Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

You cannot shame the shameless.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

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

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

“They all knew.”

One way or another, he’s a liar.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

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

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

This blog will pay for itself.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

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Archives for 2005

Some Good News

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Last month, I noted the rapid decline in the loss of American lives in Iraq following the January elections. As previously stated:

This month, there have been 18 coalition casualties, meaning that the Coalition of the Willing has suffered an average of 1.38 casualties a day. This is the lowest average since March of last year, and dramatically lower than the casualty rate from the previous six month. For some perspective, last month we lost an average of 4.1 soldiers per day, in December 2004 we lost 2.48, and in November we were averaging 4.7 fatalities per day.

This does not tell the entire story, as the casualty rate was inflated in several of those months by deaths from non-hostile fire. For example, the numbers last month were wildly inflated due to tragic helicopter crashes. Again, those soldiers and sailors and Marines are just as dead, but if we are going to judge this, we have to be honest with ourselves, and there is a significant difference between hostile and non-hostile deaths.

At any rate, take it for what it is- a hopeful sign, but one that could literally blow up over night. I would advise people to be cautiously optimistic.

In the month of January, before the elections, the loss rate was 4.1 soldiers per day. Immediately after the election, in February, the rate dipped to 2.1 per day.

Currently, we are losing an average 1.2 soldiers per day to hostile and non-hostile casualties. The number of wounded appears to be declining as well.

Still too many, but a reason for cautious optimism. And while you are at it, you should be aware of this tribute to our fallen heroes.

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Yes and No

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I agree and disagree. The Instapundit:

I APPRECIATE Andrew Sullivan’s quoting me, but he’s wrong: Unlike Andrew, I don’t think that America is in danger of being taken over by religious Zealots, constituting an American Taliban and bent on establishing theocracy. I think that — despite their occasionally abusive emails (and most aren’t abusive, just upset) — the people that Mickey Kaus is calling “pro-tubists” are well-meaning, sincere, and possessed of an earnest desire to do good. I don’t think that they’re nascent Mullah Omars, and I think that calling them that just makes the problem worse. This is a tragedy, and it’s become a circus. Name-calling just makes you one of the clowns.

But I do think that process, and the Constitution, matter. Trampling the Constitution in an earnest desire to do good in high-profile cases has been a hallmark of a certain sort of liberalism, and it’s the sort of thing that I thought conservatives eschewed. If I were in charge of making the decision, I might well put the tube back and turn Terri Schiavo over to her family. But I’m not, and the Florida courts are, and they seem to have done a conscientious job. Maybe they came to the right decision, and maybe they didn’t. But respecting their role in the system, and not rushing to overturn all the rules because we don’t like the outcome, seems to me to be part of being a member of civilized society rather than a mob. As I say, I thought conservatives knew this.

He is right, for the most part- most of the deeply religious people I know and most of the people who really want Terri Schiavo to stay alive and are motivated religion are, as I have stated repeatedly, “well-meaning, sincere, and possessed of an earnest desire to do good.” They are decent, honest, hard-working, good Americans- people you would be proud to live next door to, people you would gladly call your friend, people you would rely upon in a crisis, people you would trust with your children, and people you wouldn’t mind having as in-laws. For goodness sakes, check my blogroll- you will find a number of committed, decent, deeply religious individuals.

Where he is wrong is misdiagnosing the pernicious threat posed by the fringe elements within the Conservative Christian movement- the Randall Terry’s, the people flooding the airwaves calling Michael Schiavo a terrible husband, the people allowing their ten year old children to be arrested outside terri Schiavo’s hospice, the people who think they own the Republican Congress and can get them to ‘trample the Constitution’ at will- they are a threat and they do want a theocracy.

What more proof do you need than the fact that the bill passed Congress and they had enough power to drag Bush back to the White House to sign it. This is a problem, and there is going to be violence when Terri Schiavo dies.

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The Purge Begins

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This certainly has been a fun week, as I am currently, to borrow a phrase, suspended somewhere between meltdown and release, having quickly passed from buyer’s remorse and buyer’s clinically-diagnosable buyer’s depression and run smack dab into ownership disgust. I guess my recognition that my party’s wingnuts are an honest-to-goodness threat just as real as the A.N.S.W.E.R. crowd is threatening to those who wish to continue the myth and makes me an enemy, which is pretty damned stupid.

Just for a little background, I am 34 years old. In 1983, during the Reagan Revolution, I joined the Brooke County Young Republicans, and pretty faithfully attended Republican party meetings in Brooke County, WV. The meetings consisted of me, Al Ossman, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Bethany College, and William Young, who is now deceased and a former Professor of History at Bethany College and a disabled WWII veteran, and about ten other men in their 50’s and 60’s. And that was the extent of the Brooke County Republicans.

I attended summer camp with Teen-Age Republicans for several years at a state 4H camp (my friends called them “Hitler Youth Camps”), and I registered Republican the moment I turned 18. In the 1988 election, I voted for Bush/Quayle. In 1992, I voted for Bush/Quayle. In 1996, I voted for Dole/Kemp. In 2000, I voted for Bush/Cheney. In 2004, I voted for Bush/Cheney. In every state election, I voted for the Republican candidate for governor, with the exception of last year when the Republican was too crooked and stupid for even the current Republican party, and I voted for the Democrat, now Governor Manchin.

I campaigned for the opposition to Byrd twice, including spending days going door-to-door, manning phones, stuffing envelopes- anyone else remember John Raese- I walked all over Brooke, Ohio, and Marshall County for that failed endeavor. I campaigned against Rockefeller. I voted for the Republican candidates against Alan Mollahan my entire voting life. When Republicans were not on the ballot, I voted for the Libertarian. When neither was available, I didn’t vote for that office. Only at the local level did I vote for the individual, and then I tended to prefer the Republican when they were not flat out insane.

For those keeping count, in my lifetime, that is a 5/5 vote for Republicans in Presidential elections (including 4 votes for people named Bush), 4/5 for Republicans in Gubernatorial elections, a perfect record of voting for Republican House and Senate candidates, and mixed but decidedly Republican votes at municipal/local level.

In short, I am the Republican Party- except I still believe many of the same things I always have- limited government, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense (I still have my Reagan era “Peace Through Strength” button), free trade, free markets, individual responsibility, the right to bear arms, states right’s (as something other than an excuse for racism), free speech, judicial restraint, individual liberty, and a general aversion to quick and unwarranted change. I think Reagan was one of the greatest human beings who ever lived, William F. Buckley is a legend, and Margaret Thatcher is the most important woman of the 20th century. I still believe in all of those things. My party, apparently, no longer does.

Enough with the credentials- if you have read me for a while, you should know where I stand. But most of all, if you ask any of the lefties, I have been a fierce partisan for the Republican cause. So, when my party gets co-opted by the God squad (which, as I have stated previously, is partly the fault of enablers like me), I find it pretty damned disturbing.

This attack on the judiciary and the rule of law is disgusting. The power grab by Congress is revolting. The sheer cynicism is mind-boggling. And the lying and the absolute rejection of all things science, all in the pursuit of an ends justifies the means mentality, is deeply disheartening. We are a party without principles, unless you count the things I listed earlier as principles. At any rate, I have now deviated from the party line, so I am, apparently to the wingnut right, no longer a Republican in good standing:

And as for the other so-called conservatives: why exacerbate the problem by admitting the Democrats were right? Here’s a reminder, of the 100 democrats voting for the Schiavo bill, 47 voted in favor.

Is this all it takes for you to get shaky? What a fine bunch of fair-weathered friends you are. Oh, and thanks a lot to the author of this blog for giving the Democrats all the red meat they can eat.

Let me remind everyone here of something – this issue is not that important, despite the blogstorm, despite the protesters in Florida, despite the media. It will all be forgotten in a few months. If this issue is enough to make you jump ship, then don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. We real Republicans wouldn’t be able to count on you in the foxholes anyway. Just don’t come whining back in 7 years when we get a Democratic president in 2008, and you don’t like what he (or she) has done.

Pardon me while I pause to stop giggling before I move on. But, for those Democrats watching this with much glee, you will get another chuckle from this:

It is much easier to take the position that says Terri Schiavo should be put down like an injured horse when you are comforted by the belief that she is not capable of having an “aware” type of life.

I am not convinced this is the case. I won’t get into rehashing all of the surfacing evidence that Terri may have been able to communicate and respond to commands. Most of you have seen that on other websites. So, you know there is a likelihood that Terri might not be PVS. For every so-called specialist and authority I have heard, I have heard a dissenting view. It is impossible to tell what her condition is. Nobody can be sure.

So why then do those that say she should die keep telling us what we know has not been proven? Of course short of that argument, they can not justify their “fight” to kill Terri Schiavo. A write-up on this subject by the left-wing blog, Balloon-Juice.com doesn’t even bother to consider she might not be PVS. The writer simply assumes you know that Terri is a freakin vegetable!

I am not assuming anything anymore, the stupid is so rampant.

Yours truly,

John Cole
Left Wing Blogger

*** Update ***

Some thoughts from another noted left-winger, former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA):

In thus favoring one family member over another, based solely on the fact that the favored plaintiff shares the views of the congressional majority, the law provides for future mischief by later congresses. It also opens the door for parents to sue a disfavored spouse of their child, creating further problematic scenarios.

Left out in the cold are the Florida courts and Legislature, both of which have grappled with this case for years and tried to resolve it as best they could. Also given the legislative high-hat are the federal courts that have repeatedly refused to hear the case

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Ruth Westlake, RIP

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One of the best friends of my family, and one of the most fundamentally decent human beings I have ever known, Ruth Westlake, died last night of a massive heart attack. She died in the ambulance en route to the hospital, while my father and her sister were in a separate vehicle racing to meet her there.

She worked her entire life for Bethany College, was always kind, an animal lover, had a great sense of humor, and was a dear friend to those close to her. In the spring and summer, every night, my father and Russell (our Jack Russell terrier) would go to Ruth’s house, where a group of people would congregate with their dogs and drink coffee and talk until it got too dark to see. When my parents went on vacation, I would fill in, and over the past few years I got to know and respect her.

I, like my family, her family, and her friends- who, in essence, were a second family, am devastated. I think I am going to cry.

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Hard Cases Make Bad Law

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How egregious was the power grab by Congress in the Schiavo case? Worse than FDR’s court-packing:

In the obvious hope of making political hay out of this tragedy, the members of Congress, in a big, well-publicized act, enacted a law that has got to be the biggest attack on the Constitution and our system of constitutional government since President Franklin

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The Daily Show

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How out of control is the stupid on the Cable News? We have now reached the point that Jon Stewart SHOULD be your source for sanity on the Schiavo issue.

Video here.

When Randall Terry begins to villify Judge Greer, stating Greer ignored evidence and testimony because he “wanted her dead,” Stewart states:

“Florida Circuit Court Judge George Greer’s evil plan of being randomly assigned to the case is finally paying dividends.”

Touche.

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More Sophistry

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This, along with ranting hysterical screeds from Peggy Noonan claiming people like me have a “passion for pulling the plug” on Terri Schiavo, is the type of sophistry and appeals to emotion that got us into this mess in the first place:

A Few Questions…

What if Terri Schiavo were a five-year-old child with no apparent disability, and the “rule of law” said she should be starved to death?

What if you saw that five-year-old on television begging for a drink of water and saying she was in pain?

How many of you would be concerned with states rights or separation of powers then?

How many people would be able to say that this “very personal matter” should be “left to the courts to decide”, and then just forget it was happening?

Terri Schiavo is not five years old, she is 41.

Despite the nonsense propagated in the last couple of weeks, Terri Schiavo is not disabled. She is in a persistent vegetative state, and has been for 15 years. She will not recover. Not ever.

The “rule of law,” is not saying that she should be starved to death, the “rule of law” says that we, as people with a deep respect for individual liberty, should act in best faith, in accordance with the law, to do what we can determine with her wishes. It has been determined, through careful, studious, tedious, and repeated litigation that Terri would not have wanted to live in this state, and she is being taken off of her feeding tube in order to acquiese to her wishes.

If I saw a five year old on television begging for a glass of water, the first thing I would do is slap the shit out of the cameramen and newscasters for not giving her the water. Is that what you think this is all about- a thirsty five year old?

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