Friday Favorite Season

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Autumn isn’t mine.

The damned leaves are already turning. Whole branches have blushed red or are cowering yellow. When a stiff wind blows, a few premature demisers make their final dive into the pond. And it’s bloody cold already.

That means winter’s coming, with its short, gray days and its icy rain. The rare bit of snow we get here will look pretty dusting the trees, granted – but only so long as I don’t have to drive in it. People in this city lose their minds when there’s a snowflake or two on the road.

And summer’s nice, but some days I feel like I’ve been turning on a rotisserie spit. The days are insufferably long – for a nocturne like me, having only a few hours of night is depressing.

Give me spring, damn it.

I love spring. I love that special shade of green you get with young, vigorous leaves popping out everywhere. Sunlight has an altogether different quality beaming down through newly-verdant trees. All those flowers blooming, all the gorgeous smells, the sensation of sudden life after a dead season – it’s fantastic. Spring invigorates me. Spring makes me feel all bubbly inside, and gets me outside to play.

I’m already looking forward to it. But I know a few of you are probably fanatics for fall, wistful for winter, or suckers for summer. Make your best case in comments.

Friday Favorite Season
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About that "Torture" McCain Suffered…

jacob

He didn’t.

McCain was never tortured as a POW.

Every confession he made was absolutely accurate.

Every technique used against him was perfectly legal, moral, and ethical.

Our government says so:

The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration’s definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of “long-time standing” that victims of Bush’s torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely “enhanced interrogation.”

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the “intelligence” we have procured from “interrogating” terror suspects. Feel safer?

Imfuckingmeasurably.

Just in case anyone’s all outraged by this on McCain’s behalf, just remember that he agrees 110%:

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture. Someone somewhere cried out in pain for the same reasons McCain once did. And McCain let it continue.

That’s real presidential material, that is.

Andrew Sullivan’s earned himself a bottle o’ the best in the house for this piece. Tip o’ the shot glass to Ed Brayton for making sure I didn’t miss it.

About that "Torture" McCain Suffered…

But What If The Enquirer's Right?

jacob

McCain campaign chief Steve Schmidt in full whine:

And late Wednesday afternoon, Schmidt made a second statement threatening legal action against the National Enquirer for its report that Palin had an extramarital affair. “The smearing of the Palin family must end. The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Governor Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false. It is a vicious lie.”

You know, Steve, I would’ve agreed with you… before this happened:

The National Enquirer yesterday published a story claiming it had caught John Edwards meeting with an alleged mistress and illegitimate child. Then again, the Enquirer hasn’t been able to produce quotes, photos or even eyewitness accounts. And the mainstream media seems to be ignoring it, for the most part.

And they turned out to be right:

John Edwards admitted to ABC News in an interview with Bob Woodruff Friday (WATCH THE INTERVIEW) that he repeatedly lied about an extramarital affair with a 42-year old campaign employee, but strenuously denied being involved in paying the woman hush money or fathering her newborn child.

Let’s just face it: the Enquirer sucks leper donkey dick as far as breaking real news, and maybe they just lucked into the truth for once, but you know, when it comes to panty-sniffing sleaze, you can’t dismiss ’em out of hand anymore.

But regardless, thanks for bringing it up, Steve. In the deluge of other scandal, I’d missed that one. And hey, “enquiring minds want to know!”

But What If The Enquirer's Right?

Excuse Me, Mr. Ridge. Your Freudian Slip is Showing.

jacob1 Comment

Quoth Tom Ridge:

“Because John Bush – because John McCain is very much his own man.”

Ja, you betcha:

According to a CQ analysis of Senate votes on issues President Bush expressed “an explicit, stated opinion,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) voted with President Bush 100 percent of the time in 2008 and 95 percent of the time in 2007.

Total maverick, Tom. Absolutely.

Excuse Me, Mr. Ridge. Your Freudian Slip is Showing.

Happy Hour Discurso

jacob1 Comment

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Calling in the (fake) troops (h/t Steve Benen):

For its “Pledge of Allegiance video” on Tuesday night, the Republican National Convention used stock footage of a staged military funeral, along with actors dressed as soldiers and sailors. CBS has the story:

It was a video that was supposed to elicit soaring patriotism and real emotions about the Pledge of Allegiance. But to do that, it used fake soldiers and a staged military funeral instead of the real thing.

CBS News found that the footage of the ‘funeral’ and soldiers is what is called ‘stock’ footage. The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.
The footage, sold by stock-film house Getty Images was produced by a commercial filmmaker in Chicago. Both Getty and the production company, Mr. Big Films, confirmed that the footage was shot on spec and sold to the Republican National Committee.

One of the actors, Perry Denton of Chicago, IL also confirmed that he was hired on a day-rate as an actor for the shoot and told CBS News he was surprised to learn the footage was shown at the convention.

Brandon Friedman of Vote Vets had a few choice things to say about that:

The issue here isn’t that the RNC used actors in what might have been a haste. Rather, the underlying problem is that Bush and McCain supporters don’t like to deal with the messy reality of warfare that genuine troops bring to the table. That is, they feel compelled to stage a funeral with actors. Because to show a real military funeral–with the heaving chests of a broken family clutching a flag-draped coffin containing the pieces of their dead soldier–might just make the funny hat-clad, stupid button-wearing audience blanch. And that doesn’t make for good TV. Plus, people just wouldn’t go for it. So they use sanitized actors.

But this is an insult to the military. The use of actors shows an unwillingness to face up to what they’ve done–to the military and to the nation. And it shows that the only way to keep up support for the war is to hide its reality from the American people.


Hiding reality is a Republicon speciality. They invent shit constantly. Sarah Palin hasn’t said more than two true things since she got dumped on the national scene. McCain lies his ass off. And now Republicons are trying new avenues of attack, such as castigating Gore for his private jet:

Last night, at the Republican National Convention, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) called for “the immediate drilling for more oil off of our shores” and followed with a personal attack on Vice President Al Gore that received thunderous applause:

And I have one more recommendation for energy conservation — let’s keep Al Gore’s private jet on the ground!

There’s just one small problem with that line of attack:

ThinkProgress contacted Gore spokesperson Kalee Kreider, who replied, “Gore doesn’t own a jet.”

Not that they’ll stop lying. They have some kind of pathological need to lie. And lie. And lie and denigrate and lie and lie:

This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Time Magazine Jay Carney pointed out that Gov. Sarah Palin has yet to answer any questions on foreign or domestic policy. McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace interjected, “Who cares?!” Wallace insisted that Palin “can answer the question” of how Americans can save their homes; in fact, Wallace erroneously said, Palin talked about it
last night…

[snip]

Of course, Palin never said anything about the housing crisis in her speech. Though she atacked Barack Obama and community organizers, lied about her opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, and reversed positions on whether we can “drill our way out of” the energy crisis, Palin did not mention any aspect of domestic or foreign policy during her speech. She discussed McCain’s POW experience, compared herself to a pitbull, and declared that “victory in Iraq is finally in sight,” but never said anything remotely related to how Americans could save their homes.


You apparently have to renounce all ties to reality in order to join the Republicon party. It’s not that they’re lying about stuff that might be a matter of interpretation. They’re lying about things that can easily and clearly be proved:

Watching Sarah Palin’s speech last night, I made a note: “Not bad with the teleprompter. Obviously reading, but better than McCain.” It takes speakers a little while to get used to teleprompters, and it looked like Palin’s extensive practice paid off.

But that, apparently, isn’t the story. Erick Erickson, a Republican blogger, citing “sources close to the McCain campaign,” insisted this morning that Palin’s teleprompter suffered a “malfunction,” and she “winged” much of her speech “from memory.” Erickson used the anecdote to label Palin a “winner.”

I initially thought Erickson was kidding. Anyone watching the speech could see her reading the text from start to finish. She would interject the occasional off-script line, as speakers often do, but she wasn’t “winging”
anything. That seemed rather obvious.

But Erickson wasn’t kidding. Other Republican blogs began heralding Palin’s feat, Drudge is running with it, and Fox News is talking about it.

The claim simply isn’t true.

Sarah Palin delivered a powerful speech last night, but she did not “wing it.” … This claim has been picked up on Drudge and could quickly enter into the insta-mythmaking about a speech that need not be embroidered.

Perhaps there were moments where it scrolled slightly past her exact point in the speech. But I was sitting in the press section next to the stage, within easy eyeshot of the teleprompter. I frequently looked up at the machine, and there was no serious malfunction. A top convention-planner confirms this morning that
there were no major problems.

It’s a clinical mental illness to be compelled to lie when there’s no need to lie, when lying can only harm rather than benefit you, when you can easily be caught out in your lies. Republicons everywhere seem to be suffering from the disease. They not only will not, but cannot, tell the truth.

The last thing we need four more years of is a herd of pathological liars with their dirty hands all over the power centers of this nation.

Happy Hour Discurso

While the Media Titters over Palin, Police Torture Protesters

jacob

I’ll have much, much more on the unbelievable conduct of the police in St. Paul. I’ve been following the reports all week, and it’s fucking beyond outrageous. But this tips me right over the edge:

Here’s the news from the streets of St. Paul and the cells of the Ramsey County Jail

Jason was tased seven times on the street, while completely unresisting. We just heard from him-he’s still pulling copper out of his hip from the taser gun, has a long, deep laceration in his leg that is still untreated, was beaten up badly and has a black eye, a hurt mouth and many lacerations, but says he’s doing great. Elliot Hughes, a sweet, nineteen year old who came to our day camp, was badly beaten when the cops knocked him off his bicycle. They stepped on his chest, and he was coughing blood all night but received no medical treatment. The guards were calling him ‘Princess’ and making homophobic remarks. We heard from Jason that last night, Elliot was making noises to protest not receiving any food for more than twelve hours. Twelve officers entered his cell. Screams were heard for over five minutes. He was tasered three times, maced, and beaten, then removed and the men were told he was being taken to a restraint chair.

[Starhawk]

To put it bluntly, uniformed “law” enforcement in St. Paul and Ramsey County:

  • torture with electroshock weapons (Tasers)
  • torture with chemical weapons
  • stomp on a young man’s chest
  • cruelly (perhaps fatally) deny medical care to a victim spitting up blood (the fancy medical name is hemoptysis) from thoracic trauma
  • respond to calls for food with torture by beating, Taser, and chemical weapons: the same chemical weapons known to cause respiratory arrest and death in victims with pulmonary disease. “Spitting up blood” is a symptom of pulmonary disease so severe as to require emergency medical evaluation.
  • then tie up the victim in “restraint chairs” known to exacerbate pre-existing breathing difficulties in some victims of thoracic trauma.

You know, I’d gathered a few items of police fuckery from Denver, but never posted them because I got distracted by other matters. I figured I’d save them for a larger post on our expanding police state. But I look at the contrast between the overzealousness in Denver, and it’s like comparing children with cap guns to a rifle brigade.

You already heard from PZ how the police have been conducting unlawful raids, how they’ve been shutting down protesters on the flimsiest of evidence, and how they’ve arrested journalists. Now they’re engaging openly and shamelessly in torturing detainees.

I wonder where they could’ve gotten the idea that was at all acceptable in a polite society?

There’s just not enough profanity in the universe to express my outrage.

Much more on such matters later, when I’m less speechless. But in the meantime, if you’re inclined to phone some people and civilly yet forcefully advise that maybe it’s a little premature to bring Guantanamo tactics to the mainland for use against vegans, peaceniks, and a few window-breaking anarchists, Firedoglake’s got the contact list.

While the Media Titters over Palin, Police Torture Protesters

Bush Appointee: Baby Powder Worse Offense Than Attempted Assassination

jacob

Last week, Denver police arrested three men plotting to assassinate Obama. U.S. Attorney Troy Eid, a Bush appointee, didn’t think it was anything to worry about.

But the FBI did:

Even more significant, beyond the details of the plot, was the fact that, as the Colorado Independent notes, the FBI asked for more serious charges to be filed and were turned down.

When police searched the hotel rooms and cars the men were using, they confiscated meth, needles, laptops, cell phones, a black mask, books indicating check fraud and forgery, bags of new clothes, tactical pants and bar coupons.

Based on the evidence, FBI special agent Robert Sawyer believed there was probable cause to charge the men with conspiracy to kill Senator Obama. However, US Attorney Troy Eid last week said there is insufficient evidence to indicate a true threat, plot or conspiracy against the senator.

Note the language used by Eid in dismissing the gravity of the case: the case isn’t serious because they were “more aspirational, perhaps, than operational“? Well, when it was the Liberty Seven –– black Muslim men who were described by the FBI as “aspirational rather than operational” — there was no hesitation by the Justice Department in bringing charges.

Ah, well, you know, in Troy Eid’s Republicon world, as long as folks are only “aspiring” to murder a Democratic candidate, it’s no big deal, no matter the level of planning or the seriousness of the weapons seized. The inventory in their truck, you’ll recall, included “two rifles, including one with a scope; a bulletproof vest; boxes of ammunition; walkie-talkies; and suspected narcotics.” Nothing that would threaten a presidential candidate at all.

But send baby powder to a Republicon presidential candidate, and the whole wrath of the mighty Justice Department will come crashing down upon you:

Another funny thing: When a black man in prison sent a threatening letter containing baby powder to John McCain, Troy Eid brought down the full force of the law, complete with press conferences and public declarations that “We won’t stand for threats of this kind in Colorado.”

Isn’t it incredible just how blatant these fuckers are in their hypocrisy? You’d think they’d been getting away with it for eight years or something.

Bush Appointee: Baby Powder Worse Offense Than Attempted Assassination

You Just Don't Get Google, Do You?

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What do you do when a questionnaire you answered in 2006 becomes a huge fucking embarrassment plastered all over the internet?

A. Explain how your views have changed.

B. Stand by your answers and pander to the conservative base.

C. Ignore the uproar and hope it’s forgotten by election day.

D. Think everything will be solved if only you scrub that pesky page from the intertoobz.

Those who plump for option D should realize that their plan, while seemingly brilliant, has one fatal flaw.

Teh Google: It Never Forgets.

****

Brought to you by Citizens United for an Intelligent American Presidency. At the moment, it boasts all of one American. You can join this growing movement in the comments. Slogans welcome, as this is the best I’ve got so far:

“Because the world deserves a break from unrelenting stupidity.”

You Just Don't Get Google, Do You?

Fuck the Elevated Discourse – Gimme a Talking Point and a Hammer

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Glenn Greenwald has an utterly valid point to make:

Somehow, the deep stupidity of our political discourse actually manages to escalate during presidential campaigns, becoming even more vapid and idiotic than normal. But, as I argued continuously when I did my book tour in April and May for Great American Hypocrites, this is the kind of campaign the GOP runs every election and in which they specialize, and there are only two options for Democrats in response: (1) purport to “rise above it” and thus ensure that they get slaughtered in a one-sided, one-way War of Personality Demonization which renders issues irrelevant (hence: the all-American Everyman War Hero versus the rich, out-of-touch, effete elitist), or (2) attack the GOP candidate using the same lowly character themes in order to neutralize the attacks and prevent the election from being decided on these grounds. It’s good to see the Obama campaign, finally, engaging these issues aggressively.

I know. We’re all dogfucking sick of the character assassinations, ridiculous shit like beverage preferences and fucking flag pins being treated as matters of Utmost Vital Importance, and the tantrums. I know we’d like it if our candidates could actually win by being decent, upstanding, grown-ups who obsess over the important issues rather than the number of houses their opponent owns. We’d like to forcibly remove braindead media gasbags from studios and replace them with people who will actually report actual news. We’d like the American electorate to discover what enlightened self interest is all about and decide the election based on what’s best for the country and for them rather than the beer-buddy qualities of the man they’re pulling the lever for.

You know what, I’d like all of those things. Fuck, I’d love all of those things. I’d also like a ranch with horsies, and a little house on the Mediterranean.

The sad fact is, I’m much more likely to end up with the latter than the former. I’m probably more likely to end up winning a trillion dollar jackpot than living to see the day when our national discourse rises above playground popularity contests. Maybe Efrique could work out the statistical probabilities for us. The graph is sure to be sob-inducing.

Obama’s going to have to attack, and attack hard, to win. He’s going to have to get vicious. He can’t give any quarter. We know what the GOP’s like – give them a micrometer, they’ll take a megaparsec, and still complain they’re the persecuted victims.

He promised to run a different kind of campaign. And you know what? He is. I’ve never gotten this sense of amusement from a candidate before. Most Dems under fire by the right wing noise machine seem either angry, desperate, or just as muddy as their opposition. Obama just seems entertained. I keep feeling his elbow in my ribs: “Get a load of them. Aren’t they precious?” And that’s a difference, too – I can feel him. When he talks about Republicon antics, he’s subtly putting himself beside us. We’re all feeling the same bemusement, watching the Republicons manufacture their little controversies with the same horrified fascination.

That could be a major reason why he chose Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden is a past master at the cutting remark, and he’s sure as shit not afraid to say what’s on his mind. He balances Obama quite well. Obama’s masterful at the razor-sharp little cuts that lop off an arm before the opponent realizes he’s been hit. Biden’s brilliant at the bludgeon. It’s a combo that’s guaranteed to blitz opponents on all fronts – if they’re not afraid to use it.

At this point, I think it’s safe for them to go on the counterattack. Not only safe, but essential. They can hold the high ground while turning their opponents’ own attacks against them. Sometimes, the most effective weapons are the ones you take from your attacker.

Obama and Biden won’t have to put all that much effort into it. The Republicons are past masters at making themselves look ridiculous. Where the Democrats have failed is exploiting the idiocy. They don’t need to take a page out of the Republicon play book – there are older, better traditions to draw from. Such as the Irish bards, who could take down a king with a well-placed bit of satire.

Republicons sneer, but that’s for immature little bullies. Let us try disdain.

Republicons like to sissify their opponents. While it might be emotionally satisfying to do the same, I think Obama has an excellent chance of going one better and infantalizing them. Do you think the American electorate really wants a bunch of babies at the helm? It could seem that way sometimes, but I think after nearly a decade of Bush’s playground politics, people are ready for grownups. They just need to be shown who the real grownups are.

Republicons like to make shit up and repeat until people are confused into believing it’s true. I think Obama needs to be just as relentless with the truth. Big truths, yes, but mostly small, simple truths: McCain is such a hothead even his colleagues and fellow POWs think he’d be a disasterous president. McCain doesn’t know his geography. McCain thinks rich people are poor. McCain needs a motorcade to go get a mocha. McCain can’t tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shi’a. McCain likes to tell lies. McCain takes credit for things he didn’t do. McCain thinks that the answer to every problem is to a) drill or b) bomb. And, yes, McCain is so rich he doesn’t even know how many houses he owns.

Simple points, simply told. And they can be told from the side of the people. Obama’s been doing something that I think is brilliant: he hasn’t been talking down. He’s been treating ordinary folks as if they’re smart enough to understand. They’re smart enough to agree with him. They’re fucking well smart enough to see through the Republicon charade and realize Emperor St. John, he is nekkid.

If Obama goes on treating the American people as intelligent, sentient beings who can understand that four more years of Republicon rule are not in their self interest, they may defy all expectation and prove him right. They’ll want to live up to that image of themselves. It’s what the Republicons have been manipulating all along: the need to be liked, listened to, part of the “in” crowd.

We can reach all of those needs while fulfilling another: people like to feel admired. They like to feel smart. I don’t think most Americans are stupid so much as they’ve had such low expectations to live up to for so long. And a lot of them are starting to realize they’ve been played for fools.

I don’t think they like it much. Not judging from the people I’ve talked to who were too smart to appreciate being treated as dumbshits by the Republicons for so long, and have now become left-leaning Independents, if not outright Democrats.

There are a lot more we can reach. Unfortunately, they get their news from the teevee. So we’re going to have to play the media game. Our MSM isn’t interested in substantive policy differences right now: they’re interested in shiny things. Fine. Give them shiny. Give them silly shite like, “McCain can’t remember how many houses he’s got.” That’s s
hiny enough to get their attention without allowing them to realize there’s a substantive policy issue in there.

Hit back with those silly talking points that conceal a lead pipe of policy often enough, and it’s just possible that by the end of this cycle, it’ll be the Dems who are considered the party of tough, rugged leaders while the Republicons are the babies crying in the corner.

And once we’re done turning the tables with talking points, we can see about kicking the magpies out of the media and replacing them with eagles.

(Written before the Sarah Palin train wreck struck, in case you’re wondering why I didn’t bring her up.)

Fuck the Elevated Discourse – Gimme a Talking Point and a Hammer

Happy Hour Discurso

jacob

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

What Republicons say in public:

Yesterday, during Politico’s breakfast panel at the Republican National Convention on “Women and the Republican Party,” Matthew Yglesias asked why the panelists were ignoring substantive discussion of Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) record. Yglesias noted that Palin lied about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere and led Sen. Ted Stevens’s (R-AK) 527.

Conservative strategist Mike Murphy argued that Palin’s record was nothing to be concerned about. He dismissed Palin’s record of supporting large earmark spending, said he didn’t “buy” that Palin was closely linked to the indicted Stevens and joked that her association with the fringe Alaska Independence Party makes him “like her more.”

VS. what they say when they think the microphone’s off:

Murphy, at that point, said, “They’re all bummed out.”

Todd added, “I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they can obtain?” Noonan answered, “The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, ‘political bullshit’ about narratives.”

Todd, incredulous, said, “Yeah, but what’s the narrative?” To which Murphy added, “I totally agree.”

Noonan added, “Every time Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.”

Murphy concluded, “You know what’s the worst thing about it, the greatest of McCain is no cynicism, and…”

Todd finished his sentence: “This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.”


Keep that in mind while the Cons tell you what a brilliant decision Palin as Veep was and how happy they all are.

At least one evangelical big gun is having an uncomfortable moment of sanity as well. Difference is, he’s not keeping his opinion to himself:

The outpouring of support for Sarah Palin in evangelical circles has been overwhelming, but it’s not entirely unanimous.

Mark DeMoss’ name may not be familiar in secular circles, but BeliefNet recently described him as arguably “the most prominent public relations executive in the evangelical world.” He’s perhaps best known for years of work alongside Jerry Falwell at the Moral Majority.

This week, DeMoss is watching the hullabaloo surrounding Palin, and he’s worried.

Mark DeMoss, former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell and now a leading Christian public relations executive, is hoping that Palin turns out well but has been shocked and worried by the reflexive Christian embrace of her.

“Too many evangelicals and religious conservative are too preoccupied with values and faith and pay no attention to competence. We don’t apply this approach to anything else in life, including choosing a pastor.” Imagine, he said, if a church was searching for a pastor and the leadership was brought a candidate with great values but little experience. “They’ve been a pastor for two years at a church with 150 people but he shares our values, so we hired him to be pastor of our 5,000 person church? It wouldn’t happen! We don’t say, ‘He shares our values, so let’s hire him.’ That’s absurd. Yet we apply that to choosing presidents. It blows my mind.”


Seems like a man who still retains the ability to think. I never thought I’d see that from a current member of the frothing religious right.

But no one else on the right seems to be jumping on the sanity train. They’re all happy where they’re at, off in Unreality Land, celebrating the fact that Palin’s teenaged daughter’s going to keep her baby (making a choice they want to deny to everyone else). They want more teens to choose life, they say. Sarah Palin has a funny way of supporting that choice:

The Washington Post’s Paul Kane reports that Sarah Palin, as governor, used a line-item veto to “slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.”

As it turns out, Alaskan lawmakers passed the state’s budget, but Palin started taking out funding she found objectionable. In this case, she cut funding for Covenant House Alaska from $5 million to $3.9 million. The practical result, of course, is that fewer teen moms in Alaska would be eligible for shelters and educational programs.


If their abstinence-only programs fail you (which they will), and you can’t marry the daddy and count on the support of your ultra-conservative parents, tough. You’re supposed to keep the kid, but no one’s going to be there to ensure you have the basic necessities for raising that child. Fucking brilliant, Sarah. Way to show your support for life.

When you wonder how they can be such enormous fucking hypocrites, remember that this is the party that specializes in cognitive dissonance and redefining reality:

La
st night, CBS News reviewed President Bush’s legacy and noted that it will largely be defined by his misguided invasion of Iraq. During its report, Iraq war apologist Michael O’Hanlon recalled that Bush went to war in a “deliberately cavalier way,” but added that Americans should “be fair” and give Bush credit for their being no WMD in Iraq:

O’HANLON: But let’s also be fair. Iraq now seems to be a quasi-functioning democracy, without weapons of mass destruction, without genocides against its own citizens or attacks against its neighbors. So, to some extent, we’ve got to give the president his due.

I hate to mention it, Mikey, but the whooole reason we went to war was because you fucking assclowns said there were weapons of mass destruction already in Iraq OMG!!1!!! And that turned out to be pure fucking bullshit. So this we have to give Monkey Boy George credit for there not being WMDs in Iraq now… excuse me for repeating myself, but it’s pure fucking bullshit.

Also, this “quasi-functioning democracy” is of no comfort. It was supposed to be a functional fucking democracy, period. That’s what all of you shitheads said when you asked American troops to die for this farce of a war. You fucked up. Epic fucking fail. That’s the reality, and no amount of bullshitting is going to change that. Thousands of people have died because you fuckers wanted to play war hero.

Bush gets credit for being the biggest fucking disaster this country has ever had sitting in the Oval Office, and that’s it.

I can’t believe there are people who are eager for four more years of this travesty.

Happy Hour Discurso