Blech-o-jevich

I have very little to say about the Gov. Blagojevich allegations except:

• What. A. Dumbass. Anyone this reckless and this narcissistic has a mental problem, not just an integrity problem. If even half of these allegations are true he should be locked up for a long, long time.

• Attempts to link President-elect Barack Obama to Gov. Blagojevich look pretty lame so far. Obama was the Democratic Senator from Illinois, so of course he would endorse the Democratic candidate for Governor. That’s what politicians do.

That said, Gov. Blagojevich's approval rating was at 13%--before this scandal broke. The people of Illinois couldn't find a decent Democrat to run against him in 2006? Really?

By all accounts, they couldn'f find a decent Republican, either:

In 2006, he won re-election in a year when no incumbent Democrat lost a race for governor, senator or congressman. His opponent, state treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, was an abrasive, orange-haired cross between Marge Schott and a chain-smoking cocktail waitress. Her successor as state treasurer had to replace all her office furniture (it had been ruined by dog hair and cigarette smoke).

If nothing else, wiretaps in which Blagojevich unleashes a string of obscenities at Barack Obama show the two were not exactly pals:

ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that the consultants (Advisor B and another consultant are believed to be on the call at that time) are telling him that he has to "suck it up" for two years and do nothing and give this "motherfucker [the President-elect] his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him."

• Stephen King called. He wants his look back.

Joe The Plumber’s Integrity Down The Drain

Apparently (not)Joe The (not)Plumber was against John McCain while he was for him. Imagine that:

Joe the Plumber: McCain 'appalled me'

Joe Wurzelbacher lashed out at former GOP presidential nominee John McCain Tuesday, the man who made Wurzelbacher famous as “Joe the Plumber.”


Wurzelbacher told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.” 



Recalling a conversation he had with McCain about the $700 billion financial industry bailout in September, Wurzelbacher said: “When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen."



“I asked him some pretty direct questions,” he continued. “Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive — they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.”

Asked why he didn’t leave McCain’s campaign if he was “appalled” by the candidate, Wurzelbacher said, “honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more.” 


While Wurzelbacher was critical of McCain during the interview, he had nothing but praise for his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal,” he said.

Right. That is, until she appalls you, in which case you can say you sold your soul because you never had one to begin with?

SCOTUS Redux

While the Supreme Court declined to take on the last Obama citizenship petition, which Clarence Thomas brought to the court, now Justice Scalia has taken on an identical case:

Justice Scalia, by referring Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz to committee on Dec. 12 may allow the Supreme Court to decide upon Barack Obama's status as a presidential candidate before the currently scheduled Electoral College election day, December 15.

This case is essentially similar to the case of Leo Donofrio, who assisted Connecticut lawyer, Cort Wrotnoski, in drafting it. According to Donofrio, the basis is very much the same (not essentially about the birth certificate, but regarding a foreign father) and it includes additional corroborative research and/or reasoning. Also, the history of this case is less problematic for the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) than the Donofrio case, due to a suspicious misfiling of the latter case by a New Jersey judge which may have provoked a question of standing before the Supreme Court.

Oh, fer chrissakes. Talk about your “activist judges.”

So I guess the two conservative ideologues on the SCOTUS will continue to accept petitions challenging Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as President until, what? A third Bush term? Another election? Nancy Pelosi is president?

Remember when everyone was clamoring at Al Gore to concede the election “for the good of the country”? Yeah, good times, good times.

This is ridiculous. For more, read Salon's coverage of today's press conference, which appeared to be long on looney, short on sanity. If this is the crowd Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia are hoping to legitimize, I seriously question their ability to serve on the nation's highest court.

(h/t, Sadly, No!)

Same As It Ever Was

We saw "Milk” this weekend. Good movie, but it depressed me.

It was 30 years ago that Dan White murdered Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. I was living in California at the time, and I remember it well. I remember Anita Bryant’s jihad against gays and the Briggs Initiative (although I was too young to vote). Seeing actual interview clips of Bryant in the film just reminded me how little has changed in 30 years. You can’t hear Bryant and John Briggs talk about “God’s law” and “homosexuals want to recruit our children” and not think of recent battles over marriage equality and gay couples adopting children.

Are we seriously having the same conversation after 30 fucking years? Let’s just stop it, already.

I love these people who insist we are a “Christian” nation. Really? Which flavor Christian are we? Catholic? Episcopal? “Non-denominational” (i.e., Southern Baptist? Come on, you aren’t fooling anyone with the linguistic whitewash.) I attend a pretty liberal Presbyterian church. We have a lot of GLBT families in our congregation; we welcome everyone. Are we my kind of Christian nation? Somehow I think the answer would be no.

And do you really want the government deciding which religious doctrines are valid and which are not?

Of course not.

So give it a rest already. Let gays get married. If you don’t agree with it, then don’t do it. No one will force a church to perform a ceremony they don’t agree with -- that’s what separation of church and state means, you nitwits. After you people have behaved so horribly towards GLBT folks, what makes you think they’d even want a church wedding, anyway?

The more things change, the more they don’t.

With that in mind, I leave you with this:

Pair launches campaign to encourage youths to pull up pants

Arguing that the sagging-pants fashion trend promotes an unhealthful lifestyle of gangs, crime and violence, they've launched the Pull Up Your Pants education campaign, designed to persuade young people to abandon the look -- especially pants often worn so low that their underwear, or more, is exposed.

They already have the support of one Louisville Metro Council member, who plans to introduce a resolution in support of their campaign next month.

Somewhere in the ruins of Pompeii archeologists have found a father’s lament that his daughter’s toga is too tight/revealing/low cut/whatever, which by yea Gods never happened back in his day, by Juno!

No, some things never change, but that doesn’t mean they should always stay the same, either.

Welcome To The Neighborhood

Of course, we always knew that the Crawford Ranch was just a presidential stage prop. So it was no shock to read that President Bush and Laura are moving to a wealthy Dallas neighborhood. I mean seriously, who thought the Bushes were going to clear brush in some West Texas backwater in their sunset years? Get real.

But this surprised me:

Until 2000, the neighborhood association's covenant said only white people were allowed to live there, though an exception was made for servants.

Enacted in 1956, part of the original document reads:

"Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons except those shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."



There are probably a lot of neighborhoods in Nashville that still have such covenants on the books.

Nice little reminder of how far we've come ... or not.

Hummer H8

Hating on Hummers is a time-honored tradition on the left but Salon’s piece "The short, disgusting life of the Hummer” directed me to a site that is the perfect embodiment of Hummer hate:

“Ihumpedyourhummer.com." Yes, that’s right, I humped your Hummer, what’reyagonna do about it?

Some of the videos are hilarious. I especially liked the one of the guy on the mountain bike. Audio is not safe for work. Heck, the video probably isn’t, either.

Enjoy.

Mitch McConnell: Republican Hypocrite du Jour

Irony alert! While touting how well the Toyota manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky is doing versus Detroit, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, seems completely ignorant of the fact that Toyota’s Kentucky manufacturing facility makes hybrid cars.

Meanwhile, McConnell’s record on energy & oil shows he consistently voted in support of Big Oil’s interests and against things like higher CAFE standards, which might have saved Detroit’s bacon.

In fact:

As minority leader, McConnell has led Republican opposition to a number of environmental measures in the past two years. Under his leadership, Senate Republicans stalled passage of renewable-energy tax credits for most of 2008. McConnell led efforts to tie up the Climate Security Act in procedural stalls, which led to the early death of the bill. He's been a leading champion of offshore drilling, claiming in July that people in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas think "oil rigs are pretty."

If the Toyota plant in Kentucky is going strong, it’s because they make cars that people actually want to buy: energy efficient, hybrid technology vehicles, that come with a nice government tax rebate. And that is in spite of, not because of, Sen. Mitch McConnell, one the League of Conservation Voters’ Dirty Dozen.

Wanker.

Have They Forgotten?

This Wall Street Journal headline just stuns. There are no words:

'At Least Bush Kept Us Safe'

Bush kept us safe? Really? Like on 9/11, when 3,000 people died?

Or on August 28, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit and over 1,300 people died?

Bush kept us safe?

The column, from Peggy Noonan, is subtitled "The Two Words Democrats Don't Want Tacked On To That Sentence." You know, "At least Bush kept us safe ... Unlike Obama!"

Here are some words I could tack on to that sentence:

"At least Bush Kept Us Safe" * † ** ††


* Except for 9/11 ...
† And forgetting that whole anthrax thing, which everyone always forgets, even though a couple people died and stuff...
** And let's say Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster and leave it at that, forgetting the botched government response ...
†† And of course there's that whole War in Iraq thing which totally didn't need to happen, and which now Karl Rove is saying we wouldn't have done if we'd known Saddam didn't have WMD, which we all knew anyway, but who's counting, really ...

Right. Peggy Noonan, I want some of what you’re drinking. That Potomac Kool-Aid must extra strong these days.

(h/t, Attaturk.)

Supreme Court To Decide Election AGAIN?

[UPDATE]:

Looks like the petition is for real.
---------------------------------------
I bet you thought Barack Obama won the presidency and everything was on track for a January inauguration. Fools!

In an extremely unusual move, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has agreed to consider a petition challenging Barack Obama’s citizenship after Justice David Souter had already rejected the petition.

I can’t vouch for the legitimacy of this story, since its source is a publication I’ve never heard of (“ Afro American Newspapers”), but here’s the scoop:

Supreme Court To Decide Obama Citizenship

All eyes will be on the Supreme Court Friday when an eight member panel will consider a lawsuit challenging the legal status of President-elect Barack Obama.

The Afro American Newspapers first reported the story on its website Wednesday night, calling Justice Clarence Thomas' action highly unusual.

The same case was rejected by Judge David Souter earlier in the year. 

When Thomas agreed to hear the appeal he apparently broke with a court tradition of justices not interceding in cases where a colleague has ruled.

The President-elect has maintained he was born in the United States.

For some history, I blogged about this phony “birth certificate” story back in October when a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit. The Afro American Newspapers story is here. Basically, some delusional wingnuts have claimed that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, all evidence to the contrary. Despite the fact that federal judges have dismissed similar lawsuits on the issue, Clarence Thomas thinks the petition deserves to be heard.

Just as an aside, did you know that the only Supreme Court justice to be impeached was Samuel Chase, who

was impeached for allegedly letting his partisan leanings affect his court decisions.

Yeah, Clarence Thomas might want to remember that.

I guess presiding over one coup in 2000 wasn’t enough for Justice Thomas. Not that I think there’s any chance this will happen, but should SCOTUS decide for some reason that Obama is ineligible to serve as our 44th President they had better be prepared for some major civil unrest as a consequence of that action. I personally will be taking to the streets, as will everyone else I know, and don’t for a second think it will be a phony Brooks Brothers riot-style action.

Suspicious Mind

After Sarah Palin made a fool of herself with a prank phone call from a Montreal, I don’t blame Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for being suspicious about a call from President-Elect Obama. Still, did she have to hang up on him twice?

(CNN) — A Florida congresswoman – convinced she was being prank-called by a Barack Obama sound-alike – hung up on the actual president-elect Wednesday.

Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was told by an aide that Obama wanted to speak with her. According to a statement released by her office, the Republican congresswoman cut off the caller, telling him she thought “this is a joke from one of the South Florida radio stations known for these pranks.” She then hung up.

Obama’s future White House chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel – a fellow congressman – then called her to let her know she’d actually been speaking with the future commander-in-chief. Ros-Lehtinen, convinced the call was another hoax, hung up on him, too.

Finally, an aide told Ros-Lehtinen she had an urgent call from Chairman Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Still suspicious, Ros-Lehtinen urged the California Democrat to recount a story only both of them would know.
Berman passed the test — and told her she had, in fact, hung up on President-elect Obama.

When an amused Obama called again, Ros-Lehtinen he was either “very gracious” to reach across the aisle by contacting her, or “had run out of folks to call, if you are truly calling me.” Otherwise, she said, Saturday Night Live “could use a good Obama impersonator like you.” The Obama transition team declined comment on the incident.

So, she’s convinced Obama is a sound-alike, thought Rahm Emmanuel was a hoax, was able to be convinced that Howard Berman was real but still wasn’t convinced Barack Obama was for real the second time around?

Okay, that’s some serious trust issues. Then again, maybe Obama shouldn't have asked if her refrigerator was running.