Cogitamus

The anti-Krauthammer Doctrine

As Obama contemplates the next move in Afghanistan, Charles "faster neo-con, kill! kill! Krauthammer weighed in, shockingly enough, on the side of massive escalation, not to mention turning foreign policy over to the generals.  Krauthammer has never met a problem that he felt could not be solved by bringing force to bear, and always the more the better.  Thus, he finds it absurd that Obama might hesitate to double down on a "surge" in Afghanistan and throw 40,000 more troops into the fray.  He finds it even more laughable that Obama would weigh the advice of Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel (both escalation skeptics) as heavily as that of Generals McCrystal and Petraeus.

First, a general suggestion to Obama.  Adopt a corollary of the George Costanza "Opposite" Doctrine with Krauthammer as the proxy.  If Krauthammer is for it, be against it.  If Krauthammer says do A, do B.  In addition to being a vicious fuck on wheels, Krauthammer is Wrongy McWrongstein -- wrong on all matters big and small, a man whose brain has been so curdled by his years of associating with the worst elements of the American right, that he has seemingly lost all sense of judgment on issues of both domestic and foreign policy.  

Second, as to the merits of the advice of military professionals versus that of politicians, I have a couple of observations -- one, these guys were not nearly as concerned about deferring to the judgment of military professionals when the advice was being given by General Shinseki; and two, the assumption that the advice of officers is superior to that of politicians is simply not always the case.  Now elected officials, as we know, are not always fonts of wisdom.  Most of them, however, especially someone like Biden who has survived the electoral wars for nearly forty years, have a pretty good intuitive sense of what the public cares about.  Biden and Emanuel understand that after eight years of war and now mired deep in the midst of economic crisis, the American public has little desire to double down militarily in a puzzling land on the other side of the world.  McCrystal and Petraeus, on the other hand, are people whose professional instincts are to want to exercise their expertise and solve problems in the way they know best, i.e. through deployment of additional troops using their counterinsurgency strategies.

I hate glib Vietnam analogies, but damned if the Karzai government doesn't remind me of the Diem regime circa 1962 -- corrupt, culturally at odds with the majority of the country, and not truly in control of it.  The idea of committing tens of thousands of more troops on behalf of such a government in such difficult country seems dubious at best.  I think Obama needs to think seriously about walking back the "war of necessity" rhetoric and stressing that he meant the war against Al Qaeda -- a war with many fronts (primarily a war of intelligence, police, and propaganda tactics).

Krauthammer won't approve -- and that's a feature, not a bug.  

Nuts, Indeed

Thanks to our friend kathy a. for pointing out this gem over at the Great Orange Satan.  This concerns wackadoodle lawyer/dentist Orly Taitz (who clearly is dipping liberally into the nitrous tank) and her birther lawsuit pending in the United States District Court for the Central District of California (as opposed to the clusterfuck in Georgia that is going to get her sanctioned). It is so expertly set up that you just have to go read it there.

I can only say that I love a lawyer with both a sense of history and a sense of humor. 

I had been looking for something on this, because Taitz and her acolytes had been claiming some sort of victory in Judge David Carter's courtroom based on the fact that a hearing had been scheduled for October 5, 2009.  It appears rather clear that Judge Carter is likely to dismiss the case due to a lack of standing among the plaintiffs as well as an overwhelming justiciability question (the removal of the President from office is a power solely delegated to Congress in the Constitution -- it cannot be adjudicated).  Taitz and the other birthers are so profoundly stupid that they tried to take the issuance of a routine scheduling order from the Court and turn it into a substantive victory.  I suspect that the Judge turning down her ex parte motion to begin discovery may have at least a small sobering effect, but I don't expect it to last.  (Filing such a motion ex parte, i.e. without serving it on the other side, is completely unethical, but that seems to be par for the course for Our Lady of the Peroxide Bottle and the Root Canal.)   

No matter what the judge does, he will naturally be denounced by the birthers as corrupt, scared, and bought and paid for -- none dare call it treason and all that. 

And still it chills: Billie Holiday sings Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Lyrics by Lewis Allan

Whiplash

Now that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, let's all consider how long before American conservatives, fresh from celebrating the world's validation of their Obama-hatred by denying Chicago the Olympics, start to criticize Obama for being too popular outside America.

I predict that their latest unexamined ideological switch will occur about 5 minutes before the Nobel announcement was made.

The Sweet Sound of Right Wing Heads Exploding

(They make a cute little pop given the small brain to large skull ratio.)

I have to admit extreme surprise this morning when the alarm went off at 6:00 AM (actually I always feel mild shock at this nearly daily event) and the voice on NPR advised me that Obama had just won the Nobel Peace Prize.  My initial reaction -- for what?  No disrespect intended, but it reminds me of those pre-season college football polls in which a team is allowed to claim the number one ranking by virtue of its great potential.  There's a reason they play the games after this.  To date, I think Obama has shown a keen grasp of how to actually add diplomacy to our array of foreign policy tools, but I don't think he can fairly claim any noteworthy results.  Well, other than not being George W. Bush or John McCain and not having bombed Iran.  I guess these are accomplishments of a sort, although I wouldn't generally think of them as Nobel Prize worthy.  

But then I decided to stop being a linear thinker and to view it in the way all of our right wing brethren would, i.e. it is good and right because it will piss certain people off.  A lot.  And then I smiled a blissful smile despite the ungodly hour and the fact that it is the time of year when waking up in darkness (not metaphorical) will become the norm for several months.  Oh, they will rend their garments and gnash their teeth and froth and foam and stomp about at the perfidy of the Swedes Norwegians (damn people all look the same) and the Euros and all those who don't think that reflexive saber rattling is the appropriate response to every problem on the world stage.  [For some reason the Peace Prize is awarded in Norway, while the others are awarded in Sweden.  Some people will do anything to keep Henry Kissinger out of their country.] How totally fucking sweet.   

Alan Grayson talks healthcare reform to Republicans: If you're against it, then get out of the way. Just get out of the way.

"You can lead, you can follow, or you can get out of the way.
And I'm telling you now to get out of the way."

Between Congressman Grayson's address today, and Keith Olbermann's heartfelt and highly personal hour-long comment last night, I'm thinking there might be enough passion and fire in the air this week to fuel some actual, well, honest-to-goodness change. And wouldn't that be nice?

We can't go on like this, Republicans and Blue Dogs and industry-sponsored trolls who show up in comment threads at some of our friends' blogs and newspaper columns and try their utmost to derail, defame, and delay. Let me repeat that: We cannot go on like this.

(If you missed it, here's the link to the MSNBC video of the outstanding hour of television that was Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on Healthcare Reform; there's a full written transcript provided, too.)

(H/T David aka TRex)

Afternoon Nocturne: Maurizio Pollini plays Chopin

Ah, what I wouldn't give to hear Maurizio Pollini in concert. He's my absolute favorite Chopin Man, possibly of all time (and I fully expect to be flamed by legions of Horowitz fans for saying that, but there you go.)

This is the Nocturne no. 8, opus 27 no. 2, one of my go-to pieces for those times when I need to escape the brash and visceral here-and-now and instead poke around in the tender bits of my soul. It's such achingly beautiful music, truly it is. In fact, if you can listen to this and not weep a little, or at the very least get a lump in your throat, you're obviously walking about with a heaving great clot of ice where your heart's supposed to be--you might want to get that looked at.

Enjoy.

XXX
D.

Al Franken Wastes No Time

. . .showing that he has more substance and will be more valuable as a Senator than every single worthless sack of shit that has tried to demean him for having been a comedian:

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.”

The amendment passed over the opposition of 30 GOP Senators - that is to say, 75% of their Senate delegation.  If anything, I'm surprised so many Republican Senators voted in favor of it.

I have very good feelings about Senator Franken, and hope that the good people of Minnesota see fit to return him to the Senate for many years to come.

In Honor of their Appearance on Colbert

"The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton" - The Mountain Goats

Another of my musical favorites, the Mountain Goats, will be appearing on the Colbert Report in about twenty minutes.  Very excited.

John Darnielle is one of the great songwriters out there.  I was thinking about how he compares to McMurty and in some respects they are similar. Both write about little people in fucked up situations with a great deal of frequency. Both are poets of the everyday.  McMurtry's overall tone though is one of knowing sadness, leavened by flashes of humor.  His deep, stark voice is anchored in melancholy and even when he rocks out he never seems to fully leave the sorrow behind.  Darnielle, on the other hand, has a manic physicality and a slightly grating, limited, but effective voice.  He plays the acoustic guitar primarily but does so with a punk energy that hasn't been seen since Gordon Gano debuted with the Violent Femmes all too long ago.  Darnielle has crazy eyes and seems like a man possessed when in mid-song.  He is also a raconteur on stage, given to lengthy and funny digressions -- McMurtry barely says a word. 

My favorite line:

when you punish a person for dreaming his dream,
don't expect him to thank or forgive you. 

Enjoy - time to watch.

(My) China Syndrome

Deborah sent me this article from The Independent, provocatively titled China will overtake America, the only question is when.  I fear like a bit of a Johnny One Note, but this strikes me as preposterous overstatement,  But at the risk of being repetitive, here I go again.

I actually think it's a pretty superficial and not terribly persuasive analysis.  First, the notion that economics is a zero sum game is just incorrect.  The growth of China is good for the U.S.  A wealthier China with hundreds of millions of middle class consumers would be an enormous shot in the arm for the world economy, not a bad thing.  (Not addressing the environmental issues, which could be hideous.)
 
For the reasons I posted recently, I think China has problems that are far more serious than those facing the U.S. -- problems of a kind that could be deeply destabilizing. 
 
Of course China can grow by 10% a year,  Its base line is incredibly low --- it's a really poor country.  To claim that it will have a bigger economy than the U.S. (If that is what "overtake" means) is not to say that much.  It already has a "bigger" economy than Japan -- but there is not a serious question of which nation is wealthier.  Given the overwhelming population disparity, China needs to have an economy at least four times the size of that of the U.S. to be as wealthy in the aggregate. 
 
Let me repeat -- China is really, really poor -- it is 111th in per capita GDP versus the U.S., which is 9th.  Per capita GDP in China is $5,300, slightly above Namibia and just below Egypt and Guatemala while in the U.S. it is $46,000.

China has not at this point shown that it has the ability to compete in the world of high end, value added products.  Right now it is a source of cheaply produced mass goods -- this is a good base for development, but it is a far cry from having an economy that is on the cutting edge.  This may yet happen, but it is going to be challenging under the existing political system.  (The Russians have yet to figure this problem out despite their well educated populace and a technical and scientific base that gave them a top notch space program and the ability to produce highly sophisticated military hardware -- like a second rate colony, Russia relies almost exclusively on the extraction and export of oil, natural gas, and other raw materials to keep its economy afloat.) 

I think the issue for China is whether it can develop its considerable brain power into an economically productive force in the context of a deeply authoritarian regime.  Can it permit a level of freedom that will promote the kind of innovation that produces consumer and business products that people want to buy.  I think something has to give -- either the prospects for innovation or the CP's monopoly on power. 
   

Michaelangelo's Artistic License Bible Project

I kept thinking about this Python sketch while I was reading Stephen's great post about the uncompromisingly stupid--not to mention patently blasphemous--Conservative Bible Project. Which risible undertaking, if you haven't yet heard, represents an effort to re-write the Bible in a way that removes and/or reworks those elements conservatives say unfairly imbue the Holy Book with a bias that's simultaneously liberal, feminist, and unflattering-to-Masters-of-the-Universe (other than the actual Master of the Universe, one presumes, since let's face it, He tends to be cast in a rather nice light across all the biblical versions).

At the End of the Times, though, any God who saw fit to grace this sorry world with the likes of John Cleese--ah, all the Pythons, really--is fine by me.

Oh, and wingnuts? Jesus said to love your neighbor, care for the sick, and help out the poor. So you might want to work on slimming down those camel-fat portfolios--from what I hear, your science-denying ways have led to warming effects extending far beyond this mortal globe. In other words, the Alternative Afterlife Destination to which you're clearly heading has been posting some record high temperatures lately.

Blasphemy

Babylon 5 is one of the best television series ever produced.  This is simply a fact as obvious and incontrovertible as the speed of light.  Few sci-fi efforts have succeeded so well at illustrating and commenting on our own society.

One episode, "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars," is a great example of how humans are always trying to manipulate language, symbols, images and personalities to fit our own agenda.  An in-depth summary of the episode can be found here.  The short of it is that the main leaders of the titular space station died centuries ago and have been rendered as holograms.  The Alliance they founded was standing in the way of the Earth government's plans for expansion, and so they decided to use holograms of the Alliance's founders to impugn their motives and history and convince "the Prole Sector" that waging war against the Alliance was the correct action to take.

The vocabulary in this episode is great.  They have "realfacts," which stand in opposition to the "goodfacts" that the Earth government wants its citizens to believe.  They're using the holograms "to provide reverse-correct infospeak as support for current changes in Earth policy." 

Great stuff that vividly captures the fascists' willingness, even their need to manipulate everything around them, to take the most powerful symbols of their society and desecrate them in the name of their current political goals.

Let us, then turn our atttention to the Conservative Bible Project:

More Orly Taitz Hijinks

Boy, this woman is just itching to go to jail.

Birther Queen and alleged lawyer Orly Taitz continues to push her luck and ratchet up her conflict with Judge Clay Land, who in dismissing one of her birther lawsuits had also issued an order to show cause why Taitz should not be held in violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (the rule against frivolous lawsuits and pleadings) and be subject to a $10,000 fine.  Taitz has fired back with a motion for Judge Land to recuse himself from the proceedings due to his allegedly pervasive bias, his "blitzkrieg like rulings" and, best of all, his ex parte meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder.  The evidence for this meeting is Holder's alleged presence  in a coffee shop across the street from the federal court house in Columbus Georgia on the day of a hearing in the case.  Taitz "backs up" the allegation of the improper meeting with an affidavit by a witness named Robert Douglas who claims to have seen Holder there, describing him as of man "with a trim upper lip mustache, not large of stature, and general olive complexion."   

Eric Holder is 6'3" -- I don't think that fits with in anyone's definition of  "not large of stature."  If you're going to be batshit crazy and file false affidavits with the court, you might at least do the minimal homework involved in keeping the document at least facially credible. 

I am guessing that the Judge is not going to be amused by this.

h/t to the indispensable TPM. 

Sunday Night Sad Sad Song

"Ruby and Carlos" - James McMurtry

As any of you who regularly read us know, I am an enormous James McMurtry fan.  I got to see him last Wednesday at a club in Alexandria, VA and although it wasn't quite as fun as being at the Continental Club in Austin, it was (to quote Larry David) pretty, pretty, pretty good.  Fabulous really. He has an extraordinary catalog of songs -- so good that, unfortunately, it means he doesn't feel the need to mine much of his past, basically playing only one or two songs from his debut record, the indispensable "Too Long in the Wasteland" and nothing from the worthy follow ups, "Candyland" and "Where'd You Hide the Body."  But that's just a fan's quibble -- the songs he played, including this one, were more than enough.

McMurtry is, like his father Larry, an artist of the American West.  His songs are overwhelmingly set in small towns and rural places -- in "Stop 'n' Gos" Waffle Houses, American Legion Halls, Texaco stations, and, of course, bars.  They are filled with humanity in all its sad variety -- mothers whose promising sons have been lost to madness, fathers despairing over sons in juvenile hall, sons stuck in dead end jobs at dad's business, daughters baffled at the men their mother's love, divorced husbands awkwardly showing up at the ex's unannounced, desperate wives fleeing the homestead while the husband works the night shift -- well you get the drift.  Anyway, check him out.  You won't be disappointed.    

Motivated Entirely By Hate

The opening paragraph to this post at the Great Orange Satan is a pretty good roundup of the absurdity of America's conservatives - and it is the rank-and-file, grassroots level of the GOP - cheering and celebrating that Chicago wasn't chosen to host the 2016 Olympics.  Then there's this Maddow clip, which shows people at an Americans for Prosperity meeting actually clapping and cheering:

They're bankupt, utterly bankrupt, morally and intellectually, as bankrupt as the economy they deliberately ruined.  They don't hate Chicago, they hate Obama. They don't oppose America hosting the Olympics, they hate Obama.  They're not opposed to healthcare reform, they're not interested in defending Medicare, they don't want to fight the repeal of Bush's tax cuts.  This is because they don't even know what any of this means.  They haven't taken the time to figure out the barest facts of any of these issues.

They just hate Obama.  They hate that their guy - who they also hated before this last election cycle - lost in a fair, legitimate election.

So they cheer America's misfortune, they protest their own tax cuts, they defend a healthcare system that will directly cause many of them to suffer and possibly die.  They consist of the only supporters in the entire world of a illegitimate, coup-created government, traveling to Honduras to praise the country's puppet president and the generals who control him in direct opposition to the stated policy of the government of the United States of America.

That's treason, and if there was a shred of justice left in this country they'd be tried in a court of law and, if convicted, would suffer the fate we've all been told is reserved in this nation for its traitors.

But again, this treason is not motivated by a hatred for America, because they have no room in their psyches to care one way or the other about "America."  Instead they've filled themselves with nothing more than a hatred primarily for Barack Obama and, as an extension of the hate they feel for the black man in the[ir] White House, the rest of their political opponents.

Yeah, it probably means that the GOP will end up going the way of the Whigs, with several years of complete marginalization before that final step is taken - even if they appear to make a "comeback" in 2010.  But the structural defeciencies in DC that we all know very well will make it possible for them really hurt this country and its citizens before they're gone.  They are the scorpion on the turtle's back, the snake continuing to strike after it is mortally wounded.

Chinese Contradictions

A month or two ago we had a little Cogblog dialogue around a piece posted by Stephen regarding the ascension of China and India vis a vis the United States.  I ended up in the role of American booster, in some ways less from being sanguine about America's future prospects than from a sense that both India and China face enormous political and cultural obstacles that dwarf any of the problems facing the U.S. 

This article in last Sunday's New York Times about Chinese economist Wu Jinglian, one of the architects of China's move to market based economics, really drives this point home.  At 79, Wu has already seen much of the worst that China's political system can do to an individual, having been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution for "re-education," where he was subject to beatings and imprisonment for refusing to engage in public self-denunciation.  He lived to tell the tale and to become an influential advisor to Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, and Jiang Zemin and a leading architect of Chinese economic reforms.  However, even to this day, Wu is under threat of arrest for his outspoken opinions and has been denounced as a spy in some circles.

It was interesting to have read this and then to see and read reports about the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the declaration by Mao of the People's Republic of China.  All of the old Communist style was still there -- the massive military parade, including missiles, goose stepping troops (never a good sign of a nation's commitment to civil liberties), and even President Hu Jintao replete in Mao suit for the occasion.

China remains a nation embedded with the deepest of contradictions.  It continues to pay homage to Mao while in most respects turning its back on him.  The communist rhetoric is still in evidence, while the country's workers toil in conditions reminiscent of the worst of late Nineteenth Century capitalism in the U.S.  There continues to be no real rule of law, corruption is a major problem, and labor unrest percolates just below the surface.

A nation's founding myths are powerful things (witness a recent conversation we had here at Cogblog about the Constitution).  China is an old civilization, but a young nation.  Many of its people in living memory took the pledge of creating a worker's state seriously.  Squaring that with the strange hybrid of authoritarian capitalism with which they are currently  living must be difficult in the extreme. 

All of this suggests that the road ahead in China is unlikely to be smooth.  Civil unrest, labor violence, and deep internal divisions within the Communist Party are likely to be daunting problems going forward.  In short, I don't expect China even with all of its recent accomplishments to come anywhere close to supplanting the U.S. as the world's dominant power, our own problems notwithstanding. 

I Don't Mind Telling You I Cried Myself To Sleep Last Night

Yesterday a few volunteers from my church took 100 small backpacks to a south Kansas City school.  These backpacks were full of food - ready-to-eat items that kids can prepare with no supervision, that don't require heating in a microwave or oven.  Obviously it's processed food, but some of the recipients only have electricity and/or gas in the winter when the utilities are required by law to provide them.  They did each get a banana, 100 of which cost $35 in Kansas City in case you were wondering.

This is part of the BackSnacks program at Harvesters, which is a community food bank here in Kansas City.  It serves around 10,000 children now, up from just 30 when it started five years ago.  The backpacks are given to children who are enrolled in the free/reduced lunch program at their school, and then further identified by staff as being particularly food insecure.

See, teachers today get training on how to identify children who are hungry.  They ask to take extra snacks home with them, especially for a younger sibling.  They eat the stuff the cafeteria serves that other kids don't eat, and they linger over their empty tray trying to think of ways to get more.  They have a hard time paying attention in class.  They're tired and worn out.

Yesterday the first words out of the school's BackSnack coordinator were "thank you so much!"  The next sentence was, "we need 25 more each week."  We're pretty sure that Harvesters simply doesn't have the resources to provide the backpacks and food for 25 more a week, so we've decided that we're going to get it done somehow.  I swear to God it'll happen.  And if they ask for 25 more after that it'll by-God happen too.

Giving these kids just a little more food - even processed stuff like Chef Boyardee - will help them make better grades.  It will help them fight off infections and viruses and allow them to attend school more regularly.  Sometimes all a kid needs is a little step up, a tiny bit of help to get to the point where they can make it. 

So if you can, give some money or food to a local food bank.  Even better, get in contact with them and show them the BackSnacks program.  Talk to your newspaper about it, or some club or other organization you belong to.  Maybe you could start with 30 kids - 30 kids whose lives could radically change just because they had some cans of food and an apple or banana to eat on Saturday and Sunday.

And let's keep fighting, each of us in our little or perhaps big ways, to create a better world for all of us, but especially for those who are least among us.

More Grayson goodness

Because I'm guessing we could all use some encouragement and inspiration as we head into the weekend, here's Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) on CNN's The Situation Room, standing a head and shoulders--literally and figuratively--above Repbulican healthcare-naysayers and the Villagers who love them.

Via Driftglass, who notes:

Thirty years ago, there were Seven Words you could never say on teevee.

Now there are five.

They are:

Conservatives.
Are.
Worse.
Than.
Liberals.

[...]

And there they are in all their glory; a clown-car full of Serious Journalists reacting in absolute incredulity-bordering-on-horror at the sight of some guy telling the truth about Republicans.

Villagers: Isn't saying mean things about Republicans exactly as bad as Joe Wilson screaming "Liar" at the President in front of 40 million people?

No.

Villagers: Why? Why why why why?!

Because I am telling the truth and can back it up, and Joe Wilson was lying.

Again, Bravissimo! More like this, please. And more Congressmen like this one would be a wonderful thing, too.

Also at litbrit.

A Fun Little Game For Friday

Rio de Janeiro has won the 2016 Olympics, the first time they'll be held in South America.  Who will be the first person to claim that this is proof of Obama's overexposure and sign of a brewing worldwide backlash against him?  The categories are:

• Television douchebag
• Print douchebag
• Blogger douchebag

Put up your votes in comments along with any links you want to submit to show how quickly they're pouncing on it.  Whoever guesses correctly wins the knowledge that conservatives are douchebags.

This Time I Actually Think Digby Is Wrong

In this post she seems all too willing to take Chris Matthews at face value, to accept the idea that he's confused about how Bill and Hillary Clinton were treated in the 1990s and his own role in it.

Matthews isn't confused, he hasn't forgotten anything.  He's immensely proud - vain, really - of his record.  No, Matthews's performance with Taylor Branch was exactly that:  a performance. 

Just one more performance in a long line of them.  Every interview, every subject is dealt with in a context and accountability-free bubble.  Matthews acted like he didn't remember what happened because to do otherwise would be to admit responsibility for his own shameful, unethical behavior.  He and the rest of the Villagers make sport of ruining lives.  That's what they enjoy, what they're good at.

And that's what is at the heart of why all these supposedly liberal journalists so happily march in lockstep with conservatives:  they're narcissistic, vicious, amoral monsters who think all life is a game and they're winning.  They're shallow dilletantes who provide cover for their intellectual deficiencies by playing gotcha games and scoring the American political system according to rules that would make the stereotypical junior high cheerleading squad run to the bathroom in shame.

They follow Drudge and Limbaugh and the rest of the conservative smear merchants - no small group, that - because it allows them to snort and giggle at someone getting burned.  And they don't let Democrats get away with it because, aside from how bad Democrats are at it, even the most sadistic little brats expect Mommy and Daddy to behave by the rules.

Matthews isn't confused or forgetful, he's a liar.  They all are.

What a spine looks like

Meet Alan Grayson (D-FL) (yes, Florida!) aka Deborah's New Favorite Person on the Planet.

Yesterday, Grayson pointed out that the Republican solution to the health-care crisis faced by increasing numbers of Americans unable to afford care was this: Don't get sick. And if you do happen to get sick, he said, their next solution was: Die quickly.

House Republicans were not amused; many said that Speaker Pelosi should "rein him in" and others demanded that Grayson apologize. Watch today's video of Grayson on the floor and see him do just that. Apologize. Ha!

As you may remember, just last week, Grayson declared that as long as Congress was busily defunding ACORN following allegations of wrongdoing, matters of Constitutionality required that it also defund all the other organizations currently receiving tax dollars who were not only suspected of wrongdoing, but who were actually found guilty of, ahem, significant fraud. And, quelle surprise, a preliminary probe alone found that some of those organizations included the defense industry's heaviest hitters, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman, with 20 fraud cases between them.

Bravo, Congressman Grayson. Make that, BRAVISSIMO!

(H/T David aka TRex)

Gold-Plated Government Healthcare For Me, Private Industry Scraps For Thee

It cannot be repeated enough:  the members of Congress who oppose so-called government-run and/or socialist healthcare for their constituents like it just fine for themselves:

while most Americans have to go with whatever their employer offers, members [of Congress] have a choice of 10 plans that offer access to a national network of doctors. "Lawmakers also get special treatment at Washington's federal medical facilities and, for a few hundred dollars a month, access to their own pharmacy and doctors, nurses and medical technicians standing by in an office conveniently located between the House and Senate chambers," the article added.

This clinic, as it is quaintly described, has several doctors, nurses, x-ray techs and a pharmacist.  If a specialist is needed, he or she is brought it - from Johns Hopkins, Mayo, whatever - at no extra charge to the patient.  The patient's insurance plan - the one of 10 gold-plated plans available to members of Congress - is not billed. Instead, members of Congress pay an annual fee of $503.  You and I pick up the rest of the tab.

It takes a real cold-hearted son of a bitch to avail himself of this type of taxpayer-funded luxury while telling the very people who pay for it to go get a fucking job if they want health insurance, or to quit going to the doctor so much, or that they need more "skin in the game," or that government healthcare simply doesn't work.

Of course, this is in addition to the socialized healthcare system used by the defenders of our freedoms in our military and the separate socialized healthcare system used by veterans, in addition to the completely separate government-funded health insurance plan used by all of this nation's senior citizens.  Government healthcare works great up to the point that private insurance companies get worried that their bottom line will be affected - that is the beginning, the middle and the end of Congressional opposition to real healthcare reform.

At least people like Alan Grayson are willing to tell the truth and fight for their constituents.  But the Republicans, House Blue Dogs and their counterparts in the Senate are hypocrites of the highest order.  I would gleefully cancel their insurance plans and close that damn clinic down if I could, just to make these old farts live in our shoes for a little while.