No Wide Stances in Iran

Among many of the bizarre ideas emanating from Mr. Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, is the noton that there no homosexuals in his country. He made these comments at his speech at Columbia University yesterday.

His appearance at Columbia provides a compelling argument for openness and the freedom of speech in this country. Providing Mr. Ahmadinejad a platform to extoll his rather extreme ideas, the more he is properly exposed as a religious zealot with crazy notions about the world. I really believe the powers that control Iran, the mullahs and military, are happy Ahmadinejad is diverting attention from their intentions. He has been a failed President inside Iran. He was elected on a platform of social and economic populism and he accomplished little or nothing during his tenure in office. His grandstanding moments at Columbia or at the UN are just window dressing.

By the way, I am sure there are many right wing religious zealots in this country who would like our country purged of homosexuals. Apparently, there are no homosexuals in Idaho, only men with wide stances.

Umbrage Fatigue

Ed Gillispie must be chortling right now. Ed is Karl Rove’s replacement at the White House. He is not really Bush’s brain but more like his spleen. The recent manufactured outrage over the Moveon.Org ad is the wunderkind of modern political pugilism. The Senate actually took a vote yesterday to denounce the ad! And 22 Democrats had to vote with the Republicans to repudiate it.

With the relentless carnage and misery, political stalemate and low-grade civil war in Iraq, what is the most important issue at hand? Whether or not Moveon.Org’s ad was objectionable.

Ed knows that his job over the next 18 months is to divert attention from the Iraqi morass. Bush is going to hand over this fiasco to the next President. Ed’s and Republican “sound bite gotha” machine’s job is to fill up talk radio, cable news and internet blogs with any white noise that blocks out substantive discussion and debate about what are we going to do to extricate ourselves from Iraq.

It really is manufactured umbrage when I hear all these talking heads, bloggers, and right wing pundits picking on the Moveon.Org for taking on Gen. Petraeus. And tired umbrage at that!

This is a classic example of how the beltway DC bottom feeders get their panties bunched up over irrelevant crap. Accusations and then counter-accusations are all about a stupid newspaper ad. The news cycle feeds on it because it provides good one-liners and the pretense of conflict. All good for ratings and leads.

Bush and sycophants have given up on most of their unrealistic goals when they invaded Iraq. Fundamentally, the Iraq debate boils down to when and how we will leave. This vapid, false outrage over a newspaper ad is only a distraction. While Ed is chortling and Rush Limbaugh is branding Moveon.Org as a fellow traveler with Osama, Iraqis and American soldiers are dying.

No Shows Once Again

"if they don't have the cahones to attend a forum to address African Americna voters, how can they say they have the cahones to stand up to the Islamofacists?"

Our Republican Presidential candidates have once again opted not to participate in a debate or forum designed to address African American and Latino voters. Apparently, they have other more important commitments. The same candidates other than Tom Tancredo could not find time to address the national NAACP meeting recently in Detroit.

Increasingly, the Republican candidates are caught in a shrinking echo chamber. They must all appeal to the conservative wing of the party because these are committed voteres who are deciding factor in any of the primaries. This hard-core voting bloc still believe we can actually win in Iraq, we can build a wall long and high enough to protect against illegal Mexicans from flooding into the USA and Terry Shiavo can still play a damn good game of chess! It's parallel universe that promulgates a pathological fear of the other, a warped version of the United States in the 50s, and a need to use military force whenever and whereever we can.

The candidates rather be fund raising, getting their nose hairs trimmed, or looking for George Soros in the bushes that take the time to participate in a voters forum dedicated to black and latino issues. Let's all remember their lack of interest when the real votes count next November!

Exploiting the Working Poor: a Very Profitable Business

In the Cincinnati Enquirer today:

"COLUMBUS - More than 300,000 Ohioans are trapped in a cycle of debt to payday lenders and are paying more than $318 million in payday loan fees each year, said a report released Wednesday.

The average Ohioan who uses payday lending takes out 7.4 two-week loans each year, beyond the five that researchers consider the trigger to becoming trapped in debt, according to the report from the Ohio Coalition for Responsible Lending. Studies have shown the average payday borrower uses more than one company annually, making the average number of loans likely higher.

The Ohio Financial Services Association, which represents payday lenders, contested the report's data because it estimated Ohio lending using information from four publicly traded payday companies and statistics from other states.

'People use this product because they have a short-term need,' said Darryl Dever, a spokesman."

I went to the PayDay website to learn more about their business practices. If an individual borrows $100, he or she must pay the principle and additional charge of $18.92 within 14 days. If the person cannot pay until 21 days later that amount increases to $27.93. The article reported that the average borrower takes out over 7 loans a year. If each loan is about $100, the borrower would be responsible for $132 in interest payments. That's if they are able to pay it back in 14 days! After that magic day, the charges to the borrower go up. Even with the risk of defaults on repayments, it appears this is a rather lucrative business for PayDay. Who says you can't make money off the working poor? I wonder if PayDay will lower their repayment rates given the Fed lower the discount rate a half a point? I really doubt it.

You've Got Your Experts! W's Got His Own

In dissecting Bush's speech last evening on MSNBC, Chris Matthews said, "Bush’s claim of ‘36 countries’ in Iraq is ‘ludicrous.’"
In his address to the nation, President Bush said, “To the international community: The success of a free Iraq matters to every civilized nation. We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq and the many others who are helping that young democracy.”

In the MSNBC post-debate analysis, Matthews went on and said, "The fact we have 36 countries fighting on our side in Iraq must be news to the soldiers over there. I don’t know who these people are or how many divisions they have. All we read about in the papers are American GIs getting killed by IEDs and terrible accidents and all kinds of enemy action over there. … The idea we’re one of 36 countries fighting the war I think is ludicrous and why the President would throw that out there, I think it only opens him up to ridicule."

Perhaps Mr. Matthew did not know that one of W's key advisers and speechwriters was Miss South Carolina from the Miss Teenager USA Pageant. Some of you may remember, Miss South Carolina appeared to be a bit "geographically challenged" when asked to describe why most Americans cannot find particular countries on the world map. I believe she was the one who had the important duty of counting all the countries that have ground forces in Iraq. Let's take a quick look at her expertly crafted list:

1. South Africa
2. North Africa
3. Hot and Humid Africa
4. Poland
5. Ralph Lauren Polo
6. New York
7. China
8. Japan
9. Latin America
10 Greek America
11. California
12. Hawaii
13. Paris, France
14. Paris, Tennessee
15. Beverly Hills
16. England
17. New England
18. Old England
19. Albania
20. Transylvania
21. Canada
22. North Pole
23. South Pole
24. Puerto Rico
25. India
26. Spain
27. Spanish Harlem
28. Grease
29. Florida
30. Texas
31. Mesopatamia
32. Vatican City
33. Asia Minor
34. Asia Major
35. Columbia
36. British Columbia

That's her list so far. She still is counting.

She just wanted to talk to him.

Oprah had Mary Winkler on your show yesterday. Mary was the minister's wife from Tennessee that shot her husband and was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. This case received a great deal of national attention.

She was released from prison after serving 7 months. Clearly, Mary's husband physically, mentally and sexually abused her. She fits the profile of a battered wife. Here is her description of the events that led up to her killing him. I do find it rather interesting how folks in Tennessee try to get someone's attention. Let's start the conversation with a loaded shotgun!

From her comments on Oprah's program:

"Mary Winkler says she doesn't remember getting the shotgun. She says she thinks she held the gun to get his attention. "I just know I was terrified of him, and I just wanted to talk to him," she says. "It was my fear. I was afraid of him. I never in a million years would have dreamed that there would have been something in that…in the gun being loaded. I just thought that was a rule that he always took [the bullets] out."

Mary Winkler says she was afraid for her life but that she only wanted to talk to Matthew and tell him "just to stop, just be happy. He just, he had to be miserable the way he acted, and just to stop being so mean," she says. "I'm safely sitting here right now thinking of what I wish I could have said to him. In the heat of the moment that was not realistic."

Mary Winkler says she doesn't remember aiming the gun at Matthew. "When I heard the boom I just thought that it would have hit the ceiling, the window, and I just thought, 'Oh my goodness, he's going to think I meant to do that on purpose,'" she says. "And so I took out. I just took out of there and took off running. And then at some point I just realized he wasn't chasing me, and I just had to go back in and face the realization."

According to the autopsy report, the single shot Mary Winkler fired sent 77 pellets into Matthew's back. He survived for several minutes, but without medical attention, he bled to death."

The Decider has Decided to Become the Delayer!

Spin, Spin and More Spin

General Petraeus has entered the halls of congress with medals and pins emblazoned on his uniform to give his report. What does it really boil down to after all the spin, hyperbole and obfuscation? Hey guys, he just wants another 6 months.

This is not about creating the conditions for the Iraqi government to resolve differences and move forward.

This is not about is the surge working or not.

This is not about winning the war on terrorism.

This really is not about accurately reporting whether levels of violence are up or down in the neighborhoods of Baghdad.

This is not about our military’s capacity to maintain troop levels in the foreseeable future.

Petraeus's testimony and his efforts to curtail sectarian violence in Iraq is primarily a stall tactic. Although the NCAA does not allow it anymore, Bush and his American Enterprise brain trust have put together a four corners offense to slow everything down. Fatboy has repeatedly written in this blog that the Decider has decided that he will leave office without resolving the mess he created in Iraq. Whoever is elected the next President will be left with auspicious duty of putting an end to our involvement in Iraq. Although much blood is on W’s hands, he will not be one be in office when the full-fledged Iraqi Civil War breaks out.

If we decided today to leave Iraq, it would take at least a year or more to extricate our military, support forces and contract workers. Bush and his minions know this and are using Petreaus and the surge, and any other political tactic available to cover their tracks.

We needed six months ago to see if the surge is working. Guess what? General Petraeus is asking for another six months to once again solidify whatever progress is had made in the past six months. Before you know it the November Presidential elections have occurred and the whole Iraq debacle will be thrown into Hillary’s, Rudy’s or God Forbid, Mitt’s lap.

This Decider has decided to become the Delayer!

Hillary's Prayer Circle

A very interesting read in Mother Jones Magazine: Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics.

New Math

To celebrate the arrival of Ann Coulter in Cincinnati today, I thought I would offer up some interesting math problems. She will be speaking at Xavier University this evening.

Here goes:

(Katherine Harris x Michelle Malkin) / Keira Knightley = Ann Coulter

(Roy Cohn x Gary Bauer) / Alan Simpson = Larry Craig

(Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper x Allen Dulles) / H. R. Haldeman = Dick Cheney

(Mark Hanna x Michael Deaver) / Lee Atwater = Karl Rove

(Norman Poderantz x Fred Barnes) / Ari Fleischer = Bill Kristol

(Tom Tancredo x Donald Wildmon) / Edgar (from Men in Black) = Tom DeLay

(Rush Limbaugh x Burt Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker) / Morton Downey = Bill O'Reilly

Speaking Truth to Power

Doesn't Kristol Clear Bill look like someone selected last in a pick up game of baseball? As a child, he was relegated to play right field. Somehow he's overcompensating for his past childhood traumas by asking our men and women in the military to put their lives on the line in Iraq. I am sure he does sleep like a baby at night completely confident that he is right and most importantly, he doesn't have play right field anymore.

Lessons Learned from the Right Wing Blogosphere

I've been trying to keep up with the hysterics and reality deniers that comprise most of the right wing blogosphere for the past several months. Believe me at times it really is rather difficult for many of them to sustain a coherent and reasonable argument. Permit me to offer my quick and dirty analysis of their stylistic approaches.

1. Yesterday's news cycle is yesterday's news cycle. If new information emerges through actual reporting that doesn't support a particular argument, ignore it and move on to another argument. When factual information contradicts a particular point of view, the only reasonable approach is to find another topic to write about. Apparently it isn't necessary to defend a particular position when facts may refute it. Just move on to another topic that pushes the visceral buttons of your readership. As a blogger, your job is only to validate particular prejudices and beliefs.

2. Conspiracies abound everywhere! Your job as a right wing blogger is to repeat them over and over again. Global warming? An Al Gore led attempt to corral and stop free enterprise. The lack of progress in Iraq? Individual disenfranchised soldiers make up stories. The left wing media ignores all the good news. Health care crisis? Democrats are socialists in disguise and want to us to go to the doctor in Havana. Corruption and ethical challenges in the Congress? George Soros used his "dirty money" to help the Democrats win in majorities in the last congressional elections. Clinton and his minions had Vincent Foster murdered so what is the big deal about a little pedophilia and trading congressional votes for cash?

3. Play the martyrdom card. There continues to be this subtext among most right wing zealots on the internet that they are the beleaguered and marginalized. Liberal forces in the mainstream culture are overwhelming this country with secular, socialistic and sinful ideas. Ironically in a recent Gallup poll, only 21% of Americans label themselves as liberals compared to 41% who considered themselves conservative. Corporations with a quarterly profits mentality own all the major media sources in this country. News and how it is packaged and communicated is increasingly done by fewer and fewer people beholden to larger corporate interests.

I am constantly amazed how the right wing frame all their arguments from a perspective that they are the persecuted and put upon group. Nefarious forces are in control and are out to get them. What a bunch of b-shit! Conservative voices abound in this country!

4. Blame the Clintons. Whenever the news tends to refute particular right wing talking points, the only reasonable approach is find some way to blame the Clintons. Hillary and Bill can always be dragged out as the culprits for whatever mess that is the topic of the day. Corruption in congress? They started it with the pardon of Marc Rich and firing of the employees in the White House Travel Office. The mess in Iraq? Clinton's weak kneed no flight zone over Iraq empowered Saddam. They can always find a way to blame Bill and Hillary for almost anything-even fluoride in the water! How pathetic.

5. Repeat over and over again that liberals have no original ideas. This canard is repeated more times than Rush Limbaugh blamed the residents of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans for the levees breaking. Institute tax cuts for wealthiest Americans during a time of war. Privatize Social Security. Invade Iraq to create democracy in the Middle East. Endorse torture as a means to interrogate alleged terrorists. Encourage state laws forbidding same sex marriage. These are so-called big ideas of conservatives.

6. Never present an complete argument to counter another argument. The best way to attack a liberal perspective is either by disparaging the individual's character or finding some arcane fact that that may be unverifiable or open to doubt. Drill down on that obscure factoid in an effort to refute the entire argument. These tend to be the tactics of the evolution and global warming deniers. Even though there is a growing consensus of the experts, the right wing blogosphere looks for that one disputable element in the argument thereby rejecting all the other compelling evidence that may be fully substantiated.

7. Any news source that attempts to deliver an objective story is biased. Unless the so-called news or the interpretation of the news is not presented and packaged by particular conservative sources, the right wing blogosphere dismisses it outright. This tendency to label any news other Faux News as biased has worked very well for the right wing. This right wing distrust has forced the major networks and cable outlets to overcompensate to court those conservative viewers. They scramble to find conservative hired guns to offer analysis and perspective.

The problem with this approach is very simple. In the minds of the right wing blogosphere, a news outlet striving to do objective reporting is always biased. You can never hire enough right wing talking heads to reshape reality. It continues to be a losing game. When the Washington Post or CNN hires conservative blow hards, it is just another example of a left wing organization admitting its liberal slant.

There are those liberal bloggers that also use some of these tactics. On balance if one really carefully examines the quality of the right wing vs. liberal perspectives emanating from the blogosphere, it's like comparing adolescent text messaging to a New Yorker short story. Oh yeah that's right, The New Yorker is a "liberal" publication, therefore anything in it must be viewed with suspicion.