All Things Being Equal, My Ass!

[BlogBox]

The GOP once called 33% the "moral majority," the media validated their bogus B.S., and Republicans are still pretending that 33% is a frigging mandate. By treating 67% and 33% as equal amounts, it's no wonder that America feels betrayed. This week, bloggers point out some glaring inequities, ask some pointed questions, and sift through some random crap and truly scary stuff.

Texas Or Virginia

This question should be simple enough, even for a Republican: where does Tom DeLay live? It depends on which day it is. When he's busy raising campaign dough for a re-election race he has no intention of completing, he's a Texan. He's currently claiming a homestead exemption on his home in Texas. And that makes him a Texan, right? DeLay wouldn't try to defraud the IRS, would he? Stop laughing. When he's trying to keep a Democrat from getting elected to his recently vacated U.S. House seat, he's a Virginian. Why, he's even got a VA driver's license and a voter registration card to prove it. DeLay wouldn't risk facing a voting fraud felony charge, would he? Hmm. What's one more felony? After all, there's still a big R after his name.

If all of this sounds positively Ann Coulteran, Juanita's been wondering "why it was that Tom DeLay could vote in a Virginia primary while he was still representing the good people of the Texas 22nd Congressional District" and points us in the direction of Muse:

The guy can cut and run (or not?) from the voters in TX-22, but it looks like he can't run from the long arm of the law. It sounds like the good people of Virginia have read the lawsuit the Texas Democratic Party brought against DeLay last week.

UPDATE: Check out Juanita's today. She has a juicy tidbit about Christine DeLay not moving to Virginia with Tom. Which means she will stay at the house on St. Anne's, which is just 2.67 miles from me (I googled it) in Sugar Land. You know, we have community property laws in Texas. Tom owns that house with her. How can he claim to not be a resident of Texas?

My take, as a native Texan, on this whole DeLay deal? From my blog, Delilah Boyd:

Now, DeLay gets to keep all of those campaign donations, which will surely come in handy when his gi-normous legal bills come due; however, DeLay has resigned his seat and plans to move to Virginia, where he'll most likely join the ranks of the disgraced Republican lobbying crime syndicate. Ka-Ching!

(snip)

Of course, the big R after DeLay's name probably means that no legal authority will really challenge the former insect exterminator. That being said, at least DeLay will have to part with a sizable chunk of his campaign donations from his foolish followers.

And we all win when that happens.

Gay And Republican

Mary Cheney's book is a big fat flop. Stop laughing. OK, now you've got me laughing, too. Stop it. Seriously, a million-dollar advance on a book about being a gay Republican, written by the offspring of Vice President Dick, probably sounded like a great idea to Mary's publishers, who thought that fascist fundies would just eat up Mary's crap-on-a-stick schtick. Diane at The Dees Diversion points out the obvious:

Mary Cheney's book a flop

It has sold fewer than 6,000 copies.

Perhaps it would have done better if she had put some lesbians in it.

Connecticut Blog adds: "Couldn't happen to a better person," and Hughes For America writes: "No, Mary, it's not your turn." Hughes adds:

Who did you think would buy your book, Mary? Self-loathing gay Americans looking for something especially ironic to flagellate themselves with? Republicans looking to pride themselves on how their mythical big tent includes a lesbian? Democrats looking for your excuse for remaining silent so long? Because, if you look at who is buying it from Amazon, you'll find yourself in unfriendly territory, grouped with such notable bigots at Ann Coulter. Hell, you can even buy your book and hers in a package deal. Hate yourself and hate everyone else, all for one convenient price!

It doesn't appear as though many people care to hear your side of things, Mary. Your book sales are so poor that your publishing company would need to see a profit of $166 on every book sold thus far to break even, considering your hefty advance. Color me pessimistic, but I don't see that happening. So no, Mary, it's not your turn. And it never will be, so long as you look the other way while your party tries to legislate you and others like you into second-class citizenship.

Whew! With the antagonistic attitude toward Mary from both sides of the political spectrum, it's probably safe to assume that Mary won't be signing copies of her book at your local outlet mall's Barnes & Noble anytime soon.

Guns Or Roses

DUers always ask the best questions. After George W.'s little 25 pounds of body armor trip sneak into Iraq for five hours Rose Garden press photo-op, Dogday asked: Are we fighting terra, or enabling democracy, or establishing dominance in the Middle East?

Husb2Sparkly, responding to Karl Rove's attack on the military service of Senator John Kerry and Senator John Murtha, asked:

Who's got John Kerry's back? Who's got John Murtha's back?

Both these fine men have been excoriated as weak, wimpy, appeasing, wishywashy, sissy, cowardly, and many other very 'special' ad hominum attacks for their stance on Iraq.

Who in the Beltway crowd has been standing and speaking LOUD and CLEAR in support of them? What pols? What pundits?

This shit of the chickenhawks attacking our proven brave defenders has to stop. NOW.

And BlueJazz posted this poll:

What can be more Exciting than Listening to a Bush Speech?

Listening to "You're Having My Baby" (by Paul Anka) 327 Times. Watching the same Old soap Opera over and over and over and.... Looking at slow-Drying Oil-Base Paint Dry. Enjoying the pleasure of seeing Weeds sprout up on a Sidewalk. Baking in the Hot Sun seeing Traffic Lights Change. Cleaning that spot on the Carpet caused by your Dog's Diariha. Washing that "Maggot-Infested" Garbage Can caused by Old Chicken Parts. Checking your Newborn's Diaper for "Interesting Smells"

Yearly Kos Or A Star Trek Convention


General Wes Clark, live blogging from the Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas, notes that NPR compared the annual Kos bloggers' meeting (which drew notables like Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Howard Dean, Gov. Mark Warner, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid... among others) to a Star Trek Convention. Duh. If this is the new and improved (trans. fascist) NPR, maybe MoveOn.Org should just let Big Bird go mainstream...

Phone Call Or Letter Or Fax

While the corporate-owned media completely "exonerated" Karl Rove and crowned him king of the upcoming campaign season, Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake took the time to translate lawyer Luskin's statement (emphasis mine):

Okay, so I'm reading the Time article on the Rove development (thanks to jbalazs for the heads up), and a couple of things jump out at me. First of all, now Luskin is saying that he received a FAX from Fitzgerald. So, we've heard phone call (in the television reporting), letter (NYTimes) and now FAX from Time Magazine's Mike Allen.

Second, there is this paragraph:

Luskin had just received a fax from Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, saying that he was formally notifying Luskin that absent any unexpected developments, he does not anticipate seeking any criminal charges against Rove.

Translation: if I get solid evidence that your client lied to me, all bets are off.

Fitzgerald did not close the door entirely - no prosecutor ever does, since you never know what will turn up in the next document dump or investigative interview - so in order for Rove to be entirely in the clear for the long haul, he'd best have told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Can the same be said for Dick Cheney and others in the case? Time will tell.

Signs And Silence

Those brilliant freeway bloggers are at it again. If you live near Weston, MA, you might have seen this one, posted at Democratic Underground.com by DUer, unhappycamper:


On a smaller scale, Tales of the Freeway Blogger has a nice collection of bumper stickers which demonstrate Republican ideals:




The best thing about these signs? You don't have to say a word.

Ideas Or Threats

Thanks to Judd at Think Progress, we have the GOP's 3 main 2006 campaign talking points, which are short but not sweet:

ThinkProgress has obtained a "Confidential Messaging Memo" from Boehner instructing his caucus to conduct a very different kind of deliberation. Here's a quick summary:

1. Exploit 9/11. The two page memo mentions 9/11 seven times. It describes debating Iraq in the context of 9/11 as "imperative."

2. Attack opponents ad hominem. The memo describes those who opposes President Bush's policies in Iraq as "sheepish," "weak," and "prone to waver endlessly."

3.Create a false choice. The memo says the decision is between supporting President Bush's policies and hoping terrorist threats will "fade away on their own."

You can read the confidential memo for yourself HERE.

So, let's recap those GOP talking points: 1) Lie; 2) Lie; and 3) Lie. Oh, and get the media to repeat your lies, which brings us to...

Ruth Ann Dailey Or The Truth

I know she's just one Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (cough) columnist, but damn! 2 Political Junkies slice and dice her latest liefest (the "left is mostly mum" on Zarqawi's death) with precision and gusto for the game. Great work, Dayvoe and Maria. Thanks to you and other alert patriots, this update was printed in the Post-Gazette:

Correction/Clarification: (Published June 13, 2006) This installment of Ruth Ann Dailey's column for June 12, 2006 editions incorrectly said only one blogger on DailyKos.com had commented on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A further search of the Web site showed more threads where users posted comments on the topic.

Random Crap And Truly Scary Stuff

No wonder Bush can't find bin Laden. AMERICAblog notes that, per Rumsfeld's new War On Terror briefing book, we're looking for someone named "Osama bin Landen." Suitable for framing: Scott Bidstrup at Veritas Et Ratio has an 11" X 17" (when printed) chart called The Dubya and Dick Scandal Chart. It's a ponderous, hell of a thing, indeed. Speaking of Hell, check the forecast. It may be freezing over. Normally, I wouldn't even consider linking to gopusa.com, but this week Cliff Kincaid chews up Ann Coulter and spits her out. Of course, the nutjobs at gopusa add:

Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

Finally, The Huffington Post wants to know if you've checked your email lately. Click the link and find out why yours might be "an email account of interest" to the NSA.

My late great relative who was famous for a brief moment in time, Senator Sam Ervin, used to compare the media's treatment of Republicans and Democrats as a recipe for "Bear and Squirrel Stew": Add equal parts (one bear (R) and one squirrel (D)) to boiling water and stir. My updated recipe: the next time you hear the qualifier "all things being equal" as an excuse for shoddy, lopsided coverage of important issues and ideas, add the words "my ass."

-- Delilah Boyd

[unpossibles]

1. man, I need to do some guerilla activism

and make stickers of this



to put on people's "W" cars down here in Cinci. Wonder how long it would take them to notice and if they'd bother removing it...

[Reckon]

3. imo, repubs would like that.

But you could make some money selling them.. lol

[MGKrebs]

2. So presumably Delay couldn't even vote for himself

in that primary? Heehee!

[Reckon]

4. I agree with this.

This shit of the chickenhawks attacking our proven brave defenders has to stop. NOW.

I don't see how the military can respect chickenshits.

[Reckon]

5. Like someone said

The repubs "Lack the brains to win" a war.

No wonder Bush can't find bin Laden. AMERICAblog notes that, per Rumsfeld's new War On Terror briefing book, we're looking for someone named "Osama bin Landen."