Stimulee, stimula, stimulee, stimula-haha-ha

So what do I think?

I'm a historian by training. I look back to FDR and the nightmare he inherited from his predecessor. What did FDR do? He tried all kinds of things. Some worked, some didn't. He scrapped what didn't and tried something else.

Will President Obama's plan work? Hell if I know. Do I support him against personal interest? Yes, given that we as a couple (not me mind you) are the dreaded "rich" (barely) who will see their mortage interest deduction cut, etc. But what we know is that a decade of Republican Hooverism has wrecked this train, that the tax cut mantra doesn't work and can't ever work.

I'm willing to try anything...

Pat Leahy's "Truth Commission"

So the senior senator from Vermont wants a truth commission to examine the myriad misdeeds of the Bush years. A commission is an affront to the law and to conscience if it is done with broad grants of immunity. Prosecutions MUST remain on the table and be vigorously pursued, or the "truth" will be as whitewashed as Tom Sawyer's fence.

The senator recognized that there are many congressional committees that have or will look into various aspects of Bush criminality, but he called for a "super committee," pictured below, with wide-ranging authority and jurisdiction.

LADIES AND GENTS: THE LEADER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Prof. Limbaugh

We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

Nice work, except that isn't the constitution, you drug-addled moron. That happens to come from Mr. Jefferson's 1776 masterpiece.

Yup, the head of the GOP. And we know where that head is...

A typical Republican who was "energized" by Limbaugh

We hear reports that Rush Limbaugh's CPAC address "energized" many Republicans, such as the one below.

Limbaugh, shown below, attempted to defend his desire for the president to "fail."

Republicans--the new Whigs? Or perhaps, the Federalists? Oh wait, I know...

THE KNOW-NOTHINGS.

The party needs to do some VERY SERIOUS soul-searching very quickly or the ashbin of history is the next and final stop on the Limbaugh Express trainwreck.

Did they learn nothing from November? You have Limbaugh and Joe the Fake Plumber as the big stories coming out of your unofficial party convention? [note to GOP: DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT EVER put Limbaugh on TV. THAT is not a good look for you!] And Mittens "Mittens" Romney is your straw poll winner? Ah, I love the smell of Whiggery in the morning. It smells like...irrelevance.

The modern GOP has long been a puzzle, the unholiest of alliances between the yahoos and the CEOs. Somehow the CEOs convinced the yahoos that they shared their desire to help Jesus stop boys from kissing and that every sperm was indeed sacred. Now the CEOs have been exposed as the felons that they are, and the yahoos remain yahoos [Note to GOP #2: DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT EVER put yahoo political rallies on TV. THAT is not a good look for you!]

Middle America needs to find a political party that speaks to and for them, that rejects both the corporatism and the anti-intellectual theocracy of the last generation's GOP. Will one emerge? Wait, I have an idea..how about, say, THE DEMOCRATIC party?

To: President Barack Obama (redux)

From: Me

Mr. President, your speech to Congress and the nation was inspiring. You give hope to millions that better days are indeed on the way after the darkness of most the the last decade. However, how can you lead and inspire when you publicly associate yourself with the absolute incarnation of hopelessness and despair? In these fragile early days of your presidency, please do not embrace the embodiment of abject failure, a mess that makes Afghanistan look like a walk in the park. Please do not let me see you again with the image of ultimate catastrophe below:

We have nothing to fear but fear, and Joakim Noah, themselves.

Me

Kudos to Chris Matthews

Ahem, did I just type that? Kudos to the crazy car of American politics?

Yup. Because he finally did what EVERYONE in the cowed mainstream media should do. He called out Darrell Issa (R-Idiot) for his childish use of "Democrat" rather than "Democratic. It's an old Frank Luntz talking point (sounds like "rat," they aren't really "democratic," etc.) now embraced by the de fatto (shamelessly stolen) head of the GOP, Viagra Oxycontin Limbaugh. Chris, a hat tip to ya.

To: President Barack Obama

From: Me

Dear Mr. President:

I believe you are off to a tremendous start in what will be a historic presidency. You are faced with tremendous challenges to help the nation recover from the previous president's Olympic-sized screwups.

Can you please do me one small favor, however? Please do NOT refer to Operation Iraqi Cluster**** as a "war." It has not been a "war" now for almost six years. To call it a "war" only legitimizes the abuses of the Bush years. You have no war to win or lose, only a disastrously botched occupation to leave behind as efficiently as possible.

Sincerely,

Me

Mrs. Mittens--Where's my bling?

Thieves apparently made off with some jewelry from the Mittens Romney huge ostentatious f**king mansion cabin in Park City, Utah (story). The clincher is that Mrs. Mittens didn't know what was missing, and the police were going to check with her JEWELRY CONSULTANT. I mean, who doesn't have a jewelry consultant???

Caribou Barbie, Riyoush Brady Jindal, Mittens--yup, that's leadership for you!

Name that POL/Spouse (from his/her Yearbook pic!): SEE ANSWERS BELOW

1. SARAH PALIN

2. JOHN McCAIN

3. JOE BIDEN

4. MIKE HUCKABEE

5. NANCY PELOSI

6. DICK CHENEY

7. MICHELLE OBAMA

8. NORM COLEMAN

9. ROD BLAGOJEVICH

10. JIMMY CARTER

11. RUDY GIULIANI


PICS ARE ALL COURTESY OF VETO CORLEONE SITE (no peeking ...)

I like open comments, but...

I think we've heard enough of the Hansen family, pictured below:

I have seen the light!

By popular demand, I am THROUGH being negative! From now on I will only post pictures of puppies and kitties! And maybe kids with balloons! And baby ducks!

--------NOT!--------

What fun would that be???

An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.....No it isn't.

I had a surreal experience today. I actually encountered a Glenn Beck fan in another forum. It's somewhat like the giant squid. You know they exist but they are rarely seen in their natural habitat. I will mention no names or identifying features of the individual, however.

First of all, I assume you're familiar with Glenn Beck. If not, take a Klansman, a woman hater and someone who has suffered traumatic head injuries, blend them up and give them a microphone and you have Glenn Beck.

This began with some claptrap he was circulating, his "principles." I won't honor them with a reference, suffice it to say that it was a mishmash of truisms, nonsense and right-wing talking points. The Beck fan, though, began this bizarre defense, that we had to "respect" him because he had made something out of himself despite being a drunk. OK, we start with a bigoted, lying, misogynistic douchebag who is a drunk, take away the drunk and what's left?

He/she tried the old wingnut canard of saying that I feel that way about people I "disagree" with. First of all, tell that to the Mrs., she would be fascinated. And of course, it's patently untrue. Right off the top I can tell you that I LOVE to listen to Pat Buchanan. I don't agree with a thing he says, but he's bright, he doesn't make stuff up like Beck and he's intellectually honest.

Anyway, I gave the Beck fan a list of quotes and the source so he/she could see what a miscreant he is. The response--classic. I'm not going to read those because my mind is made up. Alex, may I have cognitive dissonance for $1000?

The kicker though were comments on their site complaining about my "name calling." True, I called Glenn Beck a moron and other things, but said nothing about the individual involved in the discussion. Yet his/her hero Beck does nothing BUT call names.

Again, the remarkable thing is how these wingers need to be told what to do. They can't think for themselves.

Givin' the GOP Response

is just another word for nothin' left to lose.

Note to Gov. Jindal. That whooshing sound you just heard was the the air going out of your national political ambitions balloon. Nice speech there, Bob.

Can you imagine...

If you had been watching a presidential speech last night and seen THIS:



in the chair behind the podium???

Now this one is funny...

The email addy for the blog largely serves as a spam receptacle. You know, the apparently obvious fact of my male inadequacies or my friends in Nigeria. This one below is priceless though. First of all, they use the IRS. It is a small amount, as compared to the ridiculous riches promised in the Nigerian oil minister ilk.

But please--I make my living writing, and I'm best friends with typos, but can we have a little proofreading? And I'm sure the IRS credits tax refunds to credit cards.

IF anyone falls for this, they deserve to get cleaned out. Stupidity SHOULD be painful.

Can we think outside the box about throwing "shovel-ready" under the bus at the end of the day IMHO (and any other cliches you can think of)

I hereby nominate "shovel ready" as the leader in the clubhouse for 2009's most annoying phrase.

Happy 277th, George!

Honestly, George, you don't look a day over 276!

He was not a great military mind. He was not a great politician. But he was a great MAN, and America's indispensable man. Without him, there was no country to make, and without Lincoln, no country worth saving.

Happy birthday.

Expelling Bee

Ah, Roland Burris. What happens next?

This is different from the debate on seating, with each house judging its own members, which is procedural. Barring a resignation by the egomaniacal freak, the matter falls under the same Article 1, Section 5, which rather unhelpfully provides that "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member."

The framers and commas, not so much. You know, the whole "well-regulated militia" thing? The question is, you can punish for "disorderly conduct," but is that operative with regard to expulsion? If so, what is disorderly conduct??

We have no predent to decide this. The Senate has not expelled a member since 1862, and every expulsion to date was because they were TRAITORS. One in the 18th century, and then that whole Confederacy thing.

[On that note, with apologies to my southern brethren--I still fervently believe that every senior political official of the so-called Confederacy should have been hanged as traitors, along with every commissioned officer in the so-called Confederate army. You do not make war on this nation lightly. I applaud Lincoln with his "malice toward none" approach, but if it had been me, malice all around! Treason should be painful.]