Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Republicans do not trust women.

“They all knew.”

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

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

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

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

I really should read my own blog.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Giving up is unforgivable.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

“woke” is the new caravan.

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While We’re Talking About Basra

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America has the awesomest allies.

He was not deserting his men, the Iraqi Army captain insisted Wednesday. He had left his 70 soldiers in the midst of a battle in Sadr City the day before to take his long-overdue three-day break.

The captain, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said he intended to extend the break to five days, maybe longer. He had not been paid in two months and was overwhelmed by the problems of commanding his company, part of the 1st Brigade, 11th Iraqi Army Division. He was considering not going back to the fight in Sadr City.

At least they can dance.

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Shenanigans

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This is interesting.

Petraeus carefully dodged a question from Sen. Hillary Clinton about what resources he was planning to deploy to Basra and over what length of time.

Clinton evidently suspected that the plan envisioned the deployment of U.S. troops on a large scale in the Shiite south, despite the fact that the Iraqi government is supposed to be responsible for security there. Petraeus responded vaguely that it was “a phased plan over the course of a number of months during which different actions were going to be pursued.”

[…] When Vice President Dick Cheney, who had previously played the “bad cop” in the George W. Bush administration’s relations with al-Maliki, visited Baghdad in mid-March, one of his objectives was to get al-Maliki to go along with the Petraeus plan to eliminate the commanding position of Sadr’s forces in Basra. Al-Maliki has told Iraqi officials that Cheney put pressure on him to go along with the Basra operation, according one Iraqi source.

[…] The Cheney visit apparently mobilised al-Maliki, but not in the way Cheney had intended.

Four days later, when Petraeus met with al-Maliki’s national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie to talk about the U.S. campaign plan for Basra, al-Rubaie warned Petraeus that al-Maliki had a different plan. Petraeus was apparently told that the operation would last from a week to 10 days — not the several months envisioned in the Petraeus plan.

A major, bloody offensive would make a great prop for bashing Democrats with. The public would obviously hate seeing more kids die, but it takes a kind of Democrat that we don’t have to go on promising withdrawal in the middle of a pitched battle. In the current political climate a shooting battle, even one that we’re losing (maybe especially one that we’re losing) could do wonders for a hawkish Republican candidate.

And when would that battle take place? The story said that Petraeus planned to begin around mid-summer. It also said that the operation would take a few months. Mid-summer, plus a few months, puts us in…October. Surprise!

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Not Helpful

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Look, if your goal is to promote “discourse” about abortion, this is just not helpful:

Art major Aliza Shvarts ’08 wants to make a statement.

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock — saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.

But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”

“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”

I really, really hope this is a fraud for so many different reasons. If not, I propose a death match between her and Randall Terry. Regardless the outcome, society comes out a winner.

*** Update ***

Yep, a fake. Enjoy your 15 minutes.

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No More Rove

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This editorial endorsement of Obama really says it all:

Contrary to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan, we believe Barack Obama is more likely to be “ready on Day One” to lead us in a new direction. Because of his experience.

Sure, Clinton has more “experience” of a sort. For one thing, she has 14 more years on earth. How much of this experience is directly applicable to the job of president is, at best, debatable.

We are frankly troubled by her assumption that her husband’s administration and accomplishments were her own. And if her equation holds, that the first spouse is an equal partner in the administration, then the reappearance of Bill Clinton in the White House is a prospect we have a hard time reconciling with the work that needs to be done.

THERE IS a way to match Clinton’s and Obama’s performances on a relatively equal playing field: their campaigns.

A candidate’s campaign may be the best indicator of how she or he will govern. If so, an Obama administration would be well-managed, inclusive and astonishingly broad-based. It would make good use of technology and communicate a message of unity and, yes, hope.

It would not be content with eking out slim victories by playing to the narrow interests of the swing voters of the moment while leaving the rest of the country as deeply divided as ever. Instead, an Obama administration would seek to expand the number of Americans who believe that they have a personal stake in our collective future – and that they have the power to change things.

It would motivate them to hold their representatives accountable for making it happen. That is, after all, the only way to get us out of Iraq, to address global warming, to make us energy-independent. It’s the only way to resist the forces arrayed against providing universal health care, rebuilding our infrastructure and returning our schools to world-class status. It’s the only way to give our children the means to compete with children in other parts of the world who are healthier, better-educated and have more opportunities than many of our own.

Yes. This. Accountability. I am willing to put aside the many differences I have with Clinton and Obama for that alone. Accountability. Responsibility. I simply can not take four more years of “No one could have predicted” bullshit. I can not take four more years of debating the merits of abstinence only or stem cell bullshit while Baghdad burns and the housing market melts down.

Accountability. Priorities. Responsibility. I don’t agree with Obama or Hillary on a lot of things, but they are issues about which I don’t agree with most Democrats (and yes, I am aware this sentence sucks but I am too lazy to rewrite it). But when I look at the two campaigns, only one looks like it will end the crap we have endured for the past eight years, while the other looks content to keep serving it up to us.

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Clinton Rules

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The GOS notes:

In one of the threads last night, commenter theran made a good observation:

At some point the concept of “Republicans will do X” has turned into a license for Hillary to do all the same things. It’s bizarre, but I don’t really consider her a Dem any more.

Actually, in fairness, Josh Marshall pointed this out several days ago:

With the Wright business and now with this, the more nuanced version of the Clinton line has been that what ‘we’ think is not really the point. It’s what Republicans will do with it in the fall. And that’s a real concern that I definitely have. I won’t deny it. I’ve never thought Obama was a perfect candidate. But as we get deeper into the primary calendar, increasingly so, this ‘what the Republicans will do’ line has become more of a simulacrum, or a license, if you will, to do what Republicans actually do do. That is to say, to grab for political advantage by peddling stereotypes about Democrats and liberals that are really no less offensive than the ones we’re talking about about Americans from small town and rural America.

And seeing Hillary go on about how Obama has contempt for folks in small town America, how he’s elitist, well … no, it’s not because I think she’s either. I never have. But after seeing her hit unfairly with just the same stuff for years, it just encapsulates the last three-plus months of her campaign which I can only describe as a furious descent into nonsense and self-parody. Part of it makes me want to cry. But at this point all I can really do is laugh.

Credit where credit is due.

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