Sorry Rush

By now the good news (as far as I'm concerned) should be widely known that the bid by a group including Rush Limbaugh to buy the St. Louis Rams has fallen apart. Or to be more clear, the bid has fallen apart as long as Limbaugh is a part of the group. Now there has been much commentary about this story, as late last week there was push back from a number of NFL players who said flat out that they would refuse to ever play on a team owned by Rush Limbaugh. Even the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, Jim Irsay, said that he would never vote for a group owned in part by Limbaugh to own a team.

I have watched some of the commentary on this story, including this video from ESPN. First of all, the initial part of what Scoop Jackson is saying is unbelievably naive. Because Rush Limbaugh has enough money to buy a part of the Rams, he should be able to buy a part of the Rams. That's the strength of the argument. Well sure, this would be a wonderful point of view if Rush Limbaugh was buying a car or a cheeseburger or a video game system (and it appears to owning a team on a Madden video game may be the closest Limbaugh may ever get to actually owning an NFL franchise), but the fact that (a) the other owners of NFL teams have to vote you in as acceptable for ownership and (b) the team depends on the performance of its players to actually generate revenue makes the whole "I have enough money so I can buy whatever I want" argument completely ridiculous.

Rush Limbaugh has dug his own grave in this instance. Whether you believe him to be a racist or not, enough of the players in the NFL (which is apparently 61% African American), as well as the head of the National Football League Players Association union, happen to think old Rush is divisive enough and has been insensitive enough that should he own the Rams, they would not play for the team and/or encourage players not to play for the team. Now of course I've read numerous comments from conservatives on message boards claiming that Limbaugh is being unfairly treated because he is conservative. I know that there is very little I can say to them to dissuade them from this delusion, but I'll give it a go anyway. Rush Limbaugh won't be able to own a team not because he is being treated unfairly, but because he cannot stop himself from saying absolutely stupid crap.

White House Calls FNC what it is - Morning Joe Crew Reacts

Okay, so this is yet another post about Morning Joe. Surprise, surprise. Well, I talk about Morning Joe because it is really the one of the few conservative leaning programs that I'll watch. I do occasionally watch Fox News Sunday, as I've said in an earlier post, but I refuse to watch just about anything that comes on the Fox News Channel (FNC). And the reason for this is because the FNC is a Republican Party propaganda network. Even more importantly, the White House is now willing to even to call Fox out on its GOP propaganda agenda.

I absolutely love it. It's terrific. But of course the clowns on Morning Joe this morning were still harping on the fact that President Obama should go on Fox, that Chris Wallace (host of Fox News Sunday) is a straight newsman, that even if they feel that it is true that FNC is a GOP propaganda arm (which it is), they shouldn't say so, and that the president and White House do themselves no favor, or even hurt themselves by doing this.

First of all, I would be careful listening to any advice or conventional wisdom espoused by such people as Mika Brzezinski (not very smart), Pat Buchanan (not very smart and a pretty well confirmed bigot), and Harold Ford, Jr (not very smart and Blue Dog-ish meaning he's basically Republican-lite). Additionally, do I need to point out how not-very-smart, bordering on stupid, these people sound? On what planet do these people live where they believe any supporters of President Obama are loyal FNC viewers? Do these morons really think that the Obama administration should worry about its declining approval ratings among the FNC viewing audience?

Bending over backwards to placate the crybabies at Fox will almost certainly win the president no points with their viewers, but among many of his supporters, it is probably refreshing to see him stand up firmly against this clownish, fake news outlet. I know I'm enjoying it. But of course, the regulars on the Morning Joe program are not the most brilliant of minds that appear on MSNBC.

Morning Joe: September '09 Pres. Obama Media Blitz

I was watching Morning Joe (Brewed by Starbucks) yet again this morning - don't ask why - and they had many from their usual cast of absolutely foolish characters appear on the show. There was of course Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle, and then two others on the show who make regular appearances, Savannah Guthrie and Andrea Mitchell. (I don't mean to ignore other people who regularly appear on the show like Eugene Robinson and Dylan Ratigan. I just leave these particular individuals out because I don't remember them being present - on set or via video - when the particular subject that I'm about to discuss was discussed. I also don't lump them in with the foolish characters above.)

At some point during the discussion (and I'm sure they discussed this subject at times other than when I was watching), the cast brought up this ridiculous "issue" about how in his recent media blitz, President Obama failed to make an appearance on Fox News Sunday, while even going so far as to appear on Univision and the Late Show with David Letterman.

Leaving aside my personal feelings about what should have been done for the moment, I'll tell you what the clowns on Morning Joe (Brewed by Starbucks) were saying. First, I'll have to provide just a bit of background. Within the last few days, a video has surfaced from this heavily Fox News Channel promoted 9-12 Health Care Reform Protest (or whatever its official name was) where an assistant producer in the employ of Fox News is taped cueing the crowd to cheer at particular points while the network is broadcasting. This is an obvious hint that Fox was not simply covering the news. If the crowd's reaction had been spontaneous, that would have been one thing, but since Fox News personnel were actually encouraging a certain behavior out of people, it renders their coverage a complete farce.

Now, the Morning Joe (Brewed by Starbucks) joker posse was well aware of the existence of this Fox 9-12 Promotional Video, and they may have even mentioned as much in this very segment. However, despite these facts, many of the idiots at this rodeo clown table still suggested that it was a bad idea for President Obama to skip appearing on Fox News Sunday. And as you might expect, their reasons were quite asinine.

They stated the whole he's everyone's president, he should go and appear before the entire American audience, and maybe something about facing tough questions (I'm a little bit fuzzy about this last one, but I think that this sentiment was expressed) nonsense. This reasoning, if you can call it that, is absolutely absurd. Sure, though it is true that Barack Obama is everyone's president, though some of the right wingers want to deny this is the case, why in blazes should he appear on a network that seems to have a vested interest in seeing him fail just so he "can appear to the entire American audience"? This line of thinking is absolute rubbish.

So in order to appear before the entire American audience, President Obama has to go on all of these programs? You people do realize that he is the President of the United States and he does have a few things that are more important to do than worry that if he doesn't go on Fox News Sunday, he might have to bust the budget in having to send boxes of tissues to the people at Fox News Sunday and to the court jesters at Morning Joe (Brewed by Starbucks) so that they can dry their whiny little eyes don't you? No?

The reasoning of these idiots is completely insane because if the Fox News Channel/Fox News Sunday watching audience really was that interested in watching the president, well here's an idea for them: try changing the stupid channel to another network. It wouldn't take that long, certainly not as much time as it would take the president to sit for a sixth or seventh interview. You could either (1) change the channel by pressing a few buttons on your remote control or, dare I say it, (2) get up and walk over to your television and change the channel that way. This absurd notion that the president has to appear on a network that seems hell-bent upon submarining his agenda just so all Americas can see him without drifting out of their propagandistic comfort zone is quite laughable. (I mean goodness, I watch Fox News Sunday fairly regularly even though I think that it is easily the least reputable of the Sunday news shows and it a propaganda arm of the right wing/Republican Party.) Unless, of course, these morons really believe that Fox would ask some tough/important questions that just weren't asked in five or six other interviews. In that case, I suggest they tell David Gregory (their colleague who conducted the interview for NBC's Meet the Press) that he had better to a better job next time.

The Case for Kay Bailey Hutchison

Normally I don't like to delve into Republican politics because I'm convinced that the vast majority of Republican elected officials are either lunatics or at the very least, pander to constituents who are lunatics, but I'm afraid I cannot stay out of this one.

And which "one" am I talking about? I'm speaking of course about this year's Texas gubernatorial race. Now I have never been one to advocate the changing of party affiliation just to vote for the particular candidate of the opposing party whom you would rather your candidate run against (as many Republicans reportedly did in 2008 in order to aid Hillary Clinton and prevent Barack Obama from winning the primary), and in reality, this is not what I'm advocating here. What I am advocating is having people switch affiliations so that they can ensure that the Republican Party nominates a candidate who is actually sane.

Admittedly, I know little about Debra Medina, and so I'll leave her out of the discussion. But of the other three announced Republican candidates, there is one who I am pretty sure is sane (Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison), there is one who might be insane, but who also might be acting insane because he believes that there is a sizeable part of his base who is insane (Governor Rick Perry), and then there is one who is without a doubt batshit crazy (Larry Kilgore). Obviously there would be virtually no chance at all that I would vote for a Republican in the general election (I am still waiting for the second coming of Earl Warren to entice me to vote for a Republican in a general election), but since trends indicate that a Republican will almost assuredly win this race for the governor, we cannot take the chance of having a crazy person voted into office.

Now Rick Perry started all of the crazy talk a few months back with all of his Teabagging Party talk of secession this, secession that. Now, back then it seemed to me like Perry likely didn't really believe in secession, or at least would not actually try it. I thought that he was more acting upon the realization that many of his constituents were foolish enough to believe that secession somehow could a good idea. I didn't think that Perry was that stupid or that insane; I just believed that he believed that many of his constituents were that stupid and that insane. Now, don't take this to mean that I don't believe that Perry is fool, because I certainly do. But I don't think he is that much of a fool.

On the other hand, you have Larry Kilgore. He is a fool and is batshit crazy. There is absolutely no help for him. I could try to explain, but I'll allow this video to speak for itself. Just absolutely stunning.

And so there it is. I am sorely tempted to vote in the Republican primary to do my part to prevent either the potential lunatic Rick Perry or the certain lunatic Larry Kilgore from winning this primary. But it will certainly be a tough decision as I am extremely hesitant to ruin my spotless record of not voting for this party of insanity.

Morning Joe Idiocy - August 25, 2009 Edition

I was watching Morning Joe this morning and the cast (and really I do consider this a cast as I have explained in the past and not actually a panel) was discussing the investigation into prisoner abuse allegedly perpetrated by CIA operatives and government contractors during the administrations of George W. Bush. What spurred this discussion was the release of partially declassified memos by the Obama administration detailing some information about events that have been hinted to have occurred, but previously unconfirmed.

What irritated me about the conversation that took place on the subject was the continued insistence by all gathered (including host Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Savannah Guthrie, Jonathan Capeheart, Pat Buchanan, and Richard Haas) that these charges were not new and that they had already been investigated by “career prosecutors,” and not political appointees, back in 2004 or so. Now this reasoning would be all well and good if not for the fact that the career prosecutors might be biased toward a particular political party (I’ll explain later) and the notion that career prosecutors cannot possibly be overruled by their political hack political appointee bosses is incredibly naïve.

And to add to this, the morons kept pointing out that Obama keeps saying that he wants to look forward not back but yet is “allowing” Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the actions of the previous administration. This is precisely why these people are borderline stupid. These people must be pining for the days of yore when the Attorney’s General Office and the Justice Department acted at the political whims of the executive branch and not as an independent entity. They must certainly be forgetting that this sort of thinking and illegality led directly to the torture regime that we had in the last administration, or they are inhuman, sadistic monsters like former Vice President Dick Cheney.

But let’s back up for a moment. Since career prosecutors have already looked at this information and nothing has come of it, then that clearly means that there must be nothing to it, right? Absolutely…if you are stupid, you are as naïve as a ten-year old, or you are a political hack like Joe Scarborough. Obviously these people are forgetting, or are choosing to ignore, the fact that during this time the Justice Department was under John Ashcroft and then Alberto Gonzales. While I am not 100% certain about Ashcroft, I am absolutely sure that the sycophantic Gonzales would have done anything and everything in his power to kill any investigation that led to top administration officials being held criminally responsible for their law breaking. So for this reason alone, the insistence by these hacks that these charges have already been looked at is patently absurd.

But let’s revisit this implication that they are making that these career prosecutors are somehow immune from political hackery. Evidently these morons are forgetting (or again are choosing to ignore) the fact that there was this big scandal where a certain political hack named Monica Goodling, who worked for both Ashcroft and Gonzales at the Justice Department, broke federal law by hiring only prosecutors for career positions who were Republicans or conservative loyalists.

So, idiots, do you think that any of this might have stopped these prosecutors from doing a real investigation into whether or laws were broken during this torture regime?

Preventing the Rise of the Mutants

There have certainly been other political stories that have come up recently that I've wanted to discuss, some of which I hope to touch on anyway in the near future, but I found that I could not let this one go that I'm preparing to write about. And in fact, this one seems so absurd that I've toyed with the idea of also writing about it on my non-political blog. Well, to get to the point, Senator Sam Brownback, the senior senator from the state of Kansas, last week introduced the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009.

Well, to be fair, Senator Brownback apparently first introduced a version of this bill in late 2007. And also, it isn't as if Brownback is a lone wolf in this measure. And it is particularly important that he isn't a lone wolf because he isn't a wolf at all, or even part wolf. Although, technically it would be legal today for Brownback to be part wolf, this act aims to prevent such an abomination from ever happening. There are apparently twenty other senators who have joined Brownback, including one Democrat and one senator who was formerly his party's nominee for the presidency.

Let's take a closer look at some of the findings that this bill has, shall we? Section 2 of the act states that Congress finds that (1) advances in research and technology have made possible the creation of human-animal hybrids. Okay, I suppose this could be true, but if a mixture of human and animal DNA has yet to actually have been attempted yet, I'm not sure you can say definitively that you can create human-animal hybrids, unless you are talking about on television. (But upon closer inspection, this appears to be an animal-human hybrid so I'm not sure the example fits...) But moving on, Congress also finds that (2) human-animal hybrids are grossly unethical because they blur the line between human and animal, male and female, parent and child, and one individual and another individual. They keep pointing out that "Congress finds" this and "Congress finds" that, but as best as I can see at this point, (and in the interest of full disclosure, I have not done any research on other statements that Congress has made agreeing with these findings) it appears that these are simply the findings of twenty-one probably insane people. So it might be possible that these twenty-one lunatics are blurring the line between one individual and another individual by asserting that these "findings" are of Congress. (And I am certainly not going to waste my time looking to see whether Congress has made any statements in support of these "findings.") And finally, the last one of these "findings" that I'll discuss is that Congress finds that (3) human dignity and the integrity of the human species are compromised by human-animal hybrids. Really? Human dignity is compromised by human-animal hybrids? The integrity of the human species is compromised by human-animal hybrids? This sounds like a personal self-esteem problem to me more than anything else.

While I really do appreciate Senator Brownback and friends for standing up for my dignity and attempting to protect the integrity of my species, these people all strike me as being profoundly stupid. From what I understand, this act is aimed to prevent federal funds for embryonic stem cell research from being used to experiment with any sort of mixing of human and animal DNA, which some scientists evidently believe might be beneficial in finding pathways to cure certain human diseases. But the abject stupidity of these supporting this act is amazing. Do they truly believe that researchers who are granted federal funds to research embryonic stem cells are going to say, "Screw finding cures for diseases! Screw it! I'm going to create a Jackalman, err, Manjackal hybrid!" Really, you think that serious scientists who are granted federal funding for the purpose of researching these stem cells to cure diseases are going to create human-animal hybrids? You people are idiots.

Waterboarding Debate

I'll start off this post by saying that I firmly agree with those who say that waterboarding is torture. The United States has considered it torture for many decades, is a signatory to international treaties that ban its use, and has prosecuted others who have engaged in this practice. No amount of dreamed up legal justifications by sycophantic lawyers can change these facts.

And what makes this whole debate about waterboarding so maddening is that many in the press seem utterly incapable of accepting this fact. Instead many of them are distracted by this silly sideshow about CIA briefings to Nancy Pelosi about the torture program authorized by the Bush administration and whether or not the CIA is always clear and forthcoming in the information that it provides to Congress. So let's make it clear what the issue should be about. Waterboarding was and is illegal according to international law. Waterboarding was and is illegal according to US law. When there is clear evidence that laws have been broken, ordinarily investigations take place so that culpability can be assigned. If it is decided for political reasons, for other flimsy reasons such as "the country cannot handle it," or for any other reason other than a lack of evidence that prosecutions should not go forward, then the United States is a joke. Such a lack of action will be confirming that some people are indeed above the law.

It is worthwhile to deconstruct the arguments that likely war criminals (Dick Cheney), the spawn of likely war criminals (Liz Cheney), war crime apologists (Joe Scarborough), and the profoundly foolish (Donny Deutsch) are putting forward. All of these individuals (and there are certainly more than those that I have explicitly named) seem to be in love with this ticking time-bomb scenario. The ticking time-bomb scenario goes something like this:

You know that there is a catastrophic bomb soon to explode (perhaps in five hours or less) and you have in custody a suspect whom you know to have information that will lead you to finding this device and disarming it before it explodes. Would you employ waterboarding (or some other form of torture) to extract the information from this suspect?

The problem with this scenario, and those similarly constructed, is that it cannot logically exist. Required from the start of the scenario is your knowledge that there is a catastrophic bomb soon to explode. The first question that should be logically asked of someone positing this scenario is how do you know there is a catastrophic bomb soon to explode? It is quite clear that in order for a person to know with certainty that a bomb is soon to explode, they must have come across the information somehow.

So how did you get this information that a bomb is soon to explode?

Was it from this same suspect, or was it from a different suspect?

If it was from the same suspect, presumably it was arrived at without waterboarding (since the scenario is assuming that waterboarding is being used for the first time on this suspect), so why now do you feel it is necessary to waterboard the suspect if you arrived at the other information without waterboarding? Is it because you have tried every other non-torturous method on this suspect without getting the information you seek?

If the information came from a different suspect, again, presumably it was arrived at without waterboarding (since the scenario, again, is assuming that waterboarding is being used for the first time), so why do you believe that you must waterboard this particular suspect to get this particular information? Is it because you have tried every other non-torturous method on this suspect without getting the information you seek? Well, if this is the case, why did you not question the suspect who gave you the information about the existence of the bomb further? (This final question would of course lead to the question asked in the preceding paragraph.)

The problem with this scenario is that it rests on the highly implausible construct that you have discovered that some ticking time bomb is soon to explode by means other than the use of waterboarding. Is it really that believeable that you would come across this information that a bomb is soon to go off without waterboarding, but would need waterboarding to find out exactly where it is to go off? Whenever individuals throw around these ticking time bomb scenarios, you may notice that they never ever explain how it is learned that these bombs are soon to go off in the first place.

Another weakness in these scenarios is that these torture fans always assert that you know with certainty that these bombs will explode. How can you know with certainty that a bomb is soon to explode? At the very best you can have a very good suspicion that a bomb will explode. But in order for this stupid ticking time bomb scenario of theirs to work, they need to have this perfect knowledge that this bomb does exist and will explode. Absent these requirements, one would guess (or at least hope) that even these reprehensible human beings wouldn't advocate waterboarding or some other form of torture.

But one must then ask, if you have perfect knowledge that a bomb will explode, why do you not have perfect knowledge of where and when it will explode as well? The answer to this question, and the reason why these torture cheerleaders will never make this part of their foolish hypothetical scenarios, is because if you knew all of this, and yet still tortured the suspect (even if the suspect did have all of this information related to this bomb), you would be nothing more than an inhuman, sadistic monster.

In reality, no one has this sort of perfect knowledge and so no one will "know for sure" that a bomb is soon to explode. And I suppose in some sense no can be accused of being an inhuman, sadistic monster as I described above. However, since these types of monsters (and they are monsters) are advocating for waterboarding (torture) when most accounts suggest that the information derived from waterboarding is unreliable and statistically speaking, you will end up torturing someone who is completely innocent, while they may not be identical to those inhuman, sadistic monsters described above, they certainly are not very far away.

Morning Joe: Mika Brzezinski

I want to start off this blog with the first real post on the subject of Mika Brzezinski. Brzezinski is the co-host of the program Morning Joe on MSNBC weekday mornings, and while she isn't the cast member (and I do use the term cast member intentionally because this program is pure theatre) on the show who is most consistently wrong, that honor goes to none other than the host, Joe Scarborough (who I will most certainly be discussing on several occasions, I would imagine), she is the character who is most maddening. It almost seems as if she exists purely to further this charade that Scarborough is perpetrating that he is anything other than an extreme right-wing partisan (check that, a partisan hack).

I don't remember precisely when Brzezinski started to annoy me, but one of the themes from a few months back that I can vividly remember that led to my irritation was Brzezinski's over-the-top defense of Sarah Palin. Okay, I get the female solidarity thing to some degree, and even I thought that the story about Palin's wardrobe was way overblown (because there certainly is a double standard in the way women are judged by their looks versus men). However, Brzezinski's defense of Palin ventures into the absurd as exemplified by this MediaMatters clip:



Brzezinski has no evidence to back up her claims, but yet she's just certain that so many people thought that Palin won that debate. I've never quite understood why Brzezinski was so in favor of Palin. Perhaps Brzezinski looked at Palin as a potential triumph for the feminist cause, but I could easily argue that Palin's election (with John McCain) would have been an absolute disaster for feminism. Luckily this is something that we avoided.

More recently, though, I've been disturbed by Brzezinski incredibly superficial and vacuous analysis provided on the program. As a case in point, here is a clip from a recent broadcast of Morning Joe where the cast discusses a recent Democratic National Committee (DNC) web ad likening the Republican Party to the show Survivor:



I would submit to Brzezinski that there is no need for her to whine. The DNC is doing its job. As evidence, at the end of the 109th Congress, whose term ended on January 3, 2007, Republicans held 55 Senate seats (Democrats held 44 and one caucusing independent) and 229 House seats (Democrats held 202). And at the end of the 110th Congress, whose term ended on January 3, 2009, Republicans held 49 Sendate seats (Democrats held 48 and two caucusing independents, with President-Elect Obama having resigned from the body) and 198 House seats (Democrats held 235). And finally in this 111th Congress, Republicans hold 41 Senate seats - no check that, 40 Senate seats (need we forget that Arlen Specter bailed from the party to go to the Democrats) (Democrats hold 57 seats - which is soon to go to 58 once this Minnesota mess is finally cleared up and Al Franken is seated - with the Democrats also having two caucusing independents) and 178 House seats (Democrats hold 256 House seats). So let's recap, in the last two election cycles, the Democrats have added 14 (or 15 depending how you look at the numbers) Senate seats and 54 House seats. Don't worry Mika, it looks to me like the DNC is doing its job just fine.

New Blog - Political Rambling

Okay, so I've started this new blog (and yes, I still do hate that word) to separate out my ramblings about politics from my ramblings about whatever. Technically I should probably go back and re-title the other blog "Ramblings About Whatever, Except Politics", but as you well know by now, I'm lazy, and that's just not going to happen. So I'm warning you now, if you are in any way, shape, or form going to be offended by me criticizing the clown act that is the current Republican Party or pointing out the propensity of the Democrats to behave like sissies in the face of Republicans on more than a few occasions, I invite you to leave now and go back to the Ramblings About Whatever where I discuss cartoons and the like. Enjoy!