Like A Nightmare

By way of The Atlantic, linking to NYT (log-in required):

...an inescapable conclusion: the administration's reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed."

NYT got badly used and abused by Cheney in 2002-2003 as a conduit for the bogus rationale for invading Iraq, so there could be some axe-grinding going on here, but if there's any truth in this, we need to hammer it home to expose the fact that Romney's Foreign Policy team is chock full of the same NeoCons who've been fuckin' us over for  a good 12 or 15 years.

The saddest part is that I can see how somebody on the Bush team might've actually bought into the bullshit about FDR knowing about Pearl Harbor ahead of time, and letting the thing go forward in order to get us amped up for WW2 - which could've been used as pretext for distracting Bush from the 9/11 warnings.

And yes - politics can be just that shitty.

Where Was God?

Buy This Book

...right now.

Pic O' The Day

Can somebody tell me if this kinda thing pops up at Obama's rallies?  I think there has to be some probability just because campaigns are closely scripted in a lotta ways, but where is the equivalent - the "both sides do it" example?

Maybe the reason they can't come up with anything true to say about their plans and policies is that they're just so darned busy manufacturing enthusiasm for their candidates.

(hat tip = Crooks & Liars)

The Big Lie Works (?)

"There's no plausible scenario under which it really constitutes a serious attack on welfare reform," Ron Haskins, who is now co-director of the Brookings Institution's Center on Children and Families, said in an interview with NPR that aired on Wednesday.

Haskins spent 14 years on the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee's Human Resources Subcommittee, first as welfare counsel to the Republican staff, then as the subcommittee’s staff director. In 2002, he was President George W. Bush's senior adviser on welfare policy.

Willard seems unable to convince "the base" of his credibility as a true conservative, so I think that's why he can't let up on the bullshit. The wingnuts insist on hearing nothing but "Obama's a bad guy", so that's what he has to give them every day.

Post Truth Politics

You know we're pretty well over the edge when Neil Newhouse (Romney campaign pollster) says, "We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”

From Slacktivist (linking to Political Animal - Steve Benen):

Over the past 30 weeks, Mitt Romney has told lie after lie after lie: I, II, III, IV, V, VI,VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII,XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX.

Click those links. Read the lists. List after list of lie after lie. Hundreds of them — 533, to be exact, although Benen does not make any claim to providing a comprehensive chronicle.

And to put it all together, Mr James Fallows:

Reporters are happiest, safest-feeling, and most comfortable when in the mode of he-said, she-said. "The president's critics claim that he was born in Kenya; administration spokesmen deny the charge." But when significant political players are willing to say things that flat-out are not true -- and when they're not slowed down by demonstrations of their claims' falseness -- then reporters who stick to he-said, she-said become accessories to deception. This is the problem The Atlantic's James Bennet discussed from Tampa yesterday, in a dispatch about the Republicans' false-but-endlessly-repeated claim that the Obama administration is coddling welfare recipients by dropping requirements that they work.

Today's Pix

All this shit is on the "phone" in my pocket

Religious Freedom

(with slight editorial license - hat tip = Democratic Underground)

Pick only "A" or "B" for each question.

1. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services not of my choosing.

2. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to impose my religious beliefs about marriage on those two guys who're standing in line down at the courthouse.

3. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others not to use birth control.

4. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to pray in private.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray publicly and/or in the manner of my choosing.

Bring It

So I used to be like:

But now, I'm all like - c'mon - get at me, Bro:

Hot Lesbian Action - And A Gun.

This is either a really strange visualization of a Red-Blue Centrist Compromise or plain ol' porn - or both.  I dunno - sometimes I hate my brain.

Just Sayin'

The Tea-publicans love America and hate Americans - and they lose if everybody votes.

Checkin' Out The Big Dog

Bill Clinton's speech nominating Obama was reportedly "a fact checker's nightmare", but it turns out The Big Dog managed to stay on the porch - mostly.

FactCheck.org:

The worst we could fault him for was a suggestion that President Obama’s Affordable Care Act was responsible for bringing down the rate of increase in health care spending, when the fact is that the law’s main provisions have yet to take effect.

--and--

And plenty of other Clinton statistics checked out as accurate. For example, he said that since 1961, when John F. Kennedy took office, 42 million private-sector jobs had been added while Democrats held the White House, compared with 24 million while Republicans were in office. And that’s exactly what Bloomberg News reported in a May 8 story.

Compare that with this: E'ville Times - GOP Convention Scorecard

Press Poodles

This is as bad as it gets - at least from the point of view that appearances matter.  I can't get up over the Certainty Threshold on this one, but I can't just assume this is mere coincidence either.



Sometimes, it is what it seems to be.

(hat tip = Crooks and Liars)

Differences

I know way too many people who don't vote.  They cop an attitude, saying politicians and their parties are all alike, so what's the point?

Here's one point: On the one really huge question of how we fund candidates and campaigns, it's pretty easy to see a difference.

	1956 "We condemn illegal lobbying for any cause and improper use of money in political activities."	2012 "We oppose any restrictions or conditions that would discourage Americans from exercising their constitutional right to enter the political fray or limit their commitment to their ideals."
	1956 "The Democratic Party pledges itself to provide effective regulation and full disclosure of campaign expenditures and contributions in elections to Federal offices."	2012 "We support campaign finance reform, by constitutional amendment if necessary. We support legislation to close loopholes and require greater disclosure of campaign spending."

There are some other points as well - Mother Jones breaks it down.

Obama Speaks

Did you hear that?  Do you hear those footsteps?

He's comin' for ya, Willard.