Archive for October, 2009

30 Senators for protecting military contractors against charges of gang rape

Monday, October 19th, 2009

The list of Senate votes worth pointing out, Senator Al Franken’s focus on redressing the crime of Halliburton and KBR against Jamie Lee Jones in getting her claim out of a hackneyed Corporate Arbitration to the Court System.

Specifically, the amendment would bar federal funds from going to defense contractors that continue to apply mandatory arbitration clauses to claims of sexual assault, assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hiring, retention and supervision. The amendment also covers civil rights claims of workplace discrimination, according to Franken’s office.

Sounds good.

But there were thirty no votes.  And they were:

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

Make of that list what you will.

Hitler Obama Hitler Mustache Crap and stuff

Monday, October 19th, 2009

I.  You know, I had this item from The Rachel Maddow Show playing on, without watching it.  In trying to curb some intemperate things against Obama from conservative activist students and other organizations (4 paragraphs down), George Herbert Walker Bush made some comments, and in trying to more or less balance them he referenced “the cables” and Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann as “sick puppies”, and the whole wall of talk radio and television hosts being essentially narcistic in these things, that guaranteed Rachel Maddow would cover it.  Maddow went on, and then mentioned the Obama Hitler Mustache on campus.  To which I had to run over, roll the thing, and go back to 8:40 or thereabouts and watch for half a minute for some context.  Yep.  She showed the Larouchies without mentioning that they were Larouchies.

But before I could join some conservative commenters who’ve banged the drums, though with a somewhat less partisan “Don’t.  Show.  The Larouche.  Obama Hitler Mustache.  Unless you’re explicitly covering.  The Larouchies.”, I see that Ann Coulter (one such member of that group, though she referenced it to “Left-Wing Plants”, more dishonesty on her part) has made the “George Soros a Nazi Collaborator” comment.   Which, I suppose, if they want to claim Ann Coulter might prove her a big fan of the pamphlet “Your Enemy, George Soros”.

Not that anyone cares too much.  You will notice if you look down the comments section of the “Crooks and Liars” post that no one mentions the Larouche factor of the post, even though that’s in the title.  The same thing works with Ezra Klein’s reference here.  Ezra Klein is wrong about that being a political party, though I suppose they thre together ad hoc political parties every four yehars during the general election for the various presidential bids — “Economic Party” or some such ridiculousness.

Another instance of this at play is shown with the comment here: 

One thing a bit instructive of Obama’s appearance on behest of George Herbert Walker Bush at Texas A and M: the conspiratorial book du jour, birthplace or way station of various Bush rumors and innuendoes — was written and published under the auspices of the Larouche organization.  The Barack Obama book that fits the same mode and is in the same basic genre wasn’t.  Mr. Tarpley is the one constant.

Another basic thing about this is shown around here:  Weaving Rush into this is bizarre.  Weaving RUSH into this is bizarre?  Really.  Leatherstocking bait: an item of reference for “validator purpose” at wikipedia: 
In recent months, high-profile Obama critics such as talk show host Rush Limbaugh and political activist Lyndon LaRouche have used Nazi imagery to attack the administration’s health-care proposals.

Well, it fits the biases to claim that.  Than again:

Two members of the organization — who declined to identify themselves to a reporter — planted themselves outside the Ipswich post office on Tuesday passing out literature and seeking donations from those sympathetic to the cause.
Skip to comments.
I compare Obama to Hitler all of the time because unfortunately that is who our president most resembles since it appears he can only lead through his oral skills and nothing else.

One referral possibility to harrangue on the phone, I suppose.  Even though, mostly we’re just aiming for a certain controversy.

But if the Democrats had anyone who knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t let this go. Its further evidence that the Obama as Hitler posters and swastikas carried by Republicans at the town hall meetings were much more of a calculated and organized effort on the part of Republicans than any “grassroots” spontaneous reaction.

Note the poster included there.

A bit instructive the story is on the controversy last week of an official Republican twitter feed linking to a youtube clip of Hitler discoursing on Obama’s Health Care Plan.  “Sick Puppies”, as the elder Bush would phrase it, though by any rights it would put to rest the hub-ub of moveon’s two Bush Hitler contest entrants, as it’s a demonstration of how these things happen.  It won’t, though — “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” as soon as you put yoursel finto an identity.  One good thing about that link is it put it into general use for Balloon Boy mocking, funnier probably due to an apolitical nature.

(OR: ‘The Larouche PAC does not represent the … Republican Party’)

II.  Let’s run down the bend with Leatherstocking at wikipedia.

Here we see Leatherstocking attempting to thrust RoyFrankhauser, among others, out of the org’s history.
I removed the section called “others,” which seems to have been there for “guilt by association” purposes. If the criterion for inclusion were simply that a person’s name was linked with LaRouche in press accounts, you could have hundreds of names in that category. Unless a reliable source has specifically named a person as a member or supporter of the movement, there is no reason to include that person in the article.

Here we see Leatherstocking demand Dennis King disclose his “Conflict of Interest” in arguing against deleting the Duggan page. Interesting.  You know what Leatherstocking might consider as a good bolster his case?  As we’ve seen in  an example of getting a “vindicator” in, ala Menshikov, perhaps a Dennis King entry on wikipedia!

Here we see Leatherstocking change the lede to describe the man as an “Economist”.  That should be changed back any minute now, I’m guessing.

III.  An interesting development from Laland, worth keeping tabs on.  Leaving aside some worth of exploration of what the phrase “boy” suggests, in a loaded manner with Obama.  (We are back to the “Monkey” problem of how a select handful of insults are loaded in the double standard.)

To enumerate these things.

Case Number One:  The man and woman refused to be interviewed or give their names. She was asking people what they thought of Obama’s mustache, as they walked past or dropped an envelope in the mailbox.
Case Number Two:  When contacted, the EvCC staffer refused to speak about the topic. LaRouche representatives also refused to be interviewed on the subject.
Case Number Three:  Two members of the organization — who declined to identify themselves to a reporter — planted themselves outside the Ipswich post office on Tuesday passing out literature and seeking donations from those sympathetic to the cause.
Case Number Four:  The man said the LaRouche organization does not allow them to talk to the media, and he referred all questions to the organization’s public relations person.
Case Number Five (not quite the same, but in the ballpark):  When students asked questions such as “Where is the genocide in this country?” and “Why are you comparing Obama to Hitler?” LaRouche would only give vague responses that always came back to the monotonous line “read our pamphlets.”

Then again, some people are cleared to talk to the media.
A LaRouche spokeswoman defended the display, saying the comparison between Obama’s health care plans and Hitler’s genocide is fair because it starts a conversation on how the two policies are similar.
“It raises the right question: What’s the similarity between Obama’s health care policy and Hitler’s?” said LaRouche health care spokeswoman Nancy Spannaus.
The “Larouche Health Care Spokesoman” Nancy Spannaus.  Who I’m sure can speak on regarding Larouche Health Care.  Incidentally, Ms. Spannaus is wrong: it’s not poetic or artful.  If you google “Obama Hitler” and look at the images, the first images are far more interesting than the one deployed by the Larouche org.

 Apparently this is another “Larouche Health Care Spoksperson”:
Craig Holtzklark, a volunteer from Houston told KEYE-TV the signs were to grab people’s attention to Obama’s health care plan.
It so happens that Craig Holtzlark is also a volunteer from Colorado, and Texas.  Itenerant Preachers be they.  (Note: I owe this Holtzlark Caper to xlcer at factnet.)

Apparently also authorized for some limited debating, you could go debate Brian Crowell here:
I am an African American teacher of Economics. Larouche is 100 percent accurate. I’ll debate you on the facts.
Hm.  Note that this Dave Chapelle item was posted in the comments section as a response to Crowell.    Was that what spurred Leatherstocking’s insistence on dumping Frankhauser.?  Check the dates, I suppose.

IV. Okay.
Veteran American physical economist Lyndon LaRouche, who has accurately forecast the world financial and production collapse, warns sharply that the intention of the British Empire is genocide on a scale to make Hitler blush.
[…] to defend the US dollar then the whole world economy will collapse into a Dark Age and a dramatic population crash even worse than the 14th Century Dark Age where similar money speculation followed by war famine and the black death wiped out a third of Europeans.

It all happened on October 12.  Did you notice.  How’s your current 14th Century Dark Age going?  THIS is how Brian Crowell sees Larouche as right there to “Launch a Blue Collar Revolution“.  Debate away, fool.

One final note: this is an odd place to be posting the SNL parody.  But for the “Connect the Dots” people, Larouche is as likely an agent of someone or other — maybe British? — anyways.

Harvey Kurtzman’s Humbug

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

humbugcover  Humbug.
I suppose it’s not exactly a race, but I’d take the first 23 issues of Mad over it.

There are a couple of perenial issues that pop up in this book, pop up forever and ever.  Take this from October 1957:

This promises to be a the most enjoyable school year for the kids yet.  Happy rough and tumble classes will be afforded by overcrowded classrooms and busy busy teachers who will have little time to inhibit children.  Teachers taking after-school jobs to supplement pay will have no time to create or check oppressive homework.  Budget slashes and paper shortages will cancel a good part of annoying written tests.  Following pages show more of the joys of today’s school life.

The image shown is of an aged building, replete with added on “anex”, “sub-anex”, and two outhouses, and a comically overflowing school bus with puffing smoke.  The school is next to the “City Dump”, and in front of a city landscape with the (then modern innovation) fancy super-market, before a shiny Sports Stadium, and again.

Skipping forward:
“Typical schoolday starts with pledge of allegiance.  A full and complete dossier is kept on the half-hearted performers.”
2 school children are shown dutifully with their hands raised, as the Pledge used to be done, the third kid is a stereotypical bearded Anarchis with the classic bowling ball bomb in hand.  The teacher has notebook in hand, eyeing the third kid.

“Citizens Responsible for Fine Schools.”
One man in these four hits me as rather familiar.  Col. Good Oldays — “says improvement lies in going back to little red school-house.  Was good enough for him.”
I remember a “Citizen’s Form Letter” which was sent out to my town back in high school arguing against proposed bond measures for the schools.  This was the gist of his argument, it was good enough for him, why make these changes to the school?  The letter had a half dozen typos in it.  The bond issue, incidentally, failed the first two times, and then the third time was broken into three parts, where two of the three failed.  The Gym and Athletics Facility part failed, which I suppose was just as well.

Another perenial topic pops up in the old Humbug, regarding prospective relocations for the old Brooklyn Dodgers franchise.
Baseball minded town of Grunch (Idaho) makes attractive proposal for New Home for the Majors.
Smile and nod.

New Developments in the Balloon Boy Story

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Breaking new development from Colorado this morning: Falcon “Balloon Boy” Heenes has, apparently, FALLEN DOWN A WELL.

We will be monitoring and having all of the Media’s Cameras focused, 24 hours non-stop coverage of the crisis.

wellimage

… Camera focused right on this wall for all breaking developments.

Election Campaigns going on most every day

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

I walked past a gay bar a week ago Sunday afternoon.  A man approached me, “Hey!  Can you do me a favor?”

I shrugged.  “What do you want me to do?”

“There’s a contest going on here to name “Portland’s Miss Queenie*”.  My friend is running.  Could you go in and vote on the ballot for Shanda Lier?**  Only need ID, don’t need to buy anything.”

I shook my head, and plucked the first thing I could think of out of my head.  “Sorry.  Already voted for Shelly Pisces.”

So that’s the state of electioneering and campaigning for political campaigns these days.  It makes me long for the days of Tammany Hall.

* Totally made up, and purposefully as lame a title as I could muster from my head.
** Name plucked from googling “Drag Queen Names”, and looking over a bad list.

National Football League Exposed as a hotbed of Liberalism, evidence: they didn’t give Limbaugh minority ownership stakes in a team

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Rush Limbaugh owns a small stake of an NFL football team?  Heaven Forbid!

Actually, that was as ridiculous a story as any story of the past week, save Balloon Boy.  But more ridiculous than the thought that after every loss, reporters would horde the St Louis Rams locker-room and ask the players about Limbaugh’s last program, is some rehashing and defense of Limbaugh’s most famous NFL commentary, and Limbaugh’s new NFL comments.

Why is saying that Donovan McNabb is over-rated, and is over-rated because the sports media wants a black guy to succeed as a quarterback, a racist comment?  I don’t know.  Because Donovan McNabb is certainly a very good quarterback, and you’re hard-pressed to say he isn’t.  And his answer as to why this consensus opinion exists as it does is because he’s black.  And for that, his defenders say he’s less racialist in outlook and more he is an “individualist”.

Rush Limbaugh is upset that a couple of bad quotes float amongst his legitimate race quotes.  What’s interesting is that if you give me that list, tell me a number of quotes that are wrong, I will be able ferret out the false quotes quite easily — he’s not going to insult Martin Luther King, Jr. — he’ll probably claim him as a Republican.  For the sin of the bad quote, he gets to accumulate a total denial.

But he gets more absurd in the wake of havig to pull out of NFL ownership agreements.  As we learned in the Donovan McNabb controversy, the NFL sports media are LIBERALS.  And apparently the NFL itself, and as proof we point to the controversy of him being part of an NFL ownership agreement, is sliding into a bastion of LIBERALS.  Yes, for him the definition of “Liberal” is liberal, apolitical, black, gay, or less conservative than he.  I expect the NFL (National Football Liberals) to start running more and more liberal plays.  You know the Miami Dolphins’s “Wildcat Play”?  It’s a well known Democratic ploy.  Devised by George Soros.  I mean, it’s a play that’s run off the basis of “sharing the wealth”!

Oh for the days of the solid Conservative NFL player Johnny Unitas.  To quote Grampa Simpson, “There’s a haircut you can set your watch to!”

Late Nineteenth Century Puerto Rican Republican Heroes

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

This “Americans Heroes and Famous Republicans” slideshow has been getting the greatest amount of attention, from a page that has been mocked mercilessly and on since Launch.   The observation lies around the fact that what we have a pretty good domination from  from the birth of the Republican Party in the second half of the nineteenth, Senator Everett Dirkson in their white-washed version of the history of the Civil Rights Era, Jackie Robinson before denouncing the party in 1964, Susan B Anthony, a couple of other

The message that the new gop page wants to relay is, to quote their quote of Mary Terrell, “   “Every right that has been bestowed upon blacks was initiated by the Republican Party”, said  on behalf of the President Harding campaign.  That is a generally paternalistic attitude that misses a few points, but to put in its historic context, it was said on behalf of President Warren Harding roughly ninety freaking years ago.
And regarding the exclusive club that Harding is in, the Line of Presidents of the United States, the “GOP Hereoes” consists of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.  No mention of poor Harding.

This take on party history was apparently mined from the Michael Zak book Back to Basics.  But, looking down this assortment of Abolitionists and female Temperance leaders, heavily weighted to the nineteenth century, and knowing that Jackie Robinson is the most mocked inclusion, I am still drawn to…

Wait, who’s this guy?

As much as we question whether the Republican Party of the late nineteenth century has too much relation to the Republican Party of the early twenty-first, I have to wonder if the Republican Party of the mainline United States has much relation to the Republican Party of the Puerto Rican colony at the time of Theodore Roosevelt’s rough-riders.