Uncivil Discourse

Some Things Just Bring A Tear To Your Eye

2005-09-28T00:06:00.000-04:00

Commenter McMartin points us to this beautiful piece of White Girl in Trouble News. It's too damned perfect.

And yes, I know updates have been sporadic. It's because life's goddamned busy. Hopefully I can update more soon, but really, time is better spent at a strip club than worrying about it overly.

Blah

2005-09-20T21:48:00.000-04:00

Today's blogging time was eaten up by Liberal Masturbation With Alcohol, always known as Drinking Liberally. More will come tomorrow.

But in the meantime, here's a joke: What does Bush think of Roe v. Wade?

Answer: He doesn't give a fuck how you get out of New Orleans.

Maybe Getting Sodomized With A Microphone Isn't Enough For Bill O'Reilly

2005-09-19T07:57:00.000-04:00

Eric Alterman watches Fox Nooz, and gets this tidbit:

Bill O'Reilly, deaf and blind to the obvious class implications of the pre-flood exodus, speculated, "A lot of the people who stayed wanted to do this destruction" and wondered why "looters" were not being shot on sight.

I'm just waiting for this demented, ranting, spitting, jackass with the ability to put forward the most idiotic fucking ideas as if they were perfectly reasonable to start eating kittens in a valient effort to raise his share already. It's coming soon!

He also spots Fred Barnes making Richard Baker look like a sane son of a bitch, as opposed to a fucking insane tidbit one just removed from one's ass over the course of a rather violent and bloody shit: "They know they're going to flood. And when these things happen, they want the taxpayers all over the country to pay, and they do."

Almost makes me glad I don't have cable.

Speech Away

2005-09-16T08:14:00.000-04:00

Doghouse Riley has what seems to be the best response to Bush's speech, so go read.

Worst TV Ever

2005-09-16T07:41:00.000-04:00

So over the past few days, I caught part of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on John "Peppermint Patty" Roberts. And dear sweet god, was it painful. It's not just that one got nothing out of substance between Senators prattling and Roberts' refusal to answer any questions on the grounds that he's not as mindblowingly stupid as Antonin Scalia. It's not even that, watching it, one would think that Roberts' only personality trait is that he's humble. It was more like trying to watch a boxing match that you don't have money on and where you know the better prizefighter is going to either go down in the 5th or he's going to have his balls cut off: pathetic, sad, and frustrating.

Cause, see, on Tuesday, you had Joe Biden refusing to let Roberts answer his questions, knowing that not only was he not going to, but that it wasn't going to matter a whit anyway. Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein were reduced to stating that they just don't know how they're going to vote, and how they really just wanted to get to know John Roberts the man, who is apparently so very, very, very humble (his judicial philosophy also consists of "I'm humble"). Schumer also had a spectacular ramble about movies and how some people liked Casablanca on Wednesday that highlighted the completely irrelevance of it all, and how it's just a formality on the road to Bush's packing the Court. Ted Kennedy? He talked about Katrina.

But, oh dear god, the Republicans were even more idiotic than is their norm. Lindsey Graham used some of his question time to ask John Roberts why we as a nation won't support our President in this time of national crisis. Tom Coburn, well, he did the crossword, cried, and asked if the opposite of being dead was being alive. And so on, and so forth, just as it always was.

I think I'd rather have watched Survivor. At least that game's not rigged. Here, it's like watching porn with the word "anal" in the title. You know there's going to be some assfucking. It's not even an issue of when, it's going to happen soon, and it's going to happen a lot.

Though, if we could vote Senators off the Judiciary Committee, it would be a massive improvement. It might, in fact, be the best reality show ever. Can't you just see it? And now, I need to run, but later, I'll post my order of who should get voted then.

But mind you, it will be void of specifics, it will refuse to commit to anything, it will be irrelevant, it will go on and on at length about irrelevant things, and most of all, it will be humble, because it's related to the Judiciary Committe's hearing of John Roberts, and you have to write your subject.

So...

2005-09-15T21:25:00.000-04:00

I was going to post tonight about labor, etc, but jesus fuck, it's been a long day. So that'll have to wait. Tomorrow morning, though, delayed reflections on the Roberts hearing, or why the Judiciary Committee would be a lot more fun to watch if we could fucking vote Senators off at the end of every session.

Surprisingly enough, Coburn wouldn't be the first one off if I had my way.

Just A Quick Question

2005-09-14T11:36:00.000-04:00

Whose goddamned idea was it to put Tom Coburn on the Judiciary Committee, and why hasn't their head been put on a pike yet? This is a man who asked a Supreme Court nominee today if the opposite of being dead is alive.

And why the hell did Roberts pause before answering that question?

Freedom Day And Other Things

2005-09-12T17:41:00.000-04:00

Jesus shit and goddamn, am I still riding my Freedom Day high. I wasn't able to attend the hoedown of a Freedom Walk, but man, would I have given anything to commemorate our "freedom." If there's one thing George Bush's America has taught us, living here and being able to speak our minds and practicing our own religion isn't celebrating our freedom, unless we're sacrificing by shopping and stuff. Any more fun and they'd have to call it a Freedom Rave, complete with X-using bitches liquid dancing. Getting serenaded by Clint Black, seeing Donnie Rumsfeld, being out there with a few thousand other freedom lovers who all pre-registered online...nothing says "spontaneous celebration of freedom" like that, does it? I know the first thing that came to mind were historic events like King's March on DC or Vietnam Veterans Against the War's DC protest. Ok, ok, enough sarcasm. DrPepper over at the Daily Pepper finds himself reminded of Robespierre's Festival of the Supreme Being.

Digby had previous referred to this as the "Triumph of Will" march; Billmon compared it to tributes to Fearless Leader. Of course, he meant in North Korea, but that seems a perfectly apt name for Li'l Bushie the Pilot. And truly, isn't that what was being celebrated here? This band of assclowns (and, why yes, they are no talent) that didn't come close to closing out the Taliban or cornering Osama bin Laden through their own ineptitude? That banked so much on our troops drowning in thrown flowers and sweets by the Iraqi populace that they forgot to do a little thing like "securing the country" or "winning hearts and minds"? That has done all they can to use the Constitution as toilet paper here at home while being apparently unable to forsee one of the most obvious natural catastrophes that was facing us? Shit, this isn't Triumph of the Will, it's Triumph of the Moronic Inept Jackasses Who Couldn't Guide Their Penis Into An Open And Willing Pussy. I suppose that doesn't acronym nicely, though.

Jesus shit and goddamn, what a day Freedom Day was. There's nothing like a good dose of Orwell to liven up American society, is there?

Other things from last weekish:

1) Kanye West is a fucking badass. Finally, here we have a man who's not worried about saying shit. It's not the whole story that George Bush doesn't care about black people, sure, but this ain't a class issue. In 2000 and 2004, the Republican Party didn't try to disenfranchise poor white voters. There are a good number of Republicans -- not all, not most, but a good number -- who would rather screw themselves then give money to help blacks. Abortion isn't the only reason poor whites support the Republicans, y'know. Race is a part of the issue. Let's not be goddamned Marxists.

So yeah, we can talk about if Kanye is right or not til the cows come home. But he's gonna make us talk, just like he's gonna make rappers talk about how their attitude towards gays is not all that different from people's attitudes towards blacks 50 years ago, or even to a good extent today. That Kanye's doing something right should be evidenced by the fact that his mike didn't work at a later telethon, while he was trying to perform "Jesus Walks." If you like rap, Kanye's new album is a triumph, go buy it. If not, go buy it anyway to make up for one offended white suburban soccer mom who cares more about someone saying something he knows is inflammatory to express himself than someone like Faith Hill not even considering that what she does might be offensive.

2) Rehnquist kicking the bucket: I only have one thing to say about this. It should've fucking happened six years ago. And now, we go through replacing Sandra Day O'Connor again. Lovely. Maybe this time it'll be horsewomen of the right-wing apocolypse Edith Jones.

I can't say I hope he had a comfortable death. Though, still, Rehnquist is preferable as Chief Justice to Roberts: he was less of a nutjob, and wasn't completely a partisan hack.

Tomorrow's post'll be on the sorry state of the labor movement in this country.

Happy Freedom Day

2005-09-11T09:40:00.000-04:00

Been having issues that prevented me from posting. More on Freedom Day later, though.

Leading Ain't Easy But Somebody's Gotta Do It

2005-09-02T21:29:00.000-04:00

Blondesense Liz makes the appropriate comparison for our fucking smirking little organ grinder's monkey president's reaction to Nawlins becoming a part of Lake Pontchartrain. It's My Pet Goat, all over again, but worse, man. The sinking of a great, and quite possibly the most unique, American city couldn't pry the man away from his "working vacation" until his handlers applied a crowbar. It was more fucking difficult than separating a crack addict from his pipe. He did so much work on his vacation, in fact, that he couldn't be bothered to look at, y'know, ANYTHING, including Fox Nooz, or talk to anyone, or he might have realized that everyone and the bitches they were fucking knew the levees might very well break.

Oh, but Bush went far beyond revealing his own stupidity. He tried playing the "I feel your pain" card, saying "I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday...I understand the anxiety of people on the ground."

No, you dumb coke-snorting son of a bitch, you don't understand shit. This is a man who has never wanted for anything in his life, who was given everything on a silver platter. This is a man who has never had to face consequences for any of the horrible decisions he's made. If Bush had been a resident of New Orleans, he could've hired some of them uppity lootin' negroes to carry him out of the city on their shoulders. He would've been one of the first out of the city, having his stuff shipped over to Houston, and he would've gone skiing in Colorado. See, when Bill Clinton talked about feeling people's pain -- well, shit, you know the poor son of a single mother did. It doesn't work when you're the rich son of a former CIA Director and President, and man for whom "need" only referred to alcohol and cocaine.

Bush's lack of understanding, though, goes oh so much deeper. He doesn't get that "President" is more than a title. Presidents lead. Or at least they try to. This man has not once, in 4 years, tried to lead anything. After being told America was under attack, he continued to read a children's book. He took his self-proclaimed War on Terror so seriously that he asked Americans to sacrifice, well, jack shit, other than their dignity. After what may well be the worst natural disaster to hit the United States, he kept doing, well, whatever the fuck it is he does.

So you know what? Fuck George W. Bush. Fuck every goddamned last pundit and newspaper writer who're focusing on looters. People are dying in the streets for want of food and water, having done nothing but be poor. Stealing a TV is nothing compared to trying to change that subject and being too self-absorbed and clueless to lead when it's your goddamned job. Score another victory in the Global Struggle to Embarass America.

Sure, he might be the President. But this country has no president. And if Congress had any integrity whatsoever, they'd be debating if a gross failure to do the job is an impeachable offense. It may well not be. But it's a moot point, isn't it? We're a country led by no one. New Orleans is just the icing on that cake.

Additionally, our good friend Anntichrist S. Coulter, who's doing her best to help out the poorest of the poor in New Orleans, posted this message from a friend of hers. Read and be pissed off.

I'm Turning Red

2005-09-01T01:36:00.000-04:00

You know it was coming, didn't you? Oh yes, once the event was announced, this was inevitable. That's right -- during Save Iraq Tour 2005, George W. Bush has outdone himself in the Global Struggle To Embarass America.

It wasn't his claim that Iraq's struggle to work on a constitution, one that allows freedom of speech and press so long as it does not "violate...public morality, was just like ours, which only says that in the fevered dreams of James Dobson. Let alone, of course, the dreadful disanalogies of the entire goddamned thing.

No, now Bush has done far, far worse -- he's claiming al-Qaeda are Nazis and the Iraqi insurgents are the minions of Tojo. As he said yesterday (fuck it, I haven't gone to sleep yet: it's still the 31st as far as I'm concerned), "As freedom advances across a troubled part of the world, it is once again opposed by fanatical adherence of a murderous ideology. And once again, the stakes are high. Now, as then, our enemies have made their fight a test of American credibility and resolve. Now, as then, they are trying to intimidate free people and break our will. And now, as then, they will fail."

The corollaries, of course, are that those of us who say "Hey, wait a second..." to this particular adventure, which resembles the way the British governed a few of their colonies informally with every passing day, are roughly the equivalent of the isolationists of the time, and that Bush is Franklin D. Roosevelt (or so he wishes; let's see that son of a bitch win a third term).

Last I recall, though, FDR didn't send troops into battle without armor. He didn't try to send fewer troops than his advisors said he needed when enough were there. He sure as hell hasn't raised taxes to get more and better equipment to troops. And, well, this is all moot, because FDR didn't attack Britain to get revenge on Japan for bombing Pearl Harbor.

George W. Bush is a walking poster child for why children should have to learn history well or not at all. Add that to the list, I suppose, given that he's only seen enough of science to know it's supposed to explain stuff, and only enough of government to know that he nominates Supreme Court justices. Who knows what levels of embarassment we'll stoop to when he remembers further tidbits from when he was pretending to pay attention in various classes so he wouldn't get his slacker ass booted out of school? It would surely be a victory in the continuing GSTEA, though, whatever it is.

Rapng Republicans

2005-09-01T01:12:00.000-04:00

A while ago, the Rude Pundit advocated raping Republicans in quite a literal sense (I believe he also reiterated this in his highly successful live show). I'm all for raping the shit out of conservative America, but first, we must try to do so verbally.

Of course, we haven't. We continue to kowtow to their agenda while going at each other in a manner reminscient of celebrations of Bacchus. Pepper catches Kos in the midst of such an act. Howard Dean says Republicans are the party of white Christians, despite being a party that opposes affirmative action and embraces the religious right like Jim West embraces young boys , and what's the result? Howie apologizes for perhaps putting things too indelicately for Republican constitutions -- the same constitutions that were a-ok with this slanderous shit. The list, of course, goes on and on. But instead of trying to take back the terms of the discourse, supposed leaders of the grassroots left like Kos react, well, like Kos tends to react when someone doesn't fall in line.

This is, of course, entirely counterproductive. In the meantime, Republicans are out there making the word "liberal" the worst label this side of "terrorist." And it's going to take something shocking, at this point, to change our behavior and theirs. Something that, whenever it's displayed on one of those insipid Sunday morning political talk shows or, god forbid, CNN, makes Michael Powell shit himself in agony. It's time to call a motherfucker a motherfucker. It's time to talk, in graphic, graphic detail, about how Republicans are fucking the shit out of the anus that is this country, about how Karl Rove is nothing more than a pathetic old man who enjoys making others suffer to mask his own insecurities over his small, small penis. Let's call the Minutemen what they are -- needledicked, paranoid, overcompensating dipshits. Haley Barbour, with his talk about how Hurricane Katrina is "our tsunami," is a white supremacist stooge who, if there existed a just God, would have been gutted like a fish, while alive, a long time ago. Anyone who wants the 2008 presidential nomination should be up there saying Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell should have dildos covered with ant bait shoved up their ass and a colony positioned with ready access. The politics needs a-changing, after all, and as Talib Kweli put it, language is immersed in vulgarity as it is.

And if that doesn't work, if it's not enough, then shit, I've got dibs on Michelle Malkin's asshole.

Back

2005-08-30T12:59:00.000-04:00

Internet access finally back after moving a week ago. Blogging will resume ~~later tonight~~ tomorrow. Other work caught up with me. Two posts tomorrow, then.

Tourette's Is A Bitch

2005-08-24T06:26:00.000-04:00

So, batshit insane fundie monkey Pat Robertson, upset that he hasn't been in the spotlight for a while, said it would be a good idea for the US to assassinate Hugo Chavez. Robertson's stated reasons? Well, for one, apparently Chavez is an exporter of not just Communism, but also Islamic extremism! Also, apparently the Monroe Doctrine gives the US the authority to do whatever shit it wants to in Latin America (a theory which we have run with ever since those words were laid down by James Monroe, to the great detriment of pretty much everybody but a few oligarchs), and when you couple that with the fact that Venezuela has oil, shit, nigger's gotta go!

Robertson, who is nothing more than a turd with eyes all a-squinty, is, as we all know, a grade B attention whore. Sure, he used to be at the top of the list, but he's been replaced by, well, another motherfucker who prefers beating his dog to owning a racehorse. It has to make you wonder why people still pay attention to him, when he goes on drooling in that self-righteous, nasal, way, accent and content reminiscent of nothing more than a slaver owner. And the answer, of course, is that Robertson's colleagues, the religious right, are nothing short of clinically insane, with some sort of condition analogous to Tourette's: you have no goddamned idea what shit is going to spew out of their twisted, smug little mouths. And Robertson, in particular, has refused treatment for so long that he's got less control than the bloated corpse of Jerry Falwell.

Cause, if I'm not mistaken, if Pat Robertson were named Mohammed Bokhari, we would've labeled that motherfucker's comments as an insidious "fatwa" and denounced terrorism one more time. It's the same sort of thing as the death sentence given to Salman Rushdie, which conservatives love to hang over the head of Islam. After all, it's not like batshit whackjob Christian leaders ever did the sort of thing batshit whackjob Muslim leaders have, now is it? Oh, townhall.com would be full of dipshit ramblings about how Islam is a wicked faith and how we cannot abide by these terrorist comments. Instead, expect a number of motherfuckers, Ann Coulter's saggy, smelly cunt among them, to lead to Robertson's defense. Principle is not something in the wingnut arsenal.

But it's a good thing others of us have it, or we might push to say that Pat Robertson's sorry ass should forfeit his right to free speech, in much the same way conservatives go on and on about any public figure that offends their oh so delicate sensibilities. After all, Robertson's urging the US to engage in terrorism solely because it's "cheaper than starting a war" (something Pat might want to keep in mind next time a broke-ass group like the Palestinians engages in terrorism rather than trying to fight a full out war against one of the best equipped armies in the world). And he's pushing for something that's patently illegal, thanks to a few executive orders. We could line up and down to condemn him, to ask that he be sanctioned. It's just too bad Robertson isn't as fat as Michael Moore, or we could really mimic the right. It would be a grand, grand spectacle, but it's one that we won't engage in, except for one thing: when it's not their speech that's under fire, the right likes to remind us that free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. And so, let us say one final "Fuck you" to bitchass motherfucker Pat Robertson and anyone who buys what the dirtbag has to say or who defends him.

And meanwhile, Hugo Chavez had the best response one can have to someone who acts the bully out of a desperate need to relieve his shame over his small, small little penis. Remember what your mom said about those little pissants back in elementary school? All you need to do is ignore the bitches. And Chavez's comment? "I don't even know who that person is." Ouch.

The Show Must Go On

2005-08-22T11:55:00.000-04:00

After weeks of ignoring Cindy Sheehan, our little organ grinder monkey president has decided it's time to go on tour to do on a larger scale what he couldn't take 10 minutes to do in a one on one chat. He's gonna stand up there in front of wildly masturbating pre-screened crowds, who will be jerking around like a bunch of Pentacostals who think they've been possessed by the spirit of the Lord. The old Dionysiac mysteries won't have anything on the sheer cultishness of it all, except that the women involved will have just been let out of the house by their husbands, the sort of misogynistic fuckers who would support John Roberts for Associate Justice. Also, less gay sex, for obvious reasons.

They'll be wanking and wanking until they can't wank anymore, living the old Andrew Dice Clay joke about how he started masturbating when he was 12 and by the time he was 14 he thought he'd broken the thing. And before them all, pleasuring himself until even the most skilled fluffer can't get him another go, will be our fearless leader. He'll compare the Iraq war to World War II -- after all, don't you remember when the Iraqi insurgents bombed Pearl Harbor? Then he'll compare the process of building the Howevermanyfucking Billions of Dollars Iraq to the building of this country, just like Dick and Donny have been doing (nevermind that we're the redcoats there). And to top it all off, he'll start chanting "9/11 9/11 9/11" until he hits that final, orgasmic note, spewing his manhood all over the thrilled audience. And then it's onto the next city, with an icepack on his crotch, to repeat the whole thing over again.

Because, after all, there's nothing left to say. When you can't sit down with a single person to give a statement, however brief, of why we went to war, what else can you do? That speaks louder than all of the soundbites you can manage to throw around. When you need a crowd that already approves of you to be able to feel like you're not bombing, you're already well past the point of bombing, as any standup can tell you. The brilliance of what Cindy Sheehan did is right here: she showed that the president and his handlers know perfectly well that her son died for no reason. Whatever else you think of her motivations, that fact is front and center. The president of the United States, the man responsible for us going to war, could not produce a reason for it other than "We just gotta stay the course." And that's why the circlejerk must go on: as any horny teenage boy knows, there's nothing like a good masturbation session to take the mind off what ails you.

Justice Peppermint Patty

2005-08-17T19:15:00.000-04:00

Is it me, or does John Roberts have the same goddamned twerpy little smile in every picture? Sure, sometimes his mouth is open, sometimes it's closed, but it's always there, annoying the hell out of me. It's rather similar to that smug little smirk El Presidente displays whenever he's not looking like a frumpy chimp, an organ grinder's monkey after you don't toss a few coins his way.

There's a couple of articles up on Slate about Roberts, discussing how the man's been forming his entire record so that he would be able to sit on the Supreme Court one day. Didn't the right go into convulsions because Al Gore, and well, John Kerry both just seemed like they'd always wanted to be president? I'm just sayin'. Anyway, the Slate articles discuss whether or not this means Robert would be a prudent justice.

Me? I'm with Pat Leahy. See, the problem with going out of your way to not really take a stand on anything is that you end up not taking a stand on anything, so when you say shit, it sticks. Like, say, endorsing funerals for fetuses as a way of bringing attention to the abortion "tragedy." Now, if that isn't an idea to warm the cockles of Rick Santorum's heart, I don't know what is. Somehow, the media and the right want us to think that this is not significant, at all. Nor is it supposed to be significant that Roberts didn't exactly oppose violence against abortion clinics, even though, yes, he didn't excuse it, either.

In fact, based on everything the Bush administration has seen to leak out of its gigantic anus about Roberts, the one thing that becomes more and more apparent is that when he wasn't being an equivocating weenie, he, as a political appointee, mind you, went above and beyond what was required; the Operation Rescue case being a prime example. Sure, we don't know how he'd vote on a number of cases, because he's done his best not to commit a lot; everything here can be run around with a simple "Oh, I was just advocating on behalf of my client." But at some point, coincidence becomes a trend. If he had just argued on behalf of the Reagan and Bush administrations to the extent of what was required, fine, there's not a lot to be drawn from that. But, shit, if this is the call of duty, Roberts was way the fuck over there, repeatedly.

And even if that's not convincing, we sure as hell know how Roberts would vote on one area. He'll proudly support the Bush administration's ability to do whatever the fuck it wants in the name of the "global struggle against terror" or whatever it is they're calling it now. If that's not a reason to oppose Roberts, you're probably not going to agree that anything is.

George Bush's Monument to Himself

2005-08-17T18:41:00.000-04:00

Yep, that's right, shit's still blowing up all nice and good in Iraq. It's a fucking good thing the insurgency's in its last throes, isn't it, Dick? Also, aren't we all glad that campaign of shock and awe worked? Shit, motherfucker, without all that shock and awe, think of where we'd be now.

Remember back in March, when Bush, in his weekly radio address that nobody other than Ken Mehlman's mom listens to, talked about how "freedom is on the march" throughout the greater Middle East? Ok, sure, so you don't have to remember that: it's one of the stock platitudes this president trots out whenever he needs to say, well, shit, anything, along with "Tax cuts are good," "The economy is growing," and "I think about Iraq every day."

One wonders, of course, if this is the face of freedom. Perhaps it's just the natural end result when one resented schmuck of a leader is replaced by another; Saddam didn't give a shit about his people, and well, George W. Bush doesn't really give a shit about the Iraqi people, his protestations about loving freedom not withstanding. Shit, George W. Bush doesn't give a shit about our own soldiers: why else did his administration keep resisting giving our troops armor and why else did they not send more troops in the first damned place? Were they afraid of our entire armed forces being buried alive under an avalance of thrown flowers and sweets? And if this hadn't been patently clear before, it should be now, with the fact that this man cannot even look Cindy Sheehan in the eyes and explain why he feels we should stay in Iraq.

Because you know what? There isn't a fucking reason that we're there anymore besides "We broke it, now we gotta fix it," and if you listen to the screeching hordes on the right, shit ain't even broke. And the we broke it line may have to do, because I sure as hell don't know what to do right now. But when a president stands up there and repeats some nonsense about how we have to stay the course, and when the entire right wing creams themselves for the opportunity to call him "steadfast," "courageous," and "a visionary," one would think they could defend that position other han taking it as self-evident. One would, of course, be wrong.

And that's why images like this will be George Bush's monument to himself. That's why so many people are flocking to Cindy Sheehan's cause. What does it mean to send off a bunch of young men and women to die for a fabricated war that gets dragged on for no reason other than that we started a war for no reason? It means you can't look at her in person and explain your actions. Michelle Malkin said on Bill O'Reilly's show (entitled "Why I Desperately Need To Be Violently Sodomized With A Microphone") that "I can't imagine that Casey Sheehan would approve of such behavior, conduct, and rhetoric." That well may be, but I can't imagine Casey Sheehan would approve of this president, as detached from reality and isolated from contrary opinion as any Roman Emperor, not being able to tell his mom why he died. Can you?

No, No Media With A Clue Under Here...

2005-08-16T18:42:00.000-04:00

Charles Gibson: "The virus was designed to burrow into the Windows 2000 operating system...a reminder of just how vulnerable even the most secure computers are."

You may commence laughing.

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY (Part Deux)

2005-08-15T16:57:00.000-04:00

I was going to post on the right-wing circlejerk that occured, this weekend, but the Apostropher makes that entirely unnecessary (via Sadly, No!).

Since It Came Up

2005-08-14T10:17:00.000-04:00

I would like to stress that when I call someone a media whore, or a media motherfucker, or a media cunt, I fully mean that they are a whore, motherfucker, or cunt that happens to be a member of the media. There's no softening of the pejorative intended. And they can all go fuck themselves. If they don't want to, I'll be more than happy to do it, but oh, will it not be fun.

Tacitus, on the other hand, is not a media whore. Nor is he your run of the mill whore. I've got a nice long string of adjectives to put his whoredom in context, just the way he likes it, but I need to run out the door, and there's too many of them. Perhaps when I get back. For the time being, he can shove metaphors up his ass until the cows come home, because he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Big surprise.

Media Cunt Of The Week

2005-08-12T08:07:00.000-04:00

Jeff Greenfield, who's sitting on CNN right now talking about how Cindy Sheehan is only opposing the war because of the primal fear of losing a child, and how absolutely no one can sympathize with her for hating the fact that she lost a child in a war that gives new meaning to the word "unnecessary."

Shit, he just discharged something comparing Iraq to World War I.

What NARAL Should Have Said, Or Why John Roberts Doesn't Belong On The Supreme Court (One Of Several Reasons)

2005-08-12T07:18:00.000-04:00

This week, I've been blogging about the anti-Roberts NARAL ad, and why I think it shouldn't have been used in the first place. Shit, don't think that I don't understand where it's coming from. After all, there's been a veritable bevy of Democrats starting to pander to the anti-abortion mob, including one of my old Senators. And, shit, it's not like this is anything new. After all, Democrats are responsible for the odious Hyde Amendment, and several have shown no compunction about throwing a few sops to the religious right in the hopes of looking more moderate (ie, more Republican). So it's good to try to make abortion an issue, if only to make sure the Democrats don't take women's uteruses for granted.

But I still think the ad sucks. See, it's wrong. And the fact that it's wrong, and coming from a liberal group, means ABC and NBC News spend time on their broadcasts focusing on it and how it's wrong. Whoever said there's no such thing as bad publicity is a fucking moron. This makes us look like liars. And yes, there's a horrible double standard here: nobody on the TV news spent time discussing how goddamned awful and manipulative the Swift Boat liars were. They, of course, instead just kept inviting them on to repeat their bile. The Swifties did what they did because they had nothing else on John Kerry. They had to keep repeating the mantras of "flip-flopper" and "not really a hero," because how else do you attack a war hero who's always, throughout his political career, led the assault against the worst excesses of government?

And this ad makes it look like we've got nothing else on Roberts, when in fact we've got enough to fill the overly sodomized ass of Antonin Scalia's wife. You want reason one why John Roberts isn't fit to sit on the Supreme Court? It's the NARAL ad, but without the cheap shot about Roberts "excusing" anti-abortion violence. See, Roberts hasn't given any indication he excuses violence -- but he hasn't fucking gone out of his way to oppose it, either. Hell, this standard isn't good enough for the right when it comes to Muslims, so why is it good enough when it comes to a Supreme Court judge?

After all, Operation Rescue was going all out in trying to incite violence against abortion clinics in the hopes of forcing them to shut down, thus giving Randall Terry control over women's uteruses (and is there truly a more disturbing thought than that?), and in this case, they were suing to get around a law, originally meant at the Klan, that got in their way. There's no reason why the Solicitor General's office needed to get involved -- and remember that Roberts was a political appointee, appointed to help form this type of ideological/legal position. Somehow, I don't see the Bush Solicitor General's office intervening similarly on behalf of an environmental group, do you?

There were, of course, solutions that protected abortion clinics while accepting the anti-Klan law didn't apply. Guess what administration passed laws like this? That's right, that of the Clenis. Despite their protestations now that Roberts' brief was only legal, that's not shown by the facts. To start with, Roberts was involved, and his job was to deal with those cases that weren't purely legal. No, the administration truly did side with the neanderthals at Operation Rescue (calling them barbarians is an insult to the Vandals). Nothing they said supports a claim that they "excused" anti-abortion violence, but they sure as fuck didn't oppose it, either. They even trotted out the same arguments as those who opposed anti-lynching laws, and those motherfuckers sure as hell wanted the right to keep stringing up some niggers who got uppity, didn't they?

It's a slight difference from what NARAL claimed, sure. Perhaps one could claim it doesn't really fucking matter, because it's so slight an issue. But it's still a false statement, not merely one that's below the belt. And you know what really makes it bad? We have to hew closer to the line of truth than the right does, because, as mentioned before, in their quest to appear "fair and balanced," the media does all it can to examine us more critically than the right. And yeah, it's not fair, and yeah, they're a bunch of whores who, if the revolution ever comes, deserve to be at least some of the first to be up against the wall, but it's how it is. We have to deal with it. It's a good thing that, unlike our counterparts on the other side, we've actually got support for our positions that we don't have to pull out of our asses. And I'm worried the NARAL ad, as slightly off the truth as it is, helps undermine that. John Roberts truly does not deserve to sit on the Supreme Court. But in an era where Clarence Thomas is a Supreme Court justice, and possibly the next Chief Justice, we have to make sure we don't lose what weapons we've got, because that by itself won't convince the Senate to not vote for him.

Advice For The Anti-Roberts Forces (Part II)

2005-08-10T22:38:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I started discussion NARAL's ad concerning John Roberts and abortion. And here, finally, is the problem: the ad is slanderous, because it states that Roberts' ideology excused violence against abortion clinics. And, who knows, perhaps the bastard is twisted enough that he does excuse such a thing. But I don't know that, and based on what NARAL's stating, they don't know that, either. The issue at hand is a brief Roberts wrote while working for Bush's Pappy. In it, Roberts sided with one of the biggest scumsucking shitheads around, a bottomfeeder's bottomfeeder, a man Anntichrist S. Coulter has always had wonderfully fond words for, one Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue and hottest potential candidate for Florida State Senate.

This is a man who has said that if he were in power, he would "hunt down" and "execute" abortion providers, and who has called for violence against abortion clinics. The claim, then, is that by sharing common cause with Terry, Roberts was excusing his action. Can anyone tell me how this is fucking different than claiming that John Kerry and Jane Fonda were bosom buddies because both opposed the Vietnam War?

And that's the problem. This ad is in the same domain of truth as those types of right-wing claims. It's exactly the type of thing we would, and for good reason, get pissed about if the right were doing; shit, we did get pissed about it when the right did it. And it's not something we should be mimicking. It's not like there's a shortage of things to attack Roberts on, even with regard to abortion. By just making shit up, we'll be helping to ensure that Justice John Roberts helps further the result in Hamdan and other cases, letting the Bush administration shove its hands right up your ass, airport security style.

Additionally, anyone who's talking about Roberts possibly "being too Catholic" when it comes to issues like Roe need to go sit in the corner, masturbating until they orgasm some sense into themselves rather than wanking in public. Being Catholic doesn't make one hostile to women's rights; being a conservative can. John Kerry's a Catholic. He's pro-choice. Roberts isn't conservative because he's a Catholic, he is a particular type of Catholic because he's a conservative. It's never a problem that someone is Catholic. The problem is that he's a right-wing shithead who interprets Catholicism as a right-wing shithead would.

Other post promised today tomorrow; unexpected events tied up my day. But go read this. It's beyond comedy gold. It's comedy platinum.

A Word of Advice To Those Stepping In To Oppose John Roberts

2005-08-09T23:39:00.000-04:00

On the network news tonight, I saw that NARAL had put out an ad concerning John Roberts and abortion. And oh, was I happy, for if you recall, making a lot of noise about Roberts' record regardless of the decision to filibuster was what I suggested we do, so that everyone knows what we know, that while Roberts is no Bork, he's at least a nutty Rehnquist (and remember, Rehnquist was a co-founder of the goddamned Federalist Society).

And for sure, there are a number of things to be mentioned about Roberts on abortion, many of which have been put forward by Democratic golden boys like Chuck Schumer. There's his record as the political deputy to one Solicitor General Ken Starr. There's his tepid response to Dick Durbin during his 2003 confirmation hearings, which could easily mean either that he realizes that as a circuit court justice, he's bound by precedent (unlike as a member of SCOTUS) or that he intends to try to slowly chip away at Roe (since overturning Roe v. Wade would be one of the worst things that could happen to the leadership of our Republican Party, to which Roberts is as loyal a buttboy as Uncle Clarence Thomas is to Scalia). And there's his service at the feet of Rehnquist, who dissented in both Roe and Casey. So I was looking forward to an ad that mentioned these, to make sure it got out there, and then to hammer it in.

But, alas: the ad is a piece of shit. No, it's not that it's rude: look who's talking. I'm all for rudeness, for saying those things that make the punditocracy squirm and whine about how a line was crossed. What's not cool, however, is slander, or things bordering on it. Willful disregard for the facts, man. Don't say things that are just fucking wrong, and don't tiptoe around stating the truth. That's the difference between what Bush's lackeys were claiming the Swift Boat shitheads were saying and what they were actually saying, for example. One's legitimate and necessary, the other's just a cheap shot.

More tomorrow: the power flickered while I was writing this and I lost about a half hour's writing. Also tomorrow: Bush and Cheney and Rummy's monument to themselves, largely carves from blown up carcasses.

Email Surprise

2005-08-08T21:40:00.000-04:00

So today, I got an email from Family Research Council wonderboy Tony "I Swear I'm Not The Psycho Guy" Perkins. True to his protestations, Tony is not stabbing anyone in the shower: he's asking me for support for Justice Sunday II.

That's right. Remember that extravanganza of a flop the FRC put on with Bill "The Catbutcher" Frist and James "My Combover Shows How Much Dignity I Have" Dobson, back when they were extolling the horrors of the filibuster, which, if you listened to them, was apparently as much of a threat to our way of life as abortion and Muslims? They're putting on a goddamned sequel. If I were The General, I'd have a witty sendup of this in movie tagline form, but unfortunately, I'm not.

Still, though...damn. Isn't this fucking awesome? They're even keeping the name, for that redneck monster truck rally feel. And you don't have to wait long: it's this weekend. The speaker lineup is also excellent: Zell "No, I'm Really The Only True Democrat In Existence" Miller, the aforementioned dogbeater Dobson, Chuck "I'm Still Getting Over Being Sodomized For Richard Nixon's Sins" Colson, Phyllis "Despite What I Say When I Quote Things, I Swear I Know How To Read" Schlafly, and the one and only Bugman himself, fresh from discussing how talking about how we "evolutionized" led to some school shooting somewhere.

So this little shitfest of a circlejerk is definitely on, trying to rekindle the discussion over filibusters. They're even still going on about how we must stop the "filibuster against people of faith," despite the fact that I'm sure many of Bush's nominees who were confirmed, y'know, had faith. Unless they're saying it was a special kind of faith that made Miguel Estrada not want to turn over documents, which, given these fuckers, seems spot on with their form of religion.

To prepare, Perkins wanted to know if we could help pray. First, we should pray that the speakers are anointed as prophets. Second, we should pray that the media doesn't succeed in its Satanic purpose to completely demoralize and undermine the Forces of Good, otherwise known as James Dobson's schlubs. The media, it seems, is actively trying to "foment division" and "release discouragement" among pro-family (but only for straights, goddamnit) communities. As a result, we need to pray that the media coverage is both honest and favorable.

Shit, I'll pray for the first, but I'm pretty sure that excludes the second. The passage Tony decided to use as a reference for this prayer request was Nemeiah 4:1-6, which discusses how the heathens ridiculed the Jews who were building their wall. Apparently the wall against the filibuster is being built, and the media is the Ammonites. Or something. I don't fucking know what kind of metaphor Tony's trying to draw, but I'm sure it's good. After all, God is speaking through his giant anus, right?

Coming Later

2005-08-08T12:41:00.000-04:00

Lack of posting last week was due to unforseen events. Two posts coming tonight.

That Design's Just Stupid

2005-08-02T21:30:00.000-04:00

Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy. So our president, who wants to be remembered as the "education" president, has decided the best way to continue giving science the middle finger is to get it early -- he's declared that he wants all our kids to be fucking stupid. That's right, he think it's a good idea to teach intelligent design creationism alongside evolution in biology classes. As PZ Myers put it, "It's only a small fillip on the vast rococo monument to incompetence, anti-science, and lies that the Republican party has erected over our country."

But, you might be asking, why is this so bad? After all, it's another theory, right? What could be wrong with presenting it in a science class? Why can't you, as one reasonably prominent conservative blog (via John Cole) show why there is no controversy, why ID and evolution don't contradict each other, while even explicitly stating that ID isn't a comparable scientific theory to evolution? The problem is this: your punk ass would be specifically talking about ID in a science class, as a theory, even if not a science class, which in of itself gives it credibility it doesn't deserve and shouldn't have. ID should not be mentioned anywhere near science. Shit, if a theory's a bad scientific theory, that's one thing. Mention it in class and point out its problems all you want. This isn't even that. Calling IDC "science" is like calling watching your friend fuck a blowup doll with your hands tied "having sex." It's not the same thing. It's not anything you could even plausibly describe as being similar to the same thing. If you want to do that, talk about naturalism in general and why it's essential to the very idea of science. Don't mention ID except as a form of creationism. Just in passing, nothing more. Again, Myers puts it perfectly:

And that is what should be taught: teachers, we need to get in front of our students and expose them to both sides. We need to stand up and plainly state that creationism is a lie and any attempt to incorporate faith and the supernatural into science is as destructive to the enterprise as would be requiring religion to provide concrete, repeatable tests of their beliefs.

And whether or not this conservative blogger is right on Bush wanting IDC to be discussed in the context of "origin of life," let's not forget it's creationism. The designer is God. Who else could it be?

So, Bush wants our kids to be stupid and have no idea what science is. This shouldn't surprise anyone. After all, he wants our kids to grow up to be cheap labor, to be mindless soldier drones ("bad apples," if you will), and, most of all, to vote Republican.

Post about the Church of Bush coming tomorrow, I guess.

Update: Question asked by Protein Wisdom updated to more explicitly capture the nuance of his position. My reaction remains.

Mustachioed Motherfuckers at the UN

2005-08-01T21:32:00.000-04:00

So, Bush decided in the end it was more convenient just to appoint John Bolton, possibly the biggest motherfucker in the administration lineup, to the UN via a recess appointment rather than, y'know, cooperate with the requests of the Senate, something we're seeing with the John Roberts nomination as well.

John Bolton is, as stated above, a motherfucker of legendary proportions. This is a man, after all, who was one of the biggest supporters of Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, a man who was as complicit in the Iran Contra coverup as anyone this side of Oliver North: a perfect fit for this administration, run by motherfuckers for motherfuckers. This then just puts him in the ranks of other similar Bush recess appointees, like segregation-loving motherfucker Charles Pickering, son of motherfucker Eugene Scalia, cruel and unusual punishment loving motherfucker William Pryor (as "activist" of a judge as they come), and death squad loving motherfucker Otto Reich. See, when it comes to numbers, Bush has 106 recess appointments in less than five years, including an entire commission when it was suggested some Republicans didn't want to go along with the base closings plan. Clinton, by contrast, had 140 in eight years, the highest profile of which was Ron Brown's replacement as commerce secretary, the same month Brown died.

Fortunately, these appointments do have to get confirmed by the Senate at some point. Otherwise, shit...I can't even imagine who Bush might try to put where, all the while telling us, in his full capacity as fluffer-in-chief, about how much his appointees love freedom and have support in the Senate anyway. After all, recall what Condoleeza Rice said about John Bolton: "John Bolton is personally committed to the future success of the United Nations and he will be a strong voice for reform at a time when the United Nations has begun to reform itself to help meet the challenging agenda before the international community."

Of all the loads of shit to come out of the mouths of this administration, saying someone who's said if the UN building were to lose 10 floors it wouldn't matter is committed to the success of the institution might be one of the biggest, right up there with that entire speech Bush gave in support of the Family Marriage Amendment. This seems natural, of course, given that the entire rationale for why Bolton should be UN Ambassador was twofold: 1) he was appointed by Bush, and 2) he apparently has never given a foreign leader a bukkake alarm clock. Correct me if I'm wrong, but were any other reasons ever given at all? I mean, this is a guy whose departure from a group makes things better (via Pepper). If we were really the partisan tools the right would have you believe, wouldn't we be jumping up and down that Bush has chosen an absolute incompetant to be his guy at the UN?

But hey, he also apparently forced his wife to swing back in the late 70s. So that's something, and I expect the fine folks at townhall.com, especially the Virgin Ben Shapiro, to address why Bush is setting such a horrible example for the children, just like they roundly denounced Bill O'Reilly. I swear to god, it never ceases to amaze me how much these Republicans do everything they can to make Michel Foucault laugh his heavily sodomized ass off in heaven. The avowed homophobes and opponents of postmodernism prove one of its leading lights, a homosexual's homosexual, completely right. Go figure, huh?

Update: Pepper notes Fox Nooz's take on the matter, which is, of course, to blame Bill Clinton.

When Did Jon Stewart Become Peter Jennings?

2005-07-28T20:49:00.000-04:00

Aww, shit, The New Republic is upset because Jon Stewart wasn't too tough on Rick Santorum (via John Cole). A bunch of the commenters over at Crooks and Liars seem to agree, as does someone at Salon.

Look, it's nice and all when Jon Stewart, who's a lot smarter than I think a lot of people, on both sides, give him credit for, goes after these sumbitches. The Crossfire confrontation was great, even after he realized neither Begala or Carlson aspired to more than what they're doing. And it was fantastic when he ripped the heart, Temple of Doom style, out of the war rationale by asking a smirking jackass from The Weekly Standard if our standard for sending people to go to war shouldn't be higher than "We're not sure if we're right." And, shit, The Daily Show gives more insight than any of the cable news bitches, something which is sad enough.

But, goddamnit, let's go back to that Crossfire incident. Remember when Tucker Carlson asked Stewart "Why weren't you as hard on Kerry as you're saying we should've been?" and the response was "Because you're fucking CNN and the show before me involves puppets making prank phone calls?" We laughed, and we laughed, because he was right. It's Comedy Central, people. And it still is. It's not Jon Stewart's job to go bezerk on the mental midgets that may cross his path; it's just a bonus when he does it, because he's got balls and he's smart. Don't give the mass corporate media a damned pass because they won't ask hard questions, equating them to a show on Comedy Central. They should be more. Jon Stewart's ahead of where he should be, because he lay it all on the table from time to time. But sometimes he doesn't. And that's ok, too, because he hosts a fake news show. Fake news. Not real news. Ok, so Fox isn't real news, either. But you know what I'm saying. And we shouldn't get irritated with Jon Stewart because, sometimes, he doesn't go above and beyond the call of duty like he does far more often than most of us would if we were in his position.

Update: After viewing this, why did Stewart need to score some rhetorical potshots again? So we can all be atwitter, giggling in some big liberal circlejerk? Santorum fucking made no sense at all, and it was painfully obvious Stewart was hauling him back onto topics. The question was about homosexuality, Santorum started talking about divorce, and so on. The guy didn't look reasonable, he looked like someone who couldn't go beyond his set talking points to address a damned question on a topic he's gone on and on about. And he was proud he had an index. When did an index cease to be a standard thing in books? I mean, maybe Ricky boy was trying to be funny, but it didn't take. Dear god, did it not take.

Final Thoughts On Rove (For Now)

2005-07-28T20:29:00.000-04:00

I was going to write something more substantial; hell, I spent all day trying to think of what would be worth writing.

But really, at this point, I don't think there's much. What needs to be said's been said; Digby and Billmon have both been all over this shit. The last thing that I might've wanted to point out, The Rude Pundit did earlier this week. So, fuck it.

I would just add this piece of advice to the fine commentors over at Daily Kos, and elsewhere, that Pepper noted are really just no fun at all for not wanting to talk about the Rove mistress story. It'd be one thing if they didn't want to talk about it because, as commenter here and elsewhere and newest Blondsense blogger Anntichrist S. Coulter put it, it's not something we're going to buy unless the bitch's packing a footlong strap-on. No, they don't want to talk about it because it's mean and it makes us look like "smear merchants" to talk about it.

Shit, motherfuckers, if the shoe were on the other foot, you know Rove would be on the phones organizing a group to start going around to start peddling it to CNN and Fox Nooz? Remember that "Kerry had a mistress" story Drudge was pimping last election? You want to bet Rove didn't have anything to do with that?

Nah, fuck it. There's no point in being pure if we don't get a chance to actually do anything. You may as well start fondling yourself now, because you're just masturbating. For the time being, anyway, we've got to fight fire with fire; there's no point bringing a knife to a gun fight. Sure, it'd be nice if we could get away with the higher ground, but for the time being, let's just can the sanctimonious crap, shall we? It might be beneath us, but it's not beneath them. Shit, this kind of thing is way above them. If someone can actually argue that this is counterproductive, that's one thing. But don't merely say "It's beneath us." Hell, keeping it afloat is like telling someone to look into this Capone guy's financial records. There's no way to know if it'll work, but hey, we've gotta bring this chump down for something.

And yes, I realize everything I just said could be used as an argument for, say, torturing prisoners in Gitmo. But for the love of God, if you can't see the disanalogy there, you should go read some Mallard Fillmore. You might find it funny.

Name That Motherfuckers Answers

2005-07-28T12:36:00.000-04:00

1) This motherfucker was Senator Orrin Hatch, the Stormin' Mormon, correctly identified by Benjamin.

2) Motherfucker 2 was none other than Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, with excerpts from his dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, otherwise known as the case that said "Hey, maybe gays really ARE people" and earned Ricky Santorum his Dogfucker nickname.

3) Motherfucker 3 was not Scott McClellan, as both Benjamin and PatPandaHat guessed, but rather White House communications director and overall whore Dan Bartlett. Bartlett was appearing in a joint press briefing.

4) Benjamin got Senator Lindsey Graham (MF-SC), who you might remember from the late 1990s as one of Clinton's impeachment managers in the House and someone who's been bandied about as a "moderate" Republican.

5) Townhall columnist Star Parker was this motherfucker, who was apparently trying to break new ground in wingnut grammar by replacing dashes with underscores, as noted in the comments to this Sadly, No! post. Points to Benjamin.

6) Our last motherfucker was none other than Pat Robertson, taking a variation on his claim that what Christians in American go through is worse than what "any minority in history" has gone through. Again, Benjamin correctly named Pat.

So thanks for playing, and no thanks at all to our fuckers of mothers, without whom our country (and our sanities) would all be better off.

They've Gone And Confused Me

2005-07-27T09:51:00.000-04:00

Criticism of ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson: he has a pre-9/11 mindset.

Confusing part: this is based off something he wrote on July 10, 2001.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't July 10, 2001 before September 11, 2001?

Leave it to those cuntrags at PNAC, cause as best as I can tell, everyone had a pre-9/11 mindset before 9/11, y'know, since it hadn't happened yet.

Later: More on Turd Blossom.

Update: More like tomorrow. Along with Name That Motherfucker answers.

Name That Motherfucker (Supreme Court Edition)

2005-07-25T20:23:00.000-04:00

That's right, today's motherfuckers are all commenting in some way on the Supreme Court. Mind you, these quotes are not necessarily new or even related to Justice Whitey.

1) "The judicial-selection process must be fair, constructive, and consistent with constitutional principles. Yet less than two weeks after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement, and before President Bush has even chosen a nominee, we already see some disturbing signs that could threaten both the Senate's integrity and the judiciary's independence...The Constitution has established a judicial-selection process by clearly assigning separate roles for the president and the Senate, giving authority to nominate and appoint judges to the president. Some senators and left-wing groups, apparently unwilling to accept that elections have consequences, seem to accept this arrangement only when it produces judges they like."

While this motherfucker is technically correct that the Senate does not choose the nominee, well...y'know.

2) This motherfucker claimed "The court has taken sides in the culture war" and "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda." Given that, as far as I can tell, the homosexual agenda consists of one item stating "Why can't you goddamn straights leave us the fuck alone?", I'm not sure this is a bad thing. The same goes for this motherfucker's claim that the reasoning used in a particular SCOTUS decision "leaves on shaky, pretty shaky grounds, state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples."

3) "But as you know and those who have covered the President for awhile, he likes to have the info, he likes to have the background, but he also is a field player, as I call him. He likes to size people up himself, make his own judgment. And what he wanted to do is to make sure the person matched the resume, to make sure that not only was this person -- had all the check marks on their resume, but also had those innate qualities you're looking for -- the character and temperament and judgment, and, frankly, leadership qualities that you want in the highest court in the land."

Anyone who believes this raise your hand. Mine's staying down.

4) This motherfucker took a break from talking about how South Carolinans are still pissed about Abraham Lincoln to note that "In a single word, John Roberts is 'solid.' Judge Roberts is a solid conservative who understands the role of a judge is to interpret the law and not legislate from the bench."

5) "It is mind-boggling to think that the Supreme Court has ruled to use the law, not to protect individuals, but to evacuate them from their homes so a business can come in and do its thing.

And this decision was carried out thanks to the Supreme Court's liberals. The conservatives voted against it. It says it all that Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion and that the NAACP was there on his side!"

I'll tell you what's mind-boggling -- that this motherfucker is considered by anyone to be insightful or informative. Good freakin' lord.

6) Last, but absolutely never least, this motherfucker declared a few months ago that Democratic filibustering of a handful of judicial nominees was "the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War."

Update: Ok, so I understand that these ones are more difficult than previous motherfucker quotes, so here's your pool of answers to choose from: Rick Santorum, Pat Robertson, Orrin Hatch, Star Parker, Ann Coulter, Scott McClellan, Lindsey Graham, Tom DeLay, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Dan Bartlett.

Thoughts From A Spontaneous Road Trip

2005-07-24T22:09:00.000-04:00

1) Best Sign Ever: "Welcome to the Onandaga Territory, where thieves, rapists, and murderers rule under Gov. George Custer Pataki."

Fuckin' a.

2) If I hear one more yuppie schmuck in a coffeeshop go on about how fucking backwards people in red states are by virtue of where they live, I'm going to have to teach him or her some manners while making the asshole squeal like a pig. Look, I'm about as goddamned blue state as they come, but how the shit do you think we're going to be able to, y'know, win a fucking election (even for dogcatcher) if you jerkoffs can't get the fact that living in a conservative area doesn't make one an uneducated, low-IQ, fundamentalist nekulturny? Jesus fucking Christ riding on a mechanical bull, it's not like there isn't some blue in the red states, and a shitload of red in the blue states, as it only takes this map to see. And that's not even the half of it: the same creationist shit that goes on in Kansas goes on in Pennsylfuckingvania, too. Goddamn, you motherfuckers, goddamn. This is why, of course, we can't just ignore this red state bullshit as being the result of living in some geographic area that somehow sucks the intelligence and culture out of its residents. Somehow I bet these pricks voted for Nader, too.

3) I know the Rude Pundit and most of you ladies are just drooling over John Roberts, that judicial hunk, but I'm saving my Article III cherry for Edith Jones. There's not much a riding by a horsewoman of the right-wing apocolypse can't fix, as we'll be sure to find out when the zombie corpse of William Rehnquist finally decides to retire. Oh, shit, that'll be a lovely clusterfuck, won't it?

Tomorrow: An extra special edition of Name That Motherfucker.

Quickly Noted

2005-07-21T08:26:00.000-04:00

Jack Balkin discusses the type of motherfucking John Roberts is likely to do as a Supreme Court Justice.

More Civil Than Most

2005-07-20T20:41:00.000-04:00

Amygdala has another Darfur link that should be read. I notice a lot of the chatter about Darfur , what little there was, seems to have more or less died down. And hey, the media's still talking about Iraq, and rotting corpses all smell alike!

Ah, how that pedophile logician Lewis Carroll knew what to make of "never forget":

"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget."

"You will though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it."

Kind of sad how apt Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are as social commentary, isn't it?

News Flash: Bush Nominates Motherfucker For SCOTUS

2005-07-20T17:18:00.000-04:00

I know, you're all shocked. The only question that ever existed, of course, was the degree and nature of the particular motherfucker, because that's all Bush ever nominates (see every single damned person in this administration...betting that Bush is going to nominate a motherfucker is like betting that a horse is going to win the fucking Derby). Even Paul O'Neill was a motherfucker before tiring of fucking mothers. But, back to SCOTUS: would he be the kind of motherfucker that likes to have threesomes with his mother and his best friend's mother, like Antonin Scalia? Or perhaps a motherfucker-in-denial like Miguel Estrada?

The answer, as we now know, is John Glover Roberts, Jr., Federalist Society hack and bosom buddy of the President (thereby ensuring that in terms of partisanship, the Court will be at about the same point, just with less sometimes-displayed integrity). And there's a laundry list, widely available, of all the mothers Roberts has fucked, both as a high-ranking official under Reagan and this President's pappy: rights of defendants, the environment, the protections of the Voting Rights Act, school desegregation, and, of course, Ansche Hedgepath, otherwise known as the french fry girl. There's Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (a poor sign of times to come if I've ever seen one). He's argued against Roe and sided with Operation Rescue, among other groups, and, let's face it, when you're on the side of Randall Terry, you've hit the bottom. Shit, as a student, he argued the Contract Clause of the Constitution protected corporations from legislation that would make them increase their obligations to their employees. He's not Scalia, to be sure, but he's worse than Rehnquist: take the Chief and mix him with Almond Joy and you've got John Roberts, right-wing nutbar, a man who doesn't think the Rehnquist Court is conservative.

Of course, to help ensure that Roberts' motherfuckery stays under the radar, the excuses are being brought out, first and foremost being "He was a deputy in the Solicitor General's office! None of this are his personal views!", forgetting that Roberts was the "political deputy": a position where the occupant is given the ideologically-charged cases to handle, so that he might also help shape the ideology in question. This is especially the case with abortion, where the dumbasses at RedState.org (which, from this point on, I refuse to actually link to) and elsewhere would have you believe that during his 2003 DC Circuit Court confirmation hearings, when Roberts said Roe "was the settled law of the land", this means he won't touch Roe, as opposed to, y'know, whittling it away until it's completely meaningless.

So fuck it. The question now is what do we do? To be sure, regardless of what we do now, we're going to get a motherfucker. And when Rehnquist goes, we'll get another motherfucker, giving us 4 avowed fuckers of mothers on the Court. And perhaps Roberts isn't as bad as the alternatives: if we defeat him, who's next? Janice Rogers Brown? Edith Jones? So perhaps, we should be grateful that we've got one of the lesser of motherfuckers and be done with it.

If we take that route, though, we'd better make sure that we let the country know that Roberts isn't a stealth son of a bitch. Anywhere there's a Roberts lovefest going on, we should be there, busting it up like the G-Men of old might bust up a bootlegger's operation. He's a jackass, through and through, and we know it. They're not getting anything by us. Let's shove him and every legal document he's ever written up the asses of every American until their rectums bleed, so everyone knows what we've got and nobody's surprised when Roberts decides the executive branch can do pretty much whatever it wants, and there's no way these cocksuckers can accuse us of flip-flopping on his confirmation when we point out that this is the type of asshat you get with Republicans in power. If they thought what we did to Bork was bad, they should see what I would do if I were in the Senate when Roberts' nomination came to the floor (blowup dolls would be involved, like the one Bud Bundy tried to pretend was his girlfriend for a while).

With Bork, at least, everyone knew he was a crazy ass wingnutty motherfucker. For Roberts, we need to make that clear, because he doesn't display it. But, c'mon, what else do you expect when Bush has a primetime televised news conference, to help distract us from Karl Rove? We've got a white, male Federalist Society lawyer who was once Pappy's boy; another perfect representative of the type that this administration truly works for. A man, who, assuredly, answered the right way when they gave him a laundry list of issues to give his position on and who helped fix Florida for Bush back in 2000. Wonder of all wonders, that.

Wednesday Preview

2005-07-19T20:51:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow: Thoughts on John Roberts, and why the initial reaction of "We're fucked" to O'Connor's retirement was spot on.

High Standards

2005-07-19T10:05:00.000-04:00

No, really -- I'm relieved to know that if someone is convicted of a crime and goes to jail, they won't be working in the White House anymore. I honestly didn't expect it from an administration that seems to model itself on Richard Nixon's.

What's really interesting is that CNN pointed out that this, in fact, differs from "I will fire someone who is found to be responsible." Yet, I wonder -- how does it "seem" to differ?

Maybe it's just that the media is still getting used to this whole "having a spine" thing.

Bombs Over Mecca

2005-07-18T20:32:00.000-04:00

So, Tom Tancredo, the other bitchass Republican in Congress from the little old state of Colorado, feels a good way to win hearts and minds is by threatening to bomb the shit out of Mecca (and maybe Medina) if Muslim terrorists attack the US with nuclear weapons.

There's really nothing else to say about this other than that I know, deep down, Congressman Tancredo feels just as comfortable with talking about how if Jewish terrorists were to hit us, we'd hit Jeruselam. And it's a good thing Eric Rudolph never used a nuclear weapon, otherwise he'd be putting his political reputation on the line by advocating for a retaliatory strike against North Carolina. God bless the motherfucker.

Good lord, how much worse can these guys get? How the fuck do they keep getting elected if they think "PR" stands for "Piss and Retaliate" -- be it on wives of people they want to destroy, or any hopes of us not being viewed as the embodiment of evil by a number of people who might not be naturally inclined to support groups like al-Qaeda?

In other news, I can't bring myself to get excited over the fact that our president seems to have paid attention for one day in high school Civics. Smirking as is his wont, President Organ Monkey said, "I, of course, am the person that picks the nominee, and they get to decide whether or not the nominee gets confirmed. That's the way it has worked in the past. That's the way it's going to work in this administration."

He has a way of restating the obvious in a way that makes you sigh a big old sigh of relief, doesn't he? It's like the kid that's been braindamaged in an accident, and in the hospital, they're trying to check if he can follow the doctor's finger, and what do you know, he fucking does, and everyone cheers. Yay for the braindamaged kid, defying everyone's fucking expectations.

And, shit, why did the Associated Press decide to say that Bush gave clues about his eventual Supreme Court choice? Here's a clue for the AP: when a batshit right-wing motherfucker like George W. Bush says he wants a justice that's a "fair-minded individual who represents the mainstream of American law and American values" and who "will meet the highest standards of intellect, character and ability and will pledge to faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of our country," he's talking about someone like Antonin "Silence Means That Sometimes I Wish My Wife Would Let Me Bugger Her" Scalia or Clarence "Being Chief Justice Means I Can Secure My Vital Porn Pipeline" Thomas. It's right-wing code speak, kind of like saying Dred Scott instead of Roe. These people are the worst fucking cryptographers ever.

In any case, this isn't exactly news: Bush said a long time ago he wanted someone like Thomas or Scalia. And he's been throwing around words like "character" and "integrity" and "Constitution" ever since O'Connor decided to end her reign of sometimes-integrity and sometimes-partisan hackery (I'm sorry, but Bush v. Gore cancels out any number of other shit, since we wouldn't be talking about this if it weren't for that). So where exactly is there some new clue about who Bush is going to choose? Did the AP suddenly realize he was going to appoint some batshit Federalist Society son of a bitch? Justice Ted Olson, here we fucking come. Next, the AP will realize that the religious right wants someone who'll say "Well whoop de do, let's put up the Ten Commandments in every goddamned room in this here Christian country while we mandate school prayer all up in this piece." So, ok, they want Roy Moore.

Damn, no wonder people pee themselves in pleasure whenever Bush acts like someone qualified to be president and not a braindamaged teenager. The press gets all giddy when he says the fucking obvious. Color me shocked.

Busy Morning

2005-07-18T10:02:00.000-04:00

Post later this afternoon. This is interesting, in the meantime.

Incidentally, I've decided any blog with that insipid "Day by Day" cartoon (and I won't link it, because it might encourage them...if you haven't encountered it, and must, just go clicking around on Instapundit) is not fucking worth the time it takes to load, let alone read. Why someone would broadcast a poor man's Mallard Fillmore is beyond me.

Imperative

2005-07-15T11:05:00.000-04:00

Read Krugman. Do it now. Nothing else needs to be said, except that I would so give that man a blowjob if he wanted. I'd just love to see him in an environment without censorship.

Abortion Abortion Abortion

2005-07-15T10:16:00.000-04:00

There's been a lot of discussion over the future of abortion rights, what with Sandra Day O'Connor retiring (after all, she was one of the plurality authors in Planned Parenthood v. Casey). Since it's almost certain that Bush's nominee will be a pro-life lapdog (or he'll have to show he is to get the religious right's support), this could be a problem, even though the pro-Roe crowd still has 5 votes, what with Ruth Bader Ginsburg replacing Byron White. Chuck Schumer, who would be the Democratic pretty boy if John Edwards and Evan Bayh suddenly got into helmetless motorcycle accidents, made it clear that we'd like to know how a potential Supreme Court justice feels about, y'know, the law, and so he or she will be asked about his or her views on abortion, gay marriage, and so on. So we can expect it to come up, and given the religious right, oh, will it ever come up. After all, remember that "culture of life" that was being prattled on and on and, for the love of Jesus on a mechanical bull, on about a bit ago? The two poster childs for it are abortion (and its apparently natural extension, stem cell research) and Terri "Is This Still Going On?" Schiavo. Yep, yep, we sure do love and respect life in this country, much as we respect that sacred institution of marriage. It's why the next natural Fox reality show would be a baby auction of some kind: "Who Wants To Raise My Baby?" or some shit like that.

Good god, the fucking pro-lifers. See, the thing to remember about pro-lifers is they're nothing but a bunch of hypocritical, tricked out bitches. That description particularly applies to politicians who've made abortion part of their new Southern Strategy (even if the Republicans are now paying lip service to apologizing for the original). The pro-life movement in this country isn't ultimately about abortion, it's about assaulting poor women.

Need an example? Here's one: the Hyde Amendment, which cut off federal funds for low-income women who had abortions (the fact that this is named after Henry Hyde, a Congressional scumsucker if there ever was one, should be telling). Ok, by itself, that might be well enough, right? Sure, there're ways to help poor women here even as we discourage them from having abortions. But, and here's the rub, insufficiently funding child care, Medicaid, and Medicare while cutting welfare and making requirements to be on welfare more stringent aren't some of them. This discussion hasn't been as prominent as it was, say, 10 years ago, but you can't bitch and moan about these welfare moms who are abusing the system by having lots of kids when you make it so they can't have abortions, motherfuckers. You force women to have kids, you'd better be able to provide if they fucking can't. It's criminal, is what it is. I'd like to know how many kids that would've been aborted, since 1976, ended up poor and on welfare.

Want another? How about the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003? "Partial Birth Abortion" is one of those completely inaccurate rhetorical bullshit wordings that the modern Republican party so adores, like "compassionate conservativism" that villifies compassion from liberals as being "bleeding heart" and "Clean Skies". There's nothing like playing up a rare procedure that's almost never done electively, almost always for medical necessity, as somehow being this plague "sacrificing" thousands of "children" a year to really get the heart pumping. And, of course, it will invariably be struck down just like its predecessors on the state level. All it would take for one of these laws to actually be found Constitutional is a little provision saying "Yeah, if it truly is medically necessary, you can do it." But they won't fucking do that, because it wouldn't be the electoral and fundraising goldmine it currently is.

So fuck the pro-life movement. It's nothing but exploitative. If these bitches were really pro-life, they'd be right there with the animal rights and anti-death penalty people, among other things. And there are, of course, noble souls who are actually consistent and truly mean and understand what they say; I'm not telling them to fuck off. They, however, usually don't associate themselves with these other motherfuckers. Moreover, we all know people who go on about how they would've voted Democrat if only it weren't for abortion. They can go fuck themselves, too, because they're rationalizing enablers. Do I feel anything for them? Well, no, I don't, because if they have the numbers they claim they do, they're responsible for all of the bullshit they bemoan while berating us about how little we love the "unborn" (a term which makes me think of zombies, man, zombie fetuses). And, I swear to God, I'm going to beat the next equivocating motherfucker who says "I support a woman's right to choose, but abortion's pretty icky," because nobody here is claiming we should force women to have abortions. It's not a fucking issue as to whether you like abortion in as much as you accept a woman has a right to decide what happens to her body or not. So shut the fuck up. Shit, no one likes abortion. Who goes around saying "Abortion is good, abortion is great, abort all your babies and it'll be a great date!"? Their decision, not yours, so stop making them feel bad or trying to villify them for something they probably don't feel good about anyway. And isn't it always goddamned men who say this? Yes, ladies, I apologize for the goddamned morons in my fucking gender who feel the need to merely tolerate your rights.

Meanwhile, we'll be busy sitting here, listening to people who get outraged over someone suggesting American troops might behave, y'know, just a little barbarically at times, calling people who disagree with them "feminazis" and watching the President and Rick "Homos Have Cooties" Santorum moan and cry at press conferences about the poor, poor, helpless little goddamned fetuses. After all, what else could possibly be better for us as a country to do?

Payback's A Bitch

2005-07-14T11:06:00.000-04:00

It's rather beautiful watching the press pay back Karl Rove for all of the shit they finally realized he made them swallow over the last five years. The jailing of Judith Miller for his fat, balding ass seems to have shocked them like a defibrillator. And oh, are they ever pissed. See, before, they only had to regurgitate what they were fed without really thinking too much about it; it was nice and easy, and they didn't make any enemies that mattered. Shit, they might get invented to some cool White House parties and stuff, maybe get some margaritas. And hell, maybe one of the Bush twins would get smashed and start table dancing or something.

But now, it's personal, as Pepper pointed out yesterday. Now they see, there might be consequences for sucking at Karl Rove's teat, even if the milk is sour. And oh, are they bitter, because not only are they fixating on the Rove story in a manner unseen since, well, that girl in Aruba went missing (bad phrasing, clearly), but they're going after our dear beloved President. The Times essentially says "Hey, remember when Bush promised to get to the bottom of the Plame leak and remove whomever was responsible? Cause he seems to have forgotten, so maybe we should remind him." Shit, all the headlines may as well say "Bush Does Not French Mr. Rove In Sign Of Support and Love." And we've seen how the press treated Scott McClellan on two straight days.

Shocked back into rhythm, they are. Hopefully it'll stay that way, and nothing will crash. Seems unlikely given their history, but hey, who knows? The press might finally realize that if a hooker gives you herpes, you should probably stop sleeping with her. It's about damn time.

Update: Over at the O'Reilly Sucks Message Board, we have reports that O'Reilly is continuing to show just how badly he needs a microphone shoved up his ass.

Fiscal Responsibility

2005-07-14T10:59:00.000-04:00

John Cole finds this story:

Nevada's chapter of the Young Republicans has basically imploded, leaving its chairman with up to $25,000 in personal debt and allegations that he mishandled money.

All but three people have resigned from the statewide group, but the fallout could prove increasingly embarrassing to the entire state Republican Party.

What? Republicans mishandle money? You mean like how they decided tax cuts were more fucking important than anything resembling fiscal solvency? Or how the party of the free market gives out no-bid contracts left and right?

It gets better, though:

Today, the chairman of the group, Reno resident Nathan Taylor, plans to hold a press conference attacking three of the state's party leaders -- Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Jim Gibbons and Rep. Jon Porter.

Taylor argues that the state's Republican delegation should have helped him fund the national Young Republican convention held last week at Mandalay Bay.

There's your personal responsibility, right there, motherfuckers.

I think if Mitch Daniels has a job for this young boy, sitting right by his ass, where pretty much everything that had to do with the budget during the first Bush term came out.

I'm Back

2005-07-13T14:25:00.000-04:00

Isn't it fucking sad when CNBC is asking tougher questions of Bush administration officials than anyone else?

Ah well. It seems having one of their own, even if she is a class A bitch, thrown in jail, has galvanized the press into finally, finally realizing just how badly they've been used.

Maybe. One can always hope, anyway.

Regular posting'll resume tomorrow.

Karl Rove In Jail (An Unlikely Fantasy)

2005-07-07T18:29:00.000-04:00

As he applied ointment to his sore, semen-encrusted anus, Karl Rove shook his head. He knew trying to get involved with the white supremacists was a bad idea, but what other gang would take his chubby white ass? And now that was a bust. All because he couldn't stop himself from trying to play off the various gang factions against themselves, allowing him to rise to the top, controlling the same sorts of people he had once controlled as George W. Bush's keeper. "Sloppy, Karl, real sloppy," he thought to himself, wincing as he hit a particular sore patch of ass. And the guards, just watching? Didn't they know who the fuck he was? He was Turd Blossom, the closest advisor to the President of these goddamned United States. Some respect he was being shown.

All those years, he had no idea it was really like this, the way prisoners were treated. The stories about rape, beatings: those were just liberals trying to get prisoners to be coddled, as Ann Coulter constantly pointed out. Suddenly, Karl's anger flared back up. Fuck 'em. They were mean to him. He'd just have to make sure he never came back before reletting out his rage at the way he's been abused on the rest of the country, especially on those damned liberals who put him in this mess. Oh, how they would pay. He could just see them now, sniveling at his poor fortune. Because that's what it was, just bad luck. He didn't really do anything wrong. It was that goddamned cunt, Judith Miller. Sure, she had served her purposes well, but he should've known that she was, in the end, a pushover. Without her, they had nothing. Nothing. Oh, how the anger had risen up in him when they took him away in handcuffs, Joseph Wilson grinning wildly all the while. But of course, that motherfucker and his prissy little wife had it coming. How dare they call him on the yellowcake story? Didn't they know their place?

Suddenly, Rove is paralyzed by fear. What if he dies in here? Certainly, that's possible, and the guards wouldn't do anything. Rove shivered. He'd never been in a situation like this. Certainly not at the University of Utah or as president of the College Republicans. Those were fond times, getting his start, kicking around with Lee Atwater. Poor, poor, Lee, so misguided at the end, thinking there was an error to his ways. But now it occurs to Rove that maybe Atwater was right, that maybe Lee is in hell, having certain dirty tricks played on him for eternity by the Devil -- tricks that might involve a pitchfork and certain body parts. Oh, the horror, seeing his face instead of Lee's in a Hellish vision. "Perhaps I was mistaken...perhaps I in fact haven't done anything worth doing with my life."

Just as suddenly as it came on, he snaps out of it. Of course Lee Atwater, that sorry, weak sap, was mistaken. Look at all Karl Rove had accomplished, getting that organ monkey to be elected governor of Texas and President, both twice! How can something so effective be wrong? It just didn't make any sense. Probably a side effect of the disgusting, moldy food they made him eat here. In any case, he had the trump card. If it got too bad, he could always give up Dubya. "Turd Blossom" his ass. Gotta look out for Number One, after all. But of course it wouldn't come to that. He'd be out of here in no time. Fucking savages, all of them. He takes a big shit and goes to sleep, knowing his back will be killing him tomorrow morning, just like it did every morning.

The next day, at shower time, Rove gets a feeling something's wrong. He looks over his shoulder and sees White Supremacist Bill with, oh dear god, an electric blender in his hand, approaching Rove menacingly, penis bared. Karl Rove gulps, truly knowing fear. Suddenly, Rove knows what he needs to do: he needs to get the fuck out of here. Fuck Bush. He'll go as soon as he can to the warden and tell him what the deal is.

And as the blender head penetrates his anus, he screams in agony, screaming about how he'll tell them everything he knows, how he'll give up George W. Bush, if only for the love of god they'd put him in a cushy minimum security prison, and why the hell aren't the guards doing anything?

Note: Sadly, of course, it would never come to this. No, even if Rove were somehow charged and found guilty of something serious, he would be pardoned, just like Bush's pappy pardoned Casper Weinberger and those other Iran-Contra constitution-subverting motherfuckers. As satisfying as this is, we may as well not get worked up, because our hearts will only get broken.

Pity, that. I was just starting to get excited by the thought of Karl Rove being sodomized violently by some very nice, large men.

It's About That Time

2005-07-06T22:08:00.000-04:00

A couple of days ago, Digby talked about the situation created by the "Gang of 14"'s compromise on the "nuclear option" with respect to the next Supreme Court nominee. I can sum up what I think in three words: fuck them all. Fuck Bush, fuck the religious right, fuck the Gang of 14 (and for that matter, any Democrat who thinks you can compromise with these shitheads in any meaningful sense), fuck congressional Republicans who may talk the talk but can't be bothered to act up to their words, and fuck the media.

Did I leave anyone out?

I want this. I wanted this back when we were discussing a generic federal court nominee. I want to have this fight. What do we have to lose? Absolutely nothing. We're like a sex slave locked out in the barn, brought out only when the slavemaster's feeling randy. Sure, we can talk and talk, but that only puts off the inevitable -- we're going to get fucked, somewhere, sometime, in a place the master wants. The worst thing that happens is that we get fucked a little harder. And that difference of degree, in the end, matters almost not a bit. It's the difference between being raped and being raped extra hard. Sure, it hurts a little more, comes a little more quickly, maybe there's some more bleeding, but you're still getting raped.

I'm not scared of Rick Santorum or Bill Frist or anyone going nuclear, because, frankly, I think they're bluffing. I don't think they have their caucus on board. It's time to call them on it. If we win the battle, it's like Mike Tyson getting beaten by Buster Douglas. You sit back, go "what the fuck?", and look around more carefully to make sure you're awake. If we lose, well, hell, what do we have to lose? It's mutually assured destruction, have no doubt about it. Cause, see, as the Rude Pundit put it, Republicans are are some filibustering motherfuckers when they're not the ones choosing the nominees. And at some point, they won't be. So hey, if they want to fuck us now, I have no problem letting them fuck themselves somewhere down the road. And, let's be honest here: any Democrat that continues to cooperate with these bitches, that hasn't learned his lesson yet, isn't worthy of the name. Screw our seven of the Gang. They knew what they were getting when they agreed to the damned thing, and if they didn't, how the hell did they get elected to the Senate? Wasn't it perfectly clear that the Republicans were going to try to milk this for all it was worth, saying that if you agreed to let Brown in, you agreed to let everyone to the left of Pat Buchanan in? Sure, it bought some time, and not being in or around the Senate, that might've been key at the time, but goddamnit, did anyone think this was going to last?

And, especially, screw the other seven, who can't be bothered to vote the right way. though they'll talk and they'll talk about how much they're uncomfortable with administration policy. George Voinovich has done more than any of them to actually stand up to the administration, and he's a schmuck. Doghouse Riley shakes his head at the second most notorious of these motherfuckers, Chuck Hagel. I'll take these supposedly moderate Republicans seriously when they actually do more than preen to the center. If they come looking for a compromise, fuck it. On the filibuster, from a political standpoint, you really are with us or against us. You allow certain nominees in and others not? Shit, there's an easy way to spin that to justify all the nominees getting in.

Here, just like with so many other things the Republican leadership pushes, there's no viable middle ground. So why are we trying to stand there when we know fully well it doesn't exist? You don't think a particular nominee should get filibustered, make that case. But don't try to compromise on the nuclear option. It's fruitless. It's bringing a knife to a gun fight. And it's a fight we need to have, for the same reason we needed to have the fight over the Family Marriage Amendment. The Republican Party needs to start being responsible for its rhetoric, to try to actually implement some of the things they go on bitching about, to either do what they say they're going to or have it shown that they don't have the balls or the support to do it. So let's fight. What else do you expect a wounded and cornered animal to do?

Brief Thoughts While Watching Fox Nooz

2005-07-06T12:57:00.000-04:00

While stuck waiting for an appointment this morning, I was forcefed Fox Nooz, and the following thoughts came to mind:

1) What sort of sick mind decides they should call weather forecasters "Foxcasters"? How the flying fuck does that make any sense at all? We fucking know we're watching Fox already. You've got that damned logo in the corner, reminding me not to take what's up on the screen seriously, and thank god for that. I might fall back into my old habit of thinking Bill O'Reilly's just engaging in satire, that he doesn't really need to be violently sodomized with a microphone, or, really, whatever's handy.

2) Who names their kid Jug Twitty? How does Natalee Holloway's mother know what happened to her daughter? And why does this merit national news status?

3) Headline: "When will there be real justice for sex offenders?"

I have nothing to add to that.

Later: More on the nuclear option.
Tomorrow: Karl Rove in jail (an unlikely fantasy).

Sandy Dee O-C Is Gone, Doo Da, Doo Da...

2005-07-04T11:39:00.000-04:00

The first thing we need to realize is that there's no fucking way we're avoiding having Sandra Day O'Connor replaced with someone to the left of Pinochet. It's not going to happen. The most moderate nominee we might get is our own Secretary of Detainee Ass-Raping, Alberto Gonzalez, who, from time to time, showed flashes of integrity on the Texas Supreme Court, executions notwithstanding. We're not going to get someone committed to upholding Roe, we're not going to get anyone we like.

And why is that? Well, it's because on that fateful day last November, the people of this country (not counting those who tried to vote and were turned away or disenfranchised somehow) decided that we were, in fact, a nation of savages: that the economy didn't fucking matter, health care didn't fucking matter, and most of all, the Supreme Court didn't matter, as long the blood kept a-pourin'. It was disgusting then, to see Hunter S. Thompson's remark "America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable" demonstrated. Oh, how we saw that a well-told lie beats the truth. And oh, how I wallow in anger every time I reflect back to that day.

But enough of that. We're more or less fucked, yes. The most we can hope for is that we don't get someone who's a complete toadie of the religious right, who at least has some notion of judicial integrity. This, however, will likely not be coming unless by some divine blessing, Bush nominates another Souter, or Gonzalez shows that he's a Kennedy.

After all, this group likes nothing more than to boil things down to questions of ideology. Family Research Council's own Tony Perkins said "They are being blocked because they are people of faith and moral conviction. These are people whose only offense is to say that abortion is wrong or that marriage should be between one man and one woman" with regard to Miguel Estrada and Priscella Owen, who did such things as refuse to turn over documents and, hell, get branded as "judicial activists" by none other than Mr. Gonzalez. And that's the rub: for all the right goes on and on about "judicial activists," they want their ideology imposed by law, with only lip service to the Constitution, a document they can't amend to get their way despite their claims of having the numbers to be able to do so. They want nothing less than to abandon the rule of law, to make it arbitrary, dependant on the ideological whims of the majority. Shit, if they get their way, we're not just regressing past Roe (which, for the time being, seems to be safe regardless of who gets appointed in this instance), we'll be regressing past Henry the fucking Second.

And ultimately, that's what's at stake. It's nothing less than the nature of our legal system. So bring on the filibuster, motherfuckers. They'll re-haul out the nuclear option, of course, but it's time to settle this. Fuck the deal; if Bush nominates who the Christian Right wants, the "Gang of 14" can shove it up their ass. You want to talk about qualifications? I've got your first and foremost qualification to be a Supreme Court Justice right here: you should not sit on the fucking Supreme Court of the fucking United States if you don't believe in the rule of fucking law. That's an easy principle, I think. If you believe precedent should just be tossed aside because you don't agree with it, you don't belong on the bench, let alone the Supreme Court.

We know what their rhetoric is going to be. Oh, the Christian Right will go on and on about how Jesus loves his little conservative judges, and how President Bush must support a Jesus-loved judge, because of the fetuses and the vegetables like St. Terri, but especially the fucking curled up little fetuses (and I swear, I'm going to kick the next person who says they don't support abortion but support a woman's right to choose in the balls, because, goddamnit, they always seem to be men, don't they?). We will hear oh so much about how Jesus wants us to post the Ten Commandments in every room, and maybe shove it up the asses of some atheists just for good measure. It's enough to make you wish God would just give Jesus some chores to do already, because the boy's clearly got too much time on his hands. And the rest of the Republican Party, the ones who try to pretend they're above the religious faction of their party, oh, they'll go on about "originalism" without knowing what the fuck it is they're talking about, because they actually think Scalia and Thomas are goddamned originalists. They'll say how we need jurists who will "not invent rights" and who will "read the Constitution" as they wank their tiny, shriveled little penises while thinking of stroking Ann Coulter's adam's apple.

Oh yes, we know what they're going to say, and shit, what they're already saying. And we know we're not going to get liberals as nominees. We've hopefully accepted that we're more or less fucked. We just want it to be less than more. So let's not merely ask "Would you like to overturn Roe?" The answer's going to be yes, barring some miracle. Let's ask, "Are you now saying that you will overturn Roe, and why the fuck are you saying that without a specific case coming up?" Let's make it clear we're not opposing conservatives, because lord knows, if we successfully manage to do that, we'll have two seats unfilled until at least January 2007. We oppose people who believe law is arbitrary and who want to toss aside the integrity of the judiciary. Because for all the wanking of the right, that's what they want, and it's a really, really easy case to make, and even better, it's true.

Because if that happens, if these cuntrags get their way, then we truly will be barbarians. Say goodbye to abortion rights, but not just that. Oh, lordy, no, it would be nice if it ended there. Say goodbye to environmental protections, to church/state separation, to gay rights, to any semblence of rights for those poor motherfuckers down at Gitmo, to separation of powers, and for our own civil liberties. We'll be left with nothing but howling at the moon and raping women while we rip the meat off the bones of our enemies.

It's so on. We owe it to ourselves, and shit, it's the Fourth of July, so let me say this: we owe it those who helped make this country what it is. We owe history to not take this standing down. None of this crap about leaving for Canada or Europe. If they're going to rape this country, they're going to have to do it through us, and fuck anyone who equivocates. Bring it? Oh, it's so already brought.

Happy Fourth of July. And read this over at Digby's. There are setbacks, but eventually, we'll manage to make this a better place. That, ultimately, is why we must fight.

And Never A More Useless Sack of Shit Has There Been

2005-07-03T07:45:00.000-04:00

Can't the Times just clone Paul Krugman to write Thomas Friedman's columns? He's such a small, small, tiny little man, afraid of writing anything of substance, so he spouts out platitudes and "commentary" like this.

I first realized just how useless Thomas Friedman is back in my college days. See, Tommy Boy came to give a talk about how wonderful globalization is. I wasn't really familiar with him, but a friend of mine absolutely fucking loved From Beirut to Jeruselam, and she was hot, so I went (I had already figured what I was going to hear from him and discounted it). And oh, was it worth going. See, Tom is a combatant little bitch who doesn't like to be questioned, and after a couple of reasonable questions, the specifics of which escape me, Tom shot back at a student, "And how many economics classes have you taken?" The student answered, "1," and Tom gave him a look screaming "So why are you talking to me, you impudent little snot?" and said "Next!" without responding to the damned question.

Now, I'd gone to this talk right after hearing some shithead Objectivist declare quantum mechanics had to be wrong because he didn't understand it (like oh so many things, obviously), and so I was in a rather sour and combative mood, having wasted an hour with that bullshit. It was an hour I would rather've spent getting reamed by Karl Rove, let me say. But when I say I wasn't too familiar with Thomas Friedman, oh, did I know one thing about him. See, Tommy never took an economics class in college. And he'd just demonstrated that a necessary condition for being qualified to talk about economics is having taken classes. So I shot my hand up, waiting for my opportunity to pounce. Sadly, someone else beat me to the punch. And in response, Friedman glared at all of us, sulked, and went on to the next question. You could feel his penis, all engorged at the power of being able to tell us college students what's what, shrivel. It was that fucking palpable.

And since then, Friedman's done absolutely nothing to demonstrate he's not worthless. There was his pimping of the war on terror and the Iraq war, and his constant bleating about globalization. And now, this piece of crap, which Matt Yglesias criticizes.

It's enough to make me want William Safire to come back, just to get rid of Tom.

Oh When The Frogs, Come Marchin' In...

2005-07-03T07:07:00.000-04:00

And, it appears, it's all coming together now. On Friday, Lawrence O'Donnell let it slip that Karl Rove is the national security-harming motherfucker responsible for the Valerie Plame leak. And oh lordy, is this good. Cause can't you just see Bob Novak, bent over, Karl Rove penetrating him, telling him to just take it like the good little soldier he is? And oh, if there's one thing Bob Novak's good at it, it's taking it from this administration. Shit, his ass doesn't need Vasoline anymore. It's a good thing nobody was killed because of this (that we know of, anyway), cause otherwise that motherfucker's an accessory.

It's kind of a shame that Novak's getting off scot-free. After all, he chose to take it from Karl and run it. Shit, even Judith Miller didn't take the bait, and there's no reason to believe she doubts anything. And this outing of Rove, or whomever else the source ends up being? Perfectly ok. Because when classified information is leaked, it's usually done to inform the public of something they would never, ever have gotten (see the Pentagon Papers). The whole point of protecting leakers is that usually the leak endangers the career or person of the leaker, who's acted in the best interest of the country. But there was nothing to do this but vengeance. The printing of Plame's name did no one good but those trying to get back at her husband. So fuck the leaker, and fuck Judith Miller, because giving up this source isn't the same as compromising anonymous sources in general (not that Judith Miller should ever be allowed to use anonymous sources again after the fuckfest that was her reporting on Iraqi WMDs).

And if it's Rove, which apparently the media seems convinced it is, how fucking great is that? No wonder, then, that Bush lied his ass off about wanting to find out who leaked the name. And oh how the media took that for granted: "Sure, he wants to find it! No need for us to report!" Clearly a story much less important than if Kobe fucked some white girl in Colorado or if Michael Jackson touched some kids, and of course, it would have no bearing on the election, so why talk about it?

It's the little things that break presidencies. The sloppy, sloppy little things, like botching a clown show of a burglary. Here, Karl Rove, who's little more than a sexually frustrated fat thug (hence his compulsive need to rape all of us, I think), read something, got pissed, and made some calls in a fit of anger. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. But then again, subtlety has never been one of Karl's strengths, like those attacks on McCain in South Carolina or smearing John Kerry by calling him a traitor (why didn't Plame come up during the election much at all?) Remember, Vietnam softened up Nixon, and it was Watergate that took him down, because he had to go after Vietnam, but it was hard to pin things directly on him. Iraq's certainly softened up Bush, and, shit, we have an easier time pinning things on him, thanks to the Downing Street Memos. And now, if this is all true, Karl Rove will be up for perjury charges once Miller coughs up her correspondance. Hell, given the luminaries who testified, there might even be obstruction of justice charges in the offing.

This could, hopefully, make Bush into the earliest lame duck president in history, though I still wouldn't hold my breath for impeachment, for two reasons. First, despite Republican claims that the Clinton impeachment was about obstruction of justice and perjury, this story still lacks pussy (unless Valerie Plame's pussy came up in the correspondance between Rove and the reporters). Second, Republicans are cocksucking whores. So I don't think we'll quite have Nixon redux, except in legacy.

But, shit, if this is true, I'm going to enjoy it when they take Karl Rove into handcuffs. I'll sit back, light a cigar, and enjoy the thought of Rove meeting some nice prisoner, knowing, finally, what it feels like to be the bitch. It's just too bad Bob Novak won't be joining him there. Cause, finally, in the end, all your shit catches up to you. If there's no other lesson to take away from this administration, at least we have that.

Update: As always, Digby gets the message spot on.

Yeah, We're Probably Fucked

2005-07-01T13:02:00.000-04:00

Pepper cites the following line from Bush's remarks following O'Connor's resignation: "The nation also deserves a dignified process of confirmation in the United States Senate...characterized by a fair vote."

Dignity in this process starts with you, motherfucker. And if we've learned one thing about this president and nominations, it's that dignity is one of the last things coming.

More later today or tomorrow.

Update: Ok, so I lied. More Monday, unless I have an Archimedes-in-the-bathtub moment tonight or tomorrow.

Those Goddamned Definitions

2005-07-01T07:10:00.000-04:00

So, a team of GIs are missing in Afghanistan. Let's play with a hypothetical, shall we?

Suppose next week we get pictures of them in a cave. A few, maybe 3-4 Talibs are with them. In these pictures, the GIs are forced to simulate gay sex acts in front of their Taliban captors and some burqa-clad women? And what if those Talibs were standing there with their shit-eatin' grins, smiling and with their thumbs up, guns pointed at the soldiers' cocks?

What if we got reports about Bibles or Constitutions somehow having urine splashed on them, by some great fucking mysterious process that nobody can explain? What if they were chained to the ground, under the hot Afghan sun, and left there without food or water to shit and piss on themselves?

Do you think it would make a goddamned difference if the Taliban leadership said this behavior was anti-Islamic? Would Rush Limbaugh be sitting there talking about what a fucking resort that cave is, because the soldiers got lemon shishkabob and two, not one, but two, types of fruit? How lucky the GIs are to be able to defecate on themselves, because, shit, the Nazis didn't let the Jews do that? Would we all collectively shake our heads, sigh, and condemn those few bad apples who give the Taliban a bad name? Maybe Michelle Malkin would point out that prisoners get treated worse in the jails of Afghanistan! Or would we want to pull out of Iraq and send our entire army (or maybe just Rambo) in to fuck that country up its ass all over again, giving it a carpet bombing that made what we did to Cambodia look like a throw rug bombing?

And somehow, we're surprised or disgusted that this is the Muslim world's response to our excesses. Cause, see, we've defined ourselves to be better than anyone else. It doesn't matter if we fall into a decadence that makes Rome look like Geneva, Caligula like Calvin (other than them both being fucking insane). We'll still, by and large, be going around talking about bad apples and how we're the best nation on earth and how dare you make historical comparisons to anybody, you fucking troop-hating shithead? No, we're the greatest nation on earth, and if we don't act like it, that doesn't say anything about us; and a lack of outrage certainly doesn't say anything about the state of our national character. Definitions, man, definitions. We're not the greatest because we've had, enshrined in our fucking founding documents, notions of rights and freedoms that were completely revolutionary. How could we be when our leaders have done their best to strip that shit away? After all, we're still number one, right? Go team, etc.

The reason no one would go around shaking their heads about bad apples in the Taliban is because they've clearly demonstrated they don't give a shit, from top to bottom, that they hate and despise us and all that we care about. And when we look in the mirror, what do we have? A man who formulated an argument to get around the Geneva Conventions elevated to Secretary of Detainee Ass-Raping, otherwise known in this administration as Attorney General. A president who can't be bothered to take responsibility for anything while sucking up to the religious right, which has denounced Islam as a "wicked" religion and who has issued a document trail authorizing immunity from the law for certain accessories to torture, and then was fucking re-elected. A nation whose reaction to the Abu Ghraib pictures seemed to involve more masturbating than outcrying (are we that fucking sexually repressed as a country?). Motherfuckers like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter polluting the airwaves and bookstores with their tripe, while millions of us lap it up. A (so far small but not insignificant) group of soldiers who lack the education and moral judgement to be able to say "No, I won't follow that order, and if you want someone tortured, do itself, you fuckhead."

And, in the end, maybe after staring in the mirror enough, we'll realize that there is no "we" and "them." There's just "us." We all hate the same, focus on ourselves the same. The only difference is that we can restrain ourselves better. Or at least we could. Welcome to George W. Bush's America, where freedoms are on the decline and rhetoric is cheap, like condoms at a whorehouse, and where we don't even need to bother pretending we've got the values we associate with the United States, because, by definition, we're better than all those other poor shitheads out there who don't get to be us.

It's Kind of Funny...

2005-06-30T10:24:00.000-04:00

...to read people talking about something they know nothing about. Marvin clearly has never read anything by or about Singer other than the religious right's screeching about his conclusions, when, actually, Singer's like them: he doesn't do reductio ad absurdum. His conclusions are his conclusions.

For the record, Peter Singer is one of my favorite philosophers. And not just because he's a rude motherfucker who doesn't mince words.

Fuck Godwin, and His Pretty Little Dog, Too

2005-06-30T09:19:00.000-04:00

Recently, there's been a large outpouring on the right-wing blogs about how awful it is that people would fucking dare to compare Bush to Hitler. For example, Michelle Malkin finds Reuters photographers succumb to the temptation. Powerline feels all the Hitler references are a tragic, tragic indication of where the left is going. In fact, earlier, Powerline even invoked the MoveOn.org ad competition, which, if we recall, caused a huge hissy fit among Republicans.

Now, don't get me wrong. By and large, making comparisons to Hitler is stupid, because the second you do, people think "Hitler killed Jews. Bush didn't kill Jews. This comparison is totally wrong." And then the manufactured outrage ensues, distracting from the issue at all. Hell, look at what happened to Dick Durbin -- and he didn't even mention the Holocaust.

But, let's clear something up, shall we? That whole killing Jews thing? Awful, of course. Hell, awful doesn't cover it. But, hey -- it was a piece of what Hitler did. There was also the whole pretending a country that can't possibly defend itself against you poses a threat to your country so you can launch a pre-emptive war thing. There's the whole staged rallies and manipulation of photographs to serve your purposes thing. There's the implying God has anointed you thing. There's the whole corporate state thing that Mussolini installed in Italy and Hitler mimicked in Germany. To paraphrase Dick Durbin, if you didn't know I was referring to George W. Bush, well, your punk ass might think I was talking about the Nazis. Not the Khmer Rouge, of course, but that's mostly because Cambodia itself was pretty small and fucking defenseless.

But we forget these things, because Bush isn't killing Jews and Bush doesn't have that goddamned moustache. And we forget fascism isn't about killing Jews. Mussolini, who we should be able to declare someone pretty authoratative on the subject, put it this way: "The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State."

No, Bush isn't exactly Hitler. Bush doesn't have the evil in him to wipe Hitler's dick after Hitler takes a piss. But what Bush does do is just bleed a complete disdain for the niceities of an open society. There's a legitimate discussion to have on the effect Bush's policies have on democracy. And for the love of god, there's that pastel pink dildo of an imperial war justified by self-defense (and let's remember that aside from some specifics, the spirit of what we're doing in Iraq isn't that different from the early British in India, before they decided to say "Fuck it, we're formally just taking the whole thing").

So, see, there are good, constructive Nazi comparisons, like Robert Byrd's over the nuclear option, the one Rick Santorum vomited over before announcing Democrats were just like Hitler, and presumably, Hitler while he was fucking a dog. And if you're going to make them, please, dear god, make it explicit what the comparison is.

But if you don't want to be compared to Nazis, in any way, shape, or form, then don't fucking act like Nazis. That won't stop comparisons, of course, but at least then your outrage won't be so damned laughable.

Wank Wank Wank

2005-06-29T08:18:00.000-04:00

Before President Bush's speech, the Fox Nooz anchors were talking about the "refined message" he was going to introduce us to on Iraq.

By "refined," did they mean "the exact same thing?" Here's a list of the talking points Karl gave George to hammer over and over again:

1) "We're fucking fighting the same ruthless killers in Iraq that hit us on 9/11, man, why can't you see that?"
2) "They hate freedom. Also, they despise dissent. As do I. But I don't hate freedom. Really."
3) "Iraq is an extension of 9/11. After all, I made you a promise then, and this is another front in taking the fight to the enemy."
4) "Me make Iraq more free. Me make freedom march. Me kill terrorists."
5) "They hate freedom. They want to stop its inevitable march in the St. Freedom's Day Parade."
6) "Have I mentioned they're Very Bad People? I'm sure you didn't know that they were despicable. Let me list cases which show how despicable they are, just so you know that no matter what we do in Gitmo, we're still better than them. Go team!"
7) "Look, we had elections and transferred sovereignty. This isn't a fucking occupation!"
8) "Remember, if we fight terrorists in Iraq, there's no way they can hit us at home."
9) "No, really. Iraq is about 9/11. 9/11 9/11 9/11."
10) "Rebuilding a country is hard. Who would've thought that? I know I didn't!"
11) "The UN is in Iraq. Despite our best efforts. Fuckers."
12) "The Iraqi troops aren't like the ARVN. Certainly the numbers I'm giving you aren't inflated by corrupt commanders and soldiers looking for more money. No sir."
13) "We will not let Iraq be a base for terrorism, even though the only reason this is an issue is my administration's incompetance."
14) "Look, NATO's opening a school!"
15) "I'm getting ready to bail if this looks like it'll hurt my Congressional majority next year."
16) "Iraqis are courageous! That's totally not something I would've thought."
17) "I'll send more troops when commanders tell me they need them. Which hasn't happened yet...right Dick and Don?"
18) "Freedom, freedom, freedom. Did you get that? Freedom."
19) "I can't say enough that they're Very Bad People."
20) "America is great. This is a free country. We love freedom. We will spread freedom in a massive freedom orgy."
21) "I thank military families for not demanding my head for our incompetance in Iraq."
22) "Remember, above all, stay the course. And if this isn't a metaphor for the 2006 elections, I don't know what is!"

Nothing we haven't heard repeatedly. I guess the "refining" was in cutting out "Saddam Hussein made the choice to have this war" and anything to do with "weapons of mass destruction" (though I kept waiting for him to say "The terrorists have weapons of mass destruction...we know where they are"). In other words? I was right. Bush is the furry we're collectively dating. Goddamn it.

I also kept waiting for him to invoke the goddamned silent majority in this country and truly is standing with him in supporting the war:

Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.

And so tonight--to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans--I ask for your support.

I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge.

The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed; for the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.

Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

It's like they're sucking the cock of Nixon's corpse, trying to squeeze out every last bit of Nixon's essence that they can.

Things Originalism Wouldn't Allow

2005-06-29T07:33:00.000-04:00

In light of Scalia and Thomas' fun with originalism, let's see some things originalism wouldn't have let happen:

1) School desegregation. Original meaning sure as fuck doesn't tell you that Brown v. Board of Education was an originalist decision.
2) Religious freedom given to Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, Jews, and Buddhists, among others. After all, as Justice Story wrote, the Establishment Clause's original purpose "was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects..." How could it have been intended or meant to give religious freedom to such groups which weren't really represented in the country, or in some cases, that didn't exist yet?
3) Ken Starr's grand jury: grand juries were not intended to be arms of the prosecution.
4) The right to a lawyer. The Sixth Amendment was only intended to stop people from being railroaded if they could afford a lawyer, since English common law forbade a defendant from having a lawyer unless there was some abstract legal question at stake.
5) Federal Defense of Marriage Act. It's not even an issue of equal protection here; think enumerated powers, beyatch.
6) Bush v. Gore. The Fourteenth Amendment applied to voting? Why, that would make the Radical Republicans die of heart attacks. That's what the Fifteenth was for.

Anyone got any others?

Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Butt Buddies

2005-06-28T13:40:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I decided to post on this today instead of tomorrow. Yesterday, as I'm sure you all know, the Supreme Court ruled on the sideshow Ten Commandments cases, McCreary County v. ACLU and van Orden v. Perry. In the course of his concurring opinion in the latter, that shining beacon of hope for all black men Uncle Thomas, wrote

This case would be easy if the Court were willing to abandon the inconsistent guideposts it has adopted for addressing Establishment Clause challenges, and return to the original meaning of the Clause. I have previously suggested that the Clause's text and history "resis[t] incorporation" against the States...

Even if the Clause is incorporated, or if the Free Exercise Clause limits the power of States to establish religions...our task would be far simpler if we returned to the original meaning of the word establishment than it is under the various approaches this Court now uses.

But what is the original meaning of the word "establishment"? Clarence Thomas feels it involves coercion or force, and in his dissent in McCreary County, Antonin Scalia agrees. In fact, not only does Scalia agree, he even thinks the Founders had no desire to see government neutrality in religion, citing Thomas Jefferson, whom as we all know was a flaming fundie who would've made James Dobson proud, among others.

Of course, we know Thomas Jefferson vigorously detested Christianity as a religious system, even trying to extract the moral teachings of the Bible from its supernatural aspects. Oh, how Big Tommy fucking loathed the Christianity of his age, and particularly those Calvinist fucks. Yet Antonin Scalia would, of course, have us believe that this man, and George Washington, of whom his own pastor said, "Sir, Washington was a Deist!", wanted the government to get all messed up in the religious game.

What a fucking circus, with the Ten Commandments the goddamned sideshow. Kentucky was especially bad; the imbeciles in charge of the county put up the Commandments with a proclamation declaring 1983 the "Year of the Bible," compliments of the decaying corpse of Ronald Reagan, and other documents with religious phrases emphasized, then changed it to pair the Commandments with a number of historical documents, trying to put them all on the same foot (and if Indiana Jones hasn't come back yet with the Ark, how is this a coherent thought?), and finally they claimed their true purpose in posting the Commandments was unknowable. And sure, I've heard from people, "Aren't there more important things to worry about now?" And the answer is, "No." Because if we let up for a second and let these fuckers put the Ten Commandments up there with the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and the damned Constitution itself, the First Amendment may as well be used as the piece of toilet paper Thomas and Scalia already use the whole damned thing for.

Cause, see, supposed we actually had some way of knowing precisely what each of the Founders wanted each phrase in the Constitution to be. What do we do then? Do we side with Jefferson or Hamilton? Madison or Mason? George Clinton (no, not P-Funk) or John Jay? The entire cacophany of voices would be enough to drive Scalia and Thomas, as well as those other originalist fucks, stark raving mad. Which makes me think we should figure out how to do this shit.

It's not a bad thing that we interpret the Constitution differently over time. Sure, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments set aside the idea thfrom at Clarence Thomas is worth 3/5th of Antonin Scalia (not that they stopped him singing and dancing for him), but it didn't take an amendment to go from Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education. Shit happens, society and justices change. So fuck originalism.

And for the love of God, somebody fuck Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas other than Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. That little circlejerk needs to end before somebody, meaning all of our poor little asses, get hurt. Oh, and William Rehnquist? Your zombie ass can't play, either.

Well Whoop-Dee-Doo

2005-06-28T09:52:00.000-04:00

So what is George Bush going to say tonight? What can he say? Can he honestly do anything at this point to change the widening perception of him as an incompetant boob and his war in Iraq as a miserable failure? Is there a single word that can come out of his mouth that can change the tide of the public turning on him, looking at him like jackels eyeing their suddenly weakened leader?

It's like this. Suppose you're dating this guy. Sure, he's nice enough and all, but something just seems odd. He's just not that interested in you in bed, but he denies it all, saying how much he loves you and wants to be with you. One day, you discover a fucking fur suit in his closet. Sure, maybe it's for a costume, but who the hell keeps a fur suit around? So you dig around, ask his pals and the friend that set you two up. They mention that sometimes he likes to wear it around the house, goes on trips with it. You take a closer look the next time you're over, and there's crusty stains all over it. It all starts coming together, but no, no, that can't be it, there have to be other explanations: maybe it was for Halloween, and he spilled something and never got it cleaned. Maybe it's part of a big practical joke. Perhaps he used to be one of those damned mascots. There's lots of things it could be, right?

Then you return home, and find your door open, with his coat hanging from the door. Oh, but that's not just it; on the bed, there's your favorite teddy bear, with a slit cut at the crotch and those all-too-familiar stains all over it. He comes back, to get the coat, and you're standing there holding the recently violated Mr. Wiggles. So what does the fucker do? After you start stuttering in anger, he starts telling you about how this is a big misunderstanding. Then he gets simultaneously mad and sad, and in his old, pathetic way, asks why you're turning on him, why you aren't there for him, how this is just a phase, how he can change, not that he did anything wrong, but he can change, and really, if you think about it, there are many, many worse, more disturbing fetishes in the world, and it's not like he's out there raping anyone like other people do, right? After all, you liked him until this business came up, he still likes you, he just wants to fuck furry things every now and then. Staying the course is better for everyone, really, he says, and eventually, it'll get out of his system and everything can be nice and normal and then won't you be glad you stayed with him?

So now it's on you. Do you stand there listening to him, letting him back into your life? Or do you throw his perverted ass out and make it clear if he goes near you ever again, you're going to tear his balls off and call the cops?

What's Bush going to say tonight? There's the list of predictable things: we're opening schools, they had elections, the insurgents hate freedom, no more rape rooms, etc. Just a little more, and everything will be ok. All we need are a few more of your sons and dollars, just until the Iraqi ARVN can finish getting its shit together. Staying the course is better for everyone, really, and Iraq will be nice and peaceful and we can withdraw and won't you be glad you listened to him?

So what do we do with this wanker?

Tomorrow: Bush's wankery and why Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia need to get laid, fast.

Update: The Rude One seems to have posted on exceedingly similar lines.

Douchebags R Us

2005-06-27T15:40:00.000-04:00

With all the motherfuckery going on over the last week or so, it looks like Rick Santorum felt left out (via Shakespeare's Sister.

Hear that, Bostonians? Priests molesting little boys is all your fucking fault. I hope you're proud of yourselves, you damn moral degenerates. Cause it couldn't be that anything Rick Santorum supports had something to do with this, could it? Of course not -- then how would he be the Golden Boy?

What Dick Durbin Should've Said

2005-06-27T08:30:00.000-04:00

Here's what I wish Dick Durbin had said on Wednesday:

"Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is wrong with you people? I'm sorry if you aren't able to properly comprehend a passage. To those of you that are going on about how I slandered troops or how I've said we're Nazis or Stalinists, let me ask you this: how did you do well on your SATs, you thick pieces of shit? Let me restate what it was I said: if you didn't know that that FBI account, remember, it's from the fucking FBI, was about Americans, and someone asked you if you thought it was about Nazis, Stalinists, Khmer Rouge, or Americans, you probably wouldn't choose that last option. Got that? Do I need to speak more slowly? What the fuck kind of manufactured outrage is this now?

Look, I know I'm going to be featured in all of your attack ads and insipid comments right now regardless of what I say right now, since we all know how you treated Howard Dean and John Kerry, two men with more integrity and balls than the lot of you shitwipers put together, so let me be perfectly honest: I don't regret saying a damned thing. My only regret is your unwillingness or inability to actually spend some time thinking. That goes double for you, Mayor Daley, you backstabbing son of a bitch who can't even recognize that I didn't say a fucking thing about the Holocaust.

Good lord, this is a fucking fantasy camp for people who want to pretend they understand, well, anything, because clearly don't understand how to read, they don't understand current events, and they don't understand history. It doesn't matter that you're not literally being Nazis, Stalinists, or Khmer Rouge, got it? It doesn't matter a shit, and it never did. Gitmo isn't literally a fucking Gulag, and nobody said it was. How many dead prisoners, physically and mentally abused prisoners, outraged prisoners, and more terrorists do we fucking need before it gets rammed through your thick little skulls housing your tiny little monkey brains that all of this shit is fucked up? Being better than the Nazis doesn't mean you're good, you short-sighted needledicked motherfuckers. If you don't want to be compared to the Nazis, don't act like the Nazis at all. Are we similar to them? No, and that's the fucking point. But we're not different enough, and as I see it, that's a fucking problem. And don't even get me started on our policy of extraordinary rendition, which all of you blabbering asses have sat silent on.

So here's your fucking apology: I'm really fucking sorry I didn't say this shit sooner. I'm sick of you smug, idiotic shitlickers having your way without anyone calling you on it, and it ends here. Remember when Little Ricky Santorum, who I won't call my "colleague," compared Democrats to Hitler in Paris? I didn't see your fucking phony outrage then, and that actually was a Nazi comparison. So you can all fuck off. Here's the second part of my apology: I'm sorry that you assholes are going to lead to some poor American soldier down the road being tortured in some of the worst ways imaginable by our idiocy in not respecting the goddamned Geneva Conventions.

That's right, I'm looking at you, John McCain. You've sat by and let us violate international law that protects POWs, just like you sat by the smearing of John Kerry by those Swift Boat frauds. So you know what, you conniving motherfucker? Go away and never play the POW card again, because you're a fucking phony, and I'm going to hold you responsible the second one of my constituents is tortured, something which I hope to high hell never happens. As for the rest of you pill-popping, cat-butchering little toadies, shut the fuck up, sit down, and let Karl Rove go back to sticking his cock up your shriveled little ass before I get really nasty and make you suck my cock while I read more accounts of what we're doing at Gitmo on the fucking Senate floor. It's grownup time, and none of you motherfuckers qualify."

Karl Rove Was Right

2005-06-26T07:52:00.000-04:00

Damn those liberals putting our troops in harm's way.

How much longer will these fifth columnists continue to backstab our troops? It's a goo d thing Karl Rove had the gall to call out treacherous liberals like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and, well, himself, who took our military and decided to make their primary mission that of policing a country whose language they don't speak with insufficient equipment and numbers, or who knows how else this might have gone on without the public realizing who the real enemy here is?

I've Got Your Property Rights Right Here

2005-06-24T10:16:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to comment on the flag-burning amendment, because this shit comes up all the damn time and doesn't pass the Senate. I did, however, buy an American flag (made in China), and just to illustrate what property rights are, went out and urinated on it -- which, given that it's my goddamn property, is a right you would think conservatives would support. Unfortunately, the only people who saw me were a couple of stoners who may have been passed out.

Oh well. It's not like those idiots take the flag rules and regulations seriously. Otherwise they'd take those torn up pieces of crap off their cars.

When Fat Men Who Haven't Gotten Any In A While Attack

2005-06-24T08:07:00.000-04:00

Karl Rove, the organ grinder to George W. Bush's monkey, had this to say recently:

"Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies."

Rove also denounced Sen. Dick Durbin's comments comparing interrogation at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to the methods of Nazis and other repressive regimes. He said the statements have been broadcast throughout the Middle East, putting American troops in greater danger. Durbin has since apologized for the remarks.

"No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals," Rove said.

Leaving aside how good of a job we're doing trying to defeat our enemies without understanding them (someone should shove The Art of War right up Karl Rove's puckered little ass), isn't this rich? "Democrats" are now "liberals," yes, even you sniveling fuckers like Joe Lieberman and Harold Ford who would fuck the zombie corpse of Dick Cheney if you thought it would make you look less "liberal." And, of course, we all hate America and want our troops to die, despite not being the ones not giving them equipment or strategy. Yep, that's us.

Here's the thing we have to remember, and what we should have learned by now. Karl Rove is nothing more than one sexually frustrated fat man. He's not a political genius. He's just a man who is willing to say or do anything, a man with no conscience and enemies who are willing to roll over at the slightest hint of outrage. He's the kind of motherfucker that would ignore all the safe words when beating his lover in some bizarre S&M display so that he could get off, trying to stick large, large things up his lover's ass. Not only will he ignore the safe words, but at any signs of whimpering or crying, Rove, that callous bitch, will respond with "Don't you love me? Why won't you let me please you?" right before he ejaculates at the thought and leaves the big, boxy flashlight half stuck up his lover's butt.

To deal with a motherfucker like that, you have to have the balls and the guts to pull the flashlight out and go to town on him like Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames on those two redneck rapists in Pulp Fiction. You can't say "Yes sir, maybe I have another?" every time he sticks an object in your ass and expect him to not try something, say, like his fist or the aforementioned big fucking flashlight after a while. Squealing doesn't help, there's no one to hear it; the media won't give this story as much play as they did "Why Howard Dean is a Big Bully That Makes Us Cry." You have to show the dominating cocksucker just what domination is, give the bitch a taste of his own medicine. So maybe, finally, this is a lesson we can learn.

One would hope. Ford and Lieberman and their cohort, however, might decide in the end that they truly, deep down, liked it, liked the pain, liked having their asses on the verge of tearing. It'd be consistent with what we know of them so far.

Damn Those Activist Conservatives

2005-06-24T07:46:00.000-04:00

Oh lordy, is this good. So the Supreme Court issued an opinion yesterday in Kelo v. New London ruling that local governments can seize private property and give it to private developers as long as there is some public use consideration. I'm not a damned constitutional lawyer, so I won't talk about the case itself, but if you want, this is good.

But what's so good is that all of a sudden, conservatives are concerned with the upwards wealth redistribution they feel this ruling leads to. This, of course, didn't bother them with any of the fucking Bush handouts to the rich. No, all of a sudden, after a decision written by John Stevens and involving use of eminent domain, they're whinin' scared, and it's not even a relevant whining (anyone who actually read the decision knows higher tax revenue isn't the only issue at play, but of course, when have conservatives needed to read shit before spouting off on it?).

And you know what's even better? These folks, the same ones who go on and on about the plague of activist judges "legislating from the bench," destroying the moral fabric of our society, and making baby Jesus cry? Shit, they're attacking an argument completely based in precedent and attacking it on non-legal grounds, such as "What about our right to private property (not found in the Bill of Rights they love to read so damned literally, of course)?" or "This isn't fair, I don't like eminent domain!" But hey, it's not like they're arguing that we shouldn't kill minors or let gays marry, so it's cool, and when they want the Supreme Court to not rule in this case based on the law, it's alright.

This goes beyond fucking hypocrisy, given the row they make on a regular basis about this. It's not even a case of gotcha. Because nobody's calling them on their horseshit; hell, the media whores, from what I saw last night on ABC and NBC, are nodding right along, agreeing with what a travesty this whole thing is. This is a goddamned disease.

Update: Roger Ailes illustrates the point.

Again: I should clarify something: my issue isn't with someone discussing O'Connor's or Thomas' dissents, giving a legal objection to the majority opinion, because that's fair. But dear lord, it's all around, people complaining about the decision based on shit that's not related to the law as it stands at all.

President Organ Grinder Monkey

2005-06-23T07:27:00.000-04:00

This is somewhat old news now, but I don't really care, because I meant to post it a couple of days ago, and in the end, who gives a shit? Now, maybe I'm just a short-sighted America hater, but I've never been able to come to grips with the way many conservatives label Gitmo prisoners "terrorists", given they haven't actually been charges or convicted or anything. But hey, that's never stopped us from labeling people here (and I can't possibly begin to think about whom I might be talking) as guilty when they haven't been found that way in court. A few weeks ago, during Dear Leader's blowjob session with Neil Cavuto, he commented in response to a question on allegations of improper treatment at Gitmo, "These were terrorists, swept up off the battlefield in a place like Afghanistan, for example" and added something about wanting to learn more about these people. Now, if I recall correctly, wanting to learn more about terrorists got us on the left the label of "appeasers" and "terrorist-coddlers," didn't it?

That's a digression, however. See, a few days ago, after the US-EU summit, Bush had this to say: " Make no mistake, however, that many of those folks being detained -- in humane conditions, I might add -- are dangerous people." The "humane conditions" aside, um, well...maybe this is a subtlety of the English language I've missed (after all, Bush is well renowned as a master of his native tongue), but doesn't saying "many" of those folks being detained are dangerous imply that "some" are, if not dangerous, not known to be dangerous? And, well, shit, if "some" aren't known to be dangerous, why are they being kept at Gitmo, uncharged, treated "humanely" or not? And why is Bush telling Fox Nooz "these," referring to the prisoners at Gitmo, "were terrorists?" Perhaps because nobody at Fox or any of its viewers are going to call him on it? And, to get back to the issue I started with, how, without any sort of legal process, does George W. Bush know jack shit about "many" of the myriad of prisoners kept in that hellhole?

Ah, but George Bush has been good at nothing if not knowing how to dance on command. He's not a good dancer, but by god, he'll stand up there with his little fez and he'll grin that little monkey grin and cut your taxes and it's all so very cute, cause he's trying so very hard. He even had a "He forget Poland!" moment, telling the press corps they were offending people by not asking the other two bodies up around him questions. See, he's a team player -- cute!

Of course, that's until you realize that he's the goddamned President of these fucking United States, the leader of the free world, and that by his own admission he's trying to make people feel pleasantly surprised he doesn't drool on himself.

More fun from the press conference: "We're now waiting for a federal court to decide whether or not they can be tried in a military court, where they'll have rights, of course, or in the civilian courts. We're just waiting for our judicial process to move -- to move the process along...when the courts make the decision they make, we'll act accordingly." Here, "acting accordingly" of course includes "screeching about damn activist liberal judges trying to undermine the war on terrah if they tell us inhumane shitheads to grant these terrahists due process." Oh, how they will wail, like a woman on the verge of a long-due orgasm, if the courts tell them to shape up and abide by the notion of law. We'll hear all about how between this, gay marriage, and so on, how we need to get rid of the filibuster, how these activist judges are endangering us, and how liberals hate baby Jesus and are beholden to Hollywood. It'll be a lot of fun to do this all over again, let me tell you.

Bush also noted he thinks about Iraq every day. This, of course, placing Iraq up on the president's list of priorities with "taking a shit," which I'm sure he also thinks about every day (probably several times, actually). Of course, with his cronies, he's managed to take a big old dump on Iraq, so maybe it's fitting. But maybe, just maybe, Bush wants to take some time aside from just thinking about Iraq to think about the troops that're there (for reasons other than turkey) and try to get the military to give them, y'know, equipment?

Finally, Bush says "there's a reason" he nominated John Bolton to be our UN ambassador, and guess what? It's not "because he really fucking hates the UN and wants to stick them with Bolton after having given them Negroponte earlier." It's because "John Bolton is a reformer!" And that's true, in a sense: when Bolton leaves a department, things improve (via Pepper). A lot. This, then, perfectly suiting Bolton to the Bush administration, which is chock full of people we were pleased to have gotten rid of, back when we thought we had.

Fuck Everything

2005-06-22T14:01:00.000-04:00

Still sick, so this will be brief: you know, I really could do without supposedly moderate Republicans who dissent and dissent but still keep voting for the same policy they're supposedly critical of. Motherfuckers.

What's your favorite example? Mine almost certainly involves John McCain, though the particular instance I can't choose.

Fuck

2005-06-21T09:44:00.000-04:00

I'm sick today; my stomach is clenching like Bill O'Reilly's anus around a falafel or Norm Coleman's mouth around the administration's metaphorical cock. I'll just quickly note that while I think Dick Durbin (who, by the way, is one fun motherfucker, if you ever get the chance to hang out with him) poorly chose his comments, they were in no way inappropriate. In fact, they were extremely appropriate, as everyone knew, but of course, the entire cocksucker contingent decided to manufacture outrage. After all, "how dare one of those America-hating liberals compare anything to a mad regime? That's our schtick. So, how about the estate tax being like the Holocaust..." Now go read Billmon. And in Downing Street-related stuff, here's Tom Toles.

Back tomorrow.

Rhetorical Devices Without The Rhetoric

2005-06-20T08:12:00.000-04:00

I'm sure neurotoxins being sprayed at Fox Nooz (via the General) is a metaphor for something, but goddamned and jesus christ, I can't think of what that is.

Why Rush Limbaugh Should Have His Own Lipsuctioned Fat Shoved Up His Ass

2005-06-20T07:45:00.000-04:00

Remind me never to go on vacations with Rush Limbaugh, man. Over the course of last week, Limbaugh referred to "Club G'itmo, the Muslim resort", y'know, cause those damned Mohammedans got two kinds of fruit and, you won't fucking believe how coddled they are, lemon chicken. Shit, i think they served lemon chicken once in my high school cafeteria. At least that's what they called it. Needless to say, some bitches were really sick after "Lemon Chicken Day." Here's a recipe for something that could legitimately be called lemon chicken, after all: Shit all over a chicken, and add the juice of a whole lemon. Let the bird roast in a chicken for a few hours. Serve. There's your "lemon chicken". The Oxycontin Boy Wonder even got t-shirts.

So all this leads to a question: where is Rush Limbaugh going for vacations? Is there a special room for vacationers to urinate or defecate on themselves? They get chained in the fetal position? Perhaps they get beaten senseless, like this soldier in a training drill. Maybe they have chemical irritant sprayed in their faces after being choked by water coming out of a hose. I'd spend more time wondering about how this cruise lines makes money, but, shit, whatever floats your boat.

But maybe it's just that Rush was too hopped up on "hillbilly heroin" to even remember what the hell a vacation is like, and is projecting any S&M fantasies he might be having onto this "vacation." Yeah, I'm gonna go with that. After all, oxycontin? It's an opioid. It numbs your senses, your inhibitions, shit, your conscience. In other words, it's perfect for Rush to keep on being Rush.

Dick Cheney: American Minister of Information

2005-06-20T07:39:00.000-04:00

Remember Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf? The unshakeable Iraqi Minister of Information, who said, among other things, that Americans were "committing suicide under the walls of Baghdad"? We all had good laughs at his expense, because of how fucking ridiculous his comments were.

A few weeks ago, Dick Cheney said the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes." A few Republicans have come out swinging over this, but what does it say when our leaders lie like al-Sahaf? Should we laugh? Should we cry? Or should we just shake our heads and be scared that we re-elected these buffoons?

Of Course They Can't Let This Go

2005-06-17T13:53:00.000-04:00

We're never going to hear the end of this, are we?

Of course not. Why drop it when you can just issue more slander? And of course it's not just Jeb involved here -- he's going to have all the support of DeLay, the Florida legislature, and Randall Terry (though Bill Frist apparently said "Can we please move on and forget I was involved in this, please?" before stopping himself from crying, for fear he might contract AIDS if other people started bawling around him). I suppose when you've lost this much standing over a single fucking issue, you may as well see it all the way through...

How many groups have they said "Fuck you" to over this? There's Michael Schiavo, the courts, the medical community, now the coroners...who's left? It doesn't even seem like they have any sort of a plan on this, just like they never had a plan on Social Security. It's all a big audible to the "culture of life," to distract us from real news (the runaway bride and missing Alabama girl surely helped, as did the Jackson trial, but now that's done).

In more Terri-related idiocy, Sadly, No! catches Michelle "Queen of the Wingnuts" Malkin just making shit up as she is wont to do.

Man, it must be sweet to not have to worry about credibility, integrity, or accuracy.

Operation Yellow Elephant

2005-06-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

Jesus' General is organizing something we can all get behind. Go get 'em, College Republicans! You've got your talking points on terror. You discuss how Iraq is now securing a "free and prosperous future." Now it's time to help secure it.

You helped demand this war. Now it's time to help stem our recruiting problems. Go on, young soldiers. Just think about how good war hero cred plays in politics. Look at the Vietnam heroes who now run the Republican Party and its extension in the media: Rove, Cheney, Limbaugh, Bush, DeLay, Bolton, Hastert, O'Reilly...

Ah. And now it all makes sense. So much fucking sense.

Porn Stars For Bush

2005-06-17T08:49:00.000-04:00

I was going to do something about the rank hypocrisy of the Republican Party, between JimJeff GannonGuckert and Mary Carey, but I just can't. Oh, did I want to have fun with this. We've moved beyond gotchas. It's not just that it's too fucking easy -- it's a sign of an infection in the body politic.

At least we can observe one thing from all of this -- George W. Bush is nothing if not our national fluffer:

We will stay on the offensive against the enemy. We will find them where they hide. We will bring them to justice. We will defeat them in foreign lands so we do not have to face them here at home.

Throughout the entire speech, Bush kept saying "No, yes, it's big, yes, you're so big, let me suck your balls, no, no, don't get soft, you're such a stud" to all of us, kept saying it as he sucked and stroked and licked. Can't you just feel the national dick puffing up, getting harder, becoming more Republican?

Ok, so no one said he was a good fluffer. After all, he's not one of the one who's been sucking a lot of administration cock for the last 5 years.

Thomas Friedman is a Worthless Sack of Shit

2005-06-16T07:40:00.000-04:00

Thomas Friedman, purported neoliberal, war on terror cheerleader, and overall fuckhead, has this to say inhis latest column, which may as well be entitled "Why I Am The Only Grownup Here":

Liberals don't want to talk about Iraq because, with a few exceptions, they thought the war was wrong and deep down don't want the Bush team to succeed.

For you see, in Thomas Friedman's world, as with those of most of the hawkish "liberals" (some actually are, but Friedman's only one for rhetoric's sake), it's more important to be right than to honestly assess the issue, especially with other people's lives at stake. He actually claims Iraq is "winnable," -- Friedman later says he "doesn't know if a self-sustaining, unified, and democratic Iraq is still possible," but this comes right after stating it's still "winnable," so what the fuck does he mean by "win"? If it's not, of course, it fucks him rather badly, heaven forbid, given his repeated insistance that we're about to turn the corner into a tipping point). To be fair, whatever value Friedman puts on "win", Iraq may well "winnable." But then he immediately goes on to ask "So...what do we do now to win, guys?" Friedman knows Iraq just has to be winnable. It must be winnable. Despite not knowing how it's winnable, if it's not, he's wrong. Friedman also doesn't know where to find good Iraqi political leadership, cause everyone's let him down but the Kurds, who remain on his Christmas card list.

But of course, this comes after claiming nobody except for him wants to talk about the issue. Conservatives, you see, suck administration cock on a regular basis (and this coming from a man who deep-throated the whole thing in the buildup to the war and its early stages, in other words, before things to hell. This is a man who wrote off the nonexistence of WMDs immediately, despite how it made us appear to be pulling reasons for war out of our asses (something which was, of course, confirmed), and who endorsed Ahmed Chalabi, cause he's nice and secular, a word which drived Thomas insane in bed. And those damn cowardly and intellectually dishonest liberals, well, they're more interested in being right than talking seriously about the issue. This, despite the fact that Friedman doesn't say anything useful or new in his column. The core problem was Rumsfeld fucked up by sending in too few troops? No fucking way! See, and here these liberals are too busy advocating a complete and utter failure (oh wait...we secretly want it "deep down," which means we're not advocating it except in that sinister, conniving way we tend to go about in) to really get down and talk about the issue. But in spite of not really knowing anything about possible options, Friedman knows we have to find Iraqi leadership, and that's about it -- remember, though, he's the only one that wants to seriously discuss the issue.

Good fucking god. But what can we expect from a man who came really, really close to blaming the victim over Gitmo in advocating it be closed? A man whose only problem with the excesses of Guantanamo is they have a "toxic effect on us - inflaming sentiments against the U.S. all over the world and providing recruitment energy on the Internet for those who would do us ill." Y'know, damn those squealing prisoners for helping those terrorist recruiters! Damn them for making Gitmo a rallying cry! And damn the sodomizing, urine throwing guards for their biggest crime -- dirtying up our pretty good name!

Friedman, you see, is almost kind of cute when it comes to his unwavering support for the war on terrah. He calls torture "immoral," but that's just in passing. No, Friedman's major concern is how bad we're looking to the rest of the world, not that, y'know, we're torturing people. With Gitmo, Friedman's more concerned with hiding the evidence than finding out what actually happened. And with Iraq, by god, he'll be vindicated, and it's less important to define what it means to "win" than to insist that we can in fact win.

Friedman helped create this, with the cheerleading and the repetition of administration talking points (disguised with some mild and ineffectual criticism here and there). He kept insisting America could do little to no wrong when it came to fighting terrorism, about how our mission was so righteous it would shine through. Ultimately, he can't be bothered to ever admit a mistake, though now, he's starting to throw short little jabs at it, to keep it off balance -- Rumsfeld's the core problem, we should have trials for the prisoners in Gitmo, etc. And that's good. But it won't do a damned thing now. The administration's shown us it'll lie to get us into an ill-planned war that'll kill thousands, and it'll shrug in response to torture, reminding us that, after all, these people are terrorists, subhuman, not deserving of rights. And throwaway sentences in a column or two won't affect shit when you're advocating for a coverup and fumbling around in the dark in a war zone. Jabs won't give you a knock out, they won't even keep you in the game if all you're doing is throwing them (unless you're Muhammed Ali, roping a dope, but Thomas Friedman is no Muhammed Ali...plus when thousands of lives are at stake, why would you waste time with the rope-a-dope?). No, what we need now is a couple of combinations followed by a massive uppercut, and he's too busy seriously talking about the issue to bother.

Friedman's a complete moral midget, but at least he exists on some sort of moral plane, unlikst most pundits. It's too bad he's also a useless, tiny little man, who can't be bothered to admit he was wrong.

Update: Arthur Silber channels Friedman and cuts through the bullshit to get to the true wankery.

Slander For Fun And Profit

2005-06-15T15:30:00.000-04:00

From John Cole (who appears to be getting shoved kicking and screaming into the land of the shrill), apparently the autopsy of Terri Schiavo proves nothing. Nothing, I tell you!

Good lord, you'd think slandering poor Michael Schiavo were as necessary for these people to live as breathing at the rate they're going. Autopsy shows nothing? It couldn't possibly be that he didn't beat her, because we already know he did, evidence be damned! Motherfuckers...

Wankers

2005-06-15T12:14:00.000-04:00

Here's the latest list of pro-lynching Senators, for those who're curious. Voinovich and Murkowski've cosponsored.

Taking a Break

2005-06-15T11:44:00.000-04:00

Today's a busy day, so I'll leave you with this piece of wonky wankery: PNAC's apologetics for the Iraq war, from April.

Also, this is damned good news for getting these cuntlickers out of office.

Afterwards, see how the wingnuts, yet again, smeared poor Michael Schiavo. It also turns out Terri Schiavo was blinder than a bat with its eyeballs gouged out. So much for Bill Frist's magical cardiac surgeon powers.

Finally, see the Monkey President dancing with the dogfucker in Pennsylvania. Dance, bitches, dance.

Tomorrow: Porn Stars For Bush, and why Thomas Friedman is the most useless sack of shit sitting in the media toilet.

Justice, Pakistani Style

2005-06-14T21:02:00.000-04:00

Nicholas Kristof is a ballsy motherfucker, more of a man than William Safire, David Brooks, Robert Novak, and all those other sons of bitches put together. See, Kristof not only takes on issues that need to be taken on, but he'll do the hardscrabble reporting, and travel to, for example, Darfur, a topic he was one of the first to start writing about. Sometimes he fucks that shit up: see almost everything he wrote on girl-purchasing, where he stroked his own ego a tad.

But all in all, we could use more people like Kristof, y'know, journalists, in journalism. For the love of god, though, when he starts talking about domestic politics, he becomes a gigantic mealy-mouthed tool, who gets upset when mean old liberals call Bush a "liar." For a good example, see Roger Ailes on Kristof attacking feminists over sex slavery.

But in his latest, Kristof isn't touching that shit. No, he's going after Pakistani President Musharraf. Now, the thing about Pakistan you have to understand is that it's one of the countries we like to call out for human rights abuses but continue to sell planes to, cause President Musharraf promises us he'll use that shit to get terrorists, not, say, to be used in Kashmir. It's a perfect example of the stone-throwing-in-glass-houses mentality of this administration when it comes to human rights, an administration that had the galls to claim in the same report that the only human rights violations in Iraq are the fault of the fuckin' Iraqis. So really, it's a good thing we're taking on Pakistan, even if it's only rhetoric, something they understand (and oh, do the people in Pakistan understand that it's only rhetoric).

So now here's Kristof, writing about what needs to be written, about how our friend Musharraf really, really needs to be smacked around a bit in reality, not just in words accompanied by winks and nudges. Because it's this kind of shit that exacerbates why in so many places, the United States is considered to be totally full of shit when we preach on and on about democracy and freedom and human rights. And can you blame them?

Michael Jackson's Penis: A More Powerful Cultural Force Than The Clenis

2005-06-14T11:17:00.000-04:00

Finally, it's over. Not that this will stop masses from discussing how the jury was biased, how Michael only got off because he's a celebrity, and so on, without being able to point to, y'know, evidence.

But I just want to know: why the hell, as a society, did we care about this? Isn't it pretty obvious that it never mattered at all if Michael Jackson fucked a 13 year old or, well, LaToya or not? It matters if, and only if, you are that boy, Jackson, or someone emotionally linked to either the accuser or the accused. It makes no difference at all if it were alleged that Michael had his dick rubbed by Bubbles while moaning "Yes, stroke the King, stroke it" while thinking of his kid, blanket. It makes no difference at all in the larger scheme of things. It's nothing but a distraction. The problem is, of course, that the media loves nothing but to distract. And oh, did they ever, probably wronging Michael Jackson in the process of focusing on his every move and playing to those who knew, just knew, he was guilty, on the basis that he's fucking weird.

But now, it's over. Thankfully. Because there's important shit going on that would be overshadowed by Michael this and Michael that. Like, say, the discussion about closing Gitmo, an idea I've discussed before as being a horrible thing to advocate. Or, most importantly, John Conyers' hearing about Downing Street on Thursday. Even the three-days-after-verdict Michael's penis chatter can't distract from that...or can it? The media will do their best, assuredly, because, as Billmon notes, it'll cause them to admit they can quite often be shameless toadies for this administration.

Strange Fruit Planters

2005-06-14T10:55:00.000-04:00

I'll post some more thoughts on the apology for not having taking action on lynching later, but first, who do you think those 12 scumbags are? You see, unlike Bill O'Reilly, we here at Uncivil Discourse have no problem with speculation, since we also have no problem admitting it when we make a mistake, unlike the previously mentioned asshat.

Some guidelines: the 78 co-sponsors can be found here and here, so it's probably not any of them.

My guess right now is that they include Lott, due to his strong affiliation with the Council of Up With White Folks, but I'm not sure whom else is a likely candidate. Really, anyone who's not on for sponsoring this should be kicked in the nuts, even if they didn't have an objection to voting for it.

And as for those assholes who'd rather pander to people who wish we could go back to this, well, frankly, they ought to be dipped in coal oil and slowly dropped into a fire, metaphorically speaking. These are probably the same fuckers who compared our opposition to Janice Brown to a "lynching," which I guess coming from them is a compliment. 'Cause, you know, denial of a lifetime judicial appointment is just like stringing someone up.

But this is all tied together. Perhaps protection of civil rights (including integrity in the judiciary, which has done more for civil rights than any other institution in this country over the last century) has always been like dunking the conservative movement, whether it's expressed by Democrats or Republicans, in a big fire after wrapping a rope around it.

Update: John gives the latest list of candidates.

Further Update: John is totally all over this...looks like some Senate staffers don't know it's not ok to lie to their bosses' constituents.

The Pigfucker and the Dentist

2005-06-14T00:49:00.000-04:00

Surprise, surprise: Scum-sucking Bush administration toadie Norm Coleman did in fact sell his soul to a dentist for that sterling smile (thanks to reader Benjamin for the pictures). I suppose the new teeth were needed for him to suck all that cock more effectively. Otherwise some skin might've slipped up into the gap, and that, let me tell you, is no good at all.

It's just too bad George Galloway might have knocked a couple of those choppers loose when he delivered his mighty bitchslap last month. But hey, with that money Norm saved on the original dental work, I bet he got 'em fixed already.

What a fucking cuntrag. And not because of the teeth. Everything about him screams out "Use me to wipe your cunt!"

Final Thoughts On Howard Dean

2005-06-14T00:31:00.000-04:00

Suppose you're in a street brawl. Let's say you fight using the Queensbury rules -- use a glove, don't hit your opponent when he's down, etc. A nice, fair fight.

What do you think your opponent's going to do? He's going to kick you in the balls, poke you in the eye, and beat the shit out of you while you're on the ground after he trips you. Maybe he'll break a leg or two before stomping on your hands. And it shouldn't be a surprise, because he's fighting to win, while you're pretending you're engaged in some civilized sport.

So as Biden, Obama, Richardson, Ford, and so on go on and on about how Howard Dean's lack of civility and general provacativeness is hurting electoral chances, maybe they want to look at the rules their opponents are playing by. Look at what they did to Max Cleland, look at how they questioned John Kerry's patriotism. Look at how they spread lies after lies about Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Look at how they're willing to call us racists because we oppose nominees who happen to be members of minorities. Look at how any criticism of the Iraq War meant you loved Saddam Hussein, wanted to really bond with the bastard. Look at how the AARP's objections to Social Security privitization caused an ad campaign targeting them, saying they wanted gay marriage.

And then look at how they respond when MoveOn.org, using George Soros' money, does, well, anything, while they'll milk Richard Mellon Scaife for all he can give. Or how they whine when Howard Dean opens his mouth, while excusing Dick Cheney for telling Pat Leahy to go fuck himself on the Senate floor. Oh, they can dish it out, but they can't take it. So let's shove it down their throats. They don't play by any civil rules, so why the fuck should we? That's what gets your ribs broken and your jaw swollen shut. We shouldn't try to move away from our anger. We should be angry. These bitches have destroyed what goodwill we had overseas while systematically looting this country and violating our basic principles. Fuck them, hard, and if anyone says otherwise, they can go fuck themselves. We'll kick them in the nuts if we have to.

Of course, that anger has to be channeled. Otherwise you're just spasming, throwing punches in the dark. But you have to fuck them up. Why else are you fighting?

So stop beating up on Howard Dean. Send him to where he needs to go. Make sure he's on target, but let him be angry. And you might want to round up some righteous anger yourselves, Democrats. There are no rules. This is politics, not cricket. They don't care if we call them on not playing by our self-imposed standards of decency. So what the hell are we doing? Finally, we have someone willing to brawl. Why on earth would you want to hold him back?

More Thoughts On The Cabinet Memo (Or Why The NYT Likes Pussy)

2005-06-13T14:13:00.000-04:00

Oh, lordy, the second memo is good. Recall, if you will, the Downing Street Memo, which said in no minced words that not only did Bush have a major hard-on to go to war, but we were in the process of cooking the intelligence like you might cook a piece of rotting meat, with lots of spices so no one notices that it's, well, rotting:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action....It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

There's nothing new here, but of course, for those who are willing to be convinced, but it's all nice and official. It states nicely that Bush wanted to go to war, had to go to war, was in a rush to go to war, and all we needed to do was to justify it.

And on a slight tangent, this take is just fucking ridiculous. Anyone who's read the damned document knows that it doesn't say "They were preparing for war as if it were inevitable." Of course, you all know I agree with Kevin Drum, that there's not much surprising here, just like nobody was really surprised by the Pentagon Papers. The nice thing about this document is that it's what historians will use to condemn this cocksucker, to turn "Saddam made the decision to go to war" into "I am not a crook."

But what is it going to say when historians look at the press and their virtual lack of coverage, in favor of white girls going missing? That I'll be interested to see, and of course, conservatives will be out there decrying how the press turned the public against the war. This war is Lebanon on the ground, but it's definitely Vietnam politically.

And that's the telling thing about this new memo. Sure, it says even more explicitly that we didn't give a fuckall about the postwar: "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the US military plans are virtually silent on this point." This is, of course, nothing new, and I don't think it'll change anything in terms of public opinion. After all, listening to Perle, Wolfowitz, and those other motherfuckers, you'd think we were going into France in 1944 to kick out the Germans, what with the sweets and the flowers that were going to be thrown at us as we walked on cake. Where are those goddamned rose petals now, Rummy, huh? And it says that, to a large degree, we didn't give a rat's ass about even trying to justify it beyond the already-established stovepiping before Tony Blair decided that the Brits needed to save at least some face. Shakespeare's Sister breaks it down a little more.

But how is this being covered in the press is interesting. Particularly given this particular journalistic turd, compliments of the anus of the New York Times. "Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made"? Please. The memo, right in the damned beginning, says

"1. The US Government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace. But, as yet, it lacks a political framework. In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it."

Can we all read that? When, taken in conjunction with Downing Street, doesn't that entirely kill the thesis that "the decision wasn't made"? If I had a subscription to the Times, this would make me cancel it. Fortunately, I haven't wasted money on them since before Judith Miller decided to be Ahmed Chalabi's echo chamber.

But now imagine what the headline would be if, instead of dealing with a war that the Times had helped pimp, it included something about Bush having sex with interns? Especially if it involved, I don't know, a cigar sex toy? Wouldn't this just be everywhere? Would the Times run a headline saying "British Memo Reveals Bush's Feelings On Cigars in Pussy"? Ok, probably not, and not just because the Times can't use the word "pussy."

And that's the entire problem. This scandal needs more pussy or more money. If we had either, by god, Bush would've been impeached last week and we'd have nothing else in the news, except for maybe a bit of Michael Jackson, because that's the celebrity equivalent of pussies filled with money. And that's why, ultimately, it seems this will go nowhere, to the same place that the other Bush scandals went, to vindicate those of us written off as conspiracy theorists in the eyes of history, and to show to posterity just what a cocksucker Bush is. Because the media will never, ever learn that, perhaps, if you keep getting diseases from fucking a particular whore, you should maybe stop fucking her. They're perfectly content to be on a constant stream of antibiotics, even if it means their dicks burn like the dickens.

But it's nice to dream, isn't it? And there are still some unanswered questions, particularly, what the fuck were they thinking? Why was there such a rush? What was the hurry? So let's all thank John Conyers for making sure this gets into the spotlight, for having hearings, just so it can all be fleshed out. This might get shunted off into history, but by god, you'll have to fight to throw it there. We'll grandstand and we'll use it, and maybe we'll swing a few votes here or there. Because now we can use the word "lie," even if the press won't, and if they try going off at us for it, we can shove these memos right up their collective ass. And maybe, eventually, if we keep this in the spotlight, something will come up that the media decides is worth its time to report. Because there is one more question that's important, for both posterity and for ourselves, and it's why all this shit happened. I don't know if there are any answers in the offing, but we still need to look.

Update: Digby nails it as usual.

Liberal Media

2005-06-13T10:13:00.000-04:00

The New York Times has an article on the latest British memo, with headline "Preware British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made."

Huh? As the Times of London put it, "The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it."

Oh, wait: "While the latest memorandum appears to have been written by a British intelligence official after a visit to Washington, the central fact reported - that the American military was in the midst of advanced planning for an invasion of Iraq - was no secret. The New York Times published details of that plan two weeks before the memorandum was written."

So fucking worthless.

On the subject of this new memo, some, including our friends over at The Daily Pepper think the right tack to take is the one the AP did, showing how Bush didn't plan at all for the postwar situation. But, um, isn't that something we all knew already? When they were going around talking about how it would be a cakewalk, isn't that just a little bit of a hint that we weren't planning? And isn't it clear that we went in with too few troops, etc? I can't see how this is anything at all new...

Why Charles Bird is a Simpering Imbecile

2005-06-13T09:45:00.000-04:00

Most recently, he repeats the claim that Mugabe is Pol Pot simply "without re-education camps." Charles was also one of the morons who took Amnesty's report, which discussed talked about extraordinary rendition and how we hold "ghost detainees," and became outraged at the fact that Amnesty compared Gitmo to the Soviet gulags. So despite the fact that we're playing right into the hands of the types of people Charles would declare to be "Islamofascists," at least we have a resounding victory in the War on Metaphors.

Thus we can conclude that Charles Bird needs to get a room somewhere with the Powerline folks. A room that's locked from the outside and far, far away from everyone else.

Why Bill O'Reilly Needs To Be Sodomized With Several Microphones

2005-06-13T09:14:00.000-04:00

On Friday's O'Reilly Factor, the top two stories were Missing White Girl #34983. This featured the quote, "Natalee Holloway is the all-American girl, a good student, good daughter, good friend. Her disappearance is simply horrible. And most parents feel the pain of her family. We can all picture that happening to us."

Then there're two on fucking Michael Jackson, including one which probably discussed how prisoners really are coddled, despite their claims otherwise (there's no transcript, but this is Bill O'Reilly we're talking about). This is largely because Bill has no problem with the idea of a large, muscular man coming up to him and forcefully sodomizing him until he bleeds after gagging him with a falafel. Afterwards, there's a flashback segment entitled "Is cheerleading too sexy?" This presumably involved a healthy argument over "breaking it down".

When O'Reilly starts "discussing the sexing up of high school cheerleading with our guests," I tend to think the discussion would go in a way that would violate certain decency laws, don't you? And there's a theme here, because he's also talked about Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan this week.

On Thursday, O'Reilly started by talking about how Howard Dean "can't help" being "nonsensical." And for the past few weeks, he's been calling for Dean to appear on the O'Reilly Factor. Wednesday also featured O'Reilly's claim that "There is no question that America's image in much of the world is bad. That's caused by a dishonest press, combined with President Bush's passive public relations stance." Passive in the sense that the syphilis-ridden prostitute who's riding you is passive, sure. On Tuesday, O'Reilly called Joe Biden an "enabler" of "jihadists" for making "every small scandal" into a "page one story or a book."

Come to think of it, maybe several microphones isn't enough...after all, this is the same O'Reilly who promised to never trust the Bush administration again if WMDs didn't materialize, who constantly decries the lack of attention paid by the media to stories that concern you, yet who focuses on Michael Jackson instead of, say, the Downing Street Memo, and who constantly compares Michael Moore, abortionists, and Al Franken to Nazis while bemoaning how he's slandered and attacked by his opponents.

And what was featured Friday on "The Radio Factor"? Hour 1: Missing White Girl. Hour 2: Michael Jackson. So where are the claims about how Natalie Holloway was molested by Michael Jackson before he organized her school's trip to Aruba so she couldn't testify against him? Come on, Bill, bring it all home.

Update: s.z. notes this part of Thursday's "Talking Points Memo": "As you may know, we do not speculate here on "The Factor." We have no idea what happened to Natalee or why she left the bar with some Aruban men. I've heard some irresponsible media speculate about that, and it makes me angry." But speculating that they actually did sometihng to Natalee (which he does by characterizing them as lowlifes) or, for that matter, almost anything else O'Reilly has ever said, is totally ok.

This Isn't Nixon Redux, It's Worse

2005-06-12T09:51:00.000-04:00

The Downing Street Memo is not, in of itself, especially important in terms of public opinion, as I argued earlier. After all, I find it really fucking hard to believe that almost everyone who is willing to be convinced does not already know in their heart of hearts that Bush willfully "misled" us into going to war. What Downing Street does is confirm that he out and out lied like Richard Helms in front of Congress, not just was "deceived by the overwhelming body of evidence.".

But the media won't use the term "lied," not while he's still in office, which just goes to show how liberal the media is given how they went on, and oh, did they ever go on, about how Bill Clinton just couldn't stop lying. And as much as I hate to break it to the poor saps laboring to get Bush impeached, it's not going to happen, regardless of what evidence we can accumulate regarding Iraq, primarily because the Republicans that get elected are two-bucks-a-fuck whores.

Now, don't get me wrong -- Downing Street should be covered, because it's actual news (though it unfortunately doesn't involve missing white girls). It says a lot about the media that it's been more or less glossed over and that as soon as the Michael Jackson verdict is revealed, or another wealthy white girl goes missing, it'll be shunted to page A20 or whereever the fuck it is that stories that get ignored go.

But this (via All Spin Zone) is something completely different. Here we have another British memo claiming that Britain had to, to quote the BBC, "sex up" Iraqi intelligence (and remember what the BBC went through because of that?...Instapundit was all on that one). I'll leave the details of Blair's complicity in this murderous con game aside, because the Brits are the ones who'll have to deal with him.

Here, what it seems is that Bush decided "Fuck, I'm gonna go git Saddam...yee-haw, I'm a cowboy!", told Blair of this and that we were gonna use the UK's bases, and Blair said "Yes sir, thank you sir" and went about doing his part. So ultimately, this is a revealing look not just into how Bush views war, but how they view the law. After all, treaties we're party to, including the UN charter, are "the highest law of the land," even under the most originalist view of the damned Constitution (unless you feel the Founders were using some fucked up reverse psychology none of us can understand). Not only is Bush the future convict that says "I know what the law is, but fuck it, I wanna murder me some folks" he goes around telling potential accomplices "You're gonna say fuck the law, too, or you're getting shanghaied," while Tony Blair responded "Yes sir, thank you sir, may I have another?" What would we say about a criminal like that? Wouldn't we throw the book at them? Wouldn't they become right-wing poster children for why, despite the endemic of rape, prisons "coddle" prisoners (which I think says something about how they view anal violation)?

And now George W. Bush should, in a world with a media that did its job and with a Congress that cared about such antiquated notions as checks and balances, be in a worse position than Tricky Dick was in the summer of 72 (which is only fitting, given that even such an avowed Nixon hater as the late Hunter S. Thompson wrote that he would vote for Dick over his political heir). After all, we knew Nixon lied -- but there wasn't evidence he went out of his way to flount the law. No, that only came with the dirty money scandal that finally let us get rid of him. But for Bush, not only did he lie, he went out of his way to sodomize the physical embodiment of law, just like, say, Florida 2000. And he won't go down for this, because we won't demand it (what does it say about us if our leaders are guilty of mass murder?), because Congressional Republicans (and many Democrats as well) are spineless cocksuckers who won't admit they made a mistake, and, finally, because there's no money or pussy involved. On the other hand, if we can find money or pussy, or, better still, pussies filled with money, somewhere...

But maybe, just maybe, the media and the public, both of whom wet themselves at the idea of war back before things started going poorly, will finally, at long sweet last, learn that you should be careful about drinking anything a cheap hooker gives you.

Wait, what's that! I think I hear about a missing white girl that may have been molested by Michael Jackson! Onto more important things...

Late Night Book Recommendations

2005-06-12T02:45:00.000-04:00

The Pinochet File, by Peter Kornbluh. It's chock full of declassified documents detailing just what a shithead Henry Kissinger is, and why he ought to be tricked into going to Belgium (much as Bill O'Reilly should, in a just world, be repeatedly sodomized with a microphone, or, for that matter, anything else that's handy...but more on Falafel Boy on Monday).

Linkage

2005-06-10T10:14:00.000-04:00

John Cole notices Sam Brownback placing a "hold" on Bush's nominee for ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe because she's pro-choice and wonders where the intellectual consistency is. Rhetorically, of course.

And John, no, we're only required to back off criticizing someone's avowed "firm religious beliefs" when they square with what the religious right declares as true religion. Otherwise, you're "afraid" to go into your own Church (see John Kerry) or something similar like this. Being pro-choice obviously means you're flounting the One True Interpretation, so there's no need to give it respect.

He also has a good link discussing Helms' refusal to disavow his segregegationist past, along with his own commentary. The comments section also has some decent discussion.

But what really bothers me about Jesse Helms is how he continues to say things like "Until then, it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior, and that it would probably be confined to those in high risk populations. I was wrong." Because AIDS would be ok if it had stayed with the faggots and junkies, given how Helms and Reagan had a policy of ignoring the issue altogether.

There's a good post here, via Atrios, on why we should never, ever give a shit about anything that fuckhead Jesse Helms has to say.

Finally, Billmon (twice) gives a different view of Dean's adventures in chairmanship. And he makes some very good points. While I still don't think Dean's shooting from the hip or, really, botching things as bad as some have made it out to be, we'll see what the follow through is. It's all in risky waters -- with the proper followup, it could pay some great dividends, but if there's just an incoherent mix of denunciations and half-hearted support along with a lack of focus on the agenda, it'll be exactly what people are saying it is, a big mistake.

Do I think Dean was ad-libbing his "white Christian" remark? Well, maybe, but I still think he knew what he was saying and what the reaction would be. It's not some codeword. He knows what he's doing, but it's not some Grand Master Plan. I think Dean's understanding of the nature of the media is what's giving him the confidence to shoot off these remarks. And my enjoyment of Dean so far is not only derived from his flipping off of the fuckers that be. But given the current climate, I can't see how we can't have someone who's willing to fight fire with fire. Even if he is the chair, it can't hurt, since regardless of what we do or say, the minions over at Fox Nooz will ask why we hate America so, and Wolf Blitzer will nod and smile along. If we can maintain some semblence of party discipline, Dean'll have been justified in that confidence, because then he's the lightning rod (not, say, a future presidential candidate), and meanwhile, nothing's distracted from our agenda, because we've constantly emphasized that nobody is saying anything different except in terms of diction.

Of course, any plan that requires the Democrats to maintain party discipline is probably doomed to failure.

Update: John links to this article, in which Dean says "You know, I think a lot of this is exactly what the Republican want, and that's a diversion." And that's true. What I would really like from Dean is more of the Today show-ish comments, where, rather bluntly, he called out the Republicans for what they are rather than making some pithy comments. But at least, for once, we've got someone who isn't so afraid of kowtowing to the sensibilities of Bill Schneider that he'll run circles around himself to appear civil. Now to harness that...

Cambodian Holiday

2005-06-10T09:06:00.000-04:00

Robert Mugabe is not Pol Pot. Not the fuck at all. In fact, he's completely goddamned different. I'm glad you've all seen The Killing Fields (though apparently you didn't really pay much attention), but, yes, Pol Pot engaged in genocide. In fact, he did more than just target a particular group, such as the Chams; the cocksucker sought to kill everyone that wasn't a Cambodian Khmer. That's some ethnic cleansing. Not only that, but there was out and out ideological cleansing, too. Anyone who might possibly have been "tainted" by the West was summarily shot (there's a damned fine anecdote about a group of Vietnamese Khmers who defected from the South Vietnamese Army to try to hook up with the Khmer Rouge, who proceed to execute them for a) being Vietnamese and b) having been corrupted by Americans). Mugabe is not engaging in genocide. Rwanda was an attempted genocide. Zimbabwe is not Rwanda, any more than the fighting in the Congo was genocidal. No groups are being targeted for extermination. He's not even rounding up people to be shot, not even on the bases of having glasses of speaking a foreign language.

Of course, I only noticed right-wingers (as a group, there are of course individual exceptions) getting up in arms over Mugabe when he started repossessing the land of white farmers. (To be fair, Joe Katzman at Winds of Change is not a right winger. Apparently he just feels really really bad about The Killing Fields.) Which fits a pattern, given they only got up in arms over Darfur when evangelical Christian groups started getting bothered that it was, in fact, Christians in Darfur who were being attacked by the janjaweed, and they only got irritated at the gross human rights abuses of the Taliban after they supported a bunch of folks who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Even when the Talibs bulldozed the statues of Buddha, there was a collective shrug (to be fair, from most people in the country, not just right wingers).

And yes, it is true Pol Pot shipped fuckloads of Cambodians out of the cities to work in the fields, to help further his insane Maoist fantasyland. This is one tactic he used. Mugabe, however, is not a Maoist, and he's not engaged in any sort of ethnic cleansing (because if he were, by god, you'd hear the conservatives go on about the poor whites being slaughtered in the streets...it'd bounce off every wall).

It's about corruption, through and through, and nothing more. It's tragic, yes, of course, but don't compare it to Cambodia, for the same reason Elie Wiesel refused to indulge in Holocaust comparisons after he toured refugee camps in Macedonia. One doesn't need to draw analogies; horror is horror. The horror of Kosovo can stand on its own ground, as can the horror of the killing fields, the horror of Rwanda, or the horror of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. There's no need to draw forth external contexts. Mugabe is starving his own people for political purposes. He's destroyed almost all of Zimbabwe's social infrastructure. He's taken what was one of the best educated countries in Africa and run it into the ground for his own glory. He's a complete scumbag. But he's not genocidal, and it's fucking inappropriate to compare him to Pol Pot.

But I don't know if we can expect much more from a group that calls feminists "feminazis" or refers to abortion as "The American Holocaust." Remember when Grover Norquist compared the "fairness" of the estate tax to "the morality of the Holocaust"? It makes sense. I'm sure you can see the analogy. After all, the government chooses to take money only from certain extremely rich dead people, and the Nazis chose to round up only the Jews, homosexuals, and Gypsies (and a few other groups, like Slavs, etc) to be thrown into the death camps. Perfectly analogous, wouldn't you agree?

Or how about when Bob Novak said, on the Democratic proposal to not filibuster certain judges, "[It's] like going to a concentration camp and picking out which people go to the death chamber. You're not going to let the Democrats do that, say, We're going to -- we're going to confirm this person, we're not going to confirm the other person." So fortunately for Judges Brown and Owens, they can stay on the train past Auschwitz. Unfortunately for the others, they get to go to the gas chamber, compliments of Harry Reid. It's a fairly common rhetorical device for these fuckers. Godwin's rolling in his grave.

Christ, and they get all pissy when Amnesty makes a piss-poor comparison of Gitmo to the gulags. It's not like they haven't been doing the same or worse for ages. Only just recently we've seen the Khmer Rouge's ascendency blamed on those who opposed Nixon.

It's also funny when they go on about how Amnesty and other human rights groups have been too busy attacking America to take notice of the real tragedy in Zimbabwe. Y'know, except for all of the actions Amnesty has taken against Mugabe and for the whole section of the 2005 report on Zimbabwe.

I've said it before: we need to be more responsible with our comparisons. Amnesty calling Gitmo "the gulag of our time" was stupid for rhetorical purposes, but it was also idiotically inappropriate, particularly given there are worse excesses the US engages in (see extraordinary rendition). But these fuckers will go on about that while simultaneously doing the same thing, or often, worse. These comparisons cheapen horrors we need to understand and learn from. Why can't they listen to Elie Wiesel? These analogies aren't necessary. Show some fucking restraint, you cockmongers. Maybe if you actually gave a shit about human rights (because anyone who thinks Bush is some sort of crusader for human rights worldwide clearly doesn't), you would know better. I'm glad you're paying attention to the problem, whatever it is that it took, because this shit's important. But don't pull this type of crap while you're at it; it's not necessary.

And for those of you who are interested in learning more about the tragedy in Cambodia, I suggest reading The Road to the Killing Fields: The 1970-1975 Cambodian War by Wilfred Deac and The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979. For Zimbabwe, this is a brief but good starting point, including an unflattering comparison of Mugabe to the apartheidist ruler of Southern Rhodesia, Ian Smith.

Talk About Your Satisfying Mental Images

2005-06-09T18:49:00.000-04:00

Publius Pundit, who is becoming a very good friend of Brad and Gavin over at Sadly, No! has a post entitled "Mark Steyn On Fire." That would be the poor American soul born into a worthless Canadian body Mark Steyn, author of America Alone: Our Country's Future as a Lone Warrior. Of course, I really doubt Mark Steyn is literally on fire, but this is something we should change (after all, he is a "columnist extraordinaire" according to Powerline, and so we wouldn't want him cooling off).

Why should we change the fact that Mark isn't on fire? That's easy: the shitmonger's latest is entitled "The jihad's spin doctors go to work on Guantanamo Bay." If there's anything else that needs to be said, let me know, but if this isn't flame-worthy, well, as best as I can tell, there's no real pressing need to take a microphone to Bill O'Reilly anus.

I've got the gasoline and disease-ridden whores if someone's got a car and matches. Shit, Mark would then be able to warm the bodies of homeless Canucks like he's warmed the hearts of us, his true countrymen, for so long.

Howard Dean Just Doesn't Give A Shit

2005-06-09T10:09:00.000-04:00

It doesn't matter if you think he's a fuckup, a poor fundraiser (a claim which is, incidentally, completely false), someone who can't keep his mouth shut, or anything else. Howard Dean just does not give a shit about what you have to say. Following the lead of Al Gore as a failed presidential candidate who's no longer in public office, Dean is breathing fire and fucking shit up, but without having been shunted off into the corner.

Dean's learned how the game is played, you see. He understands the 24-hour news cycle. He understands the election cycle is never ending. He understands that Republicans don't give a shit what they say about us. They'll say we kill babies gleefully. They'll say we have treason ingrained in our bones. That we're really a bunch of racists who can't stand to see minorities in positions of power. That we are either welfare queens or have inherited our money. And they'll do it with a smile on their face, while Wolf Blitzer stands there and asks how much further he has to deep throat Ken Mehlman before he gets a cookie.

Dean also knows that, in the end, it doesn't matter how nice he plays. We're not in power. The media likes power. We're not going to be treated the same way. We make inflammatory comments, and the faux outrage comes a-pouring. It's not a level playing field. So fuck it, Dean says. We're going to be treated like we hate America anyway -- let's kick the Republicans in the balls a few times. And it gets better, because he's not exaggerating or lying. No, Dean's telling the truth. He's pointing at motherfuckers and saying, "Look, these douchebags fuck their mothers." And he's getting the media to play those tapes of him calling the Republicans exclusive, monolithic, and out of touch over and over again while they talk about how out of control he, as an individual, is. But his quotes don't overshadow the party's agenda. He's talking about inclusion, about real, not just show, diversity. He's talking about looking out for the working person, about not wanting to be a theocracy. This isn't a "gulag" comment, letting everyone ignore the rest of the game. It's forcing the game in your face.

Case in point: on the Today show, Dean said "They have used words like quota to try to separate black from white Americans. They did scapegoat gay Americans by putting an anti-gay amendment on it--in 11 states where gay marriage is already against the law. And they are attacking immigrants. Two--two Republican congressmen, Jim Sensenbrenner and Tom Tancredo, have incredible anti-immigrant legislation. This is not the way America needs to be." And all of this is true. But there's no weasel words here. Dean, avoiding the exile given to Al Gore, is unloading both barrels, causing him and his words to be the story. Which is exactly what it's going to have to be.

Oh, and for anyone who thinks this is causing some sort of a schism (or, as The Man Who Should Be Sodomized With Whatever's Available said, "making some Democrats nervous"), see John Edwards' reaction, which, if we as a party have any sense, will become standard:

Howard and I have been saying the same thing about this for years. Hear that? The same thing. For years. Have I ever put it some way that Howard wouldn't agree with? Probably. And he put it in a way, once, just the other day, that I can’t agree with, since I come from a place where hard-working people, who are better served by the agenda and passion of the Democrats, somehow still vote Republican.

Dean's doing his job. He's stirring up the base. He's raising money. And best of all, he's being entertaining. It's satisfying to see someone stand up there and call shit as it is. The others can dance around. Dean won't have any part of it. We knew what we were getting with him. And he's being everything we'd hoped he'd be.

While I didn't want him running for president, by God, I wish we could've seen him debate Bush. That would've been a site to behold, Dean bending Dubya over the podium, making him squeal like a pig.

You might feel he's not the best choice for chair. That's fine. You might wish he'd dial it down just a little bit. That's fine too. And you might think his strategy isn't the best one. But don't question his ability to work. Because Dean has one thing to say to anyone who thinks he's not doing his job or that he doesn't know what he's getting into, and it's "Fuck you, I don't give a shit what you have to say." Amen, brother, amen.

Wingnuts On Parade

2005-06-08T07:53:00.000-04:00

1) Why Bill O'Reilly Needs To Be Sodomized With A Nightstick: Bill O'Reilly had this to say about Gitmo: "The entire Gitmo situation has been driven by the anti-Bush press and the far-left human rights organization. As Talking Points has mentioned, there have been abuses, but not many. A Pentagon report found that there have been 28,000 interrogations at Gitmo over the past three years, and only five cases of Koran abuse. You can't fight a war on terror when every small mistake is magnified into a page 1 scandal."

Apparently, Qur'an abuse is the only type of abuse that occurs. Not, for example, "strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings and unauthorized interrogations." The fact that a lot of these things haven't been showing up, over and over again, on Page 1, is a sign of the bankruptcy of our media. Torture should be a goddamned Page 1 scandal. Fuck the Qur'an abuse, even, because as I've said, I don't give a rat's ass about it other than as a specific example.

So here's what we do. We send Bill to Guantanamo, copy of the Qur'an in hand, and subject him to strangulation, beatings, and we'll place a lit cigarette into his ear opening. Even better, we'll keep stuffing falafels up his puckered little asshole until they come out his mouth. None of that is an abuse, though: we'll leave his Qur'an alone.

2) Why Ann Coulter Is A Slimy Toadcunt, Part...oh, whatever, like this series has an end: Because she seems to think the UN Ambassador is part of the federal judiciary. The rest of the column is some nonsense about how unfair it is that Republicans in the Senate get abused by those vicious, snarling, unified Democrats, and this is why it was so sniveling of the seven Republican compromisers to want to strike a deal to keep the filibuster. Ann goes on about how the Senate is a virtual apartheid regime based on party affiliation. Google can't find me any instances of Ann getting upset when Republicans were filibustering Clinton's nominees. So I suggest not reading the column, which consists of the ravings of a demented toadcunt whose mind is too covered in slime to function.

3) Why Rush Should Have Shared Some OxyContin With His Bro: David Limbaugh shows that, much as some conservatives can watch The Killing Fields and be experts on the Khmer Rouge, he can do a Google search for quotes from The Gulag Archipelago and truly understand what torture and hell on earth are. Though I suppose given that Rush's productivity never slowed down while he was doped up, getting David stoned wouldn't help shut him up, either. Damn. Well, hopefully he'll overdose or something.

4) Why John Stossel Should Just Be Put Out Of Our Misery Already: The ever fabulous s.z. does her thing. To be honest, I can't think of a punishment for Stossel that's fitting. Any ideas?

5) Why Instapundit Gives Anyone Who Wants To Be a Law Professor Hope: Instapundit notes that "pharmacists enjoy a government-created monopoly on the dispensing of prescription drugs." But as reader Quasispace notes, this is far, far less of an issue than the damned monopoly on medical treatment obtained by those "doctors." Curse their priviledged position!

Note: Instapundit is, in full context, claiming that pharmacists should have to swallow a pill and dispense contraceptives. But being Instapundit, he just couldn't be not stupid for an entire post.

6) George W. Bush pretending to have soul or, really, to like black people who don't just smile at him.

Reasonable Republicans Gone Wild

2005-06-08T07:13:00.000-04:00

John Cole is, as best as I can tell, as reasonable and moderate a Republican blogger as they can come, and he's generally worth reading, especially when he goes off on the wingnuts that have hijacked his party.

But for the love of god, his post on Howard Dean as chair is a piece of damned crappery. We can ignore the part about how Dean is making gaffes that are going to get played over and over again, because that's what Dean is going for. You think he wants anything more than CNN playing a clip saying "The Republicans are a monolithic white Christian party" over and over again? And we sure as flying fuck can ignore the part about the Swift Boat Veterans -- they may have had a legitimate beef in your mind (though the only way I could ever read it was that John Kerry was, upon his return, was supposed to shut the fuck up and crawl back into the hole he came out of), but nothing out of their mouths was true, so unless you're buying into the "fake but accurate" nonsense you go on to lambast, you're sucking John O'Neill's cock, to put it mildly. And for the record, nobody is surprised the media lapped up the Swift Boat charges (we do know how they operate, and we, unlike most of your side, don't think they're liberal). That doesn't mean we should like that they lapped it up.

Think about it this way. Suppose a bunch of guards at Gitmo, or Bagram, or hell,let's use Abu Ghraib, got together and formed "Abu Ghraib Prison Guards for Truth," running ads about how they were betrayed by the whistleblowers who reported them. Would you, John, defend these people as having a "legitimate beef" at feeling betrayed? If not, then where's the disanalogy? Hell, what if a bunch of Nixon's cronies got together to form "Watergate Convicts for Truth," complaining about how W. Mark Felt...

Ok, bad example.

But that's a thought for another time. John makes the following comments:

Let's put Dean in charge of the DNC, and rather than put forward a coherent plan for, well, ANYTHING, let's spasm in agony about the Ohio voting, do everything we can to portray Iraq in the worst possible light, and get pissy with the media. With a couple million more Soros dollars and the Huffington Post coupled with this winning stratgey, the Democrats are a lock in 2006!

And, of course, all the Democrats will be shocked the media is paying attention to Dean's latest outburst. If you are too damned stupid to figure this out on your own, you are too stupid to run the country. The Kerry records show that, though, don't they? You guys just aren't as smart as you think you are.

But right now, Democrats- you deserve to be in the minority. Grow up. Have an original idea. Put forward an agenda. And step on the necks of your wingnuts, which, due to your stunning political awareness, includes the chairman of your party. You don't have to appeal to the wingnuts- the Naderite left is not voting for the Republican in 2008, just like they didn't in 2004. In short, it is ok to be bold. But voters punish idiots who can't control themselves.

Oh John, John, John. I think Howard Dean scored a hit, a palpable hit, despite your claims of not being offended, because this is the opposite of reasonable.

It's not the role of the opposition party to lead from the shadows, to provide specific counterproposals, because they can't actually do anything. What's the point of having a particular plan if it's going to get squashed? The role of an opposition party is to oppose. Plans are useless because by the time we can implement them, shit changes. If we have a plan for Iraq now? Irrelevant in a month. Social security? Irrelevant as soon as economic conditions change.

Now, don't get me wrong: Democrats have been really, really nonexistent as an opposition. Until the Social Security fiasco, we had no sense of unity in opposition. Oh, but the soul's back. But we don't need to provide specific counterproposals.

Suppose I'm in the only supermarket in town (this town apprently sucks a lot), and I really, really need a tomato for whatever it is I'm cooking tonight. Unfortunately, there are only two, and because my town sucks to high hell, they're not getting any more. I'm way, way, way too stubborn to change my mind about what I'm cooking, but still, I need a goddamned tomato. One of the tomatoes is obviously rotten to the core. It's got mold growing on it. Suffice to say that it's fucking nasty. But the other one -- it's hard to tell. It could suck, it would be perfectly good.

John, are you going to tell me that you'd get the moldy tomato because you just don't know what the other tomato is going to do for you? Remind me to either bring you groceries or never eat at your place, man.

But that's the point. Democrats don't need to have specifics. That wouldn't be a good thing, because when we get back in power, your comrades are going to hold us to the plans we propose now, like the shitheads they are, crying about how we've "flip-flopped." But we know what the Republican specifics are, and they almost entirely suck. So it shouldn't matter what the Democrat plans are -- the Republicans have shitty ones and shouldn't be in power.

Otherwise your marinara sauce is just gonna make everyone else vomit all over your floor, and nobody wants that, John. So put down the sugar, John, and take some deep, slow breaths.

Boeing-gate

2005-06-07T14:52:00.000-04:00

And, via Atrios, here's another money scandal, complete with coverup! Come on, catch already...

bgreer has more here.

Deep Throating

2005-06-07T08:17:00.000-04:00

In an ideal world, it shouldn't matter what the motivations of a whistleblower are once what they've had to say is confirmed. If they're telling the truth, I couldn't give a flying fuck if it's because they've been promised money, an endless stream of blowjobs from herpes-ridden hookers, or so on. Because ultimately, the most important thing is that the truth gets spread into the public. We should punish those who abuse their power and our trust, and not give a fuck all about the actual person who blows the whistle.

Over the past few weeks, we've seen Pat "And Here I Thought Deep Throat Would Be A Brown Immigrant" Buchanan, Chuck Colson (who's still trying to cast his sodomization for Nixon's sins as martyrdom) and G. Gordon Liddy, among others, go on the record as saying W. Mark Felt is no hero, that he behaved unethically, etc.

Buchanan:

I think what he did is deeply dishonorable and shameful. Here is an individual who has taken an oath and part of a major investigation, running around, sneaking around at night leaking things to damage the President of the United States in the middle of a campaign and I don't see what is heroic about someone who did that.

Liddy:

He's certainly no hero.

Colson is, of course, talking about how Felt could have stopped Watergate -- as if that's something that should have been done.

But, see, it doesn't matter. Nixon had to be stopped, and not just because of Vietnam. And if W. Mark Felt played any part in that, well, good for him. But the line is starting to be flipped, with voices on the left denouncing Felt, though mostly glossing over Watergate. Eileen McNamara has this to say:

Those looking for a hero will not find one in W. Mark Felt.

The former FBI official who is Deep Throat has a legacy that includes his felonious abuse of the Fourth Amendment as much as it does his anonymous championship of the First.

The man who says he leaked details to The Washington Post of the Nixon administration's coverup of the break-in at the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic Party is the same man who authorized illegal break-ins targeting antiwar activists.

Felt's commitment to the Bill of Rights in 1973 was as selective as his family's motives in 2005 are self-serving. In an article to be published in the July issue of Vanity Fair magazine, the Felts' lawyer says the family thought there might be some money in revealing the identity of American journalism's most famous anonymous source before the death of the 91-year-old FBI retiree.

And that's all true. But it shouldn't matter in this case. It is possible to praise a man for taking down a shithead like Nixon while still decrying his own abuses of power. I'll pat Felt on the back for helping to send Nixon to Hell before he died and ensuring that the pigfucker will always be remembered as a crook (of course, the Bush administration is Nixon redux, so clearly we've learned almost nothing) before shoving some of those wiretaps he authorized down his throat. If it turned out Douglas Feith leaked something out about Bush that took him down, I'd feel the same way. Sure, he'd be a scumbag that got us into a war we shouldn't have been in, but he'd be a scumbag that helped take down Bush, and I can commend him for that.

This impulse to cast people as all good or all bad is, well, it fucking sucks. A lot of the time, the accusation comes that we on the left are simply incapable of commending, for example, George W. Bush when he does something good. Now, I can't recall him doing anything that might possibly be considered to be "good," but I think there's a bit of truth to the criticism. And it undermines our position.

Oh, and on the subject of the left mimicking the right: I posted a little bit about this yesterday, but deleted it. I've seen commentary on the left that makes the Qur'an abuse out to be a cause in of itself. And the reason this is a cause celebre, while, say, if it had been the Bible the American left wouldn't be up in arms? It's on the grounds that there's something particular about Islam and the psychology of Muslims that makes this especially intolerable. But that's a load of crap. The Qur'an itself is not the issue. To make it so is not just offensively insufferably racist Orientalism, but it's playing right into the hands of fundamentalists here and there who want religion to dictate all. We shouldn't suffer fundamentalists, be they Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or whatever else. They're the problem. Anyone who has that kind of attachment to a religious or nationalist code can shove it, because if you exalt that over everything else, real people don't matter, and you'll oppress them (for example, taking desecration of a book to be worse than actual torture at Abu Ghraib).

The issue of what happened at Gitmo has to do with how we torture people, how we have a lack of transparency, and how we view our place in this damned world. The way we behave is reminiscient of the way the imperialists behaved, but, once again proving that French sodomite Foucault right, the display of power's become a bit more subtle. And that's the issue. There are questions here and real issues, but let's not make the Qur'an the issue. It's not why those riots happened, and it's not the real story. The right wants it to be, because then they can try to cast Islam as something alien, something malicious, so they can differentiate their brand of fundamentalism from it. Why are we working with them to do so when we know fully well they're all peas in a pod?

Is Stupidity Contagious?

2005-06-06T08:05:00.000-04:00

If it is, I might have contracted something by visiting Instapundit and clicking on links. For a case in point, see this wingnut shitfest on Amnesty.

Come on, is it that hard to look at the fucking transcript that someone Glenn links to, well, links to (while simultaneously screwing that up, too)? It's obvious that Reuters fucked it up, because Schulz never said "We don't know they're running a gulag" except "Nobody's really been given the sort of access we would need to know for sure exactly what's happening." Schulz said he didn't know the extent of what went on in Gitmo, and he said he didn't know just how far up the authorization of some of these things went. He at no point suggested Amnesty was making baseless accusations with regard to the existence of human rights violations at Gitmo. I don't understand how you can be so dumb as to link to a transcript and then proceed to write something, with the transcript cited as evidence, when it has no evidence whatsoever for your thesis, based as it is on completely out of context and clipped quotes.

And of course, I blame Irene Khan for this. By using that phrase, as I said before, she made it too damned easy for them to just dismiss the entire report, as this particular clown does: "If Amnesty International has no idea about the allegations they made and want to find out and have no idea for sure what is going on inside of Guantanamo; how do they make a report not based on any facts?"

Now, based on the fact that they haven't read a transcript (other than doing a search for the word "know"), I'm not going to expect that they've actually read the Amnesty report, of which Gitmo is only a small part.

No wonder people somehow think Bush cares about furthering human rights, the secretary-general of Amnesty hasn't figured out how this rhetoric thing works yet. It may have increased donations, but the whole point of Amnesty is to not appear to have any particular political bias so that it can have as much credibility as possible, and she's just let the fuckwits who want to discredit the group due to its anti-death penalty and non-fawning-over-America stance get their foot in the door.

I Love The Smell Of Freedom In The Morning...

2005-06-06T07:29:00.000-04:00

...cause it fucking smells like theocracy. Especially a theocracy run by a terrorist organization that hates us. Oh, but I forgot: the invasion of Iraq caused people in Lebanon to love us. Good fucking christ, were these demonstrations run by the same people who gave us the Toppling Statue Saddam Extravaganza?

Now, don't get me wrong: I fully believe that in as much as elections are free, people elect whom they elect and we shouldn't get into the Cold War habit of fixing them like, oh I don't know, intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. But can the 101st Fighting Keyboarders (trademark of TBogg) please stop saying the creation of anti-American theocracies was worth fighting for, worth the dead and the money, in Iraq? Why do the fuckers hate America? To the gulag (note: not Gitmo) with them!

Speaking of Gitmo, Joe Biden seems to have gotten a clue. Good for him. Well, ok, he thinks he has a clue. But really, whenever you're echoing Thomas Friedman, you should take a good, hard look in the mirror and decide after careful consideration if you're saying something worth saying. But what Biden and Friedman don't get is that shutting down Gitmo won't help a whit. If we shut down Gitmo, terrorist recruiters can just say "Abu Ghraib" or "Bagram." They can point to the jails of Tashkent, Cairo, and Tel Aviv, where we ship off detainees to be royally fucked because goddamnit, the letter of the law won't let us do it, so let's rape its spirit. Shit, if I were a detainee, I'd much rather be housed at Gitmo then be shipped off to one of those places. It'd be a picnic. Let's face it: just shutting down Gitmo means we will never know exactly what goes on there and nobody will ever be held responsible for it. It's not enough.

See, the existence of Gitmo isn't the issue. It's what Gitmo has become. It's that we allowed these fuckers to help destroy what we tend to feel is the moral fabric of our society (well, other than hating those damned sodomites, of course). It's Gitmo, it's extraordinary rendition, it's everything. It's that we torture people. It's that we have a complete lack of transparency. It's that we clearly don't give a shit about human rights except when it's convenient rhetoric. Without Gitmo, there'd be something else, because this fruit is rotten to the core.

And it's that any one who actually believes any of this rhetoric about spreading freedom and human rights clearly has no understanding of what any of those are supposed to mean. There aren't even good intentions here. We're just all getting fucked, and most of us are so loose we can't even tell anymore.

Edit: The Editors have a more fleshed out take on Hezbollah's election, including the similarities between them and our own homegrown theocrats. And Juan Cole as always gives an excellent wonkish take.