Coming to Canada Soon ? ? ? ?

Welcome to Crazytown . . . .



H/T: drf

Living with the monsters they created...

Karl Rove, you created this monster, you live with it. You'll have to decide how many limbs you're willing to sacrifice to the likes of Michelle Malkin.

G'Bye Kory. I'm speculating there's a raid and a search warrant somewhere in your future. Oh well, if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. Oh yeah, I guess Margaret wins.

And yes, both of you will find sympathy somewhere between "shit" and "syphilis" in a cheap dictionary.

Now why does Ryan Sparrow keep showing up in the crystal ball? Thing must be defective.

H/T Pogge and Jymn

Six Degrees of . . . .

Quick!

What do george w.bush, stephen harper and tiger woods have in common?


The Universe indeed works in mysterious ways . . . .

repuglican "Must Have" Aps . . . .

Moyers Takes on dickhead armey . . . .

A Bill Moyers essay last week on the Washington, DC "wrong"-wing protest, and dick armey's involvement in it.

Moyers takes armey to task at 3 minutes into the video, with particular emphasis on armey's own publicly-funded health care.






What is it about repugs named "dick"; armey, cheney, nixon, etc.?



Did their parents have advance knowledge of what their offspring would grow up to be ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Smart Guy . . . .

The Rev. was right.

Here's the evidence.

Douche bag - 1, Health Care debate - 0 . . . .

well played, douche bag, well played

You have to hand it to the Republicans, they know how to play the press and work the rubes.
Obama gives a major speech to Congress in which he lays out what he want to see in a health care bill and how important it is that U.S. fix its health care system right now - important stuff, no doubt about it, and it was a stirring speech full of appeals to America's lofty ideals and all that kind of inspirational speechifying for which Obama is rightfully known. But what are the press, and therefore the rest of us, going to be talking about for the next week or two?

It won't be health care.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted out "You lie" when Obama said that the new health care program wouldn't cover illegal aliens, so for the next two weeks all the talk on cable news and Sunday political chat shows will be about the "incivility" of politics and how both sides are rude, crude and obnoxious, how it is unheard of for congressmen to heckle the president when he is making a speech, how this shows that Obama doesn't rattle in the face of hecklers, how this shows the Republicans are losing their cool, how it shows that Obama doesn't command the respect that he should as president, how angry the right is, how angry Americans are about illegal aliens, how much influence Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh have, whether this shows that Obama will win on health care, whether it shows that the Republicans will win on health care -- in other words, the mainstream public discourse will be about everything but healthcare.

Just like the public discourse for the last two months has been about the angry shouting crazy people showing up to the town hall meetings with guns and pictures of Obama as Hitler. Did we spend the summer talking about health care? No, not really, most of the coverage of the issue was about how terrible it was to call Obama a Nazi and what is socialism really? And who are these angry shouting people who say crazy shit like "keep the government away from my medicare" --- simply put, the angry, shouting, crazy gun-wavers suck up all the attention and the actual issues go unexamined.

Yes, intelligent and thoughtful people see through this misdirection and look at the issue of health care reform, but as history shows, the electorate is not entirely made up of intelligent and thoughtful people. A large proportion of the electorate are ignorant rubes who will now be saying to themselves "gee, maybe Obama is a liar" or "Wow, Joe Wilson's a douchebag for heckling the president, but its just because so many people are angry about all the free stuff we give to illegal immigrants."

Yes, people will be calling Joe Wilson a douche bag for a few days and his name will now be followed with the phrase "that guy who heckled Obama" for the rest of his political career. So what? He's a Republican congressman from South Carolina -- did anyone think he wasn't a douchebag before he opened his mouth? He heckled Obama -- that will definitely hurt his chances of getting elected in the northeast and California, but in South Carolina,where the people who are going to vote for a white Republican douche bag already think that Obama is a Kenyan Islamofascist hippie communist blackamoor who wants to ban NASCAR and the Bible and take away everybody's guns, it's pure gold.

Well played Republicans, well played Joe Wilson. But you're still a bunch of douche bags

updatery: Wilson's various websites are still down, I suspect from before the speech even started, in anticipation of the backlash.
Meanwhile, the good folk at Whisky Fire are entirely correct when they say of Joe Wilson: I Think You're an Asshole, And I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Act Like an Asshole, But You're Still an Asshole, Asshole


crossposted from the Woodshed

"Oh yeah? Well you health care reformers can just bite me!"

Conservatives and Republicans continue to sink to new lows in the U.S. health care reform debate with GOP chair Michael Steele heckling the audience - now we know what it takes to get thrown out, you have to ask a Republican a difficult question. The young lady involved is lucky she didn't get tasered.
Meanwhile, one anti-reform protester gave health care reform the finger, but not in quite the way you might think.

Crossposted from the Woodshed, where Weekend Uke blogging is already in progress

Pop Quiz!

Imagine you work as a subcontractor for a bank. The bank wants photos of a bunch of properties on which it holds mortgages to confirm the properties are being kept up and to check the condition of properties on which the mortgage is in default, so off you go in your car with your trusty camera and start snapping away. One homeowner sees you parked in front of his house taking pictures and gets a bit testy. He marches out to the car and wants to know who you are and what the hell you think you're doing taking pictures of his house. Maybe he even gets a bit irate and slaps his hand down on hood of your car. This is not your first day on the job and probably not your first irate homeowner. What do you do?

1. Laugh at him and drive away.
2. Show him your business card, tell him the bank sent you out to take photos of his house and tell him you'll be happy to wait while he calls your office to confirm your story.
3. Stick your .357 magnum in his face before he scratches the paint on your Ford Escort.

Answer key
1. You are an asshole.
2. You are a professional.
3. You are a Republican


h/t to JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie
crossposted from the Woodshed

Atheists vs. repugs - Round One . . . .

Let the battle begin.

It's actually not much $$ involved.

It's the principle of the thing.

Per McClatchey today:

Atheists sue to keep 'In God We Trust' off Capitol Visitor Center
Rob Hotakainen | McClatchy Newspapers Posted: July 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — A California Republican congressman wants to do a little writing on the walls of Washington's newest federal building. If Rep. Dan Lungren gets his way, Congress will spend nearly $100,000 to engrave the words "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance in prominent spots at the Capitol Visitor Center.

Lungren's proposal drew only a whimper of opposition last week when the House of Representatives voted 410-8 to approve it. Now, however, Lungren finds himself tussling with a national atheists and agnostics group.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc. sued this week to stop the engraving, accusing Lungren of trying to force his religious beliefs on as many as 15 percent of all U.S. adults. That comprises "atheists, agnostics, skeptics and freethinkers, none of whom possess a belief in a god," according to the lawsuit.

"It really is a Judeo-Christian endorsement by our government, and so Lungren is wrong," said Dan Barker of Madison, Wis., a co-president of the foundation. "Lungren and others are pro-religious, and they want to actually use the machinery of government to promote their particular private religious views. That is unconstitutional, and that's what we're asking the court to decide."

_______________


The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has 13,500 members, sued in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin. It alleges that Congress is trying to make belief in God synonymous with citizenship and "discouraging nonbelief" among Americans, a contention that Lungren rejects.

Lungren said that the phrase "In God We Trust" had a long history and was consistent with the beliefs of America's founding fathers. He also said that the Declaration of Independence referred to rights given by a creator.

_______________


Barker said the foundation had been waiting for the right case to challenge "In God We Trust." He said government actions could be challenged on state-church grounds if they had specific religious agendas. In this case, he said, backers of Lungren's plan have provided "the smoking guns" by giving specific, overt religious reasons for doing the engraving.

Barker said that atheists regarded the phrase "In God We Trust" as rude, uncivil and un-American.

"Tens of millions of really good Americans don't believe in God," he said. "In fact, there's many more nonbelievers than there are Jews, and we wouldn't think of offending Jews on our national monuments. . . . Why is it wrong to offend a Jewish minority but it's not wrong to offend those of us who serve in the military and sit on juries but we don't believe in God?"

This Freedom From Religion Foundation sounds like my kind of people.

Makes me proud to be a "Dairy Queen" originally from Wisconsin . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Florida "Out" Front Again . . . .

Once again our former home state of Florida is "out" front in the news.

Per AlterNet today:

Florida's GOP Governor to Be Outed in Explosive Documentary Released Today
By John Byrne, Raw Story | May 8, 2009

The Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, who is strongly considering a run for Senate, will be outed in a independent film being released today.

The film, Outrage, tracks the outings of prominent gay political figures, such as Crist and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman. It's being produced by Magnolia Pictures and will appear in Landmark Theaters across the country.

"Using some firsthand accounts of former sexual partners, old campaign footage (to occasionally humorous effect) and commentary from gay political media watchdogs, the film makes the case for each man's homosexuality, and presents his lifetime gay rights voting record," according to one reviewer. "In each instance, the disconnect is staggering.

"The usual suspects are all there: Craig, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, former New York mayor Ed Koch, former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, former Rep. Ed Schrock, even dusty McCarthy relic Roy Cohn."

A top Republican leader signaled Wednesday that Crist will likely enter the Senate race for the seat being vacated by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), who is quitting.






Hypocrisy thy name is repuglican . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Shhh! What's That Sound ? ? ? ?

That sound would be repuglican heads exploding all over the northeastern US.

"Shoot, Martha! Them damn homosexuals are a gittin' married all over the durn place!"

From NPR this am:

Maine Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

by The Associated Press

NPR.org, May 6, 2009 · Maine Gov. John Baldacci has signed legislation making the state the fifth in the nation to allow same-sex marriage.

Baldacci, a Democrat, signed the bill Wednesday shortly after the state Senate voted 21-13, with one absent, to approve the measure authorizing marriage between any two people rather than between one man and one woman, as state law had allowed. The House had passed the bill Tuesday.

New Hampshire legislators are also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor. He has not indicated whether he'll sign it.

If same-sex marriage becomes law in that state, Rhode Island would be the sole holdout in New England.

You may want to invest in some earplugs.

Those exploding head noises are apparently going to get quite annoying.

Snicker.

Chuckle.

Chortle . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Year End Cleanup . . . .

Some end of the year cleanup is in order, and how fitting it is to feature the bush administration.

From Bob Herbert of the New York Times we get:

Add Up the Damage
By BOB HERBERT - December 30, 2008

Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?

You don’t hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.

We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.

But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

_______________


The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.

He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”

The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.

Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics, also of the New York Times now weighs in:

Looking for a word
December 31, 2008

Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

What brings this to mind is this from Alberto Gonzales:

"I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

This reminded me of Laura Bush’s remark on carnage in Iraq:

"And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this."

Remember this. And remember, too, that for long years these people were considered heroic patriots, defenders of the nation.

And now it is time for them to go away . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

"Goodbye George" from McClatchy . . . .

McClatchy's Washington Bureau bids an early farewell to george bush today.

Commentary: Bush makes a farewell tour. Good riddance

Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

December 18, 2008

We've been treated to a real spectacle this week as President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney limped into the home stretch of their Magical History Tour, employing distortions, half-truths and untruths in a final, desperate attempt to pervert or somehow prevent history from judging them accurately.

_______________

The great gray eminence himself, Dick Cheney, of no known address, went on national television pleading guilty to committing a war crime. Yes, Cheney said, he participated in the White House discussions on the use of torture in the interrogations of suspected terrorists. Yes, he said proudly, he approved the use of such outlawed practices as water-boarding, the simulated drowning of bound and helpless prisoners to make them talk. So what?

Photo credit: Kevin Seirs of the Charlotte Observer

_______________

Over in the White House, the president was busy signing a flood of executive orders opening the gates to oil drilling on massive chunks of previously protected public lands in the West; protecting big corporations from lawsuits in state courts when their products harm or kill innocent Americans, and generally giving his fat cat friends one last shot at looting a national Treasury of any remaining table scraps.

The president and his spinmeisters keep talking about how, with the passage of time, historians will come to judge his presidency a huge success, much as history has come to judge the administration of Harry S. Truman.

Balderdash. Or as I much prefer to say in situations like this: Bullshit!

_______________


Bush told his War College audience that of all the things he loved about the job, he was proudest of all of his role as their commander-in-chief.

Why then did he and his minions oppose virtually every attempt to reinforce their numbers and shorten the time they spent in Hell? Why did they oppose virtually every attempt to increase their pay and their benefits, and those of millions of American veterans of these and other wars?

How could so proud a commander sit idly by while soldiers and Marines were sent off to war without the armored vehicles and body armor they so desperately needed in this new kind of war?

How could his administration pinch pennies when it came to funding and manning the military hospitals that treat the thousands of wounded troops flowing home from his wars?

How can this man talk about making the world a safer and freer place by his actions when so much innocent blood has been shed by civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan? When millions have been turned into homeless refugees inside and outside Iraq? When America is left with far fewer friends and allies among the nations of the world?

The only good news left to us this gloomy, cold December is that we only have to put up with this wretched spectacle for another 30 days or so.

George W. Bush should make a hurry-up call to his architect and see if it's not too late to substitute firing slits for the ground floor windows in his new Presidential Library in Dallas.

Good-bye George, and good riddance.

Well done, Mr. Galloway.

Well done . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Juror Jilts Stevens for Nag . . . .

ted "Series of Tubes" stevens loses out to a horse race.

From McClatchy today:

Stevens juror left for horse race, not father's funeral

Erika Bolstad | McClatchy Newspapers - November 03, 2008

WASHINGTON — Juror No. 4 in Sen. Ted Stevens' federal corruption trial, otherwise known as Marian Hinnant, didn't leave to attend her father's funeral in California, as she told the judge at the time.

Instead, Hinnant had a plane ticket to see the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita Park and didn't want to miss it, she told the judge Monday, in what sounded like completely irrational and perhaps even delusional remarks.

"I just wanted to go to the Breeders' Cup," she told reporters after a hearing the judge held to find out why she'd left town and lost contact with him, forcing him to replace her just hours before the jury found Stevens guilty.

Hinnant also told reporters that she would have found the Alaska senator guilty had she remained on the jury.

"He was guilty, but these other guys are just as guilty," she said, referring to other members of Congress.

_______________


Hinnant, 52, told reporters that she works at Avis car rental in Union Station in Washington. She worked in horse racing for many years and simply wanted to see the race, since she already had a plane ticket to California.

Somehow, this sounds very appropriate to me.

After all, stevens' daily double of stupidity is exacta what caused the dam trifecta of this blow out of a court case to break down. You would have to have had blinkers on to not see the prosecution breeze to a guilty verdict and put 'ole ted on a fast track pace to a stint in the pokey place.

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

So sad I nearly stopped laughing

By now you've probably heard of Ashley Todd, the College Republican operative who claimed she was mugged by a black man who carved a B for Barak in her face when he saw a McCain sticker on her car.

Now, do I hear you say "Wow, what a dramatic commentary of how out of control partisan politics are in America, and what a bunch of violent criminals Obama supporters are!" No? Do I hear you say, "That sound like bullshit to me. By the way, why would the attacker lightly scratch the B in backward, you know, the way it would look if you were doing it in the mirror?"

Great story, but not even the likes of Michele Malkin believed it. I wonder why? I mean, it isn't like we've seen anything like this before, is it? But that didn't stop the McCain-Palin campaign from shouting it from the rooftops.

Apparently, after confessing to police she made the whole thing up, Ashley Todd is blamed the media for blowing the story up into a "political firestorm" according to the lead investigator in the case. The police are apparently worried about her mental condition, I guess in addition to being involved in the College Republicans, the McCain campaign and being a lying douchebag, she must have some other problems as well. Sad what so much cognitive dissonance will do to a young mind. Keep in mind, she's from Texas and Bush has been the president since she was 12 years old, she probably can't help it.

Meanwhile, the exodus continues, as the wingnuts seize the reins of the Republican party.

Virginia Votes . . . .

This video is a clip from PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio this past Friday. Although it was produced in the "swing state" of Virginia, it very well could have been in most states south of the Mason Dixon Line. Hell, what am I saying?!? This same scenario is taking place in every state in the US of A.




Now you get a hint of why we left . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Taibbi on Palin's America - "Ouch . . . . "

Matt Taibbi's piece in tomorrow's Rolling Stone is one fine example of writing.

If you thought Kathleen Parker and Heather Mallick's articles were tough, you ain't seen nuthin' yet.

A few choice excerpts:

Mad Dog Palin

The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America

MATT TAIBBI - Posted Oct 02, 2008

_______________


Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

______________


But watching Palin's speech, I had no doubt that I was witnessing a historic, iconic performance. The candidate sauntered to the lectern with the assurance of a sleepwalker — and immediately launched into a symphony of snorting and sneering remarks, taking time out in between the superior invective to present herself as just a humble gal with a beefcake husband and a brood of healthy, combat-ready spawn who just happened to be the innocent targets of a communist and probably also homosexual media conspiracy. She appeared to be completely without shame and utterly full of shit, awing a room full of hardened reporters with her sickly-sweet line about the high-school-flame-turned-hubby who, "five children later," is "still my guy." It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.

_______________


Here's what Sarah Palin represents: being a fat fucking pig who pins "Country First" buttons on his man titties and chants "U-S-A! U-S-A!" at the top of his lungs while his kids live off credit cards and Saudis buy up all the mortgages in Kansas.

The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the ass for eight solid years, and we'll not only thank you for your trouble, we'll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time.


Taibbi's analysis of the US electorate is brutally frank.

It's also frighteningly accurate . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Political History . . . .

An archaeological team, digging in Washington DC Alberta, has uncovered 10,000 year old bones and fossil remains of what is believed to be the first Republican Harper Conservative.

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Bridge Done. Send in the Clowns . . . .

Sorry.

Couldn't resist . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)