June 2007

The recent dustup over the now-failed immigration bill was built, in large part, on the supposed desire of the conservatives to see that existing immigration laws are enforced. But it’s an absolute fallacy that the right wing in this country embraces a strict law-and-order stance. For evidence, you have only to check some of the wingnut blogs out there.

I’ve commented before on the ignorance and intellectual incompetence of the self-styled ‘Emperor’ Misha, proprietor of the blog ‘Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler’. He has provided new proof that wingnuts don’t really want law and order — they just want what they want, and to hell with any thought of doing it legally. In a post regarding the arrest of an Australian man for allegedly firing a shot through the front door of his home to scare off intruders, he says:

It’s a pity that he didn’t save a few rounds for the cops. That’s the only sure way to deal with Gestapo tyrants and their henchmen who are “only follovink orderz.” After a while, they get nervous from hauling the perforated bodies of their fellow goons back to the morgue.

What would we do without Andrew ‘Gribbit’ Richardson to show us the pasty, beady-eyed face of true intellectual cowardice?

Yesterday, Gribbit decided to vomit out a comment about the recent telephone confrontation between Elizabeth Edwards and the loathsome Ann Coulter. Go and view the video, or even better read the transcript, and then compare it to what Dipshit Richardson said.

Elizabeth Edwards called into Chris Matthews’ ‘Hardball’ program on MSNBC to ask Ann Coulter, who was Matthews’ guest, to stop criticizing her hubby… “Johnny’s feelings are hurt now I would like for you to stop criticizing him” was the message that she was trying to send.

Nope. Andykins is lying outright about what Elizabeth Edwards said. At no point did she ask Coulter to “stop criticizing” her husband. Read the rest of this entry »

Poor, poor Justin Higgins. It’s not enough that he has proclaimed that murder is patriotic, finds forgery humorous, and mindlessly repeats any wingnut lie about 9/11 he hears. No, he seems to have developed into a full-blown pathological liar.

Justin decided to apply his patented mix of ignorance and dishonesty to the controversial topic of embryonic stem cell research. George W. Bush recently vetoed a bill that would have permitted federal dollars to be used for embryonic stem cell research.

After I ridiculed Justin for declaring as worthless a line of research that has been underway for a mere nine years, he decided it was time to haul out the Big Lie:

Transplanting embryonic stem cells has resulted in cancer in a lot of folks…

‘Scuse me while I wipe the tears from my eyes. This is really hilarious stuff, a real knee-slapper! For “a lot of folks” to have contracted cancer from embryonic stem cell transplants, there would actually have to have been some human trials of embryonic stem cell transplants. Read the rest of this entry »

Over at NO QUARTER, Larry Johnson outlines a plan that might actually get us out of Iraq. That guarantees that it will never receive a hearing in Washington…

The current U.S. offensive will fail.  We will punch ourselves out on an enemy that is smart enough to retreat in the face of overwhelming force.  We will go house to house rousting able bodied men from their sleep and humiliating them in front of their wives.  We will detain some of these folks but eventually let them return home.  When they return home they will be fully prepared to support whatever insurgent group will help them reclaim the honor we took from them.

We have employed these insane tactics for four plus years.  And what have we achieved?  A steady increase in terrorist violence and insurgent attacks.  More U.S. soldiers have died in the last six months then in any six month period since the war began…

What should we do?  It is very simple.

1. Recognize that we are fighting a hydra-headed insurgency.  There are at least 20 different insurgent groups.  There is no single enemy.  Ironically, we spend an inordinate amount of time talking about “Al Qaeda”.  We deceive ourselves that Al Qaeda is the main enemy in Iraq.  It is not.

2.  Disengage from attacking the Iraqi people.  Immediately institute a moratorium on kicking in the doors of suspected weapons sites, etc.  Whatever value has been achieved by capturing small caches of weapons has been grossly overshadowed by the ill-will we have spawned among the various factions in Iraq.  If a house has to be invaded let the Iraqi police or soldiers do it.  Our boys and girls need to sit this one out.

3.  Empower local sheiks and tribal chiefs to secure the roads and infrastructure in their area.  Pay them to keep the roads open and free of explosives.  Provide training and support to those tribes.  We do not have enough troops to secure the roads and infrastructure.  We would need at least 500,000 troops to accomplish that objective.  We do not have them and we do not have a plan (e.g., draft) in place to produce such numbers in the foreseeable future.  We need to stop bullshitting ourselves and work with the tools we have, not the tools we would like to have.

4.  Convene a regional peace conference.  We need Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria at the table.  We must negotiate our way out of Iraq while preserving our own interests in the region.   Like it or not we have created a majority Shia state in Iraq that will not willingly  relinquish power.  Yes they will be favorably disposed to Iran, at least for the near term.  But we can accomplish more through diplomacy in the region then thru military action.  Our current approach is tarnishing our reputation with each new report of an offensive to “root out” Al Qaeda.

5.  Deploy an international peace keeping force to Baghdad.  As long as U.S. troops are the face of the military action in Iraq, we foster the impression that we want the chaos.  Most folks in the Middle East still believe we are a superpower.  By definition nothing happens unless we want it to.  Therefore, the violence in Iraq is a deliberate choice of the U.S. superpower.   Otherwise, because we are a superpower, we would exert control over the insurgents and stop the violence.  For some strange reason the the Arabs and Persians don’t comprehend, we are allowing Iraq to fall into chaos and disorder.  If we did not want that outcome then we would do something different because we are a SUPERPOWER.

I know one thing for certain.  The approach I have outlined above will work far more effectively in helping the United States achieve tangible, positive results in Iraq then the madness and insanity of General Odierno and his strategy of punching the bag of jello known as the Iraqi insurgency.

You remember Crybaby Clay, don’t you? Yeah, he’s the twitching cretin who advocates genocide and insists that something published in 1998 can be a secret in 2006.

Well, he’s hauled his pasty ass over to his keyboard, wiped the Cheetos stains off his pudgy little fingers, and has graced us with yet another example of his special brand of idiocy. Commenting on a recent report [PDF] on the domination of right-wing programming in talk radio, Clay quotes from the report and then proves beyond all doubt that he does not understand what he has read:

“Along with other ideas, the report recommends that national radio ownership not be allowed to exceed 5 percent of the total number of AM and FM broadcast stations, and local ownership should not exceed more than 10 percent of the total commercial radio stations in a given market. “

Where are the percentages limiting liberal television news channels, liberal newspapers and liberal Talk Radio stations, (whoops. I forgot that they don’t have any)?

YO! IMBECILE! The “percentages limiting liberal television news channels, liberal newspapers and liberal Talk Radio stations” are right there in the quote, asswipe! The suggested limits are based on percentages owned by a specific entity (not ideology), and would apply to everyone equally.

I swear, it’s mental deficients like Clay who make it necessary to put warnings like “do not use orally” on toilet bowl cleaning brushes. I don’t mind that he posts this kind of blatant stupidity, of course — Clay and his sort have immense entertainment value.

President George W. Bush vetoes a bill that would have provided funding for stem cell research:

“Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical,” Mr. Bush said in a brief ceremony in the East Room of the White House. He called the United States “a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred.”

The Great War against Terrifying Brown People™ continues, with our brave soldiers fearlessly and deliberately targeting little children:

U.S. special operations forces were targeting the leader of al-Qaida in Afghanistan — one of the organization’s top commanders — when they launched an attack against a compound that killed seven children Sunday in Paktika province of eastern Afghanistan, U.S. officials tell NBC News.

According to several officials, and contrary to previous statements, the U.S. military knew there were children at the compound but considered the target of such high value it was worth the risk of potential collateral damage.

Discuss.

(Hat tip to FireDogLake)

Here we go again. Ric Ottaiano, who has been busted for his ridiculously transparent lies before, is back with another idiotic fabrication:

American Muslims were asked “Do you personally feel [suicide bombing] is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?” In response, 26% found it justified, while 9% refused to answer.

Nope. Ottaiano is lying again. What does the Pew Research report [PDF] actually say?

In addition to being more concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism, Muslims in the U.S. are far less likely than Muslims in other parts of the world to accept suicide bombing as a justifiable tactic. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the U.S. (78%) say that the use of suicide bombing against civilian targets to defend Islam from its enemies is never justified. In this regard, American Muslims are more opposed to suicide bombing than are Muslims in nine of the 10 other countries surveyed in 2006; opposition is somewhat greater among Muslims in Germany (83%).

Overall, 8% of Muslim Americans say suicide bombings against civilian targets tactics are often (1%) or sometimes (7%) justified in the defense of Islam. Muslims in France, Spain and Great Britain were twice as likely as Muslims in the U.S. to say suicide bombing can be often or sometimes justified, and acceptance of the tactic is far more widespread among Muslims in Nigeria, Jordan and Egypt.

Where does Ottaiano get the 26% figure?

About a quarter (26%) of younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombing can at least rarely be justified, 17 percentage points higher than the proportion of Muslims ages 30 and older (9%) who share that view. The age gap is about as wide in Great Britain (18 percentage points) but somewhat narrower in Germany (12 points), France (11 points) and Spain (7 points).

Ottaiano has deliberately conflated the poll results for Muslims under 30 with the figure for all Muslims. It’s vitally important to bigots like Ric Ottaiano to do everything possible to demonize the scapegoats du jour, and he has no compunction about lying if it helps the cause. Read the rest of this entry »