There is a certified underfunding of pie in this country. For a nation born and raised on the fruit based pastery, I don’t see nearly enough of it, and this shakes me to my core.
I am a humble man, but I am a patriot, and I demand a rich assortments of delicious pies from sea to shining sea. Because, god damnit, this is America.
Why do I only find things I like at the stores when I have no money to spend? Why, dammit?
4.
Richard Bottoms
Tell me again how the Deomocrats are doomed unless they come up with an “agenda”. How about we’ll make sure oil executives don’t get $400,000,000 bonuses while you pay $4 a gallon at the pump.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) – The average price of a regular gallon of gasoline at a self-service pump surged nearly three cents Saturday, and is now about 17 cents below the all-time record, the motorist advocacy group AAA said.
High crude prices, which reached a record above $75 a barrel Friday, and a switch to cleaner-burning summer gasoline that has resulted in some reports of shortages are being blamed for the recent surge in pump prices.
This has been an interesting story here in L.A. this week. A popular blogger who keeps a close eye on the LA Times caught one of their columnists, who also runs a LAT-sponsored blog called Golden State, red-handed using sock puppet identities on his blog to lend support to his own posts on that blog. The LAT suspended the blog, and one of the columnist’s colleagues supported him in the paper today. The linked story here talks about today’s article, but if you go to the home page and scroll down, you can read the history of the issue.
Curious what commenters think, but also what Tim/John think about it, as blog patrons themselves.
6.
Brian
Tell me again how the Deomocrats are doomed unless they come up with an “agenda”.
Because you can’t count on protest votes as a winning strategy.
7.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Get it off your chest.
I should’ve put butter on my bagel instead of cream cheese.
>Because you can’t count on protest votes as a winning >strategy.
Ross Perot is a protest vote. Pulling the D lever instead of the R lever is change.
We are going to kick their asses in Novemeber becaue gas is headed towards $4 a gallon, 2400+ soliders wil have died in Iraq with no end in sight, and Republicans are headed off to jail in increasing numbers (along with their wives maybe).
I think running out the clock is a fine strategy. Espcially when the other team has fucked up this badly.
When even Fox polls the smirking chimp at %33 I’d say things are not looking good.
Mission Accomplished.
10.
Brian
I can understand why Tim wouldn’t want to mention this, but it is a big story, especially given the politics of Ms. McCarthy. If nothing else, it shows how politicized the CIA has become, and that they will resort to these tactics to undermine an acting administration.
I am looking forward to the rationalizations for her actions that emerge from the Left in the coming days.
11.
Brian
We are going to kick their asses in Novemeber becaue gas is headed towards $4 a gallon
So what? Blame Bush?
I hope it gradually goes higher. How else will Americans get a grip on the oil problem and seek an alternative? Is the president’s job, regardless of party, to give you cheap gas? You’re an an entitlement pimp.
Bri, Bri — a crusty old conservative like you should have a little more respect for the proper use of apostrophes. “Manolo’s” is the possessive form of Manolo; “Manolos” is the plural.
Is the president’s job, regardless of party, to give you cheap gas? You’re an an entitlement pimp.
No, it’s not. But it might be nice if he wasn’t carrying out wars of pleasure, thereby driving up the price(artificially I might add) to the benefit of *shock and surprise* his buddies.
14.
OCSteve
I am looking forward to the rationalizations for her actions that emerge from the Left in the coming days.
Noble whistleblower of course. Forget that the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 spells out how you go about it (talk to your agency IG, if that does not bring satisfaction you appeal to the Congressional Intelligence Committee) – the basis of that act is that the secret, uhm, stays secret. Leaking to the newspaper is not on the list.
When employees of these agencies believe that they know what is best, that the policies of the elected officials are wrong and they have some calling to right that wrong – they seriously cross a line.
Most people who betray their country (to a foreign power) also do it for ideological reasons, not for money.
15.
Thomas
Here’s my rationalization Brian: I have no problem with undermining governments that run secret prisons full of prisoners who are treated as if they are outside the bounds of any law, leaving them open for torture and detainment without trial.
What’s yours?
16.
Laura
Get it off your chest.
Kings over Spurs in 7. A girl can dream, can’t she?
It’s the Bush Administration that is betraying this country. Not some CIA agent who is exposing them.
This statement has no effect on the legality of her action. But it has full effect on the legitimacy of her action. If it is necessary to break the law in order to stop others from betraying the country, then persons who do that are heroes AFAIC.
When a government forces its best citizens to choose between obeying the law and saving the country from betrayal, then that government has failed its citizens and needs to be replaced.
18.
Thomas
And wow, OCSteve goes all the way:
When employees of these agencies believe that they know what is best, that the policies of the elected officials are wrong and they have some calling to right that wrong – they seriously cross a line.
What a charming philosophy. The State of Hacks says jump, you jump.
Speculation around today that possibly the whole thing was a red rabbit op. Not sure I buy that due to the damage it did to relations, but possible I guess.
Nicely done, ppGaz and Thomas. Pretty much exactly what I was going to say.
23.
OCSteve
What a charming philosophy. The State of Hacks says jump, you jump.
No, you follow the provisions of the act put in place of just such an occasion. If it comes out that she went to the Congressional Intelligence Committee and they blew her off, then I would reconsider.
I grew up an apple pie man, but my wife has replaced that with the greatest possible pie known to man—strawberry, blueberry, rhubarb….
[drool]
Throw a scoop of vanilla ice cream on there…wow.
I’ll be having it in three weeks for my birthday. Yum.
25.
Eural
I have no problem with undermining governments that run secret prisons full of prisoners who are treated as if they are outside the bounds of any law, leaving them open for torture and detainment without trial.
Got to say I agree and I find those on the right who demand “justice” for these agents must address two questions:
1) Why do you support the existence and use of such a prison network which just a few short years ago was one of the hallmarks of the “evil empire” you’re beloved Reagan was so determined to defeat?
2) If they do just what they are told even in the face of unethical/unconstitutional/illegal activities how does that differ from the numerous Nazis that we put on trial (and found guilty) when they used the “just following orders” defense?
I’m proud we have many Americans (in many places apparently) who are not willing to be tools in the slavish imitation of the USSR and Nazi Germany. I am ashamed of this administration for placing our country in the midst of such a heinious choice. Explain to me again how Al Qaeda is such a great threat that it requires the dismantling of 200 years of US Constitutional law? Neil Young said it best a few days ago – we all have a post-9/11 mind-set, mine is just different than Bush’s.
Well how do you suppose the Republican congressional Intelligence Committee wouold have received her?
Both Houses have been doing a real stand-up job of oversight these ast few years.
Even if she got someone to listen, I’m sure we could look forward to some serious hearings…after the next election. Maybe. When it’s too late. If they ever do it…
27.
Thomas
OCSteve, maybe I’ve crossed a line or something, but in the end, what I care more about is whether the US Government is following any sort of law or ethical principal. The purported existence of secret prisons used to skirt the few legal restrictions we have left in America is pretty serious. I just don’t care about the fact that some bureaucrat leaked info to the press rather than play a game she was bound to lose with Congress.
Why does any of you bother arguing with OCSteve? He makes Brian sound like Arthur Schlessinger.
There’s some great stuff brewing over at Protein Wisdom. Jeff is pushing the theory that Ms. McCarthy was in league with Joe Wilson and Richard Clarke.
what I care more about is whether the US Government is following any sort of law or ethical principal.
That’s pre-911 thinking. Don’t you that people are trying to kill us? Do you think Saddam would have let his intelligence service leak the sites of his secret prisons? Do you think Osama would be happy if some of his henchman told Dana Priest where his secret hide-out was?
No, Saddam and Osama beheaded people for this kind of leaking. And that’s exactly what should happen to McCarthy.
30.
Sojourner
Hmm. A CIA employee is supposed to go to the chicken shit Republican congress to seek help in bringing to light yet another Bush scandal.
Does anyone really believe this shit?
31.
Thomas
That Protein Wisdom shit is hilarious. I’ve never witnessed anyone who wasn’t handing out pamphlets in Union Square act like that.
32.
Caleb
You would think the Mountaineers would be confident enough in their talent not to send a spy to a Marshall football practice.
Why does any of you bother arguing with OCSteve? He makes Brian sound like Arthur Schlessinger.
Noooo. OCS often disagrees with us infallible lefties, yes. But it’s reasonable disagreement.
Brian, on the other hand, is a unrepentant insufferable fuckhead. Or, UIF, for short.
I’ll take a dozen OCS’s for one UIF. Anytime.
Now, to something important, Doug: Are you a woman?
34.
Perry Como
Really secret prisons I guess – because officials in the alleged countries can’t even find them.
If the prisons don’t exist then how could the CIA officer leak anything about them? If a CIA officer comes out and says the US government has a stable of flying unicorns it’s going to use to poke al Qaeda in the ass, does that mean the officer is leaking top secret materials? Or just making shit up?
I don’t write the scs character. I’m not that talented.
42.
OCSteve
Sorry guys – I do understand where you are coming from. I just happen to believe that you follow the rules with classified information.
I had a secret clearance for years and the rules were drummed into my head twice a year. I know for sure that my ass would have been in jail for even an accidental disclosure of meaningless significance.
So when there are channels in place to deal with this kind of disagreement I feel you exhaust them. As I said – if it comes out that she tried and they blew her off then I will reconsider.
Except when you’re outting the wife of a political enemy.
Right.
Or cherry picking it to gin up a war.
Or declassifying to prop up a failing policy.
Or winking at leaking it for political cover.
Or hiding behind it to conceal venality, corruption, mendacity, or incompetance.
46.
OCSteve
Or cherry picking it to gin up a war.
Or declassifying to prop up a failing policy.
Or winking at leaking it for political cover.
Or hiding behind it to conceal venality, corruption, mendacity, or incompetance.
I said that’s how I feel. The last time this administration came to me for advice was, well, not lately anyway :)
We should do this regularly, like changing our smoke detector batteries, and having the kids go through the home fire drills.
51.
Some Other Brian Guy
I am looking forward to the rationalizations for her actions that emerge from the Left in the coming days.
Actually I’m looking forward to the rationalizations against her actions that emerge from the Right in the coming days.
you know, how gulags and secret prison camps are actually a good thing, because they introduce people to new cultures… that sort of thing.
What I thought was funny was the Administrations claim that it had hurt our position amongst our allies. Now remember that… it was the leak which hurt our position, even though the allies didn’t care about the leaker. What had upset them was that we were working with East European countries to setup gulags.
Delusion is a road without end.
52.
OCSteve
Cigar?
Only if you have a nice single malt or top shelf bourbon to go with it.
53.
Some Other Brian Guy
I think October would be an opportune time for a terror alert. So we have a few months left.
Sorry, he forgot to say “runs on spotted owls’ shit.”
His bad.
63.
OCSteve
What, you haven’t seen the General Motors Guano Fuel kit before?
I pictured “Back to the Future” where the car/time machine ran on any organic matter. But in this case it only accepts spotted owls. And a hummer – well, that’s a lot of owls…
Only this week, we were visited by a Chinese leader that enjoys hearing his name spoken by those very owls.
Hu was here.
I dunno, who?
That’s what I just said. Hu.
Who?
Right.
Who?
Hu is right.
How would I know? I asked you? Hu visited?
Yes.
Who?
Hu.
Etc.
See last night’s post for the preamble.
66.
OCSteve
I’m not convinced about the hybrids, but I would go alt fuel (and pay a couple extra grand for it) IF I could get alt fuel within say 20 miles.
67.
Brian
Actually I’m looking forward to the rationalizations against her actions that emerge from the Right in the coming days.
None required here.
It’s amusing to watch the Left kicking back today, acting this is no big deal, and in fact, it’s justified because BUSH LIED. With Libby, there’s still genuine outrage, even though no crime other than his perjury has been committed. Plame was not covert, so there was no exposure of her to any danger, nor of any secret information she was in possession of.
Yet now we have a true crime, where national secrets have been revealed that both undermined the administration and put our allies at risk by having them targeted by al-Qaeda for their supposed assistance with the detainee prisons, and the response ranges from “it’s justified because it’s happening to Bush” to “the leaker surely wanted to go thru the correct process, but with a GOP Congress, she just couldn’t do it, so she went the route of the WaPo”.
She committed a crime, regardless of what it was in service of, or what process she did or didn’t follow. She and her ilk should be punished severely and have their careers ruined. With Plame, you were concerned with small time players, but now you’re dealing with serious business with serious consequences.
And you wonder why those on my side ask “whcih side are you on, ultimately?”. Your hatred for Bush, and by extension this country, knows no bounds.
Again, I am not surprised that Tim took the day off for this one. It’s embarassing.
68.
Stormy70
She is a partisan hack that gave over $7500 to the Dems in the last election, and has links to all the anti-Bush people like Wilson, Clarke, Priest and Hersh. She is linked to Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson and every other tin pot leftie out there that used to work for Clinton. The CSIS has already tried to wipe her biography from their pages, but it is Google cached. She must not have liked being sidelined when Bush was elected and she proved to be quite the little canary.
All of you bitching about the Plame leak have been hoist on your own petards.
What a stellar day. Why, it is almost like Fitzmas for the right. An anti-Bush CIA cabal running their mouths to all the lefty MSM outlets. I wonder what Libby’s lawyers are working on this weekend.
Appointed by Sandy Burglar, I am seriously all a tingle.
Did I uh … mention { polishes nails on sleeve } … that I drive one of these vehicles?
Nobody cares, you little sissy. South Park recently did a show about types like you. Smug Alerts, from twits that drive “enviro-friendly” cars (although the jury’s out on the truth of that). You also probably like the smell of your own farts, don’t you?
Just drive your car, and keep it to yourself. Nobody else gives a shining shit, other than your fellow smug sissies.
70.
Brian
What a stellar day. Why, it is almost like Fitzmas for the right.
That must explain why I feel so damn good today. The Left gets to see how a real crime gets punished.
71.
Brian
And while I have your attention, if a Democrat gets elected by this procedure (which it’s designed to do), you will have a civil war on your hands.
You people are shameless.
72.
Perry Como
Illinois, Colorado, Missouri, California, and Louisiana.
CA and IL are the only two of the five that voted went for Kerry last time. Why do Red States hate America?
73.
OCSteve
Brian and Stormy – jeeze, you guys are over the top for me – and I am (technically) on your side…
74.
Perry Como
btw Brian, the less populous states are already overrepresented in the federal government. Check the Senate and House. Maybe it’s about time the bigger states had equal representation on the federal level.
Ok: I don’t like it when people whine, and then they smack you for helping them. Next time, I’ll be mean and laugh at their whining.
[My disgust is presented at the link under my name.]
Kudos: Respectful, honorable mention: John Cole, and balloon juce for key backup, links, and support. Thanks, John.
76.
Brian
Bri, Bri—a crusty old conservative like you should have a little more respect for the proper use of apostrophes. “Manolo’s” is the possessive form of Manolo; “Manolos” is the plural.
Actually, DougJ, you’re wrong. The usage you suggest is possessive, but I didn’t use it that way. The method I used works fine, because I’m referring to the shoes, not Manolo himself. Your suggestion would apply if I had written something like: “I’m going to Manolo’s store to look at some shoes”.
77.
Sojourner
All of you bitching about the Plame leak have been hoist on your own petards.
Dream on. We’re the ones who believe that America does not support gulags and torture. Nor is it okay to out covert CIA agents because the president doesn’t like what her husband has to say.
Please don’t leave Texas. I don’t want my part of America to be like yours.
78.
OCSteve
Have fun folks. Heading out for a (rare) nice dinner. Steak or seafood? Potatoe or rice? Scotch or bourbon? Decisions decisions…
79.
Eural
OK Brian and Stormy help me out here –
In the recent CIA/gulags case we have someone who may have broken the law to out an unethical/illegal/anti-Christian/abhorrent policy our President and his ilk were engaged in…
In the Plame case we have the President and his ilk engaging in unethical/illegal/anit-Christian/abhorrent behavior to score political points and maintain their faltering grip on power…
Again, explain to me why that’s a “win” for conservatives (you know, the one’s who believe in the rule of law, restricted national power and traditional values of truth and justice)?
80.
andy
I would get it off my chest, but it appears to be firmly affixed through a combination of suckers and flesh-grabbing tendrils. I’m thinking it may be malignant.
81.
Zifnab
Again, explain to me why that’s a “win” for conservatives (you know, the one’s who believe in the rule of law, restricted national power and traditional values of truth and justice)?
Because, gosh darnit, we need to get behind our President no matter what. Remember, if the President leaks classified information, he’s not really breaking the law because he can then de-classify it retroactively (in much the same way many documents have been re-classified in recent years after being released to the public) getting off scott free.
Meanwhile, treasonous so-called “moral objectors” to the gulag leaks are in fact committing the worst of sins – defaming the President in a (as far as I can tell perpetual) state of War. That’s against the law, and anyone who would come forward to release information politically damaging to the President deserves nothing less than the harshest of punishments.
Conservatives have a strong ethical and religious outlook. And like the First Commandment says, “Bush is the Lord, your God… You shall have no other Gods before Him.”
82.
Loopy Doug
A number of the comments posted in this thread bring to mind the recent piece written by Dan Henninger. The focus of his piece was the lunatic element, such as ppGaz and Mr. Furious, among others, who have increasingly come to represent the downside to development of an informed and enlightened society.
Henninger observed that the world of blogs may be filling up with people who for the previous 200 millennia of human existence kept their weird thoughts more or less to themselves. Now, he notes, “…they don’t have to. They’ve got the web. Now they can share.” Further, “…a new vocabulary has emerged from clinical psychology to describe generalized patterns of behavior [in the blogosphere]. …there’s ‘dissociative anonymity’ (You don’t know me); ‘solipsistic introjection’ (It’s all in my head); and ‘dissociative imagination’ (It’s just a game). This is all known as ‘digital identity.’ ”
The human species has spent tens of thousands of years sorting through which emotions and marginal neuroses to keep under control and which to release. “Now with a keyboard, people overnight are ‘free’ to unburden and unhinge themselves continuously and exponentially.”
At the risk of enabling, does the Internet mean that the rest of us are being made unwitting participants in the personal and political life of arrogant and unhinged people, such as ppGaz? These are, after all, the kind of people that you wouldn’t want your children to associate with absent adult supervision.
83.
Perry Como
Henninger observed that the world of blogs may be filling up with people who for the previous 200 millennia of human existence kept their weird thoughts more or less to themselves.
I thought they became politicians.
/me glances nervously at Senator “Man-on-dog” Santorum
84.
Krista
Brian – Manolos? Hardly. I buy most of my stuff second-hand, my friend.
Now, if Naveen showed up at my door, shirtless, with a pair of Manolos for me in one hand and tickets to Paris in the other hand…well, I don’t think I’d complain.
85.
Krista
Get it off my chest? Why do they make care tags on clothing so frackin’ itchy? And then, if you cut them out, it turns out that they’re what was holding the seam together, so then you wind up having a big hole in your shirt.
86.
Sojourner
The focus of his piece was the lunatic element, such as ppGaz and Mr. Furious, among others, who have increasingly come to represent the downside to development of an informed and enlightened society.
I agree. They really are part of the lunatic fringe. Who else but the loony left would expect their representatives to be honest and ethical?
Nobody cares, you little sissy. South Park recently did a show about types like you.
Really, Brian? “Types like” me?
What was it that tipped you off? The part where we were joking around about driving a Hummer when gas prices are heading toward $4 a gallon, and I mentioned that I’m driving a high-mileage car?
That was it, right? That was when you KNEW that I was really outside the realm of respectability? That was when you knew that you could swoop in with your insufferable fuckheadedness and your phony “I can post here too” routine and unmask me for the selfish, twisted creature I must be to be driving a tiny, efficient car in times like these?
Or was it my joking around about a serious subject like owl shit?
88.
VidaLoca
Regarding Mary McCarthy, an article in the Chicago Trib here, and another in TPMCafe here; the latter by Larry Johnson who used to report to her and is not a fan.
All of you bitching about the Plame leak have been hoist on your own petards.
Stormy, let’s review here:
1. McCarthy, according to the Trib article above, admits being one of the sources of the leak to Priest. That puts her in line for criminal charges. She’ll have to be very fortunate not to end up in jail.
2. The chances of Bush or Cheney (who authorized the Plame leak) going to jail are in the real world slight. Libby’s chances of going to jail are slightly better; on the other hand McCarthy’s chances for getting a Presidential pardon are nil.
3. The Plame leak came about because the Bush administration sought to discredit the revelation that the claim that Iraq was developing atomic weapons was a fabrication. Rather than simply state this openly, and prove it, the Bush took the course of trying to discredit Wilson because full examination of the “bomb for Saddam” claim would discredit Bush.
4. Priest’s article came about in an attempt to expose the government’s secret rendition, torture, and indefinite imprisonment gulag which is being run in your name and mine.
5. The known side effect of the Plame leak was the end of Brewster-Jennings and whatever results it was having in gaining information on traffic in WMDs.
6. We don’t know the side effects of the Priest article. If its purpose was to force public discussion of the rendition and torture program by exposure of same, it succeeded. Whether it will have any broader effects is unknowable; to believe that it put an end to rendition and torture seems naive.
Why, it is almost like Fitzmas for the right […] I am seriously all a tingle.
After five and a half years of this, and another two and a half to go, is there nothing that Bushco can do that will make you question your loyalty to them?
No, really, flying unicorns trained to poke Osama in the ass. That’s great! I guess they must have wings to fly, although if they’re fast like missiles they’d only need those little wings sticking out the sides of their tails.
Now this must involve some kind of genetic engineering, although it wouldn’t necessarily be a human-animal hybrid.
I guess hybrids are the thing these days.
90.
srv
Did I uh … mention { polishes nails on sleeve } … that I drive one of these vehicles?
Are those nails in Shelby Red or Blue?
I’m not convinced about the hybrids, but I would go alt fuel (and pay a couple extra grand for it) IF I could get alt fuel within say 20 miles.
I just came home from a totally wonderful bronze casting workshop at Seattle’s Wooden Boats Center.
I had a great time. I got to pound sand, pour molten metal into molds, and use power tools. I made two boat doohickeys: an oarpin and a double-hook gadget that helps locks oars in place. Tomorrow I clean up the doohickeys and do more casting.
Hey Brian, when I bought the small, efficient car, I had to sign a waiver that detailed the terrible things that were about to happen to me.
First, drivers of Hummers and Ford F-350’s with Triton V8 motors would start aiming for me on the road, looking to crush my tiny machine under their enormous and powerful wheels, and rid the roads of these little pests.
Second, a roving band of insufferable fuckheads on the Internet would seek me out and subject me to every manner of scorn and ridicule, besmirching my family honor and calling me horrible names. Well, we know who the insufferable fuckheads are around here, and sure enough, you found me.
Anyway, I signed the waivers, and I also got a book of instructions on what to do when the fecal matter started hitting the air handler:
Show resolve. So, I say, “Bring it on!”
Give me your best shot. Today alone I have saved you and your offspring almost two liters of gasoline.
Tomorrow, I may go for more! Haha! In your face, Brian!
I’m no longer convinced Brian is real. I think he is a spoof — the South Park line doesn’t ring true nor does the one about the left getting to see how a real crime gets punished.
I see two possibilities: (1) Brian is truly stupid, a sub-80 IQ type or (2) Brian is a fairly clever (okay, quite quite clever) spoof. Given that Brian is able to type in complete sentences and makes few grammatical errors, I think (1) is unlikely. Hence, I’m forced to conclude that Brian is a spoof.
94.
easyliving
I’ve decided you little paranoid piss ants aren’t worth my time anymore. Your worldview is proven wrong every day, you’re just too blind to see it happening directly in front of you.
Brian — seriously, if you are a spoof, you’re the best I’ve seen. The fifteen year-old sexual humor, particularly, is truly inspired. I feel like you’ve created a real character out of nothing but ascii characters I’m impressed.
Reduce Brian’s carbon footprint, and make Balloon-Juice safe for righty-flesh-eating snark.
98.
srv
Hence, I’m forced to conclude that Brian is a spoof.
Note the 2-3 short para responses. Always the same.
Gee, that reminds me of someone…
you’re the best I’ve seen … is truly inspired
Mirror, mirror. Perhaps you can use the agonizer on him and find out.
99.
Loopy Doug
As noted the other night, here’s a snap of Mrs. ppGaz after a night of passion in the sack with the old man. And don’t forget to vote! She looks like a winner.
ppGaz, you wouldn’t even know the word “insufferable” if I hadn’t used it in a recent comment. I’ve expanded your vocabulary, and you can at least credit me when you use the word.
You really don’t think Brian is a great character? He’s so idiotic, yet consistenly so, I think he’s one of the best. Better than Darrell. I can imagine a real Brian, sitting on his couch in an upscale housing development in some nameless exurb, chortling at a rerun of friends, sucking down overpriced fumee blanc, ordering his steaks medium well. He’s a perfect vehicle for the genius of the underrated character actor Christopher McDonald — though he’s more likely the work of Perry Como or some such.
108.
Bruce Moomaw
It’s of interest that the articles on Ms. McCarthy quote the White House and the CIA as saying that her actual prosecution is “very unlikely”. Now, why do you suppose that could be, if she committed a serious crime against the Security of Our Country in the War Against the Terrorists? Could it conceivably be that the Administration doesn’t want any more publicity as to the precise nature of just WHAT she exposed? Surely not…
You really don’t think Brian is a great character?
I think he’s got all the personality of a NylaBone
111.
Bruce Moomaw
One additional note: Brian should keep in mind that Tim F. isn’t the only proprietor of this particular weblog who gets bloody furious at the idea that Uncle Sam is running a large network of torture chambers. John C. gets just as angry on the subject. I personally wouldn’t at all mind seeing Ms. McCarthy tried for her Dreadful Crime — provided the testimony got very widespread press coverage.
And as for her going to a Senate Intelligence Committee run by Sen. Roberts: please. For all we know, she tried that first; if she didn’t, it’s pretty obviously because she knew what would inevitably happen if she did.
This plan details “what terrorists or bad guys we would hit if the gloves came off. The gloves are not off,” said one official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.
From the current MSNBC lead story about Rumsfeld’s “New Plan” for the war on terror.
The gloves are not off. So help me, I just cut and pasted it, I didn’t make it up.
Uh, I don’t think Barry is putting anyone on the ash heap, unless it’s himself. The ‘Roid man got a popup to go out of Coors Field?
Wow. My mother can hit one out there.
117.
Steve
What happens when the “there are no illegal prisons” righties come up against the “it was a crime to leak the illegal prisons” righties? Will there be a matter-antimatter reaction? Or will they not even realize they are contradicting each other?
118.
Pb
Steve,
Seeing as how the GOP is the “big tent party”, maybe we can get them to compromise that it was a crime to leak that there are no illegal prisons, and then arrest the “there are no illegal prisons” righties.
“You’ve got to understand, we are ideologues,” Tom DeLay once told a journalist. “We have an agenda. We have a philosophy. I want to repeal the Clean Air Act. No one came to me and said, ‘Please repeal the Clean Air Act.’ We say to the lobbyists, ‘Help us.’ We know what we want to do and we find the people to help us do that. We go to the lobbyists and say, ‘Help us get this in the appropriations bill.”
It was a stunning admission. Lawmakers, DeLay was basically saying, relied on paid lobbyists to get bills passed, not the other way around. The federal government was so complex, the challenges of leadership so difficult, that lobbyists were more likely to get things done than the people’s representatives.
One of our historical ailments is Puritanism; the other is Isolationism. One exaggerates personal piety as a sign of spiritual integrity. The other makes us a world unto ourselves, the largest island in the world, unassaultable and unassailable, safe from intrusion and airily independent of the rest of the world with all its petty discontents, all its “entangling alliances.” We are, isolationanism implies, unique; we are impregnable.
Between the two of them, the U.S. teetered back and forth between the literalist’s definitions of biblical morality and the politician’s commitment to insularism or American disregard for the positions and problems of the rest of the world.
121.
Bruce Moomaw
National Review’s argument for the Electoral College is, I see, as totally insane as every other argument for it. It seems that getting rid of the Electoral College means that the bad Big States will pick on the poor Little States, by the dreadful process of not giving every citizen who is lucky enough to live in a little state more votes than one who lives in a big state — which means, of course, that rural Americans would no longer be allowed to have their votes count for more than the votes of Americans who live in cities, which of course is what National Review and Brian are frantic to maintain it so that Presidential elections will continue to be rigged in favor of the GOP.
So — and to a worse degree — is the Senate. Contrary to the drivel we frequently hear about how the Founders, out of their Vast Wisdom, deliberately set up the Senate up in its current form to protect the Little States from the Big Bully States, Madison and Hamilton were both bloody furious about the arrangement. As Robert Dahl — probably America’s most generally acclaimed political scientist (and not just by liberals) — points out in his 2002 book “How Democratic Is The American Constitution?”, Hamilton delivered a fiery speech agatinst that setup at the Constitutional Convention; and Madison, in the one Federalist Paper on the subject (#62, Section 3), ridicules the “peculiar” Big Bully State theory and ends up sighing that this was the only kind of Constitution that the small states would allow us to get and that a seriously flawed Constitution is better than none. (“The only option…lies between the proposed government and a government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of prudence must be to embrace the lesser evil…”). And, as Dahl points out, the small states — led by Delaware’s Gunning Bedford — got their way at the Convention by openly threatening to ally with one of the European powers in a treasonous war against the US unless the Constitution was set up to give them extra clout. The bizarre Electoral College is just another remnant of the same rigged system. (If you doubt me, ask Grover Norquist about it. In his June 9, 2003 op-ed in the Washington Post, he gleefully refers to the way “the Founding Fathers gerrymandered the Senate for Republican control”, and provides details.)
Last but hardly least, we heard exactly the same piercing squeals from the Republican Right in the early 1960s when the US`Supreme Court ended the use of the same system in individual State Senates, where we had the grotesque situation of individual counties with a few thousand people having as much voting clout as whole cities. Try proposing bringing back THAT system now and see how far it gets you politically, Brian. (And if you’re going to threaten a civil war, keep in mind that the states underrepresented in the Senate and the Electoral College currently contain 72% of this country’s people.)
122.
Loopy Doug
Here’s a recent snap of my cousin, DougJ. He’s the bashful sort…thus only the backside shot was available.
123.
Slide.
hmmmmm…. apparently Osama bin Laden is not dead as Stormy and bucketboy have tried to convince us for a while now. Is anyone surprised that the duo of dumb was, yet once again, WRONG? At least they are consistant. If only the bush loving toadies wishful thinking were reality heh?
124.
Stormy70
Is this another audio tape spouting the left’s latest talking points? Where’s his face on video holding up today’s newspaper? This guy loved to be filmed sitting around and bitching about the Great Satan. Dude is still dead.
Where’s his face on video holding up today’s newspaper?
He can hold up a newspaper with his face?
126.
Slide.
isn’t it a little early to be hitting the bottle, even for you stormy?
127.
Brian
Bruce,
If you want to get rid of the Electoral College, do so through an amendment to the Constitution. But that hurdle is too high for Democrats, so they have to resort to extra-legal methods to get what they want, by circumventing popular opinion and vote. You do it with the courts, and you are doing it here (make no mistake, the peo[le behind this effort are Democrats through-and-through).
If you believe in getting rid of the Electoral College, and it’s such a wonderful idea, then get amend the Constitution. The fact that this is not happening reveals the partisan pupose behind the effort.
128.
Brian
I saw the story about bin Ladin’s…..er, sorry, the DNC’s… new tape.
I love how OBL says he’ll never be taken alive, and that “I have sworn to only live free”.
You guys have your way, and you’ll have the kind of “freedoms” that OBL has, hiding out and communicating with the outside world with video/audiotapes with poor production values. He’s as free as Charles Manson.
Speaking of criminals, or simple boobs, I am depressed today to see the Dem’s lamest talking heads, Kerry and Teddy Kennedy, on the political shows this morning. These guys have no ideas, and they’re certainly representative of the rest of your party.
Speaking of criminals, or simple boobs, I am depressed today to see the Dem’s lamest talking heads, Kerry and Teddy Kennedy, on the political shows this morning. These guys have no ideas, and they’re certainly representative of the rest of your party.
Sounds too much like a spoof. You started well with this post, but you fell off the tracks. I’ve got great hopes for you, especially now that easyliving is gone. You’re phoning it in with “representative of the rest of your party.” Why not throw in a reference to Ted’s heavy drinking instead? That’s more what a real live wingnut would do.
I know who you really are, Brian. And I think you can really pull this off. But you’ve got to try harder.
Brian’s treatise on the great ideas that George Bush will advance this year is eagerly awaited.
I understand he’s already negotiating a book deal for the paper …. some publisher is offering him money not to submit it.
“GW Bush Builds America’s Bridge to the 14th Century” is the working title.
135.
Richard Bottoms
Are people from the South just fucking stupid or what?
COLUMBIA — Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys.
But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states.
The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize sex toys from raided businesses.
1) Cheney’s popularity right now is what, 19 percent? Less? If Bush replaced Cheney right now with a dead chicken, that dead chicken would be polling 50 percent popularity from day one.
2) Why are oil executives making millions of dollars as their companies rake in billions in profits as the price at the pump goes way over $3 per gallon? At some point, can’t these companies swallow just a portion of those profits to try and lower the cost of gas? I mean, *where do those profits go anyway*?
And as those gas costs go up, travel will drop, tourism will take a hit, the costs of transporting things like food, clothing and other consumer items will go up and will transfer to the costs of purchasing said items, etc. Care for massive inflation across the board, folks?
3) When are the Republicans going to notice that the reason their polling numbers are tanking (33 percent and dropping for GOP Congress, 33 percent and dropping for Bush WH) isn’t because people aren’t buying their spin but because of actual poor job performance and evidence of widespread corruption?
137.
VidaLoca
Stormy,
Why, it is almost like Fitzmas for the right […] I am seriously all a tingle.
Oh, I am too! I’ll see your Mary McCarthy — and raise you a Condoleeza Rice!
If Bush replaced Cheney right now with a dead chicken, that dead chicken would be polling 50 percent
You’re probably right. If it were a dead quail, it might go to 60 percent.
139.
VidaLoca
Interesting juxtaposition — sometimes you have to go to a foreign newspaper to find out what’s going on in Washington DC: “Dump Cheney for Condi, Bush urged”
A couple of money quotes:
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard magazine and author of Rebel in Chief, a sympathetic new biography of Bush, said: “There are going to have to be sweeping personnel changes if people are going to take a second look at the Bush presidency.”
Barnes, who is close to the White House, said he believed Cheney would be willing to stand down in order to help Bush. “It’s unlike Bush to dump somebody whom he likes and respects,” he cautioned. “But the president needs to do something shocking and dramatic such as putting in Condoleezza Rice.”
“If the Democrats win either the House of Representatives or the Senate it will be death and torment. It will be horrible for Bush,” said Barnes. A Democrat win could lead to moves to impeach Bush for leading the country to war on allegedly false pretences, or at the very least, to bog down the president’s legislative programme until he leaves office in 2008.
A Democrat win could lead to moves to impeach Bush for leading the country to war on allegedly false pretences, or at the very least, to bog down the president’s legislative programme until he leaves office in 2008.
The GOP slogan? “Vote for us because we won’t impeach this crappy president.”
Now that’s a winning idea. It will go down with “See the USA in your Chevrolet” and “Good to the Last Drop.”
141.
demimondian
Geek mentions that
we don’t trust the Republican party to wiretap people without warrants.
You’re right. But, you know waht, G.Q.? I don’t trust the Democrats to wiretap without warrants, either.
I know, I know — I hate America.
142.
Bruce Moomaw
Brian: “If you want to get rid of the Electoral College, do so through an amendment to the Constitution. But that hurdle is too high for Democrats, so they have to resort to extra-legal methods to get what they want, by circumventing popular opinion and vote. You do it with the courts, and you are doing it here (make no mistake, the people behind this effort are Democrats through-and-through).
“If you believe in getting rid of the Electoral College, and it’s such a wonderful idea, then amend the Constitution. The fact that this is not happening reveals the partisan pupose behind the effort.”
Is this man taking Stupid Pills? An amendment for that purpose will, of course, never be ratified DESPITE the fact that there is already 2-to-1 national support for it in every poll ever taken on the subject, because the small states also bullied the Constitutional Convention into requiring that any amendment, to be ratified, must be approved by 3/4 of the states — which means that the smallest 1/4 of the states (comprising as little as 7% of the nation’s population) can and will block the overwhelming landslide desire of the American people for honestly small-“d” democratic elections. As for the new procedure being “extra-legal”: there’s nothing illegal about it. It is perfectly constitutional, which is precisely why it’s setting off a panic from the people (such as Grover Norquist, National Review and, apparently, Brian) who are frantic to keep this nation’s elections rigged in a pro-GOP direction. Nor is it “undemocratic”, since it would take effect only if states representing a majority of the American people approved it — and since it would in no way rig presidential elections in favor of the Democrats. Try using that thing between your shoulders, Brian. That’s what it’s there for.
143.
Perry Como
Try using that thing between your shoulders, Brian. That’s what it’s there for.
While we’re on the subject of “extra-legality”, by the way: one may note that, when Clinton started making recess appointments to circumvent the fact that GOP Congressional chairmen were blocking their committees from being allowed to vote on his nominees, George Will started screaming that Clinton’s actions were “unconstitutional” — despite the fact that every legal scholar agreed that the Constitution allowed him to do just that, which is why the GOP never tried to mount any actual legal challenge against his actions. Since Bush has started doing the same thing to circumvent Democratic filibusters, there hasn’t been a single peep from Will on the subject. Interesting.
Is this another audio tape spouting the left’s latest talking points?
Give in to your hate . . .
151.
Loopy Doug
Ode to Paul Wartenburg and ppGaz:
A spammer who spammed on the net
was as bad as a spammer could get
He spammed every group
With insidious poop,
Even thee and Hussein and the Pope, yet!
152.
Bruce Moomaw
PPGaz: “George Will is a total Republican whore.”
He didn’t used to be — in fact, that’s how he launched his career as a Major Pundit, and how I started out admiring him. He became a young rookie writer for National Review in 1973 — and immediately devoted almost every column to declaring, from the very start of the Watergate scandal’s unfolding, that the evidence was overwhelming that Nixon himself was involved in it and that he should be removed from office for it. National Review’s readers did not forgive him for that, even after he was proved right; and so shortly after Nixon was fired NR fired Will — but by then he had established his mark as an interesting maverick and was instantly picked up by Newsweek.
Even during the Reagan Era — at the start of which he soiled his name by secretly coaching Reagan for his TV debate with Carter and then keeping the incident hidden until it was exposed three years later — he did a surprising amount of pointed and acid criticism of Reagan, largely on deficit issues. But in the early 1990s something happened, and he seemed — at least in my view — to swerve suddenly and distinctly further Right and turn into a dishonorable GOP toady most of the time. It just might have something to do with the fact that in 1992 he married Bob Dole’s campaign director. Anyway, it happened, and when you read him now it’s wise to keep your back to the wall.
153.
Bruce Moomaw
Loopy Doug, your meter fell off, and you aren’t a taxicab.
154.
Bruce Moomaw
As for me, if I was a whore of any variety, I’d have serious trouble making ends meet.
By the way, regarding Bin Laden’s latest tape: for quite some time after Rumsfeld and Franks unforgivably bungled the Tora Bora assault I thought he was dead, because all the audio tapes purporting to be from him referred only to incidents that had happened before then. Just before the 2004 election, of course, that tape supposedly from him was released referring to recent events, and so I no longer think he’s dead — but I DO think he’s a bedridden cripple because of his kidney disease (which is why the only video of him released since Tora Bora could have been taken at any time), and that al-Zawahiri is running the show. Unfortunately, that’s not good news, since Dr. Death was always the brains of the operation anyway.
Notice, also, that in his latest tape Sweet Old Bin (I tend to think of him by the initials) fervently defends the right of the Sudanese government, as Faithful Moslems, to massacre as many of the the people of Darfur as they want, just as he used to defend the right of Indonesians to do the same to East Timoreans. At least the man is consistent… If the Bush Administration has any brains (that is, if the sky suddenly turns green), they’ll use those statements of his for all they’re worth. If the bastard really wants a worldwide religious war, let’s rally ALL the world’s non-Moslems against him.
155.
demimondian
let them get amend the Consitution.
The question, is our Constitutions leaning?
156.
Slide
Pretty devastating piece on 60 Minutes tonight. Totally debunked the myths propagated by the likes of MacBuckets and others regarding the Niger/Uranium lies of the Bush administration. It is clear that the overwhelming prepodnerance of intelligence analysis was that the whole uranium from Niger story was bogus, totally bogus. And this was well before the SOTU speech. Liars. This group of criminals that currently occupy the White House are degenerate liars and they lied about the most important thing there could be to lie about – (no, not a consentual sexual act between adults) but about the justification for war.
But, rest assured, the Kool Aid drinking MacBuckets of the world will argue otherwise, quoting sentences from the Butler report or some Republican led rubber stamp committee but most people living in the reality based world know better by now, or should.
Anyone want to start a betting pool as to when Bush’s approval is in the 20’s? anybody? Stormy? Darrell? Bucket boy? whats your best guess? I say just aroud Memorial Day when gas prices hit the $4.00 a gallon mark, that should be about right.
157.
Brian
An amendment for that purpose will, of course, never be ratified DESPITE the fact that there is already 2-to-1 national support for it in every poll ever taken on the subject, because the small states also bullied the Constitutional Convention into requiring that any amendment, to be ratified, must be approved by 3/4 of the states—which means that the smallest 1/4 of the states (comprising as little as 7% of the nation’s population) can and will block the overwhelming landslide desire of the American people for honestly small-”d” democratic elections.
So, Bruce, if I understand you correctly, you belive that the process of amending the Constitution is a bother, a technicality that has outlived its purpose and is slanted in favor of low-population states? Is that it?
The Electoral College, if changed to the way being proposed, requires a process of amending the Constitution if it’s to be accepted by Americans as a mechanism for electing the President. You don’t like this process, so you’re in favor of circumventing it. That is not a recipe for successful elections, and if a president were elected through this new mechanism, Americans on the losing side of the election would be much more pissed than an outcome of the E.C., because even if people don’t like the E.C., in the end it’s part of our system. If you don’t like this, then tough.
If you can’t defend an end-run around the Constitution (a document so many here praise to no end, yet can’t support in principle), then maybe you’re the one with a bubble of “balloon juice” between his ears.
An indication of your weak argument is the fact that you have to resort to insulting me immediately upon my challenge to your wisdom. Within days, you’ll be sounding like the Balloon Juice village idiot: ppGaz.
158.
Slide
Oh, and how is Bush doing on his supposed strong suit, fighting terrorism? These are devastating numbers from Rasmussen a very GOP friendly polling organization:
April 22, 2005–Just 39% of Americans now believe the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror. That’s down from 41% in March and matches the low level of confidence found in late February.
Thirty-two percent (32%) of Americans believe the terrorists are winning, down from 35% a month ago.
Also down is confidence in President Bush on the situation in Iraq. Just 32% now say he is doing a good or excellent job on that front. A month ago, 35% had that level of confidence in him.
Forty-nine percent (49%) now believe the situation in Iraq will be seen as a failure in the long run. Just 36% believe it will be seen as a success.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of Americans believe the U.S. is safer today than it was before 9/11. Forty-six percent (46%) disagree
Attacking ppgaz is always a good move for a spoof, Brian. That last comment was too long for maximum effect. The long commnent bores people and it dilutes your impact. But it does make you seem more “real” so maybe it’s not a bad idea.
Had a great time over at PW today. You can actually post under the same name as the regulars there and say crazy stuff; no one notices. I just agreed with someone who proposed that we turn Mary McCarthy over to the terrorists to be beheaded. No one blinked. I think actus may have taken issue with the beheading of CIA officials and been roundly mocked by the wingnuts. What a great site.
161.
Pb
I’m taking a nuanced position on this Osama thing–he was dead, but he was raised from the dead just in time for the mid-term elections! Also, they had to edit that tape a lot so you wouldn’t hear his real message–BRRRRAAAAIIIINNNNSSS!!!!
The Electoral College, if changed to the way being proposed, requires a process of amending the Constitution if it’s to be accepted by Americans as a mechanism for electing the President. You don’t like this process, so you’re in favor of circumventing it. That is not a recipe for successful elections, and if a president were elected through this new mechanism, Americans on the losing side of the election would be much more pissed than an outcome of the E.C., because even if people don’t like the E.C., in the end it’s part of our system. If you don’t like this, then tough.
Next to the time somebody at Darrell’s work switched some keycaps around on his keyboard, that is the worst-written argument I’ve ever seen here.
163.
Pb
Brian,
they have to resort to extra-legal methods to get what they want, by circumventing popular opinion and vote
Actually this is precisely the opposite; circumventing popular opinion and vote is what happens when you leave an election up to the Supreme Court instead of listening to the people.
Bonus Idiocy–States’ rights: now 100% more extra-legal!
To hell with Amending the constitution for the electoral college. What we need to do is expand the size of the House of Representatives.
Instead of one for every 500,000 or so, we make it one for every 150,000 people. Solves so many problems, and brings it back in line with what the Founders intended.
No need for an amendment, it’s a simple Act of Congress.
And think of the Job’s Creation program we’d have for expanding the Capitol buildings.
165.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Now *that’s* an idea. Of course they’d have to get more creative with the gerrymandering. :)
166.
Bruce Moomaw
Brian: “So, Bruce, if I understand you correctly, you believe that the process of amending the Constitution is a bother, a technicality that has outlived its purpose and is slanted in favor of low-population states? Is that it?”
Why, yes, in its current form. Madison and Hamilton were infuriated by the fact that the Constitution was seriously rigged from the start in favor of the low-population states — but, as they said, the small states were in a position to blackmail the rest of the nation into accepting such a seriously flawed Constitution (through their explicit threats of alliances with European powers to destroy the US, which were correctly called “treasonous” by other delegates during the debates over the Constitution. See Dahl’s book for the quotes.) The Constitution was seriously deformed from its very start by that fact, just as it was seriously deformed from its very start by the existence of slavery — another little item which could never have been abolished by Constitutional amendment. In the case of the Electoral College, however — though not, alas, in the case of the grotesque misapportionment of the Senate — we have a chance to get rid of another severe anti-democratic deformity that has existed in the US Constitution from its very start using entirely peaceful and legal means.
“if a president were elected through this new mechanism, Americans on the losing side of the election would be much more pissed than an outcome of the E.C., because even if people don’t like the E.C., in the end it’s part of our system. If you don’t like this, then tough.”
Please, Brian. It’s “part of our system” only because ( as with slavery, which of course was also “part of our system” and could never have been abolished by amendment) anti-democratic forces FORCED us to accept it as part of our system at the nation’s start. Unlike slavery, however, we have a chance to get rid of that other severe anti-democratic deformity, the Electoral College — though not, alas, the other deformity of the Senate’s very serious misapportionment — using entirely peaceful means. if you don’t like this, then tough. And, lest we forget, the Ameicans who were “on the losing side of the election” would be on the losing side only if their candidate happened to actually get fewer votes than the other candidate. Dreadful, isn’t it?
As for my “insulting” you: stating the truth about someone may be unpleasant for them, but is hardly a cheap shot. You have just shown still more solid evidence that — to put it bluntly but accurately — you’re an idiot.
167.
Bruce Moomaw
Back to Mary McCarthy: I see that Mark Kleiman is now pointing out the same glaringly obvious point I mentioned up near the beginning of this thread:
“When Dana Priest of the Washington Post broke the story about secret prisons in Eastern Europe to which suspected terrorists were ‘disappeared’ so they could be interrogated without the nosies from the Red Cross knowing about it and without any risk of having questions asked about torture in American courts, BushCo and its collaborators and useful idiots in the right-wing media and Red Blogistan were up in arms.
“Didn’t we know, they said, there’s a war on? Wasn’t it obvious, they argued, that revealing this information, on top of what had already come out about Abu Ghraib, would help inflame anti-American sentiments and cost soldiers’ lives? And could anyone but a liberal doubt that secret interrogation sites were ‘vital to national security’? (Of course the leak was said to prove how wrong it was to be concerned about whether the White House had decided to burn a CIA NOC, but then more or less everything is said to prove that.)
“Now that the leaker of the information has been unmasked and fired, the same folks are gleeful about the fact that she turns out to have been a Democrat. And they’re out for blood: Why, they demand, was she fired rather than being prosecuted? (Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds. If Glenn disagrees, he doesn’t say so.)
“Duhhhhh… wait, don’t tell me … ummmm …. because she’d assert a ‘public interest’ defense, which would mean putting the story back on the front pages for weeks, and risk having the facts about what’s been going on in those dungeons revealed in open court? Just a guess.
“Anyway, she’d probably get off. I’d be surprised if even this Supreme Court would hold as a matter of law that revealing criminal activity is a crime if the activity in question is labeled ‘classified.’ “
Had a great time over at PW today. You can actually post under the same name as the regulars there and say crazy stuff; no one notices. I just agreed with someone who proposed that we turn Mary McCarthy over to the terrorists to be beheaded. No one blinked. I think actus may have taken issue with the beheading of CIA officials and been roundly mocked by the wingnuts. What a great site.
I think PW is screwier than LGF sometimes. Man, I remember back in my wingnut days harassing actus over at the Anti- Idiotarian Rottweiler. He’s tenacious, I’ll give him that.
As for your beheading comment, why would they blink? They already want her for treason as part of a Clinton cabal to further their Agenda.
Hey, has anyone seen this mysterious Agenda? They always say that but I never quite figured out what it is.
169.
Steve
I’d be surprised if even this Supreme Court would hold as a matter of law that revealing criminal activity is a crime if the activity in question is labeled ‘classified.’
Indeed, I believe that the executive order which governs classification plainly states that it is forbidden to classify information in order to conceal a crime.
170.
Steve
In other news, do you guys think “Loopy Doug” sounds a LOT like Par R?
171.
Krista
Steve; the links to the photos are quite creative. It’s a nice touch. I think you’re very possibly right, however.
172.
Brian
we have a chance to get rid of another severe anti-democratic deformity that has existed in the US Constitution from its very start using entirely peaceful and legal means
It wpn’t be peaceful, I can guarantee you that. And your example of slavery as being part of our system ignores the fact that this practice was abolished forver with an amendment to the Constitution.
Your pretzel logic in an effort to avoid the obvious, that you believe in circumventing “our system” to make legal through extra-legal means this pet cause of Democrats demonstrates 1( that you are not armd with the intelligence to debate this honestly (or, in your juvenile-speak, an “idiot”), and 2) the Dem’s have given up hope of ever winning an election legally and by the will of the people.
The 2000 election was won legally, like it or not. And in 2005, Bush won more clearly. This simply pisses you off to no end, and is the real motivator behind this E.C. measure. You’ve given up all hope of winning the presidency again, unless you can rig the system, which demonstrates a form of dementia.
173.
Pb
Brian,
You insist upon referring to legal state actions as “extra-legal” even when confronted with the facts, which demonstrates a form of dementia.
The 2000 election was won legally, like it or not. And in 2005, Bush won more clearly. This simply pisses you off to no end, and is the real motivator behind this E.C. measure. You’ve given up all hope of winning the presidency again, unless you can rig the system, which demonstrates a form of dementia.
So you’re saying Democrats should make sure that they nomination real fruitloops to the Supreme Court so that when 2000 occurs again, they’ll work in our favor to stop any recounts which may possibly determine the legitimate winner of the election.
That’s a good idea. I hope people are taking notes.
176.
Tulkinghorn
Brian,
The 13th and 14th amendments were passed during reconstruction, you godforsaken idiot. If Jim Crow had been established sooner then the 13th and 14th amendments would not exist.
As for the 2004 election, how does the popular vote mean nothing for Gore, yet validate Bush after the fact? Try for some standard other than expediancy.
Wait a minute… back to OCSteve’s fruitloop argument.
No Proof of Secret C.I.A. Prisons, European Antiterror Chief Says
Speculation around today that possibly the whole thing was a red rabbit op.
You’re seriously claiming that the US was pretending to have secret prisons, while at the same time protecting their secrecy by not disclosing them? All as part of a massive conspiracy to confuse everybody?
Whoa, put down the crackpipe dude. I can buy that there maybe were no prisons, and someone simply got confused and misread the tea leaves. Although I’m doubting that, considering the Administration got all defensive when they were leaked.
The NYTimes is a shill for the Bush Administration, so I wouldn’t trust that article further than I could throw an elephant.
178.
Tulkinghorn
Hey, has anyone seen this mysterious Agenda?
We’re going to be reviewing it at next Tuesday’s meeting.
Crap! that conflicts with my gay agenda/destruction of the family agenda meeting. Will someone supply me with the notes? I can pick them up at the environmentalist/destruction of the economy agenda meeting on Friday.
So much evildoing, so little time…
179.
tBone
Hey, has anyone seen this mysterious Agenda?
We’re going to be reviewing it at next Tuesday’s meeting.
The first rule of the Leftwing Agenda is you don’t talk about the Leftwing Agenda.
The second rule of the Leftwing Agenda is YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT THE LEFTWING AGENDA.
As punishment, you two are cut off from the pastry tray at Tuesday’s meeting.
Interesting discussion of the CIA leaker, over at TMPCafe
Apparently the woman in question worked for the Inspector Generals office. The guy(who used to work for her), says that she was never on the Ops side, but was an analyst. That she found out about this prison thing is most likely because someone else brought it up to the IG in a complaint… Speculation is she might have gone public with it because an investigation was stonewalled.
183.
Zifnab
The 2000 election was won legally, like it or not. And in 2005, Bush won more clearly. This simply pisses you off to no end, and is the real motivator behind this E.C. measure. You’ve given up all hope of winning the presidency again, unless you can rig the system, which demonstrates a form of dementia.
I don’t know what state you live in, Brian, but here in Texas, with 34 electoral votes on the line, its a bit disparaging to note that no matter how hard I hit the “Kerry” or “Gore” button on my ballot, I was still offically voting for Bush. Perhaps, if you were living in California, you were perfectly content to be counted as a Kerry supporter in ’04. Or in Florida, you were happily voting for Buchanan and thus not really voting at all – after all if he doesn’t win the state he doesn’t even register as a blip on the Presidental horse-race.
The E.C. system, second only to the 3/5ths clause, is the biggest piss stain on the Constitution our Founding Fathers left us. Republicans and Democrats have played the system mercilessly – Democrats running on ‘Battleground State’ strategies and abandoning massive chunks of their constituency while Republicans rig elections with Katherine Harris style voter fraud and Diebold rigged machines designed to steal swing state elections.
When the last two Presidential elections end in massive outcries of voter fraud or dirty political tricks, you have to admit the system is broken and needs to be overhauled. Of course, I can’t really support a Republican Congress, Presidency, and Judiciary to fix it – they’re probably try gerrymandering parts of Utah into California by the time they were done – but it would be good to see election reform as a top priority on the Democratic agenda.
184.
DougJ
What’s your problem with the 3/5ths clause, Zifnab? Why you hate America?
We can cuss and discuss the sorry history of the electoral college system all day … and, let’s, because it’s a good instrument for continuing to expose the vapid and useless thinking of Brian …. but anyway, we can, and should, and especially focus on the grotesque morphing of the EC “system” from its inception to the present day.
But when it’s all said and done … one has to say, there is only one fair and responsible way to elect a president in the 21st century, and whatever you think of the EC, it is not the way devised by the Founders. It is by majority of the national popular vote. Period.
If proponents of EC want to cling to their “little states” model for portioning out power, then let them also get stuck with the “little, relatively powerless president” model that the Founders had in mind when they invented the office. They never envisioned a macabre “most powerful man in the world” scheme, but if they did, they would never have arranged an EC circus to elect one.
“The most powerful man in the world” should be elected by a simple, direct, fair and responsible mechanism of democracy. Otherwise, why have one at all? Why not just a king, arranged for by the powerazzi and the pols? Which is, in case you haven’t noticed, exactly what the neocons and the Busheocons want to have.
186.
Krista
We’re going to be reviewing it at next Tuesday’s meeting.
I’ll be bringing the sacrificial virgins, some Bibles to burn, and a cheese tray.
A French cheese tray.
187.
David
Everybody does know that the Constitution allows the states to allocate their electors however they want, right? Hell, the Electoral College as we know it now is a 19th-century invention – it was originally supposed to be a small group of people who decide, using their own judgment, who to vote for for president.All this stuff about state-by-state elections determining who gets the votes isn’t in the Constitution either. Damn undemocratic Jacksonites, changing the system without amending the Constitution. Why did they hate America?
The 2000 election was won legally, like it or not.
Actually, no. A subsequent recount of the state showed that Gore won Florda. And that was without including all the African Americans who were not allowed to vote because they were included on Jeb Bush’s felons list.
The people whining(and yes the word is whining) about the Electoral College and how unfair it is for whatever fucking reason… ARE CHASING THEIR TAILS.
2000 proved that your ONE VOTE IS IMPORTANT. It is vitally important. The Republicans understand this strategy, which is why they have been working desperately to KEEP YOU FROM VOTING! Yes, YOU. They don’t want YOU to vote, because you are not reliably Republican enough for them.
How do they do that? There’s no nefarious conspiracy, it’s all out in the open. They do it by TURNING YOU OFF FROM POLITICS. They want to sow FEAR, UNCERTAINTY AND DOUBT. Get you to not trust the Government, place no value in the Democratic institutions we have. Get YOU to stay home on tuesday and register your disgust at the process.
Modifying or changing the Electoral College does nothing.
Going back to my increase the number of representatives… I need to run some more models, but in looking at the 2004 election one thing I noticed was interesting. When I set a target of one Rep for every 150,000 people and aligned electoral votes based on that… when calculating out the Kerry/Bush results, the totals for Electoral College matched popular vote in terms of percentages, whereas with the old system the EC percentages were distorted.
Stop whining… start thinking.
Again, increasing the size of Congress is nothing more than an Act of Congress. It was last fixed in size back in the 1911. Nearly 100 years, and no change.
And another thing! Quit fucking whining about Bush trying to rig things with Diebold.
STAND UP! Get DIEBOLD out of the VOTING SYSTEM!
All of these decisions are handled LOCALLY.
I was appalled in 2004 by what happened in Ohio and elsewhere. Not having enough polling places, or voting machines, etc. These are COUNTY issues. I mean come on people. You don’t need to wait for anybody at the national level to do anything, you can fix it now… today.
192.
Pb
David,
Everybody does know that the Constitution allows the states to allocate their electors however they want, right?
It seems that everybody does know this, except for Brian.
All of these decisions are handled LOCALLY.
I was appalled in 2004 by what happened in Ohio and elsewhere. Not having enough polling places, or voting machines, etc. These are COUNTY issues.
Yes, except when they’re decided at the state level by a partisan Secretary of State, working under the law at the federal level that encourages the adoption of said voting machines. I agree that counties should do what they can locally about this, but don’t lose sight of what happened, and how it happened–it is not just a county issue.
Yes, except when they’re decided at the state level by a partisan Secretary of State, working under the law at the federal level that encourages the adoption of said voting machines.
I’m not saying the partisan Secretary of State isn’t a problem.
What I’m saying is that you get no where by whining and claiming there is no reason to show up to vote because your vote won’t be counted anyway. It’s self-defeating.
It’s like it’s fun for them to complain endlessly and not have a chance of changing anything.
I hate to be a spoilsport, but I think the change process begins with complaining.
Take for example, the complaint “Bloody British!”
And so forth.
198.
Brian
Actually, no. A subsequent recount of the state showed that Gore won Florda. And that was without including all the African Americans who were not allowed to vote because they were included on Jeb Bush’s felons list.
What unadulterated, regurgitated bullshit. You are kidding yourself about recounts going Gore’s way.
Nevertheless, it was legally won. The Supreme Court and the Electoral College, both legal insitutions last I checked, settled the issue. If you have a problem with that, as I say, TOUGH SHIT.
Nevertheless, it was legally won. The Supreme Court and the Electoral College, both legal insitutions last I checked, settled the issue. If you have a problem with that, as I say, TOUGH SHIT.
What’s amazing to me is the 8 years I had to sit listening to Republicans whine about how Clinton never properly won.
In Clinton’s case there was no question. He clearly had the most votes. Yet that never stopped the Republiwhiners.
Zifnab
There is a certified underfunding of pie in this country. For a nation born and raised on the fruit based pastery, I don’t see nearly enough of it, and this shakes me to my core.
I am a humble man, but I am a patriot, and I demand a rich assortments of delicious pies from sea to shining sea. Because, god damnit, this is America.
capelza
Hands Zifnad some freah Key Lime Pie…with homemade crushed coconut cookie crust.
I’m a “I like Pie” Democrat!
Krista
Why do I only find things I like at the stores when I have no money to spend? Why, dammit?
Richard Bottoms
Tell me again how the Deomocrats are doomed unless they come up with an “agenda”. How about we’ll make sure oil executives don’t get $400,000,000 bonuses while you pay $4 a gallon at the pump.
Brian
Have you seen some new Manolo’s, Krista?
This has been an interesting story here in L.A. this week. A popular blogger who keeps a close eye on the LA Times caught one of their columnists, who also runs a LAT-sponsored blog called Golden State, red-handed using sock puppet identities on his blog to lend support to his own posts on that blog. The LAT suspended the blog, and one of the columnist’s colleagues supported him in the paper today. The linked story here talks about today’s article, but if you go to the home page and scroll down, you can read the history of the issue.
Curious what commenters think, but also what Tim/John think about it, as blog patrons themselves.
Brian
Because you can’t count on protest votes as a winning strategy.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
I should’ve put butter on my bagel instead of cream cheese.
D. Mason
Why is Congress considering destroying the internet?
Richard Bottoms
>Because you can’t count on protest votes as a winning >strategy.
Ross Perot is a protest vote. Pulling the D lever instead of the R lever is change.
We are going to kick their asses in Novemeber becaue gas is headed towards $4 a gallon, 2400+ soliders wil have died in Iraq with no end in sight, and Republicans are headed off to jail in increasing numbers (along with their wives maybe).
I think running out the clock is a fine strategy. Espcially when the other team has fucked up this badly.
When even Fox polls the smirking chimp at %33 I’d say things are not looking good.
Mission Accomplished.
Brian
I can understand why Tim wouldn’t want to mention this, but it is a big story, especially given the politics of Ms. McCarthy. If nothing else, it shows how politicized the CIA has become, and that they will resort to these tactics to undermine an acting administration.
I am looking forward to the rationalizations for her actions that emerge from the Left in the coming days.
Brian
So what? Blame Bush?
I hope it gradually goes higher. How else will Americans get a grip on the oil problem and seek an alternative? Is the president’s job, regardless of party, to give you cheap gas? You’re an an entitlement pimp.
DougJ
Bri, Bri — a crusty old conservative like you should have a little more respect for the proper use of apostrophes. “Manolo’s” is the possessive form of Manolo; “Manolos” is the plural.
D. Mason
No, it’s not. But it might be nice if he wasn’t carrying out wars of pleasure, thereby driving up the price(artificially I might add) to the benefit of *shock and surprise* his buddies.
OCSteve
Noble whistleblower of course. Forget that the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 spells out how you go about it (talk to your agency IG, if that does not bring satisfaction you appeal to the Congressional Intelligence Committee) – the basis of that act is that the secret, uhm, stays secret. Leaking to the newspaper is not on the list.
When employees of these agencies believe that they know what is best, that the policies of the elected officials are wrong and they have some calling to right that wrong – they seriously cross a line.
Most people who betray their country (to a foreign power) also do it for ideological reasons, not for money.
Thomas
Here’s my rationalization Brian: I have no problem with undermining governments that run secret prisons full of prisoners who are treated as if they are outside the bounds of any law, leaving them open for torture and detainment without trial.
What’s yours?
Laura
Kings over Spurs in 7. A girl can dream, can’t she?
ppGaz
It’s the Bush Administration that is betraying this country. Not some CIA agent who is exposing them.
This statement has no effect on the legality of her action. But it has full effect on the legitimacy of her action. If it is necessary to break the law in order to stop others from betraying the country, then persons who do that are heroes AFAIC.
When a government forces its best citizens to choose between obeying the law and saving the country from betrayal, then that government has failed its citizens and needs to be replaced.
Thomas
And wow, OCSteve goes all the way:
What a charming philosophy. The State of Hacks says jump, you jump.
DougJ
I’ve never met anyone from the OC who wasn’t a complete moron.
Thomas
Weirdly, these guys still believe that the right is still guarding America in the name of classic liberalism, individuality, and liberty.
OCSteve
Really secret prisons I guess – because officials in the alleged countries can’t even find them.
No Proof of Secret C.I.A. Prisons, European Antiterror Chief Says
Speculation around today that possibly the whole thing was a red rabbit op. Not sure I buy that due to the damage it did to relations, but possible I guess.
Mr Furious
Nicely done, ppGaz and Thomas. Pretty much exactly what I was going to say.
OCSteve
No, you follow the provisions of the act put in place of just such an occasion. If it comes out that she went to the Congressional Intelligence Committee and they blew her off, then I would reconsider.
Mr Furious
Oh. I want more pie too.
I grew up an apple pie man, but my wife has replaced that with the greatest possible pie known to man—strawberry, blueberry, rhubarb….
[drool]
Throw a scoop of vanilla ice cream on there…wow.
I’ll be having it in three weeks for my birthday. Yum.
Eural
Got to say I agree and I find those on the right who demand “justice” for these agents must address two questions:
1) Why do you support the existence and use of such a prison network which just a few short years ago was one of the hallmarks of the “evil empire” you’re beloved Reagan was so determined to defeat?
2) If they do just what they are told even in the face of unethical/unconstitutional/illegal activities how does that differ from the numerous Nazis that we put on trial (and found guilty) when they used the “just following orders” defense?
I’m proud we have many Americans (in many places apparently) who are not willing to be tools in the slavish imitation of the USSR and Nazi Germany. I am ashamed of this administration for placing our country in the midst of such a heinious choice. Explain to me again how Al Qaeda is such a great threat that it requires the dismantling of 200 years of US Constitutional law? Neil Young said it best a few days ago – we all have a post-9/11 mind-set, mine is just different than Bush’s.
Mr Furious
Well how do you suppose the Republican congressional Intelligence Committee wouold have received her?
Both Houses have been doing a real stand-up job of oversight these ast few years.
Even if she got someone to listen, I’m sure we could look forward to some serious hearings…after the next election. Maybe. When it’s too late. If they ever do it…
Thomas
OCSteve, maybe I’ve crossed a line or something, but in the end, what I care more about is whether the US Government is following any sort of law or ethical principal. The purported existence of secret prisons used to skirt the few legal restrictions we have left in America is pretty serious. I just don’t care about the fact that some bureaucrat leaked info to the press rather than play a game she was bound to lose with Congress.
DougJ
Why does any of you bother arguing with OCSteve? He makes Brian sound like Arthur Schlessinger.
There’s some great stuff brewing over at Protein Wisdom. Jeff is pushing the theory that Ms. McCarthy was in league with Joe Wilson and Richard Clarke.
DougJ
That’s pre-911 thinking. Don’t you that people are trying to kill us? Do you think Saddam would have let his intelligence service leak the sites of his secret prisons? Do you think Osama would be happy if some of his henchman told Dana Priest where his secret hide-out was?
No, Saddam and Osama beheaded people for this kind of leaking. And that’s exactly what should happen to McCarthy.
Sojourner
Hmm. A CIA employee is supposed to go to the chicken shit Republican congress to seek help in bringing to light yet another Bush scandal.
Does anyone really believe this shit?
Thomas
That Protein Wisdom shit is hilarious. I’ve never witnessed anyone who wasn’t handing out pamphlets in Union Square act like that.
Caleb
You would think the Mountaineers would be confident enough in their talent not to send a spy to a Marshall football practice.
Then again….you would be wrong.
ppGaz
Noooo. OCS often disagrees with us infallible lefties, yes. But it’s reasonable disagreement.
Brian, on the other hand, is a unrepentant insufferable fuckhead. Or, UIF, for short.
I’ll take a dozen OCS’s for one UIF. Anytime.
Now, to something important, Doug: Are you a woman?
Perry Como
If the prisons don’t exist then how could the CIA officer leak anything about them? If a CIA officer comes out and says the US government has a stable of flying unicorns it’s going to use to poke al Qaeda in the ass, does that mean the officer is leaking top secret materials? Or just making shit up?
Can’t have it both ways.
DougJ
Why would you think I was a woman, ppgaz? Because I have lesbian friends who like Sharon Stone?
srv
Never Question Authority.
DougJ
Perry — don’t you get it? Leaks of false information are the most dangerous leaks of all.
Bob In Pacifica
I need to know more about these unicorns. It’s my understanding, based on a folksong by some Irishmen years ago, that there are no unicorns anymore.
ppGaz
Why wouldn’t I? You’re a spoofer. You could be ten different people for all I know. I figured you wrote the scs character.
Will she be back soon, or is she still on hiatus?
Punchy
You owe me a keyboard if the pop you just made me spit up laughing destroys it. Good lord that is funny.
DougJ
I don’t write the scs character. I’m not that talented.
OCSteve
Sorry guys – I do understand where you are coming from. I just happen to believe that you follow the rules with classified information.
I had a secret clearance for years and the rules were drummed into my head twice a year. I know for sure that my ass would have been in jail for even an accidental disclosure of meaningless significance.
So when there are channels in place to deal with this kind of disagreement I feel you exhaust them. As I said – if it comes out that she tried and they blew her off then I will reconsider.
DougJ
These people want to behead us all — why shouldn’t we be able to poke them in the ass using tactical unicorns? Let’s keep all our options open.
DougJ
Except when you’re outting the wife of a political enemy.
ppGaz
Right.
Or cherry picking it to gin up a war.
Or declassifying to prop up a failing policy.
Or winking at leaking it for political cover.
Or hiding behind it to conceal venality, corruption, mendacity, or incompetance.
OCSteve
I said that’s how I feel. The last time this administration came to me for advice was, well, not lately anyway :)
ppGaz
This is a bonding opportunity for us.
Cigar?
Perry Como
We haven’t a terrorist alert in a while. I think the lead up to the 2006 elections would be good time. They should start issuing some soon.
ppGaz
That’s right, we’ve been at Yellow (cowardly) for years now. A little run of orange or red would spice things up.
Maybe they can bring Ashcroft out of retirement to conjure up the ghosts of some really scary individuals?
I’m thinking, a snaggle-toothed Arab guy with a hairy back.
ppGaz
Let’s review our color codes
We should do this regularly, like changing our smoke detector batteries, and having the kids go through the home fire drills.
Some Other Brian Guy
Actually I’m looking forward to the rationalizations against her actions that emerge from the Right in the coming days.
you know, how gulags and secret prison camps are actually a good thing, because they introduce people to new cultures… that sort of thing.
What I thought was funny was the Administrations claim that it had hurt our position amongst our allies. Now remember that… it was the leak which hurt our position, even though the allies didn’t care about the leaker. What had upset them was that we were working with East European countries to setup gulags.
Delusion is a road without end.
OCSteve
Only if you have a nice single malt or top shelf bourbon to go with it.
Some Other Brian Guy
I think October would be an opportune time for a terror alert. So we have a few months left.
ppGaz
Or so it seems ……
The Other Steve
How come mug shots are never attractive?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12428029/
The Other Steve
Anybody notice how pathetic Bush looks now?
Iran President hails high oil prices
Bush promotes fuel cells
Now he’s even running with Democratic policy initiatives, cause he’s so out of ideas.
ppGaz
Yes, OCS, but when Bush said this, I think it was Alterman over at MSNBC who pointed out that … no, it’s not like a tax.
With a tax you might get a road or a school or a government service.
With high gas prices, you just get the chairman of Exxon Mobile getting more millions of your money.
Perry Como
The Other Steve Says:
Screw that, I’m getting a new Hummer H4. It runs on spotted owls.
ppGaz
The earth’s age at only a few thousand years certainly explains why there is less oil than we counted on.
OCSteve
Too funny. First genuine chuckle here today, maybe this week.
ppGaz
What, you haven’t seen the General Motors Guano Fuel kit before?
ppGaz
Sorry, he forgot to say “runs on spotted owls’ shit.”
His bad.
OCSteve
I pictured “Back to the Future” where the car/time machine ran on any organic matter. But in this case it only accepts spotted owls. And a hummer – well, that’s a lot of owls…
ppGaz
Green cars list
Did I uh … mention { polishes nails on sleeve } … that I drive one of these vehicles?
Next time your globe doesn’t warm, you can thank me.
ppGaz
This is very topical.
Only this week, we were visited by a Chinese leader that enjoys hearing his name spoken by those very owls.
Hu was here.
I dunno, who?
That’s what I just said. Hu.
Who?
Right.
Who?
Hu is right.
How would I know? I asked you? Hu visited?
Yes.
Who?
Hu.
Etc.
See last night’s post for the preamble.
OCSteve
I’m not convinced about the hybrids, but I would go alt fuel (and pay a couple extra grand for it) IF I could get alt fuel within say 20 miles.
Brian
None required here.
It’s amusing to watch the Left kicking back today, acting this is no big deal, and in fact, it’s justified because BUSH LIED. With Libby, there’s still genuine outrage, even though no crime other than his perjury has been committed. Plame was not covert, so there was no exposure of her to any danger, nor of any secret information she was in possession of.
Yet now we have a true crime, where national secrets have been revealed that both undermined the administration and put our allies at risk by having them targeted by al-Qaeda for their supposed assistance with the detainee prisons, and the response ranges from “it’s justified because it’s happening to Bush” to “the leaker surely wanted to go thru the correct process, but with a GOP Congress, she just couldn’t do it, so she went the route of the WaPo”.
She committed a crime, regardless of what it was in service of, or what process she did or didn’t follow. She and her ilk should be punished severely and have their careers ruined. With Plame, you were concerned with small time players, but now you’re dealing with serious business with serious consequences.
And you wonder why those on my side ask “whcih side are you on, ultimately?”. Your hatred for Bush, and by extension this country, knows no bounds.
Again, I am not surprised that Tim took the day off for this one. It’s embarassing.
Stormy70
She is a partisan hack that gave over $7500 to the Dems in the last election, and has links to all the anti-Bush people like Wilson, Clarke, Priest and Hersh. She is linked to Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson and every other tin pot leftie out there that used to work for Clinton. The CSIS has already tried to wipe her biography from their pages, but it is Google cached. She must not have liked being sidelined when Bush was elected and she proved to be quite the little canary.
All of you bitching about the Plame leak have been hoist on your own petards.
What a stellar day. Why, it is almost like Fitzmas for the right. An anti-Bush CIA cabal running their mouths to all the lefty MSM outlets. I wonder what Libby’s lawyers are working on this weekend.
Appointed by Sandy Burglar, I am seriously all a tingle.
Oh and culture of Corruption?
How’s that working for you now?
Plus, Naveen is still hot and on my TV. Heaven.
Brian
Nobody cares, you little sissy. South Park recently did a show about types like you. Smug Alerts, from twits that drive “enviro-friendly” cars (although the jury’s out on the truth of that). You also probably like the smell of your own farts, don’t you?
Just drive your car, and keep it to yourself. Nobody else gives a shining shit, other than your fellow smug sissies.
Brian
That must explain why I feel so damn good today. The Left gets to see how a real crime gets punished.
Brian
And while I have your attention, if a Democrat gets elected by this procedure (which it’s designed to do), you will have a civil war on your hands.
You people are shameless.
Perry Como
CA and IL are the only two of the five that voted went for Kerry last time. Why do Red States hate America?
OCSteve
Brian and Stormy – jeeze, you guys are over the top for me – and I am (technically) on your side…
Perry Como
btw Brian, the less populous states are already overrepresented in the federal government. Check the Senate and House. Maybe it’s about time the bigger states had equal representation on the federal level.
Constant
Tim says, “Get it off your chest.”
Ok: I don’t like it when people whine, and then they smack you for helping them. Next time, I’ll be mean and laugh at their whining.
[My disgust is presented at the link under my name.]
Kudos: Respectful, honorable mention: John Cole, and balloon juce for key backup, links, and support. Thanks, John.
Brian
Actually, DougJ, you’re wrong. The usage you suggest is possessive, but I didn’t use it that way. The method I used works fine, because I’m referring to the shoes, not Manolo himself. Your suggestion would apply if I had written something like: “I’m going to Manolo’s store to look at some shoes”.
Sojourner
Dream on. We’re the ones who believe that America does not support gulags and torture. Nor is it okay to out covert CIA agents because the president doesn’t like what her husband has to say.
Please don’t leave Texas. I don’t want my part of America to be like yours.
OCSteve
Have fun folks. Heading out for a (rare) nice dinner. Steak or seafood? Potatoe or rice? Scotch or bourbon? Decisions decisions…
Eural
OK Brian and Stormy help me out here –
In the recent CIA/gulags case we have someone who may have broken the law to out an unethical/illegal/anti-Christian/abhorrent policy our President and his ilk were engaged in…
In the Plame case we have the President and his ilk engaging in unethical/illegal/anit-Christian/abhorrent behavior to score political points and maintain their faltering grip on power…
Again, explain to me why that’s a “win” for conservatives (you know, the one’s who believe in the rule of law, restricted national power and traditional values of truth and justice)?
andy
I would get it off my chest, but it appears to be firmly affixed through a combination of suckers and flesh-grabbing tendrils. I’m thinking it may be malignant.
Zifnab
Because, gosh darnit, we need to get behind our President no matter what. Remember, if the President leaks classified information, he’s not really breaking the law because he can then de-classify it retroactively (in much the same way many documents have been re-classified in recent years after being released to the public) getting off scott free.
Meanwhile, treasonous so-called “moral objectors” to the gulag leaks are in fact committing the worst of sins – defaming the President in a (as far as I can tell perpetual) state of War. That’s against the law, and anyone who would come forward to release information politically damaging to the President deserves nothing less than the harshest of punishments.
Conservatives have a strong ethical and religious outlook. And like the First Commandment says, “Bush is the Lord, your God… You shall have no other Gods before Him.”
Loopy Doug
A number of the comments posted in this thread bring to mind the recent piece written by Dan Henninger. The focus of his piece was the lunatic element, such as ppGaz and Mr. Furious, among others, who have increasingly come to represent the downside to development of an informed and enlightened society.
Henninger observed that the world of blogs may be filling up with people who for the previous 200 millennia of human existence kept their weird thoughts more or less to themselves. Now, he notes, “…they don’t have to. They’ve got the web. Now they can share.” Further, “…a new vocabulary has emerged from clinical psychology to describe generalized patterns of behavior [in the blogosphere]. …there’s ‘dissociative anonymity’ (You don’t know me); ‘solipsistic introjection’ (It’s all in my head); and ‘dissociative imagination’ (It’s just a game). This is all known as ‘digital identity.’ ”
The human species has spent tens of thousands of years sorting through which emotions and marginal neuroses to keep under control and which to release. “Now with a keyboard, people overnight are ‘free’ to unburden and unhinge themselves continuously and exponentially.”
At the risk of enabling, does the Internet mean that the rest of us are being made unwitting participants in the personal and political life of arrogant and unhinged people, such as ppGaz? These are, after all, the kind of people that you wouldn’t want your children to associate with absent adult supervision.
Perry Como
I thought they became politicians.
/me glances nervously at Senator “Man-on-dog” Santorum
Krista
Brian – Manolos? Hardly. I buy most of my stuff second-hand, my friend.
Now, if Naveen showed up at my door, shirtless, with a pair of Manolos for me in one hand and tickets to Paris in the other hand…well, I don’t think I’d complain.
Krista
Get it off my chest? Why do they make care tags on clothing so frackin’ itchy? And then, if you cut them out, it turns out that they’re what was holding the seam together, so then you wind up having a big hole in your shirt.
Sojourner
I agree. They really are part of the lunatic fringe. Who else but the loony left would expect their representatives to be honest and ethical?
It takes all kinds, I guess.
ppGaz
Really, Brian? “Types like” me?
What was it that tipped you off? The part where we were joking around about driving a Hummer when gas prices are heading toward $4 a gallon, and I mentioned that I’m driving a high-mileage car?
That was it, right? That was when you KNEW that I was really outside the realm of respectability? That was when you knew that you could swoop in with your insufferable fuckheadedness and your phony “I can post here too” routine and unmask me for the selfish, twisted creature I must be to be driving a tiny, efficient car in times like these?
Or was it my joking around about a serious subject like owl shit?
VidaLoca
Regarding Mary McCarthy, an article in the Chicago Trib here, and another in TPMCafe here; the latter by Larry Johnson who used to report to her and is not a fan.
Stormy, let’s review here:
1. McCarthy, according to the Trib article above, admits being one of the sources of the leak to Priest. That puts her in line for criminal charges. She’ll have to be very fortunate not to end up in jail.
2. The chances of Bush or Cheney (who authorized the Plame leak) going to jail are in the real world slight. Libby’s chances of going to jail are slightly better; on the other hand McCarthy’s chances for getting a Presidential pardon are nil.
3. The Plame leak came about because the Bush administration sought to discredit the revelation that the claim that Iraq was developing atomic weapons was a fabrication. Rather than simply state this openly, and prove it, the Bush took the course of trying to discredit Wilson because full examination of the “bomb for Saddam” claim would discredit Bush.
4. Priest’s article came about in an attempt to expose the government’s secret rendition, torture, and indefinite imprisonment gulag which is being run in your name and mine.
5. The known side effect of the Plame leak was the end of Brewster-Jennings and whatever results it was having in gaining information on traffic in WMDs.
6. We don’t know the side effects of the Priest article. If its purpose was to force public discussion of the rendition and torture program by exposure of same, it succeeded. Whether it will have any broader effects is unknowable; to believe that it put an end to rendition and torture seems naive.
After five and a half years of this, and another two and a half to go, is there nothing that Bushco can do that will make you question your loyalty to them?
Bob In Pacifica
No, really, flying unicorns trained to poke Osama in the ass. That’s great! I guess they must have wings to fly, although if they’re fast like missiles they’d only need those little wings sticking out the sides of their tails.
Now this must involve some kind of genetic engineering, although it wouldn’t necessarily be a human-animal hybrid.
I guess hybrids are the thing these days.
srv
Are those nails in Shelby Red or Blue?
Honda NGV?
And if you don’t have NG in the OC:
NGV Stations
CaseyL
I just came home from a totally wonderful bronze casting workshop at Seattle’s Wooden Boats Center.
I had a great time. I got to pound sand, pour molten metal into molds, and use power tools. I made two boat doohickeys: an oarpin and a double-hook gadget that helps locks oars in place. Tomorrow I clean up the doohickeys and do more casting.
Bronze casting is cooler than shit :D
ppGaz
Hey Brian, when I bought the small, efficient car, I had to sign a waiver that detailed the terrible things that were about to happen to me.
First, drivers of Hummers and Ford F-350’s with Triton V8 motors would start aiming for me on the road, looking to crush my tiny machine under their enormous and powerful wheels, and rid the roads of these little pests.
Second, a roving band of insufferable fuckheads on the Internet would seek me out and subject me to every manner of scorn and ridicule, besmirching my family honor and calling me horrible names. Well, we know who the insufferable fuckheads are around here, and sure enough, you found me.
Anyway, I signed the waivers, and I also got a book of instructions on what to do when the fecal matter started hitting the air handler:
Show resolve. So, I say, “Bring it on!”
Give me your best shot. Today alone I have saved you and your offspring almost two liters of gasoline.
Tomorrow, I may go for more! Haha! In your face, Brian!
DougJ
I’m no longer convinced Brian is real. I think he is a spoof — the South Park line doesn’t ring true nor does the one about the left getting to see how a real crime gets punished.
I see two possibilities: (1) Brian is truly stupid, a sub-80 IQ type or (2) Brian is a fairly clever (okay, quite quite clever) spoof. Given that Brian is able to type in complete sentences and makes few grammatical errors, I think (1) is unlikely. Hence, I’m forced to conclude that Brian is a spoof.
easyliving
I’ve decided you little paranoid piss ants aren’t worth my time anymore. Your worldview is proven wrong every day, you’re just too blind to see it happening directly in front of you.
You poor dumb bastards.
Easyliving
easyliving
I AM FUCKING EASYLIVING
EASYLIVING
DougJ
That was weak, easyliving.
Brian — seriously, if you are a spoof, you’re the best I’ve seen. The fifteen year-old sexual humor, particularly, is truly inspired. I feel like you’ve created a real character out of nothing but ascii characters I’m impressed.
ppGaz
Tell Brian to quit posting here and I’ll make a contribution in his name to Terrapass when he goes away
Reduce Brian’s carbon footprint, and make Balloon-Juice safe for righty-flesh-eating snark.
srv
Note the 2-3 short para responses. Always the same.
Gee, that reminds me of someone…
Mirror, mirror. Perhaps you can use the agonizer on him and find out.
Loopy Doug
As noted the other night, here’s a snap of Mrs. ppGaz after a night of passion in the sack with the old man. And don’t forget to vote! She looks like a winner.
ppGaz
Why does Brian hate Earth Day?
What would cause a man-spoof-class project-little girl like him-her-it to REJECT his-her-its own birth planet?
Is Brian an alien?
If so, what planet is Brian from?
Say it ain’t so, Brian. Say you love the Earth, your mother planet. Say it.
SAY IT.
DougJ
Loopy Doug — I don’t care for that sort of humor. Making fun of how someone’s wife might look is classless.
ppGaz
Thanks, Doug. As you know, Mrs. G doesn’t allow her picture to be taken, because it robs her of part of her soul.
So obviously, the photo is a fake. When I first saw it, I figured it must be scs.
DougJ
Okay, ppgaz, you’re writing Brian and you wrote the Loopy Dough thing too.
ppGaz
If I couldn’t write better characters than Brain and the Loop, I should kill myself.
Please. I know that we’ve had our differences, but I never thought you’d stoop to that level of insult.
ppGaz
In case we forgot why we are here … Bush DID lie, and people DID die.
Brian
ppGaz, you wouldn’t even know the word “insufferable” if I hadn’t used it in a recent comment. I’ve expanded your vocabulary, and you can at least credit me when you use the word.
DougJ
You really don’t think Brian is a great character? He’s so idiotic, yet consistenly so, I think he’s one of the best. Better than Darrell. I can imagine a real Brian, sitting on his couch in an upscale housing development in some nameless exurb, chortling at a rerun of friends, sucking down overpriced fumee blanc, ordering his steaks medium well. He’s a perfect vehicle for the genius of the underrated character actor Christopher McDonald — though he’s more likely the work of Perry Como or some such.
Bruce Moomaw
It’s of interest that the articles on Ms. McCarthy quote the White House and the CIA as saying that her actual prosecution is “very unlikely”. Now, why do you suppose that could be, if she committed a serious crime against the Security of Our Country in the War Against the Terrorists? Could it conceivably be that the Administration doesn’t want any more publicity as to the precise nature of just WHAT she exposed? Surely not…
ppGaz
Ah, the “you talk funny” strategy.
And Lupe, with the “you look funny” strategy.
This is like a KungFu movie now. Bam! Bop! You guys are TOO MUCH for me!
ppGaz
I think he’s got all the personality of a NylaBone
Bruce Moomaw
One additional note: Brian should keep in mind that Tim F. isn’t the only proprietor of this particular weblog who gets bloody furious at the idea that Uncle Sam is running a large network of torture chambers. John C. gets just as angry on the subject. I personally wouldn’t at all mind seeing Ms. McCarthy tried for her Dreadful Crime — provided the testimony got very widespread press coverage.
And as for her going to a Senate Intelligence Committee run by Sen. Roberts: please. For all we know, she tried that first; if she didn’t, it’s pretty obviously because she knew what would inevitably happen if she did.
ppGaz
Take that back! I learned if from “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power” fair and square.
ppGaz
From the current MSNBC lead story about Rumsfeld’s “New Plan” for the war on terror.
The gloves are not off. So help me, I just cut and pasted it, I didn’t make it up.
You couldn’t make this up.
Bob In Pacifica
Hey, Barry Bonds launched one tonight. Five more to put Babe Ruth on the ash heap of history.
More info on the unicorns, please.
Pb
Why do Republicans hate states’ rights so much?
ppGaz
Uh, I don’t think Barry is putting anyone on the ash heap, unless it’s himself. The ‘Roid man got a popup to go out of Coors Field?
Wow. My mother can hit one out there.
Steve
What happens when the “there are no illegal prisons” righties come up against the “it was a crime to leak the illegal prisons” righties? Will there be a matter-antimatter reaction? Or will they not even realize they are contradicting each other?
Pb
Steve,
Seeing as how the GOP is the “big tent party”, maybe we can get them to compromise that it was a crime to leak that there are no illegal prisons, and then arrest the “there are no illegal prisons” righties.
ppGaz
The K Street Gang
Michael Continetti:
ppGaz
Sister Joan Chittister on the New Puritanism
Sister Chittister:
Bruce Moomaw
National Review’s argument for the Electoral College is, I see, as totally insane as every other argument for it. It seems that getting rid of the Electoral College means that the bad Big States will pick on the poor Little States, by the dreadful process of not giving every citizen who is lucky enough to live in a little state more votes than one who lives in a big state — which means, of course, that rural Americans would no longer be allowed to have their votes count for more than the votes of Americans who live in cities, which of course is what National Review and Brian are frantic to maintain it so that Presidential elections will continue to be rigged in favor of the GOP.
So — and to a worse degree — is the Senate. Contrary to the drivel we frequently hear about how the Founders, out of their Vast Wisdom, deliberately set up the Senate up in its current form to protect the Little States from the Big Bully States, Madison and Hamilton were both bloody furious about the arrangement. As Robert Dahl — probably America’s most generally acclaimed political scientist (and not just by liberals) — points out in his 2002 book “How Democratic Is The American Constitution?”, Hamilton delivered a fiery speech agatinst that setup at the Constitutional Convention; and Madison, in the one Federalist Paper on the subject (#62, Section 3), ridicules the “peculiar” Big Bully State theory and ends up sighing that this was the only kind of Constitution that the small states would allow us to get and that a seriously flawed Constitution is better than none. (“The only option…lies between the proposed government and a government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of prudence must be to embrace the lesser evil…”). And, as Dahl points out, the small states — led by Delaware’s Gunning Bedford — got their way at the Convention by openly threatening to ally with one of the European powers in a treasonous war against the US unless the Constitution was set up to give them extra clout. The bizarre Electoral College is just another remnant of the same rigged system. (If you doubt me, ask Grover Norquist about it. In his June 9, 2003 op-ed in the Washington Post, he gleefully refers to the way “the Founding Fathers gerrymandered the Senate for Republican control”, and provides details.)
Last but hardly least, we heard exactly the same piercing squeals from the Republican Right in the early 1960s when the US`Supreme Court ended the use of the same system in individual State Senates, where we had the grotesque situation of individual counties with a few thousand people having as much voting clout as whole cities. Try proposing bringing back THAT system now and see how far it gets you politically, Brian. (And if you’re going to threaten a civil war, keep in mind that the states underrepresented in the Senate and the Electoral College currently contain 72% of this country’s people.)
Loopy Doug
Here’s a recent snap of my cousin, DougJ. He’s the bashful sort…thus only the backside shot was available.
Slide.
hmmmmm…. apparently Osama bin Laden is not dead as Stormy and bucketboy have tried to convince us for a while now. Is anyone surprised that the duo of dumb was, yet once again, WRONG? At least they are consistant. If only the bush loving toadies wishful thinking were reality heh?
Stormy70
Is this another audio tape spouting the left’s latest talking points? Where’s his face on video holding up today’s newspaper? This guy loved to be filmed sitting around and bitching about the Great Satan. Dude is still dead.
Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.
ppGaz
He can hold up a newspaper with his face?
Slide.
isn’t it a little early to be hitting the bottle, even for you stormy?
Brian
Bruce,
If you want to get rid of the Electoral College, do so through an amendment to the Constitution. But that hurdle is too high for Democrats, so they have to resort to extra-legal methods to get what they want, by circumventing popular opinion and vote. You do it with the courts, and you are doing it here (make no mistake, the peo[le behind this effort are Democrats through-and-through).
If you believe in getting rid of the Electoral College, and it’s such a wonderful idea, then get amend the Constitution. The fact that this is not happening reveals the partisan pupose behind the effort.
Brian
I saw the story about bin Ladin’s…..er, sorry, the DNC’s… new tape.
I love how OBL says he’ll never be taken alive, and that “I have sworn to only live free”.
You guys have your way, and you’ll have the kind of “freedoms” that OBL has, hiding out and communicating with the outside world with video/audiotapes with poor production values. He’s as free as Charles Manson.
Speaking of criminals, or simple boobs, I am depressed today to see the Dem’s lamest talking heads, Kerry and Teddy Kennedy, on the political shows this morning. These guys have no ideas, and they’re certainly representative of the rest of your party.
ppGaz
Your material is starting to read like a Chinese MP3 user’s manual, man.
“Please to insure inserted the battery.”
etc.
Geek, Esq.
Redstate.com:
Still fascists!
Remember–dissent is treason!
And people wonder why we don’t trust the Republican party to wiretap people without warrants.
DougJ
Sounds too much like a spoof. You started well with this post, but you fell off the tracks. I’ve got great hopes for you, especially now that easyliving is gone. You’re phoning it in with “representative of the rest of your party.” Why not throw in a reference to Ted’s heavy drinking instead? That’s more what a real live wingnut would do.
I know who you really are, Brian. And I think you can really pull this off. But you’ve got to try harder.
ppGaz
To paraphrase Brian, let them get amend the Consitution.
ppGaz
No, not until he learns to stay away from the keyboard on weekend morning when he is hung over.
Check his pattern. Last week, it was a complete meltdown.
This week, he is decompensating poorly.
His ups and downs are starting to remind of John Cole on his diet.
ppGaz
Brian’s treatise on the great ideas that George Bush will advance this year is eagerly awaited.
I understand he’s already negotiating a book deal for the paper …. some publisher is offering him money not to submit it.
“GW Bush Builds America’s Bridge to the 14th Century” is the working title.
Richard Bottoms
Are people from the South just fucking stupid or what?
Paul Wartenberg
Things to get off my chest:
1) Cheney’s popularity right now is what, 19 percent? Less? If Bush replaced Cheney right now with a dead chicken, that dead chicken would be polling 50 percent popularity from day one.
2) Why are oil executives making millions of dollars as their companies rake in billions in profits as the price at the pump goes way over $3 per gallon? At some point, can’t these companies swallow just a portion of those profits to try and lower the cost of gas? I mean, *where do those profits go anyway*?
And as those gas costs go up, travel will drop, tourism will take a hit, the costs of transporting things like food, clothing and other consumer items will go up and will transfer to the costs of purchasing said items, etc. Care for massive inflation across the board, folks?
3) When are the Republicans going to notice that the reason their polling numbers are tanking (33 percent and dropping for GOP Congress, 33 percent and dropping for Bush WH) isn’t because people aren’t buying their spin but because of actual poor job performance and evidence of widespread corruption?
VidaLoca
Stormy,
Oh, I am too! I’ll see your Mary McCarthy — and raise you a Condoleeza Rice!
ppGaz
You’re probably right. If it were a dead quail, it might go to 60 percent.
VidaLoca
Interesting juxtaposition — sometimes you have to go to a foreign newspaper to find out what’s going on in Washington DC: “Dump Cheney for Condi, Bush urged”
A couple of money quotes:
ppGaz
The GOP slogan? “Vote for us because we won’t impeach this crappy president.”
Now that’s a winning idea. It will go down with “See the USA in your Chevrolet” and “Good to the Last Drop.”
demimondian
Geek mentions that
You’re right. But, you know waht, G.Q.? I don’t trust the Democrats to wiretap without warrants, either.
I know, I know — I hate America.
Bruce Moomaw
Brian: “If you want to get rid of the Electoral College, do so through an amendment to the Constitution. But that hurdle is too high for Democrats, so they have to resort to extra-legal methods to get what they want, by circumventing popular opinion and vote. You do it with the courts, and you are doing it here (make no mistake, the people behind this effort are Democrats through-and-through).
“If you believe in getting rid of the Electoral College, and it’s such a wonderful idea, then amend the Constitution. The fact that this is not happening reveals the partisan pupose behind the effort.”
Is this man taking Stupid Pills? An amendment for that purpose will, of course, never be ratified DESPITE the fact that there is already 2-to-1 national support for it in every poll ever taken on the subject, because the small states also bullied the Constitutional Convention into requiring that any amendment, to be ratified, must be approved by 3/4 of the states — which means that the smallest 1/4 of the states (comprising as little as 7% of the nation’s population) can and will block the overwhelming landslide desire of the American people for honestly small-“d” democratic elections. As for the new procedure being “extra-legal”: there’s nothing illegal about it. It is perfectly constitutional, which is precisely why it’s setting off a panic from the people (such as Grover Norquist, National Review and, apparently, Brian) who are frantic to keep this nation’s elections rigged in a pro-GOP direction. Nor is it “undemocratic”, since it would take effect only if states representing a majority of the American people approved it — and since it would in no way rig presidential elections in favor of the Democrats. Try using that thing between your shoulders, Brian. That’s what it’s there for.
Perry Como
His ass cheeks?
ppGaz
I have spit my coffee here, thank you very much.
Bruce Moomaw
While we’re on the subject of “extra-legality”, by the way: one may note that, when Clinton started making recess appointments to circumvent the fact that GOP Congressional chairmen were blocking their committees from being allowed to vote on his nominees, George Will started screaming that Clinton’s actions were “unconstitutional” — despite the fact that every legal scholar agreed that the Constitution allowed him to do just that, which is why the GOP never tried to mount any actual legal challenge against his actions. Since Bush has started doing the same thing to circumvent Democratic filibusters, there hasn’t been a single peep from Will on the subject. Interesting.
ppGaz
George Will is a total Republican whore.
Loopy Doug
ppGaz is a total al Qaeda whore.
Paul Wartenberg
Loopy Doug is a total bore.
You see, I am a poet, and you… did not know it.
:ducks:
ppGaz
There once was a poster named Loopy
Whose dauber got quite a bit droopy.
He took a blue pill
But felt rather ill
and we now know his real name’s Lupe.
Kimmitt
Give in to your hate . . .
Loopy Doug
Ode to Paul Wartenburg and ppGaz:
A spammer who spammed on the net
was as bad as a spammer could get
He spammed every group
With insidious poop,
Even thee and Hussein and the Pope, yet!
Bruce Moomaw
PPGaz: “George Will is a total Republican whore.”
He didn’t used to be — in fact, that’s how he launched his career as a Major Pundit, and how I started out admiring him. He became a young rookie writer for National Review in 1973 — and immediately devoted almost every column to declaring, from the very start of the Watergate scandal’s unfolding, that the evidence was overwhelming that Nixon himself was involved in it and that he should be removed from office for it. National Review’s readers did not forgive him for that, even after he was proved right; and so shortly after Nixon was fired NR fired Will — but by then he had established his mark as an interesting maverick and was instantly picked up by Newsweek.
Even during the Reagan Era — at the start of which he soiled his name by secretly coaching Reagan for his TV debate with Carter and then keeping the incident hidden until it was exposed three years later — he did a surprising amount of pointed and acid criticism of Reagan, largely on deficit issues. But in the early 1990s something happened, and he seemed — at least in my view — to swerve suddenly and distinctly further Right and turn into a dishonorable GOP toady most of the time. It just might have something to do with the fact that in 1992 he married Bob Dole’s campaign director. Anyway, it happened, and when you read him now it’s wise to keep your back to the wall.
Bruce Moomaw
Loopy Doug, your meter fell off, and you aren’t a taxicab.
Bruce Moomaw
As for me, if I was a whore of any variety, I’d have serious trouble making ends meet.
By the way, regarding Bin Laden’s latest tape: for quite some time after Rumsfeld and Franks unforgivably bungled the Tora Bora assault I thought he was dead, because all the audio tapes purporting to be from him referred only to incidents that had happened before then. Just before the 2004 election, of course, that tape supposedly from him was released referring to recent events, and so I no longer think he’s dead — but I DO think he’s a bedridden cripple because of his kidney disease (which is why the only video of him released since Tora Bora could have been taken at any time), and that al-Zawahiri is running the show. Unfortunately, that’s not good news, since Dr. Death was always the brains of the operation anyway.
Notice, also, that in his latest tape Sweet Old Bin (I tend to think of him by the initials) fervently defends the right of the Sudanese government, as Faithful Moslems, to massacre as many of the the people of Darfur as they want, just as he used to defend the right of Indonesians to do the same to East Timoreans. At least the man is consistent… If the Bush Administration has any brains (that is, if the sky suddenly turns green), they’ll use those statements of his for all they’re worth. If the bastard really wants a worldwide religious war, let’s rally ALL the world’s non-Moslems against him.
demimondian
The question, is our Constitutions leaning?
Slide
Pretty devastating piece on 60 Minutes tonight. Totally debunked the myths propagated by the likes of MacBuckets and others regarding the Niger/Uranium lies of the Bush administration. It is clear that the overwhelming prepodnerance of intelligence analysis was that the whole uranium from Niger story was bogus, totally bogus. And this was well before the SOTU speech. Liars. This group of criminals that currently occupy the White House are degenerate liars and they lied about the most important thing there could be to lie about – (no, not a consentual sexual act between adults) but about the justification for war.
But, rest assured, the Kool Aid drinking MacBuckets of the world will argue otherwise, quoting sentences from the Butler report or some Republican led rubber stamp committee but most people living in the reality based world know better by now, or should.
Anyone want to start a betting pool as to when Bush’s approval is in the 20’s? anybody? Stormy? Darrell? Bucket boy? whats your best guess? I say just aroud Memorial Day when gas prices hit the $4.00 a gallon mark, that should be about right.
Brian
So, Bruce, if I understand you correctly, you belive that the process of amending the Constitution is a bother, a technicality that has outlived its purpose and is slanted in favor of low-population states? Is that it?
The Electoral College, if changed to the way being proposed, requires a process of amending the Constitution if it’s to be accepted by Americans as a mechanism for electing the President. You don’t like this process, so you’re in favor of circumventing it. That is not a recipe for successful elections, and if a president were elected through this new mechanism, Americans on the losing side of the election would be much more pissed than an outcome of the E.C., because even if people don’t like the E.C., in the end it’s part of our system. If you don’t like this, then tough.
If you can’t defend an end-run around the Constitution (a document so many here praise to no end, yet can’t support in principle), then maybe you’re the one with a bubble of “balloon juice” between his ears.
An indication of your weak argument is the fact that you have to resort to insulting me immediately upon my challenge to your wisdom. Within days, you’ll be sounding like the Balloon Juice village idiot: ppGaz.
Slide
Oh, and how is Bush doing on his supposed strong suit, fighting terrorism? These are devastating numbers from Rasmussen a very GOP friendly polling organization:
ouch
DougJ
Attacking ppgaz is always a good move for a spoof, Brian. That last comment was too long for maximum effect. The long commnent bores people and it dilutes your impact. But it does make you seem more “real” so maybe it’s not a bad idea.
DougJ
Had a great time over at PW today. You can actually post under the same name as the regulars there and say crazy stuff; no one notices. I just agreed with someone who proposed that we turn Mary McCarthy over to the terrorists to be beheaded. No one blinked. I think actus may have taken issue with the beheading of CIA officials and been roundly mocked by the wingnuts. What a great site.
Pb
I’m taking a nuanced position on this Osama thing–he was dead, but he was raised from the dead just in time for the mid-term elections! Also, they had to edit that tape a lot so you wouldn’t hear his real message–BRRRRAAAAIIIINNNNSSS!!!!
ppGaz
Next to the time somebody at Darrell’s work switched some keycaps around on his keyboard, that is the worst-written argument I’ve ever seen here.
Pb
Brian,
Actually this is precisely the opposite; circumventing popular opinion and vote is what happens when you leave an election up to the Supreme Court instead of listening to the people.
Bonus Idiocy–States’ rights: now 100% more extra-legal!
The Other Steve
To hell with Amending the constitution for the electoral college. What we need to do is expand the size of the House of Representatives.
Instead of one for every 500,000 or so, we make it one for every 150,000 people. Solves so many problems, and brings it back in line with what the Founders intended.
No need for an amendment, it’s a simple Act of Congress.
And think of the Job’s Creation program we’d have for expanding the Capitol buildings.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Now *that’s* an idea. Of course they’d have to get more creative with the gerrymandering. :)
Bruce Moomaw
Brian: “So, Bruce, if I understand you correctly, you believe that the process of amending the Constitution is a bother, a technicality that has outlived its purpose and is slanted in favor of low-population states? Is that it?”
Why, yes, in its current form. Madison and Hamilton were infuriated by the fact that the Constitution was seriously rigged from the start in favor of the low-population states — but, as they said, the small states were in a position to blackmail the rest of the nation into accepting such a seriously flawed Constitution (through their explicit threats of alliances with European powers to destroy the US, which were correctly called “treasonous” by other delegates during the debates over the Constitution. See Dahl’s book for the quotes.) The Constitution was seriously deformed from its very start by that fact, just as it was seriously deformed from its very start by the existence of slavery — another little item which could never have been abolished by Constitutional amendment. In the case of the Electoral College, however — though not, alas, in the case of the grotesque misapportionment of the Senate — we have a chance to get rid of another severe anti-democratic deformity that has existed in the US Constitution from its very start using entirely peaceful and legal means.
“if a president were elected through this new mechanism, Americans on the losing side of the election would be much more pissed than an outcome of the E.C., because even if people don’t like the E.C., in the end it’s part of our system. If you don’t like this, then tough.”
Please, Brian. It’s “part of our system” only because ( as with slavery, which of course was also “part of our system” and could never have been abolished by amendment) anti-democratic forces FORCED us to accept it as part of our system at the nation’s start. Unlike slavery, however, we have a chance to get rid of that other severe anti-democratic deformity, the Electoral College — though not, alas, the other deformity of the Senate’s very serious misapportionment — using entirely peaceful means. if you don’t like this, then tough. And, lest we forget, the Ameicans who were “on the losing side of the election” would be on the losing side only if their candidate happened to actually get fewer votes than the other candidate. Dreadful, isn’t it?
As for my “insulting” you: stating the truth about someone may be unpleasant for them, but is hardly a cheap shot. You have just shown still more solid evidence that — to put it bluntly but accurately — you’re an idiot.
Bruce Moomaw
Back to Mary McCarthy: I see that Mark Kleiman is now pointing out the same glaringly obvious point I mentioned up near the beginning of this thread:
“When Dana Priest of the Washington Post broke the story about secret prisons in Eastern Europe to which suspected terrorists were ‘disappeared’ so they could be interrogated without the nosies from the Red Cross knowing about it and without any risk of having questions asked about torture in American courts, BushCo and its collaborators and useful idiots in the right-wing media and Red Blogistan were up in arms.
“Didn’t we know, they said, there’s a war on? Wasn’t it obvious, they argued, that revealing this information, on top of what had already come out about Abu Ghraib, would help inflame anti-American sentiments and cost soldiers’ lives? And could anyone but a liberal doubt that secret interrogation sites were ‘vital to national security’? (Of course the leak was said to prove how wrong it was to be concerned about whether the White House had decided to burn a CIA NOC, but then more or less everything is said to prove that.)
“Now that the leaker of the information has been unmasked and fired, the same folks are gleeful about the fact that she turns out to have been a Democrat. And they’re out for blood: Why, they demand, was she fired rather than being prosecuted? (Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds. If Glenn disagrees, he doesn’t say so.)
“Duhhhhh… wait, don’t tell me … ummmm …. because she’d assert a ‘public interest’ defense, which would mean putting the story back on the front pages for weeks, and risk having the facts about what’s been going on in those dungeons revealed in open court? Just a guess.
“Anyway, she’d probably get off. I’d be surprised if even this Supreme Court would hold as a matter of law that revealing criminal activity is a crime if the activity in question is labeled ‘classified.’ “
RonB
I think PW is screwier than LGF sometimes. Man, I remember back in my wingnut days harassing actus over at the Anti- Idiotarian Rottweiler. He’s tenacious, I’ll give him that.
As for your beheading comment, why would they blink? They already want her for treason as part of a Clinton cabal to further their Agenda.
Hey, has anyone seen this mysterious Agenda? They always say that but I never quite figured out what it is.
Steve
Indeed, I believe that the executive order which governs classification plainly states that it is forbidden to classify information in order to conceal a crime.
Steve
In other news, do you guys think “Loopy Doug” sounds a LOT like Par R?
Krista
Steve; the links to the photos are quite creative. It’s a nice touch. I think you’re very possibly right, however.
Brian
It wpn’t be peaceful, I can guarantee you that. And your example of slavery as being part of our system ignores the fact that this practice was abolished forver with an amendment to the Constitution.
Your pretzel logic in an effort to avoid the obvious, that you believe in circumventing “our system” to make legal through extra-legal means this pet cause of Democrats demonstrates 1( that you are not armd with the intelligence to debate this honestly (or, in your juvenile-speak, an “idiot”), and 2) the Dem’s have given up hope of ever winning an election legally and by the will of the people.
The 2000 election was won legally, like it or not. And in 2005, Bush won more clearly. This simply pisses you off to no end, and is the real motivator behind this E.C. measure. You’ve given up all hope of winning the presidency again, unless you can rig the system, which demonstrates a form of dementia.
Pb
Brian,
You insist upon referring to legal state actions as “extra-legal” even when confronted with the facts, which demonstrates a form of dementia.
The Other Steve
We’re going to be reviewing it at next Tuesday’s meeting.
The Other Steve
So you’re saying Democrats should make sure that they nomination real fruitloops to the Supreme Court so that when 2000 occurs again, they’ll work in our favor to stop any recounts which may possibly determine the legitimate winner of the election.
That’s a good idea. I hope people are taking notes.
Tulkinghorn
Brian,
The 13th and 14th amendments were passed during reconstruction, you godforsaken idiot. If Jim Crow had been established sooner then the 13th and 14th amendments would not exist.
As for the 2004 election, how does the popular vote mean nothing for Gore, yet validate Bush after the fact? Try for some standard other than expediancy.
The Other Steve
Wait a minute… back to OCSteve’s fruitloop argument.
You’re seriously claiming that the US was pretending to have secret prisons, while at the same time protecting their secrecy by not disclosing them? All as part of a massive conspiracy to confuse everybody?
Whoa, put down the crackpipe dude. I can buy that there maybe were no prisons, and someone simply got confused and misread the tea leaves. Although I’m doubting that, considering the Administration got all defensive when they were leaked.
The NYTimes is a shill for the Bush Administration, so I wouldn’t trust that article further than I could throw an elephant.
Tulkinghorn
Crap! that conflicts with my gay agenda/destruction of the family agenda meeting. Will someone supply me with the notes? I can pick them up at the environmentalist/destruction of the economy agenda meeting on Friday.
So much evildoing, so little time…
tBone
The first rule of the Leftwing Agenda is you don’t talk about the Leftwing Agenda.
The second rule of the Leftwing Agenda is YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT THE LEFTWING AGENDA.
As punishment, you two are cut off from the pastry tray at Tuesday’s meeting.
ppGaz
As I understand it, it involves constant sex between all sorts of partners, all the time.
DougJ
And in 2005, Bush won more clearly.
Who can forget the special election of 2005? Was that the one where he was elected king for life?
The Other Steve
Interesting discussion of the CIA leaker, over at TMPCafe
Apparently the woman in question worked for the Inspector Generals office. The guy(who used to work for her), says that she was never on the Ops side, but was an analyst. That she found out about this prison thing is most likely because someone else brought it up to the IG in a complaint… Speculation is she might have gone public with it because an investigation was stonewalled.
Zifnab
I don’t know what state you live in, Brian, but here in Texas, with 34 electoral votes on the line, its a bit disparaging to note that no matter how hard I hit the “Kerry” or “Gore” button on my ballot, I was still offically voting for Bush. Perhaps, if you were living in California, you were perfectly content to be counted as a Kerry supporter in ’04. Or in Florida, you were happily voting for Buchanan and thus not really voting at all – after all if he doesn’t win the state he doesn’t even register as a blip on the Presidental horse-race.
The E.C. system, second only to the 3/5ths clause, is the biggest piss stain on the Constitution our Founding Fathers left us. Republicans and Democrats have played the system mercilessly – Democrats running on ‘Battleground State’ strategies and abandoning massive chunks of their constituency while Republicans rig elections with Katherine Harris style voter fraud and Diebold rigged machines designed to steal swing state elections.
When the last two Presidential elections end in massive outcries of voter fraud or dirty political tricks, you have to admit the system is broken and needs to be overhauled. Of course, I can’t really support a Republican Congress, Presidency, and Judiciary to fix it – they’re probably try gerrymandering parts of Utah into California by the time they were done – but it would be good to see election reform as a top priority on the Democratic agenda.
DougJ
What’s your problem with the 3/5ths clause, Zifnab? Why you hate America?
ppGaz
We can cuss and discuss the sorry history of the electoral college system all day … and, let’s, because it’s a good instrument for continuing to expose the vapid and useless thinking of Brian …. but anyway, we can, and should, and especially focus on the grotesque morphing of the EC “system” from its inception to the present day.
But when it’s all said and done … one has to say, there is only one fair and responsible way to elect a president in the 21st century, and whatever you think of the EC, it is not the way devised by the Founders. It is by majority of the national popular vote. Period.
If proponents of EC want to cling to their “little states” model for portioning out power, then let them also get stuck with the “little, relatively powerless president” model that the Founders had in mind when they invented the office. They never envisioned a macabre “most powerful man in the world” scheme, but if they did, they would never have arranged an EC circus to elect one.
“The most powerful man in the world” should be elected by a simple, direct, fair and responsible mechanism of democracy. Otherwise, why have one at all? Why not just a king, arranged for by the powerazzi and the pols? Which is, in case you haven’t noticed, exactly what the neocons and the Busheocons want to have.
Krista
I’ll be bringing the sacrificial virgins, some Bibles to burn, and a cheese tray.
A French cheese tray.
David
Everybody does know that the Constitution allows the states to allocate their electors however they want, right? Hell, the Electoral College as we know it now is a 19th-century invention – it was originally supposed to be a small group of people who decide, using their own judgment, who to vote for for president.All this stuff about state-by-state elections determining who gets the votes isn’t in the Constitution either. Damn undemocratic Jacksonites, changing the system without amending the Constitution. Why did they hate America?
ppGaz
The states giveth, and the states taketh away?
Sojourner
Actually, no. A subsequent recount of the state showed that Gore won Florda. And that was without including all the African Americans who were not allowed to vote because they were included on Jeb Bush’s felons list.
The Other Steve
Let me cut to the chase.
The people whining(and yes the word is whining) about the Electoral College and how unfair it is for whatever fucking reason… ARE CHASING THEIR TAILS.
2000 proved that your ONE VOTE IS IMPORTANT. It is vitally important. The Republicans understand this strategy, which is why they have been working desperately to KEEP YOU FROM VOTING! Yes, YOU. They don’t want YOU to vote, because you are not reliably Republican enough for them.
How do they do that? There’s no nefarious conspiracy, it’s all out in the open. They do it by TURNING YOU OFF FROM POLITICS. They want to sow FEAR, UNCERTAINTY AND DOUBT. Get you to not trust the Government, place no value in the Democratic institutions we have. Get YOU to stay home on tuesday and register your disgust at the process.
Modifying or changing the Electoral College does nothing.
Going back to my increase the number of representatives… I need to run some more models, but in looking at the 2004 election one thing I noticed was interesting. When I set a target of one Rep for every 150,000 people and aligned electoral votes based on that… when calculating out the Kerry/Bush results, the totals for Electoral College matched popular vote in terms of percentages, whereas with the old system the EC percentages were distorted.
Stop whining… start thinking.
Again, increasing the size of Congress is nothing more than an Act of Congress. It was last fixed in size back in the 1911. Nearly 100 years, and no change.
More on this from June 2000 opinion piece
The Other Steve
And another thing! Quit fucking whining about Bush trying to rig things with Diebold.
STAND UP! Get DIEBOLD out of the VOTING SYSTEM!
All of these decisions are handled LOCALLY.
I was appalled in 2004 by what happened in Ohio and elsewhere. Not having enough polling places, or voting machines, etc. These are COUNTY issues. I mean come on people. You don’t need to wait for anybody at the national level to do anything, you can fix it now… today.
Pb
David,
It seems that everybody does know this, except for Brian.
ppGaz
I think you misspelled “onion.”
Pb
The Other Steve,
Yes, except when they’re decided at the state level by a partisan Secretary of State, working under the law at the federal level that encourages the adoption of said voting machines. I agree that counties should do what they can locally about this, but don’t lose sight of what happened, and how it happened–it is not just a county issue.
The Other Steve
I’m not saying the partisan Secretary of State isn’t a problem.
What I’m saying is that you get no where by whining and claiming there is no reason to show up to vote because your vote won’t be counted anyway. It’s self-defeating.
The Other Steve
No. I’m quite serious.
I don’t understand why liberals chase windmills. It’s like it’s fun for them to complain endlessly and not have a chance of changing anything.
As I said, increasing the size of Congress requires nothing but an Act of Congress. No amendment. This is all laid out in the Constitution.
ppGaz
I hate to be a spoilsport, but I think the change process begins with complaining.
Take for example, the complaint “Bloody British!”
And so forth.
Brian
What unadulterated, regurgitated bullshit. You are kidding yourself about recounts going Gore’s way.
Nevertheless, it was legally won. The Supreme Court and the Electoral College, both legal insitutions last I checked, settled the issue. If you have a problem with that, as I say, TOUGH SHIT.
ppGaz
Oooh, spoofer angry! Spoofer yelling!
The Other Steve
Ok, granted. But if there are ways to fix the problem which have less signifigant hurdles than other ways. Why go for the hard way?
The Other Steve
What’s amazing to me is the 8 years I had to sit listening to Republicans whine about how Clinton never properly won.
In Clinton’s case there was no question. He clearly had the most votes. Yet that never stopped the Republiwhiners.
ppGaz
Please elaborate.
But put it in Leftycode, so Brian won’t be able to read it.
Pb
Brian,
But it isn’t in the Constitution! I mean, if *states* are extra-legal now, then The Supreme Court must be waaay out there…