The spectre of change

Call me confused. While Senate Minority Leader Mitch "Dr. No" McConnell was alarming the base by telling them that Arlen Specter's defection was "a threat to the country," the RNC was sending out a fund-raising letter declaring "Good riddance." Only thing I can think of is that they think Pat "I'm bitter and I cling to my guns and religion" Toomey actually has a chance to win a general election in Pennsylvania.

Specter said that he jumped ship because of the hard right turn the Republicans have made recently -- and that is, technically, the reason -- but we all know, of course, that he made the switch to the president's party because that hard right turn means there's no way in hell he'll get the Republican nomination in 2010. And now that Harry "Don't rock the boat" Reid has declared the Democrats won't field a challenger to Mr. Specter in their primary, he's a shoo-in to return to the Senate.

This despite Specter opposition to quite a few actual Democrat policies and ideals. I don't know about you, but I'm betting Pennsylvanians, who already have pro-life Bob Casey in the Senate, might be interested in a real Democrat about now. And Joe Torsella, who had been the frontrunner for the Dem nomination, said he wasn't about to step aside.

And then there's Maine. What's gonna happen to the girls from the Pine Tree State? Sue Collins sounded pretty adamant about sticking with the GOP, but Olympia Snowe -- actually, I expected her to jump first. Snowe said that she has been asked to switch sides "but not recently" and noted that the party apparently didn't learn jack when Jim Jeffords famously switched from Republican to Independent, caucusing with the Dems, a few years ago.

For me personally and then for the party, it's devastating. I've always been concerned about the Republican party nationally, about their exclusionary policies towards moderate Republicans. That's not a secretly held view on my part.

We are heading to having the smallest political tent in history for any political party the way things are unfolding.

So maybe it's still possible she'll give up hoping that the GOP will realized it's proverbially shooting itself in its proverbial foot by pandering to the most backward troglodytes on the planet, and that's probably insulting to actual troglodytes.

But alas, not all of the right sees things the way Senator Snowe does. How 'bout that Sean "I know I said I'd be waterboarded for charity but if I don't mention it again y'all will forget" Hannity, "I think if anything, the Republican Party is moved to the left in recent years."

Just in case y'all thought that Republican Bizarro World wasn't still in full effect.

Then there was Jim "I don't need a stupid quote for my middle name" Deminted of South Carolina, who makes fellow South Carolinian Lindsay Graham look gay ... oh, never mind. But anyway, Jim Deminted said that "I feel that Republicans are starting to get the message of the last two elections -- that the American people don't want a lukewarm agenda. They don't want a liberal light agenda"

That's right, Jim. They want a solidly liberal agenda. Remember November when y'all painted Barack Obama as more liberal than Russ Feingold and Paul Wellstone put together? Yeah. That guy won.

And the party's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Limbaugh, is calling for John McCain to follow Specter overboard. Like that's gonna happen. And Michael Steele, the bizarro world head of the Republican Party, continued to sound like a throwback to some bad 70s cop show.

If Sen. Specter survives in the fall — get ready to go to the mat, baby, because we're coming after you and taking you out,

he said. Actually. Steele really had quite a day yesterday. Asked about the GOP's removal of $870 million for pandemic preparedness from the stimulus bill earlier this year (led by Maine's Collins, by the way) on CNN, Steele shot back "Did we know this was gonna happen?"

Well, um, no, Michael, but then, that's what preparedness is about. The rest of his comment, in which it appears that he links pandemic preparedness a part of the stimulus bill that was meant to figure out what to do with the incredible stench of hog farms in Iowa, is maybe even more bizarre.

When this package of spending was presented to the Congress and the American people, what was the presentation that was given by this administration? This was to create jobs. This was to restore our economy. It had nothing to do with why pigs stink. It had nothing to do with any of the stuff we spent money on,

he said, thus proving once again that Steele and the rest of the Republicans really have no idea what a stimulus is let alone what it's supposed to do. Not to be outdone, Chuck Shumer, the senior Democratic senator from New York, also inexplicably lumped pandemic preparedness in the stimulus bill with "all those little porky things" he said had been added to the bill by the House of Representatives, thus proving that stupidity knows no party lines.


And speaking of stupidity, get this. A team at Ohio State University conducted an experiment using The Colbert Report to see how satire is viewed along ideological lines. Oddly enough, both liberals and conservatives found Stephen Colbert to be equally funny, but conservatives, oddly enough, tended to think he actually believes the things he says, that he is only pretending to be joking and that he actually dislikes liberals.

The liberals got the joke. And guess who the joke's on?


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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We are not Iceland (but maybe we should be)

What can I say? Seven weeks now, and the market is still up. I'm beginning to regret moving most of my investments to bonds.

But not just yet, because I remain convinced that we have not yet reached the bottom of our economic crisis. And why do I stick to that belief?

Because we're not Iceland.

Iceland went bankrupt a few months ago. Its conservative-led government let what the New York Times called "buccaneering free marketers" run amok through the country's economy, with the expected results.

Disaster.

But unlike here, Icelanders apparently think with the brains they have, and they knew that their conservative, anything-goes-in-the-free-market government was to blame.

So, naturally, they started protesting in the streets. And that led to the conservative government's resignation and a caretaker government's installation -- led by the Social Democrats, whose leader, Johanna Sigurdardottir, became caretaker prime minister.

This weekend, the Icelanders went to the polls, and they chose the Social Democrats and their liberal coalition partners the Left-Greens (does that mean Iceland has Right-Greens?) to stay where they are. And that includes Sigurdardottir, who is Iceland's first female leader.

And the world's first openly lesbian head of state.

I know the American right is terrified right now. But that's what happens when you fuck up your country as badly as the New Vikings, as the greedy sons of bitches in Iceland called themselves, did. The lesbians take over. The lesbians and a trucker dude from the Greens. His name is unpronounceable to us white folk in the United States too. Steingrimur Sigfusson. He's also a geologist. The prime minister used to be a flight attendant. Not a lawyer in sight. Or an MBA.

Sigfusson was Iceland's finance minister in the caretaker government, and he'll probably stay there. Despite being a geologist and former truck driver, he seems to know what he's talking about, finance-wise.

What are the people of the United States mad about now? It is the same poisonous philosophy that we had here, based on a lack of moral awareness and greed, and people who thought nothing of flying Elton John into Iceland for their 50th birthdays and paying him 70 million Icelandic kronur.

That's about $600,000, if you're keeping score. $600 grand, just for the entertainment at your 50th. I had Mexican food at one of my favorite restaurants for my 50th. The entertainment was the house band. If I had $600K to spend on entertainment for my birthday party, I'd fly all my friends to someplace really cool. Maybe Reykjavik. But we'd have to import the Mex.

Anyway, the conservative Independent Party -- independent of reason? -- managed 16 seats in the 63-seat Icelandic parliament -- called the Althingi, which they say is the oldest continuous legislative body in the world -- two more than the Left-Greens. But Sigurdardottir's party racked up 20 seats, giving their coalition 34, more than enough to form the government.

Interestingly, this is the first time in modern history Icelanders have elected a left-leaning government. But no wonder they did it this time. The conservative-New Viking alliance pretty much destroyed Iceland's economy. Unemployment -- virtually unheard of in the tiny country before -- is now at about 10 percent. Inflation is well into the double digits, and the financial experts are still trying to figure out what happened and how much it cost.

According to the Times,

Many of the debts that drove the banks to the brink of default were incurred as the New Vikings went on a splurge of acquisitions that made them owners of department store chains, soccer clubs and investment houses in Britain and other parts of Europe, as well as mansions, helicopters and Ferraris on their sojourns at home here in Iceland.

Sound familiar?

And as for the costs, the Times says that some estimates run to as much as $10 billion, which is about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in a country that has just over 300,000 people.

But unlike here, the Icelanders are following their leader -- a quiet, steady and pragmatic leader, who does not seek the spotlight, but instead puts her attention toward fixing the mess she was left with.

The people are calling for a change of ethics. That is why they have voted for us,

she said. Her chief opponent -- the leader of the Independence Party, Bjarni Benediktsson -- reacted much like his Republican counterparts in the United States. That is, he was clueless.

We lost this time but we will win again later,

he said.

Anyway, Sigurdardottir, who at 66 was getting ready to retire from politics, will have to stick around for a while longer to fix what conservatism wrought in her country.

But that's how I know we're not done here yet. Because in Iceland, when everything crashed, they didn't try to pretend we just needed a little stimulus here and there and some more tax cuts for the rich and everything would be fine. When everything crashed, it crashed, and everybody knew it. And they threw out the greedy bastards who did it.

But don't worry, some of the conservatives in Iceland are just as brain dead as ours are. If you read the comments on some of the Icelandic media Web sites, you'll find them claiming the Social Democrats, who were not in power until earlier this year, were responsible for the collapse of the economy last fall. My Scandinavian language skills are really poor, but I think I saw something about Sigurdardottir being born in Finland or something too. The socialist thing isn't working though, because, well, her party is the Social Democrats.

Oh, and by the way -- I love this -- 26 members of the Althingi elected this weekend were women. That's 46 percent. Compare that to our 16 percent. Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the Althingi probably isn't very ethnically diverse, but then, we are talking about Iceland, where 94 percent of the people are a mix of Norse and Celts and the rest come from somewhere else more recently.

Y'know, we could maybe learn a lot from a little island in the north Atlantic.



News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at News Writer's Guide to the Market

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Of pigs and men

My beloved colleagues are at it again.

• Fears grow as new swine flu cases are confirmed (Fox)


• Swine flu fear spreads with new cases in U.S. (MSNBC)


• More swine flu hits U.S., emergency in Mexico (CNN)


• 2 Swine Flus in Kan., US Total 11; 8 Likely in NYC (ABC)


• Swine flu has "pandemic potential" (CBS)

That's right. They're trying to scare you, and this time it's not some terrorist (read: Islamic) threat. No, this time it's the dreaded swine flu. From Mexico.

The horrors. From listening to the news readers on the tubes, you'd think it was bubonic plague. It's not. It is a particularly virulent strain of flu, largely because it's relatively new. But like any other strain of flu, it will vary in severity from mild to severe. Some people, usually the very young, the very old and those with compromised immune systems, may die. And sometimes, peeople who don't fit into those three categories may contract the virus and die.

Right now, in the United States, there are 11 confirmed cases of this new strain of swine flu -- nine in California and two each in Texas and Kansas. There may be more cases in New York, but that has not yet been confirmed. No one in the United States has died from the swine flu.

So far, in the flu season that began in the first week of October 2008, there have been 26,000 confirmed cases of the flu in the United States. There have probably been a lot more, because the CDC doesn't test everyone who has flu-like symptoms. In fact, the CDC estimates that an average of 36,000 people in the United States die from the flu -- any strain -- or complications from the flu each year.

Mexico is having a much more serious outbreak of this particular strain of influenza, but it is not on the scale of the bubonic plague either. More than 1,300 people have been hospitalized recently with flu-like symptoms, and health officials say that at least 81 people are likely to have died from the strain. Officials there have confirmed 20 cases of this strain of swine flu. Not all have died.

The World Health Organization has convened a meeting of influenza experts to take a closer look at what's going on and decide what action, if any, to take. They did say it was a "public health emergency of international concern." WHO is concerned because this particular strain has never been seen before and because in Mexico, it appears to be affecting young, relatively healthy people rather than the groups normally susceptible to the virus.

Swine flu is a disease of pigs that may be spread to humans who come in contact with infected pigs. It is a contagious disease, and may also spread from human to human. But it is not spread through eating meat from an infected animal.

And about those flu shots. Every year, the experts get together and figure out what strains of influenza they think will be predominant in the coming flu season, and they concoct a vaccination based on their predictions. Like any vaccine, it will not prevent you from contracting the disease. It may make it less likely. Because this strain of swine flu is brand new, there's nothing in this year's flu vaccine to counter it.

Now you have the facts, which my colleagues are giving you, but they are stuffing them in between large doses of breathless fearmongering. And here's why.

My lovely colleagues are scared out of their ever-loving minds. This week, it's been proven that the United States tortured its prisoners during the Bush administration. A lot of people knew about it and approved of it. A lot of people lied about it and are still lying about it.

This is the most perplexing dilemma my colleagues have faced in a long time -- how do they report this? If they report that the United States tortured people, they are being biased toward the Democrats. If they continue to use the Republican language -- "alternative interrogation techniques," etc. -- then they're supporting the Republican position.

Because they have convinced themselves that their job is to report what everybody says and make no judgment on what they say -- the "he said/she said" school of "journalism" -- and because it is impossible for any sane individual to look at what was done to our prisoners and not call it torture, they don't know what to do. They have completely forgotten their real job -- to look through the various "spins" on the news and tell us what's really going on.

They haven't done that in such a long time that they've not only forgotten that it's what they're supposed to be doing, they've even forgotten how.

All week long they've struggled with this dilemma. They've put pundits on the air to talk about the issue from one side or another. They've focused on various nuances of the matter, like whether the presence of doctors -- who, by the way, violated their Hippocratic Oath just by being there -- meant it wasn't so bad or whether the legal numbskulls who wrote the memos were right to determine that torture isn't torture if you don't intend to actually hurt someone.

And then, at the end of the week came what they were looking for -- a suitable distraction. The journalists' shiny object. And this time it wasn't just the journos' ADD that got triggered. It was their desire to run far, far away from an issue that terrifies them.

Telling the truth.

But I want to tell them, my dear, dear colleagues, to be brave. Telling the truth won't hurt you. In fact, you'll feel quite free once you've done it a few times.

I understand why it scares them. Once they tell the truth about this -- once they say that there is no excuse whatsoever for one human being to do to another human being what the United States government did to those prisoners, it will be such a profound experience they'll start to question everything. Their eyes will be open not only to truth, but the truth about morality.

They'll know that they can no longer put Rick Warren on camera one and Gavin Newsome on camera two, have them talk about same-sex marriage and call it journalism. They'll know that they can't have a guest who calls Barack Obama a socialist or a fascist and not challenge him or her with the truth.

They'll see through the lies and know they must name them. And they'll know that our humanity is defined by how we treat other living things, not how much money we make, or what kind of car we drive or how much power we've taken from others.

That's a lot to ask of one person, especially one who's been so blind for so long and is beginning to see just how wrong one person can be.

But I'm here to tell you, my colleagues, you won't be alone. Stop running from the truth. Stop acting from fear. Stop promoting fear.

Instead, promote the truth. There is, indeed, strength in numbers. And there are already large numbers where you need to be. More will follow.

Step into the light, my friends. Don't be afraid. You don't need to go chasing after the scary swine flu to avoid the scarier torture. It really won't hurt you.

And the truth is, we need you. We need you to record all this, truthfully. To make sure that those who imposed this scourge on us all are held accountable for their crimes. To make sure we never forget what happened to us when we lost our ability to feel compassion, to recognize unethical and immoral behavior.

And to make sure it never, ever happens again.

This is the change I voted for in November -- a fundamental shift in world view.

Without it, we're nothing.


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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'We do not fucking torture'

Apparently, it's not true that everybody at Fox "News" is a complete jackass. While Trace Gallagher was trying to explain the "two school of thought" on whether torture is effective during the online "Strategy Room," Shepherd Smith interrupted. Pounding his hand on the desk in front of him for emphasis, he was very nearly shouting.

We are America! I don’t give a rat’s ass if it helps, we are America! We do not fucking torture! We don’t do it.

Gallagher continued as if he hadn't heard Smith. Somebody said "Oops," apparently realizing the newsman had said a bad word -- or maybe realizing he'd stepped out of the conservative talking points -- and Smith repeated "doesn't matter, we don't do it," more quietly. Don't believe me? Here. Watch it.



He was a little less, ahem, emphatic, on his own show, but still got the point across.

We are America. We don't torture. And the moment that is not the case, I want off the train.

Damn, I sure hope nobody makes him apologize for speaking his mind. It is, of course, against Fox policy to condemn anything a Republican administration does, particularly anything related to national security. At least he didn't insult Rush Limbaugh. And, um, where was he for the past eight years?

Speaking of whom, the Real Leader of the Republican Party compared the outcry against such a barbaric practice with the outcry against domestic violence, and not in a good way.

We have allowed — we have allowed these guys, Obama and his buddies over at the CIA and in Congress, to water down the definition of torture to mean anything that makes a person uncomfortable. You know what this reminds me of? Remember when the NOWgang and all these other social interest groups started asking women if they’d ever been a victim of domestic violence? They didn’t like the numbers they got initially. The numbers weren’t high enough for the NOW gang. So they expanded the definition to include a man shouting at them. A man shouting at them equaled domestic violence. It didn’t matter if the women shouted first. But let’s not get sidetracked. The important thing to understand is that these appeasers have painted themselves into a corner. Dick Cheney has now called their bluff. The stark truth is that despite what the political left and the Hollywood elite say, extreme measures, enhanced measures, so-called torture — whatever you want to call it — it works. And he’s seen the memos. And he wants them released.

Right. It works. That might be why the FBI director, Robert Mueller, said last year in a Vanity Fair interview that he did not "believe" that there had been a case where "any attacks had been disrupted because of intelligence obtained through the coercive methods." Oh, and just to be sure, Mueller's office confirmed that again on Tuesday.

And torture is anything that makes somebody feel uncomfortable? Hell, I'm uncomfortable right now because there's a damn cat on my lap and my leg is tingling. I guess I should call him a torturer. But that really doesn't compare with, say, being forced to stand for hours on end with your arms held above your head or being forced to masturbate while being photographed or being threatened by a snarling police dog, including the threat of letting the dog off the leash.

(Torture cat is a representation of News Writer's cat and not News Writer's actual cat)

So if deliberately harming another human being didn't stop any attacks, I guess that just leaves Dennis Blair's "deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization," which, I suspect, could have been gotten from just as easily and with less destruction to our image abroad from the Federation of American Scientists or GlobalSecurity.org or even Wikipedia.

Limbaugh and his video game addict buddies are so wrong on this one that they just guaranteed themselves a ticket straight to the hell they believe in so completely. Lou Dobbs, CNN's complete moron, said yesterday that the administration was "on the defensive" over this issue. Really? Because I kinda thought they've been quite firm about the whole thing. Torture is banned. Waterboarding, etc., is torture. Now, they've been too wishy-washy for my tastes about dragging the miscreants who ordered this vile practice (and those who did it -- I don't buy the "just following orders line"). But they've been quite clear that torture is wrong. And now, really, America does not torture. But defensive? Must be wishful thinking.

Let's see. Torture didn't stop any attacks. Probably didn't get any confessions -- which is generally the real purpose of torture -- because from what I've seen, the "high value detainees" have been quite proud of their accomplishments. Maybe have gotten false confessions from the innocent people dragged into American custody just because. And any "deeper understanding" could have been gotten from anywhere.

So for what godforsaken reason did the Bush administration's minions think it necessary to waterboard a guy 183 times in 30 days?

There's only one answer to that.

Revenge.

Because, you know, waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, didn't work the first 182 times. But that 183rd, boy, he spilled his guts then.

Conservatives want revenge. Anyone with the audacity of attacking them must be punished. And they have very long memories for that sort of thing. Honestly, revenge was the reason for the ridiculous assault on Bill Clinton in the 1990s -- revenge for kicking out Richard Nixon. Never mind that Clinton really was a bit of a scumbag and pretty damn conservative himself -- he was a Democrat. And for that, he must die.

See, conservatives see themselves as all powerful, not to be challenged. It's the very basis of the Party of No. Challenging them -- and winning -- has to be punished. It's not about discipline. It's about revenge. Showing them who's boss. Reinforcing strict hierarchical standings.

Sara Robinson at the Campaign for America's Future likens it to two differing parenting styles:

For conservatives, the goal of discipline is to assert the power of external authority. In their worldview, most people aren't capable of self-discipline. They can't be trusted to behave unless there's someone stronger in control who's willing to scare them back into line when they misbehave. Don't question the rules. Don't defy authority. Just do what you're told, and you'll be fine. But cross that line, dammit, and there will be hell to pay.

In this view, the whole point of punishment is for greater beings (richer, whiter, older, male) to impress the extent of their authority upon lesser beings (poorer, darker, younger, female). I'm in control, I make the rules, and I'm the only one of us entitled to use force to get my way. Since emotional and/or physical domination is the goal, the punishments themselves often use some kind of emotional or physical violence to drive home that point. Spanking, humiliation, arrest, jail and torture all fill the bill quite nicely. I'm not interested in what you think. Do as I say, or I will be within my rights to do whatever it takes to make you behave.

Note, too, the hierarchical nature of this system. Those at the top of the heap enjoy the freedom that comes with never being held accountable by anyone. This exemption is implicit in conservative notions of 'liberty,' and is considered an inalienable (if not divine) right of fathers, bosses, religious leaders, politicians, and anyone else on the right who holds power over others. The privilege of controlling others' liberty, without enduring reciprocal constraints on your own, is at the heart of the true meaning of 'freedom.'

Liberal parenting books, on the other hand, talk a lot about "logical and natural consequences." Since liberals believe that most people are perfectly capable of making good moral choices without constant oversight from some outside authority, the goal of discipline is to strengthen the child's internal decision-making skills in order to prepare him for adult self-governance.

Wherever possible, parents are encouraged to do this by letting misbehaving kids live with the natural consequences of their own bad choices. I'm not mad at you. I still love you. But you spent all your allowance on Tuesday, and now you get to be broke until Saturday—and I'd be lying to you if I let you think that the world works any other way. Since you two can't figure out a peaceable way to share that toy, I'm going to take it away. Now that you've annoyed the bus driver to the point where the principal had to call me and put you off the bus for a week, you're not going anywhere else for a while, either—including that big event this weekend you've been looking forward to for the past two months.

So here we are. Big Daddy is exploding all over the place that he just might be actually held accountable for his actions, which is, of course, completely nonsensical to him. He's Big Daddy. He's in charge. He is always right.

And so they lie. The administration is on the defensive. There are memos showing how torture worked. It wasn't really torture.

But they lie because they know that torture is wrong. They know they authorized and utilized torture, and they know it's wrong. And now they have to raise a huge fuss to distract us.

To distract us from the real reason for the torture. To keep us from knowing that they only did it because they could. Because they were pissed at the assholes who dared to attack this country. Because the assholes deserved punishment, strong punishment, not the weak little slap on the wrist that the laws of the United States would give them.

For all their bluster about loving America, conservatives actually hold our system of government in great contempt. They hate the deliberative nature of the courts, the legislative branch of government. They hate -- as we saw only too well in the past 8 years -- that a president isn't the sole arbiter of power, that America does not have a monarch, a dictator, a tyrant.

And they hate you and me -- because we can see right through them. As Digby noted,

Here's the thing: these people are puerile, schoolyard thinkers who believe in any means to an end. If they could have done what they truly wanted to do after 9/11, they would have opened concentration camps or started a nuclear war. They believe that you have to use everything you have at your disposal or the wogs (everyone but us) will think you are weak. That's the full extent of their understanding of the way the world works.

That using torture and endless imprisonment of innocent people are immoral and disgusting taboos that put the perpetrator in the same company as history's most evil villains is entirely unpersuasive to these people --- they think that's a good thing. But even on a practical level that even a very average 9th grader should be able to understand, you would hope they could see that these people hurt the nation in ways that we'll be dealing with for decades --- we showed that America loses its head when attacked, overreacts, spends and then botches the whole thing so badly we don't know whether we are coming or going. We've shown that we are pants wetting, panic artists who will harm ourselves when frightened. And that is a weakness no powerful nation should ever allow the world to see.

Our task now is to make sure that the Obama administration does what's necessary to hold these people accountable for their actions. Not doing so will guarantee it will happen again, and we the People cannot allow that to happen.


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Here There Be Monsters

All right. Enough. Just fucking enough. It's bad enough that Darth Cheney and all the airwave bloviators are bitching about Obama releasing four measly little torture memos.

Cheney, mind you. The guy who was always in an undisclosed location when he was vice president, has now been everywhere telling us how unsafe we are because the eVille liberal Obama released those damn memos.

But now Obama's own director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, says torture may have helped. Of course, we know that because someone who received a memo from Blair leaked it. Here's the relevant quote:

High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.

I guess it was just plain necessary to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Muhammed 183 times in 30 days. That's six times a day, people. Six times every day they strapped him down and poured water on his face to make him think he was drowning.

And that's just an average. What it really means is that if they didn't exactly stick to the six times a day average, there were days when they did that to him more than six times a day.

But get this. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Marc Thiessen, a former Bush speechwriter -- cause we all know how many interrogations speechwriters participate in -- justified torturing the detainees by saying -- as pointed out at Every Man a Giant -- that "we were actually doing the terrorists a favor by torturing them."

But the memos note that, 'as Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship.' In other words, the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can -- and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. This is because of their belief that 'Islam will ultimately dominate the world and that this victory is inevitable.' The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely. This is the secret to the program's success.

Know what? That's fucking crazy talk.

Because it does not matter one iota that Khalid Sheikh Muhammed -- or "KSM" as the government prefers to refer to him so they don't have to openly acknowledge that he's a human being -- was the mastermind behind 9/11.

And it doesn't matter because torture is wrong, no matter who you are torturing or why. It doesn't matter if you got any good information. Torture is morally repugnant. It flies in the face of the very idea of decency.

When you torture another living creature, you lose your humanity. It's gone. It's why Paul Krugman was right when he said after reading the four released memos that "There is now no way to view the people who ruled us these past 8 years as anything but monsters."

What did it really get for us? According to Blair, "a deeper understanding of al-Qaeda." What deeper understanding did we need? Al-Qaeda's leaders regularly send out messages telling us what they're about. Did we really need to stick a guy's head into a box with bugs and tell him they were poisonous to find out that al-Qaeda is a radical fundamentalist group that has no problem using deadly violence to get its way?

Did torturing any of the taxi drivers and farmers who ran afoul of the wrong people and were falsely singled out to the U.S. military as terrorists get us Osama bin Laden? Did waterboarding Abu Zubaydah 83 times the month they waterboarded Muhammed 183 times get us Ayman al-Zawahiri?

Did torture stop the Mumbai attacks? The Madrid train bombings? The London transit bombings?

No. And even if it had done even one of those things, it wouldn't be worth it. We are not meant to be a nation of savages, and yet, when we torture -- when we allow torture -- that is what we are. Brutal savages.

And that goes for any Democrat who knew this was going on as well. If a Democratic congressman or woman sat in a "classified" meeting where torture was discussed -- no matter what euphemism they used to keep from calling it what it is -- then they're culpable too.

Let's say this again: Torture is wrong. It demeans not only the tortured but the torturers and anyone associated with them. And it does. not. work. Bryan at Why Now:

The only two groups who really think torture works, are people who enjoy it, and people so frightened that they would spill their guts on the threat of torture, i.e. the same people who fall for the 'good cop/bad cop' routine.

What torture did get us is much less safe, much less respect, much more hatred and much more anger. Digby:

Aside from the moral dimension, which should be the most relevant, the premise that the world must believe the United States will stop at nothing is very, very dangerous. It confirms the world's darkest suspicions about us and validates many of the arguments made by our enemies. I honestly can't conceive of anything that makes the US less safe than that.

Torture is immoral. Any country that practices it (or even pretends to practice it) much less contrives an entire bureaucratic legal underpinning for it, is then, by definition, immoral. That's the kind of 'exceptionalism' that turns countries into feared pariah states, veritably begging for mistrust among allies and the creation of new enemies. Unless we are prepared to do a lot more torturing, invading and occupying -- basically becoming a malevolent superpower holding on primarily by brutal force --- we have to repudiate this concept. The more powerful a country is, the more it needs to be seen as operating from a moral, ethical and responsible standpoint --- and the less chance it will be seen by others as a threat. Making the world recoil in disgust at their brutality is about the stupidest thing the leaders of an empire could do unless they plan to spend all their time fighting wars and fending off enemies.

A world power of our magnitude and unequaled military might naturally engenders mistrust around the globe, which our government must already go to great lengths to assuage. To add to that already delicate, difficult situation by illegally invading countries and endorsing something as barbaric, crude and indefensible as torture is criminally irresponsible. The United States is made much less safe by these actions and we will all be paying the price for that schoolyard mentality for the rest of our lives.

Far greater empires than ours have been brought low by exactly the kind of juvenile thinking that leads to the belief that unless the world is petrified of a nation's power to commit violence it will be unsafe. It's a self-fulilling prophesy.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been all over the map -- the operatives who did the torturing won't be prosecuted, the big guys who ordered it won't be either. "Time for reflection, notretribution," or some such shit. Now, the president is "open" to prosecutions of the big guys.

Guess he got an earful from people who voted him into office. Well, good for you, Mr. President, that you've at least banned torture. But now it's time to tell the truth.

The Bush administration authorized and ordered torture. Despite their "memos" declaring torture legal, it wasn't. It isn't. And there were plenty questioning what was going on. A report from a Senate Armed Services Committee investigation released Tuesday night, in fact, reveals that just about every time someone -- say, CentCom or Army psychiatrists -- some new legal opinion would surface answering their concerns.

For eight years, our government did things in our name that were repugnant. They were repulsive, offensive and obscene.

And so were the people who did those things. Just because they stopped short of ripping out fingernails with pliers or cutting out tongues or burning body parts with hot irons doesn't mean it wasn't torture.

It was, and it was wrong. And we are all lesser for it.


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Commonalities

Jay Schalin is a software engineer by trade. He went back to school to study economics and was scheduled to graduate last year. Don't know if he did. Now he writes about higher education issues for the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a non-profit agency aimed at improving North Carolina institutes for higher education.

North Carolina State University is changing some of its general education requirements, which annoyed Mr. Schalin, a self-professed conservative, to no end. So he wrote an article "attacking" (his word) those changes, saying they were necessary to create a "common cultural identity" in America.

I haven't read that article. But I have read his response to a reader of the first article asking how his idea of "common cultural identity" is any diffierent from the cultural "indoctrination" he and his conservative colleagues constantly throw at liberals (for example, Obama's volunteer program that includes "service training" -- about the Constitution, American history, the importance of volunteerism, etc.) in order for schools to qualify for some of the money.

In an nutshell, his response is this: It can't be indoctrination if it's the way things are. And the way things are is that we're not created equal, never mind what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, which means that some people will do well and others won't and we just have to depend on the goodness of the hearts of those who do well to take care of those who don't, regardless of the reasons for their failure.

It's true. Here he is, in his own words:

There is a fundamental difference between the two perspectives of left and right that has important bearing on this discussion. Those on the left usually believe in some grand vision of an idealized equality—there should be no rich or poor, all people should have their basic needs satisfied, there should not be justice in the ordinary sense, but 'social justice,' and so on. Achieving this vision would require a complete transformation of society and its institutions, with no ties to the previous culture and with the ends justifying the means.

But this vision of equality is frequently in conflict with the real world — people are not equally gifted or inclined. Some are ambitious, others lazy; some are bright or creative, others dull, for reasons beyond our control. If there is liberty and equality of opportunity, some inequality of wealth and achievement will result. What liberals don’t realize, or choose to deny, is that to achieve the vision, equality must be imposed at the expense of liberty, against humanity’s natural differences in abilities and ambitions.

Conservatism, however, does not begin with any such constructed ideal. Perhaps its most important guiding principle is that tradition represents the surviving wisdom of the past — people over time tend to adopt the ideas that enrich them and empower them, and cast off the ones that fail or weaken them. It views modern free society as the result of the grand trial-and-error experiment that is Western civilization, occurring over many centuries — the result of efficiency and justice winning out over the inefficient and divisive.

It is therefore a philosophy thoroughly grounded in real events and human nature—it is confined to the possible. There is no need to convert or coerce people to believe in a vision that is against their nature — it is about letting people do as they will, knowing that they will generally choose wisely, having the wisdom of past generations to draw upon. Despite a hard-edged pragmatism that is often mistaken for 'mean-spiritedness,' conservatism is a very optimistic outlook that places great faith in humanity to do what is right.

How's that for the American Dream? There there you poor deluded poor people and liberals who are so worried about them. Conservatives are perfectly rational, optimistic people, and we know everything's gonna work out just fine, but human beings aren't greedy sons of bitches who'd rather run the country into the ground than admit they might be wrong.

Rather than try to rehash what's already been written, here's what Phila said about it at Echidne of the Snakes:

How do you choose 'wisely'? Well, avoiding becoming a homosexual is a good first step, since doing as you will in that case will lead to having fewer rights, being persecuted, and so forth. Being a woman, by contrast, is an accident of birth for which you can't necessarily be blamed. But you can make the most of it by drawing on 'the wisdom of past generations,' and making the choices that time has proven work best for women. In other words, you're free to choose, as long as you make the right choice, and stick to it come what may.

We arrived at our present 'natural' levels of inequality through 'the grand trial-and-error experiment that is Western civilization.' But now that we're here, trial and error must end, lest some "constructed ideal" redefine what counts as human nature and get everyone all confused. In the worst-case scenario, different people might end up being enriched and empowered, which would turn the natural order on its head. The purpose of the past was to get us to this point, and keep us here: 'It is ... an organic process happening over time—an evolving mindset that adheres to the basic principles despite the changes.'

At this point, forming 'a common cultural identity' seems primarily to be a matter of stifling complaint. Schalin claims that there are no racial barriers to 'American identity,' except to the extent that one insists on one's grievances. Racial complaint is answered by the observation that 'Jim Crow laws are long over.'Does this mean that Jim Crow laws are part of 'the wisdom of past generations'? Or does it mean that we're not, in fact, confined to the possible, as defined by the dominant "cultural identity"? Who knows? Who cares? The important thing is that Clarence Thomas is a conservative even though he's black, and Irving Berlin wrote 'White Christmas' even though he was a goddamn Jew. Though these men are minorities, they were able to transcend that limitation, and provide a useful service to the people whom nature put in charge. That, in a nutshell, is what forming 'a common cultural identity' is all about. It's not indoctrination; it's our birthright.

So we have free will, which we can use to make the right choices, based on what's known to be possible, according to the winners who wrote the history books. And that's why America is unique in giving its citizens 'a focus on the future and not the grievances of the past; a feeling of limitless potential ... a sense of wonder, innovation and discovery; and the feeling that one is in control of his or her own destiny.'

The sky's the limit ... as long as you don't step outside the bounds of what's 'possible.'

I don't know about you, but I buy Schalin's bullshit about as easily as I buy creationism or intelligent design or whatever the hell they're calling it this week. In fact, they're about on the same level. This is how things are, and you can't change it, so shut the fuck up. And work three or four times as hard (at least) to get what I got for nothing.

Nope. If that's what conservatism is about, then no wonder I can't accept it. That's not American, and that's not even Christian. That's selfish and greedy.

Conservatives can't accept that times change. Hell, if they had their way we'd probably still be burning witches. They have a peculiar idea of what liberty means, when you come down to it. To them, liberty appears to mean "I can do whatever I want to whomever I want and fuck you if you don't like it."

Y'know, I don't think that's what the colonists had in mind with their "Don't tread on me" slogan.

And I think that what we have in common is where we live, and -- except for a few greedy bastards -- a desire for all of us to succeed.

Because what we deluded liberals realize that the conservatives can't seem to understand is that we all succeed when one of us succeeds. And when more of us succeed ... my god, what a wonderful world.

News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes

Meghan McCain keeps trying to convince America that there is such a thing as a "progressive Republican." Here she is, speaking to the Log Cabin Republicans, that sad group of misguided (mostly) gay men who actually think the Republicans may some day give a shit about them:

(1) Most of our nation wants our nation to succeed; (2) most people are ready to move on to the future, not live in the past; and (3) most of the old school Republicans are scared shitless of that future.

You know the old problem. Political discussion just breaks down into bickering and fighting instead of solving. And Republicans have a tendency to get way too hung up on words. I'm not just talking about the occasional profanity. When someone says they 'hope the President succeeds' they say it with the hope that the country gets better, the economy improves and people can feel safe, confident and free to live their lives as they choose. And may I add in full equality with each other. I believe most people get that, and more people are getting it everyday.

I believe most of our nation wants our nation to succeed. I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes. There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being 'more' conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. They just want to wait for the other side to be perceived as worse than us. I think we're seeing a war brewing in the Republican party. But it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past. I believe most people are ready to move on to that future.

We know a party that was thriving at one point on a few singular issues cannot see long term success. Even worse, we've seen how it has contributed to some serious problems in our nation and world. Let me blunt, you can't assume you're electing the right leaders to handle all the problems facing our nation when you make your choice based on one issue. More and more people are finally getting that.

Simply embracing technology isn't going to fix our problem either. Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn't going to miraculously make people think we're cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don't divide our nation further WILL. That's why some in our party are scared. They sense the world around them is changing and they are unable to take the risk to jump free of what's keeping our party down.

What I am talking about tonight is what it means to be a new, progressive Republican. Now some will say I can't do that. If you aren't this and that, then you're clearly a 'Republican in Name Only.' Also affectionately known as a RINO. Suggesting the notion that one can be faithful to the original core values of the GOP while open to the realities of our changing world has really hit a chord with people. And it seems to be the next, natural stage of the journey I've been traveling.

It would be easy to say my generation views politics very differently from others. Maybe we're more progressive, socially liberal or just hate arguing in lieu of actually solving the problems at hand. But what I've learned though my experiences is that these feelings are not contained to one age group. They're the growing beliefs and desires of people of all ages, races, genders, faiths, persuasions and political parties. ...

I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people's lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends. And yes, I am a Republican.

No, Meghan, you're not. You don't seem to realize that the core values of the GOP have changed -- they're no longer whatever you think they are, and where you got that idea, since you're a mere 24 years old, I have no idea.

Maybe you got it because your father used to actually sound a little more like you do now. But that was before he decided he wanted to be president and realized that he had to win the GOP base to even get the nomination. That meant that all those "progressive" ideas he once held went out the window.

The core values of today's Republicans can be summed up this way: We're right and you're wrong, so whatever you want to do we'll oppose.

Well, that's the legislative values of the Grand Obstructionist Party. Republicans, Meghan, are concerned about the environment just so long as business doesn't have to do anything to protect it. They think you look good in black, especially something low cut., after all, black is slimming. They think government should stay out of people's lives and business as much as possible, but not if you're gay or liberal or they think you might be sympathetic to terrorists, and by terrorists, they mean Muslims. They think punk rock is the devil's music, and tattoos defile your body. They agree with you on the strong national defense, but government should be accountable and efficient only if the Democrats are in charge. And yes, everybody has lots of gay friends, except maybe the Christian extremists, but that still doesn't mean they should have the same rights as everybody else.

Meghan McCain's Republican Party is something else entirely. And it doesn't exist. It probably should, and maybe someday it will. Or maybe people like Meghan McCain and those poor deluded Log Cabin Republicans should opt for an entirely new party. One that doesn't have all the exceptions Republicans have for their "core values."

Leave the GOP to the extremists. They already think it's theirs -- make it official. Take Michael Steele and the Maine senators, that guy Schmidt who ran John McCain's campaign, maybe Arlen Specter and start a party that isn't based on fear. It'll be a lot easier on them. Just imagine -- they won't have to twist themselves into such pretzilian logic-shapes that they're no longer recognizable as human just to somehow align their human-like ideas with their decidedly inhumane party's ideas. They'll probably sleep easier, too, knowing they no longer belong to the party that sullied the name of this great country with torture.

Meghan McCain is very much right when she said that most people in this country want the nation to succeed and are ready to move out of the past into the future. And that the old school Republicans are scared shitless.

Problem is, the old school Republicans own the party. They're not going to change, and it's going to be too long (Eric Cantor, Rick Perry, Jim Thune, Norm Coleman, etc.) before they're gone.

So my advice to Meghan McCain and anyone who thinks even remotely like her: Cut your losses now and get out before you become embittered old fools who wasted years trying to change the unchangeable. Start new.

Because frankly, if we had another political party, one that didn't tie itself down with more and more outlandish attempts to stay in power -- and more and more outmoded ideas about society -- then we could really have a debate about how to proceed.

But in order to do that, we need to start with some common ground -- and that would be the recovery and success of this country, not the failure of one party so the other can regain power.

Meghan McCain has the right idea, but she's looking in the wrong direction to get it done. There's not one single "progressive Republican" in the House of Representatives, and maybe three in the Senate. There's not many in state legislatures, state governors' mansions or local governments. That's because they keep running as Republicans and losing.

There's an old saying about not changing horses in midstream. Meghan, you've been left on the opposite bank.

Find a new horse. Then, if you think the old guard is scared shitless now, wait till they realize what happened while they were stirring up their hateful, bigoted, paronoid base and find out just how small it really is.

News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Demented

So the television is on this morning. One of those cop dramas, and the case is about a bigoted asshole who shot and killed a black man because he was pissed that a black guy took a taxi he considered "his." Turns out, of course, the guy has a history of racism, like writing letters to his co-op board opposing interracial couples and accusing a black co-worker of stealing his clients. The prosecutors charged him with a hate crime. His defense? Bigotry is a mental disorder.

It is. But it's not one you're born with, or one that just has a later onset. It's a learned behavior. But at any moment you can step out and start unlearning it. Or, you can keep teaching yourself bullshit, and teach it to your children too. That'll make it much harder for them to get along when they get older. Kinda like those assholes in New Jersey who named their children JoyceLynn Aryan Nation, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie and Adoph Hitler.

I'm just sayin. Plenty of people are obviously batshit insane, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions.

Like Fox "News," for example, and a whole bunch of newspapers. They showed you plenty of images from Wednesday's teabaggeries. Images like this one. Now, there's much we can say about the sign behind the taxes sign -- "silent majority no more." Things like, you've never been silent, and you aren't a majority, but we'll let them have that little delusion. Tea-ed off about taxes, that's kinda delusional too, because these same folks want a return to the Reagan years, when taxes were 10 points higher than they will be under Obama's budget. But hey, we can't all have brains and actually use them.

But that was the stated purpose of Wednesday's protests. Unless you were actually there. Then, as CNN's Susan Roesgen correctly pointed out, "This is a party for Obama bashers." She asked a guy holding a sign picturing the president as Hitler why he did so, and his response was "He's a fascist." Several times she tried to ask him why he said that, and his response each time was "Because he is."

That's kinda 8-year-old logic. Because I say so. I'm king a da world! And an asshole. Because you're not 8 years old. You're a grown man.

And that brings us to the images the right-wing media and their blind followers don't want you to see, because they want you to think they're a legitimate group of Americans just complaining about high taxes -- and we won't even go into how America has the lowest tax rate of any developed nation or that what the organizers of the teabaggeries are insterested in is not help for the average American taxpayer, who is getting a tax cut this year courtesy the president, but rather for their rich-ass selves. Go figure.

Nope, they don't want you to see the prevailing attitude at the teabaggeries -- the attitude fueled by the bloviators on the radio and tube. They would prefer that you not see images like this one.

Man, they got pissed off when idiots on the left compared GW to Hitler. Or called him a fascist. Or a torturer -- and we all know how that turned out.

But nobody at the teabaggeries said word one to guys like this one. Pity the photog didn't get his face. I'd like to splash it all over so anyone who runs into him would know what a dick he actually is.

And just like the McCain-Palin rallies during last year's campaign, the anti-Obama folks like to lie and say it's just a small part, that they're not all complete jackasses.

That much is true. They're not all complete jackasses. But most are on the scale somewhere.

Here we see Obama portrayed as some kind of maniacal street thug attacking Uncle Sam from behind. I think the text says "we must resist." How about resisting hyperbole? Somebody hit the panic button and these guys went totally berserk. It doesn't help, of course, that their heroes on the airwaves are telling them this shit.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not advocating that we take 'em off the air. Just that we be more honest about what's going on. It's really hard to have a radio show that keeps its audience by having a rational, intelligent discussion of the issues, a true debate about one approach versus another. Much easier just to say "SOCIALIST!!!!!!" and wait and see what happens.

I mentioned children earlier. Here we return to the Obama as monkey theme that featured so prominently during the campaign, this time with a child.

They like to use children -- and, interestingly, complain bitterly if the left does so. But it's really quite clear that everything is fair game if you're a conservative or Republican.

It's as if they think they own the market on children, that children on the left don't matter, I suppose, because they're parents are so incredibly wrong and perhaps gay on top of that.

Which reminds me ... remember the right wing extremist report from Homeland Security this week? And how the right got all crazy about it -- as if it were talking to them specifically? Apparently, it was, and they're not afraid at all to admit it. But get what Christian extremist Pat Robertson said? Here's a hint -- remember that he thinks gay men and lesbians are responsible for hurricanes.

Give up? Aw, try again. It's not that hard. I mean, it's not like the Bush administration ordered the report ... oh, yeah, they did. Well, it was prepared by Obama's people ... oh right, the department that prepared is headed by a Bush appointee.

OK, here's what Pat said:

It shows somebody down in the bowels of that organization is either a convinced left winger or somebody whose sexual orientation is somewhat in question.

Only a fucking queer would ever question the patriotism of somebody who advocates the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Jeez. What was I thinking.

I might have been thinking that people had a little more sense than that. I'd have been wrong, of course. After all, we're talking about folks who don't accept certified copies of birth certificates as certified copies of birth certificates. Not to mention the idea of impeaching a president after two months in office for doing pretty much what he was elected to do.

It's that whole "taxation without representation" thing again. See, these lunatics like to try to link themselves with the colonists who dumped tea into Boston Harbor. Colonists who had no representation in London. Seems I remember having an election not to long ago in which we chose 435 members of the House of Representatives, several senators, and, oh, yeah, a president.

Are these folks sore losers or what?

Remember when they called Al Gore and Joe "I really am a traitor" Lieberman "Sore Loserman" for taking the 2000 election to court after they won and had the election stolen?

This time we have Norm Coleman still fighting to keep Al Frank from being Democrat No. 59 nearly six months after the vote -- Minnesotans are rightfully getting pissed -- and in New York, the special election for Kirsten Gillibrand's seat is being held up while Republican Jim Tedisco challenges his loss to Democrat Scott Murphy. This week, despite trailing by several hundred votes, Tedisco petitioned the court to declare him the winner.

And then there's the threat of violence. Rick "Gov. Hairdo" Perry of Texas joined traitor Chuck Norris in talking openly about the Lone Star State seceding from the Union. That didn't go over so well last time, as I recall. I wasn't there, but I have read rather extensively about it. The teabaggers seem to be very confused about what constitutes treason too.

But there's that airwaves thing again. When the leaders of your party are media celebrities who command big paychecks as well as your attention, the black guy at party HQ means very little. As does IQ, apparently.

American history, of course, isn't the only thing the teabaggers have trouble with. There's that little thing they keep talking about -- socialism.

By their definition, just about any government program is socialist, including -- especially including -- the military. But given the right's propensity for hired mercenaries, maybe they'd like to open the military to a free market system too. And they'd probably take no-bid contracts on it, which means the taxpayer would be paying wayyyyyy more for the hired hands than what we pay now.

We already know what they think about that other great socialist program -- public education. And the very idea that all Americans have equal access to affordable health care, well, that's just anti-American.

I don't know of Marx would be proud, but I bet he's laughing his ass off.

So, they don't know much about history, systems of economics or government, official documents or the law, and they have no problems displaying their ignorance and bigotry.

Talk about embarrassing. Sheesh. Then there's that little problem of our president's name. It's Barack Hussein Obama. Personally, I love it that we have a black president with a funny name, if for no other than to watch the right spin itself into a frenzy over the very idea of not having a president named John or Richard or Ronald or Herbert.

They do have a problem with this name, though. And we've already addressed the impeachment thing. Although these folk may think he should be impeached just because his name is similar to the guy who ordered other extremists to fly airplanes into buildings several years ago. A guy who, incidentally, is still at large despite our previous president's declaration that we would get him dead or alive.

Really, there's just so much wrong with this group. The good news, of course, is that they didn't quite draw the millions Fox "News" tells us they drew -- that's a lie. Five Thirty-eight compiled as many non-partisan estimates of crowd size for the rallies as it could, and came up with a total of 300,000 in about 350 cities across the country -- although I have some doubts about the non-partisanship of the estimate where I live. Regardless, that's a pathetic turnout. Why, more people than that turned out just in Washington for Obama's inaugural.

But that's just it. These folks think they're right, and they think they're a majority, both of which are demonstrably wrong. The truth is that they can't stand it that they are truly and clearly in the minority -- and it's a shrinking minority.

Must be horribly frightening for them. But it doesn't excuse their irrational behavior.

That behavior may be the most pathetic thing of all, But it's par for the course from bigoted extremists, who, while 100 percent responsible for their 0wn actions, are nevertheless quite demented.


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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