Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Is David Paterson’s choice of Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Clinton in the U.S Senate a choice for inaction? Given Gillibrand’s enthusiasm for right wing legislation, we can only hope so.

You might think that, with strong Democratic control over Congress and a new Democratic President, Representative Gillibrand would have been enthusiastic to craft legislation in the 111th Congress. So far, however, Gillibrand has not introduced a single bill - not even one to rename a post office somewhere in her district.

Did Paterson want a do-nothing senator representing New York?

I am quite disgusted right now.

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.

“If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices,” said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Democrats had clung to the hope of only a partial repeal of the drilling moratorium, but the White House had promised a veto, Obey said.

The House is expected to act on the spending bill Wednesday. The Senate is likely to go along with the House.

“The White House has made it clear they will not accept anything with a drilling moratorium, and Democrats know we cannot afford to shut down the government over this,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “We look forward to working with the next president to hammer out a final resolution of this issue.”

While the House would lift the long-standing drilling moratoriums for both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, a drilling ban in waters within 125 miles of Florida’s western coast would remain in force under a law passed by Congress in 2006 that opened some new areas of the east-central Gulf to drilling.

Just last week, the House passed legislation to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore. It quickly became clear that measure would not get the 60 votes needed in the Senate.

Republicans called that effort a sham that would have left almost 90 percent of offshore reserves effectively off-limits.

The Interior Department estimates there are 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil beneath the Outer Continental Shelf, about half of it off California.

While the ban on energy development will be lifted if the Senate goes along with the House action, it doesn’t mean any federal sale of oil and gas leases in the offshore waters — much less actual drilling — would be imminent.

The Interior Department’s current five-year leasing plan includes potential leases off the Virginia coast but probably would not be pursued unless the state agrees to energy development. And the state is unlikely to do so without Congress agreeing to share federal royalties with the state.

The congressional battle over offshore drilling is far from over. Democrats are expected to press for broader energy legislation, probably next year, that would put limits on any drilling off most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Republicans, meanwhile, are likely to fight any resumption of the drilling bans that have been in place since 1981.

John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has promised to make offshore oil drilling a priority if elected president. He has called for developing the oil and gas resources along all of Outer Continental Shelf and for the federal government to share royalties with states who go along with drilling.

Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has said he would support limited drilling in certain areas — possibly the South Atlantic region — if it is part of a broader energy plan to shift the U.S. away from oil to alternative fuels and more energy efficiency.

The debate over offshore drilling is not expected to subside in the first months of the next presidency — no matter who sits in the White House.

Lifting the drilling ban gives considerable momentum to the underlying bill, which includes the Pentagon budget, $24 billion in aid for flood and hurricane victims and $25 billion in loans for Detroit automakers in addition to keeping the government open past the Oct. 1 start of the 2009 budget year.

But Democrats decided not to use the must-pass measure as a battering ram to carry an extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless past White House veto promises, prompting grumbling among some lawmakers. Efforts to boost food stamps and give states billions of dollars to help with Medicaid bills also fell through.

But the measure would double, to $5.2 billion, funding for heating subsidies for the poor, Obey said.

The measure also would provide more than $600 billion to fund the 2009 budgets for the Pentagon, Homeland Security Department and the Veterans Affairs Department. Nine other spending bills for the 2009 budget year starting Oct. 1 remain unfinished.

Bush had threatened to veto bills that don’t cut the number and cost of pet projects known as “earmarks” sought by lawmakers in half from current levels or cause agency operating budgets, taken together, to exceed his request. Obey said, however, the White House would reluctantly sign the measure.

Democrats have shown themselves to have all the spine of a wet noodle. They’ve got control of Congress and yet they’re still letting Republicans have their way? They’re letting the ban on offshore drilling expire even though we know that all the drilling in the world will do next to nothing to help?

Can we fire all these bastards? Something is very, very wrong when you’ve got one party that’s as red as a stoplight and the only alternative to that way of thinking has turned a pretty dark shade of pink.

With all the talk about Sarah Palin and her latest question-evasions, I thought the economy has been getting less than it’s needed share of coverage. After all, just a couple of days ago the stock market was in a crisis, the DOW dropped around 400 points in a day, AIG pretty much went bankrupt, and gold set a record for most gain in a single day by ground from around $740 bucks a troy ounce to $860 a troy ounce.

More Americans are focusing on the economy, a place where John McCain has admitted he sucks at and Sarah Palin has established herself to be incapable of balancing a budget.

So for this crisis, what is Bush’s solution? Set aside 700 billion dollars to buy shit assets without a plan to have that money paid back.

Here, I’ll let you read for yourself.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writers 33 minutes ago

The Bush administration asked Congress on Saturday for the power to buy $700 billion in toxic assets clogging the financial system and threatening the economy as negotiations began on the largest bailout since the Great Depression.

The rescue plan would give Washington broad authority to purchase bad mortgage-related assets from U.S. financial institutions for the next two years. It does not specify which institutions qualify or what, if anything, the government would get in return for the unprecedented infusion.

Democrats are pressing to require that the plan help more strapped borrowers stay in their homes and to condition the bailout on new limits on executive compensation.

Congressional aides and administration officials are working through the weekend to fill in the details of the proposal. The White House hoped for a deal with Congress by the time markets opened Monday; top lawmakers say they would push to enact the plan as early as the coming week.

“We’re going to work with Congress to get a bill done quickly,” President Bush said at the White House. Without discussing specifics, he said, “This is a big package because it was a big problem.”

The proposal is a mere three pages long, but it gives sweeping powers to the government to dispense gigantic sums of taxpayer dollars in a program that would be sheltered from court review.

“It’s a rather brief bill with a lot of money,” said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman. “We understand the importance of the anticipation in the markets, but we also know that what we’re doing is going to have consequences for decades to come. There’s not a second act to this — we’ve got to get this right.”

Lawmakers digesting the eye-popping cost and searching for specifics voiced concerns that the proposal offers no help for struggling homeowners or safeguards for taxpayers’ money.

The government must bail out the financial system “because if we don’t, it will have a tremendous impact on American consumers, homeowners, taxpayers and the rest,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in San Francisco.

But, she added, “We cannot deal with this unless this bailout helps families stay in their homes.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. said “we cannot allow ourselves to be in denial about the threat now facing the world economy. From all indications, that threat is real, and the consequences of inaction could be catastrophic. Every single American has a stake in preventing a global financial meltdown.”

The proposal would raise the statutory limit on the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion to make room for the massive rescue.

“The American people are furious that we’re in this situation, and so am I,” the House’s top Republican, Ohio Rep. John A. Boehner, said in a statement. “We need to do everything possible to protect the taxpayers from the consequences of a broken Washington.”

Signaling what could erupt into a brutal fight with Democrats over add-on spending, Boehner said “efforts to exploit this crisis for political leverage or partisan quid pro quo will only delay the economic stability that families, seniors, and small businesses deserve.”

Bush said he worried the financial troubles “could ripple throughout” the economy and affect average citizens. “The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package. … Over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.”

He added, “People are beginning to doubt our system, people were losing confidence and I understand it’s important to have confidence in our financial system.”

Neither presidential candidate took a position on the proposal. GOP nominee John McCain said he was awaiting specifics and any changes by Congress.

Democratic rival Barack Obama used the party’s weekly radio address to call for help for Main Street as well as Wall Street.

Their language reflected a tricky balance that politicians in both parties are trying to strike, just six weeks before Election Day: Back a plan that doles out hundreds of billions to companies that made bad bets and still identify with the plight of middle-class voters.

Besides mortgage help and executive compensation limits, Democrats are considering attaching middle-class assistance to the legislation despite a request from Bush to avoid adding items that could delay action. An expansion of jobless benefits was one possibility.

Bush sidestepped questions about the chances of adding such items, saying that now was not the time for posturing. “I think most leaders would understand we need to get this done quickly, and you know, the cleaner the better,” he said about legislation being drafted.

Treasury officials met congressional staff for about two hours on Capitol Hill on Saturday. Discussions centered on how the plan would work, and Democrats proposed adding the executive compensation limits and new foreclosure-prevention measures. Details of those changes were not available Saturday, as staff aides worked to draft them. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conferred by phone for about 20 minutes in the afternoon, gauging how the negotiations were unfolding.

Among the key issues up for negotiation is which financial institutions would be eligible for the help. The proposed legislation doesn’t make it clear, leaving open the question of whether hedge funds or pension funds could qualify.

The proposal does not require that the government receive anything from banks in return for unloading their bad assets. But it would allow the Treasury Department to designate financial institutions as “agents of the government,” and mandate that they perform any “reasonable duties” that might entail.

The government could contract with private companies to manage the assets it purchased under the rescue.

Paulson says the government would in essence set up reverse auctions, putting up money for a class of distressed assets — such as loans that are delinquent but not in default — and financial institutions would compete for how little they would accept.

I understand the need for quick action in a case like this, but trying to rush through a bill of 700 BILLION dollars with only two days of debate and thus far no assurances that John Q is gonna be able to keep a roof over his head and little or no stipulations as to getting the money back aside from Bush’s word that “we’ll get a lot of it back over time”? Yeah, considering his track record I’m less than reassured.

Actually, I’m horrified.

Oh, I just loved the part about the national debt. From $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion if the bill passes. Whoopie.

In other news; 40 people in a Pakistan hotel were killed by a suicide bomber.

“We have attempted diplomacy without effect. We have attempted economic sanctions to no effect. Regrettably, my colleagues and I have concluded the President needs the authorization to use force to protect our country from this sort of eventuality.” - Evan Bayh, October 8, 2002.

The statement above was given by Evan Bayh on the floor of the Senate as a justification for rushing into war against Iraq. In this statement, Senator Bayh states that diplomatic and economic efforts to eliminate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had not worked, and so, war was absolutely necessary.

Those with a little memory will remember that, actually, Evan Bayh was quite wrong. Back in 2002, when Evan Bayh gave his speech, Iraq didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction to eliminate.

Why didn’t Iraq have any weapons of mass destruction any more? Because diplomacy and economic sanctions had worked. Diplomatic reality was, in fact, the direct opposite of what Evan Bayh thought it was.

This incident exposed Evan Bayh as a shockingly unprepared diplomatic thinker. But, now many Democratic Party insiders are pushing to get Evan Bayh chosen to be the Vice President of the United States. Traditionally, one of the few important roles of a Vice President is international diplomacy.

Evan Bayh just isn’t qualified to be Vice President. As his ignorant claims surrounding the invasion of Iraq prove, Evan Bayh lacks the diplomatic skills necessary in a good Vice President.

The name Democratic Underground is a great idea. If only the DemocraticUnderground.com web site would follow through with the underground approach that its name suggests.

The people over there pretend to have a lot of guts. They dish out the abuse when it comes to attacking George W. Bush. One person there blasted Bush’s decision to ignore Cindy Sheehan, saying of Bush, “He didn’t have the balls to even talk to Cindy Sheehan!”

Ooh, but what does the Democratic Underground do when the Democrats start to support George W. Bush? What happens when it’s Nancy Pelosi who refuses to debate Cindy Sheehan?

Well, then the Democratic Underground just whistles and looks the other way, pretending there isn’t a problem. Or, worse, they censor dissent, kicking people off their web site for daring to criticize Nancy Pelosi and praise Cindy Sheehan.

That’s what they did to the following video: They banned it from being shown on DemocraticUnderground.com. Open discussion of politics isn’t allowed there. It’s just a place for Democratic dittoheads to parrot the party line. How pathetic.

Democratic Underground? Please! They’re more like Democratic Overground.

Earlier this year Barack Obama accused John McCain of have a “sudden 2008 urge to drill for offshore oil”. Barack Obama’s campaign called offshore drilling “a distracting idea which won’t reduce gas prices but will boost oil company profits.”

So, why is it that, as of August 1, 2008, Barack Obama is supporting John McCain’s “distracting idea” to boost oil company profits without benefitting the American people? Why is it that Barack Obama has joined George W. Bush’s crew to push for offshore drilling?

Wasn’t Barack Obama supposed to bring an end to the politics of greed and the power of lobbyists? Why is Obama now doing their bidding?

Why is Obama siding with the Republicans against progressive Democrats, in favor of offshore drilling?

Source: New Energy for America (http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy) - August 2, 2008

First thing I see when Yahoo pops on is this little gem of a story.

Bush to lift executive ban on offshore drilling

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago

In another push to deal with soaring gas prices, President Bush on Monday will lift an executive ban on offshore drilling that his stood since his father was president. But the move, by itself, will do nothing unless Congress acts as well.

The president plans to officially lift the ban and then explain his actions in a Rose Garden statement, White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

There are two prohibitions on offshore drilling, one imposed by Congress and another by executive order signed by former President Bush in 1990. The current president, trying to ease market tensions and boost supply, called last month for Congress to lift its prohibition before he did so himself.

But Perino said Bush no longer wants to wait. She pinned blame on the leaders of the Democratic Congress, noting that no action has been taken on this issue.

“They haven’t even held a single hearing,” Perino said. “So we are going to move forward, and hopefully that will spur action by the Congress.”

Asked if Bush’s action alone will lead to more oil drilling, Perino said, “In terms of allowing more exploration to go forward? No, it does not.”

The president, in his final months of office, has responded to record gas-prices with a series of proposals, including more oil exploration. None would have immediate impact on prices at the pump, according to White House officials, who say there is no quick fix. But starting action now would help, they say.

Bush’s proposal echoes a call by Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, to open the Continental Shelf for exploration. Democrat Barack Obama has opposed the idea and instead argued for helping consumers with a second economic stimulus package including energy rebates, as well as stepped up efforts to develop alternative fuels and more fuel-efficient automobiles.

“If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks,” spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. “But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for thirty years.”

Congressional Democrats have rejected the push to lift the drilling moratorium, accusing the president of hoping the U.S. can drill its way out a problem.

Bush says offshore drilling could yield up to 18 billion barrels of oil over time, although it would take years for production to start. Bush also says offshore drilling would take pressure off prices over time. In addition, the president has proposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, lifting restrictions on oil shale leasing in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and easing the regulatory process to expand oil refining capacity.

Congressional Democrats, joined by some GOP lawmakers from coastal states, have opposed lifting the prohibition that has barred energy companies from waters along both the East and West coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. A succession of presidents, from Bush’s father — George H.W. Bush — to Bill Clinton, have sided against drilling in these waters, as has Congress each year for 27 years. Their goal has to been to protect beaches and coastal states’ tourism economies.

Surprise, surprise, an oil barron is gonna lift a ban on offshore drilling and then lay the blame on the Democrats.

“I didn’t wanna do it, they MADE ME do it!” Schoolyard reasoning from our Commander in Theif.

And Obama wants another round of checks? A wonderfully bad idea, if you ask me. Throw money at the problem and see it go straight into the oil companies’ pockets rather than actually providing a meaningful solution to the problem.

Something simple occurred to me this morning: I don’t see any evidence that Barack Obama has gained any voter support as a result of his decision to vote for the rotten FISA Amendments Act.

I’ve been online a lot, looking at what people have to say. I’ve seen a whole lot of Democrats saying that they’re withdrawing support from Barack Obama. I’ve seen some Democrats say that they’re angry, but that they can’t bring themselves to not vote for Obama. I’ve even seen a few ignorant voters say that they don’t understand what the big deal about the FISA Amendments Act is.

You know what I haven’t seen? I haven’t seen any Republicans or independent voters say that they were going to vote for John McCain, but now, because of the FISA Amendments Act, they’re going to vote for Barack Obama. I haven’t seen one single comment like that.

It seems that Obama has abandoned his principles, broken his promise, betrayed the Constitution, and lost a lot of Democratic supporters - all without making so-called “swing voters” like him any more than they did before.

Stupid move, Barack.

Barack Obama wants my money. He’s got people emailing me left and right, telling me I ought to take my hard earned paycheck and give it to the Obama for President campaign.

Why? Why should I help Barack Obama?

Barack Obama isn’t helping me.

Why should I lift a finger to help elect Barack Obama when he is betraying everything I believe in?

Barack Obama is selling out the Constitution to do a big favor for George W. Bush and powerful telecommunications corporations. Obama will help out the powerful, but will he protect me from the prying eyes of the government? Heck no. I’m only worth one paycheck’s worth of a donation.

Now Obama is saying that he’s going to expand George W. Bush’s unconstitutional mixing of church and state - the “faith-based” initiative slush fund.

Hey, Obama, leave unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, get it?

I don’t trust Obama any more. Obama has lost my vote.

Oh, but I guess some evangelical telecom CEO is going to take my place in the pro-Obama ranks, huh? I judge you by the company you keep, Barack, and that company is looking more and more slimy.

Everybody is pouring love on Barack Obama now, like sugar on breakfast cereal. They’re talking about what might have been with Hillary Clinton. But what about the other ex-presidential candidates?

Where are they now?

Here’s what Dennis Kucinich has been up to this evening: He brought H. Res. 127: recognizing and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the entry of Alaska in the Union as the 49th State to the floor of the House of Representatives.

By gum, the resolution passed. Kucinich worked hard to defeat the powerful anti-Alaska lobby in Congress. That’s the kind of achievement that is not soon forgotten.

Just imagine what might have happened if Kucinich had been made the Democratic nominee. Why, Congress might have recognized Alaska and Hawaii in his honor.

My wife says that Randi Rhodes says that the Washington Post says that some anonymous insiders in the Clinton and Obama campaigns say that there are secret meetings to figure out how to introduce Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate!

Yeah, or maybe not. Notice how this story line sounds an awful lot like that of the urban legends, in which someone’s cousin knows someone who knows someone…

The Hillary Clinton campaign is kicking its public relations efforts into high gear, desperately trying to manipulate the media to buying into their hype about Hillary Clinton being chosen as VP by Obama. After all, it’s Clinton’s last chance to get her White House back.

The truth is obvious - there is no way that Barack Obama could have Hillary Clinton as a Vice Presidential running mate. She has become poison to both Democrats and Republicans. She would only drag Obama down.

That, and there’s no way that Barack Obama could ever trust Hillary Clinton, or her loose lips husband. He could not operate effectively as President with those two trying to mess him up at every step.

The Hillary Clinton for VP talk is just desperate talk from Washington D.C. insiders who once thought that their power was inevitable, and now find themselves on the outside, just like everyone else.

There is no story.

Babe, either you go quietly or we send in the Flying Monkeys.

I am now officially admitting that I am politically depressed.

I think I’ve been politically depressed for several weeks now, but I haven’t allowed myself to acknowledge that depression. The news today puts me over the edge, way past deniability.

Hillary Clinton is releasing advertisements on television that strongly imply that if Barack Obama becomes President, we may likely be attacked by Osama Bin Laden, and Barack Obama won’t be able to handle it. It’s an absurd attack, that preys on the fears of American voters.

The sad thing is that, like the Clinton 3:00 AM telephone call, it works. Voters buy the message. They’re willing to sell their hopes out for the sake of fear. Clinton’s consultants know this, and they’re going whole hog because, above all else, they want to win, win, win.

A few voters get it. They see how despicable this line of attack is. The rest don’t care. They really believe it. It’s these voters, and not even the Hillary Clinton campaign, who depress me.

It depresses me to live in a nation where people are too cowardly to live in freedom, and too lazy to get involved in their own government, and too stupid to tell the difference between a scare tactic and “experience”.

I’m not writing this to try to score points for Barack Obama above Hillary Clinton, and try to affect any election. You know why? I’ve finally realized that I am too little and too powerless to have any affect. In a nation of 300 million people who care more about whether Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake have really finally broken up than they do about the Bill of Rights, I’m not going to be heard. I’m not going to make a difference.

If I try, I’m going to fail.

I’m going to keep on trying, just because it’s a damn old habit that I don’t think I can shake. Nonetheless, I no longer have any expectations of success. My voice won’t be heard. Things won’t get better. America is on the way out, and the American government is just going to get uglier and uglier.

Tonight, Pennsylvanians are going to reward Hillary Clinton for her scare tactics. Hillary Clinton will stay in the race, gleefully running around cheering “I won! I won!”

And then we’ll go on to Guam… and Indiana… and Nebraska… and the next state… and all the way to the end… and Hillary Clinton’s tactics of never asking the American people to think big or step out on a limb will be vindicated.

It will be a stalemate, and although Barack Obama will have won the majority of primaries, and have gotten the majority of primary-elected delegates, Hillary Clinton will be made the Democratic nominee, just because she has more powerful people who owe her favors.

We’ll slump on toward Election Day, and maybe Hillary Clinton will win and maybe John McCain will win, but most Americans won’t really care. They’ll just want to make sure that the election coverage on TV doesn’t interfere with their favorite weekly TV show.

I’ll still care, but I don’t expect that this year’s election will change anything. Clinton won’t bring soldiers home from Iraq, and she won’t close Guantanamo, and she won’t have the Patriot Act repealed, and her health care plans will be forgotten within a year, and we’ll continue to watch America slouching into the margins as Bill Clinton has one last fling at sexual independence with some middle-aged barmaid he meets on the outskirts of Peoria.

We had a chance to do something better with this country, but people just don’t give a damn. Damn it all to hell.

Yesterday morning, Senator Joseph Biden was all full of bluster. “You can’t tell me this race is over,”, he said.

Um, yes I can. Senator Biden, your race is over.

Maybe if you had spent less time talking about what a great guy you are, you could have lasted until New Hampshire. Then again, you were relatively clean and articulate… though not as much as Barack Obama.

It looks like Hillary Clinton is going to come in third in the Iowa caucuses - a humiliation, given that she was, just a month or so ago, described as the “inevitable” Democratic candidate. Furthermore, she’s not even close to Barack Obama - more than eight percentage points behind.

Heads are going to roll in the Clinton for President campaign. Don’t expect Hillary Clinton to give up yet, but DO expect some of her staff to get canned.

And Bill Clinton? What is Bill Clinton going to be doing tonight?

“Honey, I’ve got to go fill up the car with gasoline, before the hundred dollar a barrel oil drives the price above four dollars per gallon. I’ll be back soon… in March or so. Save me a Snickers Bar.”

A new report out by the Democratic congressional joint economic committee says that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could end up costing America 3.5 trillion dollars, not 2.4 trillion dollars as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says.

You know what my reaction to that is? So what?

It has to do with the psychology of numbers. People regard their burdens in terms of relative, not absolute, scales. When the country is in debt 2.4 trillion dollars, what’s another 1.1 trillion dollars to add on?

Peregrin Wood tries to put these trillions of dollars into perspective by breaking them down into gumballs. That helps, but there’s only so far that the mind can stretch. What’s the difference in a line of gumballs stretching to the sun and back eight times and a line of gumballs stretching to the sun and back twelve times?

Who in their right mind would not be bothered by the loss of 2.4 trillion dollars, but then when 3.5 trillion dollars is lost, freak out? No one. If 3.5 trillion dollars is bad, then 2.4 trillion dollars is bad too. If 2.4 trillion dollars of burden won’t bother you, 20 trillion won’t either.

This game the congressional Democrats are playing, of saying, “No no, it’s 3.5 not 2.4″ shows a profound deficit of understanding of effective communication.

New York’s senior US Senator, Charles Schumer, just lost my vote. He is supporting the nomination of Michael Mukasey to become Attorney General of the United States, even though Mukasey flatly refused to tell the U.S. Senate whether he will regard waterboarding is a form of torture.

The problems are twofold:

1. Michael Mukasey directly insulted the right of the Senate to practice oversight and to be anything but a rubber stamp in the confirmation process
2. Michael Mukasey has implicitly endorsed a form of torture. That’s illegal. The new Attorney General of the United States is going to be endorsing, if not directing, criminal behavior on the part of the government.

Thanks to Charles Schumer, this will pass. Senator Schumer makes a weak Senate the new status quo.

This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It started with Chuck Schumer’s decision to help George W. Bush start a war in Iraq, and goes downhill to this point.

Senator Chuck Schumer is now on the record as supporting torture.

Thanks for nothing, Senator Schumer.

I will support any progressive who runs for Senate in 2010. I will not support Chuck Schumer. He does not represent the values of New York State.

Why be in denial? People who believe in a cause believe in it, act on that belief and the belief can be inferred from their actions.

It should be obvious to everyone, after today, as it has been obvious to many of us since the initial vote on the war, nearly five years ago now, that the Democrats always have favored the war, and there has never been any fundamental change in their attitude.

The vote in February to fund the war, and the current vote, speak louder than words.

Senate approves $150B in war funding

By ANNE FLAHERTY

Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats on Monday helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

RED DAVE

The worthlessness that is the Democratic Party was exhibited in clear view today.

Congress passed a resolution 341-79, condemning MoveOn for placing an advertisement in a newspaper.

Last time I checked, there was still freedom of speech. Last time I checked, there was still freedom of the press.

Last time I checked, the Constitution still forbids spying against American citizens without a search warrant, and torturing prisoners, and imprisoning people without a fair and speedy trial.

So, is this what the Democratic majority of Congress has delivered us? Condemnation of MoveOn for its legal activities, but nothing to stop George W. Bush - not even a censure resolution?

Why the hell should I ever vote for a Democrat ever again? They’re spineless wimps.

Oh, but I suppose I don’t count. I suppose I’m just one of those on the liberal fringe that believes that nobody is above the law. I guess that makes me a kooky radical these days.

HRC = Hillary Rodham Clinton
HRC = Human Rights Campaign

Traitor!

That’s all I have to say after reading this news on DemocraHATEic presidential candidate Bill Richardson:

At one point, asked a question about his heritage, Richardson offered to answer the question in either English or Spanish — then burst into French.

French! What gall! Everybody knows that Christopher Columbus, and Ponce De Leon, and Leif Ericson, and all the other first settlers of America, spoke ENGLISH! Leon, Christopher, and Eric are all English names (OK, Leif, he was a hippy. His sister was named Ivy.). Now we know what he’ll do the next time some Islamofascist terrorist comes along! Richardson will give him a pat on the head, and a welfare check, and a BAGUETTE! With QUESO on it!

Traitor!

Liberals never can understand the value of hard day’s work. They’re just lazy effette professors who want to keep their fingernails clean.

How do I know this? I read for myself, that’s how.

Liberals hate sweatshops. Everywhere they go, they call for no sweat in factories.

Really! They expect companies to employ people, but never ask the workers to break a sweat. Wimps!

I mean, if people don’t ever sweat in factories, then how will they ever lift big boxes? Will they have to have little boxes with doilies on them?

The socialist liberals with their Marxist love of the free market of laziness keep on demanding that companies like Hanes and The Gap hire only people who never break a sweat. No sweatshops! No sweatshops!

They also demand that no children be hired to make Americans good clothing with honest family values in them. Well, how are those kids ever going to learn the value of a good hard day of work unless we help them?

Do you know, I went to Bangladesh once, almost. I saw pictures of people in Bangladesh, anyway, and let me tell you that, although they’re all very poor, they’re also very happy. They love it. They wouldn’t trade their so-called lifestyle for our decadent society of mansions and jewelry and fancy cars and Hollywood liberals. No sir!

They want our money, which is why they’re happy to work for a nickel a day.

You know what burns me? The liberals insult those people. They call those people “exploited”, and try to take away their jobs by instituting some kind of minimum wage or something.

I am so sick of liberal wimps insulting workers that I’m going to go to Wal-Mart and go buy more shirts made in Indonesia, just to make them mad.

It’s a higher moral calling.

You know, I have just about had it up to here with my fellow conservative commentators in the media. Cal Thomas refers to Connecticut voters as Taliban Democrats for picking Ned Lamont and calls them religious zealots — as if there’s anything wrong with religious zealotry! Ho hum. Our Vice President Dick Cheney calls Lamont supporters “Al Qaeda types,” which is a nice sentiment, but the use of “type” makes it seem as if Lamont supporters were born that way, when it is clearly a lifestyle choice. John Gibson calls such voters “Khmer Rouge Democrats” and says they stack skulls up in piles. Now that’s warming up a bit, but we could do better than that, I think.

The h-e-double-toothpicks with moderate, easygoing epithets like these, I say! Literally! I suggest we go for the most realistic label we can find, the destination for the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Khmer Rouge: Beelzebub himself. These Democrats are “Beelzebub Democrats,” endorsing the Horned One in their voting behavior, casting America into a lake of eternal fiery torment, and dooming virtuous God-fearing Christians such as myself to a six year term of thoroughly undeserved annoyance on the evening newscast with that Frenchy LaMont. Beelzebub Democrats it is!

How I wish I could have written it myself:

After reading the bio on her strengths and weaknesses I came to the conclusion that she is the Antichrist. Opinions can never be libelous so don’t sue me.

Hillary is a foul-mouth, racist bitch. I’m well aware that I just contradicted myself by listing vulgarity as a negative quality then swearing myself, but it was done with ironic intent. Supposedly, as the article cites many creditable sources, Hillary’s “potty mouth” during Chelsea’s impressionable years, is the reason that Chelsea is so god-damn ugly.

I believe that one of the Antichrist’s powers is the ability to persuade and make delusional the masses. Hillary Clinton is doing that right now. I can’t believe that women respect and want to be this woman who obviously doesn’t put out enought to keep her man at home and then sticks with him when he cheats on her in front of the nation. Talk about a role model for our youth.

I mean, yeah! That’s Hillary Clinton’s man problem as a Democratic Party candidate: that (unlike we good-tempered holy folk) the fucking bitch can’t put out enough for her man, swears all the god-damn time, and turns her daughter into an ugly tramp whore sperm receptacle. I think that disqualifies her from the presidency! We need more family-respecting, clean-mouthed, moral politicians that reflect the loving Christian community. And I say, if Hillary Clinton won’t step down from the stage to let someone more morally upright take her place in the presidential contest, then FUCK HER, the potty-mouthed bitch!

In every home across America, New England scions are hanging their heads in shame. Ned Lamont is a communist surrender monkey class traitor! We promised him a place in the club, isn’t that good enough?

Not for Ned. Ned had to go and defeat the only good Democrat in America, Joe Lieberman. The Democrats in Connecticut wanted to keep Lieberman in office, but that wasn’t good enough for the liberals, who turned out to vote for Ned Lamont. It just lets you know how depraved the Democratic Party has become that the most Democrats just aren’t willing to pay attention to what the majority of Democrats want anymore.

Well, Joe Lieberman knows what being a good Democrat is all about, even if none of the Democratic voters are willing to admit it.

I don’t live in Connecticut, but Lieberman has my vote this fall.