Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

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

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

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

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

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

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

“But what about the lurkers?”

Let there be snark.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

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Archives for 2009

Huckabee’s Clemency

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I have to say, this sounds extremely reasonable, plausible, and actually makes me think better of Huckabee:

Maurice Clemmons was 16 years old when he committed the crimes of burglary and robbery. He was sentenced to a total of 108 years in prison, dramatically outside the norm for sentencing for the crimes he committed and the age at which he committed them.

In 2000, the PPTB unanimously recommended that his sentence be commuted after he had already served 11 years in prison. As per the recommendation, I commuted his sentence to the term of 47 years (still a long sentence in comparison to others for the type of crime he had committed), making him parole eligible. It did not parole him, as governors do not have that power in Arkansas. He would have to separately apply for parole and meet the criteria for it.

Assuming this version is the truth, this does not sound like a man who misused his clemency power nor made a mistake. It is just a horrible tragedy that things fell apart after the clemency, and you simply can’t blame the Huckster for that. Governors are supposed to use their judgment with these things, and it seems to me that Huckabee’s course of action was very, very reasonable.

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Hitler and Stalin and Mao, oh my

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I don’t like to think about religion. It depresses me that an elaborate and strangely long-lived scam has ensnared so many decent and well-meaning people (which is not to say that no good has come of it).

I have nothing special against Rick Warren: yes, he’s a homophobe who resembles a chunkier Chuck Todd, but at least he doesn’t blame 9/11 on teh ghey or drunkenly masticate David Gregory’s neck and cheeks when he’s on the “Meet the Press”. So it depressed me to read that he said this:

“In 1939, in a stadium much like this, in Munich Germany, they packed it out with young men and women in brown shirts, for a fanatical man standing behind a podium named Adolf Hitler, the personification of evil. And in that stadium, those in brown shirts formed with their bodies a sign that said, in the whole stadium, “Hitler, we are yours.”

And they nearly took the world.

Lenin once said, “give me 100 committed, totally committed men and I’ll change the world.” And, he nearly did.

A few years ago, they took the sayings of Chairman Mao, in China, put them in a little red book, and a group of young people committed them to memory and put it in their minds and they took that nation, the largest nation in the world by storm because they committed to memory the sayings of the Chairman Mao.

When I hear those kinds of stories, I think ‘what would happen if American Christians, if world Christians, if just the Christians in this stadium, followers of Christ, would say ‘Jesus, we are yours’?

I don’t understand modern Christianity. As I’ve said before, Jesus has always seemed like a hippie to me, and I don’t think there’s so much in the New Testament that resembles Mein Kampf. So, seriously, what is up with so many Christian leaders wanting to emulate Hitler, Stalin, Lenin Mao, Genghis Kahn, etc? Is there a simple explanation for this?

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What Is The Next Step

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Steve Benen, when discussing the fact that Democrats are looking at expanding Medicare, states the following:

The story of the day is not Ben Nelson introducing a Senate version of the Stupak language — the smart money is on it failing (I’d put the over/under at 43) — but rather a “sweetener” for the left, to make another public option compromise more palatable.

While Steve is focused on the Medicare angle, I think he is missing something rather big. What on earth can drama queens Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman do to get in the news tomorrow?

If the two are feeling creative, I’m predicting a candlelight vigil with Nelson and Stupak on the Capitol steps complete with prayer beads, Randall Terry, and placards of fetuses. Because if we have learned anything, Ben Nelson doesn’t give two hoots in hell about health care reform, all he cares about is his name in the news and that sweet, sweet, succulent insurance industry money.

If they are not feeling creative, probably just another filibuster threat, which, after the first fifteen of them, have become rather passé.

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Get Mad Eazy-E, You Eightball Junkie

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More family values:

In an incident in which the perpetrator should have considered that he would become a household name on Wonkette before going through with it, former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton is facing assault charges for allegedly beating the shit out of his mistress while having sex. His ladyfriend had not uttered the “safe word,” probably because Jetton was beating her unconscious.

Allegedly, the safe words were “Say no to gay marriage.”

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All I Can Tell You For Sure is They All Wore Brut After-shave and Reeked of Lavoris

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According to TPM, it isn’t just bitches and hoes for the C-Street Gangstas:

Former Congressman (and C Streeter) Chip Pickering is reportedly under police investigation for his involvement in a brawl with a rival youth league soccer coach.

Apparently, police were called to Liberty Park in Madison, Mississippi, after Pickering and coach Christopher Hester came to blows when Pickering confronted Hester over the treatment of Pickering’s son.

The kicker? Hester claims he was wearing a neck brace at the time of the incident.

Thug life. I wonder if they have prison tats and flash gang signs?

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The hobgoblin of small minds

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David Kurtz writes:

An odd exchange on Fox News a short time ago. I know. That never happens, right? But this one has me really confused. Genuinely.

The host was Alisyn Camerota, and she was doing a panel on health care reform where Bob Beckel was playing the liberal going up against Kate Obenshain of the conservative Young America’s Foundation.

The discussion turned to abortion restrictions in the health care reform bill, and of course Obenshain is opposed to any federal funds going to abortions, even indirectly via insurance policies subsidized by federal dollars.

At which point Camerota asks her, “If there is no federal money used to subsidize abortions for low-income women, doesn’t that mean there will be more low-income babies, and do any of these amendments talk about the health care for them then?”

Aimai answers:

What’s not to get? Sometimes Babies are a moral good that evil, slutty, poor, feminist women refuse precisely because they are good and the women are bad. Sometimes Babies are seen as some kind of luxury that evil, slutty, poor, feminist women are trying to access without paying the appropriate luxury tax (like getting married, or having lots of money). Sometimes Babies are thought of as the natural punishment and consequence of evil, slutty, shiftless/poor, and feminist behavior which women try to avoid because they won’t accept responsibility and accountability. Each of those positions on babies and their temporary vessels necessitates a different attitude towards abortion–and towards the kind of women who get abortions.

The biggest mistake you can make with wingers — or with other human beings in general — is to assume that they’re logical or consistent. One should always remember that in order to avoid confusion.

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