Category: Hypocrisy

Obama is Objectively Worst than Bush

No Comments

In addition to increasing deportations of illegal aliens to a pace only dreamed of by the Bush administration, Barack Obama is looking to expand the FBI’s extrajudicial, and much abused National Security Letters beyond what Dick Cheney wanted in his most paranoid fantasies:

Today, The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration wants Congress to expand the type of data that can be gained through the use of National Security Letters:

The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.

This is on the heels not only of the administration blocking reasonable restrictions on what has objectively been widespread misuse of NSLs, but of the FBI recently beginning to investigate whether or not “hundreds” of agents cheated on the exam meant to “ensure that they could follow aggressive investigative guidelines without intruding on Americans’ privacy rights.” That’s on top of threatening to veto the meager intelligence-oversight reforms being proposed by Congress. As Gene Healy wrote yesterday, “Our interminable war on terror sometimes seems designed to justify every bad thing libertarians have ever said about government.” Having acted irresponsibly with the surveillance power it already has, and blocked reform that would have made the government more accountable, the Obama administration now wants even more power to violate the privacy rights of American citizens. When it comes to national security, there’s nothing like failed government performance to justify giving the government more power.

My sense on these matters is that there are a number of issues which are driving this:

  • Barack Obama feels that he and his administration are good people who can responsibly handle this authority, and so he, and his administration, do not need to constrained by constitutional checks and balances.
    • Which would put former adjunct Professor Obama in serious running for “Worst Constitutional Law Professor ever.”
  • Barack Obama has been successfully cowed by the professional state security apparatus in the United States, which is doubtless feeding him alarmist horror stories, and so he is giving them their wish list.
  • That, much like he is in the case of expanded deportations, and the war in Afghanistan, he sees this as a way to inoculate himself against attacks from the right in 2012.
    • If this one is true, it means that Dick Cheney has more ideological integrity than does Barack Obama, as scary as that sound.
  • Because he can, which, as former President Bill Clinton noted is the worst possible reason.

It is really remarkable how despite my low expectations, he continues to manage to disappoint.

To a large degree I blame those who protested the excesses of Bush and His Evil Minions™ who are not largely silent, because Barack Obama is the leader of their party.

Spineless Weasels

No Comments

So, because of the threat that Republicans will not say nice things about them, Democrats are preemptively taking the possibility of any meaningful legislative activities following the elections, during the lame duck session:

The head of House Democrats’ campaign committee tried Tuesday to tamp down speculation that the party would try to push through major legislation during a lame-duck session of Congress this fall.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the assistant to the Speaker and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), said “no one should think there’s some secret plan for after the election on big issues.”

Yeah, like rolling over and exposing your belly will keep them for going for your throat.

I’m with Howard Dean, when he says, “No More Apologies — It’s Time to Stand Up for Our Convictions.”

Wanker of the Day

No Comments

Neel “Cash and Carry” Kashkari penned an article in (where else) The Washington Post, pens an OP/ED titled, “No more ‘me first’ mentality on entitlements,” suggesting that individual Americans need to suck it up, and abandon their already meager social safety net, and not expect to be bailed out by the government.

Kashkari ran the TARP. He gave out billions, of bailouts to ‘me first’ bankers, and then got a cushy job with PIMCO, so he doesn’t have to worry about eating cat food* to survive.

3 Words: Not Enough Bullets

*In the interest of health, I would suggest that people eat dog food, and not cat food. Cats because they are one of the few true carnivores, do not need the complex carbohydrates and fats that people, and dogs do. As such, dog food is better for you than cat food because it provides carbs and essential fatty acids. A dog can go blind if it is fed on cat food, but a cat lives just fine on dog food. The phenomenon is known as rabbit starvation.

And Now the Truth Comes Out

No Comments

And the Obama administration is now falling all over itself to apologize to Shirley Sherrod.

Not panicking in the first place, and getting the facts right would have been better, but I think that what happened is that they realize that they are now looking like a bunch of bed-wetting cowards.

The problem is not that they are looking like a bunch of bed-wetting cowards, it is that they are a bunch of bed-wetting cowards.

Not only is it bad policy, but it is bad politics, because, as Josh Marshall notes in his “Bitch slap theory of electoral politics, because it makes the voters think that, “Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.”

I’m waiting for the the response from Stewart, Letterman, and Leno.

Cowards.

No Comments

When people talk about DFH* bloggers hating on the Obama they seem to think that its all about Obama being a pragmatist. It isn’t about his being a pragmatist.

It’s about his, and his people being abject cowards, who soil themselves when someone on the right wing shouts out a lie.

Case in point, Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, who was just fired for a yet another deceptively edited video from professional bigot Andrew Breitbart.

You see, she gave a talk about how when she was working helping farmers, when the first white farmer came to her for help, the thought crossed her mind was not to help, because they were white, but she realized almost as soon as the thought hit her that it was wrong.

Well after excerpting 30 seconds out of a 45+ minute speech (see below), so that Fox News could go “Oh noes! N*****s are trying to take over America.”

The response of the Secretary of Agriculture was to fire her before any real facts came out.

I am with what Digby said:

“Her decision ‘rightly or wrongly” will be called into question” because some right wing hitman put out an edited tape that makes her sound as if her point is the opposite of what it is, so she had to be fired.

They are telling wingnuts everywhere that all they have to do is gin up a phony controversy (especially about a black person, apparently) and the administration will fire them so as not to shake confidence that they are “fair service providers.”

This is sheer cowardice.

This is what pisses people off.

Video after break

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippies.

Karma, Neh?

No Comments

So, a preacher in Ohio with a lot of money and wacked priorities decides to erect a six plus story statue of Jesus, because helping the poor is for punks.

I imagine that he thought that God is much bigger into graven images than he is into helping the downtrodden.

Well, the score is now God:1, religious and self-aggrandizing nut-job:0.

Lightning struck the statue and it burned to the ground. Doubtless the preacher won’t even feel a shred of doubt though.

Posted via mobile, which is why I am not composing a filk of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” (“Smoke on the Jesus?”) for my blog.

Is there a Single Straight Man in the Republican Party?

No Comments
I have to invoke this when discussing the travails of anyone named “Kirk”.

And by “Straight Man,” I don’t mean someone who sets up a joke.

Mark Kirk, the Republican running for Barack Obama’s seat in Illinois, has already been outed for exaggerating his military record, and now it appears that he has been just plain outed.

Michael Rogers recounts how when Kirk, who was generally pretty mild on the “hate te ghey” stuff, decided to run for Senate, he went hard right, and he got phone calls:

Until now, Mark Kirk elected not to play the typical Washington game. Instead of supporting his party’s dismal record on gay rights, Kirk received Human Rights Campaign ratings of 67% in 2002, 88% in 2004, 76% in 2006 and 85% in 2008. That’s more impressive than a lot of Democrats. I even let Kirk slide by when he didn’t co-sponsor earlier legislation relating to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. My thoughts then were that he wasn’t THAT bad on gay stuff and that the bill was going nowhere anyway.

………

Within hours of the DADT repeal vote I was contacted by two people who knew Kirk from his college days.

He then goes on to relate how two of his sources gave details on, “described personal details about the House, um, er, ‘member,’ ” and further notes that he (Rogers) was at a party where Kirk essentially admitted that he was gay:

It was at that party that I met Mark Kirk. I was introduced to him by the person I came with and at the time did not realize he was a member of the House. As my friend walked away, Kirk asked me if the man who introduced us was “single or attached.” When I said that he had a partner, Kirk replied disappointingly, “oh, well.” At the end of that interaction I walked away and didn’t think much of it at the time.

I really don’t care who a politician f%$#s, unless it’s the American public, but Kirk has gone Teabagger on this issue simply for political gain, and that means that, as is the case with his vote on DADT, he is screwing the American public out of craven hypocricy.

Furthermore, I think that the closet, whether it’s over sexuality or anything else, is a bad place for anyone who holds power to be, it twists values and world view, and opens them up to blackmail and other forms of coercion.

Needless to say, this makes the row to hoe easier for Friend-of-Barack State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who is tied up in the failure of his family’s bank, which includes allegations of fraud, but I still think that this race is Kirk’s to lose.

H/t Crooks and Liars.

Anti-Vacc Fraud Doc Gets Medical License Pulled

No Comments

The General Medical Council, the physicians’ regulatory body in the UK, has revoked the medical licens(c)e of Andrew Wakefield and his colleague John Walker-Smith, though the 3rd participant in the study, was exhonerated when it was determined that he stopped doing tests when he determined that they were unethical.

The first two “doctors” subjected children to excruciating tests like lumbar puncture without any review from ethics committees,

For a devastating cartoon version of the facts, which details how Wakefield did this because he was bought and paid for, see here.

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that he will get what he really deserves, which is a very long time in gaol.

Earlier posts on the subject.

Lame, Even By Republican Standards

No Comments

Will Bunch notices that Pennsylvania State Attorney General, and Republican nominee for governor, Tom Corbett, has issued subpoenas to determine who is making nasty tweets and blog posts about him:

Corbett’s actions here look like one of the most stunning abuses of power I’ve seen in a while — not just in Pennsylvania but anywhere.

A blog focused on exposing the alleged “hypocrisy” of Attorney General Tom Corbett and the Twitter account associated with that blog could soon be enjoying a bounce in reader interest, thanks to a subpoena ordered by Corbett’s office earlier this month.

Corbett, who won a primary against Rep. Sam Rohrer Tuesday and will be the Republican nominee for governor in November, subpoenaed Twitter representatives to appear as grand jury witnesses to “testify and give evidence regarding alleged violations of the laws of Pennsylvania.”

The case could gain viral attention, since the subpoena calls into question the right to free speech, specifically from anonymous posters on the World Wide Web.

Maybe I’m missing some nuance here but at first blush it looks like the anonymous owners of these two Twitter accounts and blogs are doing nothing more than exercising their 1st Amendment rights of free speech to criticize Corbett’s public actions. If Corbett believes that he has been libelled by any of the blog or Twitter posts, he is within his rights to personally sue them (a difficult case for him to win, as a public figure). But that is a far different thing from using the power of the state and the grand jury.

Bunch further updates with a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story, where a they imply that the blogger/bloggers are a defendant in a case, but in a quick reading of the blog, there is no mention of the case, just a litany of accounts of unethical behavior by Mr. Corbett.

This is clearly an attempt at retaliation against critics.

First, You Say Something Stupid, Then You Lie About It, but It’s On Video

2 Comments
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission.*

No, not Blumenthal, he fessed up in the back-handed way that pols do.

I mean Sue Lowden, who is a Republican running for US Senate against Harry Reid in Nevada.

First, she suggests that people should barter chickens for medical care, and does not have the good sense to say she meant, “Bargain,” and now she is denying that she ever said this.

The problem is that she has been caught on video repeatedly making just such a statement, so let’s roll tape, specifically the inestimable Rachel Maddow.

The first rule is that when you are in a hole, stop digging.

The former anchor woman turned politico brings to mind the immortal Don Henley lyric, “We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blond who Comes on at five, She can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam In her eye.”

In any case, she may be Harry Reid’s electoral salvation.

*Virtual Kewpie doll for whoever picks the reference for the caption.

Your Daily Dose of Schadenfreude

No Comments

Your moment of Zen:
Rep Souder and his mistress discussing abstinence

Representative Mark Souder (R-IN) will resign after it was revealed that he had an affair with one of his staffers, one Tracy Jackson:

Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), a champion of abstinence education and traditional family values, will resign effective Friday after an affair with a female staffer in his district office, he announced today.

He said in a statement that he “sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff.” …

(emphasis mine)

If this video does not appear on The Daily Show‘s moment of Zen, I will send a strongly worded letter of complaint Comedy entral about this.

Oh My God………

No Comments

OK, I was a bit of a fan of Dodd, so I was upset, Geithner and Obama hung him out to dry over his doing their bidding on AIG bonuses.

At least the person selected by the powers that be to replace him, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, had a lock on the seat in the general, because the Nutmeg State is very blue.

Well, not any more. It appears that the Blumenthal, who has repeatedly used his service in Vietnam to justify his support for military tribunals and a continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been lying about serving in Vietnam:

At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

……

In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive.

……

But what is striking about Mr. Blumenthal’s record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events.

I’m with the Swing State Project’s take on this, “The Dem statewide convention is this weekend. Conceivably delegates could nominate someone other than Blumenthal. If someone else wants to get on the primary ballot via petition, they need to file 7,500 signatures by June 8th (PDF).”

I think that it is probably too late to get the convention to nominate someone else, but there are 3 weeks to get the signatures, though I would make sure to get at least 12,000 because the PTB who selected Blumenthal in the first place will challenge them.

What I do know is that there are hundreds of hours of Blumenthal lying on video and audio tape, and whoever runs against him will play it over, and over, and over again.

He is dead meat.

I’m beginning to think that serving as attorney general or DA should be taken as a strike against those serving higher office.

Questions that Need to be Asked

No Comments

Is Every Right-Wing, Anti-Gay Christian Bigot Sucking Off Rent Boys?

I think that the answer is, “Yes”:

That man was George Alan Rekers, of North Miami—the callboy’s client and, as it happens, one of America’s most prominent anti-gay activists. Rekers, a Baptist minister who is a leading scholar for the Christian right, left the terminal with his gay escort, looking a bit discomfited when a picture of the two was snapped with a hot-pink digital camera.

Reached by New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. “I had surgery,” Rekers said, “and I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.” (Though medical problems didn’t stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.) Yet Rekers wouldn’t deny he met his slender, blond escort at Rentboy.com—which features homepage images of men in bondage and grainy videos of crotch-rubbing twinks—and Lucien confirmed it.

Wanker of the Day:

No Comments

Reliably spouting right wing talking points since 2004

Barack Obama.

For claiming that there were no oil spills from platforms and as a result of Hurricane Katrina:

I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.

The problem here, as the folks at Media Matters so ably note, this is false. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil and distillates were spilled offshore as a consequence of hurricane Katrina.

It’s not true, it’s never been true, and he’s a smart guy, and he knows this.

Failing by Design

No Comments

So, after releasing an ambitious plan to reign in the exotic insurance-like financial instruments known as swaps, Blanche Lincoln is saying that she thinks that the proposal will not survive the Senate:

Senator Blanche Lincoln said she isn’t sure her plan to make banks wall off their swaps-trading desks has enough support to become part of financial-regulatory overhaul, while calling the provision effective change.

……

“I don’t know if I have the votes” for the provision, Lincoln said today. When the measure comes to the floor for debate, senators could vote to remove her plan, Lincoln said.

Let’s be clear, Senators don’t say things like this about proposals of theirs that they want to pass, they say it about proposals of theirs that they want someone else to kill.

Lincoln is trying to present herself as the liberals’ great white hope in the primary, but it’s just a pose, which is why the US Chamber of Commerce is doing a TV ad blitz for her.

Do not be deceived: She is owned by Walmart, the big banks, the health insurers, and the rest of those pig felching rat bastards.

Sounds Awfully Familiar

No Comments

So, Allee Bautsch, a fundraiser for Bobby Jindal, the Governor, and Village Idiot, of Louisiana gets mugged in New Orleans, and “source close to Bautsch tells Yahoo! News that they were politically motivated.”

Note that official sources have made no such claims, but a conservative blogger seems to have put words in the mouth of a NOPD spokesman.

In any case, the Times Picayune has some decent coverage which appears to make it clear that no political epithets were involved, it was a bunch of drunken assholes.

As an FYI to those living under rocks in the past year, the pic is not of Ms. Bautsch,* but of Ashley Todd.

*Whose name, for some reason, I keep spelling Bat-sh%$.

I want smaller government and my Social Security

No Comments

Teabaggers in a nutshell.

It’s not that government is too big, it’s that you are giving money to n*****s:

“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”

Their problem is that a black man is President.

The Poor Don’t Pay Taxes………My Ass!

No Comments
Click for full size

Yeah, right, only the rich pay all the taxes

The latest right wing meme is that 47% of the population pay no taxes.

Of course, it’s not true, though it is true that that number owe no federal income tax, but the do owe significant amounts of Social Security, Medicare, and state and local taxes.

As this handy, dandy chart shows, it’s simply not true, and my guess would be that if this were broken up into deciles, as opposed to quintiles, that the top 10% would pay even less, since they are above the social security cutoff, and get far more of their income in capital gains and dividends.

Warren Buffet once noted that his receptionist paid a greater percentage of her wages in taxes than he did, and that still holds true.