Your republican translation machine

Just a reminder, when a republican says they believe in "personal responsibility," what they really mean is:

You're on you fucking own, chump!

The subtext of that is "you shoulda worked hard and gotten right with jesus sooner."

The republican candidates refer to "personal responsibility" in debates and on the stump fairly frequently. But you won't find it on their websites, though the doctrine is implicitly spelled out in their policies.

Republican dead-ender crowds know what it is though. Make no mistake about that. Check this out:

"It was one ovation after another as Bush ran through red meat issues: making tax cuts permanent, extending the surveillance law, winning in Iraq, defeating terrorism, limiting stem cell research, upholding life, appointing conservative judges."

But a telling moment came when Bush was talking about people "swept up in a cycle of addiction, and crime, and hopelessness." Said Bush: "We know that people can change their behavior. Sometimes all it takes is the help of a loving soul -- somebody who puts their arm around a troubled person and says, I love you, can I help you."

Suddenly, as Gillman reported, a woman shouted out very loudly, "I love ya Dubya!"

Bush responded: "My soul is not that troubled, but thank you."

Two things going on here- first, notice those red-meat issues are all about rewarding his base and nothing about the very real economic problems in this country. And second, notice that Bush isn't the least bit troubled by all the damage he's wreaked on society. It's all about him and the adulation of his fan club. Via today's Froomkin.

Have I said today how much I hate these people?

FISA Immunity

My paranoid thought for the day- chimpy and cheney are making a really big stink about keeping telecom immunity in the renewal of the "Protect America Act" (god, but I HATE those fucking cutesy names they make up).

Their reasoning is that no company will want to help the government in the future if they think they might get sued.

You know what that tells me? They've already asked some other private companies to spy on us and so far they've said no. So they're desperate to get Congress to establish the precedent that companies acting in "good faith," even if they should have known better, are off the hook when they break the law.

Makes me wonder what else they're up to, and who else is helping them.

Feh. Congress should just let the whole thing expire. When the CIA squawks, congress can tell them they'll give them $10 million in emergency appropriations to pay for lawyers who do nothing but working on FISA motions. If the technical fix still needs fixing next year, fine. Write a reasonable bill and send it to a sane democratic president to sign.

Otherwise, no dice. And Harry, you pussy, the correct thing to say, both publicly and privately, is, "Suck my democratic dick. Dick."

Yes, I know I have a better chance of waking up with two heads than having Harry follow my excellent advice.

Harry Reid! We HALPS U!!

It's pretty clear to me that Harry Reid knows less about the PR game than he does about how to be a successful majority leader. So I am launching a new feature here, where in I shall endeavor to take Harry's garbled, long-winded mutterings and translate them into easily understood arguments. Along the way I'll also give him some helpful hints on strategy. Feel free to play along in comments.

One hopes that he will be able to take constructive criticism, though I suspect I hope in vain.

So let's get started.

Just today, it appears that the WH is still insisting that the Senate confirm uber-douchebag author of the torture memos Steven Bradbury and won't strike a deal on other nominees unless Reid agrees to let chimpy recess appoint him.

Here's what Reid said on the floor today:

"He said that unless I would agree to allow him to recess appoint Steven Bradbury, he wouldn’t make a deal – he didn’t care if that meant no one got confirmed. He was willing to forgo the 84-plus nominees and the offers of recess appointments if he couldn’t install Mr. Bradbury.

Weak!

Here's what Reid should have said privately:

Bite me.

I always feel concision is best. And here's what he should have said publicly.

The president is holding the nomination process hostage over the torture memo guy. The senate does not negotiate with terrorists.

See? that wasn't so hard. Call his bluff. Tell him to fuck off and die.

Believe me, the public will be on your side.

Let's try another one (isn't this fun?). Today G.O.P. Senators Block Democrats’ Stimulus Plan because dems added benefits for seniors, the unemployed and disabled veterans.

Here's what Harry said (and did) today.

The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, had signaled that Democrats were prepared to force a showdown with Republicans over the $204 billion Senate stimulus package and would not bow to pressure to simply make modest changes to a less expensive plan that was approved by the House last week.

“We should go for the whole package,” Mr. Reid said at a news conference on Tuesday. He waved off assertions by some Republicans that he was bluffing. “Wait until we have this vote, and they’ll find out,” he said. “I am not much of a bluffer.”

Well, no, you're not much of a bluffer. In fact, you suck ass at it. As the article says, you were only able to muster 58 votes, so you let it go with a "paper filibuster."

What he should have said privately to Mitch McConnell:

Bite me, you asshole.

And what he should have said publicly:

"50 votes is a pass. If you don't like it, I suggest you get your wrinkly asses up here on the senate floor and start filibustering. In the meantime, we'll tell the American people how you hate old folks and the unemployed. Have fun!"

None of this is rocket science. And I'm serious as a heart attack about the public language.

Speak clearly, concisely and on point. Show some balls, be right, and the public, as well as the press, will reward you. And hell, the country will be better off too! Imagine the possibilities.

Torture

AP/Jae C. Hong

Would you trust this clown to decide whether it was appropriate for the US government to torture you? (Remember, he's the guy who mocked Karla Fay Tucker's clemency bid, "Don't kill me!") Via Froomkin:

Olivier Knox writes for AFP: "The United States may use waterboarding to question terrorism suspects in the future, the White House said Wednesday, rejecting the widely held belief that the practice amounts to torture.

"'It will depend upon circumstances,' spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding 'the belief that an attack might be imminent, that could be a circumstance that you would definitely want to consider.'

"'The president will listen to the considered judgment of the professionals in the intelligence community and the judgment of the attorney general in terms of the legal consequences of employing a particular technique,' he said.

snip

Knox writes that Fratto "rejected charges that the tactics the Central Intelligence Agency calls 'enhanced interrogation techniques' amount to torture.

"'Torture is illegal. Every enhanced technique that has been used by the Central Intelligence Agency through this program was brought to the Department of Justice and they made a determination that its use under specific circumstances and with safeguards was lawful,' he said."

And here's the kicker: "Asked whether the White House's reasoning was that torture is illegal, the attorney general has certified that the interrogation practices are legal, therefore those practices are not torture, Fratto replied: 'Sure.'"

Great. We just publicly admitted that we commit crimes in contravention against signed treaties.

Okay, Speaker Pelosi. The ball is in your court. The president's spokesman just said that we commit torture, and that the president signs off on it.

Time to impeach. End of story.

MONSTER TUESDAY!!!!! BWA HA HA HA HA!!

MSNBC has been advertising tomorrow as "MONSTER TUESDAY!!"

I'm hoping it means that the guy in the photo is going to show up and perform a little eatage on Tweety. Anytime after 6:00 pm will be okay with me.

I think that is an election day result we can look forward to.

Oooops

U.S. Says It Accidentally Killed 9 Iraqi Civilians

BAGHDAD — American forces said Sunday that they had accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians and wounded three in a strike aimed at militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia south of Baghdad, acknowledging what appeared to be one of the deadliest cases of mistaken identity in recent weeks.my emphasis added

A military statement released late in the day said the accidental killings happened Saturday in Iskandariya, about 25 miles south of the capital, and that the wounded were taken to American military hospitals.

The statement did not further identify the civilian victims, but the Iraqi police said American aircraft, responding to an attack on an American convoy, had erroneously bombed Iraqi civilian guardsmen who have contracted with the American military to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Those guardsmen, predominantly Sunnis, are considered a major reason the American military has successfully reduced insurgent violence in Iraq. But in recent weeks scores of the Sunni guardsmen, known variously as Concerned Local Citizens, Awakening Councils and the Sons of Iraq, have been killed in clashes with Qaeda fighters and Shiite militia groups.

Allow me to be bitchy and point out that if we weren't in Iraq in the first place, none of this would be happening.

Good job! bombing the guys that were supposed to be helping "the mission."

It's time to exit this clusterfuck. IMHO though, we won't have any realistic chance of getting out of Iraq until we admit that going in was a mistake in the first place.

Farewell John Edwards, and thank you

Matthew Hinton/AFP/Getty Images

If this photo doesn't make break your heart with regret for what might have been.... well, you don't have a heart.

If, as I expect, we elect a democrat this fall to the presidency, that candidate will have been shaped, pushed and pulled by the compelling and brutal honesty of the Edwards campaign. He has been the voice of the poor, the forgotten, and the disenfranchised in this country. He has become our conscience, the voice that says you may not look away from the homeless, the poor, the uninsured. You may not ignore the discarded and the unfortunates whose lives have been ruined by Katrina, or Vietnam or Iraq.

You must look.

And more, you must act.

He changed the debate, and he forced Clinton and Obama to come along with him. He led on every progressive issue and we will have him to thank if the country finally breaks the spell of this insidious, evil neo-gilded age. As Edwards said in his email to supporters yesterday:

This work goes on. It goes on right here in Musicians' Village. There are homes to build here, and in neighborhoods all along the Gulf. The work goes on for the students in crumbling schools just yearning for a chance to get ahead. It goes on for day care workers, for steel workers risking their lives in cities all across this country. And the work goes on for two hundred thousand men and women who wore the uniform of the United States of America, proud veterans, who go to sleep every night under bridges, or in shelters, or on grates, just as the people we saw on the way here today. Their cause is our cause.

Their struggle is our struggle. Their dreams are our dreams.

Do not turn away from these great struggles before us. Do not give up on the causes that we have fought for. Do not walk away from what's possible, because it's time for all of us, all of us together, to make the two Americas one.

Yesterday, after the video cameras turned off, and the stage had been taken down, and most of the reporters had wandered off to cover other candidates, John Edwards picked up a hammer and a drill and went to work building a home for one of the thousands of families displaced by Katrina.

The work goes on.

Thank you, Senator Edwards. Please don't be a stranger.

Krugman has a very fine column today on Edwards as well: The Edwards Effect