Fitz is the MAN!

Jane,

Do be careful, these guys play for keeps. We wouldn’t want to loose one our finest minds to some vigilante on a mission.

ummm, glad you’re safe Jane– maybe the manager needs to hear from you…;)

PS I would not suggest this if you lived in, say, Alabama.

Jane,

Come on. Have you been drinking and watching Michael Douglas in “Falling Down” again?

-GSD

Also:

Chimpy’s Got a Brand New Boil

http://www.wonkette.com/politi…..168071.php

Since the odds that Republicans will stop stealing between now and November are about as good as my chances of waking up tomorrow in the body of Liza Minelli.. no wait- that’s not what you want- Jane, you obviously aren’t a regular reader of the National Enquirer…

Does FDL not have a store for t shirts,etc? Am I blind? I can’t find it.

We need to blog directly with the people of Iran to prevent war. How can this be done?

Third takeaway point:

Corruption stories instantly turn against all politicians, depressing turnout.

If Dems don’t get out their base, they won’t benefit from Mr. Cabbie staying home.

Just call any of your admirers in the greater Portland area. I work less than 15 minutes from the airport.

We don’t have to turn guys like this wingnut around. It suffices to get them to stay home and get our people to vote.

The problem with changing the minds of the red states is education. The GOP preys on the uneducated — kind of like Amway. They are so easily swayed by blow-hards like Hannity, Limbaugh and O’reilly.

Off Topic – Josh Bolton collects pictures of Bush’s hands:

His wall collection of Bush photos, typical throughout the White House complex, is unique. The pictures focus exclusively on Bush’s hands at key moments in his presidency. Not a single photo of Bush’s face can be found. “Josh is extremely eclectic,” explained Card. “His knowledge base is much, much broader than just policy or budget numbers.”

http://www.law.stanford.edu/pu…..olten.html

have little power and we excluded by design from participation in the GOP crime syndicate

Three things strike me about this sentence and the one after it:

1. You probably want to change the we to were,

2. You’re right, that’s how they’ll have to counter it, and they’re pretty far along with that strategy already, and

3. There seem to be plenty of “journalists” willing to watch for Mehlman’s faxes.

What’s scary is how many people like your driver there are out there. I run into them fairly often, and they seem perfectly willing to share their views with me. You can’t convince them that not all politicians are on the take, and there’s not much point in trying.

how many people like your driver there are out there

Oh, yeah, Jane, great post. When I saw the headline- at the top of the page- after refreshing the last post- I had this certain feeling that it wasn’t going to be from Taylor.

That’s what you get for being organized enough to drop your car off at the dealership. I would have never found myself in that situation. Here abouts the cabbies are nuts too, tho maybe not where you are. Once had a taxi driver from the airport watching the Superbowl on his portable B&W TV as we cruised along the interstate.

And, as for the debt… I noted yesterday that my tax filing instructions said to make my check out to the “United States Treasury”. I had to cross out “IRS”- I’m not sure the instructions have changed, just that I noticed this for the first time. I thought, yeah, right, and what little drop in the bucket is this going to make against the national debt (plus further nasty thoughts about BushCo.)

I hope they get hit hard on the budget issue. Should be, of course.

I grew up around people like this guy, and your portrayal Jane is right on the money. But his mistrust will evaporate the minute he gets home and turns on the tube and happens to see this on msnbc – a graphic excerpt showing a model of what would happen if say – the Iranians – hit the US with a nuclear weapon (or something even more inflammatory on fauxnews.

An excerpt:

Joe Scarborough: …Monica, is there any possibility that the Iranian leaders that are in charge right now would ever be so irrational as to launch a nuclear attack on cities like Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., if they got this nuclear device?

Monica Crowley: Unequivocally, yes, Joe. And in fact, the hypothetical scenario that you just laid out, that hypothetic ground zero is just a few blocks from where I am sitting here tonight. So, it is an incredibly frightening scenario and absolutely within the realm of possibility given the nature of the regime we‘re talking about. This Tehran regime covers the terrorist Trifecta. They do have weapons of mass destruction, possibly even nuclear at this point. They export terror and they do support al Qaeda.

Then later, she admits that Iran really doesn’t have the capability to hit NY or LA – though they could hit (dading) Israel.

This is getting very scary. Everyone should watch this – these people aren’t kidding. They are bound and determined to have their war.

If you want to see comments verging on racism and mysogyny, drop over to http://edcone.typepad.com/word…..rs_ch.html and look at the comments.

Or don’t bother.

That George Ryan story neglected to add that he is a Repuglican. Totally omitted his party in every story I read yesterday. Therefore, he must be Republican.

I agree that most digruntled republicans will most likely stay home and not vote versus vote democratic. I’ve heard that same complaint that all politicians are corrupt from the republicans I know. I think it’s actually a face-saving measure for the embarrassment of their party.

Nice talking point. The Republicans are ripping off the American people to pay off their cronies and buddies.

Not only did they lie us into disastrous war, they are using the war as a chance to rip off our hard earned tax dollars by giving huge contracts to their buddies at Halliburton and in the oil industry.

I think this is the birth of a very powerful talking point.

Republican corruption matters to the average Joe because it means the politicians are stealing their tax dollars.

Republican Corruption = Republicans Ripping Off America

Case in point, Duke Cunningham. Ripping off our hard earned dollars that were supposed to go toward national defense – funnelling them instead toward fancy antiques and the like.

The Republicans used to have a contract with America.

Now they are Ripping Off America.

Corruption is bad, but, specifically, the idea that they are “ripping us off” is far worse because the word “corruption” doesn’t imply a victim, but “ripping off” or “lying and stealing” certainly does.

Throw the thieving Republicans out.

I think this theme can go a long long way.

As someone who has lived in Illinois for 32 of the past 46 years, I’d opine that former Gov. Ryan is an excellent example of Illinois political corruption, a truly bipartisan phenomenon.

It really has nothing to do with the K Street Project or the [corrupt] national Republican apparatus.

Keep an eye on this state to see what Mr. Fitzgerald’s office does to the Democrats in Chicago and the rest of Cook County.

cathy @ 3:44 pm (#18) I haven’t been keeping notes, but I’m sure that the first time I heard the some version of the phrase “their all crooks” was at least thirty years ago. It’s an old attitude, and probably has more to do with the frustration of being unable to affect things and making excuses not to bother trying.

Can we say “the Republicans have bankrupted our country”? I’d say both morally and fiscally, but that doesn’t make a sound bite.

Convince enough of the wingers that they’ve been ripped off by their beloved Republicans, that they’ve been lied to and had their wallets lifted, and they will do the one thing that is a GOP nightmare: they will stay home come election day. Gay-bashing won’t bring them out–they all know someone in their family or friends who is gay, and they’re shrugging their shoulders a lot these days about the whole gay thing. Iran won’t bring them out–ask a few questions of these guys and you’ll find out there pretty much pissed off about Iraq, too. They know they’ve been lied to and it’s their kids who are dying. I’ve got some classic wingers in my customer base and they’re not happy people at this point. They don’t trust anyone, especially the crew in the White House.
Just one more factor feeding the perfect storm.

Gay marriage, flag burning and abortion. The GOP’ll have him and his good buddies foaming by November.

Think they won’t fall for it again?

‘off his tuffet’

priceless, Jane, priceless — for writing like that you ought to charge admission

we don’t want you ending up in liza’s body

don’t mind the grammarian fruit flies

…waking up tomorrow in the body of Liza Minelli…

What an odd choice of bodies to mention waking up in. Why not Julie Andrews, Charro, or Phillis George?

The difficulty here is not that these guys don’t know they’re being ripped off by the Republicans. They hate the Man, and they know the Republicans are the party of the Man.

The difficulty is that the relentless bile-stream of the VRWC has very deliberately and carefully created a political straw-man that these guys hate MORE than the Man, so when they get into the booth, they vote for the Man rather than the strawman.

The strawman is, of course, the Feminazi-Lezbogay-Minority Welfare Cheat, who not only rips these guys off but also denies their essential manhood.

And every woman, every Latino, every Other that these guys encounter reminds them of this caricature and stokes their anger.

So yeah, reminding them continuously how the Man rips them off (and gets them and their buddies killed) is essential. But it’s gonna take a lot of anger to get them over the hump…

thank god jane is back. with due respect to the guest bloggers, i was feeling a shade estranged at home.

welcome home, jane. your voice IS fdl.

I not only grew up with people LIKE this guy- I may very well have grown up WITH this guy- as Portland is my home town.

Most of em just like to talk- and it’s all bullshit- but they like the cadence of it. Half the time they have no idea what the hell they are even talking about.

I thought you might be a fellow Portlander. Please let folks know that your mouthbreathing chueffer is the exception around here; after all, our local Air America station is the number one liberal talk radio station in the Country.

h2- not from your area, but even w/o the local experience, I believe what you say. When Daley (the Daley now) was being investigated, I saw a clip from a Dem. councilman (can’t remember the right word- Ward person?) saying, well, the federal government operates on the patronage system, and why shouldn’t we be allowed to do that too?

#27 – You forgot to mention the most unifying strawman of all, He-whoever-is-the-latest-turban-wearing-devil-with-weaponsofmassdestruction-who is-about-to-launch-an-imminent-attack-on-Times-Square.

I live a a very red area of a pretty blue state and in my latest conversation this past weekend… the guy I was talking to was a dyed in the wool Republican… while he couldn’t EVER bring himself to vote for a Dem, the Katrina debacle was what corked it for him… the corruption? the icing on the cake.

I recently went back for a lurk at one particularly foul little right-wing backwater I’d discovered last year. Not really a political site but a cyber-redneck cracker barrel. All still there with their feet up, but Iraq was never mentioned, and Bush was being put down as a “loser”, inept, weak. I was stunned, having observed these same guys before. Not right blogosphere guys, but white angry males without much higher education. Something’s happened.

I agree with timewarp, that either terra or flagburnin or thegay will be there in November to get your cabbie to the polls. Like in my state, Wisconsin, the legislature has literally stopped governing. They simply lay the groundwork for the national party to hype the hot button issues, promoting blantantly unconstitutional measures keyed into the great Bushist themes. Then when the voters see the Queen, they will walk into the polls like in the “Manchurian Candidate” and re-elect the do-nothing Bushists.

Does anyone know offhand when the Vegas stint is?

PBS news
“Here in silence are 12 more”

Don’t know what it is going to take to wake up the ditto heads of this country. Yes, getting ripped off is a big part of it. Then there are those in the service who are dreading thinking of the inevitable FOURTH tour they will have to serve in Iraq. . . .

The NOT Woodward is writing in VF about how it is time to hold hearings on W’s incompetence and lies. From Wolcott

“The system has thus far failed during the presidency of George W. Bush—at incalculable cost in human lives, to the American political system, to undertaking an intelligent and effective war against terror, and to the standing of the United States in parts of the world where it previously had been held in the highest regard.

“There was understandable reluctance in the Congress to begin a serious investigation of the Nixon presidency. Then there came a time when it was unavoidable. That time in the Bush presidency has arrived.”

OT/EPU’d from below:
EPU’d on one post and almost on another, so I’m combining them here (and btw Cujo below thread 92??) – the GAO report was very damning and, like the ABA report on NSA surveillance, got nada from the press. *s*

So did anyone ask Kissinger about his “little problem†in the Ford administration, aka the Halloween Massacre?
http://www.paperlessarchives.c…..ripts.html

November 5, 1975 – In the aftermath of the Halloween Massacre, Kissinger calls former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. The “Halloween Massacre” was a move designed by President Ford’s chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld. On October 31, 1975, President Ford removed Kissinger from his role as National Security Adviser and replaced him with his deputy Brent Scowcroft. Kissinger remained Secretary of State..Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and CIA Director William Colby were fired. Donald Rumsfeld replaced Schlesinger as Secretary of Defense and George Bush replaced Colby as CIA director.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
BTW – The time lag on the typing makes my bad typing even worse. It seems to be as the threads get longer. Are we having to wait for NSA to check the posts out before they go up? Can we buy them a cup of coffee and hurry it up?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
massacio 60 (below thread) “Colonel Sam Gardiner who adds to the growing pile of data that we have troops (as opposed to CIA people?) in Iranâ€
Rumsfeld prefers to use military for intelligence – they are under his direct command and he can propagandize their info to his heart’s content, without pesky things like independent analysts. Granted, with Goss at CIA, it is almost the same thing, but it’s like Coke and Pepsi – he can tell the difference and he knows which one he likes best.
Col. Gardiner, btw, did the report early on about planted propaganda stories in the US press in the lead up to Iraq. Someone should maybe tell the “decider†that if Rumsfeld has planted propaganda in the US (in violation of US laws) authorized torture (in violation of US laws) engaged in illegal covert activities in Iraq, Iran, etc. (in violation of US laws)etc. etc. or just managed to royally piss off Congress, ALL civil officers can be impeached. Of course, not “this†Congress.
New Dem Strategy – encourage the use of the “oh no, they’ll impeach Bush!†ads — and respond with “PLUS we’ll take out Cheney & Rumsfeld too†and watch the votes come pouring in. ;-)

Watched Tweety this afternoon. He had “Blankly” and Gergen on to pontificate about the future of the Clusterfuck presidency. Neither of em could really get very interested in the question. Ol Tony made a couple of half hearted attempts to defend Clusterfuck- but I think the consensus is: “It’s all over”. One fuck up after another.

Unfortunately- Clusterfuck’s failure isn’t showing up much yet in the polling for 06.

Santorum’s history- but that was a self inflicted wound. Goopers in Montana, Ohio, and Missouri are also suffering from “footshootitis”. New Jersey is now trending gooper according to Rasmussen (who should never be believed about anything). DC’s political report shows one dem takeover and one gooper takeover at the moment- not a pretty picture. Dems should do better as we go along- but at the moment- a failed presidency is not discouraging many from leaning gooper. Go figure.

The other half of the “you’re being ripped off” meme is “and your money is making the very rich much richer.” The Mehlman Repubs hate it when you play the “class warfare” card — as though there’s a rule against it — but this time, there’s a very powerful hand to be played. Dems would be fools not to play the hand, and that’s how you beat the “everybody does it” defense.
On Saturday, Bush again asked that his tax cuts be extended, and every budget committee meeting, the Repubs try to get one or another piece of it attached to some bill. These are the nasty battles that are not receiving much coverage, but the Dems have been pretty good at staying together against these efforts.

Hey, I’m a guy… I have even less chance of finding myself in Liza Minnelli’s body.

Maybe we can get some rich Democrats to ask for a tax increase? Yeah, that’s the ticket!
I almost turned down a raise last year because it would have put me in the Republican bracket.

Scarecrow–Bingo!

Yeah this is the year to use the issue. The results of the Clusterfuck “economic miracle” are becoming very clear. The rich are gettin richer and the ordinary guy is takin it in the shorts. It’s everywhere.

ccmask,
By “the Vegas stint” do you mean the Yearly Kos?

If so it is June 8-11.

It’s gonna be interesting for sure!

Jane – glad you made it back in one piece! Your story reminded me of an incident I stupidly got myself in while hitchhiking in Santa Cruz when I was 18. I escaped intact, and I realize that even now, a cellphone is only good if you can get to it before he does.

Probably you were never in any danger, but while you’re sitting there, trapped inside the truck, heading godknowswhere, it doesn’t feel very safe.

The underlying issue is not so much the income tax rate rollback- it’s the change in treatment for capital gains and dividend income.

Look at dividend income- even someone with a million dollar portfolio gets very little of it. It’s the guys with 20 million dollars in stocks who are getting off nearly free.

Clusterfuck- an economic miracle for billionaires.

he may hate Muslims and liberals and gays and women and Democrats and Cindy Sheehan but what he really hates is getting ripped off.

No shit Sherlock.

If you want to erode half the Republican base like that (snaps fingers), just repeat after me.

“The war costs too fucking much.”
“You are being ripped off.”

It really is that simple. Corruption (which just causes an ‘is not are too’ argument) isn’t the selling point for these guys, it’s just the total lack of value for what is being spent.

Several months ago I read research done on the blog MyDD about congressional elections since the 60’s where there were significant change in seats. What was the relating factor was the public’s perception of which party was the majority party at the time of the election. I cant seem to find it but it was clear that when the public believed that a specific party was in control and they were unhappy with their performance, they voted them out.

This is why its a “Republican Congress”, Republican Administration, a Republican scandal, that before every phrase must be started with “Republican”.

That is the Repug strategy, to confuse the public on which party is responsible for the current mess. That is WHY it is so important that it is clearly noted that it is Republicans who are going to jail and that everything is controlled by Republicans!

If anyone can find the info, I will keep looking.

U.S. President George W. Bush has dismissed reports of plans for military strikes on the world’s fourth-biggest oil exporter as “wild speculation.”
Analysts predicted the market will rally even further as high oil prices have failed to reduce global demand and it is hard to say how high prices must go.
snip

Do they raise oil until the demand slows down? If Iran is wild speculation, why do oil companies get away with raising the cost? How much of $1.89 a gallon is tax?

Yeah, Revdeb, I couldn’t remember what to call it! I may go…..I think I have located a sponsor.

The guy who’s REALLY gettin fucked is the guy with say $100,000 in household income- and little or nothing from investments. Lots of couples put themselves in that position through hard work- working two jobs each- etc.

They pay payroll tax on everything- they pay much of their tax at near the highest bracket- and they get no relief from the dividend and captial gains rollback- then they get royally fucked with the alternative minimum tax.

If they ever realize that they are paying twice as big a percentage of tax as the guy who inherited 20 million and just clips coupons- they are likely to get pissed!

“Equal treatment for workers and investors!”

Goopers have swallowed the Marxist view of the world- and come down in favor of capital and against labor.

Sorry Jane,but you had me laughing good with the ‘rural’ road trip. I’m guessing you went by a golf course? Probably took you down Columbia Blvd and then back to 82nd Ave to get to the airport. It’s a little rural for Portland. I’m also guessing that the driver was listening to our local
Limbaugh, Lars Larson. He used to be a local newscaster. Now he has shown his true right wing colors on his own talk show, he has all the talking points down pat. A real jerk. Sorry your trip wasn’t a little more pleasant.

“I really wasn’t excited about being Rita Cosby’s encore to Aruba.”

Grim Rita…

hehe

Busted- yeah I was going to ask where the car dealership is. We could probably figure out the route the guy took. Columbia Blvd. is certainly grim territory- just waitin for the river to rise and swallow it up (again).

kurotenshi-lol. Grim Rita. Good one.

ROLLING STONE MAG: BUSH ‘WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY?’
Tue Apr 18 2006 18:30:13 ET

“George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace.”

So declares ROLLING STONE magazine in a planned cover story, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

(Drudge)

Mary at 38: “New Dem Strategy – encourage the use of the “oh no, they’ll impeach Bush!†ads — and respond with “PLUS we’ll take out Cheney & Rumsfeld too†and watch the votes come pouring in. ;-)” I agree.

Bush today jabbed his finger in the air and angrily shouted at the press (paraphrasing), “I’m the decider, and I decide that Rumsfield stays.” Perfect. Say that about Rove too, and Scotty, and . . . We should run that clip all over the country, with the message at the end, “Had enough? It’s time for them to go. All of them.”
Maybe we don’t show it in the four states rw showed earlier today as still showing 50% plus for the Prez.

When President Bush took office, the total national debt was $5.7 trillion.

Should this read = the total national debt limit was…..?

Mary @ at 3:59 pm (#38) – Yes, the GAO report was pretty damning, but I think a shark attacked a white woman that week.

Seriously, outside of the computer industry and the wonks, no one seems to take this issue very seriously. I don’t understand it, other than that it’s kinda complicated. Unfortunately, the decisions are happening at a level where technical people don’t have much influence.

BTW – The time lag on the typing makes my bad typing even worse. It seems to be as the threads get longer. Are we having to wait for NSA to check the posts out before they go up? Can we buy them a cup of coffee and hurry it up?

Nah, they just make a copy of everything as it passes by their listening posts, then they store it in a safe for about four months.

Regarding the shuttle driver enjoying his screaming rant-along with right-wing radio. I get that all the time in this blood-red state I call home. The thing that nettles is not that these guys don’t vote Democratic, it’s how in the world can these economically middle to lower class types vote for the neo-Republicans. I just don’t get it. It’s like, doesn’t the shuttle guy and the poor folks who are losing ground, in places like my beloved Oklahoma and say Mississippi, and most everywhere else, understand that everytime they vote for the bad guys, the Republicans, that they are casting their lot against themselves and their families? Believe me, it wasn’t always so. And I don’t quite know how yet, but I’m going to help change things.

You know, those statements from Harry Reid about Bush’s destruction of the budget surplus and his creation of the biggest deficit in history are all good and factual and damning, of course.

But I wish Sen. Reid and others would take these horrendous facts and bring them home – to the people. Meaning, they need to state the devastating fact (like Bush’s deficit) and then tell people how THE HUGE AND GROWING DEFICIT affects them and their families, their standard of living, their jobs, their healthcare, their on and on and on….day to day to day….PERSONALLY!

Everything we say about the Bush administration and what they’re doing needs to be related to the people on a personal level – then maybe we can make some real progress toward people seeing what Bush is really up to.

Leaving the statistics and the facts just to speak for themselves is one of the things, I think, that makes (at least part of) middle America think Democrats are just intellectuals and such.

Boy, the figures Harry Reid cites are impressive, especially in light of the Bush tax cuts. But Pachacutec has it nailed – the “corruption” and “thievery” memes can only depress turnout, and therefore hurt the big D. Instead, the Dems need to find a compelling positive domestic platform to rally the base in 2006.

That’s not to say that the Dems don’t need to come up with an actual plan for extricating ourselves from Iraq and refocusing our efforts to combat international terrorism – clearly they do. But that’s only what will be necessary to get the Dems into the gate. It’s not going to be sufficient to win seats – let’s not forget just how good we are at screwing up a sure thing.

The “incompetency” meme may be more effective – but not as a purely negative message (and definitely not the half-hearted and flaccid “We Can Do Better.”) Pointing out the consistent and pervasive failures of the Republican- controlled government is, at this point, a fish-and-barrel exercise.

Hell, how about “The Environment” and “Health Care” and “Education”? I’ve gotta admit to being a Gore fan (”I used to be the next President of the United States of America.”), and believe that these issues are even more resonant today than they were in ‘92. Not so much a reactionary “back to the good old days” platform, but rather “Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Program.”

On the other hand, we could always run on the “Hey, at least we don’t believe in the rapture” platform. With “all [nuclear] options on the table”, that could just energize the base a bit, nicht wahr?

#7:

We need to blog directly with the people of Iran to prevent war. How can this be done?

“Baghdad Burning” is a good place to start:

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

The shark waiting to take a massive bite out of Clusterfuck’s ass is the housing bubble. Dems should be starting to set the stage for it by reminding people that Clusterfuck’s borrow and spend plan is inevitably leading to higher interest rates that will endanger home values- it’s HIS bubble- and he’ll cry when he wants to.

The $9 trillion dollar debt ceiling includes borrowing from the “social security trust fund”. The last time I checked what is misleadingly called the “total deficit” for 2006 was $337 billion. This number is artificially low and deceptively does not include the money which is yearly borrowed from social security surpluses and is then spent as general revenue. That is called the “on budget” deficit and is what we really owe. For 2006, again last I checked, it was $518 billion, reflecting $181 billion in “off budget” borrowing mostly from social security.

Waking up in or near Liza Minelli’s body qualifies as a nightmare as far as I’m concerned. Didn’t Kafka write about that?

Kafka was never inside Lisa’s body- said he preferred cockroaches.

Just when we need an anthem
Neil comes through

Broder has a steaming indictment running at WaPo titled “Listen to the Brass”

His concluding paragraphs:

Gen. Newbold makes it plain that he is not advocating immediate withdrawal from Iraq unless the Iraqi political factions fail to form a government and fall into civil war. But he insists new leadership is needed in the Pentagon.

His words echo those of another retired Marine general, Anthony Zinni, whose criticisms were quoted in an earlier column of mine. And there are other notable leaders in civilian life, outside the White House, who have been making the same points publicly for months and even years. Sen. John McCain, a Republican, and Sen. Joe Biden, a Democrat, have been in and out of Iraq more than a dozen times since the start of the war. Both of them supported the war and oppose withdrawal. But both have said repeatedly since their first visits that they have never found an officer of any rank who has not said, privately and urgently, “We need more troops to complete this mission.”

Rumsfeld and President Bush insist that the manpower and strategy have been exactly what the commanders in the field thought best, but now general after general is speaking out to challenge that claim. The situation cries out for serious congressional oversight and examination; hearings are needed as soon as Congress returns. These charges have to be answered convincingly — or Rumsfeld has to go.

davidbroder@washpost.com

Cheney’s tax filing took advantage of Katrina tax law yet none of his contributions went to Katrina-related charities.

Any tax person out there…is this something we can exploit that can relate to the current topic of “being ripped off”?

Totally bizzaro article in the Wapo. Don’t even know where to begin. CIA’s Cash Toppled Taliban.

Some morsels:

While the dinner has been previously reported, the book describes in detail the case Powell made — reading from an outline on loose-leaf paper — that the United States has to have international support against Iraq. “It’s nice to say we can do it unilaterally,” Powell told the president bluntly, “except you can’t.”

[…]

At a climactic meeting in the Situation Room two weeks into the campaign, Bush went around the table, demanding that his aides affirm their support for the strategy. They pledged allegiance to his plan, and his call for alternatives was met with unanimous “no’s.”

“Don’t let the press panic us,” Bush said.

[…]

“I will seize the opportunity to achieve big goals,” Bush said. “There is nothing bigger than to achieve world peace.” Bush, discussing his experiences as a troubleshooter during his father’s presidency and campaigns, said, “The vision thing matters. That’s another lesson I learned.”

[…]

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, whose role has been something of a mystery to those outside the inner circle of the administration, emerges as a backstage broker among members of Bush’s war council who absorbs Bush’s frustration when deliberations or events peeve him. Bush described her as “a very thorough person, constantly mother-henning me.”

And on and on and on…

Jane,

Sorry to break this to you, but a couple of my longtime taxi-driver friends told me that, unlike barbers, taxi drivers seldom vote.

But you’re right that the so-called base is disturbed beyond recent memory. There’s a key to getting them turned and that key seems to be about two or three light years beyond the grasp of the dem’s leadership.

“Bush won’t rule out nuclear strike on Iran”
http://today.reuters.com/news/…..amp;rpc=22
IMO the Democrats could rule out a nuclear strike on Iran tomorrow and leave everything else on the table.
I think ANY kind of military action against Iran is beyond insane at this point, but Bush has made himself extremely vulnerable, politically on the gross misuse of nuclear weapons. Dems can use Bush’s statement to bludgeon him with the facts about cancer, radiation sickness, wind patterns, and long term damage to the water table in the Middle East.
My guess is a lot of Republicans would follow the Dems on this one, especially with the spike in oil prices, as a way to distance themselves from the nutcase. Although he probably would have won anyway, LBJ really slammed Goldwater on this very issue.

You meet the strangest people in dealer courtesy cars.

Unfortunately, they’re usually driving.

Hugh 65 – nice, hehe.

Im not sure if Kafka wrote about Liza, but he definitely captured the spirit of living under this administration…

What is the list of OBVIOUSLY crooked journalists? Put their names,faces, affiliations and places of schooling up on a website somewhere.

“Mary @ at 3:59 pm (#38) – Yes, the GAO report was pretty damning, but I think a shark attacked a white woman that week.”
LMAO.

everhopeful — I agree that making the policies personal would be helpful, but the sad thing, and the thing that makes this easy to get away with, is the fact that most of the financial consequences will be felt by future generations.
The link to the current generation is harder to explain. One can argue that the concerns about the extent of the current budget deficit are making Congress very reluctant to fund new programs, such as expanded health care coverage, and that in turn leaves the burdens on businesses, and that in turn means that every car GM makes carries a several thousand dollar surtax for employee health insurance, which in turn means that thousands of GM workers will be asked to give up their jobs, their health insurance and their pensions — but explaining all this isn’t exactly an easily grasped 30 second spot, let alone a sound bite.
It’s simpler (and still accurate) to say, every middleclass American is being hurt by tax cuts for the extremely rich, tax breaks for Exxon Mobile and non-bid war contracts to Hallibuton.
btw — there’s a huge political gold mine in investigations of war profiteering, if Dems gain Congress. They should campaign on that too. That would dovetail nicely with “I’m the decider, and I decide Rummy stays.”

Kathryn in MA #58

The total debt for 2000 was $5.674 trillion. This number again reflects borrowing from the social security trust fund. By law the government can not borrow beyond its limit.

My number is from the Bureau of Public Debt:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.go……htm#years

Ed*ard Teller — I hate to break this to you but he wasn’t a taxi driver. He was a dealership service employee.

Why are the Dems so silent on Iran? If what Sam Gardiner said is true, Bush and Cheney have already started covert operations there. At the very least why can’t they stand up & state that Bush has to have congressional authorization to launch covert ops.

Per my 72 “Fallout from Chernobyl will cause 100,000 deaths, says Greenpeace”
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 19 April 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/…..358567.ece

Image…and Words. I’ve written about this before, the Democrats are losing the battle of images and words. As to the guy Ms. Hamsher writes about….a big part of the problem is that “once upon a time” he probably voted democratic! What happened? Well….that’s a long story, covering about 25 or so years.
So, now we have him, firmly entrenched in talk radio and nesting in the republican camp. Ms. Hamsher seems to think (if I read her article correctly) that he now is so disgusted with everyone that he may stay at home come election day. Well…maybe. But, as usual, I prefer to go on the attack rather than sitting around, crossing my fingers, and hoping for a break. Which means….
Take a look at the quoted material from Reid. Try to shape those facts into tasty “images and words” which just might pry that guy away from his roost. How? For starters, the Democrats need to talk gas pump prices…LOUDLY. And, they need to pin it right on the republicans. There’s gotta be some catchy slogans there.
Tax cuts….cuts for the rich, the REPUBLICAN rich…get a slogan working.
Debt ceiling in the trillions…hey buddy, can you run your household like that? Can you get away with that, like the republicans have? Or, some sort of slogan.
Some of these guys that Ms. Hamsher writes about can be won back. It’s not good enough for me that “maybe” they’ll stay home on election day. Let’s attack. Let’s win ‘em back.
Ghostman

Maybe, Jane, you’re barking entirely up the wrong tree, in attempting the “uphill” fight to get the angry white moron-American to vote Democratic. Maybe we don’t have to.

It’s pretty much conventional wisdom that Bush is now down to his base; the 30+ percent of sheep who’ll follow him anywhere. All righty. Disillusion them, then, to the point where they do indeed stay home, and who does that leave? [a] The folks who opposed Bush in the first place; [b] the folks who ultimately came around.

That’s called a majority. If we can do to the Stupids what Ohio Republicans did to the Blacks, we sort of, um, win.

Which segues me directly into Pachacutec’s comment above:

“Corruption stories instantly turn against all politicians, depressing turnout.

If Dems don’t get out their base, they won’t benefit from Mr. Cabbie staying home.”

On the second point, okay. Although I honestly don’t think getting the base out to oppose Bush will be a problem in 2006 or 2008… it wasn’t the problem in 2004 (spare me the “Bush isn’t running in 2008!” I’m quite aware not only of that, but also that one entitled, coked-up family idiot does not comprise our current problem).

On the first point, I am simply not going to submit to such a wimpy, defeatest agenda.

Karl Rove… hate him if you must, but don’t deny his strategic superiority in ways we can only hope to one day understand… would never back away from a chance to annihilate the enemy, simply because of the possible consequences. Remember, before 2004, CW had the odds as a lock that the one thing any opponent of John Kerry could never even hope to overcome was his untouchable rep as a War Hero.

Oh. He got “touched”, all right. As memory serves.

Karl has repeatedly met rock solid proof that Saddam Hussein had no ties to Osama Binladen and Al Qaida, with an unblinking barrage of “Saddam Hussein had ties to Osama Binladen and Al Qaida”. You and the press’ll get tired of protesting this lie, before Rove gets tired of making W say it.

Were the proverbial shoe somehow on the other foot, a Democratic administration would have simply gone, “Ah, well, we could never get away with such brazen denial of facts!” There’s something to be said for the power of relentlessness.

Contrast that with this kneejerk, “Democratic centrist” reaction to having a dynamite issue like unprecedented GOP corruption, to work with. Do you really think that if Unca Karl worked for us, he’d just give the hell up on this mighty sack of rocks with which to bitch-smack his opponents? Just because it might alienate some middle-of-the-road voters (a highly-overrated group of people, I might add)? Who might “turn off” to poltics in general?

You gotta be shittin’ me. Rove would have every single Democratic (is this a fantasy, or what?) candidate for dogcatcher in the United States of America, running against “THE CORRUPT REPUBLICAN PARTY”. Whenever the R’s trotted out their John Cornyn or Sensenbrenner or whomever, to rail against Conyers’ babysitter… whenever Steno Sue or Joe Klein or Deb Howell tried to paint Democrats as equally culpable in the corruption department… Karl would TRIPLE the number of rhetorical bombs thrown at ‘THE CORRUPT REPUBLICAN PARTY”.

Like I said. Down to dogcatcher races. All on message. Relentless. Until the enemy limped away, defeated.

Why, in the name of God, do we still not GET IT?

Bustedknuckles #52 was right I’m sure.
Still, there are areas around the airport that are seriously scary places. Hollers where the Sneetches live in abject squalor. Its the reason Lars Larson carries a concealed weapon, to protect himself from his fan base. Seriously, avail yourself of your local fans for a ride back to your car. Freeway all the way!

Oklahoma kiddo, have you read “What’s the matter with Kansas?” by Thomas Frank? It will answer your question.

rwcole @ 4:27 pm (#68) Here’s a link to that Broder article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01260.html

NY Debt Clock running out of room

So rapid is the rise of the US national debt, that the last four digits of a giant digital signboard counting the moving total near New York’s Times Square move in seemingly random increments as they struggle to keep pace.
[..]
Sometime in the next two years, the total amount of US government borrowing is going to break through the 10-trillion-dollar mark and, lacking space for the extra digit such a figure would require, the clock is in danger of running itself into obsolescence.

The clock’s owner, real estate developer Douglas Durst, knew such a problem could arise but hadn’t counted on it so soon.

Jane
Your experience really resonated with my experience of visiting relatives in New Jersey on Easter weekend.
The family of my 94-year old Irish-born Aunt might be described as salt-of-the-earth patriotic Americans. In recent years they have moved to the Republican right.
Visiting this past weekend after an absence of almost two years I noticed a profound shift in attitudes. They had moved from right-wing ideology to “all politicians are self-serving greedy whores.”
After a late Sunday night conversation with my cousin’s husband, Larry Farrell, I left New Jersey to return to Massachusetts with the belief that many Reagan Democrats will return “home” for the Novemeber election. It is beginning to dawn on them that they have been screwed by people who said they were looking out for their interests…

Putting the words ‘Blow Job’ in your article heading caused Amazon’s server to select some interesting DVD titles for their blogad:

Sex / How to
Alex Sanders

Sex / How to
Nina Hartley

Blow Him Away
Marcy Michaels

Rita *g*

rwcole – I do agree in most respects and I understand your points, but:
The guy who’s REALLY gettin fucked is the guy with say $100,000 in household income- and little or nothing from investments. Lots of couples put themselves in that position through hard work- working two jobs each- etc.

I have to say, that’s only one persepctive. I’d say there’s a more compelling case that the poor, whose ranks are growing, are the ones getting really hurt. The elderly, the low wage self employed or low wage employed with no insurance, who go untreated and unmedicated all the time. All children left behind, but mostly the poor. Educational grants and funding cut. Welfare assistance cut. State’s left floundering under the onslaughts. Wait for the real estate boom to soften, and it will get worse.

I do agree with you about the middle class crunch, but where once upon a time, it existed in part due to the funding requirements for social welfare programs being disproportionately shifted to the middle class, now it exists to fund the war machine and its cronies, fund big government corporatism (and make sure that generals and Exec office employees and Congress critters and their aides all get six figure plus private sector jobs, lined up while in office, and while collecting/protecting all their government benefits like pensions) and fund one top tier targetted tax cut after another.

I think the media has sucked at showing things like our new “palace in Iraq” for a billion, give or take a few hundred million.

Republicans: Building that bridge to nowhere. Getting Dick Cheney more tax cuts. Still searching for Bin Laden and the Fourth Amendment. Creating new job specialties for the future, so surfboarders can segue seamlessly into waterboarders and kidnappers can be renamed rendition experts. Making Law School ezier by deleting the “law” part (especially for those who will be working for Justice) and replacing courts with cheaper, more effective military tribunals. Using the cost savings to fund Faith based programs that will be able to fire, from government funded jobs, homosexuals, Muslims, aetheists, agnotistics, owners of vibration equipment and everyone on the NSL requests who checked out George Orwell, and for that matter Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists and C of C -especially in Utah. Making birth control harder to get and more expensive. Curtailing scientific research and gagging scientists (see prior “creating new job specialties” – gagging of scientists is expected to be high growth). Finding new counries to invade and new candidates to make king. Putting the extra “U” in nucular and bringing more war death to more civilians and their children.

How will they ever be able to reduce all the good stuff to just one slogan? Oh yeah — PLEASE VOTE REPUBLICAN OR THE PRESIDENT MIGHT BE IMPEACHED.

Somethings, even a new John Deere won’t fix.

Good Evening People

They Do say there are two sides to every story,and since it seems to be Bash The WaPo Night,try these two

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01351.html

http://taxprof.typepad.com/tax…..ney_t.html

Thanks For Being There,Top Respect from Little England

Take care,TheRamblingGhost

PS.On The Other Hand,This is Funny !!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00688.html

rwcole #68

Of course, what David Broder doesn’t point out is that there are no more troops. This is the lunacy of positions like Biden’s and McCain’s. It’s much as if they were saying and if pigs had wings… We should stay but we need more troops but there are no more troops so what is their point? Do they support a return of the draft? What incentives would they or even could they offer to attract recruits short of a draft? They seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel as it is and most potential recruits have smelled the coffee and have voted with their feet.

John Casper — you’re right; LBJ did smear Goldwater by claiming he would unleash nuclear war in Vietnam — he made Goldwater the scariest politician alive. Of course, Nixon later dropped more tons of bombs in SE Asia than the US did in all of WWII. In another life, I walked through jungles pockmarked with craters from B-52 “carpet bombing” raids.

Jane – if considering topics to include in your Late Night FDL series, one area appropriate for attention that was brought to my attention by wingnuts on another forum is right wing xenophobia associated with immigrants and infectious disease. The article linked in the thread I came across actually contains, of all people, Michelle Malkin in the References : http://www.theamericanresistan…..pring.html

“Many illegals who cross our borders have tuberculosis. That disease had largely disappeared from America, thanks to excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin.

TB’s swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those infected because of new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDRTB). Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico….

TB was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002, when it spiked a 17 percent increase, but Prince William County, just south of Washington, D.C., had a much larger rise of 188 percent. Public health officials blamed immigrants. In 2001 the Indiana School of Medicine studied an outbreak of MDR-TB, and traced it to Mexican illegal aliens. The Queens, New York, health department attributed 81 percent of new TB cases in 2001 to immigrants….

Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis or ‘kissing bug’ disease is transmitted by the reduviid bug, which prefers to bite the lips and face. The protozoan parasite that it carries, infects 18 million people annually in Latin America and causes 50,000 deaths. This disease also infiltrates America’s blood supply….

Leprosy, a scourge in Biblical days and in medieval Europe, so horribly destroys flesh and faces it was called the ‘disease of the soul.’… Leprosy, Hansen’s disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy. Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Mexico.

Dengue fever is exceptionally rare in America, though common in Ecuador, Peru, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Mexico. Recently there was a virulent outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas, which borders Mexico….

Polio was eradicated from America, but now reappears in illegal immigrants, as do intestinal parasites. Malaria was obliterated, but now is re-emerging in Texas…. Asians number 4 percent of Americans, but account for more than half of Hepatitis B cases.

There is substantial scare-mongering and distortion in the above passage I quoted. Anyone else recognize it ?

.

Mary–Agree with everything you said (as usual). I was working an issue that seems potentially HOT politically- the issue of workers vs. investors and the equity of their tax treatment. Goopers have decided to reward investors. The absurd premise of their argument is that investors need to be given INCENTIVES to invest their money (as if they would otherwise stuff it into a mattress). In order to do this- they are taxing most sources of investment income at 15%- while working people whose income comes from wages are paying full boat- and getting hit with the alternative minimum tax. They OUGHT to be pissed off as hell- but no one is really pushing the argument. I think it should be pushed.

This will be the last election where the dems can run against Clusterfuck- and they will.

It is an important election from the standpoint of providing an opportunity for oversight for an administration that has shown it can’t be trusted with the car keys- but it’s a one time shot.

In 2008- Clusterfuck will not be a factor- and the dems cannot build a career out of running against him. Starting the day after the November elections, dems will have to begin slowly building a consensus agenda- something that appeals to most americans. They need to make sure that job one (winning at least one house of congress) doesn’t interfere with job two (winning the White House in 08).

The driver and all those guys like him will never vote Dem because the Dems stand for the Blacks & Latinos & WOMEN!! For them it’s not the economy stupid and it never will be.

Hi, friends, great discussion today, thanks so much, I’ve been playing with mulch :-) and can’t hang around but as this is just so on targer, thought I’d share a little watertiger

http://derenegade.blogspot.com…..n-air.html

Carl Berstein to be on Countdown to talk about his article re “an investigation of the entire Bush Administration.”

Erm, target.

(oops)

Muzzy @ 4:49 pm (#93) – Thanks to lack of good public health care, we’ve been growing new strains of TB at home.

Some Asians (who apparently have a higher than average incidence of TB) have lived here for generations.

Dengue fever is caused by insect bites, as is malaria.

Leprosy is “endemic” to northern states? Do they have any idea what endemic means?

At three dollars a gallon the rest of us will be taking the airport limo Jane,besides were
all democrats!

OT, but anybody see Randi Rhodes on Lou Dobbs? OMG! She totally kicked *ss! She was great – get the transcript when it comes up – not the same without Randi’s voice and inflection, but better than nothing.

Dobbs asked what her listeners were concerned about, she just went off on about 25 different things, starting with the bomb test in Nevada on June 2 – said the media better have cameras ready to roll in Nevada on that date to show the American people what their “insane” (Randi’s word) president is up to now. She said Bush is insane a number of times.

Another really funny thing – she talked about Josh Bolten’s supposed “shake up” in the WH and just laughed – then went into Bolten’s “hobby” (no lie) of collecting photographs of GW Bush’s hands – I was in hysterics – and so was Lou Dobbs!

She even got into Jeff Gannon and gay prostitutes having press credentials and getting into the White House, she named off about 20 corrupt republican politicians, OMG – watch the repeat if you can – or if not, like I said, the transcript…

“Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Mexico.”

I am from NH that hotbed of out of control leprosy. This is as odious as those racist, black bashing e-mails that circulated around the time of Katrina. It works on lots of people.

My friends wife, from a rural area in NH forwarded an e-mail warning me not to flash my headlights at cars with their lights out because it was a ruse by Crips and Bloods to kill the “flasher” in an initiation right.

This is a very rural and very homogenously old New England area it just blew my mind that someone could believe that Crips and Bloods were on the prowl in the Monadnock Region of NH.

Unless that shit gets batted down, it is internalized.

-GSD

rwcole # 94

I agree the AMT is the sleeping giant. It is what I think is obliquely referred to in budget projections as one of the principal variables in controlling the explosive increases in federal deficits. And it will increasingly fall on the middle class.

Saw Randi and she did kick some serious butt! Seeing Carl now and he just conflated Iraq, Iran and Chimpy— beeyoutiful. We are in the wrong war…

It’s absurd for the dems to spend energy coming up with an “agenda” for 06. Even if they are succesful- there will still be a Clusterfuck in the White House- and any majority they win you will be able to count on one toe. They won’t be able to do anything positive in terms of legislation. They will only be able to stop the worst of Clusterfuck’s screwups. 08 is different.

Let’s not screw around with the idea that there should be a national “platform”- it would be useless.

Bush won’t be around in 2008 and after? I don’t agree. The Dems ran against Hoover for 30 years, and if Bush comes to be seen as the worst ever — a good chance — the Dems will pin that image on every Repub candidate for a long time. Our mission, it seems to me, is to make sure that neoconservatism, warmongering, fearmongerging, faithbased whatever and lots of other memes are wrapped around that same image. Load ‘em up with the whole baggage and let them carry it from election to election.

NIcholas D Kristof: The Big Burp Theory of the Apocalypse

Pulitzer-prize winning commentator Nicholas Kristof has his first published column since his Pulitzer Prize win. So what’s this column about? Methane gas burps.

The Big Burp Theory of the Apocalypse
By Nicholas Kristof

http://fbihopopeds.blogspot.co…..ry-of.html
New York Times Op-Ed

PeteCO…thx. for the info. re: “What’s the matter with Kansas?”. Will ck. it out.

….and Ab Initio(#80),this may be of interest

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0417.html

TheRamblingGhost

Scarecrow–that would only work if the goopers were dumb enough to defend Clusterfuck for thirty years.

Once a gooper presidential candidate says “I agree- he was a disaster” that game is over.

Well good people, it is an absolutely beautiful day here in the Pacific Northwest. I, for one, am going to blow this popsicle stand they call work and go fishing.

Seriously, Jane, next time call the airport shuttle.No more scary trips.And it’s free.

gsd – crips & bloods hangin’ out on Mt Manadnock, now? Next thing you know, they’ll be taking over downtown Bellows Falls Vt!

Just talked to my brother– we have just become a Vespa dealer. I had one and loved it in High School. Hope there’s a lot of nostalgia up there. We children of the sixties are getting a little long in the tooth for scootering- although I fully intend to get one.

I was held-up at a covered bridge in Ascutney and they took all of my maple syrup. It was the Yakuza, I am sure of it.

-GSD

Sounds good. I wonder how you can sell people like this on how Dems will be better than GOP. Will people like this care if they think Dems take the money for their special interests, vs. GOP special interests? Many will say “Dems take my money to give to poor spongers, and GOP takes it for rich crooks, same difference.”

I like the idea of tying the economic pitch to reward for productive work and innovation, rather than as a reward for merely being rich. Something like that needed to fight charges of “class war.”

And be careful, the FDL brass may become so famous, that they get like those TV pundit bighots who say they understand what is going on with the common person because they talk with their limousine drivers and make-up people. Then they launch into a diatribe about what their taxi driver said to them about the virtues of some obscure bill. “Lemme tell ya, Mr DB, as a old-timey Nevada truck driver, a real majority Red State American, I think that new Dem ammendment to the new reee trade bill for international labor rights progress certification according to the EU standards is going to have unintended consquences, and actually hurt taxi drivers like me. Look at what happened with the Moldavian minimum wage law, fer Chrissakes! Man, I paid through the nose on that one, using the results form the latest Princeton economc department study I happen to have lying on the back seat there, next to the latest issue of Monogomy Today.”

I believe your story this time, though.

I live in a Republican stronghold in rural Illinois. (My county has never gone Democratic in an election.) After Katrina, when oil prices topped $70/barrel, people who had been vocal Bush supporters didn’t hesitate to bash him as incompetent, but people were in a rage about the price of gas. We have no public transportation and must drive everywhere. We also don’t have much of an economy – much of the area is working class or low middle class. People live from paycheck to paycheck and a big jump in gas prices hits them hard.

I suspect that if oil tops $80/barrel by election, people will turn out to vote and will vote Democtratic.

For God sake–the Republicans still bring up Jimmy Carter. Also, six years into the Disaster Presidency of Bush–and still we get 90% of the wingers using Bill Clinton as a cudgel.

-GSD

Hang that rotting, twitching chimp around the neck of every Republican.

rw — doesn’t matter. The Repubs in the 30s and 40s complained about being identified with Hoover and causing the Depression, but it didn’t help much. And look what happened to Newt the other day when he tried to flip on and escape from Iraq — Jane wouldn’t let him, even though Arianna pleaded for “mercy and forgiveness.” (the Blogs are today’s archives/historians.) The same thing happened with Repubs labeling Dems as “weak on defense” for election after election, even though it was nonsense. Politics is only loosely connected with truth, I’m afraid.

Well, it could’ve been worse, they might’ve stolen your skis!

rat bastahd says:
April 18th, 2006 at 4:27 pm

Any tax person out there…is this something we can exploit that can relate to the current topic of “being ripped off�

I haven’t delved very deeply into the details of the story for which you provided a link in your post. When I have time later this week, I can research your question and try to determine the tax treatment of charitable contributions of stock acquired through exercise of stock options.

Before 2005, contributions were deductible to the extent that they did not exceed 50% (30% for some contributions) of adjusted gross income. Any contributions exceeding the percentage of adjusted gross income limitations mentioned in Internal Revenue Code Section 170(b) can be carried forward five years, according to Internal Revenue Code Section 170(d).

Here’s part of Randi Rhodes on Lou Dobbs transcript:

RHODES: … I did not come here to be partisan. I came here today, Lou — I swear to you — I came here today to ask you to do something. Seriously! My callers — my listeners — yours, too, I’m sure — always get to this point and they go, well, then, James, what do you want us to do? What do we do? What do we do?

If every single camera that’s available in the media — cable- wide, network-wide — is not in Nevada at the nuclear test site on June 2nd to watch 1.4 millions pounds of explosives be blown up so they can do the math and figure out how to make a tactical nuke, a smaller nuclear weapon that will represent that much firepower for Iran — if we don’t show America this mushroom cloud that will explode in Nevada on the 2nd of June, there is no hope for the American people, there is no hope for the media.

You asked me last time I was here, Who’s fault is it? And I said, “It’s our fault; it’s the media’s fault.” We have to tell this story. This president is manifestly insane. Donald Rumsfeld is insane.

You’ve got Josh Bolten, who is going to be talked about today — “He’s going to shake up things, He’s going to re-energize” — you know what his hobby is? He collects photographs of Bush’s hands. That’s what he does — I suspect so he can write “left” and “right” on them, but that is what he does!

(snip)
DOBBS: Very quickly — your listeners, what are they most concerned about right now?

RHODES: They think their president is insane. Some of us think he’s on drugs. Others think that the new guy, Josh Bolten, has a problem with collecting hands. Others of us know that guys like Jeff Gannon got press passes, and they had Web sites where there were pimps and prostitutes. They were male — something very strange is going on. Karl Rove is on the verge of indictment.

DOBBS: Just a couple of minutes.

RHODES: Today the governor of Illinois just was brought in guilty. You have an Ohio governor, Republican, who stands indicted, and he’s still the governor. There’s so much corruption. And the message to Democrats…

(snip)

RHODES: Yes, but he’s insane now. Now he’s talking about nuking Iran. We have a mess in Iraq that he’s said he’d leave for the next guy. Well, this guy is like a daddy who will clean up all my messes? No, this is big. And it’s — on June 2nd, we can’t get cameras out to that nuclear test site to see what I’m talking about. I mean, you feel insane talking about him being insane, but he is. DOBBS: There’s one thing about that we should put on the record. The United States government, the military and the Energy Department, have, I would guess somewhere in the order of 5,000 or 6,000 models of what happens with varying megatonnage in tactical as well as well other nuclear weapons. So one wonders just why they want to put up another big bang, as it were.

Randi, thanks for drawing our attention to it.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRA…..dt.01.html

That’s their cognitive-dissonance blowoff valve: “they’re all crooks,” or “they’re all assholes,” etc. Negates all that remains of their critical thinking skills. It’s as reflexive, and as conditioned, as everything else they blurt.

rwcole…

Vespa’s. Now that kicks me back. Me and my best buddy had ‘em. And believe it or not, we even used them for ‘dirt-biking’. It wasn’t so much they hummed, they purred. Three speeds on the handle bar. Yeah… we loved them too! Wish I had one now.

Media Lawyers Oppose Libby Subpoenas

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..79,00.html

Lawyers for The New York Times depicted Libby as desperate in casting a “wide net” that he hopes will locate “a statement somewhere” that Plame’s role as a covert CIA operative was well known in Washington before Novak’s column.

a side question on this testing thing out in the Nevada desert: are they igniting over a million pounds of stacked TNT? I thought it was a weapons test…some sort of new bomb with the “explosive power” of “X” pounds of TNT. Which is it?
Ghostman

Um, I’m realy sorry to be so off topie, but I think this is a firedoglake letter writing opportunity.
Remember when DeLay’s goons disrupted a Lampson gathering and a lady got shoved and a little roughed up? A couple of weeks ago? Well, she is trying to press charges and the sheriff (friend of Tom) will not accept the charge. Isn’t that obstruction of justice??? There are emails showing it was DeLay’s gang and video of the assault and the behavior of the goons with a bullhorn and signs they used to effect.

This is pretty disgusting.

http://www.brazosriver.com/index.html#April_18

More important to Democratic leadership is the number of long-term Democrats who will not forgive nor forget how inept democratic leadership has proved itself to be over the last 6 years! I will NOT fund-raise, walk precincts or vote for any of the Democratic old guard or anyone they support – ever again. Hillary, Biden, Schumer, Liberman, Kerry, ad nauseum. These bozos can’t even see that we get fair voting machines.

AMT, NASCAR Dads, Reagan Democrats, what the hell’s the difference if you can’t grasp the next rung ?

2 things that should resonate -

The palpable (and sustained) response to the Katrina tragedy is a sense of being snookered felt by folks who bought the Bush/Rep. program in 04′

The other is something rwcole brought up a couple months back – competence – how it is perceived and valued by these folks-
these are the guys who know how to tackle a problem and yet have to watch ‘the boss’ screw it up completely, causing twice the effort to clean it up. they judge those around them by their abilities to take care of their families, homes, cars, etc.

the two are easily woven together -

they’ve been had by a guy who can’t fix a flat tire !

well, I live here in that infested state of NH and the onlyest peebles I am afraid of are the die hard chimpy supporters and the home close by who still has a coffin standing up in front of his house with Mr. He Who Shall Not Be Named (obl) in it with a sign askin’– “have you forgotten?” and a rebel thingie in the windoe along with support our troops and America first. everything is faded, house is unpainted and no flowers anywhere, ceptin the plastic ones in the windoe. Scary.

rwcole 94 – “I think it should be pushed.”

I agree with you and I do too. It was more my “sad about the country” side and less my “practically speaking, how do we get a workable meessage out” side. You keep a focus better than I could.

Divine Strake will indeed be 1,400,000 pounds of conventional explosive. It’ll be done underground in a tunnel of granite — I doubt of there will be any external explosion oberved or mushroom cloud even possible.

cbl: Yeah, especially in light of Tweety’s CONSTANT question during the ‘04 election – something like “who would you trust more to stop and help you if you had a flat tire off to the side of the road?”

Of course, with Tweety, the winner was always that “sunnily noble” GW Bush! Ha!

My father was a cab driver for a while. One day, some pompous asshole got into the cab, introduced himself as an executive at a major advertising firm, and began bloviating about the phenomenon that is the Hershey bar – a product that somehow managed to gain top market share without the aid of an advertising campaign.

The ad man hypothesized that the secret of Hersheys success was its unique packaging – the wrapper, lettering, shape, foil, blahblahblah. My father asked if its success might be due to its taste. Well, that did not compute. Average folk are just too stupid to know what they want without being told.

Good thing we got pompous assholes in both parties willing to fill in the blanks.

ever—yeah that’s interesting. Clusterfuck DOES have the ability to project a “one of the guys” image- although he’s the furthest thing from it. Agree that he probably doesn’t know how to change a tire.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – President Bush refused on Tuesday to rule out nuclear strikes against Iran if diplomacy fails to curb the Islamic Republic’s atomic ambitions.

Bush said in Washington he would discuss Iran’s nuclear activities with China’s President Hu Jintao this week and avoided ruling out nuclear retaliation if diplomatic efforts fail.

Asked if options included planning for a nuclear strike, Bush replied: “All options are on the table. We want to solve this issue diplomatically and we’re working hard to do so.” …

***

He’s “the Decider.” HE “will decide what’s best.”

Fucking nitwit hell-bent to set the planet aflame.

Okie– Yeah I did “hill climbs” with mine! Four speed it was. Had many adventures- there was just room to pack away a short case in the thing. Loved it- although I slid 100 yards on my ass more than once.

*ilson46201 @ 5:42 pm (#132) – I think that any time 700 tons of explosives is set off at once, something’s going to be visible. Might only be a very large sinkhole suddenly appearing, but there ought to be something.

Jane started a blog and woke up (in) the body politic.

OT
#11 Off Topic – Josh Bolton (Bolten?) collects pictures of Bush’s hands.

Ah… does he have one of Bush giving the finger to all and sundry? On TV? After a press conference?

Reuters story via Raw Story and Yahoo!:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200…..sh_leak_dc

News outlets resist Scooter Libby subpoenas
By Andy Sullivan

A former White House aide fighting perjury charges should not get access to reporters’ notes and other newsroom material because they have no relevance to his case, several news outlets told a U.S. judge on Tuesday.

The New York Times, NBC News and Time magazine also argued that press freedom would be damaged if they were forced to hand over the material sought by former vice presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s defense team.

(snip)

http://www.cookpolitical.com/

Link to Charlie Cook’s latest. This one is about McCain and his dance to the right to be followed by his inevitable dance back to the center.

Most aides refused to speculate whether Democrats might support a military operation in Iran. Several aides acknowledged, however, that some Democrats in Congress could support a military strike. If it was presented with clear and damning evidence of an Iranian nuclear program, aides said, Bush might be able to get Congressional authorization for the use of force.

Such aides were careful to emphasize that the Bush Administration provided faulty intelligence on Iraq. Any military action Democrats supported, one aide said, would not include the use of nuclear weapons.

That said, most Democrats view any military rhetoric on Iran as a tool to bring the Iranians to the bargaining table.

One aide to a leading Democratic senator disagreed with the contention that Congress would ever support an attack on Iran.

“Even the neocon nuts in the White House know they’d get laughed out of the Senate if they asked for a vote to go to war in Iran,†the aide asserted. “There’s not a single hardline Republican in the Senate who would vote with them after their bad intelligence and botched Iraq war planning.â€

Asked about Democratic strategy on Iran, the aide said, “The strategy is simple: Give the Republicans enough rope and they’ll hang themselves.â€

Raw Story

I think Jane’s point (and fear) is well-taken. I live in Boehner’s district and teach in Jean Schmidt’s (woe is me), but even many of my students who are a good core bit of the Rep. base are peeved by the Chimperor. An example of what many of them are like: the other night in an American lit class, talking about multi-culturalism sine the 1950’s, one student complained about use of the term African-American instead of “black” because it’s “too long, and they’re not African, anyway.” Too long?! What the hell? How dare those black people make him say more syllables than absolutely necessary! Anyway, gas prices are a huge problem for the republicans; they’re hatin’ that they can’t drive them big ol’ trucks now, and they have serious doubts about Iraq, mostly in the sense that they think the WH fucked it up and now we look stupid worldwide, besides it being a waste of their precious tax money. I seriously don’t think they’re going to come out and vote Red next time around.

Blue–Yeah Ohio seems to be a state that’s having a serious talk with itself about gooperism.

New thread: WaPo editorial redux

Cujo 100 -Yes. Dengue in North America is rare, meaning outbreaks are not unheard of, but when an outbreak does occur in south Texas it is represented in a way other than being a natural occurrance while drawing in an irrelevant association to the color of the skin of people living in the typical geographic range for the bug.

Regarding Chagas disease (parasite contracted from a bedbug bite) the ‘kissing bug ‘ nickname is one I haven’t heard but could easily morph into a bug you get from kissing someone -from there. Note also the insideous hints of epidemic in “The disease also infiltrates America’s blood supply” related to possible blood transfusion infection. An article in the New England Journal stated that as of 1999, only 3 such cases had been reported. I suppose it’s worse than none, but it’s made to sound like immigrants are polluting the blood supply.

GSD 103- good examples of how medical terms and conditions can get distorted for public consumption with a net internalized discriminatory effect, not to mention the absurd reaches of the murdering Crips n Bloods stereotype.

How can you dare to insult blow jobs like that?

On your taxi driver. I’m goint to have a talk with my brother in law, who is a long-distance truck driver, and listens to Rush. He’s smart. I’m interested in seeing if there’s a confirmation.

Let me add one sombre thought. If and when tnings go really sour, people like your cab driver will be looking for scapegoats. Does the term ‘Jew’ have any resonance? It should, because it will.

no need to try to get bubba to vote democrat – it wouldn’t happen until dems figure out how to unwrap from the corporate media mindset a generation of the cult of republicanism’s lies and slanders. the key is to keep bubba pissed off enough to not vote.
.

How odd… my father never mentioned he was working as a PDX shuttle driver these days.

now this

is a really interesting post.

grounded theory.

They don’t need any fucking help, they are getting it as you say. Round here we know when the story comes on that they are not going to mention the Republican party when its a repub that is the corrupt one (as usual).

What the fucking times pulled with throwing the word Democrat into the story should be criminal.

They know they get the best booze, sex, and power with the repubs in power. They are fallen and corrupt, they are all circle jerking eachother.

The workjing man is being used and the public better wake the fuck up. These folks think they are all american and heo;s — well vote your damn mistakes out of office, dont leave a mess that is to big for us to clean up.

For the Cheney tax thing – yeah they wrote the law in to make money for themselves.

My father used to tell people what Regean was doing for them when they wold sing his praise at the factory. They would come upo to him years later and say you were right…but I wonder if they never switched their voting track. Maybe now that they see a graceless Regean at work they will return to their party (as ws indicated above).

I imagine his shock at what these folks though Regean was all about – for us it has to be even worse in the age of information that people could be so easily fooled, and that the party faithful would hold onto their thin facade of talking points for so long.

Methane gas – Oxygen cycle and the end of the world he must have coped that off me from my post the one day people talked about global warming here.

He is right to talk about the environment and fits with his writting – it is the genocide of the only single organism – the earth.

A friend of mine, who was forever sending me pro-Bush/pro-Republican propaganda recently sent a joke that disses Bush.

Another friend, a staunch Republican, did a tour in Afghanistan and now he’s not so rah-rah Bush.

The tides are turning, if they haven’t turned completely.

Sitting here catching up with the days blogs and almost choked while drinking my soda. I started laughing so hard at this line “wasn’t excited about being Rita Cosby’s encore to Aruba”.

Call me twisted but that is the funniest line I have read in a long time.

Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t ‘GOP’ and ‘Ethics’ mutually exclusive terms. I offer the stonewalling by Sen. Roberts, the virtual dissolution of the Senate Ethics commitee, and any front page in the last 5 years as evidence. I rest my case.

#144- rwcole said “Even the neocon nuts in the White House know they’d get laughed out of the Senate if they asked for a vote to go to war in Iran,†the aide asserted. “There’s not a single hardline Republican in the Senate who would vote with them after their bad intelligence and botched Iraq war planning.â€

What makes you think Bush & Co. are going to *ask Congress* to authorize war with Iran? They’ll just DO it.

Funny how as your driver’s tank approaches “E” his vitriol runs out of steam…….

I was a taxi driver for awhile and whenever I see a report based on the opinions of taxi drivers or other drivers (either as the voice of working Americans or as the voice of working Immigrants), all I can think of is that there is a reporter who never had to step outside their hotel for a story.

This is a blog and not a news site, so I’ll cut you some slack…this time.