Oh, Sweet, Sweet Victory

Mitt Romney's Facebook page is losing followers by the thousands. I guess they don't want to be associated with a loser.

Don't Be Stupid

I'm tired.

I'm tired of ideologues who insist on absolutely no compromise when it comes to our President. They either have no idea how the world works, or they are so high and mighty/holier than thou, they could care less about reality. They are no better than Grover Norquist tax pledge signing Republicans. And I'm tired of hearing from fellow Democrats or liberals or progressives, PUMAs or whatever they want to call themselves, saying that they're soooo discouraged by President Obama that they're going to show him come November by staying home or refusing to vote for the President. Yeah, that'll show 'em.

They'd rather cut their ideological noses off their idiotic faces and let Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney win the election, than cast a vote for someone who's apparently been such a disappointment in their eyes. You know, because under a Republican president, we would have repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell; because under a Republican president, we would have managed to pass the start of a universal health care system that previous presidents have tried and failed to enact over the last hundred years; because under a Republican president, we would have gotten a law in place protecting pay discrimination toward women in the workplace; because under a Republican president, we would still be in our 29 straight month of private sector job growth after shedding over 800,000 jobs a month by the end of the previous administration.

I could go on, but you get my point. Despite certain disappointments in an ideological fantasy world some of us would love to live in, the fact of the matter is that President Obama has been more successful in pushing a center/left agenda than any previous Democratic president.

I had been thinking about this for a while now and lo and behold, my co-blogger Jennifer, was on the same page and hit the nail on the head with a Facebook update today.

It's been a long time since I've invited people to unfriend me. But if you're a Democrat who would even consider not voting in the Presidential election because you're disappointed in Obama, then you're a disappointment to me and I don't want your energy around here. So, you can unfriend me. It's called time-management.

Unfortunately, someone didn't think her statement through and commented:

Don't forget the importance of listening to opposing/different opinions to avoid being in a self-reinforcing bubble.

Jennifer's response:

I reject the suggestion that I don't listen to opposing/different opinions. I reject the implication that I am in a bubble. Believe me, I hear/read opposing views as much or MORE than I hear agreement. What I clearly stated above is my refusal to make time in my life for people who won't vote for him because of a single issue. I didn't say they have to agree with him on everything. I didn't say that they have to agree with me. I said that anyone who won't vote for him because of an issue, or who would encourage others not to vote because of a single issue, are not worth my time. It has NOTHING to do with disagreement. It has to do with being so fucking stupid as to not vote at all. I really dislike the LEAP from me saying not voting is unacceptable to me saying disagreement is unacceptable. I mean I REALLY dislike that leap. So don't fucking go there with me. 

I have more respect for Republicans who actually believe Romney would be a better choice than I do for Democrats who DON'T FUCKING VOTE! It's about the vote, not the disagreement. GOT IT?! 

And furthermore, just because I don't agree with much of the dissent and disappointment and frustration does not mean I am oblivious, to it, naive to it, in denial of it. Guess what? I can actually disagree with people, too. Just because I am more supportive of Obama doesn't mean I haven't given a great deal of thought and research to each issue. Just because I disagree with the disappointed left doesn't mean I have blocked their reasoning from my life. Just because I filter how much I discuss it does not mean I filter their perspective. I just choose not to waste my time trying to convince Democrats the value of FUCKING VOTING! 

The leap you made is equivalent to people who say gay marriage will lead to man on dog sex. It's ridiculous and unfounded and fucking insulting.

I think Jennifer was insulted.

Let's not forget that a Romney presidency would pretty much destroy the Supreme Court as we know it. Currently, we have eight justices split evenly on the scales of justice with a ninth who straddles the balance point. A spine-shuddering thought like a President Romney might tilt the Supreme Court balance to the ultra-conservative side for the next forty years. Do we really want to add to a Roberts/Scalia/Alito/Thomas style court?

Think about that before you decide to stay home on Election Day to make your fruitless point.

Facebook Status of the Day

For those who don't know, Harvey Fierstein is a U.S. actor and playwright, noted for the early (1982) distinction of winning Tony Awards for both writing and playing the lead role in his long-running play Torch Song Trilogy, about a gay drag-performer and his quest for true love and family, as well as writing the award-winning book to the musical La Cage aux Folles. He has since become a champion for gay civil rights.

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead

... and Donald Trump wants to see the body for confirmation.

"It took President Obama two years to do what President Bush could not do in eight."

I posted that as a status on my Facebook page and while most people liked it and agreed, I received a negative comment or two on how it was a classless thing to say and (I love this one) got this bit of nonsense:

R u actually serious??? I'm sorry, did you loose [sic] a loved one on 911? Or have a loved [sic] missing that day? I DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So HMMMHMMM..............The Marines caught and killed him...Think we should put his head on a stick and parade him around the streets like they did to sooo many of our soldiers! Quite obvious you NEVER served in the militarty [sic] and not reall [sic] sure you even care about this country!!!!!!

To which I thought... "What the fuck?" What does my statement have anything to do with the military? The military did and continues to do an outstanding job. So did the CIA. Yeah, a special operation took him out. An operation approved by President Obama.

But here's the thing: right wingers have been conditioned and brainwashed to the point that they can't, they refuse to give our President credit for anything. I might remind everyone that it was our previous president who said of Bin Laden "And there's an old poster out West I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'" and only took six months before the same man said "I just don't spend that much time on [Osama Bin Laden]."

Our current president on the other hand, makes it a priority for the CIA to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden on his first day in office and you get morons like Fox News Business' Eric Bolling tweeting that if anyone should be thanked for the results, it should be George W. Bush. This on the 8th anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" fiasco.

We've been hearing for over two years about how our President is a secret Muslim, Kenyan born, Manchurian candidate socialist Marxist communist. And now that the world's Enemy No. One is taken out by this administration, I get pushback for being partisan? Or better yet, some nitwit says they're not sure I "care about this country" with a sticky exclamation point key on their computer?! Fuck, yeah I'm being partisan. I'm being partisan because I'm sick of the Dick Cheney calling Democrats weak on defense, blaming Obama for "dithering in Afghanistan" when his administration walked away from it. I'm disgusted by Liz Cheney saying Obama finds it fashionable to side with terrorists. I'm tired of Rudy 9/11 Giuliani and his smug fucking face telling anyone who'll listen that Obama is weak because of our role in the Libyan conflict while NATO strikes attempt to take out Gaddafi.

President Obama weak? Somali pirates. Gaddafi bombed. And now Osama Bin Fucking Laden is killed. So yeah, I'm being partisan. So what? I'm proud of our President and everyone should be at this particular moment. I'm feeling pretty good right about now. And if you want to call me an Obot and mock about "poking a hole in my Obama" bubble, go right ahead. You can't do it because the bottom line is the guy I voted for got it done and continues to get it done and the guy you voted for didn't. He failed. We all know it and you'll have to live with it.

And if you believe in God, then God bless America and God bless President Obama.

Newt Was For It Before He Was Against It... - UPDATED

...and it was only a matter of days before Gingrich decided to switch policy positions for the sole purpose of criticizing President Obama on Libya... whatever the stance happened to be at the time, consistency be damned.

Gingrich on Van Susteren's show, March 7th:

VAN SUSTEREN: What would you do about Libya?

GINGRICH: Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … It’s also an ideological problem. The United States doesn’t need anybody’s permission. We don’t need to have NATO, who frankly, won’t bring much to the fight. We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening. And we don’t have to send troops. All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.

March 20th from Politico:

“It is impossible to make sense of the standard for intervention in Libya except opportunism and news media publicity,” Gingrich said in a statement to POLITICO, his first public comments since President Barack Obama gave the go-ahead order on Saturday.

March 23rd on The Today Show:

GINGRICH: The standard [Obama] has fallen back to, of humanitarian intervention could apply to Sudan, to North Korea, to Zimbabwe, to Syria this week, to Yemen, to Bahrain. This isn't a serious standard, this is a public relations conversation. The Arab League wanted us to do something. The minute we did something, the Arab League began criticizing us doing it. I think that two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a lot. I think that the problems we have in Pakistan, Egypt — go around the region. We could get engaged by this standard in all sorts of places. I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi. I think there are a lot of other allies in the region we could have worked with. I would not have used American and European forces.

Does your neck hurt from the whiplash yet? Within a matter of 13 days, Gingrich went from "exercise a no-fly zone now" to "intervention makes no sense"; from "intervene because slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable" to "I would not have intervened."

In less than two weeks, Gingrich went from "The United States doesn't need anybody's permission" to "I would not have used American and European forces." Apparently Matt Lauer didn't challenge him on his previous statement supporting a no-fly zone led by the U.S. Good job, Matt. Do your homework next time.

And this lying, hypocritical rat bastard wants to run for president. This fickle fuck wants to be the leader of the free world. But what else can you expect from a jackass who used hard work and patriotism as an excuse to reason away philandering on two of his three wives? I'd watch my back if I were you, Callista.

(H/T Think Progress)

UPDATE (3:30pm): Pathetic backtracking begins.

This is such a sorry attempt to redefine his stance, but the timeline still doesn't add up. If Newt thought allies should have been used and not American forces, why did he initially say that we didn't need permission from the UN and didn't need NATO "who frankly wouldn't bring much to the fight"? If not NATO, what allies is he talking about? The French? The British?

And trying to blame is flip-flopping mind on Obama's statement of March 3rd doesn't make sense when Newt made his statement on March 7th. Of course, since every right wing nut has to oppose everything Obama says and does, we know the real reason he flip-flopped was because Obama actually did commit to a no-fly zone, something Newt was on board with... until Obama agreed. He can never be seen concurring with the President, so just say the opposite. No one will notice, right?

UPDATE II (3/24/11, 11:15am): Newt goes the Sarah Palin route. Enough with the lamestream gotcha media, I'll just post on Facebook!

Palin's Facebook Scrub Continued

Just for the fun of it.



17 minutes later...



...but shit like this remains.



Just sayin'.

The Palin Eye Roll and a Facebook Scrub Test

While reading co-blogger JHW22's post about Palin's celebrity status, I came across her update about Palin's Facebook post blaming the "lamestream" media for taking her disrespectful eye roll out of context after finding out the constituent she was speaking with was a teacher.

There is absolutely no way "the eye roll" can be spun any other way. Just look at the video.  Who are you going to believe, Sarah Palin or your lyin' eyes?

I decided to click on the link to read Palin's pathetic attempt to try and spin this as an out of context, media gotcha moment and lo and behold! I came across a negative comment and decided to take a screen shot of it and see how long it would last.

Here's what I saw (comment highlighted in shadow box):



Poor David Jones. Besides thinking that Palin has any good ideas, doesn't he know that he will now be forever banned from commenting on Sarah's page?  Oh, the agony of being shunned by your political crush!  Here's the same page refreshed four minutes later:



I see Warren Sims' comment... I see Charlotte A. Branham Hall's comment... David Jones' comment was between those two.  Where is it? Comment gone.  DE-FRIENDED!  It's really no surprise.  I was actually shocked it lasted for the 15 or so minutes it was up.

The best part of this whole back and forth with teacher Kathleen Gustafson is Sarah Palin's own words in that video:

"...And, no we both agree on the freedom of speech and the - you know - the protection of that. So, um, no I and, you know… best of everything to you too and Yeah."

She's soooo articulate. Sarah agrees on freedom of speech until some negative comment is written about her on her own Facebook page. Then it's no freedom of speech for them and um, yeah - banned!

Sarah Palin's Facebook Scrub

Not too long ago, I joined Sarah Palin's Facebook page just to comment on her page. It took about 30 seconds before I was banned from commenting. I thought that was pretty efficient, even for Team Palin, but as I scrolled down the thousands of comments, I realized that not one of them was even close to controverisal or disagreeable, and that almost all of them were a tribute to the Mama Grizzly.

My thoughts have been confirmed.

There are a host of benign posts deleted from supporters who simply disagreed with the person Palin chose to endorse in a particular note. A typical one addressed her endorsement of Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire for U.S. Senate: "I can't believe Sarah endorsed Ayotte. Ayotte is not a Momma Grizzley, she's just another progressive in Rep. clothing. The 912 group I belong to and some of the other groups in the state are disappointed by this endorsement."

This caused a little stir among the commenters. "Why are the few comments expressing disagreement with this endorsement being deleted?" wrote one. " Just because some of us disagree with the endorsement doesn't mean that we don't follow Sarah Palin." Alfred Petross wrote, "I just wish you would listen to me as a resident of the 3rd Congressional District. All I am doing is voicing my opinion and my posts keep getting deleted...." (These comments were then deleted.) "Having my posts deleted were extremely disappointing," says Petross, who went on to post his letter to Palin on his Facebook page, "because I was under the impression that Sarah Palin was in fact a political activist who was all about hearing the opinions and voices of the constituents of the United States."

Oh, poor, deluded Alfred Petross. He doesn't realize that Sarah Palin is all about Sarah Palin. Are so many people really that naive? Sarah doesn't care about opinions other than her own.  She doesn't care about the voices of constituents. Sarah is about advancing Sarah's agenda.  How people don't see through her thin veneer is beyond me.

There Are At Least Two Million Morons...

...in these United States of America.

"Two million! Wow! That's more than some cable news shows. Thank you all and let's keep the momentum!"

Two million followers... about the same amount of votes she'd get if she were to run in 2012.

Let me remind my readers that at any point in time, day or night, if there is a comment on Sarah Palin's Facebook page that is perceived as negative, it is deleted by her Facebook Gestapo within seconds. Literally seconds. I challenge anyone to read through the comments (if you dare) and find a comment that doesn't PRAISE all things Palin.

A Guyser of Stupid

Brought to you by Facebook.

What a way to celebrate Independence Day, Sarah.

(H/T HuffPo)

False Belief -- in Oppression

Posted by JHW22

There are good and bad things about Facebook. The good is finding old friends, following amazing sources of information and just plain ol' goofing off. The bad includes wasting time, reading stupid comments from idiotic strangers and the worst: finding out things about your relatives that you wish you never knew. The latter has been an on-going problem for me since my elders joined Facebook and I have learned that aunts and uncles I always respected and considered intelligent, are in fact, tea baggers. Yes, I admit I have tea baggers in the family. What's a girl to do? I can ignore or I can address things head on. For the most part I ignore.

But when my aunt posted Red Skelton's interpretation of the Pledge of Allegiance -- accompanied by a horrible quotation, which I will cite, meant to incite the oppressed Christians of America -- I couldn't keep my mouth shut or my fingers still. What follows may perhaps be the end of a pleasant aunt and niece relationship. But as an atheist-American, I felt my personal values and the principles I hope to raise my son respecting must be defended -- especially in light of the meaning behind the Pledge and its meaning for all Americans to stand together and respect who each one is as a member of a nation who shares many beliefs and shouldn't pretend that one belief isn't held to a higher level of respect than the others.

Red Skelton interpreting the Pledge and what each word means. It’s quite moving actually. In fact, it further motivates me to ensure that more Americans actually have access to the same liberties and unity that the rest of us share. Pretty powerful stuff. Then he goes and ruins it by suggesting that “under God” should stay in the pledge and wouldn’t it be a shame to remove it and all it stands for. You can watch if you want, but I think I made a pretty fair summary.

And this is what I wrote to my aunt in response to her posting of the video:

I wish we applied those liberties and freedoms to all Americans -- like gay and lesbian Americans. It would be nice if we applied our patriotism to them.

I also think it's interesting that "Separation of Charch [sic] and State ,was never ment [sic] to Exclued [sic] ,But has been used in schools to undermind [sic] the teachings of Parents, and clouding what is right and wrong who can say what is right or wrong ,if we are never Tought [sic]" (well, heck that entire quote should be a [sic]) is meant to imply that those who believe in God are somehow jipped yet people who don't believe in God just have to accept that God is in the national pledge. God is spoken in schools every day in this country. How is that exclusion? Prayer IS allowed in schools. Any student or staff member CAN pray in school. All that the courts have ever said is that one prayer can't be said for all students. And really, isn't THAT inclusive? Perhaps you can't understand that as an atheist or a Jew or a Muslim that being required to say or hear a prayer of Christians is NOT a part of that UNITED and LIBERTY part of the pledge and THAT is why schools do not hold a daily prayer. Your God's name is spoken in schools. Please don't act as if YOUR beliefs are infringed upon.

I also find it insulting that the above quote from the Skelton page implies that only those who think "under God" has an impact on the teaching of right and wrong. Or that only those who believe in prayer teach what is right and wrong.

No, to me, it would NOT be a shame to remove "under God" from the pledge. To me it would take us back to the original version that actually included by not designating. It didn't say "under a non-existent entity". Only by putting the words in there did anyone even think that removing them would be excluding. Until then, Americans' views were represented. Now, only those who believe in God’s are. But that's OK: atheists aren't hurt by hearing the words, right? It doesn't hurt to hear words. So then why would it hurt to not hear them? Why is unification and liberty applicable to those who FEEL oppressed who never see that they are in fact getting what they desire and can't imagine how letting go would be more true to the concept of that liberty and unification they claim to hold so dear?

Delete this comment if you want. And delete me if you want. But please, realize that there are two sides to this issue and your side is the one most upheld and yet most manipulated to make you feel outrage over something that isn't real. Christians are not oppressed each day that "under God" is said in our public schools. Christian children are not oppressed when they get public support of their beliefs. Atheist children learn right from wrong.

My favorite reverend, Reverend Welton Gaddy, said this:

"Well, it also seems a little bit religious hypocritical because —religiously hypocritical—because in most traditions, authentic prayer and meditation are acts that are done alone for the spiritual communication and meditation of the one involved. And all of the protests that we‘re seeing today is not in favor of prayer as defined in historic religious traditions, it‘s about public prayer.

And I have always argued, whether you‘re talking about the National Day of Prayer, or whether you‘re talking about enforcing prayer in school, the issue is not prayer, the issue is proselytization, doing something in public that is supposed to be a private act, that is convincing others do it exactly the way you do, or feel guilty about it or move to the periphery of society."

Banned From Sarah Palin's Facebook Page

Oh, the horror.... the horror.  Actually, it really didn't take much.

I joined Sarah Palin's Facebook page initially months ago out of curiosity. You know, the same reason you pay a buck to go into the Circus Side Show tent to see freaks and oddities, or the same reason you can't stare away from a horrific car accident.

But yesterday's craptastic Palin entry, and her sheeple's comments, took me to a very dark place... the point of no return... the rebuttal comment.

Sarah's Facebook ghostwriter wrote:

Soldier pay decreases in the midst of overspending elsewhere and government union pay raises. Seriously? What are our priorities?

...going on to cite a Newsmax article. Newsmax!

Oh, the outrage! Comments flying left and right! Or right and righter.

"We should cut his pay to unemployed. IMPEACH HIM."

"How can they decrease it any more...They are living at poverty level now...Grrr!"

"Rid the government reps that are criminals! Including our president that is not a citizen!"

"Can't freaken believe it!! What an a-s hole. Take from the very people that keep us safe and give to the crooks!!! Politicians , unions , special interest etc... I am so mad. Obama has to go !!!"

That damn, Kenyan reverse Robin Hood!  How dare he!!!  Well, I couldn't just sit there dumbfounded at how many stupid people there are in the country. So I thought I'd edumacate them:
"Uh, you do know that the soldiers are getting a pay INCREASE this year, don't you? Maybe you should do some research instead of taking ½ term Sarah's lies as fact." complete with an Army Times link.

I guess that second sentence was enough for the Palin Facebook Gestapo to delete my comment and ban me from posting there ever again. It took about 30 seconds. But I doubt my comment would have survived even without the "½ term Sarah" dig. Pretty amazing to think that her FB page administrators are monitoring comments that closely.

Why does Sarah Palin hate the First Amendment?

Anyway... badge of honor I suppose. Here's fun little game: why don't you head on over to Palin's FB page, join, and politely disagree with whatever you like. See how long it takes you to have your comment deleted. Then join this page and relay what egregious, unthinkable comment got you booted. Keep those Palin police on their toes!

My Facebook Debate with A Right Winger

Not too long ago, Armadillo Joe gave us a post about his Facebook debate with a Texas conservative, the place where he once called home. Now I too have fallen into the trap of debating someone on Facebook with a "different take" on the politics of the day. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a complete fantasy world can be lethal.

It all started with a Facebook friend, who I'll refer to as "Karen," because her name is Karen, adding this comment as her Facebook status:

"Ok - so I'm hangin with the tea party crowd and they're listening to some annoying radio show MCed by an equally annoying person called Mark Levin. Time to turn the shuffle on HIGH. With all that's going on in the world today - the last thing I can deal with is someone with the voice of gloom and doom."

To which someone I'll refer to as "John," because his name is John, replied:

"Well I would love to be there! I would say I am more a Reagen [sic] conservative! As long as we have small gov less taxes and big defense I am good to go!!"

Well, you know me. I couldn't just let that go. So I commented:

"John, you do know that Reagan blew the national debt out of the water to $3 trillion at the time, more than all presidents before him combined, don't you? I know I'm opening up a can of worms."

John: "And now Obama has increased the debt to more then all presidents combined and that's four more presidents then when Reagen [sic] was including Ronald. Plus he has made our country week [sic] by his apolgy [sic] tour. And let's not forget how he insults our allies. Plus I never heard a president trash talk american people like he does! He controls the.[sic] Highest office and acts like a school kid!"

The gloves are off. It's on, brohim!

Continue reading "My Facebook Debate with a Right Winger."

Re-emergence

posted by Armadillo Joe

Hey, Blog-O-Maniacs, been gone a while. Been busy, but the sched is easing up so I hope to resume posting here with some greater frequency. In the meantime, I've been exercising my re-awakening debate skills on some folks on a friend's page at Facebook.

I enjoy reading all the lefty blogs, but rather than join the "fuck, yeah!" tone of most comments sections I'm more and more drawn to engaging on Facebook because I have come to believe that, apart from our calls-to-arms phoning of Congress at key points, we aren't doing much to actually change minds out there. By focusing on each other, we're ignoring the millions who never meet a liberal in their daily lives, and only hear a steady stream of FOX and Limbaugh and Hannity. They never ever have their assumptions challenged. I increasingly think Facebook might be the only place to really do that, since most of us want to keep the family peace and don't engage when cranky Uncle Ray starts talkin' about the uppity niggers and them wimmin-folk having abortions for fun and sport.

But, on Facebook, we have a real audience and not just the person we're locking horns with, but all your common friends and family and all their friends and family. For many of the silent lurking readers, it might be the first time a lib-ruhl wasn't a burned-out 1960's era relic (a Grateful Dead-ender, if you will) or Alan Colmes. Smart, strong and engaged liberals who don't back down are a rarity throughout most of the country and our recent political history is a testament to the extent we've disengaged our fellow Americans, allowing FOX to fill the void. I urge you, all of you, to go out and give them an example and win their respect or, failing that, their silence.

As a re-introductory post, I thought I'd cross-post and get your reactions, to gauge how I did.

This is long, but worth it, I think.

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Armadillo Joe’s high-school friend - Can we just portray history? Dear God.

Texas Hearing Considers Deeper Conservative Stamp on Textbooks - NYTimes.com www.nytimes.com
The Texas school board held hearings on proposed changes to the state’s social studies curriculum that would portray conservatives in a more positive light.

Thu at 8:12am · Comment · Like · Share

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Armadillo Joe’s high-school friend
What a bleeped up mess. Feel free. Add some of this. I'm not a Reagan fan, but to not emphasize him in a curriculum is dumb. BUT to no longer use the term American "imperialism"? Seriously people? Or to talk about how the Civil War set up unrealistic expectations? Ah man, I have a raging headache now.
Thu at 8:18am

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Armadillo Joe
K, the only way these people can support their political agenda is to make up a glorious history chock-full of "facts" to support it. Since reality has a well-known liberal bias, they have to make up their own facts, just like authoritarians always have from the Nazis to the Soviets, and implant them in the unformed minds of the young. Its called indoctrination and its the only way the GOP can hope to have a coherent political party in the coming decades, by cultivating a whole generation of mis-educated nitwits.

Orwell said it best: "Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past."

This post from one of my favorite bloggers sums up the whole ugly recent history of things very nicely -- http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2005/09/depraved.html
Thu at 9:06am

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Armadillo Joe’s high-school friend
Aaaahhhh - deep sigh of relief. Missed you!
Thu at 9:42

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Wingnut Douchebag's wife
I love starting the morning being called a nazi.
Thu at 9:46

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Armadillo Joe’s high-school friend
You could've chosen the Russkie analogy. I'll admit you and B are on remarkably different sides of the spectrum, but I guarantee he was not intending to call you a murderer.

I think anything history is a difficult world because years away give you different perspective. But I think some of the things they are trying to push through on textbooks here is truly damaging.

More importantly, I missed B because I have a couple other threads with my nut job conservatives.
Thu at 9:58

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Armadillo Joe’s high-school friend's husband
Erica, didn't you only convert to Judaism after you met Dan? Are you a sleeper agent?!?
Thu at 10:14

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Armadillo Joe’s high-school friend
Ok, I'm hoping she enjoyed that as much as me. I laughed out loud!
Thu at 10:16

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Wingnut Douchebag's wife
Nice. You're really gonna hit the fan when you find out i also used to be liberal
Thu at 10:36

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Armadillo Joe’s high-school friend
Ah shit! Guess my request to get the families together is going to have to be flushed. D is obviously a brainwasher!
Thu at 10:38

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Armadillo Joe
I wasn't calling anyone a murderer. Nor was I calling anyone a Nazi. Or a Soviet. I was calling them authoritarians and likening their strategy and tactics to those of the Nazis and Soviets. Anyone who signs on for this program of school book purification in Texas is an authoritarian with an agenda, less interested in creating a generation of well-educated citizens able to join in the give-and-take of our participatory democracy than churning out fact-averse robots, making the whole population adhere to their private system of religious and political beliefs. That's authoritarian.
Thu at 11:53am

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Armadillo Joe’s high-school friend's husband
I'm gonna hit the fan? Are you calling me shit? Freakin' Nazi....
Thu at 12:06pm via Email Reply

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Wingnut Douchebag
There's really nothing suspect in having kids read Jefferson Davis's inaugeral address...

[***Editor's Note:  Continue reading the fireworks between Armadillo Joe and Wingnut Douchebag here.] 

Oh, The Humanity!

From the "Too Crazy To Be True" archives, a Tennessee Mayor named Russell Wiseman was outraged at the pre-emption of A Charlie Brown Christmas on Monday night due to President Obama's West Point speech on Afghanistan. Not only was he upset at the programming bump but felt that our "muslim president" did it on purpose because he hates Jeebus, ranted about it on Facebook and then continued his outrage when it was made public.

"Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'...."

...In Wiseman's extensive thread that attacked the president, his supporters and Muslims, he stated "...you obama people need to move to a muslim country...oh wait, that's America....pitiful."

At another point he said, "you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different........"

Yep, an elected official in this country is more interested in a 44 year old cartoon Christmas special that he could've bought on DVD than in one of the most important decisions the nation's president happens to be making on the same night. He thinks President Obama looked through the programming schedules of every local outlet in the United States and picked a night where he could deny Charles M. Schulz the opportunity to spread the Gospel through a two-dimensional drawing of a six-year old, blanky toter named Linus. And most of all, Obama did it to fuck up his family's night in front of the television.

These are the people we choose to represent us. Oh, the humanity!

(H/T Linkins, HuffPo)

Palin Implosion

Well, it looks like it only took three days for the wheels on the bus of the Sarah Palin Book Tour 2009 to come off. Sarah is soooo popular with her teabaggy followers (and there are just so many) that she can't possibly sign everyone's book.  I mean, come on, people!  Sarah is just way too important to stay behind in a podunk town like Noblesville, Indiana and screw up the publicity schedule just so you can have a memento from your favorite hockey mom.



AHHAHAHAHAHAHAA!! AHAHAAHAHAAHAAAA!!!


AHAHAHAAHAAHAAHHAHAAHH!

UPDATE (8:50pm): A Facebook apology from Sarah -

"I've been told that yesterday there were supporters in Noblesville who stood in long lines for hours in the cold and rain, and the book signing event ended without a chance to say hello to everyone who showed up. I am so sorry. We are working on a solution for those who were left behind. I apologize."

...Uh... Palin had to be told about the angry mob chanting "SIGN OUR BOOKS!", booing and calling her a quitter? Didn't she notice them when she boarded the bus?  This only gets better and better.

Health Care: It's Not About Money (Part 3) - UPDATED

posted by Armadillo Joe

So, this one is for commenter Ed Darrell who seems to have appeared out of nowhere, fully formed, and armed to the teeth with smarts and all kinds of intellectual ammo to smash the wingnuts into oblivion, even the super-keen smart ones. In the comments to my last post, he came swooping in with all kinds of info and expressed an interest in reading the entirety of the exchange with the guy on Facebook. So, I am hereby obliging.

BTW, Ed, I note from your profile page that you live in Dallas. I grew up in the Dallas area and the particular wingnut in question is a high-powered corporate attorney who I went to high-school with and who still lives in Dallas. So, Ed, you can imagine the particular brand of insular corporatized arrogance that represents.

And while we're at it, Ed, who are you and where did you come from? Please feel free to comment all you like. And that goes for the rest of you, as well.

For all you other Blog-O-Maniacs, unless you are interested in a long, tedious and blood-pressure averse blog post, what follows is a tough and not terribly rewarding slog. I only edited the names out to protect the not-so-innocent and the order of a few specific posts for clarity. No words have been added or subtracted.

Enjoy?

UPDATE:
Rereading the thread this morning, I realized that who is whom may not be all that clear. The first commenter is another attorney friend of mine who also lives in Dallas and knows the doofus from later in the thread. She is nice enough, and book-smart, but also has that sort of smug sanctimony one finds in someone who has never really wondered where money for food or rent will come from. Her comments are in green. Mine are in blue. Corporate doofus is in red. All others are in purple.

Happy reading.

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You posted a link to a news story
June 26 at 9:20am.

Armadillo Joe would like to point out that if you think actual elected members of Congress will be the ones working on making this country's new health care policy, you haven't been paying attention.

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NPR: Turning The Camera Around: Health Care Stakeholders
Source: www.npr.org

When 22 senators started working over the first health-care reform bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized ...read more…

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Comments

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Lawyer friend #1 at 9:42am June 26
Ok, not all lobbyists are bad. Lots of healthcare company lobbyists, but also JDRF and American Heart Association and so on.

Armadillo Joe at 10:22am June 26
yes, that's true. Advocacy for a position is a necessary part of the American system of representative government.

And further, I'm sure even the biggest villains in that room also still love their spouses and children. The problem isn't with any one individual lobbyist's personal morality or professional ethics. The problem is the system itself, wherein the money to buy the access to affect policy is made by engaging in the very practices the policy-makers should be seeking to end.

Put less abstractly, the health-care industry is bloated and ineffective and a great many people make their personal fortunes in the ensuing chaos, which makes them the moral equivalent of war-profiteers. Those profits are then spent in defense of furtherance of the very system in need of reform.

Which is why we never get health-care reform.

Lawyer friend #1 at 10:36am June 26
Ok, so who has a better system?

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

READ THE REST OF THIS EXCHANGE AT "ARMADILLO JOE'S LONG-WINDED OVERFLOW" BLOG-ETTE

Health Care: It's Not About Money (Part 2)

posted by Armadillo Joe

Just like last week, I'm still arguing with that guy on Facebook. Here's the latest exchange:

corporate lawyer/former high-school debater:

When you were talking about the economics, you dropped the inflammatory rhetoric and the ad homs. When you got back to the moral arguments, you started shouting and accusing again. Why is that?

Whether the US government should adopt a single-payer system for health care is not a moral issue, it is a public policy issue. It's an economic question: how much should the gov't tax people, and how much should it pay for their health care?

If you have a single-payer system, then the government will still have to make decisions about what to pay for and how to apportion the money it spends on health care. People who can't afford to pay for additional coverage still suffer and die in systems with government as a single-payer. You seem to imagine that if the gov't is paying, then everyone will get all of the care that they need, but when pushed on that you say you don't imagine everyone will get cradle-to-grave care for everything that affects them. You can't have it both ways.

The unavoidable fact is that resources are scarce, which means decisions must be made about how to apportion them. I get that you want to have the government raise taxes (or borrow money today, then raise taxes on future generations) and use more money on paying for health care. That's fine. I disagree with you that this is the best public policy, or that it will even have the great results you imagine.

The point about DDT is simply this: I think it is bad public policy to ban DDT when it could be used to effectively eliminate malaria-carrying mosquitos and thereby save hundreds of thousands of lives annually. You disagree with me. I don't think that this disagreement makes you an amoral, parsimonious tree-hugger.

The language of morality shouldn't apply because it obscures and inflames the debate. It should be possible to disagree about how governments should spend and regulate without attacking the character of those who disagree.


Armadillo Joe:

Shouting? Ad hominem? Please. This is a spirited exchange of ideas. If I was shouting - I'D BE USING ALL CAPS.

That said, however, please refrain from trying to bait me by disingenuously including a flashpoint like DDT, because we both know that a debate over its use has raged across the political spectrum for decades. Inserting a reference to it is not value-neutral, it is a red-herring that deliberately chums the water.

Also please, stop attaching claims I've never made to my viewpoint via hedging phrases like "you seem to imagine..." then attacking that characterization instead of the specific claim I advance: the definition of a straw man argument. As much as you may wish that I had claimed everyone would get ALL the care they EVER need in life from cradle-to-grave if only the stoopit gov't would just pay for it, because that would be easier for you to rebut, I never did. I'm not a hippie-dippie moonbat imagining a world with no possessions, pining away for a money-free utopia.

Yes, people suffer and die and single-payer will not end that. I'm not trying to have anything both ways. I never claimed that universal coverage was a panacea but a government safety-net can moderate that suffering for the purpose of social stability and distribute the burden of the costs to promote the general welfare. And furthermore, I ask you, how is government bureaucrat making decisions about apportionment any different or worse than the current collusion of income-based rationing with insurance company bureaucrats operating under a steep financial disincentive to provide effective care? Any amount of nationalized health-care -- however mediocre for those who need to use it -- is still 100% better than no care at all and has proven elsewhere in the world to be better than the uneven, unfair, inefficient, often dangerous and grossly expensive system we enjoy now.

France spends half of what we do per capita on health-care and they not only get universal coverage for that money, but also cheaper drugs, lower infant mortality rates and greater life-expectancy. Those who want more coverage (and can pay for it) do so and almost everyone in France so chooses, which has resulted in a robust and very profitable private health-care sector parallel to and largely integrated with the public one. However, those who can't pay anything at all at least have a third option besides death or economic ruin when faced with mounting medical bills. The social instability engendered should that kind of human suffering metastasize should be easy to imagine.

And, finally, you dismiss the use of moral language as obscuring and inflammatory, but I posit that as long as the debate remains a dry, measured exchange of policy prescriptions -- as though we're debating a change in library hours at a town council meeting rather than mitigating preventable suffering -- we ignore to our peril the deeper structural inequities in American life as embodied in our broken health-care system. Moral language clarifies the stakes, whereas your framing of the issues -- trying to make it about nothing more than policy and economics -- obscures the deepening supremacy of this issue in so many American lives.

Policy and economics are but tools, means to an end. Morality is the impetus.

Thus, what you characterize as impugning the character of the opposition is in fact a reaction to complacency -- whether from apathy or smugness or fear or parsimony -- in the face of overwhelming evidence for action.

Health Care: It's Not About Money

posted by Armadillo Joe

For the last couple days and to the detriment of chores and personal hygiene, yours truly has been neck-deep in a scuffle at Facebook over health care. In some ways, it is just like the one I got into back in April over torture, wherein a fairly innocuous initial comment quickly escalated into a sort of Battle Royale in the comments section because Rethugli-goon trolls are the same everywhere on the inter-webs.

The difference this time is that my opponent, while still deeply, horrifically wrong, is smart. Wicked smart. Freaky smart. This guy was the president of the debate club when we were in high-school together back during the Pleistocene Era and his cockiness back then about his quick-wittedness gave him the aire of a weird sort of jock-nerd hybrid (who looks kinda like Ed Helms). Since high school, he went to a high-end, brand-name university and then law school and works now as a high-power corporate attorney in Dallas. The fairly innocuous post I referenced above was about this NPR photo and it was like red meat to hungry wolves.

We have exchanged almost a hundred comment posts totalling probably thousands of words by now. This is also the last post up by either of us as of 4:30 pm EST today and he has yet to respond.

Other than that, I think what follows is fairly self-explanatory.

Thank you for the fraud numbers on Medicare/Medicaid. I had not seen those and I grant that they are a matter of concern, but then fraud is always a risk no matter the source of financing - private, public or some manner of hybrid. You cite the better fraud numbers for private insurance -- which I acknowledge -- as though they are their own self-evident proof of the superiority or your position. I say they are not. I don't really see how the fraud numbers in-and-of themselves themselves constitute an argument against universal health-care. If we have fraud, so what? Investigate it and punish it where necessary.

Furthermore, you continue to insist that this is ALL AND ONLY about money, money, money -- which I contend is still very, very wrong on multiple counts -- and you have not offered a single counterpoint that wasn't an argument from a financial, fiduciary or economic perspective.

If you want to make it about money, though, then OK, let's make it about money for just a little bit longer. I will say that your fraud numbers pale in comparison to these numbers (from this link: http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml) - you can check the link for the numbered footnotes.

• The United States spends nearly $100 billion per year to provide uninsured residents with health services, often for preventable diseases or diseases that physicians could treat more efficiently with earlier diagnosis.14


• Hospitals provide about $34 billion worth of uncompensated care a year.14


• Another $37 billion is paid by private and public payers for health services for the uninsured and $26 billion is paid out-of-pocket by those who lack coverage.14


• The uninsured are 30 to 50 percent more likely to be hospitalized for an avoidable condition, with the average cost of an avoidable hospital stayed estimated to be about $3,300.14


• The increasing reliance of the uninsured on the emergency department has serious economic implications, since the cost of treating patients is higher in the emergency department than in other outpatient clinics and medical practices.11


• A study found that 29 percent of people who had health insurance were “underinsured” with coverage so meager they often postponed medical care because of costs.15 Nearly 50 percent overall, and 43 percent of people with health coverage, said they were “somewhat” to “completely” unprepared to cope with a costly medical emergency over the coming year.15

We're already spending way too much money on health-care in this country (note the numbers I cited above about the growth of the health-care sector from 10% to 16% over the last 25 years). When I advocate for universal health care, I know that nothing is cost-free -- that's not what I mean when I say money should be removed from the equation, I'm referring to the depredations of a for-profit health-care system -- I instead contend that the much-vaunted free market hasn't delivered the efficiencies its advocates have been promising us for decades, that for-profit health-care is a self-defeating contradiction and that the federal government is the only organization large and powerful enough to bring this whole mess under control and thus prevent the current financial and bureaucratic chaos from swamping our whole economy, with ruined fortunes for some and illness & death for a great many others.

I'm heartened that you agree with me that we have a problem to solve, but once again you propose the same gussied-up retread of a solution that has failed us again and again: free-markets and competition. We've tried it your way. We've been trying it your way for close on 100 years now and all it ever brought us is a mess we try mightily to clean up once a generation or so. It isn't like we don't have other models for how to structure a working universal health-care system. Other countries have ironed out the problems with the various approaches over the decades, so we should just pick one and get this stupid thing fixed. I vote for the French model and Business Week agrees: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042070.htm

Although the Conservative Party of Britain think theirs is pretty keen, too: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/conservatives-for-socialized-medicine.php

And, with the above, I'm kinda done with engaging you on the money side of this issue. If you want to keep throwing money-based arguments out there, its your prerogative but each time you do it, you reinforce my contention that this is a profoundly moral issue and the opposition are a bunch of amoral, parsimonious bean-counters who care more about protecting a status quo that works for them than recognizing the existence of a social compact which would require them to contribute to the general welfare. This is about how our values as a nation are reflected in our public policy. If money were the only issue that ever mattered, we'd still have a slave-based labor force in the south and children working 90-hour weeks in factories in the north. Sometimes issues are about more than money and when they are, we find a way to pay for what is important to us.

But before you come back at me with more sophistry about DDT or the economically disadvantaged "choosing" not to buy health coverage or what have you -- in an attempt to change the subject by force-feeding some ridiculous or distasteful false dilemma on me by skewing my positions into your own straw-man argument -- I would like you tell me precisely why you don't think this is a moral issue when millions of Americans live in fear of illness and death and economic ruin amid the general prosperity. Enough with the ad absurdum arguments. I ask you to explain why you don't think the language of morality applies on this issue.

For your side, it always and only seems to be about the money and, it seems to me, the mysterious fairy dust of free-market forces are the only mechanisms for delivery of goods and services available to policy-makers. If that is true everywhere and all the time throughout history, then why bother having a government at all?

For my side, it is about social responsibility and, as I see it, the government is the embodiment of that shared commitment to the general welfare. It is the most efficient and equitable organ for the application of our shared values. In the end, if one side contends that they don't share those values, that we can't even agree that the state of our health care system is a moral problem, then merely agreeing to disagree and moving on maintains the grossly unfair status quo. In the last 150 years, we've moved forward on slavery, suffrage, labor rights and civil rights and at every junction we did so with a wealthy opposition that cried to the heavens about the end of the world. Each time civilization survived and people continued to be rich. On this issue, too -- as it always has -- history will move forward without your consent.

Been Busy

posted by Armadillo Joe

Hey, Blog-O-Maniacs! I had such intentions of posting yesterday and the day before, but I got sucked into a head-to-head in the comments of a friend's facebook page over, of all things, torture. One of my friend's friends (I don't know this guy personally) has been spewing all the usual Reich-wing talking points, downloaded directly into his feeble brain from a trunk line hooked into the seething heart of Limbaugh Kee-ray-zee Land and it has been good sport, jolly good sport indeed.

Like shooting fish in a barrel. With a shotgun. Sawed-off. Point-blank.

I have been obsessively checking back in at about 10 minute intervals and just can't let this wingnut go. I've been trying to put my finger on exactly why and I think it is the first time in years that I have had a direct confrontation with someone this acrimonious wherein everyone's identity is fully known. It's facebook. The spat doesn't just involve me and this guy, either. It's my friend from high school's page and I know personally some of the other commenters. I get the impression that this exchange on facebook may be the first time many of them have even heard many of the arguments that are the coin of the realm in our Left Blogistan milieu and it's not because they're Fox News zombies per se, but simply because they are that scourge of democracies everywhere: the low information voter, too busy with kids and work to dig deep into issues. That characterization does not apply to Mr. Wingnut, though. He's a full hard-on while watching Top Gun, weepily holding a picture of Ronald Reagan, kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out Rethugli-goon.

I'll spare you the majority of our exchanges, except for the latest one:

Wingnut on facebook -

You probably think the New York Times is a valid news source so here is info from the Times where Obama's own intel director agrees the techniques did provide helpful intel in the fight against terrorists:

Intel chief: Harsh techniques brought good info

WASHINGTON - President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.

“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

(And, I got this information from the MSNBC website -- and we all know how ultra-conservative they are!)

Armadillo Joe on facebook -

OK, one more time:

It doesn't matter if torture works.

A lot of things "work." Guillotines work. So do nuclear weapons. What "works" doesn't matter because, no matter who does it or for what purpose, inflicting pain on a person held against their will is torture. Torture doesn't stop being torture just because patriotic Americans do it for the ol' red, white & blue. Whether committed by Americans, Nazis, Soviets, Ba'athists, Sandinistas, or Janjaweed, torture is wrong, immoral, a basic violation of human dignity, or -- if it's your cup of tea -- a sin.

"All men are created equal" & inalienable rights and all that language isn't just fancy rhetoric to trot out on July 4th along with some pocket flags and a rousing rendition of "Proud To Be An American", or at least it shouldn't be and if you actually believed in those words, you'd not have to have all this explained to you over and over and over again.

And, by the way, nice try on the Blair thing, but next time actually try to read the whole article instead of citing just the part that advances your viewpoint. Did you see the part where Blair said this?...

"...these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

Either you read that part and ignored it, you saw your original quote elsewhere and didn't fact-check your source, or you skimmed the article and just cherry-picked a quote. No matter how you came about it, what Blair said still does not mean what you think it means.

And round and round it goes, since Monday. For once, I know what the sadistic knuckledragger on the other end actually looks like and that he has a kid, because his profile pic shows him with one. I assume it's his kid.

I'm not drawing any grand, epic, life-changing lessons from the observation that for once I know my enemy's face, it just makes me sad for his child.