point brought up by Tom Tomorrow in his latest cartoon (see here) is one that I have thought of many times in the past. I find it absolutely astounding that, on one hand, conservatives can stomp about, complaining about how violent video games and rap music can negatively influence young people, but on the other hand, say that the crap that Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and other pond scum like them is “only entertainment” and they should not be held accountable for anyone actually acting upon all the egging on that they continually do.

Case in point, Bill O’Reilly has been vilifying Doctor Tiller, who was recently murdered by someone who looks like he has already confessed to the murder in the media and who has a lengthy record of violent acts and intimidation toward abortion providers. O’Reilly went after Tiller (calling him “Tiller, the baby killer) eleven separate times on his show. He used some pretty vile language and really went out of his way to whip up the already heated emotions of his audience. Then when someone actually does go out and murder the guy, O’Reilly seems surprised that anyone would actually try to hold him accountable for anything! My, my. Liberals should really be ashamed of themselves.

I actually do believe in the first point I made above. Constant exposure to violent video games and rap lyrics ARE probably harmful to young kids and teenagers who are still trying to sort out who they are. I’m sorry, but I think the human species is very easily manipulated. You can get a person to believe most anything, if you try hard enough and start early enough. Having a target who is emotionally confused about their identity and maybe in dire straights themselves just makes manipulation all the easier. So, I find it no surprise that kids constantly exposed to those influences would tend to be more anti-social and willing to resort to violence in order to resolve a conflict or just to get their way.

Another point here is that the advertising people have long known that advertising products actually does change purchasing habits of people. Billions and billions of dollars are at stake here. If advertising didn’t work, they wouldn’t do it.

So, to have O’Reilly argue that what he does is “just entertainment” is just absurd. Video games are just entertainment. Rap music is just entertainment. Violent movies are just entertainment. Yet, conservatives of this country flog Hollywood and video game makers to death anytime they want the country to conform to their view of reality. However, they feel they are free to say anything they want and no one should hold them accountable, in any way, shape or form, if someone actually acts on the hatred they spew out over the airwaves on a daily basis. Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways!!

Michelle Malkin, among others, has a favorite trick she likes to use when someone displeases her. She puts up their names and addresses on a website. Now, exactly what does she expect to happen here? There would be absolutely no point in doing that unless the unspoken agreement with her followers is that they should go harass these people! That is the whole point! And if it isn’t, then why do it? That is completely insane to argue that she was not “directing” her followers. She didn’t need to say it! That agreement was there, on the table! It didn’t need to be said. The only thing that not writing it down gives someone like her is some sort of very implausible deniability. The mindset seems to be “Ha ha! You can’t absolutely PROVE I had anything to do with this so you could convict me in a court of law. Therefore, I am innocent of any of the scurrilous charges you are making!”

I don’t know what kind of psychological buffer this argument gives to these morons. Somehow, this point is central to convincing themselves that they really aren’t guilty of anything. They must be making these arguments solely for themselves and their followers. Have to be. They certainly aren’t convincing anyone else. This seems to be a repeated pattern in today’s conservatives. So long as they can say something, anything that they feel will get them “off the hook”, then they will say it. It doesn’t matter if it conflicts with anything else they have said recently. Just as long as they can say something, that’s all that matters to them. It doesn’t matter if it convinces exactly no one; all that matters is that they have built themselves a little barrier that helps protect the laughable notion in their own minds that they are in the right and everyone else is wrong.

If I remember correctly, Charles Manson was found guilty of murder, even though he did not participate directly in the Tate/LaBianca murders.

UPDATE: After the Jew-Black-Obama hater killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., what do you suppose the right wing media would do? Take a step back and look at what they have really been doing to incite their audience into taking action? Or would they call the guy a liberal and try to blame liberals?

If you answered number 2 (specifically Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck), you win the kwepie doll. God, these people are disgusting.

All you Wiccans out there, you are being targeted by the Republican Party!

From Washington Monthly:

Two leading voices of the Republican Party's evangelical wing visited Rock Church [in Hampton Roads, Virginia] on Friday for a forum aimed at recapturing some of the movement's political momentum.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged Christians to get involved in politics to preserve the presence of religion in American life.

"I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history," Gingrich said. "We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism."

“Surrounded by paganism…” My. I suppose that sounds terribly frightening to the 75 to 85% of the people of this country that profess belief in a monotheistic religion. I certainly have seen an uptick of reporting about Druidic rites being practiced in my neighborhood. One of my coworkers told me he believed in Odin and Valhalla. He is from Norway, you know. I was just asked if I would be interested in joining a coven, just last week! And I am almost positive my neighbor is a Wiccan! At least, they have a bunch of goats in their back yard. I am sure that means something.

Man, these conservatives are really going off the deep end. I think he is using the word “surrounded” as it might have applied to George Custer surrounding all those Indians.

The problem with ignoramuses is that they don’t know they are ignoramuses.

I suppose it is stuff like this that bugs me the most about Republicans and conservatives these days. They think they are brilliant when, in fact, they have about as much on the ball as a bag full of hammers. Michelle Bachmann is a really good example. Last month, she lectured Congress about how carbon dioxide is “natural” and therefore really good for us. It therefore can’t cause global warming.

Here’s someone else that I have never heard of before, but you can be sure he is a Republican, making really stupid statements about global climate change. From Washington Monthly:

"This whole thing strikes me if it weren't so serious as being a comedy, you know. I mean, we just went from winter to spring. In Missouri when we go from winter to spring, that's a good climate change. I don't want to stop that climate change, you know. Who in the world want to put politicians in charge of the weather anyways? What a dumb idea. [...]

"Some of the models said that we're going to have surf at the front steps of the Capitol pretty soon. I was really looking forward to that. [...]

"We've been joined by another doctor, a medical doctor but also a guy who graduated from high school science as well, from Georgia, my good friend, Congressman Gingrey.... So to have actually a guy who's passed high school science is tremendously helpful. And Dr. Fleming from Louisiana."

These people aren’t even smart enough to recognize the fact that they don’t really know anything about the subject. That happens to us all the time. No one can be an expert in everything (except for Dr. Benton Quest, which is probably the subject of a future post), so not knowing something about a specific subject, especially technical or scientific, is nothing to be ashamed of. However, when rational people realize they are in that situation, they usually keep their damn mouths shut so as to not make total jackasses out of themselves. Yet, here are these elected officials making pronouncements delivered as if they were Zeus standing astride Mt. Olympus. And to make this guy look even stupider, he is standing up there, bragging about his friend that passed high school science! THAT makes someone an expert on global climate change!?!

It occurs to me that even a hard-core Republican ideologue should pay attention to a person banging on their front door at night, yelling at them that their house is on fire, even if the person banging on the door is known to be a Democrat. Yeah, you might not trust Democrats. But the situation they are being warned of is pretty dire, so regardless of who might be delivering the message, they better get their butt out of bed to go check out if their house really is on fire. But no. These clowns would prefer to pull the blankets up under their chins and tell their bed partner (whoever that might be, which is also may be the subject of a future post) about what idiots Democrats are. Their house couldn’t POSSIBLY burn down, because God won’t let it burn down! Or because flames are natural so therefore, flames are good for us! Or how burning houses are all a liberal plot to destroy the economy.

Ignoramuses are bad enough, but smug ignoramuses are insufferable.

Ah, remember the good old days, when any criticism of the President was considered to be anti-American, if not downright treasonous?

I remember. It seems like that was pretty much how the Republican Party saw the world in the first eight years of this decade. Man, you said anything critical of even the policy of the Bush administration and it was a pretty good bet the Conservatives of this country were going to demonize you. Dissent was not to be tolerated, period.

Well, now that President Obama has made what many are calling a Very Important Speech in Egypt, the rules of the game are now changed. See what James Inhofe (Crazy Person - Oklahoma) said regarding the current President of the United States, while that President is still abroad. From Washington Monthly:

Sen. Jim Inhofe said today that President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo was "un-American" because he referred to the war in Iraq as "a war of choice" and didn't criticize Iran for developing a nuclear program.

Inhofe, R-Tulsa, also criticized the president for suggesting that torture was conducted at the military prison in Guantanamo, saying, "There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo."

"I just don't know whose side he's on," Inhofe said of the president.

My, how times have changed. I wonder what happened? Oh, yeah. A Democrat is now the President. Funny how the rules change like that, isn’t it?

Actually, no, it isn't funny at all. Expected, yes. Funny, no.

I just do not know what to make of conservatives now.

O.K., sure, there are conservatives out there who have values they live to and do not lie to “win” cheap points off their sworn enemies. But they sure aren’t much in evidence these days. Right now, all I see is Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Newt Gingrich, Dick and Liz Cheney and Tom Tacrendo. And I see these people are all flaming lunatics. Rush seems to think that Sonia Sotomayor is a dangerous racist and nominating her to the Supreme Court is the same as nominating David Duke. He also thinks that conservatives are being oppressed and should learn to “fight back”, because they don’t know how. They’re docile, you see. They let evil liberals just run them over all the time. I also just saw a clip of Rush the other night comparing himself to Thomas Jefferson, because Rush can see things that others can’t. I almost threw something at the television set at that point.

I could go on and on, but it would serve no purpose really. I am just seriously in awe of someone who can be so pompous that he would toss out of the Republican Party anyone who disagrees with him, on anything. Anything. You disagree with Rush, you are not a Republican. And this guy is working under something like a 45 million dollar salary. Amazing.

Well, I guess all I can say about this is that the Republican Party is going to have to do something to save itself from, if not total extinction, then from a long, forced march into irrelevancy. The problem is that they made their pact with the devil long ago. They depended upon the votes of racists, born again fundamentalists and angry white men who don’t like anyone except other white guys exactly like them. That is whom the Republican Party depended upon to win elections. And now those people are running the party. It’s going to be a bitch for anyone to stand up and take control back from the lunatics who are now in charge of the asylum. I don’t even see anyone attempting to try, any time soon.

This is going to be a long, drawn out affair.

Subaru gets an environmental “F minus” on their new television ad.

I really don’t know what to make of the new Subaru commercial. You may have seen it. Some guy is lovingly “retiring” his old Forrester by parking it under some remote tree, with a few other junked cars, so that his Forrester can “live on.” How heartwarming…

My question to Subaru is, what the hell is up with this? These days, isn’t it the “done” thing in commercials to show everyone how “green” your product is? Even if your product isn’t “green” in any sense of the word, companies are still trying to convince the general public that it is, seeing as that is where the new public sensibilities seem to lie. But this new Subaru commercial is advocating that you NOT dispose of your used car in an environmentally sound way. You should to just go find some tree out in the middle of nowhere where you can just park it, in case someone, somewhere is too cheap to go to the dealer and get some new car parts.

I got news for Subaru. Disposing of your junked cars like that seems to be a requirement in places like Montana (you don’t believe me, take a ride on the Amtrak Empire Builder and see how many yards along the tracks have junked cars stored there). But this is not the environmentally sound approach, and I think Subaru should be ashamed for even suggesting that this might be a good thing to do. We need people who are MORE environmentally aware, not less. We have enough of those clods already.

I don’t care how much you loved your old car. You do not just go take it out somewhere and park it under a tree when it dies or when you get tired of paying the mounting repair bills on it. Donate it to some charitable organization that takes used cars (running or not) and somehow makes money off of them for their charity. You are doing somebody a favor and you are not out there trashing the environment with what will eventually become a rusty pile of useless metal, plastic and rubber.

Picture from here.

I believe I understand why Conservatives like Sarah Palin so much.

In their eyes, she can bring down a triceratops by herself with nothing but a stone ax, clean it and then roast up the best parts into a tasty meal, all the while conforming to the strict edicts of the tribe. She just looks adorable in a bear skin, too.

Did you know that Christians can’t be Democrats?

It’s true! At least, it is true according to those nice people who run Jerry Falwell’s Liberty College. From Washington Monthly:

Liberty University, the evangelical school in Virginia founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, is drawing heat Friday for its decision to revoke recognition of the College Democrats' chapter on campus.

According to the Lynchburg News & Advance, the school decided a week ago the organization "stood against the moral principles" held by the school and therefore could no longer be sanctioned.

Maria Childress, the staff adviser to the club, told the paper the school -- which opposes abortion rights and gay marriage -- had issues with the Democratic Party platform.

Childress says she was told by Mark Hine, the vice president of student affairs, that "'You can't be a Democrat and be a Christian and be a university representative.'"

So, after initially approving the College Democrats club, they changed their minds and revoke the club charter. But, of course, it’s not that those fine folks feel like any political activity and going to college don’t mix. No, it’s only Democratic political activity that is hostile to those values held dear by administrators of Liberty. No open mindedness here, please! No diversity of opinions necessary!

Liberty is a private institution and they can do as they please. But this does absolutely nothing except publicize the fact that "Liberty" U is the closed minded, tribalistic institution that everyone knows it is but doesn’t really talk about. It’s just one more example of the entire “we encourage you to join us, just as long as you believe and act exactly like we do!” mentality that pervades the conservative psyche these days.

I just find it amazing that there were enough Democrats actually enrolled at Liberty to make up a club. To me, that’s a bit like being a gay Republican. You are going to have to dig deep to find some reasons for your decision that you can live with. Liberty, pfftt...

Photo from TBogg.

Onward Christian Soldiers, indeed.

This is now kind of an old story, as things go these days. I haven’t gotten around to posting about it, but it is something I felt like I should.

It’s not a secret that the armed forces of the United States has become a very Christianized place in the last 10 years. Oh, no doubt, the various services were always pretty conservative, which usually goes hand in hand with religion. But under President Bush and his Iraq War, Afghanistan War, War Against Islamic Terrorists, Global War on Terror, etc. etc., the trend has become a full fledged avalanche, gathering speed and mass as it careens downhill. I have read stories about what has been going on at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for years. I don’t like this and firmly believe that religious fervor and military should NOT be sharing the same bed. That’s pretty much a recipe for disaster.

What is finally coming to light, however, is yet another thing altogether. GQ magazine broke a story about how Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon put together daily briefings for President Bush on how the wars were going. That’s not really newsworthy by itself, but the nature of the briefings were. Here is part of a column by Frank Rich at the NYTimes.

But Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.

Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)

What’s up with that? As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

I really don’t know what I find more disturbing. That Bush might be swayed by such crap, or by the fact that Rumsfeld, who is not really a “true believer”, would cynically play such games with Bush to manipulate him into what Rumsfeld really wanted to do. Both are really disturbing to think about. This is what might have been going on in Europe back in the 16th century. It should not be going on in the United States in the 21st century.

And, as always, some people are upset that these things are being made public. It’s not the fact that they even exist. No, that’s not the problem. But showing them to people and talking about them, well, that’s just terrible.

I wish all politicians, but mostly Republicans, would stop and think for a second about this. If you think there might be some bad repercussions if what you are doing eventually becomes public, then doesn’t that immediately tell you something about what you are doing? If you are worried about your actions showing you in a bad light, then maybe, just maybe, that is something you shouldn’t be doing? For example, it’s O.K. to torture detainees that haven’t been charged with a crime, but boy, no one better talk about that. That would endanger this country!

This is, without a doubt, a very warped way of thinking. It’s never your fault, it’s always someone else’s fault. To me, such thinking is a sign of either criminal behavior or a deep psychological problem, and possibly both. To me, everything that is coming out about the Bush administration just confirms the absolute worst that all us DFH's have always suspected. These guys were delusional. They were megalomanics. They were criminals who knew what they were doing was criminal and tried to hide their actions behind a curtain of fog and legaleze that no lawyer with an ounce of integrity would try to sell to a judge.

And all of them are going to get away with their misdeeds. I find that sickening.

Image from here.

Imperial Storm Troopers really suck at their job.

From cracked.com, here is part of a post called “6 Evil Henchmen Who Sucked at Their Job”. Go check out the entire thing.

Henchmen are an essential part of every plot to take over the world. Unfortunately, even the best henchmen let us down. Is it something inherent in the henchman archetype? Or is it just that we expect too much from grown men in form-fitting body armor? Honestly, we don't know. But we do know that it hurts every time, and nowhere more so than in the six cases below.

Who Are They?

Soldiers of the Galactic Empire, as featured in the Star Wars franchise.




Why Were They Feared?

Stormtroopers started out strong. The way they stormed that Rebel blockade runner in Star Wars was pretty sweet. And the way they overran that Rebel base in The Empire Strikes Back was the epitome of cool (OK, so they let most of the rebels escape from Cloud City, but the rebels had inside help from known scoundrel Lando Calrissian, so we could let it slide). By that point, it seemed like Stormtroopers could do no wrong. But then something happened, something... awful.




What Went Wrong?

After convincing us that they were the baddest asses in henchmen history, Stormtroopers suddenly went all France on us. Somehow, a frigging army of Stormtroopers was outwitted, outmaneuvered and just plain outfought by a bunch of overgrown merkins whose most advanced weaponry was flint-tipped arrows. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that these weren't just any Stormtroopers. No, these were, in the Emperor's own words, his best troops, for fuck's sake.

Of course, no one wanted the Stormtroopers to win. Yes, we loved them the way only impressionable adolescents can love something, but we knew they were evil, and we wanted them to get their comeuppance in the end. But not like this. Losing as ignominiously as they did on Endor didn't just diminish the villains, it also diminished the heroic men and women who defeated them.

A Typical Stormtrooper's Last Thought:

"I can't see a thing in this helmet!"

It’s beginning to look a lot like suspects were tortured not to prevent an attack on the U.S., but to provide the Bush administration with a rationale

I’ve wanted to write a post about the daily revelations coming out about our use of torture for a few days now, but I just couldn’t really find the enthusiasm. This is just too disheartening. It’s getting worse and worse each day, and I thought we were at a point where it couldn’t get much worse about six months ago. And I keep hearing promises that there is more to come. More pictures, more briefings, more paper trails. It seems very apparent right now, although this is still not being reported in the mainstream media yet, that we were torturing people not to “prevent attacks” on the U.S., but to find a rationale for the Iraq War. We were torturing people who were already giving us good information with other, non “enhanced” means. But they weren’t giving us what we wanted to hear, which was that there was a direct link between Iraq and Al-Queda. We needed a reason, besides the phony WMD issue, to give the neocons the war they wanted. Even after waterboarding KSM 183 times in a single month, we didn’t get the information the interrogators wanted to hear.

Doesn’t this PROVE that the information gained by torturing someone is unreliable, at best? If they haven’t given it to you after being waterboarded six times a day for a month, then it isn’t likely they are not going to give it to you? And if they do give you something, what does it mean? This sounds so much like the “confessions” elicited by clerics back in the 1600’s, where they would keep piling rocks on you until you agreed you were a witch, or were in league with Satan, or whatever they wanted to hear. When you confessed, they killed you. If you died before you confessed, that meant you were actually innocent. Of course, you were dead, but hey, you weren’t in league with Satan.

This is, of course, ignoring the fact that torturing people is morally wrong and illegal, regardless of whether of not the information you gained was correct or not. But what’s the big controversy of the day? Whether Nancy Pelosi knew about this or not. I don’t give a rat’s ass whether she knew or not. If she was complicit in the whole thing, then let her take the fall along with all the other perpetrators of this evil done in the name of the United States of America. However, I will say that guilty people don’t usually go around calling for release of documents and a truth commission.

I am just so disheartened about all this. Check out this story at Washington Monthly for more info.

THAT'S NOT A TICKING TIME BOMB.... About a month ago, McClatchy reported that the Bush administration abused detainees in part because officials were desperate for non-existent evidence linking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein's regime. The piece talked to a senior former U.S. intelligence official who said Cheney and Rumsfeld were "demanding proof of the links" in 2002 and 2003. When the imaginary evidence wasn't produced, the administration "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information."

Yesterday, this became a subject of renewed interest.

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff in Bush's State Department, raised a few eyebrows with this item:

What I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 -- well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion -- its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

It wasn't just Wilkerson.

Writing on The Daily Beast, former NBC producer Robert Windrem reports that in April 2003, Dick Cheney's office suggested that interrogators waterboard an Iraqi detainee who was suspected of having knowledge of a link between Saddam and al Qaeda.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was questioned on the issue today in two TV interviews. Speaking to CNN, Whitehouse allowed: "I have heard that to be true." To MSNBC, he noted that there was additional evidence of this in the Senate Armed Services committee report, and from Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell. "This thing is just getting deeper and deeper," said Whitehouse, noting that if it were true, it would significantly bolster the case for prosecutions.

And MSNBC's Chris Matthews also picked up on the issue this evening, as did Ed Schultz of the same network.

Torture is wrong (and illegal, and counter to our national security interests) regardless of the Bush administration's motivations. But many -- in the media, on the Hill, etc. -- seem inclined to think doing the wrong thing for the right reason is somehow tolerable. Bush/Cheney was wrong to torture, the argument goes, but they were only trying to protect Americans from another terrorist attack.

Which is precisely why these revelations, if accurate, have the potential to be devastating. There was no "ticking time bomb," but there was a political agenda. Getting a detainee to offer evidence of a non-existent link wouldn't have furthered our security interests or saved American lives, but it would have made the Bush White House's sales pitch for an unnecessary war a lot easier.

Are the same torture apologists we've heard from lately willing to also accept "extracting false confessions" as a reasonable justification?

UPDATE: Even Maureen Dowd in getting into the act. Maybe the logjam is really starting to break apart, regardless of what the Obama administration does or does not want.

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

I used to agree with President Obama, that it was better to keep moving and focus on our myriad problems than wallow in the darkness of the past. But now I want a full accounting. I want to know every awful act committed in the name of self-defense and patriotism. Even if it only makes one ambitious congresswoman pay more attention in some future briefing about some future secret technique that is “uniquely” designed to protect us, it will be worth it.

Blogging, correctly done, takes the best equipment as well as a touch of inspiration.

Wow, they’re going to do it. The Republicans are actually going to do it.

No, they’re not going to change their positions on anything or actually acknowledge they have ever been wrong. I am referring to the fact that it appears as if the Republican National Committee is actually going to approve the resolution to rename the Democratic Party the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

From the Washington Monthly:

Notice, these clowns can't even get the grammar right. The "Democratic Socialist Party" would merely be moronic; the "Democrat Socialist Party" is both moronic and an insult to the English language.

Regardless, the effort is a breakthrough moment in political inanity. Members of the Republican National Committee are holding a special meeting so they can officially ask Democrats to change the name of their political party to something Republicans prefer. In fact, the resolution, which might as well have been written in crayon, concludes that the RNC is "calling on" the Democratic Party to embrace the GOP-endorsed name. It adds that Democrats "should agree" to the re-naming.

How can so many people be so oblivious? With all the problems this country faces, you might think the Republicans might want to spend some time actually trying to come up with some proposals to solve these problems. But no. They want to spend their time voting on a resolution to call Democrats names! And on top of that, they think the Democrats “should agree” with the new name given them by the RNC.

These people are truly morons. Personally, I think we should all agree that all RNC members be named Flounder.

Madam Speaker, I... Gosh, your hair smells wonderful!

As Republicans opt out of the political process, policy debates are now occurring WITHIN the Democratic Party.

I find this fascinating. At least from the ivory tower, “this is really how it should work” perspective, you would think policy debates in Congress would be between Republicans and Democrats. After all, there are very different points of views on the opposite sides of the political spectrum. Debating those differences seems more than logical. However, it seems as if the entire Republican Party has just mailed it in. They have opted out of the process. They are no longer just the party of the loyal opposition. No, they have decided the best way to maintain their political purity is to vote a resounding NO to anything proposed by the Democrats. And God help those who don’t toe the party line. Arlen Specter decided to switch parties after it became apparent to him that he wasn’t pure enough for the party ideologues. When Olympia Snowe wrote an Op Ed in the NYTimes that essentially said she was worried that moderates were no longer welcome in the Republican Party, the overwhelming reaction was “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” Anyone who criticizes the GOP or Rush Limbaugh is no longer welcome, not unless they do a bit of groveling first. Dick Cheney says that he thought that Colin Powell wasn’t a Republican anymore. And it goes on and on. What Olympia Snowe said is really true, moderates and ANYONE who doesn’t toe the Republican Party/ultra Conservative/born again Christian line is really not welcome in the Republican Party. End of discussion.

What the Republican Party has essentially done is to throw in the towel on any meaningful debate about policy. There are very valid reasons to disagree with any sort of proposal these days, and the amount of money being tossed about is truly astounding. There really should be debates on how best to rescue this country from the myriad of problems we all face. But the Republican Party would rather gnash their teeth and rend their garments about anything and everything these days. They have absolutely no idea about how to govern. The only thing they really know how to do is vilify “the enemy.” Now that now longer seems to be as effective as it once was, they have absolutely no idea how to respond, other than to crank up the volume on the same old message that is no longer working.

In a fascinating turn of events, it seems that the political debates that should be going on are happening within the Democratic Party itself. The “progressives” and the “moderates” (also known as Blue Dog Democrats) of the Democratic Party are really not happy with each other at times on some very important issues. For example, here is a little tidbit from the NYTimes about the debate on the Democrats attempt to fix our broken healthcare system.

WASHINGTON — Forty-five House Democrats in the party’s moderate-to-conservative wing have protested the secretive process by which party leaders in their chamber are developing legislation to remake the health care system.

The lawmakers, members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, said they were “increasingly troubled” by their exclusion from the bill-writing process.

They expressed their concerns in a letter delivered Monday to three House committee chairmen writing the bill, which House leaders hope to pass this summer.

Representative Mike Ross, an Arkansas Democrat who is chairman of the coalition’s health task force, said: “We don’t need a select group of members of Congress or staff members writing this legislation. We don’t want a briefing on the bill after it’s written. We want to help write it.”

Mr. Ross and eight other lawmakers who signed the letter are on the committees responsible for writing the legislation.

Centrist Democrats said they fully endorsed President Obama’s goal of guaranteeing access to health insurance and health care for all. But, they said, they are concerned about the cost of the legislation, which could easily top $1 trillion over 10 years. And they want to be sure that the role of any new government-sponsored insurance program, expected to be a centerpiece of the bill, is carefully delineated.

Personally, I would love to see a single payer system (that is, the government administer our healthcare system), but that’s just me. I readily acknowledge that there are many potential pitfalls with that. Others prefer alternative methods. That’s great. We need to have that debate. What we really need to do is fix the problem! It isn’t easy and there isn’t likely to be a consensus on the issue without lots and lots of work and many concessions by both sides. And that process looks like it is starting to occur.

I just find it amazing and more than a little amusing that the Republicans have taken themselves out of the game. Political purity is more important to them than actually, say, winning future elections or addressing the country’s problems in a manner that is acceptable to them. They would rather just sit on the sidelines, holding their breath in a very manly attempt at turning blue, hoping that someone will eventually notice them.

As the current saying goes, “Good luck with that.”

You ever had one of those dreams...?

You know the one I am talking about. The one where you are in college and you realize you are WAY behind and there's no way you are going to catch up, and you are going to fail miserably. And there's always one or two smart a**es who are quite willing to tell you how easy it all is and there's no problem at all. That one. I just had one of those last night.

I am 54 years old, have two degrees, have been published internationally, regularly speak in front of quite knowledgable people and I am STILL having stupid dreams like that. Jeez.

In addition to Texas Republicans, Georgia Republicans now think that secession is a pretty good idea.

"Oh, my God. President Obama didn’t mean that I was going to the Republic of Georgia. He meant Georgia! I am going to Atlanta! As if dealing with Hamid Karzi isn't enough, I have to talk to those idiots as well?”



I must admit, those feisty folks in the Georgia state senate have gone WAY past just a veiled threat. No, the Georgia senate just voted 43 to 1 (let me repeat, 43 to 1) a resolution that… does something. From The New Yorker, here is a bit of a description of the lunacy.

The resolution is written in a mock eighteenth-century style, ornate and pompous. Just two of its twenty sentences account for more than 1,200 of its 2,200 words. But the substance is even nuttier than the style.

It begins by saying that what it sneeringly calls “a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States” limits the “General Government” only to specifically named powers, such as punishing piracy and counterfeiting, and that “each party” to the “compact,” i.e., each state, is the final judge of whether the “General Government” has overstepped its very tight bounds. Among other rights, the states “retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom.” (There’s a lovely phrase: “the licentiousness of speech and of the press.”) If I’m reading the resolution’s convoluted language correctly, it also asserts that the states have a right to suppress “libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion” without interference from “federal tribunals.”

The kicker:

That should any such act of Congress become law or Executive Order or Judicial Order be put into force, all powers previously delegated to the United States of America by the Constitution for the United States shall revert to the several States individually. Any future government of the United States of America shall require ratification of three quarters of the States seeking to form a government of the United States of America and shall not be binding upon any State not seeking to form such a government.

Italics mine. If Congress were to reinstate the assault rifle ban (admittedly an unlikely prospect), there would be no more United States of America.

To repeat: this was passed by the stalwart patriots of the Georgia state senate by a vote of forty-three to one. According to Beutler, the South Dakota house passed a similar resolution, 51-18, and an Oklahoma version passed that state’s house, 83-13, and its state senate, 25-17. Oklahoma’s Democratic governor, Brad Henry, vetoed it, noting dryly in his veto message that it “does not serve the state or its citizens in any positive manner.”

Are we going to have to fight the goddamn Civil War all over again just because the country elected someone that the Republicans in the ex-Confederacy don’t like? And yet, somehow, criticizing President Bush and his rush to invade a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 was somehow treasonous?

Republicans are really insane these days. I mean it. Absolutely frickin’ insane. And these people are the elected officials of the state. What is going through the minds of the rest of the denizens (I now refuse to call them citizens) of these states? Yeah, I would like to see all these people start squealing when they realize what kinds of things they would lose if their state were no longer part of the United States of America.

UPDATE: It occurred to me that these people are not really serious, but are just in the process of thumping their shoes on the table, a la Kruschev, just to get people to pay attention to them because they know that the Republican party is no longer the dominant party in the U.S. "Pay attention to me or else I'll hold my breath 'till my face turns blue!!" Maybe... Tantrums seem to fit with the Republican mindset these days. But I am more than willing to be that many of these people are completely serious. You know, when liberals were upset with how things were going under Bush, I never once heard this kind of talk. I heard plenty of talk about moving to Canada, but never breaking up the Union because certain people didn't like how our President was running the country. Let's just hope that we don't see another John Wilkes Boothe pop out of the shadows of all this anger and hatred and into the limelight.

UPDATE II: It turns out that Hilzoy at Washington Monthly has thought about this development out of Georgia as well. Gosh, it turns out that the Georgia State Senate is not only totally out to lunch, they are a bunch of pliagerists as well! At least they used a very well informed source for their pliagerism, but using Thomas Jefferson to come up with language supporting the supposed rights for states to just ignore any laws they don't like and to remove themselves from the Union at their pleasure seems more than comically ironic.

Stop the presses! I think I have discovered the source of the swine flu!!

Photo from Whiskey Fire.

Wait a second! The GOP wants advice from Dana Perio!?!

From Talking Points Memo:
GOP Turns To Former Bush Aides For Communications Advice

The Politico reports that the House GOP conference is bringing in three former Bush advisers -- former Bush press secretary Dana Perino, former deputy press secretary Tony Fratto, and former Bush counselor Ed Gillespie -- to give advice to House GOP press secretaries at this Friday's annual workshop. "We are battle-tested," said Perino.

HAHAHAHA!!!! This is the person who, as official spokesperson for the Bush administration, didn’t even know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was:

Appearing on National Public Radio's light-hearted quiz show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," which aired over the weekend, (Dana) Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and she didn't know what it was.

"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis," said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."

So she consulted her best source. "I came home and I asked my husband," she recalled. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.' "

“It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I am pretty sure.” Yathink? Jeez. Well, if the GOP is going to be asking this person for her advice, I would guess the Democratic party is sitting much more prettily that I ever would have imagined.

I wonder what else Ms. Perino doesn't know much about.

Shorter Michael Steele: “Everyone’s welcome in the Republican Party, as long as you believe in exactly the same things we do.”

Here’s Michael Steele, via Balloon Juice:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appealed to the political middle Friday to join his party but added that the party itself wouldn’t moderate.

“All you moderates out there, y’all come. I mean, that’s the message,” Steele said at a news conference. “The message of this party is this is a big table for everyone to have a seat. I have a place setting with your name on the front.

“Understand that when you come into someone’s house, you’re not looking to change it. You come in because that’s the place you want to be.”

So, let me use what I hope will be a highly illustrative example of what M. Steele is saying here. Say you and your significant other are in mind to go out for dinner some Saturday night, and you really have in mind that you would like a nice filet mignon accompanied by a nice red wine, in a restaurant with a nice atmosphere and friendly waiters. It’s your anniversary, after all, and you have had your fill of fast food over, say, the last eight years. So, here comes Michael Steele. He owns the local Taco Bell. He tells you that you can come on in, you really should, this is a great restaurant. You can’t imagine how wonderful it really is. Just don’t ask for filet mignon with red wine, because he doesn’t have it and he isn’t going to be pandering to any potential customers who might not want a taco full of melty processed cheesefood, so don’t even bother asking. He’s telling you that you REALLY want a taco! There are lots and lots of people who like tacos, and you should really be one of them. Screw that whole filet mignon thing.

Now, with much less snark and minus the Taco Bell analogy, here is Maha discussing the exact same issue.

In many ways, IMO, the Republican Party is acting like an apocalyptic cult — a small number of true believers waiting for some Big Cataclysmic Event that’s going to change everything, to their advantage. For that reason, present reality doesn’t interest them, because present reality is just a temporary aberration (which it may be, but not in the way they think). Thus, movement conservatives brush off opinion polls that show their positions to be wildly unpopular. They don’t need to worry about election losses, shrinking party membership, an aging political base, or senior senators who jump ship. They don’t need to change with the times. They’ll be vindicated when the Mother Ship arrives. You’ll see.

And they must truly believe in the Event, because they’re betting everything on it. In 2000 they still were shrewd enough to market Dubya as a moderate — a “compassionate conservative” who liked to be photographed surrounded by smiling black children. Now they aren’t even pretending to make adjustments to political reality.

Well said. I think I like my Taco Bell analogy better, tho.

GOPasaur from Daily Kos.

As Inigo Montoya said, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

In this case, I am talking about the term, “checks and balances.” All of a sudden, Republicans are worried about Democratic control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Gee, after all that time when Congress acted as a rubber stamp to George Bush, and NOW they are worried. They handed Bush a blank check that allowed him to do pretty much anything he wanted to. Republicans at the time believed that it was their solemn duty to vote Yes on whatever Bush wanted. However, they really need to go buff up on the material they should have learned in their 8th grade civics class. “Checks and balances” is not talking about between political parties. It’s talking about between the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches of the federal government. And that’s regardless of which political party controls each of those branches, something the Republican party seems to have forgotten completely. It is impossible, it seems, for Republicans to view any issue outside the prism of "Us vs. Them."

Duh.

Random thoughts and observations about traveling by air.

- The people who run airports seem to be under the impression that every single person waiting for an airplane must be able to see and/or listen to CNN, usually at a very high volume. They do not seem to think that a “quiet space” might be necessary. As a result, during my trip, I was continually “informed”, at each and every stage of my journey, about the swine flu (OMG, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!) and Miss California’s breast implants.

- The 757-300 is a very long airplane. Let me repeat, very long. In fact, it is the longest single aisle airplane in commercial service. If you are, perchance, sitting in the very last row, it takes an exceedingly long time to exit the airplane. Let me repeat, an EXCEEDINGLY long time. On the other hand, there is a good chance you might have an empty seat next to you, even on a full airplane, as it appears that no one really likes sitting there.

- Tall, overweight, doughy looking white guys, no matter how passionate they might be about the college athletic teams they are supporting, are not very fashionable in the best of circumstances but certainly not when decked out in their college sports apparal. In fact, they look pretty damn stupid. Vivid displays of college affiliations may work really well at, say, an actual football or basketball game, but they do not work when out in the general public. Really garish colors, say orange and purple, make the entire presentation almost unbearable. Under no circumstances should doughy white guys ever wear college sports apparel.

- It is a useless task to try to listen to classical music on an airplane. Almost every aspect of a symphony orchestra is drowned out by the “white noise” (really damn loud white noise) associated with an airplane in flight. You cannot hear anything done at a subdued volume or low frequency, including most everything done by the string section, the bassoons, the oboes, etc. On the other hand, you really get to hear certain aspects of the music done by instruments like the timpani, the brass section, etc. I imagine a good classical selection for airplane travel might be the 1812 Overture.

- There will always be a certain type of person who sits somewhere in your near vicinity. This type of person has the unfortunate ability to talk about anything and everything, in great detail and at a loud volume. It doesn’t really matter to them whether or not they have an attentive audience or not. The presence of a someone not asleep is enough for them to share their wisdom and observations with everyone else. Sort of like a blog, but without the selective audience.

- Every time I fly coach instead of first class (which is always), I am reminded that all the people in steerage on the Titanic were the ones that didn’t get in the lifeboats and subsequently drowned. Not that I am ever expecting an airplane crash into the water where life rafts are necessary (but given what happened in NYC last month, the chances appear to be greater than zero), but I just find the existence of first class passengers, along with their “first class only” restrooms and dedicated line to get on the airplane, annoying. I don’t mind that many people and companies have the money to spend on first class tickets. I just think that if I am stuck in steerage… I mean coach, that everyone should have to sit there as well.

Picture from RR Picture Archives.