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Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

It’s thin on the ground today, my darlings. But I’ve managed to dig up a few gems for ye this New Year’s Day.

Let’s begin with proof that right-wing loons are equally idiotic the world over:

According to the Israeli paper Ha’aretz, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made a short visit to Paris on Thursday, after French president Sarkozy proposed a humanitarian cease-fire:

Reiterating Israel’s rejection of the 48-hour humanitarian cease-fire proposal, Livni said “there is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce.”

In her remarks to reporters, Livni said Israel had been careful to protect the civilian population and had kept the humanitarian situation in Gaza “completely as it should be”.

Um. Seriously?

Meanwhile, Israel launched air strikes on such terrorist targets as government buildings across the Gaza Strip, including the parliament buildings. Hamas sources said the Education and Transportation ministries were completely destroyed in the strikes.

At least 25 Gazans were wounded in those attacks. Today the number of dead in Gaza reached 410 and the UN Humanitarian Coordinator warns that the situation is life or death for all the people of Gaza. Israeli tanks are lined up at the border and the cabinet has given approval to plans for “a major, but relatively short-term, ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.”

That’s how it should be? Over four hundred people dead, thousands wounded, and such important military targets as the fucking Education ministry destroyed, and that’s how it should be? Way to prove Israel’s leaders have completely fucking lost their humanity, there.

Speaking of heartless fucktards, seems like reality has finally bitten one right on the arse:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) has been one of the leading members of the Neo-Hooverite caucus, insisting that his economic philosophy dictates that the best thing a government can do during the economic crisis is “cut spending.”

A funny thing happens, though, when far-right philosophy runs into the real-world economy.

Just hours before the unemployment benefits fund was to run out in South Carolina, the state with the nation’s third-highest jobless rate, Gov. Mark Sanford relented Wednesday and agreed to apply for a $146 million federal loan to shore it up, after weeks of refusing to do so.

The governor’s position had drawn rebukes even from fellow Republicans in the Legislature, one of whom denounced Mr. Sanford as “heartless,” and from newspaper editorial pages. On Wednesday, The State, the daily newspaper here in Columbia, accused the governor of playing “chicken with the lives of the 77,000” who are unemployed in South Carolina.

For weeks, Sanford, a far-right economic libertarian who recently became the head of the Republican Governors Association, said he simply didn’t believe the state’s unemployment figures. South Carolina, which has one of the highest jobless rates in the nation, calculates its data the same way every other state does, but Sanford didn’t want to extend benefits because he didn’t accept the statistics.

State Senator Hugh Leatherman, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said last week, “It’s absolutely unheard of, it’s insane, for a governor of any state not to request those [unemployment] funds. I can’t believe anybody would be this heartless, and create such a heartless act on these people.”

Read the rest of Steve’s post. Marvel at the fact that Sanford is such a batshit insane fuckwith that the Republicons have been overriding his spending vetos. You know, the same people who usually respond to every budget question with a reflexive, “Cut taxes, control spending!” And when you finish exploring the full extent of his dumbfuckitude, remember one thing: This assclown is one of the leading contenders to run for president in 2012.

Amazing, aren’t they? I think I’m going to have to start laying in supplies of popcorn early. If the field of nitwits they’re proposing actually end up competing, the next presidential election should prove enormously entertaining.

Seeing as how last year just ended, let’s have a look back at how disastrous Bush has made 2008:

To mark the passing of Bush’s last full year in office, ThinkProgress rounded up statistics on some of the most significant effects of Bush rule in 2008:

Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq: 322.
Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: 151.
Number Of Jobs Lost: 1.9 million.
Number Of Banks Federal Government Now Owns Stock In: 206.
Number Of Uninsured Americans: 47.5 million.

Change In Housing Prices: declined 18 percent.
Change In Health Insurance Premiums: increased 5 percent.
Change In Number Of Delinquent Mortgages: increased 75 percent.
Change In Use Of Food Stamps: increased 17 percent.
Change In Dow Jones Industrial Average: declined 35 percent.
Change In Bush Approval Rating: declined 9 percent to 29 percent.

Holy fucking shit. No wonder the poll numbers for Obama shake out like this:

It seems fair to say the president-elect is starting the new year on the right foot, at least as far as public support is concerned.

A national poll suggests that three-quarters of the public thinks President-elect Barack Obama is a strong and decisive leader, the highest marks for a president-elect on that charact
eristic in nearly three decades.

Seventy-six percent of Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Wednesday said Obama is a strong and decisive leader.

“That’s the best number an incoming president has gotten on that dimension since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. “The public’s rating of his leadership skills is already as high as George W. Bush’s was after 9/11 and easily beats the numbers that both Bush and Bill Clinton got at the start of their first terms in office.”

[snip]

I thought Obama would start his presidency with some strong support, but the support is surprisingly strong. CNN’s Bill Schneider recently noted that these are the kinds of numbers that occur “when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster.”

Well. The Bush regime certainly qualifies as one.

Happy Hour Discurso

Great American Hypocrisy: Torture Prosecutions for Thee but Not for Me

It seems the United States can prosecute torture – as long as it was someone else who did the torturing:

While fiercely loyal establishment spokespeople such as The Washington Post‘s Ruth Marcus continue to insist that prosecutions are only appropriate for common criminals (“someone breaking into your house”) but not our glorious political leaders when they break the law (by, say, systematically torturing people), the Bush administration has righteously decided that torture is such a grotesque and intolerable crime that political leaders who order it simply must be punished in American courts to the fullest extent of the law . . . . if they’re from Liberia:

MIAMI (AP) — U.S. prosecutors want a Miami judge to sentence the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 147 years in prison for torturing people when he was chief of a brutal paramilitary unit during his father’s reign.

Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Charles “Chuckie” Taylor Jr. is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 9 by U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga. His conviction was the first use of a 1994 law allowing prosecution in the U.S. for acts of torture committed overseas.

Even in the U.S., it’s hard to believe that federal prosecutors who work for the Bush DOJ were able to convey the following words with a straight face:

A recent Justice Department court filing describes torture – which the U.S. has been accused of in the war on terror – as a “flagrant and pernicious abuse of power and authority” that warrants severe punishment of Taylor.

It undermines respect for and trust in authority, government and a rule of law,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller in last week’s filing. “The gravity of the offense of torture is beyond dispute.”

Why, yes. Yes, it is. Which is bloody well why we should have Bush, Cheney et all locked up in cells awaiting the displeasure of the court.

There is an excellent fucking case to be made for delivering Bush and his cronies to the Hague:

A political scientist named Michael Haas has just published a book titled George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes:

Based on information supplied in autobiographical and press sources, the book matches events in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq , and various secret places of detention with provisions in the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements on war crimes. His compilation is the first to cite a comprehensive list of specific war crimes in four categories-illegality of the decision to go to war, misconduct during war, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and misgovernment in the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Haas accuses President Bush of conduct bordering on treason because he reenacted several complaints stated in the Declaration of Independence against England, ignored the Constitution and federal laws, trampled on the American tradition of developing international law to bring order to world politics, and in effect made a Faustian pact with Osama Bin Laden that the intelligence community blames for an increase in world terrorism. Osama Bin Laden remains alive, he reports, because Bush preferred to go after oil-rich Iraq rather than tracking down Al Qaeda leaders, whose uncaptured presence was useful to him in justifying a “war on terror” pursued on a military rather than a criminal basis without restraint from constitutional checks and balances.

The worst war crime cited is the murder of at least 45 prisoners, some but not all by torture. Other heinous crimes include the brutal treatment of thousands of children, some 64 of whom have been detained at Guantánamo. Sources document the use of illegal weapons in the war from cluster bombs to daisy cutters, napalm, white phosphorus, and depleted uranium weapons, some of which have injured and killed American soldiers as well as thousands of innocent civilians. Children playing in areas of Iraq where depleted uranium weapons have been used, but not reported on request from the World Health Organization, have developed leukemia and other serious diseases.

If actions like this do not make our leaders war criminals worthy of trial and conviction, nothing does. We have no right, none, to prosecute and imprison people for doing what we ourselves have done.

Digby excoriates the prevailing political winds blowing in the direction of forgive, forget, and pretend we can keep it from happening again without going through all the ickyness of a trial. She takes that down with alacrity, finishing with a stark reminder:

And this is one issue where there is absolutely no room for compromise — the world is watching and our national security depends upon Obama completely and without reservations ending these programs, closing Guantanamo, following the Geneva conventions and standing firm against any kind of lawless and unproductive anti-terrorism measures. Investigating and exposing the full extent of what went on is also, in my view, a necessity if we are to restore any kind of credibility around the world. If he doesn’t do these things, this moment will be as squandered as the world’s sympathy was squandered by Bush after 9/11. The world will be unlikely to give us a third chance at getting this right.

Second chances are hard enough to come by. We were extraordinarily lucky that Obama came along and restored the world’s faith in us. We need to show them their faith is justified.

And yes, there is something we can do about it. We can apply some pressure.

Ari Melber at The Nation has a good suggestion:

The Obama transition team is taking questions again at Change.gov, throwing open the site this week for citizen input. The first run of this experiment was a mixed bag. The platform was open and transparent, but the official answers felt more like old boilerplate than new responses. When the submitted questions parrot toics in the traditional media, of course, the exchange can feel like a dated press conference. But here’s a vital question that few reporters have ever presented to Obama:

Wil
l you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?

That question ranked sixth in voting last time — out of over 10,000 submissions — but the transition team only answered the top five questions. Now that Vice President Cheney confessed his support for waterboarding on national television, flouting the rule of law, the issue is even more urgent. Activist Bob Fertik, who has submitted the question twice, explains how you can vote to press this issue on the transition team:

  1. Sign in at http://change.gov/openforquestions
  2. Search for “Fitzgerald
  3. This will display several similar questions, so look carefully for “Bob Fertik”
  4. Look right for the checkbox, mouseover it so it goes from white to dark, then click to cast your vote

Now that we’ve shown we have the stomach to prosecute other countries’ citizens for torture, we need to stop being big fat fucking hypocrites and prosecute a few of our own.

Great American Hypocrisy: Torture Prosecutions for Thee but Not for Me

Obligatory New Year's Day Post

2009 is off to a rather rocky start. My roommate came home after a blissfully long absence. My Muse left in a snit. The two of them don’t get along at all, which is why I’m looking forward to April. Solitude will be mine… MIIIINNNNEEEE!!1!11!!

Ahem. Sorry ’bout that.

I have done nothing more interesting tonight than watch a few desultory fireworks shot off by a neighbor and moved heaven and earth on the intertoobz looking for new music. I like my New Years that way. If they changed the year at midsummer, I might consider dragging me arse from the house, but cold weather + stupid drunk people = Dana staying happily home.

This year will bring a few changes. I don’t play the resolutions game, but I have Plans. Oh, yes. They are:

1. Keep this blog fat and happy.

2. Move into a happy home o’ me own.

3. Write me arse off, with the first half of the year spent worldbuilding and the latter half beginning the novel, which will take me into 2010.

Along the way, I’m sure I’ll pick up a few new friends, fall in love with new bands, discover interests I never knew I had, find fabulous new authors and savor new novels from my favorites, see the Peacemakers a few times, and do other fun and exciting things that will make life worth living for yet another year. Rather looking forward to it.

Many of us have our own particular New Year’s traditions. Aside from taking the opportunity to sneak in a few extra hours alone with my characters, I play U2’s “New Year’s Day” without fail. Care to join me? You can see Bono with no wrinkles and really bad hair:

I don’t know about you, but I’m amused.

My fondest memory of 2008 is getting to meet all of you. Having you lot around makes me a very happy Dana indeed. And so, fill a glass with whatever’s to hand, raise it in your honor, and please do accept my favorite Scottish blessing, because it’s exactly what I want for you:

“May the best you’ve ever been be the worst you’ll ever see.”

Happy New Year, my darlings. I hope you’ll have a wonderful one indeed.

Obligatory New Year's Day Post

I Guess the Romance is Dead

Deary, deary me. Someone draw up the divorce papers – I do believe the bloom is off the rose:

Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action, makes the extraordinary claim that Mitt Romney “has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith.”

This statement seems to have come as something as a surprise to Mittens:

But that’s news to the Romney camp, according to Michael Scherer:

On Saturday, I read this quote to Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s traveling press secretary. He did not hesitate or mince his words. “The governor has not made that acknowledgment,” Fehrnstrom told me. “He has said that his belief is not the same as others. But there is no doubt that Jesus Christ is at the center of the LDS church’s worship.”

In fact, the Church of Latter Day Saints, also know as the Mormon church, holds as a central belief that it is a Christian faith. This belief is a concern for some evangelical Christians, who see Mormonism as a competing religion. On the campaign trail, Romney has avoided discussing his faith in depth, and he has acknowledged that there are differences between his faith and others. But he has not been quoted saying Mormonism is not a Christian faith.

Why did Focus on the Family Action’s Tom Minnery think that Romney admitted that Mormonism is not Christianity? This quote from Romney’s speech on religion:

There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history.

What we’ve got here is a bad case of FoF hearing what they want to hear. Now that they’ve used the Mormon church’s power and money to keep icky gays from getting *gasp* married in California, evangelical Christians are right back to insisting the Mormons are just some bizarre cult, totally unlike Real Christians™ .

It’s too bad they can’t just admit they’re all making shit up. Amusing as it is to watch them assassinate each other, it’s also rather pathetic watching adults argue over whose fantasy is really real, especially after they’ve just finished using their fantasy to unite in denying such a simple human (dis)comfort as marriage to people they don’t like.

I Guess the Romance is Dead