In Defense Of Mark Sanford

Republican party leader and degenerate drug addict, Rush "Oxymoron" Limbaugh, defended Governor Sanford's leaving the country and cheating on his wife--Obama made him do it.

"This is almost like, 'I don't give a damn, the country's going to Hell in a handbasket, I just want out of here,'" said Limbaugh. "He had just tried to fight the stimulus money coming to South Carolina. He didn't want any part of it. He lost the battle. He said, 'What the Hell. I mean, I'm -- the federal government's taking over -- what the Hell, I want to enjoy life.'"

"The point is," he added, "there are a lot of people whose spirit is just -- they're fed up, saying to Hell with it, I don't even want to fight this anymore, I just want to get away from it."

So, terrified of being teabagged by a huge Mandingo stimulus package and thereby feeling impotent and self-conscious, the Governor just said "Fuck it," it, presumably being Maria in Argentina.

It's all about the man, keeping you down, Argentina way.

Aye caramba!

Sanford

Another Republican caught screwing someone besides his wife or the American people. Fix News is on the case though, and labeled Governor Sanford as a Democrat.



One wonders how the pallid peoples of the Republican base of South Carolina will cotton to the idea of cross-breeding with a Latina instead of a good hometown American woman. The fact his presser was on hump day is just a coincidence.

Iran

Clearly we should

Shower them

With Freedom Bombs

Getty Images via, and apologies to, Driftglass

Leave Meghan McCain Aloooooone!

She bravely entered the den of liberalism and admitted she was catching a lot of shit for it. Nonetheless, they treated her like a whetstone to sharpen their knives.

Meghan did way yonder better than I would've done when I was 25. I probably would've resembled a potted plant. Begala can't be blamed for taking an opening a truck could drive through, but Meghan does have a message as it pertains to the future of the Republican party. Trying to incorporate current complaints of the Democratic President is not part of it and just turns her into a typical whiny shill opening her up for drubbings like Paul gave her.

Note to Meghan--stick to your heartfelt beliefs as it pertains to the future of the Republican party and avoid trying to critique the opposition. Methinks your plate is overfull.

Hoekstroika

Republican congresscritter Pete Hoekstra gave a new twist to restructuring, when he complained on Twitter, comparing the life and death struggles Iranians are having with Republican Victimhood.

The Pete Tweet:

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.

Not to be outdone, other tweets came in with similar really bad analogies:

Got a splinter in my hand, now I know how Jesus felt.

Someone walked in on me in the bathroom. Reminded me of Pearl Harbor.

Sitting in a chair, feeling a good deal like Stephen Hawking.

More Hoekstroika fun here.

Liberal Media

So the Washington Post fired Dan Froomkin. Apparently, according to Froomkin, his column "wasn't working" according to his bosses. One of the hardest things he did was his job, while keeping his job. That is because, as a political critic, many times he found his columns repudiating the war cheerleaders on the editorial page.

He was branded with the scarlet letter of being a liberal.

Somehow, I missed the part where avoiding foreign entanglements, opposing torture, opposing illegal wiretaps and expecting elected officials to follow the law as liberal positions.

Asking tough questions has become out of vogue for our stenographic press. Press The Meat fellator David Gregory explains the media failure in the run-up to the Iraq war:

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that . . . . if we did not stand up [in the run-up to the war] and say 'this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this,' that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role"

As an example to Froomkin, David Gregory shows how to question the President prior to going to war:

Q Mr. President, good evening. If you order war, can any military operation be considered a success if the United States does not capture Saddam Hussein, as you once said, dead or alive?

Q Sir, I’m sorry, is success contingent upon capturing or killing Saddam Hussein, in your mind?

In sales, this is called a choice close. "Do you want the red car or the blue one." One assumes the sale and gives the choice of options as opposed to whether the sale should take place at all, or in the field of journalism, calling bullshit:

Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do.

What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit.

Calling bullshit, of course, used to be central to journalism as well as to comedy. And we happen to be in a period in our history in which the substance in question is running particularly deep. The relentless spinning is enough to make anyone dizzy, and some of our most important political battles are about competing views of reality more than they are about policy choices. Calling bullshit has never been more vital to our democracy.

[...] Dan Froomkin, recently fired bullshit detector.

Froomkin served an odd function in that he practiced the art of journalism at the Washington Post, and it "wasn't working." He turned into the guest actor of an old Star Tek episode, the one with the different colored suit.

Spock, Bones, Scotty and...Froomkin, beam down to the surface...

Hell, you knew Froomkin wasn't coming back. It was his perverted view that journalists should be skeptical and adversarial to claims made by political figures, and was labeled liberal for pointing out their false claims and radical policies. Reporters are simply supposed to type down what both sides say and run it through a spell check program. Calling bullshit, as David Grogory has told us, "It's not our role."

To get an idea of what Dan Froomkin felt the role of the press was, read this, this and this. Simply put, he didn't believe journalists should be stenographers, much less cheerleaders for politicians. And he was fired.

But the persecuted and largely silenced voice of conservatives, like neocon Charles Krauthammer, neocon Bill Kristol, Kathleen Parker, Glenn Beck, neocon and serial comb licker Paul Wolfowitz (who told congress prior to the Iraq invasion that Iraqi's would be able to finance their own rebuilding. He went on to head the World Bank, where presumably, math was involved. He got fired shortly thereafter) still get published in The Washington Post.

Keep chasing that thirty percent WaPo and see where that gets you.

Sex And Politics

I don't think most people really care about the personal sex lives of politicians. If only some politicians wouldn't be so morally outraged at other politicians pecadillo's, actions like Senator Ensign (R-NV) wouldn't amount to much. But the standard was set during the Clinton administration and the Lewinski affair (aka the Clenis). Not that President Clinton was the first public official to engage in such behavior, but he was the first to suffer a highly-partisan public lynching of a wildly popular President.

At some point, someone needs to call a truce and leave this sordid stuff to a single paragraph AP story. We have more important things to worry about than preachy two-faced sleaze bags.

Right Wing Extremists Terrorize America

Since Obama's inauguration, America has suffered nine attacks from right-wing extremists. Many of these attacks resulted in numerous fatalities from Nazi loving, xenophobic, women hating, racists coked to the gills on white power Aryan victimhood.

After DHS secretary Janet Napolitano released the report initiated during the Bush administration titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," every right-wing pundit in America was outraged. Even though no names were mentioned, curiously these pundits stepped in and demanded an apology, for slandering them personally--a blatant admission that they too, are right-wing extremists.

What is it exactly do we have to fear from these right-wing extremists that have a protective and Semper Fi-ish punditocracy who forced Napolitano into multiple apologies and retraction of the report?

The day after Obama's inauguration, Keith Luke kicks things off with a raping and murderous rampage. His plan was to kill as many "non-whites" as possible before killing himself.

Twenty days later, on February 10, Hitler admirer, Nazi memorabilia collector and serial wife-beater James Cummins was killed by his wife. Police found radioactive "dirty bomb" materials in his home.

Sixteen days later, on February 26, Dannie Baker walks into a townhouse where 14 Chilean students, here legally, were gathered and opened fire. He kills two and injures five, out of fear immigrants are taking over the country.

Thirty eight days later, on April 5, Richard Popalowski, a white supremacist, gun nut and cop killer lay in wait, wearing a bulletproof vest, for police. He killed three officers in the ensuing gun battle.

Twenty three days later, on April 28, Army Reservist, wife-beater, cop killer and Obama hater Joshua Cartwright shot and killed two deputy sheriffs when they tried to arrest him on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery.

Eight days later, on May 6, racist Jew-hater Stephen P. Morgan guns down, in cold blood, a female Jewish Wesleyan student. He kept a journal where he wrote down his belief that it is, "Okay to kill Jews and go on a killing spree."

Twenty four days later, on May 30, founder and Executive Director of the militant vigilante group Minutemen American Defense (MAD)Shawna Forde along with some thug followers, allegedly did a home invasion where two of the occupants were murdered. Husband and father Raul Flores, along with his nine-year-old daughter were mercilessly gunned down. The wife and mother was wounded in the invasion.

The next day, on May 31, far right extremist Scott Roeder assasinated Doctor George Tiller in church.

Ten days later, on June 10, white-power Aryan nutcase and Jew-hater James Wenneker von Brunn walks into the national Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and opens fire, killing a security guard.

These cannot be brushed aside as "lone wolf" isolated incidents as I am sure the mighty right-wing wurlitzer will try to claim but it is disturbing to watch them attempt to call these right-wing extremists as lefties.

More of these attacks will surely occur, and they seem to be coming with higher frequency. More and more Americans will recoil from such acts, which will further isolate the right wing. And like a stalker, the more you ignore them, the more brazen they will become.

We're in for a long, hot summer.

h/t to Orcinus

Truth Hurts

Apparently someone took offense at me pointing out not all Republicans are racists, but all racists are Republicans. In defense of his dwindling, wingtard party of old white bigoted southerners, he neglected to point out the "southern strategy." From the father of the "southern strategy" Richard Nixon's strategist Kevin Phillips:

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

Also, he failed to mention high-powered political operative Lee Atwater, who worked in the Reagan Administration, ran Bush the first's Presidential campaign and went on to control the Republican party as the RNC chair. Here he explains the modern use of code words in dog whistle politics of the "southern strategy."

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger".

I appreciate the history lesson Red put up about the birth of the KKK and how Lincoln freed the slaves and all, but I wonder how he missed the part how the Republican party targeted and actively campaigned to welcome racists? To completely be ignorant of a decades old strategy that continues to this very day is an indicator of stunning incompetence.

Yes, I know I rarely blog these days, as I have a full-time job in the energy sector. Please don't waste energy whining about my "drive-by blogging." Instead, thank me for providing the electricity you use for blogging.

Clingy Losers

Back in the 90's when the Democrats were in control of the Federal Government, a guy tried to crash his plane into the White House. He hit a tree and died on the White House lawn. On another occasion, a guy stuck a gun through the fence at the White House and fired off several rounds before being tackled by civilians. When Newt engineered his "American Revolution" with his "Contract On America" regaining control of the House, fanatical wingnuts seemed to calm down.

Now, after Republican rule over two wars and doubling the size of the Federal Government and debt, Katrina, Schiavo, and just all around dickeadedry, America has turned its back on the fanatical 20 percent that remains of the Republican Party. The anger has risen to a dangerous level and is manifesting itself in recent killings.

Ann Coulter once said "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim."

I think it is fair to say that not all Republicans are racist, but all racists are Republicans.

Hoist By Their Own Petard

Dr. Ed put up an interesting post where he posits all that remain of the Republican party is fanatics.

Ya think?

Well, actually, there are four parts to the Republican Party.

The Corporate Cons. These are the guys who actually own the joint. Captains of Industry and Galactic Scions all. They send their sniveling whelps to the best schools and purchase them elite positions in think tanks who issue relentless opinions that if Pops has to pay taxes or clean up the megatons of daily toxic waste his company spews forth, then all America will die of festering boils. They have color charts and everything.
Now, The Corporate Cons are not a large voting bloc, and probably couldn't get elected coffee pot carrier at the local Ihop. That's just not their job. And they are not Republican or Democratic--the ideology they hold is entirely self beneficial. So who would be a good tool to help them out?

The Neo Cons. These are the lackey's, the lickspittles who carefully crafted a legalized bribery machine to power the military-industrial complex. Actual Congresscritters and Senawhores purchased to enact legislation to benefit their owners--and we are not talking about the American people. But unfortunately they were stuck in the 40 percent range and could never actually achieve power. What savior could they call upon to deliver them to the promised land?

The Theo Cons. About two generation ago it was determined that social issues could be used to push the Republican party over the top. A partnership was formed wherein the religious leaders vowed to deliver votes for the Corporate Cons much like a station wagon is used to deliver groceries. And the sermon on the mount was delivered, that the evil liberal had set upon the good, God fearing Christian, persecuting them, conducting evil that would condemn our great nation to eternal damnation.

Tha assault was relentless. Every month a new group to hate. Welfare queens, abortionists, sodomites, dirty fucking hippies, ad infinitum. Some were repelled by such rhetoric, but many were not. The distillation process left them with the...

Conned Cons. An entire generation or two of millions of people have been indoctrinated into the belief that Democrats and their policies or position are evil. They are akin to the ceramic doll in the back window of an El Dorado Cadillac, heads bobbing up and down to anything Rush or Hannity or Newt (the three stooges of the republican party) says. Intelligent discourse is gone and compromise is heresy. A construct designed wholly by the republican party, like Frankenstein, cobbled out of hate and intolerance, rotten flesh and bad breath, the Conned Cons walk around like the undead, spewing talking points like a right-wing pez-dispenser.

But this Frankenstein doesn't fear torches, he carries them. The three stooges told them to never show weakness by compromise, so they carefully look amongst themselves for non-purist and quickly set upon those they find. So the three stooges and Faux News get great ratings and are doing financially quite well in the free-enterprise system and the market of ideals.

But that succesful rating came at the cost of electoral disaster. Now the teabaggers feel persecuted once again, but they are such mindless drones they don't see their tormentors at the head of the parade.

And The Corporate Cons? Why, they are comfortably fondling the Democrats now.

And so it goes.

Don't Ask Don't Tell

When Don't ask, don't tell was first implemented as military policy during the Clinton administration, I could see the inherent flaws involved. At the time I asked my big brother, an ex-marine (okay, no such thing as an ex-marine--Semper Fi bro) how he felt about gays in the military. Best as I can recall, his answer was somewhat like this:

Say me and another guy are pinned down behind a rock under heavy fire. We have limited ammo, and the other guy is a flaming queer o'sexual and a crack shot. One shot--one kill. Hell I'll kiss him right on the mouth, tongue, no tongue, his choice. Now say the same scenario but the other guy is a homophobe hetero. But he is a titty sucking lightweight, firing into the air, using his weapon like a noise maker, hoping to scare off the enemy.

Now we only have so many bullets. I'll let you draw your own conclusion as to who the first sonofabitch is I shoot.

The point being, in life and death situations you want the best qualified individual standing next to you. In times like that lifestyles are so far down the priority list as to be irrelevant. Repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Abortion Doctor Murdered By Far-Right Extremist; Pro-Lifers Rejoice

Updated Below
George Tiller, an abortion doctor, was shot dead in his church Sunday morning by Operation Rescue follower Scott Roeder. Somehow, shooting someone in cold blood doesn't seem all that pro-lifey to me. Right-wing extremists disagree:

Red State:

Killing Tiller was the ethical thing to do

tankertodd Sunday, May 31st at 2:25PM EDT
[...]
I can’t escape the conclusion that killing Tiller was the right thing to do. I am uncomfortable with this conclusion because it’s dangerous. But nevertheless, it was the ethical thing to do. Tiller would have continued to take numerous lives. Nothing was going to stop him. So someone did stop him. And now fewer lives will be taken.
[...]

Operation Rescue founder and far-right extremist Randall Terry:

"George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.

Current Operation Rescue President Troy Newman tries to distance his organization from the killer:

Scott Roeder has never been a member, contributor, or volunteer with Operation Rescue. Mr. Roeder may have posted to our open blog web site, as have thousands of members of the public, including those with pro-abortion views, but he is not affiliated with this organization.

We deplore the criminal actions with which Mr. Roeder is accused.

However, when Scott Roeder was arrested an envelope on his dashboard with the phone number written on it belonging to Operation Rescue senior policy adviser and convicted abortion clinic bomber Cheryl Sullenger. She claimed she had not spoken with the killer "recently." Sullenger is one of two names listed on the Operation Rescue's press release denying contact with Roeder.

Years of hate speech directed at Tiller for performing a legal medical procedure drove zealots to relentlessly attack the Doctor. His clinic was bombed and Doctor Tiller was shot in both arms. Now he has been murdered in his church.

Probably the biggest spewer of vile invective toward Doctor Tiller is the Supremely Moral phone sex enthusiast Bill O'Reilly who labeled the Doctor "Tiller the baby killer:"

According to Gabriel Winant, Billo first discussed Tiller on February 25, 2005 and followed it up with 28 more shows that mentioned the Doctor. Falafel boy portrayed the Doctor as a killer on the loose and using profits from his "death mills" to purchase political protection by giving campaign donations.

What could possibly go wrong?

What can never be explained to far right-wing extremist pro-lifers bent on bombing and killing are the deeply personal and dreadful choices people were faced with who sought out Doctor Tiller, from Feministe:

I was almost 26 weeks. I showed up for my ultrasound by myself. I was scanned for almost 2 hours. This is when my life forever changed. The scan showed that her little brain was severely calcified, parts were not symmetrical and there was fluid. The doctor took me into a room to talk to me. I told her “please just tell me the truth I need to know.” The Doctor said that she had no idea what this meant but that she felt something was terribly wrong. Within two weeks her brain had gone from “normal” to massive problems. I was sent up to Genetics. The counselor told me that the genetic doctor wanted to talk to me. I requested that they wait until my husband got there. The conversation with this doctor was the same, she felt that something was terribly wrong, but they had no idea what it was. “This looks like the tip of the iceberg” we were told.

The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life was to decide to terminate this pregnancy. This all happened on a Wednesday.

Friday we had to go and talk with some perinatologists. They told us that they had never seen this before and that they could not tell us what the outcome would be. We did not even get a percentage of what her life would be like. They told us that she possibly could die in utero, die shortly after birth, or be a vegetable. They told us that we could wait another two weeks and have another scan and possibly an MRI. How could I go on another day? It killed me to feel her move around inside. This was so awful.

We had another appointment with the doctor that performed the terminations. We were told that with my conditions and the lateness of the pregnancy he did not feel he could give me the care that I required. That’s when we were referred to the Women’s Clinic in Wichita, Kansas.

I was 27 weeks by this point. I was terrified. The moment I met the doctor, all of that ended. He was a wonderful and loving man. I came in on Monday and gave birth to our baby girl on Friday. We were able to hold her after, and say our goodbyes. That doctor will always be in my heart.

This happened two weeks ago and sometimes I feel like this isn’t real. I miss feeling her inside me. I miss singing or talking to her, touching my belly and have her respond. The hardest part now is that I will never get to see her smile or laugh or to watch her grow up A day does not pass that I don’t think of her. I miss her so much.

Recently anchor baby Michele Maulkkkin led the flying monkey brigade assault on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to pull a report identifying future threats possibly coming from right wing extremists and anti-abortionists. Now our lady of concentration camps is calling for civility and warning the left and the corporate media not to politicize this political assasination cheered by right wing extremist theocons who operate outside the law.

Update:
Creepy phone sex enthusiast and serial sexual harasser responds:

When I heard about Tiller’s murder, I knew pro-abortion zealots and Fox News haters would attempt to blame us for the crime, and that’s exactly what has happened. [...]

I see. Bill O'Reilly is the real victim here.