Monday, November 26, 2007

Trent Lott, Just Another Greedy Motherfucker

I know, I know - the words "republican" and "greedy motherfucker" are redundant. Still, it's kinda funny when they're so obvious about it, as with Trent Lott's (R-Dummest Fucking State in the Country) announcement that he's decided to bail on the folks who were stupid enough to keep electing him.

Why, it was just last January, 2006 when he assured them:

"I have chosen Mississippi and America once again," Lott said. "I am going to ask the people to re-elect me to another term in the United States Senate."

Yeah, well, that was then, but this is now, right?

I mean, why would someone willingly step away from "the most exclusive club in the world?"

The answer's pretty simple if you're a republican - money, money, and more money. Specifically, Lott can cash in on his connections within one year after resigning only if he leaves before the end of this calendar year. If he waits until after January 1, 2008 when new Senate ethics rules take effect (warning - pdf), then he'll have to hold off for two years before pimping his flabby ass to the highest bidders.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out down in the Dummest Fucking State in the Country, since the election laws there require the governor to issue a proclamation to hold an election for a replacement within 10 days of the vacancy, and that the election shall be held within ninety (90) days from the time the proclamation is issued...

Now, nobody can split hairs to their own advantage like a southern politician, and since the politician in question is the ample-jowled former tobacco lobbyist / head of the repub national committee Haley Barbour we're sure to see plenty of hair-splitting, along with lots of high-stakes arm wrestling, ample back-stabbing, and probably a few Texas Titty Twisters before this is all through.

Oh, and court. This is definitely going to end up in court.

That's because the above-mentioned 10-day proclamation / 90-day election rules only apply if Lott bails in 2007. If Lott bails in 2008, then Barbour can hold the election for a replacement in November, when turnout is higher for the Presidential and other races. Barbour and his partners in crime have less control in a low-turnout special election held in, say, March or April.

But, also as noted above, if he resigns after January 1, 2008 Lott would have to wait for two years (not just one) before sucking as much federal tit as he could fit in his bloodless lips. And personally, I don't think Trent's a very patient kind of guy.

Bonus quotes

"What I want to tell you...Ladies and Gentlemen...That there's not enough troops in the Army...to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches."
-- Strom Thurman, 1948.

"When Strom Thurman ran for president, we (the Dummest Fucking State in the Country) voted for him! We're proud of it! And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all of these problems over all of these years either."
-- Trent Lott, December, 2002.

Bonus Mississippi History Lesson

Freedom Summer, 1964 - some of what Trent Lott was referring to when mentioning "all of these problems."

Trent Lott - Class 'A' Asshole

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Now we can call John McCain "That cocksucker."



I'll be hard-pressed to respect any asshole who ends up with the repub nomination, along with any wingnut who actually votes for the worthless sack of shit.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Every Joke has an Underlying Grievance

Not Fair? Not Fair? Listen buddy...you should be grateful we just got you in a regular jail. If this were 2007 you'd be tied up with barbed wire, drinking my piss in Cuba.

(from Drew and Natalie at Married to the Sea)

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Wingnuts = Psychopaths

Stupid wingnut fucktards really piss me off, and no more so than in the current "debate" regarding torture and the terror technique known as "waterboarding."

In a recent comment at Sadly, No! Larry nailed it:
...everybody knows waterboarding is torture, that torture is not just “bad,” it’s evil. You see, this is why the Right-wingers win so many arguments...(T)hey turn every obviously-wrong thing they want to do into a great debate, and we obligingly play of (sic) the field they choose.

Torture is evil and waterboarding is torture, full stop. Condemn it loudly for what it is, don’t beg people to accept what is obvious in the first place.

It doesn't surprise me, but it still pisses me off that wingnuts don't care about the cost of torture, or of any humiliating, degrading, and coercive interrogation technique. They're too busy jerking off to violent video games and episodes of '24.'

In their own pathetic way, they’re just aping the psychopaths at the White House and in the Justice Department, specifically:
The memo (authored by John Yoo and Jay Bybee) defines torture so narrowly that only activities resulting in “death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function” qualify. It also claims, absurdly, that Americans can defend themselves if criminally prosecuted for torture by relying on the criminal law defenses of necessity and/or self-defense, based on the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

When our own senior Justice Department (!!!) officials set the table like this, what else can we possibly expect from their authoritarian followers?

The transcript of an interview on Democracy Now with Dr. Angela Hegarty, the forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Jose Padilla is one of the most disturbing things I’ve read recently (and given the depravities of the Cheney administration, there are plenty of candidates for most disturbing).

Even if we assume that Padilla was not “tortured” based on the weaselly definition above (a highly doubtful assumption), what exactly was done to him?

In this very small cell, he was monitored twenty-four hours a day, and the doors were managed electronically. And between what Mr. Padilla told us and other sources, essentially it’s possible to open and close these doors electronically. And he would hear the click of the door opening, which is a loud click that sort of echoed, and then a very loud bang over and over and over again for hours at a time, possibly days. He had no way of knowing the time. The light was always artificial. The windows were blackened. He had no calendar or time, as you mentioned earlier. He really didn’t see people, especially in the beginning. He only had contact with his interrogators.

…as a clinician, I have worked with torture victims and, of course, abuse victims for a few decades now, actually. I think, from a clinical point of view, he was tortured.

…during my time with him, some of his reasoning seemed somewhat impaired, some of his thinking seemed impaired, his memory certainly, his ability to pay attention seemed very impaired. I developed a differential diagnosis from this: severe anxiety. Post-traumatic stress disorder can do that. But also, we know from really basic neuroscience studies that extreme isolation for prolonged periods of time — and I’m talking, you know, the studies are on maybe days or weeks, and he had extreme isolation for years — really do, in fact, impair higher brain function. And I recommended that we get some neuropsychological testing. And, unfortunately, he wasn’t able to fully cooperate with that. However, the testing we did do was consistent with brain damage, yes.

…This was the first time I ever met anybody who had been isolated for such an extraordinarily long period of time. I mean, the sensory deprivation studies, for example, tell us that without sleep, especially, people will develop psychotic symptoms, hallucinations, panic attacks, depression, suicidality within days. And here we had a man who had been in this situation, utterly dependent on his interrogators, who didn’t treat him all that nicely, for years. And apart from — the only people I ever met who had such a protracted experience were people who were in detention camps overseas, that would come close, but even then they weren’t subjected to the sensory deprivation.

…given what sensory deprivation and isolation of this scale does, it’s also entirely possible that he wasn’t given drugs, and it’s just the psychiatric effects of the isolation and the sensory deprivation, because the hallucinations can be incredibly vivid. People feel like they’re losing their minds, that they’re coming apart. It’s absolutely terrifying.

…What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being’s mind. That’s what happened at the brig. His personality was deconstructed and reformed.

…the purpose of keeping Mr. Padilla isolated was to foster a sense of dependence on his interrogators and to essentially foreclose in his mind utterly any hope of rescue. And it makes reference to the fact that, given that people who have had contact with the criminal justice system will expect to see an attorney and be rescued by an attorney, they want to essentially disabuse him of the notion that he will ever be rescued. They want him to believe that he is in their power forever. And I believe, in a sense, they succeeded.

…One of the things that came out in the course of my evaluation was, he was required to sign his name John Doe.

(Q - And what was the reason for wanting to have him sign his name John Doe?)

…He’s no longer a person. He’s no longer an individual. There will be no record that he was ever there, that the interrogators — this is from my knowledge of torture around the world — that the interrogators essentially will be absolutely immune to any accountability.

So, maybe some prominent wingnuts will sign up for a few weeks of good ol’ sensory deprivation, followed by a spin on the water board. I mean, if it isn’t torture, what's the hesitation?


As Dick Cheney himself said:

Q Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President "for torture." We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that.

As the leading expert on twisted personalities, Dr. Robert Hare, said, "...psychopaths have little difficulty infiltrating the domains of...politics, law enforcement, (and) government."

If you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention.

Peace

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Wingnut War Lust

The Incoherent Illiterate got his panties in a bunch when I posed a simple question in response to his celebration of shiny weapons of war:

Since you've got such a hard-on for all things military, I know you're gonna run right down to your local recruiter to sign up for the real thing, right?
His snappy rejoinder? Alright, Motherfucker

Wingnuts have such thin skin.

II's homage starts off with his usual barely-literate ramblings and loosely connected half-thoughts before touching on some mandatory platitudes:

…let us remember all the others who have served their nation, and most importantly, those who are serving now, in particular those who are in combat as I write this…
Wingnuts love empty phrases: Support the Troops; War on Terror; Peace Through Strength; Big Brother is Watching. So, I shouldn’t be too hard on the lil’ feller; he’s just aping his elders.

But once the required foreplay’s taken care of, II goes straight to the main event – ogling teh pr0n and sharing his most intimate thoughts with the rest of us:

SEALs are awesome, and nuclear subs and aircraft carriers are pretty damn cool, but there anything more better than a battleship firing those off those main guns?

-snip-

…what Army guy doesn't love a huge fucking tank?

-snip-

I doubt there's a retired Marine anywhere that doesn't get that tingle when they see this pic. Gives me that feeling, anyway, and I haven't served.

-snip-

…this is just badass. Its a time-exposed picture of either an AC-130 or an AC-47 gunship laying down what is called "The Cone of Fire", where the plane circles in the air, laying down massive amounts of fire…

The “Cone of Fire” must have done it for him, because II can barely mutter a few more words before rolling over and dropping off to sleep:

…the Coast Guard has taken on more importance now that we have to watch our ports for attempts at terrorist attack.
Yup, gotta get in the mandatory “terrorists at our shores” riff before you nod off, blissful and temporarily satiated.

So, why would I even pick on the poor Incoherent Illiterate?

I think Doghouse Riley said it best, in his own post, Armistice:

Worthless sacrifice is the rule of war, not the exception. We don't need any prodding to remember the fight against Fascism as noble, or to view all service as heroic. But it's obvious we too quickly forget that senseless, unspeakable slaughter has always started out sounding like a reasonable idea to too many people.
Wingnuts sure do lust after the equipment and cliches of war.

But the realities of war? ...not so much.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Hot Chick Classical Music Saturday



Guitarist Ana Vidovic performs the Allegro from 'Five Bagatelles' by William Walton.

(special thanks to Tbogg for turning me on to this wonderful performer)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Fuck 'em (for now)

Shit, this is a lot harder than I thought.

I had big plans, of course. I was going to post my take on the wacky and insane things that wingnut bloggers say every day, without the slightest sense of shame or self-reflection or irony on their part.

My commentary was going to be funny, it was going to cut to the bone, it was going to expose these fools to the ridicule that they seem to relish, and which they so richly deserve. I was going to help start cleaning up the massive mess made by the Cheney Administration these last long years; to restore integrity to our political discourse; and to bury, once and for all, the bankrupt belief system based on manufacturing crises and exploiting fear that wingnuts thrive on.

But I underestimated the amount of work it takes, the sheer amount of time and effort and concentration needed to track their blatherings and counter their screeds with thoughtful analysis and well-targeted snark.

I also underestimated the emotional toll that sloshing through their cesspools inevitably extracts. These are not nice people with sensible opinions, or with an interest in sharing ideas and keeping an open mind. They're parsing the meaning of torture, celebrating the invasion and occupation of another country, and braying for more.

They portray themselves as victims while others' bodies pile up (their own bodies are never at risk, and never will be); they complain of others' greed and untrustworthiness while they add growing amounts of treasure to their own hoards - or, harder still to understand, they champion the thefts made by others while they go without. Perhaps they hope to join the thieves themselves some day.

No, life's too short and I have too many other things that need my attention to give over any more of my time to this endeavor.

Still, I'll post when I can, or when I come across something that has to be addressed, when something just can't be ignored.

Until then, I'm gonna focus on stuff that makes me smile.