When Journalists Redeem Themselves

Just three days ago, I was asking myself why in the world Maureen Dowd and David Brooks are on the NYT payroll. They hadn't produced an article of worth (in my opinion, of course) for weeks and I was tired of even reading them.

Yet, these last two days, both of them redeemed themselves in my eyes with their two articles:

First, Brooks wrote about the realities facing conservative legislators today as well as their precarious position between ideological alternatives and feasible, beneficial ones for the middle class that run against traditional conservative ideology. Brooks seemed to favor the realistic approaches to mending the nation's woes.

Then, there was Dowd, who wrote about the blatant hypocrisy and racism shown by the pseudo-intellectual Newt Gingrich who recently agreed with Dinesh D'Souza's assessment of Obama's politics as a result of his father's neo-colonialist world view. According to Dowd—and here I agree with her—by equating Obama's policy and view of the world to that of his father, and by tainting the character of the latter, they also insult the former.

Gingrich's and D'Souza's logic is so perverted and twisted that only an uneducated audience or bigots will embrace. But then again, look at the crowd who's gotten the mainstream Republicans' panties in a bunch....

Bring in the Straitjacket

Sharron Angle has outdone her loony self!

Not only does she say that Democrats will 'make government our God,' but also goes on to suggest that the First Amendment does NOT guarantee the separation of church and state, but rather protects the church from the state.

However 'in touch' she may be with mainstream America, people like Sharron Angle are dangerous to a secular democracy, which ours is, try as anybody might to convince us otherwise. Secularism ensures freedom of religion for large and small religious groups equally. Religious freedom is already strained today from many large Christian groups claiming more or less a stance similar to Angle's with regard to the First Amendment. Harming the Republic's secularism will only lead to theocracy and restrictions of freedom brought on by a majority's view of morality. If people like her get elected, it wouldn't be strange, in one generation, to see the United States transformed—if not de jure then de facto—into a theocracy of thugs that present-day Iran would envy.

Talk About Activist Judges!

Conservatives will throw around the phrase 'activist judges' quite liberally anytime there is a judicial nomination to be made on the Federal level, or anytime there is a recognition of the constitutional or human rights of a disenfranchised or targeted minority.

Little do they know (or do they know very well...?) that conservative judges are the most staunchly activist of all. As this report from The New York Times shows, the Roberts Court has been the most conservative in the history of the judicial body and the trend to more conservative decisions shows no signs of weakening, despite a second addition by president Obama.

Perhaps liberals and progressives ought to adopt an equally charged language when referring to judges in the Supreme Court and elsewhere in Federal courts across the nation. After all, what is more activist than a judge who adopts an intractably conservative position and whose decisions can be predicted with almost 100% certainty, as in the case of Antonin Scalia or, the loonier loon, Clarence Thomas? No, Samuel Alito, you were not forgotten; you are sure to give both these justices a run for their money if they want to remain on the extreme right of the Supreme Court.

Trimming the Bush

The younger Bush is well on his way to becoming a hallowed figure in conservative circles, much like Reagan—the president who expanded government more than anybody since FDR and more than his three predecessors combined—is today. It is the purpose of the well-oiled (double entendre is quite intentional) to portray him as a true conservative who improved everything from taxes and the budget to international relations. Everyone with an ounce of functioning brain knows he did nothing of the sort. On the contrary, his tax cuts were detrimental to the economy itself and, of course, the budget; and the international relations can be summarized in one word: Iraq.

Paul Krugman's latest op-ed in The New York Times says this much better, but is worth reiterating how, time after time, Republicans and conservatives in general come back with a rewriting history or a re-polishing of figures in order to, then, shape the future of politics and return to power and keep doing just the same thing that required the polishing in the first place.

A Portrait of Angry-For-No-Good-Reason Americans

Clearly misinformed people who cannot answer questions on what they preach and purport to defend; a singer sounding like a cat being strangled; a man with a British accent extolling Fox News comedians and spurring on the 'patriotic crowd;' a woman most likely on Medicare fearing she is 'expendable' to the government; another woman calling Glenn Beck 'educational' (I guess bringing a blackboard into your studio will give that impression); a man thinking that Fox News is the only 'fair' medium out there, but then contradicting himself by saying it's a 'platform' for the Republicans Fox News has hired; a Hispanic man with nativist ideas on immigration; another ignorant woman wanting to know if immigrants have cholera....

I'm tired just from watching this thing.... but certainly worth it....

There's a Tea Party... and Everyone is Mad

Frank Rich of The New York Times reiterating the true colors of what the Tea Party movement puts out there, as well as the true colors of those in the Republican Party who egg them on.

Jon Stewart Does Glenn Beck

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Conservative Libertarian
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

A Portrait of Americans as Dupes of Fox News

No comment.

Republican Disingenuousness

As always, Rachel Maddow is on top of the latest chicanery from Republicans. And, as always, Republicans do not disappoint in showing that they are masters of flagrant prevarication and have the audacity to repeatedly iterate the lie that they collectively agree upon. The lies they propagate, including those statements made today by no one other than McCain, besmirch the whole principle of a democracy. Suddenly, to them, fifty-one votes in the senate do not count as a majority. The normal is now sixty. What's next, Republicans? A two-thirds majority to pass everything? We have never been at war with Eastasia? 2 + 2 = 5?

Stop rewriting history and stop lying to the American people. Sure, a lot of them are misinformed and misled by you and your Fox News propaganda machine, but still... have you no decency, at long last?! Accept that you are in the minority and get to work on trying to regain your majority. Until then, let the majority that has been democratically elected do its work. Let them pass bills through a simple majority, as normal senatorial rules and political, legislative decency dictate. Stop naming things 'nuclear.' The cold war is over.

Just watch. I'm too exhausted to get into the technicalities of it. I said my piece.

Machiavellian Machinations

Paul Krugman had an editorial in today's New York Times that, in a few words, summarized and articulated what I have always known about post-Reagan Republicans and their willingness to bring the country to the verge of total collapse. Not to mention their hypocrisy of speaking against government expansion and expanding it since Reagan.

The Only (So-Called) Democracy in the Middle East

Israel is now inviting students at universities to report 'subversive' (i.e. non-Zionist) professors.

Good job!

Comedian v. Conservative Justices

Stephen Colbert on Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito and his... cable TV package...?!

Going Rogue and Palling Around

Despite what her annoyingly frequent and constantly fallacious Facebook posts might suggest (puh-lease! other people write those), Sarah Palin could not put together a coherent, cohesive piece of writing if her life depended on it. Winks and smiles do not translate so well in print. So, how, might you ask, did she write her upcoming book in the space of just a few months? She didn't, of course. Other people did.

And here is a short description of their œuvre.

Relentless Thuggery

Conservatives are behaving like piranhas: they attack a prey and never leave until all that is left are its lifeless bones. And they succeed by virtue of their numerous appeals to the masses and the reactions they elicit, among which are the worst and ugliest of human nature.

ACORN is the conservatives' latest victim (though they still are attacking president Obama and others). Rachel Maddow does a tremendously good job of exposing and unmasking the forces behind the conspiracy against ACORN:

What happened to Republicans' appeal to the 'better angels of our nature,' so vivid 150 years ago?

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Abraham LINCOLN

Free Press & Conservatives

Apparently, they don't match.

At a forum of sorts called Values Voter Summit, an MSNBC reporter gets harassed by audience members.

But wait, there's more! Two for the price of one: they do the same to a Fox News reporter who seems more compliant than his MSNBC colleague with the unreasonable requests to leave and stop reporting.

(Source: TPM)

Hypocrisy in Orange County

Michael D. Duvall, a state lawmaker from Orange County, CA, has resigned following revelations that he, a staunchly conservative lawmaker, married man, and purported defender of 'family values,' had engaged in sexual acts with two women lobbyists in Sacramento. The revelations came from a tape (clips of which are included in the report below) showing the state assemblyman boasting about his affairs with the women in question, and being recorded unawares.

The issue of extramarital affairs, in my opinion, should never make it on the news. It is a private issue that concerns nobody out of the circle of the individuals involved. In the case of Duvall, as in the case of Sanford, Ensign, Vitter or any other preachy holier-than-thou philanderer, however, these affairs should be made as public as possible, and the lawmakers or state executives perpetuating those actions after having preached 'family values' should be held under the harsh light of public scrutiny, discredited, and exposed for the hypocrites that they truly are.

The Iron Lady Had a Rusty Interior

I just read on The Daily Dish that Margaret Thatcher wanted to prevent the reunification of Germany, and pleaded with Gorbachev to try to do the same. To learn more, read the original article in The Times, as well as the transcript of the newly disclosed Thatcher-Gorbachev conversation from the same source. The stance against the reunification of Germany is made known on page 2 of that transcript.

Reagan's Speech to Kids

Now this is indoctrination we can believe in!

(Source: Daily Kos)

'Republican' Alternative to Obama's Education Speech

By comedian Hal Sparks, found through The Huffington Post.

Healthcare Reform Myths

The Daily Dish considers the issue of coverage for illegal immigrants and how it's being viewed in the blogosphere. There are provisions for legal immigrants, but none for illegal immigrants, despite popular right-wing nonsense claiming the contrary.