Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

How stupid are these people?

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

The willow is too close to the house.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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Archives for 2004

This Needs to Be Repeated

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The ‘Bush Lied, People Died’ crowd needs to read this over and over again until it sinks through their thick partisan skulls:

After speaking to “innumerable” U.S. intelligence officers, David Kay has concluded that Bush administration officials did not pressure analysts to exaggerate the threats posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. On Capitol Hill, the Senate Intelligence Committee staff has interviewed over 175 analysts and critics and reached the same conclusion.

Leading the C.I.A.’s own internal review, Richard Kerr has apparently also concluded that there is no evidence that political pressures influenced the C.I.A. reports.

It is a shame we have to take some of the Bush haters seriously.

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War is Hell…

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Take this with a grain of salt:

The first official Army history of the Iraq war reveals that American forces were plagued by a “morass” of supply shortages, radios that could not reach far-flung troops, disappointing psychological operations and virtually no reliable intelligence on how Saddam Hussein would defend Baghdad.

Logistics problems, which senior Army officials played down at the time, were much worse than have previously been reported. While the study serves mainly as a technical examination of how the Army performed and the problems it faced, it could also serve as a political document that could advance the Army’s interests within the Pentagon.

Tank engines sat on warehouse shelves in Kuwait with no truck drivers to take them north. Broken-down trucks were scavenged for usable parts. Artillery units cannibalized parts from captured Iraqi guns to keep their howitzers operating. Army medics foraged medical supplies from combat hospitals.

In most cases, soldiers improvised solutions to keep the offensive rolling. But the study found that the Third Infantry Division, the Army’s lead combat force, was within two weeks of being halted by a lack of spare parts, and Army logisticians had no effective distribution system.

No commander ever has enough resources to make them happy, and I would suggest that two weeks away from an operational pause in an advance is nothing from a historical perspective. Still, I can’t wait to read this.

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Speaking of Fiscal Conservatism

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Gee- Who would have ever predicted this:

President Bush’s new budget will project that the just-enacted prescription drug program and Medicare overhaul will cost one-third more than previously estimated and will predict a deficit exceeding $500 billion for this year, congressional aides said Thursday.

Instead of a $400 billion 10-year price tag, Bush’s 2005 budget will estimate the Medicare bill’s cost at about $540 billion, said aides who spoke on condition of anonymity. Bush will submit on Monday a federal budget for the fiscal year 2005, which starts next Oct. 1.

Bush just signed the Medicare measure into law last month. While it was moving through Congress, Bush, White House officials and congressional Republican leaders had assured doubting conservatives that the bill’s costs would stay within the $400 billion estimate.

Some conservatives voted against the legislation anyway, and many of them are already angry that Bush has presided over excessive increases in spending and budget deficits.

“I’m not the least bit surprised,” said conservative Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., who voted against the Medicare bill in November and who said he had heard that the cost estimate would rise. “Historically, our estimates of what these programs will cost have been so far off as to be meaningless.”

Assholes. That really is the only comment I can come up with right now.

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Out of the Mouths of Babes

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First, some quotes:

Oliver Willis:

Dean’s stance on the war and civil unions are actually outliers on his past, which seems to be rife with fiscal moderation and mainstream stances on the hot button issues of the day.

Matt Yglesias:

Indeed, I think the case can be made more strongly — insofar as taxes are (morally) objectionable, it is more objectionable for the current generation to increase taxes on future people than it is for them to increase taxes on themselves. This argument, at any rate, ought to be just as persuasive to true, dyed-in-the-wool conservatives and libertarian hawks as it is to orthodox anti-war libertarians.

Some will retort that “the Democrats” aren’t any better about this, and I’ll happily agree that many aren’t, much as many Republicans are better than Bush on this score. On the other hand, many Democrats — notably Dean, who’s real quite fanatical about it — really are much better.

Tom Paine:

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has been portrayed by his Democratic presidential opponents as a man who is too angry, too loud and too Liberal. But according to a new book by the reporters who covered his administration, Dean’s fiscal record and policies were those of a textbook conservative

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They Have Lost Their Minds

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This makes absolutely no sense:

House Democrats yesterday proposed granting legal residency and the eventual option of U.S. citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants now working in the United States.

Laying out their own principles for revamping the nation’s immigration laws in response to what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called President Bush’s “political ploy,” Democrats went beyond Mr. Bush’s plan for a temporary-worker program and called for a system of “earned legalization” for illegal aliens.

At a Capitol Hill press conference, Democrats proposed allowing illegal immigrants who have worked in the United States for a yet-to-be-determined minimum period of time to stay here and be granted permanent legal residency, creating a “pathway” to eventual citizenship.

“The president’s proposal is a political ploy, and not the solid foundation on which we can build an improved immigration policy,” said Mrs. Pelosi of California. “Democrats have a better way.”

Mrs. Pelosi said Mr. Bush’s recently proposed plan doesn’t create a meaningful way for illegal aliens to become U.S. residents or citizens; doesn’t reduce the backlog of U.S. citizens’ petitions on behalf of relatives who are here illegally; and doesn’t help tens of thousands of teenage illegals attend college here and eventually be granted legal status.

In addition to proposing measures to address those concerns, Democrats endorsed a temporary-worker program that would give foreigners the option to stay in the United States and eventually earn permanent legal status here.

President Bush’s plan, in contrast, would allow illegal aliens already here, as well as newcomers, to work in the United States legally for three years under a temporary-worker program. When their three-year permits expired, such immigrant workers would be required to return to their home countries.

Once back in their home countries, they could apply for legal U.S. status through the existing system. Under the Bush plan, the three-year work permits could be extended in some cases, but not indefinitely.

“The president wants to give [illegal aliens] a lot, but the Democrats want to give them the jackpot,” said Steve Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.

There are only two ways to look at, as either a cynical ploy or additional bumbling by these clueless nitwits. Let’s examine the possibilities.

1.) A Cynical Ploy- While phrasing the President’s policy proposal on illegal immigration and undocumented workers a ‘political ploy,’ it is entirely possible that this is nothing but sheer cynicism on their part. One of the major problems that Democrats in general have is on perceptions of national security, and one of the major difficulties for a Democratic candidate is a credible rush to the center after proving he was a worthy leftist in the primaries.

With that in mind, it might be possible that they floated this ludicrous amnesty for illegal aliens proposal so that the Democratic nominee can come out lodly and denounce it, thus having a Sister Souljah moment. The candidate could then swerve to the right of Bush, and point out that not enough has been done to secure the borders, etc. This is the only way I can see this proposal in a positive way for the Democrats.

2.) Additional Bumbling from the Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight- There is a possibility that the hard left in Congress, led by Pelosi and Daschle, simply hate Bush so much that they created this short-sighted proposal just to have another opportunity to attack Bush and to do a little recreational race-baiting. If so, then they have cut off their collective noses to spite their faces.

Bush’s main problem on his immigration policy proposal was not that the center rejected it- it seemed to play fairly well with moderate to conservative Democrats, moderate Republicans and Independents were either sympathetic or agnostic. The people who were pissed were Bush’s base- social conservatives and the far right. It would seem to me that the last thing that the Democrats would want to do when Bush is proposing centrist policies is to propose a counter policy which is going to alienate their moderates while proving to Bush’s base that not voting for Bush could have far worse ramifications if the Democrats have their way. IN other words, unless I am reading this wrong, this proposal will do nothing but help Bush- it really does make him look like a moderate to both the centrist Democrats and Republicans and to the social conservatives.

There is a good chance that the Botox Cheerleader Pelosi and the Mild Mannered Moron Daschle just simply don’t get it. They really do believe their own rhetoric about an emerging liberal majority, and they mistakenly believe that everyone thinks like they do. If they do, they are forgetting that the reason they have won elections in the past is not because of their coalition of wacky interest groups, but because of the support of blue collar Democrats- often called Reagan Democrats. About 98% of Republicans understand the meaning of the term ‘illegal’ in the phrase ‘illegal alien,’ as does about 60% of the Democratic party. The 40% of the Democratic party that fails to understand this distinction consist of the hard left who are going to vote for Anyone but Bush, the several million illegal aliens in California that the Clinton administration already illegally franchised, and the dead Daley voters in Chicago.

I simply don’t know what these guys are thinking, if they even are…

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The Real War Profiteers

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This is not news to Balloon Juice readers, as we have been discussing the Russian, French, And German pefidy in regards to oil and Iraq for years. Check out this new bombshell:

Documents from Saddam Hussein’s oil ministry reveal he used oil to bribe top French officials into opposing the imminent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The oil ministry papers, described by the independent Baghdad newspaper al-Mada, are apparently authentic and will become the basis of an official investigation by the new Iraqi Governing Council, the Independent reported Wednesday.

“I think the list is true,” Naseer Chaderji, a governing council member, said. “I will demand an investigation. These people must be prosecuted.”

Such evidence would undermine the French position before the war when President Jacques Chirac sought to couch his opposition to the invasion on a moral high ground.

Pretty nasty stuff:

The list quoted by al-Mada included members of Arab ruling families, religious organisations, politicians and political parties from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Sudan, China, Austria, France and other countries. But no names were available last night.

Organisations named include the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Communist Party, India’s Congress Party and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The United States and Britain launched the war on Iraq on 19 March, 2003 without UN approval after tense negotiations in the Security Council collapsed in the face of a veto threat from France. France’s relations with Britain and the US deteriorated to their worst point in decades over the Iraq rift, and have yet to heal.

Here is a slogan that does ring true- “Chirac Lied… People Died.”

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