This blog is written by a couple of pissed-off patriots who share a fierce dedication to the Constitution - the only words ever put to paper worth dying for. We exist to remind y'all that America was founded on four boxes:
The Soapbox
The Ballot Box
The Jury Box
The Ammo Box
They should be used in that order. This is our soapbox.
To contact BG or YD, send email to:
WorthyDescendants_at_gmail.com
Your humble bloghostess is proud to be the recipient of not one, but two much-coveted Golden Monkeyfist awards!True Golden Monkeyfist - 2007
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When I read that Tom Tancredo had recommended literacy and civics tests that people must pass before being allowed to vote, I thought YES! Finally, a way to ensure that repugs never, ever, EVER win another election. I was going to draft a sample test, but Eli at FireDogLake beat me to it:
And then, something really odd happened, mostly because I think that we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country. People who could not even spell the word "vote," or say it in English, put a committed socialist idealogue in the White House, name is Barack Hussein Obama.
Granted, everything after that first sentence is insane racist gibberish, but aside from that, perhaps he has a point. Would it really be such a terrible idea to administer some sort of test to ensure that only people with at least a passing acquaintance with reality can vote for the government officials who have such a huge impact on our lives?
Here, I'll throw out some possible sample questions to get the ball rolling:
1) Was Saddam Hussein responsible for 9/11?
SNIP
5) Was Barack Obama born in the United States?
SNIP
11) Do tax cuts increase or decrease government revenue?
12) Is Medicare a government program?
13) Is homosexuality a lifestyle choice? Is it contagious?
SNIP
16) Is the Earth thousands of years old, or billions of years old?
SNIP
19) Do scientists and academics contribute anything useful to society?
20) Is individual voter fraud a widespread epidemic that is distorting our electoral process?
It's true that many of these questions would have the entirely incidental and unintended effect of disproportionately disenfranchising conservative and Republican voters, but doesn't that seem like a small price to pay for an electorate that makes rational and well-informed decisions about who should run the country?
Support for repealing DADT grows among the ranks In 2004, 65% of the active duty military personnel opposed allowing gay men and women to serve openly. Less than six years later, that number is down precipitously, to 51%. The results of the poll conducted for the Military Times newspapers were published after Admiral Mike Mullen told a congressional panel last week that he favored repealing the Clinton-era law.
Orange gives way to Blue in the Ukraine as Yanukovich, the man ousted by the orange revolution five years ago, returns to power. By the way, aside from being somewhat bemused by the fact that peaceful, democratic elections that change the parties in power are now reported as 'revolutionary,' we want to weigh in on the recent trend of assigning colors to these 'revolutions.' We approve, with a caveat: Yes, we appreciate that it helps keep the players straight for Americans, who proved yesterday that they can too pay attention for three whole hours, and more than once a year if the color commentary is good the rest of the time. Now the caveat: When we get to colors like chartreusse, magenta and vermillion, we draw the line and you have to get a new way to identify the players.
A good start Last year 2.6 million previously uninsured children gained healthcare coverage through Medicaid and SCHIP. Some of the gains were due to economic factors and increased need, others were added when states stepped up recruitment efforts.
Apparent stowaway perishes in wheelwell of Delta flight A man described only as having dark skin and being clad in a plaid shirt and jeans was found in the landing gear of a flight from New York when it landed at Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Sunday night by a mechanic who was doing routine maintenance to the Boeing 777. Temperatures in the wheelwells fall to 58F (50C) during flight, are unpressurized and there is no O2 supply. It is theoretically possible to live through such an attempt, but it is not likely.
An alternative to TASERs and lethal force Too often, this sort of thing ends in tragedy, but Saturday it did not. Kansas City police answering a disturbance call confronted a suicidal, knife-wielding, mentally-ill woman in the middle of the street, threatening to charge them and make them shoot her. An officer who has training and expertise with a special shotgun that fires beanbags was summoned and he disarmed her with the first shot and knocked her to the ground with the second. She was arrested and taken to a hospital.
Meghan McCain doesn't think much of the Teabaggers In an appearance on The View today, the daughter of the former republican nominee blasted the populist, right-wing movement as innately racist, and tore into Sarah Palin for excorriating Rahm Emanuel for using the word 'retard' in private then making excuses for Rush Limbaugh who went on a tear and used it 40 times in one broadcast. And then she fired broadside and blew a huge fucking hole in the side of the USS Teabag, finishing with "I'm sorry, but revolutions start with young people, not 65 year old people talking about literacy tests and people who can't say the word 'vote' in English."
Get ready for the next celebrity trial...this one is bound to be a lurid freakshow Conrad Murray, the personal physician to Michael Jackson who has admitted to administering a strong sedative to the pop star shortly before he died, appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to a single count of manslaughter today, just hours after prosecutors filed the charge. The five-page criminal complaint alleges that Murray "did unlawfully, and without malice, kill Michael Joseph Jackson" by acting "without due caution and circumspection," but offers none of the details that have been leaked to the press.
Human beings are amazing creatures An emaciated and dehydrated man pulled from the rubble of the marketplace where he sold rice and beans may have been trapped for the entire four weeks since the quake rocked Haiti on January 12. He said someone had been bringing him water while he was trapped, but doctors say he is confused and seems to think he is still trapped in the rubble and can't answer any questions about how he managed to survive all this time. The government officially ceased rescue missions and turned to a recovery footing on January 23, but two teenaged girls were rescued from the rubble of their school on January 27th.
Haley Barbour tests the presidential waters That is what it means when prominent members of the political party not currently in the White House start popping up in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina. Barbour, who as Mississippi's Governor chairs the RGA and and formerly chaired the RNC, has already been to the first two and is headed to the third one next month to keynote the Spartanburg County GOP's annual President's Day dinner.
Yes, this guy's sick and would have abused her somehow, but did Smirky/Darth have to give him the idea? "A US soldier has been charged with assault after allegedly waterboarding his four-year-old daughter, police in Washington state have said. Sgt Joshua Tabor is alleged to have dunked the girl's head in a sink full of water for not reciting the alphabet, police in the town of Yelm said. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that simulates drowning and has been banned as torture by the US. Sgt Tabor is a helicopter repairer who served in Iraq from 2007-08. Yelm police chief Todd Stancil said Sgt Tabor was arrested on 31 January. Officers were called after Sgt Tabor was seen walking around his neighbourhood holding a Kevlar helmet and threatening to break windows, the police chief added."
When the election loser gets arrested for challenging the results, it's not a real democracy. "The defeated candidate in Sri Lanka's presidential election, General Sarath Fonseka, has been arrested at his office in Colombo. Gen Fonseka was defeated by incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa last month by six million votes to four million. Gen Fonseka rejected the results and vowed to challenge them in court. The initial allegations brought by the government against Gen Fonseka, 59, were put simply as "committing military offences". The government had earlier been seeking legal advice on bringing a court martial on charges of plotting to overthrow the administration."
Biology Geek Moment of the Week - with cool video! "Extraordinary footage of a rarely seen giant deep sea fish has been captured by scientists. Using a remotely operated vehicle, they caught a rare glimpse of the huge oarfish, perhaps the first sighting of the fish in its natural setting. The oarfish, which can reach 17m long, has previously only been seen on a few occasions dying at the sea surface, or dead washed ashore. The scientists also filmed for the first time the behaviour of a manefish."
Not a good start. "The first Darfur war crimes suspect to face international judges has had the charges against him dropped. Rebel leader Bahar Idriss Abu Garda, who gave himself up last year, had been accused of planning the killing of 12 African Union peacekeepers in 2007. But International Criminal Court (ICC) judges ruled that there was not enough evidence to support a trial. Last week, the ICC said charges of genocide against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir could be resubmitted. Mr Bashir is already wanted for war crimes."
Snow keeps the federal government shut for a second day on Tuesday All government operations in D.C. were cancelled today and will be suspended again tomorrow as the capitol struggles to dig out from under nearly three feet of snow that fell over the weekend - and braces for up to a foot-and-a-half more.
And finally...
We are at a loss as to who is stupider...the dumbass from Platte County, Missouri (the northern suburbs of KC) who subscribed to kiddie porn sites with his credit card, or the Kansas City Star for publishing the names of the sites.
Harold Ford is supposedly running for a U.S. Senate seat from New York. Trying to unseat an incumbent in the primary. In the 3rd-largest state in the union. In the next six months, he's got to raise a zillion dollars and attempt to shake hands with 20 million people, half of whom hate him because he's a homophobic DINO asshole and the other half of whom hate him because he's black. He's got a huge, monster, near-impossible campaign ahead of him, and he's already at least a year behind.
So what is he doing to raise big money/meet many residents of New York state/impress major national power brokers?
Speaking at the Governor's Prayer Breakfast. In Kentucky.
"Governor Steve Beshear and First Lady Jane Beshear invite you to celebrate this special time of year at the 45th Annual Governor's Prayer Breakfast, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010, beginning at 8 a.m. in the Bell Gym at Kentucky State University.
The Governor's Prayer Breakfast is a long-standing tradition in Kentucky dating back to 1965 and includes representatives of all three branches of government. Each year it provides Kentuckians with an opportunity to give thanks for their blessings and ask for strength to lead the Commonwealth toward a brighter tomorrow.
SNIP - (trust me - Beshear's sacharine and deceitful quote will make you puke.)
The theme of this year's breakfast is "A Call to Serve." Harkening to the pioneer spirit that has shaped the Commonwealth, the theme illustrates the call many Kentuckians have taken to help their neighbors during these tough times.
Keynoting the Governor's Prayer Breakfast this year is former United States Representative Harold Ford Jr., of Tennessee. Described by former President Bill Clinton as "the walking, living embodiment of where America ought to go in the 21st century," Ford's commitment to service and community action are reflected in his well-known dedication to creating a government that is working for the betterment of all. Musical entertainment will be provided by the award-winning Kentucky Regional Men's Chorus.
I wrote last year about this unconstitutional idiocy, and noted that new President Obama had found a way to use the occasion for something more rational and important than making demands of an invisible sky wizard.
He extended that tradition at this year's national prayer breakfast, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the opportunity to attack the viciously homophobic Ugandan government proposals to execute people for their sexual orientation.
Don't hold your breath waiting for Harold Ford to do anything remotely so American, non-sectarian and Democratic.
It's typically incompetent of Beshear to give the keynote address spot to Ford, who is one of the few "Democrats" more republican than Ben Chandler.
The hilarious part is that the only people in Kentucky liberal enough to not hate Ford for his race hate him for being a corporate-owned, repug-cock-sucking DINO.
I was afraid the outlook was grim for Pennsylvania's longest-serving member of Congress when I learned last week that he was in ICU following gall bladder surgery. This afternoon, around 1:15, he passed away peacefully with his family at his bedside.
The following is from a statement issued by his aides that landed in my inbox a few minutes ago:
Congressman John P. Murtha (PA-12) passed away peacefully this afternoon at 1:18 p.m. at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA. At his bedside was his family.
Murtha, 77, was Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.
First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in February of 1974, Murtha dedicated his life to serving his country both in the military and in the halls of Congress. A former Marine, he became the first Vietnam War combat Veteran elected to the U.S. Congress.
This past Saturday, February 6, 2010, Murtha became Pennsylvania's longest serving Member of Congress.
His career was long and accomplished, and while not perfect, his intentions were good and most impressive of all, he was that rarest of creatures in Washington D.C., a man who could admit a mistake, like he did with the war in Iraq in 2005 when he said it was "unwinnable" and was immediatelyexcorriated by the right. He was a decorated combat veteran, but he was accused by people who did anything in their power to get out of serving of being a traitor and of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
But he was a Marine. He took their fire and he never flinched.
And a year later the American people told the republican chickenhawks that they saw it Murtha's way, not theirs, and sent them packing, banishing them to the minority.
Murtha's stand then - and a lonely stand it was to take at that moment in time - cast a long shadow and it gave cover to others who had voted in support of the invasion but whose position had changed, privately if not publicly. In fact, one could argue a good case that Murtha taking that stand when he did made the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 possible.
A great number of us who populate this place have personal reasons to be thankful for John Murtha's 19 terms in the House, and will be raising a glass to him tonight. Semper Fi and Godspeed, Sir. You lived well, and you fought hard, both as a Marine and as a Congressman, and you never forgot about those behind you who continued to don the cloth. For that, there are many who will be forever grateful.
Pakistani police claim to have arrested six suspected Taliban militants carrying a suicide vest and hand grenades who were allegedly en route to a five-star hotel in the nation's cultural capital of Lahore, where they intended to target and kill Americans. Lahore has recently experienced a spate of bombings in recent years as militants have targeted security installations and marketplaces, as well as hotels and restaurants patronized by visiting Westerners.
The militants arrested Monday on the outskirts of Lahore included a 14-year-old boy and a prayer leader from Pakistan's Khyber tribal area near the Afghan border, said police official Zulfikar Hameed. The prayer leader was wearing a vest packed with explosives. They told police they were targeting Americans at the Pearl Continental hotel, he said.
"We think they were on their way to launch the attack," said Hameed. "They told us that Americans are responsible for the death of every innocent Muslim in the so-called war on terror."
Police seized 26 hand grenades and five detonators from the militants, who were traveling by car and motorcycle, said Hameed. Despite their intentions, the men didn't know for certain whether any Americans were staying at the hotel, he said.
Hotels have been frequent targets. Nine people died when a suicide bomber struck the Pearl Continental in Peshawar in June, and a Marriott in Islamabad was hit by a suicide car bomber in 2008, killing fifty people.
I've got a question for all you members of our House of Lords... especially those of you in the "new" South... who, in their zeal to serve their Wall Street masters...
1. by consistently attempting to destroy the last vestiges of organized labor in this country by providing special incentives... not the least of which has been aid in union busting in order to entice foreign auto makers to make cars in their region...
2. by supporting and promoting the offshoring of American auto industry jobs, predominantly union jobs, in other areas of the country which had, until recently, been the centers of the automotive industry in the United States...
3. by consistently voting on behalf of your foreign clients to gut those regulatory agencies charged with overseeing safety concerns in the manufacture of motor vehicles and the enforcement of American automobile safety standards...
4. and simply by consistently selling out the interests of the country as a whole in favor of the interests of the one percenters that have granted you to your present status as the bought and paid for whores for the one percent of the population that makes up the nobility...
How's that working out for ya? Don't know if you've noticed or even give a damn but it's not doing a hell of a lot for some of your victims.
A contingent of small firms with expertise in class actions and products liability litigation are behind a legal onslaught against Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. following reports of sudden acceleration in many of its most popular vehicle models.
I have this fervent hope taking shape in the more evil recesses of my mind... a hope that you... and the rest of the liars and whores that sold us out for your little bags of silver... will be held responsible for your part in what comes next. You bear as much responsibility for every death that has taken place in one of those non-union, non regulated vehicles that YOU helped foist onto the American public in spite of long held concerns about their safety as Toyota itself does. One case in point:
It was a Saturday afternoon, April 19, 2008, and Mrs. Alberto, a 77-year-old former autoworker, was driving her 2005 Toyota Camry. Within blocks of her home, witnesses told police, the car accelerated out of control, jumped a curb and flew through the air before crashing into a tree.
Mrs. Alberto was killed instantly, leaving her family stunned at how such an accident could happen to someone who was in good health, never had a speeding ticket and so hated driving fast that she avoided taking the freeway.
Her car was not among the millions of Camry models and other Toyotas recently recalled for sticky accelerator pedals. And it also did not have floor mats at the time, which were part of a separate recall. Instead, the crash is now being looked at as a possible example of problems with the electronic system that controls the throttle and engine speed in Toyotas.
Such computerized systems are part of a broader inquiry by federal regulators into problems with sudden, unintended acceleration in Toyotas, beyond the issues that have led to the company's recent recalls. Toyota denies there is a problem with such systems.
Yesterday the President took advantage of the bulliest pulpit of them all and sat down with Katie Couric for an interview to be broadcast before the Super bowl, a time when the maximum number of eyeballs were on American teevee screens, border to border and coast to coast. He took the opportunity to capitalize on the success he had when he went to the republican retreat in Baltimore and slapped the entire caucus silly while the cameras rolled, telling CBS News that he was going to convene a half-day, bipartisan healthcare summit later this month where republicans can bring their substantive ideas to the table and have a frank and honest discussion of the merits - and it will be televised.
He set out a plan that would put Republicans on the spot to offer their own ideas on health care and show whether both sides are willing to work together.
"I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward," Mr. Obama said in the interview from the White House Library.
Mr. Obama challenged Republicans to attend the meeting with their plans for lowering the cost of health insurance and expanding coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. Republican leaders said they welcomed the opportunity and called on Democrats to start the debate from scratch, which the president said he would not do.
I like it. Healthcare reform has been talked nearly to death, but when people step back, take a deep breath and separate the wheat from the chaff, they find out that they like what the legislation would do. He is putting the republicans on the hot seat, highlighting their so-called "ideas" for healthcare reform and making them own their obstruction. McConnell and Boehner have both accepted the invitation and can't very well back out now, so they best show up prepared to answer questions like "How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so that people with pre-existing conditions, for example, can get health care? How do you want to make sure that the 30 million people who don't have health insurance can get it? What are your ideas specifically?" (emphasis added)
Live. On the teevee machine and streamed over the interwebs.
They are no match for the President. It is going to happen literally in his house while the cameras roll. I am sure that there are those on the left who will denounce this as "just more bipartisan outreach by Obama" and sniff indignantly that they are chumping him once again.
These people are idiots not thinking clearly. It is not about talking to republicans. It is about making the republicans own their obstruction and their lack of ideas save "hurt Obama by any means necessary, and we don't care how many of our constituents are collateral damage in the process, he. can. not. succeed."
He knows that the recalcitrant fuckers are not going to come along, and he doesn't need them to. He just needs the American people who handed him his mandate to see what he is dealing with on a daily basis that the M$M presents as "he said/she said" faux-balanced bullshit, pretending that all things are equal even when they so obviously are not. This is about narrowing the 'microphone gap' by going directly to the American public with facts because the M$M does not do it's Constitutionally enshrined and protected job.
We (Yellow Dog and I) are calling it a day and going to watch football, eat the wrong foods and drink beer. Maybe lots of beer. We aren't even guaranteeing a roundup tonight, but regular blogging will resume tomorrow. Now, go play. What the hell are you doing reading political blogs on Super Bowl Sunday, anyway? The only other more uniquely American holiday - and this is a holiday, by every measure of the word - is the Fourth of July. And as far as economic impact, my money is on today. Now. Seriously. Get out of here and go watch some football, eat some chips and dip and have a beer. Politics will still be here tomorrow, and it isn't going to get markedly more or less stupid in the few hours between now and then.
YD has a LATER UPDATE, 5:30 a.m.:
Go here right now and just wallow in what is, this morning, as it was 4 and a half years ago, the GREATEST FUCKING NEWSPAPER ON THE PLANET.
Over at the Washington Post today, University of Virgina politics professor Gerard Alexander attempts to provide some academic reinforcement to Sarah Palin's right wing grievance-mongering rant yesterday at the Tea Party convention. In his column, Alexander wonders "Why are Liberals So Condescending? and in a bit of irony or inintended humor Alexander's is the only article not taking reader comments.
Every story has its characters and Alexander's is a familiar right wing fairly tale that paints a portrait of the put-upon conservatives manfully offering their bright ideas in good faith only to have them shot down by those Ivy League snobs who refuse to take them seriously. This boilerplate conservative complaint sounds plausible enough in the detail-free abstract -- which is pretty much the level where the argument stays with Alexander, just as it does endlessly at FOX News and in GOP talking points.
In short, Alexander's attack on liberal snobbishness is populated with strawmen. Without giving his characters names, the impression Alexander intends to leave is of a belittled and erudite conservative hero like William F. Buckley dismissed by liberals as a dunce. Yet, Alexander knows perfectly well it's right wing creatures like Tom Tancredo that liberals loath.
Physics has yet to find a perpetual motion machine. But right wing politics has found one in the endless supply of right wing outrage they are able to exploit by provoking liberal horror at the dangerous, unthinking, proto-fascist morons like Sarah Palin and Tom Tancredo that the Radical Right so regularly elevates to be its leaders.
Alexander provides a long and familiar list of liberal offences guaranteed to feed right into these conservative resentments.
He mentions the Daily Kos poll that portrays conservatives as weird (about a third think the president should be impeached and even more aren't sure he's American) but never bothers to say what it says about the right wing state of mind. Poor Richard Hofstader, who first connected the right wing mindset with "the paranoid style in American politics" comes in for his usual share of abuse as a name-calling academic elitist. But he gets no credit for accurately describing 50 years ago precisely the prevailing dynamics of right wing populism on full display just the other day from Tom Tancredo and Sarah Palin.
In fact, Alexander never once actually engages with liberal arguments directly -- perhaps his own form of conservative snobbery -- since stories like Alexander's are not meant to make an argument but evoke a mood. And amid all the hand-wringing about liberals who reject conservatives because they think they're hicks, here are a few real ideas that Alexander fails to consider.
Just how are liberals supposed to take conservatives seriously when they call the president a "socialist" for putting the country in hock when he just replaced a committed right winger who doubled the national debt in just eight short years?
How are liberals supposed to take Republicans seriously when they say they've suddenly re-discovered Reagan era fiscal austerity after quadrupling the number of pork barrel earmarks they gave themselves when they were in charge? Even now Alabama Senator Richard Shelby is shaking down the government like some mob enforcer by putting a new appointments on hold until he gets what he wants -- more government boodle for his anti-government constituents in The Heart of Dixie.
How are liberals supposed to take the right wing seriously when they question the president's patriotism and loyalty -- and issue passionate warnings about the safety of the nation -- when Obama is doing exactly what Bush did dozens of times with the terrorists who were caught on American soil on Bush's watch?
When almost identical behavior is portrayed in two so radically different ways, it's not snobbery that causes liberals to dismiss conservative ideas. It's the inescapable logic that conservative ideas are not ideas at all but talking points for a Republican agenda that is brazenly and shamelessly partisan.
Alexander says that liberals are hypocrites who pretend to keep an open mind but don't by dismissing conservative's dissenting ideas out of hand. But when you scratch below the surface you find that what the Radical Right is really demanding is that liberals give respect and legitimacy to a Radical Right worldview in which only Radical Right ideas are legitimate.
Republicans have not ground the government to a halt because President Obama refuses to listen to right wing Republican views. They've shut down the government because Obama refuses to govern AS a right wing Republican.
When Christian fundamentalists find themselves forced to live side by side with people who don't share their particular sectarian views, they call this an "attack on Christianity."
When gays object to having their homosexuality called a crime against nature and a sin against God, they are accused of "attacking people of faith."
When the president is called a traitor to his country because he tries to build bridges of trust with other countries by coming clean on past US wrongs -- or when he is accused of being a foreign born Muslim intent on giving the country away to Muslim terrorists because he thinks terrorists caught on American soil should be convicted in American courts according to American standards of justice -- it should be clear to everyone that what conservatives like professor Alexander are really demanding is that conservatives be given respect by liberals that conservatives don't respect in the least.
I go back a few years with Dan, and he has always come through for me like a champ. I honestly can't say enough good things about him or his business. --BG
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