Alito has been confirmed to the Supreme Court by a vote of 58-42. One Republican cast a no-vote. Four Democrats cast yes-votes.
Not that it’s any consolation, but that’s the smallest number of Senators in the opposition party to support a Supreme Court justice in modern history. Woo-fucking-hoo.
Fair thee well, America. It was nice knowing you.
More Koufax Noms
The newest list of nominees is for Best Post. There are about 220 there, and it is truly an unbelievable collection of excellent posts, many of which were penned by some of my favorite bloggers. Shakespeare’s Sister was nominated for Scarred, Liberals Will Save America, and Anti-Choicers: Not So Fast, and, looking at the competition, let me just say, it was an honor to be nominated—both quite literally and in the sense that I have no chance of winning, lol.
Dying to Avoid Being Raped
Female US soldiers deliberately dehydrated themselves to avoid the latrines. And then they died. And then it was covered up.
I don’t even know what to say. Just go read.
RIP Coretta Scott King
Civil rights activist and widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King has died at age 78.
What can be said about Mrs. King? She absolutely rocked, and our lives are all better because of the way that she lived hers.
Not Even Close
According to C-SPAN, the Senate has voted 72-25 to halt debate on the Alito nomination.
King-ky
Sure, Larry King hates your stinking guts and wants to kill you, you disgusting liberal trash, but first he’d like you to strap on your holster and play some Cowboys and Indians with his nasty old ass. Well, if not you, then his seventh wife (or, technically, sixth, since he married one woman twice, and it wasn’t even Liz Taylor):
LARRY King likes to get a little Wild West in the sack, according to his much-younger wife, Shawn Southwick. In an unsettling interview with Howard Stern, Southwick claims, "Larry has this Indian costume that just drives me wild . . . I wear chaps!" She adds that 72-year-old King's bedroom battle cries didn't ring out until after they were married in 1997. Southwick, a devout Mormon, made the wrinkled broadcaster wait until their wedding night to have sex - and only after a doctor signed off on it because of King's heart problems.Bllllluuuurrrrgggggghhhhhhh!
Has anyone checked the records to see if Jack Abramoff solicited any GOP campaign contributions from Chief Larry?
(Hat tip to the demented Michael K, who notes, “I hope they make fringed diapers, because I'd hate for him to shit all over his nice Indian costume!” And my apologies to Mr. Furious, who, as our resident Native American contributor, really should have been given first shot at this story.)
Radical Gay Agenda Update
<—— This Concerned Woman total fag dude, who happens to be preternaturally preoccupied with All Things Gay because he’s so straight and is the best possible spokesperson for Concerned Women of America’s Culture and Family Institute because he’s a man, is very unhappy about those gay-friendly posters going up in classrooms in the Bay Area. Especially since some of the teachers who were resisting the posters on religious grounds have now started to comply. Says Concerned Resolutely Heterosexual Man Bob Knight:
"This is about bullying people and saying you will kneel down and bow to the Baal god of homosexuality -- or we'll make your life very miserable."My god, Shakers. It's so simple! Why haven’t we thought of it before? All we have to do to cure homosexuality is put up posters endorsing heterosexuality in every classroom, and then all the gay kids will know their teachers are "for" straightness! Eureka!
…And it is wrong, Knight adds, to force teachers into a situation that implies their approval of an unsafe and unhealthy lifestyle. "When you put a rainbow poster up in your classroom, you're lending the authority of the teacher to the gay-rights movement," he explains. In essence, says Knight, the district is saying: "Kids, go ahead and try this behavior. Even your teacher is for it."
Although...you might have thought that all those teachers getting busted having sex with their opposite-sex students might have done the job even better than pro-straight posters.
Huh. Maybe it’s not quite as simple as I thought. And maybe Knight and his Concerned Women ought to find something else to be concerned about. Like how many teachers are having sex with their students—yeesh!
What a Mess
Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee will vote against Alito.
But the Gang of 14 (who forged that awesome nuclear option-averting agreement which does Dems absolutely no good whatsoever) may be threatening to block a filibuster.
WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF MARTHA-ANN?!
And China said, “You first.”
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talks from Washington to participants of the session "The Guiding principles and values for US policies" at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Top US officials, recognizing China's growing influence, say they are trying to persuade Beijing to act as a "responsible actor" on the world stage amid disagreements and rivalry between the two powers.(AFP/Eric Feferberg)
“I’ll take big, scary ladies for $200, Alex.”
Sigh
Over at The Green Knight’s place, the Whamstress has got an important post about IEDs I highly recommend, which starts with the following:
This morning I watched Diane Sawyer (Good Morning America) barely contain her grief as she reported news on her friends and co-workers, Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt.I commented:
It's hard to say this without sounding hateful, even though I don't intend it to be so, but I wish Diane Sawyer and her cohorts showed the same demonstrable emotion for the thousands of soldiers who have been killed and wounded in this atrocity, whose lives were no less valuable just because they weren't on camera or holding one.I’m not the only one who’s had the same thought. The Fixer at Alternate Brain says it with the blunt anger it deserves:
The impression I get, watching the news heads talk about the incident, is that the news folks are finally realizing this war in Iraq is not a video game and that it just as easily could have been them in the hatch of that APC. It's really something to see them waking up. About time, you motherfuckers. For three years you've been reporting on the casualties as pseudo-TV fiction characters, with your disingenuous false pity for the families. How's it feel now that two of your own will probably be turnips for the rest of their lives? Are you now going to take a realistic look at the waste of lives in the Chimp's folly? I hope so, and I hope you start giving the American people the truth about all we've lost in that dry hole in the sand.I feel terrible about Woodruff and Vogt—and I feel terrible every single time I read a headline about more troops getting killed or injured, not to mention more Iraqi civilians getting killed or injured. And I get angry when I watch a news anchor blithely reports those deaths or injuries—“Twelve marines died today when a roadside bomb exploded…”—and then segue without irony into a report about President Bush or one of his minions giving a speech on how well the war is going or how we’ve turned a new corner or how Cindy Sheehan is nothing more than a publicity whore. I don’t want to celebrate that this horrific spell of cognitive dissonance might have finally been broken by a tragedy, but, at the same time, I do hope that makes a few people reconsider the ways they’ve aided and abetted an administration and its war of choice that has caused so many unnecessary deaths.
Looksies
So, the Dems choose Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to give the rebuttal to the SOTU. Lots of liberal bloggers criticize the decision for various reasons (including me). Ezra Klein registers his objection with a post linking to my points about his being not gay-friendly and Arianna Huffinton’s points about his being hawkish on Iraq, and also notes Kaine is “at best, a functional speaker, not an orator for the history books,” adding:
And nor is he a good looking dude who could put an attractive, fresh face on the party. He's a squat, squinty, pug-nosed fellow who just won an election that largely revolved around retail politics and the endorsement of his predecessor.Then USAToday singles out Ezra’s commentary on Kaine’s looks, which is a bit unfortunate, but wev (what do you expect from USAToday?). But then, The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel also picked up on it, posting here and here:
Why are so many liberal bloggers up in arms about Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine being picked to give the Democrat's reply to Bush's State of the Union? There's been fury in the blogosphere about everything from Kaine's looks, style, obscurity, his open talk about his faith and his inexperience in national security. Liberal writer Ezra Klein (no Brad Pitt, last time I checked him out) vented that Kaine is "a squat, squinty, pug-nosed fellow."Now, look—Ezra didn’t take a cheap shot at Kaine. A cheap shot would be calling Kaine an ugly bastard in the middle of a post about his position on the war. Addressing his looks in a commentary about his viability as a party representative on an important televised appearance is totally fair. Looks matter in politics, which itself might not be fair, but that’s the reality. (It’s also not remotely the only criticism Ezra had.)
On the other hand, Katrina’s remark is a cheap shot. Jeralyn Merritt, Digby, and Jane Hamsher, among others, have all pointed out that Ezra is, in fact, pretty hot. (Ezra left it up to his readers to be the judge.) But I suppose as the resident Ugly Mug it falls to me to point out that even if Ezra had a face like a baboon’s ass, his observation would still have been equally viable.
Since when must offering analysis of a political decision be predicated on having demonstrably superior expressions of the quality upon which one is commenting? If that’s the new guideline, I guess we ought to request that anyone who has an opinion about Bush’s honesty had better provide a list of every time they’ve lied, to ensure they’ve lied fewer times than he has.
And that’s what annoys me about Katrina’s dig—not just that it was undeserved, but that it’s more of the same “Oh, who are these infantile bloggers, anyway?” nonsense that seeks to cast bloggers as irrational and unfit by virtue of lacking some set of stupendous qualifications with which well-known opinion-givers are, apparently, imbued the moment they start receiving a paycheck. It also deliberately misses the point that appearance and presence are indeed fair game when critiquing such a decision. In fact, it sort of deliberately misses the point in the same way that rightwingers (and increasingly, even lefties in print media) like to deliberately miss the point; that is to say so that they can justify ignoring all other legitimate points from the same source by virtue of association.
"Well, I have enough money for the pizza, but how am I going to tip the delivery guy?"
*Bow-chicka-wow-wow-bow-bow*
Calling Gannon/Guckert... Calling Gannon/Guckert.... Hot Military Studs are ready for action.... over...
Army to Investigate Gay Porn Allegations
RALEIGH, N.C. - Army officials are investigating allegations that members of the celebrated 82nd Airborne Division appear on a gay pornography Web site, a spokeswoman said Friday.
Authorities at Fort Bragg have begun an inquiry into whether the paratroopers' actions violated the military conduct code.
Division spokeswoman Maj. Amy Hannah declined to say how many paratroopers are involved or identify their unit within the division. A defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said up to seven soldiers are involved.
Hannah said soldiers questioned will be allowed to seek legal assistance, but she declined to say if any one had been charged.
"Once the investigation is complete, the chain of command will take appropriate action," Hannah said.
Tubes of astroglide and plenty of tissues will be distributed.
Martha Rudd, an Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said soldiers accused of homosexual activity might be removed from their units, although she did not have specific information about the investigation of the 82nd. When asked if the soldiers involved had been moved out of barracks, Hannah declined to comment.
What a great phrase! "Accused of homosexual activity." So if they were on a straight porn site, I guess that would have been "conduct becoming." In other words, it's not about the porn, it's about "Teh Gay."
Heh... I said "coming."
"We are concerned about the privacy and rights of each trooper involved and that they are treated with dignity and respect," Hannah said.
*Insert the sound of Paul snorting and blowing a raspberry here* Yeah, that's why you're making sure to let everyone know this is a gay porn issue. Because their names will never leak out. Never never.
Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman in Washington, said the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy states that "homosexual orientation alone is not a bar to service, but homosexual conduct is incompatible with military service."
"We define homosexual conduct as homosexual acts or verbal or nonverbal communication that a member is homosexual," Vician said.
Especially when the conduct is totally HAWT. And what exactly is "nonverbal communication that a member is homosexual?" I guess when a soldier sashays to his tank, flitting a limp wrist.
The 82nd Airborne is one of the most celebrated units in the military. Its 15,000 troops are trained to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours.
There are so many possible jokes in that sentence, I don't know where to begin.
This is just another example of the absurdity of this "don't ask, don't tell" crap. I'm sure that if these guys were appearing in straight porn, the hysteria would be miniscule. It's that hot man-on-man action that makes it so titilating. And, you know, with that whole gay sheepherder thing that's making the news these days, it's big news, baby!
Cue Jay Leno's "I wish I knew how to quit you" jokes tonight.
And cue Ken Mehlman frantically clearing his browser history and caché.
(First I was afraid, I was petrified... kept thinking I could never cross-post without you by my side...)
A Tale of Two Headlines
Exxon Sees Record Profits for Any U.S. Co.
Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for any U.S. company on Monday — $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year — as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from high oil and gas prices and demand for refined products…Meanwhile…
For the full year, net income surged to $5.71 per share from $3.89 per share in 2004. Annual revenue grew to $371 billion from $298.04 billion.
To put that into perspective, Exxon's revenue for the year exceeded Saudi Arabia's estimated 2005 gross domestic product of $340.5 billion, according to statistics maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Savings Rate at Lowest Level Since 1933
Americans' personal savings rate dipped into negative territory in 2005, something that hasn't happened since the Great Depression. Consumers depleted their savings to finance the purchases of cars and other big-ticket items.
The Commerce Department reported Monday that the savings rate fell into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans not only spent all of their after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or increase borrowing.
The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before — in 1932 and 1933 — two years when the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression, a time of massive business failures and job layoffs.
RIP Wendy Wasserstein
Playwright Wendy Wasserstein has died at age 55.
Wasserstein was an important feminist playwright, who penned such plays as "The Sisters Rosensweig” and "The Heidi Chronicles," which won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She worked with some of the best actresses ever to grace stage or screen—Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Dianne Wiest, Swoozie Kurtz, and Joan Allen, among others, providing them the kind of material that most actresses dream about.
I’m really sad. She was so young.
Blindsided. Again.
You've got to wonder how they find their fucking front doors and make it to work intact.
Rice Admits U.S. Underestimated Hamas Strength
Key quotes: (Bolds mine)
LONDON, Jan. 29 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Sunday that the United States had failed to understand the depth of hostility among Palestinians toward their longtime leaders. The hostility led to an election victory by the militant group Hamas that has reduced to tatters crucial assumptions underlying American policies and hopes in the Middle East.
"I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."
Nobody saw it coming.
Ms. Rice pointed out that the election results surprised just about everyone. "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas's strong showing," she said on her way to London for meetings on the Middle East, Iran and other matters. "Some say that Hamas itself was caught off guard by its strong showing."
Caught off guard. Didn't see it coming.
You can see where I'm going with this, can't you?
They didn't see it coming.
“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”
They didn't see it coming.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." ñ Condoleezza Rice, May 16, 2002"
They didn't see it coming.
RICE: I think that concern about what I might have known or we might have known was provoked by some statements that I made in a press conference. I was in a press conference to try and describe the August 6 memo, which I’ve talked about here in my opening remarks and which I talked about with you in the private session.
And I said, at one point, that this was a historical memo, that it was — it was not based on new threat information. And I said, “No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon” — I’m paraphrasing now — “into the World Trade Center, using planes as a missile.”
As I said to you in the private session, I probably should have said, “I could not have imagined,” because within two days, people started to come to me and say, “Oh, but there were these reports in 1998 and 1999. The intelligence community did look at information about this.”
To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us.
To the Bush clan, ignorance is bliss. It's a great excuse. Too bad their ignorance is filling graves.
(It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate cross-post.)
Used and Abused
Wow.
"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."There you go, liberal bloggers. That’s what the Democratic establishment thinks of you. They’re happy to have your coin, but keep your bullshit to yourself.
The blogs-vs.-establishment fight represents the latest version of a familiar Democratic dispute. It boils down to how much national candidates should compromise on what are considered core Democratic values -- such as abortion rights, gun control and opposition to conservative judges -- to win national elections…The GOP’s willingness to be beholden to those who would happily see reproductive rights binned like day-old bread, gays forever marginalized as second-class citizens, and every last American clamoring for figurative and material sustenance up the rungs of an unreliable ladder known as social Darwinism is despicable, but at least it’s not disingenuous. On the 33rd anniversary of Roe, the president gave a speech directly to anti-choicers, praising their work and lauding their efforts to “persuade more of our fellow Americans of the rightness of our cause.” Meanwhile, liberal bloggers who refuse to compromise on Roe are dismissed as some kind of wacky fringe element by the Democratic establishment, even though it’s widely regarded as “settled law” and a majority of Americans support it.
Even if they disagree with their positions, Democratic candidates recognize from the Dean experience the power of the activists to raise money and infuse a campaign with their energy.
Pam has a most excellent post that sums up my feelings as well:
I've been talking about this crap for a good long time now re: gay rights -- they want our queer bucks and our silence and endless "patience" as they tilt the party rightward.If the Dems can’t be bothered to give a crap about those directly affected by their cowardice, the least they could do is understand that the reason we hold positions with which they “disagree” is because we are those people. We are women and men who fear the end of reproductive choice. We are gays and lesbians and bisexuals and transgendered individuals and their supporters, people of all colors, who want equality for all Americans. We are red-state poor folks and blue-state rich folks and every variation in between who support fair taxation, protection of the environment, workers’ rights, and a social safety net for the most vulnerable among us, and don’t support the notion of a unitary executive. (And we’re not exactly the obscure minority we’re being cast as, either; 65% of Americans oppose turning over Roe and 53% support, at minimum, civil unions for gays. The numbers creep even higher for protecting such institutions as Social Security, a social safety net, constitutional checks and balances, and basic workers’ rights.)
This dishonesty was barely hidden beneath the surface during the 2004 race and, as you can see from the above quote, it's out there stark naked before us now as the 2006 races heat up. This "bend over, you've got nowhere else to go" mentality is as bad as the Right's plan to drag out the gay boogeyman again for this election cycle…
If all we represent are money-machines and virtual foot soldiers, I call bullsh*t. No more of that. If a candidate cannot make civil equality or the protection of reproductive freedom a core value that they are willing to publicly defend, then what is the point of being a Democrat? What good does it do to win an election if the politician cannot stand up to the wingnuts, or worse, votes on our core issues just like a wingnut so it can be touted in their next race? The end result is the same to those of us directly affected by the cowardice.
If Democrats don’t want to represent our interests, they have to realize that they are then, in essence, saying that they don’t represent us, and they shouldn’t bother asking for our money and looking for us to be their foot soldiers.
I don’t know how to solve this problem. I do know, however, that two parties who don’t give a crap about us in a de facto two-party system is one party too many.
Dems Split on Filibuster
Senator Barak Obama is the latest Dem to register his unhappiness with the prospect of a filibuster.
To more effectively oppose Supreme Court nominees in the future, Democrats need to convince the public "their values are at stake" rather than use stalling tactics to try to thwart the president, said a senator who opposes Samuel Alito's confirmation…In one sense, I agree with him. I know there’s a big chance of a filibuster backfiring because the Dems will be tagged as obstructionists and, quite frankly, they haven’t done enough work in getting out the message that there are very good reasons to filibuster Alito on behalf of voters. And I agree that the best way to ensure that rightwing douchebags don’t get nominated to the Supreme Court is to win elections.
"There is an over-reliance on the part of Democrats for procedural maneuvers," he told ABC's "This Week." …
"There's one way to guarantee that the judges who are appointed to the Supreme Court are judges that reflect our values. And that's to win elections," Obama said.
But, on the other hand, part of what the Democrats need to do to win elections is reassert their commitment to liberal values. Yes, the media proactively supports the GOP, which makes it infinitely harder for the Dems’ message to get out, but the Dems need to share some of the blame for being seen as a mixed-message party. They have largely supported the war and the Patriot Act, they allowed Bush to claim bipartisan victories on some big legislation like the bankruptcy bill and bipartisan support for many of his nominees, including Alberto Gonzales, Condi Rice, and John Roberts, and many of the most prominent Dems are public triangulators, like Hillary Clinton, aligning themselves with such conservative legislation as flag-burning amendments. At some point, the Dems are going to need to take a stand against the GOP and their attempt to obliterate all liberal principles and actors from governance. Filibustering Alito’s nomination is drawing that line in the sand. Or at least it should be.
I’m concerned that some Dems are getting comfortable relying on the old adage, “Give ‘em enough rope to hang themselves.” Taking a sit-back-and-wait attitude until they’ve gone so far that Americans will vote for anyone else is not a good idea. Not only have Bush & Co. have escaped the noose plenty of times already, but I guarantee you, with that kind of lazy, entitled attitude, someone else will sneak in with some snappy rhetoric about integrity (cough*John McCain*cough), and we’ll end up with more of the same horseshit wrapped in a deceptively appealing package.
Sure, appointing judges that reflect Democratic values necessitates winning elections, but that’s only half the story. The other half is that winning elections is predicated on reliably demonstrating those values in the first place, especially when it’s not the most politically expedient thing to do.
Happy…
…Third Blogiversary to That Colored Fella!
and
...Second Blogiversary to Tom Watson!
and
…Birthday to Catherine! (Sorry, I’m one day late—but I didn’t forget; I was just indisposed!) Hope whatever you wished for when you blew out your candles comes true, darling.
Worth a Read
Newsweek’s Palace Revolt, a story about conservatives who paid a price to try to rein in the administration’s war on terror. Maybe I’m just feeling cynical today, but I read it and thought, “So that’s how the coup happened.” Newsweek ends the story by saying, “thanks to a few quietly determined lawyers, a healthy debate has at last begun,” but I don’t know how much that allegedly “healthy debate” means when the ethical heroes are gone and their arch-nemesis, the loathsome David Addington, has been promoted to replace Scooter Libby as Cheney’s chief of staff.
The Heretik has more.
Bob Woodruff Injured in Iraq
ABC anchor Bob Woodruff, who, along with Elizabeth Vargas, just replaced Peter Jennings, was reporting from Iraq when an IED exploded nearby, injuring Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt. Both suffered head injuries and were hit by shrapnel, and Vogt has a broken shoulder. They are both out of surgery and in stable condition. I hope they’re okay. Every story I’ve read about this so far sounds uncomfortably like an obituary.
