Crimean War II?

By Capt. Fogg

I admit, that my eyes rolled a bit when I noticed Wikipedia just entered some lines of disambiguation to their page on the Crimean War so that the flood of inquiries into just what and where the Crimea is would be directed elsewhere. Yes America, there was another Crimean War and it's beginnings involved Russia claiming the right to "protect" Orthodox Christians in the peninsula as they apparently claim to be doing now by "protecting" ethnic Russians. Should we say Welcome to CW II?

I wonder how many of us will be prompted to recall how Hitler claimed to be protecting ethnic Germans in Poland. There's not a hell of a lot new here and that's scary. Weary and broke after years and years of ongoing and unnecessary war with no end apparent, we hardly need to get involved in yet another unwinnable contest with a major nuclear power.

That doesn't stop the Goddamned Republican Party from using the opportunity to accuse Obama of weakness, perhaps for not ramping up the chest pounding anthropoid display of bellicose bravado those self-destructive bastards are so fond of. Of course even though he's a chickenshit coward, a wimp and a trembling little girl, he's still a tyrant, right? No, a real man, a real American hero like John Wayne would already have his finger on the button and the red phone in hand threatening Putin with annihilation just like Reagan would do. No I don't think they want a nuclear war any more than you and I do, but they do want the humiliation of Barack Obama at any cost and at any risk -- all else be damned. 

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Obama's gas

By Capt. Fogg

I confess, I'm a loud-mouth critic of people who insist on driving heavy and dangerous trucks to the office or to do daily errands, but a guy who nevertheless owns a vehicle that gets, with a good tailwind, about one mile per gallon.

It's a boat, of course and these days I think carefully about where I'm going with it before I leave the dock. I probably don't use too much more than 500 gallons a year, which is still a whole lot less than I used to use as a commuter driving a small car. If gasoline rose to 5 or 6 or 7 dollars a gallon at the fuel docks, I probably wouldn't change the number of hours I put on the boat, but if I were driving to work, as many of you do, that 7500 pound, 8-12 mpg "SUV" or super heavy duty monster truck might just get traded for something less absurd.

So I have to make another confession: I secretly wish fuel prices would soar long enough to make urban hipsters go back to taking the bus or driving Fiat 500's, and suburbanites trade in their grotesque fashion statements for cars.

Of course the noises bubbling up from the bottom of the national cesspool have been blaming Barack Obama and "liberals" for those scary numbers that appear on gas station signs, as if it were the president or some government office that dictated prices on the free world market rather than the laws of supply and demand and the mechanisms of capitalism. I'm tempted to say that the self-appointed guardians of the free market either haven't the most elementary idea of how those markets work or perhaps are simply too dishonest to risk not blaming Obama for rising world demand. No sir, there's no pea under that particular walnut shell and if even a small proportion of Republicans had the mental wherewithal to deal with the notion that economic recovery means increased demand for resources, they might figure out that those screaming the loudest have a vested interest in a collapsing economy. As the infamous Rush once said: "I hope he fails."

So yes, some Republicans, some voices from the corporate owned media are also wishing for a big increase because the public is stupid enough, or so they hope, to believe that the "socialist" Obama is behind it all. You'll remember John McCain making that moronic accusation when gas prices soared under George Bush. No, he didn't blame Bush or the huge demand for fuel his wars gave us, he blamed Obama, because that's what Republicans do, they blame the other guy for their own actions; they blame the opposition for the workings of the natural forces of the same free markets they pretend to worship.

No, the old song is about the holy market and how all the ugly features of unrestrained capitalism like disregard for public safety and the powerlessness of an oppressed work force would wither away if we only let them drill for oil in your town's reservoir or chain your kids to a punch press the same way those Commies do, but the reality is that they have a very selective interest in capitalism and the high priests of 'enlightened self interest' are trying as hard as they can to take the enlightenment out of it.

So yes, rising energy costs sap the strength of the recovery and so that's just what a certain party wants so that they can go on pretending there is no recovery or that it would be a much better recovery if only they had someone like that Mad Monk Santorum in the White House. So maybe "jobs, jobs, jobs" is now last month's mantra because we're creating more jobs every week that were created under that 8 year Republican debacle. So it's time to turn on a dime and let's put on that Jumpin' Jack Flash disc 'cause now it's all gas, gas, gas.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Waiting for Gandhi

By Capt. Fogg

Those CNN.com Polls are hardly scientific nor do they claim to be, but when I read that 76% of participants think the payroll tax cut extension should be approved, I have to wonder at the Republican pose that insists such 'socialist' things are being stuffed down our throats by tyrannical Democrats who don't represent us as well as billionaires and multinational corporations do. Other things like medicare and Social Security and health care reform have been stuffed down our throats even though three quarters of us support them. Yes, Americans can seem like geese sometimes, but it's mostly the people eating foi gras and hating Democracy who want to run the farm.

Even my most intransigently Republican friends are risking an eternity in hell by suggesting that the GOP is deliberately sabotaging the government and the economy and the well being of our citizens for political gain and Obama's approval rating is slowly climbing as the flock of candidates chortle about sin and repealing child labor laws. So perhaps the slow shift in mood has to do with the traveling freak show from whom Republicans will be forced to choose as well as the unavoidable recognition that our definition of "smaller government" smells so much of the 19th century British colonial attitude: do nothing, have nothing done and don't allow anyone to do anything. Gandhi was able to turn it back at them. It should be easier for us. We already have the vote.

(Cross posted from Human voices)

Thanks Rick

By Capt. Fogg

I didn't listen to the President's speech Thursday night, partly because I had a meeting to attend and partly because I've ceased caring. Of course not listening to the president's ideas about reviving the economy by putting people to work seems to a matter of pride in this part of the swamp and one squints when asked "didja listen to to President?" with that certain tone. The proper answer is of course, "hell no!" Why should I care about a country wherein this sort of idiocy is called "patriotism?"

Of course I didn't listen to Rick Scott, our Governor/Medicare Fraudmeister either -- hell no. I save such things for later and I prefer to read that kind of news rather than to be waterboarded with it. That way I can take a deep breath when I read that before the speech, he snarked that there wouldn't be anything for Florida in it and my TV was safe from having my foot through the screen when I read that it's likely he'll turn down 7.5 Billion allocated to improve and upgrade our infrastructure. That's money that would employ a lot of people who would spend their income in Florida and make Florida more attractive and accessible to the tourists upon whom our economy depends.

It wouldn't be the first time Ricky has turned away an opportunity. He refused to accept 2 billion to build a high speed rail line - you know the kind of thing other countries we feel superior to have. The kind of thing that, once again, would boost tourism and tax dollars. Oops - I used the magic word tax and Rick doesn't like taxes. Of course he doesn't like employment and he doesn't like the President and isn't about to let him do anything about employment because the only way to get out of a recession is to make sure the state doesn't take in a dime and to fire so many employees and cancel so many necessary projects that hardly anyone has enough income to require them to pay any taxes.

And then you cut costs more which puts more people out of work which means they spend less and so less gets made and companies go out of business and fire more people so there are still fewer with any money to buy anything -- and by and by everything gets better. Don't get it? you must be a liberal, or so the Teabrains tell me and I'd rather argue with a toadstool than with the kind of fungi and pond scum that make up that seething ferment. I mean, who can afford to care any more?

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Just say no

By Capt. Fogg

No, no, no - we just can't believe scientists when they tell us about the dangers of radiation any more than you can trust them about climate change. The only way to evaluate data is through the kind of transubstantiation wherein facts turn to Fox feces and vice versa.

Take people like Lyin' Bill O'Reilly. You can have all the data and expertise of a hundred lifetimes studying nuclear engineering, the effects of low-dose radiation on humans and global wind patterns, but you can't be sure which way the wind blows unless you ask Bill and Bill, the Holy Father of Denialism likes to say no. It's so much easier than being informed and of course Fox Folk can feel superior by just saying no to things they're too dumb or lazy or ignorant to understand - things that might cost them something or change their convenient opinions or save their country.

Tsunami, Earthquake -- what's the connection? None at all, it was God, the same guy who makes the tides go up and down. What did you think it was, the moon? Who put the moon there anyway, and gravity? That liberal hoax?

But of course Denialism, you know that cheap, imitation conservative intellect thing; Bill is hardly the only prophet. Take Beck who got his knowledge of plate tectonics from sleeping in a cheap motel and has the nerve to speak for God to John McCain who laughed out loud at the very concept of nuclear safety when his opponent stressed the need to put away the gasoline before playing with matches. "Blah, blah, blah;" perhaps the most intelligent thing he said in that whole campaign.

Just say no and let's repeal "Obamacare" says Mike Huckabee who's been clogging the arteries of my flatscreen for the last few days. "It will do irreparable damage to our country" and never mind that Massachusetts and Hawaii are still with us while countless Americans have to resort to buying their medications from Canada and Mexico while Republicans in the private health care business ship their profits to the Caymans to avoid exposing them to taxes and communism. It's "against the will of the people" and never mind that they not only supported it but wanted more of it than they got.

Just say no - it's just not a laughably stupid approach to drug use, it's an epitaph.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

I regret to give you this legislative update

By LindaBeth

I wrote a post-Thanksgiving blog post about the Republican's big "fuck you" to the disadvantaged in the United States, while insisting on less taxes for those who don't need it and contemporaneously insisting--in a contradictory fashion--that now is the time to address the federal budget deficit. Today we have an update on how the then-pending legislation ended up faring:

• Increased spending on health care for 9/11 first responders: today Senate Republicans blocked the vote to end debate and allow the Senate to vote on it. If that's not anti-American, I'm not quite sure what is.
• Child Nutrition Act: at the beginning of December the House passed the Senate version of the bill, that funded the $4.5 billion bill with a $2.2 billion cut in food stamps funding (a.k.a. robbing Peter to pay Paul--now inadequate nutrition will just be centered in the home rather than schools.)
• Extension of unemployment benefits: blocked by Senate Republicans late last week....because it's not "paid for." Yet...
• Republicans continued to insist on giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. In fact, they went a few steps further, first essentially blackmailing Congress by pledging to block every piece of legislation that came up--including issues of national security like the START Treaty--until they get their tax cuts, and second, going even further than that by agreeing to extend unemployment benefits so long as they get their tax cuts for the rich. Looks like the Republicans aren't actually all that interested in cutting the deficit after all, then, since the $75 billion tax cuts for the rich add billions onto the deficit, are far less stimulative than the $56 billion UI bill (they actually cost more than they stimulate), and there's no good reason to buy the Republicans' claim that the rich will use the cuts to add job, since jobs aren't created out of the goodness of people's heart but are added when they are economically necessary to businesses.

The GOPs true colors are blazing bold and clear--are Americans' eyes opened yet?

(Cross-posted to Speak Truth to Power)

A dying GOP breed

By Creature

While I appreciate and praise the moderation expressed by Senator Lugar, I still don't see him breaking with his party on vote, after vote. Until he steps out of the GOP lemming-parade I can't take much solace from his moderate words.

President DeMint

By Creature

Out of control:

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint warned Monday evening that he would block all legislation that has not been cleared by his office in the final days of the pre-election session.

Maybe Obama should just name DeMint his chief-of-staff and cut out the middle man.

Season of the Witch

By Capt. Fogg

Will the process that's been so noticeable since Nixon's retreat result in civil war, or will the collapse of government be as invisible as a black hole in the midst of the raging litigation now being planned by the Republicans to mark their return to power? The legal assault on Bill Clinton, that was retribution for the legal actions taken against felonious Richard Nixon and his corrupt administration, was notable for its attempted parity.

Charge for charge, and almost word for word, the Gingrich gang and its Starr inquisitor attempted to make charges of propositioning a woman payed handsomely to make them, and having asked his secretary not to tell his wife into impeachable treason. That the Democrats have again usurped their perceived mandate of heaven and taken control ( sort of) once again, plans are already being made to cripple Barack Obama as they did Clinton, come November 8th and never mind that Obama seems faithful to his wife -- it doesn't matter.

" Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) – are quietly gearing up for a possible season of subpoenas not seen since the Clinton wars of the late 1990s,"

says Politico today.

"How acrimonious things get really depend on how willing the administration is in accepting our findings [and] responding to our questions,” adds Kurt Bardella, spokesman for the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who refers to his boss as “Questioner-in-Chief.’"

I'm assuming Obama won't readily accede to the inevitably trumped up and specious charges, but you never know, judging from his restraint in bringing up the GOP's singular failures, gross misrepresentations, war crimes and constitutional infractions, but acrimonious? That's as close to real humor as a Republican has ever come.

There are no angels in this dogfight, but the Republicans have an undeniable record of unrestrained, immoderate and rabidly vicious assault on all fronts when they're defeated and more so when that defeat is so clearly merited. They don't like rules except when the rules protect them. They love secrecy but decry it in others. They don't like taking responsibility for their failures, but find fault with anything and everything in their opposition and they don't give a damn if they're right or wrong as long as they gain power.

The November elections are only two months away, but the pyre is already under construction waiting only for the witch hunt to begin. It doesn't matter what Obama does or whether he succeeds or fails. I doesn't matter if he picks up every stitch, it's still going to be the season of the witch.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

I hope he fails!

By Capt. Fogg

Limbaugh said it and the Republicans echo it. It's more important that the Democrats fail -- that even if successful, Little Black Obama must be seen to fail in any attempt to fix anything, much less to end the recession. To be the party of business they claim to be isn't important, because the public is illiterate and it's cheaper to buy belief than to generate it through doing what you say you'll do. Wave flags and buy pins - that's all the patriotism one needs - the real purpose of politics is winning.

Forget that supply side economics never has and never will work: anything that does work in helping small business survive and thrive and create new jobs must be sabotaged along with anything that helps families stay together long enough to benefit from those new jobs.

That's right, the Republicans who just finished up trying to extend unemployment benefits are trying to sink a bill to help: not Exxon or BP or Halliburton or Goldman Sachs, but to offer credit to small business. Why? because it might just work. The same party that offered apologies to BP for making them pay for their criminal negligence intends to block a small business relief bill because it offers 30 billion in credit. The same party that requested three trillion no questions asked with Secretary Paulson to have exclusive and secret stimulus spending discretion. The same party that would still rather have starvation and poverty and disease rather than give a nickel to anyone who lost their job. After all, non-Republicans are just lazy, illegal immigrant bums without the gumption to be white. No, if it creates the millions of jobs that only small business can do, it might help the Democrats in November. Better to let it all go down and blame it on Obama.

No, making loans to stable small businesses is wasteful government spending, you see -- not like waging useless and unnecessary wars and building useless weapons systems and giving tax breaks to BP.

No, it's the same old GOP, the same party that was willing and eager to let millions of Americans starve during the last Depression they brought on, rather than get a dime they hadn't worked for and couldn't have if they had wanted to. Let it fail - desperate workers are cheaper labor and slave labor is cheapest and just think how well they could live with no middle class and all the burden on the serfs.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

GOP blocks small business loans and tax breaks

By Creature

At least this means the next time Republicans decry that Democrats want to crush business they will be called out on their hypocrisy. Or not.

Drill it, spill it - we don't care.

By Capt. Fogg

The subject of off shore oil and gas drilling has been a frequent discussion topic since I've lived in Florida. My particular part of the state has a large proportion of people who have environmental concerns, at least as far as clean water and the health of fish stocks are concerned. Most oppose rapid growth, virtually all of my local friends are extremely concerned about the ongoing discharge of polluted fresh water from Lake Okeechobee into our estuary and are likely to show anger at the sugar industry and even the cattle industry that are sources of much of it and who benefit greatly from the government guaranteed status quo. But when it comes to oil, it's been Drill Baby Drill even despite former Republican Governor Jeb Bush's opposition to it.

Before the BP disaster, one couldn't bring up the subject without becoming an audience for vituperation against "the Enviros" who were the root of the problem: the problem of course being high oil prices. The Environmental bogey men, they insist, are the reason we don't have more and cheaper nuclear power and why our bottomless oil reserves aren't being tapped as cleanly and risk free as turning on the bathroom faucet. It's the Liberals -- it's always the Liberals. They're all Republicans and conservationists without being in favor of conservation and environmentally concerned without being environmentalists. It's doublethink at it's finest.

One would expect that to have changed, and indeed it is changing, but not by as much as you might think. The illusion persists that there are huge amounts of oil off our coasts than can be easily accessed by sticking a straw into the mud and that the sooner we give the right to do that to foreign oil companies who sell into a competitive worldwide market, the sooner we'll be back to 26 cents per gallon. Efforts -- my efforts at least -- to dispel the mythology haven't been worthwhile. There's always some secret reserve or hidden oil field kept under wraps by a malicious government and their familiars: the Enviros.

They're not chanting Drill Baby Drill any more; not out loud at any rate, but Floridians aren't yet solidly behind a Constitutional amendment preventing these operations in Florida waters. The Republican-led Legislature seems firmly against it and abruptly adjourned a special legislative session after 49 minutes Tuesday, squelching Governor Charlie Crist's proposal to put the amendment on the ballot. Florida legislators, of course, get a lot of money from the oil and gas industry and before the false equivalence parade float is pulled out of the shed, the lion's share goes to Republicans.

The House Republican leader, Adam Hasner claims that Crist is making it "all about politics" but of course opposition to environmental responsibility has little else but politics to offer as a basis.
It's all about continued profits for the oil industry, continued support for their party (which Crist has recently left) and continued disregard for public safety, health and the common resources of our country.

I don't expect my local friends to put it all together and realize that we' can't preserve our local environment while letting the unholy alliance between oil and government rape the land and water and food sources, but according to the Miami Herald today, support is indeed growing for a permanent ban on at least near-shore drilling. That means at least a few more people are willing to see the picture beyond what is framed by their job, their backyard and their circle of idiocy. It's far too soon -- enormously far too soon to sound like an optimist and in fact I'm convinced that slogans and dogmas, slanders and stupidity will remain the song of the South until the Gulf looks like the LaBrea tar pits and we have to resort to eating termites and grasshoppers while the crops die -- and even then, I'm not sure many minds will be changed in the direction of responsible oversight and regulation by a government agency.

What the hell, might as well just drill!

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Assforwards, for Mark Halperin

By J. Thomas Duffy

It's a wonder that Time Magazine's Mark Halperin doesn't have, permanently, the imprint of ass on his face, for his obsequious kissing (and, often, at times, firmly planted up) the PartyofNoican's behinds.

He whines, incessantly, about Obama, and the Democrats, apparently, their existence so disrupts his reality-free airspace.



He all but inserted him himself as Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain's campaign manager, offering "Things McCain Can Do to Try to Beat Obama" include attacks on his race and name", and, as we wrote, back in August 2008, he was so over-the-top that "About the only thing missing for Time Magazine's Mark Halperin, during his appearance yesterday on 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos', was having "McCain 08" tattooed on his forehead, and the Dead Campaign Express bus parked on set, behind him."

After the losing campaign, Assboy Halperin blamed the media, for being Pro-Obama, his shrieking on it moved Bob Cesca to immediately nominate him as a "Hackery Hall of Fame Inductee".

Then he writes a book about the campaign, with John Heilemann ('Game Change'), which Glenn Greenwald noted;

"This reaction has nicely illuminated what our press corps is. The book is little more than royal court gossip, churned out by the leading practitioner of painfully sycophantic, Drudge-mimicking cattiness: Time's Mark Halperin ..."

[snip]

The real value of a book like this lies in the opportunity it presents for Washington's elite class to distract themselves and everyone else from the oozing corruption, destruction, decaying and pillaging going on -- that these same Washington denizens have long enabled. With some important exceptions, that is the primary purpose of establishment journalism generally. Even better, the book lets our media and political elite -- and then the public generally -- feel good about themselves by morally condemning the trashy exploits of Rielle Hunter and the egoistic hypocrisies of the irrelevant John and Elizabeth Edwards.

As The Nation's Chris Hayes so perfectly put it: "Just when you think the news cycle can't get any stupider, Mark Halperin publishes a book."

So, naturally, Assboy Halperin gets the A-List treatment as to bookings in the Cable Newsarama

Yesterday, with Tweety, Halperin was matched up with Salon Editor, Joan Walsh (Yeah, I know, with that stirring duo, advantage Walsh, right off the bat);

Mark Halperin: Obama must still chase GOP support

Halperin disagreed. "The biggest story in politics right now is the White House calculation, do they do things substantively and politically, to try to build bipartisan cooperation, or do they do, as Joan was suggesting, learn that they can ram things through on education, on economic development." Then things got strange; from my point of view, Halperin was describing Opposite Day reality: "They could make the choice -- rewriting the choice they made at the beginning of the administration, when they went another way, they went with an all Democratic solution -- to go for Republicans, and I think they will."

[snip]

Then Halperin asked me directly: "Would you like to see [Obama] work with Republicans -- on education, financial reform, on economic development -- or not?"

"You know what, Mark?" I answered. "Actually? 'Not.' Not for the sake of just working with Republicans." I explained how Obama worked hard to craft a bipartisan stimulus bill that was smaller than many Democrats wanted, and that was low on funding for infrastructure building programs as well as support for cities and states that were shedding cops, firefighters and teachers at the same time the stimulus money was coming down. Keeping people employed is an excellent unemployment program, I noted, but thanks to the president's efforts to win Republican votes, the Obama stimulus was too small to do more than a little of that.

Now, Mark, in the case that your computer is down, and your television has been on the fritz, it's been out there, for some time, that the PartyofNoicans, openly, have stated they will be obstructionists, that they will diss anything coming from Obama, and the Democrats.

I mean, that, just exhaustively, played out the past few months, with the Healthcare Reform bill.

Even that old ass you sucked for so long, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain has said not to expect GOP cooperation on legislation for the rest of this year.

So really, step back out into reality, or get some professional help.

We don't want to see the day, where the bosses at Time have to hire someone to walk around with you, shadow you with a crowbar, to pry your face out of the PartyofNoican asses.




(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

A study in contrasts

By J. Kingston Pierce

You just knew this was going to happen, right? Some bright YouTube user has modified rapper Will.i.am’s pro-Barack Obama, “Yes, We Can” video from the 2008 U.S. presidential election to demonstrate the sharp contrast between Obama’s hopeful message for the country and the Republican’ts’ blanket negativity toward every change he and his fellow Democrats try to make. The screaming little man who repeatedly interrupts Obama and his supporters in this version of the video is House Minority Leader John Boehner, shouting in anger and cynicism on the House floor last Sunday as he desperately tried to derail Obama’s health-care reform legislation.



(Hat tip to Salon editor Joan Walsh).

READ MORE: “An Attack on Inequality,” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post); “A Muddled Repeal Message,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “The Surging Popularity of Health-Care Reform,” by Michael J.W. Stickings (The Reaction).

(Cross-posted in Limbo.)

Blackboard Jungle

By Capt. Fogg

So let me get this straight -- a congressional bill designed to keep untrained school personnel from tying your kid to a chair or radiator and choking the life out of him is a bad thing, even though a 2009 report from the GAO found

"hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death related to the use of these methods on school children during the past two decades."

"These methods" according to Raw Story, include a teacher sitting on a kid, mechanical restraints that might choke or restrict breathing and methods that in at least some cases, have killed children. "These methods," particularly when used against children with disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy have had grave and even fatal results and I'm quite sure that any of you with children would have something to say had your kid been strapped into a chair or held face down and suffocated. The Keeping All Students Safe Act, H.R. 4247 passed 262-153 in Congress and is designed to:

(1) prevent and reduce the use of physical restraint and seclusion in schools;

(2) ensure the safety of all students and school personnel in schools and promote a positive school culture and climate;

(3) protect students from—

(A) physical or mental abuse;

(B) aversive behavioral interventions that compromise health and safety; and

(C) any physical restraint or seclusion imposed solely for purposes of discipline or convenience;

(4) ensure that physical restraint and seclusion are imposed in school only when a student’s behavior poses an imminent danger of physical injury to the student, school personnel, or others….

Perhaps Congressmen don't have children or perhaps they are simply psychotic enough to see any federal action or regulation of any kind as a threat to freedom so grave that basic human rights are worth ignoring. 145 Republicans voted against the bill last week; only 24 voted yea. Iowa Representative Steve King probably spoke for many in insisting that the Keeping All Students Safe Act would be a first step toward a "federal takeover of the education system." We heard that scummy excuse in the 50's when schools were being desegregated and "states rights" became a euphemism for depriving people of freedom, justice and sometimes even life.

Do we have hypocrisy here, or just garden variety dishonesty -- or maybe it's more of that congressional multiple personality disorder that has these august idiots equating the abusive abridgment of civil rights by a school principal with freedom, but the Constitution's promise; the upholding of humane treatment or the very right to life of students is called a "federal takeover." When the government itself and the Republican party specifically is so afraid of the federal government that it will refuse to protect children from possibly lethal abuse by local government, perhaps it's time to sit on these dangerously disturbed, irresponsible, stupid and incompetent partisan child molesters and see how they like it.

Yes, we all want a government that has little to say about our personal choices and conduct, but that feeling is quite universal, as much as Republicans claim it for their own. What is not universal amongst sane and honest people is the desire to give the power of life and death to local school board Death Panels to prevent a wholly imaginary "federal takeover" and if there ever was a reason to restrain or isolate and punish anyone this is a perfect example.

If there is one thing clear and easily visible in American politics today, is that there is a political party that has been insisting 'it's a jungle out there' for so long, they've made America into one.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Time for recess appointments?

By Creature

Beyond time.

Smaller, less intrusive religion

By Capt. Fogg

Just who owns your life and when you die, who owns your remains? Do you get to decide or does someone else's religion get to decide?

Let's say the great love of your life dies. Let's say you live in Rhode Island and you want to retrieve the body from the morgue, take it to a funeral home and plan a funeral. That's fine as long as you're legally next of kin, otherwise you're eroding traditional heterosexual marriages, says the governor. I'm not even going to try to figure out the tortuous path down which the Republican governor of Rhode Island, Don Carcieri, trod to get to that conclusion. I'm just going to assume that there is no logical process at all and that it's just the same nasty religious authoritarianism that sparked the existence of the Rhode Island colony in the first place.

I'm going to venture to assert instead that blocking such a simple act of decency toward people who are in a committed relationship; allowing any of us the freedom to decide who is our family or not, who we want to give a responsibility to or not, prevents a danger to heterosexual relationships is ludicrous and offensively stupid and that he is only acting in the traditional theocratic role of forcing his religious doctrine up the collective arses of the Rhode Island citizens.

Carcieri vetoed a bill yesterday allowing same sex couples to plan the funerals of deceased partners, although Democrats may have the votes to override it. Carcieri believes that elected representatives do not have the power to write such legislation and there should be a direct ballot referendum instead. I wonder if this will erode the institution of our republican form of government as much as treating domestic partnerships outside of a Church approved relationship with equal protection under the law will erode my own marriage. So far my wife and I have survived such "disturbing trends" and are getting along just fine minding our own business.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

It's all about the money with them

By Carl

Nevermind that the long term costs of global warming are staggering. Nevermind that even the short term costs of global warming are staggeringly high.

No, it's all about the pennies we might save by doing nothing:

WASHINGTON — Republicans boycotted the start of committee debate Tuesday on a bill to curb greenhouse gases, protesting that the bill's costs have not been fully examined. The action put a spotlight on the difficulties Democratic leaders face in moving climate legislation this year.

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio attended the session for 15 minutes to explain the GOP's argument for staying away. He insisted the tactic "is not a ruse" to block the bill, but concern that its widespread impact on the country has not been made clear.

But Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, the panel's chairman, argued the EPA already has provided "a full blown economic analysis" and that Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised further studies when the bill is merged with other legislation. She insisted "we're not rushing we are taking our time."

HOW MUCH HANDHOLDING DO THESE NIMRODS REQUIRE?

Reid, Pelosi, and Boxer ought to just run roughshod over the Republicans in Congress, just the way the Republicans ran roughshod over the Democrats under the Bush administration.

Eff 'em, if they can't take a joke. Elections have consequences, deficits don't matter (Cheney), and Go Fuck Yourself (Cheney redux).

Progress cannot come from cons, neo or otherwise. They aren't "pro," they're "con" for a reason.

Probably because the future is now, for them. Today matters more than tomorrow, except when it's a Democrat buying the drinks.

Then somehow yesterday matters more than today, but not as much as tomorrow, which matters less than today anyway.

Re-read that again. It made sense when I put on my Republican hat.

There's this weird dynamic in the Republican party that it seems one can never get a cogent answer on any issue they disagree with. It's one thing to be the loyal opposition, to oppose things on principle, to say that this is wrong because it specifically opposes a parameter that is generally believed to be good for the nation.

It's another thing to throw a five year old's tantrum and say "No! No! No!"

When I was in college, serving on the student council, I made arguably the stupidest speech of my entire life. I said, in effect, "this is wrong because I think it's wrong," with respect to a proposal offered up by the minority party.

Now, I'm a wise man, brilliant at times, but even as the words left my mouth, I realized how stupid it was for me to say that and not have a very specific objection. It made me look stupid, but worse, it made opposition to the proposal look stupid.

You can see where I'm going with this: to knee-jerk reactively say that even discussing solutions to global warming is wrong simply because they might cost us a few bucks makes any legitimate concerns about the solutions involved seem petty.

Say they'll be ineffective (be specific) and you might have my ear. Say they'll be inefficient, and you'll have my ear.

Tell me they'll cost too much, and I'll tune you out nearly as fast as I tune out climate change deniers.

Republicans have become Johnny One-Notes, and they're taking up the kazoo.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Dead man walking -- tall

By Capt. Fogg

The man can't be much warmer than room temperature, but the demons are howling farleftliberalsocialist like some inbred glossolalian hysterics at a backwoods revival meeting where the devil is being denounced. Even those of us who dress more like civilized people and give University lectures are out there making false equivalences between how poor old milk-of-human-kindness Robert Novak was treated by farleftliberalsocialists like Crooks and Liars as compared to the way they're trashing the memory of the last of the Kennedy Brothers -- although the more adroit like William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection says he "wont go there" -- while he's coming back from just having been there.

Rush Was Right! Exclaims the Professor. People are using Ted Kennedy's death to their political advantage and the people who would like to put Ronald Reagan on Mount Rushmore and name airports and highways after him are very disdainful of that sort of thing, aren't they? Can you imagine that - those laughable liberals want to name a health care bill after a man who tried most of his life to reform health care and have the audacity to trash a man who only committed treason and lied about it.

" Democrats are desperate to do anything to overcome public opposition on the merits."

says the Associate professor. He doesn't tell us whether those merits include "death panels" or other outright lies so beloved of Republican saboteurs. He doesn't mention that the public opposition is the minority opinion and that's it's costing News Corp and the Insurance Industry and the Drug Companies billions to do anything and everything to overcome majority opinion; anything including lies and fabrications.

Face it, they're delighted that one more impediment to the will of the minority is down and so sure are they of public stupidity and gullibility they don't even bother to cover their tracks or hide their fallacies.

"Strange, when Rush Limbaugh used the phrase "Kennedy Memorial Health Bill," [in predicting how Democrats would use Kennedy's death] he was harshly criticized.. . . Now that passage of Democratic health care restructuring seems much less likely, I guess it is okay to invoke Kennedy's name."

That's just what I mean. No Perfessor, the objection to Rush calling a sickly old man a dead man was what the anger was about. Laughing about a brain tumor: it's not the same thing as calling a dead man a dead man: even a dead man who tried to do some good in this world instead of shilling for pirates.

(Cross posted at Human Voices)

Are the Brewster Sisters running the GOP?

By J. Thomas Duffy

Man, I don't know if shooting out an Instant Ignorant Dolt Award is fast enough for these people.

My God, if this isn't classic, and unmitigated, Obama Derangement Syndrome ... Elected members of Congress, unfiltered, unabashedly, and unbridled, actually going out and promulgating, declaring in public, that the President Obama, and the Democrats', Healthcare Plan paves the way for the government to kill elderly people.

Last Friday, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), appeared on Wingnut Alex Jones' radio show;

During the 30-minute interview about “nation ending stuff,” Gohmert used his opportunity on the Jones show to showcase his own odd anti-Obama conspiracy theories:

GOHMERT: We’ve been battling this socialist health care, the nationalization of health care, that is going to absolutely kill senior citizens. They’ll put them on lists and force them to die early because they won’t get the treatment as early as they need. [...] I would rather stop this socialization of health care because once the government pays for your health care, they have every right to tell you what you eat, what you drink, how you exercise, where you live. [...] But if we’re going to pay 700 million dollars like we voted last Friday to put condoms on wild horses, and I know it just says an un-permanent enhanced contraception whatever the heck that is. I guess it follows that they’re eventually get around to doing it to us

WOW!

Does Gohmert actually believe that the Government is going to line up elderly people and have them killed, or is he just expressing a most inner base fear of being raped by a wild horse, perhaps, or perhaps not, wearing a government-supplied condom?

So, there's one Instant Ignorant Dolt crown for Louie Gohmert, and we now turn our attention to a person who already has had the thrill of waking down the aisle as an Instant Ignorant Dolt.



Rep. Virginia Foxx

This week, Rep.Foxx is letting the jack-in-the-box out of her skull again;

Rep. Foxx: The Republican plan would "make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."

Rep. Foxx Says Health Care Reform Will Cause Seniors To Be "Put To Death By Their Government"