What bitches y'all are! Two of you were necessary to 'wrestle' a peace protester? Are you kidding? Leo, you're really a giant worthless cuntrag.

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R Convention Wrapper

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September 04, 2008

That's awfully white of you

While watching McCain's speech (did YOU know he served in Vietnam? Did you know that he was captured by the Vietnamese and was a war prisoner? Why didn't the Republicans mention that sooner?!?) I was overcome with a sense of The Strange.

You know The Strange... that feeling like you're in an old b&w episode of the Twilight Zone and Rod Serling is somewhere, hovering above, telling an audience "Picture a man...". Yeah, that one. I got that tonight when the camera panned over the audience and I first thought "WOW! That's the whitest group I've seen since that time I went to that mayonnaise festival". At first, I didn't think there were any minorities in the audience. Then I saw them... one Hispanic, four Asians and three Blacks. It was as if you'd taken a cookie sheet, covered it in vanilla ice cream and then carefully placed a few chocolate sprinkles so as to break the monotony and create the illusion of diversity.

I did catch Meg Whitman of EBay fame. And her thinning hair. Girl could totally do something about that alopecia. It's not like she didn't rape EBay shareholders for enough during her 'service' at the company.

McCain also spoke and it was... well, it was meh. Seriously, it was like milquetoast with a side of lame. Except for the heavy-duty description of his time in a Vietnamese POW camp. But, we've kinda been overwhelmed with that this week so even that didn't have the emotional impact it could have. He tried to go non-partisan but the reality is that he's an unquestionable partisan and so is his running mate, a fact which she made abundantly clear during minute after endlessly shrill minute of her speech last night.

The sad part is that he and his party are devoid of ideas. Cutting corporate taxes (which the corporations mostly don't pay, anyway) is a non-starter when the rich (and corporations) already got 90% of the benefit of the original tax cuts. Which McCain supports. As for the drilling, oil is priced in dollars and as the dollar has weakened (due to Republican deficits and trade deficits due to a weak economy) more of them are required to buy oil. Which drives up the price for you and me. Sure, there are supply issues but you're not going to solve them with drilling. Period. Only biofuels and alternatives are going to pull us out of this (and no, I'm not talking about corn ethanol and soya diesel... you CAN make biofuels out of many things). McCain doesn't have the knowledge base or intelligence to see that and it's really sad.

I don't know if it's calcification of the brain due to age or just that Republican unwillingness to see reality (which is apparently what afflicts Palin). Shall we recap Republican failure? Do we really need to discuss tax cuts that didn't grow wages and real employment, not to mention creating the deficits that only Democrats said would happen? Should we go back over inflation and poor fiscal management? Should we discuss the disrespect for the Constitution and the rule of law? Maybe we should take a moment and remind you of the Veterans, returning from Iraq, who haven't been treated like Veterans SHOULD be treated. Democrats don't run VA or the DoD. That's Bush and Republican appointees.

The Democrats have been right all along. Every disaster. Every misstep. Every failure. They've nailed it. And this time, this election, the American people are ready for a change and they can't be fooled into thinking that Sen. McCain, with almost 30 years in Washington as part of the establishment, can bring anything other than more of the same.

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The Icahn Speaketh

Carl Icahn, while a largely self-important douche, has been a tremendous advocate for shareholders vs. management especially on the subject of takeovers and management's attempts to avoid/enrich themselves from them. This entry on his blog is really very good...

I've never agreed with Lipton's constant defense of management teams at the expense of shareholders and employees. Icahn is also not someone with whom I consistently agree, mostly because he traps himself in short term thinking and a desire to make large, instant profits. I'm more of a long term value guy. However, if my choice is Icahn vs. Lipton, I'll take Icahn every time.

And the InBev purchase of Anheuser Busch was a very good thing.

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Scarborough and Buchanan laugh it up

It would seem that some of our friends on the right are just as incredulous over the Palin pick as we are...

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Roundin' up the TPA

It's time for another weekly roundup of the Texas Progressive Alliance. Click on for the week's highlights.

Is John McCain's vice presidential pick some kind of joke? McBlogger's Mayor McSleaze thinks it's more like a situation comedy.

CouldBeTrue is happy for Webb County! Finally, the long sheriff's primary is over and Martin Cuellar is the official sheriff-to-be. And, yeah, the AG is looking into the hinky first recount.

With Tom DeLay and the TRMPAC indictments back in the news, Off the Kuff conducts an interview with Cris Feldman, one of the attorneys who won a civil judgment against TRMPAC for its violations of campaign finance law in the 2002 elections.

Stace Medellin at DosCentavos is celebrating ten years of living in the Houston area. Read about what brought him to Houston and what has kept him in the big city.

Neil at Texas Liberal is glad to note that the Galveston County Democrats Club http://texasliberal.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/galveston-county-democrats-club-is-working-hard-for-victory/ is, as always, working hard for all the people of Galveston County---Both on the mainland and on the island.

The Texas Cloverleaf reminds everyone that McCain is older than fiberglass. His new sidekick leads a state with a population smaller than Collin County. Sitcom indeed.

jobsanger wonders why the Democratic Convention didn't show a little respect for Lyndon Johnson's 100th birthday, and prepares to enjoy the prospect of dueling Republican conventions.

Supersize "Roundin' up the TPA"

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September 03, 2008

R's get their red meat moment

Tonight, Sarah Palin jumped her narrow, remarkably unqualified and corrupt ass into the ring and took swing after swing at her betters. Oh, and she took some time to defend the senile multi-millionaire (how many houses does he have?) with whom she shares the Republican ticket.

So much for a different kind of politics and a campaign about issues. Guess McCain lied about that just like he did about being a reformer. Don't get me wrong, I actually used to respect John McCain. At least I did until 2000 when he officially became George Bush's bitch, a point driven home tonight by the right wing nut job he picked to be his running mate. Denied his true choice, he was forced to select the shrill, nasty and exceedingly ambitious Palin by the very same right wing that treated him so shabbily in 2000.

But it was nice to see her with her baby prop. And to know the Republicans have decided to put themselves first and the country second. Of course, for Palin and McCain that's an easy choice... they've been selling out their families for years to further their own ambitions.

At the end, I'm left wondering... What else should I have expected from someone who squandered her state's resources, drove up taxes on the middle class and left her constituents in crushing debt?

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Oops!

You'd think that media professionals would know that there is no such thing as a dead mic.

But you would be wrong.

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Cypress to shut down Fab 2

Cypress Semiconductor has decided to shut down Round Rock based Fab 2, the facility where it has produced semiconductors for more than 22 years. The shut down will result in the loss of more than 200 jobs...

One has to wonder if Cypress received any 'incentives' and how much Round Rock has benefited from them. As for me, good riddance Cypress. You're kind of a loser any way. While it hurts to let jobs go, hopefully Samsung or another company will pick them up. They seem to be doing well.

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What a bunch of damn bullshit

You know, there a number of things I'd like to say about Palin and her 'reformer' image. But it's hard to call someone a reformer when their only true reform is to leave their constituents more in debt than they were prior to their 'service'. To the tune of $4,000 per resident in tiny Wasilla. See the extended for some good stuff on her tenure from someone who knows her. I think the phrase 'RANK INCOMPETENCE' pretty much sums it up.

Of course, there's the matter of the pregnant daughter. I knew girls that got pregnant in high school. Some of them graduated with me, some did not. Some of them had the kids and some did not for one reason or another. I never lost respect for them and I certainly won't say that this revelation has negatively effected my opinion of Palin. I had a negative opinion of her from HER actions, not those of her daughter. But, this pisses me off...

And this one...

Uhm, they aren't like the rest of us. My parents kept rather strict controls over Barfly and I when we lived under their roof, so yeah... you can control your kids. It's called PARENTING. Palin did not. Period. My parents also made sure we KNEW the implications of intercourse and were prepared for it with appropriate protection. Palin did not. Now, even with these precautions, some kids end up being parents. My problem with this is that Palin willfully decided NOT to prepare her daughter with information and protection. That's not a knock on her daughter, that's her OWN very real character flaw. And it's one I would find unacceptable in any public official, Democratic or Republican. Especially one that's traveled far and wide preaching the wonders of abstinence only sex education, not to mention parental and personal responsibility.

What's most galling about this situation is that had this been the Democratic VP candidate, there would have been endless sermons and screeching rants from the far right (including some of the women quoted in the NYT piece) denouncing their family values and judgment, among other things. And calling them an unacceptable choice for America.

HOWEVER, I'm hearing quite the opposite from the folks in the bully pulpits of talk radio. And it's causing the words of Harry Truman, after reading McArthur's farewell address to Congress, to echo through my mind:

Beat up on Bristol? Not at all. But am I going to light into Palin EVERY TIME the phrase 'personal responsibility' leaves her lips? You betcha. Muse has a different take... she's a mother, she can go there. But her take on it dovetails nicely with the emails floating around from Wasilla residents. From them, it's pretty obvious that the only person who has benefited from Palin's service is Palin. It's certainly not her constituents, most of whom are decidedly worse off for her 'unbridled ambition'. Take a look in the supersize...

Supersize "What a bunch of damn bullshit"

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You're kidding, right?

The Republicans have been consistently wrong on health care and have paid a price for it at the polls. As premiums have dramatically increased, service and care has decreased. Tort reform has not made physician's lives easier, they've instead made insurance companies richer.

In short, everything that the Republicans told you about bringing affordable health care was... wait for it... a LIE. American's have, of course, figured this out. Now, comes this from the R's...

Here's the problem with this... it's functionally taxpayer funded health care (which the R's claim is 'socialized medicine') which is way more expensive than other universal health care plans. Because you're employing the most expensive form of care, emergency. The second problem has two parts. With this, the bills are so expensive the counties will have to raise taxes to cover just PART of the cost. The rest of it falls to the patient who will, of course, usually be indigent. Which means they'll have collections and judgments on their credit reports which will keep them from, for example, buying a home.

If they happen to be unlucky enough to own a home... well, forced foreclosure is a horrible experience but I'm sure people will be OK with it when they realize that it helped the Republicans dodge a bullet.

The Republican Party, home to so many bad ideas you just can't believe it.

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September 02, 2008

Reality and Charles Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer is decidedly unimpressed with Sen. Obama. Which isn't surprising because they only person who impresses Charles Krauthammer is Charles Krauthammer. However, he's really stretching to be negative about Sen. Obama, to wit

Of course, change Gatsby to Horatio Alger and you have the perfect sentence written by Charles Krauthammer about a Republican candidate. And the funny thing about it? Millions of Americans saw more substance out of Obama Thursday night than they've seen out of decades of McCain.

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Always with the wrong guy...

According to some article at MSNBC, if you use that whore pill, it's probably making you think that the wrong guys are genetically compatible. This soooo totally explains Britney and K-Fed.

And of course, it helps explain some of the shockingly bad choices Barfly has made over the years. Like this guy...

And this loser who accidentally shot my uncle when hunting a couple of years ago...

And THIS asshole. He was the one I hated most...

(h/t to Eileen from whom all funny whore related news comes)

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Making History

Should the polar bear-hating extremist Sarah Palin actually become Vice President of the United States, she'll be joining a select group of holders of that office who supported the overthrow of the Federal Union.

No one is quite sure what Aaron Burr was up to when he headed into what Americans then knew as the Southwest in 1807, but is known that he was raising a private army and rumors swirled that he aimed at detaching part of the Louisiana Territory and establishing his own empire, perhaps with the aid of Spain. Arrested and tried, in the end there was not enough evidence to convict him of treason.

The case of Jackson's first veep, John C. Calhoun is much clearer. He developed the theory of "Nullification" which held that a state could decide which federal laws applied within its boundaries. He resigned the vice presidency and encouraged South Carolina to resist the federal tariff, resulting in the Nullification Crisis of the early 1830s... which was resolved peacefully when the Palmetto State backed down, the rest of the South unready to follow the path of secession and civil war.

When that war came three decades late, Buchanon's number two, John C. Breckinridge ignored the decision of his native Kentucky to remain loyal and joined the rebellion, raising troops and leading them in battle as a Confederate general. By 1865 he was serving in the rebel government as Secretary of War; with war's end he fled into exile, returning only after receiving a pardon in 1869.

And now we are learning, thanks to reseach on Daily Kos, now picked up at ABC News that Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a fringe political group whose founder planned to seek Soviet protection for an secessionist Alaska and whose grave is in Canada because he refused to be buried under the American flag. What are her views today? Could she honestly swear to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States"? Did she undertake her hazardous twelve-hour flight back from Texas a few months ago to avoid giving birth to her son on anything but Alaskan soil? Why the friendly greetings and hopes for a "successful convention" from the governor to her old comrades in the AIP in this video?

For too long Democrats and progressives have had their patriotism questioned by a gang that has destroyed our economy, shredded our Constitutional rights and lied us into an unnecessary war. Well, the mukluk's on the other foot now. Sarah Palin, why do you hate America?

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September 01, 2008

Breaking: Fox News Reports Hindenburg Has "Bumpy Landing"

Sister Ruth observed that John McCain thought he was picking a running mate, not an entire Lifetime movie.

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More on Dick In A Box

A MAILBOX, that is. Apparently, there's more to this Frank Corte 'lives' on an empty lot, thing. From an anonymous source...

So what happens now? Will Frank do the right thing or will the courts have to step in?

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August 29, 2008

TV's Oddest Couple Hits The Oval Office This Fall!

Carrying on where earlier political laff fests like My Bush and Commander in Chief left off, The Ticket For America pairs curmudgeon President Jedediah O'Caine (think of an older, grumpier, somewhat less lovable Walter Matthau) with his unlikely second-in-command Mitzi Palin (sure to be this season's Amy Poehler). Palin's unlikey rise from her youth on the beauty pageant circuit through star of a moose cooking show on Alaskan public access television to being just an unsteady heartbeat away from the Presidency is retold in an ongoing series of flashbacks. Meanwhile, Jedediah spends much of his time hunting for his housekeys and trying to log on to AOL.

In the series premiere, misunderstandings lead to comedy when O'Caine has to leave the Vice President alone in the Oval Office while he attends to some "urgent business'. (The President's "going problem" is a hilarious running joke in the series.) Palin can't resist answering the big red phone despite being warned to leave it alone. Who should be on the line but the Premier of East Atlantastan, an American ally somewhere in the former Soviet Union. He's calling for diplomatic support in a dispute over a border region with his powerful neighbor. The deeply religious Mitzi doesn't understand the strange language and assumes the premier is speaking in tongues, and she replies with her own expressions of religious ecstasy. As hijinks would have it, in East Atlantastanian she promises full military backing for an invasion with their poorly trained army... the laffs go ballistic when Jedediah gets back just as the missiles starts to fly!

The Ticket For America. On Fox Sundays this fall right after Family Guy.

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Roundin' up the TPA

Do you know what the Texas Progressive Alliance blogs and bloggers have been up to this week? Well, our weekly round-up will tell you. This week's round-up was compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

refinish69 explains why Travis County and Texas doesn't need another Keel at Doing My Part For The Left.

Two White guys in Houston want each others' jobs. Former Gov. Mark might run for for mayor, and current Mayor Bill may run for governor. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the Frick-and-Frack report.

Prepare yourself for a shock when you visit Bluedaze and see the BILLIONS in handouts given to Big Oil. TXsharon shows how these handouts, paid with our taxes, enable Big Oil to buy influence, work against our best interest, blatantly ignore laws and keep the US dependent on hydrocarbons rather than moving forward.

Mayor McSleaze at McBlogger wonders why, if Washington is broken as McThuselah's campaign says, McThuselah himself hasn't done something to fix it since he's been there more than, you know, 25 years.

Supersize "Roundin' up the TPA"

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McCain gets frigid

Sen. McCain is rumored to have picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be the Republican nominee for Vice-President.

First, this ain't gonna peel off any of Hillary's diehards, nor is anyone going to be persuaded that her goodwill and character will rub off on McCain. At the end of the day, the veep is largely irrelevant and the only way Independents and Democrats will vote for a Republican is if the Republican nominee stopped being John McCain.

Update 11:45 - Watching the speech now and it's clear they are going to focus on reform. I guess no one told her that the man she's running with has been an integral part of what she'd like to reform for decades. Also, I don't think she realizes she's a Republican. Look for the Democrats to make the point that we can't really afford anymore Republican 'Reform' like ever expanding deficits, low job and wage growth and dramatically higher energy prices.

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Change I believe in...

After watching Sen. Obama's acceptance speech, it occurred to me that anything I could post would be woefully inadequate. His words were precisely chosen, his delivery was flawless and for 42 minutes he held a crowd of millions with specifics. And with hope.

I can, without reservation, say I am a tough sell. Yesterday afternoon while talking to Sister Ruth, I told her I wanted to be inspired by his speech. I was going to vote for him, but I wanted to believe that he was what he claimed to be, a candidate who would transcend politics and really talk about issues, frankly and fearlessly. One who would fight, head to head, on every front. Frankly, I didn't see it. Even yesterday afternoon.

Early this morning, however, I'm still in awe of the man who was willing to stand in front of a crowd of more than 80,000 and speak about real issues, genuine ideas and not worry about the smaller, pettier matters and conflicts. One who was clearly focused on leading his party and his nation back from the brink of oblivion.

Leader. That's the word that describes the man I saw just a few hours ago. A man I'm proud to say I'm voting for in November.

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