Wednesday PM Stuff

Here is a link to both clips of Hosni Mubarak Walker getting punked by the "Buffalo Beast" phone caller (nice when our side does this stuff for a change...of course, Fix Noise is harrumphing all over the place - screw 'em).

However, I thought it more appropriate to take a break from all of this for a minute and instead express my admiration to Robert Cowie, who speaks in the clip below (more info is here, and I extend my sympathies for his loss - it happened in Florida, but it could happen anywhere)...



...and this might be some good advice for Walker the next time he thinks about saying something stupid (five, four, three...).

Wednesday Mashup (2/23/11)

I give you the following about Wisconsin:

- Gosh, Fix Noise is all in a snit over kids joining the protestors, as noted here.

Funny, though – they didn’t seem to have a problem when kids joined the teabaggers (and I just know this little girl keeps Ayn Rand on her shelf right next to “Little Liza Freeze and the Magical Ice Cream Cone Tree” and the Judy Blume series, right?).

- Also, according to this, it looks like Hosni Mubarak Walker is “worried” about people bussed in from other states to join the protests in the state capital.

I didn’t see him too concerned, though, when some person or persons unknown paid for some of those moronic teabaggers to do the very same thing last weekend, as noted here (and by the way, I think it's funny that the quote from Rep. Michael Capuano of Massachusetts is getting spun to be read as if it automatically condones violence against others, particularly in light of this).

- Finally, some dim bulb here over at The Daily Tucker says that Governor “Koch Addiction” Walker ought to just fire all of the striking teachers when, as it turns out, that’s impossible; that’s a matter for the local school boards in that state who employ the teachers, as noted here.

And I guess it was driving Governor Bully nuts to be left out of the headlines for a little while, so leave it to him to come up with this (and here and here are more updates).

Next, U.S. News and World Report gives us the seven reasons here why Americans aren’t saving enough for retirement, and they are as follows: 1) Living beyond our means, 2) Little employer help, 4) Not saving automatically, 4) Too much debt (yep, starting to get more than a little redundant), 5) Savings isn’t a priority (looks like the CD player is stuck – give it a good shove), 6) No emergency fund, and 7) Spending windfalls.

Well, I would add the following as, at least, Reason #8 (here)…

…the (George W. Bush) administration’s tax policies fostered the weakest jobs and income growth in more than six decades, and ignored alarming labor market trends in minority communities. This record of anemic job creation was accompanied by sluggish business investment and weak gross domestic product growth that characterized the period after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 went into effect.2

…

Overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967. Women reversed employment gains of previous cycles. And for African Americans, the worst job growth on record was matched by an unprecedented increase in poverty.

Am I going to tell you that Mrs. Doomsy and I have made financial choices that were 100 percent practical and sound at every moment? No, I’m not going to lie. But saving is difficult at best with anemic job growth, and shrinking income due to out-of-control health care costs and wages held down primarily due to the threat of offshoring.

I realize that the primary audience of U.S. News and World Report is the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch. That still doesn’t excuse them, however, for substituting pejorative scolding towards the rest of us in place of reasonably coherent economic analysis.

And last but certainly least, I give you Former Senator Man-On-Dog here, who has spoken out in defense of the Crusades (taking on the powerful anti-Crusades lobby, I’m sure). And if you guessed that he blamed “the left” for this big supposed misunderstanding - “They hate Western civilization at the core. That's the problem,” PA’s former senator from northern Virginia intones- then you win a free DVD of “An American Carol,” since that’s just about what it’s going for on Amazon these days (for rent, anyway).

As I said about Governor Bully, it must tear up Little Ricky to see everyone getting the headlines but him (with this being another despicable “dog whistle” to his beloved base).

Have fun losing your party’s presidential primary, you holier-than-thou fraud.

Wednesday AM Stuff

More good stuff on Wisconsin here via Eschaton and First-Draft (and yes, I got the right day this time)...



...and I haven't featured any Indie stuff for a little while, so here goes (interesting imagination).

Monday Stuff

Sometimes it really is that simple...



...and the latest issue of Rolling Stone features another great report by Matt Taibbi, this time on how the banksters escaped jail, and it also features a story on a recording, the band's first in 24 years, by the surviving members of The Cars, minus Ben Orr, who passed away in 2000 - when I think of the group, this is one of the 3-4 songs that comes immediately to mind.

Monday Mashup (2/22/11)

Gee, I wonder how many people in our government are feeling stupid right about now for “normalizing” relations with Libya given some of the apocalyptic rhetoric from that country’s leader-for-life Moammar Gadhafi, saying that he intends to “die a martyr” here?

Yes, I know the process of normalizing diplomatic relations with him began under Clinton and full relations were restored under Dubya, but I still think we’ve cut this guy way too much slack for reasons noted here.

The bottom line is that we and other countries have cozied up to this guy because his country sits on the largest oil reserves in northern Africa (if he were sitting on the world’s largest reserve of thumb tacks, we probably wouldn’t give him the time of day).

And oh noes! It looks like voters are abandoning the Democratic Party, as Fix Noise tells us here…

ABC News' Amy Walter reports: A Gallup analysis of interviews of more than 350,000 Americans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia finds that fewer people defined themselves as Democrats in 2010 than did in 2008.

In fact, notes Gallup "every state and the District of Columbia had fewer residents identifying as Democrats, or identifying as independents but leaning Democratic, in 2010 than in 2008." States carried by Barack Obama in 2008, including New Hampshire, Maine, Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, and Nevada, saw some of the most significant shifts away from Democratic identification. Back in 2008, for example, Democrats had an 18-point lead in party affiliation in Wisconsin. By the end of 2010, however, that lead had shrunk to 2.6 percent.

Cautionary stuff to be sure – however, when you read the linked ABC story, you find out the following…

…as Gallup notes, “the Democratic losses have not led to major gains in Republican affiliation.” In other words, even as they are no longer identifying themselves as Democrats, Americans aren’t flocking in droves toward Republicans either. Still, party identification doesn’t always translate into votes. For example, in West Virginia, self-identified Democrats outnumber self-identified Republicans by 47.6 to 37.9 percent. A Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t won West Virginia since 1996.

Ultimately, it means that the Electoral College map looks much more dynamic today than it did at the end of 2008 or even 2009.

Yep, looks like more congressional seats will be in play in 2012, to say nothing of the presidential contest. And this time around, the House Repugs will have to play defense. And with their wretched performance so far, that should make things really interesting.

Finally, it looks like freshman (woman?) Repug U.S. House Rep Anne Marie Buerkle is all in a snit over the Senate Dems supposedly not “follow(ing) the House’s lead on cutting spending, even if it meant giving up their scheduled week back home,” as noted here.

And this is precious…

“I have only been here 40 days and may be new to the process, but I must wonder why the Senate is taking this week off if they are so concerned about a shutdown on March 4th,” Buerkle said in a statement.

The U.S. House under The Orange One and that sleazy weasel Cantor work, quite literally, two weeks on and one week off (name for me any other occupation that allows that), as noted here. And Buerkle has the gall to lecture Senate Democrats about work habits?

Besides, as noted here, Buerkle should really speak to the House Majority Leader on the matter of averting a shutdown…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Tuesday that he was taking two actions he said are aimed at averting a government shutdown after March 4.

He said he is introducing a bill temporarily extending federal funding for 30 days, to give time for spending talks with the Republican House, and that he has appointed an emissary to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to lead the talks over funding for the rest of the year.

Reid has tapped his chief of staff, David Krone, to begin negotiations with Boehner’s chief of staff Barry Jackson.

And in response…

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Tuesday blasted a proposal from Democrats to keep the government running for another 30 days at current spending levels.

So basically, Cantor wants the Dems to cave before negotiations even begin (kind of like what Hosni Mubarak Walker wants the public sector unions to do in Wisconsin).

I will admit, though, that Buerkle is probably the perfect spokesperson for the U.S. House Repugs and their “down the rabbit hole” approach to “governance” based on this (at least Mikey had enough of a brain to oppose the Patriot Act, which is more than I can say for this cornflake).

More Partisan Mikey Musings On Wisconsin

I give you the latest from Bucks County, PA’s conservative newsletter (here)…

Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick said Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is doing the "right thing for his state" and called government bureaucracy "the next bubble."

"I've got to tip my hat to any governor willing to take on that bureaucracy," Fitzpatrick said Monday night. "We can't just load that debt onto future generations."

Putting aside Mikey’s typical boilerplate idiocy about the situation in Wisconsin, I should ask the following: If Fitzpatrick is supposedly so concerned about the deficit, then why is he fighting tooth and nail to repeal health care reform, which would only add to it (and when even the Washington Times reports on that here, I would say that that pretty much eliminates any further wingnut argument).

(I should note, by the way, that Mikey The Beloved said that and some other ripe stuff at a “town hall” meeting in Philadelphia among local U.S. congressional Repugs in which the only Dem who appeared was Chaka Fattah.)

Continuing…

(Fitzpatrick) also spoke of the GOP's allowing debate on the House floor as a significant change from the last Congress; the need for tort reform to bring down health care costs; and why he voted to reduce funding for the Public Broadcasting System.

"I support public broadcasting personally," he said, adding that he has written checks to PBS. "Today there is less need for significant federal support as there was in the 1960s or '70s. We just don't have the money with a $1.6 trillion deficit."

The part about the Dem congress supposedly not allowing debate on the House floor is a typical lie (as if he would know since he wasn’t even there at the time). The process of submitting amendments was regulated, I’ll admit, but that’s because his party sought to gum up the legislative process by submitting amendments that had nothing to do with actual legislation, as they did here on April 20th, 2009 concerning a Washington, D.C. voting rights bill – the Repugs inserted an amendment to loosen the district’s gun laws (and what exactly does owning a gun have to do with voting?).

(Also, as far as trying to defund public broadcasting is concerned – yet another Repug “golden oldie” from the days of Baby Newton Leroy as House Speaker – I give you this.)

Returning to Wisconsin, though, it really tells you how out-of-touch Mikey is that he isn’t even conversant on the actual issues in that state and instead lapses by default into “GOP talking g point” mode when asked about it. If it were merely a matter of “bureaucracy” (meaning what, exactly?), then why are the unions of the police and firemen exempt from Walker’s efforts to strip collective bargaining rights of public sector employees? Oh, right – because, in their stupidity, they actually endorsed Walker in the last election (and. And by the way, here and here are more non-reported tricks by Walker in this fiasco, particularly timely with Mikey waxing stupid as usual on Medicaid, and here is another consequence of Walker’s prior union-busting activities – wonder how this somehow wasn’t prominently played up in the election?

Continuing with the “town hall,” I should note that I really got a hoot out of this…

Joey Vento, owner of the city's popular Geno's Steaks, told the crowd to clean up the fraud in the entitlement programs. He asked how you could give health care to 30 million people and save money over 10 years. "I've got a bridge to sell you if you believe that."

Fortunately for us all, nobody elected Joey Vento to a damn thing (try reading this, wise guy – and by the way, your sandwiches stink too…go here instead).

This is more typical non-reporting by Gary Weckselblatt of the Courier Times, and when I criticize him as I often must do, I usually implore him to make a career change. However, this time, I think I’ll try to expedite the process by linking here instead.

The Repug non-jobs agenda drags on...

Update 1: I originally said that the police and firemen in Wisconsin endorsed Walker, which, for the most part, isn't true based on this.

Update 2: And of course, Mikey is definitely on the wrong side of the issue as many believe based on this.

Monday Stuff

Truly, the whole world is watching Wisconsin, as noted here...



...and "every time you close our eyes," you can expect the Repugs and their pals (including chicken Dems) to steal more of our rights (here).

Sunday Stuff

Once more, I'm about a day or so behind on Rachel Maddow's fabulous reporting on what's going on in Wisconsin and how high the stakes truly are; here is her report from Friday.

(By the way, at about 11:00, she notes that part of the Repug strategy is to either discourage or disenfranchise younger voters who traditionally vote Democratic. In these parts, that was accomplished by the infamous Ciervo/Fitzpatrick letter in the last campaign, which basically provided confusing instructions that more or less encouraged entering the wrong address on the absentee ballot application which would result in the absentee ballot getting disqualified, one tactic employed by the Repugs as part of their "voter caging" strategy. The silence on this from the local media in these parts is deafening...as I've said before, a US attorney should be looking at that and that "PA Voter Assistance Office" stuff by the Dems)...



...and read whatever you want to into this, I just like the tune (and kudos to Colin Meloy for the item noted here at the bottom - heh).

More Anti-Obama Agit-Prop From Rummy The Liar

CNN lapped up the following garbage from our former Defense Secretary here (maybe he figured that everyone would be paying so much attention to Wisconsin that no one would notice)...

(Rummy) said there's no evidence to support the premise that the United States is "liked" more now that Obama is president, an idea touted by his supporters.

"No, and I don't think there's data that supports that," Rumsfeld said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think he has made a practice of trying to apologize for America. I personally am proud of America."

As noted here from last June (the most recent data I could find)...

(Around the world) Obama is broadly popular. Majorities or pluralities in 16 of the 22 countries Pew surveyed expressed at least some confidence in the U.S. president to do the right thing regarding world affairs.

This includes 90 percent of Germans, 76 percent of Japanese, and 84 percent of Nigerians. Only 14 percent of Germans, 25 percent of Japanese, and 55 percent of Nigerians expressed confidence in Bush during his last year in office. After a spike in anti-Americanism during the Bush administration, the U.S. image abroad has recovered. America's favorability is now on par with that found at the end of President Bill Clinton's time in office, 1993 to 2001. Responders in 17 of the 21 foreign countries had a positive view of the United States, and favorability improved markedly in Russia, China, and Japan, all key players on the world stage.

Continuing with his CNN nonsense...

He said he's "deeply worried about the budget" and that the country needs to start saving money now.

"My goodness, every year the Congress was stuffing $10 billion down the Pentagon's throat that we didn't want," Rumsfeld said. "There's no question that there's money there."

If Rummy had an ounce of common sense (or a tad less egotism), he would know not to "go there." As noted here...

War funding appropriations began skyrocketing under the Bush administration, growing from $10 billion in 2001 to $189 billion in 2008. Facing mounting costs of the ill-considered Iraq invasion, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began using war appropriations as backdoor budgets to disguise the unexpected expenses.

Rumsfeld seemed to have become addicted to the secret spending. He realized he could hide other programs in the war bills. Since those bills were theoretically funding “emergency” battlefield requirements, they were barely scrutinized as they were sped through Congress. Without safeguards like due diligence and oversight, Rumsfeld’s Pentagon began routinely categorizing low priority programs as “emergency” necessities.

Given all of this, I guess it's appropriate that Rummy would call his tome "Known and Unknown," since he's plainly leaving it up to us to decide which is which (and as usual, with no help from the corporate media slaves fawning over him in zombie-like adulation).

Update: Oh, and my bad for not noting earlier Rummy's claim that Bushco wouldn't have invaded Iraq without WMD here, when this tells us that Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History was plainly intent on doing so regardless, claiming that Saddam Hussein "would still have the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction" (lather, rinse, repeat - sigh).

A Note About Wisconsin

(I was going to add this as a comment to a prior post, but it got too long, so I thought I would just post about this separately.)

As I've been watching all of this play out in Wisconsin along with most of the rest of the country, I'm getting a pretty good understanding of the who, what, when and how of this story. Yes, it's the top 7 conservative organizations that contributed to the 2010 campaign to get all of these horrible Republicans elected so they could wage economic war on labor unions as a result of the catastrophic Citizens United Supreme Court decision. That answers the "who" part of this story. Either capitalizing on existing economic crises or creating new ones as Walker did by rewarding his business pals to create the deficit that he's using as an excuse to eliminate public sector employee bargaining rights...well, that gives us an understanding of the "what" piece, in terms of the strategy. "When" is right now and for the foreseeable future, and the "how" kind of ties into the "what," including the Koch Brothers and their pals pulling the puppet strings of those moronic teabaggers whose brains have been turned to mush by Fix Noise and conservative-friendly media in general including right-wing talk radio.

But what I don't get about this is the "why." Yes, I understand that it's about making money ultimately and about consolidating political and economic power into the more-and-more concentrated hands of the "pay no price, bear no burden" investor class. But for a long time, I never understood the urgency about this.

And then I saw a news story earlier today about how Governor Jerry Brown was more than happy to take any federal funds that Rick Scott of Florida, Walker, Kasich in Ohio or Governor Bully in New Jersey (and probably Corbett in PA, given enough time) were refusing for rail infrastructure projects.

That would be Jerry Brown of California, people.

You remember how Karl Rove and his pals spent millions to get Carly Fiorina elected to the U.S. Senate over Barbara Boxer in that state, as well as Meg Whitman over Brown? And you remember that they both lost?

And do you remember the reason why they both lost?

In a word, Latinos.

Latinos have organized into a powerful voting bloc as we know. And the complexion of this country is getting more brown by the day, to the point where all of those zany teabaggers with their racist signs and funny hats (to say nothing of Karl and his pals) are going to be the minority sooner than they’d like to admit.

And before that happens, they want to make sure they have every possible judicial, legislative, and economic benefit that they can possibly get.

So basically, if we deny the Repugs now, their advantage will eventually diminish over time, since Latinos will overwhelmingly vote Democratic. The shadows, if you will, are longer for them than they are for us.

That doesn’t give the rest of us an excuse to sit on the sidelines, though. The Republicans want now what they have wanted for at least 50 years, and that is the destruction of the middle class, to the point where all of us will have to organize just to survive, whether we like it or not.

However, organizing to achieve basic economic and political rights is something Latinos know about very well. And when you do, it’s a lot easier to understand who opposes you and who supports you.

Those lines have been drawn as clearly as possible in Wisconsin. So when we find those lines drawn in our own state, city or county, we shouldn’t act surprised. Just do in response what Latinos do, and relearn the lesson that too many of us have forgotten, which has a lot to do with how we ended up in this mess to begin with.

Update 2/20/11: Oh, and in response to this utterly lame New York Times account of how Walker's goal is merely "shrinking" collective bargaining rights (of course, no mention of the fact that leaders of the respective unions are willing to negotiate if Walker takes his idiotic demand off the table), I give you this.

Saturday Stuff

"Bake sales versus billionaires" - yep, that about nails it here, people (and as usual, our corporate media totally misses the story, by design I'm sure)...



Update 2/20/11: I think this is a timely (for tomorrow's holiday) and fascinating bit of history for the occasion.

...and these guys were mentioned in the Sunday New York Times magazine; so far, this is the only video of theirs that I can find without naughty words.

Friday Stuff

Ed Schultz gives us a taste of how serious the stakes are in Wisconsin right now here (and Rachel Maddow's reporting on this over the past week, connecting the dots, has been fantastic - I can't put up the videos because of MSNBC's awful upload non-capability, so just click here and search for yourself).

Oh, and one more thing..."Club for Growth"? Attacks on unions orchestrated by "hedge fund managers"? Any of this ringing a bell, all of you PA morons who voted for Pat Toomey last November?...



...and I was wondering how long it would be before someone took the pompous bombast of Chris Smith and stuck it right in his metaphorical ear, but Dem House Rep Jackie Speier of California did it here - kudos to her for her courage, and pox on Smith and others of his foul ilk, including a certain waste of DNA from PA-16...



...and here's something mellow and a bit edgy for the long (for us all, I hope) weekend.

Friday Mashup (2/18/11)

Crazy Tom Coburn of Oklahoma imparts the following to us today at the WaPo (here, on the economy of course)…

“…in the coming budget debate, everything has to be on the table. There can be no sacred cows and pet priorities.”

Sweet Jeebus, that’s way too damn funny (though in a “gallows humor” kind of way, I’ll admit). As noted here…

This bastard voted YES for tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. He voted YES to exempt them from the estate tax. He voted YES to give these same rich people additional benefits in the form of capital gains tax cuts. Yet, somehow he had the balls to vote NO on taking care of the 9-11 responders who risked everything to respond to the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil on the grounds that it's too expensive. How can he possibly rationalize this?

Oh, and as the post notes, the 9/11 First Responders fund will be available for only five years. Nice.

And it’s interesting to me that the 1st Republic 14th Star poster mentioned Alan Grayson, referencing his “die quickly” quote about the Republicans and those without health care, particularly because of this.

Next, I give you last week’s Area Votes in Congress here, and I’d like to highlight two in particular (and I already gave Mikey The Beloved credit for voting against the Patriot Act renewal…the first was by the House)…

Food, water, toys. Voting 178-242, the House defeated a Democratic bid to ensure that committee reviews conducted under HJ Res 72 uphold regulations that keep children's toys safe and protect the nation's drinking-water and food supply. There was no debate on the motion.

A yes vote backed the Democratic motion.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Fattah, Holden, and Schwartz.

Voting no: Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

So the Repugs are against upholding regulations to keep our food and water safe along with children’s toys (and I’m sure the Bucks County Courier Times will write a clarification to this shortly saying “oh, this was another ‘gotcha’ move by the Dems to make the Repugs look bad” or something, kind of like the way they leapt to Saint Mikey’s defense this week over his vote that basically supported offshoring our jobs, with the paper saying “oh, it was just a procedural vote to table the measure” or something…I cannot for the life of me recall such clarifications over votes by Patrick Murphy).

Now for the second (turning to the Senate)…

Airport body scans. The Senate voted, 96-1, to make it a federal crime to publicly distribute body-scan images from security checkpoints at airports, federal courthouses, and certain other public buildings. The amendment was attached to a Federal Aviation Administration bill (S 223) that remained in debate. It follows the recent posting of thousands of full-body images on the Internet. Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) cast the negative vote.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Chris Coons (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), and Pat Toomey (R., Pa.).

Not voting: Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

I don’t call Coburn crazy for nothing, people.

In addition, this from Fix Noise tells us how the House Repugs have “lobotomized” the EPA (cute). In response, allow me to point out the following from here…

Rapid irreversible melting of one third to two thirds of earth's permafrost, will add huge amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, accelerating warming, reports the National Ice and Snow Data Center (NSIDC). Permafrost melt lakes portend the destabilization of the Arctic's landscapes and ecosystems and emissions of greenhouse gases CO2 and CH4.

I will, however, that Fix Noise as a group are subject matters on this topic (the effects of lobotomies, I mean).

Also, speaking of the Bucks County Courier Times, the paper gave a Thumbs Down citation to County Commissioner Charley “I Have A Semi-Open Mind” Martin for the following (here)…

To county Commissioner Chairman Charley Martin for promoting his unproven and inexperienced Republican colleague, Robert Loughery, to vice chairman on Loughery's first day on the job.

Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia had sought the post. But the lone Democrat was rejected when Martin broke a tie vote and awarded the job to Loughery, who was appointed to the board and not elected. Ellis-Marseglia not only is much more experienced, she is the board's top vote-getter.

Oh well, just another in a long line of partisan decisions that have long emanated from Doylestown.

Kind of makes you wonder why the paper just went along with the decisions of some judges behind closed doors to give the commissioner job to one of Martin’s pals instead of calling for a special election, but what’s done is done.

Finally, I haven’t checked up on The Doughy Pantload for a little while, but as noted here, not much has changed (I suppose he’s commenting on the recent uprisings in Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Iran also)…

Liberals, who were once naively optimistic about democracy promotion, turned dour when President Bush became naively optimistic about it.

In response I’d like to share the following; kind of a tie-in to President’s Day which we’ll observe on Monday.

I give you FDR on democracy (here - an ever-timely reminder)…

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group...

(By the way, he said this at a time when actual fascism was in power in Italy, as opposed to the phony kind Goldberg alleged in his book.)

I also give you Harry Truman on the same topic (here)…

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice.

Next, I give you JFK (and how true these words are particularly now)…

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

Also, here is Lyndon Johnson on democracy (again, how true)…

We preach the virtues of democracy abroad. We must practice its duties here at home. Voting is the first duty of democracy.

Here is what Jimmy Carter once said on this subject...

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself- always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

And finally, Bill Clinton on democracy (here)…

"Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right in America."

If you think there’s anything like naïve optimism at work here, let me know, OK?

Thursday Stuff

Rachel Maddow connects the dots beautifully here on the Repugs and their (and I hesitate to say this, but it fits pretty well here) "war" on public employees (she should get an Emmy or a Cable ACE award or something for this, but she won't - I came across some pundit over the last few days wondering what it would take to stage pro-democracy uprisings in this country; I think we have our answer...a shame that most of Wisconsin apparently slept last November on Election Day, but they're making up for it now - here is an update)...



...and in another context, I think this tune works (sorry, no video - posting questionable again for tomorrow).

Thursday Mashup (2/17/11)

I know we just can’t get enough of more bogus polling analysis from former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm, and he delivers again here…

President Obama's done a lot of talking recently about Winning the Future. Trouble is, he's not. Politically.

At this moment -- 57% of the way through a first term with only 628 days left until the 2012 presidential election -- the Democrat can only tie any conceivable Republican candidate (according to a new Gallup poll).

Oh, and did you know that Obama’s support among 18-to-34-year-old voters has “evaporated” from 63 to 51 percent?

In response, Media Matters tells us the following here…

The question didn't assess Obama's standing vis-a-vis "any conceivable Republican candidate" -- it assessed his standing versus a generic Republican candidate about whom respondents know nothing. That's pretty much the opposite of "any conceivable Republican candidate."

Though I will acknowledge that whoever emerges from the Repug field with the presidential nomination will have their party’s support locked up I’m sure based on this.

Next, as noted here, Dem U.S. House Rep Betty McCollum of Minnesota wants to cut the Army’s budget for NASCAR sponsorship (awwww).

Well, considering that all of our services achieved 100 percent of their recruiting goals last year (with the Marine Corps Reserve hitting 125 percent), except for the Army National Guard (which achieved 95 percent) as noted here, as a taxpayer, I have no problem with saving some greenbacks on this (let some corporate sponsors pick up the tab – if they’re advertising at NASCAR events, somehow I’m sure they can afford to pony up some extra bucks).

Update 2/18/11: Like flatulence after indigestion - nice (h/t Daily Kos)

In addition, “Z on TV” is back to dump on MSNBC again, telling us here, among other things, that “all of MSNBC prime time is sinking in the ratings.”

I have no reliable data on the recent ratings of “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell, but if he’s having a tough time, I’m not surprised. To be fair, he has to fill the shoes of the network’s marquee performer who has since departed, and he also has to build up his own audience brand loyalty at the same time (that’s why I thought Ed Schultz would have been a better fit for the 8-9 slot, since he has a longer history of attracting and keeping a media audience and he seems to take to the role of a pit bull for the left, if you will, more naturally, though O’Donnell is no slouch when it comes to generating controversy either).

But are Rachel Maddow’s ratings “sinking”? Not according to these recent data, (and yes, that is grammatically correct) which shows her winning the 9-10 slot over Piers Morgan of CNN (and for Zurawik to compare Maddow or anyone else to Fix Noise, ratings wise, is typically disingenuous since they usually win those prime time slots anyway, sadly enough).

Also, this Daily Kos post tells us that Current TV, Keith Olbermann’s new home, is in a very similar position viewership-wise to MSNBC prior to the first episode of “Countdown” in 2003 (so much for Keith being “newly marginalized by his move to Current TV”).

Zurawik is a typically loathsome corporate media shill who worships at the altar of his “betters,” particularly a certain 44th-president-baiting Fix Noise bully and loudmouth (as noted, with other stuff, from the third bullet here).

Finally, James Taranto of the Murdoch Street Journal opined here about the brutality that CBS News correspondent Lara Logan suffered recently in Egypt (I really wanted to avoid saying anything about this, but as usual, the wingnuts somersaulted over the line of decency – I hope all goes well for Logan, and I hope those responsible for anything she suffered are drawn and quartered and/or fed to the buzzards).

Taranto is actually fair to a point here, criticizing not only someone named Nir Rosen, about whom I know nothing, but his ideological fellow travelers also for taking their commentary on this to extremes (though I didn’t see anything about this, this, this, this, this or this...the final link includes some of the prior ones). Towards the end of his post, though, Taranto manages to equate Logan’s ordeal with criticism of Sarah Palin, as well as Bill Maher’s recent joke about Elisabeth Hasselbeck in which he mentioned Logan.

I put up the video of Lawrence O’Donnell’s interview with Maher here in which this was noted, and I can assure you that, had Maher or the rest of us known the true nature of Logan’s ordeal, no one would have been joking over it. And it is typically despicable for Taranto or anyone else to suggest otherwise.

Wednesday Stuff

And oh yeah, it looks like Scalia and Thomas of The Supremes haven't been too forthcoming on the whole financial disclosure thing concerning all of their little parties with their "pay no price, bear no burden" pals...



...and it looks like it was nothing but a non-stop "laff riot" with those zany CPAC-ers ("Stop, You're Killing Me!" - yeah, I wish...and yes, that's only a joke)...

The Daily Show - C-SNAP
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

...and I more or less had this song on my mind in response to this story - once more, PROG ROCK LIVES!...



...and I'm feeling a little generous, so here's another tune (don't know about posting tomorrow either - we'll see).

Wednesday Mashup (2/16/11) (updates)

Oh yes, isn’t it just awful that those baad autoworkers at “Government” Motors received bonuses while still taking taxpayer dough (here – of course, nary a peep has been heard from wingnut media over this).

Next, even on the exceedingly rare occasion when our Repug PA-08 U.S. House Rep “Mikey The Beloved” Fitzpatrick actually does something right, he still acts like a total wanker about it (here)…

On Monday night, Fitzpatrick voted against the Patriot Act, one of 27 Republicans to do so. After a 275-144 vote, the bill now goes to the Senate.

He said amendments that protect the civil liberties of individuals are no longer in the bill, which he voted for in 2005.

Specifically, he said, he opposes roving wiretaps that permit the federal government to listen in as someone moves from place to place. If a citizen, for example, visits a relative, that relative would then be wiretapped. Should they then go to a friend's home, that person's residence would then be bugged.

He said he's also against the FBI getting a "business records provision" that would allow the agency to find out, for example, what books an individual has checked out of a library over a 10-year period. "I'm for the Patriot Act, but only if the civil liberties of individuals under the Constitution are honored," he said.

The only difference between the Patriot Act that Fitzpatrick voted for in 2005 and the one which he voted against renewing now is that the illegal activity carried out by the telecoms in the original bill that he supported in ’05 was legalized by a Democratic congress, to its eternal shame and disgrace, here. Of course, he can now blame the opposition party for what had been taking place all along anyway (as noted here, the Patriot Act basically shreds the Bill of Rights and beyond, no matter which party is in charge of the House). And yes, this is a trap that the House Dems who were once in charge should have anticipated (and all of this sudden supposed interest in civil liberties by Mikey is just a sop to the teabaggers anyway).

And for good measure, Mikey also inflicts the following…

As vice chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, Fitzpatrick said his goal is to "remove the taxpayer as the backstop" for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie Mae has been subsidized to the tune of $1.5 billion a week, Fitzpatrick said, adding that the cost is closing in on $200 billion. In addition, he said taxpayers have spent $160 million defending the companies' top executives in lawsuits.

He said his committee is looking into getting back those attorney fees.

Wow, I'm sure that will kick-start the moribund jobless picture, won't it?

Continuing...

While he said he's for seeing "first time homebuyers get their piece of the American dream," he also said, "We can't keep pushing people into homes they can't afford."

He criticized the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act for doing just that. CRA encouraged banks to help get low-income borrowers into homes.

"The federal government forced them to do it," he said of risky loans. "Who's surprised it came crashing down? + It's highly fixable because we know how we got there.

First of all, criticizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the meltdown is typically absurd, as noted here. And if you don’t want to believe me, believe Dean Baker, who tells us from the link that Fannie and Freddie were “trailing the exuberance of the private sector” in their admittedly unwise deals.

Second, as noted here, the Community Reinvestment Act “did not contribute to the economic crisis in any substantive way” according to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

I don’t call Fitzpatrick “Mikey The Liar” for nothing, people (of course, Heaven forbid that Mikey’s designated stenographer Gary Weckselblatt would perform some simple Google searches and find out this stuff - can’t have anything interfering with the narrative, after all - though finding a way to take a shot at Jimmy Carter also was an unusually creative touch for a change, though I don't know between he and Mikey who came up with that one).

In addition, it’s nice to know that “Governor Bully” is preoccupied with “serious” issues like this one (notice I didn’t say “weighty”…the wingnut umbrage will begin momentarily). He can’t have anything besmirching the good name of the Garden State, I know.

I guess, as far as he’s concerned, this is a nice diversion from the fact that he blew about $400 million in education funding (here), killed one of this country’s largest public works projects (and he wasn't involved with the alternative noted here), and took a vacation to Disney World while he state dug out of an epic snowstorm (here), but somehow was able to pony up the dough for the Atlantic City casinos (here).

The soap opera goes on.

Update: And of course he peddles this dookey in front of the AEI, who were probably orgasmic over it.

Update 2/17/11: Uh, yep (h/t Atrios)...

Also, we have former Bushco flak Marc Thiessen bloviating as follows (here, concerning the recent events in Egypt)…

When the protests first erupted, ordinary Egyptians appeared to hope - almost to expect - that once they rose up to demand their freedom, America could not help but stand with them. Instead, they heard President Obama's handpicked envoy, Frank Wisner, declare that Hosni Mubarak "must stay in office" to oversee the changes he had ordered. They heard Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declare the United States backed "the transition process announced by the Egyptian government" (which then consisted of Mubarak staying in power until September). And they waited in vain for Obama himself to speak out clearly and align America with the democratic revolution they had set in motion. Soon their hopes gave way to disappointment and eventually anger. Demonstrators began carrying signs that declared "Shame on you Obama!" and showed Mubarak depicted as Obama in his iconic "hope" image - with a caption that read "No You Can't."

Boy, that’s weak even for Thiessen – here is the post that he links to, in which there’s no mention made of the possibility that the imagery of the Mubarak poster is meant as a criticism of Obama (if anything, it looks like it's meant as an imitation). And of course, Thiessen provides no link to the alleged “Shame on you Obama!” posters.

Actually, as noted here, Obama was trying to help get Mubarak out with a "peaceful transfer of power" and new rules on presidential elections, so much so that Deputy Minister for Galilee and Negev Development Ayoub Kara of the Israeli government told Repug presidential nominee Mike Huckabee (yes, I’m serious) that he was “disappointed by Obama’s turning his back” on Mubarak.

On top of that (and speaking of neocons), Elliott Abrams says here (as you might expect) that it’s important for Obama to imitate Former President Nutball in all of this (or something – so then, as far as Thiessen is concerned, is he admitting that Dubya had it wrong too?).

Finally, in the midst of all of the justified outrage over the latest from House Speaker John (“So Be It”) Boehner, it’s easy to forget that he said “everything is on the table” here when it comes to entitlement spending (of course, as I’ve said before, he can pretend to be a spendthrift now that the Repugs got their stinking tax cuts last year in the lame duck session – and you’d better damn believe that they’ll be back for more, unemployment be damned…also, it’s nice to see Boehner’s “firm hand” at work in control of the spoiled children composing the House majority here).

I thought Rachel Maddow had a nice feature on some of the comical budgeting of the House Repugs here (she had another good feature on Boehner last night - I'll try to track down the video).

Tuesday Stuff

(Hopefully back to posting tomorrow...)

A particularly appropriate question given this revolting development (South Dakota keeps voting against this stuff, Repug politicians keep introducing these horrific bills - lather, rinse, repeat; to support the ad, click here)...



...and "so be it," Orange Man (here)? And oh please, some wingnut remind me once more how awful Nancy Pelosi is - tell me when the spaceship lands...



Update 2/21/11: And of course, Boehner's cruel and ridiculous remark was dutifully ignored by our corporate media stenographers (as noted here, among other observations...h/t Atrios).

...and take a bow, all you idiot voters who bought the typical Repug crap on this issue last November (and I'm not going to waste a second of my life trying to source any of this nonsense)...



Update 2/16/11: More here and here...

...and yes, I know this is a commercial for the Democratic Party - tough (my response to "news" at practically any corporate media site anywhere telling us the latest about Palin and the teabaggers, no matter how mundane)...



...and RIP Kenneth Mars, one of the greatest comic character actors who ever lived...



...and I'll grant you that I never liked the newly-elected House Repug majority anyway, but I still think this song is apropos.

Monday Stuff

RIP George Shearing...



...and once more, when it's time for no-holds-barred, bring-the-hammer-down, speaking-truth-to-power editorializing - well, that means it's time for Jon Stewart...



...and this tune comes from the days when performers wrote something called "protest songs" (you can Google it), and this is a cover of a seminal Bob Dylan anthem performed by Steve Earle (introduced by the late Howard Zinn - fits Rummy to a "t"...the mike feedback gets better at about 2:30)...



...and oh yeah, before I forget, Happy Valentine's Day (carrying on the tradition).

Monday Mashup (2/14/11)

Oh, and by the way, before people start losing their minds over stories like this, read this and pay particular attention to the paths of the red and blue lines in the chart over the rest of this decade, OK?

Yes, Obama knows about the bloody debt already (and for the two trillionth time, it’s about jobs anyway as opposed to everything else). Can we all just get a grip and try acting like adults?

Also, I thought ProPublica had a good interview here with former PA DEP Secretary John Hanger, who served under former Governor Ed Rendell – what follows are some excerpts…

Q: One of the recurring issues around the growth of gas drilling is that, even if laws are in place, they need to be enforced. Does Pennsylvania have enough inspectors to oversee the industry as it continues to grow?

It does as of this moment, but I've been saying for two years that's a question that has to be asked and answered every year. As the industry grows, the answer I think will be no, if we stay with the current staffing. We hired in 2009. We hired in 2010. And if we were still in charge of the department, we would probably end up hiring again in 2011, depending on what's going on with the industry.

Q: Can that realistically be done?

Of course it can be done. If needed, and I'm not prepared to say today that it's needed, the state or a governor needs to make this a top priority and then it can happen. That's what we did. We raised the fee. ...You could raise the fee, you could restructure the fee, and you could tax the industry, how about that idea?

[Former Governor Ed Rendell and Hanger tried unsuccessfully to persuade the state legislature to levy a tax on natural gas extraction.] It's absolutely vital that this industry pay a reasonable drilling tax. That's why every other state has assessed a drilling tax. It's because there are actually winners and losers.

Are you feeling all warm and fuzzy about ripping the Marcellus Shale wide open after reading that last sentence? Neither am I...

Q: Does Pennsylvania have the laws it needs to make sure the drilling industry takes (the path of developing a “culture of safety”)?

I think there are a couple of areas where further work needs to be done, at a minimum. One is the bonding law [which requires that drillers post bonds to cover the cost of plugging and reclaiming wells that are no longer producing]. The bonding rate in Pennsylvania is scandalously low: It's ridiculous.

[Also], it would make good environmental and economic sense to have a spacing and pooling rule on the books. The details need to get worked out, but essentially, what it would do is say that wells cannot be closer than X. I've thrown out somewhere between one and two miles apart... And that gas can in fact be pooled as long as any gas used from an unwilling mineral owner is compensated for it at certainly the fair market value. [Because a single well can often drain gas from several properties, “pooling” laws sometimes allow drillers to extract that gas over the objection of some of the landowners.] Most other states have some provision like that.

So basically, the short answer to the "culture of safety" question is no. I also felt that Hanger dodged the question of who should be responsible for ensuring the environmental safety of fracking chemicals, assuming it is possible to provide that assurance (and I kept telling myself as I read this that Hanger was someone who I honestly believe was in our corner on a lot of this stuff, though at times I wondered).

Hanger’s successor at the PA Department of Environmental Protection in the Tom Corbett administration is Judge Michael Krancer; as noted here, he has been a judge on the PA environmental hearing board for the past ten years. At this point, I would say that Judge Krancer is entitled to the benefit of the doubt in his new role, and of course we wish him luck (he’ll need it, as will we all).

Update 3/3/11: Here comes that sinking feeling again (here - h/t Atrios).

Next, I think this is an appropriate time to revisit a certain Repug PA-08 U.S. House rep on the issue of jobs; as noted here from a few months ago, “Mikey The Beloved” Fitzpatrick opposed tax cuts for supposed job creation in 2005, but made noises like he supported them last year (oh, and if you read through all of the post from last October, try not to laugh too hard when you read Mikey complain about how his predecessor attended a Nancy Pelosi fundraiser, given Mikey’s own issues with such activities last month before he was sworn in…oh, excuse me, I mean to say that Mikey hosted a “reception” with a suggested dollar contribution on the invitation).

Well, given Mikey’s supposed commitment to job creation, you would think his plate would be full of meetings with leaders of startup businesses, groundbreaking ceremonies, announcements of seed funding, other related public works projects, etc.

Well, you would think that would be the case. However, you would be wrong.

As noted here under the heading of “Economy and Jobs” from Fitzpatrick’s congressional web site, there is a clip story of a meeting in which he announces “a small business advisory panel.”

And that’s it (and this gives you an idea of what Fitzpatrick has to exceed, given that his predecessor brought approximately 3,000 jobs to Bucks County).

This is typical for the galling inaction thus far from the Repugs on this topic, though; as noted here, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said that President Obama was “paying lip service to job creation,” when in fact, as noted here (telling you how much Barbour actually cares about the jobless...not!), he rejected $50 million in unemployment funds for his state through the stimulus, a boneheaded move that was overridden by that state’s legislature.

Finally, Peter Baker of the New York Times interviewed former Bushco Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for the latter’s book, as noted here (you would think someone as despicable as Rummy would take the hint, but of course his mirror, if you will, reflects everyone but himself – MoDo actually had a great takedown on him yesterday here).

As to the matter of Rumsfeld supposedly deferring to the military too much (which he states in the Baker interview), I think the following should be noted from here…

Rumsfeld has the nerve to blame others for his many mistakes. "In retrospect, there may have been times when more troops could have helped." But he insists that if senior military officers had reservations about the size of the invading force, they never informed him (according to the Post review).

In reality, Rumsfeld rejected a plan presented to him by General Tommy Franks, the head of Central Command, and his operations director, Air Force Major General Victor "Gene" Renuart, that called for more troops at the time. "Let's put together a group that can just think outside the box completely," ordered Rumsfeld then. "Certainly, we have traditional military planning, but let's take away the constraints a little bit and think about what might be a way to solve the problem."

Outside the box turned out to be easy: Rumsfeld outsourced the dirty, dull and dangerous stuff to Halliburton and Blackwater and paid them handsome profits on the multibillion dollar contracts. His compatriots at the state department dispatched 11 "idealistic volunteers … in their twenties or early thirties [who] had no foreign service experience to run the country". At the same time, Rumsfeld failed to provide working equipment to the soldiers, who were facing an increasingly hostile population.

Then, Iraq turned out to be a powder keg. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in a civil war that ripped the country apart. Thousands of US soldiers, too, were killed by roadside bombs. In December 2004, when Thomas Wilson, a low-ranking soldier from the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld: "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armour our vehicles?" Rumsfeld replied: "You go to war with the army you have."

And on the question of Rumsfeld’s resignation, which eventually occurred waay too long after the fact…

In May 2004, right after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the Economist – hardly a radical rag – ran an editorial titled "Resign, Rumsfeld", adding "responsibility for errors and indiscipline needs to be taken at the top." Nor was it just the "armchair generals" who reached this conclusion. In September 2006, three retired military officers – Major General John Batiste, Major General Paul Eaton and Colonel Thomas X Hammes, all of whom served in senior positions during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, called for Rumsfeld to resign.

…

What the citizens of the US, Iraq and, indeed, the world needed from this man today was an apology, at the very least. Plain and simple. In his 1995 memoir of the US war in Vietnam, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, Robert McNamara, another former US secretary of defence, admitted that he and his senior colleagues were "wrong, terribly wrong" to pursue the war as they did.

If only Donald Rumsfeld would do the same.

Indeed, and Peter Baker of the Times says Rummy was “unhappy at times” with former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, but everything was “handled professionally”? I guess that’s about the kind of whitewash you can expect from Rummy, who, as noted here, said Powell “did not, in my view, do a good job of managing the people under him,” and who said the following about Rice (not that I’m a rush to defend her either, I want to emphasize)…

"She'd never served in a senior administration position," he said. "She'd been an academic. And, you know, a lot of academics like to have meetings. And they like to bridge differences and get people all to be happy."

Oh, and I’m sure Rummy was looking for a little payback at Powell, who once referred to the operation of Douglas Feith, Rummy’s right-hand man, as “the Gestapo” (here), probably in response to Feith's characterization of the State Department under Powell as the "Department of Nice" here (hinted at a bit in Rummy's criticism).

(And as long as we’re discussing Rummy, I couldn’t help but recall this golden oldie…”we don’t have an exit strategy, we have a victory strategy” indeed – actually, of course, they had neither, to say nothing of Rummy’s continued pleasure over the absence of Saddam Hussein to try and cover up untidy stuff like this – and on and on and on…).

Also, Baker had this to say about Rummy’s old boss yesterday (here)…

President Bush, after all, made “ending tyranny in our world” the centerpiece of his second inaugural address, and, although he pursued it selectively, he considers it one of his signature legacies. The very notion of democracy promotion became so associated with him, and with the war in Iraq, that Democrats believed that it was now discredited. Never mind that Republican and Democratic presidents, from Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan, had championed liberty overseas; by the time Mr. Bush left office it had become a polarizing concept.

I’ve read this paragraph multiple times, and I must tell you that I don’t know what the hell Baker is talking about.

I mean, I know that Dubya literally talked about tyranny in his second Inaugural address; as noted here, though, he would tell an audience later that year that “God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq,” and our corporate media reported that with an absolutely straight face (imagine what would happen if a Democratic president were to utter words like that).

But as Pratap Chatterjee of the Guardian noted in his column earlier (written before Hosni Mubarak was forced out in Egypt)…

Today, as the crowds surge forward in Cairo in a valiant attempt to topple dictators in the Middle East, they are not quoting Donald Rumsfeld, or his boss George Bush, or recalling the removal of Saddam Hussein. Rather, in their desperate plea to be heard, they are chanting slogans against both Mubarak and the US, whom they blame for the denial of democracy as well as torture in Egypt's prisons – and in Abu Ghraib.

Saying Dubya “pursued selectively” the goal of “ending tyranny in our world” is more than a disgusting corporate media euphemism. It is an utter lie.

And to associate him with any prior president in an attempt to validate that lie is an obscenity.