Silly Kos Kids, Politics Is for Adults

From imao.us

O'Reilly's has been hammering DailyKos for being a hate site, something obvious to anyone who has scanned the front page. This light shined on the cockroaches caused JetBlue to pull sponsorship on YearlyKos, DailyKos's once a year event where the writers of DailyKos emerge from their parents' basements and sit in circles and defecate on each other while Democrats pretend to listen to their insane blather.

Now, you have to understand, liberals are used to being coddled by the media, and the vitamin D deficient denizens of DailyKos have particularly thin skin. As right-wingers, we're used to being accused of every ill of mankind, but if one person suggests to a Kwazy Kos Kid that he's not quite in the mainstream, he gets apoplectic. They think that the news media is right-leaning, and you have to be quite insane to reach that viewpoint. We're talking "Psychologist Running Out of the Room Screaming, 'Don't Let Him Touch Me and Get His Crazy on Me!'" insane. So having a particular show on a news network turn against them is intolerable beyond their understanding. With the defection of JetBlue, they're less inclined to take a hard look at themselves and more open to the idea of freaking out like a bunch of rats that just had their cage shaken.

So the Kwazy Kos Kids and the rest of the Candy Land-based community are now shaking their tiny fists in impotent rage against FOX News's advertisers. Now having much combined spending power (it's the Bush economy's fault that their parents cut their allowances), they're hoping they can annoy the advertisers to death by calling them over and over (and since one of FOX News's biggest advertisers is HeadOn, I don't think they'll even consider being told the same thing over and over annoying).

Their efforts most likely won't amount to anything, but I think it would be a great idea if FOX News struck back by profiling a Kwazy Kos Kid each day thus putting the site under further spotlight for the sake of humiliation. Start with those who post on the front page and move on to the most prolific commenters and diarists. They should all be quite interesting since I sincerely doubt that any regular participant on the DailyKos is mentally stable, because why would any sane person regularly read and comment on such drivel?

"BooshH4ter4000 is against war though he thinks that violence against Republicans is sometimes justified. He believes that terrorism is simply media hype and that President Bush is going to turn America into dictatorship and refuse to leave office in 2009. He also takes pride in how much smarter he and the rest of DailyKos are than the American public. Such a proclamation was met with great agreement in the comments, a few of which were grammatically correct.
"Posting on the front page of the Daily Kos, this is one of the more prominent DailyKos members that Hillary and Obama will try to seek the approval of at YearlyKos."

Really, this would be a great service FOX News could do for America. People like everyone at DailyKos should be ridiculed away from any active participation in our government. We don't tolerate overt racists participating in the two major parties, and thus we shouldn't tolerate the Kwazy Kos Kids who are even nuttier haters. They certainly are free to have their silly little site, but participation in it should be a conscious decision to be pariahs. That's just common sense. I'm not sure how big a difference the Kwazy Kos Kids' involvement in politics makes if any and whether the Democrats patronizing them and pretending they don't think they're weird or insane has any effect on major policy, but we should at least follow principle and make sure no one outside of their weird circle even acts like they take those goobers seriously. Like all mentally unstable people, they need to be isolated for their own good... and perhaps have a large amount of voltage shot through their brains. It's the compassionate thing to do.

Let Me Sleep On It....

Odd, but whenever I read an article about the News Corp attempt to take over Dow Jones, the Meatloaf song "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" starts playing in my head.

But that's just me. Heh.

The Rise of Russian Fascism

Ignore the frivolous title to this article and read the whole thing. It'll scare the hell out of you.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=471324&in_page_id=1770

Homeland Insecurity?

From the WSJ:

Homeland Security as Backwater?

Here's an interesting point about the Eliot Spitzer scandal, which we noted yesterday: One of the aides to New York's governor who was implicated in the improper use of state police to gather material for a smear campaign against state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno was William Howard, Spitzer's assistant secretary for homeland security.

Readers may remember that three years ago, New Jersey's Gov. Jim McGreevey declared himself a "gay American" and confessed to an affair with a male aide, whom the media described as his "homeland security czar." (The ex-aide, Golan Cipel, denies the affair, accuses McGreevey of sexual harassment, and says "czar" overstates his role, which was to act "as a liaison between the governor's office and the various state agencies responsible for law enforcement and homeland security.")

Homeland security is the common thread linking these two very different scandals, both involving Democratic administrations in states that were among the hardest hit by 9/11. Democrats tend to talk a lot about homeland security, because by and large they aren't wild about either military or intelligence operations. But this at least makes us wonder if they take homeland security all that seriously either.

It may be that this is a bipartisan problem, as evidenced by President Bush's abortive nomination of Bernard Kerik as secretary of homeland security. On the other hand, Kerik had held a serious homeland-security-related post, police commissioner of New York City. Then again, he served there under the man who is now the Republican front-runner for president.

Is homeland security a dumping ground for dubious political characters? It's a question worth pondering.

Interview with Bruce Fein

This is the transcript of an interview Thom Hartmann did with Bruce last week. Fein.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional scholar, a lawyer, international consultant with Bruce Fein & Associates and The Lichfield Group. He's also the chairman of the American Freedom Agenda, ... an organization devoted to restoring checks and balances and protections against government abuse. He served in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration as General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission and has been affiliated with conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, and now writes a weekly column for both the Washington Times and Politico.com. Bruce Fein, welcome to the program. He was one of the guys who authored the original articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton. He thinks Bush should be impeached and explains why in this interview. Comments?

Click here to read

Bush was against a pay raise for the troops before he was for it

Bush Threatened To Veto Same Military Pay Raise That He Now Uses To Attack Anti-War Critics

In his Rose Garden address this morning, President Bush criticized the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to pull the Defense Authorization bill from consideration, saying the move would deny a pay raise to soldiers serving in Iraq. “Congress has failed to act on” a bill that would “provide funds to upgrade our equipment, for our troops in Iraq and provides a pay raise for our military,” said Bush.

“Even members of Congress who no longer support our effort in Iraq should at least be able to provide an increase in pay for our troops fighting there,”

here's the link

BUT - and this is from the Army Times dated MAY:

White House: 3.5 percent pay hike unnecessary
By Rick Maze - Staff writerPosted : Wednesday May 16, 2007 17:34:13 EDT

Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.
The Bush administration had asked for a 3 percent military raise for Jan. 1, 2008, enough to match last year’s average pay increase in the private sector. The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private-sector pay raises.
The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/05/military_payhike_whitehouse_070516/

Patriotism (Again)

Jeez, Louise. From opinionjournal.com

Mrs. Clinton's Patriotism Problem

Hillary Clinton has joined the list of Democratic politicians who have publicly raised questions about their own patriotism. ABC News has the story:

[Mrs.] Clinton, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has since May requested a briefing from Pentagon officials as to whether they have undertaken any serious planning for a future withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

On Thursday she received a response from the Pentagon that she told ABC News was "outrageous and offensive."

The letter from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman did not mince words. "Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies," he wrote.

"I deeply resent the administration's continuing effort to impugn the patriotism of those of us who are asking hard questions," Clinton told ABC News.

Well, here is the letter; and this is the offending passage:

Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks in order to achieve compromises on national reconciliation, amending the Iraqi constitution, and other contentious issues. Fear of a precipitate U.S. withdrawal also exacerbates sectarian trends in Iraqi politics as factions become more concerned with achieving short-term tactical advantages rather than reaching the long-term agreements necessary for a stable and secure Iraq.

There's not a word in there (or anywhere else in the letter) about Mrs. Clinton's patriotism or lack thereof. Edelman only argues that it is harmful for politicians to make public demands for early withdrawal because such demands tend to embolden the enemy. He is making a claim about the wisdom and likely consequences of her actions, not about her motives.

In the early days of the Cold War, before liberal Democrats decided to bug out of Vietnam, there was an adage that "politics ends at the water's edge"--that America's political parties, whatever their differences on domestic policy, were obliged to present a united front to the outside world.
Today's liberal Democrats would invert this principle. They assert the moral right not only to undermine U.S. foreign policy but to do so with impunity--that is, they wish to be immune from criticism for their statements and actions.

We suppose it's nice work if you can get it, but we'll never understand why they think that defensively denying that they lack patriotism is a winning approach.

Public opinion polls during WWII

Percent approving of the way FDR was doing his job: never below 65%.

Percent believing Allies winning: after November 1942, never below 75%.

Percent willing to make peace with Hitler: never above 25%.

What about that up or down vote?

Remember how the Repugs used to scream that the Dems were "obstructionists"? and they threatened to "nuke" the filibuster?

How about now? What about that up or down vote they used to scream about? Now they want to switch on a "permanent filibuster"! Go ahead and defend that, Gonzo.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/17/filibuster-conservatives/

"The same conservatives filibustering tonight were singing a different tune two years ago. When Democrats held up the confirmation of a few of President Bush’s right-wing judicial nominees, conservatives repeatedly complained of “obstructionism.”
Senate conservatives had threatened to deploy the “nuclear option,” which would have eliminated the traditional Senate practice of filibustering.
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS): “[Filibustering] is wrong. It’s not supportable under the Constitution. And if they insist on persisting with these filibusters, I’m perfectly prepared to blow the place up.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spokesman: “Senator McConnell always has and continues to fully support the use of what has become known as the ‘[nuclear]’ option in order to restore the norms and traditions of the Senate.”
Today, however, these conservatives are proposing the exact opposite of the nuclear option — a permanent filibuster. The Washington Post reports today that McConnell has requested that all Iraq amendments meet a 60 vote threshold, an effort designed to quietly block withdrawal legislation from ever passing the Senate:
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell responded to Reid with a counteroffer: an automatic 60-vote threshold for all key Iraq amendments, eliminating the time-consuming process of clearing procedural hurdles. … [A]ll the controversial war-related votes held since Democrats took control of the Senate in January have required 60 “yeas” to pass.
“It’s a shame that we find ourselves in the position that we’re in,” McConnell said. “It produces a level of animosity and unity on the minority side that makes it more difficult for the majority to pass important legislation.”
Conservatives who decried obstructionism when advocating for an up-or-down vote on Bush’s right-wing judicial nominees today stand in the way of an up-or-down vote on withdrawing troops from Iraq..."

Murder in Tacoma

I know, I know. I have said that I would not post Michelle Malkin's invective here. But her links and genuine outrage in this piece about the murder of a 12 year old in Tacoma are heartfelt.

http://michellemalkin.com/2007/07/13/bloody-consequences-of-open-borders-the-kidnapping-and-murder-of-zina-linnik/

Bush Has Lost Noonan

Peggy Noonan, Reagan's speechwriter, weighs in on Bush and the vox populi. Interesting reading.

I suspect people pick up with Mr. Bush the sense that part of his drama, part of the story of his presidency, is that he gets to be the romantic about history, and the American people get to be the realists. Of the two, the latter is not the more enjoyable role.

Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country, and the beacon it can be for the world, and what the Founders did. But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities.

With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He's the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it's weird.

Kos gets one right

Link: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/12/212119/987

God Hates Nickels
by Hunter

Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 06:50:23 PM PDT

Having a Hindu chaplain give a routine invocation in the United States Senate turns out to be one of the more traumatic things that's happened to American fundamentalists of late. From the perennially outraged and aggressively creepy American Family Association, via John at AMERICAblog:

"In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods," [David Barton] explains. "And certainly that was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, did the Declaration [of Independence] when they talked about Creator -- that's not one that fits here because we don't know which creator we're talking about within the Hindu religion."

Hmm...

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1782

Dumbasses. I guess they're going to have to boycott Jefferson now.

Why I like Edwards

David Mizner sums it up over at Kos:

Also because we sense in Edwards a freedom that's rare for a top-tier presidential candidate. He's relatively free from the ties that normally bind candidates. Conventional wisdom, the approval of the Establishment, pressure from big donors: none of this is constraining him.

He's a liberated poltician, and a liberated politician, dear Kossacks, is a beautiful and dangerous thing.

A Great Lady Passes

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19717425/

Character counts

If Fred Thompson does get in I hope this information is plastered all over the place. He'd be Nixon->Bush all over again. WE CAN'T AFFORD ANOTHER SLEEZE LIKE THIS!

Not all would put a heroic sheen on Thompson's Watergate role

We're All Failures

I should have posted this earlier but I wanted to think about what I could add to it.

http://www.politico.com/rogersimon/


...and there's not much I can. Simon is dead-on. This country was founded by and sustained by failures and rejects.

America is great because of the fabric of ideas that comprise the whole cloth. There is vision in things that Suze and Garrett promote that I don't see at all and the reverse I believe is true. Eventually some of their ideas become a thread and some of mine do, too, and another cross-stitch is added to the cloth.

I'd like the libs to agree with me on more issues and they'd like me to do likewise. But, perhaps, it's best if we don't. Perhaps it's what makes us strong - we hold to the same ideals but with different interpretations.

We're a junkyard dog with a lot of different genes. I think it makes us better.

A memo for David Brooks

David Corn thinks David Brooks may be a little off in his op-eds.

He claimed his trip proved Iraq had made no such attempts, though his own report said nothing of the kind.

He did not claim his trip had "proved"--your word--the matter. He wrote that after speaking with past and present officials of Niger and "people associated with the country's uranium business," he had concluded that "it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." (We can forward you a copy of his op-ed.) And, as you know, columnists of the Times are not fact-checked. But we would point out that in his Times op-ed, Mr. Wilson did not claim, as you state, that "his trip proved Iraq had made no such attempts" to purchase uranium. He maintained that "there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired." And--not to belabor what might be a fact-checking issue--according to a Senate intelligence committee investigation, the report written by the CIA on Mr. Wilson's trip "described how the structure of Niger's uranium mines would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Niger to sell uranium to any rogue states."

Libby Bruhaha

I think this sums up my feelings pretty well:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19603636/

Relevent quote:

What about all the Republican politicians who defied public sentiment and insisted that President Clinton be impeached for lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky? Many of them now minimize Libby's perjury.

What about all those Democrats who thought public shame was punishment enough for Clinton lying under oath, basically the position adopted today by Libby's supporters? Many of those Democrats now think Libby should go to jail for his perjury.

"There appears to be rank hypocrisy at work here on both sides of the political spectrum," said Joe Gaylord, a GOP consultant who worked for House Speaker Newt Gingrich during impeachment. "It causes Americans to shake their heads in disgust at the political system."