Spencer Ackerman Cuts Through The Hyperbole

What's so hard about saying someone is lying when they are.....lying?

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Cue The Wingnut Freakout And The Cheney's On TV

The Obama administration will announce today that they will be transferring GITMO prisoners to a prison in Illinois.


I think I am going to turn off the TV and unplug for the rest of the week.

Dangerous Laughing Stocks

Here is the central problem of our politics today. You have the Democrats led by President Obama who have an agenda they are trying to implement to get our country back on track. Not everything they are doing however is in the best interests of average Americans and or isn't consistent with our Constitution. That's not just my opinion, that's a fact.

But the other major political party has essential decided to eschew any semblence of real and rational arguments against what the Democrats and President Obama are doing, instead choosing to drink from the well of asshatery. Right now there is truly nothing they won't say or do to try to fearmonger against Democrats on any given subject and if that means trying to smear them or trying to smear a group of people in this country and trying to inspire reprisals, hey they are all for it.

Dahlia Lithwick has an excellent piece in Slate about the many legitimate ways the Republican Senators could have criticized Attorney General Holder's reasoning for putting Khalid Sheik Muhammed on trial in federal court in New York. But instead many Senators of the GOP persuasion decided to hold some kind of inquisition about all those "leftist lawyers" now populating the Justice Department who might be terrorist sympathizers.

Seriously.

And the last graf of her piece really puts this all in perspective.

Reasonable people can differ on whether the acts of Sept 11, 2001, were crimes to be handled in court or acts of war to be tried by military tribunals. Experts will never agree on whether criminal trials make us safer or less safe. The 9/11 families also remain split on whether trials or commissions are appropriate. But when you continue to hear that anyone who objects to Bush's detainee policies is unworthy to serve in government, or is part of some elaborate conspiracy to free terrorists, there is truly nothing left to do but laugh.

And yeah she has a point about laughing at them, until you realize that there are people in this country who don't know any better. People will hear Senator Jon Kyl intimate that Attorney General Eric Holder is a terrorist sympathizer and buy it hook line and sinker. People who, still on edge after 9-11, will decide that they HAVE to do something to protect themselves, their family, their friends. People who eventually will attempt to take the law into their own hands because they are being brainwashed into believing that their own government is conspiring against them.

And last night Rachel Maddow took this a step further also focusing on the many Republicans who now think its fine to demean a religion, and to call for the profiling of those who practice Islam.

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Journalists, politicians and regular folks can continue to try to make it seem as if this is just politics as usual but its not. What is happening here is one political party is building up a tension inside this country. A tension that is a lot stronger than disagreements over the free market or tax cuts. A tension that is and has been radicalizing a percentage of our citizenry who increasingly see in the Republican party an almost tacit approval a a violent anti government backlash.

Its time for people to stop holding back on this kind of bullshit and sounding the alarm. What I don't want anybody to say if one or some of these crazy bastards go out and try to target liberals or elected Democratic officials is, "Nobody could have forseen..." The writing is right there on the wall for all to see. And if we don't get these assholes to back off the ending will be predictable. At some point people are going to have to decide if that is acceptable to them, and if not they are going to have to say something.

It is what it is.

Republican Endorsed Euthanasia

Well, well, well. Turns out that provision in the health care bill that Republicans are trying to scare seniors into thinking is all about government euthanasia, has actually been proposed before. It was introduced as a bill entitled “Advance Planning and Compassionate Care Act,” cosponsored by Republican Senator Susan Collins.

But it turns out a GOP Senator, Susan Collins, sponsored a virtually identical initiative this spring, before this became an anti-reform GOP talking point — and praised it as necessary to improving our health care system’s “care for patients at the end of their lives.”

This sharply undercuts the GOP and conservative claim — unless, of course, you believe Collins backed an initiative she thinks could lead to mass government extermination of the elderly. Though this talking point has been debunked multiple times, conservatives and GOP leaders like John Boehner continue to employ it with abandon.

On May 22nd, Senators Collins and Jay Rockefeller introduced the “Advance Planning and Compassionate Care Act,” according to a press release sent over by a source. The measure provides Medicare funding “for advance care planning so that patients can routinely talk to their physicians about their wishes for end-of-life care,” the release says.

Collins praised the measure, which may be included in the Senate health care bill, in the release. “Our legislation will improve the way our health care system care for patients at the end of their lives,” she said, “and it will also facilitate appropriate discussions and individual autonomy in making decisions about end-of-life care.”

Now as I said yesterday, I still think invoking the Terry Schiavo case would be the best line of attack as push back on all this nonesense. However pointing out that it was a Republican who proposed almost an identical measure earlier this year couldn't hurt either.

And I am hoping that at some point during his show today, preferrably at the beginning, that Chris Matthews runs an apology and a correction for the erroneous information he put out yesterday.

Can't Stop, Won't Stop

Yet another fearmongering video from the GOP



Just as an experiment try watching it with the sound turned all the way down and then try not to get pissed at these assholes for using 9-11 for propaganda purposes.

Then turn the volume up but close your eyes and try to imagine cute puppies and kittens playing together.

The only thing scary about these ads are the music. I imagine the next GOP video on GITMO detainees will have the theme music from the "Saw" movies. Or maybe they can go old school and use the theme song to "Halloween".


Group Of Pussies

(h/t Ambinder)

Run For The HIlls!

This is pretty much the appropriate response to the GOP fearmongering these days. Great job Rachel.

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