From Holidays to Bin Laden, Conservatives Cannot Get Their Priorities Straight

Fox & Friends Promote “Merry Christmas” Billboards – Again!

Yesterday, Fox & Friends second stringer Ainsley Earhardt introduced the bill board ladies as “a group of women who want to keep Christ in Christmas” by urging people to drop “happy holdays.” She emphatically said that “to date they have raised thousands of dollars” for eight billboards but say “their fight is far from over.”

With unemployment at over 10% and the number of people on food stamps at record highs Fox and this special interest group are pleading for money to fight a "war on Christmas" rather then help people. When will conservatives ever get their priorities straight.

Conservatives are the anti-terror experts? That is just as much a fairy tale as the Tooth Fairy, Senate report: Bin Laden was 'within our grasp'

Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.

Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry, as President Barack Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old, the report could also be read as a cautionary note for those resisting an increased troop presence there now.

More pointedly, it seeks to affix a measure of blame for the state of the war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Tommy Franks.

"Removing the al-Qaida leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat," the report says. "But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."

The report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora."

Another failure, another legacy of conservatism and G.W. Bush.

Beck's "brand new reality" on climate change relies on distorting apparently stolen emails

The Great Recession and Collective Memory Loss

Who's to Blame and America's Short Attention Span

Americans are often praised for their resilience in the face of calamity, but there is another quality that seems to be in greater supply these days: willful amnesia. An August Gallup Poll showed that 65 percent of Americans oppose another economic stimulus even though the first one, which was inadequate by most economists' calculations, saved or created roughly 650,000 jobs. A more recent Gallup survey had 45 percent of Americans believing that current government regulation of business and industry was too great - a 10-year high. Never mind that it was the lack of regulation that got us into our current economic predicament. Regulation is so last year. In the ingenious film "Memento,'' the protagonist had lost his capacity to remember anything. It now seems as if we live in a memento nation - a place where we too instantly forget what's happened to us.

It wasn't always this way. When Herbert Hoover and his fellow Republicans dithered while Americans sunk into an economic slough in the early 1930s, they were rewarded with a generation of Democratic hegemony, and Hoover's name was eternally blackened. Similarly, when Lyndon Johnson presided over both domestic racial chaos and a military cataclysm in Vietnam, he was rewarded with the Nixon presidency. Only Watergate spared the Democrats further electoral indignities.

These punishments were not only right; they were essential to the functioning of a democracy because they reinforced accountability. If you screw up, you lose, which is exactly how it should be.

Accountability, however, is predicated on remembering who did the screwing up and what the screwing up was. That's why there's a problem when a society suddenly forgets what failed in the past - say Hoover's unwillingness to stimulate the economy or Bush's unwillingness to police Wall Street. The philosopher George Santayana famously said that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We have been living Santayana's dictum.

But if memory loss is the problem, the deeper issue is why we seem to have suddenly lost our memory. In looking for an answer to why we have national amnesia, one might look first to the concept of memory itself. A common memory is the consequence of shared experiences and information. Americans suffered the Great Depression together. They maintained a vivid memory of that pain, a collective memory, from personal experience but also from reading the same newspapers, listening to the same radio programs, watching the same movies. In short, memory was created not only personally but culturally.

Likewise, Americans certainly disagreed about the war in Vietnam, but they watched the same images of the war on television and read the same AP dispatches. We were a nation united by information and memory.

Things have certainly changed, so much so that the United States is something of a misnomer. The institutions that helped forge collective memories have long been in decline. Movies, newspapers, and mass circulation magazines are all gasping. Broadcast television has been usurped by cable television and the Internet, which provide a plethora of images and ideas but which are far more likely to divide us than to unite us, giving us each the images and spin we prefer. Put simply, Americans probably share less now than at any time since the rise of the mass media early in the last century, including shared memories.

What is more, the loss of collective memory has been accelerated by the speed with which we receive information. Both cable news and the Internet place a high premium on "churn'' - on providing a new story or new scoop every few minutes.

Whether this is a function of our own growing impatience or a cause of that impatience is difficult to say, but cable television and the Internet contribute to a national Attention Deficit Disorder. They disrupt continuity, break the chain of cause and effect, detach memory from action, and heighten the moment at the expense of history and the bigger picture that history provides.

In "Memento,'' the hero, unable to remember anything, is compelled to live moment by moment, without the past ever informing the present. The here and now obliterates the there and then.

We operate similarly. We not only live in a society increasingly without memory; we live in a society in which the present is unmoored, making anything that happens right now far more important than anything that has happened before. Hence, if the economy hasn't recovered, it must be President Obama's fault since he is currently president. Or if Congress hasn't enacted health reform yet, it must be the fault of the Democrats since they are the ones in majority, the history of health reform notwithstanding. Or if deficits are growing, it must mean we should stop stimulating the economy since deficits are the issue of the moment. The present moment is everything.

The Only Climate Hoax is the One Being Perpetrated by Conservatives

Quick Fact: Drudge, Washington Times falsely claim allegedly hacked emails show global warming is not real

NASA's Gavin Schmidt: Critics "are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way." Wired's Threat Level blog reported on November 20 that Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said: "There's nothing in the e-mails that shows that global warming is a hoax. ... There's no funding by nefarious groups. There's no politics in any of these things; nobody from the [United Nations] telling people what to do. There's nothing hidden, no manipulation. It's just scientists talking about science, and they're talking relatively openly as people in private e-mails generally are freer with their thoughts than they would be in a public forum. The few quotes that are being pulled out [are out] of context. People are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way." Schmidt is a contributor to the Real Climate blog, which has stated that some of the stolen CRU emails "involve people" at Real Climate.

A salute to a real hero, Witnesses say reservist was a Fort Hood hero

Three weeks after 13 people were shot and killed at Fort Hood in Texas new details are emerging about an Army Reserve captain who died trying to fight off the gunman before police arrived.

Investigators are still sorting out the actions of Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, a psychiatric nurse. According to varying eyewitness accounts, Gaffaney either picked up a chair and threw it at the gunman or physically rushed him from across the room. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, a psychiatrist, has been charged with murder.

Army Maj. Gen. Lie-Ping Chang, commander of the reserve force to which Gaffaney belonged, said that two eyewitnesses recounted how the reservist threw a folding chair and “tried to knock (the gunman) down or knock his gun down.” Chang included this account in an essay submitted to USA Today.

Army Reserve Col. Kathy Platoni, a clinical psychologist who served with Gaffaney, said she was told that he rushed Hasan to within inches before being shot several times.

Platoni said she comforted Gaffaney as he lay dying in a building nearby where soldiers brought him after he was mortally wounded, ripping off pieces of their uniform to use as pressure bandages or tourniquets to stem his massive bleeding from multiple wounds.

“I just started talking to him and holding his hand and saying, ‘John, you’re going to be OK. You’re going to be OK. You’ve just got to fight,’” Platoni recalled.

He died shortly after that, she said. “I was still yelling, ‘John, don’t go. John, don’t go.’” Regardless of what actions Gaffaney took, soldiers were able to escape the gunman when Gaffaney confronted him, Chang said. Gaffaney’s widow, Christine, said one female soldier told her that he saved her life.

Conservative Dana Perino Demonstrates How to be a Moron

Bush's former Press Secretary displays all the knowledge and sensitivity that typifies conservatism. Perino: No Terrorist Attacks In America Under Bush (VIDEO)

On Fox News, the former press secretary suggested President Obama was playing politics by refusing to describe the massacre at Fort Hood as a terrorist attack. "We should call it what it is," she said.

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term," she told Sean Hannity. "I hope they're not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is."




For those with memories as spotty as Perino's, President Bush took office on January 20, 2001. On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the U.S. in terrorist attacks coordinated by al-Qaeda.

Unlike President Talks-outta-both-sides-of-his-two-faces Bush, President Barack Obama actually cares about Vets and signs the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Oct. 22, 2009.

Conservatives are funny

The tea bagger fake patriots are going to make their own propaganda film, Move over Michael Moore, here comes ‘TEA PARTY: The Documentary’

Convergence has produced a slide show titled “Next Steps Training Presentation” which is devoted to “Re-Discovering Our National Identity” through examining the Declaration of Independence. As of November 20, the slide show that has been viewed slightly over 300 times.

These are the people that have opposed every bit of legislation for the common good of the citizens of the United States since the days of Joe McCarthy. The Declaration of Independence ( which is not a legal document in the sense the Constitution is) contains the famous declaration "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". To be obvious its difficult to have a life without health care and pursuing happiness is not possible without one's health. Yet they oppose any efforts to bring down the costs of health care or access for more Americans. They must interpret "liberty" as the freedom to suffer and die in misery.

Leaked British Report: No Preparation for Iraq Invasion So Blair Could Keep Lying

Military commanders are expected to tell the inquiry into the Iraq war, which opens on Tuesday, that the invasion was ill-conceived and that preparations were sabotaged by Tony Blair's government's attempts to mislead the public.

They were so shocked by the lack of preparation for the aftermath of the invasion that they believe members of the British and US governments at the time could be prosecuted for war crimes by breaching the duty outlined in the Geneva convention to safeguard civilians in a conflict, the Guardian has been told.

The lengths the Blair government took to conceal the invasion plan and the extent of military commanders' anger at what they call the government's "appalling" failures emerged as Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, promised to produce a "full and insightful" account of how Britain was drawn into the conflict.

Fresh evidence has emerged about how Blair misled MPs by claiming in 2002 that the goal was "disarmament, not regime change". Documents show the government wanted to hide its true intentions by informing only "very small numbers" of officials.

The documents, leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, are "post-operational reports" and "lessons learned" papers compiled by the army and its field commanders. They refer to a "rushed" operation that caused "significant risk" to troops and "critical failure" in the postwar period.

Blair owns his share of responsibility, but he was pushed along by the Bushies.

Gun Lobby Mobilizes Against Health Reform By Claiming Obama Administration Will Issue ‘No Guns’ Decree

On Friday, Gun Owners of America sent out an action alert to its 300,000 members warning that the Senate health care bill “would mandate that doctors provide ‘gun-related health data’ to ‘a government database,’ including information on mental-health issues detected in patients, which could jeopardize their ability to obtain a firearms license.” The alert also warned its membership that the “wellness and prevention” provisions in the health care bill would allow the Obama administration to issue a “no guns” decree:

Finally, as we have mentioned several times in the past, the mandates in the legislation will most likely dump your gun-related health data into a government database that was created in section 13001 of the stimulus bill. This includes any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned…or any determination of PTSD, or something similar, that can preclude you from owning firearms.

And, the special “wellness and prevention” programs (inserted by Section 1001 of the bill as part of a new Section 2717 in the Public Health Services Act) would allow the government to offer lower premiums to employers who bribe their employees to live healthier lifestyles — and nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from decreeing that “no guns” is somehow healthier.

The so-called “gun-related health data” is actually anonymous statistical information to help researchers develop health programs and initiatives that serve specific population groups or further the study of various conditions and medical needs.

By all means let's not keep records of gun shot wounds? Is there some kind of sick contest going on among conservatives to see how many facts they can twist into urban myths and then get angry about. They're a self perpetuating propaganda machine. They invent the issue, issue factually challenged statements - all over nothing. I own a gun so I know that gun ownership does not destroy brain cells. These gun nuts give responsible gun owners a bad name.

Conservatives Concur Eric Holder Correct to Prosecute Terrorists

Two conservative lawyers writing at The Washington Post, Holder's reasonable decision

In deciding to use federal court, the attorney general probably considered the record of the military commission system that was established in November 2001. This system secured three convictions in eight years. The only person who had a full commission trial, Osama bin Laden's driver, received five additional months in prison, resulting in a sentence that was shorter than he probably would have received from a federal judge.

One reason commissions have not worked well is that changes in constitutional, international and military laws since they were last used, during World War II, have produced great uncertainty about the commissions' validity. This uncertainty has led to many legal challenges that will continue indefinitely -- hardly an ideal situation for the trial of the century.

By contrast, there is no question about the legitimacy of U.S. federal courts to incapacitate terrorists. Many of Holder's critics appear to have forgotten that the Bush administration used civilian courts to put away dozens of terrorists, including "shoe bomber" Richard Reid; al-Qaeda agent Jose Padilla; "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh; the Lackawanna Six; and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was prosecuted for the same conspiracy for which Mohammed is likely to be charged. Many of these terrorists are locked in a supermax prison in Colorado, never to be seen again.

In terrorist trials over the past 15 years, federal prosecutors and judges have gained extensive experience protecting intelligence sources and methods, limiting a defendant's ability to raise irrelevant issues and tightly controlling the courtroom.

Not often enough, but once in a while an odd conservative or two will manage to get something correct.

When is Common Sense Not About Insights and Practical Solutions

Sarah Palin Tells Rush Limbaugh the Magic Word

Sarah Palin took her book tour to the Rush Limbaugh Show this morning. The Oprah and Barbara Walters interviews have been fun, because they mostly just asked her about Levi Johnston, and it's gratifying that God sent him to ruin her life and save the Republic. (Sometimes God opens a door. And it's to Bristol's room.) But the Rush interview was different. To Rush's credit, he actually asked her about politics.

Policy. That's where she shines.

See if you can pick out a theme to her answers.

Unemployment?

But those commonsense solutions there, especially with the cutting taxes on the job creators? That's not even being discussed.

Healthcare reform?

Not when there are commonsense solutions to meeting health care challenges in our country... So lots of commonsense solutions that need to be plugged in before ever considering federal government taking it over.

The 2010 elections?

It's all about Americans who are hurting right now and what those solutions are that are so obvious, so commonsense that need to be plugged in.

The recent special congressional election in New York State?

They are seeking commonsense, conservative solutions to all the challenges that we're facing. I'm glad to see this.

Independent voters?

Todd's not a Republican and yet he's got more commonsense conservatism than a whole lot of Republicans that I know... But in answer to your question, I don't think that the third party movement will be what's necessary to usher in some commonsense conservative ideals... In Alaska, about 70% of Alaskans are independent. So that's my base. That's where I am from and that's been my training ground, is just implementing commonsense conservative solutions.

.......In answering about a dozen questions, Palin said some combination of "solutions," "conservative" and "commonsense" twenty-five times. Is this an interview or a drinking game? Was Rush rewarding her by tossing her fish?

Her excitement got the better of her when she said, "But those common sense solutions there." This was a shoehorn too far, as the correct form, in Hillbilly, is obviously "Those there commonsense solutions."

Mencken identified those-there this as a perfectly good hill country adverbial pronoun. (His example, from everyday use: "Those-there wops has all took to the woods.") But he warned that the adverb promised to coalesce with the pronoun so completely as to obliterate all sense of its distinct existence, even as a false noun or adjective. Little did he know.

But splitting an adverbial pronoun, just to squeeze in one more "commonsense?" That's just wrong.

Todd Palin is an example of someone who has common sense? He belonged to a political group that advocated Alaska secession from the United States. That used to be called treason, but as long as Sarah Palin is redefining common sense might as well get used to some strange twists and turns.

For her less then common sense views on Israel see here

"I disagree with the Obama administration" on Israeli settlements, Palin told Barbara Walters. Fair enough. It sure seems like the administration's heavy focus on getting Benjamin Netanyahu to commit to a settlement freeze has backfired, making the Israeli prime minister more popular than ever and exposing the impotence of Palestinian leader Mamoud Abbas in the process.

But that's not what Palin meant.

"I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow," she continued. "More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand."

So any country who's population is expanding has the right to take land from another country. Sense just about every country in the world has an expanding population - not expected to bottom out for a few years, can we assume a Palin presidency will have the U.S. expanding into Canada and Mexico.

Conservative Robert Stacy McCain is a Racist, Plain and Simple

Conservative Robert Stacy McCain is a Racist, Plain and Simple

Under Pruden, The Washington Times employs a neo-Confederate activist, Robert Stacy McCain, as its assistant national editor. McCain is a member of the neo-Confederate organization League of the South, which the SPLC called "rife with white supremacists and racist ideology." The League's leader, J. Michael Hill, once declared: "The day of Southern guilt is over-THE SOUTH WAS RIGHT-and let us not forget that salient fact. NO APOLOGIES FOR SLAVERY should be made. In both the Old and New Testaments slavery is sanctioned and regulated according to God's word." As the SPLC has noted, in 1998 McCain wrote a glowing obituary of former segregationist politician George Wallace for the Times in which he relied upon the insight of three* history professors, not disclosing that all of them belonged to the League of the South.

The Conservative Guide to Bowing

President Obama follows diplomatic protocol and bows to a head of state in Japan and the Right has a unified temper tantrum. They state emphatically they know what they're talking about, but just ignore the self righteous hypocrisy. Bush not only bowed to heads of state "bowed to heads of state and kissed one on occasion. So that means as the rabid Right Powerline blog wrote," He means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and tyrants. He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the United States on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal privilege and royal bloodlines. He gives expressive form to the idea that the United States now willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world. He declares that the United States is a country like any other, only worse, because we have so much for which to apologize." Do conservatives have any principles. If you read the punditry at Powerline, Hotair, freeperville and others it certainly seems they do try to create the impression they have no honor.

The poor things, conservatives are afraid of everything it seems, The Right's textbook "surrender to terrorists" - "We're too scared to have real trials in our country" is a level of cowardice unmatched in the world.

Bush Pretends He Cares at Ft Hood

One conservative pundit writes,

A couple of days ago I heard the news that George and Laura Bush paid a private visit to the wounded soldiers at Fort Hood. They specifically requested that the base commander not inform the media of their visit. They came. They comforted the wounded soldiers and the Fort Hood community for a couple of hours. And then they left. And they never had their pictures taken saluting the troops or holding their hands.

When I heard the news, I felt this pain that hasn't gone away. It's a pain that I have been feeling fairly often since last November.

It hurts to hear about an American President who cares deeply and sincerely about wounded soldiers and soldiers murdered in a terrorist attack and know that he is not the American President.

Bush was in fact one our most cold hearted presidents. Cold hearted to the point of being a near sociopath in his utter lack of empathy for those he sent to die. At no time during his presidency did he attend the services of a fallen soldier or marine, Out of President's Sight, Arlington's Rows of Grief Expand

Aides say Bush has not attended a military funeral because he does not want to favor one ultimate sacrifice over another. They point out that he meets frequently with wounded troops and relatives of the dead, and he has remembered fallen soldiers on Memorial Day and similar observances. "Their funerals are a time for their family and friends to mourn and remember their loved one in a private way," said Scott McClellan, White House press secretary.

This is a departure from past presidents' practices. President Jimmy Carter attended ceremonies for troops killed in the failed hostage-rescue mission in Iran. President Ronald Reagan attended a service for Marines killed in Beirut. President Clinton went to Andrews Air Force Base to see the coffins of Americans killed in a terrorist attack in Nairobi in 1998.

Bush's absence from funerals has kept them off the front pages, one of several administration policies that have minimized Americans' exposure to the costs of war. The Pentagon has cracked down on allowing photographs of flag-draped caskets as they arrive at military bases. And, late last year, the administration began enforcing restrictions that keep photographers and reporters some 50 yards from services.

As Long as They're Made by Conservatives, Sex Tapes are Family Values Friendly

Carrie Prejean’s Sex Tape – What Say You Bill O’Reilly?

Sean Hannity,as Ellen reported, provided affirmation and validation for former Miss California and spokesmodel for the National Organization for Marriage, Carrie Prejean, whose book Hannity has provided the forward for. It seems that there’s this issue of Carrie’s youthful indiscretion involving a sex tape which she made as a gift to her boyfriend – a nice, Christian, and (most importantly) heterosexual video portrayal of a young Christian girl feeling the love of Jesus. However, as she told Sean, it was a youthful indiscretion which she regrets so it’s all good. But now that she has appeared on Hannity’s show, will she make the rounds of Fox Opinion News? Will she speak with Bill O’Reilly (who also knows the joys of self satisfaction!)? Will Ms. Prejean be a topic for the Culture Warriors? Gretchen Carlson is a former Miss America who could provide some discourse on how virtuous Prejean has been in fighting teh gay and promoting family values while Bill plays the video of Prejean, strutting around in her very Christian white (signifying purity) bikini and her silicone appendages. (Praise the Lord for modern technology!) I do wonder about O’Reilly’s take on the sex tape because it wasn’t that long ago that Bill was doing his “wag of the finger” about teens doing “sexting.”

Carrie Prejean range as an actress is limited, but she does excel at playing the victim. No one made her compete in beauty pageants - you know where the whole concept is to draw attention to one's self and be judged by the judges. No one held her down and made her get breast implants. No one forced her to perform and video tape a sex act for her then boyfriend to use while gratifying himself. It is kind of warped that as she tightly hugs her victimhood she has protrayed anyone that dare disagree with her as 'attackers'. Maybe she has lead such a sheltered life she hasn't heard that in the good ol USA we have free speech and people who are hybrid celebrities/political agenda spokespersons like Carrie can have their say, but those she attacks get to respond.

Drudge, Gateway Pundit and Fox Lie About Health Care Bill Not being Posted

Right-wing media falsely claim Pelosi broke pledge to post health care bill online 72 hours in advance

Right-wing media are claiming Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke a pledge to post the "final" House health care bill online 72 hours before it comes to a vote, echoing a Weekly Standard blog post that claimed amendments allowed by the House Rules Committee the day prior to the vote will change the bill. However, Pelosi's office posted both the text of the bill and the "manager's amendment" -- which The Sunlight Foundation called an "extra final version of legislation" -- 72 hours in advance; those actions meet guidelines set by a House transparency measure that Pelosi told the Weekly Standard she "absolutely" supported.

Because the final bill did have last minute amendments it may not be on line at this pdf link for long as the new bill, which includes the last amendments has been passed.

John Boehner (R-OH) is Apparently an Expert on Irony

John Boehner(R) - 8th District of Ohio, released this statement on Oct 30, 2009,

Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life - not end it.

Like most conservatives Boehner pretends to care about human life by getting upset by the decisions a woman makes about her own body (he thinks the government should make those decisions for every woman), but clearly he and and the far right conservative movement could care less about actual human life. They've tried every lie and distortion to derail health care reform. Boehner and his party in fact want to keep the status quo, one under which an American dies every 12 minutes because of lack of health care. Even Boehner's intepretation ( shouldn't a Congressman have decent reading skills to hold office) of health care reform that deals with pregnancy related medical procedures is another distortion. Integrity is apparently not one of John's virtues.

We're Sorry to Inform Malkin, Beck, Palin etc that the special elections were not a referendum on Obama

Everyone spins, but for the spin to work it has to have some basis in truth,
* Per CNN, voters in Virginia did not see their state's gubernatorial race as an opportunity to voice opposition to Barack Obama. A 55 percent majority of voters said that the President was not a factor in their vote, and an additional 18 percent indicated their vote in Virginia was one of support in the President. Just 24 percent of voters indicated that their vote was one of opposition to President Obama. The numbers out of New Jersey are not terribly different, with 60 percent saying that Barack Obama played no role in their gubernatorial vote, 19 percent saying that their vote was one in support of the President, and 20 percent saying that their vote was in opposition to President Obama.

Concludes CNN, this is not a referendum on Barack Obama.
* Chuck Todd reports that Barack Obama's approval rating among Virginia voters stands at 51 percent (just under the 52.6 percent of the vote he received in the state last November) and 57 percent in New Jersey (almost exactly the same as the 57.1 percent of the vote he earned in that state last November). In other words, exit polling indicates President Obama has not really lost supporters over the past year.

If Conservatives Do Not Know How to Define Freedom

How can they define it for the rest of us, Big Bad Government Is Coming to Get You

Liars, delusional, petrified, hypocritical, idiotic.

I often can't decide which of these most accurately describes regressives when I'm listening to their insane rants. Maybe it's all of the above, in some combination or another.

The right in America loves its canned tropes, but perhaps none so much as the ‘government is evil' one. Ooooooohh! Look out. Big bad government is coming to get you.

Here's a recent example from a regressive fellow living in the South (I know, I know -- what a shocker that is!):

"I am a grown man. I do not need liberals telling me what to do. If you want to live like slaves to the government in your big cities and left-wing states, that's your problem. Keep your mitts off my liberty...

"Liberalism takes away freedom. Liberalism is inherently controlling over free people. Liberalism seeks to take away freedoms that have been historically rooted and guaranteed.

"I don't need you to tell me to eat my vegetables. I don't need you to tell me to buy health insurance. I don't need you to tell me to use less water when I shower. I don't need you telling me to buy a less gas guzzling vehicle. I don't need you telling me to use mass transit and live in a tiny little European-style apartment rather than the big, sprawling house I want. I don't need you requiring me to build my house with green materials.

"You really think modern American and European liberalism is about freedom? That's a joke. It is about you deciding how everyone must live. It is a hard fist of tyranny cloaked in a velvet glove."

Wow, eh? The hard fist of tyranny is haunting big cities!!

First of all, let's leave aside any observations our good friends in the field of child psychology might have about the upbringing of someone so devoted to himself that he adamantly reserves the right to sprawling houses, water-wasting showers, and big, gas-guzzling cars, regardless of the impact that might have on the environment we all must share. No wonder this guy doesn't want to be told to eat his vegetables. One gets the sense that he never was. I think he might also have been absent that day in kindergarten, when they covered that whole sharing concept.

And let's also disregard for the moment the logic that has liberalism assaulting "freedoms that have been historically rooted and guaranteed," when of course it was precisely progressives who did the fighting (and sometimes dying) to wrench racial and gender equality away from moss-backed reactionary regressives clutching "historically rooted" oppressions in their conservative little hands (along with their guns, of course). And, I might add, it was progressives who also did the same to end slavery and even liberate the United States of America from British imperialism as well, all in opposition to lovely "historically rooted" and even biblically sanctioned traditions.

Finally, let's also leave aside the "big-city, left-wing state slavery" which I am deeply surprised to be informed that I've been living in. What's most astonishing is the degree to which the Stalinist government has so artfully hidden my chains. They don't even rattle when I drink my government-approved latte. I hardly notice them as I run to catch my mandatory subway ride to the communist indoctrination movie I'm forced to watch each and every evening. So clever! So insidious!

Hey, and how about those Wall Street slaves, too, working in Manhattan and living in Connecticut, two ultra-lefty big-city bastions of liberalism? Don't you feel bad for them, enslaved by the government, and forced to make tens of millions of dollars in financial transactions so unregulated by the government that they can crash the entire global economy? That's some real oppression, pal. And I know they weep for their lost freedom each time they climb in their helicopters for the weekend trip to the Hamptons, where they are forced by the government to live on sprawling mansions and have decadent parties all night long. If only there was an underground railroad to whisk them away to the opulence and freedom of the rural South!

But, let's leave all that aside for the moment, and just think about this notion that liberalism is the ideology of big oppressive government, and conservatism is the ideology of freedom from government repression. I dunno. Seems just a wee bit dubious if you scratch the surface a little. Ironic, even.

Is the fear of an intrusive big brother the reason why conservatives want the government to regulate women's reproductive systems, instead of allowing them to handle it themselves?

Is that why conservatives want the government to prevent people living in agony with terminal diseases from choosing to end their own lives?

Is that concern about big government why they want it to decide which substances people can imbibe?

Is that why they want the government to prevent doctors from prescribing medical marijuana to help retching chemotherapy patients stay alive?

Is the conservative commitment to freedom from an all-powerful government the reason why they've spent the last decade gutting the Fourth Amendment protection against searches and seizures without a warrant?

Is the commitment to small government the reason our regressive friends favor laws controlling who consenting adults are allowed to sleep with?

Or who they're allowed to marry?

Or if they can use birth control?

Is this what they meant when they demanded that the Republican Congress pass legislation intervening in Terri Schiavo's family medical tragedy? Is this the freedom from a repressive nanny-state they had in mind when they applauded George Bush for flying across the country in the middle of the night to sign that bill?

It all seems a little confusing to me. I hear the regressive right talking tough and thumping their chests, all about the big bad government which takes away our liberty, and enslaves us. You know, like the French. Those people who are always out on the streets protesting their government, en masse. Because, as slaves, they've been forced to... protest... their... own... government... Er, somethin' like that...

Yep, somehow, these kooks have decided that they're the small government people. And yet when I think about what the right favors with respect to anything involving personal liberties, sexuality, freedom from repressive government intrusion, even the decision to end one's own life - it's always just the opposite story. More government intrusion and regulation, in the very most personal aspects of our lives. Hmmm. It just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

Here's the deal. There are basically two categories of government interference in people's affairs we can distinguish, the economic and the social.

When it comes to the economic side of the equation, old-fashioned real conservatives always did favor less government. Less taxation, less spending, less regulation and less government ownership of industries. Today's regressives, however, are really just kleptocrats. When Republicans like Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush come to power, they actually spend more than Democrats (who aren't terribly liberal, but leave that aside), by far. Reagan tripled the national debt in eight years, and Bush doubled it again, from $5.5 trillion to $11 trillion. The only real difference these days is that so-called conservatives use big spending for purposes of funneling money to cronies like Halliburton or Exxon-Mobil, while so-called liberals do a bit less of the same, and maybe also throw a bone or two to the middle class every once in a while.

On the social side, however, the conservative trope about theirs being the ideology of freedom is a total joke and an ugly lie. These are the people who want the government in your underpants, who want the government reading your mail without a warrant, who want to control who you sleep with and who you marry, and who even want to force you to live in agony when you just want to crawl off and die. These are the people who stood in the doorways blocking the movements for racial and sexual equality.

I'm sorry, I can't really think of freedoms more personal and more crucial than these. And every time I turn around, I see sickening demands from sickened regressives to take these away from all of us. (What they then do themselves, privately, of course, is another matter entirely. Just ask Larry Craig. Or Mark Foley. Or David Vitter. Or Jimmy Swaggart. Or Ted Haggard. Or Mark Sanford... Or...) As if that isn't bad enough, then we have to be lectured on how they're protecting us from the big bad nanny state, come to deprive us of the very freedom they are in fact trying to get the big bad state to deprive us of.

Nor is their ultimate vision of freedom from governmental intrusion particularly appealing, to put it gently.

Call me crazy, but I don't want my neighbor on the right to have the freedom to build an abattoir on his land, and my neighbor on the left to be able to construct a sulfur processing factory.

Call me nutty, but I don't want parents to be free to deny their children an education, or to prevent them from seeing a doctor when they're seriously ill.

I also don't think parents should be able to punish their kids in any way they want, and I'd like the government to make sure children aren't harmed and abused.

Similarly, I'm just a bit old-fashioned about things like child labor laws. I don't have a problem with the nanny state keeping kids out of factories, where they used to work twelve-hour shifts. Yes, it's an intrusion on the freedom of the magical marketplace, but I'm okay with that.

Indeed, maybe it's the knee-jerk Trotskyism in me, but I like the idea of the government making sure that working conditions are safe for all workers.

I like the government mandating a forty-hour work week.

I like the government monitoring my food and drugs for safety.

I like the government requiring that the cars and airplanes I ride in are safe.

I want the government to make sure that industries don't pollute the land and air and water we all share, padding their profits through environmental destruction.

I know, I know. It's weird. But somehow I think that's a better country than the one my regressive friends have in mind.

Speaking of whom...

Liars? Delusional? Petrified? Hypocritical? Idiotic?

I guess it is all of the above, after all. Petrified and delusional regressives tell massive lies about supposed freedom that are riddled with idiotic hypocrisy.

I hope they'll forgive me for choosing my big-city, left-wing, European socialist, liberal slavery, radical vision of the good life over theirs.

After all, it goes better with my government-restricted, nanny-state regulated, mandatory latte.

David Michael Green is a professor

Cheney Has the Memeory of a Brain Dead Mole Rat

Cheney ‘cannot recall’ almost anything about Plame outing

Cheney cannot recall almost anything about Plame outing. When President Ronald Reagan was asked about Iran-Contra, he replied that he did not remember whether he had authorized two illegal arms sales to Iran in 1985. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated "I don't recall" or similar phrases 64 times in one memorable day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee -- a performance so memorable that it has since been set to music as a cantata.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney may now have joined their illustrious company, with the release of a redacted summary (pdf) of his May 8, 2004 interview by the FBI concerning the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame in July 2003.