If trying to promote outrage by taking President Obama’s quotes out of context is Mitt’s main weapon in this campaign, then he has got absolutely nothing.

I find this utterly preposterous and very frightening at the same time.  It is beyond my comprehension to think that Mitt and his team truly believe that continually taking President Obama out of context and making political commercials using those out of context clips is a winning strategy.  But what frightens me is that this tactic might actually be working.  Mitt is counting on never being asked to explain this, that Fox News will always have his back, and that if some reporter does find a way to ask about this ridiculous approach, Mitt will just ignore the question or else pretend that this is a perfectly valid tactic.  “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, my friend.”  As if that explains anything.

I was going to write a post about this subject today, but of course, someone much higher in the food chain who writes much more thorough and succinct posts that I beat me to the punch.  From Crooks and Liars:

As we discussed last week, at this point in the race, Republicans aren't just occasionally taking Obama quotes out of context; they're actually building their entire 2012 campaign strategy around sentiments the president didn't actually say. I've honestly never seen anything like it.Let's start a running count:

1. The Romney campaign took Obama out of context in its very first television ad of the race. 

2. When the president told business leaders that U.S. policymakers have been "a little bit lazy" when it comes to attracting businesses to American soil, Republicans took that out of context and launched a series of attacks.

3. When Obama said private-sector job growth is "fine" relative to the public sector, Republicans took that out of context, 

4. Obama said public institutions help businesses succeed, and Republicans continue to take that out of context.

And 5. Obama said Clinton's tax policies were better than Bush's, which the RNC is taking out of context.

Remember, in theory, none of this should be necessary. If the president were the radical leftist his attackers make him out to be, Republicans wouldn't have to resort to cheap garbage like this. They'd be able to use real Obama quotes and real Obama policies.Instead, we're left with ridiculous tactics that treat voters like idiots.

It’s a great read.  Go look at the entire thing, including clicking through the links.

Again, in normal times, I should think that a major campaign tactic like this would be laughed out of the court of public opinion and ridiculed in every major news outlet in the country.  Just think if John Kerry or Al Gore had tried something like this. 

But these are not normal times.  Nope, they are not. 

First of all, a vast majority of the voting population has already made up their minds about how to vote.  On the right, we have people who are willing to believe anything at all about President Obama, Democrats, and liberals in general as long as it reinforces their preconceived notions that are already carved out of bedrock.   Obama is a Muslim socialist who hates America and is just itching to take people’s guns away.  Democrats are evil and want to give MY hard earned tax money to blah people.  They will absolutely love this kind of attack.  They will just lap it up.  “Look!  This validates everything I believe about Obama!”  This is the same bunch of people who believe that a top advisor to Secretary Hillary Clinton is a covert agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.  It seems as if no one in the right mind would believe something like that, but it is treated like gold by 30% of this country.

I just do not understand how this can happen.  How could we, as a nation, be that stupid, so unwilling to see the actual truth behind some terribly, terribly obvious lies? 

And what’s doubly amazing about this is that Romney apparently lies every time he opens his mouth, or else he goes and insults most of England the day before the opening of their Olympic Games for which they have been preparing for seven years.

What has happened to logic and reason in this country?  Or even fair play?  I understand that politics is a bloody knuckle kind of affair, but isn’t continually taking your opponent out of context every week, especially when it is completely obvious what President Obama was saying when you look at the entire clip, pretty much out of bounds if for no other reason than respect for basic dignity (including your own)?  This has moved way past normal propaganda and fear mongering (e.g., the Daisy ad from the Lyndon Johnson campaign) into uncharted waters. 

I want to know when conservatives will move on from taking complete sentences out of context and just splicing together words that would make Obama sound completely unhinged. 

But what is absolutely the killer for me here is that George Romney provides ample ammunition for attack ads against him almost on a daily basis, without any need for deceptive editing whatsoever.  The man is a walking gaff machine.  Oh, he certainly comes off as more sophisticated and polished than someone like Dan Quayle (p-o-t-a-t-o-e), but what comes out of his mouth is just about as nonsensical. 

And all of this is going on before the political conventions.  The next four months are going to be hell.  I am not sure how a rational, thinking human being is going to make it out of this unscathed.  

What does and does not upset Conservatives in America today.

Here’s what Conservatives find outrageous these days.

So at an Obama fundraiser headlined by the First Lady, Robert DeNiro tossed out a moderately funny joke:

“Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?” De Niro asked to cheers from the crowd. “Too soon, right?”

Yes, it was a joke, you see, because in 2008, a lot of people asked if America was ready for a black president. We’ve had 43 white presidents, and 42 white first ladies, you see, and we don’t tend to think of them as belonging to any race. It’s a reminder of selective race-consciousness. I’m typing this v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y because some people don’t seem to get it.

Among the non-getters is Newt Gingrich, who has gone nuclear over the joke, and even tried to compare it to Rush Limbaugh’s sliming of Sandra Fluke:

“I do want to say one thing, both on behalf of my wife and on behalf of Karen Santorum and on behalf of Ann Romney — I think that Robert DeNiro’s wrong,” Gingrich said. “I think the country is ready for a new first lady, and he doesn’t have to describe it in racial terms.”

Gingrich went on to demand that President Obama apologize for the comments.

“What DeNiro said last night was inexcusable, and the president should apologize for him,” Gingrich said. “It was at an Obama fundraiser, it is exactly wrong, it divides the country. If people on the left want to talk about talk show hosts, then everybody in the country should hold the president accountable when someone at his event says something that is as utterly and terribly unacceptable as what Robert DeNiro said.”

Inexcusable.... Yep, that certainly is Inexcusable. But Gingrich wants an apology anyway, from the President, who had nothing to do with the joke in the first place.

And here is something that apparently doesn’t bother Conservatives at all.

Just moments before Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, he was on his cellphone talking with a 16-year-old girl. For the first time, the girl is speaking out about the last, horrifying moments of Martin's life.

"He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man," the girl told ABC News. "I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run."

According to accounts gleaned from 911 audio recordings made the night of the killing and the teenage girl's statements, Martin eventually did run. But Zimmerman wasn't far behind, and soon the two would be face to face. Zimmerman, the self-appointed captain of the neighborhood watch, was armed with a 9mm pistol. Trayvon had little more than a bag of candy in his pocket.

"Trayvon said, 'What are you following me for?' and the man said, 'What are you doing here?' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the headset just fell. I called him again and he didn't answer the phone."

The line went dead, according to the girl's account.

"He knew he was being followed and tried to get away from the guy, and the guy still caught up with him," Tracey Martin, Trayvon's father, told ABC. "And that's the most disturbing part: He thought he had got away from the guy, and the guy back-tracked for him."

It’s apparently fine for a white guy with a gun and a history of calling the police every time he saw a “scary black person”, essentially stalk, initiate a confrontation, and then shoot a black 17 year old kid who was armed with nothing more than a box of skittles, and then claim “self-defense” and the laws of the state of Florida are perfectly fine with this. But lord, have some liberal make a joke that has some racial component, and everyone has a grand mal seizure. But killing an unarmed kid who was walking home from the local 7-11? That’s apparently fine and dandy.

I am so sick of these fucking assholes. And I feel so sorry for the family of Trayvon Martin….

I just don’t know how these racist cretins can live with themselves.

UPDATE: Read this, from BlackSnob, for an up close and personal perspective on this outright murder of a black kid. And much as this angers me, I could never really understand it from a black person's perspective. This will give you one. Highly recommended read.

Seatle Times and Seattle P-I have a much different take on Occupy Seattle.

This is how the lead story on the web version of the Times presents the story.

Occupy protest waning; just ask hot-dog vendor

Hum. If you are hoping that the "Occupy" movement really starts to coalesce and influence the political direction in this country, "waning" is not a word you really want to hear. Synonyms for that word include, "diminishing" and "shrinking." Not really good.

And this is how the lead story on the web version (which is, unfortunately, the only version of the P-I anymore) plays the same story.

Occupy Seattle Heats Up.

Wow. The movement is really heating up. Getting hotter, bigger. That’s quite a radical difference, isn’t it, about how two news organizations play the same story.?

Personally, I would go with the Times version, because, you know, who would have their fingers on the pulse of a grass roots movement that is going global than a seller of pork products who operates from a corner stand? If the view of a political movement by a hot dog seller isn't worthy of a front page story, I certainly don't know what is.

I suppose the P-I version might be talking about how one goes about heating up your hot dogs, but I rather doubt it.

Every once in a while, the Times runs a story that just tells you what their world view is.

This is an e-mail I wrote this morning to my local TV station about the FAA shutdown.

Why can't you say it's the Republicans who have partially shut down the FAA?

I saw your lead story on the 5:00 news last night (Aug. 3). All I gathered from it was that "Congress" couldn't come to an agreement on the FAA and that the lady you interviewed was upset with "Congress" for not doing its job. None of the Washington state politicians could tell you why this happened? Come on. A 30 second Google search would tell you exactly what is going on, and that it the House of Representative, under Republican control, inserted language into the FAA funding bill that would make it much more difficult for airline and railroad workers to unionize. That is not a secret! Plus, John MIca (R, Fl) admitted that he added language about defunding the rural airport program, mostly in Democratic states, just to "get people's attention." It was the Republicans who decided to use the FAA as a hostage to get what they want, after agitation by the CEO of Delta Airlines. The Democrats asked for a clean reauthorization bill, one that would fund the FAA without strings attached and Republicans refused. This is not a secret!

Are you afraid to say that it is the Republicans yet again who are throwing a wrench into government and are putting 10's of thousands of people out of work during a time of high unemployment? Why did you just incorrectly identify "Congress" as the bad guys here? That is so wrong, and I can't believe you can't get this right. This is one of the first times I have seen your news program lead off with a real hard news story, rather than the normal stuff involving sex or car crashes or house fires. You guys are really good at floods and snow. But come on. If you are going to try to cover a major news story like the FAA shutting down (for which I work, so I have a big stake in this), try to inform your viewing audience about what is REALLY behind it all. Otherwise, you are doing a great disservice to everyone and it looks like you are frightened of the truth. Even Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican Senator from Texas, said that the action by John Beohner's House was "not honorable", to send to the Senate a bill with riders like that that were not negotiated and that had such a drastic consequence. And then, it was the Republicans who decided to take their August break. Not Democrats. Not "Congress." Republicans.

I really, really expected better from you. Tell the truth, why don't you?

I wish I had said more, or in stronger terms, but I thought that this might be the maximum I could get away with and actually have someone read this. It won't help, of course. I would have thought that in a liberal place like Seattle, the TV and newspapers wouldn't be so unwilling to actually identify the culprits here. KOMO 4 TV, owned by Fisher Broadcasting. Anyone in the Puget Sound area, drop them a line if you don't like this hiding of the truth.

One thing I really wish I would have said is this. Republicans have voluntarily CHOSEN to govern by threats, intimidation, coercion and hostage taking. This is their new way of operating, and they are proud of it! John McConnell said as much after the debt deal was signed. This was so successful for them that they plan on doing it the next time! He admitted it, and was proud of it. So, if that is true, then why can't the press actually REPORT this? Why hide the fact, if Republicans themselves are patting themselves on the back?

Lest anyone forget in the midst of this discussion about the debt ceiling debacle, the FAA remains partially shut down.

Here’s the HuffPo version to get your started.

The Senate, with the federal debt crisis resolved, is expected to leave by the end of the week for its August recess. The House has already left. Unless the Senate accepts the House bill, lost revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes could exceed $1.2 billion before lawmakers return to work a month later, senators said.

The FAA's long-term operating authority expired in 2007. Since then, Congress has been unable to agree on a long-term funding plan. The agency has continued to operate under a series of 20 short-term extensions.

The latest extension expired at midnight on July 22 after Senate Democrats rejected a temporary extension bill passed by the House that contained the subsidy cuts. Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic extension that didn't include cuts.

The lost ticket tax revenue is costing the government an estimated $200 million a week. The FAA has furloughed nearly 4,000 employees and issued stop-work orders on more than 200 construction projects.

Air traffic controllers have remained on the job. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has vowed that safety won't be compromised and travelers won't be inconvenienced.
...

Three times in the last 10 days, senators' efforts to pass a bill to end the shutdown without making air service subsidy cuts have been blocked by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Each time, Hatch has focused his remarks on the labor provision.

"I've been asked by our leadership to make these objections," Hatch explained Monday night. "What is important here – and it's not some itty-bitty little thing – is that you have labor regulators out of control."

To end the shutdown, he said, the Senate must agree to the House's labor provision. Then, the shutdown "would be solved in a nanosecond," he said.

The labor provision would overturn a National Mediation Board rule approved last year that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Under the old rule, workers who didn't vote were treated as "no" votes.

Republicans complain that the new rule reverses 75 years of precedent to favor labor unions. Democrats and union officials say the change puts airline and railroad elections under the same democratic rules required for unionizing all other companies.

The White House warned in March that President Barack Obama would veto an FAA bill containing the labor provision.

So, I will recap a couple of important points here.

• The FAA has been operating without a full authorization budget since 2007. They have been operating on a series of extensions that are good for some period of time, a year or less. This is because the Republicans won’t sign a full reauthorization bill until they get everything they want. (Sound familiar?)

• Now, the Republicans won’t even sign a short-term extension of the FAA’s budget without including several provisions that the Democrats really, really don’t like. (Sound familiar?)

• The one provision included by the Republicans that most people are talking about has to do with government support of rural airports designated as important but don’t earn enough money on their own. However, the big kicker is the one discussed above regarding changes to election laws. The Republicans want to make it much, much more difficult for railroad and aviation employees to unionize. The Democrats really can’t accept that, but the FAA is being held hostage until the Dems capitulate. (Sound familiar?)

• Without an operation budget, the FAA cannot collect fees from airlines and airports to the tune of about $200 million a week. All the people in the FAA who get their salary paid from this pot of money have been furloughed. All the contractors and subcontractors throughout the country who depend on getting paid by the FAA for work done on airports and other safety related projects are also out of work.

• After their hard work on getting almost total surrender from the Democrats during the debt ceiling debate, the Republicans in the House have decided to adjourn for the summer until sometime in August without giving the FAA an operating budget. Which means this mess we have now is going to continue for at least two more months.

I find this absolutely unconscionable. During a time of very high unemployment and also during a time when the Republican Party has declared that the federal debt was THE absolute most important thing that must be addressed, they are holding the FAA hostage until their demands are met. They are creating very real safety concerns, all because they do not like unions. The money that would fund the rural airports would have been able to be paid out of the missing revenue in a week!

There is one thing that I don’t think has really been emphasized in the media yet about this issue. There are about 4000 FAA employees on furlough right now. There are a small number of employees within that 4000 that are critical to the safety of the flying public. They travel extensively, going around to airports around the country and inspecting the facilities and supporting infrastructure, such as the transmitters for the Instrument Landing Systems. These are critical functions. These people have been asked by the FAA Administrator to continue working, without pay, and to put all their travel expenses on the credit cards, which are in their own names. The FAA employees get the bill, the FAA doesn’t. These people are dedicated enough to continue with their jobs, even though our totally screwed up government has decided that the FAA can be used as just one more hostage in their new way of “governing.”

The Republicans don’t care about unemployment. They apparently don’t care they are creating the potential for a very real safety issue. This isn’t democracy. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t democracy.

I also know that when there is another commercial aviation accident or serious incident in this country, there will continue to be calls for the FAA to be more involved, that we aren’t providing enough oversight of the industry, and that we are too “cozy” with the industry we are regulating. There may be some validity in some of those arguments, but I think the despicable actions by the Republicans and by John Mica in particular have undercut any criticisms that they and the people who support them could point our way. They are saying that the safety of the commercial aviation system in this country is NOT a priority. Making it more difficult for some industry workers to unionize is much more important than aviation safety.

I don’t know what those people who are continuing to work without pay and who are putting their travel expenses (which are significant) on credit cards with their personal names on them will do if this continues.

Update: Here's more from Washington Monthly and Crooks and Liars.

Just to remind everyone which party caused this "debt crisis" in the first place.

And that is why it is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE to cut Social Security and Medicare, but not important enough to actually raise any taxes or cut defense spending.

I swear, I may never vote in another political election in my life.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Giving in to defeatism. Letting the bad guys wins. Go down swinging, and all that other rot. Not that I don't believe that there is a large amount of truth in each of those statements, or that I would encourage anyone I talk with to do the same. It's just me, on a personal level. I pretty much have lost faith in a democratic government where one half apparently is insane and their overall driving force is to destroy the other half. I can live with differences of opinion on how government should operate and differing points of view on policy issues. But I can't deal with a government that is being driven more and more to the right by a MINORITY of people who don't seem to have a clue about what governing actually means. And unlimited money coming in from undisclosed corporations, many probably foreign, just has so poisoned this form of government that very little will happen that will truly be for the good of the everyday citizen. It's all about how the rich and powerful get more rich and powerful. It's a rigged game, so why bother? That is the emotional state I am in right now.

Like many other Americans, I had just great hopes when Barack Obama was elected president. That was incredible feeling. I truly believed him when he was saying "Yes, we can." But that has turned out to be yet one more hollow campaign slogan, and President Obama has turned out to be a major disappointment. Whether this is because he truly believes in all the actions he is taking or whether he is just turning into a center-right politician because he so strongly desires to be seen as the "adult in the room," I don't know. He just never seems to catch on that negotiating with lunatics who really WANT to kill the hostage and get everything they want as well, which includes making Obama look bad on every single occasion, no matter how large or how insignificant it might be, DOES NOT WORK. All we ever seem to get is "political creep," where the country seems to start in one place and then is slowly dragged and coerced to the right, and we don't even seem to realize it's happening. Eight months ago, who would have thought we would have been looking at major changes to our social safety net to try to satisfy lunatics who think that the country defaulting on its financial obligations is a good thing? Yet, we all seem to have accepted that premise now, because the only thing that seems to matter at this point is to raise the debt ceiling, so worse things don't happen. And this is just what the extreme right wing of the Republican Party planned all the time. And we went for it.

Whatever Obama's driving motivations, we are now going to end up with a disastrous bill that will make major changes to Social Security and Medicare, neither of which add to the deficit, as well as make huge cuts in spending during a huge recession when we are getting close to 10% unemployment, and the Democrats are getting almost zero in return. There will be nothing in this final agreement, whatever it ends up looking like, that one could point to and say, "Look, that is a very progressive piece of legislation." No, it will all be big steaming piles of attempts at appeasing the radical right that really, really doesn't want to negotiate, even if negotiation were to give them 100% of what they want. The fact that they negotiated in the first place would be a major defeat for them, which is insane. That cannot continue if this country is to survive.

I don't know where this is all going to end and where the country will be when the Tea Party, a full 30% of the voting population of this country, gets its way. But I do know I probably won't recognize this country. At an emotional level, all I feel I can do at this point is to position myself as best I can, which luckily isn't that bad. I have a pretty good government job that will be there when I need it, unless the Tea Party decides that the FAA should be killed entirely, along with the EPA and all other government agencies that provide oversight and regulation of industry. I am not going to be rich in retirement, but it's beginning to appear that I'll do OK.

But actively trying to fight against this insanity that's gripped this country? And that's what it is, insanity.... I don't feel I can cope. My state votes exclusively by mail, so it's pretty easy for me to actually vote, so I might just throw it out there anyway. But really, enthusiasm about re-electing President Obama? Nope, my heart's not in it.

What do you want to bet....?

If the U.S. government defaults on its payments and, as a result, Social Security checks do not get mailed out, the Republicans will try to blame Obama?

OK, that's not much of a wager. That is pretty much a given.

Republicans in Wisconsin have decided to attempt to grab the state government in a way that means, if successful, they will never have to let it go.

(The following information comes from the May 20, 2001 edition of the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. I can't give you a link, as her website launches right into the video without providing a link to the story. If you are interested, click the link below about the voter fraud bill moving ahead.)

I think anyone who cares about what is going on in American politics right now is probably aware of what is happening in Wisconsin. The governor there, once elected, declared war on public unions. The legislature there pulled some fast ones and pushed the laws through, even though the Democrats tried everything, including leaving the state, in order to stop the Republicans. All of this was supposed to be because of the grave “financial crisis” the state found itself in. Of course, the crisis was not so grave that the governor couldn’t afford millions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the upper 2%. This is all very much in line with what Republicans are doing all over the country, of course.

The latest effort by the Republicans in Wisconsin is to pass laws, which they have done, that make voting a LOT more difficult that it had been. Photo I.D. will now be required at polling stations, even though that had never been a requirement in the past. You might think that might not be that bad. But apparently, it must be a very specific kind of photo I.D. Students are allowed to vote, but the I.D. offered by every single public college and university in the state does not meet these new standards. Retirees will probably not have these I.D.’s If someone is going to vote by mailing in their ballots, they will have to include a photo copy of their I.D. (which makes no sense to me, given that the person will not actually be present for anyone to check their face against the picture on the I.D.). There are a lot of other restrictions, of course. The estimate that Rachel gave was that this affects around 20% of the voting population of the state. It will cost the state millions of dollars to implement and millions of dollars each time there is an election, at a time where the state supposedly is in the grasp of that “financial crisis” we heard tell about. And all of this is to combat a problem, “voter fraud” that absolutely no one can prove is really a problem.

Take a guess as to which political party that the elderly, students, new voters, and those of ethnic heritage usually vote for? That’s right. Correct. Democrats. THAT is what is behind this. It is not about “voter fraud.” It is not about anything other than an absolute power grab. They know that their attempts to crush unions is not popular with the voters and that there is now a special recall election scheduled for, I believe, something like six Republicans who voted for that bill. Republicans know that the public is not happy with their agenda, especially since they didn’t mention ANY of this in their campaigns. That was all about jobs and bashing Democrats for how bad the economy is. So where did this come from? Many in Wisconsin, right now, are having severe cases of buyer’s remorse. They didn’t vote for this kind of crap, they didn’t see it coming. I don’t blame them for being upset. I do blame them for not looking into the matter of the Republican agenda, both stated and unstated, before casting their votes.

Look at what other headlines there are about Republicans and Wisconsin right now.

Wisconsin governor threatens to call National Guard on state workers (Somewhat old now, but still gives you an idea of how Gov. Walker operates.)

Bill would extend bargaining restrictions to police, firefighters

Walker gives himself more power to fill high state jobs

Assembly votes to give Walker veto over administrative rules

Wis. Secretary of State duties stripped (Who was the last Democrat in the state holding a high office, of course.)

Amid rancor, voter-ID bill moves to Senate

So, do Republicans start changing how they vote and back off on this attack on institutions that have been around for decades to be more in line with what Wisconsinites really would like? No, of course not! That is not how the current Republican Party does things! They have their agenda and they are going to stick to it. It doesn’t matter what everyone else wants. They want to destroy all the social programs and everything else that government currently does that they don’t like. And they will do this in any manner they can. It doesn’t matter if their actions are unethical, immoral and sometimes possibly illegal. The end justifies the means, in all cases. It doesn’t matter to them. They are so enamored of themselves at this point that they truly think they are superior to everyone else and they will crush all opposition. Rigging elections is just one of the tools in their toolbag. Yeah, so what if a lot of people are unhappy with how they govern? If those same people who aren’t happy also can’t vote, then that’s all to the good, right?

When I heard this story, I was just so disgusted. I have said this many times before on this blog. I really do not understand how these people live with themselves. What they are doing isn’t democracy. It isn’t freedom. Their actions are remarkably similar to other groups of people attempting to hijack government. I won’t mention any names, as then I would open myself up to criticisms about Godwin’s Law and other such “How dare you make that comparison!” self-righteous indignation.

This is what I was referring to in my last blog entry about being very fearful if these types of Republicans ever get total control over the government. They will never willingly let it go. Democracy, at that point, will be no more. Do you think that is hyperbole? I don’t. Just look at what is going on in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Florida. That is the future of the entire country if Republicans ever take control again. They already have the Supreme Court stacked, such that any appeals there will not be supported. We see how Republicans operate in both Congress and the White House. Put all of those different legs of government, the ones that are supposed to be the “checks and balances” against abuse of power by the others, under control of Republicans and you will get Wisconsin multiplied by about 10,000.

I know that many voters are not happy with Democrats and with President Obama. I am not terribly happy either about a number of things. I really thought President Obama would be able to change how things worked in Washington. Sure, Democrats have passed Healthcare Reform. It isn’t what progressives wanted and we all thought Dems kept caving to Republican demands that weren’t even made in good faith. But, even with its flaws, that piece of legislation is still quite an achievement. Democrats have been trying to do something along those lines since Truman. But there is a lot of stuff I am unhappy with. We did not close Gitmo. We refused to investigate the abuses of the Bush presidency. The rich and powerful are still quite in control. Dems aren’t standing up for unions, which are really the only organized support that the Democratic Party has these days.

I can see why people might not want to vote for Democrats. They seem spineless and are willing to let Republicans run over them without anything more than a weak, “Hey, that wasn’t nice!” But I will tell you something. If people are thinking that they will either not vote or vote for Republicans as some sort of symbolic gesture, don’t. Please don’t. Do not hand control of both the House and Senate to the Republicans. Do not give the White House to one of those idiots (with possibly the exception of John Huntsman) who make up the list of contenders. Don’t even vote Republicans for your local and state offices. Republicans do things differently once they are in office than what they said they were going to do on the campaign trail. I don’t care how nice they seem. Republicans lie. They will do anything to get their way. Go do some research into Wisconsin and you will see what the country will look like if that happens.

These people are monsters.

Update: Here's more detail from Parsley's Pics.

Aw, shucks. Donald Trump isn't running for president after all.

I mean, who could have seen THAT coming?

About 90% of me is very happy, as happy as I can muster for something involving politics in the United States these days. This guy is a fatuous gas bag with absolutely no sense of what a clown he has become. I hope his ratings for his "reality show" go in the tank as well. Good riddance. He was such as distraction, the media would amplify every single idiocy the guy uttered. We have better things to talk about. I used to be totally indifferent to the man but now, I detest looking at him. He owes President Obama, and the rest of the country, a big apology.

That remaining 10% of me is kind of sorry to see him leave. I would have loved to see him destroyed in an actual debate. Even some of the current Republicans running for office would have destroyed him. I always love seeing over-inflated egos punctured.

Rick Perry, like most conservatives, hates consistency if it gives him a chance to bash President Obama and the federal government.

So, you remember Rick Perry, who is the governor of Texas and not (supposedly) some nut job tea party type who firmly believes whatever gets handed to him by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh? You remember the time when he was making noises about Texas possibly seceding from the United States because he didn’t like how the federal government was getting too big or wouldn’t leave the states alone or some damn thing?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!"

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall -- one of three tea parties he was attending across the state -- that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government.... Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

That certainly sounds unequivocal, doesn’t it? No doubt about what he is saying there, is there? He just hates the federal government and wants it to leave the states totally alone.

Except when he doesn’t, of course. More from Washington Monthly (with an embedded link to Daily Kos.)

Now, however, Perry is whining that the "oppressive hand" isn't intervening in Texas enough.

As wildfires continue to do significant damage to the Lone Star State -- last weekend's state-sanctioned prayer days didn't do anything -- Perry wants increased federal assistance.

And when President Obama visited tornado-struck Alabama yesterday, this apparently made poor Rick Perry jealous.
"You have to ask, 'Why are you taking care of Alabama and other states?'" said Perry.

Texas officials asked the White House to make the declaration, which would have allocated federal funds to help the state deal with the crisis.

"I know our letter didn't get lost in the mail," Perry added.

Daily Kos' Jed Lewison sets the record straight.

So hundreds die in storms throughout the South and Rick Perry's response is to question why those states are getting federal aid instead of Texas? Funny how he doesn't mention that Texas has already gotten at least $39 million in firefighting aid from FEMA over the past two fire seasons and has already received 22 grants in this fire season alone.

I'm not even sure what Perry is insinuating when it comes to politics. Does the governor expect us to think Obama favors Alabama over Texas for some kind of political reason? The last time I checked, they're both very reliable "red" states.

But what makes the governor's complaints especially noteworthy is the larger context -- it's a reminder of how offensive Perry's anti-government rhetoric was in the first place. He hates federal intrusion, except when Democrats in Washington are helping him balance his budget. He wants to keep federal officials out of his state, except when he's facing a natural disaster.

For this guy's feelings to be hurt when the president visits another state hard hit by a devastating natural disaster is bizarre.

Ha. You know, I think that these morons don’t even try to keep track of what they say on a day to day basis. They just react to whatever is happening then and there, and they come up with whatever comes into their minds so they can try to bash President Obama and the Democrats. It really doesn’t matter to them that they are being ridiculous, really inconsistent and very, very hypocritical. It just doesn’t matter, so long as they can say something bad about their enemies.

Just why this is true is beyond me. If I were to be caught in some of the whoppers these characters have, I would slink away and not show my face in national media ever again. But then, I guess I have some sense of self-awareness. These buffoons don’t. What we really need in this country is an electorate and a national media who would punish people like this. They would get excoriated in the press, and they wouldn’t get votes during the next election cycle.

But getting back to Perry’s statement above, I find that amazing, even in the context of getting to bash President Obama. He is actually saying that he doesn’t like President Obama going to visit one of the states hit by the biggest natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina. He want’s Obama to come and visit TEXAS, because, as we all know, Texas is more important that any other state. If Obama doesn’t acknowledge that “fact”, well, there is obviously some problem here that needs to be addressed.

Donald Trump is a worthless, racist prick with an ego the size of Rhode Island.

Besides the devastating tornados in the south, the other huge story that happened in the last two days is, of course, President Obama releasing his “long form” birth certificate. You know, the one that Donald Trump and all the other “birthers” have been demanding. The one that isn’t the official birth certificate used by the state of Hawaii… The official one is the one that President Obama released last year sometime. It is actually illegal to make copies of this long form BC and the White House had to get a special dispensation from the state of Hawaii to release this long form BC that didn’t prove anything more than what the other one did.

Of course, Donald Trump pretended that everything about the subject that he had been spewing the last few weeks didn’t happen, such as his “investigators” finding out this incredible information that would shock everyone. No, once the President of the United States had demeaned himself by having to acknowledge this kind of crap, what does Trump do? Does he apologize? Does he show any sort of contrition? No, of COURSE not. He says he is “very proud of himself.” And then, he has the absolute gall to start questioning President Obama’s college credentials in a way that makes it very plain indeed that he feels Obama is still hiding something and shouldn’t ever have been allowed to run for president.

Here is part of a post at Crooks and Liars that captures a lot of my very hot feelings about this.

And obviously I reside in La La Land because yesterday, Birth Certificate Day, punched me in the mouth. I was stricken, paralyzed with rage.

To see laid bare the brazen racial hatred coursing through the blood of so many millions of people who also call themselves American, well it actually made me cry. I’d thought, in 2011, that we were better than that. We aren’t. We are still desperately sick. And it made me ashamed before all of those that we continue to torment.

…

But the nakedness of the hate disclosed by Trump and the birthers was stupefying. It floored me. I could not comprehend that at least half of GOP voters and who knows how many more were cheering him on, nodding their odious assent. I wanted to divorce myself from them, from this country that could harbor such repulsiveness on such a wide scale. And most of all, even if it’s meaningless and solely to make myself stop weeping for a second, I wanted to apologize to my fellow Americans whose pain I know I can never know.

I’m so sorry.

Because if this is how we treat a man as smart and gifted and dignified and accomplished as President Obama, imagine how we treat everyone else?

Abso-fucking-lutely. How dare that asshole say the things he does? I don't care how rich he is, he has no right to get on national TV and say those kinds of things about the elected President of the United States. Goddamn these people anyway. Who the hell do they think they are?

This country is very sick at the moment, and what makes it worse, most of us refuse to acknowledge that sickness. We prefer to blame everyone else. It’s the fault of everyone who isn’t white and conservative. It’s the gays. It’s the black people. It’s Hispanics. It’s Muslims. It’s liberals. It’s schoolteachers and union members! Everything that is wrong with this country is THEIR FAULT! How DARE a black man even THINK he should be president?!?

These fuckheads make me sick, as well as our entire society that enables such behavior.

So, about that voucher plan for Medicare, Senator Ryan....

Do I really understand that what the Republican plan to "balance the budget", which it does not in any sense of the word, replace the current Medicare system with a system where the government just hands out vouchers to the elderly so they can go buy their own insurance? That's the plan, is it?

I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind.

First off, I understand that the vouchers will only increase over time as a function of the inflation rate and NOT the rate of increase in the actual cost of healthcare. Would you care to address that?

No? I didn't think so. So, that would mean all the increases in the actual cost of healthcare, not including inflation, would be the responsibility of the recipients of these vouchers? Is that right? The ones who are on a fixed income and probably are having a difficult time making ends meet already? That's your big plan?

Then, how about this? What insurance companies out there, right now, do you think are going to take on a very large number of new people on their insurance rolls, and all of them are elderly and many of them probably already with chronic health problems? Hum? Did you even THINK of that, Senator Ryan? What happens to those vouchers if the elderly can't find any insurance companies to cover them? Do they need to give those vouchers back to the government? Can they use them to buy food and pay their electric bills instead? Did you consider that?

And what about all those additional healthcare costs that aren't covered by your insurance companies? We do all know about those, correct? Copayments for every single visit, which can run into some bucks if you see the doctor more than one or two times a month, which many people would need to. How about all those costs when you have some significant medical procedures done or end up staying in the hospital for a week? Do you expect those insurance companies to provide 100% coverage, on every single healthcare related item, so that the patients aren't responsible for a whole lot more new bills on top of their already large insurance payments?

Have you even HEARD of actuarial tables before, Senator Ryan? Do you understand how insurance companies make their money?

So, before you go out on national TV and make a fool of yourself by waving some printed up pamphlet, saying it is the cure for all the countries financial woes, you might try to learn a bit about the subject you are decimating.

As I continually say, I just do not understand how Republicans have any credibility left, on anything. Why does anyone believe what they say?

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how Republicans have any support from individual Americans anymore.

Every single thing that the Republican Party does these days is either to A) give massive amounts of power and money to individuals and corporations who already have money and power and B) propose to take away programs and benefits from the middle and lower class. Every single f*cking thing.

Increasing the tax rates on millionaires and billionaires is now apparently some sort of “Third Rail” in American politics (translation: Like the high voltage rail in a subway railroad track, touch it and you die). We cannot even begin to talk about closing tax loopholes for huge corporations, such that companies like GE and Boeing not only don’t have to pay income taxes, they actually get billions of dollars in rebates! And what kind of discussions are we having? Raising the retirement age. Doing away with the federally mandated minimum wage. Getting rid of Social Security, or else privatizing it so that these huge corporations can get their hands on all that money. Gutting public education and all sorts of public services for low income Americans. Getting rid of all unions, not just for public employees. You wait, it will happen.

How can the Republicans possibly keep selling themselves to the American public on being on their side and watching out for the concerns of everyday Americans? This is absolutely insane. During the healthcare debates of last year, what was one of the big anti-healthcare reform rallying cries we continually heard? “Keep your hands off my Medicare!” “Democrats are going to take away your Medicare!” And what does Paul Ryan’s proposed “budget” do? It does away with Medicare as we know it! It turns it into a voucher system that will go directly into the pockets of huge insurance corporations and medical providers!

How can this possibly happen? The Republicans in office must know they are full of crap. They cannot possibly believe they are doing all of this for “The American People.” They just cannot be either that stupid or unaware. Therefore, they must know they are lying through their teeth 90% of the time. I’m sorry, I don’t call people liars very often, but I just cannot see any other conclusion. And I certainly don’t see how the Republican supporters still believe that the Democrats are evil and are the ones that are, in their minds, trying to destroy the country. And how is the big media outlets not calling BS on all of this? Are Republicans so caught up in the prevailing Groupthink that they cannot see what is plainly in front of their collective noses? Is tribalism so rampant that they cannot imagine that “their side” is not the shining example of Truth and Righteousness that they have been told?

This is so crazy. I just don’t think anyone could have ever imagined something like this occurring.

Republican John Kyl, in response to getting caught telling untruths, replies, “It was not intended to be a factual statement.”

So, this is what it now comes to. These a**holes use blatant lies to rile up their core supporters and convince them that they are the righteous and the other side are no more than lowly scum. When they invariably get caught and called out on their lies, aren’t even trying anymore.

“It was not intended to be a factual statement.”

Holy Mother…. So, by saying you were lying, that makes it O.K. somehow?

Check out the full story at Washington Monthly.

Image stolen from Balloon Juice.

Sooo.... I am going to be furloughed because Republicans don't like Planned Parenthood and the EPA?

Do I have that right? And this is after I took a two year (or more, depending) pay freeze so I can help subsidize the extension of tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.

I am starting to get a little upset with the Republican Party. (That's an understatement...) Yeah, Democrats seem to be mostly spineless and won't stand up to hardly anyone without caving immediately. But Republicans, the ones you MIGHT think are sane, will not stand up to their wingnut Tea Party extremist wing. As a result of Republicans caving to the Tea Party, and then the Democrats usually caving to Republicans, we have the situation where the crazy 35% seems to be setting the direction for the entire country.

And it certainly isn't like we have any SERIOUS problems that need to be addressed...

UPDATE (Friday, 8:30 a.m. Pacific): Well, perhaps they are just down to talking about Planned Parenthood. That's an amazing thing to be THE fulcrum in whether to shut down the entire U.S. government or not.

I just had my talk with the boss about what might or might not happen next week. He was very insistent that, in the event of a shutdown, we should, under no circumstances, do anything related to our jobs. We could be subject to discipline... For doing our jobs... While not getting paid... But, really, when you get down to it, I don't think I will have a problem about not doing my job.

I am still expecting a last minute deal to happen. I think Boehner and some of the less-crazy Republicans know what might happen and who will be blamed if this indeed does go down. I actually think they have painted themselves into a corner with their crazy Tea Party base already. If the Republicans compromise, on ANYTHING, and avoid a shutdown (which many of the wingers really seem to want), then the base will be steaming mad. They already weren't that happy with Boehner. On the other hand, if the government gets shut down and some of these people all of a sudden find out they aren't getting their income tax refund as quickly as they would like or they aren't getting their Social Security checks, they are going to be upset. The Republicans will probably be blamed by everyone else for being such ridiculous ideologues to take everything to this level of crazy over Planned Parenthood (which, by the way, is already prohibited from using federal funds for abortions).

Crazy, crazy people.

UPDATE 2: I think it is unfortunate that I chose to focus this post, and the one just preceding this one, on how a government shutdown would affect me. That is actually the least of my concerns, although it is certainly not how it looks when you read the title of these posts. From a purely personal point of view, I am actually looking forward to some time off. I am not one of the unfortunate many who have to live from paycheck to paycheck. I can survive quite nicely. I am sure the same is not true for most everyone else who is going to be out of a job and/or paycheck next week, if something doesn't break lose here. If I were a military family and my wife or I were stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan, putting our butts on the line every day just because that what our "fearless leaders" say we have to do, and all of a sudden, we weren't getting PAID!?! I think I would be hopping mad about it. I just hope they put the blame for this fiasco in the correct place.

I apologize if this post appeared to be very self-centered.... Not my intent. The whole issue was just easier to talk about in those terms.

This confirms my beliefs that many Republicans believe they can and should do anything to destroy “the enemy.”

The enemy I am referring to, of course, is anyone who might be a Democrat, a liberal, a union member, a teacher… Anyone who doesn’t act and think exactly like them. That is who Republicans identify as their enemy, and they fully believe that the end justifies the means.

To support this not-that-farfetched hypothesis, I offer this little gem. This story is appearing in many places on the internet. Here is the Crooks and Liars version. It seems that some legal eagle in Wisconsin wrote to the governor to suggest that he actually fake some sort of physical attack on himself and make it look like the perp was some union supporter. Here’s what the letter said, in part.

“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said.
“Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.

Here the thing is in whole.


My, my. That certainly sounds above board and nothing at all to be embarrassed or ashamed about, right? All is fair in love and war?

Now, I am not going to suggest that every single Republican and conservative thinks like this. I fully believe that there are very ethical and moral people in this country who happen to have a very different vision than I do about how this country should be run. The problem here, however, is that there seems to be a very large number of Republicans out there that do NOT think like this. On the contrary, they appear to believe that anything that can be done to “win,” should be done. I think the 2000 election taught us that. That approach continues on to this day. Just think of the James O’Keefe selective video editing to take down targets conservatives don’t like, such as ACORN, Shirley Sherrod, Planned Parenthood, NPR… The only limitation they put upon themselves is this. Do not get caught. And even if you do get caught, you should never apologize, never back down. No matter how much dirt is on your hands when you get caught, remember this, it’s always the liberals fault!

I really would like to know how these kinds of people justify their actions to themselves. How do they sleep at night? How much different is this than, say, the old Soviet Union or some 3rd World Banana Republic? How can they possibly state, with a straight face, that they "love this country" and "love freedom and Democracy" and pull this kind of crap?

Wisconsin’s governor manufacturers a fiscal “crisis”, moves to crush unions and then threatens to call out the National Guard.

The brazenness of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is truly breathtaking. I suppose I have been so naïve that it seemed to me that people like this really don’t exist. No one can be this… Cruel? Cynical? Devious? All while in plain sight, in the garb of “respectability” that is normally afforded a sitting governor.

So, here’s the short version, for those of you who haven’t been following this, from HuffPo.

Enter Scott Walker. Newly-elected GOP governor of Wisconsin with GOP control of both houses, it is understandable that he didn't think he had to ask for permission. But this was way, way over the top, both in terms of procedure and substance.

In terms of procedure, it does not play well to announce a radical bill that will devastate long-standing promises of economic security and then allow only three days for debate before the final vote on ratification. Asked why he did not give the unions even an opportunity to negotiate, Walker's answer joins the litany of the greats along with Richard Daley, Sr., and Huey Long: "To those who say why didn't I negotiate on this? I don't have anything to negotiate with. We don't have anything to give. Like practically every other state in the country, we're broke. And it's time to pay up."

That position was slightly undercut by his insistence that the only alternative would be to lay off 6,000 state workers. It does not quite do to insist that there is nothing about which to negotiate and then to identify a point of negotiation in the very next sentence. All of that, of course, was right before he said that the National Guard is standing by to intervene if public employees try to strike.

In terms of substance, it is hard to know where to begin. Walker's "Repair the Budget" bill is primarily a union-busting measure, many of whose provisions have no fiscal consequences at all. The bill requires public employees to make contributions to pensions and the costs of health care, but union representatives insist that they have no objections to those provisions. They insist that what they care about is the curtailing of collective bargaining rights. But maybe they should read the bill again. Here's a particularly juicy bit:

"Wages would include only total base wages and would exclude any other compensation, including, but not limited to, overtime, premium pay, merit pay, performance pay, supplemental compensation, pay schedules, and automatic pay progressions [emphasis mine]."

In other words, the entire salary grid for teachers would be thrown out, and school districts would be free to define and implement new salary systems from scratch. That's in addition to giving the administration unprecedented authority to redefine Medicaid eligibility (but only downward), and enough other material to fill 144 pages.

OK, I guess that sets the picture. The governor decides that, because of this “fiscal emergency” where the state is absolutely broke, he will gut any and all unions. Sure, that follows. But, if that wasn’t bad enough, guess what? Walker pretty much manufactured the entire “crisis” himself in his first few days in office by giving tax cuts and other gifts to the people and organizations that helped him get elected. Via TPM.

Wisconsin's new Republican governor has framed his assault on public worker's collective bargaining rights as a needed measure of fiscal austerity during tough times.

The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.

"Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control," says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future -- a public interest think tank. "He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts... so he could rush through these other changes."

Got that? The state could have possibly ended up with a surplus this fiscal year if it WEREN’T FOR THE DIRECT ACTIONS OF THE GOVERNOR HIMSELF!!

And that’s the reason why unions need to be broken up, and the National Guard called out to deal with any striking workers.

I would like to know what all those Tea Partiers who voted for this criminal were thinking. How much worse do they think a Democrat would be in that office? This guy is gutting the future of most of the middle class who are unfortunate enough to work for the state. “Get the government off the throat of the people! And let’s bust all unions and take away all collective bargaining rights at the same time, O.K.?”

AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!

No, of course Sarah Palin “didn’t pull the trigger.”

I don’t know of anyone, even at the anonymous blog commenter level, has said that. No one has ever said that. Personally, I said something like Palin and the rest of the right wing “are culpable.” My dictionary says that means, “Responsible for wrong or error. To blame.” O.K., I accept that I maybe shouldn’t have used that word. I firmly believe the first part of that definition applies. In this case of the shooting of Congresswoman Gifford, they are indeed responsible for wrong or error. They carry some responsibility for bringing down the level of discourse in this country to the point that the whackjobs seem to think violence against people they disagree with is perfectly acceptable, even required. No, Palin, Beck, Rush, Fox News, etc. etc., are not directly to blame for her shooting. Obviously, the lunatic with a gun and some huge mental and emotional problems shot her and hold direct responsibility, for which he should receive the maximum penalty for his heinous crimes. No one has really ever said differently, even if the right-wingers want to parse words and meanings so they can attempt to look like the offended party here.

Here’s a bit of a post from Balloon Juice that is getting at the exact same point.

…the other (and I think more important) dodge that is going on is the attempt to pretend that everyone is blaming Palin and only Palin for the tragedy. It’s just nonsense. Yes, there was some lashing out at Sarah Palin over the crosshairs surveyor’s symbols, which is to be expected, but no one thinks that Sarah Palin is directly responsible for the murders. What is reasonable to discuss is a climate of hate and paranoid fear, fueled by lies and misinformation, that creates an environment in which lunatics like Loughner might be motivated to act out their revenge fantasies. For that, there is no doubt which party is responsible.

Exactly. This is just one more strawman set up to allow the right to assume their usual self-righteous posturing and totally avoid addressing the real issue at hand. What are they going to do about the venomous language that THEIR SIDE continually uses? Are they going to “tone it down” per Roger Ailes? Are they going to adopt a more thoughtful position that allows people to actually discuss issues, per President Obama? I sincerely doubt it. That would be wholly against their nature. That is what they do. As I noted previously, Glenn Beck refuses to acknowledge that he continually uses this kind of language, even though there is direct proof that someone can become so under the influence of Beck’s show that they want to go kill people.

This is really hopeless.

I am also rather upset by the current ongoing meme that somehow, criticism by the left (sometimes, yes, using very strong language) is somehow equally to blame for the degradation of the level of political discourse in this country. Quit making that ridiculous point! What, Democrats, liberals, progressives and people who just generally care about the state of our country are just supposed to sit down, shut up and take whatever lunatic ravings the right comes up with, because it would somehow degrade the level of political discourse if we complain about their lunatic ravings? What horseshit. If someone keeps whacking you with a two by four continually, even single day, are we supposed to sit there and take it because it might cause some people discomfort if we confronted the problem? Everyone has seen the movie, A Christmas Story, right? Did Ralphie cause problems because he finally got tired of the bully picking on him and his friends all the time? That was Ralphie’s fault? Or did he just get tired of getting shit from the bully, ever single day?

I know that hardly anyone reads this blog anymore. Most people come to look at the pictures… But don’t come to me as part of the problem. I am RESPONDING to the problem. Pointing out an issue is NOT the same thing as the issue itself. These two things are not equal. Quit pretending they are.

UPDATE: Good post at Washington Monthly about the Republican's "closed information system." This fits in nicely with what I was discussing above.

Glenn Beck is delusional.

He is delusion in either one of two ways. Either he doesn’t remember what he has said in the past or refuses to believe it, or else he doesn’t think anyone will notice when he contradicts himself.

Either way, this guy is a fruitcake. He shouldn’t be in charge of a car wash, much less have a nationally syndicated radio show and an hour long television show on a major “news” network.

So, here is innocent Glenn (via Crooks and Liars):

Beck: Well, I don't use it (violent rhetoric) on or off the air, so I guess I'm in compliance, Media Matters.

Annndddd, here is crazy Glenn, the one that the innocent Glenn refuses to remember (from Rising Hegemon):

BECK: Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus — band — Do, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, “Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,” and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realize, “Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.” And you know, well, I’m not sure.

Oh, gosh. Let me see. Is debating aloud choking Michael Moore to death violent rhetoric. Hmmmm…