More Bush Failure: Coup Attempt in Iraq

Rove has been working The Villagers hard, trying to rehab Bush prior to January 20.

His claim is that Bush accomplished real (worthwhile) accomplishments.

For example, "He kept us safe after 9/11."

It's a lie. (Rove's still breathing; that's how you know he's lying.)

Roughly 5,000 U.S. service women and men dead, 50,000 wounded, 100,000 Iraqs' dead, 1,000,000 wounded, and an entire country torn to shreds. Plus our allies.

Leaving aside the brown not U.S. people, that's 55,000 U.S. people (plus contractors) dead or wounded), and over $250 billion dollars on the record, figure another $250 billion in off-record funds such as pre-positioned not budgeted, training costs back in the states, non DOD and non-supplemental costs, tasks not accounted for, and at least another Trillion with a T in future VA medical costs coming at us like a fucking mile-wide asteroid at 50,000 miles per hour.

That's the money. It doesn't count the 500,000 veterans of which AT LEAST one out of three, more likely one out of two are going to be suffering PTSD or some kind of delayed reaction to having served at least one tour. And I haven't once even mentioned Afghanistan, it's costs (in all senses), that we can NOT POSSIBLY win (no matter how the word "win" is defined), and that Obama has been suckered into planning to deploy more troops there, Gods help us all.

And oh yeah, there's a little thing called Al-Qadea, which is quite thoroughly established in Iraq, and it was not before Bush invaded. So Bush has massively failed to keep members of the United States safe since 9/11. He's gotten lots of us killed or wounded.

Futhermore, what means this word, "safe," which Rove keeps throwing around?

If we look at "safe" past physical safety in the very strictest of terms, we immediately come to financial safety, health, welfare, and the common good -- you know, the shit the Constitution was put together to protect, that which we fought the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and two World Wars to make goddamn sure we had, not to mention survived the Great Depression, the 60s, 80s, and now the 2000s.

Guess what?

Bush has blown the accumulated financial capital of the entire country, much of our physical wellbeing, plus our safety in our own homes (those of us who still have homes), sold off or allowed to be destroyed many of our most beautiful and treasured places, and wiped his ass with the Constitution.

Much of the justification for all of this has been that Bush's attention has been on Iraq. That he has been a "foreign policy" president, a "war time" president, who is "staying the course." That if only we faithless fucks would get off his damn back and let him rule like the unitary executive he was clearly born to be (after he turned 40, found Jesus, and stopped doing cocaine off the bellies of strippers while drunk), why then he'd be able to get the damn job done and all would be well.

But fear not... Eventually Iraq will turn out as a democratic nation if we dirty fucking hippies don't give up the gains he, George W. Bush has made on the altar of blood and American lives (the brown lives don't count), and he, Bush, will go down in history (long after he is dead; he has said repeatedly he does not expect this to happen in his lifetime) as a Great American President in the judgment of history.

No shit. He's really said that. On camera. Repeatedly.

Yeah, well, you didn't think the drunk fuck had any connection to reality, did you?

Anyway, Rove has been attempting to rehab Bush's image. True.

But now there's this nasty little coup attempt in Iraq. Which means... Well.

Blue Girl has the story:

They gave us a republic...

Over the last three days as many as 35 officials in Iraq's Interior Ministry have been arrested, some of them accused of trying to reconstitute the Baath Party. The arrests were confirmed by officials from the Ministries of National Defense and Interior, as well as the office of the Prime Minister. It was also confirmed that four of those detained were flag-rank officers, including the General who served as Director of Internal Affairs for the Interior Ministry. It was also confirmed that the arrests were made by an elite counterterrorism strike force that reports directly to the office of the Prime Minister.

The involvement of the counterterrorism unit speaks to the seriousness of the accusations, and several officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security said that some of those arrested were in the early stages of planning a coup.

Rumors of coups, conspiracies and new alliances abound in the Iraqi capital a month before provincial elections. Critics of Mr. Maliki say he has been using arrests to consolidate power.

But senior security officials said there was significant evidence tying those arrested to a wide array of political corruption charges, including affiliation with Al Awda, or the Return, a descendant of the Baath Party, which ruled the country as a dictatorship for 35 years, mostly under Mr. Hussein. Tens of thousands of Iraqis died or were persecuted, including Mr. Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, by the Baath Party. It was outlawed after the American invasion in 2003.

On the other hand, there are those who say that there is a conspiracy, all right - but it is being perpetrated by Maliki and his loyalists who are using arrests to silence those perceived to be political opponents. Interior Minister Jawad Kadem al-Bolani, who has not been implicated and is out of the country, has political ambitions of his own. He has been expanding his secular Iraqi Constitutional Party.

At a later protest against the arrest, several other Sunni politicians were detained. A number of politicians who follow the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and who have set themselves up as political rivals to the prime minister, have also been arrested over the past months and charged with terrorist activities.

Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni lawmaker, charged that the safety of the prisoners was in jeopardy. "I think these people are not going to be treated well and that is the American responsibility," he said.

Here I would like to remind the readers that the whole purpose of the SurgeÔ was to allow for political reconciliation that has obviously not happened. And if we are propping up a thug in an Armani suit who is sending out henchmen to arrest his political opponents, that rather negates any and all accomplishments that they are trying to lay claim to, doesn't it?

There's more...

Let me quote you that last little big again:

...if we are propping up a thug in an Armani suit who is sending out henchmen to arrest his political opponents, that rather negates any and all accomplishments that they are trying to lay claim to, doesn't it?

Sing it Blue Girl.

Bush has accomplished NOTHING.

Iraq is in shambles. Their and our economies are trashed.

The Vice President is an admitted war criminal who personally approved torture.

Bush is a drunken scumbag who can't even leave office gracefully, refusing to allow the Obama's to move in to Blair House 10 days early (January 5 instead of January 15) in order to let the Obama daughters start school after the New Year.

There are back alleys in San Francisco and West Oakland where sex workers and their clients go, covered in used discarded condoms.

Bush is a discarded condom, dripping with slime. (Unlike Bush, condoms work.)

Rove is the slime, trying to make it all pretty.

It's not.

Fuck off, Rove.

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The Essence of Being Republican

McCain Supporter Denies Obama Supporter's Children Halloween Candy

Do it my way or to hell with you. And your children too.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

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Katie Couric: Biden, Palin, Talking on Dick Cheney

Palin is Completely Unprepared for the Vice Presidency

Her answers to Katie Couric show at every possible level

• how deeply she fails to understand what is at stake,
• is unengaged from the issues other Americans are struggling with, and
• trivializes the damage done to the United States by Bush and Cheney.

Palin is not ready in any sense of the word to be Vice President or President.

Sidebar:

We all own Katie Couric a debt of gratitude for a first-rate interview, edited superbly.

I believe most of us usually think of Katie as not up to the challenge of real news. Her resume with doing the puff pieces throughout most of her career points us to think of her that way, as does coming up through the morning shows. Not to mention she's a woman doncha know. And her anchoring the Evening News has not been a wild success in the ratings. Which of course has nothing to do with her being a woman. *laughs* (That was sarcasm for people who don't notice it.)

(Please let us not get bogged down in a pie-fight over feminism in the news media. I'm mentioning it in passing; it is not the point of this post or even this sidebar. I'm just saying, some of what we might pass of in Katie as being a light-weight, is really because she's a woman, and some of where she's not accepted in the Big-News club, is also because she's a woman. That's my take, anyway. Again, not the point of this.)

This interview was first rate journalism and I'm happy to say so. Not simply because it laid waste to my political opposition, but because it did what good journalism does. It asked good questions and let the subject answer them in a way that the answers, both what was said, what wasn't said, and how the answers were given, said much more about the subject than any given answer. In short, the INTERVIEW as a whole, speaks enormously louder than any question and answer, no matter how shocking that single answer might be. When viewed in its entirety, the enormity of the lack of Palin's qualifications, how truly ignorant she is, how unreflective and unaware of her own ignorance. I was personally shocked and sickened, while at the same time greatful to Katie for being able to sit with Gov. Palin and be empathetic with her as a subject, so as to get such a remarkable candid piece of journalism.

Then contrasting with Sen. Biden the anti-Palin in every regard. Brilliant editing.

This is a piece any political journalist, print or broadcast, should watch. Kudos to every person involved in the production of this piece.

Want to swing votes?

Put the entire interview in front of swing voters. Then remind them that Sen. McCain want to put Gov. Palin a heartbeat away from the Presidency, and he refuses to release his medical records.

Sarah Palin is walking, talking proof that John McCain has FAILED as a candidate for President, to put country before politics, and as such, has DEMONSTRATED his own unfitness for the job he seeks.

This stunt kept his campaign alive a few weeks, yep you betcha. In the end, it is costing McCain an electoral blow-out as it demonstrates to EVERYONE that he, Palin, and his campaign staff will

• lie,
• cheat, and
• harm America, in order to win.

People are fed us with STUPID. People are tired of generations of DUMB AND DUMBER. This is the time for people who know what the frack they are doing.

• Let us THANK Sen. McCain for Gov. Palin.
• McCain/Palin IS why independents are voting Obama 3:1 - 4:1.
  
• McCain/Palin are too stupid and anti-reality to be trusted.

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RNC uses 911 Imagery. Olbermann Apologizes

Keith Olbermann Calls Shame On the RNC

The only line the RNC did not cross last night is Godwin's Law.

Showing direct graphic 9/11 imagery for political gain. Fucking Republicans.

What's next? Headless corpses in the street? People jumping to their death?

They already showed a FAKE military funeral as convention background -- stock footage from Getty Images without a real soldier in it, but boy did it make those Republican eyes swell with tears.

Total cost? Under $5 grand for world-wide commercial use in all formats for ten years. Cheap.

No need to deal with all the ugly mess of an ACTUAL military death, where you know, real grief and shit might fuck up your camera shot, or the pure raw emotion of it all might make the delegates re-think their position even for a moment.

Paying under $5K is CHEAP at that price.

But tonight... tonight those fucks showed 9/11 imagery.

Swear to the Gods, if there is one truth the last eight years have taught me it is this... EVERY FUCKING TIME I think there truly is no lower for George W. Bush and the Republican Party to go, they go lower.

Boston Globe

The death of a taboo
Posted by Sasha Issenberg September 4, 2008 08:41 PM

ST. PAUL -- One of the most enduring taboos in American politics, the airing of graphic images from the September 11 attacks in a partisan context, died today. It was nearly seven years old.

The informal prohibition, which had been occasionally threatened by political ads in recent years, was pronounced dead at approximately 7:40 CST, when a video aired before delegates at the Republican National Convention included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center, the towers' subsequent collapse, and smoke emerging from the Pentagon.

The September 11 precedent was one of the few surviving campaign-season taboos. It is survived by direct comparisons of one's opponents to Hitler.

There is that which is good, that which is alive, that which is moral and that which is right.

The Republican Party is the enemy of aliveness, and with no irony, the Republican Party is the enemy of truth, justice, and the America Way, of 232 years of generally forward progress by Americans since the Declaration of Independence.

We are going to win in November.

This doesn't let anyone off the hook from working their ass off. Working our asses off is how we're going to win. However this kind of bullshit is too obvious, too mean, and doesn't appeal to enough people.

I'd like to say there's always room in the sewer for more shit, but in the last eight years we've seen that with bad management, infrastructure thought reliable can fail when run way past capacity by incompetents.

Again, part of why we're going to win.

They really ran 9/11 imagery at a political convention. *shakes head* What fuckheads. They have NOTHING left.

Only fear. And trying to divide people.

Back to work.

Keep breathing, and get back to work.

Two months and counting. Goodnight.

H/T The wonderful Diane -- GREATSCAT!

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Open Thread; HaloScan; Netroots; A delay...

HaloScan is fracked up. At least where I am.

I can't see ANY comments. None. Nada, zip, none.

Using the Management Interface we pay for, I can look inside and see:

bad crap. It's bad inside the interface,
trying to get to the comments throws me back out again,
I can see comments here, but they are all old except for two,
one of them is all weird and shit. And the other one is of
Stormcrow who says "HaloScan is eating comments."

Well God Damn, that's good enough for me.

This is Netroots Nation week, were the major bloggers of the blogosphere gather together in one physical place. It happens one time a year. This year, it's in Austin. My ride picks me up in 55 minutes and I am not yet packed. I'm dealing with this SHIT.

If fucking HaloScan had wanted to blow their entire marketing budget on one thing all year, and that one thing was designed to make their new company with its new buyout and new servers look like they SUCK, it would be to go down in front of the assembled national blogosphere during Netroots Nation.

Guess what?

FAIL. Mega-fucking-FAIL.

A delay: I don't have time to put up the promised explanation of the emergency funding request. You have most of it, actually. It's only that last $400 bucks. But to do it justice will take me over an hour to write, and another hour to make sure I say it properly.

Tonight from Austin if all goes well.

Right now I have to pack before the van gets here to take me to the airport. MUCH less expensive than leaving my car in the lot for six days.

Talk with you tonight/early tomorrow morning from Austin.

HALOSCAN SUCKS.

Open Thread: The suckage of HaloScan.

Travel.

Texas.

How HOT it is where you are.

Packing in a HURRY.

Getting through TSA security.

Be cool, y'all. Don't be bad, just 'cause I'm on a plane. I will read this. If HaloScan doesn't loose this. Hmmmmm.

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sigh... Christopher Hitchens Waterboards Himself

As someone else who has "attended" SERE training, I read with interest this account of Christopher Hitchens having himself waterboarded.

The "official lie" about waterboarding, Hitchens says, is that it "simulates the feeling of drowning". In fact, "you are drowning - or rather, being drowned".

He rehearses the intellectual arguments, both for ("It's nothing compared to what they do to us") and against ("It opens a door that can't be closed"). But the Hitch's thoroughly empirical conclusion is simple. As Vanity Fair's title puts it: "Believe me, it's torture." -- The Guardian

To which I would reply:
NO SHIT SHERLOCK
If any member of congress would like to experience this, please let me know I still remember some of the dastardly things the dirty commies were going to do to us.

Torture it's the new black.

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Where is Iraq again?

Jim Inhofe Doesn't Know An Ass From a Hole In The Ground

Geographically challenged? No fucking kidding.

The Washington Independent

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) just cut a reelection ad called "Africa" that highlights -- in his campaign YouTube channel's words -- "his leadership for the African people."

In case you missed it, the ad begins:

Ethiopia. Zambia. Iraq. Twenty-nine intense trips in 12 years to the front -- to the saddest parts of Africa.

Exclusive! Must credit the Washington Independent! IRAQ IS NOT IN AFRICA.

Right on Sen. Inhofe. You rulz, dude. So says The General. Salute!

(No Child Left Behind Act Senator™ from Mattel. “That was such über-pwnage.” Mad skillz. Kekeke!!!)

PAID FOR BY FRIENDS OF JIM INHOFE.
Contributions to the Friends of Jim Inhofe Committee are not tax-deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.

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Fareed Zakaria, Stupid Motherfucker

War supporter Fareed Zakaria, pictured above with manicial skull stare, writes that us silly libtards have it all wrong terrorism isn't on the rise it's declining.

You know that we are living in scary times. Terrorist groups are metastasizing all over the globe. Al Qaeda has re-established its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hizbullah, Hamas and other radical Islamic groups are gaining strength. You hear this stuff all the time, on television and on the campaign trail. Amid the din, it's hard to figure out the facts. Well, finally we have a well-researched, independent analysis of the data relating to terrorism, released last week by Canada's Simon Fraser University. Its findings will surprise you.

No, I really don't think they will. Let me guess, terrorist attacks are down, because we aren't including Iraq and we are going to reclassify what a terrorist attack is.

The Simon Fraser study points out that all three of these data sets [NCTC,MIPT,START] have a common problem. They count civilian casualties from the war in Iraq as deaths caused by terrorism. This makes no sense. Iraq is a war zone, and as in other war zones around the world, many of those killed are civilians... ...Including Iraq massively skews the analysis.

I would imagine.

Look, jackass, may I call you jackass? I am not the least bit surprised that terrorist attacks are down everywhere except Iraq. We are focusing on counter-terrorism. Banks and financial organizations are helping watch the flow of money and law enforcement is coordinating globally. Immigration officials aren't simply rubber stamping visas. We managed to track down some of the ring leaders in spite of the Bush administrations best efforts to antagonize everyone one on the planet, running terrorist cells is still something left to a small core group of very unhappy people and we caught a bunch of them.

None of this surprises me.

Why have you not heard about studies like this or the one from Simon Fraser, which was done by highly regarded scholars, released at the United Nations and widely discussed in many countries around the world—from Canada to Australia? Because it does not fit into the narrative of fear that we have all accepted far too easily.

A narrative of fear you helped spread, a narrative you helped form in order to scare people into supporting the Iraq war. Now you use Newsweek to set up your straw man that everybody is saying terrorism is on the rise. If memory serves, the Bush administration's talking points are that Bush has been keeping us safer, and we are fighting them over there [Iraq] so we don't have to fight them over here. It's unclear what the long term impact on terrorism the Iraq war is going to have, in fact it's impossible to know that now. So I am not sure who you think is running around saying terrorism is on the rise. All this is about is trying to justify your war, trying to say that we stopped terrorism through our bold stance against the brown man. It's you trying to get back into the party by pretending you are so serious a person, analyzing terrorism, and letting us rubes know what's going on. Sorry Fareed, that spot doesn't go away.

Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!
—One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't.
—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow'r to accompt?
—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Do me a favor Fareed, stop trying to pretend that you understand anything about terrorism, or foreign policy. You are just one more pro-war propagandist who doesn't know shit. Certainly doesn't understand the impact of your asinine scribblings.

Look, Fareed, what's your point? Terrorism is down? Okay. There is at least 1/4 million dead in Iraq. The middle east itself is a much more violent place than it's ever been. We are running our own torture gulags and we are burning through 3 trillion dollars, but terrorism is down. Great, thanks, keep those updates coming. Stupid motherfucker.

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Right Wing Loud Mouth Talk Show Hosts

I hate Chris Matthews, but I love Chris Matthews. I am so conflicted.

Neville Chamberlain forever linked with appeasement, Kevin James forever linked with being a stupid motherfucker...

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Dear Paul Begala and Chris Matthews...

Thank you.

Thank you for your clarity.

Your unvarnished truthfulness.

Your bigotry-spawned “going to ground” over what this election is truly about for yourselves and I'm guessing the majority of your co-horts in the nattering chattering class.

I thank you gentlemen for at the very least, exposing yourselves for what you are and letting the world and me know just what the twisted, fear-crafted movement inside you is that makes you tick-tick-tick.

You sirs, and your fellow travelers have removed all doubt for me. At last I know where I stand with you—or rather, five steps behind you .

From Chris Matthews last month:

MATTHEWS: Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri is an Obama supporter. Senator McCaskill, did you advise Obama to go out and try to bowl the other day?

McCASKILL: Well, listen, I grew up in a small town where you learned to do two things: You learned to bowl and you learned to roller-skate. I can’t wait to challenge him to a game of bowling.

MATTHEWS: OK. Let me ask you about how he — how’s he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?

And this from the revelatory Paul Begala during the heat of last last night's rollercoaster primary coverage:

BEGALA: When people say things — I love Donna and we go back 22 years. We’ve never been on different sides of an arguments in our entire lives. But if her point is that there’s a new Democratic Party that somehow doesn’t need or want white working-class people and Latinos, well count me out.

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Paul, baby, I did not say that.

BEGALA: We cannot win with egg heads. Let me finish my point. We cannot win with egg heads and African-Americans. OK, that is the Dukakis Coalition, which carried ten states and gave us four years of the first George Bush.

President Clinton — reached across to get a whole lot of Republicans and Independents to come. I think Senator Obama and Senator Clinton both have that capacity. They both have a unique ability—well it’s not unique if they both have it. They both have a remarkable ability to reach out to those working-class white folks and Latinos. Senator Clinton has proven it; Barack has not yet, but he can. And I certainly hope he is not shutting the door on expanding the party.

(CAMPBELL) BROWN: OK. Let — egg heads and African-Americans? That’s the new coalition?

BRAZILE: First of all, Paul, you didn’t hear me right. Maybe I should come and cook you something because you’ve got a little hearing problem. I was one of the first Democrats who were going to the white working-class neighborhoods, encouraging white Democrats not to forget their roots. I have drank more beers with “Joe Six Pack,” “Jane Six
Pack” and everybody else than most white Democrats that you’re talking about.

In terms of Hispanics, you know Paul, I know the math. I know Colorado; I know Nevada; I know New Mexico. So that’s not the issue. I’m saying that we need to not divide and polarize the Democratic Party as if the Democratic Party will rely simply on white, blue collar male—you insult every black blue collar Democrat by saying that. So stop the divisions. Stop trying to split us into these groups, Paul, because you and I know both know we have been in more campaigns. We know how Democrats win and to simply suggest that Hillary’s coalition is better than Obama’s, Obama’s is better than Hillary’s — no. We have a big party, Paul.

BEGALA: That’s right.

BRAZILE: Just don’t divide me and tell me I cannot stand in Hillary’s camp because I’m black, and I can’t stand in Obama’s camp because I’m female. Because I’m both.

There is nothing that warms my African American heart more than being told that I am not a “regular person”—whatever that is, or that my vote is some sort of statistical anomaly, or simply having my vote flat-out discounted.

Hey, let me show you a picture.



It's a bit blurry and you've probably never seen it before, but here are some details on it. It was captured on film on June 12, 1963—the year I was born. What does it show? A two-tone '57 Chevy Sedan parked in a Jackson, Mississippi home's carport. There's a stain on the ground trailing away from the driver's side and ending in a pool at the far left. I grabbed this from a video chronicling that night.

Let's look at it a little closer, shall we?



I've highlighted that “pool” area so you can understand what it is.

That's blood.

Starting in a thin stream and then gouting from a gaping wound in a man's back courtesy of a Ernfield 1917 30.06 rifle bullet. Said man dragged himself about 25 feet from where he was struck initially and then collapsed near his front door where that pool collected.

That man's name was Medgar Wiley Evers. And he was assassinated for fighting for civil rights and most importantly near the time of his murder, voting rights for African Americans.

Yes. People put their lives on the line and sometimes—too many times—saw their lives snuffed out for fighting to obtain and maintain that right. So, when I hear the likes of a Matthews and revealingly, a Begala flushing the votes of nearly 14 million African Americans down the crapper because they don't like where those votes are being cast and for whom, I think of Medgar Evers on that night, getting out of his car, taking custom-made T-shirts reading “Jim Crow Must Go!” out of the back seat, and then a cowardly sniper's bullet ripping through his back and him bleeding out on his front steps as his wife and kids opened the door to see him there, life ebbing away with every millisecond.

Guess what? Medgar Evers was “regular people”. We are regular people. And these weak-assed attempts to chump off the Black vote when it doesn't play to conventional wisdom or fit a desired template pisses on the memory of those who fought the hardest and sacrificed the most for it. We make up 13.5% of the electorate. You court us when you need votes for “X”, then diss us when we vote for “Y” and “Y” ain't what you're down with.

“Regular people.” “African Americans and Eggheads.”

Let me ask a simple question here. If Black folk only make up 13.5% of Americans, and college educated folks make up 29% (allowing for overlap between the two groups, as well as overlap between college educated voters and GOP-inclined ones), where in the name of Dr. George Washington Carver is the rest of this nettlesome, apple-cart upsetting vote coming from? Or has the dreaded Black Genius Camp and the MIT-educated numerical wizards from the movie “21” banded together in cahoots to unfairly freaknomic-ize this year's primary results? Trotting out this patently racist sour grapes bullshit would be maddening if it weren't so sad and revealing about the people perpetrating it.

And whether you're a hard-core member of “Obamanation” or a pom-pom waving “Clintonista”, common sense should prevail and allow anyone with eyes to do the simple math and realize how specious, divisive and destructive this framing is.

The numbers don't support it. Silly people's fears and naked spite do.

““Regular People” are turning out in record numbers this year just in the primaries not as some statistical blip. It's clear that something is up in America. Gas down the block from me is $3. 91 a gallon for Regular. They're tacking foreclosure notices to houses like they were cellophaned copies of “Pennysavers”. This asinine war has infuriated people beyond belief and trust in the way “things have been” has eroded mightily. Habeas Corpus is under siege, and a government that promised to be hands-off has been revealed to be totally “hands-in”, as in up our asses judicially via manipulation of US attorneys and privacy-wise in terms of FISA. These seven and a half years of Bushian presdiential awfulness is what's driving things change-wise.

But you don't want to look at that.

That's too big a thought for your walnut-sized, political bronto-brains to digest. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's the “elites” who have fucked this thing for you. “The Creative Class”. Eggheads. And of course, the n*ggers.

I'm one of seven kids, born to North Carolinians with a family tree going back to and fading out at Pre-Emancipation. I'm also a writer, actor and visual artist as well as a former college boy. I suppose that makes me the magic and dreaded electoral trifecta of evil according to these two clowns and their co-conspirators in piss-pot punditry.

And apparently, I don't fucking count. Me, the great-great -great grandchild of slaves. People who built this country under a whip of leather and second-class citizenship. My vote and the votes of people like me don't matter a whit. A vote Medgar Evers took a bullet in the back for. Whose vote counts? Ones from the likes of those who shot him down for daring to assert personhood for 13.5 million Black folks. And if not them, then those who quietly have no problem with his murder and what it represented.

“Regular people” “Real America” The mother-fucking “Heartland”.

Thank you Paul Begala. And thank you Chris Matthews. For coming clean on how you really feel. I'm no sage, and while I may not know exactly what America herself is or is not ready for, I know what you two and your ilk are clearly not ready for. You've spent your adult public lives playing at high-mindedness, but now...you've come clean.

The mask is off and I see you for what you are. What's that old saying about “The devil you know vs. the devil you don't know”?

I know you now. Benefit of the doubt shielded you before. But no more.

“Desperation is the flashing, trembling hand that snatches away the veil of false propriety.”

Who said that?

Why, I just did.

Just your typical, discounted, influential-beyond-my-wildest-dreams, and might I say, educated Black person.

At last, I know where I stand.

And because of that, I will fight that much harder. Against injustice. Against a corrupt and twisted system. And yes, against you. Because you see, as well as knowing where I stand...I also know, and will never forget...



...where Medgar lay.

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George Stephanopoulos, Stupid Motherfucker

Stephanopoulos, defends himself.

He dismissed criticism that it had focused too heavily on "gotcha" questions, arguing that they had gone to the heart of the "electability" that, he said, is forefront in the minds of voters evaluating the two Dems.

"Overall, the questions were tough, fair, relevant, and appropriate," Stephanopoulos argued. And he rejected the claim by many Obama supporters that the debate had been stacked against him, saying Hillary had faced sharp questioning, too. --TPM

Yeah, right, whatever. Except he got some of his questions from Sean Hannity. Who keeps trying to bring up that Obama used to know some guy from the Weather Underground when he was 8 years old or something. Let's put it this way, Hannity has closer ties to classic racist Hal Turner than Obama does to the Weather Underground. Although Stephanopoulos used to work for Clinton's husband, according to his book there is no love loss between him and Hillary and he works for the same company that produced the excreable Path to 9/11

He is a Stupid Motherfucker. Or maybe he thinks we are? Who the hell picks the moderators for these debates? The candidates are supposed to "debate the issues". That's what "debate" means. It doesn't mean that stupid corporate media shills get to think up questions that they think would make the candidate squirm just like Timmeh does. Debate. Not "simulate the sunday talk shows." Get it? The moderators are supposed to come up with topics and then moderate the time. These people take the meaning out of everything. And Atrios is right they are cornholing democracy. Fuck you George.

Someone should have stopped the debate. The should have interrupted the debate right in the middle and explained to Charlie and George what a debate is, and that they were hurting America.

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China Attacks Green Zone

The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday's bombardment of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets ...
The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone yesterday, for example... were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said, adding that the groups that fired them were funded and trained by the Quds Force. --BBC

This is Dave Petraeus talking completely out of his ass. I wish this guy would just run for office already so I don't have to listen to his bullshit while he is wearing green. The only way they could know who "funded" and/or "equipped" and/or "trained" the insurgents who fired the rockets into the Green Zone is if they caught some and they didn't.

What he is talking about are the rockets that slam into the Green Zone every day. Probably Iranian Haseb or Noor or Hadid rockets. Except they are actually variants of Chinese made rockets, and include some parts from the Chinese! So Dave should also be looking under his bed for those chinamen. Look out Dave, the calls are coming from inside the green zone!

What about the security forces who are doing double duty and are part of the insurgency? They were trained, equipped, and paid by the United States! Let's invade them next.

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Terrorist Watch List

917,000

Number of names currently on "Terrorist Watch List".

Because that's effective. Jeeebus, what a bunch of dumbasses. Practically 1 million people. Just how stupid are these fucking people? "Security" has to be the Dumb Magnet of the 21st century. How many steroid addled nincompoops are carving out hives in DHS? How long will it take us to dig them out of their holes? Best just delete the whole infrastructure.

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Spitzer Resigns (at some point, I presume)

ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation. -- NYT

Stupid. Monumentally stupid.

And like that, he's done.

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Barack Obama, Manchurian Candidate

Mark Halperin, Stupid Motherfucker
Below I mention the lard headed fools like Nedra Pickler, and CNN that are propagating this silly assed Manchurian Candidate Pseudo Patriot meme and like freaking clockwork here comes Mark Halperin. As Atrios calls him Time Magazine's Chief Racism Promoter. I would have said racist but who am I to argue with the Mighty Atrios.

His stupid ass comes up with a helpful list of things "McCain Can Do to Try to Beat Obama That Clinton Cannot"... Look at number 11.

11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.

Like clockwork...

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Peggy Noonan, Stupid Motherfucker

George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

-- Peggy Noonan, Jan. 25 2008 WSJ
Peggy has come a long way since just a few short years ago.

This is what I said: The president won re-election by a relatively healthy margin because the American people judged him to be the better man. He seemed to have the better character of the two candidates. He'd tell you what he was going to do, and why, and then he'd do it. He'd been doing that for four years. He did it in the campaign, too. He was dependable, and he was predictable. It's nice to have a predictable president. It's not nice in the nuclear age to have a surprising one.

Mr. Bush was not known as a sneak or a liar. We have had presidents who were known as sneaks and liars, some quite recently, but that wasn't Mr. Bush, and I believe it was a relief to normal people. That relief was never articulated by anybody I remember hearing, but I believe it had a real if unquantifiable effect on the voters' choice. (WSJ, Nov. 2004)

Honestly, you have to read this whole asinine column from just after the election in 2004 by this stupid ass clown. She talks about Bushs' balls and also quotes the St Crispin day speech from Shakespeare. George Bush? Prince Henry? Yeah, right.

Now he is the bubonic plague? No, Peggy, people like you forced Bush down our throats twice. Now, you are correct, he is destroying your party. Destroying your Reagan legacy and the very core of your party. A party now filled with people exactly like him. Shallow ill bred man-boys, who wouldn't risk their sweet pampered white asses in Iraq or Afghanistan to save anything, let alone their country. Too stupid to smell the end of an error is drawing oh so very near.

While I sit and laugh at sweat beading up on the back of your neck as you realize the bet you made is coming due. Bush and the Republican party tumbling end over end unceasingly heading for the cliff. History is a motherfucker Peggy.

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Karl Rove: Whoring for All that is Wrong with Politics

photo of Sand laden scrape manure, Fair Oaks Dairy, by Accent Stainless Steel Manufacturing Ltd.
Click for LARGE photo.

More full of Crap than a Republican Congressional Caucus.
Spanish Speeder Sues Family of Teen Boy He Killed...

What Karl Rove did for politics was eliminate any legitimate sense of community.

It isn't to say, he wasn't willing to take advantage of your sense of community, play on you and your people's sense of wanting to belong, wanting the dream of a larger, greater America.

But Karl Rove when in operational mode, has no sense of shame, no sense of community, no sense of being part of something larger. Like Satan. He organizes, splitting groups up and spitting them out. Gays, Christians, white males, soccer moms and NASCAR dads, Blacks, Chicanos, and illegals (and yeah, they're illegals, not undocumented and you must hate America, buddy. Want to make something of it? Here... talk to my friends in Gitmo.)

If you and yours get run over, well... tough.

That's two for him and none for you, and you weren't paying attention.

Some people admire this. Even some Democratic politicians, we hear the pundits say, admire Karl Rove for the results he has delivered for Republicans.

I despise him and everything he stands for. I spit on the ground he walks on and sow it with salt. I say Karl Rove stands for the worst America has ever offered, the worst in American politics, and the worst President this country has ever had. Rove destroys our sense of community. He stands for dirty, irresponsible politics without accountability. He appeals to the worst in our nature, rather than our best. He is willing to routinely settle for 51% and than govern as if he had 80%, rather than get elected with 70% and govern as if he had 70%.

An article from Spain today reminds me deeply of Karl Rove.

Associated Press (Yahoo)

MADRID, Spain - A speeding motorist who killed a teenage cyclist is suing the boy's parents over damage to his luxury car, the government says.

Enaitz Iriondo, 17, died instantly in August 2004 when businessman Tomas Delgado's Audi A8 crashed into him at 100 mph near Haro in northern Spain, an Interior Ministry traffic report said. The speed limit was 55 mph.

Iriondo was not wearing reflective clothing or a helmet, the ministry report said. As the sun had set when he crossed the path of Delgado's car from a side road, a regional court found both parties at fault and closed the case, the report said.

Delgado, whose insurance company paid Iriondo's parents $48,500 in compensation for their son's life, filed a suit in late 2006 to recover $29,400 in damages to his car and car rental costs, the ministry traffic report said.

"It's the only way I have to claim my money back," Delgado was quoted as saying by the newspaper El Pais, which first reported the story on Friday. El Pais said a ruling was expected next week.

"It's the final straw, a stab in the back," Iriondo's mother, Rosa Trinidad said, according to El Pais. "Before the lawsuit we thought the poor guy would find it hard to live the rest of his life with the thought of having caused our son's death.

Let me give you that again: "Before the lawsuit we thought the poor guy would find it hard to live the rest of his life with the thought of having caused our son's death."

Before this administration, I thought any president, any administration, would find it hard to live with the damage they have caused my beloved country.

I was wrong.

With just under a year before a new president is sworn in, the damage done by the Bush administration continues to mount on a daily and weekly basis. Already the damage is so vast and crosses so many domains, the United States will be the rest of my lifetime and much of my children's lifetime, cleaning up the mess, and that assuming future presidents allow room to work, by no means a sure deal.

The U.S. position as world leader may well be destroyed forever, depending on how we get through the coming economic crisis. Karl Rove ran the politics which allowed all this to happen, and authorized the looting of our nation at the same time, the fuck.

But Rove, the President, and the Bush administration continue to act with no shame, and no sense of community. They continue to rip apart over 200 years of nation-building, while the rest of us do what we can to stop them as they kill people, while looting the country.

What is Rove doing now?

Rove is out spinning away in magazines, on television, and writing a book (for which he got a crappy advance), blaming the entire mess on Democrats (liberals), trying to say the Bush administration is winning the war (if only the Generals and troops would get it right), while raking in money as he desperately attempts to revise history so he and Bush (but especially himself) are the people who got it right.

How many more have to die in Iraq for Rove to be proved right doesn't matter, just so long as Rove is proved correct.

Really, no kidding.

This is all about Rove and Bush being right, and everyone else being wrong. It's a big game of "I told you so," we know what we're doing, do it my way.

Rove is no different at heart than the Spanish motorist who killed a teenager and now is extorting money from the family because his fancy car got dinged up when he ran over their child at 100 mph. And displays just as little empathy.

Hey...

Maybe Karl could hang out at Arlington with a sign that says:
"I helped kill your child by prolonging the war to help the President stay in power. Car needs tune-up. Will give speech on why surge is working, for cash."

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Mitt Unfortunately Finally Lets The Dogs Out

“If You Don't Know, You Better Ask Somebody...”


Wikipedia: “Cringe Comedy is a comedy genre that uses offensive or vulgar material or (as has been popularized recently) awkward and embarrassing situations to cause audiences to be repulsed or feel uneasy.”

Two of my favorite examples of “Cringe Comedy” are the skit segments on “Late Night With Conan O'Brien” and perhaps best of all, the original BBC version of “The Office” starring Ricky Gervais.

It's a difficult genre to master. But one of the key tenets of it working well is for the protagonist to have pretty much no shame whatsoever.

And folks...when the phrase “no shame” comes to mind, the pen and ink sketch next to it in the dictionary looks a lot like one Willard “Mitt” Romney.

With that, witness the entry of a NEW deity into the “Cringe Comedy” pantheon of greats. (via Pam's House Blend and The NYT)

Mr. Romney, the Republican candidate from Massachusetts by way of Michigan and Utah who enjoys a milkshake at the end of a long day, stopped by a staging area for a Martin Luther King Birthday parade here. In his dress shirt and tie, and with his unwavering smile, he walked over and posed for photographs with a group of black youngsters. Putting his arm around a teenage girl, he waved to the cameras and offered, “Who let the dogs out?” He added a tepid “woof woof.”

Somewhere, the Baha Men, the Bahamian group whose 2000 song the candidate was referencing, must have been shuddering.

I mean...

...Jesus.

“Who Let The Dogs Out?”

They stopped playing that song in minor-league ball parks in 2002, lest fans damage the P.A. system speakers with tossed beer cups and stale pretzels.

What madness overcame this transistorized, lacquer-headed disingenu-ite? Was he so uncomfortable around young Black folk that he felt he just had to break the unbearable tension with a crunk, gully reference?

I mean..,shit, “crunk” and “gully” ain't been “in” since '04, and this sad, starch-blooded clown trots out a Baha Men tune from 2000—that Black folks played for about a month before declaring it “done, son”. Could someone please send Hugh Hewitt a copy of “Now That's What I Call Music” dated later than 2001 so he can hip his boy, jest a touch?

The nervous laughter from the assembled young people in the clip is priceless, too. It was definitely of the “Henh-henh. I won't clown you now because that would be embarrassing. Really embarrassing, but wait till I get home, go online and rag your vacuum-formed ass out on Bossip. I have heard Romney described as a panderer before...and it's one thing to read a compare and contrast piece that highlights his shameless, windblown conviction-choosing. But to see it happen right there before your “WTF”-ing eyes, so nakedly, and oh-so-Goddamned badly just hammers that truth home with piledriver force.

Here's the hint Mitt—if you are around a bunch of folks of a different background than yours, and you are clearly uncomfortable, it is better to shut your $40,000 veneered mouth and smile than it is to dig into that Bryllcreem-leeched mind of yours for a “when in Rome” cultural reference that lets everyone know “you're hip...not!” You could have just gotten the photo-op, said “Thank you” and hopped your ass onto the campaign bus and power-washed the Black off your hands like you wanted to.

But you wanted to “be down”...and you all of a sudden thought you were the cool White guy on the train whose iPod headphones bleed out enough that you can hear Ghostface Killah or Jadakiss spittin' rhymes over the subway din.

You were not him. You are Willard “Mitt” Romney—who already fucked up on “Thangs Dr. King” when you lied about marching with him in the sixties. Now, you've compounded your “ghetto fabulism” with a lame attempt at cool that went over just a little bit better than if you'd deigned to sing “De Camptown Ladeez”, or “Ol' Man River” to the assembled.

I want to say, “Just...shut your fucking mouth, Mitt”, but your every gaffe is comedy and campaign-killing gold, so I won't.

Just make sure to say, in your best Jimmie “J.J. Walker voice “Ah-Dy-No-MITE!” when you want to punctuate a point during speeches on these visits to Blackfolkland.

And playing the super-funkee “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang and asking us to “Git dowwwwwwwwnnnnnnn!” during your entrances won't hurt either. Word.

Lastly, is it just me or is there a strange irony in hearing the man who tied his carrier-penned dog to the top of the family wagon and drove hundreds of roof-shit inducing miles now stiffly squawking about “Who Let The Dogs Out”?

God, I wish I'd been there. Just to yell “Not you, motherfucker!”

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WGA Strike: Scab of the Week

Matt Taibbi. file photo WNYC New York Public Radio, April 11, 2006.

Matt Taibbi is a Punk

I don't care that Taibbi made fun of a dying Pope.

Just shows he has no class.

I've read his stuff. He can't write comedy.

Lower Manhattanite can write rings around Taibbi's tight-ass.

Which shouldn't matter; Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone, not Mad Magazine. Except Taibbi fancies himself funny and satirical.

You know what isn't funny?

Crossing a picket line against striking writers.

Taibbi appeared on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report this past Wednesday. (No I'm not linking. We're on strike.)

But here are the late night schedules.

Notice how the struck shows don't dare tell you who's appearing until after they've appeared?

That's because when people find how someone's going on, damn near EVERYONE calls and tells them what idiots they are.

Mostly they back out. Because who wants their mother, boy or girlfriend, neighbors, and everyone they care about calling them up:

Mom: Hey, dumb ass... what are you doing? This family doesn't cross picket lines. I didn't raise you to be a fool. And I did not work my ass off for 27 years for you to act retarded. Now you get on the phone right now. You call Conan back and tell them no son of mine is doing a struck show, you hear me boy?

Dumb Ass: Yes Mom, I hear you.

Mom: You better. And then get your sorry miserable, dumb ass home, because I am going to climb high up on a stool where I can reach you. Then I am going to slap you so hard son, what little brains you have left are going to come right out your eyeballs and spill down the front of your Armani shirt. Who came up with this cluster-fuck of an idea anyway?! I know it wasn't you.

Dumb Ass: It was my agent, Mom.

Mom: You mean, your ex-agent?

Dumb Ass: But Mom...

Mom: Anyone dumb enough to have a man as handsome as you cross a picket-line and ruin your damn career, when anyone with only half the brains God gave a Golden Retriever, and the Lord knows that isn't the brightest dog in the world, knows you could be out on the picket-line getting free publicity just bringing donuts to the writers. They're not the swiftest bunch. Give them donuts and you'll be up on YouTube as their friend forever.

She's not your agent any more son; she screwed up. You were born naturally stupid just like your poor Daddy, but your agent we pay 10% to 'cause she's supposed to be smart. And now she's done gone and screwed the pooch.

Dumb Ass: The pooch, Mom?

Mom: It means, I just fired her sorry ass for being behind the times.

Son, you call Conan's people and tell them your Mother said you are not crossing any picket lines. No way, never, no how. Then come straight home. I've got apple pie waiting...

The Colbert Report is being actively picketed.

Taibbi was contacted by the WGA, asked not to go on the show. He ignored his brother and sister writers, went on anyway, and then... wasn't funny. Colbert carried him.

Lame.

Friday night, Taibbi is scheduled to CROSS ANOTHER PICKET LINE to appear on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Taibbi is a fucking punk. It's that simple.

Punks are people that when incoming drops in, can't be counted on to cover their buddies' backs or their own fire zones.

When New York Press editor Jeff Koyen quit rather than take a suspension over running Taibbi's "funny" article mocking the death of a dying Pope, did Taibbi walk out the door with him?

No. He punked out, only to quit just before being forced out the door in a management change.

Punks feel bad. They whine and complain, dodge and weave. Most of all, they come up with excuses for not doing what's right.

There's another word for punk...

Coward.

Here's another...

Opportunist.

My personal favorite...

Stupid motherfucker.

Taibbi -- You've just made clear to every Guild writer, you know you lack the talent to write for movies and television. 'Cause if you thought there was the slightest chance you had a screenplay in you, you would never cross a Writers Guild of America picket.

WGA writer's don't forgive scabs -- or those who help them by crossing picket lines.

Ya no-talent un-funny punk.

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Cool Brother

I do not want a National Dad or even a Cool Brother for the President.

Fred Thompson has that Emperor Palpatine thing going on and I like that

-- James Lilek (R)ightwing fucknut.

I swear to God. How did these people beat us?


How?

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