What? You’re not watching the Ronald Reagan necrophilia gathering GOP debate? Pop over to VPR for a quick blurb about the pot decriminalization talk that’s making the rounds at the statehouse. Four ounces? Fweeeeeeeee! 
Ralph Nader launches exploratory website. Methinks he’s not exploring the meaning behind that gargantuan ego of his.
Yeah, Edwards is out, too. That’s a bummer, since he’s the only Dem (short of Kucinich) that seems to get it. If he’s smart, he’ll hold on to those delegates, and work out a deal at the convention to get himself an AG spot. It’d be nice to have an AG that took his job seriously, and wouldn’t be squishy about going after corporate crime, too.
So this presents a real problem for me in the primary. Neither Hillary or Obama are palatable options from where I’m standing. Neither are trustworthy. I don’t trust Hillary, simply because of her DLC-triangulation history, and I don’t trust Obama because he’s big on rhetoric, short on specifics, and his approach is incredibly naive. I think if he gets in there, the GOP will hand him his ass until he learns what “fighting” is all about.
So I really don’t know what to do. One of them will more than likely be President. And big props to Edwards in staying above the childish behavior that HRC and BO have let the campaign devolve into. Let’s hope that the nudge he’s given the other candidates towards a slightly more populist slant will stick.
Ghouliani dropping out. I guess it’s hard to win when you only have one delegate so far. He plans on flying to LA to endorse John McCain, where afterwards he will be checking himself in to an undisclosed mental health facility so he can overcome his chronic “9-11 Tourettes” and get on with his life and plans to find a new mistress, now that he’ll have more time on his hands.
Seriously, though, one quote from the linked story says it all:
Giuliani’s bid for the nomination was based on his leadership. The only question was how many voters would follow.
Well, I guess that speaks volumes about his leadership.
I have to give a huge thanks to Mike Huckabee, for so many reasons. First off, for drawing more attention to how nutty the fundies really are. It’s not like it shouldn’t have been obvious to those paying attention, but of course, when you’re competing with American Idol, peoples’ attention is usually elsewhere.
Secondly, I’d like to thank him in accelerating the fracturing of the unholy cabal that makes up the Republican party – the warmongers, the millionaire/corporatists, and the religious nuts. The nuts really never had much in common with the other two (although they do share the aura of perpetual pants-pooping fear that typifies the warmongers).
See, everything was fine and dandy till Huck started up with the populist crap, something that really has no place in the Republican party. Then he was persona non grata. Hopefully, the fundie contingent is slowly waking up to the fact that they’ve been used, nothing more. Vote against gay marriage, get a capital gains tax cut. Vote to end abortion, get a huge corporate subsidy. Then again, looking at what these people believe, they do tend to be some of the most gullible and least inclined to critical thinking people in the country, so there’s really nothing surprising here. What they believe and what they want to make this country into will never happen, nor ever will it be a majority position. Sometimes I wish the Rapture would actually come so it would take these people away and I can ransack their belongings.There’s gotta be some cash in there somewhere with those Left Behind books, brilliantly Caucasian Jesus pictures and hairspray.
Lastly, I’d like to thank him for giving me so much content for the blog. “Mike Huckabee + dumb” and its many permutations have been my biggest Google referral so far.
Go below the jump for more Huckery as well as some commentary about William Jennings Bryan. It’s a long one.
Didn’t watch the SOTU last night. The catbox needed cleaning,and the turds in there provided more intelligent conversation and talking points than Bush ever could, so I went with that. Did I mention that one of them actually knows the best way to achieve single-payer healthcare?
One thing I’ve really been lamenting lately, and this probably stems from being a bit of a policy wonk when it comes to politics, is how the current election campaign is looking more and more like a reality t.v. show. We hear from the defenders of the “horse-race” mentality (which, unfortunately is even defended by good bloggers such as Josh at TPM) that there’s not much of a difference in policy between the candidates (which, I’ll concede is more true of the Dem field than the GOP field – the only thing those guys agree on is that Taxes are Always Bad®), so this narrative gives us something to talk about.
In the immortal words of Colonel Sherman Potter, “Horse hockey!” I say on that one. I suspect that the average news consumer doesn’t know the first thing about the nuances of the candidate’s policies. And by getting these policy discussion out in the open, these policies come under more scrutiny and criticism (which is probably why they’re not front and center), and we might actually have an informed electorate. Shudder to think!
But I realize, policy isn’t sexy enough. So instead, nearly every single fucking day, we’re treated to more and more garbage about what the candidates say about and act towards each other. Like the latest, Obama’s “snub” of Hillary at the SOTU. The pundits seem to somehow find Obama’s apparent coldness towards his rival on equal par (or some might say more important) than the fact that Bush just gave another bullshit speech full of falsehoods and tired, worn-out useless GOP ideas. But they have to keep you focussed on what really matters, right?
… in that “lack of evidence” somehow constitutes “proof of existence”. Or at the very least, lack of evidence on something shouldn’t keep one from believing in something. Huck seems pretty convinced that there were WMD’s in Iraq. From TP:
I don’t have any evidence. [Saddam] was the one who announced openly he had weapons of mass destruction.
[snip]
Did they go some other place? We don’t know. They may not have existed. But simply saying — we didn’t find them so therefore they didn’t exist — is a bit of an overreach.
[snip]
And I’m simply saying that because when we went in we didn’t find them, everybody wants to criticize the president and say, oh, the president lied to us. The president didn’t lie to us. The president acted on information that he had, that he believed, and intelligence services believed that they were weapons of mass destruction.
I can see why he’s a young earth creationist, believing in something else that has absolutely no evidence (and plenty to the contrary). I don’t know what’s worse, that or the idea that he actually trusts Bush. Yet another Republican Hack Who Will Never Be President®. There’s just so many I can barely keep track of ‘em.
Clinton and Obama actually returning to the Senate to vote no on FISA cloture. Seriously, didn’t see that one coming. I wonder if they’ll stick around if Dodd filibusters.
Maceo’s got quite the resume, as some of you might know: leader of the James Brown horns, arranger for Parliament/Funkadelic and many other achievements, the most notable being that while many of his contemporaries are no longer performing or are shadows of their former selves, this guy still puts on a hell of a show. I saw him last year, as well as several times in the early 90′s. It’s always major, high energy funk, and you’re generally exhausted by the end of the night. Here’s a few live clips, Uptown Up (the intro thing is brief, so make sure you watch the whole thing) and the classic Pass the Peas. Enjoy, and have a good weekend!
