Video catchup!

While we here at Chez 10K have been distracted by the TV (for weeks, really -- first by the Olympics and then by the Democratic and Republican conventions, respectively), the creative among us have been churning out the videos. Here's a sampling:

Memorial Day Links

I'm still sorting through my travel photos while also slogging through some blogs, getting caught up on the news I missed. There were a lot of big stories -- ranging from the very sad (Ted Kennedy's health problems) to the exciting (California's Supreme Court sanely confirming that all people are created equal) -- but those stories have been beaten to death. Here are a few links that cover some quieter events:

• Exits: Annika Sorenstam (golf) and Justine Henin (tennis) are both retiring -- Justine is the first tennis player to quit while holding the #1 spot!
• Via Boing Boing is this gorgeous public spaces animation
• beep found some incredible photography
• Chris points to some beautiful underwater footage
• Cute Overload discovered some animal odd couple images
• Bush claims that he's made great golf-related sacrifices because of his war. But he lies. And he got busted. And mocked.
• And finally, a couple of quotes. These are the kind of take-no-prisoners Democrats I've been wishing for all these years!
  

  While I always appreciate hearing the news from John McCain, he should explain to the American people why almost every single promise and prediction that he has made about Iraq has turned to be catastrophically wrong, including his support for a surge that was supposed to achieve political reconciliation. While John McCain offers his poor judgment in supporting George Bush's war and a failed foreign policy that has left us less secure, I will continue to make the case for a new foreign policy that deploys all elements of American power -- including tough, principled and direct diplomacy. It's stunning that in such a lengthy written statement, John McCain could not articulate a single new idea that hasn't been tried -- and failed -- over the last eight years. -- Barack Obama

  The Bush-McCain saber rattling is the most self-defeating policy imaginable. It achieves nothing. But it forces Iranians who despise the regime to rally behind their leaders. And it spurs instability in the Middle East, which adds to the price of oil, with the proceeds going right from American wallets into Tehran's pockets.
  
  The worst nightmare for a regime that thrives on tension with America is an America ready, willing and able to engage. Since when has talking removed the word "no" from our vocabulary?
  
  It's amazing how little faith George Bush, Joe Lieberman and John McCain have in themselves - and in America. -- Joe Biden

• UPDATE: one more... Bob Geiger: Dead Troops Remembered By President Who Had Them Killed (via Nicole Belle)

Bottom Line

There's been a lot of talk on the news about Huckabee insisting that he be the one to fill out McCain's now near-inevitable ticket. There's really no mathematical way for Huckabee to win the nomination (yeah, yeah -- I know, Huckabee didn't study math in school, he studied miracles. Hee-yuck!), so everyone is assuming he's in the race for the VP job. And given his roughly 60-40 showing in Kansas today (and he got all of the delegates), he might end up amassing enough power to throw his much-reduced weight around.

There's one fundamental problem with a McCain/Huckabee ticket: McCain is really old, and Huckabee is really crazy. So, there's a better than normal chance that this ticket could bring us that much-feared theocracy the right wing radicals have been wanting for decades.

Any sane people out there will see that (especially if we give them some help in the runup to the election!), and Huckabee will end up being a drag on what could be a very formidable McCain ticket.

So, enough talk about VP Huckabee. Any other ideas for a running mate? (Besides Lieberman -- Oy.)

Pelosi At Christmas

And while we're talking about politicians who are out of touch with their party, did you hear that Joe "I never met a war I didn't like" Lieberman has endorsed John McCain in the presidential election?

About the New Hampshire Debate Tonight...

After listening to Hillary say for over a year now that if she knew then what she knows now, she would not have voted to give Bush the authorization to go into Iraq, I am shocked -- seriously stunned -- to hear that she voted in favor of the Lieberman-Kyl Iran vote.

WTF, mate?

I'd love to see a woman become president, but this is not the woman.

(Come on, Al -- you're the only one who can stop her!)

UPDATE: more on the Lieberman-Kyl amendment here (along with some information about Tennessee's embarrassing senatorial delegation). And you can read the text of the amendment here.

Minimum Wage Bill Killed

Yes, those Republican do-gooders in the Senate have never failed to vote themselves a raise, but they have once again decided that they are the only ones who have to contend with the rising cost of living. So, they killed the minimum wage hike, and it will stay at $5.15. In case you're wondering which Senators were in on the deal, here they are (for Tennessee -- the rest of the list follows below):

Bob Corker: voted against raising the minimum wage -- this is the little weasel who used the Chattanooga mayor's office to enrich his portfolio. Just one one of the sweet scams he ran through the city's offices was good for $4.6 million, wetlands be damned. Now that he's bought himself a Senate seat, his income is sure to go up, especially if he gets some tips from Tennessee's other Senator:

Lamar Alexander: voted against raising the minimum wage -- this is the guy who somehow managed to get rich while earning a relatively modest salary in "public service." Doug Ireland wrote an article about him titled "Politics for Profit: The Rich Rise of Lamar Alexander" (if I can find an online source for the text, I'll add the link).

Oh, and Alexander is also, amazingly enough, one of 28 Republican Senators who voted to eliminate the minimum wage completely (note that at least a couple of presidential wannabes are on the list, too). No, I'm not kidding.

"Gosh," Corker and Alexander reason, "the downtrodden can just pull themselves up by the bootstraps like we did!" However, unlike Mr. Corker and Mr. Alexander, a lot of honest, hard-working Americans aren't willing and able to screw over the US taxpayer in order to make a buck.

Here's a simple bit of math:

A person working 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year at minimum wage ($5.15 per hour) -- before any taxes, insurance, uniform fees, parking fees, day care, transportation costs, or any other expenses are deducted from the gross -- will make $10,300 a year.

40 x 50 x $5.15 = $10,300

OK, first stop for a minute and imagine trying to make ends meet on $10,300 a year. How would you manage? Could you?

Now, consider this:

The current poverty threshold for a single person living in the contiguous US is $9,800. For two people (say, a single mother and her child), the poverty threshold is $13,200. If a man works industriously all year long in a minimum wage job, it's impossible for him to earn enough to support a wife and one child, because the threshold for three people is $16,600 (of couse, the right wingnuts and holy rollers are always shrieking about how women should stay home with their children, but when Republicans are called upon to require their corporate patrons to pay a living wage, those same conservatives suddenly don't seem to remember a thing that Jesus said).

The math tells the story, and it is unconscionable. The richest nation on earth, a supposed Christian nation, should be ashamed of such a failure to take even basic steps to combat poverty. We won't be a great nation for much longer if we continue to neglect our most vulnerable citizens.

So there you have it, folks. A complete list of how our Senate voted follows after the bump. Remember these names when your Senators come calling -- if they ask you for money or for your support, remind them of this vote.

Corker and Bush Hang Out

It looks like Bob Corker wasn't as reluctant to be seen with Bush as Bruce Plante predicted! Raking in 1.5 million dollars (no word yet on whether or not Corker will reimburse the Amercian taxpayer for the expenses we incurred), Corker seemed quite pleased by his date with Bush. In fact...

it looks like Joe Lieberman might have some competition for Georgie's affections!

Cal Thomas is an idiot.

I don't normally read Cal Thomas, but he was featured on Daily Kos today, so I read this article.
Let me say right off the bat that I know that both sides of the political spectrum have their political hacks, and will grant that there's room in the world for them. Not all of them are all bad (Tucker Carlson, for example, is a hack, but is also fairly entertaining on a regular basis). But I don't ever read Cal Thomas, and it's because of stupid, sloppy stuff like this:

The narrow primary defeat of veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary is more than a loss for one man. It is a loss for his party and for the country. It completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing.

They used to be "San Francisco Democrats," a phrase coined by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick to describe the party's 1984 convention. But they have now morphed into Taliban Democrats because they are willing to "kill" one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party's kook fringe.

Now, just ignoring Cal's over-the-top inflammatory language and ridiculous accusations of antisemitism (has he taken a good look at the Republican party and their Christofascists lately? If he wants to find an American Taliban, he can stop looking right there!), let's instead focus on the part where the pot calls the kettle black. Here's something I read in our own little hometown paper just this morning (from the AP):

Fresh off their first victory over a Republican incumbent, GOP conservatives seeking party purity on taxes and spending are focused on ousting moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

The Club for Growth and its 36,000 members spent around $1 million to help challenger Tim Walberg unseat first-term Rep. Joe Schwarz in Michigan's Republican primary on Tuesday. The win came despite Schwarz's support from President Bush and the National Rifle Association.

Can Cal not even read his own freakin' paper? At the very least, couldn't he time his stupid rant for a day when the exact same behavior by his own party is not highlighted in the news? Sheesh. I've got no use for boneheads like Cal Thomas.

UPDATE: Is it possible that Cal's just blinded by panic?

Incidentally, this is all happening -- the coordinated attacks from Tony Snow to Dick Cheney to Cal Thomas to every other war supporter, calling those Connecticut voters who voted for Lamont "al Qaeda supporters", or Taliban members, or all the rest of the very virulent crap we've heard yesterday and today -- because the Iraq War propaganda campaigns and failed policies are falling apart around their ears.

The arrests in the U.K. were very significant, in the public zeitgeist, because they very much reminded everyone of the dynamic of al Qaeda -- you know, the enemy we were supposed to be fighting, and the enemy that actually attacked us, and may again. But those arrests demonstrated once again, at a very inopportune time (heading into election season) that the Iraq War didn't make us safer. In fact, the Iraq War didn't have anything to do with the actual enemy -- actual terrorism -- at all.

BACK in BLACK

OK, I admit it -- I think I'm ready for this moving thing to be over. Yet still I pack...
Fortunately, there's Lewis Black. Ahhh...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black - Senate Primaries
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Watching Connecticut...

So far, Lamont's ahead, but and that's with only 25% 50% 76% 87% 93% of the vote counted... Lieberman's also tanking at home, so maybe it will be Lamont's night. The best TV coverage is on CSPAN1.

UPDATE: Lieberman is conceding to Lamont right now (11:04 pm). It's over.
In other news, I'm a little sore and a really good kind of tired.

Why Tuesday Is Important

I'm still packing, which is a nice change from the intensity of those last days before our local election. All I've done for three days now is put furniture and boxes into the really big box that's sitting out in the driveway. It's physically tiring, and it requires little thought beyond the usual puzzle-solving skills called upon when packing items so that they won't shift. I'm enjoying it.

But I'm still keeping an eye on the run up to the November election because I know in another week or two, it will all be consuming me again. And who knows what's going to happen? Perhaps Tuesday will give us a clue (via truthout)...

An upset by Lamont would affect the political calculations of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who like Lieberman supported giving Bush authority to wage the Iraq war, and could excite interest in a comeback by former vice president Al Gore, who warned in 2002 that the war could be a grave strategic error. For at least the next year, any Democrat hoping to play on the 2008 stage would need to reckon with the implications of Lieberman's repudiation.

Ned Lamont & CT-Sen

The primary election is a week from today in Connecticut (it's on Thursday here in Chattanooga, along with our local elections) and in these final moments of the campaign, Ned Lamont sat down with Stephen Colbert. For more on all the last minute shenanigans, check out the coverage on Kos.

Early Word on the Lieberman-Lamont Debate

... is starting to trickle in. Of course, many sites were live-blogging the event:

Lieberman said Lamont is simply trying to buy the election. Funny how he knowingly ignores Lamont's growing people-powered army: [volunteer link] [contribute link]

UPDATE: there's video (via AmericaBlog).

Schadenfreude-a-palooza

I'm finding it hard to believe that Ann Coulter is as stupid as she appears to be. She makes her living by stirring the pot, so you'd think she would be on her best behavior, anticipating that her many enemies would put her, and her work, under a microscope. (Then again, the same standard applied to Rush Limbaugh, Bill Clinton, Tom DeLay and a bunch of other poliltical lightening rods, and they couldn't figure it out. When will people learn?)

As I've been following the saga of Joe Lieberman this past week, I've been wondering why people are so confused about how political parties work. (We've been having a related drama here in Chattanooga this week, as Democratic officials have been shocked to discover that they are expected to support Democrat candidates and not those of the opposition.) Here is the way things work in a nutshell: if you want to be an official member of a political party, you will be expected to support the candidates fielded by that party. If you want to play à la carte politics, you should not become an official of a political party. If you hold an elected office of a political party, you are expected to adhere to the general philosophy of that party. If you become enamored with your party's nemesis, don't be surprised if your party goes shopping for a better candidate. And if you're an official member of that party, you will be expected to support the nominee, even if he's not the incumbent. OK. Is that clear now?

(Oh, yeah, and if you read a local politics blog, don't be suprised to discover that it's a partisan site... Sheesh! Why is that such a shock for some people?!?)

I know some people wanted to see Ken Lay rot in prison, but he dodged that bullet. I hope his numerous victims are able to pick over what's left of his estate. If there is a hell, it's a bit more crowded today.

And finally, how much does it suck to be a falafel-lovin', lefty-hatin' Bill O'Reilly and see a snarky, smug liberal overtake your deranged, hate-spewing show in the ratings?

I guess neither Ailes or O'Reilly realize that when you tie your entire show and network to a president, you become as popular or unpopular as Bush has. Or as Nickolas D. Kristof said in the NYTimes [alternate link]:

"The real victims of Fox News weren't the liberals it attacked, but the conservatives who believed it....."

Joementum strikes again

Joe Lieberman sure is a piece of work. In his world, for a woman to go through the trauma of rape isn't enough. Joe would have that woman follow her attack with a drive around Connecticut's countryside, shopping for a hospital that will dispense emergency contraception:

Lieberman said he believes hospitals that refuse to give contraceptives to rape victims for "principled reasons" shouldn't be forced to do so.

"In Connecticut, it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital," he said.

Well Joe, that's not very helpful. I mean, I know that you'll never need emergency contraception at two o'clock in the morning after having been brutally raped. So I guess it's easy for you to disregard any woman who is unlucky enough to have gone through that trauma.

Ned Lamont for US Senate!

Uppity women getting back in their place?

Beth Quinn has weighed in on the state of men in America, and the news is pretty damn good if you're a certain kind of man (via TGW):

After decades of oppression, men are making a comeback. Spurred on by President Bush and his new Supreme Court, they're reclaiming their God-given right to control women.

[...] [I]t became clear Roe v. Wade had to go if women were to be put back in their place. After all, if you can rape a woman and she has to stay pregnant, well, by golly, you've got the goods, don'tcha see?

And that's about to happen! South Dakota has banned all abortions except when the pregnancy or birth is about to kill the woman.

[...] The men in charge aren't entirely without compassion. South Dakota Sen. Bill Napoli says he'd consider letting a girl have an abortion if she was brutally raped, a virgin, religious and planned on saving herself for her husband. Women should feel so darn good about having a guy like that to make their decisions!

This is where this gets really good, though. I'm still stunned at this one, months later. And hang onto your hats, cowboys, because there's been much whining and crying and gnashing of teeth from a lot of men lately because they don't like the way we women use the word "misogynist" (oh, but if only you could control our thoughts as well as our bodies!), but in this case, there is absolutely no other word that applies. How else would you describe men who have opted out of saving the lives of countless women because doing so might lead to women having sex -- except with the word misogynist? Male chauvinist pig?

Anyway, back to the Report...

Also - you won't believe how amazing THIS is - if a woman has sex, then the feeling down at the Bush administration is that she deserves cancer! That might sound harsh even to you fellas who want to get back in the saddle, but here's the reasoning.

Researchers have developed a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer. You'd think we'd be dancing in the streets over this one - an actual cancer vaccine that could save thousands of women's lives annually. It works by safeguarding women against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

Here's the rub. Women should get the shot before they're sexually active. That means it should be part of standard childhood immunizations.

And that won't do. Bush says removing the threat of cervical cancer would make women promiscuous. Abstinence only, girls! If you get cancer from sex, you're just a slut anyway.

Rest assured, Beth does give a nod to the true women-lovers in our midst (uh, that would not include Joe), and I'd like to add my shoutout to all the good men out there who do manage to love and respect us all at the same time...

Now, I realize not all men are with the program here. There are millions of men who actually feel confident that women's freedom doesn't erode their own strength and sexuality and humanity.

To those men, I say this: We like you the best. You've got a much better chance of getting la "uh, some intimacy" than the troglodytes in your midst.

The Cult of Bush?

This great article from Glenn Greenwald goes a long way toward explaining some of how I feel as a former republican. There's a lot more to it than I'm quoting here, so I recommend reading the whole thing, but here are a few short exerpts:

Now, in order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a "liberal," regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more "liberal" one is. Whether one is a "liberal" -- or, for that matter, a "conservative" -- is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.

One can see this principle at work most illustratively in how Bush followers talk about Andrew Sullivan. In the couple of years after 9/11, Bush followers revered Sullivan, as he stood loyally behind Bush, providing the rhetorical justifications for almost every Bush action. And even prior to the Bush Administration, Sullivan was a fully accepted member of the conservative circle. Nobody questioned the bona fides of his conservative credentials because he ascribed to the conservative view on almost every significant political issue.

Despite not having changed his views on very many, if any, of those issues, Sullivan is now frequently called a "liberal" (at best) when he is talked about by Bush followers. What has changed are not his political views or ideological orientation. Instead, he no longer instinctively and blindly praises George Bush, but periodically, even frequently, criticizes Bush. By definition, then, he is no longer a "conservative."

He then quotes Sullivan at length, who offers numerous examples of just this dynamic. I admit to accusing some supposed democrats of not really being democrats (*cough* *joementum* *cough* *cough*), but I do so when they betray the ideology of the party, not because they fail to support the positions of an individual.

That "conservatism" has come to mean "loyalty to George Bush" is particularly ironic given how truly un-conservative the Administration is. It is not only the obvious (though significant) explosion of deficit spending under this Administration – and that explosion has occurred far beyond military or 9/11-related spending and extends into almost all arenas of domestic programs as well. Far beyond that is the fact that the core, defining attributes of political conservatism could not be any more foreign to the world view of the Bush follower.

As much as any policy prescriptions, conservatism has always been based, more than anything else, on a fundamental distrust of the power of the federal government and a corresponding belief that that power ought to be as restrained as possible, particularly when it comes to its application by the Government to American citizens. It was that deeply rooted distrust that led to conservatives’ vigorous advocacy of states’ rights over centralized power in the federal government, accompanied by demands that the intrusion of the Federal Government in the lives of American citizens be minimized.

Is there anything more antithetical to that ethos than the rabid, power-hungry appetites of Bush followers? There is not an iota of distrust of the Federal Government among them. Quite the contrary. Whereas distrust of the government was quite recently a hallmark of conservatism, expressing distrust of George Bush and the expansive governmental powers he is pursuing subjects one to accusations of being a leftist, subversive loon.

Indeed, as many Bush followers themselves admit, the central belief of the Bush follower's "conservatism" is no longer one that ascribes to a limited federal government -- but is precisely that there ought to be no limits on the powers claimed by Bush precisely because we trust him, and we trust in him absolutely. He wants to protect us and do good. He is not our enemy but our protector. And there is no reason to entertain suspicions or distrust of him or his motives because he is Good.

We need no oversight of the Federal Government’s eavesdropping powers because we trust Bush to eavesdrop in secret for the Good. We need no judicial review of Bush’s decrees regarding who is an "enemy combatant" and who can be detained indefinitely with no due process because we trust Bush to know who is bad and who deserves this. We need no restraints from Congress on Bush’s ability to exercise war powers, even against American citizens on U.S. soil, because we trust Bush to exercise these powers for our own good.

The blind faith placed in the Federal Government, and particularly in our Commander-in-Chief, by the contemporary "conservative" is the very opposite of all that which conservatism has stood for for the last four decades. The anti-government ethos espoused by Barry Goldwater and even Ronald Reagan is wholly unrecognizable in Bush followers, who – at least thus far – have discovered no limits on the powers that ought to be vested in George Bush to enable him to do good on behalf of all of us.

And in that regard, people like Michelle Malkin, John Hinderaker, Jonah Goldberg and Hugh Hewitt are not conservatives. They are authoritarian cultists. Their allegiance is not to any principles of government but to strong authority through a single leader.

Just to be clear, I don't think this is a trait that is limited to the lunatic fringe people like Malkin, Coulter and others of their deranged ilk (like the bloggers to which Greenwald repeatedly refers). Blind loyalty is required from republicans even by those in the supposed mainstream of the party -- loyalty not only to Bush, but also to his principle retinue -- just look at the way people reacted to criticism of Dick Cheney's disasterous handling of a hunting accident (before he'd even said a word, people were tumbling over each other to deflect the blame for the accident from Cheney as though he were some sort of diety, instead of a human); or look at the way mainstream republicans (with no objections from members of the party) are bending over backwards to make it possible for the unbelievably sleazy Tom DeLay to continue slithering his way through Congress (and even onto the committee that is investigating his close friend and financier, Jack Abramoff).

For a glimpse of how actual conservatives quite recently used to think, one should read this article at FreeRepublic.com, which decries the dangerous loss of liberty and privacy as a result of the Clinton Administration's use of a "secret court" (something called the "FISA court") which actually enables the Federal Government to eavesdrop on American citizens! Worse -- much worse -- the judicial approval which the Government (used to) obtain for this eavesdropping is in secret, so we don't even know who is being eavesdropped on! How can we possibly trust the Government not to abuse this power if they can obtain warrants in secret?

Conservatives used to consider things like this to be quite disturbing and bad -- and the eavesdropping then was at least with judicial oversight. Now, George Bush is in office, and all of the distrust we used to have of the Federal Government exercising these powers has evaporated, because we trust in George Bush to do what is best for us. He should not just have those powers, but many more, and he should exercise all of them in secret, too, with no "interference" from the courts or Congress.

That is why I say that whatever else these Bush followers are, they are not conservative.

Another Busy Day

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny Saturday, so I painted the front of the house this afternoon. I've taken a quick look around the web for news this evening, and discovered that Ned Lamont is coming closer to challenging Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's primary, Bill Frist and Chris Matthews are still a couple of dicks, and if you haven't seen it yet, there's a great SOTU video that's been circulating for the past few days. It's hilarious (and if that's not enough and you need still more Bush impressions -- and Clinton, Pacino and Madden -- check out this video). More later... I'm tired...

Roberts Confirmation

Just for the record, every Republican voted for confirmation. The Democrats split, and Jeffords voted yes.

Democrats who voted in favor of confirmation: Baucus, Bingaman, Byrd, Carper, Conrad, Dodd, Dorgan, Feingold, Johnson, Kohl, Landrieu, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Lincoln, Murray, Nelson, Nelson, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar and Wyden.

Democrats who voted against confirmation: Akaka, Bayh, Biden, Boxer, Cantwell, Clinton, Corzine, Dayton, Durbin, Feinstein, Harkin, Inouye, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Mikulski, Obama, Reed, Reid, Sarbanes, Schumer and Stabenow.

Zell Lieberman

Why doesn't he just go ahead and admit that he's a Republican? First he practically swaps spit with the Shrub after the SOTU (video), and then he couldn't contain himself when effusing about our new AG, Alberto "it's not torture if you're not dead" Gonzales.

Sen. Lieberman, however, went above and beyond Gonzales to offer support for the U.S. policy of deny rights to Guantanamo Bay detainees. He called the decision "progressive" and "remarkably just," citing the fact the Bush Administration opted to provide the inmates with food, water, shelter, blankets and the ability to practice their religion.