Morally repugnant, Part II

Revisiting a topic discussed here more than a year ago, it seems that Ron Suskind’s groundbreaking reporting on the futility of the Bush administration’s torture policy has now been backed up and verified by reporting in the Washington Post.

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.
The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as “al-Qaeda’s chief of operations,” and other top officials called him a “trusted associate” of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.
Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al-Qaeda, according to a portrait of the man that emerges from court documents and interviews with current and former intelligence, law enforcement and military sources. Rather, he was a “fixer” for radical Muslim ideologues, and he ended up working directly with al-Qaeda only after Sept. 11 -- and that was because the United States stood ready to invade Afghanistan.

Dan Froomkin has more on this sad, sordid tale:

Abu Zubaida was the alpha and omega of the Bush administration’s argument for torture.
That’s why Sunday’s front-page Washington Post story by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick is such a blow to the last remaining torture apologists.
Finn and Warrick reported that “not a single significant plot was foiled” as a result of Zubaida’s brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions “triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms.”
Zubaida was the first detainee to be tortured at the direct instruction of the White House. Then he was President George W. Bush’s Exhibit A in defense of the “enhanced interrogation” procedures that constituted torture. And he continues to be held up as a justification for torture by its most ardent defenders.
But as author Ron Suskind reported almost three years ago -- and as The Post now confirms -- almost all the key assertions the Bush administration made about Zubaida were wrong.
Zubaida wasn’t a major al Qaeda figure. He wasn’t holding back critical information. His torture didn’t produce valuable intelligence -- and it certainly didn’t save lives.

But we won’t ever hear a mea culpa from the denizens who used to haunt the defunct ATC blog. They grew bored with their warblogging and torture cheerleading and have moved on to other pursuits now, such as shrieking about “socialism” anytime someone does anything to try and clean up the huge mess that the Bush administration left behind.

John Cornyn hates democracy

Our U.S. Senator John Cornyn thinks democracy sucks. At least, that’s his opinion whenever things don’t go his way.
Take the Minnesota Senate election, for example, where Democrat Al Franken has come out ahead after a long recount process. Cornyn doesn’t like that result and he is threatening “World War III” if Democrats try to seat Al Franken in the Senate before Norm Coleman can pursue his case all the way through the federal courts.
Nevermind that it could take years to resolve. Cornyn has no problem hamstringing democracy with frivolous lawsuits whenever things don’t go his way. I can guarantee you that he would not be insisting on waiting for a years long court battle to resolve itself before allowing Minnesotans to have their full Senate representation if it was Al Franken doing the litigating. And furthermore, I believe that Democrats would never try and drag out the case that far anyway. That’s because Democrats, as their name says, actually believe in and respect “democracy.”
Not so with Sen. Cornyn. Just look at his response to the Brewing Battle Over Reconciliation in Congress.
Democrats are considering using the budget reconciliation process to resolve several contentious issues over budgetary matters involving healthcare, energy and education. That would mean that the legislation could actually be approved with a majority vote of the Senate. What a novel concept!!!!
But what does John Cornyn think about the idea of “majority rules” which is a keystone of democracy?
“It stinks,” he says.
Cornyn thinks every piece of legislation should have to pass with a 60-vote supermajority, allowing a minority of Senators to kill legislation that has the support of the majority of Americans. But, of course, he only thinks this is fair when Republicans are in the minority. He didn’t think that was such a hot idea when Republicans were in the majority, and he won’t in the future if and when Republicans are ever in the majority again.
But for now, majority rules is out the window as far as he is concerned and so are democratic elections whenever he doesn’t like the end results. Screw democracy.

No more term limits

T.R. Fehrenbach, the conservative historian who writes a weekly column for the Express-News, is proposing limiting U.S. presidents to single terms.
He makes an interesting case based on history, however I am still completely opposed to the idea. I don't think it is true that every president's second term has been disasterous.
It is true that Lincoln may have had a tough time politically during a second term had he not been assassinated, but I think there can be little doubt that he would have still been much better than Andrew Johnson or Ulysseus Grant or any of the other corrupt, post-war presidents we ended up with.
FDR's second term was certainly not a disaster, as Fehrenbach implies, and his subsequent term was successful as well due to his leadership during WWII.
Eisenhower's second term wasn't much different from his first one. Kennedy had the potential to do very well had he had a chance at a second term.
Nixon, of course, was impeached during his second term, but the things that set Watergate into motion happened during his first term.
Reagan clearly had troubles during his second term with Iran-Contra, but it wasn't enough to sour his political support and he probably could have won a third term easily, but instead passed it on to George H.W. Bush.
Bill Clinton's second term was a huge success other than the distraction of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But as far as things that actually impacted people's lives, he had great successes during his second term.
And George W. Bush obviously was awful during his second term, but I would argue that he was awful during his first term as well but managed to cover up his failures and incompetence in the aftermath of 9/11. Osama Bin Laden was responsible for Bush's second term more so than Karl Rove.
Now that we have Obama in there, Fehrenbach is suddenly raising the spectre of limiting presients to one term. Why wasn't he making that argument four years ago?

E-N laysoff the last liberals

Just noted today that one of the victims of the mass layoffs at the Express-News was the weekly column by Mansour El-Kikhia, which was the closest thing they had to a politically liberal opinion from a local source. I wasn't a big fan of El-Kikhia, but he did on occasion provide a badly needed counterpoint to the GeorgeWillCalThomasRichLowryAustinBayJonathanGurwitzKathleenParkerRubenNavaretteMonaCharen neocon worldview so amply on display at the E-N.
But at least El-Kikhia still has his day job at the university. Not so for John Branch, the local editorial cartoonist who got a pink slip as well.
Now that this idological purge of liberal contributors to the op-ed page is complete, I wonder what they will do next?

Update
And now I see that the next thing they will do is make the newspaper even narrower, shrinking it from 12.5 inches across to just under 11 inches. Essentially, it's going to get to the point where the newspaper will look like a really long magazine.
To accomplish this next level of shrinkage, they are going to dump several advice columns and puzzles out of the lifestyles section. It remains to be seen whether they will drop any more comics.
And last week they made yet another cut of the editorial pages, shrinking the Sunday Op-ed pages, which used to have its own section, from 3 pages to 2. That means that Jonathan Gurwitz' weekly wrap-up of interesting quotes is no more. Even though his choices irritated me on many occasions, it was still a section of the paper that I would read each week without fail. Also, it seems like Robert Selzer's column slot is now eliminated so what do they still need him for?
It's really sad that the paper has been forced into this position. Thanks for the sucky economy President Bush. Heckuva job!

China skews death penalty report

An interesting report in the New York Times today says that executions around the world doubled in 2008.
That is pretty surprising considering that we have really scaled back on executions here in the U.S., but it turns out the main culprit behind the jump in executions was China which had 72 percent of the total for 2008.

The number of executions worldwide nearly doubled last year compared with 2007, according to Amnesty International, and China put to death far more people than the rest of the world put together.
In its annual report on the death penalty, Amnesty International on Tuesday chronicled beheadings in Saudi Arabia; hangings in Japan, Iraq, Singapore and Sudan; lethal injections in China; an electrocution in the United States; firing squads in Afghanistan, Belarus and Vietnam; and stonings in Iran.
In all, 59 countries still have the death penalty on their books, but only 25 carried out executions last year. Two nations, Uzbekistan and Argentina, banned the death penalty last year.
Amnesty International said at least 2,390 people were executed worldwide in 2008, compared with its 2007 figure of at least 1,252.
With at least 1,718, China was responsible for 72 percent of all executions in 2008, the report stated. After China were Iran (346), Saudi Arabia (102), the United States (37) and Pakistan (36), according to the group.

The U.S. only had 37 executions last year, but that was still enough to rank No. 4 in the world behind China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Frankly, I’m not happy being in the same company with those countries. There is really no reason why the U.S. can’t join with most of the Western civilized nations and ban this outdated, barbaric practice which serves no public purpose.
The good news is that Amnesty International says the worldwide trend is still going away from the death penalty even though the Butchers of Beijing are currently skewing the data.

Amnesty International, which has long opposed the death penalty, said Europe and Central Asia have become “virtually a death-penalty-free zone” with only Belarus, a former Soviet republic, continuing to execute prisoners.
“In the Americas, only one state — the United States — consistently executes,” the group said, noting that the number of its executions last year, 37, was the lowest since 1994.

NPR sets ratings record

Good news for National Public Radio:

The audience for NPR’s daily news programs, including “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” reached a record last year, driven by widespread interest in the presidential election, and the general decline of radio news elsewhere. Washington-based NPR will release new figures to its stations today showing that the cumulative audience for its daily news programs hit 20.9 million a week, a 9 percent increase over the previous year.

20 million listeners!!! Hmmmmm. Where have I heard that figure before? Oh yes! That is the figure that Rush Limbaugh always throws around claiming it as his listener base. But it turns out that the figure Rush uses may just be pulled out of thin air.

Obama Is No Socialist

It’s kind of sad that this article even had to be written, but such is the state of our political discourse these days.
Former Federal Reserve Board member Alan Binder penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal to make the point that Obama Is No Socialist:

Ever since President Barack Obama released the budget last month, we have been hearing a fusillade of criticism claiming that the president, contrary to previous advertising, is not a centrist, but a “leftie” intent on leading the country down the path of socialism.
Let’s see. Socialism means public ownership and control of businesses, right? So which industries does the president propose to nationalize?
Banking? Well, no. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner has made it clear that he opposes nationalizing banks, despite much outcry from the political left -- and even some from the right -- to do just that. Yes, it’s a valid criticism that we are still waiting for Mr. Geithner’s banking plan. But the budget commits an outrageous act of accounting honesty by including a $750 billion allowance as “a reserve for further efforts to stabilize the financial system.” Given the popularity of bank bailouts, that was a courageous thing to do.
What about health care? Doesn’t Mr. Obama want “socialized medicine”? No. He wants to reform the current system so that it costs less and covers more people. Disgracefully, the United States is the only advanced nation in the world that fails to cover every citizen -- even though we spend vastly more on health care than other nations.
Some reformers want the U.S. to adopt a single-payer system like other countries, such as “socialist” Canada and England -- which run firmly capitalist economies, by the way. But regardless of whether single-payer is a good idea, it’s not Mr. Obama’s. His health-insurance reform plan emphasizes choice (keeping what you have if you like it), greater efficiency (partly by utilizing information technology), and portability (your health coverage will follow you from job to job). Which part of that is socialist?
And, once again, the Obama budget recognizes, rather than hides, the need to pay the bills. Half the cost of health reform would be covered by a tax provision that has really raised a ruckus: Capping itemized deductions at the 28% bracket rate. Let’s consider how socialist that idea is.
As the law now stands, when a family that does not itemize deductions on its tax return donates $100 to its favorite charity, the donation costs the family $100. But when an itemizing family in the 25% bracket donates $100, it costs them only $75 after tax. And when an itemizer in the 35% bracket donates $100, the after-tax cost is only $65. Thus the richer you are, the less it costs. Is it socialistic to say that seems a little backwards?
If that tax treatment strikes you as fair, try another example. Suppose those same three families each pay $10,000 a year in interest on their home mortgages. The cost to the non-itemizer is the full $10,000. For the family in the 25% bracket that itemizes, the net cost after taxes is only $7,500. And for the upper-income family in the 35% bracket that itemizes, the net cost is a mere $6,500. Just imagine a member of Congress proposing a homeownership subsidy like that directly, rather than through the tax code: 35% to the rich, 25% to the middle class, and nothing to the poor. Would anyone support it?
Enter Mr. Obama, the alleged leftist. Does he propose to end this “class warfare” on the middle and lower classes? No. He only wants to mitigate it slightly. He would reduce the 35% subsidy rate to 28% -- which would still leave the costs of charitable giving, mortgage interest, and much else far lower for the rich than for the poor. That’s hardly a radical proposal. Indeed, it has been under discussion since the 1980s.
It’s true: The president would like to do a bit more. Elsewhere in the budget, he proposes letting the Bush upper-bracket tax cuts expire in 2011, meaning the top rate would revert to where it was during the Clinton years: 39.6%. And Mr. Obama would still cap deductibility at 28%.
Unsurprisingly, the president’s proposal to let the top rate return to 39.6% has unleashed a firestorm of criticism from people who claim that such radical redistribution would prolong the recession, destroy entrepreneurship, and pretty much end capitalism as we know it -- just as it did during the Great Prosperity of the 1990s, I suppose. Some claims parody themselves.
So where does all this leave us on the road to socialism? If Mr. Obama is able to get all of these proposals through Congress, the U.S. will have a fully private banking system, propped up with temporary government support; a uniquely American health-care system that covers virtually everyone; and a somewhat more progressive income tax.
If this is socialism, then let’s make the most of it.

Why rightwing radio is so popular

Why does the far-right dominate all the talk radio stations in most markets? Conservatives would have you believe that it is because their ideas are more popular with the general public and they treat it as an affirmation of their political views. That explanation seemed plausible enough earlier in this decade when Republicans controlled the White House and both branches of Congress as well as most governships and state legislatures. But now that the pendulum has swung back the other way and Democrats are acscendent once again that explanation doesn’t work anymore. Now, even though the country voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama and the Democrats in the last election, we still have the same hard-right mix of opinions on talk radio. This is clearly not a business model that is trying to expand its market share by providing consumers what they want. I believe this is because the means of distribution are controlled by corporations like Clear Channel Communications and News Corp. which are run by hardline conservatives.
My friend Mack Harrison also makes an excellent point in the comments about the regulatory hurdles to setting up new radio stations which makes it hard for the industry to react to changes in the political landscape. As Mack points out, on the Internet where those barriers don’t exist, liberals are competing quite well and in some cases are outperforming their conservative counterparts.
But it can still be argued that these radio stations are making money and draw a large base of listeners. Why is that?
As I mentioned in the comments to the previous post, I think one reason why rightwing radio is popular is because it is designed to appeal to our baser instincts. Rightwing radio tells its listeners what they want to hear, not what they should hear or need to hear. It says that YOU are always right and that THEY are always to blame for all of the worlds’ problems. It tells them that they are justified in their prejudices and bigotry and intolerance. It tells them that they don’t have to feel guilty or responsible for any of the nation’s problems. And they are constantly spoonfed a steady diet of propaganda propping up these beliefs and offering up a litany of boogeymen and scapegoats on whom they can vent their outrage and hatred.
Conservative talk radio is fun and entertaining and it reinforces the listener’s own high opinion of themselves, provided that they don’t identify with those awful, hated Liberals. Furthermore, rightwing radio never challenges its listeners with inconvenient facts and regularly dismisses complex problems that liberals tend to fret over or ignores them completely.
On rightwing radio, you don’t have to worry about Global Warming because they have declared it to be a hoax perpetrated by liberal academicians and scientists just looking for government handouts. There is no moral conundrum over torture because the “terrorists” all deserve whatever they get anyway. Huge deficits can be easily solved by eliminating “earmarks” and cutting more taxes. The energy crisis would be over if Liberals would just let them “Drill, baby, Drill!” And so on.
Listening to talk radio is like eating a steady diet of candy. Over at NPR they try to make you eat your vegetables!

One-sided opinion

I think rightwingers like to rant on and on and on about the mythical re-emergence of the Fairness Doctrine just because they know it ticks off liberals.
They know full well that there is no chance of the Fairness Doctrine ever coming back, but they go on about it anyway just to rub liberals noses in the fact that they are almost totally marginalized in the media.
There is no other way to explain how these conservatives who dominate the radio and television airwaves can possibly claim with a straight face that the Fairness Doctrine would result in their being censored.
A majority of voters in San Antonio voted for Obama this past election. And three of the four congressman representing the city are Democrats. But you wouldn’t know that from listening to the local talk radio stations. Here is the lineup from WOAI 1200, the biggest talk station in town:



A solid six-pack of wingnuttia for our everyday consumption. So what about the other talk radio station - KTSA 500? Surely they offer some variety, some alternative for people who don’t relish hearing non-stop far-right propaganda and lies 24-7. Nope. They simply offer the left-over wingnuts that WOAI discarded, like Bill O’Reilly and Neil Boortz along with local rightwingers Trey Ware and Jack Riccardi.
I was listening to Riccardi’s show this morning. For some reason I had gotten the impression that he was a liberal or at least moderate on some issues. But after listening to him trying to blame the Democratic Congress for the current Bushian fiscal nightmare we are in and then looking at his blog where he supported Mitt Romney for president, it is clear that he is just a slightly toned-down rightwinger, only moderate in comparison to the certified lunatics like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.
Interestingly enough, the local stations don’t even make an effort to have any ethnic or gender diversity in their lineups, much less ideological diversity.
Most San Antonians have responded to this situation by simply not listening to the local radio shows anymore, leaving just a small, concentrated audience of like-minded rightwingers to provide the stations with the excuse they need to continue ignoring and dismissing the vast majority of the local community.
I don’t know what a Fairness Doctrine would do, but it is quite clear that we currently operate under an extreme version of the Unfair Doctrine.

Update
I left out the one other station in San Antonio with a news/talk format: KLUP 930 AM.
Here is their weekly lineup: Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Michael Savage and Hugh Hewitt.
All white, all male and all far-right looneytunes everyone. Yippee!

Twisted principles

Glenn Beck is seriously twisted, as Donna noted the other day.

Steve Benen and Blue Texan have good rundowns on the recent Beckian wierdness.
But I think what disturbs me the most is how this lunatic is becoming increasingly popular with the local rightwingers.
Nick at Conservative Dialysis linked approvingly to Beck’s paranoid reworking of the National Anthem and Andres Bocagnera of San Antonio Conservative has been taken in by Beck’s latest hyped up charade.

These “Nine Principles and 12 Values” (or the “Nine Prophecies of the 12 Sarcofagi” as Dennis Miller recently mocked on Fox) are worth a look to see just how badly this guy’s screws have come loose.

The Nine Principles
1. America is good.
2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

The first “principle” - America is good - seems like it should be followed by several exclamations of What!! What!!! as in today’s urban lingo when a hipster throws out a provacative statement and then openly entreats anyone to challenge him on it. Beck is just asking for anyone to question him so that he can denounce them as “unAmerican” or what have you.
But now compare Principle 1 with Principle 8. First you are saying that “America” is always good no matter what, but then you are declaring that you can still be critical of “authorities” without being called “unAmerican.” Just what do these people think “America” is anyway? Clearly to them it is some abstract concept which they can place up on a podium and pretend to “love” while at the same time they can vent their hatred and disgust at the American government and American authority figures. Because after you get past the first two principles, the rest is pretty much just a long-winded anti-government screed.
Or how about principles 4 and 5? Does anyone see any problems here? First they declare that “My spouse and I” are the ultimate authority, not the government. But then they declare that “If you break the law you pay the penalty”. But who makes the laws? The government, of course. So how can rational people not see a contrast between these “principles”?
“Justice is blind and no one is above it” is a nice saying. But it ignores the fact that laws are not always just and forcing someone to “pay the penalty” doesn’t always result in “justice.” But I guess I’m getting too complicated for the simple-minded folks who would buy into this stuff.
These “principles” can best be summed up as defensive, angry outbursts motivated by selfishness, greed and a deep distrust and dislike for one’s fellow Americans.

My Vacation

Just spent the last four days in Dubuque, Iowa....


It was beautiful, but it was also cold. It was 17 degrees when we got there.

We stayed at the Grand Harbor Resort Hotel....


Our room had a great view of the Mississippi River. I had never seen a river freeze before.


We took the kids to the indoor water park at the hotel....


It was warmer than I expected and great for our kids because most of the water was shallow.

We went to the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium....


Kept the kids entertained for most of one day and I learned a lot about the Mississippi River.

They call Dubuque the Land Where Eagles Soar...


They're not kidding. We saw several flying around our hotel while we were their.

TPA Roundup 3-16

It's the first of another week, so that must mean it's time to take a look at some of the best posts from last week by members of the Texas Progressive Alliance. Here are the submissions:

Vince of Capitol Annex took a new look at the latest creationist attack on science in Texas classrooms in Bill Would Make "Strengths and Weaknesses" Teaching Of Evolution State Law.

Bay Area Houston says State Representative Wayne Christian has filed a bill that would scare Texas citizens from filing ethics complaints against elected officials.

Off the Kuff takes a look at who would be affected by the voter ID legislation that is being pushed in the Lege by Republicans.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the turmoil facing some inside Texas GOP regarding Gov. Perry's decision to turn down$555 million dollars of unemployment insurance from the stimulus money, UI debate must be maddening for the GOP supporters of Hutchison.

Neil at Texas Liberal reads Malcolm X in a cemetery and says that Rick Perry has found his schoolhouse door to stand in and block.

The Texas Cloverleaf expands upon Capitol Annex's look at Garnet Coleman's proposed repeal of the anti-gay marriage amendment in Texas.

BossKitty at TruthHugger truly believes there is profit for everyone when wasteful and costly opposition to Medical Marijuana is brought in to the economy instead of keeping it out. The War on "Illegal Activities" should focus on smuggling Heroin and Human Trafficking. Can Marijuana Rescue The Economy In 2010 Like Booze Did In 1933

At Texas Kaos, Lightseeker highlights the Texas Shakedown for those who make the mistake of driving in Tenaha, Texas while not white.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme notes thuggery isn't the first choice for governing Democrats addressing drug cartel violence. Analysis and coordinated effort is.

Governor "Good Hair, Bad Policy" Perry starts his primary campaign against Hutchinson by piling on the unemployed. Libby Shaw over at TexasKaos has the details and the outrage.Pendejos Perry Says YES to Roads, NO to the Jobless

Mayor McSleaze of McBlogger returns from his holiday to post his thoughts on developments in the Wall Street infotainment industry.

nytexan at BlueBloggin is disgusted, but not surprised, by the new Republican strategy; >GOP: Divide and Conquer The Democrats, Then Do Nothing For The Country. As tent cities pop up in Sacramento, unemployment is at 10% in may states and the Wall Street continues a downward slide; the GOP response, to the past 8 year Bush disaster, is to lower approval numbers for Pelosi and House Democrats.

WhosPlayin is focused on local races for Mayor and City Council in Lewisville. This week he interviewed Shelley Kaehr and David Thornhill, who are running for Place 2.

There was harmonic convergence in the left and right Texblogosphere last week. See PDiddie's Brains and Eggs for what happened.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men takes down the right-wing handwringing and disingenuous criticism over Obama's stem cell decision.

Gone Fishin'

I will be on vacation the rest of the week and most likely will have no access to a computer.

Golden Era of Capitalism

This graph from John Cole shows very clearly how insane the conservatives are who claim that Obama's meager tax increase on the very wealthy is going to drive us to socialism.
The period between WWII and about 1973 was known as the Golden Era of Capitalism. At no time during that period was the top tax rate lower than 70 percent. And yet, the economy grew like gangbusters and we became the most powerful nation on the planet. Amazing, isn't it.

Who snubbed who?

The British press is whining about a percieved snub of Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his first visit to the White House since Barack Obama was inaugurated.
They are making a particular fuss about the gifts that were exchanged between the two leaders:

After Brown presented Obama with a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office's desk), Obama offered up ... 25 DVDs of American movie classics.

Twenty-five DVDs specially selected by the American Film Institute, no doubt in the latest high-definition Blue Ray format with all the extra features and commentaries one would expect from such a collection.... That sounds like a terrific gift to me!
Here are the selected films:

Citizen Kane
The Godfather
Casablanca
Raging Bull
Singin' In the Rain
Gone With the Wind
Lawrence of Arabia
Schindler's List
Vertigo
Wizard of Oz
City Lights
The Searchers
Star Wars
Psycho
2001: A Space Odyssey
Sunset Boulevard
The Graduate
The General
On the Waterfront
It's A Wonderful Life
Chinatown
Some Like It Hot
The Grapes of Wrath
ET: The Extra Terrestrial
To Kill a Mockingbird

Wow! I would love to have a collection like that. And the Brits are turning their noses up to it?
Sure, the pen holder is a nice gift because of the historic nature of the wood it was carved out of, but there is no question which gift I would choose if I had a choice.
Obama has already expressed his delight and appreciation for the pen holder. And all the Brits have done is whine about the specially prepared movie collection. So who is insulting who here?

Also, the British press has also made a fuss because Obama replaced a bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office with one of President Lincoln. Mind telling me which American president has their bust on prominent display at 10 Downing Street?

Deja vu again

No time for blogging today, so here is a great post by Steve Benen at Political Animal:

IT'S LIKE DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN.... I'd mentioned earlier that Ronald Reagan raised taxes, repeatedly, as part of his economic agenda. Bruce Bartlett recently took a closer look at those policies, and what the president's conservative allies were saying about the increases at the time.

According to a recent Treasury Department study, Ronald Reagan proposed the largest peacetime tax increase in American history as part of a budget deal to get the federal deficit under control. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) of 1982 was signed into law on Sept. 3, and most of its provisions took effect on Jan. 1, 1983.

During debate on TEFRA, many conservatives predicted economic disaster. They argued that raising taxes in the midst of a severe recession was exactly the wrong thing to do. "Every school child knows you don't raise taxes in a recession unless you want to make it worse," The Wall Street Journal's editorial page warned. Said Rep. Newt Gingrich, "I think it will make the economy sicker." The Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. said it had "no doubt that it will curb the economic recovery everyone wants."

Looking at the data, however, it is very hard to see any evidence that TEFRA had a negative effect on growth. Indeed, one could easily make a case that its enactment stimulated growth.

It's a reminder of just how wrong the exact same cast of characters has been for quite a long while. When Reagan raised taxes, Gingrich, the WSJ editorial page, and conservative activists thought it would produce awful results. It didn't. When Clinton raised taxes, the same motley crew raised the same dire warnings about recessions and unemployment. They were wrong again. When Bush cut taxes, these same observers predicted robust economic growth and balanced budgets for years to come. That ... how do I put this gently ... didn't quite work out.

And now, here we are again, with Obama presenting an ambitious economic plan, some of which includes targeted tax increases. And wouldn't you know it, Gingrich, the WSJ editorial page, conservative activists everywhere, and a handful of useless Democrats are complaining about the dire consequences of modest tax increases.

One would like to think that being wrong, over and over again, about the exact same issue, might lead some of these characters to back off. Likewise, one might also like to think that major news outlets, recognizing how wrong these folks have been for the last few decades, might stop taking their prognostications seriously. Alas, this is not the case.

Bartlett concluded, "[W]hen Republicans claim that higher taxes will destroy the economy, they should be reminded that they made the same argument in 1982 and 1993 and that the actual economic results were the opposite of what they predicted. And when they denounce Obama's health plan for expanding the size of government, they should be asked how they voted on the Medicare bill in 2003."

On Faith

Mark raised an interesting topic in the comments section with his objection to Christian author and Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan...

I saw you own a book by John Dominic Crossan. No wonder your personal expressions of Christianity are so incoherent and delusional! Do you, as does Crossan, believe that Jesus was not bodily resurrected, but that his dead body was scattered by foraging wolves?

To which I caddishly responded:

I do find Crossan’s works interesting and worth reading. Is your faith so weak that it requires proof of a physical resurrection to maintain?

Only to have Mark shoot back...

You have it backward. The weak in faith is Crossan, who, because he can find no physical “proof” of the resurrection, resorts to baseless speculation about wild dogs dragging the body away.

So I think this exchange raises an interesting question about faith and Christianity. What does it mean to have “faith” in Christianity? Must one accept without question all of the Biblical stories of miracles and resurrections to be a faithful Christian? Or is it more important that one embraces the actual teachings of Christ and apply them to ones own life.
I have said before that I know several professed atheists who are better “Christians” in my opinion than many Christians I know. Why is it that most churches and most religious leaders seem to emphasize the miracles more than the teachings of Christ? Is it so hard to believe that God might have sent his son down to Earth to live as a real human? Why is it so important that he had to be some kind of super being who could walk on water, turn water into wine, cast out demons and raise the dead?
If Jesus were to come back today, how many people would insist that he perform a miracle before they would follow him?
I’m not saying that Jesus did not do these things. If he did, then that is great. I don’t have a problem with it. What I am saying is that my faith does not hinge on this belief. If someone could, for example, prove beyond a doubt that Jesus didn’t walk on water and that it was really just a Biblical metaphor, my faith in Jesus would not be shattered. But for many other professed Christians I can’t say that would be the case. That is why I say that they are weak in their faith.
Is it not enough that Jesus taught us how to love one another, how to live in peace and to care for those less fortunate than ourselves? Is that not enough to base our faith on? Would enough people not worship Jesus unless they also thought of him as some kind of avenging superbeing ready to swoop down and defend the righteous and punish the wicked?
Jesus was a teacher first and foremost. The church was set up to pass on that teaching. But along the way I think the teachings of Christ have been overshadowed and supplanted by all of this dogma about miracles. I think it is fine for one to say that Jesus died for our sins. But I think it is more important to learn what it was Jesus was here on Earth to teach us about and to apply that teaching to our everyday lives.

That's DemocratIC Party to you, moron!

More of this, please!
Rep. Kaptur scolds GOP: ‘Democrat Party’ doesn’t exist.



It's about time! I've complained about this for a long, long time. This rude behavior on the part of Republicans dates back at least to the Newt Gingrich era and the media, rather than correcting their intentional mistake, has more often than not repeated it in newscasts.

Inalienable right to redundancy and misattribution

Idiot Rush Limbaugh, the de facto leader of today’s Republican Party, gave a speech at the CPAC conference in which he butchered Thomas Jefferson’s famous Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness phrase and misattributed it to the preamble of the Constitution rather than to the Declaration of Independence.
Here is what Limbaugh said:

We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness.

Jefferson didn’t include “freedom” in the list because it is considered synonymous to “liberty.”
This is the kind of stupid mistake that Limbaugh would endlessly mock on his radio show if it was made by a liberal politician.

TPA Roundup 3-1

It's the first of another week, and that means it's time to look at some of the best posts by TPA members in the last week. Here are this week's submissions:

McBlogger takes a look at possibilities for 2010.

Bay Area Houston is following a bill to abolish the Texas Residential Construction Commission.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is sad to see that some things have not changed in the minds of the loosers - CPAC Fans Fuse of Hatred - Seeks Civil War

jobsanger discussed a couple of Supreme Court cases. The first case discussed in A Good Supreme Court Decision denied anyone convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse the right to own a gun, and the second case discussed in The Right To Know The Penalties, which will be heard this Fall, will settle the matter of whether an immigrant defendant has a right to be informed of all penalties that could be imposed in his case -- including deportation.

Off the Kuff takes a look at the push for expanded gambling in the Lege this session.

Can you read this resolution, posted on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS and find any good reason why Big Oil should get to keep the hydraulic fracturing exemption from our Safe Drinking Water Act? Yeah, TXsharon didn't find one either.

nytexan at >BlueBloggin comments on the >Hypocritical GOP Fiscally Responsible and with no surprise, the world of the GOP is definitely a parallax view.

The Texas Cloverleaf reviews the TX Stonewall biennial conference in Austin, and notes who was or wasn't there, among elected officials and hopefuls.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the economic changes that are starting to show up locally in The state of the economy in Williamson County.

Neil at Texas Liberal states his intent to make videos for the blog in Big Texas Liberal Blogging Announcement and Innovation. Also, Neil discusses if Ice Age beasts in Massive Fossil Find-Should Ice Age Creatures Be Brought Back From The Dead?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is hopeful that the adults will address the drug cartel violence and figure out how to end the war - the drug war that is.

Rhetoric & Rhythm laments the fact that George W. Bush has become a scapegoat for the conservative movement. Bush did everything they wanted. It's not HIS fault that their ideas don't work.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men, on the mixed bag that is the Obama administration's decision to try captured terrorist suspect al-Marri in the criminal justice system and what this might mean for the future of the "war on terror."

Do you know the real reason John Sharp and Bill White aren't running for governor? Because they're afraid they will get whipped by a girl, just like Rick Perry. So says PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Over at Texas Kaos the 2.7 trillion that Duyba forgot to mention as part of his deficit. As Libby tells it the bubble dwellers who should have been on top of this little detail weren't. "...The bubble dwellers don't know what is going on outside of their self-fixated bubble. Now I understand why President Obama leaves that nutty and toxic place when he wants to speak to real people..."

WhosPlayin has video and commentary on Lewisville's first Barnett Shale gas well.