the mojowire

Water Nerds Unite!

Friday Links:

• Excellent Post by L.A. Creek Freek about therural nature of the American Environmental movement and how climate change is provoking a reassessment of that focus in regards to urban density and sustainablity. 

• On The Public Record reveals the terrible truth about the powers of local Water Boards.  Apparently its not all Hookers and Blow.  Who knew?  Apparently not a local citizen in Encinitas. 

Some miiltary and foreign policy:

• A provacative post on PTSD and Suicides in the military from Best Defense.

• Excellent background on the conflict in Congo from Texas in Africa. (Gee, can you tell I love this blog?)

Tuesday Morning Links

Mixing in some foreign policy links today

• From Texas in Africa, a interesting post about the conflict minerals provision in the FinReg bill.  The provision is intended to cut off or at least decrease the money that combatants in the Congo derive from the illegal mineral trade, what many NGO's argue is at the heart of the conflict.  The blog argues that the mineral trade is not the cause, or at least a small part of it.  She argues local property and citizenship issues are more important causes.  Worth browsing the blog to get some background on East Africa. 

• Nice post from Digby on Modern Day Hooverism.  This is one of those things that drives me absolutely up the wall.  Hoovers and Mellons response to the Depression was an utter catastrophe.  Emulating it is even more of a tragedy, since we know what happened and why.  Even Milton Friedman recognized this.  I still maintain that the adoption of Ayn Rand's batshit insane economic philosophy by conservaties and libertarians was one of the worst things that ever happened to this  country.  And by the way, when are these Ranidan douchebags going to go Galt?  I'll be happy to drive any one of you to the bus station or the airport.  No really, get in your Mercedes or your BMW and drive the f*** away.  Write when you get work...

• A sobering guest column in Best Defense on post deployment military suicides

 

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Monday Links

I thought I might try out a new feature here at the Mojowire.  I am going to try to throw up some interesting posts and article on various topics that I see from the various blogs and other sources I read. I am going to try and emphasize the wonkier side, so expect to see alot of infrastructure, water, and edu-wonkery along with the usual politics stuff.  I will probably offer my quick or not so quick take on the piece as well. I read these blogs and sites because I am an incorrigible policy nerd so you don't have to.  I'll start with just a few

• From Infrastructurist, a link to an Economist article about the fears of the rail freight industry about the rise of High Speed Passenger rail. I like this piece becasue it highlights an important fact we forget in the U.S. Namely that our passenger rail sucks by comparison to Europe and Japan, but our frieght network is the best in the world and that is something we should work to preserve as we begin the arduous process of hammering out the complex process of building more passenger rail.

• From On the Public Record, an interesting post about Ca water policy for the policy nerd interested in water policy and the arcane practices of the Ca state water technocracy, a post about a recent state report about what it would take to restore fish in Ca waterways.

As Mojo can attest to, I obsess about public instrastructure policy, particulary transportation.  You can expect to see quite a few links about that topic, HSR in particular.  As a resident of a region with particulary egregious transporation challenges, I believe that investment in this area is critical to our economic growth and quality of life.  The problem is how to allocate finate resource, choose winners and losers in an area where the market simply cannot, ( we can discuss that last if you wish, but please bring more than slogans to the table), and how do we navigate the complex political and economic relationships you have to figure out when you build a massive insfrastructure project that spans many jurisdictions and has many stakeholders.  I'll be putting up links about his topic consistently and talking about this in the future. 

Oakland Shooter Gunning for ACLU: Why Ideologues Make Me Itch

The following is a based on a comment exchange between me and Will Cain in this post on the GOP's plan for a bait and switch campaign.

Will Cain asked: "But surely you don't disagree with my pining for ideologues?"

Yes. Yes, I do.

As an ideologue, myself, I understand that I agitate for a particular point of view, but only one of thousands of competing points of view.

As a pragmatist, I also realize that I am one of almost 400 million people in this country, and it is the height of solipsism for anyone to believe their particular view is the one that needs to be in sole control of everything.

I guess what it comes down to is a balance between fighting hard for your team, while realizing that in America not everyone gets everything they want all the time... and perhaps that's a good thing.

Common ground is what I am looking for. However conservatives in this country seem to be interested in anything but. By definition, government is choosing and Democracy is compromise. I would refer you to an earlier wire post by our redoubtable Dr. S9: What's Dangling from the end of all our forks (part 2) for a more complete and better written explanation of my take.

You see, I put (N.Y. Rep. Peter) King in the same category as Rahm Emanuel (who has been on my list for a while). That's a kind of self-serving political pragmatism that is devoid on anything other than self-perpetuation and expediency, and for them labels like "left" or "right" are mere conveniences to be either worn like phony crowns or discarded like yesterday's fashion depending on the mood of the people... 

But at the same time, a country of ideologues is equally as dangerous, if not more so. Exhibit A: Alleged Freeway Shooter Was Targeting ACLU.

According to the cops, the guy who got into a shootout with California Highway Patrol officers on the 580 in Oakland the other day had a car full of guns and ammo and a ballistic vest on his way to shoot the shit out of the ACLU of Northern California offices in San Francisco and the Tides Foundation, a progressive support organization.

A political party or philosophy that not only encourages, but demands, utter adherence to a point of view with no allowance for reflection and an essential world view of existential threat from all "others," is going to invite, if not promote this kind of behavior.

We saw this in the leftist form of Weathermen of the 1960s, people who's ideology knew no compromise and in a pluralistic society, they simply could not function.

It is in this vein that the movement conservatives can be seen as the new Marxists. No, I'm not saying they are communists or adherents of Marxist philosophy, except in one specific: there can be no proletariat disagreement with the cadre. The cadre gives the received party line and the lumpenproles must accept it. To do otherwise is a criminal act of counter-revolution.

This is what the movement conservatives have become, the only difference is what they think they are nominally fighting for. And whether it was the communists in the old Soviet Union or today's movement conservatives, or even crazier fringe types like the New Black Panther Party, it's their unrelenting hatred of and war against a pluralistic society that makes them a danger to the Republic.

mojo sends

The Ballad of Shirley Sherrod: David Frum Shouts at the Wind...Again...

I guess David Frum has come to terms with the fact that he just isn't going to be "in the club" anymore and has embraced his role as "loyal opposition" to what he sees as dishonest and radically partisan elements subverting the Republican Party.

His latest salvo: Shirley Sherrod and the Shame of the Right Wing Media

For those who have been in a hole in the Gobi Desert for the past couple of days, Shirley Sherrod is an African-American woman who worked for the USDA; she was forced out of her job after a highly edited video of her purportedly expressing anti-white racist views surfaced in the Wingnut-0-Sphere™ in the last week or so.

After the general paroxysms of "reverse racism" from the usual suspects in the movement conservative echo chamber, the true story came out that Sherrod's remarks were about how she overcame her own racial animosity and actually befriended a white farmer she had initially declined "the full force" of assistance she could give; a farmer she is friends with, to this day, if reports are true.

So here's the weird part: The conservative voices in media then went after Obama for firing Sherrod and the NACCP for condemning her supposed racism. And apparently that was too much for Frum, who spins out, thusly:

There will be no apology or statement of regret for distributing a doctored tape to defame and destroy someone. There will be not even a flutter of interest among conservatives in discussing Breitbart’s role. By the morning of July 21, the Fox & Friends morning show could devote a segment to the Sherrod case without so much as a mention of Breitbart’s role. The central fact of the Sherrod story has been edited out of the conservative narrative, just as it was edited out of the tape itself.
 
When people talk of the "closing of the conservative mind" this is what they mean: not that conservatives are more narrow-minded than other people — everybody can be narrow minded — but that conservatives have a unique capacity to ignore unwelcome fact. [...]
 
Instead, conservatives are consumed with a new snippets-out-of-context uproar, the latest round of JournoList quotations. Here at last is proof of the cynical machinations of the hated liberal media! As to the cynical machinations of conservative media — well, as the saying goes, the fish never notices the water through which it swims.

Dance with them what brung ya Dave...

...no wait, I can't end on such a cynical note. Others can, and do it far better.

Look Dave, I feel your pain. No really, I do. But when are you and some of the rest of the hive mind going to take responsibility for this creature you helped create. I understand that in some small way writing articles like this may be your attempt at accountability.

And I know what it feels like to be shouting at the highly charged wind. All you get is your own voice and a little spit back in your face. So thanks for trying, I guess, and keep on plugging away, because until the problems you cite come to an end there can be no common cause.

This is not about "ideologues" v. "pragmatists." This is about self-justified dishonesty and solipsistic demogoguery hijacking an otherwise reasonable political party and philosophy, even if I disagree with it in most specifics.

Further, this is not one of those moments where I say, "and there's more than enough of this on both sides." Bollocks! Regardless of whatever examples that can be produced about alleged abuses on our side of the fence, they pale in comparison to the problems on the right.

This is a product of the crazies being allowed to take over the conservative movement and it's up to you and your gang to put it back in it's cage.

Good luck with that Dave...

mojo sends

'Nobody Dared Say, "I Don't Think We Should Be Spending That Much."'

The quote in the subject line comes from Dana Priest in the Frontline video accompanying the Washington Post's Top Secret America project.

It burns, of course, because plenty of dirty fucking hippies like me dared to say it, but we don't exist, you see. So, of course, "nobody" dared to say it.

I'd like to point out one of the more chilling passages buried near the end of today's installment:

On a day that also featured free back rubs, shoeshines, ice cream and fruit smoothies, another speaker, Kevin P. Meiners, a deputy undersecretary for intelligence, gave the audience what he called "the secret sauce," the key to thriving even when the Defense Department budget eventually stabilizes and stops rising so rapidly.

"Overhead," Meiners told them - that's what's going to get cut first. Overhead used to mean paper clips and toner. Now it's information technology, IT, the very products and services sold by the businesspeople in the audience.

"You should describe what you do as a weapons system, not overhead," Meiners instructed. "Overhead to them - I'm giving you the secret sauce here - is IT and people. . . . You have to foot-stomp hard that this is a war-fighting system that's helping save people's lives every day."

That's a deputy undersecretary for intelligence laying that out for you there.

The good news here, apparently, is that the whole "not keeping track" part of Top Secret America is pretty much the whole point of the game.

"I have a whole range of turnkey war-fighting systems ready to start helping save people's lives every day. Where do I sign up to start selling my awesome web-2.0 enabled buzzphrase-compliant social networking qoolness to unaccountable sekrit squirrels with unlimited bank and— let me stress the most important factor— no accountability?"

I suppose I should offer my take on this in a nice bite-sized piece: this bullshit has gone well past the "welfare for white people" phase. We're into Tulip Mania territory at this point. When this one collapses, it's going to make a spectacular crater.

Obama Pushes Back Against GOP in Senate, And Not a Moment Too Soon I Might Add

It looks like someone in the political office at the White House has been reading the mojowire...

In the past two or three days, it seems as if the administration has finally gone on the offensive against the GOP senators holding up relief for unemployed Americans.

We know it's the right thing to do morally, economically and politically, but these Kamikaze Senators are going to do whatever they can to lose their jobs, as long as they can take down the President with them.

Okay, that was a bit turgid. But nonetheless, I am having a hard time coming up with an explanation for their behavior beyond pure political spite.

So the President has been on the war path for the last two days, and apparently this is an effort being coordinated in conjunction with the House and Senate leadership. We have seen speeches, a mail campaign, a widget campaign (see side bar to left) and the Republicans in the Senate are starting to feel the heat.

We'll see if there is an update later today, but it looks like the "Party of No" may be "No"ing itself out of a chance at the helm this fall...

mojo sends

Dana Priest v. The Sekrit Squirels: Wow 9/11 Really Did Change Everything

I wanted a chance to digest the first part of Priest's reporting on "Top Secret America" before having a take.

At the end of the day, my take is pretty simple. Beyond the money and the growth of a massive security state there is an underlying issue for me: accountability.

If what she reports is true, then there are embedded factions in the post-9/11 intelligence community that essentially answer to no one outside their own bubble, not to CIA, DoD, the DNI, and sure as hell not Congress or the President.

This is a situation that we here at the wire were worried might happen; I just didn't think it would happen on quite this big a scale.

What the articles describe is essentially the "Treadstone" scenario, described in the Jason Bourne spy novels. Essentially it is a black ops group within CIA that has gone off the reservation and has decided that it is a law unto itself.

No republic can sustain itself under these conditions. We have no idea what kind of international (or domestic for that fact) horror shows are being perpetrated in the name of our collective security. Maybe nothing at all...

But – and this one goes out to all the wingnuts out there – do you really trust your government to act in your best interest under these circumstances?

mojo sends

Sunday Open Thread... Time Warp Monday Edition

So what's on yer mind wireheads? Any thoughts? Any thoughts you'd care to share with the rest of the class?

How about this for starters... Obama seems to be taking the wire's advice and starting the push back on Senate Republicans for filibustering assistance to unemployed Americans.

Nick of time or too little, too late?

mojo sends

People Unclear on the Concept: Peter King and the Republican Politics of "Bait and Switch"

So New York Rep. Peter King goes on Bill Bennett's radio show the other day and openly talks about why the Republicans should hide their agenda from the American people ahead of the November elections:

GOP strategy should be "a combination of being against what Obama is for, and also giving certain specifics of what we are for," King told the Bill Bennett Radio Show. "Having said that, I don’t think we have to lay out a complete agenda, from top to bottom, because then we would have the national mainstream media jumping on every point trying to make that a campaign issue."

Let me get this straight... you don't wan to lay out your complete agenda because you are afraid certain aspects might become "campaign issues?"

Okay, it's not like I don't get a certain pragmatic reasoning there, but then it does seem to leave the open question: on what basis should voters be choosing Republicans, then?

Well, an easy answer would be those "certain specifics." Fine, but there seems to be something either fundamentally dishonest or utterly incompetent about that political strategy, possibly both...

Dishonest because... well, do I really have to spell that one out?

Incompetent because it exposes an assumption that the American electorate and their dirty fzcking hippy fellow travelers in the news media are incapable of looking at those "certain specifics," and asking the obvious question of "yeah, and...?"

What then Mr. Wizard?

But there's another level political incompetency here. Playing an obvious shell game with the American people will anger the very same teabagger base these people have been whipping up into a "full projectile pea soup, head spinning revolt" (much praise and thanks to the Mighty Digby for that one) against what they perceive is an emasculated, spineless, Republican establishment in Washington.

Will Cain, generally conservative wingnut, teabagger blogginista and commentator for FauxNews apparently hearts him some ideologues: 

I cannot revere compromise; I cannot revere pragmatism; I long for ideologues..and there are not enough in the American political system. An ideologue is a devoted proponent of a consistent set of ideas. He may be a libertarian, a communist, a socialist, or a capitalist. You may disagree with him, but you will know what you are disagreeing with.

An ideologue does not bend to what is popular, what will gain him power, or what is practical. He simply does what he thinks is right.

The even more odious Jonah Goldberg recently exhorted his party to get past the "Party of No" label – although he did say it had been a good idea – and start to give an affirmative argument for voting Republican. "The Republican Party has rediscovered it's spine, but what good is a spine if you don't use it for something?" he writes.

Hey Jonah... you know what a spine is really good for? Letting the think-meat send instructions to the act-meat. Maybe the Republicans should think about using the spine for that... ya think?

Or don't... because right now, I think Democrats have a better than even money chance of keeping the House and the Senate, as long as they manage to not do something mind-numbingly dumb between now and November.

Yeah, I know ... I'm not taking that bet...

But even with that, at least the Democrats have a positive agenda and they have not been shy about letting people know what they want to do with the county, at least the parts they can agree on.

I think this whole thing is best demonstrated by the South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham push back of teabaggers at a public rally: "'What do you want to do? You take back your country -- and do what with it?'...Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent."

Rebellion is the easy part... having a coherent concept for what happens next, that's where the real work begins, and that's exactly the teabaggers problem. Bumper Sticker politics: their entire "ideology" (such as it is) is nothing that can't fit on a bumper sticker.

But what comes next? What are the next 10 words after you run out of space on the sticker? They don't have that answer, or if they do, they are at least self-aware enough to keep it to themselves, because on a certain fundamental level they understand they really are out of the mainstream of American political ideas, thought and philosophy.

So, King want's to play hide the sausage with the voters. Fine, that might fly with some, but his base is not going to put up with that, even if they don't have a real agenda for governing.

Stay tuned friends and neighbors, this is going to be fun to watch...

mojo sends

Inside Job: "Concerned Citizens" Allegedly Utah State Employees

Mock not the powerful and oracular nature of the mojowire! No seriously, it really hurts our feelings...

Moreover, I hate being right all the time! (Don't start, Ed!)

But it looks like our first guess here was the right one. The "mystery letter" with detailed information about 1,300 or so alleged undocumented immigrant, circulated to local, state and federal law enforcement in Utah, as well as state agencies and news media may have originated, or at least had help from two, and possibly four people in the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

The Department of Workforce Services is the Utah state agency responsible for administering aid for the unemployed and adjudicating workplace issues like equal employment and helping the unemployed find work.

Robert Geherke at the Salt Lake City Tribune reports that the investigation revealed that the "core group" of people involved had been working very methodically for a long time to compile the list from data the state keeps, although officials refused to elaborate further.

Fortunately, it appears that Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert is taking this pretty seriously, and the investigation is also being joined by the feds, since this clearly seems to indicate an unauthorized release of protected personal health information.

Two employees were escorted from their state offices and have been put on administrative leave pending completion of the full investigation, said DWS executive director Kristen Cox. She said it is uncertain if their leave would be unpaid.

Cox said officials suspect “a couple more” employees may have been involved in compiling the list, potentially as many as four, and the findings of the investigation will be turned over to the Utah Attorney General’s Office.

“We feel very confident that we have identified the core group,” she said. “The people we’ve identified certainly have strong political opinions and have frustration around the issue of immigration. ... If they want to go rogue, they need to quit the department.”

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said he has already had “initial discussions” with federal authorities and will meet with them further to determine if anyone should be prosecuted in state or federal court — or both.

This is really the sort of thing I was worried about.

But there's also another political dimension here: The Associated Press story reported that some conservative Utah law makers may be quietly shopping around a Utah version of SB 1070, the Arizona anti-immigrant law, although there was no attribution for the assertion, and no further elaboration.

If true, then I find two interesting things here. One being that apparently the anti-Latino memetics of the Right are spreading to other state houses beyond the traditional Southwestern Sun Belt.

Second, if legislation is being shopped, then it seems more than just coincidental that state lawmakers would be circulating a legislation proposal at just the moment this "mystery letter" appears on the state political scene.

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy involving state legislators looking to create an issue and misreading the reaction from other state officials, while pandering to a fascist and racist demographic and looking to make political bank on the backs of immigrants...

No, I'm just saying it smells like rough trade to me...

mojo sends

Open for Biz-ness

Allow me to introduce myself, I'm one of the three editors of the Mojowire.  Just call me Hebisner, or Provider Biz in your nightly prayers to have liberals and socialist cast into the fiery pit...

Mr. Coates offers us an important idea to keep in mind as we fight the daily battle for truth and justice:

I have, in my writing, a tendency to become theoretically cute, and overly enamored with my own fair-mindedness. Such vanity has lately been manifested in the form of phrases like "it's worth saying"  and "it strikes me that..." or "respectfully..."When engaging your adversaries, that approach has its place. But it's worth saying that there are other approaches and other places. Among them--respectfully administering the occasional reminder as to the precise nature of the motherfuckers you are dealing with.

I will cop to the same fault as Mr. Coates admits to here.  I'm a policy nerd first and foremost, and politics watcher and combatant second.  I usually want to engage on the policy level first, and then fight the framing and political battle.  But he's right.  Its worth remembering who we are dealing with.  And what we are looking at right now, with Mojo's previous post about christianist nuttery as prime example, are the 21st century Amerian Facists.  People so committed and captured by their ideology that nothing, absolutely nothing will convince them they are in any way wrong or that there is a single moral or ethical boundry they cannot or should not cross to bring that ideology to fruition. 

And spare me the usual claptrap about liberal extremists being just as bad.  We are all adults here.  We know there is no equivalent element of the left that has the political, economic, and social power to match the Christian Dominionist right.  It simply does not exist.  MSNBC is not the equivalent of Fox News in terms of the its active support of a political ideology or its contempt for its viewers, to point out an obvious example of this fallacy.  I refuse to cooperate in perpetuating this absurd lie. 

The Tea Party is not some Jeffersonian awakening.  It is a race and class based reaction to the economic chaos and the election of a black President, supported by the conservative republican refusal to ever accept the legitimacy of a democratically elected President they don't like.  A refusal not on the margins as is typical, but an absolute bedrock principle of the movement. 

A key way to understand todays christianist conservative right is to look for what they project onto their opponents.  In this case, the effort to redefine Facism as a political ideology of the left.  Yes, an ideology founded on hypernationalism and hatred of socialism is embraced by liberals.  Sorry, only pathetic losers who buy gold because Glenn Beck told them to are actually that stupid.  The truth is that the tea party is a facist movement.  There, I said it.  They*are*facists.  And racists.  Deal with it scrubs. 

That isn't to say they don't have a perfect right to believe what they believe.  American facists are a staple of the American political system.  I just don't like them or am willing to support them.  And no, they are not Nazi's.  At least not most of them. But lets face it, the GOP is being overrun by its most facist and theologically extreme elements.  Goaded by a talk radio industry and a cable network who have built a business model out of the them. 

And herein lies the problem.  The Nazi' started out as one gang of racist thugs out of a large number of German poltiical factions in post WWI Germany.  Their extreme racism and violent nature was well known to the industrialists, the wealthy, and middle class who supported them or did not oppose them.  They thought they would be immune, Hitler would get the economy going, and he would get rid of those damn Communists who wanted to get rid of capitalism and institute a workers paradise.   Socialists who wanted to regulate the free market and opposed nationalism and wars like the one Germany had lost and Hitler and many others had blame the Socialists and Jews for.  Nothing extreme would happen, just a restoration of order and prosperity.  Then they could get rid of the Nazis and bring in some technoratic centrists to run things.  No problemo. 

And yeah, I am going here.  A political movement organized around racism, hypernationalism,  and militarism is enough for me to call them facists.  An ideology willing to torture their real or imagined enemies with ghastly practices we hung people at Nuremberg for.   So no matter what Barack Obama's failings are, and there are plenty, I'll live with them.  I will not treat facists of their ilk as just another political ideology in the great Amerian tradition of political conflict and diversity.  Facism as they practice it is an ideology that is antithetical to American values as expressed in the Declaration, the Bill of Rights, and our history of progress, however slow and spotty, away from slavery, institutional racism, and injustice. 

So lets not kid ourselves.  As Ta-Nehisi suggests, we need to be clear about the MotherFuckers we are dealing with. 

Xtian Watch: House Republicans Ask Old Question – Who Would Jesus Hate?

Oh. My. God.

No, really... God? Look, if you read the wire (and I believe you do), could you do something, send a burning bush, an Angel of the Lord, a Bolt-Out-Of-The-Blue™, send something to these nimrods? Please?

At House Judiciary Commitee meetings on immigration reform, the Southern Baptist Convention's President Richard Land, who, in support of reform, schooled the congregation thusly:

"[We] recognize a biblical mandate to care for 'the least of these among us' (Matthew 25:34-40), to care for the 'strangers' who reside in our land (Leviticus 19:34; Hebrews 13:2) and to act justly and mercifully (Micah 6:8). [... there is] a divine mandate to act redemptively and compassionately toward those who are in need."

Yeah... you gotta know that kind of anti-American, hippy talk wasn't going to unchallenged by House Republicans on the committee.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa goes to bat for the poor downtrodden of the American Transvaal who want nothing more than SB 1070 to allow the cops to roust those horrible brown people; take it away Steve:

"I didn't realize that the Bible barred the enforcement of immigration laws," he remarked sarcastically, "and neither did I realize that it erased borders, demanded pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants, or ... forbid the leaders of a nation from caring most about the well-being of its own citizens."

Ahh, the Chewbacca Defense. Changing the subject; you almost tripped me up with that clever high school debating ploy... look at the monkey, look at the silly monkey!

But unfortunately Steve, Christ does instruct us Christians, rather explicitly, on priorities vis a vis those who are not "us." So the folks of the Freedom Loving White People's Democratic Free State of Arizona are going to have to look elsewhere for moral justification.

Really though, for the good stuff, you just can't beat the guys from Planet Texas, where, as we have previously noted, being offensive is considered a birthright. Let Rep. Lamar Smith show us all how it's done:

Smith pointed out that 'the Bible contains numerous passages that support the rule of law" -- such as, "Let every person be subject to governing authorities," from Romans 13:1-7.

He also insisted that the line from Leviticus cited by Land -- "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong" -- should not be taken as meaning that "foreigners should disregard civil laws to enter or that we should overlook it when they do." And he argued that Matthew's injunction -- to care for "the least of these my brothers" -- "advocates individual acts of kindness (but) does not mandate a public policy."

Really Lamar? The Bible doesn't mandate public policy? I'll keep that in mind, the next time you want to outlaw gays and lesbians, bring Christian prayer into the public school classroom or bar lawyers from taking fees in Establishment Clause cases... (yeah, they really floated that last one about three years ago...)

So let's see if I can follow the reasoning. Whereas the injunction to care for the least of my brothers advocates individual acts of kindness, and whereas Government is individuals joining in society for mutual governance and promoting the common good (or so says our Constitution), and whereas Government is the tool by which the masses of individuals make that common good known and instituted, therefore, God says screw the immigrants!

Really? Is that how that goes Lamar?

It's all so clear to me now...

mojo  sends

I Write Like ... A Lot of Different People Apparently

This site "I Write Like..." is a pretty neat tool. Hat tip to Eric Martin over at ObWi... dude, this really is pretty cool. Apparently, I have a very eclectic blend of styles, depending on what I submitted to the page:

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I write like
Raymond Chandler

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I write like
Jane Austen

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Funny part is that this reads like a list of my favorite authors. (Although, "Dan Brown"... really? And who the hell is David Foster Wallace?)

So either I am an amazing blend of eclectic styles, or dedicated plagiarist, bereft of any original ideas or human creativity...

You be the judge...

mojo sends

Quick Hit: Dick Cheney Has Heart Surgery, Now Completely Homonculus

So, Dick Cheney had "heart" surgery to install a pump to help his "blood" flow:

Cheney, who likely has end-stage heart disease, was fitted with a special pump last week to help his heart pump blood through the body. The left ventricular assist device (LVAD) is consider a last step before a full heart transplant.

[...]

But the device does have one almost creepy side effect. The former vice president will not have a pulse, according to Dr. Alan Stewart, director of the Aortic Surgery Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center.

Huh... no pulse. Well, at least that won't be any different for him...

mojo sends

Wall Street Reform Passes Senate; John Boehner Vows Repeal, Vengeance

So the Obama Administration chalks another one in the win column today with the passage of the S. 3217 /H.R. 4173 the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010.

You can read the bill on Thomas.gov, but here's the nut: It establishes a new regulatory agency headed by the Treasury Secretary to regulate the financial services market, advise Congress on national policy related to the financial markets, make regulations and recommend legislation to Congress and generally protect consumers from their banks, brokers and others entrusted with the safekeeping of their money from reckless and abusive practices.

Now it was strange, there was some talk earlier in the day of some Senate Republicans talking up the bill after it passed. But, no sooner did we hear that than Big John Boehner found the first camera he could jam his grill into, to unleash the fiery wrath of the cosmic fist of the pre-Atomic space god Jehovah-1 on the Obama Administration for daring to make government actually govern.

The nerve of some people...

And while we're on the subject, it's not like the law, expected to be signed into law later this week, or perhaps early next week, indentures or enslaves poor hard working financial services CEOs. For instances, your bank can still stake your life savings at the derivatives casino. Yeah, they're going to have to account for their gambling a little better, but it's nothing like the first version of the bill that came to Congress.

Boehner, though... the ink wasn't dry on the final passage draft with the votes recorded before he was spooging about the new GOP cause celebré, repeal of the act.

His pissant footstool Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana was already counting down the days to a Republican Congress. Here's what he told TPM's Brian Beutler:

I think that should this legislation become law, and I continue to hope earnestly that it does not, House Republicans will be determined to end this era of bailouts and dismantle the principles of too big to fail from the law," Pence said.

What elements of the law would need to be dismantled?

"There's several aspects of that, but I can break that down for you. Let's jump off that bridge when we come to it," Pence said.

Tell you what, Mike... you go ahead and jump off that bridge when you come to it. The rest of us will be just... no...just no, Mike, I'm not going to dignify your stoopid bridge metaphor any further than that. 

The financial services industry dug themselves into a hole, aided and abetted by a snoozing Congress and a clinically insane administration. Then we had to bail them out (and yes, we did have to do it, as onerous and distasteful as that was), and then we were told to summarily to mind our own damn business when we had the unmitigated gall to suggest that maybe the government had a role to play in helping those companies remain solvent and to fulfill their fiduciary duty.

You know, I'm a generous guy. I don't really mind helping out a guy who's down on his luck, especially when his bad luck becomes ghastly luck for the whole country. So sure, I'll dig a little deeper to help them out. But I am going to attach a little letter with that cash suggesting some ways we can avoid this in the future and it is very poor party manners to take my cash and throw that note back in my face.

Yeah, I know that's bit populace and the situation isn't really as simple as that. But it has been clear to much of the world that those financial services companies based in the United States spent the first decade of the 21st Century acting like it was free crack night in the weasel hut.

That clearly had to come an end.

Consider this the intervention from your friends. That last chance for you to straighten your shit out before you end up institutionalized or room temperature.

And if the Republicans in fall really want to go into fly over country and start telling Ma and Pa Kettle that the bank that screwed them on their mortgage, the brokerage that burned through their pension fund, the CEOs that spent $600 million  of their customers money in just the last year on lobbying for Congress to keep the party going...

I dare you, I double dog dare you!

mojo sends

The Case For Unemployment Extension...

Yesterday, Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council laid out his reasons why we need to extend unemployment insurance benefits from a purely economically pragmatic position.

There some general wonkery in his piece the nut is this:

[...] unemployment insurance puts money in the pockets of the families most likely to spend the money – which in turn expands the economy and creates jobs.  The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has identified increased aid to the unemployed as one of the two most cost-effective policy options for increasing economic production and employment."

Last February, Doug Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office reported to Congress on how to deal with the employment situation. Again, lots of wonkery, but here's the nut:

Additional government spending would also boost output and employment, both directly through the government-funded activity and indirectly through increases in consumers’ demand for goods and services resulting from the higher income of the households and firms that directly benefited from the government activity. The federal government can boost demand by increasing its own purchases of goods and services or by providing funds to state and local governments to increase their purchases of goods and services.

Granted there was much caveating regarding the amount of time it would take for the effects of such stimulus to take effect and that it would possibly have a long term effect on deficits and national growth.

Fine. If the house is on fire and water is available, you don't haggle over the cost of the hose. We will deal with that when it comes. Moreover, the time aspect of this makes me think the time to act is now. In reality, it was late last year, but every day the GOP members of the House and Senate delay is a day we are not healing, but actually getting sicker.

I am at best an arm chair economist, but if I read the numbers in the annex right, it looks like spending the money now starts to have an effect almost immediately on full time equivalent (FTE) employment numbers. Extending aid to the unemployed would generate between 4 and 7 years worth per million dollars spent just this year and between 7 and 15 years of FTE by 2015.

Moreover: "initial reductions in revenues are nearly fully offset by later increases. The policy’s effects are therefore estimated per dollar of the present discounted value of the policy (discounted at the businesses’ cost of debt and equity) instead of per dollar of total budgetary cost."

Now I'm not entirely sure what that all meant, but it sounds like since an initial loss in money is made later by increases in employment and production we don't have to look at the overall effect on the budget but can base the real cost of the policy in what it costs in real terms right now.

And frankly, I'm not sure the CBO's report took into account the news from the Council of Economic Advisors on the most recent outlook for recovery due to the Stimulus Bill.

Given all this, why isn't White House doing more than releasing blog posts through the CEA? Why isn't the President out on the trail calling out Republicans for screwing working Americans?

Biz and I were chatting yesterday and he made a pretty good point about something: this White House has the greatest orator and rhetorical engineer of our generation in the Oval Office, and it's not like there's a shortage of cameras in there.

So it begs the question: Why isn't the President himself out there making a full court press for his agenda items from the "Bully Pulpit?"

Summers quoted the President from last April saying:

Lasting unemployment takes a toll on families, takes a toll on marriages, takes a toll on children.  It saps the vitality of communities, especially in places that have seen factories and other anchoring businesses shut their doors.  And being unable to find work – being able to provide for your family – that doesn’t just affect your economic security, that affects your heart and your soul.  It beats you up.  It’s hard.”

But I don't need Summers to be telling me the President said this. I need to see the President out there saying this. Everyday, the President should be making this case to the American people, and making sure that those responsible for holding up the aid – Republican and Democrat – will be held accountable.

Now, some will say the Republicans are trying to deliberately ratfzck the economy. Yeah, I believe that's possible, even likely in some individual instances. And if that's the case, then those are not people who are going to be won over.

But there are a lot of people out there right now who think that the President is just impotent on this issue. It's time to push back and get into campaign mode.

Because, seriously, if we can't win on this one; if we can't convince the American people that spending to help 2.5 million of their friends and neighbors keep a roof over their heads and food on the table is not only a moral necessity but a pragmatic economic imperative, then we don't deserve to be in charge...

mojo sends

Welcome to the Dystopian States of America, Your Papers Please...

Those who might have been following along from a previous discussion that has been taking place for about a decade now, I have a new salvo.

When s9, Biz and I talk about our worst case scenarios for a future America where the movement conservatives are able to run the table politically, the vision I get is an America that resembles Northern Ireland about 35 years ago.

Today, I picked up on a piece from Comrade Joshua's Teashop and Sedition Lab that discusses an investigation by Utah state officials of a memo from "Concerned Citizens of the United States" detailing a list of 1,300 people whom the concerned citizenry group claims are illegal immigrants.

Here's the nut from AP's Brock Vergakis:

The anonymous group mailed the list to several media outlets, law enforcement agencies and others this week, frightening the state's Hispanic community. A letter accompanying the list demanded that those on it be deported immediately.

The list also contains highly detailed personal information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, workplaces, addresses and phone numbers. Names of children are included, along with due dates of pregnant women on the list.

Republican Gov. Gary Herbert wrote in a tweet Tuesday that he has asked state agencies to investigate the list's origin.

It should not, of course, come as a surprise that there aren't a lot of "Thibaults" and "O'Briens" on the list; it is primarily made up of Hispanic names, according to published reports.

And as an aside, given the current nature of the AP, I'm surprised this even got reported. Slow news day?... but that's another post...

Given the nature of the information on there, such as detailed locations, Socials and even pregnancy status of women, it would appear, at least to me that this is an inside job, or at least had collaborators in local, state and perhaps even federal government.

Some of the information, such as detailed health info on pregnant women is covered by the criminal codicils of HIPPA, the federal health care privacy and records protection law. You break that law, you go to jail, RealJail™.

Okay, okay... what does this have to do with Na Trioblóidí? One of the defining aspects of The Troubles was a complacent government in Belfast in cahoots with supposedly outlawed right wing paramilitary organizations like the "Ulster Defence Regiment Association." (Fixed: hat tip to wirehead Ed. Thanks Ed, you get a cookie...or should I say "biscuit?")

Police collusion with anti-Catholic, anti-liberal and anti-Irish terrorist cells was common place and the those in government who did not take an active part regularly looked the other way while abuses took place.

Combine this Utah memo with the activities of their less-than-neighborly neighbors to the south in Arizona who apparently are looking the other way while racist paramilitary units shoot up the border with Mexico, and this is exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about.

Now mix all that with the rhetoric spewing from the current crop of GOP assrags and nimrods spooging for office right now; "Gather Your Armies," indeed...

This is the kind of crap that is going to put a terrible thing into motion that no one wants to even contemplate, much less will be able to stop if it really gets rolling...

mojo sends

Cognitive Dissonance A-Go-Go: Health Care Reform

Well, I guess this kind of hypocrisy was expected (take it Washington Monthly's Steve Benen):

Take Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) of Iowa, for example. Few, if any, policymakers played as absurd a role in the reform process than Grassley. From advancing demonstrably ridiculous claims to forcing needless to delays to brazen hypocrisy and contradictions, the Iowa Republican has been an obnoxious and regressive force. Given that he was the Senate Republicans' point-man on health care, this was a problem.

With this context in mind, I have to admit, I didn't see this one coming.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has long been a vocal critic of the Democrat's health reform efforts, but behind the scenes he's started taking credit for some provisions of the bill, and talking up his own role in crafting the legislation.

Sorry Steve, as a professional student of Republican cognitive dissonance and left and right legislator hypocrisy in general, the only surprise is the time it took.

And Chuckles ain't alone. John Kyl from the Democratic White People's Republic of the Transvaal Colon ...errr... Arizona is now pimping his own role in passage of a health care reform package, to wit:

Republicans responded to today’s swearing in of Dr. Don Berwick to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) by condemning President Obama for recess appointing the nominee. [Kyl] claimed that Berwick will ration health care for American seniors, deny payment for services that were not cost effective and import British health care to America. But then, in an apparent effort to criticize Berwick’s view of prevention, Kyl took a turn for the unexpected and suddenly took credit for the preventive service provisions in the health law:

KYL: Another couple things about Dr. Berwick. He’s expressed disapproval for costly cutting-edge medical technologies and said prevention services like annual physicals, screening tests and other measures were over demanded. Well, one of the things we did in the health care legislation was to provide a lot of different incentives for preventive care, for screening to try to help people avoid illnesses on the theory that it would be a lot cheaper if we didn’t do a lot of treatment that was unnecessary. 

Kyl’s use of the pronoun “we” is surprising, since every single Senate Republican voted against the preventive provisions in the health care bill when they voted against the measure, and many in the GOP now want to repeal the entire law — including the very preventive screenings that could “catch the disease.” Kyl is co-sponsoring a measure to repeal the entire law.

And even this is pretty tame compared to Dr. Death Panels himself, – House Minority Leader John Boehner – who now is taking credit for progressive health care reform provisions (take it away again, Steve):

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) spoke to NPR's Steve Inskeep this morning, and twice said Republicans would repeal the Affordable Care Act if given congressional majorities next year. (thanks to reader A.D.)

It led to an interesting exchange:

INSKEEP: As you know, Democrats are already pointing to things that are changing in America because of this bill. They will point to the fact that college seniors, who would have been kicked off their families' insurance plans when they graduated, will get to stay on. Insurance companies are now saying they're going to end the practice of "rescission," where they take, or at least modify...

BOEHNER: Both of those ideas, by the way, came from Republicans, and are part of the common sense ideas that we ought to have in the law.

That one hurt. Are you fzcking kidding me?

These people fought like rabid wolverines on crank against this law. And in fact, as previously noted, they already have legislation in the pipeline to repeal the whole damn thing. Boehner and his cadre in the House have made their careers fighting programs to help the working poor and the underemployed in this country from accessing health care... or just about any other kind of assistance for that fact.

What does this mean? Are there internal polling numbers from the RNC or the House and Senate campaign committees that show Americans approve of the law and that in fact Americans' support for the legislation has been on the rise?

Hmmm... could this be the reason Boehner has had a change of heart, even from his June 23 43 page opus: Obamacare: Three Months of Broken Promises?

I wonder what the excuse will be if a newly elected GOP controlled House and Senate then vote to repeal the whole thing. "David Inskeep had a gun, I was drugged and held in a basement interrogation cell at the National Press Building where I was waterboarded into saying I liked health care reform..."

After all this, I guess it just reaffirms what we've been saying here at the wire for ages... there is no floor.

I wonder if three of four months from now we are going to be here again, when the Senate finally extends unemployment benefits and the Republicans calling the poor a bunch of lazy hobos for not being able to create a job out wishful thinking a desperation will be pimping their support for extended benefits all along.

Why it was a Republican idea for economic stimulus all along!

You know it's coming. You can't hide. The only push back we have against it is vicious mockery, it's our only weapon, keep the safety off and a live round in the chamber.

mojo sends

God's Plan? Really?

Then God needs a new blueprint, because if this is an example the Master Plan, then God resembles a 13-year-old kid with attention deficit disorder...

Seriously, Sharon Angle must be reading the wire, because she is trying hard for one of the coveted "Michael Steele Stoopidest Things Ever Said Award" tin-foil hats that we here like to bestow on our unfortunate rhetorically-challenged friends and neighbors.

In case you couldn't bring yourself to click through the link, Angle, who is running against Harry Reid for U.S. Senate in Nevada has now apparently gone to the Christian Coalition to announce that she is the anointed of God for this Senate seat.

She says it's all part of God's plan.

She also says that she is against abortion in cases of rape and incest because "God has a plan."

Really? Rape of an underage girl? God's Plan? Wow, it's amazing it's even a crime.

I wonder if anyone's ever really had the stones to walk into court (pro per of course, because no sane lawyer would do this) and tell the judge: "Yeah, I raped on a 13 year old girl, making her pregnant, but it's all good... God told me to, and frankly, I've learned over the years to not ask too many questions..."

It was fictional West Wing President Jeb Bartlett quoting Graham Greene who said "neither you nor I can possibly comprehend the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God."

Sorry... got a little lost there trying to be cool; back to the matter at hand... Memo to Sharon: No, your comments do not rise to the level of dumb necessary for a Steele Award.

Sure, you get an 'A' for effort. But unless you step up your game, you can't hope to compete with a sitting RNC chair telling a room full of GOP hopefuls that their party's crowning achievement in militarizing foreign policy in the past decade was not only a horrible mistake, but a Democratic achievement, as well.

Sorry, Sharon; back to the batting cages.

But consider this:

How do you explain all this?" [Christian Coalition Founder Ralph] Reed queried. "You're now a national story, are you kind of overwhelmed by it all?"

"I believe that God has been in this from the beginning and because of that when he has a plan and a purpose for your life and you fit into that, what he calls you to he always equipped you for," said Angle.

You know, she may have a point there.

There may really be the hand of God at work here. By putting an ignorant crank like Sharon Angle out in full view of the public for all to see and hear, perhaps this is God's way of letting us all know what rubes, thugs, pimps and junkies these freekin' teabaggers all are... you know, like warning coloration on animals, as illustrated in this Far Side cartoon...

Apologies and much respect to Gary Larson...

mojo sends

Y'all Teabaggers Sure You Wanna Ride This Train?

Interesting article in the Chicago Sun-Times that brings into focus my doubts about the Teabagger movement conservatives' current push to re-fight the New Deal legal battles.

Frankly, for political extremes of all stripes, going to the courts for what you couldn't get at the polls is an iffy proposition at best... for instance, the Right set up nearly 30 years of almost uninterrupted progressive Stare Decisis on Roe and Griswold and women's reproductive rights in general.

Fortuantely, Progressives have learned that the courts are not a replacement for hard won victories at the ballot box... for the most part.

Anyway, you might remember that a couple of weeks back I put up a post on what I regarded as the importance of Republicans grilling Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on her position of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution (the bit that allows Congress to regulate interstate commerce).

It appears that the battle may be over before the American Enterprise Institute and the Club for Growth can file their Amicus Briefs:

Aziz Huq told a gathering of lawyers at the Mayer Brown law firm Friday that the U.S. vs. Comstock case should give supporters of the health-care bill hope because seven of the nine justices ruled in this case that the federal government can exercise power not specifically spelled out in the Constitution.

In the Comstock case, argued by Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, the Obama administration maintained that the federal government had the right to indefinitely detain sex offenders who had finished serving their sentences.

A North Carolina federal court said none of the federal government's "enumerated powers" in the Constitution covers civil detention of offenders who have finished serving their sentences.

But Kagan argued that Congress' power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers" (also known as the "elastic clause") covered it, and seven of the nine justices to varying degrees bought that.

Sound kind of thin? Yeah... most things in real court are. But go back and take a look at Comstock and you can see that the entirety of the Court's reasoning revolves around the Elasticity Clause.

The only hitch I can see is the Court's (and in particular Justice Kennedy) repeatedly talking about a narrowly tailored legislation "[that] is rationally related to the implementation of a constitutionally enumerated power," as Justice Breyer put it.

Reading the tea leaves for how the Supreme Court is going to act in any given instance is at best a dubious enterprise. But this decision, I think, gives a good indication that this court – even a couple of the conservatives – are going to take an expansive view of the Commerce and Elasticity clauses to the Constitution...

mojo sends

Mel Gibson...

...is a violent, batshit crazy racist?

Wow... who knew?!

mojo sends

East Anglia Hat Trick

For the third consecutive time, the climate investigators at University of East Anglia have been cleared of wrongdoing in their presentation of climate data, in spite of some overblown appearances in leaked emails, the so-called "ClimateGate."

The possibility of catching proponents of global climate change theory in academic dishonesty has made turned even the most flaccid conservative into blue steel over what has turned out to be much ado about nothing. Seriously, this was better than Viagra™ for all the Lindsey Grahams, James Inhofes, Myron Ebells and the Telegraph UKs of the world.

The Muir Russell Report has been the most exhaustive and explicit exoneration of the three investigations that have occurred so far. The only issue the report really has with the scientists is the issue of openness in terms of the transparency of their processes. 

Although that's not nearly as sexy or headline grabbing as the Wingnut-0-Sphere wanted to make out of what were essentially stolen emails, the issues of scientific openness in the age of expanded research are not trivial and will have to be addressed by the Earth science community as a whole.

The good folks over at RealClimate have a pretty good read on both the political and scientific issues involved.

So... all done then right?

Oh, I see you've been reading the mojowire for some time now, so you know better...

The appearance of Muir Russell has done nothing but confirm to the flat-earthers that the conspiracy is truly far reaching and that the dirty fzcking scientists will stop at nothing to push their lies down all our throats in the name of their anti-American, God-hating, secular humanist agenda...

As Gerald Warner, top Etonian blogger tool at the Telegraph UK tells us:

But the most startling development was partially revealed at the tail-end of Hulme’s remarks, when he warned that greater openness would not ensure an easier time for climate scientists in future. He said this was because a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is not reducing the uncertainties in predicting future climate, but rather the reverse. “This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult.”

Too right it will. Despite the known proclivity of computer models to come up with the findings they have been programmed to produce, Hulme is conceding that more sophisticated versions are refusing to record the desired result, but in fact the reverse. If even the alarmists’ own tame technology, due to improved accuracy, is refusing to comply with their wish list of global warming symptoms, then the game is well and truly up. Meanwhile, before confronting these awkward realities, it is time to sit back and admire Sir Muir Russell’s brushwork with a bucket of whitewash.

Well, no that's not really what Hulme said about openness, but then what do expect from yet another flat-earther.

But really, this kind of denial is tame compared to the likes of Senator Inhofe who has repeatedly called out global climate change as a scam and a conspiracy of biblical proportions, or claims that the oil companies and the Scottish government some how have a vested interest in anthropomorphic climate change.

So while I am glad the UEA folks' scientific "rigour and honesty" are in tact, I don't expect fence sitters to read this report and change their minds, much less the wingnuts and asshats.

Iin a scandal like this, exoneration is a pyrrhic victory. The damage is done. Most people now when warned about the dangers of climate change and why we, as a society need to start addressing this (and are probably over late in doing so), the thought will not be "wow, this is serious..."

No, it the predominant idea will be "climate change, isn't that a crazy theory and that fake scientists are just making up shit about it?"

mojo sends

It Must Be The Heat...

Look, this is very simple... whether you agree with the Arizona anti-immigrant law or not, whether you like Mexicans or not, Arizona can not just decide to enact their own immigration law.

It's called the "Supremacy Clause" of the Constitution.

God as my witness, I can't figure out why people are having such a tough time with this...

mojo sends

The DNC Shouts At All Those Damned Commie Traitors

Following up on van.mojo's previous post, I see that the McGovern Amendment failed last night.

That was one of the votes on the Afghanistan war supplemental that would have required a timeline for withdrawal. It apparently pulled in a majority of the House Democratic caucus, but failed because there were 98 Democrats who joined the nearly unanimous Republican caucus in voting it down.

As DDay says:

This shows a real crumbling of the Afghanistan policy.

Nevertheless, here comes the DNC to tell us all about those goddamn traitors stabbing our glorious warfighting soldiers in the back.

RNC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL STEELE BETS AGAINST OUR TROOPS, ROOTS FOR FAILURE

Here goes Michael Steele setting policy for the GOP again. The likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham will be interested to hear that the Republican Party position is that we should walk away from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban without finishing the job. They'd also be interested to hear that the Chairman of the Republican Party thinks we have no business in Afghanistan notwithstanding the fact that we are there because we were attacked by terrorists on 9-11.

And, the American people will be interested to hear that the leader of the Republican Party thinks recent events related to the war are 'comical' and that he is betting against our troops and rooting for failure in Afghanistan. It's simply unconscionable that Michael Steele would undermine the morale of our troops when what they need is our support and encouragement. Michael Steele would do well to remember that we are not in Afghanistan by our own choosing, that we were attacked and that his words have consequences.

Oh, I see. IT'S OKAY IF YOU ARE A DEMOCRAT, eh?

St00pidest Things Ever Said: First Ballot Hall of Fame Edition...

You know, this occasional feature of the mojowire has really been one of my favorites. And frankly, we have noted some truly reality bending stoopidity from those in government or otherwise in the public eye.

From our initial take on the Prairie Schooners of the Van Allen Belt, to the national referendum on torture via the show 24, to possibly my all time favorite, preacher's wives must do more to keep the homo man-whores at bay, the sheer intensity of brain sucking dumb was only matched by it's immense volume.

It has truly been a buyers market...

But sometimes, a person will go over and above the call of duty in making public utterances so appallingly ignorant, so bereft of thought or reflection that we have no choice but to crown a new champion and in fact name the award for all subsequent winners in their honor.

Here is RNC Chair Michael Steele in Connecticut on Thursday, July 1, talking to room full of Republicans:

The McChrystal incident, to me, was very comical. And I think it's a reflection of the frustration that a lot of our military leaders have with this Administration and their prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."

"It was one of those, one of those areas of the total board of foreign policy ["in the Middle East"? -- Note: The audio is not quite clear in this section.] that we would be in the background, sort of shaping the changes that were necessary in Afghanistan as opposed to directly engaging troops," [...]

"But it was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he's such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?

Teh stoopid... it burnzez!

What is it that makes a gaffe champion? Is it a single comment? Is it a collection of gaffes comprising a misshapen body of work? Is it the timing or the place? Is it the inappropriateness for the audience?

Whatever goes into the fatally toxic cerebral stew that causes spewage like this, Micahel Steele is the complete package, with a portfolio that it would be difficult to describe as anything other than "Dan Quaylean."

This was not simple political tone-deafness, even on the grand scale of a Shakedown Joe Barton apology to British Petroleum. Starting with the epic tsunami of mendacity and vapidness in the initial reading, the more you look at and consider these words, the intricate levels of fatuous inanity just keep piling up.

First... is he really telling a room full of Republicans that our war is doomed and we should bring home the troops?

Second, is he really telling a room full of Republicans that is a Democrat that is leading the charge in the war against Al Qaeda?

Third, Princess Bride? Really?

Finally, in a moment of truly reality-warping dadaism, Michael Steele actually makes a good point... invasion of Afghanistan rarely works out for invaders, and yet he simultaneously manages to be head-stabbingly vacuous in making the assertion.

Why does Michael Steele hate the troops? No wait, that was too easy... Why does Michael Steele hate the Republican Party?

But those of you who read this feature know that often it's not the initial quote, but the reaction that gets the love... never fear, Michael does not let us down there either:

As we enter the Fourth of July weekend, I proudly remember standing with Maryland National Guardsmen on their way to the Middle East and later stood with the mothers of soldiers lost at war. There is no question that America must win the war on terror.

"During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama made clear his belief that we should not fight in Iraq, but instead concentrate on Afghanistan. Now, as President, he has indeed shifted his focus to this region. That means this is his strategy. And, for the sake of the security of the free world, our country must give our troops the support necessary to win this war.

Tame stuff, sure, but in its context though, it is stunning: it turns out that the chair of the RNC completely supports the Obama Administration's prosecution of the war in Afghanistan, less than 24 hours after describing that policy as comical and frustrating.

Well, we might be getting a good laugh from this idiot, but his fellow Republicans have had more than enough. Even with all his other gaffes, he has finally run afoul of the militarists in the party and they are now about to space him out the airlock.

Bill Kristol from the Weakly Standard says:

Indeed, as the DNC Communications Director (of all people) has said, your statement 'puts [you] at odds with about 100 percent of the Republican Party,'" [...]"Your comment is more than an embarrassment, it’s an affront, both to the honor of the Republican party and to the commitment of the soldiers fighting to accomplish the mission they’ve been asked to take on by our elected leaders.

Erik the Red Erickson from RedState.com was more succinct:

Steele must resign" [because] "he has lost all moral authority to lead the GOP."

Michael Steele's train-wreck of a political career is about to make a crater in D.C. that can be seen from space. And, to be honest, I'm not sure how he's managed to keep it on the rails all the way to this point.

If there is emeritus status in the club of St00pidest Things Ever Said, then Michael Steele is truly the senior member currently sitting.

Sometimes it baffles me how on earth we could be worried about losing elections to these tools... (yeah, I know, don't remind me...)

mojo sends

Happy Independence Day...

...from JibJab (fixed!)

Founding Fathers in da howze!

mojo sends