annemm

a piglet's perspective

2009-09-28T14:53:00.001-04:00

The caviary gives their perspective on pet health insurance on The Daily Dish.

natural born citizen

2009-07-27T13:30:00.003-04:00

I was wrong in the previous post. You don't have to be "naturalized" if you are born in another country to an American parent.

Which makes the birther stupidity even more stupid. Someone (such as John McCain) who was born outside of the US is an American citizen and "natural born" if one or both parents is an American citizen.

One is "naturalized" if he or she was not an American citizen at birth, immigrates, and then becomes a citizen.

As Josh Marshall at TPM says, "the best way to understand the 'birther' craze is as a proxy for people who don't want to accept a black man with a Arabic-derived first name as President of the United States. Really as simple as that."

Panamanian conspiracy?

2009-07-24T23:00:00.000-04:00

BTW, McCain was born in Panama.

feed a cold, starve a delusion

2009-07-24T22:35:00.004-04:00

God knows this Birther paranoia doesn't need any more oxygen. But in a Chris Matthews-like attempt to expose this farce as unfit for civilized discussion, let's dispose of a couple of "arguments."

One thing that has bugged me from the first inklings of this wretched nonsense is the futility of wrangling over whether Obama was born in Hawaii (yes, which is part of the United States of America) or in another country such as Kenya.

So what? I thought. His mother's an American citizen, doesn't matter where exactly he was born, he's a citizen too.

Then i gather that one has to go through a naturalization process to be "official" if you were born elsewhere. Probably necessary to obtain a social security number and a passport. That lends support to the Birther claim that engineering a birth announcement in the Hawaii paper was a hoax of convenience: you'd avoid a bit of bureaucratic hassle if BHO was born in Hawaii rather than another country.

But forging a certificate of live birth (which IS a BIRTH CERTIFICATE) is well, a Nixon level of hoax-perpetrating and cover-up.

One other shred of evidence to cling desperately to: Catatonic Gordon Liddy on Hardball persisted in a fantasy about a "sworn deposition" by O's step-grandmother. Sorry, G, totally wishful thinking. (Debunked here.) Poor woman doesn't speak English, in a phone conversation through a translator she appeared to think she was being asked, "Where were *you* when O was born?" Well, right there where she was in Kenya. But "the boy" was born in Hawaii.

I'm getting the feeling that certain segments of the population really can't deal with black people living in big houses. esp big white ones.

the art of elocution: you can't make this stuff up

2009-06-06T17:38:00.005-04:00

Direct quote from Sarah Palin, in a recent speech:

Reagan knew that real change and real change requiring shaking things up and maybe takin' off the entrenched interest thwarting the will of the people with their ignoring of our concerns about future peril caused by selfish short-sighted advocacy for growing government and digging more debt, and taking away individual and state's rights and hampering opportunity to responsibly develop our resources, and coddling those who would seek to harm America and her allies.

The good news is, the Alaskan legislature is set to override her veto of the appropriations bill accepting $27 million in federal energy stimulus.

there's a lieutenant governor primary too

2009-06-02T17:51:00.002-04:00

The Virginia Democratic primary is Tuesday, June 9.

Candidates for governor are Creigh Deeds, Terry McAuliffe, and Brian Moran.

Candidates for lieutenant governor are Mike Signer and Jody Wagner.

Steve Shannon is the candidate for attorney general, running (I presume) against Bil Mims, who replaced Bob McDonnell when he resigned to run for governor.

the imago dei

2009-05-27T09:33:00.002-04:00

A reader writes Andrew Sullivan:

Mancow has glimpsed the real evil of torture: every act of torture--even "play" torture like this--betrays the deepest core of human trust: the trust in God.

Why? Because every man, created in the image of God, the imago dei, must--whether he wishes to or not, whether he knows it or not--stand and act in the place of God, with every decision, with every action, in every human relationship. The torturer therefore does not simply betray the laws of war, he betrays the imago dei: he betrays God, he betrays the other, he betrays himself, he betrays Trust itself.

The inarticulate terror you see flash for a moment across Mancow's face is the existential terror of a child--and we are all children--who sees that: a child faced with a world in which God cannot be trusted, in which God may indeed be actively evil: capricious, all-powerful, hateful, inexorable, inescapable. This is the deepest betrayal of all. This is the utter failure of human love.

resist the fear

2009-05-21T22:02:00.003-04:00

Stepping back from current events and news analysis for a couple of months while I completed The Move to a new place, I am resistant to being sucked back into the news cycle.

With a little detachment, the Swine Flu hysteria appeared as the circus it was. Any political bickering I caught wind of, well, who gives a F? Next week it'll be another Cheney reality-defying escapade.

And speaking of Dick, as Andrew Sullivan says, "Cheney-dead-enders will continue to stoke fear and division."

Today I say, I'm not getting sucked into the fear and reaction. I don't know what to make of all this shit. A calm, thoughtful mind will make better sense of it over time than a fearful, chaotic mind.

post-defeat entrenchment

2009-03-02T14:27:00.002-05:00

Rod Dreher, responding to CPAC (via The Daily Dish):

Do they really believe politics is dogmatic religion? They must. And if so, they're hopeless. Can you imagine going to such a liberal gathering in 1985, after Fritz Mondale had his head handed to him by Ronald Reagan, and listening to the de facto leader of US liberalism talking this way, saying that, "Liberalism is what it is and it is forever. It's not something you can bend and shape and flake and form"? If you were a conservative, you would have chortled and taken comfort in the evidence that the opposition was going to be spending a lot more time in the woods before the light of reality dawned upon their furrowed faces.

so far, obama will honor status-of-forces agreement

2009-03-02T14:20:00.003-05:00

From Obama's Iraq speech on Friday:

As I have long said, we will retain a transitional force to carry out three distinct functions: training, equipping, and advising Iraqi security forces, as long as they remain non-sectarian; conducting targeted counterterrorism missions; and protecting our ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq. Initially, this force will likely be made up of 35,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops. Through this period of transition, we will carry out further redeployments. And under the status-of-forces agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

So far, Obama intends to honor the SOFA. I would like to hear a little language, however, from both the administration and the media, acknowledging that Iraqis have at least some say whether foreign troops are occupying their country. They have formally asked us to leave. And we already agreed.

If Jindal ran in 2012...

2009-02-27T22:12:00.003-05:00

Questions:

If Bobby Jindal ran for President in 2012...

would anyone make offensive jokes about his first name (Piyush)?

would anyone refuse to believe that he was a Catholic because he was born a Hindu?

would anyone call him a Muslim because of his color and the fact that Punjabis are primarily found in Pakistan (as well as northern India)?

would anyone question his citizenship?*

would he ever shake the Kenneth the Page comparison?

*fyi, John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, Panama

democratic government: an heirloom of human reason

2009-02-20T15:54:00.005-05:00

A must-read on The New Republic. Not only a defense, but an elegant argument for liberalism. Wieseltier also scolds the new administration for "its reluctance to attach the grandeur of its initiatives to the grandeur of liberalism."

I want the president to tell the American people that, contrary to what they have been taught for many years, government is a jewel of human association and an heirloom of human reason; that government, though it may do ill, does good; that a lot of the good that government does only it can do; that the size of government must be fitted to the size of its tasks, and so, for a polity such as ours, big government is the only government; that strong government comports well with strong freedom, unless Madison was wrong; that a government based on rights cannot exclude from its concern the adversities of the people who confer upon it its legitimacy, or consign their remediation to the charitable moods of a preferred and decadent few; that Ronald Reagan, when he proclaimed categorically, without exception or complication, that "government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem," was a fool; and that nobody was ever rescued, or enlarged, by being left alone.

phillip larkin: this be the verse

2009-02-20T13:26:00.001-05:00

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

like i said, they already kicked us out

2009-02-20T12:06:00.005-05:00

The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed by the Bush Administration on Thanksgiving Day is a contractual agreement that the US will withdraw ALL its troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

So why does everyone keep discussing how long American troops will remain in Iraq? I asked this at the end of November too.

Helena says we're in big trouble.

alaska attorney general resigns

2009-02-10T19:26:00.003-05:00

The Attorney General of Alaska has resigned, afraid that the state senate might pursue "issues" with him, after it found the Governor, her husband and others in contempt for not complying with subpoenas in the Troopergate investigation.

Anchorage Daily News:

Colberg has been at the center of controversy over his handling of the so-called "Troopergate" investigation. Two weeks ago, he was grilled and sharply criticized by legislators for trying to block legislative subpoenas to state officials during the inquiry into whether Palin abused power in complaints against a state trooper and her dismissal of former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. The grilling mostly came from Fairbanks Republican Rep. Jay Ramras, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Then on Friday, the state Senate voted 16-1 to find the governor's husband, Todd, and nine Palin aides in contempt for failing to show up when ordered by subpoena to testify in the Legislature's "Troopergate" investigation. Todd Palin and the rest did eventually submit written statements to the investigator, so the Senate said no punishment of them was warranted.

French sponsored the resolution and also suggested on the Senate floor Friday that issues remained with the attorney general.

michael steele: bad choice

2009-02-07T21:38:00.004-05:00

The national press seems unaware that Michael Steele, the new RNC chairman, pulled some pretty nasty dirty tricks during his unsuccessful 2006 Senate campaign. He and former Maryland Governor Ehrlich bussed in homeless people from Philadelphia to Baltimore and paid them to distribute phony sample ballots. On the ballots, Steele and Ehrlich were designated as Democrats--intended to fool democratic-leaning African-Americans into voting for them.

Now the WaPo has unearthed some more dirt from that campaign:

Michael S. Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed, his finance chairman from that campaign has told federal prosecutors.

Yeah, not surprised.

The worst thing is, he was the RNC chairman candidate with the least stench. The others were even fouler.

Michael Carmichael: Craddock Scandal Rocks NATO

2009-02-02T00:59:00.001-05:00

Michael Carmichael: Craddock Scandal Rocks NATO

Posted using ShareThis

"unlike how we handled things"

2009-01-31T05:45:00.002-05:00

Robert J. Elisberg:

Republicans insist they know what's best for the economy. After all, they drove us here. Unfortunately, it was a one-way road, and they tore up the path to get here.

And they demand a voice in fixing the problem they caused.

What's missing in the equation when Republicans make their economic demands is a simple phrase. Every time a Republican insists they be included in the process, they should be required to add, "...unlike how we handled things."

quote of the day

2009-01-29T22:09:00.000-05:00

"We have this thing called impeachment and it's bleeping golden and we've used it the right way."

-- Illinois state Sen. James Meeks (D), quoted by the AP, mocking former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's expletive-laden words as captured by the FBI on a wiretap.

a tale of two planes

2009-01-24T23:12:00.002-05:00

Andrew Sullivan finds historical symmetry in two planes: one smashed into the World Trade Center, and the other guided onto the Hudson River.

inauguration

2009-01-20T04:47:00.008-05:00

The excitement generated by the inauguration of Barack Obama (I can virtually see the waves of joyous energy rippling across the Potomac) is accounted for in the media by two things: the abysmal economy and two foreign wars ("change, please"), and the "historicity" of Barack Obama's election as the first African-American president.

(It's a pet peeve of mine that he is identified exclusively in the media as a black man, when he is bi-racial. Same with Tiger Woods. It's as if the media still can't deal with inter-racial marriage and the booming population of young people of mixed race. Then again, Obama does self-identify as African-American.)

I don't buy the "post-racial" thing, but my enthusiasm for Obama has much less to do with race than merit.

I watched him deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and I leapt out of my chair and said, "This amazing man will be president someday! The first black president!" I thought it would be eight or 12 years, but I knew it would happen.

And yes, hope for a better future awoke that day. Because here was a man of substance, vision, wisdom, and reflection, with an astounding rhetorical ability. So young, so obviously brilliant, the full package.

I went out my way to go to a fundraiser for Tim Kaine in 2005 because Obama was speaking. I called my father afterward to tell him. He had no idea who Barack Obama was. I said, "you will."

The Bush Administration: 8 years of the degradation of our Constitution and the rule of law, the fruitless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sucking our money and lifeblood and energy, endless abuses of power, arrogance and indifference toward those who dissent, then the coup de grace of the utter destruction of the economy.

Even more years of a Republican Congress thriving on rancor and churning up any resentment and bitterness in Americans they could harness to keep them in power. The 2008 election was an iconoclastic conflict between these politics of fear-mongering and small-mindedness and -- something new.

Of course we feel relief that Republican hegemony is over. Of course we are jubilant that this ant-brained president who never should have left Texas is on his way back, and we pray that Dick Cheney will find an new undisclosed location and stay there forever.

We might have only heaved a giant sigh before gritting our teeth and shouldering of the burden of anxiety and care to rebuild after this hurricane, just like New Orleans is still doing after Katrina.

Yet we are optimistic and joyous, because not only is this president a symbol of victory over bigotry and historical oppression, he is a victory of substance: in thought process, decision-making and temperament, he is everything that George W is not.

Jimmy Carter embodied the personal integrity the country yearned for in a president after Nixon, yet that integrity and idealism was coupled with inflexibility and impatience with political process.

In Obama we have the non-ideological pragmatic. I am not convinced that this is a great thing, but it could be perfect for the times.

The country now yearns for the competent hand of a pilot like Chesley Sullenberger to guide this listing plane to a miraculous landing. It may be too much to hope for.

Isn't it something though, when we can dare to hope, and say, "Yes, we can."

in gaza, this is not "the cycle of violence"

2008-12-28T22:48:00.004-05:00

I can't claim to be super-knowledgeable on the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations, so I turn to Just World News for interpretation of events like Israel's attack on Gaza. Some of the regular commenters on the blog are also quite informed (although you naturally get quite a few irate people on this topic too).

US press coverage of this outrageous blitz on Gaza has been beyond the usual pro-Israel bias. Stories are framed as "retaliation" for Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, when the Israeli "response" has been so disproportionate to any recent Hamas aggression. Alternatively, the attacks are called a continuation of the "cycle" of violence.

Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, nine civilians have been killed by rocket fire. Britain's Daily Telegraph reports, "During the same period, at least 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces in Gaza, according to figures compiled by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group."

Hamas will not be beaten into submission, and I'm sure that Israel knows this. What strategic advantage do they hope to gain, except to kill as many Palestinians as possible?

this is sad

2008-12-19T19:34:00.001-05:00

Bristol Palin's soon-to-be mother-in-law is arrested on six drug felony counts.

Her son, Levi Johnston, dropped out of high school to be a working dad.

a screw-up, or not?

2008-12-19T19:24:00.003-05:00

Regarding Rick Warren, Andrew Sullivan says:

There were a few times in the campaign when my first reaction was that he had screwed up. In almost every case, he subsequently proved me wrong.

That's the only point in defense of Obama that's made sense to me.

Glen Greenwald writes about how Obama's "new" politics aren't new.

americans eschew suv's this year but still buy american pick-ups

2008-12-19T14:58:00.003-05:00

Forbes' best- and worst- selling cars of the year.

Five of the best-selling are by American automakers. Three of those are pick-up trucks.

All of the worst-selling cars are SUV's. Six of them are by American automakers.