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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

No one could have predicted…

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

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You are here: Home / Archives for 2003

Archives for 2003

Max Sawicky, Numbers Guy

by John Cole|  March 1, 200312:12 am| 12 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Stupidity

From Maxspeak:

Declarations of war should require some kind of super-majority in Congress. At the least, the nation’s leaders should appreciate the need for deep public support for any sort of drastic action. Deep divisions combined with the new dangers to national security that will result from the war are an especially bad mixture, from the standpoint of preserving basic rights. In their wisdom, the Founders gave us a Constitution that stipulates that Congress must vote to declare war.

Congress did vote on this issue, as Daschle affirmed again just the other day in an interview. The record of the vote was 296-133 in the House, and 77-23 in the Senate. A super-majority is defined, at least when I got my political science degree, as 2/3 of the chamber. I will let you go ahead and do the math, since Max apparently can’t.

Max Sawicky, Numbers GuyPost + Comments (12)

Tapped, Wrong as Usual

by John Cole|  February 27, 200312:34 pm| 4 Comments

This post is in: Media

From today’s Tapped:

Also, Mary Lynn F. Jones explains why we’re likely stuck at orange on the color-coded terror alert system for the near future. The government has put itself in a situation where none of the other colors are really an option anymore — and that renders the system just about meaningless.

From the NY Times:

The Bush administration on Thursday lowered the national terror alert from orange to yellow, suggesting the threat of an imminent terrorist attack on U.S. soil has eased somewhat.

The conclusion of the Muslim hajj holiday period played a role in the decision to lower the threat level from orange, the second-highest level on the five-part scale, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a joint statement.

TAPPED also explains to us how we can just pick up our troops, go home from the Middle East, and declare victory in Iraq.

Quit giggling.

Tapped, Wrong as UsualPost + Comments (4)

Blinded By Science

by John Cole|  February 27, 20039:51 am| Leave a Comment

This post is in: War

I’m with BigWig on this one:

The Win Without War phone-in protest tied up the phone lines on Capitol Hill today, at least the ones whose numbers are given out to the public. Senators have lots of phone lines, so I doubt that too much sand was thrown into the Congressional gears. Not that we’d be able to tell. Deliberative bodies are…..deliberate, after all. Sloths are models of haste in comparison.

BigWig thinks they need a dose of their own medicine. I agree:

Suppose for a moment that war supporters just spontaneously decide to call Lynn Erskine, the listed contact for Win Without War, at her phone number, which by the way is 202-478-3429, to let Lynn know how they felt about the war, or left her a voice mail detailing their views on tying up Washington’s phone lines during a time of crisis? How many calls do you think it would take before that number was rendered useless for the purpose of organizing the next protest?

How many voice mails, (long, polite ones, mind you, because war supporters are a genteel, reasonable and extremely slow talking folk when it comes to leaving voice mails), do you think Win Without War would wade through in order to hear ones more supportive of their cause? How many voice mails before someone reaches the tipping point and decides to just hit the delete button until all the messages are gone?

Would that tipping point be higher or lower for Not In Our Name, if war supporters also called their national office, at 212-969-8058.

Everyone hurry along now and call the good people. And while you are at it, send a check to any moderate Republican who has stood with Bush on this issue, but might have a tough fight ahead of them. My own Rep. Shelley Moore-Capito (R., WV) could use some help, as she is the only Republican elected to Congress in my lifetime, and in a state where the majority of the voters trend Democrat.

Blinded By SciencePost + Comments

Gimme A Break

by John Cole|  February 27, 20039:41 am| Leave a Comment

This post is in: Republican Stupidity

Alex Knapp rightly skewers Sam brownback for his anti-cloning legislation and this ludicrous op-ed in the National Review.

You remember the Raelians– the cultists who are a step above Heaven’s Gate crowd– the morons who claimed to have cloned a baby- Brownback is terrified of them, and he thinks you should be too:

Let’s be clear, the Raelians and those interested in human-cloning research seek to create human life through a process of human cloning that a vast majority of Americans clearly oppose. The threat presented to us by the Raelians is one that should refocus our attention on the immediacy of passing a permanent and comprehensive ban on all human cloning.

The only threat the Raelians present to anyone is to their own credibility.

Gimme A BreakPost + Comments

Goodbye, Mr. Rogers

by John Cole|  February 27, 20039:30 am| Leave a Comment

This post is in: Open Threads

Today started on a sour note and deeply disturbing note. Fred Rogers died yesterday. If you don’t know who he is, then you have no idea how much he meant to a couple generations of kids. This is really a terrible loss for everyone.

Goodbye, Mr. RogersPost + Comments

Liberate Iraq

by John Cole|  February 26, 20038:34 pm| 2 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

A touching op-ed in the CS Monitor:

Since Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, started warning that a US invasion of Iraq would “open the gates of hell,” the retort that has been flying around Iraqi exiles’ websites is, “Good! We’d like to get out!”

It got me wondering: What if you antiwar protesters and politicians succeed in stopping a US-led war to change the regime in Baghdad? What then will you do?

Will you also demonstrate and demand “peaceful” actions to cure the abysmal human rights violations of the Iraqi people under the rule of Saddam Hussein?

Or, will you simply forget about us Iraqis once you discredit George W. Bush?

You are irrelevant. The election in 2004 and world opinion is what is important to the left.

Via Neal Sheeran

Liberate IraqPost + Comments (2)

Excellent

by John Cole|  February 26, 20038:02 pm| Leave a Comment

This post is in: The War on Your Neighbor, aka the War on Drugs

Via TalkLeft:

A 30 second tv ad will begin airing Thursday spoofing the Nick and Norm ads of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy that push the theme that marijuana funds terrorists.

Here is the text of the ads:

In the spoof, Nick tells Norm the marijuana trade supports violence only because marijuana is illegal. “If I buy a beer, that doesn’t support terror, because beer is legal, right?” Nick asks. When Norm agrees, Nick concludes, “So what you’re saying is if we make marijuana legal and regulate it like beer, it wouldn’t support violence.”

You can view the ads here.

I have essentially stolen Jeralynn’s whole post (sorry Jeralynn- but this one was too important to hope people would click through), so make sure you do the right thing and just go visit her site to see what other things she has posted.

ExcellentPost + Comments

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