Are You Too Smart For Your Own Good? - Democratic Underground

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Fri Dec-07-07 12:34 AM
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Are You Too Smart For Your Own Good?

You knew they were lying about mushroom clouds. You knew that Republican candidates would say and do anything to divert attention away from their party's disastrous record of idiotic, dangerous policies. You knew that Republicans would never stop trying to steal elections. And you knew that the corporate-owned media would fan any and all flames (and even hire Karl Rove) for ratings and subscriptions. This week, liberal bloggers added much to the body of evidence against Republican incompetence and meanness, false "conservative" values, and their supporters' just plain pig-ignorance. Plus, DUers Stephanie, SalmonChantedEvening, SavageDem, and Skinner rocked it like shooting stars. Enjoy!

So Much For Bush's Axis Of Evil Crap

Exit the mushroom cloud lies: Iraq's wishful thinking about someday, somehow, maybe-sort-of plan for a possible WMD startup program? Zip. North Korea's sky-is-falling, absolutely-certain ability to fire a missile at the USA and kill millions? Nada. And now, Iran has no WMD program. At all. Shut down and boarded up years ago, and Bush knew it. So why is Bush playing White House press secretary and telling us that we should be even more afraid of Iran today than he wanted us to be last week, when he was lying about their "nukularness" ability? Davenetics is on the case:

Safety a Sign of Danger

I guess that depends on what the meaning of is not is…

W reacted to the report that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program several years ago by arguing that the new data is yet more proof that we are in danger.

So, I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program. And the reason why it's a warning signal is that they could restart it.

If only they hadn't halted the program. We'd be safe.

You know what's really scary? Of course, you do. Here's Davenetics' analysis of Bush's idiotic approach to what he thinks is diplomacy:

Bigger picture. About half of Iran's population (a population that until recently was fairly pro-American) is under 20 years old. Our sanctions are making it tougher for many of those young people to find work. Angry, broke and young and in that region. Now that's a warning signal.

Is Bush Logic Deficiency giving you a headache? Take two aspirin and get a load of Cenk Uygur's (Huffington Post) extrapolation of Bush's "Iran is still scary" logic:

Bush Explains Why Pearl Harbor Was Justified

How could the fact that someone has ended their nuclear weapons program years ago be justification for attacking them because they might restart it? Can Bush really believe the things that he says?

And if he does believe this absurdity, then wasn't Japan justified in attacking us in Pearl Harbor?

They heard that we had a nuclear weapons program - and we did. And that we might be able to start it any time - which was relatively true. And that if we had nuclear weapons, we might use them against Japan one day - which obviously proved to be true. So, they launched a pre-emptive strike against the United States because we had a nuclear weapons program they feared we might use against them at a later time.

Gee, Bush sounds more and more like those scary "Bomb them all and let God sort them out" idiots. Speaking of God...

God's Busy Week

One can only imagine how the God of Abraham felt upon learning that Rupert Murdoch is buying Beliefnet (details at Profy) and finding out that a Teddy Bear nearly caused a death sentence for a hapless teacher (Atheist Ethicist Journal). Adding to an already stressful week, The View's Sherri Shepherd opened her mouth... again... and negated that whole "Let my (chosen) people go" Moses vs. Pharaoh deal. From Queerty:

Sherri Shepherd Revises World History

Watch as Sherri Shepherd again proves her historical ignorance. No, she didn't question whether the world's flat - she already learned that lesson.

The View co-host simply states, "I don't think anything predated Christians". She's absolutely flabbergasted when Whoopi and Joy back say otherwise. Kate Walsh just sits in quiet disbelief.

Sadly, even Whoopi and Joy forgot all about the Egyptians. Wait! God's stressful week isn't over. There's that whole "Mitt's a Mormon; So what?" speech fallout. Plus, there are all of those super-Christian (but distinctly un-Christian in thought and deed) freepers to deal with...

And The Freepers Say, "Whuuut?"

Mojo Blog's Jonathan Stein links to the site which shall not be named for running... um, commentary on the New Hampshire hostage situation last Friday and lists the spewtridity (Hey, sounds like a Bushbot word, doesn't it?) posted in the first five minutes:

- "Oh this should be good............."

- "Someone trying to get their testicles back?"

- "popcorn...check... coffee....check..."

- "Staged?"

- "I wonder what nutjob they paid to pull this stunt.... like all the people who they get to hang nooses to make people think conservatives are radical haters"

- "Could be a CNN plant..."

- "From the latest Fox poll, she is leading in New Hampshire, so it would be stupid for her to have anything staged at this point. OTOH, I don't put anything past her."

- "Pray it's a Ron Paul supporter."

My favorite: the "CNN plant" speculation. Desperate much, freepers? Hm. Not a single freeper noting that the man seeking help from Senator Clinton knew better than to seek help from President Bush. Speaking of desperate, CNN seems to be desperately seeking validation of its Lou Dobbsian "Tancredo Supremo" immigrant bashing by pitting Romney against Giuliani in the "Who can out-Tancredo Tancredo?" debate. AlterNet's Max Blumenthal notes:

The success of Tancredo's efforts to project his nativist politics onto the national stage were apparent during CNN's November 26 Republican Youtube debate. In a heated exchange that highlighted press coverage of the debate, presidential frontrunners Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney competed with one another over who could appear the most draconian towards "illegals." When Romney accused Giuliani of running a "sanctuary city" for undocumented immigrants while serving as mayor of New York, Giuliani shot back that Romney had run a "sanctuary mansion" when he was governor of Massachusetts. Giuliani pointed to a lengthy Boston Globe report revealing that Romney paid a gardening service that employed illegal workers to tend the lawns of his mansion. Suddenly, the candidates with the most tolerant records on immigration issues sounded like Tancredo.

While the two rivals clashed, Tancredo stood at the far end of the stage smiling contentedly. The cause he championed for years with a band of ornery border vigilantes, white supremacists, and assorted dregs by his side had become a central theme in the race for the White House.

In case you're wondering just how mentally unstable Tancredo might be, Blumenthal begins his scathing indictment of CNN and Tancredo thusly:

When Republican Representative Tom Tancredo isn't railing against the "scourge" of illegal immigration on the presidential campaign trail, he relaxes in the 1053 square foot basement recreation room of his Littleton, Colorado McMansion. There, he and his family can rack up a game of billiards on their tournament size pool table, play pinball, or enjoy their favorite movies in the terraced seating area of a home theater system. Tancredo, who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by producing evidence that he suffered from mentally illnesses, especially likes entertaining his buddies with classic war movies.

Sooo... Tancredo was too depressed to fight in Vietnam, and now he's depressed that he didn't have the opportunity to fight in Vietnam; however, it's great to show the "Pearl Harbor" attack scenes to his best buds in his $60K home theater built by illegal immigrants. What a guy! Rounding out the blatant pandering to the Tancredo creed set, Bartcop posted this toon in his Nov. 30th Edition:

From immigration to those pesky former forced-immigrant-status slaves...

The Don Imus Hoedown Returns!

As noted by The Huffington Post, disgraced radio/MSNBC "personality," Don Imus, is back. And his new and improved sidekick is a... bit different from his last one:

Karith Foster, Imus' New (Black, Female) Sidekick

The black sidekick joining shock jock Don Imus on his return to the airwaves today is an Oxford-educated Texas cowgirl whose career has ranged from broadcast journalism to stand-up comedy, sources told The Post.

Karith Foster, a Harlem resident who grew up outside Dallas, was brought on by Imus to ease tension stirred up by his racist comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team, which got him booted in April, sources said.

"Nothing will change," boasts Imus; Bernard McGuirk is also back.

No Lights! No Cameras! Plenty Of Action!

Live-blogging this week's Dems' debate, USA Today's On Politics Blog kept us all informed on Tuesday as Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich and Obama faced off... on the radio. (Richardson was attending a Korean Conflict soldier's funeral.) Some choice quotes:

Biden (on Bush): "You cannot trust this president."

Clinton (on Iran): "There is simply no basis for a rush to war."

Dodd (on China): "We ought to be able to talk to the Chinese and say 'if this is a market you want to be in ... then you're going to have to play like an adult here'. ... The president has the authority to suspend imports. Had that been a U.S. corporation doing that, their doors would have been shut in 20 minutes."

Edwards (on Bush): "The U.S. Senate had important responsibility in standing up to him and stopping him."

Obama: "The basic concept (is that) increasingly, we have to view our security in terms of a common security and common prosperity with peoples in other countries."

Also live-blogging this week was The Rude Pundit. Only this time it was the Bush press conference, and copious amounts of vodka were involved. Some of the slushy goodness:

10:28: Disturbing things you never want to hear your President say: "Here's why it's hard."

10:30: This press conference's straw man: the vaguely defined person who thinks that the NIE means everyone needs to believe that Iran is just hunky-dory and we should stop paying attention to them. So it's either brinkmanship or blinders. Nothing in between.

10:33: Oh, shit, here's paranoid prez coming out: sometimes people say what he said is not what he said. So he won't tell what he said to Putin because he doesn't like it when people say what he said, which might not be what he said. Oh, and Iran's still bad.

10:36: Disturbing things you never want to hear your President say, part 2: On the campaign plane, "My friend Candy Crowley passed a virus around."

While there was plenty of action during both the radio debate and the latest Bush press conference, where was Dick Cheney, and what did his face look like when the NIE was released?

Cue Big Time's Close Up!

New Orleans blogger, Your Right Hand Thief, wishes he could see the look on Dick Cheney's face after seeing the new NIE report on Iran's... uh, non-nuclear capability.

Facial

Wish I could've seen Big Time's face when he read the summary of the new National Intelligence Estimate. Perhaps that's what gave him his recent heart palpitations.

Thief adds this appropriate photo, in lieu of a current one:

Adding salt to Cheney's facial scrub, Atrios notes:

It must be understood that since our intelligence agencies don't believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program, it also means that they don't know where such a program would be physically located if it did exist. This means that any desires of Dick Cheney and his people to bomb Iran simply involve... bombing the shit out of Iran.

Never forget: Cheney doesn't need no stinkin' national security reason to bomb an oil-rich country. And his heart palpitations began way back when Nixon was making mix tapes of his White House weirdness. Which brings us to...

Republican Dirty Tricks As Usual

San Clemente Dick (Nixon) would be proud! According to CBS News (via Eric Love at Calitics), those dirty tricksters in California are conning citizens into signing their electoral vote grab scam by bundling it with one that proposes more money for children's hospitals.

Dirty Tricksters Caught on Video: CBS Evening News Edition

by: Erik Love

Just before Thanksgiving, I posted my video showing the illegal tactics that the Republicans are willing to use in order to get signatures on their so-called "Electoral College Reform Initiative" - a ballot proposal that in reality is yet another election-stealing Republican dirty trick. And now, my video has just been featured nationally on the CBS Evening News.

What's at stake? Republicans would love to steal 20 of California's electoral votes, the equivalent of Ohio. Shame is obviously not a Republican family value. http://calitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4525">Watch the video and alert everyone you know in California. In other Dirty Tricks news...

Karl Rove's Memory Meltdown (Burnt Out Ends Of Smoky Days)

Sean Carman's hilarious post (at 23/6) on Karl Rove's sudden memory of Dems forcing Bush to invade and occupy Iraq is only one-tenth of the story:

Things Karl Rove Just Remembered

1. President Bush never wanted to invade Iraq. He was forced into it by that paragon of indomitable political power, the Democratically-controlled Senate.

2. The Civil War was instigated by the North, to impose an industrialized economy on the South's happily slave-based agrarian one.

3. Watergate was invented by the liberal media as retaliation for the great success of Nixon's law and order presidency.

4. By campaigning to establish the League of Nations, President Woodrow Wilson caused the onset of World War II.

5. If Strom Thurmond had won on the segregationist Dixiecrat ticket, we wouldn't have had all of these problems we've had over the years.

6. America won the Vietnam War.

7. Putting a man on the moon was Richard Nixon's idea.

8. John F. Kennedy's presidency is mainly remembered for the doom and gloom of Kennedy's hopeless vision for America.

9. In the 1960s, joy and artistic creativity died a quiet death in America, especially at the failed "Woodstock" outdoor rock concert.

10. Slaves on southern plantations greatly appreciated their subjugated state, because it provided a roof over their heads and three meals a day.

Up is down, and night is day. But you already knew they'd say that. Hey, have you taken time out to thank those who continue to peel back the layers of the BushCo rotting and stinking onion? If not, now's the time to...

Thank A DUer!

Thanks to SavageDem for this hilarious post:

Rudy and Simon: Separated at birth?

I can't take credit for the idea, but a caller into The Stephanie Miller Show this morning pointed out that Rudy looks an awful lot like Simon Bar Sinister of the old - wait, that would make me old - Underdog cartoon. Sho' 'nuff - he does!

I put together a photo montage to illustrate:

Thanks to Stephanie for posting this:

Out in the Cold ---pix--->>>

And to SalmonChantedEvening for this reply post to Stephanie's original post:

The Liar in Winter

Thanks, DUers! And thanks to the DU administrators for alerting us all to the Second Annual DU Year-End Charity Donation Drive. Skinner writes:

Some of you may remember that last year we held our first-ever charity donation drive, raising more than $27,000 for America's Second Harvest, the food-bank network. It was such a great success that the DU Admins think it would be fun to make it an annual event.

So, once again, we're looking for suggestions for a possible charity (or charities) to which we could all donate. We're hoping you all could give us suggestions. The criteria are the same as last year:

1. It should be a charity and a cause that is not controversial. Something that the vast majority of DUers can support without reservation. A charity that fits with our values, and does not have a hidden right-wing agenda.

2. They should have a detailed website (include a link in your post), and the ability to accept donations online.

3. If possible, it would be great if we could set up a special online donate page for members of DU, so we can share that address with our membership and we can easily keep track of how much our community has donated.

4. Obviously there are many worthy causes, but our preference is that we select a charity that focuses on helping the less fortunate: people who are poor, hungry, or sick. During the holiday season when our culture becomes obsessed with material abundance, it seems appropriate to us that we try to help those people who do not enjoy such access to material wealth.

5. Our preference is to select a different charity than last year. But if lots of members think we should donate to America's Second Harvest again, we will certainly consider it.

Of course, you know how hopeful and generous Democrats have always been. You've always known it. And you've always made a difference to the lives of those around you through your thoughts and deeds. Whether you know it or not, you are the reason those tightie righties are so shrill and so desperate: you're not too smart for your own good; you're too smart for their own misguided definition of "good." And thank goodness, you are.

-- Delilah Boyd

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