A snapshot a friend took at the Fremont Solstice parade. I think you can all guess the name over the frame on the flip side.
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
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That frame belongs on a much larger ass.
… Goldstein?
Will the liberal blogs continue operations after Bush is gone and the Dems control the White House and Congress?
PI @ 3
Alas… we will never know.
3 – Absolutely, far right wing Republicans are like herpes, they don’t go away.
And there’s a progressive agenda to pursue. That means more and BETTER Dems – always.
…aaaaaand when the indictments start coming down, the fun is REALLY gonna start.
Boo-Yahhhh!!!
I know what the picture frame on the flip side says: “DICK”.
@ 6:
Do you really think so?
I’m just certain nothing is going to come of all these “investigations.” It’s so late in Bush’s presidency now that even their blatant disregard for the Rule of Law is not being enforced by anyone. Especially, Nancy “the cunt” Pelosi.
I too think that there will be much to investigate. We’ve probably only seen the tip of the iceberg. The republicans are so corrupt, and their corruption so far reaching, I think it may shock everyone – even those of us who know they are crooks. I think the country will DEMAND that these crooks and liars be brought to justice. The blogs will play a part there. And when we control everything, there won’t be anything stopping us from putting the assholes in jail.
By the way I agree – the frame belongs on a much larger ass.
I just read that that the SCOTUS ruled that the death penalty for child rape is unconstitutional if the crime does not result in the death of the victim. A 5-4 decision of course.
Kiddie rapers are scum – lock ’em up and throw away the key, they will not have an easy time in prison by any stretch.
That said I’m totally against the death penalty. It solves next to nothing and there are many examples of innocent people being executed. Death row is filled with people who did not have the means to fight back against overzealous prosecutors mainly poor people and people of color.
It’s totally weird that executions in this country make the front page news in countries like Denmark. They think we’re the wild west out here – that we’re freaking barbaric. And to some extent it’s true – our prison population is way over the top and the whole subject of the prison-industrial complex is getting too little scrutiny.
Another 5-4 decision. Think about it. A McInsane in the White House means more and more executions. Republicans of course love that. Republicans have no problem with this country sinking into some third-rate backwater as long as rich people get richer and their morbid fears and anxieties are assuaged by executions, harsh sentencing laws and endless military bloodbaths abroad.
And the latest on the bush white house corruption:
The so-called Justice dept. under bush uses political litmus tests to hire “honors” lawyers – they turn down Rhodes scholars and clerks to the supreme court if they belong to the “wrong” organizations in favor of “right- thinking” fellow travelers.
Pure Stalinism, cronyism and corruption that have politicized the Justice department. That is the epitome of the republican way – your views are more important than merit. Think like us or we won’t hire you to a non-political office.
Where is the republican outrage over the apparatchik system for corrupting the justice department. Now we have:
political hirings, political firings if not enough democrats are prosecuted or if any republicans are prosecuted.
Bush and the republicans have destroyed the impartial justice system in this country.
Another 5-4 decision. Think about it. A McInsane in the White House means more and more executions.
True – an not because McCain even cares about the issue one way or another; it doesn’t affect him, just like overturning Roe or Griswold wouldn’t affect him. But he would do it just to pander. Think about that, Republicans, when you go to vote for this guy. He pretends to be an independent thinker, when in reality he simply has no principles at all, and is for sale to the highest campaign contributor!
They could not have done all they did without the complicity of powerful Democrats.
I don’t think much will happen to them — if anything.
Republican means inept, corrupt, power-hungry, greedy.
Who wants to vote for that?
No wonder Dino won’t put the word “Republican” on the front page of his website.
Dino – you can run but you can’t hide!
YOU ARE A REPUBLICAN!!!
14 – HL, it is true that there are many bush dog Democrats that are beholden to the same corporate and monied interests as the Republicans.
They gotta go, most def.
We need more but mostly BETTER Democrats.
cnr @ 12
Yes, Republicans want to institutionalize bad things like cronyism, corruption, bellicosity and ineptitude. And then Republicans want to destroy the good: justice, privacy, autonomy, egalitarianism, effective and rational international relations.
I’m beginning to think that the Obama presidency will start off much as the Ford & Carter presidencies did – the nation will just be so happy to get on with a normal government, that they will not want to revisit the corruption of the Republican years.
In a way, it’s a shame. The scandals have become so frequent, and so devious, that we’ve gotten to the point where we just kind of shrug them off. “After all, what do you expect from the Republicans”, we seem to say.
Remember that Karl Rove was involved in the higher reaches of the College Republicans during the Watergate years (even though he had dropped out of college some time beforehand). Some of his fellow Republicans let it out that he, as student of convicted Watergate conspirator Segretti, had given seminars on how to conduct dirty tricks on Democratic opponants, including having volunteers go through their trash on the curb to look for anything that they could use against them. This came to the attention of the Watergate investigators, but they had much bigger fish to fry, so the matter was dropped.
And Karl Rove actually benefited from the whole issue, because in a disputed election which was appealed to the then-chairman of the National Republican Party, George H.W. Bush, Rove linked the “leak” about his tactics to his opponant, resulting in Bush angrily giving the election to Rove and pretty much kicking his opponant out of the party. And Rove came to the attention of the Bush family as a loyal Republican operative who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty on behalf of the party.
So what did Rove learn from this whole affair? He took home several lessons. First, he learned that you can steal an election and get away with it. Second, he learned that trashing your opponant is the best defense, even if you are guilty of the claimed offense. Third, he learned that cronyism wins over morality, every time (at least within the Republican Party).
What worries me is if we don’t investigate and pursue every Republican scandal, there are thousands of would-be Rove’s out there, waiting to see if the same lessons hold true. They will be waiting out the next four years, throwing wild and unfounded accusations out at the Obama presidency, and waiting to get back in charge so they can do the same things all over again.
Talked with a home rehab person the other day. He’s picking up foreclosed properties, rehabbing them, and renting them out. He’d like to flip them, but credit is so tight now that it’s hard to sell, so he’s trying to rent them until the market improves. I’ve known him for a while, he’s been doing this for the past ten years or so.
Anyway, he was complaining, rather angrily, about getting into a house to find that the former owners had been so upset with their bank that when they left the house, they poured fast-setting concrete down all the sinks, shower drains, and toilets. He’s having to rip out most of the walls and some of the floors to replace the plumbing. He can understand the anger – apparantly the bank re-set their interest rate from 5% to 8-1/2%, and started forclosure with the first late payment. But willful destruction always upsets him (as it does me).
But this got me to thinking. We all know that Obama has a big job ahead of him, cleaning up eight years of incredible mis-administration by the Bush administration and their congressional accomplices (the previous Republican Congress, 2000 – 2006). But are they so petty that they would like to see the country sink even further down the hole, just to blame Obama for not digging it out fast enough?
Remember that in 2006 the Republican Congress refused to pass a budget. It wasn’t blocked by the Democrats, they just refused to pass it even thought they had the ability to do so. Instead, they put that burden off onto the next Congress, where the Democrats held a majority. Now that the Democrats had to enact budgets for TWO fiscal years within the same calander year, the Republicans are using that to try to claim that the Democrats doubled federal spending!
Sigh. It must be pretty sad to have to sink so low. I rather miss the arguments with true conservatives like Barry Goldwater and his kind over the proper function and limits of the federal government. At least they were intellectually honest, and you could find some common ground. Unfortunately, the current crop of Republicans would rather trade lies and distortion if they think it will gain them an advantage. They COUNT on the electorate to be ill-informed.
The Republicans are stuck! McSame has to win. If he doesn’t, all bets are off for them. President Obama’s AG (John Edwards would be too cool) will prosecute the Republicans for their many crimes. It’d be great if any Vichy Dems who collaborated with the Republican criminals would face the music as well. We don’t need criminal enablers and accessories in our party.
Right now the Republicans in the DOJ have bottled up any new prosecutions against Republicans for Shrub to pardon so McInsane doesn’t look bad and has a better chance of winning in November.
No wonder Republicans like Rove and Ken Mehlman are so 100 percent behind John Flip-Flop McSame. They don’t want to go to jail.
rhp @ 19
Your friend had better be careful of Washington’s new Distressed Property Law.
The Congressional Democrats seem to do a lot of posturing and speechmaking and “investigating”, but they really haven’t put the feet of anybody important to the fire, with the possible exception of Gonzales, who had become such an embarrassment that the administration may have decided to make him a sacrificial lamb. Meanwhile, as we now find out, they’ve been stuffing the mid-level ranks in the Justice Department (and probably elsewhere) with legions of Monica Goodlings, who a Democrat-run administration will have some trouble getting rid of as they hide behind the civil-service rules, in violation of which they got hired in the first place.
Then we can talk about how Congess keeps dropping its pants and bending over whenever Bush needs a free pass on torture or spying on all of us, or more billions for his half-assed war.
Why they’re doing so little to even try to slow down the juggernaut remains a mystery. Perhaps Pelosi and others have had it made clear to them that if they become enough of a nuisance, the button gets pushed on another war in Iran.
The Real Mark @ 21: He’s not affected. He buys the properties from the banks after foreclosure, he doesn’t deal directly with the borrower. He just buys them from the bank, rehabs, them, and then rents or sells them to a new family.
If he bought it from the borrowers prior to foreclosure and then offered to rent it back to them with an option to re-purchase, then he would fall pretty clearly within the target area of the law.
As a person who does debt counseling at my church, I’ve seen lots of abuse in that area. “Foreclosure Advisers” who come in and offer to refinance the property, then string the buyer along until it’s too late for them to do anything else, and then turn it into an offer to “buy with a lease w/ option to re-purchase”, effectively skimming off all of the equity in the property. The borrower is worse off talking to these people than he was beforehand, because he is discouraged from seeking other alternatives while he has time to do so. The “rent with option to buy” usually turns out to be nothing more than a month-to-month rental agreement with an option to purchase at whatever price the new owner wants to set, effectively making the option worthless. Oral promises that a portion of the rent will be applied to the purchase price seem to dissapear in the final documents. It’s no wonder the legislature stepped in to try to control this practice.
As a debt counselor, I’m probably governed by this law, at least in part, simply by acting as a debt counselor to people who are in foreclosure (or close too it). I’m not worried about it, as it simply says I have some fiduciary responsibilities with respect to my relationship with the borrowers. Since I don’t make any money of my counseling (I’m a volunteer), I don’t personally profit from my advice, and I don’t refer them to any specific people or firms, I’m pretty safe.
The real estate agents seem to be going into conniptions over it, however. They are arguing that innocent buyers might somehow be caught in the “trap” of the law. Personally, I don’t see it. Some real estate agents have been profiting pretty handsomely from these deals, so I’m not too sympathetic about those people being covered by the act. As for the rest, a little education and fair dealing with their clients should be sufficient to protect themselves. But instead, they are trying to get the legislature to specifically exclude them from the law – which would be a loophole big enough to drive a Mac truck through, as my old football coach used to say.
GBS @ 8-
I can’t help but think that when the real stories start coming out about the criminal malfeasance and misfeasance by these dicks….there will be no choice but to prosecute.
I can see moderate Republicans (the one or two that are left) throwing the Bushies under the bus in a (mostly vain) attempt to save their own tushes.
byebyegop give us your address and we will have the frame sent to you.but if the frame has to fit your ass then we would have to cut down a red wood.