Last Call

There's pre-emptive Obama Derangement Syndrome pre-buttals, and then there's the class act that is Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito announcing a good  3-4 months in advance that he's skipping the State of the Union address because it's all kabuki.

Alito, answering questions following a speech Wednesday at the conservative Manhattan Institute in New York, also said, "Presidents will fake you out." The institute provided an online video link to Alito's talk and question-and-answer session.

The president will begin a sentence with an invocation of the country's greatness, Alito said. If justices don't jump up and applaud, "you look very unpatriotic," he said.

But, Alito continued, then the president may finish the thought by adding "because we're conducting a surge in Iraq or because we're enacting health care reform." Justices aren't supposed to react to statements about policy or politics.

The better course, Alito said, is to follow the example of more experienced justices like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and the recently retired John Paul Stevens. None has attended in several years.

"So I doubt that I will be there in January," Alito said.

To recap, Alito, a SCOTUS justice, will not be attending the State of the Union address because it's too political for him and he has trouble maintaining his impartiality at a speech.

Being one of the final arbiters of the constitutionality of United States law, setting precedents that may stand for decades?  Easy.  Knowing when to stand at a speech?  Being able to tell the difference between patriotic cheerleading and policy fluffing?  Man, call off the dogs!

Keen mind, that Sammy.

Dear America:

Dear America:

"You ivory tower egghead libs with your math and your objectivity will never understand.  You can have all the education in the world and your vote still counts the same as everyone else's, and that's why you'll lose in the end.  What's more American than that, stupid nerds?  SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!"

-- Peter Berkowitz, Wall Street Journal

Bonus Verbatim Stupid:

"Those who doubt that the failings of higher education in America have political consequences need only reflect on the quality of progressive commentary on the tea party movement. Our universities have produced two generations of highly educated people who seem unable to recognize the spirited defense of fundamental American principles, even when it takes place for more than a year and a half right in front of their noses."

You know, spirited defenders like Michele Bachmann.  Facts?  Logic?  Debate?  Discourse?  Critical Thinking?  These are meaningless when you can just ring Pavlov's bell and take the power you want through fear, anger, resentment, and scapegoating.

On the contrary, progressives understand the Tea Party only too well, as America's history has seen those forces employed time and time again in the name of political expediency.  Of course, that would require looking back at America's darker past and studying it in order not to repeat it.

Why bother when repeating it works so well...and is so much easier to do?

Too Cleaver By Half

As the hate rhetoric on the right keeps growing, so do the threats to Democrats in office.

It turns out that the right-wing crazy who was threatening Patty Murray supporters with a cleaver in Spokane on Thursday is a man with a history of mental illness:

Friends and family of Sieler told KREM 2 News he is psychotic and needs help.
"He has no control of what he's doing," Sieler's ex girlfriend Theresa Stapleton said. "He's made death threats on people."

Stapleton is the mother of Sieler's child, and says she speaks to him regularly. Stapleton says Sieler has been off his medication and has dangerous psychotic episodes.

Recently, Stapleton says he's been obsessed with politicians who he thinks they are out to get him.

Interestingly, this incident is only the latest in a string of violent threats at Democrats -- and particularly President Obama -- cropping up very recently, and in all of them mental illness appears to be playing a significant role.

And it's not just this one time.  Several incidents just in the last six weeks indicate that the vitriol that the right tosses off as "just playing to win" is in fact increasingly dangerous.  You have to wonder just what is driving people to literally come after Democrats with cleavers.

However, you have to wonder what will happen if they wake up on the morning after Election Day and discover that their planned takeover of Congress has failed. Because then, it won't just be the diagnostically insane who will be acting out.

No, it won't.  But of course the loudmouths on the right will never take responsibility for any of this.

He's An Aqua Buddha Man, Part 2

Jack Conway's latest attack ad against Rand Paul here in Kentucky is...umm...interesting.



It tries to intimate a little too hard that Paul's anti-Christian, and that's a fairly big whopper. On the other hand, Rand Paul did say and do these things, and that's a viable political attack card to play in Kentucky, that Paul is only paying lip service to religious conservative Republicans and independents.

Given Paul's record of doing that, this ad is pretty relevant.

Piling On The First Lady

With news that Michelle Obama is still popular with a majority of Americans came out this month, the Wingnut right had to do everything they could to reverse it, from Glenn Beck...

On the October 14 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Show, Beck invoked the horror film The Omen while attacking Michelle Obama for her comments. Beck said, "I've never heard that. I've never heard that from a Christian -- I'm not questioning her Christianity, here." Later, executive producer Steve "Stu" Burguiere said, "Thank you, Michelle Obama. Creating jobs." Beck replied, "Jobs? Spooky phrases."

...to Michelle Malkin...

"Keeping the spirits clean around us?" Huh? She sounds like the liberal caricature of Christine O'Donnell. Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble.

As for the "prayer circles" and "Everybody I know in our communities is praying for us" and "we're all proud of Barack and his accomplishments" jabber, have the Obamas learned nothing about the price of arrogance and the value of humility over the last two years.

Question: Does Michelle O ever pray for anyone other than Barack?

...to El Rushbo...

"I've never heard of prayer circles and keeping the spirits clean around us. I mean, I've been praying for things like my family and friends' health, the country, things of this nature, and now I learn that we're supposed to be praying for the hygiene of the spirits?"

 ...to Moose Lady...

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin seemed to have the 2008 election – and, specifically, first lady Michelle Obama – on her mind during a speech at a conservative forum Thursday night.


"You know, when I hear people say, or had said during the campaign that they've never been proud of America, haven't they met anybody in uniform yet?" Palin opined during her remarks at a Liberty and Freedom Foundation forum in San Jose, California. 

...to Matt Drudge.

Did Michelle Obama violate Illinois election law?

The question arose after the first lady, who voted early at her Chicago precinct Thursday, responded to voters who voiced support for her husband. It’s unlawful in the state to have a “political discussion” or engage in “electioneering” within 100 feet of a polling place.

A pool report by Chicago Sun-Times reporter Abdon Pallasch said Obama had a photo taken with electrician Dennis Campbell, 56 years old. It quoted Campbell as saying, “She was telling me how important it was to vote to keep her husband’s agenda going.”

Boy, do you remember all the nasty, vicious, mean-spirited attacks Democrats made on Laura Bush?

Me either.  They didn't happen.  But if you're a Democrat in the White House, your spouse is fair game.  As I've said a few times before, not all Obama Derangement Syndrome is directed at Barack.  You'd think Wingers would have something better to do, but alas, they have no human souls.

Eric Holder's Smoking Something

The Attorney General is indeed partaking of some sort of mind-altering substance if he thinks threatening Californians is going to scare them off of voting for Prop 19 to legalize marijuana.

The U.S. government will "vigorously enforce" federal laws against marijuana even if voters next month make California the first state to legalize pot, Attorney General Eric Holder says.

Holder's warning, contained in a letter to ex-federal drug enforcement chiefs, was his most direct statement yet against Proposition 19, and it sets up another showdown with California over marijuana if the measure passes.

With Prop 19 leading in the polls, the letter also raised questions about the extent to which federal drug agents would go into communities across the state to catch small-time users and dealers, or whether they even had the resources to do it.

If the ballot measure passes, the state would regulate recreational pot use. Adults could possess up to one ounce of the drug and grow small gardens on private property. Local governments would decide whether to allow and tax sales of the drug.

But Holder stressed that the Justice Department remains committed to enforcing the Controlled Substances Act in all states.

"We will vigorously enforce the CSA against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law," he wrote.

Unless you plan on making every weed possession case a federal one and rounding up thousands of Californians (if not millions) if Prop 19 passes, then you've not got a leg to stand on, man.  The Feds don't have the manpower nor the facilities to handle pot charges on 1/7th of the entire US population.  No way.  He bluffing.

I don't use the stuff myself, my choice...but isn't that the point of Prop 19?

Turn On The Lights, Watch The Roaches Scatter, Part 23

A prime example of what I was talking about last night on Last Call -- the fact that the financial happy-face press is trying to treat Foreclosuregate as a paperwork snafu that doesn't change anything rather than years of institutionalized industry fraud -- is on full display with CNBC's John Carney (again with this guy.)

So here’s what I expect will happen. The lame duck session of Congress will pass a bill that essentially papers over the misdeeds of the banks that originated mortgage securities. Every member of Congress and every Senator who has been voted out of office will cast a vote for the bill. And the President will sign it.

Will the public be outraged? Probably. Financial bloggers will scream from the high heavens against another bailout of the banksters. Congress may try to create some cost for banks in exchange for the forgiveness, perhaps requiring more mortgage modifications. 

But the much feared put-back apocalypse will be laid to rest. 

If you’re skeptical about the possibility that this will happen, you have greater faith than I do in the ability of the political system to resist doing favors for bankers. 

Carney is clearly underestimating someone here.  Oh, not Republicans in Congress.  He's right that this is exactly what they will try to do.  I think he's underestimating the President and Democrats somewhat, but not by much.

But Carney is completely underestimating the American people.  The second this happens, you will have an event which will put the Teabaggers, the Centrist Daleks, and the Dirty F'ckin Hippies on the same side, and it will be a dangerously beautiful thing.  It would be a visceral reaction out there:  Congress just passed a law allowing the banks to get away with stealing people's homes.

Madness.  You thought people hated TARP?  This would be riot-inducing, not to mention morally and legally wrong as hell.  It would be over for this administration, not to mention Congress.

I just don't see how this happens.  It can't.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• At least 20 are dead in a coal mine explosion in China, leaving 17 more miners trapped.
• The US Army will try the first of five soldiers accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport.
• UNC football coach Butch Davis has told his players to deactivate their Twitter accounts as the team is investigated by the NCAA.
• Ex-Countrywide Mortgage CEO Angelo Mozilo will settle his fraud charges from the SEC for a hefty $67.5 million.
• Only Canada has more expensive cell phone plans per minute than the US.