The Red State Rebel

Want some cheese with that whine?

2005-10-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

I can't help but be extremely amused with the right's incessant whining over the Shrub's pick of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.

The righties were drooling over this pick for years. It was their political wet dream, a chance to put a Bork clone and a Roe-killer on the nation's high court.

And instead they get... the president's lawyer.

A nominee who has never served a day on the bench in her life. (This strikes me as not dissimilar to taking a kid off a Pop Warner squad and making him an NFL quarterback.)

A lawyer whose biggest qualification is apparently her observation that Bush is "the most brilliant man she had ever met." (Hopefully she was simply engaging in blatant ass-kissing there. It is quite frightening to think that someone who said something that disingenous with all seriousness will soon be one of nine jurists tasked with shaping constitutional law for at least a decade to come.)

Now, Miers may indeed turn into a Roe-killer. She may end up being a Thomas/Scalia clone.

Nobody really knows... not even the righties. And it's driving them nuts.

"Disappointed, depressed and demoralized," moans conservative patriarch Bill Kristol...

It is very hard to avoid the conclusion that President Bush flinched from a fight on constitutional philosophy. Miers is undoubtedly a decent and competent person. But her selection will unavoidably be judged as reflecting a combination of cronyism and capitulation on the part of the president.

Finally. At last... at long last... do you guys finally understand?

Did you actually believe Bush stood for grand conservative principles? That he came to office wanting to install a new political philosophy in the minds of the American people... to make into reality the vision the right has been carefully crafting for the last 40 years?

I thought you guys were misguided... but I didn't think you were stupid. Or naive. Perhaps I was mistaken.

George W. Bush and the Congressional GOP stand for one thing, and one thing only -- the aggregation, concentration and preservation of political and economic power for those within the circle of loyalty. And if it means wrecking the country in the process... well, fuck it. As long as the Republicans stay in power, it's all good!

But when your judicial wet dream, the moment you've been waiting for endlessly for the last five years, evaporates in an instant... suddenly the scales fall from your eyes.

You knew who Bush really was. And you went along for the ride anyway.

Reap the whirlwind.

The Real Pat Tillman

2005-09-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

I went to school with Pat Tillman.

That's really not saying a whole lot. While Pat and I were walking the hallowed halls of Arizona State, roughly 45,000 people were going to school there. And we weren't exactly drinking buddies or anything.

But I knew of Pat. Hell, anyone who went to ASU around then knew about him... the beach-bum surfer dude who kicked serious ass on the football field.

So it was a bit odd to watch the pro-war ultra-right transform Pat into an object of their worship following his death in Afghanistan in April 2004. Gruppenfuhrer Ann Coulter even branded him "virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be."

So the surfer-bum from ASU had just been transformed into an American ubermensch, martyred willingly, happily in Bush's holy crusade.

Now, I was always a wee bit skeptical of this. See, Pat was from the Bay Area... a notorious hotspot for pinko bleeding-heart liberals. He literally dressed like a beach-bum... T-shirt, long hair and sandals. And the guy used to climb up to the top of the light-towers overlooking Sun Devil Stadium to contemplate life.

As it turns out, Pat was still the same cool dude all along. If you want to know who Pat Tillman really was, take a look at this Sunday story from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Turns out Pat felt a lot like the rest of us... gung-ho to kick the shit out of bin Laden in Afghanistan, but not so hot on the war in Iraq. A particularly telling account from Spc. Russell Baer, one of Pat's fellow soldiers...

“I can see it like a movie screen. We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Way Coulter plays it up, you'd think Pat devoured the writings of guys like Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly. Nope. Turns out one of his favorite authors was none other than Noam Chomsky... and that he had arranged to meet Chomsky once his tour in Afghanistan was up.

"Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty."

Au contraire. Sounds just like the Pat Tillman ASU once knew.

I hope you'll take the time to read the Chronicle story... and get to know the real Pat Tillman, too. A guy that cool deserves to have his memory reclaimed from the political hacks and bullshit artists of the right.

Crushing the Bushies, one kitten at a time

2005-08-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, loyal readers, it's been a month since I posted. Sorry. Had lots of important drinking to do.

But what brings me back to the blogosphere? Ah, yes... kittens.

Now see, I was building up quite the fountain of rage over the chickenhawks' treatment of Cindy Sheehan. Here we have everything that is most screwed up about America these days tied up in a neat little package... pro-war chickenshit chickenhawks flagellating a mom who lost her son in Iraq because she dared voice dissent against our High Holy Leader, King George II. (Chickenhawks who, of course, whose combat experience consists of seeing Saving Private Ryan on the big screen, and whose children define sacrifice as attending Stanford instead of Harvard.)

See, their concept of sacrifice can be best defined by a dipshit I saw the other day while commuting to work. Across the back of his shiny new Mercedes SUV was a magnetic ribbon stating that "Freedom isn't free."

And neither is securing a steady supply of oil for your tank, you flaming dickhead!

(Calm blue ocean... calm blue ocean...)

But why rage about these little bastards when you can mock them... with kittens!

This is about the most friggin' brilliant piece I've seen on the Internet in quite some time. Basically, the theory goes something like this:

1. Find a whole bunch of lunatic rantings about Cindy Sheehan. (About as difficult as finding a hooker in the French Quarter.)
2. Change "Cindy Sheehan" in the quote to "this kitten."
3. Juxtapose the new quote next to a picture of a cuddly kitten.
4. Watch it spread across the blogosphere like a virus.

My friends, it would be fucking cool (sorry, I broke my taboo about not using that word, but I'm excited) if the beginning of the end of the lunatic right was signaled by a bunch of cute kittens. Shit, instead of protesting, the hippies should have chucked kittens at LBJ. Vietnam would have been over before Tet.

So, in the spirit of this new dawn, I make my own contribution to bringing Bush's Quagmire to an end...

This kitten is demonizing our leaders and slandering our country. Little bastard.

(All right, so he's not a kitten. So sue me.)

The Brownshirt Caucus

2005-07-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

If you want to piss off a Republican, nothing will do it quicker than calling the Bushies fascists or Nazis.

Rarely does their self-righteous rage run hotter. The neck and face instantly go beet red, the chest puffs out, and a table-pounding session will begin, usually with the words, "How dare you...."

As amusing as this spectacle is to watch, I'm usually not a big fan of calling Republicans Nazis. It is usually a gross oversimplification and exaggeration, one that tends to diminish the level of barbarity reached by the real article. And it demonstrates the same lack of imagination displayed by redneck GOPers who constantly compare liberals to Communists.

But these days... well, perhaps it isn't such a stretch after all. The establishment of a concentration camp at Gitmo and the acceptance of torture under the guise of military necessity were certainly big steps down that slippery slope.

And as we slip further, the words of some become downright chilling. It is one thing when a blowhard propagandist like Ann Coulter spews fascistic venom ... it is quite another when United States Congressmen start down that path.

Fascists, for example, believe it is appropriate... indeed, a necessity... to execute political opponents.

Exhibit A: Rep. Peter King, R-New York, appearing on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" last week...

SCARBOROUGH: The last thing you want to do at a time of war is reveal the identity of undercover CIA agents.

KING: No. Joe Wilson, she recommended-his wife recommended him for this. He said the vice president recommended him. To me, she took it off the table. Once she allowed him to go ahead and say that, write his op-ed in "The New York Times," to have Tim Russert give him a full hour on "Meet the Press," saying that he was sent there as a representative of the vice president, when she knew, she knew herself that she was the one that recommended him for it, she allowed that lie to go forward involving the vice president of the United States, the president of the United States, then to me she should be the last one in the world who has any right to complain.

And Joe Wilson has no right to complain. And I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave this guy such a free ride and all the media, they're the ones to be shot, not Karl Rove. [Emphasis added.]

Slip of the tongue? Maybe. But remember that a Freudian slip is not a pure accident... it is the accidental statement of something that the person is really thinking, but normally would not say publicly.

But let's move on...

Fascists believe that terror-bombing civilian populations and non-military targets is an appropriate and effective tool of war. The Nazis were particularly big believers in this, as anyone who lived in Rotterdam or London in 1940 can tell you. Fortunately, the Nazis never got their hands on nukes.

We, however, have more than enough nukes to go around... and some members of Congress are getting real itchy to use 'em.

Exhibit B: Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, appearing on an Orlando radio talk show. Host Pat Campbell has just asked how the United States should respond in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack on a U.S. city.

CAMPBELL: Worst-case scenario - if they do have these nukes inside the borders and they were to use something like that, what would our response be?

TANCREDO: What would be the response? (pause) Um, you know, there are things you could threaten to do before something like that happens and you may have to do afterwards (unintelligible) draconian.

CAMPBELL: Such as?

TANCREDO: Well, what if you said something like, "If this happens in the United States and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims." You could take out their holy sites.

CAMPBELL: You're talking about bombing Mecca?

Tancredo: Yeah. What if you said, "We recognize this is the ultimate threat to the United States, so this is the ultimate response." I'm just throwing out some ideas because you would be talking about taking the most draconian measures you could possibly imagine. [Emphasis added.]

Is this a slip of the tongue? Of course not. This is a United States Congressman, in a public forum, endorsing attack (presumably nuclear) on a city of no military significance, but one of enormous religious and cultural significance to one out of every six persons on the planet.

It is worth noting that Mecca is one of the largest cities of a U.S. ally. One of al-Qaeda's highest goals is the overthrow of the ruling government of this ally, the House of Saud. Tancredo apparently believes the appropriate response to an al-Qaeda attack is to destroy the most important city under the rule of the House of Saud.

Finally, lest we forget -- there are just under one million people living in the city of Mecca. Presumably 99.9 percent of them have nothing to do with al-Qaeda. But a nuclear device makes no such distinctions. If a nuclear device is detonated over Mecca, hundreds of thousands of civilians will die, regardless of how they feel about bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

There's a word for that: Genocide. And the fact that it would be a response to the mass murder of American civilians justifies it not one damn bit. Slaughtering innocents to retaliate for the slaughter of innocents is still genocide, and still evil.

But did Tancredo apologize? Nope. From the Denver Post:

I'm not suggesting we do it. I have nothing to apologize for in that respect. I'm simply saying to have a good discussion on this issue, a thorough discussion on what is perhaps the most serious kind of possible situation we could face as a civilization, that you cannot simply take things off the table because they are uncomfortable to talk about.

Like mass murder. That is a perfectly appropriate topic for discussion in Bush's America, apparently.

Here's a nickel's worth of free advice for the GOP. Don't like being called fascists? Stop talking like them.

Who the hell is "Goyal"?

2005-07-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

Today the mantle of "shittiest job in the world" fell upon the deserving shoulders of White House Propaganda Minister... er, Press Secretary... Scott McClellan.

See, some moons ago Mr. McClellan went up on stage before the White House press corps and, when asked whether Karl Rove had anything to do with the public outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, flatly denied Rove discussed Plame with anybody. Then he claimed Bush would instantly shit-can anyone who had anything to do with the leak.

Today... oops... Rove's own attorney admitted ol' Karl discussed Plame with Time's Matthew Cooper.

Now, just in case you've never dealt with the press, here's a little insight...

Nothing pisses off a reporter worse than lying to their faces.

Spinning, wiggling, the error of omission... all that stuff is considered part of the game. But if you outright lie to them... well, imagine a big hornets' nest. Then imagine smacking it a couple of times with a two-by-four.

And then when you consider that a reporter is now cooling her heels in jail over the affair while a White House stooly (that would be Bob Novak, natch) runs free... well, I'd rather deal with pissed-off hornets.

Which brings us to today's press briefing. Now, I might be tempted to feel sorry for someone who must face this kind of interrogation in front of the world on live television.

But given that it's Propaganda Minister McClellan... a lying weasel who just got caught red-handed... BWAHAAAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Does the President stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak of a name of a CIA operative?

Excuse me, but I wasn't actually talking about any investigation. But in June of 2004, the President said that he would fire anybody who was involved in this leak, to press of information. And I just want to know, is that still his position?

Scott, if I could -- if I could point out, contradictory to that statement, on September 29th, 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one who said, if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation is when the President made his comment that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved. So why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you've suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, "We're not going to comment on an ongoing investigation"?

So could I just ask, when did you change your mind to say that it was okay to comment during the course of an investigation before, but now it's not?

Scott, can I ask you this; did Karl Rove commit a crime?

Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003 when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliott Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this" -- do you stand by that statement?

Scott, I mean, just -- I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?

And so forth... 18 consecutive questions regarding Karl Rove and McClellan's earlier denials. Then it gets interesting...

Q Scott, there's a difference between commenting on an investigation and taking an action --

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Goyal.

Q Can I finish, please?

MR. McCLELLAN: You can come -- I'll come back to you in a minute. Go ahead, Goyal.

Q Scott, today also the President spoke about the war on terrorism and also, according to -- report, there was bombings in London and also bombings in India, and at both places, al Qaeda was involved. According to the India report and press reports, a Pakistani television said that Osama bin Laden is there alive and they have spoken with him, and his group is still -- as far as terrorism around the globe is concerned. So now the major bombings after 9/11 took place in London, and more are about to come, according to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. They are still -- and again, the President is doing a great job as far as fighting against terrorism is concerned. But where do we stand now, really? Where do we go from London, as far as terrorism is concerned? How far we can go after Osama bin Laden now to catch him? Because he's still in Pakistan.

Which leads us to our question of the day... who the hell is this "Goyal" who just pulled McClellan's nuts out of a vise with this softball? ("The President is doing a great job as far as fighting terrorism is concerned"???)

And you all thought guys like Jeff Gannon were history.

His name, in case you're curious, is Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe, better known amongst the White House press corps as "Goyal the Foil." ostensibly he's interested in covering news... typically that news which advances his theory that Pakistan sucks... but he's known for throwing such hard balls as these...

Scott, first of all, party was last night great, thanks to the President and First Lady. (Dec. 17, 2004)

Before my question, I must commend to the Secret Service agents at the Southwest gate yesterday. I had a problem with my key. I locked the key in my car, they were very helpful. (Dec. 14, 2004)

And my particular favorite...

(December 9, 2004:) On Afghanistan. This week there was a milestone, and also I'm sure the President must be feeling a dream come true that, like Vice President Cheney and also Secretary Rumsfeld called that this is the first time ever in 5,000 years of history of Afghanistan that there was a first ever elected free government. And millions of Afghans now enjoy freedom. My question is that how does the President feel? And also, are we seeing more like this in Iraq? And also, some woman in Afghanistan -- they were protesting here. I was speaking to some of the immigrants from Afghanistan in this area -- they are saying there is more to be done, and they are calling on the White House, one, they are saying that -- the White House and Americans -- but more to be done for women, and also to fight against terrorism from --

MR. McCLELLAN: Is there a question?

Christ, we're outsourcing EVERYTHING to the Indians now.... first IT and call center jobs, now designated White House ass-kisser jobs that used to be reserved for red-blooded American "journalists" who moonlit as $200-an-hour Internet gigolos.

Wake up, America! Free trade will be the death of us all!

Compassionate conservatism

2005-06-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

My apologies, faithful readers... all two of you, anyway. Yours truly has been engulfed with real-world concerns the last few weeks. Paying jobs can be terribly inconvenient, can't they?

So Richard Durbin's the latest to be flagellated and crucified by the One True Party for daring to voice his opinion that maybe, just maybe, it's inappropriate to ship people off to Gitmo, then subject them to mistreatment and indefinite imprisonment without trial. Last time I looked, that was exactly the kind of shit America went to war to defeat, not the kind of shit it promoted.

Could Durbin have phrased things a bit more politely and appropriately? Perhaps. The analogy is not exact... Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were responsible for the mass murder of millions. But defending yourself by saying that you're better than Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot is a pretty weak defense. Hell, Castro and Pinochet look good compared to those three... does that make them beacons of righteousness?

The fact that the right is getting so exercised over Durbin's words -- rather than the fact that a place like Gitmo exists, and that it is the United States that is operating it -- is another sign of the moral bankruptcy of those who now control the Republican Party.

I'll give you another example.

Today I was perusing the Wall Street Journal and came across an interesting opinion piece from two writers for the Economist, John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge, who were doing their damnedest to convince the faithful that their modern strain of conservatism is in fact still in ascendancy. (Note: If they feel it necessary to write such a piece a mere seven months after the Shrub won re-election ... and while their boys remain in control of both the presidency and Congress... then they know they are in deep shit.)

Halfway into this piece, Messrs. Micklethwait and Woolridge make this observation:

Some 40 years after the Great Society, America still has no national health service; it asks students to pay as much as $40,000 a year for a university education; it gives mothers only a few weeks of maternity leave.

All true. And these assholes think that's a good thing.

This country, the wealthiest in human history, deprives tens of millions of basic health care.

It is quickly pricing a college education, one of the surest paths to economic advancement, out of the range of the lower and middle classes. (There is, of course, the college loan. But the indentured servitude created by servicing a $100,000-plus student loan tends to cancel out the economic advantage of that sheepskin.)

Rather than allowing women time to bond with their newborn children, this country seems to think their time would be better spent at work.

I repeat: These assholes think all of that is a good thing.

It never ceases to amaze me that a political group that professes such deep adherence to Judeo-Christian ethics never tires of dishonoring the core philosophy of Judaism and Christianity -- love your neighbor as yourself -- every single chance they get.

Enjoy your political victories while they last. For if you are indeed correct about Heaven and Hell, your eternity is really going to suck.

The Biggest Dick in Texas

2005-05-31T18:20:00.000-07:00

Remember former House Majority Leader Dick Armey? The guy who thought it was cute to refer to the nation's most prominent gay lawmaker with a homophobic slur?

Apparently retirement's rather boring for ol' Dick, and he's once again taken to shilling for his favorite pet project, the flat tax.

In the past ol' Dick and his disciples would pull out a very complicated but authoritative looking analysis showing how, gosh darn it, you ordinary folks are gonna save a shitload of money if we get rid of the IRS and start charging a flat rate of 17% on all income. (Most people become too entranced by this idea to consider that it is predicated on eliminating all tax deductions... including those for mortgage interest, educational expenses, state taxes and medical expenses... and that it's very likely your taxes will go up once you get rid of those.)

While I don't want to get into a long-winded analysis of why the flat tax sucks here... visit the Center for Tax Justice for more detailed analyses... suffice it to say that if you make less than $50 grand a year, you will be supremely f**ked, as your taxes will increase while Congress cuts the shit out of "entitlement" spending on such wasteful items as food stamps, housing subsidies and Medicaid. And if you're really rich, you'll make out like a bandit, as the highest tax bracket plunges from 35% to 17%, and taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends are eliminated. Which means some lazy-ass trust-fund baby who inherited a billion bucks will likely pay less in federal income tax than most lower-middle-class families struggling to make ends meet.

To counter such flaws, ol' Dick just starts making shit up. Like the following...

Every American will benefit under a flat tax system.

According to the CTJ, families making less than $50 grand a year -- in other words, a majority of Americans -- would see their taxes rise nearly $500 a year under a flat tax. Other than that, everyone benefits.

An increase in national income will increase charitable giving...

By eliminating the deduction for giving to charities. Great f**king idea, Dick.

(L)ower interest rates will more than offset the loss of the mortgage deduction in the current system...

Where the hell he got this from, I have no friggin' idea. Exactly why the hell would interest rates decline because you cannot deduct mortgage income any more? Let me guess... it's because banks wouldn't have to pay as much in interest to depositors because interest is now tax-free, and they would therefore pass on the savings directly to consumers.

That must be the same bank that's paying me less than 1% on my money-market fund while charging me in excess of 20% on my credit card line.

Jesus Christ, it still amazes me that people actually believe this shit.

(T)he income exemption will continue the tax code's progressive precedent,

Yes, charging someone who makes $10 grand a year another $800 a year in taxes -- while simultaneously cutting government assistance -- so that a dude making $200,000-plus a year can enjoy a $44,000 tax cut sounds terribly progressive to me.

(A)nd every taxpayer will see their tax rates reduced.

Let's see... income at the two lowest brackets is now taxed at the rates of 10% and 15%. Dick wants to raise that tax to 17%.

Other than that, everyone's taxes will be reduced.

Yes, Tom DeLay continues to plumb new lows in his ever-continuing struggle to hang onto power.

But Armey, once again, proves he still deserves the title of Texas's biggest Dick.

Double Prozac Take You Must

2005-05-17T22:30:00.000-07:00

Allow your humble servant and resident Marxist to veer away from politics for a second to make a celebratory observation...

"Revenge of the Sith" comes out in 26 hours.

God. Thinking about that was almost better than an orgasm.

Yes, yes, the last two entrants in the Star Wars pantheon were remarkably sucky, though they were not without their moments. Like watching a CGI Yoda, locked in mortal combat with Count Dooku, do multiple midair flips with a lightsaber while emitting a sound not unlike that Grover would make upon being run over by a steamroller. Remember that? That was cool.

Yes, I admit to Star Wars geekdom, this obsession held firmly since watching the original Star Wars in a thousand-seat theater. For a four-year-old, that movie was pretty friggin' cool.

Finally, 28 years later, the final conclusion, the grand closure. And lots of scenes of limbs getting chopped off with lightsabers. Sweet.

But a franchise cannot assume such a central position in the American consciousness without drawing snotty remarks from the cognoscenti. Like Anthony Lane of the New Yorker.

Now, I must admit that Lane has an advantage on me here... he's seen the movie. But hell's bells, not even Rocky V sucked a quarter as bad as Lane makes this one out to be...

The general opinion of "Revenge of the Sith" seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones." True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion. ...

The one who gets me is Yoda. May I take the opportunity to enter a brief plea in favor of his extermination? Any educated moviegoer would know what to do, having watched that helpful sequence in "Gremlins" when a small, sage-colored beastie is fed into an electric blender. ... Deepest mind in the galaxy, apparently, and you still express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book. "I hope right you are." Break me a f**king give. ...

Whether the director is aware of John Martin, the Victorian painter who specialized in the cataclysmic, I cannot say, but he has certainly inherited that grand perversity, mobilized it in every frame of the film, and thus produced what I take to be unique: an art of flawless and irredeemable vulgarity.

Know who this dude reminds me of? The insufferable asshole know-it-all who crashes your party and talks shit about you behind your back because you don't have his favorite microbrew, your music (in his opinion) sucks, and your furniture isn't coordinated with your wallpaper.... while everyone else is getting drunk off their ass and having a blast.

Lucas ain't no Shakespeare, but who the f**k cares? He's created something that will allow hundreds of millions to indulge in a little harmless escapism for a couple of hours. And there's a hell of a lot to be said for escapist entertainment these days.

So to Anthony Lane and the rest of you Star Wars-loathing legions... do everyone a favor, pop a couple of Xanax and check out for the next couple of weeks. Over soon your torture will be.

"Social Welfare Organizations"

2005-05-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

Check out this beauty from the Los Angeles Times, re: the GOP's campaign to rip away the final shreds of a social safety net in this country. Our money quote comes from a "consultant" (i.e., a guy who collects a shitload of money to create work for other people, but actually does no work himself) commenting on the true role of business in America...

"People like to think of employers as social welfare organizations, but they're not," said Sylvester Scheiber, a partner with the financial consulting firm of Watson-Wyatt and a member of President Bush's 2001 Social Security Commission. "In an increasingly competitive world, they don't have room to do much else but focus on the competition."
Poor babies. Those meanies in China and Japan are just making life so tough on the guys who sit in the corner suites. One cannot blame them for taking extreme measures to protect their shareholders' investments.

So let's flush the pensions down the toilet. Saves the trouble of having to default on them later on, as United Airlines did.

And employer-funded health insurance? Costs too much! Employers are not "social welfare organizations," after all.

Yes, all those unnecessary, extravagant costs must be trimmed if American industry is to survive in this ultracompetitive world. For Corporate America exists to benefit one party, and one party only... the shareholder. And it is you, middle-class America, through your sundry 401(k)s and E-Trade accounts, who are the shareholders who benefit from corporate executives' thrift and cost-cutting.

That is, once the company gets done forking over a shitload of those savings to the CEO and his buddies on the senior management team. It is quite amusing to listen to Republicans utter such breathless platitudes regarding the sanctity of laissez-faire capitalism... then turn a blind eye while corporate executives piss away mind-boggling amounts of shareholder money on fatter and fatter paychecks and perks for themselves.

Consider the case of UAL Corp.

Recall that UAL is in such dire financial straits that it was "compelled" to default on $6.6 billion in employee pension obligations. Remember that UAL has been in dire financial straits since the attacks of 9/11... so much so that the airline convinced its small-government GOP buddies in Congress to fork over billions in taxpayer dollars to bail them out in 2001.

This financially troubled airline miraculously found the resources to pay incoming CEO Glenn F. Tilton a base salary of $950,000 upon assuming the top spot in 2002 -- and a signing bonus of $3 million. (See p. 104 of UAL's 2004 10-K.) Despite a pisspoor financial performance, Tilton collected a $745,000 paycheck in 2003 ... and a $1.1 million payday in 2004. This for running a business that is in such dire financial straits that it claims it cannot pay its pensions.

Think Tilton will be giving up any of his cash?

To be fair to Mr. Tilton, he's a friggin' piker amongst the senior management teams of America's largest companies. According to Forbes, last year the CEOs of America's 500 largest companies received an aggregate pay raise of 54% in 2004. (Did any of you out of there happen to get a 54% raise last year?)

Know how your health insurance costs are going through the roof? Well, you'll be glad to know that at least you helped William McGuire, CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, collect a paycheck of $125 million in 2004. Don't you feel better now?

And remember how much cash you parted with at the gas pump to fill up that precious SUV of yours? Well, your dedication to that gas guzzler helped Occidential Petroleum CEO Ray Irani earn a $64 million payday last year. Good for you!

Then you have a truly inspiring case, like Peter Cartwright. Doubtless you've never heard of the dude... the CEO of Calpine Corp., "a North American power company engaged in the development, construction, ownership and operation of power generation facilities and the sale of electricity predominantly in the United States."

Calpine is pissing away money... in 2004, it lost $242 million on revenues of $9.23 billion. (Neat trick.) Since 2001, its stock has gone from north of $50 a share to less than two bucks. And last week, the company warned a cash crunch would force it to begin selling assets to stay afloat.

So guess what Mr. Cartwright collected for leading this stellar financial performance in 2004? Just shy of $11 million, boys and girls. You and I get fired for f**king up at work... this dude collects an $11 million payday. Not bad for a company that "link(s) the executive officers' compensation with the achievement of annual and long-term performance goals." (I'd hate to see what they pay this dude if they actually start making money some day.)

Of course, he can be fired... but if the board does that, he gets two years' pay. Immediately.

Remember, boys and girls... American companies aren't in business to be "social welfare organizations."

Unless you're one of the guys lucky enough to be at the top. Then it's perfectly acceptable to f**k the shareholders and the employees to add another million or ten to your paycheck. That's not welfare... that's the free market.

This is the free-market capitalism the legions of the GOP are working day and night to protect.

Ain't it friggin' great?

GOP Bullshit Watch

2005-05-03T17:51:00.000-07:00

It's already well-established that our GOP brothers and sisters believe that taxes are best left to be paid by the little people. But saying that would not generate the necessary votes to retain control of the known universe. So they have to make up shit.

Like this particular submission from OpinionJournal's James Taranto...

Raising the cap to $140,000 would amount to an increase in marginal rates of roughly 40% to 45% for taxpayers whose incomes are in the low six figures--a huge tax increase targeted at the most productive Americans. [Emphasis added.]

Someone please enlighten me... what the f**k is he talking about???? Precisely where is the evidence that a $100,000-plus paycheck is incontrovertible evidence that your contributions to our society exceed those of the unwashed masses? Anyone who has spent 5 minutes in corporate America knows that salary and productivity do not rise hand in hand.

What a $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 paycheck does mean, more often than not, is that you are 1) a member of middle or upper management; or 2) you own your own business. And that, my friends, means that you are benefiting from the productivity of those lower on the food chain than you are.

You are filing the paperwork and giving the orders. Yes, you bust your butt, but you're doing it while riding a desk. You do not go home with a bad back, blisters on your hands and dirt beneath your fingernails. Why do you have that privilege? Because someone is busting their butts below you doing manual labor. You are reaping the benefits of that labor. (And you apparently have time to read "OpinionJournal" at work, a luxury a front-line employee does not have.)

That is a privilege. That doesn't make you a bad person, but a little gratitude for those who make that privileged lifestyle possible wouldn't kill you.

If you forget that... if you somehow think your six-figure paycheck infers on you moral superiority, as Taranto implies... then you are an ungrateful, greedy little weasel. It isn't enough for you to sponge off the little guy... you think it's necessary to take a shit on him, too.

That is why eliminating the cap on Social Security taxation would be the right thing to do. If you're in the upper echelon of American earners, you're making a pretty damned fat living on the labor of others. Least you could do is chip in a bit more to ensure they can retire semi-comfortably.

But Taranto doesn't see it that way...

The logic here is similar to that of suicide bombing: It's worth making a big sacrifice for the sake of making the enemy suffer even more.

This from the guy who squeals like a stuck pig any time a hothead liberal compares Bush to Hitler. Apparently asking the uberwealthy to pay more in taxes is now morally equivalent to mass murder.

If we really did pay people commiserate with their contributions to society, Taranto would be robbing us blind if he made a nickel a year.

How Would Jesus Vote?

2005-04-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

So our Republican friends -- led by God's messenger on Earth, the beloved William Frist of Tennessee -- are now playing the religion card with utter abandon. Now we learn that it is not enough to embrace the one true faith... one must embrace the one true Party in order to find the Kingdom of Heaven.

Yes, it's scary. But I must admit, it's also quite amusing. For it's hard to imagine that conservatives could have chosen a less appropriate figure as the moral and religious foundation for their great tax-cutting, screw the poor, drive a Hummer, bomb the whole freakin' Earth crusade. Oh, and Jesus would have supported gutting the filibuster, too.

"We are not asking for persons (nominated to federal courts) merely to be moral," thundered R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary of Louisville, Ky. on "Justice Sunday." "We want them to be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ."

Well. All I can say is that that's probably about the last thing they really want. Because if someone really believed in the entirety of what Jesus stood for... really believed it... it would be difficult to see how that person could support the Republican agenda.

Let's take a look at a few illuminating passages you'll find in the Bible. And after each, ask yourself... exactly why do the radical conservatives believe that this guy would support massive tax cuts, privatizing Social Security, cutting welfare and other programs aimed at the poor, launching "pre-emptive wars," or imposing the death penalty wildly and without mercy?

Where the heck did they get the idea that Jesus would have been a Republican?

Matthew 22:17-22:

"Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied.

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

The Rebel's Lesson: Stop whining so much and pay your taxes. And stop thinking that God is somehow for huge tax cuts, 'cause he's not.

Matthew 19:21-24:

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Thus speaks the Rebel: Dare we say it? The guy sounds almost (gasp) socialist!

Not much wiggle room here, guys. If you're in favor of tax breaks for rich guys, paid for by cutting programs that benefit the poor, then it's rather hypocritical to call yourself a follower of this dude.

If there is a heaven and hell, you're in deep shit.

Acts 2:44-45:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

Thus spake the Rebel: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"... bet you thought that came from Karl Marx, huh?

No, I'm not going to make an argument that Jesus would have been an adamant Communist. I rather doubt he would've thought much of Marxism-Leninism. But he sure as heck didn't think much of laissez-faire capitalism. Nor did the early Christians. And if you think they did, you're deluding yourself.

Matthew 7:1-5:

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

The Rebel's take: One of my favorite Bible verses, bar none. Your typical conservative evangelical blowhard will get really mad at you if you throw this one in his face after he's done raging about the latest "sin" that is destroying the moral fiber of the nation.

"With the measure you use, it will be measured to you"... again, guys, you'd better hope there ain't a heaven or a hell, or you're in deep shit. 'Cause you guys have set some pretty damn high standards.

Matthew 5:39:

But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Rebel's take: Sounds to me like he'd have totally been down with pre-emptive war, doesn't it?

Can you say "pacifism," boys and girls?

Bet if I said these exact words at a Republican rally they'd me a damn hippy and toss me out on my ass.

Matthew 6:5:

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."

The Rebel: Remember this one the next time you see one of these sanctimonious blowhards making a full-scale production out of praying for God to smite the evil ones (i.e., the liberals).

Of course, this verse does not apply to public prayer in school. Jesus fully approves of that.

Matthew 6:24:

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

Rebel: Funny... I'm not seeing a whole lot of references supporting tax cuts, Social Security privatization or the repeal of estate taxes that fall only on the uberwealthy. But I guess I'm just taking things out of context, aren't I?

Matthew 23:23:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices: mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Rebel: Also known as "missing the forest for the trees." Or "actions speak louder than words."

If you say you're a Christian, yet your actions are all about screwing others less fortunate than you (i.e., not giving a damn about the less fortunate in your community or your country, and taking political actions that have that effect), then you are full of it.

And an updated last word...

From Anne Lamott, a self-professed lefty Christian, in Salon (April 27) ...

Their [the evangelical right's] pronouncements about God are based on the great palace lie that this is a Christian country, that they were chosen by God to be his ethical consultants, and that therefore they alone know God's will for us.

What Was Time Thinking?

2005-04-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

(Ann Coulter) was lively and fully and engaging and boisterous and outrageous and a little bit of a polemicist... most of the time, people miss her humor and satire and take her way too literally. -- Miguel Estrada, quoted in Time magazine, April 25.

Fifty percent of what people say when they are joking is true ... So, by making some sort of joke about it, you get to say what you really want without being vulnerable. -- "The Sweetest Thing" (2002)

We should invade (Muslims') countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. -- Ann Coulter, September 2001

So this is the "liberal media" at work.

I just finished reading Time's cover article on Obergruppenfuhrer Ann Coulter. An interesting character study, to be sure. But the author succumbs to a distressing desire (in a "moistly liberal formulation," to use his own description) to observe that, really, Ann's not such a bad person once you get to know her. Among the shocking revelations...

-- Gasp! Ann has liberal friends! "You couldn't find a nicer friend" than Coulter, observes lifelong Dem Kent Brownridge.
-- GASP! Ann once dated a Muslim! Even dragged him to church. (Didn't convert him, but Ann notes all was not lost... "I was just happy he wasn't killing anyone." You're a pistol, Ann.)
-- Could it be?? Deep down, Ann is a vulnerable woman scared for her personal safety. "Coulter is terrified her address will become public, and she sometimes hides behind a surgical mask when she flies." The heart just bleeds.
-- Ann doesn't really make stuff up, suggests our intrepid correspondent... although admitting that her "historical efforts can be highly amateurish," and her "reputation for carelessness with facts," the reporter concludes, that he "didn't find many outright Coulter errors." (Translation: She doesn't completely make shit up. For example, Joe McCarthy was indeed a Republican Senator from Wisconsin. Beyond that, the details grow somewhat questionable.)

I used to be a reporter myself, and I appreciate the desire to achieve balance. But I cannot so readily excuse or abide by the writer's conclusion...

"On TV or in person, you can trust that Coulter will speak from her heart. The officialdom of punditry, so full of phonies and dullards, would suffer without her humor and fire."

Remind me... this is a publication with a "liberal bias," right?

Apparently the price of making one highly inappropriate remark... such as, say, labeling 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns"... is public ridicule and censure. The price for a decade of such appalling invective? You make the cover of Time!

(Granted, so did Hitler. But at least Time didn't, at least to my knowledge, brand his presence too colorful for the world to lose.)

So why shouldn't we accept the proposition of both Time and Coulter partisans like Estrada? She's only joking, they reason... why do you take her so seriously? Can't you take a joke?

I cite the quote from "The Sweetest Thing," one of my favorite movie quotes of all time, because it is absolutely true. When we have something to say that we know is inappropriate, we mask it by couching it as humor. I became quite familiar with this in high school, when I was too chickenshit to ask girls out directly. So I started asking in a joking fashion. If they said yes, I was in good shape. If they shot me down... well, I was just kidding! You don't really think I'd ask you out, do you?

By adulthood, we've become quite familiar with this art. It's uncivil to call a co-worker an asshole to his face, but it's quite alright to say it in a joking fashion... even if you know deep in your heart of hearts that you're really not joking.

Coulter has advanced it to an extreme level. She uses this excuse as the foundation of her entire career. (Combined with the fact that she's supposedly an attractive woman... and that attractive women, presumably, have carte blanche to make vile statements no man could ever get away with.)

Words have power. Coulter partisans can say she's joking all they want, but vicious and cruel invective, repeated ad nauseum, gradually leads to a dehumanizing and a demonizing of the target. This is the purpose of churning out propaganda against your enemies at a time of war... killing fellow human beings becomes much more palatable if you believe them to be demonic and subhuman.

When it comes to "joking" about the death of those you disagree with, as Coulter is disturbingly wont to do, at best you're stepping way outside the boundaries of civilized discourse. At the worst you're inciting violence. (Exhibit A: Timothy McVeigh and the "Turner Diaries.") Does Coulter give a damn? 'Course not.

"Of course it's hard to know what anyone said in this country based on newspaper accounts. The actual statements people make are filtered through reporters, who, as we know, are generally unexecutable in this country under Atkins v. Virginia (holding the death penalty for mentally retarded persons unconstitutional)." -- April 20, 2005

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is that he did not go after the New York Times building." -- Aug. 20, 2002. (Coulter later "apologized" for this statement by saying, "I should have added, 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.'" )

"I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. Boom! ... I just think it would be fun to nuke them and have it be a warning to ... the world." -- January 2005. (Apparently genocide is entertaining. But hey, it's about bringing freedom to the oppressed, right?)

"We need to execute people like John Walker [Lindh] in order to physically intimidate liberals." -- January 2002. (Does anyone else hear echoes of the Horst Wessel Lied drifting through the air? S.A. stormtroopers liked killing people to achieve political intimidation, too.)

"In this recurring nightmare of a (Clinton) presidency, we have a national debate about whether he 'did it,' even though all sentient people know he did. Otherwise there would be debates only about whether to impeach or assassinate." -- High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 1998

It is stunning how Coulter fans -- who constantly pledge fealty to a "culture of life" -- fail to see how far beyond the pale of civilized discourse this type of rhetoric falls.

Eric Alterman provides a useful example... how would conservatives respond if a left-wing columnist made the following statement:

"My only regret with Osama bin Laden is that he did not manage to kill every member of the Wall Street Journal editorial staff."

How effective do you think the satire argument would be in fending off the inevitable (and righteous) outrage? Would you be willing to wager me $100 that Coulter would not call for the offending party's death in her next column?

For all their over-the-top rhetoric and bullshit, how frequently do you hear joking remarks about the death of conservatives coming from Michael Moore? Al Franken? Ted Rall? There is no true comparison for Coulter on the left... not if one considers her breezy contempt for the lives of those who challenge the one true faith of radical conservatism.

Coulter cannot hide behind the argument that her words are harmless. Toward the end of the Time profile, Coulter notes that she's had problems with stalkers... and admits to fears that one will kill her one day. And she continues to merrilly toss them red meat. How long before one takes her seriously... and decides political discourse with a prominent Democrat is better dispensed at the muzzle of a .38... or via the pipe bomb, the preferred method of Eric Rudolph.

Time did get one thing right: Coulter does indeed "help set the nation's tone."

That is a sad commentary on the state of our country. For her role in bringing it about, Coulter deserves nothing but contempt. Instead she has been showered with riches, the fawning of America's most powerful conservatives, and sympathetic treatment on the cover of one of the nation's most prominent newsweeklies.

A sad commentary on America, indeed.

Conservatism's Zenith

2005-04-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

It almost feels like Nov. 2 all over again. And I'm not even Catholic.

Consider the weight resting upon the shoulders of the 115 cardinals who entered the first papal conclave in 26 years. A laity crying out for liberalization; a burgeoning Third World membership, wondering when their needs and views would be given equal weight in a church dominated by those of European origin and extraction; and an American congregation badly shaken by horrific accounts of abuse by priests... and even more shaken by revelations of cover-ups at the highest levels of the church.

The Church badly needed a John XXIII. The cardinals instead elected a Pius X... and they practically fell over themselves in their haste to do so.

It is hard to find a choice that so spectacularly fails to meet any of the Church's pressing needs than Joseph Ratzinger, the newly elected Benedict XVI. When you're dealing with a guy whose nicknames include "God's Rottweiler" and "Panzerkardinal," you know you're dealing with a supreme hardass.

An unfair assessment? Consider his qualifications...

-- For the last 24 years, has been the head of the "Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith"... the organization that was, until the 20th Century, known as the Inquisition.
-- Calls homosexuality an "intrinsic moral evil."
-- Brands all non-Catholic creeds... including other Christian denominations... "deficient." (One would think a shared belief in the divinity of Jesus would be sufficient, but apparently not.)
-- Believes all altars in Catholic churches should face Jerusalem (bet he'd never admit he ripped off this idea from Islam).
-- Was the Vatican's leading opponent of the "liberation ideology" strain of Catholicism found throughout Latin America, and issued orders that all Catholic priests and bishops stay out of politics.
-- Has referred to rock music as "the vehicle for anti-religion."
-- Believes that "moral relativism" (a perjorative term for reform and liberalization) is the supreme evil in the world.

Women in the priesthood? Married priests? A retreat from a completely illogical prohibition on contraception? Forget about those kind of reforms... at this point, it's odds-on that Vatican II won't be around in five years. (Better get used to Latin Masses again, folks.)

The level of hubris is staggering. It is as if the cardinals decided to send a message to those calling for reform by electing the most conservative, reactionary one of their number they could find. The response to calls for reform is to proceed in the opposite direction.

Conservatism, in its many strains, continues its ascent. And the hubris of the conservatives continues to grow.

Hubris is not the sole domain of religious conservatives, of course.

Consider the defiance of Tom DeLay, who adamantly refuses to even consider resignation despite revelations of political corruption rivaling Tammany Hall's; the threat of Sen. Frist to severely weaken the filibuster ... a fixture of the Senate for more than a century... in order to achieve the short-term goal of pushing through a dozen radical judges through the Senate; the continued persistence of Bush in trying to push through the privatization of Social Security, despite the fact a solid majority of Americans stand solidly against it; and the passage of bills that benefit none but the ultra-wealthy and the privileged, including repeal of the estate tax and a severe weakening of federal bankruptcy laws.

These, too, are examples of conservative hubris... a remarkable disregard for the interests of the majority, despite growing unease with the radical nature of the Republican agenda. (A 44% approval rating for a recently re-elected president is pretty much unheard of, but Bush has managed to pull it off.)

Is there any bright side to this continuing avalanche of depressing developments for the progressives of the world? Perhaps.

As their power grows, the conservatives continue to grow more brazen in advancing their agenda... and more contemptuous of a growing majority who disagrees. The differences between their agenda and values... and those of the vast majority... begin to grow sharper. The cost of allowing them to remain in power becomes clearer.

Conservatism is at its greatest zenith since the 1920s. Hubris then led to conservatism's fall, and the rise of a progressive era that lasted decades. In the United States, it led to the emergence of everything from Social Security to Medicare and the SEC. In the Catholic Church, it led to Vatican II.

So look on the bright side. We've been here before. And conservatism fell. Let's just hope the price isn't as high as it was in the 1930s.

"A War on the Middle Class"

2005-04-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hearing stupid shit come out of the mouth of a politician is nothing new. In listening to these people (and yes, Democrats are often as bad as Republicans in this regard), you wonder if they actually believe the bullshit that's flowing from their cakeholes. But at least the bullshit is usually somewhat believable... you know it's B.S., but you can see why someone would believe it.

Then you have comments that are so obnoxiously and breathtakingly stupid in nature and scope that you wonder how the hell the offending party can wipe his own ass unassisted, let alone get elected.

As Exhibit A, I present the utterances of Rep. David Dreier, Republican of California.

Today, of course, the House of Representatives passed that wet dream of the credit card companies, the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act." The Shrub is practically wetting himself with excitement.

"I look forward to signing the bill into law," said the Shrub today. Well, of course he is. Think the Shrub's ever had to worry about an overdue credit card bill? Or crushing medical bills? Or faced eviction? Nothing builds empathy like having experienced someone else's difficulties yourself... and the Shrub, having had the luxury of relying on daddy and granddaddy's checkbooks his entire life, cannot truly comprehend what it means to worry about money. In his mind, someone who has accumulated massive debt must have done so because of personal weakness, not because of difficulties and challenges out of their control. And so he sees little problem with forcing Main Street America to bend over and take it from MasterCard.

(Before continuing my liberal rantings, I must recognize that the Shrub was correct about one thing... this was a "bipartisan bill." The House passed it 302-126; the Senate 74-25. For those 73 House Democrats who voted for this monstrosity, here's a nickel's worth of free advice... stop fellating the credit card industry, stop trying to out-Republican the Republicans and start acting like a member of a party that is supposedly looking out for the interests of ordinary people. This Republican-lite crap ain't going to get you back in power.)

Where was I? Oh yeah... Dreier.

During House debate today, Dreier uttered what has to be one of the most stupid things to ever fall from between the lips of a politician. Dreier stated that abuses of bankruptcy law cost every American consumer an average of $400 a year in additional interest expenses. Implication? Crack down on the abusers, and all of us straight shooters will save 400 bucks a year as our interest rates plunge... because, obviously, credit card companies will pass those savings right along to the consumer.

Please tell me that Dreier doesn't really believe this. Please, God, please... please... please.

Please tell me that Dreier is merely being enormously dishonest, because if there truly are persons of such breathtaking stupidity and gullibility running this country... well, my friends, we are truly f**ked.

Pop quiz, y'all... which of the following is the least likely event:

A) The Arizona Cardinals win Super Bowl XL.
B) The Red State Rebel has sex with Jenna Jameson.
C) Monkeys fly out of my ass.
D) Osama bin Laden turns himself in and becomes a Mormon.
E) The credit card companies, upon enactment of bankruptcy "reform," promptly slash interest rates across the board, rather than simply pocketing their savings as additional profit.

If you answered anything but "E"... and yes, A-D are pretty damned far-fetched... then you are one gullible son-of-a-bitch. And I have a bridge for sale that has your name on it, friend. I would be more than happy to wager Rep. Dreier that $400 he says I'll save that interest rates on my credit cards will not move down one iota. Nor will his. Nor will yours.

Interest rates will almost certainly move. They'll head up. Why? Because now there's no risk of getting the debt written off in bankruptcy court! Charge whatever the hell you want! 40% interest? 50%? No problem! The only way you're escaping from that is when you die (and then your estate will have to pay it off).

Rein in the credit card offers? Be more selective about who you give credit to? Why bother? Get 'em hooked! Once you've got that balance loaded on, you can jack up the interest rates to obscene levels and collect fat interest payments for life!

The one and only thing injecting even a modicum of responsibility into the credit issuing practices of America's credit-card issuers was bankruptcy court. Give too much credit to someone, give it to the wrong person, or squeeze someone too hard, and you risk having your entire loan discharged when your mark... sorry, your customer... is forced to declare bankruptcy.

Even when they faced that risk, credit card companies were exercising all of the rationality and self-control of a drunken sailor in a New Orleans whorehouse. One shudders to think what they'll do now. 55% interest rates and $100 late fees, anyone?

This is the legacy of the modern Republican Party... turning millions of honest Americans into lifelong serfs of multibillion-dollar credit card issuers.

"We're going to call the Republican agenda what it truly is: A war on the middle class," observed MoveOn's Tom Matzzie today.

Only the most naive and gullible among us could believe otherwise now.

Papal Observations by the Heathen Rebel

2005-04-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

If you're a Catholic, I'm pretty sure that even thinking about betting on who's going to be the next Pope is a mortal sin.

Fortunately for my immortal soul, I am not a Catholic. So I can safely recommend jumping on the 9/1 line for Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil. Lotsa value there...

While Hummes is the best value, he would not be the most enjoyable papal selection. That honor belongs to Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria.

Yes, he has the dreaded "conservative" label. (Why these dudes continue to be obsessed with making sure no one wears rubbers is beyond me.) But let's look at the bigger picture... the thought of millions of racist and/or prejudiced Catholics (I'm not alleging this represents a majority of Catholics, mind you, but it surely is in the millions) being confronted with the reality of a black Holy Father.

Now, consider the theological implications of this one... according to Catholic dogma, it is the Holy Spirit who works through the cardinals to select the pope. (Choosing the dude by throwing dice would be more historically accurate ... see Acts 1:26... but let's bear with 'em on this one.) So rejection of the church because you don't like the cardinals' papal selection is tantamount to outright rejection of the Holy Spirit... which is a really big no-no in Christian theology. "Unforgiveable sin" and all that.

You'd think the threat of hellfire would be a rather serious deterrent, but even so, most people I've talked to about this seem to believe the US Catholic church would lose about 5% of its membership under this scenario. Perhaps. But the Church would certainly be better off without such wankers.

The thought of an Arinze papacy is simply... delicious. Hell, they might tempt me into becoming Catholic if they do it...

Priorities

2005-03-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

OK... three weeks of silence has been quite long enough. I am really, really pissed right now. And what better way to express it than by ranting at you all, my loyal readers? (Well, all one of you, anyway. And as you're in the Caribbean away from Internet access, I'm relying on those random Yahoo searches ... those random eddies of cyberspace that bring unsuspecting Web surfers drifting to my own little deserted corner of the Internet.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Pissed off. Terri Schiavo. That's it.

So the saga of Terri Schiavo is just about all that the GOP propaganda brigades and the Bushies can talk about these days. The GOP leadership called Congress back from spring break, for Christ's sake, and called a House vote in the middle of the night to pass a bill specifically designed to perform an end-run around a state court that ordered Schiavo's feeding tube removed.

And why are they undertaking such extraordinary measures?

President Bush: "In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life."

Tom DeLay: "Time is not on Terri Schiavo's side. The few remaining objecting House Democrats have so far cost Mrs. Schiavo two meals already today."

Well, excuuuussssssseeee me. I forgot that you guys had such deep, abiding respect for the sanctity of human life.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the GOP that specifically proposed cutting funding for food stamps, rather than cutting the monstrous agricultural subsidies that go primarily to large corporations? Why the f**k do you care more about feeding a single brain-dead woman more than you care about feeding hundreds of thousands of conscious, impoverished Americans... including children???

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the GOP regard the evisceration of Clinton's push for universal health-care in 1994 as one of its greatest legislative and political triumphs? To this day, millions of Americans of all ages lack any sort of medical insurance coverage because of the GOP's "victory." Why the hell do you care more about ensuring that a single brain-dead woman gets medical care more than you care about providing it to millions of living, breathing, conscious Americans?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you guys the loudest cheerleaders for the Iraq War -- a war that has now cost the lives of 1,500-plus US soldiers, not the mention the deaths of at least 20,000 Iraqi civilians? Who the hell are you to get so worked up about the life of one person lingering in a persistent vegetative state -- who has not existed in any meaningful sense for 15 years -- after getting so gleeful in March 2003 when American tanks began rolling on Baghdad? (Know what Bush did after ordering the invasion? Pumped his fist in the air and said, "Feels good." Bet it feels f**king great now, huh, George? Interesting how you failed to adopt "a presumption in favor of life" when it came time to start a war...)

Suppose they ... suppose you... were condemned to Terri Schiavo's fate. Your mind is gone, but your body still responds reflexively to outside stimuli ... and that body is being paraded, day after day, before the masses as a political football. Look at the images of Terri Schiavo's body, and ask yourself... would you choose to keep your body alive indefinitely for such a fate? What would Tom DeLay choose? George Bush? Rush Limbaugh? Sean Hannity? Michael Savage?

For God's sake, let Terri Schiavo go in peace. And try spending just a fraction of the energy you're spending on this issue on improving the condition of millions of conscious, suffering human beings, you insufferable hypocrites.

The GOP's Loan Sharks

2005-03-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

It never ceases to amaze me how so many lower- and middle-class Americans have bought into the myth that the GOP is on their side -- that Republicans are the true Party of the People, standing up for hard-working, ordinary Americans against liberal elites and an overbearing, swelling government bureaucracy.

It is a seductive myth, and a central one to the GOP's ascent to power. Here's a particularly telling statistic: The five poorest states in America, as measured by per-capita personal income (Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Utah and New Mexico) voted for Bush by an average margin of 17.7% in the 2004 election. (See here for source of 2004 poll information.) Rank the states from lowest to highest, and the lowest 16 are all Red States.

But the legislation that has emerged so far from the GOP-controlled Congress makes it quite clear that the Republicans remain the party of, by and for the plutocrats. Actions speak louder than words... and the GOP's actions make it quite clear this party is no friend of lower- and middle-class Americans.

The latest step in the GOP assault -- the perversely titled "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005," now being propelled through Congress by the armies of Frist and Hastert.

Now, consider what has happened with credit cards over the last decade or so. (Click here for a fascinating and chilling analysis by PBS and the New York Times of the modern credit industry.) If you're like me, your mailbox is regularly stuffed with solicitations for cheap credit. (I received two such solicitations today... and that's a light day.) Credit-card tables are a regular sight on college campuses across America, and even those who file for bankruptcy can expect to get solicited for a credit card within a year of their bankruptcy!

The siren song of cheap, easy credit is a difficult one to resist -- and as a result, the nation's total credit card debt has doubled in the last 10 years. The average American household now carries, on average, approximately $8,000 in credit card debt.

But, as anyone who's gotten in trouble with credit cards knows, those low rates are fleeting. Usury laws are a thing of the past -- and credit card issuers have no problem slapping borrowers with interest rates exceeding 20% once they've taken on a heavy debt load. Under the now-standard "universal default" provision most credit card accounts carry, your credit card issuer has the right to hike your rates to default rates -- usually between 20% and 30% -- even if you've never missed a payment or gone over your limit. Merely carrying what they consider too much debt is sufficient.

Did your payment arrive a day late? Expect to get slapped with a late fee. When I first got a credit card a decade ago, the late fee was $15 -- today they average about $39.

The formula is simple: Saddle you with an insurmountable mountain of debt, and collect interest payments from you for the rest of your life.

Some people, I suppose, would call this free-market capitalism. A less polite phrase for it is loan sharking.

No, credit card companies can't break your legs. But they can and do entice millions with low-interest teaser rates, hide oppressive terms in a blizzard of legalese, then bury debtors under a burden of obscenely expensive debt. No wonder, really, that nearly 1.6 million bankruptcies were recorded in 2004 -- an increase of 72% over 1995.

Clearly, there's a problem. So one figures that something called the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act" would combat some of the credit card industry's rampant abuses, right?

Not exactly. About the only thing this bill protects is the bottom line of credit-card issuers.

If you are forced to file for personal bankruptcy, you have two options -- Chapter 7, which wipes out all debt; and Chapter 13, which merely restructures debt, but forces repayment of some or all debt over a period of time. Under the GOP bill, you would be forced to file for Chapter 13 if you passed an established "means" test for personal income.

(It is not too difficult to pass this means test ... the GOP bill would force Chapter 13 if you are considered able to repay $6,000 over a five-year period.)

But for credit-card companies... well, it will be business as usual if the "Consumer Protection Act" passes. (Not surprising, as they wrote most of it.) No caps on interest rates. No caps on late fees. No changes to "universal default" policies. Not even a provision requiring credit-card issuers to disclose the full cost of carrying a balance over a long period of time. All of these provisions have been proposed at one time or another by Democrats (most notably by Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd), but all have died quiet deaths in the GOP-controlled Congress.

Should abusers of the bankruptcy system be forced to settle up their debts? Hard to argue with that. Running up frivolous debts with the intention of wiping them out through bankruptcy is morally equivalent to theft, and should be treated accordingly.

But very few Americans actually fall under that category. Hell, let's face it ... a lot of these types don't even bother with bankruptcy ... they just skip town! (I have some personal experience with this... the previous tenant of my house skipped town without a trace, and I've been getting visits and calls from her bill collectors ever since. Guess she didn't have time to bother with the niceties of a bankruptcy filing.)

Bankruptcy is not a painless process to the creditor. Recall that bankruptcy involves the liquidation of most assets to repay creditors.

About one-half of Americans end up in bankruptcy because of medical expenses. Many others fell into bankruptcy because they hit hard times. Or they may have run up debt without fully realizing the power their lenders had to jack up interest rates to oppressive levels with little or no warning. Today they can find relief in bankruptcy court -- tomorrow, thanks to the GOP, that option could be gone. Their assets will be liquidated, and their credit card bills will remain hung 'round their necks like albatrosses.

And the credit card companies? Today, credit card companies that choose to extend credit to risky consumers face the possibility of not being repaid if the debtor files for bankruptcy. The GOP bill removes much of that risk, without forcing credit-card issuers to lower their rates accordingly. The financial incentive for being selective with credit disappears, leaving the door open for even more rampant loan-sharking by the nation's largest banks. They'll feel free to continue sticking you with ever-escalating rates and fees because, quite honestly, what the hell are you going to do about it?

The GOP seems to think this is perfectly acceptable. And their vision of a world safe for credit card companies will probably pass Congress and become law next week.

Yes, folks, the GOP is looking out for someone. But it sure as hell isn't you.

The Brilliance of the Right

2005-02-23T18:03:00.000-08:00

Some nuggets of wisdom today from our devastatingly logical friends on the right...

In 1935, wealthy liberal do-gooder Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the most notorious violator of Constitutional federalism in the 20th Century, found a clause in that venerable document authorizing the central government to provide retirement benefits for all Americans. -- Mark Alexander, Feb. 23

God! What fools we've all been, being suckered for the last 70 years into thinking that the evil creation of that Communist bastard FDR -- known euphemistically as "Social Security" -- was actually a good thing for America! Sure, it's saved generations of retired Americans from abject poverty, but goddamnit, that's not the government's business! The Constitution says nothing about Social Security, so seniors can goddamned well live on the street and eat cat food if they were too short-sighted to go out while they were younger and get a high-paying corporate executive job.

Even today the American economy creaks 'neath the hideous regulatory burden placed on it by that Marxist-Leninist FDR, who created such intrusive, evil agencies as the Securities and Exchange Commission (regulates the stock market and publicly traded companies), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (insures primary bank deposits up to $100,000 if your bank fails), the Federal Housing Administration (insures the mortgages of millions of middle-class Americans, thereby helping them purchase houses), and the National Labor Relations Board (which ensures employers can't fire or retaliate against employees for joining a union).

Without these dastardly schemes, America would truly be a utopia for the world to behold, where capitalism runs free and wild as the Lord Jesus Christ intended.

A $5,000 one-time tax-deferred investment at birth, with an average interest rate of 10 percent compounded, means that a child would have $2.4 million when he or she is 65 years old. Who needs Social Security with that kind of nest egg? -- Cal Thomas, Feb. 11

Of course! Here I was thinking that I needed to suckle at Uncle Sam's teat when old age comes upon me, when all I really needed to do (or, to put it more specifically, my parents) was sock away five grand when I was born. Of course my parents, like virtually every other American, would find such a trifling sum to be mere pocket change. $5,000? Why, we spent that on breakfast before a morning's excursion to Martha's Vineyard for sailing and frivolities.

And of course investing in the good ol' American stock market is like shooting fish in a barrel... just stick your five grand in the market and watch it consistently grow at a rate of 10%-plus each year for the next 65 years! If through your own laziness or ignorance you fail to invest properly... or if you happen to insist upon retire just as the market goes through a periodic long-term slump that decimates your nest egg... well, why should the government give a damn over such trivialities as whether or not you have such luxuries as food or shelter?

Ward Churchill ... should not only be fired for his statements but expelled from the country. -- Ben Shapiro, Feb. 23

Screw the First Amendment! Ward Churchill has offended Young Master Ben and a million on the right, and so must be driven from our Republican utopia as a modern-day Cain. As real Americans know, free speech applies only to those thoughts and concepts approved by the Republican Party, as is implied by the text of the First Amendment.

Like Saul of Tarsus some two thousand years ago, I can feel the scales falling from my eyes. I can see! I can see! Mark, Cal and Ben have torn me from the dark pit of liberalism and government dependency and brought me into the brilliant light of radical conservatism! Thank you, thank you, dear sirs!

That Darn Cap

2005-02-22T19:08:00.000-08:00

Guess talk of lifting the Social Security wage "cap" is gaining traction... some on the right have shifted gears from lauding privatization to attacking those who deign to suggest that affluent Americans should (*gasp*) be required to pay FICA taxes on more of their income.

It's not terribly surprising one of the first rhetorical shells came in from Larry Kudlow. See, Kudlow's shtick is pretty damn simple. He's co-host of a CNBC show and head of a New York "economic and investment research firm." Translation: He's pretty damn rich. And he's determined to stay that way by convincing less well-off Americans that the tax-slashing policies which benefit him and others like him so greatly are fabulous news for everyone else, too. (It's hard to see how a ballooning national debt and strained state and local budgets help everyone else, but people don't usually look that far ahead... they only see the immediate tax cut, without seeing the deferred long-term costs.)

So now that talk of a rise in the FICA cap is being floated... well, Kudlow's decided that has to be stopped at all costs. Sure, it might help shore up a program that saves tens of millions of American retirees from abject poverty, but it might also mean that rich people would have to pay thousands more a year in taxes. And that would be very, very bad. Screw the old people... there's BMWs that must be bought and trips to the Hamptons that must be taken, goddamnit!

But Larry's a smart guy, and he knows that pleading for Americans to show sympathy for the wealthy is not a winning strategy. So he relies on the time-honored tradition of economic obfuscation. Let's examine:

When John Kerry floated a payroll-tax cap increase during the last election campaign, esteemed Harvard professor Martin Feldstein calculated that a family making $110,000 a year would face a tax increase of more than $2,700, essentially a 20 percent hike.

True... but only if the family is a one-earner family... i.e., supported by Daddy making $110K a year. If it's a two-earner family -- as most middle-class families are these days -- then the effect of lifting the cap on a $110,000-a-year family would be zero, as the cap does not take the income of your spouse into account. Which means that a couple could earn as much as $180,000 a year and see no impact from a FICA cap increase!

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Kudlow to clarify that, though.

According to Americans for Tax Reform, a new tax cap of $150,000 would increase the combined employer-employee tax burden by roughly $7,400.

He doesn't say so directly, but he's implying that hiking the cap would raise the tax burden for every single employee in America by $7,400 a year, a conclusion that is beyond ridiculous. This raised "tax burden" would apply only to someone earning $150,000 a year.

A dude making $150,000 a year is living quite nicely. I don't think an extra $3,700 in taxes (remember, the FICA tax is a 50-50 split) is going to kill the guy, as it would someone earning, say, $30,000 a year. Nor do I think his employer is going to can him over another $3,700 a year... $150,000-a-year employees are generally rather high up on the food chain, and are unlikely to get bounced for a tax increase that represents 2.5% of their total salary.

Eliminating the $90,000 ceiling on payroll taxes would boost the top marginal income-tax rate to 47.6 percent from 35 percent.

Only in very limited circumstances. The only person who would be paying this level of tax (income tax+FICA tax) is a self-employed person making more than $320,000 a year! Moreover, this tax rate would only apply to each dollar over $320,000!

What about the non-self-employed (i.e., highly compensated corporate executives)? Well, their top rate would never rise above 41.2%. You can only apply Kudlow's 47.6% rate to them if you presume that the employer's share of FICA tax should be counted as employee income. Guess that means Republicans are willing to pay income tax on that diverted income now, huh?

Here's something else Kudlow isn't telling you... if you combine income taxes and FICA taxes to produce a blended tax rate -- and you count the entire FICA tax as income, as Kudlow does -- the highest current tax bracket (by my amateur analysis) is $75,000-to-$90,000 a year, at 37.4%. (This is for a married taxpayer with two children... for a single taxpayer it tops out at 40.4%.) For the next dollar earned over $90,000, the blended rate drops by more than 12 percentage points (25%)... and it never gets higher than 35%! In other words, those getting hosed the worst under the current system are the middle-class people that Republicans supposedly care so much about.

Economists have long acknowledged that the Social Security tax is a direct levy on employment, increasing the wedge between work effort and reward and making new jobs more costly.

Only if those jobs pay more than $90,000 per year. For those that pay below that level (i.e., the vast majority of jobs in the United States), the effect is zero.

Any hike in the wage tax cap would most significantly impact small-business owners and the self-employed -- the most dynamic growth sector for job creation. Should the combined marginal tax rate on personal income and Social Security wages increase significantly, both economic and job growth would be greatly deterred.

Again, only if the small business owner in question makes more than $90,000 a year... a hurdle that screens out a heck of a lot of the self-employed.

It also represents a rehash of one of the right's most cherished (and most intellectually dishonest) myths... that small hikes in tax rates deter people from earning more money. If that were the case, the economy should have cratered in 1993 following the Clinton tax hike, and soared in 2001 following the Bush tax cut. Not even Republicans will attempt to claim that's what happened... they'll merely argue that the 1990s boom could have been stronger, and that the 2001 recession could have been worse. (Interestingly, these are claims that are impossible to decisively prove... which serves the GOP just fine.)

Ironically, Harvard's Feldstein argued that hiking the wage cap would create a dead-weight loss on the economy and would lead to significant tax evasion by small-business owners who have chartered as S-Corps or LLCs.

Interesting how the small-business owners lauded earlier as the "dynamic" centerpiece of the American economy are now labeled tax dodgers.

Let's fully consider the implications of what Kudlow is saying: Rich people will find ways to get around a new tax, so we shouldn't tax them. One could reasonably conclude, then, that Leona Helmsley was absolutely right... only little people should pay taxes, since they can't find ways of getting out of them.

Know how you deal with "evasion"? If it's legal, close the loopholes. If it's illegal, prosecute. Problem solved.

Consequently, the net revenue gain from a wage-cap increase might be only $14 billion if the cap were hiked to $110,000. While damaging the economy in terms of rolling back incentives to work, this small revenue yield would do virtually nothing to solve the pending Social Security financial problem.

"Rolling back incentives to work"... that's rich. So we're to believe the small business owner who has already made $90,000 for the year would be more inclined to take the rest of the year off, as he'd "only" get to keep 62.6 percent of that extra $20,000 (i.e., $12,520), as opposed to 75 percent of it ($15,000). In other words, he'd stop working because he'd have to give the government another $2,480 (and not another nickel for anything earned above $110,000).

Oh, and a mid-level executive making $90,000 would, of course, reject a raise to $110,000 -- thereby surrendering rather than paying the additional $1,240 required under the new FICA tax structure. ("Take your raise and shove it, dammit... this is about principle!")

I find it disturbing that there are people that actually believe this.

We'll doubtless see more arguments like this if the concept of raising the FICA tax cap gains political traction. And there's one certain way to neuter these dudes... combine a cap elimination with a lowered overall FICA rate.

A hiked cap would benefit all lower-and-middle income workers eventually, by shoring up their long-term Social Security benefits. But if Americans don't see a benefit today, they're far more likely to fall prey to this kind of spin.

A FICA tax cut... that provides a direct benefit to most Americans today. In the year 2003, the IRS reported that just 6 million tax returns -- less than 5% of all returns received -- reported wage and salary income of more than $100,000 a year... and this is the only group that would see taxes rise if the cap was eliminated. The other 95%? A tax cut. Plus Social Security would be shored up into the 22nd Century.

I'd like to see the Republicans get on the wrong side of that one.

Draft Watch

2005-02-20T23:06:00.000-08:00

It isn't just the National Guard and the Reserves... the Army and Marines are now falling well below recruiting targets, the Washington Post reports. The reason? Yup, you guessed it.

From Lt. Gen. Franklin Hagenbeck, the Army's personnel chief...

"Very frankly, in a couple of places our recruiting pool is getting soft. We're hearing things like, 'Well, let's wait and see how this thing settles out in Iraq.'"

The Army brass is still ruling out (at least publicly) the idea of lowering recruiting standards in order to bolster the ranks ... a position that would certainly suggest that they're not keen on a draft. But there's no reason to believe that young Americans are going to be any more willing to join the Army in coming months and years if the Iraq War continues. Which means that while the generals may not want draftees... they ultimately may not have a choice.

With any luck, that's a bullet this country will manage to dodge... particularly if talks between the US and Iraqi nationalist/Baathist insurgents actually bear fruit.

We'll be awfully damn fortunate if that does happen... before we're forced to pay an even stiffer price for our reckless rush into Iraq.

Porter Goss Fesses Up

2005-02-17T18:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, we are safer today because of the wars conducted by the Bush Administration than we would have been had our troops stayed home or only in Afghanistan. -- David Horowitz, Oct. 8, 2004

Ah yes, we've heard it a billion times before... the argument that the invasion of Iraq was not a diversion from the War on Terror, but was a keystone of Bush's strategy to destroy al-Qaeda and its sponsor states. To state otherwise, the Bushies held, made you a reactionary defeatist at best, a terrorist-supporting traitor at worst. In any case, much less of a real American than they are.

I wonder what Mr. Horowitz (and the 20 million other "Iraq is a central front in the war on terror" adherents) make of this particular statement...

Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists. These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries.

And this...

Our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment.

Most likely the person or persons who said this would be denounced as one or more of the following: anti-American; defeatist; traitorous; pro-terrorists; or liberal scum. (John Kerry is more than familiar with that treatment.)

Too bad the former quote was uttered by CIA Director (and Bush loyalist) Porter Goss before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday ... while the latter came from Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The heads of two of America's largest intelligence agencies have now stated, before the US Senate, that the Iraq War, far from making America safer, has put it at greater jeopardy of terrorist action than ever before, by contributing to the build-up of a hardened, motivated army of jihadists. In other words, the invasion of Iraq was a strategic blunder of enormous magnitude... and Sen. Kerry, in arguing that the war in Iraq was a poorly considered diversion from the war against al-Qaida, was absolutely correct.

But don't forget... to agree with that assessment is anti-American. The Bushies said so.

Random Observations...

2005-02-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

A SOCIAL SECURITY OPENING? -- W made a rather stunning concession on Social Security today... a statement that he won't rule out lifting the $90,000 income cap subject to the 12.4% FICA tax...

I'm interested in good ideas. The one thing I'm not open-minded about is raising the payroll tax rate, and all the other issues are on the table and that's important for people to know.

This seeming concession has been met by a lot of wariness by the Democrats... Josh Marshall today suggested it was simply a ploy to break opposition to the privatization of Social Security, while New York Sen. Charles Schumer said it was a "smokescreen" designed to trick Democrats into proposing an unpopular tax hike.

Respectfully, Sen. Schumer, why should we be talking about tax hikes? Propose a FICA tax reduction... and pay for it by eliminating the income cap, something Bush himself said he'd consider!

Bush has left his flank wide open. Will the Dems have the courage to try to land a haymaker?

DEFENDING CHURCHILL -- I didn't used to be much of a fan of liberal cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall. To be quite honest, he struck me as being overly paranoid and often too mean-spirited -- kind of a "shock jock" pundit.

But Rall's been producing some damn good work as of late... edgy without being mean, and exceptionally well-reasoned.

His latest piece, on the Ward Churchill flap and its implications for free speech, is outstanding and definitely worth checking out...

Popular opinions don't require protection. The First Amendment was written to protect free expression that causes discomfort, even rage, by the majority. Both the censor and the civil libertarian will probably disagree with Churchill's assessment of American collective guilt, but the true defender of free speech recognizes his own revulsion as further reason to err on the side of open discussion over silence.

Amen.

THERE'S HOPE FOR THE GOP -- From New York State comes an appalling example of the Bushies' reckless disregard for civility in political discourse ... on Monday the chairman of the New York Republican Party, Stephen Minarik, referred to the Democrats as the "party of Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart and Howard Dean." Lynne Stewart, of course, is the New York attorney convicted earlier this month on charges of sneaking messages from an imprisoned terrorist leader to members of his network.

In other words, yet another Republican leader looking to polemics like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity for guidance on how to engage in political debate. Why debate Democrats on the issues when you can smear them as terrorist allies?

Then something surprising happened... New York's Republican governor, George Pataki, said Minarik had gone too far...

The Democratic Party doesn't have anything to do with Lynne Stewart. Obviously, she was found guilty of a heinous criminal act and that is not something within the realm of appropriate political discourse in New York State.

Men of honor still remain in the Republican Party. Thank God... and thank you, Gov. Pataki.

SUVs suck

2005-02-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

Finally, a politician with the balls to stand up to the SUV legions!

Bill Bronrott, a Democratic state lawmaker from Maryland, has introduced a bill that would slap a $750-per-year surcharge on SUVs with a curb weight exceeding 6,000 pounds.... which would cover your more obnoxious urban assault vehicles like the Hummer and the Lincoln Navigator.

"This bill is ... about the largest, heaviest passenger vehicles that are the least fuel efficient and the most toxic to our air, land and water," Bronrott told lawmakers.

This bill, as reasonable as it is, probably has the same life expectancy of a box of Krispy Kremes at your local police station, a fact Bronrott himself admits.

But why is it so controversial to suggest that SUV drivers be forced to pay extra for the privilege of driving a tank? Despite the libertarian platitudes of the SUV legions... that it's their own damn business what they drive, and the government has no right to say otherwise... even the father of modern libertarianism, John Stuart Mill, argued that government does have the right to restrict or ban activities if they resulted in harm to others (the so-called "Harm Principle.")

And know what? The SUV legions are most certainly inflicting harm on everyone else for their precious tanks. Consider...

1) When you drive an SUV instead of a car, you're a hell of a lot more likely to kill someone else in an accident. Drivers of cars struck by Ford Explorers, for example, are twice as likely to die than had they been hit by a large car (11 deaths per 5,000 crashes for those hit by an Explorer, compared to 5.5 per 5,000 for those hit by a large car). [Keith Bradsher, "High and Mighty."] One shudders to think what the kill ratio is for Hummers.

And know what the sad part is? You're not gaining much in safety for putting other drivers at increased risk... 16.42 SUV occupants died in accidents per 100,000 registered SUVs in 2004. The death rate for regular cars? 14.85 per 100,000. Reason? Your SUV is more likely to roll over!

2) You're gobbling up a hell of a lot of gas unnecessarily. That Ford Explorer of yours (assuming you're a real man and got yourself the 4WD model) gets a whopping 14 miles to the gallon in the city. Had you bought Ford's compact car, the Focus, you'd be getting 26 mpg. (Hell, even an Escape would get you 22!)

In other words, you're consuming at least twice as much fuel as is necessary... and, when combined with the actions of tens of millions of other American SUV drivers just like you, are compelling the United States to remain neck-deep in the world's worst hornet's nest (also known as the Middle East) in order to meet our 19 million-barrel-per-day oil habit. The fact that we're currently waging two wars in that particular theater will collectively cost this country another $82 billion this year.

3) You're making it impossible for me to see around you, thereby increasing the possibility I'm going to get into an accident.

4) The higher weight of your vehicle means you're wreaking far more wear and tear on the nation's roads, highways and bridges than cars ever will.

5) You're turning the planet into a sauna. Back to our Ford Explorer: Every year your Explorer is on the road, you're pumping out 11.5 tons of greenhouse gases. That Focus you shunned would have produced 4.7 tons less by year's end. But hey... global warming is bullshit, right? Rush Limbaugh said so, so it must be true!

Yes, my SUV-driving friend, you're extracting a hell of a lot of cost from me (and from the rest of the country and the world, for that matter) to support your insistence on driving a tank. Were you forced to bear the true costs of driving that SUV, instead of shifting them off onto everyone else, you might think twice about it.

If you think Bronrott's proposal is bad, you should be glad I'm not in charge. I wouldn't ban your tank, but I would do the following:

1) Remove the federal tax loophole that allows you to deduct the full value (up to $100,000) of a large SUV used for business purposes, a loophole that is not available for any car or SUV under 6,000 pounds. Bad enough that you should be driving that tank... that I and other taxpayers should have to subsidize it makes me want to puke.

2) Slap all SUV drivers with a registration surcharge and/or a gasoline tax surcharge. Why should you pay more, you ask? See arguments 1-5 above. At $750 a year, I think Bronrott's letting you off way cheap.

3) Force you to pass a driver's test for a commercial truck driver's license. Let's face it, Bubba... you're driving a truck, not a car. Your SUV handles differently than a car, and you're more likely to kill anything you hit when you f**k up. Logically, then, you should be required to prove that you have the additional skills and knowledge required to drive such a vehicle... for your own safety, as well as that of drivers around you.

But one step at a time. Bill Bronrott might not be too optimistic about his bill, but maybe, just maybe, he's taken the first step toward a gradual return to sanity on American highways.

Republicans in Academia

2005-02-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

The GOP propaganda brigades love to work themselves into a lather over the supposed bias of America's college educators.

Despite GOP control of the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court (don't give me any of that "non-affiliated" crap), 30 of the nation's 55 gubernatorial seats (counting commonwealths and territories), and both legislative chambers in 21 of 50 states (as well as a majority of the state legislative seats in the country) ... despite that, howls of utter rage always seem to rise from our buddies on the right whenever some dumb-ass professor at Podunk U. says something stupid in class. Something about "liberal indoctrination," or some such thing.

Christ! You run the whole freakin' damned country, Bushies! Give it a freakin' rest! And let's face it, if their goal is indoctrination, our uberliberal academics aren't doing a very good job, given the current position of the Republican Party.

Then again, maybe the Red academic brigades are all that stand between us and the GOP establishing itself as an American version of the PRI or the Kuomintang... one Party rule, now and forever, Amen.

Which is why we periodically see the public flagellation and crucifixion of those who annoy the High Holy Party. Reporters are perhaps the most prominent examples -- the Bushies had an awful lot of damn fun hoisting CNN's Eason Jordan up on the cross for some ill-chosen words at Davos. Never mind that it was Jordan's CNN that ran images of a shrieking eagle every 30 minutes under the words, "AMERICA STRIKES BACK" in the opening days of the Afghanistan campaign. (That anti-American bias is a bitch, ain't it?) Never mind that Jordan immediately tried to clarify, then apologized for his remarks at Davos. Once the words left his mouth, nothing short of the blood of Jordan would slake the thirst of the howling mob of the Right. Rathergate taught them to be satisfied with nothing less than the public humiliation and career execution of those who offend the Right.

But now Jordan's gone, and so new targets must be found. Which brings us to Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado-Boulder.

By all appearances, Ward Churchill is a grade-A schmuck. Anyone who writes that the victims of the World Trade Center attack are "little Eichmanns," as Churchill did shortly after 9/11, is being exceptionally mean-spirited. One can make the argument that Churchill was attempting to make -- in sum, that American foreign policy incites terrorism -- without comparing innocent victims to a Nazi mass murderer.

If there's such a thing as karma and reincarnation, Churchill earned himself about 20 lifetimes as a maggot in a pile of horseshit for that particular crack.

But nobody really gave a damn until Churchill was invited to speak at a small college in upstate New York. That caused Churchill's 2001 essay to bubble up to the top of the American consciousness -- and set off the right-wingers onto a feeding frenzy, egged on by Bill O'Reilly and his buddies at Fox News. Churchill's been forced out as head of his department, and the university is now considering firing him despite his tenure. (Ann Coulter offered him career advice, saying that Churchill would make a good candidate to run the Democratic National Committee. Har, har.)

"This goes right to the heart of our liberties, right to the moral fabric of America," Bill O'Reilly stormed this evening. On Feb. 9, a bit more ominously, O'Reilly suggested that "some might call this treason."

To arms! To arms! The future of our Republic is at stake! (Strange how the right-wing, which has taken such offense at Churchill's mean-spiritedness, seems to find it quite humorous when Ann Coulter jokes about the murder of those she does not approve of, including the leaders of Middle Eastern nations and the staff of the New York Times.)

But what's really interesting about the Churchill flap is that a second case of professorial foot-in-mouth syndrome has emerged. And it illustrates quite clearly that the right can be quite passionate about academic freedom... when the academic in question says something they agree with.

His name is Hans-Herman Hoppe, an economics professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. During a lecture one year ago, Hoppe claimed that, as a rule, homosexuals saved less and engaged in riskier behaviors than heterosexuals. The overbroad and inaccurate generalization led a student to complain to the university. UNLV has proposed to resolve the situation not by firing Hoppe, but by issuing a "letter of instruction." Hoppe responded by threatening to sue.

Not up to Churchill's level of bellicosity. But implying that gays and lesbians are reckless by nature is negative stereotyping, and most certainly not a very nice thing to say.

But there's one major difference ... Hoppe said something Bushies like. And so this particular bonehead is being adopted as a cause celebre by the right, who is now howling ... for the blood of the UNLV administrators who dare stifle academic freedom.

I ... regard a few of (Hoppe's) arguments with complete, open-mouthed incredulity. But that's irrelevant. When we defend a professor against the tyranny of pampered students, we are defending the principle of contract. Liberty is what's defining here, and it's being trumped, on college campuses, not by Mill's principle of "harm to others," but by a much more vague and dangerous principle, "offense to others." (Paul Jacob, senior fellow, Americans For Limited Government, Feb. 13)

Exactly. But one could take precisely those words and apply them equally to Ward Churchill.

Hoppe's case hasn't reached the level of international fervor achieved by Churchill. That's almost certainly just a matter of time. If Hoppe does file suit against UNLV, expect his saga to gain traction in the right-wing media ... and don't be too surprised to see Bill O'Reilly, just days removed from suggesting that Ward Churchill is a traitor, passionately pleading for the liberty of a beleagured university professor in Nevada.

One is tempted to comment on the inconsistency. But in Bush Country, I guess academic freedom only applies to Republicans.

They're Just Wild About Harry

2005-02-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

In a brilliant demonstration of their commitment to "set a better tone" in Washington, the Republican National Committee took a hatchet to new Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Monday ... this 13-page memo, sent to 1 million party faithful and journalists, painting Reid as the "Chief Democrat Obstructionist ... Determined To Obstruct President Bush's Agenda."

Nothing like engaging in a little character assassination before reaching across the aisle, huh?

What makes this document particularly interesting is that it neatly encapsulates the remarkable level of dishonesty and mean-spiritedness that defines the GOP these days. Politicians have always been a little allergic to the truth... but these guys truly have no shame.

So let's delve into the GOP's portrait of the new Senate Minority Leader. Forgive me for the length... there's quite a bit to analyze and rebut here. But it makes for a fascinating case study.

Reid Supported Strengthening Social Security in the 1990s, Opposes Now:

In 1999, Reid Declared: “[M]ost Of Us Have No Problem With Taking A Small Amount Of The Social Security Proceeds And Putting It Into The Private Sector.”

Now, In 2005, Reid Is Blocking Personal Retirement Accounts. “For instance, [Reid] is against personal retirement accounts: ‘If someone wants to privatize Social Security, they are going to have to find someone else to get in bed with other than me,’ Reid told a television audience in Nevada recently.”
The 1999 quote refers to taking a portion of the trust fund and investing it in private investments in an effort to shore up the Social Security trust fund -- a concept proposed by Bill Clinton in 1997. Today, the GOP is talking about redirecting funds into millions of private accounts -- a proposal that does nothing to strengthen the trust fund, and would badly weaken it while piling at least $2 trillion in new debt. Trying to tie together two such radically different proposals is an interesting exercise in rhetoric... even for the GOP.

Reid’s Over-The-Top Partisan Rhetoric:

In 2002, Harry Reid Attacked The President Stating “President Bush Is A Liar.”

As Recently As December 2004, Reid Stood By Comments Attacking President Bush As A “Liar.” NBC’s TIM RUSSERT: “You said, ‘President Bush is a liar. He betrayed Nevada and he betrayed the country.’ Is that rhetoric appropriate?” SEN. HARRY REID: “. . . [P]eople may not like what I said, but I said it, and I don’t back off one bit.”

Naturally, the GOP spin machine doesn't provide any context for why Reid called Bush a liar. One would think that might be relevant to judging Reid's actions.

So let's take a trip down memory lane, back to 2000. Bush and Gore are in a virtual deadlock as the presidential election draws near, and even the smallest batches of electoral votes -- including the four held by Nevada -- could spell the difference between victory and defeat. And in Nevada, one of the top political issues is the proposal to build the nation's nuclear waste repository -- which will ultimately house at least 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear material -- at Yucca Mountain, less than 100 miles from Las Vegas.

Now, Bush knows that there's no way he'll take Nevada if he comes out in support of the dump. So in September 2000, Bush releases the following letter ...

"I believe the best science must prevail in the designation that would send nuclear waste to any proposed site -- either on a permanent or temporary basis -- unless it has been deemed scientifically safe."

Nevada Republicans trumpet the letter as proof that Bush and Gore are indistinguishable on the Yucca Mountain issue, and that Bush will not rush to approve an enormously unpopular waste dump in Nevada. Bush wins Nevada by less than 22,000 votes -- and Nevada's four electoral votes prove decisive in Bush's 271-267 victory.

Less than two years later, despite the fact that Nevada officials were still raising numerous scientific and safety concerns about Yucca, Bush endorsed Yucca Mountain less than a day after Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended it -- and just days after Bush told Reid he would hold off on making the recommendation until he "received and reviewed all of the scientific evidence on Yucca Mountain."

So Bush rubber-stamped a flawed DOE recommendation less than two years after telling Nevadans he wouldn't... a promise that probably delivered Nevada, and with it the White House. Reid said Bush lied to Nevada. The GOP calls that "over-the-top partisan rhetoric" ... I call it calling a spade a spade.

Reid Calls DC Ritz-Carlton Condo Home:

“Son Of A Hard-Rock Miner And Raised In A Cabin Without Running Water, The New Senate Minority Leader Is Soaking Up City Life In A DC Ritz-Carlton Condo That He And His Wife, Landra, Bought In 2001 For $750,000.”

Interesting how the party that screams "class warfare" any time someone challenges their latest tax cuts for the rich has absolutely no compunctions about using such tactics in a hit piece against the new Senate Minority Leader. I wonder if the RNC would care to enlighten us on the details of the D.C. homes of Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay, Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove.

Yes, Reid has nice digs in D.C., just like many of his Republican opponents. The difference is that Reid actually gives a rat's ass about people other than the rich, while the GOPers just like to use the middle and lower class as political cover for another round of tax cuts for the rich.

So next time a Bushie whines about Democratic "class warfare," show them this. You've put your imprimatur on "class warfare," guys; you might wish later you hadn't.

In the 107th Congress, Reid Voted With (Sen. Tom) Daschle 93% Of The Time.
In the 108th Congress, Reid Voted With Daschle 94% Of the Time.

The GOP finds it noteworthy that Reid, while serving as Senate Democratic Whip -- the guy responsible for keeping his party's senators in rank -- would vote so frequently in lockstep with the Senate Democratic Leader.

The fact that he actually disagreed with Daschle 6% of the time makes this guy a rebel, as far as Whips are concerned. And if this comes as a surprise to the GOP researcher that assembled this hit piece... well, then the guy's a dumb-ass.

Reid Has A 90% Lifetime Rating From AFL-CIO.
Reid Has An 89% Lifetime Rating From AFSCME.

Oh, no... those icky unions actually like Harry Reid. Ewwww.

Ask yourself this... why does a party that purportedly is so concerned about the well-being of working Americans believe that being endorsed by organizations that represent the interests of tens of millions of working-class Americans is a bad thing?

Reid Received A Lackluster 34% Lifetime Rating From U.S. Chamber Of Commerce.

Translation: Business good; workers bad. Sounds like concern for ordinary Americans is really keeping the GOP up at night.
Reid Admitted He Did Not Know Money-Laundering Provisions Were In Patriot Act When He Voted For It.

In case you're interested, here's the full text of the Patriot Act. Any Bushie who wants to rip on Reid (or anyone else, for that matter) for failing to fully grasp its contents should be required to read the entire text and pass a quiz on it within 24 hours -- the amount of time that passed between the introduction of the Patriot Act in the House (Oct. 23, 2001) and the vote in the House (Oct. 24, 2001). (Reid, however, had no excuse for his dawdling... the Senate didn't vote until Oct. 25.)

Reid: “There Are Concerns That Misuse Of The Patriot Act Could Lead To A Widespread Invasion Of Privacy"

Oh my God... whining about the privacy rights of Americans???? Friggin' Communist. Go back to Russia!

Coming from a Republican Party that portrays itself as a stalwart defender of American liberties, this is a rather curious attack. And a very telling one.

Reid Thinks Patriot Act Being Misused. “‘The law was intended for activities related to terrorism and not to naked women,’ said Reid, who as minority whip is the second most powerful Democrat in the Senate. ‘Let me say, with Galardi and his whole gang, I don’t condone, appreciate or support all their nakedness. But having said that, I haven’t heard anyone say at any time he was involved with terrorism.’”

Once again, much needed context is conveniently left out by the GOP. Know what Reid's talking about here? A political corruption investigation involving a Las Vegas strip club. Exactly what the hell does that have to do with terrorism?

But I guess one should not ask such unpatrotic questions.

“The Human Rights Campaign, The Largest National Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgender Advocacy Organization, Envisions An America Where GLBT People Are Ensured Of Their Basic Equal Rights, And Can Be Open, Honest And Safe At Home, At Work And In The Community.”

This little gem was included under the headline "Reid Opposes Federal Marriage Amendment." But I ask you... do you see any mention here of gay marriage?

Nope. This is just a very basic statement that gays and lesbians should be accorded the same rights afforded to all other Americans.... that they have the right to live their lives "open, honest and safe." And the Republican National Committee is using it as an attack point against Harry Reid.

Know what this is called? Gay bashing. For only a homophobic reactionary can conclude that supporting such a cause is a bad thing.

Next time a Bushie tells you that the anti-gay marriage movement has nothing to do with an anti-gay agenda... remember this bullet point.

Whew! Half way through. Part II to follow...

Saving Social Security

2005-02-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

So the Republicans are busily painting the Democrats as heads-in-the-sand ostriches, unwilling to confront the pending "crisis" in Social Security, unable to offer any real counterproposals of their own.

Now, the Democrats aren't incorrect from a technical standpoint. Benefits paid will exceed funds coming into the Social Security program around 2018 or 2020, but guess what? That's why we have this thing called a "trust fund." And it'll allow Social Security to keep paying benefits for decades longer, even while it's in the red. If the trust fund does run out sometime in the 2040s (not a certainty, but let's go ahead and amuse W), FICA taxes will still continue to roll in, and benefits will continue to be paid. They'll be reduced -- 72% to 80% of current levels is the best guess right now -- but benefits will not go away.

Still, if that scenario does emerge, it wouldn't be a good thing. (I personally think it sucks quite badly, as I become eligible for Social Security in 2042.) So sitting on the sidelines and denying the existence of a problem is extremely risky. It allows the GOP to paint Democrats as obstructionist while they peddle their magic elixir of "private accounts" -- which would do nothing to prop up the trust fund, slash Social Security benefits, and pile $2 trillion of new debt onto the country. That, my friends, is considerably worse than doing nothing... but if the Dems aren't careful, the GOP will get away with it.

So we need to come up with a plan of our own... one that really does fix Social Security, and one that will absolutely bury the Republicans and their B.S. private accounts.

I came up with one over beers last night. Scary how I get some of my best ideas with the help of alcohol, really. But it's one I think could bury the Republicans.

Right now the FICA tax is 12.4 percent, split between employer and employee. But there's a big catch -- the tax applies only to income up to $87,900 a year. Once you cross that line, you pay nothing in FICA taxes. (Sends a rather perverse message, if you ask me... one that states that paying FICA taxes is beneath rich people. And it actually provides businesses economic incentive to provide wage hikes to high-income executives, rather than low-income workers, as high wage brackets aren't subject to the FICA tax.)

So here's my plan:

1) Eliminate the cap.
2) Lower the FICA tax rate.

Once you eliminate the cap, you begin collecting 12.4% on every penny earned by high-income executives across America. That creates a considerable flood of new revenue... more than enough to shore up the trust fund indefinitely.

In fact, Social Security would be collecting far, far more than it needs under such a scenario. That means you can lower the FICA tax rate -- and still save Social Security.

The benefits?

1) Social Security will be able to pay full benefits to retirees into the 22nd century and beyond.

2) If you earn below $100,000 a year, you would get a tax cut. That encompasses the vast majority of America, last time I looked.

3) Many American businesses would also receive a tax cut. Remember, employers are on the hook for half of the FICA tax. So if you have no one on your payroll who earns more than $90,000 a year -- a situation that describes most of the "small businesses" that Republicans adore so much -- your tax bill would go down.

Going forward, a restructured FICA tax structure encourages businesses to hire low-and-middle income employees ... and to raise their wages ... since it costs less to do so.

4) As lower and middle-income earners are more likely to spend additional income than upper-income earners, these tax cuts would provide the economy with considerable stimulus... and provide state governments with a boost in sales tax revenues.

Now, the Republicans would almost certainly pitch a hissy fit over this proposal, deriding it as "class warfare" or some such crap. But it's a relatively easy charge to counter. Dems could simply tell Americans that they're trying to cut their taxes and save Social Security at the same time -- but that the Republicans are apparently more concerned about making sure the uber-wealthy will have the cash to buy that new Ferrari next year.

By stirring up the "Social Security is in crisis" talk to feverish levels, Bush has created a golden opportunity for the Democrats -- fix a long-standing inequity in our tax structure while reminding the vast majority of America which party really stands up for their best interests.

Hopefully they'll seize this opportunity... because we can't afford to lose this battle.

UPDATE:

USA Today published findings of a poll today (Feb. 9) on just this subject. The findings?

Is requiring high-income earners to pay Social Security taxes on all of their income a good idea or a bad idea?

Good idea: 67%
Bad idea: 30%
No opinion: 3%

Two-thirds in favor? That's about as close to consensus as you'll get in America these days.

What are the Democrats waiting for??? Nuke the cap!

The Agony and the Ecstasy (Or, My Thoughts on the Iraq Election)

2005-02-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

A Republican friend of mine gave me a rather smug look this week.

"Bet that really bugs you, huh?"

Huh? Bug me? What do you mean?

He shows me an e-mail from Iraq talking about the joyful spirit in the air during Sunday's elections. "That. Bet you're not happy to see something like that."

Now, I was tempted to reply that the attitude was probably none too joyful in Sunni-dominated areas like Tikrit or Fallujah. But I decided to let that one pass. How can one who claims to be liberal, in the classic sense of the word, find displeasure in watching a long-oppressed people take their first step toward freedom?

You can't... not if you really believe in what liberalism is all about. And that's what I told my friend today.

Yes, we loathe Bush and his allies, and the reckless manner in which he plunged us into war. But what he's done is not the fault of the Iraqi people. And we shouldn't wish ill on them to punish the Shrub.

Still, the reaction of the pro-war right is troublesome... sheer, unadulterated gloating. I'm sure you've seen the many permutations of this over the last four days -- the argument that the success of the Iraqi elections marks a complete and utter vindication of Bush and the Iraq War.

That's bullshit -- and it's bullshit of a particularly dangerous streak. If you buy that one, then logically you would support Bush if he chose to take an identical course of action in the future... in, say, Iran. Or North Korea. Or Cuba. etc.

Yes, good has finally emerged from a very dark and troubling situation. That's how life works -- it's rarely as black-and-white as the Bushies see it. But the emergence of that good does not change the fact that Bush launched a pre-emptive invasion on a badly exaggerated casus belli that later proved completely false; that in launching said invasion unilaterally, the United States badly undermined international law; that tens of thousands of lives have been lost in a war still far from conclusion; that US personnel have tortured and abused detainees captured in this war and the war in Afghanistan, as a matter of official policy in some cases; that in pursuing the elective war in Iraq, the US has badly compromised its ability to prosecute the war on al Qaeda, to say nothing of meeting its treaty obligations; and that the senior leadership of the United States (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al) has apparently learned nothing from these mistakes, or at least will not admit so publicly.

Sunday's election does not provide absolution for these sins. And it does not provide justification for the White House's apparent strategy of war without foreseeable end in Iraq.

Ted Kennedy's calls for a rapid pullout notwithstanding, the Democratic leadership is not talking about cutting and running in Iraq. Here's what Nancy Pelosi said tonight...

We all know that the United States cannot stay in Iraq indefinitely and continue to be viewed as an occupying force. Neither should we slip out the back door, falsely declaring victory but leaving chaos. We have never heard a clear plan from this administration for ending our presence in Iraq.

Read this again. Do you see any mention of immediate pullout? Cutting and running with our tail between our legs? "Artificial timelines"?

No. You see the Democratic Party calling on Bush to simply tell us what our goals are in Iraq... and how the hell we're going to get out of a place we do not belong as soon as is practicable.

Now, Bush alluded to this in the State of the Union tonight. But let's just say it might be a little difficult to meet his goals...

We are in Iraq to achieve a result: A country that is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself. And when that result is achieved, our men and women serving in Iraq will return home with the honor they have earned.

These are not exactly the kinds of goals that can be met in the next 12 months. Even five or 10 years might be pushing it, despite Bush's talk of gradually turning over the fighting to Iraqis tonight.

But it's fairly apparent that the war hawks really don't have a whole lot of interest in bringing this war to an end any time soon. Bush himself explained why tonight...

(Iraq) is a vital front in the war on terror, which is why the terrorists have chosen to make a stand there. Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home.

This is the "flypaper theory" much beloved by neocons, war hawks and Bushies -- the theory that jihadists who would be waging a terrorist campaign in the United States are instead being sucked into a guerrilla war in Iraq, where they can be slaughtered by the bushel.

The mission of the United States military is to help would-be enemy suicide attackers meet their maker in the largest numbers possible. And if this can be done in Tikrit and Samarra rather than in New York and New Jersey, so much the better. [Las Vegas Review-Journal, Feb. 1]
In fact, were America actually to heed the siren's call ... and retreat from the Iraqi front in that war, it would simply assure that we will be fighting these enemies far closer to home and, indeed, in all likelihood here. [Syndicated columnist Frank Gaffney, Jr., Jan. 31]

Gaffney eloquently explains why the Bushies have no interest in a quick end to this war. If you really do believe in the flypaper theory, then you have no interest in pulling out of an opportunity to slaughter the world's jihadists.

Now, I happen to believe this theory is a load of crap. You see, as ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheuer explained in Imperial Hubris, most of al Qaeda's trainees are foot soldiers -- capable of serving as cannon fodder in guerrilla wars in Kosovo, Chechnya and Iraq, but hardly capable of carrying out a complex terrorist plot in a Western country. Such plots are left to al Qaeda's "special forces," if you will. There are far fewer of these characters out there ... and they certainly aren't going to be used as cannon fodder fighting US Marines in Fallujah.

But I digress. Even if it is absolutely true, it is an incredibly crappy thing to do.

The same people who repeatedly praise the courage of the Iraqi citizenry, and are today professing such deep concern about their liberty and well-being, see absolutely nothing wrong with turning Iraqi neighborhoods into a bloodbath to serve US interests in the "war on terror." It's NIMBYism on an international scale, not unlike dumping your trash in your neighbor's yard because you don't want to deal with it. Why the hell is it appropriate for us to shove the residents of Tikrit and Samarra in front of a freight train to save our own asses? Are their lives of less value than our own?

If we're in Iraq to stabilize the country and to assist the Iraqi government in building up an army and police force with which to defend itself, that's one thing. As Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday, it would be completely inappropriate to abandon the Iraqis to the chaos we helped create without giving them a fighting chance to defend themselves.

But if we're talking about stirring up the shit in Iraq to suck in jihadists into a war without end, well, that shows you don't really give a rat's ass about the Iraqis at all, beyond the political cover they provided you on Sunday by voting.

Yes, the Iraqi people showed some remarkable courage on Sunday. Perhaps it's time we showed a little courage ourselves ... and stopped shoving them into a meat-grinder for our own interests.

The Fox Generation

2005-01-31T17:53:00.000-08:00

Today the AP published findings of a poll of high-school students regarding their views of the First Amendment. The most chilling finding -- more than a third of the youngsters, when read the text of the First Amendment, said it went too far in guaranteeing the rights of speech, religion, petition and assembly.

Here's another interesting finding:

Newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories:
Yes 51%
Musicians should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics which others may find offensive:
Yes 70%

So let's recap: More high-school age Americans believe that protecting the potty mouths of rappers is a greater Constitutional concern than ensuring a free and independent press in America. (Not that I have anything against such lyrics, mind you... but a free press is just a wee bit more important. If I have to choose between the watchdogs of democracy and hearing Eminem say the f-word 75 times in three minutes, I'll take the former.)

Hmmm... let me think about this... who owns a network notorious for a decidedly vulgar and/or mean streak (i.e. Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, Who's Your Daddy?, American Idol, The Swan, etc.) and a news channel famed for pro-Bush cheerleading?

Yes, it appears the younger generation is more than ready for a world ruled by Rupert Murdoch.

Stupid Red States

2005-01-25T18:25:00.000-08:00

I'm a day late on this one, but had to share this absolutely priceless Monday item from OpinionJournal's James Taranto, entitled "Stupid Blue States"... (Linked article has since been corrected...)

People who vote Republican are stupid, the stereotype has it. As London's left-wing Daily Mirror tabloid asked in a front-page headline in November, "How could 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" (Actually, according to David Leip's Election Atlas, the number of Bush voters is now 62,041,268.) In an effort to counter this stereotype, we're looking for examples of blue-state stupidity, and our first one comes from an Associated Press weather story: "Baltimore transportation crews are set to lay down blue salt--letting residents know their streets have been plowed." John Kerry outpolled Bush 82.7% to 17.1%--a margin of 65.6%--in Balitmore [sic], a city whose residents need saline assistance to figure out their streets have been plowed.

Yes, you read that right. One of the country's most prominent right-wing bloggers, in a feverish effort to make Blue Staters look stupid, misspelled the name of the nation's 18th largest city.
Methinks Mr. Taranto would be well served by investing in a copy editor who voted for Kerry.

In any case, it was a pretty lame example. But one can't fault Taranto for that... after all, one can only work with the material one has, and trying to demonstrate that Red Staters are more intelligent than Blue Staters... well, that's a tricky one.

Proving the opposite... my friends, that's like shooting fish in a barrel.

As Exhibit A, I offer the findings of Men's Health magazine, which recently rated the Smartest and Dumbest Cities in America. So what do you think we find when we compare that list against the results of the November election?

Smartest:
1. Minneapolis -- Minnesota: Kerry +3.5%
2. Boston -- Massachusetts: Kerry +25.2%
3. Denver -- Colorado: Bush +4.7%
4. St. Paul -- Minnesota: Kerry +3.5%
5. Seattle -- Washington: Kerry + 7.2%

Average margin: Kerry +6.9%

Dumbest:
1. Fort Wayne -- Indiana: Bush +20.7%
2. Corpus Christi -- Texas: Bush +22.9%
3. Laredo -- Texas: Bush +22.9%
4. Las Vegas -- Nevada: Bush +2.6%
5. Newark -- New Jersey: Kerry +6.7%

Average margin: Bush +12.5%

Now, as I don't want to be accused of cheating, let's drill down to the county levels...

Smartest:
1. Minneapolis (Hennepin County): Kerry +19.9%
2. Boston (Suffolk County): Kerry +53.1%
3. Denver (Denver County): Kerry +40.3%
4. St. Paul (Ramsey County): Kerry +27.4%
5. Seattle (King County): Kerry +31.3%

Average margin: Kerry +34.4%

Dumbest:
1. Fort Wayne (Allen County): Bush +27.3%
2. Corpus Christi (Nueces County): Bush +14.3%
3. Laredo (Webb County): Kerry +14.2%
4. Las Vegas (Clark County): Kerry +4.9%
5. Newark (Essex County): Kerry +41.6%

Average margin: Kerry +3.8% (though Newark is a statistical spike that skews the average... without it, the average is Bush +5.6%.)

Conclusions?
1) Four of the five smartest cities in America are in blue states; four of the five dumbest are in red states.
2) The five smartest cities in America voted for Kerry by an average margin of more than 34%.
3) The two dumbest cities in America voted for Bush by an average margin of nearly 21%.

So Taranto wants to start a debate on whether blue states are dumber than red states? Well, as the Shrub once notoriously noted... bring it on!

Some People Never Learn

2005-01-24T18:51:00.000-08:00

Talk about a pre-emptive strike against Iran grows by the day. It almost feels like 2002 all over again... Dick Cheney and neocon commentators musing publicly about the possibility of a war with a member of the Axis of Evil unless they give up their WMD stashes. And meanwhile, in the shadows, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and the neocons are busy whispering into Bush's ear how easy it would be... just a limited strike, and the whole country will rise up to overthrow the dictators and welcome the American liberators.

You know how that ended up last time. But if Iraq was a mistake, war with Iran would be the most supreme f***-up in American history. It is almost beyond belief that we would even be considering this so soon after the Iraqi misadventure. Never underestimate the Bushies, I guess.

Start with troop levels. Today the AP reported that the U.S. is basically scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of combat-ready reserve troops. It's difficult to imagine this situation will improve any time soon. Let's face it... if joining the Army Reserve or the National Guard will result in an almost guaranteed extended deployment to a combat zone, why would you enlist in the reserves instead of joining the regular Army?

Combined with lackluster recruitment figures from the regular armed forces, Bush will face quite a serious dilemma in a couple of years, should the war in Iraq drag on. Just today the Pentagon stated it expects US troop levels in Iraq to remain at a minimum of 120,000 for the next two years... and past experience with Vietnam and Iraq suggests any Pentagon troop projection is usually too low.

Though Bush won't admit it -- and though the GOP vehemently denied it during the campaign -- it will come down to these two options within a couple of years:

1) Resurrect the draft; or
2) Pull out of Iraq... regardless of the situation on the ground.

The math simply does not work any other way. If soldiers and Marines are mustering out without sufficient replacements or reserves, the U.S. simply will not have the manpower necessary to fight a major combat operation (let alone the forgotten war in Afghanistan) while simultaneously meeting treaty commitments elsewhere (i.e, defending South Korea against North Korea or Taiwan against China).

Note that I'm assuming we simply stay in Iraq, without undertaking any other military adventures.

Now they want to attack Iran? I ask you... where the hell do they propose to get the troops for this little adventure, short of a full-scale draft?

Even if we resolve that issue, active insurgencies in your rear have a way of disrupting military offensives, as the Germans quickly discovered on the Eastern Front during World War II. We'd be facing exactly that situation in an Iranian war, against the most powerful military in the Middle East (save perhaps Israel).

Even if our intent is simply a "surgical" strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, rather than an invasion, war has a funny way of going in unexpected directions. It's hard to imagine Iran launching an invasion of Iraq, but it's hard to believe they'd simply absorb an airstrike without escalating in any way. (The military understands this all too well... one of the US commanders in Afghanistan told the AP that "anything that is destabilizing or causes turmoil in Iran, especially close to the border, would not be good for Afghanistan and would not be good for my mission." He's basically saying, in as bold terms as an active general can, that war with Iran would make Afghanistan a complete clusterf**k.)

Suppose we did get lucky, and successfully took down Iran as speedily as we did the Iraqi army in April 2003. Now comes the fun part -- instead of trying to quell insurgencies in two countries, we' d be dealing with insurgencies in three. (Yes, there's a lot of Iranians that wouldn't mind seeing the mullahs go one bit. But there's more than enough Iranians deeply committed to the Iranian theocracy... and, presumably, more than willing to wage one hell of an insurgency against an occupier.)

Again... where do the Bushies propose to get the troops to do this?

Then there's that little global credibility thing. We ticked off a lot of friends when we stomped on Iraq. Pick a fight with Iran, and we might lose the few friends we have left. If we go into Iran, we go in alone.

It's a scenario that would cause a rational person to proceed very carefully. But rationality, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be held in high regard these days.

World to U.S.: Get Bent

2005-01-19T17:54:00.000-08:00

Appears Condi "Mushroom Cloud" Rice has quite a bit of work to do.

The BBC today released a worldwide poll asking respondents how they felt about the re-election of the Shrub on Nov. 2. The results weren't exactly promising...

Did the re-election of Bush make the world more dangerous, or less? More: 58%

How does the fact that George Bush has been re-elected make you feel toward the American people? Worse 42%; Better 25% (No more coasting on the "I don't like the US government, but I love Americans" loophole, folks.)

How do you view the US's influence in the world -- mainly positive, or mainly negative?
Positive: 38%
Negative: 47%
(Interestingly, the French gave the US higher marks on this question than Germany, Russia, Turkey or Mexico, something the Bushies might want to consider before launching another broadside of moronic French jokes. They also might want to stop eating at Taco Bell and calling sauerkraut "freedom cabbage," just to be on the safe side.)

And the country-by-country results... out of 21 nations polled, just three -- India, the Philippines and Poland -- believed the re-election of the Shrub made the world safer.

Not even I, raving liberal and internationalist that I am, will ever argue that international opinion is the only factor that should be considered when making national security decisions, or even necessarily the most important factor. After all, international opinion told the Czechs to take one for the team and let Hitler gobble up a third of their country in 1938. That one didn't work out so well.

But having said that, showing a repeated, cocky disregard for what the rest of the world thinks of your actions is remarkably stupid. And right now we're pretty much acting as if the rest of the world can get bent if they don't like the way we do things, because we can kick anyone's ass. (Remember all that sneering about Kerry's "global test"?) The BBC poll is but the latest indication of the effect of such behavior.

Well, the Bushies are right. We are on top right now, and we can kick more ass than anyone else on the planet, which grants us unrivaled freedom of action... in the short term. But history, if nothing else, is transient. And the Bushies really need to consider these three facts:

1) "Foreigners" outnumber Americans 20-to-1. (Generally it's not a great idea to continuously antagonize an overwhelming majority.)

2) The US economy is now fueled almost entirely by investment funds coming from outside the United States. (As stupid as it is to piss off a group that outnumbers you 20-to-1, it's even stupider to piss off your banker.)

3) In the 6,000-plus years of world history, a lot of people have been on top... but no one has been on top forever. And when that day does come for us... we're going to need some friends.

Better hope the Indians keep liking us.

Fool me once, shame on you...

2005-01-17T18:55:00.000-08:00

So now the Bushies are out trying to convince America that Social Security is on the verge of complete collapse... unless, of course, we take some radical steps... (i.e., adopting W's proposal for the privatization of Social Security). From W's Saturday radio address...

[F]or younger workers, Social Security is on the road to bankruptcy. And if we do not fix it now, the system will not be able to pay the benefits promised to our children and grandchildren. ...

[I]n the year 2018, the system will go into the red -- paying out more in benefits each year than it receives in payroll taxes. After that, the shortfalls will grow larger until 2042, when the whole system will be bankrupt.

Now, this is hardly a consensus opinion... on Sunday Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Leader, claimed that even without any changes, Social Security could pay full benefits until 2050, and then at 80 percent of current levels indefinitely. (Sunday's New York Times Magazine contains a far more detailed rebuttal of W's "the sky is falling" campaign.)

But that's not exactly deterring the Bushies, who continue to bang away at the "Social Security is doomed" drum as if such a claim was unassailable fact, often in far more dire tones than Bush used on Saturday. (Expect more of the same at Thursday's coronation.)

It all sounds so very, very familiar, doesn't it? Let's take a walk down memory lane...

"In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world -- and we will not allow it." -- George W. Bush, August 2002.
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." -- Dick Cheney, August 2002.
"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." -- Condoleezza Rice, September 2002.
"We believe he (Saddam Hussein) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." -- Dick Cheney, March 2003.

Of course, you know how that one turned out.

So let's see... the same crew that claimed three years ago that Saddam was on the verge of nuking the United States is now claiming, in just as dire tones, that Social Security is on the brink of collapse without an incredibly radical, incredibly risky overhaul.

Why the hell should we believe one damn word they're saying???? Why would anyone expect this situation to have a radically different outcome?

The problem the Bushies face is this -- when presented in unvarnished format, their proposals would be incredibly unappetizing to the vast majority of Americans.

Take "tax reform." Know what their ultimate goal is? Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute spelled it out in unusually candid terms in Sunday's NY Times Magazine...

I think Bush does have a master plan on tax policy. The goal is to eliminate all taxes on savings and investment. That means no capital-gains tax, no dividends tax, no estate tax, no tax on interest.

Which means that Bush believes it's appropriate to extract 10 percent of a minimum-wage worker's paycheck in taxes -- and even more of a middle-class worker's paycheck -- but nothing, nada, zilch, zippo, from the million-dollar-plus dividend check collected each month by a trust-fund baby who's never worked a day in his life... and absolutely nothing from every corporation in the United States. The effect would be to shift the federal tax burden almost completely off the wealthy and place it firmly on the middle and lower class.

Imagine Paris Hilton's maid paying more in federal income taxes than Paris Hilton... and a greeter at your local Wal-Mart paying more in federal income tax than Wal-Mart itself. I dunno what Stephen Moore or Republicans call such a scenario, but I call it disgusting. Making a poor person pay more in taxes than an immensely wealthy person or a huge corporation is an interesting definition of "moral values," to say the least.

If Bush were to come out and admit such a thing, how long do you think the GOP majority would last?

So the Bushies are not about to come clean on their Social Security plans. And why should they? Last time they ran this game plan, a vast majority of Americans, scared witless that Saddam was about to nuke them, supported the unprovoked invasion of a nation that posed no significant threat to US security.

But one would think, after two years of war, that Americans would be just a wee bit more cautious about accepting whatever the Bushies have to say at face value.

Shades of Tonkin

2005-01-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

The only surprise is how long it took... today the White House finally admits there aren't any WMDs in Iraq and calls off the search. (Interesting how they waited until after the election to make such an admission.)

And so it is official: the excuse for starting a war that has now claimed tens of thousands of lives was as fictitious as the Gulf of Tonkin.

But what is exceptionally disturbing is this statement by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan...

"Based on what we know today, the president would have taken the same action because this is about protecting the American people."

In a single soundbite, McClellan has encapsulated what makes Bush so incredibly dangerous... and why so many of us believe that leaving him in office on Nov. 2 was a blunder of historic proportions. For you can draw only two conclusions from McClellan's statement:

1) He's lying. Of course Bush wouldn't have invaded if he knew there weren't WMDs, but the White House doesn't want to admit it bungled big time. Which suggests Bush is absolutely incapable of admitting error, and would rather lie outright to the American people than admit a mistake.

2) He's telling the truth. Bush truly would have invaded another sovereign nation without any legitimate casus belli, a blatant violation of 350 years of international law. If this is true, one should expect that Bush, faced with a similar circumstance in the future would act in a similar way.

In either case, you could make an argument for impeachment. If it is the former scenario... well, six years ago the president of the United States was impeached for lying about a sexual tryst. For consistency's sake, if nothing else, one would think the House Republicans would immediately begin drawing up Bush's walking papers.

If it is the latter... then the security of the United States and the world are in serious jeopardy, and impeachment becomes a necessity, if only to prevent the outbreak of a war that could make Iraq look like a snowball fight.

Somehow, though, I don't expect we'll be seeing impeachment proceedings any time soon. And to be fair, the American people were given the opportunity to render judgment on Bush just two months ago... and, despite knowing what we know now, voted to leave him in the White House.

I only hope that we... the United States and the world... do not end up paying too high a price for that hubris.

The Womack Defense

2005-01-11T18:00:00.000-08:00

You really don't have to look that hard for really stupid comments these days. Take today, for example... while making a cursory glance at MSNBC, I see Pat Buchanan state that CBS News, in running its now-discredited Bush memos story, is guilty of criminal conspiracy to bring down the president of the United States.

I see. Sloppy journalism is now the equivalent of high treason. A curious concept, though not completely surprising ... after all, this is the guy who once wrote that it was the Western Allies who were guilty of provoking an unnecessary war with Nazi Germany, as Hitler was merely interested in the subjugation of Eastern Europe.

Still, that wasn't the stupidest thing I read or heard today, amazingly enough. That honor must be bestowed on Guy Womack, defense attorney for accused Abu Ghraib ringleader Spc. Charles Graner. There's been a lot of really stupid (and appalling) attempts to minimize or justify the abuses of Abu Ghraib, but this guy sets a new low. From Reuters...

Graner's attorney said piling naked prisoners into pyramids and leading them by a leash were acceptable methods of prisoner control. He compared this to pyramids made by cheerleaders at sports events and parents putting tethers on toddlers. "Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?" Guy Womack, Graner's attorney, said in opening arguments to the 10-member U.S. military jury at the reservist's court-martial. (Emphasis added.)

I'd like to know where the hell this guy watches football. Naked cheerleaders piling onto each other on the sidelines? Count me in for season tickets.

I'd also like to know where this moron got his law degree. Forrest Gump could've graduated with honors.

Listen up, defense attorneys! Got a client who's guilty as hell? Looking desperately for a way to get the S.O.B. off the hook? Use the "Womack Defense!"

Defending a mugger: "Football players slam into each other all the time. Boxers beat each other to unconsciousness. Is that considered assault and battery?"

Defending a murderer: "Surgeons cut into people every day all across America. Is that considered murder?"

An arsonist: "People start fires all of the time. Why, I started a fire in my fireplace just the other night. Should I be convicted of arson?"

And finally, a defense of the cult members who set off sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995...

"You want to hear about noxious fumes? On the way here I farted on the subway, and believe me, more than a few of my fellow passengers' eyes were watering by the time they stepped off the train. So does my flatulence make me guilty of terrorism?"

Not exactly a brilliant legal strategy. Still, the good barrister probably has a bright career ahead of him as a Republican columnist. I hear Armstrong Williams' spot is open...

The GOP discovers democracy

2005-01-10T17:53:00.000-08:00

Exceptionally lengthy column today by the Wall Street Journal's John Fund on how the Dems "stole" the Washington gubernatorial election ... and how the army of right-wing bloggers is trying to force a re-vote through an all-out propaganda blitzkrieg...

The new media--talk radio, bloggers and independent watchdog groups--have followed up their success in exposing Dan Rather's use of phony memos by showcasing another scandal: Washington state's bizarre race for governor, which features a vote count so close and compromised it allows Florida to retire the crown for electoral incompetence. If Democrat Christine Gregoire, who leads by 129 votes and is scheduled to take the office Wednesday, eventually has to face a new election, it will have been in large part because of the new media's ability to give the story altitude before it reached the courts.

Knowing that our Republican brothers and sisters are dedicated to complete fairness in the electoral process, I am certain they would take the same position out of principle if it was a Democrat who got screwed out of an election because of irregularities. They'd never, ever stoop to such tactics as intimidating or misleading minority voters, challenging registered voters, trying to get votes from Democratic counties thrown out, or, worst of all, shutting down a recount process in the courts when it's obvious you're going to lose if every vote is counted.

If such a situation came up... say, hypothetically, Florida in 2000... I'm certain the conservative bloggers, radio pundits and "watchdog groups" would rise up and save the Republic from the evil machinations of those who would thwart the democratic process for political gain.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The stench of hypocrisy from these jerkwads is appalling. Four years after they shut down the Florida recount in an election riddled with irregularities and lost ballots -- and, in the process, snagged the White House -- they have the audacity to bitch about the Washington gubernatorial race? And then, hardly pausing for breath, they tear into Sen. Barbara Boxer for having the temerity to express concerns about voting irregularities in Ohio?

There are two lessons to be learned here:

1) This new breed of "conservatives" has precisely zero principles and zero consistency. Virtually all politicos let their principles be compromised to some extent by their thirst for election and re-election, but these guys are of a different breed. All they truly care about is the acquisition and retention of power by any means necessary -- and the complete demolition of the opposition party in the process.

2) The "new media" -- aka the GOP propaganda brigades -- are the ones ultimately responsible for putting this new breed of "conservative" into power, by making radical Republicanism palatable to the masses through a steady diet of unmitigated bulls**t. As Fund notes, "Seattle Times columnist Joni Balter says the attack on the vote count by Republican-leaning media 'is by now a near-military operation--air, land and sea.'"

In other words, these guys believe in total political war. And it works. Take Washington --
Fund now claims Washington voters now favor a "do-over" vote by 20 percentage points. (And after being saturation-bombed with propaganda painting Democrats as election-stealers... who the hell do you think is going to win that election?)

I might, just might, be tempted to say that the Republican calls for a mulligan election would appropriate, as soon as they answer this question honestly: Why the f*** didn't you support a re-vote in Florida 2000??? (Answer: Because W would have lost a Florida re-vote, and therefore the presidency. And we couldn't have that.)

The formula of the propagandists is simple. Truth is irrelevant. Just flood the box with lies and distortions, using as indignant a tone as possible. If caught in a lie, simply ignore it or dismiss it as a distortion by the "liberal media" -- and grow more shrill and indignant.

Know where I've seen this before? The sheep in Orwell's "Animal Farm." Whenever one of the animals would attempt to challenge Napoleon's cadre, the sheep could be counted on to kill any debate by bleating "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad" incessantly.

Once again, Orwell proves remarkably prescient.

The Stone Conspiracy

2005-01-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

Normally I prefer to lay into right-wing B.S. artists... after all, there's no shortage of rabid conservative bloggers willing to tear into pundits on the left.

But Oliver Stone ... well, I can't let him by on this one.

Now, you may have thought that Stone's latest epic, Alexander, bombed because it was a really crappy movie. But you'd be wrong, his Lordship proclaims...

Stone said the commercial failure of "Alexander" in the United States could be linked to "a raging fundamentalism in morality." "From day one audiences didn't show up," he said. "They didn't even read the reviews in the South because the media was using the words, `Alex the gay.' As a result you can bet that they thought, `We're not going to see a film about a military leader that has got something wrong with him.'"

At first I thought this was funny... just a particularly egregious example of an annoying celebrity blowhard looking for an excuse, any excuse, to cover his own f***-up. Christ, man, you haven't made a movie worth watching since Platoon! (Stone is particularly annoying because he attempts to pass off fiction in his movies as fact, and I have a very low tolerance for those who knowingly traffic in lies and B.S. But I digress.)

As I considered it further, I got pissed off. Why? Because the rise of religious and moral fundamentalism is a very real problem in this country, with very real consequences -- the rollback of abortion rights, a rising anti-gay sentiment, the degradation of the separation between church and state, to name just a few.

So what does Stone do? He usurps this very real issue as an excuse to cover his own ass.

The result? Red meat for the GOP propaganda brigades. They'll have an amusing little anecdote about yet another Hollywood whack-job ... and use it as "evidence" that concerns over the rise of fundamentalism are really just another case of those left-wing wackos crying wolf.

Thanks, Oliver. Egotistical twit.

Gunning for Roe-II

2005-01-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

I came across a very interesting analysis of the "What if Roe v. Wade is overturned" scenario by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Their conclusion is far more pessimistic than mine -- that 21 states are positioned to severely restrict or ban abortion outright if Roe is tossed, either by enforcing existing laws or passing new anti-abortion laws. (Interestingly, this list of "high-risk" states includes four Blue States: Delaware, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.)

The center's analysis puts another nine states in the "uncertain" category, including Illinois and Pennsylvania. That's 30 out of 50 states positioned to potentially ban or restrict abortion if Roe falls -- a pretty dramatic shift by anyone's standard.

Then again, I'm sure the GOP lawmakers in those states would fall all over themselves to meet a dramatically escalated post-Roe birthrate with funding that would provide every American child with sufficient nutrition, shelter, education and medical insurance...

Sorry. Drifted off into Fantasyland there. Tough noogies, kids... once you're born, you're screwed.

(The center calls "doubtful" the scenario I mentioned earlier regarding a challenge to abortion nationwide predicated on the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Their legal knowledge far exceeds mine, of course... but I still think they might be a bit overly optimistic there. I most certainly expect this route to be attempted in the next several years.)

In any case, the study certainly makes interesting reading. Here's the file (828K pdf) if you're interested.

But how likely is the "Roe overturned" scenario?

I took a second look at the composition of the Supreme Court today. And the picture is a bit nerve-racking.

Chief Justice Rehnquist is obviously the most likely candidate for retirement. As he's one of the three conservative, anti-Roe justices, his replacement with another right-wing jurist would likely leave the court balanced at 5-4 in favor of Roe. (Though the confirmation of a relatively young justice to the right of Rehnquist, the most likely scenario, would not be very encouraging in grand scheme of things.)

The same cannot be said if Sandra Day O'Connor or John Paul Stevens are replaced by a hard-right justice.

My hunch (and that's all it is) is that Stevens will attempt to ride out the next four years. He's quite liberal, and probably does not want to see the balance of power tipped to the right. But Stevens is 84, so health and/or age may compel his retirement before 2009.

O'Connor's a wild card. Moderate and pro-Roe, she's 74 and clearly wants to retire. Should she choose to do so before 2009, Bush would have a golden opportunity to move the court to the right -- and to kill Roe in the process. Her Republican roots suggest she'd be far less likely than Stevens to wait out Bush. But I've also read speculation that O'Connor is doing just that -- after all, if she wanted to retire under a Republican, she could've done it at any point over the last four years. (It might be a bit far-fetched, but it's not the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.)

Consider the ages of the other pro-Roe justices as well: Ginsburg (71), Breyer (66) and Souter (65). Lose any of those three, and Roe is in extreme jeopardy. (Kennedy's hard to peg... it's not clear he'd vote to overturn, but he's said it should be re-examined.)

So is Roe done? Not if Stevens, O'Connor, Ginsburg, Breyer and Souter all hold out to January 20, 2009. (And, presuming that they don't, that Bush nominates a justice who turns out to be pro-Roe.)

Possible, I suppose. Then again, it's theoretically possible the Rams could win this year's Super Bowl. And that would probably be a safer bet.

Remaking history

2005-01-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

In his Dec. 30 column, young Bushie Ben Shapiro advanced a not-too-original idea: That the War in Iraq is, in actuality, a logical extension of the "War on Terror." (I'm always amused by such rabid war hawks of military age. One would think Mr. Shapiro would be in a lather to take up an M-16 himself and head for Fallujah, as many others his age are doing. Then again, war is always a hell of a lot more fun when someone else is getting shot at.)

It's not really an original subject, really; I think he might be the 30 millionth member of the GOP propaganda brigades to argue this idea. But Shapiro's theory is particularly amusing -- a central goal of the Iraqi invasion, you see, was to suck al Qaeda into a slugfest with the US Armed Forces... and that the presence of a fierce insurgency makes the Iraq War a success...

In this respect, the old pacifist 1960s adage "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" could have proved disastrous if true. If the situation were too simple in Iraq -- if we gave a war and no terrorists came -- the invasion would have failed to serve one of its chief purposes.

Sweet Jesus Christ.

Let's see if I've got this straight... the invasion had absolutely, positively nothing to do with knocking out Saddam's alleged stash of WMDs (as my completely faulty memory seems to recollect), and everything to do with drawing bin Laden's boys into an Armageddon-like showdown in the deserts of Iraq. I see. Given that this was a central goal of "Operation Iraqi Freedom," it of course makes sense that:

-- We entered Iraq with far fewer ground troops than were needed to wage an effective anti-insurgency/anti-guerrilla campaign;
-- Donald Rumsfeld refused to even acknowledge the existence of an organized insurgency in its early days;
-- And that Bush was willing to make a complete and utter schmuck of himself on May 1, 2003, with his "Mission Accomplished" photo op.

I've got it! This was all reverse psychology designed to lure al Qaeda into Iraq! Like Bush taunting the insurgency to "bring it on." Friggin' brilliant, dude!

Young Master Shapiro has a bright legal career ahead of him if he can sell that heaping pile of manure to the masses.

It's not terribly surprising that Shapiro has a rather tenuous grasp on recent history... his understanding of American history is rather interesting, to say the least...

Diversion through offensive action has long been a part of military strategy. During the Civil War, Robert E. Lee used such strategy, invading Maryland in 1862 and Pennsylvania in 1863 in order to divert Union troops from marching on Richmond, Va.

He of course does not elaborate on the results of these maneuvers...

-- The Maryland invasion ended with a Confederate defeat at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. Lee was forced to retreat into Virginia, and Confederate hopes of intervention by the Europeans were dealt a near-fatal blow.

-- The Pennsylvania invasion, meanwhile, ended with the Battle of Gettysburg -- and the near-annihilation of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee made it back home, but with his army shredded, the South's eventual defeat was all but ensured.

If that's the kind of strategy Shapiro wants the US to emulate, we are seriously screwed. Wait a minute... I think we already are!

Gunning for Roe

2005-01-03T21:52:00.000-08:00

George Will is rapidly becoming an anachronism... a conservative pundit who typically relies on logical argument, rather than ad hominem attacks and unadulterated B.S., to get his points across. In an era dominated ever increasingly by the Hannitys and Limbaughs of the world, he's something of a dinosaur.

But his rationality makes his arguments seductive to a centrist in a way that an ultraconservative fanatic can never be.

So it's troubling that Will has become the latest conservative pundit to set his sights squarely on Roe v. Wade.

Make no mistake: Social conservatives want to take down Roe, and soon. And they may soon have an opening to do so, should Bush be successful at placing one or two social conservatives on the Supreme Court.

Problem is, most Americans do not want to ban abortion -- in November, a CBS News/New York Times poll found just 21% of respondents advocated a total ban on abortion, a finding consistent with most polls on the subject.

Of course, this doesn't mean the vast majority of Americans are perfectly comfortable with abortion. Those who believe abortion should be generally available without restriction total 34%, while a plurality (44%), support legal abortion with some restrictions. As restrictions are undefined by this poll, this 44% clearly encompasses a pretty broad swath of views, ranging from people who oppose only late-term abortions, or those who support parental notification, to those who believe in only the "rape/incest/life of the mother" exemption. Still, these numbers suggest a solid majority of Americans are pro-choice to a degree.

That makes a direct frontal assault on Roe problematic. So to lay the groundwork, the GOP propaganda brigades are advancing a new line: The end of Roe doesn't mean the end of legalized abortion; it merely returns the decision on legal abortion to the states, which will probably uphold abortion legislatively.

Will is far from the first conservative to advance this theory, but he does as masterful a job of advancing it as anyone... until he tries to plant the hook on the social centrists who aren't comfortable with abortion, but don't want to see early-term abortions restricted...

Given public opinion today, when abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures, it is unlikely that any state would seriously impede first trimester abortions, which are 89 percent of all abortions.

Will probably genuinely believes this. But it is absolute, complete, total, 100% grade-A B.S. That is precisely what is coming.

Remember: Hardline anti-abortionists believe even a one-second-old zygote is the absolute moral equivalent of a conscious human being. They are absolutists. And they will most certainly be going after first-trimester abortions.

With Roe gone, the reddest of the Red States -- states like Utah, the Dakotas, Mississippi, Alabama, etc., where anti-abortion views are in the majority -- will immediately move to eradicate abortion. George Will can make whatever argument he wants, but it is impossible to imagine the Utah Legislature tolerating abortion one nanosecond after the death of Roe.

It is just as obvious that abortion would remain untouched in the Blue States; it is ludicrous to imagine Democratic-dominated state legislatures like California or Massachusetts moving to restrict abortion in any way.

The majority of the states fall in between these extremes. In the end, many would end up placing some politically palatable restrictions on abortion (i.e., parental consent), but generally leaving it legal, in accordance with the wishes of the majority. So while the end of Roe might end abortion in some states, it is hard to see it ending abortion in all states.

Social conservatives know this very well -- and that's why I sincerely doubt they'd satisfy themselves with simply overturning Roe. Their ultimate goal, I'd suspect, is an "anti-Roe" -- a Supreme Court ruling that wipes out abortion nationwide.

Imagine this scenario:

-- Bush nominates Clarence Thomas for Chief Justice, and nominates a hardline social conservative for associate justice.
-- Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats filibuster both nominations.
-- Bill Frist detonates the "nuclear option" -- a procedural ruling finding that cloture does not apply to nomination hearings, and that a simple majority is sufficient to end debate.
-- Thomas and the second nominee are confirmed.
-- A leading anti-abortion group immediately launches a legal challenge of Roe v. Wade.
-- On a 5-4 ruling, the Thomas court overturns Roe v. Wade.
-- Bush nominates a second hardline social conservative. With the filibuster gone, the Dems are powerless to block the nomination.
-- The boyfriend of a pregnant woman files an injunction in court seeking to block her from seeking an abortion, arguing that as parent of the "child," he has legal standing to file a lawsuit on the fetus's behalf.
-- A conservative federal judge issues the injunction, but is overturned on appeal. The case goes to the Supreme Court.
-- In a 6-3 ruling, the Court finds that protection of the fetus overrides the woman's right to an abortion, and therefore rules abortion is unconstitutional. In the majority opinion, Thomas cites two precedents: one, the "right to life" stated in the Declaration of Independence; and second, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which he applies to the fetus.

That's how abortion gets banned in the US -- regardless of what the majority of Americans think.

There is one potential hope: That moderate, pro-choice GOP senators defy Bush and join the Senate Democrats in blocking the hard-right Supreme Court nominees that would enable this scenario to unfold. (This would actually not be out of the GOP mainstream; just 37% of Republican respondents in the CBS/NY Times poll were strictly anti-abortion.)

But following the public crucifixion of Arlen Specter for hinting at such heresy (by a rookie senator, for God's sake), I wouldn't hold my breath.

March of the Brownshirts

2004-12-30T15:20:00.000-08:00

On Dec. 23, USA Today founder Al Neuharth used his weekly column to call for the end of the Iraq War...

"Support Our Troops" is a wonderful patriotic slogan. But the best way to support our troops thrust by unwise commanders in chief into ill-advised ventures like Vietnam and Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later.

Not exactly fiery rhetoric. But it immediately (surprise, surprise) brought down the catcalls of treason from the Red Staters.

Particularly chilling was a Dec. 29 column by Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell, who documented some of the letters E&P received after summarizing the Neuharth column. Many branded Neuharth a traitor... and a couple called for his execution:

The Patriot Act will put both of you on trial for treason and convict and execute both of you as traitors for running these stories in a time of war and it should be done on TV for other communist traitors like you two to know we mean business.

I tend to shy away from casually branding right-wingers "fascists." It's oversimplistic, an exaggeration, and strikes me as stupid name-calling. (Like calling a liberal a "communist.")

I can think of no other word that better describes this guy, though. He's a fascist. That's not an insult; it's a plain statement of fact.

Most of the time you don't see such opinions aired so publicly and so flagrantly. But doubtless the Gruppenfuhrer is not alone in his sentiments. What concerns me is how many Americans share these beliefs to some degree... and aren't as public about it.

This is the product of 10-plus years of vile rhetoric by the GOP propaganda brigades.

If you continually brand your opponents as sub-human, evil, murdering, perverted traitorous scum -- as Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, Buchanan, Liddy, O'Reilly, et al, have done without pause over the past several years -- people are going to start believing it. Whether the messenger is kidding or not is quite irrelevant.

And once a significant number of people believe their opponents are sub-human evil scum... that's when very, very bad things start to happen.

The Cheney Gambit

2004-12-29T17:55:00.000-08:00

For a conservative blogger, James Taranto of OpinionJournal.com used to be kind of funny. Lately, though, he's just been vile. From Tuesday's "Best of the Web"...

Since it looks as though President Bush is going to get a free pass on his first Supreme Court pick, how can he make the most of the political opportunity? First, by elevating Clarence Thomas to chief justice. Thomas vexes many Democrats because they are racially prejudiced, and it's quite possible they would not be able to resist the urge to mount a (futile) campaign against him. Then Donna Brazile can explain to her family that Democrats are about keeping black people down as well as killing babies. [Emphases added.]

(In the very same column, Taranto questions if the Washington Post's Tom Shales "really thinks through what he's writing." Chutzpah defined.)

If challenged on making such vile remarks, I suspect Taranto would defend himself by stating that the above is "satire"... a favored cop-out of Ann Coulter. (Apparently when you are a conservative commentator, even the most tasteless invective is OK so long as you couch it as "satire." Lighten up, dude!)

But maybe he wouldn't. This is the guy, after all, who has merrily banged away on the "Democrats are racists" drum ever since Sen. Harry Reid had the temerity to challenge Clarence Thomas's track record on the Supreme Court.

So let's call it a good example of a conservative propaganda strategy of soaring popularity, "The Cheney Gambit."

As Al Franken so amusingly documented in "Lies," lying is nothing new to the Republican propaganda brigades. The Cheney Gambit takes that propensity for lying to another level.

The Cheney Gambit involves telling an incredibly ludicrous, provably false lie -- one you know to be completely false when you tell it -- but acting like it's the absolute truth. In libel law, they call it a "reckless disregard for the truth" ... something that goes beyond sloppy research, a misunderstanding, a false recollection or twisting a truth.

It helps if you act indignant when you deliver your lie... and if you keep repeating your lie over and over. If you're convincing enough in your delivery... and if you mix in your lie with true statements ... your "base" (i.e., Red Staters) will accept what you're saying as the gospel truth, and you'll probably sway some fence-sitters as well.

Cheney was masterful at this during the Vice Presidential Debate on Oct. 5, repeatedly accusing Edwards of falsehoods and fabrications while unleashing whopper after whopper with a straight face. The master at work...

Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.

This one was stunning... Cheney had met Edwards at least twice before, and professional politicians do not forget those they've met. It makes you wonder... if he's willing to lie about this, what else is he lying about? (A lot, if you read the factcheck.org summary.)

Inspired by his boss... er, his running mate, Bush took to the Cheney Gambit like a fish in water at the third Presidential debate...

Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.

I had a laughing fit when I saw this one for a couple of reasons... one, because Bush looked and sounded like an incredible dork when he delivered this line ("one of those... [deep dramatic breath] ... exaggerations"), but also because I remembered this moment from a 2002 press conference in an instant...

Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. ... And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

How effective is the Cheney Gambit? Well, it helped get Bush re-elected after the most incredibly fouled-up term in the White House since Herbert Hoover's. (Hoover, at least, was competent... a more appropriate kindred spirit for W is Warren G. Harding, an intellectual lightweight who oversaw an Administration of staggering corruption and incompetence.)

With that under their belt, the GOP's propaganda brigades have enthusiastically embraced the Cheney Gambit as they go for the kill.... leading to such bizarre scenes as a white male blogger (James Taranto) accusing a black woman (Donna Brazile) of racism and infanticide.

One is tempted to laugh at this as simple stupidity by an ignorant right-wing hack. But it's also pretty Orwellian. That's what makes it scary.

Bad-taste metaphor of the week...

2004-12-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

... comes from the Queen of Social Conservatism, Maggie Gallagher. From her Dec. 29 column...

A tsunami of conservatism has moved through American institutions over the last 30 years. First the small magazines (National Review, Reason, The Public Interest), followed by the think tanks (The Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, to name just a few). ... But tsunami is the wrong metaphor altogether, for these creative ventures in conservative culture-making left their secular, anti-religious and/or liberal cousins intact.

No, Maggie. It's the wrong metaphor because at least 77,000 people were killed by a freakin' tsunami three days before you published your column.

Of course, if we were talking about 77,000 embryos ... that would be something to get upset about.

Coulter's Hanging Curveball

2004-12-28T18:10:00.000-08:00

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and observe the political magic of Ann "God, Make Me Eat Something" Coulter, weighing in on the fallout from Rummy's shenanigans...

Not Sen. Chuck Hagel, D-Neb. He criticized Rumsfeld for the autopen, saying: "My goodness, that's the least that we could expect out of the secretary of defense, is having some personal attention paid by him."

It would save everyone a lot of trouble if The New York Times would just go ahead and put Hagel on the cover of the Sunday magazine with the headline: "COURAGE." Even now, Hagel can apparently count on no reporters dropping by his office to investigate whether he uses an autopen.

Presto! Change-o! With one wave of her poison pen, Ann Coulter has transformed Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel into a... (gasp)... Democrat! (The same Chuck Hagel who, in 2003, received a perfect 100 rating from those liberal pinko bastards at the American Conservative Union.)

'Scuse me for a sec...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Harry Reid must be thrilled... thanks to Ann, the GOP lead in the Senate is now down to 54 seats! (Give her a couple of months and Harry will be Senate Majority Leader.)

Ann's getting quite good at this... couple of weeks ago, as you'll recall, she put GOPer David Duke squarely in the Democratic Party.

I'd float two theories for these stunningly ignorant statements (and Coulter's propensity to make up stuff in general)...

1) Ann genuinely can't be bothered to do even the most basic of research (remarkable for someone who based so much of her book "Slander" on Lexis-Nexis searches), and simply presumes everyone who dares disagree with W and his cronies must naturally be a Democrat/Liberal/Communist.

2) Ann knows damn well that Chuck Hagel is a conservative Republican. But as that fact would be inconvenient to the thesis of her column, she intentionally lied and transformed Hagel into a bleeding-heart Democrat who gets fawned over regularly by such liberal pinko rags as the (boo, hiss) New York Times -- and Chuck becomes the latest GOPer to learn that obedience to the Shrub must be total.

After reading the mind-boggling rant against liberals and Europeans she tacked onto the end of this column, I'd vote for 2. I can buy Ann Coulter as a Machiavellian pathological liar, but I have trouble believing even she could be that ignorant.

If Hindus are correct about reincarnation and karma, Ann's likely earned a future life as a tapeworm in the intestines of a dung rat by now.

Oh, well. At least now that the Republicans have taken over the universe, they're starting to devour each other. Maybe Ken Mehlman, in his first duty as RNC chair, can guillotine John McCain, Chuck Hagel and Arlen Specter on the National Mall.

I'm sure Fox would carry it live.

The Coulter Awards

2004-12-27T21:27:00.000-08:00

I must admit to being something of a fan of Townhall.com, a Web-based clearinghouse of conservative pundits.

When you're looking for something to write about and you don't have a whole lot of time to go scrounging across the Web, you can just head there. It's rather like taking a 12-gauge to a barrel of fish... click on any column at random, and let the wackiness begin...

Today's l'il gem comes from Thomas Sowell, who announced the launch of the "Joseph Goebbels Award" ... and promptly bestowed it upon Dan Rather:

This year's Joseph Goebbels award goes by a narrow but decisive margin to CBS News anchorman Dan Rather for his planned broadcast on "60 Minutes" -- just days before the election -- to discredit President Bush's National Guard service 30 years earlier. ... It was news by Dr. Goebbels' standard -- something that could lead to desired political reactions by the audience. Waiting until it would have been virtually impossible for an effective answer to be made before election day was in the same Goebbels spirit.

This is an example of good-taste conservative humor: Comparing one of America's highest-profile journalists to a Nazi apologist for fascism, unprovoked aggression and mass murder because he dared to go with stories that... (gasp)... were unflattering toward the president.

[NOTE TO READERS: Thomas Sowell is being funny. You're supposed to laugh now. If for some reason you disagree, Homeland Security will immediately detain you for violations of the Sedition Act of 1798, followed by an all-expense paid, indefinite trip to the island paradise of Guantanamo Bay.]

See? There you go. Aren't those guys just a laugh riot?

My liberal buddies would flog me for saying it, but normally I have a grudging respect for Tom Sowell. Disagree with him on just about everything, but normally he makes a good effort at arguing for conservative positions on a rational, logical basis. (Well, not too logical... he still draws conservative conclusions. But you get the point.)

Then he does something like this.

Pop quiz for Sowell et al -- which scenario is more logical:

A) Dan Rather intentionally ran a story he knew to be false in a desperate, conspiratorial effort to swing the election to Kerry, despite the enormous risk to his career, his reputation and his network; or...

B) Dan Rather rushed a story to air, cutting corners on fact-checking, because he thought he had a monster scoop and didn't want to lose it.

Boy, that's a toughie.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again to W's propaganda brigade: Occam's Razor. Learn it. Know it. Live it.

In honor of his capricious, mean-sprited, completely unnecessary, illogical cheap shot against Dan Rather -- not to mention his belief that comparing liberals to fascists is humorous -- I hereby bestow the inaugural Ann Coulter Award for Civilized Political Discourse on Thomas Sowell.

Yet another right-wing pundit discovers cheap insults are easier (and generate more attention) than rational argument. Joy.

What is so difficult to understand?

2004-12-21T20:55:00.000-08:00

Today was truly a crappy day in the Iraq War -- 24 dead and 60 wounded in an insurgent attack against a U.S. military base in Mosul. The carnage follows 60 dead in bombing attacks in Najaf and Karbala -- and scenes of Iraqi election workers being executed in broad daylight, in the middle of a busy Baghdad street.

When even Bush admits there's serious problems in Iraq, as he did yesterday, you know there's trouble.

Meanwhile, we learn today that Abu Ghraib was not as isolated an incident as some had suggested. Memos from disgruntled FBI agents observing the "interrogation" of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay became public Monday -- and paint quite a different picture.

From the New York Times:

Abuses [of prisoners in Iraq] included strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings and unauthorized interrogations.

"On a couple of occasions (at Guantanamo), I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more."

"On another occasion, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been pulling out his own hair throughout the night."

The FBI memos note that many of these events occurred after the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib came to light. Incidents like these are, unfortunately, what happen when you declare that the Geneva Convention is a "quaint" document that does not apply to those captured in the "War on Terror" -- and when you claim a legal right to violate the civil liberties of your prisoners.

And yet the war hawks continue to play down such incidents as anomalies blown out of proportion by a biased, liberal, anti-American media. They cannot see any other war other than a war of pure good against pure evil. An extreme example of this was provided today by OpinionJournal editor Brendan Miniter...

Americans may be surprised by the extent of the insurgency, but we shouldn't be. Being ruled by an immoral elite destroys the fabric of a civil society. After decades of Saddam's debauchery, it is civilization that has to struggle to reassert itself. ...

Are Americans soldiers doing the Lord's work in Iraq? To the extent that they are helping to set up a government that will be administered by a free people, the answer has to be yes.

Once, just once, I wish a guy like this would put himself in the shoes of an Iraqi. It might help him understand why the insurgency continues to flare.

What does Mr. Miniter imagine he would do if a foreign army were to invade the United States tomorrow?

What would he do if the occupiers talked of freedom and liberty -- of "doing the Lord's work" -- yet stories began circulating of Americans being swept off the street without evidence, detained in secretive prisons and tortured?

What then?

Why does he imagine an Iraqi would act any differently than he would?

Ask a war hawk these questions, and I suspect they'll argue that the two situations are not comparable. The United States is a liberal democracy with a long history of liberty and self-governance, they'll say; Iraq is a nation emerging from decades of savage rule by a psychopathic dictator.

Yet I suspect Iraqis are like us in one respect -- they believe that actions speak louder than words.

We can say we're working toward liberty and democracy for all Iraqis until our faces turn blue. But when we then turn around and throw Iraqis into a hellhole like Abu Ghraib -- well, even the most optimistic of Iraqis might have reason to doubt our sincerity, particularly when they've been previously subjected to the mental and physical torture of life under a regime like Saddam Hussein's. (Such experiences tend to reduce one's faith in authority.)

Same applies to the more general "War on Terror." We can claim our mission is to spread liberty, freedom and democracy across the Middle East a million times. But when we then throw Arab and Muslim prisoners into a concentration camp in Cuba -- and maintain the right to torture and detain these prisoners indefinitely -- our words seem very hollow. You might not rush out to join al Qaeda, but you're probably not going to be favorably inclined toward the United States.

There are few creatures more reviled than the hypocrite.

Why is this so hard for so many people to understand?

In Vietnam, the US often said it was in a war for "hearts and minds." Today's war is no different.

We have a choice.

We can respect human rights, eschewing torture and closing down places like Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. In doing so, we will make the distinction between ourselves and our enemies clear. We will take a huge step toward convincing the people of the Middle East that America is their friend -- and that our war against Islamists should be theirs, too.

Or we can get into the gutter with barbarians like Saddam and Osama bin Laden, merrilly proclaiming our love of freedom and liberty while treating fellow human beings like animals.

Choose that path, and we face war without end.

"A Caring Fellow"

2004-12-20T21:56:00.000-08:00

The big news out of today's press conference wasn't the creation of a new Bushism (see below), but the news that W's going to stick by Rummy.

Let's see if I've got this one straight:

-- Rumsfeld is the guy who advanced the "Rumsfeld Doctrine" -- the theory that less troops could be (and should be) used in Iraq, as today's Army and Marines were far better armed. As a result, there were not enough troops on the ground in 2003 to prevent the insurgency from flaring out of control. Recall that this is the guy who refused to even acknowledge the existence of a rebellion in its early days.

-- When a soldier deployed in the field asked why troops still do not have proper armor for their vehicles 20 months into the Iraq war, Rumsfeld's immediate response was to blow the guy off: "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have." Possibly a defensible answer if an enemy has just attacked the U.S. or an ally. Not a defensible answer in a war started entirely on the timeframe of the United States, and even less so 20 months into said war.

As Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf put it, "I was angry when he laid it all on the army, as if he, as the Secretary of Defence, didn't have anything to do with the army."

-- Despite the fact that the US military is now badly overstretched by two active wars, Rumsfeld has opposed expansion of the armed forces. Guess you don't need to recruit more soldiers when you can keep calling up National Guardsmen and reservists. Of course, with recruiting for the Guard and reserves cratering faster than an Internet stock in 2000, that might not be an option for too much longer. And I prefer not to think what our options are if our buddy Kim Jong Il decides to take advantage this particular moment by marching on Seoul.

-- Rummy didn't sign condolence letters to the families of some soldiers killed in action until the press called him on it. Interesting how he seems to always do the right thing after the media calls him out. Then again, this story was first reported by the Stars and Stripes... truly a leftist pinko rag if there ever was one.

At one point, Rummy defenders could have made the case that Rumsfeld bashing was a partisan sport. It becomes increasingly harder to make that case when Republicans like Chuck Hagel, John McCain, Susan Collins, Norman Schwarzkopf, Trent Lott and Bill Kristol begin openly questioning whether Rummy should continue as SecDef. (52% of Americans now believe Rumsfeld should resign, according to a Gallup poll -- just 36% believe he should stay on.)

But apparently that's not going to happen. Despite the arrogance, the repeated screw-ups and a history of acting only after an embarrassing, Bush today stated that Rummy "is doing a really fine job."

"I know Secretary Rumsfeld's heart," Bush said. "I know how much he cares for the troops."

Sound familiar? It should. Remember this line from 2001?

I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.

The subject? Russian President Vladimir Putin. Today Freedom House reported that Russia, for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, can no longer be considered a free nation (or even a somewhat free one). Why? Here's what the executive director of Freedom House said:

Russia's step backwards into the 'Not Free' category is the culmination of a growing trend under President Vladimir Putin to concentrate political authority, harass and intimidate the media, and politicize the country's law-enforcement system. These moves mark a dangerous and disturbing drift toward authoritarianism in Russia, made more worrisome by President Putin's recent heavy-handed meddling in political developments in neighboring countries such as Ukraine.

And how has Bush acted as Putin takes Russia back toward dictatorship? Almost a mirror image of the Rumsfeld affair: He still refers to Putin casually as "Vladimir," and today boasted of their "good personal relationship."

Rumsfeld and Putin are both vivid examples of what could be Bush's most fatal flaw: Relying too much on instinct when making decisions, and stubbornly refusing to change course when those instincts prove disastrously wrong.

Bushies call this "decisiveness." I call it pretty damn scary.

Bushism of the week

2004-12-20T20:02:00.000-08:00

Bush discussing Social Security "reform" at today's press conference...

Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself, John, and others here, as we run up to the issue to get me to negotiate with myself in public.

It's kind of cool to have a president who inadvertently hints at schizophrenia at press conferences, don'tcha think?

Voices... strange voices... telling me to invade Iran...

P.S. Blogger's spellchecker just suggested I replace "Bushism" with "fascism."

No comment....

Always behind the curve...

2004-12-20T19:43:00.000-08:00

Years after blogging emerged, I finally decide to take the plunge and join in this world-transforming trend.

Turns out blogging is so ... 2004. Today's Boston Globe reports that all the cool kids are now "podcasting" -- creating audio files that can be downloaded and played on an iPod. (How come I have visions of legions of Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern clones being unleashed across the Internet?)

Here's the website if you're interested: iPodderx.com. Myself, I'll remain happily behind the curve once again. Oh well... at least I was the first person I know to get TiVo.

Appalling.

2004-12-17T19:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think I might be getting a little paranoid when I feel America is slipping into the abyss, willfully sacrificing a 200-plus-year legacy of liberty and freedom in a desperate lunge for safety.

Then I see a story like this.

Today Cornell University reports that 44% of Americans support restricting the civil liberties of American Muslims. Not just Muslims friendly toward militants or terrorists -- all 7 million Muslims living in the United States, solely because they practice a faith in common with Osama bin Laden.

The most chilling finding in the poll: 27% of Americans -- including 40% of Republicans and 42% of "highly religious" respondents -- support forcing all Muslims to register their whereabouts with the federal government.

Shoot, why stop there? Let's make 'em wear green crescents, so we can pick them out of a crowd? You can't always tell when you're next to one, you know.

Now that I think about it, why should we even live next to them? Let's pack 'em all up and ship 'em to Gitmo. Can't be too careful, you know.

Yes, terrorism is a frightening phenomenon... and 9/11 was a day that will probably haunt most of us to our graves. My own recurring nightmare puts me beneath the towers, watching people plunge to the ground all around me. I can see their faces, and hear their screams, in the last instant before they hit the concrete. I can see that image still... even if I was 3,000 miles away when the towers fell. So yes... fear is understandable. And natural.

But how would 9/11's 3,000 dead want us to remember them? Would they demand the exchange of American liberty and freedom for their blood? Would you want your death to lead to such a thing... to the death of everything America is about?

That is the mistake so many people make. They view America as a place, as a homeland to be defended.

America is that. But it is so much more. America is not where we are. It is what we are. It is what we believe.

In the end, what makes us Americans is not where we were born or where we live, but in our collective dedication to the ideals first elaborated in the Declaration of Independence -- our belief that all are created equal, that all humanity has the inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is a belief millions of Americans have given their lives for over the last two centuries.

When we begin stripping these freedoms from our fellow Americans -- not because of what they have done, but who they are -- we betray that legacy. Once that belief and legacy is lost, America becomes just one nation among many -- just another hunk of land.

Remember the words of Rev. Martin Neimoller, who spent World War II in concentration camps because of his opposition to the Nazis. Remember, and don't think that it can't happen here.

Because if we're willing to sacrifice what makes America unique among nations ... it can.

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

The Shrub's "Strong Dollar"

2004-12-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

I'm always amused by Bushies who love the president because he "means what he says."

So what did traders do when Bush proclaimed Wednesday that "the policy of my government is a strong-dollar policy"?

The dollar promptly hit a new all-time low against the euro. Remember the old adage about "putting your money where your mouth is"? Well, they had a chance to invest on the president's promise... and they promptly headed for the exits. As conservatives love to say, the market is rational -- and the market knows when it's hearing a load of B.S.

The trade deficit reached $164.4 billion in the third quarter. Not an all-time record, to be sure -- that was set one quarter ago, at $166.2 billion. The federal government's deficit: $413 billion.

Next time a unilateralist Bushie begins spouting off about how the rest of the world can go screw itself if they don't like the way we do things, remember those figures. They add up to an annual rate of about a trillion bucks a year... and that trillion is being borrowed mostly from the foreigners that Bushies love to denigrate. In 2004, 75% of the world's new savings will be soaked up by the United States government and American consumers, paying for everything from SUVs to tax cuts.

We're living large on these deficits -- but as they grow, the dollar continues to slide.

If the dollar keeps sliding... well, investors probably won't be as willing to keep buying up dollar-denominated debt. In order to keep finding lenders, the US government (and US banks) will have to hike interest rates sharply. High interest rates = lowered consumer spending = recession -- one that would make the 2001 recession look like a picnic. The Economist speculated Dec. 4 that, unchecked, the situation may spell the end of the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency -- and with it, America's ability to borrow cash on the cheap from the rest of the world. That's a neat little privilege we'd miss quite badly. (Here's an excellent analysis by the Economist of our rather perilous situation.)

Which is why we'd better hope Bush means it when he says he supports a "strong dollar." He's proposed reining in government spending, which sounds a bit empty coming from a guy who's presided over a 27% increase in government spending over his first term; who appears quite ready to borrow $2 trillion more to fund Social Security "reform"; who continues to beat the drum of tax cuts as hard as ever; and who states, in all seriousness, that "people can buy more United States products if they're worried about the trade deficit." (The solution to everything: Keep spending more money, dammit.)

In other words, we might be following the Pied Piper of Crawford right off a cliff.

Wonder if I can start getting my paycheck in euros.

Quit yer whinin'...

2004-12-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

James Taranto of OpinionJournal was out "supporting the troops" today...

With elections in Iraq less than two months away, we're hearing fewer cries of "quagmire," but Vietnam nostalgists in the media are busy putting forward another trope: that of soldiers as victims. ...
Of course, Vietnam nostalgia isn't the only thing driving this; it's partly a product of our therapeutic culture. After all, World War II was much bigger and more "traumatic" than Iraq or even Vietnam, yet ... there weren't a lot of complaints of "posttraumatic stress" back then.

Yeah, only Hollywood wusses like Audie Murphy bitched and whined about "posttraumatic stress" after World War II. But hell, Murphy didn't do squat...

Now, let's see... where have I heard this "only wusses whine about post-traumatic stress" before? Oh yeah... must be his George C. Scott imitation...

Patton: What's the matter with you?
Soldier Who Gets Slapped: Well, I... I guess I... I can't take it anymore.
Patton: What did you say?
Soldier Who Gets Slapped: It's my nerves, sir. I... I just can't stand the shelling anymore.
Patton : Your nerves? Well, hell, you're nothing but a God-damned coward.
[Soldier starts sniveling]
Patton: Shut up!
[Slaps him]
Patton: I'm not going to have a man sitting here crying! In front of these brave men who have been wounded in battle!
[Soldier snivels some more, and Patton knocks his helmet off]
Patton: Shut up!
[to the doctors]
Patton: Don't admit this yellow bastard. There's nothing wrong with him. I won't have a man who's just afraid to fight stinking up this place of honor!
[to soldier]
Patton: You're going back to the front, boy. You may get shot, and you may get killed, but you're going back to the fighting. Either that, or I'll stand you up before a firing squad. Why, I ought to shoot you right now, you...
[Pulls his revolver. The doctors leap forward and hustle the soldier out of the tent. Patton keeps shouting at the soldier's back]
Patton: Get him out of here! Take him back to the front! You hear me? You God-damned coward!
[Takes deep breath]
Patton: I won't have cowards in my army.

You tell 'em, James... er, George.

More Zell? I must be in Hell.

2004-12-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

Or watching Fox News. Same difference.

The Washington Post today reports that Sen. Zell Miller, soon-to-be retired "Democrat" from Georgia, will be joining FNC as a "contributor" in January. This hire, presumably, will burnish their "fair and balanced" credentials.

Fox is being disappointingly vague on details of Zell's new gig, so I'll throw out a couple of suggestions...

-- Zell replaces Alan Colmes as the token "liberal" on Hannity and Colmes. Liberal guests will be given a warm welcome, not unlike the welcome a hunk of raw meat is given by a couple of rabid pit bulls.

-- Deuling With Zell: Zell calls out whichever liberal has pissed him off that particular week for a duel before a national live audience. Challenger has the option of selecting between paintballs and spitballs.

Any other suggestions for the good folks at Fox?

Ticking off the bull

2004-12-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make: I've become a regular viewer of The Real Gilligan's Island, the latest and greatest reality TV show. (All it really amounts to is Survivor played by a bunch of people dressed in Gilligan's Island gear, calling each other "Mary Ann," "Skipper" and "Professor." Cool, huh?)

It appears TBS is using another technique to attract viewers... scattering naughty little bomblets throughout the show. Examples from last night's show:

--"Mary Ann" and "Gilligan" have a pizza date, and it is not-so-subtly implied that they're going to have sex afterwards. "Mr. Howell" asks Gilligan with a leer whether he's going to get some pie... (pause)... some pizza pie. (Haven't heard that one since Revenge of the Nerds. Quite witty, old top.) Proud of himself, Mr. Howell then repeats the joke three more times to his wife.

-- Model Rachel Hunter, believing she's about to be voted off the island, tells the rest of the "castaways" that they can go f*** themselves, giving them a double one-finger salute. The f-bomb was bleeped; the fingers were displayed in all their glory.

Yours truly could give a rat's ass about seeing such things on TV. Photos of torture offend me. Rachel Hunter giving me the finger ... that's more of a "that was mildly interesting" moment.

And yes, this was on a cable network after 9 p.m.

Having said that... why wave the red flag in front of the bull for such trivial reasons?

Remember that CBS News/New York Times poll I cited a few days ago? It also found that 70% of Americans were either very or somewhat concerned over the "coarsening" of popular culture.

How many voters are going to punch the Republican ticket because Mr. Howell made a tactless joke last night? Not many, to be sure. But keep slapping away at them by "pushing the envelope" needlessly, and sooner or later, you'll manufacture yet another GOP "moral values" voter.

God bless the First Amendment. But for God's sake, guys, pick your spots a little more wisely.
Stop stirring up the social conservative hornets' nest for such stupid reasons.

If you're going to pick a fight... make sure it's for a worthwhile cause.

Another Victory For The Forces of Good

2004-12-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

The New York Times reports today that the Drug Enforcement Agency has rejected a bid by the University of Massachusetts to grow marijuana for research into whether inhaled THC is more effective than THC tablets in combatting nausea and appetite losses in AIDS and cancer patients. (Damn pothead hippies.)

Now, the DEA does provide pot from a single government-owned farm for such purposes. Problem is, UMass says the stuff is too weak to use for research, and damned hard to get.

What does it boil down to? The DEA order says it all: "(Smoking) ultimately cannot be the permitted delivery system for any potential marijuana medication due to the deleterious effects and the difficulty in monitoring the efficaciousness."

Translation: You might enjoy smoking a joint a little too much, so you're just going to have to keep puking your guts out, you dope fiends.

Yet another glorious triumph for the forces of prohibition.

A Postscript on Rummy...

2004-12-14T17:21:00.000-08:00

Pat Oliphant with a typically hilarious (and brilliant) take on Rummy and the troops.

When they came up with the cliche that "a picture's worth a thousand words," they were probably talking about Oliphant. If there's a better editorial cartoonist out there, I've yet to see them.

Marching As To War...

2004-12-13T18:51:00.000-08:00

When it comes to over-the-top rhetoric, you rarely see stuff quite as bold (or as vile) as what recently emerged from the mouth of Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis (as quoted in today's New York Times)...

It's like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn't want to go. I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don't want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we're going to take it back.

So now it's OK to compare political opponents to mass murderers. This is also known as "bipartisanship" and "reaching out to people that didn't vote for you." Very classy. I'm sure Jesus would approve.

Now, what precisely is Ms. Davis saving the good people of Missouri from?

1. Preventing any mention of contraceptives in Missouri's public schools;
2. Including a chapter on "evolution alternatives" in all state biology textbooks. (Funny... I didn't realize biology and theology were interchangeable. Guess I was wrong.)

Now, this is hardly isolated to Missouri. In Texas, for example, state lawmakers will soon consider legislation that would allow state pharmacists to refuse to provide birth control pills to women. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Nov. 29)

We're almost certain to see a big push for more "abstinence-only" sex ed. Great idea, given the now-famous report by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on federally-funded abstinence education programs. Waxman found that materials used in public schools recently asserted that half of all gay teenagers are HIV-positive and that mutual masturbation can lead to pregnancy. (Theoretically possible, I suppose. And it's also theoretically possible a meteor is going to land on my ass tonight.)

"I think people are becoming more emboldened," Michael Bowman of Concerned Women of America (a "conservative Christian advocacy group"), told the Times. "On legislative efforts, they're getting more gutsy, and on certain issues, they may introduce legislation that they normally may not have done."

But should lawmakers play along? Do the social conservatives now represent the majority?

Fortunately, no.

Consider some interested tidbits from a recent post-election poll by CBS News and the New York Times (props to the Daily Kos for the original link)...

Support for gay marriage or civil unions:
Yes: 53%
No: 44%

Support banning abortion outright:
Yes: 21%
No: 78% ( Interestingly, this group includes 62% of Republicans.)

Should politicians and public officials with strong religious beliefs try to use the political system to turn their beliefs into law?
Yes: 8%
No: 85%

Moral values? That was the top issue of 6% of those polled... trailing Iraq, Bush, the economy, terrorism and "general government issues." Even Republicans only ranked it 3rd.

And what do voters mean by "moral values"? Well, 20% said they meant "ethics in general." Another 15% said "being a good person." Only one in five respondents defined moral values in a religious way (and I'm being generous here by lumping in "traditional family values").

They're encouraging results... a reminder that a solid majority of this country wants no part of a campaign to return to our Puritanical roots.

Here's the challenge: The social cons are noisy. Really noisy. Look at it this way... if there are 10 people in a room, and one yells at the top of his lungs while the other nine whisper, you're only going to notice the guy who's screaming.

They're screaming now. It's time for us to raise our voices.

More on Reidgate

2004-12-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm starting to beat a dead horse on this one. But Armstrong Williams offered up this hanging curve ball today... and I just cannot resist taking a hack...

In all likelihood, (Sen. Harry) Reid has never even read an opinion by Justice Thomas. So let's call this what it is: a desperate attention grab by a neophyte politician who is trying to fatten himself on an easy target.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! Harry Reid, a neophyte politician??

In case you're curious about the experience of "neophyte politician" Harry Reid, I refer you to Exhibit A: The resume of the incoming Senate Minority Leader. First elected at 28; lieutenant governor at 30; in Congress for the last 22 years, including six years as Senate Minority Whip.

Note to Mr. Williams: If you're going to tear into someone for failing to do their research, you just might want to make sure you've got your facts straight about your chosen target first. Just a thought.

Race-baiting, Part II

2004-12-12T14:24:00.000-08:00

I figured one throw-away rip at Coulter would be sufficient on the "Harry Reid is a racist" pseudo-scandal. But ultra-conservative pundits, showing their pit bull instincts, are refusing to give up on this one...

Since the incoming Senate minority leader did not give a single example of a poorly written Thomas opinion, we surmised that Reid was likely stereotyping Thomas as unintelligent because he is black. -- James Taranto, OpinionJournal, Dec. 9. (He led with this item three times this past week, growing more shrill and indignant each time.)

According to Reid, Thomas - a justice for 13 years - is too dimwitted for promotion. ... Perhaps (Tim) Russert - like many of his colleagues in the elite media - simply regards it as self-evident that Thomas is a wrong-thinking Negro, incapable of writing decent English. -- New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets, Dec. 9. (Chafets takes a really cool shot at the Mormons in this one, which might be worth circulating to any Mormon GOPers that you know. Let's turn Utah blue!)

This whole episode looks like a classic example of an all-too-American tendency -- the habit of assuming others think and act with precisely the same motives, and for precisely the same reasons, that you do. Put another way: Elements of the Republican Party have made a lot of political hay with race-baiting in the 40 years since the Civil Rights Act became law. Willie Horton. The Jesse Helms "white hands" commercial. Reagan's famous "state's rights" speech in August 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- using a segregationist code word in the town where three civil rights workers had been murdered less than 30 years before. The gay marriage debate ... and the gay-bashing that helped boost GOP poll numbers in November ... is yet another chapter in a long tradition of scoring political points by ripping on people who are different than the majority.

Yup, the Democrats used to be great at that game. The "Solid South" was the unquestioned domain of the Democratic Party in the pre-Civil Rights days. And Elizabeth Taylor used to be smoking hot. Times change. When it became clear the Democrats were embracing equality and civil rights, the Dixiecrats became Republicans -- and the Solid South is now solidly GOP, giving Republican candidates the huge out-of-the-gate advantage once enjoyed by Democrats. Lyndon Johnson once observed the Civil Rights Act would spell the end of a Democratic Solid South. He was right -- even if the Republicans are ashamed to admit so publicly.

So what do they do? They presume Democrats are as shameless at race-baiting for political advantage as they are. And when Harry Reid makes a mean statement about Clarence Thomas... well, the only possible answer is that Reid is a race-baiter and/or a racist.

Occam's Razor: Reid doesn't give a rat's ass if Thomas is black. He believes Thomas is a crappy Supreme Court justice, and he said so. Reid's mission was pretty obvious... he was sending a signal to Bush: "I'll give you Scalia, but don't try to jam the Court's most right-wing ideologue down our throats for Chief Justice."

When he refers to Thomas as an "embarrassment" or "poorly written decisions," perhaps he's referring to these gems from Grutter v. Bollinger (2003):

The (Michigan) Law School wants to have a certain appearance, from the shape of the desks and tables in its classrooms to the color of the students sitting at them.

All the (Michigan) Law School really cares about is its own image among know-it-all elites ...

Under the proper standard, there is no pressing necessity in maintaining a public law school at all.

There you have it: A Supreme Court justice comparing ethnic diversity to selecting furniture of the proper color; using perjorative insults to demean philosophical opponents; and voicing an opinion that, well, public education is kinda worthless when you get down to it.

Message to Taranto, Chafets, Coulter, et al: That's what Harry Reid meant when he refers to a "poorly written" decision. Gramatically correct? Sure. But it reads like it was written by Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. And that kind of inflexible, propagandistic invective is beneath the Supreme Court of the United States.

A brilliant observation...

2004-12-11T18:12:00.000-08:00

About my favorite species, the social conservative...

There will always be repressed individuals out there who cannot abide the idea that others are out there having the fun that they so rigorously deny themselves. Tortured as they are, these perturbed souls preach and judge and condemn. And they should be allowed to do so, not because they deserve to be heard, but because it keeps them out of life's grand, collective bedroom while the rest of us enjoy ourselves.

-- From "The Hedonism Handbook" by Michael Flocker.

Do yourself a favor and find this book. It's damn good.

Why We Fight

2004-12-10T19:22:00.000-08:00

Social cons are feeling pretty damn good these days, what with the Shrub's 51% "mandate" and the emergence of "moral values" as a force at the ballot box.

So now they're feeling a lot more comfortable voicing their true opinions in public. Take William Donahue, President of the Catholic League. Donahue was appearing on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" Wednesday. While discussing "The Passion of the Christ" with Pat Buchanan, Donahue cut loose...

Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the messiah.

Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost.

You have got secular Jews. You have got embittered ex-Catholics, including a lot of ex-Catholic priests who hate the Catholic Church, wacko Protestants in the same group, and these people are in the margins. Frankly, Michael Moore represents a cult movie. Mel Gibson represents the mainstream of America.

It's an anti-Semitic, half-baked rant Father Coughlin would be proud of. And this isn't a selected out-of-context quote. Read on. Donahue and several of his fellow guests continue ripping on "the Jews" for half of the show.

Here I thought the Passion of the Christ was an anti-Semitic, gore-filled piece of crap ... based more on the delusions of an insane nun than on the Gospels that evangelical Christians supposedly hold in such high regard ... obsessed with compulsively detailing pain, suffering and death, rather than the message of equality, tolerance, forgiveness and caring taught by Jesus in life. That's what I thought, anyway. Turns out I was just deluded by the Jews. Thank God William Donahue showed me the way.

But maybe it's not such a bad thing Donahue and his ilk are now proving themselves so willing to vent their spleens so openly. It's a stark reminder to this country of what we're up against... a group of fanatics who aren't going to be happy until everyone in this nation lives precisely as they do... and if you don't believe precisely what they believe, you'd better keep your mouth shut about it. Sharia in America.

Yeah, a lot of Americans like Republican pet projects like tax cuts and blowing things up. But when it comes to letting guys like Donahue telling you what you can and can't do in your personal life... well, tax cuts tend to fade in importance.

He's right about one thing. We do have nothing in common. But I'm willing to bet more Americans agree with us than with this nutjob.

Spread the word. Before it's too late.

Fix Social Security? Ha!

2004-12-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

For months on end we've heard the Republicans screaming about how Social Security is heading for utter oblivion unless we do something right now. (Given that the projections they bandy about predict the trust fund will run dry at precisely the moment I'm supposed to retire, I have to admit some interest in this issue.)

Let's see... war for the future of Western Civilization wasn't enough to warrant a tax hike in W's mind. So is saving Social Security important enough to warrant it? Har, har...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush (news - web sites) on Thursday ruled out raising taxes to finance the centerpiece of his second-term domestic agenda: a Social Security (news - web sites) overhaul to help the system survive an impending wave of retiring baby boomers. ...

"I will not prejudge any solution," Bush said in the Oval Office after meeting with the Social Security trustees who submit an annual report on the state of the program's funding. But he went on to say, "We will not raise payroll taxes to solve this problem."

(Full story here.)

N0w, I'll be the first to admit that the Social Security tax sucks. It sucks because it is the most horrifically regressive tax in the United States.

Here's how it works. For every dollar you earn up to $87,900, you pay a 6.2 percent Social Security (or "FICA") tax. Your employer kicks in a matching amount.

For every dollar above $87,900, know what you pay? Zero. Nada, zilch, nothing.

So let's consider the effective Social Security tax rates on the following:

Minimum-wage employee: 12.4%
CEO earning $5 million a year: 0.21%

The situation is so appalling that even some conservatives -- most notably Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- are willing to consider the obvious solution: raising or removing the income cap altogether, and charging the tax on every dollar earned. Better yet, combine an increased cap with a lowered overall tax rate, and reduce this tax burden on the workers who can least afford it!

Now, Bush hasn't technically ruled this out. But given that White House flak Scott McClellan ducked this question nine times ... and that Bush would likely equate raising the cap with "raising payroll taxes" ... I think it's safe to say that we'll see the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl before we see Bush sign off on this. Call me pessimistic, but I think W is more interested in churning hundreds of billions in Social Security money into the stock market (and into Wall Street brokerage houses) than he is in "fixing this problem."

Because if he was really interested in fixing this problem, he'd be willing to take drastic measures to fix it. Like making everyone pay their fair share in FICA taxes.

Rumsfeld, Part II

2004-12-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

Spc. Thomas Wilson's grilling of Rumsfeld created a bit of a sticky wicket for your pro-war chicken hawks. After all, directly attacking a soldier about to enter a combat zone when you're all about "Supporting The Troops" is... well, unseemly.

So the Blood & Guts crowd was happier than a pig in crap when it came out today that (gasp) Spc. Wilson had consulted with a Chattanooga, Tenn. newspaper reporter prior to challenging Rumsfeld. It was the work of the evil news media! Fire in the hole!

Drudge splashes the story on his website in a font more appropriate for the start of World War III. Natch, that sends ol' Rush into apopletics...

So the reporter set up Rumsfeld and suggested questions of the soldier. Remember, the soldier did not come up with these questions himself. Had it not been for the reporter the soldier would not have asked these questions. ... It was a setup by a reporter upset that the vehicle he's riding on didn't have any armor.

This is called "changing the subject." Rush can't defend Rumsfeld directly, so he tries to re-invent it as a story manufactured by an evil reporter. GOP propagandists are particularly good at this. And it's complete bulls**t.

Let's review:

Q: Was Spc. Wilson's assertion correct?
A: Yes. A colonel in his unit told reporters that 95 percent of the unit's Humvees are unarmored. Moreover, the Associated Press reports that more than a quarter of the Humvees in the theater... and the vast majority of heavy cargo vehicles... are still unarmored.

Q: Was Spc. Wilson a rogue soldier voicing opinions his fellow soldiers did not share?
A: No. All news accounts ... and the DoD's own transcript ... indicate the soldiers were pretty happy someone had the cojones to ask the question.

What reporter Edward Lee Pitts is guilty of is shameless ego-stroking...

I just had one of my best days as a journalist today. ... The NY Times reporter asked me to email him the stories I had already done on it, but I said he could search for them himself on the Internet and he better not steal any of my lines.

Geez, dude. Get over yourself. If you were so damn great, you wouldn't be working for the friggin' Chattanooga Times Free Press!

Having said this, Pitts and Spc. Wilson did the soldiers one hell of a favor. Why? Because bureaucrats rarely get off their butts to fix a problem unless the unwelcome spotlight of public scrutiny is shining up their ass. And it's shining right now.

This is not an isolated issue. Consider what retired Col. David Hackworth wrote in Playboy (sorry, no link available) in October...

Morale is now so bad among some units that soldiers now salute their officers and shout, "PGTF, sir." PTGF means "Prepare to get f***ed." As usual, the troops are telling it like it is.

So let's keep our goddamned eye on the goddamned ball. This is NOT about political posturing. This is about keeping our young guys alive in a war we asked them to fight.

Fun with race-baiting

2004-12-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

Surprise, surprise... Ann Coulter is the latest to join the "Harry Reid is a racist because he doesn't like Clarence Thomas" club.

In the (Meet the Press) interview, Reid called Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) "one smart guy." He said that although he disagreed with Scalia, his reasoning is "very hard to dispute." Scalia is "one smart guy"; Thomas is the janitor. If Democrats are all going to read from the same talking points, they might want to get someone other than David Duke to write them.

Sorry to pull out a worn cliche, but picking apart the inconsistencies in Coulter's columns is like shooting fish in a barrel. This is, after all, the same woman who argued that Joseph McCarthy was one of the greatest Americans of the 20th century. But rarely does she make it this easy. As I recall, David Duke became a household name after the Louisiana GOP, in its infinite wisdom, nominated him for governor.

Calling Harry Reid a racist because he believes Clarence Thomas is a crappy Supreme Court justice is like calling me a misogynist because I believe Ann Coulter is a mean-spirited, ignorant, race-baiting, fanatical, lying [insert expletive of your choice here].

Slackers!

2004-12-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

Another reminder from the AP today of how yellow-ribbon magnets just don't cut it when it comes to really "supporting the troops"... and how nobody really gives a damn...

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait - Disgruntled U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday about the lack of armor for their vehicles and long deployments, drawing a blunt retort from the Pentagon chief.

"You go to war with the Army you have," he said in a rare public airing of rank-and-file concerns among the troops.

Hmmm... I seem to recall something about the Rumsfeld doctrine, which stated that our Army was so technologically advanced and lethal that considerably fewer troops were needed to defeat and occupy an enemy. Guess they won't be teaching that at West Point any time in the near future.

Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly two years after the start of the war that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

That's easy. It's because we'd rather get tax cuts than pay for the equipment you need to effectively fight a long-term, large-scale war. Sucks, doesn't it?

Those Damn Secularists

2004-12-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

Maggie Gallagher reminds us this week how much life still sucks for the social cons. They control all three branches of the federal government, but those nasty liberals are still trying to steal Christmas, dammit.

She asks:
"When did we begin to accept the idea that it's OK to be offended by other people's displays of religion?"

Oh, about the same time your peeps began telling the rest of us that we're going to be burned alive for all eternity if we don't follow precisely the same creed that you do. I know... touchy, touchy.

"A Time of Sacrifice"

2004-12-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

From the Associated Press:

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - Standing before thousands of Marines, President Bush (news - web sites) asked other Americans on Tuesday to make the war their own by helping battle-weary troops and their families.

"The time of war is a time of sacrifice, especially for our military families," Bush said, wearing a tan military jacket with epaulets. "I urge every American to find some way to thank our military and to help out the military family down the street."

Following the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill observed that“never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

The same could be said of the United States today... though we have very few excuses for letting a few hundred thousand young people do all the heavy lifting.

Homefront sacrifice in World War II entailed severe rationing, increased taxes, restrictions on travel and widespread conscription. Know what the speed limit was in 1943? Thirty-five miles per hour. Everywhere.

Today the 1,000th US soldier died in combat in Iraq. Add in the 275 non-casualty deaths and the 9,765 wounded to date, and you have a hell of a sacrifice from a hell of a lot of young people.

Still, service people and their families make up a pretty small sliver of America. What about the vast majority of Amercians? How are non-military Americans meeting their sacrifice at home?

Best as I can tell, by sticking yellow-ribbon magnets on our SUVs and bitching about taxes and gas prices.

Real sacrifice would entail voluntarily junking Explorers or Hummers for a Prius -- and forcing drivers who don’t feel like going along to pay a significant fee for the privilege of driving a gas guzzler.

Real sacrifice would mean accepting a significant tax hike in order to pay for the war and reconstruction -- and to pay benefits to our combat troops in line with the sacrifices they’re being asked to make.

Sure, those things would suck. That’s war. It's supposed to suck. As Robert E. Lee said, “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”

And that’s the problem. With the exception of military families, Americans aren’t giving up anything significant for this war. We've managed to remove the unpleasantness and sacrifice from war, shifting it onto a small minority of our fellow countrymen and women.

And that’s why a lot of Americans are starting to grow a bit too fond of this war.

And so it begins...

2004-12-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

From deep in the mists of the blogosphere, yet another blog is born...

This is the saga of a Blue State sympathizer stuck behind enemy lines. And slowly being driven crazy by those oh-so-wacky Red Staters and their propagandists.

Hopefully, shredding some of their more unadulterated B.S. will help me maintain some measure of sanity.

More to come...