Palin and Giffords ...

Right on!

What we have here is an attempted assassination of a politician by an insane crank at a political event, in a state where the political discourse has been an unrelenting howl of eliminationist rhetoric and characterization of anyone to the left of Genghis Khan as a traitor and enemy of the state…and now, when six (including a nine year old girl) lie dead and another fourteen are wounded, now suddenly we're concerned that it is rude and politicizing a tragedy to point out that the right wing has produced a toxic atmosphere that pollutes our politics with hatred and the rhetoric of violence?

Screw that. Now is the time to politicize the hell out of this situation. The people who are complaining are a mix of lefty marshmallows whose first reaction to the fulfillment of right-wing fantasies by a lunatic is to drop to their knees and beg forgiveness for thinking ill of people who paint bullseyes on their political opponents, and right wing cowards who are racing to their usual tactic of attacking their critics to shame them into silence. This is NOT the time to back down and suddenly find it embarrassing to point out that right-wing pundits make a living as professional goads to insanity.

Stop apologizing, backing down and going all wishy-washy every time the right wing corporate bozos start their demented war dance.

This is what it felt like in the 60's when a plane stopped in the USSR ...

... Many Americans may not perceive it, but much of the world, as a result of such actions, sees the U.S. not as "Leaders of the Free World" but one of the greatest threats to privacy and other core liberties. Watching people afraid to fly through the U.S. -- including its own citizens -- is just remarkable. And the spectacle of Homeland Security agents detaining whomever they want, and then unilaterally stealing their laptops and cellphones and keeping them and digging through them for as long as they want -- all without a warrant -- is a powerful sign of how far things have fallen.

I remember sitting practically holding my breath when a plane I was on made an unplanned stop in Russia. Now it's us in the role of the big bad bully. How proud-making!

Who's gonna pay? ...

Such a question:

Here's what this all comes down to, dogma or no dogma: who is going to pay for a) the Bush tax cuts b) the bank bailouts and c) the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? If you want to get there by making janitors and pipe-fitters wait until they're 69 to retire, raise your hand. If you want to get there by making Jamie Dimon rent out his 900-foot rooftop terrace in Chicago two nights a year, raise your hand. [via The Left Coaster]

Guess, as if it's not absolutely clear, who Obama wants to carry the load. The 'good' Christian that he is he even calls it a sacrifice. Yours, not his, of course.

Right, after all they only had two years ...

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal Could Become Victim of Senate Calendar

If they had four years do you think they would have done any better? I don't.

I, personally, don't think Obama ever intended to fight for anything that would show actual belief in even a few principles or would require sustained effort, determination and possibly some courage.

Two years seems long enough to 'hope' for something other than Obama's usual ineptitude and/or deceit.

All the authoritarians are piddling in their pants about WikiLeads ...

If any one event epitomizes what an ugly gangster-like bully the US has become it is the concerted and lawless threats to and actions taken against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

Some of the cowardly and shameful behaviour by those acting in the name of and for the US is listed the Glenn Greenwalds post: The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks

Still true ...

Closer to the Fall-of-Rome comparison that we'd like to think ...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Exactly ...

Please Mr. President, don't spew any more nonsense about principles and the rule of law, OK? You are enabling torture, and have fallen so far down the chasm from your campaign rhetoric, that you'll soon be bumping into your predecessor as you hit bottom.

When no one will listen, you try to make them hear you any way you can ...

Glenn Greenwald's writing is among the best of those who actually understand how the Democrats managed to shoot themselves in the foot (or was it the head).

from Lawrence O'Donnell vehemently denies his own word

People are suffering economically and Democrats have done little about that. Beyond that, they failed to inspire their own voters to go to the polls. Therefore, they lost. By basing their power in Congress on Blue Dog dependence -- rather than advocating for the views of their own supporters and implementing those policies -- they failed, and failed resoundingly. Building their party around a large number of muddled, GOP-replicating corporatists not only creates a tepid and failed political image, but far worse, it prevents actual policies from being implemented that benefit large number of ordinary Americans. Democrats repeatedly refrained from advocating for such policies in deference to their Blue Dogs, failed to do much to alleviate the economic suffering of ordinary Americans, and thus got crushed. Anyone who thinks that Democrats lost because they were "too liberal" -- rather than because Americans are suffering so much economically -- is wildly out of touch, i.e., is a multi-millionaire cable TV personality who has spent decades wallowing in trite D.C. chatter.

The Republicans have long lived by what they call "The Buckley Rule": always support the furthest Right candidate who can plausibly win. This year, knowing that it would be a wave election, one that would sweep in huge numbers of Republicans in districts where they ordinarily couldn't get elected, they changed that to: support the furthest Right candidate, period. That's because they believe conservatism will work and want to advocate for it. Democrats don't do that. The DCCC constantly works to prop up the most "centrist" or conservative candidates -- i.e., corporatists -- on the ground that it's always better, more politically astute, to move to the Right. Even in the pro-Democratic wave years of 2006 and 2008, the Democratic Party blocked actual progressives and ensured that Blue Dogs were nominated, even though the anti-GOP sentiment was so strong that any Democrat, including progressives, could have won even in red districts (as Alan Grayson proved).

With that strategy, the Democratic Party now reaps what it has sown. Its message and identity are profoundly muddled, incoherent, unclear, uninspiring, and self-negating. Worse, its policies are mishmashes of inept half-measures that, with a handful of exceptions, produce little good for anyone (other than Wall Street, the Pentagon and other corporate interests). They are perceived as -- and are -- beholden to Wall Street, special interests, and the corporations they vowed to confront. They are without any ability to confront the massive unemployment crisis and financial decline the country faces. And as a result of all of that, they lay in shambles. Anyone who can survey all of that and cheer for the strategy which Democrats have been pursuing -- let's build our majorities by relying on GOP-replicating corporatist Blue Dogs -- or who thinks that this election loss happened because "Democrats are too liberal," resides in a world that has very little to do with reality. And that's true no matter how many times they repeat the simplistic snippets of exit polls to which they've obsessively attached themselves.

Medicare Part D ... not that the T-bags will leave even this much for us in the future!

Decided I needed a new prescription plan. AARP's plan not only has continued to increase in price by leaps and bounds but they play games with liquid medications (such as eye drops) so that one pays for a full months prescription for what only lasts 25 days. Little things like that make them so endearing. I'm sure the T-bags just luv them. It's so free market.

... after all we're here for the rich to get richer off our labor ... no one even pretends anymore that society is a construct for mutual support, mutual survival and well being ...

Back to Medicare Part D and looking for a new Prescription Drug Plan. I visited the medicare.gov web site. Cumbersome but full of information.

Picked two plans to ask for information to be sent to me in the mail. First one was Humana Walmart-Preferred Rx Plan. Called a few days ago and asked for info over the phone but didn't give them my name. Today I called and asked them to send me information and they took name and address and said they would sent me info.

Humana was so straight forward (contact wise, not necessarily Drug Plan-wise) that I was lured into complacency.

Second call brought me up short. I called Advantage Star Plan by RxAmerica (1-800-429-6686). A 'sweet & kindly' male voice answers the phone and tells me I've made the right choice to call. I ignore being treated like a demented rabbit and ask that they send me information about their plan. He continues to speak softly to me and assures me that they would gladly send me the information and that he will just ask me a few questions. I say that I don't want any questions, just the information mailed to me. More soft talk about asking a few questions first. I say all you need is my name and address to send me information about your plan in the mail, isn't that right? He's says (sadly, I swear) "No, ma'm." I say I'm not interested in dealing with you people in that case. I assume he cried when I hung up.

Bush supporters and Obama supporters ...

... just two groups of peas in a pod.

... endorsing civil liberties abuses because one's own Party is in power virtually ensures that those abuses will become permanent, available to future leaders from the other Party as well. That was the argument which fell on deaf ears when made to cheering Bush supporters, and it's barely more effective now.

Class warfare? Who says ...

From health care to education to mass transit to Social Security, if a government program helps those in need, Republicans oppose it. They will support tax cuts targeted for the wealthy, while opposing tax cuts targeted for those that aren't wealthy. The Republicans clearly have an overall ideology, and it is reflected throughout their agenda. Which isn't class warfare. But calling them on it is.

[Turkana at The Left Coaster]

Barack Obama, The Unjust ...

... following in George Bush's shoes. The short-lived pied-piper of 'hope' emulating the poster boy of hate, stupidity and ugliness:

Obama era justice

Another MUST READ from ...

Glenn Greenwald: Times Square bomber: Cause and effect in the War on Terror

Instead of 'Do to others what you would have them do to you' the US has turned The Golden Rule inside out. The US does onto them then is surprised when they do back at us.

If we had a few more thinkers in policy making positions, instead of the creeping and creepy militarists that we seem to be overrun with, they would have figured out that the US's behavior is not only the reverse of The Golden Rule it is also begging for a violent response.

Not that we are alone in history in taking this path. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor it was warning us to stay out of the their way. It did the opposite.

So the US is proceeding down one road while claiming to be going down another. Who benefits from this? Not most of the worlds' or even the US's population ...

Well, why would Obama care if Israel goes around killing Americans ...

The fact that a 19-year-old American citizen was one of the dead -- among those whom the report concluded was "summarily executed" by the Israelis -- makes the U.S. Government's silence here all the more appalling. One of the prime duties of a government is to safeguard the welfare of its own citizens. It's inconceivable for most governments in the world to remain silent in the face of formal findings that a foreign nation "summarily executed" one of its own citizens. ...

Why would Obama care if Israel goes around killing Americans ... or anyone else for that matter. Since Obama, himself, believes in killing Americans on his say so alone and definitely believes, as did George Bush, that killing around the world is what the US is entitled to do, then what can be the big deal about these violent, demented and illegal Israeli executions of civilians. Aren't the worst of the Israelis the people we've been emulating for decades now?

In his short time in office, Obama has shown that he cares about nothing except making nice with the rich, the powerful and the nuttiest of those calling themselves Christians.

--- ADDED ---
Oh, the irony!

This USA Today article, proudly touting the increased efforts of the U.S. Government to track down and punish war criminals (provided, of course, that they're not American) ...