The Revolution Will Be Webcasted

It's getting damn scary out there, folks. Back in Clinton's day, militias and anti-government groups didn't use the internet so much. Now they have their own websites, making it easier than ever for people to join up to "fight the coming war"...

Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming "giant concentration camps," a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years.

It's a Cold War-era nightmare vision with a major twist: The occupying forces in this imagined future are American, not Soviet.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.

"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."

Hmm. Ex-soldiers and cops ready to prevent America from becoming a dictatorship. Gee, that doesn't sound like a problem...especially since after eight years of a Bush/Cheney junta, these guys are only formed a few months after Obama takes office. Now that's not suspicious as hell.

But let's see what the Oath Keepers have to say for themselves:

Oath Keepers got some unwanted attention in April when an Oklahoma man loosely connected to the group was arrested for threatening violence at an anti-tax protest in Oklahoma City. Rhodes called the man "a nut" who had no real affiliation with his group.

Nonetheless, Potok's group now monitors Oath Keepers on its Web site blog "Hatewatch."

Oath Keepers is not preaching violence or government overthrow, Rhodes said. On the contrary, it is asking police and the military to lay down their arms in response to unlawful orders.

The group's Web site, www.oathkeepers.org, features videos and testimonials in which supporters compare President Barack Obama's America to Adolf Hitler's Germany. They also liken Obama to England's King George III during the American Revolution.

One member, in a videotaped speech at an event in Washington, D.C., calls Obama "the domestic enemy the Constitution is talking about."

Nope, these guys aren't a problem.

Keep telling yourselves that these guys are harmless, they're not driven in part by racism or paranoia, and that they're non-violent, and that calling for the police and military to consider the government to be illegitimate and to refuse to follow orders is a perfectly normal thing to do.

So what's Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes's excuse for letting Bush slide?

Rhodes, a former firearms instructor, said he easily could have started Oath Keepers during the Bush administration, but his focus during those years was first on getting his law degree and then volunteering on the 2008 presidential campaign of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican in whose office Rhodes worked during the 1990s.

What Rhodes terms "the rise of executive privilege" during the post-9/11 years of the Bush presidency will in his opinion only accelerate with Obama in office. What's worse, he said, is that "gun-hating extremists" now control the White House.

Two things have happened since the Homeland Security Department and Southern Poverty Law Center released their reports on extremism: Membership of Oath Keepers has spiked dramatically. And Rhodes has had to do a lot of explaining.

"We're not a militia," he said. "And we're not part and parcel of the white supremacist movement. I loathe white supremacists."

Oath Keepers doesn't offer paramilitary training; nor does it have a military command structure. It instead has board members, which include directors in seven states and outreach coordinators to currently serving local and federal law enforcement and military personnel. The group's state director in Montana, who goes by the name Elias Alias, has said Montana and other states should consider seceding from the United States in protest of the federal government's conduct.

You see, government power isn't a problem until the people you don't like are in charge of wielding that power. Only then are they illegitimate. Only then do groups like Oath Keepers get formed. It was no problem when Bush was in charge, starting his wars and wrecking the economy. No, the real problem was the interminable two months between when Barack Obama took office and Oath Keepers was formed in March. That was the final straw, you see. Now it's perfectly fine for the police and military to turn against the government and for states to secede from the union. It's not like that has ever caused problems in America's history or anything.

Look, I have my problems with Obama's use of Bush-era anti-terror powers and tactics, but he has improved in a number of areas. I agree that vigilance is needed, but there's a difference. The difference is that these guys consider a lot more than just Obama to be the enemy. He has protection. Most of the rest of us don't.

If your first response to the election of an African-American president is to form a network of ex-military and police in order to combat what you see as a fascist takeover of the country, there's something wrong.

And it will only get worse from here.

StupidiNews!

• A Sunni terror organization is claiming responsibility for this weekend's suicide bombing in Shi'a dominated Iran.
• Rights groups are accusing the British government of spying on all Muslims in the UK regardless of evidence.
• VP Joe Biden wants millions of American homeowners to weatherize their homes to save money and cut carbon emissions with a new program.
• Pakistan is expecting a quarter-million refugees as a result of its latest assault into Taliban-held territory.
• A company with new bicycle tire technology hopes to teach kids how to ride a bike without training wheels.

Last Call

It's telling that my first reaction to Joe Cirincione's well-written and badly needed rebuttal to the "Bomb Iran Now!" neo-cons was "Too bad this is the exception that proves the rule that the rest of the Villagers are behind a third war."

For years we've heard conflicting accounts on this issue. There have been claims since the 1990s that Iran was a few years away from a bomb. Then, two years ago, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran had discontinued its dedicated nuclear weapon efforts in 2003. Today, the consensus among experts is that Iran has the technical ability to make a crude nuclear device within one to three years -- but there is no evidence that its leaders have decided to do so.

The regime's most likely path to the bomb begins in Natanz, in central Iran, the site of the nuclear facility where over the past three years about 1,500 kilograms of uranium gas has been enriched to low levels. Iran could kick out U.N. inspectors, abandon the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reprocess the gas into highly enriched uranium in about six months; it would take at least six more months to convert that uranium into the metal form required for one bomb. Technical problems with both processes could stretch this period to three years. Finally, Iran would need perhaps five additional years -- and several explosive tests -- to develop a Hiroshima-yield bomb that could be fitted onto a ballistic missile.

Of course, the United States and others would see Tehran moving in this direction, and exposure or inspection of suspected facilities would complicate Iranian objectives. We can further lengthen this timeline by ridding Iran of the essential ingredient for a bomb: low-enriched uranium. On Oct. 1, Iran agreed to ship most of this uranium to Russia for fabrication into reactor fuel; we will know in the next few weeks if it will keep that pledge. If it does, Iran's "break-out" capability -- the ability to produce a bomb quickly -- would be eliminated, at least for the two years it takes to enrich more uranium.

In other words, Iran is still five to eight years away from a nuclear weapon at best. Hopefully, President Obama is listening to people like this rather than the discredited, broken neo-con fools who got us into the first two wars for the past eight years.

But Israel will not rest until America is bombing Iran. I wonder, when will the charges of anti-semitism be leveled against Mr. Cirincione?

The Secret Service's Dirty Secret

Thanks to Obama Derangement Syndrome, the USSS has its hands full to the point where people in Washington are questioning whether or not the Service can handle its other traditional Treasury Department duties besides protecting the President and other leaders (emphasis mine):

The unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in racist hate groups, and a new wave of antigovernment fervor threaten to overwhelm the US Secret Service, according to government officials and reports, raising new questions about the 144-year-old agency’s overall mission.

The Secret Service is tracking a far broader range of possible threats to the nation’s leaders, the officials said, even as it also investigates financial crimes such as counterfeiting as part of its original mandate.

The new demands are leading some officials, both inside and outside the agency, to raise the possibility of the service curtailing or dropping its role in fighting financial crime to focus more on protecting leaders and their families from assassination attempts and thwarting terrorist plots aimed at high-profile events.

“If there were an evaluation of the service’s two missions, it might be determined that it is ineffective . . . to conduct its protection mission and investigate financial crimes,’’ according to a inter nal report issued in August by the Congressional Research Service.

The report, which was provided to the Globe, said such a review should look at how money and staff are allocated, and whether some of the agency’s functions and workers should be transferred to the Treasury Department.

“This is a discussion going on not only in some quarters in Congress, but inside the Secret Service. Should there be a re-look at the mission?’’ said a government official, who like others was not authorized to speak publicly about security matters or reveal details about the number or nature of the threats.

Already, there are signs of strain on the agency, officials said. Budget documents submitted to Congress this year said the agency lacks the necessary technology to keep up with threats.

Gosh that's a cheery picture, isn't it? There are so many threats against not just Obama, but other leaders of our government and their families, to the point where the USSS can't cover them all adequately. They need more money and personnel.

The bigger issue is why the GOP and FOX News continue to be allowed to foment unrest on a level that is now threatening the Secret Service to be able to do its job.

Or does somebody have to be hurt or killed first before they stop lighting dynamite and throwing?

Obama Derangement Syndrome has consequences, folks. Real ones.

[UPDATE 7:30 PM] BooMan asks referring to the story:

Does anyone want to take any responsibility for this?

Of course not. The Wingers have plausible deniability. It's not their fault people are using the paranoia the Wingers are inflaming to threaten the President. It's Obama's fault for being like Nixon and forming an enemies list...

Wait, what do you mean that's a lie? Now why would the Wingers lie to you?

Afghani-Stunner

And while I may have my problems with Rahm Emanuel on Obamacare, on Afghanistan he's just handed the GOP enough rope to hang all of them on the issue.

"The president is asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side and the strategic side," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN's "State of the Union."

Among the things the Obama administration wants to know from Afghan leaders: "Do you have a credible Afghan partner for this process that can provide the security and the type of services that the Afghan people need?"

The United States faces "a much more complex decision" than just determining the appropriate level of troops, Emanuel told CNN chief national correspondent John King in a rare interview.

"It's clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that's adrift, that we're beginning at scratch, just at the starting point ... and that there's not a security force, an army, and the types of services that are important for the Afghans to become a true partner," Emanuel said.

Echoing comments from Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, Emanuel said it would be "reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels if, in fact, you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether, in fact, there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that the U.S. troops would create."

That thumping sound is the Karzai government just being tossed under the bus, but both Emanuel and Sen. Kerry have a point: if the Karzai government isn't legitimate, there's no reason for us to try to prop it up with more troops.

This is a good sign if it's used to start reducing troop numbers in Afghanistan. It's a bad sign however if the delay is simply used to create a crisis that would "require us to intervene with massive force."

We'll see how this shakes out. Republicans are already walking right into the jet engine intake on this one:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), on CBS’s “Face the Nation”
“I hope President Karzai understands that our national security interests don't depend entirely on his decision there whether to allow a recount. Obviously the legitimacy of that government is an important component of it. But my point is it shouldn't be the lynch pin for us deciding whether to protect our national security interests in that region.”

Really? So now it doesn't matter if Karzai's government is legitimate or not?

And people wonder why we're still stuck in Afghanistan.

Carry On My Wayward Son

The bad news, is that the discussion on merging the various Obamacare bills in the Senate is being done behind closed doors.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sits at the head of a wooden table at his office as he and Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) work to merge two competing versions of health-care legislation into one bill. The three men will be joined by top aides as well as by members of President Obama's health-care team, led by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The sessions started on Wednesday and could be completed this week.

The group will make such key decisions as whether to include a government-run insurance plan designed to compete with private insurance companies. The bill passed in July by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Dodd led while Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was ailing, included such a provision, but the legislation passed last week by Baucus's Finance Committee did not.

Max Baucus has finally gotten the message that a centrist compromise will never happen. Dodd is firmly on the side of the people. Harry Reid has been talking like he has a spine lately...but the key here is still Emanuel. Both Reid and the President have basically said they'll jettison the public option if they have to.

What comes out of the Senate conference here will determine the final bill. Keep an eye on what Harry Reid says...but keep a more careful eye on what Rahm Emanuel does.

The bills also differ on how much Americans who do not buy insurance should be fined as the government seeks to get everyone covered.

In the sessions, Dodd in effect represents advocates of the government-insurance option and Baucus represents those less committed to that proposal. The tie-breaking votes are likely to be Reid and, on Obama's behalf, Emanuel. Obama and Reid have said they personally back the government-insurance option but have not ruled out supporting a bill that lacks such a provision.

The key to this is Rahm Emanuel at the table...he doesn't represent America on this, he represents GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe and the other Sensible Centrists. Rahm's job is to get a bill on the President's desk. Whether or not the bill is a good bill or represents something the American people actually want doesn't matter to him. He just needs to get a bill signed so he can say Democrats got a bill passed when Republicans couldn't.

Balloon Fight

The Balloon Boy saga is getting completely strange now, as CNN is reporting charges will be filed against the boy's father...

Hours after Colorado authorities said they expect to file charges in the "balloon boy" case, sheriff's deputies and detectives were seen entering and leaving the house of Richard Heene early Sunday.

Heene is the storm-chasing father whose giant Mylar balloon ascended into the sky late last week, sparking fears that his 6-year-old son Falcon was aboard.

A dispatcher with the Larimer County Sheriff's Department declined to release any information about the search, but said the office will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. ET Sunday. Calls to the department's spokeswoman were not immediately returned.

"We anticipate criminal charges will be filed sometime in the near future," Sheriff Jim Alderden told CNN late Saturday.

...and that Gawker's story on Heene's research assistant Robert Thomas is a pretty crazy story about Heene's crusade to get back on TV again that must be read a couple times to be believed.

When my friends called me about the whole balloon episode I was working. I had just moved to a new place and didn't have my television set up. I probably would never even have heard about this, except that a good friend of mine remembered me telling him about Richard several months ago. He told me, "Rob, you need to turn on the tv immediately! That Richard guy you worked with just pulled a massive publicity stunt!"

Richard's story doesn't add up. He is saying he thought Falcon was in the balloon, and that Falcon ran and hid as a result of Richard yelling at him. I've spent a lot of time with them, and Falcon is, first of all, not afraid of his father. I've never once seen Richard's children afraid of him — and I've definitely never seen Falcon go hide. He was one of the most social of the three children.

Secondly, Falcon supposedly hid in that attic in the garage. I've spent a lot of time in his garage, which has a drill press and various welding tools. It's unorganized and chaotic. There's really not so much an attic as some support beams connected with plywood. Being an adult of average height, I couldn't get up into the attic if I'd wanted to, so I don't know how a six-year-old child could have gotten up there. There's not an easy way to access that overhang. Maybe if I'd lifted that child up into the attic, he might have been able to rest up there, but not comfortably.

My doubts and concerns about that story were verified when Falcon's parents asked him on CNN, "why didn't you come out?" And Falcon said, "you guys said we did this for the show." Lights went off in my head. Bells were ringing; whistles were whistling. I said, "Wow, Richard is using his children as pawns to facilitate a global media hoax that's going to give him enough publicity to temporarily attract A-list celebrity status and hopefully attract a network."

Truth is not only stranger than fiction at times, it's just stranger than the truth as well. Hard to say what annoys me more if all this is to be believed, that Heene would use his son for a publicity stunt, or that his end game is making a TV show that's the Bizarro World version of Mythbusters.

This Week's Busted Banks

We're up to 99 seized banks in 2009 with about 11 weeks to go in the year. Time for another 20 or so, it seems.

Regulators shut down San Joaquin Bank in California on Friday, marking the 99th failure this year of a federally insured bank.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of San Joaquin Bank, based in Bakersfield, Calif. It had $775 million in assets and $631 million in deposits as of Sept. 29.

The FDIC said the bank's deposits will be assumed by Citizens Business Bank, based in Ontario, Calif. Its five branches will reopen Monday as branches of Citizens Business Bank.

San Joaquin Bank's failure is expected to cost the FDIC's insurance fund $103 million.

Depositors' money is not in danger. The FDIC is backed by the government, and deposits are guaranteed up to $250,000 per account. But the deposit insurance fund has fallen into the red. The FDIC board recently proposed to have U.S. banks prepay about $45 billion of their insurance premiums - three years' worth.

That plan isn't a long-term remedy for the depleted fund. But it would spare ailing banks the immediate cost of an alternative idea: paying an emergency fee for the second time this year. And the FDIC still has billions in loss reserves apart from the insurance fund.

The 99 bank failures this year compare with 25 last year and three in 2007. It's the highest number in a year since 1992 during the savings-and-loan crisis, when 120 institutions collapsed. Closures peaked during that crisis in 1989, when 534 banks were shuttered.

The most severe financial crisis since the 1930s has hit banks large and small. With unemployment rising, consumer spending slack and businesses shuttered, experts say up to 400 more banks could fail in the next couple of years.

The death watch of the local community bank continues. Too Big To Fail has only benefited the banks that are Too Big To Fail.

What happens when the only banks left are TBTF banks?

It Takes A Villager...

...To defend Village idiocy, apparently. On one hand, the NY Times's David Carr admits that the White House was getting mauled by FOX News...

Until this point, the conflict had been mostly a one-sided affair, with Fox News hosts promoting tax day “tea parties” that focused protest on the new president, and more recently bringing down the presidential adviser Van Jones through rugged coverage that caught the administration, and other news organizations, off guard. During the health care debate, Fox News has put a megaphone to opponents, some of whom have advanced far-fetched theories about the impact of reform. And even farther out on the edge, the network’s most visible star of the moment, Glenn Beck, has said the president has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.”

Administration officials seemed to have decided that they had had enough.

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, said in an interview with The New York Times. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

...then warns they should shut up and take it...

Ah, but pretending has traditionally been a valuable part of the presidential playbook. Smiling and wearing beige even under the most withering news media assault is not only good manners, but also has generally been good politics. While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence.

...then notes that the poor White House is in over its head against a outfit like FOX...

The one weapon all administrations can wield is access, and the White House, making it clear that it will use that leverage going forward, informed Fox News not to expect to bump knees with the president until 2010. But Fox News, as many have pointed out, is not in the access business. They are in the agitation business. And the administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight.

...and finishes by saying the White House should stop picking on poor FOX News, and indeed, that defending themselves is beneath the Presidency.

On the official White House Web site, a blog called Reality Check provides a running tally of transgressions by Fox News. It ends with this: “For even more Fox lies, check out the latest ‘Truth-O-Meter’ feature from Politifact that debunks a false claim about a White House staffer that continues to be repeated by Glenn Beck and others on the network.”

People who work in political communications have pointed out that it is a principle of power dynamics to “punch up “ — that is, to take on bigger foes, not smaller ones. A blog on the White House Web site that uses a “truth-o-meter” against a particular cable news network would not seem to qualify. As it is, Reality Check sounds a bit like the blog of some unemployed guy living in his parents’ basement, not an official communiqué from Pennsylvania Avenue.

The American presidency was conceived as a corrective to the royals, but trading punches with cable shouters seems a bit too common. Perhaps it’s time to restore a little imperiousness to the relationship.

If any of that advice collectively make sense to you, congratulations, you're qualified to be a Village Idiot. I think Carr is saying not to bother to fight back because there's nothing the White House can do about it. Funny. Didn't stop Bush from taking on his opponents with far more robust examples (Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame-Wilson, anyone?) of action.

The only think I'm getting here is no matter what the Obama White House does versus FOX, it's good news for John McCain.

Last Call

President Obama kicked the insurance industry in the teeth today, using his weekly address to go after the industry's ad campaign efforts to kill Obamacare.

In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to challenge industry assertions that legislation will drive up premiums.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.”

Rather than trying to curb costs and help patients, he said, the industry is busy “figuring out how to avoid covering people.”

“And they’re earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exemption from our antitrust laws,” he said, “a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing.”

The president’s attack underscores the sharp break between the White House and the insurance industry as the health care debate moves closer to a climax. When Mr. Obama took office, he and his advisers had hoped to keep insurers at the table to forge a consensus. But as the months passed, the strains grew — until this past week, when industry-financed studies attacking the Democratic plan signaled an open rupture.

It looks like the President has learned the lesson here: the insurance companies were never on the White House's side. When it became clear that this time reform could really happen, they kicked into attack mode.

Glad to see Obama is not backing down. But this legislation is out of his hands. Will the rest of the Dems in Congress get that same message? Doubtful. After all, it'll only take one net vote with the Party of No to filibuster the legislation.

Do you think the insurance companies can get one Democrat to defect? Ask yourselves this: why haven't we seen real health care reform in this country before now?

The answers to both those questions are interlocked. But Obama is playing the kind of hardball needed to win.

His signal of support for reviewing the industry’s antitrust exemption put him in league with Democratic leaders in Congress pushing for repeal or revision of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which was passed in 1945 to keep regulation of insurers in the hands of the states. Although he did not explicitly endorse overturning it, a spokesman said it was the first time he had raised the matter publicly as president.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, testified at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday in favor of getting rid of the exemption. A day later, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House speaker, said, “There is tremendous interest in our caucus” in such a move.

Obama has to be careful here. He's certainly upped the ante this weekend. The insurance companies will respond.

Sooner or later one side will have to go all in...or fold.

Snowe Job Part 6

Ezra Klein's interview with GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe is a real eye-opener, and if you had any hope that Snowe's interested in anything other than her own Sensible Centrist bona fides, they get dashed pretty quickly.

You were the only Republican to support the Senate Finance Committee’s bill. What do you see in the bill that your colleagues don’t?

Well, it’s hard to speak for others. Could be a philosophical difference or a policy difference. They would have liked more time, and I don’t disagree with that. In the Gang of Six, when the deadline was September 15th, we wanted to continue instead of ending at that point, but the chairman felt he had to move forward. There are a lot of issues. I said in the committee the other day I still have concerns.

You mentioned the Gang of Six. Looking back, would you consider that process a success or a failure?

It was an outstanding process. I think that if the American people had had a window into those deliberations people would have felt very encouraged. It’s a rarity today in many ways to have that opportunity to sit down with your colleagues, face to face, several days a week for multiple hours, just working through issues. It didn’t culminate in agreement, but it did establish the foundation and essence for the legislation that was ultimately reported to the Senate Finance Committee.

When Obama was elected, there was a real hope that we’d be entering a less partisan, more cooperative era. Was that an unrealistic expectation?

It shouldn’t be. I think the art of legislating has somewhat been lost here in Congress. It generally just boils down to simple talking points and soundbites, rather than really immersing ourselves in the substance and complexities of any given issue. You really have to take the time to examine all facets of it. People question that this took several months. It should have taken longer, frankly.

The rest of Snowe's answers are equally as depressing and condescending. She talks about affordability, but when Ezra Klein basically says "Look, the public option and mandates would make insurance both affordable now by driving down costs for everyone" Snowe responds with the same psuedo-libertarian "Well, government's not the answer" crap that the rest of the GOP is hiding behind.

And in the end she talks about how the discourse is cheapened because of folks like Glenn Beck, and then turns around and says the mean ol' Democrats won't listen to the reasonable, Sensible Centrists like herself. If they did, why gosh, there'd be no reason for Glenn Beck to attack. Then, she goes on to say that the kind of fundamental change that's needed for the system isn't necessary, and we just need to tweak a few things here or there...

The plan here is simple. Snowe dreams of having a grand compromise for the sake of grand compromise, not for a bill that makes health care reform a reality.

If the Dems can't figure this out, then they deserve their fate in 2010.

Rush Into The Flames

I know I reference Steve Benen's Washington Monthly blog around here a lot, but there's a reason I do so, I respect his opinion and his logic. Today for example he completely takes apart El Rushbo's WSJ op-ed (natch) where the radio gasbag plays the victim card and loses terribly by complaining that the mean old liberal dominated America is against him.

But putting all of that aside, here's the crux of the defense:

The sports media elicited comments from a handful of players, none of whom I can recall ever meeting. Among other things, at least one said he would never play for a team I was involved in given my racial views. My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?

No, Rush, these controversial racial views.

Limbaugh's record of racist commentary ... includes not only a habit of comparing black athletes to gang members but a general hostility toward black people. Limbaugh only recently suggested that having a black president encouraged black children to beat up white children -- he's also compared President Obama's agenda to 'slavery reparations,' used epithets to reference his biracial background, and compared Democrats responding to the concerns of black voters to rape."

The WSJ op-ed concludes that there is an effort underway "to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us."

Yes, The Man is always trying to keep the white conservatives down. It's nice of this multi-millionaire who managed to avoid jail time after a series of drug felonies to explain this to us.

Ouch.

In all seriousness, after nearly two decades of tearing into Democrats, liberals, and anybody else to the left of him unopposed from his little on-air Jabba the Hutt dais, you think he'd develop some sort of thick skin. But no...Rush, like every other Winger out there, just can't take what he's been dishing out for years and years. And now that America has rejected his stupidity and voted the Dems into office overwhelmingly, he laments the fact that suddenly he can't snap his fingers and win the universe anymore.

The real issue is that a bunch of white multi-millionaires told another white multi-millionaire to piss off, and he's taking it out on those mean liberals like a seven-year-old throwing a tantrum.

It's pathetic. While you're at it there, Rush...dig the hole deeper. Blame Obama.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• A battle is shaping up between India and Albania over the remains of Mother Teresa.
• Pakistan has begun its latest ground offensive into Al-Qaeda and Taliban territory.
• Republicans hope targeting embattled Charlie Rangel (NY-D) will win them seats in 2010.
• The growing insider trading case against Galleon Group Raj Rajartanam may issue in a new era of SEC crackdowns.
• Radio pay-for-play legislation is moving through Congress and has reached a possible full vote.

Joe Cheater-man

Steve M. at NMMNB observes that Joe F'ckin Lieberman's half-assed statement that he's thinking about actually not being the member of the Dem caucus to kill Obamacare in the Senate is part of a larger pattern of being a complete assclown, because the Dems refuse to actually punish the guy.

And what evidence is there that anything like that would actually happen? What evidence is there that he would be punished by Democrats -- ever, for anything?

Lieberman's like a member of a married couple who's always cheating, and not even trying to conceal it, then taunting his spouse with stories about what great sex he had in that motel. The Democratic Party is the spouse who covers up insecurity by angrily telling Lieberman that maybe he should just get the hell out and be with the person he had the affair with if the sex was so damn great -- but, in reality, the Democrats really couldn't bear that, so they do whatever will make Lieberman happy. And Lieberman knows the Democrats will always do that; he milks that for everything it's worth, so he never leaves.

And he keeps cheating.

This is not a healthy relationship. But I strongly doubt it's going to get any healthier.

Not until one side or the other leaves the abusive relationship for good. And I'd know which one I'd like to see gone for good from the Senate.

Does anyone here honestly think Lieberman isn't going to stab Obama in the back here?

The Hypocrisy Is Galling

The next time you hear a Republican complain that he or she is being "unfairly silenced" by the "tyranny of the liberal majority", please direct them to this article right here.

Fifty-three House Republicans have signed a letter to the Obama administration asking for the ouster of Kevin Jennings, an official charged with promoting school safety, because of his career as an advocate of teaching tolerance of homosexuality.

“As the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Mr. Jennings has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools — an agenda that runs counter to the values that many parents desire to instill in their children,” the lawmakers write.

They cite as evidence the foreword Mr. Jennings wrote for a book titled “Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue About Sexualities and Schooling” (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999).

When they look at you curiously in dull ignorance and say "But that's not the same thing at all" please kindly tell them to go screw themselves.

It's very cathartic. Trust me.