If you missed it, there was a bit of discussion following my post "Recapping Disaster" on whether or not there was significant proof that the election in Ohio (and elsewhere) had been tampered with, been influenced by fraud, etc. Some aren't so sure that the proof was there, contending that Kerry & his lawyers would have seized the situation if there had been. I theorized that Kerry is perhaps too politically reticent to get his hands dirty, and suggested readers look at www.blackboxvoting.org and the list of incidents they've put together.
On Democratic Underground, in the current Top 10 Conservative Idiots list, they point out an anecdote that, while not in itself is proof of Bushco's misconduct, is certainly an interesting tidbit:
"The White House - While we're on the subject, here's one more incident to chew on. The Arizona Republic reported at the start of last month that "Several of Arizona's leading GOP muckety-mucks secured treasured invitations to Bush's swanky Christmas party Thursday." They name a few names, and then mention that "Also spotted, petition gatherer to the stars Nathan Sproul." Who is Nathan Sproul? He's the head of Sproul & Associates, a company which registered voters during the run-up to Election 2004, but misrepresented themselves as non-partisan while refusing to register Democrats. (See Idiots 177.) In separate incidents, Sproul & Associates employees allegedly tore up Democratic registration forms and threw them in the trash. Yup, that's the same Nathan Sproul who was spotted hanging out at the exclusive White House Christmas party. But don't worry, there's absolutely nothing wrong with America's electoral system."
Tidbit of Disaster
We Are Your Base; Hear Us Roar
The Fixer, in discussing the Dem’s apparent inability to pull together the never-ending stream of administration scandals to illustrate its complete crookedness, asks the question that we all seem to be posing lately:
And everyone asks the question, 'why is it just us?' Is it just the bloggers who are ranting and raving about this? Where is the Democratic leadership? Where are Kerry, Pelosi, Ried, Edwards, Kennedy, Leahy, and yes, even Dean, and the rest of them? I mean shit, bloggers connected the dots for 'em as early as '03 (long before I even dreamed of having a blog).A lot of us on the Left bemoan the decision of so many red staters who seem to vote against their best interests. We don’t understand how someone who struggles to make ends meet, who worries about healthcare coverage, funding their children’s educations, finding a decent job, can vote for an administration that seeks to dismantle the very programs that assist those upon whose votes they have come to depend. We wring our hands and wonder how such voters can be so foolish. These people don’t really understand their leadership.
[…]
And why aren't the leaders listening to the bloggers? We are the voice of your base, you idiots. If you stand up, we got your back.
We suffer from the flipside of this problem on the Left—our leadership does not understand its people.
Bloggers are perhaps the most obvious example of this regrettable situation in which we’ve found ourselves, as our views and expectations of our leadership are easily accessible. Yet, despite our near-unanimity on many issues, the Democratic leadership continues to disappoint, continues to act contrary to the wishes of blogging rank-and-file Dems, as if we are somehow not representative of the larger whole. (My experience with this is that, in fact, bloggers’ views are an accurate representation of the non-blogging rank-and-file.)
They seem to think that the voices on these blogs are the exception to the imaginary Democrats they keep telling "my father was a millworker" stories to. Most of those people now call themselves Republicans, I'm afraid.
The disdain they show for their blogging rank-and-file betrays a deep lack of understanding about who we are. We don’t blog because we like to hear our own voices—we blog in the increasingly futile hope that they will hear our collective voice and conduct themselves in a manner befitting representatives who are actually listening.
Dammit, we’re your base, and we’re worth listening to.
Koufax Awards
Shakespeare's Sister has been nominated as a semi-finalist for Best New Blog.
I'd love to tell you to vote for me, but I'm up against AMERICAblog, BlondeSense, Blue Lemur, BradBlog, Majikthese, Pam's House Blend, Sirotablog, and James Wolcott, among others, none of which I would feel right trying to steal a vote away from.
I'm not even sure my little blog deserves to be on the same planet as James Wolcott's.
Up for Adoption: Brass Balls
So, Steve Gilliard criticizes Armstrong Williams in what can only be described as a rather cheeky way. Ahem. Somehow, National Review's Jonah Goldberg gets a hold of Gilliard's condemnation and, in response, calls Gilliard a racist, not realizing that Gilliard himself is black. Upon being informed of said fact, a reasonable person with even the slightest scrap of self-awareness might retract his original statement and issue an apology. But Goldberg is not a reasonable person, or a wise person, or a smart person, so, with the temerity unique to conservatives that allows them to presume a blogger is white yet somehow fail to acknowledge the racism of such an assumption, he responds thusly. It goes back and forth a bit more, Glenn Reynolds (or Instacracker, as Gilliard amusingly refers to him, also jumping into the fray).
Which brings me to Gilliard's post today, in which he writes:
What stunned me with the trolls was the idea that they could call me a racist and I would care. They came from NRO and Instapundit. I assumed that at best they were projecting. Conservatives make the assumption that liberals care what they think and will react to it.Brilliant, is it not? So simple, and yet so frustratingly disparate from the attitude we see from our elected Democratic representatives.
[...]
I want conservatives to read this site and come away steaming. I don't want them to think they will like a word I will say here. I don't want them to think I will consider their opinions or viewpoints. I want them to think: boy he doesn't like conservatives and really, really doesn't care what we say.
I'm tired of people acting like these people can be reasoned with or talked to. They don't want to talk, they want to drive us away into a corner and ridicule our ideas.
I'm not writing to make conservatives happy. I want them to hate my opinions. I'm not interested in debating them. I want to stop them.
Gilliard is speaking about a particular issue here, but he has concisely outlined the very philosophy that the Dems should adopt and apply to every issue that comes before them. Centrism will not swing conservative voters into the Democratic fold, and the Republicans have repeatedly proven that they are congenitally resistant to reasoned discourse or compromise, yet the Dems are inexplicably reluctant to adopt such a firm stance. The time has passed for believing that how you play the game is more important than winning the game. I'm not suggesting we become the cheating, unethical, lying, opportunistic scoundrels that currently hold court in D.C., but we can't continue to treat such despicable bastards with respect, expecting to somehow win on integrity alone, either.
FOIA
You'll never guess who back in '74 opposed some of the key parts of the Freedom of Information Act through which we're now finding out information about torture policies, payoffs, etc. Read this.
I’m Keen on Keane
Okay, I swear I’m not turning this into a pop culture blog, but I just got Keane’s album Hopes and Fears (a decidedly apropos title to be a soundtrack for political blogging these days), and it’s brilliant. They are like the beautiful bastard child of Chris Martin and Ben Folds.
I never listen to the radio anymore (in addition to finding myself the wretched old duffer sitting in the balcony of the Metro at whom I used to sneer half my life ago when 30 seemed impossibly old and the floor was the only place to see a show), so maybe this is old news to everyone else. This, however, is a musical crush of such magnitude as I haven’t experienced since Brett Anderson and I were So Young, hence my compulsion to share.
Hearts & Minds
Our battle to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people continued apace today, when an F-16 dropped a 500lb “smart” bomb on the wrong house, killing 14 Iraqis, 7 of whom were children. It should be noted that the army is claiming that only five individuals were killed, but the fact they are willing to apologize at all suggests to me that the owner of the house, who is the one claiming the higher figure, has the truth of it.
The house in question was part of a “cordon and search” operation to catch some nameless insurgent lead in the area south of Mosul, and the U.S. military is claiming that the bomb had in fact been intended for a different target nearby. Well, gee, I guess that makes it all better: “We didn’t mean to incinerate your family on the basis of some flimsy lead, sir. We’d actually meant to incinerate the family across the street, instead.”
The army’s real response wasn’t a whole lot better: it “deeply regrets the loss of possibly innocent lives.” The children were possibly innocent?
I understand that war is hell, and that mistakes happen, but wasn’t this supposed to a “cordon & search” operation? Or has “cordon & search” become a euphemism for “search & destroy”, in the much the same was as “coercive interrogation” has become a euphemism for torture?
Armstrong Update
AMERICAblog reports that Joe Scarborough is also jumping on the crucify Williams bandwagon. (Watch the video here; it’s amazing stuff.) But there’s one big difference between what Scarborough was saying about the situation and how O’Reilly handled the situation. Scarborough primarily indicted the administration.
And here’s another difference: after hearing Scarborough’s attack on the administration, Williams left the studio and refused to be interviewed by him. If he's willing to fall on his own sword for O’Reilly and Novak, why not for Scarborough? Perhaps he wasn’t ready to talk about the administration’s role in this burgeoning scandal.
Recapping Disaster
Yesterday was not a very good day for Democrats, or anyone concerned about the future of democracy in this country. Two chances to make a difference were diffused. First, the massive problems in Ohio that threw the election to Bush (and yes, there is much evidence to support this - the election was stolen again, there is no doubt, it is NOT a conspiracy theory) and a serious discussion about election reform (i.e. getting rid of those machines that have no paper trail in order to prevent foul play) were presented by Sen. Barbara Boxer and then promptly turned into a farce when the House & Senate voted against her objection. This INCLUDED many Democrats. Several Repubs - including tarnished Majority Leader Tom DeLay - accused the Democrats of being sore loser conspiracy nuts who wanted to undermine the democratic process. Ironic. Minorities everywhere should be concerned because it was basically a black against white fight, with the whites telling the blacks 'too bad, there is nothing you can do about it'. It is also significant that the most prominent voices in this protest against the election results have been Jesse Jackson and John Conyers - NOT John Kerry who was absent altogether.
Then, several Democrats rolled over for toture-promoter Alberto Gonzales in his confirmation hearing. Another missed opportunity to stand up against the Republican agenda. If you don't like any of Bush's proposed policies - Social Security privatization, the continued farce in Iraq, further tax cuts for the rich - too bad. Your elected Democratic leaders are more concerned about self-preservation than the principles they are supposed to represent. And when our Monority Leader is the definition of Republican-Lite, we are in grave danger. The Democratic party is in MAJOR trouble and we are quickly becoming a one-party state.
This article nicely highlights what I just said. I recommend you read it.
On a bright note, I am very proud to see that the two Senators representing IL - Durbin and Obama - really stepped up.
Terrible Terry
They want him to stay?
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050106/ap_on_go_co/democrats_mcauliffe
I thought he sucked? Two failed campaigns isn't enough for them to want new blood?
What is wrong with the Democrats???
You Don't Have to Lie about Good Ideas...
The Alternate Brain links to a NY Times article reporting the Government Accountability Office has found that the Bush administration violated federal law by producing and distributing television news segments about the effects of drug use among young people. What law did they violate? The prohibition on using taxpayer money for propaganda.
The accountability office said the videos "constitute covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, which were distributed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They were broadcast by nearly 300 television stations and reached 22 million households, the office said.I wonder how all the rightwingers who are mad that their tax dollars are going to tsunami relief feel about them going to illegal government-sponsored propaganda instead.
[…]
Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for "publicity or propaganda purposes" not authorized by Congress. The accountability office has found that federal agencies violated this restriction when they distributed editorials and newspaper articles written by government
officials without identifying them.
Meanwhile, if the Democrats don’t pull this troubling story together with the Armstrong Williams debacle, and use them to point out loudly and repeatedly how corrupt and morally bankrupt this administration actually is, then they truly are a useless bunch of wankers.
Strong-Arming Armstrong
I wasn’t going to comment on the whole Armstrong Williams debacle, as it’s been well covered on other sites (including the National Association of Black Journalists great response), and I didn’t have anything particular noteworthy to add.
Except I just happened to catch Williams being interviewed on last night’s O’Reilly Factor, and I’m absolutely fuming. O’Reilly, who has defended Dick Cheney’s 1986 vote against a House resolution calling for Nelson Mandela's release from prison, Chris Wallace’s comparison of Teresa Heinz Kerry to Eva Perón, President Bush’s repeated allusions to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as the "smoking gun" link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and on and on and on and on, actually took Williams to task for his mind-blowingly inappropriate decision to accept an illegal and unethical payment to whore for the administration.
I have never before seen anything like this "interview" on the O'Reilly Factor. O’Reilly scolded Williams like a bad puppy, and Williams, in a performance worthy of Stepin Fetchit, responded with wide-eyed naivety and shame—Gee, I see your point, Bill. I didn’t even think I was doing anything wrong. You’re so right, Bill. I sure have learned my lesson. If he said he’s learned his lesson once, he said it three times, while Bill admonished him, pointing out that he would never do something so stupid. The two even agreed that losing his column with Tirbune Media Services was just the price you pay when you make such a dumb mistake.
The irony is that Williams was targeted by the administration specifically to sing the praises of No Child Left Behind to the black community. Used because he was black, he is now left out to dry for the same reason. Unlike the aforementioned administration leaders and media personality, Williams’ behavior is immediately indefensible—no continued defense until the shit really hits the fan, like the approach taken in justifying the nomination of Bernard Kerik. When the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson (whose department coordinated the videos) wasn’t sent to Fox News Channel to be condescendingly reprimanded and take the fall for the administration’s bad decision. No, only Williams became a sacrificial lamb, his defense being an unimaginable ignorance about how the world works.
Once again, the Republican machine relies on the regrettably dependable biases and fears of their minions to deflect responsibility. This might be acceptable to the Bush administration, and to the viewers of Fox News, but I cannot for the life of me imagine why it was acceptable to Armstrong Williams. $240,000 doesn’t seem an irresistible fee in exchange for a soul.
Friday Cat Blogging
The trifecta of adorable fuzziness:
Big Jim, master of his domain.
Matilda, princess of all she sees.
Little Olivia, who we recently rescued after she came flying off the back of a farm truck in front of us at 60mph.
Gonzo
Aside from my lovely, twisted, and immeasurably valuable friendship with Mr. Furious, the longest relationship with a man in my life is with Morrissey, the extended version of whose album You Are the Quarry Mr. F generously purchased for me recently. It is a brilliant collection of songs (even the original release without all the B-sides), and although the opening track, America Is Not the World, may arguably be the weakest song on the album, there’s a lyric in it that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately:
America, the land of the free, they say,
And of opportunity, in a just and a truthful way,
But where the President is never black, female, or gay.
And until that day
You’ve got nothing to say to me
To help me believe
In America.
It came to mind again as I read John Aravosis’ rightfully bewildered comments on Gonzales’ confirmation:
I still can't believe we're about to have an attorney general who thinks torture is okay. […] How can a single Senator vote for this un-American scum.I can’t believe it, either. And not only does it baffle and infuriate me, it alarms me. As I mentioned in an earlier post, non-Americans (and here I actually mean non-U.S. residents, since the rest of North, Central, and South America, from all of whom we’ve permanently usurped the term American, fall into the category I’m describing) have been wise and charitable enough to draw a distinct delineation between the American government and the American people. Since many of them mistrust and dislike the government, but like the people, it works out fortunately for us—even those among us who disdain the very penchant for nuance that affords one a view of such fine distinction.
When Bush was first appointed President, there was a sense overseas similar to that among the American Left—that the election had been, at worst, in some manner stolen, and, at best, was only the result of the electoral college gone haywire. It was easy to say to friends abroad that at least most of wanted Gore, even if he wasn’t the man at the helm.
This time, when Bush won both the popular vote and the electoral college, I feared that the divide separating the American government from the American people would be lost. I wasn’t the only one; heartfelt apologies went out around the world, and were graciously accepted. Still, the gap had narrowed. Friends abroad used to tell me they felt sorry for me being stuck with Bush. Now they tell me they feel sorry for me being stuck with all the Bush voters. Now instead of compartmentalizing the government from the people, it’s the government and their supporters…and everyone else. And "everyone else" is the minority (if you go by the votes). That’s a pretty small slice of the American Pie keeping us from being outright loathed by even our allies.
Now we’re going to be saddled with Alberto Gonzales, rogue pen of torture memos extraordinaire, as our Attorney General. If John Ashcroft made us a laughing stock, Gonzales will make us a target. It is truly indefensible, and if we are met with scornful contempt by non-Americans, it will be well deserved.
And all of it with nary a peep from our elected Democrats—a shameful display. I cannot imagine anything associated with a Congressional seat—wealth, power, influence—that I would not be willing to sacrifice to avoid casting a vote for the despicable, dishonest, incompetent, scummy piece of horseshit that is Alberto Gonzales. The Democrats go along to get along, casting their votes for this vile drip of dogwank in hopes of getting reelected. What lunacy, what farce, that the Democrats have let the national discourse get hijacked into a fantasyland where one worries that showing a shred of integrity might “come back to haunt you.”
Upon what principles does this country stand if we are willing to shrug with complacency as a man who condones torture (behind closed doors, if not under oath) can easily assume the post of the highest law officer in the land?
You’ve got nothing to say to me
To help me believe
In America.
If the administration continues in this direction, unfettered and unopposed, I imagine that America won’t have much to say to anyone any longer.
You Gotta (see this to) Believe (it)
Does it matter that some of the organizations who received federal funds under Bush’s “faith-based” initiative don’t even consider themselves religious?
My first thought was that maybe that was a good thing; perhaps the program wasn’t withholding funding from deserving secular groups as I had feared it might. Until I read this:
Some have no connection at all to religion, such as You Gotta Believe!, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based group that finds permanent homes for teenagers in foster care. The name is not intended to invoke a belief in God, but the belief that there is a home somewhere for every child.I find it extremely troubling that the government does so little research of the groups to whom they direct federal funds that they don’t even know whether they are actually faith-based or not. Choosing groups based solely on their names? What if it was “You Gotta Believe (in the Supremacy of the White Race)” or “You Gotta Believe (that all fags should die)”???
White House officials said the list included groups which had identified themselves as faith-based and groups which officials thought religious based on their names.
What a collection of useless twits we’ve got running the show.
Blogrollin' Fridays
I was directed via Rook’s Rant to Blogrollin’ Friday, a charming idea proposed by PSoTD. The gist of the idea is, if you regularly update your blog roll, instead of mass updates, pick a new link to add on Fridays and take a moment to plug ‘em. The thing I like about it is that it gives you an opportunity to provide a link to a strong or favorite post, which is a better endorsement than just a general link to the main page; I’m sure I’ve let my share of crappy posts hang around as the most recently posted well past their buy-sell dates.
Anyhoo, I think it’s just a swell concept, so for my Blogrollin’ Friday, I’m adding Rook’s Rant. And it’s not because he makes me blush or shares my deepest affinity for true geekdom, but because of posts like this and this, as I have a special appreciation for those who are equal parts kind and caustic. Special props for “Matthew Yglesias (future conservative)” which totally cracked my shit up.
New Look
As is no doubt evident, I've given Shakespeare's Sister a new look, and will now be posting as Shakespeare's Sister (instead of amsmiles). Also, I've switched to HaloScan comments, which I find much more user-friendly (and quicker) than Blogger's default comments engine.
It was unfortunate to lose all the existing comments, but I hope this change will encourage more commenting, as I value the feedback I get from visitors to my little space in the blogosphere.
Terror at 1600
Let’s revisit the definition of terrorist again, shall we?
terrorist: adj : characteristic of someone who employs terrorism (especially as a political weapon); "terrorist activity"; "terrorist state" n : a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities
Someone who employs terrorism (“the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons”) especially as a political weapon. That’s very interesting.
Consider the recently uncovered email authored by Peter Wehner, deputy to political director and dark overlord Karl Rove:
The success of President Bush’s push to remake Social Security depends on convincing the public that the system is “heading for an iceberg,” according to a White House strategy note that makes the case for cutting benefits promised for the future.The minutiae of the Social Security system is not one of my competencies, but I have made it a priority to understand the reality of the situation as best I can. (Should you be interested in doing the same, Atrios and Paul Krugman are good places to start.) Rest assured, however, according to all the information I have been able to get my hands on (including analyses by conservative economists), there is no imminent crisis that requires the radical changes to the existing structure that have been proposed by the Bush Administration.
[…]
“We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course,” the e-mail said. “That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the precondition to authentic reform.”
In fact, any remote threat to Social Security could have been avoided had the Clinton Administration-generated surplus not been obliterated by Bush and his GOP-controlled Congress, with their undisciplined spending and preemptive, never-ending war. A colossal fiscal crisis engenders not an urge to reform their own habits, but instead a drive to dismantle Social Security, an opportunity for which they have lusted since its inception.
Now they have seized on the idea that “searing” the idea that “we are on an unsustainable course” into the public consciousness, that we are “heading for an iceberg,” is the next step in their plan of attack. A strategy depending on breeding abject fear among voters handily satisfies two goals: deflect any responsibility for the staggering deficit by eclipsing reasonable discussion with apocalyptic prophecies, and scare the populace into submission—a fearful public is a compliant public.
And who knows this better than Bush and his crew, architects of the color-coded terror warning system that is surely a more accurate indicator of Bush’s need for headlines (or need to distract from bad press) than any credible threats to national security. Who knows it better than the team who won the election based on the fear-mongering premise that their opponent, a decorated war hero, had no interest in keeping America safe. Who could tell you more certainly than the perpetrators of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay that fear is a most powerful tool.
Calling Bush and his conspirators terrorists is not hyperbole. The archetypal terrorist in our collective consciousness may be a dark-skinned, bearded man in a turban with vengeance in his heart and Allah on his mind, and reducing terrorism solely to the threat of a radical Muslim is a construct the Bush Administration is only too happy to reinforce.
But suicide bombing is not the only kind of terrorism. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. Wielding fear like a weapon, plans to sear an erroneous idea into voters’ minds in an attempt to coerce them into supporting an ideological solution to a trumped-up problem—this is another, lesser, form of terrorism. So why are we letting it stand?
Ohio Electoral Objection Fails
The Senate voted 75 - 1 against it.
The House Voted 257 - 33 against it. (still counting)
Democrats voted with Republicans on this because they are scared shitless about losing their jobs. It seems we effectively have a one-party system.
Hope you enjoyed Democracy. It was fun while it lasted.
Why I'm in Love with Barack Obama
Okay I admit it. I'm completely in love with Sen. Obama. Not only is he intelligent, well-spoken, handsome, and down-to-earth, he has now decided to stand up with fellow Democrats (including awesome fellow Illinois Senator Dick Durbin) to challenge the electoral process. This is a genuine man who genuinely cares for people.
That might be fluff if said about many other politicans who have a fake public "face" but I know it's true about Obama. I've seen it first hand. At a fundraiser for Melissa Bean (victorious Illinois 8th Congressional District contender and another genuinely wonderful person), I met Obama in person. He leant tremendous support for Bean, as he did for many other candidates since his victory was in the bag. He spoke at that dinner just as well as he did at the Democratic National Convention. He tore the room up, as you can imagine. But despite all the thunder and hype, he somehow manages to come off as a real person. He connects with you. He looks you directly in the eye, and you understand why he appeals to people across the aisle, in urban IL as well as traditionally racist Southern IL. To the "elite" as well as the "working class." His appeal is natural and organic and this is why he has gotten so many people all over the nation (and in Kenya as well!) so worked up. At the dinner, he made a point (although he was behind schedule and being trailed by handlers) to visit every single table and shake hands and speak to every single person. How could I help but feel a tingle as we shook hands? I knew I was meeting him at a crucial time - before the storm when he blows up nationally.
Will he become the big star every thinks? Is it too much too quick? Is he a future Presidential contender? Who knows. He is already aware of being over-hyped and admits as much in his usual self-affacing way in the Jan. 3 "Newsweek" (picture up the issue containing his cover story if it's still available). Hopefully he'll pace himself properly, remaining cautious while still showing guts (as he has done today), and one day help pull Democrats out of the Dark Ages within which they currently find themselves. Until then, I will try to nurse my crush as I realize I have to share him with the nation now :(
