Posted today on DKos by the spewmaster himself regarding the telco amnesty legislation:

When we started this “netroots” thing, we worked to get “more and better Democrats” elected. At first, we focused on the “more” part. This year, we’re focusing a bit more on the “better” part. And in 2010, we’ll have enough Democrats in the House to exclusively focus on the “better” part.

That means primary challenges. And as we decide who to take on, let it be known that this FISA vote will loom large. Voting to give telecommunication companies retroactive immunity may not guarantee a primary challenge, but it will definitely loom large.

We kicked Joe Lieberman out of the caucus. We got rid of Al Wynn this year. Those were test runs, so to speak. We’ve got a lot more of that ready to unleash in 2010.

Newsweek recently hired Markos Moulitsas ( the Daily Kook) to write “liberal” pieces for their publication and they also hired another political to produce the “conservative” view points as well on issues. A lot of speculation was circling the blogosphere as to who the conservative would be. It was recently revealed to be Karl Rove, to which Moulitsas responded:

Newsweek actually got this right, for once. They balanced out a movement progressive with a movement conservative.

Now real conservatives know that George Bush is not one of them and Karl Rove played Natasha to his Boris. Sure Rove deserves credit for pulling off some miracles in 2004, getting Bush reelected and orchestrating the southern sweep of the Senate by Republicans, but a movement conservative? Please.

Where was Karl Rove advising Bush when he was signing away at earmark after earmark? Where was Karl advising against the biggest expansion of government in American history, in the form of Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, and Campaign Finance Reform? Sure, Rove was sleek. He was able to get social conservatives to the polls with marriage protection amendments, but where was his fiscal brilliancy, the lack of which lead to the Congressional cleansing we witnessed a year ago?

Remember, Moulitsas is as close to a Commie as you can be without actually carrying the official card so anyone to the right of Josef Stalin is going to be considered conservative to him. As for the rest of us who are living life without the aiding crutch of 1,000 mg Zoloft tablets, we know his notion to be completely absurd.

This is an R+15 district, so it would make it one of the most Republican districts held by a Democrat. Jones would also be one of the most conservative members in the caucus.

Still, National Journal rankings list Jones as the second most “liberal” Republican in the House, and votes the “liberal” position 53.5 percent, or better than Democrats Dan Boren (OK, 49.2), Gene Taylor (MS, 50), Jim Marshall (GA, 50), Henry Cuellar (TX, 51), Collin Peterson (MN, 51), Bud Cramer (AL, 51.7), John Barrow (GA, 51.8), Charlie Melancon (LA, 52.2), Lincoln Davis (TN, 52.8), and Jim Matheson (UT, 53.3).

Yeah, yeah, that’s a real rogue’s gallery, and there’s a good question about whether we want to reinforce the Bush Dog contingent. But given the hard-right bent of the district, the havoc it would wreak on the GOP’s 2008 battle plans, and the reinforcement of the “GOP is collapsing” narrative, I’d happily take his switch.

Daily Kos

Somehow I don’t think this endorsement will help Jones very much in his primary.

From Huffington Post:

There is a growing controversy about a politician smack in the center of the presidential nomination process. Its revelation has sent shock waves through his party. Terrifying the party’s very base. The problem is ghastly. Ghastly!:

His wife is blond, beautiful and younger than him.

Okay, without even being aware of the details, you just know the party in question is the GOP. Yes, Republicans are up in arms upon discovering that Fred Thompson has an attractive wife.
Gadzooks. This is insane just on oh-so many levels.

Raise your hand if anyone on this site has had such a concern about Mrs. Thompson. Liberal projection strikes again: first the NY Times hit-job on Fred Thompson centered on the “Republican” concern that Thompson has a young and pretty wife, though the Right has been absolutely silent on the issue, and now an entire left-wing screed is written online bemoaning the GOP for having such a “puritan” attitude that doesn’t exist except in liberals’ dreams about what could turn the conservative base against a straight-shooter such as Fred.

As Senator Thompson said himself to Sean Hannity last night in the run-up to the Freedom Concert in Atlanta concerning the multiple hit pieces in liberal papers lately, “They know who to be afraid of.” H/T to Daily Pundit.

PS. I’m putting this under the category, “Daily Kos Stupidity,” because even though it’s not from Kos, we don’t have a “Huffington Post stupidity” category and this certainly fits such a moniker.

That’s the latest trotted out by the left, at least. And - get this - they are getting this material from liberal hero Republican scum ok-we-like-him-when-he-insults-Thompson Richard Nixon!

From Kos:

That’s not me speaking. That’s Richard Nixon’s zombie corpse haunting us with words of wisdom from the grave.

Nixon was disappointed with the selection of Thompson, whom he called “dumb as hell.” The president did not think Thompson was skilled enough to interrogate unfriendly witnesses and would be outsmarted by the committee’s Democratic counsel.

Wow. Next thing you know they’ll be attacking a candidate because Dick Cheney once insulted his choice of tie. Honestly, is this the best they have against Fred?

I got this from IMAO, by the way. Here’s what Frank J. had to say about it:

I hope Fred Thompson’s campaign is ready to spin this one, because that’s just the sort of thing that can sink a candidacy if the public finds out about it.

Honestly, is Fred Thompson that squeaky clean that the Kwazy Kos Kids have to reach this much to come up with an attack? Maybe they can find a grade school teacher of his that will testify that Fred Thompson was at times “unruly.” Sometimes the Kos Krowd is so stupid I almost want to make an account over there and lend them a hand. They try hard within their limited mental range, at least.

Daily Kos user “sandlapper” has a diary that has been “rescued” (i.e. showcased on the front page of DKos) attacking Howard Rich’s “reach into our states and into our lives” (Roe v. Wade, anyone?) in his work in getting TABOR (the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights) on ballots in states around the nation. The first thing that struck me was: “Holy cow, you mean national Democratic activists have an issue with a conservative policy activist mounting a nationwide effort, yet the DKos involvement in Connecticut, et al is somehow ok with them?” (I also had thoughts like, maybe I should walk the dog, and I want to take my socks off, but I digress).

So what’s sandlapper’s beef with Howard Rich? Here’s an excerpt from his screed:

Howard Rich poured money into 12 states this year to get his Taxpayer Bill of Rights on the ballot. Grassroots initiative? Yeah, right. His ESTIMATED contribution - because he’s hidden behind shell groups and his own mask, Americans for Limited Government - and ANOTHER organization he runs, called U.S Term Limits - is $7.3 million.

TABOR is one of two ballot initiatives that qualified for the November ballot in Oregon, and 85 percent of the funds to pay signature gatherers came from? Give you one guess. Howard Rich.

Nation-wide efforts of Daily Kos? Who cares! MoveOn.org? George Soros? Hey, as long as they are progressives they can pour their money into any issue whatsoever! Sandlapper also imitates Emeril (Bam!) for added theatric effects and describe the effort to do the sinister act of protecting taxpayer revenues as “Conspiracy, not coincidence. Agenda, not mere generosity.”

So what does this “conspiracy” entail? The National Conferance of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan nationwide network aiding legislators and their staffs in policy and issues, has a nice rundown of the TABOR law in Colorado. Here are the highlights:

1. TABOR is a set of constitutional provisions Colorado voters adopted in 1992 to limit revenue growth for state and local governments in Colorado and to require that any tax increase in any state or local government (counties, cities, towns, school districts and special districts) must be approved by the voters of the affected government.
2. TABOR is principally a revenue limit, not a spending limit. It limits revenue the state government can retain from all sources except federal funds in a year to the previous year’s allowed collections (not actual collections) plus a percentage adjustment equal to the percentage growth in population plus the inflation rate. Any revenues received in excess of this limit must be refunded to the voters. In this paragraph, allowed collections means the amount that the Tabor Amendment allowed state government to retain in the previous year.

More info: The voters may allow the states to keep excess revenues, the voters may vote to exempt the legislature from provisions of TABOR for a certain number of years, and the voters have approved an amendment to allow the legislature to keep as much of revenue excesses as desirable for K-12 education. Life sucks when the big bad voters can have such control over their hard earned tax dollars, doesn’t it, Kos readers?

So here’s what sandlapper and the rest of the “people powered movement” (because if they say it it MUST be true!) are telling us: liberals can coordinate national efforts for their causes, but for conservatives to do so must be a “conspiracy.” Markos Moulitsas (the man who said “screw ‘em” when several American workers in Iraq died) must not be questioned, but Howard Rich is an eeeevil conservative activist who must be stopped at all accounts. Moreover, allowing voters to have some control over their state’s purse strings will bring about chaos, liberal betwetting, and the injury of puppies.

I’m so glad that they decided to “rescue” this diary. It provides a laughable look into the blatant hypocrisy of the left and their outright disgust for taxpayer control of money. Maybe Howard Dean can “rescue” his party with his 50 state strategy.

In other news: Joe Lieberman is now an Independent, the Democratic Party feels it must sacrifice any semblance of support for national security for their own electoral hopes, and remember guys - there is no war on terror! The foiled terrorist plot in the UK today was just a coincidence. Or wait, was it a conspiracy? An agenda maybe?

From a charming DailyKos commenter:

I wouldn’t laugh (0 / 0)
Anytime the nutcase Republicans bring up religion, they WIN.

When will we realize that we Dems are the losers on this issue.

Christians in America are overwhelmingly retarded. They’ll buy shit shit of Santorums.

We need to educate Christians. They are the morons that have ruined America. Laughing at the Repubs who use them won’t work.

Whackos get their info thru the Christian right. We’ll bring them out to vote against something and make sure the public lets the whole thing slip past them.

by chemsmith on Mon Apr 03, 2006 at 05:48:41 AM PDT

The context of this argument is remarks Sen. Santorum made about Europe dying due to the loss of Christianity. How that is self-apparent to most people I do not understand. Santorum’s speech as I mentioned earlier was great, and the fact the Dems are in such a tizzy is a good sign. The main point here is that the commenter is right, when GOP talks religion it wins. The “stupid” Christians who actually believe in an objective right and wrong, which apparently is passe. How sad.

This article in MotherJones outlines how the DSCC, Chuck Schumer, and Harry Reid systematically worked to push Daily Kos hero Paul Hackett out of the Ohio Senate race. Apparently they accused Hackett of war crimes. All I have to say is I thought the NRSC was sneaky and underhanded, well this, my friends, takes the cake.

An interesting thing to note is that Daily Kos’s founder Markos has been a big defender of the DSCC in this, anyone smell a bit of a sell out. Now that Markos is in the “in” he seems a lot less concerned about fighting the good fight.

Sometimes I like to take a gander at the Kossites for a good laugh, or to get my blood boiling.. sometimes for both. Some posts and comments are so void of intellect they aren’t worth more than a glance, but today I saw one that I just had to reply to. The post was about spending more money on Iraq, and this particular comment was a parody of Bush on Social Security. Here’s what the commenter said:

Ya see (none / 1)

we have to get rid o’ Social Security. Not because we want to. Just cuz we have to make a sacrifice to protect our freedoms and our liber-muh-ties. There’s no money, people. When you don’t have money, you can’t have programs. We have to prioritize. And right now, Freedom and democracy are the highest priorities. But, don’t worry. We’ll just get rid of it for a bit. In the meantime, try one of these personal, private account thingamajigs.

- George W Bush, speaking to the people, January 2007

This was too good to pass up. I couldn’t resist. It’s like driving by a car wreck and not looking out the window - you just have to. So I replied (yes, I have a Kos username, but only to reply to such asinine comments and stir up the pot):

Get Rid of SS? (none / 0)

That’s funny, I haven’t heard Bush advocationg getting rid of Social Security. In fact, if you noticed it was the Democrats who (shamefully) cheered at the State of the Union for obstructing reform that would help rectify the black hole that Social Security is going into.

You don’t get it, do you? The Social Security “Trust Fund” isn’t there. It’s been raided by politicians of both parties for years, and is nothing more than IOU’s.

I don’t know about you, but if I see a fund that is supposed to be coming back to me, and politicians are having a field day spending that moeny on other programs, a private account with my own control over it sounds much more preferable.

But of course Bush and the bloodthirsty Republicans are advocating it, so it can’t be a good idea. Right.

I left the site, looked around a few other blogs and news sources as is my typical routine, then came back to this post to see if any Krazies had responded with dripping hatred to my comment. That’s when I noticed something strange. My comment had dissappeared. I’m not making this up - the people who run DailyKos deleted my comment because they didn’t agree with it. Unbelievable, huh? A site that constantly accuses the media of being biased (which it is.. but not against the Left as they claim in between curse words), that is part of an emerging blog community dedicated to free speech, removed my comment because they didn’t like it.

I was expecting to be flamed, to have to endure the unfortunate wrath of Kossites hurling epithets at me (still cursing every other word) while screaming bloody murder at the top of their lungs. But why do that when it’s so much easier to erase a dissenting opinion?

I re-posted the comment. We’ll see if it gets noticed and removed again.

Here’s the thread.

UPDATE: My comment was removed again. See Comments for a lefty’s justification of the removal in the name of convenience, and his lame attack on Bush’s Social Security reform.

Check out this amazing piece of literature from our friends at Daily Kos concerning the Alito confirmation. In it, “Armando” claims that the media are the Democrats’ enemy (!) and that the Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t realize this while questioning Alito. The most astonishing part of this scholarly post is here:

To me the ugliest moment of the entire process happened yesterday:

Mr. Byrd said his constituents had told him they were “appalled” by the harsh questioning Judge Alito received from the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearings, calling them “an outrage and a disgrace.”

Outrageous statement from Byrd. Despicable in fact. Byrd is certainly entitled to his view on Alito, and I criticize him for that, but do not condemn him for it. But I do condemn for his lies about the hearings. There was nothing outrageous about the questions put to Alito. The only disgrace here is Byrd’s slander and lie.

Moreover, Byrd’s speech was the epitome of sophistry and delusion. Deluding himself or us, I do not know. [Empasis mine]

Of course Armando would know more than Byrd, an experienced Senator, concerning traditional practices of the Senate. Of course this ultraleft-wing crazy finds Byrd “despicable,” because the Senator has committed the grave crime of sounding logical. But I digress.

As Mike pointed out in the comments section the other day about the gruesome and disturbing Kos post on abortion, one wonders how an illogical person thinks and how they can possibly justify what we all know is insanity. Here is another fine example.

H/t to Karol.

The GOP should just film this lady and rerun the tape and all the leftists crooning over a woman who believes that Bush is really behind 9/11, that there is a nuclear war in Iraq, and that the country is not worth dying for. That’s a message of logic and reason sure to resonate… lol. So now Republicans have Howard Dean and Cindy Sheehan as the gifts that keep on giving.

Cindy Sheehan:

*I’m going all over the country telling moms: “This country is not worth dying for.”*

*We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have.*

*We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now.*

From a comment thread of a post that compared conservatives to the Taliban:

This I think really sums it up, they want us to be more like France, more godless.

Gods, Gays and Guns (none / 0)

I think it’s more complicated than “their far right is like our far right”. Compared to the other democracies, even mainstream political discourse in the U.S. really demonizes and vilifies progressive and liberal ideas. And I think that agressive hostility to all things “liberal” points to a tendency within our mainstream, not just at our margins, to resemble the “other” more than we would like to admit.

Fareed Zakaria hints at it here:

This is what really divides the U.S. from the other industrial democracies: Gods, Gays and Guns, if you will. If you were to take a sampling of public opinion in countries all [over] the world–and this has been done by the Pew foundation–you would find that the United States on most of these core cultural issues is much closer [to] Nigeria and Saudi Arabia than it is to Europe to Japan. Source

Mix together some of our national characteristics like belief in American exceptionalism, the prominence of religious belief in our lives (compared to the other democracies), isolationism/insularity, an abysmal mind-numbing mass media, the weakness of non-governmental centers of power like organized labor, the arrogance of overwhelming military power, etc., add to that the wounded nationalism of 9/11, and I think we are developing into a society where all kinds of intolerance and extremism are able to take root, so long as we wrap them in the flag.

Maybe I just feel vulnerable and pessimistic because I’m a liberal in a very red county, but I see a propensity to intolerance, militarism and fundamentalist thought as a characteristic of mainstream America right now, not just a feature of the far right that we can use to batter the talibaptists with.

by Diane on Tue Jul 5th, 2005 at 15:44:18 PDT

UPDATE: From the comment thread a new term worth mulling over Christofascist. Well I am glad that the 80% of Americans that self-identify as Christians will be happy to know they joined up with the fascist cause. Wow…

In one of the classic cases of why Howard Dean and the Kossacks have been a disaster at running the DNC check out this new gem that compares pretty much any center-right person with… The Taliban.

Last night I wrote “How the Islamic crazies are like the Right” to hammer home how fundamentalist Islam has more in common with the radical religious right, the American Taliban, than it does with the American Left.

This is a key point– it was easier for the Right to tie the American Left with our previous boogeyman, the communists, since we technically were nearer to the extreme left than where conservatives.

But today, things look quite different. I started the ball rolling on similarities on that previous post. Here are more similarities, as submitted by readers:

He then goes on listing different “issues” where crazy Islamists meet up with conservatives, such as gay marriage. (Glad to know daily Kos just compared a vast majority of Americans to the Taliban)

You should just check out how ridiculous this is for yourself. It is beyond belief that they can really compare anyone to the Taliban who slaughtered thousands of innocents and perpetrated a reign of terror on their own people. As logn as they keep up this idiocy they are destined to be the minority party. Even liberal americans will find this to be insane.

It’s been a while since we’ve had one of these, be forewarned that there is naughty language, which I prefer not to partake in, but more “South Park” inclined readers may have less of a problem with. I got the link from Mark Shea, who can consider himself hat-tipped.

On an unrelated note, I saw a headline on Yahoo! proclaiming that Bush had cancelled Earth Day! Then I read the last word, he just cancelled his trip to the Smoky Mountains to commemorate Earth Day. Oh well, there’s always next year. I’m actually as green as they come in many ways, but people who celebrate this need a history lesson.

This is another article by Sowell that ties in a little bit of history to show the left’s hypocrisy and lack of logical thinking. For as much as the left loves to use the word “tolerance” they sure don’t have much to show for it.

by Thomas Sowell

While the media have been focusing on the flap at Harvard growing out of its president’s statement about the reasons for the under-representation of women in the sciences, a much worse and more revealing scandal has unfolded at the University of Seattle, where a student mob prevented a military recruiter from meeting with those students who wanted to meet with him.
(more…)

Well you guessed it, Daily Kos in their infinite wisdom has decided that once again, even in success, Iraq really is Vietnam. These people are so desperate that they are wishing for anything to vindicate them, even the death of thousands of us soldiers and iraqi innocents. I just hope Howard Dean takes more cues from these politically clueless idiots… keep on insulting US troops. That will win you lots of votes.

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote (NYT 9/4/1967)
by patachon
Mon Jan 31st, 2005 at 08:30:16 PST

(From the diaries — kos)

[in case you haven’t been keeping up with developments in Vietnam from 40 years ago…]

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote :
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3– United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

Well while almost everyone else in the world, except pockets of bitter bitter liberals, is celebrating the resounding success that was the Iraqi elections. (Some sources report 72% turnout) The guys over at Daily Kos are trying to turn it in to a disaster for their own political purposes, just if you were wondering if they have any souls, they don’t.

The Iraq Election: Defining Success
by Armando
Sun Jan 30th, 2005 at 08:23:02 PST

Is the Iraq Election a success? The early reporting is that there is good turnout among the Shia and Kurds. Does this qualify as success?:

Iraqis voted in their first democratic election in nearly half a century Sunday with many observers saying the day appeared to have yielded higher turnout than expected and less violence than feared. Insurgents killed about two dozen people, including a U.S. Marine. But the level of mayhem by forces striving to disrupt the process was less than predicted, especially in Baghdad where turnout surged during the day amid signs of enthusiasm for voting even in some Sunni areas.

Success?

As expected, turnout appeared to be very uneven around the country, with the majority Shiite community and Kurdish areas participating in the election to a much greater degree than the minority Sunnis. Voting continued in early evening in some places even after polls officially were to have closed. Carlos Valenzuela, the United Nations’ chief election adviser in Iraq, told CNN that he believed that overall turnout was considerably “better than expected.” That assessment was echoed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said, “Every indication is that the election in Iraq is going better than expected.” Rice conceded, however, speaking on ABC’s “This Week, that “it’s not a perfect election” and added, “there are going to be many, many difficult days ahead.”

The days ahead. Precisely. This Election is simply, in my estimation, an exercise in pretty pictures. Why? Because Elections are to choose governments, not to celebrate the day. Are the people elected capable of governing Iraq at this time? Without 150,000 U.S. soldiers? Or even with them? I have been accused of gloating by people right HERE because of my focus on the continuing violence. But my focus has been on the realities of governing a land in chaos, in the midst of civil war, with 150,000 U.S. soldiers the only force with the ability to provide security. And this is 2 years after the invasion.

I hope I’m wrong on this. I think I am not.

Godspeed for the Iraqis, and God’s mercy for the fools at Daily Kos.

Carthago Delenda Est!

Today was a hard one seeing as most of the day on Daily Kos was spent rooting for the terrorists to mess up the elections in Iraq, but that’s not so much stupidity as sheer lack of any morality. So without further ado…

The World Social Forum opened on Wednesday in Porto Alegre, Brazil. While there’s not been much coverage of this–the fifth WSF–in the mainstream media, there’s also been very little mention of it here at dKos. Odd, given the claims we have here of supporting grassroots, progressive politics. The WSF is a venue where those folks actually doing grassroots, progressive, anti-corporate, anti-militarist, anti-imperialist politics in the day-to-day come together. It is also a display of the power of civil society– a social sector progressive Democrats would do well to strike up a renewed acquaintance with.

Yes, that’s what the Democrats need… more anti-corporate, anti-militarist, anit-imperialists. They still don’t realize people in America don’t believe in the failed socialist dogmas.

And for today…

Ted speaks. Bush should listen.

The United States should start to withdraw militarily and politically from Iraq and aim to pull out all troops as early as possible next year, Sen. Edward Kennedy said on Thursday.

After Sunday’s Iraqi elections, Kennedy said President Bush should state he intends to negotiate a timetable with the new Iraqi government to draw down U.S. forces.

At least 12,000 U.S. troops should leave at once, Kennedy said, “to send a stronger signal about our intentions to ease the pervasive sense of occupation.”

The Massachusetts Democrat, who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, became the first senator to lay out a plan for Bush to start withdrawing troops a day after the Pentagon (news - web sites) warned lawmakers that strikes by insurgents may increase after Sunday’s elections […]

“We now have no choice but to make the best we can of the disaster we have created in Iraq,” Kennedy in a speech to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “The current course is only making the crisis worse.”

He said the indefinite presence of U.S. troops is “fanning the flames of conflict” in what has become “a war against the U.S. occupation.”

How many more people will die due to Bush’s stubborness?

Enough said…