Smug, okay maybe a little, but I think it's justified

with a tip of the beaver hat to the esteemed Mr. Otter, who reads & comments but does not blog
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Why America is screwed, part 7,598,341

Because if you look in an encylopedia under "utterly useless sell-out bastards" you will find the brief reference "See: 'Senate Democrats'"

"oh yeah, well you health care reformers can just bite me"

Conservatives and Republicans continue to sink to new lows in the U.S. health care reform debate with GOP chair Michael Steele heckling the audience - now we know what it takes to get thrown out, you have to ask a Republican a difficult question, the young lady involved is lucky she didn't get tasered. Meanwhile, one anti-reform protester gave health care reform the finger, but not in quite the way you might think.

Obamarama!











Regular readers know I am a proud Canuck, but as the Flying Spagetti Monster is my witness, I swear that if Obama opens his inaugural address like this, I will move to a red state and take out citizenship.

It ain't over 'til it's over, but believe me, it's over

With 24 hours before the polls even open, I feel confident in predicting that Obama&Biden will stomp McCain&Palin by no fewer than 40 electoral votes. Even if you spot the Republicans all the states where the margin is less than five percent, they still lose by about 20 electoral votes. And they won't take all the so-called toss up states. Barring some kind of shenanigans, they will almost certainly lose Florida and probably Virginia and Ohio as well. But it won't matter, even if they win them, they will still lose unless they can take Pennsylvania or whole bunch of other states, and that is simply not gonna happen . I'll go further and guess that the Democrats add nine seats in the Senate too. 

Block the vote

Despite the stench of death and failure that now creeps forth from the staggering McCain - Palin campaign as it lurches from one screw up to the next, the GOP machine is still lurking behind the curtain. As Palast and Kennedy point out: It ain't over 'til it's over.

Don't cry for me Arizona


(in which I analyze, predict and offer sage advice on the U.S. political scene)


I don't want to jinx anything, but the Obama campaign seems to be an unstoppable juggernaut - anytime a Democratic presidential nominee can draw back-to-back crowds of 100,000 and 75,000 in Missouri, you have to figure the Republicans are going to get worried, especially when they are drawing far smaller, far crazier crowds.



Like I said, I don't want to jinx anything and I probably won't relax until about Obama's third State of the Union address, but the Republicans appear to be giving up on McCain -- pundit rats are leaving the sinking ship and the right wing nuts are about to go all Viet Cong on the rest of the country, skulking off into their spiderholes stocked with canned Cheetos and ammunition to write dogwhistle screeds for New Republic, the Washington Times and Regnery calling for decent, Jesus-loving, white Americans to rise up against their socialist oppressors before the black helicopters arrive with the UN occupation troops.



Newt Gingrich is already setting the narrative for his attempt to renew his Contract on with America in 2012. The new Republican narrative is going to go like this: "Filthy liberal terrorist fellow traveller Barack Obama ( who is a black African "mask Muslim" negro) stole the 2008 election from (white) Maverick POW War Hero John McCain, an all-American (white) War Hero who was a Maverick hero military pilot and POW (and a WASPy white Christian) with the help of the terrorist-loving liberal Mainstream media, pointy-headed intellectuals who graduated from elitist secular liberal colleges, liberal secular elitist universities and public high schools, socialist James Bond villain gazillionaire George Soros and trashy, liberal, elitists coughJewscough in Sodom and Gomorrah Hollyweird. ACORN stole all the votes everywhere we lost. It was fixed. We was robbed. Obama isn't really the president, he's not even an American."



Assuming that some knuckledragging goniff doesn't lurch forward from among the great unwashed and murder the president on the orders of Jesus (and who wouldn't like to have the contract to supply the Secret Service with Depends now that every bald guy in a ski vest on the ropeline is going to look like a skinhead suicide bomber at first glance) Newt or Skeeter or Jeb or whoever will spend the next four year trying to convince Americans that the Democrats are responsible for losing Iraq ("If it hadn't been for those damned dirty hippies, John McCain would have won that war and gas would be 50 cents a gallon") raising taxes on hard-working American oil executives and corporate vice presidents ("He's redistributing wealth, that's class warfare - you know who else engaged in class warfare? Stalin!") and allowing swarthy foreigners to steal jobs.


The economy will just be emerging from the current disaster (which everyone knows was the Democrats fault) and because of the cost of the bailout and wars the Democrats won't be able to afford to do anything about education or health care -- they will be lucky to balance the budget by 2020 at this point, which of course will prove how financially irresponsible they are. ("They nationalized the banks! You know who else nationalized the banks? Mao!")



Now, none of this works if the McCain-Palin ticket gets elected and further screws things up. You thought Iraq was a gigantic clusterfuck? Wait until McCain invades Iran, Syria, Jordan and Spain. They will drop the country from the frying pan into the fire and throw gasoline on the fire and then nuke the fire from an orbital war satellite. You think I'm being pessimistic ? Wait until they start saying the pledge of allegiance at sporting events and requiring Muslims, gays and liberal arts degree holders to attend mandatory bible classes. Wait until they privatize the departments of the interior, education, health and human corporate services and put Rush Limbaugh in charge of the FCC.



But none of this is going to happen.


John McCain is not going to win.


He is a sacrificial jackass. The Republican pundits know it. The Republican money men know it. The RNC knows it. The Democrats are starting to figure it out, hell even John McCain is starting to figure it out. How else do you explain his appearance on Fox New Sunday this week? You can smell the fear just reading the transcript on the internet. He must have had a case of flop sweat that left salt stains under his arm pits. After yammering himself into an apoplectic froth for ten minutes about how he didn't care about William Ayers and Barack Obama possibly being gay lovers or cannibals or something, whatever, he doesn't care, he's not interested in slinging mud at that terrorist-loving secret muslim socialist, it's not an issue -- McCain had this to say about the possibility of not winning:

WALLACE: As we said at the beginning of this interview, you are behind in this race, but you are a fighter. You have been your whole life.
Have you considered — have you even dealt in your mind with the possibility that you could lose, and could you live with that?
MCCAIN: Oh, sure. I mean, I don't dwell on it. But look. I've had a wonderful life. I have to go back and live in Arizona, and be in the United States Senate representing them, and with a wonderful family, and daughters and sons that I'm so proud of, and a — and a life that's been blessed.
I'm the luckiest guy you have ever interviewed and will ever interview. I'm the most fortunate man on earth, and I thank God for it every single day.
WALLACE: So if the world turns an unfortunate way on November 4th, don't feel sorry for John McCain?
MCCAIN: Don't feel sorry for John McCain, and John McCain will be concentrating on not feeling sorry for himself.
WALLACE: And you might just be president.
MCCAIN: You never know.

It isn't quite a concession, because, hey, you never know, those Diebold machines might come through yet.


In order to beat the Republicans in 2012 and 2016 -- because it is going to take that long to fix the scorched, salted earth the Republican neo-cons are leaving behind --Obama is going to have to work very hard just to get the shit to shoe level. He doesn't just have eight years of Dubya to fix, he has 12 years of Reagan's dumbassery to repair as well. Expectations will be high and when he fails to fix everything overnight the knives will be out, even among his own party. 2010 is going to be a hard year for Democrats running in the midterm election. The wars will not be over yet, the economy will still be a smoking ruin and it is extremely unlikely that the health care or education or environmental issues will have been addressed to anyone's satisfaction. There will be a whole lot of "I told you so" and "Hilary would have done it better" going around.


But there is a way to beat that. First, Obama has to win by a landslide and the Democrats need 60 or more seats in the Senate and a large majority in the house. They also need to win some state governments over as well so as to control the election referees the way the Republicans have so successfully for the last 20 years. Then Obama has to appoint a serious badass to run the Justice Department, someone like Patrick Fitzgerald, who will investigate the outright fuckery of the last eight years and put some of these people in jail. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, Monica Goodling -- all the political hatchet men and campaign ratfuckers, all the torturers and liars -- screw the pardons Bush is gonna write for all of them, subpeona these people and when, like Karl Rove has done this year, they refuse to appear, send the federal marshals to their country club to slap the cuffs on them right there on the 14th green and jail their sorry asses for contempt. Do the same with some of the Wall Street moneymen who got platinum parachutes while their companies burned down the whole neighborhood. Americans will forget they don't have jobs if they can watch these bastards being put in the dock and sent to Levenworth for a couple of years.


While the public is watching the bloodletting, use the time and the majority to get stuff done. Reregulate the financial industry. Pass your tax plan to give the middle class a break and make the rich pay their share. Pull 50,000 troops out of Iraq and send them to Afghanistan to find Bin Laden and then bring them the hell home and demobilize them. Cut the defense budget in half, the USA will still outspend the rest of the world. Bring back the fairness doctrine and give the FCC some teeth. Conservatives will scream. So what? Let them, they made the mess and they wanna cry while Obama cleans it up? It will be great campaign fodder for 2012.


The other positive working in the Democrats favour is time. The time it takes to clean up the mess is also time that will pass and put some past events in better perspective. Like the enormity of the mistake made in invading Iraq. Like the fact that the 9/11 attacks, while tragic, were not the apocalypse. The luster of Reagan will fade some more, and the stench of the corpse of conservatism will grow. The shadow will start to lift. Plus, within eight years a good quarter of the people who are voting for John McCain this year will be dead from old age, apoplexy, hunting accidents, carnival ride mishaps, cirrhosis and lead poisoning (all those years of eating paint chips will eventually catch up with the people who phone call-in talk radio shows).


My friends, that is change we can believe in.

A pause for the GOP cause?

As we've been reminded again and again and again, John McCain is genuine hero POW who was tortured and stuff after he was shot down during a bombing mission to burn women, children and villages in North Vietnam from several thousand feet in the air. Apparently this brave air warrior is askeered of debating Barack Obama and is calling for a time out in the presidential campaign to "put country first" once again and deal with the financial crisis as only he can.

It's interesting that McCain came up with this brainstorm only a day after his poll numbers took a serious hit. It's also interesting to note that he hasn't voted in the Senate in five months and has missed more votes this term than any other member except Tim Johnson, who had major brain surgery. Also interesting is the fact that two days ago, McCain hadn't even read the three page bailout proposal he now feels that only he can push through Congress and save us all from the mess he and his helped make. Especially interesting since he told us only the other day that the "fundementals of the economy were strong" and has previously admitted he doesn't understand economics.

George W. Bush managed to debate John Kerry twice while he president of a country that was at war and McCain thinks he is indispensible in getting this no-strings-attached, no-oversight $700 billion handout through congress? Or is he just chicken? This is all about keeping himself and Caribou Barbie out of the debates.

Thankfully it doesn't look like the Obama campaign and the media are going to play along with his attempt to get himself some political breathing room and put the brakes on the Democrats momentum with this cheap stunt.

Thinking with the wrong head

First of all, I'm pissed at John Edwards for staying the race when he knew this was out there and could detonate at any moment. He was my first choice among the Democrats (not that I get a choice, not being one of teh chosen people and all) so finding out that if he had won the primaries the world would be looking at four years of John McCain, just because he couldn't keep it in his pants really rankles.

I agree it shouldn't matter to the rest of the world what anyone does with their naughty bits-- consenting adults and all that--but anyone running for public office in the Excited States knows damn well that what should matter has nothing to do with what will matter. It not as if sexual impropriety hasn't become a political issue before.

Second, yes Elizabeth Edwards is a smart, classy woman - but she still let her husband run for office knowing this scandal was out there waiting to erupt. That is poor judgement IMHO, but not so poor that I wouldn't like to see her take her husband's old Senate seat.

Third, this is getting very little press outside the U.S., because the rest of the world realizes that it DOESN'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO ANYTHING. Edwards is not the nominee, he is not going to be on the ticket, he holds no office and has no role in the Obama campaign. Trying to paint this as bad for Obama is like trying to Rush Limbagh's oxycontin addiction as bad for McCain. They're on the same side, but that's about it. So let's just leave these private citizens alone to deal with their private lives at this point, OK?

From a purely tactical point of view, with any luck the whole kerfuffle will draw attention to McCain's previous infidelities. Because if John Edward's affair disqualifies him from the presidency, so should McCain's past behavior.

Basically, I agree with what Chet says over at the Vanity Press and he puts it better than I will, so go read his posting.

Legal, schmegal -- he's the deciderer

Being a bit behind in my podcast listening, I just heard about this story from last year on the March 28 episode of This American Life (episode 353), which dealt with the lawyerly style of the Bush administration - and when I say "lawyerly" I mean it in the sense of the Ambrose Bierce definition of a lawyer as "one skilled in circumventing the law."

Apparently, the libertarian bible-college law school dimwits in the Justice Department have decided that a century of precedents and the actual language of the Constitution and an international treaty aren't going to stop them from doing whatever they want, especially when it comes to anyone trying to challenge the will of the White House. More on case here.

The short version of events is as follows:

The International Boundary Commission was established nearly 100 years ago by a treaty between Canada and the United States as an international independent body to resolve border disputes between the two countries and to establish exactly where the border is. The U.S. Constitution says that treaties ratified by the Senate are the supreme law of the land. The IBC notified a couple in Washington State that the concrete wall they put up along the back of their yard encroached on the ten-foot border buffer where no construction is allowed and that the IBC could tear down the wall and send them the bill if they didn't remove it forthwith. The couple sued the IBC which, not having much of a budget, approached the U.S. Justice Department for advice. Justice told them they could not help them as they were an international body, not part of the U.S. government.


Then things get interesting. The Pacific Legal Foundation takes up the couple's case and suddenly the Justice Department is all over it. They insist that the IBC hand the whole thing over to them, that the IBC is not an independent international body, but an arm of the U.S. government. When the U.S. commissioner refuses to play ball, he is fired, despite the fact that International Treaty Commissioners like Supreme Court Justices, International Trade Commissioners or the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, can be appointed by the President to fill vacancies, but cannot be fired. The idea is to take politics out of the position to the extent possible. By putting such appointees beyond the reach of those that appointed them, they are thought to be immune to political pressure and further patronage and therefore able to act with greater impartiality to do the job they were appointed to do.

How did it work out? Well apparently some judges also think the president can do whatever he wants (see also this story). Canada has said nothing about the dispute, at least nothing public.


"So what?" you ask. "What's the big deal?"


Well, the big deal is that this is a classic example of the White House's power grab. In the past, it has taken the form of things like signing statements, unilateral reinterpretation of treaties (like the quaint Geneva Conventions) and withdrawal from treaties (like the ABM treaty) by presidential whim.


Remember when and where Dick Cheney comes from. He still doesn't think Nixon did anything wrong and was just sandbagged by a couple of smart-ass liberal journalists. He is all about centralizing power in the executive branch. And once that power becomes centralized, it isn't going to be decentralized anytime soon. Conservatives and Republicans and assorted Bush fans may think this is a wonderful thing that their president can do whatever he wants, but how would the same people feel about President Hilary Clinton or President Ted Kennedy or President Chelsea Clinton have the sort of monarchical powers that Dubya is claiming. What if President Obama suddenly declares by executive prerogative that he is replacing the members of the electoral commission or by his order black helicopters full of UN troops will be landing across the country to confiscate all privately owned handguns -- how do you like the doctrine of Unitary Executive now?

Because America needs more flabby, middle-aged, wealthy, white, nativist reactionaries in power
What with the writers strike and the need for surefire material their hosts can riff on endlessly, I can only guess that the producers of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Tonight Show and The Late Show are behind this. A movement has begun to draft Lou Dobbs for President of the United States