RADAMISTO

MORE ON THE KRAZY PHOENIX PREACHER

2009-11-26T17:44:00.003-07:00

I noted below that Pastor Steve Anderson prayed that Pres. Obama dies and goes to hell. Sheila Samples of The Smirking Chimp provides a little more info about one of his sermons, "Why I hate Obama." She found these additional quotes from that sermon. Square brackets indicate approximate times in the audio clip.

"Obama is a madman in control of this country." [27:32]
"Obama is NOT my president." [28:21]
"Obama mocks the Bible." [29:08]
"Obama is a socialist devil murderer." [47:20]
"God looks down and says, 'Man -- I HATE that guy!'"

WE NEED BETTER FLAG OFFICERS

2009-11-26T15:45:00.002-07:00

In January 2006, British General Sir Michael Rose pointed the finger at his own:

A high-profile resignation of a senior armed forces officer before the start of the March 2003 conflict may also have made the British Government think twice before sending troops to the Gulf, he added.

"I would not have gone to war on such flimsy grounds," he said.

We know that American air strikes have killed hudreds of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and even the Secretary of Defense has admitted it. So far, not one American senior officer has resigned.

Things are different in Germany (h/t BuzzFlash):

Der Spiegel Online
11/26/2009
Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan
Germany's Top Soldier Resigns over Air Strike Accusations

Germany's highest ranking soldier has resigned in response to allegations that the German Defense Ministry concealed information about civilian casualties sustained during an air strike in Afghanistan.

Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Thursday morning that Bundeswehr Inspector General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the highest-ranking officer in Germany's armed forces, had asked to be relieved of his official duties.

BECK'S A LITTLE SLOW

2009-11-26T13:25:00.003-07:00

As I noted below, the Anti-Defamation League came out with a report about anti-government rage and singled out Glenn Beck:

The most important mainstream media figure who has repeatedly helped to stoke the fires of anti-government anger is right-wing media host Glenn Beck, who has a TV show on FOX News and a popular syndicated radio show. While other conservative media hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, routinely attack Obama and his administration, typically on partisan grounds, they have usually dismissed or refused to give a platform to the conspiracy theorists and anti-government extremists. This has not been the case with Glenn Beck. Beck and his guests have made a habit of demonizing President Obama and promoting conspiracy theories about his administration.

Tim Rutten of the LA Times noted the ADL report for a column that asked if FAUX should cancel Beck's show because he's getting more into politics. This got Beck's attention and yesterday he attacked the ADL (and NOW) as "has as much to do with the plight of the Jewish people as the National Organization for Women has to do with the plight of women."

Here's the audio:

For a guy who openly called Pres. Obama a racist, Beck's got pretty thin skin.

BEST LINE OF THE DAY?

2009-11-26T12:41:00.002-07:00

(h/t Atrios)

Dubai is on the verge of defaulting on $80 billion in loans and guess which American bank could be on the hook for some of it?

From Calculated Risk:

When there are bad loans to be made, apparently Citi never sleeps.*

I guess we better increase the bonuses so we can get "better" MOTU.

*For those of you who may not know, "The Citi never sleeps" was part of Citigroup's ad campaign once upon a time.

YEAH, THE JOB IS TOUGH

2009-11-26T12:26:00.002-07:00

so I do have some sympathy for the police but unlike Atrios and Digby, I think a lot of them are authoritarian assholes. I've known 2 people in Tucson who were in the armed forces then later became cops, something the FRC's Tony Perkins did, and I think they both have authoritarian personalities.

JUST AMAZING

2009-11-25T16:27:00.003-07:00

Now that Lou Dobbs is thinking about running for elective office, he's trying to suck up to Hispanics by reversing himself and supporting what the wingers call amnesty. The WSJ provides a little more evidence of Dobbs' delusional thinking:

"Many Hispanics consider you to be the No. 1 enemy of Latinos," she told him. "Do you think that the community is somehow misjudging you?"

"Oh, not somehow. Definitively, absolutely," Mr. Dobbs responded. "By the way, I don't believe for a moment that the Latino, Hispanic community in the United States believes that of me at all. It has been the efforts of the far left to characterize me in their propaganda as such."

Why is it almost always someone else's, usually a liberal, fault?

DID BECK RUN AFOUL OF THE WAR WHORES?

2009-11-25T14:01:00.002-07:00

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air provides two clips that show Mr. Beck making an argument for people, including his nephew, not to re-enlist. Morissey thinks Beck went too far this time and so does Confederate Yankee.

Maybe this sense of outrage will spread.

MORE EVIDENCE OF PREMEDITATION

2009-11-25T12:00:00.003-07:00

Paul O'Neill, Pres. Bush's first Secretary of the Treasury, provided us with the cover page for the first two meetings of his National Security Council and the main topic was Iraq. The Raw Story reports that the British were aware in early 2001 of the criminal Bush regime's desire to invade Iraq:

US discussed Iraq regime change a month after Bush took office, senior British officials say

By John Byrne
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 -- 9:13 am
The Raw Story

The chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee in 2001 told investigators Monday that elements of the Bush Administration were pushing for regime change in Iraq in early 2001, months before the 9/11 attacks and two years before President George W. Bush formally announced the Iraq war.

Sir Peter Ricketts, now-Secretary at the Foreign Office, ... Ricketts also said that US officials had raised the prospect of regime change in Iraq, asserting that the British weren't supportive of the idea at the time.

"We were conscious that there were other voices in Washington, some of whom were talking about regime change," Ricketts said.

The head of the British Foreign Office's Middle East department, Sir William Patey, told the inquiry that his office was aware of regime change talk from some parts of the Bush Administration shortly after they took office in 2001.

"In February 2001 we were aware of these drum beats from Washington and internally we discussed it," Patey said. "Our policy was to stay away from that."

I DON'T KNOW HOW FATS LIMBAUGH CAN GET AWAY WITH THIS

2009-11-25T10:49:00.005-07:00

CORRECTION: It's not Martin Manning, it's Michael E. Mann. Here's the quote:

Michael Mann is a fraud. Phil Jones is a fraud. James Hansen at NASA is not only is a fraud, he's insane.

In the first half-hour of his show today, he said that Prof. Martin Manning, Prof. Phil Jones and Dr. James E. Hansen were all "frauds" because they deliberately lied to us about global warming.

FAUX NEWS == HUMAN EVENTS???

2009-11-25T05:01:00.005-07:00

Rowan Scarsborough is a reporter for FAUX News...

and a writer for the conservative agit-prop rag Human Events...

WHERE LIMBAUGHISM LEADS

2009-11-25T03:50:00.002-07:00

TIME Magazine decided to interview a British political journalist on the importance of the work of Charles Darwin. This is what he said at the end:

All things considered, do you believe Darwin was a great luminary in the path of human progress?
What has the theory of evolution done for the practical benefit of humanity? It's helped our understanding of ourselves, yet compared to, say, the discovery of penicillin or the invention of the World Wide Web, I wonder why Darwin occupies this position at the pinnacle of esteem. I can only imagine he has been put there by a vast public relations exercise.

This article seems to be another case of pandering to the Fundies. Why didn't TIME interview an historian of science instead or at least someone conversant with the tremendous effect Darwin's ideas have had on biology and medicine? The last sentence is something that Limbaugh or Beck could have said.

LIMBAUGH IS OUR TRUE COUNTER-CULTURE PROPHET

2009-11-25T03:28:00.004-07:00

Yesterday, he made it as clear as possible that the politics in America really boils down to Us vs. Them and came as close to nihilism as I can recall. In this, he expands on Charles Krauthammer's remark about the usefulness of FAUX News.

ClimateGate Hoax: The Universe of Lies Versus the Universe of Reality
November 24, 2009

We're going to talk about Copenhagen. We really live, folks, in two worlds. There are two worlds. We live in two universes. One universe is a lie. One universe is an entire lie. Everything run, dominated, and controlled by the left here and around the world is a lie. The other universe is where we are, and that's where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it.

This can drive rational, reasonable, average people insane trying to juxtapose these two universes -- the Universe of Reality and the Universe of Lies.

You know, folks, the two universes here -- The Universe of Lies, The Universe of Reality -- they don't overlap anymore. And this is even bigger than global warming, which was my point yesterday. It's about everything that the left is involved in. What this fraud, what the uncovering of this hoax exposes, is the corruption that exists between government and academia and science and the media. Science has been corrupted. We know the media has been corrupted for a long time. Academia has been corrupted. None of what they do is real. It's all lies! It is all oriented toward a political outcome. It's bigger than global warming. And of course science has been corrupted here. Science is being used for political purposes.

So we have now the Four Corners of Deceit, and the two universes in which we live. The Universe of Lies, the Universe of Reality, and The Four Corners of Deceit: Government, academia, science, and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper.

TOUGH TIMES IN ARIZONA...

2009-11-24T05:52:00.004-07:00

The Wall Street Journal provides this statistic: 47.9% of Arizona home owners have negative equity (click for larger image):

The Phoenix Business Journal provides a more sobering prediction:

ASU economist: Local job market won’t recover until 2014 or 2015
Phoenix Business Journal - by Mike Sunnucks
Thursday, November 19, 2009

Arizona’s beleaguered job market won’t recover until 2014 or 2015 and many of the state’s jobless have left for other markets, according to a leading state economist.

Arizona State University economist Dennis Hoffman said Thursday at a conference in Paradise Valley that, despite some reports, Arizona ranks with the likes of Michigan when it comes to unemployment, decreased personal income and spending.

Hoffman, a professor at ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business, said he expects the state to lose population in 2009, and the state’s economy still hinges on population growth.

WHEN WILL DAVID BROOKS GROW UP?

2009-11-24T05:09:00.002-07:00

In his latest column, he again asserts his childish belief in the Free Market Fairy:

The unregulated market wants to direct capital to the productive and the young.

Adam Smith knew better than that.

11 PAGES REALLY IMPRESSED LIMBAUGH

2009-11-24T04:10:00.002-07:00

You may recall that Fats Limbaugh said Palin's book was "one of the most substantive policy books I've read." It turns out that the policy section of Palin's opus is a whopping 11 pages, according to conservative pundit Steve Chapman:

Palin? Her new memoir, "Going Rogue," fills up 413 pages, but it has less policy heft than a student council speech. Where Reagan dived into the murk of arms control and Goldwater fathomed federal farm programs, Palin skims over the surface of a puddle.

Amid all the tales of savoring the aromas at the state fair and having her wardrobe vetted by snotty campaign staffers, she sets aside space to lay out her vision of what it means to be a "Commonsense Conservative." It takes up all of 11 pages and leans heavily on prefabricated lines like "I am a conservative because I deal with the world as it is" and "If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes."

PALIN HAS THE REAL "CULT OF PERSONALITY"

2009-11-24T02:56:00.002-07:00

If you take the time to see the video below, you'll learn that many Palin supporters don't have a clue about her policy positions beyond the typical right-wing cliches ("freedom"). Some apparently believe the fear promoted by right-wing radio gasbags and think Palin is the answer.

THE GOP HAS MULTIPLE PERSONALITY SYNDROME

2009-11-24T01:42:00.001-07:00

The GOP governors want to promote a reality-based agenda and the conservatives on the RNC want to push Mark Levin's agenda.

ANOTHER BECK "PLAN" GOES BELLY-UP

2009-11-23T23:42:00.002-07:00

Back on September 12th, Beck called for 56 "Re-Founders" who would "put their nation ahead of themselves and their party affiliation." I recall visiting his site perhaps a month ago and it claimed that Beck had found 5-6 of these "Re-Foudners" but today, there's nothing there.

LOOKS LIKE MCCLATCHY WAS RIGHT ABOUT 2002 PLANS FOR IRAQ

2009-11-23T23:23:00.002-07:00

On Febraury 13, 2002, Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott of Knight-Ridder (now McClatchy) reported that "Bush has decided to overthrow Hussein." It looks like we may have passed the word to our best ally, the British:

The Telegraph reports, however, that according to leaked documents, “formation-level planning for a deployment took place from February 2002.”

The documents quote British Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, director of special forces during the war, as saying: “I had been working the war up since early 2002.”

PREDATORY CAPITALISM

2009-11-23T23:13:00.002-07:00

For decades, Intel has dominated the micro-processor market yet it still found it necessary ot engage in monopolistic practices, just like Microsoft did with Windows.

Intel to Pay AMD $1.25 Billion to Settle Disputes (Update3)
By Ian King
Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Intel Corp. agreed to pay Advanced Micro Devices Inc. $1.25 billion as part of a legal settlement that ends a four-year dispute between the world’s two largest computer-processor makers. AMD stock rose 22 percent.

The settlement includes all antitrust litigation and patent disputes, the companies said in a statement today. The two agreed to a new five-year cross-license pact and will give up claims of breach from the previous agreement. Intel also agreed to abide by a set of business-practice provisions.

AMD sued Intel in Delaware in 2005 alleging it controls the microprocessor market in part by providing discounts to customers that avoid AMD’s products. Intel has faced anti-trust investigations dating back to the early 1990s and the two companies had battled over licenses before. Intel, which had more than 80 percent of the processor market, is also facing increasing regulatory scrutiny for its business practices.

In May, EU regulators levied a record 1.06 billion-euro ($1.58 billion) fine against Intel and ordered the company to stop using illegal rebates to thwart competitors.

Following an eight-year investigation, the EU found that Intel impeded competition by giving rebates to computer makers that buy all or almost all of their chips from Intel.

THE FRC'S TONY PERKINS IS AN AUTHORITARIAN PRICK

2009-11-23T10:34:00.005-07:00

I just read this in NEWSWEEK:

“I’m a former police officer, and I have hard time with civil disobedience, but if it comes to the point where our religious liberty is at risk, I’d not only participate but would encourage people to resist.”

My hunch was that he was a member of one of the armed services before he became a cop and his FRC bio shows that I was correct:

A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and a former police officer and television news reporter, Tony brings a unique blend of experience and leadership to the pro-family movement. He received his undergraduate degree from Liberty University and a Master's Degree from Louisiana State University in Public Administration. In May 2006 he received an honorary doctorate in theology from Liberty University. Tony and Lawana, married in 1986, have five children.

FATS LIMBAUGH ON GLOBAL WARMING

2009-11-23T10:28:00.003-07:00

Fats said that he believes in God and God wouldn't allow Man to cause global warming. He also joined Mark Levin by claiming that Communists are part of the environmental movement because they see it as a way to destroy Capitalism.

I THOUGHT ANDY MCARTHY WAS JUST ANOTHER ISLAMO-PHOBE

2009-11-23T10:19:00.002-07:00

Glenn Greenwald notes that he's pretty a full-fledged krazy and has defended Palin's "death panels" nonsense and the Birther nonsense.

PALIN, OUR CULTURE WARRIOR PRINCESS

2009-11-23T09:23:00.001-07:00

In her interview with Bill O'Reilly, she hits the traditional conservative line of resentment toward those who are well-educated:

O'REILLY: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have -- I believe the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spineless -- a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fat resume that's based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans are -- could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that that has to be me.

I'd like to know what "hard work" Palin has done in the private sector.

A FEW MONTHS LATE...

2009-11-23T07:53:00.002-07:00

(h/t Kevin Drum)

During the August Bagger protests, some of them made a good point: If this health care plan is so good, why don't YOU (Congress) enroll? Well, the H.R. 3590 AS bill in the Senate does just that:

SEC. 1312. CONSUMER CHOICE.
(d) Empowering Consumer Choice-
(3) VOLUNTARY NATURE OF AN EXCHANGE-

(D) MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE-

(i) REQUIREMENT- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, after the effective date of this subtitle, the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are--

(I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or

(II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act).

(ii) DEFINITIONS- In this section:

(I) MEMBER OF CONGRESS- The term `Member of Congress' means any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate.

(II) CONGRESSIONAL STAFF- The term `congressional staff' means all full-time and part-time employees employed by the official office of a Member of Congress, whether in Washington, DC or outside of Washington, DC.