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« May 18, 2008 - May 24, 2008 | Main | June 1, 2008 - June 7, 2008 »

May 25, 2008 - May 31, 2008

May 31, 2008

Both Teams At Full Strength

That's debatable!*

WASHINGTON - Democratic Party officials agreed Saturday to seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half-votes, ruling on a long-running dispute that has threatened the party's chances in November and maintaining Barack Obama's front-runner status as he moves closer to the nomination.

The decision was a blow to Hillary Rodham Clinton as she was on the verge of watching Obama make history as the first black Democratic presidential nominee.

[snip]

The resolution increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama 66 delegates short but still within striking distance after the three final primaries are held in the next three days.

A.

* Wisconsin hockey joke. How long until October 25?

Saturday Blogwhoring Thread

Catnotpony

What useful lessons do you have to teach the class today?

A.

May 30, 2008

A Newborn Babe With Wild Wolves All Around It: Galactica Thread

Jacob:

Because here's how fucking blessed Sharon Agathon is. She spent a season on doomed and rotting Caprica, chasing a boy through the forest, trying to make him fall in love. She found out how rarely you stay clean when love comes up. Got pregnant. Got a gun held to her head approximately eleven times before she ever got back to the scariest place in the universe. Was threatened with an eleventh-hour abortion by the first and most powerful of all humans; was operated on to keep that queen alive. Her child was born, and died in the cradle: all the hopes of two great races, dead. With fingers no larger than a thought.

They locked her up for a year, chained and screaming. And at the point of her greatest humanity, when she and Boomer truly switched places -- she became a Cylon in human skin rather than Boomer's human in Cylon skin -- her most broken sister told her a terrible secret. "The enemy has your miraculous child, who was stolen. And they are killing it." She committed complicated suicide, risked her life, watched her sister die, and brought the child back. That was months ago. She was blessed? She was fucked. Again, and again. And we're not done yet. The clock is running.

I read some spoilers this time. I shouldn't do that. You shouldn't, either, so don't read on if you don't want to be spoiled.

Continue reading "A Newborn Babe With Wild Wolves All Around It: Galactica Thread" »

Today On Holden's Obsession With The Gaggle

The White House Wants To Keep Little Scottie Out Of The Witness Chair

Q Congressman Wexler has called on Scott McClellan to testify before Congress, and Congressman Conyers says that he has directed his committee staff to reach out to Mr. McClellan to make arrangements for him to talk to the committee. Does the White House have any objection to this kind of conversation?

MS. PERINO: I checked on it for you. The White House Counsel's Office takes these things when we have a formal request. We don't have a formal request yet. When we get one, that's when we look at the request, weigh it fully -- as we do with all the others -- and it's just not a decision that we would make prior to getting a formal request.

Q Could the White House block him from testifying if he wanted to testify? Or how does that work?

MS. PERINO: Conceivably?

Q Yes.

MS. PERINO: Hypothetically -- which I'm not supposed to answer hypotheticals -- (laughter) -- yes, I think so. The law would allow for that, but by saying that I'm not suggesting that that's what would happen or not happen.

Three Shakespeares, No McClellans

Q Has President Bush read this -- read McClellan's book or does he have any intention to, to sort of find out what this is all about?

MS. PERINO: Well, he's been regularly briefed. I think he's read a lot of the articles about it, but I don't anticipate -- he may or may not read the book. I don't know, we haven't talked about that.

Q You haven't bought it for him?

MS. PERINO: No.

Continue reading "Today On Holden's Obsession With The Gaggle" »

Some People Just Don't Understand When to Shut the Fuck Up--Updated!


That's right, son.  Shut the fuck up.  Shut.  The.  Fuck.  Up.

These fucking Sherlock Holmes-wannabes of the right wing never cease to amaze me.

On Memorial Day, as you may have heard, Barack Obama related a family story about his uncle's role in liberating a concentration camp near the end of World War II.  Well, as sometimes happens when recalling a relative's story, he got some details wrong.  He said Auschwitz, rather than Buchenwald.  And he was referring to his great uncle rather than a parent's sibling (I don't know about you, but in my family, we never refer to anyone as a great uncle or great aunt.  And we refer to people who aren't even related to us as uncles.  But I'm just a cracker from Mississippi.  What the hell do I know?) 

Naturally, the budding Dupins of the Right Wing Wackaloon Detective Agency smelled victory.  (In case you were wondering, it smells remarkably like Chee-Tos.)  They gleefully pointed out that it was the Soviets who liberated Auschwitz, not the Americans.  The Obama campaign released a statement clarifying the details, and you'd think that would be the end of the story.

Wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

No, right-wingers can't stop once they've sat down at the table.  It's all in on every hand.

Eventually, after realizing that they were looking like tools for questioning the service of a WWII veteran who helped liberate a fucking concentration camp, for fuck's sakes, most of the Bugfuck Brigade gave up on the story--even Commandant Malkin let it go.

But they just didn't have the stomach for the fight blind fucking stupidity that the dumbfucks at "Sweetness and Light" have.  Oh, no.  Those intrepid douches fired off an e-mail to the people who run a site dedicated to the 89th Infantry Division, in which Obama's great uncle served.  One of the site proprietors is himself a veteran of that division.

What happened to these Keyboard Kommandos?  Let's go to the tape.  Er, you know what I mean:

Continue reading "Some People Just Don't Understand When to Shut the Fuck Up--Updated!" »

As Part of International Suck Week

I bring you today's edition of What Sadly, No said.

This comment particularly:

Their excuse is stupid. There’s not enough room for bloggers? Just give bloggers whatever seats are available, even if it’s just a desk number in a trailer outside the hall with CNN monitors, wifi, and AC. They should invite bloggers from around the world. Set up a Persian blog section, group the blogs by region, invite Colbert to visit the blogger ghetto. Hire some translators. Give’em all free samwitches and set up a giant tray of cocktail wieners. There’s room for hundreds of bloggers and it’s way cheaper press than any ad buy. Very limited space? That’s like saying “There’s not enough room on our e-mail list.” Oh, wait.

Stipulating that in the grand scheme of things this is pretty meta, handing out credentials to sites that do nothing but talk up your causes and raise you money would do a world of good for you and be mostly free, so what the fuck?

There's also apparently a credentialing process for this so-called Big Tent, if you can believe THAT, so that's one more hoop to jump through before knowing if it's safe to buy airline tickets.

A.

Have You Seen Me?


If seen, please contact the proper authorities.

What did happen to this dumb-ass three-level terror alert system, anyway?

Yes, I know that, technically, there are five levels, but if you never use two, then you effectively have a three-level system. 

We haven't heard anything about this dipshittery since the last election cycle.  Somehow, I think we may become reacquainted with this bad idea in the near future.  Whaddya think?

How Wrong is Bush?

Oyster answers that one...again and again and again and....

"Hogwash. Hogwash! HOGWASH"

That from the McClatchey reporters who seem to have had it with Scottie, the Bushies and fellow so called journalists. And rightly so...

Second, we find it a wee bit preposterous -- and we are being diplomatic here -- that a man who slavishly - no, robotically! -- defended President Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere is trying to "set the record straight" (and sell a few books) five years and more after the invasion, with U.S. troops still bravely fighting and dying to stabilize that country.

But the responses to McClellan from the Bush administration and media bigwigs, history-bending as they are, compel us to jump in. As we like to say around here, it's truth to power time, not just for the politicians but also for some folks in our own business.

It's a must read

Friday Ferretblogging: Was There Something You Needed, Or ...

100_1672

"... do you mind if we just go back to sleep?"

A.

May 29, 2008

Wingnuts For The Fail

The Freepi froth over this story from the Daily Mail:

Washington is laid to waste. The Capitol is a blackened, smoking ruin. The White House has been razed. Countless thousands are dead.

This is the apocalyptic scene terrorists hope to create if they ever get their hands on a nuclear bomb.

The computer-generated image below was posted on an Islamic extremists' website yesterday.

Most of the Freepi lose their minds:

And Obama wants to talk to this guys.

---

We should post similar pictures of Mecca, Tehran, Damascus, etc. And let them know that we don’t exactly care who does it, those cities will go down if it happens.

---

I just saved that image as: “The Democrats Dream”

---

One result will be both Mecca and a number of hard line Moslem capitols will become tourist attractions. These places will glow in the dark and inspire considerable thought.

Until one of them points out that, guys, it's an image from a video game:

What is the release date? Fallout 3 will be available for PC, Xbox 360, and PLAYSTATION 3 in Fall 2008

How long has it been in development?
Since 2004.

Where does Fallout 3 take place?
In the Capitol Wasteland in and around Washington, DC.

Which does not deter the crazy in the slightest:

Wherever it comes from, it looks like Muslim Jihadists love the picture. It’s their dream come true.

FAIL.

A.

Family Research Council vs. McCain

Despite my responding to their e-mails with links to pornography and the ruder of available LOLcats, the Family Research Council continues to send me their newsletters, much to my amusement:

Not So Straight Talk Express

While the firestorm over gay "marriage" rages on, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has managed to keep a relatively low profile on an issue that is certain to take center stage in the general election. During his visit to California this week, local conservatives hoped he would seize the opportunity to speak openly about the threats posed by same-sex "marriage." Then he appeared on this morning's "Ellen DeGeneres Show" alongside one of America's most popular comedians, who has talked repeatedly about being a lesbian. When a reporter from The Mercury News asked McCain why he took the interview, the senator said, "...People [will] get to see me in a different setting." Last week, Ellen announced that she and her female lover will take advantage of the court's decision to marry this summer. Although McCain said that he preferred to talk about "the economy, health care, and national security," DeGeneres asked some pointed questions about marriage:

DeGeneres: "Let's talk about the big elephant in the room. I was planning on having a ceremony anyway this summer, even though it wasn't legal, but I feel that at least I get to celebrate my love. And then, it just so happens, I can now legally get married, as everyone should. To me this is only fair and only natural... What are your thoughts?"

McCain: "My thoughts are that I think people should be able to enter into legal agreements, and I think that is something that we should encourage, particularly in the case of insurance and other areas, decisions that have to be made. I just believe in the unique status of marriage between man and woman. And I know that we have a respectful disagreement on that issue."

DeGeneres: "To me... it feels like when someone says you can have a contract, and you'll still have insurance and you'll get all that, it sounds to me like saying, 'You can sit there, you just can't sit there.' That's what it sounds like to me. It doesn't feel inclusive; it feels isolated. It feels like we aren't owed the same things and the same wording."

McCain: "Well, I've heard you articulate that position in a very eloquent fashion, and we have a disagreement. I, along with many many others, wish you every happiness."

Last year McCain agreed to speak at FRC's super-special hatefest, because he's a mavericky maverick who bucks the party line and appeals to moderates by eschewing traditional Republican divisiveness. It seems to have bought him quite a lot of cred with these folks, since they're so concerned now that he's caught lesbian cooties from Ellen.

A.

Today On Holden's Obsession With The Gaggle

Put Impeachment Back On The Table

Q Dana, I wanted to ask you, I know you don't want to go line-by-line with the whole book thing, the Scott McClellan book -- but I'm thinking you may want to address this because there's something out there. Not having the benefit of having the book in front of me, there's an allegation apparently made by Scott in the book that a reporter shouted a question to the President, on a trip that Scott had been with him on, just as they were getting on Air Force One, and it was Valerie Plame-related. Basically, it prompted Scott to ask the President directly, "Were you the one who authorized the leaking of Valerie Plame's name?" And the President apparently told Scott, "Yes, I was."

MS. PERINO: I don't know. Obviously I wasn't there and -- obviously I don't know the context. I think the -- it's hard for me to say. I don't have the book in front of me either and I don't know.

But what I do know is that what we have said before, which is defending the President's decision to go to war is something that we have done repeatedly, and the suggestion that the President had sent Joe Wilson to Africa was false. And so I don't know if that was what it was in regards to or not, so I'm -- I don't know.

Q But I mean, if that's an allegation that's out there, that the President is supposedly responsible for the leaking of Valerie Plame's name, is that something you want to --

MS. PERINO: I don't think that's what Scott says in the book and I think that everyone should go back and look at it a little bit more carefully. I don't think that's what he says.

Q Can you comment more generally about whether the President has ever authorized the leaking of classified information?

MS. PERINO: I'm not aware of that, no. And I also know that President Bush would never ask anyone to knowingly go out and lie. But do we defend the President's record vigorously? Yes, you bet we do. And I think -- parts of the book that suggest that there was propaganda or -- you know, I just don't know how substantiated that is in the book. I would ask to -- you know, where, when, how, specifically? What are you talking about, were there charts, were there et cetera that you thought were lies? And I don't think that he's saying that either. So I just question the accounts.

Dana Don't Know!

Q On the two congressional fundraisers on this trip, was it the White House's decision or the candidate's decisions for them to be closed? Do you know?

MS. PERINO: I don't know.

Dana Calls The Governor of New York An "Activist Judge"

Q Do you have anything on the Governor of New York's decision to recognize gay marriages from other states?

MS. PERINO: I saw a brief report about it. I don't know a lot about the decision. I think that I would go back to that the President believes that we should try to make this decision based on a nationwide agreement for the what the definition of a marriage should be, and that activist judges and different states trying to impose something of that importance on the rest of the nation is to be looked at skeptically.

Q Is there any particular concern, though, about the legal implications of states beginning to recognize other states' rights, in other words?

MS. PERINO: Yes, I'm sure that there is, but again I briefly saw the reports and I would refer you -- let me see if I can get something from the Justice Department -- I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people who analyze the legal ramifications of it. I think the President's point is that judges shouldn't be making these decisions; the people should be making these decisions.

Crazy as a Monkey House Shit-Fight


Another fucking deep thinker from the anti-woman/War on Fucking crowd.

Holy shit.  I was in the car yesterday, taking care of some errands and such.  When driving, I occasionally listen to Crazy Christian Radio.  I know, I know.  I need professional help.

At any rate, on a show called "Crosstalk" (Warning!  Crazy Christian link!  Oh, and get it?  Crosstalk?  har har) yesterday, I got to hear one Mark Crutcher, a bed-shittingly insane anti-woman activist.  If you're so inclined, you can find links to his crazy online shitshow (Life Dynamics) from the "Crosstalk" link.  Now, obviously, most of the War on Fucking/War on Women douchebags are swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool.  But this guy?  See the title to this post.  That's as crazy as I know how to describe, and he was even nuttier than that.

During his rants, he got around to saying why electing Senator Obama or Senator Clinton would be a bad idea.  He didn't mention "activist judges," surprisingly enough.  No.

What he railed against was, and I shit you not, universal health care.

*Blink*

*Blink*

Now why, you might ask, does universal health care (or, as Crazy McPants-shitter put it, "a socialized medicine system") matter to an anti-woman asshole?

Well, you see, if we all share the costs of medical bills, then our tax dollars will pay for abortions (Attention, asshole:  under Medicaid, they sometimes already do).  That's right.  We'll all be guilty parties in the abortion "holocaust."  Also, since there will be no direct out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits, he predicts that the abortion rate will, in his word, skyrocket.  Except that, you know, even with our for-profit medical system, the abortion rate in the US is already higher than in other developed countries--those countries that have the demonic universal health care. 

You see that, Mr. Crutcher?  It's called "research," and it took me all of 30 seconds with The Google.

So this fucker would deny access to health care to 50 million people (and affordable health care to millions more) because of his own Kwazy Kwusade.  That sounds like something Christ might do, doesn't it?

Now, I know that this graph does not and cannot show causality.  However, if the free availability of "elective abortions" led to a jump in the instances and rates of abortion, don't you think that, say, Canada would have a higher abortion rate than the US? 

Listening to this guy was terrifying and entertaining at the same time.  He really, really believes, it seems, that pro-choice people want nothing more than to kill humans.  He thinks that talk of reproductive freedom, women's rights, health issues, and the like are just red herrings.  He accuses Planned Parenthood of a massive, extremely profitable, and decades-long conspiracy to:

  1. Introduce value-free comprehensive sex education to
  2. Encourage people to have sex, then
  3. Get pregnant, and--here's the Wile E. Coyote ingeniousness--
  4. Go to Planned Parenthood and pay for abortions

I swear to Jeebus, I am not making this up.  He had the usual talk of "abortion mills" run by the "abortion industry," set up just to murder "unborn children."  I was half tempted to call in and say something along the lines of:  "Well golly, Mr. Crutcher, don't you think it's important that we rebuild our industrial base here in America?  An abortion industry is still an industry."

But I didn't want to be directly responsible for the massive stroke that would have killed him.  Criminal liability and all, you know.

Wow.  I wish I had time to go over all of his craziness, but I think it overloaded my poor little heathen brain.

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!!!

Read the caption:

President George Bush's motorcade leaves a fundraising function at the home of Samuel Stewart in the Avenues neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah on Wednesday, May 28, 2008.(AP Photo / Fred Hayes)

Now check out the yard sign in the photo.

Crusade

Oy.

FALLUJAH, Iraq — At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.

Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. "Where will you spend eternity?" it asked.

He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."

"They are trying to convert us to Christianity," said Anad, a Sunni Muslim like most residents of this city in Anbar province. At home, he told his story, and his relatives echoed their disapproval: They'd been given the coins, too, he said.

Today On Holden's Obsession With [Yesterday's] Gaggle

Um, Dana, Was There A Great Deal Of Poo-Flining When You Broke The News About Little Scottie To The Chimp?

Q I know that you said you weren't going to be speaking anything more about McClellan, but could you give us a little sense of who told the President about it, when it occurred and any reaction he had?

MS. PERINO: Sure. Well, you will recall that it was last November, right before Thanksgiving when we first heard about the book, when the excerpt came out. I was with the President at the time and told him about it -- we were at Camp David, right after an interview he had just finished.

And at that time, was led to believe that the excerpt was a little bit over-written and not necessarily representative of what the book would be like.

[snip]

So the President has been aware that it was going to come out. I talked to him a little bit yesterday -- I can't exactly remember where, but on the plane here -- I guess it was on the plane; I don't remember where we were on our way to, since we had three stops yesterday. And his reaction was similar to what I said this morning, which is he is puzzled, and he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years; and disappointed that if he had these concerns and these thoughts he never came to him or anyone else on the staff that we know of.

So I think it's just a sad situation.

Q So you briefed him?

MS. PERINO: Yes, but I think I may not be the only one; we've known it's been coming for a while, so I'm assuming that other members of senior staff had alerted him.

[snip]

Q I'm sorry if you said this, but was the President surprised?

MS. PERINO: I think you can fairly characterize it is as surprised, as well as he thinks it's a sad situation and was disappointed, as I said just a moment ago.

Stay The Course!

Q I'm just kind of curious, in terms of the general -- you've kind of portrayed this as a sad situation that you're -- you don't quite understand this. But do you think this is causing any scrutiny on the White House as part of its own handling of the pre-war intelligence? I mean, is it causing any --

MS. PERINO: I think that horse has been beaten enough. And --

Q So the substance of what Scott is saying is not something that is causing any rethinking on the part of the White House?

MS. PERINO: I don't see any reason for it to do so. As I said, the questions about the intelligence being wrong has been -- have been asked an answered multiple times. And I think that I have had a good experience working both for Scott, for Tony Snow, and now heading up the press office, that I have good relationships with you all in the press corps, ones that are based on honesty and integrity. And I don't think that it ever -- I think that's always been the case since I've been there. So I don't see any reason for us to have to rethink anything at this point.

Dana Peroxide Says Little Scottie Is "Rewriting History", But She Can't Bring Herself To Call Him A Liar

Q The President often talks about, you know, history being the judge. And this is somebody who had a position where they could see more than, certainly, the public does. After some years of reflection, perhaps, looking back, thinking out of the limelight in private and everything, and coming up with his first version of history, isn't it a concern that, for you, for the administration, that the conclusions he's come to are the ones of your critics, essentially, rather than the supporters of the administration?

MS. PERINO: I think this is a unique situation. I don't think that this is so much as writing history as rewriting history.

Dana Don't Know!

Q If only to change the subject. Do you have anything on the vote on the cluster munitions?

MS. PERINO: The what?

Q The vote on the cluster munitions negotiations in Brussels, I think.

MS. PERINO: Where was -- no, I'm sorry. Clearly, you can tell from my face I don't know. I haven't been informed about that.

Q Anything on --

MS. PERINO: Where was the vote?

Q What?

MS. PERINO: Where was the vote?

Q It was today, and it was in -- I want to say Brussels, maybe The Hague.

MS. PERINO: Sorry, I don't. I'll have to refer you to DOD or State at the moment.

McClellan explains "heck of a job"

Brownbush

From the Times Picayune:

McClellan also recounts another "clinker," when Bush singled out Michael Brown, the beleaguered head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the infamous, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

"Even Brown looked embarrassed and no wonder; most Americans had already concluded that the FEMA director was in over his head," said McClellan, who adds that it helped cement an image that Bush is overly loyal even after poor performance. (my emphasis)

I don't know if that last bit of analysis by McClellan is generally true of Bush though perhaps Scottie himself  may be an example of such. But I don't believe Americans watching that moment were thinking of Bush as loyalist. Rather it cemented an image that Bush didn't know WTF was going on. That's a "clinker"?  And remember the remark came just minutes after the Trent Lott's porch remark.  That one further cemented the image of Bush as tone deaf and uncaring to the death and suffering occurring. Taken together they were very damaging. Because even though Bush was no longer vacationing, nor peering out of a plane window but was at last on the ground, at least Alabama ground, he still didn't get it....what any American  watching their TV's for days previous got...the horror of it all.

The TP continues:

Later, McClellan writes, Bush told staff he had little choice but to praise Brown. "He was standing right there and I was trying to pump up everybody's morale," McClellan quotes the president's explanation to aides. (my emphasis)

Aaack. Whatever.....

May 28, 2008

The World Of Nosy Presumptuous Assholes Needed This

Brilliance and perfection:

Via Tomato Nation.

A.

What A Tool

Your president, posing at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremonies, June 6, 2004:

And today, at the very same ceremony in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

"Million Middle Finger March"

This I'd like to see first hand errr finger.

"state of denial"

Bushplane

Politico on Scotty McClellan's upcoming book:

Instead, McClellan’s tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House “spent most of the first week in a state of denial,” and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped.

But he writes that he later was told that “Karl was convinced we needed to do it — and the president agreed.”

“One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term,” he writes. “And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.”

Interesting that McClellan connects the Katrina response to the Iraq War.

Oyster has more

Um, Dana?

It happened again.

President Bush arrives today for his fourth visit to the state headlining a pair of fundraisers where he will attempt to tap Mitt Romney's formidable Utah money machine to support Sen. John McCain's presidential bid.

    Ticket sales for one of the two events have apparently been lackluster, prompting the McCain campaign to move the event.

[snip]

Romney and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will also co-host a $500-per-person afternoon fundraiser - with a $10,000-per-person private reception beforehand. The event was originally scheduled at the Grand America Hotel, but was moved to the Avenues home of Sam Stewart, a prominent investment fund manager.

    Two Republican sources familiar with the event said that response to the afternoon fundraiser had been lackluster, prompting the campaign to move the event to the private residence.

    Tickets were still available Tuesday afternoon.

The White House said Tuesday that, in Arizona, a fundraiser was moved to a private residence so it could be closed to the press, at the request of the McCain campaign.

    Jeff Sadosky, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, would not address why the event was relocated.

[snip]

The president has been doing considerably less fundraising in 2008 than he did during the 2006 election cycle. So far this year he has raised $36.6 million for Republican candidates and committees.

    By contrast, he raised $131.6 million in 2006, according to figures from the Republican National Committee.

Today On Holden's Obsession With [Yesterday's] Gaggle

Um, Dana?  How Come Nobody Wanted To Hear The Presidnet Speak?

Q Can you clarify the circumstances with the Convention Center versus a private residence? There were reports that --

MS. PERINO: I did over the weekend, though you may not have seen the comments, so I'll just repeat them here, which is that as you know, our practice has been for fundraisers that the President does, if they're at a venue like a hotel, that they are open to press. The McCain campaign has a practice that's different, and that is that all of their fundraisers, regardless of location, are closed to the press. And so to accommodate the practices, they decided to move it to a private residence today.

Q There was a specific report that ended up getting pretty widely circulated out of Arizona that said the event was moved because of lackluster sales, and also because of feared protests. Are either of those points accurate?

MS. PERINO: Not that I'm aware of. I'd refer you to the McCain campaign for those. But I would remind you that given that it's a free country, no matter where we go there's always a possibility for protests, so I don't think I'd put a lot of stock into that concern.

Whay Are Taxpayers Footing The Bill For Chimpy's GOP Fundraising Activiites?

Q Can I ask one last thing? What is the division on the cost of the trips between official business and then party business?

MS. PERINO: There's some -- there is a formula that exists. I don't have it off the top of my head, but it's followed whenever we go on trips like this.

Q Can we run that down at some point?

MS. PERINO: We'll see --

Q -- in the next couple days since -- get a sense of which part of the trips?

MS. PERINO: Maybe you should look at your reporting from last year, because -- or in 2006 cycle. We had the exact same conversations over and over again. So I'll try to get it for you right now, but --

Q That would be great.

Q -- because of fuel costs. Does it still cost $68,000 an hour to operate Air Force One?

MS. PERINO: I have no idea, Roger.

Q Could we get an update, maybe?

Q I think our question -- one question I have is the breakdown of this trip, because there's a little bit of official and there's a little -- you know, certain days are --

MS. PERINO: I don't know how specific we get in breaking that down, but I'll see what I can get you. Okay?

Q Thanks.

Your President Speaks!

Yesterday, in Mesa, Arizona.

Wachu Got?

How many you got now?

Take Me To The Machine-Making Place

And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place -- plus their employees are more productive, they're more competitive.

Two Years Come

And so I strongly urge the United States Congress to make the tax relief we passed permanent so that companies such as Silverado don't have to worry about what their tax burden is going to be in two years come.

What We Have, Right Now

See, we have times of economic uncertainty right now, and what creates more uncertainty for owners of businesses like these is whether or not their taxes are going to go up.

People That Work Here, aka Employees

And Congress ought to just declare once and for all we're going to make the tax cuts we passed permanent -- add peace of mind for these businesses leaders; it'll make it easier for their employees to keep a job; it'll make it easier for them to do what they want to do and take care of their -- people that work here.

May 27, 2008

Fine With It, Vol. 347

Via the Crack Den, oh goody, another participant in the bloody Bush war machine now tells us all how the whole thing went so terribly bad:

Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Let me just double check here. When did McClellan leave the White House?

April 2006.

April 20FUCKING06.

So let's review for a moment. The whole thing was a train wreck, Bush was gonna kill the party, not to mention a few thousand American men and women in uniform, not to mention a few hundred thousand Iraqis, not to mention outing a CIA agent and torturing some innocent people and sending Americans to secret prisons and spying on them illegally. The whole thing was a flaming train wreck with FAIL icing, and McClellan was privy to all of this, and he left the White House in April 2006, when the train was not only off the tracks, but had careened into a gorge, the fire had been put out, the goats evacuated and most of the cargo salvaged, and NOW here he comes, to tell us that he had a sneaking suspicion the engineer was not entirely up to snuff before the damn thing ever hit the rails, the fuel was inadequate and one of the porters was playing with a Zippo? SERIOUSLY?

And we're supposed to do ... what now, with this? Wer'e supposed to ... I dunno, give him some kind of cookie? Throw him a party? Pat him on the back with cable news appearances and guest columns because, like Dougie "I'm Not A War Criminal, But I Play One In The Government" Feith, he's courageously telling the truth a half-decade after it would have fucking helped us at all? He's asking for recognition here that doesn't involve being put in the fucking stocks? He's asking that we mark his courage in telling his "inside story," or something? Because unless this is public atonement, unless every page, every paragraph, hell, every predicate ends with "I'm sorry," unless this is penance of some kind, unless he's apologizing, I'm not for one second inclined to listen.

I wrote months ago that we could expect a parade of these stupid fools marching down the National Mall declaring themselves newly enconscienced and full of horror at what Bush had done to fuck up whatever perfection they themselves had planned for a Republican presidency. Feith wasn't the first, that was either Gingrich or Fucking Ari, but now they're coming fast and furious, counting on us to be so riveted by their performances as actual human beings that we don't dare ask the only question worth asking of these opportunistic scum-feedling cockroaches:

WHY WERE YOU FINE WITH IT UNTIL IT NOW?

Because you were, you ten-a-penny fascisti, you kitchen appliances, you insults to the memory of anyone who's ever called himself a public servant. You were fine with it when Iraqis and poor Americans were dying, you were fine with it while cities were being wiped out, you were fine with it while innocents at home and abroad were being tortured and deported and driven insane, you were fine with it when the lies were exposed as lies and you were fine with it when the crimes were called crimes. You were fine with motherfucking everything until it started to get uncomfortable in just one place: the voting booth.

Then you started to sweat like the guilty bastards you are, then you started looking over your shoulder for the villagers with pitchforks and torches. Then you ripped off your BUSH ROOLS DEMS DROOL shirts and put on some nondescript fucking polo and backed away, muttering, "not us, man, we were never even THERE" while you stuffed your big Republican foam finger down the garbage disposal. Then you gave a shit about American lives, then you gave a shit about the mortgage and the gas pump, then you gave a shit about the coffins coming home. Until then, you were fine with it, you were happy as clams, you were dancing a fucking jig and anybody who so much as whispered "Constitution" was a terrorist-appeasing pussy. You were fine with it until you realized you couldn't hump it across the finish line one last time.

So don't you dare come to me now, with your declarations of knowing all along that we were gonna get fucked. Don't you dare come to me now with your explanations of how you knew, way back when, that the liars were liars and the crimes were crimes. Don't you dare come to me now, try to tell me a story, because while it was happening, you were fine with it, and that's the only part of your bloviating on and on that I can even fucking hear. You were fine with it. Don't you dare come to me now, try to tell me anything else, and expect me to give you the courtesy of not turning my back in the street.

Until April 2006, McClellan worked for these people. Until April 2006, he was fine enough with what he now abhors that he kept right on cashing the checks.

A.

My Shirt Came In The Mail

Fyyfff_2

Have you ordered yours yet?

A.

It Starts To Look Needy, Man

Dougie on how the preznit ate his war:

Before the war, administration officials said that success would mean an Iraq that no longer threatened important U.S. interests – that did not support terrorism, aspire to WMD, threaten its neighbors, or conduct mass murder. But from the fall of 2003 on, the president defined success as stable democracy in Iraq.

This was a public affairs decision that has had enormous strategic consequences for American support for the war. The new formula fails to connect the Iraq war directly to U.S. interests. It causes many Americans to question why we should be investing so much blood and treasure for Iraqis. And many Americans doubt that the new aim is realistic – that stable democracy can be achieved in Iraq in the foreseeable future.

If only we'd defined success as LOTS OF DEAD PEOPLE AND STUFF GETTING BLOWED UP, we'd be so successful now!

The fact that he says these things out loud with no sense of irony at all is evidence of a moral dyslexia so profound I'm tempted to send him a care package full of cookies and the number of a very reliable shrink.

Hat tip to Scout.

A.

The Internet Kills Journalism for the 207th Time

LIBERALS EVERYWHERE!!!!

As readers flee to alternative sources of information, or to no information at all, because newspapers haven't been able to deliver much that readers find useful or compelling, the Record of Hackensack has identified the core of the problem, and is addressing it head on, with great courage and wisdom.

What newspapers need to make them more useful and compelling, according to the Record's obviously airtight and unassailable marketing survey, is to get rid of their "liberal bias." And rather than waste a lot of time hiring crackerjack reporters and editors and setting them loose on the community to tell stories that the people of Hackensack could not possibly ignore, the Record is hauling editors into meetings with the marketing staff, where they will be schooled in the art of wringing every last bit of potentially controversial substance from their stories. I'm sorry, I mean from their "product." And we all know -- from those same kinds of marketing surveys -- that if you offer news stories that don't make anyone angry, readers will start beating down the newsroom doors for more. They just can't get enough watered-down mush. The survey said so!

Similar surveys also tell us that people want better schools, and that they don't want to pay for them through higher taxes. Those might sound like contradictory notions, but they are nonetheless true. You might not like it, but "the research is sound." Don't you dare argue! And if you write a news story about schools and taxes, don't mention anything about how quality costs money. That's "biased," you filthy liberal!

As far as the imperiled future of newspapers, I'm not sure what the big mystery is. The answers are all right there in the Record's memo.

The market research manager says so!

Is there a liberal slant to The Record's news coverage? A number of readers who participated in recent telephone interviews with our market research team said they think there is.

The focus of interviews conducted over 10 days in March centered on what "jobs" readers want fulfilled by The Record. "Tell me the truth" stood out as a key job, but several readers added that they want the truth objectively – not from a reporter's personal angle. That led to expanded conversations.

"A good portion of these people feel The Record is politically liberal," said Joe Ferrara, market research manager. "Some of that may mirror a broader perception about media generally having a political agenda. But some people made the distinction between The Record's editorial pages and news content, saying ‘Your opinion pages are sneaking over into your news articles'."

Sneaking over. Under cover of darkness, perhaps, with little helmets covered in leaves and sticks so as to escape detection as they cross the river. Seriously, this guy says this, right out loud, and appears from context to have no clue how completely and totally insane it sounds.

But it's Craigslist, don't you know, that's really ruining the Golden Age of newspapers.

A.

Dood, It Is So On!

What's this?  A pony challenge from Larry Sabato?

"[Bush] is poisoning the well for Republican congressional candidates and for John McCain," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "I think McCain's chances depend in part on whether Bush and his White House team can manage to get Bush up around 40 (percent) again," referring to the president's approval rating.

Bring it on, Sabato!

Politics of Resentment

They want us to hate each other. It's all they've got:

Movement conservatism started off as a racket. Movement conservatism has always been about exacerbating and then profiting from existing cultural, social, and economic resentments. There was never any fall from an original ideological Eden. The corruption was there from the start. Packer is quite right to emphasize how the political and popular success of movement conservatism owes everything to its legitimization of a politics of resentment that arose in the 1960s.

The women and the blacks and the Mexicans took the jobs away, and the hippies lost us Vietnam and are even now making us feel bad about waving our big foam finger around, and the liberals keep harshing our buzz by reminding us we still have poor people, and bloggers are swearing on the Internets in order to make us feel bad about our lives. It's all somebody else's fault you're not successful, you're not strong, you're not the person you want to be, the person you know deep down you should be. It's all someone else's fault, so don't get off the couch, don't pick up a sign, don't sign a petition. Just vote for me, and be pissed off, and mutter darkly about the borders and the chicks. Just vote for me, and you won't be any better off, but at least you'll know you can blame somebody else for it. At least you'll have that.

A.

On Being Nice

I look forward to McCain's sponsorship of a resolution declaring Barack Obama a Christian who does not actually want to have sex with Osama bin Laden on top of a pile of dead puppies.

A.

May 26, 2008

Memorial Day

Joe Galloway on how we honor veterans:

Let's all pay lip service to Support Our Troops. But if we want to be honest, we should edit those yellow-ribbon bumper stickers to say Support Our Troops — As Long As It Doesn't Cost Anything.

Let's acknowledge that this new generation of soldiers and Marines is amazingly motivated and talented. They're expected to be good killers, good diplomats and ambassadors of American goodwill who operate under impossibly complex rules of engagement in impossibly dangerous and deadly environments.

But if they come home wounded, their brains rattled by the huge IEDs of the new way of war, and if they suffer the horrors of PTSD nightmares and flashbacks, let's dump them on the streets with the least amount of help and benefits possible, as cheaply as possible.

For sure we don't want to improve their chances, better their future prospects, by offering them the same college benefits we gave their grandfathers six decades ago. God help us if they all get college degrees and figure out what we've done to them.

May 25, 2008

Complete With Sombrero

Chickenheads

Via Ugly Crap, here's a Memorial Day weekend grilling essential:

Dress up your beer butt chicken with our new ceramic drunk chicken heads! Just pop them on top of your chicken before cooking or you can even add them to a store bought rostisserie to dress it up! Choose from three versions.1) The Malibu - one Cool looking chicken 2) The Bug-Eyed Chicken - perhaps he is wondering where the beer can went? or 3) Southestern Chicken from South of the Border complete with Sombrero and mustache!

A) Thank God it's complete with sombrero.

B) My Father's Day shopping is done.

A.

ps. The Amazon page also displays this, which, what the fuck, people? I swear to God, we need to bring back Home Economics because nobody knows how to do shit anymore without an appliance. It's called BEER CAN CHICKEN, you need a chicken, a pan and a can. You don't need a device, so take that 24.99 and buy MOAR BEERS.

Arbitrary

A good point:

This is the kind of moment that the corporate media has been waiting for in order to bury either hers or Obama’s campaign. And they now have something that will be the "defining moment" of the final phase for the campaign. Oh sure, she has been built up time and time again (think New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and whatever else I forgot), only to be gleefully torn apart as she faltered (or was even perceived to falter) by people like Chris Matthews and his talking meatstick counterparts.

It doesn’t matter if she said something that was on her mind that never should have been said.

It doesn’t matter if this was more callous, more calculating or more thoughtless than anything else that she or her surrogates may have said or hinted over the course of the campaign.

It doesn’t matter that Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer this week, or that the comment was about RFK, JFK or MLK.

It doesn’t matter if she was truly trying to invoke history and picked a very poor example.

It doesn’t matter if she admitted that she was very tired and that it was an incredibly stupid or insensitive thing to say.

It doesn’t matter, at this point, if her supporters will be alienated by what she said - especially since most of those supporters have already voted and/or donated to her campaign.

What matters, sadly but true, is that she has now been officially declared "done" with the one moment that can be played over and over and over and over.

And over.

Which goes back to what we talk about here a lot, laziness and stupidity in addition to bias, as a media problem. The utter arbitrariness, in that what one person says passes without comment other than on the back pages of the Beaver County Tidbit (much to the chagrin of the Tidbit) and what someone else says gets blown up into a 24-hour Pig Fuck of a "firestorm," which incidentally if I never hear that word again ... A bunch of things contribute to this: charged environment, relative stupidity of statement, availability of critics and ease of analysis with which to quickly put together a Sunday show, the latter being so much more crucial than people think. If you can't get anyone on the phone to say "that was outrageous!" you can't write a story about outrage.

I'm not defending her at all, at best it was a fucking dumbass thing to say and very uncool, at best. But the total lack of rules to this thing, the lack of dare I say it, standards to which journalists are always declaring they adhere, makes fighting back against it very difficult, and that's a lesson that all Democrats should have learned four years ago, hell, eight years ago. It's a lesson they're going to need to learn damn quick in the coming months.

A.

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