We would have an evangelical theocracy and thermonuclear war with Iran AND North Korea right about now. Wouldn't that be swell?

But instead the Democrats have this kind of power, and they're STILL curled up in a fetal position in the corner, waiting for Newt Gingrich to steal their lunch money:

Senate Democrats spent their first full day holding 60 votes just as they have spent the previous 2 1/2 years without such a supermajority: scrambling to find Republican support for their key initiatives in order to choke off potential filibusters.

In short, Tuesday's seating of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) did little to change the balance of power in the chamber.

Democrats have a large enough majority to pass bills without any GOP support, but they are grappling with internal divisions on key issues such as health care, climate change and union organizing. In addition, caucus leaders and President Obama would like at least some Republican backing on key measures so they can say they are enacting a bipartisan agenda, which then-Sen. Obama made a cornerstone of his 2008 campaign.

This is what happens when you listen to David Broder and the rest of the Washington press idiots who are hedging their bets in the current power structure and still sucking up to Republicans "just in case." Republicans are ruthless and brutal, and Democrats are wusses. It's really become that simple. Does anyone recall any effort whatsoever during the Bush years to seek "bipartisanship"? My recollection is eight years of "My way or the highway" and "You're with us or you're with the terrorists."

Bipartisanship is a laudable goal, but it requires intelligent people of goodwill to agree to disagree -- but compromise to get to a goal. The Republicans have shown themselves completely and utterly unwilling to compromise on anything at all. The Republican agenda is to destroy this presidency and regain power in 2012, if not sooner. Yet this agenda, in poll after poll, has been soundly rejected by the American people. So why continue to compromise with people with whom there is no compromise?

Here's what capitulation to Republicans gets you:

President Barack Obama gets a lackluster 49 - 44 percent approval rating in Ohio, considered by many to be the most important swing state in a presidential election, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. This is President Obama's lowest approval rating in any national or statewide Quinnipiac University poll since he was inaugurated and is down from 62 - 31 percent in a May 6 survey.

Ohio is a prototypical rust belt state reeling from unemployment. These poll numbers are not because Obama is "too liberal", it's because of his capitulation to the Republican Wall Street money guys, his stacking his economic team with the likes of Tim Geithner and Larry Summers -- guys who have continued the noble Bush tradition of stuffing the pockets of their Wall Street buddies with cash instead of getting money into the pockets of Americans who are seeing their job base not just shrink but disappear.

Here's what capitulation to the Republicans will get us: President Jeb Bush. Or even still President Sarah Palin. When people have no jobs, no money, no hope, and no future, they're ripe for the picking by demagogues with agendas that are all about hate and scapegoating. Republican economic doctrine has failed miserably. So why are the Democrats still cringing and waiting to get slapped again?

Labels: Democratic sellouts, spinelessness

As "ah-HA!" as this post by Greg Sargent is, debunking Sarah Palin's claim that she resigned to save Alaskans the money to defend her against ethics violations actions, this comment is even more useful for the purpose of showing Palin to be a pathological liar, an idiot, a quitter, or all three:

On a hunch, I reviewed online lists of all the men and women who’ve been elected governor of their state since 1900. Pored over them for a few hours. Over 1200 politicians have taken that first-term oath of office. Some soon died in office. Many resigned to accept other positions in government, including Spiro Agnew who was “tapped” by Nixon after being the Governor of Maryland for about five minutes. On a handful of occasions, a first-termer was dragged off to the slammer or impeached. One was incapacitated by a nervous breakdown and one left just as impeachment came knocking on his door. So—how many out of over 1200 just up and quit before the end of their term?

Three: Jim McGreevy, Eliot Spitzer and Sarah Palin.

Labels: idiocy, Republican lies, Sarah Palin, sleaze

I guess that when Jim Cramer called Lenny Dykstra a natural in a segment done byh Bernard Goldberg, that should have been our first clue:

Now it seems that the House of Nails was a house of cards:

The house of cards finally came down Wednesday on former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies centre fielder Lenny Dykstra.

For those who aren't familiar, Dykstra parlayed a successful car wash chain into a career as a supposed stock-picking wizard — touted by CNBC's own embattled guru Jim Cramer — and started a much talked about magazine for pro athletes (The Players Club), before one business associate after another started noticing that Lenny wasn't actually paying for anything.

Dykstra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday. The filing claims he has assets of no more than US$50,000 while claiming debts of between $10-million to $50-million. There are estimates that the actual figure is much closer to the latter.

I admit it: I was one of those people charmed by the Lenny Dykstra saga. You have to realize what it was like to be a 4'10" person in 1986 and watching this little fireplug of a guy play his heart out for the then-cocky, swaggering, fun-to-watch Mets. That Lenny Dykstra, who stayed married to his first wife and never struck anyone as being the sharpest knife in the drawer, should find a second career as a financial genius, had a certain Capra-esque charm that was very seductive. Many of us wanted to believe the Cinderella story of Lenny Dykstra. But like much of the events of the last eight years, it was a ll a mirage, and Dykstra instead of being a Capra hero, appears to have been more of a mini-Madoff:

Just in the past two years, Dykstra has been the subject of at least 24 legal actions, including 18 since November. Three suits hit the courts on Jan. 29. He's been sued by publishers and print companies, by three different groups of pilots and by a Maryland-based financial and litigation consulting firm that offered expert testimony on his behalf in an earlier lawsuit. He's even been sued by a die-hard Mets fan who was the best man at his wedding 20-some years ago, though that New York investor claims there is no bad blood.

One of the angry souls is Dr. Festus Dada, a Nigerian-born gastric bypass specialist, who filed a fraud/breach of contract suit and alleges Dykstra kept a $500,000 deposit after a deal fell apart to purchase a Southern California car wash and retail center then owned by Dykstra. Dada walked away from the transaction, claiming in the suit that Dykstra had made significant changes to the final escrow agreement, including the insertion of a five-year contract for Dykstra's old Phillies teammate, Pete Incaviglia, to serve as general manager under the new ownership.

"We had a closing date, but the good doctor thought there were no rules in this country," says Dykstra, pointing out that Dada himself has been a defendant in dozens of civil suits since 2000. "You'll see a laundry list [of suits], dude. OK, so much for Dr. Dada's credibility, huh?"

Dada's side of the story, not surprisingly, is different. He suggests the ex-ballplayer set out to rip him off, saying he believes Dykstra was desperate for cash and rushed to close on the $27.5 million deal within 30 days. Dada's attorneys say the property was so encumbered by liens that it was impossible to close so quickly.

"He thought he could keep my $500,000 and nobody would have the resources to go after him," Dada says. "But in this case, I am going after him. General surgeons are not intimidated by professional athletes.

[snip]

Two Players Club vice presidents filed claims for unpaid wages after they quit in January. The Minneapolis-based firm hired to design his Players Club Web site alleges Dykstra stiffed it on a $1 million contract, and then bounced two separate $125,000 checks.

In a particularly curious hunt for cash, Dykstra borrowed $250,000 from New York literary agent David Vigliano last May with an agreement to repay him $300,000 in November -- a robust 40 percent annual percentage rate. Vigliano filed suit after Dykstra didn't come up with the money.

[snip]

Even members of Dykstra's family are lined up on the list of those to whom he owes money. His older brother, Brian, has yet to collect a $12,000 judgment awarded by the California Labor Relations Board. His younger brother, Kevin, alleges Dykstra cheated him out of $4 million on the sale of the family-run car washes, though Kevin hasn't filed suit.

On April 16, Terri, Dykstra's wife of more than 20 years and the mother of their three boys, filed for divorce. Through her attorney, she declined to comment for this story.

The family rift runs so deep that until recently, Dykstra had spoken to his mother only once in the past three years, according to his brothers, and wasn't allowing her any contact with his sons, her grand children.

Last month, though, on March 23, Dykstra picked up the phone and woke up his mother with a call at around 6 in the morning, according to Kevin Dykstra, his younger brother. Lenny was stranded in Cleveland. He wanted to charter a jet so he could get to a business meeting on the West Coast, and his credit cards were maxed out. He needed nearly $23,000 and asked his mother for it, Kevin says.

His mother agreed to let him use her credit card.

Kevin Dykstra says she has yet to be repaid.

Labels: crooks, cynicism, economic death watch, greed, Lenny Dykstra

This is quitter/fighter Sarah Palin just ten months ago exhorting Hillary Clinton to not drop out, to "plow ahead" and stressing the importance of knowing what you're getting into. It's very good advice, actually, advice I'd even give my own kids.

Alas, the lame duck Governor of Alaska, as with so many of us, does not heed her own good advice. As a result, Hillary Clinton, who stuck it out, is now Secretary of State and Sarah Palin, who did not, will be in 19 days an aging, unemployed beauty queen and an asterisk drawn in lipstick.

Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Newsy.com for catching this Newsweek clip and making it relevant to current news.

Very light blogging this week, folks. I am on a killer project which runs until mid-September, but right now I'm in full-bore crunch mode, which is why I was up doing work at 3:45 AM -- an ungodly hour that by all rights ought to have a Jamaican beach as its reward. But today this ungodly hour has a week with 20 hours of meetings after which I still have about 60 hours of actual work to do.

But this little find caught my eye and I simply had to pass on the news from ThinkProgress that Your Democratic Party is willing to sacrifice women's right to legal health care options on the altar of bipartisanship with Republican nutjobs:

As Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) prepares to unveil the Senate Finance Committee’s bipartisan health care reform legislation later this week, several blogs are reporting that Republicans on the Committee are pushing legislation that would require insurers operating within the new Exchange to to deny coverage for abortion services. From Raising Women’s Voices:

The Senate Finance Committee has been writing a health care reform bill and struggling to create legislation that will have bipartisan support. Chairman Max Baucus (pictured left) considered several compromises to win Republican support, so they can claim it is bipartisan legislation. One of these potential compromises comes in the form of an abortion exclusion, which would prevent abortion services from being covered by some or all insurance plans in the Health Insurance Exchange. We fear that members of the Senate Finance Committee are considering such a compromise.

Should it pass, the Senate Finance version would be the only bill that specifically prohibits a medical service. As the Wonk Room points out, “if denying abortion services to women is the price of bipartisanship, then perhaps winning those one or two Republican votes isn’t worth the price of jeopardizing women’s health and well-being.”

Max Baucus, who is owned lock, stock and barrel by health insurance companies, is holding a gun to women's heads and saying "You choose. You can have your right to have your health care covered, or you can have the right to abortion. You can't have both.

In case you had any doubts that Mr. Brilliant has been right all along; that the Democrats are simply there to make it LOOK like you have a choice, when in reality, BOTH parties serve only the moneyed and religious crazies, here's your proof.

You know, I'm working 60-80 hour weeks pretty routinely these days. At one point I was delusional enough to think that I, my letters to my elected officials, and by extension, this blog, could help make a difference. But here we are, in 2009, with our party having what should be a filibuster-proof majority, and on the social issues that have been important to us for decades, our party is falling on the side of, and sometimes to the right of, the Republicans. So why the hell do I even bother?

(h/t)

Labels: Democratic sellouts, despair, Women's bodies, womens rights

“Oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal. The only big potential supply that we can get under British control is the Persian [now Iran] and Mesopotamian [now Iraq] supply… Control over these oil supplies becomes a first class British war aim.” - First Secretary of War Cabinet Sir Maurice Hankey to British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, 1918.

In the wake of my buddy Mike Flannigan's recent post on the subject, Rosa Sow over at Newsy.com sent along to me an interesting little video about what seems to be the real rationale for the invasion of Iraq. Of course, that's nothing new. Obviously it was all about the oil.

What Newsy does is cull its information from reputable primary news sources from both the electronic and print worlds in a multimedia format to give a clearer picture of what is a complex issue: the question of who will ultimately control Iraq's oil as the United States will finally withdraw from Iraq under President Barack Obama's initiatives. In a way, Newsy is a much glitzier version of the recently defunct Thousand Reasons.org website that did the same thing only without the smokin' hot, Lara Logan-esque female anchor.

I say "finally withdraw" for a reason. While we're all giving each other high fives and dislocating our shoulders patting ourselves on the back for electing a President who finally showed enough common sense to get us out of that quagmire, not too many of us have noticed that we've already violated the terms of SOFA, or the Status of Forces Agreement. Seems we were supposed to begin this massive redeployment no later than June 30th and while Vice President Joe Biden was getting jiggy wid the troops and his son on, ironically, our own independence day, apparently no one from the non-independent Iraqi government took the foreign policy wonk aside to ask him why we're still there in full force and even using one of Saddam's old palaces to make immigrants US citizens.

I'm sure there are a million pragmatic and important-sounding reasons with an air of irrefutability as to why we're still there and you'll never hear mention of the DoD possibly keeping our troops in harm's way to protect the Iraqi oil and gas fields at a time when violence in Iraq seems to be slowly on the rise. And, for the jaded and necessarily cynical, the most exciting news is the kind that you don't hear.

All told, according to Truthout's Dahr Jamail's figures, with the 134,000 troops we still have in Iraq (which is barely lower than the number we had at the beginning of the occupation) and the 36,000+ American contractors that are still flooding in, we now have upwards of 170,000 US citizens still in Iraq. One has to wonder how many of those 36,000 American contractors will be working for those US oil companies who are about to divvy up the oil fields according to Dick Cheney's master plan that was hatched during his super secret energy task force meetings in the earliest years of this decade.

To bring home the point of how shady our inactions have been since SOFA was allegedly implemented, this is what Jamail has to say:

In addition, there has been an assumption that all US military bases within Iraqi city limits would be moved. For example, US Army Forward Operating Base Falcon, home to 3,000 US troops, is clearly within the city limits of Baghdad. But US military officials, working with Iraqis in the US-supported Iraqi government, have other ideas. "We and the Iraqis decided it wasn't in the city," a military official told the Christian Science Monitor. Thus, city lines are redrawn, to the convenience of the US military, to render certain bases and forward operating bases "outside" of Iraqi cities.

A little Tom DeLay gerrymandering action, a little rubbing out of city lines and hasty scribbling of new ones and voila! instant US troops withdrawal, only without the, you know, withdrawal and all done months before the June 30th SOFA deadline. Considering that the largest rationale for invading and occupying Iraq in the first place was their trillions of dollars of oil, is it truly outside the realm of possibility that we're using US troops to protect Iraq's energy resources long after they should legally be there?

Point in fact, not only do we still occupy 340 bases while handing over control of 142 but the US military (and contractors) are still building more bases. Doesn't quite meet my definition of an exit strategy or a redeployment so it's hard to see why Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki is getting so excited over this.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to see the forest for the trees or, in this case, the olive drab steel and iron ring for the individual US bases. Since the first Bush administration implemented the apparently successful Operation Desert Storm in six weeks flat, it's escaped the attention of those not on the inside that since then we have encircled the major oil fields in the Persian Gulf with American bases, bases that, I reiterate, are still being built in Iraq.

It's also escaped the attention of everyone not in the loop that protecting the oil and gas fields in the southern part of Iraq seemed to be our top priority within 24-48 hours after Shock and Awe began on March 19, 2003.

This general overview of a map drawn in 2003, the start of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, shows you how perfectly and firmly US air and naval bases are aligned with the oil and natural gas fields all over the Persian Gulf.

A more detailed map of Iraq, courtesy of the BBC, will show you the exact location of the oil fields and you'll note place names that have become more sadly familiar than many of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and Guardsmen who had died protecting those oil fields. An Nasiriyah. Al Basra. An Najaf. And, to the north, Mosul, Kirkuk. And in each of those oil and gas-rich regions, we still have many, many bases.

So now, when Iraq is negotiating with 8 of the largest and richest oil companies in the world, we're going to suddenly back off when Iraqi security and sovereignty is hardly a guaranteed thing?

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." So why are we so willfully ignorant of this brutal colonialism, this military-enforced protectorate of Iraq's oil and gas fields and how come we're not making a bigger stink about Obama basically wiping up after George W. Bush's and PNAC's wettest wet dream while assuming all the political risk?

You know, next to getting drunk and vomiting in the rose bush at your brother in law's BBQ and frying your best friend's face off with illegal pyrotechnics, one of the most cherished traditions of Independence Day is remembering what it really means. It commemorates the day we'd achieved our independence from a tyrannical regime from far away. And this past week’s news was a more effective emetic than a case of Schlitz because while the tyranny of the past 8 years may be a distant dull roar, we're reminded that they're not quite gone and that the GOP will stage their own 1812 comeback in 2012.

So that's why Sarah Palin rounds out the list for quitting as Governor of Alaska and thinking she's keeping secret from us her true ambitions. But she’s in good company with Chuck Grassley and the Family Research Council, people who prove that not all the dinosaurs went extinct 65,000,000 years ago.

---

In a relatively rare nod to the gay community, President Obama had named as Assistant Deputy Secretary at the Department of Education Kevin Jennings, who has a stellar reputation in education and is the founder of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network). It’s an organization that helps keep schools safe for students both straight and those in the LGBT community.

But according to the Family Research Council, that makes him “a radical homosexual activist.” So, what has the new Assistant Deputy Secretary at the Department of Education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools done to incur the wrath of the godly worthies of Tony “Who’s the Girl, Norman?!” Perkins?

He educates students as to the importance of safe sex, teaches anti-bullying techniques that protect all harassed students gay and straight alike and is a devout practicing Christian (he’s the son of a pastor, as a matter of fact.). And that’s the eeeeeeviiiiiil homosexual agenda! Certainly a lot more evil than Jennings' last two predecessors, one of whom being a typical Republican crook who now has a criminal record for lining his own pockets.

So, in their jihad against Jennings, they’ve “proved” their case by lifting quotes from his memoir with no context and even outright fabricating them. They deliberately ignore the “S” in GLSEN and seem to have it in for him simply for advocating on behalf of gay and lesbian students. So, in the FRC's mind, we should just continue allowing people like Perkins' listeners to continue beating up on teh gays so as not to look like "radical homosexual activists."

Hey, Tony: Suck on it.

---

When pressed at a June 30th town hall meeting by a constituent why his health insurance was so much more expensive yet got less coverage than that enjoyed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, Grassley tried to hem and haw and told the elderly man to “go work for John Deere.” (Which has recently laid off many workers.) When the man pressed Grassley and asked him why he couldn’t get the same health care plan that he has, the Senate Finance Committee’s ranking Republican actually said, “You can. Go work for the federal government.”

I’m sure that many us still remember George W. Bush telling us that health care for all was just a trip to the ER away. I thought that such Republican reductionist thinking was an isolated valley. Obviously, I was wrong.

---

"I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. Limbaugh..."

TIME Magazine noted,

“If her goal is to position herself for higher office, the stagecraft and timing of her announcement left Republicans scratching their heads. The Friday before Independence Day, when media attention is at its lowest, would be a more appropriate moment for a scandal-plagued politician to slink from the national stage.”

Actually, perhaps that’s precisely the reason why Palin chose to “slink from the national stage.” After doing a double-take, Mary Matalin finally recovered and called Sarah Palin quitting as Governor of Alaska after just 32 months in office, “Brilliant.” Meghan Stapleton, her personal spokeswoman, said Palin cutting and running amidst a growing herd of corruption scandals was “a fighter’s move.” Stapleton also said that Palin was going to work “toward affecting positive change as a citizen without a title right now.”

Palin must think the American voter is as stupid as she is if she thinks that she’s keeping her long-range plans secret from anyone. Hillary Clinton didn’t fool anyone about her own presidential ambitions even as she was blowing $47,000,000 protecting her Senate seat from a brain-dead TV judge named Jeanine Pirro.


In the meantime, she’ll always be ready for her closeup, Mr. Limbaugh, and attending one GOP fundraiser after another vacuuming in money from all sorts of PACS and the oil industry while thinking she’s being cagey in saying, “I’m not a presidential candidate” before actually filing papers to that end. But if she thinks her detractors are putting the full court press on her now, what does she think will happen when the 2012 presidential race begins to warm up in a couple of years without her office to shield her from the blue meanies of the lib’ral MSM?

I'm serious. I want to know. I realize that the Republican Party has become an organization in which accomplishment, intelligence, knowledge and curiousity about the world and a plan for what one wants to do are regarded as liabilities rather than assets, but really....on what basis should Sarah Palin be president?

Right now we are in two intractable wars left us by George W. Bush. North Korea is testing nuclear missiles. Climate change is occurring faster than even scientists predicted. Our health care system is a shambles. Our job base is disappearing. The problems facing our government are so massive they defy description. Right now we have a president who, whatever his flaws, and he has many (most notably his coziness with Wall Street and his icky feelings about Teh Gays), at least can string his thoughts together coherently and whose worldview is about something other than personal grievance.

In traveling through Freeperville and the comments sections of various blogs, I'm struck by the way the zealousness of the Cult of Sarah has absolutely nothing to do with actual policy. It's all about the popcorn fantasies of people who think that the Reign of Queen Sarah I will be about sitting on the couch watching the ritual massacre of all liberals.

So, wingnuts...suppose you get to watch that spectacle. What then?

What does Sarah Palin do about North Korea, a nation with nuclear weapons the leader of which was taught by George W. Bush, and has since shown the rest of the world, that if you have nukes, the U.S. will leave you alone; it's only if you don't that you get invaded.

What does Sarah Palin do about this country's diminishing job base in manufacturing, high tech, and other industries, a reality that has affected her home state?

Presumably Sarah Palin denies the reality of climate change. OK, then, what does she propose to do to help people whose homes are damaged by flooding, hailstones, tornadoes, Category 5 hurricanes, and other manifestations of climate change?

And while this doesn't seem important in the larger sphere of things, can you imagine having a president who quits because the press and bloggers are being mean to her, and then has her lawyer threaten to sue anyone who speculated on her reasons for resigning?

Need I go on?

What is this woman about, other than feeding the ragegasm of angry white people?

And on what planet is being a member of a group whose sole purpose is secession from the U.S. somehow "patriotic"? How does quitting make you a fighter? How does siccing your lawyers on people who say mean things about you make you the kind of conservative that rails against trial lawyers?

On what is this cult of Sarah based? Do they ALL just want to fuck her?

Here's the tragedy of Sarah Palin: If she weren't a mean-spirited right-wing Christofascist narcissistic nutball, she COULD have been the kind of feminist around which women could rally. If she were about helping other working mothers and parents of special-needs children and health care for all and a stable job base, she could have been a credible contender for first female president. But alas, she is only an aging beauty queen, a Mean Grrrl who in politics has found a way to extend her reign as Prettiest Girl in High School to use people (or states) and then throw them away when they stop feeding her massive ego -- or the gaping hole in her soul which no amount of attention will fill.

Labels: insanity, Sarah Palin, wingnuttia

Our good friends Bluegal and Battachio gave us the heads up on this great idea for July 4th! Considering that its a day that we tend to gorge ourselves on the grilled foods of summer, we might want to think about the growing numbers of those less fortunate than us, and grab some cans from the shelf and whatever else (as specified here,)grab the kids, jump in the car, and head on over to the food bank.
They need disposable diapers and dry drink mixes, cans/jars of food, and shelf stable staples. Be sure to check Blue Gal's post on C&L, which serves as a central point for the links for this thing, and grab the food bank locator on your way out, so that you can see if your food bank is opened today or tomorrow. Any day will do; if you've been to any of the foodbanks in your area you will see that the shelves are always low these days. I can say that with confidence, regardless of where you live, they need help this year!

State Representative Cynthia Davis may be sure that giving food to children demotivates them, but I can say from personal experience, and scientists will back me up on this, kids ,(and adults for that matter,) cant function, learn, or become members of our society fully if they don't get proper nutrition.

I hate to even mention the craziness of it all, but this Million Can March is sort of in response to some teabagging parties this weekend that are...I dunno...protesting taxes?...because the richest of us have somehow worked harder and deserve a few thousand dollars more per year regardless of the hungry kids that they are stepping over on their way to their BBQ?...
Somehow, the democratic ideal of America where everyone is represented, became the capitalistic ideal of America where luck and hard work both play equal parts. Even in a perfect world, who among us would take our own good fortune and call it just hard work, and let others go hungry or without medical care?
There are people out there who have a point of view which is summed up as pretty much as "tough luck, I worked harder, I got here first," ideal. Its easy to live in your bubble, as long as you're driving by it in an SUV, but the problems out there have come home to roost as we inch towards 10% unemployment! And yes we do have to spend more money in order to fix this!

Its time for each of us to realize that the "go shopping" days are over and that we all have to make sacrifices for the good of society as a whole. Its time to pay for the fantasy that we have been living for the past 8 years, and that doesn't mean stuffing your cash in your mattress!! It means doing what you can on the ground while he new administration tries to right this listing ship. Did you hear what I said? We have to spend more money as a society in order to correct our course....the outrage at the government's infrastructure spending is really sweet. We spent for the war(s) and we will continue to spend on that...and if investment in our own country now will help us in creating jobs and getting some money flowing through the system, then I am all for it!

Happy 4th of July you patriots!...Just don't blow your own face off with the fireworks!

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: food, hunger

So....anything interesting happen today?


Donna Brazile was speculating on CNN that this move is to position the Wasilla Wacko for a presidential run in 2012, though it's hard to imagine that even a party that worships willful ignorance the way the Republican Party does would be able to put a positive face on a first-term governor who didn't even finish her term.

Brad Friedman has some scoop on why Sarah Palin is supposedly taking her dollies and dishes and going home to sulk:

Alaskan Sarah Palin authority (and occasional BRAD BLOG guest blogger) Shannyn Moore, who broke the news at HuffPo today, tells me she believes, with good reason, that there is an "iceberg scandal that's about to break. She's doing damage control."

She says Palin is "resigning as part of damage control" due to a scandal that is "not of a family nature." ...

"The governor would not be able to continue her job when it comes out," she told me on the phone just now, before adding: "Why would Mark Sanford not resign, but Sarah Palin did? Her family didn't even know about the resignation until they were standing with her by the lake" when she made her announcement.

Yes. It seems another shoe, apparently a big one, will indeed be dropping, likely within the next week or so. Perhaps earlier now that everyone will be poking around up there.

If this is true, then the 2012 GOP prospects are dropping like flies, which ought to make us further question just why anyone bothers to listen to these people anymore.

UPDATE: Brad, who is rapidly becoming a Greg Palast who IS able to work in this country, is all over this, and it doesn't look pretty for Mooselini. Go. Read.

(And by the way, while Rush Limbaugh and the other wingnuts who have splooge-sticky photos of the Alaska governor in the jerkoff corners of their houses (sorry, but I was on an 8-hour flight back from Germany yesterday and the only movie even remotely tolerable was I Love You Man) will scream that this is a liberal plot against the comely Alaska governor and 2012 hopeful, my money's on Grover Norquist. The money guys of the Republican Party, having lost Mark Sanford and with the Bush name probably not ready for a comeback, are right now looking at Mitt the Empty Suit, Hypocritical Newt Gingrich, and Fat Bastard Haley Barbour as their Great White Hopes for 2012. They have to get rid of the Wasilla Wacko, and fast.)

Labels: Sarah Palin

I am quite enjoying the apoplexy on the right, now that Senator Franken has been declared the winner of Minnesota's protracted Senate election. The diatribes have been endless and the rhetoric has escalated to the point that the hyperbole has crossed over into absurdist comedy gold.

Their real problem is that they can't stand that they have been bested. That the Harvard Cum Laude Math major they dismiss as a clown has bested them. The one man who will call Rush Limbaugh a big, fat idiot and do the research to back up his assertion with empirical data and never dream of apologizing for it - the man who wrote a best seller about the right wing titled Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them - now has the bully pulpit of a Senate seat. And that is an achievement that not one of those braying jackasses could ever hope to achieve. And the bile it causes them to choke on makes my heart sing. I wonder of it is possible to overdose on schaddenfreud, cuz I think I am about to lose consciousness...

Joe Conason spent some time in the fever swamps documenting the deranged attacks of the right-wing noise machine against his friend. I thank him for doing so because it means I didn't have to.

Sadly, the most notorious Franken antagonist, Bill O'Reilly, was absent from the airwaves on the evening of Franken's victory. Demure guest host Monica Crowley seemed bemused by the Minnesota outcome. But Glenn Beck, in his semiliterate way, heaped on enough abuse to keep Billo's fans satisfied for the moment. "It shows how crazy our country has gone," he began. "It shows that we've lost our minds. It's like we've slipped through a wormhole. It's like, this look likes the country I grew up in, but no -- Al Franken would never be a senator ... We have entered a place to where there isn't statesmanship anymore."

The tenor of the Fox attacks grew more feverish with the ranting of Brian Kilmeade, who judged Franken "barely sane if you read his books, and quite angry in every facet of his life." Kilmeade went on to describe the new senator as "hateful," "evil," bitter," and "maniacal," and again as "angry." Sean Hannity echoed Fox's other amateur shrinks, saying, "This guy, Franken, he's not all there."

So did R. Emmett Tyrell, the Human Events columnist and former editor of the American Spectator, who appeared to confuse Franken's portrayal of a fictional character with the former comedian's own personality, and went on to predict that he will need "anger management counseling" during his Senate term. "He was weird on 'Saturday Night Live' in the 1970s, on which he popularized a goofball character named Stuart Smalley, a self-help guru who repeated over and again, 'I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!' ... My guess is that the Stuart Smalley character is the essential Al Franken, a weirdo."

Speaking for Pajamas Media, Rick Moran called Franken "a bat guano crazy liberal" and gloated over the "rabid, unbridled, hateful partisanship" that will bring both the senator and his party to grief. "It is a pathological, almost clinical condition that will explode from time to time in bitter denunciation of the opposition, supplying bloggers and commentators with a cornucopia of material," wrote Moran with grim satisfaction, adding that "Franken's psychosis" includes a pathological hatred of Christians and particularly Catholics (which may come as a shock to his Catholic wife, Franni).

Then there was Limbaugh, the capo di tutti right-wing capi, who warned with pithy brevity that the 60th Democratic vote in the Senate is "a genuine lunatic."

Calmer but no less nasty was the assessment of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which insisted that the Democrat had somehow hijacked the Senate seat from the rightful Republican victor. "Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election," said the editorial, without deigning to mention that Republicans in Minnesota, including the governor, had effectively vetted the recount and canvassing from Election Day forward, up to the final Supreme Court decision.

The WSJ is simply spouting bullshit - par for the course for an organ of the Murdoch noise machine. No one in Minnesota thinks the election was stolen. Sara Janacek, a leading conservative voice in Minnesota told the Washington Post that those accusations are false. "The state media -- and a majority of the public -- do think Franken's election was legitimate," she said. "We had an open and very public recount process."

Let the critics sneer and underestimate him. He will, in the meantime, study issues from every angle and be diligent about the job that has been entrusted to him. He is there in large part to honor his friend Paul Wellstone, whose seat he now occupies. He is not mean, crazy or frivolous and his election was legitimate, and those who want you to think otherwise are neither as stable nor as smart as he is, and I base that on the public behavior of both Franken and those who hate him.

Fox, of course, has a vendetta against the guy. Have you forgotten this?

Aug 23, 2003 | His voice full of amused contempt, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin refused Fox News' request for an injunction against author and comedian Al Franken's new book on Friday. "There are hard cases and there are easy cases," said Chin. "This is an easy case. The case is wholly without merit both factually and legally ... It is ironic that a media company that should seek to protect the First Amendment is instead seeking to undermine it."

The hearing couldn't have gone better for Franken, who is being sued by Fox because the network claims his new book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," violates Fox's trademark of the phrase "Fair and Balanced." Fox had sought to block Franken's use of the phrase pending a trial for trademark infringement, in which it hoped to win compensation for damages.

But Chin's ruling suggested there might not be a trial. Besides rejecting Fox's petition for an injunction, Chin practically invited Franken's lawyers to file for dismissal. And he hinted that if it pursues its lawsuit, Fox may lose the very trademark it's trying to defend -- a trademark that, according to the suit, Fox has spent $61 million promoting.

It is always important to consider the source when someone is attacking someone else, and in the case of Senator Franken that admonishment has never been more true or more important.

c/p @ They Gave Us a Republic

Labels: Fox News, Senator Franken, Slate