Day: December 7, 2005

Weblog Awards – Vote for the Yellow Dog Blog

Jon Ponder

Vote early and often: Bob Geiger, editor of the Yellow Dog Blog, has been nominated for Best New Blog, over at the Weblog Awards. He got my vote. Bob is a bulldog-tough liberal who is not shy about exposing the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the conservative movement.

“There isn’t a conservative nominated for Best New Blog who can carry the metaphorical jock of Moxiegrrrl, Taylor Marsh or Pensito Review and you don’t see them in the running.”

Naturally, wingnuts don’t like what they read at the Yellow Dog Blog. Like the poor trolls who occasionally wander onto these pages, Bob’s rightwing readers aren’t used to hearing the truth. It hurts their baby ears.

The wingnutosphere is increasingly agitated these days. And why not? Their little world is falling apart.

Until the Bush era, conservatives elected leaders who tended to be either corrupt or incompetent. In 2000, they installed a little man into the Big Chair who is monumentally both. After six years of government under Republican domination, what we normal Americans have known since the Reagan era is now an empirically proven fact: The conservative ideology is a tissue of lies. Republicans can’t govern. Under GOP rule, every facet of our society has deteriorated or stagnated, from the environment to security to healthcare to the economy.

The light at the end of the tunnel for American Democracy may well be that the whole teetering mass of GOP corruption and sleaze appears to be ready to implode under the weight of its own gelatinous mass.

Naturally, they are desperate to turn it around so that the failure of their leadership is somehow our fault. WTF is with that? On the other hand, who cares what unsmart-Americans believe. Or as Bob says:

I’ve seen some of you coming to my defense on the right-wing blogs where the Yellow Dog Blog is being attacked and, while I am touched and appreciative, I would rather you not waste your time doing this. For people like us, winning a war of words with a conservative is a hollow victory, similar to me walking into an old-folks home and winning the 80-and-up, arm-wrestling championship. Yes, I won, but what does it mean? Don’t waste your time with these people.

Bob also said this about the awards – a compliment for which we are truly humbled:

There isn’t a conservative nominated for Best New Blog who can carry the metaphorical jock of Moxiegrrrl, Taylor Marsh or Pensito Review and you don’t see them in the running.

Did you vote yet?

Dems Talking Tough, But Not On Billboards

Buck Banks

Billbored: The Democratic Party is still up in arms over GOP Rep. “Mean” Jean Schmidt’s speech on the House floor wherein she called Purple Heart recipient and 37-year Marine veteran John Murtha a coward for speaking out about the failed Republican policy in Iraq. Tom McMahon, executive director of the Democratic National Committee has been sending me e-mails regularly to keep me apprised of the DNC’s response to Schmidt and to hopefully prise some money out of me to support it.

The DNC response? Put up two “Shame On You” billboards near Schmidt’s Ohio district office. Now that’s talkin’ tough, man. First, Tom asked me for money to buy the signs. He then wanted me to get excited because 7,000 Dumbocrats had “stepped forward to fund a campaign designed to show Republican leaders that there will be consequences for continuing their pattern [of] shamelessly attacking the service of veterans who don’t share their warped view of reality.”

Then he wanted me to get indignant whent the sign company, Lamar Advertising, refused to erect the boards. Well, I didn’t, but 100,000 others with less self-control did, and signed a protest letter to Lamar demanding, as Tom put it, their “right to be heard.”

Tom wrote me today to let me know that Lamar had caved — kind of — and was saying they would put up the boards if the words “shame on you” were removed or a prominent “paid for by” message was included. Tom characterized these demands as “shocking developments,” and noted indignantly that “the DNC will never allow a corporation to determine the content of our ads.”
[…]

Bush Ignores Lessons of Vietnam at Iraq’s Peril

Buck Banks

Betrayal in the making: In “Forward Observer: Homeward Bound?” George C. Wilson, writing in CongressDaily offers some sobering thoughts on what would happen after a U.S. pullout in Iraq. He also writes a chillingly believable Bushesque speech on the withdrawal.

Some day soon I expect to hear President Bush announcing that he will begin withdrawing U. S. troops from Iraq in 2006.

He almost certainly will stress that he is not cutting and running, just complying with the request of the sovereign government of Iraq. His wordsmiths will recommend that Bush say something like this once the new Iraqi government and its constitution are in place:

“Today I am announcing the first withdrawals of American troops from Iraq. I am doing this at the request of the duly elected government of Iraq and with the full support of our own Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thanks in large part to the efforts of our magnificent military, the elected president of Iraq tells me that his army and police forces are ready to take over more of the security of their own country.

“Let me emphasize that we are not abandoning Iraq. We are standing down as Iraqi forces are standing up. This has been my objective all along. American military forces, including our air power, will be on call if the newly elected Iraqi government should need them as we execute the phased withdrawals recommended by our military commanders.

“This is a great day for democracy; a bad day for terrorists the world over. Thanks to our steadfastness in Iraq, to our men and women in uniform who paid the ultimate price helping Iraq achieve its freedom while making us all safer here at home, and to the American people who held firm and would not settle for anything less than victory over the terrorists in Iraq, we have brought a brighter day to the world.”
[…]

Poll: Wars On Iraq and Terrorism are Intertwined but Separate

Buck Banks

Cognitive dissonance: Although the Bushites — all of ’em — link the War On Iraq to the War On Terror virtually every time one of them speaks, the ploy hasn’t completely brainwashed Americans. Today’s National Journals PollTrack finds most Americans can hold differing opinions about the two wars in their brains simultaneously.

The war on terrorism and the war in Iraq have become intertwined in the minds of many Americans, but more than three-quarters of respondents told Quinnipiac University pollsters that the United States should continue the war on terrorism — regardless of their feelings on the Gulf conflict.

Those feelings don’t seem too sunny. Fifty-four percent said they thought going to war with Iraq was the wrong thing to do, 13 points higher than the number who deemed the decision correct and 3 points more than Quinnipiac’s March survey.

Consistent with a recent Time/SRBI survey, a small plurality of Quinnipiac respondents said that before going to war, the Bush administration deliberately misled the public (49%) rather than telling “what it believed to be true” (46%).
[…]

CA GOP Abandons Schwarzenegger Over Gay Hire, Threatens to Run Mel Gibson in ’06

Jon Ponder

Terminator vs Braveheart: Is there a bigger bunch of hapless fools than the folks who run the California Republican Party? They’re angry at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger because he hired an openly gay Democrat as his chief of staff, and now they’re threatening to run Mel Gibson against him next year.

In the recall election, many people voted for Arnold because they thought it would be “funny” to have the Terminator as governor. They are not laughing now.

Why Gibson? Because he produced “The Passions of the Christ,” the blockbuster homage to S&M tarted up as a passion play:

There is even a movement to draft Mel Gibson, the actor and director, to run against Schwarzenegger in the Republican primary next year — in part because the success of Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” could help his chances among religious conservatives. Raised in Australia, Gibson was born in New York and is a U.S. citizen, although he has not expressed an interest in elected politics.

“We need to have a good backup,” said Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, a grass-roots organization that is separate from the state party. Spence’s group has set up the website, http://www.melgibsonforgovernor.com . “He seems to be more consistent with the Republican message” than the governor is, Spence said.

Let’s do the numbers. As of 2004, 35 percent of California voters were registered Republicans. Let’s say half are American-Talibanis – meaning about 18 percent of voters might reflexively vote for Mel Gibson because of his extreme religious views.

Bring it on.

Sure, there are star-struck voters who might vote for Gibson just because he’s famous. However, during the election to recall of Gov. Gray Davis, many independents and even some Democrats voted for Schwarzenegger essentially because they thought it would be “funny” to have the Terminator as governor. Believe me, they’re not laughing now.

It’s hard to imagine that Californians will elect any movie star – Democrat or Republican – anytime soon. And there’s even less likelihood it would be a light-weight like Mel Gibson.

CA-48: ‘Minuteman’ Loses Big in Special Election

Jon Ponder

Anti-immigration loses again: If it’s Tuesday in California, there must be an election somewhere – or so it seems. Yesterday there was a special election in the 48th congressional district to fill the seat of Republican Chris Cox who was – not indicted! – but rather was named head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This district is centered around Newport Beach in Orange County and is about as white and moneyed, and therefore solidly Republican, as any in California. So it was no surprise that the establishment Republican, state Sen. Tom Campbell, won with 45 percent of the vote.

But the news out of the election is that the Democrat, Steve Young, came in second, besting the darling of the Pat Buchanan wing of the GOP, Tom Gilchrist, 28 percent to 25 percent.

Gilchrist is a co-founder of the Minuteman Project which encourages wingnuts to become vigilantes at the Mexican border, sitting in beach chairs and keeping watch for illegal aliens crossing in to steal our healthcare and Social Security.

Whatever they are, Gilchrist and his ilk are not students of recent California political history. If they were, they would remember that in the early 1990’s, anti-immigrant fever enflamed the GOP in California. The party rammed through Proposition 187, which would have denied healthcare and education to illegal immigrants and thereby flooded California with hundreds of thousands of sick and uneducated children. Although the GOP won the battle for Prop 187, it sent the party into the electoral wilderness by shifting millions of Latino votes from independent or Republican into the Democratic column, giving the Dems sizeable victories in every statewide election since.

So all we can say to Mr. Gilchrist is good luck – sorry you didn’t make it but, please, keep trying!

Domestic Spying: Transcript of Former Rep. Bob Barr

Jon Ponder

CNN “Situation Room,” with Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: Americans spying on Americans. In a story first reported today by the “New York Times” and confirmed by our own sources here at CNN, President Bush is said to have authorized the super secret National Security Agency to conduct electronic eavesdropping here at home. The president is saying only that he won’t discuss ongoing intelligence operations.

Joining us now are two conservative Republicans who have very different views on this issue. From Atlanta, the former Congressman and CNN contributor, Bob Barr, and from Capitol Hill, California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

Congressman Barr, what’s wrong with what the president has decided to do?

BOB BARR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: What’s wrong with it is several-fold. One, it’s bad policy for our government to be spying on American citizens through the National Security Agency. Secondly, it’s bad to be spying on Americans without court oversight. And thirdly, it’s bad to be spying on Americans apparently in violation of federal laws against doing it without court order.

So it’s bad all around, and we need to get to the bottom of this. BLITZER: Do you agree, Congressman Rohrabacher — I suspect you don’t.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, (R) CALIFORNIA: No. What’s really bad is the fact that we have an evil opponent who wants to blow us up and that six months after 3,000 of our American citizens were slaughtered right in front of our eyes, that we were confronted with this challenge. I’m really sorry that we have this kind of evil enemy that wants to slaughter us, but I’m very happy that we have a president that, six months after they slaughtered 3,000 of our citizens, he decided to follow up on a lead that was given to our people by breaking up an al Qaeda cell in Pakistan, and followed through on that to make sure that there wasn’t another imminent attack, and thus probably saving many thousands of American lives. We can be proud of President Bush for protecting us.

BLITZER: Congressman Barr, what do you say?

BARR: Well, the fact of the matter is that the Constitution is the Constitution, and I took an oath to abide by it. My good friend, my former colleague, Dana Rohrabacher, did and the president did. And I don’t really care very much whether or not it can be justified based on some hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that, if you have any government official who deliberately orders that federal law be violated despite the best of motives, that certainly ought to be of concern to us.

ROHRABACHER: 9/11 is not a hypothetical. We are at war.

BARR: No, but the hypothetical is the — the other cases you were talking about.

ROHRABACHER: Bob, now that we are at war, that is not hypothetical. We have an enemy that has decided that they’re going to terrorize the American population by committing mass murder. That is not hypothetical. We are at war, and sometimes at war you —

BLITZER: No, what you were saying, Dana, is that there were other case — those are hypothetical —

ROHRABACHER: No, that’s not — Bob, you haven’t read this. No, that’s not hypothetical at all. One of the cases that was involved in this, was someone who was attempting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and because of these wire taps, we were able to stop that.

BARR: No, you’re wrong there, Dana. First of all —

ROHRABACHER: And by the way, how do we know who wasn’t deterred from blowing up other targets. The fact is —

BARR: Well, gee, I guess then the president should be able to ignore whatever provision in the Constitution as long as there’s something after the fact that justifies it.

BARR: Bob, during wartime, you give some powers to the presidency you wouldn’t give in peace time. BARR: Do we have a declaration of war, Dana?

ROHRABACHER: You don’t have to do that.

BARR: We don’t? That makes it even much easier for a president.

ROHRABACHER: No, you just have to make sure that the people of the United States understand that we are at war. They understand that al Qaeda slaughtered 3,000 of our citizens — more people than the Japanese slaughtered at Pearl Harbor.

BLITZER: Congressman — let me interject for a second, Congressman Rohrabacher.

ROHRABACHER: Sure.

BLITZER: Everything you say is true, but why not go through the process of either getting new legislation authorizing this or let the court orders be fully implemented? In other words, before the NSA goes and eavesdrops on Americans, get a court order?

BLITZER: First of all, let us note that all this eavesdropping on Americans were that, there were some people living in the United States, whether they’re American citizens or not — we don’t know how many are American citizens — that were involved with contacts overseas. This is eavesdropping on people who were doing international calls and the list that we got, came from what — came from an al Qaeda cell that we broke up in Pakistan.

I am very pleased that our president didn’t wait around but, instead, ran right forward immediately to try to follow up on this and find out what they were planning. I believe he probably thwarted several major attacks by doing that.

BLITZER: Congressman Barr, do you want to respond to that?

BARR: Here again, this is absolutely a bizarre conversation where you have a member of Congress saying that it’s okay for the president of the United States to ignore U.S. law, to ignore the Constitution, simply because we are in an undeclared war.

The fact of the matter is the law prohibits — specifically prohibits — what apparently was done in this case, and for a member of Congress to say, oh, that doesn’t matter, I’m proud that the president violated the law is absolutely astounding, Wolf.

ROHRABACHER: Not only proud, we can be grateful to this president. You know, I’ll have to tell you, if it was up to Mr. Schumer, Senator Schumer, they probably would have blown up the Brooklyn Bridge. The bottom line is this: in wartime we expect our leaders, yes, to exercise more authority.

Now, I have led the fight to making sure there were sunset provisions in the Patriot Act, for example. So after the war, we go back to recognizing the limits of government. But we want to put the full authority that we have and our technology to use immediately to try to thwart terrorists who are going to — how about have a nuclear weapon in our cities?

BARR: And the Constitution be damned, Dana?

ROHRABACHER: Well, I’ll tell you something, if a nuclear weapon goes off in Washington, DC, or New York or Los Angeles, it’ll burn the Constitution as it does. So I’m very happy we have a president that’s going to wiretap people’s communication with people overseas to make sure that they’re not plotting to blow up one of our cities.

BLITZER: We’re out of time, but Bob Barr, I’ll give you the last word.

BARR: Well, first of all, or last of all, this so-called plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge was bogus because it had to do with a group of idiots who were planning to dismantle it with blow torches.

BLITZER: That will have to be the last word and we’re going to continue this discussion down the road. Dana Rohrabacher, Congressman, thanks very much for joining us.

ROHRABACHER: Thank you.

Branding the GOP: Seven Labels to Pin on the Elephants

Jon Ponder

It’s the incompetence, stupid…

Message discipline is not one of the political traits liberals are know for, but what we have learned from our enemies – Rove, Gingrich and the late Atwater, among others – is that getting the language right is the first step. The difference is, we don’t have to lie and obscure our real motives like they do. Here is a list of ideas for branding the Republicans next year:

They can’t run a war. They can’t run an economy. They can’t reconstruct a foreign country they bombed to bits. They can’t create jobs. They can’t balance a budget. They can’t even avoid being indicted.

1. President Loser: Let us count the things that were lost on Bush’s watch, then let us hang them around his neck, like big French medals. He immediately lost the budget surplus. Then he lost the World Trade Center. Damn near lost the Pentagon too. Then he lost America’s moral standing in the world. He lost an entire American city – New Orleans. Nobody’s ever lost a whole American city before. Then, he lost the War in Iraq.

2. The Grand Old Hypocrisy Party. These were the guys who were going to restore honor to the White House. Bush was a uniter, not a divider. These people are not occasionally found in a hypocritical situation – they are professional hypocrites. They name things the opposite of what they are. Clear Skies means more mercury in the air. A Jobs and Stimulus Package, that actually loses jobs. The president calls his home a ranch, but it’s got no cattle, no horses neither. Bush pretends to run a clean campaign and has Carl Rove slander John McCain and the Swift Boat Veterans slander John Kerry.

3. Loot and Pollute defines all their policies. Loot Iraq, and leave a disaster behind. Loot the treasurey and leave deficits behind. Pollute the air, pollute the water, just so that this month’s Enron can get their loot.

4. The National Incompetence Party. They can’t run a war. They can’t run an economy. They can’t reinforce the levees when the hurricanes are coming. They can’t reconstruct an American city. They can’t reconstruct a foreign country they bombed to bits. They can’t negotiate an international coalition. They can’t create jobs. They can’t balance a budget. They can’t even avoid being indicted.

5. The Name-Calling Party. There are two reasons to call them the name calling party. The first, because it’s what they do. Please, go on any right wing website or blog and read the names they call even John McCain or John Murtha. Let alone Clinton or Schumer. The second, is because it’s time for the left to start doing it. As the game is played now, it is important to accuse your opponent of what you, yourself are doing. Say it first, say it often, don’t flinch when they say it back, just repeat the accusation two more times.

6. The Big Secrets Party. They love secrets. Why? Because if the people knew the truth about what they were doing, they would know they are looting and polluting, they’re sneak thieves, they’re incompetent, they’ve been asleep at the wheel and they’re losers.

7. The Mean Girls Party. Oh my word, aren’t they whiney. Now that they’re in party, they just keep everyone out. They have their secrets, which they don’t have to share, and that makes them better than anyone else in the lunchroom. They all have their nicknames. And they like to play mean dirty tricks on other people and snicker about it later. Nothing they ever do is wrong, because other people made them do it. Anyway, they’re the real victims. You don’t even have to ask, they’ll tell you so. With my apologies to the feminists among us, but they are just like the Heathers.