Argville

Truth hurts Republicans

2010-02-08T19:33:00.002-05:00

Check out a few more "truth hurts Republicans" charts.

Poke your eyes next, will ya?

2010-02-08T18:35:00.002-05:00

One Fox News lady made the claim that Sarah Palin wrote on her hand on purpose, to draw attention to the fact that Obama uses a telepromtper. Huh? Yeah, she did. That's like someone I know poking their eyes with a fork to draw attention to the fact that I wear glasses.

Fox, and anyone who watches them, are retards! (If you're offended by that word, just consider this comment satire).

Republican ideas

2010-02-08T15:43:00.002-05:00

I don't even have to know what ideas Republicans are willing to offer to the health care reform debate to know that the more of their ideas are incorporated, the lousier the bill becomes.

Eating like Jesus

2010-02-07T20:01:00.003-05:00

There's a new diet fad out there, based on the bible. And why not, when you consider that:

Christians are fatter than other Americans. One of several studies revealing this, published by a Purdue University team in 2006, found that 30 percent of Baptists are obese, followed by 22 percent of Pentecostals and 17 percent of Catholics, compared to only 1 percent of Jews and 0.7 percent of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. According to the Journal of the Southern Baptist Convention, health screenings were given at the SBC's 2005 annual meeting: Over 75 percent of its 1,472 participants were found to be significantly overweight.

One chart, one truth

2010-02-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

The chart:

The truth:

On the jobs front, the Bush administration sucked really bad; the Obama administration sucks a lot less.

But... is the food any good?

2010-02-05T11:12:00.002-05:00

Naughty Canadians:

Visitors to Mildred's Temple Kitchen, a restaurant in Toronto, Canada, are invited to spice up their love life this Valentine's Day with a trip to the bathroom.

"Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom?" patrons were asked in a not-too-subtle promotional e-mail.

The individual bathrooms will be open for sexual escapades from the 12-15th February. According to the manager, Rory Gallagher, a french maid will be working the toilets, making sure everything is "going smoothly and kept clean."

I'm confused... are the bathrooms co-ed or is this invitation just for same sex couples or groups?

And can you imagine the looks customers coming out of the restroom will get, regardless of what they did, or didn't do, there?

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

2010-02-02T12:36:00.003-05:00

There's nothing wrong with Obama's presidency that can't be fixed by bombing Iran, so says neoconservative Daniel Pipes:

Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush’s meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama’s feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.

Ah yes, making conservatives swoon... what a lofty goal.

Mister Pipes: the guy who ran on a platform of bombing Iran lost by 10 million votes.

Fuck America!

2010-02-01T13:50:00.003-05:00

Via Kevin Drum, this from an article in the LA Times:

Senate Democratic leaders are expected to unveil their plans on jobs legislation this week, looking to pass a series of measures rather than one large package. The final legislation is expected to include money to fund infrastructure projects, promote green jobs and keep teachers, police officers and other public workers employed.

Democrats hope to win Republican support by including tax cuts for small businesses.

*sigh* Republican support? I would be shocked if they get any Republican vote in the Senate.

Republicans have a jobs plan of their own -- to keep theirs! And they have made the calculation that the only way to keep their jobs is by rejecting anything Obama and the Dems offer.

When what's good for America clashes with what's good for Republicans, their response is: fuck America!

Superman!

2010-01-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

A masterful performance:

Scared little girls

2010-01-30T17:35:00.002-05:00

With 20 minutes to go during the Obama/Republicans meeting, with president Obama totally in command and making Republicans look like unprepared students, Fox News simply couldn't take it anymore and pulled the plug. Watch the moment of surrender:

Leadership

2010-01-30T16:56:00.002-05:00

President Obama's schooling of the Republicans during their face-to-face televised "class" is worth seeing. Go to C-Span and take watch all 90 minutes of it -- it's really good. Besides being the best political "show" on TV, is showed a combative president in command of all the issues and facts brought up by the little children masquerading as Republicans in the room. And while it rejuvenated my enthusiasm for Obama, I have to agree with Paul Krugman:

Look, Obama is a terrific speaker and a very smart guy. He really showed up the Republicans in the now-famous give-and-take. But we knew that. What’s now in question isn’t his ability to talk, it’s his ability to lead.

Lead, Mr. President, lead.

It's the stimulus, stupid

2010-01-30T01:05:00.003-05:00

As covered by Think Progress, some reaction to the good news about the American economy's growth of 5.7% during the last quarter:

Speaking on Bloomberg television today, Mark Zandi — who was an adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign — heralded the positive numbers as a result of the stimulus passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by President Obama last February

Further, as you watch this video, pay attention to analyst Ethan Harris about a possible jobs recovery. I hope he's right.

Obama's blind spot

2010-01-29T12:50:00.002-05:00

Kevin Drum has a post comparing Ronald Reagan's versus Barack Obama's approach to setting the tone in Washington and how to set themselves up to take credit for when things go right -- Reagan did it well; Obama? Not so much:

[Obama] came to office convinced — sincerely, it seems — that he could change the tone of Washington DC. That was always a fantasy. The way to get things done is to make a case for them, build public support for them, blast your enemies for opposing them, and just generally fight like hell for them. It can be done with a smile, but it has to be done. Obama seems to have a hard time getting that.

I think Obama's approach to bipartisanship might have worked in the days before Limbaugh and Fox News. But with 24-hours a day TV news, the search for conflict is too intense to allow for the parties to compromise. And with Republicans gaining support with all of their 40 (now 41) votes saying "no," it's not going to happen anytime soon.

Under the spell of Al Gore

2010-01-29T10:47:00.002-05:00

Osoma bin Laden has made a statement (still unconfirmed) blaming America for global warming. Great. Now the evil one is under the spell of Al Gore and George Soros too.

With all this power, couldn't Al Gore have squeezed a few more hundred votes in Florida in 2000?

Jennifer Aniston

2010-01-28T18:46:00.002-05:00

I was listening to president Obama in a town hall meeting in Tampa Florida and he actually said that he hoped some Republicans would join in passing a health care bill.

*sigh*

I suppose that's the equivalent of me sitting at home hoping Jennifer Aniston calls me to go to dinner at Per Se.

Trusted news

2010-01-27T20:36:00.005-05:00

A poll was out today that had the mainstream media repeating the same refrain: Fox News is the most trusted news outlet. But that take is only one way of looking at it. Here's another (follow the link for the supporting data):

Let's be clear: with 61% of Americans (liberals made up 14% of the poll, and moderates made up 47%), Fox News is the least trusted name in news. And they are the least trusted outlet by a decisive margin.

This confirms something that bloggers on the left have been arguing for years. The success of Fox News is not due to their superior product, nor is it the result of providing a valuable service to a center-right nation.

It stems exclusively from the fact that liberals and moderates are willing to avail themselves of the entire array of media offerings available to them, while conservatives are so convinced of their own victimhood on all matters media-related that they will pledge unwavering allegiance to a friendly media outlet.

He hasn't lost me... yet

2010-01-26T10:59:00.002-05:00

President Obama still has my support, but it's getting increasingly more difficult to maintain optimism, and above all, my confidence in him. More and more he's sounding like a good speaker but not much of a politician.

I know that a president's first year can be difficult, and this one was going to be tougher than most given what he inherited from the worst president in American history. But this is where some dissatisfaction starts: he's managed to get himself blamed for most of the problems instead of pinning the problems on Republicans, as he should have.

Now he's coming back in "fight" mode. As I posted before, I don't think the word means what he thinks it means.

More, from Eugene Robinson:

It's not enough to use variations of the word "fight" more than 20 times in relatively brief remarks, as he did Friday in Ohio. At some point, he needs to -- metaphorically, of course -- actually slug somebody...
It doesn't matter whether Obama speaks in a loud voice. What's important is that he speak in a clear voice, a definitive voice. When he draws a line in the sand -- about health care, jobs, energy, whatever -- he should do everything in his power to defend that line, even if it means bruised feelings and ruffled feathers.

In the end, voters will respect Obama's accomplishments, not his aspirations. They will reward his passion, not his polish. It's fine for the president to tell Americans that he's fighting on their behalf, as long as he remembers that what they really want is not so much for him to fight but to win.

And from Bob Herbert:

Mr. Obama promised during the campaign that he would be a different kind of president, one who would preside over a more open, more high-minded administration that would be far more in touch with the economic needs of ordinary working Americans. But no sooner was he elected than he put together an economic team that would protect, above all, the interests of Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurance companies, and so on...

The president who has been aloof and remote and a pushover for the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, who has been locked in the troubling embrace of the Geithners and Summers and Ben Bernankes of the world, all of a sudden is a man of the people. But even as he is promising to fight for jobs, a very expensive proposition, he’s proposing a spending freeze that can only hurt job-creating efforts.

I'm seriously starting to get worried.

Harold Ford is a dickhead

2010-01-25T13:07:00.002-05:00

Yeah, you heard me -- Harold ford is a dickhead.

He has an Op-Ed piece in today's New York Times, that I basically agree with. Yet, given his past performance and his choice of words in this Op-Ed, he reminds me of his previous Senate run and what a dickhead he was. Back then, he came across as consummate ass kisser whose use of biblical language was utterly annoying and phony. And now he's moved up north to bring with him the same distasteful persona.

In the Op-Ed he says that Obama and Democrats should shift attention from health care to job creation. Welcome to the party, oh wise one, since the Democrats have been talking about a jobs bill for a while. And the use of the word "shift" makes him a dickhead. Then he wants to give all kinds of tax cuts to businesses -- nothing too terribly bad about that -- but he also wants to balance the budget, as Clinton did. Yeah, dickhead, because we all know that Clinton inherited the worse economic conditions since the Great Depression, and he was fighting 2 wars, right?

Harold Ford -- you're a dickhead. Please go away.

Sanders nails Obama

2010-01-24T01:09:00.002-05:00

Senator Bernie Sanders has an article on The Nation that pretty much summarizes Obama's flaws up to here, and lists what Democrats need to do going forward. I won't bother posting quotes -- you really should read the whole thing: Blueprint for Dems.

After Massachusetts

2010-01-23T21:13:00.002-05:00

The one thing I'm looking for, after the Massachusetts special election debacle, are signs that the Democratic party got the message and is taking steps to proactively course correct. Here's one step in the right direction:

Mr. Obama has asked his former campaign manager, David Plouffe, to oversee House, Senate and governor’s races to stave off a hemorrhage of seats in the fall. The president ordered a review of the Democratic political operation — from the White House to party committees — after last week’s Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, aides said.
In addition to Mr. Plouffe, who will primarily work from the Democratic National Committee in consultation with the White House, several top operatives from the Obama campaign will be dispatched across the country to advise major races as part of the president’s attempt to take greater control over the midterm elections, aides said.

Plouffe managed a masterful campaign. His return to active duty is a welcomed sign.

Fighting

2010-01-23T12:18:00.002-05:00

In his speech at the town hall meeting in Ohio, president Obama talked several times about his determination to fight for us, that he won't stop fighting, etc.

You know, I don't think that word means what he thinks it means.

Where was the fight for the public option, the single most popular component of the health care reform?

Where was the fight for a proper size stimulus bill that addressed job losses? Now he's talking about a jobs bill... why didn't he fight for it almost a year ago?

Where was the fight against the bank executives and a financial system that is severely raping the middle class of this country? It could still happen, but so far, the signs are not encouraging.

It's not that I am giving up on president Obama yet, but I'm skeptical that fighting is his thing. Maybe years from now, in retrospect, we'll realize how sharp and effective he is, but damn it, right now, it doesn't feel so good.

Explain this to me

2010-01-22T16:19:00.002-05:00

The cry among pundits, Fox News, right-wingers, and many lefties is that the Democratic party is in disarray, they can't get their act together, they don't know how to win, that Republicans are better at the game of politics, the American people are mostly conservative, etc. etc.

Then, explain this to me:

-- How do we have a president who is a Democrat and who won by a landslide, with about 10 million more votes than the team of mavericks?

-- How do Democrats have a huge majority in the Senate, 57 to 41, and if we actually counted their representation by population, Democrats in the Senate represent close to 80% of Americans?

-- How do Democrats hold a huge majority in the House, with some 80 more representatives than Republicans, the largest margin since 1992? And get this, 81 of those are members that come from districts that George W. Bush won in 2004.

-- How are there more Democratic state governors than there are Republican ones?

And all of this without the vast right wing noise machine (Fox, Drudge, Limbaugh, etc.) to help Democrats.

And don't tell me how all of that is going to change in the next elections, because that's like the Detroit Lions saying that next year they'll be better. Yeah, no kidding.

I'm listening...

I told you so

2010-01-20T18:53:00.002-05:00

Well, I haven't been quite as prescient as Peter Daou, but even without his vision, I have been barking close to the same tree. But Peter really does reflect my views today:

The case by progressives that Democrats are undermining themselves with faux-bipartisanship and tepid policies gets much closer to the heart of the problem. I've written a number of posts arguing that it's all a matter of values and ethics. In essence: when you fail to govern based on a morally sound, well-articulated, solidly-grounded set of ideals, you look weak. All the legislative wins in the world won't change that. People gravitate to people who exude moral authority. The vast majority of voters lack the detailed policy knowledge that would enable them to make an accurate assessment of policy differences, but they do have a visceral sense of when a candidate or an elected official believes in something and fights for it. It's why campaigns are laden with moral arguments; politicians ask to be elected because they'll "do the right thing." The right thing in the current administration's case was to be the anti-Bush, nothing more, nothing less. The ethical antidote to a radical administration. It was both politically smart and morally right. And it worked wonders for Democrats as the entire subtext of the 2008 campaign.

One year after Obama took charge, his administration's penchant for "getting along" with snake oil salesmen has bitten them on the ass, as has the failure to forcefully push for what this country needs the most: meaningful reform in health care, financial systems, energy, and the environment, as well as a robust, all-hands-on-deck jobs creation program. Half-ass measures just to get some Republican support will continue to lead to failure.

Will they wake up and salvage 2010, or at least 2012? I'm losing the audacity of hope... but I'm still somewhat hopeful.

One percent

2010-01-20T09:12:00.002-05:00

A loss of exactly one percent is what losing the senate seat in Massachusetts means to Democrats:

If you want to be a chicken little, like your typical right-winger, and exaggerate the consequences of this result, go ahead, but when it comes to the balance of power, things changed only one percent.

Republicans are great... except

2010-01-18T22:37:00.000-05:00

except for all the times that they are not: