June 15, 2013

Origin of "Rethug" (as in "thug"): The "Brooks Brothers Riot" part of Coup-2000

V-P BIDEN's recent comment that Al "GORE was elected president" led to a couple of nostalgic posts about how we coalesced into DU over the trauma of Coup-2000 and how that trauma has lasted for most of the past dozen years. There might be some DUers who are young enough not to have this that much in their psyche. As a refresher, the picture below of buttoned-down staffers of Republican congresscritters, thuggishly attempting to stop the recount, is what led to the "Rethug" word.



1. Tom PYLE, office of House Majority Whip Tom DELAY (R-TX)
2. Garry MALPHRUS, Majority Chief counsel
3. Rory COOPER, staff member, Nat’l Republican Congressional Committee
4. Kevin SMITH, former House Republican Conference Analyst
5. Steven BRODY, Former Aide to Sen. Fred D. THOMPSON (R-TN)
6. Matt SCHLAPP, BUSH Campaign Staff, Austin
7. Roger MORSE, Aide to Rep. Van HILLARY (R-TN)
8. Duane GIBSON, Aide to Chairman Don YOUNG (R-AK)
9. Chuck ROYAL, Ass’t to Rep. Jim DeMINT (R-SC)
10. Layna McCONKEY, Former legislative ass’t to former Rep. Jim Ross LIGHTFOOT (R-IA)

April 9, 2013

Since the thread has popped back to p. 1, I want to clarify

1) My broad framework in politics is the Big Umbrella of the Democratic Party coalition: Each coalition group having its top agenda item its own --- civil rights, social justice, unions, humanitarian protections -- but down below on their lists of top one or two items, all groups in general consensus with those of all the other groups. The Democratic AGENDA is primary, not (generally) the messengers.


2) As a youth I looked for heroes and found them in Woodrow WILSON, Al SMITH, FDR, and HST. I was wary of JFK from the start and picked LBJ (not old enough to vote). With an older perspective, I learned that it is the AGENDA that matters, and that the AGENDA is separate from the personal drama of biographies, although fantastic personalities with the right direction can further the agenda immeasurably - or hurt it disastrously.

In my list, FDR and HST retain the high majority of my Personality Worship, with the others keeping somewhat smaller portions. The KENNEDYs were never on my list. Before CLINTON, they became my example of how Personality Cultism gets in the way of the party agenda, disastrously. How much of RFK's anti-war sentiment was deeply rooted in his own personal tragedies and hatred for LBJ and his own career decisions (prosecuting the Mob) that might have led to his personal family tragedies?

So it has been a long process for me NOT to be swayed by Personality Cultism. It would have to be somebody of FDR/HST or even LBJ levels for me to succumb, IF I could recognize them in real time.


3) As for the '08 primary and the future for Hillary: I was really really strong for her all the way until it was clear she had lost (when she finally conceded), and then I opened to giving a second look at OBAMA, and while my original doubts remained over the superficial faddism of the youthful supporters and the hundreds of promises within any given speech and "the heavens opening up" as Hillary put it, my ONE objective was to dump everything Shrub-CHEENEE in the garbage where they should always have been. What the one word "Change" was all about, despite being an elephant in the room, was ANYTHING AWAY FROM SHRUB. But as with all my Dem nominees, I thoroughly threw myself in OBAMA's support, and gloried in any shred of sticking it in the Rethugs' eyes. That's why the Nobel was important, not for what he had done (what?) but because his very election meant a rejection of all-things-Shrub/Rethug.

But to clarify my points about Hillary: She ran a totally INSIDE the box campaign, paying the career p.r. people millions, wasting the millions on conventional by-the-list things without originality or riskiness. As for everybody's saying what a fantastic Secretary of State she was, I will appreciate anybody's telling me what significant negotiation she facilitated. Her statements sound like soulless recitations of positions that have been totally vetted in a way that makes them "safe" and nearly uncriticizeable, and this goes for her recent statements on Women and Gay rights.


********Just to round out my making of more enemies, I've said here several times that McGOVERN was not my choice in that primary and I wrote him a letter saying that and saying that I thought he had NO chance to beat NIXON and that all that mattered was to BEAT NIXON. I wish I had kept the reply, which would be a historic document, whether it was written by staff or the signature was original, in which he said he himself DID think he could win and hoped I would give him a chance. I admired him for his character and beliefs and, of course, voted for him. My point in bringing him up is not JUST that ANY Dem is better than any Rethug, which is true, but that no amount of purity and nobility are good for the AGENDA if the candidate loses. And candidates who are incapable of assessing their own viability are already seriously flawed. They see 400 people at an airport rally and who wouldn't be personally thrilled, but they can't see this doesn't translate into a winning vote.

All of this adds up to, I love and support ALL Dems who are not personally corrupt. The point is that it be a Dem who appoints the Supreme Court and the thousands of policy making bureaucrats and being good-try effective in getting the Congress to follow. As ABBA says, the winner takes it ALL. And if the personal baggage of a Bill CLINTON detracts from the agenda, the personality is just not a help. (I stood by him, too, during that whole FAKE impeachment thing.)

March 6, 2013

So is my beloved Camillus camp knife now carry-on, measured from where?

Does the blade length go from the non-blade base part or only the blade? The sharp/blade part is 2 3/8" but the whole is 2 5/8" and the width is 5/8". Whoopi said these things were always allowable INSIDE the luggage, not on-person, correct?




**********QUOTE******

The illustrated Camillus Knife is the Camillus Camp Knife that features a 2 3/8" spear blade, can opener, punch and screwdriver/cap lifter made of stainless steel. The stainless steel handle of this Camillus knife, 3 3/4" closed, has U.S. embossing and a shackle.
Camillus Knives: Camillus Camp Knife, US Embossed, CM-1760

Knives Plus ® Home

This item is discontinued and out of stock - it is left for reference only.

**********QUOTE*****

January 1, 2013

Disgusting McCONNELL is the poster boy for wrong "model" for governing

He seemed pleased/relieved with something (anything/whatever) getting sort of done, no matter on the last minute of the last day, the last *artificial* crisis deadline, saying something like, this ain't perfect and I hope this doesn't become THE MODEL of how things will be done!1

Actually, seeing REID and BIDEN smiling about it creeps me out almost as much.


"Model," indeed. Beyond the other criticisms of the deal itself, my beef is the deadwood that is the whole 18th Century "checks and balances" crap that keeps everything logjammed. In CARO's bio of LBJ, there is a whole chapter (in "Master of the Senate&quot describing the workings of Congress, the inter-locking committees, the rule by seniority, everything built in to keep things jammed. It takes somebody working up from the bottom like LBJ for 30 years to know the buttons to push and where the bodies are buried to get something done and there's no time for that anymore or nobody willing to sacrifice that much to do it. This is the reason CHEENEE and RUMSFELD were able to slap Shrub around and take over for themselves, because they had spent 20-30 yrs inside the bureaucracy and could warp policies and procedures to their will.

CARO describes how the country had been ready for 40 years to do something about civil right but the entrenched Southern Committee Chairs blocked every move. There is so much dead wood in what we profess to believe, and it can't/won't be fixed, so it will have to crumble on its own for something else to take its place.

The preening, the perks, the showboating, the cameras-love, the decisions being made on the basis of personal piques, barf barf BARF!1

November 28, 2012

Spritual vibes SPIKE!1 Not the Mayas, it's Laura INGRAHAM *off* the air (alas, temporarily)

I'm no authority on religion, but I thought that Xtianity was supposed to be about turning other cheeks, hanging with the oppressed, peace, etc., despite a couple of thousand years of bloodshed in its name, so when one Laura INGRAHAM coverted to Catholicism back when a wave of FBI and NOVAKula also did, possibly all going into an Opus Dei cell, I thought she would be transformed into a gentle, loving, spiritual being, although lifelong Catholics O'LOOFAH, HANNITY, and the BUCHANANs show how a single monk's vitriol kicked off the Crusades. Bah, how gullible could I be?!1 Absolutely NO difference in her viciousness was detectable post-conversion. I even contacted the Little Sisters of the Poor to ask about their being her personal charity, and a dear Mother Superior replied that she has never heard of this person, so either Mother is sheltered or INGRAHAM is, one or the other.

What is the scuttlebutt on this Brit paper, Examiner, which provides this florid St Valentine (in keeping with the theme of sainthood and gore)?!1

*************QUOTE*************

http://www.examiner.com/article/laura-ingraham-dumps-talk-radio-for-modern-dance-and-xylophone

[font size=5]Laura Ingraham dumps talk radio for 'modern dance' and 'xylophone'[/font]

Tuesday, one of the most popular and entertaining conservative talk radio hosts of all time, best-selling author Laura Ingraham, announced with her signature tongue-in-cheek style that she was not renewing her contract with Talk Radio Network. After nine years of week-day broadcasts, Laura teased she was off to pursue her "first loves, modern dance and the xylophone." Ingraham promised, "In the highly unlikely event that these efforts do not prove fruitful; I intend to return to radio."

Following an article which announced her intentions by Associated Press, Ingraham quickly came through with additional and far more personal information on the "Shut up & Blog," feature of her home site. It was the perfect venue because it is a favorite, always chock-full of nuggets of conservative wisdom, under the subtitle, "Laura Unleashed." Everyone familiar with Laura's inclination to make great fun of herself, rolled their eyes, smiling, and continued to read to find out what Ingraham's serious plans were.

In a heartbeat, Laura followed with an exciting explanation that she was going to take advantage of an opportunity to explore expansion of her radio program, the "Laura Ingraham Show," previously carried by over 300 stations. In lieu of simply signing on to a new contract of the same ol', same ol', Laura was going to rethink and retool. ....

Followers who also are keen on Greta Van Susteren may have their fingers crossed that Fox recognizes another original in Laura, and comes up with a just-right format suitable to showcase Laura's natural vivacity, not simply a rehash of an old been there done that format, once tried. If so, it must include a team that mirrors Laura's intense drive for perfection. She's no shirker; and any team that supports her would need to be similarly driven. ....




http://www.lauraingraham.com/p/Jewelry/4-Way-Cross-Necklace/23125.html?dispid=214

59.95
This is a replica of the one Laura wears.
All net proceeds go to support the work of The Little Sisters of the Poor.
Yearly Premium Member's Price: $53.96
(A savings of $6.00)

*************UNQUOTE*************

November 14, 2012

The PETRAEUS twist on "War is a racket." Never should have been in Iraq; should been out Afg FAST

Soon after the Iraq attack took hold suddenly there were reports of missing millions and contracts with private "security" companies, mercernaries, then cute music videos of military personnel dancing in general foolishness, and all of it was swallowed under the guise of "patriotism" and blowing off steam for all the sacrifices.

Now that PETRAEUS has knocked himself off his pedestal, reports of how he was the perpetrator of the WMD mobile trailers stories have surfaced, barely, and not enough about what else his supposed "brilliance" and "genius" fueled the chickenhawks' voraciousness. Besides Abu Grahib and the several war crimes by others, his now questionable judgment has illustrated what has always been a serious defect in how the military works, an organizational flaw always potentially breaking out: How the military brown-nosing system can elevate incompetent jerks into positions, at all levels, of power over others, and at his level, melding with the political kind of ass-kissing feeding into one another.

Iraq should never have happened, but as soon as those music videos surfaced the thought was, "If they have time for that, they shouldn't be there." So now with PETRAEUS and the various people involved in the whole thing: If they had time for hours of jogging and doing book interviews and cocktail socializing, they never should have been in Iraq and Afghanistan should been over, like, 9 1/2 years ago and whatever is next needs to be VERY necessary and very surgical.

Not that civilian politicians are that good at much, but at least the military has *some* kind of civilian control over it.

November 10, 2012

Note to media yakkers: The Rethug party canNOT be re-made to appeal to minorities

The great Lesson of the election results according to the yakkers is that the Rethugs have to reach out to minorities and become inclusive. This is a variant on the Third Way imbeciles.

What is the point of having two parties that are "no difference"?!1 The Rethug Party of today exists for the purpose of representing Old, White Males, that is all.

If it were miraculously to include Choice, secularism, equal rights for all, etc., the racists and fundies would simply eject themselves to reassemble into another party for themselves.



The only minorities the Rethugs appeal to are new immigrants who already were wingnuts and/or oligarchic in their original countries (like Cuba) and/or what their latest buzzword is, "aspirational," meaning they are starved for material and social "success" in the Robber Baron sense.

November 7, 2012

My personal, misc. housekeeping post-election: First, RIP Seamus.

#1 item is retiring the signature line, "*I* am Seamus!1 We're ALL Seamus now!1" that I have been using since it became clear that Mittens would be the opponent. (And the "I Voted" avatar.)

Once last night's victory was done, I made it a point to surf past the networks and MSNBC and monitored Faux and Faux-Business, where CAVUTO and IMUS were on, then stayed up for the main event, Mittens' concession. Long live Seamus!1

I was thrilled with MacCASKILL and WARREN and in the thrill of things posted "MacCASKILL-WARREN 2016" and was promptly "rewarded" with a post saying, "MacCASKILL?!1 Have you seen her voting record?!1" to which I replied, "It takes a Conservative Dem to make inroads into Red territory." We need ALL Dems.

This morning I continued gathering nuggets, usually from the opposition, but on Morning Scabs, Danny DEUTSCH said that the Rethug brand is hostage to the TeaBaggers and needs to ditch the Old White Males direction and readjust to Hispanics, and that naming window dressing Cubans RUBIO and Ted CRUZ won't cut it for them.

But the hateful (to me) Don IMUS, whom I've happily ignored since he got kicked off MSNBC and replaced by Morning Scabs, has actually in the past couple of months been REFRESHING compared to Joe SCABS. Actually, despite his indisputable wingnutism, the line always applied to whassername Maureen DOWD from the NYT, "She hates everybody," applies also to him. And this morning he and his stooges were laughing their asses off at KKKarl, Dick MORRIS, and other wingnut yakkers and pollsters they named, but his mocking of MORRIS was particularly delicious. They brought up the toesucking, then said that "since he enjoys being ABJECTLY HUMILIATED so much he's probably ENJOYING" how wrong his predictions (continue) were.

And then, without a mawkish introduction, he played "I'll Stand By You" by The Pretenders as a consolation to wingnuts.



This morning, the horrible wingnut Don IMUS played this song as a consolation to wingnuts for their loss. I’m looking it from the other side, which is that I am not a personality cultist, so it’s not about OBAMA, it’s about the Democratic agenda, and it was Hispanics, Blacks, women, unions, and Gays who gave him the win and Hispanics above all have gotten less than anybody else, with unions close behind. Except for health care, Gays with the military and marriage have gotten more than anybody, not entirely with his whole support. The biggest potential victory is for the Supreme Court, although the likely vacancies will only be replacements for the Lib side, so the stalemate is likely to stay. Actually, Hispanics were Bill CLINTON’s biggest supporters during the fake impeachment, yet got little from him either, although he and Hillary have passed by my house at least four times over the years picking up cash from the local construction dude, sometimes without their stopping to give speeches to any crowd. So these four years, OBAMA needs to be living up to this song for all of us, some more than others.

*************QUOTE*************

[font size=5]I'll Stand By You lyrics © EMI Music Publishing[/font]
Songwriters: HYNDE, CHRISTINE / KELLY, THOMAS / STEINBERG, BILLY

Oh, why you look so sad?
Tears are in your eyes
Come on and come to me now
Don't be ashamed to cry
Let me see you through
'cause I've seen the dark side too
When the night falls on you
You don't know what to do
Nothing you confess
Could make me love you less

I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you

So if you're mad, get mad
Don't hold it all inside
Come on and talk to me now
Hey, what you got to hide?
I get angry too
Well I'm a lot like you
When you're standing at the crossroads
And don't know which path to choose
Let me come along
'cause even if you're wrong

I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you

And when...
When the night falls on you, baby
You're feeling all alone
You won't be on your own

I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you

I'll stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you

*************UNQUOTE*************

November 3, 2012

Hah!1 The local radio wingnut was CONCERNED about how polarized we are!1 My e-mail to him

(This dude's family used to own the station and he used to have a wingnut firebreathing show. They eventually went all LIMBOsevic, O'REILLY, HANNITY, SCHLESSINGER, INGRAHAM, BecKKK, etc.)

******* My e-mail to him: ******

Your theme on Thursday when I monitored your radio carnival was: “Why have we gotten so polarized?!”

This is rich on quite a few levels. But for starters, I can put a precise date on the polarization, which is: When LIMBOsevic went national. I mean, these things are cyclical and have happened before, like when GOLDWATER was a firebreather before his mellowing, and the BIRCHers, and before them Father COUGHLIN firebreathing on FDR, and on and on.

But I remember the “good” old days of K***, good with the exception of you in your firebreathing incarnation. Yaaas, you personally have toned yourself down because ****** replaced you and unexpectedly surpassed you in virulence (and you’re getting OLD?). The rest of the day was the mild doctors Joy BROWN, Dean EDELL, and David VISCOTT, although VISCOTT did have a bit of an EDGE on him.

I remember the SHOCK of even the theme song of LIMBOsevic’s, then his first six weeks of spelling his name, and his totally focused strategy of excising ALL “FRINGE” and WACKO callers with his purpose of making Wingnutism RESPECTABLE. Even you, wingnut that you are, were TIMID about swinging your whole line-up over to him, finally taking the decision to run him LIVE for the whole three hours and deleting the local Noon reporting. In the next few years all the MILD yakkers were ditched in favor of the whole wingnut enchilada.

So the first level of JOKE coming from you is NOW whining about how POLARIZED we are, when you and your outlet locally have done all you could (with your 50 audience) to MAKE IT SO. Your picayune outlet is a microcosm of the national polarization. That was the late ‘80s. Then LIMBOsevic (again) was instrumental in inflicting GINGRICH and his bloodthirsty horde on the country.

LIMBOsevic is all about SCORCHED EARTH, NO compromise, all or nothing. You have said before that you don’t agree with EVERYTHING he says and that GINGRICH’s personal immorality repels you, which is the slimmest reed that I give you credit for. But your dulcet tone and telling callers to be NICE and RAYGUN’s SMILE are the lipstick on the pig: Your ideology is HORRENDOUS for people and pretty facades are POTEMKIN.

November 2, 2012

A question regarding Single Issue voters, for a segment called "Ask the Wingnut Wizard"

Here’s a question: Single issues are a big wingnut wedge. Like, the Catholic church might well share social justice and social welfare issues totally with the Dem agenda, but the SINGLE ISSUE of Choice sways a fair number of them into the Rethug column. Wingnuts often guilt that Catholics ought to be TOTALLY anti-Choice or else not pretend to be Catholics.

But this election cycle wingnuts have been trying to debunk the Lib strength with women by claiming that women are NOT so simple as to be swayed by the single issue of “women’s (contraception; reproductive rights)” but instead are MULTI-FACETED, are household budget managers, concerned and affected by the economy, work, etc.

So, Wingnut Wizard, which is it, manipulate and exploit the single issues gambit or NOT? I'm SO confused!1