Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

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

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Let me file that under fuck it.

So many bastards, so little time.

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

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

T R E 4 5 O N

Wait, what?

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Fight them, without becoming them!

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Really, Not Furious

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Just disgusted. James Joyner (proud new papa!) makes a great point about my post last night regarding DiFi’s reaction to the Panetta pick:

I couldn’t disagree more. One of the chief issues that frustrated conservatives such as John and myself had during the first six years of the Bush administration was a Republican Congress that saw itself as a rubber stamp for a president of their party.

All too true. What I dislike about the Feinstein reaction is that she did, in fact, go along with the rubber-stamping of all the Bush appointees, and she wasn’t even in the Republican party. Now, for whatever reason, she appears to be eagerly hamstringing the appointee before a hearing is even scheduled. The result, of course, is to do political damage to the incoming administration and his pick before he has ever had a chance to be questioned.

That makes no sense. If she is not impressed by Panetta after the Senate hearing, don’t vote to confirm. By all means, ask him tough questions- that would be a welcome change to the charade of the past eight years. What this looks like to me, however, is merely someone getting a little pissy because she was not consulted ahead of time. This DiFi outburst isn’t the result of a Senator seeking good governance, but someone lording over their little fiefdom, and I see no reason to cheer that kind of silliness.

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Interesting

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Another Obama pick:

Brad Kiley has been named as the director of the Office of Management and Administration by President-elect Barack Obama. Kiley, who is openly gay, is currently the director of operations for the Obama-Biden Transition Project and was a former vice president at the Center for American Progress.

Though Director of the Office of Management and Administration is clearly not as important as a couple minute speaking role at the inauguration, maybe this is a sign that Obama does not hate gays after all. Who would have thunk it?

In all seriousness, I wish Democrats, progressives, and gay rights activists would do what every every kid is taught at their first soccer practice- don’t watch their feet, follow the ball.

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Tyranny of the Minority

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I honestly have no idea why the Republicans would want to be the majority party, when they get everything they want as the minority party, and are not responsible for the fallout (“Don’t blame us, the Democrats run things!”):

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yielded to Republican threats and agreed on Monday not to immediately seat fellow Democrat Al Franken, whose razor-close victory in Minnesota faces legal challenges.

Senate Republicans had planned to disrupt the opening of the new Congress on Tuesday by blocking Franken’s swearing-in.

And in another ugly fight, Senate Democrats vowed to block, at least for now, the seating of fellow party member Roland Burris whose appointment by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich carries a whiff of political scandal.

The 57-year old Franken, who gained fame as a writer and performer on the satiric Saturday Night Live television show, on Monday officially was declared the victor by a 225-vote margin by Minnesota state officials from nearly 2.9 million votes cast.

But lawyers for incumbent Republican Norm Coleman complained the recount was conducted unfairly and promised a court challenge that could take weeks to resolve.

“Shortly after Election Day, Coleman criticized Mr. Franken for wanting a recount and wasting taxpayer money. Now that it is clear he lost, Coleman should follow his own advice and not subject the people of Minnesota to a costly legal battle,” Jim Manley, spokesman for Reid of Nevada, said in a statement.

“However, there will not be an effort to seat Mr. Franken tomorrow,” Manley said.

Also, I am not sure how much of this is sensationalist press write-ups, as we learned yesterday after I inaccurately flamed Gov. Pawlenty, Franken is not officially the Senator until Pawlenty signs off on the election results, which will happen in seven days assuming there are no legal challenges. That being said, I have no idea why he is not seating Franken, as he is clearly more likely to be the next Senator than Coleman, who needs his challenges to be accepted and then to have the recount of discarded absentee ballots go his way, a very tough road. Why Reid simply does not seat Franken, and then if it turns out Coleman beats the odds and comes back, seat Coleman, is beyond me.

This really is baffling to me. I understand that Obama needs to attempt to govern in a bipartisan manner, but after the last few years of GOP congressional shenanigans, you would think that the House and Senate Democrats would have a firm policy of telling the Republicans to shut up when they start their whining. By now you would think Reid and company would realize the GOP has no intent of acting in good faith, and have only one goal- getting back in the majority. Everything I did as a Democrat in Congress would keep that in mind.

Additionally, there is political gain to be had by allowing the Republicans to stage hissy fits. Let them bring in the cameras and stomp their feet, when to the majority of the nation it looks like Franken is the winner. While the Republicans are on the Capitol Steps with their “Free Mumia Norm” signs, hold a public forum on the stimulus package. The perception from the country will be that when everything is going to shit domestically, the Republican party is… acting like spoiled children. Again. How do you think the guy who just lost his job or his health care or had his house foreclosed is going to react to news reports of Republicans protesting the seating of the winner of an election?

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The Burris Appointment

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I saw this Wolf Blitzer interview of Burris yesterday, and for me, it really boils down to the following:

Blitzer: Because yesterday Sen. Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, they both said they were open to, quote, “negotiating” with you on this. So tell me what there is to negotiate?

Burris: Well, I am the legally-appointed senator. And what we’ve been trying to get everyone to recognize that the governor of Illinois has serious problems. God knows he has problems, but he is still the governor. He made a legal appointment. And that’s, you know, the end of it. Close the books. That is a legal appointment.

And based on that, I’m hoping that the Senate of the United States will honor that. I mean, it’s just that simple.

I am hard pressed to see anything wrong with his logic there, and agree with him. Governor Blagojevich may or may not be the biggest scumbag currently in politics, but he is still Governor, he still has the authority to make this appointment, Burris appears to be a clean guy, and as far as I am concerned, the matter is settled. The Senate should seat him.

All of this talk about “taint” and other silliness is just grandstanding and posturing, and even Harry Reid knows it, as he gave up the game on MTP on Sunday:

MR. GREGORY: But there sounds to me like there may be some room here to negotiate and actually seat Burris?

SEN. REID: Hey, listen, David, I’m an old trial lawyer. There’s always room to negotiate.

MR. GREGORY: All right, so you’re not saying no completely that he won’t serve?

SEN. REID: That’s right.

I am not sure what he plans to negotiate, as this seems to be a binary construct. Either Burris is seated or he is not, although Reid, with his inexplicable inability to pick fights actually worth fighting, will probably see to it that Burris is only seated after the Democrats inflict maximum political damage on themselves.

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Worst of the Worst

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The Bush legacy:

When Muhammad Saad Iqbal arrived home here in August after more than six years in American custody, including five at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he had difficulty walking, his left ear was severely infected, and he was dependent on a cocktail of antibiotics and antidepressants.

In November, a Pakistani surgeon operated on his ear, physical therapists were working on lower back problems and a psychiatrist was trying to wean him off the drugs he carried around in a white, plastic shopping bag.

The maladies, said Mr. Iqbal, 31, a professional reader of the Koran, are the result of a gantlet of torture, imprisonment and interrogation for which his Washington lawyer plans to sue the United States government.

***

Mr. Iqbal was never convicted of any crime, or even charged with one. He was quietly released from Guantánamo with a routine explanation that he was no longer considered an enemy combatant, part of an effort by the Bush administration to reduce the prison’s population.

***

Mr. Iqbal said he had been beaten, tightly shackled, covered with a hood and given drugs, subjected to electric shocks and, because he denied knowing Mr. bin Laden, deprived of sleep for six months. “They make me blind and stand up for whole days,” he said in halting English, meaning that he had been covered with a hood or blindfolded.

The Pentagon and the C.I.A. have a policy of not talking about the detainees, but a C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said, “The agency’s terrorist detention program has used lawful means of interrogation, reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and briefed to the Congress.

“This individual, from what I have heard of his account, appears to be describing something utterly different,” Mr. Gimigliano added. “I have no idea what he’s talking about. The United States does not conduct or condone torture.”

You really have to read the entire story. Apparently his crime was to be in a group where someone may have uttered the phrase “I know how to make a shoe bomb,” and for that he was imprisoned in Gitmo, shuttled around the world and tortured at out behest, and labeled the worst of the worst by Donald Rumsfeld.

And the funniest thing about all of this is that one of the worst terrorist attacks on this country did not happen with a shoe bomb, but a fertilizer bomb. And you know who actively trains people how to make fertilizer bombs?

The US Army. It was part of my training at Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, some 15 years ago.

We have lost our damned minds.

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To Russia with love

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One amusing byproduct of the financial meltdown will be endless stories of the pathetic and tasteless ways in which various crooks spent their ill-begotten gains.  You may have already heard of Bernie Madoff’s attempt to mail his family a million dollars in jewels yesterday. Here’s another that happened a little while ago: a financial rep with Ameriprise who blew 200K on Russian women.

One complaint against Shane A. Selewach, formerly in the Boston office of Ameriprise, alleged that he stole more than $200,000, mostly from older clients, and used that money for personal expenses.

Those expenses included several charges for a dating service touting itself as “the fastest way to meet thousands of Russian ladies.” It also included several charges at a florist in Moscow as well as thousands of dollars in restaurant and hotel tabs in Kiev, Ukraine and Moscow, as well as other locations in Russia and Ukraine.

Expect a lot more stories like this one over the next year.

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