When the WVWV wankfest was at its height, I got this mail from Michelle:

lambert —

In every state across the country, there are thousands of qualified voters who are not registered to vote.

Some believe their vote doesn’t matter, some have been actively disenfranchised, and some have been overlooked or excluded by a broken system that has lost touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans.

Barack and I entered this race because we believe there’s a chance to change that.

From the beginning, our goal has been to reach out to people of all races, ages, and backgrounds and bring them back into the political process. We must use the rare opportunity we have right now to bring people together and make this a better country for all Americans.

That’s why I’m excited to announce a 50-state voter registration and mobilization drive we’re calling Vote for Change.

Beginning with a nationwide kick-off on Saturday, May 10th, more than 100 Vote for Change events will take place in every state, organized by our dedicated volunteers who are leading this campaign for change in their own communities.

Sign up to get involved now:

…

Blah, blah, hope, blah, change, blah,ratfucking, blah, blah, pack behavior, blah, blah, blah, blah [yawn], blah, change, blah, stolen caucuses, blah, blah, hope, change, blah…

Oops, I got a little carried away. All that “blah, blah” stuff at the end is me, not Michelle. In case you couldn’t tell.

But could the ginned up OFB WVWV wankfest, which baselessly smeared an organization that registers women be a two-fer? It would be irresponsible not to speculate:  Read more 

If you paid taxes in the last few years, that is.
The Houston Chronicle has details. Millions in taxpayers’ money helped build the sect’s home and fortune — as did labor and tithes from church members “prophet” Warren Jeffs dunned.

The market value of Yearning for Zion Ranch exceeds $21 million — with the approximately 80,000-square-foot temple valued at $8.7 million, according to the county tax appraiser. One of the county’s biggest taxpayers, the sect paid last year’s $424,000 bill on time.

There is little mystery about the source of all the money and manpower it took to build the ranch, according to dissident FLDS members, who still live at the sect’s historic home on the Utah and Arizona border.

They say before Warren Jeffs was arrested in August 2006, the sect’s self-pronounced prophet aggressively solicited the faithful at its base in Colorado City, Ariz., for donations of cash and labor to build its “New Zion” in Texas.

Yet the money didn’t all come from inside the FLDS. Some came straight out of the contracts and Small Business Administration loans taxpayers’ dollars fund.  Read more 

From The Guardian: “Senior [Bush] officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods.”

America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners…  Read more 

 Read more 

Under the Bush Administration, reading is no longer fundamental. The Bush Administration has eliminated all funding for the program— which has been funded by every administration since 1975—in the 2009 proposed budget.

The plainest way to say it is that everything, every last fucking thing, is “constructed” in the SCLM product/discourse/fairy tale. Someone thinks about what it is in it, and what is not, and how, one word at a time. So when this happens, people should remember it’s a feature, and not a bug. What is funniest to me is that the WaPo, and the District, are queer havens, places where queer culture and thought and activity are open, vibrant. I guess I’ve just never been a part of that group of self-hating types who want to play these games.

But guys: trust me when I say, str8 America is over all this silliness. I look forward to the day, and indeed I believe it will come in my lifetime, when this sort of stunt is uncommon and quickly forgotten.

As the Blade reported last week, Maj. Alan Rogers, by all accounts a hero for his brave acts while serving in Iraq, was killed in January and buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Rogers lived as openly gay a life as he could, given the military’s discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. He had many gay friends in D.C., patronized gay businesses and even worked as treasurer for the D.C. chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group working to overturn the military’s gay ban.

But the mainstream media accounts of his death omitted any reference to his sexual orientation. These were not benign omissions. The Washington Post, in particular, worked overtime to excise any mention of Rogers’ sexual orientation. It did not even report his work for AVER. Several of Rogers’ gay friends told the Blade that they were interviewed by a Post reporter at the funeral, but their memories were not included in the paper’s coverage.

I say this as only one of my age and “race” can: there comes a time when people decide to hate others for different reasons. No construct lasts forever, and nothing cannot be changed. Yes, blah, I know it works ’both ways,’ but in this case, working with younger people and knowing what they tell me about sex and sexuality and gender, I’m confident that this country is on the verge of finally shedding our particularly vulgar and unimaginative form of homophobia. And that’s a good thing.

Feh, I’ll chalk it up to yet another example in which the WaPo reminds me that I’m not sorry I don’t read them. /tosses hair/ So tired, they are.

Obama’s top Iraq advisor has written a paper in which he advises that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).” (Emphasis mine.)

Now, of course, Obama’s campaign denies that this position is his position, but Colin Kahl heads his Iraq working group and Obama has never said how many troops he’d leave on the ground in Iraq. Obama’s advisors have also said that he wouldn’t rule out using Blackwater and other mercenaries in Iraq.  Read more 

I’m sure this may come as a shock to you, but military is hiring bloggers to work as moles, “verbally attack[ing] specific person[s] or promot[ing] a specific message.”

Wait, sorry, wrong link.

Here’s the article.  Read more 

In Part I we saw where the term “ratfucking” originated and met two of the most infamous ratfuckers. In this part we will see how ratfucking went from being a small part of GOP political campaigns during the Nixon era to being the centerpiece of campaigns under Bush I.

Harvey Leroy “Lee” Atwater (February 26, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an advisor of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. As shown in Part I, He got his start as a ratfucker thanks to Karl Rove. Rove, then the National Chairman of the College Republicans, introduced Atwater to George H.W. Bush who was then the RNC Chairman.  Read more 

Did you ever wonder what some of the obnoxious trolls claiming to be Obama supporters are hoping to accomplish by insulting the supporters of Hillary Clinton? Their tactics aren’t likely to win converts, and seem designed to make enemies.

Maybe they aren’t really Obama supporters after all.

Maybe they are a special breed of GOP trolls called “ratfuckers.”

Part I

Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks. It was first brought to public attention during the Watergate scandal investigation that during the 1972 presidential campaign the Nixon campaign committee maintained a “dirty tricks” unit focused on discrediting Nixon’s strongest challengers.  Read more 

It’s a floorwax and a dessert topping! It robs you blind and destroys your Constitution, and it is grossly and absurdly incompetent:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Authorities revealed Tuesday that a man carrying a loaded shotgun was arrested in January near the U.S. Capitol, and explosives left in his truck nearby went undetected for three weeks.

According to an indictment filed in District of Columbia Superior Court, Michael Gorbey, 38, of Rapidan, Virginia, faces charges of planning to set off a bomb. He also is accused of making or transporting an explosive device with the intent of using it against people or property and multiple firearms charges.  Read more 

Not Everything That Can Be Done Should Be Done. I am rarely flummoxed. I’ve been researching and trying to write an essay about the convergence of transhumanism, the technological singularity, and eugenics. I can’t … I just bloody can not do it. I understand the damn material, but it just freezes my brain. So I’m gonna have to let you do most of the work. I’ll provide some basic resources.  Read more 

Which blogger said this:

Clinton was the only top-tier candidate to refuse the ultimate Iowa and New Hampshire pander by removing her name from the Michigan ballot. That makes her essentially the de facto winner since Edwards and Obama, caving to the cry babies in Iowa and New Hampshire, took their name off Michigan’s ballot. Sure, the DNC has stripped Michigan of its delegates, but that won’t last through the convention. The last thing Democrats can afford is to alienate swing states like Michigan and Florida by refusing to seat their delegates.

 Read more 

Speaking of the double-being known as Sen Lieberman-McCain: heh.

When The Day endorsed Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman for re-election in November 2006 it was supporting a candidate who demonstrated a history of pragmatic leadership and a willingness to seek bipartisan solutions.

We wonder what happened to that senator.

Sen. Lieberman’s open-ended commitment to military involvement in Iraq comes as no surprise. The senator made it clear when running for re-election that was his position. Sen. Lieberman wants the United States military to remain in Iraq until the war is won, whatever that means. It conflicts with this newspaper’s position that the time has come for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Despite that difference of opinion, The Day editorially backed the senator because of his experience, his willingness to put principle above politics, as demonstrated by his condemnation of former President Clinton following the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and his even-handed political approach.

But while Sen. Lieberman remains experienced, he is no longer even-handedly principled.  Read more 

[Reposting because I want to remind you: McCain lacks virility, self-confidence, needs to be succored by women decades younger than himself, and he has no fucking idea what he’s talking about when it comes to Iraq. Titter, GOS front paged this one, way back in the day when we were all about crushing Republicans, and not each other.]

Just got back from AEI, and boy, they really need air conditioning! No, really- by the end of the chat I and everyone else in the room were about to fall over from heat exhaustion. I wonder if Joe always has that effect…
But seriously, I suppose you want to know what happened. Well, the good news is…Joe and John made friends in Iraq! They talked to happy, fluffy people who said things are going great and we’re winning and can win and that they want to stay. In fact, things are so good over there, Joe and John told us, that we should send more troops over to join in the fun!

The Surge is on. I have about 12 pages of notes, but here’s all I’m going to subject you to.

1. We aren’t winning enough (they couldn’t bring themselves to say “losing”) because of the naughty, feckless generals who misinterpreted Bush’s brilliant strategy thus far. But Casey and the others are on the way out, and the new guy, Petreus (sp?), is a “proven anti-insurgency” fighter with winning tactics. He’s going to get back to the plan, which John and Joe both told us they’d been avocating all along, and we’re going to surge to victory.

2. The surge will be sustained for at least 2 years. Timelines embolden the Enemy, and so we shouldn’t set one for withdrawl. We’ve got to stay as long as it takes to “finish the mission.”  Read more 

So I’ll spare you the photos. But: I went to the local “asian grocery,” and I bought this pan. A wok, actually. It looked nice and wasn’t completely the ’cheap choice.’ The food and service in this place were good, all the times I’d been there. I live in a university town; lots of Asian seeming folks were shopping there, and all the stuff sold there was labeled in a different language than English. So my thought was: this could be a good place to shop for “asian” cooking supplies.

I wanted to make a beef and water chestnut dish tonight. I used the new wok. It had been oiled, gently washed clean from store-born ick, and heated for the first time to a reasonable temp. I even used a plastic spatula.

Just as the meat cooking was getting done, I noticed something. A long, shiny, two-inch scrape on the floor of the wok. One that left edges of paint, turned back and ready to work into the meat or food cooking in the wok. I was horrified. All I could think of was “poisoned lead paint” and dying children. I also hated myself for the racist reaction I had to pans and kitchen stuff made abroad; I confess that I had one.

What should I do? I’m taking the wok back to the grocer from whom I bought it tomorrow. Should I report it? Them? To whom? How? Again, I keep thinking, “how many of these were sold to the unsuspecting?” What creeped me out was that I realized, had I not been closely paying attention, I could’ve cooked the scraped paint right into the meat and veggies and never noticed (you know how sometimes you only put half the pan of food onto the serving bowl for the table; the rest covers the cooking pan bottom) that the paint had mixed and flaked into the food, and was almost invisible in the dark sauce.

This, by the way, is life in the post-strong dollar economy. A friend of mine who is fluent in the languages of modern China, and who does regular biz in Sh and Bg, told me thusly: “they are keeping the good stuff for sale at home now; America gets the crap.” That seems more or less true to me. You?  Read more 

No do-over. From an email I just got:

House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Twp.) and Majority Floor Leader Steve Tobocman (D-Detroit) issued the following statement regarding the subject of a potential presidential primary do-over in the state of Michigan:

“We would like to thank Senator Carl Levin, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Debbie Dingell, Ron Gettelfinger and Mark Brewer for their hard work to create an agreement that would have enabled Michigan Democrats to have a meaningful vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

“Regardless of candidate preference, members had concerns over the estimated 100,000 Michigan Democrats who would have been unable to participate in a do-over election, as well as logistical and legal difficulties faced by local clerks. It appears that some of our Senate colleagues shared these concerns which is why they did not send the legislation to the House.

“Together, we look forward to working with all involved to try and find a solution that ensures that our delegation is seated at the national convention. Regardless of how these issues are resolved, we look forward to offering the voters of Michigan an exciting Democratic candidate that will help us create jobs and win in November.”

Thank the goddess. “Do-over” voting should be reserved only for the most serious, most necessary moments in which the democratic process “didn’t work” the first time. Primaries are party functions, but they leave an impression about the democratic process on enough people that I was very, very disturbed by the notion of a do-over.

I hope all Democratic officials involved have learned a lesson here. Pick some rules, stick to them the whole cycle through, and remember that voters take their votes…seriously. You should too.

Russia accuses the U.S. military of involvement in drug trafficking out of Afghanistan

The global proceeds of the Afghan drug trade is in excess of 150 billion dollars a year. There is mounting evidence that this illicit trade is protected by the US military.

http://susiemadrak.com/2008/03/14/17/47/…

Indicted Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko was a more significant fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama’s earlier political campaigns than previously known. Rezko raised as much as $250,000 for the first three offices Obama sought, the senator told the Tribune on Friday.

Obama also said for the first time that his private real estate transactions with Rezko involved repeated lapses of judgment. The mistake, Obama said, was not simply that Rezko was under grand jury investigation at the time of their 2005 and 2006 dealings. “The mistake was he had been a contributor and somebody involved in politics,” he said.  Read more 

A must-read article from The Village Voice shows the universal pattern we’re all too aware of: right-wing media figures hyped Obama and demonized Clinton—exploited and distorted the highly explosive issue of racism—in order to game the race for the weaker Obama or, at least, cripple a Clinton candidacy. Only when Obama became the apparent nominee did they tip their hand.  Read more 

Don’t want to hear it? Too bad. Way to blow the entire election, Dems. Without MI and FL, McStain certainly looks more problematic, no?

The poll also asked what impact the failure to count votes would have on the November elections, and Gelber warned that the results should send a message to national political leaders, and Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Voters said that if the controversy is not resolved and Florida Democratic voters do not have a voice in choosing the Democratic nominee, only 63 percent will still vote with Democrats.

“We need that in the 80s or 90s,” Geller said. Among the other voters: 14 percent said they would send a protest vote and consider voting for a Republican, 12 percent said they were unsure, 6 percent said they wouldn’t vote for the Democrat for president but would for state and local races and 5 percent said they wouldn’t vote at all.

Let me just say that I can understand how they feel.

In today’s WaPo, an article on Page 12 discusses Admiral Fallon’s firing expulsion forced exit resignation from CentCom. Not to worry, the article says, and surely with a placement on Page 12 there must not be anything in it to cause concern. If there were, WaPo’s editors would have made sure it was right up front and not down in the body – wouldn’t they?  Read more 

A Classic in the “No! They Would Never Do That!” Department. He himself admits it’s not going anywhere, so beyond political points for himself locally, what is the purpose of this sort of bill? To keep people talking about it as if it were a viable, reasonable option to ’keep the children safe’ or whatever the logic is behind it:

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.
The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.
Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.
If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.
Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.

You know our rule here at Corrente: if a Republican is trying to legislate something out of existence, it’s because they are doing it in secret. Or not so secret; I bet his ex-boyfriend threatened to out him and Couch is too dumb to have actually gotten a real name out of him before the Drama began. When will Republicans learn that Hell hath no Fury like a twink left unpaid? Never, I suppose.  Read more