The Reality
Friday, September 07, 2012
  GOP Hissy Fits: A List of Things Obama Is
I will update this for 4 years:

Obama is a Kenyan
Obama is a Marxist
Obama is an enemy of humanity
Obama is a Fascist
Obama is an oligarch
Obama is a Socialist
Obama wants to kill grandma
Obama wants death panels
Obama wants to build his own liberal army
Obama is like Hitler
Obama is like Stalin
Obama is like Goebbels
Obama is like Mengele
Obama is like Lenin
Obama is entirely dependent on teleprompters
Obama throws like a girl
Obama has no birth certificate
Obama is part of the Black Mafia
Obama is a racist
Obama drinks the wrong beer
Obama will tax your favorite beer
Obama eats arugula and fake food
Obama wants nationalized banks
Obama wants a nationalized auto industry forever
Obama is a Communist
Obama hired Van Jones because Jones is also a Communist
Obama wants to indoctrinate school children into Socialism
Obama is a terrorist because Gaddafi called him his son
Obama is like Kim Jong Il
Obama is brainwashing school children into singing his praises
Obama should be overthrown in a coup
Obama has mean, uncivil allies
Obama wants schools to perform secret abortion field trips
Obama wants sex clinics in schools
Obama is weak internationally and can't drive a hard bargain
Obama is bully internationally who blows the Olympics because he's not respected
Obama is weak internationally when he shows his hand rather then attack Iran
Obama is like a rapist
Obama supports NAMBLA
Obama is worshipped internationally because "the world" is stupid
Obama won't bomb the Taliban so he bombs the moon
Obama is dithering about the war in Afghanistan
Obama needs the GOP's permission to accept the Nobel Peace Prize
Obama is juvenile for saying FoxNews not a real news network

.

The Opposition:
 
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
  Scalia's Pain Fetish
Supreme Court clown Antonin Scalia excretes conservative nonsense:
"The whole purpose of a constitution is to constrain the desires of the current society.''
Really?!

As you may know, Scalia is a dogmatic member of Opus Dei, the rightwing cult that believes corporal mortification is an acceptable way to "constrain the desires of the flesh."

To Scalia, the constitution is no more than a Cilice with which he beats himself.
Let's investigate the Preamble to the constitution paying particular attention to the active verbs:
  • form a more perfect Union
  • establish Justice
  • insure domestic Tranquility
  • provide for the common defence
  • promote the general Welfare
  • secure the Blessings of Liberty
  • ordain and establish this Constitution
All of those are verbs of construction, verbs of growth. And yet, this man Scalia, the human personification of a grumble, sees only the need to retard, to constrain or to destroy.

Scalia, like other conservatives is a retardant. Pure and simple - a retardant. His interpretation of the Constitution is hopelessly perverted by his pain fetish.




 
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
  Click-to-Call Widget v1
 
Monday, September 28, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself, it invites anarchy. Therefore, if government officials break the law “righteously” we should look forward and not backward, we should trust that the accused did what they did because they thought it was best, we should not investigate, or really, not even bring it up too often as that would be impolite. Also, if committing a crime becomes a central plank in the platform for one of America’s political partys, then that’s another reason to not do anything about the crime, because doing so would look too political. And if the daughter of one of the government criminals often goes to the press and pleads on her father's behalf we don't want to be called sexist or mean so we should let just let it go.

- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1939

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Friday, September 25, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Will the corporations that profit from the status quo lose too much money? And if so, can't we punt for now and come back to this later?"

- Martin Luther King Jr.

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Monday, September 21, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
The challenge of politics and public service is to discover what is interfering with justice and dignity for the individual here and now, and then to decide swiftly upon the appropriate remedies. ...And if that means suggesting to the interference that it stop interfering, so be it - but if the interference points to it's giant pile of money collected though the act of interfering, then our challenge in public service becomes to find a way to let the interference continue injustice for a few more years until some sort of trigger is pulled ...with their consent, after which, some sort of blue ribbon committee should be formed to explore appropriate remedies all over again.

- Robert F. Kennedy

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Sunday, September 20, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, and reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, and war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred. I welcome it to the bargaining table to reach a compromise where I offer 50% and it counter-offers that I fuck myself. I grab it’s hand, shake it, and exclaim ‘New Deal! How about 25%?" But the organized mob seethes in anger and silently mouths to me the same words: "Fuck... You..." I gleefully reply "How about we say 10 percent then?! No? Five percent? Look," I admit, "I'll do anything to be bipartisan." Silence. "Okay 1%" Still silence from the greedy corporations and their minions - all with that loathing stare. Finally I say: "How about you be President? Will that make you happy?" And then the old enemies of peace -- big business, monopolies, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, racism, and war profiteering - become President. Which is by itself a big change... from what voters asked for when they elected me. Therefore I have brought them change! Huzzah!"

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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Tuesday, September 08, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
To those in my party who have recently urged me to take a strong and unambiguous stand on the pressing matter of the day, I must remind you that not all in our party's ranks have safe congressional districts in which re-election is guaranteed or even likely.

It is with the future of these jeopardized Congressmen in mind -- specifically those that represent constituencies who preferred Stephen Douglas in the last election -- that I have decided, however reluctantly, not to require the Emancipation Proclamation in any future settlement of the current Civil War.

--Abraham Lincoln

h/t JeffLieber

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  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
"It having been found very inconvenient to persons concerned in trade, that the mail from Philadelphia to New England sets out once a fortnight during the winter season: This is to give notice, that the New England mail should henceforth go twice a week the year round at one uniform rate to Philadelphia and New York. Furthermore, post roads should be surveyed between coastal cities and inland townes and built at great expense in order to connect areas of this land that are not in markets of large importance. In times of national hardeship when the bonds of countrymen should need be strengthened and unified, providing this service for a more perfect union, encouraging a sense of nationhood through dependable communications among all citizens at the same price, regardless of income factors, is a worthy goal we encourage the private messager companies to accomplish through a system of wholesome competition."

Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin, 1765

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Tuesday, August 25, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the right to vote! The dog is man’s best friend. Women, let’s be dogs! Don’t trouble yourself with voting, women, bark with me!

- Susan B Anthony

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Friday, August 21, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
Goodbye, boys; I’m under arrest. I may have to go to jail. I may not see you for a long time. Keep up the fight! Don’t surrender! Pay no attention to the injunction machine at Parkersburg. The Federal judge is a scab anyhow. While you starve he plays golf. While you serve humanity, he serves injunctions for the money powers. But those money powers deserve a place at the table and we should give them half of what they want, if not all of it. Let’s not be partisan, okay boys!

- Mother Jones

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Sunday, August 09, 2009
  J'Accuse Le New York Times
The Times' Ian Urbina wrote this about the pro-insurance company activism that is currently pushing a sort of Chewbacca Offense at Congressmembers' townhall 'debates':
The tenor of some of the debates has become extreme. Ms. Pelosi has accused people at recent protests of carrying signs associating the Democratic plan with Nazi swastikas and SS symbols, and some photographs showing such signs have been posted on the Web.
Pelosi DIDN'T!

Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused this woman:

of carrying a sign that associated Obama's reform of the insurance industry with Hitler.

or was it this woman?


An accusation... is it true or false?

We're not to know. Apparently it's not The Times' job to actually assess whether such things are true. Maybe Pelosi is lying. After all, the picture above and the video that GOP officials have posted on the web, or the non-stop Nazi analogies coming from talk radio gasbags and Fox News nutballs, don't prove anything, right? Nah, "He Said/She Said" is a safer construct.

This journalistic voice is simply not respectable, it does not educate readers, it is not truthful, it is the reason why people don't trust news organizations.

It's no longer a surprise when media companies fail to investigate charges and report on the findings, opting instead to set up the issue as a 'debate' between partisans, even if one side of the debate is complete 'lies' and utterly 'insane.'

Amazingly, in this instance, The Times does report on it, and they still call it an 'accusation'. I believe therefore that this is a perfect distillation of what is so ludicrous about our broken media.

They don't want to get wrapped up in a partisan battle, after all...

The essentially modern American partisan battle, that is, between liars and cowards.

(This, by the way, is also why we can't have nice things.)

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  Digby Sez
She is so good.
if health reform fails, I believe that when the history is written it will be seen as a Democratic failure. If you put an issue on the table and are given a mandate to enact it, you are blamed for its failure, particularly when the whole promise of your campaign was based upon the magical notion that you would change the very nature of the political system. Sadly, if that happens, the likely result will not be a newly invigorated, liberal president with lessons learned and a fresh approach. It will be a chastened and weakened president newly committed to the status quo, just as the Village ordered from the beginning. And that, in the end, may be what was being promised all along: symbolism over substance. It wouldn't be the first time.
This is what happens when you don't elect actual liberals.


 
  Netflix is Great

They are smart.
 
Saturday, August 08, 2009
  Libertarians Hail Hudson River Helicopter-Plane Crash
Local conservative libertarians hailed the recent crash of a helicopter and a small plane in unregulated air space over the Hudson River as an example of the wise free market unencumbered by government oversight.

A local conservative man, protesting the office lobby of Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) in favor of insurance industry profiteering took time to remark how the events over the hudson bolstered his case that the "nanny state thinks it knows best, but it doesn't."

"Who's to say if that plane and the helicopter didn't plan that?" he said, referring to the crash. "Maybe it was an elaborate sky dance? That's the wisdom of the free market," he continued. "It's wise. It's like God, we can't know It's plan."

The man admitted that he couldn't be sure if the crash was an elaborate sky dance because, as he said, "everybody died, so... I'll just assume it was the proper functioning of the free market."

Similarly, he said, "we [have] the best health care in the world precisely because government doesn't get involved."

Another protester at Nadler's office agreed with the wisdom of the free market - especially in regards to health care. But when asked about the government-funded Veterans Affairs Health Care system that American troops enjoy, this reporter was called a Communist and told to fuck myself.

Another protester whose banner showed a rendering of Obama as Hitler and equated a public health care option as Communism said, "having the government force insurance companies to lower their rates is Communism."

When told that the public option wouldn't force private insurers to lower rates, but would merely compete for the best rate possible, she said, "we have the best health care in the world because our system works."

When told that there are almost 50 million Americans with no health care and that America ranks 18th among modern economies on major health indexes, she said, "we have the richest health insurance companies in the world, I mean."

When told for point of fact that Nazis were right wing fascists and that Communists were left wing socialists and that the two are so at odds that they fought each other in bloody World War II battles, this reporter was told to fuck myself.

Another anti-socialist who was riding the subway with a "NoBama" tee-shirt also remarked, "Your socialist nanny state wouldn't have allowed the plane to fly where it wanted. And maybe that's what those pilots wanted to do. More power to 'em."

When asked how he felt about riding on public transportation funded with tax dollars, this reporter was told to "fuck myself."

Not all conservatives and libertarians felt that the crash was a sign of thriving free-market aviation policy, one woman, visiting from New Jersey said "I heard that on one of the planes (sic) they were immigrants. I mean. Just goes to show ya."
 
Saturday, July 25, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off... Unless you want me to, then, fine, have it your way.

- Fannie Lou Hamer

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Friday, July 17, 2009
  Democratic Senators Make Obama into Carter

This morning on a conference call, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) laid out the stakes the Republicans see in delaying a health care vote past August: "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."


Obama knows this. That’s why he has pushed hard for a final vote before the August recess, arguing that delaying until September could slow momentum and risk missing a historic opportunity.


This afternoon, the organized effort to slow down the process began to dig in it's heels. A letter was sent to Senate leadership asking for just such a delay that Jim DeMint describes as Obama's Waterloo. Who asked for the delay?


Of course, the actual messengers were the so-called "moderate" (but completely loyal right-wing Republican) senators from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. The same pair of "moderate" (loyal right-wing Republican) Senators who have been heavily courted by Obama all year, hilariously, as if they would ever help a Democrat.


And unsurprisingly, the two senators got a bunch of stupid right-wing Democrats to join them manning Jim DeMint's Republican roadblock.


Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a right-wing Democrat who apparently hates that the country elected a Democratic President and is trying to sabotage him called in some of his fellow Democratic clowns. I can picture Nelson asking in the cloakroom “who wants break a popular Democratic President” and unsurprisingly a number of Democratic Senators' hands shot up.


Joining "effectively President" Nelson is the right-wing Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, a corporate shill from the conservative corporate-owned state of Louisiana. She believes that her political survival depends on opposing the progress America voted for, thus leaving her to battle for reelection against the state's Republican party without any Democratic voter support [which she just pissed away]. Stupid lady.


Also at the GOP roadblock is Ron Wyden, a bitter Democrat from Oregon who has a big sad because his amendment from the Bush era wasn't included in the plan. It wasn't included, of course, because it's politically idiotic to do what the Wyden/Bennett idea does: destroying the employer-based health care system, removing the public health insurance option, ergo not holding down costs, plus benefit plans actually reduce over time... this poor guy's plan would have garnered no votes and killed health reform immediately. He's sad of it, and he's apparently now holding a pitchfork that Sen. Coburn (R-OK) just handed him. Blinking, dazed, he's wondering if this is what he's supposed to be doing. And exactly where this pitchfork came from. And if it's really intended for him to use. And on who? But it's too late, Wyden has just lined up with the forces defending the Status Quo. Game, set, match.


Next to him is a man not at all confused about his purpose -- the scum of the Earth, the biggest Prima donna saboteur since Tanya Harding, the completely worthless asshole, Joe Lieberman. President Lieberman is beaming. He has signed on board with this letter, of course, because after all, his actual profession is opposing Democrats. No matter the cause. No matter the manner. He is a retardant.


So when this roadblock is successful; when Health Care reform doesn't happen, when autumn comes and the TV is literally nothing but ads blaming Obama for everything, and he has nothing to say for himself except that he trusted that the United States Senate would hash out a plan, and he coos his disappointment at the lack of progress, disappointment speeches which will help no one.. and his approval rating dives under 50%, never to return, and he fails to win reelection, and is Carter Redux, I will remember who signed this letter. Will you?

 
Thursday, June 25, 2009
  Previous Change Agents from Fake History
The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe in this life and end up being moral failures. But as a Democrat, that’s what you do.

- Dorothy Day

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When my posts on other blogs are too long, I'll dump stuff here.

Maybe to be included in the liberal blogsphere's omnibus "I Tried to Stop This: What the reality-based community knew during the sanity interregnum."

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Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. - R.F.K.