Must Reads

Check out these smart posts about the politics of torture:

The Case for More Waterboarding by Matthew Yglesias
and
Some Behavior Is Beyond The Legal System by Digby

But this story is amazing, and I hope we hear more from FBI Agent Ali Soufan.
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If by "polarizing" you mean "popular" ...

There is a meme being pushed by the GOP and the Right that President Barack Obama is "the most polarizing president" we've had in a long time.

Really?

To the polls we go ...

So, let’s add it all up.

• Over 60% of the American people currently approve of Obama – 10% more than approved of either Bush I or Bush II at this point.

• Republican Party identification has shrunk substantially and the Party’s remaining supporters have become more intensely partisan. Nonetheless, even so, over one-quarter – 27% of these hard-core Republicans still approve of Obama.

• And 57-60% - a solid, commanding majority -- of independents approve of him.

So, Let’s all send Gerson a message: “Hey, Mike, cut out the histrionics. Blow your nose, put away the silly polka-dot hanky and stop the sanctimonious blubbering about Obama causing partisan division. The Oscars are over.

America isn’t divided – it’s solidly behind Obama.

And Chuck Todd and the others over at FirstRead chime in:

Polar opposites:

A lot has been made recently about that new Pew poll showing Obama to have the largest gap in partisan approval among recent presidents in their first year in office: 88% of Democrats approve of Obama's job, while just 27% of Republicans say the same thing. But here are a couple of things to consider:

One, the Republican Party is more conservative now, and its moderates are now sitting in the independent category now (the Pew poll has Obama’s approval among independents at 57%).

Two, Obama is still approved by one in four Republicans.

When that number gets into the teens or single digits, then the "P" word -- polarization -- can fairly be used.

For example, in our January 2009 NBC/WSJ poll, right before he left office, just 6%
of Democrats approved of George W. Bush’s job.

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Massive dose of dumb

The Jesus Party, formerly known as the Party of NO, which was formerly known as the GOP, came out with a set of talking-points a couple of weeks ago that used the life of Jesus as a comparative measure for how massive the Stimulus Package was. Their implication was that $700+ billion is a lot of money. Wow, who knew? But when you look at their comparison, and then the cold,hard, numbers of the American economy, you see how absolutely stupid their reasoning (I use that term loosely) is. Via Pandagon.net:

BIGGER THAN JESUS

Apparently, the new Republican line on the stimulus is this:

To give the proposed economic stimulus plan some perspective, “if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.”

Now, there’s a bit about this that renders it disingenuous...which is the whole thing. The American economy is massive - $14.28 trillion, in fact. If you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you wouldn’t reach the size of the American economy by the year 10,000. Or 20,000. This is why we don’t measure the size of our economy in Jesus Money, despite the declaration of such in the RNC platform.

To put this in further context - over the course of Jesus’ life, at $1 million a day, and presuming his death at the age of 33 (including leap years), the value of Jesus’ life would have been $12.053 billion.

Microsoft’s yearly revenue last year was $60 billion, meaning they earned five Jesuses in a year.

Circuit City’s yearly revenue in 2006 was $10.4 billion, meaning even a failed company was, less than three years ago, earning nearly a full Jesus.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest everything, earned $404 billion last year, meaning that they earned a whopping thirty-three and a third Jesuses in a single year.

The American economy, incidentally, is nearly 1200 Jesuses strong, which is nearly the size of Chatom, AL...all full of Jesuses.

This teaches us two things: the first is that the American economy is massive, and any effort to stimulate it will require a suitably large amount of money. The second part is that it’s really stupid to measure things by the yardstick of Jesus earning a million dollars a day.

Also, nobody has any idea how many days of Jesus it would take to keep Pajamas Media afloat, but it’s probably more than you’d think.

They have no ideas! And they don't seem to get the concept of "economic stimulus" ... or put it another way, SPENDING!
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What a joke the GOP has become

Gov. Bobby Jindal is proving that the Republican Party has no new ideas, is a regional party, hates reason and science, and doesn't know a damn thing about history or the economy.

For starters, he considers volcano research wasteful pork-barrel spending. Yes, why would we want to study the patterns and behaviors of volcanoes? It's not like our nation has to worry about volcanic eruptions? I mean how much damage could a little old volcano do?

And if we don't need to study volcanoes we probably don't need to study earthquakes, or hurricanes, or any weather at all. And who needs science, like biology, astronomy, engineering, or genetic research? What a waste of good taxpayer money!

And what are these newfangled "magnetic levitation trains" you speak of, mister? More pork, I'm sure.

All of this from a man who participates in exorcisms. No joke.

The Republican Party is out of touch (along with most of the Beltway Villagers) and if they continue to be a know-nothing party -- the pathetic "NO... NOTHING" party -- they will be out of power for a long time. Thank god!


UPDATE: Exorcism!!!!!

UPDATE II: Volcanoes!!!!!
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It couldn't be this bad this year, right?

Presidential Inaugural Weather

Coldest January Date (and overall):

1985 - President Ronald Reagan's second swearing-in ceremony on January 21 had to be held indoors and the parade was canceled. The outside temperature at noon was only 7°F. The morning low was 4° below zero and the daytime high was only 17°. Wind chill temperatures during the afternoon were in the -10 to -20°F range.

And I was there. I was a member of the Collegiate All-American Marching Band and we were supposed to march in the Parade. But, if my memory is correct, the next day they had a special event in the arena where the Washington Bullets played basketball and we did get to perform for the President and Vice President.
It was a fun time. They put us up in the barracks of a nearby military base, and it was damn cold.
I still remember my lips freezing to my trombone mouthpiece and my slide locking up in the cold.

Back to blogging

Well, after obsessively blogging about the election, I needed a long break.
Unfortunately, a bout of pneumonia made the break longer than I would have liked. But I think I'm ready to get back to blogging, and I am going to try very hard to get back to more balance and not just focus on politics. Although, the politics never seems to get old and there is so much happening now ... the good, the bad, and the ugly ...
But I will get back to doing movie reviews, adding photos, talking about our travels, pets, sports, interests and, of course, life with teenagers.
If you are reading this ... I appreciate that you have visited this site, and I hope that you will consider leaving a comment or sending me an e-mail.
Let's have some fun!

Blue days ahead

Which way is the country trending? Towards the Democratic Party.

This map shows that most of the counties in the country turned toward the blue. It shows that the Republican Party is becoming a niche party of the south and Appalachia.

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Arrows up, arrows down

Women Against Sarah Palin

In their own words ...

• http://womenagainstsarahpalin.blogspot.com/

The Cancer Eating America's Soul

After eight years of a Bush/Cheney co-presidency the new President and Congress will have some difficult choices to make. Beyond the immediate concerns, we have tremendous problems staring us right in the face over the next few years. So, the tendency for some will be to adopt the "let's move on" mantra that will push for ignoring the lawbreaking and corruption of the Bush/Cheney administration in order to be able to truly focus on the future.
This is what many people said after Watergate, and President Ford moved this meme along by issuing a pardon. But there are some who point to that pardon and the insistence that moving on was the best medicine and say that it was really just a treatment of the symptoms, not the cancer. The black disease was left behind and spread throughout the Republican Party and emerged unchecked under the guise of a Unitary Executive philosophy of governance promoted by Dick Cheney and others.
I fear that as President Barack Obama will encourage a "let's move on" course. I know a President McCain would.
But I hope, that as Obama says those things to soothe a damaged public psyche that behind the scenes his administration and Congressional leaders will begin the process of finally learning the truth behind the corruption and malfeasance of the Bush/Cheney years.
As it emerged from the darkness of apartheid South Africa formed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help the victims and the perpetrators find justice, healing and forgiveness.
America needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times wrote about this yesterday:

"The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing. That was what South Africa did after apartheid, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and it is what the United States did with the Kerner Commission on race and the 1980s commission that examined the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Today, we need a similar Truth Commission, with subpoena power, to investigate the abuses in the aftermath of 9/11."

This country will remain polarized as long as it refuses to fight and treat the cancers that are eating it up from within. We have to move forward and deal with the difficulties ahead, but we also have the resources and the time to take an honest look back at our failures and face our shame that is in our recent past.

Wall-E 24/7

A great job by Frank Rich at the NY Times bringing the message and heart of WALL-E together with the current presidential campaign:

"Americans should see it to appreciate just how much things are out of joint on an Independence Day when a cartoon robot evokes America’s patriotic ideals with more conviction than either of the men who would be president."

Good stuff!

A ton of great reading on the Internets tonight. Here are a few samples for you to check out:

• Digby sez:

"Media Bloodhound caught a perfect example of the Entertainment Industrial Complex doing its best to ensure that Americans stay as uninformed as possible."

• Digby again ... highlights a Glenn Greenwald post about the meaning of bipartisanship in the inner circle of D.C.:

"The key to understanding how the elders define bipartisanship is recognizing that whatever your beliefs or principles, you "get things done" in Washington by doing what conservatives want you to do."

• Uh-Oh!

"It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet."

• Pick your favorite B.O. magazine cover!

• I don't know who this Larry Hunter is (a conservative economist I'm told), but I like this quote:

"The Republican Party is a dead rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of 'Weekend With Bernie,' handcuffed to a corpse."

Another failed war ...

Nice post here by Libby at NewsHoggers on America's Real Drug Problem:

"America's real drug problem is its addiction to prohibition. It hasn't worked in the last 40 and more years and it won't ever work. For a fraction of the billions we spend on failed policies that rely on radication, interdiction and incarceration, we could invest in treatment facilities that would actually solve the problems of addiction and abuse, which are the only real dangers of drug use and allow responsible substance consumers to live in peace and productivity."

Nothing new here.

Check out Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post:

"But the significance of McClellan's book is that his detailed recounting of what he saw from the inside vindicates pretty much all the central pillars of the Bush critique that have been chronicled here and elsewhere for many years now."

George and John BFF

Another week, another bunch of bigots ...

Here we are again, a huge Clinton win followed by a big Obama win. And it still doesn't mean squat. Senator Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for President in 2008. It's all in the math.

But, once again, let's look at the results of a primary in another state in the Appalachian region. Over at DailyKos contributor DHinMI has another post and some more cool maps that show ...

"Obama does not appear to have a problem with white voters. However, Appalachia has a problem with Obama."

The exit polls show that some people in that region just won't vote for a black man.

Racism or bigotry. Take your pick.

Hicks in the Sticks

Hillary Clinton trounced Barrack Obama last night in the West Viginia primary ... and it doesn't mean squat as far as the nomination is concerned. Barrack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for President. It's all in the math.

But check out this post by DHinMI and this graphic from the post, which is over at DailyKos. It is titled "White Voters, Obama and Appalachia" and it is great analysis on the recent Clinton talking points that Obama can't win the support of mostly poor, white voters. DHinMI says:

"I don't believe Obama has a significant "race problem." However, I do believe that he has and will continue to have a problem with some white voters who are clustered mostly in Appalachia."

And Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo adds his perspective on the Appalachians here:

"Each of these regions was fiercely anti-Slavery. And most ended up raising regiments that fought in the Union Army. But they were as anti-slave as they were anti-slavery, both of which they viewed as the linchpins of the aristocratic and inegalitarian society they loathed."

There is a difference between a racist and a bigot. So I apologize to the people of West Virginia for shouting at my TV that they were dumb, racist assholes last night. That was before I read these posts.

Josh Marshall adds:

"This is history. But it shapes the region. It's overwhelmingly white, economically underdeveloped (another legacy of the pre-civil war pattern) and arguably because of that underdevelopment has very low education rates and disproportionately old populations. For all these reasons, if you're familiar with the history, it's really no surprise that Barack Obama would have a very hard time running in this region."

It's too early to write off this area for Obama. You may not see him making many trips to this region during the fall campaign, but he will need high profile surrogates like Bill and Hillary Clinton to go into this area on the Democratic Party's behalf. The Clintons may be just the people to go there and make the case to these people that they shouldn't vote against their own best economic and social interests.
A Democratic President will have their back ... even if he is black.

Congratulations to TPM!

The first blog I go to any time I'm online is Talking Points Memo. I have blogged about this site before here, and how it is changing the nature of online journalism. Today, TPM and its founder Josh Marshall won a prestigious George Polk Award.
Here is another excellent blogger, Will Bunch of Attytood.com with details:

A landmark day for bloggers -- and the future of journalism

The George Polk Awards are kind of like the Golden Globes of American journalism . Not as well known as those Oscars of the news business, the Pulitzer Prize, the Polk Awards are nevertheless probably a close second in terms of prestige, and this year I am especially blown away by the quality of the work they honor. But I want to highlight one Polk Award that shows there are emerging models for using the very tool at the root of the turmoil of the news business -- the Internet -- as a newfangled way to re-invent investigative reporting -- by using new techniques that emphasize collaboration over competition and by working with readers and through collective weight of many news sources to expose government misconduct.
It would have seemed incredible a couple of years ago, but a George Polk Award was given this morning to a blogger.
Not just any blogger, of course. Josh Marshall (top, with his son Sam) of Talking Points Memo may have started back in 2000 as a kind of blogging stereotype, posting late at night from his small D.C. apartment and from the corner Starbucks and -- in just two years -- shining a light on the remarks that cost Sen. Trent Lott his GOP Senate leadership post, but he's turned his operation into much, much more.
Since 2002 Marshall has moved to New York and -- thanks to increasing ad revenue -- made Talking Points Memo into a new kind of journalistic enterprise for the 21st Century, hiring a staff of a half dozen talented young journalists and rewriting the rules with a mix of commentary and original muckraking while highlighting the work of other to focus like a laser on the big political questions.

There is much more to read ... go do it!

FISA fight proves Bush is a Fascist

Another Special Comment last night from Keith Olbermann:

We will not fear any longer.
We will not fear the international terrorists -- we will thwart them.
We will not fear the recognition of the manipulation of our yearning for safety.
We will not fear calling out the vulgar hypocrites in our government.
We will not fear George W. Bush, nor fear because George W. Bush wants us to fear.

Watch it at Crooks and Liars.

A tsunami is building ...

I went to a rock concert tonight and a political rally broke out.

The Barack Obama wave rolled into Phoenix tonight and I was very happy that I took time off work to attend. I was one of more than 200 volunteers who helped with crowd control and other logistics at the Coliseum. When the doors opened just after 3 p.m. people poured into the arena and they just kept coming. I will estimate that there were 10-12,000 people there. I eventually worked my way down by the stage and when he came out I took some photos and shook his hand. When he finally made it up onto the stage, the roar from the crowd nearly popped my eardrum. He is definitely a rock star and he delivered a terrific speech, saying all the right things. The only thing left for me was to ask myself if I could believe in him. Until two days ago I had my doubts. I supported Edwards, think highly of Clinton, and just wasn't sure if Obama was for real. But for various reasons I decided to support Obama a couple of days ago and went today to see if I made the right decision. I am now convinced that Barack Obama is the candidate who can fill people with hope, rise to the ocassion and turn the country in a new direction.

Barack Obama '08