Did we misplace reality?

We must have, because there's no other way to explain shit like this.

I think my personal favorite quote that explains the mentality (and I use that word in the loosest and most generous sense possible) of these idiots is this:

They're the same people who believed that Bill Clinton's use of the FISA court to obtain warrants to eavesdrop on Americans was a grave threat to liberty, but believed that George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in violation of the law was a profound defense of freedom.

Get that? Read it once again, please.

One more time. It's ok to skim it now.

Using a court system to obtain legal warrants to eavesdrop: grave threat to civil liberties and grounds for verbal proclamations of pretend insurrections against our evil government.

Warrantless spying on all Americans, violating federal law: a necessary and laudable defense of freedom.

I'm happy to discuss diverging viewpoints of what's good and necessary for America, what is good politics and bad, what is laudable and what is crappy, but shit like this makes rational discussions impossible and a waste of time.

I'm often accused of hyper-partisanship (sometimes legitimately, sometimes not), but whatever partisan opinions I may share pale in comparison to this selective "patriotism" by almost exclusively middle-class white men.

For even more "what-the-fuckery," I give you this:



The above video is about 8 minutes. For those not willing to stomach Beck for that long, here's the synopsis:

Glenn Beck, TV pundit on Fox (of course), along with ex-military and CIA folks, are discussing the planning and enactment of "war games" in the event of a civil war breaking out over Obama's presidency and his actions as president.

I'm not making that up.

Of course, this was all couched in the "we of course pray this won't happen" nonsense that Malkin pulled when she put up the phone numbers of some of her detractors, who were then stalked, harrassed and hounded at their homes and jobs, but as long as they HOPE that it doesn't happen, it's ok to discuss in positive tones.

This is a pretty good summation of my views on this situation:

But I am amazed at the sheer cognitive dissonance involved in simultaneously believing that it’s treasonous to peacefully oppose an unjustified war but that it’s patriotic to lead an armed insurrection against the government because they want to pay you unemployment benefits.

And these asses had the balls to call liberals who questioned the war in Iraq "traitors" and accused them of treason.

Jesus, someone give these idiots a course in Basic Logic.

Republicans finally desire bipartisanship?

Top Republican lawmakers Sunday called on President Obama to change his political strategy, arguing that the passage of a massive stimulus bill on a party-line vote showed he has failed to deliver the "change" he promised.

"If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country's screwed," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told ABC's "This Week." "I know bipartisanship when I see it."

I agree completely. We need more of the bipartisanship shown by the Republicans under Bush, where they routinely pissed on the faces of their Democratic counterparts, by hiding conferences from the Democrats to outright saying that the real decisions will be made without their input.

So, can we please have some more of that bipartisanship?

I want to see Lindsey Graham and Tom Coburn running through Capitol Hill, looking for the meeting while Democrats craft bills that help fix our country. I want to see Democrats stand up to cloture, make the Republicans stand up and filibuster if they want to kill legislation. Let them be shown to be obstructionists; everytime they obstruct, their poll numbers go down and Democrats go up.

In short, I agree with Senator Graham. I had been on Obama's side as far as his version of bipartisanship goes, but now I'm convinced.

Let's show the Republicans some good old-fashioned bipartisanship.

Let's cut these motherfuckers down.

DFQ

The "news" floating around our little corner is that davefromqueens has died.

Check the news.

Personally, I never liked him much. Thought his attitude and actions reeked of obsession and stupidity, and the diary I linked to is almost insultingly idiotic with its commentary on "stress about how the community moderation system at Daily Kos works".

Which is a shame, because I liked Timaeus. But we all react differently to news, and Timmy apparently decided to react like a fucking moron and imply that users on DK contributed to DFQ's death.

Shame on you, Timaeus. Tonight, sir, you're a God damned douchebag.

In any event, if it is true that DFQ has passed on, then I'd like to offer my sympathies to his friends and family, though likely they will never see this blog.

Despite my personal opinions of him, a loss is a loss, and his passion could not be denied.

May he be at peace and let's all try and remember that despite our personal differences, we're all on the same side.

RIP Dave.

The fall of Pacific John

I'm not big on feuding. Takes away from my drinking time.

But sometimes, something pops up that is so absurd and outright insane, that I have to jump in with both feet and just say what's on my mind.

Pacific John has turned into a fucking idiot.

It's a shame. On DK he was an awesome writer. He then chose to support Clinton during the primaries, which didn't affect his writing. Then he turned into a "Clintonista," a term I use to describe a Clinton supporter who loses their rationality and intelligence in their fervent desire to get Clinton elected.

Now, he's got his head so far up Alegre's ass that when he spits, she can taste his breakfast. "It's self-evident that Alegre is being vindicated daily"? Is he fucking stoned?

The only thing that's self-evident is that he turned from a solid writer to a dishonest hack blindly supporting Clinton and blindly hating Obama (and Obama's supporters).

The funniest and most dishonest line of his orgasm of bullshit is this:

Advocacy groups will experience a lot of trauma as they either become obsolete, or disentangle from their one-person movement to find their way back to where we are, honest critics.

If I was able to select any adjective to describe the idiots and whiners on Alegre's site, "honest critics" would be mighty far down the list.

But the site is awesome when you need to go see what delusion looks like.

CEO's evasion is mere peanuts

What fun!

Stewart Parnell, owner of Peanut Corp. of America, repeatedly invoked his right not to incriminate himself before the House subcommittee holding a hearing on a national salmonella outbreak blamed on his company.

Good to see that the Constitution still holds up for our beleaguered CEOs.

I'll lay odds that there will be fines, bad PR and suspended sentences for the douchebags who decided profits from peanuts outweighed the lives of possibly 9 citizens.

Shortly afterward, a lab tester testified that the company discovered salmonella at its Georgia plant as far back as 2006.

The House panel released e-mails obtained by its investigators showing Parnell ordered products identified with salmonella shipped and quoting his complaints that tests discovering the contaminated food were "costing us huge $$$$$$."

I seriously doubt that anything will come of this other than the usual lawsuits, slaps on the wrists and such.

I mean, coming off the heels of an administration with "Heckuva job, Brownie" and ass covering, can we really expect justice for any of the unclean, unwashed masses of commoners?

I'd never seriously advocate street justice, but I'd be lying if I didn't think that it'd be hilarious to string up these CEOs and asshole fuck-ups by THEIR peanuts.

Stimulus bill: a monument to the power of the minority.

We got stimulus, in a way.

A gutted, weaker version of stimulus loaded with tax cuts and sorely lacking in educational needs and relief for lower income families.

I'd like to draw your attention you this passage from the above link, in particular the bolded part:

But even as Congressional leaders and top White House officials went through the package with a carving knife, it was clear that the three Republicans who agreed to support the bill in the Senate wielded extraordinary power, and along with conservative Democrats in their coalition, had put a firm stamp on the stimulus package.

Some of that can be good, I suppose (Specter's insistence of more funding for medical research, for example), but the mere chance (looks more like fact to me, unfortunately) that three Republicans can force drastic changes upon a bill like this is downright scary.

That's not "bipartisanship," that's "blackmail."

I'm all for Obama trying to include the Republicans in negotiations and discussions about bills. It makes it much easier for everyone to see what obstructionist shitbags they are. But when such inclusion results in a handful of vaguely moderate Republicans holding the bill hostage, then we have problems.

Especially with conservative Democrats so pants-happy about bipartisanship.

Let's be clear here: Republicans lost, Democrats won.

The American people made CLEAR choices, both in 2006 and even more so in 2008.

I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt and the benefit of time to both Obama and the Democrats in Congress, but they need to remember.

They won. Now they should start acting like it.

Time to start fresh.

I deleted my old posts, as I'm sure no one will know since no one really comes to this blog. But just in case someone happens to stumble here by mistake, might as well explain.

I wrote for DailyKos for a few years. I enjoyed most of the times there, but lately it's become infuriating. Too many voices, not enough reality. Such is the way massive community-based blogs like that go, which is fine for some, a nuisance and a distraction for others. I thought it was fine for me, but that's clearly no longer the case.

The general malaise I had been feeling for some time was tough to pin down, but happily I figured it out.

I was changing who I was while on that site.

I wasn't changing my opinions to conform with the masses, that's not what I mean. I found myself not commenting in certain posts or on certain topics simply because I knew people would start yelling and shouting, because there was such a group-mentality that reasonable debate was not just merely unlikely, but rather unthinkable.

Of course, I've never been known for my tact or politeness, so this isn't something that I'm trying to blame on anyone. I was simply no longer comfortable with choosing the easy way and thusly not being true to my opinions or thoughts.

And the recent influx of shitbags flocking to that site didn't help matters, either.

And the "Obama's breaking his word he's the worst" crowd was funny in a sad, pathetic way (especially when they couched their whining and hand-wringing with "We should be able to criticize" rhetoric).

The last straw was yet another diary shitting upon police officers, however. Look for it if you like, I won't be linking to that site anytime soon, if ever. I made the tactical error (a big one) of deciding to take my umbrage with ignorant anti-cop mentality into the wrong diary for it. That was stupid of me, but no matter. The fact is that site is rampant with anti-police mentality, some of which is so forehead-slappingly idiotic I wonder how the authors managed to turn on their computers in the first place.

Faced with yet more ignorance and stupid comments, I realized that DK was no longer a fun place to be, and was rather a dirty basement swimming with stunted thinking with fewer and fewer gems floating in the swamp as time goes by. It's too bad, because there are many intelligent people there with amazing ability to write and articulate and deconstruct, but I no longer care to spend the time sifting through the crap to find the good.

This is sounding way more bitter than I'd like, and I'm not trying to "take on" DailyKos like so many other blogs of former users. I hope DailyKos flourishes and I urge everyone to give it a shot, but I personally am finished. I'll miss a few of the people I liked and respected, but that's not enough to be a part of it. Not anymore, at least.

So, I'll be posting here mostly and sometimes on Docudharma, and on My Left Wing.

Thus, a fresh start for TheBlaz. My own blog, my own words, no community distracting me or making me feel that I shouldn't say certain things because they're not "polite."

In summation, adios to my friends on DailyKos. I enjoyed our time together, but I am no longer comfortable on that site.

And welcome to whoever reads this.

It's a brave new world, fuckers.