News Roundup for 5/4/09

Dana Perino, not a whole lot more than just another pretty face

-Headline of the day-
"GOP turns to Bush aides for advice."

No, really.

According to the report, "Republicans looking to recover from Bush-era defeats are turning to an unlikely source for advice: top aides to former President George W. Bush." Listed among the "top aides" are "former White House press secretary Dana Perino, former Bush counselor Ed Gillespie and former White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto."

Not surprisingly, Democrats think this is almost the best thing they could do, although one dem congresscritter had an even better suggestion. "Reuniting the Bush operation is like making a sequel to a very bad movie," said a spokesperson for Rep. Chris Van Hollen. "House Republicans are better off staying home, watching soaps and coming up with new ideas for their out-of-touch party."

Still, Republicans think this is just the best goddam idea anyone, anywhere has ever had in the entire history of having ideas. "Policies of the Bush administration aside, it’s indisputable that [the workshop participants] are outstanding at their jobs, and their wisdom will serve Republican press secretaries well," says GOP House Conference Communications Director Matt Lloyd.

Oh sure, blame the Bush administration for the Bush administration's awful approval numbers. Remember, you were either with the Bush administration or you were with the terr'ists. You'd imagine that would still be true.

Why does Matt Lloyd hate America?

Other ideas to increase House Republicans' poll numbers include giving away plush Dick Cheney dolls and having Republicans go house to house in their districts, punching people in the face.

Seriously, it'd work about as well. (Politico)


-Minnesotans must be proud-
America's favorite right wing lunatic, Minnesota's Rep. Michele Bachmann, made people wonder what videos she rents by saying that Barack Obama led an "orgy" of spending and government had "spent its wad" too early.

"During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy. It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed," Bachmann told a conservative crowd. "The government spent its wad by April 26. Every dime government spends after April 26 throughout the rest of this fiscal year is borrowed money."

Remind me not to go to any smorgasbord Michele Bachmann goes to. It doesn't sound hygenic and, let's face it, the sneeze-guard on a salad bar just wasn't designed for that kind of thing. (Huffington Post, with video)


-Texas Deranger-
Super-famous Hollywood movie idol and star of the not at all ridiculous TV show Walker, Texas Ranger Chuck Norris is also an expert on education and history. In an article published at Townhall.com -- which also regularly publishes the works of fellow genius Ann Coulter -- Chuck uncovers a plot to destroy America by putting kids in government education centers they call "schools."

"Government’s controlling and monopolizing education is just another avenue for usurping power and control on the slippery slope to socialism..." he warns. "Is it merely coincidental that the private choice of home schooling was outlawed by the Soviet state in 1919, by Hitler and Nazi Germany in 1938, and by Communist China in 1949? Is America next?"

You got us, Chuckles. That's exactly what this whole "public education" scam is all about. Can't slip anything past Chuck Norris. (Donklephant)

Pro-Torture = Pro-Cowardice

This will be the second morning post in a row where I write about my process, so bear with me. I generally bookmark the articles I'll need the night before and -- as needed -- add notes. One of the notes I wrote last night was "Hinderaker, as always, is being a freakin' idiot." Only I didn't use "freakin'" -- I try to cut back on the expletives in my longer posts.

Hinderaker is John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog and his freakin' idiocy is looking at crimes of torture by a member of the United Arab Emirates' royal family as proof that the Bush administration didn't torture.


The current debate over "torture" -- the waterboarding of three high-level al Qaeda leaders in order to obtain information about threatened attacks -- is an example of public discourse at its worst. From Barack Obama on down, most of what has been said by critics of harsh interrogation has been dumb, disingenuous or both. Waterboarding is, as I've often said, a humane alternative to actual torture. It frightens (even when, as in the case of the three al Qaeda terrorists, they are told beforehand that it may feel like they're drowning, but they won't) but does no physical harm. None.


See? A freakin' idiot. First off, he's just plain wrong. Physicians for Human Rights tells us that of 112 deaths in US detention, 43 were homicide, with 3 resulting in charges of murder and 3 resulting in charges for voluntary manslaughter. 11 of those deaths involved "blunt trauma or asphyxiation." Hinderaker seems entirely ignorant of the fact that, since waterboarding is actually drowning someone (forget that "simulated" crap you hear in the media), you can waterboard someone to death -- easily. Calling it a "humane alternative to actual torture" suggests that John's either a gullible ass or a lying ass. Frankly, I don't think it makes much difference which is more accurate. He's an ass and that's as detailed as the description needs to be.

Second, he's basically saying, "Torture? I'll show you torture!" The UAE torturer in question -- Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan -- was brutal in his abuse. "Believing he was cheated in a business deal, the member of the United Arab Emirates ruling family was trying to extract a confession from an Afghan grain dealer," CNN reported. "With a private security officer assisting, Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan is seen [in a video] stuffing sand in the Afghan’s mouth. As the grain dealer pleads and whimpers, he is beaten with a nailed board, burned in the genitals with a cigarette lighter, shocked with a cattle prod, and led to believe he would be shot. Salt is poured on his wounds."

"In the end, the victim can muster up only weak moans as an SUV is repeatedly driven over him." Surprisingly, the man survived.

Yeah, that's certainly torture. But how low is Hinderacker willing to set the bar here? This is basically the Hitler defense -- because someone, somewhere once did something much, much worse, what you're advocating is perfectly OK. In other words, Hitler killed millions, so if you fall short of that, you're automatically innocent. Logic it is not. "At least we're not running over detainees with an SUV" is no defense at all.

I'm not attacking Hinderacker alone; he's just my example. When I read about the UAE torture story, I knew someone would make exactly this argument. Hinderacker's was just the first I came across. This is what torture is doing to us -- we have to find some demented middle eastern sadist in order to have someone to compare ourselves favorably to. Bush's torture policies have made us a sick, sick culture. Not only do we have people defending torture, we have people saying we should do more of it -- completely without shame.

And why didn't we run over detainees with Jeep Cherokees? Why not? All of the defenses of torture would still apply. You've got your ticking timebombs and your massive terrorist attacks. If it takes running over one guy to save millions, the right wing argument goes that we have to park a truck on someone -- we really have no choice. Running people over with big freakin' SUVs and beating them with boards with nails in them is practically an American value. If Hinderacker is against it, then he's for the terrorists. At least, if he's at all interested in being consistent in his arguments.

And is waterboarding torture? Of course it is. In fact, a New York Times story out this weekend shows that even as the "harsh interrogations" were going on, the interrogators knew it was torture.


The proclamation that President George W. Bush issued on June 26, 2003, to mark the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture seemed innocuous, one of dozens of high-minded statements published and duly ignored each year.

The United States is "committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example," Mr. Bush declared, vowing to prosecute torture and to prevent "other cruel and unusual punishment."

But inside the Central Intelligence Agency, the statement set off alarms. The agency's top lawyer, Scott W. Muller, called the White House to complain. The statement by the president could unnerve the C.I.A. interrogators Mr. Bush had authorized to use brutal tactics on members of Al Qaeda, Mr. Muller said, raising fears that political winds could change and make them scapegoats.


Bush came out publicly against torture and the CIA needed to be reassured that he didn't really mean it. That's an odd reaction from a group of people who know they aren't torturing anyone, isn't it? If you didn't know better, you'd assume they thought they were torturing people. Weird.

This is the problem with all the "it's not torture" arguments -- they rely so heavily on ignorance and illogic that you have to assume those making them are either sick and soulless liars or suffering from a massive, untreated head wound. You either have to be lying or mentally incompetent to take these positions. And you either have to be a coward or gullible to buy them.

And cowardice is what it all comes down to. Fearmongering appeals to the fearful, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that those who fall for it are cowards. Before Bush's torture program came out, no one was arguing that we should start torturing people. It would've been unthinkable. But now that they've managed to scare themselves stupid with talk about "existential threats" and a global "Islamofascist" movement, they're all for it -- to the point where only the sickest and most brutal abuse is out of the question. If we charitably assume that they were never for torture before, we can also assume that they've now sold out their beliefs for safety. As I said, that's cowardice.

That's what this argument really boils down to -- it's not pro- or anti-torture, it's pro- or anti-cowardice. Are you willing to take the risks inherent in being a free people who respect the rule of law or are you more inclined to be a fair-weather patriot who believes in American values only so long as they're convenient? Are you willing to accept that bravery is required of a free people or are you going to embrace your inner coward?

I've made that choice. It wasn't really all that difficult. Apparently, those on the right are having a harder time with it.

-Wisco


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The Dalai Lama: A Good Showman but an Empty Robe

The Dalai Lama: A Good Showman but an Empty Robe

Image via Wikipedia

By Grant Lawrence


Audience member: “Can you give us an example of a leader we should look up to as a positive influence?”


Dalai Lama (after thinking for a few seconds): “President Bush. I met him personally and liked him very much. He was honest and straightforward, and that is very important. I may not have agreed with all his policies, but I thought he was very honest and a very good leader.”


The Dalai Lama has been shown to be something of a showman and a likely CIA stooge. He has previously gone on record supporting "just" wars like the one in Iraq and the War on Terror.


Unfortunately the Dalai Lama has put his own cause above the cause of humanity. The Dalai gets a great deal of US support (likely financial) for his continued discrediting of the Chinese government on the issues of Tibet. In 2007, Bush presented the Dalai Lama with the Congressional Medal of Freedom for his support of US policies around the world.


The people of Tibet and their treatment are an important issue. However, the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and all of those countries suffering under the policies of Global Empire (globalization) are no less important.


The Dalai Lama's words are beautiful and his smile is pleasant, but his moral character is lacking. The Dalai Lama writes (if in fact he writes all of his books) about the need for compassion and the negation of selfishness. However, the Dalai Lama has demonstrated an inability to feel or care for other oppressed peoples besides Tibetans.


Real compassion for all people would have meant that the Dalai Lama would have made strong statements against aggressive wars for resources and strategic positioning for empire. Abandoning selflessness would have meant that the Dalai Lama would recognize that the struggles of the Tibetan people should be aligned with the struggles of all oppressed peoples.


One could argue that the Dalai Lama is goofy and incapable of understanding the massive evil of the military industrial complex. But the Dalai Lama is astute at promoting himself and his cause, therefore it is highly unlikely that the Dalai is a fool. Rather his survival and that of his particular branch of Buddhism has much to do with his intelligence and abilities.


Humanity is in dire need of real moral courage and compassion. Sadly the Dalai Lama has shown himself to be a better showman than person. His words and actions at such a critical time in human history will likely create an unhelpful Karma for himself (if you believe in what he preaches). But more importantly for the world, the Dalai Lama is promoting a Karma (war) that will likely mean that many continue to suffer around the world.


The Dalai Lama has a great Karmic responsibility for his actions.

News Roundup for 5/1/09

The Georgia Republican Party Steering Committee

-Headline of the day-
"Poll: One-Third Of Georgia Republicans Approve Of Secession."

A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll found that about one-third of Georgia Republicans would be cool with seceding from the union. Seems to me they tried that once. It didn't work out well. There was this big war and Atlanta got all burned and it all got turned into a potboiler book that started the whole romance novel industry. Seriously, it was just a big mess.

Of course, the results all depended on how you asked the question. Asked, "Would you approve or disapprove of Georgia leaving the United States?" only 32% of Peach State GOPers approved.

But asked, "Do you think Georgia would be better off as an independent nation or as part of the United States of America?" 43% said that it'd be better of as an independent nation. So, barring secession, I guess that about 11% of Georgia Republicans hope we'll kick them out. Otherwise, the question is asking the same damned thing a different way. I question the effectiveness of Georgia schools.

Still, one thing we can take away from this is that Georgia Republicans join Texas Republicans in their blind hatred of America -- given the classic choice of "America; love it or leave it," a significant number choose "leave it." I'll bet they love them some terr'ists, too.

You know how the GOP grandstands on who is or isn't patriotic? They can just go ahead and knock that off now.

And I get to beat this "you hate America!" schtick into the ground now -- especially since it's clear that so many of you actually do. Payback's a bitch, ain't it Republicans? (Talking Points Memo)


-Cartoon time with Mike Fiore-
Hey kids, forget swine flu, catch Taliban Fever!


Click for animation

Scarier than your 401k! (MarkFiore.com)


-Speaking of secession-
You remember how Texas Gov. Rick Perry hates America so much that he, like half of Georgia Republicans, might just secede? Turns out that'd be a real bad deal for Texicans. According to the report, the state of Texas "has received federal disaster assistance more frequently than any other in the Union."

In terms of just FEMA money alone, Texas has received $3,449,142,397 since the beginning of Perry's first term in 2001. That's three-billion, 400-million dollars and change. If Texas had to scrape together all that on their own, they'd run out of Texican pesos or rubles or zlotys or whatever right quick and pronto. Then Perry would have to raise taxes on all the newly independent teabaggers by a stupid-huge amount.

Hell, they'd probably have to cut back to only three executions a week. (MoJo Blog)

Hang on Tight, Things are Going to Get Stupid

I generally have my morning post planned the night before. I find the story I want to write about, bookmark all the sources and citations I want to use, and I'm done. All that's left is to arrange it all into a cohesive and logical statement of some kind. Sometimes, while I'm doing this, the news landscape completely changes and what I was planning on writing about gets blown out of the water by new information. At other times, most of the information I've gathered still works, but the focus of the post changes. The news that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is going to retire is an example of the latter. In this case, I was going to write about how screwed Republicans are. Souter's retirement changed that slightly -- now I'm writing about how much more screwed they're going to be.

First off, what I was originally planning to write about; internal polling shows the Republican party is losing every argument. Partial polling results leaked to the Associated Press shows that the GOP is "widely viewed by the public as less competent than Democrats to handle issue ranging from health care to education and energy." AP says the polling was "presented to top GOP officials in Congress." The poll also shows that Obama has been making significant gains among "self-described conservative, independent voters."


The Associated Press obtained partial results of the survey, which was conducted in late March by New Models, a firm with close ties to Republicans. GOP lawmakers in Congress have generally opposed Obama's early legislative agenda, voting with near unanimity against economic stimulus legislation and unanimously against a White House-backed budget that cleared Congress on Wednesday.

The survey found the public holds greater confidence in Democrats than in Republicans in handling most of the issues that are involved in Obama's legislative agenda.

Democrats were favored by a margin of 61 percent to 29 percent on education; 59 percent to 30 percent on health care and 59 percent to 31 percent on energy. Congress is expected to consider major legislation later this year in all three areas.


The only issue that Democrats didn't lead Republicans on was the "war on terror." And even there they weren't ahead, the poll put both parties at a tie on the issue. The Republican party has no advantages, only disadvantages.

Worse, the defection of Arlen Specter to the Democratic party has moderate Republicans complaining that many their party are out to get them -- and they're right.

The solution to all of this is to put together a "panel of experts" and send them on a big PR tour. "Experts at what?" would be a good question, since the panel is made up of former Republican National Committee head Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

So basically four right wing ideologues and John McCain -- who I guess is still supposed to be some kind of "maverick." To give you an idea of how wrongheaded this whole idea is, Sarah Palin is reportedly also being considered.

These people will go around the country holding townhall events and report back to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Still, give them points for trying. The best thing they could possibly take away from these things is that everyone thinks they're crazy. And the best and most constructive thing they could do in response would be to spend most of their energy putting bags over the heads of party members like Michele Bachmann and downplaying the influence of the base -- who are crazy.

So the news that David Souter is going to retire must've come as bad news to any Republican interested in actually rebranding the party and thinking two or three moves ahead. There's nothing on Earth that brings the crazies out of the woodwork like a Supreme Court nomination. I can practically guarantee that someone's out there, writing a chain-email claiming that Barack Obama is going to appoint a radical Islamist to the court in order to bring Sharia law to the United States, right now, as you read this.

The craziness is already starting to seep in. In a press release, Americans United for Life pretty much demands that Barack Obama, the pro-choice president, nominate a pro-life judge. And they seem to think this is reasonable. Over at the conservative National Review, legal pundit Ed Whelan warns that Barack Obama "should be made to pay a high price for appointing a liberal judicial activist who will do his dirty work for him."

When you're going to try to convince everyone that you're not crazy, it's probably a little counterproductive to have the base engaging in shrieking, hyperbolic insanity. And the sad fact -- sad for Republicans anyway -- is that there's absolutely no way to stop that from happening. The religious right is going to lose it, the gun lobby are going to lose it, the people who see socialism everywhere are going to lose it, the people who think Obama's a terrorist mole are going to... well, the people who think Obama's a terrorist mole are going to lose it even more. You think those teabaggers made for bad PR? Imagine them doing that as a fulltime job.

This new Republican PR push is probably doomed now. Souter's retirement will shine a spotlight on the insanity of the movement conservatives. If you're trying to convince everyone you're not crazy, it's not helpful to have all your lunatic friends vouching for you.

-Wisco


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