Posts Tagged ‘Conservatives’

A fascinating act has been taking place before our very eyes and I think it deserves recognition. Perhaps a special Oscar category could be made. There is simply no more fitting way to describe what the conservatives in congress and in the media are doing. Take this for example, courtesy of Media Matters:

Now to the untrained eye, which is roughly 95% of the Fox & Friends viewership, it may look like Laura Ingram, Steve Doochey and Brian Kilmeade have an actual point. In short, Democrats are overstating the dangers of this economy so that any turn in the other direction can be sighted as progress. And apparently creating only 2 million jobs would be total and utter failure in Doochey’s assessment, hence his permanent name change on this site.

But to folks who’ve been watching both sides of their mouths for the last decade or so, something more interesting and truly funny is starting to show: They know this stimulus is going to work and they’re preemptively trying to call it a miserable failure even if it does succeed on some minor level. Watch that segment again and tell me it’s not fall-on-the-floor hilarious. They fear any measurable success in the stimulus package. Why? Because they disowned it. Any success is yet another disgrace to their failed economic vision. And any failure will be amplified by their right-wing echo chamber.

The funniest example of a right-winger totally owning up to the fact that this bill will have a measure of success is none other than Karl Rove himself (hat tip to Raw Story).

I also find it humorous that they call it using “fear tactics” and “doom and gloom” on the American people. They should be experts on this subject because it’s all they’ve resorted to when it came to terrorism and it’s how we ended up in Iraq in the first place. And since we’re drawing parallels to the Iraq War, I think there was a bit of spending involved in that one. The last I checked there was.

In fact, if I recall correctly, the previous administration managed to give out no-bid contracts to the companies they used to work for and, at the same time, manage to literally lose billions of those dollars into thin air. Boy I wish that billions of dollars could somehow go missing in our own country.

The fact is that Republicans have lost a considerable amount of face over the past years because of disastrous decisions and horrible management. The result is that the last two elections have seen Republicans being shown the door for being such awful stewards of our government. So now they’ve returned to the stone-throwing partisanship and hoping for another chance to fool the electorate into another “Contract With America” that they can screw us with.

Honestly, I don’t think Americans have too much difficulty in seeing these statements for what they really are: The last cries of a dying ideology that brought about the greatest economic disaster since The Great Depression. I expect they’d be bitter for owning that dubious reputation once more since their party was responsible for that one, too. But what they need to accept is their ideas have failed, the American people voted for change and that’s exactly what’s happening.

PS: Can someone tell Lindsey Graham to stop using a smarmy rendition of “that’s not a change we can believe in” as if the campaign is still on? Fuck, he’s an embarrassment.

You know it’s funny — I never pegged bin Laden as a Just For Men consumer. I guess that sage from the mountain look was wearing thin and his mid-life crisis finally hit. Either that or the man experts believe is behind Osama’s latest video is also his image consultant.

American spy chiefs were quick to name Adam Gadahn, the head of al-Qaeda’s English language media operations, as the author of large sections of bin Laden’s broadcast.

Last October, the 28-year-old “loner” became the first American charged with treason since 1952, for appearing in a succession of al-Qaeda videos under the guise of “Azzam The American”, in which he condemned globalisation and made American cultural references.

He was charged in his absence, as he is thought to be near to bin Laden, almost certainly in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Gadahn, who as a teenager reviewed albums for a metal music magazine, moved to Pakistan in 1998 and became an associate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks. In 2004, the FBI named him as one of seven al-Qaeda operatives planning attacks in the US.

The bin Laden video, timed to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, shows the terror chief, his beard dyed black, condemning the “unjust” Iraq war and calling on Americans to “embrace Islam”.

The right-wing is quickly drawing the comparisons of Osama’s speech to left-wing talking points. Good little sheep. Don’t question the idiocy of bin Laden making those remarks, just accept them at face value and consider him a liberal democrat.

There are some things that require a rebuttal to correct the facts. Other times it’s simply sufficient to re-print someone’s statements to let the idiocy speak for itself. This is an example of the latter. You righties are stupendously gullible.

I really can’t stand Ted Nugent. I’m very much for supporting the Second Amendment, but this jackass doesn’t possess the cognitive abilities to realize that every time he opens his mouth he makes it worse for others who stand up for the Second Amendment. He’s a walking warning label. He should have “Momma, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Nugents” tattooed across his face. He’s a fucking disgrace of a human being.

That said, he’s get a new album coming out. Damned be what was said in the past — like a true right-wing nutjob, Teddy Boy went hyper-hypocrite and recently stated that Barack Obama should “suck on [his] machine gun” and that Hilary Clinton should “ride” it.

All in all, it’s another “HEY PAY ATTENTION TO ME! I’M STILL RELEVANT! I’VE GOT A NEW CD TO SELL!” moment for Mr. Sellout. And that’s all it is. I’m not outraged by what he said, I’m sick to death of people in the entertainment industry (see: Rush, Coulter, etc.) saying shit like this because they know it’ll get them bad press. They don’t care how much controversy it causes so long as they can lace their wallets at the end of the day with their nutjob follwers’ money. If someone gets a crazy idea to do something drastic because of what he said, all he does is shrug his shoulders, say “it ain’t no thang” and take the money to the bank.

Oh, and Ted, in case you’re reading this: You’re not relevant. It’s arguable that you ever were relevant. I don’t say that about a lot of people in the biz, but I wouldn’t give it a second thought to turn down any request you made of anyone. You’re simply less than Paris Hilton. I think she’s actually more talented, musically.

This is the kind of Monday morning news that gets you up faster than a cup of espresso.

Karl Rove, the architect of President Bush’s two national campaigns and his most prominent adviser through 6-1/2 tumultuous years in the White House, will resign at month’s end and leave politics, a White House spokeswoman said this morning.

Bush plans to make a statement with Rove on the South Lawn this morning before the president departs for his ranch near Crawford, Tex. Rove, who holds the titles of deputy chief of staff and senior adviser, has been talking about finding the right time to depart for a year, colleagues said, and decided he had to either leave now or remain through the end of the presidency.

One liberal could easily call this reason to celebrate. But the fact of the matter is that Rove simply cannot do any more damage with Dubya than he already has. But I choose to interpret it differently.

Like him or hate him, Rove is a damn good political mind. He knows how to manipulate the media and the people with startling effectiveness. I don’t want to ascribe too much influence to him, but the fact is that he got Bush reelected despite Bush’s obvious failures in every category as a president, regardless of the details of how it happened.

Now when you realize that this gargantuan rat is now abandoning ship, don’t look at his wake, realize how fast the ship he’s leaving is slipping under.

I don’t have a lot of time to write today as I’ve been busy as hell. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have something for you to read. Here’s an article put together by The Independent’s Johann Hari who took a boat cruise with 500 readers of the National Review.

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. “Is he your only child?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. “Do you have a child back in England?” she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. “You’d better start,” she says. “The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they’ll have the whole of Europe.”

Oh, it gets better. Just read on.