Afghanistan Vs. Soviet Union, 1985

And Now:

Afghanistan vs. USA, 2010

If this is progress, I’d hate to see what a downturn in our war in Afghanistan looks like!  Even Karzai wants us out.  Obama, dude, give up on Shrubya’s broke-ass policy, let’s get out of there and out of Iraq!

*Update 12/16/10* Obama shines a turd.

*Update 12/16/10 1:28P* Red Cross points out the turd isn’t shiny and in fact stinks.

The vote is, indeed, non-binding.

Plus,

“The vote, which was conducted with something less than a full caucus present, was as much a repudiation of the substance of the deal as the White House’s handling of it”

So the Dems go on record as bitching about the capitulation, and the ones who don’t want to go on record are conveniently out of the room.  Welcome to the next two years in the House.

*Update 12-11-10* Out comes the lard, spread on the slops to attract the pigs to the trough!  Nothing like pork-barrel politics and earmarks to bring the two parties together!  You still believe the Dems will actually stand up to Obama’s “Raw Deal”?

*Update 12-13-10* Okay this is freaky – the frickin’ Tea Baggers agree with me!

No I can't!

Remember all the comparisons to FDR and Kennedy after Obama got elected?  Up until now I’ve been thinking Clinton II, but my god, he can’t even have a show down with the minority Repugs over extending the unpopular tax cuts for the rich!  I’m with Howard Dean on this one.

*Update 12-8-10*  I caught President Chaimberlain’s little press conference, where he came running out waving his agreement to give the Repugs everything they wanted in exchange for a signed agreement stating they won’t ask for anything more.  Listen dude, I think we all know D.C. is all about compromise, but we expect something in return.  Maybe you should step down so we can see what Biden could do.

“Jim Hightower recently wrote about parasitical hedge fund managers (http://www.jimhightower.com/node/7280). Hightower makes a great point that hedge fund managers are crying because Obama wants to close a tax loophole enabling government to tax hedge funds at a 35% rate (a rate that applies to ordinary income) rather than at the 15% it gets today.

I am surprised hedge funds are being so vocal and calling attention to themselves. Like cockroaches, I thought this group may want to avoid the public spotlight due to their latest ventures.   The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/18/the-new-tax-man-big-banks_n_766169.html) reported that hedge funds, and of course the banks we the taxpayers bailed out, are now creating companies that purchase from local governments the right to collect delinquent taxes on properties, many in distressed housing markets. These companies pay overdue real estate taxes then can and do legally collect the debt and levy fees, often outrageous fees. I don’t think collecting on a debt is a bad but charging sky rocketing fees is. This practice often results in property owners find their fees growing beyond recognition into thousands of dollars from originally owing just several hundred dollars.”

What a difference a multi-million gallon oil spill off wetlands, fisheries and resort beaches makes.  Now, thanks to BP’s fuckup and the failure of an oil rig that was supposedly spill-proof, it looks like additional coastal drilling may be off the table…at least while this is still in the news.

It really comes down to this – I don’t believe Americans can really remember stuff that happened before the current news cycle.  Seriously, just watch – somebody will discover some politician or celebrity’s reproductive organ lodged somewhere it isn’t supposed to be, the oil spill will fade from memory (along with countless threatened and endangered spills in the Gulf of Mexico), and Palin et. al. will be out screaming Drill, Baby Drill with renewed vigor.

It’s like all that talk a few years ago about how nuclear power was gaining new support. Obama even included building a few new of the unstable light water reactors in his energy plan.  What the hell will it take to take that option off the table, another Three Mile Island or a Chernobyl (history of those nuclear power accidents, in case you too have amnesia)?

Can you imagine what’s going to happen now when they resume debating climate change legislation?  Bush really fucked us with Alito and Roberts.

What would the Needlenosers have me saying?

Trial by Monster Truck

I can’t determine which is crazier – the claim that Obama shouldn’t be President because he wasn’t born here, or the belief by a large majority of Repugs that he didn’t wind because little old ACORN managed to steal 9.5 million votes.

Are they stupid, crazy or does this just demonstrate the success of the big lie technique as applied by Faux News and the Wrong-Wing Media Echo Chamber?  Or all three?

Combine this with the obvious popularity of Caribou Barbie among the wingnut set, and you come to realize that Idiocracy is closer at hand than 500 years in the future.

Maybe we could make the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial more popular with the Palin crowd by including monster trucks, flamethrowers and chainsaws.

*Update 11/24/09* case in point: