BT!

Hiya again, Blue Texan!

If he wasn’t before, Raygun is certainly now, his own religion…
Nice Peg, but off your knees, please.

I love this “Raygun” thing — it cracks me up every time.

Once again, their rhetoric changes to seem to criticize the republicans, but they still go to the ‘accepted’ parties, continue to smooze with the big money, and then think they can sound (which all they care about — how they sound to us minions, not in how their policies destruct) disturbed by the current trend in republican politics.

I do not believe a word from them. Nor from pelosi or Reid for that matter. I believe corporate money is flowing into the dem party to keep them on the corporate gravy train and derail any real meaningful change to help regular working people. I expected better, but money is buying power. And the dems are accepting the bribes.

Funny. Just as the ayatollahs were taking over in Iran, the American ayatollahs were taking over in the U.S.

Funny. But not ha-ha funny.

Reagan could make it today. Bush has shown that all that’s required is to pretend to be a Christian. Reagan was an actor and I’m sure he could handle the Bush role.

Hey, Jon P.-love and strength flowing your way!

If we’re one nation under any “god” at all, it’s the god of deism — the faith of Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Paine and many other founders. That’s a “creator” as a distant architect. God creates the universe and mankind, and that’s it.

This whole religion and politics business needs to be thoroughly debated at the Repug’s expense… Needs to be kept alive for most of ‘08 till November.

Did you all see that Wexler wants hearings, and has a (bum) website for a petition on impeachment? The link didn’t work for me…

I’m sorry, that’s “Joh”

It worked just now for me.

Well, he’s one of those SITTING on the damn bill itself (H Res 799). I think he should clarify what’s really going on.

The Jeebus wants the Huckster to be Prez. But the Huckster has a few problems.

(snip)

Oh, what about that little frailty?

Mike Huckabee has a serious aversion to truthfulness, and this year it has got worse, not better, outside the confining tethers of home where people are a little familiar with what he has done. A real Christian Leader does not bear false witness.

Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. (Prov. 12:22) Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue. (Psa. 120:2) The Bible says much more, but that should suffice.

It may be that Huckabee rationalizes the exaggerations, deceptions and outright lies because there is a lower threshold for truth in politics. Everybody supposedly does it. Huckabee does it with such warmth and authenticity when, let’s say, he is talking to a Fox News host that he seems to feel uniquely endowed to create the truth. If he says it, it becomes the truth.

(snip)

artimes

EPU’d from last thread, bc this is important…

Hey Everyone,
This is a completely unrelated note on a day of busy updates — there’s obviously a big fight going on over FISA today and thanks to Scarecrow, Christy, and everyone else for helping Sen. Dodd out by standing up against Retroactive Immunity — but my friend and Fire Pup Joh Padgett (aka Fini Finito) sent me an email this morning saying he’s in a very serious health situation. He posted an update on his blog (http://johpadgett.com/monticello/?p=430) and I think he could really use some words of support. I’d appreciate it as a friend if those of you who know or read his work could drop a line to show him he’s not alone in this fight right now.

Thanks
Matt

It came up for me. Haven’t signed on yet; I don’t know whether I want to. I’m ticked at Congress in general and the Dems in Congress in particular, to the point where I’d change my party-of-registration if there was any kind of alternative (not much choice in CA: Green, maybe).

Oh, I’m sure Ronnie Raygun could make it in today’s GOP. He’d just need better PR guys to hide the mistakes-due-to-dementia, and invade a few more countries. Oh yeah, and go to a more fundy church than Bel Air Presbyterian when the cameras are around.

A quick drive-by from our weirdly consuming cancer world.

“Snark not lest ye be snarked.”

I get what y’all are saying about Noonan coming way late to the party. But the fact (?) is that she’s doing some of our work for us. Raising the spectre of radical right-wingerism. Let ‘er rail. I think it’s a good thing, whatever her track record.

Back to my cave.

OT–apologies:

Filed under Ho-Hum:

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the midst of furious campaigning, The Associated Press asked presidential candidates to reflect on what they like to do on a lazy day.

REPUBLICANS:

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: ”Golf or reading, depending on the weather.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: ”Running, hunting, fishing, or being at home with family and my three dogs.”

Arizona Sen. John McCain: ”Probably hiking around a place we have up near Sedona. It’s so beautiful up there in the Red Rock country, and we have a place that’s on Oak Creek. … and we have picnics. It’s not just strenuous hiking. You know, it’s just kind of a recreational outing.” In August 2006, he and son Jack hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim — ”which almost killed me and he thought was a day at the beach.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: ”Probably riding horses. In winter time, it’s skiing. In summer time — I mean, the thing I like most is being with my kids and grandkids, so sort of being with them, regardless of where it is.”

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson: ”Campaigning.”

ronald reagan wouldn’t make it in the republican party, nixon wouldn’t make it, lincoln wouldn’t make it, nary a one of the founding fathers would make it

king george of england might make it though but he would have to fake being religous just like our king goerge does

Remember Arianna Huffington’s background. For years I couldn’t look at her without seeing the blood of the Timorese splattered across her face. I still have moments. However, people can finally admit something is the matter like a parent who catches their teenager with drugs over and over. One day, the parent says their kid has a drug problem.

Arianna is Greek. West Timor (Indonesia) was colonized by the Netherlands. East Timor was colonized by Portugal. What’s the connection? Or am I missing something?

BREAK-THRU?

Congressman Wexler issuing call to action on impeachment. Statement up now at HuffPo.

Now class enters into it (mixed with religion, of course):

Filed at 2:01 p.m. ET

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson have begun casting Republican rival Mitt Romney as a scion of the upper class, contrasting him with their more humble roots in hopes of undermining the richest candidate in a well-off group.

”Our founding fathers had a brilliant, really revolutionary idea that the people elected would not represent the elite, but would represent the ordinary,” Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said at a debate in Iowa this week, a subtle poke at the former Massachusetts governor.

Thompson, a lawyer, actor and former senator from Tennessee, was more direct, saying: ”My goal is to get into Mitt Romney’s situation, where I don’t have to worry about taxes anymore.”

CNN just had a “Live Developing Story” that Huckabee naming Ed Rollins as National Campaign Chair.

So obviously, not all of St Ronnie’s enablers agree with Ms Noonan.

Following up on the thundering success of yesterday’s resolution in support of xmas, our ever vigilant House of Representatives moves on to other issues of monumental import.

Waxman Plans To Call Mitchell And Selig To Testify

Following the release Thursday of former Sen. George Mitchell’s report on steroid use in Major League Baseball, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has said he will call baseball commissioner Bud Selig, former Sen. Mitchell, and the president of the players association, Don Fehr, to testify before Congress on Dec. 18.

So many weighty matter to consider, so little time.

s/issue/issues

Any hope for edit?

Huffco oil.

And Huckabee’s boubou:

Filed at 2:06 p.m. ET

BOSCAWEN, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said eliminating federal income taxes in favor of a national sales tax would help save Social Security — an odd pitch in a state where residents pay no state income or sales taxes.

GrandmaJ: That’s why the DNC (and its fifty-state strategy) is the one major Democratic Party org that isn’t doing better than its Republican counterpart; the corporate money that is gushing into the DCCC and DSCC is avoiding the DNC. (The corporations don’t want a strong Democratic party structure, either nationally or locally; that would interfere with their ability to buy Congresscritters.)

This is one of the reasons why both Howard Dean and his brother Jim (who now runs DFA) back the Clean Elections campaign, which is having growing success at state and local levels nationwide.

Thanks. I missed that part.

Reagan was adjustable. Bush is not.

We in this house pay attention when Arianna speaks.

About that Ed Rollins hire:

Mike Huckabee, who sometimes seems to be running his presidential race entirely on his own, has finally found himself some high-profile professional help in the form of longtime GOP political consultant Ed Rollins.

Ed Rollins? Yes, that would be the same Ed Rollins who worked briefly — a lot of people did — for flame-out Florida Senate candidate Katherine Harris. More to the point, it’s the same Ed Rollins who boasted in 1993 that his client, Christine Todd Whitman, had won the governor’s race in New Jersey because the campaign had paid black ministers not to sermonize on behalf of Democratic Gov. Jim Florio and had given people who were supposed to be getting out the vote for Florio some “walking around money” to stay home instead.

I got the hair

I got the jaw.

I look so good on horsey you wanna cry.

Pegster, I am here.

Hugs and Stuff

Willard

Lahoma and I are members of the Blue Southwestern political association.

Yeah? Well, that just means he’s a typical rethug campaign manager. You didn’t think KKKarl thought up all his tricks on his own did you?

I got the hair

I got the jaw.

I look so good on horsey you wanna cry.

Pegster, I am here.

Hugs and Stuff

Willard

LOL!

Ah, like father, like son:

Filed at 2:42 p.m. ET

BOSTON (AP) — From his carefully coifed hair to his data-driven business principles to his unwavering devotion to his oft-maligned Mormon faith, Mitt Romney is the spitting image of his father physically, professionally and morally.

The depth of their bond can be seen in one early story.

At 18, Mitt Romney met a 15-year-old girl with whom he felt he could share his life. He then left for a year of college and a 2 1/2-year Mormon mission in France, during which time his father not only took his future wife, Ann Davies, to church, but converted her to their faith.

”Your gal looked lovely as always,” George Romney wrote to his son in February 1967. ”I sat next to her in church and asked if that ring of yours on her engagement finger meant what it usually means, and she said it did.”

While the son was frustrated at getting doors slammed in his face as he tried to find converts in a heavily Catholic nation, the father was proud of the success in winning over not only Ann, raised an Episcopalian, but also her brother, Jim.

Daddy was also a prez candidate. Which means, like daddy, Mitt will not be prez.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/042000-105.htm

Do you think his Repub opponents will use his knowledge of the French language against him?

Oh yeah?

”My dad is my life hero,” said Romney. ”I probably would have never thought about politics, it would have never crossed my mind, had I not seen him do it. He’s the real pioneer.”

A pioneer? Of what?

(Same link as my 39.)

That would be part of that elite-class thing in my 24. You see, French is for aristocrats, while Spanish is for peasants.

Yep. It was used against Kerry in 04.

I was living in Indonesia at the time. All news was blocked out on the invasion on East Timor, never mind going into the press blackout. However, the Indonesian army was heading out, somewhere. Kissinger was the mastermind of the “annex” plan making a deal with Soeharto that he would leave Jakarta before the war ships, with US munitions onboard, pulled out. Well, It’s the Indonesians. They tent to goof up a bit in the land of “tjam karet” (rubber time) and they left prematurely with Kissinger still in the country, snuggled is a warm safe spot in Jakarta.

Huffco, Michael and his entire rightwing criminal family had been shipping munitions and torture equipment to the Indonesian military to use on the Timorese and anyone else who spoke out. The world knew. It was blasted all over the international press. I knew. My friends knew. Australia never stopped talking about it on TV and in their press. Only the US treated it as a minor “skirmish”. 40% of the East Timor population was systematically exterminated. Arianna knew. She knew but liked the money. She divorced Michael when he announced he was gay. That affected Arianna. I always wanted to ask her if she accepted the blood money settlement?

This site has a good bibliography listed:
http://www.scn.org/~davidb/timor.html

Then there’s this, a real doozy:

One day as a Cub Scout, young Mitt and some friends spotted a young girl across a set of railroad tracks, riding a horse bareback.

”What do Cub Scouts do when they see a little girl on a horse?” Romney recalled in a later interview. ”We picked up stones and threw them.”

Fast-forward to a friend’s house party several years later, when Mitt Romney, then 18, spied the same girl, Ann Davies.

This time, Mitt offered 15-year-old Ann a ride home, even though they came with different dates. Later he would confess he was smitten by the fetching teen. Their first date was all-American: a screening of ”The Sound of Music.”

On another outing, Mitt and Ann joined others in using ice blocks to slide down hills at a local golf course at night.

”We did that with a bunch of high school friends and got caught and got put in the paddy wagons,” Ann Romney recalled. ”He was just fun, fun, fun to be with him in high school.”

(Same link as my 39.)

Stop whining about it. You loved it when it worked.
—————–
She was probably writing it when it worked.

Thanks. I knew about her background as a conservative, and about her husband and her subsequent transformation into a progressive, but I missed the Huffco part that QuakerGirl was talking about.

Quite interesting indeed. Thanks for the info.

Blue Texan,

You made my day, just imagining old Peggy reading your comment. Not that it’s likely to happen, but it’s still a nice image.

I have to say that as much as I think she’s a disgusting enabler of the destruction of the country, the speech she wrote after the Challenger blew up was pretty nice.

Atrios made an interesting point linking to this. He says its about class. Good insight, I thought.

She loved it in the G. W. Bush years, too, at least when it seemed to be working.

I wonder if our old friend Ronald Reagan could rise in this party, this environment…

I have no doubt that St. Ronnie would be right at home in modern Republican party. In fact, they’ve been trying to replace him since he left office in 1989. (What other explanation/excuse could be made for GrandPa Fred’s “candidacy”?) They’re always looking for someone with great stage presence who can lie convincingly…

OTOH, if Abraham Lincoln were alive today, he would not recognize — much less be accepted by — the party he founded. I’m the once Grand Old Party has degenerated into the party of Greedy Oil Perverts.

And Huckabee’s boubou:

Filed at 2:06 p.m. ET

BOSCAWEN, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said eliminating federal income taxes in favor of a national sales tax would help save Social Security — an odd pitch in a state where residents pay no state income or sales taxes.

A consumption tax does a couple of bad things: it would (presumably) tax poorer folks harsher than our current income tax would and it discourages consumption which would kill the economy.

What we need more of is a tax to regulate the imbalance in wealth, but encourages commerce.

To that end a higher tax on income (of the Rich) and a lower (or no) tax on businesses would be better.

Huckabee wouldn’t even be able to get Congressional support for his plan, much less the support of economists. It’s already been studied and aside from the “equal taxation” argument isn’t of much use.

I think there are some people in the Republican party who are not terribly partisan, as their leadership has been. I think there are many in the Republican party who just want problems solved, national security handled and a good economy. I think those people have probably been very upset by Bush. They, like many of us, didn’t see it coming — and now wish it would disappear as soon as possible.

Some of them will be caucusing in Iowa and in other states have cross-over voting.

I hope they see a Dem candidate that they believe could govern us all with respect for all. The larger our majority the more seats in government we get and the easier it will be to break logjams and solve many of the problems which have backed up. Hopefully this can be achieved with solutions acceptable to the vast majority of Americans.

It isn’t just about winning. It’s about making America a better place for everyone.