The Supreme Irony of Life...

Independence Day

2008-07-03T09:59:00.001-05:00

Don't expect too much from me until Monday.

Go celebrate the 232nd birthday of this country.

What? Another Fabricated Obama Controversy?

2008-07-02T16:00:00.000-05:00

Well, it turns out the fist bump refusal was much ado about nothing, and much to do about a child hoping for an indelible Obama marking on his hand.

Click HERE to watch the video.

Here is the actual exchange based on a review of ABC's video:

Child: Can you sign my hand?

Obama: If I start that...plus Mom might not be happy when she comes home. She'll be like, 'what is the dirt on your hand?'...see ya.

Child: Can you sign it in pen so it will come off?

The child rose his hand in a fist to get Obama's attention as he asked for a signature – perhaps prompting the fist bump portrayal.

Obama instead signed the autographs for the children in crayon on drawings they were working on during class.

Now that's controversy!

How Do I Love Thee, Texas ...

2008-07-02T15:07:00.003-05:00

... let me count the ways.

The Texas GOP is the party that keeps on giving, literally year after year, unless you are an abusive SOB:

Texans would have to wait two years to get a divorce — unless they take a class designed to save their marriage — under a proposal a key state lawmaker says he plans to revive.

...

"The deal is, we need to take marriage more seriously," said [Warren] Chisum, who in October will celebrate his 51st wedding anniversary.

I'm sure there will be plenty of exceptions, such as your pastor blessing your divorce (after a suitable contribution to the church fund).

Wouldn't it be better if Texas just tried to ban divorce altogether?

Thought for the Day

2008-07-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

"A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."

--Carl Reiner

Does Obama Have a Hispanic "Problem"?

2008-07-02T10:54:00.002-05:00

Right now, and despite people insisting that he does, it doesn't really look that way:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Hispanic registered voters' support for Barack Obama for president remained consistent and strong in June, with Obama leading John McCain by 59% to 29% among this group.

Oops. Another media narrative contradicted by "facts"*

*The facts Liberal bias notwithstanding.

ROMPer Room

2008-07-02T10:37:00.003-05:00

I wonder how a program designed to build a majority in Congress would work when it is only targeting two incumbent Democrat:

A leading GOPer in the House, whip Roy Blunt, sent out a release today touting a new fundraising effort on behalf of Republican candidates.

This new program is called Regain Our Majority Program (ROMP). The kicker, is that this ROMP II plan targets two incumbent Democrats, Chris Hackett of Pennsylvania, and Pete Olsen of Texas.

Contrast this with the Democrat's Red to Blue plan, which is designed to expand the Democratic majority, rather than preserve incumbent Democrats.

Via Steve Benen, who notes, that the only real open seat Republicans have an opportunity with, and will pour as many resources as they can into, is the White House.

ROMPer Room, indeed.

Cornyn's Attack Dog

2008-07-01T16:41:00.005-05:00

Via Burnt Orange Report we learn that a member of Texas Republican Senator, John Cornyn's office, has been, basically an Internet troll:

Longtime readers know that in order to register to comment on the site, you must set up an account and provide an email address. It's a way to ensure accountability and prevent abuse in our community. However, we sometimes still have problems with abusive users that create sock puppet accounts to harass and intimidate writers and other commenters.

Many of you have become familiar with user Buck Smith's abusive comments that troll the site, attack and personally insult users and writers, and impugn the integrity of our community, our Democratic candidates and our Democratic values.

We have a policy that our commenters have helped enforce that requires us to disclose our jobs and who pays us. Our commenters have done the same. When political consultants or staffers post on this site, we know who they are and where they are coming from, ensuring that no false representation is being had.

When a staffer for Lt. Col. Noriega made a dumb mistake and falsely represented himself as a blogger to the Cornyn campaign, he was rightfully excoriated. When a Democratic consultant created an anonymous website, he was rightfully questioned. In 2007, user Buck Smith began posting on this and other sites, mainly on threads involving Lt. Col. Rick Noriega or Sen. John Cornyn. He attacked diarists and commenters and provided pro-Cornyn spin on many items. In the interest of full disclosure, and in order to keep everything fair, and since Buck Smith has not disclosed who he is, we thought we would clue you in that he is David Beckwith, John Cornyn's senior staffer.

As David Mauro at BOR found out, Beckwith has spent considerable time trolling BOR, and presumably other sites, on the taxpayer's dime.

I have no doubt that Cornyn will get right on fixing this up.

Vince at Capitol Annex has a lot more.

No matter how much Cornyn or Beckwith tries to deny it, Beckwith is a sockpuppet and an Internet troll.

Such high standards.

The Stupid. It Burns

2008-07-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

I continue to be amazed that Jonah Goldberg is given a platform to display his lack of intellect:

Liberals might giggle at what to them sounds like paranoia. But if you aren't already entranced by Obama, Obamania can seem not only vaguely anti-American but also downright otherworldly.

This coming from someone who recently displayed a cult like admiration of George Bush...

Via Memeorandum

A Commie Under Every Rock

2008-07-01T12:41:00.005-05:00

It's amazing just how far paranoia will carry one.

Google allows people to flag blogs as spam. I suspect that whether or not a blog gets flagged as such, is dependent upon how many reports get submitted.

That said, unless you are running a real spam blog, the block is only temporary:

Did Google use its network of online services to silence critics of Barack Obama? That was the question buzzing on a corner of the blogosphere over the last few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger service.

The bloggers in question, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all of them opposed to Senator Obama, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential “spam” blogs. “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog,” the Google e-mail read.

In every case highlighted in this post, the blog was restored within a day or so.

The fact that they were blocked, was probably due to a significant number of reports by individuals that this was a spam blog. Right or wrong, that is terms of service that each person who started a blog on blogger agreed to.

I find the persecution complex that is all to prevalent on the Internet to be rather funny to watch, when it happens. The sad part is that The New York Times felt that this was at all newsworthy.

Via Memeorandum

Thought for the Day

2008-07-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

"The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action."

--Frank Herbert

Thought for the Day

2008-06-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Starting a new job is hard work.

As such, my blogging will probably drop off for a short time.

The John McCain Myth

2008-06-30T07:54:00.002-05:00

I missed Wesley Clark on Face the Nation yesterday, but it is good to know that he is going straight at the heart of the media myth about John McCain:

SCHIEFFER: Can I just interrupt you? I have to say, Barack Obama hasn't had any of these experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.

CLARK: I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.

As they say, go read the rest. Digby's underlying point is that Clark just stuck a pin into the media created balloon that is John McCain.

And neither the media, nor the right-wing like it.

Stopping Cornyn

2008-06-27T13:00:00.000-05:00

Via Burnt Orange Report, we learn of some heartening polling news:

After the back and forth of Rasmussen polls, finally a poll I trust has some interesting news.

According to the Texas Lyceum, a statewide, non-partisan leadership group, the U.S. Senate race is very tight. The poll shows Junior Senator John Cornyn at 38%, Lt. Col and State Representative Rick Noriega at 36%, and undecided at 24%. The biggest surprise is only 23% of Texans feel the country is on the right track.

The Texas Lyceum is a live interview poll to over 1,000 voters with a margin of error of 4.5%

There is some detail about the poll at BOR, but right now, it is looking very promising that in November, we could have a new Junior Senator from Texas.

Thought for the Day

2008-06-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking."

--H. L. Mencken

Welcome to the General Election

2008-06-27T10:30:00.000-05:00

After the FISA debacle, I think it is pretty safe to say, that from Barack Obama, we are not going to see a very progressive candidate:

Mr. Obama, who like Mr. McCain has been on record as supporting the individual-rights view, said the ruling would “provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.”

He praised the decision for endorsing the individual-rights view and for describing the right as “not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.”

I'm not of the "let's ban all handguns" mindset, but I do think it perfectly reasonable to place limits on ownership of firearms. If anyone is looking for Obama to take any sort of lead on the issue, however, they had better get their disappointment out of the way now. Because, Obama will continue to disappoint on issues as contentious as this.

A Tinge of Regret, Perchance?

2008-06-27T09:36:00.003-05:00

It's one thing for Antonin Scalia to pretend that there was no serious consequence from the actions of the 2000 election fiasco. However, for him to contend that it was Gore, and not the actions of the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, the Bush Campaign, and the Republican Party who made the entire recount process the spectacle it was, who is to blame is ridiculous:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has claimed, in a recent interview with the UK newspaper Telegraph, that then Vice President Al Gore was to blame for George W. Bush being declared the victor of the 2000 presidential election.

Obviously he wants to pretend that the SCOTUS had "no choice" in accepting the case, and ruling like they did. However, I have to speculate that if it was the Gore campaign, and not the Bush campaign who decided to take it to the supreme court, that the events would have been significantly different.

I think Scalia is feeling a bit of remorse for sullying the reputation of the Supreme Court like he, and his fellow travelers did.

It's Called Intimidation

2008-06-27T09:14:00.003-05:00

Pedernales Electric Co-op, here in Texas, is under investigation for a whole mess of things. Congress has started hearings into the practices of the Co-op.

It seems that someone is so desperate to keep this hearing from moving forward, they accused a Democratic House Member of hacking a website:

The Committee hearing examined questionable practices at Pedernales Electric Cooperative. During the interrogation Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) cited documents that he said came from "secret, password-protected website" of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, in testimony today in front of the Committee

In response, NRECA President Glenn English, a former Congressmen from Oklahoma, claimed that the NRECA counsel had told him that Cooper was in the process of being investigated by the FBI for taking unauthorized information from their website.

If off, it is ludicrous to suggest that a Congressman will pull out documents, in a hearing on Capitol Hill, that he knows were illegally obtained. Second, I find it highly likely that Glenn English knows full well who provided Congressman Cooper the password, but is apparently trying to cover something up.

The "hacking" claim is pretty weak. Weak as water, if you ask me.

Thought for the Day

2008-06-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

"If the human mind was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it."

--Emerson Pugh

Is That the Sound of Crickets Chirping?

2008-06-26T10:15:00.002-05:00

That can't be right, because Conservatives should be howling in anger over judical activism.

Yet, there is nary a peep.

What is Obama Doing?

2008-06-26T09:40:00.003-05:00

I knew that Barack Obama, like Hillary Clinton before, was going to cause something to provoke severe disappointment.

His stupid, idiotic support for preserving telecom immunity, and the so-called "compromise" bill that the House sent up to the Senate.

I'm not going to go as far as Kevin Hayden, namely because, despite this ridiculous move on Obama's part, Obama still needs to be the next President.

However, like Kevin, my enthusiasm for Obama was just knocked down a good bit.

What Won't Hurt Obama?

2008-06-25T14:22:00.004-05:00

From poll numbers not putting him far enough ahead, to his skin color, to his not being black "enough", to inexperience, to this, to that, there seemingly was nothing about Barack Obama that wasn't hurting him.

Now, his problem is that he has too much experience:

During the primaries, Barack Obama often made a joke of the perception that he didn't have enough experience. "They say Obama has not been in Washington long enough," he'd muse, as he did in Concord, N.H., in January. "They say I need to be seasoned; they say I need to be stewed. They say, 'We need to boil all the hope out of him.' " The lines usually generated laughs, but nowadays it sometimes looks like the joke is on Obama; after 16 months, 22 debates, thousands of speeches and 56 marathon contests, Obama may have gotten a little more seasoning than he bargained for.

According to Jay Newton-Small, having too much experience isn't a bad thing for John McCain, just like Richard Cohen told us that flip-flopping isn't bad for McCain. Just like <insert pundit name here> has told us that, no matter what John McCain does, has done, may do, may have said, et cetera won't hurt him.

Sometimes it's enough to give you a splitting headache.

My Own Deep Thought

2008-06-25T13:41:00.001-05:00

Ralph Nader is welcome to his views, racist or otherwise.

Everyone else is welcome, and encouraged to ignore him.

Thought for the Day

2008-06-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

"You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance."

--Ray Bradbury

Start Dialing

2008-06-25T10:12:00.003-05:00

The FISA bill passed by the House, which includes telecom immunity is on its way to the Senate.

As Jane notes, it is time to call your Senators, especially if they are Democrats, and tell them, in no uncertain terms, that this bill cannot pass.

Senators Feingold and Dodd, have signaled their intent to filibuster. We need more Democrats on board.

Get dialing.

I Would Like to See the Same In Austin

2008-06-25T08:59:00.004-05:00

Those wild and crazy wackos in San Francisco are making me smile this morning:

Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital (and a state, too). But President Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom.

From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.