Dakota Today

excellent south dakota perspective on the "rapist bill of rights" that the governor is considering signing, a bill that would in fact make all abortion illegal in the state and subject doctors to jail time.

no need to go to mt. rushmore or the black hills if this one passes, at least not in this family.

if the democrats want to be taken seriously, then they need to make hay out of the fact that meet the press will have peter king, john warner and arnie gropenfuhrer as their three guests this weekend.

a press release might read:

"democrats will no longer go on MTP until it stops having 2 to 1 republicans to dems, let alone this weekend's ridiculous and insulting 'mix' of 3 republicans. given that the american people continue to give incredibly low marks to republicans in congress and the president in particular, it is also an insult to the american people. If MTP cannot commit to balance, then they can go over to Fox News Channel, another station that democratic politicians will not be appearing on in the future."
Harry Reid (in my dreams, obviously).

i mean, how hard can it be to PLAY FUCKING HARDBALL ONCE IN A WHILE? (speaking of shows that should be boycotted by Democrats...)

This post sponsored by my anger, now with thirty percent more vitriol!

i have a friend, let's call him (again) jon although his name is john. good guy, works in the biz, he's smart, nice, good politics etc. so he looks at this dubai ports deal and he says (perhaps to himself first, later to me): "don't hate this deal just because it is the bushies. i mean, maybe they are the right people, the UAE folk, for this job. maybe we are being racist. maybe, just maybe, we should give bush the benefit of the doubt."

and i know, you're thinking yourself, like Kevin Drum and some others--we are just being knee-jerk here. let's look at this on the merits, separate from whatever our feelings might be about the monkeyspunk running our country.

it seems so...tolerant...so...liberal...so...nice...so...meritocratic.

YOU

MUST

BE

KIDDING

have these people been asleep for the last five years? do you think there is even the slightest chance that every day that we learn more about this deal will be another day that we realize the bushites are incompetent crony capitalists who would sell their grandmom to the arabs after they were done shooting her in the face? am i being too harsh? too "bush-hatey"?

let's see: john snow ran CSX and still holds stock in his trust. CSX sold their stevedoring business to Dubai ports. John snow was on the committee that unanimously approved this deal. it turns out this deal circumvented US law. how? in such a way that cronies of the bush administration could get more money. huh.

that's funny. not the haha kind, the beat-my-skull-against-the-wall-until-it-leaves-bloody-stains funny.

and if anyone thinks that Dubai ports would do the best possible job running our ports efficiently and safely, please line up for drunken hunting lessons with mr. cheney. line forms (pun intended) on the left.

Free speech, even if it hurts - Los Angeles Times

In re David Irving, holocaust denier, getting sentenced to jail.

just wanted to remind everyone--the thing that sucks about free speech is that assholes get to take advantage. the thing that's great about free speech is everything else. david irving, professional liar scumbag and anti-semite, should not go to jail. he should just be hated and shunned by all polite society.

if you don't believe this, you don't really believe in free speech, "for me but not for thee"

what about o'reilly et al? why glenn g is slightly off the mark regarding the coming together of left and right on issues of "liberty". Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Are there American political values that transcend ideology?

Where Glenn states that

The set of precepts composing core American political values is clear and uncontroversial to most. We are a nation that lives under the rule of law. No man is above the law, including the President. Presidents do not have the right to engage in conduct which Congress makes it a criminal offense to engage in. To avoid the President seizing the powers of a King, the powers he exercises must always be checked and balanced by the Congress and the courts. In order to ensure that we have a representative government, only the people, through their Congress, make the laws, and everyone, including the President, is required to abide by those laws. We are a nation that is ruled by the people -- our elected officials do not rule over us -- and when we enact restrictions through our Congress on what our Government can do to us as citizens (as we did with FISA), those laws bind all citizens, including our elected officials.

None of those principles is even arguably liberal or conservative in the contemporary, political sense of those words. They are the defining American principles of government which has guided our country since its founding. And the Administration’s radical theory that any matter relating to national security threats "is for the President alone to decide" and that neither Congress nor the courts "can place any limits on the President's determinations" – which even bestows on the President the power to ignore Congressional laws or to wield war powers against American citizens on U.S. soil – could not be any more contrary to all of these core principles.

These are the principles that led Americans, in 1978, to enact a law, in response to decades of abuse of eavsdroping powers by Administrations of both parties, which made it a criminal offense for our government to eavesdrop on Americans without judicial oversight and approval. We collectively decided that we want aggressive eavesdropping against our foreign enemies, and the law we enacted enables aggressive eavesdropping. But we also decided that we trust our government to eavesdrop on Americans only with judicial oversight, not in secret and with no oversight. Through our Congress, that was the law we passed, and with that law, we imposed restrictions on the powers which our government could exercise against us.

he ignores the fact that there exists in this country a group who dedicates themselves on a daily basis to this very fundamental aspect of American law. they are called the ACLU. they are attacked regularly by the right, and not the "fringe" of which Glenn speaks, but rather by o'reilly and limbaugh and malkin and so on, e.g. "mainstream" conservatives. and say what one will about "classical conservatism"--these are the current exemplars of conservatism in the public sphere.

to quote a certain king, sorry, president of ours, "they hate us for our freedoms."

and that is what makes the modern left different from the modern right. where once the left was all for "speech codes" and punishments therein, it has all flipped, and now it is the right who attacks all kinds of speech as "treason" and so on.

just sayin'.

HaloScan.com - Comments

for what it's worth--dick cheney set to the rocking sounds of filter's "hey man, nice shot"

Reuters AlertNet - U.S. religious group condemns Iraq war

so the world council of churches believes bush is bad, iraq was a mistake of a war etc.

and many on the left will approvingly link to this, saying "see, even religious folk are on our side now."

in fact, i see it already has a link as dailykos.

and yet, the moment religious groups show too much fealty to the right (the brewing North Carolina republican registration of church members scandal) we will say "see--religion mixing with politics! bad!!!"

say it slowly, say it loud, whisper it in the ear of a loved one, whatever, just say it: religion is the problem. it's the problem when you agree with it, and the probably when you don't.

hypocrites.