Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

Be a wild strawberry.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

“They all knew.”

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

This blog will pay for itself.

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Archives for 2008

Uppity Negro Alert

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Ron Fournier:

Arrogance is a common vice in presidential politics. A person must be more than a little self-important to wake up one day and say, “I belong in the Oval Office.”

But there’s a line smart politicians don’t cross — somewhere between “I’m qualified to be president” and “I’m born to be president.” Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step.

He’s bordering on arrogance.

Again, I am not sure if it is the narcotics that are clouding my memory, or if Fournier is simply talking out his ass, but the last damned thing I think of when I think of Obama is arrogant. The man comes off to me as exceedingly humble, thoughtful to a fault, and his speech is considered, reasoned, and deliberate. At times he appears too cautious to me. But arrogant?

That isn’t a word I would use to describe Obama.

The portrait of arrogance.

*** Update ***

More here from Too Sense.

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It’s Called Rathering

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Indeed, it would be nice to leverage Bill Kristol’s screwup into a net win for Obama. The story will undoubtedly catalyze some reporting on how much of the anti-Obama narrative out there is sourced from baseless innuendo, and that’s nice. But before Kristol will become a public symbol for frothing dishonest bullshit (or anyway, more so than he already is) Teh Left needs to put in a little more work on their own part. Really, the Dan Rather story didn’t write itself. The base spent a fairly long going apeshit and picking every conceivable thread. Then Rather and his managers handled the response badly. Then the base went even more apeshit. By the time Rather resigned dead people and rocks were paying attention.

Still with me? If Dems want to stretch some mileage out of Kristol’s shame then they need to do more than hope that it happens. For example, who exactly was this Weekly Standard correspondent who started the mess? Has he had his stuff published before? It would help to know whether the story comes from a journalist or a some mentally ill vagrant who sent in the “scoop” in return for ten bucks and a forty of St. Ides. Do editors at the Weekly Standard have a history of printing nonsense and unsubstantiated fables? Who will be held accountable? This crap is SOP for the activist right.

Sure it would be nice if Kristol became a public symbol for anti-Obama idiocy. Now excuse me while I make a Montgomery’s cheddar and cave-aged gruyere souffle appear just by thinking about it.

***Update***

Brain fart. When I wrote about Kristol I thought about the Weekly Standard so I wrote that instead of Newsmax. The management regrets the reduced morale caused at least in part by Scott Beauchamp’s dog story.

And honestly, it is pretty silly to ask whether anybody at Newsmax will be held accountable. That’s not how they roll. Setting up an if…then syllogism in which the if… part is unlikely is another way of saying that the then… statement probably will not happen.

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Kristol Issues a Correction

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Kristol issues a correction:

In this column, I cite a report that Sen. Obama had attended services at Trinity Church on July 22, 2007. The Obama camapaign has provided information showing that Sen. Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error.

And that means the entire column is about as meaningful as a wet fart. Once the “gotcha” element of the op-ed piece is not there, the entire story falls flat. Maybe I was wrong about that being the wrong debate to have. I still think this entire meta-debate is ludicrous, for reasons I stated in the update to the post below.

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The Wrong Fight

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Honestly, I can not figure out why reasonably intelligent liberals are debating with Bil Kristol about Obama’s minister and whether or not Obama was actually ina pew on the day his minister said something. This is the kind of debate about minutae retrograde morons like Dan Riehl want to have, because they can frame the debate in the following way:

The reality is, Jeremiah Wright shaped Obama’s religious philosophy. By Obama’s own statements we know his religious philosophy drives his political philosophy. What else is there to know?

At best, Obama is a cynical politician who used a religion to win broader appeal throughout South Chicago. At worst, he’s a racist – viewing the entire American experience primarily in shades of black and white.

As a sign of the end times, I am in full agreement with Amanda Marcotte:

Why the fuck do I know Obama’s minister’s name?! No, really. Why? I don’t know John McCain’s minister’s name. (But he does have a “spiritual guide”.) I don’t know Hillary Clinton’s minister’s name? I don’t know John Edwards’ minister’s name. I don’t know Mitt Romney’s minister’s name, and Romney was in a church that is actually out of the mainstream and “raised questions”. I don’t know George Bush’s minister’s name, but I know that whoever he is probably thinks I’m going to burn in hell for all eternity for the sin of being a feminist atheist.

Nothing that Rev. Jeremiah Wright said from the pulpit is, in an objective sense, any worse than damning the majority of the population to hell, which is a bare minimum requirement for the religious right assholes in this country that we’re supposed to show such great respect for because it’s their beliefs and they’re religious.

Assholes like, for example, Jimmie at the Sundries Shack. Here Jimmie, good Christian that he is, smears every congregant at Trinity:

You know what I don’t see there? I don’t see one single thing about winning people to Jesus. I don’t see anything there about preaching the Bible and leading people to the saving knowledge of Jesus’ immeasurable sacrifice for them. I see nothing there about salvation or atonement. I see nothing there that comes anywhere close to the Great Commission that Jesus Christ gave to all believers, everywhere.

All across the country, large portions of the Republican party weekly attend church services that believe in the wildest of things, and I don’t think I need to run down the list of James Dobson’s beliefs.

As I have said before, what strikes me the most about these attacks on Obama’s church is the brazenness of it all, but I guess it really shouldn’t. This is, after all, the same crew who chants “Support the troops” at every opportunity, but the moment someone in uniform says something that could even remotely interpreted as disagreeing with George Bush, they are immediately villified, ruined, and tossed aside.

But for some reason, I thought religion would be different, but we now see that it is not. According to modern Republican orthodoxy, it matters not that you are a Christian, church-going, tax-paying adult who believes in God and believes in helping his fellow man and engages in widespread charity for those who are not well off. No, according to the new rules, you have to be the right kind of Christian, and all you have to do is have a minister who wears a flag lapel pin and shares your hatred for the gay and has a fetish for the fetus. Watch out, Christians. You need to believe in God, act in a Christian manner, AND have the right kind of counter-tops. You have been warned.

That, to me, is the real story. Not the fact that Bill Kristol couldn’t fact check his ass with both hands.

*** Update ***

Hillary supporter and apparent fanatic patriot Paul Lukasiak lets me know it is all about America, not religion:

john, when will you realize that its not about religion, its about “God Damn America”. No one would care if Obama attended a church that was gay-positive, supportive of abortion rights, etc. Hell, Wright could have said just about anything about Bush, and it wouldn’t have been an issue. Its when he starts attacking the country itself that people sit up and take notice.

Fine. How about this:

Why should God Bless America? I don’t know, maybe the media should start asking prominent Republicans how they feel about the issue?

I am so sick and tired of people and their damned religions. For someone who really does not care about religion at all, this entire debate is absolutely maddening. I think all of you are funny, with your arguments about water into wine, coming back from the dead, virgin birth, funny underpants, arguments about circumcision, not eating meat on Friday and pork being unclean, the immorality of the gay, etc. Having to hear someone is not politically viable because they don’t adhere to the letter of one sect’s brand of fantasy is enough to make me want to throw up. you all can practice whatever you want, I don’t care what you think, but I am sick and tired of hearing about it. Really.

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HBO’s Adams

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Aside from the fact that I am viewing it through a Percocet induced stupor and several times have wondered aloud why John Adams refuses to drink Merlot, the show is actually quite entertaining.

It would be interesting to see if any historians have viewed the show and given their opinion of how historically “accurate” this version of history is, because from what I have seen, John Adams as depicted in the miniseries would be promptly swiftboated and due for a serious counter-top inspection by the real patriots in our midst, the keyboard commandoes.

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The Invisible Handout

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Yay, unfettered capitalism:

Bear Stearns, pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by what amounted to a run on the bank, agreed late Sunday to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase for a mere $2 a share, narrowly averting a collapse that threatened to cascade through the financial system.

The price represents a startling 93 percent discount to Bear Stearns’ closing stock price on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Bankers and policy makers raced to complete the deal before financial markets in Asia opened on Monday, as fears grew that the financial panic could spread if Bear Stearns failed to find a buyer.

The deal, done at the behest of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, punctuates the stunning downfall of one of Wall Street’s biggest and most storied firms. Bear Stearns weathered the vagaries of the markets for 85 years, surviving the Depression and a dozen recessions only to meet its end in the rapidly unfolding credit crisis now afflicting the American economy.

***

The companies said that the Federal Reserve would provide special financing in connection with the transaction and that the Fed had agreed to fund up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns’s “less-liquid assets.”

Bailouts suck. The GOP should do something about welfare moms with widescreen televisions and Cadillacs.

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Op-Eds Made Simple

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The NY Times has nine op-eds to mark the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Because I care about you all, I will simplify these op-eds into one sentence or less, each featuring the f-word. You will then be spared the pain of reading them.

Paul Bremer: “We fucked up, but it wasn’t my fault and I think Bush kinda fixed things last year.”

Richard Perle– “Things went great until those pussies at the State Department fucked up trying to fix what we bombed.”

Anne-Marie Slaugher: “This undertaking was fucked from the beginning.”


Kenneth M. Pollack– “If you think we are fucked right now, wait until you see what happens if we try to leave.”

Danielle Pletka– “The anti-war left was right about everything, but I still fucking hate them and will use this column to trash them.”


Nathaniel Flick– “Our fuck-ups can all be traced back to the fear we would be slimed.”

Major General Paul D. Eaton– “The sycophantic Republican Congress has fucked the military for a long time coming.”


Fred Kagan– “I love my fucking pompoms, and am currently applying for the job of Chief Assistant Fluffer for General Petraeus.”

Anthony Cordesman– “Bush/Cheney- Worst fucking administration EVAH.”

If you think I am exaggerating, read these for yourself.

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