Something's Rotten in Denmark . . .

President Obama cuts a deal behind closed doors with China, India, South Africa, and Brasil, makes a few tough-sounding statements, then admits there are no binding provisions, before hightailing it out of Copenhagen.

Sound familiar?

What's the melting of the polar ice caps, species extinction, underwater Pacific island-states, water wars, floods, violent weather, continental dust storms, and tropical populations collapsing from the blistering heat . . . in the greater scheme of things?

Whatever happened to the fierce urgency of now?

The other day, Gail Collins wrote:

I used to cover Lieberman when he was the majority leader of the State Senate in Connecticut. We got along very well, except for one interview, during which he talked about working for J.F.K., and how he kept a Mass card from Robert Kennedy’s funeral to remind him of the principles to which he had dedicated his career. Showing me the card, he remarked casually that he hadn’t looked at it for some time.

I wrote an article using the neglected Kennedy card as a metaphor for Lieberman’s fall from his old ideals into the pragmatic politics of a party leader. He was outraged and wounded, and I believe I apologized.

Taking back the apology now.

We really miss Ted Kennedy's feral voice in the Senate on behalf of healthcare for the American people. And I keep coming back to John Lewis's question whenever he was confronted with a issue of principle over politics, of justice over expediency: "What would Bobby do?"

I could tell you, but you can guess the answer.

The cutting edge of journalism

CNN.com's lead story when I checked it this morning was headlined: "Debate over 'war on Christmas' claims"

The lede: "Is there a "war on Christmas"? Some Americans say so, arguing that there are continuing attempts to devalue the spiritual nature of the holiday. But others dispute these claims and say Christmas is not under attack."

1) Why the hell are we discussing this as if it's news?

2) Was that paragraph originally written for some sixth grader's report?

3) Isn't that structure applicable to any topic, anywhere? To wit:
"Is the world flat? Some Americans say so, arguing that the world looks flat from where they're standing. But others dispute these claims and say that the world is round."

What fucking uselessness we're surrounded by.

Edit: Two stories below that, there's a clearly scintillating article: "Opinion: Hate-based violence must stop".

Enlightening, this is not.

Good for Al Franken

This counts as a slap-down in the Senate. It may not be much, but Senator Franken made his (and our) point. In a legislative body that likes to wallow in the gallows of its traditions -- I say bring back caning -- the so-called "comity" of the Senate in search of an SNL comedy skit got caned thanks to Senator Al Franken's exquisite actor's sense of timing:



Senator Al spoke for millions of us who are itching to get back at Traitor Joe, the most loathsome, despicable, and petty member of a pretty loathsome deliberative body . . . That is, save for the saving grace of Al Franken, who answers to no one but the people of Minnesota -- which is as it should be -- a point he made quite clear to the insurance company shill standing before him.

P-Span: Joe Lieberman Socks

A little humor goes a long way ... MoveOn's anti-Lieberman ad with sock puppets:

Not to leave out his colleagues

I didn't want to insult the Democratic leadership in the Senate, so I have included a picture of them as well:

For Emperor Lieberman

A lyrical tribute to the gentleswine from Connecticut (pictured below):

Big man, pig man
Ha, ha, charade you are
You well heeled big wheel
Ha, ha, charade you are
And when your hand is on your heart
You're nearly a good laugh
Almost a joker
With your head down in the pig bin
Saying 'Keep on digging'
Pig stain on your fat chin
What do you hope to find
Down in the pig mine?
You're nearly a laugh
You're nearly a laugh
But you're really a cry



(h/t to the Pink one)

Demoralized

Why are the 80% of the Dems who have a clue caving in to the 20% who don't? Is it because just like the GOP, they're only in it for themselves?

This is more passive failure than the active destruction of the country that went on under the GOP, but failure it is nonetheless.

Memo to Harry Reid: Run Joe Lieberman OUT of the Democratic Caucus On a Rail!

And strip him of his Homeland Security chairmanship NOW!

This unprincipled jerk had the gall to go on Face the Nation and rail against the Medicare buy-in for people 55 and over WHEN JUST LAST SEPTEMBER HE WENT ON RECORD AS PROPOSING THE EXACT SAME THING!



HOW MANY WAYS ARE THERE TO SPELL HYPOCRITE?

This is personal; it's not about the national interest, it's not about principle. It's all about Joe Lieberman sticking it to liberal Democrats for casting him aside in his last election, so he's opposing the liberals' major agenda item -- because HE CAN.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Kick Traitor Joe out, Mr. Reid, take away his chairmanship NOW, and go to reconciliation. His presence in the Democratic Caucus has become toxic and viral. Healthcare legislation is too damned important a NATIONAL issue to be held hostage by a gang of reactionary corporate shills from small states who are bought and paid for by the insurance industry.

Go to reconciliation and BE DONE with Lieberman, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, and Stupak. NOW.

And don't listen to MIA President Obama, when Rham Emanuel reportedly tells you to cut a deal with Traitor Joe. I don't think so. Progressives have had enough. We will compromise no more. Grow a spine -- and a set of cojones -- while you're at it Mr. Reid, or we'll find someone who HAS.

GOLDFINGER . . .

This one's dedicated to the Beckista patsies: How many gold bars have you stored in your own private Forts Knocks to date???

Beck - Not So Mellow Gold

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We Need a Little More Irish in the U.S. Senate

For those who still read this blog (where have all our friends gone?), I think we may agree that the U.S. Senate needs a little more blunt language directed at its most heinous members. Can we start with Traitor Joe Lieberman?

Here's a script the American people, the lobbyists, the despicable corporate interests, and immoral insurance companies can understand (where's any mention in the Senate of Aetna dropping 600,000 "customers" to protect its obscene profits?):

The Public Option Is Dead, Long Live Medicare for 55 and Other Cave-ins Along the Way

This is not what progressive Democrats and Obama voters bargained for:

• First, a bailout of Wall Street -- Big Banking and too-big-to-fail investment firms -- with no strings attached, no curbs on indecent bonuses, and no regulatory reform (waiting, waiting . . .);
• Second, a watered-down stimulus bill with inadequate funds, few job-creation measures (paging FDR and the WPA) thanks to the President's sought-after vote of a Republican dope from Maine, Senator Susan Collins; as if she and her colleague Olympia Snowe suddenly controlled the entire progressive agenda in their stupid, half-measures middle-of-the-roadkill hands;
• Third, the healthcare reform soap opera, still in progress with tumbling ratings, and a Democratic compromise (cave-in?) with itself behind closed doors to get the votes of reactionary senators Ben Nelson, Blanche (what she does with every mention of a government-run public option to compete with the private insurers and keep prices down) Lincoln, malleable Mary Landrieu, not to speak of Traitor Joe, the Democratic Caucus court jester, who is biding his time to deep-six healthcare with much fanfare for his insurance lords; and
• Finally, the heavy medal Nobel (in anticipation of a swift) Peace Prize President, who seems determined LBJ-like to consume the entire Democratic progressive domestic agenda in the execution of foreign wars, the pursuit of terrorists, protecting the nukes of a failed state from falling into the wrong hands -- which is it or all of the above?

No, this isn't what the voters bargained for, although as they say, the devil's in the details. Is the Democratic compromise to kill an already watered-down beyond recognition public option in favor of extending a Medicare buy-in to those uninsured Americans 55 and up a good thing? Some prominent progressives -- Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Anthony Weiner -- say yes, which is reason enough to believe the reactionary insurance ("we won!") industry shills in the Senate won't back it once the CBO numbers come in . . . or they'll water it down beyond all recognition so Harry Reid can slap a reform tag on it, and the President can hold his extraordinary "I've achieved healthcare reform for the American people" signing ceremony with insurance executives, just offstage, the only ones smiling broadly at the prospect of 30 million more customers to gouge.

"We won!" Did we?

Where in the World Is Our Path to Success in Afghanistan? This Pentagon Flowchart Has the Answer

This is no joke, folks, it's the genuine article, uncovered by NBC's Richard Engel. And just yesterday, Afghan President Karzai helpfully offered his own timeline. He wants to keep the family in the drug trade with USAID and the world’s finest military to protect his brother’s narco-trafficking ass and Swiss bank accounts courtesy of the American taxpayer for AT LEAST 15 MORE YEARS!


Here’s my version of the Pentagon flowchart for VICTORY in Afghanistan:

The World's Greatest Fans!

Carnaval 2010 in Rio is coming early this year. Flamengo, Brasil's most beloved (“o mais querido”) football club with a 40-million-strong fanbase in the Scarlet & Black Nation, a club whose 115-year history is as rich and storied as the history of football itself, became Champions of Brasil Sunday.

The title ended a 17-year drought for Flamengo in 2009 as the team capped a Cinderella season vaulting from 14th place to 2nd, with three games to go, then to first place with one game left in the season. In its last 17 games, as it made its victorious run at the title, the team’s record was a dazzling 12 wins, 4 ties, and 1 defeat.

Yesterday, with the team playing its last game at home, in majestic Maracanã Stadium, they needed one more win to make the fans explode in an awesome display of color and improvised pageantry. And they did. Flamengo won its last game, 2-1, and the celebration was on. The poet Nelson Rodrigues (who rooted for another team but could never hate Flamengo) said, as he gazed upon a sight such as this, “Flamengo, this force of nature, is like the wind, the rain, thunder and lightning”:


From the very beginning, Flamengo was the club of the people, representing the everyday struggles of the common man and woman against seemingly impossible odds with faith, perseverance, and hard work. Game day Sunday with Flamengo playing at Maracanã is a foil for the great expression of joy from the masses.

And when Flamengo wins, things just don't seem as gloomy as they did just a day ago. It's no accident that Saint Jude, patron saint of impossible causes, is also Flamengo's guardian angel, or so the fans believe. As everyone's favorite passage in the team anthem goes, “I'd have a profound sadness, If there were no Flamengo in the world.”

It’s a special thing, and once you fall in love with Flamengo, it’s a forever thing. For me, it's a trip back to my childhood when I would go to Flamengo games with a home stitched red-and-black flag on a bamboo pole, soaking in the atmosphere, feeling the energy and the excitement approaching the stadium, that force of nature of 100,000 souls breathing, sweating, crying, bleeding scarlet and black.



League MVP Adriano "The Emperor," powered Flamengo's road to the Championship with an awesome offensive display of goals:



Once Flamengo . . . always Flamengo!

Comic Relief: Chinese TV Recreates Tiger Woods Accident With Alleged Vixen Mistress

Is President Obama Making a Mistake With His Troop Escalation in Afghanistan?

Eerie shades of LBJ's Vietnam troop escalation in the President's decision to increase America's military presence in Afghanistan by more than 30,000 troops. Let us hope Mr. Obama has learned the lessons of history (Vietnam) and his decision won't come to this:

Soccer Diplomacy: Take Note U.S., Brazil Is on the Rise

This is the kind in-depth diplomatic analysis that you won't get anywhere in the North American-Eurocentric media, which is unfortunate, because it is spot-on. In effect, the rise of Brazil as a major actor on the diplomatic stage heralds the death of the Monroe Doctrine and U.S.-European hegemonism in Latin America.

The reaction in this country to Lula's meeting with Ahmedinejad has been predictable: hysterical and hyperbolic. For so long, the United States has cornered the market on the projection of raw power as a substitute for diplomacy in pursuit of its vital interests that it is shocked!, I say, shocked! when a putative ally decides that its own vital interests do not always conform and align with those of U.S. military belligerence in the greater Middle East. In short, the critics should sit down, take a look in the mirror, and STFU. The days of dictation in place of conversation are over.

Brazil is speaking and doing business with Iran for the same reason the United States sold weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein; poured millions in aid to the Pakistani military which openly collaborates with the Taliban and gave direct assistance to the 9/11 terrorists; and held hands with Saudi despots whose nationals perpetrated the greatest terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and who fund madrasas that breed suicide bombers to kill U.S. troops.

Brazil's nuclear program is much more advanced than Iran's, with the caveat that Brazil made public its determination to renounce development of a weaponized nuclear program. Brazil wasn't forced or intimidated to do so. It was a rational and civilized state decision: It isn't threatened militarily by any of its neighbors, and it can't possibly compete with the nuclear might of the United States any more than India, Pakistan, Israel, France, Britain, and China can. These are all regional nuclear states that are not on a par with the United States and its only credible nuclear deterrent state, Russia.

Brazil supports the U.S. goal of non-proliferation, containment of the nuclear states club to its current status quo, and gradual draw-down of nuclear weapons held by the nuclear states. At the same time, Brazil asserts it has earned a seat at the UN Security Council. It has a constructive diplomatic role to play toward achieving real and lasting peace in the Middle East for these reasons:

• Brazil can be a genuine honest broker;
  
• Its growing economic ties with the Middle East and absence from U.S.-European colonialist history in the region give it real bargaining power and influence to effect a lasting peace among warring parties; and
  
• As a non-nuclear power with an advanced peaceful nuclear energy program, Brazil has more credibility with Iran to move it away from weaponization than nuclear powers that seek to impose their will on Iran with threats of military intervention.

The suggestion that Brazil could play a leading role in promoting an overall easing of tensions in the Middle East through soccer diplomacy has genuine promise of success. Kids over there don't play much baseball or basketball. But they love their soccer, and they're often seen wearing the jerseys of their favorite stars on the Brazilian national team.

Let the games begin!

Lest We Forget What AMERICANS, And the WORLD, Are Thankful For

More on Andy McCarthy

See my post below for starters.

This clown is ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. I don't care about his prosecutorial experience. He is as credible as the San Francisco street people who yell at you on Market Street.

He is a birther. He STILL holds to the absurd "Atta in Prague" lie. Iraq was the home of al-Qaeda.

Absolutely crazy train, but he is EVERYWHERE.

Sad.

The World According to C Street

We've glimpsed how C Street Family “brother” Bart Stupak's early morning assault on a woman's legal right to an abortion has become the most serious threat in a generation to pro-choice rights in America. Next come the tawdry revelations involving Family adulterers “brother” Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, and “brother” John Ensign, senator from Nevada. Sanford was charged with 37 ethics violations while the cuckholded husband in the Ensign affair gave a tell-all interview about John Ensign's sordid dalliances with the man’s wife.

If these were normal circumstances involving elected officials with an ounce of self-respect, these shameless politicians would have spared themselves and the public further embarassment by resigning. But that is not the way of the Family. After all, Sanford and Ensign are the “chosen ones” living in a bizarre Religious Right elitist world in which they are exempt from the normal rules of society. Doug Coe, head of the Family, explained in a colloquy what it meant to be a “chosen one”:

“Suppose I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?”

“You would think I was awful, a monster.”

And Doug Coe said, “No, I would not, because you’re chosen, and when you’re chosen, the normal rules don’t apply.”

The DINO Holdout Outrage: In Praise of Landrieu but Not Lincoln, Nelson, and Traitor Joe

In electoral politics, what often “dictates” the balance between principle and expediency is the next election. When Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas took the Senate floor to announce they would vote to invoke cloture on the healthcare bill and allow debate to begin, a Martian alien sitting in the gallery would have correctly deduced that, of the two, Senator Lincoln was the one facing a tough reelection campaign in 2010.

Disregard self-serving language about serving the people of [enter state: Arkansas] and not being “dictated to” by outside liberal groups [enter populist language], or the insurance companies [enter wink-and-a-nod to master donors]. Blanche Lincoln vowed to oppose a “government-run public option” even though the people of Arkansas support a government-run public option by 55%-38%. Altogether, the uninsured Americans in the states represented by the four senators in the Democratic Caucus who are threatening to tear down healthcare reform –- Lincoln, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Nelson –- number roughly 2 million people.

The common denominator among these four conservative Senate Democrats are the millions in campaign contributions from the wealthcare insurance industry and Big Pharma. The common denominator between the wealthcare insurance industry and Big Pharma is their intention to kill healthcare reform and the public option, outspending reform advocates by 2-1. REAL Democrats are fed up. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio has had enough. With a right back at ya to Senator Lincoln, he said 56 Democrats in the Democratic Caucus will not be “dictated to” by four senators.

Way to go, Senator Brown. The President needs to step up to the plate and read these senators the Riot Act. (Sorry for sounding redundant.) The President’s studied indifference (think Waiting for Godot) in taking a strong stand and twisting some arms is showing up in his approval ratings, which will continue their southward slide unless Barack Obama reins in the DINOS with tough Johnson-esque cajoling. Astonishingly, Harry Reid has channeled LBJ much more effectively than President Obama.

Given the large Democratic majorities in Arkansas Senator Lincoln has infuriated, her political posture is, frankly, incomprehensible. Senator Lincoln’s grousing at outside liberal groups is ridiculous and self-serving. First, these groups comprise a substantial portion of Lincoln’s donor base. Second, the message carried by the netroots campaign in Arkansas simply informs voters of the Senator’s refusal to heed the wishes of 55% of Arkansans that support a public option.

What Senator Lincoln calls meddling by outside groups they call bringing sunshine to the process and forcing Lincoln to be accountable to her constituents. With hundreds of thousands of uninsured Americans in Arkansas alone, no apologies are forthcoming for inconveniencing Senator Lincoln. To the contrary, outside liberal groups will continue to ramp up the pressure. Go ahead, Senator Lincoln. Turn your back on the people of Arkansas, and they will defeat you. A strong candidate, Arkansas Lt. Governor Bill Halter, is waiting in the wings to pose a primary challenge on the question of a public option should you vote to destroy healthcare reform.

Conversely, the attacks on Senator Mary Landrieu by wingnut hate pimps Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are despicable. They called Senator Landrieu an “expensive prostitute” for negotiating with Harry Reid a $300 million natural disaster Medicaid package for Louisiana, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. The Bush Administration’s criminal neglect of Louisiana, depopulating the state of thousands of destitute residents -- an ethnic cleansing that has colored it lighter and more Republican -- made Senator Landrieu’s intervention on behalf of the poverty-stricken residents that remained an absolute moral imperative. She took the point on this issue, and sustained withering attacks by the wingnut blogosphere, with nothing but obscure, timid support by every Republican in Louisiana, from the governor on down.

Senator Mary Landrieu has received tough but deserved criticism on this blog for her public option flip-flop, but on the question of Medicaid disaster relief for her state she is completely in the right. It should be noted that the depopulation of New Orleans in the wake of the Katrina disaster robbed Senator Landrieu of a large chunk of her Democratic base in Louisiana. She can be forgiven a vote against the public option on an up-or-down floor vote, but should not, under any circumstances, filibuster final passage of the bill.

The worst thing Harry Reid can do is cave to the four DINO holdouts in the Democratic Caucus and accept a watered-down pro-insurance bill. If they do not fall in line, there’s always the simple majority of the reconciliation process. If forced to go this route, Mr. Reid should strip the DINOS of their committee chairmanships and privileges.

What can they do? Threaten to switch parties? Please, DINOS, there's the door. If you cannot support the Democratic Party on procedural votes, what are you good for? Don't let the Caucus door hit you on the way out.

Before I forget, there are two more inductees to The Thinker Hall of Shame: DINO Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. This brings the number of Hall of Shame laureates to four -- Mary Landrieu, Bart Stupak, Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson -- with one non-DINO inductee, “Independent” Traitor Joe Lieberman. Hopefully Landrieu, Lincoln, and Nelson can be persuaded to return to the Democratic fold once more. Bart Stupak the Christian anti-choice stealth crusader, whose allegiance is to the C Street Religious Right mafia, never was a Democrat.