Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

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

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

The willow is too close to the house.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Water Pollution Post Katrina

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I have taken a lot of shit for defending dKos and the Kossacks, but this diary is a perfect example why I continue to cruise the site as much as I do.

Everything you wanted to know about the water samples after the flooding in New Orleans, in plain English.

Sure, the partisanship and the other crap can get tedious (imagine how lefties feel reading the Powerline), and the commenters there make this site look like a model of civility and thought, but if you simply write off the whole site, you are making a mistake.

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Pure Bullshit

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This is the weakest of the Miers spin that I have seen yet:

Dobson discussing his conversation with Karl Rove:

“But we also talked about something else, and I think this is the first time this has been disclosed. Some of the other candidates who had been on that short list, and that many conservatives are now upset about were highly qualified individuals that had been passed over. Well, what Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter, that they didn’t want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it.

So, even today, many conservatives and many of friends of mine, are being interviewed on talk shows and national television programs. And they’re saying, “Why didn’t the President appoint so-and-so? He or she would have been great. They had a wonderful judicial record. They would have been the kind of person we’ve been hoping and working and praying for to be on the Court. Well, it very well may be that those individuals didn’t want to be appointed.”

Bullshit. Let me be clear. Complete bullshit.

I have no doubt there may have been one or two individuals who removed their names because personal/professional transgressions may have surfaced in the vetting process.

I have no doubt there may have been one or two individuals who, due to personal preferences and a desire to avoid a confirmation fight, may have removed their names.

But if Dobson, Rove, and the White House want me to believe that the entirety of the legal minds who have been groomed for the past thirty years for this moment, studying, taking the clerkships, doing the time on lower courts, in other words, preparing for this very nomination, if these guys want me to believe that at the crucial moment the shining stars of the movement all chickened out at the prospect of being grilled by a number of friendly GOP Senators and a largely incompetent media, I am not buying it. And because all these folks opted out, it was left to the “pit bull in heels” to pick up the slack and do the tough work (and oh, btw, she just so happens to be a Bush crony with no paper trail and no record other than a religious and political conversion in the 80’s), I call bullshit.

This White House simply never wanted a serious candidate- they wanted someone who could be ‘confirmed’ easily.

Again, I say bullshit. Or I officially declare this so-called ‘conservative’ movement to be dead. Someone call the Kossacks, because it is time for the Rapture, and it ain’t what Dobson thought it was.

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Tax Code Changes

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I find this hard to believe:

President Bush’s tax advisory commission indicated on Tuesday that it would not propose replacing the income tax with a national sales tax or a value-added tax, but would recommend limits in the popular tax deductions for mortgage interest and employer-provided health insurance.

The commission, scheduled to make its recommendations to the president by Nov. 1 on how to change the tax system, did not take votes or dwell on details, but its consensus on many important issues was clear.

“We’re getting focused on the income tax as a base,” said the panel’s chairman, Connie Mack, a former Republican senator from Florida.

Many prominent conservatives have argued over the years that the income tax is a drag on the economy and should be scrapped in favor of a consumption tax, a tax based not on what people earn, but on what they spend.

I hate taxes. I think we are taxed too much, I think government spends too much, and I think certain taxes should simply be abolished (property tax being one- it sends me into fits of anger to continue to pay taxes on a car that was paid off years ago).

I love the idea of a flat tax.

But you have got to work a little harder to convince me that after years of cutting taxes and failing to even attempt to control spending, the only tax code revisions this group can come up with is cutting deductions for home owners and health insurance?

Tell me I am reading this wrong. Tell me I am getting worked up over nothing. Tell me I just don’t understand what they are trying to do. Tell me something.

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Aye Carumba

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Not looking good for Miers:

“You could say there is pretty much uniform disappointment with the nomination at the staff level,” another Republican on the committee staff said. “It is clear there is quite a bit of skepticism, and even some flashes of hostility.”

Another Republican aide close to the committee said, “I don’t know a staffer who approves of this nomination, anywhere. Most of it is outright hostility throughout the Judiciary Committee staff.”

In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Specter emphasized that the senators would make their own decisions.

“I think those staffers, like anybody else, have a right to their opinions and to express them,” he said. “Senators will make independent judgments. You have some pretty strong staffers on the committee, but you have got some stronger senators.”

On a political level, this could be the worst SCOTUS nomination ever.

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Most Disturbing Thing Ever

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This is the most disturbing damned thing I have read in years (h/t Feministe).

As you read it, try to cycle through the wrong turns your life would have to take before you would

A.) Find this sexually attractive
B.) Act upon that sexual attraction
C.) Admit publicly to said attraction and subsequent action
D.) Fool yourself into thinking this was a ‘relationship.’

I keep coming back to severe drug use or serious head trauma.

I don’t even know what category to file this under.

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