Finally, the media establishment is starting to wake up to the batshit crazy ways of the BIAW. Well, at least the Seattle P-I’s editorial board is starting to wake up, if only to rub a little sleep out of their eyes…
The Building Industry Association of Washington is influential. It’s also looking bizarre.
In the group’s March newsletter (no April Fool’s prank; area blogs started picking it up last week), there’s a full-page piece headlined: “Hitler’s Nazi party: They were eco extremists.” The writer makes a concession mid-ramble that Nazis were insanely racist but hurries to say that global environmentalism is “an amalgam of Nazism and communism.” Sure.
Elsewhere, BIAW President Brad Spears tries to draw a supposedly natural tie between mainstream environmentalists and eco-terrorism, especially home burning. “The older folks in the mainstream enviro groups,” he writes, “silently applaud this new and novel approach: If you build it, we will burn it.” Wow.
The newsletter is led by a piece hailing Democrats’ defeat of a “builder-hating bill,” on consumer protections to homebuyers. But sprinkled throughout the issue are adoring references to Republican Dino Rossi’s gubernatorial race. So maybe this hot talk is to gin up Rossi support. As readers learn, Gov. Chris Gregoire is possessed of “hate for the homebuilding industry.” There may be hate around, but the BIAW’s finger is pointed the wrong way.
The BIAW is “bizarre”…? Yeah, I guess. But that’s an awfully timid way to describe the BIAW’s unique brand of far-right extremist wing-nuttery hate-mongering. But at least that’s better than the Seattle Times, whose last mention of the BIAW was in a piece on the upcoming judicial races, and as usual, made them out to sound downright respectable:
Tom McCabe, head of the politically active Building Industry Association of Washington, said his organization considers the court races a high priority, right below the governor’s race. He said his group likely will be active in one or more court races, using public disclosure and property rights as two main issues.
“We’re really interested in the court, and the field is still shaking out,” he said. “If the right candidate emerges, I believe BIAW will participate, most likely in the Fairhurst seat.”
Yeah, sure… the BIAW is “politically active” and they “participate” in the process. And… um… they’re also fucking insane! In fact, they’re so insane that they have absolutely no fear of showing off their insanity in public. And yet our media and political establishment continue to grant them the same credibility normally afforded… you know… sane people. I mean really… the Times once saw fit to write an editorial condemning me for “successfully plac[ing] the phrase ‘horse’s ass’ into dozens of family newspapers” (as if I held a fucking gun to their heads), and yet the BIAW, one of the most powerful and influential “politically active” organizations in the state, equates environmentalism to Nazism, and stormwater regulations to Stalinist butchery… and all we hear are crickets chirping. Nice to know our state’s self-proclaimed paper of record recognizes the real threat to reasoned public discourse when they see it.
And believe you me, the BIAW’s violent rhetoric is intended as a threat, and they fully understand the potential consequences of pumping up the anger. One of these days somebody like me is going to get the shit beaten out them by somebody like them — they’ll be waiting for me late at night with baseball bats, or worse — and when that happens our media elite, who allowed the BIAW’s dangerous rhetoric to go unridiculed, unchallenged and unchecked for so long, will be just as culpable as batshit crazy bastards like Tom McCabe and Mark Musser.
As for elected officials like Rep. Mark Ericks (D-Bothell) Rep. Doug Ericksen (R-Whatcom), whose smiling photo from a BIAW awards banquet appears in the same issue as that crazed, hate-filled anti-environmentalism rant, it is either time for them to renounce the BIAW… or it is time for voters to renounce these officials at the polls, regardless of party.
UPDATE:
A reader corrects me via email:
A quick correction for you, though – the photo in the newsletter is Rep Doug Ericksen (R-Whatcom), not Rep Mark Ericks (D-Bothell). Although Rep Ericks was mentioned several times throughout the newsletter re: homebuilder bill.
My bad. Though I think Rep. Ericks has an obligation to renounce the BIAW as well.
BIAW:
Builder’s Insane and Assinine of Washington
Comparing conservationists to Hitler?
Saying that mainstream environmentalists secretly cheer the idiots who burn buildings?
Using politically motivated right wing attacks against anyone who opposes their “building” agenda?
Labeling anyone who is for reasonable limitations on unfettered growth and environmental damage – as an environmental extremist?
This organization (the BIAW) is sad, sick and distorted.
Yay for the PI. I’ll point out their editorial to the media folks I pointed the BIAW piece to and never heard back from.
David, speaking of “batshit crazy,” you seem to suffer from irrational paranoia and delusions.
The BIAW bought Supreme Court seats for Jim Johnson and Richard Sanders. But it got those seats on the cheap years ago.
The price has gone way up for Supreme Court seats since then. In 2006 the BIAW pumped one million bucks (plus) into two of the campaigns, and didn’t pull out victories for the right wing hack job horses it was backing.
The BIAW still may be “influential” in some circles, but it can’t buy the results it wants on the Supreme Court any more. It hasn’t got the scratch to intimidate the incumbents, like some of our progressive friends do. When it comes to influencing the judiciary, the BIAW is yesterday’s news.
Luigi @3,
Maybe. But I’m not one of the most powerful, influential and well-funded political organizations in the state. I’m just some blogger. And my paranoia is certainly more reasonable (and less dangerous) than their’s.
(And just because I’m paranoid…. )
The building and developer lobby give to both the left and the right. As long as liberals do not challenge the freebies and benefits that their donors get–especially on the city council level–then there will always be room for people like the BIAW to play ball. They make the unreasonable demands of all other developers–look reasonable.
The Nazi reference is interesting, only because the proponents of fascism in the teens and twenties in Europe was trying to appeal to the back to the land/nature types, and included some eco-rhetoric in their recruiting methods–about as real as Stalinists who say that are for the “working class” and so forth. But as far as I can tell, the only eco group that has ever openly sided with the right wing is the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Look it up.
With the BIAW publicly spewing rhetoric like this, it seems more plausible than it would otherwise that a couple of their members might have arranged for a couple of “successful fires” on the Street of Dreams to peddle their unsold McMansions to their insurance carriers, and the organization is providing cover for them and making political hay at the same time.
@6
BIAW gives overwhelmingly to the far right. The Realtors Association gives, mostly, to the right and middle. The Realtors are people that I (a lefty eco-freak) can disagree with, but work with. BIAW, not so much.
@7
Yep!
The “nazi” references are more likely in step with the Rove/Limbaugh (remember “feminazis”?) technique of muddying the argument by turning the opposition’s accusations around. It’s a little like Ted Bundy or Gary Ridgway calling their victims murderers.
@3
Goldy seems pretty on the mark to me.
If you want to read something from someone living in La-La land follow the link below.
http://tinyurl.com/3cqxuo
Let’s also remember that regardless of the typical wingnut’s capacity for denial, most of the BIAW’s members must be aware that the collapse of the real estate bubble spells total disaster for them. The more desperate they get, the more they’re going to holler.
The campaign for court seats has been one of Karl Rove’s priorities since the early 1990’s. Few voters have the slightest idea of who is on the state Supreme Court, or why, much less the local county courts. The Bar Association rules don’t help either, since they pretty much forbid the judicial candidates from saying anything of consequence during their race. The state Secty of State positions were similarly targeted.
At the time many didn’t see why the Republicans would spend time or money on such races – they weren’t considered to be that important to any particular party political agenda. But Rove knew two things. First, if you want to control an election, you need to control who gets to decide who wins. The judges and the Secty of State for each state hold important positions in that process, as the 2000 presidential election later proved. Secondly, candidates for judges and secty of state are not used to having to raise more than a few thousand dollars in their election campaigns – but if selected races are targeted by a national party, then suddenly millions of dollars are needed, and the incumbent can be blind-sided by an ad blitz which he/she isn’t prepared to handle.
It’s all part of the campaign to create a “permanant Republican majority”. No tactic is too low to use, as long as it’s effective.
Remember that Karl Rove owes all of his influence and position to when he was running for head of the College Republicans in the early 1970’s, and he convinced George H.W. Bush (then Republican Party Chair) to decide a contested election in his favor – by arranging for his opponant to be blamed for leaks which made the party look bad in feeding frenzy of the Watergate investigations.
In Alabama in 1994, a client of Rove, Perry O. Hooper, was running for the seat of Chief Justice of the state supreme court. Rove pulled out all the stops, with a media campaign against “wealthy personal injury lawyers” and “jackpot justice”, mischaracterizing cases before the court to make the results appear outragious. After the ballots were counted, Hooper was still 394 votes behind, and appeared to have lost the race. That’s when Rove utilized the tactics which became well known in the 2000 presidential election contest, and again in the 2004 Washington State governor’s election. He dispatched poll watchers to examine the recounts, then issued daily or even hourly press releases recounting details of how Democrats were trying to steal the election – which were eventually proven to be written by the Rove before the recount even happened. The campaign continued for the next year, focusing on approx. 2000 absentee ballots which didn’t meet requirements of state law (not witnessed nor notarized). The state supreme court ruled that they couldn’t be counted, but the U.S. Supreme Court eventually allowed them – tipping the election recount to Rove’s candidate.
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green
In another 1994 Alabama judicial campaign, Rove’s tactics were described:
“(Democratic Justice) Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children. In the early 1980s he had helped to start the Children’s Trust Fund of Alabama, and he later established the Corporate Foundation for Children, a private, nonprofit organization. At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove’s signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception.
Some of Kennedy’s campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children. “We were trying to counter the positives from that ad,” a former Rove staffer told me, explaining that some within the (Republican opponant) See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. “It was our standard practice to use the University of Alabama Law School to disseminate whisper-campaign information,” the staffer went on. “That was a major device we used for the transmission of this stuff. The students at the law school are from all over the state, and that’s one of the ways that Karl got the information out—he knew the law students would take it back to their home towns and it would get out.” This would create the impression that the lie was in fact common knowledge across the state. “What Rove does,” says Joe Perkins, “is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship…. what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile.”
Kennedy won that election, barely, but the experience left him so scarred that he retired at the end of his term, rather than put his family through the wringer of another election like the last one.
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green/3
Remember Rossi’s comments when he dropped his challenge, that he felt the current constitution of the Washington Supreme Court would have not been favorable to him? I’m thinking that the BIAW is planning on making sure that another recount challenge to the 2008 election will take place in early 2009, after they have a couple more of their hand-picked candidates on the court.
Remember that the Bush & Co. admnistration has proven that the traditional conservative values of hard work, fiscal responsibility, religious virtue, and real family values are completely unimportant to the Republican Party once they get into office. The only thing which is important to them is (a) making sure they have a permanant advantage in future elections so they can stay in office, and (b) re-writing the laws for the financial benefit of their wealthiest supporters, and looting the federal treasury for their benefit in the process.
Remember that Karl Rove was a protoge of Daniel Segretti, the convicted Watergate plumber. Yet he makes Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew look like rank amateurs in the process of manipulating elections. The lesson that Karl Rove and Dick Cheney both took from the Watergate years was that (a) never release the tapes, (b) never appoint a special prosecutor, and (c) don’t be shy about doing anything and everything to win an election.
biaw may be crazy, extreme, etc., but, sadly, it does not limit its alliances in WA to republicans. will voters realize this and replace dem pols in WA who coalesce with the biaw with better dems?
Another fun fact about Karl Rove – when he was just another political consultant in Texas in the 1980’s, he knocked his major competitor for Republican jobs out of the business by creating a whisper campaign that he was a closet homosexual.
Rove is the king of the whisper campaigns. He will even create an easily disprovable whisper campaign against his own client, just so his client can issue outraged denials, backed by proof, making the opponant look like they were behind a dirty attack.
I’m personally convinced that Karl Rove is behind the leaked “forged sixty minutes memo” which cost Dan Rather his job. I think they arranged to give the forged memo to the source who gave it to sixty minutes, thereby concealing its real source. Since the memo was consistent with what other witnesses were saying, sixty minutes didn’t vet it closely enough, and its documents examiners wouldn’t render an opinion because all they had was a photocopy. Thus Rove got luckly, and hit a home run which (a) made Bush’s shaky military service record a story no other news organization dared to touch for the remainder of the campaing, and (b) knocked off Dan Rather and CBS in the process, which they have wanted to do since Watergate, and (c) made Bush look like the victim of a left-wing media conspiracy, which fitted nicely with their cover story of why reporters who deal regularly with Republicans don’t seem to like them very much.
I think Goldy’s paranoia is essentially rational.
(Conclusion)
So as much as we think the BIAW leadership is pretty crazy, the biggest mistake they may have made is in telegraphing their next move. With the housing market down, and builders not being in much of a position to put lots of money into political campaigns, they need some hot issues to fire up their base and keep the money rolling into their coffers. They need some victories to show the builders that they are getting something for their money, and a state judical race might be just the thing. In a “non-partison” judicial race, they can avoid the damaged party label, as well as the national issues where the Republican failures have been so readily apparant.
Expect another round of dirty politics focused on “outragious verdicts”, killers being set free, “financed by donations by wealthy personal injury lawyers”, etc., as they comb through the dockets to find ammo for their disinformation campaigns.
Be prepared to fight back just as hard. Any BIAW endorsement should be poison, when accompanied by examples of their own comments. But note that BIAW donations are probably going to be “bundled” donations, not necessarily easy to trace – it may take some work to show that a judical candidate is in their back pocket.
When will Frank Chopp realize that he complicit in empowering these nut-cakes? Seriously, he bows to BIAW loving Dems like Judy Clibborn, Mark Ericks, Deb Eddy, Larry Springer and Ross Hunter. He helps BIAW kill progressive legislation year after year in Olympia. He and Tom McCabe are friends and McCabe even touted him once for Governor. Frank – isn’t it time to join the real democratic party or at least condemn the hate speech of these whackos?
Of course Democrats hate builders — they’re Republicans and thieves. (Boy, talk about a redundancy!) Hey, just kidding — it’s April Fool’s Day!!!
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
“One of these days somebody like me is going to get the shit beaten out them by somebody like them — they’ll be waiting for me late at night with baseball bats, or worse — and when that happens our media elite, who allowed the BIAW’s dangerous rhetoric to go unridiculed, unchallenged and unchecked for so long, will be just as culpable as batshit crazy bastards like Tom McCabe and Mark Musser.”
But Goldy, you should know the rightwing-owned MSM well enough to understand that they love crime! Crime reporting is what they turn to when all the political news is bad — you know, peasant uprisings against $4 gas, $4 bread, and $4 milk. Angry workers gathering with torches and pitchforks. That sort of thing. Whenever revolution is in the air, the papers foment a crime wave to distract the unwashed masses, i.e. us, from the real crime wave.
I wonder if BIAW will publish an equally indignant fussilade equating builders with common thieves if it turns out the builder torched the houses himself for the insurance money because he couldn’t sell them and the construction loans were past due. Hey, I’m not accusing anyone of anything, this is just idle speculation for entertainment purposes.
@22 I doubt it, but BIAW will have egg all over their faces if it turns out that’s what happened!
11 The “La La Land” Jonah Goldberg lives in has nothing to do with his geographic location.
@1 The fact BIAW can even find a willing audience for this garbage demonstrates how far America has descended into fascism.
It’s laughable that the BIAW would tie mainstream Americans who are concerned with the conditions of our environment as some how “secretly applauding” acts of violence and destruction that actually creates more release of toxic fumes, carbon and the energy expended to rebuild those homes.
Now that the Catholic Church as reconfirmed that pollution is a sin it makes ever more sense that those who are opposed to Global Warming are in the camp of Satan.
Global Warming is the epic struggle of Good vs. Evil. God has created the only sanctuary in His universe where we can live and multiply. The Devil would like nothing more than to destroy God’s creation and wreak destruction, suffering, pain, torment on God’s greatest creation: the Human race. His children. The only creation that was in His likeness. Child molestation, rape, murder, terrorist attacks, 9/11, war and nuclear blasts are but a mere pittance compared to destroying the Earth entirely. The Devil wants nothing more than to wipe out everything living thing that God created. The Devil would enjoy watching humans trying to survive Global Climate change being vicious and brutal towards each other in the name survival.
I would submit to you that the Eco Terrorists and the people who don’t believe in Global Warming are unwittingly and unknowingly on the same side. The side of Satan. Satan needs a significant mass of people to disbelieve in Global Warming to “stay the course” on his plan of ultimate destruction and human suffering. At the same time, he needs minions to destroy the material goods of those that are opposed to Global Warming as a wedge issue to keep them believing in their cause that Global Warming is not a significant issue. That thought process fans the flames of hatred and ignorance despite all the scientific studies and facts that support the Global Warming phenomenon.
Recently an ice shelf the size of Ireland began to collapse and breakaway from the Polar icecaps.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/s.....index.html
The Northwest Passage is becoming a reality because the Artic polar ice cap is retreating far enough that during the summer months ship will be able navigate what was once solid ice sheets.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....oyd03.html
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, too many people still believe there is nothing wrong with the environment or that there is nothing we can do about it. These are the people who follow the Judas Goat to slaughter, except that in this case even the Judas Goat’s life won’t be spared.
Whether you are Catholic or some other denomination of Christianity, a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, a follower of some other religion, or don’t believe in any kind of religion, the end result is the same. Bad people ignore the facts at the peril of the Human Race.
When the whole Terri Schiavo ordeal was going on the same “Christians” who oppose Global Warming were arguing that we should err on the side of life. I ask you then, base on sound science, and evidence all around us that you don’t need to be a science to realize something is wrong; why aren’t you erring on the side of life and the entire human race?
Conservatives are evil and on the side of Satan.
@3 Are you willing to indemnify Goldy against injury with your own money? I’m sure he would sleep better at night if you put $1 million into escrow to cover his medical bills.
Frankly, I don’t think Goldy is paranoid. While most wingers are merely loudmouths, there’s always a few stupid ones who take angry words literally. Remember what happened to Thomas a Becket?
@11: thanks for the link to Jonah (I never met a lie I couldn’t propagate) Goldberg.
Remember Jonah Goldberg (Bush apologist) has said:
We would spread democracy in the Middle East
We were winning the war in Iraq in 2004
We would be and were welcomed as liberators in Iraq.
Now – he is revising history to tell us that the New Deal prolonged the depression (oh – and he never mentions the lack of regulations (and unbridles captialism) on Wall Street and the republican presidents (including Hoover who made things worse for 3 years) that caused the great depression in the first place.
According to that idiot Jonah Goldberg – the New Deal was the problem – when it was actually the solution. What a tool!
16 Probably true–except that I would submit that likely Sumner Redstone was in on the “60 Minutes” caper. With Rather out of the way, CBS Evening News morphed overnight into a pretty purveyor of pabulum more like its competitors, with Katie Couric proudly displayed underneath its bowsprit.
Of course, bitch about environmentalists. As if some broke, over leveraged, rugged individualist-to-the-last-taxpayer dollar contractor-turned-arsonist can’t spraypaint “ELF” on a piece of plywood..
@29: GBS Amen!
@4 Progressives “intimidate” SC justices? That’s just plain silly. The only thing happening on the SC is that 7 of the 8 justices who aren’t wholly-owned subsidiaries of BIAW are making decisions by applying law and reasoning to facts of the cases. The other one, Sanders, is a bit of an idealogue on some issues who also has trouble understanding the Canons of Judicial Ethics at times, but it’s unfair to characterize Sanders as a BIAW tool. He’s a libertarian, not a wingnut, and Sanders his is own man. A maverick and ideologue, yes, but hardly McCabe’s property.
@30: good point – the last ELF people are already in jail – why would someone deliberately put themselves at risk – this could easily be a cover up.
Anyways – all the major environmental organizations have condemned this stupid act. Who in their right mind would burn down houses to show how wasteful the houses are?
They are idiots – whoever did it.
@6 The predictable wingnut defense of “liberals do it, too.”
No, we don’t.
26 Think, if you will, of how many children were suffering and dying in Iraq and Darfur while the clowns were doing their act over Terri Schaevo–kids about whom these self-proclaimed “champions of life” gave nary a thought.
These people are so totally nuts it doesn’t even make sense to call them hypocrites.
@13 Reminds me of the situation in Zimbabwe, where dictator Robert Mugabe and his cronies are still trying to decide how many votes he “won” by, faced with overwhelming evidence of his party’s massive rejection by voters.
@14 That name would be Donald Segretti, who btw worked for McCain’s 2000 campaign.
Segretti also ran for judge in California (after being reinstated to the bar) but quickly withdrew when voters were reminded he was one of the Watergate conspirators.
Now that I know Chopp is in BIAW’s pocket, I understand why the Democratic legislature hasn’t done anything to stop BIAW from funding its political campaigns with L & I tax dolalrs.
TPN@6: Hey I gave link after link to Hannah last month which included the eco-terrorist crowd of the early 20th century.
Did the 16%ers look up the links? Nope they just tried to ridicule me for posting the truth!
Now speaking to the April I mean everyday Fool – how is Clueless Idiot doing…?
ArtFart: You need your history lesson again. The Nazi reference is real. I gave you the links you chose to ignore at your historical perspective peril.
You are one of those who has no clue where you came from so you have no idea where you are headed.
Progressives “intimidate” SC justices?
. . . not if the opinions say the “right” things ;)
42 Back to dust, just like you, sweetie.
GBS: On the plus side of global warming, if the Northwest Passage becomes a reality, the northern Canadian rivers might actually drain into the sea, and the Canadian artic wetlands might dry out enough that they don’t breed those volkswagon-size mosquitos.
And we could be fishing for Marlins off Newport.
I’m just saying….;-)
RR @ 37: Yep, my bad. If we had time to review stuff before posting, my posts would be much better. But if I wait to do a really good review & spell check, then I find that nobody reads it – there are three more topics posted, and everyone is off to read the newer topics.
@ 45:
RHP, you do KNOW that the mosquito is the Official State Bird of Alaska.
Anybody who tries to equate modern environmentalism with Nazism is just trying to distort both – creating a straw man on both ends, and then proclaiming “gee, look – they are both made of straw!”
A lot of people who try to tie any modern political movement to Nazism simply are trying to defame the modern political movement, without really understanding the Nazis or how they came to power. The BIAW idiots read a recent book by a wingnut which attempts to do just this.
One of the problems with any such analysis is that the Nazis didn’t have a consistent philosophy of any sort. If you try to make logical sense of it, the more you study, the more you just get a headache. For example, the racial policies were really absurd, logically – they tried to argue that Arabs were better than Jews, and even formed an Arab SS division, even though their racial makup was identical. (That’s not even getting into the moral repugnancy).
What it really amounts to is that the Nazis put out a lot of emotional hot-button issues for the German people, from which they could sort through until they found something that appealed to them.
*To attach themselves to a restored German nationalism, they attached themselves to a pre-Christian “Thule” society of Aryan people, even though no such distinct racial or social class ever existed (there even was a “Thule Society” which predated the Nazi Party).
*They also preached “family values”, discouraging women from working (they were supposed to be home making good Aryan children).
*They decried the despoiling of the environment by rich Jews, offering the spectre of the healthy farm life many Germans remembered from their youth, but they engaged in a rapid industrialization program under Nazi control, using large industries such as Krupe for their military build-up under no-bid contracts (in exchange for huge political donations).
* While controlling private gun ownership through registration (as every German state had done for several hundred years previously), they also encouraged membership in Party-sponsored hunting clubs.
* Their one consistent theme was anti-communism, although under their role government control of virtually all aspects of the national economy was pretty complete.
So anybody can prove just about anybody is a Nazi if they want to hunt and peck and sift through Nazi proclamation until they find things to match. I can do the same thing with the Nazis and the Republican Party, if I were to take the time to do so.
RHP, the article on Rove that you quoted so extensively? The author was Joshua Green? You are aware that he was on the staff of ‘The American Prospect ‘?
According to Wiki: The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to liberalism. It bills itself as a journal “of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics”[1] which focuses on U.S. politics and public policy. Politically, the magazine is in support of modern American liberalism, similar to The New Republic and The Nation, which also target an intellectual audience.
I don’t know that the man had a specific agenda with that article, but whatever you may believe, you cannot deny that he certainly may have. There was, afterall, an awful lot innuendo and supposition.
Not that I expect you to suddenly embrace Karl Rove, or anything… Just something to think about.
(Yawn!)
GBS @ 45: When the built the Al-Can Highway during WWII, a running joke was that two men were driving a truck which broke an axle. While they were under the truck trying to fix it, two mosquitos landed and watched the two men for a while. Then one of the men heard one of the mosquitos say: “Shall we dine here, or take them home to share with the others?”.
I-burn @ 49: I don’t think the author made any pretense at being politically neutral. But that doesn’t mean that the information he conveyed was innacurate. Much of the information about past races Rove was involved with came from the book “Bush’s Brain”, about Karl Rove, which was referred to extensively in the article. The author supplemented that information with current interviews, and was presenting the information in the context of trying to decide how Rove’s experience might or might not help him in the 2004 election, which was in full swing at the time of the article. (He pointed out that Rove had never before had to defend an incumbent – which meant that part of his success was due to the fact that his clients mostly didn’t have to defend their own record of performance when they ran for office.)
Interestingly, a lot of the more damning quotes in the article came from dissolutioned Republicans themselves, who were run over by Rove’s tactics, or who used to work for Rove but don’t any more. It seems that Republicans who were subjected to his tactics in primary battles either hated him and more or less left the party, or made sure they hired him the next time around to do the same thing on their behalf (such as McCain currently using Rove, despite being thrown under the bus by him in 2000).
I think it is so funny how conservative people shit bricks over swearing or anything of sexuality, which is of a consensual nauture. When it comes to issues of violence or murder their completely ok, like Ann coulter or Bill Orielly advocating murder for the simple American right of disagreeing with Bush or other right wing policies. I think the simple way to break down conservative ideology is do unto what you wouldnt want done to you, and then blame Liberals for making America immoral while you advocate the violation of the most basic human right: the right to life and after that talk about the lack of personal responsibility in America propagated by Liberals, college professors, the media, ACLU and of course gays and lesbians while blaming everyone but yourself or your own fuck up of a president and a war your so un-apt to take responsibilty for while pointing the finger at everyone but yourself. Hey BIAW maybe you should take que from the great right-wing slogan always thrown at people who give a shit about you know things like the constitution, human rights or your favorite the enviroment and love it or leave it. If your rallying cry to blinding except all the presidents imperial power and endless war, I think the same should be labeled on you for people who want a mother-fucking ability to sue the asshole who did shody work, hows that for personal responsibilty for you.
Im in Uruguay right now and this keyboard is fucking wierd so I apologize for the grammer.
Of course, many may fairly point out that there is no evidence that Karl Rove has been hired to do anything in Washington state, yet. But as the 2004 election showed, he still controls a lot of levers behind the scenes, and he has spent the past twenty years training lots of GOP operatives on his tactics. The 2004 Washington gubenatorial battle was almost an exact replay of the 1994 Alabama Chief Justice election, except that Rossi didn’t follow the script and play it to the end of the game.
I’ve always wondered about that. I assume that Rossi realistically figured that he didn’t have a chance of overturning the ruling in state or federal court, and didn’t want to alianate voters who might vote for him in a re-match in 2008, but were tired of the election challenge and wanted to move on.
But what was the position of the State Republican Party in this, and what was the position of Karl Rove and the National GOP? The state Republican Party was having to foot the bill, but the whole thing was turning into a fundraising windfall for the GOP nationally. They milked their donors with tales of Democratic “voter fraud” in Democratic King County, and complained that the election was “stolen” from Rossi. Was Rove pissed off that Rossi didn’t disregard his political future in this state and lay down and be the martyr the GOP needed? Rove had counted on the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn any state court rulings anyway, like they did in the 1994 Alabama Chief Justice race, and the 2000 Presidential recount in Florida.
Al Gore has some new people working with him now. Pat (yes that Pat) Robertson and good ol Newt Gingrich.
It might be a bad anaolgy, but I compare global warming to the fate of the super cars of the late 60’s. The insurance industry played a large part in their demise. Likewise they look at potential loss on this due to weather or climate change sourced damage as a big issue. One they want something done about, very badly.
Goldy — I have to give you credit for coming up with very believeable April Fool’s jokes!
Oh — it’s not a joke! Pretty scary stuff.
re 49: We’ve embraced Rove to the extent that we are popularizing the open recognition of McCain’s T-Rex arms.
And, as a Hillary supporter, I am forced to reveal that Obama has fathered several black children.
So 976 typed pages to deal with rain water washing off
cleared property where construction is underway doesn’t
seem excessive? I would have to guess that none of
you have a clue what BIAW really does. If you did you
would have to be ashamed. Nothing in the world is worse
than a democrat in some position of power over another man
or business. Their brains are too small to handle it.
If you look real close at a lib their eyes are closer
together, and often times rather unattractive. My dad thinks
its genetic. I have to agree with my dad.
Yes, 976 pages does seem excessive.
I have found that when people have some integrity; you know, build things to code or better, stand behind their work, follow not just the word of the regulation but the spirit of it as well that you don’t have to spend 100’s of pages closing every teeny-tiny loophole, because well the ones with integrity follow the regulations rather than look for ways to avoid them.
Remember last week’s passport scandal? Where it was reported that contract workers processing passport applications made unauthorized forays into the passport records of Clinton, Obama, and McCain?
Lots of people were wondering what information was available. At a minimum, we could expect that the workers could have seen the candidate’s name, passport picture, social security number, address, and dates when passports were issued.
Jay Leno said that the news media even mentioned John McCain’s passport number on the air. It was “8”.
Americadelsur says: some simple stuff.
Where do you stand on Randi Rhodes and her four gunshots simulating you know what to GWB
WHere do you stand on Bill Mahar and his call for the same to Dick Cheney which started Ann Coulter’s comments.
Oh… that’s right you overlook these facts.
mark wrote:
My dad thinks its genetic. I have to agree with my dad.
After all, he’s also my brother!