thump and whip

March 9, 2010

Rush Limbaugh imagines government healthcare, pisses pants, goes to Costa Rica to get free healthcare

A caller wants to know: if the healthcare thing passes, how the hell will you ever see another doctor, Rush? They’ll all have the bubonic AIDS, dude.

Rush says “Don’t be silly, Richard, the doctors themselves won’t be any different. Besides, I make 40 million dollars a year, I can always hire my own top notch personal physician.”


I’m kidding, he says he’s leaving the country:


Dang: “The health care system in Costa Rica is subsidized by the State and offers low costs and high quality. If you become a citizen of Costa Rica you will be eligible for free health care as the Costa Rica Social Security System provides free medical services to all Costa Rican citizens . .”

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February 25, 2010

February 22, 2010

Your typical Gateway Pundit hackery

It happen again, Gateway Pundit has geek his post:

Thanks Barack… Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs; 4 Million Lose Their Job Under Obama

Millions without jobs; 4 million lose job? Sound are strange. Maybe they lift big building. Clean volcano.

The unemployment rate is now at 9.7% and it doesn’t look like things will improve much any time soon.

Millions of unemployed Americans will face years without jobs. The New York Times reported:

. . the NYT story were “Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs.” Obviously, Pundit spend much time read and analyze media, not just trumpet link that sound bad.


Another:

Leftist Hater Alan Grayson travels to Niger – Coup Breaks Out

Violence break out, he asshole?

Loudmouth democratic hater Alan Grayson traveled to Niger this week. While he was there a military coup broke out. Several members of the president’s guard were killed by the military and the democratic president was taken into custody. Grayson could hear the gunshots in the building next door.

Being a good democrat, he cut-and-run from the country.

Ah, he coward. Real man stay in Niger.

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February 21, 2010

three: Conservatives are now criticizing Obama for killing terrorists, not detaining them?

Under Obama, more targeted killings than captures in counterterrorism efforts

. . Although senior administration officials say that no policy determination has been made to emphasize kills over captures, several factors appear to have tipped the balance in that direction. The Obama administration has authorized such attacks more frequently than the George W. Bush administration did in its final years, including in countries where U.S. ground operations are officially unwelcome or especially dangerous. Improvements in electronic surveillance and precision targeting have made killing from a distance much more of a sure thing. At the same time, options for where to keep U.S. captives have dwindled.

Republican critics, already scornful of limits placed on interrogation of the suspect in the Christmas Day bombing attempt, charge that the administration has been too reluctant to risk an international incident or a domestic lawsuit to capture senior terrorism figures alive and imprison them.

“Over a year after taking office, the administration has still failed to answer the hard questions about what to do if we have the opportunity to capture and detain a terrorist overseas, which has made our terror-fighters reluctant to capture and left our allies confused,” Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Friday.


Capturing terrorists has got to be a difficult, dangerous task. It risks our people and property, and it strains international relations.

They may pretend to believe it to be the ultimate weapon against the terrorists, but I’m not buying they’d be so forgiving upon the deaths or captures of our own during one of those dangerous operations. The Republicans would be howling screaming mad at Obama and the administration, and there’d be charges of stupidity, incompetence and recklessness flying all over the place.

Clearly, the technology and the capabilities of the drone programs have sharpened, and, with better intelligence, the anti-terrorist forces have extended ranges and strike capabilities. Why shouldn’t Obama put this all to good use?

Just because they’ve gotten a lot better at taking out terrorists doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any easier or less risky to capture them, does it?

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two: Conservatives are now criticizing Obama for killing terrorists, not detaining them?

Bush Official Criticizes Obama For Killing Too Many Terrorists

Just how unpopular are President Barack Obama’s anti-terrorism policies with his Republican critics? Even when he’s killing terrorists they find flaws . .

“Why have executions increased?” asked Viet Dinh, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and one of the authors of the USA Patriot Act. Citing a recent Washington Post article on the increased targeted killing of terrorists, Dinh complained that “the president and vice president expound this fact as a fact that they are actually successful in war.”

“That doesn’t mean I think they are not illegitimate,” he added. “No, we have every right to kill the other side’s warriors. But at what cost? When we do not have an effective detention policy the only option we have is to kill them before we can detain them. And if we don’t detain them, we don’t know what they know and what they are up to.”


The realities of detention are a bitch:
1.) Abduction.
2,) Transport.
3.) Incarceration.
4,) Interrogation.
5.) Production of intel.
6.) Assessment of intel.
7.) Action.
8.) Assessment of action.
9.) Assessment of source.
10.) Legal processing.
11.) International politicking and relations.
12.) Life-long housing.

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February 20, 2010

one: Conservatives are now criticizing Obama for killing terrorists, not detaining them?

Yes, they are. CPAC yesterday:


Bush Official Criticizes Obama For Killing Too Many Terrorists

Just how unpopular are President Barack Obama’s anti-terrorism policies with his Republican critics? Even when he’s killing terrorists they find flaws . .

“Why have executions increased?” asked Viet Dinh, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and one of the authors of the USA Patriot Act. Citing a recent Washington Post article on the increased targeted killing of terrorists, Dinh complained that “the president and vice president expound this fact as a fact that they are actually successful in war.”

“That doesn’t mean I think they are not illegitimate,” he added. “No, we have every right to kill the other side’s warriors. But at what cost? When we do not have an effective detention policy the only option we have is to kill them before we can detain them. And if we don’t detain them, we don’t know what they know and what they are up to.”


I’m certainly no counter-terrorism expert, so I’m not embarrassed to admit I’m confused by this.

But here I go: If we knew pretty much everything about all the terrorists out there, wouldn’t we then . . kill them? Starting with the leaders, kill them all, wipe them out? Isn’t that the best possible realistic outcome for us in order to stop them cold?

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead, say officials

Al-Qaeda leader killed in North Waziristan drone strike

Son of feared Taliban leader killed by missile fired by American drone


This isn’t good enough?

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February 8, 2010

Video of Sarah Palin using her Tea Party “hillbilly teleprompter”

Here’s what was loaded on the teleprompter: “Energy”, “Budget cuts”, “Tax” and “Lift American Spirits”.

Tea Party Palin


Quote: “This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any one king or queen of a tea party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter.”

And she got paid over $100,000 to deliver that line because the tea partiers find her ugly and boring, riiighht . . .

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February 3, 2010

WaPo’s Richard Cohen is an obtuse priss

This is one of the worst editorials the Washington Post has ever been mistaken to print. Richard Cohen is a middling dolt, but this particular missive is an emphatic admission of his marginal faculties and cowardice. Why either he or WaPo would invite the guaranteed scorn is a mystery.

Obama administration is tone-deaf to concerns about terrorism
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, February 2, 2010

There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer.

Already, this is bullcrap– safer than what? This is a weak rhetorical tactic.

richard eeeek cohenWhether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists will be tried in military tribunals and some in civilian courts, what is missing is a firm recognition that what comes first is not the message sent to America’s critics but the message sent to Americans themselves. When, oh when, will this administration wake up?

And by “Americans themselves”, Richard means his quivering knees. He wants terrorists to be waterboarded, which is brutal, illegal and un-American. No, Richard.

He wants terrorists to be denied the rights that are unhappily guaranteed by the Constitution:

The principle that the Constitution applies not only to Americans, but also to foreigners, was hardly invented by the Court in 2008. To the contrary, the Supreme Court — all the way back in 1886 — explicitly held this to be the case, when, in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, it overturned the criminal conviction of a Chinese citizen living in California on the ground that the law in question violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.

In case Cohen’s making some argument that he felt ’safer’ with the Bush Administration here, they ‘Mirandized’ Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. So, operating in violation of the Constitution? No, Richard.

And all this military/civilian court ‘madness’? Name the last ‘Global War on Terror’ criminal tried in civilian court that didn’t get convicted and isn’t currently sitting in a penitentiary. Your beloved stalwart hold-me-daddy Bush Administration tried and convicted Richard Reid in civilian court. So, civilian courts are weak and scary? No, Richard.

This is what passes for editorial material in the Washington Post?

. . . But the paramount civil liberty is a sense of security and this, sad to say, has eroded under Barack Obama.

A ’sense of security’ is the pre-eminent civil liberty? I’d like to see somebody try to sue for that. Richard Cohen is almost too stupid for comment.

Repeatedly, the administration has shown poor judgment. Abdulmutallab’s silence is a scream that something is wrong.

Underwear bomber talking again

You can stop shrieking now, Rich.

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Sarah Palin aims ‘retarded’ politics at Rahm Emanuel

Well, now you know another thing Governor Moosemeat will grandstand over at the Tea Party Convention:

I would ask the president to show decency in this process by eliminating one member of that inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, and not allow Rahm’s continued indecent tactics to cloud efforts. Yes, Rahm is known for his caustic, crude references about those with whom he disagrees, but his recent tirade against participants in a strategy session was such a strong slap in many American faces that our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm’s recent sick and offensive tactic.

The Obama Administration’s Chief of Staff scolded participants, calling them, “F—ing retarded,” according to several participants, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

She’s not shy about brandishing her youngest, Down Syndrome afflicted child, is she?

RAHM ISSUED APOLOGY — BUT NOT TO DEMOCRATS

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called the head of the Special Olympics last week to apologize for using the expression “fucking retarded,” Politico’s Ben Smith reports.

“Rahm called Tim Shriver Wednesday to apologize and the apology was accepted,” an unnamed White House official said.

Shameful.

Sarah Palin, who called for Emanuel to apologize for using the word “retarded,” was herself accused of using the word last year. Levi Johnston, the father of Bristol Palin’s daughter, told the media last fall that Palin described Trig, her son with Down Syndrome, as her “retarded baby.” Palin strongly denied ever using the expression.

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January 31, 2010

Some blogs are just fucked up, like HillBuzz

That’s hillbuzz.org, jazz hands.

hillbuzz 5

Someone a few thousand miles away called the main blogger there a racist and he or she responded by turning bullshit, posting the names and addresses of blameless people like the terrific Rumproast’s Kevin K..

HillBuzz has gone spiraling apeshit ever since, pulling in big wingnut traffic and donations by calling the few graffiti a wide-ranging and variably integrated Soros-Obama-DNC conspiracy. Yes, because a HillBuzz blogger isn’t wholly cerebral sunflower Cheeze-Whiz but a steely sniper of presidential power.

Anyway, aside from blogger ‘hillbuzz’ being a stupid fungal asshole, the site’s currently as funny as you will find.

Firstly, what the hell sort of hard right-wingers love Hillary Clinton? No, not kidding, that’s the ‘Hill’ in the name. Conservatives crazy for Hillary Clinton are HillBuzz.

Secondly, nothing and no one aren’t out to get them. The paranoia runs so deep that even the most innocuous comments get the Neo/Matrix treatment. It’d be overblown if it were satire:

“HB, may I ask why you like Hillary so much, and also Sarah. I know you started supporting Sarah as a protest against the nasty Obama people against Hillary. But now you sound like a loyal fan of Sarah.
Their politics are entirely different. Hillary wants public healthcare, Sarah not. Hillary for big(ger) government, Sarah not.
What areas of the democratic ideology that you gave up or will not relinquish? Hard to imagine you turning away only becuase of the base behaviors of the liberals, unless integrity trumps ideology. You said to vote them all out. No one on dem side worth saving because of personal integrity?
Just want to understand.
Thank you for helping our camp.
Take care.”

. . 2 . . 3 . .

TROLL DISSECTION 101: How to break apart a concern troll’s posting like it’s made of astroturf and Legos

This is such a weird concern-troll comment, left on a thread tonight, that we just had to let the comment stand, instead of hillbuzz and sarahdeleting it, to break it down for you and also ponder WHAT exactly is the intent of leaving something like this.

Here it is, in full, from a poster calling herself “Penny Long”:

[. . above . .]

This is such a great example of concern-trolling, we’re going to breakdown, line by line, what’s going on here. It’s so textbook David Axelrod, he might have even written it himself.


The post goes on for three thousand words. And when the bastard ‘Penny Long’ starts typing out insidious rhythms, hillbuzz gets it:

LINE THREE: But now you sound like a loyal fan of Sarah.

This line is strange because there’s no “now you sound” or “but” about this. We’ve always been a loyal fan of Sarah. Since before Day One, which for most of the rest of you was August 29th, 2008. See remarks above, we were on the Palin Express before the train tracks were even built.

This is CLASSIC concern-trolling, folks.

People who love music could help us with this analogy, we’re sure, but if you don’t focus on the words so much, but just get a sense of the beat in this question, there’s a certain rhythm to it, almost like a haiku.

Like this:

HB (gets your attention), two loud sounds, BOOM BOOM

May I ask you why you like Hillary so much: Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba baba ba ba

and also Sarah: DA DA DADA.

Some more of the ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba beat.

Then: BOOM (But), DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DUM.


(But) BOOM

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January 25, 2010

Here it comes: the annoyingly centrist Barack Obama has been waaay “too liberal”

McConnell: Obama lost support because he governed ‘hard left

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says that President Barack Obama would have had more support in the Senate if he just governed more towards the middle. “As I’ve said all year, if he wants to meet us in the middle of the political spectrum we’ll be there to help,” McConnell told NBC’s David Gregory Sunday.


What part of “the middle” is “NO”? Since when has McConnell even seen “the middle”?

Another Dem backs down: ‘Scale back’ our agenda

“I think the President Is going to have to scale back his agenda after we pass health care reform,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) in an interview with ABC News.

Echoing a common theme among pundits and conservative Democrats, Nelson said, “I think he’s allowed the left wing pull him too much in that direction.”


civilian conservation corpsAnd a Democrat, great. And the evidence of that left wing influence would be . . . what? It doesn’t exist. Gitmo is still open, we’re still in Iraq, we’ve escalated in Afghanistan, domestic spying still continues, Bush’s U.S. attorneys still have their jobs, the banks and banksters are as rich and dangerous as they ever were, there hasn’t been an iota of finance reform, and real healthcare reform is about get jettisoned. Do these people even know who the leftists are and what they want? Obama is the last person in the world that would appease the left, he’s defiant.

Chris Matthews and Panel Still Touting the “Obama Moved Too Far to the Left” Meme

Brooks: Yeah, what’s the biggest issue of our lifetime? It’s that people used to trust government in the New Deal and the Great Society. Now like 17% of Americans trust government. And this distrust of government has been building and building and building. And Massachusetts is a phenomenon of that. And so the question before the Democrats is do we listen to the people and say hey, we’re scaling back, or do we say we really believe in our agenda, we don’t care what you say. We believe in it so much we’re going forward. And that’s the crucial decision they have.


People learned to trust government during the New Deal because it worked. Since Reagan, government has been a punching bag for the right wing. They beat the hell out of it, make it completely ineffective, populate it with idiots like Phil Gramm, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, then when it tanks the nation, they say “SEE?”

And then they ride a populist wave of anger back into office to do it all over again. You break the cycle by making government effective. You can’t make government effective by listening to people who promise to destroy it.

Republicans are terrified of healthcare reform because it will benefit millions of people. That’s exactly why you PASS HEALTHCARE REFORM IN THE FACE OF GREAT OPPOSITION. Now. People will get “it” after they get it. They trust the government after it does good things for them. How the hell do you think Roosevelt got re-elected three times? Pass the bill.

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January 21, 2010

I’ll tell you this: We sure as hell don’t need more cowards, Dianne Feinstein

Feinstein: “slow down” on health reform; Mass election part of a “sweep across the country.”
January 20, 2010 1:18 PM

“. . . I can tell you the situation has changed dramatically. And I think it’s a sweep across the country and I think that the (White House Economic Adviser) Larry Summerses of the world have to see it, the administration has to see it and we have to see it. And therefore everything is jobs and the economy and education. People are worried about education,” she said.

dianne feinstein2“You see anger. People are worried. And when they’re worried they don’t want to take on a broad new responsibility,” like health care reform, she said . . .

“I think we do go slower in health care. People do not understand it, it is so big it is beyond their comprehension. And if you don’t understand it when somebody tells you it does this or it does that and it’s not true, you tend to believe it, even though it isn’t true . . .”


Good goddamn. It’s already passed, you moron. Feinstein is the sort of spineless oatmeal that the Democrats have served up for too long. She makes it impossible for Democrats to ever be anything but non-winners. Let’s do what the opposition wants, great idea. Matthew Yglesias:

Do House Democrats Realize They Already Voted for Health Care Reform?

What’s baffling to me about the collective health care freakout happening on the Hill right now is that House Democrats don’t quite seem to be grasping the implications of the fact that they already voted for health reform back in November . . .


Enough. Now, do whatever you have to do, get it done. It’s what’s best for the country, Diane. Last and not least, ever, Paul Krugman:

He Wasn’t The One We’ve Been Waiting For

. . . Maybe House Democrats can pull this out, even with a gaping hole in White House leadership. Barney Frank seems to have thought better of his initial defeatism. But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.

Yep.

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