Corruptly slashing the budget of regulatory agencies to let your political allies and campaign donors get away with murder is only a crime when you’re a Republican.
When Democrats do it, it’s OK.
Category Archives: Politics
Pot-Kettle
Just a reminder of what was going on four years ago, when it was the Democrats deriding an all-night debate session as political theater while the GOP insisted that they were doing the right thing.
And then, back to today, where the positions are reversed.
Seriously, folks, why do we take these lunkheads so seriously? It’s clear that they think this whole political thing is a great big joke. The only issues they have a consistent stance on from one year to another is that they are in favor of getting elected.
ITMFA?
Lee at Right-Thinking — a conservative, BTW — has a great post on impeaching the President. He’s getting the usual “you’re just a Leftist; you want to impeach him for invading Iraq” non-sequitur responses from the Right. And I’m not sure he actually supports impeachement. Nor do I.
But it’s worth a read.
Yessir Yassir
Did Arafat die of AIDS? Color me skeptical. This is appearing in an Israeli newspaper and is fairly unsourced. Still, if true, it will be a bombshell in the muslim world. Imagine if one of their “greatest leaders” was also engaged in evil practices. Methinks some heads in the middle east are ‘sploding right now.
Wednesday Linkorama
Feinstein said she wants to change a law used by Sutton that required the agents receive at least 10 years for firing their weapons.
Um, Di? You’re gun-grabbing party was the one that passed those fucking laws.
a) all our politicans will claim credit for this;
b) they will all claim our children are in danger and need more government programs.
Shoe On Other Foot
So, I wonder what the GOP think of the filibuster rule now? Remember when they had power and the filibuster was pure unadulterated evil that was destroying our country? Remember how the Gang of 14 were evil monsters for working out a compromise?
Real conservatives like me were warning that the filibuster needed to be preserved in case the Dems got power. And we were mocked. Now we’re warning about the need to restrain Presidential power. Will we be ignored again?
Ellison == Stalin
Seems in our haste to get our britches in a bunch over the first Muslim in Congress, we forgot to ask whether or not he was nut.
Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler’s later seizure of emergency powers.
“It’s almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that,” Mr Ellison said. “After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted.”
To applause from his audience of 300 members of Atheists for Human Rights, Mr Ellison said he would not accuse the Bush administration of planning 9/11 because “you know, that’s how they put you in the nut-ball box – dismiss you”.
See, here’s the thing. Jerks like Ellison are poisoning the well for everyone. Now if I say that I think the Bush Administration used 9/11 to empower themselves, I’m in that nutbag group. It provides the Right an easy response: “So you think Bush is Hitler? You think 9/11 was the Reichstag?”
Memo to the left: cut it out. As Jon Stewart said, the comparisons to Hitler are demeaning to Hitler – he worked too hard being a psychotic murdering monster to be used as the comparison for every Tom, Dick and Harriet Myers that comes down the pipe. What are we going to compare someone to when he’s a real Hitler? For Chrissake, we have genocides going on in Darfur and Congo. What do we say about them?
And try to learn something of history beyond World War II movies. For example, read about the Zimmerman Telegram, which would make an excellent discussion point for Iraq.
The Libertarian Center
Brink Lindsey argues that it is our destiny. I would agree, but only when our government is divided so that Democrats can block stupid GOP social meddling and Republicans can block stupid Dem economic meddling.
More on Genarlow
All right, come on you Republicans. You went nuts over Mike Nifong and the Duke Three. Are you going to get outraged about what’s been going on in the Genarlow Wilson case?
The tape story began in the last legislative session during arguments to make the change in the law retroactive so as to encompass Genarlow Wilson. Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson rose in the Senate and delivered a lie-laced speech which included alluding that rape had indeed occurred. A CNN reporter covering the case caught the speech on tape. He then went to D.A. McDade’s office, viewed the tape, spoke to jurors and publicly pantsed Johnson for his fibbing
Read the whole thing. The DA has been circulating a tape of Wilson having sex with a 17-year-old. Technically speaking, this is child pornography (oh the irony!).
Really, what’s the story here? It can’t really be racism, can it? It must be sexual envy. I bet DA McDade didn’t score with any girls when he was in high school, let alone two. Neither did I, but I don’t want to throw anyone in prison over it.
So come on, Hannity. Speak up, Malkin. Let’s hear it, Limbaugh. What that you say, Coulter?
Come on, you fucking “conservatives”. A black man is getting railroaded even worse than the Duke Three. Let’s hear the outrage!
(crickets chirping)
Friday Linkorama
Andrus said a friend of his who owned a restaurant that did not feature music was contacted by a company looking to charge him because it owned the rights to a Hank Williams Jr. song, “Are You Ready for Some Football?” The song preceded every “Monday Night Football” telecast, which the restaurant carried on its televisions.
We need to seriously revisit our copyright laws. And by that, I don’t mean “give the recording industry yet more power”.
Political Science
The politicization of science has been in the news quite a bit lately.
The thing is, this cuts both ways. It’s not just Republicans, no matter what the Bad Astronomer says. Al Gore is running around saying the seas are going to rise ten times more than even the most ambitious models predict; the greens are very eager to blame every disaster on global warming while anything that supports the Nanny State is trumpted as though proven fact.
In fact, as Radley Balko pointed out, the exiting surgeon general, who is complaining about the politicization of science happily trumpeted an obesity death figure he knew to be garbage while telling us a whiff of second hand smoke would give us lung cancer.
But then again, that’s in a good cause. And as we’ve found out, lies, distortions and evasions are only bad when they support conservative positions.
More Moore
Balko on Terror
He rocks.
By definition, the aim of “terrorism” is not to topple the U.S. government, or even to rack up a massive body count. The aim of terrorism is to cause terror. It’s to scare us. Frighten us. Alter our way of life.
In this sense, the very people who are supposed to be protecting us from terrorists are playing right into the terrorists’ hands. Despite the absence of any specific information, and despite the fact that his saying as much would do little if anything to actually thwart a pending attack, Chertoff still feels he has to go public with his “gut feeling” that something awful might happen this summer. And so the newspapers and Drudge and the blogs run with it. And now we get to go about our summer business with the foreboding cloud of a possible terror attack looming on the horizon.
I’ve been thinking this for quite some time. Every time I hear Neal Boortz, especially, rant about how terrorist are going to kill us, I think he’s just surrendered in the War on Terror.
Except that, with most of these guys, I’m through the looking glass. I know they don’t really think a massive terrorist attack is any more likely today than it will be six months from now. They just want the American people to panic so that they will surrender more of their freedom.
Sorry, I’m not French.
Divided Government
How I love thee. The Dems are trying to triple the government childcare program. Bush only wants to double it. I suppose getting bitten in half by a shark is preferably to being swallowed whole. Just don’t complain when they run of measles vaccine.