How about this, for example:

"That's what he says he has done." Note how Franklin Graham, who oughtn't to be regarded as an authority on ANYTHING, qualifies Obama's Christianity (and why does he even have to be a Christian) as "he says", implying "He could be lying."

Lost in the Pew Research poll that proves conclusively that Americans are incurious, willfully ignorant, bigoted, narrow-minded, xenophobic morons, is where these incurious, willfully ignorant, bigoted, narrow-minded, xenophobic morons got the idea in the first place:

Six in 10 of those saying Obama is a Muslim said they got the information from the media, with the largest portion — 16 percent — saying it was on television. Eleven percent said they learned it from Obama's behavior and words.

And every time John King gets up there to talk about the "confusion" over Barack Obama's religion, the lie gets out there again and again and again. And all it has to do is get out there to be taken seriously. The idea that the Bush Administration was behind the 9/11 attacks remained on the fringe because the media left it there. But let a black guy with a funny name get elected, and suddenly speculation based on nothing but people who want to use the word "Muslim" becuase it's not acceptable to call him a "N-----" becomes something to be discussed endlessly on cable news.

And a lie it is. It is not "confusing." It is not "misinformation". It is not a "controversy." It is not "speculation." It is not "Some say..." It is a LIE. That nice one-syllable word that even an incurious, willfully ignorant, bigoted, narrow-minded, xenophobic moron can understand.

Labels: Barack Obama, bigotry, Islam, lies, utter horseshit, wingnuttia

WTF?

Dana Perino says that we did not have a terrorist attack on this country during George W. Bush's term:


We already know that the Way of the Republican is to lie, lie, lie, and tell the same lie often and consistently: Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. No one could have anticipated the breach of the levees. Barack Obama ordered "In God We Trust" removed from coins.

They don't even try to relate facts anymore, these Republicans, they just pull stuff out of their asses and call it truth. Fox News puts it out there and because it has "News" in its name, it has credibility. So now we're supposed to believe that the 9/11 attacks happened, when? During Bill Clinton's administration? Or are they trying to erase George W. Bush entirely and make their idiotic, unthinking, willfully ignorant minions think we went right from Clinton to Obama?

So yes, let's call the Fort Hood attacks terrorism. And then let's call the killing of Dr. George Tiller terrorism as well. But don't sit there and tell me that no terrorists attacked this country on George Bush's watch. That worthless piece of shit was on vacation when he received warning of an imminent attack, and he chose to do nothing -- or worse, let it play out as planned so he could get his war with Iraq (an idea that no longer seems unthinkable as it once did). I know that a lie told often enough becomes truth these days. But this one cannot be allowed to become an "alternative view."

And oh yeah. What Jed said.

And thanks to commenter russell1958 over at Firedoglake, for compiling tbe following list of terrorist attacks that took place in this country during the Bush years:

• 9/11/01


• Anthrax letters


• DC Snipers


• Grenade blasts outside U.K. embassy in New York


• Ohio sniper attacks


• Knoxville church shootings


• Arson attack on women's health clinic in Concord, NH (5/2000)


• Catholic priest who drove his car into the Northern Illinois Health Clinic then pulled out an ax before being shot at by a security guard; (9/2000)


• Bombing of Tacoma, Washington women's health clinic (6/2001)


• Anthrax hoax letters send by Clayton Waagner to 554 women's health clinics (11/2001)


• Arson attack on women's health clinic in Palm Beach (7/2005)


• Molotov cocktail thrown at women's health clinic in Shreveport, LA (12/2005


• David McMenemy of Rochester Hills, Michigan, crashed his car into the Edgerton Women’s Care Center in Davenport, Iowa, then doused the lobby in gasoline and started a fire (9/2006)


• Package left at a women’s health clinic in Austin, Texas, contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death (4/2007)


• Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia, set afire (12/2007)


• 20% of all women's health clinics in the U.S. attacked during 2008

Nope. No terrorism at all during the Bush years. Nosirree.

Labels: American Idiots, Bush Administration crimes, just another outrage, lies, Republican lies, utter horseshit

As reported by blogger D-Day, the fireworks were bright over in Starbucks-land this morning.

"Excuse me, but if America is so bad, why is it that if I got sick or one of my loved one's got sick, well America is the best....?" best, best, best?
That was Maria Bartiromo on Morning Joe, arguing with Matt Tiabbi about the health insurance issue. What she didn't say is that she has great health insurance as an anchor at CNBC and so has everything that American medicine can offer available to her. And, its worth mentioning, as she spews out verbatim talking points, that she also is married to the very rich son of an investor, CEO of an investment services company, known as the "reinventor of the index fund," a company that specializes in exchange traded funds; (... supposedly a vehicle which holds certain stock and bonds, much like a bundled mass of crap, but what do I know? Supposedly these ETF's have the value of whats inside, but then so does everything have an underlying value and a possible value depending on the market...isnt it all gambling on what the value will or won't be?) which he designed himself, and Ms. maria never really has to worry or work a day in her life. Its easy to have total confidence in the American system when you are a have.



The fact that Bartiromo has such a glaring conflict in her financial reporting is something that I have never heard stated on NBC, and I'm an avid NBC viewer. Now that I've looked at the research, I have to say that I cant imagine why NBC would allow this to go on without constant disclosures, considering her stock holdings and lack of transparency while interviewing the titans of industry. She sure has a big opinion, even if it was written by the wingnuttia out there who float the talking points these days. When faced with actual figures she is comfortable stating that she just doesn't buy them because they include illegal aliens. Huh? ...there are so many things I could say to that but maybe its best to just let it swelter, like a fine wine...

The great part always in all of this muck is that Taibbi has so many clear facts that he didn't need to pull the conflict of interest card, the talking points card, or the screeching over the other person card; he is unflappable, and just keeps coming with those facts. I think that's why the wingnuts are in such a ruffle over him and how he is merely a "hack." The truth, apparently, hurts.

Tweeted thusly by Morning Joe hisself:

Video: Taibbi: Health care 'can't be fixed': Aug. 20: Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi joins Morning Joe to discuss h.. http://bit.ly/3lJNUsabout 4 hours ago from twitterfeed"

To which Bob Cesca awesomely stated:

Maria Bartiromo isn't a very smart person. She just tried to tell Matt Taibbi on Morning Joe that America has the best healthcare system in the world because people from other nations come here for procedures.

I feel like someone went to the mat for me and all I got was this lousy tweet! Hah!

According to Heather at Crooks and Liars:

Taibbi thinks a deal was cut from the beginning between the White House and the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and that they never intended to have a public option.

And without that the dems are not going to vote for it at all.

h/t Crooks and Liars and D-Day for Maddow video

According Taibbi in Rolling Stone and on their special web only special video page for Americans who don't or cant read,

Taibbi breaks down the five steps Congress took to be sure no bill would pass — aiming low, gutting the public option, packing it with loopholes, providing no leadership and blowing the math — in his story, which is available on stands now. In a series of video interviews for RollingStone.com, Taibbi explores one of our system’s most severe flaws, explains how the government wedged itself into an awkwardly damning position, and looks at how the proposed bill would change the ordinary American’s life

Even a child could understand Taibbi, in these videos, explaining the situation and the obviously sensible solution. Unfortunately, the government here is run by the Insurance Industry, and the lobbyists have an army of armed, disgruntled, fringe whack-jobs out there to make sure that we don't even discuss our options. We seem to need total collapse of any particular system before we seriously look at any reality...and even then...the light of truth is just a little bright for most Americans, clutching their remote controls and chips.

Meanwhile, back here on the ground, Maria can get all the healthcare she wants or needs, so can Morning Joe and the CEO of Starbucks...but millions of Americans remain uninsured or underinsured, and its unclear what the answer will be for the rest of us in the free market; Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose....
Just go here and watch the videos...and buy the new Rolling Stone! Its one of the few magazines worth having in your hands these days!

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: health care, insurance industry, lies, Republican lies, Taibbi

Speaking of the crazy; the bookers at NBC have decided that we haven't lived through enough outrage and crazy, so they decided to book Michelle Malkin with Matt Lauer today. Is it a slow news week or something? Did anything happen that made Malkin worthy of a national platform after the venom she has spewed over the past years. Lauer was clearly over his head on this, which is outrageous in itself. The man has years of experience as a reporter before he became a fluff morning host, so my only conclusion about his paralysis in the face of Malkin is that he is too wedded to the lifestyle that the paycheck brings to rock the boat much. They acted like he was gonna take her apart, but he hardly got a word in edgewise, and as she spewed lies and attacked President and Michelle Obama he didn't demand proof. So, once again NBC has given Malkin a platform to float lies into the American psyche basically unchallenged.

Racial Opportunist, my foot!! Look in the mirror Michelle! Who wrote a book about the internment camps being a GOOD thing? Who had the book challenged by "The Historians' Committee for Fairness," who said that it had not been peer reviewed, and that it's central thesis was ...er...false! On and on....a quick look at Wikipedia would have given them all of the information they needed!

Maybe she has a book out but I'm sure that many KKK members have "books" out as well. Just because she wrote a book, it doesn't mean that what is in it is true. And for some reason, the research department didn't prepare Matt to even question the claims that Malkin made. Just the cover alone is a tip off that its a backwards day book. She takes everything that the Bush administration was accused of, with evidence, and restated it without evidence....hmmmm...and Matt had little to say about this; NBC seems to think this is a ratings getter. I say no, its not! Stop booking crap or I'm going to boycott your sponsors. I already am boycotting Starbucks for giving Morning Joe 10 mil as a representative of what Starbucks stands for? huh? In that case I will avoid Starbucks totally and encourage my friends to do so (more on Joe at a later date.)
I love Maddow and Olbermann on MSNBC, but this void in the morning between the fluff and the Joe is really difficult to parse. Keep the fluff fluffy if you must! keep the idiot Joe in a janitor closet and give Larry O'donnell his spor, or better, Sam Seder and Marc Maron! If you cant even properly research and interview the crazies, don't have them on in the morning...or invite Rachel to do the interview!!...now, that would be news and ratings! Even just someone who knows something would be preferable to this.

I, for one, am going to let republican Today Producer Steve Capus as well as the Head of NBC News, Jim Bell, know that I don't want this type of fringe character on the morning show, or any of the shows that I watch on their network. Her booking is nothing more than a silly stab at ratings, because men seem to like her looks, and they are hoping for some sparks to fly with Matt . It didn't happen and I wonder why he isn't tired of this. It was pathetic, and the fringe Malkin crowd feel like she "owned" him because he didn't challenge her insane claims. Oh well.....

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: lies, wingnuttia

Today, as in the past few days, freedom is happening, or trying to happen, in an unfolding outpouring of historic proportions in the streets of Iran. The brave people out there risking life and limb are trying to get a fair election and the leaders that they wanted. Heaven knows that Americans lacked the balls or focus to do the same after not only one, but two stolen elections.

You could say, in fact, that if the Iranian election was stolen, as seems to be the case, the techs who engineered the heist probably learned a thing or two from America's 2000 and 2004 elections. You don't have to go further than our friend Brad's blog to get the lowdown on the fraud in Iran, (and be sure to catch Brad subbing for Mike Malloy this week 6-22 to 6-26, 6PM to 9 PM PT, stations listed here.)Brad is the man when it comes to voting rights and voting fraud, and his piece lays it out very simply; there is no way to trust this result. There was no oversight and there were no checks and balances; paper ballots were taken to be counted in secret by the incumbents staff, with no witnesses from outside....? come on!

So, of course, there is not going to be any winning in this situation. The Ayatollah has told the people to accept it and move on, but how far this thing will go before the uprisings are put down, is anyone's guess. The problem is that unless the government decides to have another vote, this result will never be accepted. Another election will surely prove to be against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is much less popular and very much more like the old time, hard line, conservative voice of the leadership. The people want change and the government does not want to give it to them. This fraud runs deep, because the numbers are so skewed as to be impossible.

America wrote the book on pretending to be a free and open, vote-counting, society; Iran never promised anything of the sort really, and its unlikely that what is happening now will do much more than strengthen the underground movement that will continue boiling along. This is an example of people who feel the urgency of history in their hearts and who are willing to die for the freedom of generations to come. The beauty of this uprising is not only that we are seeing a natural push towards freedom, but it's that we didn't have to bomb them to bring freedom, or any one of a thousand reasons that certain entities, (OK, McCain and his ilk,)gives for wanting to destabilize, install bases, grab oil, and generally mess with the tinderbox that is the Middle East.

President Obama, much to the chagrin of the morning bobble-heads today, isn't getting involved besides a couple of benign statements. People fight for freedom because its part of who they are, not because another regime imposes it on them. We can't tell them to fight on because we are sending in the cavalry, because we aren't. We can be there in spirit with them, but interfering would be another disaster on an already full dance card. Again, I find myself thankful to have Obama as president and not McCain, because I can only just imagine what he would do in this situation!

In Iraq, the "freedom" that we imposed looks pretty much like an ongoing dangerous occupation/war, and when we pull out they can expect some more chaos. I can still hear Rumsfeld's condescension as he told us how messy freedom is. I doubt he'd know, because what they were doing was not spreading the freedom; it was more like a war crime! (...and for some real fun of the vomitous type, check out Rummy in Time. Can someone tell me why these criminals are not being actively investigated right now?)

It occurred to me today that a civilization is truly ready for the revolution when it has embraced some form of Twitter or some level of a face book like popular platform in order to keep people in touch and organized. Even with a government shut down of communications, many Tweeters were changing their time stamps to confuse an already confused government and allow information to be passed around. When movements like this become global projects then anything is possible. The technology isn't the only necessity either; there has to be a movement by the people, not hoisted onto them like an antiquity stolen in all that messy looting.

When Joementum Lieberman looked up at the satellite dishes on the buildings in Iraq's green Zone and declared mission accomplished, his reasoning was that people could talk once again on their cell phones. I believe that it was war correspondent,Mick Ware, who mentioned that they were, in fact, now more fully able to organize to kill us. But regardless of what planet Joementum was on, (soon to be the planet of the unemployed, until the cushy payoff job sets in, I suppose,) those neocons never got the fact that you can't push democracy on a society where the hunger for it has not reached its own crescendo. Hell, it became apparent during that same time that Americans were not even that hungry for all of that freedom and rights crap; not enough to get off the couch and change the channel from the Fox Terra Network, anyway; not enough to have to reason and think about things.

Americans have been the lucky recipients of the sweat and blood of forefathers more high minded than we turned out to be. Their legacy might be that we all got to have a Jennifer Convertible and a flat screen TV for just 1000 easy payments, but somehow I don't think so. They have the record of their intentions set down in history but What they forgot to pass along to us was the lesson about what the first pilgrims fled when they started this crazy experiment. The truth was that the underclass was permanent and that there were no rights. The landed gentry were the elites and there was no way to better your life, much less pick your representation. The American dream was not one of having riches and status, but about having a voice and the ability to do well by your family. That didn't mean to do well at the expense of your countrymen, either, and it also didn't mean to do well outside of your own means gained through hard work and a strong community that cared for every member.

My point is not that what is going on in Iran is not important; It is damned important and its complex, and its also going to lose the attention of the American people as quickly as you can say "Jon and Kate Plus 8 Separate," because its a tiny step in a long process; a process that Bush-Cheney thought they could bulldoze through in some half thunk out disaster that looked good on that Teevee while it was going on, and now, all these years later looks like pathetic liars posturing. Power and oil look pretty sad in the face of just wanting a voice; and whats really sad is the continuing lie that we were trying to help Iraq achieve that voice.

Whats happening in Iran right now is the real thing, and there is much to report, as you can see from HuffPo's great coverage here and it should give us all hope that things like this can happen, and that we don't have to bomb the place to encourage instability and then somehow force our version of elections on them. Its just that the neocons would want to be there to take control from the ashes of this thing, or at least keep a foot in the door, just in case there are weapons of mass destruction or anything. I'm watching with bated breath like the rest of the world, but this is not a cartoon, and those are people with families and full lives who are sacrificing everything just for the chance to have their votes counted.

When you think of how we sat through 8 years of Bush and Cheney lying and cheating, and setting us up to lose everything we've worked for, in a stupor of fast food and reality TV, so long as our kid wasn't the one over there, its pretty eye opening to watch the real thing unfolding. When you think of how easy it seems to be for some people, our President included, to move forward and not look at the mistakes of the past, thereby letting criminals go unpunished, its a little embarrassing in the face of what is real bravery by people who are not only going against their government but also in many cases against their God, who supposedly speaks through the Ayatollah.
Its bravery, plain and simple. The world needs to watch what the government, such as it is, will do with those in custody.

With much of the media banned or shut down, the unfolding story is being told largely by citizen journalists at YouTube.




RIP Coco

Labels: Election, Iran, lies

OK, here we go; US Military law does not really allow for guilty pleas in cases where the death penalty is a possible outcome. According to the New York Times today, President Obama and his administration are looking at ways to make this law less ambiguous. The push to clarify this comes from military prosecutors who don't want to have to put on an entire case if a defendant pleads guilty....really?...Isn't putting on cases sorta what they do?

But American military justice law, which is the model for the military commission rules, bars members of the armed services who are facing capital charges from pleading guilty. Partly to assure fairness when execution is possible, court-martial prosecutors are required to prove guilt in a trial even against service members who want to plead guilty.

Why?
Well, what comes to mind immediately for me is that the military is a very controlling apparatus, just like, say, a terrorist group, in that there is a strong belief system so deeply held that one would gladly die for it, to keep a code of silence, or to become a martyr. When young recruits are broken down and built back up, they are imbued with a code that could maybe, in some off chance, in a system that has been proven time and again to be imperfect, falsely incriminate themselves.
If that part of the law was left "ambiguous" maybe it was so that cases could be decided on their individual merits and depending on the judge. I'm happy to have all of the evidence presented if we are going to put anyone to death, much less a soldier or an enemy combatant. There are certain standards of morality and ethics that have to be upheld, even if it seems like an exercise to these supposed prosecutors.

I'm no law expert, and I'm definitely no military law expert, but in the middle of a certain amount of confusing backpedaling by the Obama Administration, I find it incredibly disconcerting to hear that the idea is being kicked around to allow certain Guantanamo detainees to plead guilty to the 9-11 attack and therefore be executed without a full trial.

This is not because there is some 100% way to know they are guilty. Their stated intent has been to die as martyrs by execution, and because their confessions are completely the fruit of torture techniques that have been proven to elicit false confessions, it would seem to be a little counter intuitive to just give them what they want. It would, however, make the problem of what we did to them go away pretty nicely!

It appears to me that Obama has had to backtrack on the military tribunals because in a regular court these guys might just go free under the weight of how these confessions were coerced out of these very same detainees. The idea of cutting out the tribunal altogether is not only far fetched but pretty unbelievable! We may need a new set of laws and a new sort of prison to deal with this sort of detainee over the long term, but I've got to say that putting them to death on the strength of confession elicited by torture is not the way to go.

As much as the New York Times seems to be sure that this idea has legs in the administration, it seems like a long shot that it could ever work. The administration is, for some reason, going to great lengths to try to prevent the details of torture on the Bush watch from coming out, but in so doing they are implicating the Obama administration as more of the same. This is a slippery slope that none of us wants to start sliding down; and I'm afraid that we are already there.

It seems that alot of this revolves around the 9-11 case and our usual need for vengeance by death penalty. According to the Times:

Lawyers who were asked about the administration’s proposed change in recent days said it appeared to be intended for the Sept. 11 case.
“They are trying to give the 9/11 guys what they want: let them plead guilty and get the death penalty and not have to have a trial,” said Maj. David J. R. Frakt of the Air Force, a Guantánamo defense lawyer.

I can just hear the wheels turning in the conspiracy theorists minds. But, if this is just about that pound of flesh, and also serves to cover up the crimes committed by the Bush Administration, its not worth the long term effect on the law and our constitution, which will be skirted in a way that will not serve anyone but the Bush folks, who really need to be at least investigated!

Further:

Cmdr. Suzanne M. Lachelier, a Navy lawyer for one of the detainees in the Sept. 11 case, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, said of the Obama administration, “They’re encouraging martyrdom.”

Which is exactly right, and a shortsighted band-aid on a long term problem, exacerbated by the very treatment that is now being glossed over in this way. The Bush answer to martyrs would be "Martyr This, You Asshole...Bring it On!" But that reverberates across the world and creates thousands of more of these same guys. Hiding what happened is not goign to prevent more terrorism; its going to incite it. The best thing that we can do is, if they want to plead guilty, have a trial and then keep them in a small cell forever; take the execution option off the table, at least. The need to make the torture facts go away is a crime in itself, and the need for a pound of flesh in regards to 9-11 is a big example of human weakness. What would Jesus do, after all?

I say that as a non-religious person trying to understand the methods and logic of how these things work in the minds of good religious and community minded people of all ilks. If heaven and martyrdom is the ultimate gift to some, and death is the ultimate punishment to others, where do logical people find a common ground?

Considering that we each live on this earth for a speck of time in the grander scheme of history, and considering that it seems like a relatively long time to us, during which we go through many changes mentally, doesn't it make sense that perhaps the better punishment for a criminal is to make them live out their lives in a high security facility with little contact with the outside world? Is our need to cover up our own misdeeds so strong that we would, in their minds anyway, let them go freely to their reward in heaven? And if there is the slightest possibility for these guys to ever fully realize the gravity of what they've done and to suffer the anguish of having to live with it, day in and day out, into old age, isn't that a worse punishment?
The real story may lie in the fear that we have of realizing the gravity of what was done in our names while we crumbled to the terra and went shopping. We are all guilty of that, but our system and our way of being should allow for us to look at that so that it never can happen again. The ruined cases of these alleged 9-11 conspirators will go down in history as a reason that we don't torture; you cant make a real case out of what you find out that way.



If President Obama is behind this misguided idea, I'm going to have a very hard time reconciling the image that he presents in his wonderful speeches around the world with this ass backward, Bushian idea. I never thought I would agree with President Obama on everything, but on the issue of torture and holding the previous administration accountable, its going to be very hard to get past what seems to be purposeful governmental roadblocks to justice! I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: We can not heal and learn from the past unless and until we look hard at what went on, the good and the bad; there is no moving on! There is only repetition of our mistakes until we fully understand what went into making them. Alot of that may be fear, and fear is an issue that human beings have alot of trouble looking at. But, if we don't look, we can be controlled by it; and thats exactly what happened!! So, face it, and move ahead; but do it in the right way, like real Americans, not scared and embarassed children.

My theory at this point is to wait and see, but I would hope that some sort of check and balance system would kick in in order to give the people a voice. In the meantime, I am heading over to the White House page to drop him a note.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: guantanamo, lies, President Barack Obama, torture

Our good friend Brad of BradBlog let us know yesterday that Karl Rove has been called to be interviewed today as part of the criminal investigation into the firings of U.S. Prosecutors. According to the Washington Post, Connecticut prosecutor, Norah R. Dannehy, was appointed in February to look into the role of administration officials in the firings of nine U.S. prosecutors and the questionable political motives and timing of those firings.

SigurdsonLaw describes it thusly:

U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the
pleasure of the president, but cannot be fired for improper
reasons. Bush administration officials at first claimed the
attorneys were let go because of poor performance.

The internal Justice investigation recommended a criminal
inquiry, saying the lack of cooperation by Rove and other senior
administration officials left gaps in their findings that should be
investigated further

Prosecutor Dannehy has been quietly working through the scant information out there, subpoenaing testimony and documents not forthcoming, and interviewing the players, working her way up the ladder. Of interest are Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton, former Bush aides; and of course, Karl Rove, the turd blossom himself.

The Justice Department's report that was released last February, which is thought to lack pertinent information due to the department's inability to compel testimony from members of the Bush Administration, improper criminal conduct. This investigation is to determine if charges will be brought against former Bush aides...hmmmm...



The meeting this morning happened in Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin's, office, and I'm guessing that little real information was exchanged. It would be nice for the fired prosecutors if this investigation could at least clear up the cloud caused by the claim that they were fired because of poor performance....at least we could get some clarity in this issue despite the difficulty posed by the Bushie wall of silence, broken only by propaganda pushes now and again. Someone has to hold these people accountable.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: Justice Department, Karl Rove, lies, misconduct

I know, I know...the John Edwards debacle was and is stunning, heart wrenching, and life changing, and now its back in the headlines in all its glory! Edwards announced today that there is a federal investigation going on into his campaign funds (.... to determine if certain funds disbursed to the company of the woman that he had an affair with were legally transferred, or if there was some nefarious plot to shut her up and keep her in grand style ...with their maybe love child...) over the sum of...um...$114,000, give or take.

Look maybe you can keep your baby's mama in a nice trailer park for that amount, but it seems to me that this might perhaps be production money, as she was the videographer on the campaign trail, and anyone who has had to shoot for hours and then spend hours editing down footage for public consumption will know that an amount like that is chump change. Did he pay her to go away? Did he buy her jewels and furs? Who knows and who cares?



His career is ruined for now, and it seems to me that it serves a whole portion of others in the political and business spectrum to have his voice shut down because of what his message was and is. So, yeah, hes an idiot narcissist who imploded, and he's lucky that, from the outside anyway, his family has survived....If you've read my previous posts on this subject, you'll know that it interests me little to hear speculation about the details of this stupidity, and if he misused 100 grand of campaign funds, I'm sure that there have been worse crimes committed...oh, like the Clinton's real estate bamboozle and Bill Clinton's flirtation with the young Monica Lewinsky. I'm sure that never, ever happens in the halls of power....right? What kind of time and money are we willing to waste because of the hint of a sex scandal?

Which brings me to Joe Lieberman, our favorite Jr. Senator here in Connecticut. Today in the local Stamford Advocate, we were treated to a large piece on the news of Edward's probe, and then a page or two back and in a small box, was the news that Joe himself is also under investigation for misuse of campaign funds. This is a story that is not being covered by much of the media, except for snippets in our local papers here in Connecticut, and only by the Connecticut blogs such as My Left Nutmeg, which has been great all through the nightmare that has been Connecticut politics for more years than even Bush was the national nightmare. The New Haven Register had this story about Lieberman, as if his misuse of funds was just a blip that a small fine would take care of; a civil penalty of $50,000.



The Register also had the same article on Edwards that was published in the Advocate, (but which the Advocate hasn't, as of this time, put on line; nor have they put up the Lieberman story.) The Edwards article talks about his buried career and how he is finished, the turmoil of his marriage and any other projections that the writer could come up with because, heaven knows there isn't much in the way of facts there; not the gay in the bathroom stall/affair with a male page sort of deliciousness brought to us by the now defunct republican majority; now THOSE were facts!

Still, the article makes the Edwards situation sound like he took pallets of cash to another country that we had invaded illegally and just lost it with no explanation....oh yeah, that's the former President of the United States, who we can hardly muster the balls to investigate on charges of real war crimes, much less the money misspent, lost, given out with no explanation, and pocketed in conflicts of interest such as Halliburton/Blackwater & it's subsidiaries/Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld/Tamiflu/Aspartame.

Look, I'm not an apologist for Edwards. I'm as disappointed as anyone who was a true believer in his message, and who was mortified to find that he didnt get out of the race, and continued to wield his delegates, knowing that this was likely to come out. But here's the deal, Edwards is not in office, nor has he been nominated to any cabinet post. He is old, tragic news, in a very interesting election cycle, who will likely have his second act as they all do in show business.

Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, is still actively jumping parties out there and holding his chairmanships on some pretty important committees, (Homeland Security and Government Affairs to name but two.) He is a sitting senator and as much as his crony's have forgiven him for his insane campaign to get back into that seat, the people of Connecticut largely have not.

Why this isn't a bigger story isn't much of a mystery to me, because I was there and saw the tactics of the Lieberman campaign first hand. I worked for Ned Lamont during every free moment I had and manned a contentious poll on election day. The Lieberman investigation was about a whopping $387,000 that was given out improperly, and much of it was to stage a ground war here, when he hadn't planned much campaign presence at all because he was so sure that he would win! When faced with a real lack of volunteers, the campaign hired ground teams to disrupt Lamont's events and basically make a nuisance of themselves. They plastered much of downtown Stamford with Joe signage, which was illegal, they ran through the streets of anyplace that Lamont was appearing and jostled in front of TV cameras with signs that they, themselves didn't understand, and they menaced even old folks and parents with babies in carriages with their aggressive actions.

At a Lamont speech in Greenwich I asked some of the kids, (they were all black for that event and it made the white Joe T-shirts pulled over baggy clothes stand out all the more, as if a crowd of black kids on Greenwich Avenue weren't enough in that stogy old-money town!) if they knew what Joe stood for, and they said no, that a guy in a van offered them $60 per day to wear the t-shirt and support Joe. Later when someone I know asked again, the amount had been raised to $100 per day. A kid said that he didn't know who Joe was or what he stood for but that it was just a job and he was following orders. At the time I was down in what is the inner city of Stamford quite a bit for some personal reasons, and on the cul de sac circle of the cluster housing that now replaces part of the old projects, a white Joe van would drive up and kids would go up to the van looking for work.

At the time the army recruiting offices were active in just such neighborhoods because these were the kids likely to go for the bonus money to go to Iraq for an indeterminate amount of time. Was it right for Joe, who supported the war and had no answers on how we were going to handle the military in Iraq or when they came home, to have children working for him against their own interest? Was it right to pay the on the ground volunteers in a political campaign who don't know what they are representing? I told a few of them that he was pro war and they shrugged, like teens do, and said that they didn't care because it was a job. I felt like that white van circling the entryway to the neighborhood that held all the poor in this city separate from the very rich and thr quickly dwindling middle-class, was preying on these kids, and that they should have been as against the law as any predator enticing kids with cash or candy.

Joe was a strong Bush supporter and allowed himself to be used as a representative for the democratic party implying that some of us were pro Bush and pro war. In reality, Joe was in a world of his own and the only pro war people around were those who were afraid of the terra, and who bought the victory line against the facts presented by experts. That was not what the people of Connecticut wanted, and as our representative we let Joe know that in the primary when we chose Ned Lamont to be our candidate. Joe wouldn't take that laying down and he jumped parties to run as an independent, thus getting elected on the Republican vote and the votes of those who had known him for years here and who either weren't paying attention or who thought that he would come to his senses.

Those kids didn't understand that on key issues Joe was not for them and that they were actually working against their own interests. But that was another Rovian tactic that seemed to work well when used in many different cases. Many of them were very young and in no position to represent one candidate over another, but cash talks, and when a small amount wasn't enough the ante was upped.

Well, we would soon come to find that the way the campaign was paying out for these services was incorrect and illegal. But for Joe, who is still seated on his committees and who was welcomed back with open arms and a standing-O by his coworkers in the senate, even after he lied to his supposed constituents, dumped his party, and let us know in no uncertain terms that he knew better than we did what was best for our state, this was a non-starter. The rules don't apply to guys like Joe; that's the old Bushism that was not only shot down, but smeared into a paste and is now being washed down the same sinkhole that it slithered out of so many years ago; before Reagan, before Nixon...back, back, back to the barons of power who set the stage for the wealthy to maintain their prominence by creating a permanent underclass to fight our wars and tend our lawns, middle-class be damned!

Joe Lieberman has been sheltered by the media of this state and the country for no reason at all. He has been allowed to conduct the business of paying his fine in relative privacy, and in light of other investigations that are getting bold print treatment, he has been favored as always, by a system that protects its own. The end is near for Herr Lieberman and his little Hadassah, so they can return to the country club in Westport where he has been seen airing his furry little body in the pool. He can write his book and take a nice cushy job like Hadassah has. He has certainly represented the interests of big business and war in his years in office enough to deserve something with a corner office and a seven figure salary.

Meanwhile, is it really worth the small civil fine to persue this matter with Edwards? It depends on how serious the powers that be, in whats left of the old guard of the federal government, want him silenced for the long term. However long, it wont be forever, because regardless of bad personal choices, which are just that, personal, the message of the two Americas still rings true, and as much as a watered down Obama will try to address the poverty issue, he is not a bulldog on this issue like Edwards is. So, we will see what happens, and just when you think that hes gone for good, like our friend Elliot Spitzer (who in polling today was overwhelmingly preferred over Patterson as Governor of NY...in fact they want him back!) the second act will arrive.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: campaign financing, federal probes, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, lies

Elliot Spitzer is back and hes talking. The thought of this, no doubt, brings a small shiver to the boardrooms of some of the perps walking around trying to figure out how to hide the money this week. Today Edward Liddy testified that there have been death threats made to or about executives who received bonuses, so no names will be put on the record, but these anonymous players must know that the jig is up in the land of easy-money. Isn't what to do a no-brainer for these great Americans?

Spitzer may be as "disgraced" as any anonymous sex loving Republican loser, but America is known for its great second acts, and we may be witnessing the curtain rising on Spitzer's.
Today in Slate Elliot Spitzer has a short op-ed that speaks volumes about what is going on, and indirectly, if you follow the money, what happened to him. Plainly stated, Spitzer brings the AIG Ponzi Scheme one step closer to the revered establishment when he explains how the bailout money was funneled straight into the top players, with Goldman Sachs being the name that comes up again and again. These top players already got bailout money, and Goldman is looking at zero losses at this point, while regular Americans are being asked to make concessions or just plain losing everything. here are the biggest financial entities in the world, making billions on what appears to have been nothing but air traded back and forth, and having gutted the American people they are walking away with 100% return to their stockholders. In return AIG seems to think that its appropriate to pay themselves bonuses with the leftover funds. This leaves AIG still a wobbly shell with no plan of how to go forward, and the threat of the collapse of all of the world's financial markets still up in the air. So, what was all that bailout money for? Apparently to make sure that no one at Goldman or the other few top firms in the hand-out-line lost anything!

The relationship between AIG and Goldman goes back long enough that one would think that Goldman would know, having bought so much of this "insurance" or whatever it was, whether the "products" were ...er...real or feasible at all. Indeed, Goldman and AIG almost merged a few years ago, but Spitzer notes that the unknown black hole of AIG's business practices were probably what prevented it. Still, that didn't stop the incestuous dealings; it almost makes one think that this whole thing was a setup.

This is country that Spitzer is familiar with; he has been a terrible liability to entities that, under the Bush administration, were allowed to literally gut the country and its citizens. All of this seems to have been part of the Bush Administration's own Ponzi Scheme, which figured that the illusion of an ownership society, terrified of the "terraism" and steeped in the me, me, me, culture would look the other way while they finished clearing out the vault. Beyond that, it's clear that the media hyped housing bubble encouraged the house flip mentality and the idea that anyone could be rich. The idea of the lottery dropping on our own heads made us more protective of the rich, because we might one day be one....or look, we could be one with no money down, if we could just balance that on this, and flip that house!!

Every week came a new offer from our bank or credit card to just put the enclosed check into the bank for a $50,000 loan, unsecured and with a low APR!! Who would know that those same banks would go out of their way to cause a day or week default by changing the cycle or stopping refusing cards that went over-limit, in order to charge fees and raise the rates. Who could know that the fine print on all those little fliers talking about privacy rights and how they are selling all of our information, also said that by-the-way the interest rate is now 25% and the minimum payment has tripled! Default on that and likely AIG has sold insurance to your lending institution that should repay them for making the bad loan in the first place....no money down mortgages? No problem....its the same story. This is the ownership society and we all need to own alot of stuff. It is... what did he say?...uniquely American!

Spitzer was questioning this back in February 2008 when he wrote his Valentine to predatory lenders in the Washington Post. He detailed that Attorneys General across the country had entered into litigation in an attempt to protect the people of their states from predatory lending. The response from the federal government was astounding!

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

snip

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Now, they will say that they fought the consumer protection laws to actually protect the consumers and assure that they could get credit in the future. But actually, Americans could get credit; just credit that they were able to handle and could, by reasonable standards, pay back. This was just more of the same in hindsight. Looking back that all that the Bush administration has done, the beginnings of this disaster looks almost quaint, and not like an institutionalized foray into the dirty underside of criminal activity. There were quotas passed by the government as to who got the loans and the focus was on certain populations who would be helped into homeownership even if they couldn't maintain the credit. It was treated as some sort of fulfillment of the American Dream for people to own something, but really had more to do with the insurance on the loans than the people involved. The American dream is dead, as we well know, but what it was, way back then, was that people could afford to own a house and put their kids in college!

AIG sold insurance to the biggest entities in the financial world to cover the proliferation of bad loans. This insurance became so common that it was impossible that the lions of finance didn't somehow have an inkling that something was wrong. Didn't Goldman and the rest of these huge firms know something about the stability of an impossible business plan? Hadn't Goldman gone over everything in their bid to merge? And what of the government and their mandating of certain loans that were bound to go bad. There were people involved in these things, and its not like regular people understand the ins and outs of the financial industry. They rely on brokers to explain it to them. But these brokers were being forced to see a certain product to an unqualified population. How could they? Why would they? Those are questions for another time.

Spitzer has been fighting these guys and asking questions all along. Coincidentally, right after the WSJ editorial appeared on Valentine's Day 2008, Spitzer was caught up in what was an extremely unusual sting. So unusual is an investigation like this that it seems almost like it was a set-up; and considering where it all came from and how it all came down, it might well have been.

It seems that Spitzer's bank was investigating expenses under the auspices of the newer Homeland Security laws of the Bush administration. Greg Palast wrote about this compellingly, and in light of how the whole thing is shaking out now, and what Spitzer said back then about this financial mess and what he tried to DO about it, Palast had a pretty good early grasp on what had gone down. So now, with Spitzer poking his head up from the underground of "healing his family," at this most compelling of moments, its probably worthwhile for Americans to screw their heads on straight and forget the details of the hooker, and look at what Spitzer was working on when he was taken down. We might all find ourselves wanting to thank the egotistical crime fighter who cant keep it in his pants.

I am no apologist for breaking the law, and usually its the highest and mightiest that fall the hardest. But when the mainstream is showing us the shiny object, we must resist the temptation to succumb to our base natures and try to see the bigger picture. There was never a real case against Elliot Spitzer, and no charges were filed. The release of embarrassing personal information was at the discretion of the Bush Administration's Justice Department.

Why was this information released? It wasn't that he was a crusader against such crimes, because many who have been caught were exactly the same and their information has been kept quiet. It wasn't that the press is all so great in their investigative journalism, either...because we know they're loathe to get off their asses if they can just read a talking point; as is evidenced by the reportage on this case.

Palast:

Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”

Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.

Or maybe we should say, 'indiscretion.'

Bush's Justice Department.
Its clear to me that all things being equal, this was at the very least, not a transsexual streetwalker a la Hugh Grant, and it was all very ho-hum and quiet. So, whatever the problem that leads to this sort of behavior, I don't want to know about it...its personal, so just walk on by...nothing to see here.



Welcome back Elliot Spitzer. I hope we hear more from you very soon...your voice is needed in this matter.


c/p RIP Coco

Labels: AIG, bank bailout, Bush Administration crimes, lies, spitzer

Our good friend Richard Blair of the All Spin Zone is traveling today to AIG headquarters in NYC to make some noise (look for the guy in the leather jacket with the sign that says GIVE IT BACK MR LIDDY!! ) If you're around there go and find him!...and Richard, text if you need to get bailed out! Security is tight in the big city!
He's not the only one, apparently....It seems that protests are popping up all over the place, and they seemingly stem mostly from guys like Richard who have just had enough and who want to jump into the thick of things in this drunken town.



The new Tea Party movement is gaining momentum, and as the bailouts come down with little reasonable explanation or accountability, the turnouts are growing. If this was the thing that was gonna get people into the streets then so be it. I always thought that it would be tent cities and people dying in the streets, which is likely not so far off. We witnessed Hurricane Katrina and were so numbed that we just watched in horror and maybe sent money. Some went there immediately, but not enough in light of what was going on and the government's non-response. It had to be something that effected us all; and here we are. The thing is that this is all so blatant and corrupt that its almost unbelievable!

Ive been struggling to understand the details of the AIG thing, and its all so illogical that I cant quite believe that the government has given them anything. Why are we bailing them out? I'm hearing alot of this hold-your-nose-and-bear-it talk because its necessary for the world economy...? When it becomes clear that bonuses are being paid out at the same rate as before, and that its business as usual. Are we bailing them out so that they can just continue on with what they were doing that got us into this mess? How are they going to go forward? and what gives them the idea that they don't have to answer to us?

Here, thanks to the Cognitive Dissonance blog is some explanation of the swindle via post and video:



I'm working on this, and I hope that I don't end up with some novella length post about the ins and outs of this nonsense, because it seems that we really have little more to do than to take to the streets; and it occurs to me that people will be spurred to action by short bursts of easy to understand facts about this rather than a long lament.

Its just all too much.


c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Labels: AIG, bank bailout, crime, lies, mortgage crisis

This evening Chris Matthews, or Tweety as he is known amongst his "fans....not!", democrat again because its in style, and raring for a fight against the very people that he has been massaging for the past 8 years, said that while interviewing Ari Fleischer last night on Hardball that a statement had gotten by him that he didn't notice until he watched the rerun at 7PM. Maybe it was a slow news day, but I'm wondering why Ari Fleischer gets a podium at all...I'm wondering how its possible that these Bush criminals think that they can get on TV and lie again and again. The denial and the bold spewing of shit is interesting on a psychological level, but hey, we can discuss what happened without having them around to keep up the party line, right?

I guess that the bookers wanted some turmoil and someone to throw the hard balls at, and I suppose that in his new persona as a dem again, he may be doing some good to let the likes of Fleischer get up and try to keep up the old, old talking points and slap them down as a simple illustration of the situation that we just got out of. Maybe if you show the American people a fight, and what is known as "good TV," its an actual service.

Well as Ari finished up his absolutely inane recitation of the talking points, and how they couldn't have possibly done anything in response to the memo that Bin Laden was gonna strike in the US, he said straight out that Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9-11. Now, we have to know that's not true and that it was one of the big lies that got us into this mess. Its shocking that anyone is still saying that, and its shocking that this straightforward statement goes by the wide eyed Tweety in the headlights. Maybe his producer was talking in his ear, but I woulda hoped that that same producer would have immediately said "hey Chris, did you get that?" I mean, it took till an hour later and he saw it himself on the rerun without anyone mentioning it to him? Ho hum, I guess that the staff over at MSNBC has been so inundated with unchallenged lies, that even now that the tables have turned a little, they just let them roll on by.



Tonight Matthews brought it up and commented on it...whatever. I hope that every dope who saw that smack down last night was in the audience tonight for the comeback, because the insidious planting of this information has to stop, and if Tweety is not up to it, maybe he should let someone else take over these sorts of interviews. I'm thinking Rachel Maddow or Sam Seder; either of whom is smart and quick enough to have torn him to shred and still brought the segment in on time.

Y'know, one thing that Fleischer said that was true is that Matthews is disingenuous. He is just the kind of rat who jumps from ship to ship as it suits him. In my opinion, and as much as I love to hear the turncoats disavow that which they supported to the horrible detriment of this country, its too fucking late for Matthews to rehabilitate himself. He seems less a hard ball journalist these days than a dazed and confused wild animal trying frantically to find the angle that's gonna let him hold his job. Gee, wouldn't that be like so many Americans already weathering the new depression? Welcome to reality Tweety; the reality that you helped create.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: Chris Matthews, lies

Dear American:

I cordially correspond today to request you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.



I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused urgent need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.



I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.



This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. For this inconvenience you will be rewarded with grand fees of 1/1,000,000th of 1% of possible profits due to off shore laundering of skim funds due to reprinting of said funds.



Please reply with mother's maiden name, routing and account numbers of all of your bank account, IRA and college fund accounts and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.



Yours Faithfully,

Minister of Treasury Paulson

Folks, seriously, contact your representatives about the insane bailout: Skippy has the info and pertinent links here.

h/t Richard Blair

Labels: comedy, lies, wingnuttia

Yes You Can Has.

Labels: bloggers, John McCain, lies

Want to know why Republicans are so inept at actually governing, once they get elected?

It's because for them, it's ONLY about being elected:

McCain seems to have made a choice that many politicians succumb to but that he had always promised to avoid — he appears ready to do whatever it takes to win, even it if soils his reputation.

“We recognize it’s not going to be 2000 again,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said, alluding to the media’s swooning coverage of McCain’s ill-fated crusade against then-Gov. George W. Bush and the GOP establishment. “But he lost then. We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”

Translation: We will lie, we will smear, we will do whatever we have to do in order to win, no matter how sleazy or underhand. As for what we're going to do afterwards, well, that's not the point. The point is to WIN. Because power is its own reward.

Labels: John McCain, lies, Republicans, sleaze

And in Florida, no less.

From the St. Petersburg Times in tomorrow's paper:

Campaign of lies disgraces McCain

McCain's straight talk has become a toxic mix of lies and double-speak. It is leaving a permanent stain on his reputation for integrity, and it is a short-term strategy that eventually will backfire with the very types of independent-thinking voters that were so attracted to him.

[snip]

McCain's faux chivalrous outrage over Obama's purported insult is beneath him. He has been a serious public servant willing to say unpopular truths when he thought it best for the country, but he's more than willing in this election to put his name on campaign lies. The leader who says he would rather lose an election than lose a war now risks losing his reputation in an attempt to win the White House.

Risks? McCain's reputation should be just about nonexistent by now, were it not for the barbecue ribs he used to bribe reporters into covering him favorably.

Labels: John McCain, lies

Breaking News: Sarah Palin just confirmed that her 17 year old daughter, Brillo, is 5 months pregnant and is gonna marry the father, Levi, and keep the baby. Supposedly McCain knew about this pregnancy before choosing Palin as his running mate.
These people are so full o' lies that its mind boggling in its enormity. Read on for more on ungodly partnership of the dysfunctional Alaskan with the PTSD Gambler.
(h/t to my Mom and her diligent monitoring of the Bill O'Reillys of the world...know thy enemy!)

I'm looking at MSNBC's coverage of Gustav barrelling ashore in Louisiana and throwing Michelle Kosinski off camera, intercut with pictures of ....er...walls, which are the levees not quite up to snuff, we're told, because the project is supposed to take until 2012. At this moment the wind driven water is reportedly pouring over the tops of west side industrial canal walls of New Orleans like a waterfall...they might actually be breached by the force or punctured by loose ships floating around (and how did that happen with so much advanced warning?) In the 9th ward the walls are holding so far because the wind is not blowing directly there yet. It all depends on the speed and direction of how this thing turns around. Tornados have already been reported here and there but they don't seem to be touching down.

Bad and evil girl that I am, (and feeling like most people in the path of the storm are out or trying to be secure...they at least have the information...I have been wandering the city streets with a smile, thinking that never could payback be so targeted as to force the republican party to conduct business in the shadow of this. They are unable to postpone the business of the convention by law, so as the "stars" of the party fall away leaving the silly democrat troll Joementum Lieberman, mother Palin, and McInsane hisself trying to figure out how to not appear in split screen against the embarrassment reminder of what his party finds important. If we had to have big storms...and we do, with the environment as it is, and as part of the normal course of things...the timing of this thing is perfect!

On to the unbelievable joke that is Sarah Palin....and wasn't that her riding the air on her bike in the storm surge? (I've got to work on learning to photoshop!!)
John Cole nails this situation at Balloon Juice with the unbelievable news that McCain's people are finally now heading up to Wasilla to look into Palin...now....Here is what hes got:
According to the Washington Monthly, democrats doing opposition research found out that no one had checked the archives of the local papers up there (they are not online in full and archives have to be searched in person if one wants to do a complete search.) The former Republican House Speaker for Alaska expressed surprise that Palin was chosen because no one had come to Alaska to do any research on her. Only just now have the McCain people reserved rooms in the local hotel...just now?.....
Is this part of McCain's tendency to gamble (one man's maverick is another man's idiot when it involves expensive fighter planes or, heaven forbid, national security,) or part of a bigger plan (more on that to come?) More to come on the high stakes gambling addiciton of McCain....but keep it in mind if youknow anything about PTSD, addiction, and the 12 steps...we are dealing with a pretty old guy who has been through major trauma in his life and remains in denial about much of it. At some point soon we have to look at this seriously and not through the lens of David Gregory's failed climb to the top of broadcasting.

I could have guessed that Palin has flip flopped on the bridge to nowhere, that she is not real sharp on historical facts about America, was likely a member of the Alaska secessionist movement before jumping into mainstream politics, and is unclear about what the VP job entails. She only just got her passport in the past year, so those...ahem, Faux News...who feel like she has international experience because she lives close to Russia...well....

The issues about her kids and the maternity/paternity of little Trix or Snap, Crackle, Pop, is less important than the lies involved in how the issue was/is being handled. The holier-than-thou conservative right can come up with some of the best lies when its their foot in the bathroom stall of the solicitous cop next to them, or their kid having the baby out of wedlock.

Regardless of who actually gave birth to Twig, I say from personal experience and all the medical advice I've ever gotten, not to mention airline safety rules, that one does not get on a plane when one's water has broken and one is in labor. After the first child, the labor process tends to vary in that it can be very, very fast or can be troublesome...and from what Ive heard and experienced in my lifetime of being a mom and from other mothers, subsequent babies are usually born quicker than initial ones; sometimes surprisingly quicker. So, why would anyone in their right mind (especially one who purports to care for the health of the unborn,) get on a plane in that condition? This wasn't a short flight either; we're talking Texas to Seattle to Alaska to a small town hospital. She went specifically to a small town hospital knowing that the kid was going to have Downs Syndrome and probably would have special needs.

This was a very high risk pregnancy and actually, regardless of how she got back to the small hospital, she shouldn't have even gone anywhere at that risk level.No one in their right mind, and who has access to the best health care in the country, would do that! Setting aside gossip on the intertubes, I've got to say that I question the woman's judgment in all matters if she took such a chance with not only her own health but with the health of the baby and with a number of planeloads of people. Is it right to take a chance of making a plane, or connecting flight, make an emergency landing? Is it right to expose her unborn special needs kid to the bacteria involved in all of that travel? Finally, is it ,medically possible to break your water and yet show no signs of pregnancy or labor over the hours spent travelling? Possibly....but unlikely. The whole explanation shows poor judgement in the best case scenario and a real tendency to lie (with the possibility of insurance fraud and endangering airline safety) in the worst.

Then there is Troopergate...but I'm in a hurry this morning. 87% of Alaskans believe she lied about it and I agree. Here is what Josh Marshall has on it. Its minor in the scheme of things, but these things add up, and what really is troubling is the McCain campaign's lack of due diligence.
Maybe he is a gambler...er...maverick...but, who is handling him? If there is institutionalized denial apparent before we've even gotten to the issues at hand then what can we expect when the next disaster arrives? More of the same, as they say.

A rumor is being floated around that if Palin were to have to step down then the obvious choice would have to be Lieberman. Check Christy Hardin-Smith at FDL's exasperation and questioning about all of the same stuff here, and then peruse the comments there or at Kos or anywhere else, (soon to be on the M$M...not!...until, that is, it happens in their faces or Rachel Maddow forces it out,) that the real plan is to have Palin step aside and put Joementum in the slot when its too late to do much about it.

Its the Big Brother Backdoor Strategy that those of us who try to relax and forget with reality shows know all too well. See, the head-of-household (or nominee in this case) nominates 2 houseguests for eviction. One is often a pawn, because when the veto is played that nominee can be removed from contention for eviction and the real target can be slotted in with no chance of being saved by the veto. If this is a backdoor admission of Lieberman onto the ticket, then I'm impressed...though its been sorta clumsy by Big Brother standards. But hell, it indicates that someone, anyone, in the McCain camp turns on the TV at all; forget news or the internets...just plain old pop culture TV will do at this point.

I don't see how this whole thing isn't a joke...but....I couldn't believe most of what Bush was doing while he was doing it either. Depending on the American people to actually think about this and weigh possible outcomes of their voting actions is a non-starter. There must be some way to produce this into a reality show that will grip the masses in prime time and spell it out s-l-o-w-l-y and carefully. The security of the nation may depend on it.

Labels: Joe Lieberman, lies, Sarah Palin

Unqualified, wingnut, crazy, scary....these are just some of the words that come to mind when looking at the life and time of Sarah Palin.

Ah, Sarah Palin, runner up to the Ms. Alaska crown, outspoken opponent of a woman's right to choose, enemy of the Polar Bear, and great leveler of the field in the area of youth, gender, experience and the naming of children, will be side by side with pinky mouse McCain on the republican stump starting immediately.

Is this a joke? Trailing her cadre of children, including the infant dangling oddly from the arms of an older daughter, this oddball is being paraded around the bubble where the Bushies live, while the rest of America is shaking their heads at the similarities to the Harriet Miers debacle. Isn't anyone advising the McCain campaign?...what an embarrassment!








Sarah Palin is advertising herself as a mother, but if the naming of children is any indication of one's ability to reason and govern, then the republicans are in trouble. How she chose her kid's names is anyone's guess (and it has been mentioned that on those occasions that she admits that she tried pot , which I should add is legal in Alaska, she may have thought up those names!)

So, we've got Track and Willow, Piper, and Trig(Paxson Van Palin,) but worst of all is poor Bristol, who is known as Brillo....Track will be called up to duty in Iraq soon, Trig may be the love child of Brillo...who can keep them straight? Trig, with Downs Syndrome is more likely the 44 year old wanna-be Commander-in-Chief's, child, though she remained pretty scary thin throughout the pregnancy; shes strongly anti-choice yet kept this a secret from even her closest co-workers for 7 months, knowing that the child would have Downs Syndrome. US Conservatives at About.com had this:

The Palin family released this statement the morning after Trig Paxson's birth:

“Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives. We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed.”

Three days later, Gov. Palin was back at work.

She went back to work 3 days after having this child!? And who is going to be caring for these children when she is VP? McCain is pretty damned old, not to mention the cancer; he could very well die. Is this who we want for president? Haven't we been through the not very bright and very crazy wing-nut thing for 8 long years already? Palin has no experience; less than no experience in that she is in such a remote area...her level of experience is in no way comparable to Obama's supposed lack of experience; she really, really has no experience except in the way of governing a state with very, very few people. She has had the ability to wield a strong outspoken wingnuttian stance on just about every issue that the rest of the country is too busy trying to pay the rent and juggle some semblence of a life, to take seriously, and the fact that McCain and his team view any part of her bio as a viable political option is just plain scary.

Onward: She has a husband who is part commercial fisherman and part oil field worker, and a history herself as a "maverick" of sorts, who hunts and fishes and is a lifetime NRA member; her bubbly yet carefully crafted delivery of support for the war, guns, and the conservative line, make her an interesting choice for McCain in a field where the PUMAS might actually be crazy enough to vote for a woman, any woman....my god, is it not apparent that Alaska and the life there is not representative of most of the country and that just as McCain is removed from the lives of most Americans to the point that he can't even state what "middle class" means or how many houses he has,what car he drives, this nut is also so far from the main stream as to be...a joke....this is a joke, right?

Sarah Palin is a surprise, and she is surely an all or nothing roll of the dice for a desperate Republican party that is looking towards a convention shown in split screen with hurricane Gustav bearing down on NOLA, in a stark remembrance of the failures of this administration. Even now, the White House is trying to pull Bush from having to appear on that split screen. Clearly this is not what Bush needs for his legacy of failure...Forget the beauty of karma and how the timing of Gustav cries out to the Bushies paybacks-a-bitch boys! Is the gulf prepared for this thing?...its horrifying that all of this time later, the infrastructure questions have not been clearly addressed and flooding has become a huge problem across the country.

I fell pretty strongly that most Americans are disgusted enough on both sides to just vote the knee jerk opposite of what we've had. I cant see this Palin woman going up against Biden in any meaningful way and I look forward to McCain trying to hold his own in a direct debate with Obama. But in reality, most Americans lack the interest, attention span, and mostly time to go much past their morning paper in this. They will vote their pocketbooks and the gas pumps...the war...food prices...and disasters on television. I'm not so sure that polls mean much in this strangest of strange times, but they sure are embraced by the media as a foundation for creating a reality show that could somehow produce ratings. This particular episode is like the Big Brother house when the old guy makes a pact with the sorority sister.

So, with Brillo and Trig, Twig, Twat, and Pipe....Tracks and Willy and the little green sprout....as the shiny-shiny that Mom, (with her obligatory still-working-apparently vagina,) is holding up to distract us from the magnificent speech of Obama, we have to know that it wont last long when its clear that the meat is not there. Mom is viewed as an intellectual lightweight, as is McCain, and up against the democratic ticket they will fail. Remember, most of America views Alaska as a scene from the Cicely Alaska of Northern Exposure. What happens when the scruffy John Corbett character ends up being the scary hairless mouse McCain?

Not to even mention that scandal has rocked her office lately in the form of an aide trying to kick her sister's ex out of his job. That bit of pulpy gossip has legs only in that its personal dirt of the kind that sells rags on the checkout line. Further, her popularity among the sparse voters up there could have something to do with $1200 oil rebates to cover the price of fuel....is she popular? Maybe, if you could even begin to tease all of this out.

So, if this is for us a Dan Quayle moment, minus the sharp intellect of the Q, then I hope to be heading north for the duration...If its just another installation of that wacky DC show, Wingnuttia, then I hope that Ms Palin and all the little Palinettes enjoy their 15 minutes of fame.
Some of us are serious about trying to fix this country; John McCain is certainly not. This nomination proves it beyond a doubt.

c/p RIPCoco

Labels: John McCain, lies, polar bears, Sarah Palin, wingnuttia