Friday, August 29, 2008

As you drive from the Larry Craig Memorial Airport

This has been on prominent display lately


Quote of the Day

It is only by ejecting the Republicans from the White House that American voters can send the message that they are still in charge of their country and that gross government incompetence will not go unpunished. Accountability - not personality or rhetoric or colour or age or gender - should be the overriding issue in this election.
Anatole Kaletsky, in the London Times, explaining why it is vitally necessary to kick Republican ass on Election Day.

A polished gem

If you had to go to work or to bed early last night, here is your chance to catch a great speech.


The Old Fart has all the experience

So what he really needed in his VP choice was the likelyhood that he/she could be reasonably expected to live out the first term. So he went for 44 year old Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska. Like the Old Fart she is supposed to be a maverick. Like former Governor Spitzer of New York, she is supposed to be a reformer. And like the aforementioned Spitzer, she began her term as Gov. by using her office to get her former brother in law, a state trooper, fired during a custody battle with sister. Which, naturally, she compounds by firing Alaska's public safety commissioner because he would not fire the trooper, Mike Wooten. While this is not yet equal to the Keating 5, it will do nicely for a VP. And this being Alaska, there is probably a Veco connection yet to be discovered.

Ooops, I almost forgot

You know how it is with us old folks and remembering things, but enough of that.

Happy Birthday John McCain



72 years old and you earned every tic on that clock.

Last night

Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech to 75,000+ enthusiastic supporters. If you missed it, you can watch it here.

At last report John McCain was still trying to get 12,000 fannies to fill the seats in the arena where he intends to announce his VP choice.

Sounds like they are running neck and neck.

Karl Rove says Republicans can't catch a break

And Paul Krugman gives another reason why the Republican Party never should catch a break.
You see, Mr. Goodman’s assertion that lack of health insurance is no problem precisely echoed what President Bush said a year ago: “I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.” That’s because both men — like Mr. Gramm — were just saying in public what modern Republicans say when they talk to each other. Despite attempts to feign sympathy, the leaders of today’s G.O.P. fundamentally feel that Americans complaining about their economic and health care difficulties are, well, just a bunch of whiners.

And that, ultimately, even more than their policy proposals, is what defines the difference between the parties.
In a perfect world, the Republican Party would be broken into millions of little pieces.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Having turned a new page in history in Denver

Tonight we present a classic celebration of the New World from Anton Dvorak.



Dvorak - New World Symphony - 4th Movement

Are the Republicans finally right about something??

Hunter over at The Great Orange Stan can't quite figure out where the Republicans are trying to go with their Fauxming outrage at the columnal decor of the Democrats dais. Fortunately he gets the point at the end.

"Never trust a man who poses in front of columns."


The Big Dog was in fine form last night

If you missed it last night, you can watch it here.


The DOJ likes this canary's song.

And is asking federal and state judges to reduce the sentences of Casino Jack Abramoff as a reward for his most excellent cooperation. I'm waiting to see who else will be perp walked for this.

TurdBlossom tries to kill Lieberschmuck

As a VP candidate, though we have no doubt that Karl would try for real if he thought he could get away with it. It seems that King Turd is 110% behind Romney as the party's choice for VP.
Republican strategist Karl Rove called Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) late last week and urged him to contact Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to withdraw his name from vice presidential consideration, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.

Lieberman dismissed the request, these sources agreed.

Lieberman “laughed at the suggestion and certainly did not call [McCain] on it,” said one source familiar with the details.

“Rove called Lieberman,” recounted a second source. “Lieberman told him he would not make that call.”
From this side of the reality divide, it is hard to see which choice could be worse for the Old Fart.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Wake Up, America!



Dennis fires up the crowd.

Quote of the Day

A woman voting for John McCain would be like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Gov. Anne Richards.

AmericaBlog has this under Coming Attractions



Not really that attractive, now is it?

No way! No how! No McCain!


Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Quote of the Day

McCain is not an unknown quantity - he is a highly excitable politician with a notoriously short temper, who would bring his impetuous and confrontational style into American foreign policy. With the world entering a global economic slump, and old enmities raging in Europe, John McCain as President would be like a flamethrower in a fireworks factory.
Iain McWhirter of the Glasgow Herald, displaying the amazing ability of Europeans to see things that Americans could not have beaten into their heads in a month of Sundays.

The Bathos of an Old Man

Out of touch and out of step with his times. Clinging tightly to the last honorable time in his life. John McCain on the Tonight Show, when asked about his many homes, played the POW card.
"I spent 5 1/2 years in a prison cell without -- I didn't have a house. I didn't have a kitchen table. I didn't have a table. I didn't have a chair," he said.

"I spent those 5 1/2 years ... not because I wanted to get a house when I got out."
The only answer he knows, POW, POW, POW.

Can you say McSame?



I knew you could.

McCain takes Ambien

And this is just the election process, what happens when the phone rings at 3 a.m.? If they can wake the Old Fart, will he really be awake or just sleep walking through a real crisis?

Do you really want to know the answer?


Monday, August 25, 2008

The NY Times hangs out some laundry

This report is so good, I thought it deserves some more time a the top.

The McCains laundry, to be specific. Going back to James Hensley, the Times reveals the source of the Hensley family fortune, how it grew and how well Cindy is maintaining the family business (hint,Anheuser-Busch considers Cindy an absentee owner). This is pretty much a warts and all resume, including the mob connection that Corsi made so much of and Cindy's little drug problem, laid out in a straight forward manner.

This ain't your standard campaign bio and should bring out the wrath of McCain and all his campaign stooges. No barbecue for its reporter David M. Halbfinger.

Are you better off than you were 4 or 8 years ago?


Iraq says agreement to have troops out by 2011

Bush Bunch led by notorious agitator Tony Farto says" Hell no! We won't go!. Seems the Iraqis have some fuzzy notion that it's their country or something.

TPM Muckraker has a good roundup of the various sources.

Another from Tom Terrific

Tom Toles


McCain campaign whining again`

This time they are upset that Madonna doesn't like the Old Fart. And is making a bold statement about it in her new show.

If I say Boo will you say Hoo for the poor little Republicans?

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Monday Music Blogging

And a blues Monday it is with two of the best and some kid they let sit in.



"Blackjack" - Johnny Copeland, Bobby Cray, Albert Collins

From the pen of Jim Morin



Click pic for big

Let us put the POW card behind us

Watch the video and learn what is expected of you.


Quote of the Day

Obama's proposals would raise his own taxes by hundreds of thousands of dollars, in order to cut the taxes of people who are less fortunate than he is. McCain would cut his own taxes even further than they've already been reduced. And that's everything a voter needs to know about these two men.
TPM reader's perceptive observation of the candidates different tax positions.

Republican campaign strategy

When you have no issues to run on.
The state campaign headquarters for Sen. Barack Obama was vandalized early this morning in St. Paul.

According to St. Paul Police:

Officers got a call of property damage in the 700 block of Raymond Avenue at about 1:15 a.m. When they arrived, they found two big plate glass windows and a glass door smashed, and paint splattered on the building's exterior and interior.
No hakenkreuz yet.

Joe says Hello!



And the Old Fart, well all you can say is paraphrase of Ronald Reagan, "There he goes again". Seems he can't stop lying. And like a dog that got in the henhouse, you will never break him of the habit once he got a taste.

Well slap my ass and call me Sally!

Pat Buchanan gets it right. In fairness to the old bloviator, he does love his country even if you disagree with the way he shows it. And that's why he is right on the mark with McCains foriegn policy guy, Randy Scheunemann.
According to conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, Sen. John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann is a 'dual loyalist,' 'neocon warmonger' involved in activities that 'none dare call treason.'

Scheunemann's former employer, Orion Strategies, is a lobbying firm with strong ties to Mikheil Saakashvili's administration in Georgia.

Since Georgia attempted to retake South Ossetia by force, triggering a sharp, violent rebuke by Russian forces, Sen. McCain has been by far the most strident advocate of US support for the former Soviet state. And his top adviser, says Buchanan, may well be the next Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski.

"He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man," he wrote.
McCain has a pocketful of snakes working for him and for themselves. The one thing they won't work for is our country, no money in that.

Mar Halperin puts head up own ass

Says he sees the sun shining. His remarks on "This Week" today.
"My hunch is that is gonna be one of the worst moments in the entire campaign for one of the candidates, but it's Barack Obama," he said.

Halperin thinks McCain's inability to remember that he owns seven homes actually hurts his opponent.

Halperin said that the Obama campaign's willingness to run ads about McCain's ignorance of his own properties has "opened the door" for the McCain campaign to launch harsher ads of its own.
Like the Old Fart needs an excuse to throw another pile of slime. Somebody should point out to Little George Stephanopoulos that the Halperin fellow is simply too stupid to be allowed on TV.

It's hard to believe he did it for free

Newsweek reports on the prompt service provided to Sen Stevens in the senators efforts to help his pipeline buddy, and prove his worth.
A two-year-old letter by Vice President Dick Cheney that pushed a controversial Alaska natural-gas pipeline bill is getting renewed scrutiny because of recently disclosed evidence in the Justice Department's corruption case against Sen. Ted Stevens. In a conversation secretly tape-recorded by the FBI on June 25, 2006, Stevens discussed ways to get a pipeline bill through the Alaska Legislature with Bill Allen, an oil-services executive accused of providing the senator with about $250,000 in undisclosed financial benefits. According to a Justice motion, Stevens told Allen, "I'm gonna try to see if I can get some bigwigs from back here and say, 'Look … you gotta get this done'." Two days later, Cheney wrote a letter to the Alaska Legislature urging members to "promptly enact" a bill to build the pipeline. The letter was considered unusual because the White House rarely contacts state lawmakers about pending legislative matters. It also angered state Democrats, who accused Cheney of pushing oil-company interests. The former executive director of Cheney's energy task force had gone to work as a lobbyist for British Petroleum, one of three firms slated to build the pipeline.
It's hard to believe Cheney did it from the goodness of his heart, he would need a heart to do that.

The evil that men do lives after them

And let us not forget the evil that women, Monica Goodling comes to mind, do. It also lives after them and the NY Times has an analysis of the immigration "judges" appointed for their political purity and the results of their time on the job.
Immigrants seeking asylum in the United States have been disproportionately rejected by judges whom the Bush administration chose using a conservative political litmus test, according to an analysis of Justice Department data.

The analysis suggests that the effects of a patronage-style selection process for immigration judges — used for three years before it was abandoned as illegal — are still being felt by scores of immigrants whose fates are determined by the judges installed in that period.

The data focuses on 16 judges who were vetted for political affiliation before being hired and have since ruled on at least 100 cases each.

Comparison of their records to others in the same cities shows that as a group they ruled against asylum-seekers significantly more often than colleagues who were appointed, as the law requires, under politically neutral rules.
All of which has given rise to a study that came to a sad conclusion.
the facts of a case may be less important in determining whether someone is deported than which judge hears the case.
Life and death as a crap shoot, brilliant!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

As we knew all along

Conservatives are a majority only in their own minds. The bulk of Americans will prefer a liberal position if presented an honest choice. The only thing conservatives have going for them is an ability to becloud and befuddle the minds on decent people so they act against their own best interests.

Keith and Gene have some fun with the Old Fart

From Fridays Countdown.


From the pen of Ben Sargent


He'll have to worry about which of the 7 kitchen tables to sit at

Joe Biden skewers the Old Fart from the git go!

Ohio Republicans bitching about law they passed.

And in writing about the latest round of Republican whining, the Toledo Blade give a good thumbnail history of Republican voter fraud, Ohio style.
NATIONALLY and in Ohio, the Republican Party has a long and shameful history of suppressing the vote to gain partisan advantage in elections, mostly by targeting minorities. Now they're at it again, with complaints about a law written, ironically, by GOP operatives in the General Assembly.

The law, which took effect at the beginning of 2006, created a five-day window at the end of September during which Ohioans will be able to register to vote, then immediately cast their ballot under provisions that allow both "no fault" absentee voting along with early voting, starting 35 days before the traditional Nov. 4 Election Day.

Republicans now claim the statute constitutes an "illegal loophole" that raises the threat of election fraud. But the law was in use in 2006 without problems and it wasn't an issue until Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign announced a push to take advantage of it among the state's 470,000 college students.
God forbid US citizens should be allowed to vote, especially if they aren't going to vote Republican. But, as the Blade points out, this is just another attempt in a long history of Republican skulduggery.
Suppressing the vote harks back to the poll taxes and faux citizenship tests in the post-Civil War era that were employed to prevent newly enfranchised blacks from voting.

In more recent times, another tactic was to spread the ominous word in black precincts before Election Day that anyone showing up to vote just might risk arrest if they happen to have any outstanding warrants.

The latest versions of vote suppression have the same goal but utilize less-blatant devices. They include legalization of practices aimed at thwarting certain groups that might not vote Republican; unnecessarily confusing directives on registration and voting like the ones issued in 2004 by then-Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, and lawsuits, which GOP functionaries in Columbus are threatening now.
With a Democrat as Secretary of State this year, the good people of Ohio have a chance at an honest election this year.

A mutual admiration society

Or how much the Old Fart has learned since the Keating 5 about not getting caught.
"I have carefully avoided situations that might even tangentially be construed as a less than proper use of my office," he wrote in his memoir, "Worth the Fighting For" (Random House, 2002).

McCain once publicly criticized Diamond as lobbying too hard for his own financial interests. In 1995, McCain called it "unheard of" that Diamond had hired a Washington lobbyist to try to block construction of a U.S. government building in Tucson that threatened to take away some of his rental income. "I didn't talk to him for one year," Diamond said of McCain. "I was annoyed."
Ooo! Those big boys play rough.

O tempora o mores!

After posting about the McCains non-campaign bio in the NY Times today, I was thinking about how much we have changed as a nation over the span of my adult life. I have voted in every presidential election since Humphrey-Nixon and looking back I was struck by a terrible realization. Back in 1968, if a candidate had even one of the Old Fart's failings, adultery, divorce, Keating 5, drug using wife or even suspicion of failure to follow campaign finance laws that he helped write, his candidacy would not even get out of the gate. And don't even get me started about a guy who is living off his wife's money. Today we see him running competitively with the Democrat in the race for the White House. Have we, as a nation, really sunk that low? I hope not. I pray that November will show that the majority of American voters retain some sense of moral and ethical decency.

Obama picks Biden for VP

A good choice and one that I will work for and so should you, unless you hate your country. If there is a downside, it is that now some of the more loosely wrapped dittoheads may feel it is OK to shoot Obama, knowing an old white guy will take his place. And you know Rush will be giving them encouragement.

Once a Republican, always a Republican

Despite his efforts to overwhelm the Democrats with his money in the primary race for NY-26, Jack Davis is still what he has been for most of his adult life, a Republican. And like most old Republicans, he is not familiar with the combined powers of video and YouTube to show you as you are. And Jack gave a speech one day. And Jack, living up on the northern frontier of the US, is afraid of little brown people from the south. And Jack was recorded at that speech, which is now on YouTube.
Congressional candidate Jack Davis, in a speech earlier this year, warned that increasing immigration from Mexico could lead to a new civil war between northern states and Mexican-influenced Southern states that may want to secede from the United States.

“In the latter part of this century or the next, Mexicans will be a majority in many of the states and could therefore take control of the state government using the democratic process,” Davis said in the speech. “They could then secede from the United States, and then we might have another civil war.”
And like a true Republican, Jack thinks a great big wall will solve all our problems. And what makes this special? Jacks campaign style does not include going out to meet the people, Jack does not often speak in public. This must be very important to that old Republican for him to have done so. The upcoming New York primary is an important time for Democrats to tell the old Republican where to go, and DC ain't the place.

John Powers is running against the old crank, give him a hand.

Friday, August 22, 2008

What do you get with a nine car motorcade?

Why a cappucino at the local Starbucks, of course. Everybody who is anybody does it. God forbid you should be seen with only eight cars in your 'cade! John McCain proves he is "one of us."

Out of Touch


You are what you eat

But what you eat is not always what you think it is, fishwise at least. Some students took advantage of available technology to see if, according to simple DNA testing, the fish they were buying matched the label.
They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species.
So if you think something is fishy about your fish you may be right.

The only numbers you need to know

There has been much gas passed about tax plans by The Old Fart and Obama. The only thing you really need to remember is this.
McCain would get a $300,000 tax break if his proposals were enacted, middle class Americans would save only $319.
'Nuff said!

Not really, Krugman has more, if you need details.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

McClatchy hears a hoot

Or two or three. Having put up a story with the ridiculous headline" Can Obama win over those voters who find him pompous?", they were justifiably filled with pages of comments on the stupidity of the reporter and the obvious racism of the remarks reported. My favorite.
Can Obama win over journalists who find him uppity and arrogant?

If McCain can buy them with a free sandwiches and beer....how much does it cost to buy you guys?
Certainly cheaper than a congressman.

Quote of the Day

I don't think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples' faces and calling them racist. Instead we need to educate them that if they care about holding onto their jobs, their health care, their pensions, and their homes. If they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers, there's only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who's on our side, only one candidate who's going to stand up for our families, only one candidate who's earned our votes...and his name is Barack Obama!

Do you think John McCain will do these things for America?

I don't.
Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer, reminding union members why their best interest will be served by Barack Obama.

When John McCain has a housing crisis

UPDATE: In honor of the Old Fart having a McCain moment when asked how many houses he owned, I am elevating this post. You can read what the Old Fart said and how Obama responded here.

It is about which house to use this week. Sure, the one in Virginia, if he is making an appearance in the Senate, or the one in Sedona, when he throws a barbecue for his base, is easy, but what about the other 51 weeks in a year?



From The Real John McCain

The Democratic response


Tom Toles Thursday


The Office of the Vice President

Gail Collins takes a look at the various possibilities for this position and has some fun with them, something we all need after suffering through the 24/7 speculation these last weeks. She potshots all of them, but save her best lines for Judas Joe Lieberschmuck, "the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000". She unloads her best one liners on the little man, like this
one politician who was the vice-presidential nominee for both parties. We would speak of it with awe, like that story about the two-headed turtle in Brooklyn.
Or this
Lieberman is certainly capable of dumping everything he has ever believed in and assuring the anti-choice, anti-union, anti-government folk that he is on their team. But then the magic fades and all you’ve got is a conservative Republican who likes the environment teamed with a guy who will do anything to move up.
Enjoy.

R.I.P. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones

A tragic loss to your family, your district and your country.

Republican accountability

As Raw Story reports, Diaper Dave Vitter is having his feet held to the fire by the FEC. Actually, it's more like his checkbook as the FEC ruled that he can not use campaign funds to pay his legal bills. Oo, that has to hurt. So he has to pay $160,000 himself, unless someone generously picks up the tab for him, in exchange for a few of his phone numbers no doubt.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Holy Cow! McCain wasn't tortured!

Andrew Sullivan is a man with impeccable conservative credentials, so when he says something like this, it should make you think twice.
In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet.
Now ain't that just a kick in the nuts. But Andrew closes his piece in The Atlantic with the piece de resistance,
in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture. Someone somewhere cried out in pain for the same reasons McCain once did. And McCain let it continue.
Is there no position that John McCain will not turn his back on?

Thanks to AmericaBlog and The Great Orange Stan

Another good ad


Joe Lieberschmuck commits to the Dark Side

Perhaps it was his being described by noted Associated Press reporter Nedra Prickler as "the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000" or maybe it is the onset of Alzheimers, who knows. What we do know is that Joe Lieberschmuck will be speaking for his butthole buddy The Old Fart at the Republican convention. He says he won't go "full Zell" on Obama, but when a man's word has been shown to be worthless, no one really believes him.

In a normal world, the real reason the Old Fart keeps him around would be obvious to Judas Joe. Standing next to Lieberschmuck the Old Fart looks younger.

PS The AP did not let Ms. Prickler write this report.

And back in Iraq

We get news of a less than perfect military operation that may or may not have been assisted by US troops.
Iraqi forces raided the provincial government compound in Diyala Province in a chaotic operation early Tuesday, killing the governor's secretary and seizing computers and cars before local police engaged them in a two-hour gun battle, police and local officials said.

Four policemen were wounded, according to a local police official. Local police and government officials claimed the raiders had U.S. support, but U.S. spokesmen said the U.S. military was unaware of the raid and provided no assistance. Iraq's Interior Ministry said the raid is being investigated.

The Iraqi forces arrested Hussein al Zubaidi, provincial council member and head of the provincial security committee. A nearby raid conducted almost simultaneously by unidentified armed forces arrested the president of Diyala University.

A spokesman for the Iraqi Diyala Operations Center told McClatchy the raiding party was a "special unit" of the Iraqi Army, which works closely with U.S. forces. Diyala governor Raad Rashid told McClatchy the troops wore U.S. fatigues and carried U.S.-issued equipment.
This is just a taste of what many are expecting after the US leaves, but leave we must. Even a stay of a hundred years would not change the dynamic behind this action.

Tom Toles today



Clik pic to enlarge

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Another great DNC ad.


Pat Oliphant sees the real McCain



Click image to enlarge.


And if Pat can't convince you, how's about Jack Cafferty?

Come September 9 o'clock is the time, MSNBC is the place!

Rachel Maddow will be taking over Dan Abrams time slot. WooHooo!

Dan we hardly knew ye, which was your problem,

Quote of the Day

His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent.
Associated Press, from the original (my highlighting). And I thought Nedra Pickler was one of their writers.

Monday, August 18, 2008

A fellow POW speaks out

And he doesn't want the Old Fart as president because he know what sort of person OF really is.
I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.
We all got a chance to see how eager he was to fight the Russkis for his client, Georgia.

The New York Times looks at The Daily Show

And what it sees is good, a comedy program that will pick up the ball when the news media drops it.
When Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN. And a study this year from the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded that “ ‘The Daily Show’ is clearly impacting American dialogue” and “getting people to think critically about the public square.”
Life is not all beer and skittles for the crew though. Sometimes reality steals their best lines.
Given a daily reality in which “over-the-top parodies come to fruition,” Mr. Stewart said, satire like “Dr. Strangelove” becomes “very difficult to make.” “The absurdity of what you imagine to be the dark heart of conspiracy theorists’ wet dreams far too frequently turns out to be true,” he observed. “You go: I know what I’ll do, I’ll create a character who, when hiring people to rebuild the nation we invaded, says the only question I’ll ask is, ‘What do you think of ‘Roe v. Wade?’ It’ll be hilarious. Then you read that book about the Green Zone in Iraq” — “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran — “and you go, ‘Oh, they did that.’ I mean, how do you take things to the next level?”
Come what may, it is a much needed part of our Daily Lives.

Mushy is now toast

Pervez Musharraf has become Pakistan's Nixon.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Monday Music Blogging

A triple play today for two of the first musicians I ever heard on an FM radio. We have two plays from the last time Tom & Jerry played together and one of my favorite early tunes.






Republicans respect property rights

For themselves, but if the property belongs to others, well it looks like they will just take what they please without so much as a "by your leave". Newsweek reports on the difficulty that the Old Fart has been having with music in his advertising. As you may recall, his latest run in was with Jackson Browne, but Browne was just the latest in a string of wrongfully appropriated property. Previous offenses have involved ABBA, Jon Hall, John Mellencamp Chuck Berry and Frankie Valli.

Obviously they don't understand the Republican stand on property rights, "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine, until you catch me".

Quote of the Day

The guys with McCain stuff say it isn't selling. Even if people are going to vote for him, they aren't going to buy his apparel.
Scott Jefferson, talking about the growing market for Obama merchandise

The Old Fart was for the Bush Doctrine before Bush was

And that is what makes him dangerous. Like the bomber pilot he was, his only answer to any perceived threat is to drop more iron on their heads, whose heads does not really matter.
Whether through ideology or instinct, though, Mr. McCain began making his case for invading Iraq to the public more than six months before the White House began to do the same. He drew on principles he learned growing up in a military family and on conclusions he formed as a prisoner in North Vietnam. He also returned to a conviction about “the common identity” of dangerous autocracies as far-flung as Serbia and North Korea that he had developed consulting with hawkish foreign policy thinkers to help sharpen the themes of his 2000 presidential campaign.

While pushing to take on Saddam Hussein, Mr. McCain also made arguments and statements that he may no longer wish to recall. He lauded the war planners he would later criticize, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. (Mr. McCain even volunteered that he would have given the same job to Mr. Cheney.) He urged support for the later-discredited Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi’s opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, and echoed some of its suspect accusations in the national media. And he advanced misleading assertions not only about Mr. Hussein’s supposed weapons programs but also about his possible ties to international terrorists, Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks.
Or as one Republican put it,"He doesn’t listen carefully to people and make reasoned judgments." And even if the doctrine worked, after 7 years of Bush futility in Iraq we no longer have a military to back it up. The Old Fart goes beyond being the same as Our Little Prince, he is worse.


Target letters for Blackwater mercenaries

Indicating a narrowing of the DoJ investigation to the actions of the individuals. At this point, the recipients should be properly lawyered up as the next step may be indictments. As these are peripheral players of no importance to the power structure, they probably will be indicted, at which point Blackwater has stated they will be thrown under the bus. They knew the job was dangerous when they took it, they just didn't know who their friends weren't.

Will the real John McCain ever stand up?

We can only hope so. Frank Rich is doing his part to highlight the Old Fart so generously covered up by the Barbecue Boys of the press. His column today brings out many of the character points we know and a few goodies that we hadn't heard yet.

Some of those who know McCain best — Republicans — are tougher on him than the press is. Rita Hauser, who was a Bush financial chairwoman in New York in 2000 and served on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the administration’s first term, joined other players in the G.O.P. establishment in forming Republicans for Obama last week. Why? The leadership qualities she admires in Obama — temperament, sustained judgment, the ability to play well with others — are missing in McCain. “He doesn’t listen carefully to people and make reasoned judgments,” Hauser told me. “If John says ‘I’m going with so and so,’ you can’t count on that the next morning,” she complained, adding, “That’s not the man we want for president.”

McCain has even prompted alarms from the right’s own favorite hit man du jour: Jerome Corsi, who Swift-boated John Kerry as co-author of “Unfit to Command” in 2004 and who is trying to do the same to Obama in his newly minted best seller, “The Obama Nation.”

Corsi’s writings have been repeatedly promoted by Sean Hannity on Fox News; Corsi’s publisher, Mary Matalin, has praised her author’s “scholarship.” If Republican warriors like Hannity and Matalin think so highly of Corsi’s research into Obama, then perhaps we should take seriously Corsi’s scholarship about McCain. In recent articles at worldnetdaily.com, Corsi has claimed (among other charges) that the McCain campaign received “strong” financial support from a “group tied to Al Qaeda” and that “McCain’s personal fortune traces back to organized crime in Arizona.”

I wonder if the Old Fart will keep a sense of humor when this gets beyond the wingnut sphere of blogtopia.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

MoDo is picking on Li'l Georgie

And doing a darn good job of it. Of course it is unfair to let anybody with more than a 3rd grade education attack Dear Leader, but when Ms. Do gets warmed up it sure can be fun to watch.
He has spent 469 days of his presidency kicking back at his ranch, and 450 days cavorting at Camp David. And there’s still time to mountain-bike through another historic disaster.

As Russian troops continued to manhandle parts of Georgia on Friday, President Bush chastised Russian leaders that “bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century” — and then flew off to Crawford.

His words might have carried more weight if he, Cheney and Rummy had not kicked off the 21st century with a ham-fisted display of global bullying and intimidation modeled after Sherman’s march through the other Georgia.
That's our Bush!

Just in case Barry needs some help

People For The American Way have a petition asking Sen. Obama to pick a Progressive for his VP. You can also leave a suggestion for your favorite Progressive.

Do it here.

So you think you know what's up in Georgia

Read this and see how well you stack up to someone who has been there. It's not often you get a clear eyed assessment of the situation in a newspaper these days.

Andrew J Bacevich on Bill Moyers

It is a must see/read, so go watch the video or read the transcript while it is still possible to correct the disastrous course of American foreign policy. His main point is that American triumphalism is dragging our country toward the brink of destruction. His solution is simple to see and nigh impossible to implement, Americans must change the way they live. TomDispatch has a further examination of what we can expect if we do not get our house in order.

Update on the late Michael Ledeen

Having died over a year and a half ago, Michael Ledeen is finally leaving the American Enterprise Institute. Expressing their sorrow at his departure, many colleagues noted that once you got used to the smell, he was very easy to work with.

Can you say "Police State"?

I knew you could. And you may as well get comfortable with it because even the best intentioned leaders will not easily give up powers taken by their predecessor, regardless of the illegality of those powers.
The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.
It is curious that the executive orders establishing this intrusion on personal liberty are accused of being issued to "lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era." What is established by executive order can be rescinded by executive order, but it probably won't be. It is easier to get comfortable with these intrusions than to respect the Constitution. After all, the Constitution is almost as old as McCain.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Somebody's dream ticket



Well, they do seem to have a certain chemistry,

Galloway on George and Georgia

It's not pretty but it shows the emptiness that George Bush has made of this country.
Things have truly come to a sorry pass when both our military and our diplomatic threats are as empty as our national treasury, and the Russians of all people can afford to laugh them off.

Bush and Cheney seven and a half years ago inherited control of the world's only reigning superpower, and in that short time they've squandered our military power, our international good name and our national treasury.

The only sadder sight in a week full of sad sights was a John McCain op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal with the headline: "We Are All Georgians."

Not really, senator. As campaign slogans go, "Ich bin ein Georgian" just doesn’t cut it.
From America the Beautiful to America the Third World.

And the saddest part, some Georgians still think the US military will arrive to save the day.

The WaPo wonders if McCain was a little uppity

When he was spouting off about his client Georgia recently. Granted, the real president was cowering in the bomb shelter at the time but some think it may have been a wee bit presumptuous.

English is a beautiful language

With it you can conjure up any image you want in the mind of the listener. The NY Times has a story on the use of language by banks to convince home owners that a second mortgage was not "hocking your house" but "accessing your equity". But all of it covered the fact that, in the end, homeowners were simply looting their own savings.

Krugman Friday

Today Paul puts forth a frightening proposition. The global economy is at the mercy of the local Know-Nothings. The good doctor puts it better than I do.
Angell was right to describe the belief that conquest pays as a great illusion. But the belief that economic rationality always prevents war is an equally great illusion. And today’s high degree of global economic interdependence, which can be sustained only if all major governments act sensibly, is more fragile than we imagine.
Which is a very good reason why the President should be someone whose mouth is hardwired to his brain with fail-safe circuits and not some shoot from the lip septuagenarian.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Another Quote of the Day

"The problem with international law for a superpower is that it is a constraint on overweening ambition. Its virtue is that it constrains the aggressive ambitions of others. Bush gutted it because he thought the United States would not need it anytime soon. But Russia is now demonstrating that the Bush doctrine can just as easily be the Putin doctrine. And that leaves America less secure in a world of vigilante powers that spout rhetoric about high ideals to justify their unchecked military interventions. It is the world that Bush has helped build."
Juan Cole, clarifying how well the Bush Doctrine, a key element in the Bush legacy, works.

Social Security 73 years old today



Still going strong and only 1 year older than John McCain, who receives $24,000 a year in SSI payments..

McSame




Quote of the Day

But there is no excuse for what the McCain campaign is doing on the "putting America first" front. There is no way to balance it, or explain it other than as evidence of a severe character defect on the part of the candidate who allows it to be used.
Joe Klein, referring to the latest wave of slime coming from the Old Fart and the Republicans. Character flaw is being way too nice. Hysteria better describes the McCain atmosphere.

Thursday's Toon

From the pen of Nick Anderson


John McCain is no Teddy Roosevelt

Timothy Egan, writing in the NYT today, looks at the two men and finds little in common between them. Indeed any any commonality begins with their being Republicans although Teddy was a true Progressive and Johnny has spent his life trying to halt progress.
From nearly every perspective, the John McCain of 2008 is no Teddy Roosevelt.

You start with the obvious: Roosevelt was the youngest man to become president, sworn into office in 1901 at the age of 42, after McKinley was shot. McCain, if elected, would be the oldest at 72.

McCain has attacked Barack Obama for his popularity, on the advice of Karl Rove acolytes in his camp who think that being a global celebrity is a bad thing.

You want celebrity? As the most popular American in the dawning decade of the American Century, Teddy Roosevelt was a global superstar — “the most popular human being that has ever existed in the United States,” as Mark Twain wrote.
Both had their images created in war, but where Johnny never met a war he didn't want to start, Teddy knew the value of real diplomacy. And it was Teddy who used the phrase “malefactors of great wealth”, it is Johnny and Cindy who qualify for that title.

In no way of any substance can John McCain be favorably compared to Teddy Roosevelt. If you don't believe me, consider this little known fact that Mr Egan reveals.
McCain sidles up to Big Oil and calls for more drilling, whereas Roosevelt went after the resource monopolies. When Standard Oil donated $100,000 to his campaign, he requested that it be sent back.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Jane Mayer gets a Colbert Bump


Are Afghanistan and Iraq US territories?

Perhaps in the Old Farts mind they are and this prompted the Old Fart to let fly with this WHOPPER!


Known associate of convicted felon raising money for McCain

Not that this is a problem for the Old Fart. He has long known that the criminal element has access to funds denied honest people. I'm sure he and Ralph Reed will have a grand time swapping Casino Jack stories as Ralph's people hump in the contributions.

The Height of Presumption

McCain may be a Republican, but he is not the pretzelnut nor is he or any of his lobbyists yet named, much less confirmed, as Secretary of State or Defense. You would never know it as he continues to pass wind in the troubling situation between Russia and Georgia. He is even sending his seconds, Graham and Lieberschmuck, to Georgia, the better to challenge Pooty-Poot to a duel, no doubt. While his concern for his top aide's client is commendable, his constant barking, like some little yappy dog, without any obvious input from the REAL State Dept. merely shows how empty his ideas are and how constrained US options are after 7 years of Bushovik foreign policy failure.

Some one should shorten up his leash before he damages the US position further.

Rachel explains Georgia

On KO last night.



PS Notice the sitting ovation for Joe Lieberscmucks remarks.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

19 Miles to Baghdad



Lizzie West and The White Buffalo

Mike Mukasey was a respected judge, once upon a time

Then he was lured by the siren song of DC and became one more boot licking lackey of the Bushoviks, willing to piss on his principles in order to please his new masters. And one way to please them was to refrain from any criminal investigations, even if Dick Cheney slips his handlers and starts shooting strangers on the Mall. Letting the DoJ goodlings get away was an easy one.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday rejected the idea of criminally prosecuting former Justice Department employees who improperly used political litmus tests in hiring decisions, saying he had already taken strong internal steps in response to a “painful” episode.
He has taken steps so that the next time we won't know about it.

The Ballad of Exxon John



Music for a "maverick"

Thanks again to AmericaBlog

EXTRA GOODIES: The Jed Report is making some fine videos these days.

Is this why the Republicans wanted to downsize the military?

The Congressional Budget Office has released a report revealing that we the people have paid $100 Billion for contractors and mercenaries in Iraq, so far. And what did we get for our money?
The Pentagon’s reliance on outside contractors in Iraq is proportionately far larger than in any previous conflict, and it has fueled charges that this outsourcing has led to overbilling, fraud and shoddy and unsafe work that has endangered and even killed American troops. The role of armed security contractors has also raised new legal and political questions about whether the United States has become too dependent on private armed forces on the 21st-century battlefield...

Dina L. Rasor, an author and independent expert on contracting fraud, said she believed that the $100 billion cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office might be low, since there were virtually no reliable audits of or controls on spending during the first years of the war. “It is a shocking number, but I still don’t think it is the full cost,” Ms. Rasor said. “I don’t think there have been any credible cost numbers for the Iraq war. There was so much money spent at the beginning of the war, and nobody knows where it went.”

Peter W. Singer, a defense contracting expert at the Brookings Institution, said the biggest problem was that the administration contracted out so much work in Iraq, almost no thought had been given to an overall strategy to determine which jobs and functions should be handled by the government, and which could be turned over to private companies without damaging the military effort.
From the beginning the Bushoviks were intent on minimizing the Army role to maximize the profit for their friends. Remember that when a Republican says privitization, he only wants to privitize public money into his pocket.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Celebrate Barack's new ad



And one from the DNC


Michael Moore has some advice for Democrats

The Guardian has an excerpt from his current book "Mike's Election Guide". In this particular part, he tells Democrats how they can blow what should be a slam dunk election and give us four more years of Know-Nothing government. The key is here,
After the debacles of Iraq, Katrina, gas prices, home foreclosures, our standing in the world, the failure to capture Bin Laden, and revealing the identity of a CIA agent in an act of revenge, it would seem that Barack Obama should be on a cakewalk to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The man should be able to sleep his way through the rest of the campaign season.

Ha! Think again. How many Democrats does it take to lose the most easily winnable election in American history? Not many. Just a few "close advisers" to Barack Obama who tell him a bunch of asinine stuff and he ends up listening to them instead of his own heart. As the party hacks in the past two elections have proven, once they get the candidate's ear, the rest of us might just as well order pizza and stay inside for the next four years.
I don't know about you, but I'm not that crazy about pizza.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Monday Music Blogging

Evie Sands


R.I.P. Isaac Hayes

From Shaft to Chef you always knew what you were doing, and always got the hot chicks.

What a (slim) majority of Americans don't want to believe

Drill, baby, drill! On the acres you already lease.



Oh, and about those royalties?

Thanx be to AmericaBlog for the vid

We don't need no stinking accountability

Newsweek has a look at how Freddie and Fannie used their enormous clout to stop efforts to end their mortgage madness.
It was when Roy Barnes started talking about accountability that the Feds began marching into Georgia. Barnes found himself besieged by lobbyists from major banks and national regulators—as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage issuers whose mandate is to help people obtain affordable homes at fair prices; today, Fannie and Freddie are so financially fragile that the government has agreed to bail them out if necessary.

The major mortgage issuers hinted that they would turn Georgia into a financial pariah if the state made them liable. They let Barnes know in no uncertain terms that he was something of a "country bumpkin" when it came to banking, says his legislative aide, Chris Carpenter. As Barnes recalls, "They would say—and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were part of it—'This is a complex global market. If you start interfering with the free flow of money, then Georgia will become an island that has no credit'. I kept telling them, 'You're in for a crash here'."
So Roy Barnes was right and Freddie and Fannie are in line for a federal bailout with no requirement that they reform or make any effort to clean up their acts.

Regulation is bad, em-kay?

The President of the United States



I wonder if he autographed it for some lucky person?

Some Ben Sargent for Sunday


Lieberschmuck tries to buy his seat

In an effort to save his committee chair the erstwhile Democrat and perennial asshole Joe Lieberschmuck gave $100,000 to the DSCC. This might keep his chair intact until the end of this session of Congress but we believe it should have no effect on the effect on the new Congress. His weregild is for what he has done and a schmuck like Joe probably thinks this will let him continue his fucked up ways.

A reminder to women voters

John McCain will put you in your place if you put him in the White House.
When it comes to his rough public treatment of women, McCain and his apologists have the excuse at hand that he's an early-'60s, martini-and-mistress Mad Men kind of guy, an image not without its retro charm. One of the fascinations of the series is the way it allows us to see the open culture of sexism at work. It doesn't happen like that anymore, so it's a little like a CGI effect, comparable to seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger sit up after a shotgun blast to the chest in Terminator. (And like the Mad Men lead, Don Draper, McCain is a war hero, a status that wipes clean all slates, including Draper stealing a dead soldier's name and McCain's cheating on his first wife with Cindy.)
Come November, do something good for yourself.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

If this is the way he runs his campaign

The NY Times has a look at the way the McCain campaign works and it ain't pretty.
Senator John McCain is so quick to pick up his gold-colored cellphone to solicit advice — from senators, campaign consultants, even the stray former deputy press secretary — that aides, concerned about his tendency to adopt the last opinion he has heard, have tried to cut back on the time he has to make calls.

Mr. McCain is known to sign off on big campaign decisions and then to march off his own reservation. Two weeks ago, he publicly disagreed with his own spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, after she used a line of attack against Senator Barack Obama that he had approved after careful strategizing within his campaign. Ms. Hazelbaker raced out of the Virginia campaign headquarters and refused to take Mr. McCain’s calls of apology, aides said, and a plan to have Republican members of Congress use the same critical line about Mr. Obama’s foreign trip fell apart.

Out of his hearing, Mr. McCain is called the White Tornado by some people who have worked for him over the years. Throughout his presidential campaign, he has been the overseer of a kingdom of dissenting camps, unclear lines of command and an unsettled atmosphere that keeps aides constantly on edge.
If you thought the current pinchwit in the White House was bad, imagine how fucked this country would be under the Old Fart's style of leadership. His ego would never let his VP run the show for him.

First Paris, now Obama

It seems that "celebrities" are better able to develop energy plans than guys who cheat on their wives.


Support the USO

This link goes to a page where you can donate for prepaid phone cards for the troops. Give them another link to home and family so far away.

The Republican fall back position

Every campaign has a last ditch stand they will resort to if all else fails. In Wisconsin it appears that some of the Republican faithful have let the cat out of the bag a little too soon.
The Democratic Party headquarters for Vernon and Crawford counties in downtown Viroqua was vandalized Thursday with a racial slur spray-painted over a sign promoting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

It is the second time in recent weeks that the office’s front windows were defaced with spray paint. On July 15, at midday, vandals spray-painted the words “McCain: He’s a vet” on the front windows, in addition to other messages.
The most recent incident included a racial slur about the Illinois senator’s run for the White House. The presumptive Democratic nominee is black.
This is the lowest of the low and probably where more than a few Republicans feel most comfortable.

Or as Mel Brooks so eloquently put it.


Stephen Colbert knew the truth back in 2006

Remember this from 2006?


Another McCain solution

To a very real problem that he created.


Just another day in Iraq

As various elements continue their struggle for power and control.
The death toll from a blast in a market in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar rose to 25 on Saturday, after four of the six dozen people injured died from their wounds, a security official said.

The official, who was familiar with the police investigation, said the blast was carried out by a lone Sunni Turkoman suicide bomber from Tal Afar, whose identity was established after forensic tests on his remains. The bomber had been released from detention four months ago under an amnesty passed by parliament earlier this year, he added...

In scattered violence Saturday, a bodyguard who works for Youth and Sports minister Jassim Mohammed Ja'afar was gunned down outside his home near the city of Kirkuk, according to a police source who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to disclose the information.

Also in northern Iraq, unidentified gunmen shot dead a 50-year-old woman outside her home in the al-Maamoun district in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
And the coalition of the paid was diminshed slightly as Georgia began the withdrawal of their 2000 troops more urgently needed at home.
Meanwhile, Georgia -- the third largest contributor to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq -- said it's pulling out its 2,000-strong contingent from Iraq to join the fighting in the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

Col. Bondo Maisuradze, commander of the Georgia brigade, told The Associated Press that all his troops would be leaving, but he couldn't say when because transportation arrangements had not been finalized. ''All the Georgian guys will be leaving for the homeland,'' he said.

Friday, August 08, 2008

And back in Iraq, you remember Iraq, don't you?

McClatchy reports on the difficulty in finding female suicide bombers before they show their stuff. With the recent upsurge in women bombers, there is an urgency that is matched by the lack of real evidence to act upon.
Khalaf acknowledged that the evidence was scant. No explosives were found in the house, no residue on their hands. A list of women and their phone numbers could be a list of friends just as easily as a recruiter's manifest of possible bombers.

The family could be deeply involved in recruiting suicide bombers. Or they could be three women living alone in a neighborhood that al Qaida in Iraq once completely controlled.

Maybe someone with a grudge put them on a list and told security forces that they were bad.

Everything is just a maybe. More than 400 people have been detained since the security operation began, Khalaf said.

He ordered in lunch. The officers whispered to one another when Asmaa wouldn't eat. This was a sign that she might be al Qaida.

"I swear it isn't," she said. "I'm too frightened to eat. If you want me to show you I'm not al Qaida I'll eat all of these dishes."

She picked up a spoon and a tear fell from her face to the plate.
Let us never forget how much Li'l Georgie's Glorious War has improved life in Iraq, especially women.

Republican family values never get better.

So if you are a Republican state legislator and have some time on your hands. You miss your wife and kids so what do you do? If you are like this guy you really get your balls in a salad shooter.
Missouri state Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year’s Legislative session ended.

The alleged victim is the daughter of a state employee. The girl’s mother and Muschany -– who is married and has two children -- were romantically involved, the woman said.

A Cole County grand jury returned an indictment today charging Muschany with the Class C felony of "deviate sexual assault." The indictment identifies the victim only by initials. It says that on May 17, Muschany "had deviate sexual intercourse" with the girl, "knowing that he did so without" her consent.
This guy was also licensed as a foster parent in Missouri. Soon to be labeled a known sex offender in all 50 states. You can't get any more Republican than that.

Meet the Real McCain

Amy Silverman has put together a collection of incidents and outrages detailing the John McCain that Arizona knows. It is a real contrast to the Sainted Senator from Hanoi that most Americans have been exposed to and one that should be read by anyone who wants to vote this year.
I've been a writer and editor at New Times for 15 years. For much of that time, I wrote about Arizona politics, which is to say that I wrote about John McCain. It's still odd to see the guy in the spotlight, because for quite a while, I was pretty much the only one covering him.

I never did fall for him in the way reporters fall for politicians, probably because he wasn't much to fall for back in the early 1990s. In those days, McCain was still rehabilitating the image he'd later sell to the national media. He was known then for cavorting in the Bahamas with Charlie Keating, rather than for fighting for campaign finance reform and limited government spending.

No one seems to remember Keating much, anymore. Amazing. McCain and his fellow Arizonan, Democrat Dennis DeConcini, were hauled before the Senate Ethics Committee along with three other senators to explain their actions on behalf of Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan.

Keating gave the senators hefty campaign contributions, then called on them to meet with bank regulators to pressure them to go soft on an investigation of Lincoln. There were two infamous meetings. McCain attended both.
That's the part that most of us should remember, there is much more.

From the pen of Tom Toles


Quote of the Day

And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.
Paul Krugman, examining the Republican Party embrace of "Know-Nothingism"

Thursday, August 07, 2008

China tells Bush to STFU

But lets the lame duck asshole enter the country anyway. It's not like they have to worry about what our little bully-boy might say or do, the Chinese invented tigers made of paper.

R.I.P. Lou Teicher

Those old enough, remember his work with Arthur Ferrante, playing a series of pop music hits in a straight Liberace style. In fact the duo was classically trained at Julliard School of Music where they first met. I think he is the guy with the beard.




Ferrante & Teicher Highlights From Borodin

Can you spell K-A-N-G-A-R-O-O

And we are not talking about Skippy, the Burgomeister of Blogtopia (y!sctp)


That is friendship

The NY Times picked up on the Harry Sargent bundling story and the strange circumstances that brought the money to gether, including this tidbit,
Many in his circle appear to have little affection for Mr. McCain but said they gave mostly as a favor to Mr. Abdullah.

Abdullah Makhlouf, the owner of a discount stereo store who is one of Mr. Abdullah’s closest friends, and his wife contributed $9,200.

“He’s like a worse copy than Bush,” Mr. Makhlouf said of Mr. McCain.

When a reporter initially contacted Mr. Makhlouf, he denied giving to the McCain campaign.

After eventually admitting to the donation, Mr. Makhlouf added, “I’m still not going to vote for him.”
A friend indeed.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Holy Shit, they are trying to impeach him

Not Our Dear Embattled Leader, but some one who must surely rank as one of his most highly paid butt-boys, President Musharraf.
Pakistan’s embattled president Musharraf has abruptly cancelled his planned visit to China, as opponents in the ruling coalition move to impeach him.

He was to attend opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics and meet Chinese leaders during his two day visit.

Mohammed Sadiq, a Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman confirmed that the visit was called off, but did not give any reason. The announcement came as the president's opponents met in Islamabad to decide on his impeachment.
And this was a guy who seized power in a military coup. All coups are military in Pakistan because that is where the power is. Somebody want to mention this to Pelosi after she finishes Ron Suskinds new book.

Hamdan found guilty

They couldn't pin enough on him to hang him in time for the election but, as everyone expected, they did find something to pin on him. You have to justify all that time in the cages at Gitmo. If he's done all that time, he must have done the crime.

Maverick? Where's James Garner

The only positive aspect of the Old Fart is that you can be positive that he is totally wrong for the US.





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