Now I Wish I'd Watched

I didn't watch the Oscars. I never do.

But I really wish I had, because I would have gotten to see the comments at the beginning of this video.

Move Scrapped

Unfortunately, I'm in a real Kobayashi Maru here - Blogger is shit, but other services cripple functionality for their own greed.

Until I can find something that isn't garbage, I'm sticking with this.

Alan Keyes: F**king Crazy

From Raw Story: Keyes: Stop Obama or U.S. 'will cease to exist'

Alan Keyes, a three-time presidential candidate, called President Obama a "radical communist" and a "usurper" and said with him in charge, America "is going to cease to exist" at a pro-life fundraiser Thursday.

Remember: This psychopath has run for Prez three times on a fringe ticket, and every time he's gotten nothing but scorn. Plus he lost to President Obama in the Senate race in 2004. And he's so much of a gay-hater that he threw his lesbian daughter out and cut off all support for her.

But how crazy is he? This crazy:

"He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist,"

And this on the heels of a cartoon that not-so-subtly advocates violence against "the author of the stimulus bill"? Why is this man not locked up?

Oh, but it gets worse... so much worse.

"The man is an abomination," Keyes said, going on to accuse Obama of being supportive of infanticide. "That is a man with such a seared conscience, I can't even understand why anyone in their right mind would consider him worthy of political support."

Because clumps of cells are so much more important than, say, your own actual, born, grown children, whom you throw out because they're not perfect little straight godbots like you. You'll forgive me if I don't take moral advice from a hateful, paranoid, bigoted, insane bastard like you.

Oh, but it gets even worse than that. No, really.

Keyes also claimed that Obama had no standing to be president. Keyes said Obama was actually born in Kenya and so did not meet the Constitutional presidency requirements of being a natural-born U.S. citizen.

He said Obama was a "usurper occupying the office without constitutional warrant."

"He has refused to provide proof that he is in fact a natural-born citizen," Keyes said. "I'm not even sure he is president of the United States."

When the reporter interviewing him apparently cracked a smile at this, Keyes angrily responded with "that is not a laughing matter. We're going to find ourselves in the midst of chaos, confusion and civil war."

So let me see if I understand you correctly: You treasonously disregard the authority of the President because you honestly believe in a discredited, insane, baseless conspiracy theory, conceived by the fringe racist elements of the far-far-far-right, one that has already been disproven directly. It's so crazy, even far-right whackjobs like Michelle Malkin don't support it. Then, to top it all off, you threaten violence in regards to this, as though people will riot because you wish them to.

Listen closely, you slug: This has been settled. You are a jealous, whiny little punk who's still stinging that the state of Illinois saw right through your far-far-far-far-far-far-right lunacy and chose the right man for the job in 2004. You are a bigot. You are now, by your own admission, a traitor, as you do not recognize the laws of the United States, and are inciting violence against the President.

For your own sake, Alan, shut the fuck up. If you keep talking, you're going to say the thing that gets you thrown into jail for your bullshit.

The Short Form of All Arguments About Racism

"This is racist."
"No it isn't!"
"You're defending racism."
"OMG U CALLED ME RACIST U TRYIN TO OPPRESS ME U WORSE THAN RACISTS"
"Nobody's trying to oppress -"
"OMG U HIPOCRIT LIBRUL CENSORSHIP U INTOLERANT OF INTOLERANCE SO U WORSE DEN RACISTS"
"That doesn't make any sense... oh, never mind."
"So you agree it's not racist and I'm not racist, and you're evil!"
"No, I'm just not going to bother with you."
"OMG U DON'T LISTEN U UNREASONABLE U HAET LOGIC U STUPID AND CHILDISH"
"*sigh*"

Updates on Racist Cartoons and Stupid Reactions to Them

So, after yesterday's flap about the stupid, stupid cartoon in the New York Post and the reactions to it, I figured it'd be nice to follow up a bit.

First, even employees of the Post aren't happy about it. One employee said that the phone lines are jammed with people who are angry over the cartoon, "As they fucking should be". In fact, the Associate Editor has actually taken it up with her bosses:

Please know that I had nothing to do with the Sean Delonas cartoon. I neither commissioned or approved it. I saw it in the paper yesterday with the rest of the world. And, I have raised my objections to management.

--Sandra Guzman

I'm willing to take her word on this.

Second, stupid, privileged little punks should shut up about things they don't understand, and should stop trying to change the subject. Yes, Al Sharpton spoke about it; your hatred of him does not make this less of an issue. And so what if you don't think it's racist? Your opinion doesn't matter here, mine does.

Third, tantrum-throwing little racists who change the subject so they won't have to answer honest questions should shut up while the adults talk. If you're so sure of yourselves, address the issue instead of throwing a fit because people see you for what you are, you little fucks.

There, I think that covers it all.

Hate-Spewer Coulter Defends Racist Group - Nobody Surprised

From HuffPo: Mark Potok: Columnist Ann Coulter Defends White Supremacist Group

(Thanks to Dispatches from the Culture Wars for pointing this one out.)

Rabid far-right commentator Ann Coulter is known across America for sliming everyone and everything she disagrees with.
(...)
But despite denouncing school desegregation as a "spectacular" failure, Coulter has generally avoided bolstering white supremacist hate groups. Until now, that is.

In her latest foaming-mouth tome -- Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America, released on Jan. 6 -- Coulter spends the better part of three pages defending a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which The New York Times had described as a "thinly veiled white supremacist organization."

So she's not only a sexist, homophobic, hateful, vile, psychotic, fraudulent, moralless, gutless, ugly-bodily-and-mentally slimebag, she's also a racist. Don't believe me? Read on:

Coulter begs to differ. The CCC, Coulter opines, is "a conservative group" that has unfairly been branded as racist "because some of the directors of the CCC had, decades earlier, been leaders of a segregationist group." "There is no evidence on its Web page that the modern incarnation of the CCC supports segregation," she says. "Apart from some aggressive reporting on black-on-white crimes -- the very crimes that are aggressively hidden by the establishment media -- there is little on the CCC website suggesting" that the group is racist. Indeed, its main failing is "containing members who had belonged to a segregationist group thirty years earlier."

(Emphasis mine)

So she carries the water of a well-known adjunct of the KKK, complete with breathless assertions that DEM NEEEGROZE IZ CRIMNULZ KILIN GUD WITE FOLKS.

Is anyone surprised by this? Anyone? I doubt it.

Sometimes I think the people who think she's actually a liberal who's trying to make conservatives look bad are right - then I realize that there are still people in the world who honestly believe this kind of crap, and I stop thinking that.

Holy Mother of God, They're Still At It

Hot on the heels of the "thug cartoon" from last week or so, from the Associated Press: NY Post cartoon seems to link Obama to dead chimp

The New York Post is standing behind a cartoon that some have interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police. The cartoon in Wednesday's Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. One of the officers says the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

Remember, this is the paper that referred to the Iraq Study Group as "Surrender Monkeys" for not buying into the Bush bullshit and made fun of Keith Olbermann for getting a fake anthrax letter (no doubt sent by one of their faithful readers).

That they not only publish something that any idiot could see as a load of racist garbage, but stand by it, defending it and lashing out at someone calling them on it, should come as no surprise at all. Of course the Post is standing by this - it's a far-far-far-right rag owned by Rupert Murdoch. It's Fox Noise: Dead Tree Edition.

We're a long way from a post-racial America. I understand that. And people like this hack of a cartoonist, and the slime at the Post who publish and defend it, understand it, too. The difference is in how we handle it - I work to overcome injustice, while these people try to promote it.

What scumbags.

EDIT, 7:12 PM, 2/18/09: The Opoponax in the comments of Pandagon's post on this makes a good point:

Wait, so now it’s perfectly OK for the Post to advocate the assassination of the President?

This would have got somebody sent to Guantanamo if it were published circa 2003-2004.

Burris Blabs With Blago's Bro While Blago Burns

From CNN.com: Calls for Burris resignation intensify as new details emerge

The Washington Post added its voice Wednesday to a growing chorus of demands for the resignation of Sen. Roland Burris two days after he detailed conversations with impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother that he failed to mention under oath.

Burris, appointed by a scandal-wracked Blagojevich to fill President Obama's vacant Senate seat, told reporters Monday night in Peoria, Illinois, that he had three conversations with the governor's brother, Robert Blagojevich.

In them, the Democratic senator said he discussed possibly raising money for the governor before ultimately declining to do so.

So, he talked with Blago's bro, then denied it, and now he's admitting to it. And the conversation was about fundraising for Blago. When I said that I didn't trust Burris, that something seemed off, nobody listened. Everyone acted like I was some sort of idiot, like I had a problem. Yeah, we'll start the ass-kissing with you.

Seriously, though, Burris should resign. His placement into the Senate has been under a cloud of suspicion from day one, and that cloud only grows larger and thicker with each passing day. People have resigned over less. It's time to do the honorable thing, Mr. Burris, and step aside.

Birthdays of Note

Today would be the two-hundredth birthdays of two very historically-important men: Our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, and British naturalist and author Charles Darwin.

If these men were alive today, I'd wager two things: That they'd be appalled at how little we've learned from their lives and works, and that they'd be damn old and not afraid to tell you about it.

Holy Mother of God, They Actually Published This

AAEC - Political Cartoon by David Cohen, Asheville Citizen-Times - 02/09/2009

I really have no words.

(Thanks to Shakesville for pointing this one out.)

Stimulate me, baby.

From CNN: Stimulus Bill Passes

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Senate voted 61-37 to approve President Barack Obama's proposed $838 billion economic stimulus bill Tuesday.

The measure will now have to be reconciled with an $827 billion version the House of Representatives passed on January 28.

And right on the heels of this, the GOP shows what they meant by 'bipartisanship'.

GOP group gets tough against Republicans who support stimulus

An influential conservative political action committee is pledging to support primary challengers to any Republican senator who supports President Obama's stimulus package — the latest public show of dissatisfaction from the right over the massive measure before Congress.

"The American people don’t want this trillion dollar political payoff that will just line the pockets of non-governmental organizations who supported [President] Obama in the election,” said Scott Wheeler, the executive director of The National Republican Trust PAC, an organization that calls for less government spending and lower taxes.

Uh... Mr. Wheeler?

From Gallup: 75% of Americans want Stimulus passed in some form

So are we just talking REAL MARICANS™, or what?

It's Always Florida, Part 3,756

From Florida Citizens for Science: You’ve got to be kidding me …

State Sen. Stephen Wise of Jacksonville announced through an article in the Florida Times Union that he plans to file a bill this legislative session to require evolution to be balanced with a discussion of intelligent design. Yes, require. Not just allow, but to require.

Thanks to PZ Myers for pointing this one out.

Seriously, can we just detach Florida from the rest of the States? There's a reason we say, "It's always Florida", and things like this just reinforce that. This is the state that gave us a teacher being fired for "wizardry", kids who think HIV can be stopped by drinking bleach, and noted hateful, crazy, childish censorship advocate Jack Thompson.

By now, it's time to say "enough is enough" and let Florida drift in the sea.

Taliban Tactics

From the National Journal: Sessions: GOP Insugency "May Be Required"

"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."

That agreement, as Sessions described it, involved a promise from Pelosi to preside over an "open, honest, ethical Congress." Obama, Sessions added, has pledged to diminish the political rhetoric in Washington and work in a bipartisan fashion.

"If they do not give us those options or opportunities then we will then become insurgency of a nature to where we do those things that are necessary to making sure the American public knows what we think the correct answer is," Sessions said during the 60-minute interview. "So we either work together, or we're going to find a way to get our message out."

Bravo Rep. Sessions, bravo. The self destruction of the Republican party continues.

I wonder what got cut.

From CNN: Tentative agreement reached on Stimulus

But more importantly, I can't shake this feeling that the last inflation to the bill we saw (bringing it to 930 billion), may have been so they could then cut less total than they would from the original, smaller bill, and get enough Republican support to pass it.

It's the same idea as a store upping its prices before offering a sale, except this would be done in the name of good, rather than evil.

I'm probably completely wrong, though.

A Book Recommendation

I picked up a copy of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas? at Barnes & Noble over the weekend.  It was on sale for a dollar because they were apparently desperate to clear out some old stock, including Susan Estrich's Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate, which contributor Amber picked up, and Senator Al Franken's The Truth (with jokes) (which I also grabbed).  (This is not to say that books of this type made up the whole of the sale lot - much of it was fiction I had yet to hear of.  I guess if you're not writing what amounts to teenage-girl gushfests about sparkly vampires, you don't sell in this economy.)

I'm not even that far into Kansas and I'd recommend it.  It points up how conservatives successfully married far-right "gut feeling" politics of the fire-and-brimstone variety to their disastrous laissez-faire economic ideas.  And no, it's not just Kansas - sadly, it's much of my country that's been hoodwinked this way, my state included.  I'm already seeing the parallels between the fools that Kansas elects and the ones that we do.

Now if only I could get some time to really read it.