At any given moment

I can't decide whether I'm more disgusted by the official GOP who want to control my body

or by the racist wingnuts who want to smear a dead child.

That lady up there with the sign? She's Oklahoma State Senator Judy McIntyre(D). I guess she needed to say something too.

Sarah Palin by TBogg

This is so exactly right that I can't help but reproduce it.

Go down to the worst trailer park in whatever town you live in. Look for the 50-year old, leather-skinned, gap-toothed, chain-smoking tweaker in filthy sweatpants and a tank top that says “Kitty needs a lickin’”.

That woman?

Well, Sarah Palin is her evil twin…

Don't  ever forget.

Gratuitous Slam

because I'm in a really bad mood.

How does this man get laid?

Thanks TPM.

Simple Post

What Digby said ... All of it.  With regard to this new meme that we should never allow a Mosque to be built --

Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.

Each one is a potential jihadist recruitment and training center, and determined to implement the “Grand Jihad”

(I'm not linking to that crap.  You can find it.)

Digby says:

Normally I would think we could ride out this latest wave of nativism and racism, but there are two factors that make it more dangerous than usual. The first, of course, is the economy which looks like it's not going to recover smartly thus giving this impulse more oxygen than it might otherwise have. The second is that the right wing demagogues have an entire industry now devoted to creating and nurturing these wedge issues for political and financial gain. The culture warriors have just shifted their strategy away from "family values" to their other stand-by, "stop the boogeyman." It's all part of the same throwback tapestry, but different times require difference emphasis. We're officially in the "the foreigners and blacks are ruining everything" portion of the show.

 And it gets worse every day.

With Apologies To My Jesus-Believing Friends

and I'm Sorry About The Picture But You Need To Understand What I'm Talking About

Today I was driving home from a difficult day at the office, wending my way through an area which is largely devoid of power thanks to an amazing storm on Sunday.  I found myself barely into Maryland in bumper-to-bumper barely moving traffic when I was faced with, standing/sitting in the easement between the sidewalk and street, a seemingly endless review of people wearing "pro-life" shirts and propping up pictures of aborted fetuses.  They were seated/standing maybe every thirty feet for about a mile.  We, those in vehicles, were trapped, waiting for many turnings of a traffic light ahead. You can get the flavor of the posters and their size from the example on the right which is an exact duplicate of the most frequently occurring one.

These people were not subtle. Being the excellent researcher that I am I have found them on the web and even identified this particular gathering. Here is their flyer (PDF) in case you wish to attend a showing. I am told that they have a right to demonstrate in the easement. I am told they do not need a permit to demonstrate in the easement, although I will check that with the County Executive.

They surely did tick me off. But then one got her ass off of the easement and approached my car. Her breath touched my right passenger's window. I slid the windown down -- surely she saw my beet red face and the steam coming out of my ears -- and she began to move a flyer toward me. I'm afraid I hissed that she should get her fucking bullshit Jesus crap away from my car. She didn't have a heart attack but I think she swallowed her tongue as my window closed.

These people claim that showing these images to children isn't their fault. They blackmail us. Their web site (which I won't link further to) tells me "The images themselves don't harm children, particularly when they have parents who take the time to answer their questions. in fact, we have had parents bring their children to participate in showing the images to the public! And the children do so with pride."

This is obscene by any standard I know. So my mission will be to (1) do everything I know how to do to have these materials declared legally obscene and off limits to anybody under 13 and (2) have anybody who uses their children to engage in these protests declared an unfit parent.

Sorry about the rant, but stay out of my face and you won't force me there.

Don't Want

From The Guardian

I've Been Neglecting You

This will be my final word on John Edwards.

Tasers Yet Again

Pam Spaulding points to Electronic Village's current post detailing each of the 36 taser deaths in the US thus far this year. I won't go into great detail because they have done so, but I must note that 39% of the deaths are black men.

For those of you who think this isn't about you? Digby offers an 81 year old man tased repeatedly.

"Schiaffini walks with a cane, has no use of his left arm after suffering six strokes, and takes several prescription medications daily."

As I often point out, it is way past time to take away this often abused weapon from the abusers.

McCarthyism, Barely Disguised

It's amazing how little the tactics have changed in more than half a century since Joe McCarthy (on the right over there misused his access to the media to accuse people of disloyalty, treason, and undermining the nation without regard to facts or evidence of any kind. Today we see the exact same process taking place, fueled by partisan media outlets who pretend to offer "news" to the American public.

Jon DeVore says it well.

Yeah, this is war. Either the far right puke funnel is brought to heel by utterly destroying its undeserved credibility, something that should have happened long ago, or our democracy plunges into neo-McCarthyite darkness for who-knows-how-long. Which obscure administration or member of Congress will be next? Will it it be a third under-secretary for African affairs, or will it be, um, YOU?...

Yeah, probably me. People like me are often a target when right-wing terrorists are looking around for somebody to aim their peashooters at.

How’s that post-partisanship civility working out? Yeah, I know, regular people get sick and tired of the clown shows, but the clown shows are not a bug, they’re a design feature. They show that many Democrats won’t fight for their principles, or that many Democrats are unprincipled whores, and in either case weakness and whorishness is exposed.

The clowns clown, the pundits pontificate and the “reasonable” Republicans chortle while they watch the polls and congratulate each other on what a great monkey wrench they possess. Next up will be a set of “promises” from the GOP, probably with some grandiose name only a Colbert could appreciate, that will list the requisite demands for lower taxes, bashing of immigrants, fear-mongering against gays and any clever phraseology Frank Luntz crafts to make a shit sandwich look like Pan-bagnat.

Exactly. It's about distraction and fearmongering and tactics, tactics, tactics, all aimed to grab the spotlight, control the message. Meanwhile the moderates who care and the left that is too amazed to lift a finger are falling under the bus.

Remember, they always call the opposition what they are. So whey they claim that Obama is Hitler, there's a good reason to listen to what they are really saying. Doesn't anybody think it's time to stop them?

Robert Strange McNamara, 1914-2009

Finally arrives in hell.

George Tiller Shot To Death at Church

George Tiller was one of the few people left who provided full health care services for pregnant women.

George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death this morning as he walked into church services.

Tiller, 67, was shot just after 10 a.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th, where he was a member of the congregation. Witnesses and a police source confirmed Tiller was the victim.

No information has been released about whether a suspect is in custody. Police said they are looking for white male who was driving a 1990s powder blue Ford Taurus with Kansas license plate 225 BAB.

Photo and news report from the Wichita Eagle.

Terrorism plain and simple. If we are going to disarm, sweep up, and interrogate Muslims for what they might do, why not these people? And when are we going to do something about the gun problem?

I am sickened beyond belief.

Coach K Is Still A Dick

"Somebody said that we're not in President Obama's Final Four, and as much as I respect what he's doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said

No Time To Watch The Span?

Here is a synopsis of the debate about the economic stimulus plan going on at this very moment.

I Can't Stand Much More Of The Bushies

The bone-headed idealogues in this administration continue to do dumb crap. They cut off funding for condoms beause they argue that the distributor supports abortions elsewhere. And the result will be more abortions.

The US government is cutting its funding for the supply of contraceptives to family planning clinics run by Marie Stopes International in Africa, alleging that it condones forced abortions in China.

MSI has categorically denied that it supports forced abortions or coercive sterilisation in China or anywhere else in the world, and says that the actions of the Bush government will result in more abortions in Africa, as women will be unable to get contraceptives and will end up with unwanted pregnancies.

One of George Bush's first acts after becoming president was to stop all US funds to foreign organisations that helped women in any way to get an abortion, including providing advice. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) lost $34m that Congress had appropriated for it in 2002.

...

MSI says the USAID edict will seriously hamper its work in at least six African countries - Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. USAID is the biggest supplier of contraceptives in many African countries.

According to MSI, the inevitable consequence will be more abortions. It estimates that it will lose $1.5m worth of supplies in the next year, resulting in 325,000 extra unwanted pregnancies in the six African countries and 65,000 abortions.

I really don't know whether they are just dumber than crap or if they are just all political and don't care what the results are as long as they can say they are anti-abortion. But, as usual, they make me sick. Real people's lives are affected and they just don't care.

The Bailout Bill

contains this passage

Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Is there anything else you need to know? They get everything, do whatever they want to with it, and nobody gets to even look it over.

Now Is The Time For Class Warfare

Thomas Frank, author of What's The Matter With Kansas, has scored a regular Wednesday column with the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, go figure.

He tells us

Now comes the fall culture-war offensive, catching the Democrats by surprise as it always does and spreading panic and desperation among their ranks. As the depth of the Republican breakthrough becomes apparent to Democrats, they launch the same feeble counterattacks that failed them last time, prudishly correcting misleading GOP advertisements and crying for the recess monitor when the other side plays dirty.

And none of this works.

Exactly. Every time they play dirty, just like they did last time and the time before that and the time before that, Democrats whine that it isn't fair. They are amazed that God, guns, and gays are the issue one more time, that Democrats are called elitist, and that somehow the Dick Cheneys and John McCains of the world are seen as two-fisted beer drinkers.

We need to get over the fact that it doesn't make sense. They have a way of tapping into some irrational feeling that we aren't capable of understanding. Instead we should be good observers and see that it just keeps happening.

Things would go better for Democrats if they recognized the culture war for what it is: a debased form of class war, a false populism in which an "authentic" America rises up against its would-be masters, an effete bunch of arugula-eaters who say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." But a visceral feeling of class conflict is what lies at the core of the whole thing: a righteous grievance against wrongful, pedantic rulers. It is so attractive emotionally that I often wish I could sign up for it myself.

Me too. But alas, that isn't my way.

Mr. Franks brings us to the issues today and the current Wall Street mess. (Follow the link above to read the whole piece. It is worth the trip.)

There is simply no way to blame this disaster, as Republicans used to do, on labor unions or over-regulation. No, this is the conservatives' beloved financial system doing what comes naturally. Freed from the intrusive meddling of government, just as generations of supply-siders and entrepreneurial exuberants demanded it be, the American financial establishment has proceeded to cheat and deceive and beggar itself -- and us -- to the edge of Armageddon. It is as though Wall Street was run by a troupe of historical re-enactors determined to stage all the classic panics of the 19th century.

..

There has scarcely been a better time to shove the arugula aside and talk about the realities of class. It is heartening to see that Barack Obama is beginning to do just that, but he must keep hammering at the point until everyone in America understands the choice that lies before us.

Exactly.

Thank You CNN

On the thing John McCain is most ashamed of:
Via The Jed Report

Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye

Earlier today my esteemed colleagues gave you The Politial Decathlon, where Mr. McCain was rated along a number of dimensions and Um, Yeah... wherein it was suggested that the electorate may make decisions along a number of rational dimensions. Having recently read this Amy Silverman piece about the John McCain that she covered for a number of years, I think the real problem is that the electorate does not know who John McCain is.

Ms. Silverman covered Arizona politics for the Phoenix New Times for 15 years and during that time she had a lot of exposure to Mr. McCain. I want to just send you to read the piece but it is long and I know you have lives. So a few facts and a few anecdotes. Perhaps I can convince you to read it all.

Fact:

You may be surprised to know that in 1987 and 1988, McCain voted against federal legislation reforming the campaign finance system. It was only in 1990, in the aftermath of Keating and the shadow of an upcoming re-election campaign, that he started supporting reform. Ditto for his efforts to cut government spending. And I've got to pause to say something about both of those efforts. In a word, they're a farce. McCain famously sponsored a law designed to control special interests' grip on Washington, but at the same time, he took money from those interests.

Original anecdote revelatory of his character:

In Arizona, when a governor leaves office early, the secretary of state ascends. In this case, that was Rose Mofford, an old-school Democrat from the small mining town of Globe, a lady with a bright white beehive that Arizona Republic cartoonist Steve Benson once famously drew as a cone-full of Dairy Queen.

Mofford had served as secretary of state for decades. She'd never aspired to the state's top spot. But she accepted graciously and agreed to serve out the remaining 2 1/2 years of Mecham's term. She never showed interest in running for another term after that, although she was enormously popular.

As the story goes, John McCain and his friends wanted her out immediately. And, they figured, they had the mechanism in place to do it. Mecham was gone, but the recall effort was still in place. Why not shift gears and target Mofford instead?

The Democrats didn't like that one bit and asked the Arizona Supreme Court to consider the legality.

In mid-April 1988, Mofford and some staff flew to Washington for, as one former aide puts it, the "perfunctory wet kiss" meeting with the Arizona congressional delegation. Even in mean old D.C., there's such a thing as protocol, and the tour was expected to go along without incident.

At 10 in the morning on April 12, Mofford testified before the Senate Energy and Water Development Subcommittee on Appropriations on the topic of the Central Arizona Project.

Now, Mofford had been governor for only eight days. Before that, her main task had been running the state's elections department. This appearance (there was a similar one, later that day, before the House) had been billed as ceremonial. She was not familiar with the particulars of federal water law. Nor did her staff think she'd be expected to be — just then.

But, apparently, Senator James McClure, a Republican from Idaho, did. After a lot of looking, that librarian and I (actually, it took three librarians) tracked down the testimony from that day. McClure asked Mofford a series of questions that would leave any water expert's mouth dry. Her staff jumped in to try to answer, but even so, ultimately they had to file an addendum to the testimony.

Word spread quickly about what had happened.

Coincidentally, that very same day, Pat Murphy, then publisher of the Arizona Republic, was also in Washington to meet with the delegation. He and his wife had lunch plans with McCain, and as Murphy recalls, they went to the hearing room where Mofford was testifying, to meet up with him. Murphy had written glowingly of McCain and considered him a personal friend.

As Murphy recounted in an e-mail recently (he left the Republic many years ago, and now lives in Idaho), the incident crushed him. He says it was the beginning of the end of his respect for and friendship with McCain.

"We peeked in the room," wrote Murphy. "McCain saw us, excused himself, and we three went to the Senate dining room for lunch.

"During lunch, McCain said, almost with mischievous glee, that he had slipped some highly technical questions to [James McClure] to ask Mofford — questions she wouldn't be prepared to answer or expected to answer.

"Flabbergasted, I asked McCain why would he want to sabotage Mofford's testimony, when in fact the CAP was the nonpartisan pet of Republicans and Democrats — such as far-left Udall and far-right Goldwater — since its inception.

"His reply, as near as I remember, was, 'I'll embarrass a Democrat any time I get the chance.'

The nicest thing she can say:

He does deserve credit for the time he spent with Udall during his final years. "There was no steadier visitor," Bob Neuman (Udall's aide) recalls of McCain's visits to his old boss' bedside during Udall's very long struggle with Parkinson's disease. And for that, Neuman says, McCain earned his "respect and admiration and affection."

Until McCain went public with it.

In 1997, Michael Lewis profiled McCain for the New York Times Magazine. Lewis' piece was well-written, and he did get great access to McCain. In fact, the senator even took the journalist to the veterans hospital in Washington, D.C., for one of his visits with Udall. According to Lewis, McCain tried in vain to wake Udall that day.

Yes, people, he brought a reporter with him. He chose to expose Mo Udall to the indignity without his consent for his own benefit.

Please go and read the piece. Over and over we see folks who are terrified of John McCain, who see him as a mean bully, who are terrified that he will find out that they told the truth about who he is. His nasty jokes, the way he treats his wife, and the crumbs of nastiness we have seen are only the tip of the iceberg.

The way to beat McCain is to tell the truth. Teach people who he is. Let them see the man behind the curtain. If they do, he is toast.

Nostalgia, History, and the Burial of a Despicable Creature

This blog is more than five years old. When it was in its infancy I presented you with a view of one of the most loathesome critters in the United States. There it is again, over on your right, the correct place for it to be. That was in the old days, when it seemed funny.

Then 2004 came along and it turns out that he helped Mr. Bush win the presidency. That was not so amusing. But many tried to remember that he had done some good in the past, tried to think of those times as an error. You would hear sadness in voices when they talked about him. Not my voice, of course, but the voices of many.

Then came 2008 when he decided, for clearly narcissistic reasons, to run again for the presidency. He made the rounds of the talk shows trying to reintroduce his tiresome blather. I made note that he wanted to run as a third party candidate but had done nothing to build a party, had done none of the actual work. So I ignored him until I saw someone with a Nader for President bumper sticker.

Still I considered him a self-centered clown.

Today he moved from clown to the embodiment of evil, the archetype of narcissism, of the self-centered will do anything to get his way person. He demonstrated that he is a cartoon of a politician, more craven than any of them. Today, after getting virtually no attention for his candidacy, he returned to the center stage saying this which you really must watch:
Yes, among other things he said this:

There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.

What a despicable piece of shit.

Spawn 'o Reagan

For any of you who still foolishly believe that the late Ronald Reagan was just a nice actor who happened to luck into the presidency, here is what he spawned. This is Michael Reagan on this talk radio show. Warning -- this is pretty rough.