The Evil Petting Zoo

So, I probably won't get the chance to update the blog much for the next week. The Cognito Clan is heading up to Lutsen, Minnesota for our latest family reunion. Yeah, we have no idea why it's up there, either.

While I'll be bringing my laptop, the place we're staying charges for WiFi by the hour, so I guess I'll be stuck with checking my e-mail and working on a spec script. Though if Alberto Gonzales snaps like a twig and starts spilling on everything the Bush Administration has ever done, or Britney Spears suddenly bursts into flames, or something like that, you'll be sure to hear from me.

Rove has been subpoena'd.

Gonzales is being looked at for perjury.

And Miers is being cited for contempt.

Don't back down on us now, Dems. Nail these bastards to the wall.

Oh, hey, look! My former governor is being a douche again! It must be a day ending in "y"!

So here's a presidential candidate, the man who claims to be so tough on terror he'd "double Gitmo", roughly endorsing some woman by smiling while she waves a sign putting two American citizens on par with the perpetrator of the worst attack on America ever. And when called on the carpet about it, he says he just doesn't care about what the people who associate with him say, and tells those who don't like the fact that he implicitly compared others to terrorists to "lighten up."

I cannot wait until he crashes and burns.

Good morning, class! And welcome to Neocon Deceptions 101! Today's lesson: Subtly Encouraging Ideological Shift.

One recent trick that has been pushed for all that it is worth is the media's newfound desire to find "balance" on an issue. In many cases, the media will try to find balance on an issue that most people realize already tilts to one side due to such things as facts and evidence. Be it evolution, gay adoption, or giving girls a vaccine against HPV, "both sides" must be heard out, no matter how flagrant the lies of one of those sides is. This is how we got to the point that Soledad O'Brien not only considers it appropriate, but politically relevant, to ask John Edwards his views on evolution.

But now that we've gotten to this place, there are those who try to alter just where on the sliding scale of political opinion those two opinions lie. Case in point: Bill O'Reilly. Recently, Bill found out that JetBlue, which is really, really supportive of conservative causes generally, gave a minor donation to YearlyKos, the annual convention held by DailyKos. And according to Bill, you know what DailyKos is like...

But I say this. There's no difference between the KKK and the Nazis, who have websites, than the Daily Kos. Because the Daily Kos is basically saying, "We're allowing this kind of thing to come on. It's good that Tony Snow has a recurrence of cancer; we hope he dies. We're sorry the assassination attempt against Dick Cheney failed; let them try again." And on and on and on and on.

I mean, this is the stuff that they have every day on this website, and they revel in it.

Now, am I overstating this? Because I think hate is hate, no matter where it is.

Now, first of all, that "hate speech" is random comments left by random nutbags on a rather popular blog. Now, John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory says that a popular website will occasionally attract raving nutbags like honey attracts Pooh. Second of all, keep in mind that the man calling DailyKos a "hate site" is the same man who said that all of Air America should be rounded up and jailed.

Still, as O'Reilly says, hate is hate. So, when he gets challenged, who does he hold up as an example of hate on the right?

Could it be Ann Coulter, who said at a political conference that our national policy should be, "Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences?"

Could it be Michelle Malkin, who's suggested that Muslims should be rounded up and interred, and who specializes in paranoid rantings against those damned Mohammedans?

Or could it be Michael Savage, who thinks nothing of encouraging genocide on his radio program, and refers to transgendered individuals as "freaks" and "psychopaths"?

Why, no! It's Fred Phelps, the man who even the entirety of the religious right views as an overblown, fanatical nutbag. And of course, Bill has his ideological buddy-boy, Bernard Goldberg, saying that hate is 20-to-1 on the left compared to the right. Tell me, Bernard, does Kos get his own TV show? Does John Aravosis? Does David Neiwert?

But of course, you see what O'Reilly's doing here. To be considered "hate" on the left, you need to run a popular website that attracts its share of idiotic commenters, which basically makes nearly every major message board on the net an example of "hate." To be considered "hate" on the right, you need to protest the funerals of soldiers and be looked at with utter repulsion by anyone who values their soul. And then you repeat it enough times that you hope someone buys it.

And that concludes today's lesson. Join us next time for Putting Your Hands Over Your Ears and Going "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA" Until The Media Goes Away.

Just in case you thought the US government couldn't get any more frightening, this came along.

In case you're having trouble parsing the text, the order says that anyone who's found "ndermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people" can have all their assets seized by the US government, and is theretofore blocked from accruing any more capital. While the order is supposedly aimed around those targeted in Section 1.i.A and such, I'd like you to think about the inclusion of Section 1.i.B. And then I'd like you to think about how the President's very own officials have said that liberals want the troops dead.

Oh. And anyone who wants to help out a friend who's been targeted by the government, for reasons either fair or unfair? Their donation gets seized. Oh, and the government can do all this without warning.

It's probably just paranoia, I know. But every time I look at these orders, I wonder just who the hell the President is really targeting. This isn't a fine. This isn't prison. Hell, this isn't even Guantanamo. This is being told, by the United States government, that for all intents and purposes, you no longer exist.

Give me back my country, damnit.

Y'know, you'd think that, since Mitch McConnell was presumably part of the Republican effort to threaten to bust out the "nuclear option" if the Dems filibustered Bush's Supreme Court candidates, he'd feel a little bit dirty if he threatened to use the tactic himself. But, no, that would actually require shame on his part. For you see, McConnell, the GOP Senate leader, has gone on the record to say that any piece of legislation relating to the War in Iraq will be automatically filibustered by the GOP, requiring 60 votes to pass. Because, once again, it's okay when you do it, but not when the other guys do it.

Well, it looks like Harry Reid is actually calling him on his BS. Harry Reid has announced that tonight, he'll be keeping the Senate in session for the entire night for a debate on the latest legislation, until a conclusion is reached. It might not do a lot, but at least Reid's not taking this garbage sitting down.

This past Wednesday, in a historic occurrence, a Hindu man was invited to give the morning invocation at the U.S. Senate for the first time in the nation's history. Of course, as with most historical occurrences that celebrate the borderless brotherhood that lies at the core of American values, someone had to take a big steaming shit over the event.

The three protesters, who all belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, and who apparently traveled to Washington all the way from North Carolina, interrupted by loudly asking for God's forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.

"Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," the first protester began.

"This is an abomination," he continued. "We shall have no other gods before You."

Of course, there's video. The man just gets his mouth open, and in the minds of the harassers, it's like all the blasphemies of Hell has issued forth. Probably because, in their minds, they just did. The reason religious fundamentalists keep talking about their faith being constantly under assault by overwhelming forces is because they view everything that is not 100% USDA-quality One True Faith as obviously anathema. You become convinced that you're surrounded by enemies when you see everyone who isn't you as an enemy.

So, next time some member of the Christian right tells you about how the noble faith is under assault by those wily secularists, show him this video. Then kick him in the goolies if he still refuses to get it.

George W. Bush, the man of a thousand talents. And apparently, one of those talents is taking over for the Surgeon General.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And, in a perfect example of how the Bush oligarchy considers politics above all-- and I mean all-- Dr. Carmona was discouraged from helping out with the Special Olympics for reasons that were "special" on their own.

nd administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

You mean the mentally retarded?

The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.

When asked after the hearing if that “prominent family” was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, “You said it. I didn’t.”

Oh. Yeah, I can see why using your Surgeon General to strike back at a family diametrically opposed to you-- and that's skirting the fact that Bush considers it okay to use his Surgeon General as a political tool-- would be more important than helping some poor disabled kids take part in the one day when they feel like a winner.

It's become startlingly clear that Bush considers him as far more than the head of the Executive Branch and president of these United States. If anything, he considers himself God-Emperor of the United States. If his word is questioned, he ignores the question. If the facts speak against him, he makes his own. There is no one he will not toss aside, even if they are an expert in their field and Bush himself knows as much about the subject to get into Round 2 of a pub quiz.

And we all pay the price because of it.

Holy crap! A group of terrorists actually tried to blow up a church down in Texas! This is an outrage! Get the news cameras! Get the pundits! String them up by their--

Oh. Wait. They're Christians, and apparently fringe ones at that. That would explain why there's absolutely nothing about this incident on the CNN website.

False alarm, folks. Back to normal.

I don't know if you noticed this, but there are some American kids who feel like they need the future handed to them on a silver platter by God himself, no matter whether or not they're earned it. Now, why could that be? Could it be because we treat celebrities like modern gods, and fame as the Golden Calf? Could it be because we give Paris Hilton air time for the very act of breathing? Could it be because we're people who don't realize how good we have it, and thus blow petty personal injustices way out of proportion?

Nope. Apparently, it's Mr. Rogers. Yup; because the man spent every day telling kids of all stripes that there was something about them that was unique and special, he was obviously dragging us into a communistic morass. So sayeth FOX News, who claim that Mr. Rogers should have been telling kids that they actually kinda suck right now. The very fact that this argument comes to us from FOX News, based on a report from the Wall Street Journal-- both of which cater to the American First Estate-- makes it all the more stupid.

Remember, kids; you aren't special. Now, get back to work.

After all the debate, after all the ads in defense of free speech, after all the comedic takes on Ted Stevens's verbal diarrhea, it's over. The FTC has declared an end to net neutrality, claiming it would be best to "let the market sort out the issue." I'm sorry, but in the age of Enron, Tyco, and Exxon executives taking utterly gratuitous retirement packages, I don't really trust "the market" to sort out anything more complicated than a word search.

Well, if it takes anyone 30 minutes to load this blog, I'm sure you'll all know why.

And another thing on this whole Scooter Libby mess. I understand that some folks on the right have been originating the argument that, even though Libby will never see anything remotely approaching jail time for his crimes, he'll still have to deal with the massive blow to his credibility.

Right, like what happened to Oliver North-- oh, wait, he got his own TV show.

Well, there's always Chuck Colson, who actually went to jail-- oh, wait, he found Christ, and now he's considered something of a legitimate voice amongst the far right.

How about G. Gordon Liddy-- whoops, he got a talk show for a while there.

Well, there's got to be Pat Buchanan-- oh, wait...

Like always, there's an industry amongst the far right that exists solely to protect its "martyrs." If your endeavor to fuck over America and its principles ends in a series of pratfalls unseen since Laurel and Hardy, you can be sure there will be someone there to catch you when you fall, polish you up, and restore what air of legitimacy you might have once had.

Scooter Libby's credibility is not going to suffer. At least, not among the people who really matter to him.

So. Once again, Bush has proven that the law is a human thing, something he is very well above. He has declared a sentence handed down by a federal judge, to a man who was judged guilty by a jury of his peers, to be "excessive." Never mind the fact that the man who Libby was covering for could very well be accused of treason.

If there was any sense left that this was a noble government... if there was any sense left that this was a fair government... if there was any sense left that this was a government with the best interest of its citizens in mind, then that sense has died a horrible death tonight. This government concerns itself with one thing and one thing only, and that is covering its own ass.

This time, however, they've gone too far. Contact your representatives, your senators. Tell them exactly what you think about this abortion of justice. Bush thinks he's above the little people. Let's show him just how wrong he truly is.

So, let me get this straight. A woman stands around at last month's Constitutional Convention, waving this sign:



A gay man comes up to her and, according to her own account, unleashes a sexually explicit torrent of questions. So she slaps him right across the face. Whose fault is this? That's right; the gay guy's.

Keep in mind that this is MassResistance, whose grip on reality could best be compared to hunting an eel in a barrel full of grease. But it's a perfect picture about how, no matter how twisted their speech becomes, no matter what actions they take when confronted on it, nothing people like this do is ever their fault. It's always the fault of those fags and their "sexually-laced invective" (by the way, that woman lost any right to moral superiority on the "sexually explicit" front the minute she whipped out the sign accusing every gay man in the vicinity of kidfucking). They can get arrested for smacking the hell out of someone who dares to question. They can get arrested for charging through a group of people and violating their permit. But it is never, ever their fault.

At least the burning martyrdom will keep them warm at night.