DoJ Partisanship Reminder

Just a reminder on why that whole Department of Justice thing was important. Not only was the Bush Administration illegally hiring only "Loyal Bushies" to supposedly nonpartisan jobs in our blind justice system, but they were also illegally pressuring prosecutors to prosecute only Democrats, and to do so right before elections.

For the first five years after 9/11, when they were given increased power to pressure prosecutors via the Patriot Act, federal investigations skewed 79%-18% against Democrats. And yet, they've still been bagging Republicans left and right, from Tom Delay to Scooter Libby to Abramoff to Ted Stevens.

This went so far that people in the independent Department of Justice swore an oath to the President! Or, at the very least, they believed that they had taken an oath to President Bush, rather than to the Constitution.



It shouldn't have to be said, but the vast majority of employees of the Justice Department are supposed to be civil servants. They are the people's employees. The White House has its own lawyers, thank you very much. When the White House is allowed to exert too much influence on the DoJ, there cannot be true Justice for all, and that is unAmerican.

Thank you, Republicans, for making the future President Obama the most powerful President in the history of our great Republic. Limited Government, indeed!

Our President in China

Thanks, Pres. Stay classy.

Wont it be nice when he have a President that doesn't make us cringe?

Suskind Reveals More Impeachable Offenses

Ron Suskind has another book out, and it's a doozy. I'll just quote extensively from one of the ObamaCons:

The former head of Britain's MI6, Sir Roger Dearlove, confirms to Suskind on the record that both Bush and Blair received late-breaking but excellent first-hand intelligence that Saddam was bluffing on WMDs. A James Bond character, British spy Michael Shipster, secured a real line of information from an Iraqi intelligence chief. Blair had tasked MI6 with getting to the bottom of the WMD question. Suskind's original source, a high-level American intelligence agent, puts it this way:

"We knew," he says.
"Knew what?"
That there were no weapons in Iraq."

"Sure," I say, "people suspected. Define knew."

Then the story of Michael Shipster, subsequently confirmed by Dearlove. So if we knew there were no WMDs, why did Bush and Cheney go ahead with the invasion? Wouldn't they have known that the lack of WMDs would retroactively destroy the legitimacy of the war? Here's Dearlove's response:

"The problem," Dearlove says, finally, "was the Cheney crowd was in too much of a hurry, really. Bush never resisted them quite strongly enough." His voice trails off as he looks beyond the Old Chruch to the temples o Washington.

"Yes, it was probably too late, I imagine, for Cheney," he says, about stopping the invasion. "I'm not sure it was too late for Bush."

The story of the Bush administration in a single anecdote? Probably, Dick Cheney has a hell of a lot to answer for.

WaPo Hates Obama because of Iraq?

The Washington Post continues its habit of hatin' on people that were right about the Iraq War, with the following biased piece: Obama Tax Plan Would Balloon Deficit, Analysis Finds

Here's the dollar amount Obama would increase the defecit:

According to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Obama's tax plan would add $3.4 trillion to the national debt, including interest, by 2018.

You'd think the Obama number would be huge by comparison with McCain, given the headline treatment. And yet:

According to the Tax Policy Center, McCain's tax plans would increase the national debt by at least $5 trillion over the next 10 years

So, you've got McCain's plan adding at least 1.6 trillion dollars more to the deficit, and yet that only warrants one sentence of text in a story from an ostensibly liberal publication. Right. Damned Liberal Media. (I can't even muster an exclamation point for that today)

The board of this paper supported the war in Iraq, and the editorial page editor supported the war quite forcefully. It must be a terrible feeling to have hundreds of thousands of deaths on your conscience. I can understand those people wanting to lash out at the people who were right, and made them look like such flower-smelling gullible fools in the process.

McCain doesn't speak for campaign

The New York Times takes a look at McCain's campaign, and notices the same thing I have. It seems that anytime McCain breaks news with his own mouth, his staff walks it back within hours. It's embarrassing.

Mr. McCain is known to sign off on big campaign decisions and then to march off his own reservation. Two weeks ago, he publicly disagreed with his own spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, after she used a line of attack against Senator Barack Obama that he had approved after careful strategizing within his campaign. Ms. Hazelbaker raced out of the Virginia campaign headquarters and refused to take Mr. McCain’s calls of apology, aides said, and a plan to have Republican members of Congress use the same critical line about Mr. Obama’s foreign trip fell apart.

This happens with McCain again and again. The most recent one I can think of is his saying that "everything is on the table" regarding "fixing" Social Security. Not 6 hours went by before his spokespeople were saying that raising the payroll tax was not on the table. Brilliant. Or how about the time McCain's campaign was going around questioning the validity of the foreign trip they themselves had goaded Obama into, calling it the first every political rally held overseas. In this case, it was McCain that walked back the campaign, disagreeing with his own staff and showing that he has difficulty controlling the relatively small campaign organization he now leads. It has not been an inspiring performance, thus far.

McCain is Bush II(1)'s 2nd Term.

The Politico carries a discussion of McCain's response to the Georgia conflict:

Obama’s statement put him in line with the White House, the European Union, NATO, and a series of European powers, while McCain’s initial statement—which he delivered in Iowa and ran on a blog on his Web site under the title “McCain Statement on Russian Invasion of Georgia,”—put him more closely in line with the moral clarity and American exceptionalism projected by President Bush’s first term.

A McCain advisor suggested Obama’s statement constituted appeasement, while Obama’s camp suggested that McCain was being needlessly belligerent and dangerously quick to judge a complicated situation.

So, voting for McCain gets you a reinvigoration of President Bush's disastrous first term - the term where he threw all, not just most, caution to the wind. As Glenn Greenwald argued in Tragic Legacy, it this binary, Manichean world view that led to so many of Bush's failures.

Also of note is the fact that we once again have McCain calling the Bush Administration weak appeasers, since the Obama response is in line with the White House. So remember, as Pat Buchanan says, if you want a President that makes the Bush Administration look like Gandhi, vote for John McCain.

Damned Librul Media! (part a million)

Let me see if I understand this. A candidate for President has received a loads of money from a foreigner named Abdullah who is under investigation for corruption and who funnels money to the campaign through Jordan... and it doesn't seem to be getting any traditional media coverage.

Damned Liberal Media! Why aren't they talking about this story? Oh, right. Because it's about John McCain.

Not that Republicans are ever going to give up whining about it, but the media isn't biased. It's just incompetent.

Hamdan Sentenced to Five Months!

Salim Hamdan, the man who won such a stunning victory in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld before the Congress took it away with the Military Commissions Act, was just convicted of being a dastardly driver for Al Qaeda.

The kicker, though, is that this panel of military officers only sentenced him to serve another 5 months or so, since his years already in captivity are credited against his sentence. The reason for this becomes clear when you remember that since he is considered a enemy combatant for doing all that evil driving, when his sentence is over the Bush Administration reserves the right to continue detaining him until the conclusion of the Global War on Terror.

Essentially they sentenced him to serve out the remainder of the Bush Administration. "These guys aren't going to let you out anyway, so we're giving you the lightest possible sentence." The lightness of the sentence proves that his crimes are not serious, I think.

Edwards the Douchebag

I knew there was something wrong with that guy:

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

What a scummy asshole. And yes, I believe that is the harshest language I've ever used on this blog. Appropriate, I'd say.

As for him not being the child's father, that's just one more lie. Edwards is now telling us that although he knew he was under investigation by the media, he went to see his mistress' newborn baby even though it wasn't also his own? Does that really sound likely?

Obama is the Antichrist

Eschatologists (end-times Christians) agree that the second coming of Christ will be proceeded by the Antichrist - a charismatic leader who will bring together the world under the false messages of peace and transcendence. He will build this unity in order to turn it to his own dark purposes, culminating in leading the world into the battle of Armageddon. That ol' Antichrist. He invented the bait and switch.

Of course, the Republicans are running with it:

America has never faced so many different crises at the same time in living memory. The war with al-Qaida and Islamic terror, the Iran crisis, Afghanistan, nuclear proliferation, the rising price of oil, the falling dollar, enemy acronyms like OPEC, NAM, OIC, U.N. ... Obama is correct in saying that the world is ready for someone like him – a messiah-like figure, charismatic and glib and seemingly holding all the answers to all the world's questions.

And the Bible says that such a leader will soon make his appearance on the scene. It won't be Barack Obama, but Obama's world tour provided a foretaste of the reception he can expect to receive.

He will probably also stand in some European capital, addressing the people of the world and telling them that he is the one that they have been waiting for. And he can expect as wildly enthusiastic a greeting as Obama got in Berlin.

The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance.

I'm not saying he's the Antichrist, I'm saying that the bible says that someone just like him is the Antichrist. Hilarious.

Even Time is getting in on it!

The ad was the creation of Fred Davis, one of McCain's top media gurus as well as a close friend of former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed and the nephew of conservative Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. It first caught the attention of Democrats familiar with the Left Behind series, a fictionalized account of the end-time that debuted in the 1990s and has sold nearly 70 million books worldwide. "The language in there is so similar to the language in the Left Behind books," says Tony Campolo, a leading progressive Evangelical speaker and author.

As the ad begins, the words "It should be known that in 2008 the world shall be blessed. They will call him The One" flash across the screen. The Antichrist of the Left Behind books is a charismatic young political leader named Nicolae Carpathia who founds the One World religion (slogan: "We Are God") and promises to heal the world after a time of deep division. One of several Obama clips in the ad features the Senator saying, "A nation healed, a world repaired. We are the ones that we've been waiting for."

...

Perhaps the most puzzling scene in the ad is an altered segment from The 10 Commandments that appears near the end. A Moses-playing Charlton Heston parts the animated waters of the Red Sea, out of which rises the quasi-presidential seal the Obama campaign used for a brief time earlier this summer before being mocked into retiring it. The seal, which features an eagle with wings spread, is not recognizable like the campaign's red-white-and-blue "O" logo. That confused Democratic consultant Eric Sapp until he went to his Bible and remembered that in the apocalyptic Book of Daniel, the Antichrist is described as rising from the sea as a creature with wings like an eagle.

Yup. Obama's campaign seal is a hidden message to the Satanists out there. That's gotta be good for a few Satan-lover points in the general election, right?

(h/t the GOS)

Arizona Reporters

The clip-n-save version of this piece from Amy Silverman, an Arizona reporter that has been covering McCain for 15 years. The article is a compendium of all the interesting McCain stories from the last three decades.

Some of it (the Keating Five story) is familiar, though I hadn't known that the decision of the Senate Ethics Committee to blame McCain less than the others was based in part on the fact that some of his misconduct had taken place when he was a member of the House.

New stuff (to me):

1. McCain arranges for an extortion investigation against he guy who blew the whistle on his wife's theft of medicine from the charity she ran.

2. McCain brings a reporter with him on a visit to the ailing Mo Udall.

3. McCain threatens the job of a federal scientist for sticking to his opinion about whether a University of Arizona project threatens an endangered squirrel species.

4. A Republican governor is driven from office and replaced by a Democrat, Rose Mofford, who previously served as Secretary of State and has little knowledge of the Central Arizona Project, a huge piece of Federal pork. McCain helps Republican efforts to get her recalled by setting her up to be blindsided at a Senate hearing just eight days after she is sworn in. He gleefully brags about his role at lunch with a newspaper publisher — "I'll embarrass a Democrat any time I get the chance" — then proceeds directly to tell a bunch of reporters "I'd never do anything like that." He later calls the Governor and tells her "I didn't have anything to do with that."

Silverman also has stories about the cream-puff treatment McCain has gotten from the press. No reason to think that will change just because she has some facts.

Very interesting article. For those of you unfamiliar with McCain's self transformation into the maverickey identity that took him through 2003, the Keating Five scandal is particularly instructive.

Tire Gauges vs Offshore Drilling

Obama is being mocked for suggesting that if Americans would inflate their tires and perform regular maintenance, the benefits would be greater than if we gave the Republican Oilmen exactly what they want on Offshore Drilling. Furthermore, those results would be immediate, whereas the Offshore drilling wont have any affect at all for a decade.

Well, it turns out that everyone agrees with him. Of course, not that that will stop the mockery. "Ol' Obama's acting smart again! Actin' big for his britches!"

The Bush administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 barrels per day by 2030. We use about 20 million barrels per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage by 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone else did, we could reduce demand several percentage points immediately. In other words: Obama is right.

Word.

Update: The man himself:

"At Least Bush Deserves Credit for US Not Getting Attacked Again"

Even on talk radio everyone seems to hate President Bush. The most vigorous defense of their previously beloved President they can muster is to say that "well at least President Bush deserves credit for keeping us safe since 9/11."

There are a couple of things wrong with this, either of which is fatal to the argument.

First, and most obviously, we have not been kept safe since September 11, 2001. Although it had been swallowed by the memory hole until just recently, everyone should remember the Anthrax Attacks - attacks that only targeted "liberals." So, even on its own terms this argument is incorrect.

More significantly, however, is the fallacy of timing. Conservatives employing this argument will always list the terrorist attacks that predated 9/11 in order to drill home the impressiveness of us "not being attacked again since." The list will look something like this:

It was one of series of terrorist attacks that included the blackhawk down incident, the first World Trade Attack, Kobar Towers Attack, the Twin Embassy Attack, the USS Cole Attack...

"Wow," you think, "that was a lot of attacks from 1993 to 2001." Of course, only one of those attacks is a good analogue for the 9/11 attacks. Only the first attack on the WTC in 1993 was an attack on a civilian target, inside America. If one were to include attacks like the USS Cole Attack the number of terrorist strikes on "America" would have gone up astronomically thanks to Bush. Given that the first WTC attack was eight years before Al Qaeda's second attack on our soil, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect something like another 8 years until they try again. That puts it out of Bush's Presidency, and therefore not something to credit him with.

I know this is just the last refuge of a conservative movement that once followed George W. Bush as if he were the physical avatar of the God of Conservatism, but that doesn't mean I should leave it to provide even that illusory comfort, right? President Bush, after what he did to this country, deserves all the blame and derision we can heap on him.

Iraq's Progress

The Iraqi Provincial Elections have been canceled. So much for that.

Despite intense U.S. pressure, Iraqi leaders failed Sunday to resolve differences over how to govern the oil-rich city of Kirkuk — a dispute that is blocking provincial elections and stoking tension in the volatile north.

Yup. That's what I've been saying. They make enough progress for us to talk about it back here in the press, then everything falls apart before they actually pass the thing. This allows the "we are winning in Iraq" storyline to remain alive.

Also, this is further evidence that some real pressure on the Iraqis is necessary to get this type of political reconciliation to take place. Currently, with the open-ended Bush-McCain policy, they know that all the "intense U.S. pressure" imaginable wont matter in the real world. The leaders can dawdle all they like because they know the American military will be there to keep them alive. Once you start putting hard deadlines on withdrawal, however, it becomes clear very quickly that they need to make their fellow Iraqis stop killing each other, lest the rulers themselves fall under the knife.

Once again, Obama was right.

Molecular Visualizations

Best freaking video ever:



This is still about politics, mind you! Republicans hate knowing this stuff. :)

I love seeing this stuff work. At the lowest level, we're just driven by thermodynamics. Amazing.

McCain Troops Ad Blowback

Remember the ad that McCain released criticizing Obama for not visiting the troops, using footage of Obama visiting the troops? Well, the media was there in Germany, and they didn't like being brought in as collaborators in the lie. The blowback has been pronounced.



Next time you lie about Obama, just leave the media out of it. Then they'll repeat it like they're supposed to.

Obama's Substance

I have always found this as well. Obama gave a talk at YKos that moved the room.

Michael James, 33, an active military officer assigned at Patrick Air Force Base, said he was "definitely inspired" by Obama's speech. "The media says you don't get substance, but he answered everyone's questions with substance," James said.

In terms of the economy, one of the last questions an audience member posed to Obama was when will the change happen? When will the economy get back on its feet? "I think he gave a real respopnse," James said. "It's not going to change overnight but the things we do now, policies put in place now, can bring about change."

(h/t dansac)

McCain's Answer to the Decembrists

Oh, it hurts so bad. McCain is sooooo pathetic.

With that, country music star John Rich launched into a spirited "Country First" concert on behalf Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tonight featuring his number-one hit "Lost in This Moment with You" and the debut of a song he had written especially for the presumptive GOP nominee, "Raising McCain."

The free concert, sponsored by the Florida Republican Party, attracted several hundred people including a fan sporting a homemade T-shirt saying, "Don't let the USA become an Obama-Nation."

The 34-year old Rich, saying he was feeling "a little feisty," delivered a tune about American conquest with the introduction, "Here's an oldie but goodie about America kicking a little butt."

Remember, one of the ways the right has sought to diminish Obama's popularity has been to say that his record-breaking crowds are coming for the bands that open for him. The 75,000 in Portland, Oregon were said to be there to see the Decembrists. Right. They've also said that it was the opening bands for Obama in Berlin that attracted the 200,000 America lovers.

Now McCain has his own musical extravaganza, and it's an utter, complete flop. How unbelievably embarrassing for that guy. McCain 2000 should challenge McCain 2008 to a fight over his besmirched honor and reputation.

Maddow Needs a Show.

The last 20 seconds of this piece are an absolutely beautiful beatdown by Rachael Maddow.



Sounds like I would agree.

McCain the Elitist

We've heard a lot about Obama being an elitist in this campaign. That's right, the guy that still had student loans until a few years ago is an elitist.

By contrast, John McCain wears $520 shoes:


He has 8+ houses. His wife thinks the "only way to get around is by small jet." He carries a six-figure credit card balance.

Who's the elitist again?