Sid's Fishbowl

Tap tap tap

2011-07-28T10:54:00.001-06:00

Is this thing still working?

15 things you should know about Obama’s economic recovery plan (but probably don’t)

2009-03-01T16:40:00.001-07:00

Excellent stuff from MoveOn:

Last week, President Obama unveiled his budget—his blueprint for America—and it's ambitious, amazing, and unapologetically progressive. As Paul Krugman said, it will set America on a "fundamentally new course."¹
President Obama called his budget "a threat to the status quo," and trust me, the status quo noticed. Oil companies, big banks and insurance companies are already mobilizing to stop it.²
Unfortunately, most folks don't realize how far-reaching and progressive the plan is—that's where we all come in.
Here are 10 really incredible things about Obama's plan. Check them out and then send them on to your friends and family so that millions of people will have the information they need to fight to make this vision a reality.
The plan:

Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.³
Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.⁴
Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.⁵
Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.⁶
Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.⁷
Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies. ⁸
Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.⁹
Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.¹⁰
Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.¹¹
Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.¹²
Stops unnecessary government subsidies to big banks, health insurance companies and big agribusinesses.^13,14,15
Expands access to early childhood education and improves schools by investing in programs that make sure every child has a qualified, strong teacher.¹⁶
Negotiates for better prescription drug prices using Medicaid's tremendous bargaining power.¹⁷
Expands access to family planning for low-income women.¹⁸
Caps the pollution that causes global warming, and makes polluters pay to support clean energy innovation.¹⁹

Sources:

1. "Climate of Change," The New York Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?em

2. "Obama Calls His Budget Sweeping, Needed Change," The New York Times, February 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51201&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=2

3. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=3

4. "Obama Expects Fight Over $3.55 Trillion Budget Plan," Bloomberg News, February 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51203&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=4

5. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=5

6. "The Economic Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan," The New York Times, March 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/weekinreview/01glanz.html

7. "Tax Cuts," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-tax.html

8. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=6

9. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

10. "Obama unveils budget blueprint," CNN, February 26, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/26/budget/

11. "Obama budget would boost SEC, CFTC, FBI," Reuters, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51205&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=7

12. "Obama's budget," Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51206&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=8

13. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

14. "Health Insurance Stocks Dive on Medicare Advantage Cuts," The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51207&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=9

15. "Agriculture," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-agri.html

16. "Investing Wisely in Our Children," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51208&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=10

17. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=11

18. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=12

19. "Setting 'Green' Goals," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51209&id=15687-4728901-OwxrS.x&t=13

Your flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore

2009-03-01T12:07:00.001-07:00

Paul Harvey gone but not forgotten. FAIR remembers one of the most sickening rants ever to pollute American airwaves.

R.I.P.? No fucking way.

Funniest line of the year (so far)

2009-02-27T11:42:00.001-07:00

The Poor Man quotes Mitch McConnell, speaking at CPAC, the right-wing drooling loon-fest:

…[W]ho wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?

Wait, wait, that’s not the funny part (although it is pretty hilarious). The funny part is TPM’s response:

I’ll say this, Rush definitely has the better drugs. So in a sense, yeah. But only in the sense that certain insufferable pricks become momentarily sufferable if they’ve got the good gear. I’ll do blow with Hitler if he’s got the uncut shit.

Word.

Lunacy in Colorado Springs

2009-02-25T16:23:00.001-07:00

These people are just fucking insane. They don’t seem to understand that no sane person would worship a God who wants little babies to get AIDS so mothers can “feel guilt” and “see the negative consequences of that promiscuity.”

It almost makes me wish I believed in any sort of god, so I could take some comfort in the knowledge that He or She or It would smack these fools upside the head when they reached the Pearly Gates. “No, you idiot! You got it completely backwards!”

Joe the Economist?

2009-02-03T08:50:00.001-07:00

At first I thought this was a joke:

The ubiquitous Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber” and “Joe the War Correspondent,” will soon add a new moniker to his profile — “Joe the Economist.” Politico reports that House GOP congressional aides decided to invite Wurzelbacher to a meeting on the stimulus in hopes that it will attract some media attention

But no. It’s apparently for real.

I certainly hope that at least some Republicans are profoundly embarrassed by this. But I’m not holding my breath.

Limbaugh: How low can you go?

2009-01-29T07:54:00.001-07:00

Digby finds an awesome quote from Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL):

Rush Limbaugh is a has-been hypocrite loser, who craves attention. His right-wing lunacy sounds like Mikhail Gorbachev, extolling the virtues of communism. Limbaugh actually was more lucid when he was a drug addict. If America ever did 1% of what he wanted us to do, then we'd all need pain killers.

First Democrat in this Central Florida district in 24 years. Nice work!

Understanding talk radio

2009-01-28T09:24:00.001-07:00

Tom Tomorrow explains rule #1:

[W]hen you assume that pretty much everything you hear on right wing talk radio is dishonest bullshit, you will rarely be proven wrong

Heh. Indeed.

Paranoia strikes deep…

2008-12-20T16:37:00.001-07:00

Into your life it will creep:

A top level Republican IT consultant who was set to testify in a case alleging GOP election tampering in Ohio died in a plane crash late Friday night.

Michael Connell -- founder of Ohio-based New Media Communications, which created campaign Web sites for George W. Bush and John McCain -- died instantly after his single-prop, private aircraft smashed into a vacant home in suburban Lake Township, Ohio.
[…]
Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates. This in itself might have raised questions about his involvement in creating Ohio’s official state election website.
However, the alternative media group ePlubibus Media further discovered in November 2006 that election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted on the servers of a company in Chattanooga, TN called SmarTech, which also provided hosting for a long list of Republican Internet domains.

Larisa Alexandrovna, One of my sources died in a plane crash last night...

Mike Connell set-up the alternate email and communications system for the White House. He was responsible for creating the system that hosted the infamous GWB43.com accounts that Karl Rove and others used. When asked by Congress to provide these emails, the White House said that they were destroyed. But in reality, what Connell is alleged to have done is move these files to other servers after having allegedly scrubbed the files from all "known" Karl Rove accounts.
In addition, I have reason to believe that the alternate accounts were used to communicate with US Attorneys involved in political prosecutions, like that of Don Siegelman. This is what I have been working on to prove for over a year. In fact, it was through following the Siegelman-Rove trail that I found evidence leading to Connell. That is how I became aware of him. Mike was getting ready to talk. He was frightened.

A shiver runs down the spine…

After eight years, Americans finally get it

2008-12-18T17:31:00.001-07:00

Think Progress:

In a Pew survey released today, “just 11% said Bush will be remembered as an outstanding or above average president,” which is “by far the lowest positive end-of-term rating for any of the past four presidents.” Sixty-four percent of respondents said that the Bush administration “will be remembered more for its failures than its accomplishments.” The poll also asked people to describe Bush in a word. The top word that came to mind for 56 percent of respondents was “incompetent“:

Damn shame they couldn’t have figured that out in 2004.

Obama’s margin: 9.1 million and still counting

2008-11-26T10:18:00.001-07:00

Excellent work from CB8421 over at DKos, who has been painstakingly tracking the Presidential vote totals since Election Day, as many states continue to count and count and count. Here’s the latest summary:

Total votes: 130,222,663
Obama: 68,724,397
McCain: 59,599,875
Margin: 9,124,522
Percent margin: 7.00% (52.77% to 45.77%)

So what most people remember from election night is all those reports that the result was 52-47 or 52-48. The real margin is a full 7 points now, which adds up to more than 9.1 million votes in Obama’s favor.

As CD8421 notes, that’s a mandate.

Go read the whole thing.

The kids are alright

2008-11-09T09:15:00.001-07:00

Awesome:

Draining the swamp

2008-11-08T21:40:00.001-07:00

Music to my ears:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.
A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.
In some instances, Obama would be quickly delivering on promises he made during his two-year campaign, while in others he would be embracing Clinton-era policies upended by President Bush during his eight years in office.
"The kind of regulations they are looking at" are those imposed by Bush for "overtly political" reasons, in pursuit of what Democrats say was a partisan Republican agenda, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate administrator for health in the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget. The list of executive orders targeted by Obama's team could well get longer in the coming days, as Bush's appointees rush to enact a number of last-minute policies in an effort to extend his legacy.

Oh, and please impound all the hard drives as evidence on Day 1. Kthxbai.

New World Order

2008-11-08T12:09:00.001-07:00

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Bye Joe

2008-11-06T13:43:00.001-07:00

Statement out from Sen. Reid ...

Today Senator Lieberman and I had the first of what I expect to be several conversations. No decisions have been made. While I understand that Senator Lieberman has voted with Democrats a majority of the time, his comments and actions have raised serious concerns among many in our caucus. I expect there to be additional discussions in the days to come, and Senator Lieberman and I will speak to our caucus in two weeks to discuss further steps…

Hang a big red R around his neck and shove him out the door, Harry.

Damn, what a tool:

A commenter at FDL advises Reid, “It’s time to ‘settle all the family business.’”

(via TPM)

Deep thought

2008-11-06T10:04:00.001-07:00

Can we foreclose on the White House? The current occupant hasn’t been living up to the terms of his agreement.

Dancing in the streets

2008-11-05T15:21:00.001-07:00

Awesome:

Deep thought

2008-11-05T12:15:00.001-07:00

Being President of the United States is kind of like being a community organizer, only with real responsibilities and 300 million people in your “community.”

Suck on that, Sarah and Rudy.

A message to my friends on the right

2008-11-05T10:15:00.001-07:00

Doesn’t smell like victory

2008-11-03T10:01:00.001-07:00

Wow. The day before the election, and John McCain is drawing crowds that can practically be counted by hand. From the St. Petersburg Times Florida Politics Blog a few minutes ago:

Tampa McCain rally: Where is everybody?

About 30 minutes before John McCain is scheduled to lead a rally outside Raymond James Stadium, looks like there's maybe 1,000 people here. What's up with that? On the day before the election? Bush drew at least 15,000 people to a rally just across the street on the Sunday before the 2004 election.
"We are the quiet majority that goes out and gets things done. ... I smell victory,'' said state Rep. Kevin Ambler. Good thing he smells it, because it's hard to see it with this crowd.

And a half-hour later:

"If you can't round up 1,500 people the day before the election, you've got a serious problem. From an organizational standpoint, they've done a terrible job. ... It could be a long, ugly night tomorrow." --- Republican consultant Chris Ingram of Tampa.

Let’s hope it’s a short night, actually. I’m thinking a concession speech maybe around 8:04PM Arizona time?

(via)

Eisenhower was right

2008-11-02T18:40:00.001-07:00

In a 1954 letter to his brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower, President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.

Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

That last line kinda rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

(via Open Left)

“We shall see the reign of witches pass over…”

2008-11-02T13:34:00.001-07:00

History lesson:

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

-- Thomas Jefferson, from a letter he sent in 1798 after the passage of the Sedition Act

A little patience indeed…

(originally posted here November 9, 2004, in the wake of that squeaker of an election, and oh man does that seem like an eternity ago)

Ready for your Wall Street flyover, Mr. President?

2008-10-24T07:04:00.001-06:00

Amazingly, this is not Photoshopped. And it’s recent. You can tell Karl’s not around anymore.

(via)

QOTD

2008-10-22T07:31:00.001-06:00

“If it's true that Barack Obama really is a terrorist, then we have the worst Department of Homeland Security in the universe.”

(more amusement at the must-read Cheers and Jeers)

Don’t get cocky

2008-10-20T13:38:00.001-06:00

From fivethirtyeight.com:

What we're seeing on the ground with volunteering, especially with public polls showing double digit leads in Pennsylvania, is that the "flake rate" for volunteers is higher. "Flake rate" is the term for how the percentage of people who sign up to do a canvassing or phonebanking shift, and then don't show up. It tends to happen when a candidate's supporters get complacent. And it can happen in a hurry.
Indeed, Barack Obama himself hopped on a nationwide all-staff conference call Friday to emphasize this point to the troops. Pledging to "come down hard" on anyone getting "too cocky," Obama specifically and pre-emptively called out any semblance of lack of focus. High-fiving, for example, is strictly verboten. Acknowledging everyone must be exhausted, he pointed out that he was pretty worn out too. "I've been doing this longer than you, and I'm older than all of you." The message: if I can finish this off, so can you. Do not doubt that this is a man firmly in control of his campaign.
[…]

David Plouffe followed Obama with steady words, and, because he doesn't swear often, language timed for effect. As a baseline, the campaign was in excellent shape to win all the Kerry states, Plouffe said. In many Bush 2004 states, the campaign was in very strong shape as well. The message: we just have to stay focused and do our jobs, not let up one inch and we'll win the election.
"I'll say what I said back in New Hampshire," he concluded. "Let's go win this fucking thing."

Vote early. When you do, you ensure that your vote gets counted, and you get your name crossed off the lists of potential voters that the campaign has to target, meaning that they can concentrate on a smaller and smaller group as the days go by.

After you vote, spend as much time as you can getting voters to the polls in states where it matters. Knock on doors if you can. That’s the best way to get out the vote. Much more potent as a tactic than phone-banking.

Traitors and terrorists

2008-10-19T09:53:00.001-06:00

McCain and Palin are using a playbook from the early 1950s. Listen as Joe McCarthy addresses “my good friends” and accuses Edward R. Murrow of defending “traitors” and associating with “terrorist organizations.”

Bye, John

2008-10-19T06:46:00.001-06:00

NEWS ALERT

from The Wall Street Journal

Oct. 19, 2008

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama announced that his campaign had raised more than $150 million in September, shattering the previous record he had set in August when he drew $66 million in contributions.

Objectively pro-American in Missouri

2008-10-18T12:37:00.001-06:00

Wow. Just wow.

Obama Rally Draws 100,000 in Missouri

Amy Chozick reports on the presidential race from St. Louis.

Barack Obama attracted 100,000 people at a Saturday rally here, his biggest crowd ever at a U.S. event.

The crowd assembled under the Gateway Arch on a sunny Saturday afternoon to hear Obama speak about taxes and slam the Republicans on economic issues.

Lt. Samuel Dotson of the St. Louis Police Department confirmed the number of attendees piled into the grassy lawn by the Mississippi River.

To be sure, big crowds don’t always signal a big turnout on Election Day. But Obama’s ability to draw his largest audience yet in a typically red state that just weeks ago looked out of reach, could signal a changing electoral map.

For months Missouri polls put Obama as much as ten percentage points behind Republican John McCain. It was widely believed that McCain’s pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate would have won over the state’s conservatives and boosted his chances there. So far, that hasn’t happened.

A Rasmussen poll released on Friday shows Obama leading in Missouri 52% to 46% for McCain.

Joe the Plumber vs. McCain

2008-10-17T11:23:00.001-06:00

Oops. Joe T. Plumber judges the Obama-McCain debate and votes for … Obama?

Must-see TV

2008-10-17T07:27:00.001-06:00

The Alfred E. Smith memorial dinner, McCain:

And Obama:

Bonus: McCain on Letterman, who grills him more intensely than any member of the mainstream media:

Watch him squirm:

Who looks more presidential?

2008-10-16T07:02:00.001-06:00

This photo from the end of last night’s debate is not Photoshopped:

The little spastic dance that McCain did at the end of the debate last night was truly bizarre and captured well in this photo.

Another view:

So, uh, who looks more presidential?

Trick question! Doesn’t it remind you of this moment?

Actual analysis, from Democracy Corps:

John McCain entered tonight’s debate needing to halt Barack Obama’s momentum and fundamentally change the dynamic of the race. Not only did he fail to achieve this goal, McCain dug himself an even deeper hole. Undecided voters watching the debate felt McCain gave a decidedly un-presidential performance, appearing rude, negative, and easily flustered – a stark contrast to Barack Obama’s cool, commanding presence. Obama was seen as the clear victor in the debate, and a group that was much more disposed to support McCain at the outset instead shifted decisively toward Obama (42 to 20 percent) after viewing the debate.

“Who is my opponent?”

2008-10-16T05:14:00.001-06:00

Hilarious:

(via)

The new McCain campaign slogan

2008-10-13T12:34:00.001-06:00

Based on Bill Kristol’s advice today that John McCain should “fire his campaign,” Ripley writes:

I can't help but wonder if McCain might change his campaign slogan from "Country First" to "Fuck it! I'll do it live!" At this point, he really doesn't have anything to lose.

I just saw the old coot on the TV trying to fire up his base by telling them they’re behind by six points and the national media has “written us off.” And now he’s telling them “I know what fear feels like. I know what hopelessness feels like.” And the audience is undoubtedly thinking, “Yeah, it feels kind of like this.”

Obama’s crystal ball

2008-10-10T13:33:00.001-06:00

Think he’s been surprised by the latest wave of attacks? He predicted them, in detail, months ago:

Obama is a poker player. McCain is a crapshooter.

Shame!

2008-10-10T11:38:00.001-06:00

Even Republicans are becoming disgusted by the hate-mongering oozing forth from the McCain-Palin campaign.

Frank Schaeffer, writing in the Baltimore Sun:

Shame!
John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.
You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

Sadly, it appears that McCain learned the wrong lessons from his time in Vietnam. He has decided to carpet-bomb his reputation. And in the process. he’s choosing to destroy America in order to save it.

You don’t need a Weatherman

2008-10-10T10:17:00.001-06:00

William C: Ibershof writes a letter:

As the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen in the 1970s (I was then chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of Michigan and took over the Weathermen prosecution in 1972), I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.
Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.
Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago.
I do take issue with the statement in your news article that the Weathermen indictment was dismissed because of “prosecutorial misconduct.” It was dismissed because of illegal activities, including wiretaps, break-ins and mail interceptions, initiated by John N. Mitchell, attorney general at that time, and W. Mark Felt, an F.B.I. assistant director.

The last paragraph is an especially nice touch given the current revelations of wiretapping of citizens by the Bush Administration.

And alas, this will probably do nothing to calm the wingnuts, for whom Obama is a “terrorist” simply because of his race and political party.

Keating to McCain in 1986: ‘I’m yours til death do us part.’

2008-10-09T16:18:00.001-06:00

Think Progress:

The Washington Times reports that in 1986, John McCain wrote a note on House stationery to Charles Keating, chairman of a failed savings and loan association who went to prison in the late 1980s. In the letter, McCain apologized for listing Keating as part of his Senate campaign finance committee. Keating wrote in response: “You can call me anything, write anything or do anything. I’m yours till death do us part“:

In some parts of the world, they’d be considered married after a written declaration like that, right?

Extra bonus innuendo: Keating’s handwritten note begins, “Don’t be silly.”

See the letter for yourself here.

Look him in the eye

2008-10-09T16:07:00.001-06:00

McCain is a coward, says John Cole:

John McCain is not man enough to own his shit. John McCain will not openly confront Obama with his smears and lies and innuendo. John McCain will not come out and talk about Ayers, he has to be asked. That is why he goes to places like Fox News, so he can be asked. What a coincidence.
John McCain is a coward.
John McCain would rather hide behind his wife and Sarah Palin than say it himself.
He would rather produce 2 minute ads that his campaign will never pay to air anywhere, and hope that the tire-swinging media will bring up the topic so he doesn’t have to do it himself
John McCain just wants to throw shit out there, and "raise questions" about Obama, and hope his supporters connect the dots, because he is too much of a coward to directly push this toxic stew. He would rather hide behind right-wing bloggers, surrogates, and scummy websites staffed with wingnut welfare recipients like the NRO and the Weekly Standard.
John McCain had 90 minutes to bring this stuff up to Obama, to his face, and passed.
John McCain is a coward.

Joe Biden adds:

"All of the things they said about Barack Obama in the TV, on the TV, at their rallies, and now on Youtube and everything else," Biden said — referring to McCain and Palin tying Obama to Weatherman bomber Bill Ayers and accusing him of "palling around with terrorists."
"John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him," he said to cheers. "In my neighborhood, you got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him."

Given McCain’s performance in the debates, that “look him in the eye” comment is especially sharp.

(via Kos)

“My fellow prisoners”

2008-10-08T16:02:00.001-06:00

That time in the box really fucked John McCain up, didn’t it?

Although there may be a germ of truth in it, for anyone who has survived the past eight years.

That one

2008-10-08T06:23:00.001-06:00

From last night’s debate:

MCCAIN: I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth. It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.
You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. (points to Obama) You know who voted against it? Me. I have fought time after time against these pork barrel—these bills that come to the floor… .

The only appropriate response:

More here.

See (and hear) for yourself:

(via)

It's on

2008-10-05T21:39:00.001-06:00

Serve:

Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.

And return:

The Obama advantage

2008-10-03T15:20:00.001-06:00

The good folks from fivethirtyeight.com are doing some amazing field work in their On The Road series, traveling the country and looking at the Presidential candidates’ ground games up close and personal. Today’s report from Missouri is jaw-dropping:

Let’s be clear. We've observed no comparison between these ground campaigns. To begin with, there’s a 4-1 ratio of offices in most states. We walk into McCain offices to find them closed, empty, one person, two people, sometimes three people making calls. Many times one person is calling while the other small clutch of volunteers are chatting amongst themselves. In one state, McCain’s state field director sat in one of these offices and, sotto voce, complained to us that only one man was making calls while the others were talking to each other about how much they didn't like Obama, which was true. But the field director made no effort to change this. This was the state field director.

Only for the first time the other day did we see a McCain organizer make a single phone call. So we've now seen that once. The McCain organizers seem to operate as maître Ds. Let me escort you to your phone, sir. Pick any one of this sea of empty chairs. I'll be sitting over here if you need any assistance.

[…]

The McCain offices are also calm, sedate. Little movement. No hustle. In the Obama offices, it's a whirlwind. People move. It's a dynamic bustle. You can feel it in our photos.

Up to this point, we’ve been giving McCain's ground campaign a lot of benefit of the doubt. We can’t stop convincing ourselves that there must – must – be a warehouse full of 1,000 McCain volunteers somewhere in a national, central location just dialing away. This can’t be all they’re doing. Because even in a place like Colorado Springs, McCain’s ground campaign is getting blown away by the Obama efforts. It doesn't mean Obama will win Colorado Springs, but it means Obama's campaign will not look itself in the mirror afterward and ask, "what more could we have done?"

You could take every McCain volunteer we’ve seen doing actual work in the entire trip, over six states, and it would add up to the same as Obama’s single Thornton, CO office. Or his single Durango, CO office. These ground campaigns bear no relationship to each other.

This is how you win an election (and in the case of the McCain campaign, how you lose one). It’s also how you build a veto-proof majority in Congress.

A handful of index cards and a brain full of buzzwords

2008-10-03T11:51:00.001-06:00

Moosehunter aims and unloads:

Sarah Palin … doesn’t know shit about shit. She has opinions - uninformed ones - and she’s sticking to them come hell or high water. I pity the poor bastards that had to prep her for tonight’s debate with Joe Biden. And while I wasn’t taken with her performance, I will give them credit. They made an organized mess out of a disorganized disaster. So there’s that.
The truth is that Palin didn’t answer any questions she didn’t want to tonight, and she said she’d do exactly that at the start of the debate. She had a hand full of index cards and a brain full of buzz words, and it was her job to say them all in front of the camera. Actually, it was her job to say them while looking at Joe Biden for five seconds, then looking at the camera for five seconds, and then looking back at Biden to start over again. It was like she was on a timer. One of the many things she’d probably been coached on after the whole flap about McCain not looking Obama in the eyes.

Heh. Indeed.

Flashbacks

2008-10-03T06:01:00.001-06:00

October 30, 2004: Bin Laden releases new video, just ahead of election.

Matthew Yglesias raises a profound issue:

According to the Bush campaign, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush." Are people who think this way likely to improve, or degrade the personal safety of the American people? It's a question that, I think, answers itself.

UPDATE: Senator McCain says the video was "very helpful to the president."

Again, can a group of people who believe the continued existence of the threat is vital to their political viability be relied upon to eliminate -- or even reduce -- the threat?

Bin Laden is still alive, apparently.

In what respect, Vladimir?

2008-10-01T13:13:00.001-06:00

Michael Bérubé has not one but TWO accents in his last name, so you know he is a very pointy-headed intellectual.

He is also devastatingly funny and insightful and you should read what he has to say about Sarah Palin, especially after you see the “ginormous looming Putin head” he has created to grace his revitalized blog:

As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where-- where do they go?
Straight here. To this blog.
You are now in American Airspace.
[…]
My initial reaction to the “in what respect, Charlie?” moment was that it was like watching a student try to fake a term paper in real time: “well, the Bush Doctrine, Charlie, is a doctrine developed by George Bush. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ‘doctrine’ as ‘a: something that is taught; b: a principle or position or the body of principles in a branch of knowledge or system of belief,’ and the Bush Doctrine has taught us much about the body of principles in George Bush’s system of belief, which is to defend America and never blink, Charlie.” Not surprisingly, Palin’s moose-in-headlights performances have reminded almost everyone of what it’s like to try to fake it, and, since many of us have been (woefully unprepared) students at some point in our lives (including me), Palin seems to evoke painful memories across the political spectrum.

I could continue excerpting, but it’s oh so much better if you go read the whole thing, as those liberal elitists like to say.

What? Not convinced? K, fine, one more excerpt:

The idea, of course, is to run “ordinary people” (even if they hail from families who have been among America’s political and economic elite for generations) against us Volvo-driving liberal elitists. You know that already. McCain/ Palin merely seemed the most outrageous gambit on this culture-war front, the most deliberate and direct assault on the idea that being reasonably informed about shit should be some kind of prerequisite for the presidency.
Because, you know, the campaign didn’t have to say anything at all about Palin’s foreign-policy expertise. They could simply have said, “it’s not her strong suit, sure, but she’s a quick study and brings a lot of populist energy to the ticket.” Or they could have said, “she’s a strong social conservative and deeply knowledgeable about how to organize a Rapture.” But no. Instead, they went on national television and made a series of arguments so stunningly and egregiously stupid that they wouldn’t have passed muster forty years ago in my third-grade class’s debate over the relative merits of Nixon and Humphrey. Seriously: if one of my fellow eight-year-olds had said anything like, “Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia,” we would have laughed his (or her!) right out of the room. And if someone had then tried to follow up with “no, really, she has foreign policy experience because she knows more about energy than anyone in America,” he (or she!) would have been sent to the principal’s office. Or to the school nurse.

Now quit stalling and go. Read.

My money’s on the lions

2008-09-30T09:26:00.001-06:00

Kevin Drum observes, "The Republican Party is now officially hostage to a band of primitive conservative ideologues whose knowledge of economics was already outdated when Christians were being fed to lions. They are simply beyond belief."

McCain goes all in

2008-09-30T07:31:00.001-06:00

Josh Marshall:

Despite the campaign's sharp break in Obama's direction in the last week of September, we need only remember the sharp break in McCain's favor in the first two weeks of the month to know that elections can change quickly. That said, I've been thinking over the last few days that if John McCain loses this election he will have lost much more than the presidency. His reputation as an honest and honorable politician will be wrecked, I suspect, for good -- particularly among centrist and independent voters and the centrist commentator class in New York and Washington.
[…]
My verdict may be a severe one but I think a lot of people -- a lot of former admirers -- are coming around to agreeing with the general outlines. McCain has revealed himself as a liar well outside the permissive standards applied to politicians. He's shown himself to be reckless to the point of instability, repeatedly putting the country at risk (exploiting the Georgia crisis, picking Palin, storming the bailout negotiations) for transparently self-serving reasons. And in too many ways to count, he's conducted his campaign in disgraceful and dishonorable ways.

I have been a political junkie for my entire adult life, which dates back to the Nixon years. I have never seen a more incompetent, mendacious, dangerous candidate for president. God help us if this bitter old man somehow manages to get himself and his hyper-ambitious running mate elected.

R.I.P. Bullwinkle

2008-09-29T14:31:00.001-06:00

Bush bio: Get me rewrite!

2008-09-29T12:49:00.001-06:00

On January 21, 2009, I hope someone replaces this pack of filthy lies with something resembling a little truth:

Biography of President George W. Bush

Since becoming President of the United States in 2001, President Bush has worked with the Congress to create an ownership society and build a future of security, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans.

How’s that working out?

President Bush has also worked to improve healthcare …

Except for the 47 million Americans who have no insurance.

… increase homeownership, especially among minorities …

I’ll remember that next time someone tries to blame the mortgage crisis on the Clinton Administration.

conserve our environment …

Drill, baby, drill!

… and increase military strength, pay, and benefits.

Or not.

Good lord, this is a disgraceful piece of propaganda.

Paying the fiddler

2008-09-29T12:24:00.001-06:00

Jonathan Schwartz digs up this quote from Abraham Lincoln speaking as a member of the Illinois state legislature on January 11, 1837. He’s referring to a dispute between private shareholders of the Illinois State Bank:

It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people’s money being used to pay the fiddler…all this to settle a question in which the people have no interest, and about which they care nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel.

Schwartz continues: “Lincoln’s speech was given just as one of the greatest speculative bubbles in US history was bursting. This was followed by the Panic of 1837, which led to a six-year contraction described by Milton Friedman as ‘the only depression on record comparable in severity and scope to the Great Depression.’”

So far.

It’s worth noting that Andrew Jackson was about to turn over the Presidency to his longtime supporter Martin Van Buren. The official White House bio explains what happened next:

Declaring that the panic was due to recklessness in business and overexpansion of credit, Van Buren devoted himself to maintaining the solvency of the national Government. He opposed not only the creation of a new Bank of the United States but also the placing of Government funds in state banks. He fought for the establishment of an independent treasury system to handle Government transactions. As for Federal aid to internal improvements, he cut off expenditures so completely that the Government even sold the tools it had used on public works.

Not exactly what we need right now. However, I do wish he had succeeded in this project:

Inclined more and more to oppose the expansion of slavery, Van Buren blocked the annexation of Texas because it assuredly would add to slave territory--and it might bring war with Mexico.

Maybe we could sell Texas and Alaska to cover the national debt?

Zany stunts

2008-09-28T14:49:00.001-06:00

What should John McCain’s next zany stunt be?

Thank you, John McCain

2008-09-20T11:27:00.001-06:00

Awesome:

I’ll take Hope instead, thanks

2008-09-19T08:01:00.001-06:00

And now a word for the religious right

2008-09-17T16:12:00.001-06:00

Hey, Christians! Margaret Cho has a few things she wants to say:

Don’t fucking question my Christianity you fucking idiot assholes. If you continue to have a problem, then talk to God about it, not me, you fucking racist homophobic misogynist fake Christian shitheads. God thinks it is funny that I swear so much. He said I could use his name in vain or whatever. He just wants me to use it. He loves me. So fuck you. And I guess he loves you too. Even though you are fake Christian assholes. If you were truly Christians, you would let gays get married, and send them fucking presents from Bed Bath and Beyond!
If you truly believed in Jesus, you would try to be like him and love us, fags and dykes and feminists all. God bless you, even you. You fucking fuckers.

Amen.

The Palin Truth Squad

2008-09-16T15:26:00.001-06:00

Brilliant:

The McCain-Palin campaign has launched the Palin Truth Squad to keep America safe from the truth about Governor Sarah Palin, her family, her cronies, and her inexperience. In keeping with the general strategy of the McCain campaign, the Palin Truth Squad will make sure that the truth about Sarah Palin is kept as far from American voters as possible.

Disclaimer: “Not actually paid for by McCain-Palin 2008, Big Oil, the people who deny you health coverage, or Richard Mellon Scaife. Or by Obama -- this parody is the work of one independent blogger.”

Cheney’s lies

2008-09-16T07:24:00.001-06:00

I wish I believed in an afterlife, because if I did it would comfort me to know there is a special place in Hell for Dick Cheney:

A GOP congressional leader who was wavering on giving President Bush the authority to wage war in late 2002 said Vice President Cheney misled him by saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon, according to a new book by Washington Post investigative reporter Barton Gellman.

Cheney's assertions, described by former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (Tex.), came in a highly classified one-on-one briefing in Room H-208, the vice president's hideaway office in the Capitol. The threat Cheney described went far beyond public statements that have been criticized for relying on "cherry-picked" intelligence of unknown reliability. There was no intelligence to support the vice president's private assertions, Gellman reports, and they "crossed so far beyond the known universe of fact that they were simply without foundation."

Armey had spoken out against the coming war, and his opposition gave cover to Democrats who feared the political costs of appearing to be weak. Armey reversed his position after Cheney told him, he said, that the threat from Iraq was actually "more imminent than we want to portray to the public at large."

I don’t believe in souls, either, largely on the basis of stuff like this.

Words fail me

2008-09-03T20:38:00.001-06:00

Thank God(tm) I had the sound off for this:

See you at the debates, bitches

2008-08-06T09:03:00.001-06:00

Especially you, wrinkly white-haired dude:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

I approve of this ad.

An A+ in geography

2008-08-05T16:15:00.001-06:00

Via Daily Kos:

O2B candidate Al Franken draws a perfect map of the United States from memory while taking questions at a fundraiser:

Yes, that Al Franken. Future United States Senator Al Franken.

Remembering the Keating Five

2008-07-25T11:24:00.001-06:00

I had almost forgotten.

Keating had made contributions of about $1.3 million to various U.S. Senators, and he called on those Senators to help him resist regulators, when Lincoln Savings and Loan was being investigated by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). Lincoln had become burdened with bad debt resulting from its past aggressiveness, and its investment practices were being investigated and audited by the FHLBB:^[5] in particular, whether it had violated "direct investment" rules, which prohibited savings and loans from taking ownership positions in certain financial entities and instruments;^[6] Lincoln had directed FDIC-insured accounts into commercial real estate ventures.^[4] It appeared as though the government might seize Lincoln for being insolvent.^[6] The investigation was, however, taking a long time.^[5] Keating was asking that Lincoln be given a lenient judgment by the FHLBB, so that it could limit its high risk investments and get into the safe (at the time) home mortgage business, thus allowing the business to survive. A letter from audit firm Arthur Young & Co. bolstered Keating's case that the government investigation was taking a long time.^[7]
By March 1987, Keating and DeConcini were asking McCain to travel to San Francisco to meet with regulators regarding Lincoln Savings; McCain refused.^[7]^[6] DeConcini told Keating that McCain was nervous about interfering.^[6] Keating called McCain a "wimp" behind his back, and on March 24, Keating and McCain had a heated, contentious meeting.^[7]
[…]
Keating's relationship with McCain came under particularly intense press scrutiny.^{[citation needed]} McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981.^[7] Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in lawful^[12] political contributions from Keating and his associates.^[13] In addition, McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard Keating's jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln.^[6]^[14]

This is excellent experience to have if one of the challenges of your presidency would be to clean up a failed housing market, yes?

Bush tours America to survey damage caused by his presidency

2008-07-05T14:29:00.001-06:00

Hilarious: “The President has been praying every night that he doesn’t do any more damage than he has already wrought on the country.”

(from America’s Finest News Source, via)

I would pay to see this

2008-07-05T09:33:00.001-06:00

John Edwards to debate Karl Rove in Buffalo.»

The Buffalo News reports that former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards will debate Karl Rove on Sept. 26 on the campus of the University of Buffalo as part of the school’s Distinguished Speakers Series. In the midst of the U.S. attorney scandal, Edwards called on President Bush to “fire Karl Rove.” When Rove announced he was resigning from the White House, Edwards released a statement that simply read “Goodbye, good riddance.”

Presumably Edwards is the Distinguished Speaker and Rove is being invited as part of the university’s Unindicted Co-conspirator Series.

Awesome Obama bumper stickers

2008-07-03T16:16:00.001-06:00

One for every state (18 done so far, 32 to go, except Florida, apparently)

South Dakota is particularly nice:

Lying is as easy as breathing for them

2008-06-30T10:17:00.001-06:00

Just when I think I’ve seen it all:

GI Bill Opponent President Bush Lauds GI Bill Opponent John McCain For The GI Bill Expansion

Wake me up on January 21, 2009.

Goodnight, George

2008-06-23T22:21:00.001-06:00

Thanks, Dday:

George Carlin, dead at the age of 71.
P.S. shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.

Fuck, yeah.

McCain on McCain

2008-06-15T09:43:00.001-06:00

Awesome:

(via)

Pushing back

2008-06-14T17:27:00.001-06:00

Thanks to Digby for calling attention to this comment on how to fight back against our horribly broken media:

At the National Conference for Media Reform I found a lot of people doing all sorts of great things to push back. It really is important because we've found that the media is part of the problem.

I think it is important to use the skills you have to push back. I was so grateful for the people who created a youtube video of the violent rhetoric on talk radio because I hadn't realized how important video was going to be. I can be long winded and I needed all the texts and complete audio clips to make my case, but the short hard hitting video was an easy way to get an idea what I was talking about.

Even folks with a 9th tier blog linking to important posts by Digby make a difference. Everyone who does a blog post boosts the story up in search rankings which is used by the media to "find news" and to "verify the zeitgeist", people who write or call an advertiser have an impact. And sometimes a few well targeted messages to the right people have a bigger impact that 20,000 mass emails.

Fighting the right wing noise machine is a huge undertaking. They have money and, well, the media. And the group that should write about our work is often in the bag themselves! They have been suckered. They used experts who were compromised.

I was talking today to someone about how nobody gives you an award for blocking or exposing the nasty people who spread rumors. I think that this is one of the biggest ways bloggers can help most this season.

WE can track down the dark dirty places that distortions and rumors start. Push polls, nasty blogs, chain email letters, local radio hosts. And then expose them. When necessary find their connections to the actual campaigns.

If any of you want to know how to record and track your local radio hosts who are spewing violent rhetoric drop me a line. Local right-wing talk radio hosts are in a position of power and they often abuse their position. I think we can alert their advertisers who might not agree to keep sponsoring people who spew violent rhetoric.

We proved it with K S F O and I think we can keep proving it with others.

Go Spocko!

The last ditch

2008-06-13T18:02:00.001-06:00

Roy Edroso reads the latest ravings from Peggy Noonan, who basically paints McCain as the second coming of Reagan and Obama as, well, the opposite, and zings:

[T]he old leftist slogan "the personal is the political" has been appropriated wholesale by conservatives. And in the last ditch, where they have reason to believe they currently reside, they will lean on the personal as never before. Because, really, it's all they have left.

Wake me in November.

McCharacter

2008-06-12T06:35:00.001-06:00

Q: Who said this?

"McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory... After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history."

A: Ross Perot.

The whole sad story here.

We love you John, but no…

2008-06-12T06:27:00.001-06:00

John Kerry as VP? No. Please, no.

If only because, when asked the simple question, “Would you be interested?” JK answered as if he were being paid by the word:

Only...the answer is probably not, but if the right definition were given to the job, then you'd be foolish not to say that you would think about it or consider it. And you'd be dishonest, likewise.

You had me at “probably not.”

Would you like fries with that recession?

2008-06-09T17:34:00.001-06:00

(via)

A good speaker

2008-06-08T13:16:00.001-06:00

Awesome:

Via Bob Cesca.

A shameful thing

2008-06-07T16:56:00.001-06:00

Digby points to this discovery by the Cunning Realist that John McCain wrote the foreword to an edition of The Best And the Brightest? And that in said foreword he wrote this:

It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn’t support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay. No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone.

As TCR notes:

McCain isn't running on the Spring Chicken platform; no one supports him for his youthful glow. His purported and self-described strengths are gravitas, wisdom, and experience. But on the single issue one might reasonably have expected his formative life experience to matter, his "wisdom" could be mistaken for that of a Washington first-termer half his age. If he couldn't even get Iraq right, what else will he get wrong, and of what value is his vaunted experience?

It appears to be a negative asset, oddly enough.

The stupidity of free market fanatics

2008-06-05T08:56:00.001-06:00

I ran across this post from The Economist’s Free exchange blog, originally published in January 2007. In hindsight, it is unintentionally hilarious:

THE optimism in Davos, at least among the business people, has been astonishing. Everyone seems to be doing deals, and getting excited about investment opportunities. The private-equity folk are everywhere, their wallets bursting at the seams. The venture capitalists are loving climate change. The planet may be in for a hot decade or two, but these guys expect to make a fortune helping fight it. In dull commodity industries such as chemicals, the confidence is high too. The cyclical downturn expected in late 2007 now seems destined for 2009 or even later.
Even a gathering of bank regulators struggled to muster more than the bare minimum of worry required to justify their jobs. Mood music thus: perhaps the leverage embedded in some new derivatives products is on the high side, perhaps credit conditions are too easy, but probably not. The quality and integration of financial regulation around the world is getting steadily better. Bank balance sheets are strong. Profitability is high. And if a hedge fund or two should come a cropper, the system will cope.

Yeah, so how’s that working out? Banks still doing OK? Hedge fund guys still lighting cigars with 100-Euro notes? No? Imagine that. The update at the end of the post was the punch line for me:

Not everyone is convinced. At a Citigroup dinner last night the FT's Martin Wolf played Cassandra. The Davos consensus is always wrong, he said. So current expectations for good business conditions and difficult political ones may instead foreshadow a structural recession and stable, deepening political relationships.
I beg to differ. This may be one of those moments when business understands the way the wind is blowing, far better than the politicians and pundits.

“The Davos consensus is always wrong.” The people who run our world really are clueless, aren’t they?

By the way, the very next post quoted P.J. O’Rourke and included the requisite snide remarks about Al Gore’s carbon footprint. The only thing missing was a “Michael Moore is fat” reference.

It’s not over till…

2008-06-04T22:38:00.001-06:00

Yeah, I know, cheap shot. But I’m hoping for a grand recital this weekend. This primary can’t end soon enough…

Gas prices, four years later

2008-06-02T09:10:00.001-06:00

From the official John Kerry Blog, as documented right here:

If you've been wondering why George Bush hasn't done anything about soaring gas prices, our candidate has an idea. He tells US News & World Report in its June 7th issue: "I figured out Karl Rove's political strategy–make gas so expensive, no Democrats can afford to go to the polls."

The irony is that average gas prices had just crossed the $2.00-per-gallon threshold in May 2004. Four years later, those prices have nearly doubled.

I blame President Kerry.

I can actually hear McCain saying this, too...

2008-06-02T08:58:00.001-06:00

The Post's Michael Abramowitz has a good catch this morning:

Getting lost in the media furor over McClellan's memoir is the new autobiography of retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the onetime commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, who is scathing in his assessment that the Bush administration "led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions."
Among the anecdotes in "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in Fallujah in 2004, triggering a fierce U.S. response that was reportedly egged on by the president.
During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a "confused" pep talk:
"Kick ass!" he quotes the president as saying. "If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."
"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"
A White House spokesman had no comment.

Oh, the insanity...

Via TPM.

Bye, Hillary

2008-05-13T07:24:00.001-06:00

TBogg looks at Hillary's multi-million dollar debt with a jaundiced eye:

With the Clinton brand name Hillary Clinton still has the potential of making her money back by writing another book; maybe something forward-looking with a high-flown title like The Millennial Village: A Blueprint For the Future. That is, if she isn't too bitter about the whole Presidential campaign experience, because I'm pretty sure that Barnes & Noble won't set up a feature window display for a book titled : You Elitist Assholes Can All Go Fuck Yourselves: A Campaign Diary.

Meanwhile, I can't even watch Keith Olbermann anymore without screaming.

Please, someone, anyone, make it stop.

Your flag pin won't get you into heaven anymore

2008-04-20T11:11:00.001-06:00

Oh dear:

Two lapels. No flag pins. Why does John McCain hate America?

(h/t Crooks and Liars)

Headline courtesy of John Prine.

Oh happy day

2008-04-03T08:30:00.001-06:00

Now that Fafblog has returned, there's hope for the world.

Usama bin Who?

2008-02-23T13:00:00.001-07:00

Fox News poll asks "Who does Usama bin Laden want to be the next president?" Oddly, the correct answer ("Why is bin Laden still alive?") is not listed. - smintheus (via the Orange Satan)

Oh, Maverick!

2008-02-21T10:10:00.001-07:00

TBogg makes me laugh out loud:

Unlike about three thousand other bloggers that I could mention, I was brought up properly and so I shall disregard the scurrilous and unfounded reports of John McCain's alleged tryst with lobbyist Vicki Iseman.
And if you think that I'm going to go into great detail talking about their bodies thrusting and writhing, covered in a sheen of sweat and errant smears of Astroglide , the quiet gasps, the guttural groans, the cries to heaven, the cheap hotel room littered with adult "novelties", the air filled with a pungent and musky aroma of sex, Amyl nitrite, creamed corn, and Axe Body Spray for Seniors... well, I'm not going to go there, so you should just look elsewhere for your cheap thrills.
And shame on you for thinking otherwise....

Extra bonus snark from Sifu Tweety: The McCain Mutiny.

I wish I'd written that

2008-01-31T15:26:00.001-07:00

Good reading:

Sadly, No!: "Mitt Romney: Digging a hole to the 21st Century"

and

Whiskey Fire: "Of course the GOP candidate was always going to be a total fucknozzle, anyhow."

"...an evil Forrest Gump"

2007-12-17T15:18:00.001-07:00

Matt Stoller has the Best. Description. Ever. of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL):

Purely on aesthetic grounds, Jeff Sessions of Alabama is probably the hardest Republican for me to listen to. He's clearly very stupid, and very stupid people in positions of authority are a pet peeve. It's like you can see the wheels turning in his head, very slowly, putting together predictable and annoying thoughts. At least with someone like Mitch McConnell, I have to work at figuring out what he's up to, which is kind of fun. Sessions is like an evil Forrest Gump.

I had the same visceral reaction today listening to Sessions.

By the way, we might be watching the last stand of democracy here...

The story of $20 Bob

2007-11-10T12:16:00.001-07:00

TBogg displays his award-winning writing skills:

It's worth pointing out that $20 Bob, the Florida legislator who is a slave to the penis (and aren't we all?), just not his own (at this point we part ways) was convicted yesterday after the jury spent 3 hours and twenty minutes ~~giggling at~~ considering his case. Sentencing is scheduled for Thursday.
This would be funny if it weren't so sad.

And true. And increasingly common. Would it not be faster to get a head count of all Republican lawmakers who are NOT closeted gays?

"What I want to know is..."

2007-10-31T09:40:00.001-06:00

Matt Stoller wonders why there's no one with the sense and sensibility of Howard Dean in the Democratic field running for president. If there were, he suggests, we would have heard this in last night's "debate" in response to any of the questions about Iran:

'What I want to know is why Democrats on this stage are talking about Senate resolutions justifying Bush's attack on Iran as if we have no power to do anything about it. What I want to know is why the antiwar arguments are coming from Generals and military officers saying they can't attack Iran, instead of politicians elected in 2006 on an antiwar platform. What I want to know is why Congressmen and women on this stage are not making it clear that an attack on Iran is insane and illegal, and that Bush will face impeachment if he does it.'

I found the whole damn charade frustrating and depressing. So much so that I turned it off halfway through.

This'll give you goosebumps

2007-07-26T07:16:00.001-06:00

The late, truly great Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-TX), speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives on July 25, 1974. I could quote it, but you really need to hear it to appreciate its power.

http://www.massachusettsobserver.com/barbarajordan.htm

Please send this link to your Congressional representative and see if they get any ideas.

8 yrs iz ENUF

2007-06-19T06:48:00.001-06:00

It's too bad the real LOL President is still in the White House.

Go Cheney yourself

2007-06-06T07:05:00.001-06:00

Quote of the day:

Traditionally the Vice-Presidency has been home to the dim but able career politician whose regional origin or personal contacts/machinery have been electorally useful to the ticket. We’ve had killers (Burr), criminals (Agnew), generically corrupt politicos (Colfax), energetic bullshit artists (TR), morally abject fucktards (Van Buren), and irrascible old farts (G. Clinton) among many other forgettable losers as Vice-Presidents of the United States, but none in our history have been as single-mindedly demented, even wicked, as Richard Cheney. What an awful excuse for a human being he is.

Special bonus snark:

Dear Leader knows he’s toast. He’s kind of lost, nursing his resentment, wallowing in self-pity, sulking around the White House and muttering that History will vindicate him. Richard Cheney, on the other hand, has the mentality of a suicide bomber: he knows he’s toast, too, but by God as long as he’s able, he’s going to pursue his violent obsessions; for war’s sake, Dick Cheney will spit his last political breath at thee. Richard Cheney is no Nixonesque crack-up; he’s not paralyzed by unpopularity at all, just mindful of the countdown to 1-20-09 and trying to create as much damage as possible until then. Bush is too demoralized and depressed to exert the force majeure necessary to back up Condi and overrule Dick. But then again Dick will not be overruled by anyone. And besides, Dear Leader is content to chew on (or, rather, chew-up) Iraq, where Dick Cheney has always seen the Middle East as a smorgasbord of goodies.

594 more days.

Thought for the day

2007-05-29T08:18:00.001-06:00

Matt Drudge is to journalism as American Idol is to music.

Discuss.

Constitution? I spit on your Constitution!

2007-04-05T09:52:00.000-06:00

From Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution:

The President shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Or maybe not.

Swift Boat donor named ambassador:

First, President Bush nominated Sam Fox, a St. Louis businessman and major Republican fundraiser, to be ambassador to Belgium. Then he withdrew the nomination when he saw it would fail in the Senate. And now he has appointed him while Congress is out of town and can't stop Fox from getting the job.

Advice and consent of the Senate? Ha!

Worse than Watergate

2007-03-13T13:32:00.000-06:00

This really is worse than Watergate. Sen. Schumer:

Make no mistake about it: This has become as serious as it gets. Just when we thought our faith could not be shaken any further, it has been.
At the very beginning, I was clear that something didn't smell right, but I had no idea how high it went. The latest revelations prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there has been unprecedented breach of trust, abuse of power and misuse of the Justice Department. And that is very serious and very important.
The U.S. attorneys are in their own districts the lead enforcer of the rule of law, without fear or favor.
When you see the picture, the symbol of the eagle holding the arrows above every Justice Department office throughout the land, it stands for fair, unbiased, nonpolitical justice being rendered.
And yet that has been called into question by a series of blunders, missteps and abuse of power in the Justice Department.
This weekend I called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to step down. Today's staff resignation does not take heat off the attorney general. In fact, it raises the temperature. Kyle Sampson will not become the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy.

Only two questions remain: What did the president know? And when did he know it?

Go read Schumer's entire remarks. It's basically the rough draft of the Articels of Impeachment.

Mission accomplished

2007-02-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

Bush's legacy:

“In the most definitive statement in years,” Mike McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said yesterday that “Osama bin laden is in Pakistan actively re-establishing al Qaeda training camps.” He also admitted to the Senate that the “term ‘civil war’ accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict.”

I'm sure glad the grown-ups are in charge.

R.I.P., Molly Ivins

2007-02-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

The good die young. I especially liked The Rude Pundit's obit, The whole thing is worth reading, but this part jumped out at me:

She was goddamned smart, so smart she didn't have to flaunt it. So smart that she could use the down to earth side to say what she meant so all of us could understand it. She didn't suffer bullies. She loved Texas like a parent loves her child even after that child has gone on a three-state killing spree. She was unfailingly polite. And she could eviscerate anyone who was failing all of us with just an image or two. Those guttings will be desperately missed. That sense and celebration of the decency of the average American will be missed even more.

Damn.

Great moments in anti-wingnuttery

2007-01-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

I read alicublog every day because Roy comes up with lines like this after slogging through a couple of mind-bogglingly stupid pro-war posts from a couple of A-list bloggers:

How these people wash their hair without their skulls caving in is beyond me.

Heh. Indeed.

Just say no to Hillary

2007-01-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Steve Gilliard rattles off a long laundry list of reasons not to support Hillary Clinton for President. I agree completely:

Only 72 percent of Americans will vote for a woman
Hilary Clinton is the most detested politician outside of the Bush Administration
So detested, her name is a punchline in most of America
She can't campaign for Dems outside the Far West and Northeast
She has zero legislative accomplishments.
She supported the Iraq war
She has no national security experience
She has no defining political philosophy

Steve continues:

I think the Clinton campaign is a house of cards. When she is pressed hard and expected to actually take controversal stands, she is going to falter. She is a cautious politician, who despite all of her experiences, does not gauge the antipathy she faces on the left and the middle.

There isn't a chance in hell I would support Clinton, or to be honest, Obama, in a primary at this point. Neither has done more than talk and that will not cut it when we have to salvage our reputation and foreign policy.

For the record, I think Wes Clark, Bill Richardson, or John Edwards would all be much better candidates. Clark in particular has the military experience necessary to deal with the mess that Bush is leaving overseas and the solid populist beliefs to handle the U.S. economy in a just and fair way. My dream ticket, in fact, would be Clark/Richardson.

The surge

2006-12-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

I hate it when history repeats itself. As commenter Jerry notes at Yglesias' site, the surge in Iraq is right on schedule:

1959 760
1960 900
1961 3205
1962 11300
1963 16300
1964 23300
1965 184300
1966 385300
1967 485600
1968 536100
1969 475200
1970 334600
1971 156800
1972 24200
1973 50

[Source]

Who'll be the last to die for a pack of lies?

2006-12-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

This is a remarkable, heartbreaking essay from Meteor Blades at the Daily Kos. The following is a brief excerpt. The whole thing is much longer and demands reading and forwarding.

I don’t know anything about the psychology of numbers. Specifically, the magnetism round numbers seem to have for us, specifically round numbers ending in zeroes. It’s an attraction that can’t be denied. Such a number is closing in on us right now. It could arrive before the New Year. A number that will receive – no matter how transient and meaningless it actually is – extensive blog and megamedia attention. 3000. The horrible tally of U.S. troops dead in Iraq.
Let me tell you about two young men. Their résumés are short. They died young.

Lance Corporal Darwin Judge
Darwin Judge was a recently deployed 19-year-old when he was killed. Born and raised in Marshalltown, Iowa, he was active in his church and Boy Scouts, pitched for his All-Star team in Little League games, got his first newspaper route at age 8. At 16, he went to work at a grocer’s. Summers he baled hay. He loved riding his motorcycle and woodworking, at which he excelled. He made a grandfather clock for his mother. He signed up for the Marines his senior year in high school, completed basic training after graduating and was shipped overseas. Two weeks after being assigned to his detachment he was killed.

Corporal Charles McMahon
Charles McMahon was not quite 22 when he was killed. He grew up in Woburn, Massachusetts. As a kid he earned pocket money mowing lawns and delivering papers. He and a good friend practically lived at the local Boys Club, shooting pool, playing ping pong, but most of all learning how to swim and dive. McMahon spent so much time swimming that when he was old enough, the club hired him to teach other kids. It’s said he was good with them. The club’s director, a former Marine, drew McMahon’s avid attention with his stories of the Corps. At 19, McMahon joined, assigned at first to the Military Police. After a year and a half, he signed up for a special course of intense security training. Two weeks after being assigned to his detachment, he was killed.
If you’re thinking of looking for Charles McMahon or Darwin Judge listed at the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count Web site, forget it. You won’t find them counted on the site’s map either.

Neither were they among those whose names some compatriots and I read aloud on a corner near a Southern California shopping center nearly six months ago.
Because these brave men weren’t killed in Iraq. They were two of the last Americans killed in Vietnam 31 years ago.
The last two to die, not for a mistake, as Senator Kerry would have it, but for a pack of lies. Lies long since exposed, yet repeated even today by imperialist ideologues whose spilling of other people’s blood and spending of other people’s treasure is the highest form of patriotism. From their perspective, you’re either with them or you’re a naïf afloat in a tooth-and-claw world you’re too innocent and uninformed to comprehend.
This week, as I awaited and then read the "bipartisan" Baker-Hamilton Commission’s belated assessment and mostly obsolete-on-arrival recommendations for unfubaring what that man in the White House and his pals have done, I thought a lot about McMahon and Judge, men I never knew. I also thought about Manny Miller, my high school friend, killed in Vietnam in 1965, aged 19, months before American fatalities reached 3000 there.
Mostly, however, I thought about who will be the last Americans to die in this latest war built on a pack of lies, lies exposed yet still repeated by that man in the White House, his pals and their stinking coterie of embedded pundits.

OK, go read the rest: Last to Die for Bush's and His Pals' @#&*%$#^ Lies

You may close your blue books now

2006-12-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

Prof. Froomkin provides the Shorter Iraq Study Group Report:

GW Bush has gotten us into a mess that neither he nor we know how to get out of.

It would be funny if it weren't so true.

Gee, that Michael Moore guy is pretty smart

2006-11-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

Via Andrew Tobias:

A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

November 14th, 2006

To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,

I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.

Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.

Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:

Dear Conservatives and Republicans,

I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.

6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.

7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

Signed,

Michael Moore