I love the smell of Republican heads exploding in the morning.

... smelled like....

Victory. Someday this war's gonna end.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said Tuesday he will support the nomination of an Indiana University law professor to head the Obama administration’s internal law office.

He is the first Republican to publicly declare his backing for Dawn Johnsen, whose selection to head the Office of Legal Counsel has grown into a fight about abortion rights and counterterrorism practices.

Some Republicans have promised to try to block Johnsen’s confirmation either because of her support for abortion rights or because she criticized the legal justification used by the Bush administration for the torture of detainees.

Lugar’s support does not guarantee the Senate will confirm Johnsen. Sixty votes are needed to stave off a filibuster, and vote-counters say they are aware of close to 60 "yes" votes for Johnsen, but they are not declaring victory. One Democrat – Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson – has said he will vote against Johnsen.

Ah yes, but the count is indeed close... and that's exactly how it should be. Arlen Specter, having "crossed the floor", if I may use a Westminsterian term, does not seal the count, but the fact that there will be a vote for cloture preventing a filibuster will be critical.

Specter's first vote as a Democrat will be a message to his constituents in Pennsylvania, and to other all other Democrats. He does not have to vote for the nominee as much as he has to vote to prevent a Republican filibuster.

All people like Specter and Lugar have to worry about is their jobs. They could lose them.

In the meantime, our hamburger muncher by the sea, The Doughy Pantload, waddles along describing the distractions which prevented him from delivering his "book" anywhere close to his promised deadline. So much for the "pressures of family life" as an excuse.

Image. Credit JJ. You must visit JJ. Things are so heating up. Tea anyone? Or would you just like to be teabagged?

Who says weeds don't grow on astro-turf?

I join Canadian Cynic in applauding this idea.

What I have noticed is that the CPC thinks it needs to tiptoe around and not offend anyone by showing their actual support of Conservative ideas. You are the Conservative Party of Canada, shout it out!

I can't think of a single strategy that would make me happier.

And where do those Conservative ideas come from?

Oh... oops!

Republican profiles in courage - Rick Santelli

It looks like the would-be general of the gate-storming stock-broker army just soiled his trousers and is now running for cover.

Don't look back, Santelli. Nobody's chasing you.

Ain't leadership a bitch?

Neocon tries to vanish himself - fails

A conservative audience was entertained by one of their own doing what he has always done best - spew out a line of toxic lies. Only this time, he was lying about himself.

This has caused no end of incredulity in the American progressive blogosphere.

Spencer Ackerman suggests a different approach: Ignore the sonofabitch. If you're not going to put him on trial for war crimes then consign him to irrelevance.

Treat Perle like you treat the men in colorful robes who stand in front of the subway claiming to be the lost tribe of Israel, because he’s just as foolish and conspiracy-minded.

Conservative groups looking for entertainment might do better hiring a real comedian. At least the routine is closer to the truth than anything they're ever going to hear out of the sewage that didn't get flushed with the Bush administration.

In fact, while we're at it, perhaps this is a good opportunity to send a message out to the entire field of toxic waste that remains from an eight year orgy of immoral military adventurism, malicious abuses of political power, the intentional and utter disregard for the economic destruction being meted out by an unregulated ponzi scheme and a complete failure to plan for anything save another Crawford vacation.

Nothing they can say can be of interest to anybody. Attending a lecture to try to find out "how their minds worked" is a waste of time. What is plainly obvious is that the neocons pulled themselves into the desk lacking some basic human traits. They left their minds and morals at the door while they pursued a flawed ideology.

So, on dates like 17 March 2009, in places like Calgary, the message should be, nobody's interested putting Bush's next "get rich quick" scheme where it properly belongs.

"Conservatives Gone Wild!"

Your Friday the 13th teaser.



Wow! Yesterday produced a treasure trove of nuttiness from various corners of the wingnut-o-sphere. Perhaps it was a superstitious response to today's calendar or maybe it's just that the Moon is waning gibbous and moving from perigree to apogee. Or maybe they're still suffering from the loss of one of their own in a position of power far beyond his competence.

In any case, first out of the blocks is the American Life League with a lie of enormous proportions.

The conservative American Life League has come up with a new argument to scare people away from the Obama economic stimulus package. They argue that making medical records electronic will open the door to euthanizing the elderly. In other words, support the stimulus and kill grandpa. Judie Brown the president of the American Life League said in a statement, "Our elected representatives have fed on the fears of a nation gripped by economic panic to legislate state-enforced euthanasia. President Obama's economic stimulus package puts a price tag on each of our heads. The package's health care provisions threaten the elderly and open the door for euthanasia and nationalized health care.”

Of course, as Politicusa points out, the truth is quite different and lacks the drama featured by A.L.L.

In reality the national coordinator will be an IT person, responsible for maintaining the electronic medical records system. Here is how Obama described health IT, “(It) will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests. But it just won’t save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs — it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system.”

Electronic medical records aren’t about government run health care or euthanizing the elderly. It is about building a better, more efficient system to save money and cut down on medical errors. These conservatives are shameful scare tactics. Does anyone really think that Democrats would vote for a bill that would euthanize the elderly? This may come as a surprise to some, but Democrats are people too. This attack is insane, completely baseless, and laughable. There is no other way to describe it.

Insane, completely baseless , and laughable... yet that didn't stop the wingnuts at Canada Free Press from joining the American Life League while they yowled at the disappearing orb in the night sky. (If you want to read the CFP contribution you'll have to look it up yourself).

So, who is the American Life League? Well... rabid fetus fetishists. The group opposes abortion for any reason ("Abortion is never necessary to save a mother's life"). It is absolutely opposed to any form of birth control... for any reason. It is completely opposed to stem-cell research and any other form of technical medical advance which they think is yucky, and, as can be seen from the above, it is opposed to euthanasia. Unfortunately, the definition of euthanasia they provide also extends to those who are no longer functioning without the aid of technical medical advances which they do not consider yucky. They claim their philosphy is based on the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Yeah, well that's less a philosophy and more a superstition, notwithstanding that it's actually the Roman Catholic Church and will remain forever linked to a past empire from which it learned to perpetuate slow execution, torture and ostracism.

Anyway... next out, none other than that loud, drug-abusing voice of the ultra-conservative movement, Rush Limbaugh. Yes, Big Pants may have stepped in it this time. His "small constitutional government and rule of law" mantra was tossed right out the window yesterday.

We will use the political and the legal system as they have and are, and we will use it to promote our party and to diminish theirs. We will use the power of government and legal system to promote our movement and our agenda, just as they are.

(…)

It’s going to be a bigger, more powerful, stronger government — and we’re going to turn it against the left in ways they could have never imagined.

Really?! Why don't you go read the whole rant. It really is quite entertaining and puts the lie to what he claims to stand for. Mind you, he claimed that he went to the Dominican Republic, stocked with illegally acquired Viagra, for "prayer, meditation and self-help".

Do read his attempted smear of Barack Obama whereby Big Pants suggests that Obama is responsible for his half-brother's supposed poverty. And do keep in mind that the swell-headed Limbaugh seems to be attempting to keep alive that which has already been killed. Obama's half-brother has a different take on his own situation.

The reports left him angry.

"I was brought up well. I live well even now," he said. "The magazines, they have exaggerated everything.

Really, I can't recall this kind of eruption from the over-fed, white, self-interested, conservative, feudal crowd since E.R. Braithwaite and James Clavell gave Sidney Poitier a reason to do some dirty dancin' to a Mindbenders song with Judy Geeson.

MORE! Red Tory has more!

AND MORE! Impolitical adds to the breakfast cereal that is the "conservative movement".

AND MORE! Chet adds to an amazing week.

NOW IT'S GETTING SCARY! Over at The Woodshed the rev. paperboy has also noticed.

OH, FERCHRISSAKES... now they want a name change. JJ has the details.

Where did all those Conservative Candidates' blogs go Steve?

The Wow!TheyAllDisappearedSoFast edition.

Bring Chris Reid back!

From Fern Hill at Birth Pangs :

"In another coup for the blogosphere, a Conservative candidate who was outed as a right-wing. gun-totin’, fetish fetishizing nutbar by Big City Lib has withdrawn from the campaign.
But that’s not the end of the story.

Blob Blogging Wingnut and her unsavory pals want him back.

Chris Reid is pro-life. Proudly pro-life. I’ve seen him publicly defend unborn children in facebook debates.
But Suzanne, he’s gay…
So I’ll say a rosary for him.

So, there we have it. Nutopia priorities. Gays marginally tolerable if anti-choice.

We at Birth Pangs agree. Bring Chris Reid back! He’s the perfect example of the havoc the Conservatards will wreak if they get a majority.

UPPITY-DATE: From the You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Department: Some staunch homophobic nutbar Conservative supporters do not want him back. Seems he represents a ‘homo plot’ to torpedo the Reforma-Tories. "

Trying to hide something? CPoC candidates and their blogs (Updated)

BigCityLib has done the heavy lifting and pulled the veil off Toronto Centre CPoC candidate and raving nutball, Chris Reid.

Reid used to have a publicly accessible blog which has suddenly been reduced to members only. If you look for it you get this. Apparently Reid would rather not have people flipping through his archives. Too bad about Google cache and M.J.'s persistence.

Then we have Halton CPoC candidate Lisa Raitt running her Official Campaign Blog. Impressive! Except that Raitt, after realizing that the "comments" section of her blog meant people were going to actually offer their opinions on her views and those of her maximus leader, diddled with the "comment" section until (at time of writing) it vanished completely. Canadian Cynic was maintaining a Death Watch on Raitt's blog, (death being the complete elimination of the comments section of the blog), and as we can see, CC didn't have to waste much time. One day.

By comparison, and since he's running in the same Halton riding as Raitt, take a look at how Liberal candidate (and incumbent) Garth Turner runs his blog.

At least Reid and Raitt are on the same page when it comes to listening to their prospective constituents. If elected, they will absolutely, positively, 100 percent, represent everyone... who agrees with them.

On the other hand: Red Tory has a point. Until Raitt removes the word "blog" from her.... whatever that is... there is still life to be sucked out of it. In fact, Raitt might want to eliminate her "articles" thing (ersatz-blog) altogether since most of her readers are coming from the left-to-centre readership of progressive and reality-based blogs. In short, she's getting some excellent exposure as a joke.

The Conservative Job Lottery

Which of these Conservative party insiders would you pick to keep their jobs?

Off message on Afghanistan. Contradicted Harper on a fixed end date for combat in Afghanistan.

Off message on Flaherty's economic program and Baird's environmental policies. Contradicted Harper on economic leadership and environmental stewardship.

Jokes about Canadians dying during a listeriosis outbreak as a result of Harper's policy of deregulating food inspection.

Personal riding assistant of Transport Minister insults Barriere Lake Algonquin people.

Don't spend too much time thinking about it. Unless you know who owes what to whom, you might never get it right.

Pa! Git the scatter gun! Bobby-Jo ain't a virgin no more.

Heh! Gary Law adds something scary to chew on after Kathryn Jean Lopez gets all sentimental as she pines for the days when girls were virgins and fathers were, well, knee-capping hillbillies.

Where’s Dad? Not the “fathers” of these unfortunate pre-borns, but the fathers of these pregnant girls. Where, in other words, is the shotgun? Back in the day when birth control and abortion weren’t readily available to high-school kids, fathers were pretty good deterrents to pregnancy. Boys knew they’d have kneecap problems if they got daddy’s little girl pregnant. If they were lucky, they’d be married by the morning after. Girls, meanwhile, were less likely to risk pregnancy because alternatives to motherhood were few, adoption being the most likely. It wasn’t a foolproof system, clearly, but the specter of lifelong consequences, combined with societal and parental disapproval, helped keep the illegitimate birthrate down. Today, using the term “illegitimate” is more likely to spark disapproval than the activities contributing to the plague of unwed pregnancies. For sure there are far fewer fathers around to give young males The Eye.

The Eye? Or, more to K-Lo's liking, the baseball bat.

What got K-Lo going? Well, the pregnancy pact of 17 girls in the town of Gloucester, Massachusetts (see below for more on that). More of K-Lo:

It is a fair guess, though not possible to confirm at this point, that at least some of Gloucester’s pregnant daughters are from fatherless homes.

Yoiks! She doesn't know, so she makes it up.

Today’s girls and boys daily marinate in a culture that offers little instruction in responsibility and self-control — or the importance of marriage as antecedent to procreation — but celebrates single motherhood and encourages sex without strings.

Shorter K-Lo: Pre-marital sex is the result of the current culture. They're not being taught to repress their sexual urges the way their grandparents and parents did when they were adolescents. Why, look at the movies they see!

Uh oh.... what's this?

“Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954–2003,” by Lawrence B. Finer, published in the January/February 2007 issue of Public Health Reports.

That would be like, you know, a scientific study. I-wonder-what-it-says? (drum roll)

“This is reality-check research. Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades,” says study author Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute. “The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government’s funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12–29-year-olds. It would be more effective to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active—which nearly everyone eventually will.”

Yup. Even some of the student body at Dominican Academy were probably... ahem... experimenting.

But not K-Lo! Nosiree! She didn't stray down the sinful path seeking pleasures of the flesh. Oh, I'm sure she had her schoolgirl crushes, but what's the harm in that?

Uh oh.... what's this? (h/t Sadly, No!)

Boris Yeltsin's death on affected me in a way that was surely unique: He was my high-school crush.

Yes, I am serious. If you opened my locker at Dominican Academy in New York City, you would have found a picture of Yeltsin torn from Time magazine, as if it were a Tiger Beat cover featuring Kirk Cameron.

And if Boris Yeltsin, a man old enough to be my grandfather, had suddenly appeared at Dominican Academy, well... it's too painful to visualize. But it's very healthy... no?

But I digress... sort of.

K-Lo apparently hasn't bothered looking at the results of those "married by the morning after" shotgun weddings. Between 1960 and 1980 the US divorce rate tripled. At least 23 couples per thousand weren't terribly happy in their relationships and surprisingly, a lot of those couples were in longer term marriages. (Should we count the "premature births" that occurred among that number?)

Another thing she missed, (You can do that when you're rubbing a picture of Boris on your chest), was the data accumulated by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Oh, would you look at that! Since 1981 the teen pregnancy rate was actually declining in the US... until K-Lo's other hero expanded abstinence only sex education. By 2006 a sudden and sharp increase in teen pregnancy set back a steady 14 year decline.

And as to K-Lo's assertion that in the Leave It To Beaver days "Daddy's got a gun; we can't have no fun" resulted in fewer teen pregnancies, there is this real-live, honest-to-goodness analysis which says.... BS!

Unmarried Childbearing. The rate of teen childbearing in the United States has fallen steeply since the late 1950s, from an all time high of 96 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19 in 1957 to an all time low of 49 in 2000 (see chart). Birthrates fell steadily throughout the 1960s and 1970s; they were fairly steady in the early 1980s and then rose sharply between 1988 and 1991 before declining
throughout the 1990s.

I know. Another conservative myth busted. But then, life isn't a Warner Bros cartoon. K-Lo on the other hand, is.

And just because....

And while we're at it: (Thanks to Pogge in comments) While K-Lo was busy having the vapours and crunching her rosary beads about the Goucester "pregnancy pact", Lindsay had already ripped the story to shreds. In fact, she did it two hours earlier. In fact, there was no pact.

"There was definitely no pact," Lindsey Oliver, 17, who became pregnant when she was a junior, told ABC's "Good Morning America" today. "There was a group of girls already pregnant that decided they were going to help each other to finish school and raise their kids together. I think it was just a coincidence."

K-Lo at the bat... and all that.

Here. Let me help.

This is disturbing. What makes it even more so is that there appears to be some form of Domino Effect at work here.

This has the potential to turn two virulent right-wingers into, well, lefties. Let's face it, they're already claiming poverty and we know how right-types view the poor. (Those lazy, shiftless welfare bums.)

It reminds me of something I read a while ago. A conservative-minded individual was complaining about being "laid-off" and went on about the overwhelming lack of compassion displayed by the hatchet-person as the ROE was handed with a meager severance package. It was all very Milton Friedman-like. Unfortunately, I can't recall who it was or even the gender, but I do remember the person decided not to take advantage of Employment Insurance benefits. I quietly applauded the individual for being so true to conservative principles and not sucking off the government teat. This was particularly gratifying when I decided to ask a few questions of Service Canada and found out that EI applications could actually be done online, without ever having to visit an employment counsellor. The people at Service Canada were so helpful I was considering becoming unemployed just so I could spend some time with them.

But, I digress.

It strikes me that when one is in dire financial straits one should correct that problem. It is only a short step from begging on the intert00bs to strumming a ukulele in front of an empty guitar case outside the local liquor store.

So, rather than donate money and risk plunging these two into a vicious cycle of poverty I offer this.

Or, better yet, this. Jeebus knows, they could probably use the exercise.

Image courtesy NY Times.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

To confer, converse, and otherwise hob-nob with my brother wizards.*

Except that Judy Garland isn't singing Over The Rainbow.

This is called blowback. And Ryan Sparrow is making himself look like a fucking idiot.

* The Wizard of Oz. MGM 1939.

Everything I ever wanted to know about the philosphy of the Steve Harper Party of Canada...

... I learned from a gas pump.



Notwithstanding that buying motor fuel in BC is more than a little inconvenient, the price of oil skyrocketed on Harper's watch. The price of everything is already going up.... on Harper's watch... while he cozies up to Big Oil. Well, he always was cozy with Big Oil but now, he's going to have his party pay them advertising bucks to further insult your intelligence.

Since, apparently the Harper party guerrilla ad campaign isn't going to be interactive, some people have the right idea. No, it's not the fault of the gasoline retailer, but it's a way to send a message back up the line. If you're dumb enough to allow a political ad to run while I pay an excessive amount of money for fuel I'll take my business elsewhere.

Be creative. Be innovative. Tell them that, since there's no such thing as customer service at a gas station anymore, you'd like to be left alone in your fueling misery.

Boycotts seldom work when it comes to oil companies. This however, isn't completely about the price of gasoline and diesel. It's about having oil companies, making obscene amounts of money while trying to portray themselves as helpless victims, shove their political puppetry in our faces.

Oil companies have, for the past few decades, been whispering the same words to consumers every time they dismiss complaints about the price of their product: Fuck you.

And now, from the very same pumps the oil companies send you that message, they show you their party of choice. And they have a blob of oil speaking for Harper. It doesn't get better than that. The new Harper party message is the same as that of the oil companies.

Methinks at least one advertising expert would have a field day with this one. Especially when the message starts to filter through the slack-jawed fog in the Harperite war rooms.

Right back at ya... assholes.

The Harperites ignore the world stage

Because when things get really busy on that stage and the choreography goes beyond two basic steps and the music gets more complicated than what can be produced by a four note jug band, the Harperites are so outclassed that they don't even bother to show up.

Canada's agriculture minister came under fire in the House of Commons after he questioned the legitimacy of the emergency UN conference on the global food crisis.

Gerry Ritz was responding to Liberal MP Maria Minna, who asked why the minister was not in Rome representing the country at the summit called by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

Ritz played down the conference's credibility after Minna noted that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, widely vilified for the oppression of his people, was attending the international meeting.

To which Ritz, with a single synapse firing as fast as it could, replied:

"I think the member just outlined the credibility of the conference when one of the keynote speakers is Robert Mugabe."

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So the Harperites believe that one of the world's largest food producers should stay away from an international conference discussing a global food crisis and let some corrupt, tin-pot dictator occupy centre stage.... unchallenged.

Conservative Party thinking at its nexus.

Of course, had Ritz actually attended the conference there is a good chance he simply would have repeated previous embarrassing Conservative performances at international conferences and engaged in criticism of domestic political opposition a la Rona Ambrose and John Baird.

There are no senior Canadian officials at the UN conference. Instead, Canada is represented by the ambassador to Italy, Alex Himelfarb.

International Trade Minister David Emerson said he supported the decision.

"Canada is a big contributor to the FAO and Minister Ritz was tied up in other issues at the time. ... I don't think we have to apologize to anybody."

Right. David Emerson. A man whose political ethics are so poor that he couldn't win an election to a school board seat in his own riding... if he was running again.

What a bunch of fucking hillbillies.

Tarts, Toffs and Traitors

Mistake?

Who says?

Given the questions that could be asked and aren't getting any answers, the only thing we are hearing are the words of Harper. And he isn't about to give us the clear truth.

I smell Profumo in the air.

Harper may well have achieved his greatest wish: A return to a past he for which he was not present and does not understand in the slightest.

Urgent message - We will send you $40,000

Calgary Grit gets an email from a Nigerian prince :

December 2, 2005

Dearest Candidate,

Good morning, how are you and your family? I hope fine. Please, I am sorry to bother you with my problem.
Please know that it's not by mistake I am contacting you but by the special grace of God. My name is Stephen Harper and I am the leader of the Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party has $ 9.1 million in its bank account which is destined to be used for advertising in the election campaign. However, the evil Commissions of Elections Canada is watching us closely and is not permitting us to spend more than our $ 18.3 million limit.

In order to free this money for spending on the election advertising, I need your assistance. I wish to transfer $ 40,000 to your election account. But first you must give me a wire transfer form so that I can take the money out of your account as soon as it send you the money....

Go. It's brilliant : the Con's In and Out scheme in a nutshell.

Bill C-537 - Vellacott's Trojan Horsefeathers

Bill C-537 : An Act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of conscience rights in the health care profession)
1. The Criminal Code is amended by adding the following after section 425.1:

Definition : "human life"

"human life" means the human organism at any stage of development, beginning at fertilization or creation."

This snowball-in-hell from ReformaTory Alliance parliamentary prat Maurice Vellacott is just another backbencher wedgie against abortion, and, like Epp's Bill C-484, it will be stoutly defended by the usual Trojan horsefeathers crowd as being not against the right to choose - oh no, not at all - it's all for the protection of the health professional.

Then if, like these women in Pennsylvania, you get raped but manage to get yourself straight to the nearest hospital to be examined and still have the wit to also ask for a morning after pill but are denied one by the attending ER physician on the grounds it's against his religion to give you one, you'll at least be able to thank your lucky stars that his "conscience rights" have been "protected" by Vellacott's peculiar version of the Criminal Code.

H/T to Diane Demornay at enmasse for news item)

One thing puzzles me here though : "the human organism at any stage of development, beginning at fertilization or creation" ???
What's with "or creation"?

What "stage" could possibly need the further embellishment of "or creation"?
Well I guess they've got the Second Coming covered.

Further raised eyebrows on C-537 :
pale, the regina mom, Laura, JJ, 900 ft Jesus, CC

Cross-posted at Creekside

CTV : "Harper praised outing Bush"

LuLu posted this photo from the Three Amigos Summit and commented:

"It looks like Big Daddy just doesn't know how to quit Dubya.
Eewwwwwwwww"

Bad LuLu.

That comment is exactly the kind of gratuitous scurrilous hyperbole the main scream media is always slagging the blogosphere for. Furthermore....

Hang about. What's this from CTV?

"Latest : Three amigos summit :

CTV News: Robert Fife with more from the summit

" Prime Minister Stephen Harper praised outing US President George Bush Monday to start the "Three Amigos Summit"

Sorry, LuLu, I didn't realize you had already had Harper's endorsement on that "outing" thing.
Carry on.

(And everyone else go look quick before they fix it)

A bit of the old 'in and out' on the side, Con style

There's only ever really been one traditional 'in and out' scandal storyline :

~ Honestly I've never done anything like this before.
~But you look like a million bucks to me
~And this just feels so right, there can't possibly be anything wrong with it.
~Besides, everybody else does it too.
~Sneaking around. ... Lying about it.
~Guilt, guilt, guilt - you just gotta ignore it!
~Whoa! That was a close one! I sure hope we never get...
~Busted. Damn.
~But I'm innocent - I swear!
~You're just imagining things. Besides, Baby, it really didn't mean a thing to me

~Yikes!: Damage control is 90% damage + 10% control.

And finally of course no 'in and out' scandal is complete without the obligaTory :
~Beating a hasty retreat down the back fire escape stairs.

Cross-posted at Creekside

David Frum crawls out of the hole...

Six more weeks of Republican bullshit follows.

Yes, Barbara's little boy just can't hold back. His latest lament? Young people, especially non-white young people don't seem to understand that voting Republican is good for them, even if it's really only good for "not them".

Maybe that's because the prime constituency of today's Republican party is a bunch of fat, balding, older white males of dubiously acquired wealth who believe they are entitled to bang the younger members of their staff on the office desk.

Young people react to the success or failure of the first politicians they know. The twentysomethings of the 1980s, for example, associated the Democratic Party with the malaise of Jimmy Carter — and the GOP with the triumphs of Ronald Reagan. Today's Republican Party is associated with a wave of disappointments and embarrassments: Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, congressional corruption scandals, the mortgage crisis.

Disappointments and embarrassments?! Who the fuck is this clown trying to have on?

Those weren't disappointments and embarrassments. Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick! Those were deliberate misappropriations of the truth, mammoth failures of government, premeditated intent to defraud taxpayers and a nod to the button-down hucksters and thieves operating a blatant Ponzi-scheme out in the open. You could call them demonstrations of incompetence, collusion, self-enrichment by the wealthy, cronyism, unchecked greed, ad infinitum, but disappointments and embarrassments? It was a wave alright. And it was filled with great honkin' pieces of nasty deadheads just below the surface. By the way, who wrote the "Axis of Evil" line?

The Republican Party has become increasingly identified with conservative Christianity.

No shit? Frum might want to talk to Karl Rove about that. Perhaps it's because the loudest and most repugnant of the Christian conservative movement identifies strongly with the Republican party.

Younger Americans are becoming more secular and more permissive.

He could have said, "more realistic and more tolerant of the entire social fabric" but, in an attempt to demonstrate a social ill, he couldn't resist in banging them over the head with the fact that they don't identify with the Christian conservative movement. It also demonstrates that Frum suffers from a cognitive disconnect. This... sudden rise of secularism and permissiveness would be shocking if it had just suddenly happened. Frum is conveniently avoiding the fact that this has being happening for a lot longer than he's willing to admit.

Republicans took a beating on the Social Security issue in 2005. But the issue is not going away. And Barack Obama's solution — taxing more income for Social Security — is neither workable nor popular. Personal accounts offer hope for personal wealth to a generation that is increasingly anxious about its economic future. With a relatively small subsidy — $300 per year for workers earning less than $40,000 — a revived Republican personal account plan could guarantee that every American worker would retire a millionaire, even if they never earn more in their lives than minimum wage.

Can you say, Voodoo Economics? Try. Because that's what Frum is offering here. By the way, being a millionaire doesn't mean much if your retirement dollar is only worth 12 percent of the dollars you stored away in the Bank of Bush. Sadly, No! slices and dices it for you.

President Bush's attempts to woo Hispanics via lax immigration policies disastrously backfired, alienating white Republicans without achieving gains among Hispanics.

No... there's still about 20 percent of the population who think Bush is magnificent. Some of them aren't fat, balding older white males.

But we can talk to young blacks and Hispanics as young people, who share economic interests with an entire generation of overtaxed young workers, regardless of race.

Except that you'd be lying to them and they already have that figured out.

Present a sunnier face on social issues. We need to make clear that we defend the family not to impose our values on others, but in order to give the next generation of America's children a fair chance in life.

By imposing their values on others. More Leave It To Beaver!!! No more wardrobe malfunctions. Just boxes and boxes of crunchy wholesome goodness. Led by... the Christian conservative movement. Of course, rather than living with the imposed so-called values of the Republican party everyone could just follow the example they provide.

Children who grow up without their fathers are more likely to go to jail, drop out of school and create fatherless families of their own.

Leap, Frum, leap!! David takes out his junior sociology kit and does what he said he wouldn't do - impose conservative values on others. Never mind that a lot of those familial relationships were abusive - towards women and children - and the children growing up without their fathers under the same roof are safer.

A majority of America's poor children would be lifted out of poverty if their mothers married their fathers.

Need I point out the direction Frum took here? Blame, blame, blame. It's the mothers' fault. OK, let's put this another way. If the mothers were able to effect an education and income which would provide financial security without having to submit themselves to a relationship with an undesirable "father", children would be lifted out of poverty. Of course that would require a lot more effort on the part of government to assure equality. You know, something like an equal rights amendment to the US Constitution. Then you couldn't impose conservative values on everyone.

On abortion, too, it is important that Americans understand that the end of Roe v. Wade does not mean a national abortion ban. Ending Roe means that individual states recover the power to make their own decisions on abortion. We as Republicans need to make it very clear: If California and New York vote to retain abortion rights after Roe, national Republicans won't interfere.

Hidden agenda. The goal of the Republican party is to end the federal force of an entrenched decision. This would leave states, (run by fat, balding, older white males), free to subjugate women in any way they saw fit. Unless they get their secretary pregnant and then they'll ship her off to an "abortion-state" to have the problem dealt with.

Re-emphasize the environment. The voting data suggest that young voters might care less about the environment in reality than they think or say they do. Nevertheless, environmental concern is the price of admission to any kind of discussion with the young.

Even. If. You. Don't. Mean. It. I know!! Let's harness the emanations of this gas-bag. That should provide power enough for a small city.

Above all, results matter. Republicans must avoid the temptation to forget Iraq and the war on terror. As the Iraq situation improves in the months ahead, as the USA continues to enjoy greater security from terrorism, we need to argue the case that it was our policies that delivered these results.

Having described Iraq as a disappointment and embarrassment Frum now flips onto his head to tell us how much of a success it is. Nevermind that the population of "terrorists" has been expanded by the actions of the Republicans, the world is anything but secure, thanks to Bush/Cheney and those motherhood aspects of life which were considered to be the secure domain of Americans are now lodged in China, India and Europe.

Note to Frum: You're not writing for a moron anymore.