Category: Wanker

The Koch Suckers Win in Ohio

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They just got a bill passed in Ohio ending their renewable power initiative:

As renewable energy production has surged in recent years, opponents of government policies that have helped spur its growth have pushed to roll back those incentives and mandates in state after state.

On Wednesday, they claimed their first victory, when Ohio lawmakers voted to freeze the phasing-in of power that utilities must buy from renewable energy sources.

The bill, which passed the Ohio House of Representatives, 54 to 38, was expected to be signed into law by Gov. John R. Kasich, who helped negotiate its final draft.

It stands in marked contrast to the broad consensus behind the original law in 2008, when it was approved with virtually no opposition, and comes after considerable disagreement among lawmakers, energy executives and public interest groups.

………

Eli Miller, Americans for Prosperity’s Ohio state director, backed by the billionaire industrialists David H. and Charles G. Koch, called the proposed law “a prudent step” to re-examine standards that could be a “potential impediment to job creation and job growth here in the Buckeye State.”

Seriously, the Kochs are a cancer on American society in general, and American politics in particular.

Michael Kinsley Comes Out in Favor of Stalinism

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In a New York Times review of Glenn Greenwald’s latest book, Kinsley declares that it must be the government, and not the journalist, who determines when a sensitive information can be published:

The trouble is this: Greenwald says that Snowden told him to “use your journalistic judgment to only publish those documents that the public should see and that can be revealed without harm to any innocent people.” Once again, this testimony proves the opposite of what Greenwald and Snowden seem to think. Snowden may be willing to trust Greenwald to make this judgment correctly — but are you? And even if you do trust Greenwald’s judgment, which on the evidence might be unwise, how can we be sure the next leaker will be so scrupulous?

The question is who decides. It seems clear, at least to me, that the private companies that own newspapers, and their employees, should not have the final say over the release of government secrets, and a free pass to make them public with no legal consequences. In a democracy (which, pace Greenwald, we still are), that decision must ultimately be made by the government. No doubt the government will usually be overprotective of its secrets, and so the process of decision-making — whatever it turns out to be — should openly tilt in favor of publication with minimal delay. But ultimately you can’t square this circle. Someone gets to decide, and that someone cannot be Glenn Greenwald.

This is not a problem, this is a free press, and one of the consequences of this is that stuff that the government does not want to be pubic knowledge will be public knowledge.

Shorter Michael Kinsley, “Journalism, Schmournalism, we need better stenographers.”

H/t Gawker.

This is a Good Day for Schadenfreude

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Dinesh D’Souza has just pled guilty to using straw donors in violation of campaign finance laws:

Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza entered a guilty plea Tuesday to a charge that he used straw donors to make $20,000 in illegal contributions to Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long in 2012, officials said.

The unexpected guilty plea came on the same day the trial for the strident critic of President Barack Obama was set to open in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The single felony count D’Souza admitted guilt on carries a maximum prison sentence of two years, but the plea agreement D’Souza’s lawyers reached with the government says sentencing guidelines applicable to the case call for a sentence of 10 to 16 months.

Judges are not required to sentence defendants in accordance with the guidelines, but usually do. Both sides reserved their rights to argue for a sentence outside that range and D’Souza’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman indicated he plans to ask Judge Richard Berman not to send D’Souza to prison.

The plea deal calls for dismissal of a second charge D’Souza faced if he went to trial: causing Long to file a false report with the Federal Election Commission. That carried a potential sentence of up to five years behind bars.

Atrios has noted that he is feeling far less schadenfreude about this than he expected, despite his being, “One of America’s Worst Humans.”

Me not so much.

This is the guy that has never grew up beyond tacky College Republican guerrilla theater that had classmate Timothy Geithner asking him, “how it felt to be such a dick.”  (And that is ignoring his rather idiosyncratic marital life)

This really could not happen to a more contemptible human being.

The Washington Post has Done the Impossible

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In rewriting an OP/Ed contributed by Ramesh Ponnuru, some as yet unamed editor has actually lowered the quality of the indicted right wing pundit’s writing.

Speaking to the universal desire of the right wing to excise the memory of Abraham Lincoln from our recent memory, he wrote in the Post that we should go back to calling it Washington’s Birthday.  (I am old enough to remember when both Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays were both holidays, and not spot welded together), and some nameless editor at the paper changed his words in a fairly significant way:

“Getting rid of President’s Day would not be difficult. All we would have to do is start calling the third Monday of February by its proper name under federal law: Washington’s Birthday. That’s the practice state governments and advertisers ought to follow.” The version the Post ended up running struck the third sentence and replaced the second with ”All we would have to do is designate the third Monday of February to mark George Washington’s Birthday.”

As an aside, I had a fair number of discussions about the writing business with science fiction author and editor Ben Bova, and noted that when he was editor-in-chief at Omni,* he had to fire a number of editors who refused to stop rewriting stuff. (He makes a distinction with minor copy edits, and the editor asking for changes from the authors)

Whoever made this change should be fired.  Period.  Full Stop.

*I am not sure if this was an issue during his stint at Analog Science Fiction, but I got the impression that it was less of an issue, probably because the editors were less likely to be frustrated writer English majors.

Why is this Woman Still a Part of Our Political Discourse?

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Sarah Palin just said that, “Waterboarding Is How We Baptize Terrorists.”

No, I am not paraphrasing, this was a direct quote:

With her legitimate political career all but unsalvageable, Sarah Palin has embraced her new role as a carnival barker. Speaking over the weekend at the National Rifle Association “Stand And Fight” rally at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Palin attempted an Ann Coulter routine meant to offend anyone not white and at least a little racist. “Not all intolerant, anti-freedom leftist liberals are hypocrites,” she offered before endorsing torture. “I’m kidding — yes, they are!” Zing — plus 1,000 patriot points.

And then her centerpiece joke, which really had very little to do with the gun nuts directly. “If I were in charge …” — wistful pause — “they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.” The crowd erupted.

How I long for the day that she is relegated to the ash heap of history.

The Nexus of Sports and Racism, and Clueless Conservative Bloggers

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Normally, I would not comment on the the recent racial diatribe of LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling, but the right wing blogs, who have spent the past few years claiming that there is no more racism, decided that the sports mogul is proof that racism does continue to exist ……… in the Democratic Party.

The problem is that none of them bothered to look at his party registration:

Over the weekend, while nation-wide attention was focused on the racist comments reportedly made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, some conservative commentators were focused on something else: Sterling’s party affiliation.

Specifically, certain conservatives were taking the media to task for supposedly ignoring Sterling’s ties to the Democratic Party. But a bit of context was missing. Sterling is a registered Republican.

A search of The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s website using Sterling’s name, date of birth, and address turns up a Republican registration, and the registrar-recorder’s office confirmed the information to TPM on Monday. (The initial tip came to TPM from public records compiler eMerges.)



………

By Monday afternoon, The National Review had updated its piece on Sterling’s political ties. The correction read as follows:

“An earlier version of this post identified Sterling as a Democrat. Although his political donations appear to have been exclusively to Democrats, his official party affiliation is not known. A Clippers representative did not respond to requests for his present political affiliation.”

You f%$#ed up.  He is a registered ‘Phant, and if you had practiced journalism 101, you would have found this out.

Admit it, and move on, wankers.

Oh, Not this Sh%$ Again

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Jeb Bush is now saying that he is thinking about running for President in 2016:

Jeb Bush on Wednesday was the most vocal he’s been about considering a run for the White House in 2016.

The Republican told a crowd of about 200 people at a Catholic Charities fundraiser in New York that he is “thinking about running for president,” according to an attendee.

The response came to one of the first questions posed to Bush at the Union League luncheon. After his answer, the room went wild, and then someone said they hoped he would take the step.

Please, God, make it stop!

Another Bush?

Haven’t they done enough to destroy this country?

What is Japanese for “Assholes Who Should Have Been Drowned at Birth”?*

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I’m just wondering because some members of the Japanese Diet, upset by the ruling of the ICJ banning the Antarctic whale hunt, have done up a whale buffet as a F%$# you to the civilized world:

Japan may have called off its annual Antarctic whale hunt in deference to a ruling from the U.N.’s International Court of Justice, but the country’s whaling industry has yet to give up the fight.

 As a show of defiance, hundreds Japanese officials, politicians and other pro-whaling allies gathered Tuesday for a buffet featuring, what else, whale. According to the Associated Press, the group feasted on “Cutlets, sashimi, steak and other dishes made of whale meat” and shouted a one-word toast: ”Whale!”

 Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports, a Japanese parliamentary committee unanimously passed a resolution calling on the government to fully investigate its options, saying that the court’s decision was “truly regrettable” but “does not necessarily prevent Japan’s whaling, which is a unique tradition and culture.” Among Japanese consumers, the AP notes, whale meat has been declining in popularity.

Japan literally had decades of whale meat in freezers, and these guys are throwing a tantrum.

Wankers.

*Google Translate gives, “出生時に溺れるれている必要がありますろくでなし,” and translating that back to English gives, “Bastard that must have been drowned at birth,” so it’s probably pretty close.

Welfare Cheat Has a Sad, Threatens Violence

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I am referring to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who is doing his level best to create a violent confrontation with federal authorities after refusing to obey the regulations, and pay the rent, required for maintaining a grazing permit:

Wielding signs and slogans, several hundred demonstrators rallied Monday to support beleaguered Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy after authorities began to seize his cattle from federal land.

 Protesters had responded to an alert that promised: “Range war begins at the Bundy ranch at 9:30 a.m. We’re going to get the job done!”

 Federal officials say Bundy is illegally running cattle in the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area, habitat of the federally protected desert tortoise. A federal judge ruled last year that if Bundy did not remove his cattle, they could be seized by the Bureau of Land Management. That seizure began Saturday.

 Bundy and his supporters remain unbowed.

 “We have hundreds of people here standing behind us,” said Bundy’s daughter Bailey Logue, 22, during a telephone interview Monday from the family ranch, as a rooster crowed in the background. “We’re letting these federal people know that the Bundy family is not the only ones who care what happens to this land.”

 Bundy, 68, has refused to pay BLM grazing fees since 1993, arguing in court filings that his Mormon ancestors worked the land long before the BLM was formed, giving him rights that predate federal involvement. His back fees exceed $300,000, he says. The government puts the tab above $1 million.

 Federal authorities have closed off the Gold Butte area and are rounding up what they call “trespass cattle,” many of which belong to Bundy. By Monday, 134 cattle had been impounded, according to the BLM website.

 “Cattle have been in trespass on public lands in southern Nevada for more than two decades. This is unfair to the thousands of other ranchers who graze livestock in compliance with federal laws and regulations throughout the West,” the BLM said on its website.

 ………

 For years Bundy has insisted that his cattle aren’t going anywhere. He acknowledges that he keeps firearms at his ranch, 90 minutes north of Las Vegas, and has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to defend his animals from seizure.

 ………

 Kirsten Cannon, a spokeswoman for the BLM in southern Nevada, said Bundy “owes the BLM and American taxpayers more than $1 million in grazing fees and trespass fines.”

 “He has been running more than 900 cattle while he only has the authority to graze 150,” she said Monday. “He has also made a number of inflammatory statements, saying that he will do what he needs to do to protect his livestock. When such threats are made, the federal government has the responsibility to protect public safety.”

So in addition to regular federal subsidies available to farmers, he’s also been squatting on federal land, and destroying it through overgrazing, and somehow he’s become a hero for the militia movement, because ……… Freedumb!!!

If Any of General Michael Hayden’s Subordinates Have Stories About His Treatment of Women, I Would Love to Talk to You

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Because, in response to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s decision to release their torture report, his response can best be summed up as, “Women be crazy,” which is a whole new level or repulsiveness by senior staff of our state security apparatus:

Former CIA and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden suggested Sunday that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) might have compromised the objectivity of a report on CIA interrogation techniques because she personally wants to change them.

On “Fox News Sunday,” Hayden cited comments Feinstein made last month in which she said declassifying the report would “ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.”

Hayden suggested Feinstein feels too strongly about the issue on an “emotional” level.

“That sentence — that motivation for the report — may show deep, emotional feeling on the part of the senator, but I don’t think it leads you to an objective report,” Hayden said.

(emphasis mine)

Seriously, does anyone anywhere who cannot see this as a blatantly sexist attack?

What was it like for women under his command?  I’m thinking “boss from hell.”

Bobby Jindal is the Lamest Man in Louisiana

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A court just threw out his attempt to take down a MoveOn.org billboard using bogus trademark claims:

A U.S. district judge rejected Monday the Louisiana state government’s request that MoveOn.org’s billboard criticizing Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) for not expanding Medicaid under Obamacare be taken down. The billboard includes a parody of the state’s tourism slogan, which was the basis for the state’s legal action.

U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick issued the order. Lawyers for Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne (R), who filed the suit, had “not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of prevailing on its burden of proving confusion by viewers of the billboard,” Dick wrote. She rejected the state’s request for a preliminary injunction, which asked that the billboard be taken down as the court case continues.

“The State has failed to demonstrate a compelling reason to curtail MoveOn.org.’s political speech in favor of protecting of the State’s service mark,” she continued. “There has been no showing of irreparable injury to the State.”

And Jindal wants to be President.

I would think that he is too lame to be the Republican nominee, but considering the past 2 ‘Phant presidents, Bush and Bush, I am not sure if there is enough lame in the universe to rule out anyone as a Republican nominee.

On the other hand, I do think that a significant portion of the Republican electorate, particularly in the south, might be uncomfortable voting for a non-white candidate.

Best Amazon Comment Ever

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Senator Ted Cruz, nutjob Joe McCarthy look alike, has written a coloring book.

No this is not The Onion. You can actually buy at Amazon.

And because it Amazon, there are reader comments, and the negative reviews are amusing, but I like this one the best:

So, after reading many reviews that mentioned what good toilet paper this book made, I was super excited to order my copy. Unfortunately, after receiving mine in the mail I was immediately disappointed. I don’t know, perhaps I accidentally received a used copy, but mine was completely worthless for this purpose as every single page was already completely covered with crap…

It’s juvenile, but so is a United States Senator writing a f%$#ing coloring book.

H/t Neo at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

So Not a Surprise. The CIA F%$#ed Up, and then Covered it Up

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In Newsweek, of all places, we have Jeff Stein explaining part of why the CIA is trying to suppress and discredit the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture.

Rather unsurprising, torturer and tape destroyer Jose Rodriguez figures prominently in all of this:

The hotel bar TVs were all flashing clips of Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein denouncing the CIA for spying on her staff, when I met an agency operative for drinks last week. He flashed a wan smile, gestured at the TV and volunteered that he’d narrowly escaped being assigned to interrogate Al-Qaida suspects at a secret site years ago.

 “I guess I would’ve done it,” he said, implying you either took orders or quit. But everybody in the counterterrorism program knew what was going on in those places, he said, and he was glad the agency found something else for him to do at the last minute. “Look what’s happened.”

 Four years after Feinstein launched her probe of that interrogation program, her committee and the CIA are locked in a death-struggle over what can be released from the panel’s 6,300-page, still-classified report. The impasse is bringing renewed attention to statements by former CIA and FBI agents that buttress the committee’s all-but-official conclusion that the agency exaggerated the interrogation program’s successes and minimized its abuses.

 In early 2008, for example, the committee heard from Ali Soufan, one of the FBI’s top former counterterrorism agents, who has since gone public with his criticism of the enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs, that CIA contractors had used on top Al-Qaida captive Abu Zubaydah. “The staffers present were shocked,” he wrote in his memoir, The Black Banners. “What I told them contradicted everything they had been told by Bush administration and CIA officials. When the discussion turned to whether I could prove everything I was saying, I told them, ‘Remember, an FBI agent always keep his notes.’ “

 A Lebanese-American who was decorated by both the FBI and Defense Department for his counterterrorism work, Soufan laid out a case for the committee that CIA officials, chiefly Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA counterterrorism boss who ordered the destruction of interrogation videotapes, lied about the value of torturing detainees-to the point of altering the dates on documents to show a cause-and-effect that didn’t exist.

 “In this area, it’s not a question of memory but of factual record,” he later told the New Yorker’s Amy Davidson. “There are now thousands of pages of declassified memos and reports that thoroughly rebut what Mr. Rodriguez and others are now claiming. For example, one of the successes of the EITs claimed in the now declassified memos is that after the program began in August 2002, Abu Zubaydah provided intelligence that prevented José Padilla from detonating a dirty bomb on U.S. soil, and identified Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Mr. Rodriguez has been repeating this claim.

This is why the CIA is terrified.

They are not afraid that their immorality will be revealed, they are afraid that their incompetence and mendacity will be revealed.

They are afraid that meaningful oversight will reveal that there are no adults in the room, which will lead to ……… meaningful oversight.

The First Law of Holes is………

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If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. (This is generally attributed to British politician Denis Healey)

Well two weeks after Randa Jarrar wrote a bigoted screed on non-Arabs belly dancing, and was pilloried for this, (I called her a bigoted moron) she writes a followup where she doubles down on her repellent thesis.

Rather uncharitably, my first reaction was a bit of smug self-satisfaction when she appeared to specifically mention my blog, “Other men on racist blogs called me a moron.”

Needless to say, I stand by my analysis of her earlier post, and her most recent article further reinforces the truth behind the Denis Healey quote.

The interesting thing is that from an aesthetic perspective we generally agree on the aesthetics of Middle Eastern dance, we both agree that the westernized cartoonized version of Middle Eastern dance, what I call “Cabaret”, is crap. (Of course, 90% of everything is crap [Sturgeon’s law])

Further we would agree that many, probably most, of the public performances of Middle Eastern dance in the west are crap.

I would go a bit further, and note that the same applies to public performances in Egypt, Turkey, Lebanaon, Syria, etc.

But there is a difference between objecting to the Disneyfication of an art form and saying that some ethnic group should not be allowed to practice that art.

Furthermore in she goes there, and explicitly states that, “It’s not possible,” for her to be a racist, one would assume because she is an Arab.

Bigotry much?

Finally, one of the commenters on this thread posted a Scribd document describing the history of Middle Eastern dance.  It’ is worth a read.

I’ve attached it after the break.

Rupert Murdoch is Insane

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I am not referring to Murdoch’s recent meltdown over the sponsors dropping the St. Patrick’s day parade for their gay ban. (The fact that the quintessential Irish brewer, Guinness, has dropped the parade amuses me.)

Rather I am referring to the fact that Matt Groening has revealed that Murdoch was considering suing the producers of The Simpsons over their parody of a Fox News crawl:

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of the Simpsons over a spoof news ticker, the show’s creator Matt Groening has claimed.

Mr Groening said Fox News raised the unlikely prospect of suing a show broadcast by its sister channel, Fox Entertainment, because it wanted to stop the Simpsons parodying its famously anti-Democratic party agenda.

The alleged row centred on a parody of Fox News’ rolling news ticker, which included headlines such as “Do Democrats cause cancer?”

Mr Groening said the news channel backed down because it would have caused Fox to bring a lawsuit against itself.

“Fox said they would sue the show and we called their bluff because we didn’t think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. We got away with it,” Mr Groening told National Public Radio in the US.

“But now Fox has a new rule that we can’t do those little fake news crawls [tickers] on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it’s real news,” he added on NPR’s Fresh Air programme.

I am so reassured that a media magnate billionaire who is one white Persian cat away from being a Bond villain is wasting his time on this sh%$.

I Add My First Canadian to my List of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off

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This is truly EPIC ownage of Senator Richard Burr by Dr. Danielle Martin, vice president at the Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

While I understand that in some ways, this is shooting fish in a barrel, Burr is a clueless ignorant tool on pretty much everything he touches, but still, her exquisitely polite (She is Canadian, Eh?) response shows demolishes his delusional objections.

The nickel tour of the exchange, as rendered by rage comics: (Video follows) (Updated comic. I put in a draft my mistake)

H/t Salon.

Liar

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In a photo-op with Democratic members of Congress, Barack Obama was asked about the allegations that the CIA hacked into Senate Intelligence Committee computers and threaten the committee staff, Obama let loose with this one of the most blatant lies I’ve heard in a long time:

Since that time, we have worked with the Senate committee so that the report that they are putting forward is well-informed, and what I’ve said is that I am absolutely committed to declassifying that report as soon as the report is completed. In fact, I would urge them to go ahead and complete the report, send it to us. We will declassify those findings so that the American people can understand what happened in the past, and that can help guide us as we move forward.

Seems innocuous, but as Kevin Drum observes, “Last I heard, the report was completed in 2012. The CIA responded last June. Dianne Feinstein has been pushing for declassification of at least the report’s executive summary every since.”

Much like his statement that he welcomed the debate on spying on American citizens engendered by the Snowden leaks, this latest statement is a lie.

If Obama had any interest in releasing an unclassified version of the Senate report, it would be out now, but he does not want it released, because the details on torture in the report are allegedly even more grisly, and far less effective, than what has already been made public.

If these details come out will make it difficult for Obama to keep ignoring the moral and constitutional issues raised by the mindless and useless brutality that was done in our name.

That’s inconvenient, so Barack Obama wants it to go away.

A portrait in cynicism and cowardice.