Watering Hole – Monday, July 11, 2011 – All You Fascist…

Posted on by

A few supporters of fascism:

  • Governor Rick Snyder – denying the democratic process is fascism.
  • Governor Scott Walker – union busting is fascism.
  • Governor Rick Perry – secession is treason.

I could go on and on and on with a list of teabagger names and I’m sure that you could add names to the above list, too.  When Republicans are in the majority, they rule like fascists.

“This machine kills fascists”.

The “whites only” club is gearing up for 2012.  David Duke is touring 25 states to “explore how much support he can garner for a potential presidential run”.  I say, “run David, run”.  Let’s bring ALL the hatred to for forefront.  No more sneaking around behind the scenes and creating chaos.

Former (and current) Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Confederates, and other representatives of the many wings of the “white nationalist” movement are starting to file paperwork and print campaign literature for offices large and small, pointing to rising unemployment, four years with an African-American president, and rampant illegal immigration as part of a growing mound of evidence that white people need to take a stand.

Yes, indeed.  An African-American president is the cause of all of our unhappiness. What our nation needs is to return complete power to white men and then everything will as it should be.  This also means that women along with people of color, MUST lose their right to vote. Women better head back to their homes and be subservient to their husbands.  As for the blacks, then need to get their dupas (butts) back into the fields.  There’s crops that need picking.(sarcasm)

Not all fascists are racists.  All racists are fascists.

This is our Open Thread.  Do you have names and stories to add to the list?  If you do, Speak Up.  Even if you don’t, Speak Up.  If you have the time, check out more of the threads on this page.

Advertisement

248 thoughts on “Watering Hole – Monday, July 11, 2011 – All You Fascist…”

  1. Chuck Todd, on Meet the Press, called Boner weak, and ‘not the leader’ of House Republicans, because Eric Cantor said no on the debt negotiations. Cantor is the real power in the House.

    Gregory needs to stick to just two guests on his panel discussions. He can’t manage more than two. Gregory will actually let Todd or Eugene Robinson finish an answer, but when interviewing Geithner, he kept cutting him off to ask him another question. Tweety does the same thing. That’s why his Chris Matthews Show is easier to watch than Hardball. All the guests are journalists, and he treats them with more respect than politicians.

    We had a four trillion dollar deficit reduction plan in December. It was called ‘Don’t renew the Bush Tax Cuts!’. But, in order to get the unemployment benefits extended, so people could have Christmas, we had to scrap that open and transparent plan for this back room deal.

    • Chuck Todd is the current Political Director fo NBC News, so Gregory has to be careful to let him have his say. Chuck is, for all intents and purposes, his superior, if nto his actual boss. And Euege Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, so Gregory better let HIM speak, too.

      And, of ourse, Republicans can say just about anything they want to unchallenged while Democrats get grilled harder. And the sad part is that it’s done this way because the right claims the media has a liberal bias and if anyone questions the righties too much,it’s “proof” that they’re biased. So people like Gregory bend over backwards to appear to not be “attacking” (righties’ word) the Republicans.

  4. I pay no attention to people who proclaim white superiority and then work to elect a chimpanzee as president for two straight terms.

    It troubles me more that American fascists not only don’t believe they’re fascists, they also have no clue as to the definition of fascism (and likely wouldn’t believe it even if presented with it):

    The Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which denies] the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual.

    Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power. (Benito Mussolini as recorded by Giovanni Gentile in Encyclopedia Italiana, early 1920s)

    I know it’s a mortal sin for the American Press to denigrate Amurkans by speaking the truth and in the process explaining why it is that today’s far right wing (aka the Republican Party, for all practical purposes) exemplifies classic fascism, but I suppose when one’s principal benefactors are each and all of the fascist persuasion it’s safer to keep mouth shut and write about something important instead. Charlie Sheen, Brittney Spears, you know the game.

    Still, one can dare hope that the truth eventually leaks out before it’s too late. If it isn’t already too late, of course.

    • Well stated, Frugal. The strange part is that the teabaggers use the term “fascism” and “socialism” interchangeably when these terms are far from having the same meaning.

      • Yes. They’re very nearly direct opposites, in fact. Hitler apparently decided his version of Germany would sound more acceptable to the masses if he called his movement National Socialism. His ruse worked at the time to redefine his brand of far right fascism erroneously as something to the left of center, works today as well. People are always gullible, apparently, given that today a favorite accusation of Obama and of the Progressive Left in the US is that they’re fascists.

        I get the distinct feeling — usually on a daily basis — that today’s Republicans, had they been around in late-twenties Germany would have been avid Hitler loyalists.

        I’ve quoted this before, I know, but the words of Academy Award winning screenwriter Abbe Mann, as spoken by the character of German Judge Ernst Janning in 1961′s Judgment at Nuremberg, ring frighteningly true today — change a word or two and what does one see?

        There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. There was, above all, fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: ‘Lift up your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once the devils will be destroyed, your miseries will be destroyed.’ It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb.

    • Frugal, I know from my own experience that the truth makes people very uncomfortable.
      Denial, flight, rationalization, projection and most important, aggression are mechanisms which for which they avoid the truth.

      There was a line from the movie “American Beauty” That is stuck in head.

      “Never underestimate the power of denial”

      • The thought of 9/11 comes to mind. People cannot come to grips with the possibility that there may have been some involvement within our own government. Such a thing would shatter peoples beliefs.

        As Robert Kennedy Jr stated “Americans are the less informed, most entertained people on the planet.”

  6. So I’m watching the Washington Journal this morning, the guest is a douche bag by the name of Scott Hodge, president of “The Foundation”. He goes on and on spewing the right wing rhetoric that tax increases are bad, lower corporate taxes good….he then went on to say that our corporate tax rate is 35%, ten minutes later after somebody twittered that corporations also have many deductions, to which Hodge agreed to and said after the deductions corporations pay about 26%…..so what is it? 35% or 26%?

  7. On the same program a caller mentioned that corporations, an artificial entity has more rights than we the people do, but of course the C-SPAN host, moved right over that caller to another caller, so that the douche bag, Scott Hodge, wouldn’t have to talk about that. Phuckers!

    Today’s capitalism and the corporations are pure evil.

  8. Many of these same KKK members and “white” only scum are also involved with Christian Reconstructionist’s and the Christian Identity Movement.

  9. Remember the uproar from the right over the movie “Machete”? Many on the right thought the movie would stir a violent uprising among Hispanics.

    I just saw the movie last night on HBO. The movie was typically violent, but it had nothing to do with Hispanics flooding across the border to slaughter white people it was about a man and a female activist trying to bring down a corrupt senator, a crazy and corrupt sheriff who was also the leader of a minute men type of border security and a Mexican drug lord who were all in cahoots together to bring drugs into America….the only reason they wanted to build a wall was to help keep prices up on their product….drugs.

    So to all of you pussies on the right who huddled in fear at the release of this movie or layed in the fetal position while soaking yourself in your own urine….man up. I’m looking at you Alex Jones, you pathetic tea party defending, disinformation agent.

  10. It’s really a shame that Reichwhiners don’t usually accept correspondence from mere comon folk. I would really like to hear their response to this:

    Please cite the passage in the Bible in which God grants inalienable rights to humans.

    • Bet y’all think it has something to do with wearing women’s clothes. :D

      Nope. My water oak decided to allow my yard to have a little more sun, so it sacrificed a 12 inch limb and several small limbs of the maple yesterday. I’ve been trimming all the small limbs with my electric chain saw that I could cut. I have the debris clear of my neighbor’s driveway and I have almost all the cut limbs out for pickup before the yard trash crew has made it by yet.

        • It fell barely against the corner of my house, and just missed his truck. It was all limb ends there anyway
          I heard this weird noise, that didn’t sound like thunder, or blasting. I looked out windows in different directions until I saw the tree down from my bathroom window. Since it didn’t damage the house, insurance won’t cover the tree work. Once I get all I can do with the little saw, I’ll see about renting a bigger gas saw to get the rest. So far it’s just exercise.

          • I called it early and came in so I could shower before Thom Hartmann. Now it’s 87 with a heat index of 97. Predicted high is 95. I’ll do some more early tomorrow morning if I’m not too stiff. I’m not working outside in this kind of heat.

  12. by Sarah Palin on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 7:59pm (Facebook):

    “The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner’s World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness – a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention – even if out of context.”

    That was then. On to the now. To supplement this week’s cover, Palin poses for a whole gallery of photos donning her “Edge Fitness” shirt and other presidential gear:

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2011/07/11/sarah-palln-s-newsweek-cover-shoot.html

    • The media will do anything to draw attention – even if out of context.

      Coming from that attention whore, that’s pretty damned rich.

  14. I didn’t hear any reassurance that the Big 3 would not have benefits cuts. Admittedly, I missed the first part of his speech.

      • He will never just say that the repiggies are being intransigent — it’s always “both parties” this and “both parties” that. :roll:

      • He keeps calling the Big 3 “entitlement programs.” Makes them sound like welfare programs, which they are not.

        I’m getting a bad feeling about this…

        • Oh jesus, he’s talking about “changes” to Social Security. SS “not the primary driver of our debt.”

          SOCIAL SECURITY IS NO PART OF THE FUCKING DEBT!!

          • I had this sinking feeling the last time he spoke…
            not reassuring at all.
            He’s a one term president. I may vote Green, depends on who the candidate is. Truly disheartened at Obama’s (in) actions on behalf of we the people.

  16. Touching on a WPA-style program to re-build infrastructure, but said we can’t even have that conversation until people feel like our fiscal house is in order.

    That is utter bullshit. The people need to hear about such programs to feel like there’s some hope for us in the near future, to feel like he’s watching out for us.

    He’s buying into the whole “deficit is the most important problem in the world” meme, and that’s holding everything back. I say fuck the deficit. It’s just repiggie bullshit anyway — and they are responsible for the damn deficit anyway!

    • Exactly so. Everything FDR did—the WPA for example–was done in his FIRST year in office. After that he had to fight for his economic agenda and usually LOST, which is why after the initial grandly scaled stimulus knocked the unemployment rate from 23% down to 14%, it then started rising again to reach 19% in 1939, because the rest of FDR’s economic initiatives were bastardized into impotence or utterly destroyed BY stupid-ass arguments about, yes, “BIG GUMMINT!” and “consitutionality”.

      (FDR tried to expand the Supreme Court to 15 justices, so he could re-stack it in his favor to defeat the constitutional challenges to his programs).

      • Trying to pack the SCOTUS was a blunder, but with the court we have now, I almost wish he’d succeeded.

        I really hate that at this point I’m only voting for Obama because of his potential SCOTUS appointments.

  17. I posted this Kos article last night, but just now read it again and thought it might bear repeating for those who missed it.

    Here’s a brief excerpt to show the flavor:

    John Boehner, Jim DeMint, Rush Limbaugh and Scott Brown, along with several other Republicans, have praised Democratic President John F. Kennedy as a kind of Democratic model, because one of his first acts as president was to pass a tax cut that lowered rates even for the richest Americans.

    This is true. Kennedy did slash the top marginal tax rate … all the way down to 70%. And that’s just the beginning:

    – The tax reform passed after Kennedy’s death cut the top marginal tax rate from 90 percent to 70 percent, twice today’s top rate of 35 percent. Kennedy explicitly called for a top rate of 65 percent, but added that it should be set at 70 percent if certain deductions weren’t phased out at the top of the income scale.

    – Kennedy called for U.S. corporations to be taxed on all their profits, earned anywhere in the world, rather than the current system of allowing them to defer taxation until they bring those profits home. “The undesirability of continuing deferral is underscored where deferral has served as a shelter for tax escape through the unjustifiable use of tax havens such as Switzerland,” Kennedy said in 1961. During Kennedy’s time in office, corporate taxes made up more than 20 percent of total revenue. Today, it’s less than ten percent.

    – Kennedy called for cutting tax preferences for the oil and gas industries, saying in 1963 that, “while these are complex as well as controversial problems, we cannot shrink from a frank appraisal of governmental policies and tax subsidies in this area.” Republicans have been adamantly opposed to cutting subsidies for oil and gas companies.

    – Kennedy called for limiting itemized deductions for the rich, saying that they should receive the same benefit for things like charitable giving “as everyone else,” instead of preferential treatment (which they still receive). President Obama has called for the same system since he came into office, but the GOP has derided Obama’s proposals.

    Is that what Boehner and Brown and DeMint want to return to?

    And if it were, what would be the outcome?

    The outcome would be a balanced budget, a paydown of the debt, and prosperity for all including the middle class.

    Can’t have that, now, can we. Ain’t no ‘prosperity for all’ in fascism, after all, so what the hell good is ‘prosperity for all’?

    • Ron Hill says “the story that raises serious ethical and legal questions about Mr. Bachmann’s practice”:

      “Buried in the details in the source material provided by the gay rights organization Truth Wins Out; one finds that at no time did employees of Mr. Bachmann’s clinics ever educate the client on the dangers of reparative therapy (such as suicidal ideation), its historical lack of success in changing sexual orientation, or that the practice has been denounced by mainstream medical and mental health associations. Additionally, the client should have been informed that reparative therapy is considered “experimental”, he should have been told of the availability of other therapy options, and had the risk and benefits of each option explained.

      This “informed consent” is required by the ethics code of the American Psychological Association (Mr. Bachman holds a doctoral degree in psychology) and informed consent is also a requirement of the ethics code of the American Association of Christian Counselors.”

      http://www.frumforum.com/ethical-questions-raised-at-mr-bachmanns-clinic

    • Both of them are just creepy. If either were to wander into a real psych ward they would be strapped down and medicated.

  19. Woo hoo!!!!

    The cloud on my condo title is being remedied at this moment, so the closing is on track once again. The only way he can back out of the deal now is by dropping dead, and I think his meanness will keep him alive long enough to sign the papers. :)

    **happy dance**

  20. State and federal prosecutors are working to complete a settlement with Bank of America, JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo/Wachovia and Ally Financial, where the banks will pay $30 billion in fines and promise to never again to collapse the mortgage business for short term profit and then screw over mortgage-holders in exchange for not only being absolved of criminal activity, but also for immunity from legal liability.

    Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/foreclosure-fraud-investigation-questions_n_892661.html

    So these banks:
    1) Defrauded both mortgage owners and sincere investors in junk “mortgage backed securities”
    2) Made massive profits by shorting the junk securities they created.
    3) Willfully damaged a major sector of the economy and directly increased the number of homeless and forced families to go on welfare.
    4) Paid no taxes
    5) Received collectively a Pentagon budget-sized bailout because of the national effects of their fraud

    Apparently the Justice Department’s ‘case’ against these banksters is based on “just 2,800 loan files, or 0.001 percent of homes that received a foreclosure filing last year” and “only about 200 loans each were examined at JP Morgan/Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo” even though these four service 54% of all outstanding residential mortgages and $5.7 Trillion in home loans.

    And now, in exchange for immunity from criminal and civil law suits they are willing to give to our government a small portion of the money they stole or that they owe to the government/taxpayers anyway.

    And they promise, on their fraudulent honor, not to do it again because…..crime doesn’t pay?

  21. FYI

    Tammy Duckworth Running for Congress

    A Major in the Illinois Army National Guard, Tammy served in Iraq as an Assistant Operations Officer and a Black Hawk helicopter pilot. During a mission north of Baghdad in 2004, the aircraft she was co-piloting was ambushed and struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. The crew successfully landed the aircraft but as a result of the attack, Duckworth lost both of her legs and partial use of one arm. She received decorations for her actions, including the Purple Heart, the Air Medal, and the Combat Action Badge.

    Since her recovery at Walter Reed, Duckworth has dedicated her life to public service, advocating on behalf of disability rights and Veterans. She served as the Director of Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs where she implemented many first-in-the-nation, programs for Veterans, especially in the areas of health care, mental health, housing and employment. She also initiated a new grant program, awarding lottery funds to non-profits working on Veterans disability, homelessness, long-term medical care and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). She was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Assistant Secretary under Eric Shinseki. While at VA, Tammy led an unprecedented era of increased communication between the Department and the Veterans they serve.

  23. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, a “fake Democrat” is trying to knock the “real Democrat” out of the recall race. I think the most disgusting thing is that they don’t even try to hide it any more. No, the most disgusting thing is that a sizable chunk of American voters think this kind of shit is just peachy if it works against “libruls”.

    http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_18454981?source=rss

    • I seem to recall (can’t remember the source now) reading that some Dems are considering doing the same thing, to exploit the Teabagger/GOP incumbent rift, by pitching someone as an independent.

      Whilst its all bullshit in principle, it would be remarkable if some Dem’s really have figured out that they could try to take a leaf out of the R’s scumbag playbook–which makes me think that I probably read some planted misinformation—though at the local level of politics I think everyone plays dirty and fast and loose with their actual Dem or Repub mantle’s. .

      • It doesn’t surprise me any more, with the possible exception of them admitting what they’re doing, but it does still disgust me. That the political leadership of either party would openly endorse it is mind numbing. If I were representing a lawmaker unpopular enough to face a recall and was faced with a choice between:
        a. Convince said lawmaker that he/she is wrong.
        b. Find a new candidate.
        c. Find some shit-weasel who will fallaciously run as a fake member of the opposing party in the hopes of eliminating any honest competition.
        I just can’t imagine jumping to “c”.

        I guess that my sense of honor and honesty just wouldn’t allow it.

      • I know the WI Dems considered running faux R’s in the recall the R’s were mounting against three Dems, but the state party decided not to stoop to the R’s tactics.

        I’m torn between wanting to play dirty against dirty players and rising above with integrity. Sadly, integrity only appeals to ethical, educated people, and they’re becoming relics of a bygone era…

    • If only voters were educated and universally informed, think of the implications. That they’re not says a whole lot about what’s now become the front end of the fourth decade of Republican assault on public education.

      Which begs that other question: why didn’t Noah take dinosaurs on his ark? Remind me to ask presidential candidate Bachmann next time I see her. She’s educated. She’ll know.

      • In case you missed it earlier; I would love to watch her expression if someone asked her to…

        “Please cite the passage in the Bible in which God grants inalienable rights to humans.”

      • On the other question:

        I’m pretty sure that she would just trot out the old Ken Ham “theory” that Noah took baby dinosaurs on the Ark but then we killed and ate them all.

          • There’s your problem. You’re letting logic guide your reasoning. The next thing you know you’ll be asking how all the marsupials got to the Mideast and back to Australia.

  24. I guess that, in Batscat Bachmann’s world, everything but being a slave to a myth is “slavery”. I think Bill Maher might have said it best. He was commenting about some creep comparing government regulation to slavery and said: “You know what’s slavery? Fucking slavery! Stop trying to claim you’re a slave because you didn’t get enough sprinkles on your ice cream sundae”.

    http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/11/265142/bachmann-responds-to-slavery-controversy/

  25. Professor: US Did Default in 1979

    Despite the chatter that the United States has never defaulted on its financial obligations, it did. A series of events conspired in 1979 that resulted in the country briefly defaulting on its bills, with real consequences, The Washington Post reports.

    At the time, Congress and the White House were haggling over raising the debt limit to $830 billion, which is a long way from today’s debt limit of $14.3 trillion. At the last minute, and with then-Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal warning the country was hours away from the first default in its history, a deal was made.

    However, a series of technical problems and a rush in demand for Treasury bills resulted in thousands of late payments to holders of Treasury bills that were maturing that April and May.

    They found “that the series of defaults resulted in a permanent increase in interest rates” of more than half a percent. That half a percent translated into billions of dollars in increased interest payments on the nation’s debt. “The impact is smaller at first because only new debt is affected,” they wrote according to the Post. “But over time, as the older debt matures and becomes refinanced at higher rates, the entire cost of the default is realized.”

    Thom Hartmann opined today that this was a calculated move on Republicans part to hamstring the spending of the Carter Administration, and raise interest rates, making the economy worse, which they used as an issue against him in 1980.

    Are we seeing the same playbook being run again? The timing is almost identical.

    • Indeed we are. And remember, today’s debt is almost the exclusive purview of presidents Reagan, HWBush, and GWBush. Obama’s contribution has been in effort to forestall a second Great Depression, and Clinton actually created a budgetary surplus that was to be used to pay down the debt.

      Remember, though, when we deal with Republicans we’re dealing with fascists, not with honorable Americans. Ergo the playbook.

    • I think the short answer is “yes”. The GOoPers on the state and federal level are doing everything they can to prevent President Obama and the Dems from anything the least bit successful. And that’s the point that every Dem must make every time they are on camera or standing in front of a microphone. They need to say that and nothing else.

      I suppose that, just to mix things up, they could also give a running total of jobs lost to GOP policies since November of last year but I tend to think that the message “they are damaging the country in the hope of political gains” has to be hammered home. Pelosi has said it, Schumer has said it, Sanders has said it, Franken has said it, and even Weiner was saying it. We need more. I have contacted Rep McCollum and Senator Klobuchar and begged them to start saying it too. Then it’s just a question of finding a media outlet with the balls to print/air it.

    • We just found with the Caylee Anthony case how difficult is to get a conviction in a U.S. court,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on “Fox News Sunday.”

      Exactly! That’s why the US has the least number of prisoners in absolute terms, AND per capita—because its so difficult to get a conviction in the US.

      What? I am the completely wrong about that? The exact opposite is true1? Either I’m lying or an ignoramus or both? Well I’ll have you know I help RUN this country (into the ground). so there!

  28. Times don’t always seem to change a whole lot. Seems to me that this segment from a speech in New York, April 4, 1967 by Martin Luther King, Jr. shouts at least as loudly today as it did then.

    [A few years ago] . . . It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor–both black and white–through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. . . .

    “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death . . .

    “I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such . . .

    “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today–my own government . . .

    “When machines . . . profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

    One would think a nation such as America, one blessed with “exceptionalism”, might be able, in any given fifty year span, to right a wrong or two instead of always finding new and clever ways to never change.

    This country gets harder and harder for me to respect. With every passing day. Forty-four years and nothing’s changed for the better, only for the worse. Who the hell are we, really?

  29. NWMuse’s friend:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/corries-accuse-israelis-death

    The family of Rachel Corrie, the US activist killed in Gaza while protesting against house demolitions in 2003, on Monday claimed the Israeli military authorities withheld video evidence during the Corries’ civil lawsuit and misled US officials on crucial details.

    Craig Corrie, Rachel’s father, told a press conference in Jerusalem that the footage from a surveillance camera near the scene of his daughter’s death submitted to the court was “incomplete”. Additional video material obtained by the family showed Rachel’s body in a different spot to the place identified by some military commanders, he said.

    He also alleged that the Israeli military had misled US officials on the position of Rachel’s body when she was killed.

    • My maternal grandparents were Jews who fled Germany’s antisemitism in 1921. By the time Mom was born they decided to hide their faith from America’s antisemitism and didn’t tell Mom she was Jewish until JFK was elected. They attended a Lutheran church for social reasons but raised Mom as, essentially, an agnostic.

      I’ve never followed the faith of my grandparents, or any other for that matter, but have always had a fascination for modern Jewish history. It has become apparent that Right-wingers have even more control of Israel than they do the U.S.

      The rallying cry of those who established Israel was “never again”. It disturbs me to no end that the subtext has become “unless we are the perpetrators”. The parallels between the modern state of Israel and the European oppressors of Jews are downright uncanny.

      • I am getting pretty tired of hearing about the European Jews and ‘Never Again’. Yes, they were swacked, screwed and murdered at an indecent rate by a supposedly Christian nation. And if anyone to a look at the Western Hemisphere and the results of centuries of Western European treatment, they would find things just as horrifying.

        Or the treatment of the Chinese and Koreans by the Japanese in the same period of WWII.

        Or the ongoing treatment of the indigenous populations of Africa that has been going on as long as the Jewish mistreatment.

        I’m willing to bet that the number of people of color in various parts of the world who have suffered in ways similar to those efforts by Hitler to eliminate the Jews far outnumber those murdered by fascism in Central Europe.

      • Of those holocaust survivors who can remember it ( say, 5 year-olds at the time?), would now be 65 whilst many older survivors have obviously died or are on their last legs.
        A huge number of survivors never went to Israel—there are more Jews in the US than in Israel, for instance.
        Israel was established by the efforts of ‘nationalists’ driven as much by a religious mythos as anything else. A s the Zionists led the charge, they established a political base which could exploit the need to defend Israel against Arab aggression. Like the Republican’s here, they co-opt history and trade in fear and emotions and religious entitlement, even though the US has over the years reduced the Arab threats to Israel.
        Whilst Israel was finding its feet, there was much practical work to be done which was enabled by US welfare. Since the prior Arabic threat has largely been mitigated by US persuasion (bribes, trade) that welfare has been used to maintain a militaristic and militant governance out of all proportion to the extant geo-political situation. To stay in power and fulfill their own sick desires the zealots therefore had to become the aggressors to justify themselves and their rule, in which they have been enabled and sustained by the religious ‘nationalists’ of the Republican Party, and cowardly Democrats (none of whom seem to support any of the rational peace and reconciliation groups in Israel, just as the Democrats do nothing for the much larger–in total numbers—groups in the US. .

        .

        .

        • Zionism is a sickness suffered by Jews who have decided that they know more than their deity. If Yaweh wanted the Jewish people to have the Holyland as He promised, He could make it happen without bloodshed.

          Unless He liked that.

          • I think he does like it. Because clearly he allows it to continue. He is omniscient so he knew it would turn out this way and he proceeded anyway.

            At what point does this loving god admit he fucked up and take us all (past and present) into to heaven and say “I’m sorry.”

  30. Sigh, nothing stays quite the same. Fighting Bobfest is changing their venue this year from the Sauk County Fairgrounds in Baraboo to the Alliant Center in Madison. As the crowds grow and the speaker list gets better they felt they needed a weatherproof location. They also bumped it to the 17th of September.

    As to the speaker list this year, it hasn’t been totally confirmed yet but… Senator Bernie Sanders, Jim Hightower, Dave Zweifel, John Nichols, Thom Hartmann, Ellen Bravo, Dennis Kucinich (is we can work out some travel plans) Senator Tom Harkin, Tammy Baldwin, Stan Gruszynski, Barbara Lawton, and more.

    • Temperature here is 97 degrees
      Humidity is 67%
      Dew Point is 84 degrees
      Heat index is 126 degrees

      I’ve never seen a dew point or heat index that high before.

      • Heat index and even humidity can be measured differently so it’s nigh impossible to claim official records. That being said, we had a heat index of 118 followed by 121 in the last couple weeks. Humidity can briefly hit 100% and I’ve seen it a few times living on the lake but I don’t recall ever seeing a heat index over 110 in the time that they have bothered reporting it.

        • I remember back in the 70′s when Wind Chill Factor found it’s way into the weather lexicon, thus quantifying what anyone who lived north of the Ohio River had always known. Cold out? Oh, yeah. Windy and cold is colder? No brainer.

          The heat index thing hasn’t been an issue for years here in Amurka. I suspect it will be replacing the old cold tales about spitting or peeing and having it freeze before it hit the ground. Now we should start seeing stories about eggs and whether they are soft boiled or fried on an August afternoon.

        • Some years ago when I lived in AZ we had a couple of summers that were a little hotter than usual. I think the hottest day was 122 on the official thermometer. The international airport in Phoenix was closed for several hours on each of several days during those hot snaps — commercial aircraft are only certified for takeoff and landing when the temp is under 120 which probably explains why Hell doesn’t have an airport.

          • I spent a few years exploring the deserts of California and Arizona. I was younger, and about 40 pounds lighter (less insulation), but I don’t recall ever feeling as overwhelmed by the heat as a few days this summer in Minnesota. Actually, when we hit 103 on June 7th I went out for a walk and wasn’t bothered, much, because the humidity was around 25% and the heat index only went to 105 for a brief time. But? Those days in the mid 90s with 70% humidity are brutal. It actually killed a gentleman who lived just down the street from me. He had emphysema and merely walked out to his mailbox without his oxygen tank and didn’t make it back to his door.

            Of course, with global warming increasing the amount of moisture in the air, places that have had, relatively tolerable, “dry heat” can probably look forward to muggy weather and heat indices that will prove fatal.

            • In the desert, it’s the dew point that’s the basis of the comfort yardstick. 118 with a dew point of, say, 10 or 15 is hot, but in the shade not bad at all. If the dew point is 50 and the temp is 100 it’s time to die, shade or no shade.

  31. @GOPLeader
    Eric Cantor “You don’t raise taxes in a recession.” -President @BarackObama, 8/5/09; The Current Unemployment Rate: 9.2%
    2 minutes ago via web

    @WayneASchneider
    Wayne A Schneider @GOPLeader @BarackObama Mr. Leader, the recession ended. There goes that argument. The recovery is slow, but we are recovering.
    54 seconds ago via web

    • I have a most humble request, Wayne.

      Assuming that you can find a way to convey the message in 140 characters, I would ask you to pass something along, in your tweets, that I have been sending out to various politicians who may be responsive. I would like to see someone propose a tax hike on those who can afford to pay combined with a tax credit for those who actually hire people.

      Hire a maid? Get a tax credit. Hire a gardener? Get a tax credit. Hire three new workers for your small business? Get three tax credits.

      Even if it got squashed it would pull the teeth from the arguments that “you can’t tax job creators” and would also serve to demonstrate that the GOoPers are trying to protect the hoarding of riches rather than promoting hiring.

        • It sounds like a “no brainer”; no? I realize that it’s hard to convince the Dems to fight for simple solutions and the GOoPers don’t want solutions of any kind because it would keep the Dems in power but I can’t think of a good reason that it hasn’t, to the best of my knowledge, even been proposed. It just seems so bleeping obvious.

          Raise the rate on people who make a lot of money then give them a break for actually hiring people. This would serve to discourage people from simply hoarding cash and encourage them to hire people who will, in turn, pay taxes on their own income.

          • I like the idea, too, Pete, and I will try to compose something to tweet back at @SpeakerBoehner whenever he tweets one of his moronic “don’t tax job creators” tweets. When I get it figured out, I’ll post it either here (if I think of it tonight), or on the next Watering Hole.

            That’s a great idea.

            • That sums it up nicely, Wayne. However, I think that we need to all work on getting the idea out to Dems. I’ve emailed my Rep. and both Senators. I’m also thinking that Thom Hartmann and Bernie Sanders would be good people to approach. Let’s see: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the White House, Dennis Kucinich etc. Still, it would be nice to see what Reichwhiners would say if one could actually get a response.

            • Okay, pete. many of those people are ones I follow, so I can find a tweet of theirs and reply to it and they’ll see the message. if I simply use their name ion the tweet, they’ll only see it (or whoever tweets for them) if they do a search. Plus, I can substitute any of their names for Boehner’s and there’s still room for more characters.

  32. Upon further review…

    Adrian Gonzalez, was born in San Diego and grew up in Tijuana. Last year, Gonzalez, then playing for the San Diego Padres, called the SB 1070 Arizona law “immoral” and a violation of human rights that “goes against what this country is built on.”

    But a couple weeks ago Gonzalez, who as a member of the Boston Red Sox was voted into the American League’s starting lineup at first base, said he was “not big into politics” and that he intended to play in Phoenix.

  33. For over 3,000 years Western society has been driven by a father/warrior ethic (see Joseph Campbell.) It is about conquering, control; driven by physical might. It is all about an elite group who have claims to knowing the mind of the divine. The East isn’t much different though they do have Taoist and Buddhist influences.

    The problem we are facing today is primarily that Man can’t handle the load. His alligator mouth is writing checks his hummingbird ass can’t cover. Neither Yaweh, God nor Allah can stop what man has done to the environment and I feel very strongly we have passed our tipping point.

    Western man has tried to claim godhood. Mother Earth laughs.

    • I think that the fact that most initial predictions of the effects of global warming have been exceeded is a pretty good indicator that we have, indeed, passed the tipping point. But? We humans are pretty adaptable and we can still survive if we stop doing everything in our power to make things worse.

      We’ve survived ice ages. We’ve survived the collapse of the mega fauna. We’ve survived the collapse of the whale population. We’ve survived crop diseases and ravenous pests. We’ve survived the collapse of the cod fishery. We even seem to be surviving the collapse of the stocks of large fish in every ocean basin. We’re tough critters.

      The really maddening part is that a substantial minority of our population thinks that we puny humans can’t fix the damage we’ve done. As we’ve discussed before; the Mississippi and the Great Lakes are cleaner and healthier than they were in the 1960s. Birds, all but extinct due to the use of DDT, are plentiful again. Many species of whale have come back from the brink. Etc.

      We have to keep spreading the message that we humans, by careful application of our great gifts, can fix the damage, at least in part, that we have done.

      • pete, I’m not saying we can’t survive. But if we keep playing the same rich power games, we won’t. The next ten years are going to be real interesting.

        • Yes. We can survive and a whole lot more. I guess that my point is that we have to stop trying to convince the stupid ones that there’s a problem and just start working the solutions without them. Efficient lighting, smaller engines in cars, investment in mass transit, and solar panels on every roof will do a LOT of good.

          Remember the oil embargo of the 1970s? All of a sudden the roads were full of Pintos, Vegas, VW Bugs, and countless Japanese compacts. When people are presented with a palatable solution to a problem they will take advantage.

    • “They harass dead people”.
      Actually I think it;s been long established that the Phelps are nearly insane (they do actually know what they are doing) and define themselves completely by their selfish hate. They are also attention whores (Palin and Bachmann are just a couple of steps removed from them) and there’s absolutely no need to provide them with any publicity, AT ALL, no matter how insane their stunts, because insane stunts is what keeps them occupied.

      The ONLY story I want to see about this “Church of the Poisoned Mind” is the one where there tax status is revoked.

      • I also think that a DNA scan of the clan would cause one to run, screaming, from the room. Ol’ Fred’s daughters seem to exhibit all the signs of the Stockholm Syndrome and I would bet that he’s the father of most of his “grandchildren”. And that leads me to the only good news that I could hear about him.

        I eagerly await the day that ol’ Fred dies. Without him there may be a chance for some of the younger ones to escape the brutal existence they now endure. Shirley is probably beyond redemption but weirder things have happened.

    • Yes, I can see why the Phelps Klan would demonize Betty Ford. She was such a horrid person, caring enough about millions plagued with addictions to publicize her own battle with alcohol and then to go on to found a treatment center.

      Surely any God would object to someone trying to help others…

      I must say that I do hope there is a hell for people like the Phelps.

  35. BBC America just this afternoon ran the Doctor Who episode where Queen Victoria created the Torchwood Institute.

    Sharpton is subbing for Cenk Uygur today. I hope him being on MSNBC chaps the reich-wing’s collective ass!

    • I watched him when he subbed for Ed a week or two ago and thought he did a great job. I’d like to see him with his own show, actually.

  37. Irate ‘News Of The World’ Staff Brilliantly Mocks Murdoch Editor Rebekah Brooks In Final Crossword Puzzle

    Revenge is a dish best served….in a secretly coded crossword puzzle?

  39. Interesting. I tried to join barakobama.com but it seems if I don’t donate $3 I am SOL.

  42. Not trying to diminish our Zookeeper’s accomplishment, which is well earned and awesome, (Congratulations, Zooey) I’m just curious how many here are welcoming her to to something they have done? BnF doesn’t count because we know he is a lawyer type.

    The reason I ask is I am curious as to how many Critters and Zoosters have basic degrees. I will state up front I have a BS with a semester towards a Master.

      • Sorry but my BS is in History, 2 credits short of a double major in Russian Language with a minor in Russian and East European Studies.

        Thanks dyker. Nice to know a neighbor.

    • I, too, have a BS (microbiology) and a semester of grad school. I had to bail out in 1965 — got my draft notice and had used up all five deferments. Foxed ‘em, though, went to work as a microbiologist for a company the was doing government contract, classified, bcw stuff. Critical Industry, I think it was called in draft lingo. Something like that. Still pisses me off, though, that I had to leave grad school in order to be trained to kill or be killed. The idea never appealed to me, still doesn’t.

    • My sheepskin says “chemical engineering” but, since I took seven years to get there and tried virtually every conceivable major, from aeronautics to zoology (I prefer to not mention the entire month that I pursued a major in poly-sci), I’ve just always claimed general science as my forte.

      After a few years working in the ammunition industry (I helped make better ammunition for M16s among other projects) I burned out and, after a couple years living off the land and burning through my savings, spent a few decades managing restaurants. Then, just before I retired due to health problems caused by my years in the ammunition industry, I spent a few years extruding vinyl window parts and trying, in vain, to convince my bosses that they were full of shit.

      There are a few lucky people who manage to coordinate their skills, training, and desires at a young age but mine have always been a bit unsynchronized.. I really wish that I had spent some time managing the restaurants (applied chemistry and managerial skills) before I went on to college. I think I would have majored in the life sciences and probably ended up teaching when I got too sore for the field work. It also would have been nice to avoid the neurological damage from breathing the chemicals we make gunpowder out of.

    • I’m just a dumb ass with a high school education. I went to an Architectural Drafting school right after high school but it only lasted a quarter. 5 years later I went to school for Ad Design, this lasted for two semesters, the courses were expensive and a joke and I thought being in a band, getting laid, getting drunk and stoned was more important.

    • It’s one of the most xenophobic, racist, misogynistic, and just plain exclusionary documents I’ve ever read. And that doesn’t even touch on how such pledges serve to negate the oath that all elected officials take to uphold the Constitution. I find it particularly interesting that, under a lot of heat from sane people, they removed the bit about African Americans being better off as slaves but Crazy Shelly and Santorum didn’t bother to denounce the parts that the authors decided to delete.

      • Pete, thanks for checking it out. It’s just amazing that we have presidential candidates that actually signed it! Their endorsement of it should be grounds for immediate disqualifications.

        It’s to the right what the Communist Manifesto would be to the left. Imagine if the Democratic candidates signed some sort of Socialism pledge. Our ears would bleed from the shrieks from the right.

    • Wheee I just subbed you!

      BTW I need to email you a motel sign photo that is super special…will explain if you respond to my sub by emailing me,

  45. Pardon me but I have this idea, possibly strange and unfounded, that most of the critters and zoosters are something of group who think. Not certain what they think about, particularly on n individual basis, but they all think. Common thoughts dealing with the flow of blogging or just thoughts that deal with the thinker.

    • I think it would be safe to say that we are all intellectuals. We share ideas, both old and new, and seek a consensus about how to survive this world we live in. Blogging helps us do so, in real time, with people around the globe who we may never meet but it’s really not any different than our progenitors sitting around the campfire and grunting their approval, or disapproval, about “how Grog” killed that mastodon the other day”.

    • The impression I get from the bits and pieces of personal histories that get posted from time to time. is that everyone here in their childhoods was allowed to think and learned to learn rather than just to ‘know’.

      Thus everyone is still keen to learn, and is capable of discussing any subject with the confidence not of formal subject matter knowledge, but by simply having the mental tools to investigate and detemine the difference between shit and shinola.

  46. To anyone who isn’t a Will Eisner fan, the Spirit had a tendency to get the crap kicked out of him on a regular basis. And back in the 30′s he also had this ability to shrug it off and come back. No one eve knew why but as bad as the Spirit got smacked, he always managed to find the way to come back. We, as a society, are getting to that point. And the Spirit or the Shadow or Doc Savage is not there to save us.

  47. BTW, Zooey, congratulations on the sold thing. Oregon is about to get a very good citizen.

  48. Keith’s Special Comment tonight was awesome!

    Just a little trip down memory lane…

    “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” he told ABC’s “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview today. (1/25/2010)

    Based on what I’m hearing out of Washington, I’m not hopeful that Obama will be remembered as either of those.

    • I hope they put it on his blog.

      Obama really needs to pull his head out of his ass, and start listening to the PEOPLE. You can’t go wrong as a populist in tough times.

      • Zooey, if you still have broadband, justin.tv is televising Current TV while ready-tv.com is down, and there’s a link on the ready-tv site. They have several reruns of Countdown, the schedule is on the Current TV website.

        But you probably already know this, as a recent graduate! ;)

    • Well, the mediocre 1 term is pretty much shot in the ass. As is the good one term. Maybe he should just go for the first elected black President who sort of proved that the KKK crowd was right. No Black (or any other less than white) President could do anything that would benefit the country.

      Sort of sad that the current President knuckled under to their claims. No Nigger can lead the US. Nor no woman or Hispanic or Asian. America can only be led by white folk and the current Islamic, socialist nigger is just proving it.

        • yes he did.. He sold himself in 2008 as one person and has spent the last two years being something else. The sad part is they don’t have to assassinate him. He is selling himself off to the point they don’t have to.

          JFK learned his lesson and was killed for it.

          Obama has learned his lesson and we will suffer for his choice. I will vote for a stone in 2012 before I would vote for this coward.

      • I’m not so sure. I think we need more passionate people in the House and Senate. One of the first things that I questioned Obama about was taking so many good people out of their jobs and giving them appointments. Hillary is a prime example. I think she would have been far more effective as a Senator instead of being Obama’s messenger to other countries.

          • Synonymous with Destroyed Arizona. She was the only vestige of common sense in the AZ government, and she wasn’t afraid to slap the wingnuts down when necessary. They cry and whine and piss and moan but to no avail. But never were the AZ wingnuts happier than the day she left to become head of Homeland Security. There was dancing in the wingnut streets. And today, a quick glance at the legislation passed since she left shows why.

  51. I just spent an hour and a half with no internet. I spent 32 minutes on the phone, between waiting on hold and talking to the Comcast rep. I was given the option of a service call, ‘sometime Thursday’ with 30 minutes notice by phone, or a 2 to 5 pm window on Friday, else I would have to wait until Saturday the 23rd. I was told there was nothing wrong from their end, and that I could try swapping modems if I wanted. Five minutes after I was off the phone, you guessed it! I’m back online again, as you can obviously see. Comcast has become the worst bunch of liars I have ever seen. They never admit to an outage anymore, and I also believe the service call option is a scam to get you to schedule at their convenience and not yours.

    • Actually when I had Comcast Internet and had altogether about six occasions to contact tech support (over two years) I always got very good phone support (from India) and prompt in-site support, once even on a Sunday—but I probably got lucky with good employees.

      I know from my corporate experience in IT that technical support is invariably viewed as an overhead and a nuisance that doesn’t provide an obvious profit, not a product and valued-added service that supports the productivity of all the other departments—so management invariably looks for ways to “improve” support by reducing the human element to a minimum ad then treating the remainder as the least trustworthy and now ‘mechanized’ components of their spiffy new support-machine.

  52. The sad part about Obama is he had a real good idea of what he was heading into. JFK didn’t. He found out about it after he was elected. And it pissed him off.

    Obama knew before the election. He knew what he was walking into. He accepted it. And he has shown us that that is his position from day one. Obama is bought and paid for. He makes Andrew Jackson look like a real hero. The only reason Obama hasn’t been whacked is he is playing their game. And it ain’t gonna change.

    • Okay, so you can be in charge of the pessimist department; I’ll hang on by my fingernails in the optimist department. As long as I can anyway…

      • I’m sorry but why would it be considered pessimist to look at something? Counts or evidence that might have an impact on possibilities? Or should we accept that someone decides that evidence is less than accepted statements by people who may or may not be found after their statements?

            • I’m glad you mentioned Saruman. Through a long process I was thinking about the lesson Tolkein taught with Saruman and Douglas MacArthur’s saying “know your enemy” and filtered it through Teddy Roosevelt. I came to the conclusion that, if Teddy had read Tolkein and MacArthur, he would have said something like…

              “One should study the ways and means of one’s enemies but one should stand ready to club them to death if they start making sense”.

  53. And now for something completely different.

    I went down to gather my mail and spotted a crowd of kids gathered around the crab apple tree and acting in an agitated state. Then I spotted the “walking stick” (the insect, not the cane) so I went out to have a closer look since I’ve only spotted a few of them before. That’s not the good part.

    The good part is that I learned that the the rest of the community had another free kids’ barbeque last Saturday even though I was busy helping a friend get rid of six, storm damaged, trees and we didn’t even have a meeting about it last week. So? I went to talk to Angelina and it sounds like, despite lacking my grilling skills, the second barbeque was as successful as the first and finished the day with $120.00 in the pot. That will cover the next one and I’ll definitely attend this Wednesday’s community meeting where we’ll discuss whether to do it every weekend, the last weekend of the month, or just whenever a few of us decide to fire up the grills. One way, or another, it looks like we have a self-perpetuating community event. There also seems to be some enthusiasm for our own private food shelf but we’ll have to work without the property manager on that because there’s some obscure rule about licensing. We can utilize them to collect funds but there’s a bunch of red tape involved if we actually try to provide services through the office.

      • My friends have taken to calling me a “community organizer” and I can live with that. The disturbing part is that I now have to interact with kids. I didn’t much like kids when I was a kid and I can’t say that I’ve become more comfortable with them since. I can keep one or two amused and off balance by virtue of my off the wall side but groups of kids go beyond my ability to steer the interaction into my comfort zone.

        That’s why I’m really glad that my initial efforts have assumed their own momentum. If I decide that I can’t deal with a crowd I can just swill beer in air-conditioned comfort and no one will suffer.

          • I was distracted by a phone call so I must apologize for the slow response.

            That’s pretty much what I do but it’s less effective when they are running in a pack. Give me one kid and I have them in the palm of my hand. Perhaps my favorite trick is to ask them how old they are. Then, when they say “six”, I say; “shame on you. When I was your age I was seven”. The look of puzzlement is a pure delight.

            Seriously though; when i was managing a bunch of teenagers in restaurants I would demand everything that I would do while not shirking any task I asked them to do. I inherited a very slow dishwasher once and, once I figured out where the problem lay, I made him an offer. At the end of a brutal Saturday night i told him that I would mop the bathrooms and, if he had finished the last of the dishes before I was done, we would trade the jobs of last dishes and mopping the bathrooms. By the end of our two years together the young gentleman would have crawled across ground glass for me.

        • pete? Kids are just little people.. And they have this little thing that they listen to the people who put up the stuff that might be something they should listen to. Never sell kids short. They are way smarter than adults because they have never been taught to lie.

    • Holy shit, I KNEW it was going to be Mr. Michele before I even clicked! Marrying a gay man because god told her to certainly explains that whacked out crazy ass eye thing she’s got going on!

      • Can you imagine living that life of delusion?

        Like I said on TP, any pregnancy Michele experienced involved a turkey baster, tears, and vomit — from our Fabulous Marcus.

        • Nope, can’t imagine it for EITHER of them, but since they both believe that being gay is an abomination and a lifestyle choice, they deserve each other. At least neither one is making anyone else’s life miserable. Oh, wait…

          • Right, they married each other (thank goodness), but they still manage to make other’s lives miserable.

            It’s a goal for them.

            Fuckers.

  56. In my humble opinion, I don’t think Obama gives a rats ass if he gets re-elected. He and his family are set for life. I think a lot of it also has to do with the daily shit he gets from the racists. He wants to return his and his children’s life back to some normalcy.

    Either he was naive enough to believe that he could bring hope and change or he sold us all a bill of goods, knowing those who own our government would never let him implement his supposed vision of hope and change.

    My third theory is this: Obama was hand picked by our corporate overlords. The perfect candidate for them to continue with their agenda. Charismatic, intelligent, articulate and the first black president, his message and being the first black president was enough for those on the left to cut him slack as he broke promise after promise.

    Then you have the media playing their part in this masterful scheme. On one side you have the hateful, racist, deceitful right wing media who attack Obama on anything and everything. You have the distractions from his birth certificate, is he a Muslim, is he a socialist?

    Then you have the other side, what exists of the left wing media. Propping up Obama while putting blame on those mean republicans yet never holding Obama or the democratic party accountable for their failures and lack of a spine.

    While all this is going on, interrupted only by the latest missing blonde girl, the latest Hollywood star ODing, going to jail or getting divorced and periodic political scandals, while the country and the middle class is heading into a downward spiral.

    Yet we stupid Americans blame the republicans or the democrats when BOTH are to blame. We hear cries of socialism when in reality we are heading towards fascism. Millions losing their homes. Unemployment at 9.2%. The rich getting richer. We are still in two wars. Wall Street fraudsters are free to enjoy their ill gotten wealth.

    But where are the people? Why haven’t millions of citizens taken to the streets? Where are the war protestors? Where are the protestors against Citizens United? Where are the protestors against the banksters? We the people of the United States of America deserve what we get for our apathy.

    I still do not know whether I will vote in 2012. This is how much I’ve been let down by the democratic party and the Obama administration. I just don’t know if I can hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils anymore when they are becoming so much a like. Oh sure the democrats say all the right things but when of late has their words led to action?

    If the republicans gain back control of the senate and return to the White House, I say “Good for them”, finish the job that you set out to do. Perhaps once more people feel the affects of their policies, the republican party will be destroyed forever, but don’t count on it.

    Remember all of the reports after the 2010 elections how the republican party was in for a blood bath, as tea party members and republicans would be fighting for control over the party…..?

    The democrats were in total command of the government for two years and it still felt like the republicans were in the majority of the House and Senate. Sorry I am finding it increasingly difficult to support a party that has no fight and is always out maneuvered.
    In short….the democrats could phuck up a wet dream.

    • If Obama doesn’t really want to be president, then he needs to step aside and allow a real progressive Democrat to run next year because any one of the asshats on the other side just scares the shit out of me!

      I’m too old for any other country to allow me to immigrate but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay here under another version of Bush/Cheney. Or maybe it’s time to go off the grid and give myself my own tax cuts. Being self-employed has such advantages…

    • I hate to dwell on conspiracy theories but there’s another possibility.

      One night after he was elected a group of heavily armed masked men appeared in President Obama’s bedroom. They told him what he would have to do if he wanted his family to survive his presidency.

      Long before Obama I arrived at the conclusion that the real power brokers never have to stand for an election. They live in shadows and wield the ultimate authority of life and death.

    • Not to belabor Keith’s show tonight, but he had on John Dean (again) and they were discussing Bob Woodward’s piece today that the phone hacking has all the earmarks of being Rupert’s Watergate. Looks like far more than CREW is looking into allegations that Rupe’s Kids tried to bribe NYC police to get call records/recordings from 9/11 victims, and if they went after the Royals and the British PM’s baby’s medical records, what are the chances that they kept that kind of activity across the pond only?

      I will be surprised if it doesn’t come out that NewsCorp tapped Dems during the last (several?) elections cycles.

      • Randi Rhodes was saying today that she thinks this might be going on here already. Anyone who calls a conservative talk radio idiot has their phone number taken. Why?

        Remember when Bildo threatened that person who called him a couple years ago? He had their phone number, and he was going to sic the Fox security goons on him?

        We always think it can’t happen here…

        • Actually, I’ve known it could happen here for a long, long time. I have a family member with a framed letter of thanks from the FBI for aiding them in tracking down McVeigh and Co from their using prepaid calling cards (makes him feel proud, whatever, but I kinda burst his bubble when I pointed out that they misspelled his name) because every single call made using each card was/is fully tracked, so once they identified each card, they could piece together each call, where it originated, to whom, etc.

          There is nothing, other than cash, that doesn’t get tracked here anymore, and if you live cash-only, it raises even more red flags for those who watch that kind of stuff.

          And on that note of discomfort, I must head to sleep for the night. Have a good one!

          • Goodnight! My husband has a similar framed letter. His name is spelled correctly, but what they are thanking him for is completely blacked out.

  58. I was reminded of our old friend from Think Progress, Fred666 today. While on break I was listening to The Ed Show on the radio and some guy called in and blamed Ed for the democrats losing the 2010 elections.

    Yep, let’s blame others instead of those who need to be blamed and publicly chastised for perpetually being subservient to the republicans.

    I just hope and pray that Pelosi and the progressive caucus stick to their guns regarding cuts to the big three. Perhaps it’s time for the democratic party to throw Obama under the bus until he decides to start acting like a democrat and not a corporate puppet and a wimp.

    • The last really good Obama moment I remember was right after the Ryan plan to ruin my life and country was released. Remember, he gave a speech and said (paraphrasing) he would not allow Medicare to be destroyed on his watch. I hope he meant it, I’m getting worried.

      • I also liked the timing of his release of the “long form birth certificate”. The way that he pulled the fangs of Trump, Corsi, and the rest of the Reichwhiners was very well played. To make up my own metaphor: he let them get so far out on that limb that all it took was a tiny nick of the bark to bring them crashing down.

        • The bonus was wrecking Corsi’s hopes of selling his book. By the way, great job bringing your community together for food and fellowship.

        • He should have done that long ago, just to end the phucking distraction.

    • I got a call today from Mike Huckabee. A robocall, preaching the dangers and evils of “Obamacare”, and would I like to add my name to a list being sent to Congress AGAINST “Obamacare”..
      It wasn’t quite as obnoxious as the call I got from hooker-loving, toe-sucking Dick Morris. That was only part recorded message followed by a real person. I told them where they could stick it. The Dick Morris part warned of the dangers to the country posed by that “Fascist regime” that is President Obama. That word was quite prominent. He was trying to hawk his new book and get donations. What a loser.

  60. Hey…I hope Obama proves me wrong, I really do. I hope he is setting the republicans up to hang themselves…but, I don’t see it happening. He isn’t the cagey politician we thought he was. He isn’t the master chess player we’ve been told he was. If he were we’d be out of Iraq, getting out of Afghanistan, have single payer health care, the Bush tax cuts would be history.

    The names Jeff Immelt, Timothy Geithner, Thomas Donilan, Bill Daley, Gary Gensler, Larry Summers, Michael Taylor says it all for me about Obama….He’s a supply side corporatist.

    • Unless something seriously grandiloquent happens between now and November of next year, the likelihood of me voting in the 2012 General is less than even money. A lot depends on what happens with this budget nonsense; if Obama and the Dems cave and go after the big three, fuck ‘em all.

      I’m too old and too decrepit to leave the country, so fate dictates I die here. I do, ever more often, wonder why the hell I didn’t jump ship in 1965 like my ass was telling me to do. Too soon old, too late smart someone once said. Describes me in a nutshell.

      • I hear you Frugal! One other thing that will help me make up my mind about voting for Obama again is who he appoints as the fifth CFTC commissioner.

        But with former Robert Rubin protege/ former Goldman Sachs partner, Gary Gensler heading the CFTC….I kind of know who Obama will appoint. A commissioner who is against more regulations and transparency on speculation of oil and other commodities.

        Hope and change is never going to happen when you have the likes of capitalists/corporatists like Immelt, Geithner, Donilan, Gensler, Daley and Taylor whispering in your ear and giving advice.

  61. I’m off to bed, but one final note..did y’all see the blurb on TP about the Arizona lawmaker who pointed her “raspberry pink” handgun at a reporter? Seriously, pink? A gun is a fashion statement? :cry:

  62. This is breaking news this AM.

    Brother of Afghan President Karzai killed by bodyguard

    Ahmed Wali Karzai, the controversial king of Kandahar and younger half-brother of the Afghan president, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards on Tuesday.

    The assassination sent shock waves through the country, throwing into doubt the already brittle stability of Kandahar province where the Taliban have murdered dozens of police officers and government officials over the last two years.

    If Wali Karzai was the ‘stability’ in Kandahar, I’d hate to see a more corrupt dirtbag come to power now that he’s gone.

Comments are closed.