A Monster for All Seasons

Scrub Stock - Pat Buchanan and the troglodyte brigade

2009-04-24T23:36:00.007-04:00

For those who don't know, troglodytes are another name for cave dwellers. It's an insult to be sure, but more than an insult it points to a dark view of reality constricted as if witnessed from the mouth of a narrow cave. That's Pat. You know Pat Buchanan, the same happy go lucky Nazi wannabe who penned:

"First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known."

He's almost topped himself by railing vehemently against the Obama administration for having the audacity to engage in talks with socialist like Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua who he claims is a 'scrub stock' a term with a long racist pedigree implying inferior heritage or stock. He thinks there's a special 'DNA' in Americans that allows them to be particularly vehemently paranoid, jingoistic and stupid in almost equal measure.

"It is this part of America that does not understand how the president could sit in Trinadad and listen to the scrub stock of hemisphere trash our country--and say nothing"

Now, he actually maybe right. Maybe there is a hind quarter of America, the denizens of trailer parks, the low rent back water bars, and, naturally, the brain dead conservative pundit or two that actually thinks listening to criticism about your nation is indefensible prima facie. Furthermore, it's likely that said grouping of people are probably on the low end of the bell curve and, if we were doing what Pat does--generalizing from prejudiced opinion and racist attitudes -- we might just say something like the low rent crackers that currently make up whatever remains of the Republican party are kibbitzing about Obama listening to another head of state because they are knuckle dragging cave dwellers. We needn't pay attention to them, because, from all apparent evidence they are nothing more than scrub stock.

Of course, I'm not a racist asshole, so I won't say that, but you get my drift.

In a just world, Pat would be turned into the equivalent of media dog food for his stupidity. But this isn't a just world. This is a world where 99% of the wealth is owned by 1% of the population and that population is old and probably as dunderheaded as Pat. That's why we still see his silly racist butt on prime time television when the old boy should have been shit canned along with the Jim Crowe laws we shit canned nearly a half a century ago.

Pat, sometime I'm going to spend more than five minutes thinking about your sorry ass confederate legacy. Trust me, it's not something you should look forward to.

~DelicateMonster

What Atrios Said

2009-04-24T19:00:00.000-04:00

Radicalizing

As Krugman says, the period leading up to the Iraq war was indeed a radicalizing experience. I think there were plenty of people like me who had a degree of faith in elite opinion, in the sensible people in nice suits, which I never will again.

And those people hate the dirty fucking hippies more than ever for the simple crime of being correct.

Team Work

2009-04-17T00:01:00.001-04:00

A Tea Bagging Hero

2009-04-16T12:54:00.000-04:00

I just love this guy, whoever he is...

A Libertarian Nation vs. A Socialist Nation

2009-04-14T22:00:00.004-04:00

or, to be this in the clarified light of day:

Somalia vs. Sweden

We've been told that the United States is on a path towards socialism, towards government control of everything, towards socialized medicine, higher taxes, and an enforced set of public moral or ethical standards which may offend some people's religious sensibilities.

There are countries like this. There are also countries quite the opposite.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the big event. In one corner, weighing in as the dreaded "European socialist", we have Sweden.

In the other corner, we have that land of absolute freedom and no taxes - Somalia.

In Sweden, between income taxes, consumption taxes, and other levies, you could end up with only 25 cents out of a dollar that you've earned.

In Somalia, whatever you make is yours.

In Sweden, health care is provided to every man, woman, and child. The care is of high quality, and while you can't just go in and demand a facelift any given day, you can choose a doctor and recieve good care quickly.

In Somalia, whatever health care you want, you can have, as long as you have the money.

In Sweden, the government has strict and complex laws regulating food and medicine. Dangerous foods are removed from the market, and food sellers must disclose what ingredients they use, and are subject to strict sanitary regulations.

In Somalia, nobody tells you what you can eat, what you can't, or what's good for you. Personal responsibility all the way - if you cared whether that meat was contaminated with E. Coli, you'd test it yourself.

In Sweden, roads are maintained by the government, clearly marked, and driving safety and courtesy laws are strictly enforced.

In Somalia, there are no taxes to build highways, no speed traps, and nobody is going to tell you how much you can drink before you drive. Personal responsibility.

In Sweden, taxes pay for local and national public safety, and all citizens are expected to participate.

In Somalia, you can pay for police if you want protection, or you can take money from those who don't pay enough for protection.

In Sweden, gasoline is expensive due to taxes. Financial incentives encourage people to drive small vehicles. Taxes fund a widespread and inexpensive public transporation system, though, so travel from one part of the country to another is fast and predictable.

In Somalia, you drive whatever you want. You can drive an 18-wheeler loaded with medical waste if you feel like it. So can your neighbor. There is no public transportation. You can pay someone to transport you, and you are free to determine whether they are competent, whether they are well-armed enough to protect you, and whether they actually deliver their passengers or simply kill them. Personal responsibility.

In Sweden, there is a large and well-funded primary and secondary education system. Education is compulsory, and every locality is expected to have schools that are safe, staffed with professional educators, and capable of graduating students prepared for a wide variety of careers.

In Somalia, if you want education, you can determine what you want, and pay someone to teach you or your children. There are no fixed cirruculum, and if you don't want your children being taught about evolution, christianity, chemistry, or math, that's entirely up to you. You'll have to negotiate the terms with whoever you choose, and enforce the agreement until completed.

In Sweden, employers treat employees as if they have a long-term interest in their financial, social, and physical well-being. If you expose your employees to danger, or hire and fire them arbitrarily to meet short-term business objectives, you will pay a steep price.

In Somalia, employees can negotiate any terms they like, as can employers. Those terms may be changed by either party at any moment, depending on who reaches their gun first.

In Sweden, there are strict limits on the ownership of firearms and their use. While the ownership rate of firearms is high, the number of deaths is very low.

In Somalia, you can buy whatever weapon you like. The person who wants your possessions may also buy any weapon he likes.

In Sweden, churches are treated widely as social and community organizations, allowing people to work together to solve local problems, help their neighbors, and find fellowship. Religious influence in government is very muted, but the Christian ethic of "love thy neighbor as thyself" is a core principle of government policy.

In Somalia, religious freedom is absolute. If your religion says you should kill someone, you can kill them. If someone drives by and finds you blasphemous, he can kill you. Of course, you can also kill them, if your religious conviction is such.

So, make your choice: Do you want to live in Somalia that great experiment in Libertarian philosophy? Or that crippled Socialist nation of Sweden?

Be careful, the answer is more important than you probably realize.

Who says print journalism is dead?

2009-04-10T21:03:00.002-04:00

from Sun Times

To: Bill O'Reilly
From: Roger Ebert

Dear Bill: Thanks for including the Chicago Sun-Times on your exclusive list of newspapers on your "Hall of Shame." To be in an O'Reilly Hall of Fame would be a cruel blow to any newspaper. It would place us in the favor of a man who turns red and starts screaming when anyone disagrees with him. My grade-school teacher, wise Sister Nathan, would have called in your parents and recommended counseling with Father Hogben [...]

I understand you believe one of the Sun-Times misdemeanors was dropping your syndicated column. My editor informs me that "very few" readers complained about the disappearance of your column, adding, "many more complained about Nancy." I know I did. That was the famous Ernie Bushmiller comic strip in which Sluggo explained that "wow" was "mom" spelled upside-down.

Your column ran in our paper while it was owned by the right-wing polemicists Conrad Black (Baron Black of Coldharbour) and David Radler. We dropped it to save a little money after they looted the paper of millions [...]

Bill, I am concerned that you have been losing touch with reality recently. Did you really say you are more powerful than any politician?

That reminds me of the famous story about Squeaky the Chicago Mouse. It seems that Squeaky was floating on his back along the Chicago River one day. Approaching the Michigan Avenue lift bridge, he called out: Raise the bridge! I have an erection!

The Paul Krugman Song!

2009-03-22T12:12:00.001-04:00

The most important thing you'll read tonight:

2009-03-21T23:14:00.002-04:00

From Jerome a Paris (Eurobtrib)

eithner & co are now saying that this is necessary to save the system - which is wholly untrue: what they are doing is trying to save those that bet against AIG (ie Goldman Sachs et al.), by honouring, wihout cause, AIG's commitments with taxpayer money. And what's more annoying is that they're not even talking about that - they're still talking about the toxic assets that banks supposedly hold, and that everybody sane in the financial markets has already discounted down to their true value, ie close to zero - the second-order problem in that mess.

Again: the bigger problem is not worthless assets, it's unlimited liabilities on all the financial bets that were made.

What is so depressing is that money is being thrown at banks in the guise of solving the asset problem, when it goes to not solving the liabilities problem (because it's so much bigger) - and that markets know that it's not solving anything (they have the liabilities on their books, and guess that others have the same).

What is depressing is that this money - staggering amounts of money - is being wasted when it could be used in ways that actually help the economy (hell, giving a $40,000 check to every living American would be a way smarter use of the same money).

What is so depressing is that the goal still seems to be to save banks when it should be to save the economy.

What is depressing is that people are again being steamrolled into "bailouts" - 5 years after being steamrolled into a war against mushroom clouds by essentially the same people - and the Serious People are still wrong, utterly wrong.

What is depressing is that it's happening despite a smart Democrat being president.

What is depressing is that each day that goes by makes the problem noticeably worse. More bailouts. More unemployment. More avoidable economic - and personal - pain. And that this pain has irreversible consequences - people dropping out, people unable to pay for healthcare, people losing their homes, families broken, etc...

What is most depressing is that the problems - and the solutions - have been on the internets for months, but are not listened to, let alone implemented.

What is depressing is that Serious People still see solutions (single payer healthcare, higher minimum wages, investment in infrastructure and smart energy, redistribution) as evil because they sound like Socialism or - gasp - solidarity.

KD Lang Covering Leonard - Just 'cause

2009-03-14T01:09:00.001-04:00

Pork, by any other name would smell as sweet

2009-03-05T23:12:00.006-05:00

So called conservatives, by which we mean FOX news and those seduced by the current FOX news propaganda efforts, have been screaming about fiscal irresponsibility and the horrors of having $9.2 million of the budget intended for "core public health functions" going toward contraception provided through public health clinics.

My God I am speechless.

9.2 million bucks for condoms.

But here's a little compare / contrast to put things in perspective...

9.2 million for preventing unwanted pregnancies AND....

What follows is a typical day last week. I've merely displayed it so you can scroll through it to get the scope of Defense Spending as it is passed out each and every day through mostly no-bid contracts. This is the Military Industrial Complex that you and your children are enslaved by.

This is just one day of dubious and often illegal spending.

An ordinary day of spending.

Spending that has scrolled your life and future away.

Scroll on:

Missile Defense Agency

$736 Million

The Computer Sciences Corp., Federal Sector of Falls Church, Va., is being awarded a cost plus award fee contract modification under contract HQ0006-03-C-0003 for $108,011,668. After award of this modification the cumulative contract value will be $736,989,348. The work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama. This sole source award is a modification to extend the existing contract through Jan. 2010. This is a bridge modification to provide continuity of support until the competitive award of the Missile Defense Agency Advisory and Engineering Support Services contracts. The amount obligated on this action is $40,129,330 using fiscal year 2009 Research, Development, Test and Evaluation funds. The Missile Defense Agency is the contracting activity (HQ0006-03-C-0003).

$175 Million

The Air Force is modifying a contract with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Sunnyvale, Calif., for $175,000,000. This action is to procure the congressionally mandated advance procurement of long-lead parts in FY08 and FY09 for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellite Vehicle four. At this time $104,450,000 has been obligated. MCSW/PK, El Segundo, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04701-02-C-0002 POO347).

$22.8 Million

The Air Force is modifying a contract with Jacobs Technology, Incorporated, Tullahoma, Tennessee for $22,801,396. This action will provided operational support required by the Air Force Research Laboratory for design, construction, reconfiguration, modification, test operations and maintenance of experimental and support facilities used to perform research and development of rocket propulsion, space systems and their components. At this time $9,250,909 has been obligated. AFFTC/PK, Edwards AFB, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04611-99-C-0003 P00115).

$16.5 Million

The Air Force is modifying a contract with IAP Worldwide Services, Incorporated, Cape Canaveral, Fla., for $16, 512,251. This contract will exercise option one to perform Civil Engineering Services for Hanscom AFB to include customer support services, infrastructure maintenance, facility maintenance, physical plant operations, utilities management, civil engineer services, environmental compliance, engineering support services, repair, some construction, property management and financial management. At the time$7, 736, 473 has been obligated. 66 CONS/LGCA, Hanscom AFB, Mass., is the contracting activity (FA2835-08-D-0001 P00005).

$12.7 Million

The Air Force is modifying a contract with the Science Applications International Corporation, El Segundo, Calif., for $12,737,017. This modification will modify the system Engineering and Integration services contract to expand the Modernized Global Positioning System User Equipment program. At this time $69,368 has been obligated. GPSW/PK, El Segundo, Calif., is the contracting activity (FAA807-07-C-002/P00019).

$9.7 Million

The Air Force is awarding a contract to Lockheed Martin Corp., King of Prussia, Pa., for $9,725,522. This contract action will design, fabricate, integrate, and test the Payload Delivery Vehicle for flight demonstration of the Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability. SMC/XRC, El Segundo, Calif., is the contracting activity (FA8814-08-C-0003).

$8.4 Million

The Air Force is modifying a contract with Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Marietta for $8,419,000. This contract action is for the C-5 Reliability Enhancement and Re-engineering Program estimate at completion growth and cost overrun. At this time $6,419,126 has been obligated. ASC/516 AESW/716 AESG, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio is the contracting activity (F33657-02-C-2000 P00172).

$5.9 Million

The Air Force is modifying a contract with Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Integrated Systems Air Combat Systems, San Diego, Calif., for $5,857,128. This action will provide Engineering, manufacturing and development infrastructure activates in support of the Global Hawk Program. At this time $5,362,526 has been obligated. 303 AESG/SYK, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio is the contracting activity (F33657-01-C-4600 P00304).

ARMY

$46.2 Million

General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc., St. Petersburg, Fla., was awarded on Feb. 26, 2009, a $46,257,600 firm fixed price contract for 30,000 each, M865 (Target Practice Cone Stabilized Discarding Sabot-Tracer) 120mm Cartridges. The M865 is the Kinetic Energy Training round. This round has inert projectiles and is used in live-fire training for M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams Tanks; 15,000 each, M1002 (Target Practice, Multipurpose Tracer TP-T) Cartridges. Load, Assemble and Pack (LAP) will take place at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, Middletown, Iowa, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 31, 2010. Two bids were solicited and two bids received. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Contracting Center – Tank & Automotive Command (TACOM), Rock Island, Ill., is the contracting activity (W52P1J-08-C-0010).

$16.2 Million

Cubic Simulation Systems, Inc., Orlando, Fla., was awarded on Feb. 26, 2009, a $16,169,357 mixed line items primarily firm fixed price contract for which the delivery order is for the procurement of up to 255 Engagement Skills Trainer (EST) 2000 systems, and supporting weapons and spares. Work is to be performed at Orlando, Fla., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2012. One bid was solicited and one bid received. Program Executive Office, Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, Orlando, Fla., is the contracting activity (W900KK-07-D-0720).

$34.3 Million

Parker Hannifin Corp., Minneapolis, Minn., was awarded on Feb. 25, 2009, a $34,322,920 firm fixed price UCA contract for the procurement of 1,354 each, Door Assistant Mechanisms for the Frag Kit 6. Work is to be performed at Minneapolis, Minn., with an estimated completion date of Aug. 31, 2009. One bid was solicited and one bid received. Tank & Automotive Command Contracting Center, Rock Island, Ill., is the contracting activity (W52H09-09-C-0062).

$11.5 Million

Alutiiq International Solutions, LLC, Aurora, Colo., was awarded on Feb. 25, 2009, an $11,510,573 construction firm fixed price contract for construction of a Tactical Equipment Maintenance Facility at Fort Riley, Kan. Estimated completion date is Sept. 2, 2010. Bids were solicited on the World Wide Web with three bids received. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City, Mo., is the contracting activity (W912HN-08-D-0032).

NAVY

$39 Million

Rolls Royce Corp., Indianapolis, Ind., is being awarded a $39,085,141 indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for logistics support, technical engineering support services, and spare engines and associated parts for the U.S. Marine Corps KC-130J, which includes the AE2100D3 turboprop engine and R391 propeller. Work will be performed in Indianapolis, Ind. and is expected to be completed in Feb. 2010. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-09-D-0020).

$26.5 Million

McDonnell Douglas Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a not to exceed $26,500,000 modification to a previously awarded firm fixed price contract (N00019-04-C-0014) for non-recurring engineering and recurring effort associated with Engineering Change Proposal 6359 in support of Australian F/A-18 aircraft. Work will be performed in St. Louis, Mo., (40 percent); El Segundo, Calif., (30 percent); Bethpage, N.Y., (25 percent); and Mesa, Ariz., (5 percent) and is expected to be completed in Aug. 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

$24.5 Million

Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office, Amarillo, Texas, is being awarded a $24,505,932 cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N00019-07-G-0008) to support the Naval Rotary Wing Aircraft Test Squadron by providing on-site and off-site flight test management, flight test engineering, design engineering, and related efforts to support the conduct of flight and ground testing for the MV-22 tiltrotor aircraft. Work will be performed at the Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, Md., (70 percent); Philadelphia, Pa., (19 percent); and Fort Worth, Texas, (11 percent) and is expected to be completed in Dec. 2009. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

$15.9 Million

General Dynamics C4 Systems, Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz., is being awarded a $15,883,079 indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity, firm fixed price, commercial contract to provide Very High Frequency Ultra High Frequency (VHF/UHF) transmitter and receiver radio equipment and VHF/UHF multi-frequency transceiver radio equipment, amplifiers, remote heads, and ancillary accessories to support Air Traffic Control. The contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to an estimated $99,008,749. Work will be performed in Scottsdale, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by Feb. 2010 (Feb. 2016 with options exercised). Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract was competitively procured with an unlimited number of proposals solicited and one offer received via the Federal Business Opportunities web site, and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command E-commerce web site. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic, Charleston, S.C., is the contracting activity (N65236-09-D-3532).

$15.9 Million

Solpac Construction Inc., dba Soltek Pacific Construction, Co., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded $15,868,171 for firm fixed price task order #0007 under a previously award multiple award construction contract (N62473-08-D-8615) for design, construction and repair of Bldg. “A” and Bldg. 730, at the Naval Air Station, Lemoore, Calif. The work to be performed provides for design and construction to Training Building “A” which includes Wings 1 through 6, and Building 730 which includes Wing 7. Work will be performed in Lemoore, Calif., and is expected to be completed by Oct. 2010. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Four proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, San Diego, Calif., is the contracting activity.

$9.7 Million

Chesapeake Technology International Corp.*, California, Md., is being awarded a $9,866,703 cost plus fixed fee, indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract for engineering, technical and program services in support of the design, development, integration, testing and Fleet distribution of communications jamming and receiver operational flight program simulations for EA-6B, EA-18G, and other advanced electronic attack derivatives. Work will be performed in California, Md., (50 percent); Cherry Point, N.C., (20 percent); Point Mugu, Calif., (20 percent); Whidbey Island, Wash., (2 percent); China Lake, Calif., (2 percent); Patuxent River, Md., (2 percent); Iwakuni, Japan, (2 percent); and Yuma, Ariz., (2 percent), and is expected to be completed in Feb. 2014. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, Point Mugu, Calif., is the contracting activity (N68936-09-D-0017).

$10 Million

Raytheon Co., Electronic Warfare Operations, Goleta, Calif., is being awarded a $9,866,703 cost plus fixed fee contract for products and engineering services in support of the AN/ALR-67(V)3 F/A-18 A-F operational flight programs for U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F aircraft and the F/A-18 A-D and E/F aircraft owned by the Governments of Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. The estimated level of effort for this contract is 57,686 man-hours. Work will be performed Goleta, Calif., (80 percent) and Point Mugu, Calif., (10 percent); and China Lake, Calif., (10 percent), and is expected to be completed in Feb. 2011. Contract funds in the amount of $1,152,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. This contract combines purchases for the U.S. Navy, ($5,426,688; 55 percent) and the governments of Canada, ($1,480,005; 15 percent), Australia, ($1,480,005; 15 percent); and Switzerland, ($1,480,005; 15 percent) under the Foreign Military Sales Program. The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake, Calif., is the contracting activity (N68936-09-C-0029).

$5.6 Million

BAE Systems Land & Armaments, LP, Ground Systems Division, York, Pa., is being awarded a $5,583,600 firm fixed priced modification to previously awarded delivery order #0007 under previously awarded firm fixed price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract (M67854-07-D-5025) for spare vehicle effector boxes. Work will be performed in York, Pa., and is expected to be completed by Jul. 2009. Contract funds will not expire by the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity.

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

$22.4 Million

Woodward Governor Co., Rockton, Ill., is being awarded a maximum $22,374,542 fixed price with economic price adjustment, sole source, requirements type contract for various spare aircraft parts. There are no other locations of performance. Using services are Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. There was one original proposal solicited with one response. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract is exercising the third two-year option period. The date of performance completion is Jan. 30, 2011. The contracting activity is the Defense Supply Center Richmond, Richmond, Va., (SPM400-03-D-9402).

Just one day of ruinous spending.

Day after day.

Week after week.

Month after month.

Year after year for eight years.

Your hopes for the future spent and wasted.

And yes, there are still idiots out there that think spending on preventing unwanted pregnancies will somehow actually stop this hideous bleeding of our treasury---and they will think this without considering -- for an instant-- the billions wasted on disastrous defense contracts outlined above.

Thank you for your interest.

~DM

I have become a ditto head

2009-02-23T20:37:00.001-05:00

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) recently wrote in The Nation:

"I would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget deficit without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending.... Current plans call for us not only to spend hundreds of billions more in Iraq but to continue to spend even more over the next few years producing new weapons that might have been useful against the Soviet Union. Many of these weapons are technological marvels, but they have a central flaw: no conceivable enemy.... In some cases we are developing weapons - in part because of nothing more than momentum - that lack not only a current military need but even a plausible use in any foreseeable future.... If, beginning one year from now, we were to cut military spending by 25 percent from its projected levels, we would still be immeasurably stronger than any combination of nations with whom we might be engaged."

Ditto, ditto, ditto.

Chippers Beware!!

2009-02-20T23:27:00.003-05:00

GA of VA passes partial smoking ban. A lot less effective than it might have been but considering the where and when of this particular chunk of legislation, pretty impressive. Still, I really love the last line of this AP story...so true.

"I think it will be signed quite promptly, in the quickest-drying ink I can find," said Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman, who privately negotiated the bill with Republican House Speaker William J. Howell. Republicans had tried to dilute it but were unsuccessful.

The measure passed the House and Senate without debate in a state where tobacco is so revered that frescoes of the golden leaf are painted on the ceilings of the Capitol rotunda. The crop was a mainstay of the earliest Virginia settlements, dating to Jamestown in 1607. A few miles south of the Capitol, Philip Morris churns out Marlboros and Virginia Slims at the world's largest cigarette factory.

A coalition of restaurant and tobacco industry lobbyists argued the bill went too far and would hurt business.

"Every restaurant in Virginia already had the right to ban smoking on their own, and many of them did," said Phillip Morris spokesman Bill Phelps.

The bill also got a lukewarm reception from anti-smoking groups who felt it didn't go far enough.

Hilton Oliver, executive director of the Virginia Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public, or Virginia GASP, called it "a pretty good bill under the circumstances."

"It's not as good a bill as it could have been, but in this state with this legislature, nothing ever is," Oliver said.

Chuck's stupid question and what it reveals

2009-02-14T17:27:00.007-05:00

Mostly, during the Presidential election, I found Chuck Todd's insight to be spot on. He was never clearly partisan but he seemed to have a pretty good handle on where the country was headed politically and was not given to using the elaborate double think of the DC punditry to explain away differences that mattered.

But I have to admit his recent question after the House definitively passed the stimulus package without a single Republican vote was rather breathing taking.

Chuck Todd asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs if Obama would veto the bill because it wasn't 'bipartisan'.

Let's unpack some assumptions that come ribbon wrapped in that query:

1)Bipartisanship means you must have Republican support. But does it? Or should it? Nearly one third of this bill was a gift to Republican dissent. Offering tax cuts, a large portion of which were pushed through by the Obama Whitehouse at the request of the Republicans. But because the stimulus bill actually contained government spending that will help to bolster the economy the Republicans refused to vote for it: en masse.

They weren't opposed because it might help the country or hurt they country--they were opposed on purely ideological grounds--and beyond that, more likely, purely political grounds.

Moreover, it was their ideology--no good can come from Government, starve the beast Grover Norquist infantilism -- that actually led the way to the current depression. But because Republicans are acting like purely political hacks, or more generously, refuse to take off their ideological blinders and vote for aid to a country and a people that desperately need it, the bill is no longer considered 'bipartisan' and therefore, according to Todd, Obama might be moved to veto it?

2) Bipartisanship is a goal in and of itself and not a means toward an end --like the economic health of our country. But really, bipartisanship that destroys the country economically in its quest for cheerful 'getting along' is useless. Republicans suffer under the myth that Government must be starved, because, they don't think government can ever solve any problems. And yet, in the last 8 years, under Republican leadership, there has been pratically no government oversight of hundreds of financial transactions, and trillions--literarily trillions -- of dollars of value has been lost or stolen. Our infrastructure is on a disastrous footing, our health services are daily causing economic diasters for inviduals who can't pay the exorbitant costs---costs easily paid for under systems that have the sense to allow government to control the legder sheets of the health industry.

Every single area that the Republican ideology has touched and affected (one could say 'infected') has brought disaster. Who wants to be bipartisan with some of the demonstrably worst ideas of the 20th century?

It would be great if Republicans could forgo their political instincts and forget their jihad on Government long enough to vote for the single largest middle class tax cut in US History, or to help restore unemployment insurance to millions of unemployed Americans. But if they decide that maintaining doctrinal purity is more important than the men and women in their own districts--men and women who are having to make the hard choices now about how they are going to live without jobs and sometimes without houses--than one can only express surprise and sadness.

To think that anyone would expect the President to reject a bill because a set of ideologically and politically opposed idiots have not bothered to learn either economics nor simple lessons from their last two electoral losses has obviously breathed too long the toxic air of DC punditry.

I'm sad to see Chuck go the way of so many others, but it's well to remember that the District is built on a swamp, and those who make a swamp their home necessarily become innured to the more fetid odors of daily decay; brain-wise and otherwise.

Virginia GOP Chairman's Blog Outreach: Massive Fail

2009-02-11T19:49:00.002-05:00

From By Eric Kleefeld - February 11, 2009, 6:04PM

The Republican Party's embrace of technology, which many inside and outside the party see as essential to a political recovery, so far is working out like...well, it's not working out at all.

Yesterday the Virginia GOP came very close to taking control of the state Senate, nearly luring a Democratic Senator to switch parties and put them at a 20-20 tie, which would have been broken by the Republican Lt. Governor. Then Jeff Frederick, a state legislator and the party chairman, ruined it all by Twittering this:

Big news coming out of Senate: Apparently one dem is either switching or leaving the dem caucus. Negotiations for power sharing underway.
The Dems then read the message, quickly mobilized to talk the renegade out of it, and stopped the GOP coup before it could happen.

We usually don't cover state-level politics, but this is just too much. Really, Mr. Frederick, you don't live-blog about ongoing secret negotiations!

(Via the Not Larry Sabato blog)

As I've noted before the perfect definition of Republicanism is loosely borrowed from a John Kenneth Galbraith quote regarding the Hapsburgs -- cruelty tempered by incompetence.

Love live teh stupid!

For the next time...

2009-02-07T17:25:00.011-05:00

...you need to discuss that $500,000 CEO cap with a wall street titan who feels abused...

...you need to defend the Employee Fair Choice Act

...someone announces the fruits of 'raw' Capitalism as practiced in this country

...you have a wealthy relative over who decries the 'socialism' of the Democrats.

Begin with two words: Fuck you. Then show them this

Compared to the pay rate of an average CEO, the average full-time worker would have to work in the upwards of 385 years to make what a CEO receives in one year. During the 1980s the pay gap between CEO and ordinary factory workers grew from 42 times to
almost 85 times (Byrne 1991).

In 2004 CEOs in the United States made over 475 times as much as the average worker.

Country Ratio of CEO pay to
average worker pay

Japan 11:1
Germany 12:1
France 15:1
Italy 20:1
Canada 20:1
South Africa 21:1
Britian 22:1
Hong Kong 41:1
Mexico 47:1
Venezula 50:1
US 475:1

Europe has far better equity than we have and they are already
taking it to the streets.

Are we such docile chumps that we will watch the Oligarchs (excuse me, 'Masters of the Universe'),the Evangelical brain dead (excuse me, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ted Haggard, Rick Warren and their gay baiting, war mongering, piously inane hypocritical followers) and the Republican fuckwits whose last course in economics was in the sandbox of Milton Friedman where they learned that screaming it's mine, it's mine is all that matters and taxes per Lilly Helman were for the little people (that's us). .... destroy this country without a peep?

Stay tuned.

For the geezers

2009-01-28T20:38:00.002-05:00

John Updike, RIP

2009-01-27T21:43:00.002-05:00

If you hit google news right now (01/27/2009, approx. 7:45 EST), you would see the"Death of John Updike" ensconced between a headline heralding "Obama Visits Capitol to Press Republicans on Stimulus Plan" and another far more crude declaring "Man Kills His Wife and 5 Children".

Updike would find his obit caught thus between the proverbial rock of a politics he never really liked or understood (he was much more conservative than liberal) and the hard place of the brute philistine of human nature (he was a soft spoken gentleman of letters who was both hospitable as well as charming) par for the course.

He had a knack for being caught between those extremes.

In terms of his place in literature, he crosses a curious divide between a now faded modern movement insistent on the primacy of language and the older schools of narrative realism from which he ultimately descends. Language wise, Updike could probably fashion a description of a man's hand, a woman's belly, a mountain range or the quiet stubbornness of a library on Saturday evening ten minutes before closing better than any writer on Earth. Seriously, he was a master of the gem like sentence, so masterfully cut it takes your breath away. His aphoristic descriptors nail with visual intensity. He's not especially witty--ultimately, I've come to decide he never thought that much of wit--he's painfully, subjectively visual, turning abstract concepts--like time, for example-- into visualizations.

Watch:

"He comes into Brewer from the south, seeing it in the smoky shadow before dawn as a gradual multiplication of houses among trees beside the road and then as treeless waste of industry, shoe factories and bottling plants and company parking lots and knitting mills converted to electronic parts and elephantine gas tanks lifting above trash filled swampland yet lower than the blue edge of the mountain from whose crest Brewer was a warm carpet woven around a single shade of brick. Above the mountain, stars fade."

--Rabbit Run, p. 41

You can do that with almost any Updike novel, plop down on a page and find some extravagant description that is conceptually accurate, visually demonstrated and somewhat melancholy and sonorous. Like William Styron, his contemporary, Updike loves the long description, lives to tell you what someone or something looks like, how they fit into a particular context, or better, even, what exactly that context is. He lives on every page of his novels, is there, his opinion, whether right or wrong, is always inexorably there--and this has probably won him as many literary enemies as any literary gift is apt to do.

And it is a gift, for surely the one thing we must say of praise about Updike is that he was an enormously gifted writer, with an enormous awareness of his place and his time. His awareness, his insistent consciousness and instruction on such to the reader ends up being something of a hindrance, however. Certainly, not to speak ill of the dead (as Updike would necessarily admonish) but there is nearly a sophomoric awkwardness to the display of his gifts which might put off even his most admiring fans.

One of Updike's first published pieces, a short essay poking fun at the use of quotation marks in Henry James's work comes to mind. I remember reading it years ago, after I'd already tackled a few of Updike's greatest hits, Centaur and his Rabbit trilogy. It was an attempt at humor at the expense of Henry James larded use of quotes for ironic purposes. Updike, of course, found the `quotes' nettlesome and took James to task for them in no uncertain terms. The result was somewhat effective, but not terribly funny, and left you feeling ultimately a bit sorry for Henry James.

Much of Updike's fiction does this--creates characters that are visually accurate, perhaps even emotionally accurate, yet are surprisingly unconvincing. It's not that they aren't `liked', per se, it's that ultimately they are not believed. Maybe Updike himself understands this, naming his most realistic attempt 'Rabbit Angstrom'....Angstrom being the world's smallest unit of measurement (at least at the time Updike wrote the novel, I believe it's been since replaced with the nanometre--no little irony in that, either). It's as though the characters Updike invokes are so small and diminished in his eyes that his language completely overwhelms them. He needed a Quixote or Ignatius O'Reilly to fill out that fulsome tongue, but he only allowed himself the thin shades of characters in a gray state suffering an deep economic downturn and social upheaval. So, I think, Updike's overweening presence seems to mask his more realistic characters (Chiron, the mythical protagonist in the Centaur is an exquisite exception that seems to prove the rule), or create a penumbra of words that visually talks about them even as they indict and ultimately hide them.

The hard truth is, he had very few compelling characters that walked and talked and danced on his stage.

What he had ultimately was his voice. A multileveled, incredibly talented voice that talked about these ideas he had for people in really extraordinary ways. He just never got around to the hard work of letting his people, his characters talk for themselves.

I can already hear his singular judgment from the piney woods of Pennsylvania. Not so direct, sir, I am, after all, dead. A bit of respect is in order.

Indeed. His criticism -and I single out Hugging the Shore as one of his best volumes of criticism, will be reread by future generations. Some of his short stories, especially those illuminated in his Pigeon Feathers collection, and his wonderfully fanciful work, The Centuar will all be honored and remembered. As will John Updike.

A great writer died today. That he did not do all that he might--even after 50 books, should surprise no one--especially not for those of us engaged in these dark arts. As Samuel Beckett once said at the end of one of his works, "try again, fail better."

Let us grieve.

What the IDF did to Gaza

2009-01-24T12:26:00.002-05:00

I can't help myself

2009-01-19T21:05:00.000-05:00

Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen

2009-01-19T20:39:00.008-05:00

What you need to know is that Pete Seeger is 89 years old and according to Tommy Stevenson of the Tuscaloosa News he actually hoboed with Woody during the Depression and Dust Bowl. When he got on the stage with Springsteen, he had the crowd sing the song, "This Land", as it was actually written, as not only a celebration of this great land, but as a demand for workers' and people's rights.

That is, he restored the verses that have been censored from the song over the years to make it less political.

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

The "relief office," of course, refers to the ad hoc soup bowls and such set up during the Depression before the New Deal began to get the social security net we have all depended upon since the 1930s in place.

Seeger, like Guthrie, has been a controversial figure at times during his life, questioned by the witch hunting committees of Congress in the 1950s, black listed, and even banded from television as late as the late 1960s.

But while he hasn't got much of a voice left anymore and did not attempt to play his banjo today, it was wonderful to see the gleam in his subversive eye as he did his call and response with the throngs in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Somewhere Woody - and Leadbelly, and Sonny and Cisco and the rest of the great balladeers of that bygone era - are smiling tonight.

Below are the full lyrics:

This Land Is Your Land
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Chorus (2x)

On an especially ironic note, Josh over at
TPM writes:

As most of you likely know, the inauguration committee sold HBO the exclusive rights to broadcast yesterday's inaugural concert festivities. I don't think that was a good idea since certainly not every American subscribes or can subscribe to HBO. But they at least had it available free on their website. But now it seems that HBO is going over Youtube with a fine tooth comb and having all clips of the event pulled under copyright claims. Want to see the special moment where an 89 year old Pete Seeger sang This Land Is Your Land on the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial? Tough luck.

Now, logically, the one follows from the other. They claim a copyright in the video of this event. And so they can prevent anyone from uploading it to Youtube -- though I'd be eager to see someone challenge them legally on it because I'm not sure how strong their claim really is against the use of short clips. But the fact that Americans can't show other Americans brief segments of these events because HBO owns the event in perpetuity just puts in much higher relief how ill-conceived a decision that was.

Lucky, this last update makes it not quite so bad....

Later Update: Alas, okay, another important qualifier. It turns out HBO does not own the copyright. They have a six month license. The inaugural committee owns it. Not as bad as I thought.

So 6 months until you get to see an HBO filmed version of the event. Or, ya know, you can just cut your own version of reality and view it here. Last I checked, reality doesn't have a copyright. Eat your heart out, HBO.

Israelis kill the 'wrong' Gazans on live TV

2009-01-18T12:37:00.007-05:00

What's most striking is that Israeli military had to murder this man's daughters on live television before the masses in Israel and the West could begin to notice what's been obvious for days and weeks: The Israel military is slaughtering an occupied people.

It's generally not a good sign when it takes murder on live television so that people 'get it', but more and more this seems to be true.

ee cummings springs to mind

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

...

--- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

No, I'm not going to 'let this go' and neither should you.

2009-01-11T01:46:00.004-05:00

According to a report issued last Thursday by the U.N.'s Humanitarian Affairs Office, more than 1/3 of overall Palestinian deaths are children (34% of the almost 800 total deaths), and a similar percentage of the more than 3,000 wounded are also children (34.8%).

To put that in perspective, note that the Russian invasion of Georgia -- which was vehemently and universally condemned in the U.S. as an excessive and brutal response to Georgia's assault on South Ossetia -- resulted, according to the Georgian government, in total deaths on the Georgia side of 405 (220 of whom were civilians) and total number of civilians wounded between 200-250 (see page 10 of this Amnesty International Report -- .pdf). The Russians agreed to a cease-fire accord after 5 days; the Israelis explicitly reject the U.N.'s call for a cease fire and continue to "escalate" after 14 full days (and counting) of full-scale air and land attacks on Gaza.

Of course, as Greenwall notes, all of that pales in comparision to the duration, destruction and carnage created by the U.S. as a result of the Iraq War (the most unprovoked of all of these conflicts). To say that the U.S. applies a glaring double standard to wars fought by its allies and its "enemies" (to say nothing of itself) is to understate the case.

For those who love war

2009-01-10T12:12:00.000-05:00

An oldie but a goodie...

From Haaretz

2009-01-10T11:40:00.004-05:00

From The time of the righteous
- Gideon Levy

You can't have it both ways. The only "purity" in this war is the "purification from terrorists," which really means the sowing of horrendous tragedies. What's happening in Gaza is not a natural disaster, an earthquake or flood, for which it would be our duty and right to extend a helping hand to those affected, to send rescue squads, as we so love to do. Of all the rotten luck, all the disasters now occurring in Gaza are manmade - by us. Aid cannot be offered with bloodstained hands. Compassion cannot sprout from brutality.

Yet there are some who still want it both ways. To kill and destroy indiscriminately and also to come out looking good, with a clean conscience. To go ahead with war crimes without any sense of the heavy guilt that should accompany them. It takes some nerve. Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who preaches for this war and believes in the justness of the mass killing it is inflicting has no right whatsoever to speak about morality and humaneness. There is no such thing as simultaneously killing and nurturing. This attitude is a faithful representation of the basic, twofold Israeli sentiment that has been with us forever: To commit any wrong, but to feel pure in our own eyes. To kill, demolish, starve, imprison and humiliate - and be right, not to mention righteous. The righteous warmongers will not be able to allow themselves these luxuries.

Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who sees it as a defensive war must bear the moral responsibility for its consequences. Anyone who now encourages the politicians and the army to continue will also have to bear the mark of Cain that will be branded on his forehead after the war. All those who support the war also support the horror.

And yes, the same, exact thing could be said about our miserable adventure in Iraq.

Things to worry about

2009-01-05T12:30:00.006-05:00

Here are two big things to worry about for the New Years. I'm sure there will be others to come.

1) Israel's ugly and ultimately criminal bombardment and invasion of Gaza. There's just no excuse for this nonsense. And no, Jewish apologists everywhere, a few Qassam rockets do not an excuse make.

There's this thing known as proportionality of response. Interesting thing about the concept of proportionality is that when it's violated, those who are signatories to the Geneva Convention by law consider it a war crime.

Objectively speaking, Israel just blew that wide open with its vicious bombing and invasion of Gaza...But of course, Israel does stuff like this about once every year or two.

I found it ironic and sad that representatives of Israel could very well find themselves sitting in the same docket Eichmann warmed over half a century ago because they refuse to recongize the very laws put in place to prevent the same kind of horror happening again.

Of course, that won't happen, but here's hoping it does, nonetheless. The attack on Gaza is merciless and inexcusable morally, politically and legally.

2) Obama--a handful of very worrying trends: Allowing Rick Warren to deliver his invocation, his refusal to denounce the slaughter in Gaza and finally his absymal ideas on an economic stimulus package. A 300 billion tax cut is probably the least efficient way to stimulate the economy. He's obviously doing this to get the Republicans on board and it's just a bad, bad idea. Because Republicans are not about getting on board for anything. They will play obstructionist games and try to wrangle a 700 billion dollar tax cut because they are ideologically rigid that way--and not just a little blind to their own hubris and stupidity. Krugman has a lot more to say about this here.

I knew Obama was more centrist than I was. I just hope he doesn't let the whole post-partisan good guy riff go to his head. The Warren decision was ugly and unncessary, his silence on Gaza is political and cowardly and playing 'tax cuts' games with the Republicans is politically and economically dumb. It cedes the economic frame to their own grossly inept ideologoical bent and will be bad for the economy to boot.

Naturally, if he gets a deal done that includes some tax cuts, I suppose half a loaf is better than none and all of that, but I'm not holding my breath.

Meet Minnesota's New Senator

2009-01-05T11:21:00.001-05:00

Rush Limbaugh, eat your heart out.

Krugman Nails it

2009-01-02T12:55:00.003-05:00

from the NY Times

So the reign of George W. Bush, the first true Southern Republican president since Reconstruction, was the culmination of a long process. And despite the claims of some on the right that Mr. Bush betrayed conservatism, the truth is that he faithfully carried out both his party’s divisive tactics — long before Sarah Palin, Mr. Bush declared that he visited his ranch to “stay in touch with real Americans” — and its governing philosophy.

That’s why the soon-to-be-gone administration’s failure is bigger than Mr. Bush himself: it represents the end of the line for a political strategy that dominated the scene for more than a generation.

The reality of this strategy’s collapse has not, I believe, fully sunk in with some observers. Thus, some commentators warning President-elect Barack Obama against bold action have held up Bill Clinton’s political failures in his first two years as a cautionary tale.

But America in 1993 was a very different country — not just a country that had yet to see what happens when conservatives control all three branches of government, but also a country in which Democratic control of Congress depended on the votes of Southern conservatives. Today, Republicans have taken away almost all those Southern votes — and lost the rest of the country. It was a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the G.O.P. into a cul-de-sac.

Mr. Obama therefore has room to be bold. If Republicans try a 1993-style strategy of attacking him for promoting big government, they’ll learn two things: not only has the financial crisis discredited their economic theories, the racial subtext of anti-government rhetoric doesn’t play the way it used to.

Will the Republicans eventually stage a comeback? Yes, of course. But barring some huge missteps by Mr. Obama, that will not happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. And when they do, they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real “real America,” a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy.

Deepak Chopra on 10 steps to Peace

2009-01-02T10:10:00.002-05:00

Steps the incoming president can take to build a peace-based economy.

The following is a memo to Barack Obama from Deepak Chopra.

You have been elected by the first anti-war constituency since 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected after promising to end the Korean War. But ending a war isn't the same as bringing peace. America has been on a war footing since the day after Pearl Harbor, 67 years ago. We spend more on our military than the next 16 countries combined. If you have a vision of change that goes to the heart of this country's deep problems, ending our dependence on war is far more important than ending our dependency on foreign oil.

The most immediate changes are economic. Unless it can make as much money as war, peace doesn't stand a chance. Since aerospace and military technologies remain the United States' most destructive export, fostering wars around the world, what steps can we take to reverse that trend and build a peace-based economy?

1. Scale out arms dealing and make it illegal by the year 2020.

2. Write into every defense contract a requirement for a peacetime project.

3. Subsidize conversion of military companies to peaceful uses with tax incentives and direct funding.

4. Convert military bases to housing for the poor.

5. Phase out all foreign military bases.

6. Require military personnel to devote part of their time to rebuilding infrastructure.

7. Call a moratorium on future weapons technologies.

8. Reduce armaments like destroyers and submarines that have no use against terrorism and were intended to defend against a superpower enemy that no longer exists.

9. Fully fund social services and take the balance out of the defense and homeland security budgets.

These are just the beginning. We don't lack creativity in coping with change. Without a conversion of our present war economy to a peace economy, the high profits of the military-industrial complex ensures that it will never end.

Do these nine steps seem unrealistic or fanciful? In various ways, other countries have adopted similar measures. The former Soviet army is occupied with farming and other peaceful work, for example. But comparisons are rather pointless, since only the United States is burdened with such a massive reliance on defense spending. Ultimately, empire follows the dollar. As a society, we want peace, and we want to be seen as a nation that promotes peace. For either ideal to come true, you as president must back up your vision of change with economic reality. So far, that hasn't happened under any of your predecessors. All hopes are pinned on you.

On Gaza

2009-01-02T09:44:00.000-05:00

A pleasant exchange between Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and some moron named Joe

2008-12-30T13:44:00.006-05:00

Leading me to pen my first quote of the Post-Christmas holidays,channeling Donald Rumsfeld...

You get information with the media that you have, not the media that you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Sigh.

Check out the video below, about half way through is this priceless line from Zbigniew regarding Joe Scarborough's understanding of the TABA negotiations--I'd only add that Joe's understanding is unfortunately not a helluvalot better than 90% of our utterly incurious population.

"You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."

Thanks Dr. Brzezinski, and a Happy Holidays to you, too.

The poisonous attack on Gaza

2008-12-28T22:45:00.004-05:00

I'm horrified by the recent slaughter in Gaza and know that my view will be marginal at best, even among the progressive community. I'd like to point out a few things, but think it better that those living and writing from Israel do the pointing out. Herewith, the words of columnists from the center of the death that reigns down upon a subjugated people.

From Haaretz, Zvi Barel writes: "Six months ago Israel asked and received a cease-fire from Hamas. It unilaterally violated it when it blew up a tunnel, while still asking Egypt to get the Islamic group to hold its fire." Yet the U.S. media refers that only Hamas violated the ceasefire.

Amira Hass, the paper's correspondent in Gaza, reports: "There are many corpses and wounded, every moment another casualty is added to the list of the dead, and there is no more room in the morgue. Relatives search among the bodies and the wounded in order to bring the dead quickly to burial. A mother whose three school-age children were killed, and are piled one on top of the other in the morgue, screams and then cries, screams again and then is silent."

From the lead Haaretz editorial: "[T]he inherent desire for retribution does not necessarily have to blind us to the view from the day after....Israel's violation of the lull in November expedited the deterioration that gave birth to the war of yesterday. But even if this continues for many days and even weeks, it will end in an agreement, or at least an understanding similar to that reached last June."

The Independent, a major daily in London has an eyewitness account, ending with: "These bombs were launched by Israel, as we had known they would be. The world watched the situation simmer then boil over, but did nothing. There are some who believe that hell is divided into different classes. The ordinary people of Gaza have long been caught in the tormenting underworld. Now, if the world does not heed what has happened here, our situation will worsen. We will be trapped in the first class of hell."

A McClatchy dispatch quotes Daniel Levy, a political analyst in Israel who once served as an adviser to Ehud Barak, who is leading the military campaign against Hamas: "I don't see how this ends well, even if, in two weeks time, it looks like it ends well."

Haaretz has just posted this from another columnist, Tom Segev: "[T]he assault on Gaza does not first and foremost demand moral condemnation - it demands a few historical reminders. Both the justification given for it and the chosen targets are a replay of the same basic assumptions that have proven wrong time after time. Yet Israel still pulls them out of its hat again and again, in one war after another."

And this from another columnist, Akiva Eldar: "The tremendous population density in the Gaza Strip does not allow a "surgical operation" over an extended period that would minimize damage to civilian populations. The difficult images from the Strip will soon replace those of the damage inflicted by Qassam rockets in the western Negev. The scale of losses, which works in 'favor' of the Palestinians, will return Israel to the role of Goliath."

I would add, from a personal perspective, there is hardly any moral equivalence in these actions. Israel has claimed more lives in 48 hours than Hamas has claimed in nearly three years of mostly inept Qassam rocket attacks. David and Goliath, indeed. Need the Israel right and it's military might be reminded that God did not favor Goliath?

Dick Cheney on Dick Cheney

2008-12-22T19:34:00.004-05:00

"I'm very comfortable with where we are and what we achieved substantively"
--FoxNews, 12/22/2008

Yes, let's list those achievements, shall we?

1 destroyed country
Nearly 4 million people displaced, 2 million internally in Iraq
Approximately 1 million civilians dead
4000+ US Soldiers dead
Terrorism on the rise by almost every measure across the globe

1 destroyed city (New Orleans)
1 un-successfully conducted war, still unfinished in Afghanistan
World wide derision and antipathy

The world's largest economy (USA) destroyed (thanks to the evisceration of regulation pushed through by Republicans--in particular the economic standard bearer for McCain's failed bid -- Phil Gramm and, of course, the Ayn Rand idolizer 'bubbles' Greenspan.)

1 hunting partner's face shot up.

Yes, Dick, it's been a helluva run.

Robert Reich on Paul Krugman

2008-12-16T13:43:00.002-05:00

Good stuff...

Paul is correct in arguing for a large stimulus. I can't help wondering, though, if we'll need something more. Keynesianism is based on two highly-questionable assumptions in today's world. The first is that American consumers will eventually regain the purchasing power needed to keep the economy going full tilt. That seems doubtful. Median incomes dropped during the last recovery, adjusted for inflation, and even at the start weren't much higher than they were in the 1970s. Consumers kept spending by borrowing against their homes. But that's over. The second assumption seems even more doubtful: that, even if middle-class Americans had the money to continue the old pattern of spending, they could do so forever. Yet the social and environmental costs would soon overwhelm us. Even if climate change were not an imminent threat to the planet, the rest of the world will not allow American consumers to continue to use up a quarter of the planet's natural resources and generate an even larger share of its toxic wastes and pollutants.

The current deep recession is a nightmare for people who have lost their jobs, homes, and savings; and it's part of a continuing nightmare for the very poor. That's why we have to do all we can to get the economy back on track. But many other Americans are discovering they can exist surprisingly well buying fewer of the things they never really needed to begin with. What we most lack, or are in danger of losing, are the things we use in common -- clean air, clean water, public parks, good schools, and public transportation, as well as social safety nets to catch those of us who fall.

Given the implausibility of middle-class consumers being able to return to the rate of spending they maintained before the bubble, along with the undesirability of our doing so even if we could, and the growing scarcity of common goods, one could conceive an argument for maintaining aggregate demand through continuing government expenditure on the commons. Rather than a temporary stimulus, government would permanently fill the gap left by consumers who cannot and should not be expected to resume their old spendthrift ways. This wouldn't require permanent deficits as long as, once economic growth returns, revenues from a progressive income tax refill the coffers.

Mundatar Al Zaidi Proclaimed Folk Hero

2008-12-16T09:56:00.006-05:00

For tossing his shoes at Bush. But it looks like he might face 2 years of prison time for his highly cathartic act. Want to protest? Code Pink has a petition that will be sent to the Iraqi embassy this week.

A few folks online are also shipping shoes to the White House.

I personally don't think I have enough shoes to throw at this administration. I think if they received all the shoes they deserved, we'd all be barefoot in December.

What Not to Put on Your Resume

2008-12-15T21:43:00.001-05:00

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- An American anti-kidnapping consultant was kidnapped in Mexico, according to the Houston-based security firm he works for.

Felix Batista was abducted outside a restaurant December 10 in Saltillo, the capital of Mexico's Coahuila state, the firm said.

The former U.S. military officer is a contract consultant for ASI Global LLC and was in Mexico "on personal business," ASI Global President Charlie LeBlanc told CNN.

Science and Facts Please

2008-12-15T17:33:00.004-05:00

Obama just moments ago named Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu his pick for energy secretary and Lisa Jackson to be the head of the EPA. "My administration will value science," he said. "We will make decisions based on facts."

Dramatically different from the Republican method of relying on the wealth of knowledge in 2000 year old religious domes and occasionally--if you're Nancy Reagan--taking a gander at the stars. Nice to know our transition team is aiming for something that post dates the enlightenment. Republicans really should give the whole science / rational thought thing a try.

The Shoe President

2008-12-15T14:57:00.004-05:00

We had the shoe bomber, now cometh the shoe president.

The Iraqi TV reporter who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush was kidnapped once by militants and, separately, detained briefly by the U.S. military — a story of getting hit from all sides that is bitterly familiar to many Iraqis.

Al-Zeidi's act of defiance Sunday transformed an obscure reporter from a minor TV station into a national hero to many Iraqis fed up with the nearly six-year U.S. presence here, but also fearful that their country will fall under Iran's influence once the Americans leave. Bush was not hit or injured.

Several thousand people demonstrated in Baghdad and other cities to demand al-Zeidi's release. The attack was the talk of the town in coffee shops, business offices and even schools — and a subject across much of the Arab world.

A day after the attack, al-Zeidi's three brothers and one sister gathered in al-Zeidi's simple, one-bedroom apartment in west Baghdad. The home was decorated with a poster of Latin American revolutionary leader Che Guevara, who is widely lionized in the Middle East.

Family members expressed bewilderment over al-Zeidi's action and concern about his treatment in Iraqi custody. But they also expressed pride over his defiance of an American president who many Iraqis believe has destroyed their country.

The phrase "giving him the boot" now takes on a whole new meaning.

Latest Hidden History--Oscar Romero

2008-12-13T14:38:00.006-05:00

Bishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador was originally considered a conservative Vatican appointment, but by 1980 he had become so outraged by the spiraling violence in El Salvador’s so called dirty war that he spoke out against it. No doubt that’s why the right wing military of El Salvador found it necessary to assassinate him.
"The peasants you kill are your own brothers and sisters," Romero told the military in a sermon broadcast on radio just days before he was killed. "When you hear the voice of the man commanding you to kill, remember instead the voice of God. Thou shalt not kill."
Romero was assassinated in the middle of conducting a mass. At Romero's funeral, in front of the cathedral where his body now lies, army snipers opened fire on a weeping crowd of 100,00, killing 40. Within weeks, all-out war was on. By the end of the decade, 75,000 were dead, 600,000 had been displaced inside the country, and more than one million had gone into exile.
Reporting for PBS Front Line series, Joe Rubin recently visited Romero's tomb and wrote this account:

“In the basement of the cathedral, a steady stream of visitors make pilgrimages to the coffin every day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., crossing themselves and usually spending a few contemplative moments. Although it would seem a sad place, surprisingly, I noticed a resilient somewhat joyful expression on many of the visitors. I asked one man, who had made a pilgrimage from neighboring Guatemala, why the coffin says in bold letters simply "87 years. " Romero was killed at the age of 64, and I found the discrepancy confusing. "That's how old he is today," the man told me. "But he's dead," I responded. "Not to us," he said.

Check out Hidden Histories every Wednesday and Friday @ 10:00 am broadcast from WRIR 97.3 FM, Richmond, VA.

Out of range? You can stream Hidden Histories here...WRIR

Gilding the non-bailout lilly

2008-12-12T22:19:00.001-05:00

Via Michael Moore, who knows a thing or two about Detriot and the auto industry

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers start building only cars and mass transit that reduce our dependency on oil.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers build cars that reduce global warming.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers withdraw their many lawsuits against state governments in their attempts to not comply with our environmental laws.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the management team which drove these once-great manufacturers into the ground resign and be replaced with a team who understands the transportation needs of the 21st century.

Yes, they could have given the loan for any of these reasons because, in the end, to lose our manufacturing infrastructure and throw 3 million people out of work would be a catastrophe.

But instead, the Senate said, we'll give you the loan only if the factory workers take a $20 an hour cut in wages, pension and health care. That's right. After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers -- billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever -- the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America.

cjallen over at dKos knocks it out of the park:

They voted against millions of jobs for Americans at a time when we desperately need them. They voted in favor of you having to move out of your house because you'll no longer be able to afford it. They voted for you selling one of your cars so you can pay the bills. They voted for you freezing over the winter because you'll not be able to afford to heat your home. They voted for you eating ramen noodles because you'll not have the money for real meals. They voted for our recession turning into a depression. They voted for at least another year of dropping stock markets. They voted for a reduction in your retirement savings of another 50%.

They voted to kill millions of jobs. They voted to kill the American economy. Why? So that foreign automakers who have plants in their states can compete better. Foreign automakers who pay their American employees less than the American automakers. They voted against it so that foreign companies could make more money by paying Americans less.

Bingo.

Lame Duck Senate Republicans Destroy the US Auto Industry

2008-12-11T23:46:00.001-05:00

I guess destroying New Orleans, Iraq and Afghanistan just wasn't enough. They've just voted to let the US Auto industry die.

Now I loathe the Big 3 and have avoided American cars for a long time. But I hate union busting Southern politicians more.

Critters like Republican Corker are using this opportunity to kill off Northern competition and destroy a major union (the UAW). But they won't be just gutting the Unions. They'll be gutting 3 million Americans jobs ranging from management at the plants all the way down to the stores that sell the parts.

All the while they'll keep putting money into the pockets of the Japanese car firms manufacturing cars in the South.

You see it helps their constituency to ensure the continued decimation of unions across this country.

As beltane over at dKos noted, LBJ said that with the passage of the Civil Rights bill, the Democratic party would lose the South for a generation. Now it is the Republican's turn to lose the rest of the country for a generation.

The only region left that will think of Republicans without loathing is the poor South. What goes around comes around. The confederate flag in which they've decided to wrap themselves will be a fitting funeral shroud.

Libertarians, take note

2008-12-11T23:23:00.001-05:00

Joseph Stiglitz thinks Greenspan is a hack, pure libertarianism is worse than a joke, it's a dangerous delusion that's managed to plunge us into yet one more greed inspired depression.

The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. The embrace by America—and much of the rest of the world—of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.

Sounds about right...

2008-12-11T22:05:00.001-05:00

From an interview with journalist Michael Ware

“From the moment the first American tanks crossed the Kuwait border, America was in a proxy war with Iran,” Ware says. “The Iranians knew it, but it took the U.S. four years to figure it out. Now the Iraqi government is comprised almost entirely of factions created in Iran, supported by Iran, or with ties to the Iranian government — as many as 23 members of the Iraqi parliament are former members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.”

[snip]

Of the many stories that haunt Ware when he closes his eyes but can’t sleep, this one singes a little more because he caught it on film and CNN refused to air it: It was spring 2007. He was in Diyala province, in a village north of Baghdad, embedded with a U.S. infantry platoon conducting a sweep for insurgents. By the time they arrived at daybreak, the insurgents had fled. The whole thing looked like a bust, but then there was a shot. An American sniper had seen an armed man running toward the platoon and put a bullet in the back of his skull. The soldiers went to look for him. Was he dead? Was he still a threat? When they found him, alive, they dragged him to a secure area.

“When you get to the point where you come home from a bombing, realize what’s on the soles of your shoes, and can wipe it off without a second thought — it takes its toll.”“Then, for the next 20 minutes,” Ware remembers, “all of us just stood around and watched this guy’s life slowly ebb away in painful, heaving sobs for air, rendering him absolutely no assistance or aid. If that had been an American soldier, he would have been medevacked out and in 20 minutes would’ve landed on an operating table. Once an enemy combatant comes into your custody, you’re obliged by the Geneva Conventions to render that wounded prisoner all aid. Even I — with my rudimentary medical training, I don’t think his life could’ve been saved — but even I could’ve eased his passing.

“Instead a towel was laid over his face, making his breathing much more labored and painful, the taunts continued, and we just sat around and watched him die.

“And for some bizarre reason, it was just me and this platoon of soldiers, and I was able to see the dispassion of these kids in the way they just watched his life slip away. I was filming and worrying about the best composition of the shot, and I realized that I too was watching just as dispassionately. There’s no blame to be laid here. That guy was a legitimate target who was rightfully shot in the head. But it made me realize, just once more, that this kind of dehumanization is what happens when we send our children to war.”

Okay, here's your good news for the day...

2008-12-10T23:20:00.001-05:00

A Wal-Mart store in Weyburn, Saskatchewan has been granted union certification by the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board (SLRB) after years of Wal-Mart legal wrangling and delays, including two Wal-Mart applications to the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn the process.

You read that right, a Wal-Mart store has been unionized in Canada!

Now, let's hope they don't close that unionized store like they did the last one.

Who Said It?

2008-12-09T21:04:00.002-05:00

Courtesy Benjamin Sarlin, The Daily Beast

It's time to play Name That Goon! Rod Blagojevich vs. Tony Soprano.

Hands on buzzers: One's a trash-talking thug trying to stay one step ahead of the law. The other was played by James Gandolfini. Can you identify the speaker of the ten quotes below?

1. "Unless I get something real good...shit, I'll just send myself, you know what I'm saying."

2. "What the fuck am I, a toxic person or something?"

3. "Log off, that "cookies" shit makes me nervous!"

4. "They're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them."

5. "You got no fuckin' idea what it's like to be number one. Every decision you make affects every facet of every other fucking thing."

6. "I've got this thing and it’s fucking golden, and I'm just not giving it up for fuckin' nothing. I'm not gonna do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there."

7. "That motherfucker's full of shit. He's shaking me down."

8. "Our recommendation is fire all those fucking people, get 'em the fuck out of there..."

9. "I could have made a larger announcement but wanted to see how they perform by the end of the year. If they don't perform, fuck 'em."

10. "Jesus Christ! The money I've been dropping in here, I could've bought a fuckin' Ferrari."

Answers:
Tony Soprano: 2, 3, 5, 7, 10
Governor Blagojevich: 1, 4, 6, 8, 9

Contra Hildebrand--an interesting squabble in the lefty blogsphere.

2008-12-09T09:35:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, Steve Hildebrand offered up a kind of patronizing piece at the Huffington Post suggesting that the snipers on the Left back off criticizing Obama's cabinet posts:

This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren't progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn't the way he thinks and it's not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn't, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people - not just those on the left.

Naturally, this caused no little commotion. Glenn Greenwald has probably the most succinct and snappy retort:

Even in this New Era of Trans-Partisan Harmony, there's nothing wrong with citizens objecting to what political leaders do and trying to pressure them to move in directions that they perceive are better. That's actually called "democracy." As upsetting as that disharmony apparently is to some, it's actually far preferable than the alternative, where everyone lines up behind a leader and agrees to remain respectfully silent and trusting in his superior judgment. Between excessive citizen activism and excessive trust or passivity, the former is far preferable to the latter.

But I rather like Ezra Klein's take , quoting Mark Schmitt and his "theory of change" essay.

The reason the conservative power structure has been so dangerous, and is especially dangerous in opposition, is that it can operate almost entirely on bad faith. It thrives on protest, complaint, fear: higher taxes, you won't be able to choose your doctor, liberals coddle terrorists, etc. One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows. And that's not a tactic of bipartisan Washington idealists -- it's a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers, who are acutely aware of power and conflict. It's how you deal with people with intractable demands -- put ‘em on a committee. Then define the committee's mission your way.

This sounds right, and perfectly in line with appointing Hillary et al, to such posts.

Having said all that, I still draw the line at Michael Hayden for CIA director which is what is being floated in this US News & World Report article. The man should be in shackles, not in charge of the CIA.

Furthermore, Obama voted against confirming him for CIA director when his initial appointment came up, stating "as the architect and chief defender of a program of wiretapping and collection of phone records outside of FISA oversight." [he was voting against Hayden] "to send a signal to this Administration that even in these circumstances President Bush is not above the law" and "in the hope that [Hayden] will be more humble before the great weight of responsibility that he has, not only to protect our lives, but to protect our democracy."

You can put some boobs on a committee. You can even appoint some close rivals at agency's whose policies you set, if they are not diametrically opposed to your values or your efforts. But you don't put the Fox in charge of the Hen House. Especially not after voting against said Fox. That's just asking for trouble, or, more specifically, sabotage.

Oh, and Hildebrand, Obama's approval rating is through the ceiling. If the left takes off some of that lustre in an effort to reel in some of the more dangerous appointments, I see no harm. Far worse will be a situation in which Obama's cabinet is over larded with left overs from one of the most regressive and reactionary administrations in this country's history.

Things We Thought We'd Never hear from the WhiteHouse again

2008-12-08T10:31:00.001-05:00

According to the Chicago Sun Times President-elect Barack Obama put himself on the side of the workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory Sunday:

"When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned, I think they are absolutely right. What's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy."

Josh Marshall thinks this designates a 'new' day. Certainly, it's a different day. Not of the Bush malapropism nor the nearly 20+ years of conservative fundamentalism that suggested unions and strikers were quasi communist scum and the root of all evil.

But for America I would suggest it's harking back to a fine tradition that began in the progressive movement of the 1800s and lasted well into the '60s. It is a fierce struggle against Babbitry on one side and the ruthless machinations of Capital on the other. For nearly two decades we consistently were lossing that battle and Nixon Reagan and Bush were the ignomonious spoils of the victor. Intellectually obtuse, cynically manipulative for the purposes generally of crony Capitalism and pushing forward a mean spirited social agenda as far removed from America's heart as the infantile meanderings of Sean Hannity.

Voicing support for people struggling to survive is not 'new' to America. What's new is the idea that pond scum like the current conservative movement should have smeared unions for so long and with such vehemence that even now it's difficult to imagine that a union is a good thing and that its collective effort has done more for the working and middle class of America than all the lying Limbaughs, Hannities, Coulters and O'Reilly's rolled into one putrid ball.

But the truly 'new' day will come, when we turn off the radio and flip off the television and instead devote our energies to helping ALL our citizens put their children through school, bread on their table, and shelter their old and infirm.

How Word Should be Tooled

2008-12-06T22:17:00.002-05:00

Bah Humbug! Bankers cheating workers of pay on Christmas eve?

2008-12-06T20:51:00.001-05:00

Bank of America received $25 billion from the government's financial bailout package, but none of that money went to pay laid off laborers a dime of the 60 days severance owed them by law. Instead, Republic Windows and Doors, financed by Bank of America laid off 250 workers with only 3 days notice, without severance packages of any type and without health benefits -- right before the Christmas Holidays.

In a memo to the union, obtained by the business journal, Republic CEO Rich Gillman said the company had "no choice but to shut our doors." because Bank of America refused to finance the payment of the workers--even as they were paid billions by US taxpayers.

In retaliation, about 250 union workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant in shifts Saturday while union leaders outside criticized the Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind.

from AP

Leah Fried, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers, said the Chicago-based vinyl window manufacturer failed to give 60 days' notice required by law before shutting down.

During the two-day peaceful takeover, workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building, Fried said.
[snip]
Fried said the company can't pay its 300 employees because its creditor, Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, won't let them.
[snip]
The laborers are not leaving: "We're going to stay here until we win justice," said Blanca Funes, 55, of Chicago, after occupying the building for several hours.

Good on them. And one hopes the miserable wretches at Bank of America that made this decision will have a woeful night or two with visits from the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. My only question? Will they even have the barest outline of a soul that managed to save Ebenezer Scrooge after his visitation from Jacob Marley and the three ghosts? Or are they all well and truly damned?

I feel certain I can hear the 'bah humbug' from here, and the tormented howl of Jacob Marley cursing these rapacious bankers to hell.

On Turkey

2008-11-28T23:58:00.001-05:00

Matthew Yglesias has laid into Turkeys with this post, ending thus:

...note that you really never see turkey on the menu of a great restaurant — the world’s greatest chefs can presumably pull off something pretty good for an occasion that requires turkey, but they have no confidence in the ingredient.

For a long time I suffered this prejudice as well until I visited the Yucatan and experienced Turkey in a rich mole sauce.

Deeply satisfying as a culinary treat, and, um, something of a soporific, which is an interesting side effect for family festivities.

On the flip side, the American Turkey, is, as many have already noted, genetically mutated in a most ridiculous fashion, bland, tasteless and ultimately suffering from the same disease our tomatoes suffer–Americanus Efficientus. Perfect year round and almost entirely inedible. There’s an analogy there for the end of the American Empire, but I’ll leave that up to my gentle readers to, um, pick apart….

Happy Thanksgiving,
DM

Quoting Atrios--Simple answers to simple questions:

2008-11-25T23:36:00.001-05:00

Wouldn't it have been easier to just divide $3 trillion by 300 million and mail out some checks?

Yes

Living History

2008-11-25T00:40:00.001-05:00

From Fareed Zakaria

Some of us--especially those under 60--have always wondered what it would be like to live through the kind of epochal event one reads about in books. Well, this is it. We're now living history, suffering one of the greatest financial panics of all time. It compares with the big ones--1907, 1929--and we cannot yet know its full consequences for the financial system, the economy or society as a whole.

For the record, I never had any urge to live through an 'epochal event' ... Reagan and Bush were quite sufficient, thank you very much. The worst part of such 'epochal' moments are that you aren't sure when they will end--or--more importantly--if they will ever end.

The Chinese have a word for people that are curious in this way--the word is 'interesting'. As in ... 'May you have an interesting life'.

This is also sometimes known as the Chinese curse.

Cowards of the right, part 10,000

2008-11-24T00:31:00.001-05:00

From AP
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - An ex-Argentine police commander committed suicide in front of rolling television cameras as he was about to be arrested for alleged human rights violations during the country's dictatorship.

"Maria, goodbye," Mario Ferreyra said to his wife before lifting the .45-caliber revolver and shooting himself in the temple.

Ferreyra, 63, took his life on Friday as national authorities arrived at his home to arrest him on charges in connection with the disappearance, torture and death of dissidents during Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship.

He had just finished an interview with cable TV station Cronica, whose cameras were still rolling when he took out the gun and fired it.

...snip...

During Argentina's military dictatorship, hundreds of people were made "to disappear" for their association with suspected dissidents.

Official records put the number of disappeared at 13,000, while human rights groups say the toll is closer to 30,000.

Civics test...

2008-11-23T23:01:00.001-05:00

Apparently, we really are ruled by idiots. It's no longer anecdotal. Our elected officials scored an average on the American Civic Literarcy test--of--wait for it -- 44--not just failure, but Epic Failure. Is it any wonder our financial system is ruled less efficiently than a poker game in Vegas, our infrastructure is disintegrating around our ears and we're embroiled in a completely gratuituous war that's costing us billions a month? Hey, it's not just the President who is an idiot.

Think you can do better than the people you elect to represent you? Let's hope so.

Take the test here...

Pope almost right, also, in breaking news, almost pregnant

2008-11-23T20:30:00.002-05:00

For those with hopes of world peace, unified efforts at cross cultural dialogs and the end to the conservative's sustained campaign against human intelligence, the Pope's latest atavistic pronouncement is fairly depressing. He pooh poohs the possibility of interfaith dialog and suggests that “an interreligious dialogue in the strict sense of the word is not possible.” In theological terms, added the pope, “a true dialogue is not possible without putting one’s faith in parentheses.”

But afterall, maybe he's almost right. He only needed to change one word:“a true dialogue is not possible without putting one’s ~~faith~~Pope in parentheses.”

Of course, being almost right in this sense is like being almost pregnant. He's not pregnant and he's not right. Papa Ratzinger is flushing ecumenicalism down the tiolet and his conservative, patriarchic and incredibly atavistic view of what should replace it is just plain myopic. If you rule out interreligious dialogs, what's next? Do we exchange spit balls with the Protestants and Muslims or move straight on to a shot of Nagasaki?

This is the same 'world' church that still thinks contraceptives are the devil's work and that has yet to mention AIDS in any of their 'family planning' sessions. So myopic isn't unusual. It's sad, but par for the course.

I've often wondered if I made the right decision when I decided not to take the church too seriously quite a few years ago.

Now I know.

Random great thought--and because I like to drop fancy French phrases

2008-11-23T12:11:00.002-05:00

Consevatives of 2008 hold little resemblance to the Goldwater/Buckley conservatives of the 60s, 70s and 80s. The former were reasonably articulate--and prided themselves on being well versed and, at minimum, speaking in complete sentences. They would be embarassed by the Republican party of today that props up a barely intelligible Palin. So they are very different parties, really, except in this respect: they are both incredibly backward looking.

The conservatives of 2008 look at the Reagan years of the 1980s as a kind of conservative golden period. The conservatives of the 60s and 70s thought the golden period pre-dated FDR and existed in some kind of semi-Imperial McKinley era. Both lie to themselves about America's history and their place in it.

What the Buckleys and the intellectual thugs of today have in common is the nostalgic remembrance of a delusion -- plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Ah, memories

2008-11-23T10:40:00.002-05:00

Sarah Palin's turkeygate brings to mind this priceless episode from WKRP...

WKRP in Cincinnati: Thanksgiving Turkey Bomb! @ Yahoo! Video

Obama outlines job creation ideas

2008-11-22T15:49:00.002-05:00

So I just have to ask our esteemed punditry--who collectively have managed to be wrong about so many major issue facing this country in the past 8 years--listen to this and tell me again how 'center-right' Obama is; or for that matter, how 'center-right' the country is that would elect him. Call me a wild eyed optimist, but to my ears, he's channeling FDR. Of course, the devils in the details, but until he invades Iran, privatizes Social Security or starts populating outposts in the Marianas with undeclared and uncharged combatants--I see no reason to think he's anything but what he's declared himself to be.

Fascism according to il Gingriche

2008-11-18T09:06:00.001-05:00

From a discussion on Prop 8. Newt Gingrich in all his nuthood

GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.

The rightwing, of course, excels at projection. And it's not just the talking heads. Many rightwingers I come in contact with on a daily basis actually think this way and it's quite amazing and difficult to rebut because they have zero in the way of sources and are deeply prejudiced already--and--perhaps the most important point--they will fail to admit either of these two items to themselves.

Indeed, few, if any, would call themselves 'right wingers'. But they will happily take up the cross of Christianity and rail against 'secularism', 'gays' and abortion. They may also, as Newt, practice projection. Suggesting that progressives are using 'fascistic' techniques to advance their causes or that 'secularism' is fascist, for example.

Let's dig out the ole Wikipedia entry and see if we can make some sense of il Gingriche.

[Fascism] is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means "bundle" or "union", and from the Latin word fasces. The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods often tied around an axe, were an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrates; they were carried by his Lictors and could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command.

Helpful picture below:

One of the great themes of Fascism's illustrious rise and rather disgraceful fall is 'strength thru unity'. The rods of the fasces serve as a visual reinforcement of this idea; but the key is unity--no deviation from the central command or idea. In a word, message discipline. Top down, authoritarian command: the fasces were carried around by Roman magistrates as a symbol of their unyielding authority.

We use the fasces in our country as well. For whatever reason, it's become much less discredited than the Swastika after World War II. For example, you can see a fasces in the Oval Office, above the door leading to the exterior walkway, and above the corresponding door on the opposite wall, which leads to the President's private office.

Fascism, however, is decidedly less popular than the fasces symbol it appropriated. Why? Well according to our handy wiki entry we find that...

[Fascism] seeks to form a mass movement of militants who are willing to engage in violence against their political opponents and groups or individuals that the movement deems to be enemies. Fascism opposes the political ideologies of communism, liberalism and conservatism as well as political concepts and systems such as democracy, individualism, materialism, pacifism, and pluralism.

They oppose such things as pluralism, individualism, liberalism of course, because these things are the opposite of 'unifying' elements in a society. Liberalism, for example, does not seek to unify society around a central figure or culture, but rather to allow individual deviations from the norm to exists in a happy proximity of cohabitation. This at times can produce tension, to be sure. But the over arching premise of liberalism and more generally, the separation of the church and the state which liberalism strongly advocates for obvious reasons(presumably what Gingrich refers to with the term 'secularism') is all about lesssening the strictures of a given dominant culture to allow for differences across cultural and demographic boundaries. The implementation of this vision is liberalism, but the opposite of this vision could very well lead to a fascistic state.

Allowing gays the same rights as straights to marry if they like is hardly fascist. It is liberal. Fundamentally, Gingrich is simply talking nonsense, not just at an etymological level, however. His assertion that 'secularists' are willing to act in concert violently is factually inaccurate and a lie. The term itself if it is to have any meaning, at all, defines individuals who are clearly in favor of the rule of law OVER the rule of religious pieties of one denomination or another. It is the basis for our constitution, afterall.

Being a doctor of history, one would hope he might know that.
But worse than ignorance, is his obvious fear mongering and ratcheting up of the demogagic rhetoric. No one has threatened a Christian in this country who supported the hateful proposition 8 with anything more serious than a lawsuit and a boycott . I'm one of them. And last I checked, I left my fasces at the Republican party's door.

Pay Back is a Bitch

2008-11-16T10:57:00.002-05:00

Looks like the church of the Latter Day Saints and its various fund raising entities are getting some serious blow back from the gay community because of their support for the anti-Gay marriage initiative, Proposition 8.

Here, in one pleasant reading is the list of all those who contributed to the mormon effort to make gay folks second class citizens.

I can't say that I blame them. Now Rick Moran and a few other dim bulbs on the right are railing against this because....

Rather than trying to change their opinion, they are making these people enemies for life. And carrying out pogroms like this against people who oppose gay marriage based on their religious beliefs borders on bigotry

To which one can respond in three ways.

1)Duh, if you are forcing all gays into second class citizenhood, you are prima facie already an enemy for life.

2)You can note as tBlogg at firedoglake has, righteously:

The kind of person who contributes money to deny their fellow citizens their civil rights are not someday magically going to be part of the solution: they're the problem. These are not people to be reasoned with; they're ignorant, they're haters and they're bigots and the only thing people like that understand is power.

So when they stick their noses in other people's affairs, they forfeit the right to be considered just another "ordinary person". They're involved and they would be foolish to expect that those other people in whose private affairs they have meddled wouldn't return the favor. As they say: you pays your money and you takes your chances.

You don't get to heaven above by trampling someone else's heaven on earth.

Or...

3) Pogrom? You sign up and fund an initiative whose sole aim is to deny citizens their rights and you think being called out on this is somehow putting you in a pogrom? Talk about a whacked victimization complex. Do you even know what a pogrom is? This is a pogrom:

Every pogrom is, by definition, a kind of riot - though there are many riots which are not pogroms. Some pogroms involve killing, and some escalate to mass killing which can be defined as a massacre. However there are massacres which are not pogroms (when the victims are not targeted by ethnicity).

For many disputed events, the borderlines between these three terms - "riot", "pogrom" and "massacre" - can be very vague and hard to define. In cases which are the subject of controversy, typically the victimized side and its supporters tend to use "pogrom" and/or "massacre", while apologists for the aggressor side tend to reduce the debated event to having been "a riot".

Publishing a list and urging people not to buy from folks who are insane bigots is not a pogrom. It's justice. Get used to it.

Finally, Some of the entries on the list make for quite amusing reading when taken in the context of an anti-gay initiative.

For example, there's a sheep rancher who apparently donated $1000 to keep gays from marrying each other. Wonder if he was worried about his flock vis a vis Rick Santorum's slippery slope theory of gayness. You know, you start buggering a guy, the next thing you know it will be man on dog. Could man on sheep be far behind (so to speak)?...

Oh, and here's a weird one. A wedding planner donated $10,000 to keep gays from marrying each other.

What's wrong with this picture?

In defense of Michael Moore, an oldie, but a goodie

2008-11-14T21:36:00.001-05:00

(Based on a column written circa April,2005)

Before I read George Will's column, I tried to guess what it would say. I had two things to work on: the author's name, of course, and the article's title. The author's name was 'George Will' and the article's title was "Liberals will rue disparaging Middle America". I thought for a second, jotted some notes and here's roughly what I presumed he would say: wild liberals who align themselves with the likes of Michael Moore (and in a previous generation, 'Jane Fonda') will undercut their political clout by not paying obeisance to the narrow minded prejudices of middle class America. In short, by not kneeling to the intellectual acumen of our Babbitt class.

Though, truthfully, I suspected, he probably would not use the word 'Babbitt', because George Will, like most conservatives is a prejudiced reader, and a prejudiced thinker, and has probably not read Sinclair Lewis whose sharp satire, if actually understood it, would make George Will call into question many of his assumptions. Sinclair Lewis was a Nobel prize for literature winner, unlike George Will, who has mostly mastered the conservative bow tie kiss ass award, beating Tucker Carlson by a pucker. For the same intellectual turpitude, he may not have mentioned Jane Fonda, either. It would be impossible, however, for him to write the article without mentioning Michael Moore. Not because he wants to, necessarily, but because every talking point from the Republican Party luminaries to the plebian dregs of FOXNEWS has named Mr. Moore as a specific target. Thus surmising, I eagerly read his riveting account.

I was not disappointed. Half way through the article, I found this jewel:

"Beinart aspires to change the Democratic base so that it will accept a presidential candidate who espouses 1947 liberalism -- someone for whom antitotalitarianism is the organizing imperative of politics. But how do you begin reforming a base polluted by the Michael Moore/MoveOn faction?"

I really like that word, 'polluted'. It takes a special skill to work all your venom into a single word like that. Here's how it works with George Will. Because he has no opinion that is not ultimately derived from Ancient Celtic Nobility, The Georgian Period, or someone He Simply Deems Smarter, he must, at all cost, point to an external authority of some stripe for his ideas, otherwise he has nothing to say. (Unless his column is in reference to baseball, in which case he is sometimes accurate). In this particular situation he calls upon the somewhat elevated authority of a Peter Beinart to lay waste to Mr. Moore's and MoveOn.org's 'radical' influence on the grand old Democratic party. Not that he likes 'Democrats', god knows, but if George had his 'drothers' (as we Southerners like to say), he'd prefer the Dixie-crat swine sucking Democrats who are indistinguishable from Republicans except that they've had the unhappy accident of being born below the Mason Dixon line in the midst of a large black majority, to the North Eastern liberal Democrats who gave away the nation with the advent of such desperate concepts as forty hour work weeks, legalized unions, social security and medicare. We find the locus of Mr. Will's discontent in the following illuminating passage, actually quite worthy of Babbitt, but not referencing Babbitt, of course, because that is merely satire, and not real, as is, unfortunately, this:

The reason Moore is hostile to U.S. power is that he despises the American people from which the power arises. Moore's assertion that the United States "is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe" is a corollary of Kuttnerism, the doctrine that "middle America" is viciously ignorant.

Beinart is bravely trying to do for liberalism what another magazine editor -- National Review's William Buckley -- did for conservatism by excommunicating the Birchers from the conservative movement. But Buckley's task was easier than Beinart's will be because the Birchers were never remotely as central to the Republican base as the Moore/MoveOn faction is to the Democratic base.

Well that was fun. And, of course, absolutely wrong, unless you live in a world where Michael Moore and the John Birch society are somehow equivalent.

I've viewed nearly all of Michael Moore's films and can promise you he does not 'despise' the American middle class--he despises the hypocrites who manipulate the American Middle Class (like, for example, George F. Will) and occasionally he makes fun of the fools who have spent their lives making fools of the American Middle Class. There is an anger, but it's directed at the likes of Charlton Heston, with his insane promotion of the NRA in the footsteps of the Columbine massacre, for example, not at the Columbine students, themselves. He portrays our congressmen as a pack of opportunistic assholes, willing to send our sons and daughters to their deaths in Iraq, but unwilling to volunteer their own sons and daughters. How exactly is this 'despising the middle class?' Maybe George needs to actually sit through a Michael Moore film before he deigns to deliberate to the middle class what they should think of it.

Beyond this, Will's and Beinart's assessments can be summarized as follows: Those who oppose Washington warmongering from the left "despise America" and are beyond the pale, just like the Birchers. The patriotic and prudent course for the Democrats is to follow the example of the neocons, conflate "Islam" with "totalitarianism," and encourage the country to unify for a war against "Islamic totalitarianism" And further, without noting that Islamic totalitarianism, or as the kool-kids like Chris Hitchens like to call it, those "Islamofascists" buggers, are a mere handful of humans, maybe, if we really, really, really piss them off, some 5,000 strong.

On a global scale, this is like swatting flies over a picnic basket. They are annoyances, to be sure. So are Republicans. But really, should we waste that much money trying to kill every last one of them? Especially when our every effort obviously creates more of them? Seems very stupid, somehow, doesn't it? Not even the John Birch society had that kind of hubris. The comparison of Michael Moore to John Birch is wrong, not because John Birch is so out there vis a vis the American Psyche, but because the insanity that Michael Moore is trying to stop (as I am trying to stop, as MoveOn.org is trying to stop) is far beyond anything the most testosterone laden, speed addicted, conspiracy whacked nut job would ever come up with that the John Birch society might fear. Compared to the insanity of our current rightwing regime (I use the term as precisely as possible) Al Qaeda, in the words of my New Jersey friend, "is a fucking joke."

The most the so-called terrorist threat ever deserved was a police action. Making 'war' on terrorism like this gives folks like bin Laden the single thing they desperately needed, attention and respect among their own kindred--something the Pentagon and the Bush administration still idiotically do not understand or choose to ignore.

George Will and Peter Beinart apparently think America can somehow go to war against a country with no terrorist ties under the anti-islamic-anti-fundamentalist-anti-totalitarian-anti-whatever-banner to impose, through force, a system of government that is highly offensive to the religious sensibilities of the occupied natives in the hopes that this will somehow, someway prevent terrorism. They also believe that over time occupying U.S. forces can eliminate enough of the opposition to socially (re) engineer the remaining inhabitants into accepting 'our' system and making it work.

Even though this again has nothing to do with al Qaeda or terrorism except in the most remote drawing room way (the impression of 'free' 'democracy' will prevent terrorism, rather than say, going after bin Laden in Tora Bora might have prevented terrorism). And they believe that those who have been manipulated into paying for all this can be manipulated into cognitively embracing it if only the intellectual elites who put the plan together work to steer them in the right direction. The intellectual elite including folks at our universities who actually have degrees and know what ignoramuses and embarrassments the humans in our civilian command really are.

That's why George Will and his ilk don't like Michael Moore. He advertises their ignorance and stupidity. It's not the Middle class he ridicules as morons. It's our current crop of business rulers, representatives and pundits, who richly, richly deserve it.

Apparently, in the universe that George Will and Peter Beinart and the other neocons inhabit, to build fire stations in America before building them in Iraq is "isolationist"; Cold War allies like France and Germany shouldn't be allowed to 'thwart' the militaristic ambitions "deemed necessary by Washington"; and wars of religious extermination should be carried out against "the worldwide spread of Islamofascism."--whatever that phrase even means. Oh, and while we're at it, let's put China, Russia, and Latin America on notice, too.

Is this what passes for "mainstream" in Washington these days? George Will Republicans and the neocons, the pied pipers of the current Washington establishment, have dressed up a radical, warmongering agenda and are pulling out all the stops to make it respectable – indeed, to make it appear to be the only rational course. While it may be true that some Democrats are out of touch with the average American on social issues, George Will and those in Washington who have fallen in line behind this neocons' totalitarian world view (freedom and democracy at gunpoint) are completely out of touch with the average 'Middle Class' American on the moral issue of war, and it can only be a matter of time before America realizes that.

We should be cheering Michael Moore from the rafters, he's one of the few respectable Democrats left who is announcing the hypocrisy, cruelty and stupidity of the war party to the world. Even my mother (life long Republican) thinks these guys are nuts. As even the libertarian party (not especially known for its lucidity) has noted, "The GOP's big November victory has made it drunk with power and blissfully unaware of how far the Republican Party's manic brain trust continues to drift from mainstream American sensibilities." The scary thing is, the libertarians are right. Four years ago I could have never written that sentence. Now, we're best of ideological soul mates. I'm a left leaning Green, folks. Think about that.

Beinart, Will and others on the neocon-fringe are merely encouraging the Democrats to follow them over the cliff. Luckily, so far, the Democrats have decided not to follow the lemming suicide march. So Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Michael Moore for being one of the few voices in the wilderness that calls the Democrats back from that perilous edge! The difference between John Birch and the Democratic left is that John Birch was always the dark lemming in the night, while the Democratic left was always the one thing that kept the mass of Democratic idiots from becoming a jellified nothing in communion with the Syborg that is the Republican group think apparatus as so gallantly hailed by the likes of the bow tied idiot George Will and his doppelganger, Peter Beinhart.

Is that real enough for you, George? Is this authentically 'Middle Class' enough for you? If not, may we suggest you read Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt, or Dos Pasos's The Camera's Eye, or just watch another Michael Moore film: all are more 'real' Americana than you might be able to stomach at one princely sitting.

Requisite Footnote: Thanks to MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, ACORN and a lot of other horrible 'liberal' organizations, the Republican party was handed their ass in the last election, losing the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and many lower level offices in a Democratic landslide....thanks for the advice George. We continue to eagerly listen.

Good News / Bad News

2008-11-12T23:33:00.001-05:00

Good News

Gays are getting married in Connecticut

California you can take your Prop. 8 and shove it where the Latter Day Saints don't shine.

Obama won the election and this is a center-left nation. By a fucking landslide.

Bad News

Sarah Palin is still a moron with lipstick. CNN., FOX, MSNBC, etc...If you actually were 'news' organizations and not aggregates of celebrity nonsense and pundit blowhards you'd be embarassed enough for her to kill her mic already. Your problem, as I discern it, is that you can't fucking tell the difference.

A Veteran's post you can count on, my friend

2008-11-11T21:00:00.000-05:00

This just in from the Defense Business Board, an internal management oversight body.

The Defense Business Board,a senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department's current budget is "not sustainable," and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military's most prized weapons programs.

The idea of reinvesting funds currently being invested in almost completely useless weapons systems in favor of infrastructure funding strikes me as eminently sane. No doubt, it's why such 'spreading of wealth' hasn't happened in the last 20 years. But in this case, robbing Peter to pay Paul makes sense because Peter isn't doing anything but actively creating a fear of the end of the world. Rational individuals need to ask, do we really need Peter at best creating neuroses and at worst destroying the entire earth when our bridges are falling down?

Not that I'm opposed to destroying the entire earth on principle if it preserves our freedom. I'm as patriotic as the next guy. I just see a certain --let's call it incongruity--in the application of force in that instance. Personally, leaving aside such high minded concepts as patriotism, god or country I'd much prefer to build our bridges.

The briefings were prepared by the Defense Business Board, an internal management oversight body. It contends that the nation's recent financial crisis makes it imperative that the Pentagon and Congress slash some of the nation's most costly and troubled weapons to ensure they can finance the military's most pressing priorities.

No kidding. I guess it's nice to know those guys in the Pentagon read the economic pages like the rest of us. For awhile there, as in the last 50 years, I thought they always assumed their costs were taken care of via patriotic pixie dust and the harsh rules of money only applied to the civilian economy, which is to say: all the rest of us.

A debate on debates

2008-11-11T10:32:00.000-05:00

Whisky fire contends that we should actively marginalize what's left of the paleolithic right. Hilzoy over at the The Washington Note thinks we should pretend the rabid bloggers of the right don't exist since they no longer have power.

Interesting debate, actually.

I tend to think ridicule and continued marginalization are the more appropriate route because anyone who self identifies with the likes of torture okaying, global warming denying, Iran bombing, gay hating Sarah Palin is too dangerous a person to just ignore. From the bones of such anti-intellectualism will arise a fearsome new party filled with Karl Rove acolytes, Nascar moms, and Jesus Christers ready to take it home for God and the USA. Toby Keith ain't dead yet, and it's best we don't forget the last decades worth of pain and shame his jingoist attitude has wrought.

So keep the blog fires burning at the entrance to those caves, boys. We'll want to know when the walking dead try to come back out.

Palin defined...

2008-11-10T21:30:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of the Urban dictionary

1. An applicant lacking even basic job skills

2. Someone supremely un-self-aware or lacking any relative sense of what he/she does or doesn't know.

HR sent me another Palin for the marketing manager job.
awareness politics job hiring business
by drstone Oct 29, 2008 share this 1 comment

2. palin
(v) to abandon one's principles for short term gain
Tom, a devout vegan, palined when he consumed a happy meal solely to obtain the collectible toy it contained.
weak flip-flop spineless mettle character
by halfmiler Oct 22, 2008 share this add comment

3. Palin
n.

1. Pejorative term that refers to an incompetent, impractical, irrelevant or incapable person who has been appointed to a position of great importance.

2. A person who holds authority disproportionate to his or her requisite ethics and qualifications. Derived from John McCain's controversial 2008 Vice Presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
John was recently made principal, but everybody thinks he's a Palin who can't do the job.

My new boss is such a Palin - he took my deserved place because the CEO is his personal friend.

Post election Pundit roundup

2008-11-09T09:41:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of DemfromCT:

Frank Rich:

The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America.

Jonathan Chait:

What part of "overwhelming electoral defeat" does the GOP not understand?

In any case, Palin is so like Bush it's astounding the conservatives want anything to do with her.

Hugh Bailey:

If we're a center-right country, how is Indiana a blue state?

...The only age range that supported McCain was 65 and older. For obvious reasons, that's a tough group to base your future around.

Eleanor Clift:

Obama joins the pantheon of FDR and LBJ as the third biggest vote getter on the Democratic side in terms of the percentage of votes cast.

Fred Barnes:

We got whupped, and we'd better come to terms. Patience is a virtue.

Sharon Begley:

The truly poisonous legacy of the past eight years is one that spread to much of society and will therefore be much harder to undo: the utter contempt with which those in power viewed inconvenient facts, empiricism and science in general.

Michael Hirsh:

After eight years of proud incuriosity and anti-intellectualism, we now have a leader who values nuance and careful thought.

Nicholas Kristoff:

Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life.

Jamie Foser on Obama's 'center-right' mandate

2008-11-08T08:33:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, Americans chose as their next president an African-American named Barack Obama who campaigned on a near-universal health-care plan, allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, and a move away from the belligerent foreign policy of the past eight years. Republicans, and some journalists, had spent months (falsely) saying Obama is the single most liberal member of the U.S. Senate -- and maybe even a socialist. The American people responded by electing him in a landslide.

This, naturally, is very good news for the Republicans, according to many pundits. It proves once again that America remains a "center-right" nation.

Right about now, you're probably scratching your head, wondering how the election of the "most liberal" member of the Senate, a man who campaigned on a promise of near-universal health care, could possibly be described as evidence of a conservative country.

To be sure, it requires some creative thinking.

You can read the rest, here
This is something I noticed almost immediately and no one, and I mean NO ONE, in the main stream media has batted an eye.

How do you go from being lambasted as a Marxist, a socialists, a terrorist and a muslim to a 'center right' figure cut loosely from the mold of Ronald Reagan within the space of hours? Furthermore, how do you do this on national television before an audience of millions and no one even bothers to note the discrepancy?

Long ago, I trashed my television. I receive almost all my news through 'pull' sources, video clips online, articles, pundit's columns in newspapers etc. The folks who put a face on our major TV outlets (both cable and broadcast) are demented. I don't just mean FOX whose intellectual value is outweighed by the thoughtfulness of the crows I have swooping over my garden; but folks like Tom Brokaw whose blossoming ignorance becomes more telling every day. He managed to suggest that John McCain had actually done pretty well in the last election because the land mass that voted for him on a county by county basis was greater than Obama's. Got that? The rocks and fields of Idaho far outweighed the millions of citizens who, you know, actually vote. Now I don't smell some nefarious bias here, I just think Tom is an idiot. Most of television is ruled by a supreme principle of stupidity, which is why conservatives do so well on television. It's not about erudition, it's about appearance. That's why Ronald Reagan, one of the dumber presidents we've ever had, has done so well.

Ocassionally when I've had the misfortune to have an intimate conversation with a conservative, I'm struck by their intellectual vanity. Don't be fooled by the near black out ignorance of their candidates, they're a vain lot. And they think their smarter than everyone else, certainly smarter than liberals who aren't smart enough to know you must screw everyone else besides yourself and your buddies. They conflate rapacity and self interest and call it wise government and so do our TV pundits who are rapacious narcissists in their own rights.

And that's why our country now rest on the edge of a cliff. Because rapacity and self interests are not claims to wise governance, but economic chaos; the Hobbesian nightmare of man against man. You cannot rule on a principle of 'greed is good' and 'might makes right' year after year without engendering the worst kind of criminality and destroying whatever social fabric might remain. The two disasters now facing this country, our debacle in Iraq and our economic meltdown are directly related to the rapacious self interests and a ruthlessly bullying attitude--both encapsulating the heart and soul of modern conservatism.

Social conservatives will argue it's because we've lost 'God' in our heathen embrace of gay rights or contraceptives. I think it's wiser to locate the illness closer to home, 'God' may or may not give a damn about who I fuck or how (I tend to think an omniscient being might have more important matters on his hands): that's certainly up to debate. But I can tell you when you have CEOs pulling down 400 times what their lowest salaried employee makes, it's pretty obvious who is getting fucked. And it's that kind of distortion that will rip apart our social fabric--whether 'God' approves or not. That socially conservatives are blind to the obvious wealth disparity in our country, the rapacity of their own party and yet so put out at the possibility that a gay man might be happy with another gay man is a dementia in a class of its own. Keep this nonsense up and the proclamation of Diderot because more and more relevant: let us strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest.

Kenneth Galbraith once said this about the Hapsburgs, but I think it applies equally to modern conservatism: it's cruelty, tempered by incompetence.

And our media, of course, lost in the hall of mirrors that is their own self interested image will not tell us the truth. Good conservatives, they are all about making money for themselves and their corporate masters. They cannot tell us the truth, because truth telling is not what they are about.

We must do that for ourselves.

Below is a good place to start:

Grab your ankles, Rushie pooh

2008-11-07T18:44:00.000-05:00

Rush rants...

Here comes the Internet onslaught, and we've seen how Harry Reid and Pelosi bent over, grabbed the ankles for MoveOn.org and Daily Kos.

Sounds like not a little homophobia mixed in with the general netroots will take over the world, hysteria. But whatever. Rush has got to be the perfect emblem for what's left of the Republican base. Incredibly unknowledgeable about almost anything that matters, prejudiced, mean and extremely scared about the future. He defies the first rule in the art of war, know your enemy. He has no idea who the netroots are, or how to even articulate the tsunami that made his pathetic squawk box irrelevant.

Oh Rushie pooh. Your mind is old and your platform is older. You're a fat bucket full of poisonous pills and bad ideas and the only people still listening to you are so freaked out they want to split the country because you've sold them on the idea that the Marxist Muslim Terrorists is coming!

Boo!

Go back to the cave you crawled out of and learn to evolve, dude. No one's buying what you're trying to sell.

So it begins: NO to Larry Summers appointment

2008-11-06T08:13:00.000-05:00

I've always suspected the progressive netroots should not simply 'disband' after the Obama victory. Obama isn't really an end point for progressive causes, merely a transition, indeed a beginning.

Now, I don't hate Summers because of his politically insensitive and inaccurate comment regarding women in the sciences at Harvard. A silly statement and ill thought out, but not really damning enough to prevent consideration of Summers for a cabinet post. I'd suggest that he was simply unaware of the evidence for implicit bias that probably directly impacts hiring decisions for women in these occupations.

As Virginia Valian, a professor at Hunter College in New York, writes. "Many people think of bias as something that is deliberately intended and motivated by negative views of the group in question. Since they see themselves as intending to treat people fairly, and are unaware of unintended bias, they believe that bias does not exist."

So it's a subtle defense, but effectively, using this Summers could defend himself against being a complete ass, just being somewhat idiotic and misinformed on one point.

No, the real reason to tell Summers to find a day job is in the stint he served at the World Bank. That has me deeply concerned.

As A Seigel and Max Blumenthal at the Nation point out, this is the critter who thought sending dirty industries to undeveloped areas was such a brilliant idea.

when at the World Bank, Summers wrote a memo advocating exporting polluting industry and toxic pollutants to Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs), a concept which is fundamentally at odds with any concept of environmental justice and blindly ignorant of the potential and imperative for 'clean' developmental prospects. If Summers still holds to any of the concepts he put forth in that memo, he simply should not be considered for a Cabinet position.

Here's the memo.

I'll make this brief. This is a horrible idea. It's hideously short sighted and immoral and while I might expect it of someone like Paul Wolfowitz who has ethics of a latter day Joseph Stalin; I would hate to someone like this in the Obama administration.

Obama can do better, we can do better. PostScript:

After the memo became public in February 1992, Brazil's then-Secretary of the Environment Jose Lutzenburger wrote back to Summers: "Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane... Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional 'economists' concerning the nature of the world we live in... If the World Bank keeps you as vice president it will lose all credibility. To me it would confirm what I often said... the best thing that could happen would be for the Bank to disappear." Sadly, Mr. Lutzenburger was fired shortly after writing this letter.

Democracy in action

2008-11-05T21:12:00.000-05:00

Outside the White House last night after the Obama acceptance speech:

Okay, I'll stop yelling so much now

2008-11-05T02:22:00.001-05:00

Historic Obama win.

Go Vote

2008-11-04T12:08:00.000-05:00

A McCain ad you can believe in, my friend:

Quoth John Cusack

2008-11-03T23:25:00.000-05:00

From HuffPo

The era of market idolatry is over.

This is the end of Milton Friedman, Reaganomics and supply-side theory. This ideology has never been about free markets but a fundamentalist vision that is a cover for naked aggression and a social contract based on fear and greed. The government's job is to create optimal conditions for corporate profit, to privatize everything in sight and to sell off its own body parts. To literally devour itself.

So we have laws that allow borrowing money against derivatives -- basically a bet between two people who create nothing without collateral. They leveraged the public financial health on something you wouldn't be allowed to do in Vegas. It illustrates the corruption that has become institutionalized through deregulation and a culture of predatory greed. Alan Greenspan testified that he was shocked: business didn't regulate itself. The common good was not achieved by greed. Naomi Klein read him the definition of crony capitalism and asked if it fit the description of the Bush administration's relationship to its favorite corporations.

I suppose he was shocked about that too. His testimony was incredible and felt like it was coated in lies or at least standing deeply in their shadows. But one doesn't doubt him as a true believer, absolved of messy feelings of collective responsibility. We made him a high priest even though we saw the suffering and the cruelty of the system.

The final irony of the free-market Darwinist model is instead of the strongest and best surviving, it's really the weakest and the worst. From a moral and spiritual point of view this is hardly in doubt. See George Bush. The gospel he purports to serve tells us this but perhaps he saw Christ as a conqueror. I've always doubted men who call themselves Christians who live by the law of the jungle. The gospels, the Koran and the Torah make no bones about it: wealth is not strength; power often represents not the brightest and the best but the weakest and worst. The beast in the Book of Revelation is not a horn-rimmed devil but Rome. Empire. Any empire. Every empire.

Don't forget to vote.

Last Chance to do the right thing

2008-11-03T18:23:00.000-05:00

This is an email going out to all those undecided voters or those leaning toward McCain.

Let's talk. In the last eight years lots of vitriol has been exchanged but very little of it offering a meaningful dialog, lots 'o heat, little light.

I know I was certainly as guilty as the next person of partisanship. But here's the thing. I voted against Bush in 2000 and in 2004. I was opposed to the Iraqi war from the start and spent time knocking on doors and leaf letting the grocery store parking lots trying to get people to understand that war--especially a war 'of choice' -- is usually our worst option.

Maybe some of you even listened then. But many of you did not

Perhaps you thought the war would be over quickly, that it's objectives were honorable, that few would die, or that there was an honest to gosh 'existential threat' to the United States. Unfortunately, if you thought these things, you were wrong.

There was no 'existential threat', it wasn't over quickly, it's objectives were a sliding gradient of political cya stories, and many died --upwards of 100,000 at last count-- and they are still dying.

Bush now stands at the lowest point in polling history for any President--20% approval, beating Carter, beating Nixon, even beating Truman.

Impressive.

As Adam McKay has asked, wisely, if you voted for Bush in the past why not at least listen to another point of view? ...I don't believe anyone wants a bad leader on purpose so clearly you were given some bum information if you voted for Bush. Right? So why would you rely on that very same information all over again? Whether it be FOX news, Rush, emails or friends or family. That information flow you've gotten into a habit of using is obviously faulty. Try another one.

You might check out Factcheck.org to see how campaigns are faring in truth telling. I've been relatively pleased with Obama's record on this bi-partisan site, but not so much with McCain and Palin. They've simply got too much crazy wrong stuff out there. If you're deciding not to vote for Obama because of any of the following, please reconsider. These items are all deep exaggerations and lies--almost every respectable journal notes it--save, of course, FOX News or the WSJ.

Obama 'pals around' with terrorists
Obama is a socialist
Obama's tax plan will cost you money
Obama is anti-American
Obama is anti-gun
Obama is a muslim
Obama is a Black Panther
Obama will institute a welfare state
Obama is a leftwing autocrat

Not only are these false, they fall into a category of 'crazy false' that don't even make sense in their own context. For example Obama is both a socialist and a Muslim? An anti-American rogue who pals with terrorists, yet want to institute a welfare state?

It's like McCain is trying to paint a villian moustache, but his hands are just too shaky.

I think a competent leader would have chosen a more central message and stuck with it. A competent leader would have picked a campaign team that knew how to get out a positive message and not rely exclusively on negative and polarizing images and assertions. Indeed, one main reason for McCain's awful poll numbers are the dreadful judgements he's made throughout the campaign, from his choice of close advisors (Karl Rove acolytes) to his Vice Presidential pick which helped late night comedians more than his own poll numbers.

But maybe you are leaning toward voting for McCain because he and his running mate are perceived to be 'pro-life'. As you might recall, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's view on this is that abortion should be 'safe, legal and rare'...anyone who addresses this debate has to understand that no one is in favor of 'abortions'; these are the most difficult decisions made in the most trying circumstances. Democrats think that it makes sense for the party most effected by the situation--the pregnant mother-- to make that decision. And not some cold legal dome written by silver haired men who have nothing at stake: neither their money, nor their honor, nor the remainder of their existence which is what is demanded of an unwed mother. I've often quipped that if men could get pregnant, abortion would become a sacrament. But really, no one in this country thinks abortion is a "good" thing. The only reason any of us think that it should be an option is because history shows the results if it's not: botched back alley abortions.

As would be expected, the safeness of an abortion is closely correlated to whether it is legal. According to the World Health Organization, the mortality risk associated with legally-performed abortions in the United States is one death per 100,000 while the risk associated with illegal abortion is 50 times that. As the WHO reports, "It is the number of maternal deaths, not abortions, that is the most visible consequence of legal codes." Therefore, the only possible consequence of John McCain's crusade of "ending abortion" would be an increase in female casualties.

Of course, no one is interested in killing off our pregnant mothers--but that will be the direct effect of overturning Roe v. Wade; especially in a conservative economic climate. Why? Because we know from history that if a conservative is President--especially a conservative who follows in Bush's footsteps-- he will do everything he can to slash social programs he preceives as being 'welfare' or 'welfare lite'...the very programs an unwed mother might depend on for survivial.

Moreover, if one insists that abortion is some kind of 'intrinsic' evil, it might be of interest to consider the greatest factor in determining an actual reduction in the incidents of abortion. Here are some interesting statistics:

From Sojourner's Magazine

When President Bush took office, the nation's abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s. This was an average decrease of 1.7% per year, mostly during the latter part of the decade. (This data comes from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life using the Guttmacher Institute's studies).

Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.

I found three states that have posted multi-year statistics through 2003, and abortion rates have risen in all three: Kentucky's increased by 3.2% from 2000 to 2003. Michigan's increased by 11.3% from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania's increased by 1.9% from 1999 to 2002. I found 13 additional states that reported statistics for 2001 and 2002. Eight states saw an increase in abortion rates (14.6% average increase), and five saw a decrease (4.3% average decrease).

Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction.

How could this be? I see three contributing factors:

First, two thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Web site). In the past three years, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency until the current administration. Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. With less income, many prospective mothers fear another mouth to feed.

Second, half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). Men who are jobless usually do not marry. Only three of the 16 states had more marriages in 2002 than in 2001, and in those states abortion rates decreased. In the 16 states overall, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.

Third, women worry about health care for themselves and their children. Since 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than before this presidency - with women of childbearing age overrepresented in those 5.2 million - abortion increases.

The U.S. Catholic Bishops warned of this likely outcome if support for families with children was cut back. My wife and I know - as does my son David - that doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical insurance, special schooling, and parental employment are crucial for a special child. David attended the Kentucky School for the Blind, as well as several schools for children with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. He was mainstreamed in public schools as well. We have two other sons and five grandchildren, and we know that every mother, father, and child needs public and family support.

What does this tell us? Economic policy and abortion are not separate issues; they form one moral imperative. Rhetoric is hollow, mere tinkling brass, without health care, health insurance, jobs, child care, and a living wage. Pro-life in deed, not merely in word, means we need policies that provide jobs and health insurance and support for prospective mothers.

What's left? Maybe you're voting for McCain because you truly believe that the United States suffers an 'existential threat' from terrorism? If so, he has an interesting way of encouraging it.

Afterall, the Iraqi war has provided one of the best and most elaborate recruiting stations for whatever jihadi cause may tickle a terrorists' fancy. Certainly if we were to invade Iran, as McCain's foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann advocates, we would see the incidents of terrorism flare across the region and even into our own continent again. Indeed, the best way to ensure an terrorist attack is to continue to invade Middle Eastern countries; as even the CIA has noted.

Unfortunately, McCain seems tone deaf to this reality. His main foreign policy advisor is a major neoconservative, was a founder of the hawkish Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraqi exile and Pentagon favorite, Ahmad Chalabi. In short, Randy Scheunemann was one of the chief architects of the Iraqi war.

Is this the real McCain though? I hear so often that the 'real' McCain was hijacked. I'm not so sure. Afterall, didn't you hear the bellicose cries of John McCain condemning Obama for wanting to negotiate with 'enemies' and instead singing half heartedly that we might 'bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran?'

Do you think it was really a joke when Sarah Palin suggested that we are --at this very moment -- actually at war with Iran? You could almost hear Randy Scheunemann cheering from the rafters. War with Iran, after all, is part and parcel of the neoconservative 'global strategy' as outlined in the Project for a New American Century.

These are dangerous and foolish people. And we know from the current Presidency what happens when a President surronds himself with dangerous and foolish people.

I'm almost done. I know that none of you will admit it, but if you think you won't vote for Barack Obama because he's black and you're afraid he will surrond himself with 'welfare queen' type advisors, please think again. His economic team is centrist and moderate --in my opinion to a fault. His tax programs have been endorsed by the likes of Warren Buffett--one of the wealthiest men alive.
Obama declared in a recent interview on the business cable channel CNBC: "Look, I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market." And Obama's economic team appears to support this claim. His main advisers, Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee, are both centrist, pro-free traders; one is a defender of Wal-Mart, and the other is a self-described "free-market type" who has drawn praise from the likes of George Will.
If anything, he probably won't be liberal enough for folks like me.

Finally, in all this I could be wrong. But I doubt it. Afterall, I wasn't the one who was duped into voting for Bush, or supporting a disastrous war, or a disastrous economic platform. You, on the other hand.... Oh, nevermind.

Thanks for listening.

~DM

Pro-Life, say what?

2008-11-02T23:58:00.000-05:00

I'm always amazed when people piously tell me they are voting 'pro-life' and then explain that this principle is actually supported by the Republican platform.

Say what?

The only thing pro-life about the Republican platform is Dick Cheney’s stents. Even then, you got to address the quality issue. I mean, really, was it worth it?

Well, yes, I suppose I know. Republicans are all about this pro-life as in anti-abortion, as in, more specifically, women don’t get to decide what old gray guys do decide, despite the fact that women incur all the risk, all the burden and all the expense of a newborn. Pro-Life, pro-expense. I get it. That's how they balance their budgets too.

But I prefer the term, 'quasi-fascist-religious institution filled with erotically suppressed men telling ladies what they should do with their lives'.

I guess it’s all in how your frame things.

But even from a quasi-fascist-religious view, considering the nearly million souls, dead or displaced from Iraq, the main policy makers in this and John McCain’s administration still throbbing with desire to kill Iranians in addition to the Iraqis they’ve already murdered, how, exactly, does anyone come away thinking that casting a vote for these assholes is somehow ‘pro-life’, much less a pious Catholic who is supposed to take such terms (life, pro) relatively seriously?

So here's my question to pious quasi-fascist Catholics everywhere. What are you guys smoking? You think Jesus (nice guy, Jew, brown beard, hung out with twelve guys in different rooms every other night. Think about it) is going to love you for voting for someone who wants to start another war with Iran? Didn't he say something about swords directly opposed to that? Maybe I was imagining that bit about living and dying by a sword? More specifically, do you really think Jesus gives a rip about abortion or gays?

If so, please quote your source. Seriously. I ask you this because I want you to spend the next ten days reading every page of the New Testament to discover what I'll tell you now. He never said a word about either topic. It's all very childish make believe by institutions that have fouled your life (and mine) in his name. So, when you discover your entire voting behavior is predicated on a falsehood, please avoid the polls on Tuesday because we have no more need for quasi-fascist, barely literate individuals or institutions ruling our fortunes any longer. We've had enough of that nonsense already.

That will be all.

Signed,
The Rest of Us

And most folks--except my family--like him

2008-11-02T22:24:00.000-05:00

from Gallup

One more historic tidbit from the survey: Obama's favorable rating is 62% -- the highest that any presidential candidate has registered in Gallup's final pre-election polls going back to 1992.

A Prayer for My Family

2008-11-02T17:23:00.000-05:00

Many of you will know this feeling. Your father, an otherwise intelligent and thrifty man, will vote for the silver haired gent who owns 11 houses and thinks 5 million barely breaks middle class. McCain may seem the least responsible steward of the economy you could imagine, and yet, your father will vote for him. Your mother, respectful, tactful, generally wise, will offer her franchise to a woman who likens herself to a pitbull with lipstick. Your sister and brother in law, though in principal against war and violence in the abstract, will vote for war in violence in the here and now to encourage, in the abstract, the distant possibility of a Supreme Court appointment that will overturn Roe V. Wade, sending thousands of mothers with unwanted pregnancies to bloody back alleys again.

It's not like these are stupid or uninformed people. Perhaps even they've seriously considered the consequences of their actions. But have they thought about the future they are voting in? Do they understand that Sarah Palin doesn't think that global warming is necessarily a man made phenomena, and thinks that 'drill here, drill now' is a swell rallying cry, and hasn't met a wolf she hasn't tried to shoot? Do they know her nearly hysterical fundamentalist attitudes toward gay rights, her efforts to ban books written by and about homosexuals? Do they know that a conclusive committee of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats said that she abused her power in trying to a have son-in-law fired from the Alaskan police force and in firing a police supervisor who courageously carried out the letter of the law in refusing her petty dictatorial desires? Do they know about John McCain's previous 'pro-choice' stance? Do they think he is now truly a principled carrier of the 'pro-life' aspidistra and not just one more political opportunist, working their heart strings for an easy 'Catholic' vote. Do they know that his chief foreign policy aide, Randy Scheunemann, was a major neoconservative, a founder of the hawkish Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraqi exile and Pentagon favorite, Ahmad Chalabi. In short, one of the chief architects of the Iraqi war? Did they not hear the bellicose cries of John McCain condemning Obama for wanting to negotiate with 'enemies' and instead singing half heartedly that we might 'bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran?'

Did they think it was really a joke when Sarah Palin suggested that we are --at this very moment -- actually at war with Iran? You could almost hear Randy Scheunemann cheering from the peanut gallery. War with Iran, after all, is part and parcel of the neoconservative 'global strategy'.

But it looks like they will be good, pious Catholics, voting 'pro-lfe'.
Is it really possible that they don't understand their principle of 'life' is being played like a fiddle by liars in high places,and has been for the last two decades? Do they care so much about Catholic institutional assertions and so little for everything else in our society that they would destroy distant cities and nations--for the sake of forcing a woman to bear an unwanted child?

I hope not. God help them to vote with a clear mind and a good heart. And if they still must be wed to the Catholic academic considerations of 'instrinsic evil' rather than the evil they can witness for themselves in the eyes of a hungry child, let them consider this simple possibility. Voting for a candidate who is more likely to increase the economic health and well being of the underprivileged will likely lead to a dramatic decrease in the incidents of abortion, rather than voting for the candidate who has not. If they view abortion as such an intrisinc evil, one hopes they have the good sense to vote for the candidate who is most likely to decrease its occurence--and it isn't John McCain or Sarah Palin.

Here are some interesting statistics to consider:

From Sojourner's Magazine

Abortion was decreasing. When President Bush took office, the nation's abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s. This was an average decrease of 1.7% per year, mostly during the latter part of the decade. (This data comes from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life using the Guttmacher Institute's studies).

Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.

I found three states that have posted multi-year statistics through 2003, and abortion rates have risen in all three: Kentucky's increased by 3.2% from 2000 to 2003. Michigan's increased by 11.3% from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania's increased by 1.9% from 1999 to 2002. I found 13 additional states that reported statistics for 2001 and 2002. Eight states saw an increase in abortion rates (14.6% average increase), and five saw a decrease (4.3% average decrease).

Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction.

How could this be? I see three contributing factors:

First, two thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Web site). In the past three years, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency until the current administration. Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. With less income, many prospective mothers fear another mouth to feed.

Second, half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). Men who are jobless usually do not marry. Only three of the 16 states had more marriages in 2002 than in 2001, and in those states abortion rates decreased. In the 16 states overall, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.

Third, women worry about health care for themselves and their children. Since 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than before this presidency - with women of childbearing age overrepresented in those 5.2 million - abortion increases.

The U.S. Catholic Bishops warned of this likely outcome if support for families with children was cut back. My wife and I know - as does my son David - that doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical insurance, special schooling, and parental employment are crucial for a special child. David attended the Kentucky School for the Blind, as well as several schools for children with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. He was mainstreamed in public schools as well. We have two other sons and five grandchildren, and we know that every mother, father, and child needs public and family support.

What does this tell us? Economic policy and abortion are not separate issues; they form one moral imperative. Rhetoric is hollow, mere tinkling brass, without health care, health insurance, jobs, child care, and a living wage. Pro-life in deed, not merely in word, means we need policies that provide jobs and health insurance and support for prospective mothers.

I also hope they take a hint from this ardent conservative who ended up canvasing for Obama and wrote about his experience here

Let me make it clear: I'm pretty conservative. I grew up in the suburbs. I voted for George H.W. Bush twice, and his son once. I was disappointed when Bill Clinton won, and disappointed he couldn't run again.

I encouraged my son to join the military. I was proud of him in Afghanistan, and happy when he came home, and angry when he was recalled because of the invasion of Iraq. I'm white, 55, I live in the South and I'm definitely going to get a bigger tax bill if Obama wins.

Curly, who is white, went on to describe canvasing for Obama in some of the poorest black areas of Charlotte, North Carolina. He described announcing the surprise of those who answered the doors and then announcing that... "We're from the Obama campaign,"

And just like that doors opened and folks with wide smiles came out on the porch to talk.

Grandmothers kept one hand on their grandchildren and made sure they had all the information they needed for their son or daughter to vote for the first time.

Young people came to the door rubbing sleep from their eyes to find out where they could vote early, to make sure their vote got counted

This is something that's always amazed and saddened me about Catholic conservatives, they will casually destroy the future of the children whose lives they can see, for the 'potential' future of children who don't yet exists.

What kind of human actually thinks like that? Humans that care more about children in the abstract, then in the here and now. The Catholic church has a pretty lousy record for getting the human stuff right, from Copernicus, through the inquisition to the concordat, they've been wrong about some of the most important decisions and policies of our time. Their concern for humanity can perhaps best be measured in its inabiltiy to condone contraceptive use, even in the face of a massive AIDS epidemic that has slaughtered millions across the world, especially in poorest Africa and Haiti. Jesus never said a word about 'abortion' or 'contraceptives', but he had an awful lot to say about treating poor people badly in the here and now. Please think on that before you blindly caste your vote based on what 'the Church' seems to say. More often than not, it's been wrong: academically, scientifically, and morally. Of course, you'd have to have a mind and morality of your own to determine that. Luckily, many Americans still do.

Here is his conclusion.

I've learned that this election is about the heart of America. It's about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It's about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Barack Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.

My wife and I went out last weekend to knock on more doors. But this time, not because it was her idea. I don't know what it's going to do for the Obama campaign, but it's doing a lot for me.

Amen.

Very Interesting Vote Video

2008-10-29T21:56:00.000-04:00

But I have to admit after the saturation coverage of this election, the funny parts are really funny. What's scary is I could place a real name to about half of these characters--watch the video, you'll know what I mean...

Priceless

2008-10-26T08:49:00.000-04:00

Now the sad truth is, until about 2 weeks ago, I had no idea what some of these alphabet economic products we keep reading about were. If you had asked me about a CDS or credit default swap, I wouldn't have known. But, seeing the market implode and trying to come to grips with the situation I figured I might as well learn what everyone was getting so excited about.

Here's what I learned: a CDS is basically insurance covering the value of a particular loan--effectively guaranteeing a payoff should the borrower fail to pay off his debt. It's not called 'insurance' but 'swap' to avoid insurance style regulation.

It's an important distinction. Insurance companies are regulated by the government, with reserve requirements, statutory limits, and examiners routinely showing up to check the books to make sure the money is there to cover potential claims. CDS are private bets, and the Federal Reserve from the time of Alan Greenspan has insisted that regulators keep hands off.

According to Global Research

Credit default swaps are the most widely traded form of credit derivative. They are bets between two parties on whether or not a company will default on its bonds. In a typical default swap, the “protection buyer” gets a large payoff if the company defaults within a certain period of time, while the “protection seller” collects periodic payments for assuming the risk of default.

CDS thus resemble insurance policies, but there is no requirement to actually hold any asset or suffer any loss, so CDS are widely used just to speculate on market changes. In one blogger's example, a hedge fund wanting to increase its profits could sit back and collect $320,000 a year in premiums just for selling “protection” on a risky BBB junk bond. The premiums are “free” money - free until the bond actually goes into default, when the hedge fund could be on the hook for $100 million in claims. And there's the catch: what if the hedge fund doesn't have the $100 million? The fund's corporate shell or limited partnership is put into bankruptcy, but that hardly helps the “protection buyers” who thought they were covered.

The current number of CDS agreements are said to be around 45 trillion.

What's interesting in this context--outside of the fact that it's driven our economy into economic meltdown for the forseeable future-- is the failure of Byron York of the National Review to even understand what a CDS is, much less how they might be responsible for the current economic crisis--as most economists understand it. Instead, he's stuck like glue to the conservative talking point that the economic crisis is the result of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac giving out loans to minorities that couldn't afford them. Not only is this economic hogwash--bad loans may have helped but alone they would never have caused this economic tsunami -- it's boilerplate racist garbage. Couple that with the attack against ACORN and you hold the keys to whatever intellectual intergrity modern conservatism can claim. But let's go to tape...

From an online chat between Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone and Byron York of the National Review...

M.T.: But all of those "headwinds," or almost all of them, are the direct result of McCain having supported policies that are now unpopular. There is absolute justice in his facing a "headwind" from the financial meltdown, from the unpopularity of the Iraq war, and so on. How is that a "headwind"? That's just self-created unpopularity.

I mean, his onetime campaign co-chair and top economic adviser, Phil Gramm, basically created the credit-default-swap market back in 2000. Why shouldn't he get hammered on the financial crisis?

B.Y.: Did I suggest that headwinds are unfair? But on the financial meltdown in particular, if you're suggesting that that is a Republican creation, or even more specifically a McCain creation, I think you're on pretty shaky ground.

M.T.: You don't think the unregulated CDS market was a major factor in the current crisis? Were you watching when AIG almost went under? Were you watching the Lehman collapse?

B.Y.: I think that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also major factors. And I believe that many of the problems in the mortgage area can be attributed to the confluence of Democratic and Republican priorities: the Democrats' desire to give mortgages to people, particularly minorities, who could not afford them, and the Republicans' desire to achieve an "ownership society," in part by giving mortgages to people who could not afford them. Again, I believe that if you are suggesting that the financial crisis is a Republican creation, or even more specifically a McCain creation, I think you're on pretty shaky ground.

M.T.: Oh, come on. Tell me you're not ashamed to put this gigantic international financial Krakatoa at the feet of a bunch of poor black people who missed their mortgage payments. The CDS market, this market for credit default swaps that was created in 2000 by Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act, this is now a $62 trillion market, up from $900 billion in 2000. That's like five times the size of the holdings in the NYSE. And it's all speculation by Wall Street traders. It's a classic bubble/Ponzi scheme. The effort of people like you to pin this whole thing on minorities, when in fact this whole thing has been caused by greedy traders dealing in unregulated markets, is despicable.

B.Y.: I was struck by the recent Senate testimony of James Lockhart, who is head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, about the sheer recklessness of Fannie in recent years. Despite "repeated warnings about credit risk," Lockhart testified, Fannie became more reckless in 2006 and 2007 than they had been in the scandal-ridden tenure of Franklin Raines (who departed in 2004). In 2005, Lockhart said, 14 percent of Fannie's new business was in risky loans. In the first half of 2007, it was 33 percent. So something terribly wrong was going on there, and it became a significant part of the present problem.

M.T.: What a surprise that you mention Franklin Raines. Do you even know how a CDS works? Can you explain your conception of how these derivatives work? Because I get the feeling you don't understand. Or do you actually think that it was a few tiny homeowner defaults that sank gigantic companies like AIG and Lehman and Bear Stearns? Explain to me how these default swaps work, I'm interested to hear.

Because what we're talking about here is the difference between one homeowner defaulting and forty, four hundred, four thousand traders betting back and forth on the viability of his loan. Which do you think has a bigger effect on the economy?

B.Y.: Are you suggesting that critics of Fannie and Freddie are talking about the default of a single homeowner?

M.T.: No. That is what you call a figure of speech. I'm saying that you're talking about individual homeowners defaulting. But these massive companies aren't going under because of individual homeowner defaults. They're going under because of the myriad derivatives trades that go on in connection with each piece of debt, whether it be a homeowner loan or a corporate bond. I'm still waiting to hear what your idea is of how these trades work. I'm guessing you've never even heard of them.

I mean really. You honestly think a company like AIG tanks because a bunch of minorities couldn't pay off their mortgages?

B.Y.: When you refer to "Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act," are you referring to S.3283, co-sponsored by Gramm, along with Senators Tom Harkin and Tim Johnson?

M.T.: In point of fact I'm talking about the 262-page amendment Gramm tacked on to that bill that deregulated the trade of credit default swaps.

Tick tick tick. Hilarious sitting here while you frantically search the Internet to learn about the cause of the financial crisis — in the middle of a live chat interview.

B.Y.: Look, you can keep trying to make this a specifically partisan and specifically Gramm-McCain thing, but it simply isn't. We've gone on for fifteen minutes longer than scheduled, and that's enough. Thanks.

M.T.: Thanks. Note, folks, that the esteemed representative of the New Republic has no idea what the hell a credit default swap is. But he sure knows what a minority homeowner looks like.

B.Y.: It's National Review.

On Undecided Voters

2008-10-25T16:57:00.000-04:00

From the inimitable David Sedaris in the New Yorker:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

Saving the Paleoliths

2008-10-25T14:37:00.000-04:00

McCain campaign spokeperson...

There are people in this campaign who feel a real sense of loyalty to her and are really pleased with her performance and think she did a great job," said the McCain insider. "She has a real future in this party."

Sure, Sarah Palin may have a future in the Republican party, but really, isn't the question more pratically put: "Does a party stupid enough to tout Sarah Palin, actually even have a future?"

1000 words

2008-10-24T23:51:00.000-04:00

Anti-Socialism as Racism

2008-10-24T01:21:00.000-04:00

Adam Serwer over at The American Prospect breaks down the history of what right wingers mean when they call Obama a 'socialist'...Money graph:

The hysterical accusations of socialism from conservatives echo similar accusations leveled at black leaders in the past, as though the quest for racial parity were simply a left-wing plot. Obama may not actually be a socialist or communist, but his election would strike another powerful blow to the informal racial hierarchy that has existed in America since the 1960s, when it ceased being enforced by law. This hierarchy, which holds that whiteness is synonymous with American-ness, is one conservatives are now instinctively trying to preserve. Like black civil-rights activists of the 1960s, Obama symbolizes the destruction of a social order they see as fundamentally American, which is why terms like "socialism" are used to describe the threat.

This phenomenon extends beyond Obama's candidacy. The conservative explanation for the mortgage crisis falls neatly into this narrative, too; the country is at risk because Democrats allowed minorities to disrupt the natural social order by becoming homeowners. Never mind that this defies all data, logic, and history, the narrative resonates because it allows Obama, a living symbol of black folks rising above "their station," to become a focus for conservative economic anxieties.

Conservatives, now and in the past, have turned to "socialism" and "communism" as shorthand to criticize black activists and political figures since the civil-rights era. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X as written by Alex Haley, Malcolm recalls being confronting by a government agent tailing him in Africa, not long after his pilgrimage to Mecca. The agent was convinced that Malcolm was a communist. Malcolm spent years under surveillance because of such bizarre suspicions. Likewise, J. Edgar Hoover spent years attempting to link Martin Luther King Jr. to the communist cause. King, for his part, welcomed everyone who embraced the cause of black civil rights, regardless of their ideological ties. This included communists and socialists, but the idea that a devout man of God like King saw black rights as a mere step in a worldwide communist revolution was absurd. Malcolm was a conservative. King was a liberal. To their enemies, they were simply communists.

--snip --

McCain, a child of privilege who spent the late 1960s in a Vietnamese prison camp, may simply be unaware of the feelings and historical context he has evoked through his campaign’s rhetoric. When Sarah Palin accuses Obama of "palling around with terrorists" and suggests that Obama hates his own country enough to wish it violence, the McCain campaign fuels age-old paranoia built around the conflation of black rights and the radical left. As for McCain himself, his attempts to tamp down the vitriol of his crowds suggest that he is somewhat confused by their response. He wants voters to dislike Obama, but he seems unaware of just what he has unleashed. However, by implicitly invoking the idea that Obama represents a socialist takeover of the United States, McCain is inviting what can only be a rational response from those who would die for their country: violence. What else is a patriot to do when freedom is threatened? Especially when their fears have been validated by no less authoritative a source than the Republican nominee for president of the United States?

How much of this is broadly true of the attitudes of the rightwing in this country, I couldn't say; but one think that strikes me as deeply insightful are these sentences:

Malcolm was a conservative. King was a liberal. To their enemies, they were simply communists.

How many conservatives can make this obvious distinction? Is it because they don't see or understand it....or is it because they simply don't care?

From Russia, with love

2008-10-20T14:01:00.001-04:00

from Politico:
McCain camp hits up Russian envoy

On a day on which McCain campaign manager Rick Davis hinted that Obama was taking foreign money, the Russian Mission to the United Nations has released a standard-issue fundraising letter gone a bit astray: It was addressed to the Russian envoy to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, at the mission's address, but without his title.

As the Russian newswire RIA-Novosti tells it:

Russia's permanent mission to the UN has received a letter from U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain asking for financial support of his election campaign, the mission said in a statement on Monday.

"We have received a letter from Senator John McCain with a request for a financial donation to his presidential election campaign. In this respect we have to reiterate that neither Russia's permanent mission to the UN nor the Russian government or its officials finance political activities in foreign countries," the statement said.

According to Ruslan Bakhtin, press secretary of the Russian mission, the letter dated September 29 and signed by McCain, was addressed to Vitaly Churkin, Russia's envoy to the UN, and arrived on October 16.

The ambassador's title was not included in the letter, and was not clear why the letter had taken over two weeks to arrive.

Enclosed was a request for a donation of up to $5,000 to McCain's election campaign to be returned with a check or permission to withdraw the money from the donor's credit card until October 24.

Bakhtin confirmed the story to Politico, and wouldn't comment on the added oddity of the error coming from the anti-Russian McCain. "We just find it amusing," he said.

Gee, wonder if McCain looks into Putin's soul and still sees K G B.... or ...maybe he's starting to spell it... H E L P

Deepest Republican Fears-- per Joe Scarborough

2008-10-19T22:38:00.000-04:00

"...but they start talking about economics, income redistribution, get--you know, taking from the most productive members of society and giving tax breaks to people who don't pay taxes. This is what we're going to see."

Let's take 30 seconds and unpack this, shall we?

Here are the hidden assumptions: if I earn over 250,000 a year I am one of the "most productive members of society". If I earn less than 250,000 a year, I am someone who doesn't pay taxes.

Yeah, I know it's stupid, but let's really break it down. Just to see how Republican talking points really work.

First up, a question: are folks who make more than $250,000 dollars a year actually more productive than those who make less?

Most studies and academically valid evidence suggest this is not just false, but an incredibly stupid assumption.

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

So what we're seeing--take note Joe--is an INVERSE relation between wages and productivity. There's also empirical evidence that the more you work, physically, the LESS you make.

But what about intellectual work? It's true that advanced degrees correlate with higher salaries up to a point--and that point is right around 100,000 dollars. After that, salaries for advanced degrees especially in academia, flatline. Advanced professional degrees continue to inch upward and a 'productive' lawyer or doctor might make lots more money than a lazy one, true, but this is an utterly one dimensional analysis.

What about doctors who work in poor rural areas? Is there a valid 'productive' correlation between their wealth and the wealth of someone working as a plastic surgeon in Hollywood? Is the plastic surgeon actually more productive or just lucky enough to work for a wealthier community?

Big question, the answer tends to be obvious after a few seconds of thought.

Or let's take a little bit more concrete example. Let's take what you do for a living, Joe.

Try working a UPS shift unloading a truck for say, 10 bucks an hour and compare that labor / value to what you make for spouting ridiculous ideological fantasies for less than an hour every morning.

In that scenario who is actually more 'productive'? The lying fabulist (you) or the UPS trucker unloading his truck for four hours?

I believe a valid argument can be made that Joe Scarborough is actually destroying the intellect of the middle class by lying to individuals who are sadly still watching him, while the guy unloading the UPS truck might not be terribly enlightening, but at least he's moving boxes and not twisting reality into those bizarre rightwing fantasies that have no relation to reality. In short, he's far, far more productive vis a vis the middle class than a Joe Scarborough will ever be.

If you're wealthy, that's no guarantee you have been actually more productive in any meaningful sense for the middle class or the larger community. But it does tell us much about the community you serve, Joe--and it ain't the middle class.

Conversely, what millions and millions of hard working 'Joes' across this country can attest to--if you're truly productive at the nuts and bolts level of society--that bears little or no relation to the amount of real money you might be making when compared across all classes. When compared merely within the limits of the middle class--say those make below 250,000 and above 35,000 dollars you could make an argument that there's a correlation but it's not especially strong, considering the variations across communities in terms of wealth, etc. that I've already mentioned. But this gets particularly bizarre if you compare across classes, because once you move across the million dollar mark, money is generally not even tied to individual 'work day' productivity in any meaningful sense. There are excpetions, of course, but 'earning' wealth at that level is typically tied directly to investment strategies; in Bush's infamous diction, doin 'bidness. That's not productivity, Joe. That's speculative profiteering, gambling, or, depending on the investment strategy, usury.

Next up, is the utterly ludicrous notion that if I make less than $250,000 I'm essentially tax free.

Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe.

This should be tatooed on your forehead so you will never earn a cent spouting nonsense on national television again.

All of us...every single one of us poor bastards making less than $250,000 a year, all the millions and millions of us down to those poor suckers barely scraping by on $25,000 a year ... PAY TAXES.

You insufferable idiot.

In one sentence you've managed to insult millions and millions of people in the middle class, about 96% of this country, in fact, which is the number of folks who make less than $250,000 and are tax payers.

So do us all a favor and shut your pie hole, Joe. Your an embarassment to wealthy autocrats everywhere.

Hey, maybe there are some grown ups, afterall...

2008-10-19T16:10:00.001-04:00

Obama Canvaser attacked

2008-10-19T10:03:00.000-04:00

from WISN

CALEDONIA, Wis. -- Police in Caledonia are investigating the assault of a campaign volunteer as she was canvassing for Senator Barack Obama Saturday afternoon. In an exclusive interview with 12 News, 58 year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago says she was going door-to-door when she came across a disgruntled homeowner. “The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving,” Takehara said. “He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me.” The man eventually stopped and the Caledonia police were called. Takehara was asked if she needed medical assistance, but she was not seriously injured. Instead, she says she was shaken up by the homeowner’s reaction.

--snip--

The reference to ACORN in this account is important. No doubt the irate homeowner came up with that obscure organization's name thanks to far right wing propaganda that has been showered on the American public for the last three or four weeks. The reference to ACORN is no accident, in other words, but part of a sustained Republican voter suppression effort. In fact, scratch the surface a little bit and you begin to realize that the whole Republican gambit against ACORN is tied directly to the US Attorney scandal under Alberto Gonzales. How so? Well recall that in the US attorneys scandal several US attorneys were fired for their unwillingess to pursue politically charged cases, including voter fraud, with sufficient aggression to satisfy the Bush administration.

According to TalkingPointsMemo

House Judiciary chair John Conyers, as well as David Iglesias -- whose firing as US attorney was a direct result of his reluctance to pursue GOP-pushed claims of voter fraud, according to the recent OIG report -- have also connected the FBI's ACORN investigation to the kind of politicization exposed in the firings saga.

The smearing of ACORN is an essential part of McCain voter suppression strategy. By alleging that ACORN voter fraud could threaten the fabric of our democracy, as McCain claimed in the debate Wednesday night, he is trying to create a much greater doubt about the electoral process altogether. Couple that with an imprudent --and possibly illegal FBI investigation this close to a national election --and you create a volatile atmosphere for low information voters who don't realize the demonization of ACORN is all about throwing out as many voter registrations as possible. That's the Republican's end goal, presumably. Perhaps a tangential benefit is calling into question Obama's mandate, should he win. Neither are helpful to the Democratic process or dignified, frankly. And, certainly in this instance, ACORN is very much a victim of a GOP smear campaign.

A word or two about ACORN

ACORN has been around for 38 years. It's an acronym that stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and it's been active all these years at the community level in fighting for fair wage laws, preventing home owner discrimination and predatory lending and voter registration. What problems there are with voter registration forms are noted AND handed into the precincts. Why? Because in many localities that's the law. It's required they hand in all registrations. Voluntarily, ACORN flags those registrations that appear suspicious, but it's up to local officials to determine the validity of the voter registration--NOT ACORN. As King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, a Republican, said last year the ACORN case in Seattle had nothing to do with manipulating outcomes and everything to do with the workers' efforts to keep their $8-an-hour jobs. If anyone was defrauded, it was ACORN... "The defendants ... cheated their employers to get paid for work they did not actually perform," Satterberg said. "The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets."

Do fake registrations equal fake ballots? No

To give some sense of how infrequently an actual voter registration problem leads to a miscaste ballot, Dr Lori Minnite of Barnard College has reported that from 2002 to 2005 only one person was found guilty of registration fraud. Twenty people were found guilty of voting while ineligible and five people were found guilty of voting more than once. That’s 26 criminal voters -- voters who vote twice, impersonate other people, vote without being a resident -- the voters that Republicans warn about. 26 out of the millions and millions of ballots caste in those three years. Think about those numbers...your odds on the lottery are better than coming across an incidence of true voter fraud. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people are getting turned away at the polls.

"Yet", Minnite notes, "we see the repetition of wildly exaggerated allegations about ACORN's "criminality" by people like Michelle Malkin, a right-wing blogger; John Fund, who's been attacking ACORN for years from his vantage as a Wall Street Journal columnist; and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative so devoted to Nixonian dirty tricks that he's tattooed an image of Nixon's face on his back. His blog, by the way, is sponsored by the same law firm that launched a phony voter fraud attack on ACORN in Florida during the last presidential election."

"Let’s remember, as the Republicans make a furor over the Indiana registrations, that ACORN itself separated out those registrations -- found the 2,000 faulty ones and flagged them for election officials -- in the first place. "

Let's repeat that: they work with elected officials, not against them.

If you are unfortunate enough to have any, let your Republican friends or family members know that the nonsense the GOP is spewing lately is not merely lies and smears, which, afterall, we have come to expect. But when coupled with the 'terrorist' association nonsense and the nativist racism already prevalent in many American communities, these smears create a toxic environment that is dangerous, incendiary and hate filled. Innocent people will get hurt because of it.

That's not just ACORNs' problem, or Obama's. It's every Republicans' problem who has not spoken out against such ugly tactics used in their name. From history, we know how tragically such cowardly silence can end.

Below is short Hidden History on ACORN.

~DM

P.S. If you are still deeply concerned about election fraud in America, you might try reading this story about a fellow named Mark Jacoby, who was arrested in Ontario and owns a firm hired in California that explicitly violated state registration laws by illegally switching party identification. This is the real deal, afterall. But it will not please the likes of FOX News or The Wall Street Journal: Mark Jacoby was hired by the Californian Republican party. ...

"Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department comes after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by his firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM. The voters said YPM tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP."

It's Not Socialism, John. It's a 'correction'

2008-10-18T14:04:00.000-04:00

I guess McCain is making for a gentler campaign or just dating himself, pulling out the big bugaboo of his generation 'socialism' and 'welfare' and not using the ole 'terrorist' card that gen-x moron in lipstick Palin likes.

The way McCain phrases Obama's plan makes it sound really sinister and commie.

"In other words, Barack Obama's tax plan would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington," McCain said in the radio address.

The only problem is no 'conversion' of the IRS is necessary and McCain's plan will do the same thing --"redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington"-- with tax credits.

Besides what's with all the screechy talk about 'socialism', suddenly? Bush has been as prolifigate a spender of federal dollars as you'd ever want to see. He's a bloated embarassment of riches for the fiscally promiscuous. Only, Bush and McCain's policies ensure that the middle class and poor never see a dime of that money. Instead it goes to cronies in various industries and state run boondoogles many of which (FEMA, Homeland Security) rival the old Soviet Union for utter incompetence and corruption. His tax cuts alone were one of the most massive welfare projects in US history; just aimed at a very small and very wealthy demographic and not those treacherous and lazy 'welfare' queens that Ronald Reagan always railed against (poor black women 'in cadillacs' were apparently almost as dangerous as Russian MIGs).

And to be fair, I guess we ought to mention in more detail all those happy RICH recipients of the Bush tax cuts who have been living high and mighty thanks to Bush and McCain's largesse(excuse me, per McCain's new usage, 'welfare') that amounted to a 3.5 trillion dollar giveaway according to the Brookings Institute.

...making the tax cuts permanent would reduce federal revenues by almost $1.8 trillion over 10 years — and that's in addition to the $1.7 trillion of revenue losses already locked into law.

That doesn't even include the latest $770 billion dollar 'bailout bill' for Goldman Sachs ex-CEO Paulson who Bush finagled into the head of the Treasury (henhouse meet rooster, your guard). Or the $85 Billion shelled out to those poverty stricken folks at AIG who had to turn around and blow a few hundred thousand dollars on their retreats and manicures because their poor nerves were so frazzled from not knowing whether Uncle Sam would come to their rescue or not.

Talk about Socialist Welfare Queens.

But enough with this class warfare talk. It's obvious that the middle class, and the poor have been deeply shafted for the last 20 years by the very wealthy in this country. Income distribution graphs
may help to elucidate the matter, but you don't need an L-Curve to let you know which way the wind blows. Obama's plan merely intends to make that L shape a bit less severe. You can call it socialism if you want, John. Or you can call it welfare. Neither are technically even in the ball park. But don't let a silly think like accuracy stop you now. You've already tossed the kitchen sink, what's a few more broken dishes.

But, for the record, I think I'll call it what it actually is: a much needed correction.

Joe 'attacks'

2008-10-18T10:44:00.001-04:00

CNN called this Biden's "strongest attack on Sarah Palin to date."

Sarah Palin told donors in North Carolina on Wednesday night that she enjoys visiting "pro-America" parts of the country, as opposed to, well, she didn't specify exactly.

Yesterday afternoon, campaigning in New Mexico, Joe Biden responded to Palin's comments.

"It's disappointing, and I hope it was just a slip on her part and she doesn't really mean it," Biden told supporters. "But she said, it was reported she said, that she likes to visit "pro-American" parts of the country. Ladies and gentlemen, I, like your senator and governor, have been all over this great land. I've never been to a state, I've never been to a state that hasn't sent its sons and daughters to serve and die for this country.... One of the reasons why Barack and I are running is that we know how damaging the politics of division [is] that continues to be practiced by the McCain campaign, how damaging this policy of division has been for Americans over the last decade. It's time to put this behind us."

"We are one nation, under God, indivisible. We are all patriotic!" he shouted. "We all love our country in every part of this nation! And I'm tired. I am tired, tired, tired, tired of the implications about patriotism."

This is a strong response to a ridiculously immature and demogagogic suggestion by Sarah Palin, but it's not an attack. Sarah Palin suggestion that her tribe of encephalitic jingoists and racists are somehow more 'Pro-American' than supporters of Biden or Obama might be construed as an attack; but pointing out that

a)it's inaccurate and a lie
b)it's consciously being done to polarize our nation even further

isn't an attack, in turn. It's a response.

CNN, as seems required by our idiotic discourse, is playing in false equivalences.

So, look, CNN, if you really want to quote someone attacking Sarah Palin, try this out, courtesy DelicateMonster:

Sarah Palin has a husband who is a traitor to America. She, herself, has sympathetic leanings for secessionist causes in her own state and her husband until recently was a favored member of the Alaskan Independence Party which wants to see Alaska disregard the US Constitution and unilaterally secede from the nation. They fought a major war over that kind of behavior about a 150 years ago. They called the secessionist traitors when they did it the first time. What do you think they ought to call Sarah Palin's husband now?

Sarah Palin has sought to ban books that she deemed were 'immoral' according to her Talibanesque view of morality that suggests gays are simply evil and not worthy of equal rights or protections under our law; views we see represented in such highly evolved clerical states as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran...oh, and in certain settings in Lynchburg, VA, Colorado Springs, Colorado and Wassila, Alaska.

Sarah Palin has abused the power of her office, threatening and ultimately firing individuals for personal vendettas. She has been found guilty of abuse of office by a highly partisan board consisting of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats.

Sarah Palin has used her position in the national spotlight to encourage what amount to hate rallies with adoring Right wing fans suggesting that we by turns 'kill Obama'
or 'burn' or 'bomb' Obama...She has done this by the most vile and ridiculous smears, suggesting because Obama had a presence on a Republican and Democratic board with an ex-weathermen member that he is somehow complicit in actions that occurred when Obama was only 8 years old. Robo Calls are now going out from the McCain campaign that make this same smear. The result of such activities can be found in the increased acrimony of the Republican crowds and incidents across the nation of shouting matches, kicking and abusing reporters, and, in one especially interesting case, some whiz in Illinois decided to hang an effigy of Obama in his yard for Halloween, replete with Star of David marked on his skull (someone apparently never sent him the memo about Jewish votes in Florida).

What few interviews she has allowed has shown us a Sarah Palin that is incurious, inarticulate and unknowledgeable at almost every level of importance to national governance.

Sarah's most avid fans appear to hail from the same low end of the gene pool as her. Doltish, ignorant of the simplest realities, and more than willing to lie about what they haven't even begun to understand.

That's an attack, CNN. Please feel free to quote me.

Noonan on Palin

2008-10-17T23:23:00.000-04:00

Insightful commentary, for a change, from Peggy Noonan:

But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for?...This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.

That last sentence captures,unwittingly, I'm sure, a large swath of the right in this country.

Obama addressing the Al Smith Dinner

2008-10-16T23:41:00.000-04:00

McCain's New Button

2008-10-16T21:42:00.001-04:00

All it's missing is his name.

Al-Jazeera Lets You Know What's Happening in Ohio

2008-10-15T20:43:00.001-04:00

Because our own press is apparently incapable:

Friends Don't Let Friends Vote for McCain

2008-10-15T00:28:00.000-04:00

Channeling Molly Ivins...

2008-10-13T19:03:00.001-04:00

via Granny Doc on dKos:

My favorite tobacco spitter arose from his plastic lawn chair as I pulled in.

"How Ya' doin', today?", he asked politely while eyeing the anti-Mccain sticker on the tail gate.

"Doin' well", I responded in the local venacular. "How are you guys?"

"Heard that Ba'rack guy on the TV just now", he said, getting straight to the point.

"His speech on the economy?", I asked. "What did ya' think?"

"He made some sense", he allowed, "but, what about that Muslim thing?"

"Aw, Ray, you're not still buying that load the Republicans are selling, are you?" I asked.

"Well, I keep hearin' he's a Muslim", he insisted.

There was a general alertness among the Guys at the Dump. They were giving this exchange their undivided attention, and I suspected that Ray had been chosen to make this foray into information gathering. I detected a crack in the facade!

"Ray", I said, "these guys have been lying to you for 30 years! They told you Democrats would take away your guns. It didn't happen. They told you they would outlaw abortion. It didn't happen. They told you we would all get rich if we just let them handle all the money. It didn't happen. They busted the budget, started a war on a lie, and now they have destroyed the jobs and credit of everyone in this country. How long you gonna' keep believin' 'em?"

"Senator Obama is a good, Christian, family man. He was born in the United States, and raised by his grandma' from KANSAS. You gotta stop listening to those guys over at FOX news. You gotta' stop listening to Rush. They are lying, too."

I turned to the crowd that had gathered, all reaching for bits and pieces of trash as an excuse, and said, "If you guys want things to get any better, you better stop worrying about the lie Republicans tell, and the silly issue of what color someone is, and vote for your own interests for a change."

"Well", Ray acknowledged, "he made some sense."

And the others nodded, in unison.

Ayers 'R Us

2008-10-12T11:53:00.000-04:00

My buddy Don over at PathKeepers.net has a post up deconstructing the Republicans use of Bill Ayers' Weatherman history as a campaign tactic against Barack Obama. He's generally more right than wrong on this post so go read it.

But one point of contention (and probably semantics) is this jewel. In arguing for defining the Weathermen as terrorists, he writes...

Terrorist or Not?

It’s pretty clear to me that the Weather Underground was a terrorist group. The loss of their comrades (from their own incompetence) in Greenwich Village caused the Weathermen to shift tactics. From that point on, they always announced their targets and warned people to stay away before they set off their bombs. In fact, Bill Ayers used this to deny that the Weathermen were terrorists:

We were very careful from the moment of the townhouse on to be sure we weren't going to hurt anybody, and we never did hurt anybody. Whenever we put a bomb in a public space, we had figured out all kinds of ways to put checks and balances on the thing and also to get people away from it, and we were remarkably successful.
But, they still bombed. That’s the mark of terrorists, isn’t it? They set bombs against specific targets, but so do Al Qai’da. So did the Provisional Irish Republican Army and their Protestant counterparts.

This strikes me as a surprisingly simplistic definition. Yes, bombing might be one feature of terrorism, but hell, the U.S. military bombs lots of folks--and yes, they do it to 'affect behavior' and to 'terrorize' (remember shock and awe? Folks on the ground were screaming in terror at our wonderful 'shock and awe'--and we managed to kill quite a few more civilians than the Weathermen ever did) so pray tell, what exactly separates these two entities? Is it because one entity is 'state run' and the other is 'ad hoc' or because one is fighting a unilaterally 'declared' war and the other...oh, that's right, fighting a 'unilaterally declared' war? In short, the only thing separating terrorists who bomb military targets from a military that bombs military targets is the power and the authority of the state. But if the state acts without international authority--as is the case with the preemptive war in Iraq--it's a distinction without a difference. Throw in the fact that the US routinely kills more innocent civilians in their bombing runs in either Iraq OR Afghanistan than the Weathermen have in their entire history and the argument approaches the ludicrous. Unless, of course, your moral principles devolve to 'might makes right'. At bottom that's hardly an ethical principle to balance such a damning certainty on.

The problem isn't with defining terrorism, per se, the problem as Noam Chomsky put it, "lies in the unwillingness to recognise that your own terrorism is terrorism."

Unless Don's open to a discussion on what constitutes 'terrorism' generally, I suggest taking Ayers at his word is as valid, or more valid, than taking the Pentagon and Pentagon apologists at their word. Certainly whether 'bombs' are used or not can be a determining factor in that definition, but if that's the case let's use the definition in all instances. In other words, according to Don's definition, the U.S. military is a terrorist organization.

Don't agree? Fine. Come up with a better definition for terrorism. For the record, I'd be open to calling Ayers activity 'terrorism' if we could have a bit more honesty in what the hell our various covert and overt military operations amount to. Maybe we could begin with our support of terrorism (the Contras) in our attempt to illegally overthrow the Sandisnista government in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration?

Included in the indictment by the World Court of the United States behavior was some detailed information on our own explicitly terroristic behavior:

As a part of its training program for the contras, the CIA prepared and distributed a manual entitled Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare. This manual included instructions in the "use of implicit and explicit terror", and in the "selective use of violence for propaganda effects". Commander Carrion explained that the manual was given to the Contras, "All of these terrorist instructions have the main purpose of alienating the population from the Government through creating a climate of terror and fear, so that nobody would dare support the Government". The manual calls for the "neutralization" (i.e. assassination) of Sandinista local government officials, judges, etc. for purposes of intimidation. It was openly admitted by the President Reagan in a press conference that the manual had been prepared by a CIA contract employee.

In testimony before the court, Professor Glennon of the International Human Rights Law Group, and the Washington Office on Latin America summarized his fact finding mission as follows:

"We found that there is substantial credible evidence that the contras were engaged with some frequency in acts of terroristic violence directed at Nicaraguan civilians. These are individuals who have no connection with the war effort-persons with no economic, political or military significance. These are Individuals who are not caught in the cross-fire between Government and contra forces, but rather individuals who are deliberately targeted by the contras for acts of terror.

That last sentence strikes me as a pretty good definition for what terrorism really is: Innocent non-combatants who are deliberately targeted by the either side to influence a community's behavior through fear.

Sticking to this definition, you could argue that Ayers intentions, at least initially, were generally terroristic AND you'd also be forced to admit that an awful lot of activity by our own military and our spook operatives is terroristic--in the extreme. But that bit of honesty is no reason not to adopt it.

Learning economics from the press?

2008-10-12T11:13:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's a question --and the broad answer is, don't try to do it. These guys are getting it wrong. Not just on the big picture, that could more effectively be called betting on a run on a ponzi scam than a 'liquidity crisis', but they even fudged (apparently earnestly) small details that even I--almost utter economic neophyte--understand are wrong. Here's Brad Delong (a real life authentic economist) to take them to task:

You remember Paul Krugman's joke--that if Bush said the world was flat, reporters would write "opinions on shape of earth differ"?

Now we have Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin of the Politico encountering McCain saying "the earth is flat." And what do they do? They agree:

Exclusive: McCain to unveil more economic policies - Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin: As part of a plan to reinvigorate his flagging campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is considering additional economic measures aimed directly at the middle class that are likely to be rolled out this week, campaign officials said. Among the measures being considered are tax cuts – perhaps temporary – for capital gains and dividends, the officials said...

Capital gains and dividend tax cuts are simply not "economic measures aimed directly at the middle class": the middle class doesn't collect capital gains, or dividends, in any material amount. Indeed, that's what makes you middle class--that even though you have a fair or a good income you work for it.

This might somehow fall in line with McCain's delusion that being 'rich' only begins when you have 5 million socked away, and thus with only 4.25 million in capital, you might well enjoy a Captial Gains tax cut, but the vast majority of us 'working' Middle Class could give a rip.

Now I'm not paid to know this stuff. I take a vague interest in it because right around the time Reagan was elected I began to understand that most pundits (like George Will, for example, or Charles Krauthammer) were distorting what little reality I could glean from the press. But if straight up reporters seem unable to get simple definitional statements right, what's a guy to do?

So, gents, how about doing your jobs? This is what you get paid for, not repeating some insipid Republican talking point that bears no resemblance to reality at all.

Back to Delong ...

... there is not even a token "some Democrats say that dividend and capital gains tax cuts have no direct effect on the middle class" in ths story. McCain says the earth is flat--and the reporters swallow it whole.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Ah, yup,yup,yup

2008-10-10T21:25:00.000-04:00

don't let that faux hick accent fool ya, there.

Abuse of governmental authority is a nice way of saying she's another Dick Cheney. Or, if one wants to get ultra technical, she has 'totalitarian tendencies'. For the Poli sci geeks out there, yup, yup, she's one more friggin' wannabe Leninist.

By the way that "politically motivated" investigation included 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats.

The report has been released (by unanimous vote of the Council). Here's the nugget:

For the reasons explained in Section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides

"The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."

Or as Newsweek put it:

Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative [and majority Republican] panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.....

I like that 'imperiled her reputation'

...ya think?

Your New Conservative Movement: Gloves come off, so do the Hoods

2008-10-07T09:04:00.000-04:00

From Dana Milbank in the Washington Post:

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

That’s right, it’s the fault of uppity blacks that Palin can’t give a coherent answer about her lack of foreign policy experience, can’t give a coherent answer to a question about which newspapers she reads, can’t name a single Supreme Court decision, etc. Uppity black sound engineers.

Far be it from me to suggest if you vote GOP you are throwing your lot in with a pack of morally retarded racists and hooligans who have had pretty much entrenched power for eight years, managing to destroy the economy, and our foreign policy in the process. No, I understand there are 'grownups' somewhere in the GOP party, folks like...ex-Senator Phil Gramm who made sure that institutions of higher finance were sufficiently deregulated to lead to the inexorable implosion of our market system. Or, say, folks like Donald Rumsfeld who boldly lied for the good of the country and said he knew exactly where those weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq. Indeed, even moderates like Colin Powell helped out with those fibs.

So no. The GOP isn't all just mindless racism and seething morons riled up by an even dimmer bulb who likes to think of herself as a pitbull with lipstick. It also consists of honorable men like John McCain who promised not to run such a campaign until he started flaying in the polls and coming off like the cranky old fart he is. And, of course, clever and suspense filled math wizards like Karl Rove who ingeniously promised to turn McCain's campaign around by picking the single stupidest hockey mom on earth to energize it.

Yes, that is your modern conservative movement, as diverse a group of ideological simpletons and liars as you would ever want to put in charge of your country. The spittle flecked crowd roused to their feet, crying as one did, vis a vis Obama, "kill him"? ... oh, that's just added value.

You want a scandal? I'll give you a scandal: Keating 5 redux

2008-10-05T23:32:00.000-04:00

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

Here's a nice little ad to go with it...

Will Obama weather the storm?

2008-10-05T23:05:00.000-04:00

Given Palin's rehash of an exhausted Ayers association charge, the 'weather' title and pic seems somehow approbo.

As to the question, my guess is he will. And Palin and the paleolithic conservatives she represents can head back to their caves to re-fashion their exhausted and impotent ideology or await their delusional raptures, whichever they think might come first.