Monthly Archives: September 2009

“Business as usual”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry: Covering up state executions of falsely-convicted citizens “just business as usual.”

Knuckle-dragging neanderthals

Alan Grayson FTW:

Women shouldn’t have the right to vote

That’s what John Derbyshire, of the National Review, thinks.

Hoo boy.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi: “Only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.”

Courting the unthinkable

Thomas Friedman in the NYT:

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.

Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.

~snip~

The American political system was, as the saying goes, “designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots.” But a cocktail of political and technological trends have converged in the last decade that are making it possible for the idiots of all political stripes to overwhelm and paralyze the genius of our system.

Those factors are: the wild excess of money in politics; the gerrymandering of political districts, making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle; a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world. Finally, on top of it all, we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship, all the time among our leading politicians.

~snip~

We can’t change this overnight, but what we can change, and must change, is people crossing the line between criticizing the president and tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable.

NewsMax calls for “military coup”

Jaw-dropping. TPM has the original text, which NewsMax has since removed from its web site:

Obama Risks a Domestic Military Intervention

By: John L. Perry

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

# Officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.”

# Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.

# They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.

# They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.

# They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.

# They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America’s troop strength is allowed to sag.

# They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.

# They can see the nation’s safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before.

So, if you are one of those observant military professionals, what do you do?

Wait until this president bungles into losing the war in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s arsenal of nuclear bombs falls into the hands of militant Islam?

Wait until Israel is forced to launch air strikes on Iran’s nuclear-bomb plants, and the Middle East explodes, destabilizing or subjugating the Free World?

What happens if the generals Obama sent to win the Afghan war are told by this president (who now says, “I’m not interested in victory”) that they will be denied troops they must have to win? Do they follow orders they cannot carry out, consistent with their oath of duty? Do they resign en masse?

Or do they soldier on, hoping the 2010 congressional elections will reverse the situation? Do they dare gamble the national survival on such political whims?

Anyone who imagines that those thoughts are not weighing heavily on the intellect and conscience of America’s military leadership is lost in a fool’s fog.

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.</blockquote

DINOs

Max Baucus, Kent Conrad and Blanche Lincoln voted against the Public Option today. They are DINOs – Democrats In Name Only – and deserve to be primaried right out of the party.

Republicans cain’t speek no Mexican too good

From Think Progress:

Today, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released a statement from Chairman Michael Steele announcing the release of a new video in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. However, though the press release emphasizes the Republican Party’s “commitment to the Hispanic community,” apparently that commitment does not include hiring a qualified Spanish translator. The Spanish translation of Steele’s statement is riddled with embarrassing typos and errors. Even Yahoo’s automatic online translator, Babel Fish, produces better results.

Bad Democrats

In voting against Rockefeller’s Public Option amendment to the health care bill, Baucus, Lincoln, Conrad, Nelson and Carper have failed as Democrats. They have one more chance to get it right – in voting for Schumer’s Public Option amendment. If they fuck that up, they deserve to get primaried right out of the Democratic party.

Ben Nelson: bad Democrat

He will vote against any version of health care reform that passes via reconciliation.

The Marshmallow Test

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

Shocker

Abstinence-only education is a miserable failure.

Priorities

Obama is headed to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago to get the Olympics. How about we try to fix New Orleans first?

Max Baucus: bad Democrat

He’s had more to do with putting the brakes on health care reform than any other Democrat in congress – more even than most Republicans. This despite the fact that a majority of his constituents support the Public Option.

Nuclear Iran

At what point does Israel sidestep their allies and enact preemptive strikes against Iran? What can the United States do to prevent them from doing so? And what happens to our our goal of withdrawal from the region if we can’t?

Douchebag report

Bob McDonnell, GOP candidate for Virginia governor, opposes birth control for married couples, women working outside the home, tax credits for child care, and abortion in cases of rape and incest.

Wow.

Absolutely incredible video. Horrifying.

Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial & Rescue in Haines, Alaska from Chappy on Vimeo.

The paper trail finally reached Cardinal Mahony

It’s time for this guy to go to jail.

You believe in God?

I’m very happy for you. Now kindly shut the fuck up.

Wingnuts beat autistic black boy

While telling him: “We hate the president; we’re gonna kill the president, his wife and his kids.”