In an audiotape broadcast last week, Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to rise up in protest of any U.N. or NATO intervention.

My e-mail in-box immediately was filled with outraged messages from Darfurians who had kept in touch and lived in cities around Sudan.

“I believe — as many of my fellow Darfurians do — bin Laden is very mistaken by calling for Jihad in Darfur,” Ahmad Shugar, a Darfur leader, wrote in an e-mail. “. . . We are all Muslims here. It is really humiliating when a fellow Muslim looks down on you and calls for jihad against you.”

The first genocide of the 21st century continues. Like the Holocaust by the Nazis, too much of the world remains disengaged, apathetic, and some openly bigoted.

For all the hoopla heard about ‘the greatest generation’, America’s majority was not so great in the 1930s. Many shared the feeling that the Jews brought misery upon themselves. Many feel that way about Muslims today.

The real battle here, as it was back then, is within yourself. Will you wait to see every visible sign of atrocities before feeling the shame the majority of the world will share?

Or can you speak up now for the sake of all humanity, especially the humanity of your self?

Will you be a part of a greater generation? Will you, even alone, choose to be great?

Or will you succumb to the bigots who say they brought it on to themselves? Or the naysayers who say we can accomplish nothing?

I suppose it depends on one thing only: how you intend to sleep tonight.

Echidne worries that democracy is ending, as low approval ratings don’t translate into citizen action to change.

I’ve been asking around offline, why folks don’t seem to track all that’s going on behind the curtain, and whether they care. The most common response boils down to a lack of time. They’re so busy working and trying to make headway, trying to reach that place where they don’t have to worry how to get by, or grant their kids something better than they had, or a retirement where they can actually relax.

They know things are wrong. They may not know how badly corrupted that their government’s become. But it’s not complacency. It’s near exhaustion.

Of course, when things get so awry that they can feel it directly - like the wallet squeezin’ of the gas crunch - they do get more disgruntled. That does motivate them to display their disgust.

Thus, as an activist, I face this constant dillemma. If it’s wallet issues that provide the greatest motivation for people to question their government and move them to register that disapproval in meaningful ways, then why bother trying to change things or to try and persuade them to act? Isn’t it easier just to let things slide, letting things go downhill till the majority gets fed up and does something?

Of course, I’ve reached my own answer to that dillemma. But I could be wrong.

So why do YOU think there’s a useful purpose in agitating for positive change and human progress? Or do you? Are we accomplishing anything?

And before you answer, consider how heartfelt the feelings and how many were motivated into action by Howard Dean in 2004. What got accomplished? Did anything really change? Is it just normal human nature for most to respond only when their ox is being gored ‘bushed’?

Glenn Greenwald provides the detail of the presidential power grab, the most of any administration since Lincoln (who acted when the union itself was dissolving, and had to take emergency measures to slow that).

What I’m least sure of is whether it’s a concerted strategy with a master plan behind it. Or is Bush’s claim to omnipotence merely the snobby dismissal of convention because, as a privileged kid, he always did what he wanted and left it to Daddy to bail him out from every law violation? I can’t tell.

Is he capable of having a philosophy, of framing complicated arguments toward that? Or has he always acted without recognizing he, like everyone else, must be bound by rules? Is his philosophy merely “I wanna” ?

If that’s the case, it’s a lesson for all parents to heed. If you always kowtow to your impertinent brat, you are a rotten, stinky, lousy, sloppy, ugly parent. If that’s true, Bush has put Barbara and George the First in their proper light: they’ve created a son who emulates sociopathic behaviors. They are miserable failures, deserving our scorn and repudiation.

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are near. George has given his parents the appropriate gift: portraits of them as complete losers as human beings.

I hope they appreciate the gift. It appears like they’ve earned it.

Wall Street makes bets on pandemic bird flu

By Bruce Jaspen
Chicago Tribune

Posted April 30, 2006

Leave it to Wall Street to find an investment opportunity in the potential onset of pandemic bird flu.

Although it’s unclear whether bird flu’s spread around the world will result in a major U.S. public health threat, some in the investment community are beginning to place bets on potential hot stocks–and potential losers–should an outbreak arise.

A report on avian flu by Citigroup, for example, cast as investment losers air travel stocks and public places like malls, pubs and casinos. On the buy side, the specter of people holing up in their homes for days on end makes home entertainment, media and Internet companies potentially good investments, Citigroup said.

“The markets are anticipating it, and there are already investors making bets on the potential that there will be a pandemic,” said Paul Heldman, senior health policy analyst for Citigroup in Washington.

Among potential losers listed in the Citigroup report released in March were airlines like American parent AMR Corp., Continental Airlines Inc. and United parent UAL Corp. Other problematic investments would be hotel companies like Hilton Hotels Corp. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., the report indicated.

“The hardest part of this is to create some probability of if and when,” Heldman said. “However, nobody can deny that it is an issue and nobody can deny that it’s already having an effect in the stock markets.”

To be sure, health-care companies are benefiting from worried governments looking to stockpile antiviral drugs and even vaccines that have not yet been commercially approved for wide use in humans.

One commercially available antiviral drug that is seen as effective in treating avian flu after it infects humans has been a sales boon to its maker. Sales of Roche AG’s Tamiflu drug quadrupled last year to $1.6 billion, largely thanks to nearly $800 million in what the company calls “pandemic sales.”

I’m not a trader so I don’t know how to call this play, but the likelihood of Tamiflu actually being useful in the event of a pandemic flu is slim to none. Good luck with your portfolio, however.

Waiting for Snow to fall
April 30, 2006
Jonathan Chait

OH, THE HUMILIATION of being John Snow.

In November 2004, the Washington Post’s Mike Allen reported the president would replace his widely derided Treasury secretary soon. “One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long,” reported Allen. “He might stay as long as six months into the term, officials said.”

That was a year and a half ago. Snow is still with us. Subsequent reports have made it clear that Snow has kept his job only because the White House cannot entice any qualified candidates to take it. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Treasury Department’s diminished role “could make it hard for the administration to replace Mr. Snow with that kind of high-profile Wall Street or corporate executive.” The story proceeded to discuss various candidates who had no interest in the job.

I’m not sure which aspect of the situation is weirder. On the one hand, President Bush’s inability to lure a Treasury secretary appears puzzling. The job pays well. It comes with a large office in a classic Greco-Roman building in downtown Washington, health benefits, a security detail and other perks. Previous Treasury secretaries have gone on to prestigious posts, such as the presidency of Harvard. And yet no takers. Has Bush tried a classified ad?

On the other hand, you’ve got Snow staying in the job despite the fact that everybody knows he’s not wanted. The only thing keeping him in place is the fact that his position has become so diminished that no candidates of any stature will take it. Imagine your husband lets it be known that he’s going to leave you as soon as he can find a date, but it turns out that no woman in town is willing to go out with him. And you’re still with him 18 months later.

Snow endured all this degradation with good cheer. What seems to have caused him, finally, to snap is the establishment of the Hamilton Project. The Hamilton Project is a group formed earlier this year by a gaggle of center-left economic worthies, including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, to promote Clintonesque policy alternatives. The adoption of Hamilton’s name, and the inclusion of Snow’s infinitely better-regarded predecessor, seems to carry the implicit message that the country would be in better shape if it had a real Treasury secretary.

It was all too much for Snow to bear. He quickly delivered a speech wrapping himself in Hamilton’s mantle. “Hamilton, after all, was foremost among the founding fathers in seeing that the new republic’s future depended upon the vitality of commerce and the private sector,” argued Snow, “while the authors of the Hamilton Project argue for a larger government role.”

He then boldly challenged his critics. “For those who criticize the economic policies of President Bush, I simply ask two things: Which of the facts about the current economic picture of growth and job creation do you dispute? And where is your plan for the future?”

The fact that real wages are stagnant or down might have a little something to do with our disillusionment, and might make it harder to find a new secretary who is less willing to lie. The middle class is being pinched. Unlike wealthy cabinet secretaries, they notice it.

From E&P, at the White House Correspondents Dinner:

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Noting those low ratings, Colbert advised, “The glass isn’t half empty - it’s 68% empty. There’s still some fluid in there, but I wouldn’t drink it.”

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “They are re-arranging the deck chairs–on the Hindenburg.”

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, always getting punched in the face—“and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.”

He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd, as well as ” Valerie Plame.” Then, pretending to be worried that he had named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, “Uh, I mean… Joseph Wilson’s wife.” He asserted that it might be okay, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was probably not there.

Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, “photo ops” on aircraft carriers and at hurriance disasters, and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face.
Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, “When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday.”

He closed his routine with a video fantasy where he gets to be White House Press Secretary, complete with a special “Gannon” button on his podium. By the end, he runs fleeing from Helen Thomas and her questions about why the U.S. really invaded Iraq and killed all those people.

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was “surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides—the president’s side and the vice president’s side.”

It’s quite a list of speakers at the principal site of tomorrow’s rally against the Darfur genocide.

Which makes the latest relief news especially disheartening:

The UN is cutting in half its daily rations in Sudan’s Darfur region because of a severe funding shortfall.

From May the ration will be half the minimum amount required each day. The cut comes as the UN said Darfur’s malnutrition rates are rising again.

Nearly 3m people depend on food aid after being driven off their land.

But little has come from the EU and nothing at all from any of Sudan’s partners in the Arab League, except Libya, the World Food Programme says.

“This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever made,” James Morris, head of the WFP, said.

[link]

Shame on most of Europe and the Arab nations for demonstrating tacit approval for the genocide. I mean, where’s the Saudi princes , the Kuwaitis, and other oil-rich countries? It’s not like their petroleum profits are down. The President touts these countries as our allies, but this speaks volumes about their real priorities: they take our money and run … away from the responsibilities of civilized governments and of the principled people of the globe. And much of the EU runs away, too.

Osama ordered his followers to fight against the West in Sudan just last week. Which side are all those EU and Arab governments on?

Donate today, because you can’t run away.

Then find a rally near you and join it.

“We’re losing our moral authority to lead this place,” per Connecticut Republican Christopher Shay, in rejecting an obviously weak House of Reps lobbying reform bill that narrowly passed without him.

I wonder how much lobbyists paid the 216 assenting Republicans to pass this bill.

Of going to a full court press.

With a GOP Congress refusing to investigate Bush’s illegal wiretaps and other illegal or questionable actions, and allies from Bill Kristol to Glenn Reynolds seeing a strong likelihood that Democrats could take control of the House in November, where impeachment trials originate, the Bush administration is going after the press, whistleblowers and citizen sponsored legal filings to try and block every possible method American citizens have of getting at the truth.

Will he also try to shutdown the Fitzgerald investigation into the treasonous activities of his inner circle on the eve of Karl Rove’s likely indictment? Will he try to silence the 2 or 3 members of his own party that actually want him to return to lawful behavior?

I wouldn’t bet against him doing just that, claiming national security will be compromised if the next tiniest fragment of truth comes out. (Update: Glenn Greenwald explains how solid this ‘wall of secrecy’ can be.)

Though the Senate will lack enough Democrats to get a two-thirds vote to convict Bush, once the House impeaches him, the full investigation would reveal too much evidence for Senate Republicans to ignore without facing a citizen’s revolt.

Bush’s current last ditch efforts are understandable and predictable, really. He’s run out of any easier options. During the Watergate investigation, Nixon put our entire military on full alert as he desperately tried to divert the nation’s attention to the possibility of a pending attack. Bush will use the Terror Alert card during these final stages of his failed presidency, to try and rally support for himself. And unfortunately, there’s a strong potential that he has a too willing accomplice in America’s Most Wanted Terrorist.

The greatest recruitment success Al Qaida’s had has been caused by Bush’s decision to attack Iraq and his subsequent mismanagement of that fight. The best way Osama Bin Laden and al Zarqawi can grow their organizations is to keep George Bush in power through 2008. And the best way to achieve their goal is to launch another major terror attack on America in the final month before the November elections.

So blocking the truth by every means possible, using treasonous means to intimidate intelligence insiders, jailing journalists and using the courts to block all legal investigations and oversight attempts, Bush is trying to keep the lid on the facts that will certainly send him back to Crawford if he fails. And coupled with the diversion of his coming terrorist alert(s), he’s actually creating the ripest opening for a very real second major terror attack.

But let’s not overlook the bottom line of exactly what that means: Bush has and will continue to use every trick in the book to preserve and protect his own behind, while sacrificing the real security of the nation in that process.

That would be the biggest and potentially deadliest blunder in US history, if it happens that way. How many US citizens is he willing to sacrifice to maintain his hold on power? All the available evidence to date suggests he’s willing to sacrifice as many as it takes.

Which means he’s not just a failed president. While proclaiming himself as God’s chosen Superpatriot, he may yet prove to be America’s Worst - and deadliest - Enemy.

“Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. … And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up,” Limbaugh said on his short-lived television show on Oct. 5, 1995.

[link]

Prosecutors’ three-year investigation of Limbaugh began after he publicly acknowledged being addicted to pain medication and entered a rehabilitation program. They accused Limbaugh of “doctor shopping,” or illegally deceiving multiple doctors to receive overlapping prescriptions, after learning that he received about 2,000 painkillers, prescribed by four doctors in six months, at a pharmacy near his Palm Beach mansion.

Limbaugh, who pleaded not guilty Friday, has steadfastly denied doctor shopping. Black said the charge will be dismissed in 18 months if Limbaugh complies with court guidelines.

And in a related story….

Mexico’s Congress approved a bill Friday decriminalizing possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use — including cocaine and even heroin — raising potential questions about joint U.S.-Mexican anti-narcotics operations.

The only step remaining was the signature of President Vicente Fox, whose office indicated he would sign the bill, which Mexican officials hope will allow police to focus on large-scale trafficking operations rather than minor drug busts.

The amount of drugs Limbaugh possessed would still be illegal in Mexico. Isn’t it just in keeping with the Bush tradition that he’s winning the War on Drugs with the same aplomb and success that he had when he won the War on Iraq?

We sure could use some Beano to eliminate this flatulence.

This certainly raises some questions.

In June of 2004, mealy-mouthed Colin Powell said that he wasn’t sure if the killings in Darfur amounted to genocide, but lawyers and policy makers were looking into the matter. He didn’t know if it reached the criteria for genocide, could be just a simple case of ethnic cleansing. In September of 2004, Colin Powell declared that genocide was taking place and that maybe, just maybe it was still going on. In February of 2005 the Sudan Ambassador to the United States told an audience at Stanford that “such charges are laughable, to say the least.” Yep, the charges are actually, in reality, to say the most, freaking thigh-slapping, roll on the floor busting-a-gut hilarious.

Yesterday, George Bush said he had an extraordinary conversation with fellow citizens of different faiths, and that they agreed with thousands of our citizens– hundreds of thousands of our citizens– that genocide in Sudan is unacceptable. It must be true if the extraordinary conversation Bush had was with fellow citizens of different faiths. If he had conversed with fellow citizens of no faith, genocide would be acceptable. If the people were, God forbid, of the same faith, he would have brushed them off as a special interest group. Since the people who implored Bush to stop the genocide were people of different faiths, Bush threw down the guantlet and declared that we would hold rallies to send a message that genocide must stop.

Bush, who typically avoids rallies, claims that these marchers will send a strong signal to Sudan. According to Bush, the marches will take place all over America, and I guess he expects the killers in Sudan to turn on the television, see all the marchers, and call a truce.

Sudan will end their genocide over our rallies as soon as Bush pulls out of Iraq over Cindy Sheehan’s rallies. The only thing he has pulled out of is Crawford, TX, since Cindy Sheehan began to hold regular rallies at the tract house he calls his ranch. But Bush will hold much bigger rallies than Cindy, so his are sure to work. I hear he has called on all Mexican Americans to rally on Monday in protest of the genocide in Sudan. As soon as he gets his mission accomplished banner maker on the job, he will have those killers in Darfur shaking in their boots.

Bush declared that the rallies he would hold all across America will represent the best of America. “Paging Dr. Frist and Randall Terry, get the Shiavo gang back together. We need them, STAT.” Bush claimed these rallies would be held because Americans “believe that every life is precisous, even if it’s the life of a bunch a colored folk we haven’t met, I mean even if it the life of a bunch a colored folk in New Orleans stranded on roofs, I mean, even if it’s the life of a bunch of Arabs we’re blowing up in Iraq, I mean only if it’s the life of a white girl in Florida who’s been brain dead for fifteen years.”

I guess Bush is throwing a bone to the Evangelicals he has disappointed by not re-inserting enough feeding tubes in brain dead women or getting Roberts and Alito to ban Roe vs. Wade. He is going to call them together to march about genocide on the basis that every life is precious and the fact that he can give them a ton of our tax payer dough by calling the marches to protest killing and raping sprees in Darfur a faith based initiative.

…. by el Hullaballoo’s Digby?

There is beauty in the land and those upon it. These are what I cherish about America. The flag and the national anthem are like mere tinsel on a Christmas tree, yet some treat these creations like they are the gods of some religion.

Is it a conspiracy to take Americans out of the USA?

And so, one of the most consistent doctrines in all of law was on broad display yesterday in Florida, as one of the fattest of fat-cats, professional propagandist-for-the-Imperium Rush “Docta Shoppa” Limbaugh turned himself in to Palm Beach, Florida police for photographing and fingerprinting as the first step in his kabuki-plea bargain for a charge of defrauding doctors into writing him multiple pain killer prescriptions, under which he will receive no jail time and 18 months probation (after which, the charge will be dropped, a standard practice for first offender White people.)

Rush’s supporters, of course, operating on the nation’s main governing principle (”it’s o.k. if you’re a Republican”) said (of the coddling sweetheart deal from a namby pamby liberal prosecutor which lets Rush continue his cushy, bogus “treatment”) this is just the sort of thing that “ordinary” people have to work through. Hence, Rush skates on a charge that, if he were not rich, and especally if he were not White, would send him to the slammer, especially in Florida, where this disparity also has a wonderful salutory effect on Election Day (helpin’ the White folks maintain their all important votes. ) One is reminded of the poker game variation of “New England baseball” suggested by the Tom Hanks character in the film Volunteers: threes, nines and one-eyed jacks are wild… for White men.

What’s interesting here is that, forgetting for a moment the obscene unfairness of how “criminal justice” is administered in this country (and especially in its regressive little neo-third world backwaters such as JEB Bush’s little fiefdom) and the peculiar unfairness of our drug laws, this is probably the right result. We’d save billions as a nation if we simply treated drug addiction as what it is, a disease, rather than as a “crime”. (Next thing you know I’ll be suggestin’ terrorists is criminals and should be dealt with as such…) Anyway, Limbaugh is simply a weak and pathetic human being who can’t get through the pressures of the ordinary day of being a fabulously successful celebrity with access to all the power, money and sex he could ever want (and the adulation of a carefully screened audience of sycophants) so he needs, you know, a little help every now and again in the form of multiple pain killers every few minutes. It sure beats taking control of one’s diet and exercise habits, or you know, doing actual work toward resolving life’s little difficulties.

So, Rush fell down a bit, and needed a little, you know, boost. Could happen to anybody, really. Any poor schmuck out there. Any old feminazi or liberal creep, for example. Or, you know, Black or Latino person, for whom Rush himself would be advocating the death penalty (or at a minimum hard prison time) for shoplifting or, say, docta shoppin’ for pain killas…

But when will we learn? It’s not what you do: it’s what you say, and who hears it. Oh… and who says it. And being a rich White man with high Arbitron ratings never hurts either.

The unhinged right-wing has taken to the streets brandishing their pitchforks over the audacity of a new recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Spanish. Deep murmurs of approval arose from the crowd yesterday when Bush weighed in on the matter:

I think the National Anthem ought to be sung in English. And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the National Anthem in English.

The profound irony of this nonsense is that, according to a recent Harris Poll, two-thirds of the clamoring crowd don’t even know the English words to the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (much less the other verses) and thus have been shouting huzzahs to Bush for suggesting that perhaps they shouldn’t even be citizens. Or maybe this rule about learning to sing the anthem in English doesn’t apply to, you know, white people.

If somebody were suggesting that people be forced to sing the national anthem in Spanish, I could sort of understand the hue and cry (although most people would just hum along the same way they do now when it’s sung in English). But, all that’s going on here is that someone is daring to sing the anthem in a language other than the one in which Jesus sang it.

I also don’t understand why these same people aren’t upset about other assaults of the dusky Spanish-speaking hoards against the Caucasian-scented lyrics of our national anthem. In 1919, the U.S. Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish translation of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which the evil liberal assimilationists at the Library of Congress have the temerity to display — in its entirety — on the Library of Congress web site. Where is the outrage over that? Worse, we have The National Anthem Project, chaired by none other than Laura Bush, which offers a mariachi arrangement of the anthem. Dio mio, shouldn’t they be calling for Laura’s head on a stick for this?

UPDATE: Condi joins the assimilationist conspiracy! A Spanish version of the national anthem is also posted on the State Department’s site. Does George know?

I don’t know who took Christ out of Christmas, but it was me who took him out of April 29th.

Thanks to Ezra Klein over at Tapped, we have this adorable snapshot of Green Party pol Dennis Hastert getting into his real car, a big black SUV, after some photo-op-keepin’-it-real in front of a gas station, where he got down in solidarity with his peeps over the high price of fossil fuel:

“House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Ill., center, gets out of a Hydrogen Alternative Fueled automobile, left, as he prepares to board his SUV, which uses gasoline, after holding a news conference at a local gas station in Washington, Thursday, April 27, 2006 to discuss the recent rise in gas prices. Hastert and other members of Congress drove off in the Hydrogen-Fueled cars only to switch to their official cars to drive the few blocks back to the U.S. Capitol.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

Just a year and a half ago, the State of Ohio put Bush over the top and into a second disastrous term. Although the margin was slim (and was aided by election irregularities), Ohio gave every sign of resisting impassioned arguments that Bush policies are bad for Ohio’s economy and that his reckless mis-leadership endangers the country.

Oh my, how things have changed. In a new poll conducted by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to be published in print tomorrow, 67% of Ohioans rated the performance of Bush as President as “Fair” (22%) or “Poor” (45%), compared to only 33% rating him “Excellent” (8%) or “Good” (25%).

What really shocked me about the poll is the geographic spread. Disapproval of Bush is to be expected in the liberal-to-moderate northeastern part of the state (78% “Fair” or “Poor”), but in the ultra-conservative areas of southeastern and southwestern Ohio the conventional wisdom has been that Bush’s support remains strong. Not so. In the southwest, home of arch-conservative gubernatorial candidate and Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (R-Cincinnati), Bush has more detractors than supporters: 8% “Excellent,” 33% “Good,” 25% “Fair,” and 34% “Poor.” (Those last two categories have to include a large proportion of Republicans, given the great disparity of party loyalties in that part of the state.) Southeastern Ohio is comparable: 10% “Excellent,” 34% “Good,” 23% “Fair,” 33% “Poor.”

The gender difference is not as great as one might expect: the proportion of men rating Bush “Excellent” or “Good” is only 8 points higher than that of women (37% to 29%). However, the difference between white and African-American respondents is as dramatic as one might anticipate. There weren’t enough of the latter cohort rating Bush as “Excellent” to qualify even for 1%, and only 2% rated him “Good.” Of white respondents, 8% rated him “Excellent” and 28% “Good.”

Reynolds rap:

REPUBLICANS ARE SAGGING IN THE POLLS: Maybe, in part, it’s because Harry Reid is doing better than Bill Frist in fighting pork?Here’s the kind of response that’s getting from former GOP supporters: “Okay, real conservatives, Republicans, and libertarians, stay home. Just…stay home in 2006. Or - what the hell - vote for a Democrat. We have to wake up the Stupid Party, before it completely merges itself into the Republicrat Statist Party.”

I think that a GOP disaster is now officially looming.

posted at 08:44 AM by Glenn Reynolds

Neocon Bill Kristol, on The Colbert Report last night, predicted the House would go Dem in November.

Funny, that. I don’t believe either of them. They’re hardly psychic in their past predictions. $2.25/gal gas and 30,000 troops home from Iraq could spell the difference. So might our GOTV drive effectiveness.

Still, it’s notable to hear Glenn say that Reid’s a better porkbuster than the Videoneurologist, Quackers Frist. I hope Howard Dean caught that, for use in campaign commercials.

Abstinence Education:

Permanent Elimination of Estate Tax . . .
and Hurry Up About It Already:

Q: Which would you rather have, an immigrant with the proper paperwork or an immigrant with an actual soul?

A: Salma Hayek, because two boobs are better than one obnoxious one.

What would you think if I thank like a loon
Would you stand up and talk over me?
Send me your fears and I’ll bring you along
And I’ll try not to sing Kat McPhee.
Oh I get to buy a little hell for my friends
Mm I get to lie with a little hell for my friends
Mm going to fry in a little hell with my friends

What do I do when my Rove is away?
(Does it worry you to be a drone?)
How do I feel by the end of the world?
(Are you mad because you’re on the bone?)
No I get to buy a little hell for my friends
Mm I get to lie with a little hell for my friends
Mm gonna fry in a little hell with my friends

(Do you bleed anybody?)
I need somebody to shove
(Could you pee in a potty?)
I want somebody to shove

(Would you believe in a Rove at first sight?)
Yes it’s curtains, and it happens all the time
(What do you see when you turn to the right?)
I can’t tell you, as I sew landmines
Oh I get to buy a little hell for my friends
Mm I get to lie with a little hell for my friends
Mm gonna fry in a little hell with my friends

(Do you bleed anybody?)
I just need somebody to shove
(Could you pee in a potty?)
I want somebody to shove

Oh I get to buy a little hell for my friends
Mm going to fry in a little hell with my friends
Oh I get high, what the hell, with my friends
Yes I get to fry in a little hell with my friends
In a little hell with my friends…

As I commented on my Ohio political blog Ohio2006 yesterday, polls reveal that the public is in a very bad mood indeed. People are worried about the state of the nation and the economy, and they are angry at their government. According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday, 67% think the country is on the wrong track, 77% are uneasy about the economy, and the leading causes of concern are gas prices reaching $3 per gallon (45%) and Iran building a nuclear weapon (33%). Approval of Bush has not only fallen to 36% in the NBC/WSJ poll, it has declined to 74% among Republicans according to a USA Today/Gallup poll also released yesterday, which is “identical to the rating President Bill Clinton received from Democrats on the eve of the 1994 elections in which Clinton’s party lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

The mood in Ohio, where the economy in general has not shared in the current “recovery” and the Republican administration is mired in scandal, is even more surly. In the Akron Buckeye Poll for April 2006, conducted by the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron, 64 percent of Ohio respondents said that the state is on the “wrong track,” and the economy in particular was seen as on the “wrong track” by 70%. In addition, 59% of all voters (and 62% of independents) want the Democrats to take control of state government away from the Republicans.

So, given the ugly mood of the electorate, what kind of candidate stands to benefit from its ire? The squeaky clean ones? The respectable, pedigreed ones? The tireless public-servant types? Well, not so much. In two Ohio Congressional races, at least, it looks like it’s the stubborn, ornery youngsters who are doing surprisingly well against more seasoned and respectable opponents, despite the taint of scandal or misdeeds hanging over the younger candidates’ campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »

Kellie Pickler, who’d performed the ballad “Unchained Melody” during Tuesday night’s episode became the latest “Idol” wannabe to be ousted, sending oil prices soaring to a record $74 a barrel. “The market had been worried about Kellie,” Deborah White of SG SIB Commodities in Paris noted. “An underwhelming Elliott Yamin performance next week just might send it over $80.”

Picture yourself in a swiftboated river
Where Tangerine Dream and Marmalade dines
Some body stalls you, you answer quite lowly
A girl with colitis opines

Nucular power of yellow not green
Threat’ning to take off your head
Look for the Perle with the money and lies
And you’re gone

Libby is this guy with diamonds
Libby is this guy with diamonds
Libby is this guy with diamonds
Aaaaahhhhh…

Follow him down to a fridge by a mountain
Where rocking whore people eat crap and moonpies
Everyone smiles as you slip past the showers
That clean so incredibly high

New paper taxes, appear Alan Shore
Waiting to take you a jay,
Climate is back with your name on the clouds
And you’re gone…

Libby is this guy with diamonds
Libby is this guy with diamonds
Libby is this guy with diamonds
Aaaaahhhhh…

Picture yourself with a brain in a station
With CIA Porters with looking glass eyes
Suddenly someone contraire at the burnpile
The man with the kaleidoscope lies

In the war of ideas and satire, the Right has finally surrendered.

But while Captain Ed cites his age for the reason he did not march to war, that doesn’t explain the thousands of young bloggers supporting the illegal war from the safety of their dens. And it’s obvious by their levels of logic that most blogging war supporters are quite young.

So what’s their explanation, those fine young yellowphants, for urging their peers to carry the fight, while they retire to the den? They’ve had 3 years to construct one. Surely they won’t hide behind their grandfathers, will they?

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…..

Context is all, and when a guy going through a rough divorce, finding out his best friend is dating his soon to be ex-wife, turns on his pal and shouts, “Judas!” he’s perhaps being a tad more literary than most guys in his situation would be who’d reach for a bar stool to clobber their former friend with before they’d reach for a biblical allusion, but he’s still got a point.

No one who heard this would think he saw himself as Jesus on his way to Golgotha.

Everybody would know exactly what he meant and how he feels.

But when Right Wing bloggers call people who are critical of President Bush Judases, they are not being merely poetic. They are in earnest. They mean the comparisons to be taken literally. Dissent is treason, treason is sin, Bush is a Christian hero, and Liberals are as damnable as the worst of history’s traitors. They can try to adopt a reasonable if mournful tone, but there’s no disguising their meaning—criticize my hero and you deserve to spend eternity in the cold center of Hell with Satan chewing on your worthless hide for ever and ever, amen.

The Right Side of Blogtopia (copyright Skippy) long ago adopted a strategy of hate first and ask no questions later, and someday psychology professors, if they’re not doing it already, will use Right Wing blog posts in their classrooms as textbook examples of projection.

The Right Wingers are adept at what I’ve called here Orc Logic—a habit of thought that excuses themselves of everything they do as long as they think they’ve found Liberals doing the same thing.

The Anchoress, who links approvingly to the American Digest’s Judas post, demonstrates a classic example of Orc Logic. Did Michelle Malkin sic her rabid attack dogs on some unsuspecting college kids? Well, that’s their fault for publishing their contact information to begin with. Has this resulted in Malkin receiving hate mail and threats in return? That’s also those students’ fault and, by the way, typical of hateful Leftists. “Filthy elvish trick.”

The Anchoress, by the way, has adopted a supposedly “Christian” persona for her blog. Seems a bit hypocritical for a Christian to be approving of hate mail and death threats, but this is typical of the Right Wingers. They have a stubborn resistence to practicing what they preach or even seeing a contradiction. They’re also clever at giving themselves Get Out of Jail Free cards. The Anchoress’s introductory heading on her blog says that she believes that “decent people can disagree and still be decent people.” Which sounds almost fair-minded until you wonder who she thinks are decent people and what the rules are when people she doesn’t consider decent disagree with her.

You don’t have to wonder long. Just read her blog. There’s one rule. “Break out the kindling! It’s time for an auto de fe!”

Her persona may be that of medieval nun, but there’s no mistaking her for one of the Poor Clares.

The Anchoress’ post (link courtesy of Wolcott) is a masterpiece of projection and obsfucation. Lots of high-flying rhetoric, lots of phrases that sound like something a real philosopher or religious thinker might use, in service of linking to posts by her fellow Right Wingers accusing Liberals of all manner of nastiness and vice, and all designed to protect herself from evidence of her own anger and hate.

In the nicest, most pious, most reasonable, and even most regretful way she manages to suggest that Liberals are more damned than Judas.

The American Digest post has another kind of beauty. It’s a perfect demonstration of the way the Right has conflated love of country, support of the President, ideology, ego, and vanity.

Treason is defined as hatred for America and hatred for America is demonstrated by disagreeing with Bush and/or the blogger—it doesn’t matter which, Bush and the blogger are one, and both are America.

There’s almost no point in talking about the Right Wing side of the bandwidth as if any real individual points of view were being expressed over there. It’s an arm of the Republican propaganda machine and the bloggers themselves are manipulated as Karl Rove sees the need.

But they do share a very human—as opposed to a corporate—trait. From the beginning of the War on Terra they adopted George Bush as their hero-king. He’s not their Leader (and it’s almost funny, if it wasn’t so horrifying, the way they use that word without any seeming awareness of its connotations), he’s their Saviour.

People’s relationships with their Messiahs are intimate and very personal. It’s no wonder they feel “betrayals” so keenly.

The long and the short of it, though, is that the Right Wing bloggers have given in to a very human temptation—they’ve mixed up their ideas and political opinions with their egos. There are plenty of Liberals who are guilty of this too. And it’s not something that happens to people only when their politics are on the line. They do it with their sports teams, their favorite movies, the books they love, the kinds of pets they prefer—get into an argument with someone over which is better, cats or dogs, sometime, and watch how quickly it gets personal and ugly.

To a great degree we exist to ourselves only as what we think and what we love and what we feel.

To be told that what we think is wrong or that whom or what we love is undeserving is to, we can’t help feeling, a blow to the very core of our being.

The Right Wingers have tied themselves up with George Bush. They love him and they believe in him and he has turned out to be undeserving.

He has in fact betrayed them by failing. They should be furious at him. Some are, I hear.

But to get back to the guy at the bar who’s mourning his coming divorce.

Let’s say that his friend the Judas has left without a dent from a flying bar stool on him. Another friend sits down to console the guy.

“Forget her, Joe. She wasn’t worth it. She was a lying tramp from the get go. You’re better off without the slut.”

That friend is in even bigger trouble than the Judas.

That friend may in fact be the real Judas in the guy’s eyes. Because that friend’s betrayal is the more stinging. He may think he’s trying to help, but what he’s doing is calling the guy stupid for ever loving his wife in the first place. The first friend just broke a rule of friendship. The second friend is going after the guy’s whole sense of himself. The first friend’s betrayal is just proof that the marriage is over. But the second friend, by suggesting that the marriage was a sham from the beginning, has made the guy see his whole life as a worthless joke. He might as well have ceased to exist the moment he said “I do.”

If George Bush is wrong, if George Bush has failed, if George Bush is a liar and a puppet and an incompetent bumbler, a whole lot of Right Wing bloggers are going to have to face the fact that their devotion to him has been a worthless joke from the beginning. Their lives, or at least their blogging lives, will have had no meaning except for their having helped keep the failures coming.

It’s no wonder then they hate anyone who pushes them towards facing that fact.

It’s no wonder that rather than even consider the possibility they’ve been wrong, they insist that people who disagree with them are worse than wrong, they are evil.

For there is no greater “evil” that can be done to someone than to make him see the foolishness of his own vanity.

I suspect that many of them are beginning to see it. The betrayal, however, is coming from within. It’s self against self. Judas! they cry!

But like I said, they are very good at projecting.
________________________________________

Which brings me to this post by Laura Turner at Liberalism Without Cynicism.

Why, a lot of people have wondered, do conservatives have such a hard time facing up to the truth about global warning, besides the fact that to do something about it might cost them some money?

It’s vanity. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and seeking after wind and solar power, saith the Preacher.

Or, as Laura puts it, less pompously, they just don’t want to admit they were wrong and Al Gore was right!

The AP:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday he is considering legislation to cut off funding for the Bush administration’s secret domestic wiretapping program until he gets satisfactory answers about it from the White House.

“Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress at the moment,” Specter, R-Pa., told the panel. “If we are to maintain our institutional prerogative, that may be the only way we can do it.”

Specter said he had informed President Bush about his intention and that he has attracted several potential co-sponsors. He said he’s become increasingly frustrated in trying to elicit information about the program from senior White House officials at several public hearings.

According to a copy of the amendment obtained by The Associated Press, it would enact a “prohibition on use of funds for domestic electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes unless Congress is kept fully and currently informed.”

Specter also agreed with Democrats who say that any of the bills to tighten guidelines for National Security Agency program and increase congressional oversight could be flatly ignored by an administration with a long history of acting alone in security matters.

“It is true that we have no assurance that the president would follow any statute that we enact,” Specter said. He said he’s considering adding an amendment to stop funding of the program to an Iraq war- hurricane relief bill being debated by the Senate this week and next.

Reporters should ask Specter if he’s willing to join Feingold in censuring the President. And if not, why not? After all, if the President has powers so unlimited that the Congress has none at all, either we have a dictatorship with his consent, or one with his dissent. Going through the motions of dissent with verbal censure is merely play-acting.

Via Breitbart.com:

Hollywood stars, including Edward James Olmos and Salma Hayek, have joined ranks with a boycott planned for May 1 to protest the proposed tightening of US immigration laws.

Activists have called for immigrants and their supporters to abstain from work, studies or purchases Monday, following on massive demonstrations they staged around the United States in the past month.

May 1 is not a holiday in the United States, where Labor Day is celebrated in September.

“The protest will be very important, because it will teach a lesson to politicians and the rest of the United States,” Olmos, who is of Mexican descent, said of the action.

Oscar-winning Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla and Colombian actor John Leguizamo also lent their names to the cause.

Hayek, who is Mexican, said she knows herself what it means to “open a path” in the United States, as she told the Mexican press.

And, back in the world of the powerless…

Meanwhile, the US Department of Homeland Security rounded up more than 1,100 undocumented workers last week, and plan to round up more.

Need to go to war? Make the people afraid. Need to stop whistleblowers from reporting the truth? Make the people afraid. Need to stop a powerful protest? Make the people afraid.

The art in this, however, is to take from people all that you can get away with, to gain their fearful consent. But if you take from them everything, there is nothing they have left to fear.

And that’s why the undocumented march in such great numbers, unlike the middle class that has also been badly damaged by a terrible president. They did not come to America to break any law. They came here because they had no ladder to climb in their countries of origin, no way to achieve the price of admission imposed by our immigration laws.

They had nothing there. They have a little here. Tear that last scrap, that last crumb of hope from their mouths, and they might as well stand to resist that, because sitting out is certain extinction.

Politicians and the press can say it is about law or about morality or cost or xenophobia. But it’s really about the hopes of English Pilgrims to avoid government persecution, the hopes of the Irish fleeing certain death during the potato famine, of Cubans and Koreans and Vietnamese fleeing from the brutality of dictators.

The undocumented have nothing to call their own but hope. And our homeland security is not strengthened by stealing that. No wall can stand against those with nothing to lose. Such walls are prisons people with something are willing to live within, people convinced that their happiness can be had by securing their material things.

They may write and chant and sing about their love of freedom and liberty. But when confronted with the truly free, they separate themselves and crouch behind that wall, whose foundation is not hope, but fear.

Big government has worked in every crisis. But even a Lincoln Continental will crash in the hands of drunken frat boys who think they’re on a mission from God.

Disaster relief? Vote for sober adult Democrats in November.

we at skippy international are still reeling from the inability to successfully negotiate giving a donation of $1000 to the upcoming convention yearlykos. the committee turned us down, and ended negotiations, because we suggested 7 words to include in the program along with our credit. and what were those 7 words? the seven words george carlin memorialized as those that can’t be broadcast? the seven deadly sins? the list of osama bin laden’s wives? no, it was those 7 words that every skippy reader knows and loves:

in blogtopia! yes! skippy coined that phrase!

the 7 words that would bring down blogging as we know it. details after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember Emmett Till’s murder? Does this sound familiar now? And what is the responsibility of all those radio talk show hosts fanning the flames of immigrant hatred?

I feel too sick to write anything more.

Imagine this. You wake up with the birds, let the dogs and cats out, stretch happily and put on the water for your favorite breakfast drink. Then you log on and relax, to read your American Street blogs while eating your toast or cereal. And then you wait, and wait and wait and wait for the site to load. And wait some more. And then you have to go to work or to run errands.

This could be the future, you know. There are dark forces at work to make the internet a market where certain websites will load really fast and others very slowly, if at all:

Right now your broadband ISP isn’t really allowed to block legal web sites or services to their customers. A law that passed in a House Committee today lets them. It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s the gist. Pretty soon your broadband provider will be allowed to block Google, Vonage, or your favorite blog if a competitor pays them, if they develop a competing service, or if they just don’t like you.

Have some more coffee or tea. Then find out what you can do about not having such slow mornings in the future.

I have long been a skeptic about the Dems’ shot in the midterms. For one, because I keep predicting Americans will wake, Van Winkle like, from their 20 year stupor–even while they happily doze on. But also, for all the reasons so far well-documented: gerrymandering, the paucity of competitive seats, the poor traction Dems have so far gotten despite GOP corruption, graft, and incompetence.

But I may now be persuaded, because that old leveler has come into play: gas prices

At the pumps here, the oil companies may have been the most commonly cited target of consumer ire, but not the only one.

Many said they blamed the government and car manufacturers for failing to develop alternative sources of energy — particularly after the oil crisis in the 1970s.

Last week, Pew released findings of a study that found Americans pretty angry about incumbents. The findings aren’t yet definitive, but they’re promising (all the more for being conducted before the most recent gas price spike):

The public’s strong appetite for change in Washington is seen both in the majority of voters who say they would like to see most members of Congress defeated in November (53%), and in the sizable minority who wants to see their representative turned out in the midterms (28%). Both measures reflect anti-incumbent sentiment not seen since late in the historic 1994 campaign, just before Republicans gained control of Congress. In recent elections, far fewer voters evinced a desire for change; in October 2002, just 38% said they did not want to see most members reelected and 19% said that about their own representative.

So: it could be good news, but I’ve been fooled by these kinds of signs before. Anyone care to lay down a prediction? If things stay the same, improve, or worsen? If we’re not at the tipping point yet, what will it take? It’s only April, so we’ve got a long way to go. Still…

Hear, hear.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
–Margaret Mead

Fascinating to see this famous quote in action:

Public Citizen has released a report […] detailing how “18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.”

I note that the Anne Cox Chambers daughter of the 1920 Democratic Presidential nominee, James Cox and owner of the Atlanta Journal Constitution is part of this cabal along with the Waltons (WalMart), the owners of the Seattle Times, the Nordstroms (owners of the department store), Ernest and Joseph Gallo (E & J Gallo Winery), the owners of Campbell Soup Co., The Mars family (candy) and Kock Industries to name a few of the miscreants.

If eighteen families can change the “death tax” in the United States, what could we all do if we worked together? Heh. Money is the great leveler, isn’t it? (Now that sentence should be in the Collected Quotes of Snake Goddesses one day.)

It’s a bit of a disgrace, the whole thing (if true). That a handful of people can have this much impact is a disgrace, but not as big a one as the fact we all allowed this travesty to go through, because it’s wrong to tax “death”, even of billionaires. And even if the resulting tax revenue loss means that either we have to cut services to the poor or that the little guys and gals must cough up a bigger chunk of tax payments. That’s how kind and egalitarian we are. To those with money, in any case.
—
Cross-posted from my blog.

The levees are about to be topped:

Former FEMA chief signs on with Portland company
The Associated Press
Published: Thursday, April 27, 2006

PORTLAND - Michael Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been hired by OnScreen Technologies Inc., a maker of compact displays for emergency first responders.

OnScreen, an eight-year-old company that relocated from Florida to Portland last fall, said Brown was hired to generate sales to the government.

The company makes RediAlert, a system of portable, computerized signs that first responders can use to instantaneously direct traffic or display messages to the public about safety concerns in remote locations.

Brown resigned from his FEMA job last year in the face of criticism over the agency’s sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.

“Brown’s background and expertise of successfully handling four of the most severe hurricanes in Florida’s history, including more than 150 federally declared national disasters, combined with his clear understanding of the critical needs of first responders, makes him a perfect addition to the OnScreen strategic team,'’ Charlie Baker, OnScreen’s CEO and president, said in a news release.

Isn’t government service wonderful? Brown can lose more Americans in one day than any disaster in our history since the Civil War and get hired to lobby his old bosses. I’d strike up the Dixieland jazz band, but unfortunately, half its marching saints drowned.

Tune in next week to America on Idle when Donald Rumsfeld will take a position in Baghdad convincing Americans to let our government attack another oil-rich nation.

See Ken. See Ken talk. Ken talks about why his trained monkey went bad.

Ken’s monkey bit California and made California’s governor go away. California hired a new governor Ken wanted. See how much California likes the governor Ken bought: he’s number 46.

Ken also has a pet gorilla, who’s bigger and meaner. See how well-trained Ken’s gorilla is.

See the oil companies. See them go with Ken to talk to Ken’s gorilla. See them pretend they did not go.

Smell that smell. Can you say “ewwwwwww” ? I knew you could.

Some smells require a coverup.

See Haley, another bad actor who became a governor, pretend they will make everything inexpensive for the zoo. Instead, they spread stinky poo all over because the monkeys gave them lots of bananas. Even the Bugman got lots of bananas.

The gorilla and his mate got lots of bananas. And nearly everyone involved is in court now, trying to cover the smell of poo, except the two gorillas. Meanwhile, everywhere fresh poo is found, fresh coverups are found, too.

See Iraq. It’s about the oil. The gorillas say it’s not about the oil. When $9 billion of bananas disappears mysteriously, it’s always about the oil. And poo.

See them all. See them say “we’ll fix it now, because this time, we really, really mean it.”

See America. America used to like monkeys and gorillas. America used to like yellowphants, too. Now America only has peanut shells left and the smell of poo. Oh what oh what will America do?

I don’t know how many of y’all read the Albany Times Union. In case it’s not on your daily list, do check out the linked editorial by Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid. Upshot?

We agree that it makes the most sense to prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place — and we believe we should also fund programs that support women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term and raise healthy children.

How . . . sensible. How . . . pro-choice. How . . . feminist. How . . . old-school conservative. Give women the tools they need to make their own decisions about their own lives and families, support families, don’t legislate morality, and get the fuck out of the way.

Could . . . abortion rights be the issue that gives the Democrats a winning platform? Could we become the “Mommy Party” and be proud of it?

A bitch can dream.

Cross-posted at Bitch Ph.D.

Nobody?

“Nobody’s happy with gasoline prices being where they are,” said Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who last year championed scores of new tax breaks for the industry.

Yeah, nobody. ExxonMobil’s 2006 first quarter profits will be announced at 10 AM CST today. This is a first in Washington. Everybody who is anybody who voted for the oil companies and their tax breaks eight months ago is now nobody. Nobody thinks anybody will notice. Nobody is going to get elected in November if they think anybody is that dumb.

Plus a few things W doesn’t want you to know about.

(Crossposted at The Heretik)

Well, not exactly. And it’s not new to find a musician who’s anti-violence. But the musician Kevin Sites found is certainly unique: a classically trained guy who turns weapons of death into music instruments.

The numerous projects he has underway are certainly music for the soul. Clicking on the samples, I was a little disappointed that the guitar licks weren’t prominently displayed, but that quickly gave way to the grace of his compositions. The world needs more Cesar Lopez and less cowbell*.

(*the sound of Bossy warmongers as they chew their crud.)

(Click on the video link to hear the guntar.)