JABbering Stooge

O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin Ghoulishly Slander Dead Iraq War Vet’s Mom - Presume to Speak for the Dead

Where to begin? Not long after Cindy Sheehan, mother of dead Iraq War veteran Casey Sheehan, begin demanding answers from Commander Codpiece, the right-wing smear machine began in earnest to drag her good name through the mud.

Most prominent in the attacks were Loofah Boy Bill O’Reilly and Agitprop Specialist Michelle Malkin.

Last night, the sun set on an era of television journalism. Peter Jennings, who has been in failing health since being diagnosed with lung cancer in April, has passed away.

Jennings, along with Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, formed a triumvirate of nightly news broadcasting that I quite literally grew up around. Around our household, we’d tune in to one of the big three networks to get our dose of news for the day. And now, with Brokaw retired, Rather bullied into submission by the rabid right, and Jennings’ death, it feels like a chapter has closed on American history - an era of honest journalism. Today’s news media is more like a propaganda arm of the GOP. They buried the Jeff Gannon story and virtually ignored Traitor-gate until recently, and during the previous administration, gleefully jumped on even the flimsiest story if it meant trouble for The Big C. Thus it seems particularly salient that Jennings, the last honest journalist, has ridden off into the proverbial sunset, simultaneously sunsetting any semblance of a free press.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Aug. 8, 2005 2:40 AM)

Militant Israeli Guns Down Arabs in Protest of Gaza Pullout

On Friday, an Israeli army deserter, Eden Nathan Zaada opened fire on a bus full of Israeli Arabs killing four and wounding 22 (among the wounded were 7 non-Arabs).

Obviously, there is a certain segment of the Israeli population that is not happy with "Butcher of Sabra and Shatila" Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw the Gaza settlements. The best thing that could’ve happened for this faction would be for someone to off some "Ragheads" in an effort to provoke a violent response from the Palestinian street, thereby forcing Sharon to reconsider withdrawing the settlements. Based on the actions of Zaada, he was at the least a member of this faction. One can only hope that this gambit doesn’t succeed, and cooler heads can prevail.

However, seeing as how Israel is the third rail of American politics, I can only imagine that someone, somewhere will try to call me anti-Semitic simply because I do not blindly believe that Israel’s hands are clean in this matter.

Let me make myself exceedingly clear: Both sides are guilty as sin. Neither deserves our support. Unfortunately, we sacrifice our position as an honest broker by acting as though only the Palestinians are to blame for the unfortunate situation. In my mind, the best solution is - after admitting the awful truth above - to force both sides to come to an enforcable agreement that allows a two-state solution.

So to recap, here is why I am not a member of any organized religion:

• Christianity: Modern day Pharisees like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson; Home-grown terrorists such as Eric Rudolph, James Kopp, etc.; The Christian Identity movement

• Islam: Osama bin Forgotten; The Taliban; 9/11

• Judaism: I wasn’t born Jewish; The Likud Party - like abused children, they would do to the Palestinians what the Nazis tried to do to the Jews

• Hinduism: One word: Kashmir

As you can probably tell, the recurring theme to my reasons for not liking organized religion is that it is too often used as a cudgel by wackos who presume to speak for the religion against groups that are disfavored by these same wackos.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Aug. 8, 2005 2:17 AM)

According to a recent L.A. Times article quoted at thoughtcrimes.org, Pope Benedict Arnold I has applied the Bush/Rove idea of rewarding failure and corruption by appointing William Levada, formerly Archbishop of Portland, OR and later Archbishop of San Francisco, to succeed him as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. (As I mentioned in an earlier editorial, the CDF is what the Inquisition became when it was no longer PC to be the Inquisition.)

What is especially shameful about this promotion is the fact that in a 1994 child support case involving then-Seminary student Arturo Uribe is that Levada blamed the plaintiff for failure to use birth control that resulted in the pregnancy that the child-support case revolved around. It’s bad enough that this "defense" contradicts Catholic doctrine decrying contraception - a doctrine that, as prefect of the CDF, Levada is charged with defending. What makes the situation worse is the fact that this incident fits in with the larger pattern of the Catholic church’s efforts to avoid any accountability for the sexual largesse of its leadership by any means necessary - whether blaming the victims, as in this case, or by playing Three-card monte with its membership, as in the pedophile priest scandal.

In any case, it’s high time that liberal Catholics (and there are a fair number out there) cleaned house and installed leadership that exercises its affirmative moral duty to hold itself to the same strict standard that it holds its followers to. It’s become painfully obvious that conservative Catholics are either unable or unwilling to do so.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Aug. 4, 2005 2:04 PM)

This story was covered in today’s New York Times (registration required). (Incidentally, if you don’t want go through the registration process for most of the news web sites, check out BugMeNot.com.)

As Bush prepares to ram his ultra-conservative nutjob onto the Supreme Court, the religious thugs who have hijacked the GOP prepare another pandering photo-op to rally support for said nominee. According to the article, headliners for the theofascist thugs’ "Just Us Sunday II" include the ever-sleasy Tom "I AM the federal government" DeLay, Zell "It’s my governorship and I’ll embezzle if I want to" Miller, Watergate felon Chuck Colson, James "Embryonic Stem Cell Research = Holocaust" Dobson and Bill "Gays should apologize for just existing!" Donohue.

Further down, you find that one of the attendees, Pat "Let’s Nuke the State Department" Robertson, is wishing for the death/retirement of more Supreme Court justices - specifically, the left-leaning justices.

In related news, Puss’n Boot Hill Frist has been disinvited from "Just Us Sunday II" for not goosestepping to the theofascist drumbeat.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Aug. 3, 2005 6:48 PM)

I’m going to be keeping a running total of the returns in the Hackett-Schmidt race as they happen.

Source: WCPO in Cincinnati

7:00 PM CDT - No results yet.

7:30 PM CDT
56 of 753 precincts reporting

8:00 PM CDT
175 of 753 precincts reporting

8:15 PM CDT
305 of 753 precincts reporting

Looks like the gap is widening, and according to Majority Report producer Josh Orton, the early returns have been coming from rural areas - areas expected to go heavily for Schmidt. If these trends continue, Hackett’s got this one in the bag - even with all the Rethuglican dirty tricks. However, we still have to see what the tale of the absentee ballots entails. This could be an interesting race.

8:30 PM CDT
580 of 753 precincts reporting

Holy crap. Schmidt is now ahead. It’s not over yet, though. The urban centers are still tabulating their results. Let’s hope for the best.

8:48 PM CDT
662 of 753 precincts reporting

This is starting to remind me of that scene in Independence Day where they’re trying to see if Jeff Goldblum’s PowerMac virus managed to bring down the alien invaders’ shields.

9:23 PM CDT - No change in results. This is weird. We’ve been getting updates fairly regularly up till now. Now we go 30 minutes without an update…

9:47 PM CDT - Okay, I’ve had reports that they’re having to do hand counts in some precincts (most especially in heavily-Rethuglican Clermont county). Still in wait and see mode.

10:00 PM CDT
753 of 753 precincts reporting

Virus ineffective. Get your people out of there. Still, for a district that was supposed to be a shoe-in for Schmidt (who probably won’t accept a concession speech or, if she does, will be smugly condescending, calling Hackett every nasty name in the book), and in spite of yet more apparent fraud by the Rethuglicans, Hackett acquitted himself admirably in this election, and certainly proved the DLC wrong about the viability of running as Republican-Lite.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Aug. 2, 2005 9:10 PM)

Earlier today, an Air France Airbus A340 crashed after being struck by lightning while trying to land at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Thankfully, no one was killed in the crash. However, look for Freepers and L-dotters to mock the double-whammy of a French airplane crashing in Canada, if their antics following the crash that took the life of Senator Paul Wellstone is any indication. 1

1: Freeper/L-dotter reaction to Senator Wellstone’s death is documented on page 75 of Eric Alterman’s What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Aug. 2, 2005 6:22 PM)