Energy: Carter was right

Carter Tried To Stop Bush's Energy Disasters - 28 Years Ago
by Thom Hartmann
Tuesday, May 3, 2005

In his recent news conference, George Bush Jr. suggested that our nation's "problem" with high gasoline prices was caused by the lack of a national energy policy, and tried to blame it all on Bill Clinton. First, Junior said, "This is a problem that's been a long time in coming. We haven't had an energy policy in this country." This was followed by, "That's exactly what I've been saying to the American people -- 10 years ago if we'd had an energy strategy, we would be able to diversify away from foreign dependence. And -- but we haven't done that. And now we find ourselves in the fix we're in." As is so often the case, Bush was lying. (read the entire article)

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The G in GOP Stands for Ghoul

June 25, 2008 at 06:26

The G in GOP Stands for Ghoul
by Mary Lyon
http://www.opednews.com/

I've heard of rooting for the bad guys, but this is ridiculous. John McCain's elite adviser Charlie Black opined to Fortune magazine that if there were another terrorist strike against our country in time for the general election, it "certainly would be a big advantage" for McCain's campaign ("a candid and very disappointing glimpse into the thinking of one of McCain's closest advisers.").

Wow. Nice. Which American city would you like to see take it in the shorts this time, Mr. Black? How many thousands of us are expendable for the sake of your candidate's success? Let's see, New York City has already been there. Same thing for Arlington, Virginia, home of the Pentagon. And don't forget New Orleans. No, that wasn't terrorism, per se, but it was still a disaster that needed - but did not get - government foresight and planning wisdom from seasoned, credible public service professionals as well as swift and effective response.

Is this the newest round of "October Surprise" paranoia? Or is it paranoia? A terrorist strike on American soil would be a major campaign boost for John McCain? Does it sound at all as though someone regards such a tragedy as a good thing? Really nice.

(read the entire article)

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McCain's YouTube Problem

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GWB: Worst. President. Ever. Part II

Sorry, Mr. President, But Your Legacy Is More Awful Than You Think
by: Bob Cesca

Posted June 11, 2008 04:57 PM (EST)

From the article: War mongering is a significant aspect of your legacy, but I think we can conclude, and without much debate, that your legacy will also be one of criminality, failure and a degree of incompetence rarely achieved by any American president, much less one whose deficit of character is rivaled only by his nearly unprecedented lack of humility in the face of his unprecedented roster of inadequacies. Sorry. As it turns out, you won't have much control over your legacy and the history of your administration anyway. You might have some cursory input, but no-one really takes you seriously anymore and anything you put forth will be taken as just another work of fiction; another bit of propaganda. Your legacy will ultimately be written by those of us who have been actively documenting your presidency in real time -- millions of voices authoring the narrative of your awful regime and preserving it with digital clarity one trespass at a time. And everywhere we look, we can plainly observe your smirking, affectless footprint. Death, poverty, war, pain, ignorance, blind patriotism, joblessness, and abandoned homes. And guess what? We're writing it down on the Internets. Your history, Mr. President, is being written at this very moment by those of us who are watching our homes collapse in value and our friends and relatives sent to places like Ramadi and Fallujah and, in some cases, Walter Reed or worse. Your history, Mr. President, isn't going to be settled and published decades from now. It's being published immediately and without the fog of memory to obscure the ugly details. (read the entire article)

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Senator McCain wants context? Fine.

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Keeping an especially sharp eye...

According to the "Hillary is 44" Web site/About page:

"We will keep an especially sharp eye on "progressives" or Democrats who repeat Republican talking points to undermine Hillary or any of our candidates."

Any of our candidates. Okay, that's plain enough.

Then just one question: Why does the entire site seem devoted to undermining the candidacy of Barack Obama for President of the United States? For example:

"Women will NOt vote for race-baiting, gay-bashing, women-hating Barack Obama in NOvember."

You know, the same Barack Obama endorsed by Hillary Clinton:

"The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand, is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States," Clinton told a crowd of 8,000 supporters during an emotion-filled rally at the National Building Museum in Washington. "Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him. And I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me."

Hillary Clinton says: "And I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me."

That's plain to all. Apparently, though, the "Hillary is 44" people have comprehension problems.

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You'll Get What You Deserve

click on image to enter site

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Why they call him "McSame"

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The Fool on the Hill

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The face of terrorism in America

Rachael Ray and Dunkin' Dounts*

Click on image for Leonard Pitts' take on this.
* - in the paranoid world of Michelle Malkin, natch.

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Show us the money...

If there's a so-called "whitey" tape out there I, for one, would like to see it instead of hearing all of the "I heard from someone who heard from someone who knows someone who has seen it" hype.

Even the National Review agrees.

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GWB: Worst. President. Ever.

There are those who erroneously claim that Jimmy Carter was the worst president ever. They cite the economic situation during his administration and the Iranian hostage crisis as proof of their assertion.

I would argue that, without a doubt, we are witnessing and living through this country's worst president ever: George W. Bush. It isn't a matter of the so-called "irrational hatred of President Bush." Nope. I believe that future historians will reflect what this Michael Hirsh article from Newsweek has to say, and it isn't pretty:

An Unnatural Disaster by Michael Hirsh In a month of horrific natural disasters—the China quake, the Burma cyclone—it's instructive to consider what one of the biggest unnatural disasters in memory looks like. That is the decline in America's position in the world from where we were when George W. Bush inherited power on Jan. 20, 2001, to what he will bequeath to the next president eight months from now. (read the entire article)

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Through the lens of history

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Rightwing Racism on Display

This continues the discussion from tonight's broadcast of The Political Atlas.

Partisanship Is Back! on The Hotline: On the right, bloggers accused Obama of offering "false moral equivalence," "blame whitey," and "the politics of grievance." ... One thing is clear: those who predicted that an Obama-John McCain race would lead to a "civil" debate about this country's future (we're looking at you, Andrew Sullivan!) are deluding themselves. If the conservative reaction to the Wright controversy is any indication, an Obama-McCain race would be just as nasty as a Hillary Clinton-McCain race. (read the entire article)

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Why I'm a Liberal

Ken Quinell, my friend and Executive Director of the Florida Progressive Coalition, used to maintain a personal blog, T. Rex's Guide to Life. One of his regular features was "Why I'm a Liberal." It was usually just a picture highlighting the absurdities of the right wing in this country.

The top-of-the-fold story in today's Tallahassee Democrat reminded me exactly why I am a liberal:

Lawmakers attend Tallahassee screening of movie by Ben Stein
The caption from the accompanying picture ("Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" on Wednesday at the Challenger Learning Center) demonstrates that few people understand the concept of "irony."

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Makes a lot of sense...

Why modern-day conservatism makes no sense to me

By media girl

Once upon a time I was a moderate. I believed in Keynesian economics. I believed in using market forces to help institute desired policy. I believed in empowering people so that they could take charge of their own lives. I believed in incentives in business and personal tax deductions and rebates. I believed that people had a right to privacy. I believed that the government should stay out of people's private lives, but that the government is needed to protect people from not just crime but from abuse through pollution and fraud. I believed in free speech. That was then. I was a moderate. This is now ... and I still believe all those things. But now I find myself labeled as "left." (read the entire article)

More GOP-led Injustice

Voter ID Scam Is the Real Fraud
by Cynthia Tucker
Monday, January 14, 2008

If the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Indiana’s harsh voter ID law, as its justices seem poised to do, hundreds of thousands of black Americans should march in protest. So should hundreds of thousands of Latino Americans. Native Americans, too. Political activists from across the ethnic spectrum should convene the biggest political demonstration since the historic March on Washington in 1963.Where is the Rev. Al Sharpton when a genuinely critical issue comes along? Where’s the Rev. Jesse Jackson? The GOP-led campaign to pass stringent voter ID laws is a greater injustice than the prosecutions of the Jena Six, more significant than the incarceration of Michael Vick, more damaging than the insulting rants of Don Imus. This is a frankly brazen effort to block the votes of thousands of people of color who might have the temerity to vote for Democrats. And it’s un-American. As happened in several states, including Georgia, the then-GOP-dominated Indiana legislature pushed through a rigid law in 2005 requiring state-sponsored photo IDs at the ballot box. While the Republican spin machine has worked mightily to portray this as an effort to curb voter fraud, it is no such thing. There has never - never - been a single case of “voter impersonation” at the ballot box, with a fake voter using an electric bill or phone bill to pretend to be a valid voter. Earlier this month, radio journalist Warren Olney pressed Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita about the prosecution of voter impersonation cases in Indiana. “Oh, yeah. We suspect it happens all the time,” Mr. Rokita said. “Suspect?” Mr. Olney countered. “Well, are you saying you want to define whether or not there’s fraud based on whether or not its prosecuted?” Mr. Rokita answered, adding, “It’s a hard type of crime to catch. … It’s hard to catch one in the act.” OK, then. Got that? It’s a little like the search for life on other planets. Extraterrestrials are out there, even if none has actually been spotted. (If Republicans were interested in actual voter fraud, they would have tightened the rules for absentee ballots, since that’s where most voter fraud occurs. But because Republican voters tend to favor absentee ballots, many GOP-dominated legislatures have made absentee balloting rules less stringent.) But there is evidence aplenty of this: There are thousands of law-abiding registered voters across the land who have no government-sponsored ID - no passport, no driver’s license - and who will be banned from the ballot box if the highest court upholds this highly partisan law. It is difficult for middle-class citizens to believe, I know. If you live inside the comfortable economic mainstream, where taking airplane trips and renting DVDs is a routine part of life, you can’t imagine voters without a state-sponsored photo ID. But they’re out there. Just ask Mary-Jo Criswell, 71. Her ballot was thrown out when she showed up at her Indiana polling place expecting to use the same forms of ID, including a bank card with a photo, that she had used in the past. She has epilepsy, she says, so she has never had a driver’s license. Citizens like Ms. Criswell are Americans, too, and they have every right to vote. It is elitism, pure and simple, to suggest requiring them to obtain a state-sponsored photo ID is a “minor inconvenience.” But that’s exactly what Justice Anthony M. Kennedy called it during oral arguments, noting that the law is expected to affect only a small percentage of voters. That’s true. The GOP is aiming at a small pool of voters - mostly poor, often elderly, usually black or brown - who lack driver’s licenses. As it happens, they tend to support Democrats. With so many elections decided by a margin of a few hundred votes, Republicans figure they can stay in power by blocking just a few Democratic ballots. But the Republicans could be in for a jolt. The electorate seems much more excited about Democratic candidates this year. The Democratic presidential candidates have topped the Republicans in fundraising, and in early primary states, more Democratic ballots have been cast than Republican ones. The way things are going, Republicans running for national office could lose by a lot of votes - not a few. So they’ll need a new scam to win elections.

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Third-Tier Pundits, Part 5

Goldberg Can't Explain His Own Book
by: Sam Boyd

The following clip of Jonah Goldberg being interviewed on the Daily Show should, I submit, convince anyone that Jonah Goldberg doesn't have any idea of what he's talking about. He gets numerous opportunities to explain why liberals aren't fascists and instead he just randomly combines words. I mean when the first thing you say when someone asks you why you think liberals are fascists is that the New Republic supported Mussolini in the 1920s you've made it clear that you don't actually have any evidence. This also just reinforces my point from the other day. Goldberg doesn't give a damn about fascism. He just wants to convince everyone that progressives are evil opressive racists and if that involves saying the environmental movement is fascist because some Nazis liked organic food then so be it. Equally damning is this Michael Ledeen review. Ledeen is a hard-right political scientist and pundit, but he's also an actual expert of fascism. His critique is all the more devastating because he so clearly didn't want to have to write it. The not-in-anger-but-in-sadness tone is incredibly effective.

NOTE: Excerpts from the Michael Ledeen review, mentioned above, can be found in my thread, Third-Tier Pundits, Part 4.

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Third-Tier Pundits, Part 4

Even some on the right question these Third-Tier Pundits. Some excerpts from Michael Ledeen's Fascism, Liberal and Otherwise:

Some of his fans have praised Jonah for writing a work of history, but it isn’t, really. ===== What is missing from Jonah’s book—he mentions it in passing a few times, but never gives it the weight it deserves—is the specific historical context from which fascism was born: the First World War. ===== “What distinguished Nazism from other brands of socialism and communism was not so much that it included more aspects from the political right (though there were some). What distinguished Nazism was that it forthrightly included a worldview we now associate almost completely with the political left: identity politics.” And in case you thought he was kidding, he repeats it a few pages later: “What mattered to (Hitler) was German identity politics.” The best that can be said about this is that it’s imaginative. But it’s what happens when you are bound and determined to put liberals, Socialists, Communists, fascists and Nazis into a common political home.

Pretty much speaks for itself.

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Fight the bully

NoSavage.org

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The War on Christmas - Update!

Looks like it is going to get nasty now:

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Rudy's Latest Ad

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Rightwing "humor"

December 1, 2007

Right-Wing Nutcases Laugh It Up Over Clinton Office Hostage Crisis
by Marc McDonald
http://www.opednews.com/

"Anyone care to bet the protagonist is a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party (aka nutroot) who is frustrated that Hillary hasn't personally defunded the War in Iraq yet? Might even be a member over at Daily Kos?"
---Rotarymunkey, commenter at MichelleMalkin.com

I have to admit, I never really understood the right-wing sense of humor.

Like when Ronald Reagan joked in 1964 about the 17 million people who then went to bed hungry every night in America, saying that "they were all on a diet."

Or when Rush Limbaugh called 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton a "dog."

Or when George W. Bush yucked it up over the issue of the non-existent WMDs in Iraq during a "comedy" skit in the Oval Office.

I don't know---maybe I just don't have much of a sense of humor, because I saw nothing funny about yesterday's hostage crisis, in which a distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into the campaign office of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.

However, plenty of right-wing folks thought the whole episode was real funny. Take (please) the wingnuts who hang out at the blog of right-wing nutcase Michelle Malkin.

As of Friday night, Malkin's comments section was full of posters who were joking about the crisis and speculating about how the "liberal" media and the Democrats would conspire to spin the episode to Hillary's advantage.

A poster by the name of "Fodder Jack" seemed to find humor in the crisis, writing, "Maybe it is a last ditch effort by the press to get an interview with Hillary."

Another writer called "Reppac122" was (like many across the right-wing blogosphere) already using the occasion to attack the Clintons. "My cynical political thinking here is that the Clintons (yes, both of them) will use this horrible situation for their political benefit."

Another writer, using the handle, "RetFireman," raised the issue of conspiracy: "Now be honest...with all that has come out lately, and I am not saying it is staged, but how many people would be that surprised to find out at some later date that it was? Be honest with yourself, and consider who we are talking about."

Commenter "Eric CharlotteNC" sarcastically mocked Liberals in his post. "If our troops weren't in Iraq this never would have happened! Or maybe global warming got this guy very hot!"

"Blacktygrrrr" added his own two cents: "The bottom line is if the hostage taker is a liberal, he will be dismissed as deranged, since many liberals are deranged anyway."

"Rotarymunkey" had this to say: "Anyone care to bet the protagonist is a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party (aka nutroot) who is frustrated that Hillary hasn't personally defunded the War in Iraq yet? Might even be a member over at Daily Kos?"

And so it goes, on and on.

Of course, none of this comes as much of a surprise to those of us who are at all familiar with the vicious hatemongering in the right-wing blogosphere.

The scary thing is Malkin's blog supposedly has a policy of screening out "offensive" remarks. If the above comments weren't screened out, one can only wonder what truly deranged nutcase comments were deleted. The mind boggles.

I'm sure there are those who would argue that Malkin isn't responsible for the deranged posters who comment on her blog. But anyone familiar with Malkin's own writings knows that she herself is a truly psychotic nutcase whose babblings over the years have been far scarier than any of the comments above.

As prominent Malkin critic Glenn Greenwald pointed out, Malkin once wrote a book "defending the ethnicity-based imprisonment of innocent American citizens in internment camps."

As media watchdog site Media Matters pointed out, the mainstream media has given, on numerous occasions in the past, significant coverage to episodes in which controversial comments appeared on progressive blogs.

How much do you want to bet that the MSM ignores the right-wing hatemongering that appeared in the aftermath of the Clinton office hostage crisis?

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Fight them there... well, you know how that goes...

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Fox News Porn

For more information visit Fox News Porn dot com.

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From the "You can't make this up" category

This, from the official White House Web site:

BUSH: If anybody were to come to this center, they would have to leave inspired and thankful, inspired by the servicemen and women who are recovering from wounds with such courage; thankful that there are instructors and preachers and volunteers who are helping these people get back on their feet...

Thanks to Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 314 for originally posting this gem.

Nope, you can't make this up!

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Government sidesteps morality, accountability

Torture and Profit
Government sidesteps morality, accountability
By Andy Opel
Originally published November 13, 2007

While in Canada recently, I saw the new film “Rendition” about the same time I watched Condoleezza Rice testify about the U.S. government policy of extraordinary rendition. Here is a basic summary of real life: The U.S. government has a program in which foreign nationals suspected of terrorist connections can be secretly detained and flown to countries around the world that are known to practice torture. The CIA then works with local interrogators, who perform the actual torture. The documented torture techniques include beating, electrical shocks and waterboarding. And, yes, waterboarding is torture according to our laws, going as far back as 1902. In the Hollywood version, Omar Metwally plays Omar El-Ibrahimi, an Egyptian-born engineer who is married to Reese Witherspoon's character and lives happily in Michigan with their child. This American dream is burst when El-Ibrahimi is detained while returning home from a business trip in South Africa. The film then details the torture he endures in an unidentified North African prison while a CIA officer, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, supervises the interrogation. The scenes are graphic and disturbing, but in the classic Hollywood tradition, the injustice is corrected and audience members can leave the theater relieved that the wrongly accused were tortured for only a short time. Unfortunately for audience members and U.S. citizens, the real story is not a happy ending and the process depicted in the film continues day after day, paid for by our tax dollars and supported by government policy. The night after viewing the film, I watched Rice testify before the House Foreign Relations Committee about Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained in New York, flown to Syria and tortured for 10 months before being released without charge. The film “Rendition” is said to be loosely based on the Arar case, so the timing of was particularly chilling. All Secretary of State Rice was willing to admit was that the U.S. “mishandled” the case, and that the U.S. does not send people to countries where they will be tortured. The Canadian government has apologized and paid Arar $10 million for its role in working with U.S. officials. The U.S. continues to keep Arar on a do-not-fly list and refuses to let him into this country to visit his extended family. Time magazine in April named Arar one of the 100 most influential people, and Jimmy Carter cites Arar's story in his 2005 book, “Our Endangered Values.” The blurring of fact and fiction between the film and Rice's statements raises troubling questions for Americans who still believe in the rule of law. Why would we send a Canadian citizen to Syria when we often refer to Syria as part of the axis of evil? How many other people have been “disappeared”? Who are the companies involved in this process and how many of our tax dollars are going into the pockets of private contractors hired to fly terror suspects to torture destinations? What we do know is that Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary, has flown more than 70 flights for the CIA. Closer to home, The New York Times reports that a Florida-based company, Presidential Aviation, leased the Gulfstream III jet that flew Arar from the U.S. to Syria on Oct. 2, 2002. The flight is estimated to have cost the U.S. government more than $100,000. By using private jets, the CIA is able to evade scrutiny of public officials and leave families wondering, “Where did Dad go?” because the other side of this story is the wall of government denial that families face when they try to understand where their husbands and fathers have gone. The work of Jeppesen, Presidential Aviation and others who are accepting money to serve this program is a new form of war profiteering, what we can now call torture profiteering. As we privatize the war and allow more transactions to occur that are outside the reach of public accountability, we see new levels of complicity with illegal and immoral government policies. These are not the actions of civilized people leading the world toward a more democratic future. Secrecy, denial, torture and international detention are the hallmarks of dictatorships, governments we spent the 20th century fighting to overthrow. To abandon the rule of law during during trying times is to admit a fundamental weakness in our justice system. If we can honor civil rights only during times of peace, then we are no better than the tyrants and butchers who rule through fear and pain. We have a choice in these matters, and the choice begins with calling our own government to account and holding everyone to the rule of law, including the president. (read the original article) Andy Opel is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Florida State University. He is working on a book, "Preempting Dissent," about the changing contours of civil society. Contact him at aopel@fsu.edu.

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NOTE: Dr. Opel is scheduled to appear on the December 1st broadcast of Situation Awareness.

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"Pants-pisser" defined

It is said that a "pants-pisser" is someone so afraid of something that they urinate on themselves. You can easily spot them: They're the people who exaggerate easily identified and understood threats, elevating them to mythic status. They're like a child who overhears a frightening news story on the television and translates that into the boogeyman under the bed or in the closet.

An example of a "pants-pisser" in action will easily illustrate this point. Here's a post by "bowa," on the blog, The Drudge Retort: Red Meat for Yellow Dogs:

"I beleive (sic) that Islamo-fascism is as great a threat to the US and the World as Nazism and Communism was last century." Posted by bowa at 2007-11-10 10:21 PM

Paul Krugman does an excellent job of dispelling the whole "Islamofascism" nonsense:

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan. (read the entire article)

But more importantly, in the same article Krugman sarcastically answers these "pants-pissers" directly:

Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists ... pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did. All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

Do you suppose "pants-pissers" like "bowa" understand what Krugman is saying?

Or do they actually enjoy the feeling of urine in their pants?

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It was not only untrue, it was demonstrably untrue

Tom Tomorrow: The age of disinformation

One of the top stories on right wing talk radio yesterday (with mentions on NPR and in the New York Times) was the fact that Hillary Clinton did not leave a tip at a restaraunt. I suspect that this has now been enshrined into conventional wisdom on the right, and will be one of those anecdotes which the candidate will never, ever be rid of. Well, big effing surprise: like pretty much everything else you might hear on right wing talk radio, it was not only untrue, it was demonstrably untrue. It’s a strange age we live in. To paraphrase Mark Twain, in the time it takes the truth to boot up a browser for a Google search, a lie can circle the globe several times over.

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Mukasey's New Office a Big Splash

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An alcoholic liar, and Dick Cheney and George W. Bush believed every word he said

Isn't It Interesting How War Supporters Always Want To "Move Past" How This Country Was Duped Into War? By Oliver Willis on November 3, 2007 1:56 AM Intriguing as hell, says I.