UPDATE: From the Oregonian: Clark County GOP taking national ridicule.
In Vancouver, Wash., the Clark County Republican Party is in hot water for a post based on that ridiculous – and thoroughly discredited – hate e-mail about Barack Obama on the home page of its web site.
Once upon a time, this kind of stuff would have been spread in fliers by some of the wacky people who gravitate to local political party meetings. Now it is getting national publicity – Keith Olbermann slammed the county GOP on his MSNBC show – and doing its little bit to drive people away from the Republican Party (just as now-resigned State Rep. Richard Curtis, R-La Center, recently contributed to the impression that the GOP harbors a fair number of sexual hypocrites).
As I said… behold the awesome power of the Internets, and quake before us.
Geez, another download my POTS connection can’t handle. Could you at least give us an executive summary when you post these?
Roger Rabbit’s Stock Market Guessing Game
My guess is the 75 basis points interest rate cut and $150 billion stimulus package bought us only a 24-hour reprieve. I predict the stock market will resume its downward march tomorrow morning and continue for several more days until it has lost the whole 500 points, then will lose 500 more for good measure.
Now all sides in a political debates “stretch” the truth, the usual method is by interpreting arcane statistics in a way that benefits your argument (economy, gun control, etc). But this, this was amazing. It’s rare to see an ‘official’ political site put in writing a simply factually made up internet rumor and post it as if it’s real.
I wonder if the Clark County Republicans also believe they’ve won $10 million in the British Lottery and have $50 million coming to them from a nice man in Nigeria who just needs to transfer some money through the states. LOL. They couldn’t look like more of a joke.
Washington Mutual Execs Reap Bonuses, Stock Options
“Investors in Washington Mutual watched helplessly last year as the big lender’s stock tumbled more than 70 percent. But the executives who ran WaMu during that epic slide are poised to profit … several will still take home six-figure bonuses for their work last year, including $912,800 for Chief Operating Officer Stephen Rotella, Seattle-based WaMu said in a regulatory filing yesterday.
“The company gave Chief Executive Kerry Killinger a new grant of options on 3.2 million shares, while Rotella got 1.5 million options. … The options will vest, or become exercisable, depending on when WaMu’s share price crosses certain thresholds. … Half of Killinger’s and Rotella’s options … vest in three years or when WaMu shares close above $26, whichever is later. The rest vest in four years or when the shares close above $35. If WaMu is sold, however, all of the options will vest immediately. … WaMu said the option grants were intended to give the two men ‘a strong incentive to restore shareholder value.’
“That rationale was condemned as ‘outrageous’ by Fred Whittlesey of Compensation Venture Group, a Seattle-based executive-compensation consulting firm. ‘All shareholders should hit the roof when they see what they’ve done here,’ said Whittlesey …. ‘They’ve created another layer of poor compensation policy on top of the existing poor compensation policy.’ …
“Rather than setting the options’ strike price at Tuesday’s closing price of $14.77, Whittlesey said, WaMu’s board should have set it at … the stock’s … price before last year’s swoon. ‘One of the things you don’t do with stock options is give them to people who drove the shares down so they can profit by bringing them back up,’ he said.”
Quoted under fair use; for complete article and/or copyright info see http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....amu22.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Another example of a captive board rewarding failure and screwing shareholders.
Disclosure Statement: Roger Rabbit does not own, has never owned, and has no intention of ever owning, any shares in this asswipe company.
I’m not against capitalism. In fact, I love capitalism! I’m only against is the Corporate Trotskyism we have in this country.
Congress needs to pass a Shareholders Bill of Rights that will regulate the conditions under which corporations can grant stock options to executives and employees earning more than $100,000 a year, and will make backdating options punishable by life in prison without possibility of parole.
Also, any executive who gets a bonus for any year in which his company lost money should be required to wear a monitoring bracelet and a scarlet letter “T” (for “thief”) on his forehead, which can be imprinted either with red lipstick or by branding.
Where’s pipe-boy?
Well at least we know where #8 racist headless lucy is this morning…
Pelletizer: Take thine own words to heart: “Could you at least give us an executive summary when you post these?”
1) Single sentence posts
2) Repetitive references to the same post
3) Articles copied ad nauseum
4) Vacuous commentary
Thanks dumb bunny. We’ll be indebted to you!
Pot, meet kettle.
Oh, and thanks for the video, Goldy. Good to see the GOP stupidity is getting attention. Shine the light on them, and watch the cockroaches scatter.
Web Site Assembles U.S. Prewar Claims
Students of how the Bush administration led the nation into the Iraq war can now go online to browse a comprehensive database of top officials’ statements before the invasion, connecting the dots between hundreds of claims, mostly discredited since then, linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda or warning that he possessed forbidden weapons.
The Center for Public Integrity, a research group that focuses on ethics in government and public policy, designed the new Web site to allow simple searches for specific phrases, such as “mushroom cloud” or “yellowcake uranium,” in transcripts and documents totaling some 380,000 words, including remarks by President Bush and most of his top advisers in the two years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01.....ref=slogin
Looks like the nets didn’t do much for Sean Penn and Oscar nominations this year. I guess the net broadcasted YouTube capture of his Hugo Chavez http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqDJ-EKEE2A love fest went over real well.
Another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
Clueless – I put two videos up for your viewing cuz I know it takes your single celled brain and it’s lonely mitochondrion a while to process real facts!
Summary of The Center for Public Integrity research: The Bushies over two years, 9-11-01 to 9-11-03 made 945 false claims. Two trillion dollars and lot’s of torture maimaming killing and destruction and yet there remains a die hard few who continue tio support Bush.
Bush uses torture and kills civilians including children
Puddy and Piper support Bush
Therefore Puddy and Piper support torture and killing civilians and children
Sorry wanking Pud. It’s not me @8. I slept in. And I’m not headless Lucy I’ve told you that before. But you have a hard time distinguishing lies from truth don’t you Bush lover?
oops make that 935
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....lse23.html
@7 RR
Roger, check out Samuelson op-ed in WAPO this morning. I generally think he is full of shit, but he is on target this morning discussing scandalous Wall Street bonuses.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....inionsbox1
@13 Pudwanker. Your President is maiming, torturing and killing people. He is daily pissing away money by the billions.
During Katrina while your President did a flyover photo-op Sean Penn was on the ground wit a boat and personally rescuing people from their flooded homes.
@13 One reason to read the news Pudwanker is to learn things; to accumulate information in order to make informed decisions.
And then their is your reason; to search out any little negative tidbit about anyone even remotely associated with the democrats or (not and) liberals and then rush here to say aha! your guys are worse than our guys.
As some blogger put it recently: If Bush was found to be the murderer of Jon Benet Ramsey or photographic evidence was found of him raping a goat there are still some who would continue to support him. That’s you Pudwanker-and Piper.
Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....lse23.html
A searchable database of the LIES that propelled this country into the stupid, stinking war in Iraq:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/
There’s a lot! These people could hardly breathe without lying.
@7&8
Nanny State dependent…
Here is a thought for you. If you don’t like what the board/execs/CEO of a company are doing, or how they’re compensated…….
1. Don’t buy into the company
2. Feel free to exercise your right to sell your stake
But of course you NEED the nanny to hold your hand.
WATERBOARDING AND THE BUSHIES
Senators to Mukasey: It’s time
When Michael Mukasey was dodging Senate Judiciary Committee questions about waterboarding back in November, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino offered an ingenious solution: Confirm him first, then ask questions later.
Democrats on the committee — including the two who voted to confirm Mukasey — are now taking Perino up on the offer. The attorney general is scheduled to testify before the committee Wednesday, and the senators have told him to come prepared to answer two questions:
1. Is the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique illegal under U.S. law, including treaty obligations?
2. Based on your review of other coercive interrogation techniques and the legal analysis authorizing their use, what is your assessment of whether such techniques comply with the law?
Will Mukasey provide an unequivocal answer to those questions now that he’s had the opportunity to be “read in” on the issue? Maybe, but don’t hold your breath. The day after he was confirmed, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham sent Mukasey a letter in which they urged him to ” “take the opportunity to make clear that waterboarding is illegal and can never be employed.” As the Democratic senators note in their letter, that was more than two
@23
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/
Wanker@everywhere: No he didn’t flyover with Sean Penn. I thought he did it LA Guvnur Kathleen Blanco (now ex-guvnur) who blocked aid from the American Red Cross to the Superdome and it cost her her job.
Right Stuff: Now that the CEOs are big-time Hilary contributors and supporters, notice Pelletizer is not harping so much on these CEOs and their “exorbitant” salaries.
I bet any 16%er here would love to make what they make!
@21:
935 documented lies during the buildup to the Iraq war. Here is a link:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005120.php
Yup – the bush administration has set a new standard for truth, transparency and integrity.
Of course – I am just waiting for the Bush defender trolls (that seem to love to populate this site) to explain what the meaning of lies is – or that Clinton did it so it must be OK or that it is OK to lie because terrorists are bad or…..whatever….
You know – the good thing is that we have republican trolls who can explain what the real meaning of all those lies is – and they can tell us why our economy is so much better than we think it is (as our president said yesterday – the economy is strong and just needs some help because his rich buddies are doing well).
@27 Republicans get away with this shit because spineless Democrat congressional leadership let them get away with it.
“House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with President Bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides.
Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks.
Bush, citing executive privilege, has refused to allow Bolten or Miers to testify before the House Judiciary panel about the prosecutor purge. And former deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove was barred by the administration from appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the same issue.
“Right now, we’re focused on working in a bipartisan fashion on [the] stimulus,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), indicating that the contempt vote is not expected for weeks, depending on how quickly the stimulus package moves.
Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said “no decision has been made” as to when a criminal contempt vote would be held by the House.
The Judiciary Committee approved contempt citations against Bolten and Miers on July 25, but Pelosi has yet to bring the measures to the floor.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved similar contempt citations against Bolten and Rove shortly before Congress adjourned in December.”
Read more at:
http://www.politico.com/news/s...../8057.html
16%Wanker: When you place the same crap on the board as the medusa-like headless lucy it’s hard to discern what you are trying to say. Seem like the same syllojism to me.
@27 Re:28–You see, Democrats can only do one thing at a time. They can’t go after the Bushies for any of their many crimes because right now they have to work on “a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn.” And next week it will be something else. And eventually the year will be over and the most criminal and corrupt administration will walk out of office unrepentant and unaccountable for the immense damage it has done to this country and the world.
“Worst person in the world”…..what a stupid ass segment. How is anyone supposed to take Olbermann seriously with idiocy like that? On any given day his candidates are some member of the Bush Administration or Bill O’Reilly. He goes from a decent SportsCenter host to ideological commentary, and a bad commentator at that.
@29 I easily understand the difficulty you are having in this matter Pudwanker. You are anything but discerning.
But Pudwanker I am not Headless Lucy. I’m just on more person of many who thinks you are full of shit. And that through your support of Bush you must hate this once great country a great deal.
@27-28 et all impeachers….
After ALL the hearings, oaths, statements, gridlock that the Democrat congress has done.
Why no indictments?
The fringe HA faithful are left (ha-ha) to rail against the machine……
Charge that windmill!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just becuase the kook echo chamber declares lies, torture, impeachment… doesn’t make it so….
Just ask Nancy.
@31 see:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005120.php
And of course as a Bush lover you see no contradiction between Bush and O’Reilly saying we must support the troops and letting veterans rot under bridges when they get home while denying their existence.
It’s sorta like being pro-life from conception to birth and then letting the kids go hungry and homeless and uneducated on a fast track into the criminal justice system where corporations can make huge profits off their incarceration.
@31 You may have missed this by your hero Rush. Mega Dittos Rush! Isn’t that what you dittoheads say? Hmmm: America’s frat boys. Bush, O’Reilly and Limbaugh.
“On the January 22 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, discussing the January 21 CNN Democratic presidential candidates debate during which Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY), Sen. Barack Obama (IL), and former Sen. John Edwards (NC) sat in chairs for the latter part of the debate, Rush Limbaugh said of Clinton, “She was the only one sitting there who could not cross her legs.” Limbaugh prefaced his comment by saying, “I’m gonna pay for this. See, this is the kind of thing that you’re not supposed to say. That when you say this, all it does is drive people to Hillary. Women, especially.”
While Limbaugh suggested that Clinton did not cross her legs because she “could not” cross them, etiquette expert Miss Manners (Judith Martin), on page 133 of her book Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior (W.W. Norton & Co., 2005), notes: “A lady’s [at-ease posture while seated] is to cross her ankles.” As a still clip of video from the debate shows, this is exactly what Clinton was doing.”
@33
I wrote this @19
‘As some blogger put it recently: If Bush was found to be the murderer of Jon Benet Ramsey or photographic evidence was found of him raping a goat there are still some who would continue to support him. That’s you Pudwanker-and Piper.”
And, of course, Rightstuff.
@33 Re: gridlock. The Republicans in the Senate set a record last session for most bills obstructed. That is why there is gridlock. Because the Republicans are more loyal to their party than to their country or serving the people they were elected to serve.
Keith Olbermann is an arrogant little cocksucker that needs to be put to death in a painful fashion.
Nice.
@33:Right stuff (if by right you mean wrong or lies):
– thanks for the confirming that the truth doesn’t matter to you and your right wing bush following non-thinkers.
935 lies in the lead up to Iraq: that is almost 3 lies/day in two years. Just another impressive Bush and republican record. I appreciate you defending the lies of the Bush administration – it allows me to really understand what you write and evaluate your credibility.
@38: I believe you republicans would call that torture and then enshrine it our our constitution.
Republicans: Weak gasbags. You wimps can’t even catch bin Laden (and you don’t try). Patriots my ass – just a bunch of lying facists who can’t have a website of their own – so they lurk here and post stupid diatribes.
Pathetic weaklings.
@41
MEGA DITTOS! MEGA DITTOS!
Cocksucking correctnotright,
I’m not a Republican. You should read the criticisms I levy against the Republicans over at Stefan’s blog. Those fucktards actually accuse me of being a Democrat! Can you believe it.
I hate Keith-O because he’s an unctious little bastard. Every time I see his pompous ass on TV I want to put my fist into his face and cause him great pain. He’s a dick with ears.
@40-41 fringe
indictments?
935 lies? Wow, the echo chamber really is loud.
Until there are convictions, you and the fringe are just full of hot air, chasing windmills….
@10 No. I don’t take orders from you.
If you don’t like it, piper, you have the option of reading (and posting on) some other blog … OR … if you don’t want to deprive yourself of the pleasure of reading HA then all you have to do is ask some 6 year old kid to show you how to use your scroll key. Whiner.
@46…RR…
Excuse me??? Since this is my first post on this thread, to what in the demented world you call your brain are you referring???
Not just content to eat them, do you smoke your carrots too?
Back to work…I have a deadline today that can’t be missed.
The Piper
@44: You want indictments and convictions – I already published the list of republicans indicted or convicted of crimes – it was over 30 people long. See the follwowing link:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/grandolddocket.php
Just a bunch of criminals, liars and corrupt officials – heard of Jack Abramoff? David Safavian (GSA)? Bob Ney? Duke Cunningham? Scooter Libby? Tom Delay? Larry Craig?Just to name a prominent few.
You support corruption – because the republicans are corrupt. Now you also support liars. Live with your choices.
@46: RR
You got the wrong guy: that was Puddy not Piper.
I know it is confusing – but you need to keep your trolls straight.
I actually kind of like Piper – I strongly disagree with his views – but he is consistent.
Puddy I am still trying to figure out. I think I would actually like him in person – but I still can’t stand his constant defense of Bush and the republicans and constant attacks on democrats. Puddy has to have the last word and be right…he needs to conquer the liberals…no amount of lies, ineptitude or corruption by republicans will sway Pudddy.
@47: Smoked carots sound good
I like them roasted more…
@17 Samuelson is simply waking up to what I’ve known for 40 years: That the economic libertarians and conservatives are wrong. Unregulated capitalism doesn’t work and is ultimately self-destroying (taking everyone else down with it). As imperfect as government regulation is, a regulated economy is sustainable, whereas jungle capitalism is not. Those who argue that free market excesses are self-correcting overlook the damage these excesses leave behind — and the fact there are more excesses right around the corner.
Libertarianism is a fundamentally flawed philosophy because it assumes that self-interest equates with good (or at least socially tolerable) behavior. It usually doesn’t. This can be easily illustrated with a simple example: Traffic laws.
The fact traffic laws are routinely flagrantly disobeyed is not a reason to abolish traffic laws and adopt of system of unregulated traffic flow. Although traffic enforcement is spotty and never comes close to eliminating speeding, tailgating, running red lights, blowing yield signs, and other socially undesireable (and self-destructive) behavior, it keeps things orderly enough to make a transportation system possible and keep the casualty toll in terms of property damage, injuries, and lost human lives within manageable (if disagreeable) limits.
The same is true of government regulation of the economy and markets. Removing those controls and abandoning the economy to the law of the jungle will result in most people refusing to participate. This will lead to reversion to a primitive, low-productivity economy in which most economic units attempt to be self-sufficient and avoid economic exchanges and interactions with other units. It would turn our nation into a hundred million little socially and economically isolated islands — all living at a subsistence level.
As Samuelson says in the article you linked, “Capitalism’s most dangerous enemies are capitalists.” It’s true; and it’s a lesson repeatedly taught to us by history; and it reflects a tendency of human nature that our willfully self-misguided libertarian and conservative friends legs out from under not only their economic but also their political philosophy.
Regulators are, in fact, capitalism’s best friends because it is they who enable to capitalism to survive. The liberals who believe in regulated capitalism as the best practical system we can devise are right; the libertines are grievously in error, and if permitted to inflicted their malpractice on the nation, will harm us all including themselves.
For example, I refuse to participate as a wage earner in a system totally controlled by employers who are free to dictate all the terms of employment to their own self-interest; which, of course, means a system in which workers must pay for their education and training themselves, pay all of their work-related expenses themselves, work for low wages with no job security or benefits or health care or retirement; and pay much higher taxes than the “owners.”
I refuse to participate in such a system. Therefore, I don’t work or produce anything. Instead, I chose to live at a subsistence level, or as far above it as my self-contained economy can support. Why should I work hard to make someone else prosperous? Why should I work at all when the system is as heavily stacked against workers as ours is, now that economic conservatives have had a quarter-century to work their will upon the American economy? Fuck them, I’m not willing to sacrifice myself for their sole benefit.
Since 2001, workers’ share of U.S. GDP has dropped from an already-low 60% to under 50%, and average real wages have fallen more than 8%. Since 1970, the U.S. economy has grown enormously in wealth, but America’s working class is no better off — 100% of those gains have been taken and kept by the Owner Class. What incentive is there to participate in the economic system they’re creating?
I’m a dropout. Why shouldn’t I? There’s nothing in it for me.
Conservatives never miss an opportunity to tell us how much they hate unions, and peddle false propaganda about how bad unions are for the country, the economy, and above all, the working man and woman. They are lying; nothing could be further from the truth. Unions created America’s middle class. Before unions, America was sharply divided between the very rich and the very poor, with only a tiny merchant and professional middle class.
Moreover, the conservative argument against unions is utterly hypocritical. They see nothing wrong with owners of capital organizing into powerful combinations against their labor and customers, consisting of corporate organizations, boards of directors, executive teams, and so on. Yet, they insist that each worker bargain with this powerful entity individually, and reel in horror against the idea of workers bargaining together to partially offset the awesome organized power of corporations in order to marginally improve their lot — conservatives all this “communism” and somehow do not see the irony of the corporate communism they themselves practice and assiduously extol.
These conservatives are utterly blind to the fact they are destroying the very laissez faire system they are working so hard to create. It is not self-sustaining and eventually will collapse on top of them.
As proof, I will offer a seemingly minor yet portentous item from today’s news basket:
“Washington asparagus growers expect high prices but few workers
“The Associated Press
“PASCO — Asparagus growers are licking their chops over the prospect of more record prices but fear much of their production might never reach consumers because of labor shortages.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....gus23.html
Labor shortages? How can you have labor shortages on the cusp of a recession with unemployment already above 5% and rising? I’ll tell you how. Asparagus growers so completely control the terms and conditions of employment in the asparagus fields, and have skewed them so far in their own favor, that even unemployed workers consider themselves better off NOT WORKING. Not on these terms and conditions, anyway. All these farmers “licking their chops” think about is keeping ALL of that higher cash flow for themselves. If they want to sell their crops, but can’t attract workers, the solution is obvious — use some of that cash flow to pay higher wages. Share some of the higher prices consumers are willing to pay with the workers who produce the product. But no, they’re not willing to do that. So fuck ’em — no asparagus will be picked, no asparagus will be consumed, no jobs will be created, no wages will be earned or spent … that’s where unregulated capitalism takes you.
I’m not saying government should intervene to regulate the wages of asparagus pickers. In fact, I’m against that, because I think this kind of economic micromanagement is unhealthy and counterproductive. I’m simply pointing out that the CHEAP LABOR CONSERVATIVES’ economic construct produces dropouts, lower productivity, and no income for anyone (including the Owner Class). In short, it doesn’t work. Therefore, we shouldn’t let these people dictate the terms of our economic life.
The pendulum has swung so far to the right that fundamental reforms are now needed. We must revise the tax code to remove the penalty against working, just as we revised it a few years ago to remove the so-called “marriage penalty” that led many people to live together in sin. (There is a similar “marriage penalty” in the social security system that is causing many widowed senior citizens to shack up with each other.) We need to strengthen workers’ rights, restore their collective bargaining rights, and revitalize unions — and also strengthen the other mechanisms of the economy that enable workers to get their fair share of the economic pie. We need to pass laws creating enforceable shareholders rights and other legal mechanisms to discourage CEOs from assembling captive boards of directors and then writing their own compensation packages. We need to reform the current system of corporate governance that rewards failure and leaves the real owners of the enterprise — the shareholders — powerless to protect their self-interest. And we must prosecute and meaningfully punish — with looooong prison sentences — those who steal by backdating options, falsifying financial statements, etc.
If we don’t impose these reforms on an economic system that has clearly run amok under the mismanagement of economic libertines and cheap labor conservatives, not only will labor walk away but the owners of capital will also walk away — simply for self-preservation. Then the economy will collapse, and no one will end up with anything, including those who brought about its collapse.
@47 I stand corrected. That response was directed at He Who Calls Himself “THE Puddybud The Prognosticator”.
However, since there is no discernible difference between you two, it is a de minimis error, therefore no apology is needed or appropriate.
@47 Work? I doubt you have any work. I think you must be talking about straightening up the meaningless papers on your desk to make it look good on the chance a paying customer may someday walk in the door.
Man it’s fun to insult these trolls.
@43 So you manage to be wrong in both directions and piss off everyone on both sides of the aisle? My, you ARE talented!
@44 Indictments have to precede convictions, idiot. Of course, you’ll never see Republican criminals indicting their own confederates. That will have to wait until we get an administration willing to uphold the laws and employ honest prosecutors instead of party hacks. Don’t worry, it’s coming. That dark line you see on the horizon is a 100-foot-high wave of indictments. All — and I do mean ALL — of you un-American gangsters are going to jail. So many Republicans are going to be held accountable for their lawbreaking that federal prisons won’t be able to hold them all; we’ll have to use the FEMA concentration camps that were intended for immigrants and liberal dissidents. Thanks for building them, asswipes. They’re going to come in handy after we liberals restore the rule of law to this country.
Carrots aren’t for smoking, and pot isn’t for eating.
“For example, I refuse to participate as a wage earner in a system totally controlled by employers who are free to dictate all the terms of employment to their own self-interest; which, of course, means a system in which workers must pay for their education and training themselves, pay all of their work-related expenses themselves, work for low wages with no job security or benefits or health care or retirement; and pay much higher taxes than the “owners.”
I refuse to participate in such a system. Therefore, I don’t work or produce anything. Instead, I chose to live at a subsistence level, or as far above it as my self-contained economy can support. Why should I work hard to make someone else prosperous? Why should I work at all when the system is as heavily stacked against workers as ours is, now that economic conservatives have had a quarter-century to work their will upon the American economy? Fuck them, I’m not willing to sacrifice myself for their sole benefit.”
And the reality? You don’t work becuase you are not employable……
Your repetative rants over and over about how you don’t work, “why should I?” are nothing more than empty boasting from a washed up hack.
Sucks to be you.
@51 I’m sure that the Soviets would agree with you about a regulated economy being sustainable… Oh, wait a minute.
The fact of the matter is, Roger, if you’re running a business, you do it to make money. NOT to provide jobs. Not having experienced the private sector, you may not be aware of that small detail. That being the case, I’m damned sure going to trust my own instincts when it comes to protecting and growing my business as opposed to some “pie-in-the-skyer” academic, who doesn’t have a clue how things work in the real world…Let alone some fat-assed government bureaucrat that has no conception of life without a public safety net. Providing jobs and treating employees well makes sense. But only because it’s good for the business, not because it’s the point of the business.
You go on spouting your “capitolism would be better if” theories. I’d prefer to stick with what actually works.
Roger Rabbit,
After checking the link, I’m at a loss as to where you get your data on the terms and conditions of the growers. I agree your generalities about the need for unions, but not sure on your conclusions of the example.
Not many growers would want to let their crops rot rather than pay enough to attract workers?
Maybe that’s the excuse for employing lower wage illegals?
How convenient of Clark County to give you an excuse to not discuss the Democrat Party Race War du jour. Stephanie Miller meets your war head on (a pro-Obama caller this morning said that Clinton & Clinton & her/his Clintonistas were “brown shirt” bullies in Nevada who screamed “Osama Obama” during the caucus), but HA and its official greeter/bleater/excreter get to hide and slide.
About what you’d expect from a blog run by the spawn of a shrink, the only profession even more disreputable than Democrat lawyer.
The Clark County gang is at it again…
They have an ‘explanation’ posted on their opening page now:
“Barack Obama Story Posted on This Website Removed for Factual Inaccuracies
01/22/08
Recently information which we received from various sources regarding the backgound of Presidential Candidate Barack Obama was posted to our website. This information was not properly researched and was found to have some factual errors and some exaggerations. It has always been our goal to fact check what we post to the website and to post accurate information. We apologize for not having done our due diligence in this situation.”
“…some factual errors and exaggerations”????????? How about:
“The whole thing was a widely-discredited steaming pile of bull manure, and we should never have posted it, except that it said something bad about a Democrat and we couldn’t help ourselves. And we realized that if we got this out there, a good portion of our Faux-News watching constituency would only see that and believe every slimy word of it. But don’t the rest of you left-wingers *dare* post anything that might possibly show Dino Rossi in a bad light, even if it is a video of him making a complete ass of himself. Thank you.”
*THAT* would have been a good retraction, not the wishy-washy ‘some factual errors’ garbage that only serves to make it look like the Clark County Republican Party has the total intelligence of a box of hammers.
@60: Poor Thomas Jefferson would be turning over in his grave if he actually had to read your crap.
Talk about the real world? Well, your poor excuse for economic theories (let the coporations do what they want and make money) was tried in this country. If you knew anything about HISTORY, then you would realize that the time of the robber barons and the great depression led the majority of real americans to say that government of, by and for the corporations doesn’t work – you end up in the REAL world with Enron, tainted toys from China, subprime loans, oil companies with record profits and monopolies and economic mayhem.
Free trade and the market no longer exist – so we need a government that supports people – not multinational corporations. We need an energy policy designed to get us off foreign oil – not to satisfy the few big oil companies with enough bucks to sit at the table with Dick Cheney. We need publicly financed elections to get big coporations out of politics – and the Republicans and Abramoff and their corruption out of washington.
@63: I guess we don’t get to see any videos of Dino Rossi then – because he makes a fool of himself every time he speaks.
I particularly liked his constant whining about no recounts in the last election – until he lost – then he wanted a re-recount. It reminded me of my dog whining incessantly for a toy that he was actually sitting on….
@51…RR…
John Maynard Keynes went out with high-button shoes, Nehru jackets, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and positive impressions of the Carter Administration (both of them…impressions, that is).
The Piper
Unfortunately, there are hordes of conservative dominionists in Clark County who are eating this up. They’ll watch the furor over it, grumble about the “liberal biased Satanist media” and dutifully vote for whoever their pastors instruct them to from the pulpit.
Piper:
I love the anachronistic references to Nehru jackets.
I think the Laffer curve has been thoroughly trashed by now….it is flat-lining.
66 And everything has been turning to shit ever since.
I am Republican – I lie, cheat and steal when I’m not being a family man (fat whore), bastard that I am.
@64 And just who is it that gets to decide what a given corporation should be doing? You? Your ideological breathern? Why should I put my money into a business that you are then going to come along and fuck up? Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
People like you are always so sure that you know better how to run my, and everyone else’s life. What makes you think so? It sure as hell isn’t intellectual superiority. Obviously it isn’t critical thinking skills either. So what’s the secret? Maybe if you have any knowledge of history, and I mean real knowledge, not the ideologically bent crap that’s fed to students these days, you’d know how little sense you’re actually making. The so-called “Robber Barons” of yesteryear were NOT Capitalists at all, they were manopolists – and made so by government fiat. Remove competition and you get the problems you ascribe to capitalism. Capitalism works. Period. Even the commies finally gave up and became capitalists. That should tell you something.
I don’t have too big of a problem with unions in general but
I never met a pro union worker who had his house built by
a union shop. Why and how could they do this? Bill Gates’
house was union built. Took FOREVER. Why do union workers buy non union houses?
Though I moved to the desert two years ago, I’m originally from Vancouver. This doesn’t surprise me one bit. For once I wish my birthplace would get on the national news for something besides Tonya Harding, meth, or now, the desperate Clark County GOP.
But who am I kidding? What’s the difference? They all form the same constituency! I still shudder to remember the 1994 write-in campaign of Linda Smith, and the Dino Rossi debacle left me gleefully laughing… All-in-all, maybe it’s a good thing my new friends are only vaguely familiar with Portland.
correctnotright says: Puddy I am still trying to figure out. I think I would actually like him in person – but I still can’t stand his constant defense of Bush and the republicans and constant attacks on democrats. Puddy has to have the last word and be right.
Correctnotright: The power of the Internet. I’d love to meet you and discuss politics. The problem I have with posters on this board is the heard mentality. Darryl caught me once long ago on a topic I dodn’t research well enough. So I research now.
You on the other hand love to post without looking at facts. WHen I posted the facts above Dave Reichert at least you repositioned your attack. But you didn’t change the overall premise. With more research into the Green River Killings and having read most parts of two books, much of what Geov put from Frank doesn’t hold water from other investigators. I have to give it to you, at least you saw facts and tried to moderate. Idiots like YLB see the facts and dig a deeper hole.
Now about your Bush hating. Yes, he’s made mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes in war. Ever read Patton? Or Bradley? Or Montgomery? How about Westmoreland? But no one wants to discuss how the 9/11 attackers got into the US. The Power of the Internet has shown there were lax times in the 90s regarding border and immigration security. Atta should have been deported!
Wankers for Bush says:
I would love to see a link confirming he rescued people. My recollection was that his boat was overloaded with camera-men and it was sinking.
Amity Shlaes (today) reports that rich radicals such as Michael Moore and Spike Lee harm the victims of Hurricane Katrina by distorting the truth about their ordeal. Lee, for example, recently repeated Kanye West’s slander that the federal government let New Orleans die because
George Bush and Condoleezza Rice don’t like black people. .
Unlike Lee, Moore, and West, liberal historian Douglas Brinkley of Tulane University was there in New Orleans when the levee broke. A New York Times review of Brinkley’s book, The Great Deluge, notes that the federal government made mistakes (just as Clinton’s FEMA did when responding to Hurricane Floyd in 1999), but it was Mayor Ray Nagin “who
waited too long to order a mandatory evacuation, who left the buses to rot, who turned his back on those who couldn’t leave. It was Nagin, ‘terrified for his own personal safety,’ who rarely visited the frantic throngs at the Superdome and the convention center … Rarely have so many desperate Americans been so completely abandoned by their government.”
Journalists who showed up to sift the ruins for dirt compounded Katrina’s destruction by recycling lies about the President’s “racism” and by rushing to print with racist rumors about the storm’s poorest victims who, it was falsely reported, were shooting at rescue helicopters, killing each other in the Superdome, and raping children.
Amity Shlaes is correct. The citizens of New Orleans, victims of America’s worst disaster, are being victimized now by rich reporters and celebrities who are using a city’s pain for their own profit.
Notes:
NYT Book Review, 9 July 2006
‘Hell & High Water’ – David Oshinsky (Review of ‘The Great Deluge’, Douglas Brinkley)
Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center warned the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, that his city was in peril.
For Brinkley, who teaches history at Tulane University in New Orleans, Katrina has a deeply personal edge. One can easily read ‘The Great Deluge’ as a morality tale, pitting helpless victims, heroic citizens and a few decent politicians against an inept bureaucracy at every link in the chain. This was an avoidable catastrophe, more the fault of man than of nature, Brinkley says, and those responsible must be held to account.
City administrators had done no serious hurricane planning, despite repeated warnings from the scientific community.
Though Nagin ‘strongly advised’ people to leave, he didn’t issue a mandatory evacuation order until the following day. By then, about 20 percent of the 460,000 residents were still in the city.
Buses were supposed to evacuate them, but many of the drivers had fled the city and hardly anyone knew where to go to be picked up. Among the most infamous photos of the Katrina disaster are the ones showing rows of buses sitting idly on flooded ground.
Survivors straggled into the Superdome and the convention center … Rarely have so many desperate Americans been so completely abandoned by their government.
The White House was remote and unresponsive, viewing natural disaster relief as a distraction from the war on terror. … In one instance, dozens of first responders — including firefighters and paramedics — were diverted from New Orleans to Atlanta ‘for training on rules against sexual harassment.’
[The Cajun Navy: rural whites who strapped their boats to their pickups and traveled in caravans to New Orleans. Sweeping through black neighborhoods by day, sleeping in their trucks at night, the Cajuns saved close to 4,000 lives.]
On the local level, Brinkley sees one villain above all. The Ray Nagin we meet in these pages is part coward, part showboat, part Uncle Tom.
A pawn of the city’s business elite, ‘always deferential to whites,’ he sold out his race. … When it comes to poor people, the book suggests, the mayor couldn’t have cared less.
It was Nagin who waited too long to order a mandatory evacuation, who left the buses to rot, who turned his back on those who couldn’t leave. It was Nagin, ‘terrified for his own personal safety,’ who rarely visited the frantic throngs at the Superdome and the convention center …
Puddy:
I know we disagree on many topics. But I respect facts and can admit when I am wrong. I generally – but not always – agree with goldy.
I will not stand for racial epithets – they have no place here or anywhere else. Anyone who tried to insult you for your race is dead wrong.
I may disagree – and get a little vehement – but I am not trying to insult. You made a good point on the beginnings of affirmative action being started by a republican – Nixon.
In my mind Willie Horton ads and other republican “states rights” quotes by Reagan put republicans in the anti-civil rights catagory.
I am also troubled by the Clintons going after Obama on race – just as I am troubled by anyone going after gays, women or any other group for being who they are.
#77 correctnotright says:
Lying bullshit! You hate conservatives.
Everyone knows what you are, don’t pretend.
Gee Marvin. How awful it must be to be you!