Who voted from Obama?

Read it and weep.

That isn't the first.

See here and here and here and here and here and here.

That's the final straw. F*ck "centrism".


Update:

This brilliant thought occurs to me:

If Clinton was the first black president, Obama is the second Clinton president.

He seems to be thinking of how he can get everyone to go along with him ("centrism" or "triangulation", and/or possibly the venal aspirations of re-election), rather than doing anything that is obviously right ... but which some loud-mouthed Rethiglicans might oppose. Clue: No matter what you do, they're going to kick and scream, so get used to it.

Presnident Obama: It gains you nothing to sell your soul.....

Watch the language....

Today, as we hear of the white supremacist (and Obama "birther") who shot and killed a guard at the National Holocaust museum, we have Sean InsHannity going with his usual language even after reporting the shooting, blissfully unaware of the nuances. Here's two "talking points" phrases that jump out at you:

"Conservative Underground"

Yes, this is an underground patriotic movement that is bravely defending All Things A'murkan from the present Socialist fascist occupation gummint ... and everyone knows that underground partisans are in armed (and illegal, by the terms of the nominal gummint) resistance against the Powers That Be.

And:

"Conservatism in exile"

Methinks that's a misspelling of "conservatives in retreat". News-flash for InsHannity: You got voted out [small "d"] democratically. Pretending you got kicked out unjustly, illegally, or by dint of force, just stirs up the rabble. And we have today one more victim of this RW hysteria.

So when do the trials begin?

Republican Senator and former military Judge Advocate Lindsey Graham:

GRAHAM: I am convinced, as an individual senator, as a military lawyer for 25 years, that waterboarding…does violate our war crimes statute and is clearly illegal under domestic and international law. … I don’t think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention Common Article Three, the War Crimes statutes, and many other statutes that are in place.

So let's get on with an investigation, and prosecutions for all who committed, ordered, or aided and abetted, these crimes. That would seem to be a no-brainer as well.

Uhhhh ... <*pssst*> ... Mr. Dionne....

E.J. Dionne makes an astute observation (for once):

If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which you don't. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the Internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.

That's because you folks in the SLCM ... Aren't. Doing. Your. Freakin'. Jobs!!!!

Props to Mr. Dionne for actually pointing this out, but that's just a tad bit like a doctor pointing to a large tumerous mass and saying, "You're gonna die!!!"

Now get to work! Hell, how long has it been since Stephen Colbert raked you over the coals?

Pot callng the kettle black...

The Wall Street Journal opines that Barack Obama's been stealing the Underpants Gnomes' business plan:

Sometimes it takes "South Park" to explain life's deeper mysteries. Like the logic of the Obama administration's policy proposals.

Consider the 1998 "Gnomes" episode -- possibly surpassing Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" as the classic defense of capitalism -- in which the children of South Park, Colo., get a lesson in how not to run an enterprise from mysterious little men who go about stealing undergarments from the unsuspecting and collecting them in a huge underground storehouse.

What's the big idea? The gnomes explain:

"Phase One: Collect underpants.

"Phase Two: ?

"Phase Three: Profit."

Lest you think there's a step missing here, that's the whole point. ("What about Phase Two?" asks one of the kids. "Well," answers a gnome, "Phase Three is profits!") This more or less sums up Mr. Obama's speech last week on Guantanamo, in which the president explained how he intended to dispose of the remaining detainees after both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly against bringing them to the U.S.

They're hardly ones to talk: Republican political theory is largely build on this business model. See, e.g., the Iraq misadventure, "supply-side" economics and "reducing taxes gets more revenue", "just let the markets work", etc. Republican political theory is just surfeit in one-liners, "sound bites", and simplistic ideas that ignore potential complications and externalities (and realities) that might be problematic ... and that are remarkably short on substance (see, e.g., the Republican "budget").

Cows and barn doors....

In the N.Y. Times article linked in my last post, we have this interesting tidbit:

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, said Wednesday that moving detainees to American prisons would bring with it risks including “the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States.”

Like wow.... You know, part of that sentence sounds vaguely familiar for some reason. Do we really have people that can utter this kind of stuff in high positions of gummint?

Certain words just jump right off the page at you....

Dan Froomkin's White House Watch column today has this little tidbit:

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times:

President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a "preventive detention" system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said....

[emphasis added]

And Obama's supposedly a Constitutional law expert. Count me in the "whomp-jawed" column.

The latest conservative star in the N.Y. Times firmament

Heeeeeerrrrreeeee's Ross Douthat!:

At the very least, a Cheney-Obama contest would have clarified conservatism’s present political predicament....

Perhaps. Let's see:

...In the wake of two straight drubbings at the polls, much of the American right has comforted itself with the idea that conservatives lost the country primarily because the Bush-era Republican Party spent too much money on social programs. And John McCain’s defeat has been taken as the vindication of this premise.

<*Shhhhhh!*> [sotto voce] Don't anyone tell them!...


Update:

Some more Douthat:

“Real conservatism,” in this narrative, means a particular strain of right-wingery: a conservatism of supply-side economics and stress positions, uninterested in social policy and dismissive of libertarian qualms about the national-security state. And Dick Cheney happens to be its diamond-hard distillation. The former vice-president kept his distance from the Bush administration’s attempts at domestic reform, and he had little time for the idealistic, religiously infused side of his boss’s policy agenda. He was for tax cuts at home and pre-emptive warfare overseas; anything else he seemed to disdain as sentimentalism.

OIC. Maybe what Douthat means by "conservative" is "RW authoritarian". In that case, maybe Ctheney's just the ticket....

Putting the horse before the cart

The "Dean" of Beltway Journalism, David Broder, explains:

But having vowed to end the practices [of torture], Obama should use all the influence of his office to stop the retroactive search for scapegoats.

Yes, indeed. Searches for scapegoats should always be proactive. How else to stop them before they can embarrass you? And if we're to stop such insidious attacks, we'll need the proper tool... -- ummm, <*Litella-esque*> nevermind.

More nonsense:

Suppose the investigators decide that the country does not want to see the former president and vice president in the dock. Then underlings pay the price while big shots go free. But at some point, if he is at all a man of honor, George W. Bush would feel bound to say: That was my policy. I was the president. If you want to indict anyone for it, indict me.

Is that where we want to go? I don't think so. Obama can prevent it by sticking to his guns.

Why deny Dubya the opportunity and "prevent" it??? Let's let Dubya show that he is a "man of honor". Let's let him step up and tell the world that he thought he did the right thing. And then let the jury decide.

What's truly embarrassing is that Broder is given a prominent forum in which to spew such nonsense. May I suggest eggs and rotten vegetables the next time he gives a public speech.

Why does this need to be said?

Glenn Greenwald, in today's excellent (and devastating) post, makes this unremarkable statement:

People like John McCain argue that only "banana republics" prosecute former political leaders, but the reality is exactly the opposite.

Indeed. Why doesn't the so-called "liberal media" point this out? It is only in a country where the rule of law doesn't hold that "former political leaders" are given a pass ... by dint of being "former political leaders". There, politics is a consideration as to whether someone is "guilty". In a sane and legal state, politicians are treated the same as anyone else ... and if they committed crimes, they are punished.

Granted, a "banana republic" may also prosecute some former political leaders even if no crime was committed ... for political reasons as well (once again, because "politics is a consideration as to whether someone is 'guilty'"), but their failings there are hardly any expiation of the sins of unaccountability for those that escape prosecution because of political considerations. McCain's statement assumes implicitly that no "political leaders" ever commit crimes (except perhaps in "banana republics", but there he assumes that such leaders do get prosecuted). This assumption in not warranted.


Update:

Entirely in accord with Glenn's point, we have this from Michael Dorf:

Criminal charging decisions are indeed partly a matter of reading the applicable laws. But prosecutors, including the Attorney General, also have discretion, and it is hard to imagine that political considerations would not play some role in the determination whether to seek indictments arising out of the detainee abuse.

Yes, indeed, we have to look at this in "context". And who can deny the political implications? And why shouldn't they be considered?!?!? To deny that is to deny reality itself....

Later, Dorf says this:

There is, in addition, a principled basis for not prosecuting the architects of the Bush detainee abuse program: In the long run, to do so could be bad for our democracy.

In non-democratic regimes and fragile democracies, politics is an extremely high-stakes affair because those who win power often use that power to confiscate the property of, imprison, or even kill those who formerly held power. This is why transitions from one government to the next are so fraught outside of stable democracies.

Thus, one of the great, but often unnoticed, virtues of democracy is that it lowers the stakes of politics. Electoral losers know that they will be permitted to enter private life, or regroup and fight another political battle; conversely, winners know that they could lose the next election. Because electoral defeat is a setback but not a personal disaster, politicians across a broad swath of the ideological spectrum stay involved in the system, rather than literally attacking each other.

Prosecution of political opponents threatens to raise the stakes of politics and thus to undercut this important feature of democracy. Lengthy trials of Bush Administration officials for authorizing torture would inevitably be perceived as partisan, and would likely lead to a further cycle of recriminations....

"[R]ecriminations"?!?!? How so? Isn't this assuming that the prosecutions are baseless? If so, make that case first!!!

This is confooo-gabble of the highest order. "Banana republics" and "fragile democracies" suffer from the defect that purely political prosecutions are possible there, and tear at the fabric of their nascent (or non-existent) "democracy", thus, for them, a ban on political prosecution might be justified. But we have a strong democracy. We are thus able to withstand prosecution of political figures. But we shouldn't prosecute political figures because if we do, we risk looking like the "banana republics" that shouldn't be prosecuting political figures, and thus risk becoming such a "banana republic".

He continues:

... One need not think that the U.S. would actually slip into dictatorship to worry about these effects....

And if we're not at risk, what's the problem? That the Rethuglicans might get back in power and do a Lewinskygate "Starr Chamber" again? Hate to break the news, Michael, but they'll do that anyway....

... In this sense, if President Obama or Attorney General Holder makes the political judgment that there is no angle to be found in prosecutions, that decision could also be fairly characterized as a matter of principle.

Just those words need to be considered in their sublime essence.

Extra! Extra! Pot calls the china cup black!

Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall is amased:

I must be mistaken. But I think Foxies Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are on TV whipping each other up into a sudsy lather over NBC's alleged lack of news credibility because of its corporate ownership by GE.

Two words: "Rupert Murdoch".

Josh still hasn't come to terms with the depths of the Rethuglican psychosis. The pathology is sufficient for an entire volume of the APA's Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Clarence Thomas opens up....

Cthulhu save us!

From the N.Y. Times:

“Sometimes, when I get a little down,” Justice Thomas said wearily, he goes online. “I look up wonderful speeches, like speeches by Douglas MacArthur, to hear him give without a note that speech at West Point — ‘duty, honor, country.’ How can you not hear those words and not feel strongly about what we have?”

OK, so now everyone's in the military, eh?....

He continued: “Or how can you not reminisce about a childhood where you began each day with the Pledge of Allegiance as little kids lined up in the schoolyard and then marched in two by two with a flag and a crucifix in each classroom?”

Gotta love that authoritarian bent.

A favorite movie can be a comfort, too.

“I have on many occasions or a number of occasions when things were becoming particularly routine gone down to my basement to watch ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ ” he said. “I can’t tell you why that particular movie, except we have it and it’s about something important in our lives — World War II.”

Yeah, nothing like Hollywood to portray a fictionalized account of WWII bravery and sacrifice. Yanks your heartstrings that Thomas couldn't fight in Vietnam.... Oh well, better luck next time, Clarence....

The event, on March 31, was devoted to the Bill of Rights, but Justice Thomas did not embrace the document, and he proposed a couple of alternatives.

‘Today there is much focus on our rights,” Justice Thomas said. “Indeed, I think there is a proliferation of rights.”

“I am often surprised by the virtual nobility that seems to be accorded those with grievances,” he said. “Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities?”

Indeed. It is no doubt the gummint's duty to make sure we all do what we're told to do. That's it's job, nicht wahr?

He gave examples: “It seems that many have come to think that each of us is owed prosperity and a certain standard of living. They’re owed air conditioning, cars, telephones, televisions.”

And welfare queens are owed Cadillacs. Or so goes the fairy-tale....

Those are luxuries, Justice Thomas said.

“I have to admit,” he said, “that I’m one of those people that still thinks the dishwasher is a miracle. What a device! And I have to admit that because I think that way, I like to load it. I like to look in and see how that dishes were magically cleaned.”

Simple things for simple minds. Thomas missed his calling as a bus boy, I guess.

He was asked how his religious faith influenced his work on the court.

“I think that it really gives content to the oath that you took,” Justice Thomas said. “You say, ‘so help me God.’ ”

Except the Constitution says:

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

“There are some cases that will drive you to your knees,” he added. “In those moments you ask for strength and wisdom to have the right answer and the courage to stand up for it. Beyond that, it would be illegitimate, I think, and a violation of my oath to incorporate my religious beliefs into the decision-making process.”

Well, except requiring the Pledge of Allegiance with "under God" in it ... and various other sundries....

The questions from students were read to Justice Thomas, and the first one seemed to throw him off. “Since the Civil War, what has changed the way Americans view the Constitution the most and why?” an unidentified student asked.

Justice Thomas gave a rambling response, touching on the Fourteenth Amendment, the rights of freed slaves, the application of parts of the Bill of Rights to the states and Justice John Marshall Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court decision that endorsed the doctrine of “separate but equal.”

"[R]ambling". Kind of like not knowing the rationale in the biggest case of the previous term, BSA v. Dale (a case he had signed on to the majority opinion on).

“I’m sure there are other things that have happened,” he said, wrapping up his answer. “So I would have to say just off the top of my head the Fourteenth Amendment. And I bet you someone’s going to hear that and say, well, no, it’s the dormant commerce clause or something.”

That was a curious aside. Few Americans could name the the dormant commerce clause, and it has no obvious connection to how popular views of the Constitution changed after the Civil War. “This job is easy for people who’ve never done it,” Justice Thomas said later. “What I have found in this job is they know more about it than I do, especially if they have the title, law professor.”

Yes, they do. If you find it hard, Clarence, resign!!!!!

Deep thought....

Listening to Michele Bachmann (R-LuluLand) on Sean InsHannity's radio show today, the question occurred to me:

Why do all the Rethuglican Congresscritters sound just like John Birch Society members?

Happy Birthday!!!

I got up this morning and I missed it. Not there in the paper. No note of this wonderful anniversary. I'd plumb forgot, and no one was going to remind me. But ThinkProgress was nice enough to mark the auspicious sixth birthday of our Iraq adventure ... as well as the deafening silence from the M$M ... that owes so much to this adventure, and who should be passing on their "best wishes" for this salutary day.

Richard Cohen: Clueless to the Nth degree

Richard Cohen doesn't like Jon Stewart's legendary dumping on Jim Cramer.

In a Washington Post article, he writes:

What Jon Stewart needs is Jon Stewart. He could use a droll comedian to temper his ferocity and correct him when he's wrong, as he was about the financial media, particularly CNBC and its excitable analyst Jim Cramer. They didn't cover up the story of financial shenanigans. They didn't even know it existed.

For proof, I can offer some names. Let's start with Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, who was instrumental in building what is now probably the world's most reviled corporation, AIG. He resigned as chairman and CEO in 2005, but still it is logical to assume that few people knew more about the company than Greenberg. He kept much of his net worth in AIG stock. He's now lost much of that worth.

Or take Richard Fuld. He is the former chairman of Lehman Brothers, which, as we all know, is no more. He lost about $1 billion.

Or take Citigroup's former chairman, Sanford Weill. He lost about $500 million.

Or take all the good people at Bear Stearns, the company Cramer adored almost to the bitter end. They went down with their stock.

If these people kept their money in these companies -- financial and insurance giants they had built and knew from the inside -- how was even Jim Cramer to know these firms were essentially hollow?

What a pile of bunk(o).

ODM (for eedjits like Cohen, that's "owners, directors, and managers") are compelled to file prospective stock trades well in advance of the transaction date. They can't just bail when the thing's tanking (that's what we might suspect is "insider trading", with a real stiff ticket for violations).

Plus, their stock transactions must be publicly reported ... and when the ODMs are going to sell, you can rest assured that every one else will take notice. And if there's a massive sell by them, everyone else will probably run for the hills as well, so that the stock is assured of tanking. So of course, they wouldn't sell even if they could, if they think they can just keep up <*cough-cough*> "cinfidence" and keep the Ponzi scheme going a bit longer....

Plus, such a sell might well be seen as an admission of guilt. Which may be just as painful.

Cohen admits he's wrong:

Trouble was, Cramer almost instantly sank into a classic case of Stockholm syndrome, agreeing much of the time with his captor. He came with sleeves rolled up but with the droopy eyes of a chastised puppy.

No, not Stockholm syndrome. Cramer, unlike the AIG top dogs, does have a slight sense of shame. He admitted that Stewart was right.

Cohen finishes with:

Stewart plays a valuable role. He mocks authority, which is good, and he mocks those, such as the media, who take the word of authority as if, well, it's authoritative. But given the outsize reception to his cheap shot at business media, he ought to turn his wit inward: Mocker, mock thyself.

Uh-oh. Cohen hasn't learned a thing from this. Stewart didn't jump on Cramer initially; the initial tiff was with Rick Santelli. Then Cramer jumped into the fray ... and got pasted (even though Stewart, in fairness, allowed that his beef wasn't just with Cramer -- "this song isn't about you" -- but rather with CNBC and the rest of the snake oil salesmen as a whole). Now Cohen seems to be begging for Stewart's attention. Hmmmm...... Stay tuned. ;-)

Cheers,

Defending the indefencible

From a Christian Science Monitor article defending the misnamed USA-PATRIOT Act:

By Nathan A. Sales
ARLINGTON, VA. - Remember when the USA Patriot Act was seen as a common-sense counterterrorism tool? Congress enacted the law shortly after the 9/11 attacks by large bipartisan majorities. It wasn't even close.

And for good reason: The Patriot Act made relatively modest changes to the law as it stood on Sept. 11, 2001. The act simply let terrorist- and spy-hunters use some of the same tools regular cops have had in their arsenal for decades. And it updated existing laws to make them more effective against terrorist threats.

To the extent it allowed what was already done, it was superfluous.

As President Obama forges new security policies, let's hope he keeps the Patriot Act intact. The act works. According to the Justice Department, the Patriot Act helped take down Al Qaeda cells in Buffalo, N.Y. and Portland, Ore. Prosecutors used it to convict a Floridian who pled guilty to raising money for a terrorist group called Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And The act led to the conviction of a man who threatened to torch a Texas mosque.

The Department of Justice has lied and/or grossly overstated various "successes". There's nothing in these prosecutions that could not have been done with standard gum-shoe work.

Despite those successes, the act has become a civil libertarian bugaboo. We've all heard how the act poses a dire threat to liberty and privacy. Federal agents can search your house without ever telling you. The feds can force the phone company to reveal whom you've been calling, and they can rummage through library records to find out what books you've been reading....

They can do so without warrants. "National Security Letters", absent oversight of a judge, are allowed. What more pernicious is that there was no way to find out -- at any time -- how many of these were being used. The recipients could not disclose at all that they'd been served with such. And in the aftermath of the USA-PATRIOT Act, thousands of these issued, and these NSLs were being misused.

... They can even brand you a terrorist and throw you in jail if you get in an argument with a flight attendant.

The daily reality is much less dramatic – and much less frightening.

Let's start with the flight attendants. It's been illegal to interfere with airline crews since JFK was president. The Patriot Act made it a crime to attempt or conspire to do what the law already barred.

Then it wasn't necessary. And occasionally drunks and jerks have been snared in this web, to no good reason. While I agree that drunks and jerks ought to behave themselves, it shouldn't be a federal felony with massive fines and jail sentences to be such.

The basic idea behind the change is prevention. We shouldn't have to wait for a passenger to take a crew member's life before we throw the book at him. We should be able to prosecute the steps he takes along the way – ignoring an order to return to his seat, pulling a box cutter from his pocket, and so on.

Hate to say it, but massive penalties for being a jerk are not going to prevent something. If we're talking hijackers, they aren't really looking too much at how many years they'll serve should they be captured and convicted. If you want prevention, you should do stuff -- you know -- to actually prevent airplane hijackings, like maybe stronger cockpit doors (which had been recommended before 9/11) and sky marshals.

There's more such silly argumentation in the article along the same lines.

Nathan A. Sales is a law professor at George Mason University. He previously served at the Department of Justice (where he helped write the Patriot Act) and the Department of Homeland Security.

Oh.

Let's be honest: The USA-PATRIOT Act was a poorly thought out, reflexive after-the-fact response , to pretend that we're doing something ... and an attempt to persuade people that, prior to 9/11, it was legal manacles that had prevented the gummint from doing its job properly, not the incompetence of those in the gummint.

John Galt's conundrum

The Republican flacks for the health insurance industry are saying just a tad more than they should have:

Five senior Republican senators, including Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, and the minority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, warned the president on Thursday that the public option would face opposition from many in their party.

In a letter to Obama, they said that "forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition. Ultimately, we would be left with a single government-run program controlling all of the market."

So if they're required to compete with a new entity, the private "free market" plans would lose? Isn't that a tacit admission that the public plan would be cheaper?

And just how is this not "true competition"? If the private companies can't deliver the services at an attractive price, don't they deserve to go under? Calling John Galt, calling John Galt!!!

CA Prop. 8 oral argument post-mortem

There's plenty of note in the arguments, but here's a few of the early highlights (from this S.F. Chronicle article):

In defending the removal of a previously recognised right via "amendment", here's Ken Starr for the respondents:

"Rights are in the power of the people," said Starr, law dean at Pepperdine University and formerly the special prosecutor in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

Yes, indeed. That's how our country was founded. Your rights are just what the majority (at any time) say they are. Starr opined that the (bare) majority have a right (which shouldn't be taken away) to implement their views. Under a democracy (that believes that a majority should win elections and decide propositions, rather than a minority, a dictator, or necromancy), the majority does in fact have this inherent "right" (or more accurately, advantage). The only reason for putting in actual "rights" into a constitution is to protect them from such majorities. If Starr is correct, then such "rights" as are in the constitution simply fight it out against the majority ... and the majority wins. Which makes a hollow mockery of such rights. Why bother pretending? It is arguable that this is the proper view of the California constitution, as textually read. Which would indicate that this constitution is fundamentally broken.

* * * * *
More:

Starr also argued that Prop. 8 was a modest measure that left the rights of same-sex couples undisturbed under California's domestic-partner laws and other statutes banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The initiative "does not erode any of the bundle of rights that this state has very generously provided," he said, but merely "restores the traditional definition of marriage."

Several justices seemed to agree. Kennard said the voters arguably "took away the label of marriage, but ... left intact most of what this court declared," including unprecedented constitutional protections for gays and lesbians.

But these are provided by the legislature through majority vote, and they can be taken away as well (and Starr, arguing that even free speech protection could be removed from the California constitution by "amendment", can't make a principled claim that these remanent rights couldn't be taken away through similar initiative "amendment"). And if voters, by a 50.001% margin can take away one right (to the "label of marriage") this way, there's no stopping any of the other constitutional rights being removed, so saying that these remain (for now) is cold comfort.

And then there's this portion of the above, which deserves to be highlighted. Starr:

"[The initiative] does not erode any of the bundle of rights that this state has very generously provided,"....

So the state "generously provide[s] rights".... And this from the "conservative" clan, that doesn't trust gummint to do anything right....

New strategies for the Republican caucus

Today we have this gem courtesy of ThinkProgress:

In an interview with Hotline, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) said the Republican party will have to be come an “insurgency” to counter Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, and added that the Taliban can serve as “a model”:

“Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban,” Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. “And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes. And these Taliban — I’m not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that’s not what we’re saying. I’m saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.” […]

When pressed to clarify, Sessions said he was not comparing the House Republican caucus to the Taliban, the Muslim fundamentalist group. “I simply said one can see that there’s a model out there for insurgency,” Sessions said before being interrupted by an aide.

[aide to Sesssions, sotto voce]: "<*psssst*> Pete! STFU! Now!!!"

"A stopped watch" and all that....

Joe the Plumber (a/k/a Joe the guy who can't get a plumber's license a/k/a/ Joe the guy who can't bother to pay taxes a/k/a Joe the moron who thinks that he's worth $250K when he doens't have two dimes to rub together) -- after his illustrious career in newscasting -- has decided to take on the even-more-intellectually-challenging job of Republican party poobah and media star.

But a stopped watch is right twice a day, and all that, so Joe the Plumber did manage to get out one piece of profound wisdom:

"I don't know if the American public deserve me,..."

;-)

He's right, you know. Betcha he won't know how to fix that problem, much less a stopped up toilet.

Limbaugh does the Republican Party a service

His Emanence Rush Limbaugh is acting as the de facto head of the Rethuglican Party (while they wait to see what racist/xenophobe/homophobe/CRW exemplar will get the RNC chair nod). Others disagree on terms (but I suspect not on substance); as the S.F. Chronicle puts it:

But while an Oval Office shout-out may temporarily elevate a man who refers to himself as El Rushbo, it doesn't make Limbaugh the de facto leader of the Republican Party or the conservative movement. He is, analysts say, a "conveyer belt" of information, influencer of the wider talk radio universe and an outside-the-Beltway party whip who reins in wayward Republicans - as in those veering toward political moderation.

"Whenever a national party is in search of its identity, its mojo, figures like Rush will fill the vacuum," said Mike Franc, a vice president for government relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "But in this situation, he doesn't fill the idea. He's more of an idea aggregator."

The real rebuilding of the conservative brand begins Friday when the Republican Party chooses who will be its new party chair. In the absence of a GOP president, House speaker or Senate majority leader, that person will become the face of Republicanism on cable and network chat shows, the party's chief fundraiser and one of conservatism's leaders at a time in which the movement is desperately searching for some leadership.

Well and fine, but the article inadvertently lets slip El Rushbutt's greatest contribution to the Rethuglican Party:

In Congress, Franc of the Heritage Foundation said, many lawmakers pine for Limbaugh's ability to translate complicated policy into simple language and place it in a conservative framework. "There is a lot of Rush-envy there," said Franc, a former staffer for former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a leader of the mid-1990s Republican revolution.

[appropriate emphasis added]

What can I say? I can't argue the need.... ;-)

Maybe the Democrats can give him a hand and not write any bills with words of more than two syllables, at the most.

Negotiating with Republicans

D: "OK, we've won the last two Congressional elections convincingly, we have the presidency, but let's not let the past trouble us. We want to work for the good of the country, and we're willing to listen to your ideas and let you sit at the table and work together with us...."

R: <*snarl*> <*growl*> "Ayers." "Barack the Magic Negro." "You want us to bend over..."

D: "No, really. We want to work with you. We don't want you to feel left out and angry...."

R: "Tax cuts. We want tax cuts. More tax cuts. Yeah, and money for big bidness execs. No abortions. No sex even...." <*grumble*> <*snort*>

D: "OK, tell us what you want; what's your position, and maybe we can find some middle ground."

R: "We want tax cuts!!!! And abortion is abhorrent! No money for family planning of any kind!!!!"

D: "OK, we'll toss in a sop to you in the spirit of bipartisanship. We'll take out the family planning funds for now, even though it will save the government money. And you can have some tax cuts too. Deal?"

<* Republicans take the tax cuts and the nix of family planning, gobble them down and then bite the Democrats' hands *>

D: "Owwww. That hurt!!! Look, we're really trying to compromise here. What more do you want?"

R: "Tax cuts. We want tax cuts. More tax cuts. Yeah, and money for big bidness execs. No abortions. No sex even. And we want offshore-drilling. And no environmental regulations. And no mortgage relief for those losers...." <*grumble*> <*snort*>

D: "I don't think you understand how negotiations proceed. You're supposed to find some place in the middle where we both can agree, not add additional demands."

R: "Tax cuts. We want tax cuts. More tax cuts. Yeah, and money for big bidness execs. No abortions. No sex even. And we want offshore-drilling. And no environmental regulations. And no mortgage relief for those losers. And conservatives appointed to the executive and the judiciary. " <*grumble*> <*snort*>

D: "You just got trounced in the last two elections? Why do you keep demanding more?!?!?"

R: <*growl*> <*snap*> <*lunges at chain*>....

The big error was this: "What more do you want?"

WGAF? Really. The correct question is "if you won't even take what we already gave you, why should we even listen to you?"

Glenn Greenwald lays it out well. Time for the Democrats to say, "here's what a negotiation is; you can take what we offer you, or we'll just take it from here and you can let history run you over."

BPMA

That is to say, "bipartisanship, my a$$".

The Rethuglicans have no desire to be "bipartisan". They care about party power above nation, about personal slights and vendettas above honour, and about themselves and their hallucinatory ideals of the 'perfect nation' above all else, everyone else be damned.

His Emanence Rush Limbaugh has said it plainly (regarding Obama): "I hope he fails." But that means that Obama fails to dig us out of the mess we're in. Limbaugh doesn't want Obama to be able to do that; that would be bad for Rethuglican chances in 2010.

So Obama goes for a sit-down with the Republican congresscritters, all "make nice" and "bipartisanship". What happens? The Rethuglicans vote 177 to nothing against the stimulus bill. Lock-step antagonism.

Then the whiny RW talk radio jerk Mark Levin insists that that black is white and up is down. He insists that that the vote against the bill was "bipartisan" -- supposedly because it garnered 11 Democrats voting against as well (but still passed handily), whereas only Democrats voted for it. What was really not "bipartisan" was the Republican lock-step voting; none of the Republicans would cross party lines and vote for the bill.

Levin then let slip the real sentiment: "We have two years to get back at them, to either reward them or punish them for their vote."

They don't care about anything else. They're just mad and are going to hold their breath until they turn blue. Fine. Let them. Screw them, in fact. They can go outside and have their hissy fit, and let the adults get on with business.

OK, got that, folks? No more "hands across the table". They're just gong to bite it. Harry? Nancy? Barack? Is it clear yet?!?!?

A warm welcome...

... to the U.S. Department of Justice. Under new and better management, I hear. And thanks for stopping by. Feel free to look around, and I welcome any comments. Let me know too if I can be of help, or you're looking for anything in particular. Can I recommend some of my favourite posts (assuming you didn't just come for the pretty pictures):

Torture can be just the ticket ... just keep it illegal, please.
The "Ticking Time Bomb" as a legal defence
The "Ticking Time Bomb" ... in theory and in practise

The "Torture Justification" explained
The "torture files" redux
The "Nürnberg defence"
Exporting kangaroo ... courts

A maladministration flack struggles with his PAA/FISA "talking points"....

"Scalia" is Italian for "Torquemada"

Dubya's consigliere knows his job....
Once again, our "Attorney General" unclear on the concept
Nixon redux: "It's not a crime if nothing was done about it..."
Nixon re-redux: "When the preznit's consigliere says it's OK..."

"Sentence first -- verdict afterwards"

Federalist Society star David Sentelle piles on....

"Witness tampering" and "obstruction of justice"

and last, but not least:

Just wanted to say "hi!"

Ciao!

Justice Oprah

And in the "some losers are too stoopid to breathe" department, we have this pathetic "appeal to higher authority":

01/19/09: PRESS RELEASE - Berg sends 2nd letter to Oprah, stressing that she is one that can have Obama withdraw his name to avoid damage to racial relations in the U.S. for years to come because when the truth comes out that Obama does “not” meet the “qualifications” for President as Obama is “not” “natural born” we are headed for a ‘Constitutional Crisis’ by having an ‘ineligible’ President

(Contact information and PDF at end)

(Lafayette Hill, PA – 01/19/09) - Philip J. Berg, Esquire, the Attorney who filed suit against Barack H. Obama challenging Senator Obama’s lack of “qualifications” to serve as President of the United States and his case, Berg vs. Obama, in the U.S. Supreme Court is still pending as well as two [2] other cases, announced today that he wrote a 2nd letter to Oprah requesting her to speak with Obama to withdraw his name before our country is in a Constitutional Crisis as Obama’s lack of ‘constitutional qualifications’ for President. 1st letter was dated November 7, 2008 and the 2nd today, January 19, 2009. [A copy of the two [2] letters are at the end of this Release]

Philip Berg's a certified loony-toon, and having gotten his butt kicked every which way 'til Friday by every court in the land (including the U.S. Supreme Court), he's decided to take it to the next level. ROFLMAO.

The sad thing is that this insanity is contagious: I listened to KSFO-560 (RW talk radio) a week back or so, and the RW foamer talk-show host was going on and on about the grave constitutional crisis we were facing should we inaugurate Obama..... More like a Thorazine crisis, if you ask me.

They were right!!!

The RW foamers were screaming "beware! beware!"; that (now) President Obama was a hard-core leftie.

Watching him sign the nominations for his cabinet, I see that they were right.  They are indeed right.  And Obama's definitely a leftie.

"Just so you know how things work around here..."

From TalkingPointsMemo:

A Texas judge has thrown out those indictments of Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzalez that we thought, correctly it turned out, were little more than a publicity stunt by a run-amok South Texas prosecutor.

Upon dismissing the indictments, the judge admonished the prosecutor: "I suggest on behalf of the law that you not present any cases to the grand jury involving these defendants."

[emphasis added]

"Dontcha know that these defendants are not to be prosecuted?!?!? Period. That's how things work around here."

Douglas Kmeic agrees with me

Conservative professor (and former Reagan and G.H.W. Bush Justice Department appointee) Douglas Kmeic suggests that California should move swiftly to resolve the Prop. 8 issue by eliminating California state "marriages" and instead implementing "civil unions" for all and sundry:

The governor told CNN that he hoped the state Supreme Court would overturn the people and Prop. 8. While there are some respectable legal arguments that the initiative does not meet the requirements of Article 18 of the state constitution, asking the court to invalidate Prop. 8 is a tall order. Properly, judges look for ways to avoid holding laws unconstitutional, and that is especially so when the law comes directly from the people.

All that said, the case is too close to call because Prop. 8 did not directly address the portion of the state Supreme Court decision that declared sexual orientation to be a suspect classification requiring compelling justification and because there is federal precedent that decries singling out any vulnerable group for legal disadvantage. In short, neither side can be confident of victory, and that is the best kind of case for settlement.

The governor should break the tie and free the judges from having to either set aside democracy or to uphold the decision of the people in a way that the governor and others would perceive as unequal treatment among his fellow Californians.

The governor has administrative authority to have regulations issued interpreting family law, and nothing in Prop. 8 precludes him from ensuring that homosexual and heterosexual couples are treated equally under state law so long as he stays clear of "marriage." This could be accomplished by limiting the state of California prospectively to the issuance of civil unions for all couples, rather than marriage licenses, leaving marriage, which in origin is predominantly a religious concept and not the real business of the state, to religion.

I have been saying this ever since the election results came in.  

But I go further.  I think the California courts, presented with a challenge to Prop. 8, if they find that Prop. 8 was lawfully enacted, are required to remove "marriage" as a valid state classification.  The California Supreme Court was non-committal on whether "marriages" had to be offered, but simply said that if  "marriage" was offered, it must be offered to all on a non-discriminatory basis.  And as Prof. Kmeic points out, Prop. 8 did not amend -- nor did it purport to amend by its language -- California non-discrimination protections, it simply said that "[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."   It did not say that such "marriages" must be recognised. To resolve the conflict of laws, if Prop. 8 is valid, and California may not discriminate on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, the only permissible solution is to remove "marriage" from California law.

Yet to be determined is whether the same-sex marriages performed before the passage of Prop. 8 are still valid as "marriages".  But then, if they are no longer valid, then every other "marriage" in California must also be legally dissolved.  ;-)

They're like robots hit by lightning...

... or a pithed frog.

They're completely stopped even trying to make sense:

Reeling from Tuesday’s widespread losses, yesterday “about 20 political strategists and social and fiscal conservative leaders met” to discuss the future of the movement at the home of Brent Bozell, head of the right-wing Media Research Center. Describing the meeting on Fox News this morning, Bozell insisted America remained a “center-right country” and that the election had not been the death knell for conservatism because “conservatism played no role in the election.” Seconds later, however, Bozell claimed that Barack Obama had won the election “as a conservative”:

BOZELL: Conservatives didn’t play a role in this campaign. This was a moderate Republican against a liberal, left-wing Democrat. And the left-wing Democrat beat the moderate Republican. … If you look at the exit polls this year, you’ll find two fascinating results. Number one: This country remains every bit as center-right as it has for a generation.

HEMMER: You don’t think that’s changed at all?

BOZELL: No it hasn’t. … Number one is that the public is conservative; number two: Barack Obama won as a conservative. That means Barack Obama does not have the mandate to enact the progressive agenda he wants to enact.

And then there's this exemplar of Godwin's Law:

Yesterday evening, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family Action sent out a fundraising e-mail lamenting the victory of Barack Obama. (Dobson had personally endorsed the McCain-Palin ticket.) The author of the e-mail, Focus on the Family Action senior vice president Tom Minnery, told his readers not to despair, saying that the right wing would overcome this situation just as Britons overcame Hitler’s bombing in World War II:

The spirit of Winston Churchill was alive and well on Tuesday night at Focus on the Family Action headquarters.

You may recall that in the most desperate days of World War II – when Great Britain was being pounded daily by Hitler’s Luftwaffe – that Winston Churchill called on his countrymen not to despair from danger but to rise to the challenge. […]

As our incredible team of staff members watched the election results pour in on Election Night, an amazing thing happened that Churchill might have recognized. Despite some sobering disappointments, there was no mood of despair and no “bunker mentality.”

Yeah, with numbnutz and RW foamers thus reduced to incoherence and insanity, there will be need for the Secret Service to stay on their toes. But the good news is this:

In a new Rasmussen poll out today, Republicans overwhelmingly say that they want Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as their presidential nominee in 2012. Sixty-four percent of GOP respondents said that Palin would be their top choice in 2012....

(h/t to ThinkProgress for documenting this non-stop hit list of RW lunacy)

Life is good. :-)

While we await the change of administrations....

.... can we please, pretty please also get some turnover in the extremely stoopid TV "talking heads"?!?!? You know, term limits or sump'tin to get the dead wood out of there, onto a bonfire, and properly and thoroughly torched?!?!?:

Campbell Brown: For those people who have been worried about the possibility of one party controlling Congress and the White House, the last president to do that, of course, was....?

John King: Ah, that was Bill Clinton, and...

Brown: Jimmy Carter! Jimmy Carter had... Bill Clinton had Democrats in the House and in the Senate?

King: Very briefly.

Brown: Very briefly. [Crinkles her nose] Didn't go so well.

King: No it didn't.

(h/t to Atrios)

<*SHEESH*> Teh stoopid. It burns.

Monday morning quarterbacking, GOP style

One of the best and brightest RW foamers:

The results are in and the recriminations have begun. Sure, it might not have made any difference, but the number of sins of omission and commission by the McCain campaign is breathtaking. Let’s get a head start on the finger-pointing and give you the top thirty mistakes John McCain and his team made:

• Not pursuing the Reverend Wright connection, as an issue of judgment and then credibility. Even Jerry Nadler knew it was a sign that Barack Obama lacked political courage, i.e., character.
  
• Waiting until September to raise Barack Obama’s other troubling connections (e.g., Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi).
  
• Failing to devise a comprehensive economic message until the final weeks of the campaign.
  
• Failure to explain the Democrats’ role in the financial meltdown.
  
• Not enough talk about “friends of Angelo” and Democratic corruption.
  
• Wasting his convention speech on “bipartisanship” and biography instead of pounding home a core economic message.
  
• Frittering away time and money in Iowa.
  
• Losing time in the spring when McCain had sewn up the nomination but Obama had not. An ideal time to begin defining the contrast in messages.
  
• Appallingly deficient “oppo” research and timing. Why didn’t the “bankrupt the coal industry” tape come out before the final weekend?
  
• Going to war with the MSM without an effective plan to use alternate media to get their message out.
  
• Cutting off McCain’s daily access to the traveling press corps.
  
• The frenetic response to the financial meltdown. (Fire Chris Cox! Cancel the debate — no, hold the debate!) All that was missing was juggling knives on a tightrope above a fire pit.
  
• The roll-out of Sarah Palin.
  
• The internal trashing of Sarah Palin.
  
• The failure to put Sarah Palin on every radio and TV outlet they could find in the final two weeks of the campaign.
  
• The failure to find a top-flight economic advisor.
  
• Shutting down McCain’s regular contact with new media outlets.
  
• An insufficiently tough attack on Joe Biden’s lobbying and earmark activities.
  
• An insufficiently tough attack on Obama’s coziness with the Daley machine.
  
• An insufficiently tough attack on Obama’s ties and subservience to Big Labor.
  
• Failure to use McCain’s position in the U.S. Senate to introduce legislation and force votes on the floor that would have defined the two candidates (e.g., a budget freeze).
  
• Permitting chaos and public fighting among campaign staff. Heads should have rolled.
  
• Waiting too long to introduce the specter of undivided government.
  
• Waiting until the final Saturday Night Live before the election to show self-deprecating humor.
  
• Not firing Palin’s entire staff when they publicly trashed her.
  
• Insufficient registration and party-building efforts in Colorado and Virginia.
  
• Too much whining about the MSM.
  
• Too much hostility toward conservatives offering smart strategy and policy ideas.
  
• Not enough explanation and focus on Tony Rezko.
  
• Not enough explanation of the Herbert Hoover analogy (higher taxes and protectionism made the Great Depression worse) to a voting population that doesn’t know who Hoover was.
  

Pretty funny.

The Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.  McInsane's problem was he wasn't nasty and slimy enough.....

Fine.  Let them 'evaluate' their mistakes.  We're under no obligation to clue them in....

Free at last, free at last....

... thank God Almighty, we're free at last!!!

Jon Stewart called it at 11:01PM EST.

We should have known....

From this unimpeachable source:

“By the way I have been here to Roswell before and I know about the alien landing,” McCain told about 1,000 supporters gathered at an airport hangar here during his fifth rally of the day. “And I am pleased to announce that I have received the alien endorsement….and I am proud!”

UPDATE—Apparently McCain was actually endorsed by “the alien” per the Weekly World News. The alien has allegedly accurately predicted every election in the last 28 years. So McCain’s got that going for him, which is nice.

'Nuff said....

InsHannity

Incurable.

PUMA's predict landslide victory for McCain:

MCCAIN/ PALIN 310

BIDEN 228

Buy stock in Ortho-McNeill Pharmaceuticals; there's going to be a run on Haldol.

BTW, they seem to be so unhinged that they can't even bring themselves to name "that one"....

A sign of things to come

We have this:

If Obama Steals It...Take Action! We March Jan 17, 2009
FreedomMarch.org ^ | 11-04-08 | FreedomMarch
Posted on November 4, 2008 11:35:44 AM PST by RaginApache

Marches will occur on January 17, 2009 to demonstrate to Obama and Congress that millions of American Patriots are now closely monitoring the actions of the Legislature, Executive branch, and the media. We will respond quickly and vigorously to any challenges to our existing liberties and freedoms. PLEASE SPREAD.

Yeah. These pussies will be agitating for the resumption of the Civil War. Good luck with that. Not that I don't expect a lot of unpleasantness, not to mention bone-headed RW foamers going around the bend and hurting others before they get themselves locked up or shot to death....

I note that the RW Mighty Wurlitzer is pumping the "vote fraud"/"Obama's a secret Marxist/Mooslim/he's gonna eatchour babies" meme full time. Limbaugh's pumping it today, and the RW blogs are putting out all kinds of rumours of "voter fraud", etc. They will not go quietly, and it's going to be a Conspiracy/Persecution/Civil War against them. Always the "victims". Pussies. But for them, a civil war is indeed preferable to having an African-Amercan president. Hell, thy've been thinking this for a century and a half.

The Gropinator talks

Schwarzenegger:

"He [Obama] needs to do something about those skinny legs."

What?  Take steroids like you?!?!?

Can we recall the eedjit?   Please?

Cheers,

In case there was any question that racism is live and well....

... we need just look at the desperate Rethuglicans seeking (for lack of any alternative) to exploit it in order to win their election campaign:

As Tapped notes, earlier this week, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) proclaimed that the the “rush” of African-Americans to the polls has “got our side energized“:

“There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early,” he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. “It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening,” he said.

Similarly, Chambliss has been warning his “predominantly white base” in North Georgia, “The other folks are voting.”

(h/t ThinkProgress)

"[O]ur side", eh?  Guess it's "blacks versus Rethuglicans" down there (and they wonder why no self-respecting blacks vote for them....)

Whether it will work or not, we shall see.  The racists were going to vote Rethuglican anyway. But maybe he will "energize" the foamer RW, and they'll got vote rather than put on robes and lynch someone.

The wheels are coming off the wingnuts' grocery carts....

The S.F. Chronicle has this wonderful LTTE missive from one McInsaniac:

Not world news

Editor - With all that is going on in the world, such as choosing a new president, a financial crisis and Iraq coming to a critical conclusion, The Chronicle chooses to put on its front page a story about Gov. Sarah Palin's wardrobe ("Her pricey duds aren't helping Palin in polls," Oct. 24). Are there any adults running your newspaper?

Yes, it is unfortunate that Sarah Palin doesn't come from a family with a lot of money, plus her husband is just a working-class stiff. And with five children, not a lot of time or money to go shopping for clothes.

She's not a Kennedy, so no trust fund. She didn't marry someone very wealthy, as Sen. John Kerry did. But I must admit, he always looks very chic.

PETER LOMBARDO
San Francisco

Ummm, Peter: News-flash for you. Kerry's not running for president. In fact ... oh, wait, I know who you were thinking about!!! That McCain guy running for president ... the one that married someone very wealthy. You know, the guy on the top slot of the ticket with Palin.

Do these morons ever put their brain in gear before starting to type? Or maybe this moron is just looking ahead to the Palin/Exxon 2012 campaign....