Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The lights are all blinking red.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

So cool that a Black prosecutor nailed his ass.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

We’re not going back!

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

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

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

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

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Cole is on a roll !

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

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

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

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Archives for January 2006

This Must Be Stopped

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I don’t know how this ‘service’ can legally exist:

Anyone can buy a list of your incoming and outgoing phone calls, cell or land-line, for $110 online by John in DC – 1/07/2006 03:21:00 PM

And the best part? Congress and the Executive branch have known about this problem for half a year or more and no one did a damn thing to fix it.

In a nutshell, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a story two days ago about a Web site that sells phone records, for cells and land-lines, for $110 a pop. The company boasts on its own Web site:

Give us the cell phone number and we will send you the calls made from the cell phone number.

So I went to their site, plopped down $110, and within a day I had a list of every single phone number that called my cell, or that I called from my cell, for the month of November. I even had the dates the calls were made, and for a premium I could find out how long the calls were.

I called Cingular and they were shocked by what I told them – yeah right.

And the best part? The article from the Sun-Times makes clear that the FBI is aware of this problem, the Chicago Police Department, one of the top two electronic privacy groups in the nation (EPIC), and even the office of Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). EPIC apparently has known about this problem for a long time, and Schumer didn’t seem very surprised either.

Good on John Aravosis for checking it out, and now this needs to be discussed widely until something is done about it. This needs to be stopped.

(h/t Kos)

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In Defense of Lobbyists

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Jan Witold Baran takes to the op-ed pages of the WaPo to defend lobbyists, and does a pretty good job:

Perhaps this scandal will eventually be called the Abramoff affair, but for now it is a lobbying scandal. If Shakespeare lived today, perhaps he would write, “First shoot all the lobbyists.” Yet in the midst of the current furor, reports do not mention that there are thousands of lobbyists in Washington who are honorable and honest people and who render a service that is both critical to a democratic society and enshrined in our Constitution.

There is irony here. The same constitutional provision that ensures the press may proclaim a lobbyist’s guilty plea also protects the act of lobbying. The First Amendment is well-known for guaranteeing freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. Often overlooked in its litany of fundamental civil liberties is the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” It is this distinct clause that prevents Congress and the president from enacting a law that bans lobbying. It is a right that should not be taken lightly and that should not be eroded by the fraudulent acts of a single lobbyist.

read the whole thing. I don’t think anyone is thinking about banning lobbying (well- McCain and Feingold and their friends probably are- they know what is best for America, and don’t want to hear from any of us to begin with), but this served as an initial defense.

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Truthiness Wins

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2005 was the year of truthiness:

A panel of linguists has decided the word that best reflects 2005 is “truthiness,” defined as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.

The American Dialect Society chose the word Friday after a runoff with terms related to Hurricane Katrina, such as “Katrinagate,” the scandal erupting from the lack of planning for the monster hurricane.

Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said “truthiness” means “truthy, not facty.”

“The national argument right now is, one, who’s got the truth and, two, who’s got the facts,” he said. “Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we’re not going make much progress.”

Truthiness it is, then. The linguists also began to sound like the folks at the Urban Dictionary when the discussed some other words:

In a runoff for the most creative word, “whale tail,” the appearance of a thong above the waistband, beat out “muffin top,” the bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-riding jeans.

I had heard of whale tail, but not muffin top.

*** Update ***

Heh. “Differently Authentic.”

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DeLay Done

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DeLay is finished as majority leader:

In letters sent Saturday to fellow House Republicans and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Mr. DeLay said he supported the call for an election of a new leader and was stepping aside to avoid becoming a political liability as Republicans face a determined Democratic challenge to their majority.

“The job of majority leader and the mandate of the Republican majority are too important to be hamstrung, even for a few months, by personal distractions,” Mr. DeLay said in the letter to Mr. Hastert, the man he personally picked to take the speaker’s job in a previous round of leadership turmoil in 1998. In his letter to the Republican conference, Mr. DeLay said he had “always acted in an ethical manner within the rules of our body and the laws of our land.”

Though his allies just hours earlier had suggested Mr. DeLay would resist moves to oust him, his aides said he came to a different conclusion on his own Saturday morning in Texas as he assessed his waning support and the potential damage to House Republicans. He then telephoned Mr. Hastert to deliver his decision, according to a House leadership aide who did not want to be identified discussing private conversations.

Good riddance.

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Medicare Drug Plan An Early Disaster

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Fantastic start for the newest entitlement program:

Low-income Medicare beneficiaries around the country were often overcharged, and some were turned away from pharmacies without getting their medications, in the first week of Medicare’s new drug benefit. The problems have prompted emergency action by some states to protect their citizens.

Although there are no hard numbers, concerns expressed by state officials and complaints from pharmacists suggest a widespread pattern of problems.

At least four states – Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Vermont – acted this week to make sure poor people received the drugs they were promised but could not obtain through the federal Medicare program.

Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican, said the state would pay drug claims for low-income people until the federal government fixed problems in the new program, known as Part D of Medicare. Michael K. Smith, the state’s secretary of human services, said, “The federal system simply is not working.”

On Thursday, the Vermont Legislature passed a bill declaring, “There is a public health emergency due to the federal implementation of Medicare Part D, which has resulted in serious operational problems, causing Vermonters to be turned away at the pharmacy without the drugs they need.”

I can’t even come up with a snarky comment, although I guess it should be noted that the incompetence of the previous Congress and this administration has succeeded in one area:

Leaving me speechless.

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The Surest Sign There May Be No God

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Is the fact that the Fred Phelps led Westboro Baptist Church has not been hit by a meteor, incinerating every member. They intend to protest on January 15th down in Buckhannon, because apparently the miners and the worshippers at the Sago Baptist Church are not holy enough:

WBC to picket their Memorial Service at 2 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 15, at Wesley Chapel, West Virginia Wesleyan College, Camden Ave. 8t Meade St., Buckhannon, WV-in religious protest 8t warning: “God is not mocked!” God Hates Fags! 8t Fag-Enablers! Ergo, God hates the Sago miners and is tormenting them in Hell, hypocritical Tallmansville village, and West Virginia.

***

They worship dunghill fag gods on “Brokeback Mountain,” and their holy book is “The Da Vinci Code” -not the King James Bible. God mocked them with a lightning bolt, agonizing deaths, false reports of life leading to fools gold jubilation followed by hopeless despair. “Meet you on the
other side,” eh? Yes, you all will meet again -in Hell!

The ‘meet you on the other side’ bit is a reference to the note left by one of the miners. I hate these people.

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