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Well, now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are off the front pages and almost forgotten by the public those war mongers on the right just can’t keep their finger off the proverbial trigger. After starting two wars they could not finish, they are now restarting an old war they lost once but now they want to have another go at it hoping the result will be different. That war is the War On Women.
Starting with the fight over legalized abortion, republicans all over the country are passing more restrictive laws that they hope will force more women to abandon plans to abort their fetuses and carry them to term. Of course, once they are born, they will instantly lose interest in their well being, but by then it’s too late anyway. Better an unwanted child living a possible life of misery than an aborted fetus. These republicans have come up with new and more intrusive methods of humiliating and then denying women the right to avail themselves of a legal procedure. The worst one is the vaginal probe in order to check for a fetal heartbeat. This onerous procedure is tantamount to of a government sponsored rape of the woman in question. It is a disgraceful requirement to say the least.
Many female legislators have responded to these draconian laws by proposing equally as intrusive laws for men wanting vasectomies, or desiring a viagra prescription, or even to classifying all sperm as potential human beings and criminalizing depositing them anywhere outside of a vagina. It is ironic to the max that republicans preached so long about getting government off their backs but are more than willing to invite them into their bedrooms or their loved ones’ vaginas.
What really provoked the renewed battle of this War On Women was this moron Rep Issa and his decision to hold a hearing about reproductive rights and the church where he invited religious leaders but no women. A woman who wanted to testify was then verbally raped by fat ass Rush Limbaugh who called her a slut and a prostitute. He ripped her for four days running and that caused a firestorm with his advertisers. He lost 40 of them in less than a week but was only the beginning of the ruckus. The fact that no major conservative players stood up and called this disgusting misogynist out on his personal attacks is all the more proof that this culture war, this War On Women is in full swing.
The result is that women all over the country got motivated to fight not only Congress and their radical ideas but also their local state legislators who are passing even more restrictive laws on matters of women’s health. They have had enough of these rightwingers using “religious freedom” and “personal responsibility” as an excuse for these wholesale attacks on women, their bodies, and their rights as Americans. This election in 2012, more than any other in recent history, will be a watershed for reproductive rights and women’s health issues. The republicans have already played their hand and they will get their asses handed to them in November like never before.
The sleeping giant which is the vote of the American woman has been awoken and, man, is she pissed.
The terrific duo of Huckabuck and Cornball are at it again. These two bozos, who masquerade as the two Senators from Texas when they are not doing anything else, are showing us their stupid side. They were loud and proud in their rejection of the Obama Stimulus Plan crying about the deficits it would bring and the imminent collapse of our economy if it passed. Well, it passed and the economy began to recover despite their Chicken Little routines and now they want in on the act. They are complaining that not enough of the stimulus money is being spent quickly enough and they want some of the money now that they didn’t want before. What a bunch of hypocrites.
Turns out that NASA got somewhat shortchanged in the last budget (that they also voted against) and now they come to the public with hat in hand asking for some of Uncle Sam’s greenbacks from the Marxist government they hate so much. Can you say bake sale, Senators? How about giving NASA a big old tax cut… that appears to be the republican solution for every other problem… Maybe we can sell some corporate space on the side of the latest missle under development and fire up the Exxon-Mobil missle to Mars. Anything but asking the Socialist Commander In Chief for stimulus cash… but yet here they are doing just that. I guess all that secessionist talk we heard from these rightwinger types earlier this year crawl back under their rocks when their buddies have their hands out wanting our tax money. Where’s the tenth amendment screamers now? Do they think we are that stupid or have incredibly short memories when it comes to their fake outrage? Give me a break.
I don’t know what will happen to this ‘request’ from Huckabuck and Cornball but it is possible that they may get something in the long run that they will no doubt take all the credit for. Just once I’d like to see this president take notice of these hypocrites and call them out in public telling them that in order to get some money from a government program that first you have to vote for that program. Then, and only then, can you get what you asked for. These same rightwing crybabies are the ones who want to strip all foreign aid from countries that do not vote with us in the UN but that same principle goes by the wayside when they are doing it. It’s bullshit, plain and simple, but republicans don’t seem to know any other way to act anymore. Hypocrites one and all.
It’s been a number of years since the recently departed Ann Richards was governor here. Some coke-headed frat boy ran a gutter snipe campaign with the help of Karl Rove and ran her out of office. What a political fiasco that turned out to be for America. He fucked up Texas and then fucked up the country and a good portion of the world as well. The current leadership in Texas is taking notes and following the lesson very well.
There are no Democrats in any statewide office right now and it shows. With the tax cut mantra tucked firmly under their arm the republicans run for the end zone time after time scoring numerous touchdowns. Trouble is they are scoring them for the wrong team. Vested interests and big business have bought up all the GOP leaders and everything they do reflects the interests of these corporate whizbangs. The people haven’t been short changed. They have been screwed over.
Want example? There are plenty of them.
republicans made a big fuss about abstinence only sex education. They claimed that too much information made our young people crave sex and that caused all the unwanted births to our teenagers. The reality of the situation is that abstinence only sex education made our young people stupid and uninformed and now Texas can claim to be a leader in teenage births across the nation. “We’re Number Three!” is not a claim that we should be proud of but, for some ignorant ass reason, we are.
republicans made a big fuss about being taxed too much so they cut taxes. They said small government is better for us. The trouble is that small government works when your population is small and your country is undeveloped and has no need for services. Texas is neither a small population state or are we undeveloped but the services that are available in thus state are sparse to non-existent because there is no money to pay for any of it by order of the corporate controlled legislature. Road repair, new schools, adequate health care for children, unemployment benefits and dozens of other services are skimpy at best because of the stupidity of the “tax cut” crowd. They hated government so much they got elected and then showed us how rotten their whole way of thinking was in order to prove the point.
The current leadership of the state is caught up in arguing over the stimulus money that is supposed to help Texans recover from the recession. They are also fighting the push for health care for all Americans. That whole situation is so bad that one out of every three Texans is without any kind of health insurance at all. Turds-for-brains John Cornyn is whining about how much money health care will cost while ignoring two simple facts: 1) a third of the state doesn’t have health insurance and 2) they go to the ER for their health care which is paid for with increased hospital taxes to pay for the most expensive care there is. Can you say, “This is STUPID!” loud enough so he can hear it when his head is that far up his ass?
This past weekend there was a free health care clinic in Houston to take care of those who had no paid care. More than two thousand people showed up to get care and more would have come by if there had been more publicity on it. Not one public official from Texas was there. They do not want to see that the people they represent are suffering because of their lack of action, their ignorance of the problem, or their outright stupidity. Two thirds of Americans want a public option in the new health care plan being proposed. You know what that means for Texas? Not a fucking thing because these jerks stopped listening to Texans a long time ago.
Like father, like daughter. Once a political hack, always a political hack. Guess who is back? The Torture Queen herself!
Over the weekend, Liz Cheney went to some political gathering called Smart Girls Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. She brought with her all the political baggage she’s been lugging around with her since her father was forced out of his undisclosed location because of term limits. There were a couple of other rightwinger geniuses there like Michelle Malkin and Representative Marsha Blackburn to go along with the superior genius of Liz Cheney but, outside of some off the wall bloggers and a stray NYT reporter, this little shindig got no press coverage whatsoever. Perhaps it was because no one there said anything worth repeating. Perhaps it was because we’ve heard all this rightwing claptrap before. Whatever the reason, this was nothing more than a backslapping, everybody agree with everybody else gathering of people who are still stuck in the mindset of the last administration.
What was still the same old same old was the message from Liz Cheney: torture works. She may have talked about something else but this was the message that came thru loud and clear to me. Ignoring the fact that torture is illegal here in America no matter what John Yoo, Jay Bybee and David Addington may have said at one time, Liz Cheney still thinks that the best way to defeat the bad guys is to act just like them. The old eye for an eye stuff. Right.
Liz seems to think that waterboarding is legal despite the fact that this government prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American POWs during WW II for doing that very action. The legal precedent is clear to everyone except the NeoCons like Liz who think the law does not apply to them or if they change the wording of a legal opinion that it changes the law as if by magic. Sorry. It doesn’t quite work that way. In fact, it’s never worked that way. Calling torture by another name doesn’t change a thing. You’ve just put another name on amounts to torture. Enhanced Interrogation Techniques is still torture no matter what euphemism you want to use. It’s the same stuff that Saddam used on his own people and we invaded him over less. Our law says you cannot torture people. There are no justifiable excuses.
But here she is, in public, bashing President Obama for not allowing torture to be used anymore and here is Liz Cheney still thinking that “24” is a reflection of real life and that the bad guys have set up a doomsday device and we have less than a day to find it and disarm it so we need to use torture to find out the truth from recently captured and fully informed terrorists. Remind me to never let Liz watch Dukes Of Hazzard because she’ll start believing that cars can fly and all southern sheriffs are stupid. God help us if she ever watches the A Team and begins to think that bad guys can be disabled and disarmed by shooting heads of cabbage at them. Some things are too stupid to be believed but not according to Dick’s daughter. Torture works in CheneyWorld even though there is no evidence to back that up.
The destruction of America’s world standing because of this ignorant, uncivilized belief in torturing prisoners is long lasting and these unrepentant ignoramuses want Liz to run for office someday soon? Oh, God, would that wish come true so the public can give her the beatdown that her daddy never gave her for being so fucking stupid. Seems like stupidity is in the Cheney genes. Like I said, like father, like daughter.
The fine folks of Louisiana sure got themselves a winner with Bobby Jindal, the republican from India that took the name of one of the Brady Bunch kids instead of the Indian name (Piyush) he was born with. In a nutshell, that tells me everything I need to know about Jindal: he likes the ridiculous, the pretentious, and the simple minded stuff instead of the complicated ideas that are present in politics. He must think we all grew up watching that stupid ass show given how he’s been acting on the national stage.
Bobby was one of the most outspoken opponents of the stimulus plan. He called it wasneful spending and was even tempted to return the money back to the federal government. As the recession got worse, he quietly changed his mind and allowed the money to flow into Louisiana. He still spoke out against Washington and their intrusion into Louisiana with this cash booty.
As the money began to arrive, Bobby took a different tack on the stimulus. He commissioned someone to make over-sized checks with his name on them and then went around the state “awarding” those checks to different organizations to foster job growth or a public works project. Nowhere on those checks did it say that the money was coming from the federal government but that’s where the money was coming from all right. He went all over the state taking credit for something that he had spent months railing against. Isn’t this beginning to sound like a really bad Brady Bunch episode to you? It does to me.
Then, the director of the state transportation department, who was appointed by Bobby, stopped his department from making signs that indicated that the projects that were funded by the federal government’s stimulus from erecting signs that gave credit to the federal government. It’s OK for the governor to hand out bogus checks but it’s not OK for the public to know that those mean, nasty, all-powerful federals actually helped li’l ol’ Louisiana with some taxpayer money. The plot deepens on the newest episode of the Brady Bunch…
Now comes the latest chapter in this book of hypocrisy. A few days ago, Vice President Biden held a conference call with all of the nation’s governors (or their representatives) to encourage them to submit quarterly reports on how many jobs were created with the stimulus money flowing into their states. 49 out of 50 governors were represented at this conference call. The missing governor? Yep! You guessed it: Bobby Jindal.
I’d like to say that the call was mandatory and that not calling in meant you could not collect the $200 and you do not pass Go but it doesn’t quite work that way. In this Brady Bunch episode, Bobby takes credit for something he did not do or even want, keeps one of his employees from giving credit where credit is due and then doesn’t call the house when he’s supposed to call. What’s the ending? What’s the punch line you ask? There is no punch line on this sad joke, unfortunately, and Bobby gets away with it because no one calls him out on it. I hope Louisiana voters are watching and will remember his actions in the next election. That won’t happen, however, because Bobby is a republican and republicans do not believe in oversight or accountability anymore since they discovered that voters, especially republican voters, don’t care as long as they are getting the money.
The Quitter is back. I knew she couldn’t stay away long. That heady trip she took courtesy of John McCain last fall really got to her. It got to her so much that she started believing her own hype and the hype of radical right entertainment outlets like ClusterFox News and now she wants to capitalize on it. She quit her day job and now she’s out making money to support her family. I guess Todd’s day job at IHOP in Wasilla wasn’t cutting the mustard for Little Miss Sarah.
Her first attempt at a post-governorship money making scheme was a speech she gave to a group of investors in Hong Kong the other day. At a gathering of some of the most astute investors in the Chinese economy, they choose to invite one of the least astute American politicians of the last half century. I mean, could she have picked a more unfamiliar audience than this to have her coming out party with? Probably not.
She banned the media from the speech and denied the speechgoers an opportunity to ask questions. It sounds more like what the Chimpster George Bush would do for a speech than anything else. But she gave the speech anyway, all 80 minutes of it. Personally, given it was Sarah Palin and that it was her attempt to show folks that she had something on the ball besides her looks, I think the speech was 70 minutes too long. I’m pretty sure that the entirety of what Sarah needs to tell us on ALL subjects could be dealt with in under ten minutes, don’t you?
Think about it: she’s only been out of the country twice and neither time was for broadening her horizons in a political way, her foreign policy credentials were summarized by Tina Fey in one sentence (I can see Russia from my house), nothing she said on the campaign trail with regards to the rest of the world is even being quoted today one year later much less being remembered as being wise or savvy, and, with all due respect, her name is this decade’s version of a political joke. Dan Quayle thanks her in his prayers nightly for lifting the mantle from his shoulders.
From all reports, Palin used her speech to these investors, in a conference hosted by Chinese Communists in Hong Kong, to bash the current domestic policy of the United States, not only in trade issues but in military issues as well. If a Democrat dared to do this, the rightwing sound machine would have been screaming bloody murder and been all over it like stink on shit. These same hypocrites said nothing about Sarah’s critical remarks made on foreign soil but that’s not surprising, to tell you the truth.
The speech itself was a bust. A number of invitees walked out and those who stayed were tepid in their comments about her performance afterwards. I’m not sure if they themselves had to pay to hear her speak but I’m pretty sure they did not get their money’s worth. Warmed over rightwing rhetoric barely plays well at home. It doesn’t play at all well in the rest of the world. A failed politician like Sarah doesn’t really have the standing to offer the Chinese government (or a thousand of the world’s wisest investors) any policy advice or geo-political advice but Sarah gave it to them anyway.
I got a nickel here that says she won’t be invited back. Any takers?
Since the introduction of HR 3200, republicans have made a stand against it and all it’s various parts. They are against the employer mandate which would require businesses of a certain size te offer health care to their employees. They are against the individual mandate which would require everyone of legal age and citizenship to purchase a health care plan so they do not get their health care from the ER which is the most expensive place to get anything AND that taxpayers pay for if you cannot. They are against requiring insurance companies to stop dropping customers for seeking care they paid for. They are also against preventing insurance companies from carrying out recissions that drop people from coverage for no apparent reason. They are also against preventing insurance companies from using pre-existing conditions to deny coverage. Amazingly, they are against any remedies that would keep people from going bankrupt in an effort to get some kind of health care or treatment for what ails them. Lastly, in this short and incomplete list, they are against a low cost, government run option to compete with the insurance companies to help keep costs down and provide an alternative to the high priced coverage that exists everywhere AKA the public option.
After all this, you may be asking, what are they for? Tax cuts. They are in favor of using the tax code to cut some of your taxes so you can afford to buy the over-priced insurance that non-employer based plans currently make expensive and unaffordable. The trouble is, that even after the tax cuts, the overwhelming majority of people that cannot afford health care now would also not be able to afford coverage even with a tax cut. In essence, the republican health care plan is to force people to buy expensive coverage they cannot afford or go broke trying. Some plan. That free market crap they peddled to us for the last three decades that put us in this mess is what they think will cure this mess. What a load of shit.
It is very clear that the republican party is fresh out of ideas. They have no real plan for health care. They have no plan for the environment. They have no plan for our children’s education. They have no plan to solve the banking and mortgage crisis. They have no plan to get us out of fighting two wars and bring our troops home. They have no plans to start thinking of a way to come up with some new plans.
They are hoping you will not notice this by screaming about death panels, socialism, ACORN, and a thousand other things. Everything except what is important to everyday Americans. Everything except finding something that works.
In a nutshell, this is how I feel. I know my president is a more forgiving and inclusive man but I am not. I’m not because I know there is nothing to be gained from it. Reaching out to republicans on any issue is like dipping your hand in the piranha tank at feeding time. They’ll rip the flesh off your hand given half a chance.
There was a time in the distant past where there was an honest exchange of ideas between the two parties. The trouble is that, once rightwingers started winning elections using scurrilous scare tactics, they would not quit when the election was over. The proceeded to govern using the same scare tactics and pissed in the well as far as cooperation was concerned. Democrats were less and less likely to come to the middle only to be demonized for doing so in the next election cycle. It stopped being about what was best for America and it became all about one-upping the opposition and winning elections.
Do nothing Congresses run by republicans became the norm and the political climate was increasingly hostile to any outreach. The selection of Chimpy in 2000 wrote an end to serious bipartisanship. The Chimpster wasn’t interested in what Democrats had to say. This bozo could not even get the name of the party right much less come to the table in good faith. “My way or the highway” was the NeoCon mantra he put into place and he made it stick. Moderate republicans were challenged in their own districts by Club For Growth NeoCons approved by the Chimpster himself. It made no difference how long the official had carried the water. He was out unless he marched in lockstep with Chimpy and his flying monkeys. The aura of bipartisanship took a real blow with the Iraq War fiasco.
As soon as it became apparent that the NeoCons had cooked the books on the intel and that lie after lie was told to get us into the war, Democrats started to wake up. We weren’t going after Osama like we should have but we were blowing our wad on a fool’s errand. The elections of 2006 and 2008 took the steam out of the Lie Machine the republicans used to get elected and they were kicked out of power. What Democrats did not count on was President Obama opening the door and letting them back into power.
His first clue should have been the Stimulus package that was supposed to save the economy from melt down. The republicans offered and got amendments added to the package, mainly to help out their districts, and then en masse voted against it. Not one republican voted for it. They railed about it before and after it was passed but not one of them gave back any of the money.
Now comes the health care measure. We’re in the same boat again with these clowns. Change after change was put into the bills before Congress but the result is the same old thing: no republican support for reform. Boehner was even talking about how the President should hit the Reset button and start all over again on health care. I have one question: what the hell for?
The republicans are in the minority. They are out-voted. Elections have consequences. They had plenty of time to fix what was wrong. They knew what to fix but you did not. Step aside and let the adults in so we can move forward as a country. You had your turn. You failed.
Mr President, you were elected to do a job. You ran on the platform of fixing health care. Now fix it. Don’t ask them for help because they are fresh out of ideas and helpful suggestions. Move forward. Either they will get on the train or they will be left at the station’s platform to wave goodbye to us as we go down the track. I say leave them.
About once in a generation comes a politician that wraps up the entirety of the political essence of the times. For me, that politician was Richard Milhouse Nixon. He combined a lying, ass-covering attitude with deceit and political intrigue. He was the encapsulation of what the republican party was in the late 1960s and 1970s. In short, he lied, got caught and then quit politics before he had to pay the piper.
For this generation, that example is Sarah Palin. She does not have the gravitas that Nixon did, nor are her lies of the magnitude that his were but then she never really had the chance to be any bigger than what she was. She ran for Vice-President but on a ticket that was doomed to failure in the shadow of the George Bush years. Like I said, she never had a chance. But that never stopped her from lying out of her ass at every available opportunity and, when the going got to be tough because of her behavior in office, she up and quit. Unlike Nixon who sought obscurity for a long time afterwards, Palin has made it clear that her quitting just means she is a fighter (whatever the hell that means) and that she will be speaking up on issues as she deems it appropriate to do so. In other wqrds, she’s not really going away – she’s just getting out of the line of fire by giving up her governorship.
She had a big ride in the two and a half years she was in the limelight. She managed to rack up a body of lies that is quite impressive. I was stunned when I read an account of them. I knew about them all but to read them back-to-back was astonishing. Among the lies that Sarah whipped on her adoring fans were these:
Sarah lied about so many things of small and big importance that it became almost a full time job to keep track of them all. She does Richard Nixon proud. Her quitting, in my opinion, is the perfect tribute to Nixon and the body of lies that he told in his many years of public office holding. Te say that she will be missed is, well, a lie I won’t be telling.
Texas has a real fine collection of politicians who fit the description of “total and complete idiot.” On any given day it’s hard to decide which one is the most asinine one. They have contributed mightily to the ignorant discourse that is standard for republicans here in Texas. Today we’re going to ignore the idiot who said that it would be a million years before Al Franken would be seated as a Senator in the United States Senate. It’s pretty hard to top that but it’s been done. Instead, we’ll concentrate on the other two prominent imbeciles: Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Rick Perry started this stupidity a few months ago when he said that he would refuse to accept the stimulus money because he didn’t like the strings attached to the money. He did not like the fact that the money would go to the state’s unemployed and that it would increase their benefits. He even went so far as to suggest that he may look at taking Texas out of the Union over the issue. It created a big hubbub and Perry backed down real quick. The talk of secession over the issue of state’s rights struck a chord with all the rightwing bigots and fringe nutjobs and got Perry some publicity in a year when he may be facing some stiff opposition in the primary. So, refuse the money he did.
A few weeks ago, Mr Perry had to swallow some huge amounts of crow when he came begging to Uncle Barack Sam for a loan of $170 million dollars to pay into the unemployment fund. Seems like it was going to go broke without the infusion of cash. There were two problems with that request: (1) he could have had that money for free if he would have accepted the stimulus money and (2) this loan he’ll have to pay back with interest. For all the political posturing and talk of secession, dumbshit Mr Perry just cost the state of Texas untold millions of dollars by appealing to the stupid redneck branch of his party. Sad to say, the story does not end there.
Enter the possible opposition for Rick Perry in the upcoming governor’s race, Kay Bailey Hutchison. She starts screeching about Perry hypocrisy in turning down the stimulus money and condemning him for taking out the loan to salvage his mistake. Here comes the fun part: SHE VOTED AGAINST THE VERY STIMULUS SHE’S BLASTING PERRY FOR NOT ACCEPTING. How much sense does that make? She’s trying to have it both ways hoping that the people of the state do not remember that she cast her vote against the stimulus package that slowed down the descent into the depths of George Bush’s recession. Some of us have memories like elephants even if the party of the elephants doesn’t.
The media here in Texas loves all these idiots and would never print stuff that blasts these two (and all the others) for their ignorant ways and stupid actions. That’s OK. Those of us not afixed with glazed eyes to Fox News or any of the rightwing newspapers that call Texas home can go online and find out what is happening in our own state even if the local press doesn’t cover it. Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison: two big republican hypocrites. I hope Texas can do better come election day 2009 and toss both these numbskulls out of office.
I came across this story and I was sure surprised at what was in it versus the version of the story that got more publicity. Let me explain.
There were two versions of the Bush speech in Erie, Pennsylvania story: one from the Washington Times and one from Fox News. Fox News used some of the reporting from AP but only bits and pieces. There is a third version that did not get as much air time as the others. Once you get to the unexpurgated story from AP, a little different picture emerges. Neither the Fox version or the WaTimes carried this little gem and I can see why:
The topic of Guantanamo Bay arose during a question-and-answer session, in which e-mailed or submitted questions were screened and chosen by a moderator during the event.
No wonder Fox did not come clean with this little gem. The Washington Times is obviously no better. This means that despite Bush’s proclamations about being a free man and getting on with his life, he’s still the Boy In The Bubble when it comes to facing the American public. Even a friendly audience like the one he spoke to in Erie before “a group of business leaders” is subject to have their questions screened in advance.
This is nothing new for George. He had questions screened for every public appearance while he was president. There was a time during a European trip where a group of school children was gathered to talk to him but he wouldn’t do it because his advance staff had no time to screen the high school students for anti-Bush sentiment or hostile questions. They cancelled the appearance over it.
George Bush was afraid not only of school children, the public at large but also the military. He wouldn’t answer any questions from the troops unless they were first submitted to their commanding officers and then the Bush advance team. Every softball question possible was asked because he had enough time in advance to memorize an answer and not get caught off guard like a deer in the headlights with a question he may not have a viable answer to.
I remember every president from JFK thru Clinton speaking off the cuff at public events and press conferences and whipping out cogent, intelligent responses. Even fucking Richard Nixon was pretty adept in handling the press and the public until Watergate broke. President Obama demonstrates the intelligence and quick-witted savvy that endears the people to a president. JFK had it. Reagan had it. Clinton had it. Obama certainly has it.
The only president in the last 50 years who sheltered himself from the slings and barbs that come with the job, the stuff that gets you in contact with the people of this country is the Boy In The Bubble: George Walker Bush.
Some things never change with that guy.
link: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nation/ap/48543487.html
The Texas legislature finished up its business last week without getting to some pretty important legislation. Since the legislature only meets every two years, we may be in for a long wait on additional children’s health care and a few other pieces of business. Why would that be of concern, you ask? The only reason that the usually efficient legislature got bogged down is that Senate Republicans pulled a Tom DeLay power play to jam thru a piece of legislation they couldn’t ordinarily get passed because the rules would have given enough power to the minority Democrats to stop it. They jammed the bill thru by changing the rules because they could not get the bill thru any other way. The result of this tactic is the slowdown of the rest of the session once the bill came up on the calendar of The House. Democrats talked every bill to death even the ones that would have passed on a voice vote with no debate just to keep the bill from ever seeing the light of day.
What was this infamous bill? A Voter ID bill. Why would this be a problem in Texas? It isn’t but republicans see the tide is turning against them and their base is slowly being overcome by the Democratic base and they want to stem that tide if they can. The only way they can do it is to keep people from voting. The obvious tactics of trimming the voter registration lists the way that Jeb Bush did in Florida to get his brother elected in 2000 has been tried already. Folks are wise to that maneuver. They are also wise to the phony voter registration drives where they sign people up to vote but stamp their cards as GOP so they cannot vote in the Democratic primary. All that’s left is to subvert the on-going process in place to help wipe off long time voters that tend to lean Democratic.
The process as it stands allows for citizens to register by submitting the appropriate documentation, waiting 30 days for the local registrar to authenticate your documentation and then send you a voter’s registration card. This card is all you currently need to take to the polls. That’s not good enough for republicans. They are all hot and bothered about voter fraud even though there hasn’t been any substantial voter fraud since LBJ left the state. The Texas Secretary of State hasn’t prosecuted any cases of voter fraud where people have voted multiple times on election day or where bogus ballots were added to the mix.
He has gone after minority voters on specious and unfounded charges. After he was sued by the people he tried to intimidate, he was outed and backed down. It showed that his “prosecutions” were political witch hunts without a basis or foundation. Fast forward to the 2009 legislature: republicans, with no basis or foundation either, introduced a Voter ID Act that is as racist as the Secretary of State’s prosecutions. They insist on two forms of photo ID but still charge people to obtain that ID. That is nothing more than an old-fashioned poll tax which is unconstitutional. That little something never stopped the GOP from plunging ahead in their ever increasing attempts to fix elections and limit minority voters access to the polls.
Voter intimidation and suppression have become standard fare for republicans faced with their shrinking voter base. This is their last hurrah at maintaining control and they see the power slipping from their fingers despite everything they have tried. Texas republicans are barely holding on to power in the Legislature and the defeat of this bill could very well mark the end of their sad and tragic rule here in the Lone Star State. One can only hope.
Rick Perry could call the lege back into session to deal with hurricane relief and children’s health care but he’ll be playing with fire if he adds the racist Voter ID bill to the mix.
link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/SB00362H.htm
supporting link: http://www.alternet.org/politics/86737/voting_rights_
lawyers_defeat_texas%27_bogus_voter_fraud_prosecutions/
There’s nothing like the party of white Anglo Saxon men calling other folks racist because they have pride in being something other than white. For decades these republicans have made race the lynchpin of their appeal and they have done quite well attracting the underground racists who left the Democratic Party after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts back in the 1960’s. Given that being overtly racist isn’t socially acceptable anymore, these Kloset Klansmen have provided the winning margin all thru out the South for the republican party, the party that once was the home of Abe Lincoln. I wonder what poor Abe must be thinking now that his party is the home to the same bunch of haters he fought against during the War Between The States. He’d especially find it revolting that members of his party are talking about secession after all the blood was spilled the last time the subject came up in a serious way.
The current crew of racists in the republican party are having at Sonia Sotomayor in hopes they can hang the racist label on her after getting that tail pinned on themselves for the last 40+ years. Most of America isn’t buying this crock of shit just like they didn’t buy into the “palling around with terrorists” crap back in 2008. They see the republicans for all their warts and scars and they know the truth about Judge Sotomayor. The hype isn’t working. What’s good for the republicans is they are getting a lot of air time out of this spate of name calling but it’s also showing the public that the republicans have no leadership and they have no clear message in how to proceed in getting America back to work.
Unelected republican leaders like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Tom Tancredo and Ann Coulter have been cutting loose on the race issue while the people who have faced the electorate lately have sat on their hands saying and doing little to curb the feeding frenzy. John Cornball Cornyn actually told folks to cool it last week but nobody listened to him. Party Chairman Steele has flip-flopped so many times on whether or not to attack Sotomayor he looks like a human yo-yo. Most of his comments have the racial bent to them so at least he is not branching out on his own. What’s important is that folks will remember how Sotomayor was treated come election time.
The long term effect of these attacks will be to show new voters, minorities, and independents where the heart of the republican party truly lies. For all the “small government” and “fewer taxes” talk they rode into power on, the people see now that those issues were just a smoke screen. The last eight years of NeoCon policies blasted that myth all to hell.
What is amazing is how LBJ’s prediction came true in a way he never thought possible. After he managed to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, he thought that he was costing the Democrats their majority for good. Richard Nixon capitalized on that sentiment with his Southern Strategy in 1968 and the die was cast for 40 years. The good-old-boys who were the backbone of the Democratic Party since the days of Lincoln did the unthinkable and became republicans which gave the GOP a foothold in the South they never had before. Add the Religious Right and Reagan Democrats and this looked like the permanent republican majority that people like Karl Rove and Lee Atwater dreamed about.
Trouble is they started feeling their oats a bit too much and thought that most people were supportive of their agenda when they just wanted a fair shake from their government, not a shake down. The Religious Right became disillusioned with the lack of progress on their theocratic agenda, the Reagan Democrats realized they had gotten screwed by Bush and the moderates were driven out of the party by the non-compromising NeoCons who were running the show. They lost two elections and they weren’t running the show anymore.
That’s when the ugliness came out and here we are today watching the GOP implode. They will soon be the party of the Deep South with little impact or force outside the South and the sparsely populated Western states. What makes this journey so wild is that now the party of Lincoln that rose to prominence because of their emphasis on civil rights has now became the party that has no clue what those rights mean to most Americans. It explains the attitudes of the party mouthpieces and why there is an across-the-board lack of racial inclusiveness in the republican party. After all, most people have an unerring sense of not staying where they are not wanted and they do not want to be republicans anymore. Too bad.
Despite claims to the contrary, the Jerry Falwell founded university is managing to crush the very free speech they claim to be supporting and in favor of. Obviously, that “free speech” only goes to speech that the University agrees with.
Take for example the Liberty University Democratic Club. After first allowing the club at this arch conservative school, school officials turned around and closed the club down. They claimed that the Democratic Party was not in synch with the values supported by the university. So, your free speech is restricted and your right to associate is also terminated by a school that claims to be an institute of higher learning. I don’t think so.
The republican party club at the university is still in place despite the real party being a haven for crooks, pedophiles, gays, political hacks of every sort, and racists. Association with those folks must be OK because Jerry Falwell said so. The fact that the GOP supports the same agenda that the university supports seems to be the key here. Banning gay marriage, prayer in the schools, and banning abortion are all hot issues for the rightwingers and only republicans have the wherewithal to accomplish those goals. Has anyone told them that despite the GOP having complete control of Congress for more that five years during the early 2000’s they failed to enact a solitary piece of the rightwing’s puzzle
The tragedy here is how the young people who did join the Democratic Club are now without a place to go and they have learned the tough lesson: Christians cannot be Democrats. Even though you may have the calling, if you seek to understand any of the myriad of viewpoints that are not on the college’s approved list, you will not get far. Even if Jesus himself was a Democrat instead of just the Son Of God, Liberty University would ban the apostles from breaking bread or meeting together. Some Christianity you all are preaching there. Why did I expect anything differently from someone named Falwell?
You can tell that republicans are on their last legs as a viable national entity by the absolute hysteria caused by the selection of Sonia Sotomayor to be on the Supreme Court. When John Cornyn turns out to be a solitary voice of reason amongst the lunacy of discombobulating rightwingers, you know you are up Shit Creek with no paddle, no canoe, and no life jacket to save your sorry asses. To mix a metaphor: you are toast.
I could see this level of mayhem if the hubbub was made over any of the court cases that Judge Sotomayor had ruled upon but it’s not. Nowhere close. This is all the penny ante crap that republicans think is important when it is clear they (1) haven’t read any of the court cases, (2) can’t find anything wrong with her decisions if they have read them, and (3) cannot bring themselves to admit that President Obama made a choice that will be confirmed without their approval making them irrelevant to the process. Their days as the power brokers for the country are over and they cannot deal with it so they whine and bitch like the pussy ass babies they really are.
Examples you say? You want examples? I gottem. Plenty of them.
The head of the rump republicans, Rush Fat Ass, called Sotomayor a “reverse racist.” I’m not sure what that means but if Rush said it, it’s not too good. It’s not truthful either but that’s nothing new. I think it means she is proud to be Latina and doesn’t think fat, white pricks like Rush are better than herself. I can see where he would be upset about that.
Glenn Beck, the fringe’s favorite Mormon, just called her a plain, everyday racist but given he also took her comments about her experience out of context, I’m not surprised that he came up with the “racist” tag for her since he is among the millions who haven’t read anything else about her career except that one line. Like a pit bull with rabies he isn’t letting go of that accusation because if he did it would mean he has to do his homework about her and that would mean actually thinking about her accomplishments. That, in and of itself, would defeat the purpose of smearing her name. Calling her “Hispanic chick lady” ranks right up there with the all-time classic stupid things he’s ever said.
Lou Dobbs, who seems to be afraid of every Hispanic since he climbed on the immigration bandwagon, said her appointment was pandering to Hispanics and women. If that’s the case, what was Clarence Thomas? Was he the smartest choice that Bush 41 could have made or the only black conservative he could find? Dobbs wasn’t real clear if he thought this pick alone was pandering to women and Hispanics or if Alito and Scalia were pandering to whites and Italians as well.
Newt Gingrich, not wanting to left out of the feeding frenzy, chimed in with his spin on the nomination. He landed with “Latina woman racist” which just about eliminates Latina women as a group that might support Gingrich’s presidential run in a couple of years, Again, his interpretation of Sotomayor’s language is wildly out-of-touch but self-immolation seems to be the republican operating procedure with this nomination.
Tom Tancredo, the one issue immigration specialist of the rightwingers, condemned her membership in La Raza and called La Raza the “Latino KKK without the hoods or nooses.” Are you kidding me? Did he just pull that out of his own ass or did he go to the city dump to find that pile of shit?
Karl Rove has thrown more than his two lousy cents in this all out attack as well. Besides saying she wasn’t that smart and smearing her name by using sexist terms to demean her gender with terms like “schoolmarm” and that she rules on “emotion” he went on to blast her for being “combative, opinionated, argumentative” while on the bench according to anonymous sources he just happened to find while scouring the bottom of the barrel. Anytime you rely on an anonymous source to blast someone you don’t like, you lose what little credibility you may have had. Aw, too late. Rove hasn’t had any since 1973.
Then comes the right’s favorite convicted felon, G. Gordon Liddy. He expresses his fear that she may make a ruling whilst in the midst of her menstrual cycle and the mess we would be in if that happened. He also thought she was a racist because he thinks that La Raza means “The Race” (which it doesn’t) but that never stopped Liddy from saying or doing stupid things. One word proves it: Watergate. Pat Buchanan chimed in with his bullshit flavored sucker punch saying that she was the “Affirmative Action candidate” because no white males were in the final group for Obama to choose from. Pat can’t let go of that Nixon influence no matter how hard he tries.
The Center For Immigration Studies sent their own class clown over to join in the “fun” the fringers were having. Mark Krikorian was bent out of shape because Sotomayor puts the emphasis in pronouncing her name on the last syllable. He thought she ought to change her name to blend in better with the whiteys who used to run America. Yeah. Blend in. Just like you did, Mr Krikorian.
This is a full-fledged Piranha Party of the first degree. I hope it goes on for a while because folks might forget the irresponsible shit slinging come 2010 when republicans will be begging to be placed back in charge of Congress. Women and Hispanics will not soon forget how rightwingers lost it over the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor. I just hope the rest of us don’t forget it either so we can finally put the last piece of Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy into place by making the republican party the party of the Old South and no where else.
One last shot. This one is probably the most honest and insightful reason ever given for opposing Judge Sotomayor’s appointment to the Supreme Court. When David Shuster asked Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, “What evidence do you have that she would put her feelings and politics above the rule of law?” he replied simply, “Because President Obama chose her.”
Need I say more?
I sure love the fact the Karl Rove puts on his Clueless Arrogance Hat before he leaves the house each morning and ventures forth into the world. It makes him easier to pick out of the crowd. Every time he opens his yap, another indication he is clueless pops out. This last one is a doozy.
As part of the rightwing campaign to diminish and smear a Supreme Court candidate they can do nothing to stop, Karl is out there slapping uncomplimentary tags on Judge Sotomayor which merely shows the misogynism of his train of thought. More to the point, it demonstrates what a political hack Rove is and how he is blinded by his own hypocrisy. There is an old expression about when you are in a hole to stop digging but in Karl’s case I think he is trying to either find gold or dig his way to China where the rest of the mono-thought autocrats live. He strikes out on both accounts. He’s just digging a big hole.
The latest gem came from a debate he participated in with James Carville. (I find this to be ironic in and of itself simply because Rove wouldn’t let his boy Chimpy do these sorts of things before an unscreened crowd while he was president for fear of showing all of us how stupid the boy is but that’s another post at another time.) It’s getting out there in front of a crowd where your true colors show and whether you really have the chops you say you do and, in Karl’s case, it shows he does not. For a guy to be so allegedly well read, he puts his foot in his mouth more than anyone I know except Billo The Clown or Glenn Beck.
The moderator of the debate between James Carville and Rove, Charlie Rose, tried to hold Karl to account on a number of occasions but all he got for his troubles were evasions and sidesteps from Rove. The one quite unintentional but accurate statement came as Rose was trying to illicit comments about Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court. Karl conceded that she had traveled an interesting road to the Supreme Court where upon Rose interjected that she was smart as well. Karl said, “Not necessarily.”
Rose was taken aback and gave a summary of Sotomayor’s accomplishments including what she did at Yale Law School to which Karl came up with this classic statement:
“I know lots of stupid people who went to Ivy League schools.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. Karl either is confirming everything we thought about the Chimpster or he is throwing him under the bus to discredit Sotomayor. Trying to compare George Bush’s acceptance to the Ivy League based on his daddy’s legacy and his accomplishment of passing with a “C” average with Sotomayor’s journey to Princeton thanks to a merit based scholarship where she graduated summa cum laude in 1976 (she was also awarded the Pyne Prize on top of that which is the highest academic award given to Princeton undergraduates) and to Yale Law School where she was an editor for the Yale Law Journal is nothing short of absurd. But Karl will try to do that simply because he is a true partisan hack.
If Sotomayor is not that smart, based on Karl’s standard of attending an Ivy League school, then George Bush is bordering on retarded. Of course, we could extend this out further and say something profound about a guy who never made it through one college to a diploma much less two. Who would that be?
Karl Rove. How smart does that make him? Not very.
link: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/27/rove-ivy-league-smart/
The truth is out. Let the investigations begin on the Bush White House and their involvement in the nasty business of torturing prisoners. This week, a Freedom Of Information request made by the ACLU revealed that the CIA wasn’t acting on it’s own when it began the torture program. In fact, they did not even wait until John Yoo & Company offered up their lame ass and illegal justifications thru the Office of Legal Counsel. It started long before that with Alberto Gonzales who was the White House Counsel at the time.
According to an NPR report, it appears that Gonzo all on his own gave the CIA permission to conduct the torture sessions that have caused all the uproar and disgraced the good name of the United States. Now I’m wondering, what the fuck is the White House Counsel doing offering policy opinions to a governmental agency when his job is to advise the president on legal issues? The two are not the same. Not by a long shot.
Yoo started this mess by trying to claim that detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq fell outside the traditional POW status and, therefore, were afforded no legal protections under American law. This was an ass covering move to keep people from being prosecuted under the Federal War Crimes Act. Before Yoo and Jay Bybee composed the legal mumbo jumbo that excused torture as an interrogation technique, Gonzo was signing off on allowing the CIA to do their thing on people in American custody. I guess these clowns thought that if it was on a piece of paper, then it was fine and legal. Amazing.
What gives me a little bit of hope is the report coming from Spain that a couple of their judges are contemplating holding trials on this very issue.
Now I’m wondering if the Spaniards are going to have to act first before Congress does something about it or before the Hague gets their international ass in gear and prosecute these war criminals so we can remove the stain of their deeds from our national psyche. What does that say about our resolve that we cannot go after wrongdoers who have allegedly committed some of the most heinous acts imaginable? Why does another country with an absolutely crappy history in the area of human rights have to step up and put us to shame before we do something about it?
The legal carnage that Bush and his self-righteous ideologues caused will take a long time to repair especially if people like Gonzales, Bybee, Yoo, and others are allowed to wander freely without being held to account for their actions. When will someone, anyone stand up and do something about it?
links: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/23/AR2009052301795.html?hpid=topnews
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/report_gonzo_then_at_white_house_signed_off_on_cia.php
Rick Perry has done it again. He has decided to make a fool of himself once more in front of everybody. This time it has to do with the stimulus money. No, he’s not turning it down like he said he would. Instead, he’s decided to take $11 million of it to fix up the governor’s mansion which was damaged by an arsonist a while back. Wasn’t this the same guy that made such a stink about accepting $500 million of that stimulus cash to help out the state’s unemployed but now he’ll take some of that cabbage to fix up his house? Where are the tea-baggers now? How come they aren’t complaining about this abuse of federal funding? (The answer is the tea-baggers are only interested in complaining about Barack Obama, not Rick Perry’s hypocrisy.) I guess talk of seceding from the Union is only secondary to getting your crib up to speed, eh?
link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20090521/us-governor-s-mansion-texas/
Sean “The Manatee” Hannity has proven himself to be an outright asswipe. About a month ago he was chiming in that waterboarding wasn’t torture and proceeded to volunteer to have himself waterboarded for a military charity. Then he promptly backed away from the challenge as soon as someone took him up on it namely Keith Olbermann. KO said he would put up $1000 for every second that Hannity could take the punishment. Hannity went silent on the issue drawing considerable ridicule and failing to answer the self-imposed challenge.
A number of things happened as a result:
(1) Some rightwing talker actually volunteered to be waterboarded because he claimed that it wasn’t torture. He lasted less than ten seconds before he quit and admitted it was torture. KO gave the cash he offered in Hannity’s case to this guy’s charity instead.
(2) Jesse Ventura offered to waterboard Hannity (since he had endured this very tactic as a part of his SEAL training and knew what it was like). He promised that if he did waterboard Hannity he would get him to admit that Obama was the greatest president. This is pretty amusing and right in line with the fact that torture techniques never get admissions of truth but rather get fantasy admissions just to get the torture to stop.
(3) It got Hannity to shut up about torture. Thank God for small favors.
link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/22/jesse-ventura-challenges_n_206694.html
Finally, we get to Senator Cornball aka John Cornyn. He doesn’t like how the last election turned out and he’s not going to take it lying down. President Obama issued a statement that said, as per tradition, he would be consulting with the Texas House delegation concerning any judicial appointments from Texas since neither Senator is a Democrat. Cornball, used to getting his own way with the Bushbot Administration, refuses to be by-passed in this process even though he’s no longer a part of it.
Cornball and Kay Bailey Huckabuck, the two bozos who speak for Texas in the Senate, got used to screening those appointments with their committee made up of rightwing legal heads. The Congressional Research Office made the tradition clear when they issued a statement granting the highest ranking officials of the president’s own party that privilege instead of the Bozo Brigade.
So, now I’m left to wonder is Cornball really that clueless to think he’s going to be part of the process merely by virtue of the fact that he’s a Senator or is he just that fucking arrogant? Either way, he’s shit-outta-luck come appointment time. Given his track record, he’ll put a hold on the appointment and show the rest of the country that Rick Perry isn’t the only elected idiot in the state of Texas. What a great state we live in.
link: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cornyns-power-grab
Birds of a feather, as they used to say. Imagine our surprise at hearing Dick Cheney telling us that he prefers the Rush Limbaugh kind of republican over the Colin Powell kind of republican. This testimony speaks volumes to Americans and would probably go a long way to explaining the reasons for the declining fortunes of the republican brand. A thirteen percent approval rate for Darth Dick kind of puts the anchor around the neck of the party image as they are treading water after the sinking of the USS Chimpy.
Colin Powell was damaged goods for a number of reasons but the largest reason was his complicity in the fraud at the UN where he set up the case for war. He knew that what he was saying did not meet his standards but he vas the good soldier in the Bush army and did what he was told. After resigning, he came clean about what he did. It was too late to rectify the damage done but he began the process of cleaning out the poison in his system with that confession. There is no doubt that Darth Dick did not approve of this soul cleansing and probably even saw it as a distinct weakness in Powell. The rest of us reasonable people saw it for what it was: an attempt to make good on a serious error in judgement. The icing on that mea culpa came with Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama over John McCain last fall. Cheney must have been beside himself.
Fat Ass Rush, on the other hand, has kept up the drum beat of rightwing reactionary rhetoric feeding his base with the red meat of racist hysteria, anti-American sentiments, and twisted bullshit logic since he became a spokesman for republicans a decade or two ago. He could be counted on to use his radio show to browbeat reluctant republicans back into place, demonize anything not done according to the GOP playbook, and trump up some good old fashioned racist hatred when all else failed to rally the home folks into action.
If we take a look at the score card that Rush is holding we can see a number of issues that run contrary to popular opinion but that fit right in that 21% who still call themselves republicans.
There is no question that Rush is the kind of republican that Cheney supports and absolutely loves. The trouble will come if moderate republicans take Rush’s advice and get out of the party. Cheney certainly wouldn’t care and neither would Rush. Ideological purity is more treasured to this NeoCon cabal than actual governing anyway.
If they become Democrats, the republicans will become a permanent minority party because it was the republican moderates that helped the NeoCons and Religious Right take over the majority mantle and without them there are not enough rightwingers to be a majority anywhere except maybe Texas. But who cares? Aren’t they talking about seceding from the Union anyway?
links:http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/10/cheney-limbaugh-powell/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/11/sessions-limbaugh-unemployment/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/06/cantor-limbaugh-listening/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/20/limbaugh-obama-fail/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/06/limbaugh-powell-2/
Recently a video has surfaced of the speech Bush made before we went into Iraq. What made this pretty interesting to behold was that Bush was warning Saddam and the Iraqis about committing war crimes and the excuse of “just following orders” would not be recognized. It’s pretty apparent that Bush is aware of what a war crime is by watching this video otherwise he would not have warned the Iraqis about it. The irony comes when you realize that he was aware enough to have authorized the very same war crimes in the pursuit of intelligence from detainees. The difference here is he gave the orders instead of just following orders.
With the release of the memos authorizing the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” aka torture, we now see the mindset that the Bush Administration was operating under. It wasn’t pretty. In essence, the memos said that almost anything goes short of death. Given that there were detainees who died while in custody, they couldn’t even stick to that limitation. This all ignores the prevailing law of the United States under US Code 2340, Title 18 and the Convention On Torture of which the US was a willing signatory. Even the “quaint” Geneva Convention has rules about torturing people that we apparently tossed by the wayside along with our morality.
What became even more interesting is the conduct of Condi Rice over the last few days. She was captured on camera admitting to passing along the word to the CIA about the new rules.
I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency, that they had policy authorization, subject to the Justice Department’s clearance. That’s what I did.
According to Jonathan Turley, constitutional law professor at George Washington University, Condi Rice just implicated herself in the conspiracy to torture detainees by that admission. She didn’t stop there, however. She then proceeded to try and justify Bush’s actions with Nixonian logic.
I just said, the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.
Well, Condi dear, that load of crap did not work when Richard Nixon tried to justify his role in the Watergate burglaries 37 years ago and it isn’t working now. The president isn’t above the law but rather subject to the law. He has the obligation to support the Constitution and he didn’t. In fact, he’s the guiltiest party in this whole mess and you helped out.
The legal gibberish that Bybee and Yoo (as well as David Addington) signed off on was a tortured attempt to justify torture and circumvent the law. A first year law student can make Swiss Cheese out of their insane logic and if this ever goes to trial. rest assured, someone with a whole lot more experience will do the honors. Trouble is, I do not think, in this day and age, that there are any prosecutors alive that have the passion or the balls to pursue these crimes where ever the evidence leads. Politics, and President Obama’s desire to bury this festering pus bag of wrongdoing without exposing all that was done, will make certain of that.
A trip to the Hague for George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington and the rest of the scum that debased our Constitution and our world image seems to be out of the question. That’s a real shame. It means they got away with it.
Links:http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/30/condi-president-makes-it-legal
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/28/bush-torture-flashback/
First, he comes out and bashes the Stimulus because it would make Texas treat it’s working class a little more humanely. Then, the brings up talk of seceding from the union because things aren’t going the way he wants them to and he cannot give marching orders to Washington the way he did when his former boss Chimpy McFlightpants was in office. Nevermind that talk of secession still has real strong ties to the discredited Confederacy and their desire to build a society on the enslavement of black people. They couch it in talk of States Rights nowdays but no one is fooled except those who choose to believe that the South seceded after Lincoln became President because they didn’t like the jib of his sail. They knew their days for owning slaves were numbered. I wonder sometimes how old Honest Abe would feel about his Republican Party being the home of some of the most audacious liars ever imagined, some of the most hateful racists, and people who preach secession when they cannot win in the battlefield of ideas?
That tune changed pretty damn quickly as soon as word of a new swine flu rearing its ugly head in Mexico. A bunch of people took ill and some even died. Now, there cases springing up in Texas and Mr Perry is all too comfortable asking the hated Feds for doses of medicine they have in store for situations just like this. If Texas were an independent nation, we’d have to be digging into our own pockets to pay for that medicine and too fucking bad if you are poor, have no health insurance, or are a Union sympathizer. Seems like that suggestion about seceding from the Union was a bit premature. Let’s get one more handout from the federal government before we introduce articles of secession into the Texas Legislature.
Rick Perry is trying to hold on to his job with this nonsense and half the republicans in Texas actually think leaving the United States is a good thing and they are in favor of it. Are you serious? Yep. I sure am. My hope in this regard is simple: Perry rallies the racists and good-old-boys to his side in the primary fight and the Democratic candidate comes along and kicks his sorry ass out of Austin on a high speed train.
Kay Bailey Hutchison is talking up a gubernatorial race against him which is fine by me. If she runs and loses the primary, she’ll be damaged goods for 2012 and we may be able to return some sanity to Texas politics with these two idiots hitting the bricks. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: first things first. Let’s nip this racist idiot talk about leaving the Union in the bud. It’s the most unAmerican thing I’ve heard of in decades. It ranks right up there with book censorship, race baiting cops, and torturing people in our custody. Dumping Perry for this kind of a comment should be seen as the same kind of payback as George Allen suffered in Virginia for his “macaca” comment a few years ago and the failure of governor Clement to shake Ann Richard’s hand after a joint appearance It made them look like shallow bigots, which, of course, they were and the image stuck. It would be nice to stick this one to Rick Perry.
Rick Perry is filling the legacy of his predecessor George Walker Bush quite nicely, thank you very much. Recent republican elected officials are becoming quite famous for putting their foot in their mouth and then hopping around on one foot for a few weeks at a time. The latest example of this idiocy came at one of the Teabagger protests that came to pass on Tax Day last week.
Perry stood before the meager gathering and started his rant about how much he hated Washington. Now mind you, he hasn’t taken up this cause lightly or with insufficient reasoning. He is mad at Washington because there is a Democrat in the White House who isn’t trying to bankrupt the country by emptying out the Treasury by giving tax cuts to Rick Perry’s millionare friends and that pisses him off to no end. Rick Perry hates the fact that the money that comes to Texas from the recently passed stimulus plan has strings attached that are designed to help people in these tough times, not chuck them out in the street like Texas usually does. Rick Perry hates being told what to do, just like the Chimp that preceded him in the governor’s mansion. He made his dissatisfaction all too clear when he spoke to the assembled crowd.
In what he hoped was a veiled threat (but which turned out to be the material that made him out to be nothing more than a bigoted idiot and a national laughingstock) Rick Perry made a passing reference to Texas leaving the Union. Seceding. This is where the No Child Left Behind Act shows its flaws because there was a time that every school child knew that states cannot leave the Union once they join. We fought a hellacious war over that principle and the people who thought it was OK to leave lost that conflict. Nevertheless, the concept lives on in the demented minds of those few total idiots who don’t like the direction of the nation but do not have the political capital to push the idea past the talking stages.
Now Rick Perry did not advocate seceding immediately. He even praised the idea of Texas staying in the Union. So, I’m wondering, if he wasn’t looking at it down the road, why did he bring it up at all? Well, Perry is in the political fight of his life and what do rightwingers do when they have their backs against the wall? They return to their base and in this case it is the far rightwing fringe of voters who cling to the States’ Rights doctrine. You know these people, don’t you? This is the crowd that forgets that the Civil War decided once and for all that a state cannot secede and it does not have authority or preeminence over the federal government. The state does have some rights but telling the feds what to do and when to do it isn’t one of them.
These States Rights people are also the same folks that used that excuse as their main reason to maintain the slave society of the South. They used it again after the war to keep black folks “in their places” and keep the feds at bay. Reagan used it to signal the Kloset Klansmen that he was one of them and not a Hollywood actor when he ran for president. Rick Perry is signaling the bigoted base of the republican party (that no one likes to be reminded of but whom without they cannot win elections in the South) that he is one of them. He may have told the Teabagger crowd that he was just a good old boy looking out for Texas against the forces that would make Texas change how they do things but to the rest of us he’s signaling his intent to keep playing the politics of race and division and he’ll use States’ Rights to do that.
And all along I thought George Bush was our state’s biggest asshole.
Black & White and Cardinal Red All Over 