Blog Box

January 27, 2006
Compiled and written by Delilah Boyd, A Scrivener's Lament

Enough!

Bob Ney has the Ohio party chair under his thumb, Roy Blunt has bloggers up his sleeve, the WHIG group is having Fitz, and Brokeback Bush hasn't seen the #1 movie in the country. Plus, Santorum's "army" sports bumper stickers instead of uniforms, and Ralph Reed is paying people to attend his campaign events.

Is there a Dem response to constant Republican lying and cheating? Has the media covered it? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Ney � to Bennett (R): "Suck It!"

Ohio's Republican party chair Bob Bennett says Rep. Bob Ney (R-Facing Imprisonment) should step down if indicted, but Ney has called his bluff. Atrios has Ney's money quote - something about glass houses.

Blunt to Conservative Bloggers: "Is There a Ringer in the House?"

In another part of the BushCo blogging heartland, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Pravdaville) uses ringers to enhance his reichwing bloggers' conference call. Corrente slices and dices Dale Franks' (QandO Blog) Claude Rains moment quite nicely:

Thanks to alert reader Julia, we have this from QandO ("free markets, free people"). Roy Blunt - of the Philadelphia Blunts, perhaps? - is running for Tom DeLay's (porcelain) throne in the House, so he's talking to bloggers in conference calls: When Rep. Blunt opened the floor for questions, the next surprise was that the first question came from someone from GOP Bloggers. He wasn't a part of our group, i.e., the one organized by NZ Bear. How did he get on the call? What touching innocence... Read on: This guy then proceeded to throw a softball at Rep Blunt� Speaking of softballs, maybe Jeff Gannon could answer our winger's question?

The moral of the story: QandO will not be endorsing Roy Blunt to replace Tom DeLay. In fact, QandO writes: "I would rather lick fire ants off a stick than see Roy Blunt as Majority Leader."

Fitz to WHIG: "I'll Have Some Yellow Cake Info, Please."

According to After Downing Street, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating a Plame-Niger conspiracy, and the cast of characters includes the White House Iraq group and a "current State Dept. official," who's connecting the dots.

Tweety to the World: 'Michael Moore Bombed Us."

Cup O Joe (blog & podcast) is ticked at MSNBC's Chris Matthews. And The Tweety Report's comparison of Osama Bin Laden and Michael Moore is just the tip of Joe's angerberg. Blaming Democrats for not capturing Mr. 9/11 when Republicans have controlled virtually everything and everyone for the past five years makes Joe proclaim:"The greatest threat to any nation doesn't come from the outside, it comes from within. The enemy is among us."

You said it, Joe! You're not the only one steamed at Matthews. Open Letter To Chris Matthews has had 50,000 hits in five days. Others hot on the Matthews trail: Peter Daou, Digby, MyDD, AmericaBlog, America Blog again (this time calling for a "Hardball" boycott), Seeing The Forest, and The Left Coaster, to name a few. Crooks and Liars, where we normally see little text on any video capture content, even posts a wealth of background on why the Chris Matthew smear matters. The post prize, however, has to go to Daily Kos. What a headline!

Deborah Howell to Readers: "Get Over It!"

It's a snack cake! It's an ombudsman! It's both! Poor l'il Debbie - the Washington Post's incompetent ombuds(wo)man still doesn't get it. But Firedoglake does:

To all of those who wanted me fired, I'm afraid you're out of luck. I have a contract. For the next two years, I will continue to speak my mind. No. What you should have said was that although Abramoff's victims, the Indian tribes, gave money to Democrats it was much less than they did before Abramoff appeared on the scene and there is no indication that there was anything quid-pro-quo about it. Unlike the Republicans, who are up to their eyeballs in shit over this. To say anything else provides improper context and implies that legitimate contributions and illegal influence peddling are one, which they most certainly are not. Thanks for making our job easy. You hang in there, li'l gal. Now that you've got a big fat target on yer back, we'll be right here swinging for the fences until you get it right. The rest of it is just more hilarity as big media dinosaurs discover trolls. They are just not going to enjoy the bumpy ride into interconnectivity and the 21st century, are they? That one-way communication thing was really working for them.

Yum. Tasty snack cake, indeed. Um, didn't Judith Miller have a contract, too, Debbie?

Brokeback Bush to Unscreened Questioner: "I Didn't See it. Nobody Saw Me See It. You Can't Prove Anything."

Sometimes you really have to click the link (Brad Blog has the video) and watch the chimp "communicate" with the little voice in his ear, as it says, "Uh... Uh... Talk about ranching. Okay, say you haven't seen it. Uh... Uh... Okay. Say you've heard about it, Mr. President." QUEERTY writes:

Bush Finally Gets As Uncomfortable As We Are With Him So does this mean he's going to go see it? Actually, we kind of expected some sort of half-assed response about how gay marriage ruins traditional marriage, but that would require the man thinking on his feet. Instead, all we got was just more proof of how much we need to quit President Bush.

I guess it could be worse. That little voice could be saying, "REDRUM!"

Santorum to Supporters: "My Bumper Sticker is Just Like Military Service."

Rick Santorum says if you put his bumper sticker on your car, you're serving your country just like the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm not kidding. Santorum Exposed has the sordid details. The next thing you know, Little Ricky will start demanding that you salute when he passes, or drop and give him 50. Say, where's Jeff Gannon when you need him? By the way, Rick - do those bumper stickers of yours come with VA benefits?

Ralph Reed to the Grassroots: "I'll Pay You to Attend My Events."

Need cash? Just like those loser TV shows that pay audience members $15 to sit through craptastic show tapings in L.A., Tarnished Halo Boy is now paying for tickets to his events and a night's lodging. Of course, you have to be an approved Republican "grassroots" (stop laughing!) supporter. The Carpetbagger has the goods. If you think that's weird, wait till you see what The Patriot Act has in store for us...

BushCo to Everybody: "Pay No Attention to the Praetorian Guard Behind the Curtain."

Mark Crispin Miller (News From Underground) has the 411 on our future American Gestapo, the Patriot Act link, and the pertinent clauses. He also mentions BushCo's focus group failure phrase, "reasonable grounds," which has morphed into the more popular "reasonable suspicion." No mention of "probable cause," though.

Canada to USA: "Harper's Bizarre, But He's All Ours."

"Oh, Canada!" cry the American Conservatives, but Super Mega Tomato points out that new Prime Minister Harper doesn't even have a majority:

The only positive is that it's only a minority government, and if they try anything radical, they will most likely have their asses handed to them. I'll be waiting for it.

We're counting on you, Super Mega Tomato!

Abramoff to Media: "Who Will Buy?"

First the White House lied, and cable news crickets chirped while bloggers and honest-to-God journalists hunted for evidence that Bush knows Jack (Abramoff). Then, news of five photos surfaced. Meanwhile, the White House had time to make up a new story to replace the original lie: oh, yeah - those photos? Those are meet-and-greet photos, just like thousands of others. Ahem. Frank James posts on the Chicago Tribune blog, The Swamp:

Bush's (awkward?) Kodak moments One of Washington's best perks is that if you're in the right job or know the right person, you can get invited to an official White House event and have your photograph taken with the president. There are plenty of people around town, including journalists with such photos (I think I've got five spanning two administrations.) So it struck many folks around here as odd when the White House was asked if disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff had ever met the president and, if so, was there a photo of such a meeting that White House spokesman Scott McClellan's line was something like: we're looking for it. (snip) All this prompts the question: why wouldn't the White House want to make public photos of the president with Abramoff? I think I know the answer but if any readers have their own thoughts on the matter, don't hesitate to write.

Bruindesign has one of those photos (not really), as well as the possible reasons why the Bushist Cabal is so interested in YOUR web-surfing habits. Here are a few:

1. You, or one of your neighbors, are suspected of sending coded email to Osama bin Whatshisname or his Second-in-Command Zawahooie... who I'm pretty sure has been reported killed a minimum of six times. 2. Your teenage daughters are augmenting their allowances with thrice-weekly performances on NakedHighSchoolGirls.com.... AND haven't paid their taxes for the last three quarters. 3. Your last name is Fitzgerald AND you're unfortunate enough to be an attorney. 4. You, or one of your neighbors, didn't vote for George W. Bush.

Back to Photogate. When Newsweek's Michael Isikof spilled the "Abramoff is shopping the photos around" beans, bloggers went to town. Unconfirmed Sources (take the name seriously) also has a photo, and Left Edge North writes: "This is yummier than carrot cake with frosting!"

BushCo to America: "It's My Country, and I'll Bug You if I Want to."

How long will it take elected Democrats to start spitting out the Nixonian B-word? Bugging wasn't exactly popular back in the day (even after we explained the term to our British pals), and it wouldn't be today, either, if we had any kind of free press. I notice that no one has asked Bob Woodwa... - oops! Make that Carl Bernstein - about BushCo bugging American citizens. It's illegal. Period. The Suburban Ecstasies explains the whole thing in one easy paragraph.

Specious Reasoning points out: "6 in 10 think Bush Sucks!" But this is when BushCo is most dangerous. How else can President 36% and his minions maintain control over America's daily dialogue unless they know what the opposition is up to? They can't win without cheating, and they're determined to reinstate the powers of Nixon, so why not use his methods? By the way, if you're worried about your Internet research trail, Imilly.com teaches us how to search anonymously, and Brainshrub has an extremely valuable IT communications security handbook for political activists and Democrats. Well worth sharing with your local party organization.

Had enough repulsive Republicanspeak? There's so much more to report but so little time. Meanwhile, if you're not satisfied with your blog's look (I'm not), or you think your blog is under surveillance...

Blog Nuts & Bolts

'Tis the brave blogger who not only redesigns a blog, but also switches web tools entirely.

Before:

After:

What a difference! I'm so jealous! DU's LeftCoast created the new and improved blog with Apple's iWeb blogging tool and says it's easy to start a basic blog with iWeb, but there are still several negatives (you can't tweak the template, and pages take forever to load). Temporary problems, I'm sure.

Most of us still don't trust Blogger.com's spell checker (which used to freeze up and delete entire posts). For more info, email me, and I'll send you LeftCoast's beautifully written, detailed review of his experience moving from Blogger to Apple's iWeb... and his concern about switching.

Keeping up with Republican shenanigans is exhausting, but we all know how they operate: keep us scrambling to respond, refute, and regroup... while they start the next cycle of lies and cheating. At some point, Dems have to shout with one voice, "Enough!"

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