In Case You Were Wondering...
Published by BG on Friday, June 08, 2007 at 5:54 PM.If He Ain't A Hypocrite, He's Close
Published by BG on at 2:36 PM.Power Line: The sidelines for Newt?
Phillip Klein at the American Spectator blog reports on Newt Gingrich's appearance before the American Enterprise Institute. According to Klein, Gingrich remained coy about whether he would run for president, but suggested he may be able to accomplish more by staying out of the race and focusing on developing and spreading ideas for confronting our nation's challenges.
Gingrich had kind words for Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson. He was more critical of John McCain, stating that McCain faces the "greatest challenge" in terms of capturing the nomination. Gingrich also referred to McCain-Feingold as the first legislation to try to silence dissent since the Alien & Sedition Acts, and he blasted the McCain-Kennedy immigration legislation.
Newt Gingrich is for freedom of speech? This Newt Gingrich?
Newt Gingrich - Winning the Future
And, my prediction to you is that ether before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.
This is a serious problem that will lead to a serious debate about the first amendment, but I think that the national security threat of losing an American city to a nuclear weapon, or losing several million Americans to a biological attack is so real that we need to proactively, now, develop the appropriate rules of engagement.
Free speech, so long as it's either via soft money contributions or fits my idea of acceptable is okay. Brown people using the Internets? Keep an eye on them, and let's not worry about whether what we're doing is constitutional - we'll just try them on Fox News for a cycle or two, and then disappear them down the memory hole.
9/11!
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Christ, What an Asshole - Xenophobe Edition
Published by BG on at 11:46 AM.Mark Krikorian @ The Corner on National Review Online
(The phrase "a nation of immigrants") has an ideological purpose, to downgrade and delegitimize America before the beginning of mass immigration in 1848, or maybe even before 1880. It is, in a sense, the unofficial motto of multiculturalism. America is much more a "nation of settlers" and a "nation of slaves" that it is a nation of immigrants.
Read: Everything was fine when it was just Western Europeans coming over here.
Mark Krikorian @ The Corner on National Review Online
Compare two holidays. Columbus Day began a century ago in this country as an attempt by Italian immigrants to attache themselves into the founding of America. Move forward to today and see what's happened to the Fourth of July; the main public ceremony that occurs on that day is no longer public readings of the Declaration of Independence but new-citizen swearing-in ceremonies. It has turned into Immigration Day rather than Independence Day...
So after a lengthy legal immigration cycle in which people who wanted to become American citizens had to wade through bureaucracy the likes of which you'll never have to endure, you're going to begrudge the government for hosting citizenship ceremonies on a patriotically significant day? Somehow, it becomes less about Thomas Jefferson and more about those awful berry-picking immigrants who are basically leprosy-ridden criminals because of this?
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Wait a minute! Who is doing WHAT?!
Published by Pokerwolf on at 11:25 AM.
Beyond Shame: Democrats Sell Out Youth - rhrealitycheck.org
At this point, all I can say is apparently the Republicans aren't the only political party that has lost contact with its voters. Good grief.
Today, the House Democrats will waltz into the mark-up of the Labor HHS Subcommittee and proudly present a bill that puts their stamp of approval on domestic abstinence-only-until-marriage programs—an ideological boondoggle that threatens the health and well-being of America's youth.
The most appalling aspect of this sell-out is that that the Democrats will not only fully fund the worst of the failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs—they'll give them a $27 million increase—the first in three years!
At this point, all I can say is apparently the Republicans aren't the only political party that has lost contact with its voters. Good grief.
That's One...
Published by BG on at 10:58 AM.USNews.com: Opinion: Capital Commerce: : What (Fred) Thompsonomics Might Look Like
For now with Thompson, analysts are left to examine his growing campaign team for clues as to what his policy agenda will be. So what does the likely addition of former Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey reveal about the nature of Thompsonomics?
Who's Lawrence Lindsey?
And, of course...
That's one AEI crony. I'll try to keep count as the neocons jump on the bandwagon.
Just for posterity's sake: Fred Thompson is a neoconservative.
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Christ, What an Asshole - At Least He's Not Lying Edition
Published by BG on at 9:49 AM.Crooks and Liars » Paul Weyrich: Goo-Goo Syndrome
(Paul) Weyrich: “Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.
This idea of suppressing voters has no place in today's Republican party though.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
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Hmm...
Published by BG on at 9:02 AM.The Sideshow June 2007 Archive
They can complain all they like that (Bush) hasn't been "fiscally conservative", but they not only supported his war and his tax cuts, but they refused to so much as question the fact that he ran it in the most expensive way imaginable - not just pseudo-privatizing the functions of the armed services, but actually giving the private companies they outsourced to incentives to overspend and generally waste resources. (And they let him force them to pass the drug-benefit bill with a clause forbidding negotiations to keep prices down.)
I say "pseudo-privatizing" because outsourcing government functions but still paying for them from the tax base isn't real privatization, it's socializing it at a higher price. Actually privatizing the invasion and occupation of Iraq would mean that you told all the people who wanted to invade Iraq to go do it themselves. They could club together and raise an army on their own dime and leave the taxpayer out of it. But they didn't do that - they raided the US treasury instead.
I'm really not sure what to make of that statement. War is inherently a program of socialism, as it's something that's too big to be coordinated piecemeal by market forces. The government is the only entity big enough (except for maybe Wal-Mart) to effectively manage war on the necessary scale. So if we acknowledge that war is a socialized program, why does the author choose to wield the word in that sentence above like a perjorative? I get what the point is. He's basically asserting that privatization is an idea that is supposed to remove bureaucracy from the equation in the interest of exploiting market efficiencies, and that various case studies from this war turn that idea on its head through rampant profiteering. Taxpayers are paying either way, and that we're paying more than we should means that the ideal of privatization is not being met. The idea is still in place (because it's occurring), but profiteering means the purchasing agent is not exploiting market efficiencies, so that makes this somehow socialized provision? Maybe if you want to assume this is done intentionally as an off-book subsidy program for the military-industrial complex, which I guess makes sense to this argument, but the author never goes all the way there.
Let's assume in this argument that the services privatized in this war are necessary to the effective waging of the war. The government can choose to supply that service themselves or to privatize, and have chosen the latter option. Regardless as to the level of profit made by the private supplier, since the service is purchased and not provided by the government, the service is not socialized. So how is it "socialized at a higher price?" That's like saying that the Coke machines in the Pentagon are pseudo-privatized providers of soda pop, as the government could potentially choose to manufacture their own cola beverages and provide at a zero-profit price, but instead allow rampant profiteering by the Coca-Cola Corporation to occur, thereby simply socializing carbonated beverages at a higher price.
Am I missing something else here?
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Why Mitt Matters
Published by BG on at 8:35 AM.Hullabaloo - One of Them
I had a delightful conversation recently with a very smart and experienced political observer who told me that Romney would likely end up being the GOP nominee --- he was the establishment choice, business guy, good brand, looks good on TV. The elites had signed off on him just as they'd signed off on Junior, Dole, Senior etc and that's how it's done.
Since a truly open primary on both sides is unusual (and Bush has badly damaged the establishment along with everyone else) it will be interesting to see if they have the same power they usually do.
[snip]
(O)ld Mitt really is one them --- a rich, white businessman who will reliably advance the interests of the tribe and that is what matters. After all, their boy Bush may have screwed up the whole world, but he delivered for them. They'll back whichever candidate will do that the best.
Digby hits it right on the head with this one. Before you just concede the race to Fred Thompson, it's worthwhile to understand exactly who's backing Romney, and how a virtual unknown south and west of Boston managed to be a fundraising juggernaut. The GOP establishment - and by that, I mean the guys who have the money and the influence to play kingmaker - are the ones who boosted Romney to a GOP-best $23M over the first quarter of the year.
That's hardly insignificant. The guy didn't enter the race with trumpets heralding his candidacy, he came in as the guy who proved his CEO-caliber connections with a single-day record $6.5M in fundraising among his peers. He came in showing the same willingness to pander to conservative causes (abortion, gay marriage) he seemingly didn't hold just a few years back. He came in with a perceived religious handicap which, to date, hasn't seemed to hold him back considerably in the polls.
Digby asserts that "it will be interesting to see if (the GOP establishment has) the same power they usually do." Moreover, he thinks that the Right, as the party of the authoritarian mindset, is likely to go along with whomever they're sold as the guy the establishment wants. While that's an interesting way to analyze the situation, it's not far-fetched to imagine a scenario where money buys media and a coordinated effort is made to canonize Mitt and swift-boat the rest of the true contenders, should they decide he's really the guy.
Ideas don't really matter much, at least not in the face of misinformation. If they want to install Mitt as their candidate, they're going to make every effort to make that happen. Obviously, if the donors who have backed Mitt decide there's a better option out there (Fred, for one), they reserve the right (excuse the pun) to be fickle and change sides. I think the indicators will come in the form of fundraising totals over the next two quarters, and how aggressive the message starts to be from Rush and Drudge and Fox News attempting to fence off a candidate or two as the true standard bearers at the expense of the other nine.
Although I can't frigging find it at the moment, I have said previously that I thought Mitt's fundraising machine indicated a rabid level of establishment support, and that it was a significant sign that he was being groomed for the nomination. I continue to choose to believe that those in the party with the most significant economic interests at stake in this election are going to be the ones determining who gets the nom, and at this point they seem to be behind Romney. It's obviously early, and Digby, his informant and I could all prove to be wrong about this, but $23M in first quarter fundraising from a near-unknown isn't insignificant at all.
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And Here at Verbosities, We Encourage Luckbox to Pose as a Reasonable Conservative
Published by BG on Thursday, June 07, 2007 at 8:27 PM.Terrorists use Web against 'idiot' Americans - American Congress For Truth | Brigitte Gabriel
Islamic terrorists are engaged in a "media jihad" in which they encourage jihadists to pose online as Americans to foster anti-war sentiment in the U.S.
So let me make sure I have my SAT analogy correct here:
Mohammed :: PatriotBushLover2000_AndForever@Fark.com
as
Rodney :: SexxyGrrl18_andHorny@Yahoo.com?
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Hey, Guess What?
Published by BG on at 8:01 PM.Orcinus
A new Pew Foundation report just out this morning tells us that 37% of American Hispanics now identify as Evangelical Protestants, making it the second-largest religion after Catholicism in that group.
Here's the thing that I think the GOP gets: American Hispanics aren't all pro-open borders, and many of them - perhaps even a significant majority in this Evangelical Protestant subset - are strong "values voters" who agree with the GOP platform on an almost plank-by-plank basis.
Here's the thing that I think the GOP doesn't get: American Hispanics do have some pride. If the GOP commits to creating a culture where illegal immigration is our top domestic priority, and if they stir up enough anti-immigrant resentment, American Hispanics are not going to forget who whipped it out and pissed all over their people when it was politically convenient to do so.
The GOP is exploiting latent racism through their prioritization of immigration this election cycle. As the population of American Hispanics continues to grow, it'll be interesting to see if both parties are smart enough to evolve to take advantage of the demographics of a new America*.
*Because, you know, that's what the GOP is trying like hell to avoid.
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Christ, What an Asshole - Suckling at the Teat of a Dynasty Edition
Published by BG on at 7:19 PM.The Bush endorsement that matters - Politico.com
Presidential brother Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, is not running for the White House in 2008. But he could emerge as a major kingmaker while a rather lackluster field of candidates scrambles for the Republican nomination.
He also could end up on the ticket as a vice presidential candidate. After all, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has said Jeb would have to be on any GOP candidate's short list of possible running mates.
Fuck me in the eye socket if we ever become a country where "MITT/JEB '08" is the bumper sticker. Seriously.
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The Rats are Scrambling
Published by Human Head on at 6:43 PM.Think Progress » Sen. Jack Reed: Hadley Should Be Fired
During his confirmation hearing this morning, Lute clarified that his new authority means that National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley’s portfolio will no longer include Iraq and Afghanistan. Shocked by the revelation, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) argued Hadley should be fired if he’s taken a hands-off approach to the most important national security issues:
REED: That I find interesting. I mean, frankly, Afghanistan, Iraq, and, related to that, Iran, are the most critical foreign policy problems we face. And the national security adviser to the United States has taken his hands off that and given it to you? Is that your understanding?
LUTE: Sir, that’s the design, yes.
REED: Well, then he should be fired, because, frankly, if he’s not capable of being the individual responsible for those duties and they pass it on to someone else, then why is he there? Well, that’s my view.
Reinforcement Psychology at work
Published by Human Head on at 6:15 PM.Reminding us that if you oppose long and drawn out wars.......
It is very convenient.
National Archives Uncovers Handwritten Note by Lincoln - washingtonpost.com
It is very convenient.
National Archives Uncovers Handwritten Note by Lincoln - washingtonpost.com
Archives officials said the note is significant because it reveals Lincoln's momentary optimism that the war would end quickly -- short-lived when Lee's army escaped across the Potomac River a few days later. The war went on for another year and a half, ending in the spring of 1865.
Dig it, jive turkeys
Published by Human Head on at 5:40 PM.One of These Things is not Like the Other
Published by BG on at 2:12 PM.William Otis - Neither Prison Nor Pardon - washingtonpost.com
A sense of proportionality argues in favor of eliminating Libby's prison term. This was an unusually harsh sentence for a first offender convicted of a nonviolent and non-drug-related crime. Sandy Berger, national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, was not sentenced to prison for sneaking documents out of the National Archives, destroying them and then lying to investigators. For his actions, Berger received no jail time, a fine one-fifth of that imposed on Libby and 100 hours of community service.
$1 and membership in the Junior Truthtellers Association to the first person who can tell me what the difference is between the story behind Berger's penalty and Scooter's, and why the penalties shouldn't be compared side-by-side.
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Senate Judiciary Committee Votes To Restore Habeas Corpus Rights
Published by Pokerwolf on at 1:33 PM.
Senate Begins Real Push on Habeas Corpus - The Nation
That's a very small majority. Wow. If you think that news sounds good, check this out:
This is pretty big news and the PR fallout from the decision is going to be spectacular. Expect a lot of "You're helping the terrorists!" stuff to come from the Executive Branch and other GOP outlets. How the Dems, and the Republicans that agree with them on this issue, handle that sort of thing (which they should counter by stating things such as, "these rights are what our country was founded on and they differentiate us from the terrorists", which Senator Dodd did in a very well done fashion for the article I quoted above) will determine a decent amount of public opinion. This decision also has huge election ramifications, especially for those candidates in the upcoming election who have similar views to our current President.
It's also entirely possible that this decision will be the beginning of a schism in the GOP. Bush and his cronies alienated a large section of their party and their voting base with the Military Commissions Act. It will be quite a PR coup for the Democrats if they get the MCA overturned and Habeas Corpus is restored.
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed an important bill to restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court, by a vote of eleven to eight.
Habeas corpus was revoked by last year’s Military Commissions Act, which has been assailed as unconstitutional and un-American by leaders across the political spectrum. Today’s habeas bill was backed by the Judiciary Committee’s Democratic Chairman, Patrick Leahy, and its Republican Ranking Member, Arlen Specter. "The drive to restore this fundamental right has come from both sides of the aisle," said Sharon Bradford, an attorney at the bipartisan Constitution Project, in response to today’s vote. "Restoring America’s commitment to the rule of law is not a partisan cause; it is a patriotic one," she added.
Today’s vote means the habeas bill can now be brought to the Senate floor at any time. One source with knowledge of the legislative plan said Majority Leader Harry Reid has committed to bringing the bill to a vote within the month.
That's a very small majority. Wow. If you think that news sounds good, check this out:
Some Democrats are pushing Reid to go further, advocating more comprehensive human rights protections and a repeal of the entire Military Commissions Act. Senator Chris Dodd, the most aggressive defender of the Constitution in the presidential race, is pushing legislation that would not only restore habeas, but also ban the use of evidence obtained through torture and recommit the U.S. to the Geneva Conventions. "We must recognize that our security is enhanced by upholding our nation's historic legal principles as we vigorously pursue terrorists," he said in a statement today.
This is pretty big news and the PR fallout from the decision is going to be spectacular. Expect a lot of "You're helping the terrorists!" stuff to come from the Executive Branch and other GOP outlets. How the Dems, and the Republicans that agree with them on this issue, handle that sort of thing (which they should counter by stating things such as, "these rights are what our country was founded on and they differentiate us from the terrorists", which Senator Dodd did in a very well done fashion for the article I quoted above) will determine a decent amount of public opinion. This decision also has huge election ramifications, especially for those candidates in the upcoming election who have similar views to our current President.
It's also entirely possible that this decision will be the beginning of a schism in the GOP. Bush and his cronies alienated a large section of their party and their voting base with the Military Commissions Act. It will be quite a PR coup for the Democrats if they get the MCA overturned and Habeas Corpus is restored.
Well, That Settles That Then
Published by BG on at 12:03 PM.Power Line: Free Lewis Libby, part two
Peter frames his article ("Libby pardon poses quandary for GOP hopefuls") on a false dichotomy between a pardon and the rule of law. Yet pardons do not disturb the rule of law; they are part of the rule of law.
Perfectly circular logic. Well done. I didn't think that could be reduced to one degree of Kevin Bacon, but here we are...
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Is Venezuelan freedom of speech really being choked?
Published by Human Head on at 11:46 AM.Gregory Wilpert: RCTV and Freedom of Speech in Venezuela
While the decision not to renew RCTV's license is still being challenged in court, [12] due to a possible violation of due process and equal treatment under the law, it is clear that the decision is legal to the extent that it is the prerogative of the state to decide which broadcasters are to receive licenses to use the airwaves, maintains pluralism in Venezuela's media landscape, does not violate principles of freedom of speech for Venezuelans, and contributes to the democratization of the country's airwaves by granting more Venezuelans access to these than before, via the new television channel TVes.
It is thus very disappointing to see international human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, the Washington Office on Latin America, the Carter Center, and the Committee to Protect Journalists condemn the government's decision. These groups, just as Venezuela's opposition, claim that the decision sends a chilling effect on freedom of speech. This supposed chilling effect, though, has been invoked over and over again by the government's critics, but they have yet to point to a single instance of a story or a criticism that has not been aired due to this supposed effect. Globovisión continues to be as critical of the government as ever, just as the country's most important newspapers and radio programs--arguably some of the most critical in the western hemisphere. RCTV, when it comes back via cable, will, no doubt, also continue to be as critical as ever. In effect, the groups that condemn Venezuela's sovereign decision to change the way its airwaves are used are defending the right of corporate media to use the airwaves, to the detriment of the poor majority, who prior to Chavez have never had access to the country's corporate-controlled media complex. Ideally, all broadcast frequencies should be under collective democratic and not private control. That, however, will take more time and will receive far more condemnation by the world's establishment.
It is worth the time to read the entire article, as it is probably the most even-handed approach to this "issue" I have seen to date.
The AEI Versus Charles Darwin
Published by BG on at 11:42 AM.But Is It Good for the Conservatives?
One reason [The American Enterprise Institute] stands as the capital's premier research organization is that it alone would think to assemble a quartet of intelligent and accomplished people to debate the implications of Darwinism for political thought and public policy.
Oh, this should be good, neocons talking about evolution. The panel was called "Darwinism and Conservatism: Friends or Foes?," and included two "pro-Darwinians" (the article's nomenclature, not mine), and two guys from "The Discovery Institute," which is essentially the PR agency of the "Intelligent Design" movement.
(T)he subject of their panel wasn't the primary question of whether Darwinian theory is true; it was the secondary question of whether Darwinian theory and political conservatism abet each other as ways of understanding and shaping the world: "Does Darwin's theory help defend or undermine traditional morality and family life? Does it encourage or discredit economic freedom?"
You probably have to have spent as much time reading neoconservative theory as I have to appreciate the irony of this panel discussion. The entirety of the neoconservative movement is predicated on the influence of the strong over the weak, which easily fits as a "pro-Darwinian" notion. Neoconservatives believe in "growth" as the primary notion of economic policy, giving tax cuts (i.e., "the Bush tax cuts" that the Democratic candidates keep talking about rolling back) to the most wealthy Americans so that they may continue to influence "growth." They believe that welfare from the state is a necessary evil, but they wish to dictate who is "deserving" of these handouts - the rest can suck it. And in foreign policy?
Irving Kristol @ AEI - The Neoconservative Persuasion
Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from nondemocratic forces, external or internal...
[snip]
Suddenly, after two decades during which "imperial decline" and "imperial overstretch" were the academic and journalistic watchwords, the United States emerged as uniquely powerful... With power come responsibilities, whether sought or not, whether welcome or not. And it is a fact that if you have the kind of power we now have, either you will find opportunities to use it or the world will discover them for you.
This, of course, is the proactive use of force that is ostensibly designed to spread our
So a true debate on "Darwinism" as an AEI panel? Please. It's like letting grizzly bears debate the pros and cons of salmon. The entirety of the movement depends on the strong dominating the weak. This is nothing but irony at its finest.
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But we're the ones who need to be surveilled
Published by Human Head on at 10:55 AM.Dick Cheney Rules - New York Times
The Associated Press reported that Mr. Cheney’s office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion — right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president’s residence.
Filing This Away For Future Reference:
Published by BG on at 9:43 AM.TPMmuckraker June 6, 2007 09:44 AM
An FBI official who declined to be named tells TPMmuckraker that the JFK bomb plotters aren't connected to any international terrorist organizations or other foreign powers. "They were not associated with anyone else," the official says.
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What He Said
Published by BG on at 9:07 AM.Daily Kos: Terrorism's biggest allies
Remember, the whole point of terrorism is to sow terror. Every time a conservative or the Bush Adminsitration freaks out at a potential act of terrorism, the terrorist win. They don't actually have to set off the bomb, they just need to scare people. So every freak out is a victory for the enemy.
Remember that every time you hear about some busted plan being "one of the most chilling plots imaginable." Every time you blow some knucklehead's plan out of proportion, you embolden the terrorists.
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The SAFETY dance
Published by Human Head on at 8:58 AM.RFID will protect you, says industry lawyer « parallelnormal
The law, the SAFETY Act of 2002, shields companies from liability for damages if they use technologies approved by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.Trust DHS because they love you. Not quite as much as they love multinationals, but trust them, they do.
Obamania - $40 Million?
Published by BG on at 8:30 AM.Obama's quests for 'eye-popping' cash - Politico.com
Two major Clinton donors, speaking on the condition their names not be used, said they thought it likely that Obama would raise more than Clinton this quarter. Others close to Clinton claim Obama could top $40 million, which could be an example of artful expectation-setting.
An Obama aide responded: "First of all, their estimate is hysterical. We would be thrilled to get to $20 million, but we're mostly focused on increasing the strength of our grass-roots fundraising."
I believe that last part, and I have a great deal of admiration for the Obama campaign's efforts to connect with their donors. In the interest of full disclosure, I gave the guy some cash back in February, and have been on his mailing and call list* ever since.
*That being said, I treat my home phone number like a dedicated spam email account. I turned the ringer off sometime in March so I'm not bothered by the organizations I've chosen to give money to when they call me for more. Cutting off that avenue of communication means I don't generally feel badgered by fundraisers. Even though they all send me emails, those emails usually have a little worthwhile content inside, and I can choose to ignore the blatant come-ons for cash.
What is Obama doing that I admire? Check this out (from a campaign email sent Tuesday):
Most political fundraisers are hosted by lobbyists and filled with representatives of special interests.
But our campaign is different.
Our funding comes from a movement of Americans giving whatever they can afford, even $5, and Barack wants to sit down with supporters like you.
You were there before the beginning, and you helped spark something new in American politics. Renew your support now and you could potentially meet Barack in person.
In the next week, four donors will be selected for a new kind of fundraising dinner. If you make a donation in any amount between now and 11:59 pm EDT on Wednesday, June 13, you could join Barack and three other supporters for an intimate dinner for five.
That's kind of nifty, isn't it? Obama's campaign has largely been designed around making the grass-roots feel like they're the ones who have a stake in his success, not the so-called "special interests" (even though there's not a presidential contender who hasn't already taken money from "special interests"), and things like this help pique the curiosity and excitement, as well as the bottom line.
I mean, I'm going back to the well to toss him a few more bucks. Would I want to miss the chance to be entered in a lottery to have dinner with a candidate? Hell, I'd throw Duncan Hunter $5 if he were running the same contest.
Obama's not going to hit $40M in donations this quarter, but he's still setting the bar awfully high at the grass-roots level. I'm impressed at the both the strategy behind Obama's efforts, and really pleased by how effective this strategy seems to be. I wouldn't be at all shocked to see these efforts become the benchmark for all future (early) presidential campaigns.
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It's Not ALWAYS Political
Published by BG on at 8:13 AM.Rhymes with 'shmashmortion' - Politico.com
From the male side, one of Ben's best buds [in the movie Knocked Up], Jonah, kicks the termination terminology up a notch. "I won't say the A-word, but it rhymes with shmashmortion," Jonah says, suggesting that Ben and Alison go down to the shmashmortion clinic, see a shmashmortion doctor and just "take care of it and move on."
So what is it about adding the "a" to "bortion" that goes too far beyond Apatow's cracks about butt cracks, vaginas, penises and bong hits?
Perhaps, I don't know, maybe it's because it's a comedy about a man who is forced to grow up overnight (well, over nine months) and his infantile friends who treat everything in their lives like a poop joke? Would anyone expect the writers to derail the movie with a serious discussion of abortion and its consequences?
Please.
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Christ, What An Asshole - Only Republicans Believe In God Edition
Published by BG on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 at 8:06 PM.Pious Democrats, meet your maker - Politico.com
Apparently, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) all decided they did, indeed, owe an accounting of their personal religious beliefs -- a televised recitation, in fact -- to an audience assembled Monday at George Washington University by the left-liberal-worthy Rev. Jim Wallis and channeled through a television anchor aptly (or at least euphoniously) named Soledad O'Brien.
The front-runners' pandering to "people of faith" is the latest expression of Religion Lite advocated by the consultant wing of the Democratic Party.
[snip]
The worst offender in the trinity of poll-directed faith hailers was, of course, Edwards, a trial lawyer to the underclass (he represented the middle class in 2004) and now the political servant of his "Lord Jesus Christ."
Yes, he actually used the whole coded-for-evangelicals phrase -- though, for some reason, those three words, which revealed just how much this former-Baptist-turned-Methodist was willing to prostrate himself before the pious, were omitted from news coverage of the affair in both The Washington Post and The New York Times.
I'm an atheist, and even I think this type of op-ed is bullshit. For some reason, the Democrats are always being called on the carpet to prove they aren't the caricature of the party being drawn by the right wing. Think about Wolf Blitzer's questions to the panel on Sunday, for example. Quoting some of the questions asked, there were some real beauties like:
"Does the Bush administration, Senator, deserve any credit for the fact there has been no terrorist attack here in the United States for nearly six years?"
"Senator Edwards, let me let you clarify what you said the other day. You said the war on terror is a bumper sticker, not a plan. With the news yesterday, this alleged plot at JFK which could have done, supposedly, horrendous damage and caused an incredible number of casualties, do you believe the U.S. is not at war with terrorists?"
"Senator Clinton, you voted in favor of every funding for the U.S. troops since the start of the war until now. And some are accusing you and some others of playing politics with the lives of the troops. What is your response?"
"Governor Richardson, I want Governor Richardson to weigh in because I know you have been very concerned about what is happening with the genocide in Darfur. What if some of the critics, some of the supporters of this war, are right, and a unilateral, quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq -- and you want troops out by the end of this year -- does lead not only to an increased civil war, but to genocide in Iraq? What moral responsibility does the United States have to deal with that scenario?"
"Can you tell me if the mission we accomplished during our deployment in Iraq was worth our effort and sacrifice, or was it a waste of time and resources?"
"I want you to raise your hand if you believe English should be the official language of the United States." (It's been a long-standing Republican wedge issue)
"Senator Clinton, you can (implement universal health care) without raising taxes?"
I'm not trying to insinuate these are illegitimate questions, except maybe the "funding the troops" and the "official language" ones. But they're all framed around the idea that "people think you guys are extreme, prove to us you're not," or "here's what Republicans have been telling us about your party, prove them wrong." They put the respondent in a position where they either have to come out defensive, or they have to come out and deconstruct the question to reframe it around a positive idea.
Aren't these supposed to be commercials, to some extent?
These guys (and Hillary) spend so much time deflecting assumptions and dancing around the framework (the "funding the troops" question, for instance), that it's nearly impossible to come off as anything but an equivocator who can't stop telling you what they're against, at the cost of spending precious time on what they're actually for.
This same sort of framework exists in the realm of faith. The Religious Right is told constantly that Liberals are "secular humanists" that want to end Christianity as we know it, so the assumption is that these guys don't have "true" faith, aren't "real" Christians, and any word that escapes their lips regarding God is a pandering ploy to gain votes.
Fuck off. Seriously. It's lazy to assume you know the value and intensity of faith someone possesses, so knock it off already. And when you see stuff like this in op-eds, recognize it for the inherent lack of credibility it has, and don't buy in to the stereotypes. They're tired, they're better than 90% lies, and they're only there to give you shorthand for actually thinking about issues on your own. Ignore it and move on. We can do better than this.
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If You Read Just One Thing To Summarize Republican Witchhunts Today, Read This:
Published by BG on at 6:04 PM.Eschaton
The ghost of Joseph Heller is channeled by Bernstein and O'Reilly to reflect 15 years of reporting on the Clintons. (click the link above to read the piece in its entirety)
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Occam's Razor
Published by BG on at 5:14 PM.Media Matters - Olbermann named Beck "Worst Person" for speculating that Kucinich's wife under influence of "date rape drug"
Seriously - there has to be some reason for this, right? Lord of the Rings fetish perhaps?
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Guarded Optimism - The Record is Still $6.5M
Published by BG on at 3:52 PM.Hugh Hewitt
Sources close to the (Fred) Thompson campaign have passed along the following first-day results for ImWithFred.com:
- Averaged close to 1,500 people per hour signing up as friends
- Averaged $12,000 per hour in contributions
- Raised more than $220,000 dollars via the website
Sounds pretty good, eh? How about a little perspective:
Romney Raises $6.5 Million In One-Day Blitz - 1/9/07
(From the Washington Post): "Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney raised $6.5 million for his presidential exploratory committee yesterday, sending a powerful message to his potential opponents about the seriousness of his bid for the Republican nomination.
"Romney gathered about 400 of his largest financial backers for an all-day call-a-thon at the Boston convention center.
Yes, yes... apples and oranges, I get that. Still, goes to show you what can be accomplished in one day if you've got the right approach, no? This comparison is probably a little more fair:
Obama's Campaign Takes In $25 Million - washingtonpost.com - 4/5/07
"I'm proud to tell you that, after the first quarter of the campaign, we've exceeded all of our hopes and expectations," Obama said in an e-mail to supporters yesterday, adding that the total is a "measure of just how hungry people are to turn the page on this era of small and destructive politics and repair our American community."
Obama surpassed Clinton in several areas that could be critical to their competition: He reported donations from 100,000 individuals, double the 50,000 people who gave to the former first lady. More than half of those donors, largely giving in small increments, sent money over the Internet. He raised $6.9 million online, compared with Clinton's $4.2 million.
That's almost $77,000 a day for Obama over the course of the quarter, and about $47,000 a day for Clinton - and that's just the average. You'd have to assume there were better days than others along the way, and I'd bet there were a couple days for each where $220k was in the rearview mirror by dinnertime. Still, $220k is a nice little start, especially for a candidate who will presumably get less money from us unwashed hippies on the Internet than from the deep pocket donors his party is used to.
Since Democrats generally set the bar for online fundraising, it bears watching to see if the energy of a "first day" for Thompson can continue to show good results for his Internet efforts. There's no reason to discount this number as a start, so long as the train keeps rolling steadily ahead.
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Good Times
Published by Human Head on at 10:51 AM.Atlantic Free Press--
"At present, the “don’t worry, be happy” crowd still thinks the good
times will roll on forever. They don’t see that the US consumer is
running out of gas and won’t be able to sustain his gluttonous spending
spree much longer. He’s already stopped siphoning the equity out of his
home ($600 billion last year) and now he’s has started to max-out his
credit cards. (Credit card debt increased 9.2% last month alone!) Now,
US consumers are facing a blizzard of bad economic news — rising prices
at the gas pump, a 6.7% increase in food prices, and a sickly dollar
that keeps losing ground on the currency exchange. (Kuwait is the
latest country to announce they will be dumping the dollar for a basket
of currencies)
Currently, the US gobbles up two-thirds of the world’s credit each year
with no conceivable way of paying it back. That won’t last much longer.
Central banks around the world are increasingly hesitant to accept are
our flaccid greenbacks and the Chinese are the only ones who are still
buying our Treasuries. That’s mainly because it gives them power over
political decision-making in Washington. The truth is the Chinese are
planning to send the US into receivership and take over as the world’s
bank. With dollar-backed reserves of $1.3 trillion, their plan appears
to be going “full-steam ahead”.
The bottom line is that we are buried beneath a $9 trillion mountain of
debt and there’s no way to dig out. If there’s a break in the
liquidity-flows to our stock market — stocks will crash, unemployment
will soar, and we’ll be pulled into a deflationary downspin."
"At present, the “don’t worry, be happy” crowd still thinks the good
times will roll on forever. They don’t see that the US consumer is
running out of gas and won’t be able to sustain his gluttonous spending
spree much longer. He’s already stopped siphoning the equity out of his
home ($600 billion last year) and now he’s has started to max-out his
credit cards. (Credit card debt increased 9.2% last month alone!) Now,
US consumers are facing a blizzard of bad economic news — rising prices
at the gas pump, a 6.7% increase in food prices, and a sickly dollar
that keeps losing ground on the currency exchange. (Kuwait is the
latest country to announce they will be dumping the dollar for a basket
of currencies)
Currently, the US gobbles up two-thirds of the world’s credit each year
with no conceivable way of paying it back. That won’t last much longer.
Central banks around the world are increasingly hesitant to accept are
our flaccid greenbacks and the Chinese are the only ones who are still
buying our Treasuries. That’s mainly because it gives them power over
political decision-making in Washington. The truth is the Chinese are
planning to send the US into receivership and take over as the world’s
bank. With dollar-backed reserves of $1.3 trillion, their plan appears
to be going “full-steam ahead”.
The bottom line is that we are buried beneath a $9 trillion mountain of
debt and there’s no way to dig out. If there’s a break in the
liquidity-flows to our stock market — stocks will crash, unemployment
will soar, and we’ll be pulled into a deflationary downspin."
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IOKIYAR Double-Standards
Published by BG on at 10:14 AM.Forget Fox, CNN Manipulated Dem Debate | NewsBusters.org
the last CNN-sponsored debate had the network pulling far more strings than it should have, skewing the process in a way that it wanted.
As noted by Howard Mortman, the liberal dominated network deliberately placed the three highest-polling candidates right next to each other, thereby minimizing the exposure the "lesser" candidates received. Moderator Wolf Blitzer also took more time for himself than every candidate except Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Center stage last night, in order? Romney, Giuliani, McCain. Top four speakers, in order of time alloted last night? Blitzer, McCain, Giuliani, Romney.
I eagerly await the follow-up post from Newsbusters accusing the "liberal dominated network" deliberately placing the three leading GOP candidates at center stage due to the Liberalofascist MSM plot to minimize the exposure of the other seven GOP candidates.
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GOP Masturbatory Fodder
Published by BG on at 8:53 AM.The thrall of the drawl - Politico.com
Almost the only thing that distinguishes (Fred Thompson's) Senate record from that of Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) is the sound of the voice votes. "Thompson fervently backed the Iraq war, railed against an expanding federal government, took stands that occasionally annoyed his party and rarely spoke about his views on social issues," The Washington Post reported in early May. Sound familiar? Not to mention that he backed McCain-Feingold -- and McCain for president in 2000.
Today, Thompson has broken sharply with McCain over immigration reform and otherwise shifted right enough to win kudos from conservative columnist Robert Novak, who effused that Thompson's tone, "in a soft Tennessee drawl, is less harsh than that of other Republican candidates -- a real-life version of the avuncular character he plays on TV."
If the South has been overrepresented in the White House lately, claiming three of the last five occupants, one reason is the thrall of the drawl. In the national political arena, no accent telegraphs more information faster than a Southern one. It exudes approachability, an absence of pretense and a penchant for plain talk. It promises funny analogies and anecdotes. No other politician, except maybe one from New Jersey, is quite as capable of winsome jokes at his or her own expense as a Southerner.
I asserted to Luckbox yesterday that a large part of the appeal of Thompson, besides not being one of the current ten candidates causing disenchantment among "the base," is that he "looks presidential." He argued against my point that if Fred Thompson looked and sounded like Ron Paul, there'd be a lot less to get excited about, but his defense was half-hearted at best. Do me a favor though... remember that argument every time you stumble across one of these fluffy bullshit pieces about his IMDB credits, his fucking pickup truck stunt, or the "absence of pretense" in his drawl.
Because, you know, if they can't resurrect Reagan, they can damn sure try to mold another one in his image, right?
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Poor Tommy Thompson
Published by BG on at 8:26 AM.GOP Debate Talk Clock | Chris Dodd for President
Via the widget above, isn't it interesting that in a debate lasting 120 minutes that we have less than 80 total minutes of the candidates actually speaking? And poor Tommy Thompson - the guy drew the short straw, only getting 5.4% of the 79.5 minutes of total candidate airtime, compared to Giuliani's 15.7%.
Is it good and healthy for our election cycle that our media is setting the expectation that we should have a small pack of front-runners now, so far ahead of the true primary season? Obviously, they're front-runners for a reason, but guys like Huckabee (8.5% - charismatic, should be drawing more support from the Religious Right), Gilmore (7.5% - seemingly solid conservative credentials compared to Romney and Giuliani), Thompson (5.4% - less than telegenic, but seems principled and conservative) and Hunter (9.1% - whose understanding of foreign policy and our current military efforts outpaces Giuliani and Romney by a country mile) aren't necessarily getting the airtime on these debates to showcase these obvious strengths.
That being said, Huckabee and Hunter did well last night in their attempts to do just that. Huckabee's time as a pastor gives him a huge advantage when discussing his faith, and his 90 seconds onstage demolishing Blitzer's attempt to corner him on the evolution denial was absolutely brilliant in its honesty. He's still a nut for whom I'd never vote, but those 90 seconds represented the single most pure and refreshing moment out of the last two debates, period. Hunter's discussion of the NIE last night was a great wedge moment for him, as the comparison between those who had the ability to read up and make a "principled" decision (with which we can, in hindsight, disagree on) with those who chose to simply read the Cliff's Notes presented a sharp contrast - to me, at least. At minimum, anyone who was paying attention who came in believing that Giuliani "owns" the terrorism question should have serious second thoughts about cedeing that ground to him in whole. Hunter (again, someone for whom I'd never vote) most certainly has military/national security credentials, and is someone who should be a stronger presence in the GOP conversation around these issues.
That's not the way it works, unfortunately, as the media attempts to whittle down the field a full year before the party conventions. It'd be helpful to all involved if some of these voices from the background (on both sides of the race - Dodd gets more and more interesting on the Dem side too) were given more time to articulate who they are and what their strengths are before they're ushered off, stage right - or left, depending on which doomed candidacy we're talking about.
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Christ, What an Asshole - Spinning Nuance Into Rhetoric Edition
Published by BG on at 7:54 AM.Associated Press' Crappy Reporting Makes Obama's Rhetoric Sound Racially Threatening | TPMCafe
HAMPTON, Va. (AP) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago.
The first-term Illinois senator said that with black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, frustration and resentments are building explosively as they did before the 1992 riots.
Greg Sargent dismantles this case of (piss)poor journalism at the link above. For now, I'm confused... Who exactly am I supposed to be afraid of this week? Islamofascists? Mexicans? Black people? Socialists? Ron Paul? I swear, if the right-wing noise machine can't focus on the most important fearmongering of our day, how am I supposed to know how to vote next November?
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Bill Kristol is a Dick
Published by BG on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 at 6:56 PM.Who, Me?
Will Bush pardon Libby? Apparently not--even if it means a man who worked closely with him and sought tirelessly to do what was right for the country goes to prison. Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino, noting that the appeals process was underway, said, "Given that and in keeping with what we have said in the past, the president has not intervened so far in any other criminal matter and he is going to decline to do so now."
So much for loyalty, or decency, or courage. For President Bush, loyalty is apparently a one-way street; decency is something he's for as long as he doesn't have to take any
risks in its behalf; and courage--well, that's nowhere to be seen. Many of us used to respect President Bush. Can one respect him still?
Right... This is the issue that's going to be the final straw that proves Bush is just a nasty ol' Librul after all.
I would pay up to $1500 to kick Bill Kristol swiftly in the nuts.
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Oh, So THAT'S Why It Isn't Working...
Published by BG on at 6:28 PM.Petraeus to CBS' Lara Logan:
Think Progress » Petraeus: ‘We Haven’t Started The Surge Yet’
Wishful thinking. From an April statement in front of Congress:
So it started in February, except that it really didn't and won't be for a little bit yet. So remember what we've been hearing about getting a status report in September? I think that'll be September 2010, if I'm doing the President's math correctly.
Think Progress » Petraeus: ‘We Haven’t Started The Surge Yet’
We haven’t started the surge — the full surge — yet. So let me have a few months.
Wishful thinking. From an April statement in front of Congress:
Petraeus: We’re only about two months into the surge.
So it started in February, except that it really didn't and won't be for a little bit yet. So remember what we've been hearing about getting a status report in September? I think that'll be September 2010, if I'm doing the President's math correctly.
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Christ, What An Asshole - No, Really... I Heard About This On 'Oprah' Edition
Published by BG on at 5:50 PM.Scarborough Crew Protests 'Pole' Remarks Taken Out of Context | NewsBusters.org
A spokesman for the news network said this afternoon, though, that the
comment has been taken out of context and that it is "irresponsible" to suggest Scarborough was employing sexual innuendo. "Works the pole" could have been a reference to poles that some strippers use in their acts. MSNBC says it was a reference to an exercise routine that a growing number of women are performing.
Sure, and when he said that thing about sucking the polish off a trailer hitch? I think he got that one from Heloise.
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Michelle Malkin's Top Five Stories Today - A Poem In Pictures
Published by BG on at 3:16 PM.
Helicopter Ben speaks
Published by Human Head on at 2:25 PM.From Monsters and Critics--
WASHINGTON - The economy is set to grow at a
sluggish pace in coming months but there are risks that
elevated levels of inflation excluding food and energy may not
recede, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday.
Translation-- Tomatoes and Peppers will become delicacies, and you will become intimately familiar with the books "100 Different Ways to Make a Meal from Scraps" an "Remember when you could afford meat?". Also, it might be advisable to acquire some flint and blankets.
Keep printing that money, Ben. Great job.
WASHINGTON - The economy is set to grow at a
sluggish pace in coming months but there are risks that
elevated levels of inflation excluding food and energy may not
recede, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday.
Translation-- Tomatoes and Peppers will become delicacies, and you will become intimately familiar with the books "100 Different Ways to Make a Meal from Scraps" an "Remember when you could afford meat?". Also, it might be advisable to acquire some flint and blankets.
Keep printing that money, Ben. Great job.
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Getting Libby's back
Published by Human Head on at 12:44 PM.From Think Progress--
“Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton top the list of individuals who wrote a federal judge on behalf of former White House aide Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby,
who will be sentenced today for lying to investigators and a federal
grand jury examining the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s
identity.”
That anyone would think it a good thing to be backed up by these psychopaths is a true testament to just how upside down things have truly become.
“Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton top the list of individuals who wrote a federal judge on behalf of former White House aide Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby,
who will be sentenced today for lying to investigators and a federal
grand jury examining the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s
identity.”
That anyone would think it a good thing to be backed up by these psychopaths is a true testament to just how upside down things have truly become.
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6-94
Published by Pokerwolf on at 12:20 PM.
The Iraq War Wote Was 6-94 - Huffington Post
Insert my standard "What the hell are these people doing when they're in office?" diatribe here.
In October 2002, prior to the October 12, 2002 Iraq War Vote, under lock and key, prepared for our Senators and Representatives by our country's top intelligence analysts, lay a 92 page report about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, and everything we knew about Saddam.
It sat waiting for our elected officials to sign in without staff and read it, 92 pages. No staffers allowed, elected officials only. A five page declassified document was readily available to all but the 92 page document, you had to show up, sign in and read it.
Only 6 Senators did.
Only six Senators thought that sending our country's bravest off to war to die was worth a few minutes of their time. How long a report would you have read before deciding to send our nation's finest to war?
Now, already by now, minions of Senators are scurrying off emails;
Senator So and So was briefed by his staff. The Senator weighed this vote deeply.
Political pundits and DC journalists are smirking at my simplicity of view on this. "This dumb blogger doesn't get how things are done around here."
Bullshit.
And more Bullshit.
First of all, no one could be briefed on it becausestaffers couldn't see the report, that's the problem.
Second, I don't care how DC operates. You want to stand up and vote on war, you sit your ass down in that chair and read the intelligence briefing.
There are no excuses.
Insert my standard "What the hell are these people doing when they're in office?" diatribe here.
Bad News For Dog-And-Pony Trials
Published by BG on at 10:51 AM.Reuters AlertNet - Guantanamo war crimes trials screech to halt
Via Little Green Footballs, who hopes this isn't a case of "monumental incompetence" where the government might not be able to appeal because they apparently haven't set up an appellate court that covers this jurisdiction yet.
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, June 4 (Reuters) - U.S. military judges dropped all war crimes charges on Monday against the only two Guantanamo captives facing trial, rulings that could preclude trying any of the 380 prisoners held at the U.S. base in Cuba any time soon.
The judges said they lacked jurisdiction under the strict definition of those eligible for trial by military tribunal under a law the U.S. Congress enacted last year.
"It's another demonstration that the system simply doesn't work," said the tribunals' chief defense counsel, Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan.
The rulings did not affect U.S. authority to indefinitely hold the 380 foreign terrorism suspects detained at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in southeast Cuba.
But it was the latest setback for the Bush administration's efforts to put the Guantanamo captives through some form of judicial process. It was forced to rewrite the rules last year after the U.S. Supreme Court deemed the old tribunals illegal.
Via Little Green Footballs, who hopes this isn't a case of "monumental incompetence" where the government might not be able to appeal because they apparently haven't set up an appellate court that covers this jurisdiction yet.
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Why Obama Might Be Right
Published by BG on at 10:47 AM.One of the knocks on Obama to this point has been his lack of accumulated political experience and capital, two soft spots on his resume that have had his opponents and the media demanding proof of political substance over stump speech platitudes. To that end, Obama has recently released his ideas on health care, which are sketched out from genesis to mechanics at FireDogLake.
The following clips aren't exactly a paid advertisement, but they may as well be.
Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » Shifting The Health Care Discussion: The Obama Plan
Unfortunately, it's that last part that's going to have people shutting down their receptiveness. The left has been so conditioned on the talking point of "universal" health care, that anything less seems like half-delivering on the promises of the party's platform.
Now, I'm no expert in health care, nor am I advocating for this plan specifically, but I would like to point out a couple of pieces here that got my curiosity up:
Obviously, if you want more specifics than what I've clipped (except the detail about how we're going to pay for this, that part is conveniently left out), go read the article. Some thoughts, however:
Is it a politically shrewd move to tell his constituency, the same constituency that reflexively hates "special interests," that we're going to find a way to make Big Medicine work for us? Probably not alongside Hillary, no. But in a vacuum, is it actually an intelligent triangulation? Absolutely. Look, any single nudge in the general direction of so-called "socialized medicine" is going to have the health care industry up in arms. They are able to dictate pricing to a large batch of insurance providers (who, in turn, mark up the costs and/or selectively deny coverage as well), which makes sure their profit margins stay within their own control. "Socialized" medicine, at the point of universal coverage, puts drug companies at the mercy of a single bulk buyer who can dictate terms. Naturally, this could and should lead to more aggressive price control.
So what happens if true "socialized" medicine is implemented under Democratic leadership? Well, it either works or it doesn't, to some degree. The better question is, what happens to universal health care when the Republicans come back into power? Even under an optimistic scenario where the program was working brilliantly, would it be a huge leap to assume that Republican leadership would find ways to chip away at the "socialized" nature of the program and deliver privatized carve-outs back to the health care industry?
There are Republicans who would begrudgingly accept what, in essence, amounts to a welfare program - but they'd find a way to make sure that it was limited in access to "the deserving," or that privatization began to encroach on governmental delivery of services, or that what the government was willing to insure met with some "moral" code that pandered to fringe elements of their party*.
*Can anyone else already hear the swords being sharpened over "what to do" about birth control under "socialized" health care in this country?
I think Obama's actually on the right track with his idea here. Don't take privatization out of the loop, as there is some value to exploiting the efficiencies of the market. Plus, it gives the right-wing the ability to tinker with the plan once they're back in power, as opposed to corrupting** the very nature of the idea through future privatization efforts. And, as an added bonus, because it's being proposed that private entities continue to exist as insurance providers, the government can throw up their hands and profess an inability to legislate morality*** for the insurance provided by those providers.
**I don't mean "corrupting" as "taking money out and putting it in their freezer." I mean to take the ideal of state-provided services and change the entire foundation of the idea by allowing "special interests" to again dictate their own terms.
***Could also read, "...profess an inability to legislate morality for the subsection of citizenry who are wealthy and deserving enough to afford the more capitalistic and free-market approach to providing insurance for their families. The rest of you who choose to suckle off the government's teat might as well accept Jesus as your personal Lord and savior before opting in."
I'm actually a little encouraged by this plan, as it seems to represent what could become the hybrid bipartisan channel by which we solve an acknowledged problem in this society. It seems like something that's a step in the right direction, but clearly not a big leap into olive drab and the philosophy of Marx and Engels.
(Obviously, how we pay for this is certainly the next question to ask. The magic of rolling back the Bush tax cuts isn't likely to accomplish something this grand, and buy us all our pony too.)
The following clips aren't exactly a paid advertisement, but they may as well be.
Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » Shifting The Health Care Discussion: The Obama Plan
(T)o his credit, Obama has come out with a health care plan that is definitely substantial and sometimes courageous — the adoption of which would almost certainly lead to more people covered, and getting better value for the vast amount of money that we spend. In spite of its billing, it's not truly universal, but it's still transformational.
Unfortunately, it's that last part that's going to have people shutting down their receptiveness. The left has been so conditioned on the talking point of "universal" health care, that anything less seems like half-delivering on the promises of the party's platform.
Now, I'm no expert in health care, nor am I advocating for this plan specifically, but I would like to point out a couple of pieces here that got my curiosity up:
The Obama plan envisions a much bigger role for the federal government as an honest broker for the health care free market...
(I)t's not a totally universal health plan...
(D)oing what it takes to cover absolutely everyone requires methods that are too controversial...
For me, anyway, the "red meat" part of the plan deals with cost-control: You know how we hate getting bled dry by fatcat corporations? How they're always out to screw the little guy? Well, they are, and Obama's plan tries to rein them in — with The Truth, baby. By putting together a wonk-hive of Joe Friday-meets-House health care research genuises, we're going to know what technologies and treatments work, and which don't. We're going to know which hospitals, docs and drugs are good, and which suck. (Count on it — they won't like that very much.) We're going to do preventative care, finally; we're going to stop rewarding providers for doing piecemeal services (expensive), and instead reward them for providing health (cheaper). We're going to make insurers open up and tell us how much of our premiums is actually going towards care, and how much towards CEOs' yachts and stogies. Yeah, all this is pretty wonky, but it gets right to the heart of one of the big problems in American health care: We don't know what we're doing — and some people like it that way. Ignorance isn't just bliss — it's gold.
[snip]
Considering the fierce mix of special interests involved, there's no way our politicians will do any of the right things without massive pressure from the outside. So it's up to us to keep guiding the process. We've got to reject Godzilla vs. Mothra politics — of gigantic special interests battling it out among themselves, while the rest of us run screaming. We've gotta own this issue — hell, we're paying for it.
Obviously, if you want more specifics than what I've clipped (except the detail about how we're going to pay for this, that part is conveniently left out), go read the article. Some thoughts, however:
Is it a politically shrewd move to tell his constituency, the same constituency that reflexively hates "special interests," that we're going to find a way to make Big Medicine work for us? Probably not alongside Hillary, no. But in a vacuum, is it actually an intelligent triangulation? Absolutely. Look, any single nudge in the general direction of so-called "socialized medicine" is going to have the health care industry up in arms. They are able to dictate pricing to a large batch of insurance providers (who, in turn, mark up the costs and/or selectively deny coverage as well), which makes sure their profit margins stay within their own control. "Socialized" medicine, at the point of universal coverage, puts drug companies at the mercy of a single bulk buyer who can dictate terms. Naturally, this could and should lead to more aggressive price control.
So what happens if true "socialized" medicine is implemented under Democratic leadership? Well, it either works or it doesn't, to some degree. The better question is, what happens to universal health care when the Republicans come back into power? Even under an optimistic scenario where the program was working brilliantly, would it be a huge leap to assume that Republican leadership would find ways to chip away at the "socialized" nature of the program and deliver privatized carve-outs back to the health care industry?
There are Republicans who would begrudgingly accept what, in essence, amounts to a welfare program - but they'd find a way to make sure that it was limited in access to "the deserving," or that privatization began to encroach on governmental delivery of services, or that what the government was willing to insure met with some "moral" code that pandered to fringe elements of their party*.
*Can anyone else already hear the swords being sharpened over "what to do" about birth control under "socialized" health care in this country?
I think Obama's actually on the right track with his idea here. Don't take privatization out of the loop, as there is some value to exploiting the efficiencies of the market. Plus, it gives the right-wing the ability to tinker with the plan once they're back in power, as opposed to corrupting** the very nature of the idea through future privatization efforts. And, as an added bonus, because it's being proposed that private entities continue to exist as insurance providers, the government can throw up their hands and profess an inability to legislate morality*** for the insurance provided by those providers.
**I don't mean "corrupting" as "taking money out and putting it in their freezer." I mean to take the ideal of state-provided services and change the entire foundation of the idea by allowing "special interests" to again dictate their own terms.
***Could also read, "...profess an inability to legislate morality for the subsection of citizenry who are wealthy and deserving enough to afford the more capitalistic and free-market approach to providing insurance for their families. The rest of you who choose to suckle off the government's teat might as well accept Jesus as your personal Lord and savior before opting in."
I'm actually a little encouraged by this plan, as it seems to represent what could become the hybrid bipartisan channel by which we solve an acknowledged problem in this society. It seems like something that's a step in the right direction, but clearly not a big leap into olive drab and the philosophy of Marx and Engels.
(Obviously, how we pay for this is certainly the next question to ask. The magic of rolling back the Bush tax cuts isn't likely to accomplish something this grand, and buy us all our pony too.)
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Tee Hee
Published by BG on at 9:10 AM.Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » Late Nite FDL: Soylent Green (Mmmmm, Good People)
Well, I have some good news for you. We on the Left have set up an (ahem) amnesty program for all you disenchanted Right Wing Water-Carriers (disenchanted with your President all of a sudden). You're going to have to learn some English, study up on U.S. History, and find an employer to vouch for your worker-status, but we'll be willing to create this unique Path to Citizenship Offer just for you. The greatness of America is that there's room for everybody, right? And that means even slope-headed, sheet-wearing, gun-humping troglodytes like yourselves.
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Democrats Ring Up Blown Chance #7437496, Republicans Continue SSDD Policy
Published by Pokerwolf on at 9:08 AM.
Democrats Lose Their Edge - ABC News
Yeah, a two party system is totally awesome and there's no reason, like providing the populace with alternate choices to shake things up politically, for any other political parties to be given a chance at politics on the national level. Right.
I understand that the two party system has done a lot for our country throughout it's history. But, our currently political system is broken and keeping things they way they are isn't going to solve anything.
The Democrats in Congress have lost much of the leadership edge they carried out of the 2006 midterm election, with the lack of progress in Iraq being the leading cause. Their only solace: President Bush and the Republicans aren't doing any better.
Six weeks ago the Democrats held a 24-point lead over Bush as the stronger leadership force in Washington; today that's collapsed to a dead heat. The Democrats' overall job approval rating likewise has dropped, from a 54 percent majority to 44 percent now -- with the decline occurring almost exclusively among strong opponents of the Iraq War.
Another figure underscores the public's broad grumpiness: Seventy-three percent now say the country's off on the wrong track, the most in just over a decade.
Yeah, a two party system is totally awesome and there's no reason, like providing the populace with alternate choices to shake things up politically, for any other political parties to be given a chance at politics on the national level. Right.
I understand that the two party system has done a lot for our country throughout it's history. But, our currently political system is broken and keeping things they way they are isn't going to solve anything.
Busted Congressman Jefferson May Need New Digs
Published by Pokerwolf on at 9:03 AM.
Boehner Seeks Jefferson Expulsion - Politico.com
It's really sad that it takes an offense of this magnitude to get the ethics panel involved. I understand that there are probably other violations that are investigated, but it would be some quality PR for those incidents to be publicized.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) moved quickly to force the expulsion of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) from Congress following his indictment Monday on federal corruption charges.
The Republican leader will ask members of the House to vote on a resolution requiring the ethics committee to review the indictment filed against him in order to seek his expulsion from the House, according to his office.
Boehner will offer a privileged resolution on the House floor as early as Tuesday calling for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to review the 94-page indictment filed against Jefferson Monday. The House will then vote on his resolution calling for the ethics panel to act.
The Justice Department indicted the Louisiana Democrat Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money laundering.
Boehner's resolution is intended to "jump-start" a previous investigation into Jefferson's alleged misdeeds that apparently expired last year.
It's really sad that it takes an offense of this magnitude to get the ethics panel involved. I understand that there are probably other violations that are investigated, but it would be some quality PR for those incidents to be publicized.
Neopartisan and Thoroughly Amateur: Amateur addendum
Published by Human Head on Monday, June 04, 2007 at 10:46 PM.What he said, plus a few things.
Indeed, it's all about the sharpening of thought. We are surrounded by those who believe that Jesus is Coming to wipe the earth clean of brown people, enslave unto death the hummusekshuels, and make everything alright once again in the most glorious and sexually repressive way. We are also surrounded by those who feel it would be most wondrous to have a benevolent queen who turned everyone a nice homogenized caramel color and showered the world with a never-ending supply of humus and pretty purses, where no one would ever need to wear shoes.
These are significant times.
(phew, got past that without saying "unique times" which is almost as tired as "our enemies". Who a I kidding? "Our enemies" still has a massive and unapproachable lead, but you get my drift)
In spite of the significance, or perhaps because of it, so many seem to simply float through existence. Surrounded by the chaotic and crumbling, most seem to be looking for either the television, Jesus (in whatever form), or some other dogmatic bunker off to the left or right in which to huddle with others. No one seems to want to look seriously at the massive machine behind the various wrecking balls because "that person plays for my team, and they just wouldn't do something like that."
But they would, and they do. They have for some time.
"Neo" refers to "new", and it would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside if this space were to one day be referred to as place that was indeed "New Partisan", which in my mind stands for no partisan. These significant times provide a chance to climb out of the current fetid intellectual swamp of our strictly two-sided national politics and usher in something more honest and insightful than what is provided by the global homogenized corporatocracy.
It may be grossly fanciful, but I'd like to see this space help to do just that, and think it can. This means that you should subscribe. And tell your friends. And strangers.
Also, as an additional note, BG wrote:
As for the "Thoroughly Amateur" part, what I'm doing (speaking only for
myself) is hardly punditry, it's certainly not journalism, and it's
absolutely not professional. I don't expect an audition for Reason
magazine or a seat in the McLaughlin Group out of what I'm posting, and
I don't expect "big things" from any of the contributors here either.
Would validation in the form of activity in the comments section and
hits in our stat counter be nice? Sure. Are we trying to be the "next
Huffington Post" or something? No.
He is modest and humble, the Verbosities King. I say too modest and too humble. I say "Why the fuck not?" (and in the language of the question you will likely find the answer) In my mind, the only good definition of "professional" is that you get paid to do what you do. Which is why I'd like to remind everyone that if they would feel better visiting a more "professional" site, please either send some money or convince some deep-pocketed advertisers that giving me/us a wheelbarrow full of money on a regular basis would be good for their brand (and make them better human beings, in general) and we will become the professionals that you seek.
Barring that, please tell all of your friends and their RSS readers about this magical place, where even "conspiracy theorists"* roam freely, and for the most part, peacefully.
Personally, and given what I felt compelled to write just now, I think "Internet Evangelist" might be better. Electronic Jesus would also be fine if you're more comfortable with that.
Happy 4 Weeks to Verbosities, son of the Most Verbose. May it develop into a place of equal parts entertainment and reason, as there are currently too few places that fit that bill.
*For the derisive among you to ponder--If "conspiracy theory" is so laughable and out there, batshit, and/or crazy, take a moment to consider that we see and hear of people often being charged with Conspiracy to Commit [insert offense here]. What makes such a thing so valid while "conspiracy theory" is so outlandish? A thing should be validated on its merits and its truth, not the official sanction of the our ruling entities.
Indeed, it's all about the sharpening of thought. We are surrounded by those who believe that Jesus is Coming to wipe the earth clean of brown people, enslave unto death the hummusekshuels, and make everything alright once again in the most glorious and sexually repressive way. We are also surrounded by those who feel it would be most wondrous to have a benevolent queen who turned everyone a nice homogenized caramel color and showered the world with a never-ending supply of humus and pretty purses, where no one would ever need to wear shoes.
These are significant times.
(phew, got past that without saying "unique times" which is almost as tired as "our enemies". Who a I kidding? "Our enemies" still has a massive and unapproachable lead, but you get my drift)
In spite of the significance, or perhaps because of it, so many seem to simply float through existence. Surrounded by the chaotic and crumbling, most seem to be looking for either the television, Jesus (in whatever form), or some other dogmatic bunker off to the left or right in which to huddle with others. No one seems to want to look seriously at the massive machine behind the various wrecking balls because "that person plays for my team, and they just wouldn't do something like that."
But they would, and they do. They have for some time.
"Neo" refers to "new", and it would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside if this space were to one day be referred to as place that was indeed "New Partisan", which in my mind stands for no partisan. These significant times provide a chance to climb out of the current fetid intellectual swamp of our strictly two-sided national politics and usher in something more honest and insightful than what is provided by the global homogenized corporatocracy.
It may be grossly fanciful, but I'd like to see this space help to do just that, and think it can. This means that you should subscribe. And tell your friends. And strangers.
Also, as an additional note, BG wrote:
As for the "Thoroughly Amateur" part, what I'm doing (speaking only for
myself) is hardly punditry, it's certainly not journalism, and it's
absolutely not professional. I don't expect an audition for Reason
magazine or a seat in the McLaughlin Group out of what I'm posting, and
I don't expect "big things" from any of the contributors here either.
Would validation in the form of activity in the comments section and
hits in our stat counter be nice? Sure. Are we trying to be the "next
Huffington Post" or something? No.
He is modest and humble, the Verbosities King. I say too modest and too humble. I say "Why the fuck not?" (and in the language of the question you will likely find the answer) In my mind, the only good definition of "professional" is that you get paid to do what you do. Which is why I'd like to remind everyone that if they would feel better visiting a more "professional" site, please either send some money or convince some deep-pocketed advertisers that giving me/us a wheelbarrow full of money on a regular basis would be good for their brand (and make them better human beings, in general) and we will become the professionals that you seek.
Barring that, please tell all of your friends and their RSS readers about this magical place, where even "conspiracy theorists"* roam freely, and for the most part, peacefully.
Personally, and given what I felt compelled to write just now, I think "Internet Evangelist" might be better. Electronic Jesus would also be fine if you're more comfortable with that.
Happy 4 Weeks to Verbosities, son of the Most Verbose. May it develop into a place of equal parts entertainment and reason, as there are currently too few places that fit that bill.
*For the derisive among you to ponder--If "conspiracy theory" is so laughable and out there, batshit, and/or crazy, take a moment to consider that we see and hear of people often being charged with Conspiracy to Commit [insert offense here]. What makes such a thing so valid while "conspiracy theory" is so outlandish? A thing should be validated on its merits and its truth, not the official sanction of the our ruling entities.
In Related News, BG Asks Luckbox To Clarify If It's Chicken Or Pork Tonight For Dinner
Published by BG on at 5:54 PM.Today's worst blog post award goes to...
Chairman Waxman Asks EPA to Clarify the Administration's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Policy :: Committee on Oversight and Government Reform :: United States House of Representatives
(That's it. That's the whole damn thing.)
Chairman Waxman Asks EPA to Clarify the Administration's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Policy :: Committee on Oversight and Government Reform :: United States House of Representatives
In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, Chairman Waxman asks the EPA to clarify the Administration’s position on whether greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
(That's it. That's the whole damn thing.)
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A Scooter Worse Than a Sandy
Published by Luckbox on at 3:36 PM.
We've written about it numerous times. Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury for lying to investigators in a case in which no crime was committed. He was sentenced to jail time.
Sandy Berger stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives before 9/11 commission members had a chance to look at them and knowingly destroyed some of those documents. He lied during the investigation (first saying it was inadvertent). He paid a fine. He got to keep his law license.
At least... that's the agreement he had with the Justice Department. The Bar in Washignton D.C. wasn't willing to let it go however and decided to investigate. Sandy Berger was not interested in answering any questions, so in May, he willingly gave up his law license. That's right, instead of answering questions about what he stole and destroyed, he gave up his law license.
But Scooter works for Cheney. The media is a lot more interested in giving that scandal air time. Sandy worked for Clinton. There's nothing to see here.
Sandy Berger stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives before 9/11 commission members had a chance to look at them and knowingly destroyed some of those documents. He lied during the investigation (first saying it was inadvertent). He paid a fine. He got to keep his law license.
At least... that's the agreement he had with the Justice Department. The Bar in Washignton D.C. wasn't willing to let it go however and decided to investigate. Sandy Berger was not interested in answering any questions, so in May, he willingly gave up his law license. That's right, instead of answering questions about what he stole and destroyed, he gave up his law license.
But Scooter works for Cheney. The media is a lot more interested in giving that scandal air time. Sandy worked for Clinton. There's nothing to see here.
I'm Not Sure I Know What The Answer Is Either
Published by BG on at 3:34 PM.Hugh Hewitt - Hillary Doesn't Get It
When asked if she'd take out bin Laden, Hillary jumped in to get Wolf to stop posing "hypotheticals," reminded us of Bill Clinton's failure to get bin Laden with cruise missiles, and said you'd have to be "very careful." Is it me or did all of them sound uncomfortable with the idea of any collateral damage to kill Osama?
There are very few "yes or no" answers in American politics. This is one of them.
Really? I guess if I were in charge of making the call, and it was five or six civilians - even children - I could probably do it easily. Ten, fifteen? Yeah, probably. Forty Pakistanis? Four hundred? Leveling a high-rise with 1,800 Afghan civilians inside?
YOU ONLY HAVE TWENTY MINUTES TO PUSH THE BUTTON! YOU CAN'T SEND A SEAL TEAM, IT'S NOW OR MAYBE NEVER! (Watch the video in the post above, that's the framework of the question Wolf Blitzer posed.)
Look, would it satisfy the primal urges of most people in this country to have bin Laden staring down the business end of a Tomahawk at 225 MPH? Absolutely. Would it be a huge and important victory? Without doubt. But hang on with the bloodlust for a second. What is the number of civilians it would be acceptable to kill to go after OBL? What if he had five American hostages? What if he was somewhere in the Mall of America, about to disappear in a Chuck E. Cheese costume? Is it okay to take a few thousand American lives? Does it matter if it's Americans who die as collateral versus Afghans or Pakistanis?
There's a number of civilians where you say "no, hold your fire," right? If so, what purpose does a question like this serve?
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The Face of Corruption
Published by Luckbox on at 3:25 PM.
In case you were wondering, this is it.
Today, Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) was indicted on 16 federal charges including
racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. If convicted on all charges, Jefferson could go to prison for 235 years.
The 94-page indictment a long-running bribary scheme in which Jefferson attempted to broker business deals in Africa. Jefferson was videotaped taking a $100,000 bribe from an FBI informant. In August 2005, the FBI raided Jefferson's home and found $90,000 in his freezer. I'm not sure we know what Jefferson did with the other ten grand.
Just a few months ago, in the heavily Democratic district of New Orleans, Jefferson was re-elected to the House. Apparently, Democratic voters don't care about corruption. Jefferson was stripped of his seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee last year although Jefferson, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, claimed the move was based on racism. Apparently, black liberals in Congress don't care about corruption.
A Democratic seat sits empty on the House Homeland Security Committee because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been trying for months to give the open seat to Jefferson. That's right, bribe-taking and giving William Jefferson on the Homeland Security Committee. Apparently Nancy Pelosi doesn't care about corruption or Homeland Security.
I hope you rest easier know they're in charge.
Today, Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) was indicted on 16 federal charges including
racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. If convicted on all charges, Jefferson could go to prison for 235 years.
The 94-page indictment a long-running bribary scheme in which Jefferson attempted to broker business deals in Africa. Jefferson was videotaped taking a $100,000 bribe from an FBI informant. In August 2005, the FBI raided Jefferson's home and found $90,000 in his freezer. I'm not sure we know what Jefferson did with the other ten grand.
Just a few months ago, in the heavily Democratic district of New Orleans, Jefferson was re-elected to the House. Apparently, Democratic voters don't care about corruption. Jefferson was stripped of his seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee last year although Jefferson, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, claimed the move was based on racism. Apparently, black liberals in Congress don't care about corruption.
A Democratic seat sits empty on the House Homeland Security Committee because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been trying for months to give the open seat to Jefferson. That's right, bribe-taking and giving William Jefferson on the Homeland Security Committee. Apparently Nancy Pelosi doesn't care about corruption or Homeland Security.
I hope you rest easier know they're in charge.
Christ, What An Asshole - Maybe You Should Put That Another Way Edition
Published by BG on at 3:00 PM.NWAnews.com :: Northwest Arkansas' News Source
(Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Dennis Milligan) said he’s “150 percent” behind Bush on the war in Iraq.
“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,” Milligan said.
(Yes, yes, we know what he's trying to say. Doesn't mean you wouldn't jump all over him as "unserious" if there was a D next to his name instead of the R.)
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Pop Quiz- Who would you rather be "tortured" by?
Published by StB on at 2:22 PM.
You are given a choice. You can be interrogated by American soldiers like this, or you can be tortured by terrorists like this. Though neither one is pleasant, one is torture, the other sounds like a walk in the park in comparison; it probably makes a terrorist laugh when they hear it.
the Belmont Club:
The Blame America crowd likes to ignore what our enemy does to innocent civilians and soldiers. They ignore the state of corpses of people kidnapped showing proof that they were brutalized before they were killed. They ignore the mutilation of the body; putting sexual organs in the mouths of the deceased and booby trapping the bodies. No, instead they make it sound like listening to Toby Keith in an uncomfortable position is worse than getting your eyeball carved out of your skull. That listening to Janeane Garafalo is worse than having someone putting a drill through your hand. Oh wait, that might be.
No, the Blame America crowd gets excited to hear anything that sounds like torture. We have seen what terrorists like to do. Or at least we have proof. Funny how this didn't show up on ABC, CBS, or NBC. To the liberal media, it wasn't a story at all. I guess being outraged and showing the display of the tactics of a truly brutal enemy wouldn't benefit their own agendas.
Instead they would rather shows pictures of Abu Graib or highlight stories of prisoner's claims of their Koran being desecrated. They play into the hands of the terrorist organization, repeating lies and helping to get their message across that America is evil. They step up to be another pawn in the propaganda war, a war that are own media is trying to lose.
the Belmont Club:
The problem with the word "torture" is that it has been so artfully corrupted by some commentators that we now find ourselves at a loss to describe the kinds of activities that the al-Qaeda interrogation manual graphically recommends. Now that the term "torture" has been put in one-to-one correspondence with such admittedly unpleasant activities as punching, sleep deprivation, a handkerchief pulled over one's face and loaded with water, searches by women upon sensitive Islamic men or the disrespectful handling of Korans -- what on earth do we call gouging people's eyes out?
The Blame America crowd likes to ignore what our enemy does to innocent civilians and soldiers. They ignore the state of corpses of people kidnapped showing proof that they were brutalized before they were killed. They ignore the mutilation of the body; putting sexual organs in the mouths of the deceased and booby trapping the bodies. No, instead they make it sound like listening to Toby Keith in an uncomfortable position is worse than getting your eyeball carved out of your skull. That listening to Janeane Garafalo is worse than having someone putting a drill through your hand. Oh wait, that might be.
No, the Blame America crowd gets excited to hear anything that sounds like torture. We have seen what terrorists like to do. Or at least we have proof. Funny how this didn't show up on ABC, CBS, or NBC. To the liberal media, it wasn't a story at all. I guess being outraged and showing the display of the tactics of a truly brutal enemy wouldn't benefit their own agendas.
Instead they would rather shows pictures of Abu Graib or highlight stories of prisoner's claims of their Koran being desecrated. They play into the hands of the terrorist organization, repeating lies and helping to get their message across that America is evil. They step up to be another pawn in the propaganda war, a war that are own media is trying to lose.
Pop Quiz - Torture Tactics
Published by BG on at 12:06 PM.According to a forthcoming memoir, which of the following pop-culture enhanced torture tactics was in play in Iraqi prisons run by our US military:
(A) Handcuff them to the prison bars with only their toes touching the floor, drape an American flag around their shoulders and play them Toby Keith music at high volume.
(B) Stuff them into a metal shipping container on their knees, make them listen to a Janeane Garofalo book-on-tape.
(C) Cuff their wrists and legs to a chair, wheel in a TV showing the Pam Anderson/Tommy Lee video, stuff a popsicle in their mouths and swat their erections down with a clipboard.
Go here to see if you're a winner
(A) Handcuff them to the prison bars with only their toes touching the floor, drape an American flag around their shoulders and play them Toby Keith music at high volume.
(B) Stuff them into a metal shipping container on their knees, make them listen to a Janeane Garofalo book-on-tape.
(C) Cuff their wrists and legs to a chair, wheel in a TV showing the Pam Anderson/Tommy Lee video, stuff a popsicle in their mouths and swat their erections down with a clipboard.
Go here to see if you're a winner
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Neopartisan and Thoroughly Amateur, It's Who We Are
Published by BG on at 11:36 AM.As today is this blog's four week anniversary, I thought it might be a good time to mention who we are, and what the intent behind Verbosities is.
Verbosities came around in the wake of posting a few political diatribes on my other blog, knowing full well the vast majority of whatever readership I have/had over there was likely skipping right over the content. As I had purchased this domain a number of months ago, and was just sitting on a dormant domain, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to use it to pull the political content off the other blog into a dedicated spot.
Prior to "launching" this site, I had been talking with both HH and Luckbox fairly extensively offline regarding some of the things about our world that got us worked up, and knew that both had opinions and debate tactics mostly different from my own that have helped me sharpen my thoughts and really articulate what I care about in a (hopefully) intellectually honest and interesting manner. Both HH and Luckbox have assisted me a great deal when it comes to adding depth to what I'm choosing to read, and in challenging me to make assertions that (again, hopefully) can be challenged on their merits, but won't be accused of being lazy.
(Although, to be fair, we all know that's not an easy thing to avoid all the time.)
One of the first ideas I had for this site was to enable it to be a natural outgrowth of those conversations with HH and Luckbox, so I gave them a pressure-free invite to join in the fun. I don't have any illusions that any of us are necessarily better than the well-established (and, in some cases, well-funded) sites linked in the right-hand column, but one thing we can be is diverse. Hence, the tagline: Neopartisan and Thoroughly Amateur. I'm not even sure what "Neopartisan" is supposed to mean (there are only 18 Google search results for the word), but I'm staking out my own turf on the idea:
Neopartisan, as it applies to Verbosities.com, indicates our willingness to share space in open discourse with those with whom we disagree.
As for the "Thoroughly Amateur" part, what I'm doing (speaking only for myself) is hardly punditry, it's certainly not journalism, and it's absolutely not professional. I don't expect an audition for Reason magazine or a seat in the McLaughlin Group out of what I'm posting, and I don't expect "big things" from any of the contributors here either. Would validation in the form of activity in the comments section and hits in our stat counter be nice? Sure. Are we trying to be the "next Huffington Post" or something? No.
You'll note that StB and PW have been added to the roster of contributors in recent weeks, with the same pressure-free invitation extended to HH and Luckbox. I'm absolutely interested in anyone's opinion, no matter where on the spectrum it might lie, and would like to extend an open invitation to any and all contributors who wish to join us here in our discussion. There are no expectations on a volume of content, nor on endorsing a specific political viewpoint. All I ask is that you're reasonable and make an effort to point out the facts that underlie your argument.
Oh, and no painting with a broad brush, such as blaming the Puerto Ricans for the Global Papaya Price Fixing Conspiracy. You know what I mean.
I can be reached at this address, and I thank you for adding us to your RSS reader and/or visiting us here at Verbosities.
Verbosities came around in the wake of posting a few political diatribes on my other blog, knowing full well the vast majority of whatever readership I have/had over there was likely skipping right over the content. As I had purchased this domain a number of months ago, and was just sitting on a dormant domain, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to use it to pull the political content off the other blog into a dedicated spot.
Prior to "launching" this site, I had been talking with both HH and Luckbox fairly extensively offline regarding some of the things about our world that got us worked up, and knew that both had opinions and debate tactics mostly different from my own that have helped me sharpen my thoughts and really articulate what I care about in a (hopefully) intellectually honest and interesting manner. Both HH and Luckbox have assisted me a great deal when it comes to adding depth to what I'm choosing to read, and in challenging me to make assertions that (again, hopefully) can be challenged on their merits, but won't be accused of being lazy.
(Although, to be fair, we all know that's not an easy thing to avoid all the time.)
One of the first ideas I had for this site was to enable it to be a natural outgrowth of those conversations with HH and Luckbox, so I gave them a pressure-free invite to join in the fun. I don't have any illusions that any of us are necessarily better than the well-established (and, in some cases, well-funded) sites linked in the right-hand column, but one thing we can be is diverse. Hence, the tagline: Neopartisan and Thoroughly Amateur. I'm not even sure what "Neopartisan" is supposed to mean (there are only 18 Google search results for the word), but I'm staking out my own turf on the idea:
Neopartisan, as it applies to Verbosities.com, indicates our willingness to share space in open discourse with those with whom we disagree.
As for the "Thoroughly Amateur" part, what I'm doing (speaking only for myself) is hardly punditry, it's certainly not journalism, and it's absolutely not professional. I don't expect an audition for Reason magazine or a seat in the McLaughlin Group out of what I'm posting, and I don't expect "big things" from any of the contributors here either. Would validation in the form of activity in the comments section and hits in our stat counter be nice? Sure. Are we trying to be the "next Huffington Post" or something? No.
You'll note that StB and PW have been added to the roster of contributors in recent weeks, with the same pressure-free invitation extended to HH and Luckbox. I'm absolutely interested in anyone's opinion, no matter where on the spectrum it might lie, and would like to extend an open invitation to any and all contributors who wish to join us here in our discussion. There are no expectations on a volume of content, nor on endorsing a specific political viewpoint. All I ask is that you're reasonable and make an effort to point out the facts that underlie your argument.
Oh, and no painting with a broad brush, such as blaming the Puerto Ricans for the Global Papaya Price Fixing Conspiracy. You know what I mean.
I can be reached at this address, and I thank you for adding us to your RSS reader and/or visiting us here at Verbosities.
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Smarter People Than Me Agree - Distancing Themselves From GWB Edition
Published by BG on at 10:45 AM.Glenn Greenwald - Salon - The great right-wing fraud to repudiate George W. Bush
The great fraud being perpetrated in our political discourse is the concerted attempt by movement conservatives, now that the Bush presidency lay irreversibly in ruins, to repudiate George Bush by claiming that he is not, and never has been, a "real conservative." This con game is being perpetrated by the very same conservatives who -- when his presidency looked to be an epic success -- glorified George W. Bush, ensured both of his election victories, depicted him as the heroic Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and celebrated him as the embodiment of True Conservatism.
This fraud is as transparent as it is dishonest, yet there are signs that the media is nonetheless beginning to adopt this theme that there is some sort of epic and long-standing "Bush-conservative schism." But very little effort is required to see what a fraud that storyline is.
[snip]
There is really only one thing that has changed about George W. Bush from the 2002-2004 era when conservatives hailed him as the Great Conservative Leader, and now. Whereas Bush was a wildly popular leader then, which made conservatives eager to claim him as their Standard-Bearer, he is now one of the most despised presidents in U.S. history, and conservatives are thus desperate to disassociate themselves from the President for whom they are solely responsible. It is painfully obvious there is nothing noble, substantive or principled driving this right-wing outburst; it is a pure act of self-preservation.
Is there any doubt that the reason immigration is such an enormous issue for the Right at this moment of history is that it affords their candidates an opportunity to stand against this president on something? And didn't I just write about this stuff yesterday? Granted, not as eloquently and reference-heavy as Greenwald did, but still...
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Demo Debate semi live blogging: Jesus H Christ Edition
Published by Human Head on Sunday, June 03, 2007 at 7:16 PM.Not sure how this is gonna work out (the live blogging, not the debates. How these debates will work out, we already know)....
4:15--Jesus H Christ, Joe Biden with his goddamn whining. Look, we're busting our humps!We work so hard! Bullshit. These fucks are just perpetuating the idea that the troops are going to be left high and dry with no bullets, armor, food , or water on the battlefield.
Oh yeah, and it's all George's fault. We had noting to do with it.
4:20--SNAP. Nice one, Gravel. It is the Dems war, too.
You may look like a complete WoW elf Kucinich, but nice hand, sir. Oops Joe is jumping in and whining again. We can't do it! We only have 50 votes! Completely ignoring the obvious point that, at the end of the day, Senators on both sides refuse to stand up and face down this illegal occupation.
The queen just also blamed our problems on Iraqi's not taking advantage of the opportunity we've provided. Yes, all should be grateful for the opportunity of foreign invasion and occupation. Jesus H Christ, these fookin neolib talking point warmongers.
4:28--Gravel's point on 'no moral judgement' was good. Whoop, Hillary is tonights female Joe Biden. J: What? We're busting our humps, we only have 50 votes! H: Yeah, and it was George's fault, he tricked us! Question for Hillary....if you are dumb enough to be tricked by someone with the intellect and "moral" character of GW, what does that say about your vast and experienced intellect? Indeed, she is not stupid, but culpable.
4:35--Jesus H Christ Obama, enough with the wild gesticulating. We don't need all the hand theatrics.
4:38--I love how Dodd and the rest of them are responding to Wolf's question about the majority of Americans favoring English as official speak. They all spend time telling us how such a thing is wrong and basically saying, screw you, we ain't doin' it. I vote for my own new official language--coarse.
Oops, John Edwards, too much fakey-bakey.
4:41--I've decided to turn down the volume, wait till it goes to Obama, and then tell a fishing story. I may have to do the same with Hillary.
4:45--Jesus H Christ, time for a smoke, these top tier tools are killing me. Don't judge me (or Obama, he's a fuckin chimney) for the smoking. Jesus would smoke too if he had to listen to these mannequins.
Kucinich, nice one on calling these lizards out on their keeping insurance in control.
4:56--Bah, I'm too tired to do this. Obama is telling us about a fish again. I'm just going to veg for the last hour and try to pretend that I'm not dmber for having watched.
Jesus H Christ.
4:15--Jesus H Christ, Joe Biden with his goddamn whining. Look, we're busting our humps!We work so hard! Bullshit. These fucks are just perpetuating the idea that the troops are going to be left high and dry with no bullets, armor, food , or water on the battlefield.
Oh yeah, and it's all George's fault. We had noting to do with it.
4:20--SNAP. Nice one, Gravel. It is the Dems war, too.
You may look like a complete WoW elf Kucinich, but nice hand, sir. Oops Joe is jumping in and whining again. We can't do it! We only have 50 votes! Completely ignoring the obvious point that, at the end of the day, Senators on both sides refuse to stand up and face down this illegal occupation.
The queen just also blamed our problems on Iraqi's not taking advantage of the opportunity we've provided. Yes, all should be grateful for the opportunity of foreign invasion and occupation. Jesus H Christ, these fookin neolib talking point warmongers.
4:28--Gravel's point on 'no moral judgement' was good. Whoop, Hillary is tonights female Joe Biden. J: What? We're busting our humps, we only have 50 votes! H: Yeah, and it was George's fault, he tricked us! Question for Hillary....if you are dumb enough to be tricked by someone with the intellect and "moral" character of GW, what does that say about your vast and experienced intellect? Indeed, she is not stupid, but culpable.
4:35--Jesus H Christ Obama, enough with the wild gesticulating. We don't need all the hand theatrics.
4:38--I love how Dodd and the rest of them are responding to Wolf's question about the majority of Americans favoring English as official speak. They all spend time telling us how such a thing is wrong and basically saying, screw you, we ain't doin' it. I vote for my own new official language--coarse.
Oops, John Edwards, too much fakey-bakey.
4:41--I've decided to turn down the volume, wait till it goes to Obama, and then tell a fishing story. I may have to do the same with Hillary.
4:45--Jesus H Christ, time for a smoke, these top tier tools are killing me. Don't judge me (or Obama, he's a fuckin chimney) for the smoking. Jesus would smoke too if he had to listen to these mannequins.
Kucinich, nice one on calling these lizards out on their keeping insurance in control.
4:56--Bah, I'm too tired to do this. Obama is telling us about a fish again. I'm just going to veg for the last hour and try to pretend that I'm not dmber for having watched.
Jesus H Christ.
Extending Relevance in the Absence of Innovation
Published by BG on at 6:49 PM.Earlier today, I clipped a post from FireDogLake which discussed finding an "overarching theme" for progressive politics in an effort to bring people into a receptive state where they'll be more apt to listen to and agree with the morals and the values of the policy being discussed. Here's another clip from the same article which I didn't pull from earlier:
Firedoglake weblog - Perception
The recent immigration bill is providing the political space for those in the party that disagree (i.e., everyone in the GOP race, save McCain) to distance themselves from what "Republican" means in this current political environment, and to "re-brand" themselves as a "new-and-improved GOP" who really are true conservatives this time (we swear!).
The idea of "brand" as a summation of public sentiment about the party as a whole (what it "means" to be Republican) is an interesting one, and not at all illegitimate. What is interesting and legitimate to discuss is the notion of re-branding as a marketing effort, and what it means to the reality of the degree of change truly embraced by the branded organization. I think the way the Republicans have controlled the conversation's talking points, forcing Democrats to play defense for a couple of decades running when they accept the framework and talking points to refute rather than staking out new ground that communicates their values proactively, has meant that the "brand" of Republican has been well-defined by the right, but there is some amount of reclaimation that must occur for the Left to take back and define their own space*.
*Democrats haven't been able to set a legislative agenda since 1994 in Congress, nor do they have clear positions on things like health care, immigration, or the Iraq War that exist outside the Republican-defined talking points - especially on the war which deceitfully frames the debate for funding around "supporting the troops." This is what I mean about being on the defensive and not appearing to have their own identity staked out nationally, except as a pure opposition party to the Republicans.
So really, a Republican effort to re-brand their party is simply a case of rubbing off the tarnish and making sure the lighting is sympathetic. It isn't about sea change, nor would any reasonable person expect it would be.
In that vein, I just stumbled across the following post on a marketing blog I read, which I'll reprint in its entirety.
gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": the cult of the brand r.i.p.
"Extend(ing) relevance in the absence of innovation." Does any single phrase describe political rhetoric, framework and spin any better than that? And why is it that the political geniuses continue to insist on selling us our candidates the same way they'd sell us an Oldsmobile? The insinuation of the clip from Ms. Ramlochan inside the Gaping Void post is that "innovation-chasing" consumers (the Japanese, in this case) are less receptive to repackaging, and insist on substance and innovation behind what it is they're being sold.
Right now we've got one party that can't define itself, and another that isn't changing, but wants to make you feel like it is.
Why can't the Left try innovation as a tactic? Why couldn't that work in politics? Is it because poll after poll and study after study insists that the 18-49 demographic (those to whom innovation would be attractive) doesn't vote in big enough numbers to make this approach appealing? Has anyone ever thought that if they make that pitch, perhaps the young people might find a reason to make the buying decision?
I'm in that 18-49 group. Here's what matters to me: the government should stay off my Internet and allow it to thrive without regulation, should ensure that my communications remain private, should encourage energy preservation and/or alternate sources of such, and should work to encourage the growth of technology - specifically in medical research, where the promise of stem cells from blastocysts holds potential clues for long and healthy lives for me and my (someday, should I ever knock some chick up) children. The government should also encourage choice through free markets, and stay out of the business of protecting me from myself.
That's a short list, but those are some of the issues of innovation I can absolutely get behind. You want to stake out your own space in the political arena? Tell the young people what you want to give them their world of the future. Tell them they're going to get their (metaphorical) jet packs. Innovation is something that we haven't trusted the government to do for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the lumbering behemoth that is the pandering compromise of half-fulfilled promises we've seen time and again. I think we're in, or at least entering, a unique period of history where we not only have the ability to make grand moves that turn progress and innovation back to the people (as well as the corporations, but in a wiki/open-source world we could have a million Edisons if we made it happen), but we have a younger generation in that 18-49 demo that actively craves the chance to be on the forefront of the "next big thing."
Maybe the Western brand-building exercise has run its course. We all assume the government is corrupt and inefficient. Prove to us that it's not. Prove that you want to give us the world of the future now, and trust us to run it in our own self-interest as a society. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised as to how many people really want to get behind this ideal.
Firedoglake weblog - Perception
Look, Peggy Noonan and the other GOP-brand spin-wordsmiths, including Newt Gingrich this morning on Fox News Sunday, have spent the last few weeks trying the following: distance the GOP from the Bush brand, fob off all responsibility for failure onto the Bush crew, and try and walk unscathed through the stench of failure to the other side and somehow manage to paint themselves and the Republican party as smelling like a sadly duped yet earnestly trying to make things right for America rose. As though the GOP hasn't been one big, freaking rubber stamp parliamentary yes man for the Bush Administration from the getgo. You and I both know that is bullshit — but the average person out there in America is going to buy it hook, line, and stinker without some pushback. Why? Becuse most people are stupid — and they love redemption stories.
The fact that it is a sham designed to only enhance their brand image, with no real benefit for anyone other than themselves? No one is going to care if they never get beyond the new, improved shiny package design. ("With new bold action!")
Think about it for a minute, honestly. Really think about it: what is the Democratic brand?
The recent immigration bill is providing the political space for those in the party that disagree (i.e., everyone in the GOP race, save McCain) to distance themselves from what "Republican" means in this current political environment, and to "re-brand" themselves as a "new-and-improved GOP" who really are true conservatives this time (we swear!).
The idea of "brand" as a summation of public sentiment about the party as a whole (what it "means" to be Republican) is an interesting one, and not at all illegitimate. What is interesting and legitimate to discuss is the notion of re-branding as a marketing effort, and what it means to the reality of the degree of change truly embraced by the branded organization. I think the way the Republicans have controlled the conversation's talking points, forcing Democrats to play defense for a couple of decades running when they accept the framework and talking points to refute rather than staking out new ground that communicates their values proactively, has meant that the "brand" of Republican has been well-defined by the right, but there is some amount of reclaimation that must occur for the Left to take back and define their own space*.
*Democrats haven't been able to set a legislative agenda since 1994 in Congress, nor do they have clear positions on things like health care, immigration, or the Iraq War that exist outside the Republican-defined talking points - especially on the war which deceitfully frames the debate for funding around "supporting the troops." This is what I mean about being on the defensive and not appearing to have their own identity staked out nationally, except as a pure opposition party to the Republicans.
So really, a Republican effort to re-brand their party is simply a case of rubbing off the tarnish and making sure the lighting is sympathetic. It isn't about sea change, nor would any reasonable person expect it would be.
In that vein, I just stumbled across the following post on a marketing blog I read, which I'll reprint in its entirety.
gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": the cult of the brand r.i.p.
Janine Ramlochan makes an interesting point she learned from working with a Japanese team. The italics are mine:It became clear, the ‘western’ approach to brand-building did not apply in the same way - particularly, as western brand-building has normally been used to extend relevance in the absence of innovation. In markets where consumers were more "innovation-chasing", brand-building needed to be balanced with innovation for a brand to survive. And if a brand carried too much baggage for a new innovation, it would sometimes make more sense to just launch a new brand instead.
For twenty-odd years the Western marketing world totally got into this idea of "The Brand".
i.e. This Platonic ideal that was was somehow more than the sum of its parts via-a-vis your company, your product and your reputation. It was nostalgic, idealized, romanticized, backward-looking and, for all its warm n' fuzzy stuff, extremely cynical.
It was meant to bring comfort and continuity to both mainstream Western society and, I suspect more importantly, second-rate corporate hacks with big mortgages. Lucky them.
Far too many people, when asked why they get out of bed in the morning, only have one genuine answer: "Because I need the money." The Cult of The Brand evolved the way it did primarily to keep the latter contented.
Which is too bad. Life is short.
"Extend(ing) relevance in the absence of innovation." Does any single phrase describe political rhetoric, framework and spin any better than that? And why is it that the political geniuses continue to insist on selling us our candidates the same way they'd sell us an Oldsmobile? The insinuation of the clip from Ms. Ramlochan inside the Gaping Void post is that "innovation-chasing" consumers (the Japanese, in this case) are less receptive to repackaging, and insist on substance and innovation behind what it is they're being sold.
Right now we've got one party that can't define itself, and another that isn't changing, but wants to make you feel like it is.
Why can't the Left try innovation as a tactic? Why couldn't that work in politics? Is it because poll after poll and study after study insists that the 18-49 demographic (those to whom innovation would be attractive) doesn't vote in big enough numbers to make this approach appealing? Has anyone ever thought that if they make that pitch, perhaps the young people might find a reason to make the buying decision?
I'm in that 18-49 group. Here's what matters to me: the government should stay off my Internet and allow it to thrive without regulation, should ensure that my communications remain private, should encourage energy preservation and/or alternate sources of such, and should work to encourage the growth of technology - specifically in medical research, where the promise of stem cells from blastocysts holds potential clues for long and healthy lives for me and my (someday, should I ever knock some chick up) children. The government should also encourage choice through free markets, and stay out of the business of protecting me from myself.
That's a short list, but those are some of the issues of innovation I can absolutely get behind. You want to stake out your own space in the political arena? Tell the young people what you want to give them their world of the future. Tell them they're going to get their (metaphorical) jet packs. Innovation is something that we haven't trusted the government to do for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the lumbering behemoth that is the pandering compromise of half-fulfilled promises we've seen time and again. I think we're in, or at least entering, a unique period of history where we not only have the ability to make grand moves that turn progress and innovation back to the people (as well as the corporations, but in a wiki/open-source world we could have a million Edisons if we made it happen), but we have a younger generation in that 18-49 demo that actively craves the chance to be on the forefront of the "next big thing."
Maybe the Western brand-building exercise has run its course. We all assume the government is corrupt and inefficient. Prove to us that it's not. Prove that you want to give us the world of the future now, and trust us to run it in our own self-interest as a society. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised as to how many people really want to get behind this ideal.
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Christ, What an Asshole - HuffHuffPoPo Edition
Published by BG on at 6:05 PM.David Goldstein: I'm Plotting to Blow Up LAX - Politics on The Huffington Post
If you've watched TV, listened to the radio, read a newspaper or browsed the InterTubes in the past 24-hours, then you've surely heard about the "unthinkable" plot to blow up JFK Airport, that was foiled just in the nick of time:
A retired airport cargo worker and a former member of parliament in Guyana were among four men charged with a plot that officials said was intended to cause mass casualties and cripple one of the world's busiest travel hubs.
Investigators acknowledged, however, that the scheme was so nascent that there was no developed plan for how the plotters would get explosives, let alone gain access to the tanks and pipelines they hoped to target.
Um... forgive me for being cynical, but we've been lied to so many times before, with Bush administration propagandists transforming the angry ramblings of narcissistic pizza-boys into sophisticated, 24-like conspiracies, well... I'm having trouble taking any of these stories seriously. I mean, I suppose I wouldn't chafe so much at the inconvenience of the enhanced security restrictions put in place in the wake of the infamous "plot" to bring down a jetliner by mixing a high-powered liquid explosive mid-flight, if the would-be terrorists actually had the resources or know-how to carry out their threat, or if the plan was at least, you know, scientifically possible.
Look, I think just about anyone who's not a registered commenter at Little Green Footballs would sensibly parse the news conference and subsquent reports from yesterday and assume that there's a lot of truth and a tiny bit of hyperbole in the announcement of a busted plot like this one. Would the "devastation that would have been caused had this plot succeeded" really been "unthinkable," as Ms. Mauskopf, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said? I watched her speak yesterday, and the tone and tenor of her grave summation of the bust was as if they had just stopped "9/11 times a million," to cop a quote from South Park.
Do we know right now (us, the public) whether the successful execution of this plot was imminent, and whehter it would have taken dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of lives? No, we don't. I can understand the natural skepticism towards anything terror-related this administration releases to the public. I really do. But taking a piss on the press conference's veracity before the podium's cold?
This isn't about "lefties being weak on national security," as nowhere in this article is it stated that these arrests were made without cause, nor is there any insinuation that plotters should be able to walk the streets freely until they actually decide to put a plan in motion. What this is about is the boy who cried "yellow cake" (or "WMDs" or whatever) one too many times leading to a natural and understandable distrust of this administration's PR efforts.
Besides, we can be reasonably sure that any real bad guy - citizen of the US or not - is being yanked off the street quietly and sent to one of our overseas torture camps without benefit of charges or trial, right?
It's time to knock it off with this infantile bullshit that can be easily (and dishonestly, if you're interested in facing facts) spun into tacit endorsement of terrorism by the left. There might be a time to be critical, but let's wait until the facts support that attitude, shall we?
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Smarter People Than Me Agree - Talking Points Edition
Published by BG on at 1:57 PM.Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » Perception
(M)ost people are stupid. They aren't going to do the work to really understand things as they are, only as they are sold to them. The Democratic leadership is spending its time and political capital trying to sell complex cerebral calculations, nuanced, and full of provisos and quid pro quos. I read up on what they are doing every damn day of my life, and I do not think they have a clue what direction they are going toward half the time the days — it's like watching my cat chase her tail around in a circle until she falls over and looks dazed by the sofa. How in the hell are non-news junkie average folks in America who only half-listen to the news while they are driving to work or putting dinner on the table supposed to pick up the non-direction in which we are going?
[snip]
We have real common sense ideas that could help people in their everyday lives: there are policy initiatives that need more support and passage — desperately needed ones from improvements to head start and early childhood intervention services to corruption reforms to fixing the mess that is American foreign policy, and everything in between. But to sell all of this to the public — which we need to do in order to get a majority of folks solidly and loudly behind the efforts — we need an overarching theme, one that hits you in the gut as much as it intrigues your mind.
In 2004 the theme was, "It doesn't matter what our ideas are, we're not the other guy." In 2006? "Don't look at us, it's the other guy that's been fucking shit up." I've been saying (as has Drew) that the gap isn't that the right has "better ideas" than the left, it's that the right is kicking the left's ass when it comes to communicating these ideas to a lazy populace. Since the Dems can't continue to run on a, "Hey, this isn't our mess" platform forever, it's about time they knocked off this wonky shit and started tugging at some heartstrings when it comes to selling their policies.
Well, that and quit accepting the right's talking points (e.g., "War on Terror," or "Defunding the Troops") as a basis for an argument. No one wants to listen to the party that just complains about what the other guy says he's doing. Put it in real terms, and get it hammered into people's heads. That's the only way you win.
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Ouch
Published by BG on at 6:16 AM.Rolling Stone : Giuliani: Worse Than Bush
Rudy giuliani is a true American hero, and we know this because he does all the things we expect of heroes these days -- like make $16 million a year, and lobby for Hugo Chávez and Rupert Murdoch, and promote wars without ever having served in the military, and hire a lawyer to call his second wife a "stuck pig," and organize absurd, grandstanding pogroms against minor foreign artists, and generally drift through life being a shameless opportunist with an outsize ego who doesn't even bother to conceal the fact that he's had a hard-on for the presidency since he was in diapers. In the media age, we can't have a hero humble enough to actually be one; what is needed is a tireless scoundrel, a cad willing to pose all day long for photos, who'll accept $100,000 to talk about heroism for an hour, who has the balls to take a $2.7 million advance to write a book about himself called Leadership. That's Rudy Giuliani. Our hero. And a perfect choice to uphold the legacy of George W. Bush.
Yes, Rudy is smarter than Bush. But his political strength -- and he knows it -- comes from America's unrelenting passion for never bothering to take that extra step to figure shit out. If you think you know it all already, Rudy agrees with you. And if anyone tries to tell you differently, they're probably traitors, and Rudy, well, he'll keep an eye on 'em for you. Just like Bush, Rudy appeals to the couch-bound bully in all of us, and part of the allure of his campaign is the promise to put the Pentagon and the power of the White House at that bully's disposal.
[snip]
The Paul incident went to the very heart of who Giuliani is as a politician. To the extent that conservatism in the Bush years has morphed into a celebration of mindless patriotism and the paranoid witch-hunting of liberals and other dissenters, Rudy seems the most anxious of any Republican candidate to take up that mantle. Like Bush, Rudy has repeatedly shown that he has no problem lumping his enemies in with "the terrorists" if that's what it takes to get over. When the 9/11 Commission raised criticisms of his fire department, for instance, Giuliani put the bipartisan panel in its place for daring to question his leadership. "Our anger," he declared, "should clearly be directed at one source and one source alone -- the terrorists who killed our loved ones."
[snip]
Rudy's stump speech on the trail these days is short and sweet. He talks about two things -- national security and free-market capitalism -- and his catchphrase for both is "going on offense." When he talks about "economic offense," Giuliani is ostensibly communicating the usual conservative contempt for taxes and big government. But he means more than that. Like the Bush-Cheney crew, Rudy believes everything should be for sale, even public policy -- particularly when he's in a position to do the selling.
In his years as mayor -- and his subsequent career as a lobbyist -- Rudy jumped into bed with anyone who could afford a rubber. Saudi Arabia, Rupert Murdoch, tobacco interests, pharmaceutical companies, private prisons, Bechtel, ChevronTexaco -- Giuliani took money from them all. You could change Rudy's mind literally in the time it took to write a check. A former prosecutor, Giuliani used to call drug dealers "murderers." But as a lobbyist he agreed to represent Seisint, a security firm run by former cocaine smuggler Hank Asher. "I have a great admiration for what he's doing," Rudy gushed after taking $2 million of Asher's money.
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