And with that I think I have stretched the gamut between the trivial and the important about as far as it will go.
Jesus Christ, if Bob McManus has been right all along I'm going to be pissed.
This is awesome.
Unfortunately, also another of those "I need to send this to everyone! No one will know what the hell it means!" moments.
In addition to shrill .jpgs, we should also spend a few days making fun of politicians. I'll provide the first bit of fodder.
Labs, if I do pass that on to the one person I know who would get it, can I credit you? If not, whom?
Michael, it's in the Unfogged bylaws that you have to read Yglesias to comment here, and he covered that already.
Bylaws? I don't need no stinking bylaws!
6: I read the e-mails linked at TPM, and they seem like they ain't shit. Maybe the one in which he asks the kid for a picture. Foley was quite possibly being over-friendly and skeevy, but his membership in the GOP is infinitely worse.
So how would secession actually work, if someone tried it?
Well, the way it worked last time was that you get a militia together and start occupying federal property in your state. I think this is probably not a well-fated suggestion.
Well, the only other ideas I've come up with are (1) violent revolution, (2) simultaneous mauling of the president and vice-president with trained attack hippos, and (3) hoping the Democratic Party finds itself a spine. The hippos are looking better all the time, I'll grant you, but still, not a lot of bright options here.
You know, the Democratic Party sucks, and our congressmen are a bunch of useless cowards, but they can be replaced within the party. If we start by electing Democrats, because they're better than Republicans, candidates will start showing up who are less like Republicans.
You've got to think of it in terms of moving the center back to someplace sane -- voting for your best option isn't useless even if that best option is a spineless sack of shit.
"Vote Schmuckatelli. He's a spineless sack of shit, but he's our spineless sack of shit!"
I've forgotten the candidate's name, I think it was someone in LA running against David Duke, but the Democrat was incredibly corrupt somehow. The bumper stickers were "Vote for the crook -- it's important!"
16, 17: Yeah, I realize that, but honestly right now I'm just really, unbelievably outraged at these people. It's not like this is the first time they've utterly betrayed their principles on something really fucking huge out of sheer moral cowardice, and it didn't help them before and it's not going to help them now. Yeah, I'm going to vote for these spineless turds come November because I'm voting to push out a party that's genuinely pushing a fascist agenda, because if spineless turds are my only alternative then that's what I'll take. But I don't have to like it and I'll bitch about it while I can.
Bitch on, brother. We're all with you.
Alright, I am going to bitch on, because I'm still feeling pissy. What really drives me nuts is that the Social Security fight demonstrated that when Democrats really, really want to stop something - even something that's getting a major push from a White House coming off a major P.R. victory - they can stop it, and they did stop it because they decided that Social Security is a core Democratic value and it's worth the fight.
Now don't get me wrong, I love Social Security, and I think it is a core Democratic value. But is it more critical than opposition to torture? Someone decided this fight wasn't worth it; someone decided that there was no way to make it look good. How do you not figure out how to spin a fight against torture? Everyone's seen the Abu Ghraib pictures; you put them up, one after another, and you say "This will be legal if this passes. This is what we'll be doing if this law passes." How did no one even try that? How did no one put the screws to the usual suspects - the Liebermans and the Nelsons and so on - and get enough discipline together to scrounge up forty-one measly votes to preserve basic tenets of due process and fundamental human rights?
Instead the plan was to shut the hell up and rely on Republican moderates - because we all know how dependable they are. Jesus fucking Christ.
I'm mostly done, I think.
That, and the fact that all the Senate needed to do was stall the thing for a fucking week until they recess to go campaign.
"Vote for the crook -- it's important!"
Sounds like the Chirac campaign!
Everyone's seen the Abu Ghraib pictures.
If I might add, they've also seen more unspeakable shit that we haven't.
they've also seen more unspeakable shit that we haven't.
That's true - and yet these fuckers still felt no moral compulsion to stop this.
All this week I've wished I could believe in an afterlife, so at least I could have the comfort of knowing that justice would be meted out on these bastards from beyond.
15:I am with Farber for Saying the Bad Thing. See previous thread. If they arrest and prosecute the first ten, they will have trouble not arresting the next 10,000.
Now legally, Saying the Bad Thing may not be illegal unless there is possibility that the Bad Thing could happen, or that there is clear intent for a bad thing to happen. So it may not get you arrested.
But there is the other Bad Thing that could be said, and the Secret Service simply cannot let pass, because its screening procedures would become a mess. I suspect there is a threshhold even there, and I suspect on some left blogs, the bad thing has already been said and ignored.
A nut case in S. Dakota got sentenced to three years for a pretty implausible threat of violence: Burning Bush.
Not specifically related to recent legal developments, but looks like a case of prosecutorial excess.
"Vote Quimby: This time he's the lesser of two evils."
In our initial acceptance of the Geneva Conventions, we not only demonstrated our commitment to humanity, we honored the principles and values upon which our nation was founded...and in so doing we led the world towards civility by example...at a time when we could have sought retribution and retaliation. In so doing, we led the world out of darkness and we became a beacon for freedom and for justice and provided us with more might than all of the weapons we possessed. By applying our morality with consistency, we provided hope to the oppressed as well as the oppressors that freedom and justice served by all is freedom and justice received by all.
We stand again at a crossroads. We can succumb to fear and choose a path that not only violates our moral construct but serves to destroy the very foundations upon which this nation was built. If we make the wrong decisions, we will also no longer be defending the values that we purport to honor…we will no longer be patriots because a patriot only exists if the nation he supports still exists. If we give up our values in order to preserve our way of life, we have chosen self-defeat. One can never suspend one’s values in order to defend them. To do so is to have no values.
Today America is being called upon to lead by example. Should we fail to do so with the courage of our convictions and the commitment to honor those convictions in the face of adversity; we will have ceded our country and our right to lead…at which time the choice to be a patriot will have been precluded. Democracy grows when democracy’s practiced. Dying for democracy can only happen if democracy lives. To deny democracy in order to preserve it is to dishonor those brave enough to defend it.
Mr. President, will you be a patriot and lead this country or will you abrogate the efforts of the countless patriots that served her well? The fate of America hangs in the balance.
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