March 5, 2010 archive
Mar 05 2010
Docudharma Times Friday March 5
Mar 05 2010
On the Turning Away
Over at Daily Salem Witch Trials, where Jane Hamsher has been burned at the stake so many times they’ve run out of stakes, someone set their torch down long enough to deliver a sermon about the dangers of fire . . .
Obama Warns Progressives We Will Go Down In Flames . .
President Obama told progressives that if this healthcare bill fails, not only will the democrats go down in flames but his presidency. I think those who are not satisfied with this bill need a come to jesus moment. We democrats need to realize that we can’t get everything we want.
I’ll have a come to Jesus moment if you stop sniffing glue. While drinking a case of beer. While posting a diary from a rabbit hole somewhere deep beneath the surface of Obamabot Land.
Someone needs to understand the basic difference between flying and never getting off the ground. You can’t go down in flames when you never even got the damn plane into the air. It didn’t even make it to the runway, because there aren’t any runways. It’s still in the hangar. At the No We Can’t International Airport. Where there’s no runways, where there’s no control tower, where there’s no departure gate because nothing ever departs, where the only thing in the air is Rahm’s middle finger.
Did I mention the plane doesn’t even have a pilot? No? Well then I’d better mention that.
THE DAMN PLANE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A PILOT.
Hopey McChange talks about flying, he talks about it all the time, he talks about soaring high up into that Sky of Change, soaring high above the status quo, high above those red states and blue states, way up into that Heaven of Bipartisanship, where the Centrist Angels play their harps and halos glow above every Republican head.
He talks so much the wind never stops blowing . . .
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth . . .
Blowing down the backroads heading south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You’re an idiot, babe, it’s a wonder,
That you still know how to breathe.
Mar 05 2010
Muse in the Morning
Mar 05 2010
The Nader Vote
For a brief time I was angry at the Nader voters that could have given us President Gore instead of the King Kriminal Bush.
These days, not so much.
Nader, when asked if he felt responsible for the Bush years said something along the lines of …Hey, it’s not my fault. If I hadn’t been on the ballot, the people who voted for me probably wouldn’t have voted at all…
I can’t argue with that.
Mar 05 2010
The Scope of the Problem: The New Monopoly Capitalism
Cornered: by Barry C. Lynn
From Thomas Frank’s review in the WSJ:
‘If monopoly persists, monopoly will always sit at the helm of the government,” Woodrow Wilson once wrote. “If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.”This was the great, consuming fear of the once-robust antitrust movement: that competition would be destroyed and government itself brought to heel by concentrated private power. That movement was a force to be reckoned with in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but after World War II the public’s dread of bigness seemed to fade away.
Mar 05 2010
The Hurt Locker and Iraq Today
As many know, there is a new movie out called, “The Hurt Locker”, which is about a military Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team in Iraq.
A former EOD technician myself that was in Iraq in 1991, and, who was in Iraq in 2006 as a contractor, I was only able to watch half the movie before I had to turn it off. Some of the things in the movie were 100% true, and others, IF they were based on true events, totally astounded me. So, imagine my surprise that anyone would admit that the movie was based on THEIR actions.
That is what has occurred. U.S. Army Master Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver is suing under the claim that he was the person that the movie was based upon.
There are two things I am going to discuss; the movie and Sarver’s actions, and Iraq’s claim that they may ask some of our troops to stay beyond the “leave” date.
Mar 05 2010
Ashburn Gets DUI on Gay Bar Dance Nite- of Course He’s Republican !
There were so many ways to title this but it just wouldn’t fit.
Roy Ashburn (R – CA St Sen- 18, Bakersfield) got a DUI after leaving a gay bar in Sacramento on “Latin Night.” Of course, he is a FAMILY VALUES Southern CA Republican, well known for his efforts, out there saving heterosexual marriage for all eternity.
Yup. Republican CA State Senator Roy Ashburn, age 55, of Bakersfield decided to have a hot time in Cow Town on Tuesday night in Sacramento.
(If you are from NorCal, you already are roflayao at that opening. Have you ever been to Sacramento, off the freeway, past 8pm on a winter weeknight ? Or to Bakersfield? Hint. If you’re going to a movie, eat dinner before. If you’re going to a restaurant, get there before dark. They roll up the sidewalks, turn off the lights, and you can’t even find a panhandler. It’s beyond spooky. )
Ashburn, well known for his scorched earth, global warming denial, immigrant hating, gay bashing family values alliance with then State Senator and now CongressmanTom McClintock, with whom he has shared a staffer, Dan Brennan, as Ashburn’s former communications director went on to become McClintock’s district director,
(an example of the senate work environment can be found here: http://articles.latimes.com/20… )
was them pulled over by the CHP for drunken driving at 2am. With another, younger man in the passenger seat. After coming from, according to sources, “Sacramento’s premier GLBT Nightclub.”
It was Latin Night at Faces Nightclub. Ai, aye, cha – cha- cha ! Dancin’ Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Hot !
The manager claims she didn’t see him, because “we don’t see a lot of white guys here on a Tuesday night.”
Well, yeah, who’s going to admit they served the guy one too many for the lawyers to fight over ?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…
He’s married, of course, and has 4 children.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…
This isn’t karma. It’s flaunting it one too many times and losing the bet.
Mar 05 2010
Elena Kagan is unfit for the Supreme Court
U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan has an excellent shot at being nominated for the Supreme Court when John Paul Stevens retires.
The President will want a highly qualified nominee, obviously. Beyond that, the calculation for the White House will be almost entirely political. Rahm Emanuel will have overriding control – if not minute-by-minute involvement – just as he did with Justice Sotomayor. And as with that previous confirmation, the calculus will be one of the political costs and benefits of the highly qualified candidates at the political moment in time.
Kagan is technically qualified, but unfit for the job on ideological grounds, imo. I base that opinion on her arguments concerning the broad sweep of anti-terrorism laws recently made to the Supreme Court in the case (Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project) concerning Robert Fertig, a lawyer and president of the Humanitarian Law Project, who gave “expert advice or assistance” to the PKK in Turkey.
Mar 05 2010
Police Officers Shot At Pentagon
ABC News reported about half an hour ago:
Two police officers were injured by a gunman firing shots outside the Pentagon tonight and a suspect was in custody, a police spokesman said. Police said the officers’ injuries were not life-threatening. The officers were taken to George Washington Hospital in Washington. The shooter was injured when police returned fire, a spokesman said.
The shooting occurred at the Pentagon Metro Station, which is just outside the Pentagon’s main entrance. The shots were fired at about 6:35 p.m. ET.
The officers belonged to the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, the Defense Department said in a statement. One was apparently hit in the lower part of the body, according to reporters there. He appeared to be alert when he was loaded into an ambulance.
Initially, hundreds of employees at the Pentagon were ordered to go into “Code Red” — the entire building locked down, with no one allowed to enter or leave.
After about 45 minutes, people were allowed to leave the building through entrances other than the one closest to the Metro station. Metro trains bypassed the Pentagon station.
At least three ambulances were called to the scene, and all parking lots at the massive Defense Department headquarters were closed off, ABC News’ Martha Raddatz reported.
“All I know right now is that there was a shooting. We believe two officers, police officers, were hit. And I believe we have one person in custody,” Pentagon Police spokesman Chris Layman told ABC News’ Steven Portnoy.
Mar 05 2010
Open Thread
Got some breaking news off my email news feeder thing:
2 police officers shot at Pentagon entrance.
Latest update:
Chris Layman, a spokesman for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, said the suspect walked up to the main entrance of the Pentagon at 6:40 p.,m. and opened fire. He hit two officers, both of whom have injuries that are not life-threatening. The officers fired back, and the suspect was hit. His injures are more serious.
Layman declined to speculate on a motive.
In other news, Docudharma has 3 2 essays with “Pussy” (or some variation thereof) in the title and one with “Autistic AIG Wankers.” I don’t know what this means. Perhaps there’s a meteorological event I missed.
Open thread! Thread away Garth!