Check The Diagonal

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

Andrew is back and I am happy.  He's not only my favorite blogger but also one of the most brilliant and insightful people in political information distribution today.  The Daily Dish is a must read for anyone, on either side of the aisle who gives a shit.

The Rotten Core

"Nepotism is part of the problem; media corruption is also part; the total uselessness of the Democratic party and the nihilism of the Republicans doesn't help. But something is rotten in America at this moment in time; and those of us who supported Obama to try and change this decay and decline should use this fall to get off our butts and fight for change."

This is a thought that frustrates me daily as I watch Obama's aggressive and necessary agenda flounder and struggle.  Winning the election was supposed to be the beginning, not the end.  Let us not forget that he won despitethe nihilism of the Right and the uselessness of the Left in what was a true American grassroots movement.  Face the facts. There is no liberal media bias and the broad big tent of the Left will never be unified enough for Obama to wield the majority in the way he needs to unless the American public who elected him gets involved.  If not Obama will fail and America will realize its current ambition of a late stage empire destined for the decline and fall.

Glenn Beck has gone all the way off the deep end.

This would be hilarious if people weren't actually listening to him and taking him seriously.

Good news is that as of August 27th 46 companies have pulled their ads from Beck's show.

Against the potent poison of your hate.

Your door is shut against my tightened face,

And I am sharp as steel with discontent;

But I possess the courage and the grace

To bear my anger proudly and unbent.

The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,

A chafing savage, down the decent street;

And passion rends my vitals as I pass,

Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.

Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,

Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,

And find in it the superhuman power

To hold me to the letter of your law!

Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate

Against the potent poison of your hate.

Claude McKay- The White House

Just throw the dog whistle away

With subtleties thrown by the wayside first term Kansas Republican Lynn Jenkins offers up words of "hope" and white supremacy...

"Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope," Jenkins said to the crowd. "I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington."

I wonder what Michael Steele thinks of this?

Who's gonna save my soul...

I've just spent the better part of two evenings reading the CIA Inspector General Report and I'm not sure I feel like writing about this at all.  It is far worse than any movie or book I've ever read, and it is not fiction folks, this really happened.  America was once the country of "Truth, Justice and The American Way" but that is all long gone now.

I don't want to believe that my America is a country that would threaten to rape and kill a child or kill and torture innocent people but it is.

After reading, my very first thought was, where is Eric Holder?  The criminality lies with the Bush/Cheney Administration and the Bush Justice Department who re-wrote our constitution in pencil to serve their own personal vendetta against muslims worldwide.  If Holder and the Obama Justice Department do not prosecute, from the top, the people who authorized the torture it will be the second greatest travesty in American juris prudence right behind the actual authorization of the torture itself.

For those who are interested in a reading two great minds on the subject check out:

Andrew Sullivan:

This is what Bush and Cheney truly achieved in their tragic response to 9/11: two terribly failed, brutally expensive wars, the revival of sectarian warfare and genocide in the Middle East, the end of America's global moral authority, the empowerment of Iran's and North Korea's dictatorships, and the nightmares of Gitmo and Bagram still haunting the new administration.

But what they did to the culture - how they systematically dismantled core American values like the prohibition on torture and respect for the rule of law - is the worst and most enduring of the legacies.

Glenn Greenwald:

This all occurred because the officials at the highest levels of the U.S. Government pronounced that this was permissible, the protections of the Geneva Conventions were "quaint," obsolete and inapplicable, and the U.S. was justified in doing anything and everything in the name of fighting Terrorists.  As stomach-turning as these individual acts of sadism are, it is far worse to consider that only low-level interrogators will suffer consequences while those who were truly responsible -- the criminally depraved leaders and lawyers who ordered and authorized it -- will be protected.  

Paying Attention?

Ayatollah: U.S., UK not meddling in Iran

"I don't accuse the leaders of the recent incidents of being affiliated with foreign countries, including the United States and Britain, since the issue has not been proven for me," Ayatollah Khamenei

This is a significant change to decades worth of hard-line, "Death to America" rhetoric coming out of Iran and yet another sign that "The Obama Effect" as it relates to the Middle East is very real.  The Green Revolution in Iran is fueled by the same type of youth movement that fueled Obama's candidacy here in America. Khamenei and his regime are desperatly clinging to power and Obama now holds the lifeline.  Repairing the damage the Bush Administration did to America's impact, reputation and ability to play honest peace broker in theMiddle East may be his greatest lasting legacy. 

Hypocrite watch...

From the annals of being not surprised:

GOP opposes plan then seeks money

Billions of dollars worth of Defense Department stimulus money is paying for repairs and construction at military installations in areas represented by lawmakers who said "no" to the legislation, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

The DCCC has a new Hypocrisy Hall of Fame that details 32 Republicans who voted no, but say yes to the money:

The House Republicans' Hypocrisy Hall of Fame is getting jam-packed as even more Republicans - 32 and counting - are celebrating the benefits of President Obama's economic recovery bill and the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill in their districts even though they voted against it in Washington. 

More MSM Fail.  Not one lede on any of these stories locally in Georgia or in the MSM. 

If it's good enough for the President and the Senate...

WTF Chuck?

Chuck Grassley's job is to slow everything down, pretend he is willing to work with the Left while making sure the Right knows nothing is ever going to get done as long as he is leading the negotiation.

Check out these two juicy bits within a moment of each other:

I don't think it's going to be possible to work it out with the administration because they're all over the field -- all over the ball park, I guess, as we say.

But, yes, I do believe it's possible to reach an agreement.

 

How can you oppose reform with numbers like these?

If these numbers from the CDC don't make you angry I don't know what will.

The United States ranked 29th in the world in infant mortality in 2004, compared to 27th in 2000, 23rd in 1990 and 12th in 1960, according to a new report from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Does it really ALWAYS come down to racism in this country?  Is this a black and hispanic problem or an American one?

The infant mortality rate for non-Hispanic black women was 2.4 times the rate for non-Hispanic white women. In 2005, the infant mortality rate for non-Hispanic black women was 13.63 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to a rate of 5.76 for non-Hispanic white women. Rates were also higher for Puerto Rican and American Indian women, 8.30 and 8.06 respectively.

 

36 Companies have dropped Beck- Whose left?

Media Matters compiles the list of who advertised on Beck last night.

• DirecTV
• Binder & Binder
• EasyWater
• Liberty Medical
• Superior Gold Group
• Bank of America
• Rosland Capital
• Johnson Law Group
• Citrix (GoToMeeting)
• Carbonite
• Merit Financial
• Applebee's
• Discover Bank (Discover Card)
• Binder & Binder
• Pulaski & Middleman
• Sandals Resort
• The Villages
• Smart Balance
• Rosland Capital
• Zero Technologies (ZeroWater)

It is time for a special prosecutor.

If Obama and Holder refuse to prosecute the crimes of the Bush administration at the highest levels they will be betraying the trust Americans elected them to reinstate and crimes of this nature will become the status quo.

The Bush and Co. incompetence is staggering but not surprising.  We elected a President most people would like to have a beer with, not a brain trust.  The guy is an idiot, we know this.  The reticence by the Obama administration to enforce the laws of our country is what surprises me.  Clinton was special prosecuted for a blow job but the Bush administration whose list of crimes seem endless and read like a Michael Creighton novel are scott free?

Olberman has details on the latest Tom Ridge bomb and the torture report is due to be re-released on Monday.  What the fuck is Eric Holder waiting for?

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Man Down

Real work that pays our bills has been insanely busy (better than the alternative) and now I'm sick (a sure sign the kids are back at school) but here are a few of the more interesting stories I've been tracking that are worth reading:

Coleman Takes New Job As Harvard Teaching Fellow - OK! So now I've lost all respect for the cache of the Ivy League Degree...oh wait, I didn't have any respect for The Ivy in the first place...moving right along.  What a joke.

Limbaugh tells caller who can't afford $6,000 to treat broken wrist: "Well, you shouldn't have broken your wrist"  -  This is the conservative approach to treating the 46,000,000 uninsured Americans...don't get sick. 

The de-facto GOP leader also thinks homophobia is acceptable. 

Tom Ridge, the first head of the Department of Homeland Security said and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over. -  Is anyone really surprised by this AT ALL?  If Eric Holder is really interested in being a non-political AG he should name special prosecutors for Torture, the no-bid Iraq contracts and the billions of $$ that are missing from them, CIA/Blackwater secret assasination program, and this.

Joe Klien writes in Newsweek that The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists Money quote:

A striking example of the prevailing cravenness was Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who has authored end-of-life counseling provisions and told the Washington Post that comparing such counseling to euthanasia was nuts — but then quickly retreated when he realized that he had sided with the reality-based community against his Rush Limbaugh-led party. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner for President according to most polls, actually created a universal-health-care plan in Massachusetts that looks very much like the proposed Obamacare, but he spends much of his time trying to fudge the similarities and was AWOL on the "death panels." Why are these men so reluctant to be rational in public?

Lousiana Senator Vitter wants to import drugs from Canada, not because they are cheaper, but because he wants to force the collapse of the Canadian Health Care system.  No shit.  He really said that.

Guns at Obama Rallies- The Arizona gun sightings at Obama's townhall were organized by a right-wing radio host with ties to the same militia that the Oklahoma City bombings were a part of.  Remember that nursury in Oklahoma City the way you remember 9/11.  This is just bat-shit crazy and someone is going to get hurt.

22 advertisers have now pulled ads from Glenn Beck's show - The money has been reallocated to other FOX programs and so FOX isn't losing any money yet.  Let's be clear though, Fortune class capitalist companies want everyone's money.  2-10-20 million pissed off people is making an impact.  WWW.ColorofChange.org to sign your name to the list.

Troy Davis is getting a new trial- Despite Justice Scalia's opinion that innocent men should be executed if its cheaper that way.

Who is the GOP really mad at?

Fantastic, truth telling article by Bruce Bartlett at The Daily Beast.  It is worth reading in its entirety.

"I think conservative anger is misplaced. To a large extent, Obama is only cleaning up messes created by Bush. This is not to say Obama hasn’t made mistakes himself, but even they can be blamed on Bush insofar as Bush’s incompetence led to the election of a Democrat. If he had done half as good a job as most Republicans have talked themselves into believing he did, McCain would have won easily."

And this

In my opinion, conservative activists, who seem to believe that the louder they shout the more correct their beliefs must be, are less angry about Obama’s policies than they are about having lost the White House in 2008. They are primarily Republican Party hacks trying to overturn the election results, not representatives of a true grassroots revolt against liberal policies. If that were the case they would have been out demonstrating against the Medicare drug benefit, the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, and all the pork-barrel spending that Bush refused to veto.

I think this is exactly right and I am finding it very hard to respect Republicans these days because of it.  It is as if Republicans are living in a self-induced fantasy land where the Bush/Cheney years didn't happen.  Despite my obvious Obama bias I believe that our system of government would be healthier with a strong opposition party.  A little honest reflection would go a long way:

Until conservatives once again hold Republicans to the same standard they hold Democrats, they will have no credibility and deserve no respect. They can start building some by admitting to themselves that Bush caused many of the problems they are protesting.

Word. 

Unfortunately, he neglected to say things like "DeathCare" and "Death Panel" so this fantastic and amazingly on point article will get very little air play.

Another good ABC truth piece

Via Media Matters

Americans are stupid, cont.

New Majority has a breakdown of the latest poll from Public Policy Poling (PPP) in North Carolina.

7% of those who voted for John McCain do not believe Hawaii to be a part of the United States.

according to thePPP poll, 76%, or just over 900,000 Republicans in the state, don’t think the president of the United States is legitimate, or aren’t sure about the matter, needing more proof than the two birth announcements that were placed in Hawaiian newspapers at the time of his birth.

Racism and the racists who practice it.

Congressman Scott's office in Smyrna is a short drive away from where I live with my three half-Hispanic children and Hispanic wife.  I am concerned to say the least.  We get the looks when we are out together as a family, along with a great deal of general rudeness and it is constant.  We live with this everyday and the looks of resentment and dislike and hate are real and are getting worse.   

But I won't move, Georgia is beautiful and there are good people here who hate this brand of hate and racism as much as we do.  I love it here as do my children who are thriving both academically and socially.  The South is no longer a place for racism and the racists that embrace it.  What we are witnessing is a very angry minority.  The swastikas and hate mail and dirty looks are a desperate attempt to preserve life amidst the death throws of The Lost Cause.

America has been here before; these tactics are not new.  The salient point of the video below is exactly that.  Think back to one of the darkest periods in American history, in the south, during the civil rights movement.  Yes.  It is racism that is most resistant to change.

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UPDATE:  Congressman Scott has received multiple written death threats including this letter shared with the media:

"To: NIGGA DAVID SCOTT / You were / You are / And / You shall forever be a nigga!" It added, "The Ethiopian cannot make himself white."

and one that said:

"and any of your colored constituents ain't gonna stop it. The folks are not going to stand for socialized medicine, even though most negroes refuse to stand on their own two feet."

Aside from the obvious, it is again ironic to me that these racists would quote the bible while spewing such venom.

Beck Update

Geico is the latest to drop Beck thanks to ColorOfChange.org.

UPDATE, here are the advertisers that are left on Beck's show.  Write and call.  It works.

More Update:  He just lost Sargento and Men's Warehouse too.

The truth about Tea-Baggers

Greg Sargent has no real surprise here.  The Tea-Bag movement never wanted to have an honest debate.  We know this.  Their objective is to stop Obama from acomplishing anything positive as long as he is in office.  No matter the cost to the American people.

“The goal is not compromise, and ANY bill coming out this year would be a failure for us,” the moderator said, according to AFL-CIO’s notes.

And

Another organizer on the call, according to AFL-CIO, added: “The purpose of Tea Parties is not to find a solution to the health care crisis — it is to stop what is not the solution: Obamacare.”

More dog whistling

Of course the idea here is to remind everyone how different Obama is from "us" while calling up the memories of the Falwell "Tellitubbies will make your children gay" crusade.

Is all the resistance simply because Obama is black?  "They" want "their" America back? Posters like this make me think so.