I Heart Larry Wilkerson

From The Real News Network:

WILKERSON: Oh, au contraire, we don't have that choice anymore. We get two idiots to vote for every year, whose campaigns say all manner of things, but whose actual actions are not—I'll quote Ralph Nader here—virtually are not any different from Tom and Jerry. I mean, the two of them are going to do the same thing, because basically what we have today is a corporatocracy: we have the presidents and the Congress in the hands of big food, big pharmacy, big oil, finance, insurance, and real estate. Look at Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. They're quintessential representatives of those communities. And that's who runs this country now. The president doesn't run this country, the secretary of defense and the secretary of state don't run these people, and God help us, the American people don't run this country. Big money runs this country.

Snappy Comeback

Sunday Funnies

Modern Day Book Burning

Yesterday, I downloaded a copy of The Quran to my iPod and then angrily deleted it.

Cold Dead Fingers

Lotsa "conservatives", when talking about 2nd amendment rights and their notions of self-reliance and self-determination and whatever, like to argue that their gun is the great equalizer; that having the gun means it's less likely that anybody is going to push them around.  I call this position The Meyer Lansky.  To paraphrase Mr Lansky, "Everybody's more polite when everybody's got a gun".

I think we could all come up with a fairly simple rebuttal, but that's not what I'm thinking about right now.  I'm wondering why the people who try to make that point are usually the same people who seem to think the same philosophical outlook doesn't apply to nuclear weapons.

Just wonderin'.
  

Today's Word

Mockery Is The Best Defense

Mid Terms 2010

Do not put these assholes back in charge.

Political Insurgency 2010

Everybody seems really freaked out about how the "Tea Party" candidates are likely to screw everything up in the elections this year.  The Repubs are talkin' like they have the House majority sewed up already, but then again, there're lots of stories about how the establishment losers of the primaries refuse to show up at the little Party Unity rallies, where they're supposed to throw their support behind the insurgency winner.

If the Repubs are sure of a big win in November, why are they so upset about the Repub candidates who they say will win them the majority?

Two guesses:
1) The Repubs aren't really feeling confident - it's all just bluster.
2) If these Tea Baggers get elected, the Repub leadership will find it difficult if not impossible to hold any of the new members to party discipline.

Actually, Maybe Freedom Is Free

Electioneering 2010

From TPM:

"Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona," Babeu told the Times. "They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has."

"This is going on here in Arizona," he added. "This is 70 to 80 miles from the border - 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States."

 This guy Babeau is the sheriff of a border county in Arizona, and the guy who appears in John McCain's campaign video about "finish the danged fence".  TPM actualy does some decent reporting, so they called around to other law enforcement offices, and couldn't get anybody to confirm anything Babeau said.  In fact, while most stopped short of calling him full of shit, they all flatly contradicted the guy.

Here's a quick question:  Since Babeau is supposed to be in charge of upholding the law in his jurisdiction, is he just pleading for help...or is he admitting to professional incompetence?

Assuming he's a capable agent of the law, I gotta wonder why he says such things.  So I'm thinking it has everything to do with making sure certain middle class white people have something to be afraid of so that Big Daddy Politicians get more power.

These assholes pull this kinda shit because it works.

Right Rage Of The Day

Attempts to tear down Obama will never stop. It doesn't matter what he says or does, the "conservatives" will keep hacking away. Not because they think he's wrong; and not because they think they have better ideas; but because that's how they make their living.

Obama recently installed a new rug in the oval office that includes a quote from a speech by Martin Luther King: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice".
Here's the video:

Jackie and Dunlap

New Slogans Needed

Why aren't the Dems blasting the Repubs for saying (essentially) the the US is done - we can't do anything anymore.

Where's all that "Yes We Can"?

The New Right Exposed

Read this from Conor Friedersdorf

There's this weird dynamic in the United States where some conservatives will praise the hard working kid who gets good grades in high school, completes all their homework, avoids behavioral and legal trouble, plays varsity sports, takes a leadership role in student government, and studies hard for his SATs... until he or she attends Harvard, at which point they're put in the coastal elite box, especially if they wind up in politics, media, or academia.