Thursday, March 15, 2012

Rachel Interviews Climate Change Denier Senator James Inhofe! Developing ...

PROPS TO INHOFE, at least, for having the cojones to be interviewed by Rachel, tonite.


Rachel, you'll have to do some serious fact-checking on this dude. What's he talking about, denying that a consensus of the world's scientific community agrees global warming is real?! The frightening thing about it is, if you google the term you'll get hundreds, if not thousands, of junk science climate change denialist sites with misleading headings. The breadth and scope of this assault on the science is mind-bending. They're consistently spotty on facts and science but highly politicized sites that attack the messenger.

One example are efforts to debunk the National Academy of Science (NAS) report, which found that 98% of scientists believe global warming is real. These sites don't attack the science, rather they challenge the credentials of the report's authors. But as far as most scientists are concerned, the question is no longer in dispute. And if you still don't believe the NAS, Take your pick of 18 scientific associations, compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists.



Pennsylvania's Republican Governor Sending His State's Women A Whole Lotta Lovin'

TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2012
Corbett says he supports 'external' ultrasounds for abortion patients
Governor Corbett says he supports mandatory ultrasounds for abortion patients, the subject of one of the most controversial pieces of legislation before the General Assembly.

Corbett said Tuesday he would support a bill that would force doctors to show women an ultrasound before an abortion is performed as long as it was not "obtrusive."

When asked what he meant by that, Corbett said: "As long as it's on the exterior and not the interior."

While sponsor Rep. Kathy Rapp (R., Forest) said her bill would require only ultrasounds on the belly, the language of the bill suggests it could also mandate a vaginal ultrasound, if the embryo is too small to be seen.

Lawrence Slams Mitt's Big Lie

WELCOME TO THE CLUB, Lawrence. The Idiot Punditocracy is nothing if not galling in its arrogance, its elitism, and its reluctance to call a LIE (so predominantly Republican) a LIE. It's kind of hilarious to see Newt Gingrich slam the "liberal" media "elites" for pushing the Romney "inevitability" argument. Right Newt, "liberals" like Moron Joe, Willie Geist, Mark Halperin, Erin Burnett, Alex Castellanos, Susan Page ... to name but a few. Some 'liberal' media. There is no 'liberal' media; there's Fox and the right wing media juggernaut it anchors, and everything else: corporate media, aka the Idiot Punditocracy and the Beltway Media, POLITICO, the fake progressive channel (MSNBC) and the right wing 'fair and balanced' channel (CNN). If not for the progressive blogs ...

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

MICHAEL STEELE'S REVENGE, PART TROIS: 58 SECOND FLAT POST-GOP PRIMARY ANALYSIS

OR ... WHY IS THE SMILIN' STEELENATOR SHADOW BOXING?! I must admit, I shouldn't have sold David Corn of Mother Jones, short. He's been on to Michael's game for some time, even to the extent of landing this most revealing interview with the scourge of the GOP and former RNC Chairman, the Man of Steele himself. Although, as our readers well know, including, presumably David Corn, "Michael Steele's Revenge" has long been this blog's non-proprietary characterization laid out in a series of posts. It maintains our commitment to the truth by deconstructing the Beltway Media's self-serving narratives with a healthy dose of unvarnished truth — to the extent our limited resources allow.

Here's Michael Steele's astonishing confession:
"I wanted a brokered convention. That was one of my goals." He explains: "We had had a more traditional approach [than the Democrats]. If you're [the candidate] next in line, you get [the nomination]…Yeah, you may be next up, but you may not be the best candidate ..." Steele wanted to escape "the tedium of 2008, [but] was surprised at how many people liked the idea of creating tension within the process." 
But there's a fine line between tension and chaos, which seems to be the delicious "tension" of this GOP race for those of us on the outside looking in. "A little chaos is a good thing, particularly in a system that tends to be moribund," Steele said innocently, defending his excellent rules. No argument here. Of course the fallacy is, for a Republican Party born and bred on regimentation and "falling in line" unlike Democrats "falling in love" with a candidate, you cannot create rules to impose "a little chaos" from above and expect a non-chaotic result. Chaos is defined as "a state of complete disorder and confusion," often leading to anarchy. Not good. Don't expect to capture chaos in a bottle, Michael.

The Democratic Party has always been endearingly chaotic — "I don't belong to any organized party, I'm a Democrat," Will Rogers famously said — but there was order from that chaos and strength derived from internecine chaos. Historically, the risk for Democrats was a deep party split as occurred in '68, '72 and '80. Democrats worked out those kinks in later campaigns, particularly 2008, by assuring a combative and competitive primary campaign, but a nominee before the convention. Lessons learned the hard way in the streets of Chicago, 1968. Democrats have a history, and plenty of experience handling political chaos. Republicans do not. Their natural disinclination and knee-jerk reaction to political chaos is to try imposing order with a crack-down, shutting off debate, and silencing the opposition. Not so easy when the chaos is intra-party.

So here's to the Steelenator who sidestepped the Chris Christie Kriptonite (the new rules are "the dumbest idea anybody ever had") by garnering support from, ahem, "Sparta," the Romney campaign. Why? Because the fatal flaws of the Romney campaign laid bare under the new rules were well known to the wimpy "Spartans" back then. Why else would they cling so desperately to their "mathematical inevitability" as shoestring candidates Rick Santorum, and even Newt Gingrich, savage them week after week on the field of battle.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The DELIVERANCE PRIMARIES: Y'ALL COME BACK, HEE-YAH ...?!

AS HARDBALL GUESTS GO, I'm not a big Cynthia Tucker fan. But she was on her A game yesterday. On Mittens:
"Oh, poor Mitt Romney. You know, his attempts at humor, his attempts at being warm and fuzzy almost always fall flat. Mitt needs to be himself, which is just a sort of robotic rich guy. "
And as a daughter of the South, the uncompromising TRUTH:
"I hate to have to say this, Chris. I`m a native of Alabama, Alabama born and bred. But my native South remains a hotbed of ignorance and bigotry. Simple as that."

"EITHER DROP TROU, OR DROP OUT, BOY!"

FLAME-HAIRED VIXEN REBEKAH BROOKS ARRESTED — AGAIN!

Hmm … I wonder, is this poor, voluptuous, sexy femme fatale being unduly victimized and sensationalized by the leering, lecherous, drooling media?! "Guilty as charged!" declared Alex Wags. Guys, what do you think: Is it just the Murdoch empire wiretapping scandal, or the way Rebekah's flame hair (makes halo gesture) kind of flows all over? But don’t ask Alex:

Um, I'll bet no MALE subordinate was ever late for Rebekah's editorial meetings.

PIGMAN To The Slaughterhouse? Syndicator Suspends ALL National Ads For 2 Weeks!

THERE ARE a couple double different ways of looking at this: (a) The PIGMAN has been duly fattened up by his bailing advertisers (100 or so jumping ship at last count) and may be headed for the PORCINE slaughterhouse oh, in two weeks or so as the Huckster waits in the wingnuts to replace him; (b) The PIGMAN's Syndicator is fighting desperate MANO-A-MANO combat with all those ANGRY WOMEN Tweeting their contempt for the PIGMAN like a virtually REAL version of ANGRY BIRDS, storming the outer walls of the PIGMAN's defenses, forcing his hopeless retreat to his own private ALAMO, there to make his last stand; (c) the Syndicator is hoping against hope to CHILL things out, while RUSH plays a couple rounds with "golfing" coach Tiger Woods; or (d) anything goes, BALLS to the WALL, even though EL RUSHBO's may closely resemble pitted prunes.

EL RUSHBO TO ADVERTISERS: "I'M GONE-A MAKE YOU AN OFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE ..."

Monday, March 12, 2012

Quotable: Jonathan Capehart On Mitt Romney's Excellent Southern Adventure

"With regards to Mitt Romney, poor guy, it's only the second time he's had cheesy grits and catfish; it's almost as if he's on safari in his own country!"
~ WaPo's witty Jonathan Capehart, on the Martin Bashir Show ~

What In The World Is Going On With Our Troops In Afghanistan?!

It’s almost as if nine years of wars, death, terrible injuries, PTSD, and multiple tours of duty have taken their collective toll simultaneously on our troops serving in Afghanistan. A swift and terrible succession of breakdowns in military discipline and unit cohesion on the field lay bare and amplify the tens of thousands of individual tragedies, suicides, personal trauma and psychological crises that afflict our warriors coming home.

The horrific news that a U.S. Army sergeant wandered off-base into an Afghan village and gunned down 16 villagers, nine of them children, comes on the heels of the simmering violence triggered by the "unintentional" burning of Korans at Bagram Air Base which resulted in dozens of Afghan deaths and at least six Americans killed. The notion that military personnel are somehow unaware of the explosive potential of anti-American riots and violence that burning and desecration of the Koran has, is mind-boggling. Wouldn't it be the perfect opportunity for the military command to build bridges and good faith with the local populace by donating Korans to their spiritual leaders rather than consigning them to burning garbage? After nine years in Afghanistan, they couldn't figure this out?! Instead, the death count resulting from a demented soldier's killing rampage is almost certain to spiral, tragically sparking renewed violence following a tense standoff from the Koran burning riots and retaliation, as the Taliban once more vowed revenge.

But these latest tragedies whipping anti-American sentiment in the Afghan people and raising hard questions about our mission there didn't occur in a vacuum. The Koran burning itself followed another disturbing disclosure of a video showing U.S. soldiers urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters. The four men in the video can be "heard joking 'Have a great day, buddy', 'Golden like a shower' and 'Yeahhhh!' as they groan with relief whilst urinating." While this footage, called a "recruitment tool for the Taliban," spawned widespread outrage and  condemnation, within Newt's "elite media" CNN's Dana Loesch made the ignorant and unbelievably irresponsible statement that she'd "drop trou and do it too." Obviously, Loesch doesn't figure to be on the receiving end of Taliban retaliation — as their list of recruitment videos, courtesy of the U.S. military, grows —neither as a soldier nor a war correspondent.

One has to wonder about the wisdom of allowing Rush Limbaugh to be broadcast on Armed Forces Radio, ginning up corrosive anti-Islamic sentiment among our troops with incendiary statements like, “The Koran gets burned all the time when Muslims blow each other up in Mosques.” Not to speak of his daily rants against President Obama and the mission in Afghanistan. Young men and women in the war zone listening to Limbaugh’s daily fulminations against their Commander-in-Chief and the Islamic culture they supposedly are sensitized by Pentagon policy and field commanders to respect and protect, are hardly in a position to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from Limbaugh’s Big Lie. Where Tokyo Rose failed as a crude propagandist broadcasting to the troops from Japan in World War II, Rush Limbaugh, stateside, succeeds in undermining unit morale and cohesion as an American right wing propagandist broadcasting a steady stream of anti-Obama Administration invective. After Limbaugh’s misogynistic assault on law student Sandra Fluke, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan called for his removal from the Armed Services network. In truth, he should have been removed years ago for inciting dangerous (to our troops and personnel on the field) anti-Islamic hatred.

Despite the warnings of General Petraeus of the dangers of anti-Islam incitement and desecration of the Koran, wingnuts stoking the fires of Islamophobic hysteria in this country pushed back against Petraeus's obvious concern for the troops' safety by calling it a "recipe for surrender." But the right’s incendiary rhetoric may be only a surface manifestation of an  anti-Islamic underground culture in the U.S. military that the Pentagon brass, General Petraeus, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are loath to acknowledge. Only last month, retired Lt. General William G. Boykin, a longtime commander of elite Special Operations forces, was essentially disinvited from giving a talk at West Point’s National Prayer Breakfast after the “liberal veterans’ groupVoteVets.org, among other groups, protested his appearance. In a letter to West Point’s superintendent, the group said General Boykin’s “incendiary rhetoric regarding Islam” was “incompatible with Army values” and would “put our troops in danger.” General Boykin has “likened the battle against Islamic militants to a Christian struggle against Satan” — which qualifies him for a high post on any Santorum or, for that matter, Republican administration. Recently, General Boykin told Glenn Beck, “I believe Iran has a nuclear warhead now,” although he is not privy to any classified information which would so indicate.

Indeed, these tragic incidents in Afghanistan didn't happen in a vacuum. Perhaps it's time to take a hard look at the Pentagon's policies and procedures to guard against the right wing radicalization of its troops. Attacks by religious extremists have occurred on both sides. But the military subculture that bred our most notorious domestic terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, could be far from extinguished, when we see photos of a sniper unit posing with the Nazi SS logo, and are presented the incredible explanation that the troops had no knowledge of the significance of the symbol, which "had been adopted and used by the Marines in reference to 'Scout Sniper.'"

That may be. But at the very least it is a disturbing reflection on an elite military culture, the Marines, whose identification with the Nazi SS symbol going back to the 1980s “sporting it like it’s nothing because they have no idea what it means,” begs the critical question: Where is the adult supervision from their chain of command? Or is General Boykin less of an outlier, less "incompatible" with military values than we'd like to think.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

No Voter Left Behind: What A WONDERFUL World This Would Be, If We Had No GOP ...

IF THERE WERE an intelligence, civics, or citizenship test for American voters, there would be no Republican Party left to destroy our nation.

 REMINDER for TEH STOOPID: Centuries Daylight Savings
Thanks to Telemann for these.