55-40 Memphis

2012

2010-10-06T19:55:00.002-05:00

I suppose I could be talked into voting for a Clinton/Obama ticket.

Disqualified to be president

2010-10-02T16:06:00.002-05:00

As has been pointed out on other blogs, many of us voted for Barack Obama largely because (as a senator) he was totally right about the Iraq war. If that qualified him to be president, then it occurs to me that, being totally wrong about presidential authority to assassinate, he is disqualified to be president after 2012.

FWIW

2010-09-24T21:13:00.001-05:00

Useful info:

How to Record the Cops

A guide to the technology for keeping government accountable

...and why you might someday need it.

Food riots / J Edgar's back!

2010-09-24T20:51:00.002-05:00

And the news gets crazier:

UN Warned of Major New Food Crisis at Emergency Meeting in Rome
FBI Raids Homes of Several Twin Cities War Protesters

(Not) Unbelievable!

2010-09-24T11:12:00.002-05:00

Tick-Tocking the Clusterf ...

The Dems are suicidal

2010-09-23T13:25:00.006-05:00

And another link or few:

TPM: House Dems unlikely to act on tax cuts
HuffPost: Dems likely to punt on tax issue
The Bush Billionaire Tax Cut Dance
Criminal Stupid
Why Did the DCCC Lie to Their Members About Health Care?

I give up. Is there a "tea party" for disaffected progressives? The "pot party"? Where can I sign up?

One more

2010-09-22T12:40:00.002-05:00

Oh, and one more link:

President Obama Needs to Fire David Petraeus

Shallow thought

2010-09-22T12:23:00.005-05:00

Basically, I've given up.

To Obama Admin’s Reported Surprise, Private Insurers Skirt New Health Care Law
Obama Plots New Disappointments for Progressives

I'll go to the polls and I'll vote for the Democrats...but only because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least go through the motions.

The Republicans say Obama's the worst president in American history. I still say George Bush holds the first place title.

2012

2010-08-14T06:52:00.002-05:00

Uh, speak for yourself:

As angry as it might be, the professional left isn't ready to back a primary challenger to President Obama just yet.

Two high-profile liberals on Thursday said they are not interested in running against the president in 2012, and liberal bloggers say any challenge to Obama would be fraught with difficulty.

"I haven't heard of a credible name that has been floated that would challenge President Obama," said David Sirota, a prominent liberal blogger. "I haven't heard of that. I think it would be very difficult to do."

Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, who is also a columnist for The Hill, said he didn't think Obama would get a 2012 primary challenge "in a million years." In an e-mail, Moulitsas also said Obama shouldn't be challenged.

Bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb Iran

2010-08-12T19:11:00.004-05:00

How propagandists function: Exhibit A -- and how the Israel lobby drives our foreign policy. Glenn Greenwald takes down Jeffrey Goldberg's big cover story in The Atlantic: It's bullshit.

Update: Greenwald follows up.

Partners with the Devil

2010-08-10T19:59:00.003-05:00

If this happens, we absolutely totally need a new president in 2012.

...just kidding, of course. If he sells out the Gulf, it would royally piss me off, but it would fall a ways down his lengthening list of progressive sellouts. It wouldn't be a major surprise.

Hell hath no fury...

2010-08-10T11:45:00.007-05:00

The left, professional and otherwise, is in a serious tizzy this morning about the remarks of Robert Gibbs. Understandably so. But let's be fair to Mr. Gibbs. He was only repeating what President Emanuel told him to say to all us fucking retarded liberals.

Peter Beinart

2010-08-04T08:58:00.007-05:00

I'd like to recommend a couple of articles by armchair journalist and ex-warmonger Peter Beinart. He has apparently graduated from fighting terrorism and is now ready to take on a much tougher foe: Zionism.

The first, Hateful Ground Zero Hypocrisy:

The Anti-Defamation League's opposition to building a mosque at the site of the 9/11 attacks betrays its own founding principles. Peter Beinart on the Jewish group's Muslim double standard:

The other day, when the Anti-Defamation League came out against building a mosque near Ground Zero, I think I heard a sound—the sound of chickens coming home to roost.

[...]

The second is a much longer piece from New York Review of Books two months ago called, The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment. It deals specifically with hard-core, conservative Zionism and how it has fallen out of favor with a younger generation of American Jews. Here's how it starts:

In 2003, several prominent Jewish philanthropists hired Republican pollster Frank Luntz to explain why American Jewish college students were not more vigorously rebutting campus criticism of Israel. In response, he unwittingly produced the most damning indictment of the organized American Jewish community that I have ever seen.

The philanthropists wanted to know what Jewish students thought about Israel. Luntz found that they mostly didn’t. “Six times we have brought Jewish youth together as a group to talk about their Jewishness and connection to Israel,” he reported. “Six times the topic of Israel did not come up until it was prompted. Six times these Jewish youth used the word ‘they‘ rather than ‘us‘ to describe the situation.”

And here's how it closes:

But the message of the American Jewish establishment and its allies in the Netanyahu government is exactly the opposite: since Jews are history’s permanent victims, always on the knife-edge of extinction, moral responsibility is a luxury Israel does not have. Its only responsibility is to survive. As former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg writes in his remarkable 2008 book, The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes, “Victimhood sets you free.”

This obsession with victimhood lies at the heart of why Zionism is dying among America’s secular Jewish young. It simply bears no relationship to their lived experience, or what they have seen of Israel’s. Yes, Israel faces threats from Hezbollah and Hamas. Yes, Israelis understandably worry about a nuclear Iran. But the dilemmas you face when you possess dozens or hundreds of nuclear weapons, and your adversary, however despicable, may acquire one, are not the dilemmas of the Warsaw Ghetto. The year 2010 is not, as Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed, 1938. The drama of Jewish victimhood—a drama that feels natural to many Jews who lived through 1938, 1948, or even 1967—strikes most of today’s young American Jews as farce.

But there is a different Zionist calling, which has never been more desperately relevant. It has its roots in Israel’s Independence Proclamation, which promised that the Jewish state “will be based on the precepts of liberty, justice and peace taught by the Hebrew prophets,” and in the December 1948 letter from Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and others to The New York Times, protesting right-wing Zionist leader Menachem Begin’s visit to the United States after his party’s militias massacred Arab civilians in the village of Deir Yassin. It is a call to recognize that in a world in which Jewish fortunes have radically changed, the best way to memorialize the history of Jewish suffering is through the ethical use of Jewish power.

For several months now, a group of Israeli students has been traveling every Friday to the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where a Palestinian family named the Ghawis lives on the street outside their home of fifty-three years, from which they were evicted to make room for Jewish settlers. Although repeatedly arrested for protesting without a permit, and called traitors and self-haters by the Israeli right, the students keep coming, their numbers now swelling into the thousands. What if American Jewish organizations brought these young people to speak at Hillel? What if this was the face of Zionism shown to America’s Jewish young? What if the students in Luntz’s focus group had been told that their generation faces a challenge as momentous as any in Jewish history: to save liberal democracy in the only Jewish state on earth?

“Too many years I lived in the warm embrace of institutionalized elusiveness and was a part of it,” writes Avraham Burg. “I was very comfortable there.” I know; I was comfortable there too. But comfortable Zionism has become a moral abdication. Let’s hope that Luntz’s students, in solidarity with their counterparts at Sheikh Jarrah, can foster an uncomfortable Zionism, a Zionism angry at what Israel risks becoming, and in love with what it still could be. Let’s hope they care enough to try.

Heady stuff. Go read the middle part. Beinart says he is turning this article into a book.

Krugman

2010-07-30T08:24:00.002-05:00

He says (condensed version):

Why does the Obama administration keep looking for love in all the wrong places? Why does it go out of its way to alienate its friends, while wooing people who will never waver in their hatred?

[...]

What explains Mr. Obama’s consistent snubbing of those [progressives] who made him what he is? Does he fear that his enemies would use any support for progressive people or ideas as an excuse to denounce him as a left-wing extremist? Well, as you may have noticed, they don’t need such excuses: He’s been portrayed as a socialist because he enacted Mitt Romney’s health-care plan, as a virulent foe of business because he’s been known to mention that corporations sometimes behave badly.

The point is that Mr. Obama’s attempts to avoid confrontation have been counterproductive. His opponents remain filled with a passionate intensity, while his supporters, having received no respect, lack all conviction. And in a midterm election, where turnout is crucial, the “enthusiasm gap” between Republicans and Democrats could spell catastrophe for the Obama agenda.

[...]

O.K., I don’t really know what’s going on. But I worry that Mr. Obama is still wrapped up in his dream of transcending partisanship, while his aides dislike the idea of having to deal with strong, independent voices. And the end result of this game-playing is an administration that seems determined to alienate its friends.

Just to be clear, progressives would be foolish to sit out this election: Mr. Obama may not be the politician of their dreams, but his enemies are definitely the stuff of their nightmares. But Mr. Obama has a responsibility, too. He can’t expect strong support from people his administration keeps ignoring and insulting.

Notable comment

2010-07-29T20:18:00.004-05:00

From an online discussion with Robert Scheer:

11:27 Comment From erniesfo
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:27:39 GMT
Comment: Bob [Scheer]: I may not put this right, but Garry Wills recently wrote an article about “what he told Obama” at a secret meeting with prominent historians in NYRB. Turns out they all told Obama not to go in on Af-Pak, to get out. He was warned about his economic advisers—Summers, Geithner, Goolsby, et at, that they were retreads who had never made a correct economic assessment in their careers. Yet here we are. Could it be that Obama is such an ideologue, and, it must be said, such an elitist (fawning over folks from Ivy League schools, etc.) that this degrades any native intelligence that he might possess?

1:33 Robert Scheer
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:33:14 GMT
Comment: (To erniesfo) I don’t think I could put it better myself. I do think, sadly, because I still find the guy quite appealing, but sadly I think you nailed it. The elitism, the unwarranted respect for someone like Summers, even screwed up being head of Harvard, has a terrible track record, is responsible for the deregulation, why would he have such a high position in the White House, it’s mind boggling. [Rest of Scheer's response deals with the folly of Afghanistan.]

I don't think "ideologue" is the word erniefo really meant to use, because Obama is anything but an idealogue in my book. That is someone who is rigidly, even blindly wedded to a particular set of principles and assumptions, often unable to compromise or to be pragmatic. If Obama subscribes to any principles, I'm sure I no longer know what they are. He's compromised away most of the principles I voted for.

But "fawning...elitist" I'll go with.

11:40 Comment From erniesfo
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:40:04 GMT
Comment: Bob [Scheer]: That’s what I was afraid of—that we need an FDR and get a Hoover instead. Summers is so galling. The guy trashes women, pisses off the faculty and the students, then hoses Harvard’s endowment and ...Obama promotes him. It hurts thinking about it.

With all due respect

2010-07-27T10:09:00.001-05:00

What Krugman said.

#ObamaFAIL

2010-07-21T15:02:00.006-05:00

Sitting here, literally in tears, watching the full Shirley Sherrod speech on CNN.

Barack Obama should hang his head in public shame for this. He should apologize personally and profusely -- but I don't know how any apology could ever compensate this woman for what the administration did to her. Not ~~intentionally~~ with mean intentions, of course. But stupidly, and in cowardice.

We know what Andy Breitbart is. We know what Fox News is. This kind of thing is what they do. They cannot help themselves. You cannot expect anything better from them.

But we can, and should, expect better from this president and this administration. If we can't, then there really is no hope for us.

Update1: Jane Hamsher:

Now that the full video is out there and Sherrod’s version of events is vindicated, Obama looks foolish, impulsive and reactive. And he has only empowered Breitbart, who will continue to employ the same tactics until someone stands up to him. You would hope the President of the United States could manage that.

Update2: Sherrod Asks President Obama the Right Question: Do You Believe in My Principles?

Update3:

Ford

2010-07-08T21:23:00.002-05:00

OK, he is pretty goofy. But you gotta hand it to him for those zingers in his closing remarks. Talk about framing! Lakoff would be proud.

Modern liberalism

2010-07-08T11:17:00.005-05:00

Charles Davis writes:

Some would argue (ahem) that there can be no "balance" when it comes to protecting civilians; you don't kill them, and if you do, you should be considered a murderer and punished accordingly. It's an obvious crime only compounded by the fact the Afghan war is not in the least bit necessary to protect the national security of the United fucking States.

But then that's the difference between modern liberalism and radicalism: the former will rationalize murder if it's backed by the leading technocratic intellectuals of the day and carried out by the State under the auspices of some modern day White Man's Burden, while the latter, valuing human life equally regardless of nationality and not making moral distinctions based on a murderer's uniform, will condemn -- not condone -- violence whether it's perpetrated by governments or non-State actors. You can probably see why they're not part of the panel discussions.

Please don't count me in that description of Modern Liberalism. I guess that makes me a radical.

Busy beaver

2010-07-08T11:00:00.002-05:00

Busy, busy, busy! Could it be that Mark Luttrell is too busy running for Mayor to do his day job? He seems to lose a lot of inmates.

Remind me...

2010-06-30T18:46:00.000-05:00

Who's running for county Mayor against Mark Luttrell?

Is jail the answer?

2010-06-27T12:50:00.003-05:00

Amoral Corporations and Immoral Corporate Personnel:

Between jail and loss of all one’s assets, I think we would encourage corporate officials to find, if not a conscience, at least its functional equivalent.

To which I would note: Jail time is necessary because corporations would simply indemnify their officers for any financial penalties.

Robert Scheer

2010-06-25T20:15:00.005-05:00

Interesting comments on McChrystal and Obama from Robert Scheer, who is not inclined to be optimistic like me. (Live chat, 4 pp.)

Corrected the spelling.

Consolidation

2010-06-25T15:39:00.003-05:00

I won't claim to be an expert on this issue, but it seems to me that the first things that ought to be consolidated are the school systems. We should have a unified county school system, funded of course by a single, county-wide tax.

Every family county-wide should be in the same lifeboat. Forced by necessity if not by choice, everyone should be pulling their oars in unison for the very same thing -- for all kids, urban, suburban, or rural, white, black, Latino, Asian or whatever -- which is an outstanding education.

Until we consolidate the schools, the rest of it seems like a pointless exercise in shuffling the deckchairs on a sinking ship.

Won't be friending her

2010-06-25T13:06:00.003-05:00

Ran across my first love[r] on Facebook the other day. Yes, I'm talking about the heartbreak from umpteen gazillion years ago (she was 19, me 20). The one who moved on and married a military dude and is still married to him and still lives in the very same town. Yep, that one.

Who now has a blog. Reading her blog, it turns out her politics are very different from mine. Oh my.

Wait and see

2010-06-25T10:45:00.004-05:00

I'm going to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. Maybe his plan is to let Petraeus go to the war zone, assess the situation on the ground, and come back with a recommendation to change strategy. Let's get Petraeus confirmed, like, yesterday.

Update: Michael Hastings in HuffPost interview:

Petraeus is sort of a genius. He managed to turn what could have been catastrophic defeat in Iraq into a face-saving withdrawal. That's his mission in Afghanistan, to make it look like we didn't get run out. He's a master at playing the game... the soldiers look up to him and respect him.

Luttrell a Democratic fave?

2010-06-21T16:47:00.002-05:00

It isn't looking real good for Ford, when Luttrell is out-polling him by 3-1 on a blog (presumably) most frequented by progressive Dems...

Two birds

2010-06-21T09:33:00.002-05:00

The case of Pfc Bradley Manning (who allegedly leaked to Wikileaks) is starting to really stink. Could this just be an Army Intelligence operation, manufactured to discredit both Wikileaks and gays-in-military in one fell swoop?

Rahmbo to quit soon

2010-06-20T21:12:00.002-05:00

Rahm Emanuel expected to quit White House

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, is expected to leave his job later this year after growing tired of the "idealism" of Barack Obama's inner circle.

Washington insiders say he will quit within six to eight months in frustration at their unwillingness to "bang heads together" to get policy pushed through.

Mr Emanuel, 50, enjoys a good working relationship with Mr Obama but they are understood to have reached an understanding that differences over style mean he will serve only half the full four-year term...

This is not an Onion article.

Misunderstood

2010-06-20T20:07:00.003-05:00

Now look what you all have done. You've made Joe cry.

(h/t Gawker for the photo)

Alert

2010-06-19T12:28:00.002-05:00

I swear I had nothing to do with this. I am consulting my attorney.

Update1: Apparently BP PR was left out of the loop, too. Monumental screwup -- or that pesky language barrier again?

Take this Angle seriously

2010-06-16T11:55:00.003-05:00

DKos: I hate to be the one to inform you, but there are enough Americans who AGREE with this point of view to cause some serious mischief for the rest of us. Harry Reid better not sleep easy just yet.

Lost in Afghanistan

2010-06-14T17:36:00.001-05:00

Like I said in January, losing builds character. It's a shame, however, that Obama now owns this loss.

Panic Time in Afghanistan

Oh lord

2010-06-13T22:41:00.014-05:00

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan. (via Atrios)

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

Any questions?

Update1: The Mineral Miracle? Or A Massive Information Operation?
Update2: Media Discovers Large Pockets of Minerals in Afghanistan
Update3: Panic Time in Afghanistan
Update4: NYT reporter defends minerals piece, lashes out at critics, and NYT Fights Back on Afghan Scoop
Update5: American Voices: Vast Mineral Resources Found In Afghanistan (The Onion)

Like I said in January, losing [a war] builds character. It's a shame, however, that Obama now owns this loss.

The Spill, the Scandal, and the President

2010-06-12T11:42:00.003-05:00

Rolling Stone (via CommonDreams.org). Sample:

...Since 2007, according to analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, BP has received 760 citations for "egregious and willful" safety violations - those "committed with plain indifference to or intentional disregard for employee safety and health." The rest of the oil industry combined has received a total of one.

The company applied the same deadly cost-cutting mentality to its oil rig in the Gulf. BP, it is important to note, is less an oil company than a bank that finances oil exploration; unlike ExxonMobil, which owns most of the equipment it uses to drill, BP contracts out almost everything. That includes the Deepwater Horizon rig that it leased from a firm called Transocean. BP shaved $500,000 off its overhead by deploying a blowout preventer without a remote-control trigger - a fail-safe measure required in many countries but not mandated by MMS, thanks to intense industry lobbying. It opted to use cheap, single-walled piping for the well, and installed only six of the 21 cement spacers recommended by its contractor, Halliburton - decisions that significantly increased the risk of a severe explosion. It also skimped on critical testing that could have shown whether explosive gas was getting into the system as it was being cemented, and began removing mud that protected the well before it was sealed with cement plugs.

As BP was cutting corners aboard the rig, the Obama administration was plotting the greatest expansion of offshore drilling in half a century. In 2008, as prices at the pump neared $5 a gallon, President Bush had lifted an executive moratorium on offshore drilling outside the Gulf that had been implemented by his father following the Exxon Valdez. On the campaign trail, Obama had stressed that offshore drilling "will not make a real dent in current gas prices or meet the long-term challenge of energy independence." But once in office, he bowed to the politics of "drill, baby, drill." Hoping to use oil as a bargaining chip to win votes for climate legislation in Congress, Obama unveiled an aggressive push for new offshore drilling in the Arctic, the Southeastern seaboard and new waters in the Gulf, closer to Florida than ever before. In doing so, he ignored his administration's top experts on ocean science, who warned that the offshore plan dramatically understated the risks of an oil spill and petitioned Salazar to exempt the Arctic from drilling until more scientific studies could be conducted.

Undeterred, Obama and Salazar appeared together at Andrews Air Force Base on March 31st to introduce the plan. The stagecraft was pure Rove in its technicolor militaristic patriotism. The president's podium was set up in front of the cockpit of an F-18, flanked by a massive American flag. "We are not here to do what is easy," Salazar declared. "We are here to do what is right." He insisted that his reforms at MMS were working: "We are making decisions based on sound information and sound science." The president, for his part, praised Salazar as "one of the finest secretaries of Interior we've ever had" and stressed that his administration had studied the drilling plan for more than a year. "This is not a decision that I've made lightly," he said. Two days later, he issued an even more sweeping assurance. "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," the president said. "They are technologically very advanced."

Eighteen days later, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Deepwater Horizon rig went off like a bomb.

Serious ass-kicking

2010-06-09T22:30:00.003-05:00

Scarecrow is pissed. Money quote:

Well, screw you too, Mr. Obama. You have this backwards. It is we who don’t need you and your crowd. We know whose ass to kick. With no party behind you, it’s one term and out. We want our party back.

It's hard to blame him. Rahmbo shoulda been fired long ago. Any president who can't figure out what a disaster Rahmbo is, probably doesn't belong in that office.

Rahmbo

2010-06-09T09:12:00.002-05:00

Hasn't the bastard been fired yet? I guess not.

“Absolute idiots” who “flushed $10 million down the toilet” in a “pointless exercise” that may “cost us the House.” That’s what ~~Rahm Emanuel~~ a “senior White House official” had to say about organized labor tonight after Blanche Lincoln pulled out a victory over challenger Bill Halter.

Deep thought

2010-06-04T16:14:00.002-05:00

Oil globs reaching Florida beaches, affecting rich white folks. Time to get serious?

More Rahmbo action?

2010-06-02T21:38:00.004-05:00

CO-Sen: Romanoff Releases White House Email with Job “Suggestions”:

The three jobs in the email were:

* Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID
* Director, Office of Democracy and Governance, USAID
* Director, U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA)

It’s worth noting that unlike the unpaid position purportedly offered by Bill Clinton to Pennsylvania Senate candidate Joe Sestak, all three of these positions appear to be paid government jobs.

Colorado’s Democratic primary is August 10. This could be Andrew Romanoff’s opportunity to close the gap with Bennet; at the very least, it’s a problem for Jim Messina.

I wish this were a problem for Messina's boss.

No balls

2010-06-01T13:40:00.003-05:00

In the press ~~conference~~ briefing, Gibbs makes two things perfectly clear:

1. The White House "regrets" loss of life on the flotilla, but isn't ready to take sides.

2. The White House is "angered" at the oil spill, but isn't ready to kick BP's ass.

Oh yeah, and one more thing:

3. The president has no balls.

Rahmbo involved?

2010-05-31T18:53:00.002-05:00

Coincidentally, or not, Rahm Emanuel was in Israel just before the attack and had met with Netanyahu.

Greed trumps humanity, continued

2010-05-31T09:21:00.005-05:00

This country needs a few good communists.

Hope in this age of bankrupt capitalism will come with the return of the language of class conflict. It does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism led to another form of enslavement of the working class, but we have to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed. We have to grasp, as Marx did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill and lie to make money. They throw poor families out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars to make profits, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, loot the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship only money and power. And, as Marx knew, unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself. The nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico is the perfect metaphor for the corporate state. It is the same nightmare seen in postindustrial pockets from the old mill towns in New England to the abandoned steel mills in Ohio. It is a nightmare that Iraqis, Pakistanis and Afghans, mourning their dead, live each day.

Deep thought

2010-05-30T19:57:00.000-05:00

RT @Bob5540 Deep thought: In the pinochle of life, greed trumps humanity.

Rahmbegone

2010-05-28T16:32:00.001-05:00

It would be nice to see Rahmbo get canned over this Sestak job offer dust-up, wouldn't it?

Rahmbo

2010-05-14T21:24:00.001-05:00

What? Does this guy Emanuel still have a friggin' job? Why hasn't he been fired?

The finger

2010-05-13T14:28:00.003-05:00

If there's one thing Sheriff Mark Luttrell should have been good at, it's prison administration. When his report on the Stokes affair comes out, will he point the finger of blame at himself? And if so, how will he discipline himself?

Shallow thought

2010-05-09T20:48:00.005-05:00

Some of you might not want to hear it, but I say this in all seriousness: Whether one agrees with everything he says, there can be no doubt that Louis Farrakhan is a brilliant man.

[If you're interested, the two-hour "One-on-One" interview repeats at 11:00 pm tonight on TV One on Comcast.]

Update: First airing just ended. Worth a watch? Absolutely. Set your DVR to record it at 11.

Change. Believe.

2010-05-07T22:52:00.002-05:00

Not. Meet the new Prez. Same as the old Prez.

#constitutionFAIL

Short

2010-05-07T10:37:00.001-05:00

Looks like a good book: Fred Branfman on ‘The Big Short’.

#capitalismFAIL

Ford vs. Luttrell

2010-05-05T12:04:00.003-05:00

There are definitely chinks in Luttrell's armor. I am hearing that there are employees at the jail and elsewhere who know the man a whole lot better than county voters do, and who may be willing to speak up and tell us what we need to know -- now that they aren't in such fear for their jobs.

And let's not forget Willie Horton.

Question

2010-05-03T13:46:00.003-05:00

Is it too soon to start making comparisons to Chernobyl? Just asking.

Shallow thought

2010-05-02T12:43:00.002-05:00

It SO needs to be said. Free market capitalism FAIL.

I had thought it was rather obvious after Enron. But apparently many people wanted to believe that was an aberration, not a symptom of a flaw. But after the events of the past several years, can there be any lingering doubt?

In the pinochle of life, greed trumps humanity.

Obama Oops

2010-04-30T14:48:00.004-05:00

I hope Obama FIRES who ever put the unfortunate and false words in his mouth that "Oil Rigs Today Don't Generally Cause Spills". (Better still, let it be Rahmbo who gets canned.)

Unfolding story: How it might have happened. And more.

And this just in (via Atrios): Worst-case scenario: Equivalent to four Valdiz spills a week.

Question

2010-04-29T22:11:00.003-05:00

Help me out here. Is the issue branding, a trademark, a copyright, or is it about a patent? You see, apparently the ADL is claiming intellectual property rights in anything Nazi.

Deep thought

2010-04-28T19:08:00.003-05:00

Couldn't have happened to a nicer sheriff. (But I hope and pray nobody gets murdered because of it.)

...and Stokes is recaptured. No harm done -- except to someone's Mayoral aspirations.

County Mayor general election

2010-04-27T12:20:00.006-05:00

...Two words: Willie Horton. (Don't be bashful, Dems.)

There's still time...

2010-04-26T17:13:00.001-05:00

...to save your sorry asses, Dems. You too, Obama.

American empire is over

2010-04-26T09:54:00.004-05:00

Should we be taking the secessionists more seriously? Chris Hedges thinks so. Money quote:

What all these movements grasp, however, is that the American empire is over. It cannot be sustained. They understand that we must disengage peacefully, learn to speak with a new humility and live with a new simplicity, or see an economic collapse that could trigger a perverted Christian fascism, a ruthless police state and internecine violence.

Letters

2010-04-25T10:52:00.002-05:00

Most of the letters in this mornings' paper make me ill. Delusional or cynical: it doesn't matter. They are lying to themselves. If lying to ourselves is what it takes to "move beyond race," then I hope we never do.

Count your chickens

2010-04-23T13:27:00.001-05:00

With a hat tip to Josh Marshall at TPM, here's a site that gives you chicken-denominated pricing for common medical procedures, under the Lowden Plan.

Leading the way in TN

2010-04-22T18:22:00.002-05:00

State Rep. Mike Bell (R-TN) is leading the way...into the nineteenth century.

Shallow thought

2010-04-22T13:13:00.002-05:00

The Baby-Boomers have really f***ed this planet up, haven't we?

Deep thought

2010-04-20T20:51:00.007-05:00

I'm sure the kindly Mr. Nels Oleson would have accepted chickens in payment. Why can't we all just go back to those kinder, gentler days on the prairie? No kidding (via Washington Monthly):

"I'm telling you that this works," the Republican candidate [Sue Lowden] explained. "You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say, 'I'll paint your house.' I mean, that's the old days of what people would do to get health care with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I'm not backing down from that system."

Update: Donate chickens to Sue Lowden's campaign.

Update2: In other news, The Onion announced today that it will close its publications, because it has become virtually impossible to parody life, when life itself is a parody of life...whatever "life" is.

Update3: Chickens offered for heart transplant.

Drudge no longer rules our world

2010-04-19T17:17:00.003-05:00

Twitter rules!

You can get a sense of how sad Drudge's world is these days by following @Drudge_Report, and watching him pitifully tweeting stories we'd all heard, laughed over, and forgotten about yesterday if not two days ago. That's because we know whom to follow -- and it sure ain't Matt Drudge!

About time the old fart got dethroned.

Shallow thought

2010-04-19T14:56:00.002-05:00

Goldman Sachs. The Catholic Church. A pair of moral hazards, if you ask me.

Deep thought

2010-04-18T21:40:00.000-05:00

People, please try to remember that all major corporations of today are direct lineal descendants of the kindly Mr. Nels Oleson. Now, if it doesn't always seem that way, it's only because circumstances can sometimes intrude.

Max enjoyment

2010-04-18T09:50:00.002-05:00

Max Keiser's outrage: Beautiful to watch. And even more.

(h/t Rising Hegemon, via ql at Eschaton)

Deep thought

2010-04-17T13:18:00.002-05:00

Gawd, I love the smell of unregulated, free-market capitalism in the morning. It smells...greedelicious! Yum!

Fascism isn't perfect

2010-04-16T22:30:00.003-05:00

Being a dictator is hard work and sometimes you can make a mistake, admits Steve Jobs.

Suck on this, Gates!

2010-04-13T22:36:00.002-05:00

Try this out for perspective: Those men could have been walking into a bar in Tennessee.

Scam?

2010-04-13T21:46:00.003-05:00

"Crash The Tea Party" might be a scam. Makes sense because (1) It would make the real Tea Partiers look less crazy by comparison. (2) Gives the real Tea Partiers someone else to blame for all this racism (not their doing!).

Sully sullies

2010-04-12T14:14:00.003-05:00

I have to agree with Andrew Sullivan:

Lie after lie after lie. And the illegal imprisonment and torture of individuals often completely unrelated to terrorism at all. And no accountability. This was America for almost eight years. And Obama has perpetuated the avoidance of responsibility with staggering diligence.

Must be something in the White House water.

Deep thought

2010-04-12T10:18:00.001-05:00

If Steve Cohen is the blackest white guy around, then would AC Wharton be the whitest black guy you know?

Garbage

2010-04-12T10:13:00.003-05:00

I don't know why it would be more efficient to have two or three garbage trucks rolling down my street each week instead of one. Supposed cost savings would have to come from somewhere else. Outta somebody's hide, I think. Not hard to guess whose.

Battle of the stupids

2010-04-12T09:09:00.002-05:00

Google preparing iPad rival.

Another shallow thought

2010-04-11T11:58:00.001-05:00

Steve Jobs and Markos are both annoying icons. Let them have each other.

Shallow thought

2010-04-11T11:38:00.002-05:00

I think maybe Sydney Chism has gone batty in his old age.

What a disappointment

2010-04-10T13:47:00.003-05:00

Thought it might be a good time to show this image again. And TBogg seems to agree.

Shallow thought

2010-04-08T13:03:00.005-05:00

Maybe Fox News can't ditch Glenn Beck for the same reason GOP's afraid to fire Steele: Potentially even more dangerous outside than inside.

Deep thought

2010-04-08T12:39:00.004-05:00

I am so sick of the politicians in this country, I'd almost feel like joining some new anti-government party, if it didn't have a stupid, effeminate name.

Todd Jackson, you are dead to me

2010-04-05T15:46:00.004-05:00

Who is Todd Jackson? The world's most reckless and feckless product manager:

Google rolls out privacy reset for Buzz social network

Google has said that it will begin to roll out a privacy reset for its controversial social network Buzz.

The search giant will ask all its users to confirm or change their privacy settings, starting on 5 April.

The firm was forced to make a series of changes to Buzz just days after launch, following a backlash from users worried about privacy intrusions.

Last month, US Congress members urged regulators to investigate the service and the private information it exposed.

The latest tweaks will also show every aspect of a user's profile, from public settings to the websites users are connected to, and who they are following or being followed by.

"Shortly after launching Google Buzz, we quickly realised we didn't get everything right and moved as fast as possible to improve the Buzz experience," said Buzz product manager Todd Jackson in a blog post.

"Offering everyone who uses our products transparency and control is very important to us."

My advice: Go to Gmail / Settings / Buzz, and do two things:

--First, decline all the options (except the Disable) and click "Save Changes".

--Then, click "Disable Google Buzz" and answer "yes".

Remembering

2010-04-04T08:36:00.005-05:00

Depressing day. It happens every year at this time: The day when Memphis is helplessly forced to remember the thing for which Memphis is most remembered.

Coincidentally, it also happens to be the day when many are remembering the Resurrection. There will be no resurrection for Memphis, but this year we can pray that good news flushes the bad, and that tomorrow we can all get back to forgetting.

The devil

2010-04-03T10:54:00.003-05:00

Maybe you've already heard about this, but it was news to me when I saw it in the comments on the Washington Monthly blog. Bingo:

For those who have to deal with family Fox viewers, use the Beck method. Simply tell them FOX is code for Satan.

F=6th letter of the alphabet and 6 is 6
O=15th letter of the alphabet and 1+5=6
X=24th letter of the alphabet and 2+4=6

There you have it folks, 666.

It helps to use a blackboard, like Glenn Beck. But the point is well taken.

Game over

2010-04-03T09:25:00.003-05:00

I think Lipscomb should play hardball and just tell them flat out: If they don't do something NOW, we're just going to have to hand the Pyramid deal to the other bidder.

Census

2010-04-01T15:34:00.002-05:00

Why is the U.S. Census Bureau on my case? Why is Mayor Wharton in my face?

The damned form asked me who is living in my household on April 1, 2010. In case you haven't looked at a calendar recently, I'll clue you in. TODAY is April 1. Not yesterday. Not last week or two weeks ago. If I had sent you the form two weeks ago, I would have been knowingly lying to the government. That's a Federal offense. NOW I can send the form in.

Great idea, let's do it

2010-04-01T15:07:00.004-05:00

This is a great idea!

And for president, let me suggest Carly Fiorina. She had to be doing something right, to be fired by the board of directors at HP.

Good question.

2010-03-29T11:54:00.001-05:00

Is America yearning for fascism?

Out of control

2010-03-24T15:35:00.006-05:00

I guess this pretty much says it all about the right.

But it's just an intellectual exercise. I don't think anything will change, anytime soon. The right wing political establishment has every incentive to continue the crap, and to ramp it up even further. There is no negative feedback loop in the system. What loop there was, has abdicated.

It would probably take a sudden and brutal shock to the system to bring this arrhythmia under control again. It's anybody's guess what form that might take.

Armed to the teeth

2010-03-24T13:35:00.005-05:00

Digby (being sarcastic):

"It sure is a good thing the whole nutball faction in this country is armed to the teeth."

I don't think that armed insurrection -- or the threat of it -- is a new idea for the nutballs. I think it's been the hidden agenda of the NRA crowd for quite a while. Now it's coming out of the closet (pardon the metaphor). Just saying.

h/t Blue Texan at FDL for the photo

It's a brave new world

2010-03-23T11:51:00.003-05:00

And I don't mean that in a positive sense:

A tea party organizer angry over Rep. Thomas Perriello’s (D-Va.) vote in favor of health care reform published what he thought was the freshman member’s home address on a blog, in case any readers “want to drop by” and provide a “personal touch” to their views.

Rather than giving out Perriello’s address however, the tea party activist mistakenly printed the home address of the congressman’s brother. Perriello’s brother and wife have four children under the age of 8.

...What I meant was: If you do anything that could be termed "liberal," or you share a name with anyone who does, then you've got to be brave to walk out your front door. Hope that clarifies.

Deep thought

2010-03-22T08:05:00.003-05:00

President Pelosi got the job done. Pretty darn impressive.

The best part

2010-03-22T06:25:00.008-05:00

The best thing that comes out of this Health Care Reform, as explained by none other than David Frum: Republican Waterloo.

The biggest winners? Limbaugh and Beck:

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

To which I'd add that the GOP not only screwed the pooch but did it with such style and class that the images and sounds will not be soon be forgotten. Bravo!

Goodness is as goodness does

2010-03-19T16:23:00.003-05:00

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good," Steve Cohen and others have said.

This isn't even good. (PDF file, via FireDogLake, "Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Car Bill.")

Paul Bremer

2010-03-18T22:14:00.002-05:00

In my day, we called this attitude: "white supremacy". I don't know what they call it now. I'm sure there must be a new name for it.

Kos hearts the new Kucinich

2010-03-18T15:32:00.002-05:00

Here.

For the record, I don't. I guess I'm sick of politicians who talk the talk but don't walk the walk. I guess (compared to Markos, at least) that makes me a radical leftist commie socialist DFH. Please excuse the redundancy.

AC Wharton is another Willie Hirington

2010-03-17T22:35:00.002-05:00

This by polar donkey is a "must read" -- hopefully by AC Wharton himself!

...autoegocrat draws a comparison to Obama in the comments -- a point that I had briefly considered making. But he did a much better job of it than I would have. Thanks, auto!

Just saying

2010-03-17T16:42:00.004-05:00

I don't have one of those "Cadillac" health plans, so I shouldn't care.

But I do care. I think using a health plan excise tax to finance HCR is pretty slimey. No, it's just plain wrong. Just saying.

I think the income tax should be raised. I'd go with anything up to 90% top rate, which is where it was when I was actually as young as I look. Hmmm. Doesn't need go anywhere near that high? Lord, we are blessed!

Fcking Rt*rded

2010-03-17T16:07:00.005-05:00

Is that guy STILL working at the White House?

I’m not usually interested in White House intrigue, and I’m no Kremlinologist, but it does seem bizarre to claim that Democratic consolidation behind Obamacare is a vindication for Rahm Emanuel, of all people.

The story as everyone reported it was that after the Massachusetts election, Emanuel wanted Obama to go small, basically give up on comprehensive health reform — and that Emanuel lost out when Obama decided to go big instead. Now the fact that going big looks likely to get through Congress — not in the bag yet, of course — and that if it does, it will almost surely be good for the Democrats, confirms that … Emanuel was right?

Actually, does anyone remember the 2006 midterms? As I recall it, Emanuel wanted Dems to stay quiet about Iraq, and run on the economy — but was overruled. And then when Dems pulled out a historic victory, he claimed credit.

Let's be clear about one thing, however: I like Rahm Emanuel slightly better than I like Karl Rove. Credit where credit is due, and all that.

...Jane Hamsher weighs in.

Medicare for all

2010-03-17T13:44:00.002-05:00

I love this quote:

This situation has most sentient folks on the left deeply disturbed -- hell, I was just chatting with my 78-year-old mother-in-law on the phone 20 minutes ago and she said in her sweet Southern way, “the only thing I’m mad at Obama about is that I just don’t understand why he didn’t open Medicare up to everybody and be done with it.” Indeed.

Exactly.

...More here.

A little sh*t disturbing

2010-03-17T10:54:00.006-05:00

Well, I guess Dennis Kucinich is now off the list of potential primary challengers in 2012. So...can we put Alan Grayson ON the list? Vote here.

55-40 Memphis

2012

Disqualified to be president

FWIW

How to Record the Cops

A guide to the technology for keeping government accountable

Food riots / J Edgar's back!

UN Warned of Major New Food Crisis at Emergency Meeting in RomeFBI Raids Homes of Several Twin Cities War Protesters

(Not) Unbelievable!

Tick-Tocking the Clusterf ...

The Dems are suicidal

TPM: House Dems unlikely to act on tax cutsHuffPost: Dems likely to punt on tax issueThe Bush Billionaire Tax Cut DanceCriminal StupidWhy Did the DCCC Lie to Their Members About Health Care?

One more

President Obama Needs to Fire David Petraeus

Shallow thought

To Obama Admin’s Reported Surprise, Private Insurers Skirt New Health Care LawObama Plots New Disappointments for Progressives

2012

Bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb Iran

Partners with the Devil

Hell hath no fury...

Peter Beinart

Krugman

Notable comment

With all due respect

#ObamaFAIL

Ford

Modern liberalism

Busy beaver

Remind me...

Is jail the answer?

Robert Scheer

Consolidation

Won't be friending her

Wait and see

Luttrell a Democratic fave?

Two birds

Rahmbo to quit soon

Misunderstood

Alert

Take this Angle seriously

Lost in Afghanistan

Oh lord

The Spill, the Scandal, and the President

Serious ass-kicking

Rahmbo

Deep thought

More Rahmbo action?

No balls

Rahmbo involved?

Greed trumps humanity, continued

Deep thought

Rahmbegone

Rahmbo

The finger

Shallow thought

Change. Believe.

Short

Ford vs. Luttrell

Question

Shallow thought

Obama Oops

Question

Deep thought

County Mayor general election

There's still time...

American empire is over

Letters

Count your chickens

Leading the way in TN

Shallow thought

Deep thought

Drudge no longer rules our world

Shallow thought

Deep thought

Max enjoyment

Deep thought

Fascism isn't perfect

Suck on this, Gates!

Scam?

Sully sullies

UN Warned of Major New Food Crisis at Emergency Meeting in Rome
FBI Raids Homes of Several Twin Cities War Protesters

TPM: House Dems unlikely to act on tax cuts
HuffPost: Dems likely to punt on tax issue
The Bush Billionaire Tax Cut Dance
Criminal Stupid
Why Did the DCCC Lie to Their Members About Health Care?

To Obama Admin’s Reported Surprise, Private Insurers Skirt New Health Care Law
Obama Plots New Disappointments for Progressives

Fcking Rt*rded