…where Obama had bin Laden cornered and then let him slip away, rightwingers would declare it proof that he was a Manchurian candidate.
Of course, had 9/11 occurred on a Democrat’s watch, it would have been the ultimate example that Democrats weren’t fit to defend the country. A war [...]
Hey, fiscal conservatives…how many of these can you get behind?
I counted nine, and could imagine many more methods along those lines (e.g. end Drug War). Of course, I’m a liberal therefore I cannot be fiscally responsible. The teabaggers would quarrel with just about every one of those budget control [...]
Every once in awhile, people explain how the world works (hat tips to Sullivan and some other dude who netted it):
Remember too that when you have a progressive tax system, especially when there are surcharges on people making seven-figure incomes, you also have a system where for [...]
WEAK WEAK WEAK! “They’ll wait us out!”
This is why we have to let our empire crumble for another three years? Sending blood and money overseas because it’s just so darn scary that Dick “Deficits don’t matter” Cheney might smirk at us and utter some new catchphrase?
Really, is it [...]
Some people blog continuously. We don’t. We expect that you read lots of blogs and that we don’t need to repeat everything being said out there. We blog when we think it will be interesting on its own merits and as an art form. It’s a reserved, contemplative style. I [...]
I always used to hate when completely non-weird people would declare that about themselves because they liked pickles on toast or something equally inane.
Well, I’ve become everything I hated, so I’m weird because I don’t enjoy blogging while home sick. Reading and storing tabs for later use, watching movies in [...]
Sullivan gives the pious both barrels:
It’s staggering really that modern American Christianism supports wealth while Jesus demanded total poverty, fetishizes family while Jesus left his and urged his followers to abandon wives, husbands and children, champions politics while Jesus said his kingdom was emphatically not of this world, defends [...]
Don’t be afraid. My checking account balance as of today: $0.05
I’ve always been ready to stack jobs, and have usually done so. I’m always the most responsible person on a crew of nutsacks with no direction or work ethic, a by-product of my Iowa upbringing. I have a reasonable [...]
Sullivan recalls:
I remember very vividly a heated argument with Karl Rove over eight years ago in which I worried about spending and deficits. “Deficits don’t matter!” Rove kept repeating in that nasal world-weary tone he has. After a bit, I said, “What do you mean, deficits don’t matter? Don’t [...]
Obama forbids lobbyists from being appointed to federal agency advisory boards and commissions.
Oh, also, forty-one Republican Senators are dead set against his health care bill that insures 36 million people because they were gonna do it under Bush II but they forgot and they really will do it next [...]
Gosh, somebody besides a crazy liberal hippie is noticing that Republicans have overseen the massive inflation of the filibuster, transforming the Senate into a 60 vote body rather than the foreagreed majority vote requirement.
According to research by UCLA political scientist Barbara Sinclair, there was an average of one filibuster [...]
Coralville Courier’s Group2012 (who is probably also commenter Liberal Shark), one of the Thayer boys, offers somebody else’s work (one sample link, this is circulating all over the right-o-sphere) as his own without citation.
Of course, NO IT IS THE DEMOCRATS WHO ARE THE LIARS, but the problem [...]
The Republicans were ready to ban the filibuster after we tried to block the most extreme of Bush’s judicial nominations.
Since the Democrats regained control of the Senate, Republicans have abused the filibuster rule like never before. Until 1970, no session of Congress had more than ten votes on [...]
If you say a beauty queen who couldn’t hack it as governor of Alaska or tell a scrap of truth to save her life shouldn’t be president, the teabaggers get upright and angry because they “identify” with her.
If you point out “Joe the Plumber” was completely wrong in his attack [...]
This has to break some kind of record for number of insanely wrong and empty-headed statements in a row.
Republicans are for good things! Democrats for bad things!
Do we really deserve to be the most powerful country in the world at this rate? Not if these people are calling the shots. [...]
…with roughly a quarter of the stimulus money out the door after nine months, the accumulation of hard data and real-life experience has allowed more dispassionate analysts to reach a consensus that the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working.
The legislation, a variety of economists [...]
Guess what? Republicans think ACORN stole the election for Obama. Not just the wacky teabaggers. 52% of all Republicans. Now Doug Hoffman, pathetic as he already was, has retracted his concession of the race, because he says ACORN stole that election too. Does he have any evidence? Of [...]
The incomparable Ezra Klein:
But what’s the alternative? No one wants an individual mandate. But the folks who spend all their time trying to solve the first problem Ross describes have concluded that you can’t do it without an individual mandate. After all, why do people get priced out of [...]
Europe on track to meet or exceed Kyoto goals.
Meanwhile, if you favor doing anything about carbon emissions in America, you’re now a treehugging liberal, despite the fact that rightwingers have lost the argument everywhere except within their own hermetically sealed media environs.
-jb
[...]Caught five minutes today while running to Subway due to an unexpected work break, as I’m not usually on the road when he’s on.
So Genius Republican Party Leader tells me that Democrats want terrorists kept prisoner in the U.S. because that means more prison guards. Union member prison guards, [...]
May Congress follow the lead of Blizzard Entertainment, and vote on the health care bill “when it’s ready.” Ezra Klein, who’s essential reading on health care reform, points out some of the cost control measures being considered.
The first comes from the excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans. The [...]
Mike was out fishing in Michigan this weekend. While you eagerly await his return, enjoy my favorite Stereolab song via a terrible placeholder video (so you can surf and listen!):
-jb
[...]Republicans and their flagrant abuse of the Constitution for whatever political ends suits them show no signs of stopping soon. Whether it be ignoring the 9th and 14th Amendments (abortion, gay equality), calling perjury over sex “high crimes and misdemeanors,” or tossing out the whole thing over scary brown [...]
Would it surprise you that the Bush administration tried to puff itself up after 9/11 and pretended they responded quickly?
Yet both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney, (John) Farmer says, provided palpably false versions that touted the military’s readiness to shoot down United 93 before [...]
DougJ at Balloon Juice:
I did some searchers on “dithering” in the New York Times and Washington Post archives. In the Times, there were eleven uses of the word post-Cheney out of a total of 47 in the past year. In the Post, there were 36 post-Cheney out of a [...]
Ruth Marcus wonders why Republicans continuously make things up abouth health care reform.
Georgia Republican Tom Price: “This bill, on Page 733, empowers the Washington bureaucracy to deny lifesaving patient care if it costs too much.”
Not true. The bill sets up a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research “in order to [...]
One expects this from middle schoolers. Presidential wannabes?
Even Ann Althouse gives up and declares Palin a hopeless dummy. Her comments thread comes alive with accusations of elitism. Of course, none of them question that a bunch of Ivy League chickenhawks casually manipulate the masses to thirst for [...]
With the next military appropriations bill. Only a tiny minority of Americans anymore believe in hating gays more than defending the country.
Today we salute the veterans, with a special nod to those who served while forced to hide who they really were.
-jb
[...]The Democrats swept two elections across the country, in the West and the South, because they stopped being afraid of being Democrats. As a general rule, Democrats who do their best to impersonate Republicans don’t win races. Democrats who stand up and make the case for voting for a Democrat [...]
If Maddy doesn’t have health insurance and gets sick, though, she may have to die so we don’t become Commies.
-jb
[...]Republican representatives mutate into town hall screamers, trying to drown out voices of opposition instead of challenging them.
-jb
[...]The Catholics endorse the health care reform bill.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops delivered a critical endorsement to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday by signing off on late-night agreement to grant a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions.
“Passing [...]
I really don’t hear many Republicans bragging about their health care plan lately. Seems they were forced to finally come up with one, confirming what everybody already knew, that they had no real plan to change anything.
There’s no question that the Republicans’ bill is cheaper because it does so [...]
A man stands up and speaks with real authority to the fake authorities in Iran. Yet they have reacted interestingly. Mahmoud Vahidnia was, of course, immediately arrested, but now Khameini is projecting a humane image by sparing him further punishment.
“Vahidnia showed a new atmosphere which is the true [...]
It is my contention that were we dealing with a genuine opponent in Republicans, instead of a gang controlled by the know-nothing musings of the Beck/Palin/Limbaugh Idiot Trinity, this piece by the Brookings Institution may carry some weight.
The proposal starts from the conclusion that the standard short-term measures to [...]
Except when they shove a broomstick up their asses.
Earlier this fall, Coburn placed holds on S 252, the Veterans Health Care Authorization Act of 2009, and S 728, the Veterans’ Insurance and Benefits Enhancement Act of 2009, which led to the introduction of S 1963, which combines key [...]
I don’t believe Dick Armey raped a woman in 1980 and another in 1994 (both in Fargo), but I’m okay if other people do.
-jb
[...]1. Enough of the trembling in your boots already Democrats, you damn lily-livered cows. Never be afraid to run against a teabagger candidate who Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are excited about. If you can’t take down a politician beholden to those idiot kings, you suck. Obama has earned the [...]
For those of us who remember the daily announcements of new things Bush was screwing up, only to be told his presidency would rest on how some country on the other side of the globe turned out (not that that criteria worked out so well for him)…details matter.
While President [...]
The past week or so we’ve been visited by a couple commenters who have come here to condemn us. My mistake, apparently, is in not throwing up my hands and surrendering immediately.
Let me be clear: at Iowa Liberal, we have a feisty spirit but a respect for the principles of [...]
Liz Cheney tried slamming Obama for greeting and honoring the newly dead of war. Except to do so, she claims Bush did the same thing regularly, without cameras.
Except Bush never went.
One could surmise that Liz Cheney simply recognizes that this is how one rises to the top of the [...]
The Dean Lord of Washington CW, David Broder, come up with a unique angle to attack the opt-out public option and Harry Reid: Nobody should be denied health care based on where they live!
Then maybe no goddamn states should opt-out, should they, Broder? Why is Harry Reid being blamed [...]
A perfect member of the Beltway, Hiatt never needs to be right, he just needs to serve powerful interests:
Or consider the remarkable exchange that took place this week between Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, and Fred Hiatt, The Washington Post’s opinion editor. Mr. Hiatt had criticized Congress [...]
Everything is bad news for Democrats. DougJ states the rule:
There is nothing, nada, zilch, zero, nothing, that is bad news for conservatives. When they win elections, it proves we’re a conservative country. When they lose, it proves it. When we pass health care bills, it proves it. When [...]
It’s not so much betrayal as being plain wrong on the public option. But that doesn’t stop Joe Lieberman, who acted like a Republican until Obama came into office, minded himself, and waited for the perfect moment to declare himself the most powerful person in the country.
Lieberman doesn’t have [...]
However it was done, the public option (with opt-out) is in the bill. Holy smokes.
Harry Reid may have sensed that the only way forward for him was to get strong on a popular bill. If it took an electoral threat to put some steel in his spine, may the [...]
In the United States, the Obama administration is in the process of appealing a sound federal appellate court ruling last April in a civil lawsuit by Mr. Mohamed and four others. All were victims of the government’s extraordinary rendition program, under which foreigners were kidnapped and flown to [...]
[youtube YRx5ethd8JU]
They’re right about Fox. No need to make a big fuss about it…just keep Fox swearing they’re doing journalism, and let people look for themselves.
-jb
[...]Wow, something good the Obama administration has done, and I actually found out about it from a conservative.
When Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan came to office, they created a $4.3 billion Race to the Top fund. The idea was to use money to leverage change. The administration [...]
Asked on CNN a few minutes ago, “President Obama is leaving medical marijuana alone but just had a huge crackdown on illegal drugs. CAN HE HAVE IT BOTH WAYS?”
Well, since medical marijuana is legalized in 14 states, of course he can. The same way he can also not arrest [...]
Invade the remains, rape the women, behead the men. Sell the body parts. Make bone scalpels and perform abortions with them. Etc.
More details in our ongoing war against Fox News. Turns out Fox hadn’t asked for the Ken Feinberg interview.
The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn’t on the [...]
Hugh Hewitt demonstrates why he’s better at being a hack radio host than a lawyer, trying to get some kind of win on Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is remarkably patient with Hewitt’s constant attempts to find holes in evolutionary theory. At one point, Hewitt suggests that the fact that evolutionary [...]
Long (but fascinating) article for a guy who says he ain’t got no more attention span.
The human brain is almost infinitely malleable. People used to think that our mental meshwork, the dense connections formed among the 100 billion or so neurons inside our skulls, was largely fixed by [...]
Just imagine if we had a counter-insurgency strategy against gangs, one conceived with as much brainpower and lateral thinking as the military could generate. What if we actually had enough armed forces on watch in our troubled areas to stamp out crime? Not as killers, as peacekeepers. Coupled with the [...]
People like to remind us that unemployment hasn’t been this bad since…most of Ronald Reagan’s first term. Those who gloat about that, strangely, worship Reagan. Nevertheless, any Republican would tell you that Reagan took care of Wall Street, and the economy exploded.
Anybody can figure out why the market [...]
Sullivan posts a picture of a guy who had the gay-hatin’ passage from Leviticus tattooed on his arm. A pastor offered a corrective citation:
Too bad the guy with the passage from Leviticus tattooed on his arm didn’t read the next chapter:
“You shall not make any gashes in [...]
Swiftboater Jerome Corsi (have I mentioned that I have a) Ph.D provides the opening for a return to the classic figment of rightwing paranoia, the “black helicopters” business, and Sean Hannity gladly hosts.
He starts right off the bat by joining two rightwing talking points, the blacks at ACORN [...]
Obama has been collecting scalps in Pakistan, even avenging the death of Benazir Bhutto.
How can this be? We aren’t torturing anybody!
-jb
[...]Just read the headline, but you know what they’re going to say. I mean, nobody has found the limits of who rightwingers want to invade, bomb, and kill, but we should listen very carefully to their opinions on a prize for peace.
-jb
NEW BUZZ OBAMA IS A NARCISSIST HE USES “I” IN HIS SPEECHES…
…less than George W. or Clinton. Dammit!
-jb
[...]Fred Armisen may have done his funniest Obama skit Saturday night, in the way one might say, “I just had my best root canal.” It was good medicine, but a little ouchy-ouch. Obviously the mouth-breathing goons out there have taken some delight in the skit, but they forget the opening [...]
They have some crappy bills their leaders don’t care about, because if Democrats incorporated them, the GOP would still vote “no.” And then their whole goddamn ruse would be exposed.
It’s about that simple. Had McCain won, health care reform wouldn’t be on the table at all. And the dead [...]
And the wingers at Conservapedia are just the people to fix it.
Rightwingers across the land, hear ye, hear ME: Take a stand against this, or…
…well, shit, you already jumped the shark with Sarah Palin, but you’re definitely going to Hell. And they won’t let you bring your Free Market [...]
Not much room to defend Roman Polanski. Whatever plea bargain he didn’t think was going to be honored, going on the lam isn’t a solution. Because they’re right to catch you, and then you have to be punished for running. Had he stayed, there’s this amazing process called an [...]
If this crap is how one can “take back America” (hint: notice how it’s ultimately about power? Do you see any real policy expectations from Republicans? If so, how come they didn’t happen when they were very recently entirely in power?), then I say Democrats just go one step [...]
First Glenn Beck melts down into a babbling schizophrenic when asked what white culture is:
Now Michelle Bachman doesn’t want to comment on the grisly killing of the Census worker.
By all means, I would give her any chance she wants to answer the question fully. [...]
If only everybody could think like them. Hannity interviewed Limbaugh back in June. Limbaugh:
He’s too big to fail. He’s historic. He’s the first African-American president. They — most of these media people came of age in the civil rights era. This, to them, is Nirvana.
He can’t make a mistake. [...]
Photographer sees his photo cropped to focus on Dick Cheney cutting steak, goes on a rant about “journalistic integrity,” because the image of Dick Cheney cutting steak “implied something sinister, macabre, or even evil.” Of course, Dick Cheney smelling flowers could imply “something sinister, macabre, or even evil.”
In the [...]
I don’t think I know a single gay person right now. Well, there are my lesbian and transgender cousins, but…I dunno. My wife and her family have a pretty far-ranging social circle, I work with tons of people…but nobody talks about it on the job, even the gay people. This [...]
We win the elections, we win the argument, we get the public on the side of health care reform.
Nobody’s told Rahm Emmanuel yet, but the teabaggers are turning off Americans. It became a battle of Glenn Beck vs. Obama, and America made a rather simple and obvious choice. [...]
On the possibility that some Democrat might be a chickenshit and join the filibuster:
“People have lost seats on procedural votes,” said Tad Devine, a long-time Democratic strategist. “That is what happened in the 1994 election, when President Clinton’s economic package went into law and a number of Democrats in [...]
Arresting and stigmatizing kids who have sex:
It takes so little for this happen to a child. A girl in school has oral sex with a boy in school. She becomes a sex offender for the rest of her life. Streaking a school event, as a practical joke, becomes a [...]
I’m convinced I have to try to see Fleet Foxes live, and I haven’t seen anybody live since Interpol in 2003.
-jb
[...]Watch out with those threats, Harry! Republicans might say mean things about you!
If you don’t mean it, Harry, then hand over the reins.
-jb
[...]We understand that it is immoral for health insurance providers to withdraw care once you’re sick after you’ve paid into the system for years or decades. Why is it any less immoral for somebody to opt out of health insurance while they’re healthy, if the government is offering financial assistance? [...]
Jewish man reacts the obvious way to teabaggers using Hitler/The Holocaust in vain:
A week after his arrest, Gasparian was still emotional. He said he recalled his miserable childhood in Armenia, where, because of the war, some days he had no more to eat than a small piece of sugar [...]
A Sullivan reader points out how short free market rhetoric falls when it comes to prescription drugs:
Sick people will consume only the quantity they need to stay alive/healthy, but will pay any price for that. If pricing was left up to the market, supply and demand for patented, life-saving [...]
Republican claims to fiscal conservatism are completely baseless. An actual conservative, Bruce Bartlett, explains the reality: No Republican has any serious plan to deal with the deficit. 54% of discretionary spending goes to defense spending, and they’re deficit hawks now?
In short, there is no evidence that it is politically [...]
One of the first warning signs in arguing with a winger that they’re a racist is the line, “you get accused of being racist for opposing Obama’s policies!”
Nobody gets accused of being racist for disagreeing with Obama’s policies. They get accused of it for saying [...]
Bill O’Reilly comes out in favor of the public option, seeing it exactly for what it is:
Stunning. This opens up a huge fissure on the right. Bill O’Reilly actually chooses to calm down for five seconds and see that the public option would provide much needed care to everybody.
In [...]
Hey, Nebraska, thanks for this guy:
Many Senate Democrats, noticeably lacking in anything approaching party unity, have proudly stepped up with promises to scuttle several elements of President Obama’s budget, including some that would cut federal spending by billions of dollars.
“The most emblematic objection has come from Nelson, who is [...]
Interpol fans, take note:
Like Dave Gahan and Thom Yorke before him, Banks turns out a solo album that sounds like his band anyway, so no fears.
-jb
[...]Democrats have perpetually failed by being afraid to use their best arguments forcefully, so as to club their enemies about the head, neck and chest area and turn those ideas into real, valuable, pragmatic policies.
President Barack Obama is, so far, the master of political rope-a-dope. Time and time again he [...]
On Glenn Beck fans running schools who are freaking about Obama’s speech:
Asked if the Collier school district would have made the same ruling about webcast “logistics” if Obama’s Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, had proposed making a similar speech to U.S. students, a spokesman for Thompson told TIME, “exactly.” [...]
They tried to ambush him and ended up in a sane policy discussion. Beautiful.
Lead the way, Al. Republicans will continue to seek instant gratification by stoking the Beck/Limbaugh nutbase, but it can’t endure if Democrats keep doing this. Keep things sane, keep things rational, and let [...]
I have yet to see Andrew Breitbart say or write anything where he wasn’t not only being a massive asshole, but also a polished yet shallow whiner. His brilliant insight usually amounts to “Republicans would be hung from the rafters if they did what those Democrats do!” and sure enough, [...]
San Francisco instituted a public option, and some liberal rag dares suggest it would work exactly as Obama’s brownshirts claim.
San Francisco and Massachusetts now offer the only near-universal health care programs in the United States.
Okay, this automatically doesn’t count because it’s San Francisco and Massachusetts (an especially insidious program [...]
Son of Bazerk and Bomb Squad created a rap symphony in three and a half minutes.
Hell, they don’t even make videos like that anymore. I wonder if Spike Jonze saw that back in the day and gleamed some inspiration.
-jb
[...]Of course they were rigged for political effect.
The DHS became a member of the Bush re-election campaign. Therefore, Republicans are okay with it. When they are in power, they see every apparatus of the government as a tool to acquire more power.
Perhaps on health care rightwingers are trying to [...]
You’ve done a good job at getting people to believe things that are demonstrably untrue.
That being what you guys have spent all your energy on, this is a great success for you.
Now let’s see if further examples of journalism persist, wherein journalists continue to describe lies as untrue, or [...]
This line is getting some fiscal conservatives going a-flutter:
This typical person paid around $64,971 in Medicare payroll taxes over his lifetime. Likewise, after netting out Medicare premiums, he’ll receive around $173,886 in lifetime Medicare benefits. The net? He can expect to receive around $108,915 more in benefits than [...]
Gauging today’s news, I’d say the Obama White House and some in Congress have heard the left’s outrage on the public option.
Some of you don’t quite understand a certain idea, and I say this to those people: The system is designed to beat Barack Obama. Dude thought he could [...]
These are things you know to be true.
Ernest Hancock, the online radio host who staged an interview with an assault rifle-wielding cohort at the Obama event in Arizona yesterday — and was himself armed with a 9 millimeter pistol — was a vocal supporter and friend of right-wing [...]
