Via James Fallows

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The Bourne Idiocy

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/updates/3023

Here's Matt Damon, political scientist:“You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.”

Yes, Obama got nothing done.  Unless you count universal health care, ending the Iraq War, the new START treaty, ending DADT, saving GM and Chrysler, the Lily Ledbetter Act, the hate crimes bill, Dodd-Frank, the end of the Gaddafi regime and, oh, yeah, he ordered bin Laden shot in the face.

I've always thought Matt Damon was an excellent actor because of his intelligence.

I never realized what a steep curve actors need to be graded on.

Here's A Shocker: Joe Lieberman Is A Douche

Of course, Palpatine's performance was so hammy, Lieberman would have nothing to do with it.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/12/hedge-fund-titans-got-inside-political-tips.html

While Lieberman was helping to kill the public option, he was meeting with hedge fund people who were playing the tips into profits.  Carper was involved, too.  Both Connecticut and Delaware are big insurance and financial states, so I guess whoring yourself out to Wall Street can just be called "constituent service".

Here's something you can do about it.

North Korea Is Messed Up

Well, when you die, at least people will mourn for you.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/more-expressions-of-grief-from-the-north-korean-people/250175/

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/the-death-of-kim-jong-il-as-broadcast-to-his-people/250171/

Really, it boggles the mind.

The GOP Cannot Govern

John Boehner, right, meets with the First Lady.

Well, the Senate did that bipartisan thing all the cool kids are talking about on Twitter.  They passed an extension of the payroll tax holiday, extended unemployment benefits and patched Medicare.  They did so with about 80 votes, which in Senate terms is as rare as a virgin birth.

Then it came time for Boehner to corral his kittens into passing the bill.

Guess what?

I know Nancy Pelosi has a grating voice and a bad eye job.  I know she had the unmitigated gall to help fulfill a dream of her party's going back to FDR.  I know she's from San Francisco (GAY!).

But Pelosi ran the House.  Boehner is a joke.  I don't think there is another Speaker as inept in our history, with perhaps the exception of that guy who was Speaker for 30 minutes during the Clinton impeachment (Livingstone?).

One party hates government so much it has no idea how to govern.  The other can govern, but sucks at politics.

As Charlie Pierce so often writes: "This is your democracy America.  Cherish it."

Touched By His Noodly Appendage...

I want a Flying Spaghetti Monster creche in my yard.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/12/war-on-christmas-leesburg.html

Remember The Tea Party? Yeah, They Were Crazy.

"No, he's not!"

If you want to peer into the lunacy that is the Tea Party/GOP, please follow this link.

Here are some highlights from what is being disseminated on the RW internets.

 It's vaguely reminiscent of the alleged killing of Osama Bin Laden, with no evidence shown to the American people. ( Personally, I think he's been dead since around 2003, have seen no evidence otherwise, and think Obama staged the incident just so he could take credit. People prove they're alive by showing up, and he hadn't shown up in any way, in years. )

Um, no.  Bin Laden routinely issued video and audio tapes referencing current events.  Welcome to reality, buy a souvenir t-shirt before you head home.


But we've been hearing reports recently(From the fillings in our head.-ed.), that socialists and gangs have been infiltrating our military now. So this leaves two very disturbing possibilities left.

The first is that you have not been institutionalized or heavily medicated.

One, that Obama passed down direct orders through a trusted chain of command, to land this drone in Iran, possibly sparking a war with Iran, and handing over our top secret military technology to them and their Russian and Chinese allies.

Suuuuure.  That's exactly what happened.  Amazing for you to see through the clever ruse.

At least such an investigation should be called for - demanded.

Is that before or after we blow the lid off ACORN, the New Black Panther Party, the Solyandra loan or the birth certificate?  Rumor has it, Obama shot Gabby Gifford.

Famous panty sniffer Larry Klayman is back at it, too.  He thinks Obama gave the drone to the Iranians, too. Because the Iranians are financing his re-election campaign.  No.  I'm not making this up.  Needless to say, even though Obama hasn't slept with interns, Klayman has a solution.


Barack Hussein Obama was complicit in this treasonous act. By allowing the radical Islamic mullahs in Iran, China and Russia to have our highest technology when he simply could have ordered the destruction of the drone once it went down, Obama cemented my strong belief that he is a traitor.


Obama must go now! We cannot wait until an election in 2012, as more damage will irreparably harm our nation. He must be legally forced to leave office now, plain and simple.

Had enough crazy?  But wait!  There's more! (My emphasis added.)


In this regard, Freedom Watch recently scored a big victory in court in our case against the radical mullahs in Iran. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered that evidence be presented into the atrocities committed by the Iranian terrorist regime. These atrocities are being committed each day with Obama's apparent blessing! 

Because he hasn't invaded Iran yet, which is totally what a real American would do, if he was another C+ Augustus.  

This trial, to be held in the next few months, will, like the Nuremberg Nazi trials after World War II, expose the horrors of the Islamic Iranian regime, which is obviously supported by Obama. 

Again, obviously, because...Where's my new war, damnit!  Iraq's only been over for 24 hours, and I'm getting itchy!  

I believe that Iran has paid off Obama with campaign contributions to win the next election, just as China paid off the Clintons with illegally laundered campaign contributions so they could win the 1996 election. Coupled with his Muslim roots, Obama gladly threw his lot in with the radical Iranian mullahs bent on our destruction, as well as Israel's. That's why I call Obama the "mullah in chief." 

And that's why I call you a crazy person.  Although to be fair, I have actual evidence. 

This could well turn out to be the terrorist trial of the decade. Just as I was instrumental in exposing the bribery of the Clintons by China during their administration, concerned citizens need to be hard at work uncovering the bribery of Obama by the Iranians. I for one am investigating this likelihood. 

 And I, for one, am laughing at you.  

Bill Clinton and his criminal wife, Hillary, were the "Manchurian Candidates," but Obama and Hillary are now the "Islamic Iranian Candidates," an analogy the movie that depicted how Chinese communists infiltrated the highest reaches of our government. 

Thanks for spoiling the movie for me, dillweed.  Now I have to go change my Netflix queue.

The primary explanation for Obama and Clinton rolling over for the Iranian Islamist mullahs is that they were paid off, that is, bribed. This occurred during the Clinton years with communist China, so it is not farfetched that it is happening now. Obama and Clinton need the campaign cash to win the next elections, just as Bill and Hill needed it in 1996 to defeat Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole.

I'm pretty sure Clinton defeated Bob Dole, because Clinton was popular, the GOP was not and Bob Dole ran a campaign that made Mike Dukakis look like FDR.

That's some weapons grade batshit insanity right there.  Look at the delusions of grandeur.  The "Nuremberg trials", "I was instrumental..."  Dude, Clinton got impeached for laying about a blow job.  

And like all good paranoids, his beliefs leak easily into facts.  He "believes" Iran has paid off Obama.  What is his proof?  The Iranians shot down a drone.  Good they have actually done that?  Unpossible!  

The 9/11 "Truther" movement was nuts.  Crazy, insane, talking to yourself out loud on the bus bonkers.  But could you imagine what would happen in a 9/11 happened on a Democratic president's watch?

I mean a drone gets shot down and Klayman thinks Obama did it on purpose to sell out America.  This is the Obama who ordered Bin Laden to be shot in the f-ing face and dropped into the Indian Ocean.  Oh, but DID HE?

It is terrifying that these yahoos control the people who control the House of Representatives.

No Newts Is Good Newts

Super PACs at work.

My man Newt is in freefall in Iowa.  He's below that creepy Mormon guy and that even creepier libertarian old guy.

The cause?  Apparently a bunch of Super PACs have launched a barrage of negative ads against Newt.  Since Newt has no campaign funds to respond, it's basically a one sided fight.

First of all, as Josh Marshall notes, Newt is an easy guy to run negative ads against.  He's a cretin and has been for a long time.  You don't need to do opposition research on the guy.  Ten minutes on Google will do the trick.

Second, you can't let these charges go unrebutted and Newt's lackluster fundraising is really becoming an issue.

Third, f**k you, Supreme Court.  This is the landscape you gave us with Citizens United.  As tawdry and unpleasant as the political season was before, we have only the faintest glimpse of what is to come.  Massive ad buys of scorched earth rhetoric are on their way.

If this is how they treat Gingrich, imagine what is in store for Obama?

Take This Stupid Quiz!

Presidential bracketology

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/fullpage?id=15177995

OK, so the linked quiz allows you to answer questions on policy to determine who you support for the Presidency.  They have bumpersticker versions of policy statements by each candidate and when you answer, you get to see who you support.

I'll give you three guesses who I support.

Two things make this interesting.

First, they rank your top three.  Not surprisingly, Obama's my first choice, and perhaps also not surprisingly, Ron Paul is my second choice - mainly because I want us out of Afghanistan yesterday.  What's weird is my third choice is Bachmann.  I'm not sure how she came up.  Maybe a foreign policy question?  Maybe alphabetically?

Second, when you see the GOP positions laid out like that, it really makes you appreciate how absolutely insane most of their positions are, and how little they differentiate from each other  - crazy old Uncle Ron excepted.  When they promise to end the Department of Education or amend the Constitution to ban abortion or cut taxes across the board...these are insane positions.  They are Lyndon LaRouche and John Birch level of nonsense.

The GOP has lost its marbles.

Well, No One Weeps For The Generalissimo

Um, no.  Kim Jong Dead.

So, the world is down one odious toad.  Kim Jong Il who starved his own people in the pursuit of military weaponry and Japanese prostitutes is dead.

Given the psychopathy present in that gene pool, I doubt even his own family truly mourns him.  Still, always exciting when someone new gets the keys to the nuclear minivan.

Poor gentle Vaclev Havel will now be linked to a man who perhaps stood more clearly for everything he opposed.  So different in life, they share a date in death.

I'm not sure if Christopher Hitchens was the Rule of Three guy or whether Fidel will die tomorrow, but the world does not have to mourn every death.  Certainly not Kim Jong Il's.

Jesus Loves Tom Brady More

"I feel reasonably certain I'm not your dad.  But I can circumcise you if you want."

So, the Patriots showed that they hate America by beating Tim Tebow, er... the Denver Broncos.

Of course, we knew God preferred Brady already...

This Is A Good Post

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/18/1045041/-The-failure-of-Austerity?via=blog_1

Hunter, one of the best writers at Daily Kos, notes that austerity - as tried in Europe - is failing to do what its advocates say it will.  By cutting spending in order to balance budgets in a time of declining revenues, Europe has created a contracting economy.

Hunter cites Krugman who notes that this is precisely what basic Keynesian theory says.  This theory basically came out of the experience from 1850-1933.  During that time, fealty to the gold standard (especially promulgated by the Bank of England) kept money deflated and led to painful depressions and recessions.  The occasional gold rush helped, but if you contract the money, you contract the economy.

During the '70s, a combination of rising energy prices and continued Keynesian inflationary theory led to stagflation.  So that's a data point against Keynesianism.

But overall, basic Keynesian theory holds true.  A little inflation is a good thing.  But a little inflation can become a lot of inflation if you're not careful.

So, you know, be careful.  But don't throw out the whole idea of Keynesian economics because of the '70s.

I can't say why someone would continue to preach austerity after watching what's happening in Europe, but the GOP continues to hammer this line of thinking.

I suppose it's some combination of American exceptionalism, pig ignorance and desire to make non-rich people suffer.

But, dude.  Cut it out.

This Is The Funniest Child Abuse Of The Year

http://jezebel.com/5867978/children-receiving-bad-christmas-presents-is-as-funny-as-it-sounds

Vaclav Havel

I was somewhat surprised to see that Vaclav Havel died.  I saw the picture, and, yeah, he looked near death. I guess it was end stage cigarette disease of some sort.

Next month, I am going to try and teach my Comp Gov students about communism and its fall.  Communism, as a student put it, is a sign that existing political alternatives have failed.  When Communism came to Russia in 1917 and China in 1949, it came because centuries of repression and autocracy had squeezed away any possible democratic transition.

But Communism came to eastern Europe at the point of a bayonet and was maintained by the brute force of a Soviet tank.  How it ended is one of the miracles of my time.

Men like Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel and Miklos Nemeth put themselves at the head of a movement that spoke for millions.  And what seemed permanent and brutal fell in a matter of months, with the only real bloodshed occurring in Romania.

A lot of people are wondering if we sit at a similar moment, with the Arab Spring.  The similarities are that what seemed permanent and brutal is collapsing before our eyes.

But it's not bloodless.

And it does not have those prominent figures to stand and say, "Enough."  These are curiously leaderless movements, or rather they are fractious with many different voices.  If anything, that is the similarity between the Arab Spring and OWS.

The transition from autocracy to democracy in eastern Europe was not easy.  The "shock therapy" mode of forcing rapid marketization  was very, very painful - and in some places remains painful.  But the eastern Europeans were aided by a few charismatic figures who focused the public interest.  The Arab Spring has no one, at least not yet.  If they fail, it will be because they fall into factional disputes before they can institutionalize democracy.

Here in America, we see massive dysfunction in our governmental structures, but we also have over 200 years of tradition and institutional inertia that insures that any change that comes will not be radical or traumatic (or even, perhaps, effective).  We can live with dysfunction, even as we decry it.

But Czechoslovakia benefitted from having a man like Vaclev Havel.  Egypt, Tunisia and Libya are not yet so lucky.

Rest in peace, Mr. Havel.

A Good Read

http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/2011/12/indefinitedetentionbs.html

It's about the specific poison pill amendment that gives the President the right to lock up people for being "terrasts", but really it's about all the poison pills.