Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Let there be snark.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

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

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

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

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

“They all knew.”

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

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Archives for 2008

WV Democratic Primary

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Anyone who is remotely surprised by this has not been paying attention:

Looking down the road to May 13, Senator Hillary Clinton holds a huge lead over Senator Barack Obama in the West Virginia Presidential Primary. The first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the race shows that Clinton attracts 55% of the Likely Democratic Primary Voters while Obama is supported by 27%. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure.

Clinton is viewed favorably by 72% of West Virginia’s Primary Voters, Obama by 53%.

Now I don’t want to throw the state under the bus (since that is so fashionable these days) because I love it here so much, but anyone who is surprised by this simply is not paying attention. Racism is alive and well in central PA, SE Ohio, and much of WV. What Carville said about central PA (it resembles Alabama) can be said about the regions I discussed, and it was why I was able to say, when I was a Republican, that most of the racists I have met in my lifetime were Democrats. I wasn’t lying.

If Obama wins the nomination, he will have to win the general election without WV, because I will be absolutely shocked if he carries it. Depressing, but that is how I see it.

See also this Politico piece about the rubes in PA.

*** Update ***

Before the stupidity in the comments section gets too out of hand, let me be clear. I am not claiming that anyone who refuses to vote for Obama is a racist. I just am not. But there are a number of things working against Obama in WV, and chief among them is the presence of a number of people who will, under no circumstances, vote for a black man. Particularly one named Hussein Obama. Hell, a cab driver I use occasionally has twice told me that he applied for the job as trapper at the White House, because come January there is going to be a coon or a beaver there. Not only does he feel comfortable telling me that, but he has told me at least twice. Why? Because I am sure it gets a lot of yuks with other passengers.

While there is racism present to varying levels in every state, what makes WV different is that there is not a presence of a large AA community who will enthusiastically balance out that vote like there are in other states. Add to it that WV is a Hillary Clinton kind of state- lots of blue-collar union types who are comfortable working with and voting the party machine. As the Clinton’s are an established name, the Clinton’s are viewed as the party candidate.

Again, I am not claiming a refusal to vote for Obama makes one racist. I am claiming that, in WV, at least, there will be a number of people who refuse to vote for him because they are in fact racist. That isn’t a smear, that is just the truth. If you can not deal with it, well, that is on you. It is also why people like me have been frequently upset throughout this campaign when we have seen what we perceive to be dogwhistles coming from the Clinton camp. Whipping up this sort of sentiment is, in my book, inexcusable.

*** Update #2 ***

Fan mail, even after the update:

Yeah, the only reason NOT to vote for Obama is that one is racist.

That is the typical smear from the Obama whores and even his campaign.

Asshole.

L2READ, jackass.

*** Update ***

For chrissakes, Armando, I have given a number of reasons along with race why Obama will not do well in WV, chief of which is that this is a Clinton kind of state with a lot of blue-collar workers. Additionally, and you can pass this on to your apparently dull commenters, I am well aware that there is sexism at play in this election.

However, race will play a factor in the votes in WV, and more so that sexism. I am sorry this upsets you delicate souls at Hillary HQ Talk Left so much, but it upsets me as well. Just for different reasons. I don’t think race will be what determines the election here in WV, but it certainly will explain a portion of the margin of victory for Hillary.

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Please Just Make It All Go Away

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So Hillary’s records as First Lady were finally released, and this is the first thing our liberal media looks into:

Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been there when it happened, according to records of her schedule released today by the National Archives.

An initial review by ABC News of the 17,481 pages of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s schedule as first lady, released today by the National Archives, also finds significant gaps in time and many days containing only “private meetings” at the White House with unnamed individuals.

Fair or unfair, this is one reason I do not want Hillary to win. I simply don’t want to go through all this crap again. I just don’t.

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More Happy Climate News

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Live near a water source fed by mountain glaciers? That could change.

Most of the world’s mountain glaciers, many of which feed major rivers and water supplies, are shrinking at an accelerating pace as the climate warms, according to a new report.

The report charts changes through 2006. It was issued Monday by the World Glacier Monitoring Service, which is based at the University of Zurich and supported by the United Nations Environment Program.

Dealing with global warming didn’t have to be painful, but that would have taken leadership. Instead we got eight years of ideological stonewalling. At this point, as advanced as the problem has become, I’m not even convinced that we can push climate back over the warming threshold. When summer ice in the Arctic is replaced with water and open ground, that part of the Earth will absorb far more solar radiation. Warming will eventually take on a life of its own. The longer we wait the steeper the cost of making a meaningful change will become. But then, at the rate that things are changing the cost of doing nothing will probably be even harsher. Take your pick.

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Ready On Day One

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To bomb the wrong people:

Senator John McCain’s trip overseas was supposed to highlight his foreign policy acumen, and his supporters hoped that it would showcase him in a series of statesmanlike meetings with world leaders throughout the Middle East and Europe while the Democratic candidates continued to squabble back home.

But all did not go according to plan on Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, when Mr. McCain, fresh from a visit to Iraq, misidentified some of the main players in the Iraq war.

Mr. McCain said several times in his visit to Jordan — in a news conference and in a radio interview — that he was concerned that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni insurgent group.

Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

It was not until he got a quiet word of correction in his ear from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was traveling with Mr. McCain as part of a Congressional delegation on a nearly weeklong trip, that Mr. McCain corrected himself.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. McCain said, “the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda.”

Will someone break it to Hillary that her new BFF and experienced candidate of choice can’t find his ass with two hands?

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Thrown Under The Bus

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While there was a lot of stiff competition for the dumbest commentary regarding the Obama speech yesterday, I think I have settled on a winner- the assertion that Obama somehow threw his grandmother under the bus. The Powerline:

When seeking to extricate himself from the tight spot in which he has been placed by his long association with the spiritual leadership of Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama hauled in his (living) maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham.

Steve Sailer (of VDARE fame):

But Obama is so superb with words that it’s perfectly reasonable to hold him accountable for choosing to slander his own living grandmother for his political advantage.

The Gateway Pundit:

Barack Obama threw his ailing grandmother who raised him under the bus today.

You can see where this is going. What did Obama say:

I can no more disown [my evil black angry Amerikka hating minister] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Only in the minds of the fringe right can expressing a shared unconditional love with your grandmother be considered “throwing her under the bus.” It is almost as if the right-wing has thrown their collective minds under the bus, run over them, backed up for good measure, peeled out, and left reason and logic in a ditch for dead. Before I go on, I would be remiss if I did not mention this special attempt at stupidity from the “Astute” bloggers:

He mentioned his white grandparents twice. ONCE TO DIS HIS DEAD [ALIVE?] WHITE GRANDMA.

This tells me a lot about Barack Hussein Obama Junior.

Especially when you add to it the fact his memoir was called “Dreams of My Father” – and was chiefly about Barack Junior’s fixation on the black Kenyan man who abandoned him and his mother.

Deep down, Obama hates white people.

What can you say to stupid like that?

At any rate, you know whose grandmother really was thrown under a bus yesterday? EVERYONE’S:

The Federal Reserve reduced short-term interest rates for the sixth time in six months on Tuesday, capping an extraordinary series of measures it has taken to stabilize financial markets. The cut was smaller than investors had been expecting, though, and exposed some signs of a split among policy makers.

The central bank lowered its federal funds rate — the rate it charges banks for overnight loans — by three-quarters of a percentage point, to 2.25 percent, and left the door open to additional rate cuts in the months ahead.

Though it was one of the biggest one-day rate cuts in decades, investors had been betting heavily that the Fed would cut its key rate a full percentage point in response to strong evidence that a recession has begun and to the deepening crisis on Wall Street.

But two members of the Fed’s policy-making committee dissented, saying they favored an even smaller rate cut, and the policy group as a whole expressed new worries about inflation — a possible argument against any future cuts.

Everyone living on savings and a fixed income just took another swift kick to the junk yesterday as the Fed moved to bail out rich assholes who should have known better.

*** Update ***

This is just genius.

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When You Focus On Climate Rather Than Weather, An Interesting Pattern Emerges

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* Mountain forests are migrating upslope as predicted, except faster.

The rapid upward movement of [hardwood forests] indicates little inertia to climatically induced range shifts in montane forests; the upslope shift may have been accelerated by high turnover in canopy trees that provided opportunities for ingrowth of lower elevation species. Our results indicate that high-elevation forests may be jeopardized by climate change sooner than anticipated.

* Invasive species are throwing a party in a warmer Yellowstone.

[W]hile walking across the Lamar last fall, Robert L. Crabtree, chief scientist with the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center in Bozeman, Mont., pointed out a cascade of ecological changes under way. The number of grizzly bears and gophers in the valley has increased, Dr. Crabtree said, an increase supported by the spread of an invasive plant from the Mediterranean that a warming climate benefits.

“It’s the early stages of a new ecosystem,” he said, “one that hasn’t been seen here before.”

The plant, Canada thistle, provides food for grizzlies in more than one way but may also be squeezing out native plants that cannot compete.

* “The thickest, oldest and toughest sea ice around the North Pole is melting, a bad sign for the future of the Arctic ice cap, NASA satellite data showed on Tuesday.”

* Under the north Pacific, a continent-wide of deep water has not breathed air since it sank in the cold, salty zone between Greenland and Canada. This water, part of a global conveyor system called thermohaline circulation, migrates across the sea floor south along the length of the Atlantic, then around Antarctica and north again under the Pacific until it finally rises and breathes again south and west of Alaska. The journey takes 1,000 years, and everywhere small animals in the cold black water thrive on the organic snow that filters down from the sunlit layers above. In the pitch dark everything respires, nothing photosynthesizes, so that by journey’s end deep conveyor water has become nutrient-rich but almost totally anoxic. Thus when offshore winds pull Pacific deep water towards the surface off the coast of Washington and Oregon, small plants in the oxygen-rich surface layers grow like mad but nearly everything in the middle depths will suffocate and die. This is not a warming phenomenon per se; basic thermodynamics predicts that warmer surface water should prevent deep water from mixing with the surface rather than encourage it. In fact, that is also happening right now. Climate warming is thus causing two kinds of ocean dead zones – in the open ocean where fertile deep water has a harder time reaching the surface, and along certain coasts where changing wind circulation, while having the opposite effect, is equally deadly.

But hey, I hear that Al Gore is a big fat jerk. So it evens out.

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