A Nation of Dumbasses
Birthplace of our President. Really, no kidding.
According to a new Public Policy Poll, 10% of Americans either believe Hawaii is not part of the United States or are unsure about it. (See, Q4 on Page 2 of release.) Jesus H. Limping Christ on a Fucking Raft! We deserve whatever awful fate awaits us. Perhaps the swine flus will kill off a lot of stupid people and ultimately save us from ourselves. One can only hope.
This explains it all or Why we spent two trillion dollars we didn’t have
To Battle Gog and Magog.
A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush
JAMES A. HAUGHT
Gog and Magog - what worried Bush the most.
Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.
Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”
The Unbelieveable Crassness of Republicans
I must admit one thing. I’d miss the Republicans if they all got raptured tomorrow. If anyone had predicted on Sunday night some of the outrageous things that have been said by Republicanist Senators on the Judiciary Committee since Monday morning, when the Sotmayor hearings began, they would be ridiculed as blindly partisan hacks. Consider this:
“Then you would have some ’splaining to do.”
– Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), doing his best Ricky Ricardo impression at Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing.
If it were a confirmation for a black judge, would Coburn put on blackface and sing a “mammy” song?
It gets better. Confederate Jefferson Beauregard Sessions chastised Sotomayor for failing to vote the same way as another judge on her circuit, “also of Puerto Rican heritage.”
Smarmy shit Lindsey Graham, as Maureen Dowd noted in the NYT today, read Sotomayor some anonymous comments made by lawyers about her, complaining that she was “temperamental,” “nasty,” “a bit of a bully.” Then he patronizingly lectured her about how this was the moment for “self-reflection.” That nasty little sissy needs to spend some time with his governor helping him to self-reflect.
Palin is Favorite with Republicans
Gov. Palin goes turkey shoppping.
According to a new poll by the Pew organization, anyway. She stomps Mitt Romney, her nearest competitor. Among Republicans, the balance of opinion about Palin is more positive. More than seven-in-ten Republicans (73%) express a favorable opinion of Palin while just 17% have an unfavorable opinion. Mitt garners about 57% GOP approval. Please, please, please God – let them nominate Palin!
The End of Empire – The BRIC is hitting the fan, folks!
Children playing with stacks of cash in Weimar Germany.
Stop reading right now unless you are prepared to be massively depressed. Our empire has fallen. We are now, officially, the Romans. In a stunning, devastating piece at TruthDig, Chris Hedges puts together the cataclysmic chain of events to come that many of us have struggled to round up and articulate since September of 2007. It took a year after that for the situation to get so bad, on September 21, 2008, that the Congressional leadership was called together by the Fed and Treasury and told without a massive cash infusion of tax dollars the whole rotten movie set that was our economy was going to fall on top of us. Riot, mayhem, violence and disintegration were sure to follow. Out of that meeting was born TARP, TALF, AIG, GM, the stimulus package, etc.
The whole piece is a must read, but some snippets after the jump will curl your hair.
Domestic Terrorism Watch – Right Wing Extremism
- Right Wing Extremist Randall Terry Says Obama Makes Attacks Inevitable; Also Serves Beer, Wings.
- Geriatric right wing extremist shoots kills guard at National Holocaust Museum. Is also wounded in attack.
- Shooter is ex-con with right wing extremist background.
- Homegrown hate groups increase in number.
- So, how about that awful DHS report now? A doctor assassinated in Kansas and a security guard shot in DC – both gunned down by domestic terrorists / right wing extremists well known to authroities.
- At least Fox’s Shep Smith admits he was wrong. Will his network? HAH!
- Responsibility? Glen Beck. Sean Hannity. Rush Limbaugh. Bill O’Reilly. Speaking of those rabble-rousers, check out this from a shooting last year in Tennessee.
- Museum shooter a “birther” – individual who promotes theory that President Obama was not born in the U.S. – a frequent right wing radio cant.
Day Old Bread – Odds and Ends 06/08/09
- Can’t make the payment? Light a match!
- Palin kicked out of Republicanist fund raising dinner – again.
- Right wing on the upswing in meaningless EU elections.
- ChiComs put Ray Nagin on lockdown in Shanghai. Has the mayor been “Shanghaied”?
- Apparently we’re letting some of the big banks pay back their TARP money. Let them give it all back, dammit!
- Laura Bush thinks Sotomayor is OK.
- Can’t afford your car payment? Torch the damn thing!
- Right Wing Israeli government stands in the way of Mideast Peace, while simultaneously claiming to have a new plan in the works.
- Canadian nurses meet to discuss possible violence surrounding flu pandemics. Now, they’re talking.
- Government selectively tracks the pig flu.
- Officials said to be preparing for second wave of flu. 1918 here we come.
- Coming to a jailhouse near you – Rikers Island overrun with the pig flu.
- I am irritated with the President on DADT, but I understand his strategery.
Day Old Bread – Odds and Ends – 06/01/09
- Silver American Eagle
- Silver has best month since 1987. Get it NOW.
- GM filed for bankruptcy today.
- Willfully asleep at the switch: Bush’s SEC thwarted regulation. “After Cox became SEC chairman in mid-2005, he adopted practices that undermined the enforcement division’s efforts to investigate cases of corporate wrongdoing and punish those involved, according to interviews with 19 current and former SEC officials.”
- Right-wing extremist held in slaying of Kansas abortion doctor. ‘Of Dr. Tiller’s death, Mr. Leach said, “To call this a crime is too simplistic,” adding, “There is Christian scripture that would support this.”‘
Day Old Bread – Odds and Ends – 05/29/09
- Paul Krugman is not worried about inflation.
- My boy Berlusconi is in hot water again. L’affaire Noemi?
- GM Readies For Bankruptcy.
- While Confederate mushmouth Dick Shelby is ringing the socialism alarm bells - again, over the deal. His alternative? Let it fall.
- Gold on 3 month high. Silver closing in on $16.00 per ounce?
Everybody Hates the Republicans
The Face of the GOP?
A new Gallup survey finds that the GOP bucket is losing water with almost every demographic sub-group it counts. About the only people they still hold are over 65, non-college educated white people who attend church weekly. I would not take heart were I a GOPer. And, a prominent Republican activist this weekend said that if Cheney, Palin and Limbaugh are the face of the party in 2012, they are in for a pounding.
The Economic Downfall and the Rise of Tent Cities
The Camp of the Bonus Army, 1932.
Quote of the Day
My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising.
Richard Posner
