Unbe-fraking-leavable! Just when you think you know what the hell is going on and have some idea what it will take to get things back in shape, a new shite storm comes sailing along to bring you a new life-time supply of manure. What has the Dog so spun up this afternoon? Well, are you sitting down, gentle reader (duh of course you are, you’re on the internet)? The FDIC is going asking to be able to borrow $500 billion (as in five hundred thousand million) dollars, because it is does not have enough money to do the heavy lifting of taking over a bank like Citi or B of A.
Tag: Republicans
Mar 11 2009
Gov. Sanford And Ideological Glare-Blindness
There are times for ideological fights, this the Dog believes with his entire heart. The issue is when to pick these fights. There is an argument that it is the best time when things are in crisis. The thinking on this, such as it is, is that when things are bad you need to be most correct in your actions. Of course this is what we are seeing from the Republican Party in general right now, and from anti-stimulus Governors in particular. It is also a complete fallacy. In times of crisis you need to have already decided the plan of action and act on it. If you are wise you will have planed and thought and argued prior to the crisis, but that is a rare trait in the America of the early 21st Century.
Mar 06 2009
The Republican march toward oblivion
Original article, by Lance Selfa and subtitled “The Republican Party is hoping its screeds against “big government” will catch fire as patience with Obama’s attempts to fix the crisis runs out. But that strategy may not work out the way the GOP hopes,” via Socialist Worker (US):
PERHAPS ALL we need to know about modern conservatism and its party, the Republicans, was captured in Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s nationally televised response to President Barack Obama’s February 24 address to a joint session of Congress.
Mar 05 2009
Another Coffin Nail – Boss Limbaugh
As with so many of the Presidents tactical actions there is more than meets the eye with this whole Boss Limbaugh (one of Mr. Oblermann’s best name coining’s to date) imbroglio. There are those on the left that are still suffering from eight years of Republican induced PTSD that are worried that we are elevating Boss Limbaugh to levels that will cause us trouble. They say, “Don’t feed the troll! Ignoring him is the best way.” Or “We have more important things to focus on”. The problem with this view is that they are ignoring the political situation and the gains that the Democratic agenda can make through tacitly encouraging this to continue.
Mar 01 2009
All That’s Left To Say
I’ve been doing some deep thinking, and was going to post three essays today featuring my deep thoughts about the economic crisis, the banking crisis, and the global warming crisis, but the deeper I thought about these deep issues and the deep impact they are having, the deeper I sank into deep crisis fatigue. So I took a deep break, and realized that except for Norm Coleman and possibly John Cornyn, no one has ever had deeper thoughts about deep issues than Jack Handey . . .
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.
I hope that after I die, people will say of me: “That guy sure owed me a lot of money.”
If you’re a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it’s real embarrassing if someone tries to kill you.
If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is “God is crying.” And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is “Probably because of something you did.”
I have the deepest respect for Jack Handey, but I think it’s more likely God is crying because of all the crap Evangelical Christianists do. They should listen to Jack Handey. We all should, after all, he tried to warn us about Wall Street bankers. When they die, we’ll say, “Those guys sure owe us a lot of money.” And long after they’re dead, our great grandchildren will say, “Those guys still owe us a lot of money.” Jack Handey’s deep thoughts encompass more issues than one might think at first glance. Take Daily Kos, for example. It’s like ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.
Feb 24 2009
This Is the End
Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another.
Your mission is to proceed up the Wasilla River, pick up the trail of returned designer clothes, follow it and learn what you can along the way. When you find Sarah Palin, infiltrate her team by whatever means available and terminate her political future.
Terminate her political future???
She’s up there in Alaska operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any rational human conduct. She’s still in office commanding the Alaska National Guard, she’s stark raving mad, but she’s going to run for president in 2012 anyway.
I mentioned the turkey beheading incident and suggested that Palin’s been terminating her political future at a pretty good clip all by herself, so why send me up there? But they wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn’t even know it yet. Palin was out there somewhere, still ranting about Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, still raving about liberal media treachery, descending into madness hundreds of Bridge to Nowhere miles from here.
I looked out the window. Juneau . . . shit, I’m still only in Juneau. I braced myself for the harrowing journey ahead, a journey that would snake through Alaska like a frozen circuit cable–plugged straight into . . .
Feb 22 2009
There was Never Supposed to be Another Great Depression
(crossposted from Cobalt6)
Yes that’s right. There never was supposed to be another great depression. It was never gonna happen. The rich guys were way too smart to ever let anything like that happen. This was part of the first advice I ever received about how to plan my finances for life. Sitting on the front porch in Bridgewater in the Spring of 1975 at the ripe age of 23, my new financial guru, kindly providing his services as a benefit of my employment, went on for quite a while about how the bankers and politicians had learned their lesson very well and that there would “never, no way, ever, be another Great Depression.”
He is in grave danger of being wrong. Thirty-three years later we find ourselves at the precipice. We are in an economic crisis that is looking so deep and so wide that no one really understands it, and no one knows how to get us out of it. Our leaders have a plan and they are trying to implement it but the going is slow. Will the new law now going into affect slow the fall enough so that we can pull ourselves out of it? The reviews are mixed. There is a lot of debate and shouting on both sides. Can we spend ourselves out of the ditch we’re in?
Feb 20 2009
Burris: IOKIYAR!
Also posted at Kos
Roland Burris spoke to Rod Blagojevich! Name a Politician in Illinois who hasn’t? We all knew he was lying…but in the matter of lies…this was a tiny one.
Heck Bill Clinton lied too and he got Impeached!
George Bush lied….so what.
The difference was, “under oath”!
Bush testified, but not under oath, with no transcripts and with Cheney to help him out.
Burris got videotaped.
Maybe he needs to change parties.
Feb 16 2009
Time to Stick a Fork in Reagan’s Ass
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
-Imperial Grand Prophet Ronald Reagan (mystically foreseeing TARP)
With the passage of the massive economic stimulus plan set to be signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday in Denver the dying squeals of Republican piggies grown fat on the failed policies of Ronald Wilson Reagan are becoming more shrill, psychotic and deafening. The stimulus plan, even as diluted as it is by the inclusion of all of those great tax cuts that have resulted only in proving that trickle down economics is nothing more than Gulliver pissing on the heads of the Lilliputians (translation: the working class) and doing so with sadistic mirth. What the stimulus package represents more than anything even including the ridiculous fucking tax cuts is that the end of an era is nigh and that the machinery of government is being slowly redirected to a previous form where it was not weaponized by overly wealthy pigs, Wall Street looter capitalists and avaricious corporations who only stand for, to borrow from the words of the late, great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson:
… the systematic destruction of everything this country claims to stand for except the rights of the rich to put saddles on the backs of the poor and use public funds to build jails for anybody who complained about it.”
Feb 16 2009
Send Republicans to Re-Education Camps
And no, I’m not talking about Chinese re-education camps during the cultural revolution or America’s re-education camps in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and dozens of secret facilities around the globe. The Chinese and American models are not about education, but coercion. If you disagree with the party line, you get the shit beat out of you until you recant. It’s called re-education.
But that’s not what I advocate for Republicans, even though most of them could stand a good “What were you thinking?!!!” kick in the ass.
Feb 15 2009
Academic Freedom and a Republican County
Also posted at Orange here
At first glance, the problem with the College Board election in DuPage County, IL seems like a traditional spat over not filling out the petitions correctly. However, delving a little deeper and remembering that DuPage County has been Republican controlled for 135 years, one sees a little different slant to the objections. It seems that those who are being challenged in their opportunity to run for the four open seats on the DuPage College Board are Democrats! And those who question their petitions’ legality are not only present Board Members who are also running for those open seats, but Republicans.
Then there is the innocuous little matter of the board wanting to adopt the “Academic Bill of Rights” written by David Horowitz for the college without discussion and in its entirety.
