SPECIAL NOTICE

The Rockford Rascal is going on indefinite hiatus while I take up blogging for a while at this site:
http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce.

See you there.

Obamania hits Granite State

The junior senator from Illinois has jumped out to a lead of 10 percentage points over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.

Fox News wimps afraid of Ron Paul

Roger Ailes, the dude who runs Fox News, is a big buddy of Rudy Giuliani, which explains this.

Oh, by the way...

The new political wisdom says that Mike Huckabee's victory in Iowa, which scares the bejesus out of establishment Republicans, is a big boost to John McCain's candidacy (see the previous post).

But consider this: Obamania is likely to attract a lot of independent voters to the Democratic primary election in New Hampshire next Tuesday. Those are independent voters who won't be available to McCain to help him gain new traction on the Republican side.

If Huckabee wins in New Hampshire, he's going to be hard to stop, no matter the fervent wishes of his party's elders.

Now what?

In the wake of Iowa's stunning results, the 2008 presidential race suddenly turns a corner and heads down a path so strange that John McCain, with only a fourth-place finish Thursday night, is now seen as a much stronger contender for the Republican nomination.

How weird is that?

BooMan says Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney are finished and predicts that Barack Obama will defeat McCain in November.

The Politicker explains why Mike Huckabee's victory is good news for McCain.

Arianna Huffington wonders if the outbreak of Obamania might be just a fleeting thing.

The Rockford Rascal says it won't be fleeting and offers this bit of eloquence as evidence:

Obama wins!

Well, I got the winners in both parties wrong.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney was much weaker than I had expected. And among the Democrats, I had figured that John Edwards had a better ground game than Barack Obama and that Hillary Clinton was fading.

With some precincts still to report, it looks like Clinton will finish third, a psychological disaster for her campaign.

Clinton has enough money, organization and popular support to soldier on, but if she finishes third tonight, she is badly wounded. Edwards, in second place, has dodged a proverbial bullet.

Huckabee wins Iowa!

I predicted that Romney would win on the Republican side. I was wrong -- and I love it.

Mike Huckabee wins by a wide margin, and Democrats everywhere have cause to lick their chops.

The Republican establishment, on the other hand, will experience a pronounced worsening of its Huckabee panic.

How does Chris Matthews keep his job?

Tweety, as they call him, is billed by MSNBC as a man of keen political insights. The record to the contrary is voluminous and now includes this ridiculous entry.

UPDATE: Here's a video montage of Matthews making the curious case that John McCain will be a "hero" and a comer if he gets 18 percent in tonight's caucuses while Hillary Clinton will suffer humiliating "rejection" if she gets 32 percent on the Democratic side.

Iowa predictions

From around the blogosphere (leftward and rightward alike), educated guesses on the outcomes of the Iowa presidential caucuses can be found here and here and here and here. Check out the comments on those sites, as well.

My own predictions, published three days ago, are here. (I'd be glad to be proven wrong on my picks for winners in both parties. If Obama and Huckabee win, I'll be more than delighted.)

Frederick of Hollywood ready to quit

Fred Thompson, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was doomed from the start, is going to pack it in if he doesn't do well in Iowa tonight, which is a foregone conclusion.

I still can't figure out why anybody thought this guy had a chance. Sure, he's a Hollywood actor, but his on-screen charms, such as they are, haven't transferred well to the political arena. He comes off as a grumpy sort, not the kind of person America wants in the White House. Beyond that problem, he's also been an inept campaigner.

It'll be interesting to see where Rep. Don Manzullo, our congressman here in RascalLand, shifts his allegiance once Freddy is out of the race.

UPDATE: Kos has more on Thompson's imminent departure from the race.

What if Edwards wins Iowa?

If John Edwards finishes first in Thursday night's Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa (which I predicted here a few days ago), the race for the nomination might last a lot longer than would otherwise be the case.

BooMan analyzes the situation here.

POSTSCRIPT: I have to admit that I've lost a little of the confidence I had in my prediction that Edwards will win in Iowa. My radar is picking up on a last-minute rush toward Barack Obama. But I'll stick with my Edwards pick.

This is beyond bad

The Rudy Giuliani camp has taken complete leave of its senses with this commercial, which only dramatizes the emptiness of Rudy's baseless posturing as a tough guy who knows how to protect us from the boogeyman.

I don't figure he wins over even one voter with this spot; quite the opposite, I expect.

Here's a fun glimpse inside politics

The Washington Post has an entertaining piece on grizzled political pro Ed Rollins and his adventures inside the Mike Huckabee campaign.

A conservative politely deconstructs Romney

David Brooks of The New York Times praises Mitt Romney, then buries him.

Sympathy for the Devil

Mike Huckabee plays bass guitar in a rock band, an avocation clearly at moral odds with the teachings of Dr. Bill Gothard, a godly man who founded the Institute in Basic Life Principles.

Among the many publications circulated by Gothard's ministry is something called "Ten Scriptural Reasons Why the Rock Beat is Evil in Any Form."

Of course, Gothard's not the first or only Christian to denounce rock music as devilish. But he's also a big-time supporter of Mike Huckabee's presidential candidacy. So, there's an inconsistency here. Some might even call it hypocrisy.

Justin Jeffre has written this letter to Gothard, asking him to prevail upon Huckabee to renounce his favor for satanic music.

If gambling weren't sinful, I'd bet that Gothard won't say anything to Huckabee about this matter. He seems to lack the courage to speak truth to power.

Wall Street Journal: Democrats pumped

The paper says Republicans are relatively dispirited.

Here are the results of the Iowa caucuses

Remember where you heard it first.

Democratic order of finish:

1. John Edwards


2. Barack Obama


3. Hillary Clinton


4. Joe Biden


5. Chris Dodd

Republican order of finish:

1. Mitt Romney


2. Mike Huckabee


3. John McCain


4. Ron Paul


5. Fred Thompson

Is Huckabee toast?

Ron Fournier suggests that the former Arkansas governor has pulled one stunt too many.

UPDATE: There's more on Huckleberry's screw-up here.

Notable deaths in 2007

These are some of the people (and two horses) whose deaths this year occasioned at least a passing thought on my part (in no particular order):

• Molly Ivins



• Benazir Bhutto



• Jon Lundin



• Barbaro



• Ian Richardson



• Kurt Vonnegut



• Fr. Robert Drinan



• Lorne "Gump" Worsley



• Eleanor McGovern



• Dan Fogelberg



• Norman Mailer



• Anna Nicole Smith



• Donnie Brooks



• Jack Lang



• Charlotte Reid



• E. Howard Hunt



• Denny Doherty



• Art Buchwald



• Lew Burdette



• Hank Bauer



• Ron Carey



• Richard S. Prather



• Benny Parsons



• Carlo Ponti



• Frankie Laine



• Del Reeves



• Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.



• Bobby Rosengarden



• Henson Cargill



• Ed Bailey



• Calvert DeForest (Larry "Bud" Melman)



• Luther Ingram



• Charles Harrelson



• Henry Hyde



• Bowie Kuhn



• Betty Hutton



• Ernie Ladd



• John Vukovich



• Ernest Gallo



• John Drury



• Boris Yeltsin



• Bill Hartack



• Milo Radulovich



• Dick Wilson



• Joe Nuxhall



• Ronnie Burns



• Clem Labine



• Tom Poston



• Gordon Scott



• Tommy Newsom



• Jack Valenti



• Bobby "Boris" Pickett



• David Halberstam



• Ike Turner



• Donald Stephens



• Kitty Carlisle Hart



• Don Ho



• Roscoe Lee Browne



• Dakota Staton



• Johnny Hart



• Barry Nelson



• Oscar Peterson



• Stan Daniels



• Darryl Stingley



• Eddie Robinson



• Gretchen Wyler



• Michael Kidd



• Charles Nelson Reilly



• Jerry Falwell



• Ken Hendricks



• Yolanda King



• Alex Agase



• Wally Schirra



• Liz Claiborne



• Rod Beck



• Guy Vander Jagt



• Bob Evans



• Kurt Waldheim



• Don Herbert



• Mala Powers



• Clete Boyer



• Jim Clark



• Bill France Jr.



• Steve Gilliard



• Michelangelo Antonioni



• Ingmar Bergman



• Bill Walsh



• Tom Snyder



• Tammy Faye Messner



• Lady Bird Johnson



• Rod Lauren



• Boots Randolph



• Beverly Sills



• Jack Linkletter



• Gay Brewer



• Richard Jewell



• Chuck Comiskey



• Leona Helmsley



• Michael Deaver



• Phil Rizzuto



• Merv Griffin



• Lee Hazlewood



• Ed Brown



• Tommy Makem



• Alice Ghostley



• Robert Goulet



• Max McGee



• Evel Knievel



• Joey Bishop



• Deborah Kerr



• John Henry



• Laraine Day



• Hank Thompson



• Paul Tibbets



• Terry Armour

If you've seen one Muslim, you've seen 'em all

That's the opinion of one of Rudy Giuliani's campaigners in New Hampshire.

Ah, but the fellow's intolerance seems to be a bit much for the poohbahs in Rudy's camp.

Ron Paul isn't buying "theory" of evolution

Is this guy an idiot or what? And he's a doctor??

The dumbest poll ever

The headline in USA Today reads: "Bush tops 'most admired' poll."

But that isn't exactly what the story says. The poll actually shows that President Bush and former President Bill Clinton are statistically tied as the most admired men. (Bush is the choice of 10 percent of respondents, and Clinton gets 8 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, so Bush and Clinton are tied.)

Of course, the whole exercise is stupid. Sitting U.S. presidents, no matter how low their overall approval ratings, almost always come out at or near the top in these "most admired" polls. With nine out of every 10 respondents choosing somebody other than the so-called winner, the effort is rightly regarded as a waste of time.

And what are we to make of Hillary Clinton garnering six times as many votes as Laura Bush for the title of most admired woman? We should make nothing of it -- or of anything else having to do with this ridiculous poll.

Wither U.S.-Pakistan relationship?

Here's a worthy little overview of the U.S.-Pakistan situation in the aftermath of today's assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Surprise! Rudy invokes 9/11 in his latest ad

For good measure, he throws in some World War II:

Bhutto slaying boost to Rudy and Hillary?

That's what Joe Scarborough said this morning on MSNBC:

Bob Kerrey would be Hillary's running mate?

This guy says the Medal of Honor recipient will be Hillary's choice for the veep spot if she wins the Democratic nomination.

But I'm not betting it that way. I think Kerrey is too much of a loose cannon, and I can't imagine that Hillary's advisers wouldn't recognize that, too.

Ron Paul is a freaking bigot

For a long time, I've thought that Ron Paul, the cranky libertarian who's running for the Republican presidential nomination, is a little kooky and attracts a lot of people who are more than just a little kooky.

But Paul is worse than that, I've recently learned. He's a racist.

Onward, Christian Soldiers!

This is pretty scary.

Happy Christmas (War is Over)

A Christmas miracle

On this Christmas Day, of all days, I have come across a video that has convinced me, finally, that my belief in evolution has been wrong all along.

It only took a jar of peanut butter to make the truth clear to me:

A Christmas fruitcake filled with politics

Hercubush vs. Ragheadia

Festivus for the rest of us!

Uh-oh! Bushes shun the C-word

This is an outrage. Just when Fox News and us other guardians of the purity of Christmas had the secularists on the run, our own president betrays us.

George W. Bush, on behalf of his wife and his own self, has sent a message to the men and women of the U.S. military in which he wishes them "a joyful holiday season." Joyful holiday season! But there's no mention of Christmas or the true meaning of the holiday.

If you don't believe me, check it out here on the White House Web site.

It's a wonder he didn't mention Rudolph or Santa or some other phony icon of the season.

Well, this kind of thing won't happen when Mike Huckabee's president. No, sir.

GOP elite gripped by Huckabee panic

Here's another report on the hysteria among Republican establishment types over the unsettling thought that theocrat Mike Huckabee might win the party's presidential nomination.

Go, Mike, go! Give 'em heck (if you'll excuse my French).

Bogus list

Here's a list of the top 10 news stories of 2007, according to the Associated Press.

You'll notice that there's no mention of the launch of The Rockford Rascal last Jan. 27.

What's up with that?

Cigna -- A Business of Caring

A good boiling of your blood on a Friday night before Christmas is just what the doctor ordered.

Administer the boiling here.

Which Democratic candidate is most electable? Hillary, Obama or Edwards?

This poll says it's Obama.

In a hypothetical matchup against Obama, the weakest of the five leading Republican candidates are Romney (minus 18 percentage points) and Thompson (minus 16 percentage points.

The strongest GOPers against Obama are McCain (minus four percentage points) and Huckabee (minus five percentage points).

Against Hillary, three Republicans -- McCain, Giuliani and Huckabee -- are leading by small margins.

Against Edwards, Giuliani and McCain are leading, but only by smidgens.

Huckabee will win GOP nomination?

That's what this guy says.

I'm not so sure. I think Romney still has a decent chance.

McCain? His prospects are exceedingly slim. He's a long, long, long shot.

Giuliani? Thompson? No way for either of them. They're toast.

Ron Paul? C'mon. Get serious.

UPDATE: Bob Novak, the Prince of Darkness, writes of infighting on the Religious Right over Huckabee's candidacy.

Limbaugh et al spread lie about General Giap

For more than a decade now, the pseudo-patriots among us have been peddling a false quotation from a non-existent book said to have been written by former North Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap.

The bogus claim is that Giap said America lost the Vietnam War because of its biased domestic media.

The quotation has been thoroughly debunked, but that hasn't stopped Rush Limbaugh from trotting it out again as recently as earlier this month, which will only give it new life among the booboisie.

POSTSCRIPT: This matter reminds me of the fake Lincoln quotation used earlier this year by right-wingers all across the fruited plain to impugn the patriotism of those in Congress who dared to dissent against our glorious war in Iraq.

"The Watergate of our times"?

This guy says the flap over the torture tapes will become the biggest political scandal since Watergate.

I'm not so sure, but the guy makes an interesting case.

Rudy's fading fast

Too bad.

It would have been great fun to see the Democratic presidential nominee do battle with Rudy Giuliani in the general election campaign.

It also would have been entertaining to see how the right-wingers in the Republican Party cope with the spectacle of having a thrice-married, pro-choice, pro-gay rights guy as their standard-bearer.

But it's not to be. Rudy is sinking like a stone and will be out of the race before Valentine's Day.

Meanwhile, let's all hope that Mike Huckabee wins the GOP nomination. That, too, would be big fun.

Right-winger beats himself up, blames libs

This is too funny.

A right-wing student at Princeton University suffers various injuries in what he says was an attack on him by leftists who had previously threatened him and other campus conservatives.

Fox News and countless wingnut bloggers jump on the story and soil themselves over the injustice of it all.

Then, it turns out that the so-called victim had made up the whole thing and inflicted his own injuries.

Fox News, meanwhile, moves on to some other cause celebre that might stir up the forces of decency and Americanism.

Wait 'til Fox News hears about this!

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, says he isn't buying some of the incidentals that have been attached to the story of the birth of Jesus.

Williams is a little skeptical, for example, regarding the legend of the three wise men, and he doubts that there was snow in Bethlehem at the time of the nativity. And he says, as do most scholars, that Jesus wasn't likely born in December.

The Anglican archbishop isn't saying there was no nativity. But, in rejecting some of the details in the greeting-card version of the event, Williams makes himself the target of derision from the kind of Christians who hate for real history and real scholarship on the matter to disturb their notions of Christmas.

It seems not to occur to the traditionalists that many of their Christmas fantasies have no basis in scripture. There's nothing in the Bible, for instance, about the wise men numbering three.

Creationists' fecal roster

Landover Baptist.net, a satirical "religious" site, has this list of the kind of people creationists have cause to regard with suspicion or disdain because of their views on evolution.

It's funny (and scary).

Still more Huckabee panic

Marc Ambinder assesses the latest in what he calls "the conservative counter-revolution" against religious rightist Mike Huckabee.

This sure is fun to watch, for reasons I previously noted here.

Meeting of the...the....uh...the minds, I guess

Two of our intellectual giants, Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck, discuss Time magazine's choice of Vladimir Putin for its person of the year.

Your so-called liberal media (cont.)

The New York Times receives well-deserved criticism for its peculiar news judgments.

Huckabee says "Paul is dead!"

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, in response to criticisms that his latest TV ad uses a subliminal religious message, said Tuesday:

"I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, 'Paul is dead. Paul is dead.'"

The reference is to a rumor of 38 years ago that then-Beatle Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a look-a-like. Peddlers of the rumor insisted that subliminal clues to Paul's demise were included on certain Beatles recordings, some of them discernible only by playing the records backwards.

The Huckabee ad has attracted darts even from Bill Donahue, a self-appointed guardian of Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular against what he sees as bigotry.

POSTSCRIPT: According to some sources -- this one, for example -- the "Paul is dead" rumor was started in Oct., 1969, by the Northern Star, the campus paper at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, just down the road from world headquarters of The Rockford Rascal.

More on the breakup of the Republican coalition

Some of the stuff I had here and here in recent days is touched upon in this newer wrapup from Kos, but it also has other stuff on the matter.

Take the time. It's the most important political story of the winter so far. The race for the Republican presidential nomination could well spark a civil war in party ranks, and that could significantly effect the national political scene for years.

The Party of Lincoln, as some people call it, is about to go through another one of its historic changes.

Mitt weeps at thought of his sons in war, which hasn't actually happened, thank God

Although Mitt Romney's been a backer of George W. Bush's war in Iraq all along, none of his five sons has ever bothered to join in the fighting. As Mitt has previously noted, the boys are serving their country in their own way -- by working on dad's presidential campaign.

But that doesn't mean that Mitt can't get all weepy at the thought of one of his sons coming back from Iraq in a flag-draped casket. Just yesterday, he recalled having endured such thoughts and emotions.

He's a great American, that Mitt Romney. The man's been through so much. I can hardly bear to write about it.

A political ad that says it's not a political ad

Focus on Iowa caucuses

Tony Snow bravely tells God: I've got your back

The former White House mouthpiece boldly tells it like it is with respect to Satan's latest offensive.

The price of freedom

Blogs and other Web sites that don't screen or censor the comments they receive from among the great unwashed run the risk of publishing truly offensive remarks.

It happens on leftist and rightist sites alike.

Today, it happened on some leftish sites in reaction to news of a small chemical fire at the building in New York that houses Fox News.

The Huckabee Fault Line

As I mentioned here the other day, some prominent conservative pundits are alarmed at Mike Huckabee's sudden move to the front of the Republican presidential pack. This pack of notable right-wing commentators continues to grow in size and vehemence.

The upshot of this trend is that the Republican coalition faces a clear and present danger of falling apart. For decades now, the party's foreign-policy conservatives, corporate conservatives and libertarian-types have been willing to play patty-cake with the more rabid specimens among the social and religious conservatives, just to keep them in the tent -- so long as none of their wackier legislative schemes became national policy. But the Huckabee surge has gained sufficient momentum that it now requires a stern blowback from the GOP's comparative sophisticates.

This creates a political fault line that could take years to heal. It's not likely that Huckabee will get the nomination, and his defeat might well prompt his theocratic supporters to wax bitter against the other Republicans who actively opposed him. Folks on the Religious Right might finally realize that they've been played for suckers. And if Huckabee somehow wins the nomination, the party's elite will abandon him. Either way, the GOP could become badly splintered.

UPDATE: Arianna Huffington offers this assessment of the situation.

UPDATE II: Cynthia Tucker has this.

Dan Fogelberg, R.I.P.

Brave new world

Some lab dudes are on the verge of creating new life forms from artificial DNA, which I think is way, way cool.

Yeah, it's going to raise some ethical questions, but it's useless of moralists to say we shouldn't go there.

The inescapable, incontrovertible reality is that we are going there -- because we can go there, no matter who doesn't like it.

The McCain "surge" (if that's what it is)

Roy Edroso over at Alicublog has an interesting take on the sudden signs of a pulse in John McCain's presidential candidacy, which has won endorsements from the Des Moines Register, the Boston Globe and Democratic (?) Sen. Joe Lieberman:

"Joe Lieberman's expected endorsement of John McCain offers a great opportunity that the Republican Party may be too fractured to avail. McCain is the least absurd of the current pro-war GOP contenders. There are many things I don't like about him, but he was saying from the beginning that the war would require far more effort and cost than the Administration was letting on. And unlike most of his fellow GOP contenders, he doesn't consider torture a fun way to rouse the yahoos.

"In a better world this would have made McCain a more formidable candidate long since, but the Jesus people and many hardcore rightwing operatives actively despise him. These folks are negligible in a general election, but hard to get past in the primaries. The Lieberman endorsement is a great way to signal to relatively sane pro-war voters that McCain might their best bet. But in the current environment, who knows how many of them exist?"

God, this is awful!

The clever folks at the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee have come up with their own version of the "Twelve Days of Christmas."

(Caution: Don't watch this for at least an hour after eating. Oh, and it might be better to just follow the text and not actually listen.)

Creature attacks space shuttle on launch pad

Actually, a spider crawled onto the lens of a NASA video recorder at Cape Canaveral.

Des Moines paper endorses McCain, Clinton

The Register's arguments in both the Democratic and Republican races are far from persuasive (but let's concede that choosing from among the GOP candidates had to be painful and difficult).

Your corporate news media

This is a waste of time and effort

Some well-meaning folks are trying to organize a presidential debate on matters of science.

How naive of them. Do they honestly expect that Republican candidates would be willing to talk about science? Come on. Even the comparatively enlightened among the GOP hopefuls are barely distinguishable from flat-earthers.

The Republican Party, thanks to the Bush administration, has cast itself as the most anti-science crowd this side of the people you see on the street muttering to themselves about the how the space program is a fraud.

Ah, good old Alan Keyes

Those of us in Illinois -- and especially here in Rockford -- have a perspective on Alan Keyes that the rest of America can scarcely appreciate.

Keyes was our Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate back in '04. He was recruited by Rockford State Sen. Dave Syverson, among others, when the winner of the GOP primary had to drop out in a sex scandal.

Keyes didn't even live in Illinois, but the Republican poohbahs seemed to figure that their own articulate black guy could fare well against Barack Obama, so they got him to move here from Maryland.

The result was a disaster. Keyes said his candidacy was "God's will," and opined that Jesus Christ wouldn't vote for Obama. He referred to Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter as "a selfish hedonist" and otherwise condemned homosexuals as evil.

Keyes quickly became a statewide joke and ended up with only 27 percent of the vote.

But lately, if you haven't noticed, Keyes has imposed himself on the hapless field of Republican presidential hopefuls in the 2008 race. His presence, not surprisingly, has been greeted disdainfully by conservative pundits who once regarded him with more fondness.

Roy Edroso surveys the situation here.

Dems pass GOP in money from soldiers, clergy

This is counterintuitive, isn't it?

Why does Fox News hate Jesus?

Just asking. Here's why.

Bush defies generals on torture ban

President Bush likes to say that he sides with the nation's military brass in the face of criticism from those lily-livered Democrats in Congress.

The truth, of course, is something else.

The House has passed a measure banning the torture of terrorism suspects by CIA interrogators. It mirrors a ban already in effect in the U.S. Army. Bush is vowing to veto the measure if it's approved by the Senate.

Ah, but what have we here? Why, it's a letter from no less than 30 retired generals and admirals urging congressional Democrats to hang tough on the torture ban in the face of the president's opposition.

So much for Bush's fealty to the brass.

Right-wing scribe fears GOP "Huckacide"

Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative magazine National Review, sees a disaster for the Republicans if the party nominates Mike Huckabee for president.

Of course, there'd also be a disaster for the GOP if the nod goes to Rudy Giuliani, who would drive away evangelicals by the droves.

These are not happy times for Republicans.

"Nah! That's a bunch of hooey!"

Pope Benedict XVI, famous the world over for his infallibility, has declared that concerns over global warming amount to undue alarmism.

Apparently, the pontiff's underlying point is that Earth never will become hotter than hell.

UPDATE: Hold on! This guy says the pope's position on global warming has been misrepresented. If so, The Rascal begs Benedict's forgiveness.

Your so-called liberal media are at again

The Washington Post, a once-respectable newspaper, is out with another long article about nothing. This time, it's Mitt Romney's hair.

O'Donnell disses Mormonism -- big time

Political pundit Lawrence O'Donnell went ballistic on "The McLaughlin Group" last weekend in a discussion of Mitt Romney's speech on religion:

This is funny

This ad was not approved by Mike Huckabee:

Huckabee: Wives should submit to husbands

Yeah, this should win Mike Huckabee a lot of votes among women (at least the kind who let men tell them that the Bible mandates sexism).

Huckabee would love this video.

Onward Christian soldiers

Atrios reports that defense forces in the War on Christmas have struck a mighty blow against the enemy.

The folks at Fox News must be very proud.

Keeping up can bring you down

There's lots of information available to us in this marvelous age of ubiquitous media, but too much of it is depressing information.

Courtney E. Martin assesses the situation and tries to remain hopeful.

Drudge says Dems rooting for Huckabee

The theory is that the religious extremist from Arkansas would be, by far, the easiest Republican to beat in next year's presidential election.

The Rascal has long figured that Rudy Giuliani would be the most likely pushover. But, upon reflection and in light of recent events, I'm beginning to see the logic of hoping that Huckabee gets the GOP nod.

Actually, I don't see any of the Republican candidates as tough to beat.

Romney? Flip-flopper whose Mormonism would drive away lots of evangelicals. Thompson? Boring and out of his league. McCain? Craven geriatric whose straight-talk pretensions have long since worn thin; besides, the GOP right-wing base doesn't trust him. Tancredo? Paul? Hunter? Get serious.

Remember the "Daisy Girl" spot?

Perhaps the most famous presidential campaign commercial in history was the one for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 in which the not-so-subtle message was that Republican challenger Barry Goldwater might start a nuclear war.

The "Daisy Girl" ad, as it was known, aired only once -- on NBC, during the movie "David and Bathsheba" on Sept. 7 of that year. But countless millions of Americans have seen it in documentaries and news reports over the past 43 years.

Rudy should note that FDR did it, too

If Rudy Giuliani becomes president (heaven forbid), he won't be the first occupant of the office to have been married to his cousin.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's wife also was his cousin. In fact, Eleanor's maiden name was Roosevelt.

Here's the skinny on seven famous folks who married their cousins, including FDR and Rudy.

Let's ask GOP pols about birth control

The question of where they stand on the issue of contraception is the one most Republican candidates don't want to hear.

Their answers run the risk of alienating either conservative religionists or the vast majority of the American people.

Reefer makes you giggle and laugh a lot

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Rudy Giuliani smokes dope on Sunday mornings, but he was pretty giggly yesterday when he appeared on "Meet the Press."



UPDATE: There's more about Rudy's giggling here.

Today is Jane Addams Day

Today is the first annual observance of Jane Addams Day in her native Illinois. It was 76 years ago today that Addams, the famed social reformer, became the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Addams, who has long been one of The Rascal's favorite historical personages, was born in 1860 in Cedarville, a few miles north of my own native Freeport. She attended what later became Rockford College (and earned the school's first academic degree), founded Hull House, the famed social settlement in Chicago, and forged a career in social reform that is unparalleled in our nation's history.

She is widely recognized as the godmother of modern social work, was instrumental in the establishment of juvenile courts, child-labor laws, public health reforms, the 8-hour workday and countless other advances. She also was a founding member of both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, among other organizations.

In 1998, Life magazine empaneled a group of historians to rank the 100 most influential people in the world over the past 1,000 years. Addams was ranked 66th, higher than any other American woman.

Jane Addams died in 1935 at the age of 74 and is buried in a family plot in Cedarville.

Big Al receives some kind of award or something

Global-warming deniers should not watch this video. They'll only become confused by the big words and the references to actual science:

Flat-earther fired for being flat-earther

Oh, the injustice of it all.

A creationist dude has been shitcanned from a research lab because he doesn't believe in evolution.

The guy has filed a lawsuit seeking $500,000 for the trampling of his civil rights.

Your so-called liberal media

Some pinhead at The Washington Post has written a long article about the fact that Hillary Clinton often wears pantsuits.

This is the same Washington Post that spreads baseless rumors about Barack Obama and offers the senile scrawlings of David Broder.

I remember when the Post was a great newspaper.

WatchforRudytorunhiswordstogether

I've never noticed this, but Oliver Willis has.

Don Manzullo voted for this crap

The Rascal's representative in Congress, Republican Don Manzullo, joined with most of his colleagues from both parties the other day in approving legislation that could expose WiFi service providers to unnecessary liabilities.

Oh, but this measure protects children. That's what the pols will tell you.

There's more on the bill here.

Tax cuts boost revenues, right? Wrong!

It's an article of faith among Republicans that tax cuts actually increase government revenues, and it's an article of proven reality among economists that tax cuts don't increase government revenues.

Who you gonna believe? The GOP ideologues or the certifiable experts?

No need for schisms

When I read this, it suddenly occurred to me that the Catholic and Episcopal denominations could easily solve some of their problems by exchanging certain portions of their respective flocks.

All the homophobes and misogynists in the Episcopal Church should convert to Catholicism, and all the Catholics who are uncomfortable with their church's homophobia and misogyny should switch to Episcopalianism. After all, the two demoninations otherwise have a lot in common in terms of liturgy and stuff.

If this brilliant idea catches on, I might qualify for sainthood in both religions. That'd be cool.

Imagine

Before this day passes, let's recall that it's the 27th anniversary of the death of John Lennon:

Why are women more likely to vote than men?

Women have a higher rate of voting because most men are too busy being assholes.

I say that as a man who used to be an asshole. I'm now a wonderful guy. And I vote.

The Baseball Hall of Shame

Former Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn has been elected to the Hall of Fame, but not deservedly.

Most military families oppose Bush's war

Barely one-third of U.S. military families approve of George W. Bush's war in Iraq.

These people must be dirty, commie, hippie scumbags, right? True patriots stand behind our president in a time of war, right? That's what I hear from the folks on Fox News and on talk radio.

Jefferson could never get elected today

Thomas Jefferson, who was not the Christian that some of our preachers these days pretend he was, could not be a contender for the presidency in 2008.

Jefferson was bitterly opposed by the Religious Right of his time. Today, he'd be condemned as the Anti-Christ.

Check out Tom's religious views here.

Flash: God endorses Huckabee!

Who knew? I always figured God for a Democrat -- or at least a liberal independent.

Wow!

I've been involved in politics one way or another for 40 years, and this is the best campaign commercial I've ever seen:

Neo-Cons say CIA traitors are out to undermine Bush's foreign policy

That famous National Intelligence Estimate declaring that Iran is not the nuclear threat the Bush administration had claimed it was has got the neoconservatives among us entertaining all manner of daffy conspiracy theories.

The juiciest among them is that the CIA is infested with Bush haters who will stop at nothing to make trouble for him.

"Freedom requires religion"?

I don't know if Mitt Romney's eagerly awaited speech this morning on the subject of religion did him any good politically, but I do know that his remarks were mostly bullshit.

Not even the 10 American flags with which he shared the stage could camouflage the fallacies in his misreading of our nation's history and the constitutional niceties regarding religion.

"Freedom requires religion," Romney said. Does that mean that I, as an agnostic, have less freedom than the gullible saps who embrace the fairy tales and superstitions peddled by most, if not all, religions? Not according to my copy of the Constitution.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum has the right take on Romney's speech. So does this guy. And this guy.

Too much Freud from a guy named Dick

This is funny.

(By the way, you can write your own caption for the photo here of Dick Cheney.)

String section

A former White House official, no less, concedes that the Bush administration plays right-wing bloggers like so many violins.

You don't have to be a sexist to oppose Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy -- but it helps

Hillary Clinton would make a better president than any of the Republican candidates for the job, but she's not my first choice. I prefer Barack Obama.

Clinton's gender has nothing to do with my choice in this matter. Nor is it necessarily a factor in the attitudes of some of the other folks who prefer some other candidate. But let's not kid ourselves. There are a whole lot of people out there who have deep-seated misgivings about the very idea of a woman serving as president, and lots of them see certain traits they would admire in a man as unattractive in a woman.

Robin Gerber of the Gallup Organization has an interesting take on the situation.

Frederick of Hollywood is too crusty

David Broder doesn't often hit the bullseye anymore, but he had it right the other day when he said that "Fred Thompson appears perpetually grumpy -- a presence hard to imagine inhabiting the Oval Office."

Maybe that's why Thompson, who was expected by some to surge to the front of the Republican presidential pack, has faltered instead. The guy always seems peeved. Yeah, Americans in general are pretty pissed these days, but they're not likely to elect a grouch to the presidency.

Ah, but Don Manzullo, who represents The Rascal in Congress, is sticking with Fred. Too bad Manzullo's not a betting man. I'd be glad to give him 5-t0-1 odds; he gets Thompson and I take the rest of the field. No, hell, I'd give him 10-to-1 odds. The only place Fred is going is back to Hollywood.

Find the problem in this poll

This poll, released today by the Associated Press and the Pew Research Center, is almost worthless because of a huge flaw.

It's a two-fold problem that can be summed up in one word beginning with "t."

The answer is in the comments section.

Is Hillary toast?

I don't agree with this guy's assessment, but it's worth pondering.

It's going to be a fun year

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has created this ad urging folks to come up with camera-phone videos of pols (preferably Republican pols, I'm sure) in potentially embarrassing situations:

Mitt slates speech on his Mormonism

Steve Benen over at the Carpetbagger Report explains why he thinks Romney's speech will be a political failure.

Huckabee vs. Hillary?

That's one of the scenarios imagined in BooMan's interesting analysis of the races for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations.

Damn! Does this mean no war with Iran?

Now they're telling us that Iran shut down its nuclear arms program four years ago.

Jeez, just when I was getting pumped about another glorious U.S. military adventure in the Middle East.

Oh, well. We'll always have Iraq, won't we?

Financial markets explained

John Bird and John Fortune, a couple of funny Brits, discuss the ups and downs of financial markets, including the problem with subprime mortgages (H/T to AmericaBlog):

CNN stinks!

I'm a little late in condemning CNN for its awful handling of last week's You Tube debate among Republican presidential candidates, so I'll leave it to Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times to say what I should have said days ago.

Henry Hyde and the Four Bobs

The death of Henry Hyde this week has stirred widespread media memories of his role in the impeachment of Bill Clinton nine years ago.

Thomas B. Edsall over at Huffington Post tells the little-known story of how Hyde tried to avoid the impeachment ordeal.

POSTSCRIPT: I've been searching feverishly, but unsuccessfully, for a remark Hyde made during the impeachment drama. I recall the gist of it but not the exact words. He predicted, in effect, that the Senate would not convict Clinton if there wasn't strong public support for removing the president from office. There wasn't such support, and the Senate accordingly voted to acquit.

Hyde seemed to recognize that impeachment is a political process, not a criminal prosecution. The ultimate jury in such a case is the American public.

In the week he was impeached in 1998, Clinton's approval rating among the American people jumped 10 points to 73 percent, a higher level than Ronald Reagan ever reached.

POSTSCRIPT II: I knew Henry Hyde, but not well. I met him in the early 1970s when he was still in the Illinois General Assembly, and I ran into him on several occasions over the years. Consistent with his reputation, he struck me as courtly, polite, articulate and friendly. But I opposed most of what he stood for politically.

Pinocchio Giuliani

Rudy's got a problem with the truth.

I'm thinking of moving to Norway

God tells clown college prez to resign

God took time out from his important work recently to tell Oral Roberts Jr. that he should resign as president of the university named for his father, Oral Roberts Sr.

Young Oral, it appears, has been absconding with the school's funds, but it's not exactly clear whether the scandal has offended God. At any rate, Junior says God promised him that he would "do something supernatural" for the school if Junior took a powder.

By the way, in the picture here, Junior is shown reaching for a nearby wad of the school's money.

Oh, man! I wish they would try this in Illinois

Republican Party poobahs in Virginia have won approval from the State Board of Elections for a provision requiring anybody who asks for a GOP ballot in the upcoming primary election to sign a pledge that they'll vote for the party's presidential nominee next November.

A similar move is afoot in Kansas.

Don't these people recognize that a scheme like this is not likely to sit well with the general public? Don't they notice the whiff of fascism or totalitarianism or some other ugly ism that comes with requiring such an oath of party loyalty?

Are the Republican leaders here in Illinois dumb enough to emulate such nonsense. God, I hope so.

Those Burger King people are nice folks

And the people at Goldman Sachs are swell, too.

You'll enjoy this heartwarming story about both companies:

PENNY FOOLISH

By Eric Schlosser

The New York Times
Thursday 29 November 2007

The migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in South Florida have one of the nation's most backbreaking jobs. For 10 to 12 hours a day, they pick tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. During a typical day each migrant picks, carries and unloads two tons of tomatoes. For their efforts, this holiday season many of them are about to get a 40 percent pay cut.

Florida's tomato growers have long faced pressure to reduce operating costs; one way to do that is to keep migrant wages as low as possible. Although some of the pressure has come from increased competition with Mexican growers, most of it has been forcefully applied by the largest purchaser of Florida tomatoes: American fast food chains that want millions of pounds of cheap tomatoes as a garnish for their hamburgers, tacos and salads.

In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald's agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny - and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonald's.

This month the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state's growers, announced that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. Reggie Brown, the executive vice president of the group, described the surcharge for poor migrants as "pretty much near un-American."

Migrant farm laborers have long been among America's most impoverished workers. Perhaps 80 percent of the migrants in Florida are illegal immigrants and thus especially vulnerable to abuse. During the past decade, the United States Justice Department has prosecuted half a dozen cases of slavery among farm workers in Florida. Migrants have been driven into debt, forced to work for nothing and kept in chained trailers at night. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers - a farm worker alliance based in Immokalee, Fla. - has done a heroic job improving the lives of migrants in the state, investigating slavery cases and negotiating the penny-per-pound surcharge with fast food chains.

Now the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has threatened a fine of $100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for migrant wages. The organization claims that such a surcharge would violate "federal and state laws related to antitrust, labor and racketeering." It has not explained how that extra penny would break those laws; nor has it explained why other surcharges routinely imposed by the growers (for things like higher fuel costs) are perfectly legal.

The prominent role that Burger King has played in rescinding the pay raise offers a spectacle of yuletide greed worthy of Charles Dickens. Burger King has justified its behavior by claiming that it has no control over the labor practices of its suppliers. "Florida growers have a right to run their businesses how they see fit," a Burger King spokesman told The St. Petersburg Times.
Yet the company has adopted a far more activist approach when the issue is the well-being of livestock. In March, Burger King announced strict new rules on how its meatpacking suppliers should treat chickens and hogs. As for human rights abuses, Burger King has suggested that if the poor farm workers of southern Florida need more money, they should apply for jobs at its restaurants.

Three private equity firms - Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners - control most of Burger King's stock. Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has served its investors well lately, avoiding the subprime mortgage meltdown and, according to Business Week, doubling the value of its Burger King investment within three years.

Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn't be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million - more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year. Now Mr. Blankfein should find a way to share some of his company's good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain.

Eric Schlosser is the author of "Fast Food Nation" and "Reefer Madness."

-------

Your so-called liberal media

There isn't one shred of evidence that Barack Obama is now or ever has been a Muslim, but that doesn't stop the mouth-breathers on the far right of the political spectrum from spreading rumors to the contrary -- and it doesn't stop The Washington Post from giving voice to those rumors on the front page of today's edition.

This kind of rubbish would be no surprise in a rag like the Washington Times, the infamous Moonie paper, but for a once-respectable publication like the Post to stoop to this level is shocking.

POSTSCRIPT: By the way, CNN debunked the Obama-is-a-Muslim story many months ago. (H/T to Talking Points Memo.)

POSTSCRIPT II: Here is another good take on the Post piece and other sins of "the liberal media."

POSTSCRIPT III: This guy, too, has the proper slant on the Post's idiotic article.

Let's leave Fox News advertisers alone

I've raised this issue several times in the past, and it's time to raise it again.

I got an e-mail today from Moveon.org urging me to bring pressure on a certain Rockford company that buys commercial time on the local cable channel that carries Fox News. The e-mail message did not include the word "boycott," but let's not kid ourselves. The people behind this effort want to scare off advertisers with thinly veiled threats of a boycott. That was the case earlier this year when Daily Kos and certain other liberal blogs targeted Fox's advertisers.

I'm sorry, but this kind of thing is just plain wrong.

Let me be clear. I hate Fox News as much as the next guy. Its blatant bias and its Orwellian claims to fairness and balance are appalling. But I think there's something terribly illiberal in organizing an advertising boycott against any news outlet or purveyor of political opinions. If the threat of boycotts makes advertisers wary of being even remotely associated with controversial political opinions expressed on radio or television, the networks and local stations, in turn, will offer us only pablum.

If you choose not to buy a car from a dealer who runs ads on Fox News, that's your business. But it's wrong, I think, for anyone to mount a broad campaign or otherwise put pressure on that car dealer.

You'd think my so-called liberal friends would understand this. Some, I'm sad to say, don't.

I stood by Moveon.org during the controversy over the Gen. Petraeus ad, but I part company with these people in the matter of advertiser boycotts.

Ignore this story...please

Those of us who really care about America don't want any new scandals to erupt that might impede Rudy Giuliani's bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He's the guy the Democrats can most easily defeat next November.

So, please, don't say anything to anybody concerning the story that broke today about Rudy sticking the taxpayers with expenses for some of his extramarital trysts.

Remember, mum's the word. And for good measure, you should tell your Republican friends that "America's Mayor" is the best candidate the GOP could field in the presidential race.

Go, Rudy, go!

Was Richard Nixon a socialist?

He's remembered as such by Steven D. over at Booman Tribune.

Grammar is not Matt Drudge's long suit

Headline on the Drudge Report this morning: "Supermouse bred by genetic scientists that can't get cancer."

Genetic scientists that can't get cancer? Wow!

No! This is too funny! Stop! I can't take it!

That Karl Rove is one hell of a humorous guy, as he demonstrates here.

We won the war?

Roy Edroso over at Alicublog isn't so sure about that.

Pump this!

I ran across this interesting stuff today about how gasoline prices are determined and where the money goes.

Zogby poll on Hillary smells fishy

Zogby International is out with a poll purporting to show that Hillary Clinton is trailing each of the five top Republican presidential hopefuls -- a finding sharply at odds with the results of a Gallup poll.

The difference seems to be attributable to the fact that the Zogby poll was conducted online, a notoriously unreliable method of measuring public opinion.

It's understandable that right-wing bloggers would tout the Zogby numbers, but it's irresponsible of the mainstream media to follow suit.

Details on the matter can be found here.

POSTSCRIPT: These results from a Gallup poll (conducted by time-tested methods) show both Clinton and Barack Obama faring well in matchups against Republican candidates. (Be sure to check all four pages by clicking at the bottom of each.)

POSTSCRIPT II: Greg Sargent's comparison of the Zogby and Gallup polls is here.

The Prince of Darkness doesn't like Mikey

Bob Novak, conservative columnist extraordinaire, seems a little upset at indications that Mike Huckabee (left) is gaining a head of steam in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Novak's tirade portends a broader campaign of attacks on Huckabee and further division between the theocrats and pragmatists in the Republican Party. Sounds like fun.

Who could have foreseen this?: The GOP front-runner is a thrice-married pro-choicer who favors gun control and gay rights, while a prominent right-wing pundit is bad-mouthing a Christian clergyman who's running for president on an anti-abortion platform.

Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave.

POSTSCRIPT: Newtie says Obama's gonna kick ass in Iowa. Let's hope so.

A commercial aimed at morons

This ad for the Hummer is strange on several levels (H/T to Crooks and Liars):

Flat-Earthers who walk upright

The New York Times magazine had an interesting piece yesterday on a gang of creationist geologists.

My favorite is the guy who said this: “If all the evidence in the universe turned against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand.”

That isn't faith. That's idiocy.

For once, he makes sense

David Brooks usually is full of shit. This time, he's not.

Remembering the Red Scare

When I was in Catholic grade school in the early 1950s, we prayed every day in class for "the conversion of Russia," which apparently meant that we wanted all those godless commies to become members of the One True Faith.

One of the nuns also made a point of informing us that Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the famed commie-hunter from Wisconsin, was a good Catholic who merited our respect.

These and other influences at such a tender age made budding right-wingers of me and presumably at least a few of my classmates.

It was not until I had been in high school a few years that I finally came to the judgment that McCarthy, who died in 1957, was a drunken scumbag and demagogue whose campaign of hysterical red-baiting had ruined countless lives.

All of this comes to mind with news reports today that Milo Radulovich, a victim of those times, has died at age 81.

Former WH mouthpiece spills the beans

If this sort of thing happened in a Democratic administration, the Republican establishment and much of the media would be howling for impeachment.

Betcha Manzullo sticks with Thompson

Congressional Quarterly is reporting that some of the U.S. House members who had endorsed Fred Thompson for the Republican presidential nomination are having second thoughts and are underwhelmed by the former senator's lethargic campaign.

But there are no signs that Don Manzullo, the eight-term Republican who represents The Rascal's district in northern Illinois, has given up on Frederick of Hollywood.

It would be very much out of character for Manzullo to dump a guy in a situation like this. Besides, he only needs to stick with Freddy for a short while; in less than 12 weeks, Thompson's campaign will be over, and Manzullo will move on to whomever is the GOP's presumptive nominee.

Even reputable bloggers sometimes misinterpret polls

Talking Points Memo, one of my favorite blogs, had this to report today:

"New ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Obama with lead in Iowa."

But the poll does not actually show Barack Obama with a lead. It puts Obama at 30 percent and Hillary Clinton at 26 percent. That gap of 4 percentage points is within the poll's margin of error. Hence, the poll shows a statistical dead heat.

It's bad enough that the mainstream media do such a poor job of interpreting poll results. Progressive bloggers should be careful to avoid such mistakes.

UPDATE: Fox News gets the Post/ABC poll wrong with this headline: "Latest Iowa Poll Shows Obama Leading the Pack." But The New York Times gets it right with this: "A Statistical Tie in Iowa."

The South will rise again -- or maybe not

This would serve them right.

Is this lame or what?

The world's worst actor endorses the presidential candidacy of a right-wing nutcase:

Is Santa a good thing or not?

Interesting points made in reply to this post by Tom W. Bell over at Agoraphilia.

Pssst! Mitt Romney is a Mormon

BooMan reports that some Republican operatives are using "push polls" to denigrate Mitt Romney's Mormonism.

Two years ago today...and now

They don't understand the Constitution

In his radio address today, President Bush faulted Congress for passing a war-funding bill that includes a condition setting goals for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

"We do not need members of Congress telling our commanders what to do," Bush said.

Lots of people who support Bush in this controversy have the mistaken notion that the only constitutional roles for Congress in matters of war are to authorize the war and provide the funds. Their theory is that only the commander-in-chief and his generals have any authority under the Constitution to prosecute the war.

But these people, Bush included, are woefully uninformed on the constitutional niceties of such matters.

Consider these remarks by legendary American statesman Daniel Webster during the Mexican War of the late 1840s:

If the war should become odious to the people, if they shall disapprove the objects for which it appears to be prosecuted, then it will be the bounden duty of their representatives in Congress to demand of the President a full statement of his objects and purposes, and if those purposes shall appear to them not to be founded in the public good, or not consistent with the honor and character of the country, then it shall be their duty to put an end to it, by the exercise of their constitutional authority. . . . If Congress, in whom the war-making power is expressly made to reside, is to have no voice in the declaration or continuance of war, if it is not to judge of the beginning or carrying it on, then we depart at once from the Constitution.

Or consider these words from Henry Clay during that same period:

Must we blindly continue the conflict without any visible object, or any prospect of a definite termination? . . . If it be contended that war having been once commenced, the President of the United States may direct it to the accomplishment of any object he pleases, without consulting and without any regard to the will of Congress, the Convention will have utterly failed in guarding the nation against the abuses and ambition of a single individual. Either Congress or the President must have the right of determining upon the objects for which a war shall be prosecuted. There is no other alternative. If the President possess it and may prosecute it and may prosecute it for the objects against the will of Congress, where is the difference between our free government and that of any other nation which may be governed by an absolute czar, emperor, or king?

'Inevitable human suffering'

This is pretty unsettling -- or at least it should be.

But we still have more than a few deniers (here and here and here and here) out there.

Uh-Oh!

Too many people are talking (here and here, for example) about the likelihood of a deep recession just around the corner, and I don't like it one bit.

But I'm still not going to spend a lot this Christmas, no matter my patriotic obligation on that score.

God, next year is going to be a mess -- economic woes, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tensions in Iran and Pakistan, and who knows what else. Oh, yeah, a presidential election, too.

Christmas 2008 seems a lot farther off than just 13 months, considering all the stuff that will happen between now and then.

It's Nancy's fault

The folks at Fox News, always dedicated to fairness and balance, have decided that high prices for gasoline should be blamed on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Why hasn't anybody else made this brilliant connection?

(H/T to Talking Points Memo.)

Mr. September Eleventh

Is this guy full of shit or what?:

A commercial about you and me

This is a bit simplistic but not bad for a 30-second effort:

A pretty good speech

Barack Obama has received high marks for this speech delivered last week in Des Moines:

Flat-earthers easily conned

Rush Limbaugh, the radio blowhard who tells America's pinheads what to think, recently led a crowd of global-warming deniers in trumpeting a false study published on a fake Web site.

Details of the hoax can be found here and here and here.

Fox News Channel -- The place for soft porn

Fox News is not really a champion of family values:

Rudy blames himself for 9-11

Rudy Giuliani is now in bed with Pat Robertson, who has said that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were God's revenge on advocates of abortion rights and gay rights. Rudy, of course, is one of those advocates.

Josh Marshall has more on this matter here:

Why are two-thirds of Americans anti-American?

I heard a right-winger on local radio this morning express pleasure at the lack of "anti-American" comments on some country-music awards show on television last night.

By "anti-American," the guy doubtless meant antiwar, which got me wondering. Why do some conservatives persist in the fiction that opposition to the war in Iraq is confined to a small, radical, leftish element of the populace?

The truth, as we see here, is that two of every three Americans -- including countless Republicans, military veterans, barbers, lawyers, plumbers, sports nuts, Kiwanians, devout religionists, Southerners, business executives, hunters, coin collectors, construction workers, moms, dads, uncles and aunts -- are opposed to this war.

Are these folks all anti-American? Or are the real anti-Americans the ones who impugn the patriotism of those who dare to speak out against the war? Fascism is an ugly thing.

Why I'm for Barack Obama

Andrew Sullivan explains it well in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

This is soooo pathetic

From time to time, we ponder here the issue of how some politically conservative men have an unsure grip on their masculinity, prompting them to make fools of themselves with their childish expressions of angst. (Examples of such pondering are here and here.)

Today is a likely occasion to revisit this subject because it's the fourth anniversary of the publication of this blog post, a classic of the pseudo-macho genre, an essay that comes as close to parody without achieving it as is humanly possible.

The author of this screed is a deeply troubled man.

Ouch!

This TV spot (h/t to DailyKos) for John Edwards delivers some pretty good hits on Hillary Clinton:

What Social Security crisis?

I don't like the campaign rhetoric from Barack Obama suggesting that Social Security is facing some kind of big crisis.

As Paul Krugman noted in The New York Times a few years ago, just a little tweaking of Social Security would fix the system for the next 75 years.

Thirty seconds

Theocracy now!

Max Blumenthal visited the recent convention of so-called values voters and filed this report (be sure to play the video):

A prayer for Rudy

Please, God, please see to it that Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican presidential nomination. Please, please, please.

Griper Blade, a blogger up in Madison, explains why Democrats should be rooting for Rudy.

The Evangelical Crackup

Back from a few days in California, where I looked in on an ailing brother (he's doing fine after a scary episode, thanks), I'm catching up on some good reading, including this piece from The New York Times Magazine about disunity on the religious right.

No blogging for a few days

An illness in the family requires that I take a break from blogging for a few days.

Meanwhile, avail yourself of the spendid archives on the right side of this site.

Uh-oh! Is Mitt Romney another Larry Craig?

Twelve brave Army captains

Pseudo-patriotic pukes like Rush Limbaugh probably think of these Army officers as "phony soldiers."

Don Manzullo calls this "socialism"

Pope waves from Hell, says it's not so bad

Countless Catholics are claiming that the late Pope John Paul II recently appeared in a bonfire in Poland waving his right hand in greeting.

Even Vatican TV is convinced that JP 2 has pulled off yet another miracle.

But then, there also are Catholics who claim that the late Mother Teresa once appeared in a sweet roll:

Al Gore never said he invented the Internet

Thomas Fleming, president of the paleonconservative think tank The Rockford Institute, was on local radio this morning disdainfully spreading the durable myth that Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet.

In the past few days, we've been hearing a lot of that nonsense from the global warming deniers who are upset at Gore having won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The reality is that Gore never made any such claim about the Internet.

In an interview on CNN in 1999, Gore, who was then the sitting vice president and a candidate to succeed Bill Clinton in the White House, said this by way of reviewing his record:

“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth, environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”

Notice that Gore took credit for leadership in Congress in creating the Internet. He never said he "invented" the Internet. Was his claim to such leadership legitimate? Well, here's what Republican Newt Ginrich said about that:

"(I)n all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is—and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a 'futures group'—the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the ’80s began to actually happen."

Way back in 1988, The Guardian, a British paper, reported this:

"American computing scientists are campaigning for the creation of a 'superhighway' which would revolutionise data transmission. Legislation has already been laid before Congress by Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, calling for government funds to help establish the new network, which scientists say they can have working within five years, at a cost of Dollars 400 million."

Years later, when Gore was vice president, computer scientist Vinton Cerf, widely known as the Father of the Internet, had this to say:

“I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president."

History shows that Gore's claim to leadership in congressional action regarding the Internet was ignored by the media and not distorted into a claim that he invented the Net until the Republican Party cooked up that falsehood a few days later.

A useful chronology of the controversy can he found here (you have to scroll down a little to get to the good part).

Columbus and the flat Earth theory

Speaking of Christopher Columbus (as we were here last week), there are still some people who think that the great explorer, on his voyage to the New World, bravely defied the popular theory that the Earth was flat.

For example, that fiction about Columbus is touted in a letter to the editor in today's Rockford Register Star -- a letter, by the way, that is wrong on several other counts as well.

The truth is that most educated folks in Columbus's time recognized that the Earth was round (or spherical, in reality).

For all his other achievements, ol' Chris didn't break any new ground with respect to the shape of our planet, as we see here and here and here.

OOPS!!

On Tuesday, I mused here on what a fuss would ensue if Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize.

But then yesterday, I flatly predicted that it wouldn't happen.

Well, of course, now it has happened. Al Gore is a Nobel laureate -- unless it turns out that agents for George W. Bush can steal enough votes on the Nobel committee or can somehow get the Supreme Court to reverse the verdict. (Heh, heh. Just kidding.)

So, now I'm left to make another flat prediction, and I've got a lot of confidence in this one:

Al Gore will not run for the Democratic presidential nomination next year. A failed effort in that regard would only diminish this most prestigious honor. Why would he want to risk that?

Besides, a candidacy on Gore's part would be highly problematic. He's not the best political campaigner. He would alienate many of the followers of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and would split the Democratic Party apart (just when the party seems to be fairly unified while the Republicans are badly splintered and dispirited).

No, Gore won't run. He'll be happy to take his Nobel and use it to advance the cause of environmentalism.

POSTSCRIPT: Here's an early roundup of reaction from around the blogosphere.

Turkish genocide against Armenians?

President Bush is right, for once, in urging Congress not to adopt a resolution condemning Turkish actions against Armenians during World War I.

Let history be the judge of something like that. Why needlessly piss off today's Turks, none of whom were around at the time in question?

BooMan has the correct slant on this matter.

UPDATE: Amazingly, RascalLand Congressman Don Manzullo bucked the Bush administration in a committee vote on this issue.

Suckers and their sneakers

There's a new study out showing that men's running shoes are pretty much the same in terms of comfort and support -- no matter the price.

But, of course, lots of men are buying image, not performance, when they purchase sneakers or certain other products. Women generally do the same thing with some of the crap they buy.

I'd like to see a study on whether men or women are the bigger suckers in falling for the imagery peddled to them by advertisers. My guess is that there's little difference between the two genders.

Wait! Upon further reflection, I think men are the dumber consumers. Watch an NFL game on TV sometime and notice the countless ways in which ads for beers, cars, razors and other stuff manipulate the fears and dreams of men.

When you get right down to it, most men are afraid of being perceived as insufficiently masculine -- a matter we've discussed before (here, here and here) with respect to politics and religion.

Let's face it: Compared to women, men are somewhat more stupid -- not a lot, but unmistakably.

Why are wingnuts afraid to debate?

This is funny:

Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin has been a leader in the infamous smearing of a 12-year-old boy and his family in the political debate over President Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

In a valiant response, liberal blogger Ezra Klein (right), a bright lad of only 23, has challenged the much older Malkin (she'll be 37 next week) to a debate on the issue of health care, but Malkin has chickened out, which has prompted other progressive bloggers to mock and taunt her.

UPDATE: There's more taunting of Milken here, here and here.

The Gay Republican Caucus

Here's video of a meeting of the GRC:

Al Gore WILL NOT win the Nobel Peace Prize

Remember where you heard it first: This year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced before dawn Friday (U.S. time), and The Rascal's sources in Oslo, Norway, say it will not be Al Gore.

Ann Coulter wants to get rid of Judaism

The darling of the deranged right says Jews are just imperfect Christians.

UPDATE: Jewish and Catholic groups are criticizing Coulter's remarks.

Furthermore regarding American flag pins

Roy Edroso over at Alicublog isn't desecrating the flag when he offers this observation:

From the guy who fired Brad from All-American Burger in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" to Fox anchors to the creeps who run for office to "American Dad!", the flag pin has proved a reliable symbol of dickitude. Seldom have I seen an otherwise normally-dressed guy wearing a flag pin and thought, oh, isn't that sweet, he's telling America that he loves her! No, long experience has taught me that the pin-wearer wants something from me: either my vote, or an unearned advantage for whatever song-and-dance or sales pitch he's about to spool out. Or he wants the other Republicans in the room to spot him, so they can huddle privately and exchange stories about how they dicked someone over. Or he wants to pass for a dick so the other dicks won't gang up on him. Which makes him a dick.

Oooh! I can hardly wait.

As my intimate friends are well aware, The Rascal is a major player in the world of high finance, and I'm here to tell you that I'll soon be basing my investment strategies on the stuff I learn from watching Fox Business News.

The folks at Fox are so reliable and accurate when it comes to reporting politics, I figure they'll be terrific in covering business.

Check out this teaser:

Theocratic third party if Rudy gets GOP nod?

Steve Benen says yes, but Kevin Drum isn't so sure.

Gosh, this is so unfair

Those mean people who don't see Frederick of Hollywood as the solution to America's problems, president-wise, have come up with an audiotape transcript of Richard Nixon referring to Freddy as "dumb as hell."

The slur dates back to when Nixon was in the White House and Freddy (pictured on the right) was a young lawyer for the Republicans on the Senate Watergate Committee.

This is a cheap shot. After all, Nixon was no great judge of character or smarts, was he? And besides, maybe Freddy's not so dumb anymore.

Another thing: Don Manzullo, who's smart enough to try to save America from socialized medicine for kids, thinks Freddy would make a swell president.

UPDATE: Uh-oh! Dan Bartlett, a former top aide to President Bush, says Freddy is the "biggest dud" among the Republican field of White House hopefuls.