Whiskey Fire

Just after the Tin Can Laughter Dies Down, I Will Hoist My Vulgar Flag

Comedy, from those scamps at the Jawa Report.

Listen. Can You Hear The Heads Of Liberals Exploding Like Popped Balloons?

The noise is made from the rapid release of air that occupies the space where brains should have been. Heh.

Gracious! To clarify, here is the Exciting News which is supposed to be upsetting to Liberals:

A new group wants former Vice President Dick Cheney back in the White House. The organization - "Draft Dick Cheney 2012" - launched on Friday, and unveiled their new Web site. Their aim: To convince the former vice president to seek the Republican presidential nomination in the next race for the White House.

Yes, yes, indeed, my head is exploding! This has made me hysterical and afraid, the prospect of a Dick Cheney presidential run! I fear it so! Please, please don't throw the fearsome Dick Cheney into the asshole patch that is the 2012 GOP presidential "field"!

Because this, you know, is true:

"The 2012 race for the Republican nomination for President will be about much more then who will be the party's standard bearer against Barack Obama, the race is about the heart and soul of the GOP," said Christopher Barron, one of the organizers of the Draft Cheney movement.

Right. And who would doubt for a moment that Dick Cheney is indeed the most perfect embodiment of "the heart and soul of the modern GOP"? Not this liberal!

Music of the Nothings

Via, the 50 NME best records of the nothings. And no, the Strokes did not have the best of these, though in principle on my personal top ten list of things I think are stupid, it would be top fifty lists, followed by top ten lists, and then top hundred lists.

Notwithstanding, this was the album of this low dishonest decade that ended up meaning the most to me. 

Thanksgiving

This year, I give thanks for this blogging platform I'm paying money for that has had a fucked up toolbar for a couple of days now.

Thanks

By Monica_A

I'm thankful for a husband and son who love me warts and all. I'm thankful for friends that are as nutty as I am. I'm thankful for a President that can speak his native tongue. I'm thankful that I can speak my mind. I'm thankful for an educational system that didn't start to suck until I was out of it. But most of all, I'm thankful for all of you. You've helped me out of more depressions than you will ever know. You've offered support and love in this very trying year and I truly appreciate it. So my wish this holiday season to you is love and peace. Happy Thanksgiving... or, if you're a Native Person... Happy Sorry We Took Your Land, but You Really Should Be Careful Who You Trust Day.

For Thers & Mary

Participate in the Shit

NewsBusters has always been a stupid fucking website, if rather pedestrian in its wingnuttery. But this breaks new ground:

An hilariously bizarre situation is happening in the wake of the growing Climategate scandal.  Many of the mainstream media stories about global warming are simply pretending it doesn't exist. Perhaps they feel that by ignoring Climategate entirely that it will just go away. Unfortunately for them, the readers of these global warming stories keep bringing up the inconvenient truth of Climategate by mentioning the scandal in the comments section over and over and over again.

This is inverse nutpicking, or the inane tactic of citing lunatic shitheads in comments sections in order to destroy cedibility. NewsBusters is now pioneering the inane tactic of citing lunatic shitheads in comments sections in order to claim credibility.

There should be a clever name for this innovation, I guess, but really they're just being shitheads.

Where We Stand

by va

Lou Dobbs loves immigrants. Harry Reid is embroiled in a knock-down, drag-out (mostly-drag-out) fight, with firebrand David Broder. And there were no terrorist attacks during the Bush administration. Same as it ever was! Why, what kind of world have you been hallucinating for the last decade?

Finally, Richard Cohen Breaks His Silence on the KSM Trial

by va

To dispense with the obvious question: the reason I am sitting here writing about Richard Cohen is that God is dead, and His last will and testament is comprised of three words: "So long, suckers." So today Richard Cohen wants to know "Where is Obama's moral clarity?" Cohen's theory is that once upon a time in Philadelphia, Barack Obama had some nice, morally clear things to say on the subject of race in America, as opposed to that Jeremiah Wright, "a man of a certain age with the emotional scar tissue that comes from a life in a harshly racist society." However, "that moral clarity has dissipated" because Obama didn't meet with the Dalai Lama, bowed to the emperor of Japan, appeared at "stage-managed news conferences and events" in China, and "let his attorney general, Eric Holder, announce the new policy for trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Sept. 11 defendants in criminal court, as if this were a mere departmental issue and not one of momentous policy."

This may appear to be a confused muddle of disingenuous wingnutty complaints, but really it is a list of standard Richard Cohen column topics, which he will write one by one, over and over again for all eternity, in Hell. Anyway, the ironic thing for me is that Cohen thinks Obama was at his most clear when condemning Wright for, in Obama's words, his "profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America." That's some nuanced stuff, frankly; if Cohen was looking for statements that ring with moral judgments and certainty, well, why not get behind "God damn America?"

But then, Cohen has a history of getting worked up about denouncing black radicals. Let's take a trip back to October 8, 2002. On that date, Richard Cohen threw a fit about a poem by Amiri Baraka called "Somebody Blew Up America." The gist of the poem is this:

Dear white people, Enough of this assuming the mantle of historical victimhood because of 9/11; historically, you're aggressors. Eat it, Amiri B.

A year after Baraka published the poem online, he read it at a poetry festival in his capacity as New Jersey poet laureate. The Anti-Defamation League caught wind of it--specifically four lines echoing conspiracy theories from Syria and Lebanon claiming that the Israeli government sent out some kind of memo warning its citizens in America of the attacks. And, OK, there are various ways of dealing with crazy stuff appearing in a poem, but in the larger scheme it was completely beside the point. That did not stop Richard Cohen.

He opined that soon-to-resign Governor Jim McGreevey should "eliminate Baraka's position," i.e. the poet laureate position itself. (For various legal reasons, Baraka could not be fired, and he refused to resign.) And that's actually what happened, because Cohen was King in those days. He went on:

I grant you that poet laureate of New Jersey sounds like some sort of a joke, but the post does pay $10,000 a year and it comes with some authority, if not obligations. One of them is to read the odd poem or two, of which Baraka can be said to have acquitted himself splendidly. His poem was odd in the extreme.

There is literally no evidence in the column that Cohen had read more than four lines from the poem. Again, that didn't stop him from making pronouncements about people who had:

When Baraka performed his next reading, people came to hear him thinking what he had said was "controversial" or "provocative" or so innocent that the entire controversy was a puzzle to them. "I don't see what the controversy is," said Carl Gregory, a school principal who had brought some students with him. Fire him, too.

Tellingly, Cohen thought, "That would amount not to censorship but a statement of principle." Yay for moral clarity, I guess. Not to mention accountability! And that is the story of how Richard Cohen called for the firing of a school principal no one had ever heard of, because of his opinion about a poem Cohen had never read. So if you want to be held up by Richard Cohen as a paragon of principle, go find some brown people and call them scary.

To Keep What's Worth Defending

For fuck's sake.

E. Klein.

[I]magine there's a big meeting with every member of the Democratic caucus in both chambers. You stand at the front of the room and make a presentation: "If health care reform falls apart after having come this far, tens of millions of Americans will suffer; costs will continue to soar; the public will perceive Democrats as too weak and incompetent to act on their own agenda; the party will lose a lot of seats in the midterms and possibly forfeit its majority; and President Obama will have suffered a devastating defeat that will severely limit his presidency going forward. No one will even try to fix the dysfunctional system again for decades, and the existing problems will only get worse."

For progressive Democrats, the response would be, "That's an unacceptable outcome, which we have to avoid."

For conservative Democrats, the response would be, "We can live with failure."

This necessarily affects negotiations. One contingent wants to avoid failure; the other contingent considers failure a satisfactory outcome. Both sides know what the other side is thinking.

That's Steve Benen, describing the dynamic in the Senate. As I've said before, I think a lot of folks imagine this as a negotiation, in which both sides want to get to yes, and so everyone is involved in a complex game to signal their comfort with failure in order to strengthen their ultimate bargaining position. But that's not an accurate depiction of the process.

If this is comparable to any form of negotiation, it's a hostage negotiation. The hostage-takers might not prefer to kill the kid, but there's definitely some upside to killing the kid, as it strengthens them in future negotiations.

Uh um what? I have not personally ever been immediately privy to police-class sensitive horse-trading in regards to madman-threatened child murder, but my general understanding is, that if you kill the kid, you get your head blown off, or you go to jail forever. So the "strengthens them in further negotiations" bit, I'm not following.

If we were now urgently informed by the Main Stream Media that Joe Lieberman has a gun to a child's head, which he sort of does, and is threatening to kill the kid if his silly selfish demands are not met, which he sort of is, well then, we'd have a better press corps, wouldn't we?

I don't believe in American democracy. I don't think our system works. I think we've achieved a point of perfectly pointless hubristic stasis, and we're all going to die.

Slainte.

What The Fuck, America?!?

By Monica_A

Jesus Christ, people!

Fox 'News' yapper earns $1 or more per week! Ask him his secret! Also, Glenn Beck hates the Special Olympics

by Ripley

Hi, Glenn!  Heard you had a radio show and Televinky show and what have you.  You're famous!

Oh, that's sad.  Social network game ads?  Dubious weight loss ads?  Google ads?  Wait.. GOOGLE ADS??  You're kidding, right?  Glenn Beck, the 'Voice of New America', has to rely on Google Ads on his "I AM AMERICA!!" web site?  You make big talk, Bwana, what gives?  You savvy tok boi? 

More importantly, let's revisit something Glenn said just the other day.

When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic.

I know you, Glenn.  You were a Nerd.  Maybe a Geek, maybe a Dork.  But you weren't cool in school.  We can all see it.  People picked on you, just like they picked on me.  And you wish - God, do you wish! - that you could make everybody see... MAKE THEM FUCKING SEE!!!

So what do you do? 

When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic.

You want to ruin America's children - children as hapless and clumsy as you, Glenn - by telling them they don't matter.  I'm guessing that you never played Little League, Glenn.  I'm guessing that, once you became a little 'famous', you just started saying things.  WHOOHEEEEE!!! Katie bar the door, I'm famous bitch!!

You've never earned anything, Glenn.  We all know it.  And here you are, picking on American children...  Y'know what?  There are a lot of American children who deserve trophies and medals.  Maybe you'd like to talk to some of these folks, yes?

Mandy Murphy
Senior Manager, Media and Public Awarenss
mamurphy@specialolympics.org
202-824-0227

Communications/Online
Ryan Eades
Manager, Online Brand Communications
reades@specialolympics.org
202-824-0292

Kirsten Suto Seckler
Director, Global Brand Marketing and Awareness
kseckler@specialolympics.org

Go ahead, Glenn.  Spread your wisdom about children.  We're simply dying to hear what you have to say, King Participant.

Rip -

I Just Unlocked My Mind

Shorter Wingnut Street Journal:

It is a shocking, horrifying, unethical, inexplicable scandal that mainstream climate scientists deeply dislike the sort of people who would steal and then grossly misrepresent their private correspondence.

See also. 

You Won't See Me Turn My Back

Molly I & I are not really back yet; we are very grateful for all the kind words about my mom, humbled, even.

In times like these, time is short, but here is something that came across the transom despite all interdictions. It's to do with Glenn Beck's insane 100-Year-Plan goobery flim-flam nonsense, and it's something that pisses me off incredibly, and has done for a while, so here we are:

When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic.

The idea that The Fatherland Is Weak because too many kids are getting undeserved trophies is authoritarian horseshit of the sort beloved by jerks who don't volunteer to coach or help run kids' sports leagues.

My daughter is five. She got a trophy for playing soccer this year. Did her team beat all the other five-year-old teams in the area? No. Was she the best player? No. Did she, like all the other kids, run around and act silly more often than not? Yes! So, under the Strict Rules of Competition, she should be Shamed... but yet, she got a trophy. Horrors.

Maybe that trophy means a lot to her, the poor little simp, even though it's worthless because she didn't beat out another five-year-old for it. WHAT-ever. She should have it stripped from her by Fox Security at gunpoint.

Flerg. The point of kids' sports leagues, at their best, is to encourage kids to be active, to have fun, to run around and enjoy themselves. If you really give a shit about the trophies, you know, win or lose, that's just bullshit you tell your kids, that trophies matter, anyhow.

The point is, if you intervene to keep your kid from getting a trophy -- "when we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic" -- that's a good sign you're an absolute douche. "IN THE NAME OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, I FEEL MY SON DOES NOT DESERVE THIS 'GREAT JOB' TROPHY FOR 8-YEAR-OLD REC LEAGUE SOCCER, AS I KNOW FOR A FACT HE SUCKS. BLESS ME, O! RONALD REAGAN."

I mean really.

Release the Sunbird

To paraphrase Flann O'Brien, death is an inferior phenomenon at best, an insanitary abstraction in the backyard.

My mom was better than death: I may have mentioned this before, but she worked for decades as a social worker at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx (meaning she worked with patients with terminal diagnoses). As a vocation, a calling, she helped hundreds, I dunno, thousands of people and families confront The End, and she did it with humor, compassion, brains, and grace. Mom was also a mental health care volunteer for the Red Cross. After 9/11 she worked with victims' families, and was on hand at every annual commemoration, helping those suffering from the sort of wounds that don't show so obviously. And she worked with the families of (I think) all of your major modern air disasters in the NYC area. She had a bag packed all the time, right in her wardrobe -- she was always ready to answer the call.

Mom was fluent in Spanish and lived in Mexico and Spain. She was a fantastic cook and made the best omelets ever. She was funny, and curious about all sorts of ideas and theories. She went to all my Little League games. Her grandkids adored her. You needed her, and everyone seemed to, and she was there, and she made it better, because she was there.

She was a goddamn fantastic mom, and I am so very proud of her. Death can bite me.

You're a hooker!? I thought I was just doing really great with you!

by Ripley

It's early and the coffee hasn't quite kicked in yet, so this was not a pleasant start to my day. via Chris at Americablog:

Citigroup said on Tuesday it boosted the base salaries for its chief financial officer and a global markets co-head, but still plans to pay Chief Executive Vikram Pandit $1 for the year.

The compensation changes are the latest in a series of shifts by Wall Street as banks try to figure out how to get senior staff to perform well.

CFO John Gerspach's annual base salary will increase to $500,000 effective Nov. 1 from $400,000 prior to November, while James Forese is receiving $475,000, compared with $225,000.

Gerspach is also receiving $2.92 million of stock salary for 2009, while Forese will get $5.4 million.

Let's back up and review, for just a moment: "The compensation changes are the latest in a series of shifts by Wall Street as banks try to figure out how to get senior staff to perform well."

Huh... In related news, citizens with last names beginning in D through G should make their way to Wall Street for today's round of "Suck a Banker's Dick for Prosperity".  And remember, kids, easy with the teeth, m'kay?

But in case you're thinking that maybe I'm just picking on CitiGroup, and 'free market!' and 'producers deserve rewards!' and what have you, let me take you back to February of this year...

Citigroup offered its first glimpse Tuesday into how it is spending the $45 billion in government bailout money that the ailing bank has received in recent months.

Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) said it had approved $36.5 billion in loans and other commitments backed by TARP during the fourth quarter of 2008, which included making $1 billion in student loans and $2.5 billion in business and personal loans. The bank also said it expanded credit lines and opened new accounts for credit cardholders.

The bulk of the TARP funds - $27.5 billion to be exact - was earmarked towards the housing market. Citigroup said it spent $10 billion on mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a move aimed at loosening up frozen credit markets, according to the bank.

Only $8.2 billion was earmarked for making actual mortgage loans to families and individuals with good credit histories.

Citigroup did not indicate how it spent the remaining $8.5 billion of the $45 billion in government funds.

Oh, oh, oh!  This reminds me of a story, you're gonna love this!  I can't have gov't backed health insurance because it would cost someone some money.  And people shouldn't receive unemployment because they're lazy fuckers who don't want to work.  Oh and - try not pee yourself - people should just work harder and they'd get what they deserve.  Also, welfare queens, Cadillacs, some black guy your cousin heard about, and MOTHERFUCK!!!

We can't even pay our bills, and they're drinking Royal Crown cola!  Now, try to have a nice day.

Rip -

Return After Reading

by va

The most unbelievable thing about Going Rogue, by the author-function "Sarah Palin," is that it's supposed to be self-serving. The problem a self-serving narrative about Sarah Palin confronts is that it's about Sarah Palin, whose entire life, it appears, consists of worse and worse attempts to create self-serving narratives explaining away bigger and bigger fuck-ups. Going Rogue's burden is that it must claim to be the definitive, encyclopedic explanation, the final excuse, for a long history of failure begat by failure; it's an epic of failure, if you will, and if the goal here is some kind of ultimate vindication, well, it is monumentally unsuccessful. Going Rogue is, at bottom, the story of every one of Sarah Palin's projects ending in grotesque catastrophe; it is only self-serving in the sense that these catastrophes either prove benign or turn out to be some other schlub's fault. If everything I knew about Sarah Palin came from this book (and basically it does), I would say her life has been like a play in which a deus-ex-machina descends at the end of every act to bestow peace and harmony, except the deus forgot to put on pants and everyone's just standing around going "uhhhh..." and then the lights go out and the scene changes.

When Palin wraps up her tenure as Wasilla mayor, everyone she knows hates her, and she's jobless. Then she gets a job! But then she quits. When she completes her first annual budget as Governor, she alienates the entire Alaska legislature because some "legislative director" forgot to send a letter explaining her "funding criteria" to the legislators. Then a budget passes! And the legislature still hates her. At the end of her pregnancy with Trig, she "confessed to Todd that [she] may not have handled the whole pregnancy announcement thing right." Not to mention the whole delivery thing. But then of course Trig is delivered safely into the cruel cruel world of moose chili and having your image "desecrated" on the internet. Over and over again Palin lives this story of confounding and infuriating everyone around her, generating whole collective atmospheres of absurd malevolence and malevolent absurdity. And then everything just gets resolved. How? I don't know--it's a mystery! But maybe it's the magic of NO ABORTIONS EVER???

Finally, in the "Going Rogue" chapter, the intermittent (and increasingly frequent) cracklings of bald absurdity and maximum roguishness just break through the signal of normalcy once and for all, setting in for the entire period between August 29 and November 4, 2008. In theory this is the part that people read the book for, but as I came to this point my desire to continue was tempered by my desire to light myself on fire. The only benefit I got from this section was that it reminded me just how asinine the McCain campaign was. (Remember when Palin's Yahoo account was hacked?) One big reveal: Steve Schmidt apparently thought Palin's brain wasn't getting enough carbohydrates to function properly, which is why we've been hearing Palin complain about being told what to eat. Palin relates on page 285:

He then launched into a discussion of nutrition physiology, holding forth on the importance of carbohydrates to cognitive connections and blah-blah-blah.

And in one sublime sentence, an agglomeration of comedy gold on the scale of Scrooge McDuck's money bin, in which Palin says Steve Schmidt is a dick for suggesting she can't make cognitive connections while making a cognitive connection with "blah-blah-blah," we discern the yawning abyss of stupid through which Sarah Palin stumbles as she fails at everything, I can't take any more, the end.

Wish they all could be California grrrls

by Ripley

[Quick note - I haven't heard any news from Thers since his e-mail this last weekend.  The family is going through a very painful and difficult situation, and I hope you'll join the WF irregulars in sending positive vibes, prayers or whatever your personal philosophy dictates to his family.  Thanks, kids!]

Oy.  In Thers' absence, I find myself half-heartedly and more-than-half-grudgingly embarking on... hm, what shall we call it?  How 'bout the Death March of Banal?  Honestly, I don't know how any liberal blogger maintains a sense of sanity or humanity, forcing themselves to ingest the daily cocktail of digital numbskullery and philisophical ipecac that's crapped out by the neocon bloggers.  Regardless, it's the task I've agreed to undertake for the time being.  Let's start with an easy one for today, shall we?

The High Priestess of Induced Narcolepsy , K-Lo, starts a "column", that she allegedly wrote completely on her own and with no help from anyone else who claims a grasp on basic English writing skills, with: 

Where have all the feminists gone? Sure, they’re everywhere to be seen when it comes to the matter of Nancy Pelosi’s health-care legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, insisting that American women should have the right to end their unborn babies’ lives on the taxpayer’s dime. But there is no love for a beauty queen who simply gave her opinion, when asked, during a beauty pageant. Since then, she’s had a target on her chest. It’s been a shameful exposé of what’s important to feminists.

Oh, you can just smell where this is going, can't you?  I'll skip over the trite and extra ordinary fillers and thought by-products in the middle to get to the truly tasty morsels at the end of her "column". 

But all Prejean ever really decided to do was answer a question honestly. That should not have to be a brave decision. But it was. And she should be applauded and defended for making it. Why aren’t groups like the National Organization for Women using this opportunity to show that they actually care about women, and not ideology? The moment Prejean came under attack for a video she sent a boyfriend in years past — an incident she’s called “the biggest mistake” of her life — they should have come to her defense in outrage. Enough!

Alas.

Let's get my personal views on the subject out of the way first.  I think beauty pageants are stupid.  Whether they demean women, individually or as a gender, or not, I'll leave to the nation's women to answer.  I just think they're pointless.  How many Miss Americas or Miss USAs can you name off the top of your head?  How many do you care about?  How many have actually accomplished something worthy of America's limited attention span?

I also think Perez Hilton's question to Miss Prejean was pointless and bizarrely out of context for the particular venue.  If you want to "represent" America - or in this case, the USA (apparently, there's an important distinction) - as a set of shiny teeth, a clear complexion and a talent for walking in high heels and a bikini simultaneously, your views on marriage really don't matter to me.  Of course, Hilton ranks right down there with the beauty pageant "managers" as a professional hanger-on, so it's not a complete surprise that he'd ask such a ridiculous question.  Fame does odd things to people, a point which should be head-achingly obvious to anyone who's wasted their time following the saga of Miss Prejean.  Back on track, though, my issue isn't with Miss Prejean, Mr. Hilton or pageants in general.

Why aren’t groups like the National Organization for Women using this opportunity to show that they actually care about women, and not ideology? The moment Prejean came under attack for a video she sent a boyfriend in years past — an incident she’s called “the biggest mistake” of her life — they should have come to her defense in outrage. Enough!

My first thought is that Ms. Lopez is probably not a big fan of NOW, what with their constant harping about equality and women's rights and hairy armpits and menstrual cups and what have you.  No, my guess is that K-Lo would just as soon have all those cranky ladies just shush it! and get back to the business of cooking dinner and voting for their husband's preferred candidate (if they insist on voting, which they really shouldn't anyway) and not having jobs (except for K-Lo, who totally earned her position because of her nearly masculine ability to write and edit and so forth and so on).  Thus, it's very interesting that she makes a call to NOW and claims they value ideology over women.  Let's examine that.  (I'll use pictures because reading is hard.  Amirite, girls?)

Going Rogue Macht Man Denken!

by va

Finally, the definitive review of Going Rogue is available in print, from The Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti.

Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue," I immediately thought of the German literary critic  Hans Robert Jauss.

Jauss is known as the father of critical reception theory. According to Jauss, every book is read in a social context. In his view, the reader's attitudes, beliefs, values and judgments are just as important as the text. Sometimes more.

Everything about this opening gambit is laughable, so I would like to make a serious comment: I hope Stanley Fish read it and cried a little inside, because "a lot of people" immediately thought of some German dude and not him.

OK, I'm going to buy this book, and then I'm going to return it. Maybe I'll read it in between, and maybe I'll pour acid in my eyes. Or I'll do both and let you know which is better.

She Sells Sanctuary

by Ripley

There's been a lot of flippity-flappity lately over the news that some detainees will be brought to NYC to face federal charges regarding terrorism.  I don't have a terribly strong opinion on this particular issue, though I do think the concept of Military Tribunals for non-military actors is kind of bizarre - we don't send military personnel to civilian courts when they commit crimes on base or against other military personnel.  Frankly, the whole thing strikes me as the very definition of kangaroo courts designed to ensure that the accused are found guilty.  Whatever - I'll leave it to the law talkers to shake out the details.

However, I was shocked - shocked! - to see what Dick Cheney's biggest fan had to say the other day. [via Crooks and Liars]

He's going to give them a public platform where they can spew venom, where they can preach jihad, where they can reach out and recruit other terrorists. And it is totally unnecessary.

When the attorney general says that he's bringing them to justice, he's ignoring the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed asked 11 months ago to be executed for Allah. He asked to plead guilty and be executed. We should have said, "All right, you've got it."

Wait a minute... WTF?!?  Liz Cheney, former law talker, former State Dept. employee, current daughter of Dick Cheney is advocating that America aid suspected terrorism conspirators in achieving martyrdom?  Are my sexy, crystal blue eyes deceiving me?  Let me read that again.

He's going to give them a public platform where they can spew venom, where they can preach jihad, where they can reach out and recruit other terrorists. And it is totally unnecessary.

When the attorney general says that he's bringing them to justice, he's ignoring the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed asked 11 months ago to be executed for Allah. He asked to plead guilty and be executed. We should have said, "All right, you've got it."

Odin's balls, I did read that correctly!  Liz Cheney is stating, on national TV, that we should assist suspected terrorists achieve martyrdom.  What's that phrase the wingnuts are always throwing around when they don't like something and they want to sound oh so formal and constitutiony?  Oh yeah, "...providing aid and comfort to the enemy... (!!!)"  Dear lord, could you ask for a more blatant call to make martyrs of these suspected terrorists?  At the hands of the US Gov't, no less???

I gotta tell ya, Liz - your weak-kneed claim that these absolutely guilty, no doubt about it, terrorists might "preach jihad and reach out and recruit other terrorists" pales in comparison to your outright suggestion that America should engage in the non-freedomy business of creating martyrs for the cause of Islamic extremism and jihad.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  I don't think there are too many red blooded Americans who would like to see more martyrs who will be celebrated for their roles in attacking America while your father was Vice-President.  At least not here in the Heartland.

It's also a bit odd for a person who's worked as an attorney to call for the execution of someone without a trial.  Then again, you worked in the Bush administration, so maybe you've lost touch with some of the fundamentals of the legal system. 

And, speaking of your background, since we are:

In 2002, Cheney was appointed to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, a pre-existing vacant post with an "economic portfolio," which is a mandate to promote investment in the region. Amid reports, including a New York Times editorial by Paul Krugman, saying that the job was created especially for her, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that she had come recommended by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The Times (London) reported that Cheney's appointment was "the most intriguing sign that America is getting serious about Middle East reform" and that the appointment was "a measure of the seriousness with which the administration was taking Middle East programmes for literacy, education, and reform." The appointment followed publicized policy divisions between the Vice President's office and the State Department on Middle East policy. In that position, she was given control of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, designed to "foster increased democracy and economic progress in a troubled region." The program spent $29 million in 2002, increased to $129 million in the following year. Cheney's task was to channel money to pre-screened groups, some of which were not identified publicly for fear of retaliations from extant governments they sought to undermine. For the budget year 2004, the project sought $145 million.

How's all that democracy and economic progress working out in Iraq?  $145 million sure paints a lot of schools, doesn't it?  Oh, and there's this:

Cheney signed on in June 2007 to serve as one of three national co-chairs for Fred Thompson's 2008 presidential campaign. The other co-chairs were Spencer Abraham and George Allen. In a press release issued at the beginning of his campaign, Thompson said he was "very pleased to announce that former Senators Abraham and Allen, as well as Liz Cheney, will serve as co-chairs of my national leadership team." Thompson added: "These distinguished individuals bring wise counsel and invaluable experience to my campaign leadership team, and they will play a critical role in helping spread my consistent conservative message across America."  After Thompson dropped out of the race, Cheney announced on January 27, 2008 that she would work for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, serving as a senior foreign policy advisor.

Y'know, I get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, Liz Cheney doesn't really know what she's talking about.  Her career in the Bush/Cheney adminstration is pretty dismal, especially for someone who had such a sweet ride doing, well... nothing to speak of.  And I, for one, can't take seriously any person who would suggest that America abandon its basic respect for the law and set up a terrorist recruiting office in Cuba. 

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed asked 11 months ago to be executed for Allah. ... We should have said, "All right, you've got it."

You know what America really should say?  "Hey, Liz - shut the fuck up!"

[Update] - via Eli at Multi-Medium:

Iraq’s Baghdad Trade Fair ended Tuesday, six years and a trillion dollars after the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and one country was conspicuously absent.

That would be the country that spent a trillion dollars — on the invasion and occupation, but also on training and equipping Iraqi security forces, and on ambitious reconstruction projects in every province aimed at rebuilding the country and restarting the economy.

Yet when the post-Saddam Iraqi government swept out its old commercial fairgrounds and invited companies from around the world, the United States was not much in evidence among the 32 nations represented. Of the 396 companies that exhibited their wares, “there are two or three American participants, but I can’t remember their names,” said Hashem Mohammed Haten, director general of Iraq’s state fair company….

(…)

American companies are not seeing much lasting benefit from their country’s investment in Iraq. Some American businesses have calculated that the high security costs and fear of violence make Iraq a business no-go area. Even those who are interested and want to come are hampered by American companies’ reputation here for overcharging and shoddy workmanship, an outgrowth of the first years of the occupation, and a lasting and widespread anti-Americanism.

By all means, keep bringing Liz Cheney on to your talky-talk shows.  America needs more insight from her beautiful mind.

Rip -

Grid, Off

For me, right now, nothing points up the utterly amoral, nihilist, vicious nature of the "conservative movement" more clearly than the "death panels" episode. The right wing deliberately decided to make the nation paranoid about end-of-life counseling. Wow.

Read this.

I'll be off the nets for a while, for family stuff not unrelated to the article. Cannot contemplate wingnuts for a while. The gang will be here to keep the shop running, & Molly I & will be back when when we're back. Love you all.

Sarah... Sarah... Sarah

By Monica_A

For someone who claims to love America so much she drapes its flag over a chair like a chenille throw, Sarah Palin is woefully ignorant of the laws which govern the country. Take for example Caribou Barbie's view on the Obama administration following the rule of law and giving the 9/11 conspirators their day in court.

If we are stuck with this terrible Obama Administration decision, I, like most Americans, hope that Mohammed and his co-conspirators are convicted. Hang ‘em high.

Really, Sarah? You really think it's a good idea for the U.S. to arbitrarily hang people without the benefit of trial by jury because that won't come back to bite us in the ass, will it! MILFY, like other Conservatives, presume that citizens of this nation are so dumb that they'll let people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waltz out of court because all Americans must be like Sarah and her ilk... which is Beckian-like stupid. I'm here to inform Governor "Debate Prep Is Hard!" that the majority of Americans are not like her. Firstly, they have the intellectual curiosity that exceeds that of a goldfish (and that's being generous to the woman). It's stunning that someone supposedly running for the highest office in the country doesn't want to know what's going on in the world. How can you not want to remedy your ignorance? I would have been happy for Sarah to have said "People Magazine" when asked what news sources she reads.

But what really bothers me about Sarah and her gang of morons is how little faith they have in the U.S. Constitution and the people entrusted to enact it. While not perfect, it does a pretty good job in helping the nation chug along. Why doesn't she believe in the very thing that she will be asked to uphold and protect should she become President of the United States? She doesn't like Obama. I get it! We all get it! However, I don't think people should languish in jail, relatives of those killed be denied justice and this country (which I just can't seem to quit) continue to have this human rights black eye because of people like Sarah. I guess what I'm trying to say  in these paragraphs is:

SARAH, SHUT THE FUCK UP!