Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

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

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

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Not all heroes wear capes.

Come on, man.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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

Let there be snark.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Chief Justice William Rehnquist, RIP

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39Comments

  1. 1.

    over it

    As if we as a country need any more truama. God bless him….and God help us. I see even more strife on the horizon. :(

  3. 3.

    JBD

    Agreed, over it. This is going to make a tough next few months a whole lot tougher. We’re going to have to all hang together now more than ever.

  8. 8.

    bains

    Bush killed him to take advantage of the Cindy Sheehan situation and to divert attention from his racist killing of thousands of african americans in New Orleans.

    Jesse Jackson told me so…

  12. 12.

    ppGaz

    Take heart, this will cheer everyone up:

    Happy Days are Here Again

    Enjoy!

    The president’s declaration that “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees” has instantly achieved the notoriety of Condoleezza Rice’s “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center.” The administration’s complete obliviousness to the possibilities for energy failures, food and water deprivation, and civil disorder in a major city under siege needs only the Donald Rumsfeld punch line of “Stuff happens” for a coup de grâce. How about shared sacrifice, so that this time we might get the job done right? After Mr. Bush’s visit on “Good Morning America” on Thursday, Diane Sawyer reported on a postinterview conversation in which he said, “There won’t have to be tax increases.”

    But on a second go-round, even the right isn’t so easily fooled by this drill (with the reliable exception of Peggy Noonan, who found much reassurance in Mr. Bush’s initial autopilot statement about the hurricane, with its laundry list of tarps and blankets). This time the fecklessness and deceit were all too familiar. They couldn’t be obliterated by a bullhorn or by the inspiring initial post-9/11 national unity that bolstered the president until he betrayed it. This time the heartlessness beneath the surface of his actions was more pronounced.

    You could almost see Mr. Bush’s political base starting to crumble at its very epicenter, Fox News, by Thursday night. Even there it was impossible to ignore that the administration was no more successful at securing New Orleans than it had been at pacifying Falluja.

    A visibly exasperated Shepard Smith, covering the story on the ground in Louisiana, went further still, tossing hand grenades of harsh reality into Bill O’Reilly’s usually spin-shellacked “No Spin Zone.” Among other hard facts, Mr. Smith noted “that the haves of this city, the movers and shakers of this city, evacuated the city either immediately before or immediately after the storm.” What he didn’t have to say, since it was visible to the entire world, was that it was the poor who were left behind to drown.

    In that sense, the inequality of the suffering has not only exposed the sham of the relentless photo-ops with black schoolchildren whom the president trots out at campaign time to sell his “compassionate conservatism”; it has also positioned Katrina before a rapt late-summer audience as a replay of the sinking of the Titanic. New Orleans’s first-class passengers made it safely into lifeboats; for those in steerage, it was a horrifying spectacle of every man, woman and child for himself.

    THE captain in this case, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, was so oblivious to those on the lower decks that on Thursday he applauded the federal response to the still rampaging nightmare as “really exceptional.” He told NPR that he had “not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don’t have food and water” – even though every television viewer in the country had been hearing of those 25,000 stranded refugees for at least a day. This Titanic syndrome, too, precisely echoes the post-9/11 wartime history of an administration that has rewarded the haves at home with economic goodies while leaving the have-nots to fight in Iraq without proper support in manpower or armor. Surely it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Chertoff and the equally at sea FEMA director, Michael Brown (who also was among the last to hear about the convention center), are each awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in line with past architects of lethal administration calamity like George Tenet and Paul Bremer.

    On Thursday morning, the president told Diane Sawyer that he hoped “people don’t play politics during this period of time.” Presumably that means that the photos of him wistfully surveying the Katrina damage from Air Force One won’t be sold to campaign donors as the equivalent 9/11 photos were. Maybe he’ll even call off the right-wing attack machine so it won’t Swift-boat the Katrina survivors who emerge to ask tough questions as it has Cindy Sheehan and those New Jersey widows who had the gall to demand a formal 9/11 inquiry.

    But a president who flew from Crawford to Washington in a heartbeat to intervene in the medical case of a single patient, Terri Schiavo, has no business lecturing anyone about playing politics with tragedy. Eventually we’re going to have to examine the administration’s behavior before, during and after this storm as closely as its history before, during and after 9/11. We’re going to have to ask if troops and matériel of all kinds could have arrived faster without the drain of national resources into a quagmire. We’re going to have to ask why it took almost two days of people being without food, shelter and water for Mr. Bush to get back to Washington.

  13. 13.

    Pb

    No more. No more, please. I am officially voting for the most boring candidate in every election starting 2006.

    2008: President Al Gore!

  16. 16.

    james richardson

    Really, can you believe it, Rehnquist on top of all this. As if this country wasn’t stressed out enough before. Really, what next?

    As a liberal I know that many of my friends’ heads are literally going to explode. We’ve had our week of outrage at the Bush Administration’s apparent indifference to what was happening in New Orleans. Now it’s time for us to go back into our corners, and bemoan Bush’s new pick for Chief Justice (Scalia) as he nominates and Congress approves a second conservative SCOTUS judge. Oh, and say goodbye to roe-v-wade.

    Seriously. Literally explode.

  17. 17.

    Geoduck

    As if this country wasn’t stressed out enough before. Really, what next?

    Another terrorist attack on American soil, maybe just a ‘minor’ car-bombing or somesuch, but something. I sincerely hope they’re too stupid and/or disorganized to take advantage of this opportunity, but I wouldn’t count on it.

  18. 18.

    jobiuspublius

    Look at it this way, they’re paving the way to Progress. Bob the Rebuilder is making a back lash larger than a super collider. Judges can be impeached.

  19. 19.

    jobiuspublius

    The terrorist attack is the kicker, red alert, martial law. Already, thousands of troops are being mobilized.

  20. 20.

    ghostcat

    ppGAZ –

    Three days before landfall, Bush offered to assume overall reponsibility for emergency management in New Orleans … including evacuation of those w/o their own vehicles. Blanco refused. Jez sayin.

  22. 22.

    jobiuspublius

    DAM, I’m slow. Does this mean we can keep O’Connor?

    BTW, just think, throughout the internet, there are thousands of people like us, having an impromptu wake for ole’ Renny boy.

  23. 23.

    DougJ

    John, I love this site, but it is time for you get a little rest. Maybe stick to cat-blogging or something like that for a couple weeks. Of course, I’m sure ppgaz and Darrell could tear each other part arguing over a picture of a cat…

  24. 24.

    PMain

    You just happened to forget Able Danger, Air SCAMerica & the mayor of New Orleans completely ignoring the evacuation plans http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26 ,
    muchless not bothering to use the 205 school buses & 360+ city buses available, but now flooded – see for yourself. http://www.punditguy.com/2005/09/why_1.html

    Wonder why Galveston, TX has their buses gassed & ready to go well before Katrina hit land? Oh yeah, why did President Bush have to plead w/ the governor to order an evacuation well before the mayor announced – quote from AP article (link to article following), “Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.”
    http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?base/news-18/1125239940201382.xml&storylist=louisiana

    I’m sure that the Hate Bush first crowd will forget to mention these things or discuss how his home state (Texas)has really stepped up to the plate for the evacuees.

  25. 25.

    Tony

    James,

    I’ll offer you the same proposition I offer everyone who thinks Roe v. Wade will be overturned. 100:1 odds against it happening within the next 10 years.

    Name any dollar value you want to bet up to $1,000 (my payoff to you would be $100,000 if you win), any mutually acceptable 3rd party can hold the cash/bonds.

    No takers so far. Apparently libs don’t have enough conviction in their “beliefs” to back up the rhetoric with cash – even when I offer massively favorable 100:1 odds.

    Ergo, I’m forced to think their arguments are pure BS spin.

    Maybe you’ll be the very first to step up to the plate and show me you really believe what you say. I’m guessing not though…

  26. 26.

    Richard

    Get post PMain. Mayor Nagin was incompetent, and people died.

    My first reaction upon hearing of the CJ’s death was also, not another crisis! But, upon reflection, I note that President Bush has a great capacity for staying on message. He did so in taking charge of the boondoggle that the local authorities made of New Orleans, and now the people affected are getting relief. (Though once the urgency passes expect some moonbat to criticize GWB for, in circumventing the bureacracy, assuming powers not granted the POTUS). I think GWB will handle the loony left, which will now become the panicked left, with his usual deft hand, and he will put before the Senate a candidate for CJ, (and/or a replacement on the SC) who will cause the usual suspects to become apoplectic over their worry that Roe will be reversed.

    I now say, let them worry. We won, it is time to use every opportunity to make them squirm like an earthworm in salt. They have portrayed the Right incorrectly for years, accusing us of all manner of vile behavior toward our fellow citizens, and in fact their inaccurate finger-pointing is all they have; they have no ideas, no workable plans. If Katrina had not turned bad to worse, they would have complained about something else. If Bush replaces Judge Reinquist with Ted Kennedy, they will complain about something else. Complaining is all they have, today they have yet another focus for their hatred, ingore them even though they won’t go away.

  27. 27.

    Richard

    I got distracted in my earlier post and forgot to pay my respects to Judge Reinquist.

    Thank you for your service and rest in peace. I am glad you stayed on, and stayed active at the job you loved right to the end. Godspeed WR.

  28. 28.

    over it

    Actually, ghostcat, from what I can tell that offer was made Friday the 2nd, after the storm. Not Friday before the storm.

    Sad.

  29. 29.

    over it

    And Richard….I believe that you are being a bit Pollyanna’ish when it comes to the Administration’s response to this disaster. There is plenty of blame to go around…and Bush and his administration(FEMA, Homeland Security, etc.) need to shoulder their fair share of it. They are not blameless in this…nor are they soley to blame.

  31. 31.

    Neo-Progressive

    Rehnquist died. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Unfortunately, there are now three other pieces of garbage — Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts — to help the GOP turn the U.S.A into a Thirld-World shithole.

    Judging from the humanitarian crisis in New Orleans, with its images that belong straight to refugee camps in Africa, the country is well on its way on the path of decline.

  32. 32.

    Dan

    Thanks for that Neo-Progressive. Be sure to let the world know how hateful and cold the left really is, and the right will continue to win more elections, locally and nationally.

  33. 33.

    Nelson Muntz

    Just our Bill

    Saturday, December 02, 2000

    Lito Pena is sure of his memory. Thirty-six years ago he, then a Democratic Party poll watcher, got into a shoving match with a Republican who had spent the opening hours of the 1964 election doing his damnedest to keep people from voting in south Phoenix.

    “He was holding up minority voters because he knew they were going to vote Democratic,” said Pena.

    The guy called himself Bill. He knew the law and applied it with the precision of a swordsman. He sat at the table at the Bethune School, a polling place brimming with black citizens, and quizzed voters ad nauseam about where they were from, how long they’d lived there — every question in the book. A passage of the Constitution was read and people who spoke broken English were ordered to interpret it to prove they had the language skills to vote.

    Read the complete article. Then vow not to mention Rehnquist as a good American.

  34. 34.

    Sojourner

    How ironic that Rehnquist’s hearing for chief justice was playing on C-Span 3 yesterday. I had forgotten about his dirty deeds trying to suppress the minority vote. I guess 2000 wasn’t the first time he messed with the voting.

    Sorry you’re dead, glad you’re off the court.

  35. 35.

    Neo-Progressive

    Don’t get your hopes up, Dan. After watching the horrific images of the disaster in New Orleans, and the delayed, and criminally, incompetent, response of the President and the rest of his irresponsible greedheads, the world now knows how hateful and cold the right is in this country.

    The reaction of you, right-wingers, to the New Orleans humanitarian crisis has been so cruel, selfish, mean-spirited, nasty, and irresponsible, that you are no longer fooling anybody.

    See you in 2006, when your ilk will be booted out, and we can finally start this country back on the path of fiscal health and responsibility.

  36. 36.

    PMain

    Wow neo-Progressive,

    You must be a representative of the party of tolerance. The problem w/ your supposition is that if you review the majority of the Right Wing blogs you will find most people were & are focusing on ways to provide assistance. Care to venture around Kos, Democratic Underground or the DNC? If you do you’ll find more hatred than helpfulness. Let me ask you this, why is it that the other 3 states hit by this hurricane (Alabama, Mississippi & Florida) didn’t have nearly as many problems? I hate to point out that those 3 are Republican controlled states & there have be no reports of power struggles, gross lack of preperation, etc. I believe that there will be political fallout from this disaster & the first victims, rightly so, will be the LA’s Governor & the Mayor of New Orleans. This doesn’t excuse FEMA’s lack of response. But why is it people were told to go to the Superdome & that they would be taken care of, when no preperations were made for it? The evacuation plan was completely ignored. The problem is that the first response units were also destroyed by the flood – greatly aided by the fact the city was not prepared, naturally this would slow down the effectiveness of any additional support – FEMA, National Guard, etc.
    NP, compare the response of Mayor Guilani, who had no warning of the attacks (unlike 4 days of warning from various weather services), no plans for such attacks & had to assume that the US & NYC was at war & had to expect further attacks; to that of LA’s Governor & New Orleans’ mayor. Or if you’d prefer, Jeb Bush’s reaction to the multiple hurricanes last year in Florida. I’m sure that the American people will not forget these things & it seems quite apparent which party is better suited to handle disasters. Sure there may be slight political fall out, but in the long run it won’t be as bad as you predict. I bet that there will be a different Governor & that the GOP will gain ever more ground in the Gulf Coast.

    Once again, the Democrats will be left sounding shrill & still having no plan. Voters do not forget these things, as has been apparent by the GOP gains in every political forum in the United States. Hate all you like, rant all you want, the simple fact is Levees designed to with hold a Cat 3 Hurricane will never ever hold a Cat 4-5. The people should never had been there in the first place, period.

    I am sorry that Judge Renquist has passed away. I think he had a calming influence will be missed by both sides of the political aisle.

  38. 38.

    Richard

    over it,

    Pollyannish? My dictionary has a pollyanna, “as on characterized by irrepressible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything.”

    I may strive to maintain a firm resolve, but I am a realist, it isn’t all good out there. Take the “Get Bush” attitude that prevades the left, there is no good in that. Besides the fact that I am not a Pollyanna, I am not even certain that being one is such a bad thing. I understand that the Left has no use for optimism, so I can understand why you would use the term as a disparagement, but demeaning that attitude does not diminish its value. You lefties might be happier people if you occaisionally found good in something, even if you never achieve a state of pollyannism, where you yourself see good in everything. Best wishes for you as you live out your self-imposed life of cynicism, loathing and misery.

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  1. NEWS ALERT: When it rains, it pours

    Sorry for the horrible metaphor so soon after landfall of a Cat5, but the news channels are reporting that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has passed away. This is making for one crappy week all-around. Godspeed, CJ. UPDATE: As usual,…