TBT: The Brutal Truth

Friday, July 28, 2006

TBT Is Dead

I'm currently posting this using my sister's computer on 56k dial-up as the crooks behind Charter Communications collected my cable modem on Tuesday the 18th, effectively shutting TBT down -- continuing to blog on 56K dial up is not an option for many reasons. Broadband spoiled me and I vowwed never to go back to 56K dial up.

Ever.

Period.

Another contention is I'm a strict external modem person ever since my first 2400 baud modem many, many moons ago. It was upgraded to a 14.4 and then a 56K -- all of them external. External modems don't need drivers, easy to troubleshoot, better hardware (read: more expensive) and they hardly ever get fried by a garden variety thunderstorm unlike all the spare PCI-based, el-cheapo, dime-a-fuckin-dozen internal modems I've seen (and have laying around here).

Besides, even if I did have my beloved external Sportster back and if I were to break my vow, the problems I've been having with AT&T and Talk America in the past along with the lack of cashflow just makes me not even want to bother turning on my PC anymore except for when I need a rock/heavy metal fix.

So, TBT is dead and thanks for being there.

Sizemore, however, is not dead. In fact, I'm far more dangerous without broadband internet service and my blog. They were my pacifiers, I guess, and without them, there's absolutely nothing stopping me from seriously entertaining those crazy, gibberin, dirty, 'Murika hatin', Saddam-loving, liberal, terrorist voices in my head that tell me that City Councilman/Mayor/Governor Sizemore has an awfully good ring to it ... and why not?!? The ~~welfare~~ health benefits are a fuckload better and I don't even need the Viagra. Might need a freezer, though. Not for cold hard cash ala Jefferson, mind you. More as a Dahmer-esque means of preserving the disembodied heads of my opposition ...

Take care, folks. It's been real ...

Friday, July 14, 2006

The Fifth Collumn

Unlike some bloggers, I'm not going to help or reward (save for this very post) the Capitalist, pro-Administration propaganda networks such as CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc. to allow the Bush Administration to "change the subject" once again via 24/7 "Schiavo Style" coverage of Jews and Palestinians blowing each other to smithereens. My position on the Middle East is crude yet simple: pull our troops and all resources out of there entirely and let these fundamentalist religious fuckers Nick Berg each other in homage to their respective false deities.

Neither I nor my daughter will be dying for Palestine or dying for Israel and won't have my tax-dollars wasted so that our own card-carrying Likudniks and PLO disciples within the Republican and Democratic party ranks can kiss foreign fundy religious ass in exchange for continued money, votes, and power within Washington D.C. Fuck 'em.

I'm not a bigot nor an anti-semite -- I'm anti-idiocy and killing people for ones God is as idiotic as it gets. In the immortal words of Jesus himself, "Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword" and these motherfuckers -- Jew and Arab alike -- have been living and dying by the sword since Moses came down off the mountain and it's my sincere, heart felt, undying belief that this shit wouldn't be happening right now if Bush and the fake Christian right would've left a contained Iraqi dictator the fuck alone.

Nope. The religion of capitalism (much like all fundamentalist religions) creates an "entitlement culture" towards more, and more, and more capital -- regardless who pays or suffers. Thus, the Bushies and the Saudi-Arabian oil cretins felt "entitled" to stick their beaks and our troops into Iraq to put a cap on Saddam's oil, creating artificial shortages and demand, resulting in the high prices we're paying at the pumps. Thus sayeth Lord Mammon -- thy Bush-Lord's God ...

Their pro-business, pro-capitalist "our way of life" destabling of the Middle East to the levels of bloodshed currently smeared all over cable news at this hour also served another purpose for the Republican far right Fundy Fristian fringe -- the rapure nuts are loving it! For every dead Jew and dead Palestinian -- be they man, woman, or child -- these knuckle-dragging, Bush voting, Christian fakers and frauds are praising and decrying the Rapture and the return of their Tin Jebus, and relishing in it all.

America, these lunatics are your "fifth collumn" for they don't care about the underlying chain of events that trigger their beloved "end times" bombs, blood, guts and tribulation just as long as The Rapture and Christ's return is thusly advanced another step. In their eyes, the doctrine "Once Saved Always Saved" espoused by Dr. Charles Stanley in Atlanta (and in fundamentalist churches everywhere) is seen as a defacto license to commit the most gruesome and heinous sins imaginable, still remain saved, and still go to Heaven.

Bush can personally waterboard the entire middle eastern populace, hook car batteries up to their testicles, rape the women, and shove flashlights and nightsticks up the asses of Club Gitmo/Casbah Ghraib "guests", and those sins won't effect his salvation with the Lord according to these Rapture Rejects. In fact, it's quite the opposite -- if these actions (sins) of Bush bring about the Rapture and the return of the Lawd, the ends justify all means. And since the blood of Christ at Calvary allready "saved" Bush "from the foundation of the world" or "from the perspective of the cross", it's as if these sins never happen, are never credited to Bush, and therefore he still remains a Christian with his reservation in Heaven intact. He's still their boy hero!

Fools and hypocrites ...

With any luck, hope, and prayer, the heavenly father of Jesus will turn to these freaks and say, "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity for I know you not!"

(Tin Hat Twirl: Brainers)

UPDATE: Apparently some time after posting this, the great chariot had swung low and ~~scrubbed~~ raptured that entire thread from prying dirty liberal 'Murika hating eyes, leaving all those sorry Rapture Ready bastards behind for the coming Great Tribulation. Man, that must suck -- to go from burning their Weis & Hickman D&D novels to burning Jenkins & LaHaye! Might as well toss the Hal Lindsey and Jack Van Impe tomes on the pile, too. Praise Jesus and pass the Keith Olberman.

Rise and Fall of The Republican Dolchstosslegende

Kevin Baker at Harpers takes us on a history lesson that details the rise, demogoguery, and fall of Dolchstosslegende -- a political propaganda tool used originally by the fascist Nazi regime of Hitler and adopted by the Republican Party here in the USA for the same purposes -- to bullshit Americans into believing in conspiracy theories of treachery; of getting "stabbed in the back" by one's own people. The last few paragraphs of the piece speak volumes on the exactly how the Bush's War in Iraq has rendered the "stab in the back" propaganda tool completely useless by the Rightwingers for generations to come:

What has really robbed the conspiracy theories of their effectiveness is how the war in Iraq has been conducted. Bush and his advisers have sought to use the war not only to punish their enemies but also to reward their supporters, a bit of political juggling that led them to demand nothing from the American public as a whole. Those of us who are not actively fighting in Iraq, or who do not have close friends and family members who are doing so, have not been asked to sacrifice in any way. The richest among us have even been showered with tax cuts.

Yet in demanding so little, Bush has finally uncoupled the state from its heroic status. It is not a coincidence that modern nationalism dates from the advent of mass democracy—and mass citizen armies—that the American and French revolutions ushered in at the end of the eighteenth century. Bush’s refusal to mobilize the nation for the war in Iraq has severed that immediate identification with our army’s fortunes. Nor did it begin with the Bush Administration. The wartime tax cuts and the all-volunteer, wartime army are simply the latest manifestations of a trend that is now decades old and that has been promulgated through peace as well as war, by Democrats as well as Republicans. It cannot truly be a surprise that a society that has steadily dismantled or diminished the most basic access to health care, relief for the poor and the aged, and decent education; a society that has allowed the gap between its richest and poorest citizens to grow to unprecedented size; a society that has paid obeisance to the ideology of globalization to the point of giving away both its jobs and its debt to foreign nations, and which has just allowed one of its poorer cities to quietly drown, should choose to largely opt out of its own defense.

Anyone who doubts that this is exactly what we have done need only look at how little the war really engages most of us. It rarely draws more than a few seconds of coverage on the local television news, if that, and then only well into the broadcast, after a story on a murder, or a fire, or the latest weather predictions. Even the largest and angriest demonstrations against our occupation of Iraq have not approached the mobilizations against the war in Vietnam, but a close observer will notice that we also have yet to see any of the massive counterdemonstrations that were held in support of that war—or “in support of the troops.” Such engagement on either side seems almost quaint now.

Who could possibly believe in a plot to lose this war? No one cares that much about it. We have, instead, reached a crossroads where the overwhelming right-wing desire to dissolve much of the old social compact that held together the modern nation-state is irreconcilably at odds with any attempt to conduct such a grand, heroic experiment as implanting democracy in the Middle East. Without mass participation, Iraq cannot be passed off as an heroic endeavor, no matter how much Mr. Bush’s rhetoric tries to make it one, and without a hero there can be no great betrayer, no skulking villain.

And yet, a convincing national narrative, though it may be the sheerest, most vicious fiction, can have incredible staying power—can perhaps outlast even the nation that it was meant to serve. It is ironic that, even as support for his war was starting to unravel in May of 2005, George W. Bush was in the Latvian capital of Riga, describing the Yalta agreement as “one of the greatest wrongs of history.” The President placed it in the “unjust tradition” of the 1938 Munich Pact and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which together paved the way for the start of World War II in 1939. Bush’s words echoed his statements of three previous trips to Eastern Europe, dating back to 2001, during which he had pledged, “no more Munichs, no more Yaltas,” and called Yalta an “attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability,” a “bitter legacy,” and a “constant source of injustice and fear” that had “divided a living civilization.”

The ultimate irony of Bush’s perpetuating this ageless right-wing shibboleth is that for once it wasn’t intended for home consumption. The Yalta myth has finally lost its old magic, here in historically illiterate, contemporary America. Nor did Bush make any special attempt to let his countrymen know he was apportioning them equal blame with Stalin and Hitler for the greatest calamities of the twentieth century.

Bush’s pandering was directed instead to the nations he was visiting, in a region that still battens on any number of conspiracy theories. Why he should have so denigrated his own country to a few small Eastern European nations might seem a mystery, until one considers that this is the “new Europe” that Bush has solicited for troops for his Iraqi adventure . . . and where he appears to have found either destinations or conduits for victims of “extraordinary rendition,” en route to where they could be safely tortured in secrecy.

An American president, wandering the halls of Eastern European palaces, denounces his own nation in order to appease his hosts into torturing secret prisoners. Our heroic age surely has come to an end.

Bush and the Republican "ownership society" can not dream up some anti-American back-stabbing pariah to milk and castigate for their own political, fiscal, and moral salvation precisely because they're the fools that snookered and backstabbed us into another worthless, pointless, immoral war ... and, of course, botched it completely because they themselves are just as immoral as the war itself. There are no Straussian scapegoats to pass off blame and responsibility for their reckless incompetence.

Another reason is because the American people have woke up and now see Bush and the Republican Party for what they truly are at heart -- goosestepping, tow-the-line, Dear-Leader-Is-Always-Right, fake Christian fascists.

But those American people also see the Democratic Party for what they trully are well -- spineless, ineffective, "go-along-to-get-along" jellyfish whose own corruption in the face of The Decider's fascist Neo-Nazi Republican, pro-Capitalist, pro-business cretin regime is made manifest by their lack of defiance.

They knew these rotten rightwing fascists were raping lady Liberty and pillaging America of her values, principals, and her coffers ... and did nothing. Our Democrats, at best, turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to it all or, at worst, went along with the Republicans with enough wink-wink and nudge-nudge culpability just as long as they themselves weren't totally left out of the unmitigated rougery being committed underneath their beaks by the Republican criminal enterprize.

Which noose hangs our Democratic Party -- the complacency noose or the complicity noose? I can shorten those choices by reminding you that Democrat Pelosi gleefully showered the Republicans with 13 "privileged" resolutions instead of ten times as many formal ethics complaints, reminding you that Democrat William Jefferson stuffed $90,000 in his freezer and joined Pelosi and Hastert's caterwauling and outrage, by reminding you that Dick Durbin weeped on the Senate floor in applogizing for telling the truth, and by reminding you .... wait - hold on just a sec ... Okay, just needed to check your spinal collumn to make sure Joe Lieberman hasn't collected it yet for hanging over his fireplace.

New Duds!

A few days ago, my template exploded to hell and gone because TypePad took a ciesta. When it came up, my template was still a bit knackered so I went on the prowl. After burning the midnight oil here testing templates, uploading files to my old host, fighting with HaloScan, etc., what you see here is the result of that labor ... and if you don't like it, go rot in hell (or have a drunken one night stand with Janet Reno and live!) :-)

I'm going to fuckin' bed ... Haha!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Bourgeois Pig 5: Aravosis Removes Blinders - Finds Hood In D.C.

I really, really, really, hate to channel Joe Lieberman but there he goes again:

If you never saw the movie "A Clockwork Orange," it's about... well... I don't even remember what it's about, I saw it so long ago. All I remember from the movie was an incredibly graphic and violent scene of some thugs breaking into a woman's home. The rest was so violent and nasty, it still sticks in my head some 30+ years later.

That is what Washington, DC is now becoming, a city of gratuitous and graphic violence. I'm serious, the city is dangerous folks. Visit or live here at your own peril.

...

This is Georgetown, folks. It's like getting murdered and raped in Beverly Hills. As much as the cops and the politicians try to tell you that "shit happens" in big cities, it doesn't happen on a regular basis in the "good" neighborhoods, and it sure doesn't happen on a regular basis where I grew up. We've even had several shootings and murders in my neighborhood in DC and the surrounding neighborhoods, and they're pretty damn nice, well, compared to the neighborhoods next door.

Before you go plopping down half a million dollars to live in some new condo in a neighborhood that was a ghetto just a year ago (and still really is), you might want to take a hard look through the newspapers. Even the best neighborhoods in DC are now seeing random rapes and murders, and our politicians are telling us this is quite "normal" for any big city (it hadn't been "normal" in my neighborhood for the past ten years or so that I recall). And the neighborhoods all the young well-off kids are moving in to make my neighborhood (which is nice, but still edgy), look like Bel Air.

Awww, your poor, affluent, Orwellian, upper-middle class, capitalist boy that has lived in Washington D.C. for over 20 years. Is that nasty ol' hood coming to your own little habitat of suburbanite sprawl?!? Newsflash for you -- Washington D.C. has always been the sewer on the Potomac. In other words, the entire city has been nothing more than a den of thieves, crooks, swindlers, murderers, criminals and other assorted hoodlums since day one... and that's just the Senate and Congress alone.

Now, after years of Mammon, the Great Balaam of Capitalism has furthered the divide between the "haves" and "have-nots", you're just now starting to realize that the "have-nots" are gunning straight for the "have-mores" of Georgetown?!? And why not -- most of the "haves" had done packed up and left that filthy shithole a long time ago (I think Marion Berry rocking it up was the straw that broke the camel's back) leaving only the "have-mores" and a few hangers-on from the "haves" such as yourself that still feel entitled to not have their "good" neighborhoods and gated communites overrun by the filthy, unwashed low classes; to not have a needle taken to your bubble of privilege?

Your entire whinefest reads like a shallow, incohate, pity-party of not necessarily class warfare, but of class indignation -- a common trait among Republicans. As one of your own commenters (jmoor) said:

This is the ultimate result of the conservative belief in YOYO (Your on Your Own).

What do we expect when we see a society that permits its wealthiest and most highly connected to get away with crimes on a regular basis? What do you expect when the social safety net keeps falling away and when the labor of the common person continues to erode? What do you expect when large corporate interests will routinely triumph over the worker, the middle class and the impoverished (who were abandonned long ago)? What do you expect in a society brainwashed to believe that you are morally inferior should you fail to succeed in material term? What do you expect when the government's policy of "do unto others before they do unto you" preventive warfare teaches a might make right view of the world?

I have been to many countries in europe and the far east. We adopted our daughter in Siberia. The one thing I have noted is that there is a direct correlation between income distribution and the civility of society. I remember the Phillipines as an excellent example. The rich controlled society and were corrupt. The rich corrupted the government (like our Republicans have been corrupted). The poor stole to stay alive and then because they felt entitled to take what they could given the disparity of income and rigged system.

The only winners in a capitalist system ... are the capitalists. They win short term megabucks only to turn around and inherit long term mega-hoods because the top-down disparity of weath empowers the rich, monied, bourgeois elite as the expense of those below. It'll remain this way until people remove their fuckin' blinders and I don't have much hope for you. Like most upper-middle class capitalists among both sides of the political sandbox, they only want to remove the blinders when it's convenient. Afterall, I must draw this conclusion because, just shortly after The Yearly Schmooz in Las Vegas, you had a moment of clarity where the blinders came off and you wondered, "Who knew Las Vegas had mountains?"

I'll tell you: My sister Darlene. She's lived in Las Vegas for 20 years. If she's not a good enough expert for you, there's always these lads -- they knew Vegas had mountains for over 150 years ...

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Holy Exploding Templates, Batman!

Just loaded up my blog a few moments and ago and noticed only black text on a plain white background. Yikes! Within 10 minutes of an investigation, I located the problem -- the style sheet that powers the template (Powell Street) is hot linked to the author's TypePad account ... and TypePad is down for maintainence.

Powell Street's author Lillia released new code for the template awhile back and, after parsing through the code, I made one small cut and paste and VIOLA! With this change, if Lillia's TypePad account goes down again at a future time, it won't take my blog down with it and, instead, will snag the style sheet from another location. The change also improved loading speed ...

UPDATE: Spoke too soon! The background image in the title banner as well as the white bankground border no longer loads up. I can't figure out why. So, I'm on the prowl for some new duds.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

The Onion -- Fair & Balanced!

When I was about 12 or 13 years old, a Detroit radio station 96.3 WHYT (now called WDVD, I believe) had a jock by the name of Waite. During his shift, he'd have a segment called "Waite's Complaints" where people would call in and air their dirty laundry and get a snark-filled replay from Waite. He would take the best of the lot and edit them seemlessly for a quick 30 second broadcast over the air.

One day back in the mid-80s, my prepubescent naive narrow little teenaged hide had dirty laundry with Mr. Waite and most radio station jocks. I called him up during that segment and the conversation went (and aired) as follows:

Waite: Hi, WHYT! What's yer complaint?

Me: Yeah, why don't you DJs come to the phone faster?!?

Waite (incredulous): Why don't we come to the phone faster?

Me: Yeah ...

Waite (chuckling): Because we know there's people like you on the other end--*CLICK*-- Hi, WHYT! You gotta complaint?!?"

Now, much older, smarter, and with some minor radio experiance of my own under my own belt, I can empathize with Waite -- the people that call the request line are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing when you get a character that's exactly like a DJ -- loopy as all hell with enough of an arsenal of double-entendres to keep 15 seconds of banter going for the sake of entertaining radio. But a curse when you get a caller that was just like me when I was a teenaged brat -- an obnoxious shitbag. Despite the blessing/curse nature of a radio request line, it's what makes the job fun enough to keep some DJ's around and LIVE in the studio as opposed to ol' voicetracking machine (has to be the listeners -- it sure isn't the pay!)

I relate this experiance to you because I feel the same way about building and fixing computers despite the fact that the people I build/fix them for are a blessing and a curse. Sometimes, I get someone that actually knows their shit about computers and other times I get people who claim to know alot about computers when, in reality, they're just reciting whatever bullshit the Best Buy/Geek Squad register barnacles told them for the expressed purposed of annoying the ever loving shit out of me.

Despite it all, I love building and fixing computers for exactly the same reason Waite (and other DJs) love being in radio -- it's because there's people like this fool at the other end of the keyboard; a diabolical dumbshit that actually believed The Onion reported real news as opposed to satire only to turn around and defend himself for being so stupid and gullible in the first place ... and the folks at Blondesense for really, really, making my day!

For the record, no I did NOT build that person's computer and you're just gonna have to trust me on that. Why? On one hand, if I could have 10 people like that idiot call me for either a service call, an upgrade, or a new computer every day for 1-2 years straight, I'd be sitting on a decent nest egg of cash right now because, if they're gonna be suckers for The Onion, they'll be suckers for anything. But having to actually deal with those 10 gullible bastards on a daily basis isn't really worth toying with the temptation of financially raping them blind for the privilege of that nest egg. Conscience is a killer ...

Besides, if I had build that dumbfuck's computer, I'd have 600 people on my blog shaking their fists at me so uh ... yeah, I'll gladly take a raincheck on that. It's better to be poor and laugh at them over there ... than to be financially stable and deal with them over here.

Our Cocks Are Showing

Newsweek's Isikoff & Taylor show us that a large wedge has been driven into the heart of the Bush Administration like a wooden stake through the heart of a vampire ... and it has HAMDAN written all over it. Unlike real wooden stakes that typically kill their blood sucking hosts, this one has turned the White House into a divided camp of parasitic megalomaniacs fighting each other over the right/privilege to drive thier own rubber-stamp Congress right off the legal, ethical, and moral cliff to see if it can fly (sorta like they did previous with our Treasury and their own "Culture of Life" meme):

David Bowker vividly remembers the first time he heard the phrase. A lawyer in the State Department, Bowker was part of a Bush administration "working group" assembled in the panicked aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Its task: figuring out what rights captured foreign fighters and terror suspects were entitled to while in U.S. custody. White House hard-liners, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and his uncompromising lawyer, David Addington, made it clear that there was only one acceptable answer. One day, Bowker recalls, a colleague explained the goal: to "find the legal equivalent of outer space"—a "lawless" universe. As Bowker understood it, the idea was to create a system where detainees would have no legal rights and U.S courts would have no power to intervene.

...

But the complaints went unheeded. The hard-liners forcefully argued that in wartime, the president had virtually unlimited powers to defend the nation. They may come to wish they'd listened a little more closely to the warnings. In a ruling late last month, the Supreme Court came down squarely on the side of the dissenters. The case involved Ahmed Hamdan, a captured 37-year-old Yemeni who once served as Osama bin Laden's driver and now sits in a Gitmo cell. The court blocked the Pentagon's plans to try Hamdan as a war criminal in a military commission authorized by President Bush. The court's reasoning was complex, but the majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, concluded that the military commissions, with their limited protections for the rights of the accused, violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the basic provisions of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions—precisely the argument that Taft, Bowker and other State Department lawyers had tried to make four years ago.

Of course, we can't forget that Senators Graham and Kyl tried to fool the Supreme Court by pulling an Enron -- stuffing the Congressional Record with a cooked-up 12,000 word colloquy that never happened on the Senate floor only to turn around and file an amicus brief in favor of the Bush Administration's motion to dismiss Hamdan under the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) by citing the fraudulent debate from Congressional Record. Not only did their actions stab Sen. Carl Levin in the back but it reeked of contempt of court.

But the real hilarious (and ironic) part of the Newsweek article follows below:

The court decision's possible effects have set off an intense debate within the administration over how to respond. One camp, headed by national-security adviser Stephen Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, want to use the decision as the basis for a wide-ranging "fix" that would accept a role for Congress and the courts on detainee issues. That would, at a minimum, require Congress to authorize military commissions under new rules that provide greater protections for the accused—and establish some standards for the treatment and interrogation of terror suspects. (It could also lead to a shutdown of Guantánamo—a goal President Bush has moved toward in recent weeks.)

But hard-liners—led by Addington, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff—are fiercely resisting. They, along with some congressional Republicans, want to nullify the court ruling by rewriting portions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and granting the president the powers the court rejected.

The Hamdan decision has rendered the White House into the equivilent of a chicken coop where the two biggest cocks -- Bush and Cheney -- are beak to beak and neck feathers up in a stare down, readying to start pecking and spurring the shit out of each other and the irony is in exactly what they're fighting for -- which rooster has dibs on the Republican rubber-stamp Congress to expand presidential powers!

Bush's agenda to "fix" the problem would require Congressional involvement in drafting new legislation and Cheney's agenda to snub the Supreme Court by pumping a slug of revisionist birdshot into the UCMJ also requires Congressional involvement and approval. Picturing the cockfight in my mind sure gives me a bad (good?) case of the cackles but, if I was a bettin' man, I'd go all in on Cheney as the cock that'll rule the roost in the end while palming a few chips to place on the other cock underneath the legal betting window to break even because of his penchant for scratching signing statements into everything. What can I say - the like those bettin' odds!

However, I must admit that this cockfight within the White House brings a whole new meaning to something my Dad used to tell me when I was wee squab -- something about having as much sense as a chicken, I believe it was. But, if Dad were still alive to see the state of affairs in Washington right now, he probably retire that insult for being very unfair to both me and chickens as he'd be hard pressed to find anything more stupid than the worthless shower of dumb fuckin' clucks we're stuck with ...

Monday, July 10, 2006

Pelosi & Hastert Gets Judicial Smackdown

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said members of Congress are not above the law. He rejected requests from lawmakers and Democratic Rep. William Jefferson to return material seized by the FBI in a May 20-21 search of Jefferson's office.

In a 28-page opinion, Hogan dismissed arguments that the first-ever raid on a congressman's office violated the Constitution's protections against intimidation of elected officials.

Jefferson's theory of legislative privilege "would have the effect of converting every congressional office into a taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for crime," the judge said.

Toni Locy
The Washington Post
July 10th, 2006

---

Judge Hogan's ruling isn't setting well with either Speaker Hastert or Nancy Pelosi at this hour. When we tried to get comments from the Speaker, his face overwent multiple shades of crimson and he barked something unintelligible but this esteemed reporter believes it was somewhere along the lines of this newspaper hating America and needing to be charged with violating The Espionage Act.

Reaction from Pelosi's office was not as gruff and cold, however. Although Pelosi would not comment to us directly, an aide who requested anonimity stated that Pelosi was considering a press conference later in the week detailing a plan of hand delivering a dozen privileged ethics complaints against Judge Hogan.

Pelosi's freezer had no comments-erm, I mean, contents.

Markos O'Rielly Zuniga
The Sludge Report
July 11th, 2006

Sunday, July 09, 2006

The Sunday Morning Blog-Sermon

Forget all about the A-list blogs. That's right. Forget all about them. Let John Aravosis suffocate himself with orchids, let Kos run around fluttering orange as if he were Simkin of Thimhallan, let Jerome Armstrong hide under his computer desk from the SEC, let Armando pretend to be a leftwing smiley face spreading corporate love to all the good little boys and girls, let The Rude One run it all through the Strunk & White / Burns & Carlin rhetorical wringer (with or without blowup doll props), let Billmon go on a whiskey binge-erm, I mean, be himself, and let Greenwald figure out if all of it is how a patriot should act.

Why? Well, because one of the really juicy morsels of truth the great Blogosphere in general can't afford to tell you is that the success and triumph of the Left Blogosphere itself has been pre-destined irregardless of the blogtastical personalities behind it. That's right, folks. You could forget all about these bloggers I mentioned above because, from a purely big picture perspective, they really don't matter all that much. If you could turn back time just a few years and replace them with either Ms. Shakes, The Brainers, or even myself, the only difference is that WE would be among the A-List elite blogs eatting up the traffic, revenue, TV appearances, book deals, banning the shit out of our readers, and every single positive and negative that comes with the package entitled "Success From Running Your Big E-Yap".

Not that WE are complaining or jealous -- that's a defensive mechanism of A-List bloggers to keep the lower, lesser known blogs "in dey place" in the foodchain from crashing their fucking gate. It's easier to slime and castigate us dirty, unwashed, cranky partisan bloggers as jealous and envious of the A-List's dominance. In fact, it's far more easier to just simply ignore us because by sliming and castigating us, they have to give us a link ... and with that link comes dignification and relevance to the debate -- the same logical argument they use in their own defense when the MSM grundgingly links to them.

Although I can't speak for Shakes and the Brainers, Fixer is allready a published author and has a day job as does his wife and probably doesn't want or need the traffic because there's only so many hours in a day to rip the tonsils of trolls out through their sphincter after spending hours underneath engines and transmissions (and he's too proud to give that honor to Gord and Angry Broad alone - they'd have way too much fun). Ms. Shakes has made her position well known that the lack of "Big Time" success has its perks and I agree with her. Admittedly, I could use the cash but not at the cost of my principals and my autonomy -- I moderated countless BBS forums and message boards off and on over the 1990s and thus I've had my fill of both the people that whine, cry, piss, and moan about "trolls" ... and the goddamned trolls themselves. So, the A-list blogs can have both if they honestly believe it's worth it. That'll keep me off their blogrolls ... unless they've either got a sense of humor as twisted as my own or if my truthiness pisses 'em off enough to respond ...

A-List Blogger: "Alright, alright, Sizemore! You're right ... but you didn't have to be a damned self-righteous attention whore about it!!"

Me: "Self-righteous attention whore?!? I thought that was Wankette's new jawb!!"

But as I said, the Left Blogosphere's success was pre-destined regardless of the talent behind it. How so? Look no further than the mirror, my friend. YOU! Every single fuckin' blog reader is directly responsible for the success of Left Blogistan. Why? Because of the repealing of The Fairness Doctrine under Reagan combined with the boneheaded deregulation of the media conglomerates under Clinton, it made you starving -- I mean, literally ravenous -- for some real progressive ideals, principals, and values that the MSM couldn't deliver since true, honest, progressivism is rooted in socialistic, human rights principals based on fairness and equality.

A capitalistic press owned and operated by four multinational entertainment industry conglomerates and one defense contractor isn't going to espouse such values unless the Democratic Party became more docile and accepting of Capitalism's belligerence and dominion at the expense of its progressive base. That event happened under the auspices of Clinton - a pro-business DLC stooge that dragged the DNC rightward to the bogus center kicking and screaming and we're now faced with the burden of having to drag the party back leftward kicking and screaming in order to save not only the country but the middle and lower class ...

Thus, from a greater picture perspective, the repealing on the Fairness Doctine and the institution of the Deregulation Act automatically paved the path for a successful Left blogosphere and the A-List bloggers -- starving for true progressive values themselves -- were merely at the right place and the right time. They're simply riding the wave.

However, I disregard the notion that Left Blogistan is making headway and putting the boots to the MSM because if this were even remotely true, the stock prices of News Corp, G.E., Viacom, Disney, and Time/Warner would reflect it by heading due south. At least, it should. But because they often operate the news room on shoestring budgets to maximize profits, use thier other profitable sectors to offset any unforeseen extraneous costs, and control the minds and hearts of the people through manipulated, homogenized horseshit passing for "news", their bottom line and their trading value hasn't really made them nervous. Another factor is that not since the Vietnam Era has the American people been on the same page morally, racially, and spiritually -- the Vietnam war pissed off enough Americans that whites, blacks, latinos, asians, indians, arabs, jews, etc all marched in protest of that monalithic disaster. In today's America, Americans -- mostly whites and blacks -- have become way too spoiled and won't stand up to any injustice as opposed to legal and illegal Mexican immigrants that dropped everything to protest the idiocy eminating from Washington D.C. (the nation's sewer on the river)

Thus the true power of the Left Blogosphere belongs to educating and enlightening their readers (something that ordinary dead tree newspapers used to do) and that's where the eventual nervousness of the MSM will come into to play ... or not. It's all depends on the ethical integrity and the transparency of the A-List blogopshere which -- just like Capitalism -- is an unfortunate top-down meritocractic system, thanks mainly to the pro-capitalist bloggers such as Kos, Aravosis, and Jerome -- bloggers that have had their own ethical integrity and transparancy issues that they handled just like the MSM would: rants, raves, obfuscation, and mass banning sprees of their readers.

This is why I'm telling you all to forget them. But don't take my word for it because I want you to forget me, too, as this "Sunday Morning Blog-Sermon" is brought to you by two people you really need to listen to because I suspect that you might be erroneously looking at the forementioned A-List bloggers as modern-day heroes.

That is a mistake and, first, here's Rev. Jim Rigby to tell you why:

As we get closer to the presidential elections, a conversation will be heard all across America. "Who can liberals choose that will save this country? Is he the one, or is it her?" Lists are being compiled and a debate held over which of the names is America's savior.

For liberals, the correct answer is "none of the above."

I say this without knowing who will be the nominee. I say this not because the individuals in question are inadequate. I say this because progressive values cannot be saved by heroes. Progressive values can only be saved by ordinary citizens living up to their principles.

It is your principals, dear A-list and lesser-known leftwing blog reader, to save progressivism and this country; not Kos, Jerome, me, or anyone. Don't look at them, me, or anyone in this Blogosphere as heroes. The heroes are in the mirror. Look at how you've made Left Blogistan a success with your time, competence, attention, and contribution? Translate that into actual foot to the pavement action and the following from Ms. Shakes shows you how:

Never in my lifetime has the word “activist” been as dirty a word as it is now, never has it been so inextricably linked to all manner of negative association—crazy, humorless, dangerous, traitorous. There’s always been a certain strain of activism regarded by some as laughable; anytime someone plops themselves in a treetop, there’s inevitably going to be giggles. Now, however, seemingly anyone who cares passionately about making a difference, holding the government accountable, ensuring fair elections, changing minds on social issues, arguing for fairness and equality, etc. is regarded as unhinged, and the quickest way to discredit someone is to call them an activist.

This is collective amnesia of our own history. America was a nation of action. The spirit of “can be done…the pioneer thing,” as Eddie Izzard would say. Go West, young man. Manifest destiny. Send the boys off to war; Rosie the Riveter and her sisters will keep the factories humming. Rural electrification?—no problem. By god, we’ll put a man on the bloody moon! And so we did.

And now, apparently, we’ve decided to take a little nap, after all our forebears’ hard work. Yawn. Thanks to their blood, sweat, and tears, we can fulfill our destiny as couch potatoes.

...

Quaint, and silly, this notion of sacrifice, when juxtaposed against the ease of taking liberty and opportunity for granted. Only a fool would waste time trying to make his voice heard over the roar of complacency that echoes across the nation to its farthest corners. If we can have a war and tax cuts, surely too we can bask in our freedom with no obligatory exertion to protect it.

Having been given the chance to do nearly anything, the majority of us choose to do nothing.

But it can’t last forever. Believing one’s choices are guaranteed but leaving it up to others to protect the continued ability to make those choices—others who then become objects of ridicule for one’s amusement—is a recipe for disaster. Sooner than later, every American will be left with only one choice: keep on laughing at the activists, or become one to save themselves. And what a glorious dawn in America it will be when every chortling, finger-pointing, invective-hurling slacker who finds activism the epitome of pitiable profligacy stops counseling us to get a life, and instead, gets off his ass, and at long last takes a stand.

My friend, you are the alpha and the omega. You've got a brain. You've got a pulse. You've got the time. And you've got the kick the ass you've been waiting for all along. Best of all, you've got a mirror to stand in front up to, point a nuckled finger at your own reflection and shout, "HERO!" and another finger to point to all the worthless, corrupt, immoral scum that are destroying this country all around you from either their action or inaction and shout, "ZERO!" will all the contempt you can muster.

With that, you've got everything you need to declare yourself a type of an American that has once been considered extinct in this age: AN ACTIVIST SHIT-STIRRER! With all the shit around you -- around us all -- we've got plenty of motivation to camp out at the boiling cauldron and start stirring away. And stir you must even if it means some rightwing jackasses might come over and hang your ass for treason. Even if it means some dufus is going to make fun of you. Even if it means your shit stirring causes you to be banned from AmericaBlog, C&L, Freeperville, or Democratic Underground or any place else on the Intarweb. Even if it means the loss of your job. Even if it means jail. Even if it means blocking traffic. As long as there's shit a-boiling somewhere in this country, you must stir it and do so vigorously.

God bless You, you activist shit-stirring sonofabitch.

Go forth and multiply, for humanity's sake!

---

Don't wait for heroes
Believe in yourself
You've got the power
Winners are losers
Who got up and gave it
Just one more try ...

Dennis DeYoung
"Don't Wait For Heroes"
(1986)

Dont go folding.
Lady luck is golden;
She favors the bold
That's cold.
Stop throwing stones
The night has a thousand saxophones.
So get out there and rock,
And roll the bones.
Get busy ...

Rush
"Roll The Bones"
(1990)

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Frying The Wanker

Robert Thompson presses the Chimp, courtesy of Axis Of Logic:

Mr Bush is only wanted by most Europeans in the dock at The Hague, together with his acolytes, and not wanted at meetings where all he does is to demand that other countries should follow his criminal lead in destroying freedom and democracy in any country too weak to resist his military might.

The idea of Herr Decider squirming in the dock at The Hague makes plenty of Americans shout something that even Bush would understand: "Jawohl!"

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Lamont & Lieberman On C-SPAN

These two guys are LIVE right now on C-Span in a debate. Only 10 minutes into the debate so far and they're smacking each other around hard. If you're not watching, what in the hell is wrong with ya?!?

UPDATE: Oh Christ! Lieberman just said "Sheptembah Dee 11th" ...

UPDATE: Lamont: "Sen. Lieberman has never seen a free trade agreement he didn't applaude." Yeeeeouch!

UPDATE: Lieberman just tried to interupt Lamont and Lamont's response was, "Can I finish? This isn't FOX News ..." Obnoxious Joe is toast.

Impressions: Without a doubt, Ned Lamont was spot on, firing on all cylinders in tonight's debate while Obnoxious Joe kept whining and smearing Lamont. The smearing went back and forth but it was much worse from Joe Lieberman -- a screwball whom earlier announced that he was a "petitioning Democrat" by being open to an Independent run in case he doesn't win the primary. Someone at Ms. Shakes sandbox accurately described this logic by Obnoxious Joe as, "He's giving the people in CT a choice just in case he himself doesn't like their choice!" Clearly the incumbent is in trouble, and he should be. In my view, Joe Lieberman has plucked more spinal collumns from the Democratic Party over the years that Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat cringes in shock.

Another thing that Obnoxious Joe did throughout the debate is something I didn't even expect and I laughed my ass off: he pulled a John Aravosis! I shit thee not -- Joe Lieberman kept yammering on and on about how his experiance/track record/service in Washington, arrogantly and sanctimonious attempting to paint Ned Lamont as a "Noob-Come-Lately", which is something John Aravosis himself has a tendency to do whenever he has a meltdown and starts talking down to his readers, particularly the one detailed with my "The Multiple Americas" post. I think it failed utterly just like it did when Aravosis did it and actions like these are typical among desperate people who became very unstable upstairs when they realize that they don't have any kind prospectful employment options outside of Washington (or in Aravosis' case, activist blogging ala L. Brent Bozell) because they've burned all their bridges and squandered everything going for them.

Aye, how the mighty have fallen ...

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Obnoxious Joe Goes Overboard

Ms. Shakes:

{Joe Lieberman} has announced he will run as a “petitioning Democrat.” Basically, if he loses the primary, he’ll run as an Independent, but if he wins it, he’ll run as a Democrat. In the interim, he’ll be collecting signatures that he will need if he’s to run as an Independent.

And here's rare exclusive footage of Lieberman's announcement ...

The yellow ninja on the left is Joe Lieberman.
The blonde staggering guy on the right is the Democratic Party.

Any questions?

Then please support Ned Lamont.

Technorati Tags: Ned Lamont

Monday, July 03, 2006

The Case For Impeachment Grows

Bloomberg spills the beans:

The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation’s largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.

“The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,” plaintiff’s lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. “This undermines that assertion.”

With that, I have only one thing to say to the jellyfish we've got for Democrats -- if impeachment isn't on the table, you deserve to lose every election from here on out ... and I'll make sure I do my part in helping you lose by not voting and encouraging others not to vote, either. Until the Democrats are willing to put values and principals (such as the Constitution) ahead of party and politics, they don't deserve your tax-dollars that make up their 6-figure salary let along holding a majority ever again in Washington.

Fuck 'em.

And if such a principaled stand of mine isn't popular with other A-List liberal blogs and their bloggers, fine.

Fuck 'em, too.

(Tin Hat Tips: Corrente and The Brain)