HELLO: Shout-Out to the 44% of Women Who Didn't Vote Obama

Have you heard what the white males in your party/paranoiac ideology of choice have been saying about Sonia Sotomayor, the distinguished judge nominated by President Obama to the Supreme Court? Parenthetically, she’s a woman and happens to be a Latina -– should that matter? Anyway, these troglodytes opposed Judge Sotomayor on no issues of substance. Instead, they’ve resorted to juvenile name-calling:

- racist

- reverse racist (presumably flashier, sort of like a reverse layup)

- bigot (projection, projection)

- lacks intellectual heft (never mind that she graduated with honors from Princeton, SECOND in her class!)

- name is too hard to pronounce (excuse me??)

- choice of food may influence her decisions (EXCUSE ME?!?)

- is temperamental (would that be once a month?)

- is Obama’s Harriet Miers (yeah, right … )

- activist judge (Ooo, look out white hoodsters, here comes the wild-eyed “activist” Latina judge!)

- has empathy (OMG!! Um, “Poppy” Bush sold Thomas as someone with “empathy”…)

No shit. This is all true, it’s been said by wingers gone wild in the last few days about Judge Sotomayor since her nomination to the Supreme Court. Precious little has been said about her actual record, mostly by progressives (trans: adults) somewhat concerned about her position on Roe.

It’s worth repeating here, that one of the benefits Barack Obama’s election has had is to expose the true colors, the dark, depraved, decadent underbelly of right wing opposition arrayed against him and us. These people don’t represent America any more than Hitler represents Germany or the Ku Klux Klan is a social club.

Remember, ladies, all 44% of you misguided souls who did not vote for President Obama: Judge Sotomayor has done all of you a HUGE favor; she’s become a foil for conservative white male frustrations boiling over ... and boil over, they have!

PssT … if you have an independent mind, this is what your first dudes, your SOs, really. Think. About. YOU.

Is she pro-choice? Is she not?

Already this is circulating because Judge Sotomayor has not written an abortion opinion. Guess what? In a Roe v. Wade world, there aren't many questions on this that come up! The proper question is not how would you rule on an abortion case but how do you view stare decisis, i.e., court precedent? It takes a fundamental sea change a la Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but "equal") for a sitting court to overturn long-settled precedent.

The Supremes

I have read many of Sonia Sotomayor's opinions. While she is not a "knock your socks off, wow that is brilliant" jurist, she is more than competent and capable. Her opinions, at least in my area (securities) have been well-reasoned and consistent. She is clearly qualified with an admirable record of public service.

Take her on, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. I dare you.

On the lighter and stupider side...

I saw this headline on the MSN page:

'Jon & Kate' spouses say they're angry at media

Oh really. Now I would have never heard of these buffoons if they didn't show up on magazine covers I see in the store, etc. Reality TV is not my thing. But here's a little tip if you don't like media attention--

DON'T GO ON TV!!!

President Obama Makes Historic SCOTUS Nomination

Judge Sonia Sotomayor represents the changing face of America.

Her life story is compelling and mirrors the President's in many ways: She grew up in the projects, raised by a widowed mom who had to work two jobs to support her. She graduated with honors from Princeton and Yale Law School, was a DA, a corporate attorney, and judge. She has more than the requisite experience and qualifications to serve on the nation's highest court.

She has TWICE passed Senate confirmation, appointed first as a district judge by "Poppy" Bush and then as an appelate court judge by President Clinton.

A word to the (un)wise Repugnants: Try blocking her confirmation based on your RWWM views of her "judicial philosophy" at your own very great peril, lest you become a permanent regional minority party. Be very, very careful with your oppositional schemes. Latinos do not forgive or forget so easily.

Hélio Castroneves of Brasil (Natch): 3-time Indy 500 Champion!

I'd gone out when the race was halfway over and Hélio was sitting in 5th, only to come back and see him in front of the pack by 1.1 seconds, with 10 laps to go!

WOOHOO!!! WHAT A COUNTDOWN: 10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... I was just counting down every lap as Hélio zoomed around the track at 200+ mph, keeping a perfect line, with no one gaining behind him ... and with ONE LAP TO GO, his team leader radios him evenly: "One to go. Bring it HOME!" WOOT!


This was an emotional win for Hélio and his family, after a full acquittal on tax evasion charges in which he had faced 35 years in prison. It was the greatest win of his career, capping a storybook finish as he broke down and thanked team owner Roger Penske for "giving me my life back." Hélio Castroneves is a pure racer in the very best tradition of the great Brasilian champions of the past -- Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet, and the greatest of them all, Ayrton Senna.

It's no accident that Hélio is now poised to possibly become the only 4-time Indy 500 champion. He's a finisher. He knows the race goes not only to the swift, but also to the best strategist and most skillful driver, to the one who makes the least mistakes and relies on his team, because after all, it's a total team effort. He's smooth and consistent. Focusing on the marathon, not the sprint, he will get the most out of his car and his tires so that, in the end, he's all alone in front, literally and figuratively with something left in the tank.

And to cap off his many racetrack talents, in 2007 Hélio was crowned Dancing With the Stars Champion beating back none other than MARIE OSMOND! What a guy! What a Champion! : D



Congratulations, Hélio!

Right Wing Radio's Waterloo: "ABSOLUTELY TORTURE"

This is the Chicago shock jock, Mancow Muller, who once called President Obama a Muslim, and who has incessantly shouted the right wing (radio) mantra that waterboarding is not torture. Well, the tables were turned on the shock jock when he was subjected to an all too brief shock of his own: TORTURE.




At least Mancow was honest enough (I was going to say man enough, but he's not so big or manly, hell he's a winger) to admit the truth, having experienced it. He lasted less than SIX seconds; I counted FOUR. Too bad. In the back of my mind I wanted the winger's torture to last longer than their average premature ejaculations. Oh well.

Mancow Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture

"It is way worse than I thought it would be"

By RYAN POLLYEA


And so it went Friday morning when WLS radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided to subject himself to the controversial practice of waterboarding live on his show.

Mancow decided to tackle the divisive issue head on -- actually it was head down, while restrained and reclining.

"I want to find out if it's torture," Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

Last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment -- and came to a similar conclusion. The conservative writer said he found the treatment terrifying, and was haunted by it for months afterward.

"Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture," Hitchens concluded in the article.

POSTCRIPT: Keith Olbermann who had offered to donate $1,000 for every second Sean Hannity endured waterboarding withdrew his offer after Mancow had the "guts" to go through with it. Mancow's program contacted KO as to whether the offer was still on the table, and the answer was YES. Olbermann has donated $10,000 to a charity for military families in the radio shock jock's name (the winger with a smidgeon of guts). GOOD MAN, Keith.

Is Dick Cheney the Most Hideously Traitorous VEEP since Aaron Burr?

Worse, I'd say. At least Burr was a better shot.

Dick Cheney’s speech yesterday was filled with so many lies that it would be impossible to name them all in context in this limited space. But here’s a start.

My favorite reaction to Cheney's speech came from former CIA analyst, Jack White:

"He beat the CIA for year after year like a Piñata, and then all of a sudden he's going to become their champion?!?"

No we can't! No we can't!

Beer tax on tap for health care?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers in the United States may have to hand over nearly $2 more for a case of beer to help provide health insurance for all.

Details of the proposed beer tax are described in a Senate Finance Committee document that will be used to brief lawmakers Wednesday at a closed-door meeting.

Taxes on wine and hard liquor would also go up. And there might be a new tax on soda and other sugary drinks blamed for contributing to obesity. No taxes on diet drinks, however.

Beer taxes would go up by 48 cents a six-pack, wine taxes would rise by 49 cents per bottle, and the tax on hard liquor would increase by 40 cents per fifth. Proceeds from the new taxes would help cover an estimated 50 million uninsured Americans.

Science and Bad Movies

Tom Hanks was on The Daily Show last night to talk about Angels and Demons, and the discussion into the science of antimatter was, not to put too fine a point on it, excruciating. I now know not to ask Tom Hanks or Jon Stewart any physics questions.

I must correct the scientific record - I think it's in my contract or something.

What actually happens is that the amount of antimatter that is created is very small (it's a bunch of antiprotons, and they're smaller than 10^-15 meters across), and it needs to be held in a magnetic field to remain stable - it actually moves around a storage ring at very high speeds. The explosions that the antiprotons make when they collide with protons wouldn't really be visible at all, since none of the particles they create are large enough to see and they don't emit light in the visible range. The detectors that we use to see the products of the collision are huge, expensive, and very complicated. You couldn't walk around with a vial of antimatter, because you need something to generate the magnetic field to hold the antiprotons away from so-called normal matter.

A delightful Sean Hannity Ass-Kicking

Kudos Jesse Ventura!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeMuDN9Ewyc

And in this corner...

We have Randy Rossi of Grayslake, Illinois. This constitutional scholar demonstrated his brilliance to the world this morning in the local paper, lamenting how, with regard to poor little Miss California, that "[w]e didn't hear from the ACLU defending her rights to her personal opinion."

Randy, here's a tip for you. Don't wast any time waiting for the phone to ring with news of one of those "genius grants."

THE ACLU??? Why would they get involved? Where have her civil rights been violated? Was she arrested? No. Was her speech suppressed in any way by state action? Of course not. She has a right to be heard without government interference and we have the right to say that there is little difference between her bust size and her IQ. And Randy, before embarrassing yourself in public, turn off Fox News, brush up on some basic civics and

Nancy Pelosi the Target of Right Wing Sexism

It comes as no surprise that sexism is alive and well in the male-dominated worlds of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, right wing radio, and Fox-Lite wannabes like CNN. (Shame on MSNBC for joining this lineup.) What's really disgusting is the ferocity of the attacks. At least, President Obama's election has had the salutary effect of unmasking the true nature of the right wing mullahs. Sunlight, as they say, is the best disinfectant.



One wonders what those hard-edged, coiffed women working at Fox think about this, above and beyond the daily indignities they suffer, along with all working women. They're either sublimely hypocritical opportunists like Greta Van Susteren, who prefers the legal beat but toes the party line on politics, or the vacuous, vaguely ideological 'Stepford' blonde anchors favored by Murdoch and Ailes.

Beauty pageants are fertile launching pads for women seeking a right wing career path: Sarah Palin was a Miss Alaska runner-up, and just recently Miss California got her big shot on Fox and Friends, standing in for a former Miss America.

By the way, Carrie Prejean was not criticized for her views against gay marriage -- she has the right to free speech -- but rather for breaking pageant rules, lying about past indiscretions, and lending her name to a political activist group engaged in defeating gay marriage. So her Profile in Hypocrisy is a perfect match for Faux News, isn't it?

Whether or not Nancy Pelosi has had Botox injections or a facelift (hell, Joe Biden has very bad hair plugs) is irrelevant to her position. Nancy Pelosi is not a participant in a beauty contest seeking a political or media position; she earned her place as the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in our nation's history.

One gets the distinct impression that these wingers were just chomping at the bit for the first opportunity to launch sexist attacks on Pelosi. It's so hard for conservative white males to go against their nature. They're an endangered species (thanks be to the Goddess!), but they have served notice they will not go quietly into the night.

Time to change our SOX?

No, not the White or Red Sox, but what we in my line of work refer to as "SOX"--the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

This was a huge and somewhat hastily-passed piece of legislation to deal with the Enron, WorldCom, etc. scandals (ah, it was such a simpler time when companies merely engaged in "creative accounting" rather than turning Wall Street into a giant financial casino.) Well, today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear (in legalese, granted a petition for certiorari) a challenge to a key part of that act, the establishment and empowering of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The legal points are somewhat obtuse, dealing with the constitutional "appointments clause." But let's be serious for a moment. The groups funding this (headed by our old pal Ken Starr) don't give a damn about accounting regulation and oversight. They want to overturn the entire Sarbanes-Oxley Act, with its corporate accountability provisions.

Granting cert means that 4 justices wanted to hear it (hmmm, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia?). SO the fate of financial regulation in America rests on--Mr. Swing Vote, Justice Kennedy.

Your Armchair Movie Critic

If you liked the book, you'll hate the movie. If you didn't read the book, you will be underwhelmed by the movie.

Repugnant in the News: Karl Rove Interrogated by Feds

Karl Rove reportedly squealed: "DON'T WATERBOARD ME!!! PLEASE ... PLEEEAAASE." (Copious SOBS)
Fed interrogator: "Sir, CALM DOWN. We don't do this any longer. Would you like a Valium?"
KR: "Yes, please ..." (Whimper)

KARL ROVE TO BE QUESTIONED BY PROSECUTOR

The aim: to determine if officials obstructed justice in the dismissals of U.S. attorneys.
Washington Post
May 15, 2009

Washington -- Karl Rove will be interviewed today as part of a criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys under President George W. Bush, two sources say.

Rove, a former senior aide to Bush, will be questioned by Connecticut prosecutor Nora Dannehy, who in September was named to examine whether former Justice Department and White House officials lied or obstructed justice in connection with the dismissal of federal prosecutors in 2006.

Re: You Read it Here First (Peter's Prophecy)

Note: Peter once hit a $20 straight exacta at the Kentucky Derby for $1,000 and change, so his gift for prophecy in the Sport of Kings is established. The rest, by comparison, is gravy.

Let it be written--let it be done

And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls--and sometimes in blogs:

Miss California on Cable News: Fox & Friends Gives Carrie Prejean Her Chance
May 14, 2009 03:24 PM ET Paul Bedard Permanent Link Print
by Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

Miss California and Miss USA runner-up, Carrie Prejean, tossed around in the battle over gay marriage, will be a one-day guest host for Fox News Channel's popular morning show Fox & Friends, Whispers learns. She will host the 6 a.m.-to-7 a.m. slot on May 27, filling in for Gretchen Carlson—the 1989 Miss America—who will be off that day.

The party of Lincoln

Is now a petulant 3rd-grader (from Politico, courtesy of my pal Ms. Em):

A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.” When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

I understand that "Democrat Socialist Party" narrowly edged out "Stinky Poo Poo Heads," and that the RNC further stated "na na na na na you can't get me" and emphasized that girls have "cooties."

A concise statement of the obvious

From former law prof, current federal appeals judge and interesting crank Richard Posner:

By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States. I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism," the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded. All these became causes embraced by the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004.

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.

By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.

I would argue that the judge might be overstating the intellectual power of conservatism even BEFORE its Limbaugh-ization, but that is another story for another time. His analysis of the party and what passes for "conservatism" hits fairly close to the mark.